Colyton

• Colyton Neighbourhood Centre: Cnr Jensen & Willoughby Streets, Colyton NSW 2760.
  Ph: (02) 4732 8021.

• Bennett Road Public School: Bennett Road, Colyton, NSW 2760.
  Ph: (02) 9623 1805.
• Colyton High School: Carpenter Street Colyton, NSW 2760.
  Ph: (02) 9623 2789.

Parks

The area of open space available in Colyton is 40.71 hectares.

Roads & Streets

Historical profile

The Aborigines of South Creek

The first inhabitants of the Sydney basin bounded by Port Jackson and Botany Bay in the east, the Blue Mountains to the west, north to the Hawkesbury River and south to Appin, had a common language. Fourteen tribes or clans made up this language group and the people who inhabited both sides of South Creek were known as the Gomerrigal-Tongarra clan.

Unlike the Blue Mountains clans who used rock shelters, the Gomerrigal-Tongarra people lived in open camp sites along the creek in simple gunyahs. These were constructed from three leaning poles lashed together at the top and covered on two sides with bark. They had a habit of smearing mud on their skin to protect them from the effects of both weather and insects. In winter they wore animal skins to keep warm.

Very little is known of their cultural and ceremonial life. According to researcher and writer James L. Kohen, the Gomerrigal-Tongarra clan had rights to the ridges at Plumpton and the gravels of Eastern Creek. From these areas they used red silcrete rocks to make sharp flakes which were then fashioned into tools or used as barbs on spears. The MacLaurin family (who lived at Mamre) also asserted that the bodies of the dead were not buried, but wrapped in bark and placed on platforms elevated in the branches of trees.

There are no remaining rock carvings or marked trees in the area. Emily MacLaurin described a meeting place on South Creek at Mamre at a point where ‘…the Creek takes in a small stream from the west, the right bank of which reaches into the creek in a narrow finger’. It is thought that despite the arrival of the Rev. Samuel Marsden in 1804, ceremonies continued to be held at this spot for some time.

By 1816 however, the Gomerrigal-Tongarra, together with the rest of the Dharug clans, had been ravaged either by clashes with the settlers or by contracting European diseases. They became increasingly dependent on the settlers for their survival. Although they had always maintained a camp on or around the Mamre estate, the Rev. Samuel Marsden now sought to encourage them to work in exchange for food and clothing. He was obviously successful in this endeavour, as by 1835 the Quaker missionary James Backhouse wrote in his journal after a visit to Mamre that ‘…the South Creek Natives may be considered as half-domesticated, and they often assist in the agricultural operations of the settlers.’ He was also impressed by the fact that the wife of their Aboriginal guide – supplied by Marsden – could read, having been ‘educated in a school, formerly kept for the Natives, at Parramatta’. The next day, Backhouse travelled onto Penrith, his guide ‘another South Creek Black, named Simeon. His wife was killed, about two years ago, by some of those whom he termed “Wild Natives”…We tried in vain to persuade this man to accompany us to Wellington Valley; he did not like to go…These people are afraid of other tribes of their own race’.

Another visitor, Charles Darwin, passing through Mamre in January 1836, was impressed by the ‘…good humour and superior hunting skills’ of the Aborigines he encountered around Penrith.

History has given us sparse records about the Gomerrigal-Tongarra people. Their life-style was probably similar to other neighbouring clans. They were hunter-gatherers over specifically defined territories, in this case, mainly the banks of South Creek; and they adhered to particular laws of kinship, marriage, and burial which ensured the well-being of the clan. Men and women had particular roles in the clan which were clearly defined; children were given a totem name; traditional medicine was carried out by the ‘koradji’ or doctor; and, like all Aborigines they had a spiritual Dreaming.

The clash of European and Aboriginal cultures, despite original good intentions, meant that the Gomerrigal-Tongarra people and their culture was virtually destroyed within a century of white settlement.

Origin of the place name – Colyton

Colyton is named after Colyton House in Devon England which had been the family home of the wife of William Cox Junior, son of the famous builder of the road across the Blue Mountains, also named William. The property of 800 acres had been granted to Cox on 17 August 1819 by Governor Macquarie. It was located on the southern side of the Western Highway opposite the present Colyton Primary School. It was only used for grazing and wheat growing. On 9 April 1842, a notice appeared in the Sydney Herald advertising the auction sale of William Cox’s estate to form the ‘Village of Colyton’ with surrounding farmlets. The land was described as partly forest and partly alluvial with grass on it being ‘abundant and nutritious’. The timber on the land was described as being fit for ‘building and farming purposes’ and the water ‘abundant and never failing’ from nearby Rope’s Creek. Colyton is now a suburb within the larger regional district of St Marys.

Origin of the place name – Ropes Creek

This watercourse, which forms the eastern boundary of the City of Penrith, was named after Anthony Rope who was a convict who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. He married a female convict, Elizabeth Pulley in May 1788. Rope learned bricklaying whilst working at Brickfields near Sydney and later moved to the Nepean District. In 1806, the Ropes were renting 48 acres on the Nepean and by 1820 had been granted 20 acres in the district. Anthony Rope died at Castlereagh in 1843. James “Toby” Ryan (1818-1899) was the grandson of Anthony Rope.

Historical Timeline

Bibliography

For photos and more information on Colyton, search Penrith City Library’s catalogue using an All Resources search.

Historical

• Colyton School Centenary 1861-1961, Colyton, the School, 1961.
• Green, Annette, St Marys Industrial Heritage Study, Penrith City Council, Penrith, 1987.
• Murray, Robert and White, Kate Dharug & Dungaree: The History of Penrith and St.Marys to 1860. Penrith City Council, Penrith, 1988.
• Nepean District Historical Society, From Castlereagh to Claremont Meadows: Historical Places of Penrith City Council, Penrith,1997.
• Parr, Lorna, A History of the Nepean and District Street Names, Nepean District Historical Society, Penrith, 1990.
• Paul Davies Pty Ltd, Penrith Heritage Study Volume 2 Thematic History , May 2006.
• Stacker, Lorraine Pictorial history: Penrith & St Marys, Kingsclear Books, 2002.
• Stapleton, E. South Creek – St Marys – From Village to City , St Marys, St Marys Historical Society. 1983.
• Stevenson, Colin R., Place Names and their Origins within the City of Penrith, Penrith City Council, Penrith, 1985.
• ‘Early Methodists of Colyton’, Nepean Times, 30 July 1932, p. 7.
• ‘Old Colyton’, Nepean Times, 28 September 1929, p. 6.
• ‘Old Colyton’, Nepean Times, 5 October 1929, p. 7.
• ‘Old Colyton’, Nepean Times, 12 October 1929, p. 6.