By MICK ROBERTS © A drifter, William Price did most odd jobs around the pubs where he worked in return for boarding and lodgings. He did jobs like tapping beer kegs or barrels, to collecting glasses, cleaning toilets, and emptying… Read More ›
Sydney hotels
Sutherland’s Railway Hotel, where half-naked, drunken men ‘fought like tigers’, their ‘disfigured faces bruised and torn’
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 ›
Hidden behind a modern facade is one of Sydney’s oldest pubs: The Stonemasons’ Arms/Victoria Inn, Ultimo – 1834-1867
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 ›
Way before Sydney’s Hilton Hotel offered beds to travellers, there was the notorious Bull’s Head Inn
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 ›
Johanna Ryan: The untold story of an Irish landlady and her pubs
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 ›
Red Bull Inn, Ultimo, Sydney: 1839-1861
By MICK ROBERTS © THERE was hardly a dull moment in the short but colourful history of Sydney’s Red Bull Inn, a little pub that traded for 20 years on today’s Broadway. Believed to be constructed of stone, the two… Read More ›
The Dog and Duck, Haymarket, Sydney: 1815-1891
By MICK ROBERTS © FOR over 80 years the Dog and Duck was a landmark pub on George Street Sydney. A coach terminus for travellers between country NSW and Sydney, and popular with teamsters bringing stock and trade from the… Read More ›
After three husbands and seven pubs, Ellen Stokes left a distinguished career as a hotelier
By MICK ROBERTS © BESIDES running a popular and profitable bar, the pinnacle for a career publican must be hosting the likes of royalty – and the closest to Australian royalty is a governor general. Ellen Stokes hosted at least… Read More ›