* Location
Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Outer Sydney Region, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located 34 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district. Blacktown is the largest of any suburb or township in New South Wales and is one of the most multicultural places in Sydney.
* History
Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the area of today’s Blacktown was inhabited by different groups of the Darug people including the Warmuli, based around what is now Prospect, and their neighbours the Gomerigal from the South Creek area and the Wawarawarry from the Eastern Creek area. It is estimated that fifty to ninety percent of the Darug died of smallpox and other introduced diseases within a few years of the British arrival. Governor Arthur Phillip began granting land in the area to white settlers in 1791. In 1819 when Governor Lachlan Macquarie granted land to two indigenous men, Colebee and Nurragingy as payment their service to The Crown, for showing the passage over the Blue Mountains and for assisting in dealing with Aboriginal issues.
A few years later in 1823, the Native Institution (a school for Aboriginal children) was moved from Parramatta to the site where Richmond Road meets Rooty Hill Road North (this intersection is now in the suburbs of Oakhurst and Glendenning) which was named “The Blacks Town”. The institution was then known as Black Town Native Institute and it was synonymous with the stolen generation. Although the institution closed in 1833, the road heading out to the internment camp became known as the Black Town Road. In 1860 the Railway Department gave the name of Black Town Road Station to the railway station at the junction of the railway and the Black Town Road, with the name shortening to Blacktown by 1862.
The arrival of the railway led to the formation of a town around the station. A post office was opened in 1862 and a school in 1877. In 1906, the Shire of Blacktown was formed and in 1930, electricity was introduced to the town. The population in 1933 was then around 13,000. In the 1950s and 60s, there was a large amount of suburban development both in the current suburb of Blacktown and the new suburbs that sprung up around it.
* Blacktown Timeline by Blacktown City Libraries – January 2023
Places of Interest
