Woolloomooloo

The name of Sydney's inner-city harbourside eastern suburb Woolloomooloo was first recorded in the Anon Sydney Language notebook around 1790:

Australian	respelt	English	EngJSM	source
"Walla-mool"	wala-mul	"Cove next to Farm Cove"	Woolloomooloo	Anon (c) [c:36:17] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]

No meaning is given, but the word is shown in two parts. It crops up again and again after this, but rarely with a meaning attached. Such meanings as do occur include the following:

"Wullamulla"	wula-mala	"Wooloomooloo: home on top of the bay"	Woolloomooloo	Richardson, H. Haywood [::] [Syd] [NSW] [n.d.]
"[Wooloomooloo] "	wulu-mulu	"Also said to mean a resting place for the dead"	Woolloomooloo [bay blood]	McCarthy [:21:7.6] [Syd] [NSW] [1943]
"Woolloomooloo- "	wulu-mulu	"A young kangaroo"	kangaroo young	Tyrrell [:45:22] [Syd] [NSW] [1953]

 The H. Haywood Richardson record at the top occurs in an undated twentieth-century manuscript (ML MSS. 1255) in Sydney’s Mitchell Library (State Library of NSW). F.D. McCarthy and J.R. Tyrrell produced placename lists in multiple editions (McCarthy 1921-59; Tyrrell 1933-51)

"Wulla Mulla"

wula-mala

“…“Woolloomooloo” was originally “Wulla Mulla,” … it meant a burial-ground or or place of interment.”

Woolloomooloo [grave]

Thornton, George, 1892 [:6:16] [Syd] [NSW] [1892]

George Thornton’s record comes from Notes on the Aborigines of New South Wales: with personal reminiscences of the tribes formerly living in the neighbourhood of Sydney and the surrounding districts published in 1892.

The perplexed surveyor and language collector R.H. Mathews contributed:

"Woolloomooloo"	wulu-mulu	"what does it mean?"	Woolloomooloo	Mathews 8006/3/6- Nbk 4 [112.19–Dharug] [:112.19:2.1] [DG] [NSW] [c.1901]
"wallaba-mulla"	walaba mala	"buck wallaby"	wallaby male	Mathews 8006/3/6- Nbk 4 [112.19–Dharug] [:112.19:2.2] [DG] [NSW] [c.1901]

Another couple of records might possibly be relevant:

"Wallo-mill"	walumil	"The bullheaded shark"	shark [chin eye] bull- headed	Anon (c) [c:12:11] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"˚ Múlla ˚"	mula	"˚ A man, or husband ˚"	man	Dawes (b) [b:13:3] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]

 Of the translations offered, only Thornton’s about ‘a burial-ground or place of interment’ and McCarthy’s about Woolloomooloo being ‘a resting place for the dead’ seem real possibilities. On pp. 129-132 of the September 1902 issue of The Science of Man, an anthropological journal that lasted about a dozen years to 1903, there was a long article by Wm. Hemsworth Huntingdon, and it was hewho concluded that it derived from wallaba-mulla, ‘a place where the black male or young or small male kangaroo abounds’, quoted by Mathews above. Huntingdon sourced the two components to First Fleet records of ‘wallaby’, and to ‘mulla’ meaning ‘man’, or male, to support his contention.

So much for the views from those a little closer to the time when the name was first heard, but pre- computer. Databases prompt the consideration of other possibilities. One of these is that the first portion of the word, wooloo might in fact be wula, and that this might denote ‘bay’ or ‘cove’ — even though no lists specifically say as much. Half a dozen placenames are the source of the concept.

"Balgowlah"	balga-wul-a	"Fincham's, North Harbour or Bal- gowlah Township”	hill bay	Larmer HARBOUR 1834 [:229:19.2] [Syd] [NSW] [1834]
"Belangalǐwoóla"	bila-ngali-wul-a	"At Belangaliwool"	Bilangaliwul-at [Clark Island]	Dawes (b) [b:3:27] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"Talla-wo-la-dah"	dala-wula-da	"Where the hospital stands"		Anon (c) [c:38:10] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"Melia-wool"	miliya-wul	"A small Cove with- in [Sydney Cove]"	bay little [Campbells Cove]	Anon (c) [c:38:9] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"Walla-mool"	wala-mul	"Cove next to Farm Cove"	Woolloomooloo	Anon (c) [c:36:17] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"Woolladoorh"	wuladur	"A safe harbour; now called Ulladulla."	harbour safe	SofM 19000122 [226 H-Williams] [:227:41] [Dga] [NSW] [1900]

Woolloomooloo is a bay or cove. What the -mooloo portion might be is more of a problem. It could be ‘man’ as already suggested. Or consistent with the burial ground idea it might have been related to the following:

"moola"	mula	"man"	man	Monkhouse [:33.1:1] [BB] [NSW] [1770]
"Moo-la"	mula	"Sick"	ill	Collins 1 [1:508.1:12] [BB] [NSW] [1798]
"mūla"	mula	"blood"	blood	KAOL Rowley GeoR [:104:4] [DG] [NSW] [1875]

Three big bays eastwards from Wooloomooloo on the harbour is Rose Bay, the site where spears traditionally would be thrown in ritual punishing of perceived malefactors, and no doubt where there would be blood as a consequence:

"Búnnerung"	bana-rang	"Blood"	blood [flow]-URGness	Dawes (b) [b:3:14] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]
"Pannerong"	bana-rang	"Rose Bay"	Rose Bay [flow]-URGness	Anon (c) [c:38:3] [BB] [NSW] [1790-91]

Here bana is the word for a liquid — it can mean ‘rain’. The stem-forming suffix -rang is comprised of

-ra, denoting actively or urgently proceeding, and the nominalising, or noun-forming ending -ng. So bana-rang can be viewed as liquid actively proceeding, or flowing.

So all within Cadigal country between Darling Harbour and South Head it is possible there were two bays with related names: Rose Bay where the ritual combats took place with bloody consequences; and Wooloomooloo, a bay wula noted for its association with blood mula, or the consequence of blood occurring: mula (illness).

We can never know. But Huntingdon’s claim for wulaba-mala (wallaby male) needs the  introduction of -ba not recorded by anyone at the name of the bay.

Jeremy Steele

13 June 2025