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.

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/