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Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Bay or cove

Large bay south of the city of Sydney, into which the Cooks and Georges rivers run.

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Name

Aboriginal

Kai'mia

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Alternate

Kamay

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Type

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Booralee fishing town

by

,

2013

supported by

Your Community Heritage Grant - The Cooks River Project

Just as the Kameygal people had enjoyed the rich sea life of Botany Bay, Booralee thrived as a vibrant fishing village for over a century until overfishing and pollution saw the demise of the fishing industry.

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Mentioned in

Aboriginal life around Port Jackson after 1822 Aboriginal people of the Cooks River valley Alexander Allawah Allen, George Americans Anderson, Ellen Ballast Point Bark huts and country estates Beverley Park Blakehurst Boatswain Maroot Booralee fishing town Borrowdale Botanica and Lidcombe Hospital Botany Camp Cove Carangarang Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900 Charlotte Children Circus Clint, Alfred Colebee Cookney, George Daceyville Damming the Cooks River Daringa Defending colonial Sydney Dulwich Hill Eastwood Economy Endeavour English Epidemics First people of the Cooks River Fowles, Joseph Friendship From a fine stream to an industrial watercourse Geology and geography of the Georges River Giles, Biddy Gnung-a Gnung-a Murremurgan Governor Phillip and the Eora HMS Sirius HMS Supply Hammond, Robert Brodribb Stewart Harbour pilots Health and welfare Industry in the Cooks River valley Irish in Sydney from First Fleet to Federation Juniper Hall La Perouse Lady Penrhyn Lighthouses Living with Sharks on the Georges River Lucas, Olivia Manly Cove, Kai'ymay Mapping the Georges River Maroot the elder Matraville Millers Point Mort Bay Nanbarry Parramatta's General Hospital Pemulwuy Prince Alfred Park Prisons to 1920 Randwick Receveur, Laurent Religion Rose Bay Airport Royal Commission into Noxious and Offensive Trades 1882 Royal Society of New South Wales Sailing Scarborough Second Fleet commemoration plaque, The Rocks Servicing Sydney's thirst South Head Stanmore Sydney Sydney Flour Mills before 1850 The Tank Stream The colonial observations of Surgeon John White Theatre Tourism Trams Transcript: Mr Fred Scott remembers his grandfather's work as a wool classer in Liverpool Transport Tugboats Urban growth in the Cooks River valley Water Woollarawarre Bennelong Worgan, George Working the Tides Yarra Bay House Yarrawarrah

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Bay or cove

Botany Bay sunrise 1 2007

full record »

By

Contributed By

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/brentbat/527235843/]

Booralee fishing town

Just as the Kameygal people had enjoyed the rich sea life of Botany Bay, Booralee thrived as a vibrant fishing village for over a century until overfishing and pollution saw the demise of the fishing industry.

Sippel, Joanne

Historian and author.

Your Community Heritage Grant - The Cooks River Project

The Australian Government's Your Community Heritage Program supported the 'Fine Stream Fine Meadow: Cooks River' project to include additional material about the Cooks River in the Dictionary of Sydney in 2013

Sketch of Botany Bay in New South Wales latitude 34°00'S 1770

full record »

By

Contributed By

State Library of Queensland

[Image No: 397436]

(Copied and digitised from Entrance of Endeavour River, in New South Wales [J. Cook] ; J. Gibson & T. Bowen sculp. [London : Strahan & Cadell, 1773])

The Supply at anchor, Botany Bay 20 January 1788

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a2060001 / DG V1A / 8 (detail)]

(Dixson Galleries)

The Supply at anchor, and the Sirius with her convoy coming into Botany Bay 20 January 1788

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a2060001 / DG V1A / 8]

(Dixson Galleries)

Botany Bay. Sirius & Convoy going in : Supply & Agents Division in the Bay, 21 January 1788

full record »

By

William Bradley

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a3461009 / Safe 1/14, opp p 56]

(Drawings from his journal `A Voyage to New South Wales', 1802+)

Botany Bay c1789

full record »

By

William Bradley

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a138500 or a127080 / ML Safe 1/14, opp. p 176, Chart 9]

(Charts from Bradley's journal 'A Voyage to New South Wales', 1802) (Mitchell Library)

View of Botany Bay 1790

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a7225019 / DL PXX 84, 19]

(Dixson Library) (The Lady's Magazine, January 1790, Published by GGJ and J Robinson, No. 25 Paternoster Row, London)

Detail showing area between Port Jackson and Botany Bay from 'A map of the hitherto explored country contiguous to Port Jackson' ...

