by Scott Bevan
188 metres long and about 27 metres wide: dimensions from www.woolwichdock.com/history, accessed 28 June, 2016.
the wives would walk up … to the households … and sell their catch: Ewald, Connie, The Industrial Village of Woolwich, p45.
the island was apparently snake-infested: Parker, R.G., Cockatoo Island, Nelson, Melbourne, 1977, p1.
fluctuations in food supply and prices, and housing convicts: Much of the detail about Cockatoo Island is from Clark, Mary Shelley and Clark, Jack, The Islands of Sydney Harbour, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 2000. Figures also from excerpts of ‘Cockatoo Island Dockyard – Conservation Management Plan, Vol.1, June 2007, Godden Mackay Logan, on www.cockatooisland.gov.au, accessed on 6 July, 2016.
‘grain … may be preserved in them for years’: Gipps quoted in Parker, R.G., Cockatoo Island, p2.
referred to the cells as a tomb: Brodsky, Isadore, Hunters Hill, New South Wales, 1861-1961, p18.
‘mast, paddle and sail discovered … an attempted escape’: Excerpt from diary of James Rush, quoted in Parker, Cockatoo Island, p7.
‘a wretched, exhausted creature clinging … to the oyster-covered rocks …’: Becke, Louis, Old Convict Days, pvii, reproduced in Day, A. Grove, Louis Becke, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1967, p26.
‘An island which does not provide itself with ships …’: Quoted in Parker, R.G., Cockatoo Island, p73.
images of people talking freely on mobile phones in open fields: The author visited the 20th Biennale of Sydney on Cockatoo Island on 3 June, 2016.
the workers had a choir, which practised on the ferry: Andrews, Graeme, The Ferries of Sydney, p106.
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Hunter explored the lower reaches: ‘Plan of Port Jackson, Coast of New South Wales … as Survey’d by Cap’n. Hunter 1788’, reproduced in Groom, Linda, A Steady Hand: Governor Hunter and his First Fleet Sketchbook, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2012, p38.
the house that is synonymous with the river: Brodksy, p29.
‘we have plenty of sea fish …’: Sherry, Beverley, Hunter’s Hill. Australia’s Oldest Garden Suburb, p29.
‘we could hardly work the long oars to make any headway …’: Harris, Alexander, The Secrets of Alexander Harris, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1961, p126.
the shark tore a chunk of flesh from his thigh: ‘The Lane Cove Shark Again. Youth Fiercely Attacked.’ Evening News, Sydney, Tuesday, 30 January 1900, p6, accessed on www.nla.gov.au on 15 August, 2016.
He died from a ‘frightful’ wound: ‘Killed by a Shark in Lane Cove’, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 27 January 1912, p15, accessed on www.trove.nla.gov.au on 15 August, 2016.
operators would … lead the passengers in ‘sing-songs’: Andrews, Graeme, The Ferries of Sydney, p95.
stirred up by launches ‘that were going up and down all the time’: ‘Killed by a Shark in Lane Cove, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 27 January 1912, p15.
‘a factory … would go very far to destroy it’: ‘Wool-washing’, Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 8 September 1886, p7, accessed at www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August 2016.
‘converting … [a] … rocky creek into a pretty … sheet of water’: ‘Another Beauty Spot. A Lane Cove Improvement’, Sun, Friday, 11 April 1913, p5, accessed at www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August 2016.
‘impossible to prevent the factories from emptying their waste’: ‘Lane Cove River Resident Complains Soapy-Colored Water’, Sun, Saturday, 29 March 1920, p8, accessed at www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August 2016.
using his jacket to try to scoop up more wind: Harris, Alexander (‘an Emigrant Mechanic’), Settlers and Convicts, (London, 1847), Melbourne University Press, 1954, pp85-87.
he chopped, loaded and unloaded the wood: Harris, Alexander, The Secrets of Alexander Harris, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1961, p114.
A journalist wrote about a fleet of ‘Lane Cove Varnishers’: ‘The Varnishers’, Evening News, 12 December, 1912, p6, accessed at www.nla.gov.au on 9 August, 2016.
An old boatman often bedded down under the overhanging rocks: Harris, Alexander (‘an Emigrant Mechanic’), Settlers and Convicts, p87.
‘other places do seem so cramped up and smothery’: Twain, Mark, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Penguin (reprint 1987), p176.
the possibility that the pair had died from accidental poisoning: Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? (2006), directed and written by Peter Butt, produced by Film Australia and Blackwattle Films.
considered a weir or lock near Fig Tree Bridge: ‘Locking the Lane Cove River’, Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 15 September 1900, p12, accessed on www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August, 2016.
