Articles by: Sarah Matthews
Buildings & streets, People & professions, Such was life:
Bell hangers and nightmen, leech merchants and lightermen; these are just some of the nineteenth century characters you may find lurking within the pages of a Sands & McDougall directory.
It’s not every day that you see an aeroplane parked outside the Library, but this was the sight that greeted Victorians when they came to visit in 1953.
Buildings & streets, Social life & customs, Such was life:
Of all the slums in inner Melbourne, ‘Little Lon’, was the most notorious. But there was more to the precinct than met the eye…
People & professions, Social life & customs, Such was life:
It was a cool summer’s day in 1940 when around fifty members of the Spare Corner Club met in the Fitzroy Gardens for lunch…
Social life & customs, Such was life:
Elizabeth Batman’s doll is a fascinating relic from the earliest days of Melbourne.
Social life & customs, Such was life:
The ancient art of bellringing is harder than it looks. Bellringers require confidence and stamina, not to mention an excellent memory.
Step back in time to the old-fashioned servo, where consumer choice was de rigueur, and service was king.
Buildings & streets, Such was life:
‘The Elizabeth Street blot’, ‘unsightly’, ‘deplorable’, ‘an ancient eyesore’. Few buildings in our city’s history excited as much controversy as ‘the old tin shed’.
What do the following things have in common: candlesticks, beehives, cock fights, drinking glasses, swans, flowerpots, crucifixes, stags, comets, and roses? Give up? They’re all convict tattoos.
On 27 May 1967, Australians voted in record numbers to alter two sections of the Constitution so it no longer discriminated against Aboriginal people. The landslide ‘yes’ vote was seen as a watershed moment in Australian political history.
