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.
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