William Street, Kings Cross at night 1970 by John Fitzpatrick, Credit: National Archives of Australia (A1200, L84008)

Comic entertainer Frankie Davidson asked Australians in 1963 'Have you ever been to see Kings Cross?' Whether you've been there or not, you probably know something about the Cross from its reputation and clubs: from Les Girls to Sweethearts. Kings Cross has a special place in Sydney's history. It attracted migrants, bohemians, artists, eccentrics and working girls throughout the 20th century and has been a staple of Sydney nightlife.

Carlotta, Kings Cross 1970-71, by Rennie Ellis, © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

Historian Mark Dunn describes Kings Cross in our entry on the Dictionary as a 'state of mind' as much as a place. And you too can experience some of the history of Kings Cross in a new immersive cabaret performance called Hidden Sydney - The Glittering Mile. The cabaret takes its name from the 1964 ABC television documentary, The Glittering Mile, where Kings Cross was described as a "glittering mile of dreams, delusions, hopes and headaches, where life comes out of an espresso machine and you can have it any way you like it." Presented by the City of Sydney's Art & About program, the performance is set over 4 floors of The Nevada, the former Sydney brothel on Bayswater Road which once boasted the biggest bed in the world. Swirl through the decades meeting characters including Bea Miles, Les Girls performers, and Rosaleen Norton, the "witch of Kings Cross". Rub shoulders with the crims and crooks of the day, including associates of Abe Saffron, finishing up with last drinks at the Chevron Hotel's Silver Spade club. The cabaret is on for a limited season, until October 9, so don't miss out. It's a chance to experience the sensory history of Kings Cross, rather than just read about it. I've been along (courtesy of the City of Sydney) and I have to say that this historian had a great night out. As well as the cabaret and the Dictionary of Sydney entries linked to above, you can also explore the history of Kings Cross through the CIty of Sydney's self-guided historical walking tours. Download the app or the pdf here and get outside! Listen to the Lisa & Nic's chat 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.  Listen now  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODqVqKzG3LI[/embed]

Jim Davidson,  Moments in Time: a book of Australian postcards 

National Library of Australia, 2016, paperback $44.99 ISBN 9780642278777

The humble postcard enjoyed a relatively brief but spectacular place in postage history roughly from the 1890s to the 1920s. They were cheap and attractive and enjoyed a reduced postage rate. In 1906 alone the Sydney GPO handled more than 12 million of them. Many more which were not posted were tucked into postcard albums, to remind their owner of past travels or to impress visitors. Jim Davidson, a postcard collector and historian, has now compiled what amounts to a social history of Australia as depicted in its postcards. In this handsome book, full of nostalgic glimpses of an earlier time, he displays close to 300 of them, almost all from the National Library’s remarkable collection. Grouped by themes such as the beach, country towns, disasters, hotels, the military and politics, he demonstrates how postcards reflected and recorded our country in the late 19th  and early 20th centuries. Thanks to keen collectors, and libraries like the National Library, these small but important pieces of evidence about our past have been preserved when they could so easily have been jettisoned as more efficient forms of communication emerged and captured the imagination and interest of the public. Now we can all enjoy them and learn from them. Neil Radford 2016

Last week news broke that HMS Terror, the long-lost ship of British polar explorer (and former Governor of Tasmania) Sir John Franklin, has been found 168 years after its sinking. I thought I’d delve into the Dictionary of Sydney and explore some of Sydney’s shipwrecks for 2SER Breakfast this morning.

Wreck of Dunbar, South Head c1862-1863 by ST Gill Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a939035 / PXA 1983, f34 )

This city’s worst maritime tragedy would be the wreck of the Dunbar. On the night of Thursday 20 August 1857, after 81 days at sea, the Dunbar arrived off Sydney Heads. Treacherous weather conditions forced Dunbar aground at The Gap. The impact shattered the ship and the lifeboats were destroyed by the pounding seas. All but one of the 122 people on board perished that night. The lone survivor, crewman James Johnson, was hurled onto the rocks where he somehow managed to climb to safety, while his fellow passengers were flung up against the cliffs below. At the funeral procession four days later every ship in harbour flew their ensigns at half mast, guns were fired every minute, banks and offices were closed, and over 100 carriages passed in front of the 20,000 people lined on George Street.

