Danglemah, New South Wales

Danglemah is a bounded rural locality in the New England (New South Wales) region of Australia.

Locality

Danglemah is the location of an open valley glacial cirque upstream from the very steep and rugged Limbri section of the Jamison Creek.

Danglemah is on Jamiesons Creek, a tributary of the Peel River nestled between mountains such as Flaggy Mountain (984m) and Cooee Mountain (1019m) in the Moonbi Ranges, of the Great Dividing Range, and is halfway between the towns of Tamworth and Walcha.

Located at 30°59′54″S 151°10′04″E Danglemah is about 320 km north of Sydney, and the village of Bendemeer, New South Wales which is 14km to the west. Danglemah is a Civil Parish in the County of Inglis.

The elevation is about 655m above sea level.

History

Originally called Cooinget, it was then renamed Jamison’s Siding, followed by Danglemah, which is most likely after Mt Danglemah to the south of the location.

In letters written by the Maher’s, who were one of the first white families of the area, the Aboriginals who passed through the area camped for a number of weeks and moved on. They were of the Dunghutti tribe of the east.

The original white settlement of the area was on the boundary of two major stations, being Surveyors Creek based near Woolbrook and Swamp Oak based near Limbri. These stations had nominal attendance to the area and the first dedicated settlement was by the Lonergan Family on what is the Southern side of the railway line.

On the Northern side of the line the major development came with establishment of Rutherglen outstation which became Rutherglen. This was purchased and developed by the Shire President of the Cockburn Shire, Alex Mitchell from Armidale.

The road from Woolbrook stopped just south of Danglemah, so like the Aboriginal involvement in the area, the graziers were part of the Walcha and Armidale districts.

The major development of the area came with the construction of the Great Northern Railway Line, the original main line connecting Sydney to Wallangarra on the Queensland border then onwards to Brisbane, which was completed in 1888.

The train line at Ulindra, north of Danglemah, is one of the steepest gradients of rail in New South Wales.

This brought construction labourers, part time hotels and stores. Later there remained a post office, school, railway station, fetler and farm worker cottages and two main homesteads being Escourt and Rutherglen.

Rutherglen was sold to John Cameron, a former tin miner in Malaysia and President of the Singapore Race Club.

As a political coincidence, the nephew of John was premier of Tasmania, Robin Gray. Later the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Barnaby Joyce, also grew up at Rutherglen.

The Joyce’s purchased Rutherglen in the mid 1960s and Escort was sold to the Obien family in the 1980s. Both remain the current owners.

Name

The derivation of the name Danglemah is contested, and no source translation can be sighted. It is Aboriginal and most likely refers to the position in hills and creek, but the tribal association is not known.

Notable residents

• Alex Mitchell, Cockburn Shire President
• John Cameron, President of Singapore Race Club
• Barnaby Joyce, Twice Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
• Vikki Campion, Senior political columnist for the Daily Telegraph

Industry

The main industry of Danglemah was sheep and wool with cattle as a sideline. With the loss of returns in wool it has moved now to almost exclusively cattle breeding and fattening.

Geology

The geology of the area is unique with granite and sedimentary rocks of the Carboniferous and Permian age. There are also intrusions of basalt, rhodonite, jasper with black quartz.

References

Preceding station	Former services			Following station
Woolbrook towards Wallangarra		Main North Line		Limbri towards Sydney