Barangaroo – Cammeraygal Fisherwoman, Wife of Bennelong – c.1750 to 1791

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page contains the names and images of people who have died.

Barangaroo was a Cammeraygal woman from the north side of Sydney Harbour, a fisherwoman of real standing, and the wife of Woollarawarre Bennelong. The First Fleet officers met her in the spring of 1790 and never quite knew what to make of her. She wouldn't wear their clothes, wouldn't drink their wine, broke Bennelong's fishing spear when he went off to visit the Governor, and grabbed at the flogger's arm when she was made to watch a convict whipped. She gave birth to her daughter Dilboong alone in the bush rather than at Government House, and she died not long after, in 1791. Bennelong cremated her with her fishing gear beside her and laid her ashes to rest in the Governor's garden. More than two centuries later the old East Darling Harbour wharves were renamed in her honour. This is her story, told from what the people who met her wrote down and what historians have made of it since.

'First interview with the Native Women at Port Jackson New South Wales', drawn by Lieutenant William Bradley. Grace Karskens thinks Barangaroo was very likely there. William Bradley, c.1802, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Who Was Barangaroo?

The Dictionary of Sydney describes Barangaroo simply: an Eora woman of the Cameragal people, the second wife of Bennelong, "a skilled fisherwoman with presence and authority in her community and the early colony". Her people, the Cammeraygal (you'll also see it spelt Cameragal or Kamaraygal), lived on the north side of the harbour. Historian Grace Karskens places her country "around North Harbour and Manly" and calls the Cameragal "the largest and most influential group in the Sydney coastal region".

Watkin Tench, the marine officer whose books are our best window into these years, explained how those clan names worked. "Cemeeragal, means the men who reside in the bay of Cameera," he wrote, and the women of a group were named by adding "eean" to the end. So Barangaroo was a Cameragaleon, a woman of Cameera.

Nobody wrote down when she was born. Wikipedia gives c.1750. The officers who met her in 1790 guessed she was about forty, and Karskens makes the point that this matters. Barangaroo was older and more experienced than the young women the officers already knew, and she carried "wisdom, status and influence" to match.

Before Bennelong

By the time the British met her, Barangaroo's world had already been torn apart. Smallpox swept through the Eora in 1789, and Karskens notes that it killed a disproportionate number of women and old people. Barangaroo survived it, but it cost her dearly. She had lost a husband and two children. Karskens says it was smallpox that took them; Wikipedia says the husband "allegedly" died of it. After that she married a new and younger husband, the ambitious Bennelong, and in Karskens' words she was now "one of a reduced number of women who had the knowledge of laws, teaching and women's rituals", with authority over the younger women around her.

Sydney Cove in 1788, painted by William Bradley, as the colony that would change Barangaroo's world was being set up. William Bradley, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Fisherwomen of the Harbour

To understand Barangaroo you have to understand fishing, because that's where her power came from. In the coastal Eora world, women were the main food providers and fish was the staple. The men stood still in the shallows and speared fish with multi-pronged fish-gigs. The women went out on the water in bark canoes, called nowie, and fished with hook and line.

Karskens' essay "Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen" for the Dictionary of Sydney paints the picture. The women twisted their lines, carr-e-jun, from the fibre of kurrajong, cabbage tree or flax, and sometimes from animal fur or grass "nearly as fine as raw silk". The crescent-shaped hooks, burra, were ground from the broadest part of a turban shell. Surgeon George Worgan reckoned these showed "the greatest ingenuity" of anything the Eora made. A small fire burned on a clay pad in the canoe for warmth and for cooking the catch, and the women sang and kept time with their paddles, often with a baby at the breast, in surf that the officers thought would frighten their toughest sailors.

Aiesha Saunders, writing for Museums of History NSW, adds the custom the Eora called malgun, in which the top joints of a girl's little finger were taken off in infancy. John Turnbull recorded that the joint was thrown into the sea "that the child may be hereafter fortunate in fishing". Not everyone agreed on the meaning. Governor Phillip thought that explanation "too trivial to be the real cause", and historian Keith Vincent Smith suggests it may have marked a girl promised in marriage.

Karskens argues that control of food meant status and power for these women. Fishing gear wasn't trinkets. Once the officers worked that out, they collected the hooks alongside spears, and convicts caught stealing fishing tackle were punished severely.

A French engraving of Port Jackson people from Louis de Freycinet's voyage. It was made a generation after Barangaroo's time, but it's one of the few early pictures of Sydney Aboriginal family life. Freycinet voyage, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Meeting the Officers – Spring 1790

Barangaroo first appears in the records because of Bennelong. He and Colbee had been kidnapped at Manly in November 1789. Colbee escaped within weeks, and Bennelong got away in 1790. Then on 7 September 1790 Governor Phillip was speared at Manly Cove (my Manly post covers that day). In the weeks that followed the British were desperate to keep talking to Bennelong.

Tench describes a meeting on the north shore on 15 September 1790. Bennelong had been teasing the officers that his "old favourite, Barangaroo", had become "the wife of Colbee", and that he'd got "two large women" to make up for losing her. Now he admitted that the woman standing nearby was Barangaroo, and his wife. The girl Abaroo (Boorong), who was living in the settlement, was sent over to bring her in. Abaroo put a petticoat on her first. In Tench's words, "this was the prudery of the wilderness, which her husband joined us to ridicule, and we soon laughed her out of it", and the petticoat was dropped. At Bennelong's request the officers combed and cut her hair, which she seemed to enjoy. Wine she would not touch. She "turned from it with disgust", even with Bennelong urging her on.

Then came a moment that says a lot about her. The officers asked Abaroo to take Barangaroo aside and talk her into coming to Sydney. Tench admits it went the other way: "Barangaroo's arguments to induce Abaroo to rejoin their society, were more powerful than those of the latter". Abaroo came back to the boat reluctantly and sat "in sullen silence".

A few days later Tench found Bennelong and Barangaroo "shivering over a few lighted sticks", cooking small fish beside their canoe. The officers had brought back things that convicts had stolen from the Eora. Among them was a net full of fishing lines and tackle, which Barangaroo said was hers, and she slung it straight round her neck.

Karskens puts the first proper meeting a bit later, "on the north shore at Kirribilli in November 1790", and ties it to a huge haul by the British of about 4,000 Australian salmon, of which forty big fish were sent across to Bennelong's group as a present. Her theory is that Barangaroo was insulted. A fisherwoman winning her fish one at a time could see what it meant when white men handed food to Eora men by the netful: women would lose their hold on the food supply.

The spearing of Governor Phillip at Manly Cove, 7 September 1790, by the artist known as the Port Jackson Painter. Barangaroo enters the written record in the weeks after this. Port Jackson Painter, c.1790, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Broken Fish-Gig

On 8 October 1790 a signal fire was lit and parties went over to meet Bennelong, Barangaroo and others. Soon afterwards Bennelong decided to cross to Sydney Cove and visit the Governor. Barangaroo was dead against it. Tench asked where she was and was told she had "violently opposed Baneelon's departure. When she found persuasion vain, she had recourse to tears, scolding, and threats, stamping the ground, and tearing her hair." Then "she snatched up in her rage one of his fish-gigs, and dashed it with such fury on the rocks, that it broke."

She had good reason to be scared. The last time Bennelong had stayed with the British he'd been taken by force and held prisoner. To settle her nerves the chaplain, Richard Johnson, stayed behind on the north shore with Abaroo as a hostage until Bennelong came back. When the boat returned, Tench found Johnson and Barangaroo sitting at the fire. She was making fish-hooks.

When Bennelong saw his broken fish-gig, Tench says, he gave her "a look of savage fury", and the officers had to step in. Once he calmed down, the tables turned. Barangaroo, "emboldened by our presence and the finery in which we had decked her", put on "a haughty demeanour" and refused his caresses.

