Portal:New South Wales

Banksia serrata, commonly known as the saw banksia, the old man banksia, the saw-tooth banksia or the red honeysuckle and as wiriyagan by the Cadigal people, is a species of woody shrub or tree of the genus Banksia, in the family Proteaceae. Native to the east coast of Australia, it is found from Queensland to Victoria with outlying populations on Tasmania and Flinders Island. Commonly growing as a gnarled tree up to 16 m (50 ft) in height, it can be much smaller in more exposed areas. This Banksia species has wrinkled grey bark, shiny dark green serrated leaves and large yellow or greyish-yellow flower spikes appearing over summer. The flower spikes, or inflorescences, turn grey as they age and pollinated flowers develop into large, grey, woody seed pods called follicles.

B. serrata is one of the four original Banksia species collected by Sir Joseph Banks in 1770, and one of four species published in 1782 as part of Carolus Linnaeus the Younger's original description of the genus. There are no recognised varieties, although it is closely related to Banksia aemula. Throughout its range, it grows exclusively in sandy soil, and is usually the dominant plant in scrubland or low woodland. B. serrata is pollinated by and provides food for a wide array of vertebrate and invertebrate animals in the autumn and winter months, and is an important source of food for honeyeaters. It is a common plant of parks and gardens. (Full article...)

William Alfred Brown, OAM (31 July 1912 – 16 March 2008) was an Australian cricketer who played 22 Test matches between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one Test. A right-handed opening batsman, his partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history. After the interruption of World War II, Brown was a member of the team dubbed "The Invincibles", who toured England in 1948 without defeat under the leadership of Don Bradman. In a match in November 1947, Brown was the unwitting victim of the first instance of "Mankading".

Raised in New South Wales, Brown initially struggled in both work and cricket, before gradually rising through the cricket ranks. He made his first-class debut for New South Wales in the 1932–33 season and forced his way into the national side during the 1934 tour of England. When long-term openers Bill Ponsford and Bill Woodfull retired at the end of the tour, Brown and his state opening partner Fingleton took over. After poor form made his selection for the 1938 tour of England controversial, Brown responded with a total of 1,854 runs, including an unbeaten 206 that saved Australia from defeat in the Second Test, and was honoured as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. (Full article...)

Central Coast Mariners Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Gosford, on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It competes in the A-League Men, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The Mariners were founded in 2004 and are one of the eight original A-League teams. It is the first professional sports club from the Gosford region to compete in a national competition. Despite being considered one of the smallest-market clubs in the league, the Central Coast Mariners have claimed two A-League Championships from five Grand Final appearances and topped the table to win the A-League Premiership twice. The club has also appeared in the AFC Champions League five times.

The club plays matches at Central Coast Stadium, a 20,059-seat stadium in Gosford; its purpose-built training facility, Mariners Centre of Excellence, is located in the suburb of Tuggerah. The facility is also home to a youth team that competes in the A-League Youth. (Full article...)

Summer Hill is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Summer Hill is located 7 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Inner West Council.

Summer Hill is a primarily residential suburb of Sydney's Inner West, adjoining two of Sydney's major arterial roads, Parramatta Road and Liverpool Road. The first land grant was made in 1794 to former convict and jailor Henry Kable, and the suburb began growing following the opening of the railway station on the Main Suburban railway line, in 1879. (Full article...)

St John the Baptist Anglican Church is an active Anglican church located between Alt and Bland Streets, Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1840, on land donated by Elizabeth Underwood, the church building is the oldest authenticated surviving building in Ashfield, having been built at the time when subdivision increased the population density sufficiently to turn Ashfield into a town. It was also the first church built along the Parramatta Road which linked the early colonial towns of Sydney and Parramatta. The earliest remaining parts of the building are one of the first Sydney designs by the colonial architect Edmund Blacket, who later became renowned for his ecclesiastical architecture.

The expansive church grounds contain a cemetery dating back to 1845 that contains the remains of many notable Ashfield residents. Australia's only memorial to Australian Air Force Cadets occupies a prominent position near the entrance to the church. The St John's site has been listed on the Local Environment Plan Heritage Schedule, and the Register of the National Trust of Australia. (Full article...)

