Observatory Hill: A Modest Incline, Handily-placed, Serving Many Purposes Since 1788

Posted on by Bonza Rottwheeler
Local history, Science and society
The early British colonists in Sydney were quick to appreciate the value that Observatory Hill held in the formative days of the New South Wales colony. This hill, no more than moderately sized, situated between The Rocks and Barangaroo in the old part of the town, is a rich part of Sydney’s history. Not long after the founding of Port Jackson in 1788, Sydneysiders started putting the well-positioned bluff and its natural endowment to greater or lesser productive use in a variety of ways.
After the European settlement its first use seems to have been as a location for windmills. The first was constructed in 1796 by Irish convict John Davis with the purpose of grinding wheat into flour for the making of bread. This windmill was of limited productivity, leading to a second windmill being built on the hill in the early 1800s. As a result the site acquired its first English name, Windmill Hill. The name of the suburb/locale around Observatory Hill today, Millers Point, references its erstwhile flour milling activity.
Sydney Observatory, 1874 ⇧
(Wikipedia Commons)
In 1800 a fort was constructed on the hill, named Fort Phillip in honour of the colony’s founding governor Arthur Phillip. This propitious spot was again chosen, this time because its perceived advantages for defence. The fort, equipped with four six-pounder cannons and a gunpowder magazine, was intended to be consolidated into a comprehensive citadel which would be a stronghold to safeguard the colony in the event of criminal insurrection. Such fears were fuelled by 1798 Irish rebellion and by the prospect of a local revolt by convicts in Sydney✤. Although for a while the hill acquired the name Citadel Hill, the fortification itself as planned never materialised. The project, proposed by Governor Hunter, got kicked round by succeeding governors, King, Bligh and Macquarie, but in the end the citadel was only ever half-built (primarily a powder magazine built by convict architect Greenway). The fort was eventually demolished around 1840✫.
Part of Fort Philip was given over in 1825 for the housing of a signal station…it’s construction by colonial architect Mortimer Lewis was prompted by the growth in shipping at the time. From here, flags and semaphore was used to communicate with ships in the harbour below. The presence of signal flags gave rise to a new name for the Hill, Flagstaff Hill (this name remained in currency into the 20th century with some locals referring to as “The Flaggie”). In 1847, with maritime activity in Sydney Town on the rise, a two-storey Telegraph House was added to Flagstaff Hill◲.
Fort Street High – on a 1920 cigarette card! ⇧
Also around 1825 Observatory Hill entered another phase of its diverse land-use, this one medical and educational. That year a (military) hospital was constructed on the hill, the second hospital only in the young colony’s history (the first was at George Street North in the The Rocks). By 1848 the hospital on the hill had closed and the site became a school the following year. Fort Street Model School, the first school in Australia not founded by a religious organisation, became known for its innovative teaching methods (intended to be a model for other schools who follow). Initially, Fort Street was a primary school but in the early 20th century a co-educational high school was added to the site◩. Fort Street Public School still exists today in the original location on Observatory Hill, opposite the Bradfield Highway❂.
The next and most important use made of Flagstaff Hill was the enterprise which gives the hill the name is by known by today, the construction of (Sydney) Observatory. Astronomical observations in the Southern Hemisphere were considered of particular importance and the handily-situated bluff was thought an ideal location to observe the stars. Built from 1857-1859 by architects William Weaver and Alexander Dawson, it originally comprised the observatory and the astronomer’s residence.
There was also a time ball on the observatory tower serving two functions. Each day at precisely one o’clock in the afternoon the time ball would drop, sending a signal (accompanying by a cannon blast) to alert people in the city and more importantly shipping on the seas to the time.
Formal gardens were created around the Observatory, circa 1875, The next decade, under the Flagstaff planting scheme, a grove of palm trees were planted. In the 20th century a tennis court was added. Observatory Park, which surrounds the Observatory itself, with its sloping lawns and great, sprawling old Moreton Bay figs is a popular lunch spot for city workers. The park also houses a Boer War memorial with an antique mounted gun and a bandstand rotunda which is a favourite for wedding photo shoots.
Observatory Park, 1941 ⇧
(Photo source: City of Sydney Archives, SRC3143)
In 1908 the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) established a facility on Observatory Hill. Rainfall on Observatory Hill is still a feature of Sydney weather reports, though these days the BOM maintains a number of different sites scattered around Sydney to gauge the city’s weather patterns.

Increasing city light and air pollution since the Seventies saw the Sydney Observatory close in 1982…the complex has since functioned as a scientific museum. Visitors today can take a tour of the Observatory, observe the stars at night through one of the facility’s powerful, modern telescopes, or look at the historic equipment, such as the 29cm refractor telescope, dating from 1874.

⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿⟿

✤ in 1804 the fears came to fruition with an attempted uprising by convicts at Castle Hill in Sydney’s northwest

✫ Lower Fort Street which encircles Observatory Hill was named to commemorate Ft Phillip

◲ the salary and conditions of the signal-master John Jones in the 1840s (£150 per annum and his own comfortable on-site cottage) is an indicator of the signal station’s increasingly key role in the colony

◩ in 1916 the boys high school moved to a new location at Tavener Hill at Petersham. In 1975 the girls joined them

❂ the old Fort School Model School is now a heritage-listed National Trust site

▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦ ▦

Publications consulted:

‘History of Observatory Park’, City of Sydney, www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

‘How time flies: maintaining our 159 year-old Time Ball tradition‘, (by Melissa Hulbert), Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, 10 April 2017, www.maas.museum

‘Sydney Observatory’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org