Oxley is a community on the lower Lachlan River in the Riverina district of New South Wales, Australia near the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers. The township which developed in the mid-1860s was named after the noted Australian explorer, John Oxley. At the 2006 census, Oxley had a population of 159 people. History Aboriginal History Oxley is part of the traditional lands of the Muthi Muthi Aboriginal tribe. In 1836 explorer Major Mitchell took Muthi Muthi woman Tourandury and her 4-year-old daughter Ballandella from Oxley as guides through the land. Tourandury was also part of a group of Aborigines who met with explorer Charles Sturt and helped him when his whale boat capsized on the nearby Murrumbidgee river. Ballandella was removed from her mother and taken to Sydney to be educated by Mitchell and his friend Dr Nicholson. Queen Caroline of Oxley and her sister Judy are apical ancestors of many surviving Muthi Muthi people today. "Oxley" and "Tupra" stations In about the mid-1840s Phelps and Chadwick took up a run on the lower Lachlan which they called "Thelangerin West". In 1848 the lease was purchased by Thomas D'Archy who renamed the run "Oxley", and called the station homestead "Oxley House". Opposite the "Oxley" run on the north bank of the Lachlan River was the "Tupra" run, held by the Tyson brothers since the 1840s. By the 1860s it was held solely by James Tyson. Oxley township In the mid-1860s the squatter James Tyson saw a business opportunity and built a hotel at a new township which was developing at a crossing-place over the river on his "Tupra" run. A report in the Pastoral Times newspaper in November 1866 stated that "Mr. Tyson has built a brick hotel" which was to be opened shortly at the "new township of Oxley". The report added: "There is not much traffic past the house, and very few men in the neighborhood, so the prospects of doing a good trade are not very encouraging". In December 1866 it was reported that a petition was to be sent to Government "to place a sum of money on the estimates to build a bridge at a point of the Lachlan River, about eight miles above the government township of Oxley, which is opposite Mr. D'Archy's station". The report added that "there is a boat there at present, which is a great convenience to persons