Edward Davis Millen (7 November 1860 – 14 September 1923) was an Australian journalist and politician who served as the first Minister for Repatriation.

Millen emigrated to Australia from England around 1880 and established himself as a journalist, subsequently serving in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1894 to 1898, during which time he fiercely opposed the proposed Federation despite supporting the principle. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1899 until his election to the Australian Senate as a Free Trader from New South Wales at the first federal election in 1901. Millen led the conservative parties in the Senate from 1907 until shortly before his death in 1923. (Full article...)

Raymond Russell Lindwall MBE (3 October 1921 – 23 June 1996) was an Australian cricketer who represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946 to 1960. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. He also played top-flight rugby league football with St. George, appearing in two grand finals for the club before retiring to fully concentrate on Test cricket.

A right-arm fast bowler of express pace, Lindwall was widely regarded as the greatest pace bowler of his era and one of the finest of all time. He modelled his action on the great England fast bowler Harold Larwood. Together with Keith Miller, Lindwall formed a new-ball pairing regarded as one of the greatest to have played cricket. Lindwall was known for his classical style, with a smooth and rhythmic run-up and textbook side-on bowling action, from which he generated his trademark outswinger which moved away late at high pace. Lindwall mixed his outswinger with a searing yorker, subtle changes of pace and an intimidating bouncer that skidded at the heads of opposing batsmen. Later in his career, Lindwall developed an inswinger, which together with his variety, pace and control made him the most feared paceman of his time. (Full article...)

Isopogon anethifolius, commonly known as narrow-leaf drumsticks or narrow-leafed drumsticks, is a shrub in the family Proteaceae. The species is found only in coastal areas near Sydney in New South Wales, and to the immediate west. It occurs naturally in woodland, open forest and heathland on sandstone soils. An upright shrub, it can reach to 3 m (9.8 ft) in height, with terete leaves that are divided and narrow. The yellow flowers appear in the Spring, from September to December, and are prominently displayed. They are followed by round grey cones, which give the plant its common name of drumsticks. The small hairy seeds are found in the old flower parts.

Isopogon anethifolius regenerates after bushfire by resprouting from its woody base, known as a lignotuber, as well as from seed. It was described by Richard Salisbury in 1796, and was first grown in the United Kingdom the same year. One of the easiest members of the genus Isopogon to grow in cultivation, I. anethifolius grows readily in the garden if located in a sunny or part-shaded spot with sandy soil and good drainage. (Full article...)

Matthew Charlton (15 March 1866 – 8 December 1948) was an Australian politician who served as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Leader of the Opposition from 1922 to 1928. He led the party to defeat at the 1922 and 1925 federal elections.

Charlton was born in Linton, Victoria, but as a child moved to Lambton, New South Wales. He left school at a young age to work in the coal mines, initially as a hurrier. Charlton became prominent in the trade union movement, and in 1903 was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the Labor Party. He switched to federal parliament in 1910. Charlton was an anti-conscriptionist, and remained with Labor after the party split of 1916. He was elected party leader in early 1922, following the death of Frank Tudor. He increased Labor's vote at the 1922 election but suffered a backwards slide in 1925. He resigned as leader in early 1928, succeeded by James Scullin, and left politics later that year. (Full article...)

Hannah Dodd (born 27 April 1992) is an Australian Grade IV equestrian and 1.0 point wheelchair basketball player who represented Australia in equestrian at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, coming 11th and 12th in her events. Switching to wheelchair basketball, she made her debut with the national team at the Osaka Cup in February 2015.

In 2008, Dodd was the Australian national Grade IV para-equestrian champion. She was runner-up in 2009, and won the Australian national championships again in 2011, along with the Oceania Championships and the National Titles team events. By 2012, she was the top-ranked Australian competitor in her event and class. (Full article...)

The Sydney punchbowls, made in China during the Jiaqing Emperor's reign (1796–1820) over the mid-Qing dynasty, are the only two known examples of Chinese export porcelain hand painted with Sydney scenes and dating from the Macquarie era. The bowls were procured in Canton about three decades after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson where the British settlement at Sydney Cove was established in 1788. They also represent the trading between Australia and China via India at the time. Even though decorated punchbowls were prestigious items used for drinking punch at social gatherings during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is not known who originally commissioned these bowls or what special occasion they were made for.

