From the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Europeans were aware of the isolated and potentially vulnerable situation they occupied.  French ships had turned up the same day as the Fleet.  So on arrival in Sydney Harbour Governor Phillip unloaded guns from the Sirius and mounted them on the western point of Sydney Cove at Dawes Point and the eastern side at Bennelong Point to protect the anchorage.

Guns at the ready at Fort Macquarie 1875

These were augmented in 1795 by guns on Garden Island and then in 1801 with a redoubt built at Obelisk Point near Middle Head.  The plan was for Obelisk Point to engage any ships entering the harbour and then Dawes Point and Bennelong Point to provide a cross fire at any ships that made it close enough to attack the town.

These batteries remained the main forts on the harbour until 1839.  Governor Macquarie had upgraded them between 1810 and 1821, renaming the Bennelong Point battery as Fort Macquarie, but gunners complained that when the cannons were fired in test firing exercisers the stones of the redoubt were dislodged.

Sydney needed some defence in case any enemy of Britain arrived unannounced.  With tension in Europe not uncommon, it could be 3 to 4 months before news of any war with Britain might arrive in Australia, by which time any patrolling enemy could have come into the harbour and bombarded the town.  Further, with European nations such as France, Spain and Russia as well and the United States expanding their colonial ambitions into the Pacific, Sydney felt a long way away from help.

In 1835, Captain George Bailey was commissioned to review the defences.  While recommended a number of new forts, debates over spending and whether the forts were needed at all delayed work.  Then, on the morning of 30 November 1839 Sydney woke to find two American warships at anchor in the Sydney Cove.  They had come in overnight without the assistance of a pilot and unseen by any of the forts.

As the Captain of the flagship Vincennes said, they could have open fire on an unsuspecting Sydney.

Funnily enough debates about the need for new forts vanished and work began immediately on new positions on Pinchgut Island, now known as Fort Denison, Kirribilli and Bradleys Head.  Work proceeded slowly however and the forts were not completed until 1857, by which time Britain had been at war in the Crimea with Russia and new fears of attacks on Sydney had risen.

On the guns at Watsons Bay, South Head 1875

Upgrades to the existing batteries were coupled with new installations at South Head, Inner South Head and Middle Head in the 1870s and 1880s.  Eventually guns were placed from Dawes Point to South Head, at North Bondi, Bare Island in Botany Bay and Shark Point near Coogee.

But technology moves quickly, and so by the turn of the twentieth century the forts were obsolete.  New, larger warships could attack from offshore, out of range of the shore batteries.  Planes could fly overhead and bomb the city. Submarines could slip past unnoticed. And so, although modernised during the First and Second World Wars, the forts were gradually decommissioned, the guns scraped and the bush allowed to move back in.  The guns never fired in anger.

But the forts are still there, now part of Sydney Harbour National Park and other public reserves and well worth a visit as they occupy on the best spots, ever vigilant.

The festival grew from the ideas of film enthusiasts meeting in Newport in 1950 on the Northern Beaches hoping to take advantage of the support of the newly formed Film Users Association and the influx of documentary films from a recovering, post-war Europe, as well as being encouraged by the European festivals in Venice, Cannes and Edinburgh.  While Melbourne aired a festival in 1952 at Olinda, Sydney followed soon after in 1954.

In 1954 Sydney and Australia were very different places to today.  Conservative ideas were the mainstream; the White Australia Policy was in force restricting immigration to Australia, Aboriginal people were not counted in the census nor could they vote, only 29% of women aged 15-64 were in the workforce and if they got married they could no longer work for the public service.

The first festival was a massive hit in a film starved city. 1200 tickets were sold for the four day event held at Sydney University with Professor of Philosophy and President of the NSW Film Council Alan Stout and the first festival director David Donaldson steering the event.

