1836 General Post Office Sydney.

Very rare early etching of Sydney’s first post office (1819 -1848).

Prior to the construction of the current GPO building, Sydney’s first post office was built along Bent Street in 1819. In 1830, the Bent Street post office was moved to its site on George Street. It was also at this time that a former police office (designed by Francis Greenway), situated on the current George Street facing site of the GPO was also converted to be part of the postal service in the 1830s. This new post office along George Street was designed by several early colonial architects including Mr. Abraham and Mr. Mortimer Lewis. Both these men are attributed with the design of the Roman Doric hexastyle portico and for the first time, setting this public building apart from its surrounding commercial shops. Writing about the newly modified post office in 1848, Joseph Fowles commented that it was “one of the most important buildings in the colony, not merely as regards to the structure, but as being the centre and focus, the heart, as it may be termed, from which the pulse of the civilisation throbs to the remotest extremity of the land.” 

References:
Butler, Printed Images in Colonial Australia 1801-1901, p. 69-70
Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia, 2390
Kerr, Dictionary of Australian Artists p.134-135

Collections:
National Gallery Australia: Accession no 2009.1108.29
National Library Australia: Bib ID 1249756