Karskens adds that Barangaroo refused to let Bennelong go to Rose Hill (Parramatta) whenever he tried, and that he wasn't allowed on the April 1791 expedition to the Nepean. "When he hit her, she hit him back," she writes. The officers were puzzled, because the couple were also obviously fond of each other.

Bennelong, drawn in 1798, some years after Barangaroo's death. James Neagle, 1798, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hard Side of the Record

We should be honest about the violence in these sources. Tench wrote that Eora men struck their wives on the head with whatever was in their hand, and that "Baneelon did the same to Barangaroo, but she was a scold and a vixen, and nobody pitied her". It's an ugly line from a man of his time, and it tells us as much about Tench as about her. David Collins also left a note in his papers that Bennelong had "severely beaten" her on the morning she gave birth.

Barangaroo could be fierce herself. In late 1790 Bennelong took part in an attack on a young woman, and Tench describes him visiting her afterwards in the hospital and promising her protection. Barangaroo, who had come with him, "began to revile them both with great bitterness, threw stones at the girl and attempted to beat her with a club."

The Flogging – May 1791

One of the best-known stories about Barangaroo comes from May 1791. A convict was caught stealing fishing tackle from Daringa, the wife of Colbee, and Governor Phillip had him flogged in front of a group of Eora men and women. It didn't go down the way he hoped. Tench wrote that there was "not one of them that did not testify strong abhorrence of the punishment and equal sympathy with the sufferer". Then: "Daringa shed tears, and Barangaroo, kindling into anger, snatched a stick and menaced the executioner." Tench summed the two women up as "the former was ever meek and feminine, the latter fierce and unsubmissive."

Karskens tells the same story slightly differently. She has the officers inviting Barangaroo to watch, and has her becoming "disgusted and furious" and trying "to grab the whip out of the flogger's hands".

Daringa and Barangaroo were close. Keith Vincent Smith writes that Daringa had exchanged names with Barangaroo and was styled "Daringa Barangaroo", and Collins calls Barangaroo "Ba-rang-a-roo Da-ring-ha" when he records her death. In Eora custom an exchanged name was a serious bond.

Sydney Cove in 1794, by convict artist Thomas Watling, three years after Barangaroo's ashes were laid in the Governor's garden. Thomas Watling, 1794, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dilboong

In 1791 Barangaroo had a baby girl. Karskens writes that Bennelong pushed for the birth to happen at Government House, so the child would belong to the new country, Sydney. Barangaroo said no. She gave birth on her own somewhere in the bush on the edge of the town.

Collins went quietly to see her a few hours later and was astonished. "To my great surprise she was walking about alone, and picking up sticks to mend her fire." The baby, "whose skin appeared to have a reddish cast", lay on a piece of soft bark on the ground. He watched her deal with the umbilical cord using a little kangaroo leg-bone that Bennelong had wrapped in punk and heated at the fire, and finally cut it with a shell.

The girl was called Dilboong. Collins says the name came from "a small bird, which we often heard in low wet grounds and in copses".

Death and Cremation

Barangaroo didn't live long after the birth. Karskens points out that "the officers were silent on why she died." Keith Vincent Smith dates her death to late 1791.

Collins was one of the few Europeans asked to be there at the end. Bennelong "determined at once to burn her", and asked Governor Phillip, Surgeon John White and Collins to attend. Bennelong's sister Carangarang came, along with several men and one or two other women. Collins describes the whole thing carefully. The ground was scraped back a few inches with a stick. A pyre about three feet high was built up from brushwood and twigs, with heavier wood on the sides, and covered with grass. Barangaroo's body, wrapped in an old blanket, was laid on it with her head to the north. Then "a basket with the fishing apparatus and other small furniture of the deceased was placed by her side". Bennelong laid logs over her, and the pyre was lit.

The next day Bennelong asked the officers back to watch him gather her ashes. He walked ahead "in a sort of solemn silence". With the end of a spear he raked "the calcined bones and ashes together in a heap", then shaped a mound over them with a piece of bark, smoothing every little bump, and set a log on each side. He asked them "if it was good". Collins, who often wrote harshly about the Eora, was moved. He said Bennelong's grief "seemed the result of an heartfelt affection for the object of it", and that he stood afterwards with his hands folded over his chest, deep in thought.

The spear in Bennelong's hand had a purpose. He blamed the carradhy (clever man or healer) Willemering, the same man who had speared Phillip, for not coming quickly enough to treat Barangaroo when she was ill. According to the Dictionary of Sydney, Bennelong later fought Willemering and wounded him in the thigh with that spear. Collins also wrote that Bennelong said "he should not be satisfied until he had sacrificed some one to her manes", meaning her spirit.

Where exactly were her ashes laid? Karskens says Bennelong "buried her ashes carefully in the garden of Government House". Collins records that baby Dilboong, who died only a few months later, was buried in the Governor's garden too, and that Bennelong slept near the spot afterwards.

Collins also noticed the way names were handled after a death. Colbee's wife, who "bore the same names as the deceased", gave them up and was called Bo-rahng-al-le-on. The same happened to a little settler girl whom Barangaroo had been so fond of that she always called her by her own name.

Sydney Cove in about 1792, by the Port Jackson Painter, the town as it was in the year after Barangaroo died. Port Jackson Painter, 1792, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How Historians See Her Now

For a long time Barangaroo was a footnote in Bennelong's story, the "difficult" wife. Historians now read her differently. Karskens asks whether she was just a difficult woman and answers that "the answer may lie in fish and fishing". Barangaroo could see where life alongside the British led: dependence on men, black and white, and the loss of the women's control over food. Wikipedia sums up the modern view that historians have argued she was a matriarch of the Cammeraygal through her role as a fisherwoman.

Eora women kept fishing the harbour long after she was gone. Karskens says their canoes, with little plumes of smoke from the onboard fires, could still be seen until at least the late 1820s. She finishes her essay with a question: "where in Sydney Harbour, our paradise of waters, are the great Eora fisherwomen remembered?"

Barangaroo, the Place

Part of the answer now sits on the western edge of the CBD. The old East Darling Harbour wharf strip, the stretch of Hickson Road that wharfies called The Hungry Mile in the Depression, was given up as a port after container shipping moved away. In 2003 the NSW Government decided to redevelop it. After a design competition in 2005–06 and a public naming competition, Planning Minister Frank Sartor announced in October 2006 that the area would be called Barangaroo, and the Dictionary of Sydney dates the formal commemoration to 5 October 2007.

Some people have pointed out the irony. The Wikipedia article on Barangaroo notes that the precinct is "not located in her traditional lands". She was a north shore woman, and this is the south side of the harbour. The Barangaroo article also mentions that for a while the northern point was called Barangaroo Point, until the Geographical Names Board ruled that was wrong and brought back the historic name Millers Point.

The old wharf strip along Hickson Road, The Hungry Mile, before the redevelopment. Jane Bennett, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wharves and warehouses on Hickson Road around 1920, when this was one of the busiest working waterfronts in Sydney. Unknown photographer, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The empty concrete apron in 2009, before building started. Michael Woodhead, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Barangaroo Reserve

The best tribute is probably the headland park at the northern end. Barangaroo Reserve opened on 22 August 2015. It's a rebuilt headland, about six hectares, shaped on the pre-1836 shoreline that was cut away for wharves. It was designed by Johnson Pilton Walker with PWP Landscape Architecture. The foreshore is built from sandstone blocks quarried and cut on the site itself, and the park is planted with some 75,000 native trees, shrubs and plants. There's a cultural space called The Cutaway underneath it. The walk along the water is Wulugul Walk, and the big grassed area is the Walumil Lawns.

