NSWPort & river
Canterbury
A village that grew around a sugar refinery on the Cooks River.
1841Sugar works built on the Cooks River
WHAT STARTED IT
Canterbury began as Canterbury Vale, the 1793 grant to the colony’s chaplain Richard Johnson, which passed to William Cox and in 1803 to the merchant Robert Campbell. In 1840 the Australian Sugar Company began building a refinery on the Cooks River here, damming the river for fresh boiler water and quarrying sandstone on the site. Many of the labourers were paid partly in allotments in a new village of Canterbury beside the works.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The refinery began work in September 1842, turning imported raw sugar into loaf sugar and molasses, and a village of slab huts grew around it. The works closed in 1854, but the village survived, Canterbury became a municipality in 1879, and the railway to Belmore opened through the suburb in 1895. From 1908 the old refinery was a bacon factory for J. C. Hutton.
TURNING POINTS
1793Chaplain Richard Johnson receives the grant he names Canterbury Vale.
1803Robert Campbell buys William Cox’s 900-acre Canterbury estate in May.
1842The Australian Sugar Company’s refinery on the Cooks River begins processing in September.
1854The refinery closes in August.
1879Canterbury becomes a municipality, and John Sproule is elected its first mayor on 16 June.
1895The railway from Marrickville to Belmore opens on 1 February, with a station at Canterbury.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A residential suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown council area. The 1841 sugar works still stands by the river and now holds apartments.