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Cadman’s Cottage
Circular Quay West, Facing George Street North
Cadman’s Cottage looks almost shy against Circular Quay West — two storeys of sandstone that used to sit a short splash above high water, before the quay was filled and seawalled and the harbour stepped back. Built in 1815–16 as the government coxswain’s barracks beside the Government Dockyard and Commissariat Stores, it’s still among the oldest surviving residential buildings in Sydney.
It takes its popular name from John Cadman, the longest-serving government coxswain — not the first person through the door. Transported for horse theft on the Barwell (arrived 1798), he worked the government boats from about 1806, got a free pardon in 1821, and held the coxswain’s post from 1827 until 1845, when the office was abolished after he retired. From here he and his family oversaw the boats that shifted stores and produce around Port Jackson. Earlier coxswains occupied the building after it opened; Cadman simply stayed the longest.
After 1845 the cottage housed Sydney’s Water Police (with a southern extension for offices and cells), then from the 1860s folded into the Sydney Sailors’ Home precinct next door. Since 1972, when it was proclaimed a Historic Site under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, it has been in the care of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, and today it doubles as a harbour information point. People still murmur “Francis Greenway” — Heritage NSW and conservation research leave that attribution unproven. The photographs here show the cottage, its garden setting, and the Circular Quay West / George Street North frame that replaced the old foreshore.
Gadigal Country
Before any sandstone was cut here, this rocky western shore of Warrane — Sydney Cove — was Gadigal country. The Gadigal, one of the coastal Eora clans, lived off the harbour, and Arthur Phillip wrote in 1790 that the south shore “to the cove adjoining this settlement” was called Cadi and its people Cadigal. The 1789 smallpox epidemic tore through them; Josephine Flood puts it at only three survivors of a band of about fifty. Gadigal families still live in Sydney today.
Sydney Cove from Dawes Point, Joseph Lycett, c.1817–1820s, when the cove’s western shore was still bare rock and beach. Joseph Lycett, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Coxswains’ Barracks, 1815–16
Nobody kept the paperwork. There are no plans, no specification and no record of payment — what dates the building is a run of sketches by James Wallis, whose view of the west side of the Cove, drawn between January and May 1816, shows a finished two-storey stone building right on the water’s edge. So, late 1815 into early 1816. It was built up against a jutting rock shelf below George Street, next to the Government Dockyard that had been running on that side of the Cove since 1797, and replaced a tumbledown hut the boat crews had been using.
The coxswain ran the government boats — rostering crews to haul timber, grass, shells for lime and stores around Port Jackson, and manning the Governor’s barge. Four men held the job: Bernard Williams (1807–1822), David Smith (1822–1823), John von Mangerhouse Weiss (1823–1826) and John Cadman (1827–1845).
The harbour-facing front of the cottage. The water once came almost to this doorstep. Julioenrekei, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
John Cadman
Cadman came out a convict, transported for horse stealing in 1798. He probably started at the dockyard as assistant coxswain around 1807. In 1823 he was made master of the government cutter Mars, and lost that post when she was wrecked. When Weiss resigned in 1827, Cadman got the top job. On 26 October 1830 he married Elizabeth Mortimer at St Philip’s, and she and her two daughters moved into the cottage with him; the girls married out in 1842 and 1845. Cadman retired in 1845, the post of Government Coxswain was abolished, and by 1847 Low’s Directory has him running the John Cadman Steam Packet Hotel at Parramatta. He died in 1848 and was buried at the Sandhills (Devonshire Street) Cemetery — and in 1901, when Central Station swallowed the cemetery, he and his headstone were moved to Bunnerong at Botany.
The Water Police, 1840s–1864
After Cadman left, the building may have sat empty for a while. The Water Police were re-established in January 1847, but their George Street office wasn’t gazetted as a Court of Petty Sessions until January 1849 — which is why historians argue over when they actually moved in. A southern addition, the “keeper’s” or “turnkey’s” room, was already standing by 1853, and by 1854 the place had a brick-walled yard, a cell downstairs and an office upstairs. It was already too small; a new station was tendered for the next year, but the cottage hung on as a lock-up, with repair requests on file until 1857.
The Sailors’ Home, 1864–1970
In 1863 the site between the cottage and the Mariners’ Church was picked for a Sydney Sailors’ Home, and by 1864 the cottage had been done up as the manager’s residence. The Home’s full plan would have flattened the cottage for a southern wing — luckily the money ran out. After the Home was extended in 1926 the managers moved into the main building and Cadman’s housed visiting merchant seamen. By 1962 it was empty and falling apart.
