Sir Daniel Cooper, 1st Baronet
Sir Daniel Cooper, 1st Baronet was a nineteenth-century politician and philanthropist in the Colony of New South Wales. He served as the first speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the colony and was a noted philatelist. Cooper was conferred the hereditary title of Cooper baronet of Woollahra in 1863, the second of four baronetcy conferred to British expatriates in the Australian colonies, he was born at Bolton, England, the son of Thomas Cooper and his wife Jane Ramsden. He was the nephew of the emancipated convict and extraordinarily successful businessman, Daniel Cooper, who took an interest in the education of his nephew, he was taken to Sydney by his parents when a child, but was sent back to Britain again in 1835 and spent four years at University College London. Cooper began business at Le Havre, but his health failing, he returned to Sydney in 1843. There, he acquired an interest in a mercantile firm, afterwards known as D. Cooper and Company, bought much property in Sydney and its suburbs.
This afterwards appreciated in value and Cooper became a wealthy man. In 1853 he inherited the bulk of the enormous fortune of his uncle, who had no children, he was an early member of the senate of the University of Sydney, to which he gave £500 for a stained glass window, £1,000 to found a scholarship. In 1849 at the age of 28, Cooper was made a member of the legislative council, in 1856 he was elected as a member for Legislative Assembly seat of Sydney Hamlets of the first Parliament of New South Wales, he represented Paddington from 1859 to 1860. At its first meeting, Cooper was elected Speaker by a majority of one vote over Henry Watson Parker, his election was not popular, but Cooper held office with dignity and impartiality and set a standard for future speakers. He established rules of procedure and parliamentary conventions, which influenced the Parliament in the following years. In politics, he was close to Charles Cowper and Henry Parkes and supported Parkes' The Empire, financially.
In return it described his political principles as being'of so liberal a cast that, were he less identified with the great interests of property, he would be set down as a dangerous democrat'. In January 1860 his health was again troubling he found it necessary to resign, he was asked to form a ministry in March, but in 1861 returned to Britain. During the Crimean War he had exerted himself in raising a fund for the relief of widows and children of soldiers, in the UK in 1863 he did much work to relieve the distress in Lancashire caused by the cotton famine, he continued his interest in New South Wales and acted as agent-general, did useful work in connexion with the exhibition held at Sydney in 1880, in 1886 was a member of the Royal Commission for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at London. He married, in 1846, Elizabeth Hill, daughter of William Hill of Sydney and Mary Johnson, both convicts, they had two sons and five daughters. Cooper died on 5 June 1902 in Kensington and was survived by his wife and by two sons and three of their daughters.
He was buried in London. The eldest son, Daniel Cooper, succeeded as second Baronet, but had only daughters and was himself succeeded by his brother William Charles Cooper as third Baronet, his great-grandson was historian Douglas Cooper. Cooper was a founder and the first president of the Philatelic Society of London, the predecessor of today's Royal Philatelic Society London, his Australian postage stamps, sold to Judge Frederick Philbrick in 1878 for £3,000, became part of Ferrary's celebrated collection. The Sir Daniel Cooper Lectures, sponsored by the Royal Philatelic Society, are in his honour. Cooper was knighted in 1857, created a baronet of Woollahra in 1863, appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1880 and upgraded to a Knight Grand Cross of the order in 1888. Political families of Australia: Wentworth/Hill/Griffiths/Scott/Cooper family
Port Jackson
Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea, it is the location of the Sydney Opera Sydney Harbour Bridge. The location of the first European settlement and colony on the Australian mainland, Port Jackson has continued to play a key role in the history and development of Sydney. Many recreational events are based on or around the harbour itself the Sydney New Year's Eve celebrations and the starting point of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race; the waterways of Port Jackson are managed by the Maritime Services. Sydney Harbour National Park protects a number of islands and foreshore areas, swimming spots, bushwalking tracks and picnic areas; the land around Port Jackson was occupied at the time of the European arrival and colonisation by the Eora clans, including the Gadigal and Wangal. The Gadigal occupied the land stretching along the south side of Port Jackson from what is now South Head, in an arc west to the present Darling Harbour.