The festival was dominated by documentaries, including the Australia classic Back of Beyond, which had won the coveted Gran Prix Assoluto at the Venice Festival.  This doco followed the mail run in the Australian outback.  It also kicked off ongoing controversy about film and censorship at the festival.  While not censored itself, the Menzies Government were not happy with the film’s portrayal of Australia, thinking it would scare off potential immigrants.

Of course since then there have been more controversial films then that one.  The festival has struggled with Government censorship from the start.  For many years all films had to be passed by the censor before airing (as is still the case for commercial release films), which lead to a number being cut or pulled before airing. Often directors wold themselves withdraw their films when they found they had been cut.  Most often the censors would go after films which contained sex or nudity over those that were violent.  For European film directors in particular, this was a strange and prudish attitude for a festival aimed at adults.

David Stratton, director from 1966 until 1983, first lead the push back against censorship in 1965 over the Japanese film, Women in the Dunes.  Up until then the festivals had quietly accepted the censors work as part of the business. Films were seen by Government as powerful tools and mind changers.  However Stratton and others were of the opinion that adults were usually responsible and smart enough to be able to make up their own minds. The festival was about pushing boundaries and debating ideas through the medium.  It was not until 1983 that the Federal Government lifted many of the restrictions on the festival, although some films remain controversial and attract protest-Hail Mary in 1986 drew 1000 protesters and demonstrators to the State theatre.

The festival, which has moved twice (Sydney University 1954-67; Wintergarden Rose Bay 1968-73; State Theatre 1974-), has in its 60 years shown over 8000 films, many not shown anywhere else in Australia.  It has introduced many film goers to their first world cinema experience, deepened the cultural experience of our city and encouraged the diversification of films shown in the more mainstream cinemas generally.

To celebrate their 60 year, the SFF have published an ebook with heaps of information on the festival, all the programs from 1954, essays and more.  Check it out.

From the earliest days of the Colony of NSW, the care of infirm and destitute people, including the ageing convict population, were reliant on charitable non-government organisations, most notably the Benevolent Society of NSW.

The Benevolent Society began in 1813 (as the ‘NSW Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence’). It was founded by Edward Smith Hall with the aim of providing relief and accommodation to paupers, the chronically sick, people with mental and intellectually disabilities, single mothers, abandoned children and the aged – with a bit of religious instruction thrown in. The society ran two asylums in Sydney, one at the site of the present-day Central Station from 1821 (known as the Benevolent Asylum) and the other at Lidcombe from the early 1850s, which was for aged men. The society met the needs of the ageing convict population in the early 19th century by providing food, clothes and shelter – as well as regular financial payments.

Benevolent Asylum, Sydney, 1871 / attributed to Charles Pickering (State Library of NSW, SPF / 245)

The NSW State Government took over responsibility for caring for caring for people with intellectual, physical and mental disabilities (and the aged) in the 1860s. The Government Asylums for the Infirm and Destitute Branch had been created in 1862 following two inquiries into the operations of the Benevolent Society in 1855 and 1861.

These inquiries found that conditions at the Benevolent Society asylums were overcrowded and that the society was ‘not sufficiently rigorous in checking for mendacity and vagrancy’. In short, the society was accused of encouraging the very things that it was trying to relieve –  it was said that by providing succor to those who could not help themselves, that they were encouraging needyness. Very much like criticisms of the welfare state today!

As a result, the government took over responsibility for managing asylums for the sick and destitute, either by transferring patients to government-run institutions (i.e. Hyde Park Barracks) or by taking control of the asylums run by the Benevolent Society. The society was left to ‘provide care for destitute and incapacitated women, lying-in facilities, and outdoor relief’.

In 1862, a Scottish-born doctor Dr Arthur Renwick was appointed to run the organisation. He established a ‘lying in’ hospital at the Benevolent Asylum (which catered to both married and unmarried women) which laid the foundations for the establishment of the Royal Hospital for Women at Paddington, now relocated to Randwick. Renwick was also a driving force behind the introduction of the old age pension in NSW in 1901 - this was the first aged pension in the world.

