From Vision to Creation:

Pre-Colonial History

When Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet landed, first in Botany Bay and then in Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), in January 1788, he was met by people who had lived in this land for many thousands of years. At least 1,500 people lived in the area between Botany Bay and Broken Bay and the intermediate coast.

There were two main languages spoken in the Sydney region – Darug and Tharawal. The Darug language had two main dialects – one spoken along the coast and the other in the hinterland (west of present-day Parramatta). Tharawal was spoken to the south of Botany Bay and as far west as the Georges River and possibly Camden.

People belonged to small groups (territorial clans) through which they were spiritually related to specific tracts of land – these clans included the Gadigal, Wanngal, Gamaragal, Wallumedegal and Boromedegal. The suffix ‘gal’ denotes ‘people of’, thus, for example, the Gadigal were the people of Gadi (also spelled Cadigal and Cadi respectively).

The ‘district of Gadi’ was reported to have stretched from South Head west to ‘the cove adjoining this settlement’ (Darling Harbour) – an area that would have included Centennial, Moore and Queens Parks. Watkin Tench referred to the Gadigal as ‘those who reside in the bay of Cadi’. The ‘bay of Cadi’ is probably Kutti, the Aboriginal place name recorded for present-day Watsons Bay, and the present name of a small beach in the bay.

The Centennial Parklands Conservation Management Plan contains the following report that provides in depth detail of the pre-colonial history of the lands that are present day Centennial Parklands:

• Pre-colonial Aboriginal land and resource use in Centennial, Moore and Queens Parks – assessment of historical and archaeological evidence for Centennial Parklands Conservation Management Plan by Val Attenbrow, Australian Museum, January 2002 (PDF, 368 kb).

 

Swampy Beginnings

In the early 1800s the area on which Centennial Park is now situated was was a catchment area of creeks, swamps, springs, sand dunes and ponds fed by ground water.

In 1811 Governor Lachlan Macquarie made a bequest of land 'for the benefit of present and succeeding inhabitants of Sydney', and for 'the public benefit of all inhabitants of Sydney' (the area became known as the Second Sydney Common).

Nine years later he set aside part of the Common as the Lachlan Water Reserve (later known as Lachlan Swamps) as it was considered suitable for harnessing a reliable water source.

In 1825 John Busby, city surveyor and civil engineer, surveyed the swamp after Sydney’s original water supply, the Tank Stream, was found to be ‘foul and almost empty’. Busby reported that Lachlan Swamps’ water was "free from every taste and smell, and so soft as to be fit for every purpose".

Construction began in 1827 on an subterranean aqueduct to gravity feed water to the township of Sydney. The 3.5 kilometre aqueduct was bored using convict labour from Hyde Park, under Oxford Street and across to the Lachlan Reserve. Completed in 1837 this aqueduct is now known as Busby’s Bore, one of Sydney’s most important pieces of early industrial development.

Lachlan Swamps served as Sydney’s main water supply from 1837 to 1859 when a combination of the growth of industry, poor maintenance, livestock grazing, and garbage dumping gradually polluted the swamps.

Pollution worsened considerably in 1874 after a spate of large floods, and even though seven new dams were built to resolve the problems, they continued.

 

 

Moore Park rises

In 1866 the Sydney Common Improvement Bill was passed and the western part of the Second Sydney Common was transferred to Sydney City Council, which set aside the land for public recreation.



 

Between 1867 to 1869 the park was laid out and planted with grass and trees. The Park is named after Charles Moore, Mayor of Sydney during this period.

By the end of the 1800s Moore Park was Sydney’s most popular sporting and entertainment precinct. It had a cricket ground, sporting stadium, golf course, racecourse, agricultural society showground and sporting fields.

A zoological garden was created in the 1880s in a corner of Moore Park. This was Sydney's first zoo and included a circular bear pit and an elephant house. It remained there until it was transferred to Taronga Park in 1916. The site is now used for the Sydney Boys and Girls High Schools.

 

Vision of a grand park

Grazing and garbage dumping gradually polluted the swamps. The pollution worsened in 1874 after dams were constructed in the wake of large scale flooding. When Centennial Park was opened in 1888, these dams were remodelled into the ornamental lakes now known as the park’s ponds.

