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Memory, Love and Gothic Horror

Headstones in Devonshire Street Cemetery c1901 by Ethel Foster, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON146/386) It's History Week and this year's theme is 'Memory and Landscapes'. And there is no better way to think about memory and landscapes than…

Devonshire Street Cemetery

Devonshire Street cemetery prior to demolition, showing the headstone of Joseph Leburn c1905, by Ethel Foster, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 146/no 401) Last night Lisa gave the Annual History Lecture for History Week 2018, and in keeping…

Waverley Cemetery’s burlesque star

Maggie Oliver in costume c1885, courtesy State Library of South Australia (PRG 280/1/18/291) Waverley Cemetery is the resting place of more than 100,000 people, including many well known personalities from our past like writers Dorothea Mackellar and Henry Lawson, publisher JF…

Sydney's Lost Cemeteries

We're very excited here at Dictionary HQ this week as Dr Lisa Murray (our former chair, Dictionary contributor, City of Sydney Historian, renowned taphophile and absolute all-round legend) has just launched her book Sydney Cemeteries: A Field Guide (published by NewSouth…

The Bubonic Plague in Sydney

wp-image-12965https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Plague_Proclamation_SRNSW_CGS4917_SR_Doc_31-1.jpgPlague Proclamation poster, 1 February 1905 Source: State Records NSW (CGS 4917, [SR Document 31])357528/> Plague Proclamation poster, 1 February 1905 Source: State Records NSW (CGS 4917, [SR Document 31])GS4917_SR_Doc_31 Have you been struck down by the lurgy this winter?  Lisa's been looking…