Mural 2: Wallamullah – Place of Plenty

Installed 1982

A mural depicts a group of people, including a person in the foreground raising his arms, with others seated or standing in the background. One person is holding an Australian Aboriginal flag.

Depicts the history of Woolloomooloo Bay, known as Wallamullah in the Sydney Aboriginal language.

Artist: Merilyn Fairskye, Michiel Dolk

Wallamullah – Place of Plenty represents selected moments in the history of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Woolloomooloo Bay, from the colonial era through 1982. These moments include a land rights demonstration in the 1970s, and the design of the mural is based on the Aboriginal land rights flag.

Mural diagram

Line drawing of the mural's layout, with numbered green circles marking 5 different people, structures, and objects throughout the busy environment.

Mural key

The top of the mural represents a picturesque colonial view of the harbour across Woolloomooloo, from the garden terrace of ‘Rosebank’, a grand home built for James Laidley in 1831 near the top of William Street on Woolloomooloo Hill (Later renamed Darlinghurst Heights) as framed for the gaze of the colonial gentry
Below a group of displaced inhabitants, Aboriginal mission dwellers, as posed for the camera in the late 19th century
The central figure, a man spearfishing in shallow water, was derived from a 19th century photograph taken on the Lane Cove River
A policeman representing the laws and authority of the state presides over a land rights demonstration in the 1970s
Life size portraits of contemporary young Aboriginal residents of Woolloomooloo, tenants of the Housing Commission

To its inhabitants and traditional owners among the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, Woolloomooloo Bay and its shores were known as Wallamullah, or ‘place of plenty’.

This gathering place was used for hunting, fishing and foraging around an estuarine mangrove swamp, where Yurong Creek ran into the bay. Yurong is the Aboriginal language name for Mrs Macquarie’s Point.

Governor Macquarie set the land aside as an Aboriginal reserve until 1793 and called it Henrietta Town after his wife. Well known individuals such as Bowen Bungaree – ‘King’ Bungaree’s eldest son, who was the first Aboriginal person known to make a drawing on paper in 1823 – his mother Cora Gooseberry, and their extended family camped here until the 1840s, at a spot near Centipede Rock at Woolloomooloo. They were regularly seen at the nearby Circular Quay wharves, selling fish and oyster catches, and demonstrating how to throw boomerangs.

Woolloomooloo Bay was also known as Palmers Cove. In 1793, the first land grant of 100 acres was made to John Palmer, the colony’s second commissary who came to Sydney with the First Fleet in 1788. Palmer named his house, built on a Gadigal ceremonial ground, Woollamoola.

Aboriginal people continued to gather in this area when Palmer sold the house to Edward Riley in 1822. The estate was subdivided after Riley’s suicide in the house in 1825. As elsewhere, the original owners and inhabitants of the land were unceremoniously removed as its land value to the colony in Sydney increased. A small and changing Aboriginal community survived into the 1970s and to the present day.

The design of the panel is based on the Aboriginal land rights flag – black at the top for the colour of the people, a yellow circle at the centre for the sun and red for the land, and the blood that has been shed.

A vibrant mural depicts Indigenous Australians, historical figures, and a man with a spear. The word "Wallamullah" and a "Land Rights Now" sign appear in the background. — Photo: Chris Southwood / City of Sydney

Next: Mural 3: Victoria Street →

View all Woolloomooloo history murals

Designed and painted by local artists Michiel Dolk and Merilyn Fairskye, these 8 murals on the railway pylons in Woolloomooloo preserve and celebrate the suburb’s unique history.