Collector

Collector is a small village on the Federal Highway in New South Wales, Australia halfway between Goulburn and the Australian Capital Territory.

Collector is a small village on the Federal Highway in New South Wales, Australia halfway between Goulburn and the Australian Capital Territory. It is seven kilometres north of Lake George. At the 2016 census, Collector and the surrounding district had a population of 313 people.

The area was first settled by Europeans in 1829 when Terence Aubrey Murray was granted an area of land in the area in 1829, originally called Old Collector.Murray acquired further land in the area and renamed his property Winderradeen where he built a 12-room house on the land in 1837. At about the same time he also acquired the property of Yarralumla on the Limestone Plains, now Government House.A post office opened at Collector in 1848.The village reportedly is named after the Aboriginal name for the region, colegdar. The town was bypassed in June 1988 as part of upgrade works on the Federal Highway, including the construction of a bridge across the Collector Creek floodplain providing all weather access to Canberra. The village has struggled to remain viable, once a convenient stopover for travellers between Sydney and Canberra most of the businesses in town had relied on the passing trade.

The Bushranger Hotel in Collector was the site of a shooting of a Constable Samuel Nelson on 26 Jan 1865, by John Dunn, a member of Ben Hall's gang. A memorial was placed to mark the site of Nelson's grave a century later on 26 January 1965.