Sally Young, Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires

NewSouth Books, 2019, 654 pp., ISBN: 9781742234984, p/bk, AUS$39.99

Sally Young’s new book, Paper Emperors: The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires (2019), is stunning. The history of print media is messy. It is more than just lists of mastheads, their publication runs and circulation figures. So much more than the big names and their political leanings. More, too, than the neat stories that newspapers might tell of themselves. Indeed, “because newspapers have done such a poor job at reporting on themselves (‘dog does not eat dog’), there is a big gap in our knowledge about who owned newspapers and why” (p. 2). Newspaper histories are complex, and contested, tales of men (and the occassional woman) and the never-ending competition for influence, prestige and power. The best historians of this field (Bridget Griffen-Foley, Murray Goot, Gavin Souter, Jeannine Baker and Margaret Van Heekeren) make media history look easy with a vast array of articles and books that offer fascinating narratives of—to adapt one of Andrew Pettegree’s book titles—how we, as Australians, came to know about ourselves.1 Young also makes the job of presenting a sweeping media history, in this case a saga that spans from 1803 until 1941, look like a straightforward task. She documents the most powerful newspaper empires to emerge over a period of almost 140 years: Associated Newspapers; the Herald and Weekly Times; John Fairfax & Sons; News Limited (then News Corp); and Consolidated Press. Exploring these major players on the Australian media landscape shifts the narrative of news histories away from individual journalists or a single set of stories, and successfully “turns the spotlight onto newspaper owners, their corporate connections and their political interests” (p. 5). One of Young’s talents is to take the details, the elements of histories many of us take for granted, and generate meaning. A great example of this is her telling of the story of George Howe, the convict-turned-Government-Printer. Howe’s brief career as a thief, his arrival in Sydney as a convict, his taking over of the Government’s run-down and generally unreliable printing press, his publication of Australia’s first book (New South Wales General Standing Orders, 1802) and his establishment of Australia’s first newspaper (The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 1803-42) is a narrative that appears in numerous works. It is a tale of triumph in challenging circumstances and of personal redemption. Routinely mentioned in biographies of Howe, is the printer’s role in helping to establish the Bank of New South Wales. Under Young’s pen, this has much more meaning than a petty criminal becoming a respectable citizen; this connects “the Australian press with banks from the beginning” (p. 22). And so the story of the “Paper Emperors” begins with the owners of the first newspapers to appear in Sydney also being “bank proprietors and landowners … part of a commercial-legal middle class that was seeking greater authority in a military-controlled penal settlement” (pp. 19-20). From here, Young unpacks how papers and politics have become irreversably intertwined, the early fight for freedom of the press and how newspapers distributed information but also served the ambitions of their owners. Documenting the foundations of the printed press in Australia sets the scene for the true “Emperors” to take centre stage, including the emergence of Hugh Denison, John Fairfax, Keith Murdoch and RC Packer. The competition for pre-eminence has, at times, been brutal, a reflection of the absolute fearlessness of these men. After Edward Hall founded The Monitor (1826-41), he published fierce critiques (with the odd factual error) and was prosecuted for libel six times, yet he managed to keep “publishing, even from prison” (p. 17). Andrew Bent, a publisher in Van Diemen’s Land, also continued to publish from a gaol cell (p. 17). Both Hall and Bent took on the government as easily as they faced their peers. Fast forward to the mid-twentieth century and newspaper proprietors were not just defying authority but actively undermining it. Young quotes Colin Bednall, an experienced and savvy newspaper man, who observed in his unpublished autobiograpy that:

“[The Emperors] were always talking of having somebody killed. The victim might be a politician, a trades union official or an industrialist or some former employee who had go too big for their comfort. For them ‘to kill’ was not actual murder, but close to it.” (p. 541)

Young’s work is not a murder mystery but it is certainly a thriller. We know the end of the story (or think we do) but we do not really appreciate how that end came about: being guided by Young we cannot wait to get there, to really understand the who, how, why and when. Each page reveals the drama of what is at stake and what people are prepared to risk to achieve their goals, making this account of Australia’s newspaper history absolutely compelling. Exceptional research by Young, with the support of a very talented team, and Young’s wonderful prose makes Paper Emperors a fantastic book. There are a few well-chosen images, extensive notes and a comprehensive index. Papers Emperors should be on the reading list for every course on media history and is an essential text for anyone who is curious about the rise, and rise, of the media industry in Australia. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, March 2019 Visit the publisher's website here.

