Building and Engineering, 24 November 1947 p40-41 via Trove

This week the NSW heritage sector celebrates the good work done across the state. It is the Heritage Festival, and as part of that the National Trust (NSW) hosts an awards function in which projects large and small are recognised and celebrated. It’s like the heritage Oscars without the celebrities, variety acts or television cameras. The awards have been a regular part of the festival for some years and are one of the ways that the National Trust keeps its core business, promoting and protecting heritage, in the public view. How did the National Trust in New South Wales begin though?   Listen to Mark and Julia on 2SER here  The National Trust has been around in Sydney since 1947. Set up by the activist Annie Wyatt, the Trust has sought, with varying amounts of success, to preserve Sydney’s and NSW’s built and natural heritage for the future. Annie was the driving force in the 1930s and 1940s behind the growing concern about the pace of demolitions of colonial buildings happening at the time. It was the loss of Burdekin House in Macquarie Street, the Commissariat Store at Circular Quay and the then threat of demolition of the Mint and Hyde Park Barracks on Macquarie Street that galvanised Annie and her supporters into action. Their first act was to establish a list of A and B classified buildings that should be saved. The A list included the Macquarie Street collection, Cadmans Cottage, the 1815 Military Hospital on Observatory Hill as well as Old Government House and Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta and a few cemeteries around greater Sydney. All these were saved, all remain on their list and all have migrated onto statutory heritage lists like the State Heritage Register.

The Military Hospital, in 'The town of Sydney in New South Wales c1821', by Major James Taylor (courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW V1/ca.1821/5)

Annie’s work continued until her death in the 1960s. She did not get to see the National Trust take up permanent residence in one of her A list buildings, the 1815 Military hospital, in 1975. Now known as the National Trust Centre, it was built by Governor Macquarie to serve the military garrison, mirroring the hospital in Macquarie Street built to serve the public. The hospital was in use for 34 years before being converted into the Fort Street Model School for girls and boys. The model here was for the beginnings of non-denominational education in NSW, with new government run schools giving an alternative to the religious education that was otherwise on offer. The school, in varying formats, remained until 1975. During this time additions and alterations kept the old building relevant and useful, ensuring its survival. And so it is, 204 years after it was built that the building remains alive, saved by enthusiastic, passionalte, volunteer activists and kept going by the desire to maintain a layering of history in the built fabric of the city of Sydney. To find out more about the National Trust's fantastic work and the Heritage Week Festival, head to their website. Check out the calendar for events near you:    https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/ahf/nsw/  

Mark Dunn is the Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association, the Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW and 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!

Listen to the audio of Mark & Julia here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

Ruth Park, pre 1947, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (P1/Park, Ruth)

Melbourne claims to be the City of Literature, but this week Sydney is all things literary as we settle into the Sydney Writer's Festival. Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here  The Dictionary of Sydney is all about history, but of course, historians are writers, and some novelists also dabble in history. We have a fascinating article that charts the historical course of literature in Sydney by Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Webby here,  and I commend that to you. But today I want to reflect upon one particular writer and her ability to evoke life in Sydney. Her name? Ruth Park. Ruth Park (1917-2010) wasn't born here. She was a New Zealander. But she lived most of her life in Sydney. And, well, like so many things from New Zealand, we claim her as our own. Ruth Park set several of her novels in Sydney, for both adults and children. One of my all-time favourite books as a child was Playing Beatie Bow. This was written by Park in 1980. It was set in The Rocks in the 1970s and a young teenage girl time travels back to colonial Sydney, to the Rocks 100 years earlier in the 1870s. How's it happen? The time slip occurs playing a children's game, with an old piece of lace that Abigail the lead character is wearing being the conduit. It's actually a coming of age story, but there are many recognisable sites around the Rocks in the book, including the steps beside the Argyle Cut leading to Gloucester Walk. I like to call them the Beatie Bow steps. Perhaps it's what got me hooked on this whole history obsession! The novel won the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year in 1981, and it was later produced as a film. If you haven't read it, you should - or at least read it to your children.

One of Noela Young's iconic illustrations for the Muddle Headed Wombat books.

