Mulgoa, New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Mulgoa is a suburb
of Sydney
, in the state of New South Wales
, Australia
. Mulgoa is located 66 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district
, in the local government area of the City of Penrith
and is part of the Greater Western Sydney
region.
Mulgoa is an outer rural suburb that covers 5530 hectares, south of the suburbs of Regentville
and Glenmore Park
.
inhabitants of the area and spoke the Dharug language. The name is believed to mean black swan
. The Mulgoa weren't the only inhabitants of the area. They shared the Mulgoa Valley with the Gandangara people of the Southern Highlands, whose territory extended up into the Blue Mountains. They lived a hunter-gatherer
lifestyle governed by traditional laws, which had their origins in the Dreamtime
. Their homes were bark huts called 'gunyahs'. They hunted kangaroo
s and emu
s for meat, and gathered yam
s, berries and other native plants.
in Sydney, there were a number of bloody battles between the British settlers and the local indigenous people in this area, however, it is believed that the Mulgoa people were generally peaceful and most of the clashes were with the Gandangara. The first government land grants in the area were made in 1810 to Edward Cox, the four-year-old son of Captain William Cox, who constructed a famous road across the Blue Mountains in 1814. William Cox built The Cottage
on the land in about 1811. Not far away dwelt Cox's friend Sir John Jamison
, who erected the colony's finest mansion, Regentville House, in 1824, on an eminence overlooking the Nepean River
. In 1821, three large land grants were made on the Nepean at Mulgoa to the Norton family: James Norton
, the founder of Sydney's first law firm and his father and brother, Nathaniel.
The centre of Mulgoa's spiritual life in the colonial era was St Thomas' Anglican Church, which dates from 1838. It was the first public building in the Mulgoa Valley and was constructed out of sandstone and cedar on paddocks donated by the Cox family, with Sir John Jamison serving as one of its patrons. The Reverend Thomas Cooper Makinson was St Thomas' inaugural rector. Attached to the church was Mulgoa's first school. It operated until 1871-72, when the Mulgoa Provisional School replaced it.
In 1893, Mulgoa's population was sufficiently large to be granted the status of a municipality. Its area extended beyond the current suburb boundaries. In 1949, however, council rationalisations led to it merging with Penrith, St Marys and Castlereagh into a larger Penrith Municipality. These days, Mulgoa is still primarily a rural area.
. Westbus, a private company, provides a bus service which runs from Warragamba to Penrith along Mulgoa Road.
was 2217. The majority of residents are Australian born (78%) with small minorities born in England
(3.9%) and Malta
(2.3%). There are a large number of couples with children (57%) and most houses are owned outright (39%) or being paid off (38%). The number of renters (17%) was substantially less than the national average. The median income ($560 per week) was higher than the national average ($466).
, represented by Diane Beamer
, of the Labor Party
. Federally, it is part of the Division of Lindsay
, and represented by the Australian Labor Party
's David Bradbury
since 2007.
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, in the state of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Mulgoa is located 66 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district
Sydney central business district
The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 kilometres from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement. Its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in...
, in the local government area of the City of Penrith
City of Penrith
The City of Penrith is a Local Government Area in Sydney, located about west of Sydney's central business district.- History :The Municipality of Penrith was incorporated on 12 May 1871 under the Municipalities Act 1858. On 3 March 1890, St Marys was separately incorporated, and on 26 July 1893...
and is part of the Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney is a term used to describe the western region of the metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia. The University of Western Sydney defines Greater Western Sydney as comprising 14 local government areas...
region.
Mulgoa is an outer rural suburb that covers 5530 hectares, south of the suburbs of Regentville
Regentville, New South Wales
Regentville is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Regentville is located 56 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Penrith, and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region...
and Glenmore Park
Glenmore Park, New South Wales
Glenmore Park is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Glenmore Park is located 59 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Penrith and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region.Glenmore Park is south of...
.
Aboriginal culture
Mulgoa takes its name from the Mulgoa people who were the indigenousIndigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
inhabitants of the area and spoke the Dharug language. The name is believed to mean black swan
Black Swan
The Black Swan is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic...
. The Mulgoa weren't the only inhabitants of the area. They shared the Mulgoa Valley with the Gandangara people of the Southern Highlands, whose territory extended up into the Blue Mountains. They lived a hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
lifestyle governed by traditional laws, which had their origins in the Dreamtime
Dreamtime
In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...
. Their homes were bark huts called 'gunyahs'. They hunted kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
s and emu
Emu
The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the largest bird native to Australia and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. It is the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. There are three subspecies of Emus in Australia...
s for meat, and gathered yam
Yam (vegetable)
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea . These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania...
s, berries and other native plants.
