Cumberland County, New South Wales
Cumberland | |||||||||||||
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 Location in New South Wales | |||||||||||||
| Country | Australia | ||||||||||||
| State | New South Wales | ||||||||||||
| Established | 4 June 1788 | ||||||||||||
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Cumberland County, or the County of Cumberland,[1] is a land division county in the State of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The county covers the area of the Cumberland Plain and includes most of the Greater Sydney metropolitan area, stretching from Broken Bay to the north, the Hawkesbury River to the north-west, the Nepean River to the west, the Cataract River to the south-west and the northern suburbs of Wollongong to the south.
Note: Cumberland County should not be confused with the former Cumberland County Council, a county council set up under the Local Government (Town and Country Planning) Amendment Act 1945 (NSW)[2] to coordinate town planning across Sydney. Despite the shared name the County Council was a legally distinct entity, with a distinct (albeit largely overlapping) territory: the Cumberland County District.
History
The name Cumberland was conferred by Governor Arthur Phillip in honour of Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn at a gathering to celebrate the birthday of his brother, George III, on 4 June 1788.[3]
The County of Cumberland is an administrative area, one of 141 counties established in the Colony of New South Wales for surveying and land title registration, and further divided into 57 parishes in 1835. Land division counties in NSW have little official function and are only used for land titles and geographic surveying.
Between 1945 and 1964 the county was the basis of the city-wide County of Cumberland Planning Scheme, later superseded by a succession of state planning bodies.[4]
The county has been marked on maps since the start of the colony, as shown along the key on a 1789 map which describes Port Jackson as being within the county of Cumberland. In the nineteenth century, parts of the county were in the South and North Riding electoral districts from 1856 to 1859, which were replaced by Central Cumberland. There was also the Cumberland Boroughs electoral district.
Sub-divisions
Hundreds
There were thirteen hundreds in Cumberland County, which were published in a government gazette on 27 May 1835, but repealed on 21 January 1888. Unlike South Australia, the hundreds were never adopted anywhere else in New South Wales. The hundreds:
- Bringelly
- Campbelltown
- Dundas
- Evan
- Hardinge
- Liverpool
- Packenham
- Parramatta
- Richmond
- Southend
- Hundred of Sydney
- Windsor
- Woronora (shown as Heathcote on some maps)
Parishes
In 1835, Cumberland County was subdivided into 57 parishes.[5] Previously, the subdivisions of the area since the beginning of the colony were called districts. Many of the parishes founded in 1835 kept the name of the district. Others were named after Anglican churches in the same area. This included three of the four small parishes in the Sydney city area: The Parish of St Philip, which is named after St Philip's Church; the Parish of St James, which is named after St James Church, and is still the name of the region today; and finally the Parish of St Andrew which is named after St Andrew's Cathedral. However, the Parish of St Lawrence gave its name to the church, rather than the other way around.[6] Further out of the city, the parishes of St John, St Luke, St Peter and St Matthew, in the Parramatta, Liverpool, Campbelltown and Windsor areas respectively, have Anglican churches which bear the same saints names; St John's in Parramatta (opened 1803); St.Luke's in Liverpool (building began 1818); St.Peter's in Campbelltown (opened 1823, the third oldest Anglican church in Australia); and St. Matthew's in Windsor (consecrated in 1822)
A full list of parishes found within this county; the LGAs which the parish is mostly in (most parish boundaries do not match LGA boundaries exactly), and mapping coordinates to the approximate centre of each location is as follows:
Districts
The first subdivisions of the county were called districts, shown in early maps from the period, such as 21 districts on an 1810 map and 37 districts on an 1824 map (not including Philip which was across the Nepean River and not part of the county). The districts in use in 1824:
- Airds
- Appin
- Bankstown
- Bathurst
- Botany Bay
- Bringelly
- Bullanaming
- Cambramatta
- Castle Hill
- Castlereagh
- Concord
- Cooke
- Dundas
- Eastern Plains
- Evan
- Field of Mars
- Green Hills
- Holsworthy
- Hunter's Hill
- Illawarra
- Liberty Plains
- Mecham
- Melville
- Meyrick
- Minto
- Nelson
- Northern Boundary
- Oxley
- Parramatta
- Petersham
- Ponds
- Prospect
- Richmond
- Sydney
- Tongabee
- Upper Minto
- Upper Nelson
References
- ↑ "County of Cumberland". The Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
- ↑ "Local Government (Town and Country Planning) Amendment Act 1945". Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
- ↑ "Cumberland County". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales.
- ↑ "County of Cumberland". The Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
- ↑ "Names Search". Geographical Names Board of NSW. Archived from the original on 23 March 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2007.
- ↑ The Naming of the Parish, Christ Church of St.Laurence