The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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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…
The Dugong and the Salamander
Excavation of dugong remains at Sheas Creek 1896 , Courtesy Australian Museum Archives (AMS351/V9817) It’s strange to think about what might be entombed in dirt beneath the pavements we walk on in Sydney. But the discoveries around 1900 of two particular…
Horse Drawn: John Rae and 'The Turning of the First Turf'
John Rae c1884, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML MSS A807) John Rae is, perhaps, my favourite dead white male. On the surface, he’s really rather ordinary. An administrator who was meticulous and ambitious, he was a career public servant.…
The camels at Government House
View of old Government House - Sydney - N.S.W. as it appeared when vacated by Sir George Gipps in 1845, painting by George Edwards Peacock, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML 658) The State Library of New South Wales holds…
Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat: The Ship’s Cat Who Helped Matthew Flinders Map Australia
Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat: The Ship’s Cat Who Helped Matthew Flinders Map Australia by Matthew Flinders, Philippa Sandall and Gillian Dooley, with illustrations by Ad Long and a foreword by Julian Stockwin Adlard Coles (Bloomsbury), 2019, 128 pp., ISBN: 9781472967206, h/bk, AUS$22.49 Trim,…
The Last Snake Man of La Perouse
Dancer Paula Pratt and snake expert George Cann at La Perouse 1947, PIX, 22 February 1947, p8 This week on 2SER Breakfast, Tess talked to Minna Muhlen-Schulte about George Cann, the 'snake man of La Perouse'. Listen to Minna and Tess…
Animals on the Dictionary of Sydney
Felix the Cat toy which was mascot of the Gun Plot Room on the HMAS Brisbane, courtesy Australian War Memorial (REL32980.022) Inspired by yesterday’s wayward wallaby crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, today Nicole thought she’d take a look at some other…