Martin Place and General Post Office Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (SRC20098)

It was announced recently that Australia Post has secured a deal to sell one of Sydney’s grandest heritage buildings - the General Post Office in Martin Place, a Renaissance style building in one of the city’s busiest squares.  

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During the 1830s, the post office which operated on the site of today's General Post Office building was housed in a former police station. In the late 1840s it was given a new portico facade, complete with Doric columns, and in 1848 artist Joseph Fowles described it as ‘one of the most important buildings in the colony, not merely as regards the structure, but as being the centre and focus, the heart, as it may be termed, from which the pulse of the civilisation throbs to the remotest extremity of the land.’ As the population of New South Wales expanded, so too did the demand for an improved postal service.  In 1864, the Colonial Architect, James Barnet, was appointed to design the new post office for the growing city.  Straddling the Tank Stream, the building was in an Italian Renaissance Palazzo style. It was built of Pyrmont sandstone with granite quarried at Moruya, and constructed over a 26-year period in two stages.

New Post Office, George Street 1846 by FG Lewis & Edward and Winstanley. Courtesy Dixson Galleries, State Library of NSW (a128977 / DG SV1A/22)

With the first stage of the building completed, the General Post Office was officially opened in September 1874. The second stage of construction, which now included the clock tower, began in 1879. The clock tower functioned as a timepiece for the city, and was also used to telegraph meteorological messages to Sydney's residents from the South Coast through the use of mechanically operated, colour-coded flags. In addition to housing the colony’s postal service, the building housed the telegraph department from 1867 and from the early 1880s, Sydney's first telephone exchange. The first telephone installed in the building in August 1880 ran only between the GPO and the Royal Exchange and the Sydney Morning Herald described many of the conversations had over a telephone for the first time, as having ‘a rather silly character’. There were some alterations made to the building in 1927, and in 1942 during World War II the clock tower was dismantled to reduce the visibility and vulnerability to aerial attack. It wasn't replaced until 1964.

GPO clock face being removed, Martin Place 14 June 1942 Courtesy National Archives of Australia (C4078, N1914D)

Over the 1980s the General Post Office underwent dramatic changes when it was leased out and refurbished. Part of the building was sold by Australia Post in the 1990s and converted into a hotel, along with boutique shops, cafes and restaurants. For more details about the building's history, you can read the Dictionary of Sydney's entry on the General Post Office by historian Laila Ellmoos here. Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator, and the Executive Officer of the History Council of NSW. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

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The Sydney Film Festival starts tonight so I thought we'd talk about recreating an authentic early cinema experience!

Frontage to Market Street of the State Theatre and shopping block, Sydney, Australia, c1929 Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 348, 1)

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Sydney Film Festival comes just once a year and its a great opportunity to see some great new films, and to visit Sydney's magnificent State Theatre. The State Theatre is one of the great cinemas that still survives in Sydney. It was designed by Eli White, a New Zealander who was inspired by the American fashion for 'atmospheric theatres'. This influence can also be seen in the beautiful Capitol Theatre, which White also designed. Think about the State Theatre. From the outside it's a Gothic skyscraper, but as soon as you walk into the lobby area, you're completely immersed in the intense baroque interior that follows throughout the cinema. Today it functions as a lyric theatre, where you can see everything from comedy to bands, but it was designed for film.

Side Wall of Gothic Hall, from State Theatre and shopping block, Sydney, Australia, c1929 Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 348, 3)

The State Theatre was built in 1929 and was the last of the big cinemas to be built before the stock market crash that triggered the 1930s depression. It is such a joy to watch films in this old theatre - just what it was originally designed for! The growth of Hollywood and the popularity of the talkies triggered other popular culture developments of course, and you can still experience some of those today as well. The "talkies" and American film stars of the 1930s inspired a new sweet that was invented and manufactured right here in Sydney at confectionary makers Stedman Henderson's beautifully named Sweetacres factory at Rosebery. The Sweetacres marketing people had noticed cinema's popularity and suggested repackaging one of their existing chocolate covered caramels as Fantales, so you could read about your favourite glamorous American film stars and munch on your lollies when the movie started.

