The Old Moore Park Zoo – Sydney's First Zoo at Billy Goat Swamp – 1884 to 1916

Before Taronga, before the ferry ride and the harbour views, Sydney's zoo sat on a swampy patch of Moore Park beside the Randwick tram line. For 32 years, from 1884 to 1916, families came out to the "Zoo" at Billy Goat Swamp to ride Jessie the elephant, watch the lions fed at four o'clock and picnic by the lake. Then the whole lot packed up and moved to Mosman, and two high schools went up on the site. If you know where to look, a couple of old bear pits are still there.

I've already written the bigger story of the move and of Taronga itself in my post Taronga Zoo – From Moore Park to Bradleys Head, including Jessie's famous night walk through the city streets in 1916. This page stays at Moore Park. It's about the old zoo itself: who started it, what was there, what a day out looked like, why it fell out of favour, and what's left of it now.

A lion resting on the floorboards of its den at the Zoo, Moore Park. Photo by Henry King from the Tyrrell Collection. Powerhouse Museum, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Swamp on the Sydney Common

Moore Park started life as part of the 1,000 acres Governor Lachlan Macquarie set aside in 1811 as common pasture for the town. According to the Sydney High School history site, it takes its name from Charles Moore, Mayor of Sydney from 1867 to 1869, who fought to keep the Common as parkland for the people. The Sydney Common, later called Moore Park, was dedicated on 5 October 1866. I've written more on that in my posts on the Sydney Common and the Moore Park Trust legislation, linked at the bottom of this page.

One low, wet corner of it, alongside what was then Randwick Road and is now Anzac Parade, was known as Billy Goat Swamp (some sources write it as Billygoat Swamp). That was the patch that became the zoo.

Moore Park and Surry Hills from the Moore Park entrance gates, around 1875, a few years before the zoo arrived. American & Australasian Photographic Company, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Moore, the mayor Moore Park is named after. J. Roarty, CC BY-SA 3.0 AU, via Wikimedia Commons

The Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1879

The zoo grew out of a society that, to begin with, didn't really want a zoo at all. The circular calling its first meeting on 24 March 1879 described a "Society for the acclimatisation of song birds and useful game". Museums of History NSW puts its aim as the "introduction and acclimatisation of song birds and game". The Society bought game birds and let them go, and it imported and farmed fish, brown trout among them. It even bred English perch in one of Moore Park's ornamental lakes.

Two names were on that first circular. One was Walter Bradley, who came to be known as the founder of the zoo. The Dictionary of Sydney describes Bradley as an auctioneer who arrived in Sydney with little money, built his own business and went on to sit in the NSW Legislative Assembly and to serve as an alderman and Mayor of Randwick.

Walter Bradley, remembered as the founder of the zoo, from The Bulletin of 31 July 1880. Unknown engraver, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It didn't take long for some members to set their sights on a proper zoological garden. The Sydney High School history says that in June 1879, after a request to the Mayor of Sydney, Billy Goat Swamp was granted to the Society. Other sources put the grant later (more on that below). Either way, the starting site was 7 acres. Work began in July 1880, and by 1882 the ground had been levelled and planted and "a considerable lake" formed. The buildings, aviaries and other works had cost £1,119 8s 10d by then, and there were still more aviaries and proper animal houses to come.

Centennial Parklands credits Charles Moore, Director of the Botanic Gardens and a member of the Society, with laying out the Zoological Gardens. He had looked after a small menagerie at the Botanic Gardens and soon moved its birds across to Moore Park. And yes, that's a different Charles Moore from the mayor the park is named after. Two Charles Moores, one park. It's enough to confuse anyone.

Charles Moore (1820–1905), Director of the Botanic Gardens, who laid out the Zoological Gardens. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Opening Day and Growing Up, 1883–1900

The animals started arriving before the public did. The birds and the first elephant moved in during 1883, and the zoo officially opened to the public in 1884. The Dictionary of Sydney, Centennial Parklands and the Sydney High history all give 1884. By 1887 it was described as being in a "very thriving condition".

The ground grew with it. Museums of History NSW says the lease went from 7 acres to 12.5 acres in 1881. Another small addition in 1905 took it to about 15 acres, and in August 1906 the City Council extended the lease for another 14 years.

