Prior to European settlement the area was inhabited by the Gundungura Aborigines. In 1798 John Wilson and his party became the first Europeans to see the Goulburn Plains. In 1818 the exploratory party of Hamilton Hume and James Meehan traversed the Plains and named them after Henry Goulburn, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The following year Governor Macquarie ordered the construction of the Great South Road (the basis of the Hume Highway) from Picton to the Goulburn Plains. He travelled to the Plains in 1820 and found 'a noble, extensive, rich meadow near a fine large pond of fresh water, the cattle being up to their bellies in as fine, long sweet grass as I have seen anywhere'. He also noted the good water supply, timbered hills and general suitability of the area for grazing and crops. Two days later John Oxley became the first European to walk upon the future townsite.
Settlers soon followed in Macquarie's wake. The first on the townsite was Andrew Allan who arrived in 1825. The Plains were used for stock-raising and wheat-growing although wheat production slowly faded out from the 1860s. Goulburn's reputation as a producer and exporter of fine merino wool was established in the early 1830s although transportation to Sydney was agonisingly slow until the 1850s. The fruits of the pastoralists' success are evident in the distinguished colonial mansions which dot the local landscape.
A town plan was drawn up in 1828 with a view to settling discharged soldiers. A few allotments were taken up but Governor Bourke thought it too flood-prone and, in 1832, ordered a re-survey on higher ground. The new site was gazetted in 1833 while the original site is now part of Goulburn North. An inn and store were operational by 1832.
The Great South Rd was re-routed by Thomas Mitchell in the 1830s and Goulburn was placed in its trajectory for the first time, rendering the new town a major stopover and regional centre.
The establishment of a lock-up in 1830 and a gallows/flogging post in 1832 reflects the fact that Goulburn was also a garrison town in the early days. This is related, firstly, to the fact that Goulburn was a centre for police parties hunting highwaymen who frequented the area until the arrival of the railway. Bushranger John Williams, alias 'Duce', a member of 'Blue Cap's' gang, was born at Goulburn in 1846 and it was in Goulburn court that Frank Gardiner was convicted of horse stealing and sentenced to seven years gaol at Cockatoo Island. Ben Hall's bushranging gang, including John Gilbert and John Dunn, harried the area in the mid-1860s. They raided homesteads and vehicles on the Great South Rd, including the Sydney Mail Coach. A sign adjacent the Goulburn-Braidwood Rd, 17 km south of town, details a confrontation between the gang and the four Faithfull brothers (all in their teens) who successfully repelled the attack from their wagon during a running gun battle.
Secondly, a major stockade for chain-bound convicts and others involved in the construction of the Great South Road was located at Towrang, 15 km north-east, from around 1836 to 1842. The stockade became the principal penal establishment in the southern district and was noted for its harsh discipline. There were usually at least 250 convicts hutted there. They slept on bare boards with a blanket apiece, 10 men to a box or cell. One of the two official floggers was later found murdered.
The first school and church opened in 1839 and the Goulburn Herald, one of Australia's first country newspapers, was established in 1848. It was later incorporated into the Goulburn Post which is still published.
The settlement began to expand after 1850 due to a number of causes: the pastoral industry had expanded, gold was discovered at Braidwood in the early 1850s (although a local labour shortage was the immediate result), selectors began to arrive from the 1860s and the railway was opened in 1869, facilitating access to the Sydney markets. The town remained the southern railhead until 1875.
As a result of these developments, Goulburn was gazetted as a municipality in 1859 and it became the first inland Australian city in 1863. The railway was especially crucial as a catalyst for the town's boom period in the 1870s and 1880s when industries such as coach-building, iron foundries and saddlery-making began to develop. In 1884 a new gaol at North Goulburn was completed. It is still functioning as a rather notorious maximum-security prison. A dairy factory was set up in 1901 and woollen mills in 1922. Goulburn has also been a major wool sales centre since 1930.
The grave of energetic exploratory pastoralist Patsy Durack is in the pioneer cemetery. He died in Fremantle on 20 January 1898 and was buried there. Later he was reinterred in Goulburn. Famous explorer William Hovell is buried in St Saviour's Cemetery in Cemetery St.
In the literary sphere, distinguished poet Christopher Brennan taught at St Patrick's College at Goulburn in 1891 and noted Australian author Miles Franklin (born 1880) lived on a property at nearby Thornford from 1889 to 1903. She began writing in 1895 and published her first prose piece in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post in 1896. Her best known work, My Brilliant Career, was written in 1898-99 at Thornford, which features in that work, in Pioneers on Parade (1939) and My Career Goes Bung (1946).
The Lilac City Festival is held annually on the October long weekend. It includes the Lilac City Country Music Jamboree. The Australian Blues Music Festival is held in February, as is the Goulburn Rodeo. March witnesses the Goulburn Show and the Goulburn City Rose Festival.
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