The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
Search the blogs
A story of escape: a terrible true tale or fake news?
Traveller's engraved horn, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (LR 23) One of the most perplexing tales to come out of Norfolk Island in the nineteenth century is the story of Bennett and Balsto. A story that beautifully illustrates both the…
Annie Wyatt, heritage warrior
Membership Card No 1, belonging to Annie Forsyth Wyatt, courtesy of National Trust of Australia (NSW) The National Trust of Australia is celebrating its 75th anniversary this week, so it seemed like a perfect time to talk about the inspiring woman…
Balmain Colliery
Balmain Colliery c1920 by John Henry Harvey, courtesy State Library of VIctoria (H91.300/71) The deepest coal mine ever worked in Australia was on the waterfront in Sydney's inner western suburbs. This week we took a look into the pit of a…
Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club
Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club Allen & Unwin, March 2020, p/bk, ISBN: 9781 76052 963 5, RRP AUD$29.99 Death in the Ladies’ Goddess Club by Julian Leatherdale is set in Sydney in the 1930s and follows Joan Linderman, budding…
They had no Shelf Control: book thieves in colonial Sydney
Photo by Su Westerman, via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) For as long as we have had books, books have had value. Intellectual value, sentimental value and, of course, cash value. Sydneysiders have had access to books since the arrival of the…
Sydney's smallpox epidemic in 1881
'Small-pox! : a treatise' by D. Kinnear Brown. Sydney: J.G. O'Connor, 1881, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (DSM/614.473/B) As we stare down the barrel of an unknown pandemic, we remember that the city has seen quite a few epidemics in…
'The difficulties that beset the paths of working mothers'
Arriving at nursery school, October 1939, courtesy National Library of Australia (nla.ms-ms2852-19-9x) It was International Women's Day on Sunday 8 March, so this week I thought we could reflect on how women have worked together to improve their lives in Sydney. …
Enmore Theatre: Sydney's longest running live entertainment venue
Children running into a school holiday matinee at Enmore Theatre 1951 by Bob Rice, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 005/Item 047) Sometimes you are involved in making history without even realising it, and anyone who has seen something…
Peter Grose: Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile.
Peter Grose, Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile Allen & Unwin, February 2020, p/bk, 248pp, ISBN: 978 1 76063 261 8, RRP: AUD$29.99 Any visitor to Sarah Island…
Remove your dead! The exhumation of the Devonshire Street cemeteries
Headstones in Devonshire Street Cemetery, showing the tramline being constructed to remove them to Bunnerong Cemetery c1901, by Ethel Foster, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 146/373) Recently we have seen the New South Wales State Government resume whole streets…