Police Station / Site of First General Hospital

This site was the location of the first General Hospital in Sydney which operated between 1788 and 1816. In 1797 High (George) Street was realigned. The realignment required the portable hospital to be pulled down and re-erected on a stone foundation slightly west of its original location. A store and dispensary were then erected to the north and west of the hospital buildings. In 1816 the Sydney Hospital opened in Macquarie Street and the old hospital closed.

The Rocks had a notorious reputation for trouble and violence stretching back to its colonial beginnings. The "pushes" of the Rocks were particularly notable. Law and order were kept by mounted police or "troopers", in combination with ordinary police, who could be picked out in a crowd by their bell-topper hat, black coat and white duck trousers. The mounted police wore a military uniform.

Gazettal of an official police force occurred in 1862, when the Police Regulation Act, No. 16 was proclaimed. The Rocks had paled in police significance and, taking into consideration factors elsewhere, was less a charge on the city conscience. There were still sporadic eruptions of violence in the nineties, and those whose business or inclinations obliged them to pass through The Cut, were still aware of the sandbag and the footpad and the garrotter in gas-lit early 20th century. But these were not confined to The Rocks.

The construction of a new police station was completed on this site in 1882 and occupied by police in 1883. Government Architect, James Barnet, designed the building in the form of a Palladian Water Gate. This was a structure where boats could discharge passengers with comfort and dry feet, and was considered as a curious concept for a police station. Barnet was influenced by a quay-side Lower George Street site.

Above the lofty entrance arch to the Police Station are Queen Victoria's initials with a lion's head, the symbol of British justice, with a policeman's truncheon in its mouth. The message of the head and truncheon is clear: Uphold the law, or else. . . They are representative of the very visual and conscious representation of government authority Barnet imbued in the design of his government buildings.

The history of the head and truncheon are a constant source of interest. Some sources relate that in 1982 the truncheon was stolen, and a similar truncheon was created for a replacement. The original truncheon was made from an unknown material, and it has been suggested that the truncheon was originally bronze. The truncheon has been replaced twice between 1995 and 2000. The truncheon is currently a hardwood, and is now located in the lion's mouth facing in the opposite direction to the original.