| Gundagai New South Wales |
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The town and the Murrumbidgee floodplain in July 2005. The Hume Highway can be seen in the middle distance. |
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Gundagai
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| Population: | 1,998[1] | ||||||
| Established: | 1838 | ||||||
| Postcode: | 2722 | ||||||
| Elevation: | 232 m (761 ft) | ||||||
| Location: | |||||||
| LGA: | Gundagai Shire Council | ||||||
| County: | Clarendon | ||||||
| State District: | Burrinjuck | ||||||
| Federal Division: | Riverina | ||||||
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Gundagai ( /ˈɡʌndəɡaɪ/)[2] is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town.[3] Located along the Murrumbidgee River and Muniong, Honeysuckle, Kimo, Mooney Mooney, Murrumbidgee and Tumut mountain ranges, Gundagai is 390 kilometres (240 mi) south-west of Sydney, the state capital and largest city in Australia. Gundagai is part of the Gundagai Shire Council Local Government Area. At the 2006 census the population of Gundagai was 1,998.[1] The town's population was 1,997 in 2001 and 2,064 in 1996.[4]
Acknowledgement of Country is a protocol used in Australia in relation to Indigenous Australian affairs.[5]
The Gundagai area is part of the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri speaking people before and post European settlement, and also holds national significance to Indigenous Australians. The floodplains of the Murrumbidgee below the present town of Gundagai were a frequent meeting place of the Wiradjuri. One indication of the ancient, sacred cultural landscape that is North Gundagai is the bora ring that has been identified close to town.[6]
The location of Gundagai on a sizeable prehistoric highway, (the Murrumbidgee River), along with the significant and sacred Aboriginal ceremonial ground across all of North Gundagai, and other ancient archaeology, indicates it would have been an important ceremonial, mining, manufacturing and trading place for Aboriginal people before the arrival of the Europeans.[7] As with all ancient sacred places, particularly within still continuing Australian Aboriginal culture, the sacredness of Gundagai's amazing Australian Aboriginal cultural landscape continues despite colonial and later intrusion.
Gundagai Aboriginal Elders, Jimmy Clements and John Noble, attended the 1927 opening of the new Federal Parliament House in Canberra by the Duke of York. Jimmy Clements also known as King Billy whose traditional name was 'Yangar',[8] walked forward to respectfully salute the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI of the United Kingdom and Elizabeth the Queen), and after that the two Elders were formally presented to the Royal couple as prominent citizens of Australia.[9]
Aboriginal leaders Pat Dodson and Noel Pearson; the former Chief of the Australian Army and Governor of West Australia, Lieutenant General John Sanderson; and current Australian business leaders, met at a remote property on the Murrumbidgee River near Gundagai in September 2008 on the first stages of an Australian Dialogue to promote constitutional reform and structural change for Indigenous Australian people. Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Northern Territory Indigenous leader, could not be at the gathering of esteemed senior Australians but was kept informed of the progress of talks.[10]
Gundagai is an inland town with an elevation of 250 metres (820 ft).[11] Almost all of the shire is located in the South-West Slopes bioregion and is part of the Riverina agricultural region. The eastern part of the shire is considered part of the South Eastern Highlands bioregion.[6]
The first moves to establish 'Gundagai' as a township were in 1838 with plans for the new settlement of Gundagae on the Murrumbidgee, about 54 miles beyond Yass ... advertised for viewing at the office of the Surveyor-General in Sydney.[12]
The Shire has been extensively cleared for agriculture and more than 80% of the area is used for dryland cropping and grazing. Less than 1% of the shire is managed for conservation. There are few remaining examples of the original vegetation cover.[6]
Gundagai is a primarily rural shire with a small population. Eighty per cent of the shire's population live in the town of Gundagai. There are four villages in the Shire: Coolac, Tumblong, Muttama and Nangus, with populations ranging from 40 to 90 people.
Gundagai has a warm temperate climate.[6][11]
| Climate data for Gundagai | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 43.7 (110.7) |
44.0 (111.2) |
39.4 (102.9) |
33.9 (93.0) |
26.5 (79.7) |
21.9 (71.4) |
20.2 (68.4) |
25.9 (78.6) |
28.6 (83.5) |
36.0 (96.8) |
41.6 (106.9) |
42.6 (108.7) |
44.0 (111.2) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 32.5 (90.5) |
31.2 (88.2) |
28.1 (82.6) |
22.9 (73.2) |
17.9 (64.2) |
13.9 (57.0) |
12.8 (55.0) |
14.9 (58.8) |
18.3 (64.9) |
22.0 (71.6) |
26.3 (79.3) |
29.6 (85.3) |
22.5 (72.5) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 16.7 (62.1) |
16.8 (62.2) |
13.2 (55.8) |
8.6 (47.5) |
5.3 (41.5) |
3.5 (38.3) |
2.5 (36.5) |
3.1 (37.6) |
5.5 (41.9) |
8.0 (46.4) |
12.0 (53.6) |
13.8 (56.8) |
9.1 (48.4) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 5.9 (42.6) |
6.3 (43.3) |
4.5 (40.1) |
−0.8 (30.6) |
−3.1 (26.4) |
−4.6 (23.7) |
−5.5 (22.1) |
−4.8 (23.4) |
−2 (28.4) |
−1.6 (29.1) |
1.7 (35.1) |
5.1 (41.2) |
−5.5 (22.1) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 39.0 (1.535) |
51.8 (2.039) |
41.4 (1.63) |
32.4 (1.276) |
37.1 (1.461) |
65.4 (2.575) |
64.2 (2.528) |
58.8 (2.315) |
64.2 (2.528) |
59.0 (2.323) |
66.4 (2.614) |
56.4 (2.22) |
636.2 (25.047) |
| Avg. precipitation days | 5.7 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 7.1 | 11.7 | 13.4 | 11.8 | 10.9 | 9.6 | 8.3 | 7.1 | 101.9 |
| Source: [11] | |||||||||||||
A feeling of awe and reverence for that Almighty power that formed the universe was had in Gundagai at the appearance of the comet on Saturday 21 December 1844.[13] In 1859 the 'Aurora Australis' interfered with the operation of the Gundagai electric telegraph.[14] So great can be some rainfall downpours at Gundagai that old mining dams have been known to fill and burst.[15] A meteor seen at Gundagai on New Year's Day, 1876 was reported to have lit up the streets as though with magnesium wire,[16] and over four inches of rain fell in two hours during a dreadful storm at Gundagai in 1885.[17] Very deep snowfalls and severe weather were experienced in 1899.[18]
Similar to other inland areas in Australia, the Gundagai area has often been visited by tornadoes, particularly in dry times.[19][20] There has also been numerous reports of earth tremors rattling through Gundagai since European settlement.[21][22][23]
