Badgerys Creek (New South Wales)

Badgerys Creek, a watercourse that is part of the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, is located in Greater Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Course and features


Badgerys Creek rises in Sydney's south western suburbs about 4 km west of and flows generally north then north-east before reaching its confluence with South Creek, in the suburb of. The creek descends 94 m over its 16 km course.

Etymology
Badgerys Creek is named after James Badgery who received a grant of 640 acre in 1812. Badgery (1769-1827) had arrived in the colony in November 1799 as an emigrant in the employ of William Paterson of the New South Wales Corps. In 1803, Badgery obtained a grant of 100 acre at in the area of Yarramundi Lagoon and an additional 39 acre was granted the following year. However it was this large grant of 640 acre that Badgery used to establish a farming enterprise which included property in the region and evolved over the nineteenth century into the agricultural company Pitt Son & Badgery. Badgery named the grant Exeter Farm after his English birthplace. By 1828 the Badgery family had 1900 acre of land in the colony. Essentially rural and sparsely populated throughout the nineteenth century, local government representation was forced on the area by the New South Wales Government in 1906 through the establishment of Nepean Shire. In the early 1920s, Badgery’s old grant was divided under the provisions of the Soldier Settlement Act, while in 1936 a large area with frontage to South Creek was acquired by the Commonwealth of Australia for a CSIRO research station for animal health (McMaster’s Field Station) and also for a short time was a field station for research into radio astronomy. The site was sold by the CSIRO in 1996.