by Louis Nowra
In her guidebook Great Australian Pubs (2012), Lee Mylne wrote that the Old Fitzroy had a ‘shabby-chic charm’. In Vagrer, a comic novel about the pub by a former barman Nathan Roche, the Old Fitzroy (or, as he calls it, with tongue firmly in cheek, the Ritz) is described as a ‘place that could be seen more or less as a mental institution with alcohol being provided’. This may be a comic exaggeration, but sometimes it was close to the truth.
Because of the hotel I have got to know many locals and I’ve spent much time wandering Woolloomooloo’s streets, gradually learning about a milieu that is totally ignored by outsiders except as a byword for the poor, dysfunctional, homeless, hopeless and desperate who live there.
This is a zone that was allowed to wither away until the 1970s. It was no wonder that George Farwell’s affectionate 1971 book was called Requiem for Woolloomooloo. But it recovered through the stubbornness of its remaining inhabitants, and the persistence of urban dreamers, unionists and a priest. Woolloomooloo was, in a way, the triumph of the forgotten and the powerless, and they make it the intriguing place it is today.
Over the years I’ve sought out Woolloomooloo’s past in its streets and alleys and how it’s imprinted itself on the present. In other words, I have been a flâneur. Baudelaire once defined the flâneur as someone whose domain is the crowd:
… as air is that of a bird, as water is that of a fish. His passion and his profession is to marry the crowd. For the flâneur, for the passionate observer, it is an immense pleasure to make a home in the multitude, in the flux, in the motion, in the fleeting and infinite.
This does not mean the flâneur is an objective reporter; in fact he glories in his attraction to the temporary, the ephemeral, the subjects not considered important by the historian. For him, the past is a spectral but persistent presence.
It is only when you walk its sixty-three streets that you see things that a cyclist, jogger or driver does not. To these transients Woolloomooloo may seem bland, a miscellaneous cacophony of buildings and streets, but a flâneur discovers, generally by accident, pockets of beauty and charm and small enclaves redolent of the past unnoticed by others.
But how to tell the story of Woolloomooloo? It cannot be a normal history because I haven’t experienced it in that way. As a flâneur (or ‘deep walker’, which is my preferred term) I have a street-level understanding of the area and, as a drinker at the Old Fitzroy, I’ve become familiar with many members of the community. Through my time at the pub, I’ve also set out to discover the history of the ’Loo, which is seldom written about except in a disparaging and condescending way.
I’ve approached Woolloomooloo through four strands: memoir, history, its major streets and the themes that define it. This approach has come about because of the way I have learned about the area. Originally I had no intention of writing about it, but through a process of accretion have accumulated information for what could also be called ‘A Field Guide to the Neighbourhood’.
The catalyst was the Old Fitzroy and those regulars I mix with. From my interest in the hotel itself, its history and the locals I met there, my fascination with Woolloomooloo grew. Just what was its history? There were only a couple of books written about the area nearly half a century ago. Why is the very word Woolloomooloo still a stigma, a shorthand for notoriety, social despair and criminality?
It has become clear to me that the Old Fitzroy, with its history dating back to when the area was transformed from a farm into a crowded residential district, is a living portal into Woolloomooloo’s past and present.
THE NAME EXCITES RIDICULE AND ODIUM
ALL THE LONG-TIME RESIDENTS I’VE INTERVIEWED agree that once people heard they were from Woolloomooloo they were considered ‘scum’ and ‘low-lifes’. In order to get a job they pretended to be from Potts Point or Darlinghurst.
The name’s unsavoury reputation has been longstanding, so much so that in 1905 a Woolloomooloo Renaming Committee was formed. As far as its members were concerned, the name ‘excites ridicule and sometimes even odium’. Patrick Lynch, the secretary of the group, thought it was a ‘long ugly word with eight vowels’. It had such nasty connotations that St Kilda private hospital had difficulty filling its beds and so changed its entrance from Woolloomooloo Street to Palmer Street in order to avoid the stigma.
