In 1788, the First Fleet came to the bay to establish a penal colony, but Governor Phillip decided it was unsuitable: the waters of the bay were so shallow that his sailing vessels had to anchor opposite the entrance and so were exposed to easterly winds; moreover, the water supply was inadequate, the soils were sandy and some of the foreshores were swampy, which Phillip considered would be unhealthy. He therefore transferred the site of settlement to Port Jackson, some 9km North.

It is now an industrial suburb about 9km South of Sydney and has been developed into a major harbour.

To the north of the Bay is the industrial suburb of Botany, supporting such industries as engineering, wool-scouring, tanning and the manufacture of resins and fibreglass. At Kurnell on the south-eastern shore there is an oil refinery

The Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, serving both domestic and international aircraft, is located on the NW shore of the bay. The largest runway at Sydney airport has been built on land reclaimed from the sea and projects into the bay.

Headlands on either side of the entrance to the Bay have been declared historic reserves.

When it was completed in 1932, it was the largest of its type in the world; it is still among the largest single-arch bridges.

The maximum height of the arch above mean high tide water is 135m. The length of the span is 503m, while the total length of the bridge, including approaches, is almost 3.9km. The grey granite pylons stand 87m high.

The bridge was designed by a British firm, Dorman Long of Middlesborough; the supervising engineer was Dr J.J.C. Bradfield whose name has been given to a major highway which crosses the bridge.

The bridge carries an eight-lane roadway (which originally included tramways), pedestrian, dual railway tracks.

It took nine years to build and at the official opening, on 19 March 1932 The proceedings were disrupted when an officer of the New Guard cut the ceremonial ribbon before the Premier of NSW, J.T. LANG, could do so.

The prize was established as part of the terms of the will of influential journalist J.F. Archibald (1856-1919), co-founder and editor of the Bulletin. It is administered by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and awarded annually. The prize represents a tenth of the profits of Archibald’s estate (in 2008 the prize was AU$50,000).

Controversy

The awarding of the prize has been controversial in some years.

In 1933, the prize, awarded for Charles Wheeler’s Ambrose Pratt, was withdrawn because, according to the Solicitor-General, the winner had painted from a photograph, not from life, and therefore had not fulfilled the requirements of the competition.

In 1944 the prize became the centre of a legal case which dominated the Australian newspapers for several days. Two competitors with traditional views on painting challenged the award made by the trustees in 1943 to William Dobell for his portrait of the artist Joshua Smith. This case was heard before Mr Justice Roper in the NSW Supreme Court, but the plaintiffs’ claim, that the painting was a caricature rather than a portrait and therefore ineligible, was not upheld.

In 1953, students demonstrated against the awarding of the prize for the seventh time to William Dargie.

In 1975, John Bloomfield was awarded the prize for his portrait of the film producer, Tim Burstall. His subsequent statement at a Press interview that he had worked from photographs, and that Burstall had not sat for him, aroused considerable interest. The trustees, in order to clear the air, and concerned that this admission might throw their decision into doubt, referred the matter to the State Attorney-General’s Office, who ruled that working exclusively from photographs violated the intention of the Archibald Trust. The trustees therefore had no alternative but to withdraw the award.

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By his insistence on an appropriate diet (including limes) and cleanliness in the men’s quarters of the Endeavour, he prevented scurvy, a common illness amongst ships’ crews at that time. In his vessel, Endeavour, he left England in 1768 for the South Pacific carrying Sir Joseph Banks, a fellow of the Royal Society, and other scientists, with orders to observe the transit of Venus, to seek for a southern continent, and annex any new lands in the name of the King of Great Britain.

After three months at Tahiti and the completion of successful planetary observations, Cook sailed west, discovered the Society Islands, then circumnavigated and charted the coast line of both islands of New Zealand.

He surveyed the east coast of Australia, landing at Botany Bay, and sailed through Torres Strait, establishing the fact that Australia and New Guinea were separate islands. He continued the voyage to Batavia and returned to England by the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1772 he set out on a further voyage, verifying the positions of some already known islands, and discovering others. He sailed down into the Antarctic and again returned via South Africa. His final voyage, begun in 1776, was an attempt to find the N.W. Passage from the Pacific. In its course he coasted along the W. shores of N. America, surveyed the Bering Strait, touched Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands, and, returning, put in at Hawaii, where he was killed in a fight with the natives.

He wrote accounts of his voyages, which make fascinating records of adventure.

When the government announced in 1955 that an international competition would be held to find a design for an opera house, worldwide interest was aroused. On 29 January 1957 the first prize was awarded to a Danish architect, Joern Utzon, who submitted his sketches without ever having visited Australia, basing his drawings on photographs of Sydney Harbour and the site. Almost immediately after construction began, doubts arose as to the feasibility of building the roof sections (or shells) as originally planned. After much controversy the system of constructing the roof was modified and in the process the shape of the roof slightly altered. In 1967 the last roof section was lowered into place.

Meanwhile, in 1965, a new government had come into office and early in 1966, following disagreement with government officials and engineers over methods of construction, Utzon resigned as architect. Some months later he was replaced by a panel of Sydney architects consisting of Peter Hall, David Littlemore and Lionel Todd. On the advice of the panel much of the interior of the building was redesigned, the major change being that the smaller hall was to become the Opera Theatre and the larger auditorium, to be known as the Concert Hall, would henceforth be the permanent home of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. This arrangement of the functions of the two main halls engendered further controversy among a public already dissatisfied over rising costs and concerned that the building would be used solely for operas and classical performances. However, it had always been intended that the Opera House would be available for all forms of entertainment. Thus, while full-scale productions of opera and ballet are held in the Opera Theatre, the Concert Hall is available for performances of every form of music—symphony concerts, chamber recitals, pop, jazz, and folk concerts, as well as solo performances. Besides the Concert Hall and the Opera Theatre, the complex houses a Drama Theatre, Music Room, Exhibition Hall, Recording Hall and two restaurants, as well as rehearsal rooms and a dining room for artists and staff.

The cost of constructing this unique building was astronomical. From an original estimate of $7 million, costs soared until the final figure was in excess of $100 million. This was financed mainly by profits from NSW State Lotteries; other sources of revenue were the government and public appeals. The Opera House is so highly regarded throughout the world that a picture of it as one of the world’s greatest engineering feats was included in a space probe, the contents of which were designed to portray the earth, its people and its technology to any would-be interceptor from another world.

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