Caniambo

Caniambo is a small rural village and district in north-east Victoria, 20 km north-west of Violet Town. It was named after the Caniambo pastoral run (1843), and it is thought that the name describes a place where Aborigines gathered.

Farm selections in the Caniambo district began in the 1870s. A Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1880 and for a short time was also used for the local school. When the school opened it was named Gowangardie, the district immediately north-east of today’s Caniambo, and renaming as Caniambo occurred in 1904. In 1889 an Anglican church was added to the village and two years later the Caniambo and Gowangardie butter factory was opened around the corner from the chapel. The population was sufficient for Caniambo to field a cricket team and to form a hare-coursing club. There were also a store (1884-1943) and a village saleyard.

In what may have been a high point of social activity, Caniambo golf club functioned from 1931 to 1953. The school enrolment of six in 1948 indicates how the old farm selections were being amalgamated and people were leaving the district. In 1981 the school closed.

Caniambo has a public hall (former mechanics’ institute), a Uniting church and a CFA station. Its census populations have been:

^{*Caniambo and environs, which include Tamleugh and Upotipotpon, each had over 200 people in 1911.}