History of Sydney City Council

In 1842 Sydney was incorporated as a city. Sydney as a settlement was established in 1788 as a convict colony ruled by British Governors. In 1823, a Legislative Council was founded but the Governor retained the power to appoint officials to the Council and to over-ride their decisions.

By the 1840s, convict transportation had virtually ended and the colonists wanted more control over their affairs. An Imperial Act of 1842 created a new Legislative Council, of which one third was nominated and two thirds elected by property holders.

Municipal Beginnings

The wealthy pastoralists and land owners on the Legislative Council were concerned with weightier matters than the state of Sydneys roads or the lack of sanitation. Under an Act of 1833, three police commissioners were responsible for local conditions.

Most Sydney residents were happy enough for the British Government to go on paying for this service. As Sydneys population grew, howe'ver, so did the need for some form of local government. In 1840, Governor Gipps introduced a bill to the Legislative Council to establish municipal institutions in New South Wales.

On 20 July 1842, an Act (6 Vic.No 3) was passed to declare the town of Sydney to be a city and to incorporate the inhabitants thereof.

At the first municipal election, some 3,000 adult males were eligible to vote. There were to be six wards with four Councillors per ward and each had to hold property worth �1000. When the results were declared on 3 November 1842, it was clear that the electors had chosen local businessmen to run local affairs.

Prior to the elections, the governor nominated magistrate Charles Windeyer as interim Mayor. At the first Sydney Council meeting on 9 November, a merchant and contractor, John Hosking, became the first elected Mayor of Sydney. But, in an inauspicious beginning for the Council, he had to resign less than a year later when he went bankrupt in the financial depression of the early 1840s.

At the second Council meeting on 15 November 1842, solicitor Charles Henry Chambers was appointed Town Clerk. He too resigned by 19 July 1843 because of conflict with the councillors and was replaced by the John Rae, a writer and artist, who held the post until the dissolution of Council in 1853.

Other matters determined at early Council meetings were the design of Seals for both the Council and the city, official dress for the Mayor and aldermen, and the appointment of a City Treasurer, Surveyor, Mayors secretary and other staff. Eventually the Council would become a major employer in Sydney.

In Search of a Town Hall

The first Municipal Council meeting was held in the George Street Market Building (now the site of the Queen Victoria Building) on 9 November 1842. From 1842 to 1843, quarterly meetings took place at the Royal Hotel in George Street and then at the Pultenay Hotel in York Street.

In April 1843, Council suggested that the graves be removed from the old, disused and overgrown burial ground in George Street and the land used for a town hall. The Legislative Council was appalled at the idea of disinterring the dead, and Council continued searching for a permanent site, meeting at various hotels in the meantime.

By 1869 it secured the George Street site and the graves from the old burial ground were removed to Sydneys newest cemetery, Rookwood Necropolis.

The Town Hall was occupied in September 1874 and gradually extended to include the clock tower in 1881, the Main Hall in 1889 and its grand organ in 1890. Later an administration block was built behind the Town Hall, and the current Town Hall House replaced this in the 1970s.

A public holiday was proclaimed when Sydney Town Hall opened on 27 November 1889. In the 1890s a porte-coch�re replaced the wide steps approaching the Town Hall entrance, but when the underground railway was put through under George Street in the 1930s this began to crack. It was removed and the steps reinstated. Town Hall steps became a popular meeting place.

The elaborate sandstone building has been illuminated and decorated to celebrate such significant events as Royal visits and Coronations, visits of the US Fleet, Victory celebrations, the 1938 anniversary of white settlement, Australias bicentenary in 1988, Sydneys sesquicentenary in 1992, and a reception for Olympic athletes in 2000.

Until the Sydney Opera House opened in 1973, the Town Hall was the cultural hub of Sydney, being the venue for concerts and organ recitals, as well as for official receptions, balls, banquets, meetings, exhibitions, and rallies. There were, howe'ver, limits to democracy.

Aborigines were refused use of the Town Hall for their Day of Mourning conference on Australia Day 1938, as was the Communist party during the Cold War paranoia of the late 1940s and 1950s.

The Town Hall terrace often functioned as a saluting base for military parades, but in 1970 it was the focus for the anti-military demonstrations of the Vietnam Moratorium movement.

The Struggle for Power

Municipalities in NSW are established by an Act of the State government, which determines their powers and funding. For much of its existence, Sydney City Council has competed with the government for control of the city of Sydney.

The Council of 1842 had insufficient funds to provide adequate services and, despite a new Corporation Act in 1850, was abolished by the government in October 1853.

The city was administered for the next four years by three Commissioners who were able to borrow more money but also failed to deliver water and sewerage services. One of the first acts of the new NSW Legislative Assembly in 1856 was to restore the Council.

Inadequate funding remained a problem and even though the Corporation Act of 1879 gave Council more financial strength, it was constantly criticised for failing to solve all of Sydneys urban problems.

The sacking of the first Council set a precedent which was repeated in 1928-30, 1967-69, and 1987-88 when, amidst allegations of incompetence and corruption, Council was dismissed by the State government and the city was administered by unelected commissioners.

Historical Boundaries & Elections

The City of Sydney of 1842 was little more than an unruly village of dusty poorly lit lanes and unhygienic dwellings. There was no water or sanitation system. Cattle were routinely driven through the streets.

The Corporation Act defined the boundaries, which took in present-day Woolloomooloo, Surry Hills, Chippendale, and Pyrmont, an area of 11.65 sq. km. Six wards were marked by boundary posts, one of which survives at the front of Sydney Square.

Since 1900, the boundaries of the City of Sydney have been fairly elastic. In 1909, the Municipality of Camperdown was amalgamated with the city and in 1949 Alexandria, Darlington, Erskineville, Newtown, Redfern, Waterloo, Paddington and Glebe were included. Most of these were shed again in 1968. The majority of them made up a new municipality of South Sydney.

In 1982, South Sydney was brought back into the city but became independent again under the City of Sydney Act of 1988. The City Council area contracted to 6.19 sq. km, smaller than its original size. The State government has the power to remove whole districts from Council, as it did with the creation of the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority in 1968 and the Darling Harbour Authority in 1984.

At the first 1842 Council election, voters had to occupy property with an annual value of �25 for at least one year. This low property qualification alarmed conservatives who warned of the dangers of democracy. In 1879, the vote was given to those who paid the rates, whether they were owners or renters. By 1900, even lodgers and women could vote (but they had to be property-holders) until 1941 when all resident adults were entitled to vote in Council elections.

Since then there have been numerous tinkerings with the franchise, so that sometimes it favours property owners more than at other times. The party in power in the State government is able to slant the vote in the direction that favours its own interests.