The conservation team, pictured, found a fragment of The Sydney Morning Herald from 1883 inside this sunfish. Credit:Natural History Museum, London News of the restoration came to light when the presenter of ABC radio's Science Show, Robyn Williams, was in London recently and was astounded to be shown the huge original sunfish. "I was in the basement of the museum and I came around a corner and saw a sunfish and i just went: 'My god, it's gigantic! It's the size of a small car,' " Williams said. Williams will take a look at the fish in his program on Radio National on Saturday at noon. The fish was collected in Sydney Harbour by the zoologist Edward Ramsay on December 12, 1882.

"It was found aground near Chadwick's Mills in Darling Harbour. It was seen first among the shipping and for some unknown reason forced up between the vessels and the shallows into black mud," according to Gilbert Whitley's Studies in Ichthyology (1931). It weighed "1 ton 3cwt [1166 kilograms]" and was "eight feet [2.4 metres] in length and 11 feet [3.4 metres] from tip to tip of the fins". The still-living fish was lifted by crane onto a truck on the wharf where "some fools began to hack it about the head and pectoral fin with an axe and greatly mutilated it". The foreman intervened and sent the fish to the Australian Museum. A southern ocean sunfish, Credit:Australian Museum/Henry Barnes snr

Not only did this fish end up with part of a Herald stuffed inside it, the Herald itself reported on its landing - in its "Social" column, no less. The Sydney Morning Herald of December 28, 1882, said: "An enormous sunfish was discovered stranded in Darling Harbour on December 12 and Mr Robert Chadwick, sawmill proprietor, very promptly set some of his men to work with derrick and tackle to secure the monster and haul it up high and dry. "Several peculiarities in its structure render it likely that it is of a species hitherto undescribed." And so it was. Mark McGrouther is in charge of the ichthyology collection at the museum. He said adult sunfish of that size were generally found offshore. "This particular species of sunfish, Mola ramsayi, is more likely found in waters further south," Mr McGrouther said, although some have been spotted as far north as Darwin.

The species is very large, but its young, when hatched, are tiny. Natural History Museum conservator Lu Allington-Jones told the Science Show: "What's amazing about this fish is that the larvae are only 2 millimetres across, so it grows the most out of all of the vertebrates." She told the Herald: "They live in deep water and come up to the surface occasionally where they can oxygenate their skin and seagulls can remove parasites, but they will rarely come into harbours." When our particular specimen was collected, Ms Allington-Jones said the fish was gutted and stretched over wooden boards and stuffed with wheat straw and metal bars. Exactly how or why a Herald of the day also came to be inside the fish will most likely remain a mystery.

"The dried, stuffed fish was brought to London to be shown in the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in 1883 and was then donated to the British Museum," she said. The sunfish during conservation at the Natural History Museum, London. Credit:Natural History Museum, London Now part of the Natural History Museum's collection, after 130 years the fish "was compacting and splitting under its own weight and many of the seams had split". Ms Allington-Jones and fellow conservator Chelsea McKibbin humidified the skin to make it more pliable. While removing the stuffing, Ms Allington-Jones said they "were delighted to also discover a broken chair and a scrap of The Sydney Morning Herald inside".

The fish has now been repaired and suspended on a new metal frame to enable safe storage and movement around the museum. Sydney in 1883 front page, "Anniversary Day", 1883. Credit:Janie Barrett There was a lot going on in early 1883. Back then, January 26 was called "Anniversary Day" and The Sydney Morning Herald had just 10 pages.

Much of the news seems prosaically familiar: the extension of a light rail line to the eastern suburbs; compulsory acquisition of property for controversial city infrastructure; a Test match to start that day; and debates about funding of religious schools. But none of this found its way onto the front page. The lead item on page 1 was births, followed by marriages, deaths and shipping. The personal column is intriguing. Who knows what was behind this message to "H" from "M": "You looked very comfortable in your buggy; where was she? Say 'Bouquet'." And what about this? "Will the Lady that called at Mrs Bardwell's, grocer, Mary Street, please call again." Whatever it was, it was on the front page in 1883.

