Aboriginal culture Mulgoa takes its name from the Mulgoa people, who were an
Aboriginal Australian people, the
Indigenous inhabitants of the area who spoke the
Dharug language. The name is believed to mean "
black swan". The Mulgoa were not the only inhabitants of the area; they shared the Mulgoa Valley with the
Gandangara people of the Southern Highlands, whose territory extended up into the
Blue Mountains. The Aboriginal peoples mostly lived a
hunter-gatherer lifestyle governed by traditional laws, which had their origins in their
mythology known as
The Dreaming. Their homes were bark huts called
gunyah. They hunted
kangaroos and
emus for meat, and gathered
yams, berries and other native plants.
European settlement Following the arrival of the
First Fleet in Sydney, there were a number of bloody battles between the British settlers and the local Indigenous people in this area, however, it is believed that the Mulgoa people were generally peaceful and most of the clashes were with the
Gandangara. The first government land grants in the area were made in 1810 to Edward Cox, the four-year-old son of Captain
William Cox, who constructed a famous road across the
Blue Mountains in 1814. William Cox built The Cottage on the land in about 1811.
Fernhill, a much grander residence with associated gardens, now
heritage-listed, was completed in the 1840s, although the proposed second-storey was never added. Not far away dwelt Cox's friend Sir
John Jamison, who erected the colony's finest mansion,
Regentville House, in 1824, on an eminence overlooking the
Nepean River. In 1821, three large land grants were made on the Nepean at Mulgoa to the Norton family:
James Norton, the founder of Sydney's first law firm and his father and brother, Nathaniel. The centre of Mulgoa's spiritual life in the colonial era was
St Thomas' Anglican Church, which dates from 1838. It was the first public building in the Mulgoa Valley and was constructed out of sandstone and cedar on paddocks donated by the Cox family, with Sir John Jamison serving as one of its patrons. The Reverend Thomas Cooper Makinson was St Thomas' inaugural rector. Attached to the church was Mulgoa's first school which operated until 1871–72, when the Mulgoa Provisional School replaced it. In 1893, Mulgoa's population was sufficiently large to be granted the status of a municipality. Its area extended beyond the current suburb boundaries. In 1949, however, council rationalisations led to it merging with Penrith, St Marys and Castlereagh into a larger Penrith Municipality. These days, Mulgoa is still primarily a rural area.
20th century In May 1942, during the Second World War and after the
bombing of Darwin, a group of Aboriginal children were evacuated from "
The Bungalow" in
Alice Springs,
Northern Territory to an
Anglican home Mulgoa. The group included
Rona and
Freda Glynn, as well as
John Kundereri Moriarty. The Church Missionary Society Home for Half-Castes existed between 1942 and 1947, run by the
Church Missionary Society. It housed Aboriginal children aged 1–14, and some mothers, who came mainly from
South Australia, the Northern Territory and
Queensland, with a few from New South Wales. They were evacuated by the Department of Native Affairs, under military orders. However the group of children did not leave Mulgoa until January 1949.
Heritage listings Mulgoa has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: • Fairlight Road:
Fairlight Homestead • Mulgoa Road:
Fernhill, Mulgoa • 754-760 Mulgoa Road:
Glenmore, Mulgoa • St Thomas Road:
St Thomas' Anglican Church, Mulgoa • 2 St Thomas Road:
Cox's Cottage ==Transport==