LIVING on the oldest, driest continent on earth has been challenging. Lack of water was reason enough for Governor Phillip to move his convict colony from Botany Bay to a site near a fresh water creek, later known as the Tank Stream, near today’s Circular Quay.
is today.

By 1870 Sydney’s expansion created the need for public drinking water. The city imported eight elaborate, cast-iron, canopied drinking fountains from Glasgow to a design chosen by Mayor Renny from a catalogue of Walter Macfarlane & Co, a prominent Scottish iron foundry that exported widely to the colonies in the late nineteenth century. Macfarlane’s catalogue noted: “Design number 8: cost complete, ready for fitting up, with four water supply taps, and four drinking cups – £27.10.0.” It was a popular design: Melbourne and Adelaide also ordered the same design. The canopied fountains became prominent landmarks in Sydney’s streets and parks.

Their arrival was reported in the Town and Country Journal of July 1870: “The erection of these handsome fountains will be of general utility and they will have a very pleasing effect”.

Only a small number survive today. One of these is in Beare Park, Elizabeth Bay.

The design was tailored for Sydney Council and is quasi-religious, giving the impression of approaching a water “shrine”. Four columns support four capitals with protective griffins with four heraldic shields. The first bears the City’s 1857 Coat of Arms. The second shield quotes the Gospel of St John, chapter 4, verses 13 & 14: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again but whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst”. The third is a stork, a symbol for bringing life and the fourth issues an injunction to “Keep the pavement dry”. On top of this “holy” pseudo shrine is a crown, an orb and finally a celtic cross.

Much later in the early 20th century shared taps with drinking cups were identified as being unhygienic. The solution was bubbling water, enabling the user to drink without a cup and without bringing the lips in contact with the pipe or tap. The first free-standing bubble fountain was installed in Sydney on 2 June 1914. By 1916 the council abolished all drinking cup fountains with the remaining 46 fountains were altered or replaced with a bubbling water tap.

By Andrew Woodhouse, Director, Heritage Solutions

Image: “Thank you, council, for the gift of water. Amen”