The Dramatic Club Hotel, Melbourne The Irony of Circumstances. On the same day that Mr. G. R. Ireland the well-known actor commenced to play the part of the reformed drunkard in “Ten nights in a bar-room,” he became the licensee… Read More ›
Victoria hotels
The sticky coin craze: How customers’ tips were stuck to bar-room walls
By MICK ROBERTS © WHILE my wife ran a few errands, I waited over a schooner of Resch’s at the White Horse Hotel on Crown Street, Surry Hills, Sydney. Pulling-up a bar stool, I noticed sitting beside my beer, a tip… Read More ›
Thirsty ‘budgie’ was the ‘drinkers’ friend’ and ‘one of the boys’ at Fitzroy’s Standard Hotel
A THIRSTY budgie became somewhat of a celebrity in 1954 when it featured in newspapers from Newcastle to Melbourne. Joe the five-week-old budgerigar, was said to have been the “drinkers’ friend” and “one of the boys” at its home at… Read More ›
Melbourne-Sydney rivalry extended to the bar-room, with beer-pouring challenge
TWO Sydney barmaids — Billie Williams and Gladys Henwood — were not impressed by Melbourne’s champion beer puller, Cyril O’Brien, who boasted he could serve 1000 customers in an hour at the Windsor Hotel. Newspapers across the country reported in… Read More ›
Distinctly Australian, Cavendish’s uniquely named Bunyip Hotel
Although there are exceptions, Australian pubs generally lack imagination when it comes to naming. Many pubs have inherited their signs from the ‘Mother Country’, and few have uniquely Australian names. While there are some pubs that have adopted Australian names,… Read More ›
Gould’s Cecil Inn
Read Time Gents’ history of the Cecil Inn: Roast beef, crisp brown spuds and a few ‘long-uns’ at the Cecil Inn AFTER leaving Moe [Victoria] by the coach for Walhalla the track is through a mass of scrub country, with… Read More ›
Murdoch’s Hotel, Morwell
Murdoch’s Hotel, which once faced Morwell Railway Station in Commercial Road, and backed onto George Street, was a landmark pub for over 75 years before its demolition in 1964. Morwell is a town in the Latrobe Valley area of… Read More ›
The Six O’Clock Swill
THE six o’clock swill was an Australian and New Zealand slang term for the rush to buy drinks at the pub before closing time. During a significant part of the 20th century, most Australian pubs turned off the beer at 6pm, which… Read More ›
The gun battle at Wheelers Hill pub
By MICK ROBERTS © FRED Gessner was applauded for his courage fending off three bushrangers who attempted to rob his pub in the year 1900. The Wheelers Hill Hotel, where the fierce gun battle occurred over 120 years ago remains… Read More ›