It’s that time of the year again where everybody is talking about the Melbourne Cup - 'the race that stops the nation' - but what about Sydney’s connection with horse racing? The Dictionary of Sydney website reveals a few surprising facts: The first official horse race in Sydney was run in Hyde Park in 1810, two weeks after the park was formally created by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. It was a three-day event, with a silver cup valued at 50 guineas as the prize and an extra 50 guineas up for grabs for the winners. At the top of Market Street a grandstand was put up near the winning post and the course ran in a clockwise direction toward Macquarie Street, along College Street, around Liverpool Street and returning across Elizabeth Street to the winning post. It’s a little difficult to imagine Hyde Park as we now know it now with its trees, pathways, the Archibald Fountain and the ANZAC Memorial, once being a racecourse! It didn’t last very long though, races were held until 1821 when Governor Thomas Brisbane placed a ban on official racing. Venture south west into the suburb of Canterbury and you might have noticed there’s a racecourse. It turns out horse racing has been popular in Canterbury as early as the 1840s. A man called Cornelius Prout declared a part of his property open for use as a racecourse. Prout was a fairly enterprising individual - he also operated a punt across the Cooks River - much to the annoyance of his neighbours who were forced to pay a toll on a bridge he constructed across the river. Local publicans would organise race meetings to entertain their patrons frequently using their own horses for the races. In 1878, 3,000 people gathered for the races in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday with many of the people walking from Ashfield train station to the course. In 1884, the place received a makeover and Canterbury Park Race Club was established with a recreation park, racetracks and a grandstand built. It might surprise some that there was a zoo on the racecourse with kangaroos, wallabies, emus, kookaburras and other native Australian animals and operated up until the World War I. During the World War II the course was taken over by the Australian Army and used for various purposes much to the annoyance of racegoers. Canterbury Park Racecourse continued to flourish up to the 1990s, however, it ceased to be used for training in 1998. It may not be the horse racing hub it used to be but next time you go past you’ll now know how it all started! You can read more about the history of horseracing in Sydney in Richard Waterhouse's article on Culture and Customs for the Dictionary and Lesley Muir and Brian Madden's article Canterbury Park Racecourse from 2013. --- Many thanks to Nicole Cama for today's post and radio spot. If you missed our weekly Dictionary of Sydney segment on 2SER Breakfast, you can catch up here.

If you grew up beside a tidal river in Sydney, chances are you have heard local stories of shark attacks. Some of these have been documented in a new article by Sharyn Cullis as part of our Georges River Project, which we proudly launched last Thursday evening. The danger of sharks has never been great. The statistical record of shark attacks in NSW from 1791-2009 reveals that before 1974, people were far more likely to be the fatal victim of a shark attack than since and the danger has been greater in estuaries (tidal rivers and their mouths) like the lower George River and Botany Bay. While shark attacks were recorded in Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River from 1791 onwards, the first attack for the Botany Bay/Georges River system was recorded in January 1906. This does not mean sharks were not present in earlier days: far fewer swimmers were widespread in the Georges River, confined instead to areas like the celebrated Brighton Baths in Botany Bay, established in the 1880s. A series of attacks - both fatal and serious maullings - were reported in local papers in the 1930s and 1940s. Summer was particularly dangerous. Newspapers reported these shark attacks in the Georges River and framed the events in terms of innocent swimmers, marauding monsters and brave rescuers. Our article gives details of several locally "famous" attacks, including Beryl Morrin, a 13 year old who lost both arms as a result of a shark attack on New Year's Eve in 1934. Beryl was not expected to live but mirraculously did so. She went on to become a local legend, showing pluck and resilience after such a serious setback, riding bikes and swimming on regardless. We have a photograph of plucky Beryl recuperating at Canterbury Hospital. One trend that wasn't regularly reported is the number of people who were attacked outside of shark nets. Netting of river beaches and favourite swimming spots was a practical protection that many ignored to their own peril. There have been no recent fatal human shark attacks in the Georges River, yet studies confirm that sharks still move up as far as Liverpool Weir, 45 kilometres from the sea. Sharks live on in the river and in our collective imagination. Stories today are shared in online chat forums by kayakers, wake-boarders and people who fish the river. One fisherman in 2009 boasted of catching a bull shark in shallow water at a popular prawning spot on the Georges River. Characteristically, catching prawns requires standing in the in shallows with hand nets, on nights in the dark period of the moon cycle, so the fisherman issued this sinister warning: 'It's only a matter of time'. You can hear Lisa’s segment with Mitch on 2SER Breakfast this morning here and read more about our Georges River Project on the Dictionary here. Don’t forget to listen in next Wednesday morning for more Sydney history at 8:20am, 107.3

