Eliza Street, Newtown on Wednesday, 27 May 2020

When I researched Georgina Street I came across Eliza Donnithorne who lived nearby on King Street in the mid-1800s. The legend goes that on her wedding day, she and the assembled guest waited in vain for the groom to arrive at her home for the wedding breakfast. When the guest had gone, she locked the house and never went out or let anyone come in. When she died 30 years later, they found her in her wedding dress. The food on the dining table had mouldered into dust. She is buried with her father in the Camperdown Cemetery. The headstone is still there.

I thought it was very romantic to have named a street after her, but this doesn't seem to be the case. According to one source, the name was derived from the daughter of Thomas Rowley. The only information I could find about him is that he was born in the Colony, classified as Australian Royalty and had a daughter named Eliza, among other children. 

At the corner of Eliza and Lennox Street is the backside of the Court House Hotel, closed for now. A bit further is a pile of rubbish dumped near a graffitied wall. A thin older man, doubled over from the waist, is trying to reassemble a rollator.

Next is the back side of the Newtown Fire Station. At 5 Eliza Street is the Newtown School of Art, founded in 1916. It existed beforehand in another building, established in 1899 as the Newtown Workman’s Institute. It was rather a recreational institution than an art school. “It featured a library, lecture hall, billiards hall, and small rooms for reading, retiring, smoking, games, meeting and classrooms.” (cited from the Gritty Newtown Historical Walking Tour site). The library sign is still there, maybe even the library, but everything is closed because of the Coronavirus lockdown, so I can’t check it out. Part of the building is now the home of the theatre Old 505 in memory of its former address at 505 Elizabeth Street in Surry Hills.

Near the library entrance, is a mural in memory of a missing person, a young man from Maroubra.

From here on, the street is paved with red bricks laid out in a herringbone pattern. It looks like a pedestrian zone, but cars are permitted to drive through from the King Street end. It's a bit confusing for pedestrians. There is also the backside of the Newtown police station, a rather grand building from 1885.

A pub at the corner is called Websters. I read that the ex-convict John Webster opened a shop at this spot named New Town Stores which allegedly gave the suburb its name.