Guest Speaker:
Warren Fahey, AM
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when Warren Fahey presents...
Our guest speaker will be Warren Fahey - author, social historian and local legend.
Warren’s latest book is Dead and Buried: a curious history of Sydney’s earliest burial grounds, which looks at Sydney’s three earliest cemeteries.
Cemeteries hold so many fascinating stories. Sydney’s three main earliest cemeteries – The Old Burial Ground on George Street, Devonshire Street ‘Sandhill’s’ Cemetery and the grand Victorian Rookwood Necropolis – all document the social history of Sydney from the arrival of the First Fleet through to the present time. These are stories of notable and ordinary people, architecture, landscaping, and the ever-changing attitude to burial and remembrance.
This collection of stories attempts to explain how the three early cemeteries evolved and, considering Rookwood is the most significant Victorian necropolis in the southern hemisphere and one of the largest in the world, how it has serviced Sydney for over 150 years. These are not morbid stories but a reminder of the mortality we all face. Many of the stories are from newspaper accounts and obituaries. There are also many stories where the writer has diverted from the main story to reveal fascinating glimpses of yesteryear’s Sydney and society.
As a slice of Sydney past, the material concentrates on the earlier side of history with tales of colonial notables, sensational murders, tragedies, poets and politicians, artists and dreamers, gallant heroes and, because it is a Sydney history, a goodly number of eccentrics, ratbags and rabble-rousers. The collection also represents the religious, non-religious and ever-widening cultural diversity of Sydney.
In digging up Sydney’s early history Warren Fahey relates tales of notable burials and the good, bad and ugly of Sydney city. The illustrated talk also comments on changing attitudes to death, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
About Warren Fahey
Warren is an Australian folklore collector, cultural historian, prolific author, actor, broadcaster, record and concert producer, visual artist, songwriter, performer of Australian traditional and historical music, and occasional ABC ‘talking head’.
Specialising in the ‘curious’ side of history, he is well-known as an informative and entertaining speaker. He has been honoured with the Order of Australia, Prime Minister’s Centennial Medal, Advance Australia Award and the nation’s highest award for lifetime achievement in music, The Don Banks Music Award. He prefers to say he is “a graduate of the Dingo University!”
Dead & Buried is 700 pages with rare photographs and illustrations, and copies will be available for $35. Credit/debit cards accepted.
As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.
The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).
It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.
For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.
