City of Sydney Fire Station: No. 1 Station, Castlereagh Street, 1888

Walk down Castlereagh Street from Park Street towards Bathurst Street and, just past the shops, there's a red brick building with three big arched doors and a fire engine usually parked behind one of them. Most people hurry past it on the way to work. It's worth slowing down, though, because this is the City of Sydney Fire Station, No. 1 Station, at 211 to 217 Castlereagh Street. It opened in 1888 and it has been turning out to fires ever since. Fire and Rescue NSW and the Sydney Open program both describe it as the oldest fire station in New South Wales that is still operating.

The 1888 front of the City of Sydney Fire Station at 217 Castlereagh Street. Photo: Sardaka, 2017, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Before there was a fire brigade

For the first fifty years or so of the colony, fighting fires in Sydney was a patchy business. Fire and Rescue NSW's own history says that in the 1820s the only real fire brigade in New South Wales was a military one, soldiers trained to use the fire appliances. Then the insurance companies stepped in. Fire and Rescue NSW dates the first insurance brigade, set up by the Australian Insurance Company, to 1836; the Museum of Fire puts the start of insurance brigades in Sydney at 1837. Either way, these early crews were mostly local working men using buckets, ladders and axes supplied by the companies.

The Museum of Fire makes a point that surprised me. In England, insurance brigades had a reputation for letting a building burn if its owner hadn't paid them, and each insured building carried a "fire mark", a metal plaque with the company's badge on it. Sydney had fire marks too, for the Phoenix, the Sun, the Alliance and others, but the Museum says local brigades put out fires whether a building was insured or not. The Buildings Act of 1837 paid 30 shillings to the first brigade to get water on a fire, 20 shillings to the second and 10 to the third. You can imagine the races that caused through the streets.

In 1841 a group of businessmen formed the Mutual Fire Insurance Association, and Fire and Rescue NSW says they brought out two engines and two firemen from England, Thomas Bown and Edward Harris. In 1851 the insurance companies joined forces as the Insurance Companies Fire Brigade, also called the Sydney Fire Establishment, with a Bown as superintendent. The brigade's station stood in Bathurst Street, on the corner of George Street, opposite St Andrew's Cathedral.

The volunteers came next. In 1854 Andrew Torning formed the No. 1 Volunteer Company, also known as the Victoria Theatre Brigade, and helped start a string of others. The Museum of Fire notes that "volunteer" isn't quite the right word, because these men were paid for their work. It also says the story that volunteer companies sprang up because insurers refused to fight fires is a myth; the truth was that insurers wouldn't cover certain risky businesses at all, theatres, printing presses and breweries among them.

The old Insurance Companies Fire Brigade station in Bathurst Street, the brigade's first home in 1884, photographed in 1901. The bell tower is empty because its bell had gone to Bathurst by then. Photographer unidentified, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The insurance men and the volunteers did not get along. In 1880, after years of squabbling, two rival bodies were set up, the Metropolitan Associated Fire Brigades and the United Volunteer Fire Brigade Association. The Dictionary of Sydney says the first of these tried to bring the commercial and volunteer brigades together, but it was distrusted in many quarters and plenty of volunteer companies stayed independent.

The Garden Palace, 1882

I've written about the Garden Palace elsewhere on this blog, so I'll keep this short. The great exhibition building in the Domain burned to the ground in 1882, and the Illustrated Sydney News put the fire on a supplement dated 25 October 1882. It happened before the Metropolitan Fire Brigade existed and before a brick of the Castlereagh Street station was laid, so it was the insurance and volunteer brigades who were there that night. It's often told as one of the fires that showed Sydney needed a single, properly run fire service, but I couldn't find a source I'd trust that draws that link directly, so take it as the general feeling of the time rather than a recorded fact.

"Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney", a supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News, 25 October 1882. Gibbs, Shallard and Co., State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

One brigade for Sydney: 1884

The answer to all that rivalry was the Fire Brigades Act of 1884. The Dictionary of Sydney and Fire and Rescue NSW both date the formation of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade to 14 February 1884. Gary Boyce's detailed history of the station, written in 2010 from the brigade's own archives and State Records, says the new Fire Brigades Board was gazetted on 24 June 1884. It had six members: a chairman appointed by the government, and representatives of the Sydney Municipal Council, the suburban councils, the volunteer firemen and the insurance companies who were paying for a large share of it. Every brigade in Sydney now had to register with the Board and meet its standards to stay in business. The Museum of Fire says many of the fully volunteer brigades couldn't meet the rules and were soon replaced by brigades the Board approved.

The man put in charge of the firefighting itself was William Douglas Bear. The Museum of Fire's account of him says he was born in Woolwich in April 1849, joined the Royal Navy at fourteen, and at twenty-three went into the London Metropolitan Fire Brigade, where he rose to Third Officer and Engineer. Eyre Massey Shaw, chief of the London brigade, recommended him for the Sydney job, and he arrived in June 1884. His first and hardest task, the Museum says, was getting the insurance men and the volunteers to work as one brigade.

The first permanent crew of twenty men started on 1 July 1884. According to the Museum of Fire, all but four of them came straight across from the Insurance Brigade. Three came from the No. 1 Volunteer Company and one, Henry Salter, came from the London Fire Brigade; he was made Superintendent of the Adelaide Fire Brigade only nine months later. Bear himself reported, Boyce writes, that his permanent staff was thirty men "including Superintendent, Secretary, and Coachman", and he was proud that the brigade had "three horses, instead of two" as the old insurance brigade had.