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a928468 / DL Q79/64 (detail)]

(from A complete account of the settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales : including an accurate description of the situation of the colony; of the natives; and of its natural productions / taken on the spot, by Captain Watkin Tench, of the Marines, London, 1793) (Dixson Library)

Botany Bay harbour with a view of the heads, taken from Cook's Point 1812

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a1474006 / PX*D 65]

(From 'Views in New South Wales', published by Absalom West 1813) (Mitchell Library)

View of the Heads, and part of Botany Bay - from the End of Cooks River 1822-1823

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a1425009 / DGD 1,5]

(Dixson Galleries)

Botany Bay, New South Wales 1824

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a2799065 / DSM/Z/C 989, Plate 10]

(from: 'Views in Australia, or, New South Wales & Van Diemen's Land delineated : in fifty views with descriptive letter press ... /' by J. Lycett, published London: J. Souter, 1824-25)

Detail of Panorama of Sydney 1829

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[Panorama of Sydney, NSW, in the year 1829 as painted by Robert Burford and exhibited in Leicester Square, London, DG XV1A/2 (detail)]

(Dixson Galleries)

Sketch shewing the situation of Huts in the Parish of Botany belonging to Boatswain Maroot 1830

full record »

Contributed By

State Archives & Records New South Wales

[Cumberland County Botany - Sketch shewing the situation of Huts in the Parish of Botany belonging to Boatswain Maroot [Sketch book 1 folio 76], Digital ID: NRS13886[X751]_a110_000245]

From Mud Bank Botany Bay - mouth of Cooks River 1830

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[DL PXX 31, 2a]

(Dixson Library)

Detail of TL Mitchell's map of the colony of New South Wales showing Botany Bay, Port Jackson and rivers 1834

full record »

By

Thomas Livingstone Mitchell

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a4149001 / SAFE/MC 811/1834/1D (detail)]

(Detail of 'Map of the Colony of New South Wales shewing the mountain ranges, roads, county divisions & c. In three sheets by Major T.L. Mitchell, Surveyor General. Sydney, engraved by John Carmichael in 1831, 32, 33 & 34) (Mitchell Library)

Detail of TL Mitchell's map of the colony of New South Wales showing the Georges River 1834

full record »

By

Thomas Livingstone Mitchell

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.map-nk6228 (detail)]

(To the Right Honorable Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley this map of the Colony of New South Wales [cartographic material] / compiled from actual measurements with the chain & circumferenter, and according to a trigonometrical survey is (with the greatest respect), dedicated by his most obedient humble servant T.L. Mitchell, Surveyor General ; drawn by T.L. Mitchell ; engraved by John Carmichael.)

Lord's Mill, Botany Bay 1838

full record »

By

John Carmichael

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-an10149535]

Entrance of Cooks River Botany Bay November 1840

full record »

By

Henry Curzon Allport

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Mitchell Library)

Village of Cook's Town, situated at the entrance of Cook's River Botany Bay for sale by Auction 1850s

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Mitchell Library) (Cadastral map of proposed subdivision and auction at Kurnell, Sydney that did not take place)

Australia East Coast Botany Bay and Port Hacking, British Admiralty nautical chart 1853

full record »

By

Great Britain. Hydrographic Department

Image courtesy of the

State Library of Victoria

[British Admiralty nautical charts ; 2179]

Botany Bay from Newtown 15 October 1853

full record »

By

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a1599040 / PXA 1987, 37]

(Mitchell Library)

Botany Heads c1865

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a089744 / SPF/744]

(Mitchell Library)

Botany Bay from Newtown, December 1862

full record »

By

Henry Grant Lloyd

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a5894071 / DL PX 42]

(Dixson Library)

Captain Cook taking possession of the Australian continent on behalf of the British crown 1770

full record »

By

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-an7682920]

Botany Bay, October 17 1868

full record »

By

George Penkivil Slade

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-an6454426]

Detail showing the Botany Reservoir from the 'Plan of the Botany and Lachlan Watersheds' 1875

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[NSL ZM3 811.18ghhd/1875/1 (detail)]

