It was first discovered within a boulder from the Iron Monarch quarry in South Australia in June 1990.
[2] Peter Elliott from the University of Adelaide, Australia, identified the structure of the mineral 25 years later.
He determined its crystal structure through single-crystal X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation.
Elliot named the mineral for the Middleback Range where it originated.
[3] In 2018 middlebackite was found in Val di Fiemme, Italy, during researches that brought to the discovery of a new mineral named fiemmeite.