Newtown, New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Newtown, a suburb
of Sydney's inner west
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
, straddling the local government areas
of the City of Sydney
and Marrickville Council
in the state of New South Wales
, Australia
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
band of the Eora
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
and Parramatta Road
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
.
Newtown was established as a residential and farming area in the early 19th century. The area took its name from a grocery store opened there by John and Eliza Webster in 1832, at a site close to where the Newtown railway station stands today. They placed a sign atop their store that read "New Town Stores". The name New Town was adopted, at first unofficially, with the space disappearing to form the name Newtown.
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
in 1857.
From 1845, when the first Anglican church was built on the site of the present Community Centre on Stephen Street, by Edmund Blacket
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
had merged to form North Sydney
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
, Paddington
and Balmain
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common.
Newtown, a suburb
of Sydney's inner west
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
, straddling the local government areas
of the City of Sydney
and Marrickville Council
in the state of New South Wales
, Australia
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
band of the Eora
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
and Parramatta Road
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
.
Newtown was established as a residential and farming area in the early 19th century. The area took its name from a grocery store opened there by John and Eliza Webster in 1832, at a site close to where the Newtown railway station stands today. They placed a sign atop their store that read "New Town Stores". The name New Town was adopted, at first unofficially, with the space disappearing to form the name Newtown.
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
in 1857.
From 1845, when the first Anglican church was built on the site of the present Community Centre on Stephen Street, by Edmund Blacket
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
had merged to form North Sydney
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
, Paddington
and Balmain
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common.
Newtown, a suburb
of Sydney's inner west
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
, straddling the local government areas
of the City of Sydney
and Marrickville Council
in the state of New South Wales
, Australia
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
band of the Eora
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
and Parramatta Road
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
.
Newtown was established as a residential and farming area in the early 19th century. The area took its name from a grocery store opened there by John and Eliza Webster in 1832, at a site close to where the Newtown railway station stands today. They placed a sign atop their store that read "New Town Stores". The name New Town was adopted, at first unofficially, with the space disappearing to form the name Newtown.
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
in 1857.
From 1845, when the first Anglican church was built on the site of the present Community Centre on Stephen Street, by Edmund Blacket
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
had merged to form North Sydney
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
, Paddington
and Balmain
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common. King Street developed into a thriving retail precinct and the Newtown area was soon dotted with factories, workshops, warehouses and commercial and retail premises of all kinds and sizes. Several major industries were established in the greater Newtown area from the late 19th century, including the Eveleigh rail workshops, the IXL
jam and preserves factory in North Newtown/Darlington, the St Peters brickworks and the Fowler Potteries in Camperdown.
and Paddington
, the area became increasingly run down as wealthy Sydneysiders preferred to settle in newer and more prestigious areas. In 1949, Newtown was incorporated into the City of Sydney
.
Newtown was originally a relatively prosperous suburb, the legacy of which is the numerous lavish Victorian mansions
still standing in the area. However, many parts of Newtown had gradually become a working-class
enclave, and for much of the 20th century, Newtown was a low-income blue-collar suburb, often denigrated as a slum
. In the post-war period, the low rents and house prices attracted newly-arrived European migrants, and Newtown's population changed radically, becoming home to a sizeable migrant community.
In 1968, a controversial redistribution of local government boundaries by the Askin
State Liberal government saw part of Newtown become part of Marrickville Council
. From the 1970s, as the post-war population prospered, raised families and aged, many moved to outlying suburbs to build larger houses, resulting in a supply of relatively cheap terrace houses and cottages entered the rental market. Because of its proximity to the expanding Sydney University and the Sydney CBD, along with the comparatively low rents, Newtown began to attract university students in the 1960s and '70s. The area became a centre for student
share-households in Sydney and the development of cafes, pubs and restaurants made it a mecca
for many young people. Newtown gained a reputation as a bohemian
centre and the gay
and lesbian
population also increased.
Many homes have been restored and remain examples of 19th-century architecture in Sydney. The northern end of Newtown (closer to the University and the city) is considered the more prestigious, with house prices and rents in this part of town often higher than those for similar properties in South Newtown, Enmore
or St Peters
. Like other similar inner-Sydney suburbs (most notably Paddington
and Glebe
), gentrification has led to another shift in Newtown's demographics. From the 1970s onwards, many major industrial and commercial sites in the area were closed or vacated. Many of these former commercial sites have since been redeveloped as housing such as the Alpha House and Beta House apartment complexes on King Street, which were formerly both multi-storey warehouses. Prior to becoming apartments, Alpha and Beta house became two artist warehouses that accommodated the birthing of many national and international performing arts companies and artists. One such company, 'Legs on the Wall' www.legsonthewall.com.au, was created in Beta House at the suggestion of Kerry Dwyer (original director), while Brian Keogh (original member/producer) had his leg on the old window surrounds stretching as part of the daily ritual.
One of the most significant and visible changes to the area has been the redevelopment of the Silo apartment complex, which occupies part of Crago Flour Mills and former grain silos, which had been built on the site of the original Newtown station, at the end of Station Street. Rather than demolishing the silos and building a new structure, the developers reconstructed the building and created a series of circular apartment spaces, augmented by the construction of more traditionally shaped apartments on the lower levels.
Newtown railway station
is on the Inner West line of the CityRail network
. The station opened in 1855, as one of the original four intermediate stations on the Sydney to Parramatta
rail line (the others being Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush), and it was soon serviced by 10 steam trains a day. In 1878 the station was moved from Station Street to its current location by the fork of King Street and Enmore Road.
Accessibility is far from ideal, since the present station was built into a deep, narrow cutting under King Street, with the result that the platforms are several metres below street level and can only be accessed by a steep stairway. In its 2007 budget, the NSW state government committed to funding for an upgrade to the station including the installation of lifts, new stairways and canopies, toilets and lighting. Work has commenced, with completion scheduled for 'the end of 2012 '.
Until the 1960s, when trams were phased out in Sydney, Newtown was a major hub for train-tram transfers; several regular electric tram services were centred there and the old Newtown tram depot (long vacant and now largely derelict) still stands next to the station.
, Dulwich Hill
and Canterbury
, respectively. Since then the 423 service from the city to Kingsgrove
via Newtown has been added. There is also the 352 service that goes east through Surry Hills
, to Bondi Junction
and the 370 service running north to the University of Sydney
and Leichhardt
and south-east to the University of New South Wales
and Coogee
.
.
Primary and infants school include:
. These include a number of late-Victorian establishments and several in an Art Deco
style from the mid-20th century. In July 2000, one of these, "The Marlborough", called by historian Chrys Meader "the Gateway to Newtown" because of its visually commanding appearance at a wide intersection of King Street and Missenden Road, was stripped of all its original Art Deco tiles and had its upper floor substantially damaged before protests to the council prevented this being taken further.
venue, a bicycle factory and a motor body works.
From 1920 onwards it was owned by the Grace Brothers retail company, and several sections were leased out as shops or accommodation. For many years the shopfront on the northern side of the building housed Maurice's Lebanese Restaurant, commemorated in John Kennedy's "On King St, I'm A King". The building was purchased by Moore Theological College
in 1974, and from 1981 to 1994 it housed the Con Dellis used furniture store, but all occupation ceased after that time. Fortunately, a sympathethic restoration program during 2005–06 by Moore College has returned this outstanding 19th-century building, including its elaborate Flemish-style facade, to its former glory.
