Place:Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia

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Bathurst is a city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Bathurst is about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west-northwest of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Regional Council. Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and had a population of 37,191 in June 2019.

Bathurst is often referred to as the Gold Country as it was the site of the first gold discovery and where the first gold rush occurred in Australia. Today education, tourism and manufacturing drive the economy. The internationally known racetrack Mount Panorama is a landmark of the city. Bathurst has a historic city centre with many ornate buildings remaining from the New South Wales gold rush in the mid to late 19th century.

The median age of the city's population is 35 years; which is particularly young for a regional centre (the state median is 38), and is related to the large education sector in the community. The city has had a moderate population growth of 1.29% year-on-year averaged over the five years until 2019, making Bathurst the tenth fastest-growing urban area in New South Wales outside Sydney.^[1] This growth over recent years has resulted in increased urban development, including retail precincts, sporting facilities, housing estates and expanding industrial areas.

History

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Wiradjuri

The area around what is now called Bathurst was originally occupied by the Muurrai clan of the Wiradjuri people. It was known as dalman or place of plenty. Yam fields were cultivated on the fertile floodplain and fire-stick farming was utilised to maintain grassy pasture for wild game. The Wiradjuri were noted by early colonists for their neat mandiyaba or possum-skin cloaks which were decorated with artistic etchings known as burwurr.^[2] British colonial settlement into this area began in 1815 and was expanded in 1818 when Governor Lachlan Macquarie removed restrictions that limited colonial settlements. Once these restrictions were removed the Wiradjuri people suffered major dislocation, death and disruption to their way of life.

Early British colonisation (1815–1850)

The government surveyor, George Evans, was the first European to sight the Bathurst Plains in 1813, following the first successful British crossing of the Blue Mountains in the same year. In 1814, Governor Lachlan Macquarie approved an offer by William Cox to build a road crossing the Blue Mountains, from Emu Plains to the Bathurst Plains. This road was wide and long, built between 18 July 1814 and 14 January 1815 using 5 freemen, 30 convict labourers and 8 soldiers as guards. Twenty convicts and soldiers remained stationed at terminus of the road at the Bathurst Plains. These were the first non-Indigenous residents of what was to become Bathurst but was simply referred to until May 7 of that year as the Grand Depot. Governor Macquarie surveyed the finished road in April 1815, travelling along it to the Grand Depot with his wife and an entourage of 50 officials, soldiers and servants.

On 7 May 1815, Governor Macquarie raised the British flag at the Grand Depot, ordered a ceremonial volley to be fired and named the military outpost as Bathurst after the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst. Bathurst thereby became the oldest inland British settlement in Australia. William Cox, who was appointed the first Commandant of Bathurst, and William Lawson were promised large grants of land in the area and soon sent herds of their livestock to the region.

The Bathurst region was opened up to wider British settlement in 1818 when Macquarie granted ten men of land each. These men were William Lee, Richard Mills, Thomas Kite, Thomas Swanbrooke, George Cheshire, John Abbott, John and James Blackman, John Neville and John Godden. These grants were located at what is now White Rock and Kelso. In 1818, Governor Macquarie stated in his diary:

This morning I inspected 10 new settlers for Bathurst. I have agreed to grant each 50 acres of land, a servant, a cow, four bushels [141 litres] of wheat, an allotment in the new town, and to receive into the King's Store at Bathurst all the Wheat they can grow for the first 12 months.

In 1819, frontier conflicts between local Wiradjuri groups and encroaching settlers began when Aboriginal people were shot and others mauled by the colonists' dogs. When Governor Brisbane opened the Bathurst area to wider colonisation from 1822, the subsequent large influx of graziers led to a more intense conflict over land and resources known as the Bathurst War.^[2] The Wiradjuri, led by leaders such as Windradyne, continued to resist settler encroachment until martial law was declared in August 1824, after which settlers conducted several raids against Wiradjuri settlements; colonists such as Theophilus Chamberlain, the superintendent for William Cox, perpetrated several massacres. In response, Major James Thomas Morisset was appointed commandant of Bathurst to restore order, conducting several sweeps across the landscape. Martial law ended in December 1824 as the remaining Wiradjuri were forced to make peace with the colonial authorities.^[2]

Gold rush era (1851–1860s)

Flecks of gold were first discovered in the Fish River in February 1823, but it was 12 February 1851 in a Bathurst Hotel when Edward Hargraves announced the discovery of payable gold. Soon, gold was found at Ophir (later Sofala) and Hill End in the 1850s.

