History of convict colonial settlement from the beginnings of the First Fleet in 1788, and other significant parts of Old Sydney Town's heritage.
DAY TRIPPING AROUND SYDNEY
Sydney’s day trips range from historic towns and heritage sites to national parks and coastal lookouts. The city’s rail, road and ferry networks make it possible to explore destinations beyond the CBD in a single day. Each outing offers a different view of the region’s natural and built history.
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Away from the cameras surveilling Sydney, public stairs remain among the few places where people "can still be private in public", says architect Jennifer Preston.
As poet A. A. Milne wrote: "Halfway up the stairs isn't up, it isn't down ... It isn't really anywhere, it's somewhere else instead."
And in the case of the Steps to Nowhere on Hickson Road, Barangaroo, they lead up and down, but will take you absolutely nowhere.
Over the centuries, Sydney's stairs have been the drop off point for messages written in invisible ink by Russian spy Ivan Skripov, which prompted a global scandal, as well as a rendezvous point for lovers and dealers.
Before lifts and moving footways – and long before people thought of counting steps on a device – traversing Sydney was a workout.
For all their film noir appeal, though, history shows you're more likely to break a leg tripping down Sydney's public stairs than have one broken by a thug, says Dr Preston.
As chair of the NSW Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects Heritage Committee she is one of the few people in the world to study the role of stairs in urban architecture. Although researchers have studied parks, neighbourhoods and footpaths, stairs have been neglected. Her interest resulted in a 90,000 word doctoral thesis, and numerous research papers.
Architect Jennifer Preston, who is an expert on stairs and their weird and wonderful histories.
Dr Preston's interest in Sydney's stairs was prompted by walks near her home in Glebe. "I am a pedestrian – I walk a lot," she explained.
When she climbed the Chapman stairs, sandstone steps that curl up from Parramatta Road and Arundel Street with "beautiful sculpted sandstone pillars", she wondered who Chapman was and why the stairs were named after him.
It turns out Michael Chapman was an Irish merchant born in 1802 who migrated to Australia where he rose to become a member of council and NSW Parliament.
"Urban stairways are contested terrain, where the public and private domains meet, overlap, and sometimes conflict," Dr Preston wrote in one paper. As a result, there are often arguments over who is responsible for policing and maintenance.
Dr Preston found complaints in the Sydney City Council archive about stairs being covered with "expectoration, tobacco juice, etc". Others complained that the stairs were the "resort of people who continually lounge" about them.
Public urban stairways like McElhone rising from Woolloomooloo were places of contrast: beauty and refinement contrasted with the condoms and syringes she had found there.
"It leads upwards towards brightness, promise and adventure," she wrote of the McElhone stairway. "It descends into shadow, the hidden and unknown. It is enveloped in the delicious scents of flowers, gardens and nearby baking, but is also plagued by the rank smells of urine, dampness and vomit."
Over the years some steps such as Carahar in the Rocks were demolished, but clues remain, such as parts of their brickwork. On Hickson Road, the Steps to Nowhere are still embedded in the sandstone, but inaccessible.
Dr Preston's research shows very few surveillance cameras have been installed on Sydney's stairs, suggesting they are safer than they may feel.
McElhone stairs were the drop off point for Russian spy Skripov.
Here are some of her picks for the best stairs to rack up steps, be a tourist in your own city and learn about Sydney's history after colonisation (and snap some Instagrammable photos).
McElhone stairs Connecting Woolloomooloo with Potts Point, the "heart thumping stairs" were also the location of a real life spy drama that saw secret documents – with instructions written in invisible ink by Russian spy Ivan Skripov. They were exchanged in a canister hidden behind a balustrade on the stairs. He was caught, expelled from Australia and the spy scandal went global. Like many of Sydney's stairs they were named after a local businessman.
Fleet Steps: Often wrongly thought to relate to the arrival of the First Fleet, these steep and long stairs at Mrs Macquarie's Chair were built to celebrate the arrival of the "Great White Fleet" in 1908. The arrival of American peace time fleet – a huge armada – brought record numbers of Sydneysiders out for a day described by some newspapers as the "greatest ever" in Sydney's history.
Fleet steps were named for the arrival of the Great White Fleet, a peacetime visit by US naval ships in 1908.
Man O'War Steps With a name like this, they should be huge. Though there are only eight or nine, the steps near the Opera House are full of history and very likely the oldest steps in Sydney, dating back to soon after colonisation. They were built to provide Governor Macquarie and his family with direct access to a jetty.
Sydney's investor-grade towers crush their tenants and kill the city's soul
Quite short stairs but Sydney's "most beautiful", says Dr Preston. They were initiated by William Chard, a local who was concerned that the widening of William Street had caused a huge drop at its intersection with Forbes street. Mr Chard wrote to the council – and to move things along, he paid an architect to draw up the plans. The steps contain detailed "little gargoyley faces carved in the 1930s", Dr Preston said.
