Paul Robeson was the first person to perform at Sydney Opera House.Work commenced in 1959 and involved 10,000 construction workers. Construction was expected to take four years.Jørn Utzon from Denmark was announced the winner, receiving ₤5000 for his design. 233 designs were submitted for the Opera House international design competition held in 1956.The final cost was $102 million and it was largely paid for by a State Lottery.

The original cost estimate to build Sydney Opera House was $7 million.Bennelong Point was named after Woollarawarre Bennelong, a senior Eora man at the time of the arrival of British colonisers in Australia in 1788. Sydney Opera House sits on Bennelong Point.It was replaced with a gun battery.Īfter the government forcibly removed local Aboriginal people who camped there, Bennelong Point became a busy wharf and landing area and eventually a tram depot. Two years later, after Bennelong left Sydney for Britain with Phillip, the settlers demolished his house, which had become a gathering place for Aboriginal people. Bennelong had been helping the colonists learn Eora customs and language and Phillip readily complied with his request. In 1790, Bennelong, of the Wangal group of the Eora people, asked Governor Arthur Phillip to build him a brick house at the far end of Limeburner’s Point.

The first colonists called the peninsula Cattle Point, and then Limeburner’s Point, because they burnt the oyster shells discarded there by the Gadigal to make lime for much-needed building mortar. Gadigal people know what is now called Bennelong Point as Jubgalee or Tubowgule, meaning white mud or clay. The peninsula was an important site for the local Gadigal group of the Eora people who regularly visited to fish and gather oysters. When the first British colonists arrived at Sydney Cove in January 1788, they unloaded their livestock and supplies onto what is now known as Bennelong Point. Bennelong Had a Point by Blak Douglas (Adam Hill) and Hugh Ramage, 2012

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