The single letter to the editor concerned city crowding and poor urban planning around "The Circular Quay". "Would not the best policy the government could adopt to be to help the citizens to obtain more elbow room? And could not this best be done by working in a westerly direction?" And by this, our anonymous Woolloomooloo letter writer means towards Darling Harbour, which is where our sunfish was found. An Ashes Test match That Sydney summer day was also the first day of the Ashes Test at the SCG, then the Association Ground. It was only the third Test match played there. Arguably, it was the first Ashes Test played at the ground. It was the first in Sydney to follow the 1882 match at The Oval that Australia had won. That match in London had prompted the now famous obituary for English cricket published in The Sporting Times.

"Every preparation has been made on the Association Cricket Ground for the great cricket contest between the Australian Eleven and the Hon. Ivo Bligh's team, which will begin this day, at noon," the Herald's correspondent reported. Also reported was an innovation: "Two patent scoring-boards, which will show the score of each batsman as he compiles his score, and the total as each run is made. "The turf, though a trifle dead owing to the recent rains, will improve and become firmer every hour ... The side losing the toss will be placed at great disadvantage, for the ground, in its present condition, is certain to cut up very much, even after one day's play," the report ran. "The match is exciting the greatest of interest in the public mind and it is confidently expected that it will be the best attended match that has ever been played in New South Wales ... "Trains will run direct to the ground during the day every few minutes." England won the toss, elected to bat and won by 88 runs. The series was drawn, two a piece. Australia retained the Ashes.

News of the day In other news, the NSW Parliament was sitting in January, with a session of the Legislative Council on the evening of January 25 debating the Criminal Law Amendment bill. Earlier in the day in the Legislative Assembly "leave was given to bring in the Rabbit Nuisance Bill". (Working in January? Take note, pollies in today's Bear Pit.) A single item on page 5 dealt with "News of the Day". It is a section of this we can see from a photo supplied by the Natural History Museum. Fragment of Credit:Natural History Museum, London Back in the day, this was a string of unrelated paragraphs starting with news of an appointment of British officials in Egypt, with protests from the Turkish government.

Such news from the Empire segues into former Empress Eugenie's visit to Paris successfully reuniting the Bonapartist party, followed by news of artist Gustave Dore, "reported to have died from chill". NSW Anniversary Day After dealing with arrangements for the General Post Office on what was a public holiday, we have this: "Of all our holidays the anniversary of the colony is, perhaps, the favourite to Sydney people and the whole community appears to lay itself out on that day more religiously than on any other to do nothing but enjoy itself." After more mention of the Test match, the Herald reports: "The Sydney Turf Club is to hold its first anniversary meeting at Randwick and the crowds attracted by that event and the hose how have made up their minds to take advantage of the extension of the tramway to the ocean at Coogee will probably hopelessly overtax the resources of of the tram department." There were reported negotiations on the borders between the colonies of NSW and South Australia, complaints regarding the "hardship to female teachers in public schools of being compelled to stand during school hours".

Crime, misadventure and country news The "News of the Day" column also deals with a number of criminal matters, including news of "a groom, whose name is unknown, found yesterday afternoon by police lying on the road at the corner of Oxford Street and Darlinghurst Road in an unconscious state". And casually towards the end of the column are reported "several deaths by drowning" throughout the colony. In good news from the colony of New Zealand "publicans will probably discontinue the practice of sending out beer in jars that have contained sulphuric acid". Loading

Sadly, in "country news", a string of deaths. From Mudgee: "A little boy named Willie Martin, 7 years of age, was accidentally shot dead ... by a boy named Rope, aged 14, uncle of the deceased." It breathlessly continues to report "some light rain fell this afternoon ... and ... Threshing is in full swing in the district." And from Tamworth a report of a "very large meeting" to consider the "introduction of the eight-hours system into the mechanical workshops". The Herald reports that "in the event of their request being refused the men have unanimously agreed to strike".