Seeking Sydney is a podcast that travels to the landscapes and landmarks of Sydney, adding the people and their stories. I will publish one episode every month for ten months. Episode 3 will be turning up in your podcast subscription on April 10, in Apple podcasts or Spotify!

This episode shakes up a lot of myths – old myths that should be well and truly busted by now, like terra nullius, and persistent myths about Aboriginal people ‘dying out’, and convicts being lazy good-for-nothing drunkards.

The episode starts with some statistics and a definition of ‘Sydney’, then takes a look at planning in Sydney. Early parts of the city had no planning at all. Most of the plans that were carried through were, as Sydney architect John Richardson calls them, ‘finger plans’. Parramatta Rd is one of those ‘fingers’ – one of the routes that leads to the Sydney CBD. It reaches the city at Surry Hills, described so vividly by Ruth Park in her prize-winning novel, The Harp in the South. The streets that she populated with such memorable characters were demolished in the 1950s. Historian Naomi Parry Duncan describes the history of the area and how the Northcott Estate was built to replace the houses that had been in ‘a big kind of nest of alleyways and little tiny narrow streets’.

This ‘slum clearance’ was as much an attempt to improve morals as streetscapes. Earlier slum clearances had been part of the reason behind the construction of Daceyville, and we hear again from Joss Bell from episode 1. Note her reference to verandah sleeping. On hearing that, John Richardson added a personal recollection about his father and uncle sleeping on the verandah at their home in Pymble during that period. As he said, ‘It was secured by retractable timber louvres so it literally served as their bedroom!’

From Surry Hills we go north, and historian Grace Karskens talks about the interactions between Aboriginal people and colonists in Hyde Park. And while we’re mentioning Governor Macquarie, let’s have a look at Bern Emmerichs’ fabulous interpretations of the period in her show, Mainly Macquarie. Scroll down on that page to see ‘May the best man win’, a lively drawing of a fist fight with horses racing behind.

Back to the podcast where Grace Karskens describes the ‘incredible diversity’ of the country and its peoples before colonisation. She goes on to discuss how Sydney came to exist at all, and how it was ‘an amazing social experiment’. There’s some discussion about exactly how many people arrived on the First Fleet – reputable websites vary, between ‘approximately 1500’ and a confident ‘1030’.

Many myths have grown up about the Aboriginal people, who didn’t ‘die out’, and about the convicts, who were the guinea pigs in the British experiment. Grace Karskens describes how, for many of the convicts, Sydney was a place of opportunity, and they grabbed it with both hands. They built houses and a community which became The Rocks – a higgledy piggledy place where no-one bothered asking for permission to build from the white authorities, let alone the Aboriginal owners.

Lucy Taksa takes up the story of The Rocks with the Chinese artisans who moved into the area in the 1860s after leaving the goldfields, and Jing Han adds a sad note about abiding racism against Chinese people.

We jump to the 1970s then, with Wendy Bacon talking about a scheme that would have completely changed the face of Sydney. Thanks to Nita McRae, the resident action group that she led, and their alliance with the Builders Labourers’ Federation, The Rocks survived. You can see a lot more about that story in Pat Fiske’s film, Rocking the Foundations, a history of the BLF that she produced, directed and narrated. You can pay homage to two of the heroes of the battle for The Rocks at Nita McRae Park and Jack Mundey Place.

There’s one more surprise in store, one more myth to challenge. Grace Karskens returns to talk about the conspicuous consumption in early Sydney, and how the convicts got relegated to the bottom rung of Sydney’s history. Listen out for the ever-adaptable Peter Barley voicing quotes from both the sophisticated Baron de Bougainville and the pompous James Maclehose in these last few minutes!

Interviewees for episode 3: my thanks to you all

Grace Karskens, Emeritus Professor of Australian History at the University of New South Wales. Her books include The Rocks: Life in Early Sydney (1997), The Colony: A History of Early Sydney (2009) and People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia (2020). 

John Richardson, Sydney architect

Naomi Parry Duncan, professional historian on Bluesky under @drnaomi 

Joss Bell, resident of Daceyville

Lucy Taksa, Professor of Management, Deakin University Business School 

Jing Han, A leading intercultural communication expert and director of the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Instagram: jinghan2020

Wendy Bacon, https://www.wendybacon.com/

Acknowledgements

Bronwyn Mehan: Spineless Wonders

Martin Gallagher: Echidna Audio: sound design

Peter Barley: special voices

Zoe Hercus: publicity

Bettina Kaiser: artwork

Early records about Parramatta Road: The Road to Parramatta: Some notes on its history, by James Jervis. Royal Australian Historical Society Journal 1927 Vol. XIII, Part II, p.66, 67.

‘In 1805 tenders were called for the erection of ten bridges on the road, but in 1806 the Sydney Gazette noted that there was a “danger of horses being lamed in the deep ruts near Sydney.”’: Sydney Gazette July 6, 1806. Quoted in The Road to Parramatta: Some notes on its history, by James Jervis. Royal Australian Historical Society Journal 1927 Vol. XIII, Part II, p.70.

Quotes from Ruth Park and Darcy Niland’s autobiography: Ruth Park and Darcy Niland, The Drums go Bang!, Angus & Robertson, 1956, p138-9; p192; p151.

The Northcott Estate: What have they done there? Two years at Northcott: An observation of a work in progress. Emily Mayo – In consultation with all partners. Big hART, December 2004.

Numbers on the First Fleet: CMH Clark, A History of Australia Vol. 1. 1962. p76.

‘one source said that 20 convicts were added on the journey’

‘The Australian population quadrupled between 1851 and 1871’

The Baron de Bougainville describing a ‘sumptuous dinner’: The Governor’s Noble Guest: Hyacinthe de Bougainville’s account of Port Jackson 1825, translated and edited by Marc Serge Rivière, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne 1999, p.68.

‘Selected by the British Government as the great repository of national crime …’: J Maclehose, Picture of Sydney and Strangers’ Guide in New South Wales for 1839. John Ferguson, Sydney in association with The Royal Australian Historical Society, facsimile edition 1977, p1-2.