Surry hills Stories

Surry Hills Stories

Surry Hills Then to Now Surry Hills has had a mixed history as it shifted from home of the colonial blue bloods in their opulent villas to use as farmland, to factories and the most decrepit slums full of crime and addiction, to the current gentrification into a ritzy coffee culture only Sydney’s wealthy can afford to buy into.

And beginning, of course, with the disastrous obliteration of indigenous culture.

These stories are for educational and insperation perpouse. Copyright of images belongs to the

Surry Hills Then to Now Pre Invasion:

Before European settlement the area that is now known as Surry Hills was hilly bushland, with a vibrant diversity of flora and fauna. This land was under the custodianship of the Aboriginal people who lived and traveled through the Sydney region for thousands of years before first contact.

It is unclear which indigenous groups live in or travelled through Surry Hills. Although the Gadigal People of the Eora nation are usually sited as the traditional custodians, there is some debate over which nations and which languages made Sydney their home. Aboriginal people were multilingual, speaking not only their own language, but the two or three others spoken by their neighbours. Central Sydney, populated by many Aboriginal visitors as well as the traditional owners, would have resounded with very many different Aboriginal languages until at least 1850. Artworks found across the Sydney region show incredibly complex communications between language groups, leading researchers to hypothesis that art sites functioned as a ‘prehistoric information superhighway’, allowing groups a who were not in verbal contact to communicate important social messages.

Due to efforts by colonisers many of these languages and much of the traditional knowledge has died out with the extermination of its custodians or by forcing those who survived to speak only English in order to assimilate. As a result much of our understanding of historic indigenous life for those thousands of years comes from the observations of early settlers and explorers, whose colonial values are seen in the romanticism and exoticism of images like these ones.

Settlement:

Surry Hills Then to Now

Sydney was first developed as a European settlement in 1788, but the area that was to become Surry Hills caused despair amongst the new settlers – full of steep ridges and creeping sand hills and clay which wouldn’t absorb water until drenched when it became a bog – the ground was terrible for agriculture. Only through a desperate need to feed their growing numbers was the land finally the late 1790’s.

The name Surry Hills came from Major Joseph Foveaux who, when awarded the entire area in land grants, affectionately named his property Surry Hills Farm after Surry Hills in Surrey, England. The farm beside this was given to one of the first fleet settlers Commissary General John Palmer, who was very successful until he backed the wrong side in the Rum Rebellion and lost everything. The selling off of his land in 1814 in small disordered lots began the shambling layout of streets and roads in the suburb. This was furthered by breaking up of other estates and landholders creating their own roads - attempts at government intervention proved too costly in compensation, so the roads of Surry Hills remain a shamble of sizes and angles. By the 1820’s the area was used for woodcutting, turf cutting, quarries, firing local clay and grazing livestock.

The economic boom of the 1830 started to see a village taking shape, and as Sydney grew more and more people began choosing to settle in this once undesirable area. By 1890 the area had transformed from patches of housing interspersed with shrubby paddocks and the odd mansion to a tangled network of street crammed with nearly 5,300 dwellings in the long rows of brick double-story terraces that characterise Surry Hills skyline. But the boom in population meant houses were becoming more closely crammed together and quality of life was rapidly deteriorating. The council had no power to force landlords to connect houses to water and sewerage, and without adequate funds, roads and amenities were impossibly slow coming.

Settlement (Continued): As the 20th century dawned Surry Hills had blossomed into the archetypal slum of Edwardian Sydney. The middle class had fled and the remaining working class families lived off of appallingly low wages in cramped, often squalid conditions. Lacking any kind of social welfare people had to resort to often desperate measures, while charities attacked the symptoms of poverty – alcoholism, gambling, prostitution, crime, addiction – rather than the poor conditions which were the cause.

Gangs moved from well dress stone throwing larrikins of the late 1800’s to organised criminal gangs with shotguns and razors during the 1920’s and 30’s.

The stigma of low morality was hard to shake and many families moved to the suburbs for a fresh start after the war, breaking the social networks that had sustained Surry Hills for so long. But there was also a post war rejuvenation as immigrants from Greece, Italy, Portugal and Lebanon bought up the cheap houses left by Australian families and breathed new life and culture into the neighbourhood. They moved into cheap properties close to work in the local factories and their communities, and this influx rejuvenated Surry Hills as a viable residential suburb. The rejuvenation put a holt in government plans to develop the area into an industrial and commercial wasteland interspersed by monolithic housing estates.

