Timeline

Pre-1823: The Scone area was home to the Tullong and Murrain tribes.1
1823: Allan Cunningham was the first recorded European person to travel into the Scone area, reaching the Upper Dartbrook and Murrurundi areas.2
1824: Henry Dangar, government surveyor, surveyed the Scone area.3
1825: The first properties in the area were selected including Invermien and Segenhoe.
1826: Village of Redbank was established near Kingdon Ponds.
1827: The pass over the Liverpool Range was discovered by William Nowland, still known as Nowland’s Gap.4
1829: Flour mill at Aberdeen erected.
1831: The second wave of small pox reached the district, which was fatal to many of the local Aboriginal people. Hugh Cameron put forward the name Scone to Thomas Mitchell.
1833: The Prickly Pear was introduced to Scone by Dr William Carlyle Bell who sent it with his housemaid Granny Sutton to his property, Satur.5
1837: Village was officially named Scone.
1838: Village of Aberdeen proclaimed. First land sales in Scone along Kingdon Street.
1839: Segenhoe Inn opened, originally called the Aberdeen Inn.
1840: Merriwa and Murrurundi proclaimed. Jewboy Gang killed John Graham outside St Aubin’s Inn, which still stands in Scone.
1843: First St Luke’s Church was built and church yard consecrated by the first Bishop of Australia, William Broughton.
1844: Willow Tree Hotel opened on Liverpool and Geurnsey Street. Crown and Anchor Hotel also opened, now where Scone Tyre Service is located.
1847: H.Phillips built a large store and residence on Kelly Street, now Asser House.
1848: A new Court house and Police station were built in Scone. Now the part of the SCADS building and research centre for the Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society.
1856: Aberdeen Post Office opened.
1857: Denman and Wingen proclaimed. Australian Inn, now the Commercial Hotel in Aberdeen, opened. Scone’s Cricket Club formed.
1861: The catholic church of St Mary’s opened. Now the Scone Arts and Crafts building. Presbyterian Church opened, later the Masonic Centre, now a private residence.
1863: National School opened in Scone, now Scone Primary School.
1866: Railway Inn, now the Belmore Hotel, opened.
1871: The railway opened in Scone and the Railway Hotel, now Royal Hotel, was built.
1872: Hospital opened in Scone and Railway Hotel in Murrurundi opened. National School, now Scone Primary School, closed.
1874: Unprecedented flood and a grasshopper plague.
1875: Scone Public School opened.
1878: Scone Race Club was operating, originally near the current Scott Memorial Hospital.
1879: The Scone Post Office was built, which is still used today.
1881: Gold discovered at Stewart’s Brook.
1882: New Court House built on Kingdon Street.
1885: M.Campbell and Co built a store on Liverpool and Guernsey Street, now Scone Outdoors.
1886: Opening of Scone Grammar School.
1888: Municipality of Scone incorporated.
1889: Convent school, now known as St Mary’s Primary School, opened on the corner of Hill and Guernsey Streets.
1890: The Figtree Gully flooded the town.
1892: The streets of Park, Waverley and Oxford were created from the subdivision of St Aubin’s. Dr H.J.H.Scott began practicing medicine in Scone.
1896: A new racecourse was established at Satur Street, Scone.
1900: First movies played in Scone and first motor cars in town.
1901: Local resident, Thomas Cook, donated a marble fountain to commemorate Federation; it is now housed in Rotary Park. First Royal visit to Scone, H.R.H. Duke of York, later King George V.
1906: Division of the Belmore property extended Susan Street and created Phillip and Sydney Streets. Scone Golf Club was formed. Skating rink built at intersection of Main and Kelly Streets.
1911: First garage opened in Scone on Liverpool Street. Park Street and Forbes Street created. Satur began to subdivide.
1913: Scott Memorial Hospital officially opened. Scott Street and Stafford Street created.
1916: Aberdeen Bowling Club established.
1917: Scone Grammar School closed.
1919: An influenza epidemic reaches Scone.
1920: The first local electricity was generated.
1921: The town had electricity, which gradually went to nearby areas.
1924: The current catholic St Mary’s Church in Park Street was built. White Park was created.
1925: A new Church of England rectory was built and the first Scouts Troop formed.
1926: An outbreak of dengue fever in Scone. St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on the corner of Kingdon and Main street built.
1927: The Upper Hunter District Ambulance was formed and the Dartbrook Bushfire Brigade.
1929: Campbell and Co built Campbell’s Corner on Liverpool and Kelly Street, which still stands. A violent thunderstorm kills 30,000 sheep in the district and the Scone town water supply was established.
1930: The Scone Fire Brigade was formed.
1932: The Scone Bowling Club was established on the corner of Kelly and Susan Streets.
1936: Ambulance station built.
1939: Town sewerage system built. Current Golden Fleece Hotel built. Civic Theatre opened. Current Court House on the corner of Main and Liverpool streets opened.
1941: The current Willow Tree Hotel was built.
1942: Kelly Street flooded by Figtree Gully.
1945: Scone Rotary Club formed.
1946: The Scone Golf Club reformed and Scone Race Club formed.
1947: New police station built on Liverpool street and work began on Glenbawn Dam.
1949: Significant flood hits Scone. Upper Hunter RSL Club formed at present site of the RSL.
1952: Floods throughout the district.
1953: Current St Mary’s Primary School built in Waverley Street. Girl Guides established.
1954: St Luke’s Hall built.
1955: Whole area between Scone and Satur flooded.
1957: Glenbawn Dam completed and the Shiralee premiered in Scone at the Civic Theatre.
1962: Scone War Memorial Baths opened.
1964: Current Scone High School built.

Special thanks to:

the Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society for their assistance. References for the above events can be found at the Historical Society.

Footnotes:

F.Little, Letter to Alexander Macleay, Governor’s Colonial Secretary, June 5, 1828. Copy held at Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society, Scone. [↩]
“Journal of a Route from Bathurst to the Liverpool Plains, in New South Wales, explored by Allan Cunningham his Majesty’s Botanical Collector for Kew Gardens”, Geographical memoirs on New South Wales: by various hands: Containing an account of the Surveyor General’s late expedition to two new ports, the discovery of Moreton Bay River, with the adventures for seven months there of two shipwrecked men, a route from Bathurst to Liverpool Plains : together with other papers on the aborigines, the geology, the botany, the timber, the astronomy, and the meteorology of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land / edited by Barron Field, a copy is held in the Mitchell Library, 1825, p.504. [↩]
Nancy Gray, ‘Dangar, Henry (1796–1861)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dangar-henry-1954/text2349, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 14 April 2015. [↩]
L.Parkinson, “The Pioneering Nowland Brothers”, Hunter and Northwest Pages, viewed on <http://www.upperhunter.org/nowlandbros/index.html>, cited on February 18, 2013.> cited on February 18, 2013. [↩]
A.M.Entwisle, ‘Notes’, Annie Asser’s Diary, Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society, 1984, Bicentennial Publication No.3, p.131. [↩]