Neu Sud-Wales

Very detailed map of New South Wales, extending from Trial Bay in the north to Moruya in the south, with an inset of Sydney at lower right showing the ‘nineteen counties’.

The original nineteen counties in New South Wales were defined by Governor Darling’s Government in 1826. In addition the new county of Macquarie created in 1830 and named in honour of Governor Lachlan Macquarie (1762–1824) has been added. The Bogan river here name by John Oxley New Years Creek on 1 January 1829. The limits of location in the colony of New South Wales where settlers were permitted to take up land was only within the Governments defined as the, Nineteen Counties, and limits to settlement were due to the dangers in the wilderness. They were defined by the Governor of New South Wales Ralph Darling in 1826 in accordance with a government order from Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State. Counties had been used since the first year of settlement, with Cumberland County being proclaimed on 6th June 1788. Several others were later proclaimed around the Sydney area. Darling proclaimed the division of the settlement into Nineteen Counties in the Sydney Gazette of 17 October 1829. From 1831 the granting of free land ceased and the only land that was to be made available for sale was within the Nineteen Counties. The area covered by the limit, extended to Taree in the north, Batemans Bay in the south and Wellington to the West.

The counties were; Argyle, Bathurst, Bligh, Brisbane, Cook, Cumberland, Durham, Georgiana, Gloucester, Hunter, King, Murray, Northumberland, Phillip, Roxburgh, St Vincent, Westmoreland, Wellington

From Adolf Stieler’s “Hand Atlas of the entire earth, according to the most recent information, and of the universe”. Nineteen counties are shown.