Macquarie Street Hobart Town, Tasmania ca. 1868

By 1826 a rough track followed the alignment of Macquarie Street through the late William Birch’s farm to Peter Degraves’s industrial complex at the Cascades. The track was upgraded in 1827 following the colonial government’s decision to purchase Lowes’s distillery and convert it to the Cascade Female Factory. The upgraded road subsequently encouraged suburban development and, with Davey Street, became the major access into the future suburb. Whereas Davey Street quickly became Hobart’s most prestigious residential street, Macquarie Street became the home of working-class families. Birch’s farm was subdivided in 1838, with 24 allotments offered for sale along Macquarie Street between Elboden and Darcy Streets. The street up to the city boundary at Elboden Street had been largely built on by 1840 while the first of its several hotels and taverns, the Fortune of War, was licensed in 1836. Subsequently, Macquarie Street became the main commercial and retail strip of the suburb. With its striking backdrop of Mount Wellington, it acquired a distinctive quality. [South Hobart Heritage Study. Final Report. Paul Davies Pty Ltd with Ian Terry (Historian), Date unknown. pg. 3.]