Today the Benevolent Society, now a secular charity (or not-for-profit), continues to provide help for the needy. And Australia’s ‘first charity’, turns 200 years old this year.  Happy Birthday – and thanks!

Check out the Benevolent Society’s timeline here: www.benevolent.org.au/200–year–celebration/last–200

The first windmill was built in 1797 on Windmill Hill-what is now Observatory Hill.  The grinding of wheat and corn was essential to the colony for the production of flour to bake with, but for the first nine years grain in the colony was ground with hand turned iron mills, a slow process and one that was increasingly inadequate for a growing population.  For some people, they had to give half their grain in payment to have the other half ground.

The first mill was a success, but a short lived one.  In June 1797 while the miller was away, unknown persons stole the sails from the veins, rendering it useless.  Although repaired, by 1805 the mill was beginning to sink on its foundations and needed extensive repairs.  It was further damaged in a storm in 1805 and by 1810 was just a tower with its sails removed.

The second mill fared even worse.  Built in Parramatta in 1798, the top was dislodged in a storm in 1799 before it had been finished.  Back in Sydney a second mill was erected in 1802 close to the military barracks in what is now Wynyard Park, with a third built behind Dawes Point near the current National Trust building.

Craigend Mill, near the Stables theatre, Kings Cross. Made into steps in the 1870s

The mills were of two types: large stone mills, or timber post mills.  The post mills were easier to erect and consisted of a timber ill building atop a large post.  The mill could then be turned by convict labour to face into the wind no matter what direction.

Whereas the first three mills were Government built, soon enough private enterprise stepped in. In the east between 1805 and the 1820s, windmills sprang up in the Domain, along the Darlinghurst Ridge and around the new gaol close to Liverpool Street.  Two of Thomas Barkers stood in Darlinghurst Road until 1866.

Further east was Gordon’s Mill in Stewart Street Paddington (c1834-c1870) and Mr Hough’s mill at Waverley (1846-1878).

Across the harbour was the Pyrmont Mill on John Macarthur’s estate, while in Miller’s Point, named after John Leighton who was better known as Jack the Miller, there were three operating from the early 1820s.  Within the city area there were nineteen windmills built up until the 1840s.

Hough’s Mill, a fine timber mill at Waverley

Further west, windmills followed the farms out to the Hawkesbury and south through Campbelltown and down to Appin.  Probably the last windmill still standing was Mount Gilead at Campbelltown, still there, albeit without its sails, in the 1970s.

Milling was a dangerous business.  Jack the Miller was killed in 1826 in his Millers Point mill when he fell, drunk, from the ladder of one.  George Howell Jnr of Parramatta was killed in 1838 when part of his mill gave way underneath him and he was crushed in the fall of machinery.

There are no windmills left in Sydney today, but there are bits of windmills if you look.  The stones of Thomas Barker’s two Kings Cross windmills were reused to build two terrace houses in Kellet Street which remain on the corner of Kellet Lane, while the stones from the largest mill in Darlinghurst, Craigend Mill that stood near the Stables Theatre were reused to build Beare’s Stairs in Caldwell Street.  And of course we have Millers Point, Windmill Street, Mill Hill Street (Waverley), Windmill Hill at Appin and other hinted at reminders of Sydney’s lost windmills.

If you want to see one for a little while, head to the Rocks Windmill which will be there until 12 May.

Sydney’s last standing mill? Mt Gilead near Campbelltown c1940

For more still, Len Fox’s book Old Sydney Windmills, or Olga Tatrai Wind & Water Mills in Parramatta should see you through.

