page_title: Chalybeate Spring, Mittagong
section_title: Discovery and name
hierarchical_section_title: Chalybeate Spring, Mittagong / Discovery and name
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraving of Governor Charles Augustus Fitzroy circa 1850
context_page_description: The Chalybeate Spring at Mittagong, New South Wales was a perennial, carbonated, chalybeate mineral spring
  Successive chalybeate springs at Mittagong had, over many thousands of years, created a deposit of iron ore that was mined by the Fitzroy Iron Works, which was closely associated with the early development of the town of Mittagong, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia.
  The spring was for many years a tourist attraction, mainly during the second half of the 19th century and first few decades of the 20th century.
context_section_description: The traditional owners of the country around Mittagong are the Gandangara people. It is not known if they used the spring as a water source but this small spring, given its strong-tasting water and earthy odour, would be an unlikely water source, with plentiful freshwater nearby. It is likely that the limonite in the area surrounding the spring would have been used as ochre pigment.
  The discovery of the spring by European settlers does not seem to be recorded but the surveyor Jacques noted the presence of iron ore in the course of realigning the Great South Road (now Old Hume Highway) toward the new town of Berrima in 1833. As the spring lay within the ore deposit, is likely that the spring was first identified around that time.
  During late January 1849, the then Governor of New South Wales, Charles Augustus FitzRoy, visited the spring. He named it 'Lady Mary's Well', after his wife Lady Mary FitzRoy who had been killed in a carriage accident in December 1847 in the Domain of Government House, Parramatta. Over the years, variants of the name involving 'Lady Mary' or 'Lady Fitzroy' were used occasionally but, on the whole, this official name did not stick.
  For a time, the spring was thought to be the only chalybeate spring in New South Wales. In fact, there were other chaleabeate springs in the Southern Highlands—near Berrima, Hill Top and Picton—and there were other springs within Mittagong, even in close proximity. The Mittagong spring remained known as 'The Chalybeate Spring' throughout its existence.
caption: Gov. Charles Augustus FitzRoy
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2016:10:16 15:39:07", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5485", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "918"}