Early Chinatown in Sydney – From Mak Sai Ying and The Rocks to the Haymarket and Dixon Street – 1818 to 1980

Walk down Dixon Street on a Saturday night and you'd think Chinatown had always been right there, under the red gates, with the roast duck hanging in the windows. It hasn't. Sydney's Chinatown has moved twice. Historian Shirley Fitzgerald repeats a lovely old saying about it in the Dictionary of Sydney: Chinatown is like a dragon, "with its feet in The Rocks, its belly in the Haymarket and its head in Dixon Street." She also points out that nobody probably called any of it "Chinatown" in the early days at all.

This is the story of how that dragon got here. It starts with one carpenter at Parramatta in 1818 and runs through the gold rushes, a riot in Lower George Street, the slums of Wexford Street and a law in 1901 that tried to shut the door for good. It ends with the gates going up in Dixon Street in 1980.

Mei Quong Tart, around 1900. By the 1880s he was the best-known Chinese man in Sydney. Tesla Studios, Sydney, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The First Arrivals

Mak Sai Ying, alias John Shying

The first Chinese settler we have papers for is Mak Sai Ying. The Dictionary of Sydney says he arrived in 1818 and bought land at Parramatta. Wikipedia's account says he came in on the Laurel in February 1818 and worked as a carpenter, first for John Blaxland at Newington and then at Elizabeth Farm for Elizabeth Macarthur. The City of Sydney's Chinatown history adds that the Macarthurs had three Chinese workers in the early 1820s: a carpenter, a cook and a servant.

In 1823 he married an Englishwoman, Sarah Thompson, at St John's in Parramatta, and took the name John Shying. By 1829 he held a pub licence in Parramatta. The Dictionary of Sydney calls it the Golden Lion, and the City of Sydney history calls it the Lion Inn. He went back to China for a few years and then came home to Sydney. Some of his children became furniture makers, and his descendants are still here.

The City of Sydney history counts only 18 Chinese settlers coming to Australia before 1848, so for thirty years he was very nearly on his own.

Three examples of Mak Sai Ying's signature, in Chinese and English. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The register entry for the 1823 marriage of John Shying and Sarah Thompson at St John's, Parramatta. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

St John's, Parramatta, photographed in 1913. Mak Sai Ying was married here 90 years earlier. Anglican Church, Australia,1913, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The indentured labourers of the 1840s

Once convict transportation to New South Wales stopped in 1840, the squatters were short of cheap labour, and some looked to China. The first big group came from Amoy (Xiamen) on the Nimrod, which docked at Henry Moore's wharf at Millers Point in October 1848 with 121 Chinese passengers. The Dictionary of Sydney says about half of them got off there. They were meant to work out five-year contracts on country runs, and the City of Sydney history says they were paid £2.5 a month with rations.

Plenty didn't stay put. Some stayed in Sydney, and others walked off the lonely bush stations and came back to town. Then gold was found in 1851, and as the Dictionary of Sydney puts it, a five-year indenture "meant very little" after that.

Gold, and the Backlash

By early 1852 news of the gold had reached southern China. Men came out from Hong Kong, Shantou and Xiamen on the credit-ticket system, which meant borrowing the fare and paying it back out of whatever they found. Most of that story belongs to the bush rather than the city. The City of Sydney history says that by 1861 there were 13,000 Chinese people in New South Wales.

The diggings turned nasty. The worst trouble was on the Burrangong goldfield near today's Young, and it went on from late 1860 into 1861. On the night of 30 June 1861, a mob of between 2,000 and 3,000 European miners drove about 2,000 Chinese off Lambing Flat. They then went on to Back Creek, where they tore down tents and looted. Many Chinese men were badly beaten, though nobody was killed. About 1,000 Chinese fled to camp near Roberts' homestead at Currowang station. Troops and police were sent from Sydney and stayed for a year.

Sydney answered the riots with a law. The Dictionary of Sydney says the first Act designed to keep the Chinese out was in place by 1861. It was repealed in 1867 because fewer Chinese were arriving, then brought back in a tougher form in 1881 and again in 1888.

