Acton is a suburb of

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, ACT,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. Acton covers an area west of the CBD, bordered by Black Mountain to the west and

Lake Burley Griffin Lake Burley Griffin is an artificial lake in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia. It was completed in 1963 after the Molonglo River, which ran between the city centre and Parliamentary Triangle, was dammed. It is named after Wal ...

in the south. The

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

campus covers most of the suburb, though also located in Acton is the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

, a branch of the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

and the

National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia, in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''National Muse ...

. At the Acton had a population of 2,848 people, mostly students living at the Australian National University.

History

Acton was inhabited by

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...

groups for thousands of years before European occupation. Part of this history is documented by the ANU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Trail.

Sullivans Creek Sullivans Creek, a partly perennial stream of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Location and features Sullivans Creek rises close to the border betwee ...

, which flows through Acton, provided a culturally significant source of food and resources for Aboriginal people. According to historian

Bill Gammage William Leonard Gammage (born 1942) is an Australian academic historian, adjunct professor and senior research fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University (ANU). Gammage was born in Orange, New South Wales, w ...

, part of the area now used as the South Oval was purposely deforested by Aboriginal people, to form a grassland area that may have been used for hunting

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...

s, camping, or as an area to await

smoke signal The smoke signal is one of the oldest forms of long-distance communication. It is a form of visual communication used over a long distance. In general smoke signals are used to transmit news, signal danger, or to gather people to a common area ...

s from nearby.

Scarred tree A scarred tree or scar tree, also known as a canoe tree and shield tree, is a tree which has had bark removed by Aboriginal Australians for the creation of bark canoes, shelters, weapons such as shields, tools, traps, containers (such as cool ...

s in Acton suggest that their bark provided a valuable resource. The suburb is named in recognition of one of the region's original homesteads 'Acton' which was sited near the present-day National Museum at the end of Liversidge Street. With the establishment of the Federal Capital in 1911, territory administrators erected a temporary workers camp in the vicinity of 'Acton Homestead', since demolished, to house staff coordinating the development of the National Capital. The chief Surveyor Scrivener occupied Acton Homestead at an early stage during his survey of the capital site. The Bachelors' Quarters above Lennox Crossing, now renamed Lennox House, became the city's first guest house. The alignment of Liversidge Street and Lennox Crossing follows the original line of the pre-1911 road towards the major ford across the Molonglo River. A low bridge and causeway was erected in 1911, at the site of the original river ford in an area subsequently inundated by

. The Acton Tunnel was built below a hill in the suburb between 1976 and 1979 as part on an extension of

Parkes Way Parkes Way is a major road in Canberra, Australia, which runs east-west between Kings Avenue and the Glenloch Interchange. At Glenloch Interchange it intersects with William Hovell Drive, Tuggeranong Parkway, and Caswell Drive ( Gungahlin Dri ...

. In 2011 a proposal was launched to build the

Australia Forum The Australia Forum is a proposed convention centre complex for Canberra, Australia. The project was first put forward in 2011, and in 2017 its future became uncertain when the ACT Government withdrew funding for the preparation of a business ca ...

, a major convention centre complex, on the lake shoreline in Acton.

Demographics

In the , the population of Acton was 2,848. In 2011, 56.9% of the population was foreign-born, the highest for any Canberra suburb.

Geology

The southern part of Acton has a complicated arrangement of

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

s that include the Pittman Formation

greywacke Greywacke or graywacke (German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lit ...

and the black-coloured Acton Shale Member from the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. T ...

age. Then from the

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleoz ...

age there is mudstone, State Circle Shale, and Camp Hill Sandstone. Some limestone is found near the National Museum of Australia. Calcareous

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...

s from the Canberra Formation are overlain by Quaternary alluvium on the north. This rock is the limestone of the original title of Canberra, "Limestone Plains". Tertiary-age pebbly gravels are left from when the Molonglo river was at a higher level.Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.

Notes and references

{{North Canberra Suburbs Suburbs of Canberra