It's a lovely place to stand on a winter afternoon and watch the ferries. If you look across the water towards Balmain and Goat Island, you can just about picture a bark canoe with a little fire burning in it and a woman with a shell hook, singing as she fishes.

Barangaroo Reserve, the rebuilt sandstone headland at the northern end of the precinct. Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Looking out from the reserve across the harbour. Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wulugul Walk, the foreshore path around the headland. Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Walumil Lawns at Barangaroo Reserve. Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Cutaway, the cultural space built inside the headland. Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The headland seen from the water. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Barangaroo towers from Pyrmont at sunset, 2023. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Barangaroo ferry wharf, which replaced the old Darling Harbour wharf in 2017. MDRX, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• c.1750 – Barangaroo born, according to Wikipedia (no record exists; the officers guessed her age at about 40 in 1790).
• February 1788 – British officers meet Cameragal women at Manly. Karskens thinks Barangaroo was "very likely present".
• 1789 – Smallpox epidemic among the Eora. Barangaroo loses her first husband and two children.
• 25 November 1789 – Bennelong and Colbee kidnapped at Manly Cove (the Dictionary of Sydney gives 23 November).
• 7 September 1790 – Governor Phillip speared at Manly Cove.
• 15 September 1790 – Tench meets Barangaroo on the north shore: the petticoat, the haircut, the refused wine.
• October 1790 – Barangaroo breaks Bennelong's fish-gig when he crosses to visit the Governor.
• November 1790 – Karskens' date for the Kirribilli meeting and the gift of salmon.
• May 1791 – The flogging of a convict for stealing Daringa's fishing tackle. Barangaroo threatens the flogger with a stick.
• 1791 – Dilboong born in the bush. Barangaroo dies later in 1791, is cremated with her fishing gear, and her ashes are buried by Bennelong.
• After Barangaroo's death – Dilboong dies as a baby, only a few months old (Wikipedia), and is buried in the Governor's garden (Collins).
• 2003 – NSW Government decides to redevelop East Darling Harbour.
• 18 October 2006 – Frank Sartor announces the name Barangaroo.
• 5 October 2007 – Date the Dictionary of Sydney gives for the commemoration of the name.
• 22 August 2015 – Barangaroo Reserve opens.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When the officers first met her. Tench describes meeting her on the north shore on 15 September 1790. Wikipedia says October 1790. Karskens says "late 1790" and puts the key meeting at Kirribilli in November 1790.
• The flogging. Tench says she "snatched a stick and menaced the executioner". Karskens says she tried "to grab the whip out of the flogger's hands".
• What happened to her ashes. Collins describes Bennelong raking them into a carefully built mound. Karskens says he "buried her ashes carefully in the garden of Government House". Wikipedia says the ashes were "scattered" around Phillip's garden.
• Her first husband's death. Karskens says smallpox killed her husband and two children. Wikipedia says the husband "allegedly" died of smallpox.
• When the precinct was named. Wikipedia's article on Barangaroo the woman says the area was officially named in October 2006, the date of Sartor's announcement. The precinct article says it was "renamed in October 2007", and the Dictionary of Sydney gives 5 October 2007.
• Whose wife was she in 1790? Bennelong told Tench she had become "the wife of Colbee", and then later presented her as his own wife. Tench didn't know whether to believe him either time.
• Dilboong's dates. Wikipedia says Dilboong lived only a few months. Collins describes her being at the breast when her mother died and buried later in the Governor's garden, but I haven't found a firm date for her death in the sources I read.

My Earlier Posts

• Colbee (Colebee) – The Cadigal Man Kidnapped with Bennelong at Manly
• Woolaware Bennelong
• Barangaroo – Maritime – Coastal – Inner Sydney
• The Rocks And Barangaroo
• Manly – From Kai'ymay and Phillip's 'Manly Cove' of 1788 to the Ferries, the Quarantine Station and the Surf
• The Sydney Opera House – From Cattle Point and Bennelong Point to Fort Macquarie and Utzon's Sails
• Bennelong Point – Circular Quay East
• First Government House – Corner of Bridge Street & Phillip Street
• Museum Of Sydney – Site Of Original Government House
• Sydney Cove – 1788
• Bungaree – The Broken Bay Man Who Sailed Around Australia with Flinders
• Cora Gooseberry – Queen Gooseberry – Widow of Bungaree
• Philip Gidley King – Third Governor of New South Wales

Sources

• Grace Karskens, "Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen", Dictionary of Sydney, 2014 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/barangaroo_and_the_eora_fisherwomen
• "Barangaroo" (person), Dictionary of Sydney – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/barangaroo
• Keith Vincent Smith, "Daringa", Dictionary of Sydney, 2011 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/daringa
• Keith Vincent Smith, "Willemering", Dictionary of Sydney, 2016 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/willemering
• Aiesha Saunders, "A fisher woman of Warrane", Museums of History NSW, 2020 – https://mhnsw.au/stories/first-nations/a-fisher-woman-of-warrane/
• Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson (1793), Project Gutenberg – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3534
• David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, vol. 1 (1798), Project Gutenberg – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12565
• F. D. McCarthy, "Colebee", Australian Dictionary of Biography (rev. 2025) – https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/colebee-1909
• "Barangaroo", Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barangaroo
• "Barangaroo, New South Wales", Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barangaroo,_New_South_Wales
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, as credited under each picture.

 Spencer Lodge - Millers Point

(For the 'Sunday Times' — By MARY SALMON.)
The picture of Spencer Lodge as it ap-pears to-day does not present a building in accordance with our present idea of a gentleman's residence, but those who knew Sydney a little over fifty years ago have many stories to tell of the pleasant time they have spent with hos-pitable Captain Lamb & his wife, when a family of handsome daughters & bright happy sons gathered under the roof of the home at Miller's Point, which was the rendezvous for naval officers visiting this port. To-day the old homestead still serves a useful purpose, as a Casualty Ward & outdoor department of the Sydney hospital, & is convenient as being near the wharves & the large warehouses where accidents are of likely occurrence.

 The garden grounds are much curtailed from the olden days, only a tree or two standing, where once there were lawns, rosaries, & plantations of flowering shrubs. Whilst the bare walls remain, the building is shorn of everything that would suggest an old family mansion ; but there is one thing that can never be taken away — the glorious panoramic view of sea & land stretching in an uninterrupted vista for miles beyond. Balmain, Cockatoo, the openings of Iron Cove, Lane Cove, & the Parramatta River, are in the distance. 

Immediately beneath are the ship-ridden waters of Darling Harbor ; in the days of the Lamb's residence these were known as Cockle Creek. Further round towards Dawes' Point was the old wharf, now re-constructed under the Harbor Trust, known in early times as Lamb & Buchanan's Wharf, where the Captain brought his brig Resource, laden with merchandise & carrying as passengers his wife & a couple of little ones. It was this shipment of goods that started the firm as merchants, & from which the large & important house of Par-bury & Lamb has evolved. 

Although Captain Lamb came to Sydney as a permanent settler in 1829, yet it was by no means his first visit to our beautiful harbor, which was well known to him from occasional voyages when in an East Indiaman after he had retired from the navy. A few words concerning the early career of one of the FOUNDERS OF THE COUNTRY'S COMMERCE may be of interest. Captain John Lamb was born in 1790, & when only 11 years of age, in 1801, entered the navy, when he is said to have served under Bligh, previous to that boisterous but valiant commander being made Governor of New South Wales. 