Good Taste Perfectly Expressed, Sydney Morning Herald, November 18 1939, p19

State Theatre and shopping block, Sydney, Australia, ca. 1929 Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 348,9)

Stedman-Henderson came up with lots of Australia's iconic sweets. They also made Minties and in the early 1930s developed another cinema favourite, Jaffas. So to have an immersive historical cinema-going experience, get some Jaffas and Fantales and head off to the State Theatre! If you finish reading your Fantales wrappers while you're waiting for your movie to start, you can also read the great Dictionary entries on  the State Theatre, the Capitol Theatre and the history of film in Sydney, which gives some great background in the development of the film industry and the film festival here in Sydney. You can find the Sydney Film Festival program here so you can start planning your visit.   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Dictionary of Sydney today!

Promissory note for one pound issued by Garnam Blaxcell, 29 January 1814 Courtesy: Sir William Dixson Numismatic Collection, State Library of NSW (a6416001 / SAFE/DN/P 262)

The Dictionary of Sydney has been publishing freely accessible, reliable and authoritative information about Sydney's history since November 2009. Every day we provide facts, information, images, multimedia, insights and stories about Sydney to thousands of students, teachers, history lovers and researchers all over the world. As of December 2016, the Dictionary of Sydney has no ongoing operational funding. In July 2017, the Dictionary's content was moved onto a new sustainable platform at the State Library of New South Wales where it will be supported and preserved for posterity, but to keep adding to the Dictionary and telling more of Sydney's stories, the Dictionary of Sydney needs YOUR help.

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These leaves are held by the State Library of NSW and were among a store taken by Mary Bryant when she escaped and which she gave to James Boswell. The plant is Smilax glyciphylla, commonly known as wild sarsaparilla; "a small straggling vine found on the coastal regions of Australia ... Tea made from it has a bittersweet flavour but is better than that made from ti tree". The plant contains ascorbic acid; early colonists drank it as a tea substitute and used it as a remedy against scurvy. Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (R807)

Today's Dictionary of Sydney segment on 2SER was inspired by the fascinating article that recently appeared in The Guardian (here) about an amateur historian in Japan who uncovered evidence that a story long thought to be myth - that a ship commandeered by convict pirates and escapees from Tasmania sailed into Japanese waters in 1830 as they attempted to reach China - was in fact true.  Let's have a look at some convicts who escaped from Sydney!

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One of Sydney's most famous convict escape stories is that of husband and wife, William and Mary Bryant. The pair met aboard their First Fleet ship, Charlotte, and married shortly after arriving in Sydney. William had been transported for impersonating Royal Navy seamen and Mary for robbery and assault. In 1790 the couple, along with their two children and seven other convicts, stole Governor Arthur Phillip’s cutter, a small boat which Bryant had previously skippered on Sydney Harbour. They managed to sail all the way to Timor, enduring near starvation and shipwreck along their hazardous journey. Despite reaching Timor, the gang were recaptured after Dutch authorities were unconvinced by their claims to be shipwrecked mariners. During the voyage back to England to face further charges, William, their children and three of the other convicts died. Mary reached England with the other four convicts in 1792 and sent to Newgate Prison. Their cause was taken up by lawyer James Boswell, now known best as the biographer of Samuel Johnson. Mary Bryant was pardoned in 1793 and returned to her family home in Cornwall. The four other convicts were released in November 1793. A sad story you might not have heard is that of Mary Beckwith, who at 14 had been convicted of stealing and sentenced to transportation for life. She arrived in Sydney in December 1801 with her mother, who had been similarly sentenced to transportation for life. French explorer Nicolas Baudin arrived in Sydney in June 1802, and on 18 November 1802 when Baudin's ship Le Géographe left Port Jackson to continue its scientific expedition to survey the Australian coast, 17 year old Mary was on board with him. During the voyage she would have seen the coast of South Australia, probably the first European woman to do so, before travelling to Timor and Mauritius. Baudin died shortly after their arrival in Mauritius in 1803 however, and Mary’s fate after this remains unknown. Other ill-conceived attempts to escape the penal settlement revolved around an ignorance of geography. In November 1791, 21 convicts set out walking from Sydney with one week’s provisions in search of China, which they believed to be about 250 kilometres north. Most of them managed to return to Sydney, exhausted and malnourished, having only travelled about 40 kilometres. Those convicts who attempted to escape this way were referred to by Watkin Tench as “Chinese Travellers” in his 1793 Complete Account of the Settlement of Port Jackson. There were accounts of other desperadoes still searching for China as late as 1803. Other stories of escape you might want to explore on the Dictionary of Sydney include that of celebrated Scottish political prisoner Thomas Muir who escaped by rowing out to an American whaling ship called the Otter; Frederick Ward, who became better known as the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, the only convict to escape Cockatoo Island; and Molly Morgan who was transported to Sydney twice! Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator, and the Executive Officer of the History Council of NSW. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

