Doonside

Doonside is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Doonside is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Doonside is located 40 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. Featherdale Wildlife Park and the Nurragingy Nature Reserve are popular local tourist attractions.

The traditional owners and early settlement

The Duruk people were once the owners of local land. The area now known as Doonside was named 'Bungarribee' (Bung meaning the 'creek' and garribee meaning 'cockatoo').

In 1802, Governor Philip Gidley King reserved a large proportion of land for a Government Stock Reserve. For the next twenty years the land was used as grazing land for cattle and sheep by convict herdsmen. In 1822 part of the Government stock run was granted by Governor Thomas Brisbane to Scottish immigrant, Robert Crawford. Robert first named his 1,000 acre (4 km²) "Hill End". Crawford likely named this Doonside. The region had various names, including Crawford, before officially becoming Doonside.Robert James Crawford (1799-1848) had four children with Mary Campbell (d. 1832): Mary Crawford (b. 1826), Robert Crawford (1827-1906), George Canning Crawford (b. 1828), and Agnes C. Crawford (b. 1831). (Robert Crawford's four children's names are used today at Crawford Public School as sporting house teams). The elder Robert Crawford married Miss Jones of Bligh Street, Sydney, in 1832.

Robert Crawford (1827-1906) married Victoria Margaret Smyth in 1868. Their son, Robert (1868-1930), born in the same year became a published poet.Bungarribee House

In 1822 the area south of Hill End (Doonside) was granted to a Scottish-born settler named John Campbell (1771-1827).The property and house had a series of owners and tenants in the 19th and 20th centuries until acquired by the Commonwealth Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) in 1949.

The newly formed National Trust had been trying to secure a lease from OTC but was unable to come to an agreement citing unworkable lease conditions. A Local Historian John Lawson offered to restore the house but was rejected by O.T.C.

Wolkara

The Doonside name was changed briefly in 1921 to an Aboriginal name ‘Wolkara’When the new railway station was being constructed, Wolkara was also the name of the post office that opened here in 1921, but in April 1929 it was changed back to Doonside, after local residents protested at the name change.At the time of World War 1

Prior to 1916, the only development at Doonside was confined to the Crawford family. The Crawford homestead and acreage block was on the south side of the railway line facing Doonside Road. Kelburn Crawford's daughters house, was between the homestead and Bungarribee. North of the line on the corner of Hillend Road and Doonside Crescent, was a brick cottage owned by the Italian family, Luparno. Opposite was a small gatekeepers cottage.

A brick home, owned by another Crawford daughter, was in Doonside Crescent. Properties fronted Hillend Road and were owned by Crawford children. Another cottage in Hillend Road was owned by the family named Harrison, in-laws to Crawford children. A workman's timber cottage was on the hill towards the tileworks' site.

The only road into Doonside was Doonside Road, running from Western Highway. Hillend Road only went as far as Power Street after which there was a track to Richmond Road ending in a gate. Power Street went to Plumpton with the crossing over Eastern Creek being rough and dangerous in wet weather.

After the war (1914-1918), the company of Porter and Galbraith bought property from Crawford and erected a tileworks (PGH) in an area which is now the suburb of Woodcroft. A soldier's settlement of about twenty poultry farms was established between the railway line and Bungarribee Road. Part of this land, during the 1930s depression, became a woman's settlement.

Early Doonside

There was no electricity until 1929 and water was drawn from wells. Horse-drawn carts would deliver bread and meat. Blacktown was accessed by train as there were not any buses or schools. Parramatta and Penrith, were the nearest high schools.

A store and post office were opened unofficially in 1926 by Bill Francis on the corner of Hillend Road and Cross Street. For some years his nephew Jack Francis operated the post office on the other side of the railway line but once it was made official it returned to its original site until 1987.

In 1955 electric trains came to Doonside and Edith Crawford from the founding family, also being the oldest inhabitant, was given the privilege of 'cutting the ribbon'. Her death was in 1956.