The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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Williams, Thomas
Professional criminal and burglar who was hanged after his participation in the Bridge Street Affray in 1894. He had only recently arrived in Sydney from Melbourne where he had served time in Pentridge Prison.
Playing Beatie Bow
Children's book by Ruth Park about a girl who travels back in time from the 20th century to colonial Sydney. It won the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year in 1981.
Verge, John
Architect and builder who came to Sydney as a free settler and designed and built many of the colony's grandest houses before retiring to his farm on the Macleay River in northern New South Wales.
Gooseberry, Cora
Karoo was an Aboriginal woman who became a Sydney identity, with her trademark government issue blanket, headscarf and a clay pipe. One of Bungaree's wives. She died in 1852 and was buried in Devonshire Street Cemetery.
Spanish (holey) dollar
Devised in 1810 to prevent the colony's currency from disappearing offshore, the holey dollar was Sydney's first really local coinage, remaining legal tender until 1829.
Cullis-Hill, Eleanor
An early woman architect in Sydney, Eleanor Cullis-Hill worked for the Housing Commission before setting up her office at home, because she felt women were not really welcome in architectural offices.
Her Majesty's Theatre
There have been three Her Majesty's Theatres in Sydney, spanning nearly a century of the city's theatrical history.
Transcript: Mr George Bates on a chance 'meeting' with Henry Lawson's dog
Mr George Bates, born in 1912, interviewed in 1986 for the Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960 project, talks about a chance 'meeting' with Henry Lawson's dog in North Sydney during his childhood.
Cabramatta
South-western suburb which began as an agricultural township. It evolved into one of Sydney's most multicultural suburbs after the Second World War when it was settled by successive waves of European and Asian migrants.
Crown Street National School
One of only three National schools opened in 1849 in Sydney, it existed in Woolloomooloo for only two years. The current school in Surry Hills of the same name did not open until 1863.
Municipality of The Glebe
Municipality created after a petition by 64 residents. Made up of four wards - Inner Glebe, Bishopthorpe, Outer Glebe and Forest Lodge it existed until 1949 when it became a single ward within the City of Sydney.
Gould, Ellen Julia (Nellie)
Nurse who greatly influenced professional nursing in Australia and who worked as matron and superintendent in many hospitals in Sydney before travelling to the Boer War, and then Egypt and England during World War I.
Vernon, Walter Liberty
Architect whose tenure as Government Architect from 1890 to 1911 saw the construction of some of Sydney's most famous buildings, as well as suburban fire stations and post offices in the Federation Free style.
The Miller at the Point, from These Walls Have Ears: My Place, 2013
Come on a walk down Windmill Street “and back in time“ to find out the story behind the name of one of Sydney's oldest suburbs. Turns out, it was a prickly miller who started out at Millers Point.
Schofields
North-western residential and semi-rural suburb named for convict and local timber getter John Schofield. Its aerodrome was the site of the RAN training base HMAS Nirimba, now a campus of the University of Western Sydney.
Waterloo Swamp
Swamp area bounded by present day Epsom Road, South Dowling and Bourke streets which was dammed to provide water for the high pressure pipes which drove the first hydraulic lifts and presses in Sydney.
1788 Shoreline
Installation of cast bronze discs in the granite paving which marks the natural shoreline of Sydney Cove. The first constructed shoreline, reclaimed to form Circular Quay, is mapped by a continuous band of white granite.
Commodore Hotel
Pub on the corner of Union Street and Blues Point Road in North Sydney. Known for many years as the Old Commodore, the site has been occupied by a hotel since the mid nineteenth century.
The Registry of Flash Men
Dossier compiled by the superintendent (later commissioner) of police William Augustus Miles of his, and others', observations of Sydney’s underworld between about 1841 and 1846. It is held by State Records New South Wales.