Aldershot, a former industrial town, is 8 km north-west of Maryborough, between the Bruce Highway and the North Coast railway line. Sandy Creek is on its southern border. It has a grid street layout with house lots, and is substantially rebuilt with recent houses.
In 1888 the Queensland Smelting Co Ltd was formed in England, and built a smelting works where it was thought there would be fuel from the Burrum coalfield. In that they were mistaken, but coal at Howard was not far away, and the works were on the railway line from Maryborough (1883). The smelting works began operation in 1893, and it is thought that the company bestowed the name from Aldershot, Hampshire. The works acquired ore from agencies at Zeehan, Tasmania, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. They produced high-grade refined copper, lead, silver and gold. There were six furnaces (two for lead), crushing and milling plants and an assay office.
Aldershot had a primary school (1892), a post office, but no hotel. The smelting works closed in 1906, when smelters were constructed in north Queensland, closer to ore bodies. The bricks from a smelter chimney were reused for a fence at a Maryborough flour mill. After closure of the smelting works Aldershot had a census population of 34 in 1921.
In 2006 the census recorded 516 at the old town site (in the former Hervey Bay city) and 406 at another Aldershot location in Maryborough City. In 2011 the census recorded a combined figure of 1043 at these locations, with 569 at the old town site and 474 at the other Aldershot location. The latter figure is entirely comprised of males, this location being the site of the Maryborough Correctional Centre (2003).
The Lenthalls Dam (1984) on the Burrum River at Aldershot is a popular fishing (bass and barramundi), barbecue and picnic spot, with a small boat ramp and walking tracks.
George Loyau, The history of Maryborough and Wide Bay and Burnett districts from the year 1850 to 1895, Brisbane, Pole, Outridge and Co, 1897, pp 340-44