Local agitation to retain Lachlan Reserve as a recreational reserve began in the 1870s.

By 1887 almost 65 per cent of Sydney’s population lived within a five mile radius of the Lachlan Swamps and a new vision for the area was born.

The Governor, Lord Carrington, and Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, proposed turning the reserve, which had now become an eyesore, into a grand public park that would also be the focus for the centenary of European settlement celebrations on 26 January 1888. Such a park would transform the area into a place of serenity and beauty.

As finances were restricted, it was decided that revenue for the project could be raised through the sale of housing land surrounding the Park. The proposal to convert the Lachlan Swamps into a park was accepted in parliament on 18 July 1887.

A panoramic photograph taken in 1887 shows a deforested landscape in the course of being turned into the park, evidence of quarrying, works sheds, a cottage, and workmen undertaking various cutting and filling activities.2 Up until this point the area, except for the works associated with damming the ponds, was said still to be ‘in its pristine state’ with thick scrub and sand hills.

After Centennial and Queens Parks were created under the Centennial Celebrations Act 1887, the site was handed over to Sir Charles Moore, Director of the Botanic Gardens (1848 to 1896). Moore himself reputedly turned the first sod to announce the commencement of work on the park.

Moore, who trained at two of the world’s great parks – Regent’s Park and Kew Gardens, London – was given the task of developing Centennial Park, and made good use of his English parks’ experience on his new project.

Creating Centennial Park proved no easy task. Moore enlisted hundreds of unemployed men to turn swamp, scrub and rock into a grand park in the European tradition, with formal gardens, ponds, statues and grand avenues. He and his staff were hindered by winds, drought, floods, sandy soil, damage from straying livestock and vandalism.

Despite these hindrances, Moore was instrumental in turning the coastal scrubland into the beginnings of what was to become a great Victorian park and one now recognised for best practice in many areas.

Centennial Park’s main circular road, Grand Drive, was Sydney’s first public suburban drive.

 

A little on Sir Henry Parkes

Sir Henry Parkes came to Australia a penniless English immigrant. He was a farm labourer, bone and ivory turner, journalist, newspaper proprietor, and a failed businessman. But he was also a man with an urge towards self-betterment. A politician extraordinaire, he rose to become Premier of New South Wales five times and was the man responsible for bringing forward the bill of Parliament that created Centennial Park.

More than 100 years after his death, Sir Henry Parkes is still an enigmatic and complex figure. Born into poverty in 1915, Parkes lived a transient life from the age of eight, moving from place to place as his father looked for work. At twelve he was apprenticed to a bone and ivory turner, who he worked with for eight years.

“My master gave me a trifle, weekly, above my wages,” Parkes remembered in an 1844 letter to Lord Leigh, “out of which, when I grew to the age of 17 or 18 years, as it increased as I became more useful, I was enabled to purchase tickets to the Mechanics’ Institution; and resume something like an educational training, which had been totally neglected from the time I was a child of seven or eight years.”

Poverty aside, Parkes enjoyed a rewarding childhood. "His parents were very good farmers,” says great grand-daughter Jane Gray. “They lived on the land, they had good food, fresh air, and they were intelligent people. He was brought up in a very healthy situation – well fed, well looked after and much loved. Even though he’d been through the bottom depths of despair with his family, he had somehow managed to weather through and this gave him determination to succeed in life."

Parkes came to New South Wales in 1839 aged 24, with wife Clarinda and a daughter born at sea two days before they arrived. According to Manning Clark in A History of Australia, their first year was spent living roughly. “But by 1841 Henry’s heart was filled with confidence. He had found steady work in Sydney and was reading widely.” Clark remarks that in Australia Parkes found purpose: “He predicted that he and his fellow exiles would liberate Australia from the convicts’ clanking chains and allow freedom’s voice to be heard across her ransomed plains.”

Parkes’ life became the life of politics. In the 1840s, he honed his writing talents as the Sydney correspondent for the Launceston Examiner and a contributor to other publications. A decade later as editor and proprietor of the Empire newspaper, he declared he would use the publication as "an independent power to vivify, elevate and direct the political life of the country."