The trouble was where to put them. The brigade was squeezed into the old insurance brigade station in Bathurst Street, which Bear called "totally inadequate to the requirements of the Metropolitan Brigade", while the Board worked from temporary offices on the corner of Bridge and Phillip streets. The plan was for three main stations: a central headquarters, a northern one and a southern one.

Building the head station

The government bought the Castlereagh Street land in two lots. Fire and Rescue NSW says the site on the western side of Castlereagh Street was bought in July 1884 for £10,000. Boyce, working from State Records, gives a little more detail and a slightly different total: one lot held the office of the Protestant Standard newspaper, bought from W.H. Paling and A.H. McCulloch for £5,000, and the other held the Royal Standard Hotel, bought from C.J. Royle for £5,500. He places the purchase in the Board's report for 1885.

Getting it built was a saga. Boyce says the first successful tenderers, White and Coghill, realised they'd quoted too low and pulled out. The Board, which thought the original design too expensive anyway, used the chance to strip back the ornament. The next builders, Millet Bros, won the job at £13,150, started knocking down the old buildings and then went broke. A change of ministry and a dissolved parliament added more delay, and the Board's chairman Charles Bown had to remind the government that the brigade was only in Bathurst Street "on suffrance". Finally John Baldwin's tender of £12,999 was accepted and work began late in 1886. Meanwhile the brigade didn't wait: the Museum of Fire says its first suburban station, at Marrickville, was open by April 1886, and Fire and Rescue NSW notes that this, not Castlereagh Street, was the first station actually built for the brigade, even though Castlereagh Street got the number 1.

Boyce writes that the building was finished by 17 February 1888 and the brigade moved in on 1 March. Most sources give 1888 as the opening year, though Fire and Rescue NSW's own history of the station calls it "the 1887 building", presumably after the year most of the building work was done.

Metropolitan Fire Station No. 1 in Castlereagh Street, with horse-drawn appliances out the front. The photo is undated. Government Printing Office, State Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (No known copyright restrictions).

James Barnet's plain fire station

The design came out of the Colonial Architect's office under James Barnet, the man behind the General Post Office, the Lands Department building and, as it happens, the Garden Palace. Boyce points out that Castlereagh Street was Barnet's only fire station and much less elaborate than his other work. That was deliberate. Barnet's first plans of February 1885 were in the Victorian Italianate style, with a big asymmetrical tower and rounded arches, and the Board told him it was too dear. Its secretary, Andrew Bone, wrote that the station "should be of plain a style as possible". So the tower became a lighter one set back from the front to keep things symmetrical, the bracketed eaves went, the rounded arches over the engine doors became flatter segmental arches, and the balustrade and skyline decoration were dropped. What was left is what the heritage people call Victorian Free Classical. Boyce, quoting a 1988 National Trust survey, says it's one of only two Sydney fire stations in that style. The State Library still holds Barnet's photo-lithographed plans, dated 23 February 1888.

Even pared back, it has some lovely touches. Over the middle engine door the keystone carries a bust of Queen Victoria, and the keystones over the two outer doors are carved with a fireman's helmet, axes, torches and other gear. Inside, the tiles in the engine bay carry fire brigade motifs too.

Queen Victoria keeps watch from the keystone over the middle engine bay door. Photo: Sardaka, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

One of the outer keystones, carved with a fireman's helmet, axes and torches. Photo: Sardaka, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Fire and Rescue NSW says the design borrowed ideas from the London Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which makes sense with Bear supervising. Charles Bown called it "one of the finest and modern of its kind" and "a model of completeness".

How the station worked

This is the part I find fascinating. The ground floor had three engine bays opening straight onto Castlereagh Street, with the stables behind them across a courtyard, so the horses only had a few steps to go. Fire and Rescue NSW describes the harness and swing bars hanging over each horse on weights running in tubes; when the collar was snapped shut the gear tripped itself and the horse went straight into the engine bay.

The nerve centre was the watchroom on the northern side of the ground floor, where the telephone exchange board, fire alarms and electrical gear were worked. Pull the electrical contact there, Fire and Rescue NSW says, and it rang the bells through the whole building, turned up the gas lamps in the engine bay, released the stable doors so they flew open on springs, and dropped a weight in the single men's quarters on the first floor that opened two flaps over the brass pole so the men could slide down. Speaking tubes ran from the watchroom to the Superintendent's office. The original switchboard has been restored and sits in a replica watchroom at the Museum of Fire in Penrith.

Up top was the watchtower. Fire and Rescue NSW says junior firefighters did three-hour shifts from dusk till dawn on a tower about twenty metres high, known as the "pigeon box", watching for a glow over the rooftops.

The Castlereagh Street station around 1900, with a horse-drawn engine in the street. Tyrrell Photographic Collection, Powerhouse Museum, via Wikimedia Commons (No known copyright restrictions).

Living over the shop

Firemen in those days didn't go home at the end of a shift, because there wasn't really an end to a shift. Boyce, drawing on Debra Jopson's history of the firefighters' union, says the men were on duty twenty-four hours a day for seven days straight and then had twenty-four hours off. So they lived at the station, or in rented places close by if there was no room. They couldn't leave without an officer's permission, and a lot of the work was menial, including cleaning the officers' quarters and gear. No wonder, as Boyce notes, so many early firemen were ex-sailors; he compares the station to an "onshore ship".

