Maude, New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Maude is a village on the north bank of the Murrumbidgee River
Murrumbidgee River
The Murrumbidgee River is a major river in the state of New South Wales, Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory . A major tributary of the Murray River, the Murrumbidgee flows in a west-northwesterly direction from the foot of Peppercorn Hill in the Fiery Range of the Snowy Mountains,...

 in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It is in between Hay
Hay, New South Wales
Hay is a town in the western Riverina region of south western New South Wales , Australia.  It is the administrative centre of Hay Shire Local Government Area and the centre of a prosperous and productive agricultural district on the wide Hay Plains....

 and Balranald
Balranald, New South Wales
Balranald is a town and local government area in the Riverina district of New South Wales, Australia. At the 2006 census the population was 1,216....

 in Hay Shire. It is located 55 kilometres downstream from Hay and 25 kilometres upstream from the junction of the Lachlan River
Lachlan River
- Course :The river rises in the central highland of New South Wales, part of the Great Dividing Range, 13 km east of Gunning. Its major headwaters, the Carcoar River, the Belubula River and the Abercrombie River converge near the town of Cowra. Minor tributaries include the Morongla Creek...

 with the Murrumbidgee. At the 2006 census
Census in Australia
The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Maude had a population of 161 people. Maude consists of a General Store, hotel, post office and caravan park.
The town is surrounded by market gardens supplied with water from Maude Weir, a popular spot for anglers
Angling
Angling is a method of fishing by means of an "angle" . The hook is usually attached to a fishing line and the line is often attached to a fishing rod. Fishing rods are usually fitted with a fishing reel that functions as a mechanism for storing, retrieving and paying out the line. The hook itself...

, looking for yellow belly
Golden perch
The golden perch, Macquaria ambigua, is an Australian native freshwater fish, primarily of the Murray-Darling river system. It is not a true perch of the genus Perca....

, redfin and Murray cod
Murray Cod
The Murray cod is a large Australian predatory freshwater fish of the Maccullochella genus and the Percichthyidae family. Although the species is a called cod in the vernacular, it is not related to the northern hemisphere marine cod species...

.

"Pin Pan Pa" reserve

The surveyor F. P. McCabe, under instructions from the Colonial Secretary, surveyed a number of reserves on the lower Murrumbidgee River in about 1849. The reserves were finally gazetted in October 1852. They included the "Pin Pan Pa" reserve of 7.5 square miles (19.4 km²), described as being “situated on cattle runs, occupied by Phelps and Darchey”, just over a mile downstream from “the hut at Pin-pan-pa”. The reserve was taken from Phelps and Chadwick’s “Pimpampa” and Thomas D'Archy’s "Budgee Budgee" runs.  During the 1850s the Pimpampa Reserve was used as a crossing place for stock and drays.  Being close to the Lachlan–Murrumbidgee junction the crossing-place was probably used by those who were unwilling to leave the river frontages during hot and dry conditions. Feldtmann (1976) states that a hotel was built at the locality by the late 1850s; if true, it was certainly not licensed and was probably just a bush shanty
Sly-grog shop
A sly grog shop is an Australian term for an unlicensed hotel or liquor-store, often with the added suggestion of selling poor-quality liquor; a place where alcoholic beverages are sold by an unlicensed vendor....

 serving a passing trade and workers on local pastoral runs.

A township established

In the early 1860s the surveyors Adams and Twynam laid out a township on the Pimpampa Reserve.  The name ‘Pimpaympa’ was submitted, but it was not approved by the Executive Council
Government of New South Wales
The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...

; instead they chose the name of ‘Maude’.

In April 1861 it was reported that “the Government have recently laid out a new township named Maude, at Pimpampa, on the Lower Murrumbidgee”. However the writer expressed doubts about the viability of the new settlement: “It is… very improbable that many buildings will ever be erected on the spot, as during a flood, or even when the river is very high, the spot can hardly be approached on account of the deep creeks which encircle it on both sides of the river”.  During the past year the locality had been isolated by high waters for about six months, “and no one approached it unless obliged to do so by urgent necessity”.

In late October 1861 the steamer Albury towed "a large punt
Cable ferry
A cable ferry is guided and in many cases propelled across a river or other larger body of water by cables connected to both shores. They are also called chain ferries, floating bridges, or punts....

" to the new township.  The punt was being re-located from Deniliquin and belonged to Frank Johns and his partner William Platt. Johns and his family had moved to Maude and began to operate the punt at the locality soon after its arrival.

Frank Johns was a carpenter by trade and began to erect a hotel at Maude in conjunction with his working punt.  The hotel was completed in November 1862.  Johns applied to the Bench of Magistrates at Hay for a publican
Publican
In antiquity, publicans were public contractors, in which role they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the collection of port duties, and oversaw public building projects...