The Cammeraygal lived on the northern side of the harbour. The area along the southern banks of the Parramatta River to Rose Hill belonged to the Wangal; the Eora occupied west to Parramatta. The first recorded European discovery of Sydney Harbour was by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook named the inlet after Sir George Jackson, one of the Lord Commissioners of the British Admiralty, Judge Advocate of the Fleet; as the Endeavour sailed past the entrance at Sydney Heads, Cook wrote in his journal "at noon we were...about 2 or 3 miles from the land and abrest of a bay or harbour within there appeared to be a safe anchorage which I called Port Jackson." No-one on the ship recorded seeing any of the Harbour's many islands. This would have been because their line of sight was blocked by the high promontories of South Head and Bradleys Head that shape its dog-leg entrance. However, these islands were known to Captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet commander, before he departed England in 1787. Cook had seen the main body of the Harbour in 1770 and, on returning home, he had reported his important discovery to the Admiralty.
An explanation of Cook's discovery was first proposed in the book Lying for the Admiralty. While the Endeavour was anchored in Botany Bay, Cook may have followed one of the ancient Aboriginal tracks that connect Botany Bay to Port Jackson, a distance of some ten kilometres; the Admiralty had ordered Cook to conceal strategically valuable discoveries, so he omitted the main Harbour from his journal and chart. Eighteen years on 21 January 1788, after arriving at Botany Bay, Governor Arthur Phillip took a longboat and two cutters up the coast to sound the entrance and examine Cook's Port Jackson. Phillip first stayed over night at Camp Cove moved down the harbour, landing at Sydney Cove and Manly Cove before returning to Botany Bay on the afternoon of 24 January. Phillip returned to Sydney Cove in HM Armed Tender Supply on 26 January 1788, where he established the first colony in Australia to become the city of Sydney. In his first dispatch from the colony back to England, Governor Phillip noted that:...we had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security...
The Great White Fleet, the United States Navy battle fleet, arrived in Port Jackson in August 1908 by order of U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt. From 1938, seaplanes landed in Sydney Harbour on Rose Bay, making this Sydney's first international airport. In 1942, to protect Sydney Harbour from a submarine attack, the Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net was constructed, it spanned the harbour from Green Point, Watsons Bay to the battery at Georges Head, on the other side of the harbour. On the night of 31 May 1942, three Japanese midget submarines entered the harbour, one of which became entangled in the western end of the boom net's central section. Unable to free their submarine, the crew detonated charges. A second midget submarine came to grief in the two crew committing suicide; the third submarine fired two torpedoes at USS Chicago before leaving the harbour. In November 2006, this submarine was found off Sydney's Northern Beaches; the anti-submarine boom net was demolished soon after World War II, all that remains are the foundations of the old boom net winch house, which can be viewed on Green Point, Watsons Bay.
Today, the Australian War Memorial has on display a composite of the two midget submarines salvaged from Sydney Harbour. The conning tower of one of the midget submarines is on display at the RAN Heritage Centre, Garden Island, Sydney. Fort Denison is a former penal site and defensive facility occupying a small island located north-east of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney Harbour. There are fortifications at elsewhere, some of which are now heritage listed; the earliest date from the 1830s, were designed to defend Sydney from seaborn attack or convict uprisings. There are four historical fortifications located between Taronga Zoo and Middle Head, they are: the Middle Head Fortifications, the Georges Head Battery, the Lower Georges Heights Commanding Position and a small fort located on Bradleys Head, known as the Bradleys Head Fortification Complex; the forts were built from sandstone quarried on site and consist of various tunnels, underground rooms, open batteries and casemated batteries, shell rooms, gunpowder magazines and trenches.
Geologically, Port Jackson is a drowned river v
Electorates of the Australian states and territories
A State Electoral District is an electorate within the Lower House or Legislative Assembly of Australian states and territories. Most state electoral districts send a single member to a state or territory's parliament using the preferential method of voting; the area of a state electoral district is dependent upon the Electoral Acts in the various states and vary in area between them. At present, there are 409 state electoral districts in Australia. State electoral districts do not apply to the Upper House, or Legislative Council, in those states that have one. In New South Wales and South Australia, MLCs represent the entire state, in Tasmania they represent single-member districts, in Victoria and Western Australia they represent a region formed by grouping electoral districts together. There are five electorates for the Legislative Assembly, each with five members each, making up 25 members in total. There are 93 electoral districts in New South Wales. There are 25 single-member electoral divisions in the Northern Territory, 17 former divisions.
