Anthony Hordern & Sons – The Palace Emporium – Brickfield Hill – Sydney – 1823 to 1986

If you're old enough to have caught a tram up George Street to Brickfield Hill, you'll remember Horderns. For most of the twentieth century the Palace Emporium filled the whole block between George, Pitt, Liverpool and Goulburn Streets, and Sydney liked to tell anyone who'd listen that it was the biggest department store in the world. Today that block is World Square, and about the only things left to remind you of the Horderns are a few names on buildings. This is the story of the family, the shop, the fire, the mansions and the long, slow goodbye.

Anthony Hordern & Sons' Palace Emporium on Brickfield Hill, about 1938. Unknown author, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From King Street to Brickfield Hill – The Family Beginnings

The Horderns came out from Staffordshire, where the family had been well known in Wolverhampton banking circles. Anthony Hordern senior (1788–1869), his wife Ann and their four children arrived in Sydney on the Phoenix on 6 August 1823. It wasn't Anthony who started the shop, though. It was Ann. "Mrs. Hordern's" drapery opened at 12 King Street, between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets, and an advertisement for her shop in the Sydney Morning Herald of 3 April 1834 is said to have been the first display advertisement in any Australian newspaper. Anthony himself may have started out as a coachbuilder.

In 1839 the family packed up for Melbourne. Anthony senior stayed there for the rest of his life, living in Russell Street, but his son Anthony junior (1819–1876), who had found work as a cabinetmaker, soon came back to Sydney. In 1842 he bought land near the corner of George Street and Charlotte Place, and in 1844 he and his brother Lebbeus opened L. & A. Hordern at 689 George Street, Brickfield Hill. Anthony, his wife and children lived above the shop, and that's where his son Samuel was born in 1849.

Brickfield Hill was well named. It was where the early colony dug its clay and baked its bricks, and it stayed a brickmaking area until the 1840s, when land values went up and shops, warehouses and houses took over. Even then it was a fairly poor part of town. The very first grant on the block, George Street between Liverpool and Goulburn Streets, went to Samuel Hockley in 1810, who ran a butchery there until he died in 1859.

Electric trams climbing Brickfield Hill, around 1900. Powerhouse Museum Collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Haymarket Years

The brothers split in 1855, and Lebbeus set up on his own at 489 George Street. Anthony had already bought a second site further south at Haymarket, and in 1856 he opened a new three-storey store there. He took his elder son, Anthony III, into partnership as Anthony Hordern and Son, and when young Samuel joined in 1869 the name became the one Sydney would know for the next hundred years: Anthony Hordern and Sons.

Anthony III and Samuel pushed the business hard. "The Warehouse" and the "Palace Emporium" at Haymarket went up in remarkable time. Anthony III, known as "Tertius", then went off to Western Australia and made his name as a railway man behind the Great Southern Railway. He died aboard the steamer RMS Carthage in 1886 on his way home from London, and Samuel became sole owner. The way Anthony's share was paid out ended up in a long legal fight that went all the way to the Privy Council, which sided with Samuel.

A. Hordern & Sons' Palace Show Rooms in George Street, Haymarket, about 1878. Unknown photographer, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

George Street, Haymarket, around 1900. Powerhouse Museum from Sydney, Australia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The monument to Anthony Hordern III "Tertius" at the top of York Street, Albany, Western Australia. Bahnfrend, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It wasn't only one branch of the family in the drapery game. Lebbeus traded on his own, then with his brothers John and Edward at 676 George Street South from about 1870. John's sons later founded Hordern Brothers, "Horderns in Pitt Street", so for years Sydney had several Hordern shops competing with each other.

Wednesday 10 July 1901 – The Great Hordern Fire

On Wednesday 10 July 1901 the Haymarket store caught fire. It became one of the most famous fires in Sydney's history. The Museum of Fire at Penrith puts it simply: "No other fire in Sydney's history has evoked more publicity than the Anthony Hordern & Sons fire of Wednesday 10 July 1901".