During a thunderstorm near Gundagai in 1876, an electric fire-ball was seen to issue from the clouds, strike the earth, and explode with a loud noise, singeing Constable Macalister’s hair and whiskers, and leaving a blue mark on his side.[24] A terrific thunderstorm at Gundagai in March 1877 set fire to the inside of Armour's house.[25] In November, 1899, a man named Caigan was stuck by lightning and killed as he sheltered in a hollow log.[26] A boy, Patrick Vaughan, was struck by lightning in October 1904 and rendered unconscious for a long time.[27] Two horses were struck by lightning in 1904 and one horse died.[28] A few weeks later two boys were struck by lightning as they hid under a bullock hide strung over a wire fence. The electric charge travelled along the fence wire.[29] In 1938 two dead drovers were found under a tree south of Gundagai, again the victims of lightning.[30] Lightning killed a horse in 1946 but the rider escaped with her life though somewhat injured.[31] A bushfire that caused a lot of damage was started near Gundagai in February 1906 after lightning hit a tree.[32] John Bloomquist,who was camped in a hollow tree on the Gundagai Golf links, was horribly burned and died when the tree was struck by lightning in 1932.[33] There has been other victims of lightning in the Gundagai area due to the ferocity of thunderstorms that can happen locally.
Some believe the name 'Gundagai' derives from the word 'Gundagair', an 1838 pastoral run in the name of William Hutchinson[34] to the immediate north of current day Gundagai. 'Gair' was recorded at Yass in 1836 by George Bennett (naturalist) and means 'bird', as in budgerigar or good bird. In that context 'Gundagai' means place of birds but that placename may refer to the area to the north of Gundagai not to Gundagai town. The word 'Gundagai' is also said to mean cut with a hand-axe behind the knee.[35] Combining the two meanings results in the place of birds near where there is a large bend in the Murrumbidgee River that was caused by a cut in the back of the knee. This meaning presupposes that for there to be a knee there is a leg and a body which there is.
There is a large anthropomorphic figure in the landscape at Gundagai.[36] The figure has a kangaroo or dog like head and is several kilometres in length. It has hindquarters similar to that of an emu but with a long tail and it appears to be sitting on a bend in the river that has a box shape . The image faces to the west and its head is near the Dog on the Tuckerbox area at Gundagai. This primary landscape figure marked out by the course of the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai, is replicated in some Sydney Rock Engravings and recorded in local Aboriginal cultural heritage. The 'Gundagai' placename meaning further refers to the reason for the bend in the Murrumbidgee River near the Gundagai showground at Gundagai and to the mythological landscape epic at Gundagai. Bunyips, understood to be where streams flood out of their usual channel in wet seasons flooding surrounding land but also drowning anyone caught on the wrong side of them, are recorded on the Gundagai floodplain; opposite 'Kimo'; and at the junction of the Tumut and Murrumbidgee rivers.[37] The Kimo bunyip is really interesting as it is accompanied by a large slash in the earth's mantle out of which the 'Jindalee Volcanics' extruded.[38]
The area is also identified as Jones Creek diorite. 'Kimo' is 'Mt Kimo', named for one of the Nereids, (Nereids, Cymatolege or 'Kymo'[39]), that occupies the midpoint of the 'Kimo Range', facing Gundagai High School. 'Kimo' is also known as Nargun. Charles Sturt in Chapter Two of his Murrumbidgee exploration journal,[40] likened the 'verdant' Gundagai valley as having Diana of Nemi site parallels as recorded in James George Frazer's 'The Golden Bough',[41] when Sturt journeyed through the Gundagai area in 1829-1830. Mount Minerva is the old name for what today is the hill known as 'Minjary'. Oak groves and muses featured in some succeeding cultural depictions of Gundagai no doubt assigned by early settlers who had received the benefits of an education in the classics, such as Charles Tompson, claimed to be Australia's first published native-born poet and whose father had possession of a large tract of land at Gundagai in the 1830s; and James Macarthur son of John Macarthur, Australian wool pioneer, who met up with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Europe[42] and who with his brother William Macarthur had possession of Nangus Station at Nangus, Gundagai. Goethe was one of the key figures of Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One pastoral holding on the western side of North Gundagai was named 'Jarno'.[43] Jarno is a character in Goethe's, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, a German response to the dramas of William Shakespeare. Gundagai also has a 'Shakespeare Terrace' that runs along the Murrumbidgee floodplain below the town that may or may not refer to the amazing grand theatre corroborees that happened in that area, eagerly shared in the 1830s for the benefit of overlanders and travellers; or in reference to several or all works of Shakespeare. Placenames such as that of Virgil Street that ascends Gundagai's Mount Parnassus lead to sites in the local landscape that for example invoke Virgil's 'Aeneid', viz ... there the fearsome cavern of the awesome Sybil lies, Whence came her prophecies. The name 'Warramore', is given for Stuckey's Station in 1836 at today's Gundagai.[44] 'Warramore' is linked to 'Warrawen', which is the large cut in the western side of the Monaro Plateau from near which western travelling geological fault lines begin, and 'Warragong', which is the section of the beginning of the Australian Alps in the Gundagai region upon which snow sometimes falls. The junction of the Murrumbidgee and Tumut Rivers is named 'Bewuck' to note the numerous Murray Cod found in that area.[45]
As Gundagai is a place of significant Irish, Scottish and English settlement post the arrival of the Europeans, Celtic and English landscape understanding or dindsenchas is also evident at Gundagai. The story of the 'Ghost of Kimo Hill', (in 'Gundagai Ghosts' below), is one example of this. Gundagai Shire Council also had a ward system of Municipal Governance till recent times.[46] but is now composed of eight councillors elected proportionally. 'West Ward' at Gundagai is still delineated by West Street. The ward system originates from Scotland and Eastern England where wards, that are watchful spirits that protect settlements from internal troubles and external dangers, ... form nightly a ring of benevolent spiritual protection against harmful spirits. Once the spirits are driven from the landscape, the protection is no longer forthcoming and the settlement is open to psychic ills.[47] Beating the Bounds, the religious form of wards, is still practiced in some parishes in the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn.[48] Cursed is he who transgresseth the bounds or doles of his neighbour.[49] Gundagai's Anglican parish still has 'wardens'. The Right Reverend Trevor Edwards Vicar General of the Anglican Church and Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, commented in September 2011, on the stories held within the walls of St John's Church Gundagai when he led the commemoration of the laying of the foundation stone of that church in 1861[50] Outside the walls of the St John's church at Gundagai are also the stories of multiple events and aspects of culture not the least the two oak trees outside the Anglican Rectory. Gundagai's rich history of song, verse, epic sagas and notable events beginning first with that of Australian Aboriginal cultural heritage then on to multiple other ontologies with the arrival of the Europeans; that are also remembered within placenames and recalled throughout landscape is evidence of the rich tapesty that is Gundagai today.
