Carlingford () is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Carlingford is north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of City of Parramatta. Carlingford sits at the meeting point of Northern Sydney and Western Sydney sitting on both sides of Pennant Hills Road which generally acts as a divider of the two regions. While being part of City of Parramatta, it is sometimes referred to as being part of the Hills District.

History

Aboriginal contact References to Aboriginal people in the Carlingford historical record in the 18th, 19th and into the 20th century remain limited to a handful of third-party observations, reinterpreted in modern day. There are many historical ambiguities and uncertainties around clan, language and cultural groups of the area.

The people of what is now known as Carlingford at the time of the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson in 1788 were the Wallumedegal or Wallumattagai people.Smith, p. 1 The people were observed to live in the area bounded approximately by the Parramatta River in the south, the Lane Cove River in the east, the Parramatta area in the west and ranged north for an uncertain distance.Brook, J. and Kohen, J. L., p. 2 The Wallumedegal appear to have been of the Eora language group.Smith, p. 5 The clan name seems to have been derived from wallumai, the snapper fish, combined with matta, a word used in association with 'place' or sometimes 'waterplace'.Smith, p. 6

Evidence of fire-stick burn off (whereby native vegetation is cleared through fire to create grasslands) along the northern banks of the Parramatta River were observed in February 1788 by an exploring boat party headed by Captain John Hunter and Lieutenant William BradleyJervis, p. 1 in such places which became known as Kissing Point and Meadowbank.Smith, pp. 11–12 The grasslands created by the Aboriginals' burn off encouraged animals to graze and enhanced the ease of hunting and gathering. Around and above these pastures backing up into the Carlingford area were thick, tall stands of Blue Gum High Forest.Department of the Environment and Heritage, Blue Gum High Forest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005), p. 1

Aboriginal people in the Parramatta area began moving to new areas soon after the arrival of the colonists at Port Jackson. A military post was established at Parramatta in November 1788 which resulted in a group of Burramattagal people moving into Wallumedegal area at Kissing Point.Smith, p. 12 The impact of illness on local people in the immediate years after arrival has been considered to be due to smallpox. Increasingly this belief is questioned as to the feasibility of such an illness being carried for 15 months at sea.Campbell, pp. 39–50

Early land grants in the Carlingford area in the 1790s included those to Cox, MobbsMobbs, p. 1 and Arndell.Jervis, p. 21, 206 Around 1800 about 100 Aboriginal people were noted as living around Cox's Brush Farm on the Carlingford-Eastwood border.Holt, p. 69 By 1827 the numbers of Aboriginal people in the area were observed to have dropped considerably.Hawkins, p. 28

Colonial period 1788–1900

Etymology The name Carlingford came into use officially on 16 July 1883 for the name of the post office located at Mobbs Hill.This changed the name from 'Mobbs Hill Post Office' which commenced only a couple of weeks earlier on 1 July 1883 [Government Gazette for the year 1883 in four volumes, Vol. III, From 1 July to 30 September (Government Printer, Sydney, 1883), 6 Jul 1883, no.287, p. 3634 (3962)]. The change arose through a request by A. H. McCulloch M.L.A. on behalf of a number of residents [Hopson and Tobin., Vol 3, p.M-28; Pollon and Healy, p. 51] There are varying accounts of how the name Carlingford was suggested. One version was that local Frederick CoxEric Mobbs recounted second hand in 1968 that "...a meeting was held in an open paddock where the Memorial Hall ... stands, and it was suggested by Mr Fred Cox that ... "Carlingford" [be] substituted. He mentioned the area was very much like KA-HAIR-LIN (or Carlingford) in Ireland, 'where the mountains of Mourne lead down to the sea'. The idea was adopted and a petition was immediately drawn up and duly sent to Government, who in turn, promptly adopted it.", Mobbs, p. 2 heard one of his employees describe similarities between Mobbs Hill and the town of Carlingford, County Louth, located in the east of Ireland, on the present day border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.Mason, Thomas H., The Islands of Ireland, BT Batsford Ltd., London, 1936, chapter 1Carlingford in Ireland derived its name from Scandinavian origins, from the time of the Viking invasions and settlements Alternatively, and perhaps a happy alignment with the former version, was that Carlingford was named in honour of Lord Carlingford, who was the British Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 1847–1860.Pollon and Healy, p. 51

Prior to 1883 the locality was known under various names and lacked any clear boundaries. The fluidity in district names in the colonial period reflected changes in the patterns of land use and access to the area as the process of colonisation proceeded. Names of nearby areas were sometimes vaguely associated with what became Carlingford and even after that name was settled usage remained fluid for a time.

The Ponds referred from 1791 to the nearby valley (later known as Dundas Valley).

The Eastern Farms (east of Parramatta) in 1792Pollon and Healy, p. 234 to what became the Ryde district.

