Haymarket Theatre (1874-1875)

Not many of the present generation remember the Haymarket. Where the City Buildings now are was a red brick building of very uncertain age, with a wooden tower and a clock. The building was originally erected as a market house, but it had been occupied by various people and for various purposes. At one time it was used as a theatre, the show being run by an old-time melodramatic actor. William Ryan, whom I first met supporting G. V. Brooke in leading parts in the fifties. I don't think Mr. Ryan—whose family name was Arrowsmith—made a fortune out of his show at the Haymarket. Mr. Ryan is now, I believe, living in quiet retirement on the banks of the Yarra Yarra, at Abbotsford, growing pumpkins and roses, while his son, I understand, is making a name for himself on the music-hall stage. In 1876 Mr. Walker, who made money in building the railway between Bathurst and Orange, leased the frontage between Campbell and Hay streets from the City Corporation, and erected the fine buildings now standing there. As the lease was but for 21 years the City Council is now in receipt of the rents. The clock which adorned the tower now does duty at the Fish Market in Woolloomooloo.

The north side of Campbell-street in the sixties presented a very different appearance to what it does now. The square known as the Haymarket was so called as on that spot the farmer brought his load of hay for sale before the railway accommodated him at Redfern or Darling Harbor. As a consequence of an influx of hay dealers three times a week, public houses of the farmer type were numerous. There were no flaring palaces in those days. Where Mick Simmonds has his big fancy goods shop was an extremely old-fashioned pub, kept by one Daley, I think. To reach the bar the customer had to go down a flight of stone steps. In time Frank Smith, who kept the Burrangong, at the corner of Hay and George streets, now pulled down, obtained a lease, demolished the Woolpack Inn as it was called, and built the Alhambra Music Hall. It was Frank Smith who first started pedestrianism at Botany, at the Captain Cook, and fine times he had too, until the runners began to run cronk and the game tumbled in. Nearly every second house in Campbell-street up to Pitt-street was a pub or a produce dealer's, or a horse yard, the whole neighbourhood being redolent of the farm and market garden. The character of the trade is not much changed, though the houses are, fine buildings having replaced the tumble down tenements. Some of the pubs have disappeared, and John Chinaman has got a good footing in the neighbourhood. The “Haymarket,” where stood dozens of hay carts in the sixties and seventies, is now covered in with a handsome structure used as a fruit and vegetable market, on the frontage of which Sir W. P. Manning is glorified as being the Mayor of the city when the building was erected.