Redfern Post Office is a heritage-listed former residence and now post office located at 113 Redfern Street in the inner western Sydney suburb of Redfern in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the Colonial Architect’s Office under James Barnet and built by Goddard and Pittman. The property is owned by Australia Post, an agency of the Australian Government. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 December 2000.
History Redfern's natural landscape was defined by sand hills and swamps. The Carrahdigang, more widely known as the Cadigal people, valued the area for its abundant supply of food. The name Redfern originates from an early land grant to William Redfern in 1817. It was previously known as Roberts Farm and Boxley's Swamp.
The majority of houses in Redfern in the 1850s were of timber. From the 1850s market gardeners congregated in Alexandria south of McEvoy Street, around Shea's Creek and Bourke Road. In 1885 the Sands Sydney Directory listed 54 market gardens. While many were worked by European-Australians, by the 1870s Chinese market gardeners had acquired leases in the district and a decade later were dominating the trade.
The passing of the Sydney Slaughterhouses Act in 1849 brought other businesses to the district. This act banned abattoirs and noxious trades from the city. Tanners, wool scourers and wool-washers, fellmongers, boiling down works and abattoirs had 10 years to move their businesses outside city boundaries. Many of the trades moved to Redfern and Waterloo – attracted by the water. The sand hills still existed but by the late 1850s Redfern was a flourishing suburb housing 6,500 people.
The Municipalities Act of 1858 gave districts the option of municipal incorporation. Public meetings were held and after a flurry of petitions Redfern Municipality was proclaimed on 11 August 1859, the fourth in Sydney to be formed under the Act. Redfern Town Hall opened in 1870 and the Albert Cricket Ground in 1864. Redfern Post Office came in 1882. The Eveleigh Railway complex in 1886 became one of the largest employers in the state. Redfern was an industrial working class suburb by the end of the 19th century. Reschs brewery and other factories attracted migrants. The Syrian/Lebanese community began settling around Redfern and Surry Hills by the 1880s.
In the 1940s 73 per cent of all industrial activity in Sydney was concentrated within a radius of from Redfern railway station. Many of its services have disappeared or been substantially downgraded over the last couple of decades, even though Redfern is still a densely populated inner city suburb.Murray, 2009, 5
Postal services The first official postal service in Australia was established in April 1809, when the Sydney merchant Isaac Nichols was appointed as the first Postmaster in the colony of NSW. Prior to this, mail had been distributed directly by the captain of the ship on which the mail arrived, however this system was neither reliable nor secure. In 1825 the colonial administration was empowered to establish a Postmaster General's Department, which had previously been administered from Britain.
In 1828 the first post offices outside of Sydney were established, with offices in Bathurst, Campbelltown, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith and Windsor. By 1839 there were forty post offices in the colony, with more opened as settlement spread. During the 1860s, the advance of postal services was further increased as the railway network began to be established throughout NSW. In 1863, the Postmaster General W. H. Christie noted that accommodation facilities for Postmasters in some post offices was quite limited, and stated that it was a matter of importance that "post masters should reside and sleep under the same roof as the office".
The first telegraph line was opened in Victoria in March 1854 and in NSW in 1858. The NSW colonial government constructed two lines from the GPO, one to the South Head Signal Station, the other to Liverpool. Development was slow in NSW compared to the other states, with the Government concentrating on the development of country offices before suburban ones. As the line spread, however, telegraph offices were built to accommodate the operators. Unlike the Post Office, the telegraph office needed specialised equipment and could not be easily accommodated in a local store or private residence. Post and telegraph offices operated separately until 1870 when the departments were amalgamated, after which time new offices were built to include both postal and telegraph services. In 1881 the first telephone exchange was opened in Sydney, three years after the first tests in Adelaide. As with the telegraph, the telephone system soon began to extend into country areas, with telephone exchanges appearing in country NSW from the late 1880s onwards. Again the Post Office was responsible for the public telephone exchange, further emphasising its place in the community as a provider of communications services.
The appointment of James Barnet as Acting Colonial Architect in 1862 coincided with a considerable increase in funding to the public works program. Between 1865 and 1890 the Colonial Architects Office was responsible for the building and maintenance of 169 Post Offices and telegraph offices in NSW. The post offices constructed during this period featured in a variety of architectural styles, as Barnet argued that the local parliamentary representatives always preferred "different patterns".
The construction of new post offices continued throughout the Depression years under the leadership of Walter Liberty Vernon, who held office from 1890 to 1911. While twenty-seven post offices were built between 1892 and 1895, funding to the Government Architect's Office was cut from 1893 to 1895, causing Vernon to postpone a number of projects.