Tomorrow is a significant birthday for one of Sydney’s bridges. The Gladesville Bridge which spans the Parramatta River is turning 50 years old! The structure was officially opened to the public on 2 October 1964 by Her Royal Highness Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent. The Gladesville Bridge was one of 13 bridges built by the Department of Main Roads during the 1960s, but it is certainly the most spectacular. Other concrete bridges included the Fig Tree Bridge (1963) over the Lane Cove River at Hunters Hill, the Captain Cook Bridge (1965) over the Georges River, and the Roseville Bridge (1966) over Middle Harbour. The Gladesville Bridge replaced an earlier two-lane multi-span lattice iron bridge that had been built in 1881. The first Gladesville Bridge opened up road transport to the city. It remained the only roadway crossing of the Parramatta River to take road transport into the city until the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932. A horse-drawn bus service started up, offering an alternative to ferry transport. Then in 1910 the tramline was extended through to Gladesville and eventually to Ryde. This reliable transport along the Great North Road, later Victoria Road, encouraged suburban residential subdivision. By the 1950s the two-lane Gladesville Bridge had become a bottle-neck and a major congestion point on Sydney’s roads, particularly in peak hour traffic. The new Gladesville Bridge was an engineering marvel and it claimed two international honours. It was the first large bridge in the world to be designed by computer. The enterprising design was by consulting engineers G Maunsell and Partners of London. At the time of construction, the Gladesville Bridge was the world’s longest concrete arch span, with a clear span of 1,000 feet or 305 metres. The bridge held this honour for 16 years. The arch consists of four concrete-box arches constructed independently and then stressed laterally together. This shares equally the loads from the deck structure above. The placement of each of the concrete-boxes was a slow, precise business. The completed Gladesville Bridge weighs 78,000 tons, almost double the weight of steel in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Like the Sydney Harbour Bridge before it, the emergence of the span across the Parramatta River captured the imagination of Sydneysiders. Artists sketched the massive structure and sightseers snapped souvenir photographs. A public relations film was commissioned by the DMR to share with the general public the massive engineering enterprise. Each aspect of the construction is narrated in layman’s terms, accompanied by a cocktail lounge music score - you can view the clip here. It is a real retro piece that has been digitised by Australian Screen as part of our audiovisual heritage and the full 30 minute film can be viewed on the Roads and Maritime Gladesville Bridge 50th anniversary page. The Gladesville Bridge connected Gladesville and Drummoyne and was envisaged to form part of the North Western Freeway that would connect the city to Newcastle through Glebe, Annandale, Lane Cove and then connect up with the freeway at Wahroonga. Community protests led the Wran government to abandon the project in 1977. The Bridge’s anniversary is being marked by the unveiling of an Engineering Heritage International Marker. Roads and Maritime have also digitised photographs, programs, oral histories and films associated with the bridge. Happy 50th birthday Gladesville Bridge! References Department of Main Roads, The Roadmakers: A history of main roads in New South Wales, DMR NSW, 1976 Margaret Farlow and Angela Phippen, ‘Gladesville’, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/gladesville  Don Fraser (ed), Sydney: From Settlement to City – an engineering history of Sydney, Engineers Australia Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1989 Roads and Maritime, ‘50 year anniversary of Gladesville Bridge’ website --- If you missed Lisa’s segment with Mitch on 2SER Breakfast this morning you can catch up on the podcast via their website. Don’t forget to listen in next Wednesday morning for more Sydney history brought to you by the Dictionary and 2SER at 8:20am, 107.3  

