Dagmar Berne c1890, State Archives and Records NSW (9873_a025_a025000112)

Today on 2SER Breakfast we looked at the inspiring tale of Sydney's first female medical student, Dagmar Berne. It's not really a happy story, but this resilient and generous woman made an important and interesting contribution to Sydney's history.

Listen now

Described by a family friend and physician as 'a quiet, friendly sensible girl – and no fool', Dagmar Berne attended school at Newtown Superior Public School and Springfield Ladies College in Darlinghurst. In 1884 she enrolled in an Arts degree at the University of Sydney and when at the end of her first year the University decided to also allow female students to enrol in Medicine, she became the first woman to do so. While her fellow male students acknowledged her admirable concentration and immersion in her studies, Berne faced difficulties in receiving passes for all of her professional examinations, although she excelled in others, even winning Professor John Smith's Prize for Experimental Physics, an annual book prize awarded to the most distinguished student at the Class Examination Viva Voce in Experimental Physics. Anderson Stuart, the Dean of Medicine and  HN Maclaurin, the University's Vice Chancellor were not supportive of women training in medicine, an indication of the kind of prejudice that Berne faced. Anderson Stuart said 'while there is a place for a certain number of women in medicine, there are certain limitations of usefulness, and they will never, in my opinion, take the place, or be equal to men in general medical work', while Maclaurin stated that he would never allow a woman to graduate in Medicine while he was Vice Chancellor.

The Daily Telegraph, 26 December 1894, p4 via Trove

in 1885 Berne had met Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, a British doctor lecturing at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts. Having faced similar issues, Garrett Anderson suggested that Berne completed her studies at the London School of Medicine for Women, where Garret Anderson was Dean. Berne was fortunate in that she had a supportive family, with the kind of income that made this suggestion feasible, so in 1890, still not able to graduate, she travelled with her sister Florence to London. She graduated in 1891 from the London School of Medicine for Women, then proceeded to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin for further qualifications. With these qualifications, work experience and glowing recommendations she returned to Sydney and on 9 January 1895 was registered with the Medical Board of New South Wales but still, as a woman, was not permitted to work in Sydney's hospitals. Berne set up a private practice in Macquarie Street and became heavily involved in public health and educaton, giving public lectures aimed particularly at women (The Sydney Morning Herald in August 1897 reported that there were not enough seats at Sydney Town Hall and women were turned away from her lecture, 'Digestion and Indigestion'). She was affiliated with, among others, the St John's Ambulance Association and the Kindergarten Union of New South Wales, the Working and Factory Girls Club and, of course, the Womanhood Suffrage League. Since childhood, Berne had suffered from pulmonary problems, and these worsened in the last years of the nineteenth century. In 1898 she moved to Springwood where her sister Florence had established a school, and then, at the beginning of 1900 to Trundle in western New South Wales. She died there suddenly in August 1900 at the age of only 34, of consumption or tubercolosis, after treating a patient. As well as paving the way for other women to study and work in medicine, Dagmar Berne was significant in developing women's health in Sydney. Her achievements in overcoming prejudice, achieving so much and her commitments to public health are incredibly inspiring. For a much more detailed look at this remarkable woman and her life, read  Vanessa Witton's entry on Dagmar Berne here on the Dictionary: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/berne_dagmar   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.   The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

Portrait of TJ Ley 1925 Courtesy National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an23460617)

The State Archives and Records NSW has a new exhibition online and at the Western Sydney Records Centre in Kingswood titled ‘Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930’. It explores photographs and stories of men, women and children who were incarcerated in NSW gaols. It's a great exhibition, and prompted us to think about some of Sydney's criminals who appear in the Dictionary. We've talked about some of these like Kate Leigh, Tilly Devine and Iris Webber before, so let’s take a look another shady figure from our past. 