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2SER Breakfast listeners had a special treat today as Lisa talked about Letters of Complaint, just one of the projects she's been working on in her role as the City Historian at the City of Sydney. 

A cliff-face stair-way, Darlinghurst c1886 (detail), by Frederic B Schell in 'Australasia illustrated', edited by Andrew Garran 1892, via the Internet Archive

Listen now The City of Sydney Archives holds an extensive collection of 19th century correspondence, some of which are archived in a series called Letters Received. There are more than 57,600 letters in this series from the period 1843 to 1899. Over the past five years or so, the City of Sydney Archives has been digitising this collection, and a dedicated group of volunteers have catalogued every single one. They are now all available for the public to access and download in PDF format from the City Archives catalogue, Archives Investigator, here. These letters were sent to the Council by residents, businesses, and the colonial government, and cover all sorts of subjects. These letters are a treasure trove and give us a unique and intimate insight into daily life in Sydney in the 19th century. There is a genre of correspondence amongst these letters received that is of particular interest to me, and that is the letter of complaint. There are complaints about traffic congestion, neighbours who boiled up tripe for sale, smoke from boilers and oil based fires, and many, many complaints about smells. It was widely accepted at the time that disease was spread by offensive vapours or miasmas, so a bad smell was not just offensive or a sign that something was off, but was also thought to be an indicator of contagion and disease. With open drains & sewers, cesspits in backyards, tanneries, wool scourers and glue works throughout the city, there were plenty of smells to complain about. My favourite letter though is about the goat nuisance of Woolloomooloo.

Mr McVey's letter about the goat nuisance of Woolloomooloo, City of Sydney Archives 26/229/1056

James McVey, of 70 Brougham Street Woolloomooloo, wrote to the Mayor of the City of Sydney in June 1888. I beg to draw your attention to the nuisance of the goats that are allowed to roam at large in and around Brougham Street Woolloomooloo. The residents complain of the abbominable [sic] smells, and cannot get rest at night from the bleating of those animals. They are most disgusting where children are. Hoping you will find some plan to get rid of them as I have been to the police and complained by to no avail. I am Yours Respectfully, James McVey You can download a copy of the original letter here. Before I had encountered this letter, I had not been aware that Sydney had a “goat nuisance”. I wondered how widespread it might have been. Was it only in Woolloomooloo?  A quick search in Archives Investigator revealed that a clutch of letters were received by the Council about this issue. It seems goats were a nuisance not only in Woolloomooloo, but also in the Rocks, Surry Hills, Pyrmont and Ultimo! For History Week last year I curated some of the most outstanding and bizarre letters of complaint, and with creative director Maeve Marsden (who is, by the by, also one of the talented creators of the fabulous cabaret Mothers Ruin on the history of gin), created a dramatisation based on these letters. I'm very excited to say that we've now also created a free short series of podcasts based on this dramatisation and these letters, and that this has just been released! There are six episodes covering different types of letters. Each podcast starts with a dramatisation and is followed by short commentary by me about the meaning of the letter. I encourage you to listen to these short podcasts to get a sense of the letters and the performance.