Five big buildings went up, and about 1,200 people worked in them. Five people died. Four were trapped inside and burnt to death. The fifth jumped about 37 metres (120 feet) into Gipps Street once it was obvious the brigade's biggest ladders couldn't reach him. Four sets of ladders were used that night, including the Curricle Ladders from Newtown station. They and the No. 18 Shand Mason steamer that also fought the fire are both on display at the Museum of Fire in Penrith today.

The Horderns didn't sit around. Trading started again almost straight away in the Exhibition Building in Prince Alfred Park while they planned something much bigger.

Hordern's store, Sydney, 1901, photographed by Arthur Ernest Foster. Arthur Ernest Foster, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Firefighters at the Anthony Hordern's fire, Haymarket, July 1901. State Library of NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The New Palace Emporium, 1905

The new store went up on Brickfield Hill, back where the family business had started in 1844. Building it meant knocking down several houses, Samuel Hordern's own birthplace among them. The New Palace Emporium, also called the "Senior Store", opened in 1905. It was six storeys high, the main entrance was fitted out in imported Italian marble, and a further storey went on a few years later.

Wikipedia gives the store 52 acres (21 hectares) of retail space and calls it once the largest department store in the world. Whether or not that was strictly true, it was the claim Sydney grew up with. The store's slogan was that it sold "anything from a needle to an anchor".

The 'New Palace Emporium' on Brickfield Hill, about 1904, photographed by Arthur Ernest Foster. Arthur Ernest Foster, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Anthony Hordern & Sons, Nos 569–700 George Street, 1924–1925, by Hall & Co. Hall & Co., State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Store entrance, Anthony Hordern and Sons, 1933–1936, an oil painting by F. Elliott. F. Elliott, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"While I Live I'll Grow"

The store's crest was a budding tree with the motto "While I live I'll grow". It sat above every window fitting and on all the stationery. The idea came from a Port Jackson fig on the Hordern estate at Camden, though the tree on the crest actually looks like an oak. The fig was poisoned in 1966, and the story got about that it died soon after, just as the business did. It didn't. It was saved, and it's still growing on Razorback Mountain behind a protective fence.

The Hordern tree, from the Blue Mountains Library local studies collection. Blue Mountains Library, Local Studies, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside the Emporium

The Emporium was built to keep you there all day. It had a branch of the Commonwealth Bank, tea rooms, a post and parcels office, rest rooms, public phone booths and a Thomas Cook & Son travel agency. The company also ran its own factories around Sydney, turning out everything from clothes and baked goods to pressed metal ceilings. By 1909, when Sir Samuel Hordern took over, the business employed more than 4,000 people in the store and the mail-order side.

The staff had their own clubs too. The Hordernian Dramatic Society, "The Hordernians", had some stage successes in the 1920s and 1930s. So did the Hordernian Musical Society, and there were cricket, women's hockey and rifle shooting teams.

A sales floor inside Anthony Hordern and Sons, about 1933–1938. Unknown photographer, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Anthony Hordern and Sons store guides, 1938. Unknown author, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The store's telephone exchange, about 1935. State Library of NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Linotype machines in the store's own print shop, about 1935, by A. E. Foster. AE Foster, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A "Lost Horizon" display at Anthony Horderns, 1937, photographed by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"Smithy" advertised in Horderns' windows, 1946, photographed by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A stoneware jam jar made by Maconochie Bros for Anthony Hordern and Sons. Maling; Maconochie Bros, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Red Catalogues and the Mail-Order Trade

If you lived in the bush you could still shop at Horderns. From 1894 to 1935 the firm put out general catalogues aimed at country people and the mail-order trade, and they were known for their red cloth bindings. Hordern's ran one of the biggest mail-order businesses in Australia, and the horse-drawn delivery wagons were a familiar sight on Sydney streets.