The building showed the pecking order. The Superintendent had nine rooms on the northern part of the first floor with his own bathroom and kitchen. The Foreman, his second in command, had a smaller flat on the floor above. The firemen had interconnecting bedrooms with shared kitchens, bathrooms and laundry. When it opened, Boyce says, citing the Sydney Morning Herald of 2 March 1888, it housed the Superintendent, the Foreman, five married men and eight single men, with four more married men in cottages nearby. There was a billiard room on the ground floor and a boardroom on the first, and the washing was hung out to dry on the roof.

Families grew up in places like this. Boyce quotes a retired fireman, Lew Phillips, who was born above a watchroom and was one of twenty-two children living in a fire station. Marie McCarthy, daughter of fireman John McCarthy, lived at Headquarters from 1910 to 1916 and wasn't sentimental about it: of the seven fire stations her family had lived in, she said, only two were reasonable and "the other five were unacceptable".

The Museum of Fire has a lovely story about Bear from an old Sunday Times piece of 1920. In a public place one night he boasted that the Sydney brigade was the equal of any in the world, New York included. Some Americans laughed at him, so he marched them to the nearest street fire alarm and told one of them to pull it. Within moments, the story goes, steamers, salvage wagons and ladder carriages arrived with hoses out. The Americans assumed the station must be just around the corner, so Bear called a cab and had it drive them there, to show them how far it really was. The Museum is careful to call this part of the "mythology" around Bear, and so will I.

Metropolitan Fire Station No. 3 at Circular Quay, one of the three main stations planned in 1884. State Records dates the photo to about 1890; the Museum of Fire says the station opened in 1893. Government Printing Office, State Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Alfred Webb and Nicholas Sparks

Bear resigned in September 1898. His successor was Alfred Webb, who the Museum of Fire says was Superintendent of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade from 1898 to 1909 and then the first Chief Officer of the NSW Fire Brigades from 1910 until 1913. A 1958 note quoted by the Firefighter Championships, written when Webb's family gave a trophy in his name, says he was chief officer "from 1888 to 1913", but the Museum's own dates are backed up by Bear's resignation in 1898, so I'd go with those. The Alfred Webb Cup is still awarded to the top team at the state firefighting championships.

Webb's right-hand man was Nicholas George Sparks. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says he was born in Portsea in 1857, served in the navy and joined the London brigade in 1881. He arrived in Sydney in June 1897 with his wife and two daughters and, as third officer, moved into the Castlereagh Street headquarters. He became deputy in November 1898. The ADB says that between 1898 and 1914 Webb and Sparks turned the Sydney brigades into a disciplined, professional force with the latest motorised appliances. When Webb died in 1913, Sparks took over as chief officer. (His name turns up as both Sparks and Sparkes; the ADB uses Sparks.)

Metropolitan Fire Brigade firemen in 1905, two of them in smoke helmets. State Records NSW (NRS 15454), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Hordern's, July 1901

The worst fire of Webb's early years was the Anthony Hordern's fire in the Haymarket on Wednesday 10 July 1901. Hordern's was then a complex of five big buildings around Gipps Street (now Barlow Street), Parker Street, George Street and Pitt Street. A retelling in Sydney's Daily Mirror of 20 August 1985 says the fire started at about 8.20 in the morning when an electric wire fused in the basement toy department of the Palace building and set celluloid toys alight. Within four minutes, it says, the first horse-drawn steamer came galloping round the corner from fire brigade headquarters with Superintendent Webb on board.

A strong westerly carried the flames across the narrow streets between the buildings. Deputy Superintendent Sparks followed a storeman, William Farrell, into the burning furniture building to warn men working a hose on the fifth floor, and both were badly burned getting out. Five Hordern's employees died, among them the upholsterer Harry Clegg, who was trapped on the parapet and jumped in front of the crowd. When people panicked that the gasometers next door would explode, Webb had already ordered the gas company to pump the gas back to its Mortlake works. At the inquest, the Mirror says, Webb told the coroner that even fifty engines, rather than the ten he had, couldn't have saved the store. The paper says the fire led to tougher safety rules for city buildings and a stronger fire brigade.

Firefighters at work on the Anthony Hordern's fire in the Haymarket, July 1901 (a stereo pair). State Library of NSW (ON5/31), via Wikimedia Commons (No known copyright restrictions).

Another stereo view of the Hordern's fire, July 1901. State Library of NSW (ON5/30), via Wikimedia Commons (No known copyright restrictions).

Growing out of the building

By the early 1900s the 1888 station was bursting. In 1902 Charles Bown complained that "procrastination is accentuating the evil" and that what had been enough fifteen years earlier was now "utterly inadequate". Boyce puts the government's foot-dragging down partly to the 1890s depression. Fire and Rescue NSW says the station's workshops had already been enlarged in 1893.

The first big addition was next door at 211 Castlereagh Street, a three-storey brick building that became known as the "Boot Factory". Fire and Rescue NSW says it was leased in 1902; Boyce says the Board rented it year to year from 1902 and took a twenty-one-year lease in 1904. The brigade made boots, uniforms, hoses, rope lines and canvas there, and for a while unmarried firemen slept there. The Board bought it in 1923.

The trams came up Castlereagh Street in 1902 and, Boyce says, their rumble played havoc with the alarms in the watchroom, so in 1909 the watchroom moved into the old billiard room and the billiard table went to a gym in the Boot Factory.

