The Sydney General Post Office: a metaphor for Australian Federation

The Sydney General Post Office was commissioned in 1862 to accommodate the postal and telegraphic services that linked the British colony of New South Wales to the rest of the world. Completed over three decades to the design of Colonial Architect James Barnet, it was conceived as the colony’s “centre and focus, the heart … from which the pulse of civilisation throbs to the remotest extremity of the land.”