NSWFarming
Five Dock
A surgeon’s farm named after five rocky inlets on the river.
1806Surgeon Harris’s Five Dock Farm
WHAT STARTED IT
Five Dock takes its name from five ‘docks’, or rocky inlets, on the peninsula between Iron Cove and Hen and Chicken Bay. The land was part of Surgeon John Harris’s Five Dock Farm of 1806, and the main street follows the Great North Road, begun in 1826, which left Parramatta Road here and ran north to a punt across the Parramatta River at Abbotsford.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The country was still open enough in 1844 for a Grand Steeple-chase to be run at Five Dock. In 1870 sixty-five ratepayers petitioned for a Municipal District of Five Dock covering about 1,600 acres and more than 500 people, and Arthur William Sutton became its first mayor in 1871. Drummoyne split away as a separate borough in 1890, leaving Five Dock with about 1.55 square miles.
TURNING POINTS
1806Surgeon John Harris’s farm on the peninsula takes the name Five Dock.
1826Work begins on the Great North Road, leaving Parramatta Road at Five Dock for the river crossing at Abbotsford.
1844The Five-Dock Grand Steeple-chase is run and recorded in a set of hand-coloured prints.
1870Sixty-five ratepayers petition for a Municipal District of Five Dock bounded by Iron Cove Creek, the Parramatta River, Hen and Chicken Bay and Parramatta Road.
1871Arthur William Sutton tops the poll at the first municipal election and becomes Five Dock’s first mayor.
1890Drummoyne is proclaimed a separate borough on 17 January, cutting Five Dock to about 1.55 square miles.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A residential suburb in the City of Canada Bay, with its shopping strip along Great North Road.