Darlinghurst Blog: History: Books: Trams

A well-placed source of historical photographs last week sent me some great 1940s colour images of trams trundling down Darlinghurst and Sydney streets.  

They belong to a private collector and as far as I know have never before been published, so it's an honour to be able to reproduce them here.

I had a hard time placing where exactly the photograph above was taken and had to refer to a tram line map (below, Copyright John R Newland, 2010) to see exactly where the lines ran.

I believe the photograph at the top of this post shows the 'Special' turning off Oxford Street and into Greens Road, Paddington, on its way to Moore Park. In the background there is a smokestack, which I assumed belonged to the Royal Hospital for Women in Paddington (which still marks the horizon today), but it would be in completely the wrong position if that is Greens Road. If anyone can identify it, please let me know.

This one, above, was definitely taken at the corner of Greens Road and Oxford Street. As my source says, the "luminous" colour photographs "have a depth and intensity of colour that only film from that era seems to provide. Gems!".

Here's another one, above, showing the trams cruising down Oxford Street. Again, that smokestack is in the background.

The photograph above shows a tram turning from Elizabeth Street into Liverpool Street, on its way to Oxford Street. The trams really were beautiful with their lovely heritage green and cream, with red-trim, paint. They also, for some undefinable reason, remind me of great big caterpillars wriggling along the streets.

The photographs also brought to mind a book I received early last year: Bondi to the Opera House, the trams that linked Sydney, by Dale Budd and Randall Wilson.

The 92-page book was published by the Australian Railway Historical Society (NSW division) and is a comprehensive and educational look at Sydney's tram system, once one of the world's largest.

Budd and Wilson are certainly passionate about the Sydney trams, which scuttled along the streets from 1879 to 1961, and one of the things I love about the book is that they place contemporary photographs alongside historical ones, such as this one:

According to the caption information, Bennelong Point, now the site of the Sydney Opera House, was once home to a tram depot designed by government architect Walter Vernon. 

Trams terminating at the Fort Macquarie depot would arrive on the western side, while those beginning another trip would travel around the depot to its eastern side to make their first stop at the Man O' War Steps.

The ornamental tower you can see in the top left corner of the depot housed an elevated water tank - the  early 20th century version of fire safety.

Prior to the tram depot being built in 1901, the headland was home to the real Fort Macquarie: a square stone fortress with an armament of 24-pound guns and five 6-pounders. Boom.

A tram climbs through the Bronte cutting, now a car park (Copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson).

According to the authors, "the Sydney tram system extended from Narrabeen in the north, to La Perouse in the south; from Bondi in the east to Ryde in the west.

"From the 1920s to the 1940s there were up 1,500 trams operating on 290km of lines serving the city and more than 70 suburbs. Trams carried more than a million people every weekday."

Tram passengers line up at Market Street stop on Elizabeth Street, Central Sydney (Copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson).

There are more than 250 photographs in the book, featuring trams in a vast array of suburbs including Birchgrove and Balmain, Botany and West Kensington, Manly and Milsons Point. There are also a couple showing William Street and Kings Cross.

Most of the photographs were taken by John Alfred, who apparently "had a special talent for spotting unusual vantage points, often elevated," the book says.

"Starting in the 1950s he took more than 4,500 colour transparencies of Sydney trams: his total body of work amounted to more than 21,000 images, almost all of trams and trains throughout Australia."

Alfred died in 1969 - in a road accident - and his photographs are now in the collection of the Mitchell Library, part of the State Library of NSW. 

The authors owe him a great debt. 

One of the Kings Cross photographs in the book is identical to the one above, which I have framed on my wall. My father picked it up at a garage sale in the 70s. The only clue to its origin is the name of the framer printed on the back: Mr Frame of Wetherill Park. But I think it was a common travel pic of the 1940s as I have seen it before in many places.

 Pic copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson.

This photograph (above) showing the tram passing within a few metres of The Gap is one of my favourites in the book. I would have loved to have ridden that tram. The authors say the view would have been "stunning"

Pic copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson.

Back in the 1950s some major fool decided to start closing off the electric tram lines and replace them with diesel buses, the same vehicles that today emit such a foul stench and ear-grating noise throughout the city. Bravo.

The photograph above shows the last tram in George Street, Central Sydney, in November 1958. 

"It is after midnight, a wreath has been attached and everyone is trying to get into the newspaper photographer's picture," the caption says.

"This scene was repeated many times as the tram network was progressively closed down."

 Pic copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson.

The La Perouse and Maroubra routes were the last to be served by the trams, with the final day of operation on 25 February 1961.

"Travellers packed aboard the trams and crowds gathered at vantage points along the route," the book says.

The very last tram (pictured above) was "jammed to the rafters" and it would be "36 years before a tram again carried passengers in Sydney."

Pic copyright: From Bondi to the Opera House, by Budd and Wilson.

Some of the trams were donated to various institutions and museums, such as the Sydney Tramway Museum at Loftus, south of Sydney. Many other trams were burned to death, as illustrated in this very sad photograph above.

Trams, or light rail, returned to Sydney in 1997 and the authors hope that this network is expanded.

The City of Sydney is pushing the NSW Government to commit to an expanded network, including the addition of a line along George Street, which they would like to close off to north-south traffic.

Part of their vision is detailed on their website, which is worth visiting just to see, at the bottom of the page, a film that was shot in 1906 by someone on the top of a vehicle cruising down George Street. 

The animation at the top of the page showing what George Street would look like with trams today is also pretty cool.

*

From Bondi to the Opera House, the trams that linked Sydney

By Dale Budd and Randall Wilson

Australian Railway Historical Society (NSW)

92pp, $39.95

www.bonditotheoperahouse.com

Darlinghurst Blog: Books: Razor, By Larry Writer

The mean streets of 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst are soon to have a national audience when a television series based on Larry Writer's 2001 book, Razor, airs on the Nine Network from July 30 mid-August.

I am looking forward to seeing this show, not just because it is set in Darlinghurst, but because I love period pieces and they don't seem to be made all that often as they are apparently quite expensive to produce. 

Screentime, the makers of the Underbelly series of programs, are producing Razor. Much of it has been filmed on sets but I also understand they have shot parts of it on location. 

Writer's non-fiction book on which it is based will also be re-released to coincide with the television series so I expect there is going to be - if not already - a renewed fascination with this rough period in Sydney's history. 

I first read Razor about five years ago and re-read it recently, this time copying down all the street addresses, so that I could walk through Darlinghurst and check out all the historic Razor-gang sites. 

The book is about the birth of organised crime in Australia and centres on sly-grogger Kate Leigh, who was born in Dubbo, in the NSW central west in 1881, and brothel madam Matilda ''Tilly'' Devine who was born in Camberwell, in south London in 1900.

Leigh (above), who will be played by New Zealand actress Danielle Cormack, began her life of crime at the age of eight stealing from her parents, the local shop and playing truant from school. At ten, she ran away from home and by her mid-teens was running riot on the streets of Glebe and Surry Hills. By her 20s she was prostituting herself to make money for herself and daughter, Eileen. 

In 1914, living with a bunch of crooks in the slums of Frog Hollow, near Albion Street in Surry Hills, she helped plan the Eveleigh Railway Workshops payroll robbery. The famous heist, worth more than 3000 Pounds went wrong however, and Leigh ended up being sentenced to seven years at Long Bay Gaol, in Sydney's south-east.

''Seven years for stickin' to a man,'' Leigh said.

''I'll swing before I stick to another.''

Upon her release in 1919, Leigh decided to make the most of amendments to the Liquor Act, which had been made three years earlier. 

In 1916, 5000 Lighthorsemen and other members of the Australian Infantry Forces, unhappy about their harsh conditions and long working hours, went on a drunken rampage at Liverpool, southwest of Sydney.

According to Writer, this ''unbridled, booze-fuelled violence'' gave the anti-liquor lobby more ammunition and following a referendum, under NSW Premier William Holman, 60 per cent of New South Welshman voted for pubs to change their closing hours from 11pm to 6pm. 

This legislation remained until 1955 and resulted in what became known as the six o'clock swill when drinkers would rush the bar and try to down as many drinks before 6pm as possible - which had its own bad consequences.

Anyway, with bars and pubs now closing at 6pm, Leigh saw a business opportunity and when she was released from jail, opened her first sly-grog shop. Soon after, she had enough money to buy a home for herself and Eileen at 104 Riley Street, Darlinghurst (East Sydney):

And she also rented six premises in Surry Hills (such as 25, 27 and 31 Kippax Street, now demolished) which she used as ''sly groggeries'', including this one at 212 Devonshire Street:

According to Writer: ''At the height of her career, Kate ran more than 20 sly-groggeries.
"Some of her sly-grog shops were upmarket and frequented by businessman; others, said police, 'catered to the worst class of thieves and prostitutes'. 

"On Friday and Saturday nights, crowds of men milled in the streets awaiting admittance to 'Mum's', as her establishments were known.

''From the early 1920s until the 40s, Kate Leigh, as Sydney's leading sly-grogger and with her income protected by her own combative nature and a team of bashers and gunmen, was one of the wealthiest, and most flamboyant, Sydney-siders.

"Another key to her success, she always said, was that unlike many of her less successful rival illicit alcohol sellers, she did not partake of her product.''

Like Leigh, Matilda Devine also decided that the ''straight and narrow life was a route for fools'' and as a teenager began prostituting herself on the streets of London. She was soon making 15-20 Pounds a week, when the average wage was about 2-3 Pounds.

At 17 she married Australian solider James Devine, and at the end of the war she followed him back to Australia, arriving in Sydney in 1920.

Devine, who will be played by another New Zealand actress Chelsie Preston-Crayford, moved from various digs in Paddington, Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst, and wasted no time in getting on the streets and making money, with her husband acting as pimp.

''Between 1921 and 1925 she was arrested 79 times for her usual offences - whoring, obscene language, offensive behaviour and fighting,'' Writer writes.

''But by 1924-25, she was getting into more serious trouble . . . on a charge card dated 11 January 1925, Tilly is described as a 'married woman residing with her husband. She is a prostitute of the worst type and an associate of criminals and vagrants'.''

Devine served time at Long Bay Gaol for the beating of a commercial traveller and was also sentenced to a further two years for slashing a man with a razor.

Like Leigh, Writer writes, Devine used her time in jail to take stock of her life and when she was released, she set about building ''the biggest, best-organised, most lucrative, brothel network Sydney has ever seen.''

Her first brothel was in a ''slum cottage'' in Palmer Street,  Darlinghurst, where she ''fitted out its rooms with beds and faux-exotic decor and put a red light in the window''.

191 Palmer Street, which became Devine's Darlinghurst headquarters after she moved to Torrington Road, Maroubra, in Sydney's south.

Like Leigh, Devine also took advantage of the legislation, specifically the Police Offences (Amendment) Act of 1908, which made prostitution illegal for the first time, forcing street workers into brothels.

Devine provided the premises for the prostitutes and the women paid her a percentage of their earnings. She also charged freelancers 2 Pounds a shift to use her rooms.

Jim Devine sold cocaine to the prostitutes (users were known as snow-droppers) as it made ''economic sense to foster drug addiction in the workers: it ensured loyalty and meant prostitutes increasingly preferred payment in cocaine rather than cash.''

Cops such as Frank ''Bumper'' Farrell (above left) and William Mackay (above right) policed the streets of Darlinghurst in their unique way. Mackay cut a deal with Devine and Leigh that if they could run their businesses cleanly and without violence, and if they agreed to act as informants on others, they would not be targeted by the boys in blue. 

Farrell, who is the subject of Writer's most recent book, Bumper, published last year, was said to ''inspire a fear in crooks''. Devine would act like a good schoolgirl when he was around. Leigh was not so fond of Farrell and called him that ''Bloody Bumper''.

The cops had a lot to deal with in those days.

Sydney was no longer a small town but a ''sprawling metropolis with a decaying inner-city surrounded by middle class suburbia. In the two decades from 1910, Sydney's population doubled from 630,000 to 1.2 million.''

And the drug trade was ''out of hand''. In the 1920s there were about 5000 drug addicts in Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo.

People smoked marijuana and opium, injected heroin and morphine, drank paraldehyde and chorodyne, but cocaine was Sydney's drug of choice.

''Snow was snorted by the rich at parties, by businessman in swish 'snow parlours' where each table had a bowl of the drug in the centre, by vagrants in alleyways, by mobsters needing a belt of courage before pulling a job, and by prostitutes seeking fortification to get through a Darlinghurst night,'' Writer writes.

Not only did the cops have to deal with Devine and Leigh, drugs, sly groggeries and prostitution, Razor also has an ensemble cast of violent crooks, standover men and thugs, such as Frank ''the little gunman'' Green (above left), Phil Jeffs (above right) and Norman Bruhn:

Razor, the book, takes its name from the preferred use of weapon in those days. According to Writer: ''Sydney's criminals had always kept handguns and knives in their armoury, but after the Pistol Licensing Act of 1927 dealt an automatic prison term to anyone with an unlicensed firearm, may outlaws began carrying another weapon:  a cut-throat razor, honed sharp.''

Bruhn, a mate of Leslie ''Squizzy'' Taylor arrived in Sydney from Melbourne in 1926 and within months was the number one criminal in Darlinghurst and Kings Cross. Bruhn and his gang made the razor their trademark weapon. 

''A cut-throat, Bengal-style straight shaving blade could be bought for a few pence at a grocer's or chemist's,'' Writer writes of the proliferation of the weapon.

''Although they could do horrendous damage, a blade, unlike a gun, was not necessarily used for killing. 

"Many victims of razor attacks did die, but the razor was more often used as an instrument of intimidation and disfiguration.''
Bruhn, who lived with his wife, Irene, in a ''seamy little flat'' at 21 Francis Street (below) died after being shot twice in the stomach in June 1927.

Frank Green was the ''most lethal gunman in Sydney'' and employed by Devine to protect her brothels. Green lived at 21 Harmer Street, Woolloomooloo (below), with his wife and children, but also carried on affairs with countless prostitutes, including Nellie Cameron. He was known as a drunkard, a psychopath and cocaine addict and ''wouldn't hesitate to bash up a prostitute if she didn't hand him a cut of her immoral earnings.''

Green died in 1956 when he was stabbed in the heart by his then girlfriend, Beatrice Haggett, at their flat on Cooper Street, Surry Hills.

Phil 'The Jew' Jeffs was born in Latvia in 1896 and jumped ship in Sydney in 1912. He operated a fruit barrow in Darlinghurst before following his dream to be a ''rich crime boss, decked in fine clothes and loved by beautiful women.'' He set out by mugging drunks, selling drugs and working as a cockatoo at sly grog-shops. In 1929, his dodgy drug deals ignited the Battle of Blood Alley in Eaton Avenue, Kings Cross (now an enclosed courtyard off Bayswater Road). 

Jeffs had been cutting his cocaine with boracic acid and when one gang realised they were being ripped off, they challenged him to a fight. Everyone was injured, and Jeffs almost fatally, but he went on to fight another day, even after being shot in his own home in 1929.

In the 1920s, Jeffs worked as a bouncer at the Fifty-Fifty Club, ''a seedy dance hall and sly grog and cocaine palace'' in the Chard Building (above, built in 1924) on the corner of William and Forbes streets.

In 1932 Jeffs purchased the club at a discount price as the owner was tired of police raids. 

According to Writer: ''A visitor to the Fifty-Fifty Club in its riotous mid-30s heyday would enter the creaking cage elevator at ground level, and ride up past nondescript offices on floors one to three before alighting at the fourth floor . . . the doorman would open the door, and frisk guests for firearms and ensure that they had money.

''If approved, the visitor entered a cavernous room with carpet on the floor, slightly tatty lounge suites, decorative palms and flower-filled vases, and deep chairs festooned with colourful cushions . . . guests sat drinking heavily or snorting cocaine from small bowls.''

I walk by this building, now home to Royalty Prussia, countless times, but Writer really brings the history alive. Razor, the book, is worth buying just for this chapter, which includes incredible detail about what Devine, Leigh and their fellow crooks would get up to when they were On The Town.

Other characters in Razor seem more glamorous, such as that of Pretty Dulcie Markham (above left) and Nellie Cameron (above right). Yet both worked as prostitutes and were rough as guts. Markham apparently ''confounded anyone who equated beauty with purity'' while Cameron was ''the most sought after gangster's girl''.

Cameron had a flat at 253 Liverpool Street (above) where she would entertain her clients, one of whom was shot in the buttocks in November 1944. In the 1950s she lived in a flat on Denham Street (below) where she stuck her head in a gas oven and died at the age of 41.

In the end it was not the police who got Leigh and Devine, but the taxman. Leigh had once lived in a grand terrace on Lansdowne Street in Surry Hills (below), but by the 1950s she was bankrupt and forced to live in a ''squalid'' room at 212 Devonshire Street, from where she had once operated a sly-groggery. When the government ended the six o'clock swill in 1955, Leigh was out of business. She died on February 4, 1964 at St Vincent's Hospital, after suffering a stroke. 

For Devine, who had once owned properties throughout the inner-city and eastern suburbs, including a terrace at 145 Brougham Street, Woolloomooloo (below), the end was equally unglamorous. Devine quit crime in 1968 and struggled to make ends meet on the old age pension. She died at Concord Repatriation Hospital, in Sydney's west, on November 24, 1970.

Writer's extremely well-researched book really brings this period of Sydney's history alive. 

Since it was published in 2001, it has inspired a GPS-guided tour, a stage show, and now a television series. Judging by this website, there could also be a film in the works.

Devine has also been remembered, with a small bar in Crown Lane named after her.

*
UPDATE: Interview with Razor author Larry Writer

Across the Border: Rushcutters Bay: People: Lester Sinclair

I received an email recently from Canberra-based writer Chris Vening who is writing a biography about Australian author Lester Sinclair (above), who wrote and published children's books during the war years under the pen-name John Mystery. Sinclair was born in the UK in 1894 and migrated to Australia from New Zealand, where he had joined a circus.

Sinclair wrote about 300 John Mystery books and they were massively successful. According to historian Derrick Moors, between 1944 and 1946 Woolworths supermarket chain signed a contract with Mystery's publisher, Publicity Press, for 9.5 million copies of around 230 different titles. 

Many of the books were printed on poor quality and yellow paper because that was all that was available during the war. Moors notes that in My Little Sailor's Book, Mystery wrote a note to his readers apologising for the shortage of books and reminding them that, ''the fighting services must of course, come first in everything and, therefore, paper for my books is not so easy to obtain as in normal times . . . the government has been good to us, and everyone is doing everything possible to give you books.''

Moors also says one of the ''enduring'' aspects of the books is Mystery's Dear Cobber letters, in which he encouraged his young readers to write to him at Adventure Castle, Sydney:

Sinclair built the folly, Adventure Castle, at Illawong on the Georges River in Sydney's southern suburbs and lived there with his wife, Ellen Sinclair, who was a cook book author and food writer with The Women's Weekly in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Unfortunately the castle has since been demolished and replaced by units, although some of Sinclair's commissioned animal carvings, by artist Ilja Chapman, still survive in the sandstone cliffs of the property. 

Before Sinclair moved to the castle, he lived at The Alexander apartment building on Bayswater Road in Rushcutters Bay. And that is why Vening wrote to me. 

According to Vening, Sinclair lived at 11/67 Bayswater Road between about 1938 and 1942 and this was the period when he met Ellen. I'm afraid I was not much help to Vening as I could find absolutely nothing about the Alexander building in the usual archives that I trawl. 

But I did refer him to Trove and other online archives and he was able to find a reference to The Alexander from 1919, when it was apparently 35 Bayswater Road, not number 67. I actually think the building looks like it's from a later period, say late 1920s, early 30s, but I am no expert on architecture. 

I was going to buzz number 11 and see if I could convince the resident to let me have a look for Vening's sake, but then I really don't want to enhance my reputation as a local weirdo any further.

Anyway, if you know anything about The Alexander, its history and residents, specifically in the period when Sinclair lived there; or if you have any old photographs of the building, please contact Vening: vening@netspeed.com.au

Sinclair died on October 5, 1974. I can't wait to read Vening's book, as Sinclair's life sounds quite colourful. 

*

Sinclair Picture Source: State Library of Victoria

Adventure Castle Picture Source: Sutherland Shire Council Library

John Mystery: The Nation's Storyteller, by Derrick Moors

Darlinghurst Blog: Villas of Darlinghurst: Barham

Detail from 1845 painting by George Edwards Peacock.

Barham: allotment of over 6 acres granted to Edward Deas Thomson in 1831.

Register of the National Estate, City of Sydney Heritage List.

I had been meaning to write about Barham as part of my Register of the National Estate series and then the building also popped up in the Villas of Darlinghurst book that I am writing an occasional series about too. So I can kill two blog posts with one. 

Barham was built in 1833 and is the oldest residential building in Darlinghurst. Iona, for example, was built in 1888, while Potts Point's Tusculum - another remaining old villa - was completed in 1836. Elizabeth Bay House was completed in 1839. 

That makes Barham (pronounced Burrum) rather special and one of the reasons that it remains when others villas were demolished, is because it was purchased by SCEGGS in 1900 and has been a part of the school since then.

The grand villa was built for Sir Edward Deas Thomson, who was granted over six acres in the new Darlinghurst estate in 1831. Thomson was born in Edinburgh and migrated to Australia in 1828-29 when he was appointed the dual role of clerk to the Executive and Legislative Councils in NSW on a salary of 600 Pounds a year.

The then Governor Sir Ralph Darling was very happy with Thomson's hard work and competence and granted him the land in Darlinghurst. Architect John Verge was employed to design Barham, which was initially leased to Colonel Kenneth Snodgrass, before Thomson moved in with his wife, Anna-Maria, the daughter of Governor Richard Bourke.

When Thomson left public office he was elected vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney in 1863 and chancellor in 1865, retaining the post until he was forced to resign due to ill health in 1878.

The couple raised their two sons and five daughters at Barham and remained there for 40 years until Thomson's death in July 1879. Thomson was buried at St Jude's Church of England, in Randwick, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Thomson's daughter, Susan, married William John Macleay, who was Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay's oldest son. Alexander was granted 54 acres at Elizabeth Bay and he also employed John Verge to design his villa. William moved into Elizabeth Bay House in 1839 and lived there until his death in 1865. 

It was Thomson's influence, as chancellor of the University of Sydney, which led William to donate his father's important natural history collection to the institution in 1873. The collection remains at the university's Macleay Museum today.

After Thomson's death in 1879, Barham was purchased by members of the Ogilvie pastoralist family who then sold it to SCEGGS in 1900.

Barham is today located just off Forbes Street within the grounds of SCEGGS and can not be viewed from the street. 

But I didn't let that stop me from seeing such an historic building and slipped into the school one day when the gates were open:

The two-storey mansion is built in the Colonial Georgian style from rendered masonry and timber, with a sandstone basement and tiled roof. Alterations were made between 1900 and 1910, which included the addition of the boarders's dining room, kitchen and laundry and the Headmistress's or Head of School's office, which was built onto one corner. In 1836, the shutters on the top floor windows were removed. 

Today it is still used for the administration offices and I believe the boarders's facilities still remain. According to heritage reports, the original configuration and structure of the house is intact and generally in good condition, while original joinery survives in the meeting room, dining room, corridors and main door.

The school's alumni include actress Claudia Karvan, comedians Julie McCrossin and Pamela Stephenson and authors Blanche d'Apulget and Ursula Dubosarsky.

Darlinghurst Blog: Books: Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

Deborah Beck is an archivist and lecturer at the National Art School, housed in the old Darlinghurst Gaol, and she has developed a passion for the history of her workplace. In 2005 she released the book, Hope in Hell: A History of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School (Allen and Unwin publishers) and now she has followed that up with a pictorial history of the Cell Block Theatre, which was published by the UNSW Press last month.

The Darlinghurst Gaol (built between 1822-1885) was converted into the Sydney Technical College in 1922 but it was only in 1957 that the women's cell block, or D-wing, was restored and transformed into the Cell Block Theatre and over the next two decades it became a cultural hub for alternative and avant garde productions in Sydney. 

Beck traces the sandstone building's history from its days as a women's prison - including the time when French actress Sarah Bernhardt came to tour the facilities in 1891, and when the jail housed such crooks as sly grog dealer Kate Leigh in 1905 - to the late 1970s when it played host to wild parties and performances by people like dominatrix Madame Lash.

Beck has also pieced together some marvellous stories of the women who were jailed there and the women who later studied at the college in the 1930s, who would sneak into the derelict women's cell block to have a snoop around.

In 1955, when the director of the college, WR (Bill) Crisp, was trying to gain support to turn the women's cell block into a theatre, he invited American actress Katherine Hepburn to visit the site in order to generate publicity for his plans. And, she accepted.

This photo shows Australian theatre legend Sir Robert Helpmann puffing on a fag with college director Mr Crisp and Hepburn:

Beck's beautifully illustrated book also includes a lengthy chronology of the dance and theatre performances, parties and music gigs, which were held within its walls from July 5, 1955 to October 21, 2010. 

The chronology includes the book launch of The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, by Murray Waldren, which was held on October 28, 2009. I note this because I was lucky enough to attend that launch and it was one of the most magical nights I have experienced in Sydney. 

When I arrived there were candles, or small lights, dotted through the grounds leading to the Cell Block Theatre and waiters bearing canapes and Champagne. The book was launched by Mambo founder Dare Jennings and Mombassa's band, Dog Trumpet, gave a live performance in the theatre. 

Apart from Beck's fascinating story of the building's history and restoration, my favourite part of her book are the historical photographs. They just have a beautiful silver glow about them.

If you want to see this excellent and well-researched publication, there are nine copies of the book in various libraries in the City of Sydney network, including two copies at Kings Cross Library. Or why not just buy a copy from the publisher's website and support this amazing local historian.

*

Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

UNSW Press, 272pp, $49.95

www.unswpress.com.au