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

 

The Government Domain - Next To The Royal Botanic Gardens - Macquarie Street - Sydney - NSW

The Domain is a large public park located in Sydney, New South Wales, situated to the east of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) and adjacent to the Royal Botanic Garden. It has a rich history and has played various roles over the years. Here's an overview of the history of the Domain:

1. Early Land Use: The land on which the Domain now stands was originally part of the traditional lands of the Gadigal people, the indigenous inhabitants of the Sydney area. After European colonization, the land was initially used for farming and as a source of food for the early settlers.

2. Colonial Government Farm: In the early 19th century, the Domain was designated as a government farm by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. It was used for growing crops, including corn and vegetables, to help feed the growing colony. However, its proximity to the Governor's Residence (now Government House) and its scenic location soon led to its development as a public space.

3. Transformation into a Public Park: In 1816, Governor Macquarie decided to transform the Domain into a public park, making it one of the earliest public parks in Australia. This decision was part of Macquarie's vision for Sydney as a civilized and attractive city. The park was laid out with tree-lined avenues and open spaces for recreation.

4. Historical Landmarks: Over the years, several historical landmarks were established within the Domain, including the Obelisk (built in 1857), which served as a timekeeping device, and the Captain Cook statue (erected in 1879), which commemorates the explorer James Cook's discovery of the eastern coast of Australia.

5. Protest and Rally Site: The Domain has been a site for political protests and rallies throughout its history. It has been a place where Australians have gathered to advocate for various causes and express their views on important issues. One of the most significant gatherings was the 1970 Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, which drew large crowds to protest against the Vietnam War.

6. Cultural Events: The Domain has also been a venue for cultural events and entertainment, including outdoor concerts and performances. Its central location and large open spaces make it an ideal venue for hosting such events.

7. Contemporary Use: Today, the Domain is a popular recreational area for residents and visitors alike. It features expansive lawns, walking paths, and stunning views of Sydney Harbor and the city skyline. It continues to be used for cultural events, including the annual Symphony in The Domain concert, which is a highlight of the Sydney Festival.

8. Conservation and Preservation: Efforts have been made to preserve and maintain the natural beauty and historical significance of the Domain. Conservation initiatives aim to protect the park's flora and fauna, as well as its cultural heritage.

The Domain is not only a green oasis in the heart of Sydney but also a place with a rich history that reflects the city's growth and development over the centuries. It remains an essential part of Sydney's public life and culture.

 

The Macquarie Wall – The Royal Botanic Gardens

The Macquarie Wall, also known as the Macquarie Street Wall, is a historic sandstone retaining wall located in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, New South Wales. It has a rich history that is closely tied to the development of the garden and the city itself. Here is an overview of the history of the Macquarie Wall:

1. Early Colonial Sydney: The history of the Macquarie Wall dates back to the early 19th century when Sydney was still a fledgling colony. The Royal Botanic Garden was established in 1816 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who was a significant figure in the early history of New South Wales.

2. Construction: The Macquarie Wall was built between 1812 and 1816 as part of Governor Macquarie's ambitious project to create a garden that would serve both scientific and aesthetic purposes. The wall was constructed using locally quarried sandstone, and it played a crucial role in terracing the garden's slopes.

3. Terracing and Landscape Design: The wall was designed to create level terraces, allowing for the cultivation of plants from around the world. It provided structural support to the garden's layout, which included plantings of various species, some of which were brought to Australia by early European explorers.

4. Historical Significance: The Macquarie Wall is not only significant for its role in the garden's design but also for its historical importance. It is considered one of the earliest surviving examples of stonemasonry in Sydney and a testament to the craftsmanship of the period.

5. Conservation Efforts: Over the years, the Macquarie Wall has required ongoing maintenance and restoration work to preserve its structural integrity and historical significance. Conservation efforts have aimed to ensure that the wall continues to serve its original purpose while being accessible to the public.

6. Public Access: Today, the Macquarie Wall is a prominent feature of the Royal Botanic Garden and is easily accessible to visitors. It provides an excellent vantage point for viewing the garden's plantings and enjoying the scenic beauty of the area.

7. Heritage Status: The Macquarie Wall, along with the Royal Botanic Garden as a whole, is recognized as a heritage site. It is an important part of Sydney's historical and cultural landscape, reflecting both the city's colonial past and its ongoing commitment to horticulture and botanical science.

