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Sydney Observatory
The Sydney Observatory is a heritage-listed meteorological station, astronomical observatory, function venue, science museum, and education facility located on Observatory Hill at Upper Fort Street, in the inner city Sydney suburb of Millers Point in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by William Weaver (plans) and Alexander Dawson (supervision) and built from 1857 to 1859 by Charles Bingemann & Ebenezer Dewar. It is also known as The Sydney Observatory; Observatory; Fort Phillip; Windmill Hill; and Flagstaff Hill. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 December 2000. The site was formerly a defence fort, semaphore station, time ball station, meteorological station, observatory and windmills. The site evolved from a fort built on 'Windmill Hill' in the early 19th century to an observatory during the nineteenth century. It is now a working museum where evening visitors can observe the stars and pla ...
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Millers Point, New South Wales
Millers Point is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is on the north-western edge of the Sydney central business district, adjacent to The Rocks and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. Millers Point lies on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, beside Darling Harbour. The Barangaroo development is taking place on 22 hectares of land on the western side of the suburb. Sections of Millers Point have been included as part of The Rocks area in the past and some residents and businesses still use it in their address. History On 30 June 1814 Thomas Miller, a Sergeant in the 73rd Regiment of Foot, received a grant of land from the governor. A small mill that was owned by an ex-convict, Jack Leighton was located here. The area became known as Jack, the Miller's Point. In 1833 Governor Bourke granted the Catholic Church land at Millers Point for the construction of a school house that could serve as a chapel on Sund ...
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Dawes Point
Dawes Point is a suburb of the City of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Dawes Point is located on the north-western edge of the Sydney central business district, at the southern end of Sydney Harbour Bridge, adjacent to The Rocks. At times Dawes Point has been considered to be part of The Rocks, or known as West Rocks, part of Millers Point, or part of it known as Walsh Bay. History The suburb of Dawes Point is on unceded Gadigal Country. The point was originally known by the Aboriginal names of Tar-ra and Tullagalla. This was later changed by Governor Hunter at William Dawes' request to Point Maskelyne in honour of his patron Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne, British Astronomer Royal. He sent out the first astronomical instruments which were established at the point in the country's first observatory, by Lieutenant William Dawes (1762-1836), astronomer with the First Fleet. The point was renamed in honour of Dawes. Dawes Point is one of the places around Sydney ...
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William Dawes (British Marines Officer)
William Nicolas Dawes (1762–1836) was an officer of the British Marines, an astronomer, engineer, botanist, surveyor, explorer, abolitionist, and colonial administrator. He traveled to New South Wales with the First Fleet on board . Early life William Dawes was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, in early 1762, the eldest child of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Sinnatt) Dawes. He was christened there on 17 March 1762. His father was a clerk of works in the Ordnance Office at Portsmouth. He joined the marines as a Second Lieutenant on 2 September 1779. He was wounded in action against the French Navy under the Comte de Grasse at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781. Dawes volunteered for service with the New South Wales Marine Corps, which accompanied the First Fleet. Because he was known as a competent astronomer, he was asked to establish an observatory and make astronomical observations on the voyage and in New South Wales. New South Wales From March 1788 Dawes was employed in the sett ...
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Sydney Observatory At Night
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". The 2021 census recorded the population of Greater Sydney as 5,231,150, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'. Aboriginal Australians have inhabited the Greater Sydney region for at least 30,000 years, and Aboriginal engravings and cultural sites are common throughout Greater Sydney. The traditional custodians of the land on which modern Sydney stands are the ...
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John Bigge
John Thomas Bigge (8 March 1780 – 22 December 1843) was an English judge and royal commissioner. He is mostly known for his inquiry into the British colony of New South Wales published in the early 1820s. His reports favoured a return to the harsh treatment of convicts and the utilisation of them as cheap agricultural labour for wealthy sheep-farming colonists. Bigge's reports also resulted in the resignation of Governor Lachlan Macquarie whose policies promoted the advancement of ex-convicts back into society. Early life Bigge was born at Benton House, Northumberland, England, the son of Thomas Charles Bigge, High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1780. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School and Westminster School (1795), and in 1797 entered Christ Church, Oxford (B.A., 1801; M.A., 1804). Bigge was called to the Bar in 1806 and was appointed Chief Judge of Trinidad in 1814, a post he held for the next four years. The Bigge Inquiry In 1819, Bigge was appointed a special ...
