Moree ( ) is a town in Moree Plains Shire in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Mehi River, in the centre of the rich black-soil plains. It is situated in the Moree Plains Shire. The Newell and Gwydir highways intersect at the town, which can also be reached from Sydney by daily train and air services.
Moree is a major agricultural centre, noted for its role in the Australian cotton-growing industry, which was established there in the early 1960s. It is also well known for artesian hot-spring baths that are renowned for their reputed healing qualities.
At the 2021 census, the town of Moree had a population of 7,070.
History Aboriginal people The Weraerai and Kamilaroi peoples are the original inhabitants of the area, and the town's name is said to come from an Aboriginal word for "rising sun", "long spring", or "water hole". The town was established in the 1850s by British colonists, who eventually forced the local Aboriginal residents into missions, and later Aboriginal reserves.
The town, and in particular the Moree Baths and Swimming Pool, are known for having been visited by the group of activists on the famous 1965 Freedom Ride. That historic journey through northern NSW, led by Charles Perkins, was designed to bring media attention to discrimination against Indigenous Australians in rural areas.
British colonisation In 1832, Major Thomas Mitchell led a large expedition to the district after escaped convict George Clarke told the colonial authorities of the existence of a great river called the "Kindur" that flowed through the region. Clarke had been a bushranger, living a mostly tribal lifestyle with a Kamilaroi clan in the area to the south from 1827 to 1831. He had gained geographical knowledge important to the colonists. In January 1832, Mitchell crossed what is now known as the Mehi River, around ten kilometres east of where the town Moree is now located.
Squatters soon followed in Mitchell's wake, setting up pastoral runs in the vicinity, among which were "Mungie Bundie", established by brothers John Henry Fleming and Joseph Fleming in 1837, "Boolooroo", established by Robert Marshall in 1837, "Wee Bolla Bolla", established by Thomas Simpson Hall in 1838, and "Mooree", which was established by James Cox in 1838, and from which the town gets its name.
Conflict between the colonists and Aboriginal people occurred soon after the arrival of the pastoralists. The Europeans murdered hundreds of Aboriginal people. Both groups of squatters and the New South Wales Mounted Police conducted punitive expeditions against the local Kamilaroi in what was termed at the time "a war of extermination".
For example, a large massacre of Aboriginal peoples occurred at John Cobb's Gravesend station in 1837, while in 1838, Major James Nunn and his mounted police killed at least forty at Waterloo Creek. Some of the surviving Mehi and Gwydir River Aboriginal people fled east to avoid the massacres, pursued by gangs of colonists, including one led by John Henry Fleming, a free settler from Mungie Bundie station. In June 1838, Fleming initiated the Myall Creek massacre. Those Kamilaroi who stayed in the region continued to be killed, including nine who died in a massacre by Charles Eyles at Pallamallawa, also in 1838.
The Kamilaroi also suffered deaths from new infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity, the effects of displacement, and the lack of access to life-sustaining resources. The pastoralists took over their water holes and hunting grounds. The Aboriginal people resorted to poaching livestock to survive, and cycles of retaliation between settlers and the indigenous people continued. The local Aboriginal people mostly suffer second-class status today.
Township of Moree In 1851, James Brand and Mary Geddes arrived with their Aboriginal servant girl Jane Laney. They built a general store on the banks of the river in 1852, and added a post office the following year. The family sold up and moved to the Hunter Region in 1857, but James died in 1858. The widowed Mary, left with six children to support, returned to Moree and, in 1861, opened the community's first inn.
Moree was gazetted as a town in 1862, with land sales proceeding that year.
A court of petty sessions was established in 1863. A severe flood occurred in 1864. The first constable arrived in 1865 and a police station was set up. The first church (Wesleyan Methodist) was built in 1867, when the town had a population of 43.
After closer settlement was initiated, agriculture emerged as a thriving industry on the fertile flood plains. A bank was set up in 1876, and a local newspaper was first published in 1881, at which time the population was 295.
The town became a municipality in 1890. During 1894, construction of the Federation-style lands office started, with the ground floor completed by the end of the year. A second storey was added in 1903. The building is now heritage listed.
In 1895, the Great Artesian Basin, which lies under Moree, was tapped. A bore was sunk to in order to provide water for agricultural use, but it proved to be unsuitable for that purpose. The bore yields more than thirteen megalitres of water daily.
The railway reached Moree in 1887, when the Mungindi line was opened, proving a passenger service to Sydney. The railway increased access to markets and goods for both producers and consumers in the town.
Wheat cultivation increased after World War II, and a flour mill was opened at Moree in 1951. The first commercial pecan nut farm was established on the Gwydir Highway east of Moree in 1966. The Trawalla Pecan Nut Farm is the largest pecan farm in the southern hemisphere, with about 75,000 trees. In 1994, the Gwydir Olive Grove Company was established and two Moree families started producing olive oil from trees grown in the area.Tourism Moree, Moree, 2007/2008
Moree was one of the destinations of the famous 1965 Freedom Bus ride, a historic trip through northern NSW, led by activist Charles Perkins, aimed at bringing media attention to discrimination against Indigenous Australians. Urban Australians were made aware of racial segregation in rural Australia, in particular at the Moree Baths and Swimming Pool. When the activists tried to desegregate the pool they "were pelted with eggs and rotten fruit". Aboriginal people were also refused entry to pubs and theatres.
