The Club newesletter has contained historical notes about the locality. Recent entries include:
What is the story of the Pilot Station at Gibson’s Beach, Watson’s Bay?
Lifeboat services were established in Port Jackson in 1858, after the Dunbar disaster, and in recognition of the need for humanitarian care and protection of trade. It was also a time of a huge increase in shipping entering the harbour. The number of ships entering Sydney harbour jumped from155 in 1831 to 1327 in 1861. But the early lifeboats brought out to Australia in the 1850s did not have the benefit of James Beechworth’s self-righting, self-emptying design. When the Alice Rawson was to be launched a new Lifeboat Station was built in 1907 to house the new lifeboat on the present site. Alice Rawson operated as a Lifeboat from 1907-1946. The old building was replaced by a new Pilot station in 1959 and pilotage services for shipping continued to operate from there until 2008, when they relocated to Millers Point. This was because container shipping and car carriers were going to Botany Bay and Port Kembla, and it was mainly the cruise ships that needed pilotage in future. Since 2014 the Pilot Station building has been leased to operate as the Boating Safety Education Centre.
Nielsen Park – what’s in a name?
Why was Nielsen Park, the much loved harbourside beach and tranquil park, named Nielsen Park? Why not Birrabirragal Park after the aborigines whose art and middens tell us they lived and fished there long before white settlement? Or after any of the first owners – Thomas Laycock of the NSW Corps? Captain Thomas Dennett who named it Woodmacote? Sir Henry Brown Hayes? It could have been Wentworth Park as it was part of William Wentworth’s estate from 1827-1911. The bay itself is Shark Bay presumably named after occasional visitors so it could have been Shark Park! Greycliffe Park sounds impressive and could have been a contender after the Greycliffe estate the Reeve family built with the help of 19th century architect John F. Hilly. Hilly Park obviously was not suitable! A genteel name could have been Edeline Park after the Lady Edeline Hospital for Babies located there from 1914-1939. So who was the park named after? Nielsen Park was named after the Danish-born AWU member and Labor politician The Hon. Niels Nielsen, who represented Boorowa 340 kms west of Sydney in the NSW Parliament, and who for 2 years was the Secretary for Lands from 1910 to 1911! Oh well it could have been Notting Park because William Notting was a tireless campaigner against private ownership of harbour foreshore land. Would Niels mind if the park was renamed now Allocasuarina Portuensis Park in honour of the extremely rare Nielsen Park she-oak discovered there only in 1986 by Peter Brookhouse, a National Parks and Wildlife Service Ranger?
News of the day 200 years ago!
In the past few days, plans have been announced for man’s second trip to the Moon and on to Mars! What would Sydneysiders have thought of that 200 years ago? Sadly things were pretty grim in Hyde Park!
IT being reported to His EXCELLENCY the GOVERNOR, that frequent and numerous Assemblages of People have of late taken Place on the Race Course in Hyde Park ; and that the Amusement of Horse-Racing, instead of being confined, as formerly, to a particular Term and Season, under the express Sanction of HIS EXCELLENCY, has degenerated into a System of low Gambling and Dissipation, at once injurious to the Property of those concerned in it, militating with the Industry of the People, and subversive of Order and good Morals; HIS EXCELLENCY is hereon pleased to order and direct, that no Horse Races shall, in future, take Place on the Race Course of Sydney, without special Permission first had and obtained, in Writing, from HIS EXCELLENCY for that express Purpose. And all Magistrates and Peace Officers are here-by called on and required to disperse all such illegal Meetings as shall hereafter take Place at Sydney for the Purpose of Horse-Racing, or other unsanctioned Pastime.
The Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser Sat 25 Sep 1819
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