(Mitchell Map Collection)

La Perouse, Botany Bay 1878

full record »

By

Thomas George Glover

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-an4335722]

From the Warren, Botany in distance, 8 August 1883

full record »

By

Henry Grant Lloyd

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a5894074 / DL PX 42]

(Dixson Library)

Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney - Botany 1888-1888

full record »

By

Higinbotham & Robinson

Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

The village of Booralee 1888

full record »

By

Higinbotham & Robinson

Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

[detail from 'Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney' North Botany 1888]

Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney - Rockdale 1888

full record »

By

Higinbotham & Robinson

Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

Where to spend Christmas: Historic spot Sans Souci 1894

full record »

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 December 1894, p4)

Dedication of Captain Cook reserve and monument at Kurnell 6 May 1899

full record »

By

Contributed By

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences

(Tyrrell Photographic Collection)

Group of spectators on the beach at Botany watching one of the sailing boat races c1915

full record »

Contributed By

City of Botany Bay Library and Museum Services

(Courtesy of Clarence Jones)

South western outfall siphon and Mascot Pumping Station at the mouth of Cooks River, Botany Bay 1916

full record »

Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

[067\067277]

(S084884)

People in a boat and tin canoes on Botany Bay in the 1930s

full record »

Contributed By

City of Botany Bay Library and Museum Services

(Courtesy of Clarence Jones)

The Smith brothers and friends on their fishing boat, the Pastime, preparing for a leisurely sail on the Bay c1935

full record »

Contributed By

City of Botany Bay Library and Museum Services

Botany fishermen and their boats, moored near the mouth of the Cooks River January 1938

full record »

Contributed By

City of Botany Bay Library and Museum Services

(L-R: Mr William 'Trappie' Duncan (84), Jim 'Snider' Thompson (82), Harry Jones (71) and James Smith (79). These men were descendants of the first families of Fishing Town. Courtesy of Clarence Jones)

Les Jones, Waynes Jones (child) and Bunda Jones in the yard at Luland Street c1962

full record »

Contributed By

City of Botany Bay Library and Museum Services

(Courtesy of Clarence Jones)

The Captain Cook Bridge under construction, with the Taren Point ferry coming in 1960s

full record »

Contributed By

Sutherland Shire Libraries

[MF004/MF004256]

(CC BY-NC 3.0)

Allawah

Built on Gameygal country, Allawah was named after the railway went through in 1925, but developed on farmland granted to the Townson brothers in the early colonial period. The suburb prospered in the interwar period, providing many homes for new migrants from Britain.

Ballast Point

Named for the rocky outcrop that provided ballast for unladen ships, Ballast Point was never successfully subdivided. An oil terminal for much of the twentieth century, it was finally returned to the people as a harbour-side park.

Beverley Park

Part of the traditional country of the Kameygal people, the area that became Beverley Park ran into the wetlands of Kogarah Bay, and was used for market gardening for many years, as it was prone to flooding. It was reclaimed, drained and subdivided after 1937, using funds designed for unemployment relief.

Blakehurst

Gameygal country until Europeans arrived, the area that became Blakehurst was part of huge grants given to the Townson brothers before 1810, and exploited for timber, charcoal, lime and soda, before farming began. As roads and transport improved in the mid-nineteenth century, settlement moved south. Chinese market gardeners farmed land in Blakehurst, and shipbuilding took place along the waterfront. The township grew fast in the early twentieth century, becoming a residential suburb.

Botanica and Lidcombe Hospital

Lidcombe Hospital was a large institution of a kind common in the nineteenth century. As the focus of care changed over time, men, women, the aged, influenza victims, surgical patients and others were looked after there. The piggery, dairy, vegetable gardens and poultry run sustained the inmates until the 1950s.

Camp Cove

Camp Cove and the freshwater pond behind it were traditional camping and fishing sites for the Cadigal traditional owners. The Europeans made first landfall there on 21 January 1788, while exploring Port Jackson, but Aboriginal people lived there until the 1840s. The cove later became a water police base, research station and a tourist destination.

Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900

Still celebrated as Australia Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the European settlers at Sydney was called Anniversary Day during the nineteenth century. The convict origins of the colony were glossed over and present achievements were emphasised in official functions, but ordinary Sydneysiders marked the holiday with picnics, regattas, sports and fireworks, much as they do today.

