Duck down Cathedral Street off the Domain / Crown Street edge of Woolloomooloo and you hit a modest two-storey building that punches above its weight in commemorative meaning. First Fleet House at 105 Cathedral Street is the headquarters of the Fellowship of First Fleeters — the volunteer organisation of descendants of people who arrived at Sydney Cove with the First Fleet in January 1788. The Fellowship formed in 1968; it bought the house in May 1988 and opened it that July with then Governor Sir James Rowland as Patron.
The Fellowship likes to note that the ground sits on land once tied to First Fleeter Commissary John Palmer’s Woolloomooloo Hill grant — landscape memory, not a claim that this brick building dates from 1788. Inside are the library and research rooms members use when chasing family lines. It is volunteer-run, so opening hours and temporary closures change; check fellowshipfirstfleeters.org before you turn up expecting a walk-in museum.
Keep the distinction clear: this post is about the Fellowship’s house and its commemorative purpose, not a First Fleet–era cottage on Cathedral Street.
