Gladesville, New South Wales

Aboriginal

The Gladesville area was used by Indigenous Australians before European settlement. Evidence of their presence can still be found in the area, for example rock carvings and grinding grooves that can be seen in Glades Bay Park, overlooking Glades Bay.

European

The area was first called Doody’s Bay when European settlement began with a land grant being made to convict artist, John Doody in 1795. Others to receive grants in the district were William House (1795), Ann Benson (1796) and Charles Raven (1799). By 1836, John Glade, an emancipist, was issued with the deeds to Doody’s grant, which he had purchased in 1817. Glade expanded his property with the purchase of a number of adjoining holdings. After John Glade’s death in 1848, his land was sold to a Sydney solicitor, Mr W. Billyard, who subsequently subdivided and sold the land in November 1855, naming it Gladesville.^[4]

A major milestone in the development of the suburb was the establishment of the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum in 1838,^[5] on the banks of the Parramatta River. It was the first purpose-built mental asylum in New South Wales. Much of the architecture was designed by Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis and built between 1836 and 1838. In 1869 it became the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane, and in 1915 the Gladesville Mental Hospital. In 1993, it was amalgamated with Macquarie Hospital to form the Gladesville Macquarie Hospital. In 1997, inpatient services were consolidated at Macquarie Hospital at North Ryde. The Gladesville complex includes many buildings which are listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register and the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate.^[6]

One of the hospital's acquisitions was a two-storey sandstone house called The Priory, in Salter Street. It was built in the late 1840s, possibly by the Stubbs family, and featured an east-looking face in the Georgian style, and a west face with a gable and painted sundial. In the 1850s it was sold to the Marist Fathers, a French group who had an influence on the early development of Hunters Hill. The hospital acquired it in 1888; it was listed on the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate in 1978.^[7]

Banjo Paterson Park

Another historical landmark is the cottage Rockend, where the poet Banjo Paterson lived in the 1870s and 1880s. It was built circa 1850 and is still preserved and open to the public in Banjo Paterson Park, Punt Road. It is listed on the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate. The site joins the Bedlam Bay walk, where remnants of the Great North Road exists and the walls of the Bedlam Bay Ferry. Banjo Paterson lived in the sandstone house (now a restaurant) whilst attending Sydney Grammar School. The house was owned by his Grandmother and was frequented by many artists and writers. Banjo Paterson recalled in his radio interview in 1935 the river had declined and was now lined with factories. However he could still remember when;^[8][9]

"....the wood-boat and the fruit boats, something like 7-ton yachts in size and capacity, would hoist mainsail and jib in the early morning, and come howling down the river with the westerly wind behind them, hoping to get far enough down to meet the north-easter before the wind failed. If the wind died away and they were left in the doldrums – well, they didn’t worry. They anchored and caught themselves feeds of fish which they cooked on their little galley fires, the scent of frying re-bream mixing not unhappily with the aroma of guavas, grapes, and the big hautboy strawberries which now seem to have gone out of fashion. Then, when the tide turned, they would up with the anchor and drift down till they opened up to the harbour where there was always some sort of breeze. They would strike Sydney some time or other, and would deliver their cargo into horse-drawn carts and then point the boat’s nose up river again, back to the gardens and the spitting of fire wood with wedges and American axes."

Halmeg Linseed oil was manufactured on a two-point-zero-hectare (five-acre) Mill located at the end of Punt Road, overlooking Looking Glass Bay. The linseed oil was used in the manufacture of lead paint and varnish, as well as putties, caulking compounds, printing inks and linoleum. The production plant was established in 1923. The revolutionary extraction process did not work at first. Despite this, one hundred guests toured the new mill at its official opening. Harold Meggit, owner of the plant, increased employees wages, also advising that there would be no jobs, no wages if a new solution to distil the oil could not be found. The employees put forward hundreds of suggestions, and two were implemented, producing the finest linseed oil in the industry. In later years, Halmeg was the first to produce Safflower Oil in Australia. It also introduced a profit sharing scheme for its employees. The site closed in 1974. In 2016 the local community crowned Madeleine Paslis as the Queen of Gladesville. ^[10]