'Tragic Collision in the Harbour between the mail steamer Tahiti and the ferry steamer Greycliffe', Sydney Morning Herald, November 4, 1927, p 16

Another tragic incident occurred not far from the Opera House. On 3 November 1927 a ferry named Greycliffe collided with the mail steamer, Tahiti, as she made her usual trip from Circular Quay to Watsons Bay. Newspapers published witness accounts of Tahiti cutting through the Greycliffe ferry like a knife, ‘shearing through the steelwork and wooden superstructure as though it were so much as a matchboard’. Within seconds, one half of the ferry slipped under the water while the other was still afloat with people scrambling for their lives. The space in front of the Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, which is where the Opera House now stands, became a temporary casualty station as ambulance vehicles rushed between the site and Sydney Hospital. In total, 40 people lost their lives with the victim’s ages ranging from 2 to 81 years old. Along with the Dunbar wreck, the Greycliffe sinking is considered one of the city’s worst maritime tragedies. Maroubra Beach has been the site of many maritime disasters. In 1898, the iron clipper Hereward was on her way to Newcastle when she encountered a storm and was flung toward the shore of Maroubra Beach. The ship luckily avoided two rocky reefs and the 25 crew members were brought safely ashore. The wreck lay on the beach for decades until the local council began blasting the remnants in 1950 as a result of safety concerns. However, pieces of hull have re-emerged in more recent years, reminding beachgoers of Sydney’s shipwreck past.   Listen to the Nicole & Nic's chat 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.  Listen now   

Crowds viewing the Hereward, aground at Maroubra c1898, Credit: State Library of Victoria (Acc No: H99.220/3951)

Garden Palace, Sydney c1879-1882 by JT Richardson Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a128953 / XV1/ Pub/ Gar P/2)

On 17 September 1879 the Sydney International Exhibition opened in the newly built Garden Palace in the Botanic Gardens, along with a number of other pavilions in the gardens and Domain. The Sydney International Exhibition was Sydney's coming out to the world as a wanna-be global city. As Shirley Fitzgerald notes in her Dictionary of Sydney entry on the Garden Palace: "The fashion for holding exhibitions, where countries could show off their industrial and manufacturing might as well as their agricultural riches and artistic skills, began in 1851 with the London Exhibition. It was housed in the purpose-built Crystal Palace." The Garden Palace was Sydney's answer to the Crystal Palace. It was a marvellous extravagant exhibition hall with domes and a tower that dominated the Macquarie Street skyline. The exhibition ran until April 1880. There were 724 classes of goods and produce on exhibition, from huge pieces of machinery to fine porcelain and Aboriginal artefacts.

View looking across the pond to the exhibition buiding, French flag flying on left, and the flag of the United States of America flying on the right c1880 by Charles Bayliss Credit: State Library of Victoria (Acc No: H26426)

While the exhibition made an impact upon Sydneysiders and our city landscape, it all went up in smoke just a few years later. At dawn on 22 September 1882, the Garden Palace spectacularly burnt down, with reports of blackened iron pieces landing as far away as Rushcutters Bay. By this time the building was being used for occasional events and as office space for various government departments. Records, including those of land occupations, the 1881 Census details, and railway surveys, all went up in flames. So too did 300 uninsured canvasses from the Art Society's annual exhibition, the grand organ and the foundation collection of the Technological and Mining Museum (now the Powerhouse Museum). All of the Aboriginal artefacts compiled by the Australian Museum for the exhibition also went up in flames. "Thousands of bleached white shields will echo the masses of rubble - the only remnants of the building after the fire - raising the layered history and bones of the Garden Palace across the site. A native kangaroo grassland will form the heart of the installation which will be activated and enlivened by presentations of Indigenous language, performances, talks, special events and workshops each day." Separate exhibitions within the Royal Botanic Garden and at the State Library of NSW and Art Gallery of NSW tell the different stories of the Garden Palace and the international exhibition. There were a range of symposiums that led up to the final installation of the work, which are also accessible through the project website.

