"Binjang" or the "Second Vale of Tempe": the frontier at Wellington Valley, New South Wales, 1817-1851

Between 1817-1851, Wellington Valley was a pivotal location in the westward expansion of the British colony of NSW. Both practically and perceptually it marked the most westerly fringe of a swelling colony. Explorers defined it as an outer margin of hospitable land and administrators designated it as a periphery of legal settlement. Government made it a remote outpost, the furthest reach of its influence and authority, and made it a base for military detachments, police fores, magistrates and commissioners. It was a destination for travellers, a launching pad for explorers and a field of labour for missionaries. As an important service centre, a foothold to the interior, it became a floodgate through which the agents of a thriving pastoral industry poured during the squatting boom. During the first three decades of European occupation it was inhabited by all the quintessential characters of the Australian frontier: Aborigines, convicts, commandants, gentlemen settlers and pauper emigrants, bushrangers, missionaries, soldiers and mounted policemen. In short, Wellington Valley appears an excellent vantage point fro which to view the passing of the frontier in colonial Australia. This thesis is a frontier history, studying the first stages of colonial expansion into an already-inhabited domain.. It is a local study, examining a broader process in one particular, geographic location. I bring the sweeping themes of colonisation and contact under the microscope of a local context, illuminating the processes through which he colonists created and constructed frontiers in NSW and assessing the impact on the indigenous inhabitants. I also deal with the remembrance and presentation of the past on a local basis, in which respect this thesis also concerns the field of local history.