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The name "Gulgong" is derived from the word used by the traditional inhabitants, the Wiradjuri, for "deep waterhole".
Lieutenant William Lawson passed through the area in November 1820 and again in 1821 and reported good grazing land in the region. This prompted the brothers George and Henry Cox, sons of William Cox, to take up land to the south of the Cudgegong River, while Lawson applied for land grants to the north. Others soon followed, taking up land with river frontage along the Cudgegong. Among the first to take formal possession was Richard Rouse who was granted land in 1825 by Governor Brisbane.
Gulgong came into existence after gold was discovered at Red Hill in 1870. The township was surveyed in August 1870. By the end of that year there were 800 people on the diggings, which yielded over 32 tons of gold in the 1870s. The population had increased to 12,000 by the time the British author Anthony Trollope visited in October 1871.
Gullgong [sic] was certainly a rough place when I visited it, but not quite as rough as I had expected. There was a hotel there, at which I got a bedroom to myself, though but a small one, and made only of slabs. But a gorgeously grand edifice was being built over our heads at the time. The inhabited part of the town consisted of two streets at right angles to each other, in each of which every habitation and shop had probably required but a few days for its erection. The fronts of the shops were covered with large advertisements, the names and praises of traders as is customary now with all new-fangled marts, but the place looked more like a fair than a town ... Everything needful, however, seemed to be at hand. There were bakers, butchers, grocers, and dealers in soft goods. There were public houses and banks in abundance. There was an auctioneer's establishment, at which I attended the sale of horses and carts. There was a photographer, and there was a theatre, at which I saw the "Colleen Bawn" acted with a great deal of spirit, and a considerable amount of histrionic talent. After the theatre a munificent banker of the town gave us an oyster supper, at a supper-room. It may be inferred, therefore, that the comforts of life have not been altogether neglected at Gullgong. In the middle of the day there had been a public dinner or lunch, at which there was much speaking. I cannot say that the Gullgong oratory was as good as the Gullgong acting or the Gullgong oysters.
The population of the town reached 20,000 in 1873. The Gulgong gold field was one of the last to be developed as "poor man's diggings", that is by individuals without substantial capital investment. [citation needed] During the height of the gold rush in the 1870s, Gulgong had 67 pubs (it now has four).
Novelist and bush poet Henry Lawson lived briefly in Gulgong as a child in the early 1870s, while his father sought instant wealth as a miner. A montage of goldrush-era Gulgong street scenes was used as a backdrop to the portrait of Lawson on the first Australian ten dollar note (which was in use from 1966 until replaced by a polymer banknote in November 1993). The town and its surrounding district feature in Lawson's fiction, especially in Joe Wilson and His Mates.
Gulgong is believed to be one of the primary locations in Thomas Alexander Browne's The Miner's Right which he wrote under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood
. Australia's first novelist of note, Browne was police magistrate in the period 1871-81 and many of his characters have been matched to Gulgong goldfields identities. He once hosted English author Anthony Trollope, who later recorded his impressions of Australia and New Zealand (1875).
In 1872, Henry Beaufoy Merlin took photographic images on glass-plate negatives of many buildings in Gulgong – with owners, tenants and passers-by – and of gold mines and miners, creating a unique record of life, in the town and its surroundings, at the time of the gold rushes. These images of Gulgong form part of the Holtermann Collection. Mayne St, Gulgong c. 1872–73, soon after Anthony Trollope's visit to Gulgong. Attributed to photographer Henry Beaufoy Merlin.
A nearby area on the state register is known as the Talbragar fossil site, containing sometimes excellently preserved specimens of plants, fishes, invertebrates and a previously unknown spider. In addition, a site known as McGraths Flat about 25 miles northwest of Gulgong contains a recently discovered cache of Miocene era fossils.
Historical populationYearPop.±%18701,100—    18713,228+193.5%187210,000+209.8%187315,000+50.0%187413,000−13.3%18756,000−53.8%18761,000−83.3%18931,283+28.3%18981,300+1.3%19011,586+22.0%Source: Gulgong Guardian Newspaper, 1871-1876. Moore's Almanac 1893-1900. Census Returns Mudgee Police District, 1901.
Historical populationYearPop.±%19211,520—    19331,723+13.4%1947—    19541,473—    19611,396−5.2%19661,441+3.2%19711,485+3.1%19761,618+9.0%19811,740+7.5%19861,988+14.3%19912,042+2.7%19962,018−1.2%20012,021+0.1%20062,918+44.4%20112,383−18.3%20162,521+5.8%20212,680+6.3%Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
