1802 - 1888

The formidable Mary Gee Dickson was one of Bondi’s early residents. She was born in Southwark, London, in 1802 and married Joseph Dickson in 1828, at Camberwell, in Surrey, England.

Three of their nine children - Hepzibah (1829), Joseph (1831) and Stephen (1833) - were born in England before the family sailed for the young colony of NSW as ‘bounty immigrants’ on board the ship Layton. They arrived at Sydney in 1833. Joseph set up shop as a saddler and shoe and boot maker in George Street.

Unusually for a woman of her era, Mary owned land in her own right at 501-511 Sussex Street in Sydney, the backyards of which later became part of Chinatown on Dixon St. During Mary’s ownership, timber from the Dickson family’s lumber yard was stored in the backyard.

Sydney’s Chinese community began setting up cook shops and boarding houses in Dickson Street in the 1920s to cater for the city’s Chinese market gardeners after the wholesale fruit and vegetable markets were relocated there. Gradually, more restaurants and produce stores opened, eventually becoming the centre of the Chinese community in Sydney.

Waverley’s commercial market gardens included some on Dickson family land, one of which was worked by a man named Duffy, who built stone cottages along Bronte Road at Duffy’s Corner (now Charing Cross). Other Waverley market gardeners included On Lee, Ah Yam and Ah Foo.

The formidable Mary had her own income and refused to change her religion when she married. She donated significant sums to multiple churches and was a patron of the church on Chalmers St. Mary died of cardiac weakness in Sydney in 1888, aged 85.

Courtesy the Dickson Family.