Children running into a school holiday matinee at Enmore Theatre 1951 by Bob Rice, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 005/Item 047)

Sometimes you are involved in making history without even realising it, and anyone who has seen something at the Enmore Theatre has been part of something special.  Listen to Mark and Alex on 2SER here The Enmore opened in 1911 as part of a new wave of moving picture palaces sweeping through Sydney. First just an iron and timber shed with no roof, it was soon improved with a canvas tent like cover, and by 1912 had a tin roof and seating for 500. The theatre was run by two brothers, William ‘Bill’ and George Szarka; local identities (Bill was also an alderman on Newtown Council) and entrepreneurs. The brothers set about establishing the theatre as the premier venue in town, hiring well known bands and orchestras to play soundtracks to the silent movies they were showing. In 1920 the brothers rebuilt the theatre, replacing the iron and timber shed with a new brick Spanish Mission style theatre with busts of two turban wearing guardians moulded into the façade. With a capacity of 3000 people, it was designed by well-known theatre architects Karberry and Chard, who also designed the Valhalla in Glebe and Her Majesty’s Theatre at Haymarket. Its opening was a grand affair with the Premier, Mr John Storey carrying out the duties. The new program included movies, live music and vaudeville performances. The Szarka Brothers' Enmore Theatre joined a collection of theatres in Newtown and the inner west. Near the station was Clay’s Bridge Theatre (1910), still standing as The Hub, close by was Hoyts King Street, also still there but long closed as a cinema. The Odeon was on Erskineville Road from 1913, and only demolished in 2013. The nearby Elizabethan from 1929 was once the largest live venue until knocked over in the 1980s. The Coronation Picture Palace building (1913) also still stands on south King Street and Newtown's Trocadero, which opened its doors as a skating rink and theatre in 1889, also remains on north King Street. Due to its popularity, the theatre was also targeted multiple times by thieves. In 1931 George Szarka was attacked and robbed in broad daylight by two men who first threw pepper into his eyes before escaping in a getaway car. Despite the tough neighbourhood, the theatre thrived, and in 1925 Bill was crowned King of Newtown for the brothers' efforts in raising money for charity. Every year they put on a free Christmas day movie for up to 1000 local poor children, giving them sweets and Christmas cake as part of the day.

Opening of Enmore Theatre 1911, Jubilee Souvenir of the Municipality of Newtown 1912, p198 , City of Sydney Archives Newtown Projecct,

In 1927 the brothers sold the business to Hoyt’s, who remodelled the building in 1936 to the one that stands today. The Spanish Mission façade was replaced with a sleek art deco style and the building was converted into a cinema. Reflecting the areas’ population, in 1969 it was purchased by another cinema company, Louis Film Company and rebranded as the Finos Theatre, playing Greek films. At the time almost 13% of the Newtown/Enmore population were Greek. In 1986 the theatre changed hands once more, reopening as a live music and live theatre venue. The variety of music and performance it attracts has kept it in the fore of Sydney’s live entertainment. Legend also has grown around some nights, such as in 2003 when the Rolling Stones played. For a while just about everyone in the area claimed to be amongst the 2000 people inside. And so it goes on, the longest running live entertainment venue still showing in Sydney. Rock on Enmore Theatre, rock on. Head to the Dictionary for more theatre history!   Mark Dunn is the former Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!    

Peter Grose, Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile

Allen & Unwin, February 2020, p/bk, 248pp, ISBN: 978 1 76063 261 8, RRP: AUD$29.99

Any visitor to Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s west coast will have been struck by how peaceful and attractive it is. This was not always so. From 1822 to 1833 Sarah Island was a brutal convict settlement. Fortunately James Porter, one of its convicts, wrote two autobiographical journals which provide the connecting thread for this engaging and well-written account of convict life. Porter was born in London about 1800. He went to sea in his teens, deserted his ship in Chile, married there and had a family. But he yearned for the sea again and in 1821 sailed for England. Falling into bad company he was sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land for life. In 1830 he was sent to Sarah Island for absconding from the Hobart Chain Gang. The main industry there was ship-building using the prolific Huon pine found in the area. When the settlement on the island was closed in 1833 and its occupants moved to Port Arthur, Porter and a dozen others stayed behind to finish the last ship, the Frederick, a 2-masted brig. In January of 1834 the Frederick was ready and the convicts seized it and set sail for Chile, about 13,000 km distant. They had no proper navigation instruments, or skills, but after six weeks they reached their destination. Grose calls this feat 'a staggering example of seamanship, courage, skill and daring', more so perhaps than Bligh’s celebrated voyage of 6,700 km following the Bounty mutiny. Grose finds many discrepancies between Porter’s two journals, and between them and his official convict record. 'Jimmy is a good storyteller' he says. One could say the same about Grose, but the difference is that his stories are true and are backed by impressive research, both here and in Chile. Visit the publisher’s website for a preview of the book here. Dr Neil Radford February 2020

