Tyntynder

Tyntynder is a rural locality in the Swan Hill irrigation district, 10 km north of Swan Hill in north-west Victoria. It was named after the Tyntyndyer pastoral run, taken up by Andrew and Peter Beveridge in 1846. The name is thought to have been derived from an Aboriginal word of which the meaning is unrecorded. The heritage listed Tyntyndyer homestead is 16 km north of Swan Hill and is open for inspection. The contemporary spelling of the place name omits the last ‘y’. (Peter Beveridge’s name was given to the village of Beveridge on the Hume Highway, north of Melbourne, where he had settled in 1839).

The pastoral run was the first European settlement in the Swan Hill district. The second wave of European settlement followed the creation of farm selections, and extension of the railway line to Swan Hill in 1890 and the formation of the Swan Hill Irrigation Trust. Irrigated pasture enabled dairying and a local creamery. A school at Tyntynder South was opened in 1892.

When the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission assumed supervision of local irrigation in 1906, farms were further subdivided in allotments of 16 to 40 hectares. The Tyntynder Central settlement, situated nearer to the Murray River, developed somewhat later than Tyntynder South. Its school opened in 1911 and a Methodist church opened the following year.

The Tyntynder district comprises mostly flat irrigated farms for dairying, along with citrus, grapes, maize and rice growing at various times. (The rice growing was pioneered by a Japanese immigrant in the early 1900s). Dairying and piggeries are now more common.

Tyntynder Central and Tyntynder South schools closed in 1992 when their combined enrolments were 12 pupils. Tyntynder South has a public hall.

The census populations have been: