THE Lower North Shore has produced many famous Australian faces. To celebrate Australia Day 2010 we rate the 21 locals who have had the greatest impact on our heritage, our lives, and our suburbs.

Actor Eric Bana, judge Sir William Cullen, journalist Steve Liebmann, architect Glen Murcott, radio host Bob Rogers and artist Margaret Preston are just some of the famous names to narrowly miss out on our list.

Don’t agree with the rankings? Comment below.

1. Henry Lawson
HENRY Lawson (1867-1922) is lauded Australia’s ``greatest writer’’ and finest colonial bush poet. He is best known for his 1896 prose collection While the Billy Boils.
Lawson rates in many lists of great Australians, but he was by no means perfect.
He had alcohol problems, suffered depression and split up with his wife.
In 1903, he moved to a room at Mrs Isabella Byer’s Coffee Palace, North Sydney. This sparked a 20 year friendship with Mrs Byer, who helped the struggling writer contact his children and fund the battler’s existence.
Regardless of his issues, Lawson’s descriptions of the Australian landscape and culture has brought many to tears. Author Bruce Elder described Lawson’s writing as ``as raw as Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Carver ... dryly laconic, passionately egalitarian and deeply humane.’’
Lawson died in 1922.

2. Mary MacKillop
ROMAN Catholic nun Mary MacKillop (1842-1909) is set to become Australia’s first saint after Pope Benedict XVI announced she had performed two miracles, curing people of cancer.
Sister MacKillop founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart with Father Julian Tenison Woods in 1866.
Pope Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb at the Mary MacKillop Chapel during his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day 2008.
Sister MacKillop was born Maria Ellen MacKillop in Fitzroy, Melbourne, as the eldest of eight children.
But it was her time on Sydney’s Lower North Shore where she impacted many lives, both in life and death. Her parents were Scottish immigrants who arrived in Australia in the
1830s.

3. Billy Blue
BILLY Blue (between 1734 and 1767-1834) was a roguish waterman, petty criminal and lovable character, and one of North Sydney’s most celebrated figures.
Blue was a West Indian transported to Sydney in 1801, five years into his seven-year sentence for stealing sugar. He set up a ferry service on the North Shore, carrying passengers across the Harbour in rowboats. Blue’s name is commemorated within and near the area of his land grant, given to him by Gov Macquarie.

4. Nicole Kidman
NICOLE Kidman is one of Australia’s most famous actors. The elegant redhead shares a penthouse apartment at Milsons Point with country singer husband Keith Urban and daughter Sunday Rose. She also has two adopted children, Isabella and Connor, with former husband Tom Cruise. In 2003, Kidman picked up an Academy Award for her role in The Hours. She is also known for her roles in Moulin Rouge and To Die For.  Kidman attended North Sydney Girls High School.

5. John Howard
JOHN Winston Howard (born 1939), Australia’s 25th and second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies, grew up in Sydney’s inner west, counting debating and cricket among his hobbies at school. In 1971 he married Janette and together they bought a home in Wollstonecraft where they brought up their three children. Howard spent 11 years at The Lodge.

6. Allan Border
ALLAN Border was only recently surpassed as Australia’s leading Test cricket run-scorer.
He captained his country and played 153 consecutive Tests, which is still a record.
He was born in Cremorne in 1955 and attended North Sydney Boys’ High School.
Border’s importance to cricket is recognised every year when the Allan Border Medal is given to the Australian Player of the Year.

7. Prof Marie Bashir
LEBANESE-born Professor Marie Bashir (born 1930), became the first female Governor of NSW.
The current Chancellor of the University of Sydney is one of Sydney’s most intelligent, philanthropic and popular first ladies.
The Mosman resident attended Sydney Girls High and went on to complete studies in psychiatry, medicine and surgery.

8. Bungaree
BUNGAREE (c1775-1830) was the leader of an Aboriginal tribe in Mosman known as the Borogegal tribe. He was the first indigenous person to circumnavigate Australia with Lieutenant Matthew Flinders as a guide, interpreter and negotiator with local indigenous groups. In 1815, Governor Macquarie crowned Bungaree chief of the Broken Bay Tribe and presented him with 15 acres (6ha) of land on Georges Head.