The punchbowls are a 'harlequin pair', similar but not exactly matching. The bowls have been donated independently, one to the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) in 1926 and the other to the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in 2006. The Library bowl is the more widely known of the pair. Its earliest provenance places it in England in the late 1840s, where it is said to originally have been commissioned for William Bligh; another source suggests Henry Colden Antill. It passed through several owners in Britain before it was presented to the State Library. The Museum bowl's first provenance is from England in 1932 and it has been suggested that it was made to the order of Arthur Phillip. Its whereabouts were unknown until it appeared in the Newark Museum, United States, in 1988, on loan from Peter Frelinghuysen Jr. Through donations, the Maritime Museum later acquired the punchbowl from Frelinghuysen. (Full article...)

From 31 May to 8 June 1942, during World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines made a series of attacks on the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle. On the night of 31 May – 1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines, (M-14, M-21 and M-24) each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. Two of the midget submarines were detected and attacked before they could engage any Allied vessels. The crew of M-14 scuttled their submarine, whilst M-21 was successfully attacked and sunk. The crew of M-21 killed themselves. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago, but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches.

Immediately following the raid, the five Japanese fleet submarines that carried the midget submarines to Australia embarked on a campaign to disrupt merchant shipping in eastern Australian waters. Over the next month, the submarines attacked at least seven merchant vessels, sinking three ships and killing 50 sailors. During this period, between midnight and 02:30 on 8 June, two of the submarines bombarded the ports of Sydney and Newcastle. (Full article...)

Mark Alan Webber AO (born 27 August 1976) is an Australian former racing driver who competed in Formula One from 2002 to 2013 and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) between 2014 and 2016. He is a champion of the 2015 FIA WEC for Porsche with German Timo Bernhard and New Zealander Brendon Hartley.

Webber began karting at age 12 or 13 and achieved early success, winning regional championships before progressing to car racing in the Australian Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship. He competed for two years opposite Bernd Schneider in the FIA GT Championship with the AMG Mercedes team, finishing runner-up in the 1998 season with five wins in ten races before finishing second in the 2001 International Formula 3000 Championship driving for Super Nova Racing. Webber made his F1 debut with the Minardi team in the 2002 season and finished fifth in his first race, the Australian Grand Prix. He moved to the Jaguar squad for the 2003 and 2004 championships. For the 2005 season, he was granted an early release from his contract with Jaguar and joined the Williams team, securing his first podium finish at the Monaco Grand Prix. Webber remained at Williams until 2006, driving for the Red Bull team for the rest of his F1 career. He won nine F1 Grands Prix, thirteen pole positions and finished third in the World Drivers' Championship in the 2010, 2011 and 2013 seasons. (Full article...)

Charles Hercules Green DSO (26 December 1919 – 1 November 1950) was an Australian military officer who was the youngest Australian Army infantry battalion commander during World War II. He went on to command the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), during the Korean War, where he died of wounds. He remains the only commanding officer of a Royal Australian Regiment battalion to die on active service. Green joined the part-time Militia in 1936, and before the outbreak of World War II had been commissioned as a lieutenant. He volunteered for overseas service soon after the war began in September 1939, and served in the Middle East and the Battle of Greece with the 2/2nd Battalion. After the action at Pineios Gorge on 18 April 1941, Green became separated from the main body of the battalion, and made his way through Turkey to Palestine, to rejoin the reformed 2/2nd Battalion. The 2/2nd Battalion returned to Australia in August 1942 via Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), to meet the threat posed by the Japanese.

Green performed instructional duties and attended courses until July 1943 when he rejoined the 2/2nd Battalion as its second-in-command. At the time, the unit was training in Queensland. From March to July 1945, Green commanded the 2/11th Battalion during the Aitape-Wewak campaign in New Guinea. For his performance during the campaign, Green was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. After the war, Green briefly returned to civilian life and part-time military service as commanding officer of the 41st Battalion. When the Regular Army was formed, Green returned to full-time service in early 1949. (Full article...)

John Cash Neild (4 January 1846 – 8 March 1911) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator from New South Wales from 1901 to 1910.