Three members of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps, l-r Violet McKenzie, Pat McInnes, Esme Kura Murrell c1940, courtesy Australian War Memorial P02583.001

As it's International Women's Day this Friday, today I thought it would be good to highlight the lives and achievements of some of the courageous and inspiring Sydney women who have made it possible for us to live the way we do in Sydney today. Here are five I think we should all know about. 

Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Julia on 2SER here 

1. Violet McKenzie (1890-1982) Florence Violet McKenzie was a pioneer in Australian radio and electrical engineering. She founded the radio magazine Wireless Weekly, and was one of the first female graduates from technical college as an electrical engineer. Consequently, she had a lifetime commitment to technical education and training, especially for women. She helped establish the Electrical Association for Women in 1934, to educate women about this new fangled thing called electricity and published an Electric Cookery Book in 1936. With the outbreak of WW2, McKenzie founded the Womens Emergency Signalling Corps and during the course of the war she she taught thousands of women, and soldiers, to use radio for signalling.

Lillian Fowler, Australia's only woman mayor, PIX, 23 April 1938, p20

2. Lillian Fowler (1886-1954) Lillian Fowler was the first female alderman,or councillor, in New South Wales and became the first female Mayor in Australia. She served on Newtown Municipal Council for twenty years (1928-1948) and was mayor from 1938 until 1939. She went on to serve on state parliament, elected as the Member for Newtown from 1944 until 1950, and was among a small handful of women elected to state parliament at that time. Lilian Fowler was a formidable woman whose clarity of convictions, confidence and outstanding organisational skills helped her smash through the glass ceiling of politics. She opened up opportunities for women while helping the most marginalised people in society. As President of the Labor Women’s Central Organising Committee in the mid-1920s, Lilian Fowler placed pressure on NSW Premier Jack Lang to introduce the widows’ pension and child endowment. One of her achievements as an alderman on Newtown Council was the creation of a number of children’s playgrounds in the Inner West, and this has been commemorated with the naming of a park after her in Newtown.

Ida Leeson 1933 Pic: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (P1/977)

3. Ida Leeson (1885-1964) This is one for all you library lovers and historians out there. Ida Leeson was appointed in 1932 as the second Mitchell Librarian, at the State Library of NSW. The appointment was made despite opposition among library trustees to a woman being placed in the role; but the structure and pay levels were decreased to ensure that glass ceiling of Principal Librarian wouldn't be breached. This attracted much criticism from feminists, such as Jessie Street. Ida had started at the New South Wales Public Library in 1906, as a library assistant. When the public library were bequeathed David Scott Mitchell's collection, Ida was transferred to the newly created branch of the Mitchell Library, where she was one of the librarians responsible for sorting the collection. In July 1916 she was promoted senior cataloguer, Mitchell Library, and, in June 1919, to one of the Public Library's senior positions, principal accessions officer. In her role as Mitchell Librarian from 1932 she consolidated the Library's position as the preeminent repository of Australian and Pacific historical documents. (You can read more about Ida Leeson and some other outstanding women who've helped shape the State Library of NSW on the State Library's blog here.)

Mrs Gibbs, Aboriginal Welfare Board, 16 August 1955. Pic: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (GPO2 06644)

4. Pearl Gibbs (1901-1983) Pearl Gibbs was an Aboriginal leader who organised and inspired a range of organisations working for Aboriginal rights from the 1930s to the 1980s. Born in La Perouse, Pearl Gibbs grew up in Yass and Bourke. Her experience as a young domestic servant in Sydney in 1917/18 helped politicise Pearl to the injustices of the Aboriginal Welfare Board. In 1937 she travelled back to Sydney and began work for the fledgling Aborigines Progressive Association with Bill Ferguson and Jack Patten. Pearl became active speaking at the Sydney Domain, and got involved in a number of groups, connecting white and black activists. She was involved in the Union of Australian Women and the Committee for Aboriginal Citizenship, and became secretary of the Council for Aboriginal Rights when it was formed in 1952. In 1956 Gibbs drew together significant people and sparked the formation of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, which was an energetic and stimulating advocate for Aboriginal rights and a fertile meeting place for black and white activists until the late 1960s.

