Indigenous Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in the Sydney metropolitan area
from around 30,000 years ago. The
Darug people lived in the area that was south western Sydney before European settlement regarded the region as rich in food from the river and forests. For more than 30,000 years,
Aboriginal people from the
Gandangara tribe have lived in the
Fairfield area. Clans of the Tharawal roamed over a wide area from
Botany Bay to the
Shoalhaven River and inland to
Campbelltown. They lived a nomadic
hunter-gatherer lifestyle, eating local foods (
bush tucker) such as
kangaroo, fish,
yams and berries. They made tools out of stones, bones and shells to help them build bark shelters, canoes and possum-skin clothing. The
Holsworthy bushland still withholds many indigenous sites and has been referred to as "Sydney's
Kakadu". There are more than 500 significant Tharawal sites in the area, including campsites, tool-making sites, and
rock art. The art is mostly engravings of hands,
boomerangs, animals, birds, and fish.
Menangle Park was originally home to the
Tharawal people, and it was they who gave the name, transcribed as
Manangle or
Manhangle, to a small lagoon on the west bank of the
Nepean River, which was important to the Tharawal both for its consistent water supply as well as the fish and
yabbies that could be caught there. In a
rock art site called Bull Cave near Campbelltown, the Dharug people drew a number of cattle with pronounced horns. The Dharug cowpasture tribes described the cattle to British explorers and in 1795 the British found a herd of around 60 cattle grazing in the area now known as
Camden.
Colonial era , built from 1819 to 1840 In February 1793, the
Auburn area was established as the first free-agricultural settlement thanks to Governor Phillip's repeated applications to the British government for free settlers. In 1795,
Matthew Flinders and
George Bass explored up the
Georges River for about 20 miles beyond what had been previously surveyed, and reported favourably to Governor
John Hunter of the land on its banks. The earliest recorded
white settlement in the Fairfield district is described in
William Bradley's Journal where he noted an expedition from
Rose Hill to
Prospect Creek to determine whether Prospect Creek led to
Botany Bay. In 1789, Governor
Arthur Phillip probed the country between
Salt Pan Creek beginning at Prospect Creek. The District of Bankstown was named by
Governor Hunter in 1797 in honour of botanist Sir
Joseph Banks. The area remained very rural until residential and suburban development followed the development of the
Bankstown railway line with the passing of the
Marrickville to Burwood Road Railway Act by the NSW Parliament in 1890, extending the rail line from
Marrickville Station (later Sydenham Station) to
Burwood Road (later Belmore Station) by 1895. In 1798,
First Fleet Captain
George Johnston received a land grant and constructed his first home located near Prospect Creek, close to Henry Lawson Drive and Beatty Parade. The first incursions and eventual land grants in the area by Europeans led to increasing tensions, culminating in a confrontation between Europeans and a group of Aboriginal people led by Tedbury, the son of
Pemulwuy, in what is now Punchbowl in 1809. However, following Tedbury's death in 1810, resistance to European settlement generally ended. In the 1800s, the area around
Prestons was known as "Cross Roads". The name appears to originate from 1821, when a notice published by
John Oxley, the
Surveyor General of New South Wales stated that "this Cross Road from Windsor ends in the new Bringelly Road". In 1800, just beside Prospect Creek, Lieutenant
John Shortland from the First Fleet acquired an initial grant of over the northern part of Lansdowne Reserve which he increased to . In 1848, German explorer
Ludwig Leichhardt and politician
Sir Henry Parkes cooled their feet in Prospect Creek in
Carramar. Very early relations with British settlers were cordial but as farmers started clearing and fencing the land affecting food resources in the area, clashes between the groups arose until 1816 when a number of indigenous people were massacred and the remainder retreated from direct conflict with the settlers. In 1801,
Governor King ordered soldiers to fire on the aborigines to keep them from settler's properties. By 1815,
Governor Macquarie declared a state of open warfare against aborigines in the Georges River area and forbade them carrying weapons within a mile of any British settlement. Ultimately, the British prevailed. The
Liverpool Offtake Reservoir was constructed in 1890 to supply the township of Liverpool, as part of the
Upper Nepean Scheme. The
Church of the Holy Innocents was opened in 1850 by William Munro.
Alexander Riley (1778–1833) was a merchant and pastoralist who in 1809 was granted of land and called his estate
Raby. In March 1895, a petition was submitted to the NSW Colonial Government by 109 residents of the Bankstown area, requesting the establishment of the "Municipal District of Bankstown" under the
Municipalities Act, 1867. On 19 January 1898, the
Camden Municipal Council proposed to establish a cottage hospital for the municipality.