Headstones in Devonshire Street Cemetery, showing the tramline being constructed to remove them to Bunnerong Cemetery c1901, by Ethel Foster, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 146/373)

Recently we have seen the New South Wales State Government resume whole streets and blocks for projects like the Sydney Metro and Westconnex. Houses, pubs, shops, streets and parks have been reclaimed by the government to make way for the building of new transport infrastructure. But I’m here to tell you, this is not the first time this has occurred in Sydney’s history.

Listen to Lisa and Alex on 2SER here

  One of the most remarkable government resumptions in Sydney occurred nearly 120 years ago. In January 1901, the state government announced that the Devonshire Street Cemeteries had to make way for the extension of the city railway. The resumption didn’t just affect the cemetery. It involved the whole block bounded by Pitt, Devonshire, Elizabeth Streets and Garden Road. The burial grounds fronting Devonshire and Elizabeth Streets had progressively opened through the 1820s and together these graveyards functioned as Sydney’s major cemetery until the 1860s. The cemeteries had been effectively closed since 1867 (when Rookwood Necropolis opened) and had been neglected for decades. Very few Sydneysiders visited the graves in the late 19th century and the pathways and headstones were smothered by vegetation. Relatives and descendants were invited in January 1901 to claim headstones and remains, and, at government expense, to organise to remove them to other cemeteries. People were given just 2 months to make an application for re-interment. The Public Works Department, who was overseeing the resumption and construction of Central Railway, set up the Devonshire Street Cemetery Board to deal with the transfer of remains.

Old Devonshire St Cemetery, Sydney c1895, Dixson Library, State Library of NSW (DL PXX 72, 7)

With the government resumption, the exhumation of Sydney’s major colonial burial grounds became the talk of the town. On 16 February 1901, the Evening News reported, '[E]veryone is proud to have relatives at this cemetery now; it is the subject of daily conversation; and everybody that is anybody must certainly have a friend, if not a relative, buried in thisi historic place. … Everywhere, the first query is: ‘Oh, who have you got in the Devonshire-street Cemetery?’ And the subject, once started, is full of interest, domestic interest.'

The bureaucratic process and progress of the resumption received plenty of coverage in the local newspapers. The cemetery was inspected and surveyed by Public Works in preparation of the removals. Before removal, a number was painted on each monument from which numerical lists were compiled by surveyors. A Re-interment Register was then compiled by the Cemetery Board. All the remains that were not claimed and moved to metropolitan cemeteries were removed by the government to a new cemetery 25 acres in size set apart especially in La Perouse. A special tramway was laid down to transport the remains to their new home. The total number of burials that originally occurred in the cemeteries may never be known with certainty. Plans and burial registers have not survived. At one stage the government was anticipating nearly 50,000 remains would need to be removed to La Perouse. But in the end, the figures presented by Devonshire Street Cemetery Board in their final report were much lower. Approximately 1,568 applications were received claiming 8,500 remains. These relics along with their monuments were removed to other cemeteries at a cost of £16,856. Those relics left unclaimed – about 5366 known remains and 16,330 unknown remains – were removed to La Perouse, along with about 2800 memorials, and reinterred at a total cost of £30,156. The entire resumption of the cemetery was completed by September 1902. It was a mammoth effort, but still some remains were missed. Last year with the metro railway works around Central Railway Station, skeletal remains and funerary hardware were once again unearthed. The ghostly relics of Sydney’s colonial cemetery keep rising to remind us of our past and the way Sydney has changed.