Cocky Bennett was a remarkably long-lived cockatoo who, after sailing the South Seas, became a fixture at the Sea Breeze Hotel at Tom Ugly's Point in Blakehurst. This is one of the intriguing stories uncovered by the Dictionary in their recent Georges River project. Now sulphur-crested cockatoos have long lives, sometimes up to 80 years. But in Sydney, Cocky Bennett smashed all these records. He was reputed to be 119 years old when he finally died. So his life spanned the eighteenth, nineteenth and part of the twentieth centuries. Cocky spent his first 78 years travelling the world with Captain Ellis, his owner, who plied his ship in the South Sea Islands' trade. The parrot's confinement, and the Captain's loneliness, could account for the bird's talkativeness and his contact with other members of the crew, less literate than his owner, probably coarsened his vocabulary. He was an apt learner and a natural chatterbox. Captain Ellis died and Cocky was bequeathed to publicans Joseph and Sarah Bowden. The bird moved to Melbourne but came back to Sydney in 1889 with Sarah after her husband's death. She married Charles Bennett, another publican, and they moved in to Tom Ugly's Point where Charles became the publican of the Sea Breeze Hotel. Before motor traffic and modern bridges changed the scene, the Sea Breeze Hotel enjoyed great popularity as it was a convenient place to wait for the steam punt across the Georges River at Tom Ugly's Point and it had an excellent reputation for its cuisine, especially the seafood. When Charles died in September 1898, Sarah continued as licensee until she retired in 1915. Cocky lived in the hotel and for many years he ruled as 'Cock of the Bar'. He was extremely talkative and popular and known to many thousands of residents and visitors far and wide who became acquainted with his colourful character. Cocky had a cage on the hotel's front verandah where he could watch the passing parade, greeting old friends in his raucous and inimitable style. His repertoire included phrases appropriate to a public house like 'one at a time, gentlemen, please'. As he got older, Cocky started to lose his feathers. An oft-repeated saying quoted by his amused admirers was 'If I had another b…y feather I'd fly!' This usually came out of his mouth after a patron had given him a sip of beer. Attached to the cage was a collection box to raise funds for St George Hospital and so generous was the response that three beds were endowed to the hospital. Each bed bears a plaque acknowledging the feathered collector. So popular was Cocky Bennett that on his supposed birthday, the 1st September, thousands of cards flooded in to the hotel from his admirers. When Sarah Bennett left the Sea Breeze Hotel in 1915 she presented the bird to her nephew, Murdock Alexander Wagschall, then licensee of the Woolpack Hotel, George Street, Canterbury, where Cocky was installed in the bar. When Cocky died in 1916, at the grand old age of 119 years, his passing caused much lamentation. The Sydney Morning Herald printed his obituary on Saturday 27th May 1916 in which they called him 'The Venerable Cockatoo'. He maintained his 'patter' till the end. Wagschall announced his intention to have the famous old bird stuffed and mounted by Tost and Rohu, then well-known taxidermists. The granddaughter of Mr Wagschall donated the stuffed Cocky Bennett to Kogarah Historical Society, where he remains on exhibition at the Carss Cottage museum. This is just one of the remarkable stories we have uncovered as part of the Georges River Project. Thanks to Kogarah Historical Society for their research on Cocky Bennett, and thanks to the Department of Environment and Heritage for the Your Community Heritage grant that supported the Georges River project. Eighteen new stories on or around the Georges River have just been uploaded to the Dictionary and we'll explore a few more over the coming weeks. You can hear Lisa's segment with Mitch on 2SER Breakfast this morning here and read more about Cocky on the Dictionary here. Don't forget to listen in next Wednesday morning for more Sydney history at 8:20am, 107.3

HRH Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh 1867-8. From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales a4157018 / P1/18, Mitchell Library