The “Roll Up – No Chinese” banner, painted on a tent flap and used to call the miners together at Burrangong in 1861. It's now in the Lambing Flat museum at Young. Unknown artist (derivative by SchirmerPower)rk: SchirmerPower, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lambing Flat Chinese Tribute Gardens at Young today. Quincepaste, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The First Chinatown: Lower George Street, The Rocks

The diggers had to land somewhere, and that was the wharves around Circular Quay. The first cluster of Chinese shops and boarding houses grew up in Lower George Street in The Rocks. Men headed for the goldfields bought their supplies there. Before long the rough stores were also writing letters home, sending money back to the villages and serving as meeting rooms for men from the same clan.

The City of Sydney history says Fitzgerald found the first Chinese businesses in the 1855–1873 directories listed only as "Chinamen", at addresses in Cambridge Street behind Lower George Street. By 1870 there were at least five Chinese furniture makers in the area. The biggest belonged to Ah Toy, who made cheap furniture and also filled orders for David Jones.

Some of the Rocks firms lasted a very long time. King Nam Jang, importers and ship providores at 85 George Street North, was still trading a century after it opened in the 1860s. On Chong & Co was in George Street too. Even after the trade moved south, the Dictionary of Sydney notes, many of the wealthiest merchants chose to stay on in The Rocks.

Sydney Cove and The Rocks from Fort Macquarie in 1859, with Lower George Street in the middle. This is about when the first Chinese stores appeared there. State Library of New South Wales collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

George Street in The Rocks today, the dragon's “feet”. Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1878 riot at Ah Toy's

In 1878 the seamen's union struck against the Australian Steam Navigation Company for using cheap Chinese crews, and anti-Chinese meetings sprang up all over town. After a big torchlight meeting in Hyde Park, a crowd the police put at about 2,000 marched off to Ah Toy's furniture shop and tried to set it on fire, probably knowing that his workers were asleep upstairs. The sources don't agree on the details, which I've set out further down. John Moy Mow, a merchant in The Rocks, wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald asking for "fair play and protection from ruffianism".

The Second Chinatown: The Haymarket and Surry Hills

By the 1870s, the Dictionary of Sydney says, the centre of Chinese trade had moved south to Campbell and Goulburn Streets, near the Belmore fruit and vegetable markets. The reason was vegetables. The market gardeners came in from Alexandria, Botany and the other outer suburbs with their carts, sold at the Belmore Markets and stayed the night in boarding houses close by. Cook-shops and stores followed them.

A lot of those boarding houses were dreadful. Durand's Alley, renamed Robertson Lane in the 1880s, had a building run by Kow You Man that held 100 men. Kwong Chong took over Robertson's old coach factory as a boarding house and charged sixpence a night for a man and sixpence for his horse. The City of Sydney history makes the point that every one of these condemned buildings was owned by Europeans, yet it was the Chinese tenants who got the blame.

Just to the east, Wexford Street in Surry Hills was almost entirely Chinese by 1900. It ran roughly where Wentworth Avenue runs now. People called it a slum, but James Ung Quoy, a community spokesman, lived there. When the 1891 Royal Commission visited Chinese families in the area, it was surprised to find their homes "neat and homely".

The Belmore Markets around 1900. The Chinese gardeners brought their produce here, and the second Chinatown grew up around the markets. Powerhouse Museum Collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Campbell Street, Haymarket, in 2023. This was the heart of the second Chinatown. -wuppertaler, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Market Gardeners, Hawkers and Cabinet-Makers

The Museum of Sydney's Celestial City exhibition says that by 1888 Sydney relied on more than 100 Chinese market gardens for its fresh vegetables. The 1885 Sands Directory lists 54 of them, half in Alexandria. Hawkers carried the produce door to door in baskets hung from a pole across the shoulders. For most Sydney families, the exhibition says, the hawker was the "human face" of China. Women swapped cakes and flowers for ginger and tea over the back fence, and the friendships could be real.

It wasn't always friendly, though. In December 1892 Ah Bun, a hawker from Robertson Lane, was attacked and wounded by youths near Regent Street. In 1881, Chinese stallholders at the Belmore Markets walked away from their stalls for fear of being attacked.

Cabinet-making was the other big trade. Chinese workshops clustered in The Rocks and around the Belmore Markets and turned out cheap furniture for stores like Anthony Hordern & Sons. In 1889 the Furniture Trades Union claimed that nine-tenths of the furniture sold in Sydney was Chinese-made. The museum reckons two-thirds was nearer the mark. Chinese workshops outnumbered European ones until 1915.

