The Sydney Green Plaques – The 101 Round Green Historical Markers of Old Sydney – Royal Australian Historical Society – 1984 to 1988

Green Plaque No. 85, The Domain, sitting in a garden bed. Round, green and numbered, it is easy to see why you might call them clocks. Chris.sherlock2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you've walked around the old parts of Sydney with your head up, or down, you've probably spotted them. Round green discs, a bit like a clock face, bolted to a wall or set into a footpath, each with a few lines of history and a number. I've always called them the green clocks. Their proper name is the Sydney Green Plaques, and there aren't 100 of them. There are 101.

I first put a bare list of them up on this blog in 2023. This is the fuller story: who put them up, when, what they say, and where to find them, with a link to my own post wherever I've written one up.

What the Green Plaques Are

The Dictionary of Sydney says that between 1984 and 1988 the Royal Australian Historical Society, working with the City of Sydney and the State Bank of New South Wales, produced 101 commemorative plaques. They were put up around the city's CBD on historic sites and buildings to mark the Australian Bicentenary. The Society's own history page puts it simply: in 1985 it worked with the State Bank to pick and place descriptive plaques on 101 historic sites in the Sydney area.

The very first one went up on 15 July 1984, on the site of the old New South Wales Savings Bank at Circular Quay, better known as Campbell's Bank. Its words read that the bank "was opened near this site on 17 July 1819. This marked the beginning of the State Bank of New South Wales". With the State Bank paying for a good part of the scheme, it's no surprise their own beginnings got plaque number one. The plaques were made by a sign company called Arrow Engravings, according to the Dictionary of Sydney.

The Dictionary also notes that a number of the originals have been lost or destroyed over the years, and that a program to replace them had begun. So if you go hunting for all 101, don't be surprised if a few are missing.

History House at 133 Macquarie Street, home of the Royal Australian Historical Society since 1971, and Green Plaque No. 2. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where the Idea Came From

The Society didn't start with the green ones. An article in the Society's History magazine (No. 117, September 2013) says it was Charles Henry Bertie, the librarian and historian, who first suggested historical plaques for Sydney, inspired by London's Blue Plaques. The first RAHS plaque went up in 1919 to mark the site of the First Government House, and about 35 more followed over the next 40 years.

The Society itself goes back to 15 March 1901, when, on a day of heavy rain, not more than ten people turned up to the first meeting of the Australian Historical Society. It got the right to call itself Royal in 1918, opened its first History House at 8 Young Street in 1941, and moved to the present History House at 133 Macquarie Street in 1971. That building carries Green Plaque No. 2, which says it was designed in 1871 by George Allen Mansfield for George Oakes of Parramatta, pastoralist and politician.

The 101 Green Plaques

Here's the full list. The names come from the Dictionary of Sydney's record of the series. The locations are from my own field list, tidied up, with the Dictionary's details used where it gives them. Where I've written up the place, the last column links to my post.

No.	Plaque	Where	My post
1	Campbell's Bank	Circular Quay West
2	History House	133 Macquarie Street	Read it
3	The Lands Department	Bridge Street, between Gresham and Loftus Streets	Read it · Marker 3 post
4	Treasury & Audit Office	Bridge Street, corner Macquarie Street	Read it
5	The First Execution	Corner Essex and Harrington Streets, The Rocks	Read it
6	St James' Church	King Street, near Macquarie Street	Read it
7	Tank Stream	Hunter Street	Read it
8	Mort's Wool Store	Young Street, corner Albert Street
9	Legislative Assembly Chamber	Parliament House, Macquarie Street	Read it
10	The Supreme Court	Elizabeth Street, corner King Street	Read it
11	General Post Office	Martin Place	Read it
12	The Strand Arcade	Between George and Pitt Streets
13	City Railway	St James station
14	Palace Garden gates	Botanic Gardens entrance, Macquarie Street	Read it
15	Bridge Street Bridge	Bridge Street, corner Pitt Street
16	The Observatory	Observatory Hill, The Rocks	Read it
17	Horbury Terrace	Macquarie Street, near Bent Street
18	Walsh Bay Wharves	Hickson Road, The Rocks	Read it
19	Redfern Mortuary Terminal	Regent Street, south of Central	Read it
20	Marcus Clark Building	Railway Square, George and Pitt Streets	Read it
21	Sydney Town Hall	George Street	Read it
22	Marble Bar	Hilton Hotel, between George and Pitt Streets	Read it
23	Sydney Exchange	Bridge Street, between Pitt and Gresham Streets	Read it
24	Mark Foy's Department Store	Castlereagh Street, near Liverpool Street	Read it
25	School of Arts	Pitt Street, south of the Hilton Hotel	Read it
26	Hydraulic Pumphouse	Pier Street, Darling Harbour	Read it
27	Lieutenant Governor's House	George Street, corner Grosvenor Street	Read it
28	National Trust Centre/Old Fort Street School	Observatory Hill, The Rocks	Read it
29	Georgian School	Elizabeth Street
30	Sydney Trades Hall	Goulburn Street, near Dixon Street	Read it
31	Conservatorium of Music	Between Macquarie Street and the Botanic Gardens	Read it
32	Judge's House	Kent Street	Read it
33	New South Wales Club	Bligh Street	Read it
34	Old Sydney Burial Ground	George Street, Town Hall area	Read it
35	York Street Synagogue	York Street	Read it
36	St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church	Grosvenor Street	Read it
37	Young Men's Christian Association	Pitt Street, corner Bathurst Street
38	Wyoming	Macquarie Street, corner Hunter Street	Read it
39	Australia Hotel	Castlereagh Street	Read it
40	Tramway Depot	Bridge Street, corner Phillip Street
41	Lord Nelson Hotel	Kent Street, corner Argyle Street	Read it
42	Australian Subscription Library/Former Public Library	Macquarie Street, corner Bent Street	Read it
43	Customs House	Alfred Street, Circular Quay	Read it
44	Australian Gas Light Company	Jenkins Street	Read it
45	Francis Greenway's House	George Street, corner Argyle Street	Read it
46	The Nightingale Wing	Sydney Hospital, Macquarie Street	Read it
47	AWA Building	York Street
48	The Lumber Yard	Bridge Street	Read it
49	Reading the Riot Act	Macquarie Street
50	The Lawsons' House	Phillip Street
51	The Mint	Macquarie Street	Read it
52	'Banjo' Paterson's Office	Bond Street
53	Larry Foley's Hotel	George Street
54	Boston's Windmill	Royal Botanic Garden
55	Governor's Bathing House	Royal Botanic Garden	Read it
56	Devonshire Street Cemetery	Elizabeth Street	Read it
57	The Carters' Barracks	Pitt Street, corner Eddy Avenue	Read it
58	George Allen's House	Elizabeth Street
59	The Outbreak of the Plague	Lower Fort Street, corner Ferry Lane	Read it
60	Semi Circular Quay	Alfred Street	Read it
61	The Sydney Gazette Office	George Street, corner Alfred Street	Read it
62	Simeon Lord's House	Macquarie Place	Read it
63	Glover Cottages	Kent Street	Read it
64	Culwulla Chambers	Castlereagh Street, corner King Street	Read it
65	Fort Phillip	Observatory Hill	Read it
66	Jack Lang's Birthplace	George Street
67	St Brigid's Church School	Kent Street, corner Argyle Street
68	Underwood's Shipyard	Underwood Street	Read it
69	Hyde Park Barracks	Macquarie Street	Read it
70	Powerhouse	Mary Ann Street, Ultimo
71	First Public Demonstration of Wireless	Elizabeth Street
72	Sydney Opera House	Bennelong Point	Read it
73	Site of the First Gaol	George Street, corner Essex Street	Read it
74	Theatre Royal	George Street	Read it
75	Queen Victoria Building (Police Office)	Queen Victoria Building, Druitt Street side	Read it
76	Queen Victoria Building (Markets)	Queen Victoria Building, Market Street side	Read it
77	The First Traffic Lights	Kent Street, corner Market Street
78	D'Arcy Wentworth's House	Macquarie Street, Queens Square
79	Former Supreme Court and Registry Office	Elizabeth Street and St James Road
80	Former Sydney Morning Herald Building	Pitt Street, corner O'Connell Street
81	F Kanematsu's Japanese Warehouse	O'Connell Street
82	Mitchell Wing	Mitchell Wing, State Library, Macquarie Street	Read it
83	David Jones' First Shop	George Street, corner Jamison Street	Read it
84	The Macquarie Wall	Royal Botanic Garden	Read it
85	The Domain	The Domain	Read it
86	Farm Cove	Farm Cove, Royal Botanic Garden	Read it
87	State Theatre	Market Street	Read it
88	Henry Parkes' Shop	Hunter Street
89	The Military Barracks	Wynyard Park	Read it
90	Hyde Park	Elizabeth Street	Read it
91	Sydney Grammar School	College Street	Read it
92	Water Police Court	Corner Phillip and Alfred Streets	Read it
93	Phillip Street Police Station B	Corner Phillip and Alfred Streets	Read it
94	Police Court C	Corner Phillip and Alfred Streets	Read it
95	The Tivoli Theatre	Castlereagh Street, corner Hay Street
96	A Great Fire in the City	Martin Place
97	Holy Trinity School	Argyle Street, The Rocks	Read it
98	The Trocadero	George Street	Read it
99	Lyons Terrace	Liverpool Street
100	State Bank Building	Martin Place
101	The Female Immigrants' Home	Corner Bent and Phillip Streets