-style cinema operated the Hoyts
cinema chain. In the mid-1960s the cinema was converted into a community hall and it was renamed Burland Community Hall in 1965. For years it was the venue for community events such as dances, concerts, film screenings, meetings, parties, wedding receptions and a community market. In 1986 its upper floor was taken over for the Newtown branch of the City of Sydney Library
network, following the decision by Marrickville Council
to close its Newtown library branch due to budgetary constraints. In 1995 the library moved to new premises in the former Salvation Army
Citadel in nearby Brown Street, and Burland Hall was redeveloped into offices and retail premises.
laws, it was used to screen pornographic films and stagelive "adult" sex shows, including the long-running "Little French Maid". The Hub closed as a "porno" venue in the early 1990s and has been mostly vacant ever since; the owners of the Dendy chain tried to secure the venue for its Newtown cinema, but were unsuccessful. Recently, the Hub has been home to live comedy shows and other such performances, seeing a rejuvenation of the building.
Newtown has been a hub for live entertainment since the late 19th century. During the 1980s the many pubs in the area housed a thriving live music scene, notably the The Sandringham
in King Street. One of the best-known Australian bands to emerge from this scene was The Whitlams
, who held down a formative residency at "The Sando" for several years. Musician John Kennedy
wrote a tribute to the area in the mid-1980s. His single "On King St I'm A King" name-checked familiar Newtown landmarks and local figures of the time, including "The Wire Man" (a local eccentric who collected wire and wire coathangers), Maurice's Lebanese restaurant, and the Coles New World supermarket, which occupied the site of the current Dendy Cinema.
Throughout the 1990s it was particularly known as a centre for indie rock
, with the suburb home to many musicians and several live venues. In the late nineties it boasted a handful of popular venues: Goldmans / Newtown RSL
, The Globe, Feedback and The Sandringham, all of which had closed by the late 1990s. After its takeover by Petersham RSL Club, the former Newtown RSL reopened as a music venue under the name of @Newtown.
In recent years, the suburb has enjoyed a renaissance with the return of live music to The Sandringham (dubbed by regulars as "The Sando") after the pub's upper floor was rebuilt as a performance room, and small ensembles and bands still perform in the front bar. Another recent addition to Newtown's live music scene is the small live venue The Vanguard at the north end of King Street, and the continuing popularity of the lyric-sized Enmore Theatre
.
In the 1970s and '80s many theatres, cinemas and music venues in the Sydney CBD were demolished. Due to the lack of "lyric"-sized venues, the Enmore Theatre
in Enmore Road has become one of the busiest medium-sized concert venues in Sydney.
The Newtown Festival is a community festival of free live music, events, workshops and stalls that has been held annually since 1981. Held in Camperdown Memorial Park next to St. Stephen's Church. The purpose of the festival is to raise funds for the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, an association that provides services to non-English speakers, the aged, disabled or poor. Controversially, in 2006 for the first time the festival was held within a fenced confine.
Feastability, Newtown's Food and Wine Festival, showcases the eclectic international cuisines of the suburb along with Australian wine, local pubs and brewers, bakers and confectioners. The festival, which is held on the last Sunday of each September, started in the mid-1990s as six stall outside the Hub. It now takes place in the grounds of Newtown School of Performing Arts, has more than 40 stalls and features all-day entertainment from musicians and artists, as well as kids' activities. The festival is organised by Marrickville Council
.
Under the Blue Moon Festival is an alternative community festival also held in September. The event has a variety of entertainment; live music, discussions, street performances, fashion shows and other subculture presentations, especially those of the Goth
community. Local business and special interest groups provide a diverse variety of entertainment, including a local alternative hairdresser and even the local mortuary with a display of coffins.
The Sydney Fringe
festival is a two-week alternative arts festival that will be held for the first time in September 2010 at venues in Newtown, Enmore and Marrickville. It is a project of the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association.
" -- is Australia's oldest existing rugby league
club, formed in 1908. They compete in the NSWRL Premier League
competition, a tier below the NRL
's national premiership, and enjoy good crowds at their home ground of Henson Park, Marrickville
.
and Ken Shorter as a draft dodger hiding out in Newtown.
In the mid-1980s, the Spanish Mission-style service station on King Street was used as a location for scenes in the Ray Lawrence film Bliss
, which was based on the novel by Peter Carey. In the film, the service station was used as the childhood home of Harry Joy's wife Bettina, played by Lynette Curran
.
Garage Days
directed by Alex Proyas
, depicts a fictional indie rock band based in Newtown, and Erskineville Kings
, starring Hugh Jackman
, features extensive use of locations in Newtown and Erskineville.
The ABC television drama Love Is A Four Letter Word
, starring musician-actor Peter Fenton and featuring live bands each episode, included extensive location shooting at the Courthouse Hotel in Australia Street.
St Stephen's Church and Camperdown Cemetery have regularly been used as sites for filming movies, TV and videos, notably in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
The Newtown area is also known for its creative graffiti
and "street art". The most prominent of these works are the large murals created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which were painted on the walls of houses and shops in the area. Spray-painted "tags" have proliferated all over the area in recent years, although more recently the style of tagging has become far more elaborate than the simple spray-can signatures that litter walls throughout the district.
Examples include a mural of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on King Street (painted by Andrew Aiken (Seems)and Juilee Pryor), the "Great Wave" mural in Gowrie Street, the "Three Proud People" mural (a reproduction of a photo taken at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics), and the "map of Africa" mural in King Street.
Bars such as Zanzibar having a loyal lesbian following. Wednesday nights are especially popular for lesbians as The Bank Hotel & The Sly Fox both host girls' nights.
The Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service in Newtown provides free telephone counselling for gays and lesbians living in NSW, as well as Twenty 10, a support organisation for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, same-sex attracted and gender-questioning people who are under 26 and having problems at home or have recently become homeless.
In 2010, in the lead-up to the NSW State Election which was held on 26 March, Twitter was used heavily by local candidates as a method of communicating with the Inner West. Local organisation One Small Planet proposed Twitter assistance to two sitting Members of Parliament in two very similar electorates, both demographically and geographically. These electorates have been held by the Labor Party for decades, Marrickville since 1910 and Balmain since 1927 except for a short period held by an independent member after the 1988 election.
The two sitting members were both very high-profile Ministers in the, then incumbent, Labor government. Verity Firth, Member for Balmain was Minister for Education and Training, while Carmel Tebbutt, Member for Marrickville, was Deputy Premier and Minister for Health.
Carmel Tebbutt executed on the Twitter Advocacy program and engaged heavily with social media, including her staff attending local meet-ups and interviews in social media publications.
Before establishing the advocate account, @Keep_Carmel, the Twitter sentiment towards Carmel Tebbutt reflected the attitudes expressed in polls and press about the incumbent Labor Party Government – very negative. Pundits, like the ABC’s Antony Green, who is also on Twitter (@AntonyGreenABC), were also writing and tweeting links to their material, with negative sentiments. Without any Twitter presence the Keep Carmel campaign would have been unable to provide any counter arguments to swing sentiment towards a more neutral or even positive position. From the end of February and through to the election in March the sentiment had changed to become primarily neutral and the positive sentiment out-weighed the negative at least 5:1.
At the completion of the campaign and at the finalisation of votes, Carmel Tebbutt, had only a 7.1% swing against her and a clear majority of the primary votes. Carmel Tebbutt has retained her seat and claimed it on the afternoon of 30 March. May put this down to the strong use of social media by Carmel Tebbutt.
Census
of Population and Housing, the population of the Newtown postcode area was 15,027 people, in an area of 1.9 square kilometres. 33% of the population was born overseas. The eight strongest religious affiliations in the area were in descending order: No religion, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox Christian, Buddhism, Uniting Church, Presbyterian and Reformed, and other Christian. The three most common forms of dwelling were in decreasing order: a semi-detached, row or terrace house, or townhouse; a flat, unit or apartment; a separate house.
. While Newtown and other similar areas were within the City of Sydney Council boundary, the ALP was able to control the Council for several decades.
and City of Sydney
local government area
s.
