The Dictionary team is very sad to hear about the unexpected death of Peter Tyler, one of our authors, and a stalwart of Sydney history circles for many years. He wrote our article on the Royal Society of NSW, and cleared up a number of confusing overlapping organisations for us.

Peter was the historian for the Royal Society of NSW, and had a list of publications in the fields of administrative, scientific and medical history, most recently a history of State Records. He was also active in and a past president of the Professional Historians Association of NSW, and a generous and supportive colleague to historians in Sydney. His funeral will be held at Northern Suburbs Crematorium Southern chapel on Friday 11 May at 1 pm. Our sympathies go out to his family and friends.

The most recent upload to the Dictionary has quite an educational theme, with articles addressing three very different strands of Sydney's pedagogical history. Kate Matthew's piece on Governesses outlines the culture and practices of the education that most middle-class children, especially girls, received for the first century or so of European settlement. Governesses occupied an awkward spot in the class structure of the colony, not quite servants, but not quite ladies either. As one of the few forms of relatively respectable employment for middle-class women, governessing was the only option for many women who found themselves unsupported or alone. Samantha Frappell's articles on the Garcia School of Music (part of St Vincent's College, a Catholic girls' school in central Sydney) and its founder, Mary Christian, later Sister Mary Paul of the Cross, examines the kind of private school education that largely replaced governess-based teaching in the city by the end of the nineteenth century. Sister Mary Paul's eventful life reveals that some women managed to regain their lost respectability, by heroic measures. And Mark Dunn has a piece in the latest upload on the Waterloo Tanning School, part of the push for technical education in the late nineteenth century, when factory owners and reformers alike clamoured for technical training as a way of making Sydney's workers more productive and competitive.

If you haven't already seen them, you might also want to have a look at the Dictionary's articles on:

• Education
• The School of Arts movement
• Sydney Technical College
• Henry Carmichael
• Norman Selfe
• Erskineville Bootmaking School
• National Art School
• Technical and Working Men's College

These education-themed articles, among others, have been made possible by the generous sponsorship of our project partners, the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, itself one of the oldest educational organisations in Sydney, and still going strong.

One of our more provocative articles has just been published: The myth of Sydney's foundational orgy, by Grace Karskens. Grace outlines the prevailing myth that when women convicts arrived onshore a bacchanalian scene of sex and debauchery ensued. It is certainly an arresting image, but Grace argues that it is just not true. Instead she puts forward the real story of sex and fertility in the new colony, which historians and popularisers of colonial history have rather overlooked.

Grace is the prize-winning author of The Colony, which was awarded the Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction in 2010. This is her second article for the Dictionary -- her piece on The Rocks went up with our first upload in November 2009. We hope there will be many more in the future.

The grandest of Sydney's World War I memorials is also one of the last, only finished as tensions again brewed in Europe, threatening another war to come. It wasn't until 14 years after the debacle at Gallipoli that the Anzac War Memorial design by C Bruce Dellit was chosen in a competition, and it took another 5 years to build, finally opening in November 1934. Part of the reason for that delay is that Hyde Park itself was in flux, with huge excavations, redesigns and replanting following the construction of Sydney's underground railway loop during the 1920s and early 1930s. The memorial is still imposing, with its beautiful sculptures by Rayner Hoff, and the quiet contemplative space within. While the ceremonies of Anzac Day centre on the Cenotaph in Martin Place, built in 1926-28, the Anzac War Memorial dominates the southern end of Hyde Park, and remains a potent reminder of the losses of war. Sydney's suburbs have many World War I memorials.  One of the earliest was unveiled in 1916, in Balmain, while the war was still raging, within a year of the battle at Gallipoli.

It initially showed the names of the local men who died in the Dardanelles campaign, but has since received the names of Balmain soldiers from every other war. It has evolved, as Anzac Day itself has evolved, into a commemoration of  Australian soldiers killed in all of Australia's military engagements. Next Wednesday's Anzac Day ceremonies continue nearly a century of tradition in Sydney. The Dawn Service, at 4.15 am, is held at the Cenotaph in Martin Place. The Anzac Day March starts at 9 am on the corner of Pitt Street and Martin Place, and moves, via Pitt Street, Martin Place, George and Bathurst streets, to Elizabeth Street, and the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, where a Commemorative Service will be held at 12.30 pm. There's also a Sunset Service Ceremony at 5 pm at the Cenotaph, back in Martin Place.

We like to put up some new suburb and place entries every rebuild, and this one is no exception. Probably our most eagerly awaited locality entry has been Kings Cross. Whether you see the Cross as a romantic literary spot, a sordid red-light district or just the commercial area closest to some of Sydney's wealthiest suburbs, it's always interesting. Mark Dunn has given us an account of the Cross that covers all these bases and more. From the centre to the northern tip -- another place article in this rebuild is a history of Commodore Heights, looking over Pittwater on Sydney's northern edge. Tony Dawson's entry outlines the contested history of this out-of-the-way patch of Sydney, until it was finally incorporated into Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. And finally, a more centrally located public recreation ground, Bradleys Head, on the north shore of  Sydney Harbour. David Carment's concise history of this prominent feature takes us from the Borogegal people of the Eora nation, to the filming of Mission Impossible in 2000.  (NB: a small technical glitch with one of the subheads in this piece will be fixed as soon as possible). If you are particularly interested in the local history included in the Dictionary, choose Browse Places from the front page, and then click to sort by Type. You'll find all the suburb and locality entries, along with a whole lot of other places, grouped for you to look through. The bolded names indicate places with entries, but all of them should have something to offer. Enjoy!

