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The Dictionary of Sydney
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Captain Waterhouse's house, Sidney [sic], the V...

Captain Waterhouse's house, Sidney [sic], the Vineyard, about 1798

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a4814001 / SSV1B/Parr/6]

(Mitchell Library)

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Governor Phillip and the Eora River Cycles - A History of the Parramatta River Rydalmere

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Aboriginal Boats Colonial architecture Residential building Rivers and Catchments

Natural features

Parramatta River

People

Waterhouse, Henry

Places

Rydalmere

Buildings

The Vineyard

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State Library of New South Wales

Rydalmere

Originally Burramattagal country, the area that became Rydalmere was granted to Philip Schaeffer, who planted vines, and the land was later acquired by Hannibal Macarthur who built a grand house, later a Catholic girls' school. The area was named Rydalmere in 1886 when it was subdivided, but remained semi-rural, with orchards and poultry farms until industry moved in from the 1940s.

River Cycles - A History of the Parramatta River

Prior to European settlement, the waterway we now call the Parramatta River was a shared food source, a highway and a territorial boundary for the Wangal, Wallemudegal, Gammeraygal and Burramattagal peoples. Colonisation dramatically reshaped the ecology of the river; the natural cycles of climate and tide that had long influenced the waterway have been joined by other diverse social forces; economic, cultural and technological. Agriculture, river transport, land development and heavy industry have left a long term legacy despite recent environmental remediation.

Governor Phillip and the Eora

What was Governor Arthur Phillip's relationship with the Eora, and other Aboriginal people of the Sydney region? Phillip's policies, actions and responses have tended to be seen as a proxy for the Europeans in Australia as whole, just as his friend, the Wangal warrior Woolarawarre Bennelong’s allegedly tragic life has for so long personified the fate of Aboriginal people since 1788. To fully imagine those early years, we must see them through the twin lenses of British and Eora perspective and experience to glimpse what was happening, and why. This allows a nuanced and complex view, and the banishment once and for all the notion that there can be only one 'right' story.

Aboriginal

Boats

Colonial architecture

Residential building

Rivers and Catchments

Parramatta River

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Major tributary of Sydney Harbour, which flows east from Blacktown Creek to meet Port Jackson between Greenwich and Birchgrove. The river is tidal to Charles Street Weir at Parramatta, 30 kilometres from Sydney Heads.

Waterhouse, Henry

Naval officer who arrived with the First Fleet on HMS Sirius in 1788.

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Rydalmere

North-western industrial and residential suburb on the northern banks of the Parramatta River, where merino sheep were first successfully bred in Australia in the early 19th century. In 1886 the orchardist Thomas O'Neill subdivided it and named it after his home town of Rydal in the English Lake District.

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The Vineyard

House and farm on the Parramatta River established by Philip Schaeffer on his land grant in 1792. After several private owners it was purchased for the Catholic church and converted to a convent school for young girls in 1851. When the school declined it housed a closed Benedictine community until the area was reclaimed for industry in 1957.

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