It is located 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the St George area.

[4] Evidence of Aboriginal occupation of the land now known as Oatley exists in the form of numerous shell middens and rock shelters near the shore of Georges River.

Not finding enough freshwater, around Botany Bay and its two 'arms', the colonists moved on to Port Jackson, where the settlement of Sydney began six days later.

[6] This suburb's name can be traced to James Oatley Snr, a convict clockmaker, who was transported to Botany Bay for life in 1814.

[14][15][16] Almost all of Oatley's streets to the east of the railway line, bear Victorian-era first names corresponding to members of the Griffiths family.

On 17 August 1898, Oatley was the site of a pursuit and gun battle involving a party of police and George Peisley (or Peasley), a fugitive cattle and horse thief, who was using a sandstone cave on the eastern side of Gungah Bay as his hide out.

[20] Peisley escaped capture,[21] but was arrested at Arncliffe on the following day[22] and eventually sentenced to four years hard labour.

[23] Spurred by invasion fears around the time of the Russo-Japanese War, in 1905, land around Neverfail Bay near the Como railway bridge was reserved for military purposes,[18] but nothing was built there.

The hands on the clock were set at 15 minutes after 10 - the precise time the first meeting of the Oatley Bowls Club was opened.

[38] The Oatley campus of Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education opened in 1981 on the site of the former Judd's Brick Works and quarry.

[47] There was a smaller oyster farming site at the head of Jewfish Bay just outside the eastern boundary of Oatley Park.

For many years, oysters were shipped to market in hessian sacks—each sack containing around 100 dozen oysters—from Oatley railway station, by electric rail parcel vans.

[53]The local oyster farming industry survived opposition from Georges River Oyster Lease Protest Association (GROLPA),[54][44] Kogarah Council[55][56] and—to a lesser extent—Hurstville Council,[57] reduced freshwater flows from the Woronora River,[58][43] impacts of Tributyltin (TBT) anti-fouling compound for boats, invasive wild Pacific Oysters, increasing urbanisation, river silting, and increasing water turbidity and pollution.

[59][44] After a major gastroenteritis event that was traced to Georges River oysters, in 1978, harvesting was suspended after heavy rain events, water quality tested regularly, and oysters were subjected to 36 to 48-hours of filtration and ultra-violet exposure[52][18][60][61][62] in a small cooperative facility at Neverfail Bay.

[44] In 1992, there was a catastrophic outbreak of 'winter mortality', a poorly-understood seasonal disease caused by a protozoan parasite, Mikiocytos roughleyi.

The oyster farmers at Oatley had limited the impact of winter mortality, by moving their oysters on trays, to more sheltered waters with lower salinity, such as near the Woronora River confluence and Bonnet Bay, and then placing the trays on racks higher in the intertidal zone.

[18][70] By 2023, the last operating oyster farmer at Woolooware Bay had been forced to close,[74] and the future of that last oyster-growing site in the Georges River estuary was uncertain.

[77] Two tall brick chimneys were demolished in June 1973, along with the brick-making plant and kilns,[78] and the company went into voluntary liquidation.

[80] Fifteen brick cottages were built along the western side of Judd Street, just across the boundary between Mortdale and Oatley, to rent to workers at the brickworks; some still survive.

A factory owned by Albert Page, which once existed on the south-eastern corner of Rosa Street and Hurstville Road, manufactured vehicle number plates from 1935 to the 1950s.

Surelli Furniture Pty Ltd operated a factory on the western side of Ada Street near the junction with Hurstville Road, until the late 1980s.

A third group of shops at the intersection of Baker Street and Lansdowne Parade—in the locality of Jewfish Point—is now mainly converted to non-retail businesses.

The first station platform was located at the western end of Frederick Street and extended north to opposite what is now the Oatley Hotel car park.

[93] The electrification of the passenger network began in 1926[95] with the first suburban electric services running between Sydney's Central Station and Oatley.

[citation needed] In addition, there is a swimming area, a playground featuring an old steamroller, lookouts, barbecues, a soccer/cricket oval, and a "castle".

[100] The man-made wetlands of Lime Kiln Bay Reserve which adjoin Oatley Park provide refuge for bird species such as chestnut teal, Pacific black ducks, dusky moorhens and purple swamphens.

[101] Native mammals which are uncommon in the region can still be found within the park, including the short-beaked echidna and the swamp wallaby.

][104] Water sports and recreation are a way of life in the peninsula suburb of Oatley whose eastern, southern and western boundaries are formed by the Georges River and its bays.