William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

Bloomsbury, 2019, 522 pp., ISBN: 9781408864388, p/bk, AUS$26.99

Highly-regarded historian William Dalrymple's The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company is a fabulous achievement. There are two epigraphs upfront. 'A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred million people' (a letter written by Leo Tolstoy in 1908) and 'Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like' (a statement made by Edward, First Baron Thurlow during the impeachment of Warren Hastings). These well-chosen lines invite the reader into an extraordinarily complex history that is brought vividly to life by Dalrymple. Dalrymple’s knowledge of his subject and his engaging writing style realise this volume as something much more than a well-told history with historical figures moving about and doing what they did to force the next historical event. Dalrymple understands this history. He knows these people. This is obvious when he introduces readers to some of the men who are central to this story of corporate ambition and gobsmacking greed. There are the English: Robert Clive is 'violent and ruthless but extremely capable', Warren Hastings is 'plain-living, scholarly, diligent' (p.xiii), Philip Francis is 'scheming' (p.xiv) while Robert Clive’s son, Edward Clive, is just 'notably unintelligent' (p.xv). There are the French. The Mughals, including the 'handsome and talented' Shah Alam (p.xvii), the Nawabs, the Rohillas, the Sultans of Mysore and the Marathas. There are the brave, the brutal, the resigned, the visionary and the incompetent. Dalrymple’s writing is confident and at times mesmerising. He has, too, a knack for selecting just the right piece of information to set the scene. For example, the first line of his introduction notes that one of 'the very first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: loot' (p.xxiii). His ability to summarise and to easily convey the magnitude of key points makes this work a gripping read. This is, after all, a story unlike any other, for: In many ways the East India Company was a model of commercial efficiency: one hundred years into its history, it had only thirty-five permanent employees in its head office. Nevertheless, that skeleton staff executed a corporate coup unparalleled in history: the military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia. It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history. (pp.xxvi-xxvii) The tale begins in 1599 and covers the main events of the rise, and fall, of the East India Company. Driving this history is a thirst for wealth that must be quenched, regardless of the human cost. Processes of colonialism are inevitably traumatic for the peoples being colonised. In India, the terror did not come specifically from another country but from a brand name: as the 'transition to colonialism took place through the mechanism of a [militarised] for-profit corporation, which existed entirely for the purpose of enriching its investors' (p.394). Eventually, 'enough was enough' and the Company was brought to heel by the Parliament and the Crown that had facilitated its establishment and expansion. In the end, the organisation that had wrought so much damage and death would dissolve in a whimper. Its powers curbed, it 'limped on in its amputated form for another fifteen years when its charter expired, finally quietly shutting down in 1874, ‘with less fanfare,’ noted one commentator, ‘than a regional railway bankruptcy’' (p.391). There is a chilling point made in the epilogue: The East India Company, has, thankfully, no exact modern equivalent. Walmart, which is the world’s largest corporation in revenue does not number among its assets a fleet of nuclear submarines; neither Facebook nor Shell possesses regiments of infantry. Yet the East India Company — the first great multinational corporation, and the first to run amok — was the ultimate model and prototype for many of today’s joint stock corporations. The most powerful among them do not need their own armies: they can rely on governments to protect their interests and bail them out. (p.396) The end of the East India Company is not the end of the story of the corporation. There are maps upfront and a list of the key players with a short biographical note for each. There is also a very useful glossary, beautiful images with credits and a detailed index. The scholarship behind this work is revealed through the notes and bibliography which consumes 89 of the 522 pages of text. Skimming the references it is difficult not to be drawn in, almost hypnotised, by the scale and scope of materials utilised to inform Dalrymple’s work. So many different authors, formats, languages and repositories and, of course, so many documents created by the East India Company. This listing is an invaluable resource for students of history and anyone wanting to do further reading on the organisation that 'probably invented corporate lobbying' (p.xxvii) and at its peak controlled 'almost half the world’s trade' (p.3). The Anarchy is important reading and a timely tale of the raw violence that corporations were once capable of and the levels of power that such enterprises continue to seek. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, October 2019 Visit the publisher's website here.

Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat: The Ship’s Cat Who Helped Matthew Flinders Map Australia

by Matthew Flinders, Philippa Sandall and Gillian Dooley, with illustrations by Ad Long and a foreword by Julian Stockwin

Adlard Coles (Bloomsbury), 2019, 128 pp., ISBN: 9781472967206, h/bk, AUS$22.49

Trim, one of the world’s most famous seafaring cats, sets sail again in Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat. 

Matthew Flinders is famous for completing the first circumnavigation of the continent that he would call “Australia”. The young naval officer was given instructions, in early 1801, 'to explore in detail, among other places, that part of the south Australian coastline then referred to as ‘the Unknown Coast’, to document its flora and fauna (p.113), and to circumnavigate The Great South Land, which he completed in 1803.