In 1854 Parkes was elected to the New South Wales Parliament, the start of half a century of almost unbroken – and predominantly unpaid – parliamentary membership. Financial ruin was never far from Parkes’ doorstep, and he sometimes lost his seat due to bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, Parkes implemented a wide range of social reforms, and presided over the major achievement of his era: the introduction of a public education system. From the late 1860s he began talking about the States joining together to become a single nation.

On 5 June 1877 Parkes learned he had been created a Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George. He had become an imposing figure whose political victory was unparalleled, as illustrated by this 1873 limerick:

There once was an ogre called Parkes
Very fond of political larks
Who dined off his chums
Making soup of the crumbs
And threw their old bones to the sharks.

In 1887, having won office yet again at the age of 71, Parkes turned his mind to creating Centennial Park. With the Centenary of the founding of the colony just a year away, he was keen to find an appropriate proposal to celebrate the occasion. Parkes had been a long time advocate of the need for open space for recreation, and seized upon the idea of creating a park to fulfil two needs: a people’s park and a grand setting for a State House to celebrate the Centenary.

His plans were nothing if not ambitious. They would provide relief work for the vast pool of unemployed men who were victims of depressed working conditions. They would be funded by the sale of portions of land along the boundaries of the park. They would convert “that particular portion of the surroundings of Sydney into the most coveted, the most fashionable and the most healthy suburb of Sydney.”

The State House was central to Parkes’ plans for Centennial Park. The Act of Parliament that created the Park on 13 July 1887 is notable for its lack of detail on the creating the Park, in contrast to the vivid description of the State House’s many features. It was to include a gallery, public mausoleum, great hall, and museum: for: “all books, documents, printed or written matter and reliques as may be illustrative of the historical material and industrial stages of the colony’s progress and of the various aboriginal races of Australia their customs, languages and ethnological characteristics.”

As grandiose and exciting as it seemed, the State House was never built, and according to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1888 met with such strenuous opposition in Parliament and from the public that the plans were shelved and eventually abandoned by Parkes.

Parkes was not so easily dissuaded when it came to his dreams of a united Australia. Jane Gray recalls that Parkes was the first politician to use the word ‘commonwealth’ in relation to Australia. "It is such a generous word to use, and already back then, it was so timely."

On 24 October 1889, in a speech in his seat of Tenterfield, Parkes issued his clarion call: “The great question…is whether the time has not now arisen for the creation of this Australian continent of an Australian Government and an Australian Parliament. I believe the time has come.”

Persuading his fellow Australians to combine the six existing colonies into one commonwealth, he argued: "Surely what the Americans did by war, Australians can bring about in peace."

More than ten years passed before his vision was fulfilled. Parkes died in 1896, a month after auctioning his library of books and chinaware due to “financial difficulty”. It was four years before Federation came about in his beloved Centennial Park.

Manning Clark writes how the crowd ‘murmured’ their approval for a car in the 1901 Federation procession containing a bust of the late Sir Henry Parkes, the father of “what it was all about”.

“Its banner proudly bore one of the many slogans on which he had conferred a measure of immortality: ‘One People, One Destiny’.”

– words contributed by Catriona Burgess and Katerina Kroslakova.

Opening of the People's Park

When Australia Day, 26 January 1888, arrived Centennial Park's opening ceremony included the planting of the first trees in what is now known as Cannons Triangle.

Surprisingly, the ceremonial site was a last minute choice – it was still rocky, lacking in soil and the surface unregulated – and the rocks had to be quickly blasted and good soil brought in to fill in the holes to prepare the site for the opening.

The tree planting ceremony took place after the official speeches which dedicated the Centennial Park to the people to the New South Wales in front of a reported ‘tens of thousands’ of people. The first tree was planted by Lady Carrington, wife of the Governor.

Symbolically, it was a Cook’s pine – named after Captain Cook. In total, 13 trees were planted during the ceremony.

Sadly, poor soil and the exposed windy condition of the area has meant these trees have not survived.