The Liberal Party state government of Robert Askin
, which came to power in 1966, was keen to break Labor's control of the City of Sydney. In 1967 Askin abolished the City Council, installed a tribunal of administrators, and controversially redistributed the city's boundaries, leading to much of the former ward of Newtown being reallocated to the neighbouring municipalities of South Sydney and Marrickville, moving a significant portion of the Labor-voting population out of the Sydney City Council electoral area.
, which was represented by the then deputy Premier Andrew Refshauge
until his resignation on August 10, 2005. The resulting by-election
, held on September 17, 2005 was won by Carmel Tebbutt
.
, represented by Anthony Albanese
of the ALP
, and partly in the electorate of Sydney, represented by Tanya Plibersek
, also of the ALP.
Both electorates saw strong Green
votes in the 2001 election, and it was expected the Green candidates, rather than the Liberal Party
, would provide the main opposition to the ALP in the 2004 election, although the Liberals ultimately did narrowly retain their lead over the Greens in these electorates.
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Sydney's inner west
Inner West (Sydney)
The Inner West is a general term which is used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia...
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
Sydney central business district
The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 kilometres from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement. Its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in...
, straddling the local government areas
Local Government Areas of New South Wales
The local government areas of New South Wales, Australia have been subject to periodic bouts of restructuring and rationalisation by the State Government, involving voluntary and involuntary amalgamation of areas...
of the City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
and Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
in the state of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
Princes Highway
The Princes Highway extends from Sydney to Port Augusta via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a distance of 1941 km or 1898 km via the former alignments of the highway ....
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
Enmore, New South Wales
Enmore is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Enmore is located 5 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
Aboriginal history
The Newtown area was part of the land of the CadigalCadigal
The Cadigal, also spelled as Gadigal, are a group of Aboriginal Australians who originally inhabited the area that they called 'Cadi', part of which later became known as the Marrickville Local Government Area of Sydney. Cadigal territory lies south of Port Jackson and stretches from South Head to...
band of the Eora
Eora
The Eora are the Aboriginal people of the Sydney area, south to the Georges River, north to the Hawkesbury River, and west to Parramatta. The indigenous people used this word to describe where they came from to the British. "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people...
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
Petersham, New South Wales
Petersham is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Petersham is located 6 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council...
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
Watkin Tench
Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench was a British Marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788...
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
Broadway, New South Wales
Broadway is a road in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The road constitutes the border between the suburbs of Ultimo and Chippendale . Broadway is also an urban locality....
and Parramatta Road
Parramatta Road
.Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, Australia, connecting the Sydney with Parramatta. It is the eastern-most part of the Great Western Highway. Much of its traffic has been diverted to modern expressways such as the M4 and the City West Link...
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
.
19th century
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip
Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the city of Sydney.-Early life and naval career:Arthur Phillip...
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine , Co. Cavan, Ireland was superintendent of convicts for Newtown, New South Wales.-External links:**...
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
Camperdown, New South Wales
Camperdown is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Camperdown is located 4 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Inner West region...
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer, – 10 June 1860) was a British soldier and explorer of Australia.Born in Plymouth, Devon, Lockyer was son of Thomas Lockyer, a sailmaker, and his wife Ann, née Grose. Lockyer began his army career as an ensign in the 19th Regiment in June 1803, was promoted lieutenant in early 1805...
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
John Jamison
Sir John Jamison was an important Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure....
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles east of Edinburgh and 28 miles from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed....
in 1857.
Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St...
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
Port Jackson
Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...
had merged to form North Sydney
North Sydney Council
North Sydney Council is a Local Government Area on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.- Demographics :According to the :...
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
Housing
Although there are a few earlier buildings in Newtown, the most rapid development came in the late 19th century , with many former farms and other large properties being subdivided and developed as row-houses, known popularly as "terrace houses". With their predominance of Victorian-era houses with stuccoed facades, balconies of iron lace and moulded architectural ornaments, many Newtown streets are similar to those of other well-known inner-city suburbs like GlebeGlebe, New South Wales
Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....
, Paddington
Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...
and Balmain
Balmain, New South Wales
Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common.
Newtown, a suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Sydney's inner west
Inner West (Sydney)
The Inner West is a general term which is used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia...
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
Sydney central business district
The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 kilometres from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement. Its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in...
, straddling the local government areas
Local Government Areas of New South Wales
The local government areas of New South Wales, Australia have been subject to periodic bouts of restructuring and rationalisation by the State Government, involving voluntary and involuntary amalgamation of areas...
of the City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
and Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
in the state of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
Princes Highway
The Princes Highway extends from Sydney to Port Augusta via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a distance of 1941 km or 1898 km via the former alignments of the highway ....
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
Enmore, New South Wales
Enmore is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Enmore is located 5 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
Aboriginal history
The Newtown area was part of the land of the CadigalCadigal
The Cadigal, also spelled as Gadigal, are a group of Aboriginal Australians who originally inhabited the area that they called 'Cadi', part of which later became known as the Marrickville Local Government Area of Sydney. Cadigal territory lies south of Port Jackson and stretches from South Head to...
band of the Eora
Eora
The Eora are the Aboriginal people of the Sydney area, south to the Georges River, north to the Hawkesbury River, and west to Parramatta. The indigenous people used this word to describe where they came from to the British. "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people...
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
Petersham, New South Wales
Petersham is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Petersham is located 6 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council...
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
Watkin Tench
Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench was a British Marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788...
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
Broadway, New South Wales
Broadway is a road in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The road constitutes the border between the suburbs of Ultimo and Chippendale . Broadway is also an urban locality....
and Parramatta Road
Parramatta Road
.Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, Australia, connecting the Sydney with Parramatta. It is the eastern-most part of the Great Western Highway. Much of its traffic has been diverted to modern expressways such as the M4 and the City West Link...
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
.
19th century
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip
Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the city of Sydney.-Early life and naval career:Arthur Phillip...
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine , Co. Cavan, Ireland was superintendent of convicts for Newtown, New South Wales.-External links:**...
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
Camperdown, New South Wales
Camperdown is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Camperdown is located 4 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Inner West region...
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer, – 10 June 1860) was a British soldier and explorer of Australia.Born in Plymouth, Devon, Lockyer was son of Thomas Lockyer, a sailmaker, and his wife Ann, née Grose. Lockyer began his army career as an ensign in the 19th Regiment in June 1803, was promoted lieutenant in early 1805...
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
John Jamison
Sir John Jamison was an important Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure....
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles east of Edinburgh and 28 miles from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed....
in 1857.
Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St...
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
Port Jackson
Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...
had merged to form North Sydney
North Sydney Council
North Sydney Council is a Local Government Area on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.- Demographics :According to the :...
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
Housing
Although there are a few earlier buildings in Newtown, the most rapid development came in the late 19th century , with many former farms and other large properties being subdivided and developed as row-houses, known popularly as "terrace houses". With their predominance of Victorian-era houses with stuccoed facades, balconies of iron lace and moulded architectural ornaments, many Newtown streets are similar to those of other well-known inner-city suburbs like GlebeGlebe, New South Wales
Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....
, Paddington
Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...
and Balmain
Balmain, New South Wales
Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common.
Newtown, a suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Sydney's inner west
Inner West (Sydney)
The Inner West is a general term which is used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia...
is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district
Sydney central business district
The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 kilometres from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement. Its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in...
, straddling the local government areas
Local Government Areas of New South Wales
The local government areas of New South Wales, Australia have been subject to periodic bouts of restructuring and rationalisation by the State Government, involving voluntary and involuntary amalgamation of areas...
of the City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
and Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
in the state of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. The street follows the spine of a long ridge that rises up near Sydney University and extends to the south, becoming the Princes Highway
Princes Highway
The Princes Highway extends from Sydney to Port Augusta via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a distance of 1941 km or 1898 km via the former alignments of the highway ....
at its southern end.