Listen now

Thomas John Ley migrated from England as a 6 year old with his mother and siblings in 1886. In 1907 he moved from Glebe to Hurstville where he became involved in community groups and religious organisations, as well as the temperance movement, earning him the nickname 'Lemonade' Ley. He became a solicitor in 1914 and stood several times unsuccessfully at council elections for the position of Mayor. Ley then entered state politics, becoming the National Party member for Hurstville in the Legislative Assembly in 1917. He served as Minister for Justice from 1922 to 1925, and it was during this time that his reputation began to crumble. Hated within his own party, he also came under fire for double crossing the temperance lobby.

Smith's Weekly, April 19. 1947, p11 via Trove

In 1925, Ley stood for the federal seat of Barton and his opponent, Frederick McDonald, claimed Ley had tried to bribe him to withdraw himself from the ballot. Ley won the seat but McDonald disappeared without a trace while on his way to see NSW Premier Jack Lang. Concerns were raised about shady dealings of his law firm, Ley, Andrews and Company and then, on 3 September 1928, one of his main critics, Hyman Goldstein, was discovered dead at the bottom of cliffs at Coogee. After suffering defeat in the 1928 federal elections, Ley left for England with his mistress, Maggie Brook. Brook’s husband had also died in mysterious circumstances. It took almost another two decades for the law to catch up with Ley, when he was convicted in England of planning the murder of a barman named John McBain Mudie in March 1947. His death sentence was commuted three days before his execution, and he was committed to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum where he died a few months later. Questions still remain over the deaths of McDonald, Goldstein and Brook. Read Professor Paul Ashton’s article on Thomas Ley in the Dictionary of Sydney here. If you'd like more local true crime stories, you should head out to State Archives and Records NSW's Western Sydney Records Centre in Kingswood where the free exhibition 'Captured' will be on until 28 April 2018. Check out some of the stories from the exhibition on their YouTube channel here or through the fantastic online exhibition catalogue here.   Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator, and the Executive Officer of the History Council of NSW.  She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Dictionary of Sydney today!

Terry Smyth, Denny Day: The Life and Times of Australia’s Greatest Lawman

Ebury Press, 2016, 352 pp., ISBN: 9780857986825, p/bk, AUS$34.99

Award-winning writer Terry Smyth has taken on the extraordinary, and regularly overlooked, story of Edward Denny Day in Denny Day: The Life and Times of Australia’s Greatest Lawman, The Forgotten Hero of the Myall Creek Massacre (2016), from Ebury Press. True crime tales are often criticised for being cheap and trashy, a quick way to make some money and unsettle the community with a few photographs of terror and violence. Domestic normalcy transformed, in a few moments of chaos, into a crime scene. This stereotype, of quick and dirty volumes, is becoming increasingly challenged by many writers, including Smyth. Indeed, Smyth’s writing style is perfect for telling a true crime story – a genre that is often a blend of biography, history and judgement of wrongdoers – in an age when such stories are becoming increasingly rigorous in their research and sophisticated in their narrative styling. For true crime, though often criticised, is a difficult genre to ‘get right’. Too much detail and the author is glorifying evil while taking advantage of the victim. Too little detail and the author is charged with sanitising history, glossing over the brutal nature of some types of crimes. The use of language is crucial. The reader often comes to the text knowing the ending. We know the victim. We know the perpetrator. What we want to know is how and why. We want to understand the machinery that brought about justice and to feel reassured that the world order, grossly disrupted, has been restored. In this respect, Smyth delivers. The very first line – “Sydney sits cowering it its cove, its face turned seaward, lying back and thinking of England” – demonstrates Smyth’s capacity for irreverence and insightfulness. This level of scene-setting is critical for true crime, for crime is often the story of context: the events that converged to bring about tragedy. This text tells a particularly difficult story for the villains are especially heinous: they are the men who perpetrated the Myall Creek Massacre in which 28 Aboriginal men, women and children were murdered in 1838. In this way, this book is one about murder, frontier violence and the traumas of colonisation. Day was the lawman who, with a small party of mounted police, tracked down and arrested eleven men. Seven of those men would hang in Sydney for their crimes. Yet, Day was not lauded as a hero instead he was, as Smyth notes, a man who was “scorned and shunned, fiercely attacked by the press, powerful landowners and the general public”. Today, he is largely forgotten, his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography typically short and his obituaries excluding reference to his greatest achievement. Day is certainly not presented as perfect, for no man is and Smyth’s admiration is tempered by some realism. What is clear, and consistent, is that Day had a strong sense of justice which Smyth reveals with skill. Read this book as the true crime story of Denny Day and the men of the Myall Creek Massacre. Read it also, as an important story of New South Wales and of law and justice in colonial Australia. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, September 2017 For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the Penguin Books website here.

