Lewisham, Petersham and Stanmore
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 January 2006 07:43:05
As Jack and Deborah noted in comments, we have here many suburbs with the same name as those in London, and the UK in general -- rather to be expected, I suppose, given the settlement here. All the information I'm blabbing on about here is from my own rusty memory, with the help of Marrickville Council's web site.
Lewisham, Petersham and Stanmore are all part of Marrickville Council, the main area of which was originally occupied by the Cadigal peoples who lived in much of the area between Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) and the Cooks River. The Cadigal were a clan of the Darug people and spoke the coastal Eora language. Aboriginal artefacts found around Cooks River and Alexandra Canal area indicate at least 7,000 years of occupation. The Aboriginal population of these areas is much reduced now, and is continuing to decrease at a small rate: though Marrickville has a higher proportion of Aborginal and Torres Strait Islanders than Sydney as a whole.
Lewisham was named in 1834 after the estate of Joshua Frey Josephson, businessman, judge and owner of Enmore House (which was built in 1835 by Captain Sylvester Browne, a master mariner with the East India Company: Enmore is also a suburb here and a London suburb). Josephson named it after the London Borough of Lewisham, which means Leofsa's village or manor. [As an aside, English place name prefixes and suffixes are fascinating things -- to me at least. They reveal not only the geographical or name origins, but also at which point of history and which inhabitants (the Romans, the Danes, the French...) named it. I love reading books on the history of the English language and British place names in case you couldn't guess.]
From my infrequent travels through Lewisham, Petersham and Stanmore, I believe Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Chinese and Vietnamese migrants are the prevalent non-Anglo groups there. The Portuguese have quite a strong presence, as evidenced by Enmore and Lewisham Catholic parishes having Portuguese Masses. [Near to where I live, Polish, Italian and Vietnamese Masses are served at least weekly.]
Petersham was named by Lieutenant-Governor Major Francis Grose after his native village on the Thames, near Richmond. Petersham was one of the earliest settlements in the colony, with a timberyard built and corn field planted in 1793 -- five years after the English arrived. Like Lewisham, there are a number of Portuguese, Italian, Greek families in addition to those from New Zealand and England which make up the bulk of the about 30% of residents who were not born in Australia. One of the most visible of Petersham's landmarks is the water tower built in the 1880s and which has a storage capacity of 2,157,000 gallons.
Stanmore was named by John Jones, a prosperous saddler. He purchased land in 1835 -- where Newington College -- one of the most exclusive GPS schools -- now is: and called it the Stanmore Estate after his Middlesex birthplace, a north London suburb. About 65% of Stanmore's population was born overseas: predominantly in the UK, New Zealand, Italy and Greece.
There you have it. Three inner-west suburbs of Sydney. I'd be interested to hear what the original suburbs are like; to compare how different -- or similar -- they are.