A new book by the Royal Society of NSW reveals colonial research culture in New South Wales.

During the reigns of British monarchs George III, Queen Victoria and Edward VII, the prison colony of New South Wales was transformed by intellectually curious and innovative migrants from Britain, Europe and America.

In a new book, Knowledge for a Nation: Origins of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Blue Mountains historian Dr Anne Coote explains how leading colonial administrators, scientists, engineers, doctors and other ‘natural philosophers’ gathered to share their discoveries of the Antipodean continent and their experiments with radical new technologies like the electric telegraph, photography, railways and flying machines.

Dr Coote summarised her research in an illustrated presentation at the State Library of NSW on 2 October 2024. Her book was commended by the NSW Governor, Her Excellency Margaret Beazley, State Librarian Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, the RSNSW’s President, Dr Susan Pond, and Vice-President, Emeritus Professor Peter Shergold.

Knowledge for a Nation highlights several dozen ‘gentlemen savants’ who established the colony’s first learned societies, university, museums, observatories, public library, art gallery and botanical research centre.

After Governor Lachlan Macquarie was recalled to Britain in 1821, his replacement in Sydney, the mathematician and astronomer Thomas Brisbane, became the inaugural Honorary President of the Philosophical Society of Australasia, the colony’s first formal scientific institution. The founders of this short-lived group included Surveyor-General John Oxley, merchants Edward Wollstonecraft and Alexander Berry, hydrographer Phillip Parker King, astronomer Christian Rümker, judge Barron Field and surgeons Patrick Hill and Donald Macleod.

Although the Philosophical Society evaporated only a year after its first meeting, several later societies were replaced in 1866 by today’s Royal Society of New South Wales, which has more than 700 members and fellows.

Dr Coote’s history of these societies introduces many leaders of NSW intellectual culture during the Regency, Victorian and Federation periods—men like aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave, whose box kites inspired the Wright brothers; Henry Chamberlain Russell, who led the Sydney Observatory and published the colony’s first regular weather tables and reports about new stars and comets; Australian Museum curator Gerard Krefft, who collected and recorded local frogs, snakes and birds’ eggs; Sydney University’s first Dean of Science, Archibald Liversidge, and Professor of Geology, Edgeworth David, and the government’s Chief Railway Engineer, Henry Deane.

Women were excluded from learned societies during the nineteenth century, except for some mixed-gender social events, called ‘conversaziones’, which the RSNSW held at Sydney University’s Great Hall. But Dr Coote’s book identifies some notable women (mainly daughters of successful Sydney men) who made significant contributions to scientific research and publications. They include botanists Sally Hynes and Jean White, botanical illustrators Helena and Harriet Scott, physicist and chemist Jane Foss Russell and Cambridge-educated physicist Florence Martin.

Knowledge for a Nation: Origins of the Royal Society of New South Wales is a 320-page paperback volume. It is available from the State Library shop, selected bookstores and online retailers, and can be ordered via the RSNSW website royalsoc.org.au.

This book was supported by the Create NSW Cultural Grants Program, a devolved funding program administered by the Royal Australian Historical Society on behalf of the NSW Government.

A new exhibition marks the 100th anniversary of Hardy Wilson’s influential architectural work.

Published in 1924, Hardy Wilson’s book Old Colonial Architecture in NSW and Tasmania was the first major publication dedicated to the documentation and conservation of Australian buildings. This exhibition draws attention to the book’s creation, examines its enduring presence and influence in Australian architecture, and contextualises it in Wilson’s biography and wider body of published work.

This exhibition was curated by Associate Professor Cameron Logan (Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning) and Hector Abrahams and Olivia Salkeld (Hector Abrahams Architects) in collaboration with Rare Books and Special Collections.

The exhibition is on display on Level 2 of Fisher Library at the University of Sydney.

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A new online guide to assist your research into the Colonial Secretary’s Records, 1826–1900

The Museums of History NSW have released the NSW Colonial Secretary’s records, 1826–1900: a guide to accessing them online on their website.

The guide was made available with the permission of Clive Smith and the Port Macquarie and Districts Family History Society Inc.

