Galloway Place turns off Hewitt Road, which in turn comes off Golf Links Road, to the north of the town.

It is named after surveyor John James Galloway who was born in Leith, Scotland, in 1818 and 19 years later sailed to Australia with his father Thomas, who was the ship's surgeon.

Initially he found work as an assistant surveyor and after a brief stint in New Zealand returned to Australia to become Commissioner for Crown Lands within the Boundaries, and achieved the position of licensed surveyor in 1844.

By 1847 he had been appointed as a full surveyor and surveyed thousands of miles of New England between 1848 and 1853, including Armidale, Wellingrove and Glen Innes.

George Polhill owned Wellingrove Station, and AW Cameron in his 2001 Glen Innes and District Stores: A History from Settlement to 1987 writes:

"Polhill had some bright ideas and one of them was to establish a town at Wellingrove.

"A Court of Petty Sessions was established there in 1846 and with it a Police Station.

"Polhill had been granted a hotel licence in 1854.

"Surveyor Galloway had planned a town at Wellingrove and at the same time planned the town of Glen Innes with Mather and Gilchrist's store as the nucleus." (See the plaque in Bourke Street beside the footpath opposite the Coles carpark.)

"Land sales were held in both places in 1854 and although blocks of land were offered for sale it soon became apparent that Glen Innes was to become the main town, as there was a constant flow of traffic along the road to Drayton, and Wellingrove was a dead end."

John James Galloway is credited with accurately predicting in 1856, the route of the Great Northern Railway between Tamworth and Tenterfield which was built some 25 to 30 years later.

He served two terms as a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, and Galloways Hill in Brisbane was named after him in 1865.