’s license, but the application was opposed by the local squatter
Squatting (pastoral)
In Australian history, a squatter was one who occupied a large tract of Crown land in order to graze livestock.  Initially often having no legal rights to the land, they gained its usage by being the first Europeans in the area....

 and magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

, Thomas D’Archy, because “there were no police at Maude”. After the delay of a month, however, the license for the Maude Punt Hotel was granted on the promise of police protection being provided within three months (although by the end of 1863 there was still no permanent police presence at Maude).

In late 1862 it was reported that a store was to be erected at Maude and that “a numerously signed petition” had been forwarded to the Minister of Lands “requesting that some land may be at once put up for sale at Maude, as some parties are desirous of settling there”.  The writer was somewhat puzzled by this: in addition to the locality being “sometimes encircled with flooded ground” he claimed that the “amount of traffic passing is very small indeed, and there is no immediate prospect of any increase”.  The correspondent concluded: “There however seems to be no reason why the Government should not offer some land for sale at Maude, and so afford persons an opportunity of settling down there and making their fortunes if they can”.

A post-office was established at Maude on 1 May 1863.  The first post-master was probably Henry Prendergast, who, in conjunction with his son John had established a store at the township.  In October 1863 Maude was designated as a place for the holding of Courts of Petty Sessions.  By the end of the year the New South Wales Government had still not organised a land-sale at the township, despite frequent requests to this end by residents.  The correspondent to the Sydney Morning Herald commented that "the whole place exists on sufferance, the owners of the buildings being in unauthorised occupation of Crown land
Crown land
In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....

".

In February 1864 Frank Johns transferred his license for the Maude Punt Hotel to Patrick Prendergast (another of son of Henry).  The Prendergasts built several stores at Maude, including a wool store.  Wool from surrounding pastoral runs was loaded onto steamers at Maude for transportation (by that stage most often to Echuca).  By 1865 John Prendergast was the post-master at Maude.  Henry Prendergast died in January 1867 and the business was carried on by his son John.

Land at Maude was eventually offered for sale on 27 December 1865 (over four years after the township was first laid out and “after many of the original applicants [to buy land] had left the district”).

1866-1900

From 1 July 1868 Daniel Murphy replaced Patrick Prendergast as the licensee of the Maude Punt Hotel.  During the same year a second hotel opened at Maude – the Post Office Hotel – with Patrick Prendergast as the first publican.  The Maude Punt Hotel had ceased trading by about the early 1870s, leaving the Post Office Hotel as the only hotel at Maude.

A visitor to Maude in early 1879 described “the little township of Maude” as situated “on the river bank”, consisting of “four habitations, among which are a hotel and store, both kept by Mr. [Daniel] Murphy, and a police station, where a solitary trooper dreams his life away, praying, doubtless, for the Kellys
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...

 to come and end his dreary lot”.  He added that “there is a punt crossing the river here, and a good-sized wool store, both in the hands of the almost solitary resident of the city, D. Murphy”.  The writer pointed out “that considerable traffic occurs through this place across the river, but great inconvenience is experienced after any heavy rains, owing to the billabong
Billabong
Billabong is an Australian English word meaning a small lake, specifically an oxbow lake, a section of still water adjacent to a river, cut off by a change in the watercourse. Billabongs are usually formed when the path of a creek or river changes, leaving the former branch with a dead end...

 by which the township is surrounded becoming too deep to cross”.

A visitor to the township in about May 1881 remarked that Maude was "chiefly remarkable for its pigs", adding that "one sees them scattered up and down the prospect as far as the eye can reach, and in any variety".  The writer made these additional observations: "Maude (from what fair creature the place has taken its name, I can’t say) boasts a store, a pub., post office, a police barracks, a punt over the river, and a talking cockatoo".

Maude Weir

During 1939-40 a weir was erected on the river at Maude by the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Authority
Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area
The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area is geographically located within the Riverina area of New South Wales was created to control and divert the flow of local river and creek systems for the purpose of food production...

. Its purpose was to divert water onto the lower bidgee flood plain, and to compensate landholders from the lack of natural floods after Burrinjuck Dam
Burrinjuck Dam
Burrinjuck Dam is a high, concrete gravity dam on the Murrumbidgee River approximately 60 km from Yass, New South Wales, Australia. The Yass and Goodradigbee Rivers flow into the dam. The dam divides the upper and lower catchment of the Murrumbidgee and is the headwater storage for the...

was built.

Later developments

In 1976 the village of Maude consisted of “about five houses”.  Public facilities in the town were the Post Office Hotel (usually known as 'the Maude Pub’), a school, recreation oval, service station, tennis courts and a bridge over the Murrumbidgee.
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