Holbrook

Postcode: 2644

Holbrook is located on the Hume Highway, 356km North-East of Melbourne and 491km south-west of Sydney between Tarcutta and Albury. The town is located in the Greater Hume Shire Council which was created in May 2004 from the merger of Culcairn Shire with the majority of Holbrook Shire and part of the Hume Shire.

Holbrook is a town in the Greater Hume Shire Council in New South Wales, Australia. The district around Holbrook produces wool, wheat and other grains, lucerne, fat cattle and sheep. A softwood timber mill opened in 1998 which has subsequently closed.

The area was originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri people.

The explorers Hume and Hovell were the first known Europeans in the area. They travelled through in 1824 when looking for new grazing country in the south of the colony of New South Wales.

The town was originally called Ten Mile Creek and the first buildings erected in 1836. A German immigrant, John Christopher Pabst, became the publican of the Woolpack Hotel on 29 July 1840 and the area became known as "the Germans". By 1858 the name had evolved in to the official name of Germanton, though the postal area retained the name Ten Mile Creek. In 1876 the name Germanton was gazetted and the old name Ten Mile Creek consigned to history.

The town was a stop on Old Sydney Road, the road between Sydney and Melbourne. The railway arrived in Germanton in 1902.

During World War I, the town name was deemed unpatriotic and on 24 August 1915 the town was renamed Holbrook in honour of Lt. Norman Douglas Holbrook, a decorated wartime submarine captain and winner of the Victoria Cross. Lt. Holbrook commanded the submarine HMS B11.

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