Title

Four views of Sydney [Dymock re-publishes prints after John Eyre]

Author

The Argus.

Source

Argus (Melbourne).

Details

Saturday 30 August 1884, p. 9

Publication date

30 August 1884

Type

News

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Four views of Sydney, taken in the year 1810, have been published by Mr. William Dymock, of that city, and are accompanied by a plan of the settlements in New South Wales, taken by order of the Government in that year. The latter shows that a portion only of the country lying between Port Jackson and the foot of the Blue Mountains had been surveyed at that time, and that in three places the course of the River Nepean was left undefined. Sydney itself, although it straggled over a large area, resembled a group of villages, which had established them- selves upon a number of picturesque eminences overlooking the waters of the harbour. The high land on the west side of the cove was surmounted by a couple of windmills, one of which was enclosed, for the sake of greater security, by the stone walls of the citadel; and there was a battery on Dawes's Point, near which a sloop of war was anchored. Government-house was an unpretentious two-story edifice, built of brick, and surrounded by a verandah. Circular Quay was a green slope, and large gardens running down to the water's edge occupied the site of what are now busy wharves. A solitary church, which looked like a work- house with a small shot-tower annexed to it, occupied a commanding position on the spot now known as Church-hill, and forming to-day one of the reserves of the city, and below it stood the old gaol. Two-story buildings were of comparatively rare occurrence ; and the natives belonging to the Sydney tribe were at that time so numerous that the artist has introduced them in three out of four of his pictures, paddling about the harbour in their canoes, or amusing themselves with their spear-play in the Government Domain and elsewhere. These views, while making no pretension to be regarded as works of art, possess an interest which will increase with lapse of time, for the Sydney of the year 2000, it may be safely predicted, will be as unlike the Sydney of 1810 as the London depicted by Hollar is unlike the London of Queen Victoria.

[The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 30 August 1884, p. 9.]