Hungerford is an

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

town in the

Shire of Bulloo The Shire of Bulloo ( ) is a Local government in Australia, local government area in South West Queensland, Australia. On 17 April 2020 the Queensland Government reorganised the nine localities in the Shire, resulting in six localities by makin ...

and a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

in the Shire of Bulloo and

Shire of Paroo The Shire of Paroo is a Local government in Australia, local government area in South West Queensland, Australia. The administrative centre is the town of Cunnamulla. The Paroo Shire covers an area of . In the , the Shire of Paroo had a populati ...

South West Southwest is a compass point. Southwest, south-west, south west, southwestern or south-western or south western may also refer to: * Southwest (direction), an intercardinal direction Geography *South West Queensland, Australia *South West (Weste ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. The town and locality are on the Queensland border with

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 ...

(which is also the

Dingo fence The Dingo Fence or Dog Fence is a pest-exclusion fence in Australia to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent (where they have largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. ...

). In the , the locality of Hungerford had a population of 19 people. The locality of Hungerford on the New South Wales side of the border had a population of 15. Hungerford will be the site of a

total solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

on 22 July 2028.

Geography

The locality is split between the

(western part) and the

(eastern part). The town is located in the Shire of Bulloo immediately north of the border between Queensland and New South Wales. The intermittent

Paroo River The Paroo River, a series of waterholes, connected in wet weather as a running stream of the Darling catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the South West region of Queensland and Far West region of New South Wales, Aust ...

enters the locality from the north-east (

Eulo Eulo ( ) is an outback town and locality in the Shire of Paroo, Queensland, Australia. It is known for its opal mining. In the , the locality of Eulo had a population of 94 people. Geography Eulo is west of Cunnamulla and west of Brisban ...

) and flows in a south-westerly direction through the locality, passing immediately west of the border town of Hungerford before crossing into New South Wales as part of the

Murray Darling basin Murray may refer to: Businesses * Murray (bicycle company), an American bicycle manufacturer * Murray Motor Car Company, an American car manufacturer * Murrays, an Australian bus company * Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trus ...

Currawinya National Park Currawinya is a national park near Hungerford in South West Queensland, Australia, 828 km west of Brisbane. Part of the mulga lands bioregion this is an area of dry sandy plain with small trees and shrubs. The Paroo River passes through the ...

is in the north, north-east, centre, and south of the locality, extending north into neighbouring Thargomindah. Apart from this protected area, the land use is predominantly

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

on native vegetation.

History

Hungerford was in

Badjiri The Badjiri people, also written Budjari or Badyidi, are an Australian Aboriginal people of just north of the Paroo River, close to the southern border of Queensland. They are not to be confused with the Pitjara/Bidjara people of the Warrego ...

territory. The town is named after Thomas Hungerford who once camped at the site. The town developed from a border customs post on a

stock route A stock route, also known as travelling stock route (TSR), is an authorised thoroughfare for the walking of domestic livestock such as sheep or cattle from one location to another in Australia. The stock routes across the country are colloquial ...

alongside the

. In 1874, the first hotel opened and the following year the town was gazetted. For a number of years, before a proper survey was conducted the town was thought to be located in

. Hungerford Post Office opened on 1 October 1880, was replaced by a New South Wales office in 1881, reopened in 1886 and closed by 1907, replaced the New South Wales office in 1941 and closed by 1985. In 1892–3,

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period ...

visited the town and wrote a short story named after it. In the story he wrote:

The town is right on the Queensland border, and an inter-provincial
rabbit-proof fence The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from ...
-- with rabbits on both sides of it -- runs across the main street. ...
Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the
pubs A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...
are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid six pence for it -- we had asked for English ale.

Cobb & Co Cobb & Co was the name used by several independent Australian coach businesses. The first company to use 'Cobb & Co' was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name grew to great prominence in the late 19th century, ...

coach service to the town was stopped in 1904. Hungerford Provisional School opened in 1892, becoming Hungerford State School in 1909. It closed in 1918, due to low attendance. It reopened in 1928, but low attendances caused it to close again in 1930. The school was on a site bounded by Arcturus Street, Achernar Street, Aldebran Street and Canopus Street (). The school was reopened one final time in the Bulloo Shire Hall between 30 January and 11 December 1981. In 1919 during the

Spanish flu pandemic 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 document ...

Queensland Police The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is the principal law enforcement agency responsible for policing the Australian state of Queensland. In 1990, the Queensland Police Force was officially renamed the Queensland Police Service and the old motto ...

were dispatched from Charleville to Hungerford to close the border at Hungerford, to prevent people crossing into Queensland from New South Wales to reduce the spread of the flu. A medical screening process was used to determine if Queensland residents could safely return to the state. During 2020 and 2021 in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Queensland Police again closed the border at Achenar Street at Hungerford to prevent movement of people between the two states.

Demographics

In the , Hungerford had a population of 23 people. The locality of Hungerford on the New South Wales side of the border had a population of 15. In the , the locality of Hungerford had a population of 19 people.

Heritage listings

Hungerford has a number of

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...

sites, including: * Royal Mail Hotel, Archernar Street ()

Education

There are no schools in Hungerford nor nearby. The alternatives are

distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance; today, it usually involves online ...

and boarding school.

Economy

There are a number of homesteads in the locality: * Boorara () * Corina () * Currawinya () * Granite Springs () * Karto () * Moombidary () * Werewilka ()

Facilities

Hungerford Aerodrome is operated by the Bulloo Shire Council. It is to the east on the town on the Hungerford Airstrip Road (). There is one sealed runway long. It has no lighting but portable lights and flairs can be used in emergencies.

Attractions

Walters Range Lookout is off the Old Thargominda Hungerford Road ().

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in Queensland Localities in Queensland Shire of Bulloo Shire of Paroo