A delivery cart outside the Palace Emporium, Brickfield Hill, about 1912, photographed by Arthur Ernest Foster. Arthur Ernest Foster, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

An Anthony Horderns delivery cart during the mid-year sale, about 1912. State Library of NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

A Horderns advertisement for the 'Snelling Line' armchair, Truth, 11 August 1946. Unknown artist, Truth (Sydney), 11 August 1946, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Samuel and the Big Sale of 1926

When Samuel died in August 1909, his son Samuel junior, born at Retford Hall in Darling Point in 1876, took over as governing director. He made the business a limited company in 1912 and was knighted in 1919. In April 1926 the mostly family-owned business was sold to a public company for £2.9 million, the biggest price ever paid for an Australian business up to then. Sir Mark Sheldon became chairman and Justly Rawlings managing director.

Sir Samuel kept busy well beyond the shop. He was president of the Royal Agricultural Society from 1915 to 1941 and built up the Royal Easter Show, chaired the AMP Society, owned the 1919 Melbourne Cup winner Artilleryman, and in 1917 bought Cranbrook in Bellevue Hill for what became Cranbrook School. The Hordern Pavilion at the old Showground was built in 1924 to honour the family firm and his time running the Royal Agricultural Society.

The Hordern Pavilion, built at the Sydney Showground in 1924. J_Bar, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An aerial view of Anthony Hordern & Sons, 20 December 1936. Royal Australian Historical Society, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Decline, Takeover and Closure

Horderns tried branching out after the war, with stores in Canberra, West Ryde, Goulburn and Wollongong. The Wollongong store in Keira Street opened on 6 December 1960 with automatic doors, an escalator and rooftop parking for 160 cars. But by the early 1960s the company was making losses every year, and the Brickfield Hill flagship was one of the worst. The upper floors were closed off. From July 1966 the old store was left to handle homewares only, as Hordern's HomeWorld, while the main business moved into the Mid City store in Pitt Street.

In 1969 Waltons made a bid for the retail business, and Stocks and Holdings went after the Brickfield Hill site. Waltons had control by 6 January 1970. The building was sold for $8.5 million, with Stocks and Holdings acting for the State Superannuation Trust, and the deal was done by Christmas Eve 1969. That ended 64 years of Hordern ownership of the building. Suburban shopping centres, tougher competition in the city and a careless attitude to old buildings are usually blamed for the store's end.

Demolition and the Hole in the Ground

After the shop closed, the building had a second life as a classroom. The NSW Institute of Technology, now UTS, used it for its business and later law faculties from 1967 to 1984. Changes to the fire rules meant it couldn't be used after that. In the early 1980s the new owner, Singapore's Ipoh Garden Development, looked at saving it, but after independent advice from the CSIRO on the state of the concrete it decided the cost was too high. Ipoh Garden did restore the Queen Victoria Building, though. The Emporium came down in the mid-1980s, and planning fights left the block a hole in the ground for most of the 1990s.

World Square Today

World Square finally filled the block. It has the Rydges hotel on the Pitt and Liverpool Street corner, finished in 1999, and the 48-floor Hordern Towers on Pitt Street, also finished in 1999. The 73-floor World Tower on Liverpool Street and the Latitude office tower at 680 George Street were finished in 2004, and Latitude East followed in 2007. The shopping centre is on the ground and lower ground floors, and Liverpool Lane is full of cafes. Hordern Towers is about the only place the name lives on, on the very ground where the Emporium stood.

World Square, George Street, in 2022. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

World Tower and the World Square towers in 2007. Alex Bikfalvi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hordern Mansions

All that drapery money built some fine houses, and a lot of them used the names Retford, after the family's links to Retford in Nottinghamshire, or Stramshall, the birthplace of Anthony Hordern.