Layout and buildings

Nobody has left a neat map I could find online, but you can put the place together from the old descriptions. The main entrance faced Randwick Road (now Anzac Parade), and one bear pit took pride of place in the embankment by the gate. Inside were lawns, terraces and flower gardens running down to an ornamental lake with weeping willows, water plants and goldfish. There were aviaries, animal houses and dens for the big cats, an elephant shed, refreshment rooms, and shelters for picnics. An advertisement from around 1901 boasted of "TWO POLAR BEARS swimming and diving in their new house".

The bear pits were round, sunken enclosures. To amuse the crowds, the bears had to climb poles set in the middle of each pit, and there's some evidence of balls and swings too. Their dinner was a thick soup of meat, pollard and grain with potatoes, turnips or cabbage in season, boiled for hours. The pits were open, and that was too tempting for some visitors. In 1892 a few youths are said to have dropped in a hollowed-out cork holding a lolly ringed with pins. Luckily it didn't work.

Kangaroos and wallabies in their yard at the Zoo, Moore Park, from the Tyrrell Collection glass plates. Henry King, Powerhouse Museum (Tyrrell Collection), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jumbo, Jessie and the Elephant Rides

Every zoo of the day wanted an elephant. It drew the crowds and it earned money from rides. Moore Park ended 1883 with two. Jumbo, a male given to the Society by the King of Siam, landed at Circular Quay on 12 July 1883 and was named after Barnum's famous African elephant. Jessie, bought from the Calcutta Zoological Society, landed at Millers Point on 30 November 1883, aged about eight. She came with two keepers whose names were reported as Parbuck and Eliback. The plan was to cart her to Moore Park in a van, but she walked straight back out "before the doors could be fastened, brandishing [her] trunk and looking rather put out". Once settled, she was found "quietly munching sugar cane" in her new shed.

The two elephants got through about 100 pounds of hay a day, and they paid for it. In 1891 the "two penny" elephant rides alone brought in more than £680, which works out to around 81,600 riders. Riders climbed steps to a platform and sat on bench seats on either side of a howdah. Parbuck showed reporters how a keeper got up: one foot on her trunk, an ear in each hand, and Jessie gave a gentle hoist. By 1916 the price was down to a penny a ride, and over six months that year Jessie carried more than 35,000 people for £146 15s.

The elephants worked off the clock as well. In 1894 the Society let the theatre firm Williamson and Musgrove hire one for the play "Round the World in Eighty Days". A 1912 newspaper piece quoted on the Sydney High history site said that whenever there was "really hard pulling or lifting to be done", Jessie was brought out, with "the strength of several horses". She became such a fixture that a cheeky person was said to have "more hide than Jessie".

Jessie's later life, her 1916 walk to the harbour and her death at Taronga in 1939 are all in my Taronga post.

A Day at the Zoo

By the 1890s the zoo was one of the big days out of late-Victorian Sydney, and it had to compete hard for the crowds. An advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald of 2 January 1901 (as quoted on the Sydney High history site) gives you the flavour:

THE BEST, THE CHEAPEST and by far the most amusing and instructive place to go to is the "ZOO." By far the BEST PLACE FOR PICNICS is decidedly the "ZOO" with its well-kept Lawns, Terraces, and Flower Gardens, with its Pretty Lake and Weeping Willows ... PARENTS SHOULD TAKE THEIR CHILDREN TO THE "ZOO," TO SEE THE "WILD MAN OF THE WOODS," or the ORANG-OUTANG OF BORNEO ... At 4pm THE LIONS, TIGERS, LEOPARDS, and PUMAS WILL BE FED, AND AT 4.30 THE PELICANS ... ADMISSION TO THE GARDENS, 6d; Children, 3d. The Randwick and Coogee Trams stop at the Gates.

The same ad listed bears, hyenas, jackals and dingoes, along with ostriches, emus, cassowaries, a flock of flamingos, swans, parrots, eagles, vultures and songbirds. Museums of History NSW adds the orangutan, a polar bear and "cages full" of lions, tigers and leopards.

There was music too. On a Saturday afternoon in December 1883, the Herald reported, "Jumbo as usual was kept fully employed" while a band played "choice selections of music at intervals". On Christmas Day 1900 the lawns were full of family parties, plus plenty of soldiers from the camp at the Agricultural Society's Ground next door. Fetes were held in the grounds. In 1913 the Girls Realm Guild of Sydney Girls' High School ran a Zoological Fete there, eight years before the school moved onto the very same ground.

