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Sporting challenges at the Union Inn, Cooks River December 1845

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National Library of Australia
[nla.news-article59765355 via Trove]
(Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewwe, 6 December 1845, p2)

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Appears in
Damming the Cooks River
Subjects
Boxing Hotels and Pubs Recreation and Sport
People
Gorrick, John B Lisson Hilton, Joseph Sparkes, William
Buildings
Union Hotel Tempe
Artefacts
Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer

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National Library of Australia

Damming the Cooks River

Once considered 'the greatest boon ever conferred upon the town', the Cooks River dam became an endless source of environmental blight and misery to Sydneysiders and by the turn of the century was demolished

Recreation and Sport

Hotels and Pubs

Boxing

Hilton, Joseph

Convict who became a basketmaker and hired boats on the Cooks River dam but is best remembered as the pugnacious individual who offered himself, his dog or his wife, to fight anyone in the colony.

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Union Hotel Tempe

Public house on the Cooks River road at Tempe which became a popular inn for sportsmen in the 1840s and 1850s.

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Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer

Popular Sydney newspaper published from 1845 until 1860, and subsequently as Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle until 1870. As well as sporting news, the paper often carried colourful or satirical articles about politics and local events and people, and was illustrated with cartoons.

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Sparkes, William

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Famous bare knuckle boxer from the Petersham area who, like his brothers Isaac and Thomas, fought under several different names around Sydney during the nineteenth century. He also worked as doorman at the Victoria Theatre.

Gorrick, John B Lisson

Publican and former boxing champion who was born in the Hawkesbury. The son of convicts Ann and Thomas Lisson, after Ann left Thomas in about 1812 for Isaac Gorrick, John took on his stepfather's surname, and also used his first name sometimes to fight. He was also known as the 'white Bungaree' and fought under this name in England in the early 1840s.

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