The Lands Department building in Bridge Street, Green Plaque No. 3. The plaque says James Barnet designed it and it went up in two stages, in 1876 and 1888. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Some of the Ones Worth Stopping For

No. 5 – The First Execution

At the corner of Essex and Harrington Streets in The Rocks, the plaque reads: "Thomas Barrett, a First Fleet convict, was hanged near this place on 27 February 1788 for stealing provisions and was buried nearby." That's barely a month after the First Fleet arrived. I've written the full story in The First Execution in the Colony.

No. 4 – Treasury and Audit Office

The old Treasury building, now part of the InterContinental Hotel. The plaque says Mortimer Lewis designed it and it was built in 1849–1851. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says these offices were designed by Mortimer Lewis, Colonial Architect, and built in 1849–1851, and that "early shipments from the goldfields were stored here". See my post Treasury & Audit Office.

No. 6 – St James' Church

St James' Church, King Street, photographed by Henry King around the turn of the last century. Henry King (1855-1923), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A lovely bit of trivia on this one. The plaque says the church was "intended in 1819 as a court house", was designed by Francis Greenway, and was consecrated by the Rev Samuel Marsden on 11 February 1824. My post: St James Church – 173 King Street.

No. 9 – Legislative Assembly Chamber

Outside Parliament House, the plaque says the chamber "has been occupied by the Lower House of the New South Wales Parliament since the inception of responsible government in 1856". My post: NSW Parliament.

No. 12 – The Strand Arcade

Inside the Strand Arcade, looking down from the top level. Chris Olszewski, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the arcade was designed by John Spencer, opened in 1892, and is "the last remaining example of a form of retail shopping once common in Sydney".

No. 16 – The Observatory

Sydney Observatory on Observatory Hill, with the time ball on top, December 2022. Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the building was begun in 1857 and used by the Government Astronomer until 1982, and that it "played a major part in both astronomical and meteorological studies in Australia". My post: Observatory Hill – Fort Phillip – Sydney Observatory.

No. 17 – Horbury Terrace

What's left of Horbury Terrace on Macquarie Street. Sardaka at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

These houses, the plaque says, were once part of a terrace of eight built in 1842 for Ouseley Condell. The name comes from the second owner, Thomas Holt, who was born in Horbury, Yorkshire.

No. 19 – Redfern Mortuary Terminal

Mortuary Station on Regent Street, where the funeral trains left for Rookwood. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the more unusual stories on the list. The plaque says a funeral train service ran from Sydney to the Necropolis (Rookwood Cemetery) from 1867 until 1948, and that this station and a matching "receiving house" at the cemetery were finished in 1869. My post: Mortuary Station – Central – Chippendale.

No. 23 – The Sydney Exchange

The plaque says the Sydney Exchange Company opened a building here on 30 December 1857 as a centre for merchants and for the exchange of commercial information, and that it became the Royal Exchange in 1901. My post: Royal Exchange of Sydney.

No. 26 – The Hydraulic Pumphouse

The old Hydraulic Pump Station at 17 Little Pier Street, Haymarket. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My post: The Hydraulic Pumphouse – Pier Street.