Hill End, called 'Bald Hills' in 1850, 'Forbes' in 1860 and finally Hill End in 1862 was part of the Tambaroora district. At its peak had a population of 7 000 people. Hill End's fame is the finding of the 'Holtermann Specimen (Correctly the Beyers Holtermann Specimen)' on 20 October 1871 being the largest single mass of gold ever discovered in the world, a record that still stands today. Found in 1872 this single mass of quartz and gold weighed 630 lbs and when crushed produced and est. of 3000 troy oz (205 lbs or 93 kg) of gold, thus processed held more gold then the processed gold from largest nugget ever found, that being the Welcome Stranger from the Victorian Goldfields. Holtermann recognizing the significance of the find attempted to preserve it by buying it from the Company of which he was one of a number of directors. His efforts were in vain. It is reported that a larger mass was discovered a few days later in the same mine but was broken up underground. Absolutely reliant on Gold, the towns decline was dramatic once the Gold ran out before the 1900s. Photo: Hotlermann with the Beyers-Holterman Specimen

In the 1860s, the town of Bathurst began to boom. Bathurst was to become the first gold centre of Australia. The nearby gold localities would transport their gold to Bathurst^[3] then to Sydney. The mail and gold transport coaches became an obvious target for bushrangers, which became a major problem for the authorities. The Ribbon Gang and the Bathurst Rebellion occurred in 1830, when a large group of over 80 convicts roamed the Bathurst district. They were eventually captured and charged with murder, bushranging and horse-thieving. On 2 November 1830, ten members of the Ribbon Boys were hanged in Bathurst for their crimes. The site of the first and largest public hanging in Bathurst is still marked by the laneway sign Ribbon Gang Lane in the CBD. Ben Hall, who became a notorious bushranger, was married in St Michael's Church at Bathurst in 1856. In October 1863, a gang of five (including Hall) raided Bathurst, robbing a jeweller's shop, bailed up the Sportsmans Arms Hotel and tried to steal a racehorse. They returned three days later and held up more businesses. John Peisley, another bushranger, was tried and hanged for murder at Bathurst Gaol in 1862.

Bathurst's economy was transformed by the discovery of gold in 1851. One illustration of the prosperity gold brought to Bathurst is the growth and status of hotels and inns. The first licensed inn within the township was opened in 1835, the Highland Laddie. At the peak of hotel activity in 1875, coinciding with the gold rush period, there were 61 operating concurrently. A total of 89 hotel locations have been identified in the town of Bathurst, with 112 operating in the immediate district during the course of the history in Bathurst. Initially many pubs were simply a cottage with stables. As prosperity increased during the gold rush, the Hotels became typical of architecture of pubs known today.

Development to Federation (1860s–1910)

The Cobb & Co business was a horse drawn coaching transport business originally established in Victoria but relocated to Bathurst in 1862 to follow the gold rush. The business provided gold escorts, mail services and passenger services to the towns and rural settlements. Cobb & Co. coaches were constructed in the coaching workshops located in Bathurst and the Bathurst Information Centre contains a restored Cobb & Co. coach.

Bathurst later became the centre of an important coal-mining and manufacturing region. The Main Western railway line from Sydney reached Bathurst in 1876. From that time, the town became an important railway centre with workshops, crew base with locomotive depot and track and signal engineering offices. It remains today as the railway regional engineering headquarters with a large rail component manufacturing facility.

The heritage listed Bathurst Courthouse, a predominant landmark of the city centre, was constructed in 1880 based on designs by the New South Wales Colonial and Government architects, James Barnet and Walter Liberty Vernon.