Louisa Lawson, aged 50 c1898 Pic: Dixson Library, State Library of NSW (DL PX 158, 24)

5. Louisa Lawson (1848-1920) Writer, publisher, inventor and activist, Louisa Lawson influenced Sydney life at the turn of the twentieth century in many ways. Louisa was a radical publisher and a feminist, and in 1888 she founded The Dawn a journal for women. In 1889, she launched Sydney's campaign for votes for women by establishing The Dawn Club, a social reform club for women, 'for mutual development, mutual aid and for consideration of various questions of importance to the sex'. It attracted attendances of around 50 women to its fortnightly meetings. This group only lasted a couple of years; its purposes overtaken by the Womanhood Suffrage League, formed in 1891. Lawson was involved in this for acouple of years, but preferred the Women's Progressive Association, which had a greater focus on women's labour. Women over 21 were enfranchised in New South Wales in 1902, in the footsteps of federal parliament. At her death, she was called 'the mother of womanhood suffrage in New South Wales'.   To browse all things women on the Dictionary of Sydney, take a look at our subject listing Women with lots of links to entries, images and entities (short listings). There are several interesting overview articles in the list about the lives of women in Sydney to have a look at, for example: Grace Karskens, Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/barangaroo_and_the_eora_fisherwomen Kate Matthew, Governesses, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/governesses Delia Falconer, A City of One's Own: Women's Sydney, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/a_city_of_ones_own_womens_sydney Catherine Bishop, Women of Pitt Street 1858, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/women_of_pitt_street_1858 Catie Gilchrist, Women and World War I, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/women_and_world_war_i Lisa Featherstone, Birth, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/birth   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 & Julia 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. 

Sharon Hudgins (ed), Food on the Move: Dining on the Legendary Railway Journeys of the World

Reaktion Books / NewSouth Books, 2019, 256 pp., ISBN: 9781789140071, h/bk, AUS$49.99

Editor Sharon Hudgins has curated nine tales of food and travel, in Food on the Move: Dining on the Legendary Railway Journeys of the World (2019). Food on the Move brings together the elegant and the epic. In the everyday world trains are rather plain; a routine commute to work or moving frieght from ports to warehouses. Nothing particularly special. We might be grateful for an air-condtioned carriage on a hot day, or briefly consider the efficiency of rail as a train hauling containers of various goods grinds past. But there is another world. A world where train travel considers not just the upfront task of moving people from point A to point B but examines closely how we move. Hudgins and her team of food and travel writers are very much focused on the ‘how’ of train travel. James D Porterfield, invites readers on this journey. He explains how food on trains has evolved from “consuming roadkill along the tracks, to vendors peddling food to passengers on board trains and at station stops, to scheduled twenty-minute ‘refreshment stops’ at pre-arranged sites, to the award-winning cuisine prepared and served on long-distance trainings and luxury excursions” (p. 7). Porterfield also reminiscences about a trip he once took on Amtrak’s Empire Builder, how he shared a breakfast table “with a motion picture studio executive, a young woman fleeing an abusive husband, and a man on his way home after serving five years in prison” (p. 8). It’s very much the beginnings of a golden-age detective novel. In some ways, Hudgins is presenting the pieces of a puzzle. This book demonstrates that luxury train travel is more than the superficial offerings of extravagence. More, too, than the nostalgia of a way of life that has been superceded by air travel. There is something wonderful about travelling by train. Some trips are beautiful, others quirky. There is always something to see out of a train window, from built-up industrial areas that major railway hubs spring from through to breathtaking scenery in areas difficult to access any other way. Train travel lacks the anxiety of driving or the stresses of airports and planes. There’s an easiness to travelling by train. And there’s the food. Adam Balic looks at sandwiches and other treats on the Flying Scotsman; Arjan den Boer explores French Champagne and Turkish coffee on the Orient Express; Hudgins covers two continents on the Trans-Siberian Railway; Karl Zimmermann tempts us with American cuisine on the Santa Fe Super Chief; Judy Corser makes her way across Canada and different types of food; Diana Noyce cuts through the centre of a continent on Australia’s Ghan Railway; Merry White eats quickly on Japan’s Bullet Trains (and profiles one of the cutest bento boxes you will ever see, p. 182); curries and teas are on the menu for Aparajita Mukhopadhyay on the Darjeeling Himalayan Line; and Zimmermann goes all aboard the luxury trains of South Africa. Train travel isn’t for everyone. It can be very expensive and, like every complicated network of moving parts, subject to delays. (My own train journeys have been delayed by cancellations, industrial action, mudslides and the obligatory signal failure. Though having tea and toast while staring out a window watching kangaroos try and race my carriage made every inconvenience instantly worthwhile.) Yet trains literally changed the world. A stunning symbol of the Industrial Revolution, even as we often look at them through a lens of the past we can see the impact they have, and continue to have, on today. The book offers fabulously informative narratives and also presents as a visual essay. Indeed, there are over 170 images, nearly 150 of them in full colour. There are also, for those happy to stay at home or wanting to re-live a train journey, excellent recipes. Food on the Move is a terrific book you can read cover-to-cover or dip in-and-out of. It’s a fascinating set of stories of progress and of people: their cultures, their foods and, of course, their trains. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, March 2019 Visit the publisher's website here.

