Progress comes to Tamworth – were it ever so!
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Highlighted on the front pages of our local print medium was the coverage of the “turning of the first sod” on the multi-million dollar Woolworths/Dan Murphy project at Prince of Wales Park.
Hosted by our civic leaders, accompanied by our Chinese developers from the Everich International Logistics company, it is perhaps a little disappointing that not a single mention was made of the important historic background of the site during that Monday ceremony.
It is perhaps a wonder that in the turning of the first sod an English penny or two from the 1840s, or maybe some convict legirons, didn’t come to the surface, as the immediate area was in the vicinity of the centre of the very first NSW government site in Tamworth 170 years ago.
Commissioner for Lands Edward Mayne established an office there several years before Surveyor-General Major Thomas Mitchell had established a street plan for Tamworth. Mayne was followed in that role by Francis Allman and Roderick Mitchell, the latter a son of Thomas Mitchell, hence the adjacent Roderick St named by his father.
Thankfully the developers have agreed to the establishment of a plaque at the site which will outline some of this important early Tamworth history, depicting also an 1846 sketch of the Commissioner for Lands headquarters showing our wonderful Wentworth Mounds skyline in the background.
Tamworth is a wonderful place to live, but while we celebrate our commercial progress, we should never neglect our history which has moved towards what we are today.
Mike Cashman
Tamworth