Wagga Wagga School Of Arts

Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's largest inland city, and is an important agricultural, military, and transport hub of Australia. The ninth largest inland city in Australia, Wagga Wagga is located midway between the two largest cities in Australia—Sydney and Melbourne—and is the major regional centre for the Riverina and South West Slopes regions.

The central business district is focused around the commercial and recreational grid bounded by Best and Tarcutta Streets and the Murrumbidgee River and the Sturt Highway. The main shopping street of Wagga is Baylis Street which becomes Fitzmaurice Street at the northern end. The city is accessible from Sydney via the Sturt and Hume Highways, Adelaide via the Sturt Highway and Albury and Melbourne via the Olympic Highway and Hume Highway. The city is in an alluvial valley and much of the city has a problem with urban salinity.

The original inhabitants of the Wagga Wagga region were the Wiradjuri people. In 1829, Charles Sturt became the first European explorer to visit the future site of the city. Squatters arrived soon after. The town, positioned on the site of a ford across the Murrumbidgee, was surveyed and gazetted as a village in 1849 and the town grew quickly after. In 1870, the town was gazetted as a municipality.

During the negotiations leading to the federation of the Australian colonies, Wagga Wagga was a contender for the site of the capital for the new nation.Morris, p. 115. During World War I the town was the starting point for the Kangaroo recruitment march. The Great Depression and the resulting hardship saw Wagga Wagga become the centre of a secession movement for the Riverina region. Wagga Wagga became a garrison town during World War II with the establishment of a military base at Kapooka and Royal Australian Air Force bases at Forest Hill and Uranquinty. After the war, Wagga Wagga was proclaimed as a city in 1946 and new suburbs were developed to the south of the city. In 1982 the city was amalgamated with the neighbouring Kyeamba and Mitchell Shires to form the City of Wagga Wagga local government area.

Geography

Wagga Wagga is at the eastern end of the Riverina region where the slopes of the Great Dividing Range flatten and form the Riverina plain. The city straddles the Murrumbidgee River, one of the great rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, and the city centre is on the southern bank, protected by a levee from potential flooding.

The city sits halfway between the largest cities in Australia, being 452 kilometres southwest of Sydney and 456 kilometres northeast of Melbourne with the Sydney–Melbourne railway line passing through. The Sturt Highway, part of Australia's National Highway network, passes through the city on its way from Adelaide to its junction with the main Sydney–Melbourne route, the Hume Highway, a further 45 kilometres east. This location astride some of the major transport routes in the nation has made Wagga Wagga an important heavy truck depot for a number of companies including Toll Holdings. Wagga Wagga itself is the major regional centre for the Riverina and for much of the South West Slopes regions, providing education, health and other services to a region extending as far as Griffith to the west, Cootamundra to the north and Tumut to the east.

Landform and salinity

Wagga Wagga is upstream from the Riverina plain in the mid-catchment range of the Murrumbidgee River in an alluvial valley confined by low bedrock hills. Much of Wagga Wagga is on heavy clay soils in a large drainage basin with a small catchment discharge point. Groundwater therefore cannot leave easily, leading to Wagga Wagga having a problem with waterlogged soil and soil salination. Urban salination in Wagga Wagga is now the subject of a large multi-pronged approach to prevent further salination and reclaim salt-affected areas.

City and suburbs

The location of Wagga Wagga's Central business district was already well established by the late 1800s and remains focused around the commercial and recreational grid bounded by Best and Tarcutta Streets and the Murrumbidgee River and the Sturt Highway. The main shopping street of Wagga Wagga is Baylis Street which becomes Fitzmaurice Street at the northern end. The Wollundry Lagoon is the water focus of the city centre and has been a key element in the development and separation of the north (older) and south (newer) parts of the city centre. Most residential growth in Wagga Wagga has been on the higher ground to the south of the city centre, with the only residential areas north of the Murrumbidgee being the flood prone suburb of North Wagga Wagga and the university suburb of Estella. Major industrial areas of Wagga Wagga include the northern suburb of Bomen and the eastern suburb of East Wagga Wagga.

Thomas Mitchell, the surveyor who served under Lord Wellington, named many of the streets after Peninsular War veterans.

