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The Nineteen Counties were the limits of location in the colony of New South Wales, Australia. Settlers were permitted to take up land only within the counties due to the dangers in the wilderness.
They were defined by the Governor of New South Wales Ralph Darling in 1826 in accordance with a government order from Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State. Counties had been used since the first year of settlement, with Cumberland County being proclaimed on 6 June 1788. Several others were later proclaimed around the Sydney area. A further order of 1829 extended these boundaries of the settlement to an area defined as the Nineteen Counties. From 1831 the granting of free land ceased and the only land that was to be made available for sale was within the Nineteen Counties.
The area covered by the limit extended to Taree in the north, Moruya River in the south and Wellington to the West.
The Nineteen Counties were mapped by the Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell in 1834. The scale of the map that Mitchell produced was determined by the amount of ship's copper available in Sydney to engrave the map.[1]
Despite the uncertainty of land tenure, squatters ran large numbers of sheep and cattle beyond the boundaries. From 1836 they could legally do so, paying £10 per year for the right. From 1847 leases in the unsettled areas were allowed for up to 14 years.
The Robertson Land Acts of 1861 allowed unlimited selection and sale of agricultural crown land in designated unsettled areas at £1 per acre, making the limits of location of the nineteen counties redundant. The counties continue to be used for cadastral division purposes, and the rest of New South Wales was likewise divided into counties, totaling 141 by the end of the 19th century.
- ^ Canberra's Engineering Heritage, William Charles Andrews, Institution of Engineers, Canberra, 1990, p. 3