George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines in Port Phillip, commented that Gundagai was remarkable for its nomenclature when passing through the town in 1844.[51]
The Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai has been a place of numerous bunyip sightings.[52][53][54]
Snakes do unusual things at Gundagai such as the eastern brown snake that removed itself from the stomach of a red-bellied black snake after the red-belly black had eaten it.[55] George Bennett, English born Australian physician and naturalist, recorded at Gundagai in the 1830s that the black snake was the wife of the brown so that may have meant in the biblical sense.[56] In 1908 there was a snake plague at Gundagai with several crawling around the main street and one entering the barber's shop.[57] In 1924 an eastern brown snake that had hidden under a home, was enticed out after 'Yes, We have No Bananas', 'The Road to Gundagai' and finally 'Come Into the Garden Maud', were played on the harmonica.[58] A man was bitten on the finger by a snake in 1929 but couldn't get the snake to let go. His dog eventually dragged the snake away. The man chopped his finger off and survived.[59] Also in 1929, Hubert Opperman famous cyclist, had a tiger snake encounter at Gundagai.[60]
The Australian Bureau of Statistics National Regional Profile of population in the Gundagai Shire states that 1.9% of the total Gundagai Shire population in 2001 was Indigenous. Thereafter the number of Indigenous people in the Gundagai Shire is noted as not applicable.[61]
In 1850, there was a population of 1140 Aboriginal people left in the Murrumbidgee District. There were eight tribes one of which was the Gundagai group of forty Aboriginal people.[62]
In 1911 the total population of Gundagai Shire was 1,921. It changed little in the course of the twentieth century being 2,308 at the time of the 1981 census and 1,998 at the 2006 census.
North Gundagai is situated on top of significant, Jindalee Group, Cambrian period geology from which the chrysotile asbestos bearing Gundagai serpentinite originates[63] also indicating prehistoric links to the Gondwana supercontinent.
Australian-born Hamilton Hume and British immigrant William Hovell were the first European explorers to visit what is now Gundagai when they passed through the region between 23 October - 15 November 1824. Hovell recorded seeing trees already marked by steel tommyhawks.[64][65] On the 25th September, 2011, the Right Reverend Trevor Edwards, Vicar General of the Anglican Church and Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, dressed in traditional white mid-nineteenth century garb, led the commemorative church service for the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of St John's Anglican, (formerly Church of England), Church, Gundagai that was built on top of a sacred Aboriginal site at Gundagai. Bishop Edwards noted that following on the path of the explorers Hume and Hovell, the first Gundagai settlers found a wonderful land on which to establish a town, which was gazetted in 1838 but until 1850, relied on ministry from Yass.[50]
A person by the surname 'Warby' is recorded as having followed Hume and Hovell's tracks to the junction of the Murrumbidgee and Tumut Rivers and having taken up a pastoral lease of 19,200 acres ... at a rent of thirty-three pounds per annum. ... He called the property 'Minghee' later called 'Mingay'. [66] Another source records that from June 1828[67] till 1836, a station run by notorious cattle thief William Warby,[68][68][69][70][71] son of convicts John Warby and Sarah Bentley, was to the immediate north of current day Gundagai. William Warby was convicted and transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1836, where he became a constable.[72] All William Warby's stock and possessions were forfeited to the Crown after they had been fraudently sold on to his brother Ben Warby[70][73][74][75] of Campbelltown, New South Wales[76] in an effort to retain possession.[77] Valued employees of William Warby were Mr & Mrs Thomas and Caroline McAlister.[78] Thomas McAlister's father, Robert, is believed to have taken part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and was transported for life on the 'Minerva'.[79] Whilst living and working at William Warby's establishment, Caroline McAlister gave birth to a son on the 21st June, 1832. Caroline and Thomas McAlister named this their fourth child, 'John'.[80] John McAlister may have been one of the first known children of European descent born in the Gundagai area.[81] This claim of first European descent does not allow for members of Hume and Hovell's exploration party, the activities of early European stockmen or earlier than that European 'wanderers' conceiving children with Gundagai area Aboriginal women in which case such offspring would also have had European descent as well as Aboriginal descent. Caroline McAlister was the sister of William Warby's wife, Jemima[82] and Thomas McAlister's brother John was the Chief Constable at William Warby's home town of Campbelltown.[83] The herds of M'Arthur, (John Macarthur), Throsby and Ellis, (known locally as Hillas), were along the Murrumbidgee by late 1831.[84] 'Nangus Island' in the middle of the Murrumbidgee River at Nangus is marked as one of the early goldfields and was previously named 'M'Arthur Island'. The island is adjacent to where the highly auriferous Adelong Creek enters the Murrumbidgee.[85]
