Before non-indigenous settlement the area now known as Tingha was mainly lived upon by people from the Nucoorilma clan of the Gamilaroi Nation, which is an associated group of the Murri
Aboriginal people. Many of their descendants still live in the surrounding area. Tingha was first settled in 1841 by Sydney Hudson Darby and became a mining town after
tin was discovered there in the 1870s. Within a year Australia's first commercial tin mines were operating at a private settlement known as Armidale Crossing. Around 5,000 people arrived and about 1000 of the miners were Chinese. The Wing Hing Long Museum is a reminder of that heritage, being established in the 1880s as a general store by Chinese storekeeper, Ah Lin.
Armidale Crossing Post Office opened on 1 September 1872 and was renamed
Tingha the next month. The village was proclaimed a town in 1885. Initially there were enough readily accessible surface deposits to make a good living without using machinery as Chinese people did. The first school was established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1890. In the 1890s drought came to the district and the easily obtained deposits of tin were exhausted leading to a loss in population. By the early 1900s the mining boom was over and Tingha's population had dwindled to just a few hundred people. Shortly after this, large companies moved into the area to mine the less accessible tin. Dredges were used in mining operations in the area. The town was serviced by the
Bundarra & Tingha Advocate newspaper, published in Bundarra, from 1900 to 1932. It was also serviced by the
Tingha Advocate and North-Western Journal, published in Tingha, from 1916 to 1932. Formerly part of the
Guyra Shire and then the Armidale Region, on 1 July 2019, responsibility for Tingha was transferred from Armidale Regional Council to Inverell Shire Council. == Heritage listings ==