Flinders was one of 88 men on board his ship, the HMS Investigator. The crew included Bungaree, scientific staff, and Flinders’ faithful furry friend, Trim. The black and white cat lost his life while his master, who had been accused of spying, was incarcerated on Mauritius. Flinders’ grief is palpable in his work A Biographical Tribute to the Memory of Trim (1809), a moving reflection that has been faithfully reproduced in this small book.

In this publication the story of Trim, 'the best and most illustrious of his Race' (p.50), benefits from careful footnoting to unpack the various literary allusions and to explain the various nautical terms that Flinders—cartographer and catographer—used in this work. Flinders’ account is supported by an informative essay by Gillian Dooley that offers some context to the story of Trim and looks at not only what the Biographical Tribute reveals about a much-loved companion but what, too, this beautiful snippet of literature reveals about its author. Through this short work, the manuscript of which is only six pages in length (p.11), Flinders 'revealed a side of himself that we wouldn’t otherwise suspect had ever existed' (p.59).

There is also a whimsical response 'by Trim' about his 'Seafurring Adventures with Matt Flinders' (p.65), in which the 'Seven Secrets of the Successful Hunter' are shared. These are:

'Be prepared. Plan ahead. Be patient. Persevere. Be fit for the task. Maintain a healthy life balance. Practice makes perfect' (p.81).

Most excellent advice.

One of the great joys of this edition of Trim’s story is the suite of delightful illustrations by Ad Long. There is a wonderful attention to detail in each drawing, even the page numbers are offered against a background of the silhouette of a cat’s head. There is, too, a good selection of images from a few of the collections that hold resources documenting Flinders’ life and work. There is a useful timeline of Flinders’ major journeys with Trim (pp.111–16). There are also notes, picture credits and a basic index.

Trim, The Cartographer’s Cat will slip easily into the paws of readers who enjoy stories of adventure and of friendship. Those who admire the felis catus and their antics—from playing games to stealing food—will surely feel compelled to add this little volume to their book collection.

Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, October 2019

Visit the publisher's website here

[Window Title] Seagate Dashboard [Main Instruction] Seagate Dashboard has stopped working [Content] Windows is checking for a solution to the problem... [Cancel]_blankrel="noopener">Short Empire Flying Boat Cooee at Rose Bay 5 July 1939, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 035/Item 119, ACP Magazines)

With a second Sydney airport now underway, it is worth remembering that between 1937 and 1955 Sydney had two international airports: one at Mascot and the other less than 6km from Circular Quay at Rose Bay. Listen to Mark and Tess on 2SER here In the mid-1930s Australia signed up to the Empire Air Mail Scheme to take mail from Sydney to England by flying boat. With commercial air travel to Australia in its infancy (the first regular service only starting in 1933), the flying boats were to be operated as a joint venture between Qantas and Imperial Airways, then England’s largest airline. Qantas would fly Sydney to Singapore via Brisbane, Gladstone, Darwin and Indonesia, after which Imperial Airways would take them on to Southampton via Thailand, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and France. Set downs included the Sea of Galilee and a lake in central Iran. A terminal was built on the shores of Rose Bay through 1936, with moorings for the flying boats, a terminal for passengers, a hanger for the planes and slipways to get them in and out of the harbour. As it was a joint Australia-England venture, the planes were sourced from the English Short Brothers factory. Six flying boats were built by Short Brothers for the run – Coolangatta, Cooee, Carpentaria, Corio, Coogee and Coorong. These flying boats were big enough and powerful enough to cover distance with plenty of room for passenger comfort. The first through service from Sydney to Southampton left Rose Bay on 5 July 1938. The Cooee flew a first class service with 30 stops between Sydney and London. The official opening of the terminal and the regular service followed on 4 August.

Comfort in Overseas Air Travel, The Home, August 1938, p29

The flying boats took 15 passengers, two pilots and three crew. Food was prepared in a galley on board, a promenade deck allowed passengers to stretch their legs, have a drink or even play quoits or putt golf (according to the brochure). Breakfast and lunch were served on board, while passengers were accommodated in first class hotels at the end of each flying day. The first flights took ten days one-way. It was pricey, with tickets costing £205 Sydney–London; less for shorter distances. At a time when the average wage was £3 per week, it was well beyond the reach of most people. A second service between Sydney and Auckland started in 1940, with South Pacific runs and Timor flights (using Catalinas) soon following. The outbreak of war in Europe meant the re-routing of flights, but war in Asia from 1941 saw the service suspended. Flights were now in the frontline and involved evacuating civilians out of Asia in advance of the Japanese invasion (about 8,000 out of Singapore alone). In January 1942 the flying boat Corio was shot down and in March 1942 the service was stopped. With the end of war, the civilian flying boats restarted but were now in competition with long range land based planes, including many former WWII bombers. Using former military Catalina’s the flying boat service now took 5 ½ days to England, with new routes opening to Noumea and Fiji. In 1955 Qantas discontinued the flying boat service, selling its aircraft to Ansett Airways. Ansett continued to fly to the South Pacific until the last flights to Norfolk Island and Lord Howe left Rose Bay in 1974. These were not only the last for Sydney but the last flying boat service in the world. Soon after the terminal and the infrastructure was removed. Today Rose Bay's Catalina restaurant serves as a hint of what had once been Sydney’s premier international airport. You can read more in Kim Hanna's entry on Rose Bay Airport on the Dictionary here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/rose_bay_airport