A petition calling for the district to be renamed was signed by 1145 people but, as Lynch said, ‘11,000 signatures could have been obtained if necessary’. The petition was strongly backed by the Sydney Morning Herald, which believed that:
The old name, with its multitudinous vowels, has become synonymous with evil repute, and the modern resident craves for the final effacement of both with one pass on the sponge across the slate.
Businesses supported the move because the name took up too much space on advertisements, and there were people who quite simply wanted a name that was easier to spell and pronounce. A counter petition, signed by just a handful of locals, thought the name ‘liquid and euphonious … unique and uncommon’.
There were many suggestions for renaming the area Palmerton or even St Kilda, but the most popular was Parkhurst. Woolloomooloo Bay would keep its name, but Woolloomooloo Street would restore what was thought to be its Aboriginal name, Wulla-Mulla. The Committee’s only success was to change Woolloomooloo Street to Cathedral because it led up to St Mary’s.
Over the years teachers made up ditties and rhymes to try and teach their pupils how to spell the peculiar name:
Near Sydney Town there’s a place of renown
Which is well known to you, it’s called Woolloomooloo,
It’s easy to say, I know very well
But Woolloomooloo is not easy to spell.
Double U double O double L double O M double O L double O
Now make that a feature, and I’ll be the teacher
Let everyone here have a go.
The origin of the name is obviously Aboriginal, but there has been considerable debate over the years as to how it was spelt and what it meant. One conjecture was that the local Cadigal people called it Wullamulla or Wullamooloo, which means field of blood, because tribal fights occurred there. But the consensus is that it was either Wallabahmullah, which meant a young male kangaroo or male black kangaroo, or Wallamullah, a place where plenty of fish are caught. Given that the Cadigal fished in the bay, the latter seems plausible.
The problem was that in the early nineteenth century the name underwent many permutations because no-one could agree on a uniform spelling. The quirky variations included Wulamulla, Woolamoola, Wallamoola, Wallamooloo, Wallamoula, Woolloomoola, Wolomoloo, Woolloomaloo. Finally these coalesced into the standard spelling and pronunciation of Woolloomooloo, a name that is obviously a European corruption of the Aboriginal word.
Back in 1793 it was known as Wallamooloo when Lieutenant-Governor Major Francis Grose made a grant to the Commissary-General John Palmer of ‘one hundred acres of land lying at the head of Garden Island Cove on the east side of the line laid down as a boundary for the common ground appropriated for the town of Sydney, which was to be known as Wallamooloo Farm’. These forty hectares stretched from Woolloomooloo Bay (Garden Island Cove) and were bounded by present-day Hyde Park, Forbes Street and Albion Street, Surry Hills.
John Palmer had arrived with the First Fleet as purser on HMS Sirius in 1788. He was twenty-eight years old and had entered the Navy as a captain’s servant at nine, though it appears he was well educated. He was captured by the French in 1781 during the American War of Independence and, after his release in 1783, he married the beautiful daughter of an American Royalist family that could trace its lineage back to the Mayflower.
Handsome, with a ruddy complexion and blue eyes, he was small enough to be nicknamed ‘Little Jacky’. He had vivid red hair and a quick temper that soon passed. Gregarious and considered by everyone a ‘proper gentleman’, he had many talents. His marksmanship with rifle or gun was thought remarkable, as was his dancing: ‘So light was he on his feet that he c
ould dance a hornpipe (a lively dance popular with sailors) on the dining table, before the glasses had been removed, and none of the wine in them would be spilt.’ He took to the Sydney climate finding it ‘delicious, the airs so salubrious’. In early 1790 Governor Phillip appointed Palmer to the office of Commissary-General, where his duties involved the procurement, issue and receipt of stores, and being paymaster, treasurer and banker. He proved to be diligent and honest.
