Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY


The Canberra district was first seen by white men less than I00 years before it was chosen as the site for the Australian National Capital.

In 1820, Governor Macquarie instructed Charles Throsby, a former naval surgeon interested in exploration, to search for the Murrumbidgee River which had been reported by Aboriginals. Throsby sent Joseph Wild, an experienced bushman and explorer, with a party which included his nephew. Charles Throsby Smith and James Vaughan, to search for the Murrumbidgee. On this journey, the party camped on the plain on which Canberra now stands, and reported favourably on the district on their return. In subsequent years the country was opened up as grazing and farming land.

The building of the national capital was a duty imposed on Parliament by section 125 of the Constitution, which reads:

The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of new South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.

Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor.

The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of Government.

After considering a number of possible sites the Commonwealth Parliament determined, in 1908, that the seat of government should be in the Yass-Canberra district and have access to the sea. The district Surveyor, Mr Charles R. Scrivener, was directed to examine the area and recommend a suitable site. Scrivener nominated 2,630 square kilometres in the watersheds of the Cotter, Queanbeyan and Molonglo Rivers and a further 930 hectares at Jervis Bay. A request of the surrender of the land was made to the New South Wales Government, and, after negotiation, an area of approximately 2,330 kilometres between the Queanbeyan-Cooma Railway, and the mountain ranges forming the western boundary of the watershed of the Cotter River plus Jervis Bay was selected.

Control of the Territory was assumed by the Commonwealth on I January 1911, when the Seat of Government (Administration) Act came into force.

With the transfer of the Territory from New South Wales, all Crown land passed to the Commonwealth without cost, but privately owned land which the Commonwealth required had to be purchased from the owners.

The decision to vest ownership of all land in the Crown was a very significant social experiment. The intention, which has been maintained, was that the Crown would continue to own the land, but would lease it for specified periods and under given conditions for residential, commercial, industrial and other purposes.

When the Commonwealth took control of the Australian Capital Territory in 1911 the site for the National Capital consisted of undulating grazing country, almost devoid of trees, the consequence of a harsh climate and the pastoral activities of the white settlers. The district population was 1,714 persons.

Seventy seven years later the limestone plains have been transformed into the garden city of Canberra with a population exceeding 250,000 people. It is one of the most outstanding urban landscape achievements seen in Australia and fast becoming one of the world's most beautiful capitals.

In April 1911, an international competition for the design of the new city was launched. From 137 designs received, the first prize was awarded to Walter Burley Griffin, a Chicago architect.

Fundamental principles of the Griffin plan were:

• The geometric pattern of the design:
• The treatment of the flood plain, useless for building purposes, to form a lake to be the unifying feature of the northern and southern parts of Canberra;
• The formation of a grand visual axis from the top of Mount Ainslie to Capital Hill; and
• The separation of national and municipal functions; this was proposed by the locating of all buildings associated with national affairs in an integrated group on the southern side of the lake and locating buildings associated with civic matters in a commanding position on the north side.