No. 31 – Conservatorium of Music

The Conservatorium of Music, built as the Government House stables. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

OpenPlaques records the wording of this one: the building was designed by Francis Greenway and begun in 1817 as stables and servants' quarters for Government House, and after a good deal of alteration it became the Conservatorium of Music in 1915. My post: Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

No. 41 – Lord Nelson Hotel

The Lord Nelson Hotel on the corner of Kent and Argyle Streets, Millers Point. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the hotel was first licensed in 1841 when the landlord was William Wells, a former convict, and that "it is believed to be the oldest existing hotel building in Sydney". My post: Lord Nelson Hotel – The Rocks.

No. 43 – Customs House

Customs House, Circular Quay. Photograph by Greg O'Beirne, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the first Collector of Customs was appointed in 1827, the department had been on this site since 1845, and after Federation customs duties passed from State to Federal control. My post: Customs House – 31 Alfred Street.

No. 51 – The Mint

The Royal Mint's Sydney branch on Macquarie Street in 1870, attributed to Charles Pickering. attributed to Charles Pickering, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Mint building on Macquarie Street today. Sardaka at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My post: The Sydney Mint – Macquarie Street.

No. 59 – The Outbreak of the Plague

Down on Lower Fort Street the plaque tells a grim one: "In 1900 bubonic plague broke out in Sydney. Arthur Payne, a lorry driver at the wharves who lived in a house near this site, was the first person to contract the disease." It goes on to say that much run-down housing in this part of The Rocks was knocked down during the clean-up. My post: Sydney and Bubonic Plague – Rats.

No. 67 – St Brigid's Church School

St Brigid's Church School on Kent Street, Millers Point. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the building was designed to the specifications of Dr W.B. Ullathorne, Vicar-General, and opened in 1835 as a school and "occasional chapel", and that it had kept serving both purposes ever since.

No. 69 – Hyde Park Barracks

Hyde Park Barracks on Macquarie Street. Kanzcech, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My post: Hyde Park Barracks – Macquarie Street.

No. 71 – First Public Demonstration of Wireless

The Dictionary of Sydney says this plaque marks the Royal Society of NSW's lecture room at 5 Elizabeth Street North. On 13 August 1919 Fisk had a gramophone record of the national anthem played in the Amalgamated Wireless office at 97 Clarence Street and sent across by wireless to the lecture he was giving here.

No. 72 – Sydney Opera House

The Opera House from the Harbour Bridge, 2008. Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the Opera House was begun in 1957 and officially opened on 20 October 1973, and that the site had earlier held Fort Macquarie, finished in 1821, and a tram depot opened in 1903. My post: The Sydney Opera House.

No. 73 – Site of the First Gaol

On George Street at the corner of Essex Street. I've written this one up in full in The First Gaol – George Street North.

Nos. 75 and 76 – The Queen Victoria Building

The Queen Victoria Building, which carries two green plaques. Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The QVB carries two plaques. No. 75 marks the old Central Police Station and Court House. No. 76 says the building first opened on 21 July 1898 and was brought back into commercial use in 1986 after a big renovation, and that an earlier market house designed by Francis Greenway was used from 1827 until 1892 as the Central Police Court. My posts: The Queen Victoria Building and The Police Offices – George Street.

No. 82 – Mitchell Wing

The Mitchell Library under construction in 1907. Federated Builders' Association of Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This plaque sits on a stone balustrade facing Shakespeare Place, west of the Mitchell Wing steps. It says the wing opened in 1910 and "houses the priceless Australian and Pacific collection bequeathed to the people of this State by David Scott Mitchell". My post: State Library of NSW – Mitchell Wing.

No. 84 – The Macquarie Wall

The surviving piece of the Macquarie Wall in the Royal Botanic Garden. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

"In 1810, at the instigation of Governor Macquarie, work began on a wall 950 feet long to separate the government domain from the town. Only this small portion of that wall now remains." My post: The Macquarie Wall.

No. 85 – The Domain

This is the one in the photo at the top. Going by the photographer's notes on Wikimedia Commons, it reads: "The government domain was set aside in 1788 for the private use of the Governor of New South Wales. It first opened to the people in 1816 and later became a place for public recreation." My post: The Government Domain.

No. 91 – Sydney Grammar School

Sydney Grammar School on College Street, from the Tyrrell Collection. Tyrrell Photographic Collection, Powerhouse Museum, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The plaque says the building was finished in 1835 and used by the Sydney College until 1850, that Sydney Grammar School has been there since 1857, and that the University of Sydney was inaugurated here in 1852. My post: Sydney Grammar School.

Nos. 92, 93 and 94 – The Phillip Street Police Precinct

The Justice and Police Museum, the old Water Police Court buildings on Phillip Street. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The old Phillip Street Police Station. Sardaka at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Three plaques in a row on one corner: the Water Police Court (92), the Phillip Street Police Station (93) and the Police Court (94). My posts: The Water Police Court, Historical Marker 93 and Historical Marker 94.

No. 95 – The Tivoli Theatre

The plaque says the theatre opened as the Adelphi in 1911, later became the Grand Opera House, was renamed the New Tivoli in 1932, and stood on the site until 1969. "It was famous as the home of vaudeville in Sydney."

No. 97 – Holy Trinity School

Holy Trinity, the Garrison Church, at Millers Point. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My post on the church next door: Garrison Church.

No. 101 – The Female Immigrants' Home

The last of the set, in Bent Street. "Caroline Chisholm, 'the emigrant's friend', opened the Female Immigrants' Home on this site in 1841. During a major period of free migration Mrs Chisholm worked to improve conditions for women migrants on their arrival in the colony."

