William Bowra, Kent Brewery cellar foreman c1925. Tooth & Company Ltd collection, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University Archives (Z223-10-13)

In 1835, two brewers, John Tooth and his brother-in-law Charles Newnham, established a new brewery on the outskirts of the city. Named the Kent Brewery after the part of England they'd come from, it was set in a lush green area of market gardens and fresh water, ideal for a brewery. Chippendale has changed. Listen to Mark and Alex on 2SER here There were lots of breweries in Sydney at the time - it was believed, with some reason, that beer was better for you than drinking water as it had at least gone through some kind of purification process during production. Newnham left the business in 1843, and in 1848 Tooth's nephews Robert, Edwin and Frederick took over the business. One of their innovations was the X system, that we are probably most familiar with today in the form of the Queensland brand XXXX. A marker of strength, the more Xs there were, the stronger the beer. The stronger the beer, the more you could charge. In January 1853, a huge fire destroyed much of the brewery. No lives were lost, but this wasn't through lack of trying by some of the fire fighters: As The Empire reported: 'fortunately, however, no accident of any kind occurred, although several persons employed in putting out the flames managed to get access to the casks of ale, and in a very short time became so beastly drunk that if they had not been taken out of the cellar by the police, they would, in all probability have been burnt to death, or suffocated by the falling in of the lower floor'. The Tooth brothers rebuilt on the site, tripling the brewery's size. At its peak the brewery covered the block between Kensington Street, Parramatta Road, Abercrombie Street and O'Connor Street.

Entrance to Tooth & Co. Kent Brewery, Broadway 1930s, City of Sydney Archives (CoSA 029788) The white horse above the gates was the emblem of the Kent Brewery and was derived from the arms of Kent, in England. 

Other fires occurred, including another huge fire on December 3, 1903 that was at first reported as having destroyed the bottled ale store, and the 600,000 bottles of beer it held, only three weeks before Christmas. Luckily for the thirsty crowds who flocked to watch the fire, the damage was overstated, with no bottles lost at all, despite what had looked like a serious fire at the time. In their 170 years or so at Chippendale, Tooths absorbed many of their competitors from around New South Wales, including the Reschs brewery in Waverley. The Reschs brand is still popular today, a colonial product that survives in the modern Sydney market. Before it closed in 2005, the Kent Brewery on Broadway was the oldest operating brewery in New South Wales, although by then it had also succumbed to take-over, when it was sold in 1983 to the Melbourne brewer Carlton United Breweries. Today the site has been adapted and developed into the Central Park retail and housing complex.   Head to the Dictionary to read Shirley Fitzgerald's entries on Chippendale and Broadway. Tooths & Co Ltd records are available through the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the Australian National University Archives and provide a wealth of information about pubs and the brewing industry. Much of the collection has been digitised. Search the collection online HERE.   Dr Mark Dunn is the author of 'The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia's early frontier' (2020), the former Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here and follow him on Twitter @markdhistory here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!    

'The Gallows' from the Keep Yard / the Scaffold at Darlinghurst, drawn by a Confinee c1890. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SSV1/Gao/Darh/2)

