NSWRail & telegraph
Lidcombe
A railway village that changed its name to escape the cemetery.
1859Railway station opens at Haslam’s Creek
WHAT STARTED IT
The first railway from Sydney to Parramatta crossed Haslam’s Creek here, and a station opened in 1859. In 1867 the government opened Sydney’s new necropolis on 200 acres of tea-tree scrub beside the line, with funeral trains running from a mortuary station in the city straight into the grounds. A village grew up around the station.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The settlement was renamed Rookwood in 1876, and the cemetery later took the same name. A meat preserving works opened about 1870, followed by tanneries and glue works, and the Municipality of Rookwood was incorporated in December 1891. Wanting to separate the town from the cemetery, the council adopted the name Lidcombe in 1913, blending the surnames of two mayors, Frederick Lidbury and Henry Larcombe. Factories, including Ford in 1935, kept arriving until the council merged with Auburn in 1949.
TURNING POINTS
1858On 10 July a train from Campbelltown runs off the line at the Haslam’s Creek bridge, killing two passengers.
1859A railway station opens at Haslam’s Creek.
1867Sydney’s new necropolis opens beside the railway at Haslam’s Creek.
1876The village is renamed Rookwood.
1891The Municipality of Rookwood is incorporated on 10 December.
1913Rookwood council changes its name to Lidcombe, from mayors Lidbury and Larcombe.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A residential and industrial suburb around a major rail junction, with Rookwood Cemetery still beside it. In 2021 about one in seven residents was born in South Korea.