There are 93 electoral districts in Queensland, for the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. Information about the QLD electoral districts for the 2006 elections can be obtained from the Electoral Commission of Queensland website. There are 47 single-member electoral districts in South Australia, for the South Australian House of Assembly. There are 15 electoral divisions in Tasmania for the upper house Legislative Council. In the lower house the five federal divisions are used, but electing 5 members each There are 88 electoral districts in Victoria, for the Victorian Legislative Assembly. There are 59 single-member electoral districts in Western Australia for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. 42 are in the Perth metropolitan area and 17 are in the rest of the state. Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives Local government in Australia Parliaments of the Australian states and territories
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a heritage-listed steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic image of Sydney, Australia itself; the bridge is nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design. Under the direction of Dr John Bradfield of the NSW Department of Public Works, the bridge was designed and built by British firm Dorman Long and Co Ltd of Middlesbrough and opened in 1932; the bridge's design was influenced by the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City. It is the sixth longest spanning-arch bridge in the world and the tallest steel arch bridge, measuring 134 m from top to water level, it was the world's widest long-span bridge, at 48.8 m wide, until construction of the new Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver was completed in 2012. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was added to the Australian National Heritage List on 19 March 2007 and to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 25 June 1999.
The southern end of the bridge is located at Dawes Point in The Rocks area, the northern end at Milsons Point in the lower North Shore area. There are six original lanes of road traffic through the main roadway, plus an additional two lanes of road traffic on its eastern side, using lanes that were tram tracks. Adjacent to the road traffic, a path for pedestrian use runs along the eastern side of the bridge, whilst a dedicated path for bicycle use only runs along the western side; the main roadway across the bridge is known as the Bradfield Highway and is about 2.4 km long, making it one of the shortest highways in Australia. The arch is composed of two 28-panel arch trusses; the arch has a span of 504 m and its summit is 134 m above mean sea level. The total weight of the steelwork of the bridge, including the arch and approach spans, is 52,800 tonnes, with the arch itself weighing 39,000 tonnes. About 79 % of the steel was imported with the rest being sourced from Newcastle. On site, the contractors set up two workshops at Milsons Point, at the site of the present day Luna Park, fabricated the steel into the girders and other required parts.
The bridge is held together by six million Australian-made hand-driven rivets supplied by the McPherson company of Melbourne, the last being driven through the deck on 21 January 1932. The rivets were inserted into the plates; the largest of the rivets used was 39.5 cm long. The practice of riveting large steel structures, rather than welding, was, at the time, a proven and understood construction technique, whilst structural welding had not at that stage been adequately developed for use on the bridge. At each end of the arch stands a pair of 89 m high concrete pylons, faced with granite; the pylons were designed by the Scottish architect Thomas S. Tait, a partner in the architectural firm John Burnet & Partners; some 250 Australian and Italian stonemasons and their families relocated to a temporary settlement at Moruya, NSW, 300 km south of Sydney, where they quarried around 18,000 m3 of granite for the bridge pylons. The stonemasons cut and numbered the blocks, which were transported to Sydney on three ships built for this purpose.
The Moruya quarry was managed by John Gilmore, a Scottish stonemason who emigrated with his young family to Australia in 1924, at the request of the project managers. The concrete used was Australian-made and supplied from Kandos, New South Wales. Abutments at the base of the pylons are essential to support the loads from the arch and hold its span in place, but the pylons themselves have no structural purpose, they were included to provide a frame for the arch panels and to give better visual balance to the bridge. The pylons were not part of the original design, were only added to allay public concern about the structural integrity of the bridge. Although added to the bridge for their aesthetic value, all four pylons have now been put to use; the south-eastern pylon contains a museum and tourist centre, with a 360° lookout at the top providing views across the harbour and city. The south-western pylon is used by the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority to support its CCTV cameras overlooking the bridge and the roads around that area.
The two pylons on the north shore include venting chimneys for fumes from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, with the base of the southern pylon containing the RMS maintenance shed for the bridge, the base of the northern pylon containing the traffic management shed for tow trucks and safety vehicles used on the bridge. In 1942 the pylons were modified to include parapets and anti-aircraft guns designed to assist in both Australia's defence and general war effort; the top level of stonework was never removed. There had been plans to build a bridge as early as 1815, when convict and noted architect Francis Greenway reputedly proposed to Governor Lachlan Macquarie that a bridge be built from the northern to the southern shore of the harbour. In 1825, Greenway wrote a letter to the "The Australian" n
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war is a person, whether a combatant or a non-combatant, held in custody by a belligerent power during or after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1660. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from enemy combatants still in the field, demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy combatants on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as a prisoner of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved; the first Roman gladiators were prisoners of war and were named according to their ethnic roots such as Samnite and the Gaul.
