Restored ... a conservator works on a bust of William Wentworth, who 200 years ago found a way across the Blue Mountains. Photo: Wolter Peeters
NSW politics has never been for the faint-hearted, but it is hard to imagine Barry O'Farrell settling a political dispute with a pistol.
Yet his 19th-century predecessor, Stuart Donaldson, then a member of the Legislative Council, did not hesitate when challenged to a duel by an irate Thomas Mitchell, the NSW surveyor-general.
The two men argued first in the letters pages of the Herald before turning to their pistols in Centennial Park in 1851, according to the manager of NSW's parliamentary records and archives, Nicola Forbes.
The surf life-savers' reel holding a wartime petition demanding limits on alcohol sales. Photo: Supplied
''Several shots were fired by both of them but no one was injured,'' she says.
The duel is one of 25 stories told in Twenty Five: Stories from Australia's First Parliament, an exhibition of artefacts and artworks from the NSW Parliament's archives that opens on Wednesday.
Bicentennial special ... the Queen visits NSW Parliament in 1954. Photo: Supplied
The exhibition at the NSW Parliament includes a journal of La Perouse's voyage of exploration published in 1797, the Settlers Muster of 1800 and contemporary works by indigenous artists featured on its Reconciliation Wall.
A bust of the explorer and politician William Wentworth has also been restored to mark the 200th anniversary of his expedition to cross the Blue Mountains in 1813.
Parliament's archives are generally not open to the public and Forbes says items such as the Muster, the first census taken in the state, have never been displayed before.
''It's a bit of a risk putting these thing on display,'' she says. ''We had to balance their fragility with the need for people to see them.''
Other items on display include a petition of more than 30,000 signatures calling for the restriction on the sale of alcohol during World War II, which was so large it was presented to Parliament on a wooden surf life-saving reel.
Forbes says the stories behind exhibits such as the petition and a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes, who made a famous speech at Tenterfield in 1889 calling for federation of the Australian colonies, showed that politics had been less distant from the people in the past.
Other exhibits such as 19th-century plans to extend rail lines to Parramatta and from Central to Circular Quay, show that concerns over infrastructure and transport are a perennial issue in the state's politics.
Sketches of the parliamentary mace will also be exhibited although, unlike the history of the Victorian Parliament's mace, reportedly stolen in 1891 and last seen at a brothel, Forbes says there is no scandal behind this particular item.
''We're aware of nothing that ended up in a brothel,'' she says.
Indeed, tales of corrupt behaviour are absent from the exhibition although the parliamentary archives includes what Forbes says is ''the good, the bad, all of that is in there''.
She says the archives also contained items given to Parliament under privilege that could not be put on public display.
The president of the Legislative Council, Don Harwin, says the exhibition is designed to entertain as well as tell the story of the state through the role of Parliament.
Harwin describes the NSW Parliament, which incorporates the old Rum Hospital, the oldest public building in continuous use in Australia, as an extraordinary place, and says the hospital was ''arguably built as Australia's first private-public partnership''.
''It was built on the cheap and we've had problems with it ever since,'' he says.
But he adds: ''It's just an enormous privilege having an association with the building and being responsible for its stewardship.''
Twenty Five: Stories from Australia's First Parliament is on at the NSW Parliament until March 1
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