2SER is celebrating it's 40th anniversary this month. ’40 Years of 2SER’, a free interactive exhibition exploring the stations four decades of broadcast will be on at 107 Projects in Redfern from the 10 – 20 October. Head to the 2SER website for further details about the anniversary and the exhibition .

Mark Dunn is the former Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!

  Listen to the audio of Mark & 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.            

Visit the State Library of New South Wales for the 2019 Open Day on Saturday 12 October and enjoy a full day of fun activities, talks and tours for the whole family. Head to the Library website for the full program of events.

Looking down Hosking Place from Castlereagh Street after the Moore Street fire, 1890, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 2127, Box 10, 45)

Just after 2 o’clock in the morning on 2 October 1890 the alarm was raised after a “lurid glare” was seen in the upper windows of the large warehouse of Gibbs, Shallard & Co on Hosking Place, just off Pitt Street. It was a calamitous fire that changed Sydney’s urban environment forever.  Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Sam on 2SER here   Gibbs, Shallard & Co was a successful printing business. The printers and lithographers had moved to these expansive new premises in 1886, and the warehouse was full of machinery, paper, flammable inks and solvents. The arrival of the No.1 Fire Brigade within 15 minutes could do little to dampen the flames. Windows exploded, the flames quickly spread and it was clear by 2.30am that Gibbs, Shallard & Co’s warehouse was doomed. As more fire brigades arrived, they turned their attention to trying to save the surrounding buildings. Many of the smaller buildings had shingle roofs, allowing embers and flames to rapidly take hold. It spread to the Athenaeum Club and the Southern Club, the warehouses and stores of drapers, fancy goods and soft goods merchants, dry goods stores and a furniture & joinery establishment. The City Bank building on the corner of Moore & Pitt Street, considered one of the finest banks in the city, was destroyed.

Plan of the block burnt, Leader, October 11, 1890 p37 via Trove

By half-past three in the morning, there was a crowd of onlookers numbering 10,000, trying to get the best views from Pitt Street and Castlereagh Street. Police, the mayor of Sydney, and mounted troopers struggled to keep them back far enough to allow the firemen to do their duty. There were stables behind the Tattersalls Chambers to the north near Hunter Street, which housed horses for the telegraph boys and the mounted infantry. During the height of the fire the horses were released for their safety, causing a stampede down the streets. Many of the buildings gutted by the fire became unstable. Ten fire fighters were injured from debris and falling walls. Several private citizens were injured trying to recover possessions from their offices. Fortunately, there was no loss of life and there were no reports of looting. By 9 o'clock that morning the flames had dwindled to the appearance of a small furnace, burning fiercely but low. Business around the city was at a standstill. Everyone came out onto the streets to view the scene of destruction. Newspapers described it variously as ‘a calamitous fire’, ‘The Great Fire in the Heart of Sydney’, ‘a conflagration unprecedented in Australia’, rivalling the Garden Palace fire just 8 years before. The whole block bounded by Moore Street, Pitt Street and Castlereagh Street, up to Hosking Place and beyond was utterly destroyed. The area, covering about a hectare, was considered one of the finest mercantile blocks in the city. The stock losses were tremendous, into the thousands and thousands of pounds. Many of the warehouses had just got in their summer season stock, increasing the burden placed on their businesses. It was estimated that losses would total over a million pounds sterling, and that the toll on insurance companies would be heavy. But things could have been much worse. Sydneysiders were lucky that there was only a mild southerly breeze, otherwise the flames could have spread even more rapidly. Although water pressure was at times low, the coordination of the 25 fire brigades present fighting the flames demonstrated the value of the recent establishment of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

Demolition of buildings, Moore Street, 7 October 1890 , courtesy Dixson Library, State Library of NSW (DL PXX 65,77)

Within days there was talk of redeveloping narrow Moore Street. Here was the perfect opportunity to create a wide thoroughfare leading from the grand new post office all the way along Moore Street, across Castlereagh, Elizabeth and Phillip Streets all the way to Macquarie Street. Out of the flames, a phoenix rose: a vision to create what would ultimately become Martin Place.     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 & Sam 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.   

