St. James Church, Guyra, Tingha, Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia

Notes:
Guyra is a town situated midway between Armidale and Glen Innes on the Northern Tablelands in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is within Armidale Regional Council and at the 2016 census, it had a population of 1,983.



The New England Highway is the main transport link to Guyra. The Northern Railway tracks still pass through the town, but the line is now disused north of Armidale.



Guyra is located to one side of the Mother of Ducks Lagoon which is contained within the crater of an extinct volcano. All rivers on the eastern side of the railway line that runs through the town flow towards the Pacific Ocean, while those west of the railway line run west, ultimately to join the Murray River.



Tingha is a small town on the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia in Inverell Shire.[2] Formerly part of Armidale Region, on 1 July 2019, responsibility for Tingha was transferred from Armidale Regional Council to Inverell Shire Council.[3][4] The town is 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Inverell and 629 kilometres (391 mi) north-north-east of Sydney. Tingha is an Aboriginal word for "flat or level".



Guyra History

The Anaiwan group of Indigenous Australians were the inhabitants of the region surrounding Guyra. It was originally known as Hillgo'el or Illgoel, an Aboriginal word of the Yukambal meaning a "swamp" and was later changed to the name of Marsh's run, "Guyra". The name Guyra is said to originate from the language of the Anaiwan people; meaning 'white cockatoo' or 'fishing place'. The Gumbayniggir group of Indigenous Australians were the inhabitants of eastern Guyra surrounding area. Guyra was known to the Gumbayniggir people as Black Cockatoo which can be found in the Kumbangirir Language booklet. Settlement by European farmers began in the 1835 when Alexander Campbell took up Guyra Station, which encompassed the present town area. Ollera Station was settled in 1838 and had the first church in the Guyra district when it was built in 1876. In 1840 Donald McIntyre was recorded as the lessee of "Gyra"; and in 1848 ?Guyra? then 15,000 acres (61 km2), was leased by Charles William Marsh. The Great Northern Railway was extended through Guyra in 1884. Guyra was proclaimed as a village on 20 March 1885. Dairying was an important industry during the 1890s after which potato growing became more popular. Guyra Post Office opened on 1 May 1877. The railway was officially opened on 19 August 1884, as part of the Great Northern Railway extension from Armidale to Glen Innes.



Guyra became the focus of national attention on 5 February 1960 when a four-year-old boy named Steven Walls wandered off from his father on a property north of the town and became lost for four days. Hundreds of volunteers searched the bush for the boy until he was discovered asleep against a log. His immediate question to searchers was 'Where's my daddy, where's my daddy?'; which gave rise to a hit song by singer Johnny Ashcroft, entitled 'Little Boy Lost'. A film of the events was later commercially made using many of the local people of Guyra and shown across Australia. Steven still lives in the local area.



Guyra was home to a large regional abattoir that employed up to 350 staff until it closed in 1995. The abattoir building now houses an angora rabbit breeding establishment.



Tingha History

Before non indigenous settlement the area now known as Tingha was mainly lived upon by people from the Nucoorilma group, which is an associated group of the Murri Aboriginal people. Many of their descendants still live in the surrounding area.



Tingha was first settled in 1841 by Sydney Hudson Darby and became a mining town after tin was discovered there in the 1870s.[5] Within a year Australia?s first commercial tin mines were operating at a private settlement known as Armidale Crossing. Around 5,000 people arrived and about 1000 of the miners were Chinese. The Wing Hing Long Museum is a reminder of that heritage, being established in the 1880s as a general store by Chinese storekeeper, Ah Lin. Armidale Crossing Post Office opened on 1 September 1872 and was renamed Tingha the next month.



The village was proclaimed a town in 1885. Initially there were enough readily accessible surface deposits to make a good living without using machinery as Chinese people did. The first school was established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1890. In the 1890s drought came to the district and the easily obtained deposits of tin were exhausted leading to a loss in population.



By the early 1900s the mining boom was over and Tingha's population had dwindled to just a few hundred people. Shortly after this, large companies moved into the area to mine the less accessible tin.



The town was serviced by the Bundarra & Tingha Advocate newspaper, published in Bundarra, from 1900 to 1932. It was also serviced by the Tingha Advocate and North-Western Journal, published in Tingha, from 1916 to 1932.



Formerly part of the Guyra Shire and then the Armidale Region, on 1 July 2019, responsibility for Tingha was transferred from Armidale Regional Council to Inverell Shire Council.

Marriage

Matches 1 to 1 of 1

	Family	Marriage		Family ID
1	Miller / Rose	26 Sep 1923	St. James Church, Guyra, Tingha, Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia	F5195