Quakers Hill, New South Wales

Quakers Hill is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown. Quakers Hill is part of the Greater Western Sydney. Quakers Hill is colloquially known as 'Quakers'.

History

The first recorded use of the name Quakers Hill was in an 1806 report of the area by government surveyor James Meehan. The origin of the name is unclear and the next references are more than sixty years later when Thomas Harvey used it for his property in what is now western Quakers Hill. When the railway station was built in 1872, it was called Douglas' Siding for over thirty years. The catalyst for the name change came with the subdivision of Harvey's Quakers Hill property in 1904. The residents of the newly forming village preferred that name and in 1905, the name of the railway station was changed to Quakers Hill.

Postal services began in 1907 and the first post office was built in 1915. A school opened in the Presbyterian church hall in what is now Marayong in 1911 and Quakers Hill Public School took its first students in 1912. During the 1920s, the population grew dramatically, a number of shops opened in the area around the station and a public hall, the Empire Theatre, opened in 1925, screening movies and hosting dances. The village became a centre for the surrounding farms.