The pleas kept coming: ‘Locking Lane Cove River’, Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 30 December 1904, p4, accessed on www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August, 2016.
‘made tea and ate fish just caught in the river’ then ‘… sang sentimental songs’: Stead, Christina, Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), Sirius reprint 1987, p197.
the five fingers of Lane Cove: Farlow, Margaret, in piece on Lane Cove for www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/lane_cove, accessed on 29 August, 2016.
only this part of the main building … was built: Details from www.riverview.nsw.edu.au/our-school/#history_of_riverview, accessed 29 August, 2016.
So I sit and muse in this wayside harbour and wait …: ‘The Wanderer’, reproduced in Heseltine, Harry (edited by), The Penguin Book of Australian Verse, Penguin Books Australia, 1982, p109.
‘straddled its hill in isolation, a self-contained and monosexual world …’: Hughes, Robert, Things I Didn’t Know, Knopf, 2006, p146, © Robert Hughes, 2006, reproduced by permission of Penguin Random House Australia.
‘the fleet … gave the river quite an animated appearance’: ‘Annual Regatta – Saturday, June 8th’, in Our Alma Mater, ‘A School Annual Edited by the Students of St Ignatius’ College S.J. Riverview’, Sydney, 1890, p71.
received its name because a woman who sang and played a tambourine: Bethel, Walter E., ‘Haymaking. Earliest Use of Lane Cove Names and Legends’, in Sun, 11 October, 1930, p7, accessed on www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August, 2016.
half of Sydney’s seagrass beds have disappeared: Chettle, Nicole, ‘Sydney Harbour boat moorings are impacting sea floor marine life: researchers’, www.abc.net.au, 22 March, 2015, accessed 30 August, 2016.
‘these baths were rather frightening …’: Phelan, Nancy, A Kingdom by the Sea, A&R, Sydney, 1969, reprinted 1980, pp144-145.
the run-off rises, and so do the levels of microbial contamination: I read the table at www.environment.nsw.gov.au/beach/ar0910/sydneyestuarine.htm, accessed on 16 February, 2016.
pollution was likely and to avoid swimming in the baths: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/beach/Reportstar.htm, last accessed 31 August, 2016.
he fell into the water and survived: Ewald, Connie, The Industrial Village of Woolwich, The Hunters Hill Trust, 2000, p22.
‘confronted by the golden sandstone portals of Sydney Harbour’: Rees, Lloyd, Peaks and Valleys, Collins Australia, Sydney, 1985 (reprinted 1989), p113.
there was a half-hour service until midnight: Rees, Lloyd, Peaks and Valleys, p214.
‘I don’t want to go to Heaven because it can’t be as beautiful as this’: Quoted in Free, Renée (in collaboration with Lloyd Rees), Lloyd Rees. The Last Twenty Years, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1990, p167.
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The good mates almost drowned once: The story of the leaky canoe is recounted in Dundy, Elaine, Finch, Bloody Finch, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1980, p55.
‘the immense numbers of tree stumps …’: Harris, Alexander (‘an Emigrant Mechanic’), Settlers and Convicts, p89.
the sea was about 30 kilometres east of the Heads: For a fine summary of the harbour’s formation, read Tim Flannery’s introduction in his The Birth of Sydney, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2000, pp8-10, and Proudfoot, Peter, Seaport Sydney: The Making of the City Landscape, University of NSW, Sydney, 1996, pp5-7.
‘Australasia’: W
entworth, William Charles, 1823, accessed at setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit. Transcription based on the facsimile version available in: W. C. Wentworth Australasia [With an Introduction by G. A. Wilkes], Sydney: Department of English, University of Sydney, 1982. The original publication appeared in 1823 as ‘Australasia — A Poem written for The Chancellor’s Medal at the Cambridge Commencement, July 1823, by W. C. Wentworth, An Australasian; Fellow-commoner of Saint Peter’s College’, London: G. and W.B. Whittaker, 1823, pp.xii, 28.
‘A large firm … [will] establish large petroleum works’: ‘A New Industry’, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 8 February, 1900, p4, accessed www.trove.nla.gov.au on 9 August, 2016.
‘the industry is not of a noxious or offensive character …’: ‘A New Industry’, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 8 February, 1900, p4.
Tingira … mouldered in nearby Berrys Bay: Information from www.navy.gov.au/hmas-tingira, accessed on 7 September, 2016.
used teak decking from the wreck of the Tingira: Svensen, Randi, Wooden Boats, Iron Men: The Halvorsen Story, p117.
‘on the brow of a ridge overlooking the Harbour …’: Berry, Alexander, 27 January, 1837, quoted in Russell, Eric, The Opposite Shore, p59.