Climate

Wagga Wagga has a temperate climate with hot dry summers and cool to cold winters. Under the Köppen climate classification, the city has a humid subtropical climate (''Cfa''), albeit having a semi-arid influence due to its vegetation. At a longitude of 147 degrees (altitude of 212 metres), Wagga Wagga has four distinct seasons. Winters can be cold by Australian standards with the mean maximum temperature falling in July to and a mean minimum of . The lowest temperature recorded at Wagga was on 21 August 1982; and the lowest maximum temperature did not surpass on 16 July 1966.

Fog and heavy frosts are common in the winter while snow is a very rare occurrence. By contrast, summers in Wagga Wagga are warm to hot, with mean maximum temperatures ranging between . The hottest temperature on record is on 4 January 2020. Relative humidity is low in the summer months with a 3 pm average of around 30%. Wagga Wagga has 124.3 clear days annually.

In 2009 the city recorded anomalous maximum of , which was above the country's average of and the highest anomalous maximum in Australia for 2009. This proceeded the early 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave, in which Wagga Wagga recorded 13 consecutive days over .

Wagga Wagga has a mean annual rainfall of per year. This rainfall is distributed fairly equally over the 12 months. On 8 March 2010, Wagga Wagga Airport recorded of rain, breaking the previous all-time record of set on 16 March 1966, with of rain recorded at Gurwood Street in the city's CBD. In December 2010, the city recorded its wettest year on record and the first yearly rainfall recording of .

History

Indigenous settlement

The original Aboriginal inhabitants of the Wagga Wagga region were the Wiradjuri people and the term "Wagga" and derivatives of that word in the Wiradjuri aboriginal language was thought to mean " crow". To create the plural, the Wiradjuri repeat a word, thus 'Wagga Wagga' translated to 'the place of many crows'. Other translations have also attributed the word 'wagga' to meaning, 're-eling (a sick man or a dizzy man); to dance, slide or grind'. Wiradjuri people have maintained a relationship with the Wagga Wagga area to this day.

In August 2019, Wagga Wagga dropped the definition 'crow' and adopted the city's Aboriginal meaning as 'dance and celebrations'. The new meaning was officially enshrined in the city's first Reconciliation Action Plan.

''For more history of the Wiradjuri at Wagga Wagga see also; Mary Gilmore and the history of Wagga Wagga.''

European exploration of the future site of Wagga Wagga began in 1829 with the arrival of Captain Charles Sturt during his expedition along the Murrumbidgee River.Morris, pp. 15–16. Settlers arrived shortly thereafter with Charles Tompson establishing the Eunonyhareenyha 'run' on the north bank of the river in 1832, and then in soon after George Best establishing the Wagga Wagga 'run' on the south bank. Other settlers followed, with all of them initially squatting on the land illegally but by 1836 the colonial government regulated the tenure of land and established a licensing scheme.Morris, pp. 17–20. Within a few years settlers numbers increased greatly and before 1850 a local bench of magistrates and a place for holding petty sessions was established.Morris, pp. 33–34. The beginnings of a village formed near the ford used by most traffic passing through the area and included a crude blacksmith's shop, a hotel, and a post office. By 1849 the town was marked out by surveyor Thomas Scott Townsend and formally gazetted as a village.Morris, pp. 34–36.

Wagga Wagga grew quickly, reaching a population of 627 in 1861 and during that decade a number of hotels and stores opened, as well as professional services in the form of banks, solicitors, doctors and dentists.Morris, pp. 56–64. The ''Wagga Wagga Advertiser'' is still published today as '' The Daily Advertiser'' and commenced in 1868. Until the 1860s most goods were transported to markets by bullock wagon. For a short time, the arrival of faster, cheaper and more reliable riverboats allowed goods to be transported more easily to export markets. The riverboat era ended when the New South Wales government extended the railway line to North Wagga Wagga in 1878 and across the river to Wagga Wagga itself in 1881.Morris, p. 76.

On 15 March 1870, Wagga Wagga was incorporated as a municipality and George Forsyth was chosen as the first Mayor of Wagga Wagga. Gas lighting was installed throughout the streets of Wagga Wagga in 1881, although once again North Wagga Wagga was neglected. By 1885, a town waterworks and reservoir was established although water quality remained a problem. Poor sanitation caused a horrific stench in the town and was blamed for a large increase in infectious diseases such as typhoid fever in the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1908 the council approved a sewerage scheme and by 1914 most of the main streets were sewered. A free public library was opened in 1875 and the council began to establish parklands such as Bolton Park and the Town Hall Gardens.Morris, pp. 89–92.