Merchants, Newspapers and Politics

Above the gardeners and hawkers sat a small merchant class. Some were also mandarins, officials of the Chinese Empire. Quong Tart and Dr George On Lee were the best known of them, and they spoke for the community at awkward moments such as the 1888 crisis. Quong Tart was a Royal Commissioner in 1891. The Dictionary of Sydney thinks his presence may have kept the other commissioners "from straying into hyperbole". I've written about him in full in his own post (linked below).

The newspapers came in the 1890s. The Chinese Australian Herald, the first major Chinese-language paper in Australia, ran from 1894 to 1923, and its editor Sun Johnson lived in Mary Street, Surry Hills. The Tung Wah Times backed the Emperor and the monarchist reformers, and the City of Sydney history puts its office at 52 Dixon Street. The republican side had papers too. James Chuey founded the Min Guo Bao. When the republic was declared in 1911, most of Sydney's Chinese put up the new flag. The next January they held the first of many picnics at Cabarita, with plenty of firecrackers.

A bust of Quong Tart. Original uploader was Marc Pasquin at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Temples, Tongs and the Chinese Masonic Society

Clan societies

Outsiders saw "the Chinese" as one group. Inside the community, what mattered most was your clan and the county you came from. The big stores doubled as headquarters for clan tongs (societies). The tongs wrote letters, sent money home through people they trusted, settled disputes, helped with legal trouble and arranged for the bones of the dead to go back to China. The Lin Yik Tong was formed in 1892 for the merchants. It went through a few names and in 1913 became the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The Goon Yee Tong bought its rooms at 50 Dixon Street in 1917, and the Dictionary of Sydney thinks that may be the longest continuous Chinese presence in the street.

The Chinese Masonic Society

The Chinese Masonic Society grew out of the Yee Hing, or Hung League, a secret society sworn to overthrow China's Manchu rulers. Respectable Sydney had long looked down on it. The movement went public in 1908 with offices in Surry Hills. In 1912, the Dictionary of Sydney says, it moved into new premises in Mary Street and took the English name Chinese Masonic Society. That building became the national headquarters of all the Yee Hings, and the society is still there. Its early leaders, Moy Sing and J. A. Chuey, backed the republican cause.

The Sze Yup Temple at Glebe

People from Sze Yup, the "four counties" of Guangdong, were said to be especially devout, and they wanted a temple of their own. According to the NSW Heritage Register listing, they prayed for a sign showing where to build it. They then bought a market garden block in Glebe, close to a "Chinamens garden" running down to Blackwattle Bay. The land covenant even made a specific exception for a "Chinese joss house". A local builder, a Mr Stewart (or Stuart), put up the central red-brick hall in 1898, with the side halls following in 1903–04. The temple is dedicated to Kwan Ti, a Three Kingdoms warrior the community honoured as a judge and protector. Bones of the dead were kept here in urns until they could be sent home to China.

The Go Yui gardeners built their own temple, the Yiu Ming, at Alexandria. The City of Sydney history dates it to 1909, and in that decade there was also a joss house at 86 Goulburn Street. Both Glebe and Alexandria are still in use, and the Heritage Register says they are among only four pre-First World War Chinese temples still active in Australia.

The Sze Yup Temple in Glebe. Its central hall dates from 1898. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The entrance to the Sze Yup Temple. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside the Sze Yup Temple. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Yiu Ming Temple at Alexandria, built by gardeners from Go Yui. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Opium, the Bulletin and the 1891 Royal Commission

By the 1880s, opium smoking and games like fan-tan and pak-a-pu had spread well beyond the Chinese community. The press, the Bulletin above all, blamed the Chinese for low wages, smallpox, gambling and vice. In 1886 the Bulletin printed Phil May's cartoon "The Mongolian Octopus", with a Chinese octopus wrapping its arms around the colony. One politician, Ninian Melville, even claimed in 1889 that leprosy could be spread by Chinese-made furniture.

The Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality of 1891 took evidence from more than 60 people. What it found must have disappointed the agitators. The gambling dens couldn't survive on Chinese customers and depended on Europeans. A union man told the commission that fan-tan was popular with Sydney's wharfies. Overall, Chinese gambling was found to be a "trifling" part of the city's gambling. Pak-a-pu tickets became so common that the Dictionary of Sydney calls the game the forerunner of Lotto.

