The Garden Palace – The Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and the Great Fire of 22 September 1882

In short: The Sydney International Exhibition opened in the Garden Palace on Wednesday 17 September 1879 and closed on 20 April 1880. It was the first world's fair in the Southern Hemisphere, and over a million people came through the doors. The idea goes back to 1877 and 1878, when the Agricultural Society planned a show and then found it had bitten off far more than it could chew. James Barnet designed the building and John Young built it, starting on 13 January 1879, with men working through the night under Sydney's first electric light. Three years later, just before six o'clock on the morning of 22 September 1882, the whole place burnt to the ground in about forty minutes. The 1881 census went with it, along with land and railway records, 300 paintings and a museum's worth of Aboriginal cultural objects. Nobody ever found out how the fire started.

A quick word on dates, because I've got them wrong myself before. People often call it the "1878 exhibition", and one of my own older posts says the building went up in 1878. The records say otherwise. 1878 was the year of the planning and the arguing. The building, the opening and the exhibition all happened in 1879. I've set out how that came about below.

"The Australian International Exhibition Building at Sydney", an engraving from The Graphic, 1879. The Graphic, 1879, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Guide to My Garden Palace Series

I've written about the Garden Palace on and off for over ten years, so here's how this page fits with the rest. This page tells the whole story from start to finish, from the 1877 idea through to today, with the sources listed at the bottom. My Part 3 follows the night watchmen through the fire minute by minute, so I've kept the fire section here shorter and looked more at what was lost and why. For the pictures, go to the 2022 picture post and the 2021 picture post. Part 5 covers the music. The full list is at the bottom of this page.

Where the Idea Came From

The craze for big international exhibitions started with London's Great Exhibition of 1851, which was housed in the purpose-built Crystal Palace. Other European cities followed, and so did Philadelphia, and Paris held one after another. Then Sydney decided to have a go. As the Dictionary of Sydney puts it, Sydney was "a place not noted for its advanced industrial sector, and very far away from other places that were".

It started small. In late 1877 the Agricultural Society of New South Wales talked about holding an international exhibition in Sydney. According to the Dictionary of Sydney, Melbourne was planning one of its own, and that probably had as much to do with it as anything. The Society meant to hold it in its own Exhibition Building in Prince Alfred Park, along the lines of its annual shows. (I've got a short post on that first Exhibition Building.) The government agreed, but only if it didn't have to pay a penny. The Dictionary quotes the condition as "no pecuniary liability".

The 1878 Story

Here's where the "1878" comes in. In February 1878 the Colonial Secretary's Office announced that "it is intended to hold under the supervision of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales an international Exhibition in Sydney in August 1879". Sarah Morley of the State Library quotes that line from the Official Record. It's also where Paris comes into it. 1878 was the year of the big Paris Exposition, and according to Wikipedia, Jules Joubert suggested bringing goods over from Paris to form the base of the Sydney show.

Once word got out, far more people wanted in than anyone expected. The Society got cold feet. Its money wasn't enough and neither was its building, and a split opened between members who wanted to stick to the Society's country roots and those pushing what was now being called a "Sydney" exhibition. Fearing it would go broke, the Society cancelled the whole thing. Then the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, stepped in and said it had to go ahead, funded by public subscription. The money didn't roll in, and the government voted against a subsidy. But invitations had already gone out and exhibitors around the world were packing. On 3 December 1878 the Sydney Morning Herald grumbled:

"the world has forced upon us an unexpected expansion … We objected to this thing initially, but it has gone too far ... we must take a favoring tide on the flow."

By December 1878 it was clear the Agricultural Society couldn't do it, and control passed to the colonial government. On 31 December 1878 a Royal Commission for the exhibition was set up under the Governor, Lord Augustus Loftus.

Parkes's Part

Henry Parkes was Colonial Secretary at the time. In his 2011 article, David Latta writes that Parkes agreed to the government taking it over because he could see how humiliating it would be for the colony if the exhibition was called off. The 2021 Henry Parkes Oration, which draws on Ann Toy's research, says Parkes was never officially on the Exhibition Committee. Even so, the records show how much the Commissioners leaned on his "advice, influence and intervention". He picked out items he wanted the colony to buy from the exhibition and haggled over the prices himself. These included pictures, sculpture and decorative arts for the Botanic Gardens, the National Art Gallery and the Colonial Secretary's building.