Sydney Town Hall, Green Plaque No. 21. JustARandomEditor123, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another view of the Lord Nelson, No. 41. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Phillip Street buildings from another angle, home to plaques 92, 93 and 94. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 15 March 1901 – The Australian Historical Society holds its first meeting.
• 1918 – The Society is allowed to add "Royal" to its name.
• 1919 – The first RAHS plaque marks the site of the First Government House.
• 1919–1959 – About 35 more RAHS plaques go up.
• 1941 – The first History House opens at 8 Young Street.
• 1971 – The Society moves to History House, 133 Macquarie Street.
• 15 July 1984 – Green Plaque No. 1 goes up at the site of Campbell's Bank, Circular Quay.
• 1985 – Many of the early numbers go up, including History House, the Lands Department, the Treasury, the First Execution, St James', Parliament and the Strand Arcade.
• 1984–1988 – All 101 plaques are installed for the Bicentenary.
• September 2013 – History magazine No. 117 runs an article on the green plaques scheme.
• 2015 – I post Historical Markers 3, 93 and 94.
• 2021 – The Dictionary of Sydney is archived. Its record says a replacement program for lost plaques had begun.
• August 2023 – I post my first list of all 101.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When they went up. The Dictionary of Sydney says 1984 to 1988, with No. 1 going up on 15 July 1984. The RAHS history page gives 1985. The 2013 History magazine abstract says the program was launched in 1988. They probably went up over the four years, with 1988 as the Bicentenary year.
• Which bank. The Dictionary of Sydney's main entry and the RAHS both name the State Bank of New South Wales. The Dictionary's entries for single plaques, and OpenPlaques, list the Rural Bank of New South Wales as a creator.
• 100 or 101. I remembered there being 100 of them. Every source I found says 101.
• Blue or green. The photo of No. 85 on Wikimedia Commons is titled a "blue plaque", but the plaque in the picture is clearly green.
• No. 13. My list called it St James Railway Station. The Dictionary of Sydney names the plaque "City Railway" and says it is outside St James station.
• No. 20. My list put it at Railway Square. The Dictionary of Sydney gives 814 George Street, near Pitt Street.
• Nos. 93 and 94. My list put them at Phillip and Alfred Streets, but my 2015 post on No. 93 says Phillip and Albert Streets.
• Lord Nelson licence. Plaque No. 41 says the hotel was first licensed in 1841. The Commons photo description says the licence was issued in 1842.

My Earlier Posts

• No. 2: History House – 133 Macquarie Street – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 3: The New South Wales Lands Department – Bridge Street – Old Sydney
• No. 4: Treasury & Audit Office – Bridge St and Macquarie Street
• No. 5: The First Execution In The Colony - Corner Essex St & Harrington Street
• No. 6: St James Church - 173 King Street
• No. 7: The Tank Stream – Sydney – From Gadigal Water to Stormwater Drain
• No. 9: NSW Parliament - Macquarie Street - Sydney
• No. 10: NSW Supreme Court - King Street - Queens Sqaure - Sydney - NSW
• No. 11: Sydney G.P.O. - General Post Office - Martin Place - Sydney - NSW
• No. 14: The Garden Palace – The Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and the Great Fire of 22 September 1882
• No. 16: Observatory Hill - Fort Phillip - Sydney Observatory - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 18: Walsh Bay Wharves - The Rocks Area - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 19: Mortuary Station – Central – Chippendale
• No. 20: Marcus Clarke Building - Railway Squre - George Street And Pitt Street - Sydney - NSW
• No. 21: Sydney Town Hall – George St & Park / Druitt Street – Sydney
• No. 22: The Marble Bar – Pitt Street – Sydney – Historical Significance
• No. 23: Royal Exchange Of Sydney - Bridge Street - Between Pitt And Gresham Street - Sydney
• No. 24: Mark Foys - Liverpool And Elizabeth Streets
• No. 25: The Sydney Mechanics School Of Arts - Pitt Street - Sydney
• No. 26: The Hydraulic Pumphouse - Pier Street - Darling Harbour - Sydney - NSW
• No. 27: Lieutenant Governor’s Residence - George And Grosvenor St
• No. 28: The National Trust Centre - Formerly Fort Street School - Former Military Hospital - Observatory Hill - Sydney
• No. 30: Sydney Trades Hall - Goulburn Street Cnr Dixon Street - Sydney
• No. 31: Sydney Conservatorium of Music - The Old Government House Horse Stables - The Government Domain - Sydney
• No. 32: The Judges House – Kent Street – Sydney
• No. 33: The New South Wales Club - Bligh Street - Sydney
• No. 34: Old Sydney Burial Ground - Town Hall Area - George Street - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 35: York Street Synagogue - York Street - Sydney
• No. 36: St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church – Grosvenor Street – Sydney
• No. 38: "Wyoming" - Macquarie Street - Sydney
• No. 39: Australia Hotel - Castlereagh Street - SYDNEY
• No. 41: Lord Nelson Hotel – The Rocks – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 42: Sydney’s First Free Subscription Library - Bent Street - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 43: Customs House – 31 Alfred Street – Circular Quay – Sydney Cove – From Warrane to the City Library
• No. 44: The Australian Gas Light Company - Jenkins Street - Sydney
• No. 45: Francis Greenway’s Residence – George Street, Cnr Argyle Street – The Rocks – Sydney
• No. 46: Sydney Hospital – The Rum Hospital – Macquarie Street, Sydney – From Macquarie's Rum Deal to the Nightingale Wing and Il Porcellino
• No. 48: The Lumber Yard - Bridge Street - Southern Side - Between George & Pitt Streets
• No. 51: The Sydney Mint – Macquarie Street – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 55: The Governor’s Bathing House – Royal Botanic Gardens – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 56: Devonshire Street Cemetery – The Burial Ground Under Central Station
• No. 57: Carter’s (Belmore) Barracks – Devonshire Street Cemetery
• No. 59: Sydney and Bubonic Plague in 1901 – Rats
• No. 60: Semi-Circular Quay – Port Jackson – Sydney Harbour
• No. 61: Sydney’s First Newspaper - The Sydney Gazette - George St Near Alfred St - Circular Quay
• No. 62: Simeon Lords Mansion - Macquarie Place - Sydney - NSW
• No. 63: Glover Cottages - Kent Street - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 64: Culwulla Chambers – 67 Castlereagh Street, Cnr King Street – Sydney
• No. 65: Fort Phillip – Observatory Hill
• No. 68: Underwood Street - Laneways - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 69: Hyde Park Barracks - Macquarie Street
• No. 72: The Sydney Opera House – From Cattle Point and Bennelong Point to Fort Macquarie and Utzon's Sails – 1788 to Today
• No. 73: The First Gaol – George Street North, The Rocks – Sydney's Log Gaol, Stone Gaol and Gallows – 1797 to 1841
• No. 74: The Sydney Theatre Royal - George Street Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 75: The Police Offices - George Street - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 76: The Queen Victoria Building – George Street – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 82: State Library Of New South Wales - Mitchell Wing - Macquarie Street - Sydney
• No. 83: David Jones - Retailer - First Store - George Street Cnr Barrack Street - Sydney - NSW
• No. 84: The Macquarie Wall – The Royal Botanic Gardens
• No. 85: The Government Domain – Next to the Royal Botanic Gardens – Macquarie Street – Sydney – NSW
• No. 86: Farm Cove – Next to the Royal Botanic Gardens – Sydney – New South Wales
• No. 87: The State Theatre - Market Street - Sydney - New South Wales
• No. 89: Wynyard – From Gadigal Country and the Military Barracks to Wynyard Square, Wynyard Park and Wynyard Station – Sydney – NSW
• No. 90: Hyde Park - Sydney
• No. 91: Sydney Grammar School - College Street - Sydney
• No. 92: The Water Police Court – Phillip Street, Circular Quay – Edmund Blacket's 1856 Courthouse and the Justice and Police Museum
• No. 93: Phillip Street Police Station – Corner Phillip St & Albert St – Green Plaque – Historical Marker 93
• No. 94: Sydney Police Court – Historical Marker Number 94
• No. 97: Garrison Church - Lower Fort Street - Argyle Street - The Rocks
• No. 98: The Trocadero - George Street - Sydney
• No. 3: The Lands Department - Sydney Historical Marker Number 3 - Bridge Street - Sydney

