This brick building was built around 1819 for former South Sea Island missionary James Elder (1772-1836) who settled in Parramatta and became a builder and storekeeper. For a short time the Reverend Dunmore Lang used Elder's house for Presbyterian services. From 1862 and 1872 the house was used as the Municipal Chambers for the Parramatta Borough Council, formed in 1861. Accommodation was provided upstairs for the Town Clerk and his family. The Parramatta Council Minute Book for 5 July 1870 records that, at 3pm that day, the American and Australasian Photographic Company invited the aldermen of the Borough council to step outside the Chambers in order to pose for this photograph. [ref also Sydney Morning Herald 7 July 1870 p.5] The building later became the Woolpack Inn. [ref: Shylie & Ken Brown
Parramatta, a town caught in time, 1870 Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1995, pp.16, 113-114]
The photographer Beaufoy Merlin and his American and Australasian Photographic Company arrived in Sydney from Victoria around July 1870, via several country towns in New South Wales. In an advertisement placed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 September 1870 he announced that they had "now just completed taking nearly 800 views of Parramatta alone". This photograph must be one of those views. The sign in the lower left window reads: Town Clerk's Office.
