Hunters Hill is the name given to the peninsula situated between the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers but at one time it included the whole area from Onions Point (the present eastern extremity of the peninsula) to Kissing Point and as far north as Middle Harbour. Later, when the colony was divided into counties and parishes, the name ‘Hunter’s Hill’ was applied to that portion of land lying between the two rivers and as far west as Kissing Point.
Quite a lot of confusion has existed over the years as to the origin of the name ‘Hunter’s Hill’. In the earlier days it was accepted that it had been named after the birthplace at Huntershill, spelt as one word, near Glasgow in Scotland, of Thomas Muir, a political prisoner, who purchased a few acres of land from one Samuel Lightfoot in 1794.
Muir did acquire land in the original Hunters Hill area but more recent research, including that by Dr Isadore Brodsky, MB, (Hunters Hill 1861-1961) and Mrs R Hamilton (Hunters Hill pre-1835) seems to favour the suggestion that it was named after Captain John Hunter, who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and was instrumental in charting and surveying the Harbour and its reaches. He was later to become the second Governor of the Colony of NSW.
