Wallumedegal country until the Europeans came, East Ryde was part of the Field of Mars common from 1804, until it was resumed in 1874 and sold in the 1880s. A tramline and a railway link, long promised, were never built, and the area remained undeveloped until the 1950s building boom when a large subdivision increased the population enough to warrant a new school in 1961. Further residential development has made East Ryde a popular suburb.