Ross Gibson, The Criminal Re-Register

The University of Western Australia Publishing, 2017, 152 pp., ISBN: 9781742589558, p/bk, AUS$22.99

Ross Gibson’s new work, The Criminal Re-Register (2017) from University of Western Australia Publishing, is a fabulous re-imagining of a mid-twentieth century copy of a Criminal Register. In a pre-database age, the Register was a volume that was produced every year by Sydney Police containing details on a vast array of criminals. Collated over a twelve-month period, the Register was an almanac that was distributed to police stations far and wide. The profiles of criminals, their methods, their madness all laid bare to facilitate apprehension (or the occasional interaction). It was, in short, the ultimate Crook Book. Gibson found his 1957 issue of the Register “ten years ago, along with a brown envelope full of unlabeled and undated photographic portraits in a Kogarah junkshop”. The content has been wonderfully re-written as a suite of poems that, as Gibson writes, has “messed” with the original which he “ransacked” for details to re-work to merge and play with. Brutality and creativity blend to produce a text that is compelling reading. This slim volume, only 152 pages, also presents as a beautiful object. The cover is elegant. The rich, cream pages are highly textured: challenging the idea that the world of crime is a world of black and white. Each word has been carefully chosen as well as thoughtfully situated on the page: the arrangements are both disruptive and striking. The blurred photographs appear, and linger, as memories just out of reach: Gibson calls these people ghosts. One of the more poignant inclusions in Gibson’s Re-Register is a set of descriptions of malefactors which offer perfunctory details of not-so-legitimate careers supplemented by some distinguishable traits. There is a “safebreaker and thief”, a “house-breaker and ladies man”, a “pretender and forger” and a “house breaker and cat burglar”. One felon “seldom wears a hat”, one is “careless with fingerprints” while yet another is “in the habit of sucking his left thumb”. Several are “addicted to drink”. This text reminds us that the criminal world, and the way it intersects with the non-criminal, is extraordinarily complex. The human cost of crime is sometimes borne by villains as well as victims. Sure, there are bad people that do bad things (the “razor slashers” and “sexual perverts”) but there are, too, those who have been crushed by their circumstances. Gibson’s work – of poetry and photography – is a soft lens with which to view a harsh world. The 1950s in Sydney was a decade of remarkable change: cars, commercial computers and televisions. There was mass immigration. There was the shadow of the Cold War. Perhaps the only constant was crime. Some criminal acts were perpetrated by the worst that society has to offer while some offenders were those who had honest jobs one day but found themselves drunkards and scoundrels the next. Crime and the issues that surround crime, including prevention and punishment, are difficult – emotionally and intellectually – to resolve. Here, poetry is a useful, if unlikely, tool to help us look at crime in a different way. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, September 2017 This book is available to preorder at the University of Western Australia Publishing website here.

The Peapes sign recently uncovered at Wynyard, September 2017 Photo courtesy City of Sydney

You may have heard about or seen the colourful advertising sign for Peapes Menswear store that was revealed recently down at Wynyard (285-287 George Street) after the Menzies Hotel and Thakral House were demolished. This large painted advertisement was on the side of the Peapes building and is a great example of the outdoor advertising which business owners often had painted on the side of their business premises. Today on 2SER Breakfast, Lisa talked to Nic about the sign and the business behind it.