The land he was granted was swampy and regularly flooded, but it was fertile. It had a ‘crystal clear’ creek meandering through it, which began in East Sydney and flowed in a north-westerly direction, winding its way across William Street, where later a wonky bridge would become a constant trial for pedestrians, and followed the line of present-day Sir John Young Crescent, slightly interrupted by stepping stones near Cathedral Street for people to cross it (except at high tide, when the stones were covered), and down to the mudflats and mangroves of the bay near what is now Riley Street.
Palmer rid his property of the native melaleucas and casuarinas and replaced them with briar roses and golden gorse in the English fashion. He cultivated a model farm of five acres, enclosed by a stone wall, with orchards, grape vines and even, at one time, an experimental crop of tobacco. He also ran cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and horses. There was a windmill where Governor Phillip’s statue now stands in the Botanic Garden and the bakehouse was on the site of the Conservatorium of Music. It was so successful it was just known as ‘The Farm’.
His residence, Woollamoola House, was flanked on the west by the creek, close to what is now Palmer Street, some 75 metres from William Street. Built in 1800, it was a simple but large house with Georgian windows and no verandah. Nearby were enormous stables and coach houses, and a family vault (‘a pretty tomb’) secreted on the corner of Cathedral and Forbes streets in a small grove of cypresses. Two of the Palmers’ children were buried in it (their bodies were later removed to Parramatta). The surroundings were equally impressive: ‘There were iron gates supported by stone walls and a stone palisading up to the house, within grew Norfolk Island pines and the large blossomed carrajong.’ The home was said to be spacious enough to accommodate a huge family and strong enough to withstand a siege. The Cadigal roamed the property making ‘their fires on the hillside at night, but never came by the front of the house’.
Palmer had a strong mercantile streak and owned three vessels. One called John was built in his own shipyard, nearly a third of a mile from the present rim of the bay where there was enough water to launch small ships. John and a sloop called George were used for whaling and sealing in Bass Strait, and Edwin, the runt of the vessels, traded up and down the Hawkesbury River and along the coast.
When he had established himself, he returned to England in 1796 to fetch his wife and children whom he hadn’t seen in ten years. The family arrived back in Sydney in 1800. The Palmers were soon celebrated for their elegance, grand entertainments and summer soirees, their invitations highly prized by colonial society.
John Bolger’s 1803 painting Walloomooloo, the Seat of John Palmer Esquire, Port Jackson may be the work of a gifted amateur, but it’s a delightful rendition of how Palmer’s farm was seen in its prime. Picturesque boats sail in the bay, another is being built on the foreshore, contented cattle graze on the slopes, the orchards are heavy with fruit and the house itself is at the centre of this idyllic portrait of fecundity and unostentatious wealth.
The French also noticed Palmer’s extensive property. On a map published in Paris in 1805 (by order of His Majesty Napoleon, Empereur et Roi) his spacious house appears as ‘Maison de Monsieur Palmer’. The map also shows the winding course of the stream, beginning somewhere in present East Sydney and crossing William Street, where there was a punt (the only way to cross the creek before the bridge was built).
Palmer was gregarious and kind. In 1806 when there was a scarcity of flour in the colony, he made sure his bread was sold to the needy at less than the inflated prices charged elsewhere. He treated convicts well, and one who worked for him was Margaret Catchpole, who later became known for her letters home to England. For eighteen months she cooked for Palmer and was amazed at how the family ‘mak as much of me as if I was a Lady’. While working there she was wooed by the botanist James Gordon, a frequent visitor to Woollamoola House, but she rejected him and never married.
