Evolving Eveleigh

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TIMELINE

LOCATION

1996

Australian Technology Park officially opens in November.
1997

A site near the Garden Street entrance is earmarked for new facilities to house the Sydney Ambulance Centre (SAC) and the RTA Transport Management Centre.
1997

Construction begins on the Biotechnology Building (later to be known as the Biomedical Building).
1998

Australian Technology Park’s Conference and Exhibition Centre opens.
1999

Biomedical Building construction commences.
2000

A major management re-structure in August sees Australian Technology Park now governed by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA). Australian Technology Park Innovations Pty Limited (ATPi) is formed. Extensive site remediation and landscaping creates substantial new public open space throughout the park.
2001

Significant restoration and remediation works of The Blacksmith’s Workshop in Bays 1 and 2 completed; two new CRCs are also established – Smart Internet Technology (SIT) and Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia Pacific (SIRCA), while cleaning technology is applied to heritage machinery in preparation for permanent display.
2002

A $4.5m refurbishment of Bay 15 creates an additional 2500sqm of contemporary office space.
2003

Bay 15 is leased by National Information & Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) in February, while plans are drafted for a new 12,000sqm building on Site D (which will eventually be NICTA’s new headquarters).
2004

$7.6m refurbishment works commence on the Locomotive Workshops.

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An Indigenous Place

Eveleigh is Gadigal country. We acknowledge their ownership of this land and pay our respects to past, present and emerging elders.

The second half of the nineteenth century saw a rapid expansion in New South Wales railways. In Sydney, this meant both the early stations and workshop facilities quickly became too small, and had to be expanded or relocated.

40,000 BC

Pre contact – Members of Cadigal, or Gadigal, people inhabit Redfern, Erskineville and surrounds. The Gadigal Traditional Owners who today speak for the Sydney clan area stretched “from the south side of Port Jackson from South Head to Petersham”. The Gadigal people spoke the coastal Eora dialect of the Darug language and are often referred to as the Eora people. Redfern as a site was important to its people because it had a source of water – Shea's Creek, which today is Alexandra Canal, as well as a source of food from the wetlands that drained into the creek. Redfern’s high point on the terrain offered views of the trade route from Circular Quay to Parramatta, on which the colony’s first railway would be built. These trade routes connected with larger routes which linked the north and south, and east and west of Australia. Not only goods, but ideas, songs, ceremonies and news travelled along these routes.

1788

The British arrive in January with catastrophic effect on the Aboriginal way of life. The Eora people do not flee, as Captain James Cook predicted, but stand their ground. Governor Phillip attempts to create good relations, but these soon disintegrate due to the persecution of the Aboriginals by the convicts. The Aboriginals are pushed out of Sydney town with fear of being shot, and with the quick pollution of the Tank Stream by tanneries, they are forced to use water sources near Redfern.

1789

The smallpox plague devastates the Aboriginal people. Without immunity to the disease brought by the British, a large percentage of the Cadigal clan is wiped out. Following the plague, survivors from surrounding clans join together to survive, and to participate in the guerrilla movement led by Pemulwuy.

1791

James Chisholm arrives in the colony of New South Wales aged 19 as a non-commissioned officer.

1793

Settler David Collins observes Cadigal people performing a ceremony “between the town and the brickfield”.