Ratbags and Rabble Rousers - Sydney Stories with Warren Fahey

Sydney Stories with Warren Fahey features footage from the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. It was created with assistance from the City of Sydney Creative Fellowships Fund and support of The Vine Foundation. The grants were under the auspice of the Folk Federation of New South Wales.
RATBAGS & RABBLEROUSERS
The curious history of the Sydney Domain.
Synopsis
All Sydneysiders know The Domain yet few know of its extraordinary role in the history of our city celebrating all manner of ratbags and rabble-rousers.
The Domain holds a peculiar place in the story of Sydney. However, it is the Phillip Precinct, the relatively small open area, sandwiched between Hospital Road and Art Gallery Road, that has witnessed an ever-changing parade of curious history.
Throughout the Victorian era, military reviews were held on the Queen's
birthday, and until the last of the English regiments left Sydney in 1870, a
regimental band played in the Domain every Sunday.
In 1856 Pierre Maigre, a internationally famous ‘aeronaut’, announced he would demonstrate the science of ‘aerostation’ by making an ascension from The Domain, in a monster balloon, constructed in Sydney for the purpose. It didn’t get off the ground!
Two years’s later, in 1858, Australia’s greatest colonial showman and theatrical entrepreneur, George Coppin, announced that he would ascend in his balloon ‘The Australasian’-his advertisement declared - "inflation to commence at two o'clock." Thousands paid for admission, the Governor lent his patronage, a military band supplied "free music," and Coppin took off in the first aeronautical ascent ever made from this continent.
The Domain was also a sporting oval for colonial cricket and football. Cricket matches, which had been played in Hyde Park since the early 19th century, moved to the Domain in the 1850s and played there for 14 years - despite a rough ground, and vocal opposition from Sydneysiders who saw the regular games infringing on their parkland. Football games were also staged on the grounds, however, being an open field it was impossible to charge entry. There was also the problem of straying grazing cattle and goats, not to mention their manure, which had to be physically removed before any game.
From the 1870s, inspired by London’s Hyde Park, the Domain became our soapbox for free speech. On Sundays, every ratbag and rabble-rouser in Sydney arrived, often with a small ladder as a soapbox, to talk about anything from religion and politics to sexual freedom and, as old timers used to say, ‘anything that came into their head - and there’s nothing in that!”.
As Sydney’s backyard, The Domain was also a place for public spectacle. In 1874 high-wire walker, Blondin, famous for his 1859 walk across Niagara Falls, tantalised audiences in a giant tent accommodating 15000 ticket-holders per session, when he walked across his Domain high-wire.
In 1878 one of the city’s great architectural wonders was built in The Domain for the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition - a Garden Palace - a cathedral-type building 244 metres long with towers and electric lighting. It also boasted landscaped pleasure gardens. The building, constructed in only eight months, primarily of timber and glass, was completely destroyed by fire on one single night three year’s later. Tragically, between 500-1000 Sydney Aboriginal artefacts were destroyed in the horrific blaze along with the colony’s print records.
In the 1890s The Domain became known for its cast of eccentric speakers - The Sydney Mail of 1898 described it as a hotbed for: “anarchists, salvationists, nihilists, free lovers, land nationalisers - every political and religious thought destructive or constructive or condemned”
Military ceremonies and parades were staged in The Domain regularly. As the bugle sounded for WW1, it became the assembly point for Australia’s famous snowball marches where country men were encouraged to enlist. The most famous, the Cooee March, left Gilgandera in October 1915 with 26 men and trekked 515 kilometres to Sydney with 263 men ready to sign up in the Sydney Domain.
In 1917 The Domain became the weekly demonstration point for upwards of 150,000 unionists and supporters of the NSW Great Strike. Heated debates bolstered the determination of the strikers and their cry of ‘Solidarity Forever’.
In the mean and lean times of the Great Depression the soapboxes were extremely busy expressing disillusionment, frustration and downright anger.
Unemployment in the 1930s Depression forced many into rough sleeping and the Domain became an emergency tent city.
By the 1950s the crowd numbers for the Speaker’s Corner had decreased to around 5000.
Today, the Domain is a restful place, occasionally a Sunday speaker appears but most activity, apart from major cultural events, are casual sport’s games, city workers enjoying lunch and the occasional canoodling couple.

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One of my anecdotes is about 'Old Harry', he lived across the road from us next door to the house where Guido Calletti was shot. He carried a cane and Mum said he was once a pilot. He strode along with meaning, muttering to himself. One afternoon, we snuck into his hut (down the backyard of the terrace), the walls were lined with newspaper. I heard a rumour they found mucho cash behind the paper when he died. ANYWAY, I just spotted him in the video!!!!!

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onya Waz