21/05/2020
mid-19th cent. Sydney
Do you notice anything unusual about this 1845 painting of the first Government House in Sydney?
You might have paused on the two camels quietly grazing on the lawn and wondered how they ended up in front of a major government building in the middle of Sydney.
According to the Library’s Rachel Franks, “The idea of bringing camels to Australia was met with excitement.”
“One of the earliest attempts to bring camels to the southern continent was made by a Mr J. Airdlie who imported two females and one male in the early 1840s.”
When Airdlie came to settle in Sydney, he asked George Gipps, the Governor of NSW, to take the camels in exchange for a land grant.
"And so, in the mid 1840s, along with the sheep, the goats, the kangaroos and the emus, there were three camels grazing on the Sydney Domain,” writes Rachel.
Read the full story via The Dictionary of Sydney: http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/the-camels-at-government-house/
View the artwork in detail: https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/digital/pXrGdQN5EmK4m
