Ever heard of Happy Valley, Frog Hollow, Hill 60, Tin Town, Eucalyptus Town or Canvas Town? - These were the makeshift Shanty Towns associated with La Perouse and the wider Randwick municipality as it was then known.
History
Housing shortages have been a recurrent theme in Sydney's history since European settlement. By 1913, Sydney's housing crisis led families to live in makeshift shelters near Long Bay. Numerous other locations in the remote south of the city and around Kamay became makeshift accommodation for the poor.
New South Wales' first Labor government responded by creating Daceyville, Australia's first planned garden suburb, to provide affordable housing and improve living conditions for the working classes.
These housing pressures remained in the interwar period and post World War Two.
Robert Irvine, the University of Sydney's first professor of Economics, pushed for better housing policies.
Read the award-winning research by Leonie Bell on 'Stannumville' (Tin Town). This fascinating historical investigation won the Ron Rathbone History Prize of Bayside City Council in 2022.
You can also read Pauline Curby's historical analysis in chapter 14 Suburban dream of Randwick by Pauline Curby. This chapter explores the shanty towns that proliferated during the Great Depression in the remote south of Randwick City.