Governor Gipps was also an early friend, as in 1813, when Mr. George Gipps was engineer officer in charge on the east coast of Spain, young Lamb was put in command of some soldiers to place guns in position there. When in 1837 they met again in New South Wales, there was much to be recalled of their midtime career, & a firm cementing of the friendship begun just before the Peace of Europe was signed, when Captain Lamb retired from the navy, on half pay, as Commander. He then went into the merchant marine service, & used to tell how he was OFFERED NEARLY THE WHOLE OF WOOLLOOMOOLOO as a grant if he would settle here, but he said Sydney itself would not have tempted him in those days. However, when he married Miss Emma Robinson (daughter of the deputy chair-man at Lloyd's for fifty years), he began to think that a family might have great chances in a new country, & thither he sailed in his own vessel, which he filled with goods likely to be salable to start business in Sydney. 

A stone bearing the date 1833 is in the ground adjacent to the homestead of Spencer Lodge, therefore it may be pre-sumed the family took possession soon after they arrived. In the early fifties old residents remember visiting the Lambs there, & some old-timers assert that Dr. Bland afterwards lived in the house, when, in 1855, Captain Lamb & his wife returned to the old country,
leaving part of a grown up family behind. The Captain did not intend to return to Australia, building a house at Clapham Park, but the ties of 26 years of active life were too strong, & he re-turned to Sydney, where, until his death in 1862, he served his country as a member of the Legislative Council, & in other honorable capacities. 

In a corner of Randwick Cemetery rests both Captain John Lamb, R.N., &, four-teen years afterwards, his wife, leaving a large family of seven sons & five daughters to carry on life in the State where their parents had come almost as pioneer settlers. Many of the family have passed on — Mr. Walter Lamb, of Woodstock, Philip, a squatter in Queensland, Edward William, John De Villiers, Alfred, & Charles, are all held by old colonists in affectionate remembrance. Lieut. Chatfield, Commander Simpson, Mr. Archibald Bell Cox, Mr. Henry Carey Dangar, & Mr. Henry Thompson married the Misses Lamb. It was a difficult matter for merchants in the depressed forties to keep from losing any moneys that the good years previously had given them.

 Squatting was ONLY IN ITS INFANCY, & outside of a pastoral life there was little means of accumulating wealth. Captain Lamb went through the ups & downs of a merchant's life, & though he may not always have been affluent, was looked on as invariably honorable & straightforward, both in business & in his political career. With the discovery of gold in 1852 came a great change in fortunes, & in 1855 the Captain went out of business with a large amount of money. It was not the man who found nuggets of gold as a rule who was permanently enriched, but he who left the gold-getting to others & stuck by the business he had in hand.

 Merchandise went up, ships were in great requisition, houses could not be got at treble rents, & workmen's wages in-creased. Those who had battled through the previous years of depression reaped rich harvests of profit. In the present day when we are so in touch with the world outside, that what happens in London or St. Petersburg comes to us in a few hours, when our mail bags arrive with unfailing regularity every week, it is difficult to realise what commercial life was to men in the days when there was no cable, not even an organised mail service, when newspapers & letters came from the old world in
the casual & uncertain arrival of merchant sailing vessels, which took three months or more from London or Liverpool to Melbourne or Sydney. 

Even then there was a great casualness about letters reaching their proper owners, & orders transmitted to British firms might receive attention if no better way of disposing of goods than supplying the colonies turned up. It was in such days that Merchant Lamb had to struggle until the elysian times that the finding of gold brought to the country. When the city of Sydney had an extra member allowed to represent it in the Council (about 1847) prior to Responsible Government in 1856, Captain Lamb was elected with Wentworth & Lowe, Dr. Bland, who had always been the colleague of Wentworth, being at the bottom of the poll. Captain Lamb (though, per-haps, lacking the mentality of his com-peers) was a popular favorite, & had the respect of everyone, so when three members were appointed, instead of two, for the city, Captain Lamb got a seat. 

But it was as AN ANTI-TRANSPORTATION AGITATOR that he made his mark, & there are some still living who will remember the great gathering at Circular Quay on June 8, 1849, when the Hashemy arrived with its cargo of unwanted convicts, & over 8000 men gathered in tho pouring rain to listen to Robert Campbell, John Lamb, a young man named Henry Parkes, & others, speak for hours from the top of a bus to the effect that no more convicts were to be forced upon New South Wales. "We will allow this lot to land, but no more" was the verdict ; & it was Captain Lamb & Mr. Chas. Cowper (young also then, & a coming on man), who took the resolution along to Government House. 

Later on the two men were again to be associated, when Captain Lamb was one of the directors of THE FIRST RAILWAY COMPANY, & Mr. Chas. Cowper was chairman of the same. We have just been interested in the Jubilee of the wreck of the Dunbar, & the youth of to-day can scarcely realise that the loss of a single vessel could have caused so profound a sensation throughout the community as did this shipwreck on August 20, 1857. But it must be remembered that Sydney was only a quarter the size, & every man was an individual of particular value in the then youthful settlement. Captain Lamb, as Chairman of the Marine Board, went to the "Gap" with a steamer to try to rescue some of the unfortunate passengers, or, failing to get any alive, he had a number of coffins in which to place such bodies as could be recovered. 

The Lodge, in Macleay-street, built for, & lived in by Col. Treasurer Rid-dell, is another house associated with the Lambs, whilst the beautiful castle at Potts Point, with its embattled turrets, has long been the home of Mrs. H. C. Dangar (Miss Lucy Lamb, one of tho "toasts" of Sydney Society of years ago). Woodstock, Rooty Hill, was where Mr. Walter Lamb carried on fruit pre-serving, & had a fine estate, but to "old-timers" the Lambs & Spencer Lodge, Miller's Point, will always be intimately associated. 

Captain Lamb was not a racing man, but he imported some fine horses. Among these were Peter Fin, Cutty Sark, & Spaewife. They were from the stables of Sir William Maxwell, of Ayrshire, one of the greatest sportsmen of his day. The glory of Miller's Point, as a fine

residential quarter, has long departed; but there are as well as Spencer Lodge, many other old built mansions which even in their decay, speak loudly of having been the ancestral halls of some important families of the past. So, some are, however, entirely effaced, for in-stance, Mr. William Walker's House (uncle of the late Thomas Walker, of Concord), which stood where Milton Ter-race now is a conspicuous object. Mr. Walker was a canny Scotchman, who left his native land with money, deter-mined not to lose "baubees" in the new country. 

When he returned to Scotland it was as a very wealthy man. A story told by the late Mr. Thomas Walker shows the foresight of the original found-er of the family, "I was sent overland with a dray, laden with provisions, in which were packed many sovereigns, to be in time for the FIRST MELBOURNE LAND SALE. The Government would not take bills. We had a pleasant, though lengthy, trip over, coming across nothing more formid-able than blacks, to whom the food was more temptation than the gold. Yes, we were in at the sale, & the land bought then laid the foundation of the great fortune gained by me when com-paratively an elderly man."

SPENCER LODGE, MILLER'S POINT.

 Barangaroo - Maritime - Coastal - Inner Sydney

Barangaroo occupies the old East Darling Harbour stevedoring foreshore between Millers Point / Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour — Gadigal Country of the Eora Nation. The modern precinct takes its name from Barangaroo, a Cammeraygal woman and leader at British colonisation, remembered in early colonial records as fiercely protective of her culture and as the second wife of Bennelong. Shell middens and other evidence point to long Aboriginal use of these shores for fishing, gathering and ceremony.

From the 1820s the western foreshore grew into a working port timber and marine products, then wool warehouses and wharves. Mid-nineteenth-century industry included the Millers Point gasworks. After the 1900 plague clearances, the Sydney Harbour Trust cut Hickson Road into the headland and lined East Darling Harbour with long finger wharves and sheds (Walsh Bay still shows that pattern). In the Depression years Hickson Road was the “Hungry Mile,” where casual wharf labourers hunted a day’s work.

