Surry Hills Rag Trade History

Sydney’s Fashion District Was Sewn Together In Surry Hills Through History

By Tim Ritchie

More on Surry Hills

Before cafés and creative studios, Surry Hills was Sydney’s industrial heart, powered by migrant workers, garment factories and the iconic rag trade.

Sophia Street in the centre of the rag trade area, frontage one side is Foveaux St, the other side is Kippax St.

There’s a version of Surry Hills that no longer exists, but still lingers beneath the surface. It was a suburb of factory whistles and sewing machines, where crowded workshops near Central Station saw bolts of fabric move quicker than the city streets outside. What remains today are the outlines of that past: narrow terraces, converted warehouses, and laneways that still carry the imprint of industry.

A suburb in motion

In the 1790s, Major Joseph Foveaux was granted land in what would become Surry Hills. He named it Surry Hills Farm, after Surrey in England. For decades, the area remained on the city’s edge - considered remote, uneven, and difficult to settle.

By the 1820s, however, villas began appearing on the ridgelines, followed by denser working-class housing as Sydney expanded outward. Wealth and poverty sat side by side, with larger homes overlooking tightly packed streets filled with labourers, tradespeople and early industry.

By the late 19th century, Surry Hills had become one of Sydney’s most densely populated working-class districts. Roads were carved through the landscape, including what is now Devonshire Street, which ran alongside the Devonshire Street Cemetery. In 1901, the cemetery was cleared and relocated to make way for Central Station, marking a major reshaping of the area’s physical and social landscape. By the early 1900s, an industrial identity had firmly taken hold.

The Rag Trade Era

From the early 20th century through to the 1960s, Surry Hills became the heart of Sydney’s clothing and hat manufacturing industry.

Rag trade workers' cottages on Devonshire St

Small factories filled terrace houses and converted buildings, producing ready-to-wear garments for a rapidly growing population. The work was repetitive, skilled, and driven by sewing machines, cutting tables and pressing irons operating in constant rhythm.

The workforce was largely made up of migrants. Jewish communities played a significant role in the early decades, later joined by Southern European workers. Women formed a large part of this labour force, shaping both production and the daily rhythm of the suburb.

Workshops often operated like extended families. Owners lived nearby, workers shared tightly packed spaces, and cultural differences were navigated through necessity and proximity. The result was a highly interconnected local economy, where work, home and community overlapped.

The rag trade was supported by a wider industrial ecosystem. Tanneries supplied leather for trims and hats, local mills produced materials, and nearby bakeries and small suppliers sustained the workforce. Everything was close — deliberately so. Surry Hills functioned as a self-contained industrial network, where production, housing and supply chains existed within walking distance.

Change and Legacy

Famous hidden dog leg where inebriated gents would be greeted with a bop on the head and have their pockets emptied.

By the late 1970s, manufacturing began to decline as production moved offshore. The suburb shifted again, transitioning from production to distribution, and later into creative, commercial and hospitality uses.

Many of the buildings remain, but their purpose has changed. Factories became studios. Workshops became offices. Streets once shaped by industrial rhythm now move to a different kind of pace.

To walk through Surry Hills today is to move through overlapping histories - colonial land grants, industrial expansion, migrant labour and reinvention - all stitched into the fabric of the suburb itself.