A little history to our little neck of the woods. Our house (#15) is the former #23).

Bennett Street was formed in O'Connell after 1874, and may be named after Police Staff Sergeant Bennett who was posted to Newtown in 1863, or for Samuel Bennett. The latter Mr. Bennett was part-owner of the 'Town & Country Journal' and (with Henry Parkes) the 'Empire' newspaper. Until 1873 he lived in 'Willow Lodge' which still stands nearby off Wilson Street and is noted in a poem 'By Cliffs and Sea' by fellow-Newtownsman Henry Kendall. A subdivision map no N6/240 at Mitchell Library suggests a financial link between Samuel Bennett and Colonial Treasurer Sir Saul Samuels MLA.

Further Information supplied by Ross Williams.

Bennett Street was named in 1905, when it was officially recognised as a street in the Bennett’s Estate sub-division (DP4638). Prior to this it had existed as a private driveway providing access from Queen Street to “Rosebank”, a 2 storey “villa cottage” located at the rear of Lot N of the old Bligh Estate, fronting Wilson Street. The Bennett’s Estate land had been in the Bennett family for over 50 years. Samuel Bennett, had purchased Lot N, of just over an acre and a quarter, from Joseph Frey Josephson, Solicitor, on 9 September 1854 for £500. There were two 2-storey houses on it, “Rosebank”, at the North-West corner and “Willow Lodge”, which still stands, located closer to Wilson Street towards the South East corner. Bennett purchased the 2 smaller lots facing Queen Street some 20 years later. These purchases were probably made to provide separate access to “Rosebank” from Queen Street. Bennett, a Cornishman, was a compositor by trade and had come to the colony in 1841 as a Bounty Immigrant, under contract the proprietor of what was then the Sydney Herald. At the time of the purchase he was still employed at the Herald, supervising the Printing Department. In 1853, having established himself in the Colony, he sent to Cornwall for his now widowed mother and his three maiden sisters. They arrived in June 1854 and Bennett’s need for more space than his 2-storey semi-detached residence in Burke Street Woolloomooloo provided, prompted his purchase of the Newtown property. Bennett lived at “Rosebank”, which became 14-18 Bennett Street after the 1905 sub-division, “Willow Lodge”, at 206 Wilson Street, was probably occupied by his mother and her three daughters. See also the treatise on Samuel Bennett. in Memories.