The entrance to the Association Ground (now the SCG) around 1900. The zoo was a near neighbour of the cricket ground and the Agricultural Society's showground at Moore Park. Powerhouse Museum (Tyrrell Collection), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Quong Tart's refreshment rooms

If you wanted a cuppa, you'd have been served by one of Sydney's best-known businessmen. According to the Sydney High history site, Quong Tart, the Chinese-born tea merchant and restaurateur, ran the zoo's refreshment rooms during the 1880s and 1890s.

Mei Quong Tart, tea merchant and restaurateur, around 1885. He ran the zoo's refreshment rooms in the 1880s and 1890s. Unknown artist, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sundays and free entry

Not everyone liked the fun. Around the turn of the century there was plenty of agitation over Sunday observance. In 1906 one man tried, and failed, to take the zoo's board to court under the Sunday Observance Act, an old English law from the time of George III that was still in force in NSW. Over its 32 years the zoo took in about 7,500,000 visitors. Many of them got in free or for a nominal charge on Sundays, and schoolchildren always had free run of the collection.

Floods, Drought and the Plague, 1900–1902

The turn of the century was rough on the zoo. In 1900 a burst water main in Cleveland Street flooded the place, which isn't much of a surprise on a site called Billy Goat Swamp. A drought followed in 1901. Then in April 1902 bubonic plague turned up among the animals and the zoo was shut.

The Sydney High history says 25 animals died, but only five were actually diagnosed with plague. The heavy disinfecting afterwards was thought to have killed most of the rest. The rats were suspected of carrying it in from the city tip nearby, on land that's now part of the Moore Park golf course. A lot had to be burned. The zoo reopened on 18 August 1902, after about four months shut.

Cleaning a Sydney street in the plague quarantine area, 1900. Two years later the plague reached the animals at Moore Park. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rat catching during the Sydney plague outbreak. Rats from the Moore Park tip were blamed for bringing plague into the zoo. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Albert Sherbourne Le Souef Takes Charge

In April 1903 the Society brought in a new secretary, which at that time meant the zoo's director. He was Albert Sherbourne Le Souef, then 26. He came from a real zoo dynasty. His father, Albert Alexander Cochrane Le Souef, ran the Melbourne zoo. One brother, Dudley, followed him there, and another, Ernest, ran the Perth zoo. Sherbourne had trained at the Melbourne Veterinary College, been secretary of the Zoological and Acclimatization Society of Victoria from 1897, and been made assistant director in Melbourne when his father died in 1902.

What he found at Moore Park wasn't pretty. The Australian Dictionary of Biography calls the gardens "cramped", "dirty and noisy" and "clearly inadequate". The Le Souef family archives guide describes the site as "hopelessly inadequate; cramped and filthy, surrounded by trams and obsolete enclosure".

Sherbourne ran Moore Park from 1903 until 1916 and then became the first director of Taronga, staying until 1939 (the ADB says he retired in 1940). He married Mary Emily Louise Greaves in Sydney on 22 April 1908.

Dudley Le Souef, director of the Melbourne zoo and Sherbourne's elder brother. It was Dudley who suggested the name Taronga. Sears' Studios, State Library of Victoria, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"Mean and Unhealthy Grounds": Why Moore Park Had to Go

The zoo was popular, but it was badly sited. Museums of History NSW sums it up: it flooded, it was dusty and windswept, and the trams and traffic beside it were noisy. Critics also pointed to animals kept in small barred cages and concrete-floored enclosures, often with little sunlight. The Sydney High history adds that by 1910 it was clearly too open, too close to the city tip, and that the cages didn't match new thinking about how animals should be kept. It was also too small. Its 15 acres looked poor next to Melbourne's 50 and Perth's 40.

In 1907 (the ADB's date; Museums of History NSW says 1908) Le Souef and Dr Robert Todd went to Europe and came home taken with Carl Hagenbeck's park in Hamburg. Hagenbeck kept animals behind hidden moats and fake rock instead of bars.