James Phelps, Australian Heist

HarperCollins Publishers, 2018, 351 pp., ISBN: 9781460756232, h/bk, AUS$39.99

New, from one of Australia’s most popular, and prolific, true crime writers James Phelps, is Australian Heist (2018). Phelps tells the story of how a gang of bushrangers held up a gold escort at Eugowra, just east of Forbes in New South Wales on 15 June 1862. The daring, and highly profitable, heist saw notorious bushranger Frank Gardiner and his men share a loot of cash and a staggering 77 kilograms of gold. Phelps brings Gardiner and his associates to life. Ben Hall, one of Australia’s most recognised bushrangers after Ned Kelly, is an important figure in the gang; a group which also includes John O’Meally, Johnny Gilbert, Henry Manns, Alexander Fordyce, John Bow and Dan Charters. This is an exciting story. There is the planning of the most ambitious gold robbery in Australia’s history. There is the execution of the scheme and the escape of the robbers into rugged terrain. There is, too, the inevitable chase of the gang by a police force that is under increasing pressure from the public, and a press corps, demanding that bushranging be brought to an end across the colony. Phelps has written this book from a combination of primary and secondary sources, including “court records, police reports, newspaper articles and eyewitness accounts” (p. viii). Most historians acknowledge gaps in the historical record, including Phelps. To maintain the rhythm of story however, Phelps lets readers know upfront that he has “taken a few liberties with the narrative—the places, people, dates and events are all accurate according to the resources available […]. Some details and scenes have, however, been re-imagined, with a deliberately modern spin” (pp. viii–ix). For example, “Sir Frederick Pottinger slammed his hand onto his desk, palm first and with fearsome force” (p. 103) and “The fire hissed and spat. Hall turned towards the flames, the heat hitting his face. The fire reminded him of what he was trying to forget […]. Eventually the night took him, the bushranger finally passing out. When he work, his horse was sniffing at his head. ‘Shoo,’ he said, swiping at it. ‘Get.’ The morning summer sun hit him like a sledgehammer. An then the birds started: crows, magpies and a lone kookaburra. The noise pounded his aching head” (pp. 238–39). So, it’s not a text book. Phelps, having set his course, pursues it relentlessly and he, to his credit, maintains a dramatised style of writing from beginning to end. Some well-chosen images give important context to Phelps’ work. In a reflection of this work’s presentation as a thriller instead of a more traditional historical text, there is no index. If you’re new to Australian bushranger narratives and you want to be ‘told’ a story and not ‘presented’ with a case study, then Australian Heist is a good place to start. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, March 2019 For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the publisher's website here.