Here the sources part ways on the big northern extension. Fire and Rescue NSW and the Sydney Open listing date it to 1907. Boyce, working from council planning records and the Board's annual reports, says the land at 213 to 215 Castlereagh Street was bought from the Countess of Carnarvon in 1909 for £4,675, that the building application was lodged on 14 June 1912, and that the new "Administration Building" by the architects Spain, Cosh and Minnett was built by Wall and Sons for £9,668 and occupied in August 1913. I can't settle that one from here, so you have both.

From horses to motors

In 1910 the Fire Brigades Act took effect across the whole state. The Fire Brigades Board became the Board of Fire Commissioners of NSW, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade became the NSW Fire Brigades, and the Superintendent became the Chief Officer. Castlereagh Street went from being the head station of a Sydney brigade to the headquarters of a statewide one.

Boyce says the horses finished at Headquarters in 1915. The 1888 stables lost their upper storey and were opened up to make two more engine bays. Then on 28 June 1927 Sydney and Newcastle firemen won an eighty-four-hour week, and a two-platoon system followed, so the men no longer had to live at the station. That freed up space. Boyce says the front of the Administration Building was changed in 1927 to take two vehicle entrances, under William McNiven, a probationary fireman of 1900 who became the brigade's first in-house architect; Fire and Rescue NSW dates the conversion to engine bays to 1928, for "an enlarged fleet of motorised appliances". Either way, the motor age had arrived on Castlereagh Street.

New gas masks being shown off at the Castlereagh Street headquarters in 1927. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The Museum of Fire has one more nice detail from these years. Thomas Nance joined the brigade in 1895 and spent his early years in the carpentry shop at Headquarters. In 1929 he became the first Australian-born Chief Officer, and he turned the southern basement of Headquarters into a workshop where he made toys for children.

Testing air raid sirens at Fire Headquarters, 22 February 1940. Photo: Ted Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

A fire engine and its crew at Fire Brigade Headquarters, Sydney, 17 March 1941. Photo: R. Donaldson, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The NSW Fire Brigade rescuing trapped office workers somewhere in the city, some time between about 1925 and 1939. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The station today

The need for a bigger station was raised as early as 1934, Fire and Rescue NSW says, but nothing happened for decades. Boyce notes that training moved out to a new college at Paddington in 1956 and the residential quarters were eventually removed altogether. In July 1999 an application went to the City of Sydney Council to refurbish the old buildings and add a new one. Boyce says the council preferred keeping a fire station on the site to seeing a tower go up, and a conservation plan limited new building to four storeys.

The Boot Factory was knocked down and a new station with modern engine bays was finished in February 2003. Fire and Rescue NSW says the foundation stone was laid by the Emergency Services Minister, Bob Debus, and Commissioner Ian MacDougall. Restoration of the 1888 building began in March 2003. Missing parts of the rear iron balconies were rebuilt, a 1920s infill over the old stables was taken off, and the First World War honour board, original tiles and doors were kept. Part of the ground floor became a small museum. The front, engine bays, front rooms and main staircase of the later northern building were kept too. Sydney Open credits Clare Design for the 2004 work.

As for heritage protection, Boyce records that the station is on the NSW Fire Brigades' section 170 heritage register, the list government agencies keep of their own heritage assets. The Australian Heritage Database, in its entry for Pyrmont Fire Station, says the Metropolitan Fire Brigade built the city's protection around five city stations, one central headquarters and one at each point of the compass, and names Castlereagh Street as one of only three comparable big early stations, though "redeveloped".

On 1 January 2011 the NSW Fire Brigades changed its name to Fire and Rescue NSW, and in 2017 its head office moved out to Greenacre. No. 1 Station kept doing what it has done since March 1888. The building opens its doors now and then for Sydney Open, and it's well worth the visit.

The station today: the 1888 building, the later northern addition and the 2003 building in one run along Castlereagh Street. Photo: Adam.J.W.C., 2009, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5).

Next time you're waiting for the lights at Bathurst Street, have a look up at Queen Victoria over the middle door, and spare a thought for the young firemen up in the pigeon box, staring out over a city of gas lamps, waiting for a glow in the dark.

The Water Police Court – Phillip Street, Circular Quay – Edmund Blacket's 1856 Courthouse and the Justice and Police Museum

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page contains the name of an Aboriginal person who has died.

The old Water Police Court on the corner of Phillip and Albert Streets, now the Justice and Police Museum, 2013. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you have ever walked up from the ferries at Circular Quay towards the Opera House end of Phillip Street, you have probably passed a little sandstone courthouse sitting up on its own raised footpath, with three arches across the front and a triangular pediment on top. It looks almost too modest for the address. These days it is the Justice and Police Museum, but for well over a century it was where Sydney's waterfront troubles ended up – the drunks, the brawlers, the petty thieves, the sailors who had a big night, and plenty of folk who were just unlucky. This is the story of the Water Police Court.

Gadigal Country

The court stands on Gadigal Country. The City of Sydney's Barani history site describes the Gadigal as a clan of the Eora Nation, one of about 29 clan groups across the Sydney area, whose land stretched along the southern side of Port Jackson from South Head to around what is now Petersham. Wikipedia's article on the Gadigal (spelt Cadigal and Caddiegal in older records) describes them as the traditional owners of Sydney Cove, the place the British chose for their first settlement in 1788.