Demolishing the old Devonshire St Cemetery for the new Central Railway Station c1900, Dixson Library, State Library of NSW (a7124010 / DL PXX 72)

If you are fascinated by the history of Sydney’s Devonshire Street Cemeteries, then you can catch me talking all about it with a panel of experts – including Elise Edmonds, Peter Hobbins, Catie Gilchrist and Rachel Franks - at the State Library of NSW this Friday lunchtime at 12.30pm. Book your tickets on the State Library website here: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/dead-central-history You've still got some time to see the fascinating exhibition Dead Central too. It is on at the Library until the end of April (details here), and the fantastic accompanying podcast, the Burial Files (here) is not to be missed. And of course, there is always more to be found on the Dictionary! Check out the subjects for Death & Dying (here) and Cemeteries (here), as well as looking for specific places like the Devonshire Street Cemetery (here) or Central Railway Station (here).   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of New South Wales and 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. Thanks Lisa! You can follow her on Twitter here: @sydneyclio Listen to Lisa & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.  

‘The Inundations at Marrickville: Rescuing the Homeless’ May 1889 Illustrated Sydney News, 6 June 1889 p14

The new decade began in Australia with an apocalyptic vision of drought, fire and flood, but it’s always a bit of shock to Sydney when natural disasters sneak up on the inner city too. Last week as flood waters in Marrickville submerged cars, factories, studios, houses and even the beloved Marrickville Bowlo, a look at the Dictionary of Sydney reminded us that although this kind of occurrence has happened before, perhaps it becomes even more confronting as we lose sight of our city’s natural terrain and its ancient waterways.

Listen to Minna and Alex on 2SER here

Traditional owners of Sydney regularly remind us we are a city bound by rivers – including the Cooks River to the south. Feeding into this grand river was the Gumbramorra Creek, that fed in turn the Gumbramorra Swamp, which lies hidden under all the inner west concrete we know and love in Sydenham, St Peters, Marrickville and Tempe. The Gadigal people tapped into this thriving wetland as a rich source wildlife, vegetation and shellfish, but early European residents hated it. In 1790, Watkin Tench complained when he didn’t find rich pastures but instead encountered ‘high coarse rushes, growing in a rotten spongy bog, into which we were plunged knee-deep at every step.’ Other colonists called it a ‘slough of despair.’ The patterns of the swamp were also misunderstood. In wet seasons, it covered a wide area but decreased to half of its size in dry seasons. This misreading was disastrously highlighted by the decision to develop the area. A tramway was constructed along the western boundary of the swamp, now Victoria Road, in 1881 and was a feature used to promote the new Tramvale subdivision. Sales targeted the working class with the promise of increasing land value and employment prospects in the ‘centre of a manufacturing district.’

Ancillary map from subdivision plan of Sydenham farms on Swamp Road and Unwin's Bridge Road c1850, Mitchell Map Collection, State Library of NSW (M2 811.1826/1840/1 (detail))

But the reality of living here was grim. Poor sewage facilities were compounded by regular flooding, meaning neighbouring suburbs could smell Tramvale’s effluence from miles away. In summer mosquitoes thrived in plague proportions. Disaster struck in 1889 when after five days of rain the Cooks River flooded and waters rushed into the ancient swampland, drowning the estate. A shocked public demanded answers as to how such an unethical development had been allowed to occur. Tramvale was never rebuilt, although poorer residents still stayed in their homes until the state government eventually resumed the properties and it was recognised that this low-lying land was better suited to industry. The drainage of the Gumbramorra Swamp commenced in the 1890s, continuing until the 1930s and beyond. Soon the ‘old swamplands’ were no longer even known as Gumbramorra. But when storms hit Sydney and combine with a high tide in the Cooks River the swampland returns and reminds us of what this landscape once was. You can read local historian Chrys Meader's great entry on Sydenham, the swamp and Tramvale on the Dictionary here. Don't forget to explore further through the links and images you'll find on the site. There's also a wonderful essay On the margins of the good swamp by historian Sue Castrique that was published by the Griffith Review in 2019 to read here too.   Minna Muhlen-Schulte is a professional historian and Senior Heritage Consultant at GML Heritage. She was the recipient of the Berry Family Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria and has worked on a range of history projects for community organisations, local and state government including the Third Quarantine Cemetery, Victorian War Heritage Inventory, Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E) and Mallee Aboriginal District Services. In 2014, Minna developed a program on the life and work of Clarice Beckett for ABC Radio National’s Hindsight Program and in 2017 produced Crossing Enemy Lines for ABC Radio National’s Earshot Program. You can hear her most recent production, Carving Up the Country, on ABC Radio National's The History Listen here. She’s appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Minna! Listen to the podcast with Minna & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.   

