Seymour is a historic railway township located in the Southern end of the Goulburn Valley in the Shire of Mitchell, Victoria, Australia and is located 104 kilometres (65 mi) north of Melbourne.
Seymour is a historic railway township located in the Southern end of theGoulburn Valley in the Shire of Mitchell, Victoria, Australia and is located 104 kilometres (65 mi) north of Melbourne. At the 2016 census, Seymour had a population of 6,327. The township services the surrounding agricultural industries (primarily equine, cattle, sheep and wine) as well as the nearby military base of Puckapunyal (population 1,176), which is an important training centre for the Australian Army. Other important sectors of employment in Seymour include retail, light engineering, agricultural services support, medical services, and education.
History
The Taungurung (Daung wurrung) people are the traditional owners and inhabitants of the area Seymour now occupies. Specifically, it is the land of the Buthera Balug clan who occupied the area when Europeans first settled the region in the early 1800s.
In 1824, Hume and Hovell on their return from Port Phillip, camped by the Goulburn River not far upstream of Seymour. In 1836 Major Thomas Mitchell crossed the Goulburn at Mitchellstown and soon afterwards overlanders and other early settlers began to use this crossing place on the Melbourne–Sydney route (now known as the Hume Highway). The mail service between Melbourne and Sydney had been operating for just a year when it was found that a better route was available using the "New Crossing Place".
The Robert Burns Inn was operating there by the end of 1839. In 1841 the Government decided that the new crossing place was the likely spot for a town. Plans were laid before the Executive Council of NSW and Mitchell proposed the name Seymour which was approved on 21 December 1843. The town was named after Lord Seymour, the son of the 11th Duke of Somerset.
The Post Office opened on 1 July 1844.
The railway arrived in 1872 along with substantial infrastructure to support it, establishing the town as an important rail hub for the Goulburn Valley, the Melbourne–Sydney railway and North Eastern Victoria. It was one of the first Victorian examples of the railway town phenomenon, in the heyday of the railway it employed 400 men and along with their families comprised one-third of the town, or 1500 people.
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