TOWAMBA

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Ben Boyd arrived in Sydney in July 1842 with the clear purpose of building a business and pastoral empire. He also brought considerable amounts of money with him from England.

He wasted no time in implementing his business dreams and plans. By May 1844 he had 14 livestock stations on the Monaro which were running 20,000 sheep and 10,000 head of cattle.

In 1843 he started building Boydtown on the shores of Twofold Bay. This was intended to be the capital of his empire and Boydtown was to be the port from which he exported his livestock and other produce to Sydney, Hobart and elsewhere.

Boyd, of course, needed a road to connect his Monaro holdings with Boydtown so, also in 1843, he engaged two surveyors from Sydney to survey a route. Construction of this road commenced late that same year. That road passed through the areas that became Towamba, Burragate, New Buildings (so named because in 1845 Boyd purchased 50 acres from the Crown, to enable cattle being moved along the road to be rested, on which he constructed several buildings), Rocky Hall and Cathcart to Boyd’s Bibbenluke station.

By 1848 Boyd’s business empire had collapsed. Boyd’s Tuamba Run of 35,200 acres was acquired by William Walker Jnr (the son of William Walker, a Sydney merchant) in 1848.

(Tuamba, which later became Towamba, may have been a corruption of the Aboriginal word ‘Terrambera’ meaning ‘a place where much lightening has been seen’.)

In 1859 the township of Sturt (now Towamba) was surveyed. Town lots became available for sale the following year. Sturt then became an important village on the route taken by prospectors travelling from Twofold Bay to the Kiandra goldfields from 1860.

An interesting piece appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of November 2nd, 1861 regarding the provision of land in the Towamba area: ‘Application having been repeatedly made to the Minister for Lands for eligible agricultural patches to be surveyed, has invariably been met with the reply that plenty of land has been surveyed, and is now open for selection, but not taken up; therefore, no more can be surveyed until that is disposed of. In this particular instance "Towamba," or Sturt, is alluded to, but perhaps the honorable the Minister for Lands is not aware of the reason. I will, therefore, endeavour to enlighten him and state the reason, viz., that the land surveyed is not worth 1s. an acre, and no doubt the surveyor into whose hands it was placed for surveying, acting under the influence of his intimate friends - the proprietors of a large squatting company, well known as the Twofold Bay Pastoral Association - has pronounced that no eligible land for cultivation exists in the Towamba district. For what reason? To oblige his friends, who hold Towamba under a squatters licence. I beg to challenge this surveyor on this point, and to say that if he was not so intent on obliging his friends, that thousands of acres in this selfsame Towamba, or Sturt, are suitable for the purposes applied for, but of course withheld, and reported as not eligible by this district surveyor and his friends, viz., the Mammoth Squatting Company of Twofold Bay. Hence the withholding of the lands from intending purchasers. So much for influence at headquarters.’

A school opened in Towamba in 1862. By this stage the local area was principally a dairy farming area.

In 1866 a Mr Stiles (presumably Clement Stiles who was appointed a “Magistrate of the Colony’ for Towamba in August 1885) and William Manning acquired the Tuamba Run.

The Bega Gazette and Eden District or Southern Coast Advertiser, on 25 November 1882 when foreshadowing a sale of land at Towamba, suggested ‘the next we shall hear of Towamba will be in connection with the T. Hotel, the T. School of Arts, the T. Store, the T. Jockey Club, and maybe the "Towamba Gazette." Without joke, a large settlement about Towamba is only a work of time, and we expect not a few people know as much about this as we can tell them, and will try to back their belief at the sale on Tuesday.’ It seems, however, Towamba failed to grow rapidly, with the Pambula Voice reporting on August 2, 1895 ‘the licensee of the Towamba Hotel has vacated the hostelry before the expiration of his lease, owing to dull times. He is now renting the Church of England grounds to start a butcher's shop. It is hoped that he won't turn the church into a butcher's shop.’

Things, however, had looked up by the early 1900s at which time ‘Mr. Austin Chapman, federal candidate, addressed a large meeting here (at Towamba) last night. Two hundred miners were amongst those present, and the candidate was warmly welcomed.’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 20th February 1901)…and ‘a lodge of the G. U. O. O. F. has been opened at Towamba with 55 members’. (Grand United Order of Oddfellows)’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 11th October 1902)

Newspaper reports in 1893 indicate the town then had a hotel, a post office (which had opened at least 25 years earlier), and a hall.

In 1899 gold was discovered at Yambulla (south-west of Towamba) and small-scale mining was undertaken there for about 10 years. At its peak, the Yambulla goldfield supported 200 men (and their families). In 1923 a gold reef was discovered and mined near Towamba.

In 1902 there were 155 people on the electoral rolls listed as residents of Towamba or Sturt.

In 1910-11 a bridge was built across the Towamba River at Towamba. This was swept away in a flood in 1919. Parts of it were retrieved and were used in the construction of a bridge upstream at New Buildings. This is how the Singleton Argus (11th March 1919) reported that flood: ‘An unprecedented flood is reported from Eden, on the south coast. Within one week 33 inches of rain fell on the hills, at the foot of which the town lies. The river at Towamba also rose; with remarkable rapidity to a height of 15 feet higher than any former flood, and converted Towamba Valley into a gigantic sea. A tragic event occurred. A man, whose name is yet unknown, and who had apparently been washed down stream, was observed clinging to a swaying telephone pole, the top of which projected a few feet above the seething waters. He climbed the pole, and grasping the wire on either side, remained thus supported nearly an hour, during which the onlookers were powerless to render the slightest assistance. Finally, a large tree floating down among the debris caught the wire and submerged the pole, and with it the distressed man, who, engulfed in a torrent, was seen no more.’

In 1913 the town had a Church of England, butter factory, gold mine, police station and blacksmith. Corn was being grown in the area. Around this time a new hotel was built in the town, only to be burnt down in July 1915.

After World War I, Soldier Settlement blocks were created in the area. (We’d be pleased to learn more details about these.)

Severe bush fires swept through the Towamba valley in 1904, 1909, 1926, 1929, 1938-39 and 1952.

One of the iconic buildings in Towamba was ‘The Plonk Shop’, as it was locally known – a wine saloon and guest house that operated from around 1930 to 1969. It not only provided accommodation to travellers, but its rooms were used by visiting doctors, dentists and other providers of services to the local community.

The village of Sturt gradually became known as Towamba, and on 30th May 1975 the Geographical Names Board officially changed the town’s name to Towamba.

Image: The Opening of Towamba’s Bridge, 1911