The toll road that spawned two councils

The trigger that set in motion the creation of the Waverley and Randwick municipalities was the Colony of New South Wales passing the Municipalities Act in 1858.

This gave the people a chance to organise better roads for themselves, provided they could pay for them through rates on property.

But it was the colonial government’s authorisation of a tollgate – worse, a privatised one – over what was still a public road at the Tea Gardens (now called Bondi Junction) that led to a furious protest. The people demanded change, objecting to the steep charges for pedestrians, vehicles, and even walking livestock.

Both communities, Randwick and Waverley (or Charing Cross), saw the new Act of Parliament as offering a solution. Historian BT Dowd’s book on Waverley suggests that as the toll road problem impacted both villages, the two almost formed one municipality.

But the first petitioners for Randwick had not thought of including their northern neighbours and since they had already worded their proposal, were not prepared to go back to square one. So two municipalities were formed, although the two villages were not far apart.

– BY PETER McCALLUM