European settlement
Following the arrival of the First FleetFirst Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
in Sydney, there were a number of bloody battles between the British settlers and the local indigenous people in this area, however, it is believed that the Mulgoa people were generally peaceful and most of the clashes were with the Gandangara. The first government land grants in the area were made in 1810 to Edward Cox, the four-year-old son of Captain William Cox, who constructed a famous road across the Blue Mountains in 1814. William Cox built The Cottage
The Cottage
The Cottage is a 2008 British darkly comic horror film, written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams.-Plot:Two brothers, David and Peter , kidnap Tracey , the stepdaughter of Arnie , an underworld crime boss...
on the land in about 1811. Not far away dwelt Cox's friend Sir John Jamison
John Jamison
Sir John Jamison was an important Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure....
, who erected the colony's finest mansion, Regentville House, in 1824, on an eminence overlooking the Nepean River
Nepean River
The Nepean River is a river in the coastal region of New South Wales, Australia.The headwaters of the Nepean River rise near Robertson, about 100 kilometres south of Sydney and about 15 kilometres from the coast. The river flows north in an unpopulated water catchment area into Nepean Dam, which...
. In 1821, three large land grants were made on the Nepean at Mulgoa to the Norton family: James Norton
James Norton (colonial New South Wales figure)
James Norton was a solicitor and public figure in early colonial New South Wales. Admitted to practise in England, he arrived in Sydney in September 1818 where only four other attorneys were then practising. He was the founder of the first law firm in Sydney...
, the founder of Sydney's first law firm and his father and brother, Nathaniel.
The centre of Mulgoa's spiritual life in the colonial era was St Thomas' Anglican Church, which dates from 1838. It was the first public building in the Mulgoa Valley and was constructed out of sandstone and cedar on paddocks donated by the Cox family, with Sir John Jamison serving as one of its patrons. The Reverend Thomas Cooper Makinson was St Thomas' inaugural rector. Attached to the church was Mulgoa's first school. It operated until 1871-72, when the Mulgoa Provisional School replaced it.
In 1893, Mulgoa's population was sufficiently large to be granted the status of a municipality. Its area extended beyond the current suburb boundaries. In 1949, however, council rationalisations led to it merging with Penrith, St Marys and Castlereagh into a larger Penrith Municipality. These days, Mulgoa is still primarily a rural area.
Transport
Mulgoa Road is the main road in the suburb, connecting with PenrithPenrith, New South Wales
Penrith is a suburb in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Penrith is located west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Penrith...
. Westbus, a private company, provides a bus service which runs from Warragamba to Penrith along Mulgoa Road.
Education
There is a government-run primary school, Mulgoa Public School, and a privately-run school, Nepean Christian School.Demographics
The recorded population of Mulgoa in the 2006 censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
was 2217. The majority of residents are Australian born (78%) with small minorities born in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
(3.9%) and Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
(2.3%). There are a large number of couples with children (57%) and most houses are owned outright (39%) or being paid off (38%). The number of renters (17%) was substantially less than the national average. The median income ($560 per week) was higher than the national average ($466).
Notable residents
- Emmanuel Margolin, entrepreneur and former operator of El Caballo BlancoEl Caballo BlancoEstablished by Sydney Entrepreneur Emmanuel Margolin, El Caballo Blanco was a theme park that operated at Catherine Field on the outskirts of Sydney...
(His Mulgoa property also contained Sydney's largest private zoo); - Captain William Cox (1764-1837), Mulgoa pioneer, military officer, landowner and road-builder;
- Sir John JamisonJohn JamisonSir John Jamison was an important Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure....
Kt, MD (1776-1844), landowner, physician and Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales; - Robert DulhuntyRobert DulhuntyRobert Venour Dulhunty is chiefly remembered as being the first permanent white settler of what has since become the City of Dubbo, in the rural heartland of the Australian state of New South Wales...
(1803-1853), landowner, police magistrate, alderman and founder of the Dubbo district in central-western New South Wales; and - The Reverend Thomas Cooper Makinson (1809-1893), Mulgoa's first resident Anglican clergyman and schoolmaster, who later converted to CatholicismCatholicismCatholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
.
Governance
At a local government level, Mulgoa is part of the south ward of Penrith City Council, represented by Jim Aitken, Mark Davies, Karen McKeown, Susan Page and Gary Rumble. The current mayor is Pat Sheehy. At the state level, it is part of the Electoral district of MulgoaElectoral district of Mulgoa
Mulgoa is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is currently represented by Tanya Davies of the Liberal Party of Australia.-Members for Mulgoa:-Election results:...
, represented by Diane Beamer
Diane Beamer
Diane Beamer is a former Australian politician. She was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly between 1995–2011 representing the electorates of Badgerys Creek and Mulgoa for the Australian Labor Party.-Early life and background:Beamer joined Labor in 1975...
, of the Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
. Federally, it is part of the Division of Lindsay
Division of Lindsay
The Division of Lindsay is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It is located in the outer western suburbs of Sydney, and is centred around Penrith. It also includes the suburbs of Castlereagh, Mulgoa and Werrington....
, and represented by the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
's David Bradbury
David Bradbury
David John Bradbury is an Australian politician. He is an Australian Labor Party Member of the House of Representatives representing the Division of Lindsay, New South Wales. Bradbury was elected at the 2007 federal election.Bradbury has lived in Western Sydney all his life, and was educated at...
since 2007.