Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News, Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, September 22, 1882, as seen from Macquarie Street

Supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News, Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, September 22, 1882, as seen from Macquarie Street

X980.1/1
Lithograph


The fire burnt ferociously, destroying the entire building and its contents. The foundation collection of the Technological and Sanitary Museum, due to open on 1 December 1882, was lost in the fire. This collection contained significant ethnological specimens such as Australian Indigenous artefacts, many of which were acquired from the Sydney International Exhibition. Collections belonging to the Linnean Society and Arts Society of New South Wales were also lost, as was the colony’s 1881 census, documents relating to land occupation and railway surveys. 

The ferocious fire

In the early hours of 22 September 1882 tragedy struck when the Garden Palace was engulfed by fire. Among the building’s contents — all destroyed — was the foundation collection of the Technological and Sanitary Museum, due to open on 1 December 1882. This collection included significant ethnological specimens such as Australian Indigenous artefacts, many of which were acquired from the Sydney International Exhibition. Collections belonging to the Linnean Society and Arts Society of New South Wales were lost, as was the colony’s census of 1881, documents relating to land occupation and railway surveys. The fire was so ferocious that the windows in the terraces along Macquarie Street cracked with the heat and sheets of corrugated iron were blown as far away as Elizabeth Bay. 

Despite very little surviving the fierce fire, the Library has in our collection a piece of molten glass that was retrieved from the remains of the Garden Palace and donated to the Library in 1974.