Enmore Road branches off King Street towards the suburb of Enmore
Enmore, New South Wales
Enmore is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Enmore is located 5 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
at Newtown Bridge, where the road passes over the railway line at Newtown Station. Enmore Road and King Street together comprise a 9.1-kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete commercial precinct of the late Victorian and Federation period in Australia. King Street is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large number of cafés, pubs and restaurants of various cultures. Cafes, restaurants and galleries can also be found in the streets surrounding King Street.
Aboriginal history
The Newtown area was part of the land of the CadigalCadigal
The Cadigal, also spelled as Gadigal, are a group of Aboriginal Australians who originally inhabited the area that they called 'Cadi', part of which later became known as the Marrickville Local Government Area of Sydney. Cadigal territory lies south of Port Jackson and stretches from South Head to...
band of the Eora
Eora
The Eora are the Aboriginal people of the Sydney area, south to the Georges River, north to the Hawkesbury River, and west to Parramatta. The indigenous people used this word to describe where they came from to the British. "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people...
people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham
Petersham, New South Wales
Petersham is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Petersham is located 6 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council...
in the west. It was through the land management methods of the aboriginal people that the extensive grasslands of predominantly kangaroo grass, commented upon by Watkin Tench
Watkin Tench
Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench was a British Marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788...
proved ideal breeding grounds for kangaroos.
The first Aborigine
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
to receive a Christian burial was Tommy, an 11-year-old boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, in a section now located outside the wall. The cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW, in memory of Tommy and three other Aborigines buried there - Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable. When the names were transcribed from the records onto the monument, there was an error in deciphering the flowing hand in which many of the original burial dockets were written. It is now known that the fourth name was not Wandelina Cabrorigirel, but Mandelina (Aboriginal)
King street, Newtown's main street, reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
track that branched out from the main western track, now beneath Broadway
Broadway, New South Wales
Broadway is a road in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The road constitutes the border between the suburbs of Ultimo and Chippendale . Broadway is also an urban locality....
and Parramatta Road
Parramatta Road
.Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, Australia, connecting the Sydney with Parramatta. It is the eastern-most part of the Great Western Highway. Much of its traffic has been diverted to modern expressways such as the M4 and the City West Link...
, and which continued all the way to the coastal plains around Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
.
19th century
The part of Newtown lying south of King Street was a portion of the two estates granted by Governor Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip
Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the city of Sydney.-Early life and naval career:Arthur Phillip...
to the Superintendent of Convicts, Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine
Nicholas Devine , Co. Cavan, Ireland was superintendent of convicts for Newtown, New South Wales.-External links:**...
, in 1794 and 1799. Erskineville and much of MacDonaldtown were also once part of Devine's grant. In 1827, when Devine was aged about 90, this land was acquired from him by a convict, Bernard Rochford, who sold it to many of Sydney's wealthiest and most influential inhabitants including the mayor. Devine's heir, John Devine, a coachbuilder of Birmingham, challenged the will, which was blatantly fraudulent. The "Newtown Ejectment Case" was eventually settled out of court by the payment to Devine of an unknown sum of money said to have been "considerable". The land was further divided into the housing that is now evidenced by the rows of terrace houses and commercial and industrial premises.
Part of the area now falling within the present boundaries of Newtown, north of King Street, was originally part of Camperdown
Camperdown, New South Wales
Camperdown is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Camperdown is located 4 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Inner West region...
. This area was named by Governor William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
who received it as a land grant in 1806 and who passed it to his daughter and son-in-law on his return to England in 1810. In 1848 part of this land was acquired by the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company to create a general cemetery beyond the boundary of the City of Sydney. Camperdown Cemetery, just one block away from King Street, Newtown, was to become significant in the life of the suburb. Between its consecration in 1849 and its closure to further sales in 1868 it saw 15,000 burials of people from all over Sydney. Of that number, approximately half were paupers buried in unmarked and often communal graves, sometimes as many as 12 in a day during a measles epidemic. Camperdown Cemetery remains, though much reduced in size, as a rare example of mid-19th-century cemetery landscaping. It retains the Cemetery Lodge and huge fig tree dating from 1848, as well as a number of oak trees of the same date. It survived to become the main green space of Newtown. Among the notables buried in the cemetery are explorer-surveyor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Major Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer, – 10 June 1860) was a British soldier and explorer of Australia.Born in Plymouth, Devon, Lockyer was son of Thomas Lockyer, a sailmaker, and his wife Ann, née Grose. Lockyer began his army career as an ensign in the 19th Regiment in June 1803, was promoted lieutenant in early 1805...
and Mary, Lady Jamison (widow of the colonial pioneer landowner, physician, constitutional reformer and 'knight of the realm', Sir John Jamison
John Jamison
Sir John Jamison was an important Australian physician, pastoralist, banker, politician, constitutional reformer and public figure....
). The cemetery also holds the remains of many of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles east of Edinburgh and 28 miles from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed....
in 1857.
Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St...
, a number of churches were established, including St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s, the Methodist Church on King Street, now Newtown Mission, and the Baptist Church in Church Street. The present St Stephen's Anglican Church, a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was designed, like its predecessor, by Blacket, and built in the grounds of cemetery between 1871 and 1880. Both it and the cemetery are on the National Trust register of buildings of National Significance. Its Mears and Stainbank carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
is unique in Australia, while its Walker and Sons organ of 1874 is regarded as one of the finest in New South Wales.
On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore, covering 480 acre (194.25 ha). In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the council area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
Port Jackson
Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...
had merged to form North Sydney
North Sydney Council
North Sydney Council is a Local Government Area on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.- Demographics :According to the :...
three years earlier), but nothing came of it.
Housing
Although there are a few earlier buildings in Newtown, the most rapid development came in the late 19th century , with many former farms and other large properties being subdivided and developed as row-houses, known popularly as "terrace houses". With their predominance of Victorian-era houses with stuccoed facades, balconies of iron lace and moulded architectural ornaments, many Newtown streets are similar to those of other well-known inner-city suburbs like GlebeGlebe, New South Wales
Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....
, Paddington
Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...
and Balmain
Balmain, New South Wales
Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....
.
From about 1870 onwards, Newtown had a large proportion of its residents living in terrace houses of the cheapest possible construction, much of which was "two-up two-down", with rear kitchen, some having adjoining walls only one brick thick and a continuous shared roofspace. Hundreds of these terrace houses still remain, generally 4 metres (13 ft) wide. It was not uncommon for speculative builders to build a row of these small houses terminating in a house of 1½ width at the corner of the street, this last being a commercial premises, or "Corner Store". During the Federation period, single storey row houses became increasing common. King Street developed into a thriving retail precinct and the Newtown area was soon dotted with factories, workshops, warehouses and commercial and retail premises of all kinds and sizes. Several major industries were established in the greater Newtown area from the late 19th century, including the Eveleigh rail workshops, the IXL
IXL
IXL can refer to any of the following:* Henry Jones IXL, an Australian manufacturer of jams and other foods* iXL , an American interactive agency during the late 1990s* IXL, Oklahoma* A railway interlocking...
jam and preserves factory in North Newtown/Darlington, the St Peters brickworks and the Fowler Potteries in Camperdown.
Early 20th century
Although it prospered in the late 19th century, during the first half of the 20th century, and especially during The Depression, like many inner-city Sydney suburbs such as GlebeGlebe, New South Wales
Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....
and Paddington
Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...
, the area became increasingly run down as wealthy Sydneysiders preferred to settle in newer and more prestigious areas. In 1949, Newtown was incorporated into the City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
.
