SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)SMSA is pleased to announce that Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts: A History is now available for members to borrow as an eBook.
Borrow the eBook now
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About Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts: A History
The book, commissioned by the Board and written by Garry Wotherspoon to commemorate our 180th anniversary was Shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards, 2014. The judges called the book “a surprisingly engaging microcosm of Sydney’s history from 1833 through the lens of the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts”.
In it you’ll find the intriguing history of one of Sydney’s oldest institutions and its vital impact on colonial Sydney’s cultural, intellectual and economic life.
Discover the fascinating people and events that form the SMSA’s history. Our members have included multiple Prime Minsters (Edmund Barton, George Reid, Billy Hughes — and now, Malcolm Turnbull), poets Henry Lawson and Henry Kendall, women’s rights activist Louisa Lawson and the Father of Federation, Sir Henry Parkes and many more prominent Sydneysiders.
Yet some of the more amusing stories concern our less respectable members including noted eccentric and sex reformer William Chidley, who was removed from the library in a ‘state of undress’, and Thomas ‘Lemonade’ Ley, a NSW politician who murdered his romantic and political rivals.