By MICK ROBERTS © BESIDES boasting a large and profitable pub portfolio, the Plasto family were the darlings of Sydney’s social-set for over 40 years. During the 1930s through to the 1960s, the family were rarely out of the newspapers’… Read More ›
Publicans
Wealthy Brisbane publican died penniless after she was hit by a tram
By MICK ROBERTS © A TRAGIC accident ended the life of Annie Teresa Cain, one of Brisbane’s most charismatic and generous publicans. Two days before Christmas, Annie jumped-off a tram at Bronte, in Sydney’s east, and was struck by another… Read More ›
Dooen Hotel publican ‘pulls a swifty’ on local police
By MICK ROBERTS © ALTHOUGH briefly at the reins, some publicans leave an indelible mark on the history of a hotel. One such host was a bloke by the name of Albert McGee. McGee, who died back in 1956, held… Read More ›
Olive’s three ‘petticoat pubs’ were run entirely by women
THE year before Olive Kathleen Cummins married she became the licensee of South Melbourne’s Caledonian Hotel at the age of 25. Olive was granted the license of her first pub, the Caledonian in 1919, and had a short stay after… Read More ›
Regents Park Hotel: The Publican verse the Salvationist
By MICK ROBERTS © One of the more notorious incidents in almost a century of trading at the Regents Park Hotel in Sydney’s west was when the publican booted out a Salvation Army officer, who was collecting donations and selling… Read More ›
Hides Hotel: How the O’Haras lost their Cairns Hotel legacy
By MICK ROBERTS © THE O’Hara family just couldn’t shake the legacy of their predecessors. Despite the Hides not building or hosting the landmark hotel at the corner of Lake and Shields Streets, in the far northern Queensland city of… Read More ›
Customers at the Queensland Hotel, Coolangatta queued when beer was in short supply
RETIRED journalist and one time publican, Philip Derriman, now living with his wife in Oberon, on the NSW Central Tablelands, has put together this interesting story for Time Gents about his father, Bernard Derriman. My father, Bernard Derriman (1902-77), widely… Read More ›
Tragic death of the founder of Prospect’s Royal Cricketers’ Arms
FORMER publican, Jim Manning had been missing for over 24 hours when his son discovered his blood saturated body in bushland in Sydney’s west in 1927. Jim’s death at the age of 73 was a tragic end to the life… Read More ›
Publican to the miners: ‘Bold Mac’, of the Murchison goldfields
John McManaway was a famed Western Australian publican, who hosted three pubs to the heavy drinking miners of the Murchison goldfields. Known far and wide as ‘Bold McManaway’, or simply ‘Mac’, the Irishman was said to have feared nothing, was always up-for-a-fight –… Read More ›