The government's first grant was £50,000, voted in January 1879. That was already well above the early estimate of £18,000. The Dictionary of Sydney says it was "nothing like" the final official cost of about £250,000.

Building the Palace

The Colonial Architect, James Barnet, was told to draw up "plans for a building suitable for an international exhibition, proposed to be built in the Inner Domain", and he had a set of drawings in within three days. Latta says the formal instructions were issued on Tuesday 17 December 1878 and Barnet had a design in by the Friday. A whole year had gone in squabbling, and the opening was meant to be in August. The contractor reckoned December was more like it, and the government settled on September.

Barnet's southern elevation, showing the long nave, the four towers and the great dome. Colonial Architect's drawing, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The contractor was John Young, who had a lot of experience. He'd worked on the Crystal Palace for the 1851 London exhibition, and in Sydney on the General Post Office and the Exhibition Building at Prince Alfred Park. According to the State Library's fact sheet, building began on 13 January 1879, with Messrs. Hudson Brothers working alongside Young. The foundation stone went in a month later, on 13 February 1879, laid by Lady Robinson, wife of the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson. A glass jar was sealed into the stone as a time capsule, holding newspapers, the official program and a list of the people at the ceremony. Its later story is a funny one. The State Library says Edward C. Fallick took the jar out while the ruins were being cleared after the fire, and his family gave it to the Library in 1954. When Sir Henry Parkes visited Fallick's private museum, he reportedly remarked that the jar was government property.

Foundations of the Garden Palace, photographed on 31 March 1879, not three months after work began. Royal Australian Historical Society, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Working Through the Night

Work started before the plans were even finished. Barnet changed his drawings as he went, depending on what materials Young could get and when. No tenders were called, and as more entries arrived from overseas, more and more buildings were tacked on to the site. Unemployment was high in Sydney then. As soon as the job was approved, men started gathering at the Domain gates hoping for work, and at times there were 2,000 on site. The State Library puts the number directly and indirectly employed at 3,000, including 650 carpenters.

The work went on day and night. Young brought in electric lights from London so the men could keep going 24 hours a day. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says the night shifts used "the first electric light in Sydney". It wasn't comfortable. The Dictionary of Sydney says the lights flickered and threw shadows, and most people thought them unsafe. The unions complained about the long shifts and the danger. When the carpenters went on strike for what was really danger money, they lost, and on 26 April 1879 the Herald cheerfully reported that "the firm and commendable action of the Government has completely disheartened the men, and crushed the spirit of rebellion in them".

The job cost lives. The State Library records one death during the build, a labourer named Samuel Allen, who died on 22 April 1879. The Dictionary of Sydney says at least one man was killed and others were hurt.

The dome taking shape. This shot comes from the government's own record of the job. State Archives and Records NSW (NRS 4481), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Colonial Architect's office handled the whole thing in about nine months, according to the ADB. That meant 412 drawings, all the accounts and payments, and overseeing the work. Barnet was attacked in Parliament and in the papers the whole time, and Parliament even took away his forage allowance in 1879 to show its displeasure.

Building works on the Garden Palace in 1879, with the timber framing going up fast. State Archives and Records NSW (NRS 4481), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How Big Was It?

It was enormous. The plan was laid out like a cathedral, with a long nave and side aisles, crossed by a transept, a tower at each end, and a dome where they met. The State Library gives the measurements as 244 by 152 by 64 metres. Seen from Farm Cove, it stretched from today's Conservatorium, across where the Cahill Expressway runs now, to in front of the State Library. Morley reckons it was about twice the size of the Queen Victoria Building.

The dome was made of timber covered in corrugated iron. It had 12 big lattice ribs and 24 smaller ones, and sat on a drum with 36 oval windows. On top was a lantern with a stained-glass skylight by Lyon and Cottier, light blue with golden stars and ribs in red, buff and gold. They only started painting and decorating the dome a month before the opening. Morley says it was the sixth largest dome in the world at the time. While it was going up, Young let visitors ride up in the cage that lifted the timbers. In August 1879 the Illustrated Sydney News said watching "the building sinking slowly beneath you" was "an experience never to be forgotten".