Click here to go the Letters of Complain podcasts

You can listen to the Letters of Complaint podcasts on your computer online here, just by clicking a button. You can also get them for android devices or through iTunes. I really encourage you to explore the amazing treasure trove of Letters Received in the Archives for yourself too.  Go to Archives Investigator here and either choose the quick link on the right "Letters Received by Council, 1843-1899", OR choose to do an Advanced Search (orange button) by Record Item (green button bottom right), put the number "26" into the Series Number field and then enter a keyword(s) in the Title file and click Search. I have also made a list in the National Library’s TROVE catalogue here of the letters used in the performance for posterity and to make it easy to find these particular letters again. And if you're still wondering about those goats? A lot of people kept goats in the city for fresh milk, and many were allowed to wander around, eventually becoming what we might now call 'feral'. Mr McVey's complaint was promptly investigated by the Inspector from the Council's Department of Nuisances and he found that 'this gentleman has very just grounds for complaint, that a number of goats both male and female have been prowling about the neighbourhood to the annoyance and disgust of the inhabitants'. The Council however couldn't do anything about roaming goats unless the animal had an owner who could be identified and ordered to control or tether it. In this case, the Inspector of Nuisances had to refer the problem to the 'Inspector of the police of the district who has issued instructions to his subordinates to take such action as will effectually remedy the evil ', or in other words, who would impound and eventually presumably shoot the unclaimed goats. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

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'6 o'clock - Rush home' from 'The Hours of the Day in Sydney' , Illustrated Sydney News, 6 September 1879, p12

There’s been a lot of talk this week about Sydney’s buses and the NSW Government’s plans to privatise a section of the network. As historian Garry Wotherspoon points out in his article in the Dictionary of Sydney, Sydney’s bus network has always been a source of debate since the first omnibus service plied the streets in the late 1860s.

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Sydney’s first publicly owned form of transport was the Pitt Street tramway. Running from 1861 to 1866, it used horse-drawn trams and operated between Circular Quay and the terminus at Cleveland Paddocks (the present-day area of Regent, Cleveland and Devonshire streets). The tramway was replaced by Sydney’s first “buses” - a privately owned, horse-drawn omnibus service which remained the city’s main form of public transport until the 1890s. By 1889, about 64 omnibus services were running with 47 of those licensed by the city’s Transit Commissioners. The steam-powered tram began to overtake the horse-drawn omnibus service after it was first introduced in 1879. In the early 1900s, the omnibus service was used in areas not served by trams until a new technology took Sydney’s roads by storm in the 1920s. Private companies exploited the possibilities of motorised vehicles, operating private buses in Sydney to rival the public tramway system. By 1930, 219 bus services carried millions of Sydneysiders across the city each year. In the 1932, the NSW Government’s Department of Road Transport and Tramways was established and the issue of private and public ownership came to the fore. In the end, despite Sydney’s tram network being one of the most sophisticated in the world, it was gradually replaced by an expanding rail and bus network. The last tram ran in 1961. Today Sydney’s buses continue to inspire debates around urban planning, maintenance costs, carbon emissions and public and private ownership, just as they did during the 1930s and 1950s. What does the future hold for Sydney’s public transport network?

Traffic in George Street after buses replaced trams 1962, Courtesy State Archives & Records NSW (17420_a014_a0140001211)

You can read more about Sydney's buses and other forms of transport on the Dictionary. Click here to see our subject listing for buses, including Garry Wotherspoon's entry Buses, and here for trams. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. If you missed out on our latest newsletter this week, you can still download a copy here.

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Make a tax-deductible donation to the Dictionary of Sydney today!

Brick chimneys St Peters 2008 by Paul Howard

They are one of the most ubiquitous building materials in Sydney, so you probably haven't given them much thought, but the history of bricks in Sydney is actually rather fascinating!    Listen now

The three large towers that we see at Sydney Park at the southern end of King Street and the start of the Princes Highway are survivors of a once thriving local industry. They are the chimneys of huge kilns that sit below them, where bricks made from the clay excavated from the surrounding land were fired, and are remnants of the huge brickmaking industry that existed around St Peters, Alexandria and Waterloo. Rich shale deposits of Wianamatta shale found there in the 19th century were 'the brickmakers' equivalent of gold', and today's Sydney Park was once a patchwork of deeply excavated brickpits. Over the period 1858 to 2007 there were 56 different brick companies that operated in the municipalities of Alexandria and Waterloo, with the biggest cluster of brickmakers found west of Sheas Creek along the Waterloo, Barwon Park and Cooks River roads. The main firms operating there in the 1890s were the Bedford, Beulah, Carrington, Patent Plastic, St Peters, Vulcan, and Warren brickworks.

