Topic: Special reporter (Sydney Morning Herald), 1851 ‘Sanitary state of Sydney No. V’ Source: Sydney Morning Herald. 1 March 1851, pp. 2.
For context this is one of the first essays I ever wrote when I started uni around 2010, so there will be errors somewhere along the line, and I have rewritten some parts as it is just a touch bad to read as my first attempt. I am more surprised that I found the early essays on my computer. I either have physical copies of the marked essays, or I have digital scans from the markers. I have thought that some of these essays even though they can be badly written are still interesting to read about the past.
For the historian to interpret the source: The sanitary state of Sydney in 1851, you would have to look at not only the primary source but other sources that have been published for a better understanding of what is being researched. The issues related to the article were that the working class had lower incomes that lead to living conditions that lacked the basic necessities that we today take for granted like waste disposal, general hygiene and regulations that dictate how close dwellings are supposed to be to other buildings. The lower classes had to live in squalor in close proximity to other people and were unhygienic. It was vastly different to how the wealthy lived and they were often oblivious to how the conditions or turned a blind eye. During a short time period the population did explode when events occurred like the finding of gold. The issues within Sydney in the 1850’s era was different to todays, and the source illustrates how people lived in early Sydney and what resources they had to survive on. When reading about early Sydney, people don’t usually think about the living conditions of the people.
During the 1850s, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article on the living conditions of people who lived in the city. Looking back the people of today would not realise how well off they are as the people back then lacked the basic necessities such as a roof over their heads while living in cramped conditions. People were living so close together there were at least 20 to 30 people per house and they were located in buildings known as slums located off the main streets.[1] The Sydney Morning Herald reported that there was very little guttering and street cleaning. They also found it would cost thousands of pounds just to put in piping for each property, which the landlords were not willing to pay. Landlords tend to let their properties slip in quality as they forget to remove the refuse or even refused to put in proper piping for the basics that we take for granted like water, or even water closets that were private as many used and abused the system. Tenants and owners both abused the system in the agreements they had made to each other. Tenants refused to pay rent if the owner refused to clean up the property such as take the refuse away. If one group did one thing, the other would have followed the same path and then the properties became rundown.[2]
The population of Sydney increased between 1850 and 1888 especially when gold was found. The population increased to around one million. Over crowding was part of the character of Australian colonial cities as they were port cities. The cities were the main entry points for people migrating to the Australian colonies from locations like England. Seasonal workers and people from the transport industry put strain on the limited accommodation that was available.[3]
Various groups of people from upper society walked through the slum locations in Sydney, one group of councillors were even escorted by the police as protection. Professor William Stanley Jevons found The Rocks area of Sydney to be stricken with filth as waste from houses ran down the street as there were no guttering. The waste would eventually end up sitting at the next house in the street. Trenches that were dug did little to stop the stench and the soaking of the waste that went through the foundations below. He mentions that sewers and drains of proper construction are quite unknown. He also walked through several other areas such as Redfern and Durand alley. ‘Durand Alley was by Jervon’s point of view ‘where the lowest and most vicious classes predominate and the abodes were of the worst description’.[4] Durand Alley was a notorious slum area in the Haymarket area of Sydney.