‘“I have got enough land, now let other people get a little also”’: ‘The Shoalhaven Incubus’, The Illawarra Mercury, 23 December 1858, reproduced in Russell, Eric, The Opposite Shore, p69.
the owner of the largest freehold estate in the colony: Wonga, ‘Alexander Berry of Crows Nest 1781-1873’, unpublished manuscript, entry for the Isabella Brierley Prize for History, 1995, p83.
‘The Sacrifice of Ball’s Head’: Lawson, Henry, (1916), reproduced Roderick, Colin (editor), Henry Lawson Collected Verse, Volume Three: 1910-1922, Angus & Robertson Australia, 1981 (reprint), p401, reproduced with permission of the publisher, ETT Imprint, Sydney.
the whales … dived under his boat: ‘Whales in Sydney Harbour’, by ‘Resident in Elizabeth-street’, Sydney Morning Herald, Monday, 30 September, 1889, p5, accessed www.trove.nla.gov.au on 17 July, 2016.
no formal maritime facility on the beach: ‘Berrys Bay Waverton Scoping Study’, Arup Pty Ltd for NSW Roads and Maritime Services, Sydney, July 2012, p31.
The Fords built colliers … and luxury motor yachts: Some of this information from the Boatbuilders’ Walk plaque on site, North Sydney Council.
A plan for a marina … has been opposed by an action group: www.saveberrysbay.org.au
‘could be castellated on top to resemble mediaeval castles’: ‘Harbour Foreshores,’ Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday, 13 August, 1931, p8, accessed www.nla.gov.au on 8 August, 2016.
‘WARNING. Trees in this area have been wilfully destroyed …’: I read the sign while visiting Carradah Park on 9 September, 2016.
no country would allow such a beautiful foreshore to be defiled: Quoted in Spigelman, Alice, Almost Full Circle: Harry Seidler, A Biography, Brandl & Schlesinger, Rose Bay, 2001, p204. This book, along with Kenneth Frampton and Phillip Drew’s and Helen O’Neill’s, provided much of the background information about Seidler’s vision for McMahons Point, and the building of Blues Point Tower.
towers [were] built on the waterfront, blocking the view: Frampton, Kenneth and Drew, Phillip, Harry Seidler, Thames and Hudson, London, 1992, pp70-71. Information on Blues Point Tower is from p72.
Blues Point Tower was …larger than anything that was in [Seidler’s] plans: O’Neill, Helen, A Singular Vision: Harry Seidler, HarperCollins Publishers Australia, Sydney, 2013, p179.
‘We pulled him across in his own boat, and paid him our fares’: Harris, Alexander, Settlers and Convicts, p90.
The poster featured the words, ‘True Blue!’: The poster, along with biographical information, is in Warne, Catherine, Pictorial History: Lower North Shore, Kingsclear Books, Alexandria, 2005, pp5-7.
‘No one is interested until it’s too late’: Bob Gordon: Lavender Bay Boat Builder, DVD, North Sydney Council & Life Captured, June 2005.
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‘a big want in the lives of Sydney and North Sydney’: Quoted in Warne, Catherine, Pictorial History: Lower North Shore, p132.
Luna Park had its critics: Marshall, Sam, Luna Park: Just for Fun, Luna Park Reserve Trust, Sydney, 1995, p55.
a … Dutch submarine was moored next to the park: Marshall, Sam, Luna Park: Just for Fun, p82.
The first recorded burials on the North Shore: The headstones’ story is told in Lawrence, Joan, Pictorial History: Lavender Bay to The Spit, Kingsclear Books, Alexandria, 1999, p7.
‘Young men in their dozens line the sides [of the ferry] …’: Rees, Lloyd, Small Treasures of a Lifetime, pp47-48.
the Port Authority discovered … a ship’s propeller: ‘Lost and found in Sydney Harbour: Port Authority of NSW finds giant propeller using sonar technology’, www.abc.net.au, accessed 2 November, 2015.
‘The Bridge is 20 miles high … and feeds on paint’: Slessor, Kenneth, ‘A Portrait of Sydney’, reproduced with permission of the publisher, ETT Imprint, Sydney, and Paul Slessor, originally published in A Portrait of Sydney, Ure Smith, 1952, republished in Haskell, Dennis (editor), Kenneth Slessor, UQP, St Lucia, 1991, p78.
‘Visit of Hope to Sydney Cove, near Botany Bay’: Darwin, Erasmus, reproduced in Langford, Martin (editor), Harbour City Poems, Puncher & Wattmann, Glebe, 2009, p18.