It was another set of children's stories - forty years earlier - that actually set Ruth Park on the path of being a novelist rather than a journalist. Park's big break was writing a radio serial for the ABC Children's Hour. It started in 1942 as The Wide-Awake Bunyip and in the 1950s became The Muddle-Headed Wombat. This continued as a serial for the Children's Hour until 1970. Park wrote a series of children's books based on the serial characters that were published between 1962 and 1981. Ruth Park's first novel was The Harp in the South (1948). It won the inaugural Sydney Morning Herald novel competition in 1946 and was originally serialised in the Herald, before being published as a book. The Harp in the South was set in Sydney's Surry Hills and affectionately portrayed the life of an Irish Catholic family in the slums of Surry Hills. Park brought a humanity to family life in the slums during the Depression, drawing upon first-hand experience. Park and her husband D'Arcy Niland lived for a while in Surry Hills and witnessed the poverty, domestic violence, and daily struggle. And the social realism of Park's writing today gives us a vivid account of what Surry Hills was like at the time. Her second novel, Poor Man's Orange (1949), was a sequel to The Harp in the South, and continued to follow the Darcy family after the second world war. It too was serialised in the Sydney Morning Herald. The Harp in the South was a best-seller, has been translated into 37 languages, was made into a play and a tv mini-series. Last year, the books, with the prequel Missus (1985), were adapted for the stage by the Sydney Theatre Company.

Australian Women's Weekly, 21 Oct 1973 p15 via Trove

Ruth Park had an obvious affection for Sydney. In 1973 the popular author wrote The Companion Guide to Sydney. It is an evocative account of Sydney's history and landmarks, but it is also part lament to a vanishing Sydney, a Sydney she would also capture in Playing Beatie Bow. Park wrote in the preface that she was spurred to write the Guide by urgent dismay in the face of the great destruction of the city's old buildings in the 1960s: 'Oh, my poor old girl!' I used to cry,' she wrote, 'stepping aside to avoid trucks laden with enormous ironbark beams, black with age and pocked with axe marks.' (quoted in Delia Falconer's Dictionary entry, 'A City of One's Own: Women's Sydney').  I still draw upon Park's acute observations in The Companion Guide to Sydney from time to time in my own historical work. Ruth Park was a journalist, a script writer, researcher, and novelist who made Sydney her home, and captured its soul through her writing. What better time to revisit some Sydney literary classics than during Sydney Writer's Festival? Park died in 2010. Her literary papers are held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. Find out more about the Sydney Writer's Festival here. Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the 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 & Tess 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. 

Life's Tragedy: announcement of Joe Lynch's death in Smith's Weekly, 21 May 1927, via Trove

Today on 2SER Breakfast, historian Minna Muhlen-Schulte and Tess talked about the story behind Kenneth Slessor's moving and influential poem, Five Bells. 

Listen to the audio of Minna and Tess on 2SER here 

Deep and dissolving verticals of light Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats In air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.

from Five Bells,  Kenneth Slessor, 1939

As you walk along the edge of the Royal Botanical Gardens near the Man O’War steps you might stumble upon The Satyr. A small bronze statue with big hairy goat legs and the torso of a man with a very cheeky smile on his face. Eyes half shut, he leans back on his podium like he’s just told a joke. Originally it was sculpted in plaster by Guy Lynch and exhibited in 1924  in the Young Australian Artists’ exhibition in the Anthony Hordern and Sons Fine Art Gallery. To get the correct proportions, Guy tied up a goat in his backyard and then got his brother Joe Lynch to model for the torso. Reviews of the work at the time veered between 'magnificent' and 'remarkable' to 'insolent, vicious and animal to the last degree'. Joe and Guy were fixtures of the 1920s bohemian scene in Sydney, carousing with artists and journalists. Joe worked at the popular newspaper Smith’s Weekly as a black and white cartoonist with colleagues like the poet Kenneth Slessor who later described Joe’s wild personality as prone to mad Irish humour and mad Irish rages, a ‘devout nihilist [who] frequently over a pint of Victoria Bitter said the only remedy to the world’s disease was to blow it up an start afresh’ (Daily Telegraph, 31 July 1967). Most Saturday nights they would all head to their friend George Finey’s apartment in Mosman to party. On Saturday, 14 May 1927, Joe finished work at Smith’s, put on his old overcoat and walked down to Circular Quay to meet the crew, including Guy. The harbour bridge was still being built and people would often gather at the pubs nearby to wait for the ferry to take them across to the other side. They got on the 7.45pm ferry, carrying drinks on board - Joe loading up his overcoat pockets with bottles of beer. Because there were not enough seats, Joe was leaning against the rail on the outside deck. Suddenly as they passed Fort Denison, he disappeared over the side and into the black water. His body was never recovered. For most Sydneysiders at the time, Joe’s drowning was unremarkable, but for Guy, things were never the same. He ‘went to pieces’ and took to pacing the harbour foreshore in front of the Royal Botanic Gardens, looking out to the water as if looking for his brother.