The same Barani page quotes historians on how quickly the Gadigal were devastated after the British arrived, through smallpox and the loss of land and food sources, and it also stresses that descendants of the Eora still live in Sydney today. Museums of History NSW, which runs the museum, greets visitors to the building with "Good to see you on Gadigal Country", and it acknowledges in particular the impact that colonial and state law enforcement had on First Nations people, saying it wants the museum to be a place for reflection and conversation about First Nations people and the justice system. For a former police station and courthouse, that is a fair thing to say out loud.

Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, painted by John Lewin in 1808, long before Circular Quay was built. John Lewin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before the Court: Where the Water Police Came From

Sydney was a harbour town from day one, and it needed policing on the water as much as on land. The Australian Police chronology says that in 1789 Governor Phillip set up a Night Watch and that a Row Boat Guard was "quickly established on Sydney Harbour". The Dictionary of Sydney says the Row Boat Guard's job was preventing smuggling, and that the Water Police were formally established by legislation in 1840, later adding the protection of wharf cargoes and rescue work to that list. The same chronology records the 1840 Water Police Act setting up a force of 15 operational and 12 support personnel, an inquiry into the Sydney Water Police in 1843, and about 28 Water Police men, including two detectives, by 1852.

For a few years the Water Police had their base on the other side of the Quay at Cadman's Cottage. The Dictionary of Sydney says that after John Cadman, the last government coxswain, left, the cottage was occupied by the Water Police from 1846 to the mid-1850s, and was extended for offices and lock-up cells. The NSW Government's Plan of Management for the cottage says the Water Police took it over between 1846 and 1849, that it was gazetted as a Court of Petty Sessions in 1849, and that by 1854 it was reported as inadequate. Even after the move it kept being used as a Water Police lock-up. I wrote about the cottage itself in my Cadman's Cottage post.

Cadman's Cottage at The Rocks, where the Water Police had their offices and cells before moving to Phillip Street. Gwrang, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cadman's Cottage with the Sailors' Home behind it on George Street, The Rocks. Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0 au, via Wikimedia Commons

Museums of History NSW historian Jane Kelso puts it this way: by 1851 the old Water Police Office in The Rocks, with its court and lock-up, was "inadequate and dilapidated". A new home was needed, and the Government had just the block.

A Site Carved from Government House Grounds

The first Government House was pulled down in 1845–46, and Kelso writes that a large part of its grounds was carved up into new streets and allotments. One block was held back for public buildings, and the corner of Phillip and Albert Streets was picked for the new Water Police Office. The site sat up high above the brand-new Circular Quay, and that is still obvious today when you look at the way the building perches above the street.

Looking south from Dawes Point past the ships at Campbell's Wharf to Circular Quay, about 1857, around the time the new court opened. State Library of New South Wales collection, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney Cove from Fort Macquarie in 1859, looking across to The Rocks, the Water Police's old patch. State Library of New South Wales collection, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Architects

Edmund Blacket and the Water Police Office, 1854–1856

The plans were drawn up by the Colonial Architect, Edmund Blacket. Wikipedia's biography gives his dates as 25 August 1817 to 9 February 1883, and the NSW Government Architect list on Wikipedia has him as Colonial Architect from 1849 to 1854. Most people know Blacket for his churches and the University of Sydney, so a small police court is a bit of a sideline for him.

It was not an easy job to get built. Kelso says the project kept stalling because labour and materials were scarce and dear just as the colony boomed, and it was hard to find a contractor who could do the work. The State Heritage Register text, as reproduced on Wikipedia, adds that quarrying of the sandstone began at Bennelong Point in 1853, and that the gold rushes pushed prices up and drained the labour supply. More money was found and building started in 1854. The courthouse was finished in 1856.

Edmund Blacket, the Colonial Architect who designed the Water Police Office, about 1870. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kelso describes it as a Palladian-influenced design, with two lower wings set back slightly from a central pedimented bay, a layout that turned up again in other NSW courthouses. The three arches and the porch behind them were open at first, but iron palisading soon went up to keep out stray goats. Inside was the courtroom with cedar joinery, with rooms for magistrates, clerks and records in the wings, and a separate privy block out the back. From 1858 to 1873 the Shipping Master's Office had the east wing.

According to the heritage listing text on Wikipedia, the building was occupied in April by the Water Police Magistrate, Hutchinson Hothersal Brown, with a Clerk of Petty Sessions and a second clerk, and its cases came under the Harbour Regulations Act and the Act for Establishing a Water Police. In May the Steam Navigation and Pilot Boards were given a room.

The new building did not win any beauty prizes. Former curator Nerida Campbell, writing for Museums of History NSW, says it was "not universally celebrated for its architecture" but was accepted as "well fitted for the purpose for which it is designed", quoting the Sydney Morning Herald of 29 April 1856. Its acoustics were another matter. The Evening News in 1902 complained that "If the magistrate speaks, one hears a voice proceeding from the roof, as if some ardent ventriloquist were displaying his talent." Kelso adds that coir matting was laid to deaden the noise and roof cowls added to fight the "stench" from nearby warehouses and from the courtroom regulars.