• Retford Hall, Darling Point: built by Anthony Hordern II in 1865 to an Edmund Blacket design. Sir Samuel was born there. It was demolished around 1967.
• Stramshall (Jenner House), Potts Point: built by Lebbeus Hordern in 1871 to a Blacket design.
• Shubra Hall, Croydon: the home of Anthony Hordern III, and now the oldest building at Presbyterian Ladies' College.
• Retford Park, Bowral: built in 1887 and owned by three generations of Samuel Horderns until 1960. James Fairfax bought it in 1964 and gave it to the National Trust in 2016.
• The Highlands, Wahroonga: built in the 1890s for Alfred James Hordern to a design by John Horbury Hunt.
• Tuxedo, Strathfield: Sir Samuel's home from 1900 to 1914.
• Babworth House, Darling Point: built for Sir Samuel by Morrow & De Putron on the old Mount Adelaide site. It was his home from 1915 until he died there in 1956, and it was turned into five apartments in 2004.
• Hopewood House, Darling Point: built around 1924 for Lebbeus "Billie" Hordern beside Retford Hall and demolished around 1966.

Shubra Hall, home of Anthony Hordern III, in the grounds of PLC Croydon, 1892. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Retford Park, Bowral, in 2025. Peter Kerrawn from Moss Vale, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The gate and gatehouse of Babworth House, Darling Point. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There's another reminder down at Pyrmont: the Hordern Fountain, put up in memory of Samuel Hordern.

The Hordern Fountain, Pyrmont. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1810 – Samuel Hockley gets the first grant on the Brickfield Hill block.
• 6 Aug 1823 – Anthony and Ann Hordern arrive on the Phoenix. Mrs Hordern's drapery opens in King Street.
• 1834 – Ann's ad in the Herald, said to be Australia's first display advertisement.
• 1839 – The family moves to Melbourne. Anthony junior soon comes back to Sydney.
• 1844 – L. & A. Hordern opens at 689 George Street, Brickfield Hill.
• 1855 – Anthony and Lebbeus end their partnership.
• 1856 – The new Haymarket store opens. The firm becomes Anthony Hordern and Son.
• 1869 – Samuel joins, and the firm becomes Anthony Hordern and Sons.
• 1886 – Anthony III dies at sea. Samuel becomes sole owner.
• 1894 – The mail-order general catalogues begin, running until 1935.
• 10 Jul 1901 – The Haymarket fire kills five people. Trading moves to the Exhibition Building.
• 1905 – The New Palace Emporium opens on Brickfield Hill.
• 1909 – Samuel dies, and Samuel junior takes over.
• 1912 – The business becomes a limited company.
• 1924 – The Hordern Pavilion is built at the Showground.
• 1926 – The business is sold to a public company for £2.9 million.
• 1960 – The Wollongong store opens.
• 1966 – Brickfield Hill becomes Hordern's HomeWorld, and the fig tree at Camden is poisoned.
• 1967–1984 – The NSW Institute of Technology (UTS) uses the building.
• 1969–70 – Waltons takes over the business, and the site is sold for $8.5 million.
• 1985–87 – The Emporium is demolished. The sources give different dates.
• 1999–2007 – The World Square towers are finished one after another.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When they arrived: Wikipedia's Anthony Hordern & Sons article says the Phoenix landed on 6 August 1823, but adds that one reference gives 16 June 1824.
• When it closed: the same article says the takeover and sale ended Hordern ownership by Christmas Eve 1969, with Waltons in control by 6 January 1970. Its infobox gives February 1973 as the end of the business. The World Square article says HomeWorld ran until 1973, while the main article has HomeWorld running from 1966 to 1970.
• When it was demolished: the World Square article says 1986, the Anthony Hordern & Sons article says 1987, and the Brickfield Hill article says 1985–1986. A Canberra Times story headed "The End of the Hordern Building" appeared on 12 May 1985 (cited on Wikipedia's Brickfield Hill page).
• Where the Emporium was built: the Anthony Hordern & Sons article puts it on the site of the original Brickfield Hill store, while the Brickfield Hill article only says several houses were cleared, including Samuel Hordern's birthplace. Both agree the store that burnt in 1901 was at Haymarket, not Brickfield Hill.
• Largest in the world: Wikipedia gives it 52 acres of retail space and calls it "once" the largest department store in the world. That was the store's own boast, and I couldn't find an independent measurement to back it up.
• The fig tree: the old story says the Camden fig died soon after it was poisoned in 1966, but the Anthony Hordern & Sons article says it survived and is still growing on Razorback Mountain.