Last week we talked about the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the Australian Museum and Henry Parkes' mongoose. It was quite an eventful tour for Prince Alfred, who was the second son of Queen Victoria. His visit to Sydney was part of a world tour on his steam frigate HMS Galatea and marked the first visit of British royalty to our shores. In the Australian colonies he visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane, as well as coming twice to Sydney. He received a warm reception and there were many events hosted in his honour, including an impromptu fight between a snake and a mongoose at the Australian Museum. But it was during his second call into Sydney that things hotted up. This was a time of simmering sectarian tension in the colonies, between Irish Catholics and non-Catholics. On the Prince's visit to Melbourne, there had been a shooting incident between Orange and Catholic factions, as well as a riot at a free public banquet. Despite rumours in Sydney of possible sectarian strife, he agreed to attend a picnic at Clontarf, a popular picnicking spot, on 12 March 1868. The picnic had been organised as a fund raiser for the Sydney Sailors' Home by Sydney barrister and politician William Manning. During the event, an Irishman who had suffered considerable mental illness, Henry James O'Farrell, attempted to assassinate the Prince. Although O'Farrell fired his pistol at close range, the bullet, on striking the prince's back, glanced off the ribs, inflicting only a slight wound. William Vial, a coach-maker from Elizabeth Street who was standing nearby, wrestled the gunman to the ground, preventing further shots from being fired. For valiantly saving the Prince's life, he was presented with the Prince's fob watch (which is now in the collection of the State Library of New South Wales). The perpetrator, Henry O'Farrell, only narrowly escaped lynching by the crowd, and was immediately arrested. The wounded prince was nursed by the newly arrived Lady Superintendent of Sydney Hospital, Lucy Osburn. An assassination attempt on the Prince was a national scandal and wounded colonial pride. We almost killed the Prince! There was an outpouring of prejudice and racism towards Catholics and Irish. The day after the attempted shooting, 20,000 people attended a meeting in Sydney to express outrage at the assassination attempt. By the following week, there were daily 'indignation meetings' everywhere.

O'Farrell in Darlinghurst 1868. By Viscount Francis Charles Needham Newry. Contributed by National Library of Australia nla.pic-an6332101

Anti-Irish sentiment boiled over, even in Parliament: the New South Wales Government, including Henry Parkes, passed the Treason Felony Act on 18 March, making it an offence to refuse to drink to the Queen's health, and tried unsuccessfully to uncover a conspiracy. To atone for the sin of a madman, citizens of New South Wales opened a public subscription fund to build a hospital as a memorial to his safe recovery. The Prince authorised his coat of arms to be used as the crest for the Prince Alfred Hospital (later Royal Prince Alfred Hospital), in Camperdown. Prince Alfred Park, on Cleveland Street, city park and Alfred street at Circular Quay were also named after Prince Alfred. Prince Alfred made a full recovery by the end of March 1868, left for England on the Galatea in early April and arrived on 26 June. And what was O'Farrell's fate? Clemency for O'Farrell was refused, despite the prince's own proposal to refer the sentence on O'Farrell to the Queen. He was convicted of attempted murder, despite his evident mental instability, and hanged on 21 April at Darlinghurst Gaol. Further reading: Assassination attempt on Prince Alfred 1868, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008 'Attempt to assassinate HRH Prince Alfred, at Clontarf', The South Australian Advertiser,  28 Mar 1868, p 2 --- You can listen to the podcast of Lisa's segment on 2SER Breakfast with Mitch Byatt this morning here.

The Modern St Patrick: or, Parkes's 'Man-Goose' at the Museum, Sydney Punch, 22 February 1868, p 95 (courtesy State Library of NSW)