Sources

• Dictionary of Sydney, "Sydney Green Plaques": https://dictionaryofsydney.org/artefact/sydney_green_plaques
• Royal Australian Historical Society, "Our History": https://www.rahs.org.au/our-history/
• "Sydney's green plaques scheme", History (RAHS magazine), No. 117, September 2013, p. 24, abstract on Informit: https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026051100009702133468472
• OpenPlaques, Green plaque No. 59154 (Conservatorium of Music, No. 31): https://openplaques.org/plaques/59154
• My earlier list, "The Historical Sydney Green Plaques" (2023): https://myozhistoryjourney.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-historical-sydney-green-plaques.html
• Dictionary of Sydney entries for each plaque, Nos. 1 to 101, linked from the table above.
• Wikimedia Commons file pages for each photo, linked from the pictures.

Sydney Trams – From Horse Trams to Light Rail – A History of Sydney Transport

If you grew up in Sydney before 1961, or if your parents or grandparents did, you've probably heard the stories. The rattle of the old toast-rack trams down George Street, the conductor swinging along the footboard collecting fares, packed trams heading out to the Showground, the races at Randwick or the beach at Bondi and Coogee. For about eighty years trams were simply how Sydney got around. Then, almost overnight it seemed, they were gone, and for a long time all we had left were a few rusty rails poking through the bitumen and the old saying "shoot through like a Bondi tram". Now trams are back in George Street, so I thought it was time to tell the whole story, from the first horse tram in Pitt Street to the new light rail, with a look at the buses, trains and ferries along the way.

The Pitt Street Horse Tram, 1861–1866

Sydney's first tram ran along Pitt Street, between Circular Quay and the railway terminus out at the Cleveland Paddocks, roughly where Prince Alfred Park and the southern end of Central are today. The idea was as much about freight as passengers. The government wanted to haul railway goods wagons through the town to the wharves, and the passenger traffic came along with it.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 December 1861, the line "was permanently opened for traffic yesterday", so that's 23 December 1861. The first car, pulled by four horses, left Circular Quay at 6.25 in the morning to meet the 6.45 train at Redfern, and covered the mile and three-quarters in less than ten minutes.

It was never a happy line. The rails imported from England turned out to be unsuitable and were laid upside down, so the flanges stuck up above the road surface. Carts and carriages came to grief on them, and the Pitt Street shopkeepers complained almost from the start. Then on 15 January 1864 the composer Isaac Nathan, often called the father of Australian music, was crushed by a tram after getting off at the corner of Pitt and Goulburn Streets, near his home. He is thought to have been the first person killed by a tram in Australia. A parliamentary committee recommended the line be removed when its lease ran out, and it closed at the end of 1866. Horse-drawn omnibuses took over straight away.

Steam Trams and the Garden Palace, 1879

For nearly thirteen years after that, Sydney had no trams at all. What brought them back was the great Sydney International Exhibition of 1879, held in the Garden Palace, the huge timber exhibition building in the Domain that burnt down in 1882. The government needed a way to get crowds from the railway terminus to the exhibition, and a line was hurriedly laid from the station along Elizabeth Street to Hunter Street. Steam tram motors were ordered from the Baldwin works in Philadelphia.

The line opened on 16 September 1879, the day before the exhibition, and the plan was to pull it up again afterwards. People still remembered the Pitt Street fiasco, and nobody expected much. Instead it was a runaway success. The Commissioner for Railways reported that it had carried more than 400,000 passengers by the end of 1879, or about 4,000 a day, and returned a handsome profit on the money spent. The temporary line stayed, and in April 1880 Parliament passed an Act allowing tramways to be built through the city and suburbs.

King and Elizabeth Streets on the first night the first tram ran, 1879, drawn by J. Flynn.
Credit: State Library of New South Wales (call no. SSV / 23), no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons.

From there it grew fast. The first suburban extension went out to Randwick Racecourse in 1880, the line up Crown Street to Surry Hills opened in 1881, Botany followed in 1882, Coogee in 1883 and Bondi in 1884, and more lines kept coming. The Dictionary of Sydney says the network grew from 2.5 kilometres in 1879 to almost 50 kilometres by 1884. A steam tram was a small engine, or "motor", pulling one or more trailers, some of them double-deckers, with the passengers sitting crosswise and the conductor collecting fares from the footboard. Tramwaymen called a motor with two trailers "two rooms and a kitchen". They were quick and reliable, but noisy, smoky and dusty, and they struggled on steep hills. The Herald remembered in 1961 that drivers on the Surry Hills line liked to race the five-horse omnibus up Crown Street from Oxford Street to the Cleveland Street terminus, whips cracking and throttle wide open, and the tram didn't always win.

A steam tram motor and its trailer at the corner of Market and Elizabeth Streets, about 1885.
Credit: NSW State Archives and Records (Digital ID 17420_a014_a0140001142), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Cable Trams for the Steep Bits

Steam motors didn't like hills, and Sydney has plenty of them. Two lines were built as cable tramways instead. A steam winding engine kept an endless steel cable moving in a slot under the road, and the gripman on the open "dummy" car clamped onto it to move off, pulling an enclosed trailer behind.

