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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MP ‘literally’ dropped into his local pub
HERE’S a yarn from the annals of Bulli’s old Denmark Hotel. The pub traded on the NSW South Coast from 1877 to 1911. On Boxing Day 1901, the local member of parliament, John Barnes Nicholson “dropped” into the the pub… Read More ›
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The Rex Hotel empire
DURING the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Rex Investments, a division of real estate company, L.J. Hooker, established a number of pubs around the suburbs of Sydney and regional Australia. The Rex Group’s first hotel was in Canberra and trades today… Read More ›
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French president was barred from Berry’s Great Southern Hotel
FORGET about Australia’s diplomatic crisis with France after the federal government dumped a $90 billion submarine contract with Paris in 2021. In 1995 our relationship with the French could have rock-bottomed a lot more if three blokes from Berry’s Great… Read More ›
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Deakin Inn, Australian Capital Territory
THE Deakin Inn was opened by brewery giant, Toohey’s Limited as a pub and motel on April 9, 1968. The pub had a short trading life, and seems to have closed by the 1990s. According to Tooth & Company brewery’s… Read More ›
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Pub-lic Notice
News (Adelaide, SA), Friday 3 October 1952, page 13
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The many ghosts of Drayton’s Royal Bull’s Head Inn
The Royal Bull’s Head Inn is reputably haunted by more than half a dozen ghosts! Frances Lynch, who was the postmistress at the former pub for over half a century, is said to be one of eight ghosts haunting the… Read More ›
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Captains Flat Hotel, Captains Flat NSW
[The Canberra Times Wednesday 31 March 1976] OLD PUB TO HELP BURY ITS PAST The contractor reshaping and covering the mine dumps above Captains Flat, Cleary Brothers Pty Ltd, has bought the Captains Flat Hotel to house 30 employees. Mr Dennis Cleary said yesterday that the hotel had been bought… Read More ›
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BEN BOWYANG: Fainted Outside Wrong Pub.
– Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) Friday 28 August 1936, page 6
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The Land We Live Inn: Drunken gold-digger had his locks lopped while asleep in Sofala pub
ONE afternoon in the year 1858 Bill Simpson visited a little weatherboard pub known as The Land We Live Inn for a few rums. The single-storey weatherboard pub traded in the gold-mining town of Sofala, about 40km north of Bathurst on the NSW central tablelands,… Read More ›
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The legendary Ly Underdown and the Alice Springs Hotel
IN retribution to the owner of the Stuart Arms Hotel deciding to go into the grocery business, Northern Territory legend, Lycurgus ‘Ly’ Underdown, decided to open Alice Spring’s second pub in 1933. Underdown had been operating a grocery store in… Read More ›