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Explorer and early agitator for women's rights. Lady Jane Franklin was married to Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land between 5 January 1837 and 21 August 1843. In 1839 she travelled overland from Melbourne to Sydney, possibly the first woman…

Businessman who worked as a colonial public servant in Hobart and Sydney before gaining management experience with TS Mort and TS Rowntree in the Waterview Dry Dock Co in Balmain in 1855. From manager at Tooths he quickly became a major shareholder and a very wealthy man.

American-born entrepreneur who opened the first continuous cinema in Sydney, showing films from 11 am to 11 pm, and built a large business in popular entertainment before leaving Australia in 1916. He went on to influence the film industry in the United States, Britain and…

One of Sydney's grandest estates, and a centre of high society into the 1920s, Yaralla was the home of Thomas and Eadith Walker, noted philanthropists.

A small but influential community, French Sydneysiders have been settlers, businesspeople, artists, performers and entrepreneurs. The visibility of Sydney's French community and its cultural organisations, schools and language has led to difficulties when French governments…

Maroota, in Dharug country, was first settled in 1832 as Forest Glen, but the farms failed. In 1892 another village was proclaimed there, called Maroota. Quarries supplied sand and gravel to Sydney for many years.

Grand Victorian mansion on the corner of Glebe Point and Wigram Roads in Glebe, built for timber merchant Alexander Kethel. It was later converted to a homeopathic hospital and general community hospital. It is now owned by the City of Sydney and houses the Glebe branch of…

Building which aimed to provide a place of meeting for the commercial community. It was situated on Bridge Street, and its construction was met with support from Sydney's business community including John Fairfax, Thomas Holt Jnr, David Jones and Thomas Sutcliffe Mort. The…

Ship's captain. In 1834 he was the captain of the cutter the Venus, owned by Sydney businessman John Mackie. Returning from the South Coast, he and the ship's crew were instrumental in the rescue of 17 survivors of the wreck of the Edward Lombe in Sydney Harbour. In late…

Convict who arrived in Sydney as part of the First Fleet. He was a silk weaver who was convicted in London in 1784 of theft and sentenced to 7 years transportation to America, but escaped after a convict mutiny on the Mercury. He was recaptured and departed for New South…

Civil engineer who became the first Professor of Engineering at the University of Sydney. 

After two years’ service with the New South Wales Department of Public Works, Warren initiated the teaching of engineering at the University of Sydney in March 1883.  He…

Inner eastern high-density residential suburb between Potts Point and Darling Point, named for the rushes cut by convicts for thatching in the early days of the colony. Sydney Stadium was built there in 1908 but demolished in the 1970s for the Eastern Suburbs Railway.

Former drapers which was converted to a funeral chapel by architect C Bruce Dellit. The foyer contains a sculpture by Raymond Hoff and the whole was considered one of the finest Art Deco style funerary spaces in Sydney. The building is now used as a bar and function rooms.

This installation in Martin Place created by Anne Graham in 2001 for the Sydney Sculpture Walk. The walls of early Georgian houses are traced with inlaid black granite and stainless steel grilles. The three bronze bowl fountains represent washrooms at the rear of the houses…

Theatre and entertainment company established in Sydney in 1921 by the pastoralist, entrepreneur and theatre producer, Sir Rupert Turner Havelock Clarke. The main order of business was the building of theatres, establishing the Kismet (later Odeon) Theatre in Randwick and the…

Late-Victorian Gothic Revival mansion located in Darling Point built for the brewer Sir Robert Lucas Lucas-Tooth. In 1963, it was bequeathed by brewer Edmund Resch Jnr to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. When the ownership covenant lapsed it was sold privately in 1984…

The main library at the University of Sydney named for Thomas Fisher, its major benefactor. It opened in 1909 in the south-western corner of the Quadrangle. In 1962 it moved to a new building adjacent to Victoria Park, the original reading room being renamed MacLaurin Hall.…

Percival Gull monoplane flown by Charles Kingsford-Smith from London, England to Wyndham, Western Australia, in record breaking solo flight in 1933. The aircraft crashed in Yerranderie in 1934, killing the passenger Leslie Hinks, who was returning to Sydney from Kalgoorlie…

Two storey Regency villa which originally had a frontage to Woolloomooloo Bay and could be seen from Sydney Town. Constructed of stuccoed brickwork, it has cedar interiors, marble flooring and French doors opening to wide verandahs and is one of few colonial villas to survive…

Central Railway Station was Sydney's third terminus, replacing the original 1855 station further south in Redfern and a later upgraded station built in the 1870s.