Kearns is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia 57 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region.

History

Kearns was named after a local farmer, William Kearns, who owned a large property in the area during the 1800s. He gained notoriety for a court case in 1824 where a neighbour sued him for getting his 14-year-old daughter pregnant. During the case, Kearns was defended by William Charles Wentworth a young Lawyer at the time, Wentworth had evidence proving the neighbour was a man who lied about other matters so not a person to be trusted. Kearns had to pay a far lesser amount than the neighbour had wanted. William and his new wife Elizabeth went on to bring up the little girl from the former relationship the child adored her father. Kearns's land was originally owned by the

Tharawal people The Dharawal people, also spelt Tharawal and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, identified by the Dharawal language. Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, ...

until they were dispossessed by British settlers in the 1820s. They first named the land River Hill but by 1828 it had been renamed Epping Forest by Kearns. By purchasing neighbouring land grants, he expanded his property to and established a thriving dairy farm and

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of ...

. After his death in 1880, the property stayed within the family until 1978. In 1975, Campbelltown Council began planning a major development in the area and chose the name Kearns for the suburb since Epping Forest would have caused confusion with the suburb of

Epping Epping may refer to: Places Australia * Epping, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Epping railway station, Sydney * Electoral district of Epping, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly * Epping Forest, Kearns, a he ...

elsewhere in Sydney. Streets were named after famous rivers of the world such as

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

and

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

and the first residents moved in in 1985. Not long after, a primary school was established in 1992.

Heritage listings

Kearns has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Mississippi Crescent:

Epping Forest, Kearns Epping Forest is a heritage-listed former farm and residence and now vacant building at Mississippi Crescent, Kearns, City of Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built from 1825. The property is privately owned. It w ...

People

According to the 2016

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Kearns had a population of 2,745 which could be best described as young families on better than average incomes. The average age was 33 compared to the national average of 38 and the median family income was $2,115 per week compared with a national median of $1,734. 57.9% of the population were families with children and almost the entire suburb (95%) was detached housing. 76.3% of people were born in Australia and 79.1% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Arabic at 4.0%. The most common responses for religion were Catholic 35.6%, No Religion 19.7%, Anglican 18.0% and Islam 6.3%.

References

Suburbs of Sydney City of Campbelltown (New South Wales) {{Sydney-geo-stub