History of Canberra

Before European settlement, the area which eventually became the Australian Capital Territory was inhabited by Indigenous Australians, who spoke a Ngarigo dialect. Historical sources have identified them as different tribes with a range of names. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock paintings and engravings, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements. The evidence suggests human habitation in the area for at least 21,000 years. with Parliament House and Old Parliament House in the background European exploration began within the Canberra area as early as the 1820s. Canberra was discovered by Europeans on 7 December 1820, by Charles Throsby Smith, Joseph Wild and James Vaughan. Four successive expeditions whose routes took in the Canberra area were those of Charles Throsby in October 1820, Charles Throsby Smith in December 1820, Major John Ovens and Captain Mark Currie in 1823, and Allan Cunningham in 1824. All four expeditions explored the course of the Limestone (now Molonglo River) that is now the site of Lake Burley Griffin. Smith and Cunningham also penetrated further south, into what is now called the Tuggeranong Valley. It was estimated by Robertson that prior to European settlement starting in 1824, depending on the season there were about 300-400 Aboriginals living in the Molonglo, Queanbeyan, Canberra, Namadgi region. As the settlers took over land, many Aboriginals migrated to other districts such as Cooma and Tumut. The population was also significantly reduced when the death rate increased significantly due to diseases introduced by the Europeans. By the 1880s there were no full-blood people in the district, with only some fifty mixed race people. These people were employed either as labourers or domestics on stations. Due to the lack of European women, many white men had relationships with mixed race women so even further diluting Aboriginal heritage. The 2013 ACT Government report "Our Kin Our Country" on the connection to the area by present-day ACT Aboriginal inhabitants, concluded: European settlement ", "Tageranong" and other names similar to modern names The Molonglo River was recorded as the "Yeal-am-bid-gie" in 1820 by the explorer Charles Throsby. Later it was referred to as the Limestone River, and the Fish River. The Moolinggolah people of the district around Captains Flat probably gave the Molonglo its current name. European settlement in the area began in October 1824 when Joshua John Moore, the owner of Horningsea near Liverpool, was given a "ticket of occupation" for north of the Limestone River covering the area now called Civic extending north to Dickson. A flock of sheep was driven onto the property in December 1824 by the overseer John McLaughlin. He built a slab hut on what is now called Acton Peninsula. This was named Camberry later Canberry Cottage. A creek that ran through the middle of the property originating from the side of Mount Ainslie was named Canberry Creek. On 12 October 1828, a deed for a further to the west was issued to Moore in consideration of £250. Moore was always an absentee landlord and took no interest in running the property. The station continued to be called Canberry/Camberry, from 1824 until 1843 when it was sold to Arthur Jeffreys, who renamed it Acton and built a more substantial homestead called Acton House. In 1825 James Ainslie, a purported Waterloo veteran, herded sheep down to the district for Robert Campbell. He occupied land at the base of Mount Pleasant near the Limestone River, which he called "Pialigo". A stone cottage was built, Limestone Cottage, which later was expanded to become Duntroon House and the property named Duntroon when the Campbells took up residence and acquired land extending down to Queanbeyan. Ainslie, who remained there till 1835, also received a grant of for assisting in the capture of two bushrangers Tennant and Dublin Jack. Ainslie later returned to Scotland. In 1827 John McPherson was given a ticket of occupation for the land to the west of Canberry extending to include the now named Black Mountain. He called the station Springbank, with the homestead just to the east of the junction of the Limestone River with Canberry Creek. The first white child born in the area was a daughter, born into the Macpherson family in 1830. In 1831 MacPherson was granted title to the property extending to the now named Black Mountain. Other sheep stations were built in turn by further settlers. Initially, these properties were owned by absentee landlords, but later resident families moved in. For future development, blocks for village settlements were gazetted at Pialigo, Tageranong to the south, Palmerstone to the north, and Yarrolumla to the west near the Murrumbidgee River. The local Aboriginals of this time tended to refer to themselves as the Nyamudy people and spoke a dialect of the Ngarigo language, while the settlers called them the Limestone Plains Blacks or Pialigo Mob. The indigenous