page_title: History of the Australian Capital Territory
section_title: 20th century development of Canberra
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Australian Capital Territory / 20th century development of Canberra
caption_attribution_description: English: The Carillon on Aspen Island in Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Australia's National Capital
context_page_description: The history of the Australian Capital Territory as a separate administrative division began in 1911, when it was transferred from New South Wales to the Australian federal government. The territory contains Australia's capital city Canberra and various smaller settlements. Until 1989, it also administered the Jervis Bay Territory, a small coastal region.
  Indigenous Australians have lived in the present-day ACT for at least 20,000 years. The area formed the traditional lands of the Ngambri people and several other linguistic groups. It was incorporated into the Colony of New South Wales with British settlement in 1788, but no white person reached the area until Joseph Wild in 1820. In 1824, Joshua Moore built a homestead named Canberry, whose name was derived from a local Aboriginal language; its meaning is disputed. Further homesteads and stations were established over the course of the 19th century. These were initially large properties used for sheep and cattle grazing, but they were later broken up and subdivided into smaller farms and urban settlements. The oldest gazetted settlement in the ACT is Tharwa, which was proclaimed in 1862.
context_section_description: One of the first federal facilities established in the Territory was the Royal Military College, established on the Campbells' property Duntroon, which opened in 1911. Prior to this, Australia's military lacked formally trained officers, who were needed due to changes to the Australian military model that had emerged after Federation.
  In the same year, an international competition to design the future capital was held, which was won by the Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin in 1912. Griffin's proposal, rendered by his architect wife Marion Mahony Griffin, had an abundance of geometric patterns, incorporated concentric hexagonal and octagonal streets emanating from several centres. It had as its centrepiece an elaborate lake composed of smaller bodies of water, with extensive natural vegetation around it. Griffin's proposal was "the grandest scheme submitted, yet it had an appealing simplicity and clarity". The lakes and geometry were deliberately designed so that their orientation was related to various natural topographical landmarks. It was further intended that buildings of national significance and natural landmarks would align with these geometric axes. Later, Scrivener, as part of a government committee, was responsible for modifying Griffin's winning design. He recommended a less elaborate and geometric shape, which Griffin opposed, saying that geometry was "one of the raison d'etre of the ornamental waters", but he was overruled. The new design was widely criticised as being ugly.
  The official naming of Canberra occurred on 12 March 1913, and construction began immediately. After official indecision over the plan, revisions and their implementation, Griffin was invited to Canberra to discuss the matter. He arrived in August 1913 and was appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction for three years. Bureaucratic wrangling delayed Griffin's work; a Royal Commission in 1916 ruled his authority for executing the plan had been usurped by certain officials. Griffin had a strained working relationship with the Australian authorities, and a lack of federal government funding meant that by the time he left in 1920, little significant work had been done on the city. Prime Minister Billy Hughes removed Griffin from his position. At the time of his removal, Griffin had revised his plan, overseen the earthworks of the major avenues,  and established the Glenloch Cork Plantation.
  After Griffin's departure, the Federal Capital Advisory Committee was established to advise the government of the construction efforts. The Committee had limited success meeting its goals; however, the chairman, John Sulman, was instrumental in applying the ideas of the garden city movement to Griffin's plan. The Committee was replaced in 1925 by the Federal Capital Commission. The role of the FCC was to prepare Canberra for the transfer of the Commonwealth Parliament and the public service from Melbourne to Canberra. The Federal Government officially relocated to the ACT from Melbourne on the formal opening of the Provisional Parliament House on 9 May 1927. Among the new Parliament's first acts was the repeal of the prohibition laws. At first the public service remained based in Melbourne, the various departments' headquarters only gradually moving to Canberra over the space of several years. From 1938 to 1957 the National Capital Planning and Development Committee continued to plan the further expansion of Canberra; however, the NCPDC did not have executive power, and decisions were made on the development of Canberra without the Committee's consultation. A few major buildings were constructed during this period of NCPDC responsibility, such as the Australian War Memorial, which opened in 1941. With the onset of the Great Depression, followed by World War II, development of the new capital was slow, and in the decade after the end of the war, Canberra was criticised for resembling a village, and its disorganised collection of buildings was deemed ugly. Canberra was often derisively described as "several suburbs in search of a ci
caption: The Carillon on Aspen Island in Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Australia's National Capital.
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