9. Sir Adrian Curlewis
SIR Adrian Curlewis (1901-1985) was a Shore boy and a graduate of Sydney University.
He was a prisoner of war for eight months, building the Burma-Thailand railway under the Japanese.
He was appointed a judge, and his personal concerns about juvenile delinquency led him to found the Palm Beach surf lifesaving club, to establish the Outward Bound movement in Australia and to introduce the Duke of Edinburgh scheme to the country.

10. Archibald Mosman
MERCHANT and pastoralist Archibald Mosman (1799-1863) is a controversial entry in our top 21.
He arrived in Sydney from Liverpool with his twin brother George in 1829. They were involved in shipping and founded a whaling station on a bay in the harbour, which later became known as Mosmans Bay.
By 1838, Archibald owned 108 acres (44ha) along the Mosman waterfront.

11. Ken Done
ARTIST Ken Done’s brightly hued, simple images of Australian landmarks have earned him fame around the world.
Done, born in 1940, grew up in Sydney’s west. In 1979 he bought the Cabin studio at Mosman, overlooking Chinamans Beach on Middle Harbour, near his home on Fairfax Rd. He had already worked around the world in New York and London. A Ken Done logo has been used to promote the Mosman Festival for the past three years.

12. Bruce Daymond
BRUCE Daymond (1919-2008) was a flying hero in World War II. Flight-Lieutenant Daymond, who moved to Mosman in 1934, joined the RAAF in 1941 and learned to fly Tiger Moths at Narromine. In 1944, his crew flew almost 96 hours in eight days for four special duty missions.

13. Sir Thomas Dibbs
SIR Thomas Dibbs bequeathed his North Sydney mansion, Graythwaite, for use as a hospital for injured veterans of World War I. Born in 1832 he made his fortune as a banker. He was commodore of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

14. Waterhouse family
WE’VE included the whole family for their services as one of Australia’s great racing dynasties. Bill’s dad, Charles Hercules, started the racing legacy. Bookmakers Bill, son Robbie, trainer Gai and socialite Kate are just some of faces who have continued it.

15. L.J.Hooker
WE’VE all heard of L.J. Hooker, but Leslie Joseph Tingyou wasn’t always a household name.
Born in Canterbury in 1903, the real estate legend changed his name to Hooker in 1925 and opened his first real estate agency in Maroubra three years later.
He made his millions by buying out undervalued companies and riding the wave of post-war construction.
Sir Leslie moved to a waterfront house in Hopetoun Ave, Mosman, that he once called ``’Sydney’s finest property’’.
His ashes were interred in the cliff face of the property.

16. John Hunter
JOHN Hunter (1737-1821) was a Royal Navy captain born in Scotland. He is said to have been the first European to set foot in what is now known as Mosman, on June 19, 1789.
Hunter was also known as an explorer, naturalist and colonial administrator.
The Hunter River and Hunter Valley north of Sydney are both named after him, as is the suburb of Hunters Hill.
He succeeded Arthur Phillip as the second governor of NSW, from 1795-1800.

17. George Gregan
GEORGE Gregan (born 1973) is one of the area’s greatest sporting ambassadors.
The Zambian-born rugby union halfback has made more appearences for Australia than any other player.
The Mosman resident captained his team to win the 2002 Bledisloe Cup and played for the Wallabies when they won the Rugby World Cup in 1999.
Gregan played for the ACT Brumbies from 1996-07 and is now signed with a Japanese team after a season in France.

18. Ken Hall
Ken G Hall (1901-94) director, film and television producer Hall was one of Australia’s film pioneers. He won Australia’s first Academy Award and directed 19 feature films. It has been said that he watched his first movie projected at North Sydney Oval. He was also a student at North Sydney Boys High.

19. Naomi Watts
FROM Ysgol Gyfun to Mosman High Scool, such was the educational path of screen sensation Naomi Watts. Born in England, Watts moved to Australia and eventually ended up at North Sydney Girls High School where she bcame friends with classmate Nicole Kidman.

20. Yvonne Kenny
WHILE growing up on the lower North Shore, the young Yvonne Kenny was cast by her primary school teacher in a lead role for Gilbert and Sullivan productions; until then she had no idea she had a voice. Kenny has spent the past 30 years travelling the world with spellbinding operatic performances.

21. Sunday Rose
SUNDAY Rose Kidman Urban (born 2008):
Little Sunday Rose is North Sydney’s newest star.
Born on July 7, 2008 in Nashville, Tennesee, to celebrity parents actress Nicole Kidman and country singer Keith Urban Sunday has already clocked up instant flyer points jetting between her Milsons Point abode and the US.