Manly West, a residential suburb near Redland City, is 14 km east of central Brisbane. A suburb of the 1950s-60s, it was named after the bayside suburb of Manly.

Residential settlement in the Manly district was concentrated around the railway line and along the coast, leaving the area now known as Manly West for farming. Hargreaves Road, at the back of Moreton Bay College, was named after John Hargreaves who acquired the Woondall farm property in the 1880s. (Woondall, bounded by Manly, Radford and Wondall Roads, had been settled in the 1860s for sugar growing, but its perpetual springs and lagoons made it suitable for tropical fruit and vegetable.) Hargreaves established a food cannery, turning the business into a major local employer. It was acquired by Edgell-Birdseye (1963) and Simplot (1995), and the site was redeveloped in the late 1990s.

In the early postwar years residential subdivisions moved inland from the railway line. Manly West primary school was opened in 1958 and ten years later Wondall Heights primary school was opened.

Moreton Bay College, Wynnum, outgrew its premises and new campuses were built in Wondall Road on the old Hargreaves site (1984, 1986) and in Manly Road near the State primary school.

Manly West has three local shopping centres, Mayfair Village being the largest. There are also a bowling club and several parklands.

Manly West's census populations have been:

Census DatePopulation
1954274
19766427
19867512
19968392
20019091
200610,013
201111,195

Myrtle Beitz, Mangroves to moorings revisited, Manly, Myrtle Beitz, 2005

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