The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
Search
Tankstream - into the head of the Cove...
Public artwork by Lynne Roberts-Goodwin that traces the path of the Tank Stream through the city in five separate sites between Pitt Street Mall and Alfred Street through the installation of blue glass rods into the paving. Commissioned by the City of Sydney and installed in…
Qantas Heritage Collection
The Qantas Heritage Collection is a permanent exhibition of the rich and colourful history of Qantas. Located on the mezzanine level of Sydney Domestic Terminal (T3) near Gate 13, it is open to the public, free of charge Monday to Friday between 9.30am and 4.30pm.
1798 Memorial, Waverley Cemetery
Erected by Sydney's Irish community at the end of the nineteenth century, the 1798 memorial honours Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow Chief, a hero of the 1798 Rising. Subsequent generations have included the names of those killed later in the struggle for Irish freedom.
Royal Australian Historical Society Green Plaque 4. Treasury & Audit Office
Commemorative plaque that was installed on the Treasury building as part of the Sydney Green Plaques Bicentennial project in 1985. The text on the plaque read 'These offices, designed by Mortimer Lewis, Colonial Architect, were built in 1849-1851. Early shipments from the…
Muir, John
Minister who worked for his businessman father before he was ordained in 1888. He migrated with his wife Jane and three sons serving in Bega and Nowra before he moved to Ultimo in 1916. From 1920 he served in various churches and as a visiting chaplain at Sydney Hospital.
Pendrill's School
A grammar school for boys which was established by the Reverend John Pendrill in his residence - Eglinton House, Glebe. Many of Sydney's elite families sent their sons to be educated there, among them the sons of the Colonial Architect Edmund Blacket as well as the…
Royal Tour 1954
Tour by the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II who became the first reigning monarch to set foot on Australian soil, accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. During the tour the Queen and the Duke spent February 3-13 in New South Wales, about half of it in Sydney.
Australian Opera
In 1956, the Australian Opera Company was formed in Sydney under the auspices of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. In 1970, the company became known as The Australian Opera. Opera Australia was formed by the merger of the Australian Opera and the Victoria State Opera…
Sans Souci Tidal Baths
The Sans Souci tidal baths were a popular swimming site in Sydney's south for over sixty years. The baths provided welcome access to the waters of the Georges River and a venue for important sporting events.
Glebe Jubilee Fountain
Public fountains were once a familiar sight in Sydney. Street widening, city improvements and the public's desire for hygienic sources of water led to their demise. The Glebe Jubilee fountain on Glebe Point Road at the corner of Broadway, Glebe, is one of a few remaining…
Smeathman, Henry Osborne Green
The son of Sydney Coroner Major CT Smeathman and his wife Eliza, Henry Smeathman became William Bland's stepson in 1846 when his widowed mother remarried. Until then he had been working as a registrar and clerk in Berrima, but after the marriage he lived in Sydney and trained…
Lewin, John William
Australia's first professional artist. A talented artist with an interest in scientific studies, Lewin decided to travel to Australia to paint its natural history. He arrived in Sydney in 1800 and was encouraged by patrons including Governor Philip Gidley King, Governor…
The Tank Stream
The Tank Stream, Australia's first water supply, was a series of tanks cut into the sandstone along the sides of a freshwater stream in Sydney Cove. Although abandoned as a water source by 1826, the technology of the Tank Stream and its name were shaped by the experience of…
Webber, Iris
Iris Webber was a busker and petty criminal active in Sydney from the early 1930s until her death in 1953. She gained notoriety for her fierceness on the streets and in the courtroom, and for her relationships with women.
Miss Gertie McManamey and Miss Isobel Bowden, Woodford Academy 1963
Gertie McManamey (left) and Isobel Bowden in the side passage of the Woodford Academy near the doorway of the gold storage room, used when the gold escort coach stopped overnight from the goldfields to Sydney. On the left is a banana passionfruit vine.
Parsley Bay: ‘One of the people’s playgrounds’
Parsley Bay is an inlet of Sydney Harbour bordered by Point Seymour and Village Point, and is the traditional land of the Birrabirragal people. In 1907 the bay and immediate surrounds became a public reserve, and it has remained ‘one of the people’s playgrounds’ ever since.…
Theatre Royal
Built on the site of the Prince of Wales Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1872, the Theatre Royal opened in 1875 and was central to Sydney's theatrical world for nearly a century.
Argyle Cut
Roadway cut through deep rock between The Rocks and Millers Point, begun by convict labour in 1843, and completed in 1859, with later completion of bridges over the cut. The cut was altered again in the 1920s with the construction of the approaches to the Sydney Harbour…