Containerisation and the shift of heavy freight to Port Botany ended the site’s life as a modern stevedoring port. In 2003 the NSW Government announced urban renewal of the East Darling Harbour wharves; the named precinct Barangaroo followed, with Barangaroo Reserve restoring a headland park of native planting beside commercial towers and public foreshore walks. Official heritage interpretation leans on both First Nations stories and the maritime working history of Millers Point and Walsh Bay.

Barangaroo History Brought Woman To Tears

Windmill Street Quarry - Millers Point

Windmill Street was so named because it led to the windmill on Cockle Bay Point at its western end. Part of Windmill Street was a sandstone quarry site around the turn of the 19th century, which explains why it dips in the middle and is not as elevated as Argyle Place. Quarrying would have taken place all the way along the line of Windmill Street, and it is likely that the street itself was created out of abandoned quarries. There were numerous quarry sites in and around Millers Point, the major ones being in the vicinity of Windmill Street. Sandstone for buildings would have been quarried here from as early as 1790 until such time as the major buildings in the area had been completed, which would have been a 30 to 40 year period. Few of the buildings from this era survive. 

BUILDINGS MADE FROM

ITS STONE

Hero of Waterloo Hotel, 81 Lower Fort Street, Millers Point (1844): It is known that this hotel was built mainly from stone quarried in what is now referred to as the Kent Street quarry, however it is likely that stone from Windmill Street was used, given that it was probably built on an early quarry site. One of 14 hotels scattered throughout the Millers Point section of The Rocks, the Hero of Waterloo Hotel was a favourite drinking place of the military garrison stationed nearby. Built from sandstone excavated from the Argyle Cut, legend has it that the hotel was used by sea captains to recruit crew members - unsuspecting patrons who had drunk themselves into a stupor are said to have been pushed through a trap door and carried away through underground tunnels to waiting ships in nearby Walsh Bay. 

Former Shipwrights Arms, 75 Windmill Street, Millers Point (1840): Though no records exist to verify the exact year of its construction, this two storey brick house dates from the Macquarie period as it was built as a residence for a free settler who arrived in the colony in 1815. Some of the sandstone used would have come from the nearby Kent Street Quarry which was a major source of sandstone for building constructed in the western end of Sydney during the Macquarie era, however a lot would have been sourced on-site as it was built on a quarry site. Its identity as one of five pubs in The Rocks to be called Shipwrights Arms had been lost until its restoration in 1968 when countless layers of paint were removed to reveal its former use. John Clarke its first licensee, operated the pub between 1833 and 1837.

Argyle Cut – The Rocks – Convict Chain Gangs, Blasting and the Bridges Above

Updated October 2026 – I've added a lot more history, a timeline and some old photos to my original 2016 post. My own words and photos are kept below.

The Argyle Cut – The Rocks

The Argyle Cut is a striking example of convict public works. It was a colonial effort to overcome a challenging landscape, providing a more level crossing between The Rocks and Millers Point.

In 1843, convict labour was deployed to cut the roadway through the rocky peninsula. It was completed in 1859 with the use of explosives and council labour. Bridges over the cut were completed later.

The Argyle Cut was also widened in the 1920s with the construction of the approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Whenever I happen to pass the Argyle Cut I always think what an amazing piece of work it is. Can you imagine the hundreds of convicts all chained together in chain gangs, with nothing more than blunt picks hitting the sandstone?

Walking through the cut you just can't imagine the gravity of human labour it took to cut this straight out of the rock.

It's also hard to imagine the bits of broken sandstone being either carried by hand or moved in a wheelbarrow-style tool down to the estuary at Circular Quay and tipped into the tidal flat. The reclaimed land added about 50 metres to the Quay, and the semi-circular walls were built.

You can see it in the sandstone sea wall that goes right around the working harbour, from Millers Point and Dawes Point to Circular Quay and what would have been Fort Macquarie.

A sign nearby reads: "This square forms a part of an area of Old Sydney called The Rocks, once famous as a residential district and a notorious haunt of sailors. Argyle Street was named by Governor Macquarie in 1810 after his native country."

In the cut itself, high on the wall, there is this notice:

"Chas Moore – Mayor – 1867–1868. Above this spot a bridge known as the Princes Street Bridge spanned the original Argyle Cut. As a memorial of the bridge, the above stone, which formed part of it, is placed where the shadow of the bridge …"

Before the Cut – Gadigal Country

Long before anyone took a pick to it, this ridge of sandstone was Gadigal country. The Rocks area was known to the Cadigal (Gadigal) people as Tallawoladah, according to the Wikipedia summary of the area's history. The ridge that the cut slices through is the same rocky spine that gave The Rocks its name.

A Rock Wall Between Two Harbours

From the early days the ridge split the town in two. The Sydney Gazette was already grumbling in 1803 about the lack of a short cut across the peninsula. An 1839 guide to Sydney described Argyle Street as two separate pieces, the eastern end from George Street to Harrington Street cut off from the western end by "a precipice of considerable height", with a set of old steps hacked into the rock that had become unsafe. Carts going from Sydney Cove to Darling Harbour had to go the long way round, down Lower George Street, around Dawes Point and up into Windmill Street.

The merchant Alexander Berry put up a private scheme to cut a toll road through the rock, with shareholders paid out of the tolls. Governor Bourke and the Legislative Council knocked it back, and the Government decided to do the job itself. A plan drawn in 1832 shows the cutting with bridges carrying the streets above it.

The 1832 transverse section showing bridges over the proposed cut, so the streets above could still cross. Surveyor General's Maps and Plans, State Records NSW, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1843 – Convicts in Chains, Picks and Chisels

Work was under way by 1843, with convicts in chain gangs. They worked with hand tools, picks and chisels, against solid Sydney sandstone. Their overseer, Tim Lane, is remembered for telling the men that "by the help of God and the strong arm of the flogger, you'll get fifty before breakfast tomorrow!" Even so, the job was too much for those crude tools.

Transportation to New South Wales had stopped in 1840, and a lot of locals didn't like seeing and hearing men labouring in chains right in the middle of town. The Government gave up on the project when it was about half done, and for years the cut sat unfinished.

The Argyle Cut looking west, an albumen photoprint from about the 1870s. Unknown photographer (retouched by Begoon), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1859 – The Council Finishes the Job with Blasting

The Sydney Municipal Council finally finished the cut in 1859, using explosives and paid council labour. The spoil was used to fill the mouth of the Tank Stream and to back up the sea wall at Circular Quay, which ties in nicely with what I'd always pictured of the rubble heading down to the Quay.

"Argyle Cutting", photographed in 1872 for the Government Printing Office. Charles Percy Pickering, State Library of NSW, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bridges Overhead – Gloucester, Cumberland and Princes Streets

Once the road was through, the streets above needed a way across. Bridges went up for Gloucester Street in 1862, Cumberland Street in 1864 and Princes Street in 1867–68. The Princes Street bridge is the one Mayor Charles Moore's inscription remembers. Its stone was moved to the south wall of the cut when the bridge came down.

The Argyle Cut around 1900, from the Tyrrell glass plate negatives. Powerhouse Museum Collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Looking east through the cut, around 1900. Unknown photographer, Powerhouse Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Push Gangs and the Rocks

By the late 1800s The Rocks had a hard name, and the cut had one of its own. The larrikin "pushes" ran the streets from the 1870s to the end of the 1890s. The Rocks Push fought running battles with rival gangs, and one of those rivals was called the Argyle Cut Push. The gangs were known for theft and assaults on police, sailors and passers-by. Their members dressed sharp, in bell-bottomed pants, short coats and fancy high-heeled boots, which Banjo Paterson described.

1900 – Plague and the Resumptions

In 1900 bubonic plague broke out in Sydney. The State Government resumed (compulsorily took over) large areas around The Rocks and Darling Harbour, meaning to knock them down and rebuild. Streets were cleansed and photographed as they went, and the Sydney Harbour Trust's later improvements reshaped the streets around the cut.

