Caroline Simpson Library

A window to the past

The private collection of photographer Alan Spearman Evans reveals an exceptional photographic record of an average middle-class couple celebrating their life in suburban Sydney in the early to mid 20th century

Light fittings

A world of designs

Trade catalogues, published to illustrate the products for sale from a manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer, reveal the surprising wealth of choice available to Australian consumers in the 19th century

Sylvia Evans reading in her bedroom at Alwyn, Arncliffe, around 1927 / Alan Evans

Alan Spearman Evans Collection

The Alan Spearman Evans Collection comprises over 2000 photographic images of houses, house interiors, garden landscapes and industrial workplaces in NSW

A chair with curved timber arms that bend to become legs with a white abolstered seat.

An extraordinary collection

The Caroline Simpson Collection has become Australia’s leading source of information on the history of houses, interiors, furnishings, gardens and domestic life

Objects from the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection on display in the Scholars Gallery, Caroline Simpson Library
Reading Room

Caroline Simpson Library

A specialised resource centre on home and garden design, history and life

Longs Lane, The Rocks courtesy of Sibella Court
Past Event

Collections in Practice with Sibella Court

Join us for a fascinating conversation with interior designer and historian Sibella Court about her creative process

Objects from the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection on display in the Scholars Gallery, Caroline Simpson Library.

Conversations in collections

A series of talks that explore the fascinating stories behind the objects in the Caroline Simpson Library

Cool Colours

In Spring 2015, Museums of History NSW was asked if it could assist in the recreation of a 1950s colour palette for Hillary’s Hut, located at the Scott Base, Antarctica

Window seat, c1840

Designed with intent: colonial vs modernist chairs

This selection of furniture juxtaposes the old with the new: early 19th-century colonial seating and modernist styles made over a hundred years later