History
Explorer Allan Cunningham crossed the river at Gravesend in 1827 and named it after his patron, Lord Gwydir, who took his title from Gwydir Castle in Wales. The Commonwealth Electoral Division of Gwydir, which was created in 1901 and ceased to exist at the 2007 federal election, was named for the Gwydir River. In Australia the name is pronounced to rhyme with "wider," whereas the Welsh name is pronounced roughly "Gwidd-eer."
The iron lattice bridges crossing the Gwydir River at Bundarra and Bingara are regarded as significant bridges of the colonial period. Around mid 1838 a war of extirpation, according to local magistrate Edmund Denny Day, was waged all along the Gwydir River. Aborigines in the district were repeatedly pursued by parties of mounted and armed stockmen and Day claimed that great numbers of them had been killed at various spots.
See also: Waterloo Creek massacreRead more about this topic: Gwydir River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)