[1] By 1836, sugar cane had reached southern Queensland and was being grown in small plots in the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement.

Hope erected Queensland's first sugar crushing mill, supplied by Cook & Co. of Glasgow, on his Ormiston property on the banks of Hilliard's Creek in 1864.

George Raff, a prominent Brisbane merchant and politician, began planting sugar at his Morayfield on the Caboolture River in 1864.

Whish required a large labour force to cultivate the cane in sufficient quantities to make the operation marketable and profitable.

After consulting with his contemporaries in the sugar industry, Raff and Hope, Trevilian undertook a voyage to Melanesia to find suitable labourers.

[2]: 7  In December 1865, 33 South Sea Islander labourers were brought to Australia and arrived at Oaklands by bullock dray after disembarking on the North Pine River.

A "single-flued boiler, mill, with three rollers" and a battery "set in brickworks, with plain brick top and skimmings channel therein", and a boiling-room and curing room were also on site.

[12][13] Much of the equipment was purchased by the Mackenzie brothers of Ingham and moved to their operations in the Herbert River district of north Queensland.

[14]: 9  The site of Oaklands was sold at auction in September 1873 and subsequently used for grazing and agriculture following the closure of the sugar mill until gazetted as an environmental reserve in 1990.

They are located east of Captain Whish Avenue in a small park owned by the Moreton Bay City Council.

This constitutes Lot 600 on RP804608 which has been verified as being part of the original property that Claudius Whish acquired as a co-tenant with John Raymond Trevilian in September 1865 and subsequently named "Oaklands".

The site is abutted by modern houses to the north and south and additional elements of the sugar mill may have at one time been located in those areas.

However any remnants located to the north and south are likely to have undergone disturbance due to the levelling of the lot and subsequent construction work.

Based on the available evidence and low potential for these areas, the boundary for the sugar mill is considered as the northern and southern extents of Lot 600 on RP804608.

[1] The remnants are associated with an important identity in the early development of the sugar industry in Queensland, Captain Claudius Buchanan Whish.

A number of in-situ bricks, mound features and depressions on the property are suggestive of substantial structural foundations concealed in shallow to medium depth deposits just below the current land surface.

[1] Little documentary evidence is available that relates to the sugar processing operations on Whish's Oaklands property, other than reports on levels of production and sale.