History Lab

In 1887 there were no less than 22 hotels in Darlinghurst. Over the next century and a half, the character, culture and clientele of Darlinghurst pubs evolved. This story explores the impact on Darlinghurst of two episodes of liquor licensing restrictions in NSW: six o’clock closing and the Sydney lockout laws.

Image: Royal Sovereign Hotel, corner Darlinghurst Rd and Liverpool St, 1921 (City of Sydney Archives)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

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Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• When Paris is SingingbyDazie Maelicensed underCC by NC-SA 3.0 US

Archival: ABC Content Sales

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Featuring:

• Paul Solomon, publican’s son and grandson
• Max Burns-McRuvie, owner of Journeywalks
• Tyson Koh, founder of Keep Sydney Open

Terraces, flats, squats, bedsits, mansions, towers, camps and hostels: in Darlinghurst, housing is a mixed bag. This audio story explores the range of lifestyles afforded by Darlinghurst’s dense diversity of dwellings.

Image: Pad with a View, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

‍

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• Sum of My Fears,When Paris is SingingandA New Love AffairbyDazie Maelicensed underCC by NC-SA 3.0 US
• GaragebyMonplaisirlicensed underCC by CC0 1.0
• Korobushkaby theRosen Sisterslicensed underCC by NC-ND 4.0

Featuring:

• Jan Cornall, former resident of Darlinghurst squats
• Paul Solomon, publican’s son and grandson
• Phillip Adams, former owner of Stoneleigh
• Shannon Dalton, former Assistant Manager of the Darlo Bar

At St Vincent's Hospital, the Sisters of Charity have been delivering care to the people of Darlinghurst since 1857. This audio story visits St Vincent’s during three historic public health emergencies: the Spanish Flu, the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19.

Image: Sister and nurse with home visitation car, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney (Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

‍

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music: Blue Dot Sessions; The Tudor Consort licensed under CC by 3.0

Archival: ABC Content Sales

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Featuring:

• David Polson, former patient at Ward 17 South at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.
• Erin Longbottom, Nursing Unit Manager, Homeless Health Outreach Service, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.
• An excerpt from St Vincent’s Hospital Annual Report 1919 read by Marie Freyne.

In the rapidly gentrifying Darlinghurst of the 1980s, a turf war raged over one of its earliest trades. In this story, we visit the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers, looked out for each other and stood their ground. Along the way, veterans of the street-based trade describe a changing industry, sharing stories from the frontline of the fight for law reform and workers’ rights.

If you would like to sign the petition to bring the statue of Joy back to Darlinghurst, visithttp://tiny.cc/dfhavz

Image: Woods Lane 1968 (Tribune negative; Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales courtesy SEARCH Foundation)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

‍

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

Archival: ABC Library Sales

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Featuring:

• Julie Bates, veteran sex worker activist; Principal of Urban Realists Planning and Health Consultants.
• Chantell Martin, veteran sex worker; Co-CEO of Sex Workers Outreach Project.

Darlinghurst has always been a magnet and a haven for exiles and misfits. With writer and Darlo-phile Sunil Badami as guide, this audio story celebrates a handful of local characters and eccentrics, reflecting on the material conditions that enable unconventional people to thrive.  

Image: Hare Krishna, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

‍

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• I Love Her, She Loves Meby Atlantic City Orchestra licensed under aPublic Domain / Sound Recording Common Law Protection License
• Eyes Getting LouderandHope Its TodaybyMod Funlicensed underCC by NC 4.0

Featuring:

• Sunil Badami, writer and raconteur

If you listen after rain, you can still hear the rush of water that used to flow from the sandstone ridge at the apex of Darlinghurst down to the harbour. This audio story goes in search of the creeks and cascades that sustained life and industry for Gadigal people, colonists and Chinese market gardeners, before being covered over by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city.

Image: Rushcutters Creek, 1870-75 (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW - ON 4 Box 56 No 253)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

‍

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

Featuring:

• Saskia Schut, Landscape architect
• Ray Ingrey, Chair, Gujaga Foundation
• Mark Dunn, Historian
• Daphne Lowe-Kelly, Co-deputy Chair, Museum of Chinese in Australia
• Phil Bennett, Lead Heritage Advisor, Sydney Water
• An excerpt from E.W. West (ed)The Memoirs of Obed West: A Portrait of Early Sydney(Bowral: Barcom Press 1988), read by Russell Cheek.

Welcome to a special History Lab series, Listen to Darlinghurst. In this mini episode, History Lab host Anna Clark and Listen to Darlinghurst producer Catherine Freyne introduce the series.

Image: Darlinghurst Rd 1954 by Mark Strizic (State Library of Victoria)

Credits

Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

After Jimmy’s trial, what happened to his brother Joe?

Joe has mostly been forgotten by history, and his presence in the archives is little more than a whisper.

From coronial records, family tales and a visit to a country pub, it becomes clear that Joe fell foul of the frontier, in life and death.

And yet, more questions remain: Was Joe Governor, an outlaw, killed lawfully?

How do his ancestral remains become another transactional asset in the murky world of race science? And why is western knowledge still entangled in its colonial past?

How does the law deal with an outlaw?

Jimmy Governor is captured and his legal case becomes a lightning rod for justice in the new federation. But how did Australia’s most-wanted murderer get one of the best lawyers in the colony?

A prison experiment begins with a diary and we find out how the present mimics the past.

This is the tale of a prison colony trying to become a country and the murder case that stood in its way, but this is not a true crime podcast.

Jimmy and Joe Governor, two brothers from Wiradjuri and Wonnarua country, were the last proclaimed outlaws in Australia - wanted dead or alive.

120 years later we examine what has survived and what we can still learn from the Governor brothers' story.

To find out more visit: https://thelastoutlaws.com.au