The Macquarie Wall stands as a testament to the vision of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who played a crucial role in the development of early Sydney and its public institutions. It continues to be an integral part of the Royal Botanic Garden, serving as a link between the city's past and its vibrant botanical present.

Government House – ‘The Peoples Domain’

If you walk the Royal Botanic Garden toward Farm Cove, the castellated sandstone pile above the water is Government House, Sydney — still the official Sydney residence and office of the Governor of New South Wales. It sits in the historic Governor’s Domain: the “People’s Domain” of the blog title is that public parkland inheritance, not a claim that the house itself is a free-for-all picnic hall.

It replaced the first Government House at Bridge and Phillip Streets (Museum of Sydney site), worn out by the 1830s after serving as the colony’s political and social centre since 1788–89. British royal architect Edward Blore designed the new house in a castellated Gothic / Tudor-Gothic style. Construction began in 1837 under Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis and Colonel George Barney of the Royal Engineers, using colonial sandstone, cedar and marble. A Queen’s Birthday ball was held in the unfinished house in 1843; Governor Sir George Gipps and Lady Gipps took up residence in 1845. Later works include a porte-cochère / front portico associated with James Barnet (1870s) and further alterations under Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon around 1900–01.

The gardens and harbour setting tie the house to the Conservatorium (the former Macquarie-era Governor’s Stables) and the wider Domain / Botanic Gardens landscape. Do not confuse it with Old Government House at Parramatta — different building, different post, different century of everyday vice-regal life.

Farm Cove 

More of the Story – The Government Domain from 1788 to Today

I've always thought of the Domain as Sydney's backyard. It's the big stretch of grass and fig trees between Macquarie Street and Woolloomooloo, the place where city workers kick a footy at lunchtime and where thousands of us have sat on a blanket for Carols or Symphony under the Stars. But there's a lot more to it than that. This patch of ground has been a governor's private paddock, a cricket ground, a soapbox for every cause under the sun, a refuge for the homeless in hard times, and a battleground for anyone trying to carve a bit off it. Here's the story as best I can piece it together from the records.

Before the Fleet – Gadigal Country

Long before anyone drew a boundary here, this was Gadigal land. The point where Mrs Macquarie's Chair sits was known to the Gadigal as Yurong Point, and the precinct out there is still called the Yurong Precinct today. Farm Cove itself is recorded with the name Woccanmagully. I wrote about the little creek that ran down into the cove in my post on Wuganmagulyav Creek – Farm Cove.

Phillip's Farm and the Governor's Demesne (1788–1809)

By July 1788, only six months after the First Fleet came into Sydney Cove, Governor Arthur Phillip had a farm of nine acres of corn going beside the stream that still runs through the palm grove into Farm Cove. That's where the cove got its name. The first plants and seeds Phillip had picked up at Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope went into that ground, and by September 1788 about 20 acres had been cleared for crops.

Phillip set the land aside for the Crown, east of the Tank Stream and running across to the head of Woolloomooloo Bay, and kept part of it for the Governor's own use. The Dictionary of Sydney calls it a 'Governor's demesne'. The soil wasn't much good though, and by 1789 most of the farming had moved out to Rose Hill at Parramatta where the crops did far better. For the next twenty years or so the Farm Cove land was leased out for private farming, and between 1800 and 1807 grants were made to farmers on the eastern side of the cove.

A ditch was dug in 1792 to mark the boundary, but people kept creeping in on it. In 1807 Governor Bligh decided it should be the Governor's Domain again. He took back 19 acres, cancelled the private grants on the east side of Farm Cove, pulled down buildings near where Government House now stands and put in carriage roads around Bennelong Point and the cove. According to Wikipedia, his attempt to reclaim the Domain was one of the many grievances behind the Rum Rebellion of 26 January 1808, though that line is flagged there as needing a citation. My post on the Rum Rebellion tells that side of things.

