Author Archives
A journalist, writer and historian, Mick Roberts specialises in Australian cultural history, particularly associated with Australian pubs. Mick has had an interest in revealing the colourful story of Australian hotels or pubs and associated industries for over 35 years. Besides writing a number of history books, Mick has managed several community newspapers. Editorially, he has managed the Wollongong Northern News, The Bulli Times, The Northern Times, The Northern Leader and The Local - all located in the Wollongong region. As a journalist he has reported for Rural Press, Cumberland (News Limited), City Hub Sydney (City News), and Torch Publications (based in Canterbury Bankstown, Sydney).
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Coal miner turned his hand to running pubs: The Aberdare Hotel, Weston
THE Aberdare Hotel at Weston, NSW, was built by Englishman, John Champion who came to Australia at the age of 21 in 1876. Champion was coal miner, who later went into business, hosting the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle Hotel at… Read More ›
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Shenton Park Hotel’s publican met a nasty death
THE publican of the Shenton Park Hotel met a painful death in 1928, after accidentally swallowing poison from a cup, left in the bathroom by his daughter for cleaning purposes. Veteran goldfields publican Jim Durkin drank the liquid version of… Read More ›
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Pub customers’ loose change spurred the famous ‘Bulli Copper Derby’
By Syd Fairs* DURING the mid 1960s when middies of beer were nine cents and schooners a few cents more, customers generally left their copper change on the bars of local pubs where licensees usually donated this money to charity…. Read More ›
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Club Hotel, Surry Hills: A favourite with confidence tricksters and other shady characters
By MICK ROBERTS © JOHN Ahern was enjoying a few after-work drinks in the upstairs parlour of Surry Hill’s Club Hotel, singing and socialising, before his brutal death in 1893. Barman, Tom Moss, who later became publican, explained at the… Read More ›
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Dry old argument: Beer shortages forced Perth’s pubs to close before required time of 9pm
WHILE eastern states like NSW and Victoria endured 6pm closing of pubs last century, Western Australia’s later time of 9pm didn’t give drinkers too much advantage. With beer rationing or quotas introduced as a consequence of the war, Perth’s pubs… Read More ›
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The Plasto method: How to pull a proper beer
THIS week an American visitor complained of the way beer is served in Sydneyhotels – This week 27 barmaids and barmen employed by a well-known Sydneyhotelkeeper, received with their pay envelopes, instructions on the art of pulling and serving beer…. Read More ›
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Tell-tale triple harps give away secret of an East Sydney former pub
THIS interesting old building at the corner of Stanley Lane and Riley Street, East Sydney, traded as the Harp of Erin Hotel for almost 50 years. The three ‘harps’ on the facade are the give-away that the building, currently used… Read More ›
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Kosciuszko Hotel, Mt Kosciuszko
Kosciuszko Hotel in a picturesque setting, with the freshly fallen snow glistening in the morning sunshine, 1937. Picture: The Brisbane Telegraph. Credit card bar tip Would you like to make a small donation towards the publication of The Time Gents… Read More ›
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Court Hotel traded in outback gold mining town for just over 40 years
THIS grainy old image from a 1897 newspaper is the Court Hotel, which was established in what is now an abandoned gold mining town in Western Australia. Bulong was a bustling settlement located 580kms east of Perth in the Goldfields-Esperance… Read More ›
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Tilpa’s two pubs and the big drinking shearers
THE pub at Tilpa in far west NSW has more than a century of stories under its belt; although none can top the one about the man who built the single storey tin and timber wayside stop, late in the… Read More ›