The correspondence from 1788–1825 has been indexed and digitised and is available in the Index to Colonial Secretary’s Papers 1788–1825. Some of the correspondence and related records created between 1826–1900 have been digitised and are available online via Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. This guide helps users navigate this extensive record set online.

To learn more about the Colonial Secretary’s Papers, visit the Museums of History website.

Celebrate the bicentenary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 17 May 2024

On 17 May 2024, the Supreme Court of NSW will celebrate the bicentenary of its founding under the Third Charter of Justice, providing us with the opportunity to reflect on its profound impact on Australian society.

In a recent interview with ABC RN’s Law Report, NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell emphasised the Supreme Court’s pivotal role in democracy. He also discussed notable cases, including the Myall Creek Massacre trial, highlighting colonial violence against Aboriginal peoples, and the Shark Arm Murder, an infamous criminal case involving a human arm found in a shark’s stomach.

The Supreme Court’s website has a dedicated page to commemorate the bicentenary. It includes profiles and information on Chief Justices and timelines with significant historical events.

To acknowledge this anniversary, we have included links to two Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society articles on the Supreme Court:

• The First Three Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of NSW by C.H. Curry (published in 1933).
• The Magistracy and the Supreme Court of NSW, 1824–1850: a Sesqui-Centenary Study by John Kennedy McLaughlin (published in 1976).

The Supreme Court of NSW has also published a commemorative history titled Constant Guardian, Changing Times: The Supreme Court of New South Wales 1824–2024.

Alan Atkinson’s Elizabeth and John awarded the Australian History Prize

The 2023 NSW Premier’s History Awards, with $85,000 in prize money, were announced at the State Library of NSW on Thursday, 7 September.

The winner of the Australian History Prize was Alan Atkinson’s Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm. The Judges said that Atkinson had ‘produced a landmark book that will refresh early colonial studies and stand as a model for comparative biography, sensitive research and beautiful writing.’

The NSW Community and Regional History Prize was awarded to He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town by Ian Hodges.

The first episode of The Australian Wars was awarded the Digital History Prize. The series can be watched on SBS On Demand.

The Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize went to Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II by June Factor.

The RAHS congratulates all the winning and shortlisted entries.

Read more about the winners and the judges’ comments on the State Library of NSW website.

The 2023 NSW Premier’s History Awards winners are:

Australian History Prize ($15,000)

Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm by Alan Atkinson (NewSouth)

General History Prize ($15,000)

Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945 by Michael Francis Laffan (Columbia University Press)

NSW Community and Regional History Prize ($15,000)

He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town by Ian Hodges (Australian Scholarly Publishing)

Young People’s History Prize ($15,000)

The Goodbye Year by Emily Gale (Text Publishing)

Digital History Prize ($15,000)

The Australian Wars, Episode 1 by Rachel Perkins, Darren Dale, Jacob Hickey and Don Watson (Blackfella Films)

The Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize ($10,000)

Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II by June Factor (Melbourne University Publishing)

By Davina Jackson [PhD, M.Arch, FRGS, FRSA, FRSN]

Two hundred years ago, in June 1821, Australia’s first learned society was launched in Sydney. Named the Philosophical Society of Australasia – because ‘natural philosophy’ was the prevalent term for science at that time – the group comprised seven prominent men who shared the goal of establishing a museum of natural history.

The founders were Judge Barron Field, Dr Henry Grattan Douglass, Colonial Secretary Frederick Goulburn, surveyor John Oxley, merchant Edward Wollstonecraft, Captain John Irvine and Hawkesbury landowner John Bowman. They elected as their president Sir Thomas Brisbane, the Governor, who was a passionate astronomer.

Although the Philosophical Society only held a few meetings, it began a lineage of scholarly fellowships that solidified in 1866 when Queen Victoria formally signed assent to The Royal Society of New South Wales (RSNSW). It was incorporated by an Act of the NSW Parliament passed in 1881.

In 2021 and 2022, the RSNSW is highlighting the history of NSW intellectual societies with an exhibition, Nexus, in the Jean Garling Room of the State Library of NSW. It can be visited (during limited hours) after the library reopens.

