97 Macquarie Street Info-Popup Historic Notes: 97 Macquarie Street
If you look up you can see a bas-relief (sculpture) of a man trying to break a bundle of sticks on his knee. Beneath the sculpture are the words ‘Union is Strength’. The bundle serves as a metaphor of unity, each stick on its own can be broken easily but together they cannot. The motto and figure originally belonged to the Australian Widows Fund which was founded in Melbourne in 1871 until it was taken over by the Mutual Life and Citizens’ Assurance Society Limited (MLC). In 1886 the fund moved to Sydney. The building itself was purchased from the Wesleyan Church in 1953.