Tag / Perth

by Eddie

A level playing field

foy&gibson

Foy & Gibson ladies football team, 1917

This morning, Dodgy Perth watched the USA v Australia game from the women’s world cup. Unfortunately the septics won. But sometimes bad things happen to good people.

It got us wondering when the first women’s football happened in Western Australia.

According to soccer historian Richard Kreider, after WWII there were a few ladies social matches, particularly among the Italian community.

However, the first organised women’s soccer game was not until 1971 when the Vel-Belles played the Beauts as a curtain raiser to WA v Moscow Dynamo.

To find women’s football older than this, we need to turn to the Australian version.

In the late 19th century, when women in other countries were beginning to play games seriously, most men found the idea either ridiculous, or at the very least unladylike.

The West Australian even found space to mock the idea of women’s sport in a lengthy song, of which this verse is typically misogynistic:

The goal-keeper looked at the ball—quite amazed at it!
Now, the next time it neared her she’d turned to a friend
To examine the cut of her blouse, and to chat on it,
Said the captain, “Miss Bodgers, I wish you’d attend!”
So she turned to see where the ball was, and she sat on it.

With attitudes like this, it’s easy to see why women’s sport was slow to develop in WA.

But with so many young men away fighting in Europe during WWI, the women got a chance to play Australian Rules.

Taking place at Subiaco Oval on 29 September 1917, the event was organised as a charity fund raiser by Miss Gell Howlett.

A team in maroon played a team in gold. The former won three goals to two.

Even so, this ground-breaking moment in WA sporting history was scorned by the media, who mocked it as women in ‘fancy dress’ who showed little talent. Although there some amusement value, it was said to be a total failure as a game of football.

Seems the women didn’t quite see it that way, since leagues were quickly established both in the metropolitan area and in the Goldfields, and grand finals were keenly fought.

There’s a really good exhibition of the history of the women’s game on at the State Library right now. Get to see it if you can.

by Eddie

How WA honours one rapist

Looking every inch like a rapist

Looking every inch the rapist

When the Boy from Bassendean was convicted of historical sex crimes, people were quick to react. Perth Modern removed paintings from the wall, while Perth and Bassendean councils ripped up their memorial plaques. So what to do about a city named after a sadistic rapist?

In April 1826 Charles Howe Fremantle was arrested and charged with raping a 15-year-old servant. This had taken place in front of a woman and two children at Charlie’s lodgings in Portsmouth. A charge of ‘aggravated rape’ carried the automatic death penalty. Fortunately for him, daddy was a politician.

William Fremantle immediately called on his mentor, the much-hated Marquess of Buckingham. He told Charlie’s dad he would help get the young man out of this “sad scrape”, and would pay “bail to any amount”. Further, William was advised to “buy off the evidence” in order to keep the scandal out of the press.

Thanks to Buckingham’s dirty money, bail was granted and the marquess even advised on which dubious lawyer would best “get rid of the evidence”.

And so thanks to a corrupt aristocrat, daddy’s connections and a bent lawyer, a brutal rape was covered up and Charles was bundled out of the country to go and claim Western Australia. (The ungrateful sod had the nerve to complain about this mission!)

And, in due course, the evil bastard became an admiral.

Every now and again, someone claims Fremantle was only ‘charged’ with rape, never convicted. But simply read the correspondence between Buckingham and William Fremantle. There is no question about his guilt.

So, if we rip up plaques mentioning sex offenders, what do we do about an entire city?

by Eddie

When the colonists needed Yagan

yaganToday Dodgy Perth takes a slight detour from our usual preoccupation with sex and scandal. Instead we wish to celebrate an Aboriginal hero of the early colony.

On 8 March 1833, with white settlement only a few years old, Josephine Birkett was granted Perth Lot A12 by James ‘I like young brides’ Stirling. This attractive piece of land was on St George’s Terrace, exactly where the hideous London Court now sits.

She had already built herself a bungalow on the site (planning laws were somewhat different then), along with a few neighbours, including Charles Leroux.

