In the 1840’s the most select residences in Sydney were a row of five houses in Liverpool Street called Lyons Terrace, facing the south end of Hyde Park. Elegantly attractive, they cost builder Samuel Lyons £5,000 each. Their early tenants included the Chief Justice, Sir Alfred Stephen, and the family of Major-General Edward Wynyard, commander…
Having ascertained that many bakers had been supplying shortweight bread of inferior quality, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor announced that production and sale of bread would be controlled. All persons who wished to operate a bakery were required to obtain a licence, costing 5 shillings sterling, from the Police Officer. Granted a licence the baker was…
Little is known about the early life of Henry Brewer, one of the first free settlers to receive a land grant in Concord. Born in 1739, he must have spent his early days in the building industry, for he had extensive experience in carpentry, draftsmanship and architecture when he arrived in the colony with the…
An interesting souvenir of the opening of the first railway in New South Wales from Sydney to Parramatta Junction is a miniature bucket. When the railway was opened on September 22nd, 1855 the proprietor of the Vauxhall Hotel, which still stands today, advertised that he would sell rum at a penny a bucket. The buckets,…
Historians use historical maps for several purposes: as useful tools for reconstructing the past, to the extent that maps provide records of features, landscapes, cities and places that may not exist anymore or that exist in dramatically transformed form; and as a representation of the “worldview” of the mapmaking culture, and how that culture saw…
Mortlake was originally 30 hectares of land granted to John Miller, John Robertson and Benjamin Butcher in July 1795. This land was subsequently acquired by John Ward and then by his adopted heir, Alexander MacDonald. The area was originally called Bottle Point, the name used to designate the point at the head of the peninsula….
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