Albury
Albury is a major regional city that is located in the Murray region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the twin city of Albury-Wodonga and is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the City of Albury. It is on the Victoria–New South Wales border.
Albury has an urban population of 53,677 and is separated from its twin city in Victoria, Wodonga, by the Murray River. Together, the two cities form an urban area with a population of 97,793 in 2021. It is from the state capital Sydney and from the Victorian capital Melbourne.
Said to be named after a village in England, United Kingdom, Albury developed as a major transport link between New South Wales and Victoria and was proclaimed a city in 1946.
History
The Wiradjuri or Wirraayjuurray people people were the first known humans to occupy the area, and are a group of Indigenous Australian Aboriginal people that were united by a common language, strong ties of kinship and survived as skilled hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans scattered throughout central New South Wales.In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in Condobolin, Peak Hill, Narrandera and Griffith. There are significant populations at Wagga Wagga and Leeton and smaller groups at West Wyalong, Parkes, Dubbo, Forbes, Cootamundra, Cowra and Young.
European exploration
During their expedition, the explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell arrived at what their maps called 'Crossing Point', but is now known as the Murray River at Albury, on 16 November 1824. They named the river the Hume River, after Hume's father, and the next day inscribed a tree by the river bank before continuing their journey south to Westernport in Victoria. In 1830, explorer Captain Charles Sturt discovered the Hume River downstream at its junction with the Murrumbidgee River. Not realising it was the same river, he named it the Murray River. Both names persisted for some time, Hume falling into disuse eventually in favour of Murray. The Aboriginal name for the river was Millewa. A crossing place for the Murray became popular close to where Hovell inscribed the tree. In summer it was usually possible to cross the river by foot.British settlement
Among the first squatters to follow in the steps of the explorers and settle in the district were William Wyse and Charles Ebden.The first European buildings erected at the crossing place were a provisions store and some small huts. A survey for a town was commissioned in 1838 by Assistant Surveyor Thomas Townsend who mapped out Wodonga Place as the western boundary, Hume Street as the northern boundary, Kiewa Street to the east and Nurigong Street to the south, with Townsend Street being the only other north–south road, and Ebden and Hovell Streets being the two other east–west roads. Townsend proposed the settlement be named 'Bungambrawatha ', the Aboriginal name for the area, but when his plan was eventually approved and published in the Government Gazette on 13 April 1839 the name had been changed to Albury.
Albury is said to be named after a village in Kent, England which it apparently resembled, though that referenced publication seems incorrect since there is no Albury in Kent. More plausible is Albury in adjacent Surrey, straddling the Tillingbourne river and a significant 18th century site of mills and industry.
Frontier town
By 1847, the Albury settlement included two public houses and a handful of huts, a police barracks and a blacksmiths. A log punt established in 1844 serviced the crossing of the Murray River. Albury Post Office opened on 1 April 1843, closed in 1845, then reopened in the township on 1 February 1847.In 1851, with the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, and the border falling on the Murray River, Albury found itself a frontier town. With an increase in commerce with Melbourne, the first bridge was built in 1860 to the design of surveyor William Snell Chauncy. Albury at this time became a customs post between the two colonies as New South Wales held a protectionist stance after gaining its constitution in 1856.
Albury was at this time starting to grow substantially with German speaking immigrants using the area to grow grapes for wine. By the 1870s a butter factory was established, flour mill, wineries and locally brewed cider and soft drinks were available.
The railway line from Sydney arrived at Albury in 1881. The North-Eastern Railway line from Melbourne to Wodonga was completed in 1873 and a wooden railway bridge connected the Albury Railway Station to the Victorian line in 1883. New South Wales and Victoria had different track gauges until 1962, when the first train ran direct from Sydney to Melbourne. The two states could not initially agree which should be the transfer point so they had an expensive and attractive iron lattice bridge sent from Scotland which accommodated both gauges.
