William Charles Wentworth
Eavesdropping on the Wentworths
A new self-guided audio tour is available at Vaucluse House, revealing what it was like to live and work there in the middle years of the 19th century
My Fathers Were But Strangers Here
William Charles Wentworth was a nineteenth century hero in a land still described by twentieth century commentators as possessing no heroes
Museum stories
Not a lovelier site
‘There is not a lovelier site in the known world’, wrote the Sydney-born barrister and novelist John Lang about the Wentworth family’s estate of Vaucluse
Promised in marriage, courting in Colonial NSW
Free men and women who courted were considered to be ‘promised in marriage’. When a promise of marriage was broken—or breached—the offending party could be pursued through the civil courts for the value of ‘lost expectations’
Putting Wentworth to rest
Edward Champion describes the massive public funeral of William Charles Wentworth and explains why Sydney-siders mourned in such unprecedented scale
Reviving Vaucluse House
The drawing room refurbishment draws upon authentic sources and traditional trades to re-create a room that the Wentworths might have known, while the orientation room has been redesigned to enhance visitors’ understanding of the site’s complex history
The leprechaun in the garden
Most of us have some childhood memory – or something half-imagined, half-remembered – of a garden of seemingly infinite adventure, far from the reasonable world of grown-up things
Vaucluse House: a centenary
A century after the honorary board of trustees voted to form Vaucluse House as a museum, we celebrate their vision and pay tribute to the role Sydney Living Museums (now Museums of History NSW) has played in preservation, conservation and interpretation
Wentworth Mausoleum perimeter fence conservation
MHNSW is undertaking the first comprehensive conservation works to the fence surrounding the 1870s resting place of William Charles Wentworth