Building Sydney: Convict Worksites

Look up at the beams above you in the ‘Building Sydney: Convict Work sites’ gallery. 

Convicts cut down huge hardwood trees on Dharug Country and brought them to Sydney to construct the Barracks and other buildings. 

Look closely at the bricks that form the walls and the mortar that binds the bricks together. 

The walls of the Hyde Park Barracks were built using local materials, including clay for making bricks, and fragments of oysters and other shells that are still visible in the mortar. Shells were collected from the harbour nearby then crushed, burned, and slaked in water to produce lime. A large number of shells was needed to construct the Barracks and other buildings in Sydney and by the 1840s, oysters were in short supply. Local Aboriginal people saw, and still see, these shell fragments in the walls as evidence of the destruction of Country and the loss of food resources. Like most colonial-era structures, the Barracks was completely made by hand, using materials taken from Aboriginal Country.

The decision to build the Barracks tells us about the intentions of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie in the 1810s. Before the Barracks was built, convicts lived in the town alongside free settlers. Macquarie sought greater control over the convicts. Building the Barracks allowed him to have closer surveillance over the male convicts and to enforce tighter restrictions over their lives. The construction of the Barracks was also part of a larger project to build and expand the colony, supplying convict labour for new building projects. 

This gallery uses models to tell the story of the building of Sydney. The models show how clay, wood and stone were removed from Country and used to construct European-style buildings, and structures such as roads and bridges.

Explore this gallery via the virtual tour (matterport) below.

Watch the video below to see how these models were made.

First Nations perspectives

Professor Michael McDaniel AO explains that colonial history can be understood in different ways depending on a person’s perspective. He calls this ‘contested history’. From a non-Indigenous perspective, colonisation and the colonial system of government were a positive achievement. But for First Nations people, they caused destruction and suffering.

In this next video Peter White, Head of First Nations Cultural Engagement at Museums of History NSW, speaks about what the Hyde Park Barracks symbolises for Aboriginal people.