Jerilderie, New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Jerilderie is a town of 768 people in the southern Riverina
Riverina
The Riverina is an agricultural region of south-western New South Wales , Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation. This combination has allowed the Riverina to develop...

 region of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It is the only town in the Jerilderie Shire Local Government Area.

It can be found along the Newell Highway
Newell Highway
The Newell Highway is the longest highway in New South Wales, Australia. It runs parallel to the eastern coast about 400 kilometres inland, and is the main inland direct road link from Victoria to Queensland, bypassing the more congested coastal areas of New South Wales...

 674 kilometres (418.8 mi) south-west of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 and 45 kilometres (28 mi) north of the Victorian
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 state border. Jerilderie's post code is 2716.

Overview

Jerilderie is an irrigated farming centre, the area around Jerilderie produces a quarter of all tomatoes grown in Australia, as well as being a prime Merino
Merino
The Merino is an economically influential breed of sheep prized for its wool. Merinos are regarded as having some of the finest and softest wool of any sheep...

 stud region. Additionally Jerilderie has a diverse number of crops such as rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

, wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, canola
Canola
Canola refers to a cultivar of either Rapeseed or Field Mustard . Its seeds are used to produce edible oil suitable for consumption by humans and livestock. The oil is also suitable for use as biodiesel.Originally, Canola was bred naturally from rapeseed in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur R...

, mung
Mung bean
The mung bean is the seed of Vigna radiata. It is native to the Indian subcontinent.-Description:They are small, ovoid in shape, and green in color...

 and soya beans, onions, liquorice, grapes and a number of cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 farms.

The town has two primary schools, Jerilderie Public School and Jerilderie Catholic School, an 18 hole golf course
Golf course
A golf course comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a flagstick and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes...

, three pubs, and a hospital which was the first in regional Australia to operate with solar power
Solar power
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available...

.This hospital has now been rebuilt as a multi purpose medical centre that incorporates an emergency room, aged care beds and a paliative care bed.

The town has an Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 team competing in the Picola & District Football League
Picola & District Football League
The Picola & District Football Netball League is an Australian rules football league affiliated with the Victorian Country Football League.The league covers a large area of northern Victoria and southern New South Wales from Shepparton in the south to Jerilderie in the north and consists of teams...

.

Jerilderie is also the home of the biannual Ned Kelly weekend, the Jerilderie Letter Event. This event was first held in 2006; it is held on the first weekend of February. The event consists of a parade up the main street, a car bike truck and tractor show and shine, there is also a small show and farmers market. One of the main attractions on this weekend is the reading of the famous Jerilderie letter, written by Ned Kelly. The first Australian Ned Kelly Songwriting Awards will be a feature of the 2010 event.

Steel Wings Windmill

The Jerilderie Shire Council (and the Shire of Taroom
Shire of Taroom
The Shire of Taroom was a Local Government Area located in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia, along the Leichhardt Highway to the north of Miles...

 in the central Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 highlands) have rare windmills of unusual design. Both are situated on National Route 39, which provides a straight run from Victoria to the Queensland tropical coast.
The windmill was produced by the Steel Wings Company, in North Sydney
North Sydney, New South Wales
North Sydney is a suburb and commercial district on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. North Sydney is located 3 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of North Sydney...

 between 1907 and 1911 with only six models ever erected. The windmills comprise a steel frame and fan which turns to the wind between a bearing at the bottom and a swivel at the top, all supported by guy-wire
Guy-wire
A guy-wire or guy-rope, also known as simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to structures . One end of the cable is attached to the structure, and the other is anchored to the ground at a distance from the structure's base...

s. The fully restored windmills, the only two known working examples in the world, are unique because their fan is contained and spins within the fully pivoting frame.