Baling and sampling tobacco in the Maitland area of NSW (Powerhouse Museum, 55/102 Tyrrell Inventory Number, 654 Kerry Studio Number)

Tobacco, taken in many ways including by pipe, snuff, chewing, cigars and cigarettes, has long had a hold over Sydneysiders. Nicotiana tabacum arrived with the First Fleet, but there are some plants native to Australia that contain nicotine, including pituri (Dubosia Hopwoodi), which were used by Aboriginal people. Tobacco originating from the Americas arrived with the First Fleet in 1788, and was in hot demand thereafter. Fragrant tobacco known as canasta was sourced from Brazil when the convict transports stopped there on the way to Australia.In 1818 Governor Lachlan Macquarie imposed an import duty on tobacco. This encouraged more local production. Tobacco was grown locally – John Palmer grew tobacco at his Woolloomooloo Estate – and under Macquarie, tobacco was grown penal farm Emu Plains. Later, it was grown on the floodplains of the Hawkesbury, and by the mid-19^th century, tobacco was grown extensively at the Hunter Valley. But ‘Colonial leaf’ was regarded as inferior to the imported variety – it was stronger tasting and had more additives including starch, orange peel, spices and sugar.

Tobacco was used as a form of social control in the early colony. For the convict population, it was used as a reward for good behaviour and withdrawn for bad behaviour, although it was not part of the official rations.

Asian journalists visit a tobacco factory in Sydney, 1958 (National Archives of Australia, A1501, A1678/99)

For much of the 19^th century, smoking was a largely male pursuit. Research shows that female smokers tended to be convicts or ‘rough women’. Recent excavations at the Hyde Park Barracks have revealed up to 4000 clay pipes left behind by women housed in the destitute asylum from the 1860s to the 1880s.

Label for Dixson and Sons Conqueror -Viginian Tens, 1869 (State Library of Victoria, Accession no(s) H96.160/2119) http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/168215

Local manufacture of tobacco really took off in the second half of the 19^th century. One of the most successful tobacco manufacturers in Sydney was Hugh Dixson, who arrived to Australia from Scotland in 1839 and opened tobacconist shop on George Street.

Dixson was a ‘strict and particular’ Baptist, meaning that he eschewed drinking and gambling, but evidently not smoking. His tobacconist business in Sydney didn’t prosper to begin with so set up shop on the goldfields. By the early 1860s, he returned to Sydney and went into partnership with his two sons – Hugh Jnr and Robert – to establish a tobacco manufactory on York Street.The Dixson family’s business was boosted by the advent of the American Civil War, which broke out in 1861. The best tobacco was grown in the southern states of America on the slave-run plantations. When the civil war broke out, there were embargos on tobacco (as well as cotton), which meant there were difficulties in getting American-grown product to Australia. This encouraged manufacturers to use locally grown tobacco.

At the same time, the NSW government imposed a lower duty on raw leaf compared to processed leaf. Somehow some raw tobacco came through to Australia, and business such as Dixson and Sons processed it locally. In 1864, the Dixson family claimed that their product was ‘imported wholly’ from America. The Dixson family specialised in ‘twist tobacco’, a labour intensive and skilled trade.

In 1884, the first excise (or tax) was imposed on tobacco in NSW. And here began the government’s uneasy relationship with tobacco which has continued to the present day – on the one hand, it has benefitted from the revenue that tobacco raised through duties and taxes, but on the other, it has been supporting an industry that is a risk to the health of the population.

Further reading:

Walker, R. B. (Robin Berwick) 1984,  Under fire : a history of tobacco smoking in Australia, Melbourne University Press ; Beaverton, OR : International Scholarly Book Services, Carlton, Vic

Rev Robert Hammond at Hammondville (State Library of NSW, hood_12739)

Rev Robert Hammond (1870-1946) was the Anglican minister at St Baranabas Church on Broadway from the 1920s. He as a ‘practical Christian’, and his focus was on providing practical support and pastoral care for down and outs, especially for working men. In 1908, he set up the first ‘Hammond Hotel’ at Newtown – it was a refuge for homeless, unemployed single men. By the 1930s, another seven ‘Hammond Hotels’ had been set up, most of them in converted factories and warehouses in and near Chippendale.

Rev Hammond held regular Wednesday evening meetings at St Baranabas, known as the ‘Brotherhood of Christian Men’, encouraging men to give up the grog and gambling. Pavement scribe Arthur Stace visited one of these meetings in 1930 and came out converted to Christianity.

