Pitt Street – 1848 – Joseph Fowles – Sydney

Pitt Street in 1848 was already the shopfront spine of colonial Sydney — the street you walked when you meant business, theatre, or a new hat. Joseph Fowles (18101878) drew it in copper plate for Sydney in 1848, the twenty-part elevation book that tried to shut English mouths about a “bush capital.” He wanted gas-lit streets and sumptuous shops on the page; Pitt Street obliged.

The Pitt Street plates run the commercial blocks: Hunter to King, King to Market (with the Royal Victoria Theatre among the fronts), Market to Park — eastern side left-to-right, western side the reverse, letterpress names under the windows. Printed by D. Wall in York Street and sold from Fowles’s Harrington Street address, they are measured street walls, not picturesque sketches. Facsimiles and the Gutenberg text are how most of us meet them now; the Mitchell still holds original parts.

This post is one street from that project, not the whole Fowles hub. For the book’s purpose note, dedication to Governor FitzRoy, and the index of other elevations (George, Bridge, King, Hunter…), see the longer Sydney in 1848 essay on this blog. Keep the live plate; treat captions as a walk down the 1848 shopfronts.

Joseph Fowles Pitt and Hunter streets from his Sydney views. Wikimedia Commons / check file page for exact licence and date.

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving, coloured copy (Pitt Street and Hunter Street plate))

SYDNEY.

PITT STREET – upper row: UNION BANK OF AUSTRALIA. · W. DAVIES' WHITE HORSE COMMISSION & LIVERY STABLES.

PITT STREET – lower row (printed upside down): [illegible] MUSIC SELLER.

HUNTER STREET – upper row: YOUNG & Co HOUSE & STORES. · FLOWER SALTING & Co STORES. · UNION BANK OF AUSTRALIA.

HUNTER STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BLIGH ST. · O'CONNEL ST [sic]

Pitt Street formed a central part of Sydney’s commercial district in the nineteenth century. Joseph Fowles’s 1848 illustrations record the buildings and businesses lining the street before later redevelopment changed the city centre. These elevations provide a valuable snapshot of colonial Sydney.

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving)

SYDNEY.

PITT STREET – upper row: DRAPERY HABERDASHERY AND SLOPS · BLYTH'S REFRESHMENT ROOMS · ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE. · VICTORIA HOTEL J. WYATT. · LINEN & [illegible] MART · CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST · BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER. · LIVERPOOL ARMS

PITT STREET – lower row (printed upside down): THOMPSON & SON. · SURGEON AND APOTHECARY · other labels [illegible]

PITT STREET (second street) – upper row: DRAPER &c. · LATE JOSEPH FARMER · ALBION HOUSE · CHEMIST, DRUGGIST &c. · other labels [illegible]

PITT STREET (second street) – lower row (printed upside down): FAMILIES SUPPLIED BY DANIEL ROGERS. · LATE WILLIAM STONE. · other labels [illegible]

Drawn by J. Fowles — W. Harris Sc.

This 1848 view of Pitt Street, Sydney, is associated with Joseph Fowles and records the buildings lining the street in the colonial-era city. The illustrated elevations offer a detailed glimpse of Sydney’s commercial centre.

King Street – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY.

KING STREET (first street): TURLEY · TAYLOR · MEDICAL HALL · MACE · FURNITURE WAREHOUSE · RAINBOW TAVERN · J. EDWARDS REFRESHMENT ROOMS · J. W. ROCHES RESTAURANT. · other labels [illegible]

KING STREET (second street): PRINTING OFFICE · KEANE'S · STRAW BONNET WAREHOUSE · BOOT MAKER · C. CLARKE HATTER. · other labels [illegible]

Drawn by J. Fowles — Harris Sc.

King Street is where Fowles admits Sydney has a centre. In Sydney in 1848 the street "running from east to west, from the Government Domain to the shores of Darling Harbour, completely intersects the City." Plate 26A is the shop frontage, George to Pitt and Pitt to Castlereagh, both sides - "a line of thriving shops." That is the live stub. The letterpress then turns left, up King Street East, and the public buildings arrive: St James' on the right, the Supreme Court beside it, Hyde Park Barracks in front of you. Brick, unornamented, "an imposing and dignified whole."

St James' is the building to name. Foundation 7 October 1819, Francis Greenway for Macquarie, the spire "a conspicuous object from every part of the City." Fowles has it seating 1,500 after a gallery refit, with Robert Allwood as incumbent. It is not the oldest church and not yet the cathedral; it is the fashionable one, next to Government House, where Broughton had been installed Bishop of Australia in 1836. The convict barracks across the park are still in the picture as a government pile. The theatre crowd is one block south on Pitt - the Royal Victoria, opened 1838 - which Fowles gives its own plate.

So the elevation is shops; the chapter is a cross. George and King as the four-way heart, Church of England and the courts up the hill, harbour down the other way. Believe the buildings first.