Colebee

A Cadigal man who became one of the first to interact with the Europeans, Colebee was a leading Aboriginal figure in Sydney Town in the early years of the colony. He was associated with the white-bellied sea eagle.

Defending colonial Sydney

For more than a century, Sydney faced recurrent and often well-founded fears of raids and even invasion. The British Empire's enemies and rivals sent warships into the Pacific to annexe territories, and Sydney was a potentially desirable conquest. Fortress Sydney grew out of anticipated dangers that could not be ignored.

Dulwich Hill

Traditionally owned by the Cadigal people, the land that became Dulwich Hill was granted to early colonists Thomas Moore and James Bloodworth in the 1790s. Later owned by Robert Wardell, it was known as Wardell's Bush. By the 1860s Chinese market gardens and orchards, as well as small brickworks and potteries dotted the landscape. Subdivision took place in the 1900s after the railway and electric trams came through, and residential density has continued to rise with the building of units for the suburb's diverse population.

Economy

With the arrival of Europeans, the traditional economy of Aboriginal clans was disrupted, and gave way to the convict economy of the Commissariat and government stores. But this closed economy was soon opened by free settlement, whaling and sealing, shipping and farming success, making Sydney the port for a vast hinterland. Depressions and booms alternated, bringing poverty and prosperity to the city. Sydney's growth and diversity mean that regional economies now exist within the Sydney region.

Endeavour

Built as a collier, Captain James Cook's ship Endeavour carried him around the world and up the east coast of Australia in 1768-71, before becoming a coal ship again.

English

Sydney has been seen as an 'English' town since first European settlement, with visitors describing its English character well into the nineteenth century. Successive waves of English-born convicts, settlers, and assisted immigrants helped shape the city, and the English remain the largest overseas-born group.

Epidemics

From the new European diseases that devastated Sydney's Aboriginal people in the eighteenth century, through subsequent epidemics of measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza and HIV, Sydney has faced major threats from epidemic disease. Religion, media, and public health responses influenced the degree of panic and scapegoating that took place, though effective treatments were not in place until well into the twentieth century.

Harbour pilots

Though representing one of Sydney's least known professions, harbour pilots have kept Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay safe for commercial shipping from the earliest days of settlement.

Health and welfare

The size and complexity of health and welfare services has increased exponentially since the early years of colonial settlement, but the partnership between governments and charities has remained at the heart of solutions to the problem of misfortune.

Juniper Hall

Built on the ridge at Paddington, with views to the harbour and Botany Bay, Juniper Hall was the home of wealthy distiller and ex-convict Robert Cooper, and his large family. It was later used as a school, public building and court, and later subdivided into flats, before the National Trust of Australia (NSW) bought and restored it.

La Perouse

Traditionally owned by the Kameygal, whose descendants still maintain their connection with the land, La Perouse has a history of both invasion and survival. Unwanted by the early colonists who thought it unhealthy, the area was an Aboriginal camp throughout the nineteenth century, though also used for government purposes, such as quarantine and signalling. During the 1930s Depression, unemployed people set up camp there. Repeated attempts to move Aboriginal people away from La Perouse failed, and since 1984 the reserve has been Aboriginal land.

Lighthouses

Sydney's 14 lighthouses guide shipping through the Heads of the harbour, into Botany Bay, and into Broken Bay, as well as around the harbour.

Matraville

Marshes, swamps and sandhills in the area that became Matraville were turned into market gardens by the 1840s, and attracted Chinese gardeners in the 1860s. After World War I a model garden village was planned, for disabled servicemen, and built by 1921. It was never a success and only one of the homes remains.

Millers Point

Called Ta-Ra by its first inhabitants, the Cadigal, Millers Point was named for the windmills that were built on its heights, and their owner, John Leighton, known as Jack the Miller. By the 1850s Millers Point was a maritime enclave, with almost all residents and employers focused on the wharves and the trade they brought. Through plague, depression and war, the community at Millers Point retained its cohesion, but the changes brought by gentrification are harder to predict.

Mort Bay

First called Grose Bay, the area became known as Waterview Bay after a house built there in 1830. With the building of a dry dock in the bay in 1855, industry took over, and for a century Mort's Dock dominated the bay. When the dock closed in 1958, it passed through a number of hands, but was eventually redeveloped as housing and parkland.

