Tragedy struck the long-gone Durban Club Hotel in 1950 when a man fell 18 metres to his death from a window of the inner-city Sydney pub.

Located on the south-west corner of Hunter and Elizabeth Streets, the Durban Hotel was opened by Arthur J. Boase, a South African from Durban, in 1904. However, the pub was established long before that time, and there had been at least two hotels trading from the site since the late 1880s.

Originally known as Bowden’s Club Hotel from the late 1880s, it became known as Piers’ Hotel in the 1890s prior to Arthur Boase taking over the business in 1904.

By the early 1920s the Durban Club Hotel had become a Resch’s owned pub, and eventually Tooth’s tied after the two breweries amalgamated in 1929.

The Durban Club Hotel closed for business on June 30 1961, with the last licensees Thomas Arthgur Povey and Bertha Grigg. The pub was demolished soon after to make way for a high-rise building.

The license of the Durban Club Hotel was removed to Cremorne on November 11, 1968, enabling the Strata Motor Hotel to open.

The Sydney Sun reported the shocking accident on Wednesday, September 20, 1950:

Beheaded in 60ft. fall from hotel

A man who crashed 60 feet from a city hotel during the night struck a beam while falling and was decapitated.

He was walter James Garlick, 40, duco-sprayer, the father of four children. Clad only in underpants, he fell from a third floor window of the Durban Club Hotel, Elizabeth Street. The decapitated body was found at 7 o’clock this morn-ing by a caretaker. Garlick had been staying at the hotel for the past week and early last night visited his wife and family, who live in Abercrombie Street, Red-fern. Police are satisfied he over balanced while leaning out the window.

They think he had been dead only a short while when the body was discovered. Police have established that Garlick had been drinking in his room. “Statue smashed” The body was discovered by Mr. Alfred Maddox, 58, care-taker of Blashki Building, Hunter Street. “I let the cleaners in about 5 o’clock and about 7 one of them , came and told me: ‘There’s a statue or something smashed up in the yard’,” , he said. “I did not think it could be a statue, but got a terrible, shock when I went down and found the body.” In flight the body had crashed on to a beam stretching across the yard about 20ft from the ground. Detectives interviewed the licensee, of the Durban Club Hotel (Mr. E. J. Young). Government Medical Officer (Dr. C. E. Percy) was sum-moned to examine the body.

The death of James Garlick after his fall from the third floor window of the Durban Club Hotel in 1950 wasn’t the first accident of its type at the inner-city pub.

A similar accident occurred at the pub just over half a century before when a 35-year-old man fell to his death from an upper-floor window.

The Durban Club Hotel was known as Bowden’s Hotel, when Thomas Torrence befell a similar fate. The Goulburn Evening Penny Post reported on Thursday, August 11, 1898:

A Fatal Fall

A fatal accident occurred on Wednesday morning at Bowden’s Hotel, Elizabeth street. A man named Thomas Torrence, 35 years of age, while engaged in cleaning the upper-floor windows in the front of the premises, lost his hold and fell to the pavement, striking some railings in his descent. Assistance was at once available, but it was apparent that the man had received terrible injuries. Constable Clegg procured a cab, and the injured man was conveyed to Sydney
Hospital , where he expired in a few minutes.

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Categories: NSW hotels, Sydney hotels

Tags: beheaded, Durban Club Hotel Sydney, James Garlick