Map of St Peters brickpits and surrounds 1880s, detail from 'Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney' Alexandria 1886-1888

The Sydney Park chimneys and their kilns were part of the Bedford Brickworks. The company was established by Josiah Gentle in the 1890s, who was part of a brickmaking family and had been making bricks in the area since about 1873. The Depression years of the 1930s were difficult ones for the brickmaking industry, and in 1936 Bedford Brickworks was taken over by Austral Bricks, who continued operating the site until the 1940s and other brickworks in St Peters until the 1980s. The various brickworks at St Peters were a key source of employment for the men and boys of Alexandria, St Peters and Newtown. Unlike other seasonal industries in the area, such as woolwashing, brickmaking happened all year round, with some kilns, such as Bedford's, operating around the clock. The only thing that slowed production was heavy rain, which made the clay heavier, more difficult to extract, and flooded the brick pits. In Sydney in the 19th century, children as young as 10 or 12 were employed in boot factories and tobacco factories, and boys of this age were employed in the brickpits as puggers. An inquiry into child labour in 1875 discovered that boys worked a 10 hour day at the brickpits and could remove up to 8 or 9 tonnes of clay dirt in a single shift, climbing down the precipitous slopes, filling up baskets which they carried back up and then transferred via wheelbarrows to the brickmakers in the kilns. The deeply excavated clay pits, some 50 for 60 feet deep, with their kilns and chimneys towering overhead formed an impressive landscape. The brick kilns along the Cooks River Road (now King Street and the Princes Highway) were a landmark for travellers and tram passengers.

Brick factory, St Peters c1940s by Lionel Lindsay, courtesy National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an10740670)

During the day the chimneys pierced the skyline, while at night, with many of the kilns operating continuously, the fires would light up the night sky, the sulphur wafting across the suburbs. The brickmaking industry of St Peters was central to the suburbanisation of Sydney, providing the building materials for construction across the city,  and was part of the first wave of Sydney's industrialisation. While Bedford's is remembered in the remnant factory structures, other local brickmakers are also commemorated in the landscape. Henry Knight, a brickmaker turned local politician, and Henry Goodsell both have nearby streets named after them. Both Camdenville Oval in St Peters and Henson Park in Marrickville were formed on the remains of old brickpits. Other areas across the Sydney from Brookvale to Kirrawee show similar influences. If you are passing the chimneys over the next few weeks, you'll notice lots of scaffolding as conservation work is undertaken by the City of Sydney to ensure these heritage landmarks will last into the future. Further reading: We have several articles in the Dictionary that touch on the thriving industry of brickmaking in Sydney, including two that look specifically at the St Peters brickpits. Bricks by Ron Ringer Sydney Park: kangaroo ground to brickpits by Laila Ellmoos & Anne-Maree Whitaker The State Heritage Register entry for the site is available here, and a great timeline on the history of Brickworks Limited in Sydney is available here. Ron Ringer's deeply researched and comprehensive book The Brickmasters: 1788-2008, Dry Press 2008 is also highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the history of bricks in Sydney. And if you'd like to see Sydney's oldest brick (here), it is currently on display in the State Library of NSW's Dalgety Walkway that links the Library's two buildings at the lower ground level. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

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Harry L'Estrange c1877 Pic: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a928408 / P1/987)

There are some very colourful characters to be found in the Dictionary of Sydney. The showman, aeronaut and tightrope walker, Henri L’Estrange, wowed Sydney audiences in the 1870s and 1880s.

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The aeronaut, showman and tightrope walker, Henri L’Estrange, enthralled Sydneysiders during the 1870s and 1880s. Calling himself the ‘Australian Blondin’, after France’s world-famous tightrope walker Charles Blondin, L’Estrange made three walks across Sydney Harbour and attempted a series of flights over the city in a gas balloon. L’Estrange was born in Melbourne in about 1842 and arrived in Sydney in 1876. On a Saturday afternoon on 14 April 1877, an estimated 10,000 people clambered at various vantage points on the north shore to witness the ‘Australian Blondin’ in action. The rope was strung across Willoughby Bay in Northbridge from Folly Point at a length of about 433 metres and 104 metres above the water. L’Estrange successfully crossed the rope, dressed in a dark tunic, red cape and turban, as the crowds erupted in cheers. In 1878 L’Estrange attempted another exciting feat - an ascent in a hot air ballon. His first attempt failed miserably at Prince Alfred Park in Surry Hills, when the balloon took too long to fill and he decided to discard the car and sit in a loop of rope instead. The balloon dragged him across the park before clearing the fenceline and landing on a railway truck. His second attempt at Belmore Park, next to Central Station, also ended in failure.