Charles Sturt travelled through the area in 1829 at the start of his voyage in search of an inland sea then believed to exist in outback Australia. Sturt again passed through Gundagai on the return leg of this journey in 1830, and returned in 1838 in company with the Hawdon and Bonney overlanding parties.[86] At the time of Sturt's 1829-1830 journey, he found several settlers in the district: Henry O'Brien at Jugiong, William Warby at Mingay and the Stuckey Brothers, Peter and Henry at Willie Ploma and Tumblong. These settlers were beyond the limits of location[87] as the district was not within the Nineteen Counties. Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the governor of Tasmania, Sir John Franklin, travelled through Gundagai on 27 April 1839. Lady Jane noted Andrews' store and public house establishment, that had a neat verandah and shuttered hut. Lady Jane then walked from Andrews', on the north bank of the Murrumbidgee River on the Gundagai floodplain, to Brodribb's hut that was 1/4 of a mile to the east.[88] Brodribb's hut was immediately adjacent to the large Aboriginal ceremonial circle on the Gundagai floodplain and that may have been what Lady Jane went to see.[89]
Edward John Eyre, Australian explorer and later Governor of Jamaica, left Sydney in late 1838 in an effort to find a practical route to overland stock to Adelaide, and then on to open communication between Adelaide and West Australia.[90][91] Eyre left the Limestone Plains near today’s Canberra with stock on 5 December 1838. On reaching the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai Eyre, accompanied by Yarrie of the colony of New South Wales and Joey[92] two boys aborigines of the Hume and Murrumbidgee rivers,[93] turned down the river to the westward instead of following further south[93] and travelled along the northern bank of the river for the better supply of water and feed available for his stock. Eyre crossed the river twice at Gundagai to avoid some ranges[93] and crossed the North Gundagai landscape through today's High School agricultural paddock then down to the Jones Creek ford at the western end of Hanley Street. Hume & Hovell, Sturt and Eyre all took this route through North Gundagai with the notch through the Kimo Range being pointed out to them by locals. Mountain passes have been important since before recorded history, and have played a key role in trade, war, and migration. The mountain ranges in the Gundagai area have sometimes presented difficulty to through travellers not only because of their steep topography but also depending on the time of year, cultural activity taking place along them.
In the 1830s, Horatio Wills and his family lived near Gundagai.[94] The Wills' son, Thomas Wills who was born in the Gundagai area,[95] is credited with co-inventing Australian Rules football and for being coach and captain to the first Australian Aboriginal cricket team.
Gundagai was located at a crossing place of the Murrumbidgee River. There were several places at Gundagai that travellers could and did cross the river. The route eventually became the Great South Road which in 1914 was declared a main road of New South Wales and named the Hume Highway in 1928. The Main Roads Management Act of June 1858 declared the Great Southern Road, from near Sydney through Goulburn and Gundagai to Albury, as one of the three main roads in the colony. However, its southern reaches were described as only a 'scarcely formed bullock track' as late as 1858. The road was improved in the mid 1860s with some sections near Gundagai metalled and all creeks bridged between Adelong Creek (approximately 10 kilometres south of Gundagai) and Albury.[96] The highway bypassed Gundagai in 1977 with the opening of the Sheahan Bridge.[97]
There are several old fords at Gundagai including the one at the western end of Hanley Street that crosses Jones Creek. A ford on the southern continuation of Bourke Street crosses Jones Creek. One on the western end of Sheridan Lane that crosses Jones Creek. A ford on the western end of William Street that crosses Jones Creek. The Otway Street ford across Morleys Creek. A 1950s concrete ford that crosses Morleys Creek on the immediate western side of Yarri Bridge. A very old ford that crosses Morleys Creek east of the Yarri Bridge. The Warramore Ford that crosses the Murrumbidgee across to Tarrabandra between the Gundagai showground and Mingay. The Sandy Falls ford. The ford across Muttama Creek at the Nine Mile, Coolac, that is a well noted crossing place in local poetry, folklore and history. The Gundagai township ford of the Murrumbidgee in line with Otway Steet. 'Adelong Crossing Place', now 'Tumblong' where there used to be a ford across Adelong Creek. There is also the Wantabadgery crossing place that these days has been replaced by the low level Mundarlo Bridge. Often bridges have replaced fords but not always in exactly the same location as bridges require high stream banks, whereas fords favour low banks. Two known old bridges on Morleys Creek no longer exist. Learys Bridge, a wooden bridge that crossed Morleys Creek in line with Byron Street, Gundagai was burned down by Gundagai Shire Council in the 1990s. Rileys Bridge that crossed Morleys Creek at the midpoint between Byron and Homer Streets, Gundagai was washed away in the 1851 Gundagai flood.[98] In recent years the Gundagai wetlands and marshes that were home to many bird species, have disappeared, largely as a result of ground compaction by cattle and Gundagai Shire Council diverting ground water into underground pipes. These wetlands were on the North Gundagai Common; adjacent to the Gundagai High School; between Bourke and West Streets to the north of Punch Street; to the west and north of the North Gundagai cemetery; and at Coolac.