My Earlier Posts

• Mark Foys – Liverpool and Elizabeth Streets
• Demolished Buildings of Sydney
• Demolished Sydney Buildings Part 2
• George Street and Charlotte Place – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles
• Retford Park – Bowral
• Cranbrook House (Cranbrook School) – Bellevue Hill
• Hopewood House – Darling Point
• Chatsworth – Potts Point
• St Jude's Cemetery – Randwick
• Historic Sydney Mansions: The Hordern Family Home – 14 Ginahgulla Road – Bellevue Hill
• Historic Sydney Mansions: Retford Hall – Darling Point
• Historic Sydney Mansions: Jenner House – 2 Macleay Street – Potts Point

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Anthony Hordern & Sons": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hordern_%26_Sons
• Wikipedia, "Hordern family": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordern_family
• Wikipedia, "Samuel Hordern": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hordern
• Wikipedia, "Brickfield Hill": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickfield_Hill
• Wikipedia, "World Square": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Square
• Wikipedia, "Penrith Museum of Fire" (the 1901 fire and the quote from the museum): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrith_Museum_of_Fire
• Wikipedia, "Timeline of Sydney" (1901): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Sydney
• Wikimedia Commons file pages for each picture, with their State Library of NSW, Powerhouse Museum and Royal Australian Historical Society catalogue notes: https://commons.wikimedia.org/

Robert 'Bobby' Hancock – Hancock's Tower, George Street and the Lady of the Lake Hotel, Glebe – 1806 to 1876

Every old city has a character the respectable histories would rather leave out. Sydney had Bobby Hancock. Wheelwright, publican, fence by some accounts, man about town with a mistress on each arm, Robert Hancock built a mock castle beside his George Street pub, had a statue of himself carved in stone while he was still very much alive, and finished his days running one of the roughest pubs in Glebe, the Lady of the Lake. When he died in 1876 the regulars laid him out on the tap room table and drank to him. Then his statue went out to Rookwood to stand over his grave, and it is still there.

The first Sydney railway terminus in 1856, by S. T. Gill. Hancock's Tower stood on George Street opposite the railway, so this is the neighbourhood it overlooked. Samuel Thomas Gill, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Who Was Robert Hancock?

The Dictionary of Sydney sums him up in one blunt line: a "publican and petty criminal who had himself immortalised in a stone statue in 1844". It lists him as a publican and "local identity", owner of the Tower Inn on George Street and of the Lady of the Lake Hotel in Glebe from 1873 to 1876. He died in Glebe on 26 February 1876 and was buried at Rookwood the next day.

The fuller story of his working life comes from the blogger Julie of Thru my Sydney Eye, who went through his papers after spotting his statue at Rookwood. She writes that Hancock followed his father into a wheelwright business on George Street in 1837, while leasing the Britannia Inn at the same time. He gave the wheelwright trade away in 1847 and bought the Wellington Inn and the Tower Inn, which he renamed Tower Court. In 1873 he moved on to the Lady of the Lake in Bay Street, Glebe. She also found that he married Catherine Ball in May 1829, and she found no record of children.

His gravestone says he died aged 69, which would put his birth around 1806 or 1807.

A Wheelwright on George Street

John Arthur Barry, in his history The City of Sydney – The Story of its Growth, which I have transcribed on this blog, remembered Hancock as "a wheelwright, whose shop stood near the site of the present Roberts's Hotel, at the corner of George and Market streets. Here he flourished, made much money, and eventually retiring from business, built himself the residence of which the curious tower formed a portion." The Visit Sydney Australia "Lost Sydney" page tells it the same way, calling him "a shrewd, hard-working wheelwright" who had his smithy at George and Market Streets.