The Northern Boundary broadly referred to the limits of settlement north of Parramatta and could be used variably to include areas later known as North Rocks, Carlingford, Pennant Hills or North Parramatta.Reed, p. 34, 112

The Field of Mars Common was established in 1804Forsyth (1982), p. 166 in the area to the north west of what was to become Carlingford and the parish of the same name was established in 1821. The name Field of Mars too was used loosely to cover anywhere from Ermington to Epping including Carlingford.

North Brush was also used variously to identify the bush north of the Parramatta River covering what is now known as West Ryde, Eastwood, Carlingford and Dundas. Brush Farm on the later border between Carlingford and Eastwood took its name from this usage and was applied to the estate (c. early 1800s) and then the house on the land (c.1820s).

Mobbs Hill was named after the Mobbs family whose land was nearby.

Pennant Hills referred variously to the ridge from Dundas to Mobbs Hill, the quarry in what is now Dundas Valley and the Government wharf at Ermington (1817). Pennant Hills was used in naming the location of St Paul's Church built on Mobbs Hill in 1850 and the associated denominational school which commenced around the same time. The school occupied purpose built premises next to the church from 1872 (demolished in the 1970s). When the new public school opened in the same building in January 1883 it was called Pennant Hills South Public School, changing its name to Carlingford Public School in 1887, shortly before moving into new premises across the road.Garland, p. 8 By that date, the name Carlingford had become associated with the locality up to North Rocks and Pennant Hills referred to the area beyond. However, when the railway line opened from Clyde to the Carlingford district in April 1896 the station was called Pennant Hills (the station being on Pennant Hills Road) but was later changed to Carlingford in August 1901.Carr, Pullen and McCluskey, pp. 43–44Forsyth (1982), p. 50

There was another Carlingford railway station earlier on. When the main northern railway line opened in September 1886 what was to become Epping Station (name adopted in July 1899) was called Field of Mars, then Carlingford (adopted in April 1887) with the area between it and the Carlingford district to the west known as East CarlingfordPollon and Healy, pp. 100–101 after the post office of that name opened in October 1890.Forsyth (1982), pp. 79–80 The Epping area had also been referred to formerly as Barren Ridges.

Orchard country The need for food and economic development in the colony expanded white settlement to Parramatta in late 1788. Over the 1790s land grants for farms in the Parramatta area extended to what is now known as the Carlingford district, Kissing Point, North Brush, The Ponds, Field of Mars.McAndrew, p. 22Britton, p. 371 Grants were given to Cox, Mobbs,Mobbs, pp. 1–2 Arndell and others.

Hard labour was required to clear land of the thick bush and then to cultivate, fence and provide housing. Many struggled with low yields of grain, lack of pig, sheep and cattle stock and isolation. Land ownership often turned over many times with larger land owners moving in during the early 1800s including Holt, Barrington, Randal, Kent, Samuel Marsden and John Macarthur.Jervis, p. 206McAndrew, p. 40

Fruit growing had become the primary industry in the area by the 1830s as the larger estates were divided into smaller tenant or owner occupied holdings and a second wave of settlers moved into the area. Orange, other citrus, stone fruit, apple and pear orchards were common interspersed with crops such as potatoes and peas. Familiar names in the district, often from a convict background, had set down roots including the Mobbs, Eyles, Spurway, Sonter and other families.

Other economic activity in the districtHibble, p. 281 included timber getting from around 1817 with the government convict sawmill operating until about 1830 at the Pennant Hills Sawing Establishment at Barren Ridges (Epping). Timber was hauled to the Pennant Hills Wharf opened in 1817 at Ermington on the Parramatta River. Timber continued to be cut by private contractors into the 20th century. The Pennant Hills blue metal quarry at Dundas was also active from the 1830s.

A public telephone and telegraph service at the Carlingford Post Office began in December 1892Hopson, Vol.1, p.C-8 and gas mains were entering the districtReferences in Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers' Advocate articles: "Dundas Borough Council" report, Sat 31 Aug 1889, p. 3; "Current news", Sat 7 Mar 1891, p. 4; "Carlingford: a magnificent residence", Sat 11 Nov 1893, p. 8 around the same time.

On the eve of Federation, Carlingford was struggling through the great 1890s economic depression but was poised to once again become a prosperous agricultural district. It had a private railway to take goods to market, '... a public school with 235 scholars and staff of six teachers, telephone and money order office, two lines of coaches, five stores, and blacksmith and baker's shop'."Carlingford: The proposed change of name", Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers' Advocate, Sat 3 Jun 1899, p. 10

After Federation 1901

Early century

The newly federated nation of Australia was at war when it came into existence on 1 January 1901, with some local men away serving for the British in the Second Anglo-Boer war in South Africa. Locally the failing private railway from Clyde to Pennant Hills had been taken over by the state government. With the latter station renamed Carlingford, the line reopened on 1 August 1901."The Clyde-Carlingford Railway", Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers' Advocate, Sat 3 Aug 1901, p. 4Carr, Pullen and McCluskey, p. 44