Tom Frame, Gun Control: What Australia Got Right (and Wrong)

NewSouth Books, 2019, 201 pp., ISBN: 9781742236346, p/bk, AUS$34.99

Professor Tom Frame’s Gun Control: What Australia Got Right (and Wrong) offers a clear and concise history of Australian politics and policy for the period following the Port Arthur massacre in April 1996. This is a story about a gunman who murdered 35 people and injured another 23, a newly-elected Prime Minister, extraordinary collaboration between States and the Commonwealth and the production of the National Firearms Agreement within two weeks of a mass murder at one of Tasmania’s best-known historical sites. This is a story, too, of metropolitan versus regional Australia (p.11–12), of Australia’s standing in the world and of the impassioned debate on how modern-day societies might control gun violence. The book is rigorously researched and is well written. As a book reviewer, it is easy to commend Frame’s in-depth knowledge of such a tragic point in Australian history and the most obvious outcome of its aftermath. Critically, Frame asks if the National Firearms Agreement has achieved its intentions. As the title of the work suggests, this is an analysis of what was, in Frame’s view, done right and what was done wrong in a highly contested and very emotional space. Background is offered as well, with good summaries of the terrible massacres at Milperra (September 1984), Hoddle Street (August 1987), Queen Street (December 1987) and Strathfield (August 1991) (pp.82–88). The role of guns in perpetrating domestic violence is also mentioned. One of Frame’s more poignant lines is found in his acknowledgements when he thanks his ‘granddaughters Imogen and Lily, who remind me that women are the usual focus for the violent tendencies of men’ (p.195). To his credit, Frame reveals his own views upfront. He is, himself, a ‘licensed firearm owner’ but he does not ‘believe that keeping firearms is a right’. He notes his own belief that ‘Australian governments intrude too much on everyday life but accept[s] the need for highly restrictive firearm legislation.’ He also states that he ‘would probably own an AR-15 semi-automatic centre-rifle if the law allowed but fully endorse[s] the restrictions preventing [him] from having one’ (p.xvii). As a citizen in a world ravaged by gun violence it is difficult to not feel frustrated by Frame’s dispassionate delivery of what happened, when it happened and where. While this is a book about a very Australian experience and while some extrapolation to a broader, international, context can be made, it is difficult to directly compare the history offered by Frame to the quite different histories of gun violence in the United States. Yet, in early 2019 there were over one million registered guns in New South Wales alone, that “means there is now one registered firearm for every eight NSW citizens” (Gooley). A disturbing thought for many people. Perhaps I was, unfairly to Frame, looking for confirmation bias in this book and wanted an argument more laden with outrage than some half-way point between marching on the streets and the American response to massacres of ‘thoughts and prayers’. The most infuriating comments in Frame’s work are around his insistence to refer to guns as ‘firearms’. Utilisation of the word ‘weapons’ is, according to Frame, too provocative and is ‘intended by some to be pejorative rather than descriptive. Shooters own firearms; they do not become weapons unless they are used in the commission of a crime’. ‘A knife remains a knife’ Frame writes, ‘until it becomes a tool to harm another person’ (p.xix). Well, a broom remains a broom until it is wielded in a way that causes injury to another living being. Knives, brooms, cars, paperweights, an ugly vase; all of these items can be weaponised, but their fundamental purposes are practical and non-violent. In sharp contrast, firearms are designed to kill. Indeed, the sole purpose of a gun is to kill, be the intended victim an animal or another human being. Sure, some will argue ‘sport’ or ‘self-defence’ or ‘you need a gun out bush’. Yet guns are only ever weapons: from conception, to design, to manufacture, sale and use. These are tools of war. That said, the book will likely prove to be equally frustrating for those to identify as members of, or at least supporters of, various gun lobbies in Australia and around the world. This is Frame’s goal. It is, he argues, only from a ‘contested middle ground that progress can and will be made in dealing with issues that will not go away’(p.xvii). Frame includes a very useful glossary (pp.xxiv–xxix), if we are going to engage in these complex conversations we need to understand, clearly, the types of guns and rifles that dominate the statements made on gun ‘rights’ and gun ‘control’ and this is a first-rate quick guide. There is also a list of further reading, notes and an index. Gun Control neatly, and generally neutrally, is an informed and well-structured summary of a debate that, indeed, ‘will not go away’. If you want a solid, mostly impartial, history of gun control reform in Australia then Frame’s book is an excellent starting point. If you want to know that other people are really angry about senseless gun violence, then perhaps follow the Australian Gun Safety Alliance on Twitter.   Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, September 2019 Visit the NewSouth Books website here.

