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As early as 1889 girls began rioting to express their anger at the conditions of the Parramatta Girls Home, an industrial school and reformatory run by the New South Wales Government from 1887 until 1975. Some 30,000 girls passed through the doors of what is now regarded as…

The Archibald Prize is an institution in the Australian art calendar and an event keenly anticipated every year. It is the source of great debate and controversy and above all, an exhibition the public adores.

Royleston, like the nearby girls' institution, Bidura, served as a depot for children in the New South Wales Government child welfare system from 1922 until 1983 providing temporary accommodation for children in transit between children's court hearings, foster care…

Named after an 1812 land grant, Gilead was to grow from an important dairy farming area to one of the largest suburbs in the Campbelltown district.

Caught up in the Rum Rebellion, Thomas Arndell was loyal to Bligh and lost his magistracy and pension. With his wife, a former convict, he founded a successful family and farm at Cattai.

Arriving as an assistant surgeon with the First Fleet, William Balmain played an important role in the fledgling colony.

Dharug and Gundungurra people left many markers of their use of Sun Valley, from art to toolmaking grooves. Europeans first came in 1813, and the valley was used as a resting place while crossing the mountains for decades afterwards. Farming and market gardening also took…

Once a parade ground for the army barracks, Wynyard Park has been open space since before Europeans arrived. During the second half of the nineteenth century it was an elegant residential square with a park in the middle. From the 1880s, it has been a public transport hub.

Built as part of Sir James Burns's Presbyterian orphanage, Burnside Homes, Airlie House has been used for a range of purposes over the years.

Gordon grew around the railway station as businessmen sought fine vistas and spacious home sites with easy access to the city.

Called Wallumetta by the Wallumedegal people who lived there, the area that became North Ryde was part of the Field of Mars common from 1804, with surrounding farms granted to settlers. When the common was subdivided and sold from the 1880s, small blocks led to residential…

Commanding views over Broken Bay and Pittwater, Commodore Heights was named for a Royal Navy officer, Rowley Lambert. Its chequered history of private and government ownership ended with its incorporation into Ku-ring-Gai Chase National Park.

First inhabited by the Tharawal people, the area later called Engadine was part of the village of Heathcote until bought by Charles McAlister and renamed Engadine after a valley in Switzerland. Subdivisions in the 1910s were offered to soldier settlers, and the construction…

The Gentlemen's Baths, built in 1879, were damaged several times by storms by 1896, and were taken over by the gasworks on Little Manly Point. They remained in disrepair, and repeatedly damaged by storms and floating debris, until Manly council rebuilt them in the 1980s…

founded by Tedd Noffs, the Wayside Chapel has been a landmark in Kings Cross since 1963, helping locals and visitors and creating several organisations active in drug rehabilitation, life education and other social reform.

The Kay-ye-my people walked for thousands of years along the track between the cove and the beach at Manly, but the first boardwalk was only built in 1855 when Henry Gilbert Smith began developing Manly as a resort. The Corso had a hotel at each end, and most of Manly's…

Mr George Bates was born in 1912 and spent most of his adult life in Liverpool. He was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960' project. Here he remembers a carnival held to raise money for a local orphanage.…

Formed after a backlash against contemporary Aboriginal art, Boomalli provided Indigenous artists with a space free from external definitions of Aboriginality.