By MICK ROBERTS © AMERICA’S Wild West could be considered tame compared to the wilderness separating what is today Sydney’s southern suburbs from the Illawarra region, during the mid to late 1880s. Notorious shantytowns sprang up in the bushland to… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © THE workers camps that sprang up for the men building the government railway south of Sydney during the mid to late 1880s became notorious for their violence and heavy drinking. The camps, which also included men… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © IN the days when the two big breweries ruled the liquor industry, owning most of New South Wales’ hotels, and ‘tying’ clubs and pubs to exclusive beer sales, Bob and Lurline Urwin made quite a name… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © THE Newnhams were linked to arguably Australia’s most famous brewery, so a drunken church warden making a scene at one of the three brewers’ funeral in 1862, was a likely epitaph to their largely untold story…. Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © OFTEN overlooked in the pages of history, women played a pivotal role in the day to day functioning of Australian inns and hotels. The wives of pioneering publicans were often young and their duties were physically… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © MISSING trays of glassware and boxes of spirits, mysteriously turning-up later, cutlery re-arranged in the dining room, locked doors found wide open, eerie taps on the shoulder, and weird sounds throughout the middle of the night,… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © WHILE many who call Bellambi home know of their historic watering hole by the railway station, some may be surprised to learn of their first pub, down by the sea. Today’s Bellambi Hotel – opened in… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © RUBBING my hands over the damp, cold sandstone walls of what could be Sydney’s oldest pub cellar, I knew there was a story to be told. A brief tour around what remains of Edward Turner’s 1834… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © SPEAKING at the officially opening of the Sydney Royal Arcade in 1882, a council alderman described the Bull’s Head Inn and surrounding shops as “massed filthy dens and cesspits”, and their demolition to make way for… Read More ›
By MICK ROBERTS © FIFTY five years after the death of her husband, Irish hotelier Johanna Ryan was finally reunited with her spouse Michael, laid to rest beside him in the Catholic section of Australia’s largest cemetery. The year was… Read More ›