The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, 25 September 1852, p2 via Trove

On 21 September 1852, illicit grog dealer, snappy dresser and murderer Francis Green was the last man to be publicly hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol.   Listen to the whole conversation with Rachel and Tess on 2SER here  Green (also known as John Brown) was 32 years old when he was arrested for the murder of his partner in their sly grog trade, John Jones (also known as Hayes, or 'the Tinker'), at Buckley’s Creek on the goldfields near Bathurst. Green was an efficient murderer (unusual in colonial New South Wales), shooting his victim on 10 March 1852 and 'inflicting a wound on the back of the neck, whereof the said John Jones instantly died'. He was also a neat and tidy murderer. He complained at Goulburn that he was being forwarded to Sydney 'with no clean shirt', his clothes having been taken by police into evidence. Some money had been found on him when he was arrested and the local Justice of the Peace ordered that 'a small portion of it might be expended by the prisoner in procuring a shirt'. At his trial in early August, he 'was most respectably attired in a black dress coat and trousers, a light vest, black hat &c'.

The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, 9 October 1852 p9 via Trove

The Empire wrote of how, even as Green faced his death and 'was called forth to face the fatal platform', he 'still retained his wonted coolness and self-command. He had previously attended to his personal appearance with more than ordinary care, and his shoes becoming accidentally soiled, he deliberately changed them; and dressed in white, with a small cross attached to his neck, he firmly mounted the scaffold...' Green was of great interest to newspaper editors and their readers and, as reported by Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Review, so were the crowds who had gathered to watch him hang at the gaol's public gallows outside the Forbes Street gates, The press had become increasingly critical of the morals and conduct of those, particularly women, who would attend a public hanging:

'The morning of Tuesday broke dark and gloomy, with a drizzling rain; but this in no way diminished the number of spectators, which was of about the usual average—the proportion of females to the sterner sex being nearly three to one. We noticed one carriage in particular, tenanted by women of respectable exterior, and who, we believe, have hitherto ranked as such, drawn up immediately in front of the drop; its inmates displaying the most disgusting eagerness to source the best situation for witnessing the forthcoming tragedy.'

Green’s final statement at his trial had proclaimed his innocence: 'May I be permitted to make one more remark. I am perfectly innocent of this charge, and if I am executed, I shall only add one more to the number of victims who have fallen on circumstantial evidence' Although he later confessed to accidentally killing Jones, his statement highlighted the moral issue behind the greater debate of the day: the fight to abolish the death penalty altogether, as both a public and private punishment. The decision of the New South Wales Legislative Council to perform judicial executions as private rather than public events was innovative but still controversial. There was a general consensus that public executions were uncivilised and were, as Gregory Woods has noted, 'associated with the hated convict era'. Yet there were those who believed that the ultimate sentence of the law was also the ultimate deterrent against crime and laws concerning the death penalty in the colonies required royal assent. Imperial authorities, who did not ban public executions in England until 1868, were not enthusiastic supporters of the new Australian policy, but finally Act to Regulate the Execution of Criminals 1855 (NSW) was signed and proclaimed on 10 January 1855. It is sometimes claimed that Green was the last person to be publicly hanged in New South Wales, but while Darlinghurst had two gallows, one private and one public, many other prisons across the state did not have these additional 'indoor' facilities, and the practice continued after 1852. Arguments for and against capital punishment continued, often vigorously, until it was eventually outlawed in all Australian states and territories in the late 20th century and legislation was passed by the federal government in 2010 prohibiting its reintroduction. References and further reading: Beck, Deborah, Hope in Hell: A History of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2005) 'The Buckley Creek Murder', Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, 7 August 1852, pp1–3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59775102; 'Law Intelligence', Empire, 3 August 1852, p2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60134731 'The Murder at the Turon', Goulburn Herald and County of Argyle Advertiser, 8 May 1852, p4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101732377 , 'Police Intelligence', Goulburn Herald and County of Argyle Advertiser, 8 May 1852, p4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101732377 Gregory D. Woods, A History of the Criminal Law in New South Wales: The Colonial Period, 1788–1900 (Annandale: Federation Press, 2002) Barry York, 'Capital Punishment in Australia', Unbound: National Library of Australia magazine, June 2017, https://www.nla.gov.au/unbound/capital-punishment-in-australia   Dr Rachel Franks is the Coordinator, Education & Scholarship at the State Library of New South Wales 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, listen to the podcast with Rachel & Tess here, and tune in to 2SER Breakfast with Tess Connery on 107.3 every Wednesday morning to hear more stories from the Dictionary of Sydney.

