Wooloorigang / Cremorne Point and Mosman Bay were both once Cammeraygal territory named Wul-warra-Jeung before European settlement in Sydney Cove to their south.

Careening Point commemorates HMS Sirius, a ship from the First Fleet of 1788, which was refurbished, pushed upstream in Mosman Bay.

[3] In January 1822 Scot James Robertson, a watch maker, arrived on the Providence with wife and six children to become Supervisor of Governor Brisbane's astronomical instruments and clocks at his observatory in the Parramatta Domain.

Brisbane was named "founder" of Australian science by Sir William Herschel, himself a noted astronomer and botanist who spent some time in South Africa.

Robertson was granted a large amount of land on the Upper Hunter River and later in 1823 a further 35 hectares (86 acres) of Cremorne headland, where he built a Georgian house with fine cedar joinery.

He expanded the family's land holdings in the lower North Shore, including the 1853 purchase of the Cremorne peninsula.

The last of the family's holdings in the lower North Shore area were resumed in the early 1920s for the construction of the Harbour Bridge and associated roadways.

Anyone missing the last boat was compelled to remain behind overnight, as the bush was too thick to penetrate and few cared to swim back.

[3] In 1891 and 1893 Sydney Harbour Collieries sank exploratory bores and discovered coal ten feet thick.

[3] In 1905 a Harbour Foreshores Vigilance Committee formed and Cremorne Reserve was proclaimed later that year, with North Sydney Council as trustee.

[3] The area attracted various architects including J. Burcham Clamp: his house The Laurels (1907, extended 1920) is a striking Arts & Crafts example.

Cremorne Point was included as a stop by privately operated ferry services to Mosman in the 1850s, however, these were discontinued due to lack of local residents.

Old Cremorne Wharf on the east side of the point was included in regular services to Mosman and Neutral Bay that recommenced in 1872.

[8] The foreshore path from Neutral Bay to Cremorne Point wharf dates to 1830 when the reserve was retained by the Crown.