Gundagai Post Office opened on 1 April 1843 as the township (gazetted in 1838) developed.[99]
The railway reached Gundagai in 1886 with a branch line to Tumut from Cootamundra on the Main Southern railway line. The branch line was extended reaching Tumut in 1903[100] and Batlow and Kunama, at the end of the Tumut and Kunama railway lines, in 1923. The line was finally closed after flood damage in 1984.[101]
The original European town that was gazetted as Gundagai in 1838 was situated on the right hand bank of the Murrumbidgee River floodplain at the place colloquially known as 'The Crossing Place'. This town was hit by several large floods of the Murrumbidgee River. The Crown Commissioner for the Murrumbidgee District, Henry Bingham, praised the heroic actions of Aboriginal people at Gundagai in rescuing settlers from the 1844 flood and that letter from Commissioner Bingham, that also requested a reward for local Aboriginal people, was published in the NSW Government Gazette on the instruction of the then NSW Governor.[102] Gundagai was still considered a frontier town in 1852.[103] The 25 June 1852 Murrumbidgee flood swept the first colonial town of Gundagai away, killing at least 78 people (perhaps 89) of the town's population of 250 people; it is one of the largest natural disasters in Australia's history. Following an even higher flood in 1853, North Gundagai was redeveloped at its current site on Asbestos Hill and Mount Parnassus, above the river, and at South Gundagai on the slopes of Brummies Hill, using pre-existing surveyors plans.[104]
The efforts of Yarri, Jacky Jacky, Long Jimmy and one other Indigenous man in saving many Gundagai people from the 1852 floodwaters were heroic. Between them, these men rescued more than 40 people using bark canoes.[105] Yarri and Jacky Jacky were honored with bronze medallions for their efforts, and were allowed to demand sixpences from all Gundagai residents, although Yarri was maltreated on at least one occasion after the flood.[106] Long Jimmy died not long after his rescues, possibly from the effects of being exposed to the freezing cold and wet conditions.
It is claimed that the Gundagai community developed a special affinity with the Wiradjuri people and that the flood and its aftermath was the birthplace of reconciliation.[6][105]
The town commemorated the sesquicentenary of the flood in 2002.[105]
In June 1891 there was a very high flood of the Murrumbidgee at Gundagai. Several pastoral workers became stranded in trees in a rising river just to the south of Gundagai. Four men who set out in a rescue boat from Gundagai township were also swamped and also ended up in trees in the river channel with the water level rising. A young man, Edward True, born at Gundagai in 1865, dragged a light skiff several miles over hills to the rescue site downstream after the usual road south was cut by rising floodwaters. No one else watching the unfolding tragedy that night was prepared to take the skiff onto the rising and extremely dangerous Murrumbidgee River so True, who could not swim, launched the skiff on to the river and managed to save several men from drowning. One of those men saved by Edward True was the son of police sergeant McGinnerty who was shot and killed by the bushranger, Dan Morgan in 1864. True was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Humane Society of Australasia, (RHSA), for his bravery.[107] True was threatened by the Gundagai Police and did not accept the award though the award continues to stand with the RHSA.[108] The part of the Kimo Range that Edward True dragged that small skiff up over was named 'Neds Gully' by a grateful community and the road through it, 'Neds Gully Lane'. True had previously been awarded a Certificate of Merit by the RHSA in 1887[109] after saving a young child from drowning in the bunyip waterhole[110] at Gundagai in 1886.[111] The land surrounding where that bunyip rescue happened was named 'Trues Flat'. Edward True's parents, Samuel and Maryanne True, and their two eldest children were survivors of the 1852 Gundagai flood. The Trues lived immediately adjacent to the large Aboriginal ceremonial circle at section 8, allotment 3, Milton Street on the Gundagai floodplain[112][113] till around 1855 then moved north but were still along the ceremonial track or 'murroo'.[114]
As early as 1838 the Gundagai and Yass areas were being terrorised by armed bushrangers. Four men held up Robert Phillips and took a horse, the property of William Hutchinson, (who had possession of the land to the immediate north of Gundagai), of Murrumbidgee.[115][116] On one occasion in 1843 a gang of five bushrangers, including the bushranger called 'Blue Cap',[117] held up and robbed Mr Andrews, the Gundagai postmaster and innkeeper.[118] Cushan the bushranger was known to be operating in the area in 1846,[119] and in 1850, to the south of Gundagai near Tarcutta, two bushrangers held up the Royal Mail, stole the Albury and Melbourne mailbags and rode off with the mail coach's horses.[120] In 1862 at Bethungra to the west of Gundagai in the Gundagai Police District, the bushranger Jack-in-the-Boots was captured.[121] The clank of Jack-in-the-Boots' leg irons as he paced up and down at Gundagai gaol may still be heard.[122] A plot to rescue Jack-in-the-Boots whose real name was Molloy, from police custody while he was being transferred from Gundagai to Yass gaol, was discovered.[123] In February 1862, the bushranger Peisley was captured near Mundarlo and by that evening was lodged in the Gundagai Gaol.[124] Peisley was later hanged at Bathurst.[125] In 1863, the bushrangers Stanley and Jones were arrested at Tumut after they had allegedly stolen saddles at Gundagai and hatched a plan to rob Mr. Norton's store. Stanley could not be identified.[126] In 1864, Jones was found not guilty.[127] Sergeant Parry was shot and killed in 1864 by the bushranger John Gilbert in a hold-up of the mail coach near Jugiong. Gilbert was a member of Ben Hall's gang that was active in the district in 1863-64.[128] Patrick Gately and Patrick Lawler held up Keane's pub at Coolac in April, 1866.[129] Also in the 1860s, to the north of Adelong, the bushranger Hawthorne mistook a man by the name of Grant for William Williams the gold mine owner, and killed Grant.[130] By 1869, Harry Power, early mentor of famous Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, was committing holdups near Adelong[131] and as icing on the cake, by 1874 the bushranger prettily known as Jerry Blossom, was entertaining the district.[132] In 1880, bushrangers held up the Chinese Camp at Gundagai then fled on horseback towards Burra, a locality known to harbour louts and for the ferocious fires that roar through the area.[133][134]
Ned Kelly was considered by some merely a cold-blooded killer, while by others a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against oppression by the British ruling class for his defiance of the colonial authorities. Ned Kelly and his lieutenant, Joe Byrne, had family links to the Gundagai area. Dan Kelly, Ned's brother, at one point negotiated a transaction at a Gundagai bank. The first name 'Ned' became a euphemism for the bunyip as the sight of Ned and his men in their armour was so challenging that it had some who were at the final confrontation with police that took place at Glenrowan on 28 June 1880, thinking the Kelly Gang were bunyips.[135] Bluey and Ned (the bunyip), are old-time Gundagai characters.[136]