Any event that involves a large number of people, no matter how carefully planned, carries a risk of something going wrong. People run late. People turn up who you were not expecting. Very occasionally, someone starts a brawl.  Listen to Rachel and Jess on 2SER here Hangings in colonial Sydney, from the mid-1850s, were typically ordered affairs. With executions carried out behind gaol walls, there were no rowdy crowds to try and control. There was a neat procession including the prisoner, the executioner and a clergyman. There were various representatives from the sheriff’s department, a medical officer, a few journalists as well as some official witnesses. The prisoner to be hanged was usually well behaved. Newspaper reports routinely detailed the ‘firm steps’ or the ‘visible tremor’ of the condemned, but generally noted how well the felon held up. Every now and then however the prisoner defied these expectations and rebelled. The horror of the death penalty goes beyond the mere fear of death or pain or indignity. It is not just the brutality but the macabre, cold-blooded politeness of the ceremony, in which the person whose neck was going to be broken is supposed to collaborate in a nice, sensible manner, as if it were a matter of a minor surgical operation. When Thomas Kelly was led out to the scaffold at Darlinghurst Gaol, on 2 January 1872, he was in no mood to swing from the end of a rope. Thomas Kelly had been doing time at Parramatta Gaol for a robbery he committed at Deniliquin in 1869. While he was cutting up sandstone as part of a work gang in the stonemason yard, the overseer William McLaren asked the men to try and cut the pieces smaller. Kelly flew into a rage and struck McLaren in the head with a hammer. McLaren survived, although it was touch and go for a few weeks, and Kelly was transferred to Darlinghurst where he was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to death. Kelly thought that this was all a bit unfair and he insisted no real harm had been done. When the 30-year-old stood on the scaffold, there was no stoicism or noble dignity on display at all. His arms were pinioned, or corded, a standard safety measure, but his legs were free and he ‘made a desperate attack on the hangman, known as Bull,  kicking him in a very 'vital part' of his anatomy. Bull was obliged to retire, apparently in great agony and incapacitated from taking further part in the proceedings’. Bull’s assistant, Franks (no relation to this blogger) stepped in. Kelly wasn’t done though, and he grabbed the clergyman who was there to provide him with spiritual guidance in his last moments. ‘I’ll not be hung; I do not deserve it’, Kelly cried. It was a serious situation. The scaffold was quite high, and a fall could kill someone. Let’s just say a few gaol warders became involved at this point. So, once Bull had found safety, the clergyman was nowhere to be seen and Kelly was lying on the trapdoor of the scaffold. There was no time to waste. The bolt was drawn, and Kelly was sent tumbling through the trap. In the chaos, the noose around Kelly’s neck had come loose and had slipped into the wrong position. Franks frantically adjusted the rope while Kelly was dangling, but it took about ten minutes for Kelly to die. He was blamed for his own suffering: ‘It is only right to state that this dreadful scene was solely attributable to the wretched man’s own conduct’. And the hangman Bull? He was back to work in June, but ‘he looked thin and pale, and has evidently not quite recovered the effects of the murderous assault upon him, committed by Kelly some months back. He looks anything but a stalwart man’. Stay safe everyone. Workplaces can be dangerous. Dr Rachel Franks is the Coordinator of Scholarship at the State Library of NSW and a Conjoint Fellow at the University of Newcastle. She holds a PhD in Australian crime fiction and her research on crime fiction, true crime, popular culture and information science has been presented at numerous conferences. An award-winning writer, her work can be found in a wide variety of books, journals and magazines as well as on social media. She's appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thank you Rachel!  For more Dictionary of Sydney, listen to the podcast with Rachel & Jess here (skip to 136!), and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Alex James on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more stories from the Dictionary of Sydney.   Humanities and.... This year the 2020 Conference and Annual Meeting of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres,  will be held online at the State Library of New South Wales Join a fascinating array of speakers as they examine the various ways in which the humanities enrich our lives and contribute to a wide variety of fields including medicine, law and the environment. This event is open to all - academics, students, independent scholars, those working across the cultural sector and anyone with an interest in the important roles that the humanities play in the world today. The conference will commence with a Public Lecture by Professor Mark Ledbury on the evening of Wednesday 2 December 2020. This will be followed by keynote addresses, panel sessions and lightning talks over Thursday 3 December and Friday 4 December 2020. See the full program and register online on the State Library of NSW website here: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/research-and-engagement/humanities-and-conference    

