Macquarie Fields is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separ ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

, 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 Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. Macquarie Fields is located 38 kilometres south-west of the

Sydney central business district The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or city centre is often referr ...

, in the

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 ...

of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region. Macquarie Fields is surrounded by

bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving ...

. Nearby

Macquarie Links :''Macquarie Links is not Macquarie Fields or Macquarie Park''. Macquarie Links is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Macquarie Links is located south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local gove ...

, is a high-security housing estate beside an international standard

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". ...

. The suburb has multiple high schools including

Macquarie Fields High School Macquarie Fields High School (abbreviated as MFHS) is a government-funded co-educational dual modality partially academically selective and comprehensive secondary day school, located in Macquarie Fields, a south-western suburb of Sydney, ...

and

James Meehan High School --> , motto_translation = , location = Macquarie Fields, South Western Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , type = Government-funded co-educational sec ...

History

The original inhabitants of the Macquarie Fields area were the

Darug people The Dharug or Darug people, formerly known as the Broken Bay tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people, who share strong ties of kinship and, in pre-colonial times, lived as skilled hunters in family groups or clans, scattered throughout much ...

of western Sydney. The rich soil of the area was home to an abundance of plants which in turn attracted animals such as

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...

s and emus, both of which along with this part with yams and other native vegetables and fruit were part of the diet of the Darug. They lived in small huts called gunyahs, made spears, tomahawks and

boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...

s for hunting and had an elaborate system of tribal law and rituals with its origins in the

Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his co ...

. However, following the arrival of the

First Fleet The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command o ...

in 1788, they were pushed off their land by the British settlers. Macquarie Fields was named by early landholder James Meehan in honour of the

Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the A ...

Lachlan Macquarie Major General Lachlan Macquarie, CB (; gd, Lachann MacGuaire; 31 January 1762 – 1 July 1824) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Scotland. Macquarie served as the fifth Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821, an ...

. The area was surveyed by Meehan in the early 19th century. Although transported to Australia as a convict for his role in the

Irish Rebellion of 1798 The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced ...

, Meehan had trained as a

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

in Ireland and in 1803 was appointed an assistant to NSW Surveyor-General Charles Grimes. In 1806 he was granted a full pardon and in 1810 became Surveyor-General. For his work, he was granted a number of parcels of land including in what is now Macquarie Fields and neighboring suburbs. He used the rich soil to grow cereal crops, fruit trees and to graze livestock. The property changed hands a couple of times after Meehan's death and in the 1840s, Samuel Terry built a Regency mansion, Macquarie Fields House, which still stands to this day. It is now listed on the Register of the National Estate. In 1883, then owner William Phillips subdivided the land to create a new town he called Glenwood Estate with grand boulevards and fine buildings. A railway station was added to the line in 1888 but the depression of the 1890s meant the grand town failed to materialize with only a few small houses built on the lots. In the next

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

of the 1930s, the area became popular with the homeless who made makeshift huts, not unlike those of the earlier Darug people. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the village grew steadily. A public school was opened in 1958 and by 1971, the population reached 3700. In the mid-1970s, a large Housing Commission development was built on the east side of town and given the suburb names of Bunbury (later Guise) and Curran after the local creek. Residents of the privately owned areas of Macquarie Fields were strongly opposed to the new developments being included in their suburb and this continued well into the 1980s. Since that time, local authorities have tried to blend the area into a single suburb. Private housing developments sprung up further around and the weight of population contributed to a larger town centre.

21st century

In 2005, riots were sparked by a high-speed police pursuit on 25 February through the Glenquarie housing estate in Macquarie Fields. The chase resulted in the driver, 20-year-old Jesse Kelly, crashing the stolen vehicle into a tree and killing his two passengers, 17-year-old Dylan Raywood and 19-year-old Matthew Robertson.

Heritage listings

Macquarie Fields has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Quarter Sessions Road: Macquarie Field House

Population

According to the 2016 census, 13,714 people live in Macquarie Fields . * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 4.1% of the population. * 53.6% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were Bangladesh 5.2%, India 4.3%, New Zealand 3.0%, Fiji 2.6% and Philippines 2.6%. * 51.8% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Bengali 7.1%, Arabic 4.2%, Hindi 3.4%, Samoan 3.3% and Marathi 2.3%. * The most common responses for religion were Catholic 19.8%, No Religion 16.3%, Islam 12.8% and Anglican 12.1%. * The most common occupations Clerical and Administrative Workers 15.6%, Labourers 14.6%, Professionals 14.2%, Machinery Operators and Drivers 14.2%, and Technicians and Trades Workers 12.5%.

Transport

Macquarie Fields railway station is serviced by the

Airport & South Line The Airport & South Line (numbered T8, coloured green) (''commonly called the East Hills Line)'' is a suburban commuter rail line in Sydney, Australia. It connects the Sydney central business district with the southwestern suburbs via Sydney Ai ...

of the

Sydney Trains Sydney Trains is the operator of the suburban passenger rail network serving the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The network is a hybrid urban-suburban rail system with a central underground core that covers over of track and 170 ...

network. Macquarie Fields is serviced by four Interline bus routes: :870 Campbelltown Hospital to Liverpool Station :871 Campbelltown Hospital to Liverpool Station :872 Campbelltown Hospital to Liverpool Station :876 Eucalyptus Drive to Macquarie Fields Station

Sport and recreation

The town is home to Macquarie Fields Leisure Centre, which contains an indoor aquatic center and an outdoor Olympic sized swimming pool. It also encompasses a gymnasium and indoor sports facilities. There is also a number of sporting fields in the town. Sporting fields include Bensley Road, Hazlet Oval, Monarch Oval and Third Avenue.

Services

Macquarie Fields contains the

WorkVentures WorkVentures is an Australian independent not-for-profit social enterprise, established in 1979 and, , employing more than 170 people across seven locations in Sydney and Melbourne. WorkVentures also works with partner organisations to deliver ...

Connect Centre at Macquarie Fields.

References

External links

History of Macquarie Fields, from the City of Campbelltown Council
*

CC-By-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

] {{Sydney Campbelltown suburbs Macquarie Fields, New South Wales, Suburbs of Sydney