Stories

Our houses, museums and collections are packed to the brim with stories of all kinds

Hero Image for PlayScapes

Inside the creative mind of Beastman

We spoke to Beastman about his art and how he created the vibrant, abstract patterns for PlayScapes

Window seat, c1840

Designed with intent: colonial vs modernist chairs

This selection of furniture juxtaposes the old with the new: early 19th-century colonial seating and modernist styles made over a hundred years later

Drawing room, Deputy Mint Master’s quarters, the Mint

Unexpected views

Over the decades, photographers have captured unexpected glimpses of the Mint’s history

Hearts and homes / composed by John Blockley, words by Charlotte Young

‘Gii, Gundhi (Hearts and Homes)’

A single song can have a thousand meanings depending on its interpreter. Yuwaalaraay storyteller and musician Nardi Simpson shares her version of a 19th-century parlour song

DES_M86_1550_1_3.jpg

Bicornes, bonnets & boaters

There’s a variety of headwear across our collections ranging in date from early to late nineteenth century

Black and white engraved illustration of shootout between bushrangers and police.

‘Well have we loved’

Awaiting execution at Darlinghurst Gaol in 1880, bushranger Captain Moonlite wrote moving letters describing his feelings for fellow gang member Jim Nesbitt

Exttremely colourful interior of room.

The colour-filled career of Marion Hall Best

Interior designer Marion Hall Best had a love of colour and an uncanny ability to use it to transform a room. Museums of History NSW holds the largest collection of Best’s work

A manuscript cookbook from Meroogal

Cooking was an integral part of the rhythm of life for the family at Meroogal, near Nowra on the south coast of New South Wales

Clay pipe with effigial bowl, spur and part stem with relief script. Maker Samuel Elliott, Sydney

Up in smoke: clay tobacco pipes

From the earliest days of the colony, Sydney-siders smoked them, broke them, and discarded them into drains, rubbish piles, work sites and hidden cracks and crevices of buildings

Conservation

Browse all
A women holds a large book open while she threads the pages together.

Conserving the archive

Supervising conservator Dominique Moussou talks through her work and some of the projects underway in the MHNSW conservation lab

Kitchen, 60 Gloucester Street, Susannah Place Museum

Susannah Place conservation project

A behind-the-scenes look at some of the complex work that goes into conserving and preserving the fascinating Susannah Place Museum

Photo of the Wentworth mausoleum with tabled light coming through the trees

Wentworth Mausoleum perimeter fence conservation

MHNSW is undertaking the first comprehensive conservation works to the fence surrounding the 1870s resting place of William Charles Wentworth

Rose Seidler (left) and Bea Evans seated in the living room, Rose Seidler House

Conserving Harry Seidler’s sofa 

A sofa Harry Seidler designed for Rose Seidler House was conserved and reupholstered, and the process revealed some unexpected findings

3D story telling

Browse all
Image of a 3D scan of a dark brown leather shoe on a dark background

Dodgy, dangerous, disturbing

3D models: a fascinating exploration of some seemingly innocent objects modified for nefarious purposes from the Justice & Police Museum collection

Elizabeth Farm house - front verandah and carriageway

'A most excellent brick house' Elizabeth Farm

Curator Dr Scott Hill explores some of the enduring mysteries buried in the architecture of Australia’s oldest surviving homestead

Sandstone headstone lying horizontal against dark background

Historic houses in 3D

A project to capture 3D scans of MHNSW properties will greatly assist conservation work and create exciting new interpretation opportunities far into the future

Person in red shirt kneeling in front of lifted floorboards removing debris.

Hyde Park Barracks: a keeper of lost things

Uncover and explore some of the items found inside the barracks

Convicts

Browse all
Chapter-3.jpg
Convict Sydney

Back to business

From 1822, with the British government keen to cut costs and encourage pastoral expansion, part three sees the removal of convicts from town.

Macquarie-composite-tall.jpg
Convict Sydney

For the civic good

With the Napoleonic Wars over in 1815 and Britain crowded with returned soldiers, poverty and crime, part two finds the colony swamped with incoming convicts.

Watercolour painting of two ships on the water, with sandstone outcrop in foreground and shoreline in background.

Why were convicts transported to Australia?

Until 1782, English convicts were transported to America, however that all changed after 1783

https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/Collection/Convicts/a-female-escape-artist-2-1024.jpg

10 Sep 1823 - escapee re-transported to NSW

On the 10th of September 1823 Susan Courtney was tried in England for returning from transportation.

Stories about our places

Deck, Rose Seidler House, April 2011

A new way of living

Once word spread about the newly built Rose Seidler House in 1950, it was the ‘most talked about house in Sydney’. Seventy years on, it's impossible to deny the strength and daring of Seidler's vision

The sofa in the morning room at Elizabeth Bay House

The finest house

In 1835 colonial secretary Alexander Macleay set about building the ultimate trophy house, a shimmering, classical styled jewel box, perched in rugged bushland on the northern side of present day Potts Point, high above Elizabeth Bay with majestic views across Sydney harbour and beyond

Joseph Lycett, 'The residence of John McArthur Esq. near Parramatta, New South Wales'. Aquatint. Published London, John Souter, 1825. Elizabeth Farm collection, Museums of History New South Wales.
Museum

A turbulent past

With its deep, shady verandahs and elegant symmetry, Elizabeth Farm is an iconic early colonial bungalow

The Schoolroom, Rouse Hill House & Farm, June 2004

Talk of the town

Six generations of Rouse and Terry families occupied Rouse Hill House from its construction in the early 1800s until the late 1990s, when it opened as a museum