The Great Depression caused hardship not only for single unemployed men, but for families. In response to this, in 1932, Rev Hammond set up a ‘pioneer homes scheme’ on a patch of virgin bushland 31kms south-west of Sydney, near Liverpool. Hammond didn’t wait for the government to step in to help Sydney’s indigent people – he bankrolled the scheme after cashing in his life insurance.

Gardens at Hammondville, 1939 (State Library of NSW, hood_19732)

One of the homes at Hammondville, 1939 (State library of NSW, hood_19734)

Named eponymously, Hammondville was a ‘rent-purchase’ home-ownership scheme. Conditions of purchase were that the (usually male) breadwinner of the family unit had to be unemployed, that there had to be at least three children, and that the family had to either have been evicted or in threat of eviction.

In 1932, the first 13 families at Hammondville received an acre of land with a simple cottage upon it. The scheme expanded and by the 1950s, there were 110 homes. Hammond visited weekly until his death in 1946. By the 1950s, most of the families had paid off their homes. Hammondville is now a suburb of Liverpool.

Find out more about the Rev Hammond, his innovative housing scheme and his legacy through providing aged care, in the book Faith in Action: Hammondcare, written by Meredith Lake.

Bumper Farrell was a man who commanded respect on the field and in his job as a policeman, and became a legend at both.

Born in Redfern in 1916 and growing up in Marrickville, Farrell earned the nickname Bumper through his reported habit of picking up discarded cigarette stubs, known as bumpers, from the gutters at age 10.  He would take out the remaining tobacco and reroll it in his own papers to smoke.  He smoked his whole life, including at half time during his long league career.

He first hit the fields at Kogarah Marist Brothers College, a school that still prides itself on its rugby league prowess.  He was soon playing in the Catholic representative side, where he joined Frank Hyde in the team.   In 1936, age 20 Bumper took the field for the Newtown Bluebags for the first time in reserve grades, being promoted to the first grade team in 1938.

In a distinguished football career, Bumper played 250 first grade games for Newtown, the most for any player.  He captained the team from 1942, retiring eight years later in 1950.  Playing front row, Bumper was an enforcer, playing hard and tough and just inside the rules.  His hard head tactics were only for the field, with all forgotten once the whistle blew-at least by him.

The big game: 1943 Newtown v North Sydney Grand Final. Bumper stands forward in the white shorts.

His career was dogged however by allegations of biting.  In July 1945 in a game against fierce local rivals St George, Bumper was accused by Bill McRithie of biting his ear in a scrum, which was left hanging by a thin strip of skin.  Bumper denied the accusation and was finally exonerated at a tribunal the following year.  However many believe still that he did bite McRitchie, while equal numbers believe he didn’t.  Who knows what happened in that scrum, but he was often referred to afterwards s cannibal.

Despite the controversy Bumper was picked repeatedly for NSW representative and for Australian test teams, in which he played in 1946, 1947 and 1948.

All the while Farrell also held a job in the NSW Police Force.  Joining in 1938 he was first stationed along the NSW-Victorian border working in quarantine, trying to stop influenza and polio from spreading into NSW.

Soon he was back in Sydney working as a probationary constable in Darlinghurst, then the centre of Sydney’s underworld activities.  Like on the footy field, Bumper quickly earned a reputation for no nonsense responses in his police work.

The Bumper way was rough and ready.  He was never shy of a fight and in a time before Tasers, when police used their fists as much as their batons’, Farrell was often in the fore.

He needed to be tough, as his work bought him into the paths of the likes of Guido Calletti, Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine.  Farrell was one of the police to attend the shooting of Calletti in August 1939.

He was well tuned to the word on the street, with a healthy collection of informants amongst the criminals and prostitutes.  With his up front style Bumper rose up through the ranks until he was officer in charge of the Darlinghurst station in the early 1970s.  This was a time when the station was increasingly mired by allegations of corruption and dodgy dealing.

