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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…

Shipping hazards

wp-image-17470https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SLNSW-PXC-f10-a709011h.jpgWreck of the 'Edd Lalm' [Edward Lombe] On Middle Head Fort Jackson 1834, by Oswald Walters B Brierly, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW(PXC 284, f10)500323/> Wreck of the 'Edd Lalm' [Edward Lombe] On Middle Head Fort Jackson 1834, by…

Sydney's Lady Footballers

A high kick, The Australasian. 24 September 192, p67 via Trove Last week Australia and New Zealand won their joint bid to host the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup on Friday, prompting us to think across codes about some other legendary…

Order in the Court! The Trial of Two Murderers

John Jenkins 1834, by John Gardiner Austin, National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an5600121) In the mid-eighteenth century, the famous London magazine Punch published a short piece on the ever-increasing popularity of true crime stories: We are a trading community—a commercial people. Murder is,…

Carangarang

Bennelong Point from Dawes Point c1804, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (V1/1810/1) Today is the start of National Reconciliation Week, so I thought we’d take a look at someone who was part of Sydney’s early history: Carangarang. Now I must confess…

The Explorer's stump

Explorers Tree, Katoomba c1890, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 1031, 25) On the southern side of the Great Western Highway just west of Katoomba is a colonial relic known as the Explorers' Tree. But you would be forgiven…

Australia's first serial killer

Frank Butler, alias Frank Harwood, alias Frank Ash, Darlinghurst Gaol Photographic Description Book 4 May 1897, Pic: State Archives & Records New South Wales (2138_a006_a00603_6061000098r) This week on 2SER Breakfast, Tess talked to Dr Rachel Franks about the 'al-fresco murderer' Frank…

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…

The Bogle-Chandler mystery

The Canberra Times, 10 May 1963, p3 via Trove This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest historian Minna Muhlen-Schulte talked to breakfast host Tess Connery about a suburban mystery that has intrigued Sydneysiders since 1963. Listen to Minna and Tess…

The Shaftesbury Reformatory in Vaucluse

Shaftesbury, Vaucluse c1925 by EG Shaw, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (a7806 Online, 2) This week on 2SER Breakfast, Nicole Cama talked to Tess Connery about the Shaftesbury Reformatory on New South Head Road in Vaucluse that…