At the Moree swimming pool, after the Freedom Riders confronted them, the local council and pool management agreed to allow Indigenous children to swim in the pool outside school hours.
Tensions between Aboriginal and Europeans have continued, along with discrimination. In 1982, following a large, racially-charged brawl between young white and black men, gangs of white men went around Moree shooting at Aboriginal people. Geoffrey Wilmot, Warren Ledingham, Steven Delamothe and Ian Bowen, armed with semi-automatic rifles and shot-guns, wounded several Aboriginal people, and killed nineteen-year-old Ronald McIntosh. Ledingham and Delamothe were later found guilty of manslaughter.
Aboriginal missions and reserves After the New South Wales colonial government established the Aboriginal Protection Board (APB) in 1883, it developed Aboriginal reserves, where the indigenous people were supposed to live. The so-called Aborigines Protection Act 1909 enabled the government to conduct forced removals of children from the reserves, for education and welfare. Children of mixed race, called half-caste, were among those removed, so that they could be raised by white people. To avoid that, Aboriginal families often left the reserves to escape white oversight, setting up fringe camps around towns.
The Moree Mission Aboriginal School was operating by 1933.
Aboriginal people moved from the Terry Hie Hie reserve, south-east of Moree, in the early 1920s to escape the forced removals by the APB of Aboriginal and "half-caste" children from their families. They created an informal settlement at Moree known as Top Camp, which existed until 1967. Steel Bridge Camp and Top Camp were both associated with Terry Hie Hie.
Middle Camp was established on the other side of town, next to the Mehi River, and Bottom Camp further downstream. In 1953, the latter camp was enlarged into a station known as Mehi Crescent Reserve or Mehi Mission.
In 1953, "Moree Aborigines' Station" was described as "a little over two miles west of the town on the left bank of the Mehi". C. F. Boughton, in an article in the North West Champion, described what the New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board was doing in its 19 Aboriginal reserves for "the uplift and welfare of the aborigines in this district".
The station was managed by a Mr E. Morgan. It had a school with a headmaster and two assistants, where girls were taught cookery and sewing. There were 118 students at the school and some were brought by bus from nearby camps. The residents had formed a Progressive Association in 1951. They had a public address system and a football club, which played in the district competition. The manager's wife ran a girl guides troop and there was a boys' club.
An Aboriginal reserve was declared on 17 July 1970 (effective 21 August 1970), and revoked on 20 September 1974. Other reserves and places of Aboriginal significance are at nearby at Terry Hie Hie, and one called Wirajarai on the Gwydir River.
21st century
In 2007 the Moree Plains Council announced plans for a $14m upgrade to the hot thermal baths.
Heritage-listed sites Commercial Banking Company of Sydney building (former) Commonwealth Bank (former) Mellor House Moree Club Moree Courthouse Moree Lands Office Anne Street: Moree Baths and Swimming Pool Moree Spa Baths Victoria Hotel Moree
The Steel Bridge Aboriginal Campsite is a site of moderate to high Aboriginal cultural and social significance. outside town, the Gamilaroi Nature Reserve and Terry Hie Hie Reserve are also of cultural and historical significance to Aboriginal people.
Demographics
In the 2021 Australian census, there were 7,070 people registered in the town. Of these, nearly a quarter identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Around 70 per cent of the population were born in Australia.
Tourism and culture
Moree is home to artesian hot spring baths that are famous for their reputed healing qualities.Reader's Digest Guide to Australian Places, Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty. Limited, Surry Hills N.S.W., 1993, Long before the arrival of the British colonists, the Aboriginal people made use of the hot springs.
BAMM: Bank Art Museum Moree, until 2018 known as Moree Plains Gallery, holds a significant collection of Aboriginal art. It was established and run by Moree Plains Shire Council until 2018, when the Moree Cultural Art Foundation took over management of the gallery.
It also holds a series of photographs of people from the two Moree missions, called A common place: Portraits of Moree Murries, created in 1990 by Michael Riley, an Indigenous artist. His mother grew up on one of the missions.
Climate Moree possesses a semi-arid-influenced humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa), with very hot, sometimes humid summers and mild, dry winters with cool nights. Average maxima vary from in January to in July, while average minima from in January to in July. Mean annual rainfall is moderately low at and is spread across 52.6 rainy days, peaking in the summer months with severe thunderstorms.
The town is very sunny, experiencing 155.2 clear days with 3,316.8 sun hours annually. Extreme temperatures have ranged from on 3 January 2014 and on 12 February 2017 to on 2 July 2002.
Flooding 20th century In January 1910 floods in the Moree district caused numerous washouts of the railway to the town. An unknown number of livestock were drowned, and at least four people drowned in the Moree area.