Chronology
David McDonald has developed a comprehensive chronology (a historical timeline) of Wamboin and district. The nineth edition of the Chronology, dated 1 July 2026, can be downloaded by clicking here. It contains 622 entries (plus appendices and suggestions for further reading), in chronological order, from c. 444 million years ago to the present time, along with appendices and suggestions for further reading.
If you have an interest in the history of our area, and/or have some knowledge of it, you are invited to peruse the document, and pass on to David any suggestions for additional entries, additional topics, or other comments on its contents. David McDonald can be contacted at phone 0416 231 890, or email david [at] dnmcdonald.id.au.
David McDonald can be contacted at phone 0416 231 890, or email david [at] dnmcdonald.id.au.
Introduction and Synopsis
This is a chronology—an historical timeline—of Wamboin and District. A dictionary definition of a chronology is ‘the arrangement of events or dates in the order of their occurrence’. It is updated annually.
Current research indicates that Aboriginal people were the custodians of the lands now known as Wamboin and district for at least 20,000 years, and possibly for a much longer period, prior to the arrival of Europeans. Tobler et al. (2017), for example, present evidence ‘… that the settlement of Australia comprised a single, rapid migration along the east and west coasts that reached southern Australia by 49-45’ thousand years ago’.1
Apparently, no historical documents or locally recorded oral histories have survived that identify how the Aboriginal custodians of the Wamboin district referred to themselves, or what they called their language. As a result, it is not possible to name the custodial group for this area with certainty on the basis of local evidence.
Linguistics research covering the broader National Capital and Monaro regions (notably Koch 2009 & 2010) indicates that the language spoken across much of this wider area was Ngarigu (also rendered Ngarigo), and that this was the name by which the Monaro people referred to themselves. On linguistic and regional grounds, it is likely that the Aboriginal people of the Wamboin district spoke a language closely related to, and possibly identical with, Narigu, although this cannot be demonstrated directly for Wamboin and district itself.
This absence of locally attributable sources reflects the broader historical silencing of Aboriginal voices in the colonial record, rather than an absence of Aboriginal occupation.
The first Europeans to traverse Wamboin and Bywong were Charles Throsby, Joseph Wild, James Vaughan, and two Aboriginal men (possibly Taree and Peroa, neither being from the region), in October 1820. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was visiting Lake George at this time to meet up with Throsby, and to reach (‘discover’) the Murrumbidgee River that Throsby had been told about by Aboriginal people in the Goulburn area.
A project to survey the whole of New South Wales commenced in 1825. The plan was to divide the State into counties and parishes to facilitate land administration. The boundaries of the parishes were set by draughtmen in Sydney, reflecting information received from surveyors. They largely followed the boundaries of already surveyed parcels of land, and natural features such as rivers and mountain ranges.
It is likely that the initial boundaries of the parish of Wamboin were set sometime between November 1864 and February 1866, although the first map of the parish was not published until 1881. ‘Wamboin’ is the anglicised form of a Wiradjuri word for grey kangaroo: ‘wambuwuny’, pronounced ‘wam-bu-woin. It was probably assigned by the draughtsman who set the boundaries of the parish prior to the land being fully surveyed, probably on the recommendation of a surveyor. The parish is bounded on the east by Turallo Creek, on the west by the Yass River, and on the north and south by the limits of early land grants. In 1981, Wamboin was officially designated as a ‘geographical name’.
In 1825, Captain Richard Brooks received a large land grant at the southern end of Lake George, that he named Turalla and, by 1828, William Guise was running stock at his ‘Bywong’ (Sutton) property, and far beyond, presumably into Wamboin and district. Some land grants were made in the area from the 1830s, and most of the land of Wamboin and district was alienated as small selections (40-60 acres) in the 1870s and 1880s. Over the years, many small selections were found to be unviable, owing to their small size, and the land was consolidated into the hands of a small number of pastoralists.
Short-lived, but productive, gold rushes occurred at Brooks Creek (in 1861), Mac’s Reef/Newington (1865-66) and Bywong (1895). Wamboin’s Wyanga school commenced operating in 1871. It was located between Reedy Creek and today’s Weeroona Road, Wamboin. Amungula school (named Woodfield school until 1908) operated on the Bingley family’s ‘Woodfield’ property, Sutton Road between 1888 and 1913. Other schools operated at Bywong.