The back of Gloucester Street, just above the cut, photographed during the 1900 plague cleansing. John Degotardi Jnr, State Library of NSW, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cambridge Street looking towards the Argyle Cut, August 1901. Powerhouse Museum Collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

1911–12 – The Argyle Bridge and Cumberland Street

As part of the Harbour Trust's improvements in 1911–12, Gloucester and Cumberland Streets were realigned. The two old bridges were replaced by one, the Argyle Bridge, which carries Cumberland Street over the cut. Cumberland Street used to sit a bit further west. The Argyle Stairs were built at the same time, and part of View Terrace on Gloucester Street was demolished to make room. The bridge has little obelisk-shaped pylons and its original light fittings. Its parapet over Argyle Street was replaced in the 1950s, and concrete cancer was repaired in 2008.

The Argyle Bridge carrying Cumberland Street over the cut. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Argyle Stairs, built with the bridge in 1911–12, climbing from the cut. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Harbour Bridge Approaches

The next big change came with the Sydney Harbour Bridge. For the Bradfield Highway in the 1920s, the Princes Street bridge was pulled down, the cut was widened at that end, and a much bigger bridge was built overhead to carry the traffic. It was finished in 1932. Hundreds of buildings across The Rocks were demolished for the Bridge in the same decade.

Concrete supports for the centring of the new Argyle Street arch, 20 March 1931. Sydney Harbour Bridge photo albums, State Records NSW, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Demolishing the old Princes Street stone arch over Argyle Street, 13 August 1931. State Records NSW, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Looking west through the cut under the Bridge approach, 2022. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Heritage Listed

The Argyle Cut was added to the NSW State Heritage Register on 10 May 2002 (number 1523), on the same day as the Argyle Bridge and Stairs (number 1522). The listing calls it an imposing example of convict public works and an early east–west route across The Rocks. It ranks the cut with Busby's Bore and the building of Circular Quay as one of the most impressive engineering feats of early Sydney. It's also on the National Trust register and the old Register of the National Estate.

The Argyle Cut today, February 2020. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sandstone walls of the cut. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Argyle Cut in 1999. Jerrye & Roy Klotz MD, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Argyle Street, 2012. Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• Before 1788 – Tallawoladah, Gadigal country
• 1803 – The Sydney Gazette complains there's no short cut across the peninsula
• 1810 – Argyle Street named by Governor Macquarie (per the sign in Argyle Place)
• 1832 – A plan of the cut with bridges overhead is drawn
• 1839 – A guide describes Argyle Street as split by a "precipice"
• 1843 – Convict chain gangs are at work on the cut
• 1840s – The Government abandons the work about half done
• 1859 – The council finishes the cut with explosives and paid labour
• 1862 – Gloucester Street bridge
• 1864 – Cumberland Street bridge
• 1867–68 – Princes Street bridge (Mayor Charles Moore)
• 1870s–1890s – Push gangs, including the Argyle Cut Push
• 1900 – Bubonic plague and the Government resumptions
• 1911–12 – Streets realigned, the Argyle Bridge and Argyle Stairs built
• 1920s–1932 – Princes Street bridge demolished, cut widened, Bradfield Highway built overhead
• 1950s – Argyle Bridge parapet replaced
• 2002 – State Heritage listing, 10 May
• 2008 – Repairs to the Argyle Bridge

Where the Sources Disagree

• When was it finished? The State Heritage Register summary on Wikipedia says the cut was completed by the council in 1859, but gives the build dates as 1843–1868, because it counts the bridges. A 1999 Commons photo caption by Jerrye & Roy Klotz says it was done by convict labour "from 1843 to 1867". My 2015 Argyle Street post just says "the 1840s". I've gone with 1843 to 1859 for the cut itself and 1862–68 for the bridges.
• When did it start? The plan is dated 1832, but the heritage listing says the work was "begun by 1843". So 1843 may be when the convicts were definitely at work, not necessarily the first day.
• Gadigal or Cadigal? Wikipedia uses "Cadigal". "Gadigal" is the spelling most used today. They are the same people.
• How much land did the spoil make? I wrote that the rubble added about 50 metres to the Quay. The heritage listing only says it filled the mouth of the Tank Stream and buttressed the Circular Quay sea wall, and gives no figure.

My Earlier Posts

• Argyle Street – Millers Point
• Garrison Church – Lower Fort Street – Argyle Street
• Francis Greenway’s Residence – George Street, Cnr Argyle Street
• The Tank Stream – Sydney
• Cadman’s Cottage – The Coxswains’ Barracks
• The Palisade Hotel – Millers Point
• Cumberland Place – The Rocks
• Susannah Place – The Rocks
• The Rocks – Sydney
• Sydney Past & Present – The Rocks Resumptions
• 30 Argyle Place – Millers Point (Historic Sydney Mansions)

Sources

• Argyle Cut – Wikipedia (incorporating the NSW State Heritage Register listing 5053138, CC BY 4.0)
• Argyle Bridge – Wikipedia (incorporating the NSW State Heritage Register listing 5053137)
• The Rocks, New South Wales – Wikipedia
• Rocks Push – Wikipedia
• Category: Argyle Cut – Wikimedia Commons (photo descriptions)

The Palisade Hotel Millers Point Sydney NSW

The "Palisade Hotel" - Millers Point - NSW

I Happened To Stumble Upon The "Palisade Hotel" Sitting There At What Seems The Top Of Millers Point. All Alone There, Almost Like A Shag On A Rock. I Had Meandered My Way Through The Rocks, The Backlanes, Pathways, Old Houses And Some Historical Sites.
The Hotel Itself Is Closed Down And Looks To Be Abandoned (That was February 2015. It reopened in August 2015.), Except For The Motorbike That Was Sitting Right At The End Of The Verandah. It Was A Very Sad Sight..... In My Eyes Anyway, And I Really Hope No One (The Ruthless, Money Hungry, Developers which I Have Started To See These People As) Knocks It Down And Builds Some Cheap And Nasty Jail Cell Apartments with A Balcony With A View.... Because It's Happening All Around The Surrounds Of The Hotel With The BARANGAROO Development Of The New Casino... (Like 1 Casino Isn't Enough)

The Palisade Hotel: The Story Behind the Pub on the Hill

The Palisade from the east, standing tall over the corner of Argyle Place and Dalgety Road, 2024. Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I've walked up to the Palisade a good few times since that first visit in 2015, when I found it shut up and looking sorry for itself. It's open again now, so I thought it was about time I dug into the story of the place properly. And it turns out it's a much bigger story than one pub. It's about the plague, the Harbour Trust, the wharfies, and a whole suburb that the government more or less rebuilt as a company town.

The Palisade in May 2021, with its tall, narrow front and its verandahs stacked one above the other. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Before the Pub: Coodyee and the Point

This is Gadigal country. The City of Sydney acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora nation as the Traditional Custodians of the area. According to historian Shirley Fitzgerald in the Dictionary of Sydney, the local people who had lived here for thousands of years called the point Coodyee. The nearby headland at Dawes Point was officially given the dual name Dawes Point and Tar-Ra, which was what the original inhabitants called it.

The English name came from windmills. Fitzgerald writes that three mills were built after 1815 on the far point of land facing Cockle Bay, owned by the former convict John Leighton, known as Jack the Miller. Wikipedia tells it a little differently, with a land grant to Sergeant Thomas Miller of the 73rd Regiment on 30 June 1814 and a small mill owned by the ex-convict Jack Leighton, the place becoming known as "Jack, the Miller's Point". Either way, the windmills gave the Point its name.

