St George (Sydney)

St George Area (also known as St George District or St George Region) is an unofficial name applied to a group of southern suburbs in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The area includes all the suburbs in the local government area of Georges River Council and part of Bayside Council. The eastern boundary of the district is Lady Robinson Beach on Botany Bay.

The first inhabitants of the St George area were Australian Aborigines. At the time of the arrival of the First Fleet, the Eora tribe inhabited land from Port Jackson to Botany Bay and the Georges River. There is evidence to suggest that these people belonged to the Gweagal, Bidjigal and Cadigal clans.

James Cook sailed the HMS Endeavour into Botany Bay in 1770 for his first landing on the continent of Australia. Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet into the bay on 18 January 1788 to found a penal colony there but found the sandy infertile soil disappointing and moved the site of the settlement north to the natural harbour of Port Jackson. The ridge between the Cooks River and Georges River was covered in a dense forest which first attracted timber cutters to the area. Wood gatherers, bark collectors, sawyers and charcoal burners moved into the area to work the forests of Simeon Lord and supply Sydney’s timber needs. By the 1840s, Major Mitchell was building the Illawarra Road (now Forest Road) on the ridge through ‘Lord’s Bush’, which required enormous amounts of trees and bush to be cleared. Irishman Michael Gannon was innkeeper at Cooks River in the 1840s. He acquired land in the area, part of which became known as ‘Gannons Forest’ which later was the centre of Hurstville. By 1851 it was estimated that 50 to 100 carts of timber and lime crossed the Cooks River daily.

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