Preserve this as a bookmark / the property of the Free Public Library, Sydney c1880, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (M 027.591/1A1)

This coming Friday is Library Lovers Day, so today on 2SER Breakfast Dr Mark Dunn and host Alex James talked about three book-related historical sites in the city which have had a lasting impact on Sydney's shape and culture.

Listen to Mark and Alex on 2SER here

1:  The Free Public Library on the corner of Bent and Macquarie Streets was the predecessor of the State Library of NSW.  First established as a subscription library in 1826 by wealthy Sydney merchants for their friends to use, it was an exclusive club in every sense of the word. A reflection of the value and status of books in the colony, membership of the library was dependent on approval from at least two current members - and being male. Women and the general public, whether male or female, were not able to join. The library was located in the City, but was allocated two large land grants by the Government in the area then known broadly as Rushcutters Bay to sell if funds were needed at a future date. This they did in 1840, and the Australian Subscription Library subdivision was one of the main land sales in the establishment of the village of Paddington. The exclusive model proved to be unsustainable however, even after some of the membership restrictions were loosened. In 1869 the library and its stock was taken on by the State government and transformed into a free public library, the foundation for the State Library of NSW we have today. You can read more in Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville's article The Free Public Library on the Dictionary here. 2: The Gibbs, Shallard & Co printing and publishing company was not a library as such, but they were the publishers of many early colonial books, newspapers like the Illustrated Sydney News, guidebooks, maps, pamphlets, gift cards and more, that are so dear to a Sydney historian's heart. They were located in a vast warehouse in Hosking Place, off Pitt Street in the centre of the city, near a small street called Moore Street. Printing workshops were dangerous places, full as they were of paper and chemicals, and although the company had survived a couple of smaller fires, a devastating blaze that consumed the warehouse in October 1890 resulted in the entire city block being destroyed. The ruined block was demolished between Pitt and Castlereagh Street, which allowed for the small Moore Street to be widened and extended, in what was the first stage of the creation of Martin Place in the city. 3: Of all the great 19th century book sellers and publishing houses that existed in Sydney, Dymocks is the sole survivor. First established in Sydney in the early 1880s by William Dymock as Dymock's Book Arcade, it pioneered some of the book shop basics we take for granted today. It was Dymocks who introduced the then-revolutionary idea of ordering their books on the shelves in subject order, much as a library would, allowing customers to browse instead of relying on a clerk to find anything for them. In 1900, they claimed that the store on George Street was the largest book arcade in the world, and in 2020, the company's flagship store still occupies the beautiful art deco building that now stands on the site.

Woman reading on stairs in NSW Public Library October 1943, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388 / Box 006 / Item 091)

  There are lots of activities planned for lovers of libraries this Friday, so check with your favourite library to see what they've lined up. The State Library of NSW has organised a walking tour with Mark of some of the sites of lost libraries and booksellers in the city. You can find out more about how to book on the State Library website here (tickets for Mark's tours go quickly though!). Don't forget to check out the other Library Lover activities they have planned for Friday too. The Library is also hosting a fascinating symposium next Tuesday looking at the history of the subscription library movement and cultures of reading in Australia, Britain and North America, as well as the role of the Australian Subscription Library in the early life of New South Wales. Again, there are more details on the Library's website here. Happy Library Lovers Day!         Mark Dunn is the former Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!    

