NSWFarming
Woolloomooloo
A commissary’s farm that became a wharf district below the cliffs.
1793John Palmer granted Woolloomooloo Farm
WHAT STARTED IT
The valley just east of Sydney Town, with a creek running down to mudflats on the bay, was granted to Commissary John Palmer in 1793 as ‘Walloomoolo Farm’. Its sheltered water close to the city later made it a working harbour, once the mudflats at the head of the bay were reclaimed for a wharf and new streets in the 1860s.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Palmer grew fruit and tobacco here before selling to Edward Riley in 1822, and villas soon rose on the heights above. After Cowper Wharf and new streets were laid out on reclaimed land in 1865, the valley filled with workers’ houses, pubs, sawmills and a fishmarket, and the Harbour Trust built its great finger wharf in 1911–15. A 1970s plan for office towers was defeated by residents and union green bans, and in 1975 three levels of government agreed to rebuild it with public housing.
TURNING POINTS
1793Lieutenant-Governor Grose grants John Palmer 100 acres known as ‘Walloomoolo Farm’ on 25 February.
1822Palmer sells the farm to Edward Riley.
1865Reclaimed land at the head of the bay is cut into allotments behind the new semicircular Cowper Wharf.
1872The city council opens a fishmarket at the corner of Plunkett and Bourke streets.
1915The Sydney Harbour Trust completes the finger wharf it began in 1911.
1975Federal, state and city governments sign an agreement to rebuild Woolloomooloo with medium-density public housing.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small harbourside suburb of public housing and restored terraces below Potts Point, with the finger wharf still standing on the bay.