Skip to main content

Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
Subjects
Culture and Customs
Religions and Beliefs

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Religions and Beliefs

Subject

Ardill, George

Devonshire Street Cemetery

Eternity

Foundation of the Salvation Army in Sydney 1882-83

Jews

McGarvie’s list and Aboriginal Dyarubbin

Muslims in Sydney

Religion

Religious Opposition to World War I

Stace, Arthur

The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River

Transcript: Mr Peter Granville-Smith recalls his family singing in the little Union Church Hoxton Park

Church Act 1836

Dyarubbin: Mapping Aboriginal history, culture and stories of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales

Eternity

St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church

Unitarian Church

Annual Pere Receveur Commemoration Mass

Brookvale processione

Burragurra (Devil's Rock)

St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College

Anglican Diocese of Sydney

Australian Coptic Association

Genesian Theatre

House of the Good Shepherd Pitt Street

Salvation Army

Sisters of the Good Samaritan

Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company

Gurangatty

Ardill, George Edward (1847-1945)

Daramulan

Marsden, Samuel

McGarvie, John

Norton, Rosaleen

Stace, Arthur

Waway

Camperdown Cemetery

Hammondville

A Grave and Burning Question - Dr Creed's NSW Cremation Bill 1886

A view of the native burial of Baggara, a native of NSW 20 November 1813

Archdeacon McEncroe c1865

Are You Afraid To Die? Religious tract found during archaeological dig at Hyde Park Barracks

Arthur Stace writing his message, Eternity

Carols by candlelight in Hyde Park, Sydney December 1970

Chinese New Year Twilight Parade 1 February 2009

Chinese honor ancient gods, Glebe 1955

Description of the execution of Thomas Barrett in Arthur Bowes Smyth's journal, 27 February 1788

Dorumbolooa, Sackville Reach June 2018

Dyarubbin at Dorumbolooa, where the river turns spectacularly into Kent Reach June 2020

Entrance to the All Night Refuge for Women and Children in Beauchamp Lane, Surry Hills March 1939

Eternity, written on cardboard by Arthur Stace for his friend Thelma Dodds 1960-1967

Free Speech - and Plenty: Sunday Afternoon in the Sydney Domain March 1939

Government and General Orders concerning the closure of the Old Burial Ground and the opening of Devonshire Street Cemetery 22 January 1820

Gurangatty 2020

La Perouse Aborigines' Mission: music at the annual outdoor rally of the United Aborigines' Mission 26 January 1931

Mr GE Ardill, director of the Sydney Rescue Work Society 2 March 1939

Remnants of original St Barnabas church which burnt down in 2006, Broadway, Sydney 2016

Requirements and Rules for Persons engaging themselves as Teachers in the Parramatta Sunday School 1816

Rosaleen Norton 1943

Rules & regulations for the management of the Aborigines, or, Black Native Institution of New South Wales, established at Parramatta, on the 18th of January, 1815.

St Barney's forecourt 11 May 2012

St Patrick's Church 'The stone work of this exquisite specimen of 'Ecclesiastical Architecture' is now completed' 1843

Sydney Says... Sydney has a mystery 8 March 1947

The Bubonic Plague - Wash and Pray! April 1900

The celebration of the festival of Ashura in Sydney March 1806

Wowawme, the monster fish Waway’s lookout place June 2017

Mr George Bates, interviewed in 1986, remembers a carnival held to raise money for an orphanage in Liverpool

Mr Peter Granville-Smith talks about the Hoxton Park Union Church and his family singing there c1920s, interviewed in 1986

Thelma Crawley on delivering Meals on Wheels to Rosaleen Norton, the 'Witch of Kings Cross' 2007

Search

Browse

Browse
- Artefacts
- Buildings
- Events
- Natural Features
- Organisations
- People
- Places
- Structures
- Entries
- Multimedia
- Subjects
- Roles
- Contributors

Connections

Broader Subjects

Culture and Customs

Narrower Subjects

Baha'i faith Buddhism Chinese folk religion Christian Science Christianity Hinduism Islam Jainism Judaism Mormons Scientology Shinto Theosophy

Footer

Home
About
Copyright
Blog
Facebook
Twitter

Religions and Beliefs

Ardill, George

Temperance advocate, evangelist and charity worker, George Ardill was absolutely certain of the validity of his ideas about redemption and rescue of women and children. His later work as a member of the Aboriginal Protection Board, accompanied by similar certainty, led directly to some of the most tragic and damaging results of colonialism for Aboriginal people.