The first ran up the steep climb from the ferry wharf at Milsons Point to Ridge Street, North Sydney, opening in May 1886, and was later extended to Crows Nest. The second opened on 19 September 1894 and ran from King Street, near the wharves on Darling Harbour, up through Darlinghurst to Ocean Street, Woollahra (Edgecliff), worked from a winding house at Rushcutters Bay. The Herald later recalled that the cable ran at a steady 12 miles an hour, and if a gripman misjudged a curve and stalled, the passengers got out and pushed. The cable trams didn't last long. The North Sydney line went electric in 1900, and cable working in King Street ended in January 1905.

A cable tram climbing King Street towards Queens Square in early 1895, with a crowd gathered outside the Daily Telegraph office to read the latest news.
Credit: Photo H. King; Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons.

Horses Again

Horse trams made a short comeback in the 1890s and 1900s, as a cheap stopgap on lines that didn't have the passengers to pay for steam. From December 1894 to July 1898, two little one-horse cars, numbers 198 and 199, ran a shuttle between Newtown and St Peters stations. Over at Manly, the new line to Curl Curl (North Manly) opened with steam in February 1903, but when passenger numbers dropped off it switched to horses that July, and steam didn't come back until October 1907. Car 199 survives in the Powerhouse collection.

Horse car 199 outside Newtown Station, waiting to run the shuttle to St Peters, about 1894.
Credit: NSW State Archives and Records, public domain (PD-Australia), via Wikimedia Commons.

Going Electric

Electric trams were what really made Sydney a tram town. There were experiments first: a battery tram at Botany in 1888, and an overhead-wire line on the Waverley to Randwick extension in 1890. The first permanent electric line opened on the North Shore in 1893, running from Ridge Street along Military Road towards Spit Junction and Mosman. The early cars had bamboo trolley poles, and because there weren't enough of them, they sometimes towed a cable trailer behind. An electric line from Rose Bay to Ocean Street, Woollahra, followed in 1898.

The real turning point came on 8 December 1899, when the first electric trams in the city proper began running along George Street, from Circular Quay to the Railway and on to Pyrmont via Harris Street. Power came from the new government power station at Ultimo. The public loved the quiet, clean new cars. According to the Sydney Tramway Museum's journal Trolley Wire, the trams carried 76.4 million passengers in the year to June 1899 and 176.2 million ten years later. By 1909, between 5 and 6.30 on a weekday evening, a tram crossed the corner of George and King Streets every eight seconds.

Most of the steam lines were converted by about 1910, and the steam motors were sent out to the edges of the network. A few lasted much longer on isolated lines. The Kogarah to Sans Souci steam tram ran until 1937, when trolleybuses replaced it, and the privately owned line from Parramatta Park down to the ferry at Redbank Wharf kept going until 1943.

An electric tram for Dulwich Hill passing David Jones on the corner of George and Barrack Streets, about 1909–1910.
Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXE 711/369), public domain (PD-Australia), via Wikimedia Commons.

The Network at Its Peak

By the early 1920s the network had reached its full size. The Dictionary of Sydney puts the peak at 1922, and the figure usually quoted is about 291 kilometres of street track in 1923. It was the biggest tramway in Australia, and it is often described as the second largest in the British Commonwealth after London. When the trams finished in 1961, the Herald went further and called it the second largest in the world after London. Around 1,600 tramcars were in service at the peak, and the busiest year of all came in 1945, with about 405 million passenger journeys.

Circular Quay was the hub. Lines fanned out to the eastern suburbs and beaches, to Watsons Bay, Bondi, Bronte, Coogee, Clovelly, Maroubra and La Perouse; south to Botany; south-west through Newtown to Cooks River, Dulwich Hill, Canterbury and Earlwood; and west to Glebe, Balmain, Leichhardt, Five Dock, Abbotsford and right out to Ryde. The tramwaymen grouped the western lines as the "red lines", after the colour of their destination symbols, and the south-western lines as the "green lines". Every tram carried a coloured symbol on the front so the signalmen at the big junctions could tell where it was going, and the Herald remembered that every small boy knew them by heart: red and green for Woollahra, two red circles on white for Glebe, a red St George's cross on white for Leichhardt.

The trams left their mark on the map too. Bondi Junction, Maroubra Junction, Spit Junction and Cremorne Junction all take their names from tramway junctions.

Toast Racks and Corridor Cars

From 1905 the trams were sorted into classes by letter. A and B were the steam stock, and the electric cars ran from C to R, roughly in order of size. The early C-class cars were small enclosed saloons, but Sydney soon found that the old steam-tram layout, with crosswise bench seats and the conductor working from the footboard, was the best way to shift big crowds.

The tram everyone remembers is the O class, the "toast rack", named for its rows of cross-bench wooden seats. The first ones came out in the years just before the First World War, and 626 were built. Each car seated 80, part open and part enclosed, and they were often coupled in pairs for the Easter Show crowds and race days at Randwick. They started out in buff and chocolate and were repainted green from 1920. The P class, with concertina doors on its compartments, followed in 1921. Racegoers could even travel first class, with cushions and red carpet, for the Saturday run to the course.

The toast racks were wonderful crowd-swallowers, but they were dangerous for the conductors, who had to edge along the outside of a moving tram to collect fares as the motor traffic grew heavier. By one count there were 282 accidents to conductors on the NSW tramways in 1923, 289 in 1924 and 233 in 1925. The answer was the corridor tram. The first R-class car, number 1738, went into service in September 1933, enclosed, with padded seats and an aisle down the middle. The R1 class followed. A big order for 250 more was placed in the late 1940s, but post-war steel shortages held it up and the order was cut back. The last new R1 car was delivered to North Sydney depot in September 1953, only eight years before the trams finished.

Depots and Workshops

The trams were looked after at depots all over Sydney. The best known was probably Fort Macquarie depot on Bennelong Point. It opened on 10 August 1902 on the site of the old Fort Macquarie and was built to look like a fortress, with castellated walls in honour of the fort it replaced. It had a 12-road car shed with a loop line running right around it, so trams could turn without changing ends. The depot closed in October 1955, and on 18 August 1958 work started on knocking it down "to make way for an Opera House", as Trolley Wire put it at the time. If you walk around the Opera House today you can still spot old rosettes for the overhead wires on the rock wall nearby.

Fort Macquarie Tram Depot on Bennelong Point, with its castellated front and the loop line around it. The Sydney Opera House stands on this spot today. Date unknown.
Credit: NSW Government Railways archives, public domain (PD-Australia), via Wikimedia Commons.