Neild's family arrived in Australia in 1860, and he worked as an insurance agent and company manager before winning election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1885. He served intermittently until 1901 and had a tumultuous career as a backbencher, eventually contributing significantly to the fall of the Reid government in 1899. He also established his own volunteer regiment, which had a difficult and sometimes hostile relationship with military command. (Full article...)

Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only established in 1961 as the Australian Soccer Federation. It was later reconstituted in 2003 as the Australian Soccer Association before adopting the name of Football Federation Australia in 2005. In contemporary identification, a corporate decision was undertaken to institute that name to deliver a "more united football" in a deliberation from the current CEO, James Johnson. The name was changed to Football Australia in December 2020.

Football Australia oversees the men's, women's, youth, Paralympic, beach and futsal national teams in Australia, the national coaching programs and the state governing bodies for the sport. It sanctions professional, semi-professional and amateur soccer in Australia. Football Australia made the decision to leave the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), for which it was a founding member, and become a member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on 1 January 2006 and ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) on 27 August 2013. (Full article...)

Blackheath (postcode: 2785) is a town located near the highest point of the Blue Mountains, between Katoomba and Mount Victoria in New South Wales, Australia. The town's altitude is about 1,065 m (3,494 ft) AHD  and it is located about 120 km (75 mi) west north-west of Sydney, 11 km (6.8 mi) north-west of Katoomba, and about 30 km (19 mi) south-east of Lithgow.

Blackheath has a vibrant artistic community and hosts two monthly markets – the Blackheath Growers Market and The Blackheath Community Market, as well as annual Christmas markets, antique markets and bimonthly craft markets. The town has many community activities, such as the Blackheath Philosophy Forum, which was founded in 2002 to arrange public discussion forums on philosophy and related topics. (Full article...)

Campbelltown is a suburb located on the outskirts of the metropolitan area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney 53 kilometres (33 mi) south-west of the Sydney central business district by road. Campbelltown is the administrative seat of the local government area of the City of Campbelltown. It is also acknowledged on the register of the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales as one of only four cities within the Sydney metropolitan area.

Campbelltown gets its name from Elizabeth Campbell, the wife of former Governor of New South Wales Lachlan Macquarie. Originally called Campbell-Town, the name was later simplified to the current Campbelltown. (Full article...)

Canterbury-Bankstown Council, trading as the City of Canterbury Bankstown, is a local government area in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The council was formed on 12 May 2016 from a merger of the City of Canterbury and the City of Bankstown, after a review of local government areas by the NSW Government.

The City of Canterbury Bankstown comprises an area of 110.8 square kilometres (42.8 sq mi) and as per the 2021 census, had a population of 371,006 making it the second most populous local government area in New South Wales. (Full article...)

Smoky Cape Lighthouse is a heritage-listed active lighthouse located on Smoky Cape, a headland in Arakoon east of the town of South West Rocks, Kempsey Shire, New South Wales, Australia, and within the Hat Head National Park. It directs boats towards the entrance to the Macleay River, which is located just to the north of the lighthouse.

It is one of the last major lighthouse complexes designed by the New South Wales colonial architect of the time, James Barnet, and was one of Australia's last lighthouses to be designed for architectural excellence.
Standing on a granite headland 111 metres (364 ft) above the sea, its light is the highest in New South Wales. (Full article...)

University House is a heritage-listed building in Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Located on the corner of King Street and Auckland Street, it was designed by architect Emil Sodersten in association with local architectural practice Pitt and Merewether. An example of Art Deco style, the design was inspired by the streamlined functionalism of contemporary architecture in Europe.

The building was constructed between 1937 and 1939 for the Newcastle Electricity Supply Council Administration and was originally known as N.E.S.C.A House. The interior, designed by Guy Allbut, originally comprised a demonstration theatre, showroom, offices and staff accommodation. In 1959, when Shortland County Council became responsible for electricity supply in the Hunter Region, they constructed a three-storey extension at the back of the building. A tower was added in 1967 and remodelling was carried out in 1969 and 1970. After the council vacated the building in 1987, a radio station and an architectural practice moved in. The building only sustained cosmetic damage during the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. In 1995, the University of Newcastle established a library there. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. (Full article...)

