Mark Speakman
Minister for the Environment
Minister for Heritage
Assistant Minister for Planning
MEDIA RELEASE
Monday 1 June 2015
MINISTER WELCOMES FUNDING FOR SYDNEY HERITAGE MUSEUMS
NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman today welcomed almost $2 million in funding for
two of Sydney’s best known living museums.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has announced funding for Hyde Park Barracks
Museum and the Museum of Sydney - the site of the first Government House.
The grants have been made under the Australian Government’s Protecting National Historic
Sites Programme, with $1 million for Hyde Park Barracks and $820,000 for Museum of
Sydney.
“I’m delighted with this funding for Hyde Park Barracks Museum and Museum of Sydney, two
significant properties with a rich history and connection back to the earliest period of British
colonial settlement,” Mr Speakman said.
Hyde Park Barracks was Sydney’s principal prison between 1819 and 1848 and is now a
UNESCO World Heritage-listed public museum and site with an internationally significant
archaeological collection.
The funding will ensure Hyde Park Barracks Museum continues to meet UNESCO World
Heritage Standards, by enabling Sydney Living Museums to revisit the site’s conservation
management plan as well as to investigate ways to improve the visitor experience.
“The Barracks is one of our most visited sites,” Mr Speakman said.
Now part of Museum of Sydney, the site of the first Government House, with its intact
archaeological collection, is significant as the only tangible link to the first year of European
settlement, colonial government and the development of Sydney.
The funding will ensure the development of a new conservation management plan for the first
Government House and enable us to investigate ways to enhance visitor interpretation and to
improve access to the original 1788 archaeological remnants.
Sydney Living Museums manages and cares for 12 of the most important historic houses,
gardens and museums in NSW, Elizabeth Farm, Vaucluse House, Susannah Place Museum
and Museum of Sydney.
Visitors can discover the histories of these sites and the many people connected to them, from
convicts and free settlers, Aboriginal clans and colonists, to troopers and bushrangers.
Media: Lance Northey 0437 506 637