The Chinese in North Sydney, 1880-1940

Few people are aware that present-day North Sydney – formerly St Leonards – was home to a small but vibrant community of Chinese market gardeners and grocers in the last decades of the 19th century, before the consolidation of Chinatown on the south side of Sydney Harbour.

More than 30 shops in Mount Street, on Lane Cove Road (now the Pacific Highway), on Military Road, Blues Point Road and in Crows Nest were operated by Chinese grocers and green grocers. Several market gardens in Cammeray were worked by Chinese men before the spread of suburbia in the early 1900s.

The Chinese Heritage Association of Australia invites everyone to join North Sydney Council historian Dr Ian Hoskins for an illustrated talk about this fascinating aspect of Sydney's Chinese heritage.