During his key speech on the day, Sir Henry Parkes said about Centennial Park:

"In the course of the next few years (this park) will be converted into a place of beauty and joy forever. It will be yours and so long as the land shall last it will be for you, and it is a great obligation that rests upon you as free people to see that no power, no combination, invades your right in the enjoyment of this great boon. It is emphatically the people's park and you must always take as much interest in it as if by your own hands you had planted the flowers; and if you take this interest in it, and if you thus rise to the full appreciation of its great beauty, and your great privileges, the park will be one of the grandest adornments of this beautiful country."


 

 

Putting down the roots

Although officially open, Centennial Park was far from finished.

More than 450 men worked determinedly on fencing, soil preparation, footpaths, asphalting roads and rock blasting to bring the Park to completion. After a couple of months they were able to concentrate their efforts on transforming swamps and dams into the ornamental ponds with islands that exist today.

The ponds form the upper catchment of the Botany Wetlands. These water bodies, covering an area of approximately 26 hectares, provide an important habitat for water birds and aquatic wildlife and are a significant feature of the formal design of Centennial Park.

They also play an important role in flood mitigation, acting as a retention basin. Ten of the eleven interconnected ponds in Centennial Park, and a single pond in Moore Park, are fed by stormwater run-off from the surrounding catchment area.

Only one pond, Lily Pond, is fed by a natural artesian spring in Lachlan Swamp.

 

Birthplace of the Nation

On 1 January 1901, 250,000 people gathered in Centennial Park to witness the proclamation of the Federal Constitution, uniting six formerly independent colonies as one Commonwealth of Australia. The people of Sydney celebrated Federation with a week of festivities.

A reception at the Domain for the Governor-General was followed by a military and official procession through the city to Centennial Park. The procession entered Centennial Park through Paddington Gates, elaborately decorated for the occasion.

The high point of the festivities was the ceremony in what is now known as Federation Valley, chosen because its rising slopes afforded the whole crowd good views.

A 14-metre high octagonal, domed plaster pavilion was made for the ceremony. The pavilion was richly decorated with bas-relief castings of native flora and the imperial coat of arms.

An enclosure with seating for 7,000 dignitaries and guests and 300 members of the press surrounded the pavilion. On the enclosure’s outskirts, seating was provided for 10,000 school children and a 1,400 person choir.

After Queen Victoria’s official proclamation had been read, Australia’s first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, was sworn in. Federal ministers were then sworn in after a twenty-one gun salute.

Singing by the massed choir concluded the ceremony.

 

 

Planting the Parklands

The Park's Director, Charles Moore, planted trees in the avenues including elms, poplars and pines. However it was his successor, the energetic and progressive Joseph Maiden, director from 1896 and 1924, who re-instigated the plantings after the demise of many of the originals. It had become clear that much of the Park was not suitable for planting trees at all due to the very sandy soil, rocky outcrops and exposure to harsh southern winds.

Maiden concentrated much of his work on avenue and grove plantings. In 1896, he planted a row of Melaleuca quinquenervia, or broadleaf Paperbark trees which was considered an avantgarde step as they were natives.

However it was not to break with tradition that Maiden choose these trees, rather it was a decision based on the conditions of the site.

The Paperbarks were originally intended to act as windbreaks to shield more sensitive and exotic plantings from the ravaging southerly winds.

Today these stand as one of the most photographed sites in the Parklands, and represent important change in thinking on plantings here – not only that natives should be used, but that plants raised in Centennial Park were the most suited to its conditions and should be used where at all possible.

Other areas where Maiden planted broadleaf paperbarks include the semi-formal plantings around Lily Pond, and windbreaks between Snakebank and McKay Oval.

Maiden also planted various species including Norfolk Island pines, hoop pines, coral trees, cork oaks, weeping willows and Port Jackson and Moreton Bay figs.

Keen to introduce a tropical quality to the Park, Maiden also planted many palms. In 1908, he planted Canary Island Date Palms along Parkes Drive, as a trial to see whether they could be used elsewhere in Sydney.

These palms formed a magnificent colonnade that was admired for decades by visitors.