Ned Kelly, who also called himself J. Thompson, and his stepfather George King who was also known as George Stuckey, led a Victoria and New South Wales stock stealing operation stealing stock in Victoria and trading it in southern New South Wales, and stealing in New South Wales and selling it in Victoria.[137] Early in 1879, some Gundagai residents were in fear that the Ned Kelly gang was going to pay the town a visit.[138][139] Extra rifles and ammunition to defend the town, were applied for and special constables were sworn in.[140] Senior Constable Webb-Bowen, who was shot and killed in the battle with Captain Moonlite and his gang at Wantabadgery, was sent to Gundagai in case the Kelly Gang did turn up in the town. In Novemebr 1879, Victoria police watched the partially crippled, probably homosexual ex-convict and ex-preacher,[141] Moonlite and his gang as they progressed north through Victoria then on into New South Wales on what was claimed by the gang to be a possum-hunting picnic. Superintendent John Sadlier of the Victoria Police claimed that Moonlite contacted the Kelly Gang as Moonlite and his men made that journey north through Victoria and asked to join them, which received a very, very negative response from Ned Kelly who threatened to shoot Moonlite if he came anywhere near him, Kelly.[142] Till Victorian police arrived at Gundagai after the capture of Captain Moonlite and his surviving men in November 1879 after the Wantabadgery siege and shootout, no one was sure if any of those captured or shot by police were members of Ned Kelly's gang.[143] When news of the Moonlite gang's siege reached Gundagai the Gundagai court, that was just about to begin its session, was adjourned so that all the police in the town could travel to McGlede's farm. Gundagai went under the protection of the previously sworn in special constables. Police strength at McGlede's was strengthened by a contingent of armed railway workers from Junee.[144]
Captain Moonlight/Moonlite is a name used as a euphemism for a secret, 18th-century Irish organization often known as 'Whiteboys' or 'Levellers' that fought for social justice through such means as agitating against the oppression of smallholder rural farmers by larger landowners, and oppression of workers by their masters. Captain Moonlite the bushranger was particularly interested in improving conditions for prisoners in Victorian and New South Wales gaols, and levelling the wealth of banks. Captain Charles Sturt the famous Murrumbidgee River explorer who made two journeys of exploration through Gundagai, joined the British army as an ensign in 1813 and for a while served in Ireland as well as elsewhere. In Ireland Sturt passed through some stirring experiences in connection with the Whiteboy organisation, which sprang into being as the result of numerous evictions, and spread rapidly through many counties,for a time establishing a reign of terror. Sturt was called one night to defend a farmhouse attacked by the Whiteboys, and his experience on this occasion was such as to destroy all sympathy with Irish agitators. He found among the ruins of a farmhouse the dead bodies of a beautiful girl and of other members of the family.[145]
The North Gundagai Anglican cemetery contains the graves of two policemen shot in the district by bushrangers. Senior Constable Webb-Bowen was killed by Captain Moonlite in November 1879 in a hostage incident at McGlede's farm.[146] Trooper Edmund Parry, killed in an encounter with Ben Hall's gang near Jugiong lies at rest next to the grave of Senior Constable Webb-Bowen. Captain Moonlite is also buried in the North Gundagai Anglican cemetery.[147] Captain Moonlite had been asked to be buried at Gundagai near his friends James Nesbitt and Augustus Wernicke . Both had been killed in the shoot-out at McGlede's Hut. Moonlite's request was not granted by the authorities of the time, but his remains were exhumed from Rookwood Cemetery and reinterred at Gundagai near to the unknown location of Nesbitt's grave in January 1995.[128] Moonlite rests in a simple grave, some way up the hill at the Anglican cemetery at North Gundagai, under the shade of a eucalypt tree, with a rock from the time Australia was born as his memorial, looking down the hill towards the more ostentatious, obelisk shaped memorial of one of his nemeses, Senior-Constable Webb-Bowen.
In the 1950s bushrangers reappeared in the Gundagai area, jumping into the trailers of heavy transports moving along the Hume Highway and throwing contents out to nearby accomplices.[148][149]
In 1993 a Gundagai native, Tony Percival, was shot dead in the northern NSW mining town of Hillgrove by the perpetrators of the Cangai siege, Len Leabeater, Raymond Bassett and Robert Steele in their nine-day, two-state murderous rampage.[150]
To the east of Gundagai, local Aboriginal cultural tradition traditionally ran downstream into the Murrumbidgee, then on to Gundagai rather than upstream to Tumut.[151] As well as bunyip stories, Brungle Aboriginal women relate the story of the 'Mirriyolla Dog' a spirit dog that could shapeshift. Willie wagtails or djirri djirris were known to listen into conversations so it was wise to not repeat confidences. A man with no head called 'Craypton' lived up on 'Killimicat' and would ride down the mountain of a night on a horse. The blue glow of the Min Min light sometimes identified as a fata morgana phenomenon, is also known in the Gundagai area and Aboriginal people were taught to run if they saw it.[152] The Mirriyolla Ghost Dog is also known of in Cootamundra a few miles to the north-west of Gundagai and lives in the Bethungra Range that is partly in Gundagai Shire. This ghost dog hunts on just one night a year, the longest night.[153]
Gundagai has recorded several ghost and will-o'-the-wisp sightings. Will-O'-the-Wisp is Will the Smith. Will is a wicked blacksmith who is given a second chance by Saint Peter at the gates to Heaven, but leads such a bad life that he ends up being doomed to wander the Earth. The Devil provides him with a single burning coal with which to warm himself, which he then used to lure foolish travellers into the marshes. One tall and shadowy ... supernatural visitant that appeared from under a culvert in Gundagai in 1869, severely alarmed a horse and its rider, and exhibited a livid, phosphoric light such as a rotting fish might display.[154]
Mrs Moroney at Jones Creek, Gundagai, was often visited by a ghost in 1873. The ghost wore a grey tweed suit and had a red beard. Sometimes one half of him would appear to those he chose to favour with his presence, and at other times, the other half was seen. Mrs Moroney spoke to her clergyman and also the Bishop and then vacated her residence. A nearby resident, Mr Carey, then began to receive visits by the same spectre. Mr Carey corroborated Mrs Moroney’s description of the ghost and dealt with it by hitting it on the head with a shovel the next time it paid him a visit.[155] The shovel bounced off so next Mr Carey set the dogs on it and the ghost retreated through the doorway.[15]