Argyle stairs: Described by tourists as leg pumping, the Argyle stairs in The Rocks have a majestic entry through an arch and lead up to the Harbour Bridge walk. They also feature in the Justice and Police Museum's forensic archive (1910 to 1964). Curator Nerida Campbell says stairs are often the scene of accidents that "don't turn out to be accidents".
Agar steps: A massive set of 108 steps that link Kent Street with Observatory Hill. Tall and narrow with views towards the water, they are Dr Preston's favourite. They have been portrayed by a range of Australian artists and some of the Victorian terraces that front on to the stairs use the landings as extensions of their own homes
Anderson .Park sits over the head of neutral Bay and the creek that runs to it.
In the 1880s the mudflats exposed around his surroundings at low tide were full of residual mangroves as well as sewage and other rubbish that collected that ran it off into the harbour.
The decoration of Sydney Harbour and it’s for Shaws came at a time that coincided with an awareness of harbour music parks Parkland.
Consequently several waterfronts around Sydney were re-claimed or filled in as a Parkland for sure new.
The land he was reclaimed between 1891 and 1895 after much love being by the colonial government by East Saint Leonards council land in 1890, by the new formed North Sydney Council.
The new reserve in neutral Bay he was dedicated in 1898 and was called wearing the park. Later in 1928 it was very named Anderson Park, After former mayor William Anderson.
At the time humans were sharing land tea with horses to pastured in the 1920s. In 1932 residents petition council to build a shock proof Enclosure around the Anderson ParkBeach below the retaining wall.
The park self was given over to organise sports and landscaped with the planting of victories (focus hillii and rubigonusa ) Around the Boundry of the park.
In 1934 these trees with small enough to let the aviator Charles Kingsford Smith, With navigator PG TaylorTo use Anderson Park as a runway for the LockheedOh fair mono plane-Originally called ANZAC and then called Southern Cross, Which he had brought from America by ship.
The aviator knew the park well as he had live nearby in Yeo Street From 1911 to 1915, so when faced with the problem
Getting his aircraft from neutral Bay Anderson Park to mascotAirfield, Kingsford Smith had it transferredFrom the anchored ship in Anderson Park to mascot airfieldWhere he could fly to his destination.
The reserve was, he judged just big enough to be a runway for his aircraft
On 17th of July 1934 word spread that Kingsford Smith had his aircraftAnd he’s playing where in the area spread quicklyAnd a large crowd gathered quickly to see what would happen.
It was several hours before the wind was favourable. Joan Hall was a part of the crowd and remember the tension just before he took off and stayed low over the water.…
It wasn’t until he was well past neutral Bay wharf that he started to take off above the water, And then the people started cheering madly, Talking excitedly.
The following year Charles Kingsford Smith and JT Pethybridge disappeared without a trace find the Southern CrossFrom London to Australia.
SYDNEY CLOCKS
is hard now to imagine when telling the time was a difficult thing to do. With everyone having a phone or at least a watch, it is easy to forget that not that long ago public time pieces were, for many, the best available option for getting to work on time, making sure they caught the train or made the meeting.
It’s amazing how many of these clocks and timepieces were sited around Sydney, and even more amazing how many survive still. The most prominent of these were the clock towers, which in their day, loomed over the low scale city round them and were visible to all the workers scurrying back and forth to offices and factories.
From the earliest days of the colony time was important. Convicts were sent here to do time, and their days were broken up into timed patterns. In 1797 Governor Hunter erected the first clock tower to the west of the settlement on what is now Church Hill. The tower was 46 metres high with its clock facing the town. The tower was damaged in a storm in 1799 and then collapsed in 1806. The clock itself was salvaged and re-erected in a smaller tower the following year.
The oldest clock still working in Sydney is in the façade of the Hyde Park Barracks. This was installed in 1819 by convict clockmaker James Oatley. Oatley, appointed as Keeper of the Town Clock by Governor Macquarie installed a number of public clocks across Sydney, with clocks in churches at Parramatta, Campbelltown, Windsor and Liverpool amongst others. The suburb Oatley is named after him.
Of the clock towers it is those at the Sydney Town Hall (1884), the Lands Department (c1890, clock 1938), the old General Post Office (1891), and Central Station (1921) that remain as the best examples. Each was built so as their clocks could be seen across the part of the city they stood in or from the approaching ferries to Circular Quay. Workers would check them as they went to their jobs. Their heights hint at the low scale of the nineteenth century metropolis and they could be seen across surrounding suburbs. Central Station, which was visible across the industrial suburbs of Redfern and South Sydney was colloquially known as “The Working Man’s Watch” for this reason. Town Hall Clock was visible from Balmain. Their prominence on the skyline was such that during World War II the GPO clock tower was dismantled for fear it would provide a target for Japanese air raids. It was not rebuilt until the 1960s.
GPO Clock being removed 1942 (NAA C4078 N1914D)
While the others worked independently, the clock at Central was the centre of an intricate system of integrated clocks around the station and across the Sydney train network. A system of electrical pulses regulated the time across the network so all showed the same time. Correct time is essential to safe and efficient running of railway networks and has been from the start. As such, the adoption of railway time as local time as the network extended across Sydney and NSW was instrumental in the eventual adoption of it as standard time for NSW and later Australia from 1895.