Plan of Governors Demesne Land, surveyed in the year 1816. By C Cartwright. From the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales [a2869001 / ZM3 811.172/1816/1]

What did you last go to the Domain for? A protest? A concert? Perhaps a lunch break? For over two centuries the park has provided Sydneysiders with a space of their own.

  Listen to Minna and Tess on 2SER here 

The Domain was established by Governor Macquarie along with the Botanical Gardens in 1816 when it encompassed a far larger area than we know today. Now only four small precincts, it used to cover the area from Woolloomooloo Bay to Circular Quay and south to Hyde Park. The edges were chipped away by the establishment of cultural institutions like the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the State Library of New South Wales, the Opera House, Government House and the Conservatorium of Music. Later road infrastructure carved out portions with the development of the Harbour Tunnel and ramps for the Cahill Expressway. During the day the Domain has always been characterised by picnics, cricket, public commemorations and weddings. But at night beneath the fig trees and on the lawns, Sydney’s lovers have found an alternate space. As early as 1832 Daniel Delaney was charged with 'making love to a ‘Shelah' in the Domain at the unseasonable hour of 11pm.’ For many of Sydney’s homeless it’s also been place of refuge. During the 1930s as people lost their jobs and failed to make rent, they turned to the Domain. A whole shanty town soon sprang up. At night there were campfires, as people gathered round billies of tea, gossiped and told stories. Perhaps most significantly the Domain represents a space where people can gather to protest, to rant and to rally.

Speakers corner at the Domain, PIX, 18 March 1939, p20

In the late nineteenth-century there were failed attempts to curb its use as a space for political forums and regulate the use of perceived inflammatory language. Instead it continued to thrive as a protest space hosting the Anti-Conscription rallies in 1916 and the following year, during the Great Strike, one of Australia’s largest industrial conflicts, the park saw weekly gatherings of 100,000 people per week. In the 1960s, anti-war moratorium demonstrations were held there, in 1975 there were huge demonstrations protesting the dismissal of the Whitlam government and in the 1980s, Palm Sunday peace rallies were held. At Speakers Corner on Sundays, people have long mounted their soapboxes to voice their diverse opinions on the social and political issues of the day. The time-honoured tradition of protest will continue at the Domain this Friday 20 September when more than 35,000 people are expected to attend the global climate strike. Further reading: Laila Ellmoos's article on the Great Strike in 1917 can be found on the Dictionary here, and Garry Wotherspoon's overview ofTthe Domain is here. Head to the Dictionary to explore more about the Domain's place in Sydney's history here, and protests and demonstrations here.  

Demonstration in the Domain during the Great Strike, Sydney Mail 15 August 1917, p22

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. 

View of Project 32: Jonathan Jones' barrangal dyara (skin and bones), Photo by Peter Greig, courtesy: Kaldor Public Art Projects

This year Kaldor Public Art Projects is marking fifty years of challenging and surprising Sydneysiders with large scale, public and interactive art.

Listen to the whole conversation with Mark and Sean on 2SER here

John Kaldor AO arrived in Sydney in the post-war years, his family on the move from Eastern Europe having survived war and invasion. Successful in the fabric industry, Kaldor first began to collect art and then in the late 1960s to commission public art. Kaldor first established a sponsorship for Australian artists to travel overseas, but from 1969 he reversed this, bringing in international artists to perform and make art here. The first big project, Project #1, was Christo and Jean Claude’s Wrapped Coast. The New York based Bulgarian and French artist couple were already internationally well known for their wrapped projects, wrapping store fronts and other objects as public art, but Wrapped Coast was by far their largest project to date. Over a period of two months, with the assistance of engineers, volunteers, art students and others, they wrapped a 2.4km section of Little Bay in Sydney with 92,900m2 of fabric and 56km of rope. The fabric and rope came from factories in Alexandria, then Sydney’s industrial heartland. Three years before the opening of the Opera House, and in a deeply conservative city, Wrapped Coast was a turning point for public art in Sydney. Many, without seeing it, thought it a terrible waste of money and pointless project. Hard to understand from a distance, those who were drawn in to see it, on the whole fell in love with the whimsy. Kaldor himself saw it as the start of a lifetime of support for public art.