In September 1859 local residents formed a committee for the construction of a pile bridge over the Murrumbidgee River. After the New South Wales Government refused to support this type of bridge the committee decided to finance it themselves. The bridge was completed in October 1862 and opened on 27 October at just over 91 metres long and 7 metres wide. In 1884 the New South Wales Government purchased the bridge and it was demolished in 1895.Morris, p. 78. In 1895 a truss bridge called the Hampden Bridge, was built across the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga. The bridge served the Wagga Wagga community for over 100 years until 16 August 2006 when it was closed and fenced off to the public due to the bridge being declared a safety risk after one of the trusses failed. In 2014 the Hampden Bridge was demolished.

With its increasing prosperity and population, Wagga Wagga and the surrounding district became a place of interest to several infamous bushrangers. The Wagga police magistrate Henry Baylis was bailed up by Mad Dog Morgan in 1863. Captain Moonlite and his band arrived in the district on 15 November 1879 and held up 39 people at Wantabadgery Station. Moonlite and his gang escaped a police pursuit only to be captured at another nearby property when police from the neighbouring townships of Gundagai and Adelong arrived.

Along with most of the Riverina region, the majority of Wagga Wagga residents supported the federation of the Australian colonies, in large part due to the prospect of free trade across colonial borders. In 1898, a group of residents promoted Wagga Wagga for consideration as the site of the future national capital due to its location equidistant from Sydney and Melbourne and its ample water supply. Despite the bid's lack of success, in the 1899 referendum Wagga Wagga residents voted strongly in favour of federation.

During World War I the town was the starting point of the "Kangaroo March", one of a series of snowball marches conducted in New South Wales during the war where groups of recruits would march toward Sydney and appeal to men in the towns along the route to join them and enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. 88 recruits left Wagga Wagga on 1 December 1915, farewelled by a large crowd and to the accompaniment of a band. The marchers included John Ryan, who later won the Victoria Cross for his actions in the Battle of the Hindenburg Line in 1918.Morris, pp. 120–122. The march finished at Campbelltown with over 220 recruits.

After the war some of the area around Wagga Wagga was designated for settlement by returned soldiers, who faced insurmountable difficulties due to poor and unwatered land, lack of farming experience and lack of access to markets. Many walked off the land after years of backbreaking work.Morris, pp. 134–140. Residential growth continued with a population in 1921 of 11,631.Morris, p. 148. Much of this residential growth was housed in the higher ground to the south, extending to the south of the railway tracks. A suburb consisting of tents and crude huts, known as "Tent Town", developed along the river providing housing for the poorer residents of Wagga Wagga.Morris, p. 154. In 1922, electricity was provided for the town, with hydro-electric power available from Burrinjuck Dam from 1928.Morris, p. 160.

Hardship as a result of the Great Depression, and the election of Jack Lang of the Labor party as Premier of New South Wales, sparked the formation of the "Riverina Movement". Throughout the Riverina in early 1931, a series of rallies were organised by the movement, culminating in a great meeting in Wagga Wagga on 28 February 1931. The meeting called on the State and Federal governments to alleviate the concerns of producers in the district or hold a referendum to determine if the Riverina should secede. The movement petered out following the dismissal of Lang in 1932 and the recovery of the regional economy.Morris, pp. 178–184.

The outbreak of World War II saw Royal Australian Air Force bases established at Forest Hill in 1940 and Uranquinty in 1941. A major Australian Army camp was constructed at Kapooka in 1942 and one year later there were 8,000 troops in training there with Wagga taking on the characteristics of a garrison town.Morris, pp. 191–198.

After the war, Wagga Wagga grew steadily and was proclaimed a city on 17 April 1946. Suburbs such as Turvey Park and Kooringal were developed to the south of the city and in the 1960s, residential growth expanded to cover areas such as Tolland and Lake Albert. The main commercial district also moved south to the Baylis Street end with the development of the Sturt Mall in 1979. The City Council developed a series of industrial areas including areas for service and general industries, and agricultural processing and noxious industries were established in a new industrial estate in Bomen.Morris, pp. 212–218.