Meredith Lake, The Bible in Australia: A cultural history, updated edition

NewSouth Books, 2020, 518 pp. ISBN: 9781742237213, p/bk, AUS$32.99

Meredith Lake’s The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History is now available in a second edition. When I first reviewed Lake’s epic work in 2018, I suggested that 'The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History will surely dominate the short lists of every major literary award over the coming months and will certainly come to be regarded as one of the most important Australian history books of the year’. Well, two years later The Bible in Australia has taken out every major prize including the Nonfiction Award Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature (2020), NSW Premier’s History Award: Australian History Prize (2019), Prime Minister’s Australian History Prize (2019), Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Australia Book Prize (2019) and Australian Christian Book of the Year (2018). I should, perhaps, have specified all the history prizes, but I stand by my prediction for literary awards. Lake’s writing is beautiful. Indeed, this is an extraordinary history – of rigorous research and elegant expression – that is vital for all Australians in its offering of crucial context for so much of what we take for granted. This new edition, with a delightful new cover, includes a summary of some of what has happened since the work first appeared in print. In particular, how ‘potent new images have clustered around the Bible. … It turns out that even a historian of religion can underestimate the Bible as a text in motion in contemporary society’ (p.x). For example, when Lake took out the Prime Minister’s Australian History Prize last year, there was a great deal of very generous support for the author on a well-deserved win. There was, too, a rush of awful comments on social media platforms that conflated the book with what Lake describes as ‘very palpable anxieties’ (p.xvi). Some of the negative commentary, which is reproduced in the preface, is difficult to read even years later. It does, however, emphasise the point of the book: that there is enormous value, for believers and non-believers, in understanding the role of the Bible in a complex, but shared, history. If you have not already done so, clear a little space on your bookshelves for The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History.   Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, November 2020   Visit the State Library of NSW shop on Macquarie Street, or online here.

  We love being part of the 2SER community and telling stories of Sydney's history to breakfast listeners each week. While the annual 2SER subscription and fundraising drive is happening, the Dictionary of Sydney segment with Alex on 2SER Breakfast will be on hold. We've been appearing on 2SER Breakfast for more than seven years so in the meantime there are lots of stories to explore from past shows right here on the Dictionary blog. Head to the 2SER website HERE to donate or subscribe during the Radiothon so that they can continue the work we have been doing for 40 years to help keep local music, arts, news and information alive. Listen to Alex discuss this year's theme 'Helping Sydney Thrive', with radio legends like City of Sydney Historian Dr Lisa Murray and journalist Monica Attard here. We'll be back in early November, so stay tuned!     All of our presenters over the last seven years have appeared on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thank you all for your amazing work on the airwaves!   Tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Alex on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.     

Band playing at a Popular Dance night at the Trocadero in early 1938, by Ivan Ive, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 030/Item 121)

Once the most glamorous dance hall in Sydney, the Trocadero on George Street hosted queens, dukes, and international stars, as well as Sydneysiders out for a good time. Listen to Lisa and Alex on 2SER here The Trocadero, affectionately known of course as the 'Troc', was once the most glamorous 'palais de dance' in Sydney. The dance hall opened in 1936 as Sydney was struggling to get out of the Great Depression. It was situated on the western side of George Street, south of Bathurst Street - where the cinemas are these days. The 'Troc' encapsulated the glamour of Hollywood and promised better times ahead. The hall was built in the art deco style, the entrance topped by a sleek sandstone tower that was floodlit at night. The interior featured lavish carpet and art deco detailings. There was a large dance floor and enough seating for 2000 people. A scallop shaped band stage with coloured lights featured live bands every night. The resident band was called the Trocadero Orchestra; trombonist Frank Coughlan was the band leader for most of the Troc's 35 years. The ABC broadcast live from the Trocadero every Monday and Thursday night - so even if you couldn't afford the time or the money to go to the Trocadero, you could listen to the latest jazz and swing music. The Trocadero became the place to be - where Sydneysiders dressed up to dance and have a good time. Friday and Saturday nights were the biggest nights of the week. There are plenty of Sydneysiders whose parents and grandparents met on the Trocadero dancefloor and fell in love.

