Tour Guide, Canberra, Australia
| 2 mins read
There was considerable debate over many years immediately after Australian Federation in 1901 as to which area should be selected as the site for the new federal capital city. These include areas such as Albury, Wagga-Wagga, Gundagai, Tumut, Goulburn, Orange, Armidale, Bungendore, Bombala, Eden, the Yass-Canberra region, and Dalgety. About 23 areas were considered. There was considerable competition between all proposed sites and a variety of Parliamentary delegations made a number of visits to many of the sites.
In 1907, Dalgety was officially gazetted to be the location of the capital in a Bill introduced to the Federal Parliament. However, John Gale, popularly known as the 'Father of Canberra', was asked to prepare a short paper supporting the Canberra region over that of Dalgety. It provides an interesting account of the discussion at the time of the key selection criteria and the relative merits of the Canberra region over that of Dalgety. Some of John Gale's paper is quite humorous. Apparently his paper made some impression on Parliamentarians in the debate and ultimate final selection of the Canberra region in 1908.
John Gale's short paper can be found (for free as it is out of copyright and print) on the National Library of Australia website and is titled "The Federal Capital - Dalgety or Canberra, Which".