Warialda - Culture and History

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Warialda - Culture and History

The town's name is said to mean 'place of wild honey' and presumably derives from the tongue of the original inhabitants, the Weraerai Aborigines. Escaped convicts were probably the first Europeans in the shire, although Allan Cunningham was the first official visitor in 1827.

The first white settlement alongside Reedy Creek dates from 1837. A police outstation was established here around 1840. The townsite was gazetted in 1849. Two years later the population was recorded as being 45. Nonetheless Warialda became the first administrative centre of the north-west with a mining warden, magistrate and lands commissioner based in the village.

The railway arrived in 1901 and the population peaked in 1911 at 1 762 but slowly declined thereafter. The bushranger 'Thunderbolt' (alias Fred Ward) was active in the area in the mid-1860s, holding up the Warialda mail in 1865. The town was also the birthplace of Elizabeth Kenny (1886-1952) who spent her early childhood here and later dedicated her life to helping children afflicted with infantile paralysis, developing a revolutionary polio treatment program. She was christened in the font which is now situated in the town's Anglican Church of Saint Simon and St Jude.

The town's Agricultural Show is held in May.

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