Last year we came across this cartoon from Sydney Punch in 1868 of Henry Parkes titled 'The Modern St Patrick; or, Parkes's "man-goose" at the Museum'. As St Patrick is traditionally credited with the removal of all the snakes from Ireland, we initially assumed that casting the anti-Catholic, anti-Irish Parkes in that role referred to him driving out some kind of metaphorical political or religious snakes from New South Wales (especially given his government's recent unpopular declaration that St Patrick's Day would not be proclaimed as a public holiday), and that the "man-goose" reference was probably a rude one to some connected controversy involving the Australian Museum's curator and snake-expert Gerard Krefft and the theories of Charles Darwin which he was disseminating in the 1860s. In the way of political cartoons, the drawing may indeed be referring to public perceptions of politicians, scientists, religion and Darwin's theories amongst other things, and if anybody can provide any further information into that, we'd be very grateful, but the main inspiration for the drawing was far less theoretical. During Prince Albert's visit to Sydney in 1868, he made a formal visit to the Australian Museum at 3 pm on Friday, 14th February (well before the assassination attempt on 12 March). He was accompanied by the Earl of Belmore, Mr Haig & Mr Brierley and was received there by Henry Parkes, the Colonial Secretary, Gerard Krefft, the Curator of the Museum, Dr Cox & Dr Bennett, and E Deas Thomson who arrived a bit late.  There were, in the words of the Sydney Morning Herald the next day, "but few visitors in the museum at the time, and these had the good taste to leave the Prince and party to themselves; consequently his Royal Highness was enabled to spend a quiet hour looking through the building". After the Prince and this party had wandered around the museum for a while, examining some of the highlights of the collection and asking questions about Australian animals, Krefft produced a case with live snakes, took one out and placed it on the floor. Krefft then brought out a tame 'Timor mongoose', which walked around the snake, sniffing it, but left it alone. At this point, Parkes, the Colonial Secretary, produced from a bag he had brought with him a 'Ceylon mangouste', or mongoose, which, after initially trying to escape the room (the bag was, again according to the Herald "a mode of locomotion to which it was not accustomed") fought with and killed the snake. Parkes & Krefft had obviously planned the demonstration and deemed it to be a completely appropriate entertainment  on the occasion, but  it's difficult to imagine an Australian prime minister or New South Wales premier today carrying round a bag containing a mongoose when accompanying a Royal Visitor on a formal visit of one of Sydney's major institutions.

Parkes's Ceylon mongoose, Sydney Punch 22 February 1868

The Ceylon mongoose itself was presented to the Prince and went with him, part of a "large and varied collection of colonial birds & animals", when he departed the colony on the Galatea in May 1868.  The mongoose was described as "docile and playful as a kitten". Parkes had a long term affinity with the mongoose family (to the point where the species was referred to subsequently as Mr Parkes's Mongoose). In 1883, he was recommending the gentle natures of the mongoose in parliament when the importation of mongoose was being debated as a possible solution to the rabbit problem. His family kept a pet mongoose at their home in Balmain until at least the 1890s, which was said to have been particularly fond of his wife Lady Parkes. The animal's ability to clear the house of the deadliest of reptiles was undisputed. The same article (Sir Henry Parkes at Home. (1891, January 31). Australian Town and Country Journal 31 January 1891, p31) tells us that "It may not perhaps be generally known that the Premier has a passion for pets, chiefly of the feathered tribe." In the grounds surrounding Hampton Villa, he had a Brazilian macaw, several silver pheasants, English blackbirds  and thrushes, a golden opossum, three ibis, some curlews, a cage of pretty little birds from north Queensland and a kangaroo. Listen to Lisa Murray talking about Parkes and his mongoose on 2SER here!

This week on 2SER Breakfast, we talked about one of our favourite times of the year here at the Dictionary of Sydney. History Week. And it's just two sleeps to go! History Week happens 6-14 September and all around NSW historians, community groups and libraries and museums will be putting on events, talks and displays. The calendar of events is coordinated by the History Council of NSW. Each year there is a theme. This year's theme is 'The Great War' to commemorate the outbreak of World War One - an event that left an indelible impact on our society .

As Richard Waterhouse, the president of the History Council, explains: "Australia's entry into the War took place in a spirit of optimism and intense Imperial loyalty. When the War ended the nation's mood reflected disillusionment and distrust." The cost of war was immense. More than 60,000 soldiers were killed, while many of those who returned suffered seriously from physical and psychological wounds. The conscription debates left Australia bitterly divided along sectarian lines. The financial cost was also great. The optimistic young and free Australia of the federation era was gone.

