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'With a love like that': the Beatles hit Sydney

'Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I'm a Beatle', PIX, 29 February 1964, p8-11 I can't quite believe it's been just over 50 years since the Beatles first performed in Sydney but as a new article written by Kim Hanna for the Dictionary records,…

Iris Webber: 'the most violent woman in Sydney'

size-full wp-image-10596 'Sensational Incidents At Holmes Shooting Inquest', Truth in Sydney, 13 May 1945.National Library of Australia [news-article169358891 via Trove] (Truth, 13 May 1945, p16) http://trust.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Iris.jpg300183/> 'Sensational Incidents At Holmes Shooting Inquest', Truth in Sydney, 13 May 1945. National Library…

Sydney as Inspiration for Art and Design

Waratahs in staircase window at St Cloud, Burwood. By Douglass Baglin. Contributed by Private collection. By kind permission of the Baglin estate. There is a great exhibition currently showing at the State Library of NSW called 'Inspiration by Design'. It is…

History Week 2015: War, Nationalism and Identity

Women lay wreaths on the wharf at Woolloomooloo where the WW I troops departed, c1931. By Hood, Ted. From the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, hood_02026 / Home and Away 2026 History Week has been…

Adventures in Stationery

James Ward: Adventures in Stationery, Profile Books, 2015. ISBN 978-1846686-160. RRP $19.99 pp1-280 Review by Neil Radford James Ward: Adventures in Stationery, Profile Books, 2015. ISBN 978-1846686-160. RRP $19.99 pp1-280   James Ward is obsessively enthusiastic about stationery. His favourite place on the…

Lucy Frost, Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas

Lucy Frost, Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2015, ISBN 978-1-76029-026-9, RRP $22.99, pp 1-231 Review by Dr Catie Gilchrist Lucy Frost, Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2015, ISBN…

Randwick Racecourse

Royal Randwick Racecourse 1948. Contributed by City of Sydney Archives, SRC11917 Since it is the start of spring, and the spring racing carnival is getting underway, I thought we should take a look at the history of Randwick Racecourse. Randwick Racecourse is…

Long Bay prison

Entry for Kate Leigh in State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay Photographic Description Book, 1915. Contributed by State Records New South Wales, NRS 2496, No 188, 3/6007 Long Bay prison opened 106 years ago this month and saw some of Sydney’s most…

Sydney's 'pissoirs' and public lavatories

Men's convenience, Taylor Square c1934. Contributed by City of Sydney Archives 02020262, NSCA CRS 538, Cleansing Department photographs, 1929-1939 It’s a thing we all need, take for granted and is perhaps one of the more awkward topics to discuss, but when…

Harriet and Helena Scott

Antheraea Eucalypti 1851. By Scott, Harriet. Contributed by Biodiversity Heritage Library (Plate 1 from 'Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations drawn from the life by Harriet and Helena Scott; with descriptions, general and systematics, by AW Scott', London, 1864) Have you done…