Pennant Hills, New South Wales

Pennant Hills Sydney, New South Wales
Looking above towards the Pennant Hills railway station.
Population	7,031 (2011 census)
Postcode(s)	2120
Elevation	167 m (548 ft)
Location	25 km (16 mi) north of Sydney CBD
LGA(s)	Hornsby
Region	Northern Suburbs
State electorate(s)	Epping, Hornsby
Federal Division(s)	Berowra
Suburbs around Pennant Hills: Cherrybrook Westleigh Thornleigh West Pennant Hills Pennant Hills Wahroonga Beecroft Cheltenham North Epping South Turramurra

Pennant Hills is a suburb in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Pennant Hills is located 25 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Hornsby Shire.

The area was first explored by Governor Arthur Phillip shortly after 15 April 1788. It was noted that the party saw 'fine views of the mountains inland' (the Blue Mountains). Governor Phillip 'did not doubt that a large river would be found' nearby.

The first white settlement occurred in the area with the establishment of convict timber camps in the time of Governor Lachlan Macquarie. Permanent white settlement of Pennant Hills began only in the 1840s and took off with the arrival of the Northern railway line in the 1880s. In August 1912 the federal government opened a Wireless Telegraphy Station, the first of its kind on a national level. The suburb has grown considerably since the 1950s, when the motor car became commonplace.

There are two theories about the origin of the suburb's name. One is that the name comes from a hill where a pennant was flown as a signal during the early days of New South Wales. However, though such signals were certainly used, there is no evidence that such a pennant was ever flown at what is now Pennant Hills, but in the early 19th century the name applied to the whole ridge down as far as Mobbs Hill, which has a Telegraph Road to commemorate the signalling station. Also, references to the suburb of Pennant Hills were written 20 years before the establishment of pennant stations (Patrick 1994:79-80). Elizabeth MacArthur records receiving a flag signal at Parramatta that her husband John had returned from England in 1806. The other theory says that Pennant Hills was named after an 18th-century botanist, Thomas Pennant (Patrick 1994:79-80), though there is no contemporary evidence for this either. The fact that the area was first referred to as "Pendant Hills" in the Sydney Gazette when first published in 1803 makes this theory unlikely, as there was no Thomas Pendant either.