Sydney’s long-gone Australian Hotel on Market Street

A E Laws, ex-Labor australian hotel market street sydney 1927

By MICK ROBERTS ©

ARTHUR Edwin Lawes was pictured in the Daily Telegraph on December 22 1927 working behind the bar of his Sydney pub.

Lawes was licensee of the Australian Hotel from 1920 to 1928. Born in Penrith in 1884, Lawes married Florence Haughton in 1905 before serving as a Sydney City Council Labor alderman from 1924 to 1927.

Later in life he was a hotel broker and was chairman of the board of directors of the St George Leagues Club. He had an unsuccessful tilt at running as an alderman in the Rockdale Council elections for the Labor party in 1932.

Lawes died at St George Hospital aged 70 on December 11 1954 and was survived by his wife, Florence, three sons and a daughter.

The Australian Hotel sat on the north-east corner of Kent and Market Streets, Sydney. The Australian Inn had traded on the corner from at least 1840.

Later the pub became known as Malletts Inn Hotel. At its closure in 1970, the pub was known as the Ryans Hotel.

The pub, after more than 130 years, sadly never re-opened following a fire in 1970.

How the Australian Hotel looked in 1922 when Lawes was publican. Picture: Tooth & Company Collection, Powerhouse Museum.
australian hotel corner market and kent streets sydney 1936
The Australian Hotel, north-east corner of Kent and Market Streets Sydney, 1936. Picture: Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University.
Ryans Hotel ex Mallets Inn Market Street ex australian hotel sydney anu 1970
Ryans Hotel, formerly Malletts Inn, and before that the Australian Hotel, north-east corner of Market and Kent Streets Sydney 1970. Picture: Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University.

© Copyright Mick Roberts 2019 – 2024

Do you remember the Australian Hotel in Market Street Sydney? Do you have any memories you would like to share? Scroll down to the comments section

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Categories: Sydney hotels

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2 replies

  1. A barmaid was shot and killed in this hotel .

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