[1] Wellington was founded as a convict agricultural station in 1823, the only Government settlement after Bathurst, west of the Blue Mountains.

The mission was originally attended by two couples Rev William Watson and his wife Ann, who were the first appointed to this position by the London-based office, and Rev Johann Handt, a German missionary with experience in Liberia, and his wife Mary Crook, eldest daughter of the renown South Seas missionary, William Pascoe Cook.

The journals kept by the missionaries show that the cultural and material practices of the Indigenous inhabitants were continued after the European settlement was established.

[3]: 3–8, 3–12  In the 1820s settlement by Europeans at Bathurst grew rapidly, the population increased dramatically along with the amount of land occupied and cleared.

Lieutenant Percy Simpson was put in command of establishing the settlement and within three years had cultivated 120 hectares (300 acres) of land and constructed 40 buildings with the labour of 80 convicts.

[4]: 3  From 1926 the colonial government began winding back the numbers of convicts sent to Wellington with a view to reducing the overall scale of the settlement.

By comparison with other penal settlements such as Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay or Norfolk Island; Wellington was a small enterprise which had minimal support from the Colonial Office.

[3]: 3–18 The Secretary of State for the Colonies invited the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to establish a mission for Aboriginal people, giving assurances that it would be supported from public funds.

Governor Bourke obtained funding from the Legislative Council and gave the Church Missionary Society permission to occupy the Government buildings in the Wellington Valley convict settlement, forming the Wellington Valley Mission, one of the earliest to "Civilize and Christianize" Aboriginal people in Australia.

"Our men attempted to plow [sic], but broke the coulter [blade] immediately owing to the ground being so dry and hard.

Eventually Watson left Wellington Valley and, taking the children with him, established a new mission called Apsley.

The Rev Gunther continued to operate the mission at the settlement but his annual reports of 1841 and 1842 showed little hope for the success of the venture.

The Church Missionary Society withdrew its support and after a personal inspection by Governor Gipps, the Mission Station at Wellington Valley was closed in 1844.

[1] The possible foundations of a number of the original buildings have been tentatively located and identified from the maps of the period and the descriptions of the site given in journals and in reports to the Government and the Colonial Office.

Archaeological relics and deposits (such as the remains of walls, fences, wells, rubbish pits and privies) relating to the early convict station and mission, may be present on these lots.

As a result of this development and associated landscaping activities, archaeological material present on these sites is likely to have been removed or be found in a disturbed context.

[1] Cypress and Watson Avenue, Wheelers Lane and the Mitchell Highway run through the Wellington Convict and Mission Site.

[1] Archaeological evidence has been previously identified on a triangle of land between the Mitchell Highway and the Old Bathurst Road alignment has had located on this site.

Areas that do have built structures are one phase buildings as their location on the outskirts of a rural town has alleviated any pressure for development.

[1] As at 12 November 2010, Wellington Convict and Mission Site – Maynggu Ganai is a rare cultural landscape with extensive archaeological evidence of the second colonial outpost established on the frontier west of the Blue Mountains.

The place has very high potential to reveal new information about an inland convict agricultural station; providing material for comparative analysis of later sites.

[1] Wellington Convict and Mission Site was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 March 2011 having satisfied the following criteria.

[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

The Wellington Convict and Mission Site's cultural landscape has some aesthetic value associated with its location on hills overlooking the Bell River and the surrounding mountain peaks and ranges.

Whilst the written records for the site are extensive and refer to at least 40 buildings, the entire settlement may have had many more structures which can only be found through further archaeological investigation.

The site also has the potential to provide the earliest surviving physical evidence of an Aboriginal mission, other than Blacktown Native Institution.

The site also has the potential to demonstrate aspects of both British and Wiradjuri culture throughout a period when both groups were adapting to changing conditions.

[1][3]: 6–12 This Wikipedia article was originally based on Wellington Convict and Mission Site - Maynggu Ganai, entry number 01859 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 2 June 2018.