Listen now

  Sign writers and poster makers were among the earliest forms of advertising in the street and public domain. The very first producer of posters for commercial purposes in Sydney were Issac and Joseph Roff, who established their business in 1854.

Sydney Punch, August 26, 1865, p 524

Bill posters stuck to buildings, pillars, and hoardings became so ubiquitous on Sydney's streets in the following decade that the practice was lampooned in cartoons. Small specialist firms of signwriters offered their expertise, with varying degrees of sophistication, to businesses that could not afford their own advertising departments. Signwriting and advertising posters made a dramatic impact on the streetscape, drawing attention to people, products and events. Photographer Olive Cotton captured the sheer number of painted advertising signs painted on the sides of buildings in her 1942 photograph City Skyline, which was taken from Max Dupain's studio window. You can see the photograph on the National Library of Australia's catalogue here.

Signwriters from Rousel Studios painting an advertising sign on a wall for Tooth’s K B Lager 1920s, Courtesy Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (2002/105/1-2/71)

These forgotten painted signs - sometimes referred to as "ghost signs" - are revealed in the city with surprising regularity as buildings are demolished to expose the sides of the buildings next door. The changing city skyline often protects these ephemeral advertising signs from fading and decay, and there is always a sense of wonder and curiosity when a new "ghost sign" is uncovered. But let's get back to Peapes. The menswear store was a Sydney institution. It was established in 1866 (known as Peapes & Shaw back then) and traded on George Street for over 100 years, finally closing down in 1971. The Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, holds some of their business records, including  correspondence, advertising scrap books, pictorial material and pattern books.

Peapes & Company trade catalogue for 1897, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML 658.87105/1)

They also hold a few of their trade catalogues - this 1897 one at left has been digitised, so you can view and download images of the latest fashion trends available at Peapes. The firm had a distinctive Australian flavour  and had their own inhouse registered trade mark Warrigal. This branding identified their Australian-made products and was their "guarantee of worth and wear". The trade mark included a dingo and the southern cross.

The Home, Vol. 1 No. 3 (1 September 1920) p 47 via Trove

The building where the sign is located was built for Peapes in 1922 and it was occupied by the store from 1923 through to 1971. It was a classy establishment, fitted out with marble and jarrah, and with mezzanine floors encircling a central light well. There was even a room for clients where they could relax, write letters, smoke or conduct business meetings - almost like a club room. There were ready-wear and tailoring departments, and all the requisites for male society - hats, tobacco, footwear, neckwear, sportswear and travel wear. With their new building came a new slogan - 'Peapes The Men's and Boys' Outfitters'. The painted sign dates from at least 1935; you can see the bottom of the border in the photograph below which was taken by Sam Hood before the Plaza Hotel was built. The centre image may have changed over time as we know that advertisers would use these locations in different ways over a period of time.

Plaza Hotel temporary bar and Peapes' Menswear Store next door January 1935, by Sam Hood, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (Home and Away 11785)

The Peapes building, also known as Beneficial House, is on the local heritage register (there's a link to it at the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage here) so the sign will remain, although it will be once again covered up - being preserved for another 50 years or more, no doubt when it might peep out again! To find out more about the development of the advertising industry in Sydney, take a look at the article by Robert Crawford on the Dictionary: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/advertising           Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.   The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!  

Peapes & Co advertisement in Stewart's hand book of the Pacific islands; a reliable guide to all the inhabited islands of the Pacific Ocean, for traders, tourists and settlers, 1919. Courtesy The Internet Archive

Drawn from life by JS Bray, the tiger or brown-banded snake, Hoplocephalus curtus - venomous by JS Bray, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (c004220010 / PXA 192)

The first entry to be published on the Dictionary since our recent move to the new platform at the State Library of NSW is a fascinating look by Dr Peter Hobbins at the colourful life and work of James Samuel Bray, a prolific 19th century Sydney naturalist. This week on 2SER Breakfast, Nic spoke to Peter about Bray, his snakes and his museums of curios.