Millers Point as Joseph Fowles drew it, about 1845. State Library of NSW. Joseph Fowles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

For years it was a hard place to get to. You had to scramble over The Rocks or go round the shoreline. The quarrymen cut away the edges of the Flagstaff Hill for building stone, leaving the high cliffs you still see along Argyle Place and Kent Street. Then the Argyle Cut, finished in 1846 according to Fitzgerald, opened the Point up to the town.

Cuthbert's shipyard and Millers Point, about 1870. City of Sydney Archives, Graeme Andrews Working Harbour Collection. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney's Waterfront Village

By the gold rush years of the 1850s, Fitzgerald calls Millers Point "the most intensely maritime area of Sydney". Just about every job was tied to the wharves, or to the shops, pubs, doss houses and boarding houses that kept the wharfies going. By 1861 there were six large bonded warehouses here, about 400 houses and, as she puts it, "a clutch of pubs".

Miller's Point, from the Royal Australian Historical Society's Osborne Collection, dated 1930 on Commons. Royal Australian Historical Society, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The First Palisade, About 1880

There was a Palisade Hotel on this corner long before the one we see now. According to the heritage listing, as quoted on Wikipedia, the site was owned by James Parle in the 1870s, and the first rate for the hotel was paid in 1880, so it's thought it was built about then. The rate book described it as a three-storey brick-and-stone building with an iron roof and twelve rooms. Henry Taylor kept it until 1911.

And the name? The City of Sydney says the hotel is named after the palisade fence built between Munn and Bettington streets. So it's a fence, not a fort.

Looking up at the Palisade from the street, May 2021. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1900 Plague and the Great Resumption

The 1890s were rough on the Point. Fitzgerald writes that the great maritime strike of 1890 ended with the smashing of the Wharf Labourers' Union, the wool trade collapsed, and work became patchy. Then in January 1900 the plague arrived.

The Dictionary of Sydney says the first reported case of plague in Sydney was a Millers Point man, Arthur Payne (also written Paine), diagnosed on Saturday 19 January 1900. He and his family were sent to the Quarantine Station on 24 January and their house in Ferry Lane was fumigated. He recovered. Over eight months, 303 cases were reported and 103 people died.

The rat catchers, about July 1900. From John Degotardi Jr's photographs of the areas hit by the plague. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The rat incinerator, 1900, from the same series. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fitzgerald describes heavy-handed treatment. The area was quarantined for a time, houses were compulsorily disinfected, and people thought to have been in contact with the disease were ferried to North Head in the dead of night. But the bigger change came after. In her words, the hysteria "gave the government the excuse it needed to resume all the wharves and the streets behind them". By mid-1901 the new Sydney Harbour Trust held more than 800 properties, including 553 houses, between George Street in The Rocks and Kent Street in Millers Point.

95 and 97 Cumberland Street, The Rocks, photographed in 1900 for the Rocks Resumption survey, when the cleansing gangs went through the quarantine area. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The back of the old Flagstaff Hotel, corner of Cumberland and Little Essex streets, from the same 1900 survey. Old pubs like this were part of what the Trust took over. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Harbour Trust Builds a Company Town

The City of Sydney says the Trust was formed in 1901 to rebuild the port. Its first big jobs were new wharves to rent out to private companies, and roads on a massive scale. Whole streets disappeared as the cliff was cut down to make Hickson Road at wharf level. The Munn Street bridge across Hickson Road went up in 1910.

Building the Munn Street bridge at Millers Point, dated 1912 on Commons. Australian National Maritime Museum. Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Fitzgerald says Millers Point became one huge building site. Up to 1,000 men would gather at the corner of Argyle and Kent streets in the mornings, hoping to be picked up for a day's labouring. The Trust built new houses, a kindergarten, red brick shops in Argyle Street, and big red brick hotels like the Palisade. She calls the result "something akin to a company town, with the company being the state". The Trust handed out houses to keep its own workforce close, not by need.

Joseph Duggan's butcher shop in Argyle Street, Millers Point, dated 1906. Australian National Maritime Museum. Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

18–20a Munn Street, right next to the hotel. The City of Sydney calls them the last survivors of the workers' houses the Harbour Trust built in 1910. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sydney Harbour Trust building, about 1925. State Records NSW. State Records NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Henry Deane Walsh

The man behind it all was Henry Deane Walsh, the Trust's engineer-in-chief. The Walsh Bay Wharves page on Wikipedia says he designed and built a new system of wharves, stores, roads and hydraulics, using the steep ground cleverly so the wharves could be worked at two levels, with a ratproof seawall. Walsh Bay is named after him. Hickson Road was named after the Trust's chairman, Robert Rowan Purdon Hickson.

The Walsh Bay wharves today, 2019. They were designed by H.D. Walsh, whose name is also tied to the Palisade. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Old and new side by side at Walsh Bay, 2019. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Building the New Palisade, 1915–16

After the plague the population of the Point grew again, and the heritage listing says the demand for "watering holes" was such that the Trust had to build replacement hotels for the port workers and locals. The Palisade was one of four the Trust built. The others were the Dumbarton Castle, the Big House (now the Sussex Hotel) and the Harbour View Hotel.

The Harbour View Hotel on Lower Fort Street, another of the Trust's four hotels, 2020. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The City of Sydney says the new Palisade was designed by Walsh in the Federation free style. According to the heritage listing, work started on 6 April 1915 and finished in May 1916, at a total cost of just over 3,000 pounds. That's right in the middle of the First World War.

It was five storeys of stone, brick and cement on steel and timber framing. Inside there was a large bar and two parlours on the ground floor, two sitting rooms and a dining room on the first floor, 15 bedrooms, a kitchen, a laundry, bathrooms and pantries. There was a big flat roof for drying the washing, and a fire escape with a landing on every floor.

The side of the Palisade, showing the projecting bays and the arched windows, 2021. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 1916 plans show a long U-shaped bar, with the public bar at the front, a private bar on one side and a jug and bottle department on the other. The two parlours out the back had their own entrance and open fires. Down in the basement were the toilets, the bottle store and the cellar, with a hatch up into the bar.

The heritage listing describes the outside: original ceramic tiles on the ground floor, the original timber doors and windows, two-storey projecting bays with timber shingles above wide arched windows, and a group of narrow arched windows lighting the stairs. It calls the hotel "an exceptional example of a federation free style building with arts and crafts influences", and says its very tall, narrow shape makes it a landmark, closing the view down several streets.

Detail of the Palisade, 2021. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The verandahs of the Palisade, 2021. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Wharfies' Pub

From the 1920s, the heritage listing says, Tooth and Co. held the head lease and sublet the pub to a string of licensees. When the Maritime Services Board took over from the Harbour Trust in 1936, the title went to the MSB, but Tooths kept leasing until 1950. That year the lease was put out to tender, Tooths didn't apply, and the licensee P. K. Armstrong took it on.

Fitzgerald gives a feel for what life was like for the men who drank there. Ships came less often as the century wore on, and in the 1930s men jostled for jobs at the pick-up points. She quotes one memory: "They'd go to Millers Point pick up at 8 o'clock. There were hundreds of men down at Central Wharf … The bloke would come out and he'd get on a box and say 'you, you, you and you'." Shifts could run 24 hours or more, so social life centred on the home, the local pubs and the church.

The liner Megantic at Aberdeen Wharf, Millers Point, about 1920, photographed by Frederick Wilkinson. Australian National Maritime Museum. Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

A 1949 report quoted in the listing shows the pub had changed little. There were twelve single and one double bedroom, with five singles and the double used by the licensee and staff. The kitchen was up on the fourth floor.

