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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
Multimedia
Horse-drawn tram at Newtown Station 1894

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Horse-drawn tram at Newtown Station 1894

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State Archives & Records New South Wales

[17420_a014_a0140001134]

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Culture and customs Trams

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Horses Horses as transport Railway stations Trams

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Newtown

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Newtown Bridge

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State Archives & Records New South Wales

Statutory body established by the State Records Act 1998. The Act provides for the creation, management and protection of the records of public offices of the State and for public access to those records.

Based at Kingswood, State Archives and Records NSW manage and provide access to the New South Wales State archives collection, a unique and irreplaceable part of Australia's cultural heritage dating back to 1788.

Culture and customs

Sydney's pre-industrial culture was comprehensive and public, and most European inhabitants were players, performers or spectators. After 1850, distinct but overlapping cultures emerged, imported and adapted from Europe and America. New forms of cultural transmission after World War I enabled the elaboration of new cultures based on ethnicity, age and gender, which have combined to produce Sydney's cultural diversity.

Trams

Trams had a rocky start in Sydney, with the first tracks laid upside down, causing many accidents and leading to their removal. The International Exhibition of 1879 brought trams back to Sydney and a network was built that became one of the world's largest at its greatest extent in 1922. Economic and social changes after World War II led to the dismantling of the network, with the last tram running in 1961.

Horses as transport

Railway stations

Trams

Horses

Newtown

Inner-west suburb which developed along the main road south from Sydney. It became a prosperous shopping district in the late 19th century, and later a working-class and migrant suburb, now gentrified.

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Newtown Bridge

Bridge over the railway line adjacent to Newtown station. Often regarded as Newtown's civic and cultural heart. It was a popular open-air meeting site in the first half of the twentieth century and attracted political rallies, soapbox speakers and religious preachers.

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