Listen now

James Samuel Bray was an amateur naturalist in Sydney. He was a quirky chap, one of that string of strange but wonderful personalities that you see throughout the nineteenth century in Sydney, like John MacArthur and Henry Parkes. These men appeared to have extraordinary self confidence and often a blatant disregard of morals of the day, and would seem to press ahead and makes something of themselves. James Bray differed in that he never quite made it or lived up to his own expectations, but he nevertheless had a fascinating life.

This drawing in Bray's notebooks of condemned convicts leg irons in Brays Museum Sydney 10 August 1891 was accompanied by this information 'The Hon G Thornton who viewed the original specimen of these heavy convict leg irons (only used on convicts when condemned to death in the early times of New South Wales) assured me that he had frequently seen several of the men with such irons on them'  Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 188)

Bray was born in Sydney in 1849 as New South Wales was about to be transformed by the gold rushes. This period saw an enormous growth in population across the 1850s and 1860s and with the spread of suburbs across Sydney, an associated loss of earlier colonial culture and indigenous culture as well as local flora and fauna. His family had moved from the centre of the city to Milsons Point on the harbour's north shore when he was child, an area which at that point was still only partly developed. As a teenager Bray was fascinated not only by the natural history of Sydney, but also the city's indigenous heritage. He would go prowling around the north shore and Manly looking for wildlife (which he was more than happy to kill and stuff), for items of Aboriginal heritage and he became more and more obsessed with relics of Sydney's colonial past. A talented natural history writer, Bray also created celebrated taxidermy displays for intercolonial exhibitions. He exhibited at Sydney's Garden Palace in 1879, and in 1874 his collection of award winning entomological specimens was displayed in the gallery of the new General Post Office building where he also worked in the Telegraph Office until 1876. In the early 1880s, Bray established the first of his Museums of Curios, where he would sell the skulls of indigenous people from Australia & the Pacific, carved artefacts from indigenous cultures, taxidermy specimens, convict chains, coins, watercolours and almost anything in the nature of a relic he thought he could turn to account. This business failed quickly, but by the late 1880s he had opened up again near Circular Quay. When this business also failed in 1892, he began trading out of his home at 100 Forbes Woolloomooloo, where he also continued breeding snakes. Rather than just being an entrepreneur, Bray craved scientific respectability but this was never to be. His work, much like his business models, belonged to an earlier time and had fallen out of fashion.

Flyer for Bray's Museum of Island Curios c1891 Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (26/248/408)

His fascination with Sydney's flora, fauna and particularly snakes can be seen in his papers at the State Library where he extensively documents his activities and research. He loved going out into the bush and catching snakes, and describes how he'd go about this. He designed and built a snake house in the backyard of his home in Woolloomooloo, carefully considering how best to keep the snakes in his care warm and safe. He was perhaps more interested in snakes than anybody else in the colony at that time. Although he never earned the scientific acclaim he craved, and after his death in 1916 was soon forgotten, James Samuel Bray nevertheless embodied a sense of aspiration common to many late-Victorian colonists. If he failed to capitalise on their curiosity, his Museum of Curios captured something of the growing concern that sprawling modernity entailed irredeemable losses of Australia's natural and cultural heritage. You can read Peter's entry about James Bray and find out more about his life on the Dictionary here https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/bray_james_samuel   We're right in the middle of History Week 2017 and there are still so many great events to get to - for the full program and to find out what's on in your local area, go to the History Council of NSW website here. http://historycouncilnsw.org.au/history-week/ Happy History Week! The Dictionary of Sydney is proud to support History Week 2017 as a Cultural Partner of the History Council of NSW  Peter Hobbins is an historian of science, technology and medicine at the University of Sydney. Much of his work has explored the meanings and boundaries of 'scientific medicine', in both nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australia. He is the author of a book on snakes and snakebite in colonial Australia, and co-author with Ursula K Frederick and Anne Clarke of 'Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine inscriptions from Australia's immigrant past', which this week won the 2017 NSW Community and Regional History Prize at the Premier's History Awards. In 2016 Peter was the Merewether Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, researching Sydney-based amateur naturalist, James Samuel Bray. He has appeared on 2SER for the DIctionary in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Peter & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

