Histories of Green Square - City of Sydney

Histories of Green Square
Fig. 7.1 Lithographed map of Waterloo, Parish of Alexandria, County of Cumberland, c1885,
from a collection of Sydney suburban maps published by Higinbotham and Robinson.
(Source: ML ref. F981.1/H, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.)
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© Jeff Fairman
The natural watercourses were essential for use in many industries,
including the numerous tanneries, wool washes, soap
factories, glassmakers and brewers. 4 Unfortunately, at a time
of little regulation regarding either public health or industrial
pollution, these uses often resulted in public health issues, and
the degradation of the water supply. The Alexandra Canal was
one such waterway: until recently it was considered one of
Sydney’s most polluted waterways. 5
Daniel Cooper, a prominent businessman, acquired both the
Mount Lachlan and Waterloo Estates in 1829 and 1825 respectively.
The Cooper family held this vast area right up until
the beginning of World War One. 6 Subdivision in the area
was largely a result of the release and sale of small parcels of
these Cooper Estates, from the 1850s up until 1914. Thus the
appearance of subdivision was contingent upon the Coopers’
own financial situation, the price of land, and the economy. 7
7.2.3 The first subdivision
The first recorded subdivision occurred in 1853, when allotments
‘ranging from 20 feet to 60 feet frontage’ were offered. 8
Unfortunately, to date there is no detail of exactly where in
Waterloo this was located. However, likely places for the
earliest subdivision were along Wellington and Raglan Streets,
where some of the oldest residential buildings in Waterloo,
dating from the late 1870s, can be found. Interestingly, Mt
Carmel (Catholic) and Mt Lachlan (now Uniting) churches
are the oldest surviving buildings still standing in Waterloo.
The land for both of these was granted by Daniel Cooper—
first Mt Carmel in 1859, and then Mt Lachlan in 1860. 9 The
lure of employment in industries such as those established by
Daniel Cooper attracted people to the area as early as 1815,
but the major boom in population occurred fifty years later,
firstly in Redfern in the 1860s, and in the following decades in
Waterloo and Alexandria.
Waterloo was incorporated as a borough in May 1860, after
successfully petitioning for independence from the borough of
Redfern, established just one year earlier. 10 Until the Town Hall
was completed in 1882, the Council met in a room attached
to Quin’s Bakery. 11 Subdivision prior to 1880 was localised
around the area bounded by Wellington, Raglan and Elizabeth
Streets, which marked the heart of the town. It seems that even
at this early stage of development, much of the growth was
based on venture capital. It is likely that the first housing in
the area was built by speculative investors, who thus played
a key role in providing housing in these outer suburbs of
Sydney. 12 In Wellington Street, for example, as Susan O’Reilly
also discusses in Chapter 13, ‘virtually every dwelling in the
Street was constructed by James Schimmel in the late 1870s’,
and this was not an unusual achievement. 13 The extraordinary
growth in Sydney’s population in the boom years provided
excellent opportunity for profits for those with capital to
invest, as there was an enormous demand for housing. Often,
though, this housing was of substandard quality to maximise
profit margins.
The Australian colonies were marketed as a ‘worker’s paradise’
to prospective immigrants in Britain, and those who migrated
expected a land of prosperity, decent housing and work for
all. 14 But this was far from reality in Waterloo, and indeed in
many parts of Sydney. As we shall see, regulation of housing
development was rare, while exploitation was common. The
severe problems really came to a head during the ‘boom era’ of
the 1880s and the bust of the 1890s.
© Jeff Fairman
Chapter 7 – Waterloo: Whose fault were the slums?
7.3 Thirty years of change, 1880–1910
Throughout the 1870s, Sydney’s suburban population experienced
a remarkable period of growth culminating in the
1880s, when, for the first time, the suburban population
exceeded that of the city wards. With a population that had
grown from 135,000 in 1871 to 383,283 by 1891, Sydney
had experienced astounding growth in a short time, but this
increase was greatest in suburbs such as Redfern, Paddington,
and Balmain. 15 While the City had previously been the most
crowded place in Sydney, this was no longer the case by 1891.
By then many of the fringe working-class suburbs, including
Waterloo, were just as crowded. House construction and subdivision
peaked there in the 1880s.
7.3.1 Growth of the suburb
Subdivision in the 1880s occurred south of the established
town of Waterloo, following the lines of the major streets—
Bourke and Botany Streets and down Elizabeth Street. Subdivided
lands were aimed at ‘Working men, Artisans, Mechanics’
alike. 16 Land closer to the Waterloo swamp and Dam was the
first to be offered in the 1880s, such as the Zetland Estate
in Portman and Merton Streets, which was located just off
Bourke Street and near the site of the proposed Green Square
Town Centre. 17 The Zetland Estate allotments were offered
for sale on Saturday 13 th June 1885, and comprised 289 allotments,
all roughly 100 feet long by 20 feet wide, the long,
narrow shape of terraced housing. 18 As a result, the houses
built on these site were primarily terraces, built in Victorian
Italianate style, though some variations can be found. The
other style of housing still extant in this area is the small freestanding
workers’ cottage, which tends to be single storey, and
constructed from timber.
Subdivision was rarely successful on the first sale, and allotments
were often offered for sale over a number of years.
In Waterloo, land sales tended to occur in clusters (such as
between 1880 and 1890, in 1900 and then between 1910 and
1916). The Zetland Estate is an example of this pattern, as the
sale of land surrounding Bourke, Botany and Elizabeth Streets
continued with another sale in 1903 and again in 1911. Still
further south, the Victoria Estate subdivision, near Epsom and
Hansard Streets, was offered for sale in 1912. 19
The presence of both terrace and cottage style housing suggests
that there were two different classes of workers in the area.
Those who lived in the more substantial and elaborate terraces
tended to be artisans or skilled workers, while the workers’
cottages were occupied, primarily, by unskilled labourers and
factory workers. The Sands Sydney Directory for 1890 reveals
that ninety per cent of those people living in Portman Street
had trades, and included painters, stonemasons, an engineer,
boot makers, builders, and grocers. In Raglan Street Sands
lists a jeweller at 22 Raglan Street, an ironmonger, bricklayers,
dairy keepers, florists and butchers. While these occupations
by today’s standards might seem laborious and not of
particularly high status, it should be noted that these were
skilled trades, and that therefore these people were likely to
have enjoyed leisure time (those who worked the eight hour
day at least) and regular and partly disposable incomes. 20
What was life like for these skilled labourers? Certainly there
was a degree of material wealth as artisans earned more
money than unskilled workers, but it was also the regularity
of work that a skilled worker could expect which allowed the
improvement of material life and comfort. However, there
was also a degree of pressure to aspire to more middle class
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