Anne McKendry, Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview

McFarland & Company, 267 pp., ISBN: 9781476666716, p/bk, US$39.95

Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview by Anne McKendry is this year’s must-have text for all crime fiction enthusiasts and scholars. McKendry’s work is a stunningly innovative volume that fills an important gap in the research on the world’s most popular fictional genre. There are, literally, thousands and thousands of titles dedicated to the unpacking of different types of crime fiction, from clue puzzles with elegant killers, victims and sleuths that are set in the bucolic English countryside through to hardboiled tales of men, and the occasional woman, forming ambiguous silhouettes as they lean against lampposts, poised to light a cigarette as they watch and wait. There are books on noir of all kinds – including Scandinavian, Tartan and Kanga – in addition to books on thrillers and every conceivable type of cozy crime novel, an increasingly popular sub-genre of crime fiction that reveal the crime solving efforts of bakers, cat owners, hoteliers, librarians and knitters, many of whom live in impossibly dangerous small towns. There are volumes dedicated to a place or to a timeframe, as well as books devoted to a single author, while some researchers have followed themes such as ethics and feminism. Yet, surprisingly, there have been no works published that deal exclusively with medieval crime fiction: until now. Medieval crime stories feature 'a crime or mystery that is solved by a ‘detective’ and set during the European Middle Ages. These novels sit at the intersection of the historical novel, crime fiction and medievalism, harnessing the immense appeal of each to contemporary popular culture' (p. 2). In a short article for medievalists.net, McKendry explains how examples within this sub-genre of crime fiction are:

set in a time several hundred years before detectives and police forces emerged in both fiction and fact. There were, of course, sheriffs, bailiffs, officers of the court, coroners, lawyers and gaolers in the medieval criminal justice system, of which the sheriff appears to be the closest to what today’s readers would recognise as a detective. But investigating crime was only a small part of the medieval sheriff’s role; they had much broader responsibilities as the most senior administrative officer in their counties, including collecting revenue, executing writs and carrying out military tasks.

The first chapter in her book sets the scene for a serious study of this sub-genre and looks at the work done to date. This chapter also examines the character Brother Cadfael—the famous Benedictine monk created by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) who solves numerous murders in 12th century England—and is 'an exemplar of medieval crime fiction detectives' (p. 2), and the first detective to be successfully located in the Middle Ages in 1977. Another early key figure is Umberto Eco's Franciscan friar William of Baskerville who first appeared in print in 1980 before the Italian bestseller was translated into English in 1983 as the international blockbuster The Name of the Rose. Chapters two and three focus on male detectives, the secular and those attached to religious orders. McKendry notes the male dominated nature of the sub-genre. This is hardly surprising given the greater restrictions on women in the Middle Ages and the surplus of men who were 'knights, former knights, ex-crusaders or bailiffs: they are handy with a sword and not afraid to use violence in the course of their investigations' (p. 8). Those men dedicating their lives to God are also easy to find in the Middle Ages though these detectives are particularly vulnerable as they 'must cautiously navigate strongly held beliefs that God, Christ, the saints and Satan all actively intervene into earthly affairs' (p. 9). These sleuths of intellectual rather than physical action are some of the more popular detectives within this type of crime fiction. Chapter four turns to women who, despite having some of their freedoms curbed, were 'not as constrained as is popularly believed' though these characters—secular and religious—are inevitably tied to a 'male companion, mentor, servant or partner whose presence is necessary to penetrate spaces or situations from which a woman is excluded' (p. 9). Chapter five looks at the racial, religious and cultural conflicts that can be found depicted in medieval crime novels, with particular focus on Jewish people in England who were 'surprisingly widespread' despite the edict of Edward I to expel the small population of Jews, from the country, in 1290 (pp. 167–68). Chapter six looks at the complex, and for some readers controversial, project of transforming a famous historical man or woman into a fictional detective with McKendry exploring the re-casting of Geoffrey Chaucer, Leonardo da Vinci and Lucrezia Borgia, amongst others, from well-known cultural figure to criminal investigator. As the title of the book suggests, this is a critical overview of medieval crime fiction and McKendry offers important and insightful analysis of a body of works that has been largely ignored by scholars. This is, very much, an 'academic text', but McKendry’s skill as a researcher and a writer also sees this volume as an invitation to general readers to explore, and to enjoy, the wide range of crime novels set in medieval Europe. Interestingly, McKendry talks about the nostalgia often associated with the historical novel and the notions of a better (or at least different) world that many readers are drawn to. There is too a sense of nostalgia for the texts that she discusses. Readers that came to medieval crime fiction after working their way through the novels of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Peter Corris and so many others, will find this book a wonderful reminder of how 'new' the historical crime novel was in the 1970s and 1980s. For a remarkably robust genre that has reinvented itself for each generation since Edgar Allan Poe, the medieval crime story was a truly refreshing take on the traditional whodunit. Book sales for McKendry’s terrific text will, no doubt, be strong. Books sales for Ellis Peters might go up as well. Medieval Crime Fiction, with an excellent bibliography and a useful index, will prove to be indispensable reading for academics and aficionados of crime stories. McKendry tells the fascinating tale of medieval crime fiction, and her keen observations on this type of writing (that can sometimes frustrate critical consumers with slips, errors and anachronisms) reveals an essential chapter of the crime fiction canon. Some may wonder why it took so long for this book to emerge, but on reading McKendry’s take on these medieval sleuths, most will agree it was worth the wait. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, February 2020 For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the pubisher's website here: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/medieval-crime-fiction/

