Bonegilla is a bounded rural locality of the

City of Wodonga The City of Wodonga is a local government area in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia, located in the north-east part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018, had a population of 41,429. It is primarily urban with the vast m ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

in north-east

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia, east of

Wodonga Wodonga (Pallanganmiddang language, Waywurru: ''Wordonga'') is a city on the Victoria (Australia), Victorian side of the border with New South Wales, north-east of Melbourne, Australia. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of ...

, and around north-east of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. At the , Bonegilla and the surrounding area had a population of 610.

History

Bonegilla Post Office opened on 20 August 1878 and closed in 1951. Bonegilla Military Post Office was open from 1940 to 1947 and from 1983 to 1998, after which it relocated to nearby

Bandiana Bandiana is a Suburb of the City of Wodonga local government area in northeast Victoria, Australia. History Bandiana takes its name from the early name for the area, probably from a First Nations toponym. The hill now known as Bears Hill appea ...

. Much of the development of the town was due to the

Cudgewa railway line The Cudgewa railway line is a closed railway line in the north-east of Victoria, Australia. Branching off the main North East line at Wodonga it ran east to a final terminus at Cudgewa. The High Country Rail Trail now uses most of the railway ...

which opened in 1889 and closed in 1981. The line was used both in the development of, and transporting materials for, the

Snowy Mountains Scheme The Snowy Mountains Scheme or Snowy scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. The Scheme consists of sixteen major dams; nine power stations; two pumping stations; and of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts that ...

and the main method of transporting thousands of migrants to the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre from

Station Pier Station Pier is a historic Australian pier on Port Phillip, in Port Melbourne, Victoria. Opened in 1854, the pier is Melbourne's primary passenger terminal, servicing interstate ferries and cruise ships, and is listed on the Victorian Heritage R ...

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Port Phillip local government areas. Port Melbourne recorded a populatio ...

. The rail line has since been removed, and is now the

High Country Rail Trail The High Country Rail Trail is a 35 kilometre, part-gravel part-sealed rail trail on the northern border of Victoria, Australia. It runs along the former Cudgewa railway line from Wodonga, along the edge of Lake Hume, to Shelley railway station i ...

, a bike path linking Wodonga to

Lake Hume Hume Dam, formerly the Hume Weir, is a major dam across the Murray River downstream of its junction with the Mitta River in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. The dam's purpose includes flood mitigation, hydroelectricity, hydro-po ...

Bonegilla migrant camp

As part of the

Post war immigration to Australia Post-war immigration to Australia deals with migration to Australia in the decades immediately following World War II, and in particular refers to the predominantly European wave of immigration which occurred between 1945 and the end of the Whit ...

, Australia's first migrant reception centre opened at Bonegilla in December 1947 with an intake of the first assisted migrants from Europe, Baltic refugees from Germany. Assisted migrants who had not been refugees began arriving in 1951. The Australian Army had established a camp and military hospital on the site in 1940 as Albury-Wodonga was considered strategically important during the Second World War. Initially the army provided transport and security services to the migrant centre. The camp at Bonegilla closed in 1971 by which time some 320,000 migrants from over 30 countries had spent time there.Bonegilla Camp Block 19
It is estimated that over 1.5 million Australians are descended from migrants who spent time at Bonegilla.

References

External links

So Much Sky – Bonegilla Reception & Training Centre
{{authority control Towns in Victoria (Australia) Towns in Upper Hume City of Wodonga

History

Bonegilla migrant camp

See also

References

External links