Devonshire Street Cemetery

Sydney’s Devonshire Street Cemetery, as it has come to be known, was a cemetery of firsts. Not only was it the first time the Surveyor-General grouped a set of burial grounds together; Devonshire Street was also the first time attempts were made to regulate burials and order the cemetery landscape. In use from 1820 until the 1860s, it was Sydney’s second major cemetery.

Eternity

Written in chalk on Sydney's pavements for decades by Arthur Stace, the word Eternity, in copperplate script, has become an icon of Sydney's popular culture, as well as its religious life.

Foundation of the Salvation Army in Sydney 1882-83

From a rowdy meeting at the night markets, to sturdy buildings in Sydney's workers' suburbs, the Salvation Army's early evangelists always went where the people were.

Jews

There has been a Jewish community in Sydney since the beginning of European settlement. With the Jewish free settlers who arrived from the 1820s, they built businesses and congregations in Sydney. In the late-nineteenth century, a new group of Jewish immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe, fleeing pogroms and persecution. Jewish Sydneysiders were active in public life and in business, settling in the eastern and inner western suburbs. The community doubled in size after World War II as immigration increased, and the community developed new educational and cultural organisations as well as a broader range of religious congregations.

McGarvie’s list and Aboriginal Dyarubbin

This essay follows on from Introducing the Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales

Muslims in Sydney

Muslims have been a presence in Sydney since the eighteenth century, despite the immigration restrictions of the White Australia Policy. Half of all Australia's Muslims now live in Sydney, forming a culturally and ethnically diverse community that flourishes, even amidst outbursts of prejudice from other residents of multicultural Sydney.

Religion

Religion has had a profound influence on the geography, culture, politics, and artistic life of Sydney. While religion has mostly been a conservative force, preserving traditions transported from home societies, it has also reflected the setting and people of Sydney, its harbour, bushland and suburbs.

Religious Opposition to World War I

With the exception of a small number of Quakers, Independents and Methodists, religious opposition to World War I and the issue of conscription came from a few, isolated individual voices. The Church of England whole-heartedly supported the war while for the main part, the Catholic Church remained silent.

Stace, Arthur

A former drunk who was converted to Christianity, Arthur Stace spent the rest of his life spreading the Gospel, and unobtrusively writing Eternity in chalk on pavements all over Sydney. The identity of the Eternity Man was a mystery for over twenty years. Eternity has since become part of Sydney's mythology and iconography.

The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River

The winner of the State Library of NSW Coral Thomas Fellowship in 2018-19 was a collaborative project, The Real Secret River: Dyarubbin. Based on a list of Aboriginal words recorded along Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) in the 1820s by Reverend John McGarvie that is held in the Mitchell LIbrary, winning the Fellowship allowed the team behind the project to work on the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Darug and Darkinjung history, culture and Language.

Transcript: Mr Peter Granville-Smith recalls his family singing in the little Union Church Hoxton Park

Mr Peter Granville-Smith was born in 1910 and interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' He came to live in Hoxton Park with his family in 1914 because his clergyman father was ill.

Church Act 1836

Legislation which provided Government subsidies for clerical salaries and for new church construction.

full record »

Dyarubbin: Mapping Aboriginal history, culture and stories of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales

full record »

Publicly available, online interactive map created by NSW State government department Spatial Services in 2021 using the results of the Real Secret River: Dyarubbin research project led by Professor Grace Karksens with Aunty Edna Watson, Leanne Watson and Jasmine Seymour, and supported by the State Library of NSW 2018-2019 Coral Thomas Fellowship.

Use the External Link with this record to go directly to the map at Spatial Services.

Eternity

full record »

Word written by footpath evangelist Arthur Stace between 1932 and 1966 on pavements throughout the city.

St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church

Coptic Orthodox church at 72 Wollongong Road, Arncliffe that was established in 1978 in the former Arncliffe Methodist Church building.

full record »

Unitarian Church

Liberal, humanitarian Christian church at 15 Francis Street, East Sydney that opened in 1940 after the original Unitarian Church in Liverpool Street was destroyed by fire in 1935.

full record »

Annual Pere Receveur Commemoration Mass

Annual commemorative Catholic Mass that has been held regularly since 1988 to remember the two French priests of the Laperouse Expedition who are likely to have conducted the first Masses in Australia. Commemorative Catholic Masses at the gravesite were reported as early as 1879 while in 1933, 5,000 people attended the first mass 'pilgrimage'.

