north Canberra. Mount Tennent, behind Tharwa, is named after the bushranger (note the difference in spelling). The first authorised settler was James Murdoch. In 1824 he was offered a land grant on a small plain known by the local Aboriginal people as 'Togranong' meaning 'cold plains'. He took up the grant in 1827. Lanyon station was established in 1835 and originally owned by James Wright, his brother William and John Lanyon. Wright bought the property from Lanyon, who had only remained in Australia for three years. In 1838, Wright commenced the building of the homestead, which he named after his partner, Lanyon. The homestead was built with the strength of a fort to withstand the attacks of bushrangers. Wright sold to the Cunningham family in 1847. In 1835 Thomas Macquoid, then Sheriff of the New South Wales Supreme Court, bought Tuggeranong station then known as Waniassa property (sic). The rural depression of 1840 hit hard and Macquoid committed suicide, fearing bankruptcy when he lost a civil suit brought by one William Henry Barnes. His son took over the estate and creditors allowed him to continue to operate it until it was sold by the Macquoid family in 1858 to the Cunningham family, owners of the neighbouring Lanyon property. They renamed Waniassa to Tuggranong. The whole area was part of the Tuggeranong parish in the late nineteenth century. Tuggranong homestead was rebuilt by the Cunningham family in 1908. In 1917 it was resumed by the Commonwealth Government for military purposes. The Cunningham family remained at Lanyon until 1926. Charles Bean, together with his staff, wrote the first two volumes of the twelve volume official history of Australia's involvement in World War I at the homestead from 1919 to 1925. The Tuggeranong property was leased as a grazing property by the McCormack family from 1927 to 1976. In 1973, the third of the new towns planned for Canberra was inaugurated at Tuggeranong on 21 February. It was originally planned to house between to people. Planning for the new town had begun in 1969. The first families moved into the suburb of Kambah in 1974. The fifth Canberra fire station opened at Kambah in 1979 to service the new developing satellite city. Location and urban structure The district is a set of contiguous residential suburbs consolidated around Lake Tuggeranong, in addition to vast pastoral leases that extend south of the suburbs of ,