The Water Police Court in 1872, photographed by Charles Percy Pickering for the NSW Government Printing Office. Pickering, Charles Percy (New South Wales. Government Printing Office), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Water Police Station, 1857–1858

Next door went the station. Kelso writes that money was allocated in 1855, but it was two years before the new Colonial Architect, Alexander Dawson, submitted a plan and a contractor was found. It was a T-shaped building of Pyrmont stone, with offices and a guardroom facing Phillip Street, cells behind, rooms for inspectors and a big barrack room upstairs, plus a separate kitchen block. It was finished in 1858. The heritage text says the upstairs barracks housed four water policemen and their families, and that the original design, based on stations at Darlinghurst, Newtown and Balmain, was trimmed back because of the gold rush costs.

The Water Police finally moved over from Cadman's Wharf. Kelso adds that the station grew two new cells in 1875–76, an exercise yard a couple of years later, and that the yard behind the court was enclosed to keep out "trysting" goats. The goats get a surprising amount of attention in this building's history.

The former Water Police Station at 8 Phillip Street, later called the Phillip Street Police Station. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another view of the old station, photographed in 2007. Sardaka at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

James Barnet and the Police Court, 1884–1886

The third building is the one squeezed in between. Kelso writes that in 1884–85 a new courthouse was slotted between the two Water Police buildings, designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet, with three arches and a pediment that echoed Blacket's court. Barnet's double-height courtroom tried to fix the old complaints: linoleum and asphalt blocks on the floor to dampen sound, ventilation tubes in the walls, an unusual recessed skylight and an underfloor "air propeller" for a kind of early air-conditioning. Wikipedia gives Barnet's dates as 1827 to 16 December 1904 and says he was Colonial Architect from 1862 to 1890.

Campbell writes that the Police Court opened in 1886 and that its first magistrate, Mr Whittingdale Johnson, said, "There was chance now of those magistrates who were in good health not losing it, and of those who had suffered through the foul atmosphere of the old court regaining their health." He was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald of 8 January 1886. I covered this building's green plaque in Sydney Police Court – Historical Marker Number 94.

James Barnet, Colonial Architect from 1862 to 1890, who designed the 1886 Police Court. Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Later on, in the late 1890s, Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon added bow-fronted weatherboard infills to the side arches of both courts. Kelso says they were mocked as looking like "little fruit, lolly, and soft-drink shops", quoting the Evening News of 20 November 1899.

The three arches and pediment of the court, looking along Phillip Street, 2012. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Cases: Sailors, Wharf Crime and the Push

Don't let the name fool you. Kelso points out that the Water Police Court was not confined to maritime cases. Its patch stretched north from Bridge Street to Broken Bay and west to the Lane Cove River, and it dealt with a growing pile of minor criminal and public order matters, as well as preliminary hearings for serious crimes.

Campbell paints the picture well. In the 1850s, with the end of convict transportation and the gold rush, people of every kind flooded through the port, and crime rose along with trade. Most of the court's work was petty: offensive language, public drunkenness, careless "mistakes" after a night out, petty theft and break and enter. By 1880 it was dealing with more than 17,000 cases a year, she writes, citing the Sydney Morning Herald of 22 January 1881. The public gallery was its own show. The Evening News in March 1884 sniffed that "the same faces are visible in their dirt and repulsiveness, watching with interest and gloating over the scenes which are almost daily presented in the courts."

Circular Quay in 1871, crowded with sailing ships. The sailors off these ships kept the Water Police busy. Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Looking east over Circular Quay and the Government Domain from the Observatory in the 1870s. Aussie~mobs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Rocks Push

Just across the Quay was The Rocks, and from the 1870s it had its own homegrown trouble. The Dictionary of Sydney describes the Rocks Push as a larrikin gang who "dominated and intimidated the residents of the Rocks from the 1870s to the 1890s by theft, assault and battery". Wikipedia's article on the gang says it fought running battles with rival pushes such as the Miller's Point Push, the Glebe Push and the Forty Thieves from Surry Hills. It also tells a grim story about female members luring drunks and seamen into dark lanes like Harrington Place, nicknamed the "Suez Canal", where they were assaulted and robbed. That story comes from Wikipedia rather than a court record, so take the gory details with a grain of salt.

Wikipedia also says the push leaders were decided by bare-knuckle fights, and that Larry Foley, later called the "Father of Australian Boxing", led a Catholic larrikin gang known as the Greens. In 1871 he fought Sandy Ross, leader of the Protestant "Orange" group, for 71 rounds before police stepped in. Wikipedia's article on larrikins quotes the Queanbeyan Age of 27 February 1892 describing "a horde of larrikins, known as the 'Rocks push'" abusing and attacking men at the Labour Bureau. The Water Police Court was the nearest bench to The Rocks for much of this time, so it is a safe bet it saw a fair share of push members, although none of the sources I read names a particular push case heard there.

"The Larrikin", from A Walk in Sydney Streets on the Shady Side, 1885, by Nelson P. Whitelocke. Nelson P Whitelocke (1861-1927), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Mad Dentist and Captain Moonlite

The court's most notorious preliminary hearing, Campbell writes, was that of Henry Louis Bertrand, "the mad dentist of Wynyard Square". In 1865 he murdered Henry Kinder, the husband of his lover Maria Kinder, and dressed it up as suicide. When another of Maria's lovers wrote accusing him, Bertrand took the letter to the police, and the writer was sent to jail for a year for attempted blackmail by the Water Police magistrate. In his secret diary Bertrand wrote, "I am satisfied. Thus once more perish my enemies." Further inquiries led to his arrest along with his wife Jane and Maria Kinder. The Water Police magistrate heard part of the case in his private office to spare the two women from telling the details in public. Bertrand was found guilty but insane at a higher court. The museum holds the guns he bought and little bone carvings he made in prison.

