Goulburn, New South Wales

Goulburn is a provincial city in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, in the LGA of Goulburn Mulwaree Council. It is located 190 km south-west of Sydney on the Hume Highway and about 700 metres above sea-level. It has a population of just over 20,000. It brands itself as "Australia's first inland city", although this is a claim that the city of Bathurst also makes.

History
Goulburn is part of the traditional land of the Gandangara people.

The British Government claimed ownership of New South Wales in 1788 (see Mabo v. Queensland) and to hold all of its land as Crown land. The colonial government made land grants to free settlers such as Hamilton Hume in the Goulburn area from the opening of the area to settlement in about 1820, regardless of the welfare of the indigenous population. Later land was also sold to settlers within the Nineteen Counties, including Argyle County (the Goulburn area).

This process displaced (dispossessed) the local indigenous population and the introduction of exotic livestock drove out a large part of the Aborigines' food supply. The reduction of the food supply and the accidental introduction of exotic diseases substantially reduced the local indigenous population. Some local Aborigines survived at the Tawonga Billabong Aboriginal Settlement established under the supervision of the Tarago police, and there is no conflict recorded from this period. In the 1930s the billabong dried up and the Aboriginal people moved away, but some have, over time, made their way back.

The first recorded settler in Goulburn established 'Strathallan' in 1825 (on the site of the present Police Academy) and a town was originally surveyed in 1828, although moved to the present site of the city in 1833 when the surveyor Robert Hoddle laid it out.

George Johnson purchased the first land in the area between 1839 and 1842 and became a central figure in the town's development. He established a branch store with a liquor licence in 1848. By 1841 Goulburn had a population of some 1,200, with a courthouse, police barracks, churches, hospital and post office, and was the centre of a great sheep and farming area.

A telegraph station opened in 1862, by which time there were about 1,500 residents, a blacksmith's shop, two hotels, two stores, the telegraph office and a few cottages. The town was a change station (where coach horses were changed) for Cobb & Co by 1855. A police station opened the following year and a school in 1858. Goulburn was proclaimed a town with municipal government in 1859.

Goulburn holds the unique distinction of being proclaimed a City on two occasions. The first, unofficial, proclamation was claimed by virtue of Royal Letters Patent issued by Queen Victoria on 14 March 1863 to establish the Diocese of Goulburn. It was a claim made for ecclesiastical purposes, as it was required by the traditions of the Church of England. The Letters Patent also established St Saviour’s Church as the Cathedral Church of the diocese. This was the last instance in which Letters Patent were used in this manner in the British Empire, as they had been significantly discredited for use in the colonies, and were soon to be declared formally invalid and unenforceable in this context.