Performance of 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll',1956 With a background of 17 inch cupid dolls, each representing a season of happiness, Olive Leech (June Jago) tries to stop the fatal quarrel between her lover, Roo Webster (Lloyd Berrell) and Barney Ibbot (Ray Lawler) Courtesy National Archives of Australia (A1805, CU226/2)

Today on 2SER Breakfast, Nic talked to the Dictionary's special guest Emeritus Professor Richard Waterhouse. Richard will be speaking at the Sydney Mechanic's School of Arts next week as part of History Week 2017, and his talk 'Mozart and 'The Doll'', looks at the establishment of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1954.

Listen now

This year's History Week theme 'Pop!' explores notions of popular culture, and to look at popular culture, you also need to examine how it relates to other forms. The establishment of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust by the federal government in Setpember 1954 was a key moment in Australian cultural history and was part of the institutionalisation of high culture in Sydney. Until the establishment of the Trust, Australia hadn't had its own institutions of high culture in terms of performance, There was no national opera company, no national ballet company and no national theatre repertory company. There was very little repertory theatre that performed classic Shakespearian or contemporary plays , and Australians were largely dependent on touring theatre, ballet and opera companies from overseas. People like Nugget Coombs, Governor of the Reserve Bank, and Charles Moses, head of the ABC, thought that Australia was in the process of growing up and that as such we needed our own appropriate culture. They also believed that theatre was at the heart of a nation's culture and so the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Company was established with the aims, not necessarily compatible, of promoting high and Australian culture, as well as providing employment and encouragement for local performers, composers and writers. A man named Hugh Hunt was imported from the UK as the Trust's first Managing Director. An interesting character, Hunt was a producer and director with an enormous reputation. He had been the director at the Old Vic Company at Bristol’s Theatre Royal, where he was known in particular for producing great Shakespeare as well as making it a successful touring repertory company. In the 1930s he had also been the director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, where he had nurtured a homegrown Irish theatre culture with the staging of a large number of indigenous Irish plays by local playwright like George Shiels and WB Yeats. Over the course of 1955, the Trust, with extremely limited resources, presented for its first year a very modest program of opera (which was entirely of Mozart) and a number of plays. Australian actor Judith Anderson returned from the United States to play Medea in an all Australian production of her celebrated collaboration with the poet Robinson Jeffers. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Hunt was also part of the repertoire, as was a new Australian play by a young  Melbourne playwright named Ray Lawler called Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Lawler's play had been the joint winner in 1954 of the Playwrights Advisory Board Competition, a competition established in 1938 by Leslie Rees, Rex Rienits and Doris Fitton, with the object of fostering Australian theatre, and was to become enormously influential to a whole new generation of Australian playwrights.

The Australian Women's Weekly, 25 January 1956, p20 via Trove

Hunt didn't want to put it on because he thought it was just a 'slice of life' that reflected everyday working class people. As an apostle of high culture, Hunt believed great drama transcended real life and carried with it eternal messages, and he didn't believe that The Doll could do this. Nevertheless, his brief was clear: the play was produced and was, immediately, enormously successful. As well as playing to great acclaim around Australia, the production was taken to London in 1957 by Laurence Oliver where it ran for more than 250 performances. Although it was less successful on Broadway in 1958, where audiences were confused by the accents and ending, in 1959 it was made into a Hollywood movie (which was rightly disowned by Lawler). Hunt thought that Australian dramas like the The Doll, Richard Beynon's The Shifting Heart or Peter Kenna's The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day failed to elevate Australian drama to high culture status, but in this he was wrong. He didn't understand Australian culture, or that these plays dealt with fundamental issues about Australian people and culture rather than just being slice of life, realist plays. For example, the real theme of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is that while Australian identity had been traditionally tied up with ideas of the bush and white pioneers, in the urban world of the 1950s these values no longer count. The play is about the loss and change of Australian identity rather than just a story about canecutters and their girlfriends. Richard's talk 'Mozart & 'The Doll'' is on at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts on Wednesday, 6 September 2017, 12:30pm – 1:30pm. It's free, but bookings are recommended! For more information, head to to the History Council's website here. You can read Richard's entry Culture and Customs on the Dictionary of Sydney here. This year the History Council of NSW’s annual festival in the first week of September, History Week, is exploring popular culture. With tours, talks, exhibitions and more taking place across Sydney and New South Wales, there is something in the program for everyone.There are so many great events to get to - for the full program and to find out what's on in your local area, go to the History Council of NSW website here. http://historycouncilnsw.org.au/history-week/ Happy History Week! Associate Professor Richard Waterhouse is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Sydney. He appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Richard & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.     