Shirley Beiger on the cover of PIX 28 April 1951

The State Library of NSW have made an enormous amount of historical material available online in recent years. One such resource is the tabloid magazine, PIX , which was published between 1938 and 1972. Among the many famous faces and controversial figures that graced its covers was Shirley Beiger – a model who shot and killed her lover in 1954. Kim Hanna has written about the sensational story in a new article on the Dictionary of Sydney.  Listen to the whole conversation with Nicole and Tess on 2SER here  Shirley Beiger was born in Sydney in 1932. After her parents' divorce in 1945 she lived with her father for a while, and then with her mother above the shop her mother managed in Redfern. She held various jobs as an office clerk, hairdresser and sales assistant before she got her first modelling job at age 19. She also competed in the Miss Australia beauty pageant. In 1953 Shirley moved into a flat in Kings Cross and soon met Arthur Griffith, a bookmaker’s clerk, through a mutual friend, and the pair became lovers. On 9 August 1954 Shirley confronted Griffith at Chequers nightclub in the Strand Arcade after seeing him with another woman. She left, got hold of a repeater rifle and returned, meeting him outside the club on the corner of King and Pitt Streets. Shirley later said: ‘He just gave me a push and told me not to be a silly kid....’ She claimed she did not hear the gun go off, ‘but knew something dreadful must have happened.’ Griffith died at the scene from a gunshot wound to his head. Shirley was arrested and incarcerated at Long Bay Gaol. The inquest, bail hearings and trial attracted a lot of attention. Crowds gathered outside the court to support her and newspapers were quick to focus their reporting on her physical appearance and glamorous job. The sensationalist Sydney newspaper, Truth, began one of its articles about the events in typical dramatic fashion: All that glittered was not gold. The change in the life of Shirley Beiger.......The blonde, carefree beauty with the teasing smile, the bright chatter is no longer. In her place is a girl with sombre eyes and a lip that trembles...Shirley Beiger has seen for the first time the stark realities of life—and death.

Shirley Beiger arrives at the Coroner's Court for the inquest into the death of Arthur Griffith, 7 September 1954, by Ern McQuillan, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (APA 42858)

Her legal defence argued she had only intended to frighten Griffith and that he had pushed her, which had caused the rifle to discharge.  When the jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty of murder or manslaughter’ people inside and outside the court erupted in cheers. The trial was followed by yet more media attention, with the press following her when she left the court, and interviews published with just about anyone who had ever had contact with Shirley, including a gaol wardress. Shirley's own story was serialised over a week in Truth. A note allegedly written by her whilst in gaol was published in the Daily Telegraph. In it she concluded, ‘I guess I just loved him too much’. By early 1955, Shirley was living quietly in Melbourne. She never gave another interview and eventually her story became like many others – lost in time. For more, read Kim Hanna's entry on Shirley Beiger on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/shirley_beiger 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.

Today on 2SER Breakfast, Lisa and Tess talked about the pneumonic influenza pandemic of 1919 (aka the Spanish flu) - a world-wide pandemic that hit Sydney 100 years ago in February 1919. More people died from the flu around the world than from WW1 - but it's been largely forgotten.

Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here 

Nurses leaving Blackfriars Depot, Chippendale 1919, Courtesy State Archives NSW NRS4481_St6674

A virulent influenza spread around the world at the end of the World War I. It was a deadly strain - a pneumonic influenza - very communicable, and causing deaths in the middle aged (rather than the usual young and elderly). As troops demobilised from Europe and Africa, the virus spread like wildfire - it became what medical people call a pandemic: an epidemic that spreads across national boundaries. Imperial and global communications, via telegraph and newspapers, ensured that everyone knew the disease was on its way to Australia. It had been dubbed the 'Spanish flu' because the King of Spain actually died from it in 1918 and as Spain was neutral during the war, there was no censorship of the newspapers, and the impact of the disease started to make headlines. The Department of Health in NSW was having meetings with local mayors, health and medical officers, from late 1918 to see what could be done. The influenza hit Sydney in February 1919 and was initially contained within the Quarantine Station up on North Head. But it could only be contained for a couple of months, and was soon out in the general population. The state government tried to mandate the wearing of masks, schools were closed (and often became emergency hospitals), as were theatres, cinemas and halls. Even the pubs were closed for a while, and when they re-opened people could only stay for a drink for 5 minutes before they had to move on. There were inoculations at public depots - it is estimated that 444,683 people received the double dose jab. Depots were set up with medical officers to visit all suspected cases, diagnose and report.