The Grand National Cricket Match, New South Wales v Victoria, played in the Outer Domain on 14, 15 and 16 January 1857. Joseph Fowles, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Macquarie Builds His Walls (1810–1821)

When Lachlan Macquarie arrived in 1810 he got stuck into it straight away. He built stone walls around the Government House garden and the Government Domain, which cut it off from Hyde Park. He also put a protecting wall along the harbour side and laid out a road that wound right around the Domain, well back from the shore, with a bridge over the Farm Cove creek and out to the point. Swamp mahogany trees were planted along that road, and Wikipedia reckons they may have been the earliest street trees planted in the colony. A black booyong planted between 1813 and 1816, west of the palm grove, is still there.

The road was named for Elizabeth Macquarie, and the inscription carved in the rock above her famous seat says it all:

Transcription (inscription above Mrs Macquarie's Chair, as given on Wikipedia)
Be it thus Recorded that the Road
Round the inside of the Government Domain Called
Mrs. Macquarie's road
So named by the Governor on account of her having Originally
Planned it Measuring 3 Miles, and 377 Yards
Was finally Completed on the 13th Day ofJune [sic] 1816

That date, 13 June 1816, is taken as the traditional founding day of the Botanic Garden. By 1817 the whole Domain was enclosed, with the roads finished and gates to control the horse traffic. In 1821 Francis Greenway's grand stables for Government House were finished in the north of the Domain near Macquarie and Bridge Streets. Those stables are now the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Mrs Macquarie's Chair, about 1870–1875. American and Australasian Photographic Company, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Everyone knows the story of the chair. It's a seat cut out of a sandstone ledge at Anson's Point, where the Governor's wife could sit, take the sun and watch the ships on the harbour. Folklore has it she watched for ships coming from Britain. Even today it's one of the best spots in Sydney to get the Opera House and the Bridge in the one photo.

Inner Domain and Outer Domain

Over time the land split in two. The Inner Domain, closest to Government House, was gradually swallowed up by the Government Gardens, which became the Botanic Gardens. The rest became the Outer Domain, which is the part we just call 'the Domain' today. The Dictionary of Sydney puts it plainly: the Gardens grew at the expense of the Domain. Once it covered everything from Woolloomooloo Bay to Circular Quay and south to Hyde Park.

In 1831 Governor Darling formally invited the public in, and public use became accepted policy. The State Heritage Register listing calls this an early designated landscape for public use, dating from 1831. During the 1830s the trees were cleared and people came to stroll and picnic. Then from 1860 the Domain was opened to walkers at night, so folks could enjoy it on summer evenings, and it became known as 'the Park where the Gates Never Close'. Carriages were still kept out after dark for many years. Around 1865 the Domain gate lodge went up at the corner of Hospital Road and Prince Albert Road, with Victoria Lodge near Mrs Macquarie's Point.

Meanwhile the land west of Macquarie Street was sold to pay for the new Government House and Circular Quay. Built between 1837 and 1845, that's the house up the top of this post. Through the 1800s the south-western part of the Domain was nibbled away for public buildings: Hyde Park Barracks, the Mint, Sydney Hospital, Parliament House, the State Library and the Land Registry Office.

'The Domain or Peoples Park', Sydney, in the 1870s. Charles Percy Pickering, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cricket in the Outer Domain

Cricket had been played in Hyde Park since the early 1800s, and in the 1850s it moved to the Domain. New South Wales had beaten Victoria by three wickets in the first intercolonial match in Melbourne in 1856. The return match was played in the Domain from 14 to 16 January 1857, and New South Wales won again, this time by 65 runs. That's the match in Joseph Fowles' picture above.

It wasn't much of a ground, mind you. Wikipedia describes it as a rough, uneven, open paddock, still used to graze cattle, so the cow pats had to be cleared before play. It couldn't be fenced either, so nobody could be charged to get in. The New South Wales Cricket Association was formed at a public meeting in the Domain on 13 December 1859. Six first-class matches were played there between the 1856–57 and 1868–69 seasons before the game moved on, first to the Albert Ground at Redfern.

The Garden Palace (1879–1882)

The Garden Palace, built for the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The biggest grab of Domain land in the 1800s was the Garden Palace, built for the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879. James Barnet designed it and John Young built it, for £191,800, in only eight months. Electric lights brought out from England meant the men could work around the clock. It was laid out like a huge cathedral, with a long nave and transept meeting under a dome 100 feet across and 210 feet high. It took 4.5 million feet of timber and 2.5 million bricks, and Sydney's first hydraulic lift ran up the north tower. At the time it stood in the Domain, outside the Gardens.

