How Lady Elizabeth Macquarie lost her life attempting to secure funding for an opera house at Bennelong Point.
Lachlan Macquarie is remembered by history as the governor who, through his energy and vision, turned the corrupt, rum-ruled, tent-and-dirt-track settlement of Sydney Town into the beginnings of a city. What history fails to record is that his beloved and loyal wife Elizabeth was the first to envisage an opera house at Bennelong Point and in pursuit of that vision lost her life.—Bill Harding