Publications & Products
The City of Sydney's History Program makes an active contribution to original research about Sydney's history. The following titles from the History Program have been commissioned and published by the council.
To order any of the following publications please download an order form to send to the council. You can also purchase copies at the City of Sydney Archives or any of the City of Sydney branch libraries. All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST.
Sydney Town Hall: The Building and its Collection
Margaret Betteridge
Sydney (City of Sydney) 2008
248pp includes index, bibliography, colour photographs
ISBN 9780975119648 (paperback)
Aus$50.00
Sydney Town Hall is one of Sydney’s much loved landmarks, renowned as a major architectural icon and the pre-eminent site in Sydney for cultural expression, ceremony and ritual. Together, the Town Hall building and its collection speak to us of the people and places, the events and occasions, the celebrations and reflections that are unique to the City of Sydney.
Written by the Town Hall’s curator, Margaret Betteridge, this new book presents a lavishly illustrated architectural tour of the building and its glorious interiors and showcases the Council’s collection of artworks, historical items and civic traditions.
Available at the City of Sydney Archives and all City of Sydney library branches. Or download an order form.
Grandeur and Grit: A History of Glebe
Max Solling
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2007
293pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831387 (hardback)
Aus$45.00
From the 18th century to the 21st, Glebe's character has changed with the growth of Sydney and the development of society. Today's inner suburb - teeming with life, crowded with terraces, shops, pubs, schools and churches - was once a country retreat for affluent families from the young city nearby. As gold rushes, depressions, wars, gentrification and globalisation left their deep imprints, Glebe maintained a tough local identity, proclaimed by football fans in the 20s and anti-demolition activists of recent times.
Max Solling combines a love of his subject with rigorous historical method, to write engagingly about the people of Glebe, their political religious and domestic lives, and the striking class distinctions in one of Australia's best loved suburbs. His broad perspective takes in Glebe's place in literature, in the economy and planning of a city, and in the world as a whole.
New! Revised and updated edition
Millers Point: The Urban Village
Shirley Fitzgerald & Christopher Keating
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2009
144pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831653 (paperback)
Aus$30.00
Since convict times the trade of Australia has flowed through Millers Point. When it was an exotic seaport village, whaling, sealing and sandalwood crews thronged the rowdy pubs. Its mansions housed merchant princes. Later, Millers Point was mostly peopled by wharfies and their families, scraping a living from "the Hungry Mile". Plague reached Sydney, and it was temporarily quarantined. Ever since, for better or worse, government action has determined the fate and fortunes of the historic district nestling below the approaches of the Harbour Bridge.
This revised edition updates the Millers Point story as it undergoes further controversial development which is supposed to open the area to commercial prosperity, as well as preserving its unique heritage and character.
New! Revised and updated edition
Pyrmont & Ultimo: Under Siege
Shirley Fitzgerald & Hilary Golder
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2009
160pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831660 (paperback)
Aus$30.00
So much that has enriched Sydney has impoverished Pyrmont and Ultimo. Once known for its railway yards, woolstores and mills, wharves, powerhouses and quarries, the landscape has been degraded by industrialisation and redevelopment. After that, the community was disjointed by demolitions and removal of amenities. Now that the area is teeming with new residents and workplaces, this new revised edition brings the story of Pyrmont and Ultimo into the 21st century.
New! Revised and updated edition
Chippendale: Beneath the Factory Wall
Shirley Fitzgerald
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2008
144pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831486 (paperback)
Aus$30.00
Chippendale may not be noticed much by outsiders, but its story is fascinating for anyone interested in how cities work. This new edition of Shirley Fitzgerald's acclaimed history begins with convict times when William Chippendale shot a man for stealing his potato crop.
This fertile and well watered area was coveted by industrialists who manufactured Sydney's sugar, beer and gin. Decade after decade, other industries followed. Pollution, planning disasters, illegal subdivisions, sub-standard buildings, and floods that poured filth into the unsewered slums, all contributed to degrade Chippendale throughout the 19th century.
Chippendale today, cut off by busy thoroughfares between Central Station and Sydney University, attracts residents to quiet but cluttered streets because of its closeness to the city centre and educational institutions. Factory noise and the heavy atmosphere of brewing hops no longer hang over the area, but its slow renaissance is still in the making, as the huge brewery site remains poised for major reinvention.
