Significant Events
Council's library have provided a short account of some significant events from Holroyd's history:
Settlement of Toongabbie
Toongabbie is one of Australia's earliest settlements. It was the third mainland settlement area established by the Europeans, after Sydney and Parramatta. When Captain Arthur Phillip explored the area in December 1789, it was inhabited by the Toogagal band of the Dharug tribe. The name Toogagal came from the word "tuga" meaning dense forest.
Governor Phillip established a government farm and convict station on 640 acres of good ground in April 1791. He named it "Toongabbe" after the Aboriginal name meaning "meeting of the waters", or "near the water".
This site was first referred to as "New Grounds" and was supervised by Thomas Daveny (c1759 - 1795) who had arrived free with the First Fleet. By December of 1791 there were 500 men working at Toongabbie. Thomas Daveny worked the convicts very hard and they had cleared 200 acres by December. This gave Toongabbie a name amongst convicts as a place to be avoided if at all possible. Daveny was dismissed from his position in 1794 and replaced by Andrew Hume, father of explorer Hamilton Hume, who was born at Toongabbie.
The farm was intended to help provide food for the infant colony to supplement that already being Grown at Rose Hill / Parramatta, and became the principal farm of the colony, gaining a reputation for providing high quality corn, wheat and turnips.
By 1800, dissatisfaction among Irish convicts was becoming rife, and an uprising was planned at Toongabbie for August 1800. However when the authorities learned of the plan, it was abandoned.
In August of 1801, Governor Philip Gidley King (3rd governor of the colony) opened the new Government Farm at Castle Hill to replace the Toongabbie Farm. The Toongabbie farm was closed and the land allocated as grants to free settlers and to convicts who had served their time.
The first grant was recorded on 28 May 1793 as Grant No. 115 of 60 acres in the district of Toongabbie to John Redmond : rent : 1 shilling for every 50 acres per year commencing after 5 years. John Redmond was a former marine.
The location of the third settlement and government farm is in the area now known as Third Settlement Reserve between Old Toongabbie and Winston Hills on Oakes Road. Todays Junction and Gibbon Roads were originally the "Toongabbee Road", which followed the northern boundary of the Government Farm, the 'New Grounds', that Governor Phillip established in 1791.
Many more grants of land were allocated during the years following 1794, some to large landholders in the area such as the Wentworth family.
Toongabbie has had a chequered history when it comes to local government. It has belonged to Blacktown Shire, Holroyd City and to Parramatta Local Government Councils at different times, and sometimes different sections simultaneously.Battle of Vinegar Hill
On the morning of Monday 5 March 1804 men in drab convict clothes moved through the trees of Castle Hills in an area mostly unsettled, carrying guns, pitchforks and poles.
At the same time, no one could miss the red coated officers and men of the NSW Corp led by Major George Johnson as they and their civilian supporters strode along the Windsor Road after a quick march from Sydney Town during the night. Governor King had been warned that a band of Irish convicts had broken out of the Castle Hill Barracks the night before with the intention of joining other rebel convicts and marching firstly on Parramatta and then on to Sydney to seize ships in the harbour and make their way to Ireland and freedom.
The rebels never made it to Parramatta but turned away towards the north-west. Major Johnston caught up with them and the ensuing battle saw some 15 convicts killed and the others punished and returned to imprisonment.
Many convicts in this first organised uprising in the new colony were political prisoners and members of the United Irishmen's Society - a union of Irish Catholics and Protestants seeking a united and independent Ireland. They were concentrated in the Barracks at Castle Hill to work on the Government Farm which had been set up to provide food for the Colony. This gave them the opportunity to discuss their beliefs and their dreams and to plan their bid to freedom.
Unfortunately plans were easier to make than to carry out. It was very difficult to get word to the other convict barracks and to sympathisers in the towns. It was impossible to stop an informer from going to the authorities in Parramatta.
Six years previously, in Wexford County, Ireland, a similar battle had been fought at a place called Vinegar Hill - the name was transferred to this battle on the outskirts of Sydney.
The original battle on 21 June 1798 at Enniscorthy was a victory for the British and many Irishmen were killed or executed and many more were transported to the new colony of Australia.
The soldiers were under the leadership of Major George Johnston. Some of the armed citizens from the Parramatta area joined them. When the opposing sides met, a Catholic Priest, Father Dixon tried to negotiate a truce without bloodshed. The Irish leaders thought that Major Johnston had agreed to talk and stepped up to him. He took them prisoner and ordered his troops to fire on the rebels.
While the government forces were greatly outnumbered they were much better armed and they had no problem in claiming immediate victory and the convicts scattered during the confusion.
Official records of the day record fifteen rebel deaths on the field and over three hundred captured. None of the Government forces were killed or wounded.
Phillip Cunningham was badly wounded and was hung immediately for his part in the uprising. William Johnston and two fellow convicts were hung at Castle Hill. There were five other hangings as well as severe sentences of lashings.
The name Vinegar Hill was also used 50 years later as the password at the Eureka Stockade.
The survivors of the battle from both camps and their children after them were the pioneers of this nation. Few of them had a choice in whether or not they came to this isolated land so far from all they knew. A great many on both sides stayed and became worthy citizens of a new country where differences could be settled without the bloodshed suffered at Vinegar Hill.
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