Initially named Mt Murchison by the explorer Major Thomas Mitchell who passed through in 1835, Wilcannia was proclaimed in June 1866 and incorporated as a municipality in 1881. The township reached its height in the 1880s due to the booming sheep industry, when it boasted 13 hotels, a population of 3000, and a local newspaper - the Wilcannia Times.
Wilcannia is the home of the Barkindji people (also known as Paakantji) who have been living in the area for over 40,000 years. Wilcannia in the local language means a gap in the bank where flood waters escape.
The centrelift bridge over the Darling River was built in 1896 and is now classified by the National Trust. It replaced a punt which was capable of moving 4000 sheep a day across the river.
In the early days Wilcannia was a port for riverboats on the Darling River. In 1887 alone over 200 paddle steamers stopped there. Known as 'Queen City of the West' there was a time when most of the wool from northwestern NSW passed through the port. However nowadays the Darling river has run dry in Wilcannia.
Wilcannia is located where the Barrier Highway crosses the Darling River, 965 km from Sydney. The environment is semi-arid with an annual rainfall of 255 mm. Mean maximum daily temperature in Summer is 34°C and in Winter is 19°C (Bureau of Meteorology).
Wilcannia is located within the Darling Riverine Plains Bioregion (IBRA classification, Department of Environment), consisting of landscapes adapted to flooding. Common species include River Red Gum, Yellow Box, Oldman Saltbush and Lignum.
The surrounding area is very sparsely settled by pastoralists who have large land holdings, used primarily to run sheep.
From the 2001 Census, Wilcannia had a population of 688 with 448 (65%) people being of Aboriginal descent. Wilcannia has 191 private dwellings (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
Long before Broken Hill, long before Cobar, Milparinka and Tibooburra, Wilcannia was a centre for outback trade. It was also the traditional home of an aboriginal tribe who were particularly resistive to European invasion of their lands - the Bagundji or Barkindji. (The spelling depends very much upon which source is used for the information.)
Paddle-steamers had reached Wilcannia in 1859, when it was still called Mount Murchison - for the name of a squatting station nearby. It was as close to that place as you could get on the Darling River. And it was at the junction of the Darling with that most magically named of all the outback rivers - the Paroo. Mount Murchison station was run by Edward Bonney, who, for his time, was one of the more enlightened European settlers. That did not stop him from taking over traditional lands, but at least he did try to reach some kind of an arrangement with those who he had dispossessed. Mount Murchison was a sheep station, and the spot where the station's wool was transhipped from bullock waggons to the Darling River paddle-steamers became Wilcannia.
By 1880 Wilcannia was a thriving multi-cultural community, with a number of banks, large general merchant's stores, barbers, jewellers, watchmakers, pastry cooks, a wool wash, Chinese market gardens, a wheelwright's shop, carpenters and various other trades. We know that in part because of the record created by the Wilcannia Times newspaper, but also because of the records of the Bank of New South Wales, Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, the London Bank and the Bank of Australasia, all of whom had branches in the town. People from many different parts of the world, as well as the original inhabitants, were thrown together in a rather boisterous community. It was to Wilcannia that the first gold from Mount Poole was taken in September 1880.. Great excitement naturally followed, but people were cautioned against rushing to the site of the discovery. We have a great deal of information about the process which was followed - a process which reflected caution, and a wariness of the outback which it would do good to follow even a hundred and twenty-odd years later. But when in February 1881 more gold arrived from the prospect pandemonium broke out.
The township of Wilcannia was surveyed in 1866 by John Chadwick Woore. Woore was appointed Commission of Crown Lands for the Albert District in 1863, and his diaries and notes of various field trips survive to give us an interesting picture of the district as it then was. At the time the paddle-steamers were already plying the Darling River as far as Bourke, and Wilcannia was one of their main stopping places - although Menindee, further down-stream was the main one. But for some reason Wilcannia soon became the more important location. Perhaps because it was more convenient to the various pastoral properties which had been established along the river. Perhaps the approaches to the river were easier.
By 1880 there were two major general merchant's stores in town - Cramsie Bowden and Woodfall, and Edward Allerton. On 21 February 1881 the Wilcannia Times reported that Cramsie Bowden and Woodfall had appointed Thomas Wakefield Chambers as manager. It seems he soon became firm friends with a number of prominent or influential people in the town, including the newspaper proprietor - Walterus Brown. T.W.Chambers later became a very significant figure in the life of Milparinka.
The electric telegraph was extended to Wilcannia in 1883, by way of Booligal and Ivanhoe. This was vital to the Europeans as a means of knowing, not only world news, but when it had been raining in Queensland, and the price of wool in London (in the United Kingdom).
But the telegraph was about thirty year too late to report new items such as the "The Charge of the Light Brigade" - one of those displays of heroism, or downright stupidity which seem to have occurred in the British Empire from time to time. But what has the Charge of the Light Brigade to do with Wilcannia? Well - a man said to have been a survivor of that most famous of Crimean War engagements lived the last of his days in Wilcannia. He was Sergent-Major James Bradbury Parr, of the 11th Hussars. He died in April 1916, and is buried in the Wilcannia Cemetery. His family were obviously a large part of the Far West - - S.H.Parr was an employee of the Commercial Banking Co of Sydney's branch at Tibooburra in 1881, and later at Milparinka. Daniel McDonnell Parr was a customer of another of the banks, at Wilcannia, in 1883.
And why was it important to know when it had been raining in Queensland? Simply because a lot of the water which comes down the Darling River starts there. So good rains in Western Queensland meant a flood would most likely be coming down the Darling in the next six months. That meant paddle-steamers would be able to operate well upstream, and wool, especially, would be able to get to market quite cheaply in comparison to alternate methods which involved bullock - or horse-drawn wool waggons and the railways. A big flood also meant goods could come upstream on the paddle-steamers, also by far the least expensive method.
Wilcannia has changed since many of the old buildings in the town have been restored, and there is a glimmer of hope for better days to come. Wilcannia still has a special magic once you get to know the place - and it is still one of those special places.
But Wilcannia has many problems, including isolation, having been bypassed by the railways, and lost its position as a river port. And from the beginning there has always been a rowdy element in Wilcannia.
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