With the passage of the Local Government Act 1906 (NSW), the Yarrowlumla Shire was proclaimed, and Yarrowlumla Shire Council was created, with its headquarters in Queanbeyan. This was a disappointment to the people of Bungendore who had expected it to be built there, thus boosting the town’s status and resources.
In 1909, the NSW Government transferred land to the Commonwealth for the creation of the Federal Capital Territory. This did not involve any changes to the boundaries of the parish of Wamboin, but it did to the adjacent parishes of Goorooyarroo, Amungula and Majura.
In 1969, the place name ‘Bywong’ was gazetted. The area was previously known as ‘Geary’s Gap’, though this was not an official geographical name for the locality.
On 2 March 1985 some of the sub-divided section of Wamboin was burned in a terrible bushfire that came from the Majura, ACT, area. It was stopped by a wide fire break bulldozed some 800 m west of Weeroona Drive.
The year 2004 saw the dissolution of Yarrowlumla Shire Council and the proclamation of the Eastern Capital City Regional Council. Its name was changed eight months later to Palerang Council which was, in turn, dissolved and amalgamated with the Queanbeyan City Council in 2016 to create the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC).
The subdivision of the pastoral land and forested country to create Wamboin commenced with an application to Yarrowlumla Shire Council in Nov. 1968 by the Canberra-based developer David Trend Pty Limited (subsequently renamed as Majura Heights Pty Limited). ‘Majura Heights’ was the name proposed for the subdivision. It was for 10 five/six acre lots between Sutton Road and the longitude of what is now Fernloff Road, an area of 267 acres (1 km2). The land subsequently passed to Taywood Hughes Pty Limited, and then to Norton Tower Pty Limited. The first advertisement published in the Canberra Times for the blocks in what became known as Wamboin, then called ‘Canberra Country Estate’ by the developer Norton Tower Pty Limited, occurred in December 1972. It was the land along Norton Road from Sutton Road to Fernloff Road. Further subdivisions were made as the years progressed.
In 1980 Council officially adopted the name ‘Wamboin’ for the area, and the following year the Geographical Names Board of NSW formally named the locality as Wamboin. (A ‘locality’ is the rural equivalent of a ‘suburb’ in an urban area.) The boundaries of the locality of Wamboin differ from those of the parish of Wamboin.
In 1985, the newly built Wamboin Community Hall was officially opened and, in 1998, the newly constructed St Andrew’s Anglican Church was consecrated.
In late 2008 the Wamboin locality entrance sign on the corner of Norton and Sutton Roads was built by Wamboin local Dave Argaet, and his team, under the auspices of the Wamboin Community Association. On 23 January 2023, an ACT-registered car crashed into it, badly damaging the northern end. It was repaired by members of the Argaet family the following January. A time capsule was installed inside the stonework.
December 2022 was the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Wamboin as a rural/residential area. No local events were held to commemorate the occasion.
Please contact the author with any suggestions for additions or corrections to the Chronology.
Note on terminology and sources
In presenting this chronology, I have in many entries retained terms such as ‘settlement’, ‘settlers’, ‘opening up’ the land, and related expressions. These reflect the wording of primary sources (including government records, parish maps, and contemporary newspapers) and the conventions of earlier local histories from which this compilation draws.
Their retention should not be read as implying that these terms are neutral or unproblematic. The Wamboin district was not an empty landscape at the time of European arrival; it was Aboriginal country and, in the view of many, continues to be understood as such, having long been occupied and managed by its traditional custodians. The processes referred to in this chronology—including land grants, clearing, and pastoral expansion—formed part of the broader colonisation of that country and the displacement of its Aboriginal inhabitants.
A fully decolonised vocabulary would require more extensive rewriting and interpretation than is consistent with the present purpose of this document, which is to provide a closely source-based chronological record. Where appropriate, brief qualifications have been included to signal this context.
1 The body of the Chronology provides the sources of information found in this synopsis, including literature references.