Mid-20th century
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
still standing in the area. However, many parts of Newtown had gradually become a working-class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
enclave, and for much of the 20th century, Newtown was a low-income blue-collar suburb, often denigrated as a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
. In the post-war period, the low rents and house prices attracted newly-arrived European migrants, and Newtown's population changed radically, becoming home to a sizeable migrant community.
In 1968, a controversial redistribution of local government boundaries by the Askin
Robert Askin
Sir Robert William Askin GCMG, was an Australian politician and the 32nd Premier of New South Wales from 1965 to 1975, the first representing the Liberal Party of Australia. He was born in 1907 as Robin William Askin, but always disliked his first name and changed it by deed poll in 1971...
State Liberal government saw part of Newtown become part of Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
. From the 1970s, as the post-war population prospered, raised families and aged, many moved to outlying suburbs to build larger houses, resulting in a supply of relatively cheap terrace houses and cottages entered the rental market. Because of its proximity to the expanding Sydney University and the Sydney CBD, along with the comparatively low rents, Newtown began to attract university students in the 1960s and '70s. The area became a centre for student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
share-households in Sydney and the development of cafes, pubs and restaurants made it a mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
for many young people. Newtown gained a reputation as a bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
centre and the gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
population also increased.
Late 20th century and early 21st century
The 1980s was the period that probably saw the greatest diversity in Newtown. At this time, cheap housing was still available. During the 1990s many long-established businesses closed , including Brennan's Department Store, a charming old-fashioned department store founded in the 19th century, and one of the last relics of the heyday of Victorian commerce in Newtown.Enmore, New South Wales
Enmore is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Enmore is located 5 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
or St Peters
St Peters, New South Wales
St Peters is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. St Peters is located 7 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
. Like other similar inner-Sydney suburbs (most notably Paddington
Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...
and Glebe
Glebe, New South Wales
Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....
), gentrification has led to another shift in Newtown's demographics. From the 1970s onwards, many major industrial and commercial sites in the area were closed or vacated. Many of these former commercial sites have since been redeveloped as housing such as the Alpha House and Beta House apartment complexes on King Street, which were formerly both multi-storey warehouses. Prior to becoming apartments, Alpha and Beta house became two artist warehouses that accommodated the birthing of many national and international performing arts companies and artists. One such company, 'Legs on the Wall' www.legsonthewall.com.au, was created in Beta House at the suggestion of Kerry Dwyer (original director), while Brian Keogh (original member/producer) had his leg on the old window surrounds stretching as part of the daily ritual.
One of the most significant and visible changes to the area has been the redevelopment of the Silo apartment complex, which occupies part of Crago Flour Mills and former grain silos, which had been built on the site of the original Newtown station, at the end of Station Street. Rather than demolishing the silos and building a new structure, the developers reconstructed the building and created a series of circular apartment spaces, augmented by the construction of more traditionally shaped apartments on the lower levels.
Rail
Newtown railway station, Sydney
-Transport links:Sydney Buses runs nine routes via Newtown station:*Route 352 - weekdays daytime services - between Bondi Junction Interchange and Marrickville Metro Shopping Centre...
is on the Inner West line of the CityRail network
CityRail
CityRail is an operating brand of RailCorp, a corporation owned by the state government of New South Wales, Australia. It is responsible for providing commuter rail services, and some coach services, in and around Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, the three largest cities of New South Wales. It is...
. The station opened in 1855, as one of the original four intermediate stations on the Sydney to Parramatta
Parramatta, New South Wales
Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the administrative seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Parramatta...
rail line (the others being Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush), and it was soon serviced by 10 steam trains a day. In 1878 the station was moved from Station Street to its current location by the fork of King Street and Enmore Road.
Accessibility is far from ideal, since the present station was built into a deep, narrow cutting under King Street, with the result that the platforms are several metres below street level and can only be accessed by a steep stairway. In its 2007 budget, the NSW state government committed to funding for an upgrade to the station including the installation of lifts, new stairways and canopies, toilets and lighting. Work has commenced, with completion scheduled for 'the end of 2012 '.
Until the 1960s, when trams were phased out in Sydney, Newtown was a major hub for train-tram transfers; several regular electric tram services were centred there and the old Newtown tram depot (long vacant and now largely derelict) still stands next to the station.
Buses
Sydney Buses operates buses to Newtown. The trams were replaced by bus services that inherited the old route numbers — 422, 426, 428 — and follow the old tram routes that run along King Street and Enmore Road, going inwards to the city and outwards to TempeTempe, New South Wales
Tempe is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Tempe is located 9 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Marrickville Council....
, Dulwich Hill
Dulwich Hill, New South Wales
Dulwich Hill is a residential suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Dulwich Hill is located 9 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Marrickville Council...
and Canterbury
Canterbury, New South Wales
-Commercial area:Canterbury has a mixture of residential, commercial and industrial developments. Commercial developments are mostly situated on Canterbury Road and surrounding streets...
, respectively. Since then the 423 service from the city to Kingsgrove
Kingsgrove, New South Wales
Kingsgrove is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Kingsgrove is located 13 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Rockdale, the City of Hurstville and the City of Canterbury...
via Newtown has been added. There is also the 352 service that goes east through Surry Hills
Surry Hills, New South Wales
Surry Hills is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Surry Hills is located immediately south-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
, to Bondi Junction
Bondi Junction, New South Wales
Bondi Junction is an eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Bondi Junction is located 6 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the Waverley....
and the 370 service running north to the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and Leichhardt
Leichhardt, New South Wales
Leichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...
and south-east to the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
and Coogee
Coogee, New South Wales
Coogee is a beachside suburb of local government area City of Randwick. It is located 8 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is also a part of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney....
.
Education
In the 1990s, Newtown High School was chosen by the NSW Department of Education and Training as the site for a new specialised performing arts high school, which would combine traditional academic subjects with music and theatrical performance education. The school was renamed Newtown High School of the Performing ArtsNewtown High School of the Performing Arts
Newtown High School of the Performing Arts is a state government school located in the suburb of Newtown in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the leading Performing and Visual Arts schools in Australia...
.
Primary and infants school include:
- Newtown Public School
- North Newtown Public School
- Australia Street Infants School
- Camdperdown Public School
- St Joseph's College (defunct)
Pubs
In part because of its industrial and commercial history, the Newtown area contains many pubsPublic house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
. These include a number of late-Victorian establishments and several in an Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style from the mid-20th century. In July 2000, one of these, "The Marlborough", called by historian Chrys Meader "the Gateway to Newtown" because of its visually commanding appearance at a wide intersection of King Street and Missenden Road, was stripped of all its original Art Deco tiles and had its upper floor substantially damaged before protests to the council prevented this being taken further.
The Trocadero
One of the major architectural conservation projects in Newtown in recent years has been the restoration of the Trocadero dance hall in King Street North. This large entertainment venue opened in 1889 and is one of the last 19th-century dance halls still standing in Sydney. Over the years it functioned variously as a dance hall, a skating rink, a cinema, a boxing and vaudevilleVaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
venue, a bicycle factory and a motor body works.
From 1920 onwards it was owned by the Grace Brothers retail company, and several sections were leased out as shops or accommodation. For many years the shopfront on the northern side of the building housed Maurice's Lebanese Restaurant, commemorated in John Kennedy's "On King St, I'm A King". The building was purchased by Moore Theological College
Moore Theological College
Moore Theological College, otherwise known simply as Moore College, is the theological training seminary of the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia...
in 1974, and from 1981 to 1994 it housed the Con Dellis used furniture store, but all occupation ceased after that time. Fortunately, a sympathethic restoration program during 2005–06 by Moore College has returned this outstanding 19th-century building, including its elaborate Flemish-style facade, to its former glory.