The Latin Mass, the same ancient Latin Rite used by the two priests of the Laperouse Expedition in 1788, is held at La Perouse each year on the Sunday nearest 17 February on the verandah of the La Perouse Museum, close to the altar style tomb erected in 1829 over the grave of one of the priests, Père Laurent Receveur. His death at Botany Bay on 17 February 1788 occasioned a Requiem Mass by his brother priest, Abbé Jean- André Mongez, and the Latin Office of the Dead which was mandatory at the funerals of naval personnel

The first two Masses were probably celebrated on board the ships, on either the day of the expedition’s arrival, Saturday 26 January, 1788, the feast of St. Polycarp, or the next day which was Sexagesima (the second Sunday before Ash Wednesday). Under the 1765 royal Ordonnance de la Marine, which specified the duties of all types of French naval personnel, chaplains in the royal navy were obliged to say Mass on Sundays and feast days without exception unless bad weather prevented it, and on other days as often as possible.

full record »

Brookvale processione

Various religious festivals, celebrated with masses and processions, held by the Italian community in Brookvale since the 1960s.

full record »

Burragurra (Devil's Rock)

Significant Aboriginal engraving site on the Boree track within Yengo National Park. Considered to be one of most important engraving sites in the Sydney-Hawkesbury region because of its planned composition, with the linking of the Ancestral Beings via a long line of pits, the depiction of a nesting emu, and a kangaroo hunt.

full record »

St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College

Coptic Theological College that is part of the St Mark Coptic Church precinct at 72 Wollongong Road, Arncliffe. Established in 1982 as the Pope Shenouda III College for Theological Studies, it was the first to be established outside of Egypt. The college was restructured and formalised as St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College in 2015.

full record »

Anglican Diocese of Sydney

Administrative division of the Anglican church that covers Sydney, Wollongong and the south coast of New South Wales and includes around half of Australian Anglicans, led by an archbishop since 1897.

full record »

Australian Coptic Association

Association of Coptic Christians formed to oppose the segregation and injustice suffered by their brethren in Egypt.

full record »

Genesian Theatre

Theatre company formed by members of the Catholic Youth Organisation intent upon forming a full scale dramatic group.

full record »

House of the Good Shepherd Pitt Street

Refuge for destitute women which operated in part of the old Carter's Barracks in Pitt Street before the building was demolished for the new Central railway station. The refuge's work was continued at St Magdalene's Retreat House in Tempe.

full record »

Salvation Army

Religious organisation which arrived in Sydney in the early 1880s and undertook charitable work as well as evangelising.

full record »

Sisters of the Good Samaritan

The first institute of religious women founded in Australia.

full record »

Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company

Company formed by members of Sydney's Church of England in 1848 to purchase land and establish Camperdown Cemetery.

full record »

Gurangatty

Powerful being in Darug/Darkinyung culture. A gigantic eel-being or rainbowed serpent who possibly created the Hawkesbury river and its valley. He may have been the same Being as Gurangatch, who in the mythology of the nearby Gundungurra people, tore up rock and earth with his powerful body in his desperate flight to escape the hunter Mirrigan, the tiger-quoll, and so created the Coxs and Wollondilly rivers.

full record »

Ardill, George Edward (1847-1945)

full record »

Evangelist and social worker who was the founder of refuges for women and children including the Sydney Rescue Work Society. His later work as a member of the Aboriginal Protection Board led directly to some of the most tragic and damaging results of colonialism for Aboriginal people.

Daramulan

Ancestral creation being in the belief systems of Aboriginal peoples across south eastern Australia. He is the son of Baiame and Bootha, and has one leg, with a deep thundering voice.

full record »

Marsden, Samuel

full record »

Anglican chaplain who used his extensive landholdings to promote the sheep industry but is equally remembered for his extreme severity as a magistrate.

McGarvie, John

Second Presbyterian minister in colonial Sydney, the first incumbent at Pitt Town and Ebenezer, and of St Andrews Scots Church. While living in the area, he recorded the names of places along the Hawkesbury River, or Dyarubbin, that local Aboriginal people shared with him. His papers are held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

full record »

Norton, Rosaleen

full record »

Artist, occultist and pagan whose art reflected her beliefs in witchcraft. She is often referred to as the Witch of Kings Cross.