 Events

There are lots of events happening in History Week. Here are my picks:

• Life Interrupted: Personal Diaries from World War I - a free exhibition up at the State Library of NSW
• The Annual History Lecture on the 9th September 6pm at The Mint - Professor Christina Twomey explores POWs in Post-War Australia

And I'm speaking at a couple of events:

• Bites after Work: Perspectives on WWI  Surry Hills Library, Thursday 11 September, 6.30pm–8pm
•  South Sydney, WWI and the Home Front  Waterloo Library, Saturday 13 September, 2pm–3pm

Finally, the Premier's History Awards is held on the eve of History Week and marks the launch of our week of historical focus. I'm going along to the event and there are some great authors that have been shortlisted, several of whom are also Dictionary of Sydney authors and we highly recommend these books and documentaries to you.

Community History Awards

•   Coast: A History of the New South Wales Edge, by Ian Hoskins (NewSouth) Ian's also written about Waverton, Kirribilli, Neutral Bay, Sydney Harbour as cultural landscape, the islands of Sydney Harbour for the Dictionary.

•   Sydney Mechanic School of Arts: A History, by  Garry Wotherspoon (Sydney Mechanic School of Arts)  Garry is a prolific writer for the Dictionary. He has written over 30 articles for the Dictionary, on everything from the roads to coffee to drag and cross dressing.

Multi-media prize

•  Public Intimacies: The 1974 Royal Commission on Human Relationships, Michelle Arrow, Catherine Freyne and Timothy Nicastri (ABC Radio National Hindsight). Catherine Freyne has written some great biographies on Violet McKenzie and Norman Selfe, and also about the Sydney Technical College and the School of Arts Movement for the Dictionary.

A full list of the shortlisted authors is on the State Library's website. Congratulations to all the short-listed authors For more on community history awards, go here. For more on multi-media prize, go here If you missed this morning's podcast about History Week on 2SER Breakfast, you can catch up here.

This morning on 2SER, Lisa & Mitch talked about Arthur Phillip, the British naval officer who led the First Fleet and became the first governor of New South Wales as this Sunday, the 31st August, marks 200 years since his death. His name probably rings a bell for most Sydneysiders - especially if you went to school in Australia. But how much do you really know about him?  Here are some fast facts about Governor Phillip:

• • He was born in London on 11 Oct 1738
• HMS Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet, which transported convicts and their guards from England to the new colony of Botany Bay in the late 1780s. The Sirius was commanded by Captain John Hunter and carried Arthur Phillip, the governor of the colony. The Sirius was wrecked off Norfolk Island in 1790. Its anchor and cannon were retrieved and were placed in Macquarie Place down near Circular Quay in 1907.
• Arthur Phillip governed the penal colony of NSW for its first five difficult years. He ruled the colony and its 1500 inhabitants with absolute power and responsibility for its survival.
• He laid the foundation for the first Government House only three months after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove.
• the site of Sydney's first Government House is where the Museum of Sydney now stands. One of the most significant items in the Museum of Sydney collection is an inscribed copper Foundation Plate that was laid on 15 May 1788 by Governor Arthur Phillip during the construction of Australia’s first Government House. Remarkably the plate was discovered between two sandstone foundation blocks by a telegraph line worker in 1899.
• Governor Phillip tried to obtain information about the Aboriginal people, their country, life and language by abducting men. Arabanoo was the first, but he died of small pox. Bennelong and Colebee were next. Bennelong travelled to England and back, and taught the settlers much about Aboriginal language and culture. Colebee became familiar with the Europeans but disappeared after 1806.

Arthur Phillip named many bays and suburbs around Sydney.  Here are just a few:

• Field of Mars (around Ryde and Eastwood)
• Looking Glass Bay - after giving a looking glass (mirror) to an Aboriginal man they met there in the bay, whilst exploring the Parramatta River
• Manly - The first official dispatch in 1788 from Arthur Phillip, governor of the newly founded imperial outpost in New South Wales, noted the 'confidence and manly behaviour' of the Aboriginal people encountered on the northern side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Thus Manly derived its name.
• Neutral Bay - Neutral Bay was named by Governor Phillip, when he decreed in 1789 that all non-British 'neutral' ships visiting Port Jackson were to anchor there.