The RSNSW also has compiled Australia’s first author-alphabetical and chronological bibliography of key science papers published between 1821 and Australia’s Federation in January 1901. This list cites chapters from Barron Field’s 1822 science anthology, Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales, and includes hotlinks to online facsimiles of 635 papers by 171 authors that were published in 35 editions of the RSNSW’s annual Journal and Proceedings.

The JProc papers especially illuminate the culture of research, thrusts of discovery, and relations among leading scientists during the New South Wales colony’s gold boom decades.

By far the most prolific essayist was the Sydney Observatory-based astronomer and meteorologist Henry Chamberlain Russell, who published 91 papers in volumes 3-35, including annual rainfall maps and monthly weather observations taken atop Observatory Hill. He also analysed floods of the Darling River and Lake George, how rain evaporated from paddocks, and telescope views of astronomical phenomena, including double stars and Transits of Venus, Mars and Saturn.

Another prominent writer was the University of Sydney’s Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, Archibald Liversidge, who wrote four papers on NSW minerals and meteorites in the annual Transactions of the RSNSW, before he began to edit the publication in 1875 and changed its title to Journal and Proceedings. Liversidge also served as the society’s Honorary Secretary from 1874 to 1884, and he designed the Seal required for its NSW Government Act of Incorporation in 1881.

English pastor and geologist William Branwhite Clarke published 15 papers in the journal between 1867 and 1878. These included the RSNSW’s Inaugural Address, in which he argued that science, with its focus on factual evidence, was superior to the philosophy promoted by preceding NSW intellectual societies. He later published six Anniversary Addresses and research reports on minerals in north Queensland, fossils of kangaroos and extinct birds, ocean depth soundings, and some effects of forests on Australia’s climate.

During Liversidge’s term as the journal editor, English science educator William Adam Dixon wrote a series of worthy articles on chemistry, mineralogy and palaeontology: highlighting islands of sea-bird guano, NSW deposits of silver, nickel, cobalt and coal, and chemical aspects of orchids, ferns and native coastal species. Other writers on Australian fossils, rocks, minerals, shells, fish, fauna, plants and forests included William James Barkas, Robert Etheridge Junior, Australian Museum curator Johann Ludwig Gerard Krefft, Royal Mint assayer Carl Leibius, botanist Charles Moore and priest-geologist Julian Edmund Tenison-Woods.

Liversidge also encouraged articles about Aboriginal knowledge and culture. He published Peter MacPherson on Aboriginal astronomy, language, oven-mounds and stone implements; Peter Beveridge on Aboriginal people of the Murray-Darling basin, and ‘Notes’ by John Fraser and James Manning. These followed Transactions articles on Polynesian and New Guinea populations, reported by Scottish educator John Dunmore Lang.

Despite the RSNSW’s stated objectives to further knowledge in Science, Philosophy, Art and Literature, no articles on philosophy or literature, and only a few on arts and crafts, were published in the first 20 years of the journal. These included several papers by Ludovico Wolfgang Hart on ‘the rise and progress of photography’ as a matter of importance to Australian education; John Plummer on art instruction; Italian pianist Jules Meilhan on the transformative power of classical music; Emerich Reuter Roth on rational construction of chairs and desks, and William Henry Warren on the strength and elasticity of ironbark timber for construction projects.

As the gold boom boosted Australia’s population and prosperity, Liversidge introduced some farsighted concepts for public welfare, infrastructure and economic development. Frederick Norton Manning, director of the asylum at Gladesville, illuminated journal readers on ‘causes and prevention of insanity’, while Alfred Roberts discussed ‘pauperism’ and hospital accommodation. Engineers James Manning, Charles Mayes, John Smith and A. Pepys Wood wrote on how to improve the colony’s water supply and sanitation. NSW Auditor-General Christopher Rolleston assessed crime statistics and new post office, banking, credit and insurance systems.

Several RSNSW writers presciently highlighted nascent technologies that would underpin modernity through the 20th century. Edward Charles Cracknell highlighted international advances with the ‘electric telegraph’; George Denton Hirst focused on new optical lenses made by Carl Jeiss (Zeiss) in Germany, and Lawrence Hargrave presented his prescient ideas and designs for ‘flying-machines’.