All the cottages were constructed with roofs made of reeds and rushes. So it is no surprise that locals fretted about what would happen if they caught fire. And why weren’t the roofs supported properly? You can imagine that the owners dismissed such concerns with a wave of their hand. Nothing will happen, they would have said.

On 13 March 1833, just five days after taking legal ownership of the land, Josephine Birkett’s bungalow caught fire. Josephine had a narrow escape, the flames reaching the bed on which she was sleeping before she was aware of her perilous situation.

She and her daughter were unable to grab their treasured possessions, escaping only with the clothes on their back.

The fire quickly spread to the adjoining cottages, including that of Charles Leroux. A bugle was sounded and people ran to the scene to offer assistance. Among those who attended were Captain Ellis and renowned Aboriginal resistance leader, Yagan.

Yagan was keen to offer assistance, but knew exactly how white men thought under these circumstances. He went up to Ellis and asked him to tell him straight if white folk or black folk were going to be held responsible for the destruction. Ellis replied that as far as he knew it was an accident.

This was all Yagan needed, and he took charge, encouraging the colonists to work harder and bringing bucket after bucket of water himself. His cries of “mocha, mocha” stimulated the townsfolk to do their best.

But, despite these heroic efforts, as the smoke cleared, many of the cottages and all of their contents were completely destroyed.

Despite Captain Ellis’ words to Yagan, immediate suspicion fell on the local Aboriginal population. However, with no evidence the mob decided that it was probably a local boy who had recently been punished for some minor crime. But, again, no proof was forthcoming.

Eventually, Josephine’s servant said that, although it probably had nothing to do with her, she did remember throwing the glowing embers from a grate in the exact spot the fire started.

One happy outcome was that Private Jefferies, of the 63rd Regiment, was poking through the ruins when he discovered Josephine’s moneybox. He immediately returned it to her, earning praise for his honesty.

We wish all the ends to this story were happy, but suspect the reader already knows they are not.

Yagan was murdered by a young settler just a few months later, after the government issued a bounty for his capture ‘dead or alive’.

Captain Ellis was to be killed by an Aboriginal warrior the following year, as he fought at the Pinjarra Massacre.

Life was often bloody and short in the 1830s. Let’s not whitewash it with sentimental views of early colonists and their pretty cottages.

h/t Museum of Perth

by Eddie

Embarrassing bodies

As is well known, only the most recent generation would be so stupid as to allow nude photographs of themselves to circulate outside of their control. Only today’s generation.

Which is why it is impossible their grandparents could have done so in the 1950s. Impossible, we tell you.

Well, except for those young Perth girls who were willing to get their kit off for a photographer and then unexpectedly find themselves in adult publications.

In 1953 it was all the rage to strip off for any photographer, professional or amateur. Sometimes the girl was paid. Sometimes she just did it for fun.

Although a few of the images could be considered artistic, many of them were much less ‘inhibited’. And it was these photos that often found their way to overseas magazines euphemistically known as ‘naturist publications’.

The trouble was magazines get imported. Sometimes back into the same city the original photos came from. Like Perth.

In Australia the law demanded local publications ‘retouch’ the images so certain lady bits were not so prominent. However, no such law applied to many European countries or to America.

So more than one Perth young lady found her suggestive poses purchased by her acquaintances, without any blurring from 1950s Photoshop.

But, like we say. It’s only the modern generation that would be so stupid.

by Eddie

Celebrating sex offenders? Really?

Town HallReader, we are all friends here, are we not? Good. Then Dodgy Perth can reveal the heavy weight hanging on our collective heart.

Dear fellow Perthite, Dodgy Perth proposes that the Town Hall on Barrack Street should be demolished.

We know, we know. You’ll never be able to look us in the eye again. But hang around for a bit, while we justify this outrageous statement.

In 1913, it appeared likely Perth Council would vacate the Town Hall for proposed new premises. The Institute of Architects, big bunch of softies that they were, proposed the tower of the Hall be preserved for historic reasons, and incorporated into any new design.

(If you want a 21st century example of this way of thinking, look no further than the eyesore that is St George’s Hall façade on Hay Street.)

Fortunately, not everyone was as sentimental as the architects. And a few were willing to speak out, noting it was inconceivable that any sane person could desire to have “such an aggressive monstrosity” as the Town Hall handed down to posterity.

