Joseph Fowles (1810–1878) did not write an almanac of the colony. He drew Sydney street elevations and public buildings in copper plate and published them in twenty fortnightly parts from 1848 into 1850, printed by D. Wall at 76 York Street and sold from Fowles’s own address at 5 Harrington Street. The line that calls Sydney in 1848 a complete almanac of every street in the colony is a stretch. What you have here is the city centre: George, Pitt, King, York, Elizabeth, Macquarie, the Domain edge, the churches and banks he thought would shut English mouths.
His July 1848 purpose note is the key. He wanted to “remove the erroneous and discreditable notions current in England” and show gas-lit streets, sumptuous shops, and buildings raised for religion in sixty years. Dedication to Governor FitzRoy. Facsimiles and the Gutenberg text are how most of us meet the plates now; this post is the hub — forty-odd scans from those elevations — not a substitute for walking each street page.
Use it as an index. Lower George is the maritime strip; Charlotte Place is later Grosvenor; Bridge Street is the Tank Stream crossing; Hunter has the closed Bank of Australia; the Barrack-wall George Street plate is the retail boast; King Street looks east to St James’. Don’t collapse the three banks, don’t date the Lands Office into 1848, and don’t treat every plate as the same month of issue — the title year is the project, the parts ran on. These are copper-plate engravings, not Austin’s separate lithographic series.
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Sydney - 1848
SYDNEY.
GEORGE STREET – upper row: MARTYN AND COMBES · BANK OF AUSTRALASIA. · O'NEILL TAILOR · J. [illegible] GROCERY STORES · [illegible] LANHAM MERCHANT · S. LYONS AUCTION MART
GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BRIDGE STREET · MEDICAL DISPENSARY · BOOKSELLER & STATIONER · WHOLESALE CONFECTIONER · GROCER & TEA DEALER · BOOT & SHOE MAKER · J. & J. LEVICK MERCHANTS.
CHARLOTTE PLACE – upper row: S. LYONS AUCTION MART · J. W. GOSLING MERCHANT · CHURCH HILL
CHARLOTTE PLACE – lower row (printed upside down): [illegible] CLEEVE WHOLESALE & FAMILY BUTCHER. · J. HORDERN.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY.
GEORGE STREET and BRIDGE STREET
Shop labels: [illegible] (too small to read in this scan)
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris.
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY
LOWER GEORGE STREET – upper row: W. CUSSEN FAMILY GROCER · P. MITCHELL & Co. SAIL MAKERS & SHIP CHANDLERS · other labels [illegible]
LOWER GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): J. EWEN MAST MAKER · DAWSON SHIP SMITH · [illegible] Hair Cutter · [illegible] Clothier & Draper · other labels [illegible]
OBELISK IN MACQUARIE PLACE · SITE OF THE OLD GAOL.
LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – upper row: T. SMITH [illegible] · other labels [illegible]
LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – lower row (printed upside down): AUSTRALIAN HOTEL · SHIP CHANDLERS & SAIL MAKERS · HOLMES, LATE LONDON. · other labels [illegible]
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY.
GEORGE STREET – upper row: N. COHEN & SON · DRAPER. · TOBACCO MERCHANT. · other labels [illegible]
GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BANK OF AUSTRALIA. · THOS SMITH & SON, IRONMONGERS.
Fountain in Macquarie Place.
HUNTER STREET – upper row: SADLER · FAMILY GROCER · BAKER · other labels [illegible]
HUNTER STREET – lower row (printed upside down): REGENT TERRACE. · S. JONES, TAILOR. · JAS. SIMMONS & SON. · SKINNER'S HOTEL. · other labels [illegible]
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris.
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY.
GEORGE STREET (first row of buildings): POST OFFICE. · AUCTIONEER · WATCH MAKER & JEWELLER · CARPET WAREHOUSE · TAILOR & DRAPER · AUCTION ROOMS · SADDLER. · [illegible] COMPANY · DRAPER.
GEORGE STREET (facing row, printed upside down): D. JONES & Co. · R. MENZIES · STAR HOTEL · other labels [illegible]
GEORGE STREET (second street): LLOYDS ROOMS · G. A. LLOYD, AUCTIONEER. · HANCOCK · SPERMACETI REFINER. · other labels [illegible]
GEORGE STREET (third street): SKINNER'S HOTEL. · J. SOLOMON, STATIONER. · DIXON, TOBACCONIST. · J. C. COHEN, AUCTION MART. · BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES. · WINE & SPIRIT STORES. · other labels [illegible]
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engraved by W. Harris
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY.
