History of the Australian Capital Territory

Development accelerated after World War II, championed by Prime Minister Robert Menzies who regarded the state of the capital as an embarrassment.

This prompted the development of the Parliamentary Triangle, a core part of Griffin's design, and followed various buildings of national importance were constructed on the lakefront.

[1] Anthropologist Norman Tindale has suggested the principal group occupying the region were the Ngunnawal people, while the Ngarigo and Walgalu lived immediately to the south, the Wandandian to the east, the Gandangara to the north, and the Wiradjuri to the north-west.

[3] It is possible that the area was inhabited for considerably longer, with evidence of an Aboriginal presence in south-western New South Wales dating back around 40,000–62,000 years.

These insects were an important source of food for the Aboriginal peoples of the Southern Alps[1] and would accumulate by the thousands in caves and rock crevices, where they were collected and later roasted in sand or ashes, and then eaten whole.

[7] Governor Lachlan Macquarie supported expeditions to open up new lands to the south of the capital Sydney, including one to find an overland route to Jervis Bay,[8] an area which would later be incorporated into the ACT as its only coastal possession.

[8] The 1820s saw further exploration in the Canberra area associated with the construction of a road from Sydney to the Goulburn plains, supervised by Throsby and his overseer, Joseph Wild.

While working on the project, Throsby learned of a nearby lake and river from the local Aborigines, and he accordingly sent Wild to lead a small party to investigate the site.

[10] The issue of the Murrumbidgee was solved in 1821, when Charles Throsby mounted a third expedition and successfully reached the watercourse, on the way providing the first detailed account of the land where Canberra now resides.

[8][11][12] The next significant expedition to the region came in 1823, when Wild was employed by Brigade Major John Ovens and Captain Mark Currie to guide them to the Murrumbidgee.

[16] The first land grant in the region was made to Joshua John Moore in 1823,[17] and settlement in the area began in 1824 with the construction of a homestead by his stockmen on what is now the Acton Peninsula.

During the 1860s, in the wake of the new government legislation, small farmers nicknamed "selectors" moved into what would become the ACT, taking up parcels of (usually inferior) land which existed between the estates of the wealthy, established landholders.

During colonial times, prior to the establishment of the ACT, the European communities of Ginninderra, Molonglo and Tuggeranong settled in and farmed the surrounding land, raising sheep in the main but also breeding horses and growing grain.

Farrer experimented with rust and drought-resistant wheat; the varieties he bred were widely used by Australian growers, and he was later credited with establishing Australia as a major producer.

[51] Over the succeeding years, the Ngunnawal and other local indigenous people effectively ceased to exist as cohesive and independent communities adhering to their traditional ways of life.

[52] Those who had not succumbed to disease and other predations either dispersed to the local settlements or were relocated to more distant Aboriginal reserves set up by the New South Wales government in the latter part of the 19th century.

Early advocate for Australian federation, John Dunmore Lang, backed Sydney, but Henry Parkes, a prominent New South Wales politician and Premier, proposed the capital be founded on "neutral ground", nominating the town of Albury as a location.

[62] The tour proved inconclusive, and upon their return the members decided to refer the problem to a Royal Commission, with the Minister for Home Affairs, William Lyne, pushing for Tumut or Albury as he preferred a site in his electorate.

[69][70] Government Surveyor Charles Scrivener was deployed to the region in the same year in order to map out a specific site and, after an extensive search, settled upon the present location,[70] about 300 km (186.4 mi) south-west of Sydney in the foothills of the Australian Alps.

[119] The Committee had limited success meeting its goals;[117] however, the chairman, John Sulman, was instrumental in applying the ideas of the garden city movement to Griffin's plan.

[132] After World War II there was a shortage of housing and office space in Canberra,[133] so a Senate Select Committee hearing was held in 1954 to address its development requirements.

[144] To accommodate the influx of residents, the NCDC oversaw the release of new residential land though the creation of new town centres:[145] Woden opened in 1964, followed by Belconnen in 1966,[146] Weston Creek in 1969[147] and Tuggeranong in 1973.

On 13 August 1940 Australia's chief military officer and three senior ministers in the Menzies Government, James Fairbairn, Geoffrey Street and Henry Somer Gullett, were killed when their plane crashed on the southern approach to Canberra.

[158] A 6.5 km (4.0 mi) branch from the Bombala railway line was built from Queanbeyan to Canberra in 1914 and extended to Civic in June 1921, but the bridge over the Molonglo River was washed away in 1922 and never rebuilt.

The native forest of the ACT was composed almost wholly of eucalypt species and provided a resource for fuel and domestic purposes, especially during the economic boom following World War II.

Interest in forestry had begun in 1915, when T. C. G. Weston had commenced trials of a number of species including Pinus radiata on the slopes of Mount Stromlo.

[M]ost realised that the end of direct control by the Federal Government would inevitably lead to higher taxes or a cut in services, as indeed was the case when self-government finally occurred in the late 1980s.

[184] The referendum on 27 November 1978 provided the residents of the territory with three options: A clear majority voted for continuing with the status quo – 63.75%, as opposed to 5.72% in favour of the local government model and 30.54% supporting the "state style" self-government approach.

Along with the previously mentioned fear of increases in taxation or decreases in services, he argued that those living in the ACT would have felt that they already had a voice in the governance of the territory, through federal electoral representation.

[161] More than 200 other houses were damaged, and numerous buildings of historical significance were lost, including the Mount Franklin Chalet, which was built in 1937–38 for the Canberra Alpine Club and was the first club-built ski lodge in mainland Australia, and many others in the Namadgi National Park.