The materials, as the State Library lists them, were 2.5 million bricks, 243 tonnes of galvanised iron and an enormous amount of timber. The Powerhouse says more than 4.5 million feet of timber was used. The rainwater downpipes were hidden inside hollow pine columns, and the north tower had a Whittier steam lift, which the Dictionary of Sydney calls Sydney's first hydraulic lift. People could ride it up for views of the harbour that hardly anyone had seen before.

The main building wasn't the half of it. About 49 acres (20 hectares) of the Gardens and Domain went over to the exhibition, according to the Dictionary of Sydney, and six hectares of that was covered in buildings. There was an Art Gallery, a Machinery Hall, an Agricultural Hall, livestock pens, bandstands and about ten restaurants and refreshment rooms. The SMH in 2007 mentions an oyster bar and tea rooms among them.

The Garden Palace about 1880, from the Domain side. NSW Government Printing Office (attributed), State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Garden Palace above Farm Cove, about 1880. Charles Bayliss, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Getting There: The Steam Tram

Another worry was how people would get there. The fix was a steam tram line, built in 16 weeks from the Redfern terminus along Elizabeth Street to Hunter Street. It was only approved on the condition that it came out again after the show. Instead, Sydneysiders loved it, and by the time the exhibition closed it had carried a million passengers. It became the first permanent line in Sydney's tram system. I've covered that in my Sydney Trams post.

Opening Day: Wednesday 17 September 1879

The day was a public holiday, and shops and businesses closed. A telegram printed in the Hobart Mercury on Thursday 18 September 1879 described it:

"The International Exhibition was opened to-day with great ceremony. The weather was fine and genial, and the day was observed as a public holiday, all business being suspended to give due eclat to the auspicious occasion."

The procession left Government House at half past ten. Mounted Police led the way, followed by fire brigades from Woollahra, Newtown and Paddington with seven engines between them. Then came the friendly societies: the Oddfellows, Foresters, Druids, Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance, the Hibernian-Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, the Seamen's Union and the journeyman tailors. Behind them rode Lord Augustus Loftus with the Governors of Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, then ministers, members of Parliament and the Mayor. The plan was for soldiers, the Naval Brigade and sailors from the warships in port to march as well, but that was called off. The Mercury's telegram said "thousands of people lined the streets", and the procession itself was about 3,000 strong.

Under the dome, Loftus unveiled the statue of Queen Victoria, the National Anthem was sung, and a choir performed the opening cantata. Henry Kendall wrote the words and Signor Paolo Giorza wrote the music. After the Governor's speech, a nineteen-gun salute was fired and the choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus. Even then, the reporter admitted that "the arrangement of the exhibits were rather backward".

The bronze statue of Queen Victoria under the dome. It's the one Lord Augustus Loftus unveiled on opening day, and the one the flames wrapped around in 1882. Powerhouse Museum collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

How many people came that first day depends on which record you read. The Mercury's telegram says twenty thousand. Morley and the State Library say the official records give anywhere between 19,853 and 24,000.

The Exhibition Itself

The exhibits came from everywhere. Morley counts about 34 countries and their colonies, laid out in crowded courts, and about 14,000 exhibits. There was Bohemian glass, tapestries, fine porcelain, fabric, pyramids of gold, minerals, wood carving, watches, heavy machinery, and what were called "ethnographic specimens". The Dictionary of Sydney says there were 724 classes of goods. One MP had complained that overseas exhibitors would use Sydney to dump "the wretched rubbish they could not dispose of at Paris". In the end people were genuinely taken with the new things on show.

Inside the French Court, 1880. Powerhouse Museum collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the best survivors is in Sydney Town Hall. It's a Sèvres vase, one of a pair shown in the French Court, which the French Republic later gave to the people of Sydney. The Powerhouse also has a Bechstein concert grand made in 1878, which won a first prize and was luckily moved out of the Palace before the fire.

The New South Wales Court, looking from the South Nave. Powerhouse Museum collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

When the crowds were big, the spot under the dome became the place everyone arranged to meet, and according to the Official Record, "meet me under the dome" turned into a common saying around Sydney. Out on the parade ground there were livestock shows, starting with an International Show of Sheep. Morley says the shearing demonstrations were a big hit.

Entry cost five shillings at first and was later dropped to a shilling. A season ticket cost three guineas and was used for 76,278 admissions. The busiest day was 26 January 1880, when 27,000 came through.

