Prince Alfred Park, Surry Hills

Gday, Charles Touma here, and today I’m at Prince Alfred Park in the magnificent Surry Hills, to talk about an amazing story that includes an assassination attempt, a pet elephant and a daring flight to Redfern. So, who was Prince Alfred? Well he was the Duke of Edinburgh, the son of Queen Victoria. He also held the title of Earl of Ulster, Ulster being Northern Ireland. When Prince Alfred arrived in Sydney, on an official Royal trip in 1868, he was invited to attend a picnic in Clontarf as a fundraiser for the Sydney Sailors Home. At the picnic, an assassination attempt was made. An Irishman, Henry James O’Farrell went up to the Prince and fired a pistol at very close range. Fortunately, the bullet hit the Prince in the back and the ribs and didn’t rupture any internal organs, so he survived.

It was later found that O’Farrell had suffered mental illness though at the time because of the political sensitivity back in Ireland, the assassination attempt was believed to be motivated by a grievance against the Irish. O’Farrell was hanged within a few months of the attempted murder. At that time the area was known as Cleveland Paddocks and still had a tributary of Blackwattle Creek running through it. At the time it was described as a filthy quagmire and a “plague spot”. In the 1850s the railway terminus station was built here and as well as the Cleveland Street Public School, leaving the large reserve that was named Prince Alfred Park in 1868 as an “embarrassed gesture” for the assassination attempt in Clontarf. Prince Alfred was known to travel with his pet elephant which he brought to Sydney. So, when the new playground was built here at the park as part of a $9 million upgrade about a decade ago, the kid’s slide was designed as an elephant trunk.

 Another feature in the playground was a yellow balloon-shaped frame, that was designed to commemorate one of the more dramatic events here in 1870. Back in the 1870s there was a culture of daring stunts in public and the hot air balloon was just being developed. However at that stage with gas and not hot air, making it hugely more volatile. In September 1870 at the Intercontinental Exhibition, Thomas Gale flew his balloon very precariously through Redfern, not a huge distance you may say, but the balloon wobbled dramatically in the air and looked likely to fall out of the sky at anytime. At the time this was a huge fate, hence the climbing frame is built in the playground to commemorate Gale’s flight to Redfern. Stories like this have formed the fabric of this amazing area that we live in. I’ve been selling here for 20 years in Surry Hills and Redfern and sold many properties within a view of Prince Alfred Park without realising the story behind this place. My name’s Charles Touma, and my office on Thurlow Street is always open for you to come in and have a chat.