Earl Street, Randwick, is a short residential street on the eastern fringe of the Centennial Parklands, inside Randwick’s North Randwick heritage conservation context. The wider district grew after the 1888 dedication of Centennial Park and Queens Park from the old Sydney Common / Lachlan Swamps reserve: park-edge land and neighbouring Randwick lots filled with Federation and early-twentieth-century houses as tram and road access improved.

Local heritage schedules list timber semis and cottages on Earl Street from around 1910 — typical of Randwick’s suburban expansion rather than a single mansion estate. Surviving street trees, verandah profiles and Federation detailing give the street its character. Keep the geography straight: this is Randwick near the Parklands, not a Surry Hills or city lane with the same name. Photographs here record houses and gardens as a sample of park-adjacent Randwick living — caption by house form and approximate period, not as a convict-era thoroughfare.

 

Earl Street

Old Certificates – Mary Yates – Randwick, NSW

 

Old Certificates

In New South Wales, school and church certificates can complement civil registrations by showing education, training, or community affiliation. For Randwick research, local catalogues and historical collections at Randwick City Library, together with State Archives and Records NSW, may help place a certificate in its local context. Dates, institutions, and names should be checked against the original document and any catalogue record.

Prince of Wales Visit to Australia – 1920

 

Prince Of Wales Visit 1920

The Prince of Wales visited Australia in 1920 as part of a wider goodwill tour of the British Dominions after the First World War. The tour took him through several Australian states and attracted large public crowds. He was heir to the British throne at the time and later became King Edward VIII.

Reservoir Street – Surry Hills

Reservoir Street, Surry Hills, is exactly what it sounds like — named for the Crown Street Reservoir (Sydney Water WS 0034) on the block bounded by Crown, Reservoir, Riley and Campbell. Earlier it was Gipps Street; the present name followed the waterworks that still sit on the high ground of the block. City Council bought the reservoir site from Riley Estate land (then under Burdekin ownership) in the mid-1850s; the covered brick service reservoir, designed under City Engineer Edward Bell (with Will Wadsworth) and built 1857–59, became a key node of the Botany Swamps scheme and remains among Australia’s oldest continuously operating covered service reservoirs.

Around it, mid-to-late nineteenth-century terraces, workshops and small businesses filled in after Riley Estate partition and sale — the Reservoir Street and Fortitude conservation setting City of Sydney heritage schedules recognise. Gates and frontages on Reservoir Street still give the closest public view of the operational Sydney Water site (no public entry to the chambers). Photographs here record Reservoir Street’s terraces and the reservoir-block edge — not interiors of the works.

Reservoir Street

Important Colonial Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings & Etchings - From January 1788 Onwards

Important Colonial Art in the Colony of New South Wales
Paintings, Water Colours, Drawings, Etchings, Lithographs

From the earliest years of the colony, watercolours, drawings and etchings recorded Sydney’s buildings and people for distant audiences. John Eyre’s topographical views of First Government House and the town, together with a pencil portrait of William Bligh, stand among the important early colonial works held in major library collections. This post presents those works with their catalogue references as given on the page.

1. First Government House, Sydney, c.1807 — watercolour by John Eyre (ML SV/31)

First Government House, Sydney, c.1807 — watercolour by John Eyre (ML SV/31).

John Eyre

John Eyre was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. When he was 13 he was apprenticed to his father who was a wool comber and weaver, and became a Coventry freeman in August 1792.

On 23rd March 1799, John Eyre was sentenced to transportation for 7 years for housebreaking, and he finally reached the colony of Sydney in the transport called "Canada" in December 1801.

He was granted a conditional pardon on 4th June 1804, and a month later he advertised that he would buy a box of watercolours. His first drawings were done around 1807.

Eyre seemed to make a fairly reasonable living in the new colony. In 1811 he was engaged to paint numbers on all the buildings on the eastern side of the Tank Stream at a sixpence a time, and in February 1812 he received 12 pounds for painting the Constable Staffs Office.

The records give no real clues to Eyre's character. Nothing is known of him after he left Sydney. He was essentially a topographical illustrator, and his work was very competent, and done with precision.

2. A West View of Sydney in New South Wales (detail), c.1809 — watercolour attributed to John Eyre (DL Pg50)

A West View of Sydney in New South Wales (detail), c.1809 — watercolour attributed to John Eyre (DL Pg50).

3. William Bligh, 20 November 1805 — pencil drawing by Henry Ashton Barker (ML MIN 351)

William Bligh, 20 November 1805 — pencil drawing by Henry Ashton Barker (ML MIN 351).

The Rum Rebellion - 26th January 1808 - Governor William Bligh Is Overthrown At Government House - Sydney

The Rum Rebellion 

26th January 1808 

Governor William Bligh Is Overthrown At Government House 

On January 26th 1808, Governor William Bligh Was Overthrown By The New South Wales. It  Was The First And Only Time Military Intervention Has Been Used To Overthrow A Government In Australia.