Co-founder of the Gundagai Museum, Oscar Bell, British Empire Medal recipient for services to the community including preserving and recording Gundagai history,[156] and President of the Gundagai and District Historical Society, told of the ghost of a little old woman that alarmed a newly arrived in Australia, Irish pastoral worker named Dennis Kilker. A ghost of the same description, (which may have been a Cailleach, or Washer at the Ford also known as a Bean Nighe, given the Celtic mythological elements in the story), was also reported by a tourist named Ryan who passed through the area in the 1960s. Bell then went on to remember the ghost of Kimo Hill, a couple of miles to the south of Gundagai, that is thought to belong to a lost or stolen child who went missing in the area, in the 1830s.[157] 'Kimo Hill' is a child hill of the 'Kimo Range' that has become distanced from its mother hill, 'Mount Kimo', on the northern end of the Sheahan Bridge at North Gundagai.[158]
A young lady was reputed to have drowned herself in Morley's Creek near the old Gundagai Flour Mill, in 1887 and ever since, some people when walking past the mill report seeing the image of a sad young woman looking out from the upper windows of the building.[159] More recently a Gundagai resident saw a ghost at the old Gundagai Gaol and wrote a song about her.[160] By 1923, there were so many ghosts and other white clad entities in Gundagai that they all got together for a ball at which they danced the hours away to weird music, cutting strange capers on the dancefloor, all the time viewed by a large audience.[161]
The old Gundagai Flour Mill in Sheridan Lane was also known as 'The Sundowners' for the swaggies that camped there each night.[162] 'Sam the Sundowner' a famous Australian swaggie and principal character in the Australian comedy drama, 'The Road to Gundagai',[163] was a regular resident at the Gundagai 'Sundowners' and was known for the rescues he made of near to drowning people from the inland rivers.[164]
In 1901, there was a very large camp of unemployed men and their families at South Gundagai waiting for the proposed Gundagai Rail Line to begin construction. Five hundred of these men marched from south to north Gundagai accompanied by the town band, to try to move commencement of the project, forward.[165] There was a railway worker canvas town near the Gundagai Rail Station. Rail workers and their families who moved to Gundagai to work on the rail line, lived in tents in that area into the 1950s. The Chinese camp was in the area of today's Bowls Club as were the Chinese gardens. Burials of deceased Chinese people were in the pagan ground.[166] All mine sites, of which there were several around Gundagai such as Burra, Reno, Jackalass, Jones Creek and Coolac, had miner's camps at or near them. The hill to the north of Gundagai known as Flower Hill once had a large tent settlement that was larger than the permanent North Gundagai residential area. Likewise the Spring Flat goldfield adjacent to the North Gundagai cemetery resulted in a sizeable tent township appearing there.
There were several riverboats associated with Gundagai. The 'Explorer', the 'Gundagai', the 'Albury', the 'Nangus' and the 'J.H.P.'. Captain Francis Cadell ran the first steamer on the Murray River in 1853. In 1856 the sister steamers, the 'Albury' and the 'Gundagai' were bought from Scotland to Goolwa in pieces, by Captain Cadell, assembled at Goolwa then launched.[167]
In 1855 Captain Cadell was aboard the paddlewheel steamer 'Gundagai' for the first journey in it north of Goolwa,[168] then in 1856 explored the Edward River system as Captain of the 'Gundagai'.[169] By 1865, the steamer 'Gundagai' under the command of Captain Cadell, was providing a transport service between Wanganui and the Waitotara in New Zealand, and getting supplies to troops,[170] in support of the British Crown and the Crown's involvement in the New Zealand Wars. Captain Cadell became 'Superintendent of Colonial Transport (water)' for New Zealand.[171] On 25 June 1866 near Patea New Zealand, the little paddlewheel steamer and expert crosser of sandbars, the 'Gundagai' went onshore and broke in half. All hands were rescued.[172]
On the 16th September, 1858, the steamer 'Albury', under the command of Captain George Johnston with Captain Cadell on board, moored at Gundagai[173] on the north bank of the Murrumbidgee at what was hoped to be named the 'Albury Wharf', after taking a bit over a month to ascend the Murrumbidgee from Lake Alexandrina. The 'Albury' was the first steamer known to visit Gundagai. Three Gundagai Aboriginal people were very pleased to see the 'Albury'.[174] likely considering it was a worthy competitor with their bark canoes of which they were expert boat builders and in which they were also expert rivermen especially in situations such as the horrific 1852 Gundagai flood.
The steamer 'Albury' was tied up to an old gum tree at Gundagai by Mr Norton of Gundagai who two years previously had the honour of naming the boat that set off from Gundagai to survey the Murrumbidgee under the command of Captain Robinson, the 'Explorer'.[175] Captain Robinson's 1855 survey of the Murrumbidgee in the 'Explorer' was for the purpose of ascertaining If that river presents any serious impediments to internal navigation and the incentive for that survey came from Captain Cadell.[176]
The steamer 'Nangus' was constructed by the engineer Mr. Chapman of Sydney, at Nangus Station near Gundagai for Mr Jenkins, owner of Nangus Station, to ply the Murrumbidgee River between Gundagai and Hay and she made her maiden journey in 1865. The steamer 'Nangus' was a 12 horsepower, 70 feet long iron vessel, with two side paddles and towing two iron barges.[177] The 'Nangus' sank near Wagga after hitting a snag in 1867.[178]
The steamer 'J.H.P.' was launched in 1866 and sank between Hay and Balranald in October 1868. It was raised but sank twice more than was dismantled in 1879.[179] On the 20th September 1870, the steamer 'J.H.P.' owned by Edward Warby,[180] journeyed up the Murrumbidgee from Wagga to Gundagai without incident. On her return journey she took on bagged lime at Mundarlo, then came to grief near Yabtree after ramming into a large oak tree on the riverbank, and sank. The cargo was lost.[181]
Captain Cadell lost all his money through trying to establish a riverboat trade on the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. After his New Zealand experiences he purchased a small steamer called the 'Gem' and commenced mother-of-pearl shell fishing on the Nor'West coast of Australia with a Malay crew. He was returning his crew home when their time working for him had expired when they killed him to obtain access to the 'Gem's' onboard safe containing money. The British Admiralty sent out a search vessel from Chinese waters and the remains of the burned out 'Gem' and three of her crew were found and the mutiny events on board the 'Gem' and the murder of Captain Cadell, ascertained.[182]
In 1867 a wrought iron lattice truss bridge, the Prince Alfred bridge, was completed across the Murrumbidgee River, with a timber viaduct leading to it across the river's flood plain. The bridge was designed by Francis Bell.[183] and has a total length of 921 metres and was the first iron truss bridge to be built in New South Wales.[184] Until 1932 when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was completed, the Prince Alfred bridge was the longest bridge in New South Wales.[97] In 1902 a second (railway) bridge was built, with a total length of 819 metres.
