1850s

The wave of Chinese immigration prompted by Australia’s gold rushes of the 1850s slowly changed Waverley’s landscape. Many unsuccessful miners had switched from gold prospecting to vegetable growing by the 1860s, partly because of the difficulty non-European settlers had finding work.

Many took over the market gardens originally set up by European settlers and established vegetable markets around Chinatown in the city.

The sandy soils of the coastal suburbs saw gardens established in Waverley, Rose Bay, Randwick, Botany and La Perouse.

Waverley’s largest and longest-running market garden was started in 1844 in what later became Waverley Park on Bondi Road. Three land holdings along Bondi Road were consolidated and fenced into one large rural property owned by T. D. Edwards and called Flagstaff Farm.

The farm’s north-eastern corner contained the richest, flat area of soil and from the 1860s-1887 a Chinese family worked a fruit and vegetable garden, known as ‘the cabbage patch’. It became an important source of affordable fresh produce for Bondi, Bronte, Tamarama and Paddington residents. A second garden was in the park’s south-west, opposite Henrietta Street. Water for irrigation came from a natural pond near today’s grandstand.

Council’s Rate Books reveal some of the gardeners’ names: On Lee, Ah Yam and Ah Foo.

Waverley resident Barbara Podmore remembered: ‘We used to have a Chinaman come down the back lane and he had his two baskets across his shoulder. And what he had in those baskets you wouldn't believe … any kind of fruit of any description.’

In the 1880s, cricketing clubs sought exclusive use of Waverley Park, but residents made it clear they wanted the market gardens to remain. The land was incorporated into Waverley Park in 1887.

A big market garden operated in Tamarama Street and Farrellys Avenue, in Tamarama, until 1909. The Immigration Restriction 1901 Act required the workers live and work at the gardens and not move elsewhere without permits.

By the 1920s Chinese market gardens were under pressure from large-scale agriculture. Despite this, gardens at La Perouse remained viable and still exist today.

In 2011, the Waverley Park Communal Garden opened in the park within sight of the original market gardens.

Courtesy the Waverley Library Local Studies collection and National Library of Australia.