The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
Search the blogs
Sailors, Spies and Sydney Stairs
Looking down the McElhone Stairs from Victoria Street towards Cowper Wharf Roadway, Woolloomooloo 1960, by Geoff Paton, Courtesy of City of Sydney Archives (SRC21844) Surely few stairways in Sydney have seen as much drama as the McElhone Stairs. Constructed in 1904,…
The National Trust
Building and Engineering, 24 November 1947 p40-41 via Trove This week the NSW heritage sector celebrates the good work done across the state. It is the Heritage Festival, and as part of that the National Trust (NSW) hosts an awards function…
Sydney through a novelist's eyes
Ruth Park, pre 1947, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (P1/Park, Ruth) Melbourne claims to be the City of Literature, but this week Sydney is all things literary as we settle into the Sydney Writer's Festival. Listen to the whole…
Sydney’s Tank Stream
wp-image-16081https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SLNSW-XV1-1803-1-DETAIL.jpgThe mouth of the Tank Stream in Sydney Cove c1803, a detail of [Sydney from the western side of the Cove, ca1803], atrributed to GW Evans, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (XV1/c1803/1)400301/> The mouth of the Tank Stream…
Bunting, pickets and harpoons - electioneering Sydney style
Embroidered election banner for Wentworth and Bland, 1843-1849, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (LR 3a) As electioneering reaches a fever pitch ahead of Saturday's polling day, I thought it might be instructive to look back on how electioneering was done…
Temperance and the ‘evils of tight lacing’: Susan Beckett
Diagram of Susan Beckett's Bust and Shoulder Supporter in her application to the United States Patent Office, April 1896 (Patent No: US557945) With International Women’s Day and the All About Women festival in the past week, there have been some great…
International Women's Day
Three members of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps, l-r Violet McKenzie, Pat McInnes, Esme Kura Murrell c1940, courtesy Australian War Memorial P02583.001 As it's International Women's Day this Friday, today I thought it would be good to highlight the lives and…
Shirley Beiger: ‘All that glittered was not gold’
Shirley Beiger on the cover of PIX 28 April 1951 The State Library of NSW have made an enormous amount of historical material available online in recent years. One such resource is the tabloid magazine, PIX , which was published between 1938…
Ah-chew! (Sniffle, Sniffle) - the pneumonic influenza pandemic of 1919
Today on 2SER Breakfast, Lisa and Tess talked about the pneumonic influenza pandemic of 1919 (aka the Spanish flu) - a world-wide pandemic that hit Sydney 100 years ago in February 1919. More people died from the flu around the…
Chinese New Year
Tuesday was the official day of Chinese New Year, a festival that has been celebrated for generations in Sydney, so today I thought we'd look at the long history of Chinese people in Sydney. Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa…