Early Canberra (from document)

The European history of the Canberra area began in 1820.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

TRUE. The area was explored in 1820 by Throsby, Wild, and Vaughan.

In 1823, Joshua Moore was able to buy 400 square kilometres of land in the Canberra area.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

Moore bought 400 HECTARES (4 square km) in 1825.

Joshua Moore named his property "Canberry" because he had heard the local Aboriginal people call the area "Kamberra".

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

TRUE. "Kamberra" means "meeting place" and may also refer to the shape of the nearby mountains.

Robert Campbell sent overseer Joseph Ainslie to Canberra with 7,000,000 (7 million) sheep.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

FALSE. It was only 700 sheep. There were less than 2 million sheep in the whole of Australia at the time.

Campbell named his Canberra property "Duntroon".

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

Campbell named his property "Duntroon", after "Duntrune", his family castle in Scotland. Many years later, Duntroon became famous for being home to the Australian Armed Forces Academy.

By 1841, there were 999 male convicts working in fields and on buildings in the Canberra area.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

FALSE. There were actually 666 male convicts.

By the 1830s, all the good land around "Canberry" had been taken.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

TRUE. Most of the owners lived in Sydney, with employees running the land.

Most of the land owners lived in Sydney, and sent employees to do the farming.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

TRUE. Most of the landowners were wealthy businessmen and lived in Sydney.

By the mid-1800's, most of the land was taken up with 9 large grazing properties and natural forest.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

TRUE. Canberra was sheep country. No-one thought that it would become the capital of Australia!

By the late 1800's, there were 2 villages, Harwa and Thall.

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

The two villages are Tharwa and Hall. They still exist, but remain tiny villages to this day.