Peggy Wilkinson was four when she laid the foundation stone of North Sydney’s Bank of NSW with a ceremonial trowel
Australia’s first bank and indeed first public company, the Bank of NSW (now Westpac), opened in Sydney in 1817. As the North Shore developed as a residential and commercial centre, ‘the Wales’ expanded its services across the harbour. The branch at St Leonards, as North Sydney was then known, opened on the corner of Miller and Mount streets in 1877. The bank paid £80 rent per year for its first premises, a site now at the heart of Victoria Cross.
In 1906 Peggy Wilkinson, the four-year-old daughter of then bank manager Thomas Vaughan Wilkinson, laid the foundation stone of a ‘new and handsome structure’ on the same site, with an engraved silver trowel. Peggy was a fitting ‘founder’ since she had been born in the upper rooms of the first bank. She later recalled, ‘I was not ready to be important and refused to stand by myself on the stone… They put the older Marjorie Page up with me… I did not know her
very well, nor like her, but her father was the manager of the other local commercial bank.’ A sealed glass bottle was deposited beneath the foundation stone, together with some contemporary currency and a copy of the North Shore Times giving notice of the demolition of ‘one of the North Shore’s first landmarks of civilisation.’
The 1906 ceremonial trowel, photographed in 1977
That building suffered the same fate as the structure it replaced. It was demolished in 1931 to provide access for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, now part of the Pacific Highway. The bank moved to new premises next door, designed in the inter-war free classical style by prominent architects John Reid and Sons. Even though the previous bank had only been standing for 25 years, local press at the time headlined the story ‘North Sydney landmark to disappear.’
In 1977, the North Sydney branch of the Bank of NSW (then at 169 Miller Street – 200 metres from the original site), celebrated its centenary with staff dressed in period costumes serving birthday cake to customers. Peggy Wilkinson, by then known as Mrs RH Russell, was an honoured guest; the ceremonial trowel was one of the historic treasures on display.
RH Russell’s daughters and son had long believed that the trowel was donated to the Westpac Group archives in 1977. In fact, it was recently discovered among personal possessions and generously donated by Diana McAlpine (née Russell) to Stanton Library in June.
The distinctive triangular building at 51 Mount Street, with its semi- circular colonnade, has seen various commercial and retail uses since the 1970s – including an unusually grand branch of McDonald’s from 1986 until the late 1990s. The building was auctioned in August 2024, with a price guide of $9 million, pitched as ‘North Sydney’s most iconic flagship corner.
Historical Services, North Sydney Council.