History
Walcha was the first part of the Northern Tablelands to be discovered in 1818, by the explorer, John Oxley who ascended the range near Limbri. In 1832 Hamilton Collins Semphill, a settler from Belltrees on the Hunter River, formed a station in the upper Apsley River valley and named it Wolka (Walcha) from the local Aboriginal language. Edward Gostwych Cory, who was displaced from his runs by the Australian Agricultural Company, came over the Moonbi Range and settled at Gostwyck, near Uralla. Soon others followed, seeking new lands away from the influence of the Australian Agricultural Company, which dominated resources in the Hunter valley, and settled around the present Armidale district. In 1844 there were 454,193 sheep and 43,377 cattle grazing the tablelands region. Armidale was then gazetted as a town in 1849. Squatters soon settled the tablelands with their large sheep runs before Glen Innes and Tenterfield were surveyed in 1851. Armidale is the only city on the Tablelands and is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region.
In 1852 gold was discovered at Rocky River and by 1856 there were 5,000 miners operating there. Gold was discovered at Bakers Creek, Hillgrove in 1857 but it was not until the late 1880s that the recorded population rose to 2,274 and later to almost 3,000 in about 1898. The difficulties and expense of the deep underground mine workings eventually reduced the gold mining here after 1900.
Captain Thunderbolt the famous bushranger (Frederick Wordsworth Ward, 1836–1870) who escaped from Cockatoo Island came to the Northern Tablelands, where he robbed properties, mail coaches and hotels in the region. In 1866 the Colonial Secretary's Office posted a reward of £100 for his capture, which was raised to £200 by mid-1867 and £400 in December 1869. Many stories have been told his bushranging deeds in the area from Newcastle to the Queensland border. Thunderbolt was shot dead by Constable Walker in May 1870 in Kentucky Creek after a long chase on horseback. His grave is in the town of Uralla, NSW.
The Northern Tablelands includes the towns and Local Government Areas of Armidale, Glen Innes, Guyra, Tenterfield, Walcha, the south-eastern portion of the Inverell Shire and a small part of Tamworth Regional Council area.
The University of New England at Armidale was founded in 1938, becoming the first Australian university established outside a capital city. This public university, with approximately 18,000 higher education students, is one of Australia's major providers of awards to off-campus students.
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