Warwick Rodeo City Of Australia

"1951 to 2000"

With the pulse of settlement becoming stronger every day, the New South Wales Government saw the advantage of forming a town on part of the Canning Downs run, and decided that Mr. Patrick Leslie should select the site for same. This Mr. Leslie did at the end of 1847, choosing that portion familiarly known as the Pocket, because on the present site of Warwick his brother George had a sheep station. On submitting the proposed site to the Government of New South Wales, they instructed Mr. Christopher Rolleston, the newly appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Darling Downs, to approve of the selection, or suggest another. As a result, the present site of Warwick was chosen. This done, it was proposed to call the new town "Canningtown," but that name did not meet with any favour, and the recommendation of Patrick Leslie and his friend Arthur Hodgson and C. Rolleston was, to call it "Warwick." Which suggestion the New South Wales Government accepted. Mr. J.C. Burnett, Surveyor, was instructed to make the first design, which he did, and submitted it in May 1849, and the Government's approval was notified in the Government "Gazette" the same year - Folio 1708. Burnett made the actual surveys of selections 1 to 19 in April 1850, and of subsequent section by A.F. Wood and G.L. Pratten in 1857 and 1859, respectively. The development of the town was rapid. A store was established in 1848 before the town was even surveyed and by 1862 a state school had been completed. Cobb & Co started running a coach to the township in 1865 and by 1871 the railway from Ipswich had reached the town.