There were complaints too: exhibits not ready in time, the price of entry and the quality of the food. Not everyone was sure it had been worth it either. As the Dictionary of Sydney points out, making and manufacturing wasn't really what the colony was good at, and many felt Sydney's main job was to foot the bill. The Dictionary also notes that the Aboriginal displays inside gave the impression that Aboriginal people had gone, when anyone could walk down Macquarie Street and meet some of them.

Looking down the Western Transept from the dome. It gives you an idea of all that timber. Powerhouse Museum collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Closing and the Numbers

The exhibition closed on 20 April 1880. At the closing ceremony, the Executive Commissioner P. A. Jennings said it marked "perhaps the most important epoch that has occurred in our history". The State Library gives total attendance as 1,117,536, and the Powerhouse makes it 1,117,563. That's at a time when the colony had somewhere between 650,000 and 700,000 people, depending on which figure you use.

Charles Bayliss's view across the pond to the exhibition building, with the French flag on the left and the American flag on the right, about 1880. Charles Bayliss, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After the Show: Offices, Records and a Museum

The building was only ever meant to be temporary. Morley points out that the materials suited a building that wouldn't last. But it wasn't pulled down. It was turned over to government offices and storage instead. State Archives says it was used as an auditorium and gallery and housed the first mining and technological museum, while government departments had offices there and official records were kept in the basement.

On 15 March 1881 the Registrar General, E. G. Ward, asked for space in the Palace for the census compiler "and his staff of Tabulators of the forthcoming Census". That's how the 1881 census ended up there. According to Margaret Lyon's diary, the papers were "ready almost to be sent to the printers, the work of 30 men for 14 months".

The other big tenant was the new Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum, the start of today's Powerhouse. The Powerhouse says the Australian Museum's trustees backed the idea of a separate technological museum in August 1878. A deputation met Parkes about it on 28 December 1879 and asked for the museum to go into the Garden Palace. The museum moved into the north-east corner in 1881, and Joseph Henry Maiden was made curator after Buckland was sacked. Then it was a matter of waiting for opening day. The Powerhouse says the museum was due to open in October 1882, while the State Library and Morley say 1 December 1882.

The Linnean Society had offices and a museum on the ground floor. The Art Society had hung 300 paintings for its annual exhibition, due to open on 2 October 1882. The Australian Museum had collections there, and there was a Mineral Museum as well. Even the Eastern Suburbs Brass Band had left its instruments in the building after playing at a flower show the day before the fire.

The Fire: Friday 22 September 1882

I've told the watchmen's story in full in Part 3, so here it is in Barnet's own words. He wrote his report the next day, 23 September 1882, and State Archives has published a transcript:

"It is my painful duty to report that on yesterday morning at about twenty minutes to six oclock, a fire broke out in the Garden Palace, resulting in the total destruction of that building and its contents the fire spreading with such rapidity that in forty minute, from its commencement nothing remained but a mass of smouldering ruins."

Barnet's report goes on to say the night watchman, F. Kirchen, had been down in the basement four times during the night. The last time was about a quarter to five, and he smelled nothing. Two police constables had walked through as far as the fountain and left at about half past five. A few minutes later the caretaker, J. McKnight, arrived, and as the two men walked to the western entrance they saw smoke "coming up the well hole of the fountain in dense masses". They ran out a fire hose, then a second length, but the fire drove them back. They rang the big bell at the west door and used the telephone. Help arrived in about a quarter of an hour, and by then nothing could be done. Barnet himself got there before seven o'clock, "but the building was at that time in ruins".

"Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney", from the supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News, 25 October 1882. Gibbs, Shallard and Co., public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On 15 September 2007 the SMH reprinted part of the Herald's original 1882 report:

"Flames wreathed round the great bronze statue of Her Majesty the Queen … The stained glass of the skylight dropped in a molten rain … Volumes of black smoke rolled up, and with a crash like a peal of thunder the mighty dome fell in."

Fourteen-year-old Ethel Pockley watched it happen. The Powerhouse quotes her: "the lead melted and ran into a stream along the ground… Tower after tower fell… and the statue of the queen on its fountain stood for such a long time with all the flames all around it and above it". The French artist Lucien Henry stood on his balcony until the dome came down, then went inside and painted the whole scene.

