Etymology The earliest recorded cartographic use in New South Wales of the name "Quaker" appears as "Quaker's Row", the former name of Church Street in
Parramatta. In November 1788, Governor
Arthur Phillip established a secondary settlement at Rose Hill, which was renamed Parramatta in June 1791. In July 1790, Phillip laid out a formal plan for the township. High Street (now George Street) was designated as the principal thoroughfare, intersected by a secondary street, 143feet (43.6metres) wide, extending from the southern bank of the
Parramatta River. Phillip envisaged a town square with government buildings and an extended wharf at this location and named the street "Quaker's Row". Alan Sharpe, in
Pictorial History – Blacktown & District (2000), makes no reference to Phillip's July 1790 town plan. Settlement at Parramatta proceeded rapidly. The Reverend
Samuel Marsden established conformist,
Anglican religious services in the district. According to local tradition, residents associated with Quaker's Row later relocated further west to an area that became known as Quakers Hill. It is said that they buried victims of the
1804 Castle Hill uprising in simple cairn-marked graves located in fields, paddocks and along creeks in the district. The name "Quakers Hill" appears in an 1806 report by government surveyor
James Meehan. The precise origin of the name remains uncertain. Subsequent documentary references are sparse until the mid to late nineteenth century, when
Thomas Harvey applied the name to his property in what is now western Quakers Hill. Following the construction of the railway line in 1872, the local station was named
Douglas' Siding (now Quakers Hill railway station) and retained that designation for more than thirty years. In 1904, Harvey's Quakers Hill estate was subdivided, prompting renewed use of the name. At the request of residents of the emerging village, the railway station was renamed Quakers Hill in 1905.
20th Century Postal services commenced in 1907, and a purpose-built post office opened in 1915. A school began operating in 1911 in the Presbyterian church hall at what is now
Marayong, and Quakers Hill Public School enrolled its first students in 1912. During the 1920s, population growth accelerated. Shops were established in the vicinity of the railway station, and the Empire Theatre, opened in 1925, functioned as both a cinema and a venue for dances and community events. The village served as a service centre for surrounding farms. From the 1960s, metropolitan expansion in Sydney extended into the Quakers Hill district, and the five-acre farms surrounding the village were progressively subdivided for residential development. In 1994,
HMAS Nirimba, a former
Royal Australian Navy training establishment on the suburb’s western boundary, was decommissioned and subsequently redeveloped as an educational precinct. In 1996, land in the north-eastern part of Quakers Hill was excised to form the new suburb of Acacia Gardens. In November 2020, a small portion of Quakers Hill north of Quakers Hill Parkway was incorporated into the newly gazetted suburb of Nirimba Fields./
21st Century 2011 nursing home fire On 18 November 2011, an early morning fire occurred at the
Quakers Hill Nursing Home (operated by Opal Healthcare) at 35 Hambledon Road, Quakers Hill. The blaze resulted in the deaths of 11 elderly residents, seriously injured others, and led to the evacuation of up to 100 people. Three residents died at the scene, and a further eight died in hospital from injuries sustained in the fire. The fire was determined to have been deliberately lit in two separate locations within the facility and was treated by police as suspicious. == Transport ==