The migrant families paved the way for future gentrification. The 1960’s saw an influx of young people fleeing the suburbs for a more cosmopolitan life, and by 1980’s ‘Yuppies’ were buying up all the now chic terraces of Surry Hills. The changing demographic of the area was a blessing and a curse for the local communities; with spiralling rents forcing many of the lower income earners out, but replacing them with an articulate, idealistic and vocal generation willing to fight for the social conditions the area desperately needed. The 1970s saw the formation of dozens of resident action groups, and was a main battle ground in the unions fight for 8 hour work days.

The area continues to gentrify, now know more for its coffee shops, bars and boutiques than for its complex history. But there are still people working hard to maintain and support its diverse communities.

Dasher, Dog of The People

Known throughout the neighbourhood for his friendly manner and habit of lying across the footpath in front of his Crown Street home (so you couldn’t get past without scratching his belly) Dasher was a local celebrity. The only dog allowed to in the library, he took it upon himself to wander the neighbourhood solo or padding along beside his family. A dingo kelpie with more social media followers than most people, his presence on the pavement was so appreciated by the locals that when the council tried to order him back behind the fence into his yard, there was a public outcry. Outraged people in their hundreds signed the petitions until an exception was made to allow him to stay. He lay on the pavement accepting cuddles and scratches until his tragic death in 2012, when he was hit by a car while out wandering the streets.

Outside his home is a memorial, where locals came with an abundance of flowers and well wishing messages after his death, and still visit to pay respects to this day.

Queen of the Underworld Katie Leigh

Known as the Queen of the Underworld, Katie Leigh made her fortune between 1919 and 1955 in the sly grog trade – selling alcohol outside of the strict 6pm closing times enforced by the government. From her Surry Hills home on Riley St she created an empire spanning after-hours drinking venues, sly-grog, prostitution, illegal betting, gambling and cocaine trafficking. At its hight she was running over 20 bootleg establishments and dealing much in demand cocaine, which she sourced from corrupt doctors, dentists, chemists, and sailors, and sold through her lucrative criminal networks. History remembers her as a ruthless, passionate dealer, though she is said to never have drunk or smoked anything herself.

Defending her business turf and the considerable wealth it was amassing lead Leigh to becoming a prominent figure in Sydney’s brutal Razor Gang wars of the 1920s and 1930s, her feud with rival leader Tilly Divine lasting 20 furious years. Though never afraid of getting her hands dirty, she was never charged with any violent crime, despite shooting at least two men dead and often fighting in brawls.

In the end it was the tax office that got her, taking her from the wealthiest woman in Sydney to a bankrupt soul living in a tiny flat above one of her old hotels.

She died there in relative poverty at the age of 83.

Horse Play

As part of their training against all possible distractions the Mounted Police Force of Surry Hills use clouds of bubbles in their equine education.

Modern Nightmares

Surry Hills has long be proud of being one of Sydney gayest suburbs, hosting the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras every year. But that does not mean that homophobia and hate related violence are not still threatening the lives and loves of Sydney.

In late 2007 Craig Gee was walking down Crown Street holding his boyfriends hand when four men attacked them. Craig was left with a fractured jaw, an eye socket smashed in three places and a broken right leg. In the months afterwards he suffered blurred vision, nightmares, headaches and a terrible fear of going anywhere alone.

The community rallied around in a vigil against the rising level of homophobia in the city and alleged apathy from police, and the next year Craig and his boyfriend walked hand in hand at the front of the 2008 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.

Free Love Mission Murder Holt Place off Elizabeth Street was the location of the Apostolic Faith Mission, a free love based ‘cult’ labelled ‘Abode of Love’ or ‘Free Love Mission’ by the newspapers.

In late November of 1920 Daniel Ligores, a Salvation Army cook, went to the mission in what was describes as a jealous rage over his wife, Gertrude Grace Ligores, participation in the alleged sexual activities of the church. Furious, he found her and shot her dead.

This photograph was taken shortly after the murder.

Knitting Against War When World War II decimated half the planet, conscription was taken up to force a reluctant generation into battle. If your name was called you had a choice of joining the destruction or being imprisoned by your own country as a traitor. Sydney resident Walter Scott knew he didn’t ever want to kill another person and took the latter option. He was a tannery worker – a physically and mentally taxing job in hot, reaching factories for impossible hours and not much pay. He moved around a lot, going where the work was and scraping by.