Rozelle depot opened on 17 April 1904 and grew to hold 200 trams. It closed on 22 November 1958, went through a long, sad spell of neglect, and reopened in 2016 as the Tramsheds. Dowling Street depot, opened in 1909 near Moore Park, was the largest tram depot in Australia, with 27 tracks. It served Coogee, La Perouse, Maroubra and the southern lines, and it was the last depot to close, on 25 February 1961. Its site is now a shopping centre. The big engineering works were the tramway workshops at King Street, Randwick, set up in 1881 (I wrote about the Randwick Tramway Workshops a while back). Trams were built and overhauled there for eighty years, and it was also where most of them met their end.

Across the Harbour: The North Shore Lines

The North Shore had its own tram system, cut off from the rest until the Bridge was built. Everything started from the ferry wharf at Milsons Point, where passengers stepped off the ferry and onto a tram. From there the lines spread out to Crows Nest, Chatswood, Lane Cove, Neutral Bay, Mosman, The Spit, Balmoral and Taronga Zoo. A second ferry connection from McMahons Point opened in 1909. The hills over there were fierce. At Athol Wharf, near the zoo, runaway trams went down the hill and into the harbour in 1942, 1952 and 1958.

The tram and ferry terminus at Milsons Point in 1906, where North Shore people changed between tram and ferry in the days before the Harbour Bridge.
Credit: Photo by Key, North Sydney; State Library of New South Wales, public domain (PD-Australia), via Wikimedia Commons.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge changed all that. Bradfield built it with two tracks on its eastern side, meant one day for a railway to the northern beaches, and in the meantime they carried trams. When the Bridge opened on 19 March 1932, the North Shore trams ran straight across and down into their own underground platforms at Wynyard, the only underground tram terminus in Australia. The NSW State Archives has a photo of the first tram across, dated 9 March 1932. The trams stopped crossing the Bridge when the North Sydney system closed on 28 June 1958. Their tracks became the two eastern road lanes that now lead onto the Cahill Expressway, and the old tram platforms at Wynyard became a car park. That's why Wynyard's railway platforms are still numbered 3 to 6. Platforms 1 and 2 belonged to the trams.

The first tram across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 9 March 1932, ten days before the official opening. It's an O-class "toast rack", with men riding on the footboard.
Credit: NSW State Archives and Records, public domain (PD-Australia), via Wikimedia Commons.

Manly also had its own separate system, with lines to The Spit, Harbord and Narrabeen. It closed on 1 October 1939, and the Herald recalled that 26 of its trams were floated across The Spit on a punt to go and work at North Sydney.

The Decline, and the Last Tram in 1961

In a way, the trams were victims of their own success. Overcrowded trams running every few minutes down narrow streets got the blame for traffic jams that private cars and buses were making worse. The first closures came in the 1930s. Hurlstone Park to Summer Hill went in 1933, the Woolloomooloo line in 1935 and Manly in 1939. The war held things up, but by the end of it the system was run down after years of short supplies and patchy maintenance.

In 1948 Premier McGirr brought out three transport experts from London, and their 1949 report recommended phasing the trams out by 1960 and replacing them with double-decker buses. The government accepted the idea, and in the early 1950s closure became official policy. People didn't give their trams up quietly. When the Watsons Bay line beyond Rose Bay was closed in 1949, public protest got it reopened in 1950. After that, the government made sure the tracks and wires came out quickly after the last tram on each line, so there would be no going back. Meanwhile the Dictionary of Sydney notes that car trips went from 13 per cent of all trips in Sydney in 1946–47 to 50 per cent by 1960.

The big closures came one after another. The Pitt and Castlereagh Street lines and the south-western lines finished on 27 September 1957. The North Shore went on 28 June 1958, and the George Street lines to Glebe, Balmain, Leichhardt and the west on 22 November 1958. The Bondi and Bronte trams stopped in February 1960. The last of all were the Maroubra and La Perouse lines, on Saturday 25 February 1961. That day the Herald wrote that "the city's most characteristic, most criticised and most loved form of transport will have disappeared for ever", and pointed out that Sydney's trams had died "at the age of exactly 100 years", counting from Pitt Street in 1861. Crowds packed the last trams out to La Perouse. Late that afternoon R1-class car 1995 came back from La Perouse and rolled through the gates of Randwick Workshops, the last tram to run on Sydney's streets.

Crowds on the street on 25 February 1961, the day Sydney's last trams ran.
Credit: NSW State Archives and Records (Digital ID 17420_a014_a0140001149), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

What happened next still makes tram lovers wince. Most of the old cars were stripped of anything useful and burnt on a siding at Randwick that the tram men called "burning hill". Some of the R1 cars that went up in smoke were less than eight years old. A few were sold off as sheds, holiday shacks and workers' huts.

What Survived

Thankfully, a few people saw it coming. In 1950 four young enthusiasts, Norm Chinn, Robert Young, Ken McCarthy and Ben Parle, saved L/P-class tram 154, the first Sydney tram to be preserved. That was the start of what became the Sydney Tramway Museum. From 1957 they had a site on the edge of the Royal National Park at Loftus, and they began running trams for the public in 1965. In 1988 the museum moved to its present home beside Loftus station, and since 1993 its trams have run down the old Royal National Park branch line, which makes a lovely day out. The museum has kept at least one of nearly every Sydney electric tram class (only the G, H and M classes are missing), and it is run entirely by volunteers. It's usually open on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays, but check their website before you go.

Other pieces survive around town. The Powerhouse owns steam tram motor 1A (lately on loan to the museum at Loftus), C-class car 11 from 1898, horse car 199 and a trailer from the King Street cable line, which was found in use as a holiday house at Cronulla. Steam motor 103A runs at the Valley Heights Rail Museum in the Blue Mountains. Car 1995, the last tram of 1961, sits on display at the Tramsheds in Rozelle. If you keep your eyes open, you'll also spot old rosettes for the overhead wires on city buildings, rounded street corners cut back so trams could turn, a short stretch of track left exposed in Glebe Point Road, and the very wide median strip down Anzac Parade where the La Perouse trams once ran.

The Trams Come Back: Light Rail

Trams came back to Sydney on 11 August 1997, when the first stretch of light rail opened from Central to Wentworth Park, mostly along the old Darling Harbour goods line. At Central it uses the old tram loop around the Grand Concourse, which the Circular Quay trams once used. It reached Lilyfield in August 2000 and Dulwich Hill on 27 March 2014, and it's now the L1 Dulwich Hill Line. (I also wrote a while ago about the Sydney Light Rail Project from Circular Quay to Randwick.)