The young scientist was also impressed by the evolution of Sydney: Pearn, John, ‘The Antipodes of Erasmus Darwin: The Place of Erasmus Darwin in the Heritage of Australian Literature and Biology’, in Smith, Christopher Upham Murray & Arnott, Robert, The Genius of Erasmus Darwin, Aldershot, Hampshire, England, 2005, p106.
a bridge from ‘Dawes Battery to the North Shore’: Francis Greenway, writing to The Australian in April 1825, quoted in Lalor, Peter, The Bridge, A&U, Sydney, 2005, p49.
thirteen million passengers a year were being carried across: Lalor, Peter, The Bridge, p37.
‘I will see my Romance of the Bridge become a Reality’: Quoted in Lalor, The Bridge, p82.
‘Old North Sydney’: Lawson, Henry, in Roderick, Colin (editor), Henry Lawson: Collected Verse, Volume 2, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1968 (reprinted 1981), pp68-69, reproduced with permission of the publisher, ETT Imprint, Sydney.
telling them their lives were to be upturned: From Shifting Old North Sydney: Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Local Community, (DVD), North Sydney Council, 2007.
‘A telephone call, that a fine wall was coming down …’: Cash, Frank, Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, self-published, Sydney, 1930, pix.
‘no part of New South Wales has undergone such far reaching change’: Cash, Frank, Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, p13.
the Reverend Cash was the only one … to have unlimited access to the work: Ennis, Lawrence, ‘Foreword’, in Cash, Frank, Parables of Sydney Harbour Bridge, pvii.
Reverend Cash often put his faith in beams and platforms: Cash, Frank, Parables of Sydney Harbour Bridge, p122.
‘the same gift, as the Sacred Word speaks of God conferring upon the whole world’: Cash, Frank, Parables of Sydney Harbour Bridge, pp459-460.
‘a colossal work of modern sculpture against a background of eternity’: Rees, Lloyd, The Small Treasures of a Lifetime, p50.
Sydneysiders … jumped out of bed … and added to the symphony: Lalor, Peter, The Bridge, p26.
‘The pylon features … destroyed the visual reality of the steel bridge …’: Boyd, Robyn, The Australian Ugliness, published by Text Publishing, Melbourne, reproduced with permission, © Robyn Boyd Foundation 2010, originally published by Australian Pelican, Ringwood, Victoria, 1968 (revised edition), p38.
‘safe conduct over the Bay of Despond on the Bridge of Faith …’: ‘The Bridge’, The Age, Friday, 18 March, 1932, p3, www.trove.nla.gov.au, accessed 27 February, 2017.
no fish or crustaceans caught west of the Bridge should be eaten: www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/recreational/fishing-skills/fishing-in-sydney-harbour.
the toilet bag … splatted on the
deck of a ferry: Story told in Lalor, The Bridge, p202.
he doesn’t know how anyone can work on the Bridge anymore: Lalor, Peter, The Bridge, p345.
‘every reason to hope’ work would begin that year: Freeman’s Journal, Saturday 25 June, 1887, p19.
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the lanolin-soaked floors created … a furnace: ‘Wool Store Burnt’, The Argus, 14 December, 1921, p19, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4613650, accessed 27 October, 2016.
Wee Georgie … won at least thirty championships: For additional information about Robinson and the 18-foot skiffs, I’m indebted to the article by John Cadd, ‘18 ft skiffs: Sydney’s Flying Circus’, in Classic Boat magazine, August 2007, pp38-42.
he would be ordered overboard and left to swim back: Jackson, Jacqueline, James R. Jackson: Art was his life … Bay Books, Sydney, 1991, pp11-12.
used to listen to the subs’ engines rumble to life: Kayaking with Mika Utzon Popov, 23 June, 2016.
More than $40 million have been spent: ‘Platypus Management Plan’ (Draft Plan Factsheet & Plan Possibilities Consultation Summary – July 2016), The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. Also the Trust’s book, Shaping The Harbour, Sydney, 2011, pp62-65.
In the days after the controversial opening: Lalor, Peter, The Bridge, p312.
one section … has been revered locally: Details of Lex and Ruby Graham’s garden come from the information plaque on site, as part of the Cremorne Point Foreshore Walk, read 10 November, 2016.
whale exports were valued at £140,220: Ancher, Edward A., The Romance of an Old Whaling Station, 1909, republished 1976 by the Mosman Historical Society, p15.
‘very favourable to a ship of war …’: F.P. Blackwood, RN, letter published in an advertisement in the Sydney Shipping Gazette, 9 May, 1846, quoted in Ancher, The Romance of an Old Whaling Station, p13.
‘a rough, rural and romantic place worth seeing …’: Quoted in Ancher, The Romance of an Old Whaling Station, p37
‘the soft, dark breath of the harbour playing through my hair’: From a letter from Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, December 29, 1891, in Croll, R.H., Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, p28.