The Garden Palace and Farm Cove, about 1880. Charles Bayliss, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After the exhibition, government departments used the building. That turned out to be a disaster when the whole timber building went up in flames in the early hours of 22 September 1882. Records went with it, notably the records of squatting in New South Wales, and Wikipedia says between 500 and 1,000 Aboriginal artefacts from Sydney were lost as well, though that figure is flagged there as needing a citation. All that's left today are the sandstone gateposts and iron gates on Macquarie Street. A sunken garden with a statue of Cupid, laid out in the 1940s, marks where the dome stood. I've done a whole series on it, starting with Sydney Garden Palace In Pictures.

The burning of the Garden Palace, from the supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News, 25 October 1882. Gibbs, Shallard and Co., State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Garden Palace site was later taken into the Botanic Garden. In 1883 five acres of the Outer Domain were added to the Lower Garden, which completed the ring of waterfront along Farm Cove. Around the same time the Tarpeian Rock was cut for the extension of Macquarie Street. It's the sandstone cliff above the Opera House forecourt, named after the rock in Rome where prisoners were thrown to their deaths.

Art Gallery and Library at the Edges

Early governors thought important cultural buildings could go up in the Domain, and they did. The Dictionary of Sydney lists the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the State Library, Government House, the Opera House and the Conservatorium as all carved out of the Domain to add to the 'cultural enclave'. The Art Gallery sits on the eastern side, with its big neo-classical front on Art Gallery Road and a new building down the eastern slope finished in 2022. I've covered it in my Art Gallery of New South Wales – Government Domain post. The State Library and the other Macquarie Street buildings back straight onto the Phillip Precinct.

The People's Park

From the 1850s big crowds came to the Domain for balloon ascents, parades and military reviews, family picnics, weddings and official ceremonies. In 1832 one Daniel Delaney was had up for 'making love to a Shelah' there at the 'unseasonable hour of 11 pm', according to Hill's Life in New South Wales of 17 August 1832, as quoted by the Dictionary of Sydney. Sir John Robertson, five times Premier, is supposed to have told a deputation complaining about goings-on in the Domain at night that 'clean grass is better than dirty sheets'.

The road through the Domain towards Mrs Macquarie's Point, on a postcard from about 1900–1927. William Henry Broadhurst, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In hard times the Domain was also a refuge. In the 1890s hundreds of homeless men slept in the niches and crevices of the rocks, drawing out their 'bed-clothes, consisting of old newspapers and wrappers', as Harry Furniss wrote in his 1899 Australian Sketches. In the 1920s the Salvation Army handed out more than 17,000 meals to homeless men there in just ten weeks. In the 1930s Depression, villages of hessian and frame 'tents' went up, and the unemployed sat around camp fires at night waiting for the billy to boil. Christina Stead wrote about it in her novel For Love Alone.

A Royal Australian Navy parade in the Domain, about 1915. Samuel J. Hood Studio, Australian National Maritime Museum, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Speakers' Corner – Sydney's Soapbox

On a Sunday afternoon the Domain was the place to go to hear someone get up on a box and have a go. Like London's Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, anyone could turn up and talk on anything, and the hecklers would give it back to them. The Dictionary of Sydney traces 'Soapbox Sunday' back to at least 1878, when a Baptist pastor named Allen is reported to have gone there to speak on Irish Home Rule after a riot in Hyde Park. Wikipedia says the corner was 'officially established in 1878'. It sits in the north-east of the Phillip Precinct near the Art Gallery. These days there's a steel platform with the names of notable speakers engraved on it, and its role is written into legislation, although not many people get up there any more.

The Domain has seen some huge political crowds. There were anti-conscription rallies there in 1916, during the First World War. Over the years the regulars included William Chidley, who was arrested for using the word 'coition' in public, along with Bea Miles, Ada Green with her hell-fire and brimstone, and the radical John Webster. In the 1920s and 30s communists and the New Guard had pitched battles there. Over the decades it hosted Palm Sunday rallies, May Day demonstrations and anti-war protests. Dissent probably peaked in the 1960s with the Vietnam moratorium marches, followed by Palm Sunday peace marches in the 1980s.