When Walter was called to war, through conscience, cowardice or compassion, he stepped up as a conciousness objector and was sent to Holsworthy Jail. This was where he learnt to create doilies out of silk thread on a nail and wood loom. As a rehabilitation exercise and revenue raiser all prisoners were taught to weave intricate patters on small lap looms by winding layer over layer of thread – when lifted off these revealed themselves as beautiful doilies to be sold at markets. It was a gentle and utilitarian craft to combat the tedium and isolation of imprisonment, and Walter enjoyed keeping his hands busy and creating something useful that couldn’t be turned to destruction.

The war ended and Walter was released to move in with his family. They never spoke of his time in prison, considering it a blight on the family name, but the skill he learnt there were passed on to his sister, and later to her daughter Carol. That is where we hear this story, as Carol continues to keep the tradition alive at the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre Sewing Circle. She uses the same loom design but rather than doilies she makes coat hanger covers, adding her own flare to the craft by cutting and tying parts of the thread into pom poms.

It was at this sewing circle that, by strange coincidence, Betty met Carol and rediscovered the looming technique used by her brother in law, also imprisoned at Holdworthy during the war. Ralph Dickson had volunteered for the armed forces, enlisting early in the war. But on hearing that his wife (Betty’s sister) had had their baby he ran away from his unit – jumping trains and hitching lifts until he was back home with his new family. It was easy for the police to find him there and he was charged as AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and sent to prison where he too began to loom the silk doilies.

Betty had learnt years ago this art of looming, but long since forgotten and was deeply regretting not keeping any of her brother in laws loomed works to figure it out. She searched for other examples but no one had heard of it and so, after decades of nothing, she thought the art was dead. Then she came to the Neighbourhood Centre Sewing Circus and found Carol keeping it alive.

Together they have been teaching others and working hard to make the loomed coat hangers and other handcrafts – keen to pass on their skills. Their gorgeous works will be on display the Surry Hills Festival, to ignite interest in keeping alive the tradition.

Daniela Raphaelle is on the way to being a supermodel rockstar, with with mermaid hair to match her mermaid ambitions she is a shining example of what you can achieve when you are free to become yourself. Transitioning from a different gendered body body into one that matches your head and heart is a traumatic, turbulent time under the best circumstances, often after a life and death struggle towards realisation. But Daniela – with her music, family and friends to support her - has become a beacon of what is possible with passion and commitment. Creating, recording and performing her own music, a finalist in Miss Mardi Gras Queen Of The Night 2014 along with modelling and approaching every day as an excuse to dress up, she is an inspiration to gender queer people everywhere.

‘To all the transsexual girls out there, you’ll be a butterf ly soon. Never give up, and don’t let anyone tell you who you are or that who you are is wrong. There are not a lot of us, so I think it’s important we stick together.’

- Daniela Raphaelle

A Mermaid In The Making

Henry Lawson Remembers Mr. Smellingscheck I met him in a sixpenny restaurant—“All meals, 6d.—Good beds, 1s.” That was before sixpenny restaurants rose to a third-class position, and became possibly respectable places to live in, through the establishment, beneath them, of fourpenny hash-houses (good beds, 6d.), and, beneath them again, of three-penny “dining-rooms— clean beds, 4d.”

There were five beds in our apartment, the head of one against the foot of the next, and so on round the room, with a space where the door and washstand were. I chose the bed the head of which was near the foot of his, because he looked like a man who took his bath regularly. I should like, in the interests of sentiment, to describe the place as a miserable, filthy, evil-smelling garret; but I can’t—because it wasn’t. The room was large and airy; the floor was scrubbed and the windows cleaned at least once a week, and the beds kept fresh and neat, which is more—a good deal more— than can be said of many genteel private boarding-houses. The lodgers were mostly respectable unemployed, and one or two—fortunate men!— in work; it was the casual boozer, the professional loafer, and the occasional spieler—the one-shilling-bed-men— who made the place objectionable, not the hard-working people who paid ten pounds a week for the house; and, but for the one-night lodgers and the big gilt black-and-red bordered and “shaded” “6d.” in the window —which made me glance guiltily up and down the street, like a burglar about to do a job, before I went in—I was pretty comfortable there.