For running water to be placed on your property it was cost prohibitive when you were from the working class areas than if people were living in decent areas that were wealthy. The general public had to share a privy, while the wealthy could afford a private water closet. Those who were of the working class had to share one privy between several houses and were often in a bad state. A family in each room, which was bare of anything but rags and was filthy. One house that the reporter for the SMH reported on, one of the rooms were eleven square feet and the back rooms were nine by 11 feet with the ceiling height being around 8 feet.[5]
By the 1870s Sydney had a population of 135,000 people.[6] This had increased by 1889 when Sydney had a population of 360,000 residents and Melbourne with 420,000 residents and were the largest cities in Australia. All major Australian cities apart from Adelaide had a lack of sewerage.[7]
In 1876, a report made by the Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board found the worst form of overcrowding to be the closely packed rows of badly constructed tenements and the back of the large dwellings in courts and lanes leading out of the main streets. They lacked ventilation as they were closely packed together. The Board wanted an amended building act to include proper drainage, size of yards as examples. The members of the Board were in two or thee groups wandering through the city looking at the slums off the main streets. They found the worst cases of overcrowding in the formerly named Broughan Place now known as Rowe street between Pitt and Castlereagh streets. The committee entered several houses and one occupied by a cab driver named Ryan in Abercrombie Lane, they found on one floor husband and wife both who were drunk with several children all in a filthy state. Upstairs they found two women in an equally filthy state. The building was not ventilated and the committee members were swarmed by fleas after entering the kitchen, they made a hasty retreat from the building.[8]
A lot of the houses were so run down with a patchwork of materials that were put together, white ants had attacked the buildings making them a hazard. The Committee Board reported their findings they had found a lot of houses had little to no ventilation, many were made of early colonial timbers now rotten. The Board members pointed out that if anyone wondered how long the material lasted, the buildings were a good place as any to observe the date of when the houses were constructed.[9]
Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board Committee reported that the drainage in Sydney in a wretchedly defective state and in an urgent need for complete system of underground sewers. They found lot of the buildings they had visited, the drainage went out into the street. They also found that the smell was unbearable especially when the dwellings had bad ventilation.[10]
In 1877 the city building surveyor Edward Bradridge drafted a City Improvement Bill even though the colonial government wasn’t interested in cleaning up the slum areas. The Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board wanted to have the authority to condemn and knockdown buildings they thought unsafe and they didn’t at the time to have the power to do so. When a select committee was formed in the Legislative council, they took advice from city builders and architects. The city of Sydney improvement act was passed in 1879, but the council and government who had formed an improvement board, both shared power, This didn’t please either group as they argued that one or the other was obstructing them in the role to remove slums.[11]
In 1900 the black plague arrived in Sydney. Arthur Payne collapsed from unknown causes, a doctor from the health board by the name of John Ashburton Thompson happened to be the president and medical chief officer. (marker poorly worded) The doctor made an examination of Arthur and found a mark on the ankle that looked to be a puncture mark made by something such as a flea. A committee discovered that in the slum areas in Sydney there were swarms of fleas mainly on the bodies of giant well nourished rats. Dr Thompson said there were at least 100,000 people that lived in the right conditions for an outbreak of the plague. Although the doctor had been correct about how the plague was bought about by the flea being transported by the ratr, the Victorian science at the time was unsure if the illness travelled through the air, water or by touch. One of Dr Thompson’s colleagues inspected the wharves where there had been reports of dead rats on the eastern side of Darling Harbour. When WG Armstrong inspected and told the wharf owners what they should clean up. Some time later Dr John Thompson toured the area and found the wharf owners had done nothing in cleaning up the refuse. There were one hundred and three deaths from the first attack of the plague and the health board set about cleaning up the area and cleansing the filth. By the end of March, the government took action and closed off whole blocks to be cleaned. The ramshackle makeshift buildings were pulled down. Approximately 4000 houses were inspected and cleansed. There were several small outbreaks in the years after the first outbreak and by 1907, the authorities seemed to be taking heed of Dr Thompason’s last report in keeping man and rat separate by improving the construction of buildings.[12]
The condition of housing and the general works like water and waste disposal wasn’t just the problem for property owners, it was also on the local government as well. Several departments were fighting over who had the power to remedy the situation. This lead to the outbreak of the black plague in the 1900’s where a doctor had made the correct diagnosis and was basically waved off by those higher up who likely had agendas of their own. Anyone researching into the finer details of a city such as Sydney today wouldn’t know the living conditions were extremely bad in the 1900s and earlier. The black plague wasn’t the only disease that was around during the 1900 outbreak. Smallpox, typhoid and measles appeared especially when the conditions were right. A doctor in 1877 by the name of Sir Thomas Watson commented the diseases were a contagion and preventable yet the Sydney Morning Herald shot him down not believing a word he said.[13]
What people usually research would be the people of the city and not how they lived and those that lived in virtual squalor off the main streets of the city of Sydney. The privileged person in the era of time wouldn’t have known either until people such as city councillors toured areas with their own eyes and written reports on the living status of those who resided in the slum areas. Building regulations were unheard of at the time when people lived in termite infested buildings that could fall down. Todays standard where we have modernised facilities like regular waste disposal like garbage collection. When modern conveniences are disrupted like phone lines cut or powerlines bought down they are restored within a couple of days if not sooner.
