North Head of Port Jackson Harbour & the Quarantine Ground.

Rare view of Sydney Harbour looking towards North Head and the Quarantine Station from Vaucluse.

The site was chosen for quarantine purposes as it was the first safe anchorage inside the heads, isolated from the centre of Sydney and had a good water supply from natural springs. From the 1830s ships arriving in Sydney with suspected contagious disease stopped and off-loaded passengers and crew into quarantine. Westmacott’s description ‘The Quarantine Ground, pointed out in the sketch by the ship riding with the Quarantine flag flying, is situated in a small bay immediately round the point inside the North Head the arrangements are very complete, and, although it is a long distance from Sydney (eight miles), the position is judiciously chosen, and the circumstance has, no doubt, saved the colonists much misery. A few unfortunate emigrant ships have arrived with contagious fever on board, and by cutting off all communication with the town nothing serious has occurred to the general population. Small pox, cholera, and other dreadful diseases, are at present unknown in New South Wales. Immediately facing Port Jackson Heads is Middle Harbour, a considerable inlet, running about twenty miles inland, but only navigable for boats. The land about it is becoming located, and many flourishing gardens and cottages adorn its banks. The distant ship sheltering inside North Head is flying a quarantine flag.’ Ships had been quarantine in that bay since 1828 when the Bussorah Merchant arrived in Sydney carrying smallpox. The convicts and their guards were unloaded with a few tents and provisions and left to fend for themselves.Permanent accommodation was built in 1837, after the Lady Macnaghten was quarantined for typhus fever and hundreds of people were crowded into tents in the heat of summer. The site was ‘judiciously chosen’ according to the artist of this work, to confine those ‘few unfortunate emigrant ships (that arrive) with contagious fever on board, and by cutting off all communication with the town nothing serious has occurred to the general population’. More than 580 vessels were quarantined between 1828 and 1984.

From the first issue of Capt. Robert Westmacott’s, ‘Views of Australia’. 

ref: Sydney Views 1788-1888 Knoblauch Collection Item 19 page 45