Kogarah

Kogarah is a suburb of Southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Kogarah is a suburb of Southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Kogarah is located 14 kilometres (9 miles) south of the Sydney central business district and is considered to be the centre of the St George area.

Kogarah is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning rushes or place of reeds.It had also been written as 'Coggera', 'Cogerah' and 'Kuggerah' but the current spelling was settled when the railway line came through the area in the 1880s.

Early land grants in the area were made to John Townson (1760–1835) who received 910 hectares (2,250 acres) from 1808 to 1810,centred on Hurstville and James Chandler, whose neighbouring estate wascentred on Bexley. The district provided fruit, vegetables and oysters for Sydney. In 1869, St Paul's Church of England opened on Rocky Point Road (now Princes Highway). It was built on0.81 hectares (2 acres) of land given to the church by William Wolfen the Swedish Consul to Sydney, who owned 320 hectares (800 acres) in Kogarah. The suburb grew around the church and the Gardeners Arms Hotel. Kogarah became a municipality in 1885.The former neighbourhood of Moorefield is now part of Kogarah. It was originally a 24-hectare (60-acre) land grant from Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1812 to Patrick Moore, who built a fine house there. The Moorefield racecourse built by a descendant opened in 1888. Brigadier General John Lamrock CB VD was appointed secretary of the Moorefield Race Club in 1912 and remained in that position until early in 1935. The Moorefield estate was subdivided in the 1950s and the Department of Education purchased 7.7 hectares (19 acres), where it built two high schools and college of further education. Moorefields Girls High School was erected there in 1955 on the former site of Moore's farm.