Sydney Hospital Pneumonic - Influenza Epidemic: General Information for the Citizens of New South Wales 1918, Courtesy National Library of Australia (nla.obj-37300238)

The pnuemonic influenza raged in NSW from January to September 1919. Across the state, the worst months were February to July 1919, with numbers of deaths spiking in both April and June. The influenza pandemic infected about a third of Australia's population in 1919, and caused around 15,000 deaths - all in one year. This was on top of the the nation’s 62,300 war dead. Historian Dr Peter Hobbins makes the point, 'In fact, with ‘Spanish flu’ killing 15,000 Australians in less than a year, its morbid impact was approximately the same as the annual death rate for the Australian Imperial Force over 1914–18.' The impact in Sydney was massive. There were 9,817 cases reported in metropolitan Sydney, and 3,902 people died. In other words, nearly 40% of people who caught the flu in metro Sydney died. That's a deadly flu. The influenza pandemic affected every Sydney community. It was frightening, disruptive, and tragic. It took away breadwinners as well as the elderly and children. Pregnant women also had a high fatality rate. It's hard to imagine how it must have felt being in Sydney at this time - war weary, with so many families in mourning for loved ones lost at war and then at home from the pandemic. For too long, the pneumonic influenza pandemic has been a largely forgotten part of Sydney's history. But no more. On the centenary of the pneumonic influenza pandemic, the stories of suffering and stoicism are being remembered. To read in more depth about the influenza pandemic's impact in New South Wales, head to the Royal Australian Historical Society's website to view their resources: An Intimate Pandemic: The Community Impact of Influenza in 1919. The RAHS also has an ongoing project for people to research the impact of the Spanish flu in their community and to upload their stories to the website. Dictionary author and friend Dr Peter Hobbins has been on tour around the state sharing the historical sources connected with this extraordinary moment in Australia's history, and you can read his piece about it on The Conversation here. He's also giving talks about the history and impact of the pandemic on Sydney, and has one coming up on 5 March with the Harbour Trust (details here). You can read about this pandemic and other epidemics that hit Sydney in our article on Epidemics on the Dictionary here too. 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. 

Tuesday was the official day of Chinese New Year, a festival that has been celebrated for generations in Sydney,  so today I thought we'd look at the long history of Chinese people in Sydney.

Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here 

Chinese export ware punchbowl depicting Sydney Cove before 1820, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (a281002 / XR 10)

There has long been a Chinese influence in Sydney. Many people may not realise it, but there has been trade with China pretty much from when the penal colony was established. In the first year of settlement a convict woman wrote home bemoaning the parlous state of the settlement, adding as the only positive note that 'we are comforted with hopes of a supply of tea from China.' Trade routes between Britain and China under the East India company's trade started using Sydney as a port of call. The gold rushes of the 1850s brought many Chinese men to Sydney. By the 1860s, Sydney's business directories listed Chinese premises, especially in The Rocks, with a concentration of Chinese shops, cook-shops and boarding houses on Lower George Street, close to the wharves. By the 1870s, Chinese merchants and gardeners were moving further afield to Alexandria, Waterloo and Rushcutters Bay, leasing market gardens. Alexandria became the food bowl of Sydney, sending fresh vegetables to the markets every day.

Sydney Mail 8 February 1862 p2, via Trove

One of the earliest impacts of the celebrations of Chinese New Year to be felt in Sydney was on vegetable prices. As Chinese people took a few days off work to visit family and friends, or even took weeks off to go back home to China, vegetables at the markets became scarce and prices shot up! This side-effect of Chinese New Year celebrations can be traced through newspaper accounts of market prices from the late 19th century. Celebrations took place at Sydney's oldest Chinese temples,  at Alexandria and Glebe. The celebrations were both exotic and exciting for white Australians and celebrations were regularly reported in the mainstream newspapers. Fireworks and lion dances were all part of the spectacle. And on more than one occasion the tram along Botany Road was brought to a standstill by the huge crowds that followed the lion dance. Older people recall lion dances in Botany Road up until the 1930s. But with a declining Chinese population, these traditions faded, and it is only since the refurbishment of Chinatown as a tourist destination in the 1980s that Chinese New Year has become significant to the wider population. As Chinese and Asian communities that follow Chinese traditions have increased in number, festivities have spread to suburbs including Cabramatta, Parramatta and Hurstville. The City of Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival has become the largest celebration of the Lunar New Year outside Asia, and is a major event in the city's calendar. The lunar festival in the inner city runs until 10 February. Happy New Year! Check the City of Sydney's website for details about planned events in the city: Sydney Lunar Festival You can also find events at Chatswood  listed here: Chatswood Year of the Pig Festival Further reading

• Sze Yup Temple in Edward Lane, Glebe 1904, Sydney Mail 3 Feb 1904 p287

  Check the Dictionary's subject headings to find out more about Sydney's Chinese history: dictionaryofsydney.org/subject/chinese
• The Chinese Australian Historical Society's website is here: chineseaustralianhistory.org
• Historian Kate Bagnall's blog: The Tiger's Mouth: Thoughts on the History and Heritage of Chinese Australia can be found at www.chineseaustralia.org

  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. 