New! Revised and updated edition
Surry Hills: The City's Backyard
Christopher Keating
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2008
143pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831493 (paperback)
Aus$30.00
Writers such as Ruth Park and Kylie Tennant made Surry Hills notorious as the inner city home of battlers, larrikins, crime bosses and the rag trade.
In this new edition of Surry Hills: The City's Backyard, Christopher Keating contrasts the well heeled residents and ultra-chic businesses that cram into today's Surry Hills, with the shady past and the planning disasters that once put the whole area under threat of demolition. The story begins in convict times, when Surry Hills was so far from town that it was exempt from early building regulations. It follows the declining fortunes of Surry Hills as it turned into a slum area, and its resurgence as a favoured inner city locality.
New! Revised and updated edition
Red Tape, Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney's Chinese
Shirley Fitzgerald
Sydney (Halstead Press) 2008 - revised and updated edition in English
248pp includes index, bibliographical references, black & white photographs
ISBN 9781920831615
(paperback)
Aus$35.00
One of the few free settlers attracted to Australia in 1818 was Mak Sai Ying, who has descendents living in Sydney today. He bought land, married, and took up a pub licence. Since then, Chinese people have had a colourful and conspicuous place in Australia's oldest city. The exotic spectacle of Chinese festivities drew crowds of other races. But it was by providing plainer things, such as fruit, vegetables and furniture, that the Chinese came into the domestic lives of the general population.
Success in work and commerce made them a target of business, jealousy, racist agitation in the labour movement, and discriminatory measures including the White Australia Policy.
In their newspapers, Chinese speakers and English speakers sneered at each other's racial inferiority. At the same time some white Australians and Chinese Australians earnt mutual respect. Quong Tart, with his celebrated chain of tea rooms, was a favourite Sydney character. Inspector General of Police, Edmund Fosbery, preferred common sense to prejudiced stereotypes.
Shirley Fitzgerald's popular and scholarly book traces the feats and fortunes of Australia's largest Chinese community; the highs and lows, the endless comings and goings, commerce, primary production, culture, religion and politics.
Sacked: Removing and Remaking the Sydney City Council
Hilary Golder
Sydney (City of Sydney in association with Books & Writers) 2004
232pp includes index, bibliographic references, black & white illustrations
ISBN: 0975119613 (paperback)
Aus$15.00 Discounted price!
Hilary Golder analyses city politics since the 1850s. Why does the Council get sacked? How well have non-elected administrators managed the city? Whose city is it anyway?
The City of Sydney was first sacked in 1853. Back then the NSW Government said it was ‘pernicious to the citizens’. It was sacked again in the 1920s, and they said it was a ‘cauldron of corruption’. In 1967 the Askin Liberal government accused the Labor party of running the Council as a closed shop and frustrating city development. They sacked it again. In 1987 the Unsworth Labor government returned the compliment.
Weaving through the story of these sackings are the endless changes to the city’s boundaries, as amalgamations and de-amalgamations with neighbouring councils occurred with astounding regularity.
We Never Had a Hotbed Hotbed of Crime! Life in Twentieth-Century South Sydney
Sue Rosen
Alexandria (Hale & Iremonger in association with the South Sydney Council) 2000
240pp includes index, black & white photographs
ISBN 0868066877 - paperback Aus$5.00 Discounted price!
ISBN 0868067016 - hardback Aus$10.00 Discounted price!
We Never Had a Hotbed of Crime! is one of the outcomes of the South Sydney History Project, which was commissioned by South Sydney Council in 1993. 70 people were interviewed by Sue Rosen about their experience of life, politics, economics and fun in South Sydney when they were growing up. This book presents edited extracts from these oral histories, creating a vivid and rich picture of life in the area. It both chronicles events and conveys a strong sense of what it was like to live through the experiences of twentieth-century urban life.
Musical Chairs: The Quest for a City Recital Hall - Customs House / Angel Place
Lisa Murray
Sydney (City of Sydney) 2006
76pp includes bibliographic references, black & white and colour illustrations
ISBN: 0979511963X (paperback)
Aus$10.00 Discounted price!
The City Recital Hall was developed by AMP with agreement by the city council. How did this deal come about? City of Sydney historian, Lisa Murray, reveals all in this new book. The story of Sydney's world-class City Recital Hall is one of political intrigue and crafty planning. A combination of music industry needs, hard negotiating and creative design led to the construction of the venue.