Nimbin is a town in the Northern Rivers area of the Australian state of New South Wales, approximately 30 km (19 mi) north of Lismore, 33 km (21 mi) northeast of Kyogle, and 70 km (43 mi) west of Byron Bay.

Nimbin is notable for the prominence of its environmental initiatives such as permaculture, sustainability, and self-sufficiency, as well as the cannabis counterculture. Writer Austin Pick described his initial impressions of the village this way: "It is as if a smoky avenue of Amsterdam has been placed in the middle of the mountains behind frontier-style building facades. ... Nimbin is a strange place indeed." (Full article...)

Keepit Dam is a major gated mass concrete gravity dam with an earth fill abutment and a central gated concrete overflow crest and six radial gate spillways across the Namoi River upstream of its junction with the Peel River in the North West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia. The dam's purpose includes flood mitigation, hydro-power, irrigation, water supply and conservation. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Keepit. (Full article...)

The history of New South Wales refers to the history of the Australian state of New South Wales and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. The Mungo Lake remains indicate occupation of parts of the New South Wales area by Indigenous Australians for at least 40,000 years. The British navigator James Cook became the first European to map the coast in 1770 and a First Fleet of British convicts followed to establish a penal colony at Sydney in 1788.

The colony established an autonomous parliamentary democracy from the 1850s and became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 following a vote to federate with the other British colonies of Australia. Through the 20th century, the state was a major destination for an increasingly diverse collection of migrants from many nations. In the 21st century, the state is the most populous in Australia, and its capital, Sydney is a major financial capital and host to international cultural and economic events. (Full article...)

Sport in New South Wales describes participation in and attendance at organised sports events in the state of New South Wales in Australia. Sport forms an integral part of the culture of the state.

New South Wales has attracted many international multi-sport events including the 2000 Summer Olympics, held in Sydney. There are many professional sporting teams in New South Wales. The biggest sport in the state by a wide margin is rugby league, in which the state has 10 professional clubs in the National Rugby League. Other popular spectator sports include rugby union, cricket, Australian rules football and soccer. In terms of participation, the most popular sports in the state are netball, tennis, soccer, rugby league and touch football. (Full article...)

The Hydro Majestic Hotel is located in Medlow Bath, New South Wales, Australia. The hotel is located on a clifftop overlooking the Megalong Valley on the western side of the Great Western Highway.

The hotel is heritage listed and is notable for its unusual mix of architectural styles, including Art Deco and Edwardian. One key feature is the Casino dome (pictured). The dome was bought in Chicago and shipped to Australia, before being shipped to the Blue Mountains by bullock train and reassembled at the site. (Full article...)

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, spanning Sydney Harbour from the central business district (CBD) to the North Shore. The view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is widely regarded as an iconic image of Sydney, and of Australia itself. Nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design, the bridge carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

Under the direction of John Bradfield of the New South Wales Department of Public Works, the bridge was designed and built by British firm Dorman Long of Middlesbrough, and opened in 1932. The bridge's general design, which Bradfield tasked the NSW Department of Public Works with producing, was a rough copy of the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City. The design chosen from the tender responses was original work created by Dorman Long, who leveraged some of the design from its own Tyne Bridge. (Full article...)

Geoffrey Lee (born c. 1967) is a former Australian politician. He served as the Minister for Corrections in the second Perrottet ministry between December 2021 and March 2023. He has previously served as the Minister for Skills and Tertiary Education in the second Berejiklian and Perrottet ministries between April 2019 and December 2021. Lee was also a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Parramatta for the Liberal Party since 2011 until his retirement in 2023. (Full article...)

The Australian state of New South Wales has an extensive network of railways, which were integral to the growth and development of the state. The vast majority of railway lines were government built and operated, but there were also several private railways, some of which operate to this day. (Full article...)

New England is a geographical region in the north of the state of New South Wales, Australia, about 60 km inland from the Tasman Sea. The area includes the Northern Tablelands (or New England Tablelands) and the North West Slopes regions. As of 2021, New England had a population of 185,560, with over a quarter of the people living in the area of Tamworth Regional Council. (Full article...)