The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Search the blogs

The Stolen Girls

Five unnamed women who were working as domestic servants in Sydney under the auspices of the 'Aborigines Protection Department', Sydney Mail 24 May 1922, p23 via Trove Walking around Sydney’s wealthy suburbs it is easy to be seduced by beautiful heritage…

The Satyr and Five Bells

Life's Tragedy: announcement of Joe Lynch's death in Smith's Weekly, 21 May 1927, via Trove Today on 2SER Breakfast, historian Minna Muhlen-Schulte and Tess talked about the story behind Kenneth Slessor's moving and influential poem, Five Bells.  Listen to the…

Leigh Straw, Lillian Armfield

Leigh Straw, Lillian Armfield: How Australia’s First Female Detective Took on Tilly Devine and the Razor Gangs and Changed the Face of the Force Hachette Australia, 306 pp., ISBN: 9780733638107, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Leigh Straw, the author of The Worst Woman in Sydney: The…

Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties - exhibition review

Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties, which has just opened at the Museum of Sydney, is an exploration of crime in a decade that heralded the brave new world that emerged from the devastation of World War I. Curated by the…