Stace, Arthur

full record »

The man who wrote Eternity on Sydney's pavements for over thirty years.

Waway

Ancestral monster river fish who inhabits the Hawkesbury River in Dharug and Darkinyung culture. Also written as or Wau-waiy and appearing as the prefix Wowaw-.

full record »

Camperdown Cemetery

full record »

Private cemetery in Newtown that was consecrated in January 1849 and remained the main burial ground for the Church of England until the opening of Rookwood in 1868. St Stephen's Anglican church was built in the middle of it in the early 1870s. All but 4 acres of the cemetery were resumed in 1948 to become the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park.

Hammondville

South-western residential suburb established in 1932 by Anglican minister Robert Hammond. Inner-city, rent-paying families evicted during the Depression were provided with homes through a rent-purchase program.

full record »

A Grave and Burning Question - Dr Creed's NSW Cremation Bill 1886

full record »

By

Contributed By

Internet Archive

[myrecollectionso00creerich_0177]

(from 'My recollections of Australia & elsewhere, 1842-1914' by John Mildred Creed, London 1916) (Universty of California Libraries)

A view of the native burial of Baggara, a native of NSW 20 November 1813

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(in Views in New South Wales, Sydney : A. West, 1812-1814, Mitchell Library)

Archdeacon McEncroe c1865

full record »

By

Freeman Brothers

Henry Samuel Sadd

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[JAFp BIBLIO F11950]

Are You Afraid To Die? Religious tract found during archaeological dig at Hyde Park Barracks

full record »

By

Contributed By

Sydney Living Museums

[HPB UF17368]

(Hyde Park Barracks Museum Archaeology Collection)

Arthur Stace writing his message, Eternity

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-vn3107050]

Carols by candlelight in Hyde Park, Sydney December 1970

full record »

Contributed By

National Archives of Australia

[A1200, L85587]

Chinese New Year Twilight Parade 1 February 2009

full record »

Courtesy:

City of Sydney Council

[sydney_cny_parade2_073.jpg]

Chinese honor ancient gods, Glebe 1955

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[Australian Women's Weekly ,11 Feburary 1955 p16-17 via Trove]

Description of the execution of Thomas Barrett in Arthur Bowes Smyth's journal, 27 February 1788

full record »

By

Arthur Bowes Smyth

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

(Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth, 1787 March 22-1789 August )

Dorumbolooa, Sackville Reach June 2018

full record »

By

Contributed By

Dyarubbin at Dorumbolooa, where the river turns spectacularly into Kent Reach June 2020

full record »

By

Contributed By

Entrance to the All Night Refuge for Women and Children in Beauchamp Lane, Surry Hills March 1939

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[ON 388/Box 026/Item 040]

(Mitchell Library, courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd)

Eternity, written on cardboard by Arthur Stace for his friend Thelma Dodds 1960-1967

full record »

Contributed By

National Museum of Australia

[2000.0026.0001]

Free Speech - and Plenty: Sunday Afternoon in the Sydney Domain March 1939

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[PIX, 18 March 1939, p2o via Trove]

Government and General Orders concerning the closure of the Old Burial Ground and the opening of Devonshire Street Cemetery 22 January ...

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 22 January 1820, p1 via Trove]

Gurangatty 2020

full record »

By

Jasmine Seymour

Contributed By

Jasmine Seymour

La Perouse Aborigines' Mission: music at the annual outdoor rally of the United Aborigines' Mission 26 January 1931

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 1931, p12)

Mr GE Ardill, director of the Sydney Rescue Work Society 2 March 1939

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[ON 388/Box 026/Item 040]

(Mitchell Library, courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd)

Remnants of original St Barnabas church which burnt down in 2006, Broadway, Sydney 2016

full record »

By

Contributed By

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/graham_rendoth/30689938580]

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Requirements and Rules for Persons engaging themselves as Teachers in the Parramatta Sunday School 1816

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a1936001 / Safe 1/31a, Items 1-2]

(Mitchell Library)

Rosaleen Norton 1943

full record »

By

Ivan Wilfrid Ive

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[ON 388/Box 020/Item 059]

(Mitchell Library, Courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd.)

Rules & regulations for the management of the Aborigines, or, Black Native Institution of New South Wales, established at Parramatta, ...

