SUNDAY SYDNEY SUBURBS

CLYDE:

Location:

Clyde is located 21 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Parramatta. Clyde is part of the Greater Western Sydney region.

Name origin:

Clyde is named for the River Clyde in Scotland and was thought to be a suitable name because a subdivision of land made in 1878 here was called New Glasgow.

Rosehill Junction was the name of the railway station that opened here in 1882, just west of the bridge over the Duck River. The Commissioner of Railways Edward Miller Grant Eddy renamed the station Clyde Junction, before settling upon the name Clyde in 1883 saying: New Glasgow is close by and as old Glasgow is watered by the Clyde, to which Duck River has been likened, perhaps Clyde would not be unacceptable. The station became Clyde Junction in 1901 but reverted to Clyde in April 1904.

About:

• Clyde is exclusively an industrial and commercial area, featuring factories, workshops and warehouses. Clyde has no permanent population.

• Market gardens, orchards and mixed farming dominated the landscape of the Clyde area for the first half of the 19th century.

• Over the course of the twentieth century the character of the suburb changed from mixed residential and industrial to almost wholly industrial. In 1897 the established firm of Hudson Bros. went into voluntary liquidation and in October 1898 the former Hudson works became the property of the newly formed Clyde Engineering Co. Ltd.

• In 1925 a crude oil refinery was built on the southern bank of the Parramatta River near the junction with the Duck River and was known as Clyde Refinery. From 1928 until its closure in 2013 it was operated by Shell Refining (Australia) Pty. Ltd. This is where my father found work as a labourer, after a suit and tie job in Holland, after migrating to Australia with my mother and their 3 children. Shell at Clyde employed a lot of migrants in the 1950s.

• In 1976 plans were made to convert the trotting track of the former Granville Showground into Parramatta Speedway, now known as Valvoline Speedway . The speedway occupies the north-western portion of the suburb of Clyde.

• The 21st century will see another phase in the history of the greater Clyde area. There has been a reduction in heavy manufacturing as a landuse in several areas in and around Parramatta such as Clyde and Camellia to the north-west. There is recognition of the value and need for the rehabilitation of degraded natural landscapes and former industrial sites to facilitate reuse of these landscapes.

Gallery:

Trial trip of new Commonwealth Railways' diesel electric locomotive GM1, built by Clyde Engineering at Clyde, 28 August 1951

Postcard, Railway Station Clyde, NSW. Date unknown

Clyde Pavilion at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, near Moore Park, Sydney. ca.1898-1909.

Clyde Engineering workers donate to the HMAS Sydney fund, 1941

In late 1941, Clyde Engineering workers voted to donate one shilling a week for 20 weeks to the HMAS Sydney fund. The original HMAS Sydney was launched in 1934. On 19 November 1941, Sydney was involved in a mutually destructive engagement with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, and was lost with all hands (645 aboard). The wrecks of both ships were lost until 2008; Sydney was found on 17 March, five days after her adversary.

Tram construction workshop, Clyde Engineering Company, 1903

The 200th steam locomotive built by Clyde Engineering

Class 5701 locomotive departing Clyde for trial run to Penrith, 1929

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