Parramatta On Parade! 150th Anniversary Celebrations - 1938

It promised to be an event of a spectacular nature seldom before seen in Australia. Ten days of pageantry and carnival  at Parramatta from 27 October to 5 November 1938 to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the second oldest settlement in Australia.

Poster publicising the Anniversary Celebrations
PRS16/001 Parramatta Council Archives

A management committee made up of leading figures from the district was formed a year before the event to begin the final preparations for an event that promised to produce a "galaxy of entertainment and historic features". It was an impressive array of entertainment which included a, Military Tattoo, Police Carnival, Chinese Fireworks Display, Dancing Under the Stars, Period Costume Garden Party, Venetian Carnival on the River, Swimming Fetes, Sports Gymkhana, Orange Festival, Street Parades, Massed Band Concerts, Grand Prix, and a Wild West Rodeo. There was even a Coronation Ball in which the Queen of Parramatta would be crowned.

Parramatta No Longer a Town!

"NO longer a town! A City! That is the State Government’s present to Parramatta on its 150^th birthday..." proudly declared a Sydney newspaper.1 And what a timely gift it was for Parramatta, when in 1938, on the eve of Parramatta's 150th birthday celebrations, the Parliament of NSW bestowed on Parramatta the status of City.

Tablet on the front of Parramatta Town
Hall  commemorating the proclamation of
Parramatta as a City and its 150th
Anniversary. Photo Peter Arfanis

For Parramatta it was a coming of age, a symbolic event that elevated Parramatta from being a suburb to City. But even though the headlines claimed this was a "present" for Parramatta, its elevation was deserving and did not come without a fight. As if it was a test of the resolve of Parramatta's character numerous requirements and red tape threatened to derail Council's attempt to be declared a city.

The Cumberland Argus, a key agitator for Parramatta's elevation to city status wrote; 

Whatever red tape may have required, commonsense and justice demanded due recognition of Parramatta's historic importance and of the great part it played in laying, as it were, the foundation stone on which this great Commonwealth has been built.2

Four months earlier, when momentum was building for a decision to be made, the Cumberland Argus had dared the state's leaders to act when it declared;