The Benevolent Asylum in 1872. The old "Old Chum" columns in Truth said the asylum stood right opposite Hancock's Tower. Charles Percy Pickering, NSW Government Printing Office, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hancock's Tower

This is the part everybody remembered. Behind the Tower Inn, on George Street opposite the railway, Hancock put up a folly more than 40 feet high, about 12 metres, with battlements and dummy guns. The Dictionary of Sydney thinks the Tower Inn was built about 1847 and gives the building's life as the 1840s to 1894, when it was pulled down. Shirley Fitzgerald's Ultimo entry in the Dictionary, drawing on Geoffrey Scott's 1958 book Sydney's Highways of History, says it "stood behind George Street at what became Quay Street from 1840 until 1894".

Barry gives the best description of it. It was "constructed of large squared stones, with battlemented walls, from whose lofty embrasures protruded dummy guns, or 'Quakers'". It "looked more like some mediaeval fortress than aught else", with "the carved effigy of a knight in armour" at each corner and a low roof topped by a large weathercock. Between the tower and the old inn beside it, Hancock laid out a courtyard with flower beds and trellises.

The Benevolent Asylum at Pitt and Devonshire Streets, before 1901. Its dead-house is where the remains in a grim 1860s murder case were taken, "right opposite Hancock's Tower". NSW State Archives collection, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lady in the Tower

A building like that was always going to collect stories. Barry wrote that "all sorts of 'fairy stories' clustered around this building, the favorite one being that Hancock had erected it for the purpose of therein immuring his wife, Bluebeard fashion, in some dim and gloomy chamber; and children used to look up half scared, half expectant, at the high windows, to catch a glimpse of the unfortunate lady peering from her prison."

Fitzgerald asks the same question: "Did Hancock have a lunatic wife locked up in his sinister-looking tower? Probably not, but there were plenty of children who declared that they had seen her white face peering from an upper window."

The Lost Sydney page has a duller explanation. It says Hancock believed an Englishman's house is his castle, so he built a watchtower as part of his home to scare off thieves, and liked to take guests up to show off a view of Sydney few others ever saw.

A horse-drawn ambulance at the corner of George and Pitt Streets, opposite the Benevolent Asylum, about 1900. This is the same stretch of George Street where the tower once stood. State Library of New South Wales, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Neighbourhood

The "Old Chum" columns in Truth, which I have also put on this blog, used the tower as a landmark. Across the road from it was the Christ Church Parsonage, in the grounds next to the Benevolent Asylum, and the asylum itself "stood right opposite Hancock's Tower, the site being now a part of the Central Railway Station". The parsonage and the asylum were demolished to make way for Central.

Christ Church St Laurence on George Street today. Its parsonage once stood opposite Hancock's Tower. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The old Sydney station before 1906. By then Hancock's Tower had been gone more than ten years. State Library of New South Wales, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The railway station about 1901, a few years after the tower came down in 1894. Governor Macquarie (Flickr), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Man Himself

Hancock's reputation went well past wheels and beer. Fitzgerald quotes him as a "fence, womaniser and owner of notoriously bad hotels". Max Solling, Glebe's historian, writes that Hancock "kept at least four mistresses at various times and often drove down George Street in a spanking carriage and pair with two of them together, one feathered beauty on each arm."

Julie at Thru my Sydney Eye found two more things in his papers at the State Library. One was a court case over cheating the two children of a friend out of their inheritance. The other was a fight over his own will after he died, between a version from 1870 and another from 1875.

The Lady of the Lake, Glebe

In 1873 Hancock took over the Lady of the Lake Hotel on the corner of Bay and Greek Streets, Glebe. The name almost certainly came from Sir Walter Scott's hugely popular 1810 poem The Lady of the Lake, though none of the sources I found says so outright.