The Chinese community fought opium too. The City of Sydney history says that by 1905 a Chinese Anti-Opium League, chaired by Yee Hing of On Chong & Co and including Quong Tart, claimed 61,000 signatures. In January 1906 it reported that the Commonwealth had banned opium imports except for medical use.

“The Mongolian Octopus: his grip on Australia”, by Phil May in the Bulletin, 21 August 1886. It's a nasty piece of work, and it's a fair picture of how the press saw Sydney's Chinese. May, Phillip, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1888: The Afghan Crisis

In 1888, Sydney's centenary year, it all boiled over. The steamer Afghan had already been turned away from Melbourne, and in May it sailed into Port Jackson with Chinese passengers. The Menmuir and the Guthrie came in behind it. A 1988 retrospective by Robert Willson in the Canberra Times describes what happened next. About 2,000 people crammed into Sydney Town Hall, while another 3,000 packed the steps outside and held a meeting of their own. Afterwards a crowd of about 5,000 marched on Parliament House, and for a while it looked as if the chamber might be invaded. Premier Henry Parkes calmed them by promising legislation. Parkes rushed new laws through Parliament, and the passengers were held and sent away. The Museum of Sydney's exhibition calls it a turning point that paved the way for White Australia.

Things were turning violent in the streets as well. In August 1888, 17-year-old Charles Ratcliffe attacked and injured a hawker, Sun Je, in Goulburn Street.

1901: White Australia

When the colonies federated, one of the first laws the new Commonwealth Parliament passed was the Immigration Restriction Act, which became law on 23 December 1901. It gave officers the power to make any non-European sit a 50-word dictation test in whatever language they chose. The National Museum of Australia says the test was given 1,359 times before 1909, and only 52 people passed. After 1909, nobody passed at all.

For the Chinese already in Sydney, the Museum of Sydney says, the Act meant no citizenship, no vote and no freedom to go back and forth to China. If they left, they might not be let back in. So many stayed, and a community of "sojourners" became a settled one, almost by force. The Dictionary of Sydney says that by 1901 there were 3,276 men and 56 women "born in China" living in Sydney. The men who never got home are remembered as the "left-overs", old men living out their days in lodgings in Chinatown.

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901, the legal foundation of the White Australia policy. Parliament of Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Third Chinatown: Dixon Street

The Haymarket Chinatown was pushed out by slum clearance. In 1906 the council resumed Wexford Street and its surrounds to widen the road and build a new approach to Central Station, which became Wentworth Avenue. The City of Sydney history says an estimated 724 people were evicted. Between 1909 and 1915 the council built the new City Markets near the head of Darling Harbour, on the site that is now Paddy's Markets, and the Chinese traders followed the markets.

The move started early. By 1910, the City of Sydney history says, Chinese firms were buying in the Dixon Street area instead of renting. In 1909 the council approved plans for a pair of three-storey stores at 82–84 Dixon Street for Lee Chun, and the tea merchants Kwong War Chong moved in during 1910. The Goon Yee Tong came in 1917. By the 1930s, in the City of Sydney history's words, the third Chinatown had "clearly emerged".

Some of the plain-looking shops were in fact the head offices of trading empires. Wing On and Wing Sang started out trading fruit in the Haymarket, Wing Sang with Fijian bananas in the 1890s. They went on to open department stores in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Dictionary of Sydney says Wing Sang's Hong Kong store was supposedly modelled on Anthony Hordern's.

Paddy's Markets in the Haymarket. The City Markets built here between 1909 and 1915 drew Chinatown west to Dixon Street. User:Paulscf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Gates Go Up: Dixon Street in the 1980s

The markets moved out to Flemington in 1968, and the Chinese community in the city was getting smaller, so Dixon Street ran down. The council set up the Dixon Street Chinese Committee in 1971, chaired by Henry Ming Lai, but nothing much happened at first. In 1979 the council closed Dixon Street to traffic to make a mall, timed for the Moon Festival. Local Chinese businesses paid for the arches, the damen. The Dictionary of Sydney credits the architects Tsang and Lee, who worked for free, and the City of Sydney history names Henry Tsang as the designer. Lord Mayor Nelson Meers opened the new Chinatown in 1980.