Jitterbuggers at the Trocadero February 1948, by Ivan Ive, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 010/Item 042)

The venue was also popular for charity functions, debutante balls, receptions, gala parties, and pageants. The Chinese community had a regular ball there, known as the Dragon Ball. During WW2 the dance hall attracted American servicemen out for a good time, and women flocked to learn the latest dance moves from these exotic visitors. The Troc started out as a swing and jazz palace, but by the mid-1950s the leading dances were the quickstep, the foxtrot, the waltz and the tango. Crooners were in fashion. Then later came the samba, the jitterbug and rock n roll. But the advent of the swinging sixties signalled the start of the Troc's demise as dancers began to make their way towards other venues. The Trocadero finally closed its doors on 5 February 1971, and was eventually demolished to make way for the new Hoyts Theatre cinema complex. During its 35 years of life, it's been estimated that more than one million pairs of feet danced at the Troc.   Head to the Dictionary to read Garry Wotherspoon's entry on the Trocadero here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/trocadero There's some great footage of jitterbugging at the Trocadero  on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/m2FmhMRx6ag , and a Cinesound news piece about the Troc's closure to make way for the cinema complex in 1971: https://youtu.be/96U6q9oMAf4 You can find a few clips on the National Film and Sound Archive of dancers, balls and fashion parades at the Troc too: French mannequins present the New Look 1948: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/french-mannequins-present-new-look Gay Night at Movie Ball, 1964: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/annual-movie-ball-troc You can listen to Frank Coughlan's Trocadero Orchestra on the NFSA website too: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/life-without-love-frank-coughlans-trocadero-orchestra   Dr Lisa Murray is the Historian of the City of Sydney and former chair of the Dictionary of Sydney Trust. She is a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of New South Wales and the author of several books, including Sydney Cemeteries: a field guide. She appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Lisa, for ten years of unstinting support of the Dictionary!  You can follow her on Twitter here: @sydneyclio Listen to Lisa & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast on 107.3 every Wednesday morning at 8:15-8:20 am to hear more from the Dictionary of Sydney.   

Entrance to Darlinghurst Gaol 1887, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SPF/169)

Darlinghurst Gaol, on the hill at the top of Oxford Street, is one of the largest standing colonial projects left in Sydney, and yet, many Sydneysiders barely notice it anymore.

Listen to Mark and Alex on 2SER here

Construction of the gaol started with convict labour in 1822, the position of the gaol on the high ridge overlooking the town meant to be a reminder to those labouring below of the power of the state. A lack of funds however saw it sit idle, with no prisoners inside its massive walls for the next nineteen years. Building restarted in 1836, with a new model prison design: a central round observation building, with seven radiating arms and the Governor’s office in the shape of a panopticon. Although built using convict labour, by the time it was ready for use in 1841 the convict system had finished. Located at Taylor Square at the top of Oxford Street, the transfer of male and female prisoners from the old gaol near Circular Quay was done by parading them through the town and up to the new gaol, one of the first parades on a street that would become world famous for parades. The new gaol was to house all classes of prisoners, from debtors and drunks, through hardened old lags and murders, to the condemned waiting to be executed inside its walls – 76 in total. Men and women shared the gaol; their prison blocks separated from each other by high walls, although notes were thrown over them as well as between floors in the segregated chapel. One love letter was found, still wrapped around a piece of slate in the rafters of the chapel during restoration in the 1980s. In 1912 the gaol was replaced by the new Long Bay penitentiary and the prisoners were transferred leaving the site empty. During World War I it was used by the military and as an internment camp for enemy aliens, but once the conflict was over, new uses were sought. It was proposed that it be demolished to make way for a large high school for girls, but the presence of the Darlinghurst Courthouse saw this dropped. Instead the gaol was handed over to the Sydney Technical College for classrooms.

Art student Tom Bass at work on a sculpture at East Sydney Technical College 1948 by Bob Rice, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 006/Item 066)

Technical education was then undergoing a boom period, with returned soldiers being offered places to retrain. Art classes were part of the East Sydney Tech’s offerings, along with wool classing, fashion design, food preparation and more, and from 1924 all art taught by Sydney Tech was offered at the former gaol site. The National Art School, then also part of East Sydney Technical College, was also given room on the site in 1922, effectively concentrating Sydney’s art education into one precinct. Margaret Olley, Max Dupain, Ken Done, Wendy Sharpe, John Olsen, Rayner Hoff, Elioth Gruner, Tom Bass and Bertram Mackennal are just some of the artists who have taught or been taught there. In 1996 the National Art School achieved stand-alone independence after a long fight, and became the sole occupant of the site in 2005, which they continue to this day. Head to the Dictionary to read more about Darlinghurst Gaol https://dictionaryofsydney.org/place/darlinghurst_gaol and the National Art School https://dictionaryofsydney.org/organisation/national_art_school

Mark's new book is available now.

