Author Archives
A journalist, writer and historian, Mick Roberts specialises in Australian cultural history, particularly associated with the Australian pubs. Mick has had an interest in revealing the colourful story of Australian hotels or pubs and associated industries for over 30 years. Besides writing a number of history books, Mick has managed several community newspapers. Now semi-retired, he has edited 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 worked for Rural Press, Cumberland (News Limited), City Hub Sydney (City News), and Torch Publications (based in Canterbury Bankstown, Sydney).
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Pub cartoons
Cartoons and comic strips with a uniquely Australia pub theme featured often in the pages of newspapers in the early half of last century. While the humour probably doesn’t meet the acceptability of today’s standards, with some cringingly politically incorrect,… Read More ›
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The arrival of the schooner to Sydney
The arrival of the schooner glass in Sydney pubs made big news in 1947. The Truth newspaper (Sydney edition) reported on Sunday 10 August 1947: Schooner Not Yet Over Bar – THE NEW 20 oz. schooner beer glass, with the present 16 oz…. Read More ›
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Need glasses? See an Optician!
DURING the 1940s, publicans were experiencing unprecedented theft of beer glasses from their pubs. One newspaper reported more than 700,000 glasses had disappeared from Sydney’s 600 metropolitan hotels in 1944, “In an amazing wave of petty thieving”. Hotels lost an average of 60 glasses… Read More ›
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Royal National Park’s fake gold rush
By MICK ROBERTS © A FORMER police officer, and one time host of the Cabbage Tree Hotel at Fairy Meadow, Mick Hanley was quite surprised, while going about his business as a licensing cop in 1990, to find his family name… Read More ›
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The magistrate and the reformed drunkard
MICK ROBERTS © WELL over six feet tall and solidly built, Andrew Lysaght was an imposing and colourful Illawarra pioneer. A magistrate, who resigned after a parliamentary inquiry found he called the Wollongong Police Sergeant an “old woman”, he wasn’t afraid… Read More ›
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Baby Farmers: Former publicans who murdered a dozen babies
By MICK ROBERTS © THE 19th century produced many notorious publicans. Arguably none though were as notorious as ‘baby farmers’, John and Sarah Makin, one time hosts of Wollongong’s Royal Alfred Hotel. John and Sarah Jane Makin were convicted in 1893 for… Read More ›
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Balgownie’s Fountain on the Mountain
By MICK ROBERTS © THREATENED with demolition during the 1990s and described by the hopeful developer at the time as worthless of preservation, the ‘Fountain on the Mountain’ – the Balgownie Hotel, through a concerted community effort, survived to celebrate… Read More ›
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Scandal and intrigue at Sydney’s Empire Hotel
By MICK ROBERTS © A ROYAL romance with a murder conspiracy theory, a celebrity scandal, mysterious deaths, and a tragic love story ending in suicide, are the stand-out headlines during the Empire Hotel’s 35 year history. Rising from the ashes… Read More ›