Muswellbrook. Bursting With Energy!!!
Muswellbrook is the major town in the Muswellbrook Shire which is approximately 263 sq km in size.
Muswellbrook sits on the Hunter River with the New England Highway to Sydney and Brisbane running through the heart of town.
The Northern Railway passes through the town.
Muswellbrook was first settled in 1824 and declared a township in 1833.
Muswellbrook is a substantial and very attractive country town of historic buildings and tree-lined streets situated beside the Hunter River, 257 km north of Sydney, 26 km south of Scone and 144 metres above sea-level. It is an expanding centre due to the employment opportunities provided by the eight coalmines in the district, the presence of the Liddell and Bayswater Power Stations and a flourishing wine grape industry. Thus the population of the shire increased from less than 8000 in 1976 to around 16 000 by 1997 with 26 per cent of the workforce employed in the mining, electricity, gas and water sectors in 1991. Muswellbrook also continues to fulfill its role as a service centre to the dairying and agricultural activities of the countryside which still supports a large number of horse studs.
The area was once occupied by the Wanaruah Aboriginal people and possibly the Kamilaroi. Certainly the two tribes had trade and ceremonial links. The Wanaruah favoured goannas as a food source, covering larger animals in hot ashes and stuffing them with grass. They also adopted burning off practices as the new shoots which emerged after fire attracted kangaroos which they surrounded and killed with clubs and spears (du-rane) barbed with sharp stones. They also used stone axes (mogo) made of hard volcanic rock bound to a wooden handle.
The Kamilaroi tribe was subdivided into clans and classes which determined marital possibilities (girls being often betrothed in infancy and married by about 14). They wore opossum clothing and, for ceremonial or ornamental purposes, smeared themselves with red ochre and pipe clay, scarred their bodies and wore decorative headwear. Once one of the largest linguistic communities in Australia their last known formal communal ceremony was held in 1905.
European settlement followed in the wake of John Howe’s expedition to the Singleton district in 1820 and Henry Dangar’s pursuit of the Hunter further north in 1824. That year Dangar reserved a village site at the junction of the Hunter and the creek at the southern end of the present townsite which he named Muscle Brook due to the large numbers of mussel shells he found on its banks (at the time ‘muscle’ was an accepted alternative spelling of mussel).
The first Chief Justice of NSW, Francis Forbes, an important figure in early colonial judicial history, was granted the land which now constitutes South Muswellbrook in 1825. He named his estate ‘Skellater’ after the family’s ancestral estate in Aberdeen in Scotland.
A township was laid out and gazetted in 1833 as Musclebrook with the first allotments sold the following year (the very first block is now occupied by the Royal Hotel). The first post office was established in 1837 and that year, when Edward Denny Day was made first police magistrate of the district, a mounted police force, police barracks and courthouse were established.
For nearly sixty years the town’s name was spelled in every way imaginable. Musclebrook, Muscle Brook, Muswellbrook, Muswell Brook, Muscletown and Musswellbrook were all employed. Day appears to have been the first to change the spelling of the town from Muscle Brook to Muswell Brook. It was only at the end of the 1880s that ‘Muswellbrook’ was consistently employed although it was not officially gazetted as such until 1949.
By 1840 the population was 215. There were 41 houses as well as some inns and shops. A flour mill was built around 1841, reflecting the fact that wheat, along with wool, was the centrepiece of the local economy.
In 1842 the sons of Francis Forbes established the private village of Forbestown south of Muscle Creek but due to confusion with the town of Forbes it was changed to South Muswellbrook in 1848.
When the railway arrived in 1869 it boosted the local economy as the settlement became the northern railhead and the population climbed to about 1500. However, when this advantage passed on to Scone the town shrunk again.