    Dr Mark Dunn is the author of 'The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia's early frontier' (2020), the former Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here and follow him on Twitter @markdhistory here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!

David Collins records the death of Ann Davis in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 1798, p86

On 23 November 1789, Ann Davis became the first woman hanged in New South Wales. Listen to Rachel and Alex on 2SER here Davis was, as we would say today, ‘known to police’. In England, Davis (also known as Judith Jones) had been indicted in April 1786 for feloniously stealing eight pairs of silk stockings valued at 8 shillings. Found guilty at the Old Bailey, she was sentenced to seven years transportation and arrived in Sydney Cove on the First Fleet. Being dispatched to the other side of the world did not deter Davis from her thieving ways. On 3 January 1789, she was accused of stealing a white shirt from Mary Marshall, another female convict. Davis argued in court that she had been given the shirt by Marshall as payment for past favours (Marshall having received the shirt herself from a soldier as payment for sexual favours). Davis was acquitted, but she was back in court again the very next month where she faced a charge of creating a disturbance. Marshall was also in court that day, charged with ‘using infamous expressions’. Both women were sentenced to twenty-five lashes each. Flogging, an awful punishment, was used to punish all sorts of offences from absconding to drunkenness to general disobedience, through to pretending to be sick. We usually think of men being flogged, but the lash was used on women as well. On 14 November 1789, Davis was found drunk and in possession of a large number of shirts, waistcoats and handkerchiefs, all items that were missing from Robert Sidaway’s house. Now Sidaway, who lived with Marshall, occasionally had Davis as a guest to smoke a pipe with them. On the day of the crime, John Ryan, another convict, had been minding the Sidaway and Marshall house, but he had left when he was ordered to go to the hospital to see a man being punished. Ryan testified that he had locked the door, but that he had left a window open. On his return to the house, both the door and window were open, and a tub of water had been knocked over. It was also obvious that numerous items had been taken. Davis was found with the stolen goods in her possession. She testified another woman had given her the items, a claim quickly dismissed. When she was found guilty and sentenced to death on 21 November, she tried another ploy and claimed she was pregnant in order to escape the gallows. A jury of twelve matrons was empanelled. The forewoman, ‘a grave personage between sixty and seventy years old’, advised the Court: ‘Gentlemen, She is as much with child as I am’. David Collins wrote that when she was hanged – in an intoxicated state on 23 November 1789 (indeed, she was so drunk two women were required to help her stand up on the gallows) – she ‘died generally reviled and unpitied by the people of her own description’. This was a sad end for Ann Davis, but this story is also a fascinating piece of legal history. In a colony where military panels served to deliver verdicts of ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, the jury of matrons were the first civilians to participate as jurors in a criminal trial in New South Wales. The right to trial by jury was hard won. Civilians, as oppposed to members of the armed forces, were eventually allowed to serve as jurors (well, the men were), but military panels were not abandoned until 1839. Legislation allowing women to serve on juries in New South Wales was not approved until over a century later when an Act approved in 1947 allowed women who were enrolled as electors to apply to the chief constable of their police district to be included on the jury roll. Yet there was another delay because there were no ‘facilities’ to accommodate women jurors in courthouses. Nobody was in a rush to build ladies’ rooms either; the Government did ‘not regard the innovation as urgent’. Legislation in 1977 made the system more equitable by automatically including all enrolled electors – regardless of sex – on the jury roll.   Dr Rachel Franks is the Coordinator of Scholarship at the State Library of NSW and a Conjoint Fellow at the University of Newcastle. She holds a PhD in Australian crime fiction and her research on crime fiction, true crime, popular culture and information science has been presented at numerous conferences. An award-winning writer, her work can be found in a wide variety of books, journals and magazines as well as on social media. She's appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thank you Rachel!  For more Dictionary of Sydney, listen to the podcast with Rachel & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Alex James on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more stories from the Dictionary of Sydney. References Cobley, John, Sydney Cove: 1789–1790, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1963/1980, pp.3, 11,113–15. Collins, David, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales: With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, & c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country, vol. I, Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1798/1971, p.103. Johns, Rowena, Trial by Jury: Recent Developments, New South Wales Parliamentary Library Research Service, Sydney, 2005, pp.5–6. Jury (Amendment) Act 1947 (NSW) Jury Act 1977 (NSW) ‘No Women on Juries for About a Year’, The Newcastle Sun, 17 July 1947, p.4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article157899437, accessed 29 September 2020. Woods, G.D., A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales: The Colonial Period, 1788–1900, vol. I, Federation Press, Sydney, 2002, pp.xv, 24, 70.  

