Why is one of Sydney's most sacred locations neglected?

(Left) Soldiers' Mothers and Wives Memorial, Cowper Wharf Road Woolloomooloo.

It's long been a concern of ours that the Memorial designed to mark the departure point of our ANZACs has been side-lined and neglected. The story, symbolised by the Memorial, deserves to be better known. Over the years, this Memorial has been so mishandled, it’s no surprise it looks this sad.

  

The No.1 Gates, Woolloomooloo Wharf, c 1920. 

Before aeroplanes carried soldiers round the world, this job was done by ships. Woolloomooloo Wharf, with its deep waters, was the main port of arrival and departure in Sydney. After the carnage of World War I, this fact made the wharf a very special place. Here was the last place Australians saw their loved one, forever.

The set of  old wooden gates, called the “No. 1 Gates, Woolloomooloo Wharf” were at the eastern side of the wharf, not far from Fitzroy Stevedores. We imagine soldiers collected at a departure point in the Domain and were followed by their mothers, fathers, wives and lovers, down to these departure gates. After the War they were often referred to as the “Memory Gates” or the “Sacred Gates”.

In years to follow, what happened as a result of this event, was a spontaneous pilgrimage of mourners to these gates. Each ANZAC Day, women pinned wreaths to the gates, as if they were laying flowers on their soldiers' grave. (Few people could afford to travel to the European battlefields).

Women pin wreaths on the No 1 Gate, Woolloomooloo. c 1918

In 1919, the newly formed  “Soldiers’ Wives and Mothers Association” began to raise money for the Memorial we have today. It was intentionally installed exactly opposite the No. 1 Gates, where family and friends saw their darlings for the last time. The architect’s, Henry Budden and Carlyle Greenwell, deliberately embedded the Memorial in the sandstone escarpment which rises majestically, spanning the length of Cowper Wharf Rd (east) and Brougham Street.

Here, the Memorial had grandeur and impact. The words inscribed there made sense -
“To commemorate the place of farewell to the Soldiers who passed through the gates opposite for the Great War 1914-1919”. The bronze bubbler in the centre, set against dark green trachyte, is poetic as well as practical (no bottled water for sale back then). It’s as if the water flows from the sandstone, the elixir of life. On Anzac Day families filed past the memorial and the old gates to mourn and lay flowers.

Due to some sad lack of respect (not seen in many countries), the old No.1 Gates were demolished in the 1930s. But it gets worse...glance opposite the Memorial (where it sits today) and you'll see the massive Navy carpark.  In the 1970s, the Memorial was moved to make way for a big carpark. A visitor "glancing opposite" on reading the Memorial inscription today, would be forgiven for thinking our Diggers disappeared somewhere in the carpark to go to war.

Opening of the Memorial, 1922

Why were the sacred, Wharf No.1 Gates removed in the 1930s and the Memorial relocated, meaninglessly, in the 1970s? We do know there was a move in the 1930s, by a vocal minority, to make ANZAC Day services a "men only" occasion. Mothers and wives were the stars at this Memorial. Maybe building the Navy carpark was an attempt to secure the land from developers?
It rarely seems to get much use as parking. These are 2 possible reasons.

The Navy carpark as it stands today.

In losing the gates and proper location of the Memorial, we've lost a very important and historic place in Sydney history. It would be fitting if the Navy reinstated a replica of the gates and had the whole site re-worked, with more sensitivity.

In 1927, the Herald summed up the importance of this location perfectly:

“Is there a place in Sydney more filled with poignant memories than the gates down by Woolloomooloo Bay, through which, in the years that have gone, men in their thousands marched to death on a battlefield?”

We think not!