The Satyr, Royal Botanic Gardens 2014, courtesy Lindsay Foyle

A few years later Kenneth Slessor was thinking of Joe and began composing an elegy to the life and death of his friend, and meditation on the nature of time and mortality. Five Bells become one of Australia’s favourite poems. The poem has inspired further creations like John Olsen’s mural in the main concert hall of the Opera House, music by Peter Sculthorpe and a novel by Gail Jones, among many other works. From that one sad night on the harbour in 1927 has sprung an extraordinary part of our cultural heritage. After Guy died in 1967, his widow Marge Lynch retrieved the plaster sculpture of The Satyr from storage in Art Gallery of NSW. Fulfilling Guy’s last wish, she paid to have it cast in bronze and placed on the foreshore, looking out to where Joe disappeared into the harbour.   Read Lindsay Foyle's entry The Life & Death of Joe Lynch on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_life_and_death_of_joe_lynch 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 & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney. 

wp-image-16081https://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SLNSW-XV1-1803-1-DETAIL.jpgThe mouth of the Tank Stream in Sydney Cove c1803, a detail of [Sydney from the western side of the Cove, ca1803], atrributed to GW Evans, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (XV1/c1803/1)400301/> The mouth of the Tank Stream in Sydney Cove c1803, a detail of [Sydney from the western side of the Cove, ca1803], atrributed to GW Evans, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (XV1/c1803/1)

It is often forgotten that our modern city lies across what was a natural landscape of forests, valleys’, rivers and streams. It was a landscape formed over millennia and familiar to Aboriginal people for over 30,000 years. Running through the valley on which the city of Sydney now stands was a fresh water stream, rising in the marsh land around Hyde Park before heading north towards the harbour. At high tide it formed a wide estuary as it entered the harbour, at low tide a large marshy mudflat.   Today historian Dr Mark Dunn talked to Julia Carr-Catzel on 2SER Breakfast to talk about the Tank Stream.

  Listen to Mark and Julia on 2SER here 

When the British arrived in the First Fleet, Arthur Phillip, the first Governor, used this stream to order his rambling camp. To the east he had a space cleared for the erection of a prefabricated, temporary house to serve as the Government House, with land close by set aside for his officials and administrators. On the west the military began to establish what would become their barracks and the convicts were left to set tents and later build their huts along the ridge in what became the Rocks. Phillip’s hastily thought-out camp plan, based around the stream set the foundation for the future city and is still discernible today. To the east of the stream, which essentially runs under Pitt Street, sit the State parliament, law courts, the hospital and other government functions, to the west the commercial city moved into the space left behind by the barracks (modern day Wynyard) and the convict town of the Rocks.

Detail showing the Tank Stream from 'Plan of the town and suburbs of Sydney, August 1822', courtesy National Library of Australia (MAP F 107)

What of the stream though? Soon after the arrival of the Fleet, David Collins deputy judge-advocate and lieutenant governor, wrote of the camp that it was ‘at the head of the cove, near the run of fresh water which stole silently through a very thick wood’. It was vital to the survival of the new camp, just as it had been to Aboriginal people. Archaeological work carried out on the site of Angel Place during its construction recovered 54 stone flakes of tools made by Aboriginal people on the banks of the stream itself. People love firsts, and the stream provides us with a few. It had the first bridge in Australia built across it, giving us the name Bridge Street. The first flood recorded by the British was in August 1788, when heavy rain swelled the flow and washed away newly erected brick kilns and some huts. It is also the site of our first environmental protection laws. Recognising the importance of the stream to the colony, Phillip banned any huts to be erected within 15m of the stream, forbidding the removal of the trees along its banks and restricting access by animals and people. The name, Tank Stream, appears in the years after 1790 when a series of four large tanks were cut into the sandstone banks to collect water. Even in these early years, and despite the almost utter reliance on the stream for fresh water, the overuse and pollution of European living had begun to put unbearable pressure on this precious resource. Each tank could hold up to 20,000 litres. Tanks built, water secured, name bestowed. Phillip left in 1792 and with him so too did any real concern for the stream. Under his temporary replacement, Major Grose, officers of the military were permitted to build within the 15m exclusion zone, and soon huts and pigsties appeared along its banks. It was quickly polluted, and despite subsequent Governors trying to reintroduce some controls, the stream never recovered. By 1828 it was ruined and Sydney was looking to other water sources for their supply, eventually replacing it with the convict built Busby’s Bore. Soon enough the idea of covering the stream was mooted. The proposed redevelopment of the head of the cove into a circular quay also included the diversion of the stream into a purpose built sewer. George Barney, colonial engineer set with the task of scoping the quay project noted in 1836 that: The stream is in effect the main sewer of a large portion of the town, and from local position, it becomes the channel of conveyance of hundreds of tons of sand, annually, from the numerous and extensive streets inclining towards it, in addition to a contribution of every species of filth from the rear of the premises abutting upon it ( The Australian, 16 September 1836, p2). His solution was the conversion of the stream into a sewer, covering it in a brick or stone culvert which would protect it from sand and debris, allow the streets above to be formalised and extended, and still maintain the stream itself for the benefit of the city. And so it was that in November 1856 work finally began to divert the course into Circular Quay and enclose the stream within an elliptical stone culvert. The first section between the Quay and Bridge Street was completed by September 1857, creating in the process New Pitt Street. From 1860 the next portion between Bridge and Hunter was covered and finally that part south of Hunter Street went underground from 1867 so that the whole stream had disappeared by the early 1870s. For the next 118 years it was largely out of sight, out of mind. Most people forgot it was even there, except a few builders who occasionally saw it in the basement of older sites or the construction of new ones like Australia Square. Then in 1988, Sydney Water, wanting to be part of the Bicentennial celebrations, decided to give the culvert a clean-up and open it to public viewing. What started small is now one of Sydney’s most sought after underground experiences and the ballot is currently open for a chance to explore.