KING STREET (first street): TURLEY · TAYLOR · MEDICAL HALL · MACE · FURNITURE WAREHOUSE · RAINBOW TAVERN · J. EDWARDS REFRESHMENT ROOMS · J. W. ROCHES RESTAURANT. · other labels [illegible]
KING STREET (second street): PRINTING OFFICE · KEANE'S · STRAW BONNET WAREHOUSE · BOOT MAKER · C. CLARKE HATTER. · other labels [illegible]
Drawn by J. Fowles — Harris Sc.
Transcription above (the same plate as the previous image, shown the other way up).
SYDNEY.
PITT STREET – upper row: DRAPERY HABERDASHERY AND SLOPS · BLYTH'S REFRESHMENT ROOMS · ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE. · VICTORIA HOTEL J. WYATT. · LINEN & [illegible] MART · CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST · BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER. · LIVERPOOL ARMS
PITT STREET – lower row (printed upside down): THOMPSON & SON. · SURGEON AND APOTHECARY · other labels [illegible]
PITT STREET (second street) – upper row: DRAPER &c. · LATE JOSEPH FARMER · ALBION HOUSE · CHEMIST, DRUGGIST &c. · other labels [illegible]
PITT STREET (second street) – lower row (printed upside down): FAMILIES SUPPLIED BY DANIEL ROGERS. · LATE WILLIAM STONE. · other labels [illegible]
Drawn by J. Fowles — W. Harris Sc.
ST JAMES' CHURCH SYDNEY.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris
INTERIOR OF THE ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE.
Drawn by J. Fowles — F. Mansell Sc
GOVERNMENT HOUSE.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris
THE UNION BANK OF AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — F. Mansell Sc.
ST ANDREW'S SCOTS CHURCH, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — Mansell Sc
Transcription above (same plate as image 14).
HYDE PARK BARRACKS. — LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE COUNCIL CHAMBERS.
J. Fowles Delt — W. Harris Sc.
Transcription above (same plate as image 20).
Transcription above (same plate as image 16).
THE FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PITT STREET SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — F. Mansell Sc
AUSTRALIAN LIBRARY.
Drawn by J. Fowles — [illegible]
Transcription above (same plate as image 15).
Transcription above (same plate as image 14).
Transcription above (same plate as image 15).
Transcription above (same plate as image 24).
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, PITT STREET SYDNEY.
Drawn by J. Fowles — F. Mansell Sc
SYDNEY
IN 1848:
ILLUSTRATED BY COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS OF ITS
PRINCIPAL STREETS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, CHURCHES, CHAPELS, ETC.,
From Drawings by
JOSEPH FOWLES.
Sydney:
PRINTED BY D. WALL, 76 YORK STREET,
AND PUBLISHED BY J. FOWLES, 5 HARRINGTON STREET.
Transcription above (same plate as image 23).
MUSEUM SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — [illegible]
THE POLICE OFFICE, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — [illegible]
THE JEWS SYNAGOGUE, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — Mansell Sc
NATIONAL SCHOOL.
J. Fowles Delt — W. Harris Sc
SUPREME COURT SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — W. Harris Sc
ST PATRICKS CHURCH.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris
THE POST OFFICE SYDNEY.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by F. Mansell
Transcription above (same plate as image 33).
THE ROYAL HOTEL, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — F. Mansell Sc
Transcription above (same plate as image 29).
WESLEYAN CENTENARY CHAPEL, SYDNEY.
J. Fowles Delt — Mansell Sc
ST PHILLIPS CHURCH.
Drawn by J. Fowles — Engd by W. Harris
ST MARY'S CATHEDRAL.
J. Fowles Delt — Engd by Mansell
Transcription above (same plate as image 43).
Pitt Street in 1848
Pitt Street in 1848 was already the shopfront spine of colonial Sydney — the street you walked when you meant business, theatre, or a new hat. Joseph Fowles (18101878) drew it in copper plate for Sydney in 1848, the twenty-part elevation book that tried to shut English mouths about a “bush capital.” He wanted gas-lit streets and sumptuous shops on the page; Pitt Street obliged.
The Pitt Street plates run the commercial blocks: Hunter to King, King to Market (with the Royal Victoria Theatre among the fronts), Market to Park — eastern side left-to-right, western side the reverse, letterpress names under the windows. Printed by D. Wall in York Street and sold from Fowles’s Harrington Street address, they are measured street walls, not picturesque sketches. Facsimiles and the Gutenberg text are how most of us meet them now; the Mitchell still holds original parts.