From the original battle for a recital hall in Customs House to the completion of the City Recital Hall, Musical Chairs charts the machinations of key players including Musica Viva, AMP and architect Andrew Andersons.
Generously illustrated in both black and white and colour, Musical Chairs provides valuable insights into the peculiar mix of City politics, compromise and passion that is behind most great projects in Sydney.
The Capitol Theatre Restoration
Lisa Murray
Sydney (City of Sydney) 2003
64pp includes bibliographic references, black & white illustrations plus a colour spread
ISBN 0975119605 (paperback)
Aus$10.00 Discounted price!
Historian Lisa Murray presents a warts-and-all history of the planning issues, the political manoeuvres and the philosophical battles that eventually led to the Capitol Theatre being restored and reopened in 1995.
Sydney Town Hall: A Social History
Margo Beasley
Sydney (City of Sydney in association with Hale & Iremonger) 1998
128pp includes index, bibliographic references, black & white illustrations
ISBN 0-86806-638-9
Aus$5.00 Remaindered
Sydney Town Hall has been at the centre of the city’s cultural and political life for more than a century and is held in unrivalled affection by the people of Sydney. This book focuses primarily on the building's relationship with the people of Sydney as it is revealed in the countless events which have taken place there. They range from the humble, everyday and personal to lavish public celebrations of national and international significance. The book is generously illustrated with historic photographs, presenting a lively account of the building's social history.
The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788
Paul Ashton
Sydney (City of Sydney in association with Hale & Iremonger)1993
128pp includes index, bibliographic references, black & white illustrations
ISBN 0-86806-487-4
Aus$10.00
Today, Sydney has achieved the status, long sought by its promoters, its elites and its cultural cringers, of a first-class world city and clinched its claim to being Australia’s premier capital and international gateway, despite an on-going tug-o-war with Melbourne, its traditional rival. Long-time observers of the City, many of whom once perceived Sydney to be "no more than a harbour surrounded by suburbs - its origins unsavoury, its temper coarse, its organisation slipshod" - have of late been moved to reassess earlier pronouncements.
This book takes as its subject the 12.95 square kilometres which constitute the City of Sydney today and examines the influence which planners and planning have had on this dynamic and enticing, if somewhat contradictory, city.
Red Tape, Gold Scissors: the Story of Sydney’s Chinese (Translation)
Shirley Fitzgerald, Chinese translation by Dr Zhang Wei
Sydney (State Library of New South Wales Press) 1997 - 1st edition, Chinese translation
185pp includes bibliographic references
ISBN 0-7313-1189-2
Aus$5.00 (Chinese-language edition) Remaindered
Red Tape, Gold Scissors explores points of interaction, of clash and of change. Cultural influence, like racism, goes both ways - as the Chinese in Australia have become increasingly visible since the demise of the "White Australia Policy", so many Australian influences can increasingly be found in China.
Drawing on extensive research and scores of interviews with Chinese families, Shirley Fitzgerald focuses on the Chinese community of Sydney to tell this fascinating, complex story of the Chinese link with Australia.
Exploring our past is essential to understanding our present, and Red Tape Gold Scissors does much to promote an intelligent understanding of the Chinese contribution to Australia.
Sydney: A Story of a City
Shirley Fitzgerald
Sydney (City of Sydney) 1999
170pp includes colour illustrations & photographs
ISBN 0958609527 (paperback)
Aus$5.00 Remaindered
Sydney - A Story of a City tells the story of one of the world's most exciting cities, in words and pictures. It uses images from the Imax film of the same name, mixed with historic photographs and intelligent historical commentary, to offer the reader an exciting visual and verbal insight into how the city has come to be the place that it is. Beautifully illustrated, this is a great tourist souvenir.
Historical Maps from the City of Sydney Archives
Reproductions of a series of coloured maps, lithographed and published by Higinbotham & Robinson in the 1880s.
Available in two sizes:
A3 (297mm x 420mm) - Aus$4.00
A2 (420mm x 594mm) - Aus$8.00
Glebe, Camperdown and Newtown |
Camperdown |
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Darlington |
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Newtown |
Redfern |
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Macdonaldtown |
The Glebe |
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Alexandria |
Waterloo |
City of Sydney |
Download
Order Forms
- Historical Publications Order Form | PDF 126Kb
- Sydney Town Hall Collection Order Form | PDF 68Kb