Bettina Bradbury, Caroline’s Dilemma: A colonial inheritance saga

NewSouth, November 2019, 352pp, p/bk, ISBN: 9781742236605, RRP: AUD$34.99

If you hold a romanticised appreciation of living a middle-class life on the land in the Victorian era, then this non-fiction book will challenge that ideal. The story unfolds chronologically and takes the reader around the world to places such as a country village in 1840s England, the remote Mosquito Plains in eastern South Australia, the vast sheep stations of the Wimmera in western Victoria, the port of Robe in its prime (1865), Melbourne, Port Jackson, Ireland and London. Bettina Bradbury’s historical characters are tried and tested by well-known themes in Australian colonial history: isolation, drought, geographical distance, religious sectarianism and conflict with the Indigenous population. To this potent mix, Bradbury adds 19th century gender relations. The pivotal dilemma of the book’s title is the last will of Caroline’s husband of 12 years, Edward Kearney, which requires her to move to Ireland with their five remaining children (then aged one to nine years) to live under the ‘care’ of his Catholic family, else forfeit any rights to a share of the inheritance. From the perspective of the 21st century, this is shocking, and possibly abusive. All of Caroline’s family emigrated to Australia with her in 1851. She had never been to Ireland and was raised a Protestant. Since marrying Edward as a 19 year old in 1853, she has borne him six children and supported his desire to become part of the landed gentry – a status he could never hope to attain as a Catholic in Ireland. Although Caroline hires lawyers and travels to Melbourne to contest the will, she is unsuccessful, as the laws require judges to uphold the wishes of the testator. What is she to do? While the book’s prose is not always scintillating, the research is astounding. I am in awe of Bradbury’s thorough, meticulous research. Bradbury’s dilemma is that her main characters, Edward and Caroline Kearney (nee Bax), left no personal letters, diaries or records that provide an insight into their thoughts, emotions and motivations. There is not even a portrait of them. Instead, Bradbury has had to construct their story from official sources such as shipping records, birth, death and marriage registers, newspaper accounts (which provided far more local news than today’s syndicated press), gazettes, law reports, government archives and a plethora of secondary sources which provided context but not content. At times she is forced to speculate – who was the ‘Mrs Kearney’ who shared a cabin with Edward and Edward junior (Caroline and Edward’s third child) on their trip to Ireland in 1864? It certainly wasn’t his wife, who spent 11 months trying to raise four young children, giving birth to her final child and trying to run a homestead on a vast sheep station in her husband’s absence. Was Edward having an affair or was this the name given to a governess for the three year old Edward junior? One of Bradbury’s strengths as a writer of history is that she makes it very clear to the reader when she is working with documented evidence and when she is inferring and surmising what might have happened, based on the facts available. Edward junior does write a personal memoir when he is about 20 years old, which he dedicates to Anna Cooke, his future wife. Bradbury approaches this vital source with due caution. It is written from the perspective of a jaundiced son who is hoping to win the heart and sympathy of its main reader. Added to these competing prejudices, is the fickle and selective nature of memory. While Bradbury does well to weave a story from these primary sources, I did wonder what an historian and author like the late Inga Clendinnen would make of this material. One of Clendinnen’s distinctions as an historian was her ability to glean insights by understanding the historical and cultural context and how these influence personal motivations. Bettina Bradbury is a New Zealand historian who has spent most of her career writing women’s and family history at York University in Canada. This is her seventh book of history but her first foray into Australian history. She relays accounts of frontier conflict with sensitivity and an understanding of the broader issues impacting on Indigenous inhabitants and colonial invaders/settlers alike. As she explains in her introduction (p.4), she set out to write a different book but Caroline Kearney’s ‘predicament seduced me’. Bradbury dives down the rabbit hole and emerges from the warren with a story worth telling. Visit the publisher's website here. Reviewed by Alison Wishart, December 2019  