Burland Hall
One Newtown landmark that has undergone many changes during the 20th century is the site of the former Burland Community Hall, on King St. In the early 20th century the site was occupied by the original Hub Theatre. From the mid-20th century it was occupied by an Art DecoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
-style cinema operated the Hoyts
Hoyts
The Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
cinema chain. In the mid-1960s the cinema was converted into a community hall and it was renamed Burland Community Hall in 1965. For years it was the venue for community events such as dances, concerts, film screenings, meetings, parties, wedding receptions and a community market. In 1986 its upper floor was taken over for the Newtown branch of the City of Sydney Library
City of Sydney Library
The City of Sydney Library is a network of eight branch libraries and two 'library links', locatedwithin the City of Sydney Council administrational area.- History :...
network, following the decision by Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
to close its Newtown library branch due to budgetary constraints. In 1995 the library moved to new premises in the former Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
Citadel in nearby Brown Street, and Burland Hall was redeveloped into offices and retail premises.
Hub Theatre
One of the most notable local landmarks is the Hub Theatre opposite Newtown Station, next to the old Newtown Town Hall. The original Hub stood at 222 King St, before moving to its present location, on the site of an earlier vaudeville theatre. It was converted to a cinema in the 1930. From the early 1970s, with the relaxation of Australia's censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
laws, it was used to screen pornographic films and stagelive "adult" sex shows, including the long-running "Little French Maid". The Hub closed as a "porno" venue in the early 1990s and has been mostly vacant ever since; the owners of the Dendy chain tried to secure the venue for its Newtown cinema, but were unsuccessful. Recently, the Hub has been home to live comedy shows and other such performances, seeing a rejuvenation of the building.
Live music
Sandringham Hotel, Newtown
The Sandringham Hotel is a pub in the suburb of Newtown in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.The pub has a long history and is the spiritual homeland to several of Sydney's bands, including Frenzal Rhomb and The Whitlams. It is known locally as The Sando.Before...
in King Street. One of the best-known Australian bands to emerge from this scene was The Whitlams
The Whitlams
The discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
, who held down a formative residency at "The Sando" for several years. Musician John Kennedy
John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong
John Kennedy is an Australian musician, a singer-songwriter with a penchant for strong melodies and "heart on your sleeve" pop songs often with country and western influences.-Early life:...
wrote a tribute to the area in the mid-1980s. His single "On King St I'm A King" name-checked familiar Newtown landmarks and local figures of the time, including "The Wire Man" (a local eccentric who collected wire and wire coathangers), Maurice's Lebanese restaurant, and the Coles New World supermarket, which occupied the site of the current Dendy Cinema.
Throughout the 1990s it was particularly known as a centre for indie rock
Australian indie rock
Australian indie rock is part of the overall flow of Australian rock history but has a distinct history somewhat separate from mainstream rock in Australia, largely from the end of the punk rock era onwards.-Beginnings:...
, with the suburb home to many musicians and several live venues. In the late nineties it boasted a handful of popular venues: Goldmans / Newtown RSL
Returned and Services League of Australia
The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....
, The Globe, Feedback and The Sandringham, all of which had closed by the late 1990s. After its takeover by Petersham RSL Club, the former Newtown RSL reopened as a music venue under the name of @Newtown.
In recent years, the suburb has enjoyed a renaissance with the return of live music to The Sandringham (dubbed by regulars as "The Sando") after the pub's upper floor was rebuilt as a performance room, and small ensembles and bands still perform in the front bar. Another recent addition to Newtown's live music scene is the small live venue The Vanguard at the north end of King Street, and the continuing popularity of the lyric-sized Enmore Theatre
Enmore Theatre
The Enmore Theatre is a theatre and entertainment venue in Sydney. It is located on Enmore Road in the suburb of Enmore, south-west of the adjoining suburb, Newtown. It is a medium-sized venue...
.
Theatre
Newtown and its surrounding areas have the highest concentration of independent theatres and live performance spaces in Sydney. Theatres include:- New TheatreNew Theatre (Newtown)The New Theatre is an independent theatre company in the inner western Sydney suburb of Newtown, Australia. Established in October 1932, it is the oldest theatre company in continuous production in New South Wales...
, formed in 1932 and is Australia's oldest continuously performing theatre. - Newtown Theatre, on the corner of King and Bray Streets, Newtown South
- Enmore TheatreEnmore TheatreThe Enmore Theatre is a theatre and entertainment venue in Sydney. It is located on Enmore Road in the suburb of Enmore, south-west of the adjoining suburb, Newtown. It is a medium-sized venue...
on Enmore Road (actually in the suburb of EnmoreEnmore, New South WalesEnmore is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Enmore is located 5 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Marrickville Council.-History:...
) - the Newtown High School of the Performing ArtsNewtown High School of the Performing ArtsNewtown High School of the Performing Arts is a state government school located in the suburb of Newtown in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the leading Performing and Visual Arts schools in Australia...
In the 1970s and '80s many theatres, cinemas and music venues in the Sydney CBD were demolished. Due to the lack of "lyric"-sized venues, the Enmore Theatre
Enmore Theatre
The Enmore Theatre is a theatre and entertainment venue in Sydney. It is located on Enmore Road in the suburb of Enmore, south-west of the adjoining suburb, Newtown. It is a medium-sized venue...
in Enmore Road has become one of the busiest medium-sized concert venues in Sydney.
Festivals
Newtown hosts a number of annual festivals.Feastability, Newtown's Food and Wine Festival, showcases the eclectic international cuisines of the suburb along with Australian wine, local pubs and brewers, bakers and confectioners. The festival, which is held on the last Sunday of each September, started in the mid-1990s as six stall outside the Hub. It now takes place in the grounds of Newtown School of Performing Arts, has more than 40 stalls and features all-day entertainment from musicians and artists, as well as kids' activities. The festival is organised by Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
.
Under the Blue Moon Festival is an alternative community festival also held in September. The event has a variety of entertainment; live music, discussions, street performances, fashion shows and other subculture presentations, especially those of the Goth
Goth subculture
The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture found in many countries. It began in England during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify...
community. Local business and special interest groups provide a diverse variety of entertainment, including a local alternative hairdresser and even the local mortuary with a display of coffins.
The Sydney Fringe
The Sydney Fringe
The Sydney Fringe is an alternative arts and culture festival held for the first time in September 2010 in the inner west of Sydney, Australia.The Sydney Fringe festival is an initiative of the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association...
festival is a two-week alternative arts festival that will be held for the first time in September 2010 at venues in Newtown, Enmore and Marrickville. It is a project of the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association.
Sport
Newtown Rugby League Club—the "Newtown JetsNewtown Jets
The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSWRL Premier League competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season...
" -- is Australia's oldest existing rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
club, formed in 1908. They compete in the NSWRL Premier League
NSWRL Premier League
The New South Wales Cup is a rugby league competition for clubs in New South Wales previously known as the NSWRL Premier League. It has a history dating back to the NSWRFL's origins in 1908, starting off as a reserve grade competition. It is now the premier open age competition in the state...
competition, a tier below the NRL
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
's national premiership, and enjoy good crowds at their home ground of Henson Park, Marrickville
Marrickville, New South Wales
Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney's Inner West is located 7 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the state of New South Wales, Australia and is the largest suburb in the Marrickville Council local government area...
.
Film and television
In the late 1960s, ground-breaking Australian TV drama series You Can't See Round Corners starred Rowena WallaceRowena Wallace
Rowena Wallace is a Gold -Logie winning Australian actress, best known for her role as Patricia in Sons and Daughters.-Early life and budding career:...
and Ken Shorter as a draft dodger hiding out in Newtown.