The heat cracked the windows of the Macquarie Street terraces. Falling cinders set a house in Potts Point alight. Sheets of iron came down as far away as Elizabeth Bay according to the State Library, and Rushcutters Bay according to the Dictionary of Sydney. The Genealogical Society of Queensland quotes the Herald of Saturday 23 September 1882 on how quickly it was all over:

"By nine o'clock all was over, the residences in Macquarie-street had their view of the harbour restored to them, and the pretty Garden Palace, whose grey-tinted dome could be seen lifted above the pine and fig trees – a beacon light to those incoming to our shores, the first object of beauty in the city as the Heads was passed – was a mass of smoking timbers and falling walls."

What Was Lost

The State Library, Morley and State Archives together give this list:

• The 1881 census returns. Morley notes the summary survived.
• Lands records, including those of the Crown Lands Occupation office. State Archives has the Lands Department reports on starting fresh registers in temporary offices in Gresham Street.
• Railway surveys. Herbert Palmer's report lists working plans, sections and field books for lines including Homebush to Waratah and Orange to near Parkes.
• Records of the Fisheries Office, the Mining Department and the Harbours and Rivers Department.
• The Technological Museum's foundation collection, including Aboriginal cultural objects, many of them bought from the exhibition. Kaldor Public Art Projects describes the building as holding "countless Aboriginal artefacts and objects taken from the colonial frontier". Wikipedia gives a figure of 500 to 1,000 Sydney Aboriginal pieces, but it doesn't give a source for that number, so I'd treat it with caution.
• The Linnean Society's offices and museum.
• The Art Society's 300 paintings, which weren't insured.
• The grand organ, about £7,000 worth of statues, and between 20,000 and 30,000 plants in the Gardens.
• The Eastern Suburbs Brass Band's instruments.

A few things got through. A fireproof Milner safe near the southern tower came out "sound and unhurt", with its ledgers and a plan of the exhibition inside. The Lands Department hoped to dig some mineral specimens and diamond-drill fittings out of the rubble. The State Library has a lump of melted glass from the ruins, given to it in 1974. The Powerhouse has a graphite elephant.

The ruins at the Macquarie Street entrance after the fire, 1882. Unknown photographer, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How Did It Start?

Nobody knows. The coroner didn't reach a firm finding, but Morley says he was scathing about the authorities storing such important things in a poorly secured building that was a fire risk. Most accounts agree it seems to have started in the basement, with the flames coming up around the Queen's statue under the dome. Arson was widely suspected, but nobody was ever charged.

Two theories have stuck around. One is that wealthy Macquarie Street residents, sick of losing their harbour views to the building, set it alight. The other is that someone burnt it to destroy the census, because it supposedly held embarrassing details about the convict and squatter backgrounds of leading families. The State Library and the SMH both report these as stories people told, not facts, and the SMH adds that it could just as easily have been an accident. Margaret Lyon, whose father John Lyon had decorated the Palace, wrote in her diary that a boy putting out the Domain lights said he saw a man jump out of a window just before the smoke appeared. She also wrote, "Everyone seems to agree on his point that it has been done on purpose."

All that was left: the brick piers of the entrances standing among the cinders, 1882. State Archives and Records NSW (NRS 4481), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Afterwards

The Dictionary of Sydney says plenty of people mourned the building and a new flood of poems appeared in the papers. Quite a few people were also quietly pleased that Sydney had its Botanic Gardens back. Morley says there was brief talk of rebuilding it in a more lasting form for the 1888 centenary, but it never happened. The Garden Palace stood on Inner Domain land, outside the Gardens of the day, and that ground is now the south-western end of the Royal Botanic Garden. More than a century later, the head of the Botanic Gardens Trust, Dr Tim Entwisle, admitted to the SMH that the fire "left us with a lot more space".

The Gates

The carved sandstone gateposts and wrought-iron gates at the Macquarie Street entrance to the Gardens are the only part of the Garden Palace still standing. Monument Australia dates them to 1889 and says they were put up to commemorate the 1879 exhibition. Its page quotes the Sun of 19 July 1923 saying that few people walking through the gates opposite Governor Bourke's statue "realise their significance". The NSW Government's visitor page calls them "one of the last remaining reminders" of the Palace.

