The Burnett River forms the south-eastern boundary, while Reid Creek forms the western boundary. The Burnett Highway passes through the south-western corner.[4]
The town is located in the south-east of the locality and most of the housing is within the town. The predominant land use is grazing on native vegetation in the south of the locality with crop growing more in the north of the locality.[4]
History
The town's name was derived from the name of a pastoral run, leased from 1848 by James Blair (or Blain) Reid J.P.[2][5][6] Reid acquired the leases of the six stations of sheep country which comprised Ideraway over a period of ten years.[7][8][9][10] The stations were called Tanjour, Binjour, Branch Creek No. 1, Jonday, Penang, and Nour-Nour.[11][12] In 1869 the leases on Penang and Nour-Nour, at the northern end of the run, were excised from Ideraway and sold as the cattle property of Mungy.[13]
In the 1850s and 1860s the run was the scene of several incidents of colonial frontier conflict.[14] Several children from Ideraway Station with Chinese laborer fathers and First Nation mothers were baptised into the Anglican faith in the early 1870s.[15] The Ideraway Homestead has been relocated to Gayndah Museum's historical precinct.[16]
On 18 December 1905 the Queensland Government legislated An Act to Make Provision for the Purchase of the Ideraway Estate, in the Burnett District, for Settlement under "The Agricultural. Lands Purchase Acts, 1894 to 1901." The land was purchased from Mr James John Cadell. Concurrently, An Act to Provide a Means of Assisting certain Persons to Settle upon the Agricultural Lands of the State was passed.[17] This scheme was different to the earlier failed communal/utopian schemes at nearby Byrnestown, Resolute, and Bon Accord in that land was selected by individuals. The Ideraway Estate scheme was eventually liquidated by the Queensland Agricultural Bank at much loss.[18]
From that time onwards the area became densely infected with the prickly pear . Prior to the release of the cactoblastis cactorum moth in Queensland, arsenic pentoxide was the most effective poison of the plant.[19] P. H. Gerhardt of Ideraway, a prolific inventor, invented the Gerhardt Injector, for injection of the poison.[20][21][22] The moth was liberated into the field in 1926, and between then and 1939 butter production in the Gayndah district increased five-fold.[19] Cream from Ideraway was sent to the Maryborough butter factory, and then to the Gayndah butter factory when it opened in 1911, and the district was well-known for its butter production in the 1930s.[23][24]
There are no schools in Ideraway. The nearest primary school is Gayndah State School in neighbouring Gayndah to the south. The nearest secondary school is Burnett State College also in Gayndah.[4]
^"Classified Advertising". The Courier (Brisbane). Vol. XVIII, no. 1898. Queensland, Australia. 26 March 1864. p. 5. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Classified Advertising". The Brisbane Courier. Vol. XXIII, no. 3, 517. Queensland, Australia. 11 January 1869. p. 4. Retrieved 21 October 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Sall Plots". The Brisbane Courier. No. 22, 962. Queensland, Australia. 2 September 1931. p. 13. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Prickly Pear". The Dalby Herald. Queensland, Australia. 20 January 1925. p. 3. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Advertising". The Daily Mail. No. 7640. Queensland, Australia. 25 August 1926. p. 20. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
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