Prospect, New South Wales


Prospect is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Prospect is located 32 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Blacktown and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. One of the oldest suburbs in Sydney, Prospect takes its name from the prominent nearby landmark of Prospect Hill - from the top of which people could get a prospect of the surrounding countryside.
Initially a settlement for emancipated convicts, it later became a village. Since colonisation, settlers cleared larger areas of land to raise livestock, build churches, inns, schools, shops and a large reservoir. Naturalist Charles Darwin visited Prospect in January 1836, to observe the geology.

History

Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Prospect was inhabited by different groups of the Darug people including the Warmuli. The Aboriginals there were of the woods culture. As European settlement expanded, the aboriginal people's ability to pursue their traditional lifestyle, which was already severely limited, disappeared. Prospect Hill had been the frontier, which was the first, and perhaps only, area where large scale organised resistance by aboriginal people took place.
Lieutenant Watkin Tench most likely named Prospect Hill in April 1790. In July 1791, thirteen grants of land at Prospect were made to emancipated convicts. In January 1794 David Collins reported that the Prospect Hill farmers were the most productive in the colony.
Prospect became the boundary between colonists and indigenous Australians. Hostility grew until by 1797, where a state of guerrilla warfare existed between indigenous people and the settler communities at Prospect and Parramatta. The aboriginal people were led by their leader, Pemulwuy, a member of the Bidjigal tribe who occupied the land. Pemulwuy was the main leader of raids against the colony in the 1790s. In 1797 the war escalated; his guerrillas started regular raids on settlements in the Parramatta and Prospect Hill areas. British military expeditions failed to locate and capture Pemulwuy.
Shortly after 1808, William Lawson was appointed aide-de-camp to George Johnston, was granted at Prospect and built a large house there, which he named Veteran Hall. In the 1880s most of the property was submerged in what is now Prospect reservoir.
On 30 January 2004 the eastern part of Prospect, which includes the quarry gap, became a new suburb called Pemulwuy containing the new housing estates of Lakeside and Nelson's Ridge and the industrial area within the oval-shaped ridge of Prospect Hill. So most of Prospect Hill is no longer within the suburb of Prospect.
Quarrying companies gradually took over more and more of Prospect Hill, mining the dolerite for use as roadstone until it was almost all gone and much of the hill with it. The Prospect quarry, which is now part of Pemulwuy, is formed by an intrusion of dolerite rock into Ashfield Shale. At least seven different rock types occur in the intrusion. The material is predominantly coarse grained picrite with olivine-dolerite and dolerite. Quarrying in the area last occurred in 2007. In the early 2010s, the 330ha quarry gap was transformed into light industry area. Prospect Highway now winds through the gap.

Heritage listings

Prospect has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
mentions that the landscape of Prospect is "a very pleasant tract of country, which, from the distance the trees grew from each other, and the gentle hills and dales, and rising slopes covered with grass, appeared like a vast park. The soil from Rose Hill to Prospect-Hill is nearly alike, being a loam and clay." The tree cover was mainly the eucalypts, grey box and forest red gum. Spotted gum is also known to have occurred in the Prospect area.

Climate

Prospect has a humid subtropical climate. Summer weather is warm to hot, and may be humid or dry. Although a fair amount of rain is spread throughout the year, late winter and early spring are fairly dry, whilst late summer through to early winter are relatively wet. The suburb gets 104.2 clear days annually, with the most sunniest days being in August and least in February.
Prospect is usually a few degrees warmer than the Sydney CBD on most spring and summer days. In a few cases there has been a +10 degree differential. However, Prospect is usually a few degrees cooler on most nights of the year, because of its distance from the coast. The highest temperature recorded at Prospect was 45.1 °C on 7 January 2018. The lowest temperature recorded was −0.8 °C on 30 June 2010.

Landmarks

Prospect is adjacent to the Great Western Highway and the M4 Motorway, providing road access to the western sections of the city and eastward to the Sydney CBD.
Prospect Highway links Prospect to central Blacktown.
Blacktown railway station provides access to the Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink networks, especially Sydney Trains' North Shore & Western Line. Several bus companies offer connecting services between Prospect and Blacktown, via Blacktown Road.

Demographics

;Ancestry:
According to the 2011 census, the most common ancestries in Prospect were Australian 20.0%, English 16.1%, Maltese 6.2%, Irish 5.0% and Indian 4.6%.
According to the 2016 census, the most common ancestries in Prospect were English 15.8%, Australian 15.7%, Indian 6.4%, Maltese 5.3% and Irish 4.8%.
;Country of birth:
62.0% of people were born in Australia. The other most common countries of birth were Fiji 3.0%, Philippines 2.8%, India 2.5%, Malta 2.3% and England 1.9%. 35.3% of people had both parents born in Australia and 53.1% of people had both parents born overseas.
According to the 2016 census, 56.4% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were India 4.6%, Philippines 3.1%, Fiji 3.0%, Malta 2.1% and Sri Lanka 2.0%.
;Language:
61.4% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Arabic 4.7%, Hindi 4.1%, Greek 2.9%, Maltese 2.5% and Cantonese 1.8%.
;Religion:
The most common responses for religion in Prospect were Catholic 38.4%, Anglican 12.0%, No Religion 10.2%, Eastern Orthodox 5.7% and Hinduism 5.6%.

Notable residents

Notable people who have resided in the suburb include: