The town was named "Sandgate" by James Burnett, an early surveyor in the region after the seaside town of Sandgate in Kent, England. Sandgate in Kent had a military camp, Shorncliffe Army Camp, on top of the cliffs adjacent to it. Burnett named the cliffs "Shorncliffe" after the camp in Kent, due to the similarity of the cliffs. Historically Shorncliffe was regarded as a neighbourhood within Sandgate (which was initially as the independent Town of Sandgate and, from 1925, as a suburb within the City of Brisbane). On 11 August 1975, Shorncliffe became a separate suburb within the City of Brisbane.