But wait - there's more! On 5 September the Museum of Sydney is hosting a full day symposium about the life and times of Governor Arthur Phillip. You can hear from some of Australia’s most significant scholars of colonial history, including Dictionary of Sydney board member and author Grace Karskens, on Phillip and the Eora. More info about this and other events marking the bicentenary here: http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/arthur-phillip-bicentenary If you missed this morning's broadcast, you can still listen to the podcast here: http://www.2ser.com/dos/item/10742-dictionary-of-sydney-gov-arthur-phillip

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of Sydney's best-loved icons. But we can take for granted the enormous engineering feat that created the bridge. I was reminded of this yesterday when our colleagues at State Records NSW tweeted an 'on this day' fact:  On this day - 19 August - in 1930 the two halves of the Sydney Harbour Bridge were joined at 10pm. Lawrence Ennis, the director of construction for Dorman Long, the fabricators, recalled there was a gale where there was just 1m between the two arches. It looked like the two arches were swinging wildly, but there only moved about 3 inches (7.6 cm). He went on to describe how the arches came together:

The first closure was effected at 4.15 pm in the afternoon of the 19th August 1930, but there was a subsequently slight opening with the contraction in the cool of the evening. Slacking of the cables was continued without intermission, and the final closure was made at 10pm the same day. Next morning the Union Jack was flown from the jib of one creeper crane, and the Australian Ensign from the other, to signify to the City that the arch had successfully closed. We felt that the arch had become not only a link between the two shores of a beautiful Harbour, but a further bond of Empire. Quoted in Peter Spearritt, The Sydney Harbour Bridge: A Life, UNSW Press, 2007, p 65

The two half arches were gradually fabricated from steel in workshops before being loaded onto barges and towed into position. The bits of the arches were then lifted up by two 580 tonne electrically operated creeper cranes. As the part-arches reached over the harbour, cables were continually re-tensioned to allow for the increasing weight of the structure they were holding, until the arches met. Steel decking was then hung from the arches over the next nine months. State Records have two terrific photos of the joining of the bridge here and here. The progress of building the harbour bridge was something few Sydneysiders could ignore. The technical details of how it was being built was explained and illustrated in all the newspapers and magazines of the day.  In fact, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is probably one of the most documented pieces of public infrastructure built in Sydney in the twentieth century.  State Records has about 2,000 photographs related to the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge digitised and catalogued. They have created a photo montage of the building of the bridge and they also have a stunning selection of photographs on flickr. The Reverend Frank Cash, rector of Christ Church Lavender Bay, North Sydney, was a keen photographer and in the perfect position to document the bridge. He took hundreds of photographs and self-published Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1930. And I'm sure you've got a photograph of the bridge somewhere in your family albums too. Bridge facts:

• The arch spans 503m
• The top of the arch is 134m above sea level
• Clearance for shipping 49 metres
• Height of the pylons 89 metres about mean sea level
• number of rivets  approx 6,000,000
• weight of the arch 39,000 tonnes

Lisa and Mitch talk all things Sydney each Wednesday morning  from the Dictionary of Sydney on 2SER Breakfast, 107.3 at 8:20am. You can catch up on this morning's segment here.

The Dictionary is pleased to welcome Dr Naomi Parry to our small team. Naomi is a graduate of the University of Tasmania, Macquarie University and University of New South Wales, where she completed her PhD on black and white children in welfare in NSW and Tasmania 1880-1940. She has lectured at Macquarie University, University of New South Wales, University of Tasmania and the University of Western Sydney.  Naomi has a background in cultural development, heritage and public history including running Eskbank House and Museum for Lithgow City Council. Significantly, for the past three years Naomi has worked on a national digital history project to locate records and create histories of children's homes for Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants called the Find and Connect web resource.

Naomi brings with her a wealth of historical research, strong editorial skills and highly sought after digital publishing experience. Naomi's role will be to work on entries that have been waiting in our system while we have been attending to multiple project deadlines, an upgrade of the Heurist system that runs the Dictionary, an office move and all the associated IT challenges that relocating to new, more independent, premises involves. It's been a busy six months for the Dictionary. We are looking forward to having Naomi on board and bringing more great Sydney history to you soon.