The City of Sydney history translates the characters on the gates. One line reads "Virtue is to be found in the celebration of cultural differences." On the posts are "The antiquity of China is celebrated worldwide" and "The maintenance of freedom and trust preserve the virtues of the past." Some academics sniffed at it as a commercial romance of "Chineseness". It worked anyway. Property values rose, the restaurants filled up, and in 1988 Guangzhou, Sydney's sister city, gave the Chinese Garden of Friendship next door.

Dixon Street in the 1980s, scanned from a Kodachrome slide, not long after the mall opened. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dixon Street in 2009. Contributor168, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the Dixon Street gates. Returned dude12345, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dixon Street at night in 2019. Chen Hualin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The bilingual street sign: Dixon Street, 德信街. Jordanopia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Market City on Hay Street, built on the old City Markets site. Chinatown has spread well beyond Dixon Street now. Ingridinsydney, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Chinese Garden of Friendship, a gift from Guangzhou in 1988. Maksym Kozlenko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1818 – Mak Sai Ying (John Shying) arrives and settles at Parramatta.
• 1823 – He marries Sarah Thompson at St John's, Parramatta.
• 1829 – He holds a pub licence in Parramatta (Golden Lion, or Lion Inn).
• October 1848 – The Nimrod lands 121 indentured Chinese labourers at Millers Point.
• 1851–52 – Gold is found and Chinese diggers start arriving.
• 1855–1873 – Chinese businesses appear in the directories around Lower George Street and Cambridge Street, The Rocks.
• 30 June 1861 – The Lambing Flat riot on the Burrangong goldfield.
• 1861 – The first NSW Act to restrict Chinese entry. It is repealed in 1867.
• 1870s – The trade centre shifts to Campbell and Goulburn Streets near the Belmore Markets.
• 1878 – A mob of about 2,000 tries to burn Ah Toy's furniture shop.
• 1881 – A tougher restriction Act passes and smallpox breaks out.
• 1886 – The Bulletin prints "The Mongolian Octopus".
• 1888 – The Afghan crisis, the Town Hall rally and march on Parliament, and the Chinese Restriction and Regulation Act.
• 1891 – The Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality, with Quong Tart as a commissioner.
• 1894 – The Chinese Australian Herald begins.
• 1898 – The central hall of the Sze Yup Temple, Glebe, is built.
• 23 December 1901 – The Immigration Restriction Act becomes law.
• 1906 – Wexford Street is resumed and demolished, and about 724 people are evicted.
• 1908 – The Yee Hing goes public. In 1912 it becomes the Chinese Masonic Society in Mary Street.
• 1909 – The Yiu Ming Temple at Alexandria opens, and plans are approved for Chinese stores at 82–84 Dixon Street.
• 1909–1915 – The new City Markets are built near Darling Harbour.
• 1917 – The Goon Yee Tong buys 50 Dixon Street.
• 1930s – Dixon Street is clearly Sydney's third Chinatown.
• 1968 – The markets move to Flemington.
• 1971 – The Dixon Street Chinese Committee is formed.
• 1979–1980 – Dixon Street becomes a mall, and the gates open in 1980.
• 1988 – The Chinese Garden of Friendship opens.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Mak Sai Ying's trip back to China. The Dictionary of Sydney says he went back in 1832 and was in Sydney again five years later. Wikipedia's account has him away from 1831 to 1836, coming home after his first wife died. Wikipedia also says the long-assumed date of his death (1880, as "John Sheen") is wrong, because DNA from the descendants shows John Sheen was a different man.
• The name of his pub. The Dictionary of Sydney calls it the Golden Lion, and the City of Sydney history calls it the Lion Inn.
• How many indentured labourers came. The Dictionary of Sydney says more than 1,500 had arrived by 1852. The City of Sydney history says 981 arrived between 1848 and 1851, with 1,000 more before April 1852. The Museum of Sydney's Celestial City says 3,000 in the 1840s.
• Where the Nimrod's other passengers went. The Dictionary of Sydney says about half got off at Millers Point. The City of Sydney history says half stayed in Sydney "and the rest were sent to the farms in Queensland's north".
• The Ah Toy riot. The Dictionary of Sydney places it at Ah Toy's shop in Queen's Place (now Dalley Street) and links it to a November 1878 strike. The City of Sydney history says December 1878 at his Lower George Street workshop, and the Museum of Sydney says George Street. Both of those say about 2,000 people, and the museum describes them as "youths carrying flaming torches".
• The Tung Wah Times. The Dictionary of Sydney dates it 1902–1936. The City of Sydney history says it was founded in 1898.
• The Chinese Masonic Society building. The Dictionary of Sydney says the society moved to Mary Street in 1912. A photo caption in the City of Sydney history says the hall at 18 Mary Street was built in 1911.
• The Sze Yup Temple's date. The Dictionary of Sydney, the NSW Heritage Register listing and the City of Sydney history all say the central hall was built in 1898, with side halls in 1903–04. The 1909 date sometimes given belongs to the Yiu Ming Temple at Alexandria.
• The temple fires. The Heritage Register listing says the roof fire was in 1952 in one place and 1953 in another, with repairs in 1953–55. The Dictionary of Sydney mentions a reopening after a fire in 1955.
• Who designed the Dixon Street gates. The Dictionary of Sydney credits the firm Tsang and Lee, working for free. The City of Sydney history says architect Henry Tsang was commissioned.