They called him “Mr. Smellingscheck”, and treated him with a peculiar kind of deference, the reason for which they themselves were doubtless unable to explain or even understand. The haggard woman who made the beds called him “Mr. Smell-’is-check”. Poor fellow! I didn’t think, by the look of him, that he’d smelt his cheque, or anyone else’s, or that anyone else had smelt his, for many a long day. He was a fat man, slow and placid. He looked like a typical monopolist who had unaccountably got into a suit of clothes belonging to a Domain unemployed, and hadn’t noticed, or had entirely forgotten, the circumstance in his business cares —if such a word as care could be connected with such a calm, self-contained nature. He wore a suit of cheap slops of some kind of shoddy “tweed”. The coat was too small and the trousers too short, and they were drawn up to meet the waistcoat—which they did with painful difficulty, now and then showing, by way of protest, two pairs of brass buttons and the ends of the brace- straps; and they seemed to blame the irresponsive waistcoat or the wearer for it all. Yet he never gave way to assist them. A pair of burst elastic-sides were in full evidence, and a rim of cloudy sock, with a hole in it, showed at every step.

But he put on his clothes and wore them like—like a gentleman. He had two white shirts, and they were both dirty. He’d lay them out on the bed, turn them over, regard them thoughtfully, choose that which appeared to his calm understanding to be the cleaner, and put it on, and wear it until it was unmistakably dirtier than the other; then he’d wear the other till it was dirtier than the first. He managed his three collars the same way. His handkerchiefs were washed in the bathroom, and dried, without the slightest disguise, in the bedroom. He never hurried in anything. The way he cleaned his teeth, shaved, and made his toilet almost transformed the place, in my imagination, into a gentleman’s dressing-room.

Henry Lawson Remembers Mr. Smellingscheck continued He talked politics and such things in the abstract—always in the abstract —calmly in the abstract. He was an old-fashioned Conservative of the Sir Leicester Deadlock style. When he was moved by an extra shower of aggressive democratic cant—which was seldom— he defended Capital, but only as if it needed no defence, and as if its opponents were merely thoughtless, ignorant children whom he condescended to set right because of their inexperience and for their own good. He stuck calmly to his own order—the order which had dropped him like a foul thing when the bottom dropped out of his boom, whatever that was. He never talked of his misfortunes.

He took his meals at the little greasy table in the dark corner downstairs, just as if he were dining at the Exchange. He had a chop—rather well-done—and a sheet of the Herald for breakfast. He carried two handkerchiefs; he used one for a handkerchief and the other for a table-napkin, and sometimes folded it absently and laid it on the table. He rose slowly, putting his chair back, took down his battered old green hat, and regarded it thoughtfully—as though it had just occurred to him in a calm, casual way that he’d drop into his hatter’s, if he had time, on his way down town, and get it blocked, or else send the messenger round with it during business hours. He’d draw his stick out from behind the next chair, plant it, and, if you hadn’t quite finished your side of the conversation, stand politely waiting until you were done. Then he’d look for a suitable reply into his hat, put it on, give it a twitch to settle it on his head—as gentlemen do a “chimney-pot”—step out into the gangway, turn his face to the door, and walk slowly out on to the middle of the pavement— looking more placidly well-to-do than ever. The saying is that clothes make a man, but he made his almost respectable just by wearing them. Then he’d consult his watch—(he stuck to the watch all through, and it seemed a good one—I often wondered why he didn’t pawn it); then he’d turn slowly, right turn, and look down the street. Then slowly back, left-about turn, and take a cool survey in that direction, as if calmly undecided whether to take a cab and drive to the Exchange, or (as it was a very fine morning, and he had half an hour to spare) walk there and drop in at his club on the way. He’d conclude to walk. I never saw him go anywhere in particular, but he walked and stood as if he could.

Coming quietly into the room one day, I surprised him sitting at the table with his arms lying on it and his face resting on them. I heard something like a sob. He rose hastily, and gathered up some papers which were on the table; then he turned round, rubbing his forehead and eyes with his forefinger and thumb, and told me that he suffered from—something, I forget the name of it, but it was a well-to-do ailment. His manner seemed a bit jolted and hurried for a minute or so, and then he was himself again. He told me he was leaving for Melbourne next day. He left while I was out, and left an envelope downstairs for me. There was nothing in it except a pound note.

I saw him in Brisbane afterwards, well-dressed, getting out of a cab at the entrance of one of the leading hotels. But his manner was no more self-contained and wellto-do than it had been in the old sixpenny days—because it couldn’t be. We had a well-to-do whisky together, and he talked of things in the abstract. He seemed just as if he’d met me in the Australia.

Bubonic Plague: Bring On The Rat Catchers Last century rode in on a dark cloud as the bubonic plague swept across the poorest, most crowded areas of Sydney. Surry Hills was the first hit – with 14 cases confirmed before authorities could catch their breath.