Tank Stream 1842 by Frederick Garling, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML 420)

For those who miss out, keep your eyes peeled next time you walk in Pitt Street Mall or Martin Place for Lynne Roberts-Goodwin’s installation, Tankstream-into the head of the Cove. In a series of blue glass rods inserted into the footpath, Goodwin maps the route of the stream and reminds us that we walk atop of Sydney’s fresh water heart. Head to the Sydney Living Museums website for information about the Tank Stream tours and how to enter the ballot: https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/events/tank-stream-tours-may-2019-ballot

Mark Dunn is the Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association, the Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW and 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!

Listen to the audio of Mark & Julia here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

Judith Brett, Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting 

Text Publishing, 2019, 208pp., ISBN: 9781925603842, p/bk. AUS$29.99

I don't normally do book reviews, but I've just recently finished From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage by Judith Brett, Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University, which ticks the boxes of being a new book about topics central to the theme of my website, The Tally Room, and it was an excellent read. There is a lot out there for a dedicated reader of Australian electoral history, but not much of it is written for a broader audience. I have learned a lot in particular from Peter Cochrane's Colonial Ambition, which focuses on the development of democratic institutions in New South Wales from the 1840s until the 1860s, and The Australian Electoral System by David Farrell and Ian McAllister, which covers the history of the Australian electoral system along with more contemporary content, in a format closer to that of a textbook. I also found Peter Brent's PhD 2008 thesis The rise of the returning officer : how colonial Australia developed advanced electoral institutions interesting in exploring how the structure of Australian electoral administration evolved. I'm sure there's a lot more in the political and historical journals yet to be read. So many of the topics in Brett's book weren't new to me, but they were told in a very engaging and interesting way, telling the story about the origins of each major development in Australia's voting system and giving more atmosphere to the motivations and actions of key players in these developments. The book's blurb focuses on compulsory voting, as does the subtitle. Compulsory voting is definitely an important theme that appears a number of times in the book, but this story isn't just about compulsory voting. It also covers a bunch of other distinctive Australian electoral innovations that don't have much to do with compulsory voting. The book covers:

• the invention of the Australian ballot, including the provision of a standardised government-issued ballot paper and the provision of a private space to mark that ballot;
• the development of independent electoral administration including the role of William Boothby;
• the direct election of the Senate, as set down in the Constitution;
• the Franchise Act of 1902, which enfranchised women while disenfranchising Indigenous Australians and other people of colour;
• the first attempts to introduce preferential and proportional voting systems in 1902 and the subsequent adoption of these voting systems in 1919 and 1948;
• early unsuccessful attempts to introduce compulsory voting, the successful introduction of compulsory enrolment followed by the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924;
• voting on Saturdays;
• the rise of the Country Party in sync with the introduction of preferential voting in 1919, and how the introduction of proportional representation in the Senate helped encourage more minor parties;

and more recent events including the evolution of the experience at the local polling booth on election days (hence 'Democracy Sausage' in the name) and the 2017 marriage postal survey. There's so much there to learn about how successive generations of Australians have experimented with our electoral system, over a period of 160 years. Brett makes some claims in the final chapter about the centrality of compulsory voting to the Australian political system which I think can be contested, but the historical work is engaging and informative and well worth a read for anyone interested in where our modern electoral institutions came from. Reviewed by Ben Raue, April 2019 Visit the publisher’s website here to purchase and preview the book.  