Additional information
Some of those who died in the black plague in 1900 Sydney can be found in some of the cemeteries in North Head Sydney. These are known as Quarantine cemeteries and interesting places to visit.
The Rocks have locations where there were health issues like plagues are marked with plaques. There are walking tours and the YHA has a museum under it of what conditions were like.
Some of the slum areas were in Paddington, Redfern, Waterloo and so on. There are interesting sources to read up on and even see pictures online. The Police and Justice museum in Sydney has information about crime in Sydney.[14]
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Special Reporter, ‘The sanitary state of Sydney No. V’ Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1851, pp.2.
New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1876 The Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board (Part 1)’ Source: Votes and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, vol 5, 1876, pp 537, 539, 541 – 551.
Secondary Sources
Birmingham, John. ‘The Virgin’s Lie’, Leviathan: The unofficial biography of Sydney, North Sydney, Random House, 2000, pp. 210 – 216.
Fitzgerald, Shirley. 1992 ‘How to deal with ‘slums’, Sydney 1842 – 1992, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1992, pp. 109 – 120.
Garton, Stephen ‘Colonial slums and the working wage’, In out of luck: poor Australians and social welfare 1788 – 1988, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1990, pp 36 – 42 & 66 – 83.
Jevons, William Stanley, ‘Sydney in 1858: A social survey IVL’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 1929, pp.13.
Macintyre, Stuart. Concise History of Australia 3rd edition, Melbourne, Cambridge university press, 2009.
Mayne, Allan. 1980, ‘City back slums in the land of promise: some aspects of the 1876 report on overcrowding in Sydney.’, Labour History, vol 38, 1980, pp 26 – 39.
‘Slums’, Pyrmont History, https://pyrmonthistory.net.au/slums, accessed 21/11/2025.
[1] Special Reporter (Sydney Morning Herald), 1851 The sanitary state of Sydney No. V Source Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1851, pp.2
[2] Special Reporter (Sydney Morning Herald), 1851 The sanitary state of Sydney No. V Source Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1851, pp.2.
[3] Stephen Garton, 1990 ‘Colonial slums and the working wage’, In out of luck: poor Australians and social welfare 1788 – 1988, Stephen Garton Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990, pp 36 – 42 & 66 – 83.
[4] William Stanley Jevons, 1929 ‘Sydney in 1858: A social survey IVL source: The Sydney Morning Herald 23 November 1929, pp.13.
[5] Special Reporter (Sydney Morning Herald), 1851 The sanitary state of Sydney No. V Source Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1851, pp.2
[6] Shirley Fitzgerald, 1992 ‘How to deal with ‘slums’ in: Sydney 1842 – 1992, Shirley Fitzgerald, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1992, pp. 109 – 120.
[7] Stuart Macintyre, Concise History of Australia 3rd edition 2009, Cambridge university press Melbourne, pp. 111 – 112.
[8] New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1876 The Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board (Part 1)’ Source: Votes and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, vol 5, 1876, pp 537, 539, 541 – 551.
[9] New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1876 The Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board (Part 1)’ Source: Votes and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, vol 5, 1876, pp 537, 539, 541 – 551.
[10] New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1876 The Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board (Part 1)’ Source: Votes and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, vol 5, 1876, pp 537, 539, 541 – 551.
[11] Shirley Fitzgerald, 1992 ‘How to deal with ‘slums’ in: Sydney 1842 – 1992, Shirley Fitzgerald, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1992, pp. 109 – 120.
[12] John Birmingham, ‘The Virgin’s Lie’, Leviathan: The unofficial biography of Sydney, North Sydney, Random House, 2000, pp. 210 – 216.
[13] Allan Mayne, 1980, ‘City back slums in the land of promise: some aspects of the 1876 report on overcrowding in Sydney.’ In: Labour History, vol 38, 1980, pp 26 – 39.
[14] ‘Slums’, Pyrmont History, https://pyrmonthistory.net.au/slums, accessed 21/11/2025.
