The Evolution of an Australian Rural Settlement Pattern: Southern New England, N. S. W.

Abstract

THIS PAPER is concerned with the evolution of a rural settlement pattern in a relatively recently settled area of eastern Australia: namely, the southern part of the New England or Northern Tableland of New South Wales, referred to below as 'southern New England'. While this area has regional distinctiveness, many of the general features of its colonization are typical of a much wider area of the pluvial tablelands and western slopes of New South Wales, and to a lesser extent of parts of Victoria and southern Queensland. Four major periods of settlement are distinguished: 1832 to 1848; 1848 to I861; I86I to I900; and 1900 to 1962. In broad terms, the process of colonization in this part of Australia has involved the rapid establishment of a thinly scattered network of pastoral 'stations', later followed by selective infilling of this original network by settlement associated with agriculture, small-scale grazing, and the growth of small urban centres. Partly because of the late survival of many large private estates, the process of secondary, closer settlement of lands originally under extensive pastoral use was not yet complete when the twentieth-century trend towards withdrawal from less desirable rural areas commenced. In southern New England the two trends continue side by side, and in the last hundred years the pattern of settlement has shown no significant periods of stability.