5 April 2013: Hammondville

This week on Scratching Sydney’s Surface, we take a look at the 1930s economic depression, and one man’s response to overcoming some of the hardships of Sydney’s most marginalised people.

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.

22 March 2013: Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell

Every year the Newtown Jets and North Sydney Bears play a commemorative game, the Frank Hyde Shield, battling out a 70 year rivalry on the rugby league field.  This year marks 70 years since these two teams meet in the grand final and after a titanic struggle, Newtown were victorious under the leadership of their captain, Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell.

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.

15 March 2013: Vietnam and Sydney

Australia was first involved in Vietnam’s long-running civil war in 1962. It would become the longest running conflict that Australia was involved with (although it’s just nudged from the top spot by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars).

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.

8 March 2013: IWD and Glebe’s timber war

What’s the link between International Women’s Day and a strike of timber workers in Glebe in 1929?

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.

1 March 2013: The Old Tote Theatre

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the first season of one of Australia’s most important theatre’s-the Old Tote.

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.

8 February 2013: Mary Reibey

Just over 221 years ago, in October 1792, a young convict woman arrived in New South Wales, sent for 7 years for stealing a horse.  She was lucky not to go to the gallows, which was the original sentence, and lucky for NSW as well.  Her name was Mary Haddock, although we remember her by her married name, Mary Reibey.

Mary could be the most recognisable convict face of all those who were sent here.  Her portrait is seen everyday on the $20 note.

All you need to know about Mary in one convenient place.

Born in 1777, she was orphaned aged two and lived with her grandmother.  Schooled and looked after, nevertheless at age 13 she was arrested for horse stealing.  Who knows why she went off the rails, but when arrested she was disguised as a boy and called herself James Burrow.  She stayed in character right through her trial and for about 5 months, including time in prison and her eventual reprieve from the death sentence.  It was only when she was being prepared for the ship to bring her here that, in the washing process all convicts had to go through, it was discovered she was in fact a girl.

Maybe more amazing then her dress-ups was that on arrival in the convict ship, after months at sea and with little prospect of getting home, she wrote a letter (itself quite amazing as few convicts were literate enough for letter writing) which stated that Sydney looked pleasant enough and that the convicts were keen to go ashore.  Maybe her young eyes saw the possibilities this new colony presented the ambitious.

In Sydney she was assigned to work.  In 1794 she married a young ships officer and aspiring merchant, Thomas Reibey.

Soon enough the Reibey’s had land on the Hawkesbury and moved out to Windsor.  Thomas was a trader, running ships to the Hunter and Sydney with loads of produce, timber and coal.  As business grew Thomas acquired land in Sydney town, close to the harbour in what became Macquarie Place, built a warehouse and grew in influence.   During this time, Mary helped with the business, had seven children and ran a small pub.

In 1811 Thomas and his business partner died, leaving Mary with all the businesses and seven children.   After three months of mourning, which included the erection of a large and elaborate tomb at the George Street cemetery, Mary resumed Thomas’ businesses, importing domestic goods for the Sydney market.

A picture of respectability, Mary in 1835

Through a combination of astute business sense and hard work, Reibey managed to not only survive in Sydney’s male dominated colonial trading but to flourish.  In 1812 she opened a new warehouse in George St and in the following years added two more ships to her small fleet.   With property in Sydney, on the Hawkesbury and in Van Diemen’s Land, Reibey was worth over £20,000 in 1820.  That’s a lot.

That year she sold up and returned to England to show those at home that she had made it.  Satisfied, she returned to Sydney, later telling the census collector she had come to Sydney free in 1821, ignoring her convict arrival.

As her respectability and wealth rose, her convict beginnings receded into the past.  She helped found the Bank of New South Wales, was a governor of the Free Grammar School and established the Sydney Church of England Cemetery Company.

In 1842, Mary sold her city town house and retired to her country house in Newtown.  She built a house for her daughter nearby which still stands off of Reiby Street, named after her.  In the city, Reiby Place which runs from Pitt Street through to Macquarie Place also commemorates her, running through the property she once owned.

She died in 1855 and was buried beside her husband.

21 December 2012: Merry Christmas

It’s that time of year again, the end of it.  It was supposed by some to be the actual end of it today with the Mayan calendar cycle finishing, but it turned out it was just the day they turned it over to a new one.

It is Christmas however, a time of family and good times for most.  Not for all though.

Sydney has, sadly, like all over major cities, a long history of the not so fortunate.  From the earliest decades of European settlement there have been the displaced, the poor and the destitute who have struggled.

Consequently, and thankfully, there has also been a long history of benevolence and charity to help.  Christmas lunches and dinners have been a traditional method of providing some relief in the city.

In 1844 a Sydney butcher, Charles Smith, laid on a European lunch of roast beef, mutton and plum pudding for the remnant members of the Sydney Aboriginal groups living at Woolloomooloo.  He even gave crisp white shirts to the men as gifts.  Who knows what they thought of this.

Another who took up the theme was theatre promoter Harry Rickards. Harry had toured Australia in the 1880s with his London based theatre company, before relocating here in 1892 and opening the Tivoli Theatre.  Rickards who operated theatres in Sydney and Melbourne bought international acts, including Houdini to perform on his theatre circuit.

From 1904 Rickards began an annual Christmas lunch for some of the poor of Sydney.  Hiring the lower Town Hall, Rickards provided food for 1000 people. This was continued after his death in 1911 by his family.

Another less salubrious Sydneysider who also laid it on for the poor was underworld Queen, Kate Leigh.  Better known for her criminal ways, Leigh was also a Christmas Queen for the poor families of Surry Hills.

From the early 1920s, Leigh would block of her street, Lansdowne Street, and throw a party.  Tables were set up, food provided and gift given to the children.  The fact that most of the gifts were the result of her shoplifting gang’s yearly work hardly dampened the mood.

Santa Claus was provided by her gunmen protectors.  Not a Santa you want finding out you were naughty!

1940 Salvation Army lunch at their old men’s home, Sydney.

Sadly, despite Sydney being an international city with enormous wealth today, there is still a need to help the poor.  Large events by organisations such as the Wayside Chapel (that feeds about 3000 every Christmas at Kings Cross), St Vincent de Paul, Salvation Army, City Mission or the Wesley Mission are regular Christmas events.

For those of us who are fortunate enough not to have to rely on someone else’s charity it is hard to image.  But, if we want to help out, they are always looking for volunteers.

Merry Christmas and see you next year.