Custom House and Circular Quay 1845 by GE Peacock, courtesy Dixson Galleries, State Library of NSW (DG 35)

The City of Sydney have just announced that they have acquired Customs House from the Commonwealth Government, so today I thought we'd take a look back at the history of the building and its role in maritime Sydney.  Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here  Customs House down in Circular Quay is an important public building that symbolised, when it was built in 1845, Sydney's growing status as a trading port, British maritime power and the rule of order. Look up at the outside today and you can see cartouches, or shields, with names of some of the other ports with which we traded. It's sited on reclaimed land, at what was once the edge of Sydney Cove and it was the hub for shipping and all the goods and people coming into the harbour. Customs House was where shipping was cleared and goods passing through the port were taxed and cleared for sale or export. When the port was busy, so was the Customs House. It could be crowded and noisy, the scene of raised tempers over delays and disputed dealings. Around Customs House clustered shipping companies, warehouses and bond stores, customs agents, ships providores, and, of course, pubs. Customs House has always had a dual role of revenue raising through taxing trade, and protecting society from banned and socially unacceptable goods, products, ideas and diseases. The staff connected with the Customs House included customs collectors, warehouse keepers, boat crews, messengers, and (my favourites) tide waiters and landing waiters. The tide waiters went on board ships in port to tally cargoes and intercept smuggling, and the landing waiters, watched over the wharves. In Sydney's early days as a commercial port, smugglers were active not only in relation to banned goods, but to any good which attracted a significant tariff. Opium, for instance, was legal until well into the twentieth century, but attracted a high tax, so it was at the centre of many smuggling scandals. Today, of course, opium is illegal. Inevitably with this type of activity, stories emerged of men on the make and men on the take. The historian of the Customs Service, David Day, relates the histories of a succession of officers whose administration came under official scrutiny: It was not that Customs officers were more prone to corruption than other officials. It was simply that the nature of their work left them more exposed to the temptation. (David Day, Smugglers and Sailors: The Customs History of Australia, AGPS Press, Canberra, 1992, p.442) Customs officials and Customs Agents, who represented importers and exporters, often drank at the same Quayside pubs. They had ample opportunity to do 'deals', while the lengthy time which it often took to clear goods at the House gave opportunity for the public to remove goods from the wharves. Raconteurs from all the local communities which lived in proximity to the city's wharves (Woolloomooloo, Pyrmont, Miller's Point) tell tales of constant petty pilfering by local kids, as well as more serious scams.

Contraband at Customs House, 11 July 1939, courtesy Mitchell Library & ACP Magazines Ltd, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 028/Item 143)

The importance of the Customs House and its revenue raising becomes apparent when you tally up the duties that they collected. The federal government first introduced income tax during World War One. Prior to this, customs income was the chief source of government revenue. As late as 1924, customs tax still contributed more than 70% of the nation's revenue. So Customs Houses around the country played a key role in bank-rolling Australia's development as a nation. The Customs House closed in 1990 and the City of Sydney took on a lease for the building in 1994. Since then, they have transformed the building into a cultural venue, with library and exhibition space. Now, the City is taking it on permanently, having just announced this week that it has acquired the Customs House from the Commonwealth Government. So this is one building that will stay in public hands (unlike so many other government buildings that get sold off). Sydney's Customs House has a rich history worth preserving. You can read more about the architectural history of the buildingin Laila Ellmoos's entry on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/customs_house   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the 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 & Tess 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. 

Urinal Observatory Hill 1968, Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (CRS 34/2401/71 )

Nicole Cama's been sharing stories from the Dictionary with 2SER listeners for five years. Sadly it's her last segment for a while today, so she thought she'd revisit one of her favourite topics – the early history of Sydney's public lavatories.   Listen to the whole conversation with Nicole and Tess on 2SER here  During the late nineteenth century, concerns were raised about public respectability, health and hygiene, not to mention certain undesirable behaviour that was being witnessed in Sydney’s streets. It was not uncommon to see men urinating in public due to an absence of public toilets throughout the city. A number of urinals or ‘pissoirs‘ were eventually installed in busy spots in the city during the 1880s. They were above ground and quite flimsy! One of these pissoirs, originally located on Observatory Hill, can be seen today in The Rocks underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge. When bubonic plague hit Sydney in 1900, when public sanitation gained increasing attention, it became clear that many houses in the city’s inner urban areas had inadequate or faulty sewerage connections, while others had none at all and relied on earth closets and cesspits. The first underground public loo (for men only) opened on 24 May 1901 in today’s Martin Place. Others were built in Macquarie Place, in Wynyard Park,  the intersection of George and Barton Steets, in Hyde Park near Elizabeth Street, on Darlinghurst Road and at the intersection of Liverpool and Oxford streets. In 1902, members of the Women’s Progressive Association waited on the Lord Mayor, requesting more ladies’ public toilets be installed in the city. There was one on Parker Street, and another at the Queen Victoria Markets, A contract for the first ladies’ above-ground conveniences was finally entered into in September 1910, for construction in Hyde Park. It had fewer toilets than the men’s lavatories and by the end of 1914 a council publication revealed only £1,064 had been spent on women’s public lavatories while more than £15,000 had been spent on public lavatories for men. One man wrote to the Lord Mayor in 1917, commenting on the ‘wretched state of affairs’ and ‘eternal shame’ that ‘the men are amply provided for…but a woman…is placed in a most awkward position’.

