On 6 July 1828, the botanist and explorer
Allan Cunningham originally named this mountain
Mount Hooker after botanist
William Hooker and called another mountain (now
Mount Barney) by the name
Mount Lindesay after Colonel
Patrick Lindesay, the Commandant of Troops in New South Wales 1827–1836. Sometime in the late 1830s or early 1840s, either the New South Wales Surveyor-General
Thomas Mitchell, or Moreton District surveyor Robert Dixon, are believed to have changed the names to be
Mount Lindesay and
Mount Barney (after Lieutenant-Colonel
George Barney) respectively. All were stationed in Queensland at the time and knew each other well with the Kinchela brothers based at Telemon station on the Upper Logan within sight of the mountain. The first recorded (and second) ascent of Mount Lindesay was made in May 1872, by
Thomas de Montmorency Murray-Prior (1848-1902) and Phillip Walter Pears (1846-1924). At the time of the 1872 ascent, an Aboriginal elder at nearby Unumgar station claimed to Pears that his father had once climbed the peak. The second recorded (and third) ascent of Mount Lindesay was made in July 1890, by the Norwegian naturalist and explorer
Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink (1864-1934), then working in the district as a surveyor's labourer, and Edwin Villiers-Brown, of
Beaudesert. There were a further eight recorded ascents by the late 1920s, when pioneering climbers such as Bert Salmon (1899-1982) started visiting the peak regularly. The first women to climb Mount Lindesay were Brisbane climbers Jean Easton and Nora Dimes, who made the ascent with Bert Salmon in March 1931. The crevice he attempted to climb up is now known as Vidler's Chimney and the first successful ascent was not until 1953. In 1992, descendants of the Vidler family of
Jamberoo erected a memorial outside the Rathdowney Information Centre and Historical Museum in Rathdowney.
Mount Lindesay National Park was gazetted in 1947. In 1980, it was incorporated into an enlarged Mount Barney National Park. In August 1978
The Northern Star newspaper reported 3 local men (Stephen Marsh, Peter Taylor and Lewis Reid) climbed the mountain and signed a book in a metal container on the peak containing the names of members of another local expedition a few years earlier (John Martin, Barry Martin, Philip Martin, Raymond Martin, Neil Mahoney, George Ellen, John Gorman and John Bushell). On 29 November 2008, the mountain was part of a successful
native title claim made by the Trevor Close on behalf of the
Githabul people, for whom the peak holds a special significance. In November 2019, a
bushfire from the south burned across the mountain above the cliffs for the first time in living memory, reaching the summit from the western side. Most of the forest on top was burned, apart from several narrow bands on the lower veranda and a small area of rainforest, east of the summit. The fire significantly impacted the "tourist route", particularly on the lower cliff, with much of the vegetation destroyed, leaving unstable and potentially dangerous sections. During the
COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to 15 January 2022, there was a police checkpoint on the Mount Lindesday Highway where it crosses into New South Wales () to restrict the movement of people and hence the transmission of COVID-19. == Demographics ==