population of the district declined to less than a hundred by 1840. In stark comparison, by 1851 there were about 2,500 European people living in the area. Apart from a few employed on stations Aboriginals disappeared by the 1860s with most moving to the better hunting grounds of land near the Cooma and Tumut districts. A few from the Sutton, Hall and Fairlight localities moved north to Yass. Construction of the church of St John the Baptist started in 1841 on land purchased from Robert Campbell adjacent to the Canberry station. This included a glebe. When the first rector was appointed the rectory was the rented Canberry Cottage, thus the church was referred to as being at Canberry in the parish of Queanbeyan. Later the lands south of the Limestone River were also called Canberry extending down to Canberry Hill, now Red Hill, with the road going over Church Crossing. When the district was further divided into parishes in the County of Murray, the name given of the parish was Canberry, but was then changed to Canberra. It extended over a wide area north nearly to Yass and west to the Cotter River There were a number of European families who achieved status in the area. These included the Campbell family and the Palmer family. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, there was a conflict between two of these families – the Johnstons (descended from Major George Johnston who was involved in the Rum Rebellion) and the Martins – for the ownership and financial control of land that is now known as Weston Creek and Tuggeranong. Prominent, too, in the early life of the district were the Gibbes and Murray families, who were related by marriage. Irish-born Sir Terence Aubrey Murray, MLC, owned the Yarralumla estate (now the site of Australia's Government House) from 1837 until 1859. In the latter year, Murray sold Yarralumla to his brother-in-law, Augustus Onslow Manby Gibbes, who was joined at the property by his elderly parents, Elizabeth Gibbes and Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes, the retired Collector of Customs for NSW. Augustus Gibbes made improvements to the estate and he remained Yarralumla's resident proprietor until 1881 when he sold it to his neighbour Frederick Campbell. The Campbells, and their patriarch, Robert Campbell, were a particularly influential group in the area's early history. The Campbells were Scottish and brought many other Scots to the district as workers. The land that they owned included Duntroon House that is now the Officers Mess at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Yarralumla and the Oaks Estate. The latter most got its name from a mansion built there by Campbell called the Oaks. When the Campbell family later sold the land it was on for subdivision and development, it was on condition that the Oaks and the land that it to remain intact and not be renamed. There are still members of the Campbell family living in Canberra. The European population in the Canberra area continued to slowly grow throughout the rest of the 19th century. One prominent building, the Anglican St John's Church, was consecrated and opened for use in 1845. This building still stands today and its graveyard holds the burials of many of Canberra's 19th-century pioneers. A schoolhouse was also attached to this building. By 1851, there were about 2,500 people living in the area – a vast majority of which were stockmen. Some assigned convict labour was also used in this area during the 1830s and 1840s. The weather in the area was said to be harsh, with frosty winters and fierce hail-storm episodes, and drownings in local watercourses were a fairly common occurrence. The drowning victims included the first rector of the Anglican Church of St John the Baptist, which was Canberra's first purpose-built place of worship. , built in the 1860s Blundells' Cottage was built in 1859 for William Ginn, the head ploughman for the Duntroon Estate. The cottage's second occupants where newlyweds George and Flora Blundell, after whom the cottage was named. The area's Aboriginal population dwindled as the European presence increased, mainly due to the impact of diseases such as smallpox and measles. Another reason for the shrinking Aboriginal population base was that their ability to hunt, and therefore survive, was impeded by homesteads being placed on traditional hunting grounds. By 1862, the remnant Aboriginal People were mainly of mixed European and indigenous blood. They held their last full corroboree by the Molonglo River in that year. Aboriginal culture and its people had largely ceased to exist in the region, with its members largely absorbed into the European mainstream by 1878 as a consequence of inter-marriage. "Queen Nellie" Hamilton, a Ngarigo Woman who had been married to a Ngambri Man, Bobby Hamilton, is said to have been the last full-blood Aboriginal Person dwelling in the environs of Canberra during the 19th century. She died in the nearby town of Queanbeyan in 1897. ==20th century==