A small historical reference
Geography: Tamworth - is a city in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Peel River, Tamworth is the major regional centre for the New England region and is in the local government area of Tamworth Regional Council. Approximately 318 km (198 mi) from the Queensland border, the city is located almost midway between Brisbane and Sydney, the two largest cities on the Australian east coast. (Wiki)
Date of foundation: 1850
History: John Oxley passed through the Peel Valley in 1818 and described it as "it would be impossible to find a finer or more luxuriant country than its waters...No place in this world can afford more advantages to the industrious settler than this extensive vale". In 1831, the first sheep stations and cattle stations were formed, and in the same year the Australian Agricultural Company (AAC) was granted a lease of 127,000 hectares (310,000 acres) of land at Goonoo Goonoo, south of the present location of Tamworth, extending to present-day Calala.
In the 1830s, a company town began to develop on the Peel's southwest bank, the present site of West Tamworth. In 1850, a public town was gazetted on the opposite side of the river from the existing settlement. This town became the main town, called "Tamworth" after Tamworth, Staffordshire, represented at the time in parliament by Robert Peel. The town prospered, and was reached by the railway in 1878.
Population: 41 967
Sights: On 9 November 1888, Tamworth became the first location in Australia to have electric street lighting powered by a municipally owned power station, giving the city the title of "First City of Light". The first streetlights used in Australia were commercially owned in Waratah Tasmania in 1886.
Tamworth is also famous as the "Country Music Capital of Australia", annually hosting the Tamworth Country Music Festival in late January; the second biggest country music festival in the world. The city is recognised as the "National Equine Capital of Australia" because of the high number of equine events held in the city and the construction of the world class Australian Equine and Livestock Events Centre, the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
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