Detail of architectural drawing of Wynyard Park underground convenience 1911, Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (CRS 569 0419)

The public conveniences were opened from 5am until midnight, with two attendants working daily shifts at each. Many of these early public toilets were decorative and ornate, with white glass tiles, concrete floors covered with ‘arkilite’ or ‘ironite’ paving and polished wooden doors. One of the underground toilets built at Taylor Square on the corner of Oxford, Bourke and Forbes streets in 1907 still survives today (but is decommissioned, so don't hope to use it!). Those early public toilets that survive demonstrate Sydney’s urban street life at the turn of the twentieth century. Public convenciences today have come a long way with self-cleaning lavatories above ground in places such as Wynyard and Hyde Park. You can find out more on the Dictionary! Read historian Christa Ludlow's article on the history of Sydney's Public Lavatories here, and check the content listed under the subject heading Sanitation too. Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator. She's been appearing on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity for five years and is taking some time now to concentrate on another very special project. Thank you for everything Nicole!  Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

Embroidered election banner for Wentworth and Bland, 1843-1849, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (LR 3a)

As electioneering reaches a fever pitch ahead of Saturday's polling day, I thought it might be instructive to look back on how electioneering was done back at the first state elections.  Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here  The Parliament of New South Wales is Australia's first and oldest parliament. But the way the parliament has functioned - and who could vote and how - has evolved over decades. The first thing to note is that we didn't originally have a two-house parliament. When Sydney was a penal colony, the Governor was in charge. The British Government allowed us to have a Legislative Council from 1823, but it was led by the Governor, with just five advisers (all appointed by the Governor) to assist him. A court system and judiciary were then established. Between 1825 and 1842 the number of members of the Legislative Council expanded, from five to seven, and then between 10 to 15. 1842 was a landmark year for governance of the city and the colony. The Legislative Council created Sydney Municipal Council to take over some of the infrastructure, police and local governance of Sydney town, and the British Parliament passed The Constitution Act of 1842, massively expanding the Legislative Council and allowing New South Wales to take its first significant step towards democracy. The new Legislative Council was to be made up of 36 politicians - 12 appointed by the Governor and 24 elected by landowners and householders. The very first state election of New South Wales was held in June 1843. The first thing to note was that polling in different districts were held across a number of days between June 15 and July 3. This meant that if you didn't get elected in one seat, you might still have time to be nominated and run in another seat.

William Hustler's poetic plea to the electorate, The Australian, 19 May 1843, p4 via Trove

The District of Sydney's polling day was the first day - Thursday 15 June 1843. Sydney was to return two members, and there were five candidates: Captain M C O'Connell, Robert Cooper, W C Wentworth, William Bland, and barrister William Hustler. I particularly like Mr Hustler's electioneering style, which included publishing rhyming poems in the newspapers proclaiming his policies and virtues. Polling day started out well at 9 o'clock in the morning - people were in good spirits for their first bite at democracy. But unlike now, the returning officers announced proportionate votes as the day went along, inciting supporters to get out and about to drum up more votes. This inevitably led to clashes among rival mobs of supporters. There were yells of derision and the occasional scuffle. As numbers grew around Hyde Park, sticks and stones were used to intimidate rival supporters. The worst melee occurred down around the Rocks and Millers Point. Supporters of Cooper and O'Connell - armed with palings and sticks - stormed the polling booth, pulling down the flags of their rivals Wentworth and Bland, and smashing the chairs and table of the returning clerks. One of the rival supporters of Wentworth and Bland, who was also a city councillor, Mr John Jones, retaliated by inciting a mob of seamen to attack the Cooperites. They were equipped with harpoons, whale spears, blubber spades and other dangerous weapons. Fortunately, the mounted police had been called in and drove the mob away before too much damage was done. But the intimidation led to the suspension of the polling booth down in the Rocks until the following day. There was plenty of pushing and shoving going on in other polling booths as well. Palings were broken off fences and flags pulled down. Riotous behaviour continued into the evening as mobs of political supporters roamed the streets, breaking windows and damaging property. Up around Brickfield Hill a man was stabbed in the melee and later died of his wounds. The behaviour of supporters on the first day of polling was widely condemned. Intimidation drove many away from casting their votes. It was an inauspicious start to democracy in Sydney. Full responsible government came with the introduction of the Legislative Assembly in 1856. New South Wales now had an upper house and a lower house. In comparison with voting in 1843, the first full parliamentary election in 1856 was a steady affair. It was a closely contested election, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. There was plenty of electioneering, speeches in parks and pubs, cheers and groans, plenty of high spirits, but not a picket or a harpoon in sight: 'Although throughout the day considerable excitement prevailed, the most perfect order was preserved, and as the poll was announced from hour to hour, it had no other effect than to call to mind to those who had neglected them their electoral duties.' While there were divisions between conservatives and liberals, there were no political parties as such. Getting agreement among politicians to form ministerial government was trickier than anticipated. Instability was the constant in parliamentary politics in the first eight years or so - resulting in a rapid turn-over of premiers and ministries. (And we thought we had it bad with our prime ministers!!) Ministries, 1856-63 Donaldson ministry: 6 June 1856 - 25 August 1856 Cowper ministry: 26 August 1856 - 2 October 1856 Parker ministry: 3 October 1856-7 September 1857 Cowper ministry: 7 September 1857-26 October 1859 Forster ministry: 27 October 1859 - 8 March 1860 Robertson ministry: 9 March 1860 - 9 January 1861