Dalgety's Bond Stores, just south of the Munn Street Reserve. The City of Sydney dates the bond store to 1875. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Bridge Cuts the Point Off

Fitzgerald says residents always understood that the resumptions were also about making way for a harbour bridge. As early as January 1902 the Daily Telegraph published a map showing a 130-foot-wide road for a "contemplated bridge over the harbour". When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was finished in 1932, she writes, it strengthened the barrier between Millers Point and The Rocks, and the move to the suburbs it stood for made a place like Millers Point "very passé". After the 1920s, very little changed in the buildings for decades.

The Harbour Bridge going up in 1930, with the vehicular ferries Kooroongabba and Koondooloo below. Tyrell Collection, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Tyrell Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Argyle Cut under the Bridge approach, 2022. The Cut was what first opened the Point up to the town. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Point stayed a Labor stronghold. Fitzgerald notes that in the 1953 state election, when the electorate voted 68 per cent Labor, the Millers Point booth came in at 90 per cent.

Containers, Green Bans and Heritage

The finger wharves of Darling Harbour were turned into roll-on roll-off container terminals in the 1960s. The City of Sydney says the first new wharf was built in 1964, and in 1975 the Maritime Services Board took over the Munn Street Reserve land beside the Palisade for excavation, handing it back to council in September 1981.

Fitzgerald writes that by the 1970s the National Trust was joining forces with radical trade unionists and community groups to stop government-driven high-rise development in The Rocks. Locals at the Point didn't take kindly to being renamed "West Rocks" either. Wikipedia's green bans page says 54 bans were put on in NSW between 1971 and 1974, and that they helped save the historic 19th-century buildings of The Rocks from being knocked down for office towers. By the time the plans ran out of steam, Fitzgerald says, not much redevelopment had happened at Millers Point.

Hickson Road looking west, with the old Harbour Trust/MSB maintenance garage on the right and the Palisade up above the Munn Street bridge. State Records NSW, undated. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The heritage listing records some changes inside over the years: a partition came out of the bar in 1921, ladies' toilets were added in 1939, the original bar counter came out in 1979, and the upstairs rooms were upgraded in 1996.

Private Hands and Heritage Listing

In February 1987 title passed from the MSB into private hands, and in 1994 Palisade Properties Pty Ltd took it over, according to the listing as quoted on Wikipedia. It went on the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999, number 00510. The listing says the Palisade matters because of its link to the government's takeover of the harbour after the 1900 plague, because Walsh designed it, and because it's been in use as a hotel ever since 1916 with relatively few changes.

Hickson Road in 2024, the road the Trust cut down to wharf level. Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Closed, Sold and Open Again

Wikipedia says the Palisade closed for renovations in 2008 and stayed shut for seven years, which explains why it looked so lonely when I wandered past in February 2015. The work added a rooftop bar, a new main bar and boutique rooms. In May 2015 Palisade Properties sold it to British businessman Richard Sapsford for $17.7 million. It reopened in August 2015, and the rooftop bar, called Henry Deane after Walsh, opened that November.

Barangaroo under construction in January 2015, just weeks before my first visit. Saberwyn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

High Street looking over Hickson Road and the Barangaroo works, 2014. Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0 au, via Wikimedia Commons

The Palisade Today

The hotel's own website says there are eight boutique rooms on levels 2 and 3, a ground-floor Public House refurbished in mid-2015, and the Henry Deane cocktail lounge up top, spread over two floors. Down the hill, the old container wharves have become Barangaroo Reserve.

Barangaroo Reserve from the harbour, January 2025. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The city skyline from Barangaroo Reserve, 2018. Rob Deutscher, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Palisade in 2021, open again and still standing over the Point. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Still standing, then, and the developers didn't get it after all. It's worth the climb up Bettington Street for a beer and that view.

Other Old Pubs Around the Point

The Palisade in March 2007, the year before it closed for renovations. Mick Stanic (SplaTT), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Lord Nelson on Kent Street and Argyle Place, 2009. Wikipedia says it was built in about 1836. Adam.J.W.C., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hero of Waterloo, Lower Fort Street, on a Kodachrome slide from about 1985. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Argyle Place, Millers Point, 2020. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• c.1815 – Windmills on the point give Millers Point its name (Dictionary of Sydney)
• 1846 – Argyle Cut opens the Point to the town (Dictionary of Sydney)
• 1870s – James Parle owns the hotel site
• 1880 – First rate paid on the first Palisade Hotel
• to 1911 – Henry Taylor keeps the old hotel
• 19 Jan 1900 – Arthur Payne of Ferry Lane diagnosed with plague, Sydney's first reported case
• 1901 – Sydney Harbour Trust formed; by mid-year it holds over 800 properties
• 1910 – Munn Street bridge built; Trust workers' houses in Munn Street
• 6 Apr 1915 – Building of the new Palisade begins
• May 1916 – New Palisade finished, at just over £3,000
• 1920s – Tooth and Co. take the head lease
• 1932 – Sydney Harbour Bridge finished
• 1936 – Maritime Services Board takes over from the Trust
• 1950 – Licensee P. K. Armstrong takes the lease
• 1971–74 – Green bans in NSW, including The Rocks
• 1979 – Original bar counter removed
• Feb 1987 – Title passes into private ownership
• 1994 – Palisade Properties Pty Ltd takes title
• 2 Apr 1999 – Listed on the State Heritage Register (00510)
• 2008 – Closed for renovations
• Feb 2015 – My first visit: shut up and empty
• May 2015 – Sold to Richard Sapsford for $17.7 million
• Aug 2015 – Reopens; Henry Deane rooftop bar opens in November

Where the Sources Disagree

• How Millers Point got its name. The Dictionary of Sydney credits three windmills built after 1815 by the former convict John Leighton ("Jack the Miller"). Wikipedia adds a land grant to Sergeant Thomas Miller on 30 June 1814 and calls Leighton's mill "small".
• Architect or engineer? The City of Sydney calls Henry Deane Walsh the Trust's engineer-in-chief who designed the hotel. Wikipedia says the hotel "was designed by" him, and the heritage listing calls him "an engineer important in the history of NSW". He was an engineer, not a trained architect.
• How many storeys? The 1916 description in the heritage listing says five storeys. The modern description counts seven, including the basement and the rooftop bar.
• How many rooms? The old hotel had twelve rooms (rate book). In 1916 there were 15 bedrooms. In 1949 there were thirteen. The hotel's website now lists eight.
• When the Walsh Bay works were done. Wikipedia's Walsh Bay page gives 1912–1921 in one place and 1906–1922 in another.
• Mid-2015 refurbishment. Wikipedia says the hotel was closed from 2008 for seven years. The hotel's website says the Public House was refurbished in mid-2015.

My Earlier Posts

• The Rocks And Barangaroo
• Sydney Past & Present – The Rocks Resumptions
• Sydney and Bubonic Plague in 1901 – Rats
• Walsh Bay Wharves – The Rocks Area
• Hero of Waterloo – Lower Fort & Windmill Streets – Millers Point
• Lord Nelson Hotel – The Rocks
• Argyle Street – Millers Point
• The Argyle Cut – Argyle Street – Millers Point
• Windmill Street Quarry – Millers Point
• Garrison Church – Lower Fort Street
• Dawes Point – Tar-ra
• Barangaroo – Maritime – Coastal – Inner Sydney
• Bradfield – The Harbour Bridge
• Sydney Harbour Bridge 80th Anniversary (2012)
• Richmond Villa – 116–122 Kent Street

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Palisade Hotel" (text based on NSW State Heritage Register entry 00510, CC BY 4.0)
• City of Sydney, "History of Munn Street Reserve", 2013
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Millers Point", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008
• Wikipedia, "Millers Point, New South Wales"
• Wikipedia, "Walsh Bay Wharves Precinct"
• Wikipedia, "Green ban"
• Hotel Palisade, official website
• City of Sydney, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories (acknowledgement of the Gadigal)
• Pictures: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image