'Some ruins of Exhibition Palace of 1878 [sic] c1882 Credit: Australian National Maritime Museum (Gift from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron 00013762)

Don't miss this extraordinary opportunity to explore the Garden Palace, and its enduring legacies of loss. This is a landmark public art project and a major engagement with Sydney's Aboriginal and European history. The installation opens on 17 September in the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney and will be on display daily from 10am until sunset until 3 October 2016. For more details, and to see the installation in progress, go to the Kaldor Public Art Project here. Listen to the Lisa & Nic's chat 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.  Listen now   

Birds eye view of Project 32: Jonathan Jones' barrangal dyara (skin and bones), September 13 2015 Photo by Peter Greig, courtesy: Kaldor Public Art Projects

James Colman, The House that Jack Built: Jack Mundey Green Bans Hero,  

The House That Jack Built: Jack Mundey, Green Bans hero by James Colman 2016, NewSouth ISBN: 9781742235011 RRP: $49.99

NewSouth, Sydney, 2016, paperback $49.99, ISBN 9781742235011

Readers of the Dictionary of Sydney with an interest in heritage, conservation, urban planning and design – or the lack of it – and urban history and politics will find Jim Colman’s highly readable book insightful and stimulating. Colman has not simply produced a biography of the famous activist, conservationist, communist and unionist, Jack Mundey, though his book has certainly achieved this. He has written a beautifully contextualised history of the urban environmental movement in Sydney from the late 1960s. Though other places in Australia and overseas are mentioned from time-to-time, this book is about Sydney. Colman lived through the times and events that he writes about and his philosophical and political positions on heritage and the environment are clear. But the book is not partisan. Drawing on a raft of historical evidence, Colman provides a balanced account of the last half-century of Sydney’s urban growth and activism. He pays particularly attention – perhaps around one third of the book – to the turbulent 1970s. As the book’s title suggests, the Green Bans are the main focus here. (A total of 42 green bans were imposed from 1971 to 1975, stopping around $4 billion of construction.) And The Rocks, appropriately, attracts special treatment. A green ban was placed on The Rocks from November 1971 until 1975 which stymied Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority’s (SCRA) scheme for the virtual destruction of the historic area. SCRA responded by modifying its scheme on a number of occasions but these were rejected by the local Residents Action Group with the Builders Labourers’ Federations (BLF) backing. Mundey was its radical, high profile secretary. When one of these revised plans was sent back in early March 1973, a newspaper reporter observed that ‘the most powerful town planning agency operating within NSW at the moment is the BLF’. In August 1973, Mundey put the BLF’s position bluntly: ‘My federation will lift its ban when the residents are satisfied with what is being put forward by the authority’. New plans eliminated high-rise buildings to accord with the ‘people’s plan’ and the Sirius Apartment building was constructed to provide public housing for displaced local residents. Ultimately, the area’s history and heritage – colonial and working-class – was recognised and SCRA – somewhat shamelessly – dropped the word ‘Redevelopment’ from its name. The ‘battle for The Rocks’ was a major, perhaps the major urban coup for the heritage movement in Australia. It destabilized the dominant ideology of progress which had largely gone unchallenged throughout Australia’s past and brought to the fore participatory democracy in civic affairs. It is not co-incidental that a raft of state heritage legislation, amongst the earliest in Australia, was drafted and passed not long after this landmark and other associated struggles such as that over Woolloomooloo: NSW’s Heritage Act came into being in 1977, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act was passed two years later and the Land and Environment Court Act brought that jurisdiction into being in 1979. The House that Jack Built does not present Mundey or the environmental movement in a celebratory light. Rather, it paints a realistic picture of the movement from ­­– literally – go to woe. Ironically, the Sirius Apartment Building in The Rocks is both an artefact and a symbol of the battle for The Rocks and broader developments in the heritage movement and participatory democracy. Recently, the Heritage Council of New South Wales adopted a nomination to have the building listed on the State Heritage Register. But this was rejected by the Minister, Mark Speakman, who insisted that this did not indicate an attitude of ‘money trumps heritage’. But it clearly does during a time in the history of the environmental movement that has seen heritage legislation and agencies gutted and the Federal Productivity Commission call for greater rights for private property. It can only be hoped, as Colman does, that we do not see a complete return ‘to the cowboy days of Sydney’s property boom in the 1960s’ (p287). Paul Ashton August 2016

Like 'Not happy Jan' in the 1990s, the 1940s advertising slogan 'Gone to Gowings' (referring to the iconic Sydney department store on the corner of George & Market Streets) quickly made it into the local vernacular. In 1946 when notorious underworld figure Antonio Martini escaped from the Quarter Sessions court in Sydney, another prisoner, when asked where Martini was replied laconically 'He's gone to Gowings'. Pic: 'Where's Bill? Gone to Gowings' The Sun 10 November 1946, p12 via Trove

