Stories From Sydney

Colonial Sydney was rife with grand schemes to put the town firmly on the map and in hearts and minds across the Empire. Few such schemes were as demanding, or as necessary, as the plan to build a road connecting the Parramatta, Hawkesbury and Hunter Rivers. Things didn't quite go as planned, but the present day residents of the route might just be better off for it.

The so called "Rum Hospital", which still stands on Macquarie Street, was constructed in return for exclusive rights to import rum into the young colony. How did it come to pass that rum was such an important commodity in colonial Sydney? Did this government contract exacerbate the drunken debauchery that Macquarie had been tasked with bringing under control? And was this novel contract a good deal for the government, or an absolute bonanza for the rum-importing, hospital- constructing cartel?

In the 19th century British settlement irreversibly altered the ecological and cultural landscape of the Burragorang Valley. For the Gandangara people of the valley, the 20th century would bring only greater pain, as Sydney's demands for water and recreation would see them displaced again and again. The 21st century brought greater recognition of the struggles of the Gandangara people of the Burragorang, but with it the threat of yet further destruction.

This week's episode follows the story of Louisa Collins, a working class woman who in 1888 saw not one but two husbands die under mysterious circumstances. During the episode, we discuss the history of the Darlinghurst Courthouse and Gaol, and touch on the struggle for female political emancipation and growing opposition to capital punishment in the late 1800s.

It took white Australians 25 years to find a way across the Blue Mountains, but only 10 years for a pub to open on the way down the other side. This story is about a pub that burned briefly, but burned bright, leaving an indelible mark on Australia forevermore.

The notebooks of William Dawes, astronomer of the First Fleet, disappeared from public view for nearly 200 years before being uncovered in 1972. These weren’t just any old diaries, but instead contained an extensive account of the indigenous language of Sydney. This episode is about how these notebooks came to be written and then forgotten, and what we can learn from reading the conversations that Dawes recorded in them. Along the way, we too will learn a little about the local Aboriginal language of Sydney!

The role the railways played in the growth of Sydney and New South Wales could hardly be overstated. But when, and how, did it all begin? Tune in to find out just how close Sydney came to missing the proverbial boat of the world's first rail boom.

On Boxing Day, 1908, before a crowd of 20,000 Sydneysiders, an African American boxer named Jack Johnson defeated Tommy Burns, a white Canadian, to become the first ever black Heavyweight Champion of the World. This episode tells the story of how this important event ended up taking place in Rushcutters Bay at the newly built "Sydney Stadium".

Hello and welcome to Stories from Sydney: History of the Harbour City. In this episode we’d like to briefly introduce ourselves and give you a quick rundown of what you can expect from this podcast. Every fortnight one of us tells the other a story from the rich and varied history of Sydney and her surrounds.