Inner West, Sydney: history and real estate

1

The Darug and the first clans

Before the First Fleet arrived, the Darug people lived across the Sydney region. Their nation was divided into a number of clans, each tending to live in its own area. Each clan numbered roughly 50 to 100 people. Men married women from outside their clan, a practice that avoided genetic problems. The clans were therefore related to one another, and members moved often through other clans' country to hunt, trade and hold ceremonies. The Darug saw themselves not as owners of the land but as its custodians.

What is now the Inner West was home to two clans. The Cadigal's country stretched along Port Jackson, and the Wangal's lay immediately to the west of it, reaching about Homebush Bay. Clans from surrounding country would have been regular visitors: they came from the area of the Cooks River to the south, from around Parramatta to the west, and from country on the north side of the Parramatta River.

2

Land grants and the road west

Land grants in what is now the Inner West began late in the 18th century. By 1814 a stage coach ran between the two main settlements, Sydney in the east and Parramatta in the west, and went on to Richmond. Settlements grew up along that coach route, which is now Parramatta Road. Large grants were broken up for commercial and residential development, among them Ashfield Park in 1838.

The Main Suburban railway line was built in 1855 and spurred more growth, especially around the first stations: Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. In the decades after the railway arrived, more of the original grants were broken up for building, among them the village at Homebush in 1878. Politicians, judges, industrialists and businessmen, the colony's elite, built grand homes in the parts of the Inner West then called "outer". The Arnott family, of the biscuit business, and David Jones's family, of the retail business, built houses in Strathfield.

3

Councils, trams and trains

Local government formed across the area as the population grew in the 19th century. The Municipality of Newtown was formed in 1862. Petersham, Leichhardt and Ashfield followed in 1871, Burwood in 1874, Concord in 1883 and Strathfield in 1885.

Sydney's tram network reached the Inner West in the last quarter of the 19th century and kept expanding into the early 20th, eventually covering almost the whole area, including Cabarita, Enfield and Canterbury. In 1895, a new suburban line branched off the Illawarra railway at Sydenham, giving rail access to southern suburbs such as Marrickville and Dulwich Hill.

4

Factories, homes and prime ministers

Central position and easy reach by water, rail and road brought large-scale industry to the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some grand houses were turned to industrial use. Abbotsford House became a chocolate factory for Nestlé, and Strathroy in Cabarita became the paint works of British Australian Lead Manufacturers, later known as Dulux.

The residential suburbs stayed popular, and a number of Australian prime ministers lived in the Inner West in this period. Several residential developments from just after the Federation of Australia are highly regarded as ensembles of Australian residential architecture and are heritage protected, among them the Haberfield "garden suburb", started in 1901; the Hoskins Estate at Appian Way in Burwood, started in 1903; and the Malvern Hill Estate in Croydon, started in 1909. Suburban growth quickened between the wars. Outer suburbs such as Strathfield, Burwood and Concord gained prestige, while the crowded inner suburbs, among them Newtown, Enmore and Erskineville, lost some of theirs.

5

Migration and gentrification

After World War II an influx of migrants came to Australia, and many of them settled in the Inner West, mostly from European countries. Industrial jobs, closeness to the city and good public transport drew them. Their arrival brought shops, cafes and restaurants with distinct ethnic character, giving commercial centres in the area a cosmopolitan feel. Haberfield and Leichhardt became known for concentrations of Italian businesses, and Petersham became the centre of Sydney's Portuguese community.

The pattern of settlement continued and moved further west after the White Australia Policy ended and the makeup of Australia's migrant intake changed. Late in the 1900s, Ashfield drew many Chinese immigrants, especially from Shanghai, and was known as "Little Shanghai". Burwood became a hub for Chinese immigrants and overseas students in the same way.

Late in the 20th century, alternative cultures multiplied in inner suburbs such as Newtown, and a wave of gentrification followed. By the water and in the outer suburbs, industrial sites returned to housing. In Balmain, the Colgate-Palmolive works and the Lever Brothers soap works became apartments. Abbotsford House and Strathroy House were restored and turned back to residential use, and the factories around them were replaced by upmarket housing. The flour mills that had long dominated Summer Hill's skyline were redeveloped for housing.

6

Living in the Inner West

The Inner West sits directly west of Sydney's central business district. Its suburbs lie mostly on the southern side of Port Jackson and reach south to the Cooks River, and the region covers more ground than the Inner West Council area. The A3 arterial road marks its western edge, roughly dividing it from Greater Western Sydney. It corresponds roughly with the Parish of Petersham and the Parish of Concord, two divisions used for land titles.

The two rivers shape the area: the southern catchments of the Parramatta River in the north, the northern catchment of the Cooks River in the south, with the Hume Highway following the ridgeline between them. Where the Parramatta River widens it becomes the drowned valley of Sydney Harbour, forming large bays on the southern shore, the largest of them Iron Cove, Homebush Bay and Hen and Chicken Bay. Between the rivers the land is rolling hills cut by shallow valleys, and the creeks running through those valleys, Iron Cove Creek, Hawthorne Canal, Whites Creek and Johnstons Creek, were greatly altered from the late 19th century by concrete lining.