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Mitchell Library
)

St Barney's forecourt 11 May 2012

full record »

By

Newtown graffiti

Contributed By

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/newtown_grafitti/7176192764]

(CC BY 2.0)

St Patrick's Church 'The stone work of this exquisite specimen of 'Ecclesiastical Architecture' is now completed' 1843

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[ Australasian Chronicle, 29 June 1843, p2 via Trove]

Sydney Says... Sydney has a mystery 8 March 1947

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[Smith's Weekly 8 March 1947, p14 via Trove]

The Bubonic Plague - Wash and Pray! April 1900

full record »

By

Livingston Hopkins

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[The Bulletin, 14 April 1900, p17 via Trove]

The celebration of the festival of Ashura in Sydney March 1806

full record »

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 23 March 1806, p2 via Trove]

Wowawme, the monster fish Waway’s lookout place June 2017

full record »

By

© By kind permission of

Mr George Bates, interviewed in 1986, remembers a carnival held to raise money for an orphanage in Liverpool

full record »

Mr George Bates was born in 1912 and spent most of his adult life in Liverpool. He was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900-1960 ' project. Here he remembers a carnival held to raise money for a local orphanage.
Transcript

GEORGE Another thing that brings back memories of the orphanage those particular days, we had a very good knowledgeable person who was George Laurantis [?] who had the theatre in Liverpool. And in his goodness he'd always have the orphans of a Saturday afternoon upstairs to look at the pictures and one thing and another. But another scene came up, where he was arranging a big day at the Liverpool Bowling Club and he was raising for the orphanage in Liverpool, and he got, he was very good at organising things George was in those days, George Laurantis got even the top jockeys from Sydney to come up and attend this big carnival for the orphans of Liverpool. Top jockeys came, like Sellwood, and so and so. And he got it all organised at the Liverpool Bowling Club; and it looked like rain. And he was in a dither over it. But anyhow, they got through the carnival for the orphanage in those days and raised six hundred pounds. It was a fantastic set up. And George Laurantis took the money up to the Sister Superior at the orphanage and he says 'Oh Mother!' She says 'What is it Mr Laurantis'? He said 'How lucky we were!' She said 'How do you mean lucky Mr Laurantis?' He said 'If it had been rain we wouldn't have had our carnival at all'. But you had no rain,' said the Mother. 'I know that, I know that, but I got real dithered about it'. She said 'You should have seen me, you shouldn't have got dithered because there'd have been no rain today'. He said 'Why's that Mother'? 'Well' she said, ' I went down to our saint in the grounds', a big statue there in the grounds, of St Theresa, and she said a prayer in front of St Theresa and she said 'Lord, send no rain here for Liverpool today because they're running the big carnival in Liverpool' she says. She was so confident; and she said 'I'd have given you the confidence immediately if you'd only made contact with me.' [1]

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

(Detail from interview with George Bates, from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith.)

Mr Peter Granville-Smith talks about the Hoxton Park Union Church and his family singing there c1920s, interviewed in 1986

full record »

Peter Granville-Smith was born in 1910 and interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' He came to live in Hoxton Park with his family in 1914 because his clergyman father was ill.
Transcript

PETER: Father had lost his voice, and he couldn't conduct services, but I understand he did conduct one on one occasion in the little Union Church at Hoxton Park, which he conducted it in a whisper. They tell me it was done so clearly [because] his diction and enunciation were perfect. But, he would attend the services in this little Union Church. There were four denominations came out there, they were: Church of England, Methodist, Presbyterian and Salvation Army. If there were five Sundays in a month the Church of England got that fifth Sunday as well. The little church was very small but when Granville-Smiths were in attendance on any service they filled the church not only with their figures but with their voices, because we were all pretty good musicians. The singing was absolutely outstanding, under the careful guidance of our sister Lois. She played the piano, and of course mother played the piano as well. And when we were all singing you'd know that the family was there, they were all in there.

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

(Excerpt from interview with Mr Peter Granville-Smith from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith.)

Thelma Crawley on delivering Meals on Wheels to Rosaleen Norton, the 'Witch of Kings Cross' 2007

full record »

By

Courtesy:

City of Sydney Council

(From the oral history collection)

Culture and Customs

Baha'i faith

Buddhism

Chinese folk religion

Christian Science

Christianity

Hinduism

Islam

Jainism

Judaism

Mormons

Scientology

Shinto

Theosophy