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read details on john busby at the Australian Dictionary of Biography - Online Edition

By 1824 the Tank Stream had become so polluted that Governor Darling engaged an engineer to find an alternative source. John Busby, a Mineral Surveyor, proposed that water be taken from the Lachlan Swamps (now Centennial Park). His plan was to convey water through an underground tunnel or 'bore' to the city centre for distribution at the Colony's racecourse, where Hyde Park is presently situated. The Lachlan Swamps area was a low lying marsh containing a plentiful supply of fresh water. It was part of a sandy region known as the Macquarie Reserve, and covered the areas currently known as Moore Park, the Showgrounds, and the Sydney Sports Stadium. Work commenced in 1827 on what is now the south-eastern corner of Hyde Park and subsequently Sydney's first piped water supply resulted. The project began with convict labour and was not completed until 1837 when Sydney was again in the grip of a prolonged drought. In the 1840's, construction began on the city's first water reticulation pipes, laid from the bore to various parts of the township. This led to the eventual augmentation of the bore with the Botany System in 1859. It continued to serve the city and Woolloomooloo until the Upper Nepean scheme was completed in the 1880's.

robert taylor took exception to the bore traveling over his land  Busby v. Taylor

read more at the sydney water website

Excavated by hand, the bore stretches over a distance of 3.6km beneath the city and varies from 1.2m to 1.5m in width. In places, it is up to 3m high. The tunnel follows an erratic, meandering course, and as recent excavations have shown, several dead-end spurs occur within its length. There are 28 vertical shafts and wells ranging from 6m to 8.4m which were tapped into the bore. When work was completed in 1837, it had the capacity to supply Sydney's population of 20,000 people with up to 1.5 million litres of water per day. Irregularities in the tunnel surface were removed in 1872, when cast segments were introduced to improve the flow. When the bore returned to service in 1872 there was a huge decrease in the amount of pumping provided by the Botany Pumping Station. After this, the water became tainted from various sources, including the tarmac of the new tram ways, and it was consequently abandoned as a viable source of drinking water.