Campbell also notes that the bushranger Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, is known to have spent time in the Water Police Station. The museum has a plaster death mask made shortly after his execution.

Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, about 1879. He spent time in the Water Police Station. believed to be Charles Nettleton (1826-1902), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Water Police Court to Traffic Court

The 20th century brought big changes. According to Kelso, the Water Police moved to Dawes Point in 1913, and the Phillip Street building became a subsidiary station. The heritage text on Wikipedia says it was known from then on as the Phillip Street Police Station, though people still called it the Water Police Station, and that the court was still called the "Water Bench" until late 1940. In 1933 the station became head station of No. 4 Division of the Metropolitan Police District.

Kelso writes that the Water Police Court closed in 1918 to make way for the Police Traffic Branch, served as an inoculation depot during the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, and reopened in 1924 because courts elsewhere were overcrowded. With the motor car came two dedicated Traffic Courts and later a special Parking Court. The heritage text says that from 1926 the courts were known as Traffic Courts 1 and 2 and heard all traffic and parking offences in the Sydney district, while still taking shipping cases and Water Police matters.

There were some telling small changes along the way. In 1912, Kelso says, the iron spikes on the "cage-like dock" were taken off because it looked degrading and implied guilt. In 1945–46 the road levels were lowered for the Circular Quay railway loop, which is why the buildings now sit up on a split-level footpath. By the late 1940s the station was described as "the worst in the State" (The Sun, 3 May 1949), but rather than being knocked down, it was patched up again. A wartime concrete air-raid shelter ended up as the sergeants' room.

Phillip Street in the late 1880s, photographed by Arthur K. Syer. State Library of New South Wales collection, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The corner of Phillip and Bridge Streets in 1899. Bridge Street was the southern edge of the Water Police Court's patch. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Justice and Police Museum

The museum's roots go back to 1910. Kelso writes that a Police Museum opened at Police Headquarters that year, filled with confiscated weapons, gambling gear and housebreaking tools, to train recruits. It was called "the demonstrating laboratory in the policeman's school" (The Sun, 5 September 1926). It later moved to the Redfern Police Barracks, and by the 1970s a more public home was being looked for.

When the courts and police moved out of Phillip Street, the old buildings were the obvious choice. In 1986 the NSW Public Works Department began conserving them, stripping out later additions and returning them largely to their late-19th-century look. Kelso says a company, Justice & Police Museum Limited, was set up after the 1987 police reorganisation. The museum went to the Ministry for the Arts in 1988, the Historic Houses Trust of NSW took over in August 1989, and the Justice & Police Museum officially opened in 1991. The Historic Houses Trust later became Sydney Living Museums and is now part of Museums of History NSW. Campbell says the museum shows a courtroom, charge room and cell recreated to look as they did in the 1890s, when the complex was at its busiest.

The building around 1987, during the years it was being turned into a museum. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sandstone courthouse in 2012. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Collection and the Mugshots

The heritage text describes the collection as largely police-based, built on the 1910 Police Museum teaching collection, and especially strong in colonial firearms and forensic evidence from famous crimes. Campbell mentions evidence from the Pyjama Girl murder and items said to have belonged to the bushrangers Ben Hall, Thunderbolt, the Kelly gang, the Clarke gang and Frank Gardiner.

The best-known treasure is the police photographs. The Research Data Australia listing for the collection describes about 2,500 glass plate negatives, plus some cellulose negatives, of suspects, offenders and detainees taken by Sydney police between 1910 and the early 1930s. They are known as "Special Photographs", and the listing says they were mostly taken in the cells at Central Police Station. It quotes curator Peter Doyle saying the subjects seem to have been allowed, "perhaps invited", to pose themselves as they liked. Museums of History NSW explains that suspects hold handbags, papers and cigarettes, that a bentwood chair in the frame gave an idea of height, and that the lack of handcuffs meant a photo could be shown to a witness without prejudice. The listing names razor-gang era figures such as John Frederick "Chow" Hayes and Guido Calletti (spelt "Guidio" in the listing) among the sitters. I wrote about that era in Kate Leigh & Tilly Devine – Sydney's Razor Gang Queens.

Exhibitions

The museum's exhibition Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties displayed more than 100 of these Specials, taken between 1920 and 1930 and reproduced from the original glass negatives. It is listed as a past exhibition. The current museum page lists a permanent display on Alexander Riley, the legendary Aboriginal police tracker, about the work of Aboriginal trackers for NSW Police in the 20th century. It also notes that the Police Cells are closed for conservation work and are due to reopen in early 2027 with a new exhibition. The museum opens on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 5pm.

The museum building on the corner of Phillip and Albert Streets, 2012. sv1ambo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bricks and stone said to come from the old Water Police Court. The photo was shared by a NSW records collection, and its original caption links the stone to the first years of the colony. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Heritage Listing

The complex was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 as item 673, under the name "Justice and Police Museum; Police Station & Law Courts (former); Traffic Court", according to Wikipedia's article, which reproduces the register text. The listing says the buildings were the headquarters of one of the earliest policing bodies in NSW, closely tied to Sydney's growth as a port, and that they reflect "the work of four government architects over 48 years". It also notes the museum holds the only public collection in NSW of artefacts on the history of crime, law and policing. And it says, rather nicely, that the buildings' "endearingly human scale" gives an important foil to the towers around Circular Quay. The police station's own green plaque is in my post Phillip Street Police Station – Historical Marker 93.