The Garden Palace Gates on Macquarie Street today, which are pretty much the only thing left standing. RubyGoes, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Just inside the gates, a 1940s sunken garden and fountain marks where the dome stood. A circular garden bed traces the dome's outline, and in the middle is a statue of Cupid (the SMH calls it Eros), standing about where the Queen's statue once did.

barrangal dyara (skin and bones), 2016

In September 2016, Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones laid out barrangal dyara (skin and bones) across 20,000 square metres of the Royal Botanic Garden, tracing the outline of the Garden Palace. Kaldor Public Art Projects says Jones first came across the story about twenty years earlier at the Australian Museum, when he went looking for cultural material from his family's country and found that much of it had been "destroyed in the Garden Palace fire of 1882".

The installation used 15,000 bleached-white gypsum shields to mark out the footprint and call to mind the rubble. Gypsum is used in Aboriginal mourning ceremonies, and the shields were based on four designs from south-east nations. In the middle, where the dome had been, there was a meadow of kangaroo grass, and soundscapes carried eight Aboriginal languages of the south-east. The title comes from the Sydney language, and the work was made on Gadigal country with the community's approval. It was open for just over two weeks. Jones said: "The Garden Palace has become a symbol for the repercussions of forgetting… Aboriginal communities have often been the victims of Australia's ability to forget." The Powerhouse also quotes him pointing out that the site was a known ceremonial ground, "the site where the only ceremony in Sydney was ever documented".

Commons doesn't have a freely licensed photo of the installation that I could find, so you'll find pictures on the Kaldor Public Art Projects website linked in the Sources.

What You Can Still See

The gates on Macquarie Street and the sunken garden with its fountain are still there. In the Powerhouse there's the Bechstein piano and the graphite elephant, and in Sydney Town Hall there's the Sèvres vase. The State Library has the molten glass, the foundation-stone jar and a handkerchief printed with a view of the Palace. The Powerhouse itself is perhaps the biggest thing left from it all. It grew out of the Technological Museum, whose first collection was lost in the fire. So did the steam tram line from Redfern, which never got taken up again.

Timeline

• Late 1877: The Agricultural Society of NSW discusses holding an international exhibition in Sydney.
• February 1878: The Colonial Secretary's Office announces an international exhibition for August 1879, to be run by the Society.
• August 1878: The Australian Museum trustees back a separate Technological and Industrial Museum.
• 3 December 1878: The Herald: "the world has forced upon us an unexpected expansion".
• December 1878: The government takes over. Barnet is instructed on 17 December and submits a design within days.
• 31 December 1878: The Royal Commission is set up under Lord Augustus Loftus.
• January 1879: The government grants £50,000.
• 13 January 1879: Building begins.
• 13 February 1879: Lady Robinson lays the foundation stone.
• 22 April 1879: Labourer Samuel Allen dies on the job.
• 17 September 1879: The exhibition opens.
• 26 January 1880: The biggest crowd, 27,000.
• 20 April 1880: The exhibition closes.
• 15 March 1881: The Registrar General asks for space for the census office.
• 1881: The Technological Museum moves into the north-east corner.
• 22 September 1882, about 5.40 am: Fire. The building is gone in about forty minutes.
• 23 September 1882: Barnet reports the loss.
• 1889: The Garden Palace Gates go up on Macquarie Street (Monument Australia).
• 1940s: The sunken garden and fountain mark the site of the dome.
• 1954: The foundation-stone jar is given to the State Library.
• September 2016: Jonathan Jones's barrangal dyara (skin and bones) traces the Palace's footprint.

Where the Sources Disagree

• 1878 or 1879? The planning ran through 1878, but building began on 13 January 1879 (State Library) and the exhibition ran from 17 September 1879 to 20 April 1880 (State Library, Morley, Powerhouse). My own 2016 construction post had the building dates as 1878, and I've corrected that.
• Opening-day weather. The Dictionary of Sydney describes the grand opening as "in the rain" and the gardens as "bogs". But the Mercury's telegram on the day called the weather "fine and genial", and a second telegram said "splendid". David Latta says the stormy weather of the days before had cleared to sunshine.
• The choir. One commentator quoted by the Dictionary of Sydney says 700 voices. The telegram in the Mercury says 900.
• Opening-day crowd. The telegram says 20,000. The official figures quoted by Morley run from 19,853 to 24,000.
• Total visitors. 1,117,536 (State Library, Wikipedia) or 1,117,563 (Powerhouse). Monument Australia gives 1,045,898.
• Countries. About 34 countries and their colonies (State Library, Morley) against 23 nations (Wikipedia).
• Cost. £184,570 (ADB, Barnet's figure), £191,800 (Wikipedia), about £192,000 at the opening (State Archives), or about £250,000 as the "final official figure" (Dictionary of Sydney).
• Building time. "Eight months" (Wikipedia, Powerhouse, State Archives) or "nine months" for the design and the work (ADB).
• Workers. Sometimes 2,000 on site (Dictionary of Sydney), or 3,000 directly and indirectly employed (State Library).
• Size of the dome. The State Library's fact sheet gives it as 31 metres across and 47 metres high, while Morley and the SMH give it as 64 metres high. Wikipedia gives 210 feet (64 metres) in one article and says it rose 90 feet above the building in another. The 47 metres might be the dome itself and 64 metres the top of the lantern, but I haven't found a source that says so.
• Where the iron landed. Elizabeth Bay (State Library, Morley) or Rushcutters Bay (Dictionary of Sydney).
• When the museum was due to open. October 1882 (Powerhouse) or 1 December 1882 (State Library, Morley).
• The cause of the fire. Never settled. The Macquarie Street views theory and the census theory are both stories that went around, with nothing to prove them.

