Rare and detailed coastal profiles of Port Jackson drawn in Sydney by James Glen Wilson and lithographed by the local lithographic studio, Allan and Wigley of 23 Bridge Street. The artist, an Irishman who arrived on the Denham expedition but later chose to settle in Sydney, depicts North and South Heads and the lighthouse, giving detailed illustrations of shipping, bathymetric soundings and a wide record of Sydney buildings.

Rare and detailed coastal profiles of Port Jackson drawn in Sydney by James Glen Wilson and lithographed by the local lithographic studio, Allan and Wigley of 23 Bridge Street. The artist, an Irishman who arrived on the Denham expedition but later chose to settle in Sydney, depicts North and South Heads and the lighthouse, giving detailed illustrations of shipping, bathymetric soundings and a wide record of Sydney buildings.

HMS Herald arrived in Sydney in 1853 under the command of Captain Henry Mangles Denham: "the arrival in Sydney on February 19th, 1853 of this scientific officer of long experience was an important event in the progress of the Australian marine surveys… " (Ingleton, Charting A Continent). Denham charted the land masses and suspected shipping hazards in Port Jackson between February and December 1857, with the Admiralty publishing his much better known map "Australia, Port Jackson" in 1859.

His close survey of Port Jackson formed a part of the Herald's hydrographic survey throughout the South Pacific which, beginning in 1852, continued to 1861. The Herald also worked in Shark's Bay, Western Australia, the Fijian Islands, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island and was involved in the search for Benjamin Boyd throughout the Pacific, and in the wreck of the Dunbar just off Sydney Heads.

Widely celebrated, and knighted for his contribution to hydrographic services, Denham was appointed Commander in Chief of the Pacific Station in 1864. Denham in Western Australia was named for him, and in 1858 his ship was celebrated in Sydney by the publication of a music sheet entitled Herald Waltzes.

The profiles are (abbreviated from the captions):

The Outer South Head — Light-House bearing West…;

Appearance of the Inner South Head when rounding into the Eastern Channel of the Sow and Pigs Bar [and] the new (Eastern) Obelisks…;

Inner view of the South Head with Lighthouse…;

Elizabeth Bay House in line with Bradley Point…;

Craig-end Mill in line with Bradley Point…;

St. James's Church its breadth open of Bradley Pt.