You may have heard that a second edition of the Australian National Dictionary was released just the other day. The Australian National Dictionary "is a Dictionary of Australianisms, and includes words and meanings that have originated in Australia, or that have a greater currency or special significance here than elsewhere".   Australians have a knack for creating colloquialisms. Perhaps it is the influence of Cockney slang. Many of our expressions can be quite specific in time and place. Sydney has many such sayings and we've gradually been documenting and explaining them in the Dictionary of Sydney here. Many of them have clear historical allusions. Here are a few of my favourite sayings: A Botany Bay barfly. Saying which refers to early Sydney's drinking habits. More nuts than the Bridge. Expression referring to someone who was thought to be "nuts", or a bit crazy, the reference being to the nuts and bolts used in building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Shoot through like a Bondi tram. Colloquial expression meaning to leave in haste. More front than Anthony Horderns. Saying referring to someone known for their impudence or cool assertion, the reference being to Anthony Hordern's department store which occupied a large city block. Getting off at Redfern. Colloquial expression pertaining to contraception. A dial like Luna Park. Saying which compares a smiling face or 'dial' to the entrance to Luna Park. Crook as Rookwood. Colloquial expression to describe being chronically ill. What other sayings are particular to Sydney? Share them and their meanings with us - and their origins! There are some more colloquialisms here from a 1901 talk by JP Gaume 'Humours and past Times of Early Sydney’ , which have been preserved on Warren Fahey's website, in turn archived by the National Library (phew!). Take a look at the ongoing discussions on the Australian National Dictionary Centre's website andc.anu.edu.au, which includes a word of the month, too.   Listen now Listen to the Lisa & Nic's chat 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.   

Download the History Week 2016 program here

Don't forget that History Week starts this Saturday! You can also download the full History Week 2016 program here!

Download the History Week 2016 program here

History Week 2016 begins this Sunday and Sydney's history lovers are going to be busy! Now in it’s 19th year, History Week is a significant event that engages local communities on the NSW cultural calendar. Each year members of the History Council of NSW collaborate to host events that explore a particular theme. This year's theme of Neighbours is crucial to our understanding of the past’s impact on the present. It includes stories of individuals, families and communities living near one another and links between adjoining suburbs, regions and countries. As the success of the Australian television program Neighbours shows, the theme has long been a significant component of popular culture. It shaped imagination and memories, created identities and was a source of both conflict and friendship. How important were class, the economy, gender, governments, the media, race, religion and sport in the formation of ideas regarding neighbours? How have attitudes regarding a nation’s geographic neighbours determined defence, foreign, immigration, refugee and trade policies? Did new types of communication and transport from the nineteenth century onwards radically alter how neighbours and neighbourhoods were perceived? In 2016 History Week focuses on these and other related questions. The Annual History Lecture 'Neighbours - and Heroes' will be presented by Professor Heather Goodall at The Mint on Wednesday evening (7 September). How have Australians thought of themselves as ‘neighbours’ in the Asia-Pacific region? Professor  Goodall's talk will look at how many Australians have had the courage to cross borders – taking risks to build relationships across old borders and new borders, cultural borders and ethnic borders. Drinks and canapés and neighbourly chats will follow the lecture. Bookings are essential and tickets are going fast! Find out more here. The other feature event is a symposium and film screening on Monday 5 September at the State Library of NSW, being presented by the History Council in collaboration with the Modern History Department of Macquarie University. Community Sporting Histories: Inclusion, Exclusion and Authority will draw together historians working on local, community and intimate histories of sport in Australia to ponder the tensions between the ideal of community, the politics of difference and the writing of history. The critically acclaimed documentary Scrum will also be screened. Again, bookings are essential - find out more here. From talks to exhibitions, tours to online engagement, there is something for everyone. During History Week, community groups, local councils, libraries, archives, museums, universities, cultural institutions, professional and amateur historians across NSW open their doors to present the latest in today’s historical research – fascinating stories, artefacts and experiences about both our past and ourselves today. With all of the talks, exhibitions and walking tours around Sydney, we can't possibly choose favourites, so have a look at the downloadable program here on the History Council of NSW website, and browse through their What's On to get an idea of what's available. We've been doing our best to keep up with the History Council of NSW and share events via our social media streams on Twitter & Facebook, but if you have an event you'd like us to share that we may have missed, please let us know!      

Reynolds Cottages on the left, Harrington Street, The Rocks 1901 Courtesy State Records NSW (4481_a026_000192)

Did you know there are three cottages side by side on Harrington Street in The Rocks which have survived for 187 years! Writer and historian, Melissa Holmes, has researched extensively about Reynolds’ cottages and their previous inhabitants for the Dictionary of Sydney. In the lead up to the History Council of NSW's History Week 2016: Neighbours, let's take a look at the colonial neighbours of Reynolds' cottages.