Puppy by Jeff Koons, Museum of Contemporary Art 1996 courtesy Jeannie Fletcher (JIGGS IMAGES) via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Jump forward 26 years to 1995 and Jeff Koons' Puppy (#10) saw a 12.4m high puppy dog, sitting patiently in the forecourt of the Museum of  Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. Covered in flowers, all primed to bloom together, the piece was a risk for the newly opened MCA, which had struggled to capture the attention of the Sydney public. Puppy changed all that. Although it scampered away after four months, Puppy captured Sydney’s heart and settled the MCA in the forefront of contemporary art in Australia. Michael Landy’s Act of Kindness (#24) and Marina Abramovic In Residence (#30) were among the blockbuster projects. In 2016, Jonathon Jones presented the powerful barrangal dyara (skin and bones)  (#32) in the grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Jones took the site as his inspiration, recreating the Garden Palace, destroyed by fire in 1882. Jones explored the loss of the contents of the palace, much of which consisted of Aboriginal cultural artefacts, weapons, canoes, shields and artworks collected or taken by European’s since 1788. All was lost in the fire, incinerating a cultural collection that could never be recreated. Jones used ceramic shields, in the form of traditional shields from eastern Australia, the peoples who took the brunt of the first contacts, to outline the palace footprint on the lawn of the RBG. For many contemporary artists, fifty years represents a lifetime. Kaldor has done the hard work of pushing bureaucrats, government departments and the public creating the space required for artists to show what is possible. Thanks to Kaldor, these projects have together transformed Sydney’s eye for art. A retrospective of Kaldor Public Art Projects is currently on at the Art Gallery of NSW with the exhibition Making art public: 50 years of Kaldor Public Art Projects, curated by artist Michael Landy, as well as a series of talks, films and other events. Head to the Kaldor Public Art Projects website to check out all the anniversary events and for further information about the history of all of the projects: http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/

Mark Dunn is the Chair of the NSW Professional Historians Association and former Deputy Chair of the Heritage Council of NSW. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. You can read more of his work on the Dictionary of Sydney here. Mark appears on 2SER on behalf of the Dictionary of Sydney in a voluntary capacity. Thanks Mark!

  Listen to the audio of Mark & Sean 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.    

Headstones in Devonshire Street Cemetery c1901 by Ethel Foster, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON146/386)

It's History Week and this year's theme is 'Memory and Landscapes'. And there is no better way to think about memory and landscapes than to delve into the history of Sydney's cemeteries. Listen to the whole conversation with Lisa and Tess on 2SER here The Devonshire Street Cemetery was the second major cemetery for the town of Sydney. The first burial ground opened in 1820, and several other burial grounds opened over the next 15 years, so that by the end of the 1830s there were seven burial grounds on the site, covering a total of approximately 12 acres. This is an important point to grasp. Devonshire Street was not a general cemetery as we think of today, but rather seven distinct cemeteries. Each burial ground was enclosed by fencing and had an exclusive entrance. Each denomination managed its own cemetery and had its own scale of fees and charges. Devonshire Street Cemetery was a cemetery of firsts. Not only was it the first time the General Surveyor grouped a set of burial grounds together; Devonshire Street was also the first time attempts were made to regulate burials and order the cemetery landscape.

Detail of map showing different denominational burial grounds in the cemetery 1845, courtesy City of Sydney Archives (CRS1155, City of Sydney (Sheilds), 1845 (detail))

The layout and location of Devonshire Street Cemetery placed Sydney at the forefront of cemetery design. It was the colonials’ first clear response to the garden cemetery movement in Britain. It was located on the outskirts of a populous town, on an elevated site, with picturesque views of the city and the harbour. The tombs were handsome and there were some fine pieces of sculpture. But by the mid-1840s the cemeteries were becoming seriously overcrowded. But it was not until 1866 that the cemeteries were actually closed. In the meantime, the churches kept trying to shove more bodies in. There were poor burial depths, and exposed corpses. Once the cemetery was closed to burials (except if you had a vault), the cemetery was neglected by church trustees. It became overgrown and a resort for bad characters and nefarious activities. In 1901 the cemeteries were resumed to make way for the new Central Railway Station. Relatives were given two months to claim remains to be moved to other cemeteries. Consequently, headstones from the Devonshire Street Cemetery can be found all over metropolitan Sydney. Those unclaimed were to go to Rookwood, but ultimately were exhumed and reburied at a special cemetery established by the government down at Bunnerong. The exhumation process was difficult, and the recent excavation and construction works from the light rail and the metro railway have both uncovered skeletal remains, coffin furniture, and headstone fragments. The Devonshire Street Cemeteries are the flavour of history week and the flavour of the month!

Headstone of Hugh McDonald, the first burial in Devonshire Street Cemetery in 1819, c1900, by Ethel Foster, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 146/413a)

If you're free today (Wed 4 September) I'm giving an illustrated lunchtime talk down at Customs House at 12.30 (details here). And my article for the Dictionary about the Devonshire Street Cemetery has just been published too, which you can read here. The State Library of NSW currently has an exhibition called 'Dead Central'. It's been curated by Elise Edmonds and is a fabulous overview of the history of the site, from Gadigal land, to burial ground, to Central Railway Station. Head to the Library's website (here) for further details. It's on till May 2020 so don't miss it! Supporting the exhibition is a wonderful podcast series - which I and many other historians and Dictionary authors feature in through various episodes - called The Burial Files. Again, the State Library's website (here) can give you further information about the episodes and how best to listen to it. You can check the History Week program for events around the city and New South Wales 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.   

