Sydney’s First Post Office – George Street – Isaac Nichols – Sydney – New South Wales

Before there was a grand General Post Office on Martin Place, Sydney’s first official post office was simply the George Street house of emancipist Isaac Nichols. He was appointed Postmaster of New South Wales on 25 April 1809 — during the post–Rum Rebellion interim administration and Governor Macquarie confirmed the appointment in June 1810. The point was order: ships’ mail had been scrambled for on the wharves, with theft and chaos. Nichols was authorised to board arriving vessels, take charge of letters and parcels, and issue them from his premises at fixed rates; he published recipients’ names so mail could be collected in order. On 26 June 1809 he boarded the brig Experiment for the first bag of mail from Britain — often cited as the birth of Australia’s organised postal service.

This was Nichols’s own dwelling on lower George Street in The Rocks (near the Circular Quay end of the street), not a purpose-built GPO. Nichols remained postmaster until his death in 1819. The house photographed in the later nineteenth century was demolished in 1889; later General Post Office buildings on George Street / Martin Place are successors in function, not the same fabric.

Photographs here relate to that early George Street post-office site and its memory.

The First Post Office in Sydney

Lower George Street, The Rocks, near present Circular Quay West

Isaac Nichols Became Australia's First Postmaster On April 25th 1809