The big-cat ravine at Carl Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg, on a postcard from December 1907, the same year Le Souef and Todd toured Europe. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Carl Hagenbeck, whose bar-less zoo at Hamburg inspired the move away from Moore Park. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Plenty of new sites were floated, including Long Bay, Maroubra, Little Coogee Bay, Bondi, Vaucluse, Tempe and others. Le Souef also opposed the government's purchase of Wentworth Park for the zoo. In July 1911 the Society's president, Charles Hedley, called the "mean and unhealthy grounds" at Moore Park "not worthy of this wealthy State, of this great city". The site at Bradleys Head in Mosman won out, preparations began in August 1912, and the rest of that story is in my Taronga post.

Closing Time, 1916

Through 1916 the animals were moved across the harbour by road and boat. When the Taronga trustees took over the staff and the collection in July 1916, Centennial Parklands says there were about 177 animals and 329 birds. The Sydney High history says 177 animals and 339 birds. Jessie left through the Moore Park gates in the early hours of Sunday 24 September 1916. Taronga was officially opened on 7 October 1916.

The Sydney High history notes the zoo closed about four years before the Society's lease ran out.

Troops marching along Randwick Road (now Anzac Parade) on 18 August 1914. The zoo's main gate was on this road, and the move to Taronga happened in the middle of the war. Australian National Maritime Museum, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

From Zoo to Schoolyard

The empty site was dedicated to Sydney Girls' High School in November 1919. The girls had outgrown their old two-storey Francis Greenway building in Elizabeth Street, which was cramped and noisy with traffic. The school says that when they moved in 1921 they were "overwhelmed by the amount of space, the grass, trees and the quiet". The school's own photo of the first lunch hour is dated 20 July 1921.

The girls' old school in Elizabeth Street, around 1898. They swapped it for the old zoo grounds in 1921. State Archives and Records NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The old school building from the Castlereagh Street side in March 1922, a year after the girls left for Moore Park. The site later became David Jones. State Records NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The boys followed in 1928, into buildings designed by George McRae, the architect of the Queen Victoria Building. The two schools still share the old zoo ground, with "the Flat", a low-lying common area, between them. The Sydney High history says the ornamental ponds were filled in by 1929, though the low ground still floods now and then.

Sydney Boys High School at Moore Park in 2007, on the old zoo ground. J Bar, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney Boys High School, Moore Park. Laurence McGrath (uploaded by Jirrupin), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What's Left Today: The Bear Pits

Apart from the odd flood, the only reminders of the old zoo are the two bear pits, one in each school. The Dictionary of Sydney notes the original bear pit can still be seen beside Anzac Parade. Sydney Girls High says its "historic Bear Pit" still stands in the "Lowers" as a link between the school and the old zoo.

The pits have had a funny second life. The Sydney High history lists them being used to punish naughty girls, to finish homework, to store maintenance gear and old furniture, and more recently as a prefects' study. When a new building was planned at the boys' school in the late 1960s, headmaster Murray Callaghan talked the government into keeping their bear pit. It's now the centrepiece of the courtyard in the Sir Charles McDonald Building, opened in 1972.

Both pits sit inside working school grounds, so they're not open to the public.