Peter Corris, See you at the Toxteth: the best of Cliff Hardy and Corris on crime 

Selected by Jean Bedford

Allen & Unwin, 2019, 323 pp., ISBN: 9781760875633, p/bk, AUS$29.99

Many readers will feel privileged to hold one more book from Peter Corris (1942–2018).  See you at the Toxteth: the best of Cliff Hardy and Corris on crime, released a year after the legendary writer's death, has been carefully put together by Corris’ wife, writer Jean Bedford. It’s almost impossible to think of modern-day Australian crime writing without thinking of Corris’ creation, Cliff Hardy. The tough talking, fighting and drinking private investigator with old-fashioned values, a beaten up car and cash flow problems burst onto Sydney streets in 1980: … Vaucluse is several million tons of sandstone sticking out into Port Jackson. The sun always shines on it and the residents think it vulgar to talk about the view. I permitted myself a few vulgar thoughts as I pushed my old Falcon along the sculptured divided highway which wound up to the tasteful mansions and shaven lawns. Mercs and Jags slipped out of driveways. The only other under-ten-thousand-dollar drivers I saw were in a police Holden and they were probably there to see that the white lines on the road weren’t getting dirty. (The Dying Trade p.2) The Dying Trade was the first of forty-two Hardy cases. A hard-hitting, nail-biting tale that set the scene and the tone for a new type of Australian crime story, it was less concerned with convicts and bushrangers and more worried about greed and corruption. The book generated widespread enthusiasm for tales of good guys taking on bad guys and sparked a renaissance of the crime fiction genre in the southern continent, well away from the main centres of tough tales in the United States, and earned Corris the title of 'Godfather of Australian Crime Fiction'. Many years ago, I was given a first edition of Corris’ first novel. The slim hardback has obviously been read numerous times. The pages are yellowed, the boards are rubbed and the dust jacket, now in a protective sleeve, has faded a little over nearly four decades. A few years ago Corris looked a tad surprised when I, after waiting in a long line, handed it over for signing. He turned the book over and smiled. Perhaps he was pleased that, like his most famous protagonist, it was still in one piece. This copy of The Dying Trade sits on my bookcase with the books that followed it … all paperbacks. I like the fact that it looks so different. This is a book that was a gamechanger in what is now a thriving component of the Australian publishing industry. See you at the Toxteth is a collection of twelve short stories. From the first page of the first story, Hardy is there in all of his laidback glory: 'I realised I wasn’t at home, I was in hospital. I’ve been in hospital before; the first thing to do is to check that you’ve still got all your bits and pieces and that they haven’t mixed you up with the guy who had gangrene. I moved and wriggled and blinked; everything seemed to work'.(p.3) There’s alcohol, familiar streets, shady characters and the odd beautiful woman. There are also the classic, and obligatory, one-liners: 'I’m no judge of literature, but this reads like at least pretty fair journalism to me'.(p.160) Hardy doesn’t always come out of a case with a neat win but, in true hardboiled tradition, he comes as close to winning as his world will allow. As Bedford notes, these stories sometimes finish 'with the case unsolved, but always with some sort of resolution along the way'.(p 2) Following the short stories is An ABC of Crime Writing. A is for action, adultery, age and alcohol (pp.224–25), L is for laboratory, Latin tag, loan sharking, locality, locked room and love.(pp.252–53) A personal favourite of mine in this alphabetised list is R which 'is also for robbery. This is a minor crime in the writer’s lexicon but it often acts as a precursor to the central business, which is murder'.(p.269) Indeed. It’s a practical, and often humorous, guide that lays out Corris’ thinking on the genre he did so much for while also acknowledging some of his greatest predecessors. Also making the cut is a selection of his 'Godfather Columns' from the Newtown Review of Books, looking at crime and crime writing, and a definitive list of Corris’ publications, fiction and non-fiction. We can, as we read his crime fiction—for which he won a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999—easily forget Corris was, too, a talented writer of non-fiction and his outputs include biography, sport and histories of the Pacific. The final lines of prose are those of Peter Corris. In reflecting on the forty-second Cliff Hardy novel he wrote: So I had no idea this book would be my last when I wrote it and that’s good. Knowing that could have imparted a tone—perhaps regret, perhaps self-pity—wholly inappropriate to Cliff. As it was, I gave it an ending intrinsic to the story, a very Cliff Hardy ending. And I’m happy with it.(p.318) Readers are happy with it too. See you at the Toxteth is available now. Reviewed by Dr Rachel Franks, August 2019 For a preview of the book or to purchase online, visit the publisher's website here.