Kate Rickards in costume as Toots c1888 by Kerry & Co Courtesy Tyrrell Collection, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (85/1286-498)

There are some fascinating women in the Dictionary of Sydney. Among those is one who went by many stage names during her stellar career as a gymnast, trapeze artist, vaudeville performer and costume designer.

Listen to Nicole and Tess on 2SER here 

Kate Rickards was born Kate Roscow in Melbourne in about 1862. She began her stage career at the tender age of 11 with the touring Royal Magnet Troupe and was promoted as 'the youngest and most beautiful trapeze performer in the world'. Kate met English comic and theatrical entrepreneur Harry Rickards while the troupe was touring the United States in 1874. The troupe, which by then included Rickards, then toured England. It was around this time that Kate also used the stage name Mademoiselle Katrini and was billed as ‘the flying fairy and empress of the air’. Kate and Harry eventually formed a relationship and their first child, a daughter named Noni, was born in 1879. The couple married the following year and had two more children, Sydney and Madge. Kate took her husband’s family name of Leete as her stage name and toured Australasia as a singer and dancer. The family decided to return to Australia in 1888 after the death of their baby daughter Edith in 1887, and made Sydney their headquarters in 1892, where they lived in Randwick and then later in the mansion Canonbury at Darling Point. The family was again touched by tragedy when their son Sydney, aged eight, died of scarlet fever in 1892 while his parents were on tour. Noni, who had at one point joined her mother on the stage as an actress, also predeceased her. For their next business venture Kate suggested her husband lease the Garrick Theatre on Castlereagh Street for their performances, which they renamed the The Tivoli. ‘The Tiv’ opened in 1893 and became the most popular vaudeville venue in Sydney featuring famous local and international vaudeville stars, topical songs, blackface segments and a chorus line of scantily clad women. Kate retired from the stage in 1894 and concentrated her efforts on costume design for the Tivoli productions.

Miss Kate Leete as Sappho 1888, The Bulletin 23 June, 1888, p6

After Harry’s death in 1911, Kate was involved in various charitable pursuits including the Crown Street Women’s Hospital and animal welfare groups. She also continued the family’s tradition of hosting Christmas dinners for the poor in the basement of the Sydney Town Hall. In 1922, Kate died of heat stroke while aboard RMS Ormonde after a visit to England. She had, however, been suffering poor health for over a year prior to her death. She left an estate valued at over £29,000, approximately over $2.4 million today. She was remembered for her illustrious career and generous spirit. For further information, read Kathleen Hackett's entry on Kate Rickard on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/rickards_kate 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, Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, colonial Sydney’s finest natural history painters

NewSouth Books, 2018, 204 pp. (plus notes and index), ISBN: 9781742235806, h/bk, AUS$49.99