An article, How to Begin as a Black-and-White Artist, by Lionel Lindsay in the Lone Hand, June 1911, had tips for aspiring artists, via Trove

The Society of Australian Black and White Artists, now the Australian Cartoonists Association, is the world's oldest cartooning organisation. It was formally established in 1924 in a cartoonist's studio on the first floor of the old Royal Arcade which linked George and Pitt streets, Sydney, an unusually formal venue for newspaper illustrators and cartoonists to gather as they were more likely to meet in pubs. Indeed, the founding president Cecil Hartt was known to be ‘as handy with a glass as he was with a pencil.’ Listen to Minna and Alex on 2SER here

Since the 1880s, artists had been flocking to Sydney to sell cartoons and illustrations to The Bulletin, the publication that forged careers of literary giants Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.

Earlier publications like Sydney Punch, based on the London satirical publication, had also drawn heavily on the skills of black & white artists to provide commentary on political and social issues of the day.

The wave of populist nationalism that began in the 1880s and continued across the periods of Federation and the first world war, provided rich material for artists, writers and cartoonists.

After the war the nation was even more fervently defining itself as Australian instead of British. The mythology of the Digger became conflated with the ideals of the Australian 'bush' man. Escalating social and economic friction polarised left and right politics, intensifying during the Depression, while a fear of Asia also played into a defensive attitude expressed in racist cartoons.

New publications like Smiths Weekly (established in 1919) joined The Bulletin and Lone Hand (established in 1907) in hiring this new wave of illustrators and cartoonists.

While the first wave of artists in the 1880s had gathered a reputation as bohemians, Henry Lawson coined the phrase ‘Beerhemians’ for their 20th century counterparts. They were considered great drinkers but they were not necessarily unconventional in a traditional 'bohemian' sense – they had jobs, ran their own businesses and even ran charity masquerade balls. In between drawing, drinks were had in old cobble-stoned Wynyard Lane which and down at the Press Club on Elizabeth Street.

The Artists' Balls, organised jointly initially by artists of many disciplines, were well attended. May Gibbs reported having a great time at the Ball at Town Hall in 1922, but the following year the tone of the event must have deteriorated as her husband deemed it 'a disgusting affair'. Newspapers reported all sorts of bacchanalia and sordid behaviour from the artists, leading to attempts to ban the event.

In 1925 the Black & White Artists began to host their own balls as well, feeling that the work they did in preparing for the general ones was overlooked. The event at the Palais Royale in September 1925, to raise funds for the Children's Hospital and the Society, was attended, not only by the state Governor, but  by a board of censors as well as 100 private detectives or 'special police'. The hotel management declared in an interview before their event: 'Let them have their champagne by all means, but don't let them start to bathe in beer or my men will take a hand'. While this did indeed put a slight dampener on proceedings, more balls followed in subsequent years.

