Aboriginal The original inhabitants of the Casula area were the
Tharawal or "Dharawal" people of the greater
Eora nation, an
Aboriginal Australian group. "Tharawal" refers to the country and people who belong to greater southern and south-western Sydney. The Tharawal Local Aboriginal Land Council (
LALC) extends through
Liverpool,
Camden,
Campbelltown and
Wollondilly Local Government Areas (LGAs). The
totem animal for Tharawal country is the
superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae).
European Casula was first settled by
agriculturalists in the nineteenth century, among them Richard Guise, who named his farm "Casula". The area became dominated by
poultry farming,
market gardening and fruit growing. Another notable farm was Glenfield Farm, which dates from circa 1817. Situated in Leacocks Lane, it originally belonged to politician
Charles Throsby, a member of the Legislative Council and an explorer. The farm is the oldest continuously worked farm in Australia and is listed on the
Register of the National Estate. During
World War I, a large
Australian Imperial Forces recruitment and training reserve was located in Casula – a fact reflected by the name of one of its major residential streets, "Reserve Road". This camp became briefly notorious in 1916 when a large mob of soldiers rebelled against the strict training regimen, marched on nearby
Liverpool, ransacked and looted several pubs, hijacked several trains to
Central station in Sydney and continued their drunken rioting, resulting in the Military Police shooting dead one rioter. In 1918, Walter Ingham Sr. bought of bush land in Casula as a gift to 18-year-old son, Walter. On his death in 1953, his sons
Jack and
Bob took over the small chicken breeding operation and built it into the largest producer of chickens and turkeys in Australia.
Inghams is now headquartered in Liverpool. Casula Post Office opened on 1 February 1924 and closed in 1979. A
Liverpool South office was renamed
Cross Roads in 1964 and
Casula Mall in 1990 and remains open. Being heavily farmed, the area did not become suburbanised until the late 1950s. Much of the acreage in the central and southern portions was subdivided and developed over the next few decades but even now there are pockets of undeveloped land. ==Heritage listings==