Central Station with its landmark clock tower in 1952. It still towers over the southern end of Sydney. (NAA A 1200 L 14553)
The scale of these clocks is not appreciated from the ground, but some ideas of the size of the mechanism can be taken from the fact that the Central Clock hands are 2.3m and 3m each, with the clock face itself is 4.8m in diameter. Upgraded in 2014 the Central Clock continues to provide accurate time, although fewer notice it these days.
ROOKWOOD NECROPOLIS
ome to the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, where up to 1 million former Sydneysiders now eternally rest. Rookwood Necropolis, near Lidcombe, was opened in 1867 and is still an active cemetery.
The term necropolis refers to its enormous size, deriving from a Greek word meaning City of the Dead and at over 777 acres, or 300 hectares, it is the size of Redfern and Glebe combined.
The need for a large general cemetery was obvious in Sydney from as early as the 1850s. By then, the old Sydney Burial Ground in George Street (under Sydney Town Hall today) had been full and closed for 30 years, and the Devonshire Street cemetery built to replace it (under Central Station today) was also nearing capacity. While there were small, church yard cemeteries around, most of these were also on limited land and were restricted to the particular denomination of the church involved.
Old headstones at Rookwood Cemetery (City of Sydney Archive)
The need for a site with sufficient depth of soil, no rocks, drainage away from domestic water, relatively isolated from populated areas but still close to a railway and with the capacity to be beautified and landscaped, meant that it was not until the early 1860s that a site was chosen. Land at Liberty Plains, approximately 18km from Sydney was deemed suitable and the Government purchased 200 acres in 1862. In 1867 the passing of the Necropolis Act made it official.
The first burial on site was of a pauper, John Whalan on 5 January 1867, with the first registered burial two days later in the Catholic section. This was of a 14 month old girl. The first burial in the Church of England was also of a child on 4 January 1867. Three humble burials to start.
Originally the cemetery was divided into six sections for different denominations: Church of England, Catholic, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congregational and Jewish, with Lutheran, Methodists and a general section added by 1881. In keeping with Victorian era ideals, the cemetery was laid out as a garden landscape, with pathways, garden plantings, fountains and shade houses.
By 1890 there were over 37,000 people buried at Rookwood. As the cemetery grew, it attracted associated industries to the area. By the turn of the twentieth century, about 20 monumental masons had opened yards and showrooms in the area, with a refreshment room and florist also operating inside the cemetery by the 1930s.
The isolation of the necropolis in the years before private motor transport meant mourners and funeral parties needed a way to get to Rookwood. A train line was included as part of the design for the cemetery to overcome this issue.
Rookwood station with a funeral train c1890 (SRNSW)
Funeral trains ran regularly from Central Station to Rookwood from 1867 until 1948, by which time the use of hearses and private cars had made the service redundant. Inside Rookwood a grand station, or receiving house was built, with a matching one at Central. Designed by the Colonial Architect James Barnet, the sandstone station was in a gothic revival style, with finely carved angels on the entry arches and angels faces on the roof trusses inside. The line was extended through the cemetery between 1867 and 1901 with four stations serving the different sections. In 1957 the main station was sold and dismantled, being re-erected in Canberra as All Saints Church in Ainslie.
Rookwood, final home too many of Sydney’s famous and infamous citizens, remains an active and much loved cemetery. It may not be your idea of a great day out, but it is certainly worth a visit.
Wednesday, October 27, 1728. : Captain James Cook, who charted Australia's eastern coastline, is born.
James Cook was born at Marton in North Yorkshire, on 27 October 1728. He was the son of a farm labourer, and held no great ambitions, being apprenticed in a grocer/haberdashery when he was 16. Lack of aptitude in the trade led his employer to introduce Cook to local shipowners, who took him on as a merchant navy apprentice. Here he was educated in algebra, trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy, which later set Cook up to command his own ship.
After working his way up to positions of greater responsibility and experience, Cook was hired in 1766 by the Royal Society to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. Following this, Cook's next orders were to search the south Pacific for Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent that many believed must extend around the southern pole. He came across New Zealand, which Abel Tasman had discovered in 1642, and spent some months there, charting the coastline. Nearly a year later, Cook set sail west for New Holland, which was later to become Australia
- THE AISLE OF SODOM
- SODOMY IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
The convict stain
The First Officially Recorded Incidence Occurred 60yrs Before European Settlement in 1727. The Dutch Ship Zeewijk. . . Off The Coast Of Western Australia.
Captain Arthur Phillip
"There Are Two Crimes That Would Merit Death - Murder & Sodomy"
The First Trial For Sodomy Took Place In 1796, With The Accused Francis Wilkinson Was Acquitted.
The First Person Hanged Was Alexander Brown In 1828.
1839 - Camping By A Billabong
In 1828 Samuel Cox Was Sentanced To Death
Tasmanian Executions
Heindrick Whitmalder - in Hobart
Dennis Collins In Launceston in 1863
Robert Hughes - the Fatal Shore
1803 - georgette lee -the Portland.