Over three hundred people were infected before it could be brought under control, with over a third of cases fatal.

As whole areas of the city were quarantined people were trapped in their dwellings, waiting for the gangs of rat catchers and disinfectors to comb through the streets, dwelling by dwelling. Rat catching was dangerous and potentially fatal work, but it paid handsomely at seven shillings a day, and as local men were in quarantine and unable to go to work otherwise, rat catching became an attractive job. People would even camp out in their back yards hoping to be quarantined and then employed as catchers.

Over the next two years these gangs scared the rats so well that Surry Hills maintained one of the lowers areas of rat infestation in Sydney for years to come.

Ghost Pranks

Sydney Morning Herald Friday 3 January 1908

Tilly Divine began her working life as a sex worker, but rose to become a renowned madam and organised crime entrepreneur. A slip in the NSW Vagrancy Act 1095 forbid men from operating brothels, but said nothing of women, so with the right criminal connections and police bribes (often paid in services) Tilly was able to operate both her high class and low class brothels in Surry Hills.

Frequented by everyone from the highest politicians, wealthy businessmen and influential foreigners down to factory workers and tired sailors, Tilly Divine had a tiered operation catering to every straight male in the city.

This amassed her a legendary fortune, plenty of Sydney real estate and a first class life of luxury cars and fine dining.

It also put her head to head against Katie Leigh in the Razor Gang wars, so named after the weapon of choice – cut throat shaving razors used to disfigure or slit throats. Not one to leave all the fighting to her subordinates, the two more than once had all out brawls. She was known to the police to carry fire arms and be of ‘a violent nature’ – on no less than 204 occasions she was convicted of crimes ranging across prostitution, assault and attempted murder during her 50 year criminal career.

Her first marriage was to the often charged but never convicted murderer Jim Divine, an abusive alcoholic, pimp, thug, thief and drug dealer. They were divorced after 15 years but the marriage gave her her name and a son. She went on to marry a returned serviceman Eric Parsons a few months after shooting him in the leg during an argument.

They lived together happily for 13 years before Jim died of cancer in 1958.

She never married again.

A powerful business woman, Tilly kept her last brothel until 2 years before her death in 1970, despite crippling cancer and an intervention by the tax office in 1955 almost sending her bankrupt. Irrespective of her infamy and reputation for flamboyant generosity, her death in 1970 went mostly unmourned and unnoticed.

Tilly Divine Was No Angel

Agnes Jones Untameable Dame Agnes Jones was born in Sydney in 1867. A strong Kurri woman, she baulked at authority and continued to carry out her own brand of rebellion in the face of extreme racism, prejudice and oppression. A renegade and rapscallion casting aside gender and race subjugation to rage against the machine of a white mans system that was failing her and the entire Indigenous population.

Or she might be considered an unfortunate drunk, persecuted by the police and lost in a world that didn’t fit, with no constructive means of expressing her pain and anger.

However she felt or can be seen by history, the facts we have to go on are that by the age of 61 she had been arrested and charged nearly a hundred times, often for offences such as: ‘Indecent Language’ ‘Riotous behaviour’ ‘Drunk’ ‘Unlawful Assault’, and ‘Assaulting a Constable’, earning her a firm place amongst the wild ladies of Surry Hills.

Her final arrest at age 61 in 1929 was for ‘Maliciously Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm’. Agnes Jones was sentenced to two years jail and disappeared from the records.

Frog Hollow Crime Swamp There is a quaint little park at the corner of Albion and Riley Streets. But up until the 1920’s it was the cramped, steep and treacherous streets of Frog Hollow – Sydney’s worst slum and hotbed of criminal activity. A stinking labyrinth of narrow, dark and airless alleys and higgeldy-piggeldy, jammed together hovels clinging to the cliff, it attracted the criminal element like fleas to the all to common Frog Hollow rats. Here they planned murders, robberies and all manner of other misdeeds, growing woozy on opium, cocaine and gut rot grog. They hid themselves and their stolen goods from police in crumbling shanties, to be watched over by mangy dogs and stray cats. Frog Hollow’s many gangs were infamous - from gravel throwing gangs of feuding teenagers to the most foreboding Riley Street Gang, run by ruggedly hansom armed robber Samuel ‘Jewey’ Freeman who tried to keep the smaller gangs in check through savage beatings. In 1913 Freeman was joined by his latest lover, a wild, thirty-two-year-old thief and prostitute Kate Leigh, who started out providing alibis for suspected thieves and murders before growing her own empire.