From Gadigal bushland to grazing paddock, open-air cinema to church, private home to philanthropic centre – the site at 262 Liverpool Street offers a fascinating insight into the evolution of Sydney’s inner-city environment.
Yirranma Place, 262 Liverpool St Darlinghurst. Photo Credit: Romello Pereira, courtesy of the Paul Ramsay Foundation
The 262 Liverpool Street project is an exciting initiative that will explore the story of this spot in Darlinghurst (today the headquarters of the Paul Ramsay Foundation) in order to illuminate Sydney’s wider social, political, economic and cultural histories.
The project builds on the Darlinghurst Public History Initiative, coordinated by the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS. The history of 262 Liverpool Street project is being led by Dr Alana Piper.
This research will be presented to the public through exhibitions at the site itself, interactive online augmented reality experiences and a published book. Conceived as a deeply layered approach to past and place, the project will also support an Indigenous research fellowship including creative research.
“This project is an awesome opportunity to investigate the entangled pasts of the different communities who have lived, worked, played or protested on this spot in Darlinghurst across thousands of years,” says Dr Alana Piper.
For Associate Professor Anna Clark, Acting Director of the Australian Centre for Public History, “this project is an opportunity to contribute new layers of story and interpretation about Darlinghurst’s diverse past.”
262 Liverpool Street is a natural setting for a Foundation whose mission is to help Australians break the cycle of disadvantage.
The site at Liverpool Street, circa 1865, Sir Hugh Dixson, State Library NSW, 442033
“This project is a unique opportunity to critically engage the generational dynamics of history in place,” says Dr. Alex Fischer, Head of Research at the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
“We are eager to hear the stories that surround the way this land has changed both in physical use and appearance, but also the social, cultural and economic evolution.
“As we re-open 262 Liverpool to the public and build Yirranma Place, we must be aware of what 262 Liverpool has meant to previous custodians and learn from the way place interacts with multiple generations of people living in and calling Darlinghurst home.”
A vital artery of Sydney, Liverpool Street has long been the workplace, home and playground of the diverse peoples who represent the city’s lifeblood. The street links bustling Darlinghurst to Sydney’s cosmopolitan CBD and from there to its international gateway, Darling Harbour.
The street’s twin ends were named respectively for Elizabeth Darling and her husband Governor Ralph Darling, remembered both for the harsh discipline he enforced towards the convicts left to his mercies in the 1820s, and for contributing substantially to the expansion of colonisation north of Sydney.
These place names not only stand as testaments to the city’s 19th-century development, but to the colonial erasure of older Indigenous names long used for such sites, and with them the deep histories they had witnessed. Gadigal pathways criss-crossed what’s now known as Darlinghurst long before 262 appeared on colonial land grants, subdivisions or city records.
Drawing of First Church of Christ Scientist, Sydney, at 262 Liverpool Street. Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1925, 10, National Library of Australia, 16204415
The suburb, originally intended as a resort of the colonial elite, by the late 19th century had become more of a working-class neighbourhood and included some decidedly seedy elements. Within 262’s immediate vicinity lay terraces that housed the suburb’s disadvantaged, St Vincent’s Hospital that treated them, and Darlinghurst Gaol that imprisoned them.
The site itself for decades remained open ground, which created opportunities for it to be put to a myriad of uses by the local community. It became a resort for local larrikins and a stage for political rallies, temporary school accommodation and a dumping ground for unwanted infants.
In the 1920s it became the First Church of Christ Scientist Sydney, drawing congregation members from around the city for over eighty years. 262 has also been the province of the powerful, converted to a luxury private residence by venture capitalist Mark Carnegie in 2010.
In its incarnation today as the headquarters of the Paul Ramsay Foundation, it is known as Yirranma Place, meaning ‘place where many create’. The site is now open to the public as well as hosting offices for the Foundation and multiple other for-purpose organisations.
• If you have a story about 262 Liverpool Street that you would like to share, contact Alana Piper
• Find out more about the Public History in Darlinghurst event series, starting 16 June, here