Bangaroo : a microstudy in the settlement and closer settlement of land in NSW, 1815-1908.

A study in depth of a relatively small area of land in terms of tenure, use and profitability may reveal aspects of the history of land legislation and its results in NSW at variance with commonly held assumptions on the subject. If not, it may be that the study will nevertheless help to deepen understanding of the 19th century experience on the land in NSW. ‘ The area chosen for study lies some 250 miles west of Sydney on the central western slopes and plains. Well watered by the two rivers, Lachlan and Belubula, which formed a large part of its boundaries, it was the westernmost part of the 'settled' districts of the Nineteen Counties when the limits of the County of Bathurst were finally laid down in 1835. At its greatest extent of freehold tenure it consisted of over 20 thousand acres of land which included rich river flats as well as undulating higher ground of agricultural potential in a district with an annual rainfall of above 23 inches. In its natural state it was covered in open box and gum forest with areas of grassland on the flats which made it very attractive to pastoralists in good seasons. The fact that the land was on the boundary of the 'limits of location' beyond which, until 1836, it was against government policy to take up land makes this particular tract of country of more than usual interest to the student of land legislation and land settlement. The proprietorship of the so—called 'waste land' of NSW peopled only by its aboriginal inhabitants was an issue of the utmost importance to the future of the Colony, but the British Government exhibited little interest in its varying propensities, treating it as a commodity everywhere the same, a commodity which belonged to the Crown and to be used to promote the general good of the British people. The general good of the British people was generally construed in terms of the solution of, or at least the amelioration of, immediate problems at home