Prince Alfred Park

First known to Europeans as Cleveland Paddocks, the area that became Prince Alfred Park was gazetted as a public reserve in 1865, and called after Prince Alfred during his ill-fated visit in 1868. Exhibition buildings were built in the park in 1870, lasting until 1954, and elements of the original park plan, including Moreton Bay fig trees along the boundaries, still remain.

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.

Royal Commission into Noxious and Offensive Trades 1882

The stinking industries of mid-nineteenth century Sydney, combined with the theory of miasmas, or infection through smells, led to agitation to move 'noxious' trades away from the city. The Royal Commission of 1882 recommended changes to the siting of polluting industries, but this did not happen until well into the next century.

South Head

Used by Aboriginal people as a base for settlement, fishing, shellfish collection, art and associated rituals, South Head became the landmark of arrival at Sydney after European settlement. A lookout, signal station, lighthouse and fortifications were built there at different times, to keep ships from shipwreck and to protect the settlement. It is now a series of parks.

Stanmore

Cadigal people walked the ridge line, which later became Stanmore Road, before the Europeans arrived. The land was granted to officers of the New South Wales Corps in 1792, and became farms, orchards and grazing land. Subdivided in the 1880s and 1890s, Stanmore developed around the railway station with Victorian villas and Federation houses. In the twentieth century, the suburb's fortunes declined, but by the 1970s gentrification was beginning to change Stanmore again.

Theatre

European theatre in Sydney began before the first Fleet made landfall, with a convict play on board the Scarborough. While theatre was always popular, a commercial theatre scene did not emerge until the 1830s, and theatrical fortunes rose and fell with the city's prosperity.

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.

Transport

Sydney's transport has been shaped by the geography of the city, changing economic and social needs, technological limitations and advances, and political considerations. From walking tracks and animal haulage to the commuting city of today, transport has also shaped the city itself, opening up new areas and choking others. Carts, ferries, trains, trams, buses and cars have all figured in Sydney's transport history.

Worgan, George

Worgan brought the first piano to the colony in 1788, and left it with Elizabeth Macarthur when he returned to England. His journal recorded his impressions of the first six months of European settlement, and is now in the State Library of New South Wales.

Gnung-a Gnung-a Murremurgan

Gnung-a Gnung-a Murremurgan sailed from Sydney to North America in 1793. Highly regarded by all he met, he played a significant role in Australia's early maritime history.

Children

While children have always comprised a substantial proportion of the overall population of Sydney, their voices are absent or muffled in many historical records. State intervention in the lives of European and Indigenous children has been constant in Sydney since the colonial period, but children's daily experiences have also been shaped by their families, cultures and surroundings.

Sailing

Sydney's first European colonists clung to the coastline and looked to the harbour and the sea for survival. Early recreational sailing was a product of the city's function as a seaport town. Sailing has since adapted to reflect and contribute Sydney's changing culture and customs.

Pemulwuy

Pemulwuy was a powerful Aboriginal resistance leader against the British settlers who occupied his land. Through the final decade of the eighteenth century, Pemulwuy led guerrilla attacks against settlers' farms, burning their huts, maize crops and livestock, and plundering their possessions.

Nanbarry

A survivor of the smallpox of 1789, Nanbarry became an interpreter and intermediary between his people and the new arrivals, and later went to sea.

Fowles, Joseph

Farmer, businessman, racing enthusiast, Joseph Fowles was also a successful artist, who left a visual record of Sydney in 1848 that remains invaluable to historians.

Circus

Circus has been part of Sydney's entertainment since the 1840s and hardly a year has passed since then without a circus in town. Sydney performers have gone on to international careers in the arena and have returned triumphant, and circus skills and acts became part of the city's thriving vaudeville and theatre scene.

Allen, George

Stepson of a convict, George Allen became the colony's first locally trained lawyer, and a pillar of society.

Eastwood

A region of farming estates, before the railway joined it to the city, Eastwood is now a multicultural suburb which retains some of its historic precincts.

HMS Sirius

Flagship of the first fleet, Sirius was vital to the survival of the young colony.

Royal Society of New South Wales

Growing out of earlier societies which endeavoured to further the cause of science in the colony, the Royal Society fostered discussion, learning and research from its formation in the mid-nineteenth century.

