Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Randwick Tramway Workshops

Complex which contained some of the earliest industrial buildings of the suburb of Randwick. It was built to service the steam locomotives between the city and Randwick Racecourse before it was used as workshops for the production of heavy artillery during World War I and II. It then became the last resting place of many obsolete hulks after the final trams ran in 1961, before it was converted to a bus depot and workshops and closed in 1988.

-33.90634348008, 151.23532676695

Milestone
Opened
1881
Closed
28 Oct 1988
Type

Great Strike of 1917

CC BY-SA 2.0
,
2018

The Great Strike of 1917 is regarded as one of Australia’s largest industrial conflicts. The strike erupted on the NSW railways and tramways in August 1917 in response to the introduction of a new way of monitoring worker productivity. Thousands of working people across a range of industries were mobilised as the strike spread throughout NSW and Australia. In Sydney, there were extraordinary street marches and demonstrations led by the strikers and their supporters. On the other side of the political and class divide, strikebreakers were recruited to keep transport and industry running. While the strike lasted for only six weeks, its consequences – political, social and cultural – lingered for decades, shaping the political consciousness of generations.