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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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The Library 1847

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

The Library 1847

By

Jacob William Jones

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Dixson Galleries)

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Colonial architecture Footpaths Labour Libraries Mobile economy and street vendors Pedestrians Roads

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Australian Club Australian Subscription Library

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Macquarie Street

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Jones, Jacob William

State Library of New South Wales

Libraries

Roads

Colonial architecture

Footpaths

Mobile economy and street vendors

Pedestrians

Labour

Australian Subscription Library

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Sydney's first major public library. The organisation formed in 1826 and the Library opened in rented rooms in Pitt Street, 1 December 1827, with 1,000 volumes. In 1845 the Library moved into a purpose built building on the corner of Bent and Macquarie Streets. The organisation was renamed the Australian Library and Literary Institution in 1853. After financial difficulties, in 1869 the collection and building was bought by the colonial government and became the first Free Public Library of Sydney and has since evolved into the State Library of New South Wales.

Australian Club

Private men-only club with headquarters on the corner of Macquarie Street and Bent Street, It is the oldest gentlemen's club in the southern hemisphere.

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Macquarie Street

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Street at the eastern edge of Sydney's central business district that extends from Circular Quay to Hyde Park, designed as a ceremonial thoroughfare by Lachlan Macquarie and containing many of Sydney's public buildings. It was first gazetted in October 1810 and described as 'The easternmost street in the town, and extending in a southerly direction from the Government Domain to Hyde Park'. It was later the best address in the colony, and became a prestigious medical precinct in the twentieth century.