Sydney

Founded by Europeans as a social experiment, Sydney's beginnings brought death and dispossession to the original inhabitants of the place, as well as surprising freedom and prosperity to many of the convicts. Over its history, the city's growth has been shaped by factors that are common to many cities, but also by unique forces. In the twenty-first century, for the first time, the idea of sustainable progress is itself in doubt.

Prisons to 1920

Even a penal colony needs prisons. As early as 1796 gaols were built to hold criminals who had committed offences in the colony, and to hold the public floggings and executions that were thought to deter such crimes. Through the nineteenth century, attitudes changed, and prisoners were expected to reform and repent, although treatment got little kinder in the new buildings and systems that were devised.

Tourism

Shaped by tourism from its earliest days as a town, Sydney has catered to tourists from overseas, other parts of Australia and the New South Wales hinterland, becoming one of the world's favourite travel destinations.

Daceyville

Designed as model public housing for working-class families, Daceyville subsequently became home to returned soldiers and war widows. Saved from demolition several times, by community and union action, the suburb is now a living illustration of changes in town planning.

Botany

Visited by James Cook and Joseph Banks in 1770, but rejected as a site for the colony in 1788 by Arthur Phillip, Botany remained an important source of water and a site for varied industry throughout the nineteenth century, before becoming a transport hub in the twentieth. Throughout, a close-knit community has survived.

Americans

Americans and Australians have been partners and allies for over two centuries now. Americans have been visitors, investors, entertainers, allies, residents and citizens with varying degrees of influence and notoriety.

Water

Finding and securing enough water for Sydney's needs has been a challenge since the arrival of the Europeans in 1788, and over two centuries water supply has prompted some of the largest engineering schemes undertaken in Sydney.

Tugboats

Indispensable in keeping Sydney's maritime trade moving, tugboats and their operators have provided towage on Sydney Harbour since 1831.

Aboriginal life around Port Jackson after 1822

Aboriginal people continued to live around Sydney's harbour for more than a century after Europeans arrived, adapting their traditional life to their new conditions of dispossession and displacement, and maintaining, in scattered campsites, some of their skills and culture.

Cookney, George

George Cookney came to Sydney in 1823 with good connections and prospects, but his career ended in disgrace and transportation to Tasmania, where he redeemed himself somewhat.

Daringa

Daringa lived through the arrival of the Europeans, and with her husband Colebee, got to know some of the officials and settlers. Her gentle demeanour was noted by a number of colonists who took an interest in her life and family.

Lucas, Olivia

Founder of a large and successful colonial family, Olivia Gascoigne teamed up with Nathaniel Lucas, convict and carpenter, soon after her arrival in the colony, and together they did well, despite hardships and tragedy.

Receveur, Laurent

Priest, scientist and adventurer, François-Joseph Receveur, later also known as'Père Laurent Receveur', was wounded in Samoa in December 1787 and died at Botany Bay in February 1788, becoming the first Catholic priest and the first scientist buried in Australia. His grave has since become a revered site in Australian Catholicism.

Yarrawarrah

Known as North Engadine until 1971, Yarrawarrah's cheap land, isolation and influx of camp-dwellers during the Depression made it a poor relation of surrounding suburbs. Development after the 1960s releases of Crown land has resulted in a pleasant bushland suburb.

Irish in Sydney from First Fleet to Federation

A large part of Sydney's European community from its earliest days, the Irish helped shape the colony and its cultural and religious institutions. While many Irish immigrants, both convict and free, prospered and flourished in Sydney throughout the nineteenth century, they rarely forgot their homeland and its struggles, and remained a community which never thought of England as 'home'.

Hammond, Robert Brodribb Stewart

One of the best-known clergymen in Sydney during the first half of the twentieth century, RBS Hammond was a passionate advocate of temperance and 'practical Christianity'. His philanthropic endeavours, involving housing, feeding and finding employment for the poor, survived him in the suburb of Hammondville, and the institution of HammondCare.

Clint, Alfred

English-born scene painter Alfred Clint both came from and sired an artistic family. His elaborate painted backdrops were a highlight of late nineteenth-century Sydney theatre.

