Welcome to Hawkesbury People and Places

About the Hawkesbury Region

The Hawkesbury Region lies to the north-west of the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It encompasses a large area following the Hawkesbury River from the foothills of the Blue Mountains to the Tasman Sea at Broken Bay.

The Darkiñung and Dharug are recognised as the original people of the area from the Hawkesbury-Hunter Ranges to the northwest of Sydney. They lived in the district for many thousands of years, establishing sacred places, fishing in the river, hunting around the hills and plains and gathering food such as yams from the river bank.

Known as Dyarubbin to the first peoples, the Hawkesbury River was named thus in 1789 by Governor Arthur Phillip, the first governor of the British colony of New South Wales in honour of Charles Jenkinson, first Earl of Liverpool, Baron Hawkesbury, who was at the time, the President of the Board of Trade and Plantations in England.

The region includes the Local Government Areas of Hawkesbury, The Hills (formerly Baulkham Hills), Gosford and Hornsby.

Map of the Hawkesbury Region

The Project

Hawkesbury People and Places is an ongoing project which aims to record, locate and research the places, built environment, geographical features, organisations, events and people associated with the Hawkesbury Region.

It is not the intention of the site to provide a comprehensive history of each entry.

Sources

Information for the website has been drawn from a wide variety of sources including:

• Maps
• Published books
• Websites
• Unpublished manuscripts
• NSW government records
• Local government records
• Church records
• Newspapers
• Historical and family history society newsletters and journals
• Photographs
• Family archives
• Oral histories

Each entry includes the source or multiple sources of information for that entry. Bibliographic information has been included for each source with notes on availability or holdings if available.

About us

What began as an interest in toponymy or the study of placenames has developed into a purposeful quest for information about the people and places of the wider Hawkesbury Region.

The website has been created and designed by Nicholas McHardy who is a software architect in the digital media industry.

Material for the site has been researched and added by historian, Cathy McHardy with assistance from the local and family history community.

Make a comment

Make a comment or ask a question about an aspect of Hawkesbury history, comment on our website, provide additional information or corrections about a place, person or event. Please contact the authors by viewing the Comment page.