In 1977 the Sheahan bridge was opened, a concrete and steel bridge on the Hume Highway. At 1,143 metres (3,750 ft),[185] it is the second longest bridge in Australia after the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It replaced the Prince Alfred bridge as the crossing of the Murrumbidgee River. The bridge was named after Bill Sheahan (1895–1975), who was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Yass from 1941–1950 and for Burrinjuck from 1950–1973 and held various ministerial portfolios.[186]
Other than tourism generated by romantic bush appeal and the historic bridges, Gundagai's economy remains driven by sheep and cattle, as well as wheat, lucerne and maize production.
As of 2005, secondary industries in Gundagai included the Gundagai Meat Processors Plant and D J Lynch Engineering. The meatworks is the shire's largest single employer with over 100 employees.[6] The latter firm has produced work for major construction projects, including building steel spans for the Olympic Stadium.[187]
Gold was identified by the geologist Rev. W. B. Clarke at Gundagai in 1842.[188] A gold rush hit the area in 1858 following further discoveries of gold and mining continued initially until 1875 and following a second gold rush in 1894, mines operated again until well into the 20th Century with some mining activity still occurring in 2007. The best known historical mines were the 'Robinson and Rice's Mine' (Long Tunnel Mine) a few miles to the south west of Gundagai and the 'Prince of Wales Mine' (where Herbert Hoover, the future President of the United States, was the mining engineer in about 1900[189]) a few miles to the immediate west of Gundagai. Both mines struck the orebody in quartz reefs along serpentine/diorite contact zones with finds of gold telluride (of bismuith origin) also found.[190]
Asbestos was first mined commercially in Australia, at Gundagai.[191] Actinolite was mined along Jones Creek just to the west of the town but there are several deposits in the immediate area. Some fibres were two feet long.[192] Prior to 1918 this was the only source of asbestos in New South Wales. Northern Gundagai is built on a hill sometimes known as 'Asbestos Hill' and excavations in the area free the asbestos into the air.[193]
Chromite, talc, magnesite, copper and slate were also mined at Gundagai.
Local monumental mason, Frank Rusconi, carved a miniature Baroque Italian palace from 20,948 pieces of marble collected from around New South Wales. The work is 1.2 metres high and, commencing in 1910, took 28 years to complete. It can be seen in the Gundagai tourist office.[128] Rusconi was also the sculptor of the base of the Dog on the Tuckerbox monument. As bronze was not Rusconi's medium, the rest of the monument was cast at Oliver's Foundry in Sydney.[194][195]
The Niagara cafe opened in 1938 and was a notable stop on the Hume Highway.[196] The cafe makes much of a brief visit by then Prime Minister, John Curtin, in 1942, with a display in the window of the cafe of the crockery used by Curtin and Curtin's link to the cafe.[147]
A number of places in Gundagai are on the New South Wales state heritage register and on the Register of the National Estate.[197]
Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers, including writers of poems and songs,[204] and has become the representation of the typical Australian country town. Gundagai also has a long and strong oral tradition of folklore particular to place that in no small way is due to the site of Gundagai and its many thousands of years long occupation by Australian Aboriginal people being the original foundation population that holds continuing traditional custodianship of place. In turn, as a direct result of colonialism by England from the 1800s onward, the current culturally diverse Celtic and Anglo-Saxon origin dominant in numbers population evolved at Gundagai at high cost to the original inhabitants. As well as being a site of highly significant Australian Aboriginal culture, Gundagai is also along a route that Australian explorers took to the south and south-west, and a popular meeting place in the nineteenth century for teamsters (or bullockys), bush travellers, swagmen, shearers and drovers,[3] and more recent small town cultural aspects of place. Gundagai can offer multiple layers of intangible cultural heritage as well as tangible representations of the local story for those who seek more than a sticky bun and a mug of main street coffee.
Gundagai, perhaps more than any other Australian locality, is referenced in stories, songs and poems. These include Theta's poem,'Ode to the Dead of Gundagai'.[205] James Riley, 'The Gundagai Calamity',[206] Jack Moses and others in 'Nine Miles From Gundagai',[207]Jack O'Hagan songs 'Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox (five miles from Gundagai)', 'Along The Road To Gundagai',[208] 'Snake Gully Swagger',[209] and 'When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai,'[210] Gundagai also features in the song 'The Grand Old Hills of Gundagai,'[211] It is referenced in Scottish band Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie's song 'Dust'.
Other references in literature include Banjo Paterson's 'The Road to Gundagai,'[212] and the traditional ballad 'Flash Jack from Gundagai'.[213] Additionally, the town is mentioned in Henry Lawson's 'Scots of the Riverina,'[214] and C. J. Dennis' 'The Traveller.'[215] Miles Franklin's 'Brent of Bin Bin,' saga is set in the area and it includes an account of the flood of 1852.[216]
In the early twentieth century, Louis Gabriel, the town's doctor, took up photography. The negatives were preserved and presented to the National Library of Australia after his death and a selection were published in 1976 as a Gundagai Album.[217]