International Map Year 2015-2016

I must admit that I lose track of the plethora of "Year of"s. However, being a passionate historian, and Family Historian, this one holds a spot close to my heart. This exhibit is at the State Library of NSW in the over-bridge to the Galleries and Exhibition Rooms. It is one of my favourite spaces in the library complex, little used as most visitors use the stairs rather than the elevator. Their heads-up to International Map Year centres upon the production of a series of Sydney Suburban Borough maps in the mid 1890s, by Higinbotham & Robinson. The boundaries of the local parish are included in the municipality map. These parishes do not refer to religious divisions, but to the system used to record land ownership in our state from 1835. I live in the municipality of Willoughby. Back in 1890, it was mostly bush in my part of Sydney. The first estate was not carved out in the suburb of Castlecrag until 1920.