For years it was referred to, in the reports of the daily press, in the routine coverage of suicide, fatal accidents, murder and more.

Then in 1901 the building, to make way for the development of Central Station, was stripped of its slate slabs, shelves with 'specimens of interest' and voluminous records kept by 'Old Ned Broomfield', keeper of the morgue.

Those reports, together with those of sister institution the North Sydney Morgue in George Street in the Rocks which closed in 1908, have been digitised and are online at family records website Ancestry.com.

Brad Argent of Ancestry said: "The most common item that turns up on adult male bodies at the morgue is a pocket knife, followed closely by a pipe. Many of them also carried a pencil. Women seem to have little beyond their jewellery, a purse and a handkerchief."

Morgue details are concise but by using them in tandem with now also digitised newspapers of the day on the Trove website enables a little flesh to be put on the bones of early tragedy.

Case number 1132 relates to a Theodore Sampson whose body arrived at 1:30pm on 10^th October 1893. He was 5 feet 4 ½ , well-nourished, complexion fair, short grey hair, grey moustache, teeth perfect.  A bullet wound in the right ear, also bullet wound in the left forearm between the elbow and the wrist. No marks on the body. Property found on the body  five pounds in gold,  four and a third in silver gold. Sleeve links and studs. Small pearl handle pocket knife, three small keys, tobacco pouch, broken pipe, white pocket handkerchief.'

The Sydney Morning Herald four days later recorded that the body was found in a reserve near Coogee. A letter found on the body and written by the deceased stated that he committed the deed because he 'had the curse of the gambler in him and could not stop'.

Mr Argent said the number of abandoned infants mentioned among the records 'is rather shocking', echoed to this day in the discovery in December of a newborn baby, mercifully still alive, in a drain in Quakers Hill.

Bubonic plaque reared its head in Sydney on 19 January 1900 and claimed the lives of young and old. Amongst them was Ellen Matilda McCann aged 14 whose body was recorded on the 17^th March 1900.

The records state: 'Deceased resided with her parents James and Alice McCann at 86 Windmill Street, Sydney, and died there at 1pm on 17^th March 1900. The body was removed to the North Morgue at 10:30pm by order of the city coroner. Dr Taylor made a post-mortem examination and found no marks of violence. Cause of death in his opinion was acute septicemia from a natural cause but how it was produced he was unable to state. Further examination was made and was found to be the Bubonic Plague.'

With more than 500 bodies a year to process there's plenty to read.

One report in the Australian Town and Country Journal at the time of the closure of South Sydney Morgue noted: 'Scarcely a story ever was written, no matter how sad, but a parallel case from real life could be found recorded in that great fatal volume of the city's darker history – the morgue book.'

The morgue records are available at Ancestry.com