Digitising Powerhouse Object 347,172
1 of 500,000+ objects
Since 2019, Powerhouse has been undertaking one of the largest digitisation projects internationally. Our ambition is to digitise the whole collection which is comprised of over 500,000 objects. The 347,172nd object to be digitised is the Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition 1879, making this important document accessible online for the first time in its history.
Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879
The Sydney International Exhibition of 1879–1880 was one of the most significant public events in colonial Australia and the first World’s Fair held in the Southern Hemisphere. The Exhibition was mainly staged in the Garden Palace Exhibition Building in the Inner Domain, now part of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.
It featured 9345 exhibitors from 34 counties and colonies including New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, and was attended by more than 1.1 million visitors during its seven months of operation.
After the exhibition closed, the Garden Palace became home to several public and private organisations, including, in 1880, the earliest iteration of Powerhouse Museum.
Sadly, in the early morning of 22 September 1882 the entire structure burned to the ground, taking with it the museum’s initial collection as well as other irreplaceable records and objects. Items lost in the fire included returns from the 1881 Census (the first simultaneous Censuses of all the Australian colonies) and many First Nations objects held by the Australian Museum.