The Dictionary of Sydney is proud to support History Week 2017 as a Cultural Partner of the History Council of NSW 

   

The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

   

The Australian woman's mirror, October 18 1938 via Trove

This year the History Council of NSW’s annual festival in the first week of September, History Week, is exploring popular culture. With tours, talks, exhibitions and more taking place across Sydney and New South Wales, there is something in the program for everyone. Today on 2SER Breakfast, Nicole and Tess looked at just a few of the highlights.

Listen now

On Sunday 3 September at Dickson St Space in Newtown, Cathy Perkins will be talking about the influential magazine The Australian woman’s mirror. From 1924 to 1961, the magazine was published as an offshoot of Sydney’s Bulletin magazine, specifically for its female readers. The Australian woman’s mirror’s aim, highlighted in its first issue, was to provide a platform for women writers and connect them with women readers (click here for event details). The Mirror’s editor, Zora Cross, interviewed many of her fellow writers for the magazine, and without her entertaining profiles, there would be little trace of these writers in literary history or biography. These interviews appeared in the Mirror alongside flapper fashions, home remedies, and articles on ‘women of the world’. The Mirror was also the first Australian publication to feature the American comic strip, The Phantom, in December 1936 (which ties into another History Week exhibition at Manly Art Gallery and Museum, the Phantom Show Exhibition). Another interesting topic being explored in History Week is Sydney’s drinking culture. During early settlement, though Sydney did not immediately replicate English cultural practices, officers and free settlers were active in promoting certain sports which they felt demonstrated upper class respectability. While this part of colonial society focused their energies on sports such as horse racing and cricket, convicts reproduced old habits in the form of drinking and gambling. They manufactured their own playing cards and frequented taverns and sly-grog shops. By 1811, there were 40 spirit licences in Sydney and 27 beer licences scattered through the colony. If you want to find out more about public drinking in colonial NSW, catch Dr Matthew Allen from the University of New England at Camden Library on Saturday 2 September (click here for event details). The City of Sydney is also hosting another fantastic History Week event in collaboration with the same team who worked on their sold out event Letters of Complaint from last year's History Week and the related podcasts. In Welcome to the Studio on 6 September, the City's history unit will be recreating the radio dramas of the 1930s & 40s with actors and community broadcasters at Kings Cross Library. Kings Cross Library sits on the site of the old ABC building which makes it the perfect location for this trip back in time (click here for event details). There are so many great events to get to - for the full program and to find out what's on in your local area, go to the History Council of NSW website here. http://historycouncilnsw.org.au/history-week/ Happy History Week! The Dictionary of Sydney is proud to support History Week 2017 as a Cultural Partner of the History Council of NSW  Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator, and the Executive Officer of the History Council of NSW. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  Tune in next week to hear Dictionary of Sydney special guest Professor Richard Waterhouse.  

The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

   

Wreck of Dunbar, South Head c1862-1863, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a939035 / PXA 1983, f.34)

One hundred and sixty years ago, a large sailing vessel called the Dunbar was wrecked near the Gap, just south of Sydney Heads, with the loss of 121 lives. It is still one of the worst disasters in New South Wales.