Circular Quay in 1888, painted by Julian Ashton. Julian Ashton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Water Police are still on Sydney Harbour today. This boat was photographed in 2008. Adam.J.W.C., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another Water Police vessel on the harbour, 2008. Adam.J.W.C., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1789 – A Row Boat Guard is set up on Sydney Harbour (Australian Police chronology).
• 1840 – The Water Police Act is passed (Australian Police chronology, Dictionary of Sydney).
• 1845–46 – The first Government House is demolished and its grounds are subdivided (MHNSW).
• 1846–1849 – The Water Police move into Cadman's Cottage (sources differ on the exact year).
• 1851 – The old Water Police Office in The Rocks is described as inadequate. The Phillip and Albert Street site is chosen.
• 1853 – Sandstone is quarried at Bennelong Point (SHR text).
• 1854 – Building begins on Blacket's Water Police Office.
• 1856 – The Water Police Court opens.
• 1857–58 – Dawson's Water Police Station is built.
• 1865 – The station gets gas lighting. Bertrand's preliminary hearing takes place.
• 1873 – The west wing clerks' room becomes a second courtroom.
• 1880 – The court handles more than 17,000 cases a year.
• 1884–86 – Barnet's Police Court is built and opens in January 1886.
• 1899–1900 – Vernon's timber and glass infills go into the arches.
• 1910 – The Police Museum opens at Police Headquarters.
• 1912 – The spikes come off the dock.
• 1913 – The Water Police move to Dawes Point.
• 1918–1924 – The Water Police Court is closed. The Traffic Branch moves in, and the building is used as a flu inoculation depot.
• 1926 – Traffic Courts 1 and 2 begin.
• 1933 – The station becomes head station of No. 4 Division.
• 1945–48 – The street levels are lowered for the Circular Quay railway.
• 1979–80 – The courts close.
• 1984–85 – The police station closes and the police leave.
• 1986 – Conservation work begins.
• 1989 – The Historic Houses Trust takes over.
• 1991 – The Justice & Police Museum officially opens.
• 1999 – The complex is listed on the State Heritage Register on 2 April.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Who designed the Water Police Station? It is sometimes credited to James Barnet. But Museums of History NSW (Kelso) and the State Heritage Register text both say Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson designed it, and Wikipedia's list of NSW Government Architects shows Barnet didn't become Colonial Architect until 1862, four years after the station was finished. Barnet's building on the site is the 1886 Police Court.
• When was the station built? The Dictionary of Sydney says the police station was built in 1857. MHNSW says it was completed in 1858, and the SHR text says construction began in 1857 and lists it as "1858 – Police Station".
• When was the Police Court built? Kelso says 1884–85. Campbell, the Dictionary of Sydney and the SHR text give 1886, which was when it opened.
• When did the courts close? Campbell says the courts closed in 1979, and the SHR text says late 1979. Kelso says the premises were vacated by 1980, and the SHR's list of court uses runs the Traffic Court to 1980.
• When did the police leave? Kelso says the station closed in early 1984. Campbell says the police left the site in 1985.
• When did the museum open? MHNSW says the museum officially opened in 1991. The Dictionary of Sydney says the buildings were adapted for the museum in 1990.
• How long were the Water Police at Cadman's Cottage? The Dictionary of Sydney says from 1846 to the mid-1850s. The Plan of Management says they took it over between 1846 and 1849, probably around 1849, and used it as a lock-up even after the new station opened.
• Lowering the roads. Kelso gives 1945–46. The SHR text gives 1947–48.

My Earlier Posts

• Cadman's Cottage
• Phillip Street Police Station – Corner Phillip St & Albert St – Green Plaque – Historical Marker 93
• Sydney Police Court – Historical Marker Number 94
• Darlinghurst Gaol & Darlinghurst Court
• Kate Leigh & Tilly Devine – Sydney's Razor Gang Queens

Sources

• Jane Kelso, "From Water Police Office to museum", Museums of History NSW, 20 February 2026 – mhnsw.au
• Nerida Campbell, "Gritty business", Museums of History NSW, 13 February 2023 – mhnsw.au
• Justice & Police Museum visitor page, Museums of History NSW – mhnsw.au
• "NSW Police 'Specials'", Museums of History NSW – mhnsw.au
• "Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties", Museums of History NSW – mhnsw.au
• "Special Photographs – NSW Police Forensic Photography archive", Research Data Australia – researchdata.edu.au
• "Justice and Police Museum", Wikipedia, incorporating NSW State Heritage Register item 673 text (CC BY 4.0) – wikipedia.org
• "Water Police Court", Dictionary of Sydney – dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Water Police", Dictionary of Sydney – dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Cadman's cottage", Dictionary of Sydney – dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Rocks Push", Dictionary of Sydney – dictionaryofsydney.org
• NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Cadmans Cottage Historic Site Plan of Management – environment.nsw.gov.au
• "Chronology of Policing – NSW", Australian Police – australianpolice.com.au
• "Aboriginal people and place", Barani, City of Sydney – sydneybarani.com.au
• "Gadigal", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• "Rocks Push", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• "Larrikin", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• "Edmund Blacket", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• "James Barnet", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• "New South Wales Government Architect", Wikipedia – wikipedia.org
• All pictures are from Wikimedia Commons, with credits and licences under each picture.

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