The title page of Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake from 1810. Plenty of pubs and ships around the empire borrowed the name. Sir Walter Scott, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Under Hancock the pub got a reputation. The Dictionary of Sydney says it became "a rendezvous for larrikins of the lowest type". The Glebe Society, as Julie quotes it, said that when "the Lady of the Lake's wealthy owner Robert Hancock took over, the place became a haunt for derelicts, outlaws, vagabonds, thieves and 'haybag' women".

Glebe Point Road about 1910. The Lady of the Lake stood nearby on the corner of Bay and Greek Streets. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Solling puts the Lady of the Lake into the bigger picture of Glebe drinking. In the 1800s the local pub was bigger and more comfortable than most working men's homes, open from 6 am to midnight seven days a week. In 1892 Glebe had 28 pubs.

The Glebe Island Bridge in the early 1870s, from the Holtermann collection. This was Glebe as Hancock knew it in his last years. American & Australasian Photographic Company, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Glebe Island Bridge at Johnstons Bay in 1878–79. Album "My Tour 1878-79", National Library of Australia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

W. H. Wells's 1844 map of property at Glebe Island, Johnstons Bay. W. H. Wells, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Wake on the Tap Room Table

Hancock spent his last years at the Lady of the Lake and died there on 26 February 1876. Solling tells what came next: "His body was laid out on the tap room table, farthing candles placed at his head and feet, and patrons invited to drown their sorrows. After a wild wake, local imbibers followed the cortege to Rookwood Cemetery."

A funeral train at No. 1 Mortuary Station inside Rookwood, about 1865. NSW State Archives collection, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

No. 1 Mortuary Railway Station at Rookwood. NSW State Archives collection, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Statue at Rookwood

The statue that once stood in his courtyard now marks his grave. Barry wrote that Hancock "left orders, so it is said, in his will" for it to go over his grave, "and the statue may still be seen by the curious at Rookwood". Julie describes it as a life-sized gentleman in very English landed-gentry style with a hunting dog at his side. The front says he died in 1876 aged 69, and a plaque on the back of the base says it was put up by Robert Hancock in May 1844, 32 years before he needed it.

As Julie points out, statues of the dead person are rare in Australian cemeteries. Most are religious or Greek and Roman figures, which makes this one stand out.

Rookwood Necropolis, where Hancock's statue stands over his grave. J Bar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sandstone monuments at Rookwood. J Bar, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Independent office at Rookwood. J Bar, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A plaque at Rookwood marking the 2001 restoration of early features of the necropolis, including No. 1 Mortuary Receiving Railway Station. Luke Stewart, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lady of the Lake as she appears on the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• About 1806–07 – Robert Hancock is born (worked back from "aged 69" on his statue).
• May 1829 – Marries Catherine Ball (Thru my Sydney Eye).
• 1837 – Takes over his father's wheelwright business on George Street and leases the Britannia Inn.
• 1840 – The tower goes up, by Scott's and the Lost Sydney dating.
• May 1844 – The stone statue of Hancock and his dog is put up.
• About 1847 – Tower Inn built, by the Dictionary of Sydney's dating. Hancock gives up wheelwrighting and buys the Wellington Inn and the Tower Inn, renaming it Tower Court.
• 1873 – Takes over the Lady of the Lake Hotel, Bay and Greek Streets, Glebe.
• 26 February 1876 – Dies at the Lady of the Lake. Wake on the tap room table.
• 27 February 1876 – Buried at Rookwood. His statue later stands over the grave.
• 1894 – Hancock's Tower is demolished.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When the tower was built. Shirley Fitzgerald (Dictionary of Sydney, Ultimo, after Geoffrey Scott) and the Lost Sydney page say 1840. The Dictionary's Tower Inn record says the inn was "thought to have been built about 1847". Julie at Thru my Sydney Eye says Hancock bought the Tower Inn in 1847, which suggests the tower may already have been there.
• Who built it and why. Barry and Lost Sydney say Hancock built it as part of his own home after making money as a wheelwright. Lost Sydney says it was a watchtower against thieves. Barry passes on the story that it was a prison for his wife, and Fitzgerald says "probably not".
• Wheelwright or crook. Barry and Lost Sydney paint a hard-working, successful tradesman. The Dictionary of Sydney calls him a "petty criminal", and Fitzgerald calls him a "fence, womaniser and owner of notoriously bad hotels".
• Where the statue first stood. Barry places it in the courtyard between the tower and the inn. Julie reasons from its 1844 date that it was first put up at the Britannia Inn.
• Whose idea the grave statue was. Barry says Hancock left orders in his will, "so it is said". Julie says his papers show it was moved from his pub to the cemetery after his death.
• When the Lady of the Lake was at its worst. The Dictionary of Sydney says it "became infamous in the 1880s under notorious publican Bobby Hancock", but its own records have Hancock dying in 1876. So the 1880s date can't be right for Hancock himself.
• A second "wheelwright" in the 1840s? An 1848 directory index lists a "Hancock" on George Street. I haven't been able to check whether that was Robert.

