This area was originally known as There and Nowhere, followed by Irish Town, as a large number of Irish people lived in the district. Convict Hugh Kelly arrived in May 1803, married his older widowed mistress Mary Evans and established a licensed inn The Half Way House that became The Bird in the Hand, on the corner of Wrights and Windsor Roads. After Kelly's death in 1884, John Fitzgerald Burns, James Green and George Withers purchased portions of several early land grants which were subdivided into farmlets as part of the Kellyville Estate, thereby giving the suburb its name.