William Street is a 1.4-kilometre-long major thoroughfare starting near Hyde Park and scissoring Darlinghurst, Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross and Rushcutters Bay.

It was named in honour of King William IV and was legalised by government gazette in 1834.

It was built through the farm land of the valley between the city centre and Potts Point in the 1840s to allow traffic to and from the fashionable and expensive eastern suburbs around Elizabeth Bay. Originally, the NSW Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell wanted the street to be further to the south, but while he was away exploring the interior of Australia, the street was constructed in its present location.

In the 1880s notable Australian poet Henry Lawson lived in a boarding house along William Street before he became famous for his poetry. In 1909 it was decided to resume the south side of the street to widen the street into a larger boulevard style. The resuming was conducted between 1910 and 1914.

In the 1930s, William Street was the location of a number of pubs and nightclubs, including the Strand Hotel, the Prince Albert Hotel and the infamous Fifty-Fifty Club, run by the notorious criminal, Tilly Devine.

During World War I and World War II, William Street was the bustling centre of Sydney’s automotive trade and once housed recording studios for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1894 the Watsons Bay tram service was introduced, operating until circa 1901. An electric system was introduced in 1905. Motor buses were introduced after World War I. During the 1930s, the tram service from William Street through Kings Cross ran as frequently as one tram per minute during weekdays. With the combination of trams, buses and cars, the William Street, Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Road junction became one of Sydney’s worst bottlenecks. The tram line along William Street and through Kings Cross was closed on Sunday, 10 July 1960, superseded by buses and later, the Eastern Suburbs railway line.

The former National School Hall building at 43 William Street is a lone remnant from this early period This building is historically significant as an example of a small scale Victorian school building of the 1860s, and is a physical reminder of the former residential community in East Sydney. It is representative of the work carried out by the Board of Education in the period c1865 to c1885.

An original survey plan suggests that the building, built in the free Gothic style, is the work of Henry Robertson, architect for the Board of Education until c1867.

By Andrew Woodhouse, Heritage Solutions