In 1885, Bathurst had a population of about 8,000 and an additional 20,000 people in the district. The town in 1885 was a hub for stores such as E.G. Webb & Co. with supplies and distribution occurring throughout large parts of western NSW and into Queensland and South Australia.^[3]

Early 20th century

This period is characterised by periods of slow to moderate population growth, with industrial and education industries developing and technology and services delivered to the town. Several major infrastructure developments arrive such as distributed town gas, electricity, town water supplies, and a sewage treatment system. Town gas had arrived in Bathurst courtesy of a private venture in 1872, with the Council providing a competing network from 1888. On 30 June 1914, the Council purchased the Wark Bros gas system and combined the gas networks. The old gasworks plant on Russell Street (now out of use) was built in 1960. In 1987 natural gas arrived via a new 240 km spur pipeline off the Moomba to Sydney pipeline. The early part of the century saw electricity arrive initially for street lighting; the city converted from gas street lighting to electric lighting on 22 December 1924, when 370 electric lights at a cost of £40,000 were switched on. Lighting spread along streets through to 1935, over time to businesses and finally private houses. Sewage treatment was an early infrastructure project funded by the state government and built in 1915. Water supply started with private wells in backyards. Eventually a waterworks was built to the south of the town on the river with the water pumped through piping laid progressively to the businesses and private dwellings. In 1931, work started on the 1,700 ML Winburndale Dam project to gravity feed water through a wood stave pipe laid to the town. The scheme was opened by the Premier of New South Wales on 7 October 1933. Later, a new larger water supply dam was built on the Campbells River. Originally known as the Campbell River Dam scheme and later renamed the Ben Chifley Dam after the late Prime Minister Ben Chifley of Bathurst. It was opened in November 1956. The Ben Chifley Dam received a major storage upgrade designed to meet the cities needs to 2050; the work was completed in 2001 increasing the capacity by 30% to .

An ambulance service commenced on 6 June 1925 with a new Hudson ambulance. A new ambulance station was opened 2 March 1929 and is still used by the NSW Ambulance Service. Motor cars were becoming common in the early 20th century and the need for road service patrols commenced in 1927, provided by the NRMA using a motorcycle/sidecar response vehicle. The early electronic media age arrived with the opening of commercial radio station 2BS on 1 January 1937. Bathurst Aerodrome was opened in 1942, initially to benefit the war effort providing parking for aircraft overflowing from Richmond air force base. The first commercial airline service departed for Sydney on 16 December 1946.

A famous Australian brand name of frozen foods began in Bathurst. Robert Gordon Edgell arrived in Bathurst in 1902. By 1906, he was growing pears, apples and asparagus and experimenting with canning and preserving fruit and vegetables, eventually opening a small cannery in 1926. In 1930, he formed the company Gordon Edgell & Sons which became, and still is, a famous Australian food brand, now owned by Simplot.

Many attempts were made to start a university college, the earliest attempts were 1912 through to 1947 when real progress was made with plans for a state teachers college. The first intake of teacher students came at the beginning of 1951 with the official opening on 9 November 1951. The college has transformed over time into the Mitchell College of Advanced Education on 1 January 1970. The College grew and ultimately became the Charles Sturt University on 19 July 1989.

Bathurst was one of the locations to campaign to be the site of the new federal capital. In an essay prepared by a journalist with the Bathurst Times, Price Warung, in 1901 to promote Bathurst's candidacy, he responds to the federal committees key requirements for the capital to have: "centrality and accessibility of situation, salubrity, and capacity for impregnable defence". The proposed site for the capital city would have been slightly north-west of Bathurst, straddling the Macquarie River, at the locality known as Elrington.

An Australian Army camp was established at Bathurst in early 1940, intended for the Second Australian Imperial Force's 1st Armoured Division; however, it was later converted to an infantry training centre due to the unsuitability of the closely settled area to armoured training. Following World War II, the camp was converted to a migrant reception and training centre, with the first group of migrants arriving in 1948. At times the centre had up to residents at one time,^[3] taking in a total of around 100,000 migrants before its closure in 1952, when Villawood Migrant Centre was opened. Officially Bathurst Migrant Reception and Training Centre, it was usually referred to as Bathurst Migrant Camp.

Population growth

Bathurst's population has had rapid growth periods throughout its history; during the mid to late 19th century gold rush period, then post World War 2 when migrants from the war ravaged countries were settled in the area and returning soldiers were offered farming land, and at the start of this century has been another fast growth period corresponding in part to Sydney's congestion. Other periods have seen a slightly declining population, including the decade around the 1900s and during the 1960s. The following chart illustrates the growth from 1856 to recent times.

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