The little cottage tucked in front of its old neighbour, the Sydney Sailors’ Home (1864). Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0 AU, via Wikimedia Commons
The Sailors’ Home in its working days, photographed by the NSW Government Printing Office. Government Printing Office, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Sailors’ Home building today on George Street, The Rocks. Rangasyd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Shoreline Walks Away
When it was built the high tide came within about 2.4 metres of the cottage. In the 1850s a timber quay was run along the western side of the Cove in front of it, though an 1860 plan still shows water under there at high tide. Somewhere between 1870 and 1875 the ground in front was filled and raised, the old dockyard and beaches disappeared, and the cottage lost its view of the water. More Circular Quay works followed in the 1880s, and the Overseas Passenger Terminal of 1964 finished the job. Today the water line is roughly 100 metres away.
From the northeast, with a good hundred metres of reclaimed land now between the cottage and the water. Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
From the northwest — note how it sits below George Street, built hard against a rock shelf. Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Saved, Restored and the National Parks
Sydney nearly lost it. When the old Commissariat Store and Taxation Office at the Quay were knocked down in 1939, the row woke people up, and the artist Sydney Long wrote in the Herald that year that the fuss had saved Cadman’s from the same fate. In 1970 the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority took over The Rocks, and in 1972 the cottage was proclaimed a Historic Site under the National Parks and Wildlife Act. Philip Cox, Storey and Partners restored it that year — stripping out “annexes” and partitions, with records that are thin by today’s standards. A big volunteer dig in 1988, ahead of the Bicentenary, went through the lower rooms and the forecourt, and the NPWS shop reopened upstairs. It was listed on the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 and is now the Sydney Harbour National Park information point.
Sandstone walls of the 1815–16 Coxswains’ Barracks. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An artefact on display at the cottage — the 1988 dig turned up plenty from beneath the floors and forecourt. Adam.J.W.C., CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Circular Quay West today — all of this was harbour when the cottage went up. -wuppertaler, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lit up for Vivid Sydney in 2025 — not bad for a two-hundred-year-old boatmen’s barracks. JustARandomEditor123, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Timeline
- Before 1788 – Warrane / Sydney Cove, Gadigal country
- 1797 – Government Dockyard set up on the western side of the Cove
- 1798 – John Cadman arrives, a convict
- Late 1815–mid 1816 – Coxswains’ Barracks built
- 1827–1845 – Cadman is Government Coxswain and lives here
- 1830 – Cadman marries Elizabeth Mortimer at St Philip’s
- 1847–1849 – Water Police move in (date disputed)
- 1848 – Cadman dies
- 1864 – Sailors’ Home opens; cottage becomes manager’s residence
- 1870–1875 – Foreshore in front filled and raised
- 1901 – Cadman reburied at Bunnerong; Rocks resumed after plague
- 1939 – Sydney Long credits the Commissariat Store fight with saving it
- 1964 – Overseas Passenger Terminal cuts off the harbour view
- 1972 – Proclaimed a Historic Site; restoration
- 1988 – Major archaeological dig
- 1999 – State Heritage Register listing
Where the Sources Disagree
- Oldest? It’s often called Sydney’s oldest surviving house; Wikipedia’s heritage-register-based article calls it the second-oldest surviving residential building in Sydney. My earlier text said “among the oldest”, which is the safe way to put it.
- Cadman’s pardon. My earlier text gives a free pardon in 1821; the heritage history quoted on Wikipedia says the 1814 Sydney muster already shows him with an unconditional pardon.
- When the Water Police arrived. Thorp and Proudfoot say about 1847; Kent argues January 1849 is more likely.
- Who designed it. Francis Greenway is often named, and Tropman and Associates think it possible, but there’s no solid evidence. The southern addition is attributed by Proudfoot and Tropman to Mortimer Lewis — again without documents.
- Sailors’ Home dates. Wikipedia’s summary gives 1865–1970, its detailed history says the Home opened in 1864.
My Earlier Posts
Sources
- “Cadmans Cottage”, Wikipedia (drawing on the NSW State Heritage Register listing, CC BY 4.0) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmans_Cottage
- “Gadigal”, Wikipedia (citing Phillip 1790, Flood 2019, Heiss & Gibson, City of Sydney Barani) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadigal
- Wikimedia Commons, Category:Cadmans Cottage, for the image credits above
My Photographs
Sydney Sailors’ Home, Circular Quay West, c.1880 — Cadman’s Cottage sits right beside it, and served as the Home manager’s residence.
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