The Jerilderie Steel Wings windmill, built in 1910, was transported by rail from Sydney and then taken by bullock wagon to Goolgumbula Station for Sir Samuel McCaughey
Samuel McCaughey
Sir Samuel McCaughey was an Irish-born pastoralist, politician and philanthropist in Australia.-Early life:McCaughey was born at Tullyneuh, near Ballymena, Ireland, the son of Francis McCaughey, farmer and merchant, and his wife Eliza, née Wilson.McCaughey came to Australia with an uncle, Charles...

. It provided water to the stations homestead, ram sheds and dams along a 43 kilometres (26.7 mi) channel system. The mill suffered storm damage in 1977, was offered to the town as a historical exhibit and placed in Luke Park in 1979 at the official opening of the Jerilderie Lake. The lake was built to hold excess water from the Billabong Creek
Billabong Creek
Billabong Creek is a creek in the Riverina region in New South Wales, Australia. The creek is part of the Murray-Darling River system. It is held to be the longest creek in New South Wales....

 which flooded annually.

In 1989, members of Lions
Lions Clubs International
Lions Clubs International is a secular service organization with over 44,500 clubs and more than 1,368,683 members in 191 countries around the world founded by Melvin Jones Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States, the organization aims to meet the needs of communities on a local and...

, Apex
Apex Clubs of Australia
The Association of Apex Clubs of Australia is the collective name given to the 330 individual Apex Clubs throughout Australia. An Apex club is a community service club, neither sectarian nor party political, that provides young civic minded people the opportunity to volunteer within the community...

 and Jerilderie Shire Council repaired and refurbished the windmill with two people, Clive Langfield and George Cornish (now dec.) spending some 600 hours to bring it to its present working condition, pumping 9 litres (2.4 US gal) per revolution from the Billabong Creek to the Jerilderie Lake using a 15 centimetres (5.9 in) draw plunger with a 48 centimetres (18.9 in) stroke.

The Jerilderie windmill, the larger of the two stands 17 metres (55.8 ft) high with a 9 metres (29.5 ft) fan.

Ned Kelly

Jerilderie was visited by Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...

 and his gang in 1879. The outlaws captured the town's two policemen and imprisoned them in their own cell before dressing in the police uniforms. They then told the locals that they were reinforcements from Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 sent to protect them from the notorious Kelly Gang.

Later the gang held up the local Bank. More than two thousand pounds
Australian pound
The pound was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 13 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.- Earlier Australian currencies :...

 were stolen before Kelly and his gang walked to the Telegraph Office
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

 and chopped down the telegraph poles. He and his gang held 30 people hostage overnight in the Royal Mail Hotel where Ned Kelly wrote the famous Jerilderie Letter which documents Kelly's passionate pleas of innocence and desires for justice for both his family and the poor Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 settlers of Victoria's north-east. It has also been described as the Ned Kelly 'manifesto' and remains the only source providing a direct link between the Kelly Gang and the actions they are accused of.

Ironically the current Jerilderie Police Station features no less than 19 structural components mimicking Ned Kelly's distinctive face plate. Some examples include walls made of differently toned bricks making up his image to storm drains with holes cut in the same pattern.

Sir John Monash

Jerilderie is the childhood home of Sir John Monash
John Monash
General Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD was a civil engineer who became the Australian military commander in the First World War. He commanded the 13th Infantry Brigade before the War and then became commander of the 4th Brigade in Egypt shortly after the outbreak of the War with whom he took part...

 honoured military commander whose image adorns the Australian one hundred dollar note. He attended and achieved dux at Jerilderie Public School and his name can be seen on the wall in the head office of Jerilderie Public on the official record. The John Monash Memorial Drive in memory of the man in just outside the town on the road to Finley.

"King" Michael

Medieval scholar, Dr Michael Jones claims Queen Elizabeth's
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 claim to the throne is illegitimate because King Edward IV
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...

, who reigned from 1461 to 1483, was not of royal blood; he was the illegitimate son of a French archer. Dr Jones concludes that tracing the correct path, British-born Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun
Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun
Michael Edward Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun is a British Australian, who is most noted due to the documentary Britain's Real Monarch, which alleges him to be the rightful monarch of England instead of Queen Elizabeth II...