Harriet Scott (Morgan) (1830–1907) and Helena Scott (Forde) (1832–1910) were, as natural history artists, without peer in colonial Sydney. In eighteenth-century Australia, an overtly blokey society, the Scott sisters defied the expectations of the day and inserted themselves into the male-dominated worlds of art and science. The results of their efforts are glorious. Vanessa Finney, the Australian Museum’s chief archivist and librarian, has patiently pulled together what is known of these two extraordinary women. Historical records are imperfect, from subtle omissions through to glaring gaps. Some aspects of our private and public lives are just not documented, some documentation is lost, damaged or destroyed across generations: what remains can sometimes be found in archives and libraries. Finney acknowledges these complexities and suggests history 'is a collective activity and an ongoing process' and hopes that this book 'continues to inspire discoveries, conversations, writing and exhibitions on the long and amazing lives of Harriet and Helena Scott' (p. 212). Yet, despite these challenges, the text does present a rich and satisfying dual biography of two women who challenged, and changed, a colonial city. The task of writing two biographies together can be daunting for the writer and disjointed for the reader. This work presents two lives with equal care, the ups and downs of these artistic lives conveyed alongside stories of other members of the Scott family. The artistic achievements of the Scott sisters are stunning. Butterflies and moths dominate their oeuvre. The images are so realistic it is easy to imagine they are not paintings reproduced but rather they are live insects there in front of you, merely resting on the page. Other animals were also drawn by the Scott sisters and feature across this text. There is, too, a wide range of flora, from delicately nibbled at leaves through to sprays of flowers. Finney has carefully curated manuscripts and published examples to show how two women developed a complete command of capturing the natural world. One of the more beautiful commercial outputs is a graphic image by Harriet Scott used to mount wedding photographs - three family images elegantly surrounded by printed frames of plant life and animals including a possum, wallabies in the distance, a wombat half asleep and birds (p. 160). The book — as we have come to expect from NewSouth — has been beautifully produced. It is substantial, with high-quality paper and pages large enough to do justice to the artworks and manuscripts reproduced as part of the Scott sisters’ story. The layout is excellent with images, captions and narrative all supporting each rather than appearing to compete for attention: every element works together to present a cohesive, and visually spectacular, volume. There is also a bibliography and an index, as well as a very useful list of the cultural institutions holding relevant collection materials. Transformations is a terrific tribute to Harriet and Helena Scott. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in natural history, colonial Sydney or in the story of how two Australian women brought the bush into people’s homes. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, January 2019 Visit the publisher's website here.

Julie McIntyre and John Germov, Hunter Wine: A History

NewSouth Books, 2018, 287 pp. (plus bibliography and index), ISBN: 9781742235769, p/bk, AUS$49.99

Robert Louis Stevenson once suggested 'wine is bottled poetry'. In their captivating new book Hunter Wine: A History, historian Julie McIntyre and sociologist John Germov prove this idea in grand style: their new book on wine is poetry indeed. These two authors are both prolific researchers and well-regarded scholars, and their expertise, in addition to their shared passion for the subject of wine in Australia, has resulted in a stunning text that is simultaneously a rigorously-researched academic work and a great story. Vines were first planted in Sydney in 1788 and wine, from vines at Parramatta just west of the first settlement, was made in 1792. As the colonisers spread out from Port Jackson, farming practices (and ambitions), accompanied many of the men and women seeking fame and fortune (or at least fortune). In 1828 James Webber, a wealthy landowner north of Sydney at Hunter’s River, requested 'as many Vine Cuttings in the Government Garden as can be spared' (p. 1). It is now believed Webber received the cuttings and 'that these were the stock for the initial vine plantings on a handful of properties throughout the Hunter – Australia’s oldest continually producing wine region' (p. 1). The region is a massive piece of real estate of almost three million hectares and the history of the area is as complex as the many different people who have called it home. As the title suggests, this book is very much focused on the history of wine. As with all good histories, it includes numerous threads and many delightful diversions. There are stories of innovations and technologies, of economics, politics and properties, of rivalries, snobberies and a few myths. There are stories about people many of us will have never heard of before, as well as the big names of the wine industry such as Lindeman, McGuigan, McWilliam and Tyrrell. Underpinning all of these tales is the land that has sustained so much joy, disappointment and trauma. It is obvious that any work addressing a living plant must acknowledge the soil that sustains plant life. This book does much more; there is a deep respect for the landscape, with geological descriptions of how the area was formed (pp. 27-29). There is too a meaningful acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land, and of the conflict and dispossession that resulted from colonisation. Since convicts stomped grapes in the colonial era (p. 267) through to Australia becoming a very multicultural, very modern and very much a 'wine-drinking country' (p. 235), this grand space on the eastern-side of the continent – though not, we're informed by the authors, actually suitable for growing grapes – has become synonymous with wine making. This book is beautifully illustrated. Each image—including sketches, paintings, photographs and manuscripts in a wonderful array of black and white, sepia and colour — has been chosen with care and purpose, each one taking the reader deeper into the story of Hunter. They are all well credited, and there is also a very useful bibliography and an index. Hunter Wine: A History is clearly the seminal text of wine history in the Hunter Region. Expect other historians working on histories of agriculture in general, and viticulture in particular, to follow the fine example set by McIntyre and Germov. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, January 2019 Visit the publisher's website here.