Below you’ll find a changing selection of highlights from our collection and past exhibitions, plus fascinating stories and hands-on activities for your next crafternoon session.
We hope you will check in regularly to gain inspiration and discover something new.
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Member magazine
Unlocked is filled with great articles and posted straight to your door. Check out a selection of past issues now available online.
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Kids activities
Get creative with our activities and crafts inspired by our museums and stories. Find printouts, art projects and more.
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Discover SLM
Your weekly summary of what's new, including in the kitchen and the garden. Settle in for some good long reads.
Collection highlights
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Baubles, brooches & beads
We wear jewellery as articles of dress and fashion and for sentimental reasons – as tokens of love, as symbols of mourning, as souvenirs of travel. Across our collection we find jewellery bought and worn for all these reasons, including an Irish parure composed of Irish harps and shamrocks from Rouse Hill House, a gold ring set with ruby and pearls from Vaucluse House, a cloisonné enamel brooch from Meroogal and a brooch found in the archaeology of Hyde Park Barracks. Find out more.
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Come in spinner!
Most of the gambling-related objects in our collection are found in the Justice & Police Museum, including items seized in police raids. A rigged Chocolate Wheel, for example, shows how crooks bent on ensuring that the odds are always in their favour have taken advantage of the public taste for games of chance. The archaeology of Hyde Park Barracks contains a number of game counters hinting at illicit convict games and Susannah Place Museum yields some examples of gambling-related ephemera. Find out more.
Exhibition highlights
Femme Fatale: the Female Criminal
This touring exhibition examined the stereotypes of female criminals portrayed in popular culture, myth, literature and history. The brutal reality of notorious female criminals such as ‘the man woman murderer’ Eugenia Falleni, sly grogger Kate Leigh and poisoner Yvonne Fletcher is in stark contrast to the glamour of the noir seductress and pulp novel siren. This exhibition traversed criminological theory, popular culture and the true stories of some of our most notorious female criminals. Read on.
The Wild Ones: Sydney Stadium 1908-1970
This exhibition celebrated one of Sydney’s most iconic venues, the Sydney Stadium, which was fondly known as ‘The Old Tin Shed’. From its early days as a rough-and-ready open-air boxing arena to the heights of hysteria when the Beatles rolled into town, the stadium charted the evolution of entertainment in Sydney. Now demolished, it played host to numerous boxing and wrestling legends, as well as international music stars the likes of which Sydney had never before seen. Read on.
Flying Boats: Sydney's Golden Age of Aviation
1938 saw the dawn of a golden age of aviation when Rose Bay became home to Sydney’s first international airport, servicing the mighty flying boats – large, luxurious, four-engine aircraft that alighted on water. Flying boats played a vital role in World War II, and after the war they opened up the South Pacific and Lord Howe Island as popular holiday playgrounds for Australians. As a result Sydney operated the last major flying boat base in the world until 1974. Read on.
Watch & listen
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Peter Garrett and the Hyde Park Barracks
Duration: 2:09
Peter Garrett and the Hyde Park Barracks
Former politician, musician and activist Peter Garrett AM talks about the Hyde Park Barracks renewal and why it's important to support this once-in-a-generation project.
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Growing up at Elizabeth Farm
Duration: 5:38
Growing up at Elizabeth Farm
Curator Scott Hill talks about childhood and the Macarthur family at Elizabeth Farm in the early years of colonial Sydney.
Duration: 5:38
Meet the team
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Anna Cossu, Curator
Inspired by wonderful and slightly eccentric history teachers and after her own foray as a teacher, Anna found herself drawn to the world of museums. Read more.
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Dr Scott Hill, Curator
Formal studies in architecture, along with travels through Asia and Europe, furthered his interest in colonial buildings, domestic design, the relationship between architecture and landscape. Read more.
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Steve Goldsworthy, Horticulturist
I’ve always been interested in the native bush and, when I was younger, I did a lot of surfing as well. I’ve got that affiliation with nature and the outdoors. Read more.
Contact us
Membership Office
W slm.is/members
T +61 2 8072 4515
E membership@slm.com.au