, who migrated to Jerilderie in the 1960s is the true King of England and the Commonwealth
Britain's Real Monarch
Britain's Real Monarch was a historical documentary presented by Tony Robinson first shown on Channel 4 on 3 January 2004. It has also been broadcast in America and Australia...

.

Billy Brownless

Jerilderie is also the childhood home of former AFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

 Geelong player Billy Brownless
Billy Brownless
Anthony William "Billy" Brownless is a former Australian rules footballer with the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League and media personality.- Football career :...

. He is a panelist on The Sunday Footy Show, and regularly appears on The Footy Show
The AFL Footy Show
The Footy Show is a Logie Award winning Australian sports television program, shown on the Nine Network and its affiliates.This show, which is dedicated to the AFL and Australian rules football, made its debut on 24 March 1994 at the same time as the other version which relates to the NRL and rugby...

, as well as hosting Morning Glory on radio station SEN 1116
SEN 1116
SEN 1116 , the acronym standing for Sports Entertainment Network, is a commercial AM radio station based in Melbourne, Australia, operating on 1116 kHz...

.

History

Prior to European settlement, the Jerilderie region was inhabited by the Jeithi Aborigines
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

, and the name 'Jerilderie' is thought to derive from their word for 'reedy place'.

The Jerilderie district originated with the gazettal of the final licences to landholders in the 1870s. Before this time annual licences were issued. The pioneers of that time established cattle stations and it was not until the 1860s that sheep were found better suited to the area.

The birth of the town of Jerilderie itself is traced to the establishment of a house and store by John Carractacus Powell in 1854. He was apparently encouraged and assisted by the Kennedy Family to establish his home and business in what is known today as Powell Street, Jerilderie. The Kennedy family were the pioneers who first took up the property known as Mary's Creek Run, the station which surrounded the site of the town of Jerilderie. After John Powell first built, in 1859 William Davidson
William Davidson
William Morse "Bill" Davidson, J. D. was an American businessman who was President, Chairman and CEO of Guardian Industries, one of the world's largest manufacturers of architectural and automotive glass...

 arrived in Jerilderie and he chose the site of the official village to settle on, being the "Cape" region. He had evidently noted the survey of 1852. William Davidson then constructed a brick kiln, the bricks from which he erected a house, hotel and blacksmith shop.

Thus Jerilderie had two establishments, about three kilometres apart, and the business rivalry was keen in each endeavour to capture trade from the travelling public.

Whilst the rivalry continued between Powell and Davidson, a Mr Cadell settled at a site opposite the existing Police Station and erected a store to compete with Powell and Davidson.

The Post Office opened on 1 October 1862 but was spelt Jereelderie until 1890.

No other development occurred for some years, but following an application from Mr Powell in 1863 a surveyor was instructed to survey and report on the Jerilderie Village site. As a consequence of this report the Village of Jerilderie and suburban boundaries were Gazetted on 14 March 1865. The village contained an area of 195 acres (78.9 ha), bounded generally by West, Coonong, East and Jerilderie Streets.

With the continual growth of the town and the development of the sheep and wool industry over the years, there became the need for control and development of local facilities and services such as roads, bridges, water supply, etc. Hence in 1889 the area was introduced to official Local Government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...

 with the proclamation of the Jerilderie Municipal Council. The Municipality was originally formed in 1885 from previously formed Progress Association but did not gain official recognition and charter until 1889.

Whilst the town had its Local Government authority, the landholders outside the Municipality found the need to work for the establishment of a Shire Council, and as a result of this need the Wunnamurra Shire Council was realised in 1906.

Both the Jerilderie Municipality and the Wunnamurra Shire continued on their works for the following years up to 1918 when the Shire of Jerilderie was formed from the union of the two Councils.

See also

  • Jerilderie Football Club
    Jerilderie Football Club
    Jerilderie Football Club is an Australian Rules Football club that plays in the Picola & District Football League. The club is located in Jerilderie, New South Wales, a town in the Riverina region of New South Wales...

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