Location
Gundagai is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town. Located along the Murrumbidgee River and Muniong, Honeysuckle, Kimo, Mooney Mooney, Murrumbidgee and Tumut mountain ranges, Gundagai is 390 kilometres south-west of Sydney. Until 2016, Gundagai was the administrative centre of Gundagai Shire local government area. (wikipedia)
History
The name ‘Gundagai’ may derive from ‘Gundagair’, an 1838 pastoral run in the name of William Hutchinson to the immediate north of current day Gundagai. The Aboriginal word ‘gair’ was recorded at Yass in 1836 by George Bennett (naturalist) and means ‘bird’, as in budgerigar or good bird. In that context ‘Gundagai’ means place of birds but that placename may refer to the area to the north of Gundagai not to Gundagai town. The word ‘Gundagai’ is also said to mean cut with a hand-axe behind the knee.
The Gundagai area is part of the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri speaking people, while there is a considerable folklore associated with Aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs in the area. The floodplains of the Murrumbidgee below the present town of Gundagai were a frequent meeting place of the Wiradjuri.
The first moves to establish ‘Gundagai’ as a township were in 1838 with plans for the new settlement of Gundagae on the Murrumbidgee, about 54 miles beyond Yass … advertised for viewing at the office of the Surveyor-General in Sydney.
Explorers and settlers
Australian-born Hamilton Hume and British immigrant William Hovell passed through the region in November 1824 when they passed to the south, near the future site of Tumut. Hovell recorded seeing trees already marked by steel tommyhawks.
On 25 September 2011, the Right Reverend Trevor Edwards, Vicar General of the Anglican Church and Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, dressed in traditional white mid-nineteenth century garb, led the commemorative church service for the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of St John’s Anglican, (formerly Church of England), Church, Gundagai. Bishop Edwards noted that following on the path of the explorers Hume and Hovell, the first Gundagai settlers found a wonderful land on which to establish a town, which was gazetted in 1838 but until 1850, relied on ministry from Yass. A local settler named ‘Warby’ is recorded as having followed Hume and Hovell’s tracks to the junction of the Murrumbidgee and Tumut Rivers and having taken up a pastoral lease of 19,200 acres … at a rent of thirty-three pounds per annum. … He called the property ‘Minghee’ later called ‘Mingay’.
Charles Sturt travelled through the area in 1829 at the start of his voyage in search of an inland sea then believed to exist in outback Australia. Sturt again passed through Gundagai on the return leg of this journey in 1830, and returned in 1838 in company with the Hawdon and Bonney overlanding parties. At the time of Sturt’s 1829–1830 journey, he found several settlers in the district: Henry O’Brien at Jugiong, William Warby at Mingay and the Stuckey Brothers, Peter and Henry at Willie Ploma and Tumblong. These settlers were beyond the limits of location as the district was not within the Nineteen Counties.
In April 1835 William Adams Brodribb junior moved to New South Wales and became a partner in a cattle station at Maneroo. In 1836 he overlanded the second draft of cattle to Melbourne. On returning from Port Phillip Brodribb relocated to what later became the site of Gundagai. In August Brodribb petitioned for a punt over the Murrumbidgee near his Gundagai hut, and in January 1838 Deputy Surveyor General Samuel Perry reported that ‘a better site could not have been chosen for a Town of the first class’ in reference to Gundagai.
Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the governor of Tasmania, Sir John Franklin, travelled through Gundagai on 27 April 1839 and noted Andrews’ store and public house establishment, that had a neat verandah and shuttered hut.
Edward John Eyre, Australian explorer and later Governor of Jamaica, left Sydney in late 1838 in an effort to find a practical route to overland stock to Adelaide, and then on to open communication between Adelaide and West Australia. Eyre left the Limestone Plains near today’s Canberra with stock on 5 December 1838. On reaching the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai, Eyre, accompanied by two aboriginal youths, Yarrie and Joey, turned down the river to the westward instead of following further south and travelled along the northern bank of the river for the better supply of water and feed available for his stock. Eyre crossed the river twice at Gundagai to avoid some ranges.
Whilst living and working at William Warby’s establishment, Caroline McAlister (wife of Thomas McAlister) gave birth to a son ‘John’ on 21 June 1832, who may have been one of the first known children of European descent born in the Gundagai area.
The herds of John Macarthur, Throsby and Ellis, were along the Murrumbidgee by late 1831.
Post office
Gundagai Post Office opened on 1 April 1843 as the township (gazetted in 1838) developed.
Railway
The railway reached Gundagai in 1886 with a branch line to Tumut from Cootamundra on the Main Southern railway line. The branch line was extended reaching Tumut in 1903 and Batlow and Kunama, at the end of the Tumut and Kunama railway lines, in 1923. The line was finally closed after flood damage in 1984. (wikipedia)
Places of Interest
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