Matraville 2036

The story of Matraville suburb is intertwined with the sandy, ‘low value’ terrain named after James Matra who was a crew member on Captain Cook’s Endeavour. He formed a lifelong friendship on this voyage with Sir Jospeh Banks. Both men advocated for the settlement of a colony in New South Wales after this voyage of discovery. In 1786 Matra was Consul General of Tangier, Morocco, dying there on 29 March 1806. The suggestion for the suburb name of ‘Matraville’ came from John Rowland Dacey, State Member for Botany, after whom nearby garden suburb of Daceyville takes its name. A public school was established at Matraville in 1904, hence the need for a definitive suburban name. The small community amongst the sand hills had, to this point, been given the rather generic name of ‘the Crossroads’.

Matraville’s post colonisation settlers were a mixture of small farmers and markets gardens. Many of the market gardens in this locality were worked by the Chinese immigrants during and after the gold rushes of the nineteenth century. They worked hard in sandy, low nutrient soil, to deliver crops to market. Local heavy industry is another recurrent theme of Matraville’s suburban story. Samuel Dive’s Brickworks was founded in 1878 by Samuel Dive at the age of 25.  The brickworks occupied a site now known as the corner of Jersey Road and Bunnerong Road. The Brickworks operated until 1970 and was managed by three generations of the Dive Family. The brickworks employed many local men from Matraville and surrounds. Dive’s Bricks were used in local homes, Prince Henry Hospital, and the imposing walls of notorious Long Bay Gaol. During both World War One and World War Two the brickworks was a ‘protected industry’, the brick production being considered a vital contribution to the war effort. Clay for the bricks was sourced locally giving the brick types a unique colour and structural integrity.

Ray Dive donated a precious album of images to Randwick City Library in 2008. This treasured album documents the site and the industrial processes at the brick pit. Waste disposal was another industrial process that was established in the then ‘remote’ sand dunes of Matraville. In 1932, the Matraville Incinerator was designed by Walter Burley Griffin, architect and designer of Australia’s capital, Canberra. It stood in Hurley Crescent, Matraville. Willoughby also had an incinerator by the same architect. In an era when incineration was believed to be the most expedient form of waste eradication, the Matraville Incinerator took architectural design of waste facilities to dizzying heights. It was said to be ‘a skilful integration of structural masses, ornamentation, and textures.’ Whilst it looked worthy of a much grander use, the building operated by REICo quickly fell into disuse. Plagued by malfunction, breakdowns, and inefficiency Randwick Council was exasperated by the operator REICo’s inability to provide a reliable plant. The Matraville Incinerator was eventually demolished, unlike the Willoughby example that was restored as is an architectural icon of that suburb. These facilities were built and operated long before the 1970s when incineration of waste (even in most backyards across Sydney) fell out of favour due to concern over air pollution. Famous son of Matraville and later Maroubra, Bob Carr, remembers the derelict incinerator structure as a young lad. Carr would explore the sandhills of Matraville in the 1950s. He calls that much of the district’s sand dunes were still covered in native vegetation. Carr remembers his early years playing and exploring outdoors at Matraville with great fondness. Listen to Bob Carr’s Podcast in our Randwick Local Legends series.

The suburban cottages of Matraville and their working-class families long lived in the shadows of other large local industry. Two such examples are the APM (Australian Paper Manufacturing Plant) and the Oil Refinery and slightly further afield the Bunnerong Power Plant – generating electricity for greater Sydney. Many of the workers at these plants hailed from the modest working man’s suburb of Matraville. The Matraville Hotel has been a favourite watering hole for thirsty workers since 1928. Circling back to the interwar period we have one of the most iconic elements of this suburb’s heritage. The establishment of the Matraville Soldier Settlement or Garden Village was a defining period in the suburb’s history. It placed Matraville on a national stage, albeit a political one as well. Built on crown lands gifted in 1917, considered ‘the waste sand hills beyond Daceyville’, the land was made available for returned soldiers from World War One. A Voluntary Workers Association was formed to erect housing. Evidence of this group’s work is scattered throughout the Minute Books of Randwick Council. From 1918-1925, 93 homes were built, southwest of Anzac Parade and Beauchamp Road and was known as the Matraville Soldiers’ Garden Village. Homes ‘fit for heroes’, were built relying on public funding. Businesses, clubs, associations, and private individuals contributed money. Local tradesmen and volunteers, including an army of women, toiled to construct these homes in an act of gratitude from the Australian community for their war service and sacrifice. The houses were earmarked for widows and the blind or limbless returned servicemen. In an contemporary newspaper report of 1921 it is said that fundraising over £60,000 The dwellings eventually passed to the State Housing Board.

Matraville locals keenly felt the impact of world war in 1942 when local lad Arthur Daunt, dux of Matraville Public School was killed on HMAS Sydney when it was sunk of the coast of Western Australia. Randwick Council resolved to rename Togo Road, Matraville to Daunt Avenue. This fitting tribute to the Daunt family of Matraville was emblematic of the losses across the Randwick municipality during this conflict. By the late 1970s, with state government urban consolidation and economic rationalism, the Matraville Soldier’s Garden village was demolished. All but one of the soldier cottages, 6 Amiens Crescent Matraville, were demolished and the site regenerated to provide higher density social housing accommodation. Matraville Soldier Settlement Public School, built in 1926 also remains. Both are now heritage listed buildings. The sandstone foundation blocks from the demolished homes form a moving memorial to the homes that servicemen occupied for over half a century. They lie in the Matraville Memorial Park.
Part of the urban densification of Matraville had already occurred over a decade earlier, in 1961. At this time, a north-western section of Matraville passed to former Botany Council now Bayside. The suburb was renamed ‘Hillsdale’ after Pat Hills, state minister for local government. Today you are considered a Matraville local if you know where legendary Duffy’s corner can be found.