Tingha, New South Wales - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tingha is a small town on the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales

Northern Tablelands, New South Wales

The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England region, stretching from the Moonbi Range in the south to...

, 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...

in Guyra Shire. It is 30 kilometres south of Inverell

Inverell, New South Wales

Inverell is a town in northern New South Wales, Australia, situated on the Macintyre River. It is also the centre of Inverell Shire. Inverell is located on the Gwydir Highway on the western slopes of the Northern Tablelands. It has a temperate climate...

and 629 kilometres north-north-east of Sydney. Tingha is an Aboriginal word for ‘flat or level'.

History

Before Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an settlement the Tingha area was occupied by the Anaiwan, a sub-group of the Murri Aboriginal

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

people. Many of their descendants still live in the surrounding area.

Tingha was first settled in 1841 by Sydney Hudson Darby and became a mining town after tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

was discovered there in the 1870s. Within a year Australia’s first commercial tin mines were operating at a private settlement known as Armidale Crossing. Over 6,000 people arrived and more than 25% of the miners were Chinese. The Wing Hing Long Museum is a reminder of that heritage. Armidale Crossing Post Office opened on 1 September 1872 and was renamed Tingha the next month.

The village was proclaimed a town in 1885. Initially there were enough readily accessible surface deposits to make a good living without using machinery as the Chinese did. The first school was established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1890. In the 1890s drought came to the district and the easily obtained deposits of tin were exhausted leading to a loss in population.

By the early 1900s the mining boom was over and Tingha's population had dwindled to just a few hundred people. Shortly after this, large companies moved into the area to mine the less accessible tin.

Today

The main industry nowadays is agriculture with some fossicking in the area. Tin dredging and mining has continued on a scale that varies according to international price fluctuations.

Tingha has a hospital, pre-school, caravan park, modern sports and recreation club, a First Aid post, hotels plus other shops and services to supply daily needs. Tingha's 'Swimming Hole' is a large man made pool which was once a mining excavation. One of the main attractions around Tingha is "Green Valley Farm" Entertainment Park.

Notable Identities

Nathan Blacklock
Nathan Blacklock
Nathan Blacklock is an Australian former rugby league and rugby union player who primarily played as a winger.-Playing career:...

former NRL
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...

Australia national rugby league team, St George Illawarra Dragons
St George Illawarra Dragons
The St George Illawarra Dragons is an Australian professional rugby league football club, representing the St. George and Illawarra regions. They have competed in the National Rugby League since 1999 as a joint venture between Sydney's historic St. George Dragons club and 1982 expansion club, the...

, Hull New South Wales Waratahs
New South Wales Waratahs
The New South Wales Waratahs are an Australian rugby union football team, representing the majority of New South Wales in the Super 15 Super Rugby competition...

player
Preston Campbell
Preston Campbell
Preston Campbell, is an Indigenous Australian professional rugby league footballer for the Gold Coast Titans of the National Rugby League...

current Gold Coast Titans
Gold Coast Titans
Gold Coast Titans are an Australian professional rugby league football club, based in the Gold Coast, Queensland. The club competes in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugby League premiership. It is the newest of the sixteen clubs in the league, having commenced its...

, and former Cronulla Sharks
Cronulla Sharks
The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are Australian professional Rugby league team based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales...

, Penrith Panthers
Penrith Panthers
The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith. They compete in the National Rugby League premiership, the top rugby league football competition in Australasia. For the 2012 NRL season they will be coached by Ivan...

History

Today

Notable Identities

See also