Hargraves’ first RSNSW JProc articles were published in 1885 and 1886; 17 years before American inventors Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the world’s first successful motorised aeroplane in December 1903. Yet Hargrave was only one example of how many young, well-educated British immigrants pioneered worldwide advances after they settled in Sydney in the mid 19th century. The Royal Society of New South Wales, via its annual Transactions, then Journal and Proceedings, was a vital conduit for their intellectual pursuits.

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For broader detail about the early years of the RSNSW and work of colonial scientists, read The Long Enlightenment: Australian Science from its Beginnings to the Mid-20th Century, by Emeritus Professor Dr Robert Clancy FRSN (Halstead Press, 2021).

Written by RAHS Volunteer, Maximilian Reid

On 14 May 1855, the Royal Mint in Sydney was first opened to the public. The discovery of gold in 1851 created the immediate need for such a vital institution due to the increased economic growth in the colony of New South Wales.

The building itself – housed in the southern wing of the General Hospital and Dispensary – was already undergoing a conversion. The Hospital, built in 1811, was three buildings grouped together and by 1850 had undergone several repairs and upgrades. So much so that the function of law courts was already taking place well before the Mint gained approval in 1853. Owing to its poor construction, outbreaks of dysentery in its hospital rooms were frequent, earning it the grim moniker of ‘Sydney Slaughterhouse’.[1]

The southern wing of the hospital was designated to be the site of the Mint and two men oversaw its design and construction. The initial plans of the building were inspired by the Crystal Palace of London, which the Deputy Master of the Royal Mint, Captain E H Ward had seen in 1851.[2] Owing to Captain Wards commitments in England to secure its construction, Joseph Trickett, Superintendent of the Coining Factory adapted Wards plans and oversaw construction.[3] The initial years of the Royal Mint were frenetic – the influx of gold saw 14,000 ounces in one week during October in 1855.[4] As well as a colourful episode in 1869 where bushranger Captain Moonlite ‘fenced’ his 129 ounces of gold into £503, the Royal Mint continued to be a hub of activity.

It could not entirely shake the shadow of redevelopment, however. Despite narrowly avoiding demolition in 1906, the Sydney Mint closed in 1926 with its declining profits and outdated infrastructure finally ringing the death knell.[5] The building itself continued to be known as the Mint and in 1997 it was transferred to the Historic Houses Trust where after a significant conservation and redevelopment project it stands today as an important and significant historical site in metropolitan Sydney.

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References:

[1] Fiona Starr, ‘A Rum Deal’, Museums of History NSW, <https://mhnsw.au/stories/museum/a-rum-deal/>, accessed 23 May 2023.

[2] Historic Houses Trust [Sydney Living Museums], (2004), RAHS Library Collection.

[3] Historic Houses Trust [Sydney Living Museums], (2004), RAHS Library Collection.

[4] Starr, Fiona. 2021.

[5] Starr, Fiona. 2021.

By RAHS Volunteer Elizabeth Heffernan

On 24 November 1934, sixteen years after the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918, the Anzac Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park first opened its doors. An estimated one-hundred-thousand spectators attended the ceremony. Eighty-five years later it remains an iconic national monument, commemorating the “ENDURANCE, COURAGE AND SACRIFICE” of Australia’s fallen soldiers in the First World War. [1]

For all its timeless splendour, however, the road to the Memorial’s opening was not an easy one. Interest in the construction of a war memorial in Sydney was sparked as early as 1916 but it was not until 1923, with the passage of the Anzac Memorial (Building) Act, that real plans began to be made. It would take another decade for the completed building to be unveiled. The delays stemmed from a number of reasons: financial restraints, debate over design, and indecision over location. In 1929, to resolve the indecision, the Anzac Memorial Trustees announced a design competition, of which the winner would receive two-hundred and fifty pounds and the title of architect for the new Anzac Memorial. [2]

Australian architect Bruce Dellit’s Art Deco design was victorious. It was simple yet evocative, current yet laden with historical and cultural symbolism. In collaboration with English sculptor Rayner Hoff, Dellit set about bringing his vision of the Memorial to a reality. However, the pair encountered some difficulty. When the monument opened in 1934, though spectacular, it lacked a few key elements of Dellit’s design. The Trustees also vetoed several of Hoff’s proposed statues. Some of these design changes were remedied in time for the centenary of the Armistice in 2018. [3]