George Street – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

This is the stretch of George Street Fowles was proudest of — the bit facing the eastern wall of the old Barrack Square, from Hunter Street down to the Post Office. Plate 22A in Sydney in 1848 is his fifth descriptive engraving: wealthy tradesmen’s stores, land at £20 a foot, and that blank barrack wall on the west that still interrupted the street like a military fence through the middle of town. Head-quarters had already moved out to Darlinghurst; Fowles hoped the straggling barracks would soon be replaced by “elegant and useful edifices” and proper cross streets. Wynyard was waiting to happen.

On the east side he names the things that made the strip feel finished: Skinner’s Tavern on the angle, the Australian General Insurance office, the massive stone Bank of New South Wales the colonial bank, founded in 1817 — and the Atlas newspaper office under Welch. A short walk south and you hit the Post Office portico: six Doric columns, royal arms by Mr Abraham in the tympanum, with the full rebuild still only a promise. Plate 24A is that building on its own; this street plate is the approach. Don’t flatten it with the Lower George or Bridge Street plates. This is the 1848 retail peak, not the wharf end.

Fowles’s point, as always, is argument. England thought Sydney was still a bark camp. Here he gives you Regent Street manners, gaslight shops, and a blank wall that proves how fast the town had grown around its own garrison.

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY.

GEORGE STREET (first row of buildings): POST OFFICE. · AUCTIONEER · WATCH MAKER & JEWELLER · CARPET WAREHOUSE · TAILOR & DRAPER · AUCTION ROOMS · SADDLER. · [illegible] COMPANY · DRAPER.

GEORGE STREET (facing row, printed upside down): D. JONES & Co. · R. MENZIES · STAR HOTEL · other labels [illegible]

GEORGE STREET (second street): LLOYDS ROOMS · G. A. LLOYD, AUCTIONEER. · HANCOCK · SPERMACETI REFINER. · other labels [illegible]

GEORGE STREET (third street): SKINNER'S HOTEL. · J. SOLOMON, STATIONER. · DIXON, TOBACCONIST. · J. C. COHEN, AUCTION MART. · BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES. · WINE & SPIRIT STORES. · other labels [illegible]

Drawn by J. Fowles — Engraved by W. Harris

George Street & Hunter Street – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY.

GEORGE STREET – upper row: N. COHEN & SON · DRAPER. · TOBACCO MERCHANT. · other labels [illegible]

GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BANK OF AUSTRALIA. · THOS SMITH & SON, IRONMONGERS.

Fountain in Macquarie Place.

HUNTER STREET – upper row: SADLER · FAMILY GROCER · BAKER · other labels [illegible]

HUNTER STREET – lower row (printed upside down): REGENT TERRACE. · S. JONES, TAILOR. · JAS. SIMMONS & SON. · SKINNER'S HOTEL. · other labels [illegible]

Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris.

Hunter Street meets George at a right angle on a gentle climb, and Fowles's Plate 20A is that corner in 1848: George Street continued south from Jamison Street to Hunter, then both sides of Hunter from George to Pitt. He is almost rude about it. The locality "has long been built upon" and "contains, however, little deserving notice, except perhaps the quondam Bank of Australia" - founded 1826, closed as a bank in February 1843. Ruin is a fact, not a metaphor. On the south side, Regent's Terrace and the rest of the houses are, he says, not eight years old. Behind Mr Solomon's stores is the site of the Pavilion Theatre, "the ephemeral existence of which is now well nigh forgotten."

Around the corner in Charlotte Place, in the same chapter, St Patrick's has just gone up: foundation 25 August 1840, dedicated 18 March 1844, Decorated Gothic in dressed stone. That is the Catholic Church Hill companion to St Philip's, and it belongs to this plate's neighbourhood even if the elevation is the George/Hunter frontage. The old Bank of Australia building is the ghost on the street; St Patrick's is the new stone on the hill.

Don't file this as a generic "early commercial heart" paragraph. The commercial heart Fowles is showing off is further south, at the Post Office and the Barrack wall. This corner is the older town still turning over: a failed bank, a forgotten theatre, new terrace houses, and a Gothic church not yet five years dedicated.

Lower George Street – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY

LOWER GEORGE STREET – upper row: W. CUSSEN FAMILY GROCER · P. MITCHELL & Co. SAIL MAKERS & SHIP CHANDLERS · other labels [illegible]

LOWER GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): J. EWEN MAST MAKER · DAWSON SHIP SMITH · [illegible] Hair Cutter · [illegible] Clothier & Draper · other labels [illegible]

OBELISK IN MACQUARIE PLACE · SITE OF THE OLD GAOL.

LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – upper row: T. SMITH [illegible] · other labels [illegible]

LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – lower row (printed upside down): AUSTRALIAN HOTEL · SHIP CHANDLERS & SAIL MAKERS · HOLMES, LATE LONDON. · other labels [illegible]

Lower George Street is where Sydney still looked like a seaport in 1848. Joseph Fowles drew both sides from Queen’s Wharf up to Essex Street — Plate 16A in Sydney in 1848 — and then told you what you were seeing: a tight, stone-built maritime strip, “a strong resemblance to part of a maritime town in England,” swarming on the shipping. This is the oldest end of George Street, the slope the First Fleet actually built on, with Gaol Hill still in the memory of the plate even when the elevation is mostly shops and hotels.

