The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

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Throw like a girl

Mary Spear and Joy Partridge fielding (England), Betty Snowball wicket keeping, and Hazel Pritchard (NSW) batting during the English women's cricket team tour, Sydney, 1935, National Library of Australia ([PIC/8725/218 LOC Album 1056/C) To ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘run like…

Armed with such terrible weapons

Plate VI, Cambridge, O.P., ‘On Some New Genera and Species of Araneidea’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, XIX (Fourth Series) (1877) Today Sydney-siders take for granted that our local spiders, in particular the Sydney funnel-web, are dangerous and to be…

James Waugh's Stranger's Guide to Sydney

The Stranger's Guide to Sydney,, courtesy Mitchell Library, State LIbrary of NSW (DSM/981.1/W) We've all used a tourist guide when we've visited a new city. They can help us orientate ourselves, to find the landmarks we want to see, and understand…

Fifty years of Kaldor Public Art Projects

View of Project 32: Jonathan Jones' barrangal dyara (skin and bones), Photo by Peter Greig, courtesy: Kaldor Public Art Projects This year Kaldor Public Art Projects is marking fifty years of challenging and surprising Sydneysiders with large scale, public and interactive…

Grab your partners for the Balmain Polka

Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (M MUSIC FILE/SPA) November is AusMusic Month and so today I thought we should look back at some early Australian popular music and one of the early music composers in Sydney. Graeme Skinner at…