Dungog, New South Wales

Dungog is a country town on the Williams River in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Located in the middle of dairy and timber country, it is the centre of the Dungog Shire local government area and at the 2011 census it had a population of 2,131 people. The area includes the Fosterton Loop, 22 kilometres (14 mi) of road, used in the annual Pedalfest. A small portion of Dungog lies in the Great Lakes Council LGA.

History

The traditional owners of the area now known as Dungog are the Gringai clan of the Wonnarua people, a group of indigenous people of Australia.

By 1825 Robert Dawson had named the Barrington area, while surveyor Thomas Florance named the Chichester River in 1827. Two years later George Boyle White explored the sources of the Allyn and Williams rivers. Grants along the Williams followed to men such as Duncan Mackay, John Verge, James Dowling (later a NSW Chief Justice) and others, who, with their assigned convicts, began clearing land and building houses around a district that was by the early 1830s centred on a small settlement first known as Upper William. With a Court of Petty Sessions in 1833 and gazetted in 1838 as the village of Dungog (a local Gringai word), it had a court house, lockup and an increasing number of inns, shops and houses.