Following Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government took over responsibility for post, telegraph and telephone offices, with the Department of Home Affairs Works Division being made responsible for post office construction. In 1916 construction was transferred to the Department of Works and Railways, with the Department of the Interior responsible during World War II.
On 22 December 1975, the Postmaster General's Department was abolished and replaced by the Post and Telecommunications Department. This was the creation of Telecom and Australia Post. In 1989, the Australian Postal Corporation Act established Australia Post as a self-funding entity, heralding a new direction in property management, including a move away from the larger more traditional buildings towards smaller shop front style post offices.
For much of its history, the post office has been responsible for a wide variety of community services including mail distribution, an agency for the Commonwealth Savings Bank, electoral enrolments, and the provision of telegraph and telephone services. The town post office has served as a focal point for the community, most often built in a prominent position in the centre of town close to other public buildings, creating a nucleus of civic buildings and community pride.
Redfern Post Office Although the first land grants in Redfern were made in 1817 to Dr William Redfern by Governor Macquarie, it was not until the 1840s and 1850s that a suburb began to develop. The construction of the first railway in Sydney, with its terminus at Redfern encouraged the growth of the suburb, with Redfern being proclaimed a municipality on 11 August 1859. Between 1851 and 1891, the population of the suburb nearly doubled every decade, with the suburb having the second highest density of population per acre in Sydney, exceeded only by the adjacent suburb of Darlington.
The first post office in Redfern was opened in Pitt Street, Redfern on 1 July 1856, following the closure of the Chippendale office. During this period, as with most other branches of post offices, the office was run from a rented premise. On 1 October 1871 a branch of the Government Saving Bank opened at Redfern Post Office, followed in by the introduction of the money order system. The allowance to issue money orders saw Redfern announced as an official Post Office in 1875. The status of official post office then gave impetus to calls for a government-owned post office to be erected in the suburb.
The Municipal Council made the first representations to the government for the erection of an office post office building in August 1878. Following the Council's petition, a block of land was secured in Redfern Street for the construction of a post office. The lot had a frontage to Redfern Street and to George Street, Redfern. The land was purchased at A£15 per .
In November 1878, Postal Inspector Moyse visited Redfern to inspect the proposed construction site. Moyse suggested a second site in Botany Road for the Post Office, while the GPO Secretary suggested that the search for the site be put to tender. Tenders were called, during which the Council again offered the Redfern Street site which was accepted by the Postmaster General on 9 January 1879. Following the Postmaster General's decision, the Colonial Architect's Office was authorised to proceed with the drawing of plans for the new office at an estimated cost of A£3,000. The new post office included a telegraph office, parlour, drawing room, three bedrooms, kitchen, servant's room, bathroom, scullery, washhouse, fuel shed and two stall stables. In 1880, A£3,000 was placed on the Parliamentary Estimates for the erection of the Redfern office.
The plans for the new building were submitted to Public Works prior to the commencement of any work on the site. The Public Works added a clock tower for an estimated extra A£700. The Postmaster General put the new design out to tender with Messrs Goddard and Pittman's tender for A£3,692 being accepted on 6 October 1881. Redfern Post Office was completed by 29 January 1883 and occupied on 31 January. On 16 April 1904 a new telephone exchange room was added at a total cost of A£203. A separate Telephone Exchange building was constructed next door to the Post Office on Redfern Street in , which echoes the architectural style of the Post Office.
In the conversion of the residence's dining room and kitchen into a ground floor mail room was undertaken, involving the removal of some of the original fixtures, including fireplaces and the centre wall. A porch at the eastern end of the northern facade was also created at this time. Other work on the office included the removal of the single-storey southern section, some time after 1938, and the replacement of the original slate roof with red tiles as well as the removal of the chimneys and the closure of the fireplaces in the s.
Description Redfern Post Office is a landmark feature of the Redfern area, located on a prominent corner looking towards the city. Built in 1882, Redfern Post Office is a two-storey Victorian Italianate building with a dominant four and half-storey corner clock tower and is constructed in flush rendered brickwork with cut-render quoining. The building has a later red-tiled hipped roof with bracketed eaves, corrugated-iron and rolled-zinc skillion, and flat roof sections set behind balustraded parapets. There are no chimneys retained on the building.
The tower has four clock faces located on each face of the fourth storey, below a squat belvedere capped by a domed copper roof and above single lancet windows in each face of the third floor. Each clock face has black writing on a white background. As the tower was inaccessible at the time of inspection, it is not known whether the original clock mechanism is still intact. Access to the tower appears to be via a series of timber ladders from the window off the first-floor roof.