Reynolds’ cottages were built in 1829 and are among the earliest dwellings in The Rocks, coming just behind Cadmans Cottage which was built 200 years ago in 1816. The story of these cottages reflects the changing area of The Rocks, from penal colony, to working-class neighbourhood and now ‘heritage theme park’.

These cottages came about after Thomas Ryan, a convicted forger, exploited his position as a clerk at the Colonial Secretary’s Office to evict the baker and convict James Rampling in 1825. Rampling tried to argue his case to continue his bakehouse, but Ryan, as chief clerk in the Principal Superintendent Office of Convicts, denied his application on the basis that Rampling was still a Prisoner of the Crown. Four years later, two cottages at 28 and 30 Harrington Street were built by convict labour.

Originally the cottages were one-room deep, with a shingled roof, brick walls and timber floors. Ryan sold the cottages to William Reynolds in 1830 for £100. Reynolds was an Irish blacksmith who had been transported for life to the colony for highway robbery. He worked for William Redfern, the naval surgeon and inspiration for the inner city suburb of Redfern. Eventually, Reynolds set up home in one of the cottages, and his blacksmith’s forge in the other, and in 1834, he built the third cottage at 32 Harrington Street. Within a few years, Reynolds had gone from highwayman to successful property owner in The Rocks.

Detail of Section 84, City Section Survey Plans, 1833 (copied in 1880s), Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (CRS955)

After Reynolds’ death in 1840, his children Maurice and Margaret inherited the property which transformed from a family home and business to a boarding house. Maurice died when he fell off a horse in 1877, and Margaret died of ‘senile decay’ in the Hospital for the Insane in Parramatta in 1894. The cottages passed through different hands and gradually fell into disrepair as The Rocks area became more known for its disreputable traits, including its push gangs which congregated in the area around the cottages.

Despite its dilapidated state and the plague hitting the area in 1900, Reynolds’ cottages still stood. And thanks to the green bans of the 1970s, the cottages survived and operated as a cafe and antique store for many years.

If you’re interested in hearing more, Melissa Holmes will be talking about the cottage neighbours William Reynolds and Francis Greenway, the famous architect and convicted forger, during the History Council of NSW’s History Week festival next month! Her talk will be delivered on site at 28 Harrington Street on Sunday 11 September,11:00am-1:30pm. Don’t miss out! Book here.

If you missed today’s segment, you can catch up here via the 2SER website. Listen now 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.

You can also download the full History Week 2016 program here!

wp-image-12965https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Plague_Proclamation_SRNSW_CGS4917_SR_Doc_31-1.jpgPlague Proclamation poster, 1 February 1905 Source: State Records NSW (CGS 4917, [SR Document 31])357528/> Plague Proclamation poster, 1 February 1905 Source: State Records NSW (CGS 4917, [SR Document 31])GS4917_SR_Doc_31

Have you been struck down by the lurgy this winter?  Lisa's been looking for a silver lining from her sick bed, and has been giving thanks that no matter how bad she's been feeling, at least it's not the bubonic plague! This morning she & Nic had a look at the effects of the bubonic plague that hit Sydney in the early 20th century. Epidemics of contagious disease weren't uncommon in cities around the world, and Sydney was no exception. You can read more about some of them in Garry Wotherspoon's entry on Epidemics on the Dictionary. By early 1900 Sydneysiders were on the lookout specifically though for the arrival of the bubonic plague which had been reported in other port cities through Asia along the route to Australia. The Rocks is often associated with the outbreak, but this was more a matter of location than unhygienic living conditions as popularly believed at the time. Although it wasn't known when it began, diseased rats coming off the ships at the wharves and making their way through the city were the source of the infection, as the fleas on them bit people and passed the infection on that way. Arthur Paine, from Ferry Lane in the Rocks was the first person to contract the disease after a flea bit him on the foot, and he was diagnosed on 19 January 1900 .* People who lived and worked around Darling Harbour were also badly effected, and large pockets of Surry Hills, Redfern & Waterloo ended up with high numbers of cases as well, as many of the areas' residents were labourers working on the waterfront. There were over 300 cases of reported plague and by August 1900 there had been 103 deaths, a huge number for the time and the city. If you lived in the inner-city, you would have known at least one family who had suffered. After a case was reported, their whole household would be quarantined - families were sent to the Quarantine Station at Manly and houses and streets were closed. Whole areas like the Rocks, Millers Point & Darling Harbour west of Kent Street, and another area in Redfern around Walker & Elizabeth Streets, were closed off to the rest of the city, with the quarantine zones enforced with barriers and guards. At that point nobody really knew how the disease was transmitted so people were scared. As the outbreaks progressed through the city though, enough evidence was collected to show that it was indeed the movement of the rats behind it.  A bounty on rats followed, and photographs from the records of the Cleansing Operations show huge piles of dead animals about to be incinerated.

