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* Location
Penrith is a suburb and major centre in the metropolitan area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney 50 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Nepean River, on the outskirts of the Cumberland Plain. Its elevation is 25 metres.
* History
Penrith was named after the town of Penrith in Cumbria, England. The name is of Cumbric origin, a Celtic language of northern Britain related to Welsh. ‘Pen’ is Cumbric and Welsh for ‘Head’ or ‘Chief’ and the Cumbric ‘Rid’ (Rhyd in Welsh) means ‘Ford’ giving the name ‘Chief Ford’ or ‘Hill Ford’. How it got the name is unclear. One theory is that in the early days, development in Penrith was entirely on one road, like the English Penrith, and someone familiar with both spotted the similarity and suggested the name. The earliest known written reference to the name Penrith dates back to 1819.
Watkin Tench was the first British explorer to visit the area in 1789 and named the Nepean River after Lord Evan Nepean, under-secretary to the home department. Governor King began granting land in the area to settlers in 1804 with Captain Daniel Woodriff’s 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) on the banks of the river the first land grant in the area. In 1814, William Cox constructed a road across the Blue Mountains which passed through Woodriff’s land at Penrith. Initial settlement in the area was unplanned but substantial enough for a courthouse to be established in 1817.
The post office was established in 1828, the Anglican church, St Stephens, was opened and consecrated 16 July 1839 followed by the Catholic Church, St Nicholas of Myra, in 1850. Two other prominent Penrith pioneers were Irish-born Thomas Jamison (1752/53-1811), a member of the First Fleet and surgeon-general of New South Wales (after whom Jamisontown is named), and his son, the landowner, physician and constitutional reformer Sir John Jamison (1776–1844). In 1824, Sir John erected the colony’s finest Georgian mansion, Regentville House, near Penrith, on a ridge overlooking the Nepean River. Sir John established an impressive agricultural estate at Regentville and became a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. His grave can be seen in St Stephen’s graveyard. Regentville House burned down in 1868 but most of its stonework was salvaged and used for building projects in and around Penrith.
Another well-known early settler was Thomas Frost (d. 1862) who arrived from Buckinghamshire in 1810. His wife Sarah had been baptised by Samuel Marsden and her brother, Robert Rope, was reputed to be the first European born in Australia. In a Petition to the governor of the colony, Sir Thomas Brisbane, on 13 October 1822, Thomas Frost declares that he is a Free Man and cultivates a farm on the Nepean River where he has a herd of 125 cattle. He mentions that the previous Governor, General Macquarie, was pleased to grant him, Thomas, a further 50 acres (20 ha) of land at Bathurst and he now craves the Governor’s consent to drive cattle across the mountains to that property for pasturage. Frost’s gravestone still stands in good condition in St. Stephen’s Churchyard, Penrith.
The first bridge was opened over the Nepean in 1856 and was washed away the following year in a flood. The railway line was extended to Penrith in 1863, a school was established in 1865 and in 1871 the area became a municipality. It officially became a city in 1959.
Circa 1882, Thornton Hall, situated on Mountain View Crescent, was built for Sydney Smith. It was subsequently owned by Henry Lack. The Royal Army Engineers Depot had previously owned the site.
* Penrith Timeline by Penrith City Council
Places of Interest