Homer's Iliad describes Greek and Trojan soldiers offering rewards of wealth to opposing forces who have defeated them on the battlefield in exchange for mercy, but their offers are not always accepted. Little distinction was made between enemy combatants and enemy civilians, although women and children were more to be spared. Sometimes, the purpose of a battle, if not a war, was to capture a practice known as raptio. Women had no rights, were held as chattel. In the fourth century AD, Bishop Acacius of Amida, touched by the plight of Persian prisoners captured in a recent war with the Roman Empire, who were held in his town under appalling conditions and destined for a life of slavery, took the initiative of ransoming them, by selling his church's precious gold and silver vessels, letting them return to their country. For this he was canonized. During Childeric's siege and blockade of Paris in 464, the nun Geneviève pleaded with the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a favourable response.
Clovis I liberated captives after Genevieve urged him to do so. Many French prisoners of war were killed during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415; this was done in retaliation for the French killing of the boys and other non-combatants handling the baggage and equipment of the army, because the French were attacking again and Henry was afraid that they would break through and free the prisoners to fight again. In the Middle Ages, a number of religious wars aimed to not only defeat but eliminate their enemies. In Christian Europe, the extermination of heretics was considered desirable. Examples include the Northern Crusades; when asked by a Crusader how to distinguish between the Catholics and Cathars once they'd taken the city of Béziers, the Papal Legate Arnaud Amalric famously replied, "Kill them all, God will know His own". The inhabitants of conquered cities were massacred during the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries. Noblemen could hope to be ransomed. In feudal Japan, there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, who were for the most part summarily executed.
The expanding Mongol Empire was famous for distinguishing between cities or towns that surrendered, where the population were spared but required to support the conquering Mongol army, those that resisted, where their city was ransacked and destroyed, all the population killed. In Termez, on the Oxus: "all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto the plain, divided in accordance with their usual custom they were all slain"; the Aztecs were at war with neighbouring tribes and groups, with the goal of this constant warfare being to collect live prisoners for sacrifice. For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed. During the early Muslim conquests, Muslims captured large number of prisoners. Aside from those who converted, most were enslaved. Christians who were captured during the Crusades, were either killed or sold into slavery if they could not pay a ransom. During his lifetime, Muhammad made it the responsibility of the Islamic government to provide food and clothing, on a reasonable basis, to captives, regardless of their religion.
The freeing of prisoners was recommended as a charitable act. On certain occasions where Muhammad felt the enemy had broken a treaty with the Muslims, he ordered the mass execution of male prisoners, such as the Banu Qurayza. Females and children of this tribe were divided up as spoils of war by Muhammad; the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, established the rule that prisoners of war should be released without ransom at the end of hostilities and that they should be allowed to return to their homelands. There evolved the right of parole, French for "discourse", in which a captured officer surrendered his sword and gave his word as a gentleman in exchange for privileges. If he swore not to escape, he could gain the freedom of the prison. If he swore to cease hostilities against the nation who held him captive, he could be repatriated or exchanged but could not serve against his former captors in a military capacity. Ea
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water, that has no type of landing gear to allow operation on land. It differs from a floatplane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by wing-like projections from the fuselage. Flying boats were some of the largest aircraft of the first half of the 20th century, exceeded in size only by bombers developed during World War II, their advantage lay in using water instead of expensive land-based runways, making them the basis for international airlines in the interwar period. They were commonly used for maritime patrol and air-sea rescue, their use trailed off after World War II because of the investments in airports during the war. In the 21st century, flying boats maintain a few niche uses, such as dropping water on forest fires, air transport around archipelagos, access to undeveloped areas. Many modern seaplane variants, whether float or flying boat types, are convertible amphibious aircraft where either landing gear or flotation modes may be used to land and take off.
