Manilla is a small town in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia, located on Fossickers Way 45 kilometres northwest of the regional city of Tamworth and 27 kilometres northeast of the historic village Somerton. Manilla is famous for its setting as a fishing,

paragliding Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or in a cocoon-like 'pod' suspended be ...

, and mountain biking area. The name Manilla comes from the

Gamilaraay The Gamilaroi, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Austr ...

word 'Maneela', which is said to mean 'meeting of the rivers'. The township of Manilla was established in 1853 at the junction of the Namoi River and the Manilla River. It was formerly the centre of Manilla Shire

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 federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

, but this was amalgamated with Tamworth City Council and portions of Parry, Barraba and Nundle Shire Councils to form Tamworth Regional Council in 2004. It lies next to the Bundarra-Barraba Important Bird Area which is important for the conservation of the

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

regent honeyeater. Manilla is also well known for Split Rock Dam on the Manilla River and Lake Keepit on the Namoi River.

Public facilities

*Police Station *Post Office *Swimming Pool *Sportsground *Tennis Courts *War Memorial Hall, Library and Preschool

Transport

Manilla is served by Tamworth Buslines route 443 from Tamworth.

History

The junction of the Manilla and Namoi Rivers known as 'Maneela', was for generations, a camping ground for the local Indigenous people, members of the large

Kamilaroi The Gamilaroi, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous Australians, Indi ...

(Gamilaraay) tribes of northwestern New South Wales. Thomas Florance led the first British surveying expedition to the region in 1827. The local Aboriginal clan rolled boulders from the hills onto Florance's encampment, whose men then fired upon them. Another skirmish occurred resulting in one of the surveying team being wounded by a spear and Florance shooting an Aboriginal man. In 1832, Henry Dangar and Sir William Edward Parry conducted further surveying for the

Australian Agricultural Company The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo; ) is a public-listed Australian company that, as of 2018, owns and operates feedlots and farms covering around of land in Queensland and the Northern Territory, roughly one percent of Australia's land ...

and camped on what is now the present site of the Manilla township. They found several Aboriginal families living there. Around 1836, British pastoral squatters arrived in the area looking to establish large sheep and cattle stations on so-called

crown land Crown land, also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realm ...

for the small leasehold fee of £10 per annum. Three massive properties were soon established in the Manilla region: Greenhatches formed by Joseph Greenhatch on behalf of Sydney businessman Charles Smith; Dinawirindi formed by Otto Baldwin; and Cuerindi formed by Thomas Simpson Hall and his brothers. Conflict in the area between the colonists and the resident Aboriginal population resulted in the government sending a large detachment of New South Wales Mounted Police under the command of Major James Nunn to the region in early 1838. Nunn's force captured around 100 Aboriginal people just to the west of what is now Manilla, with fifteen taken prisoner and one being shot dead. Frontier conflict in the immediate vicinity appears to have ended after Nunn's operation, who proceeded north-west with his men, later perpetrating the Waterloo Creek massacre. In the 1840s, the Greenhatches leasehold was sold to

William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He ...

and John Charles Lloyd, and was re-named Manilla. Dinawirindi was later reduced in size and re-named as Durham Court with the Baldwin family holding the property right up until 2016. Cuerindi was also held within the Hall family for generations. During the 1850s, teamsters with bullock waggons were regularly transporting goods from the Hunter District through the Manilla area to outlying cattle stations and the northern goldfield settlements of Bingara and Bundarra. Teams were often delayed at the junction of the Namoi and Manilla Rivers by high water. In 1853, enterprising Englishman George Veness arrived at ‘The Junction’ to set up a store and wine shop at the teamsters’ camping ground. In doing so, Veness is acknowledged as the founder of the Manilla township which was located on the boundary of the Manilla and Dinawirindi pastoral properties. The town's early prosperity was founded on the highly productive wheat and pastoral industries. In 1864, the nascent township was practically wiped out by an immense flood. It took many years for the town to recover, with the first school being built in 1878 and the first post-office in 1880. Australian singer-songwriter Darren Hanlon produced a song entitled 'Manilla NSW' which appeared on his 2006 record, 'Fingertips and Mountaintops'. At the 2006 census, Manilla had a population of 2,082, whilst as at the there were 2,386 people.