During the mutiny against Bligh, Palmer sided with the Governor and was imprisoned by the rebels, but on Macquarie’s arrival in January 1810, he was reinstated to his office. Three months later, he was forced to travel to England as a witness for Bligh. He returned in 1814, but in his absence his position had been downgraded and Macquarie had resumed the land that held the windmill and the bakery. Palmer’s finances were a mess and the mortgage for his estate rose to an incredible £13,000. There seemed to be no way of reducing his debts except to hold a fire sale of his furniture in 1816. The advertisement in the Sydney Gazette suggests the lavishness of his former lifestyle and refined tastes. The furniture comprised:
Elegant four post bedsteads, with mosquito curtains and beautiful English chintz hangings, very tastefully made up, with window curtains to correspond, excellent beds, palisades, and hair mattresses, fashionable drawing room, parlour and dining room furniture, consisting of Brussels, Kidderminster, and Venetian carpets … two dozen handsome drawing room chairs, dressing room and parlour ditto, quite new and very fashionable register stoves, with brass mounted fire irons and fenders to correspond: elegant Europe chintz window curtains with superiorly arranged draperies and cornices, with couches en suite; a very superb mirror 5ft 6 inches by 3 feet; mahogany and cedar articles, consisting of wardrobes, chests of drawers, sets of dining, breakfast and card tables, wash hand stands, dressing tables, gentlemen’s cylindrical writing desks, two excellent piano fortes, a very good 8 day clock, a double dinner set of tureens, patent china, a truly elegant and beautiful dessert set of Worcester china, and an equally elegant tea and coffee set of the same, with trays … cut and plain glass, a very rich and fashionable side board of plated ware … A most complete and very superior assortment of every description of Kitchen furniture, comprising fly and cottage jacks, ranges, boilers, stewers, steamers, ovens. There will also be sold a very handsome Chariot, a good gig, some prime Carriage and other articles too numerous to mention.
Even this desperate ploy was of little help, and Palmer was forced to sell the property at a huge loss. In 1822 Edward Riley bought it for the paltry sum of £2,290. Three years later Joseph Lycett painted a watercolour of The Residence of Edward Riley Esq., Wooloomooloo, near Sydney, NSW. He had already made a watercolour of it in 1819, but the new one made some important, though subtle, changes. Rocks may have dominated the foreground and middle ground in the earlier, more realistic version, but now they had been reduced in favour of a smooth lawn, the perfect place for the strolling couple introduced into the composition, as if they are aristocrats imported from a bucolic English scene. A small fence that had bisected the middle of the work has been eliminated to create a sense of open space. The Aborigines are still there, resting under the shade of a tree, but have become merely a decorative curiosity for the couple pointing in their direction. The unruly cluster of trees in the first watercolour has been put into an orderly line, and five evenly spaced trees appear in the upper left. This second painting of the estate emphasises a sense of order and the colonist’s control of nature. Never again would Woolloomooloo look so neat and tamed.
Edward was a merchant and pastoralist whose expensive tastes caused him to live beyond his means. He fell deeper into debt, not helped by his crippling fits of depression and listless periods of melancholia, which took a severe toll. Early in 1825, after finishing his dinner, he retired to his room where he placed a shotgun barrel in his mouth and blew out his brains, leaving behind a legal mess and an area identified for years afterwards as the Riley Estate.
Many of Lycett’s works feature Aborigines and he provided a text about them to accom
pany the watercolours for Edward Riley:
Wooloomooloo … is a native name; and this particular spot was, until the last ten years, always much frequented by the Natives, and a favourite resort for their Corroborees and other past times; and, to this day, large parties of them repose under the confines of the establishment during the night, while they visit Sydney and its vicinity.
Woolloomooloo was in fact a highly significant place to the Cadigal people, as a ceremonial site, camping and hunting grounds, and as a favourite location for fishing. The only archaeological evidence that they ever existed in the area is at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair (Yurong Point) where, in a sandstone shelter, there are faint remains of two white hand stencils; at another site nearby there is a midden with evidence of cockles, rock oysters, hairy mussels, periwinkles, limpets and fish bones.
But there are many references to their presence in Woolloomooloo into the 1840s. One settler remembered that in his youth during the 1820s:
Woolloomooloo was long a gathering place for the blacks; and I can recollect on their festive occasions seeing 200 or 300 of the original owners of the soil camped about the bay. The sight — a strange contrast to the present day — was a happy one, for then the civilisation of the white men had not thinned the ranks of our sable brethren and in their merry chatter one would often hear such a word uttered as ‘Wallahmullah’, the name in which the present Woolloomooloo was known to them.