Aboriginal people of the Cooks River valley

For the Eora people, the Cooks River valley was a crossroad for trade, social and ceremonial networks but when the first European settlers ventured south, their explorations brought death and destruction to the clans

Bark huts and country estates

In their drive to establish country estates and thriving industries in the Cooks River valley during the nineteenth century, European settlers exploited the water, timber and fertile soils of the Cooks River with little appreciation of the impact of their 'improvements'

From a fine stream to an industrial watercourse

As Sydney expanded in the nineteenth century the picturesque waterways and valleys of the Cooks River were to host a network of waterworks and rail and road infrastructure that were to degrade the landscape forever.

Industry in the Cooks River valley

As industry took hold in Cooks River valley, pollution and drainage became entrenched problems accompanied by flooding and public health concerns.

Urban growth in the Cooks River valley

Urbanisation, industry and pollution transformed the once lush Aboriginal hunting grounds and picturesque locale of the Cooks River valley into the inner city suburban sprawl we know today

Damming the Cooks River

Once considered 'the greatest boon ever conferred upon the town', the Cooks River dam became an endless source of environmental blight and misery to Sydneysiders and by the turn of the century was demolished

Servicing Sydney's thirst

Increasing population and industry saw the Cooks River transformed from a pristine natural watercourse into a highly modified and polluted river

First people of the Cooks River

From beyond the time when the river flowed as Europeans came to know it, and long after its banks were dotted with farms, Aboriginal people have had a strong connection to the Cooks River.

Woollarawarre Bennelong

Thrust into history by his abduction, Bennelong led a tumultuous life, becoming the best known Aboriginal figure in the first decades of European settlement. His story, plagued by myths, connects twenty-first century Australia with the social and spiritual Aboriginal world that existed before the English colony of New South Wales.

Living with Sharks on the Georges River

Shark attacks were recorded in Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River from 1791 onwards. Early diarists remarked on the ' voracious fury' of these 'terrible fish' and the 'horror' that Aboriginal people, so accustomed to river life, experienced on encountering sharks. Yet river swimming has a long history in Sydney's recreational culture, with estuaries like the lower Georges River and Botany Bay much more likely to be the scene of horrendous events than ocean beaches.

Anderson, Ellen

A Dharawal woman, Ellen Anderson married Hugh Anderson from Cumeragunja. In the 1920s they bought a block of land at Salt Pan Creek in Ellen's name. Their home became the focus of a growing community of Aboriginal people and a centre of discussion and activism for reform

Giles, Biddy

Biddy Giles was a Dharawal woman who lived her whole life on her people's country. With her husband Billy, she guided groups of travellers on shooting and fishing trips, telling stories and sharing her skills and knowledge of the river and its wildlife.

Working the Tides

Two watermills existed on the Georges River in the 1820s. In 2013 a research team sought to discover how the maritime landscape of the Georges River and its tributaries sustained the transport of wheat, flour and manpower between the two mills in order to better understand the trials and tribulations of the early colonial settlers and their reliance on the waterways and landscapes of the Georges River.

Rose Bay Airport

Rose Bay Airport, on Sydney Harbour, was Sydney's first international airport for sea boats. Opening in 1937, Rose Bay Airport catered to the Empire Flying Boat and Air Mail Service, World War Two Catalina flying boats and Qantas and Ansett services until 1974 when services to Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island ended. In 2014, the Airport is used by a charter company.

Yarra Bay House

Yarra Bay House, originally built at La Perouse as a cable station, served as a NSW Government children's home from around 1917 until the 1980s. Since 1984 it has been owned by the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and has been the hub of the La Perouse Aboriginal community.

Manly Cove, Kai'ymay

Manly Cove was the site for first encounters between people from opposite sides of the globe; the site of greeting, gift-giving and dancing, of goodwill and curiosity, as well as betrayal, violence, justice and retribution.

Alexander

The Alexander was the largest and most notorious convict transport in the First Fleet carrying 'ye worst of land-lubbers'.

Charlotte

The Charlotte was one of six transports among the 11 ships of the First Fleet that arrived at Sydney Cove on the 26 January 1788 under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. She left Sydney Cove bound for Canton on 8 May 1788, arriving back in England in June 1789.

Lady Penrhyn

The Lady Penrhyn was the slowest ship of the First Fleet with the largest number of female convicts. She entered Port Jackson on 26 January but it was not until 6 February that the convict women disembarked, having spent a total of 13 months confined to the transport.

