History of Sydney Inner West Rotary

                BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHANGING FACE OF THE INNER WEST

Glebe, Newtown, Leichhardt and Pyrmont make up the major part of Sydney’s inner west. Second-hand shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, bookshops and design shops line the main streets of each neighbourhood – Glebe Point Road, King Street, Darling Street and Norton Street respectively. Weekend markets are popular, offering everything from organic produce to vintage fashion and artworks. Getting around inner Sydney is easy with regular bus, train, and light rail services. Since the 1980’s living in the inner city has become popular as industry has moved out.

Glebe has a rich industrial history with wood mills and logs being floated on its waterways; abattoirs existed where the Wentworth Park Dog Track is today, with rich smells wafting on the air throughout the area. There were around 43 hotels in just Pyrmont alone each claiming an industry as its own such as the Dalgety Woollen Mills. The rich industrial history of Pyrmont began in 1815, when Australia’s first steam powered mill was built in Darling Harbour.

The 1870’s saw the rise of a successful wool industry in the area, with auctions being transferred from London to Sydney. By the 1890’s wool stores, power stations and mills created employment for thousands of local residents and continued to do so, particularly in World War II, but well into the 1960’s. As early as 1900, Pyrmont was the Australian centre for distribution of flour, milk, sugar and wool and it also supplied electricity to most of Sydney.

Unfortunately, like most booms, this one was not to last. By the early 1980’s freight services had moved out of the area and the Darling Harbour Railway Goods Yard had closed down, leaving thousands of locals looking elsewhere for work. As these major employment industries closed down or relocated to outer suburbs the area demographic changed, becoming more residential/commuter based and over time creating a pleasant more village like atmosphere.

Nowadays it is a very different inner city than the one that existed in the 1960’s. Then, the Rotary Clubs of Newtown and West Sydney met regularly over lunches and held large memberships of the leaders of industry and commerce from the 1960’s to the 1980’s. As industry moved out so did these members move away from the inner city area and ultimately away from these clubs. This led to the merger of the two clubs in June 2003 and the Rotary Club of Sydney Inner West was formed with an original membership of 32.

Today a very different club exists with an energetic membership that is looking to make a difference in a locality that is a primarily  residential and a far cry from its earlier industrial roots.

ALL welcome come join us on the 1st Sunday of the month for Coffee or Breakfast at the Birkenhead Cafe, Birkenhead Point  and we meet the 3rd Monday of the month at Otto Norba, Glebe  – call us on 0418 602 014 for more information.