There was a school operating at Albury in 1848, catering for 13 private students. The following year the first National School opened on the corner of Dean and Kiewa Streets, with 73 students enrolled. In 1862 a new school was built in Olive Street on land which is now part of Albury Public School. The city's first mayor, James Fallon, was an innovator of the Public School, funding a demonstration High School to be built on Kiewa Streets. Albury High School opened in Kiewa Street in 1927.
20th-century city
The Royal Commission on Sites for the Seat of Government of the Commonwealth report of 1903 recommended Albury as the preferred candidate for the national capital, though the proposal met staunch opposition from residents. At a public meeting, just one member of parliament voted in favour of Albury – Isaac Isaacs, member for Indi. The lack of support for other places ultimately led to the selection of Canberra as the preferred site.In 1934, a Douglas DC-2 airliner of KLM, a competitor in the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race, made an emergency night landing at the town's racecourse after becoming lost during severe thunderstorms. After signalling by Morse code A-L-B-U-R-Y to the lost aircrew by using the entire town's public lighting system, the "Uiver" was guided in to land safely. The makeshift runway at the racecourse was illuminated by the headlights of cars belonging to local residents who had responded to a special news bulletin on ABC radio station 2CO. The next morning many local volunteers helped pull the stranded aircraft out of the mud and the aircraft was able to take off and continue to Melbourne where it won first prize in the race's handicap category and was second overall.
Albury and Wodonga played a military role in World War II with the establishment of ordnance bases at Bandiana and Bonegilla. Proclaimed a city in 1946, Albury played a role in the post-war immigration to Australia with the establishment nearby of Australia's first migrant centre, the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre in 1947.
Albury's proximity to Wodonga has spurred several efforts to achieve some kind of municipal governmental union. In 1973, Albury-Wodonga was selected as the primary focus of the Whitlam federal government's scheme to redirect the uncontrolled growth of Australia's large coastal cities by encouraging decentralisation. Grand plans were made to turn Albury-Wodonga into a major inland city and large areas of the surrounding farmland were compulsorily purchased by a government agency, the Albury Wodonga Development Corporation. Some industries were enticed to move there, and a certain amount of population movement resulted. However, the current urban population is approximately 92,200.
Population
According to the 2021 census of Population, there were 53,677 people in the Albury part of the Albury-Wodonga Urban Centre.- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 2.9% of the population.
- 81.2% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were England 1.9%, India 1.2%, New Zealand 1.0%, Philippines 0.6% and Bhutan 0.6%.
- 86.0% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Nepali 1.1%, Punjabi 0.6%, Mandarin 0.3%, Greek 0.3% and Hindi 0.3%.
- The most common responses for religion were No Religion 27.7%, Catholic 25.4% and Anglican 16.7%.
Climate and geography
Climate
Albury has a mild, temperate climate, with cool, damp winters and warm to hot, mostly dry, summers. Under the Köppen climate classification, Albury has a humid subtropical climate, but would have tendencies of a Mediterranean climate as well.In high summer, the mean daily maximum temperature is with low humidity; however, this is subject to substantial daily variation. An average of 17 days with a maximum above occur in this summer period, with many cooler days. Mean mid winter maxima are with many cloudy days, and is likewise the wettest season. Albury gets approximately 20 days per year featuring minima of below freezing, though the cloud cover tends to limit frost. Sleet may occur during the winter months, but settling snowfalls are very rare, with the last significant snowfall in July 1966. The highest temperature recorded at Albury was 46.1 °C on 4 January 2020, and the lowest temperature was −4.0 °C recorded on 8 August 1994.
Albury's mean annual rainfall is. Rainfall peaks distinctly in the winter months with a high mean of in July and August, comparing with the February low of. Albury has quite a high evaporation rate in summer, giving the environment a relatively arid appearance. The city enjoys a high amount of sunshine, getting around 108 days of clear skies annually. The sunniest month is January, with 14.6 clear days, and the cloudiest month is July, with 17.5 cloudy days.