This photograph of Oxford and Flinders streets was taken around December 1900, soon after the arrival of the first Governor-General of the Commonwealth, Lord Hopetoun, to appoint the head of the new Commonwealth ministry. Its creator Josephine Ethel Foster was keenly interested in the history of Sydney and was one of the first members of the Royal Australian Historical Society. In the early 1900s ‘Ethel’ (as she preferred to be called) used photography to document the changing nature of Sydney and capture buildings and streetscapes before they disappeared, and her photographs are an important early record of change in Sydney. In this image we see an early steam tram in front of a streetscape that would be virtually unrecognisable in 20 years due to changes to the buildings and the roadway.