Governor Phillip arrived with the First Fleet with the main aim to make the colony self supporting.

The first dwellings and early ‘official' buildings were crude huts made from wood that warped and shrank as it dried out. Bricks were poorly fired; there was lack of lime to make mortar and structures often collapsed in heavy rain.

By 1802 a map of Sydney shows approximately 70 huts, two windmills for grinding grain, storehouses and a Government wharf, a church and military battery.
Although Governor Lachlan Macquarie was often in conflict with the settlers he devoted a great deal of attention to the construction of roads and public buildings, on which convict labour was largely employed and many still remain, such as St. James Church, the foundations of St. Mary's Cathedral were laid, and the first wharf, called King's Wharf was constructed at Circular Quay. "Mrs Macquarie's Chair" was cut in one of the rocks overlooking the harbour.

The rocks were the focal point for early development in Sydney which still can be seen today.

There are more than one hundred heritage sites and buildings and the oldest house is Cadmans Cottage, built during this era in 1816. The Dawes Point Battery is the oldest remaining European structure, built in 1791, and three remaining walls of Fort Phillip on Observatory Hill, built 1804.

George Street in the Rocks was the first road built by Europeans on the Australian continent and its alignment has not changed since 1788.
Sydney began to show its independence from Britain when under pressure from its citizens England stopped transporting prisoners to the colony in 1840.

During this period Sydney was a successful and profitable city with a population of approximately 30,000 people. Wool, the whaling and sealing industries were providing the drive for this success with ships from Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa arriving in Sydney to exchange a variety of goods.

With buildings from this period showing the town's transformation.
In 1842 the City of Sydney was proclaimed and its first municipal council formed.
When gold was discovered in 1851 immigrants arrived from not only Europe and America but from China as well which still has its legacy today, with the southern part of Sydney known as ‘China Town'

Sydney's population continued to grow and by the end of the nineteenth century was one of the largest cities in the Western World with a population of half a million people.
Within the increase in wealth many of the inner city residents moved out of the area to comfortable homes set among gardens in the fashionable townships of Ashfield or St. Peters.

The outbreak of the plague in 1900 finally prompted action and many of the derelict and run down houses were demolished.
In 1932 the first of Sydney's two icons the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened so that motor vehicles and trains could cross the harbour.

It wasn't until 1973 that Sydney's second icon the Sydney Opera House opened to world acclaim.

Over the last two hundred years much has changed. Apartment blocks have replaced factories and terraces have been demolished to make way for shops and offices yet much of the past still exists where aged wharves have been transformed, former convict barracks, grand religious places and public offices are combined with the present to give Sydney its atmosphere