Joseph Fowles Pitt and Hunter streets from his Sydney views. Wikimedia Commons.
(Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving, coloured copy (Pitt Street and Hunter Street plate))
PITT STREET – upper row: UNION BANK OF AUSTRALIA. · W. DAVIES' WHITE HORSE COMMISSION & LIVERY STABLES.
HUNTER STREET – upper row: YOUNG & Co HOUSE & STORES. · FLOWER SALTING & Co STORES. · UNION BANK OF AUSTRALIA.
HUNTER STREET – lower row (printed upside down): BLIGH ST. · O'CONNEL ST [sic]
Pitt Street formed a central part of Sydney’s commercial district in the nineteenth century. Joseph Fowles’s 1848 illustrations record the buildings and businesses lining the street before later redevelopment changed the city centre. These elevations provide a valuable snapshot of colonial Sydney.
King Street in 1848
(Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)
King Street is where Fowles admits Sydney has a centre. In Sydney in 1848 the street "running from east to west, from the Government Domain to the shores of Darling Harbour, completely intersects the City." Plate 26A is the shop frontage, George to Pitt and Pitt to Castlereagh, both sides - "a line of thriving shops." The letterpress then turns left, up King Street East, and the public buildings arrive: St James' on the right, the Supreme Court beside it, Hyde Park Barracks in front of you. Brick, unornamented, "an imposing and dignified whole."
St James' is the building to name. Foundation 7 October 1819, Francis Greenway for Macquarie, the spire "a conspicuous object from every part of the City." Fowles has it seating 1,500 after a gallery refit, with Robert Allwood as incumbent. It is not the oldest church and not yet the cathedral; it is the fashionable one, next to Government House, where Broughton had been installed Bishop of Australia in 1836. The convict barracks across the park are still in the picture as a government pile. The theatre crowd is one block south on Pitt - the Royal Victoria, opened 1838 - which Fowles gives its own plate.
So the elevation is shops; the chapter is a cross. George and King as the four-way heart, Church of England and the courts up the hill, harbour down the other way.
George Street and Barrack Square in 1848
This is the stretch of George Street Fowles was proudest of — the bit facing the eastern wall of the old Barrack Square, from Hunter Street down to the Post Office. Plate 22A in Sydney in 1848 is his fifth descriptive engraving: wealthy tradesmen’s stores, land at £20 a foot, and that blank barrack wall on the west that still interrupted the street like a military fence through the middle of town. Head-quarters had already moved out to Darlinghurst; Fowles hoped the straggling barracks would soon be replaced by “elegant and useful edifices” and proper cross streets. Wynyard was waiting to happen.
On the east side he names the things that made the strip feel finished: Skinner’s Tavern on the angle, the Australian General Insurance office, the massive stone Bank of New South Wales the colonial bank, founded in 1817 — and the Atlas newspaper office under Welch. A short walk south and you hit the Post Office portico: six Doric columns, royal arms by Mr Abraham in the tympanum, with the full rebuild still only a promise. Plate 24A is that building on its own; this street plate is the approach. This is the 1848 retail peak, not the wharf end.
Fowles’s point, as always, is argument. England thought Sydney was still a bark camp. Here he gives you Regent Street manners, gaslight shops, and a blank wall that proves how fast the town had grown around its own garrison.
George Street and Hunter Street in 1848
Hunter Street meets George at a right angle on a gentle climb, and Fowles's Plate 20A is that corner in 1848: George Street continued south from Jamison Street to Hunter, then both sides of Hunter from George to Pitt. He is almost rude about it. The locality "has long been built upon" and "contains, however, little deserving notice, except perhaps the quondam Bank of Australia" - founded 1826, closed as a bank in February 1843. Ruin is a fact, not a metaphor. On the south side, Regent's Terrace and the rest of the houses are, he says, not eight years old. Behind Mr Solomon's stores is the site of the Pavilion Theatre, "the ephemeral existence of which is now well nigh forgotten."
Around the corner in Charlotte Place, in the same chapter, St Patrick's has just gone up: foundation 25 August 1840, dedicated 18 March 1844, Decorated Gothic in dressed stone. That is the Catholic Church Hill companion to St Philip's, and it belongs to this plate's neighbourhood even if the elevation is the George/Hunter frontage. The old Bank of Australia building is the ghost on the street; St Patrick's is the new stone on the hill.
