City Council Chambers

Before the Town Hall was built, the Council met in series of different rooms and hotels. The first meeting of the Council on 9 November 1842 was held in the Market Building on George Street. For the next couple of meetings the Council met in the Royal Hotel in George Street. The Council’s first stable residence was the Pultenay Hotel in York Street, opposite the George Street Markets. This sketch by Joseph Fowles (dated c.1843) titled the City Council Chambers, is probably the Pultenay Hotel. The Council occupied this building from 1843 to 1853. From 1854 to 1860 the meeting place was the Oxford Hotel in King Street. Between 1860 and 1868 the Council met in two buildings in Carrington Street, on the eastern side of Wynyard Square. Following the Council’s departure in 1868, this building was known as the Town Hall Hotel. The Council’s final temporary home was two houses at the northern end of Carlton Terrace on York Street, on the western side of Wynyard Square.

(image: Joseph Fowles, Original Sketches, ZPX*D 123f2b, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales)