Did you know we had ever had bubonic plague in Australia? This is the story with pictures of how Sydney was cured of the plague in 1900. There are other pictures besides the one above. The text:
“When bubonic plague struck Sydney in 1900, George McCredie was appointed by the Government to take charge of all quarantine activities in the Sydney area, beginning work on March 23, 1900. At the time of his appointment, McCredie was an architect and consulting engineer with offices in the Mutual Life of New York Building in Martin Place. McCredie’s appointment was much criticised in Parliament, though it was agreed later that his work was successful.”
Sydney certainly did have a different look, and it’s not just the sepia.
Sydney thought it had cleansed itself of the bubonic plague but it re-emerged later in the form of Eddie Obeid and assorted denizens of Sussex Street.
Check out the power pole in the upper right corner – awesome.
It is thought that the first person to die of the bubonic plague in Sydney, in 1900, was Captain Thomas Dudley, who at one time was sentenced to death for cannibalism on the high seas.
Canberra could do with a bit of Pasteurella Pestis, and given the proliferation of rodents in its environ it’d have a field day. Not too many humans to infect however.
Lazarus Rosenfeld & Co., heh. They’d be BDS’ed nowadays, and that sign would be defaced.
We slept in shoebox…. great grandma experienced the 1919 flu, with bodies wrapped in the bed sheets they died in laid out in Sydney suburban streets each morning for collection.
Come a new virulent SARS in China the ‘authorities’ (read: desk clerks) will never act to seal the borders, the MSM likes open borders.
Road building…so last century according to the Greens.
This certainly cheered me up after the budget.
The wailing and knashing of teeth of the chattering classes.
Arts funding slashed by $110m
Not enough, I say.
That looks more like art to me.
Well, we can now safely say that Bill Shorten is devoid of any kind of shame for the damage Labor did, if THAT was anything to go by.
“Come a new virulent SARS in China the ‘authorities’ (read: desk clerks) will never act to seal the borders, the MSM likes open borders.”
SARS’ bastard son from the Mid-East MERS is coming.
Maybe also telegraph and telephone lines.
Anthony Hordern and Sons – Palace Emporium Brickfield Hill
Check out the power pole in the upper right corner – awesome.
It is awesome, but it’s a telegraph pole. The NBN of the day, Carpe ;0)
Thanks Stakja & Roger, yes it could be also telegraph & phone, or as they are called nowdays ‘joint use poles’
I love old photos and it is amazing to see the wires packed in so close. Never happen today.
Topics like the plague are hard for libertarians. It’s almost like the authorities prevailed with a draconian, paternalistic, borderline… Um… Er fascist response.
This is not a defence of neo-fascism (the system which now passes for normal governance). In 1910 there was trust – based on kinship, a sense of an imperilled family ‘doing what it took’ to keep going.
These days, the ‘community’ (as we call it in pure Orwellian style), won’t even line up for its polio shots.
Thanks for that Steve, great photo and history of which I was unaware.
I happened to be looking for something on WUWT today, and found a comment on the bubonic plague.
Blogger also referenced Mises.org, somewhat earlier than 1900 but [I found] interesting nonetheless The Great Depression of the 14th Century.
Not really, to apply a modern viewpoint to a 1919 view would be wrong. But those in charge at the time did the best they could with the limited medical knowledge they had, Asprin was a new discovery and a lot of deaths are now put down to asprin toxicity.
Does anyone know where this Union Motel is situated in Sydney?
This history of pubs states that Union Hotel was renamed and I am not able to find other reference to this building.
Yeah but the luvvies are going nuts about the ballerinas’ boarding school because you know, it’s not their kind of Arts.
Kates … get your institutional history right.
The plague outbreak was the cover for the nationalisation of Sydney’s wharves, from which flowed the monopoly labour/employment relations that yielded the Waterside Workers, now MUA; and the dubious capitalists who are now the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. It was also one of the reasons for some of the earliest “urban renewal” projects, yielding “public housing” ghettos which remain contentious.
LOLWUT?
Heard of antibiotics?
For anyone in a soppy frame of mind, interested in more old views of Sydney: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostsydney/
and
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/society_art/photography/exposed/index.html
It’s true that many Libertarians don’t really understand quarantine.
“…Those in charge at the time did the best they could with the limited medical knowledge they had.”
The point is that they prevailed.
And those in charge today still have limited medical knowledge, but there are additional problems: No one is really in charge, and those who purport to be in charge are not trusted in what we call the ‘wider community’. Reasons for the mistrust are diverse, but tend to be around the following: health bureaucrats are incompetent trendoid lickspittles (valid); and, health bureaucrats are middle aged white people (invalid).
Yep, plague outbreak in Perth early 20th century. Woodman’s Point was used for quarantine.
SARS was beneficial for us in early 2003. Had been trying for ages to book QFF award seats in Business Class return to Heathrow – could not find any. Then – along came SARS – and suddenly lots of people were cancelling their bookings via Singapore. So, we spent a pleasant hour on the phone with a very courteous QFF bookings lady who arranged Business Class seats to and from Heathrow via Singapore. When we arrived at Singapore we took the option to stay on board while the plane was cleaned and refueled.
That Retronaut is a fantastic site.
Ubique, that was magnifique
Pyrmonter,
More modern, some of the men and women that fed the urban mob, who built the pubs, that watered the workers [no old crop grain shots], that hosed the streets…………….
Yes. Point taken about antibiotics. I shall rethink on the relative weighting of technological innovation versus conventional measures in this context, and whether it affects my general point that conventional measures are no longer feasible.
The photograph appears to have been taken at the intersection of Clarence Street and Margaret Street looking south. The entry to York Lane is just visible. The old RL Scrutton building in Clarence St is in the background.
That was the same SARS that killed less people than the regular flu?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/5763173933/
I believe that the commenter in the above link is correct – on Kent St looking West with Market St intersecting.
I believe that the commenter in the above link is incorrect – on Kent St looking West with
MarketErskine St intersecting.(Worked in the vicinity for 5 years, but it was a little different 93 years prior
).
The design of the Union Hotel building, with the entrance on a 45% angle to the street on a corner block, is typically English. You find the same sort of thing in north eastern North America too. As a matter of interest, does the building still exist?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/3004421246/
Erskine St (and Clarence St, I believe, so one block south of the other intersection) looking North c.1900.
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.866486,151.204321,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1shjnG1g61JUcQ9XpCaRdJ8w!2e0
Now The Office Hotel, if it’s on the SW corner of Kent & Erskine Sts.
“Bond’s Balsamic Remedy for Coughs and Colds.” Fascinating.
Prefer brandy myself, as a preventative.
Will you look at that…the architects used the same angle for the entrance, if it’s the same location, that is? History repeats.
Ah, love the sleuthing of old photos…sadly wife (life member and lead Research Officer of our historical society) and I don’t know a from a bull’s foot about Sydney at the detail level.
Carpe Jugulum #1307186, posted on May 15, 2014 at 8:44 pm
But that looks to be about a 50-pair set on that pole. Nowadays they are packed together into a major copper cable, or an Optical Fibre link. How close is that?
I don’t believe the intersecting street could be Market St. There was no laneway at Market St parallel to Kent St and the gradient is not right for a western perspective at Market St.
The steel and machinery merchants Scrutton’s (after founder Robert Le Neve Scrutton) had premises on both sides of Clarence Street near Barrack Street at different times (97 Clarence St in 1900).
However Edwards, Dunlap & Co were also at 123 Clarence St through to Kent St, just south of Erskine Street (until the fire in 1906). The south end of Clarence Street and Kent St terminated at a graveyard and match the gradient shown in the photo.
If the photo was taken in Kent Street, it could only be looking south into the intersection with Erskine St.
How bizarre, I was just talking about the plague with my son who is teaching yr 9 SOSE , a component of which covers the Black Death. Fascinating stuff. He too was amazed at the fact that we had an outbreak so comparatively recently (well to a 1960′s girl like me anyway) in Australia. I do enjoy your sense of irony Mr (or is that Dr?) Kates, and I also liked your measured and fair response to the budget. They can only do what they can do. Sinc needs to keep his hair on — ooops too late.
‘the same SARS’…clearly not, try ‘new virulent’.
A few things missing in the photo:
Bike lanes
Parking meters
Cops outside the pub
Fluoro shirts
Cordoned off signage
No right turn/no left turn/no turn signs
No Maccas
No doof doof carts
and how dare those kids be without their iphone
Dreaming…………..
Rip van Fibro.
I seem to recall the last outbreak of bubonic plague in Australia was in 1983 at the Rocks, Sydney. Can anyone confirm?
Rats and fleas are conspicuously absent in this thread?
Uh oh, the science is not settled…
In 1984, Graham Twigg published The Black Death: A Biological Reappraisal, where he argued that the climate and ecology of Europe and particularly England made it nearly impossible for rats and fleas to have transmitted bubonic plague and that it would have been nearly impossible for Yersinia pestis to have been the causative agent of the plague, let alone its explosive spread across Europe during the 14th century. Twigg also demolishes the common theory of entirely pneumonic spread. He proposes, based on his examination of the evidence and symptoms, that the Black Death may actually have been an epidemic of pulmonary anthrax caused by Bacillus anthracis.
Another unhappy camper in the standard model is Gunnar Karlsson who, in 2000, pointed out that the Black Death killed between half and two-thirds of the population of Iceland, although there were no rats in Iceland at this time. (The History of Iceland by Gunnar Karlsson)
Could it be Grosvenor and George St, as pictured with the resumptions here:
http://www.photosau.com.au/CoSMaps/maps/pdf/RR/Plan_P.pdf
These resumption maps show the extraordinary, I’d say extravagant, way in which this plague outbreak was used to justify compulsory acquisition along “progressivist” lines.
Leo G
#1307376, posted on May 16, 2014 at 12:25 am
Sorry missed your landmarks comment above, Leo.
Per my last link, the ‘Google dude’ is in fact looking Due South on Kent.
Roger:
My guess is that the current art deco building on the right mirrored the old Union Hotel’s 45 degree corner facade, which the newer Office Hotel on the left now mirrors, so continuing the tradition.
In the Erskine St photo, I believe that you can also see the Union Hotel in the (North) view up Erskine street, on the left at the next intersection north (a lower profile than all preceding buildings); so again yes, on the SW corner of the intersection of Kent & Erskine.
Cnr of Erskine and Clarence St on the Fire Underwriters map from between the wars shows the “Royal Oak” hotel, adjacent Union House.
http://www.photosau.com.au/CoSMaps/maps/pdf/FU/Block140_144.pdf
Inspecting the map shows some curious things – many businesses long since disappeared (the shipping lines) while others – J Blackwood and Sons, Bullivants – still exist. Surely something in that for business historians.
Further photos from NSW State Records Purging Pestilence – Plague!
Links at bottom of page – Cleansing the streets provides 2 photos ?taken in each direction of the photo provided with this post.
Thanks for comments on site of photo.
Uni of Sydney documents 12 major plague outbreaks 1900-1925.
Dictionary of Sydney documents Sydney epidemics 1789-1983.
Quadrant had an article ?2010 on ?lack of evidence for smallpox virus surviving lengthy sea voyages cf convicts or others from England being responsible.
Anne thanks for the science unsettled links.
This is interesting…
Better days I reckon – simpler too.
Did anyone turn the photo over and read what was written on the back?
Pyrmonter
#1307603, posted on May 16, 2014 at 9:44 am
The (quite steep) slope of the intersecting street is the key.
… on the
SWSE corner of the intersection of Kent & Erskine (as the Erskine St pic is looking West and the water in the background is the Darling Harbour area – my memories are 90 degrees out and have to rely on a compass for bearings, dammit).Around the centre spot of the photo, the shadows on the third building would also agree with mid afternoon sun from the West c. 23 March 1900.
In no way a pic sleuth, but I find shadows and time & date a good clue to orientation.
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.866687,151.205214,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s6j0vekWShp1LM-V1Q9GBxA!2e0
The current view West on Erskine (intersection with Clarence) of the flikr 1900 photo linked to above; this is where it begins to slope downhill towards Kent St, one block West.
Did anyone turn the photo over and read what was written on the back?
Yup. Certainly did Winston but all I found was a great bunch of wires leading into it.
IIRC one of the reasons for the construction the harbour Bridge was that it result in the slums at The Rocks being cleared out once and for all
Can I point out the $7 copayment is nothing of the sort. It seems it just represents a cut in the MBS Rebate of $5 where the GP can choose to charge it or waive it meaning a reduction in income. As 83% of medical services overall are bulk billed it is just erosion of MBS rebates (which are going down in real terms by 10% over the next four years). There is a senate enquiry into out of pocket fees going on right now. I can’t imagine why some of us don’t just accept MBS fees and their 60% reduction since Fraser
On the money for mine, Pyrmonter.
Rubbish.
Libertarianism doesn’t allow people to physically harm each other. There are laws against deliberately infecting people with HIV and there could well be a need for legislating to prevent people spreading plague. Going to a cinema with a SARS type infection knowingly is akin to posting an envelope filled with anthrax.
But it’s the corner of Erskine Street and Sussex Street (not Erskine and Clarence).
Which, as Ubique pointed out at the head of the thread, is deliciously apt. Who’d a thunk it? Rats and plague in Sussex Street.
Time for another cleanout…the guys who did it the last time didn’t try hard enough.
1845 Mr William Sparke’s response to feeling offended by actions of John Gorrick alias Bungaree:
willing to fight him if desirous £100 to £50, the money is waiting at the bar, Union Inn, Cook’s River.
Union Hotel Tempe http://dictionaryofsydney.org/role/hotel
oops – map is cnr Erskine and Sussex
http://www.sepiatown.com/100934-Erskine-Street,-West-from-Kent-Street
So definitely looking West down Erskine St to DH.
Referring to the signage painted on the background buildings on the left side:
Phillip Lazarus, Moss Rosenfeld (his mother), and Joseph Raw traded as Lazarus, Rosenfeld, & Co., from premises from 203 Clarence St through to Kent Street until going bust in 1902.
The steel and machinery merchants RL Scrutton & Co at 97 and 161 Clarence Street (near Barrack Street and through to Kent Street).
Edwards, Dunlop & Co were at 123 Clarence St (through to Kent St, just south of Erskine Street).
I have the impression that the addresses in Clarence St numbered from south to north until some time after 1925.
Wrong thread, but I couldn’t let this pass.
No way are 83% of GP services bulk-billed, and that is what the discussion is about. Where I live the vast majority of GPs have been charging extra for decades.
The City of Sydney Rates Archives for Lang Ward gives the 1925 address of the Union Hotel as 206 Kent Street (from Margaret St)
Thanks Pyrmonter, I was beginning to wonder whether it might be Melbourne with all the discussion on streets.
Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 7th April 1900
…………. To-day it is expected that the cleansing of the area bounded at ane end by Erskine-steest, at the other by Market-street, on the upper side by Sussex- street, and on the lower by Day-street on the one side of King-street and Wharf-street on the other, will be cleansed and ready for release. In other words it is expected that the whole of the area down as far as the wharf frontages will be ready for re- lease from quarantine by this evening. Very good progress was made yesterday vith the work of cleansing, and the reports of the gangers in charge of the workmen show that there have been some accumulations of rubbish discovered which rather sur- prised those who had to deal with them. The timber removed from outhouses and else where will be burned at the end of Wharf-street. Among other things discovered has been a very large number of dead rats under old floors. …………..
Sydney Morning Herald 23rd April 1900
THE QUARANTINED WHARFS.
COMPLAINTS BY ERSKINE-STREET RESIDENTS.
A meeting of business people of Erskine-street was held on Friday afternoon with reference to the
action of the Government in keeping the wharfs and ferry traffic to Darling Harbour closed. The meeting was only preliminary to further united action. Mr. A. C. Bronnen, proprietor of the Oxford Hotel, Erskine-street, on Saturday afternoon when seen by a “Herald” representative stated that complaints were rife during last week amongst the business people of the quarantined area lying between Erskine street and the Adelaide Wharf on account of the protracted period during whith this locality, which includes some of the principal shipping and ferry wharfs had been kept closed. The residents wanted to see what could be done in getting the ferries and wharfs in Darling Harbour at the foot of Erskine-street, viz., the Illawarra, A.U.S.N., Huddart Parker, Union Steamship, North Coast, and Adelaide Company’s wharfs, reopened to traffic. They claimed, he said, that so far as Erskine-street was concerned there had been no cases of plague in it, and now that the whole area had been cleansed it should be treated in a similar manner to other parts of tho city, and should have been release from quarantine as soon as the cleansing operations were completed. They also represented that the continued closing of the thoroughfare and stoppage of the ferry traffic – which is estimated at from 15,000 to 20,000 daily – was ruinous to business people. Mr. Brownen states that they are supported in their views by the shipping and ferry companies, whose business has been removed to other parts of the harbour.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1351300?zoomLevel=1&searchTerm=the union hotel plague Erskine street&searchLimits=
Leo G, tough times
Tuesday 1st June 1926 Sydney Morning Herald
CREDITOR’S PETITION.
Re A. M. Cameron, of 308 Castlereagh-street, Sydney, ex parte Phillip Lazarus and Zadea Lazarus, of 279 Clarence-street, Sydney, merchants, trading as “Lazarus, Rosenfeld, and Co.” Petition to be heard on June 8.
14th August 1935 The Argus
SYDNEY, Tuesday. — When the Tariff Board’s inquiry into the duty on imported glassware was continued to-day Mr. L. A. Scott (Australian Association of China Glass, and other traders) said that Australian Glass Manufacturers Ltd. was already enjoying ample protection. He disagreed with the company’s statement that it was producing a fairly complete range of stemmed ware, for not one factory in the world was producing a sufficient variety of this ware.
Mr. Z. Lazarus (Lazarus, Rosenfeld, and Co.) challenged the statement that the Australian manufacturer was selling at prices below cost of production. He objected to any increased duty.
Mr. L. Vasek (secretary in Australia of the Czechoslovakian Chamber of Commerce) said that any increase in the duty on imported glassware would be felt by his country. The balance of trade between Czechoslovakia and Australia was already in Australia’s favour.
The inquiry was adjourned.
egg at 12.51,
that link shows a lot of verandas. The sepia toned google map photo is dated 1900. There are no verandas in the photo at the top of the post.
OT I know but no other thread and they were discussing it up the top.
Pathology, radiology account for a lot of the no-gapping and is also subject to the alleged copayment. Plenty of high-volume clinics bulk bill everyone for their 6-minute medicine. That’s a lot of cases.
I have the impression that the addresses in Clarence St numbered from south to north until some time after 1925.
Looking in more detail at the shadows, the post photo appears to be looking North, mid morning.
Jessie
#1307838, posted on May 16, 2014 at 2:29 pm
2 different photos.
The Erskine St photo I linked has been catalogued.
The one at the top of the post is most notable, as Leo first mentioned, for an extreme gradient – but I believe that this runs uphill to the West, based on shadows.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/44303599
Friday 12 July 1901:
The premises of the Imperial Manufacturing Company, in Kent-street, a six-storied building, were completely destroyed by this morning s fire. The wearied firemen arrived from Hordern’s when the flames were bursting forth from all the floors, illuminating the city. For four hours water was poured on the building; then the blaze was subdued, but daybreak saw the interior of the building completely gutted. Thousands of pounds’ worth of stock were destroyed, especially ” Uncle Toby’s Rolled Oats” and flaked oat-meal. Fifty employees were working In the building till 10 o’clock last night packing, and these were the last to leave the premises, Mr. Clifford Love, the manager, estimates , the damage to the stock and machinery at £5000 and to the building at £4500.
Everything was insured.
It may be looking down Kent St mid afternoon as foist thought.
the Imperial Manufacturing Company, Ltd., at 210 and 212 Kent-street.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14396910
Politically conservative, Love was prominent in the National Association of New South Wales as a vice-president and treasurer. He was a keen supporter of W. M. Hughes, even when he stood as an Independent Nationalist in 1929. In 1933 Love supported J. A. Lyons’s moves to strengthen Australian defence and was appointed a vice-president of the Defence of Australia League. His consuming interest was business but he also found time for art and community service. He was president of the North Sydney district Boy Scouts’ Association and of the Sydney City Mission, and chairman of the Scottish Hospital.
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/love-sir-joseph-clifton-7243
I’m still with Pyrmonter, but – it may actually be the corner of King Street and Sussex Street, looking south down Sussex Street. The downwards slope of King Street seems right, as does the length and distant rising of Sussex Street – and just up King Street behind the Union Hotel (and the Union House?) is a laneway that is still there as an access lane today.
Cnr King & Sussex Sts., Sydney
Egg at 3:41
The most striking thing about your link – the well written reporting of the fire. I shudder to think of how a 2014 ‘report’ would look (though I suspect the roving opinionista would ask onlookers how they ‘felt’).
calli
#1307915, posted on May 16, 2014 at 3:57 pm
Yeah Calli, there are even more detailed reports on trove about the damages and insurance; there was a fire at (Anthony) Hordern’s a few hours earlier, hence the reference.
Sorry Pyrmonter – The report of the fire in the 6 story building at 210-212 Kent Street has confirmed egg_s finding that it is at the Cnr Margaret & Kent looking South.
Good work egg_.
Grigory M
#1307937, posted on May 16, 2014 at 4:15 pm
No wuz, the landscape looked very familiar, worked nearby for 5 years.
I believe the building still stands:
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.866981,151.204378,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sMEb9WwG-lKo0tR3z048gVg!2e0
Just down from the Office (Union) Hotel.
Good sleuthing egg,
I am confused. Is the photo of bubonic plague work or clearing ashes/debris post fire?
for carpe jugulum and stackja
The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society
Jessie – be confused no more. The photo above is from 1900 – the building with “Imperial” on it did not burn down until 2 years later – so, they are cleaning the streets during the bubonic plague outbreak.
To be more accurate – the building with “Imperial” on it did not burn down until 12 July 1901.
I spent a few hours on the roof of this apartment block the night I dropped my first acid trip – back in December 1984.
Rabz! Sure it wasn’t a park?
“Rubbish.
Libertarianism doesn’t allow people to physically harm each other. There are laws against deliberately infecting people with HIV and there could well be a need for legislating to prevent people spreading plague. Going to a cinema with a SARS type infection knowingly is akin to posting an envelope filled with anthrax.”
Not rubbish. There are civil libertarian laws that would prevent anyone even enquiring about the SARS status of someone at the movies. Your laws are great for suing everyone afterwards ( assuming there are survivors) but hopeless when it counts. If your entire starting premise is that all threats are exaggerated, your system will work fine for a while in most cases.
Thank you.
Hi Steve Kates,
George McCredie was my great grandfather.
My Dad told me George, a thrifty Scotsman, offered a bounty for dead rats. This was so successful he had to drop the price to avoid running out of money.
George’s grandson of the same name was a stoker on HMAS Perth. He survived the sinking but died when Moji Maru was hit by Liberator bombers from 10th USAAF.