Bumper towards his retirement. Outside Darlinghurst police station.

However there was never a suggestion that Bumper was on the take.  Indeed his retirement in 1976 appears to back this up, for instead of leaving with any ill-gotten monies, Bumper took up another job as security guard at Murdoch’s News Limited in Surry Hills.

Bumper died in bed in 1985, clutching rosary beads in one hand like the old school Catholic that he was.

In 1964, a National Service Scheme was introduced to Australia. Under this scheme, 20-year old men were required to register for services. Registered men who had their names drawn randomly from a ballot were conscripted into the armed forces. Many of these conscripted men served in Vietnam.

Union of Australian Women in the May Day parade protest the war in Vietnam, Sydney, New South Wales, 1965 (nla.pic-vn4395009, NLA)

Although the Vietnam War was initially supported by the wider community in Australia, disaffection towards it began to grow in the late 1960s. There were a number of reasons for this: the war was televised which meant that people could see the day-today combat in the comfort of their lounge rooms. And for the first time, soldiers killed in action were repatriated home for burial, rather than being buried on foreign soil.

The public showed its dissent through street marches and protests, and later with the Moratorium movement. These large-scale street protests attracted up to 20 thousand people in the streets of Sydney.

Vietnam Moratorium Campaign – street poetry reading (nla.pic-an7720401-1, NLA)

One of the notable features of the anti-war movement was that it was supported by a cross-section of the society, across gender, age and class.

In 1972, Australian troops were finally withdrawn from Vietnam. But the links between Australia and Vietnam didn’t end with the end of the war.

In 1975, with the fall of Saigon, large numbers of Vietnamese people fled overseas. Many settled and made lives in Sydney, in outer suburban areas like Marrickville and Cabramatta. Today, Vietnamese people are one of the most popular migrant groups in Australia.

The first Australian rally organised for International Women’s Day was held at The Domain in Sydney in March 1928. It was organised by the Militant’s Women’s Group, an auxiliary of the Communist Party of Australia, who were campaigning for equal wages, paid leave and unemployment relief.

Just under a year later, in January 1929, Judge Lionel Lukin’s unpopular arbitration judgement for timber workers came into effect.

There were numerous timber yards and mills in Sydney in the 1920s and 30s, many of them clustered around the foreshores of Glebe and Pyrmont. They were large-scale employers of local labour in these areas.

Hudson’s Timber Yards at Blackwattle Bay, Glebe 1923 (State Records of NSW, 9856_2017_2017000223.jpg)

Workers at the yards stored and processed the timber – much of it hardwood – for the building trade. For these skilled workers, Lukin’s award meant more hours – he reintroduced the 48 week – and less pay. His judgement came on the eve of the economic Depression of the 1930s, and was a harbinger of what was to come for working people in Sydney.

Workers at Hudson’s timber yards in Glebe took strike action in protest to Lukin’s award by not working on Saturday mornings throughout January 1929. On 2 February, the workers were locked out. Hudson’s began to ship in strike breakers, or scabs, to replace the strikers. The strikers – which included timber workers and their wives and families – picketed outside the front gate.

“One in, all in. Timberworkers’ strike, 1929-30″ – timberworkers outside Darlinghurst Court House (ANU, Noel Butlin Archives, http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9414)

On 8 March 1929, the Militant’s Women’s Group organised a second International Women’s Day rally at Belmore Park to support the wives and children of the striking timber workers. They also stormed the offices of the Timber Merchants Association, leaving its Secretary, Mr F H Corke ‘pale and trembling’.

Throughout the timber workers strike, Hudson’s timber yards was the scene for violent clashes between police, scabs, strikers and picketers. In July, hundreds of police arrived with their ‘basher gang’ to disperse up to 400 picketers. The following day, there were thousands of picketers outside the mill, and clashes ensued.

