‘Sweet home’

This answer to Henry Bishop’s ‘Home! Sweet home!’ appears to have been a top seller in Sydney in the late 1850s. 

A British-born composer and performer, William Thomas Wrighton (1816–1880) was best known for hits such as ‘Her bright smile haunts me still’, ‘The postman’s knock’, and this song, ‘Sweet home’, or ‘The dearest spot of earth to me is home’, as it was better known in the United States.

Watch the performance

Anna Fraser, Nicole Forsyth and Luke Byrne have whipped up a trio version of ‘Sweet Home’ at home. Feeling inspired to have a go yourself?

Luke Byrne has put together some guitar chords to help you along and we’ve added a variety of other sources to inspire you.

This video was recorded at home in 2020 during a COVID-19 lockdown.

Supported by: City of Sydney

Group of people in front of historic house.

House Music at Your House

We delved into the hundreds of popular songs that survive in the collection at Rouse Hill Estate in north-west Sydney to bring you the top 20 hits of the 1840s and 50s – songs played across NSW, Australia and overseas

Published on 
Browse all
Owner bound volume of assorted songs, in the collection of Rouse Hill House & Farm, 1850-1864. [music]

‘Gii, Gundhi (Hearts and Homes)’

A single song can have a thousand meanings depending on its interpreter. Yuwaalaraay storyteller and musician Nardi Simpson shares her version of a 19th-century parlour song

Owner bound volume of assorted songs, in the collection of Rouse Hill House & Farm, 1850-1864. [music]

‘Hearts and Homes’

Little-known today, composer and music publisher John Blockley (1800-1882) was well-represented in the drawing rooms of Sydney in the 19th century

‘The Ballad Singer’

Romanticised themes of antiquated English traditions continued to feature in songs popular in Australia in the mid-nineteenth century

‘Too Late! Too Late!’

Keeping it in the family - we could say that this comic song is a ‘cousin-by-marriage’ of one of our previous songs