Walleroo Receiving Office

Walleroo Receiving Office

Since 1909, the Australian Capital Territory has formed a small part of the boundary of Wallaroo Parish, Murray County, to the North North West of Canberra, with land which previously formed part of the Parish being transferred to the Commonwealth. It is bounded by Ginninderra Creek in the South, Gooromon Ponds in the East and the Murrumbidgee River in the West.

Following receipt of a petition to the Postmaster General from the residents of the Parish of Walleroo, a receiving office was established at the property ‘Woodburn’, the residence of Samuel Southwell, on 20 April 1888. Southwell was contracted to carry mail from Ginninderra to Walleroo, two days per week and was also appointed Receiving Office Keeper. The route taken by Southwell was described as “4 miles along the Yass road, a turnoff at Homebush via Glenwood to Walleroo”.

Not unusually during this era, the spelling of the place name, ‘Walleroo’, differed from that of the official Parish spelling, ‘Wallaroo’ and that used by some of the petitioners, which also included, ‘Wallarroo’, the spelling used by Samuel Southwell.

As a postal facility, the Walleroo Receiving Office is unique, in that during its short life it serviced an area of land which is now a part of the Australian Capital Territory, yet the building in which it operated and the land on which that building stood, remained a part of New South Wales.


The office closed on 10 December 1888, following a recommendation from the Postmaster Ginninderra, who questioned its usefulness following the establishment of the Hall Post Office which opened on 1 June 1888. No date stamps were issued to the Office and there is only one known copy of a manuscript receiving office cancellation, believed to be in the hand of the Receiving Office Keeper, Samuel Southwell. A very small, short lived Receiving office which serviced approximately thirty settlers.  

Ink manuscript cancellation, ‘ Wallerroo R.O.’, tying a New South Wales, De La Rue, 2d blue to piece, alongside a Canberra N.S.W date stamp of 1 September 1888 (month inverted). Is almost certainly in the hand of Samuel Southwell, Receiving Office Keeper, the handwriting being consistent in many respects with that depicted in various documents (Figure 2) contained on the official Walleroo Post Office file, held by the National Archives of Australia in Sydney, including Southwell’s unusual spelling of the receiving office name and an inflection above the ‘O’ in R.O.

Correspondence from Samuel Southwell to the Post Master General dated 16 April 1888.