Soldier who set Brisbane's original site fought Napoleon at Waterloo

It was at this battle that Napoleon was finally defeated in Belgium by an alliance of British, Dutch and German forces under the control of the Duke of Wellington.

Napoleon, one of history's great generals, had been smuggled back from exile from the Mediterranean island of Elba in 1815 to push back the British and Prussian troops.

Napoleon and his troops had crossed from France into Belgium, where they came across resting British, Dutch and German troops.

Lieutenant Henry Miller, who would later choose the site of Brisbane, was serving with specially trained troops who supported the Duke of Wellington's men in the critical stage as the Battle of Waterloo was yet to be won by either side, Queensland Department of State Development historian Harold Thornton said.

"The battle was fought across a gently sloping valley dominated by a small hill in the centre of Wellington's army. On the plain were a large chateau and a small village. Because Wellington had some time before Napoleon could attack, he fortified these features and used them to define the flanks of his forces. At the start of the battle, Wellington was able to protect much of his infantry from the superior French artillery by placing them on the reverse slope of the hill," Dr Thornton said in his research.

"In what became the centre of the battlefield lay a farmhouse compound called La Haye Sainte. It was unable to be properly fortified because Wellington's own men had stripped the gates and fittings for use in campfires.

"The French finally took the compound after heroic defence by the King's German Legion (King George III of England was also Elector of Hanover and Elector of Brunswick-Lueneburg) in the mid-afternoon but were so exhausted and reduced in numbers they waited for reinforcements before resuming the attack.

"Wellington rushed his best troops to hold the line around La Haye Sainte. Here they defended and delayed until Napoleon was forced to order a desperate frontal assault up the hill by his elite Imperial Guard division. In effect, these defensive actions prevented the French taking the hill and splitting Wellington's army.

Part of those strategic reinforcements were the elite 40th British Regiment of Foot, where Lieutenant Miller was a serving officer.

After Waterloo, Lieutenant Miller spent time in Paris, before being ordered with the 40th Regiment to New South Wales in March 1823.

He shifted northward later that year to the first Moreton Bay Penal Colony settlement at Redcliffe and by September 1824 had chosen the site of Brisbane.

As Dr Thornton explains, Lieutenant Henry Miller in 1824 became the first Commandant of the new Moreton Bay Penal Colony and, officially, the father of the first non-Indigenous baby born in Queensland.

"One of the field officers of the 40th Foot who (unlike many of his comrades) survived that day was Lieutenant Henry Miller, the first Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Colony and father of the first non-Indigenous child born in Queensland. He may also be the man who determined the final site of Brisbane in 1824, although the initial settlement was established (on the advice of Surveyor-General John Oxley) at Redcliffe," he said.

"It was a shortage of fresh water and lack of a deep-water anchorage at the Redcliffe site that led Miller to seek a better location to support a permanent settlement."

The original King's Wharf was built on the river in front of the Commissariat Store in William Street to let stores be loaded onto ships. It was renamed the Queen's Wharf after Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837.

Just more than 180 years later, there is a small park beside the original State Library of Queensland to honour the career of Lieutenant Henry Miller - but still no explanation of his place in Queensland's history.

This is the third in a series of weekly "little Brisbane histories" being run by Fairfax Media as the Queen's Wharf development evolves.