Professional Ratcatchers in Sydney, 1900 Source: Mitchel Library, State Library NSW (a147264/ PXE 93, 264)

You can visit graves of plague victims at some spectactular locations around the city. The No 3 Cemetery at the Quarantine Station still exists, and some Chinese victims of the plague who had been quarantined at the Little Bay Coast Hospital  are buried in the cemetery there, now part of the Kamay - Botany Bay National Park. One of the main long term effects of the bubonic plague, apart from on our health and the knowledge of how the disease spread, of the plaque was how it transformed Sydney's urban environment. The Cleansing Operations that came about were an opportunity and trigger to rebuild the waterfront areas. The government resumed the areas as part of the operations, and started building modern wharves and warehouses. The finger wharves in Woolloomooloo, Jones Bay & Walsh Bay are a direct legacy of the epidemic. *This post was edited on 22 January 2019 to revise information regarding the first death from bubonic plague in Sydney in 1900. Arthur H Payne was the first patient diagnosed with plague, and was sent to the Quarantine Stationon January 24, but he recovered and was released on February 18. The first recorded death in Sydney from plague was of Captain Thomas Dudley, a sailmaker with business premises in Sussex Street, who died on February 22 at his home in Drummoyne. In 1884, Dudley had been tried for cannibalism in England after being lost at sea with his crew. (CAPTAIN DUDLEY. The Herald, 26 Feburary 1900, p2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241262248).

Listen now

If you missed today’s segment, you can catch up here via the 2SER website. 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.

Did you know there was an ostrich farm at Sydney’s South Head from 1889 until the early 1920s? In addition to providing the highly sought after commodity of ostrich feathers for the discerning fashionable lady, the farm became a popular tourist attraction run by the enterprising Joseph Barracluff and his wife, Jane. I spoke to Nic on 2SER Breakfast this morning about Barracluff's Ostrich Farm, an article by Kim Hanna published here in the Dictionary of Sydney. Joseph Thomas Barracluff arrived in Sydney from England in 1884, and began to sell feathers in a shop on Elizabeth Street opposite what was Devonshire Street Cemetery, now Central Railway Station. In 1889, he and his wife Jane established an ostrich farm on 11 acres of land at South Head, which was largely unpopulated at the time. Ostrich farming had begun in South Africa in 1867. While Barracluff’s farm was often referred to as Australia’s first ostrich farm, the truth was that the first had been established in Victoria in 1875. The ostrich feather trade was a booming one during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; at one stage their value per pound was allegedly almost equal to that of diamonds. The delicate feather exemplified luxury and extravagance and were particularly adopted in women’s fashion items such as hats, boas and fans. By 1902, Barracluff’s farm had 100 ostriches and the original ones had come from Morocco and Egypt. Barracluff fed them a ton of food a day, which comprised of discards from markets, hotels and the railway depot at Darling Harbour. While Barracluff’s ostrich farm thrived, it also became known for its famous visitors and dramatic incidents. In 1901, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, the Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V, visited the farm with his wife. The Daily Telegraph described the Duchess as ‘one of those women whose photographs don't do them justice’ and the Sydney Morning Herald reported she was presented with a gold frame and a fan embellished with tortoiseshell and Barracluff's feathers as a gift. After their visit, the farm was permitted to use the words 'Under Royal Patronage’, and two birds were renamed 'Duke' and ‘Duchess' in their honour. In 1906, there was one dramatic incident reported when a male ostrich escaped the grounds, with a group of men, boys and dogs following in ‘active pursuit’. The ostrich was finally retrieved three hours later. Joseph Barracluff died on the farm in 1918, aged 57, and despite efforts by his sons to revitalise the business, the farm folded soon after. Ostrich feathers fell out of fashion, and movements in bird protection also contributed to the decline in the trade.

Listen now

If you missed today’s segment, you can catch up here via the 2SER website. 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.  

Ostriches on a farm near Sydney c1905 https://dictionaryofsydney.org/media/5401