Fowles points at the working names. Dawson’s foundry, established in 1833, with a homemade steam engine and a reputation for heavy castings. Opposite the Australian Hotel, F. Mitchell’s marine store, the house behind it built by a Mr Redman and called the oldest in this stretch. Mr Holmes’s shop standing on the old Sydney Gazette office, the colony’s first newspaper, already long defunct when Fowles went to press. The live stub says “site of the old gaol”; keep that, and keep the foundry, because this is not generic George Street. It is the Rocks-end, the wharf-end, the bit that still smelled of iron and tar.

The book is copper-plate street elevations, issued in twenty parts from 1848, printed in York Street and published from Harrington Street. Fowles was not writing an almanac of the whole colony. He was arguing with England: look, gaslight, shops, a city. Lower George is his proof that the first street had grown up without quite becoming respectable.

George Street & Bridge Street – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY.

GEORGE STREET and BRIDGE STREET

Shop labels: [illegible] (too small to read in this scan)

Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris.

Bridge Street is the street that remembers the creek. It runs east from George Street toward Macquarie Place because that is where the Tank Stream was bridged, and the colony needed a way from the western camps to the governor's side. Fowles's Plate 12A in Sydney in 1848 draws both sides of Bridge Street, George to Pitt, and the George Street frontage from Essex Lane down past the Herald office to the corner. The live boiler calls it shops and hotels. The letterpress is more useful: this is Underwood's ground.

James Underwood's grant ran from George Street to the water. On it he built the first colonial ship, the King George, launched 19 April 1805. By 1848 the street wall is Underwood's Buildings, from the old Bank of Australia to the Sydney Morning Herald office. Fowles gives you the Herald: founded 1831, daily from October 1840, "the Times of Australia." Between the Herald and Bridge Street had been the garden of the Female Orphan School. The south side of Bridge Street is "the Colonnade." He thinks the street is still unfinished. He is right; the Lands office and the Chief Secretary still lie ahead.

Do not turn this plate into a Tank Stream biography or a Lands Department essay. Those posts exist. This is the 1848 corner: gaol hill to the north, orphan-school garden just gone, shipyard memory under the shops, and a creek still dictating the street name.

George Street and Charlotte Place – Sydney – 1848 – Joseph Fowles

Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)

SYDNEY.

GEORGE STREET – upper row: MARTYN AND COMBES · BANK OF AUSTRALASIA. · O'NEILL TAILOR · J. [illegible] GROCERY STORES · [illegible] LANHAM MERCHANT · S. LYONS AUCTION MART

GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BRIDGE STREET · MEDICAL DISPENSARY · BOOKSELLER & STATIONER · WHOLESALE CONFECTIONER · GROCER & TEA DEALER · BOOT & SHOE MAKER · J. & J. LEVICK MERCHANTS.

CHARLOTTE PLACE – upper row: S. LYONS AUCTION MART · J. W. GOSLING MERCHANT · CHURCH HILL

CHARLOTTE PLACE – lower row (printed upside down): [illegible] CLEEVE WHOLESALE & FAMILY BUTCHER. · J. HORDERN.

Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris

Charlotte Place is the name that throws people. On Fowles’s first street plate — Plate 10A, Sydney in 1848 — it is the short east–west street running from George Street up to Church Hill, drawn on both sides, with George Street itself shown from Lyons’ Mart to Jamison Street. The parade-ground origin is the fact to hold: Charlotte Place began as the military Parade Ground; the guard house sat where Fowles says Mr Cleeve’s house stood in 1848. The street was later renamed Grosvenor Street. If you walk it today you are on the same alignment, under a different saint’s name.

Up the hill is St Philip’s, the parish church Fowles cannot leave alone — clock tower first, church in use from August 1809, a new church already starting behind it. Across the George Street frontage he wants you to notice the Bank of Australasia (royal charter 1835) and Mr Lyons’ Auction Mart. Behind, until 1828, a garden ran to the hill; on the Tank Stream side the Lumber Yard was not cut into allotments until 1830. So the plate is a hinge: barracks memory, new banks, Church Hill still in charge.

Fowles drew streets as four stacked elevations to a page. Don’t treat the live scan as a single panorama. Charlotte Place is the Church Hill street. George Street here is the block that had just stopped being a garden.

William Dampier

William Dampier (1651–1715) got to New Holland twice, both times on the west and north-west coasts — never into Port Jackson. In 1688 he was aboard the buccaneer Cygnet, spending roughly three months near King Sound. His book A New Voyage Round the World (1697) made him the Admiralty’s South Seas expert.

In January 1699 he sailed as captain of HMS Roebuck, anchored at the inlet he named Shark Bay on 6 August 1699, coasted north-east looking for water, and left the coast near Roebuck Bay on 5 September for Timor. The ship was too rotten to push on to the unknown east coast — the honour Cook later took. Roebuck foundered at Ascension on the way home. Dampier’s journals are sharp on winds, currents, plants and people; his verdict on the west coast was blunt and unkind. Read him as an early English witness to Australia, not as a Founding Father of Sydney.