Like the newspapers and magazine that employed the artists, the Club itself has waxed and waned in activity and membership over the years, but is still going strong as the Australian Cartoonists Association. In 1985 a national awards competition for cartoons - named the Stanley Awards in honour of Stan Cross – was launched, and still continues today.

Records of the association and the awards are held at the State Library of NSW.  

Read Lindsay Foyle's entry A Short History of the Black & White Artists' Society on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/a_short_history_of_the_black_and_white_artists_club

and Deborah Beck's entry Scandalous nights: Sydney's artists' balls here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/scandalous_nights_sydneys_artists_balls

Australian Cartoonists Association: http://www.cartoonists.org.au/

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, Woodford Academy and Middle and Georges Head . In 2014, Minna developed a program on the life and work of Clarice Beckett for ABC Radio National’s Hindsight Program and in 2017 produced Crossing Enemy Lines for ABC Radio National’s Earshot Program. You can hear her most recent production, Carving Up the Country, on ABC Radio National's The History Listen here. She’s appearing for the Dictionary today in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Minna!

 

For more Dictionary of Sydney, listen to the podcast with Minna & Alex here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Alex James on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more stories from the Dictionary of Sydney. 

Janet Lee, Fallen Among Reformers: Miles Franklin, Modernity, and the New Woman

Sydney University Press, June 2020, 168 pp. (plus works cited and index), ISBN: 9781743326886, p/bk, AUS$45.00

In a new full-length work on Miles Franklin (1879–1954), Janet Lee, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University, explores the great Australian writer’s years in America between 1906 and 1915. Fallen Among Reformers: Miles Franklin, Modernity, and the New Woman, from Sydney University Press (a volume in their Sydney Studies in Australian Literature series) critically unpacks the key literary manuscripts produced by Franklin while she lived and worked in Chicago. Approaching Franklin can be difficult a task. She is complex and contradictory. Most of her writing justifies the love that many of us have for her. Yet she had a habit of making cutting remarks that are truly shameful. She can, too, come across as depressed and sluggish. This, despite maintaining a vigorous workload—writing, editing, socialising, working and lobbying for a more vibrant Australian literature as well as being interested about, and engaged in, the world around her—almost until her death. Another issue writers that have to address in facing Franklin is Jill Roe’s extraordinary Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography (2008, revised in 2018). Indeed, it was quite an awkward reading experience for the first few pages of Lee’s work, a long text that was not in Roe’s voice. Of course, Roe is there throughout the story and Lee dedicates her efforts to Franklin’s great biographer (p.viii). The title for Lee’s work comes from Franklin’s Cockatoos (1954) and a heroine who is ‘fallen among reformers’, unable to pursue her art and suffering from a heart ‘frozen’ by [a] secret tragedy” (p.1). Franklin was working with reformers in Chicago where she was the National Secretary of the National Women’s Trade Union League. In particular, Lee seeks to exploit Franklin’s status as a New Woman in the early-twentieth century and reveal in her writing a 'specific narrative authority earned from living and working in this landscape and engaging with these particular cultural and political dimensions of modernity' (p.3). In focusing on Franklin’s short stories, novels and plays, Lee addresses broad themes of 'Work', 'Marriage' and 'Men' and so tracks some of Franklin’s evolving frames of feminism, pacifism and socialism. The Chicago years were productive and challenging for Franklin. As Lee observes, this period was referred to by Roe as Franklin’s 'university' (p.15) and she greatly enjoyed her work and the company of her peers. While overseas however she learnt that her sister Linda had died, and her parents had lost their home at Penrith (p.9). Moreover, she struggled to have her work published. This was not, however, a problem unique to Franklin’s years in the United States, and she faced similar difficulties in England and back home in Australia. Lee’s approach to this task - the close reading of published and unpublished writings of Franklin - was a technical and time consuming one. A review of the Acknowledgements notes that Lee’s first article on topics covered within Fallen Among Reformers appeared in 2007. The effort has produced an excellent result. Students of Franklin, and of literature beyond her, will welcome this work on some of the important ideas that women writers were grappling with in the early 1900s. Franklin was very much a woman of, and for, her time. She made essential contributions to an era of great change. It is, however, fascinating to speculate about what Franklin would do and say in our own time. The cover of Lee’s text uses one of my favourite photographs of Franklin: she looks confident and relaxed in a deckchair on a Chicago rooftop. Looking closely at this image it is easy to imagine her today. Offering selfies on social media. Presenting articles and lectures on the inherent value of literature. Pushing material out on a computer, instead of clattering away on rented typewriters (though she would eventually buy her own). Contributing quick one-liners to the fight against inequalities of many different kinds. Lee’s book, with excellent notes and a useful index, is a welcome addition to the conversation on Franklin’s life and work. It shows that there is still much that we can learn about, as well as from, Stella Miles Franklin. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, September 2020   For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the publisher's website here. In September and October 2020, the State Library of New South Wales is piloting a new tool to transcribe their rich holdings of manuscript materials using Miles Franklin’s pocket diaries. If you would like to help transcribe some of Franklin’s thoughts, go the the Library's project page here: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/statelibrarynsw/miles-franklins-diaries-1952-54 Visit the State Library of NSW shop on Macquarie Street, or online here.