'Huge crowd in the Domain to hear Communist Party speaker', about 1934. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the best remembered was the Czech journalist Egon Kisch, who warned a Domain crowd about the dangers of Hitler's Nazi regime. Wikipedia gives the date as 17 February 1935 and the crowd as 18,000. His visit was organised by the Movement Against War and Fascism and bitterly opposed by the Lyons Government. Then on 24 November 1975, during the campaign after the Dismissal, Gough Whitlam and the Labor Party held their policy launch in the Domain. Wikipedia says 30,000 turned up, spilling out past the edges of the park.

The crowd at the Labor policy launch in the Domain, 24 November 1975. User:Tirin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Anzac Day in the Domain, 25 April 1930. Look for the half-built arch of the Harbour Bridge. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Losing Ground – Fuel Tanks, Car Parks and the Cahill Expressway

The 1900s brought more bites out of the Domain. Between 1908 and 1916 Greenway's stables were turned into the Conservatorium. In the 1920s the cut-and-cover tunnelling for the City Circle railway went through the western Domain. In 1942 Domain land was taken for naval fuel tanks. Between 1956 and 1959 the Sydney City Council took Outer Domain land for the Domain Parking Station, losing 47 fairly rare trees. Its moving walkway up to the top of Hyde Park, built in 1961, is 207 metres long.

The big one was the Cahill Expressway. Resumptions and construction started in 1958 and ran into the 1960s. It cut right through the Domain and Gardens, partly destroyed Fig Tree Avenue (planted in 1847 as the first entrance) and took 24 palms and a dozen other trees. Wikipedia says the Domain and the Botanic Gardens were split apart for the first time since 1792. Then in the 1970s the Eastern Suburbs railway tunnel went in under the southern Domain, and in 1992 the Sydney Harbour Tunnel was built under the north-western part.

The Cahill Expressway cutting through the Domain, seen from Art Gallery Road, 2012. Eviatar Bach, derivative work by Steffen Schmit, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

After that there was a bit of a backlash. When planners wanted Domain land for a Harbour Tunnel access ramp, the public outcry led to 'new land' being built over the top of the ramp to make up for it. A land bridge over the Cahill Expressway and Eastern Distributor was finished in 2005, linking the Art Gallery and Mrs Macquarie's Road back to the rest of the Domain.

Concerts on the Grass

For a lot of Sydneysiders the Domain means summer nights on a picnic rug. Every November a covered stage goes up in the Phillip Precinct for the festival season. Carols in the Domain was started in 1983 by Robyn Anne Hobbs, a former Qantas employee, with the Salvation Army as its charity, and 15,000 people turned up to the first one. The Sydney Festival brings Symphony in the Domain with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Jazz in the Domain and Opera in the Domain with Opera Australia. Tropfest, the short film festival, ran there every February from 1999 until 2013, when it outgrew the place and moved to Centennial Park.

The Domain packed at night for Tropfest, February 2011. Johngpolson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Domain Today

The Domain covers 34 hectares now and is looked after by the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust. Together with the Gardens it went on the NSW State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. The listing calls them one of the earliest surviving colonial botanic gardens in the world and one of the oldest early public cultural landscapes in Australia. It's split into precincts: Phillip (the big lawn), Crescent (the Art Gallery side), Yurong (out to Mrs Macquarie's Point) and Tarpeian (the strip above the Opera House). On any weekday lunchtime you'll see joggers on the roads and office teams playing touch on the grass, the same paddock where cows once wandered across the cricket pitch.