In the mid-1980s, the Spanish Mission-style service station on King Street was used as a location for scenes in the Ray Lawrence film Bliss
Bliss (1985 film)
Bliss is a 1985 Australian film directed by Ray Lawrence, co-adapted by Lawrence and Peter Carey, author of the original novel Bliss from which it is adapted....
, which was based on the novel by Peter Carey. In the film, the service station was used as the childhood home of Harry Joy's wife Bettina, played by Lynette Curran
Lynette Curran
Lynette Curran is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Australian television series and films. Between 1967 and 1974 she was a regular in soap opera Bellbird. She also acted in the film version of the serial, Country Town ....
.
Garage Days
Garage Days
Garage Days is a 2002 Australian film directed by Alex Proyas and written by Proyas, Dave Warner and Michael Udesky. The Garage Days soundtrack includes the song "Garage Days" featuring Katie Noonan, David McCormack and Andrew Lancaster.-Plot:...
directed by Alex Proyas
Alex Proyas
Alexander "Alex" Proyas is a Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for directing such films as The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot and Knowing. He is known for employing a stylish photographic techniques in his films, with dark overtones usually in a post-apocalyptic...
, depicts a fictional indie rock band based in Newtown, and Erskineville Kings
Erskineville Kings
Erskineville Kings was a Radical Media production made for Palace Films on a minimal budget and directed by newcomer Alan White. It was released on 1 January 1999...
, starring Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...
, features extensive use of locations in Newtown and Erskineville.
The ABC television drama Love Is A Four Letter Word
Love is a Four Letter Word
Love Is A Four Letter Word is a 26 episode drama written by Matt Ford produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2001. It was set and filmed in Newtown, New South Wales, following the lives of a group of friends working in a pub, and the concerns facing urban 20somethings in Australia...
, starring musician-actor Peter Fenton and featuring live bands each episode, included extensive location shooting at the Courthouse Hotel in Australia Street.
St Stephen's Church and Camperdown Cemetery have regularly been used as sites for filming movies, TV and videos, notably in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Graffiti and street art
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
and "street art". The most prominent of these works are the large murals created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which were painted on the walls of houses and shops in the area. Spray-painted "tags" have proliferated all over the area in recent years, although more recently the style of tagging has become far more elaborate than the simple spray-can signatures that litter walls throughout the district.
Examples include a mural of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on King Street (painted by Andrew Aiken (Seems)and Juilee Pryor), the "Great Wave" mural in Gowrie Street, the "Three Proud People" mural (a reproduction of a photo taken at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics), and the "map of Africa" mural in King Street.
Gay and lesbian culture
The gay and lesbian community of Newtown also extends into neighbouring Glebe, Leichhardt, Annandale, Marrickville, Enmore and Dulwich Hill. The area was home to two of Sydney’s most well-established gay and lesbian pubs, the Newtown Hotel on King Street and the nearby Imperial Hotel in Erskineville Road (the famous drag show pub featured in the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). The owners of the Newtown Hotel abruptly terminated negotiations for lease renewal and locked the licence-owner out of the premises in November 2007 The bar reopened in late 2010, under the name 'Freaky Tiki'. The bar currently offers a mixed environment, in common with most bars in the area. It's understood that it will close again for renovations in the near future. The Imperial also closed in 2007 for renovations but did not reopen until 2010, following a protracted and expensive licensing battle with the local council.Bars such as Zanzibar having a loyal lesbian following. Wednesday nights are especially popular for lesbians as The Bank Hotel & The Sly Fox both host girls' nights.
The Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service in Newtown provides free telephone counselling for gays and lesbians living in NSW, as well as Twenty 10, a support organisation for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, same-sex attracted and gender-questioning people who are under 26 and having problems at home or have recently become homeless.
Social media
The uptake of social media in the young and technically minded demographic has been high. 2010 saw the start of the Inner West Live social media site. With a high follower base on Twitter, the group runs several Tweetups during the year and was quoted as having an impact on the outcome for Inner West seats of the recent NSW Election.In 2010, in the lead-up to the NSW State Election which was held on 26 March, Twitter was used heavily by local candidates as a method of communicating with the Inner West. Local organisation One Small Planet proposed Twitter assistance to two sitting Members of Parliament in two very similar electorates, both demographically and geographically. These electorates have been held by the Labor Party for decades, Marrickville since 1910 and Balmain since 1927 except for a short period held by an independent member after the 1988 election.
The two sitting members were both very high-profile Ministers in the, then incumbent, Labor government. Verity Firth, Member for Balmain was Minister for Education and Training, while Carmel Tebbutt, Member for Marrickville, was Deputy Premier and Minister for Health.
Carmel Tebbutt executed on the Twitter Advocacy program and engaged heavily with social media, including her staff attending local meet-ups and interviews in social media publications.
Before establishing the advocate account, @Keep_Carmel, the Twitter sentiment towards Carmel Tebbutt reflected the attitudes expressed in polls and press about the incumbent Labor Party Government – very negative. Pundits, like the ABC’s Antony Green, who is also on Twitter (@AntonyGreenABC), were also writing and tweeting links to their material, with negative sentiments. Without any Twitter presence the Keep Carmel campaign would have been unable to provide any counter arguments to swing sentiment towards a more neutral or even positive position. From the end of February and through to the election in March the sentiment had changed to become primarily neutral and the positive sentiment out-weighed the negative at least 5:1.
At the completion of the campaign and at the finalisation of votes, Carmel Tebbutt, had only a 7.1% swing against her and a clear majority of the primary votes. Carmel Tebbutt has retained her seat and claimed it on the afternoon of 30 March. May put this down to the strong use of social media by Carmel Tebbutt.
Demographics
In the 2001 Australian Bureau of StatisticsAustralian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...
Census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of Population and Housing, the population of the Newtown postcode area was 15,027 people, in an area of 1.9 square kilometres. 33% of the population was born overseas. The eight strongest religious affiliations in the area were in descending order: No religion, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox Christian, Buddhism, Uniting Church, Presbyterian and Reformed, and other Christian. The three most common forms of dwelling were in decreasing order: a semi-detached, row or terrace house, or townhouse; a flat, unit or apartment; a separate house.
Notable residents
- Mary ReibeyMary ReibeyMary Reibey was an Englishwoman who was transported to Australia as a convict but went on to become a successful businesswoman in Sydney.-Early life:...
(1777–1855), pioneering entrepreneur who graces the $20 note - Thomas Browne (1826–1915), author of seventeen novels including the classic Robbery Under ArmsRobbery Under ArmsRobbery Under Arms is a classic Australian novel by Rolf Boldrewood . It was first published in serialised form by The Sydney Mail between July 1882 and August 1883, then in three volumes in London in 1888...
, under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood - John Villiers FarrowJohn FarrowJohn Villiers Farrow, CBE was an Australian, later American, film director, producer and screenwriter. In 1957 he won the Academy Award for Best Writing / Best Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days and in 1942 he was nominated as Best Director for Wake Island.-Life and career:Farrow was...
(1904–1963), Academy Award winning Australian film director and father of actresses Mia FarrowMia FarrowMia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
and Prudence FarrowPrudence FarrowPrudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns is an American author, meditation teacher, and film producer. She is the daughter of film director John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan, and the younger sister of actress Mia Farrow... - Christine AnuChristine Anu-Early life:Anu was born in Cairns, Queensland to a Torres Strait Islander mother from Saibai and Mabuiag Islands.-Career:Anu began performing as a dancer and later went on to sing back-up vocals for The Rainmakers, which included Neil Murray of the Warumpi Band. Her first recording was in 1993...
