Queen's Square, Sydney – Macquarie, King and Elizabeth Streets – Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Two Hundred Years at the Top of Macquarie Street – 1810 to Today

If you've ever come up the stairs at St James Station and stood at the top of Macquarie Street, you've been standing in Queen's Square. Most Sydneysiders just call it the corner by the church. On one side is Hyde Park Barracks and on the other St James' Church. The old Supreme Court sits behind the church and the big Law Courts tower stands opposite. Queen Victoria looks down Macquarie Street from her pedestal, and across the road her husband Prince Albert stares back at her. It's a small patch of paving, but it's been at the centre of Sydney's public life for two hundred years.

Queen Victoria on her pedestal in Queen's Square, with St James' Church behind, 2016. Image: Chris Olszewski, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Before the Square

When the First Fleet came in 1788, the town hugged Sydney Cove and the Tank Stream. The high ground at the top of the ridge, where Queen's Square is now, was out on the edge of things. It looked down over the open ground that became Hyde Park and the Domain. For the first twenty years it was mostly paddock, track and scrub, with the odd grant handed out to settlers.

Things changed when Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived at the start of 1810. Macquarie wanted Sydney to look like a proper town and not a prison camp. He named the streets and set aside Hyde Park as the town common. He also put together a group of public buildings at the top of the street that carries his name. As I wrote in my earlier post on Queens Square, this corner was meant to be the civic heart of the new town.

Macquarie's Buildings

Most of the buildings around the square came from Macquarie and his convict architect Francis Greenway. On the eastern side Greenway designed the Hyde Park Barracks, built from 1817 to 1819 to house convict men who until then had found their own lodgings around town.

Hyde Park Barracks, about 1820, not long after the convicts moved in. Image: unknown artist, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

A little further down Macquarie Street stood the Rum Hospital. Its south wing later became the Mint, and its centre block was replaced by today's Sydney Hospital.

On the western side, facing the Barracks, Greenway began a courthouse. Commissioner John Thomas Bigge had been sent out from London to look into Macquarie's spending, and he had the courthouse turned into a church. That became St James' Church. The school buildings beside it were turned into the courthouse instead, and they're still part of the Supreme Court in King Street. Most accounts, including the State Heritage Register, give 7 October 1819 as the day the foundation stone was laid. The Illustrated Sydney News of 24 June 1893 gave 17 October 1819. The church opened in February 1824.

St James' Church from Hyde Park, painted by Frederick Garling. Image: Frederick Garling, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

On the north-west corner of King and Macquarie Streets stood a two-storey stone house. According to the Dictionary of Sydney it was built around 1819, possibly by the ex-convict Thomas Clarkson, and passed to D'Arcy Wentworth. The government bought it for the Surveyor General, John Oxley. In 1838 it became the St James' parsonage. That corner has its own story, which I've told in a separate post on what stood there before the Law Courts.

John Rae's 1842 view of Hyde Park, the St James' parsonage, the Dispensary (later the Mint) and the convict barracks. Image: John Rae, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Why "Queen's" Square?

For its first few decades this open ground at the top of Macquarie Street didn't have much of a name. The "Queen" in Queen's Square is Victoria, who came to the throne in 1837. It became Sydney's favourite place for showing loyalty to the Crown, and the name stuck. The busiest years came in the second half of the 1800s, when two bronze royals were set up on either side of the road.

Albert the Good, 1866

Prince Albert died in December 1861, and the colony decided to remember him with a statue. According to the City of Sydney, the Prince Consort's Statue Association was set up under Edward Deas Thomson to collect the money. Sydney people were slow to pay up. The Illustrated Sydney News of 16 May 1866 put the delay down to "a temporary want of funds", and the statue was only just ready in time.

The bronze is by the English sculptor William Theed the younger. It's a copy of a terracotta figure he made in 1865 for the Royal Albert Infirmary at Bishop's Waltham. Albert stands about three metres tall in the robes of the Order of the Garter, with a sceptre in one hand and a scroll in the other. The inscription reads: "The people of New South Wales to Albert the Good Prince Consort of Queen Victoria 1866." It was unveiled on 23 April 1866, and the streets were packed from early morning. It first stood at the head of Lover's Walk, the main north–south path through Hyde Park.

Albert has been moved more than once. In 1922 the City Circle railway was being dug under Hyde Park, and he had to go. The City of Sydney's history of Hyde Park says he went to the Royal Botanic Garden. Its public art page is less sure and only says "possibly" to the Botanic Garden. Either way, in 1987 he came back to the spot outside Hyde Park Barracks, looking across at his wife. One small slip worth knowing: the heading on the Council's own sculpture page says "Installed 1886", but the text underneath, and the inscription, both say 1866.

Prince Albert outside Hyde Park Barracks, on the corner of Macquarie Street and Prince Albert Road, 2011. Image: Bidgee, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5 au).

Two Queens, One Pedestal

The Queen Victoria statue has the better story, because the first one burned. In 1879 Sydney held its International Exhibition in the Garden Palace in the Domain. One of the displays was a marble Queen Victoria by the sculptor Marshall Wood, and the plan was to move her to Queen's Square afterwards.

On 2 August 1881 the visiting princes, Albert Victor and George (the future King George V), laid the foundation stone for the pedestal. The Sydney Statues project puts the crowd at 80,000, including 20,000 schoolchildren who were given the day off and made to lead the procession. Then on 22 September 1882 the Garden Palace burned to the ground, and the statue went with it.