Early 20th century In the first half of the 20th century, venues such as Latty's Pleasure Grounds, the Butterfly Hall, and Hollywood Park at
Lansvale were popular among tourists due to the area's rural feel, so popular in fact that the first games of
Rugby League football in Australia, in early 1908, were trial games that took place at Latty's Pleasure Grounds.
Liverpool Hospital was founded on a portion of land beside the
Georges River, making it the second oldest hospital in Australia.
Hammondville was originally a settlement for destitute families during the
Great Depression. During the Great Depression,
Kentlyn became something of a shantytown for families who had lost their homes. During
World War II,
Bankstown Airport was established as a key strategic air base to support the war effort and the control of Bankstown Airport was handed to
US Forces. Also during the war, Bass Hill was the location for a small
transmitting station that was owned and operated by the
RAAF. It was located on the corner of Manuka Crescent & Johnston Road. In World War II, there was a soldiers' settlement at
Milperra which consisted mostly of poultry and horticultural enterprises. In 1942 a command bunker (Sydney Air Defence Headquarters) of semi underground construction was established in
Bankstown. The primary use of the Sydney Air Defence Headquarters was the location, tracking and interception of all planes in the eastern area of the
South West Pacific. From 1948 to 1955 workers camps were set up at
Potts Hill to accommodate the European migrant workers who were indentured from the many
displaced persons brought
to Australia after World War II. The
Australian Legion of Ex-Servicemen and Women sponsored the mass production of housing at
Panania beginning from 1946 with the construction of 34 houses. During
World War II,
Picnic Point National Park was the location of a remote receiving station and operations bunker that was owned and operated by the
RAAF. In October 1944, the
Royal Navy (
United Kingdom) opened a hospital (
Royal Naval Hospital, Herne Bay) at
Riverwood to treat wounded members of the
British Pacific Fleet in the vacated buildings.
Contemporary period Until the 1950s, Liverpool was still a satellite town with an agricultural economy based on poultry farming and
market gardening. However the
urban sprawl of Sydney across the
Cumberland Plain soon reached Liverpool, and it became an outer suburb of metropolitan Sydney with a strong working-class presence and manufacturing facilities. At the time of its opening by the mayor R. J. Schofield on 26 September 1958, the Campsie Library was reputed to be the largest municipal library in Sydney.
Campbelltown was designated in the early 1960s as a
satellite city by the New South Wales Planning Authority, and a regional capital for the south west of Sydney. The
Milperra College of Advanced Education was established in 1974, bringing tertiary education to south-western Sydney, where it then became the
Bankstown campus of
Western Sydney University in 1989. In January 1975, tenders for the first homes in the Housing Commission's "
Kentlyn" subdivision were called but the name
Airds was not approved until May 1976. From the 1970s to 1990s, a small amusement park named
Magic Kingdom operated in
Lansvale on the banks of the creek and was a popular attraction for visitors. In the 1960s and 1970s, migration from south-east Asia as a result of the
Vietnam War transformed
Cabramatta into a thriving Asian community. Also in the 1970s, an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants, namely
Lebanese people, settled in
Lidcombe,
Bankstown and the surrounding suburbs. Bankstown's city status was proclaimed in 1980 in the presence of
Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the "City of Bankstown". In September 1984, on Father's Day, members of rival
motorbike gangs the
Comanchero and the
Bandidos had a showdown in
Revesby. This altercation has since been called the '
Milperra Massacre'. The
Oran Park Town housing development replaced
Oran Park Raceway, which stood from 1962 – 2010. The suburb has often become an example of
urban sprawl. In 2015, the
Abbott government granted 12,000 extra humanitarian visas to
persecuted Christians, largely the
Assyrians, in the war-torn Middle Eastern countries, which were admitted to Australia as part of its one-off humanitarian intake, with half of them primarily settling in
Fairfield and also
Liverpool. A
2015 review of local government boundaries by the
NSW Government Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommended that the City of Canterbury merge with the City of Bankstown to form a new council with an area of and support a population of approximately 351,000. In 2019-2020, a tract of dry grass was set ablaze by illegal fireworks, resulting in a bushfire in the area around
Cecil Hills. In 2023, the Liverpool reservoir site was upgraded with a new water tank and pumping station, adding 115 megalitres of reservoir capacity to supply the growing suburbs of south-west Sydney. The new pumping station superseded the role of the nearby Bonnyrigg Pumping Station, which was built in 1941. In June 2023, the suburb boundaries with
Campbelltown and
Airds were amended, with Bradbury losing some area to Campbelltown but gaining some area from
Airds. However, in November 2024, this boundary was changed again, with Bradbury losing the areas east of this boundary to Airds. In November 2024,
Eschol Park's boundary with
Eagle Vale was amended, with the boundary to follow the entirety of Eagle Vale Drive. As a result, Eschol Park gained all areas of Eagle Vale that were west of Eagle Vale Drive. ==Geography==