Women played an important role in the strike. Just weeks after the lock out, the Militant’s Women’s Group organised relief depots throughout inner Sydney to supply timber workers and their families with food.  According to Mary Wright, one of the members of this group, they went house to house with the timber workers wives to collect food and to explain the position of timber workers to the mostly female householders. Donations were collected for over a year.

The involvement and support of local women and the timber workers’ wives ensured that the strike ran for over eight months. Apart from the work of the Militant Women’s Group in organising relief depots and public rallies to support the timber workers and their families, women fund-raised with dances, euchre parties and fancy dress balls.

Women were also vocal and active members of the picket line. In August 1929, local Glebe women Sarah Peninton and Doris Flanagan were arrested for abusing the police.

The 1929  timber workers strike was ultimately unsuccessful – there was a federal election looming and the Labor party, hoping for a victory, forced the timber workers’ union to back down and to accept Lukin’s award. But the strike had long-lasting impact on the local Glebe community. Many of the men never returned to work at Hudson’s timber yards. But many of the women became politicised by their experiences on the front line of timber of the timber war.

What? I hear some of you ask.  We have never heard of it.  Well, maybe not, but no doubt you have crossed its path.

But first a bit of background.

In 1958 the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) was established at UNSW and began teaching in 1959.  NIDA, started by two ex-pat English stage Directors Robert Quentin and John Sumner, was the first professional teaching academy for the dramatic arts.  With TV just beginning, a small film industry and a theatre industry trying to find its Australian voice, the new school was just in time.

Polo at the Kensington Race Course c1920s. The Tote building is in the background

Actors, directors, stage managers and other professionals began to be trained, but they had no theatre to work in.  In 1962 the UNSW offered NIDA three buildings for their home; the White House, the totalisator building and an ex-army tin barracks building.  The White House and the totalisator were remnants of the former Kensington Pony Racing course that had operated on the site from 1893 until 1942.  The totalisator was the betting house, with an automated betting machine (the tote) formulating the odds for the races.

The White House building was used for the NIDA offices, a library and kitchen, the Old Tote held the only rehearsal space, wardrobe store, sound room, properties workshop, music room and change rooms, while the ex-army barracks (dating from the sites WWII use as an army camp)  became the theatre.  Its proximity to the tote saw it informally named the Old Tote Theatre.

Soon the name was formally taken on.  The first production was staged in February 1963 to a full house and a run of four weeks.  The theatre could seat 120 people, but was acoustically challenged if rain fell on the tin roof or figs dropped from the fig trees around it.  Four plays were produced in the first season, all by NIDA staff and students.

The new theatre served as a professional outlet for the students and staff of NIDA.  It was a place where they could test their ideas and where Australian plays could be staged.  This was a new and radical idea.  That Australian voices could be heard on stage and we didn’t need to rely on imported and classic stories was exciting.

Staff and students would attend NIDA during the day, then worked at the theatre at night.  First years worked as stage crew, second years as stage managers.  Everyone learned all aspects of the trade.

In 1964 they went on the road with a national tour of Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe-which was banned in some parts of Queensland.  In 1968 the theatre put on an all Australian Season.

Old Tote Theatre Co. production of Lasseter in 1972

By then (1968) the theatre had outgrown its humble beginnings and moved into a new building across Anzac Parade which could seat 320.  NIDA continued to occupy the Tote and White House.

In 1969 the Old Tote Theatre separated from NIDA and the old army barracks, now called the Old Tin Shed became the NIDA Theatre.  People such as John Bell, Jackie Weaver, Thomas Keneally, David Williamson, Robyn Nevin, Pamela Stephenson all came through or worked for the Old Tote or the Tin Shed.

The Old Tote Theatre Company itself closed in 1977, morphing into the Sydney Theatre Company, which continues to provide Australian voices in theatre worldwide.   The Old Tote theatre, later Tin Shed theatre continues to operate as a theatre, now the Fig Tree Theatre.

Check out the events on this weekend (9 March) at NIDA to celebrate the Old Tote.

Break a leg.