The commercial heart Fowles is showing off is further south, at the Post Office and the Barrack wall. This corner is the older town still turning over: a failed bank, a forgotten theatre, new terrace houses, and a Gothic church not yet five years dedicated.
Lower George Street in 1848
Transcription (Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, copper-plate engraving; images 1 and 2 are the same plate, one of them shown the other way up)
SYDNEYLOWER GEORGE STREET – upper row: W. CUSSEN FAMILY GROCER · P. MITCHELL & Co. SAIL MAKERS & SHIP CHANDLERS · other labels [illegible]LOWER GEORGE STREET – lower row (printed upside down): J. EWEN MAST MAKER · DAWSON SHIP SMITH · [illegible] Hair Cutter · [illegible] Clothier & Draper · other labels [illegible]OBELISK IN MACQUARIE PLACE · SITE OF THE OLD GAOL.LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – upper row: T. SMITH [illegible] · other labels [illegible]LOWER GEORGE STREET (second street) – lower row (printed upside down): AUSTRALIAN HOTEL · SHIP CHANDLERS & SAIL MAKERS · HOLMES, LATE LONDON. · other labels [illegible]Lower George Street is where Sydney still looked like a seaport in 1848. Joseph Fowles drew both sides from Queen’s Wharf up to Essex Street — Plate 16A in Sydney in 1848 — and then told you what you were seeing: a tight, stone-built maritime strip, “a strong resemblance to part of a maritime town in England,” swarming on the shipping. This is the oldest end of George Street, the slope the First Fleet actually built on, with Gaol Hill still in the memory of the plate even when the elevation is mostly shops and hotels. Fowles points at the working names. Dawson’s foundry, established in 1833, with a homemade steam engine and a reputation for heavy castings. Opposite the Australian Hotel, F. Mitchell’s marine store, the house behind it built by a Mr Redman and called the oldest in this stretch. Mr Holmes’s shop standing on the old Sydney Gazette office, the colony’s first newspaper, already long defunct when Fowles went to press. This is not generic George Street. It is the Rocks-end, the wharf-end, the bit that still smelled of iron and tar. The book is copper-plate street elevations, issued in twenty parts from 1848, printed in York Street and published from Harrington Street. Fowles was not writing an almanac of the whole colony. He was arguing with England: look, gaslight, shops, a city. Lower George is his proof that the first street had grown up without quite becoming respectable.
George Street and Bridge Street in 1848
Bridge Street is the street that remembers the creek. It runs east from George Street toward Macquarie Place because that is where the Tank Stream was bridged, and the colony needed a way from the western camps to the governor's side. Fowles's Plate 12A in Sydney in 1848 draws both sides of Bridge Street, George to Pitt, and the George Street frontage from Essex Lane down past the Herald office to the corner. The letterpress tells you this is Underwood's ground.
James Underwood's grant ran from George Street to the water. On it he built the first colonial ship, the King George, launched 19 April 1805. By 1848 the street wall is Underwood's Buildings, from the old Bank of Australia to the Sydney Morning Herald office. Fowles gives you the Herald: founded 1831, daily from October 1840, "the Times of Australia." Between the Herald and Bridge Street had been the garden of the Female Orphan School. The south side of Bridge Street is "the Colonnade." He thinks the street is still unfinished. He is right; the Lands office and the Chief Secretary still lie ahead.
This is the 1848 corner: gaol hill to the north, orphan-school garden just gone, shipyard memory under the shops, and a creek still dictating the street name.
George Street and Charlotte Place in 1848
Charlotte Place is the name that throws people. On Fowles’s first street plate — Plate 10A, Sydney in 1848 — it is the short east–west street running from George Street up to Church Hill, drawn on both sides, with George Street itself shown from Lyons’ Mart to Jamison Street. The parade-ground origin is the fact to hold: Charlotte Place began as the military Parade Ground; the guard house sat where Fowles says Mr Cleeve’s house stood in 1848. The street was later renamed Grosvenor Street. If you walk it today you are on the same alignment, under a different saint’s name.
Up the hill is St Philip’s, the parish church Fowles cannot leave alone — clock tower first, church in use from August 1809, a new church already starting behind it. Across the George Street frontage he wants you to notice the Bank of Australasia (royal charter 1835) and Mr Lyons’ Auction Mart. Behind, until 1828, a garden ran to the hill; on the Tank Stream side the Lumber Yard was not cut into allotments until 1830. So the plate is a hinge: barracks memory, new banks, Church Hill still in charge.
Fowles drew streets as four stacked elevations to a page. Charlotte Place is the Church Hill street. George Street here is the block that had just stopped being a garden.