Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Western Toll Bar receipt

Western Toll Bar receipt

27 April 1850
Printed ephemera
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
DN / P 709

Receipts such as this allowed the bearer to pass through toll gates erected on a number of Sydney’s roads. In this case, the receipt was for travel through the toll gate located on the Western Road (now the Great Western Highway) at Pitt Row in Parramatta. While we don’t know the name of the person to whom the receipt was issued, we know the toll-keeper was Charles Hennington. He is most likely the convict Charles Hennington, who arrived in 1823 on the ship Ocean.

Hennington had been sentenced to transportation for life in 1822. The NSW Government Gazette of 21 March 1838 records that Charles Hennington received his Ticket of Leave (a form of parole), and was, at the time, living in Parramatta. He received his Conditional Pardon on 1 July 1846, and by 1850 it seems was gainfully employed.

The toll roads of early Sydney were often built and operated by private contractors, in what were some of the earliest examples of private–public partnerships in NSW.

The Western Road (now Parramatta Road/ the Great Western Highway) has been the subject of complaints by residents and road users since its earliest days. In the 1840s and 1850s newspapers often reported that the condition of the road was so poor that the potholes were causing damage not just to the to the horse-drawn carts but to the horses themselves!