Public meeting at Macquarie Place during the election 1857, National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an8021127)

Democracy was an evolving thing in Sydney in the mid-nineteenth century. The machinery of government had to be worked through and the public service and its relationship to the two houses of parliament established. Some things, though, never change. There are still plenty of political supporters trying to win our votes on polling day. And there is still catering provided to those who turn up to vote - only now we buy it to support our local public school. So go out on Saturday, grab your democracy sausage and vote - safe in the knowledge that polling day won't be quite as boisterous as in 1840s Sydney.     The State Library of NSW is asking for donations of election ephemera, so you can send whatever you collect on the day (or before!) and future researchers will thank you! Head to the Library's website here for further details.   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and the 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 & Tess 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. 

Diagram of  Susan Beckett's Bust and Shoulder Supporter in her application to the United States Patent Office, April 1896 (Patent No: US557945)

With International Women’s Day and the All About Women festival in the past week, there have been some great discussions around feminism and gender equality. Sydney has had its share of women’s rights activists, some better remembered than others. One of the lesser known of these women lived in the inner west suburb of Summer Hill, joined the temperance movement and spoke out against the evils of the corset. Listen to the whole conversation with Nicole and Tess on 2SER here  Susannah Margaret Beckwith Beckett, or Susan Beckett as she became known, was born Susannah McCallum on 29 October 1851 in Chatham, England. In 1874 in London, she married George Stevens Beckwith Beckett, an officer of the British Indian Army who was 25 years her senior. She had a son, George, from a previous marriage and gave birth to a girl, Ruby, while the family were stationed in India in 1878. In April 1883 the family arrived in Sydney and settled in a cottage on Nowranie Street in Summer Hill which they named ‘Rubyville’. Beckett became a member of the NSW Branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU was an international feminist organisation that campaigned for abstinence from alcohol as they believed the ‘demon drink’ was the cause of many social issues, from domestic violence to poverty. They conducted lectures and gatherings in the Temperance Hall, located on Pitt Street near Sydney Town Hall. Involvement in groups like the Temperance Union gave women a credible and respectable platform to express their ideas. In addition to raising concerns about the effects of alcohol consumption on women and families, many of these women used their new voice to broadcast other issues like suffrage or, in the case of Susan Beckett, the restrictive women’s corset. In 1893, she registered a patent for ‘An improved combination brace, bodice or vest’, with the New South Wales patent office. An invention which very closely resembles a modern bra, she claimed it would allow ‘muscle room for a deep respiration and facility for a vigorous heartbeat’. Throughout the 1890s Beckett conducted many lectures around New South Wales, some in the Temperance Hall, others in towns out of the metropolis, about the dangers of the corset. In one lecture delivered in Goulburn titled ‘What is Man’, she commented on the fashion for tight lacing:

Mrs Beckett's Lectures, Daily Telegraph ,18 October 1895, p7 via Trove

‘Don't...squeeze your liver away somewhere and make people believe you're naturally delicate...Look at the creatures going about...wasps-creatures fearfully and wonderfully made up; they can take their hair off, their teeth out, their backbone out, and their ribs away...What...had women done to men that they should be compelled, through the men's perverted ideas of beauty to squeeze themselves up in the way they did?’ Beckett may not have successfully eradicated the corset, but she was part of a broader, important movement toward social change. Her public activism for the cause all but disappears after the 1890s, possibly after her husband's death in 1901, and she died on 17 August 1937, at her son George’s residence in Lewisham. And today, just down the road from her former Summer Hill residence, is a bar called the Temperance Society!   Further reading:  Ann O’Connell’s article, ‘The New Women of the 1890s - and Ashfield’s answer to the corset’, in Chris Pratten (ed), Ashfield at Federation (Ashfield, NSW: Ashfield and District Historical Society, 2001)   Nicole Cama is a professional historian, writer and curator. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Nicole! Listen to the podcast with Nicole & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15 to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.