, pop singer - Murray CookMurray CookMurray James Cook AM is an Australian vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as one of the founding members of the children's band The Wiggles...
, member of Australian children's group The WigglesThe WigglesThe Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album... - Nicholas HardingNicholas HardingNicholas Harding is an Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 2001 with a portrait of John Bell as King Lear. He also won the People's Choice Award at the 2005 Archibald, with Bob's Daily Swim. He has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize for thirteen years in a row, from 1994 to 2006,...
, former winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture - Monica TrapagaMonica TrapagaMonica Trapaga is an Australian entertainment presenter, jazz singer and actress, best known for her work on the Australian series Play School. Trapaga appeared on Better Homes and Gardens from 1997-2003 in segments related to decorating. She worked as a presenter on the children's television...
, former children's presenter and jazz singer - Ignatius JonesIgnatius JonesIgnatius Jones is an Australian actor and former lead singer of punk cabaret band Jimmy And The Boys.With David Atkins, he was the creative force behind the Opening Ceremony of Shanghai 2010 World Expo and the Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games...
, entertainer and former lead singer of 80s rock band Jimmy And The BoysJimmy And The BoysJimmy and the Boys were an Australian New Wave band, active from 1976 to 1984, best known for their incredibly violent stage shows. The act revolved around vocalist Ignatius Jones and keyboard player Joylene Thornbird Hairmouth - a couple of friends from Cranbrook and Riverview, exclusive private... - Paul MacPaul MacPaul Mac is a musician, producer and music remixer from Sydney, Australia. He was classically trained at Sydney's Conservatorium of Music. Paul Mac formed the bands Smash Mac Mac, Itch-e And Scratch-e, The Lab, and The Dissociatives, as well as releasing two records under his own name...
, DJ and music producer - Enda MarkeyEnda MarkeyEnda Markey is an Irish-born Sydney, Australia-based stage and television actor. He made his professional stage debut aged eleven in Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin....
, singer/actor/cabaret performer - Dawn O'DonnellDawn O'DonnellDawn O'Donnell , was a prominent Sydney lesbian and gay rights activist and entrepreneur/impresaria. She is often credited with starting the gay and lesbian club scene in Sydney's Oxford Street and Newtown.-Early life:...
(1928–2007), prominent business and nightclub owner, gay and lesbian rights campaigner - Adam SpencerAdam SpencerAdam Barrington Spencer is an Australian radio presenter, comedian, and media personality. He first came to fame when he won his round of the comedic talent search Raw Comedy in the mid-1990s...
, mathematician, science broadcaster and radio and TV personality - Frenzal RhombFrenzal RhombFrenzal Rhomb are an Australian punk rock band which formed in 1992 with mainstay Jason Whalley on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. In 1996, Lindsay McDougall joined the line-up on lead guitar and backing vocals. Two of the group's albums have peaked into the top 20 on the ARIA Albums Chart, A...
, band originating in Newtown - The WhitlamsThe WhitlamsThe discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
, pop band - Youth GroupYouth GroupYouth Group are a rock band based in Newtown, Sydney, Australia signed to Ivy League Records.- Biography :Youth Group formed in Sydney in the late 1990s. They have released four albums in Australia, with the three most recent albums also gaining releases worldwide...
, indie rock band mostly known for their hit remake of "Forever Young" - AngelspitAngelspitAngelspit is a cyberpunk band from Sydney, Australia. The band was formed in 2004 by vocalists/synthesists Destroyx and ZooG...
, industrial music duo - Fran Knee, fashion designer
Governance
Like most of central and inner-city Sydney, Newtown is one of the traditional 'heartlands' of support for the Australian Labor PartyAustralian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
. While Newtown and other similar areas were within the City of Sydney Council boundary, the ALP was able to control the Council for several decades.
Local
Newtown is divided between Marrickville CouncilMarrickville Council
Marrickville Council is a Local Government Area situated in the Inner West region of Sydney, Australia.The area is bounded by Leichhardt to the north, the City of Sydney to the east and north-east, the City of Botany Bay to the south-east, Rockdale to the south, Canterbury to the west, and...
and City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
local government area
Local Government Area
A local government area is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a state, province, division, or territory....
s.
The Liberal Party state government of Robert Askin
Robert Askin
Sir Robert William Askin GCMG, was an Australian politician and the 32nd Premier of New South Wales from 1965 to 1975, the first representing the Liberal Party of Australia. He was born in 1907 as Robin William Askin, but always disliked his first name and changed it by deed poll in 1971...
, which came to power in 1966, was keen to break Labor's control of the City of Sydney. In 1967 Askin abolished the City Council, installed a tribunal of administrators, and controversially redistributed the city's boundaries, leading to much of the former ward of Newtown being reallocated to the neighbouring municipalities of South Sydney and Marrickville, moving a significant portion of the Labor-voting population out of the Sydney City Council electoral area.
State
Newtown is predominantly in the State Electoral District of MarrickvilleElectoral district of Marrickville
Marrickville is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is a 13.47 km² urban electorate in Sydney's inner west, centred on the suburb of Marrickville from which it takes its name...
, which was represented by the then deputy Premier Andrew Refshauge
Andrew Refshauge
Andrew John Refshauge was an Australian politician and Deputy Premier of New South Wales from 1995 to 2005.Refshauge was born in Melbourne, the son of Major-General Sir William Refshauge AC CBE ED , who later became Honorary Physician to Queen Elizabeth II 1955–64 and Director-General of the...
until his resignation on August 10, 2005. The resulting by-election
Marrickville by-election, 2005
A by-election was held in the State Electoral District of Marrickville in New South Wales, Australia on 17 September 2005.The by-election was prompted by the resignation of the sitting member Deputy Premier Andrew Refshauge on 10 August 2005, in the wake of the resignation of Premier Bob Carr.The...
, held on September 17, 2005 was won by Carmel Tebbutt
Carmel Tebbutt
Carmel Mary Tebbutt is an Australian politician. She is the Australian Labor Party Member for Marrickville in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and was Deputy Premier of New South Wales from 2008 to 2011. She was also Minister for Health in the Keneally Government...
.
Federal
Federally, Newtown lies partly in the electorate of GrayndlerDivision of Grayndler
The Division of Grayndler is an Australian Electoral Division in inner Metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales. It is one of Australia's smallest electorates, located in the inner-southern Sydney metropolitan area, including parts of the inner-west...
, represented by Anthony Albanese
Anthony Albanese
Anthony Norman Albanese , Australian politician, who serves as Leader of the House of Representatives and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport in the Gillard Ministry...
of the ALP
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, and partly in the electorate of Sydney, represented by Tanya Plibersek
Tanya Plibersek
Tanya Joan Plibersek, MP , is an Australian politician with the Australian Labor Party, and Federal Minister for Social Inclusion and Minister for Human Services. She has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since October 1998, representing the seat of Sydney, New South Wales...
, also of the ALP.
Both electorates saw strong Green
Australian Greens
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is an Australian green political party.The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia and the formation of the United Tasmania Group , the first Green party in the world, which...
votes in the 2001 election, and it was expected the Green candidates, rather than the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
, would provide the main opposition to the ALP in the 2004 election, although the Liberals ultimately did narrowly retain their lead over the Greens in these electorates.
Furthur reading
- Alan Sharpe. Pictorial History of Newtown. Published by Kingsclear Books,Australia.1999. (ISBN 090827260X)
External links
- Newtown Neighbourhood Centre
- The Newtown Project, historical documents from Newtown
- Marrickville Council website
- Council of the City of Sydney website
- Newtown Jets Rugby League Football Club
- Newtown Precinct: Information about theatre performances and other live entertainment
- Newtown Festival
- Enmore Theatre
- The Vanguard
- Newtown CityPoem, a mural in Newtown