Walgett - Culture and History

The first European in the area was John Oxley who named and crossed the Castlereagh River to the south during an exploration of the interior in 1818. Charles Sturt pushed further north along the Castlereagh in 1829, coming to within 32 km of present-day Walgett.

Escaped convict George Clarke (see entry on Boggabri) crossed the district with the Kamilaroi people in the years 1826-1831. Upon his recapture he told of a vast inland river called the Kindur which prompted the acting governor to send Sir Thomas Mitchell to investigate the claims. Mitchell encountered the Barwon River in 1832, a little south of present-day Mungindi.

It was Mitchell's favourable report on the pastoral prospects of the area which prompted squatters to fan out in the 1830s, heading north from the Hunter Valley along the Namoi then west along the Gwydir River to the Barwon, or north from Bathurst and Mudgee along the Macquarie and Castlereagh Rivers. The first settlement on the Barwon occurred between 1839 and 1842.

Relations between the white settlers and the Kamilaroi peoples along the Barwon and Macintyre Rivers were particularly ugly. There were the usual conflicts over land, food, customs and the rape of black women but matters weren't helped by the Myall Creek Massacre (see entry on Bingara) and the murderous actions of Major Nunn's troop on the Namoi River. Both outrages were inflicted upon the Kamilaroi and both occurred in 1838 as white settlement of the Barwon was commencing. Along with drought and economic recession, this conflict successfully slowed settlement until the introduction of the native police whose tactics and firearms had effectively quashed resistance by 1850. The Aborigines then retreated. Some returned to work as station hands. Today there are a relatively large number of indigenous people in the town and outlying reserves.

A tent was pitched at a crossing on the Namoi River in 1851 (on the land now occupied by the golf course) and it served as the colony's outermost post office. It was named 'Wallgett' (sic), although the spelling and pronunciation varied greatly at first.

In 1859 a townsite was surveyed and gazetted on high ground by Arthur Dewhurst who named two of the major streets after himself. Namoi, Euroka and Wee Waa Sts were named after landmarks to which they pointed, while Fox, Peel and Pitt Sts were inspired by British prime ministers. As the settlement was principally connected to the rest of the colony via Wee Waa this was initially the main road. However, when the main access road became that from the south, Fox St functioned as the principal thoroughfare.

In 1860 a slab hut police station was built, a court of petty sessions established and the first store and hotels erected. Walgett became the centre of a new police district in 1863. A courthouse and lock-up were added in 1865, though drought hampered the development of the town and district.

In 1868 a party of travellers were bailed up by Captain Starlight (Frank Pearson) and Charles Rutherford, who stole monies and a pistol. However, this was the beginning of the end for Starlight as the party were able to give good descriptions of the men to the police who would capture Starlight near Bourke the following year (for the full story of Starlight see entry on Enngonia).

However, from 1876, until the depression of the 1890s, the town entered a boom period. As the original squatting leases expired the area was slowly opened to closer settlement. There was an influx of private and government capital and improvements were made to the squatting runs which were fenced and irrigated. Bore water was first tapped in 1872 and sheep began to supplement cattle after pleuro-pneumonia devastated the herds. A regular coach service to Sydney commenced in 1874. Labour was in plentiful supply as the goldfields wound down and the area experienced a wool boom which encouraged the migration of free selectors.

The first bank opened in 1876 and a school and hospital were built. A bridge over the Barwon was built in 1877, and 1881 saw the completion of some more substantial government edifices - namely a courthouse and police station in Wee Waa St and a post office of brick. Future prime minister Edmund Barton was the crown prosecutor at the first court of quarter sessions in 1878. A brewery was established in the 1880s, though it closed in 1910.