The Anzac Memorial we see today is as close to Dellit’s original vision as possible. Though an imposing structure, it remains a space of private mourning and reflection. The sweeping stairs into the Hall of Memory invite the visitor to gaze up into the Dome of Stars or down into the Well of Contemplation and upon Hoff’s confronting brass sculpture, Sacrifice. An inscription set at the western entrance to the Hall of Silence implores visitors to “Let Silent Contemplation be Your Offering” – an apt request for the remembrance of those whose own voices have been silenced for more than a hundred years. [4]

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References:

[1] Bruce Dellit, quoted in “The History of the Anzac Memorial”, Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, Sydney, <https://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/our-stories/history-anzac-memorial>, accessed 5 November 2019.
[2] “The History of the Anzac Memorial”; Laila Ellmoos, “Anzac War Memorial Hyde Park”, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, <https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/anzac_war_memorial_hyde_park>, accessed 5 November 2019.
[3] “The History of the Anzac Memorial”; Tim Barlass, “Anzac Memorial completed after 84 years, ready for armistice centenary”, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 October 2019, <https://www.smh.com.au/national/anzac-memorial-completed-after-84-years-ready-for-armistice-centenary-20181005-p50805>, accessed 5 November 2019.
[4] Ellmoos, “Anzac War Memorial Hyde Park”.

Written by RAHS Volunteer, Elizabeth Heffernan

On the 7th of October 1819, builders under the guidance of convict architect Francis Greenway laid the foundation stone for what was intended to be Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s new courthouse on King Street. A far grander building was planned for George Street as Sydney’s new metropolitan cathedral – It was not to be.

Sent all the way to Sydney from London, Commissioner John Bigge questioned the expense of Macquarie’s proposed cathedral, and suggested a new church be built at the site of the already commenced courthouse instead. All Greenway had to do was add an “ecclesiastical air” to his plans. Five years later, in February 1824, the new St James’ Church was consecrated, and if it looked strangely secular one only had Bigge, and perhaps Macquarie’s budgeting skills, to blame.[1]

This year marks the bicentenary of the groundbreaking of St James’. Over its two-hundred-year existence, the little Georgian church has enjoyed just as much change and controversy as during its construction. The principal Anglican church in Sydney for fifty years, St James’ found itself at the centre of a scandal when newspaper editor and firebrand Edward Smith Hall was denied his pew close to the pulpit. Governor Ralph Darling confronted a potential assassin on the church’s front steps. The installation of the first Bishop of Australia, William Broughton, took place there in 1836.[2]

The twentieth century saw St James’ caught between the competing interests of the local parish and City of Sydney diocese, as its ministers embraced a more liberal style of worship known as Anglo-Catholicism.[3] Its architecture mimicked its tumultuous existence: the church underwent several periods of extension and restoration between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, accommodating a growing congregation and changing attitudes towards its “gloomy” interior design.[4]

St James’ was heritage listed in 2004. It is the oldest church building in Sydney that has been in continuous use for its original purpose since its consecration.[5] Today, it sits within the historical precinct of Macquarie Street along with the Governor’s other building projects, by virtue of Bigge’s frugal hand. It can be said with utmost certainty that St James’ is more than a place of worship: it is a piece of Sydney’s history, as complex and enduring as the city itself.

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References:

[1] Kenneth Cable, Peter Clarke, and Rosemary Annable, St James’ Church, Sydney: An illustrated history (Sydney: Churchwardens of St James’ Church, 1982), p. 5.

[2] K. J. Cable, ‘Saint James’ Church, King Street, Sydney, 1819-1894’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings 50, pt. 4 (October 1964), p. 250; Cable, Clarke, and Annable, St James’ Church, pp. 19-21.

[3] Cable, Clarke, and Annable, St James’ Church, pp. 38, 41-2.

[4] Cable, Clarke, and Annable, St James’ Church, p. 34.

[5] ‘History and Architecture – St. James – King Street’, St. James – King Street, <https://www.sjks.org.au/church/history-and-architecture/>, accessed 24 September 2019.