The Frenchman Alphonse Pénaud filed the first patent for a flying machine with a boat hull and retractable landing gear in 1876, but Austrian Wilhelm Kress is credited with building the first seaplane Drachenflieger in 1898, although its two 30 hp Daimler engines were inadequate for take-off and it sank when one of its two floats collapsed. On 6 June 1905 Gabriel Voisin took off and landed on the River Seine with a towed kite glider on floats; the first of his unpowered flights was 150 yards. He built a powered floatplane in partnership with Louis Blériot, but the machine was unsuccessful. Other pioneers attempted to attach floats to aircraft in Britain, Australia and the USA. On 28 March 1910 Frenchman Henri Fabre flew the first successful powered seaplane, the Gnome Omega-powered hydravion, a trimaran floatplane. Fabre's first successful take off and landing by a powered seaplane inspired other aviators and he designed floats for several other flyers; the first hydro-aeroplane competition was held in Monaco in March 1912, featuring aircraft using floats from Fabre, Curtiss and Farman.
This led to the first scheduled seaplane passenger services at Aix-les-Bains, using a five-seat Sanchez-Besa from 1 August 1912. The French Navy ordered its first floatplane in 1912. In 1911–12 François Denhaut constructed the first seaplane with a fuselage forming a hull, using various designs to give hydrodynamic lift at take-off, its first successful flight was on 13 April 1912. Throughout 1910 and 1911 American pioneering aviator Glenn Curtiss developed his floatplane into the successful Curtiss Model D land-plane, which used a larger central float and sponsons. Combining floats with wheels, he made the first amphibian flights in February 1911 and was awarded the first Collier Trophy for US flight achievement. From 1912 his experiments with a hulled seaplane resulted in the 1913 Model E and Model F, which he called "flying-boats". In February 1911 the United States Navy took delivery of the Curtiss Model E, soon tested landings on and take-offs from ships using the Curtiss Model D. In Britain, Captain Edward Wakefield and Oscar Gnosspelius began to explore the feasibility of flight from water in 1908.
They decided to make use of Windermere in England's largest lake. The latter's first attempts to fly attracted large crowds, though the aircraft failed to take off and required a re-design of the floats incorporating features of Borwick’s successful speed-boat hulls. Meanwhile, Wakefield ordered a floatplane similar to the design of the 1910 Fabre Hydravion. By November 1911, both Gnosspelius and Wakefield had aircraft capable of flight from water and awaited suitable weather conditions. Gnosspelius's flight was short-lived. Wakefield’s pilot however, taking advantage of a light northerly wind took off and flew at a height of 50 feet to Ferry Nab, where he made a wide turn and returned for a perfect landing on the lake’s surface. In Switzerland, Emile Taddéoli equipped the Dufaux 4 biplane with swimmers and took off in 1912. A seaplane was used during the Balkan Wars in 1913, when a Greek "Astra Hydravion" did a reconnaissance of the Turkish fleet and dropped 4 bombs. In 1913, the Daily Mail newspaper put up a £10,000 prize for the first non-stop aerial crossing of the Atlantic, soon "enhanced by a further sum" from the Women's Aerial League of Great Britain.
American businessman Rodman Wanamaker became determined that the prize should go to an American aircraft and commissioned the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company to design and build an aircraft capable of making the flight. Curtiss' development of the Flying Fish flying boat in 1913 brought him into contact with John Cyril Porte, a retired Royal Navy Lieutenant, aircraft designer and test pilot, to become an influential British aviation pioneer. Recognising that many of the early accidents were attributable to a poor understanding of handling while in contact with the water, the pair's efforts went into developing practical hull designs to make the transatlantic crossing possible. At the same time the British boat building firm J. Samuel White of Cowes on the Isle of Wight set up a new aircraft division and produced a flying boat in the United Kingdom; this was displayed at the London Air Show at Olympia in 1913. In that same year, a collaboration between the S. E. Saunders boatyard of East Cowes and the Sopwith Aviation Company produced the "Bat Boat", an aircraft with a consuta laminated hull that could operate from land or on water, which today we call an amphibious aircraft.
The "Bat Boat" completed s
Hawkesbury River
The Hawkesbury River, is a semi–mature tide dominated drowned valley estuary located to the west and north of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River encircle the metropolitan region of Sydney; the Hawkesbury River has its origin at the confluence of the Nepean River and the Grose River, to the north of Penrith and travels for 120 kilometres in a north–easterly and south–easterly direction to its mouth at Broken Bay, about 15 kilometres from the Tasman Sea. The Hawkesbury River is the main tributary of Broken Bay. Secondary tributaries include Brisbane Water and Pittwater, that together with the Hawkesbury River flow into the Tasman Sea at Barrenjoey Head; the total catchment area of the river is 21,624 square kilometres and the area is administered by the Hawkesbury–Nepean Catchment Management Authority. The land adjacent to the Hawkesbury River was occupied by the Darkinjung, Darug and Kuringgai Aboriginal peoples, they used the river as a source of a place for trade.
