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The foundation of the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1970 marked the beginning of a new and radical period in Aboriginal politics. It was the first Aboriginal organisation that directly challenged government institutions by offering alternate services.

The Wallumedegal clan were the traditional owners of the land that became Beecroft. The area was part of the Field of Mars common proclaimed in 1804, and remained common land until 1874. Beecroft was subdivided in 1887 after the railway went through, and sold to middle-class…

First thought of in the 1870s, the first Spit Bridge was not built until nearly 50 years later, replacing a punt across Middle Harbour. A second bridge was built in the 1950s but the crossing remains a transport bottleneck.

Scotland Island was granted to Andrew Thompson, a Scottish convict, in 1810. He set up salt works, and built ships there from 1806. The island remained rural until 1906 when it was subdivided, and holiday homes built there. From the 1960s more permanent residents lived there…

Built on Dharug country, the Minto Communist party camp functioned as a training school and recreational camp for nearly 50 years before passing to Tranby Aboriginal Cooperative College with the dispersal of Communist party assets in the 1990s.

On 14 February 1916 soldiers based in the Australian Imperial Force training camps at Casula and Liverpool rioted, first in Liverpool, then at Central Station and in the city. The riot caused widespread damage, the death of one soldier-recruit, injuries to seven, multiple…

The Friendship was one of the six convict transports in the First Fleet. She was scuttled and sunk on her return voyage after becoming stuck on sandbanks off the coast of Borneo.

The Borrowdale, along with the other storeships of the First Fleet, took on board two years' worth of provisions and stores for the new colony including 'implements of husbandry, clothing for the troops and convicts and other necessaries'.

A natural bathing place used by Aboriginal people, this site has had a series of swimming pools built on it since European settlement. Since 1968 the pool has commemorated one of Australia's greatest swimmers, Andrew (Boy) Charlton.

One of the few European buildings recognised as an Aboriginal heritage site, the Australian Hall was conserved because of its importance as the site for the 1938 Day of Mourning.

Temperance advocate, evangelist and charity worker, George Ardill was absolutely certain of the validity of his ideas about redemption and rescue of women and children. His later work as a member of the Aboriginal Protection Board, accompanied by similar certainty, led…

Cammeraygal country until the 1820s, Artarmon became an area of market gardens and orchards, gradually becoming more closely settled. By the end of the nineteenth century, brickmaking was established, and the railway line brought people and commercial development from 1890.…

Inaccessible to Europeans until the 1860s, the forested area later called Mount Wilson was known to Aboriginal people for generations. The building of the Zigzag railway to Lithgow made Mount Wilson suddenly less remote and land sales coincided with the opening of the railway…

Founded in 1855, CSR had refineries in Canterbury, Chippendale, Pyrmont and later around Australia. It became a large and influential industrial company, with city offices and diversified business interests.

Originally the country of the Wallumedegal, Tennyson (later Tennyson Point) was highly regarded as a vantage point for the regattas and world championship rowing that took place on the Parramatta River.

Traditionally owned by the Dharawal and Gundungurra people, the new suburb of Mount Annan is built on land once owned by William Howe, who named the hill after his home town in Scotland. The property was run as a dairy farm until 1978, with land released for housing in the…

Late to be subdivided, Rozelle became a suburb of workers' cottages, allowing inhabitants to live near their work in the various industries along the harbour shore. During the twentieth century, rapid deindustrialisation, and the growing value of proximity to the city and the…

Standing on Dharug land, Lidcombe was settled by 1828 with ex-convicts and free settlers on small grants. With the railway, stockyards and abbatoirs, and the large cemetery, prosperity came to what was then Rookwood. In the twentieth century, industrial development and…

The winner of the State Library of NSW Coral Thomas Fellowship in 2018-19 was a collaborative project, The Real Secret River: Dyarubbin. Based on a list of Aboriginal words recorded along Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) in the 1820s by Reverend John McGarvie that is…

Yarra Bay House, originally built at La Perouse as a cable station, served as a NSW Government children's home from around 1917 until the 1980s. Since 1984 it has been owned by the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and has been the hub of the La Perouse Aboriginal…