The big moment came on 14 December 2019, when the L2 Randwick Line opened from Circular Quay, down George Street and out through Moore Park. As Trolley Wire pointed out, that was 120 years and one week after the first electric trams ran down George Street, and 61 years after the last old tram left it. When the builders dug up the streets, they kept finding the original tram tracks buried under the road, and rail that could be saved went to the tramway museum. The L3 Kingsford Line opened on 3 April 2020, very quietly, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Out west, the Parramatta Light Rail opened on 20 December 2024, running from Westmead through Parramatta to Carlingford, partly along the old Carlingford railway line, and work on a second stage, towards Wentworth Point and Sydney Olympic Park, is under way. Somewhere, I like to think, the old toast-rack conductors are having a quiet laugh.

The Rest of the Family: Omnibuses, Trains, Ferries and Buses

Horse omnibuses. Before the trams, and for a long time alongside them, there was the horse bus. One of the earliest, called The Australian, was started in 1843 by Charles Underwood and ran from the city to Newtown and the Cooks River dam. After the Pitt Street tram closed in 1866, horse buses were Sydney's main public transport. The Dictionary of Sydney says they peaked in 1889 with some 64 services, and the Powerhouse counts 290 omnibuses on Sydney's roads by 1894. The biggest operator, the Sydney Tramway and Omnibus Company, painted "S T & O Co" on its buses, and regular passengers said it stood for "sugar, tea and oats". The electric trams finished off the horse bus, and by about 1910 it was gone.

Railways. The trains came well before the trams. The Sydney Railway Company was formed in 1849 to build a line to Parramatta, and the first sod was turned at the Cleveland Paddocks on 20 May 1850. Money, men and materials all ran short, partly because of the gold rush, and the government took the company over in September 1855. The first railway in New South Wales opened a few weeks later, on 26 September 1855, from the Sydney terminus at the Cleveland Paddocks, commonly called Redfern Station, to Parramatta Junction near today's Granville. There were stations at Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush along the way, and the line was carried on into Parramatta itself in 1860. The first terminus was little more than a wooden platform in a corrugated iron shed. Central Station replaced it in 1906, built on the site of the old Devonshire Street Cemetery. The suburban trains and the trams were both run by the government railways for years, and the trams did a roaring trade carrying train passengers between Central and the city, especially before the underground railway opened in 1926.

Sydney's first railway terminus at the Cleveland Paddocks, usually called Redfern Station, photographed in 1871.
Credit: NSW State Archives and Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Harbour ferries. Ferries are as old as the colony. In 1789 a convict-built boat, the Rose Hill Packet, was sailing and rowing between Sydney Cove and Parramatta, and a return trip could take a week. By 1830 Billy Blue was rowing passengers across from Dawes Point to Blues Point. The first Australian-built steamship, the Surprise, began a Parramatta service in June 1831, and cross-harbour steam ferries were running by 1842. In 1900 the North Shore company became Sydney Ferries Limited, which took over most of the harbour services. Manly had its own famous line of big ferries. The first direct service came in 1855, when Henry Gilbert Smith chartered the paddle steamer Huntress to bring people over to his land near The Corso, and the double-ended Manly ferries became a Sydney institution. For a ride to the zoo, Mosman, Neutral Bay or Cremorne, you caught a ferry to the wharf and a tram up the hill, and the two worked hand in hand for decades. The Harbour Bridge hit the ferries hard. Sydney Ferries' passenger numbers fell from 44 million to 20 million a year almost overnight, and in 1951 the government took over the fleet.

The Harbour Bridge and the City Circle. The Bridge opened on 19 March 1932, carrying road, rail and trams together, and it went hand in hand with Bradfield's underground city railway. Museum and St James stations opened in 1926, Town Hall and Wynyard followed with the Bridge in 1932, and Circular Quay finally joined the two ends together in 1956. Despite its name, the City Circle is really more of a horseshoe.

Motor buses. The railways tried a steam bus between Potts Point and Darlinghurst in 1905, but it lasted less than a year. A private motor bus company started running between Manly and Newport in 1906, but it was wound up in 1908. After the First World War, with plenty of returned men who knew how to handle heavy vehicles, private buses boomed, from about 15 in 1915 to more than 600 by 1929. To protect the trams, Jack Lang's government passed the Transport Act in 1930, and in 1932 the trams were handed to a new Department of Road Transport and Tramways. It ran its first government bus, from St Leonards to Manly, on Christmas Day 1932. In the end, of course, it was the buses that replaced the trams, and if you catch a bus to Coogee, Maroubra or Balmain today, you're still following the old tram routes.

So next time you're rattling down George Street on the light rail, spare a thought for the horse cars, the smoky steam motors, the cable gripmen and the brave conductors on the footboards of the old toast racks. Sydney's trams have come a long way, and in a sense they've come full circle.

Sources

• Garry Wotherspoon, "Trams", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008 – dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Buses", Dictionary of Sydney – dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Opening of the Pitt-Street Tram-way", Sydney Morning Herald, 24 December 1861, reprinted in "From the Archives, 1861: Sydney's first tram line opens" – smh.com.au
• Report of the Commissioner for Railways for 1879, "Report on the Tramways of New South Wales" (1880), Mitchell Library – State Library of NSW (PDF)
• "From the Archives: Sydney takes a final tram ride", Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 1961, reprinted 2019 – smh.com.au
• Sydney Tramway Museum, "About us" – sydneytramwaymuseum.com.au; "George St 120 Years" – sydneytramwaymuseum.com.au
• Trolley Wire (Sydney Tramway Museum): August 1958, November 1999, August 2007, February 2020 – sydneytramwaymuseum.com.au
• Powerhouse Collection: horse tram car 199; King Street cable tram trailer; C-class tram 11; horse-drawn omnibus – 207034, 207898, 207883, 207261
• Wikipedia: Trams in Sydney, Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, Rozelle Tram Depot, Dowling Street Tram Depot, R1-class Sydney tram, Sydney Tramway Museum, Isaac Nathan
• Wikipedia: Inner West Light Rail, CBD and South East Light Rail, Parramatta Light Rail
• Wikipedia: Main Suburban railway line, Sydney Ferries, Buses in Sydney, Sydney Harbour Bridge, City Circle
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, from the State Library of NSW, NSW State Archives and Records and the NSW Government Railways archives – Category: Trams in Sydney