My Earlier Posts

• Sydney Garden Palace – Part 2
• Sydney Garden Palace – Part 3
• Sydney Garden Palace after The Fire
• Construction Of The Sydney Garden Palace
• Sydney Garden Palace – Part 5
• Sydney Garden Palace Photos
• Sydney Garden Palace Part 6
• Sydney Garden Palace In Pictures – Macquarie Street – Royal Botanic Gardens & Sydney Domain
• Sydney Garden Palace – Macquarie Street – Sydney – Part 7
• Sydney Garden Palace – Part 1 – Macquarie Street
• Sydney Garden Palace In Pictures
• First Sydney Exhibition Building – Prince Alfred Park
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
• Royal Botanic Garden Sydney – Photos
• Government House – 'The Peoples Domain'
• Government House – "The People's Domain"
• St Mary's Cathedral – College Street & Art Gallery Road
• Sydney Trams – From Horse Trams to Light Rail

Sources

1. Shirley Fitzgerald, "Garden Palace", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008. dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/garden_palace
2. State Library of NSW, "The Garden Palace" (story and "In brief" fact sheet). sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/garden-palace
3. State Library of NSW, "Laying the foundation stone". sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/garden-palace/laying-foundation-stone
4. State Library of NSW, "The fire". sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/fire
5. Sarah Morley, "The Garden Palace: Building an Early Sydney Icon", M/C Journal 20(2), 2017. journal.media-culture.org.au/…/1223
6. Powerhouse, "A Corner of the Empire: The Garden Palace". powerhouse.com.au/stories/historic-garden-palace
7. Museums of History NSW (State Archives), "Garden Palace Fire, 1882", including Barnet's report of 23 September 1882 and the Registrar General's letter of 15 March 1881. mhnsw.au/stories/general/garden-palace-fire
8. "Barnet, James Johnstone", Australian Dictionary of Biography. adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barnet-james-johnstone-2939
9. "Opening of the Sydney International Exhibition", The Mercury (Hobart), 18 September 1879, p. 2, via Trove. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8981407
10. Richard Macey, "The palace that became a bonfire", Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2007 (quoting the Herald of 23 September 1882). smh.com.au
11. Genealogical Society of Queensland blog, "'The Singing Flame': Destruction of public records" (quoting the SMH, 23 September 1882). gsq-blogs.org.au
12. Kaldor Public Art Projects, "Project 32: Jonathan Jones, barrangal dyara (skin and bones)", 2016. kaldorartprojects.org.au/projects/jonathan-jones
13. David Latta, "Sydney's Forgotten Glory – The Garden Palace", 14 July 2011. davidlatta.org
14. 2021 Henry Parkes Oration, Parkes Foundation (drawing on Ann Toy, "Politics and Patronage: Sir Henry Parkes's Exhibition legacies"). parkesfoundation.org.au (PDF)
15. NSW Government, "Garden Palace Gates". nsw.gov.au
16. Monument Australia, "Palace Garden Gate". monumentaustralia.org.au
17. Wikipedia, "Garden Palace". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Palace
18. Wikipedia, "Sydney International Exhibition". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_International_Exhibition
19. Wikipedia, "James Barnet". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barnet
20. Wikimedia Commons, Category: Garden Palace (all pictures on this page). commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Garden_Palace