Looking from the city over the Domain and the Royal Botanic Garden to the harbour, 2003. Ester Inbar, attribution licence, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• Before 1788 – Gadigal Country; Yurong Point and Woccanmagully (Farm Cove)
• July 1788 – Phillip's nine-acre corn farm at Farm Cove
• 1789 – Farming moves to Rose Hill; Farm Cove leased out
• 1792 – Ditch dug to mark the Domain boundary
• 1807 – Bligh resumes 19 acres as the Governor's Domain
• 1810 – Macquarie arrives and starts walling the Domain
• 13 June 1816 – Mrs Macquarie's Road completed; traditional founding of the Botanic Garden
• 1817 – Domain fully enclosed
• 1821 – Greenway's Government House stables finished
• 1831 – Governor Darling formally opens the Domain to the public
• 1837–1845 – New Government House built
• 14–16 January 1857 – NSW v Victoria cricket match in the Domain
• 13 December 1859 – NSW Cricket Association formed at a meeting in the Domain
• 1860 – Domain opened at night to walkers
• c. 1865 – Domain gate lodge and Victoria Lodge built
• 1878 – Speakers' Corner established, per Wikipedia; pastor Allen speaks on Irish Home Rule
• 1879 – Garden Palace built for the International Exhibition
• 22 September 1882 – Garden Palace destroyed by fire
• 1883 – Five acres of Outer Domain added to the Lower Garden
• 1908–1916 – Stables converted to the Conservatorium
• 1916 – Anti-conscription rallies
• 1920s – City Circle tunnelling under the western Domain
• 1935 – Egon Kisch addresses a Domain crowd
• 1942 – Domain land taken for naval fuel tanks
• 1956–1959 – Domain Parking Station built
• 1958–1960s – Cahill Expressway cuts through the Domain
• 24 November 1975 – Labor policy launch in the Domain
• 1983 – First Carols in the Domain
• 1992 – Sydney Harbour Tunnel built under the north-west Domain
• 2 April 1999 – Domain and Gardens listed on the State Heritage Register
• 2005 – Land bridge over the Cahill Expressway completed
• 2022 – Art Gallery's new building completed

Where the Sources Disagree

• When the chair was carved. Wikipedia's Mrs Macquarie's Chair article says convicts hand-carved it in 1810. The Wikipedia article on the Domain says it was created in 1816, which is the year the road was finished.
• When the road was built. The inscription says Mrs Macquarie's Road was 'finally Completed' on 13 June 1816. Wikipedia's Chair article says it was built between 1813 and 1818.
• When Speakers' Corner began. Wikipedia says it was 'officially established in 1878'. The Dictionary of Sydney is more careful, saying 'Soapbox Sunday' 'may well go back' to the late 1800s and pointing to pastor Allen's Home Rule speech in 1878.
• The Cahill Expressway. The Domain article on Wikipedia mentions the expressway being built 'in 1952' in one place, but says resumption and construction ran from 1958 into the 1960s in another. I've gone with 1958.
• Kisch's big Domain speech. Wikipedia gives 17 February 1935 and a crowd of 18,000. The Commons record for Sam Hood's photo of Kisch speaking in the Domain dates it 18 November 1934, published in the Labor Daily the next day. He may well have spoken there more than once.

My Earlier Posts

• Government House – “The People’s Domain” (2016)
• Government House – Royal Botanic Gardens – Macquarie Street – Sydney
• Art Gallery of New South Wales – Government Domain – Sydney
• Sydney Conservatorium of Music – The Old Government House Horse Stables – The Government Domain
• Farm Cove – Next to the Royal Botanic Gardens
• Wuganmagulyav Creek – Farm Cove
• Sydney Royal Botanic Garden
• Sydney Garden Palace In Pictures
• Sydney Garden Palace after The Fire
• The Man O'War Steps – Farm Cove
• Fort Macquarie – Bennelong Point
• The Sydney Opera House – From Cattle Point to Utzon's Sails
• State Library Of New South Wales – Mitchell Wing
• St Mary's Cathedral – College Street & Art Gallery Road
• Hyde Park – Sydney
• First Government House – Bridge Street & Phillip Street
• The Rum Rebellion – 26th January 1808
• New South Wales and the Sudan War – 3 March 1885

Sources

• Garry Wotherspoon, 'The Domain', Dictionary of Sydney, 2010 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_domain (quotes Hill's Life in New South Wales, 17 August 1832, and H. Furniss, Australian Sketches Made on Tour, 1899)
• 'The Domain, Sydney', Wikipedia, which includes the NSW State Heritage Register listing for the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain (SHR 1070, listed 2 April 1999) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domain,_Sydney
• 'Mrs Macquarie's Chair', Wikipedia, including the transcription of the inscription – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Macquarie%27s_Chair
• 'Garden Palace', Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Palace
• 'Government House, Sydney', Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_House,_Sydney
• 'Cahill Expressway', Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill_Expressway
• 'Carols in the Domain', Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carols_in_the_Domain
• Picture records on Wikimedia Commons, including State Library of New South Wales and Australian National Maritime Museum (Sam Hood) items – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Domain,_Sydney