In the 1950s the defence bases in Wagga Wagga again became an important part of the city. The Army camp at Kapooka was reopened as a recruit training centre from 1951, a role it maintains to this day. RAAF Base Wagga at Forest Hill also expanded, with training of defence force aircraft technicians there from 1969.Morris, p. 223. After a series of major floods in the early 1950s, the City Council protected the city area on the south flood plain through construction of a levee, completed in 1962. The levee was designed to provide protection from floods at levels expected once every one hundred years. North Wagga Wagga was initially excluded from protection however by 1982 another levee was constructed to protect the village, although at a lower standard.Morris, pp. 237–238.

In 1971, following pressure from the Wagga Wagga community for a university, the teachers' college established in 1947 became the Riverina College of Advanced Education and was relocated to a site adjacent to the Wagga Agricultural College, with which it amalgamated in 1975. In 1989, the College amalgamated with the College of Advanced Education at Bathurst to become Charles Sturt University.Morris, pp. 226–228. In 1981, the New South Wales government forced the amalgamation of Wagga Wagga City Council with neighbouring Kyeamba Shire and Mitchell Shire to form the new City of Wagga Wagga local government area, containing 4,886 square kilometres.Morris, p. 237.

On 23 February 1993 Wagga Wagga was the first city in the world to be proclaimed as a Rotary Peace City, with a Rotary Peace Monument unveiled on the corner of The Esplanade and Best Street.

Heritage listings

Wagga Wagga has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
* Botanic Gardens Site (BGS), Baden Powell Drive: Mobile Cook's Galley, Museum of the Riverina
* Main Southern railway: Wagga Wagga railway station

Flag

The Wagga Wagga City Flag was designed by Mr H Ellis Tomlinson, MA, FHS and adopted in 1965. Currently, Wagga Wagga City Council holds the copyright to Tomlinson's design. The flag is officially square. The upper quarter of it contains eight stalks of wheat positioned so as to form two capital letters W on a vert (green) field. The lower quarter of the upper half of the flag contains a wavy blue line on gold (yellow) representing the river winding through the wheat fields. The lower half of the flag contains the head of a ram positioned centrally on a vert (green) field.

Demographics

Wagga Wagga is the major city of the Riverina and the largest inland city in New South Wales. As at June 2018 the urban area of Wagga Wagga was home to an estimated population of 56,442 Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. having grown, on average, 0.65 percent year-on-year during the previous five years. Much of this growth is attributable to the "sponge city" phenomenon as Wagga Wagga attracts residents from smaller towns in the region such as Urana. Other factors include Wagga's role as a regional centre and its hosting of major defence establishments and a Charles Sturt University campus.

According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 54,411 people in the Wagga Wagga Urban Area.

* Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 5.9% of the population.
* 84.1% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were England 1.3%, India 1.2%, Philippines 0.7%, New Zealand 0.7% and China 0.5%.
* 87.5% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Malayalam 0.7%, Arabic 0.5%, Mandarin 0.5%, Tagalog 0.3% and Filipino 0.3%.
* The most common responses for religion were Catholic 31.2%, No Religion 22.1% and Anglican 19.3%.

Wagga Wagga falls within the boundary of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn. Anglican parishes include St John's, Wagga Wagga (Church St); St Paul's, Turvey Park (Fernleigh Rd); St Alban's, Kooringal (Lake Albert Rd); Community of the Redeemer, Ashmont (Blakemore Ave).

Wagga Wagga is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese, with its principal church being St Michael's Cathedral.

Industry

Commercial

Wagga attracts people from all over the Riverina and southwestern New South Wales to its shopping facilities. It is the major support city for over 200,000 people who live across the region.

Wagga's shopping centres include two notable centres of metropolitan standards, Wagga Wagga Marketplace and Sturt Mall in the central business district, and suburban shopping centres such as the South City Shopping Centre in Glenfield Park, the Lake Village Shopping Centre, Lake Albert, the Tolland Shopping Centre and Kooringal Mall in Kooringal. Wagga has a large HomeBase store located on the Sturt Highway. Wagga's central business district, with both Baylis and Fitzmaurice Streets and other surrounding streets, offers hundreds of speciality retailers including national chains such as Big W, Myer and Kmart. Target Country closed its store on Baylis Street in March 2021. The dairy company Fonterra (formerly Murrumbidgee Dairy Products), is based on the Sturt Highway, and is a supplier of dairy products in the Riverina, Other major industries include Cargill and Heinz, which are in the suburb of Bomen.

Defence forces

The Australian Army base at