Max Allen, Intoxicating: Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia

Thames & Hudson, July 2020, 242 pp. (plus a further reading list), ISBN: 9781760761004, p/bk, AUS$32.99

  Well-regarded wine writer Max Allen takes readers on a grand tour of some of the most important drinks in the history of Australian drinking in his new book Intoxicating: Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia. Allen, named the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year in 2018 (now that’s something to have on a business card), explores the often complicated story of alcohol in Australia - from home brews right through to mass produced beers and everything in between - to present both a history and an appreciation course. This book is full of big stories and little anecdotes, from the colonial to the contemporary, and are told both as interview and as memoir. Allen is very conscious of Country, and his chapters on the Indigenous drink way–a–linah, made from gums found on the edges of boggy frost plains in Tasmania (p.9), and on the potential to make wine from native grapes in New South Wales (p.211), serve as beautiful and thought-provoking bookends to this work. These conversations with those seeking to preserve Country compel us to think more deeply about the environment and the traditions of Aboriginal Australians. In between are stories of beverages much more familiar to the palates of non-Indigenous Australians. There is a strong focus on wine as well as forays into those iconic beverages Victoria Bitter and McWilliam’s Port. Through it all there is a phenomenal amount of information on the specifics of certain types of drinks and on their cultural contexts. This is where the intoxication lies. For Allen, it is clearly not just about an end product - though he has obviously enjoyed sampling what is available since he tried his first Brown Brothers Spatlese Lexia back in the mid-1980s (p.1). It is also about how a product came about: the people and the places, the ambition and the experimentation, the producers and the sellers. Each glass, from a cheap bin end to a Penfold’s Grange, has a story. Allen also includes some details on drinks that you can 'try at home'. There’s the Blow My Skull created by Thomas Davey, a former Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land back in 1815 (a drink I tried to have made available at a recent staff Christmas party; surprisingly, there were no takers). There’s also a Sherry Cobbler, a White Lady, a Japanese Slipper and, just in time for summer, an All-Australian Negroni. There is no index sadly and there are no detailed references, though Allen does credit where his ideas and information comes from within the text. For those who are keen, there is an excellent list of further reading included with many of the books listed featuring extensive referencing and indexes that facilitate targeted exploration. Intoxicating: Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia is less of a reading experience and more of a chat, and Allen is incredibly good company. Strangely, in a year that has seen many of us not socialising at all, this book, which is very much about being with other people and how we often spend time with family, friends, neighbours and workmates, is meaningful compensation for what we might have missed. Indeed, in some ways, this work is perfect pandemic reading because it is so terrifically engaging. It is as if Allen has brought all these really smart and very friendly experts into your home. It is a long-lunch on a Sunday afternoon where people share their knowledge, speculate about the future and, of course, have a drink. Cheers! Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, September 2020   Visit the publisher's website here: Thames & Hudson Pick up a copy at the State Library of NSW shop on Macquarie Street, or online here.