Wamboin Community Association

Chronology

David McDonald has developed a comprehensive chronology (an historical timeline) of Wamboin and district. The sixth edition of the Chronology, dated 22 July 2023, can be downloaded by clicking here. It contains 509 entries, in chronological order, from c. 444 million years ago to the present time.

If you have an interest in the history of our area, and/or have some knowledge of it, you are invited to peruse the document, and pass on to David any suggestions for additional entries, additional topics, or other comments on its contents.

David McDonald can be contacted at phone 0416 231 890, or email david [at] dnmcdonald.id.au.

Synopsis

Aboriginal people were the custodians of the lands that we call Wamboin and district for up to 50,000 years (and possibly longer) before Europeans first visited the area. Tobler et al. present evidence ‘… that the settlement of Australia comprised a single, rapid migration along the east and west coasts that reached southern Australia by 49-45’ thousand years ago.1

Apparently, no historical documents, nor recorded oral history, exist clarifying what these traditional custodians called themselves, nor what they called their language. We do know, however, from scholarly linguistics research covering the National Capital region more broadly (especially Koch 2009 & 2010), that their language was similar to, if not identical to, that of the Monaro people: the Ngarigu/Ngarigo language, and Ngarigu/Ngarigo was apparently the name the Monaro people called themselves.

The first Europeans to traverse Wamboin and Bywong were Charles Throsby, Joseph Wild, James Vaughan and two Aboriginal guides whose names are not recorded, in October 1820. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was visiting Lake George at this time to meet up with Throsby, and to reach (‘discover’) the Murrumbidgee River that Throsby had been told about by Aboriginal people in the Goulburn area.

A project to survey the whole of New South Wales commenced in 1825. The plan was to divide the State into counties and parishes to facilitate land administration. The boundaries of the parishes were set by draughtmen in Sydney, reflecting information received from surveyors. They largely followed the boundaries of already surveyed parcels of land, and natural features such as rivers and mountain ranges.

It is likely that the initial boundaries of the parish of Wamboin were set sometime between November 1864 and February 1866, although the first map of the parish was not published until 1881. ‘Wamboin’ is the anglicised form of a Wiradjuri word for grey kangaroo: ‘wambuuwayn’. It was probably assigned by the draughtsman who set the boundaries of the parish prior to the land being fully surveyed, perhaps on the recommendation of a surveyor. The parish runs from the Turallo Creek to the east, the Yass River to the west, and the boundaries of early land grants in the north and south. In 1981, Wamboin was officially designated as a ‘geographical name’.

In 1825, Captain Richard Brooks received a large land grant at the southern end of Lake George, that he named Turalla and, by 1828, William Guise was running stock at his ‘Bywong’ (Sutton) property, and far beyond, presumably into Wamboin and district. Some land grants were made in the area from the 1830s, and most of the land of Wamboin and district was alienated as small selections (40-60 acres) in the 1870s and 1880s. Over the years, many small selections were found to be unviable, owing to their small size, and the land was consolidated into the hands of a small number of pastoralists.

Short-lived, but productive, gold rushes occurred at Brooks Creek (in 1861), Mac’s Reef/Newington (1865-66) and Bywong (1895). Wamboin’s Wyanga school commenced operating in 1871. It was located between Reedy Creek and Weeroona Road, Wamboin.

With the passage of the Local Government Act 1906 (NSW), the Yarrowlumla Shire was proclaimed, and Yarrowlumla Shire Council created with its headquarters in Queanbeyan. This was a disappointment to the people of Bungendore who had expected it to be built there, thus boosting the town’s status and resources.

In 1909, the NSW Government transferred land to the Commonwealth for the creation of the Federal Capital Territory. This did not involve any changes to the boundaries of the parish of Wamboin, but it did to the adjacent parishes of Goorooyarroo, Amungula and Majura.

In 1969, the place name ‘Bywong’ was gazetted. The area was previously known as ‘Geary’s Gap’, though this was not an official geographical name for the locality.

2004 saw the dissolution of Yarrowlumla Shire Council and the proclamation of the Eastern Capital City Regional Council. Its name was changed eight months later to Palerang Council which was, in turn, dissolved and amalgamated with the Queanbeyan City Council in 2016 to create the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC).

The subdivision of the pastoral land and forested country to create Wamboin commenced with an application to Yarrowlumla Shire Council in Nov. 1968 by the Canberra-based developer David Trend Pty Limited (subsequently renamed as Majura Heights Pty Limited); ‘Majura Heights’ was the name proposed for the subdivision. It was for 10 five/six acre lots between Sutton Road and the longitude of what is now Fernloff Road, an area of 267 acres (1 km2). The land subsequently passed to Taywood Hughes Pty Limited, and then to Norton Tower Pty Limited. The first advertisement published in the Canberra Times for the blocks in what became known as Wamboin, then called ‘Canberra Country Estate’ by the developer Norton Tower Pty Limited, occurred in Dec. 1972. It was the land along Norton Road from Sutton Road to Fernloff Road. Further subdivisions were made as the years progressed. In 1980 Council officially adopted the name ‘Wamboin’ for the area, and the following year the Geographical Names Board of NSW formally named the locality as Wamboin. (A ‘locality’ is the rural equivalent of a ‘suburb’ in an urban area.) The boundaries of the locality of Wamboin differ from those of the parish of Wamboin.

In 1998 the newly constructed St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Wamboin, was consecrated.


1 The body of the Chronology provides the sources of information found in this synopsis, including literature references.

01-12-2023