However the Canary Island Date Palms and, more recently, Cotton Palms which replaced them, both succumbed to a destructive fungus. Between 1888 and 1914 over 11,000 trees were planted. However, roughly half of these either died or were removed as they did not tolerate the harsh conditions. Today, more than 15,000 trees grow in the Parklands and about 60 per cent comprise seven hardy survivors: Norfolk Island Pine, Cluster Pine, Moreton Bay Fig, Port Jackson Fig, Eucalypts, Holm Oak and the Broad Leaf Paperbark.

Another integral part of Centennial Park’s design are the formal gardens, the foundations for which were laid by Charles Moore. However the failure of his plantings led Joseph Maiden to later experiment with native plantings. He combined this with his strong belief in the Park’s educational value and early in his tenure he declared that he wanted ‘an artificial plantation exclusively devoted to Australian plants, duly labelled.’

Maiden used the promontories Moore had established around Busby’s Pond as the main sites for his horticultural experimentation.

Nature was not kind to his creativity, and a dry spell which began in 1896, was declared a drought in 1902. To combat this ravaging, many plants and young trees were hand watered, however, Maiden instructed that the native garden was not to receive any special treatment, and much to his surprise they survived. By 1910 the native garden contained 661 labelled species.

In 1909 Maiden planted the Rose Garden, and it has been a favourite of Park visitors, and especially for weddings, ever since. On one Sunday in 1917 an estimated 20,000 people passed through its sweet-smelling rows. Maiden introduced a prodigious number of water lilies into the ponds, a sight never before seen in Sydney.

Maiden’s innovative use of native species extended to nurturing local indigenous vegetation growing in the Parklands. He protected the remaining original landscape following the conversion into a Park, because he understood that the hillocks and low-lying areas provided a suitable habitat to encourage the growth of indigenous plants.

 

 

Through to the Centenary of Federation

A new Federation Pavilion

The plaster pavilion from the Federation Ceremony in 1901 deteriorated rapidly and was removed from the Park in 1903.

In 1904 the Commonwealth Stone which had been housed in the pavilion was placed on a sandstone pedestal surrounded by an iron picket fence. It remained there until the new Federation Pavilion was opened as part of Australia’s Bicentennial celebrations in 1988.

The current Pavilion is circular, representing unity, strength and a united cultural identity of the federated nation. Like the Park in which it sits, the Federation Pavilion is living heritage part of the daily recreational landscape of thousands of Australians.

The mosaic on the interior of the dome, by artist Imants Tillers, comprises of 1,440 vitreous, enamelled-steel panels which reflect the concept of Federation.

The mosaic’s vast whiteness depicts the emptiness of inland Australia, while the colour spectrum portrays the many colours of our nation’s landscape. Inscribed on a sandstone frieze are the words ‘Mammon or Millennial Eden’ paraphrasing the questions posed in Bernard O’Dowd’s poem Australia:

A new demesne for Mammon to infest?
Or lurks Millennial Eden ‘neath your face?

Centenary of Federation

Federation Valley was once again the focus of the nation when the Centenary of Federation celebrations were held on 1 January 2001.

A capital works program was undertaken to prepare the area for this event. The program included major landscaping and regeneration of Federation Valley and repairing and restoring Federation Pavilion. The works included the restoration of the mosaic.

Other Federation projects included replanting Parkes Drive and creating the Avenue of Nations, a new entrance to the Park in line with the original vision for a grand western entry connecting Moore and Centennial Parks.

Cultural celebrations held for the centenary focused on the spirit of national unity. Though State capitals held their own civic events, Sydney and Centennial Park were the key sites for celebrations.

A grand parade of 8,000 people including performing artists, marching bands, sports people, seniors, youth, dance groups and Indigenous and ethnic groups started at Circular Quay and travelled through the streets of Sydney to Centennial Park.

The parade was followed by a Federation ceremony attended by the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and all State Premiers.

The day’s festivities concluded with a concert in Centennial Park. These celebrations were broadcast live on television so that all Australians could share the experience.

Marking the occasion

To mark the occasion of the Centenary of Federation, the Australian Government produced a new design for its Five Dollar note - which incorporated a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes and a sketch of the modern-day Federation Pavilion.

You can read more about this at the Reserve Bank of Australia website.