My Earlier Posts

• Hay Street – Haymarket – Chinatown – Sydney – New South Wales
• Paddy's Markets – Campbell Street – Haymarket – Sydney
• Quong Tart – The Scottish Mandarin of Sydney – Braidwood, the Tea Rooms and the QVB – 1850 to 1903
• Wexford Street – Before the Creation of Wentworth Avenue
• The Story of Old George Street – Sydney Mail, 1918
• Elizabeth Farm – Alice Street – Parramatta
• Federation – 1 January 1901 – From Parkes at Tenterfield to the First Parliament
• Forbes – The 1861 Gold Rush and the Lachlan
• The Sydney Green Plaques – The 101 Round Green Historical Markers of Old Sydney

Sources

• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Chinatown", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/chinatown
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Chinese", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/chinese
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality 1891", Dictionary of Sydney, 2010 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/royal_commission_into_alleged_chinese_gambling_and_immorality_1891
• "Chinese Masonic Society", Dictionary of Sydney – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/organisation/chinese_masonic_society
• GML Heritage for the City of Sydney, Chinatown Thematic History, February 2023 – https://meetings.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/documents/s74978/Attachment%20E%20-%20Chinatown%20Thematic%20History.pdf
• Museums of History NSW, "Celestial City: Sydney's Chinese Story" (Museum of Sydney, 2014 exhibition) – https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/celestial-city-sydneys-chinese-story/
• National Museum of Australia, "White Australia policy" (Defining Moments) – https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy
• "Sze Yup Temple", Wikipedia, drawing on the NSW State Heritage Register listing H00267 (CC BY 4.0) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sze_Yup_Temple
• "Lambing Flat riots", Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambing_Flat_riots
• "Mak Sai Ying" (John Shying), Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mak_Sai_Ying
• Robert Willson, "The immigration debate in 1888", Canberra Times (Midweek Magazine), 9 November 1988, via Trove – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110612365
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, with individual credits under each picture.

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.

The Nags Head Hotel - Glebe - Sydney - New South Wales

On the corner of St Johns Road and Lodge Street — Forest Lodge if you are precise, Glebe if you are giving a cabbie directions — the Nag’s Head is the suburb’s first pub under a later name. Dictionary of Sydney dates the opening to about 1865 as the Old Forest Lodge Hotel, with publican-butcher John George Tucker behind the bar (and the meat trade).

In 1885 it became the Town Hall Hotel, a plain nod to Ambrose Thornley’s Glebe Town Hall a few doors away (opened 1880). That name stuck through the Tooth & Co decades until 1973, when the house was rebadged Nag’s Head. Later years added the balcony locals now treat as original and pushed the footprint into the neighbouring terrace that once sold pizza — useful colour, not 1860s fabric.

English pub names travel, and this one arrived by rebrand, not by a documented local horse legend. What matters is the name ladder — Old Forest Lodge → Town Hall → Nag’s Head and the fact that Forest Lodge’s first public house is still pouring on the same corner.