Also representing Sydney’s Paddy’s Markets was Retail Director, Neil Mathews. Sydney Markets, Chairman of the Board, Mr John Pearson and CEO Brad Latham. Along with ex –Chairman, Mr Eric Kime and the Yee family. 

The event commenced with Market stalls and old market signage being displayed to give a market feel.  Entertainment by a colonial bush band and bell ringers also added to the atmosphere. The Market stalls promoted the fresh produce from Sydney’s Paddy’s Markets where free bags were given away on the Paddy’s Wheel of Fortune.     

A period re-enactment took place where the Market stand holders and the Business Faculty joined to agree to work together with the Markets and the UTS and ring the bell together.  Sydney Markets presented the UTS with a book on the history of Sydney Markets 1788 – 1988.  The University of Technology of Sydney commented that it was fitting that the book finished its history in 1988, the year the TAFE became a University . 

The University of Technology will be ringing the Paddy’s Market Bell at the opening and closing of each semester.

History of the Market Bell - Colonial Times

Land-holders John Macarthur and John Harris settled on the peninsula in 1804–06 and by 1836 Macarthur was subdividing the land.  By 1891 Ultimo and Pyrmont were the mostly densely populated areas in NSW and a centre for “the distribution of Australian wool, flour, milk, sugar and other foodstuffs”.  There have been various locations for markets in the C19th and C20th but what is now know as Sydney’s Paddy’s Markets was originally built between 1909 and 1914 as the Sydney Municipal Markets.

Ringing of the Bell – Corner of History

Traditionally, bells have been rung throughout the world, including markets and universities to mark time, special events or to raise, for example, fire alarms in old days.  Universities have traditionally and in modern times had bell towers. 

In 1965 the Haymarket bell which tolled the opening and closing of the markets as far back as 1911 was taken down from the corner of Ultimo and Quay Streets.  For ten years it resided with St Xavier Convent School at Ultimo and replaced by a siren.  In 1975 it was returned to the tower when the building became part of the NSW Institute of Technology and the fruit and flower markets moved to Flemington. 

The redeveloped area was opened by the Premier as the Institute’s Markets campus in November 1985.  Philip Cox and Partners were the architects of the Redevelopment and the design focused on the “southeast corner of the property with its Italianate campanile, or bell tower.  So the new integrates with the old as UTS sought to reconnect with the markets.