Henri L'Estrange, tightrope walker, crossing Middle Harbour April 1877, Illustrated Sydney News, 28 April 1877

He did make two successful flights from Cook Park in the city over the harbour to Manly in September 1880 and then another flight in Manly. In March 1881, around 10,000 spectators gathered in the Domain to watch another attempt. Though he managed to ascend over Hyde Park to Rushcutters Bay, he suffered a mishap with the ropes and slammed his balloon into a house in Woolloomooloo. The escaping gas was ignited and exploded which destroyed the balloon, injured bystanders and caused a huge panicked rush from the crowd. In April 1881 L'Estrange decided to return to the tightrope and chose a location close the his successful cross four years earlier. Crowds gathered again, this time to witness him ride a bicycle over the tightrope, however as he reached the centre he lost balance and fell into the water. L'Estrange’s reputation was in tatters after these failures and he retreated from the public eye. Today he remains the only tightrope performer ever to have walked across the waters of Sydney Harbour. Check out historian, Mark Dunn’s fascinating article on L'Estrange in the Dictionary here for more. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  

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Paul Irish, Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney

NewSouth Publishing, (May) 2017, ISBN  9781742235110, pp 1-149 pages, plus scholarly apparatus and Index, (pp. 150-207) Formats: Paperback, ebook, ePDF