The headwaters of the Hawkesbury River, the Avon River, the Cataract River, the Cordeaux River, rise only a few miles from the sea, about 80 kilometres south of Sydney. These streams start on the inland-facing slopes of the plateau which forms the escarpment behind Wollongong. Flowing north-west, away from the sea, these streams combine to form the Nepean River, flow north past the towns of Camden and Penrith. Near Penrith, the Warragamba River emerges from its canyon through the Blue Mountains and joins the Nepean; the Warragamba, formed by the joining of the Wollondilly River, the Nattai River, the Kowmung River and Coxs River drains a broad region of New South Wales on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range. The other principal component of the upper Hawkesbury river system, the Grose River, rises in the area of Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains. Once formed, the Hawkesbury River proper flows northwards, albeit with a significant number of meanders; the river passes the towns of Richmond and Windsor, which are the largest settlements on the river.
At Windsor, the river is joined by the South Creek, which drains much of the urban runoff in Sydney's western suburbs that does not fall into the Parramatta River catchment. As it flows north, it enters a more rural area, with only small settlements on the river. On this stretch it passes Lower Portland, where it is joined by the Colo River; the Colo River and its tributaries drain the northern section of the Blue Mountains. From Lower Portland, the Hawkesbury River continues flowing northwards to the small community of Wisemans Ferry where it is joined by the Macdonald River. Here its course turns eastwards and the surrounding landscape becomes steeper and more rugged. At Spencer, Mangrove Creek joins the river from the north. From here to the river mouth, road access to the river is limited to a few points. At Milsons Passage, the river is joined by Berowra Creek from the south. In the area around Brooklyn the river is crossed by the major road and rail services that follow the coast north from Sydney.
The river reaches the ocean at Broken Bay. From the confluence of the Nepean and Grose Rivers to the sea, the Hawkesbury River has a total length of some 120 kilometres. Islands in the Hawkesbury River include, in order going downstream are Barr Island, Milson Island, Peat Island, Spectacle Island, Long Island, Dangar Island. Despite forming the effective boundary of the metropolitan region of Sydney for its entire length, there are few fixed crossings of the Hawkesbury River proper. Going downstream, these comprise: In the lower reaches of the river there are a few passenger ferries that cross the river; these include the Palm Beach Ferry service from Palm Beach to Ettalong and Wagstaffe, the Hawkesbury River Ferries service from Brooklyn to Dangar Island and Little Wobby. The Aboriginal name for the river was published as Deerubbun in 1870; the main Aboriginal tribe inhabiting the area was the Guringai or Eora, the Wannungine of the coastal area inhabited and exploited the lands of the lower reaches.
Included the Darkinung people, whose lands were extensive on the lower Hawkesbury to Mangrove Creek, upper Hawkesbury, inland Hunter and lower Blue Mountains. It has been regarded that the Guringai name for the Hawkesbury was'Van Rupen'. In 1789 two expeditions explored the Hawkesbury to the northwest of Sydney and the Nepean River to the southwest, it took about three years to realise. Hawkesbury River was one of the pivotal positions of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, a series of skirmishes and battles between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the resisting Indigenous clans that took place between late 1780s and late 1810s; the Hawkesbury River was one of the major transportation routes for transporting food from the surrounding area to Sydney during the 1800s. Boats would wait in the protection of Broken Bay and Pittwater, until favourable weather allowed them to make the ocean journey to Sydney Heads. With the opening of the railway from Sydney to Windsor in 1864, farm produce could be shipped upriver for onward transportation by train.
However, by the 1880s the river had become silted up between Sackville and Windsor, Sackville became the head of navigation for sea-going vessels. Until the end of the 19th century coastal steamers linked Sackville to Sydney; the Hawkesbury River was named by Governor Phillip in June 1789, after Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool, who at that time was titled Baron Hawkesbury, after the Cotswolds village of Hawkesbury Upton in England, where the Jenkinsons stil
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