Parramatta

(păr'ə-măt'ə)

A city of southeast Australia, a manufacturing suburb of Sydney. It was founded in 1788. Population: 148,000.

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After Sydney the oldest settlement in Australia, is located 24 kilometres west of Sydney at the head of the Parramatta River and is a city within the metropolitan area of Sydney. The site, discovered by Governor Phillip 23 April 1788, was settled in November that year. Until 1792 Parramatta was the major settlement, Sydney being reserved as a depot for stores, and it retained social importance as the seat of the governor, even after Sydney became the commercial centre. The first land grant issued in Australia was made at Parramatta to James Ruse (1760-1837), who was the Colony's first successful farmer; many other notable pioneers settled in the area, including John Macarthur, whose home, Elizabeth House, is still standing. The area has figured frequently in Australian historical fiction and is the background to Mary Gaunt's novel As the Whirlwind Passeth (1923), Ethel Turner's novel Seven Little Australians (1894), Ethel Anderson's short stories At Parramatta (1956), David Ireland's novel The Glass Canoe (1976), and part of Donald Horne's autobiography, The Education of Young Donald (1967). James Jervis wrote The Cradle City of Australia: A History of Parramatta 1788-1961 (1961).

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