Photo: WIRES

It's been a heartbreaking few months, and right now,  WIRES Wildlife Rescue is caring for thousands of injured, orphaned and sick animals. The State Library of NSW, the home of the Dictionary of Sydney, wants to help ensure our state’s wildlife volunteers can continue doing this amazing work. The Library is putting up for auction a very special event, a five course dinner for four people in the beautiful Shakespeare Room in the Mitchell Wing of the Library - one of the most unusual public venues in Sydney. The night also includes a special encounter with an extraordinary treasure from the Library’s collection.

Dinner for four in the Library's beautiful Shakespeare Room could be yours! Bid now on this amazing experience and help to support WIRES care for our wildlife.

 

Bids will be accepted in Australian dollars only until the auction closes at 11pm on Monday 20 January 2020. As of 15 January, bidding is currently at AUS$800. Bids can be made via the Library’s relevant posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or by emailing media@sl.nsw.gov.au.

The highest bidder will be contacted by the State Library on Tuesday 21 January and instructed to donate directly to the WIRES Wildlife Rescue. Once proof of donation has been provided, the Library will liaise directly with the winner to schedule the event. Please note: The dinner in the Shakespeare Room must been be held on a weekday in 2020, subject to availability.  

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Photo: Kyla Stephan

 

If you want to help in other ways as well, Library staff are holding open knitting groups from 12-2 on Wednesdays in January for anyone who would like to join them in making much-needed pouches for joeys and possums injured or orphaned by the bushfires. You don't need to be an expert, just bring 8 ply 100% wool (the pouch has to be breathable) and 4mm knitting needles. The Library will provide patterns, advice and refreshments - click here for further details: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/knitting-group The Library website also has guides to dealing with caring for your paper based items that may have been affected by ash, smoke and odour on their website here, and has put together resources to help in dealing with bushfire insurance issues here. You can keep up with the Library's other initiatives to support those affected by the fires through the Library website https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ and by subscribing to the Library newsletters and social media streams.     Place your bid for dinner in the Shakespeare room via the Library’s relevant posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or by emailing media@sl.nsw.gov.au.              

Little boy sitting on Santa's lap at Roselands December 1969 , National Archives of Australia (A1200, L85978)

Some of us still have the photos taken of us crying, having a tantrum or terrified while perched on the knee of the strange Santa at the shopping mall, his nylon beard glistening under neon lights. But what about those other Santa-like figures of Sydney’s Christmas past? It was often the least likely people in the community that each year gave the most, and often those with memories of a grim childhood who set out to make sure other unlucky kids had a better one. This week we thought we'd have a quick look at a few of Sydney's more best known alternative Santas.

Listen to Minna and Alex on 2SER here

Kate Leigh with Sun journalist Robert Curtis playing Santa for her and the children at her party, The Sun 21 Dec 1947 p3, via Trove