My Earlier Posts

• The City Of Sydney – The Story Of its Growth – John Arthur Barry (includes his description of Hancock's Tower)
• Old Sydney – The Truth Newspaper – Saturday 12th September 1914 (mentions Hancock's Tower)
• The Benevolent Society and the Benevolent Asylum
• Devonshire Street Cemetery – The Burial Ground Under Central Station
• Old Sydney – 'Old Chum' – The Truth Newspapers
• Ultimo House – Ultimo

Sources

• Dictionary of Sydney, "Hancock, Robert (Bobby)" – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/hancock_robert_bobby
• Dictionary of Sydney, "Tower Inn" – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/tower_inn
• Dictionary of Sydney, "Lady of the Lake Hotel Glebe" – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/lady_of_the_lake_hotel_glebe
• Max Solling, "Glebe Pubs", Dictionary of Sydney, 2016 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/glebe_pubs
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Ultimo", Dictionary of Sydney (citing Geoffrey Scott, Sydney's Highways of History, 1958, pp 56–59) – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/ultimo
• Julie, "Taphophile Tragics – Being up yourself", Thru my Sydney Eye, 26 June 2012 – http://sydney-eye.blogspot.com/2012/06/taphophile-tragics-being-up-yourself.html
• "Lost Sydney: Lookouts", Visit Sydney Australia – https://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/lost-lookouts.html
• John Arthur Barry, The City of Sydney – The Story of its Growth (transcribed on My Australian History Journey) – https://myozhistoryjourney.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-city-of-sydney-story-from-its.html
• "Old Chum", Truth, 12 September 1914 (transcribed on My Australian History Journey) – https://myozhistoryjourney.blogspot.com/2021/07/old-sydney-truth-newspaper-perth-old.html
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, with credits under each picture.

Sydney Town Hall – George St & Park / Druitt Street – Sydney

Sydney Town Hall at 483 George Street is the city’s civic front door — Second Empire sandstone, clock tower, steps forever crowded with protestors, wedding parties and people waiting for someone who’s late. It stands on the Old Sydney Burial Ground, the town’s first permanent European cemetery (in use from the 1790s until closure in 1820). When Council finally secured the site, remains that could be recovered went to Rookwood; undisturbed graves remain beneath and around the building, and works still occasionally turn up burial evidence.

Construction began in 1869 to a competition design by J. H. Willson. Stage I — vestibule, clock tower and offices — rolled through the 1870s; Council was already occupying unfinished rooms from 1875. Stage II, the great Centennial Hall, was redesigned by City Architect Thomas Sapsford with John Hennessy and finished under George McRae, opening in 1889. Stage I is earlier; 1889 marks the Main Hall.

Town Hall remains in continuous civic and cultural use and is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. Park and Druitt Streets name the surrounding street frame of the Town Hall / Sydney Square precinct.