Industrial Heritage Exhibition

'Industrial Heritage – Our Working Lives' was the theme for the 2006 Heritage Festival (April 1-16). Each year the National Trust of Australia's New South Wales office convenes the Heritage Festival in order to encourage the community to celebrate Australia's built, natural and cultural heritage. The NSW Heritage Office states "Our heritage gives us a sense of living history and provides a physical link to the work and way of life of earlier generations. It enriches our lives and helps us to understand who we are today".

The History Program invites you to view the online Industrial Heritage Exhibition. The photographs encompasses Marrickville's peak industrial era from the 1880s until the 1970s.

It was during this period that Marrickville housed some of the nation's most prominent industries and factories. For a time General Motors produced Holden automobiles on Carrington Road, the beehive bottle-oven kilns of Fowler's Potteries were visible from the greens of Marrickville Bowling Club and the original factory façade of the Vicar's Woolen Mills can still be seen today at what is now the site of the Marrickville Metro Shopping complex.

The prevalence of rich alluvial soils, timbered hills and readily available water supplies proved attractive to early raw material based industries such as the brick makers, tanners and quarrymen. Pastoral pursuits such as farming and market gardening were also encouraged in the region from an early stage in order to help feed and sustain the fledgling colony.

As the population increased and public transport options became available, the farmland began to diminish around Marrickville. The draining and leveling of swamp land particularly around the Sydenham/Tempe/St Peters areas towards the end of the 19th century also had the benefit of freeing up large tracts of land for larger scale secondary and heavy industries. It was during this period that the woolen mills, steel and metal producers, automotive and service providers set up shop in the area. The heavier industries gradually phased out of Marrickville from the 1970s.

Although the thought of an industrialized community may seem less appealing today, Marrickville's residents benefited from its industrial era. Housing in the area remained relatively affordable and thousands of local residents were actively employed including many women and migrants.

One of the more visible although lesser known benefits that Marrickville's industrial legacy has bequeathed present and future generations is the use of former sites for various practical purposes. These have included heritage conscious conversions of one time factories such as the Great Western flour mills in Dulwich Hill and Globe Worsted woolen mills in Newtown into modern apartment complexes.

Most of Marrickville's parks and reserves have also been built on the sites of disused brickpits. One prominent example of this was the building of Henson Park which occurred on the site of Daley's Brickpit in 1933.

For enquiries please contact Council's Local Studies Officer on 9335 2152.