Walking along the foreshores of Rozelle Bay and Black Wattle Bay in Sydney’s Inner West, we often marvel at how quickly the mangroves are regenerating in the muddy tidal inlets. We can see oysters clinging to the rocks and as the tide turns, we watch fish jumping. Surviving shell middens here and there provide plenty of evidence of feasting taking place in these and other watery coves.  Sitting quietly under a large spreading Morton Bay Fig tree, it’s not difficult to imagine the Aboriginal people who fished, travelled around and stayed here without interruption, right up to the first colonial settlement in 1788. Sydney’s bays, coves and rivers have always provided a bounty and a place to live. Paul Irish, author of Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney, estimates that when the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour, there were ‘at least two dozen clans’ or up to fifteen hundred Aboriginal peoples living on loosely defined estates and territories – clan lands - spread across the Sydney region. (pp.17-19). This territory he defines as encompassing the area south from Sydney Harbour to Port Hacking, inland from Botany Bay to the tidal limits of the Georges River at Liverpool, and today’s bustling concrete CBD. Irish calls this region, coastal Sydney. Irish poses the important question – ‘what happened to Sydney’s Aboriginal people between the devastating impact of white settlement and increased government intervention a century later?’ (Chapter 6). Irish cannot be precise about the number of Aboriginal people who lived in the Sydney region as reliable records were not properly kept in the late 19th century. But he estimates from various contemporary observations that after European settlement the numbers were and remained relatively small. Importantly, after European settlement and the obvious displacement, epidemics and disruption to customary life, Aboriginal people did not go away. They stayed. By the 1840s, Irish suggests that the ‘fifty to one hundred Aboriginal people living across coastal Sydney were still a significant and visible minority, comprising up to a tenth of the population outside of Sydney town’. By this time around thirty thousand Europeans were ‘packed into the town’. (p.34) From the earliest and the later accounts and journals, Aboriginal people were obvious to visitors and, indeed, many individuals were well-known to Sydneysiders. Familiar with the country, even if they accepted charity blankets from charities and the administration, Aboriginal people could still rely on the harbour, the rivers and the land to provide food. With the aid of a bark canoe (nowie), or later with a cast-off boat, or simply moving around on foot, Aboriginal people could reach different parts of the shoreline to sustain themselves. Travelling to other clan estates for ceremonies and exchange rituals, ‘conducting business’, or gathering food, mobility was relatively easy for those who survived the intruders’ onslaught. Life went on. Paul Irish asks important questions. Even with a rudimentary knowledge of where and how Aboriginal people lived in the Sydney region prior to and soon after Europeans’ arrival, what happened to these people once colonial settlement spread beyond Sydney Town? What happened in the early decades and later through the nineteenth-century? How great were the effects of physical and psychological displacement? What were the best intentions of humanitarian governors and the worst intentions of certain settlers on Aboriginal people and how did this impinge? How did Aboriginal people develop coping mechanisms to retain culture and custom once Europeans where here to stay? For anthropologists and archaeologists, the formal answer usually provided is by ‘adaptation’. But what does this mean in the Sydney coastal context? When, through dire circumstances major disruption happens, most human beings are capable of adapting. And this ability was no less for Aboriginal people living in coastal Sydney. But if we are curious to know more of the how, and where, and in what circumstances Aboriginal people could adapt to remain in safety, how they interacted with the new settlers, how relatively small numbers of Aboriginal people could stand their ground and survive, these and other fundamental questions are answered in Paul Irish’s accessible and yet scholarly history. In seven comprehensive, chronological and thematic chapters Irish has aimed to fill in gaps to provide ‘a readable narrative for people with no prior knowledge of Sydney’s Aboriginal history.’ The book begins ‘by challenging an enduring myth that Aboriginal culture has never changed and cannot change without ceasing to be ‘authentic’’ (p.7). With careful interweaving, Irish has succeeded in providing information that has been overlooked or missed, and he has joined the gaps through a careful re-scrutiny of contemporary documents and records. And he has used his eyes to look around! He has also consulted with Aboriginal communities still living in plain sight in the Sydney region. He has taken into account their testimonies and oral histories. He has looked at particular family histories, consulted widely and, as a bonus, has provided informative maps and copious illustrations to emphasise his thesis. Irish has opened up a vital view of Aboriginal people he pertinently describes as having been ‘hidden in plain view’. Paul Irish readily acknowledges and draws on the scholarship of others (among them Grace Karskens, Maria Nugent, Val Attenbrow and Ann Curthoys and more), and he provides useful, detailed references to a host of specialised works in the book’s final section devoted to ‘Further Reading’ and ‘Image References’. In addition to detailed ‘Chapter Notes’, there is also a comprehensive Index. This book is rich in source material that can be followed up by interested readers. Today, kayakers and sailboarders share the Sydney waters and foreshores with container ships, tankers, jet planes, sailing boats and sea planes, dinghies and tinnies, ferries, tug boats and dredges, ocean liners, as well as millionaires’ cruisers. In these same places, we must not forget that Aboriginal families lived here first. They hunted and fished, collected shellfish, trapped eels and land-bound creatures, and found shelter under soaring trees and rocky outcrops. With all Sydney’s CBD and suburban distractions, it may be hard for some to imagine the original custodians of Sydney living and using special knowledge and familiarity with locations, to sustain their families, their culture and clan life from one season to the next. Paul Irish displays an even-handedness as an historian and archaeologist, and as such he wants to expand our knowledge and thinking to replace ‘The enduring perception of timeless territoriality [that] has imagined Aboriginal culture as a sheet of glass, strong and cohesive in isolation but highly vulnerable to the hammer blow of colonial impact’ (p.18). Rather the author wants readers to consider Aboriginal peoples’ resilience and mobility and to understand how Aboriginal people dealt with change.  Irish moves deftly from the early days of settlement to a period he considers less well known, ‘poorly understood’ and least documented, from the 1830s to the 1900s. Paul Irish has successfully brought this history of the coastal people of Sydney much closer to home. By drilling down to people and places into territory also well explored by the Dictionary of Sydney, he has improved focus and concentrated our view. Just take a stroll around the ‘new’ Barangaroo Reserve to imagine and combine new and old perspectives. As Stan Grant, Aboriginal journalist, writer and commentator suggests, through this shared history, Paul Irish has ‘breathed new life into people written out of history’.  This book will endure, inform and open our eyes. © Dr Suzanne Rickard April 2017   Click here to read Paul Irish's Dictionary of Sydney entry First people of the Cook's River