Building the cities
From penal colony to thriving metropolis, Sydney's development took an amazingly short time. Other Australian cities completed the metamorphous equally speedily. The images displayed here show how rapid the transition was. Sketches drawn in the 1830s to 1850s show countryside and isolated cabins. Photographs of the 1860s and 1870s show bustling townships.
Sketch taken from the inn at Georgetown, May 1839
William's Town, Port Phillip, 1840
Lighthouse at Port Phillip Bay, May 1854
Section of a map of the Parish of Nagar, Co. of Ashburnham, District of Molong, NSW. That part marked pink is owned chiefly by either Samuel Nicholson or by members of the Irvine family. The Feeney's and the McNab Lauchlan are other principle landholders in the area (not shown).
Paramatta River, Sydney, from the north shore, c.1870
King Street, Sydney. This photograph was taken from York Street, c.1870
Burke Street East, Melbourne, c.1870
Queen's wharf, Melbourne, c.1870 (D/2412/D/1)
With the increase in population came the need for various amenities, from churches to universities, from meat processing plants to cemeteries.
Willam Grant, Archbishop of Australia, making a gift of land for the provision of 'a burying place for the dead bodies of the Christian Inhabitants of Heidelbergh', October, 1843.
St Patrick's Cathedral, still under contruction when this photograph was taken
Melbourne University, endowed by Sir Samuel Wilson, 1832-95, pastoralist and philanthropist, born in Co. Antrim
Melbourne Meat Preserving Company, Salt Water c.1870
Government Printing Office, Melbourne c.1870
The Treasury, Melbourne c.1870
In planning these buildings and amenities, and from the laying of the foundations, through the building and the fitting out, even in the funding of them, it's a fair assumption that people from the North of Ireland were involved!