PS: If you are wondering about the apostrophes in Kings Cross and Bradleys Head, wonder no more. A policy that removes apostrophes in place names has been adopted by all Australian  Geographic Names Boards for decades now. The Dictionary follows these official guidelines for existing place names.

We haven't yet told you that the Dictionary was regenerated in early March, because we've been so busy. Over the next few blog posts, I'll take you through the new articles and images that have been added to the site. We've added articles on a varied group of eight new people (along with a lot of new people who have dates and facts and links but no article -- yet).  They are:

• Michael Chapman, Irish-born businessman and mayor of Sydney in 1871-72.  He was also a mayor of Glebe 1881-82, and MLA for Glebe 1883-5, and 1887-91. Starting as a paperhanger and housepainter, he did well in Sydney, after arriving at 18 from Ireland.
• Mary Ellen Christian (aka Sister Mary Paul of the Cross), Canadian-born singer, nun and singing teacher, who converted a scandalous career as a performer with an illegitimate son, into a pious middle age as a Sister of Charity. She founded the Garcia School of Music, part of St Vincent's College.
• George Cookney, whose career as a well-connected architect started well in the colony when he was made Government Architect at the age of 25, but went rapidly downhill, when he was dismissed, and later transported to Hobart for theft.
• Daringa, Murro-ore-dial woman of the Maroubra area, and wife of Colebee, who made early contact with the new European arrivals, who were most interested in her care for her new baby. She died about 1795 from one of the new diseases brought by the invaders.
• Nathaniel and Olivia Lucas, convicts made good, who made the best of their transportation and founded a large and successful family in the colony, despite early tragedy.
• Laurent Receveur, French priest and naturalist, who sailed with Laperouse, and died at Botany Bay in February 1788 of wounds received in Samoa. His gravesite has become known as the site of perhaps the earliest Catholic mass to be celebrated on Australian soil.
• Thomas Muir, Scottish political prisoner and escapee.  Muir was an international figure for his advocacy of political reform in Britain, and the harsh punishment of transportation that was imposed on him. During his time in the colony, less than two years, Muir lived quietly and made no trouble, but he  and his two convict servants escaped on an American ship in February 1796, bound for Vancouver Island.

You'll also find new images attached to our biographies of:

• Lucien Henry
• Henri L'Estrange
• Joseph Maiden
• Isaac Nathan
• Leslie Rees
• James Robert Wilshire

Of course, there's much more to show and tell you about over the next few days, so stay tuned!

New multimedia material was added to Kate Darian-Smith's article on Sydney's famous Royal Easter Show in our last build, and as always, the National Library of Australia's Trove was a great resource, in particular the digitised Australian Women's Weekly. The Weekly's interest over the years in the social and economic implications of the Show for women provides a fascinating perspective for modern researchers.  We can't use every page with Kate's entry, so we thought we'd share a few more of our favourites here. Just click on the image to go to the relevant page in Trove to read the text too. Thanks to Trove and AWW!  

                                     

 

One of our authors, Randi Svensen, who has written about Tugboats for the Dictionary of Sydney, has just had her full length history of Australian tugboats, Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia's Tugboat Heritage,  published by Citrus Press, in Sydney.

Expanding on her detailed history of Sydney's tugboat masters, Randi has written the history through the stories of the great characters who owned the tugs, or skippered and crewed them.The book is named for three of the best known tugboats, which along with many others, helped make commerce and trade reliable and safe. The book is available through Citrus Press, and in good bookshops.

if you haven't read Mark Dunn's entry in the Dictionary about Henri L'Estrange, balloonist, tightrope artists and bungler, you've missed out. As a packed room found out last night during Library Up Late at Customs House Library, you've missed even more if you haven't heard Mark speak about Henri -- it's where history meets standup comedy. You've got another chance to catch up with Henri's adventures with ropes, gas, sandbags and restive crowds, on Wednesday 4 April, when Mark is speaking at the Royal Australian Historical Society, at 1 pm. Book on 9247 8001, or email history@rahs.org.au  

 

Readers may have noticed that the images and the 'Cite this' link in the Dictionary are not working quite correctly in Internet Explorer 8.  Unfortunately, clicking on an image to view the larger size or using the 'Cite this' link will hang the browser, and require a forced quit and restart. The problem seems to be related to a recent update from Microsoft, and we are working to resolve it as soon as possible. The site is working fine in Firefox and IE 9, so we recommend that you use one of these browsers if you are able to. Apologies from the Dictionary team.