our story
The Unity Hall's story begins around 1846, when Tom and Ann Taylor opened the original Unity Hall Hotel in Balmain East — named for the spirit of solidarity that defined the working waterfront. When Tom died, Ann held the licence in her own name. In an era when women rarely ran businesses independently, she managed one of the most respected pubs on the Balmain peninsula for decades. That original building still stands at 51 Darling Street, Balmain East, now known as the Oddfellows Hall.
In February 1875, Ann Taylor transferred her licence to a new address: the corner of Darling and Beattie Streets, directly opposite Unity Square. The New Unity Hall Hotel opened at 292 Darling Street. More than 150 years later, the restaurant on the first floor now carries her name — Ann's — as an acknowledgement of the woman who brought The Unity Hall to this address and kept it there.
In 1877, Tooth & Co. — Sydney's great brewing dynasty — acquired the leasehold, a tenure they would hold for 113 years. In 1886, the builder William Henry Cavill completed the Jubilee Arcade and Hall next door at 294 Darling Street, stamping his initials into the parapet — WH.1886 — where they remain today.
That hall became historic on 4 April 1891, when the men of the Labour Electoral League climbed the stairs at 294 Darling Street and formally constituted themselves as the Australian Labor Party — one of the oldest labour parties in the world, born in a Balmain pub. The building was renamed the Balmain Trades and Labour Hall. It is now known as The Workers.
After the First World War, Tooth & Co. commissioned architects Copeman and Lemont to remodel the hotel facade, transforming the original Victorian pub into the grand interwar building that stands today. In 1942, R.H. Honeybrook took the licence and held it for twenty-three years — the longest single tenure in the hotel's history.
Through the second half of the twentieth century, Balmain changed considerably. The wharves slowed, the factories closed, and a new wave of residents arrived. The Unity Hall did not reinvent itself. It remained a corner pub — consistent, unpretentious, and genuinely local. In 1990, after 113 years, Tooth & Co. sold the building to Florence Hardman, who had held the licence since 1980. The following year, on the centenary of the Labor Party's founding, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam unveiled a commemorative plaque outside 294 Darling Street.
On 31 January 2020, the Roddy family and friends took ownership. In 2025 and 2026, the hotel underwent its most significant renovation in living memory: The Unity Bar renewed on the ground floor, Ann's Restaurant opening on the first floor, and The Workers — the hall where the Labor Party was founded — restored and reopened.