Listen now

After 81 days at sea, the Dunbar arrived off the coast of Sydney on 20 August 1857. It was a dark and stormy night. Captain John Green was a veteran of the Sydney voyage, but something happened that fateful night, and the ship turned towards the cliffs, perhaps mistaking the Gap as the entry to the harbour. The impact of the pounding seas and the rocky cliffs at the Gap, smashed the ship, breaking the masts and breaking the ship up almost immediately. The 122 passengers and crew on board were flung into the thrashing sea. There was just one survivor - crewman James Johnson was hurled onto the rocks where he managed to gain a finger hold, enabling him to climb to a relatively safe ledge. He spent the night alone, marooned, watching the lifeless bodies of his shipmates flounder and wash below. Johnson was only spotted the next day and rescued, the sole survivor. The wreck of the Dunbar shattered Sydney society. It was a dreadful reminder of the dangers of sea travel and the isolation of Australia from Britain.

James Johnson, survivor of the wreck of the Dunbar, 1857 by TS Glaister, courtesy Dixson Galleries, State Library of NSW (a128698 / DG 300)

The shipwreck and its melancholy story inspired paintings, books and even songs. The loss of life was mourned by the whole city. At the funeral procession on Monday 24 August, every ship in harbour flew their ensigns at half mast, guns were fired every minute, banks and offices were closed, and seven hearses and over 100 carriages passed in front of the 20,000 people who mutely lined George Street. The majority of those aboard the Dunbar were buried at Camperdown Cemetery in Newtown. You can see the grave of the Captain, John Green, at South Head Cemetery.

'The Sailor Rescued' or ' The rescue of the survivor, Johnson' engraved by WG Mason from a sketch by GF Angas, in 'A Narrative of the melancholy wreck of the "Dunbar", merchant ship, on the south head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1857' 1857

When the Catherine Adamson was lost off North Head just nine weeks later, claiming another 21 lives, the accidents prompted the colonial government to construct another lighthouse to mark the actual entrance to Sydney Harbour: this was the Hornby Lighthouse on the tip of South Head. James Johnson went on to become the lighthouse keeper at Nobbys Head, Newcastle. In a strange twist of fate, when the Cawarra was wrecked there off the Oyster Bank in 1866, James Johnson and Henry Hannell saved Frederick Hedges, sole survivor of 60 aboard. James Johnson lived to the age of 78 and is buried at Sandgate Cemetery in Newcastle. Click here to go to the Dictionary and read the entry on the Dunbar Shipwreck.   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Listen to the podcast with Lisa & Nic here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Nic Healey on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.    

The Dictionary of Sydney needs your help. Make a donation to the Dictionary of Sydney and claim a tax deduction!

 

 

History Week 2017 is fast approaching, so it's time to start planning which events you'd like to get to. This year History Week's theme is Pop! and will be looking at Australian ‘popular culture’. As History Week enters its 20th year, the History Council of NSW has invited its members to create celebrate Australian popular culture across the decades, to investigate its construction and analyse its impact on communities and individuals. How has popular culture, whether it be music, theatre, dance, film, television, sport or fashion, changed over time? Who defines it, and why? What does popular culture mean on an individual, community, regional and national level? How has the ‘digital age’ and 21st century technological change influenced popular culture? Have we entered a ‘new age’ of popular culture with audiences as creators, shifts in authority and more democratic modes of creative expression? Is history now part of popular culture? History Week will explore these questions and many more from 2 to 10 September 2017 with a huge range of exhibitions, talks, tours and seminars from organisations and people across the state. You can search and sort events on the History Council of NSW website here https://events.historyweek.com.au/  and wWe'd encourage all Dictionary of Sydney readers to download the full program from the History Council of NSW website here. Download History Week 2017 program here   The Annual History Lecture: The Popular is Political: struggles over national culture in 1970s Australia Each year as part of History Week, the History Council present the popular Annual History Lecture. This year the lecture will be delivered by Associate Professor Michelle Arrow, Macquarie University. You can find out more on the History Council of NSW website here.