Moore Park Road and Anzac Parade in 1934, by Sam Hood. By then the old Randwick Road had been renamed and the high schools stood on the old zoo ground. Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Moore Park gates on Anzac Parade, 2007. The zoo's main gate was on this road, then called Randwick Road. J Bar, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1811 – Governor Macquarie sets aside 1,000 acres as the Sydney Common.
• 5 October 1866 – The Sydney Common (later Moore Park) is dedicated.
• 24 March 1879 – First meeting of what becomes the Zoological Society of NSW; Walter Bradley is one of the two names on the circular.
• June 1879 – Billy Goat Swamp granted to the Society (Sydney High history; others say 1883).
• July 1880 – Work starts on the zoological garden.
• 1881 – Lease increased from 7 to 12.5 acres (Museums of History NSW).
• 12 July 1883 – Jumbo, gift of the King of Siam, lands at Circular Quay.
• 30 November 1883 – Jessie arrives from Calcutta.
• 1884 – The Zoological Gardens open to the public.
• 1891 – Elephant rides earn more than £680; Sydney Girls High's bear pit dated to this year by the school.
• 1894 – An elephant is hired out for "Round the World in Eighty Days".
• 1900 – Burst Cleveland Street water main floods the zoo.
• April–18 August 1902 – Zoo closed after plague among the animals.
• April 1903 – Albert Sherbourne Le Souef becomes secretary (director).
• 1905 – Site grows to about 15 acres.
• August 1906 – Lease extended 14 years; Sunday Observance case fails.
• 1907/1908 – Le Souef and Dr Robert Todd tour European zoos.
• July 1911 – Charles Hedley calls Moore Park "mean and unhealthy grounds".
• August 1912 – Preparations begin at the Mosman site.
• 1913 – Sydney Girls High's Zoological Fete held in the grounds.
• July 1916 – Taronga trustees take over the staff and animals.
• 24 September 1916 – Jessie walks out of Moore Park for the last time.
• 7 October 1916 – Taronga Zoological Park officially opens.
• November 1919 – Site dedicated for Sydney Girls High School.
• 1921 – Sydney Girls High moves in.
• 1928 – Sydney Boys High moves in.
• 1929 – Old ornamental ponds filled in by this year.
• 1972 – Sir Charles McDonald Building opens around the boys' bear pit.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When the land was granted. The Sydney High history says Billy Goat Swamp was granted in June 1879. Centennial Parklands says the City Council granted the 7 acres in 1883. Museums of History NSW says the lease grew to 12.5 acres in 1881, so a grant before that seems more likely.
• How big the zoo got. Museums of History NSW, Centennial Parklands and the Sydney High history all say about 15 acres by 1905. The Le Souef family archives guide calls it a 17-acre site.
• Which animals caught the plague. Centennial Parklands says kangaroos. Museums of History NSW says wallabies. The Sydney High history says 25 animals died but only five were diagnosed with plague.
• How old the bear pits are. The Sydney High history says at least one pit dates from 1883, with the side steps added soon after. Sydney Girls High says its bear pit was built in 1891.
• How many birds moved. Centennial Parklands says 329 birds; the Sydney High history says 339. Both say 177 animals.
• When it closed. Most sources say 1916. The Dictionary of Sydney entry gives 1917.
• Le Souef's European tour. The ADB and the Le Souef archives guide say 1907. Museums of History NSW says 1908.
• When Le Souef left Taronga. Several sources give 1939; the ADB says he retired in 1940.
• The price of a ride. The 1891 rides were "two penny" (Sydney High history). By 1916 Museums of History NSW says a penny a ride.
• The two Charles Moores. The Sydney High history says the park is named after Charles Moore, Mayor of Sydney 1867–69. Centennial Parklands says Charles Moore of the Botanic Gardens laid out the zoo. They're two different men, and it's easy to mix them up.

My Earlier Posts

• Taronga Zoo – From Moore Park to Bradleys Head
• The Sydney Common – Moore Parklands
• Moore Park Trust Legislation
• Flinders Street – Taylor Square to Moore Park – Darlinghurst
• Sydney Centennial – 1888 – A Coming of Age
• Centennial Park – Sydney – New South Wales
• Centennial Park and Queens Park – Sydney

Sources

• High History and Heritage (Sydney High School), "History of the Moore Park Zoo": history.sydneyhigh.school/nodes/view/410. Quotes the SMH, 24 December 1883, 26 December 1900 and 2 January 1901.
• Museums of History NSW, "The story of how to move a zoo": mhnsw.au. Cites J. H. Prince, The First One Hundred Years of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW 1879–1979 (1979), and "For the people", SMH, 21 July 1911.
• Museums of History NSW, "Jessie the elephant": mhnsw.au
• Centennial Parklands, "Moore Park Zoo's colourful history" (2018): centennialparklands.com.au
• Dictionary of Sydney, "Zoological Gardens Moore Park" and "Bradley, Walter": dictionaryofsydney.org
• A. Dunbavin Butcher, "Le Souef, Albert Sherbourne (1877–1951)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, 1986: adb.anu.edu.au
• Le Souëf Family Archives Guide to Records, "005 – Albert Sherbourne Le Souëf", University of Melbourne: austehc.unimelb.edu.au
• Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, "Le Souef, Albert Sherbourne": eoas.info
• Sydney Girls High School, "History of Sydney Girls High School": sydneygirl-h.schools.nsw.gov.au
• Wikipedia, "Sydney Boys High School" and "Sydney Girls High School": en.wikipedia.org
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, from the Powerhouse Museum (Tyrrell Collection), State Library of NSW, State Library of Victoria, State Archives and Records NSW, Australian National Maritime Museum and individual photographers, as credited under each picture.