| Historical notes: | The "Eora people" was the name given to the coastal Aborigines around Sydney. Central Sydney is therefore often referred to as "Eora Country". Within the City of Sydney local government area, the traditional owners are the Cadigal and Wangal bands of the Eora.
With the invasion of the Sydney region, the Cadigal and Wangal people were decimated but there are descendants still living in Sydney today.
Brief Outline History of the Area (Source: Weir Phillips 2012)
Governor Phillip was concerned with the laying out of an organised township from the very beginning of settlement. His plans for the township,and those of his successors, however, were frequently circumvented by the influence and power of landowners. The main streets leading from what would become Circular Quay towards the modern CBD are clearly discernable in early nineteenth century plans. The exact line of the ‘Main Street’ of the township, later George Street, as shown by late eighteenth and early nineteenth century plans varies. It has been suggested that the line of the street evolved, as opposed to being planned, out of a pathway taken by people carrying water to the early convict huts from the Tank Street. Pitt Street, leading from the opposite site of the Tank Street to George Street, was similarly an early street and is shown on late eighteenth century plans as ‘Pitt’s Row.’ It is the oldest named Street in Sydney that still bears its original name.
Before 1810, George Street was known as ‘Sergeant Major Row’, ‘Spring Row’ or ‘High Street.’ Governor Macquarie changed the name of the street in 1810, in honour of King George III. Macquarie renamed a number of Sydney streets at this time for other members of the Royal family, including
York, Cumberland, Sussex, Clarence and Kent Streets. Harrington Street, at one end of the listing area for Circular Quay Railway Station was named by Macquarie in 1810. Unlike the streets listed above, Harrington Street was a new street, ‘recently formed’; the street was named in honour of Lord
Harrington, Earl of Stanhope.
At the other end of the listing, MacquarieStreet, named for the Governor, took many years to form. In the 1840s, it was little more than a makeshift track at its northernmost end; by the 1870s-1880s, it was lined with grand sandstone buildings.
The two sides of Sydney Cove developed two quite distinct characters. The settlement that grew on the western side of the Cove was known from an early date as The Rocks, a reflection of the topography on which it was built. The densely settled Rocks developed an increasingly unsavoury reputation as the nineteenth century progressed. The foreshores of the western side of the Cove were dominated by maritime-related industries. The eastern side of the Cove, by contrast, was part of the Governor’s Domain.
The Cast Iron Urinal (Source: Weir Phillips 2012)
In late nineteenth-century Sydney social concerns about public respectability increasingly focussed on undesirable behaviour. It was not uncommon for to see men urinating in public because of the absence of public lavatories in the city. Women were even worse off because although they were part of the city’s workforce and frequented the city streets, they often did not have lavatories provided by their employers, and the City Council was slow in recognising their needs.
Typical late nineteenth-century urinal basins were white porcelain enamelled inside and out and were flushed using a handle connected to a one gallon cistern above. Urinals would also often drain to a waste trap via a cast-iron downpipe and outlet into a slate channel at the floor.In 1880 the Council bought two cast iron urinals for male use.
The subject urinal, originally located on Observatory Hill, was dismantled for repairs in 1971 and relocated to its current site. |