Kensington 2033

Kensington, named after its London counterpart, was initially planned as a model suburb. Early European land grants, including 570 acres to Samuel Terry in 1823, facilitated industrial development. By 1888, the land was transferred to William Cooper, leading to a design competition for the suburb. Despite initial challenges, Kensington developed into a garden suburb with significant landmarks like the University of New South Wales and NIDA. 

Originally planned as a model suburb, Kensington takes its name after the location of the same name in the Royal Borough of London. Early European land grants in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney saw a large part of the Lachlan swamps, modern day Kensington and Kingsford, given to emancipist Samuel Terry, a sizeable 570 acres in 1823. This grant and others, it is asserted by local historian Joseph Waugh, formalised a complex system of informality, with extant woollen mills already harvesting the swamp water. Terry, Winder and Hutchinson were all canny land grantees in this vein, entrepreneurs who had established heavy industries using the plentiful supply of water.

Terry’s land encompassing modern day Kensington marks him as one of the first European to utilise this tract of land. He had been convicted of theft in 1800 and transported for seven years. Terry opened a shop and an inn soon after arriving in the colony and by 1810 had married Rosetta Madden and acquired her considerable property on the union. In 1819 he announced in the Sydney Gazette that he had built a water mill on the Lachlan Stream and was producing flour, bran and pollard. It was known as the Lachlan Mill and stood on land that is now known as Kensington Oval. By 1828 it had ceased operations. There was also a paper mill on the Terry grant near the junction of Bowral Street and Anzac Parade. The contamination of the Botany Swamps by the noxious trades,

By the time Terry passed away the Sydney Gazette called him, ‘The Rothschild of the Colony’. As the Lachlan swamps were reserved for water supply until the Nepean Scheme became Sydney’s source of drinking water the land that became Kensington, was reserved for public use until 1886. During 1888, Samuel Terry’s grant was transferred to William Cooper who lived in Kensington, London. Ownership passed to trustees who assigned land ownership to the Kensington Freehold Corporation Ltd. The following year this corporation ran a competition to design a suburb in Sydney on this land, offering a prize of £250. 16 entries were received and displayed at the Sydney Town Hall. First, second and third were awarded – suggesting the corporation wanted backup plans for some reason. The winning design included the vision of a grand boulevard, ‘Eastern Avenue’, also known as Broad Road, Randwick Road and eventually becoming our iconic ANZAC Parade under tragic circumstances in 1917. The intention for a traditional of heavy railway line was also established. A vision yet to be achieved.

Kensington was envisioned as a garden suburb, similar to that conceived and executed at nearby Daceyville, bordering Kingsford to the south. This design intention was documented by JF McMahon in Kensington: a Model Suburb. One suburb design in the Corporation’s competition had advocated a Venetian like system of canals like the Rialto. Another entry also addressed the abundance of groundwater by designing a system of lakes into the suburban blueprint. Whether it was the groundwater that caused delays in subdivision and land sale, or the sandy soils made it difficult to establish tree lined boulevards - it is not clear. The Kensington Corporation eventually dissolved in 1890 and the land passed the Australian Cities Investment Corporation the following year, who entered a mortgage with the same William Cooper. From 1891 the Kensington estate was subdivided for development. The suburb began to blossom.

By 1909 the land around Todman Avenue was portioned. In 1894 the Sacred Heart nuns had established a school in Todman Avenue. The Convent has been an imposing beacon - towering over the landscape in early images of Kensington. By 1900 Kensington Public School opened with 35 pupils. The most distinguished former pupils of this local public school being some of the most learned minds, Lionel Bowen and Mr Justice Lionel Murphy. In 1919, with war’s end, Kensington was described as having ‘many fine residences, fine wide streets and a splendid golf course, close to Randwick Racecourse was an added attraction in the marketing to potential investors, 

That Kensington has a very big future as a residential suburb is undoubted. Good land was available from £3 to £ 4.10.0 a foot with the choicest lots available from £7 to £8 per foot. Modern design houses varied in price from £650 to £950. There were a few weatherboard cottages and some ‘very fine homes’ worth from £1000 to £1500.”

During 1911, the early years of Kensington’s growth as a residential suburb, Raleigh Park was established on 35 acres, purchased by real estate developer GF Todman. Named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who first introduced tobacco to England, this became the centre of the tobacco industry in Sydney. In 1913, architects Halligan and Wilton designed the first factory and in 1926 Joseland and Gilling designed an administration building later classified by the National Trust. Raleigh Park became the home of WD & HO Wills. It remained one of the largest local employers, especially women and migrants up to the time it was sold in 1989 for redevelopment into apartments and townhouses. A store, community centre and pre-school were all part of the adaptive re-use of this large industrial hub. The heritage of the site is captured in the attached document commissioned at the time the factory was decommissioned.

The art deco style unit blocks, purpose built for the Raleigh Park tobacco workers families remain as heritage listed apartments. The Kensington Racecourse was also a huge feature of the suburb in the late nineteenth century. A smaller racecourse then Randwick, it was used by the military during the Boer War to mobilise and train personnel. Shortly after World War Two another imposing feature of Kensington - The University of New South Wales was established in 1949 to provide tertiary level education in what we now call the STEM disciplines. This large campus eventually absorbed both the Kensington Racecourse and the Randwick Golf Course - a municipal links close to the top of High Street. Randwick Council replaced this golf course with the Malabar Golf Links - popular with golfers from the late 1950s.

NIDA (National Insitute of Dramatic Arts) was founded in the 1950s as the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Today it boasts an impressive alumnus of Australian actors. Having occupied part of the main UNSW campus in the Tote Building, it now fronts the university on the opposite side of Anzac Parade Kensington.

Select Bibliography

Curby, Pauline. Randwick (Randwick, NSW: Randwick City Council, 2009)

Lawrence, Joan. Pictorial History Randwick (Sydney, NSW: Kingslcear Books, 2001)

Waugh, Joseph. Kensington, Land Use development, Ownership and Control on Lachlan Stream 1810-1890. (Randwick, NSW: Randwick and District Historical Society, 1997)