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Port Jackson
Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea (part of the South Pacific Ocean). It is the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The location of the first European settlement and colony on the Australian mainland, Port Jackson has continued to play a key role in the history and development of Sydney. Port Jackson, in the early days of the colony, was also used as a shorthand for Sydney and its environs. Thus, many botanists, see, e.g, Robert Brown's ''Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen'', described their specimens as having been collected at Port Jackson. Many recreational events are based on or around the harbour itself, particularly Sydney New Year's Eve celebrations. The harbour is also the starting point of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht ...
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Sydney Heads
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". The 2021 census recorded the population of Greater Sydney as 5,231,150, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'. Aboriginal Australians have inhabited the Greater Sydney region for at least 30,000 years, and Aboriginal engravings and cultural sites are common throughout Greater Sydney. The traditional custodians of the land on which modern Sydney stands are th ...
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Semaphore Line
An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals. There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph which uses pivoted indicator arms and conveys information according to the direction the indicators point, and the shutter telegraph which uses panels that can be rotated to block or pass the light from the sky behind to convey information. The most widely used system was invented in 1792 in France by Claude Chappe, and was popular in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. This system is often referred to as ''semaphore'' without qualification. Lines of relay towers with a semaphore rig at the top were built within line of sight of each other, at separations of . Operators at each tower would watch the neighboring tower through a telescope, and when the semaphore arms began to move spelling out a message, they would pass the message on to the next tower. This s ...
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Convictism In Australia
Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia. The British Government began transporting convicts overseas to American colonies in the early 18th century. When transportation ended with the start of the American Revolution, an alternative site was needed to relieve further overcrowding of British prisons and hulks. Earlier in 1770, James Cook charted and claimed possession of the east coast of Australia for Britain. Seeking to pre-empt the French colonial empire from expanding into the region, Britain chose Australia as the site of a penal colony, and in 1787, the First Fleet of eleven convict ships set sail for Botany Bay, arriving on 20 January 1788 to found Sydney, New South Wales, the first European settlement on the continent. Other penal colonies were later established in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in 1803 and Queensland in 1824. Western Australia – established as Swan River Colony i ...
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John Hunter (Royal Navy Officer)
Vice Admiral John Hunter (29 August 1737 – 13 March 1821) was an officer of the Royal Navy, who succeeded Arthur Phillip as the second Governor of New South Wales, serving from 1795 to 1800.J. J. Auchmuty,Hunter, John (1737–1821), ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 1, MUP, 1966, pp 566–572. Retrieved 12 August 2009 Both a sailor and a scholar, he explored the Parramatta River as early as 1788, and was the first to surmise that Tasmania might be an island. As governor, he tried to combat serious abuses by the military in the face of powerful local interests led by John MacArthur. Hunter's name is commemorated in historic locations such as Hunter Valley and Hunter Street, Sydney. Family and early life John Hunter was born in Leith, Scotland, the son of William Hunter, a captain in the merchant service, and Helen, ''née'' Drummond, daughter of J. Drummond and niece of George Drummond, several-time lord provost of Edinburgh. As a boy Hunter was sent to live wit ...
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Fort Philip, Sydney
Fort Phillip was a citadel style fort constructed as part of the first defensive works of the penal settlement of Sydney, located on Observatory Hill in the Sydney suburb of , New South Wales, Australia. The fort has been demolished and the local government heritage-listed site repurposed as the Sydney Observatory. History Governor John Hunter ordered a fort to be built and Fort Phillip was commissioned in 1804 by the third New South Wales Governor (in office 1800–1806), Philip Gidley King, partly as a response to external threats such as a possible French attack in 1803 and partly due to the internal unrest from rebellious convicts reflected in Australia's only major convict rebellion at Castle Hill in March 1804. This was dubbed the Battle of Vinegar Hill as most of the convict rebels were Irish. Windmill Hill (later Observatory Hill) was chosen as a fort location as it was the highest point above the colony, affording commanding views of the Harbour approaches from east ...
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