The Sly-Grog Santa The Razor Gang matriarch Kate Leigh (aka 'the'Queen of the Hills') started life in Dubbo in 1881, but by the age of 12 had come to the attention of police as a neglected child and was sent to the notorious Industrial School for Girls in Parramatta. After her release she set about building her criminal empire running a string of sly-grog shops, profiting off the back of State Government’s lock out of pubs at six o’clock. During the 1920s, Kate cornered the market in cocaine but prided herself on never in indulging in either alcohol or drugs. She lived in Surry Hills, generously hosting an annual Christmas street party for the locals, saying 'Kiddies of Surry Hills have very little… but I will not see them unhappy at Christmas'. The Sun newspaper reported up to 300 children at her place in 1946 and 500 children the following year. On occasion, Kate even cast her second husband, sly grog dealer Teddy Barry, in the role of Santa while she held court and handed out party hats for the kids. The Santa Claus of Kings Cross The bikie Randall 'Animal' Nelson was a distinctive part of the Cross from the 1960s; chain smoking, bearded, tattooed and tearing through the streets on his motorcycle. As a child Nelson was bounced between state institutions. He did a stint of National Service and served gaol sentences but in 1989 he co-founded Kings Cross Bikers Social and Welfare Club. With the club, he coordinated the Bikie’s Toy Ride each Christmas to distribute toys for needy children. Up until his death in 2014, Nelson spent the better part of each day wrapping and packing presents in his public housing unit at Waterloo. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his community work. Dame Marie Bashir became a personal friend, visiting him on his deathbed and speaking at his funeral at the Wayside Chapel, which hundreds of people attended.

In memory of Black Santa, plaque commemorating Syd 'Doc' Cunningham on King Street, Newtown 24 July 2010, photo by Newtown graffiti, via Flickr
(CC BY 2.0)

Black Santa Sydney Arthur Cunningham, the self-titled ‘Black Santa’, used to sit with a table, chair and bucket on the foothpath outside a supermarket in Newtown, collecting donations throughout the year  with a sign that read 'Wellington Aboriginal Children, we need your help for a bush Xmas'. For over 30 years Cunningham encouraged Sydney’s citizens to help provide gifts for Aboriginal kids in Western NSW. He began delivering gifts to the bush in the 1960s, dressed in red overalls with a red pyjama top and pair of gum boots. Black Santa’s sleigh was a helicopter and he remembered how the ‘kids eyes shone like diamonds’ when he descended from the sky with toys. Descended from the Yuin people of the South Coast, Cunningham grew up in Redfern and La Perouse, first working selling newspapers and then driving wool carts. He also served in the Army and RAAF in Papua New Guinea during World War II. Moved to help improve conditions for Aboriginal communities he worked for many years as co-ordinator with the Western Districts Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs in St Marys. He even opened his home to children who needed shelter. Today outside the IGA on King Street a plaque marks where Syd once tirelessly stood collecting for kids out west. This year Sydney’s time-honoured tradition of alternative Santas continued with Drag Santa at the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville, where the public could get a free photo with one of a series of festive drag queens and donate to the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, Australia's longest running HIV charity.   Minna Muhlen-Schulte is a professional historian and Senior Heritage Consultant at GML Heritage. She was the recipient of the Berry Family Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria and has worked on a range of history projects for community organisations, local and state government including the Third Quarantine Cemetery, Victorian War Heritage Inventory, Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (M.A.D.E) and Mallee Aboriginal District Services. In 2014, Minna developed a program on the life and work of Clarice Beckett for ABC Radio National’s Hindsight Program and in 2017 produced Crossing Enemy Lines for ABC Radio National’s Earshot Program. She’s appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Minna! Listen to the podcast with Minna & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.       

The State Library of NSW wants your feedback on their exciting new catalogue. You can preview the new catalogue and some of its features here.  

 

Antonia Pesenti & Hilary Bell, Summer Time

NewSouth, October 2019, 44pp, h/bk, ISBN: 9781742236070, RRP: AUD$24.99

Summertime is a tale of reminiscence, of the best summer activities that prompt happy thoughts. and hint at possibilities for any family looking for a summer day idea, planned or impromptu. A gorgeous collaborative picture book by writer Hilary Bell and artist Antonia Pesenti, this is a gentle guide for making new memories in the minds of the young, and the not so young. From the flapping of everything in its reach as the fan chugs into action (always switched on high at the start), to the summer beach shack complete with the ever-present sand and books and more sand, each beautifully uncluttered page plays out a single thought that defines the Australian summer. Presenti’s delightful images and Bell’s carefully considered words explore that idea of the summer holidays - of time and more time, stretching out over the holidays for those who are lucky enough to kick back and enjoy, complete with the hazards of nature and excessive swimming. A warm and inviting book for reading with young children (and for those who will be made nostalgic for their own childhood summers). Reviewed by Andrea Sturgeon, Education Officer, Learning Services, State Library of NSW, December 2019 For further details and some great free Teachers' Notes on the book, visit the publisher's website here