Vanessa Finney, Capturing Nature: Early Scientific Photography at the Australian Museum 1857-1893

NewSouth Books, 2019, 654 pp., ISBN: 9781742234984, p/bk, AUS$49.99

Let me declare a point of self-interest before I say too much about this insightful and intriguing book. I confess to having a long history with both photographic practice in cultural institutions and (albeit, a fair while ago), a mediocre stab at a PhD in zoology, taxonomy and identification and management of fishery species. And for my Honours thesis, I was the grateful recipient of some fine x-ray photography taken by staff at the Museum, the very same inheritors of the skills and traditions which Finney’s book chronicles in considerable detail.  So I write this, somewhat as an insider, a practitioner, a user and an appreciator of scientific and technical photography. Finney’s book delivers both a record of the evolution of scientific photography in Australia alongside an engaging narrative of some of the key people who shaped the Australian Museum’s place in colonial Sydney. Gerald Krefft and Henry Barnes loom large in this book and in some respects, were in the right place at the right time. For the Museum, as Finney says, the 1860s marked a lucky confluence of skills need, experience and technology.  Krefft had established his natural history credentials as a member of the Blandowski collecting expeditions through Victoria in 1856-57 and after a few years as assistant curator he was appointed officially as Curator in 1864, a position he held for 10 years. Barnes’ role evolved from simple specimen preparation to staging, articulation and photography. In an almost feudal manner, Barnes passed both the skills and the position down to his son – in fact, including his brother and his son, the Barnes family contributed over 120 years service to the Museum.  It must have been a crowded and often chaotic location, with most of the staff, their families and pets living at the museum. Krefft was followed by Edward Ramsay who also recognised the role of photography in recording, arranging and managing the Museum’s growing collections. The late 1800s were a revolutionary time for natural history, seeing the transition from hobby to discipline, from Victorian gentleman collector to professional scientist.  Krefft was an early supporter of Charles Darwin’s theories and corresponded with him, discussing topics such as photographic images of specimens found in the Wellington caves as well as problems with layout of the Long Gallery (in which he included a hand drawn, brown ink diagram of “women young and old contemplating a human foetus”).  Concurrent to the evolution of scientific thought and practice was the invention and rapid development of photography, the skills and techniques of which were quickly put into service of science.  Though aware of the benefits of photography, the museum Trustees were reluctant to fund it adequately and both Krefft and Ramsay used their own personal cameras and equipment at work for many years.  The museum’s first purpose built photographic studio and darkroom was not completed until 1897. The Krefft and Barnes partnership fully introduced photography to the Australian Museum and allowed the institution to record and share its collection with the world. Trading and networking were key ways for museums and ambitious curators to build both collections and reputations.  In 1874, Edward Ramsay was appointed as Curator, replacing Krefft, who had lost support of the Trustees after a number of unfortunate and colourful incidents that included the theft of some gold specimens, and seizure of a parcel of “obscene” photographs that Henry Barnes had hidden under his work bench.  Ramsay introduced a more measured approach to museum management and transformed the Museum by hiring specialist assistants, experts in each animal group.  He initiated indexing and consolidation of the growing photographic collection into albums. Somewhere along the way, the negatives and prints rose from simply being a useful record of the physical collections to be a valuable collection in its own right.  It is fortunate that, more than 150 years after the images were made, over 90% of the glass plates in the collection have survived. Capturing Nature tells through its main narrative and interesting asides (“Snakes Alive!, “Henry Barnes Day Off” and “Fighting over teeth”), the genesis, growth and consolidation of the photographic collections of the Australian Museum.  Finney, the Museum’s chief archivist and librarian, writes with unquestioned authority and deep knowledge of the museum’s photographic collections.

Gerard Krefft with the newly discovered Manta Ray, Manta alfredi, 1869. Courtesy Australian Museum

It is a handsome book, generously illustrated with a wide spectrum of photographs of ranging from rather sterile line-ups of bones and teeth to faintly disturbing tableaux or set pieces of stuffed mammals, lovingly articulated, posed (and photographed, of course) by Barnes.  The images she has chosen are most intriguing when they show not only the specimen/subject but also include incidentals like the old bits of furniture providing crude support, the pulley hauling a massive fish to the first floor, the bits of wood prising shark jaws apart apart, the dramatically draped sheets and the occasionally, glimpses of Krefft, Barnes and other bit players in this saga. Finney’s book is an attractive and articulate reminder in this, occassionally careless, digital imaging age, of the invention, craft and dedication that these early adopters possessed, and that underpinned the creation of a unique and valuable Australian photographic collection. Reviewed by Scott Wajon, Manager, Digitisation, State Library of New South Wales March 2019 Visit the publisher’s website here. The exhibition Capturing Nature is also on at the Australian Museum until 21 July 2019. Details are on the Australian Museum website here.