Scarborough

The second largest of the First Fleet vessels, Scarborough carried male convicts to the penal colony of New South Wales as part of both the First and Second fleets. Scarborough was the only ship of the First Fleet whose convict passengers plotted a mutiny, albeit one that was swiftly uncovered and thwarted

Friendship

The Friendship was one of the six convict transports in the First Fleet. She was scuttled and sunk on her return voyage after becoming stuck on sandbanks off the coast of Borneo.

HMS Supply

HMS Supply was the smallest and fastest ship in the First Fleet. A naval vessel, she carried 16 marines and accompanied the flagship HMS Sirius on the voyage to Sydney Cove. Over the next three years she made 11 more voyages, the last causing her so much damage that she was ordered back to England. She reached Plymouth on 21 April 1792.

Borrowdale

The Borrowdale, along with the other storeships of the First Fleet, took on board two years' worth of provisions and stores for the new colony including 'implements of husbandry, clothing for the troops and convicts and other necessaries'.

Parramatta's General Hospital

Parramatta's General Hospital for convicts was located on Marsden Street overlooking the Parramatta River from 1789 to 1818. Initially two thatched sheds that were known as the Tent Hospital, these were replaced in 1792 by a Brick Hospital. However, conditions continued to be woefully inadequate and led to the construction of a third hospital for convicts, the Colonial Hospital, on the same site in 1818.

Transcript: Mr Fred Scott remembers his grandfather's work as a wool classer in Liverpool

Mr Fred Scott was born in 1914 and was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' He remembers his grandfather's work as a wool classer in the early twentieth century when semi-rural Liverpool had close links with the wool industry.

Mapping the Georges River

Maps of the Georges River were made from the time of Cook's visit onwards, but it was not until the maps of Dixon and of Mitchell in the 1830s that the river was accurately charted.

Randwick

The City of Randwick in south-eastern Sydney is located on land that was once swamps and heath vegetation. Home to local Aboriginal people for thousands of years, the area remained relatively isolated to Europeans until the mid nineteenth century when Randwick village began to take shape. Little remains of this English-style village with development in post-war years dramatically changing the suburb.

The colonial observations of Surgeon John White

Surgeon John White, an officer of the First Fleet, was responsible for the health of the infant penal colony. His journal, and those of his contemporaries, reveals that food shortages were a serious problem for colonial officials, convicts and Aboriginal people. While there was some early collaboration between Aboriginal people and colonists regarding food, tensions escalated into violent incidents and an unknown number of fatalities. White, however, offered care to all the residents of Port Jackson, including Nanbaree, who White took to England.

The Tank Stream

The Tank Stream, Australia's first water supply, was a series of tanks cut into the sandstone along the sides of a freshwater stream in Sydney Cove. Although abandoned as a water source by 1826, the technology of the Tank Stream and its name were shaped by the experience of British officers in India.

Maroot the elder

Maroot the Elder, a leader of the Kameygal, is little known but he was recorded in the journals and observations of a number of European and American visitors to Sydney in the period 1798 to 1817.

Second Fleet commemoration plaque, The Rocks

A small plaque near Cadman's Cottage in The Rocks is the only Sydney memorial to the arrival of the second group of colonists to enter Port Jackson.

Carangarang

Carangarang, of the Wangal clan of the southern shore of the Parramatta River, was the wife of Corrangie and the best known of Bennelong's siblings. She was a presence in Sydney and Kissing Point until the late 1830s.

Sydney Flour Mills before 1850

Wheat was a staple European food and the British brought it to Australia in 1788 expecting it be the basis of their diet. Before it could be consumed, however, the grain needed to be ground into flour, so flour milling became an immediate and necessary secondary industry in the colony.

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.

Geology and geography of the Georges River

There are three main geological layers in the Georges River catchment that can be seen along the river's route through south western Sydney.

Boatswain Maroot

Boatswain Maroot was born about 1793 at the Cooks River (Gumannan) near Botany, the son of Maroot the elder (c1773-1817) of the Gameygal people that occupied the north shore of Kamay (Botany Bay), and Grang Grang. The son would lead a very different life to that of his parents. He gained the nickname ‘Boatswain’ or ‘Bosun’ as a young man, sailing on English ships in sealing and whaling voyages to Macquarie Island in the sub-Antarctic and the New Zealand ‘whale fisheries’, before returning to live at Botany Bay on land leased to him by the colonial government.