A new one was ordered from Joseph Edgar Boehm. He was Vienna-born, settled in London in 1862, and was the royal family's favourite sculptor. The statue was commissioned for the 1887 Golden Jubilee, which I've covered in Queen Victoria – Golden Jubilee – 1887. It arrived in time for the colony's Centennial. Sydney Statues says it was unveiled on 23 January 1888. The Yale Center for British Art's survey of Victoria monuments says the Governor unveiled it in front of more than fifty thousand people. The State Archives photograph of the celebrations below is dated 24 January 1888, so the photo may have been taken the day after, or the dates may simply not match.

Crowds in Queen's Square for the Centennial celebrations, January 1888, with St James' spire behind. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Not everyone loved it. The Bulletin pointed out that the bronze queen was rather grander than the real one. As Sydney Statues quotes it: "if the statue is majestic it isn't faithful. Vic is four feet odd in height and ditto in diameter and goes round generally in a seedy black dress and rusty bonnet." If you want the queen in her widow's weeds, go and look at the later statue outside the QVB.

Looking from Queen's Square towards Hyde Park, about 1888–1890, by Charles Bayliss. Image: Charles Bayliss, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Queen Victoria and St James' Church. This undated State Archives print shows the statue on its original railed base. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The Royal Corner

For the next seventy years the square was where Sydney went to cheer the Crown. When Victoria died in January 1901, the Yale survey notes, the statue became the place where Sydney came to mourn her. For Edward VII's coronation in 1902, plans were drawn up to light the square with electric lamps. Empire Day, 24 May, was celebrated here well into the 1900s. The Yale survey has a 1930 photograph of the statue decorated for the day.

The plan for lighting up Queen's Square for Edward VII's coronation, January 1902. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The square was also where the trams turned. A cable tram used to run up King Street to Queen's Square and on out to the eastern suburbs. In 1908 the Council moved the statue, and a City of Sydney Archives file from June–July that year records the plan to put it "in the centre of the Square". According to Sydney Statues it moved about 50 feet.

A cable tram climbing King Street towards Queen's Square, with St James' spire at the top, 1895. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Queen's Square around 1908, with tram wires overhead and St Mary's Cathedral in the distance. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Queen's Square around 1900, from the Tyrrell glass plate collection. Image: Powerhouse Museum, Tyrrell Collection, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Trains Under the Park

The biggest change underground came in the 1920s, when John Bradfield's city railway was dug beneath Hyde Park. St James Station, named after the church, opened in December 1926 with Museum Station as the first underground stops in Sydney. Prince Albert had to make way for the works. Bradfield also built extra platforms and tunnels at St James for lines to the eastern and northern suburbs that never used them. In the Second World War they were fitted out as air-raid shelters. When the Eastern Suburbs line was finally built and opened in 1979, it took a different route through Martin Place, and the St James tunnels were left empty.

St James Station's Elizabeth Street entrance decorated for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, 1954. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

One of the unused platforms at St James Station, built for lines that never came. Image: Beau Giles, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The pedestrian tunnel at St James Station, 2022. Image: Kgbo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Marches, Rallies and a Time Capsule

Because it sits at the top of Macquarie Street, at the end of Hyde Park and across from the courts, the square has always drawn crowds. Processions, parades and rallies have marched up King Street and into the square. Sam Hood photographed one of them around 1931.

Marching into Queen's Square, about 1931, photographed by Sam and Ted Hood. Image: Hood, Sam & Hood, Ted, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The square as we know it today dates from the 1970s. As part of the new Law Courts project, the top end of King Street between Phillip and Macquarie Streets was closed to traffic. It was paved over to join the courts to the island block holding St James' and the old Supreme Court, and a pedestrian tunnel was dug under St James Road. The Supreme Court says this made things much easier in what had been "a highly congested area".

While the plaza was being built in July 1975, Council workmen found a glass jar under the foundation block of the Queen Victoria statue. Inside were newspapers, Government Gazettes, the programme and song list for 2 August 1881, a list of members of Parliament, a Sydney handbook, coins minted in 1881 and two medallions, one from the 1879 Exhibition. Someone had added more papers in 1908 when the statue was moved. The water had got to them, and according to Sydney Statues they were taken to the City Librarian's office to dry out.

Queen Victoria today, 2019. Image: Sardaka, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Queen's Square Today

These days the square is mostly lawyers with trolleys of files, office workers taking a short cut and tourists heading to the Barracks. The Barracks is now World Heritage listed. Around you are Greenway's church and court, the 1977 Law Courts tower and two Victorian bronzes. It's one of the few corners of Sydney where you can see two hundred years of the city at once. Next time you're up there, look at Victoria, then turn round and look at Albert. They've only been facing each other since 1987.

St James' Church from Queen's Square, 2021. Image: Kgbo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

An undated State Archives view across Queen's Square towards the Domain, with the Registrar General's Office in the foreground. Image: State Archives and Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

For more on the corner's neighbours, see my posts on Hyde Park, St James' Church and Hyde Park Barracks. For another royal visit, see the attempted assassination of Prince Alfred in 1868.

References

• City of Sydney, "Prince Albert" (public art) and "History of Hyde Park".
• Sydney Statues, "Queen Victoria, Queens Square".
• Yale Center for British Art, Victoria Monuments survey, "Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney".
• City of Sydney Archives, Town Clerk file A-00214476 (1908), moving the statue to the centre of the Square.
• Supreme Court of NSW, "Law Courts Building" and Supreme Court Gallery, "Architecture".
• Heritage NSW, State Heritage Register, St James' Church (SHR 01703).
• Dictionary of Sydney, "Old St James parsonage".
• "A Historic Church", Illustrated Sydney News, 24 June 1893, via Trove.