Rugby League and Dally Messenger

In July 1917

Dally Messenger Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger, (12 April 1883 – 24 November 1959) was an Australian rugby league and rugby union player. One of Australasia's first professional rugby footballers, he is recognised as one of the greatest-ever players in eit ...

and his wife, Annie, took over the Royal Hotel in Manilla. Shortly after his arrival Dally established the Manilla Rugby League Club. This was difficult as there was a strong Rugby Union Team and many other young men were at

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

or other theatres of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

His original team included Jack Hiscox, Roy Blanch, Frank and Norman Chapman, Jack Munro and Ivan Miller. Dally played some games but was more concerned, as coach, into forming these local young men into a quality team. In 1918 in the knockout competition held in Tamworth, Manilla defeated Quirindi 10-6 and Tamworth 14 nil. In June 1919 Both Dally and Annie caught the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...

pandemic. Dally recovered but tragically Annie died on 23 June 1919 and is buried in the Manilla cemetery. On 23 August 1919 Dally returned to Sydney with his five year old son (Dally II). Marking the history on the very day of its formation, 8 July 2017, the Manilla Rugby League club under captain Coach Mitch Doring celebrated its 100th anniversary (2017) of formation with a hard fought match against the Bendemeer Mountain Men whom they defeated 34-30. Guests of honour at the celebratory dinner afterwards included Dally Messenger’s grandsons Ken and

, and great grandchildren Cameron Dally Messenger and Genevieve Ann Messenger.''What a Great Weekend''; Manilla Express, Tuesday, 11 July 2017, p.1

Heritage listings

Manilla has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Tamworth-Barraba railway: Manilla railway underbridges

Aviation sports

In recent years, Manilla has become famous throughout the world as a major sports flying centre supporting

hang gliding Hang gliding is an air sports, air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised, fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium al ...

,Fly Manilla
flymanilla.com.

ultralight aircraft Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and Aircraft flight control system, conventional three-a ...

, gyrocopters and gliders (sailplanes).Lake Keepit Soaring Club
Gliding at Lake Keepit. It boasts nearby Mt Borah, one of the world's best paraglider and hang glider launch sites. In 1998 local paragliding instructor and developer of Mt Borah, Godfrey Wenness, gained the world distance record with a flight of . Major free-flight competitions are staged annually during the summer months. The 10th FAI Paragliding World Championships were held at the site in 2007, attended by 150 pilots from 41 nations. In the week prior to the event Manilla was in the headlines around the world for the survival of paraglider pilot Ewa Wiśnierska of Germany who was sucked up into a thunderstorm to . The dramatic story was made into a TV documentary ''Miracle in the Storm'' which won an AFI award and was nominated for a

Logie Award The TV Week Logie Awards (known colloquially as The Logies) is an annual ceremony celebrating and honouring the best shows and stars in Television in Australia, Australian television, sponsored and organised by the magazine ''TV Week''. The eve ...

Notable residents

* Henry Burrell (1873–1945), an amateur naturalist, photographer & film-maker, began unlocking the secrets of the

platypus The platypus (''Ornithorhynchus anatinus''), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypi ...

. * Stan Coster (27 May 1930 – 25 March 1997), an Australian country music singer-songwriter. * Tracy Coster, Australian country music artist, daughter of Stan Coster (above) * Fiona Coote, aged 14, in 1984 became Australia's second and also its youngest heart transplant recipient *

(1883–1959), a

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

and

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player. He came to Manilla in 1917 and held the licence of The Royal Hotel. * Harry M. Miller, entrepreneur, bought the Manilla property "Dunmore" in the 1970s. * John Quayle, Australian former

CEO, began playing rugby league with Manilla as a boy.

Notes and references

External links

More History
– Manilla Museum Website {{authority control Towns in New South Wales Towns in New England (New South Wales) North West Slopes Tamworth Regional Council