Of course, some will point out it was convict built, and we should treasure these memories of the past. Dodgy Perth, and our 1913 modernists, say no.

What are we commemorating? The dreadful crimes committed by some who constructed the Town Hall? Among those arriving on the Hougoumont (who made up most of the workforce) were men guilty of rape, murder, and incest.

Do you want to venerate rapists? Really?

If not the men, then perhaps we should remember the awful system which condemned people to be transported half a world away and used as slave labour, long after it had been abolished everywhere else in the world.

The impact it had on people like Frederick Bicknell, a young carpenter who did the shingle roofing on the Town Hall. And who was transported for arson and insurance fraud. And who died in Old Men’s Home in Perth, well into the 20th century.

Do you want to venerate slavery? Really?

Instead, argued our 1913 anti-heritage consultants, simply let us forget the Town Hall. In any case, its birthstains can never be forgotten when it has four sets of ghastly broad arrows at the corners of the spires. The Town Hall can only recall an exceedingly dark and blotted page in the history of the State.

If antiquarians really care, then measured drawings and a set of photographs could be made. But not one brick should remain of this awful place.

If we wish to perpetuate early architecture, Government House is pretty enough, and in much more picturesque surroundings.

So Dodgy Perth joins in with the dissenting voices of 1913 and says, with all due reverence and respect, let the Town Hall join its builders, and quietly pass away.

by Eddie

Value for money? In Perth?

must-wine-barSo, you think Perth is an expensive place to eat out? That’s because it is.

But this is nothing new. As increasing numbers of American sailors arrived in Perth during WWII, dining establishments realised they could hike up their prices and the visitors would have no choice but to pay up.

This blatant profiteering was everywhere condemned, but it didn’t stop the cafes and restaurants ripping off their customers. (Does this sound at all familiar?)

One local, Gavin Casey, complained that he was charged threepence for a solitary, small tomato on his plate. And at the same food stall, two shillings for the contents of a five-penny tin of spaghetti, a penny roll, a little butter, and a very small cup of coffee.

Gavin was outraged to have to pay two shillings for a hamburger and coffee, sixpence for another small cup of coffee, and a further sixpence for a small cup of milk.

Who can believe that it cost three shillings for a piece of steak? Especially when Gavin had to grill it himself over an open fire, although the establishment did supply a single piece of bread and butter to accompany the meat.

Dodgy Perth is not entirely sure that Mr Casey frequented the highest-class restaurants. Even at those prices.

In 1942, some restaurants were even getting so greedy as to demand a three shilling ‘cover charge’ from each diner, without bothering to provide entertainment or anything else to justify the money.

You can’t imagine feeling that ripped off in modern Perth can you? Oh, you can.

by Eddie

James Stirling and the tomboy

Ellen-Mangles

Ellen Mangles, looking very pensive

Dear readers, sometimes we have to face the unspeakable. Could it be that our founding father was in fact something of a creep? The relationship between James Stirling and Ellen Mangles has been portrayed as a great love story, like this from the late 1970s:

Theirs had been a most romantic love-match; he had been instantly swept off his feet by her that first day when, at her home, Woodbridge, in Surrey, as a laughing tomboy of thirteen, she had rushed by him on two donkeys, one foot on each.

Apparently in the late 1970s, it was romantic for a middle-aged man to fancy a girl of thirteen. (See Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, etc.) Okay, let’s not call in Operation Yewtree just yet. Perhaps this was more normal in the 1820s.

Let’s ask Ellen’s mother, Mary, what she thought of this “love-match” when Stirling proposed marriage to her fifteen year old daughter.

Mary considered her daughter to be childish for her age, and completely incapable of forming a relationship with a middle-aged man. She preferring horses, carts, and rowing to dancing and talking to boys. In fact, she had recently declared she did not like men at all, and had no interest in them.

Mum was extremely concerned by Stirling’s interest in her daughter, but doubted Ellen would see much in a man “double her age” in any case. What a “love-match” for Ellen, then. Wooed by an underemployed sailor on half-pay and more than twice her age.

Mr and Mrs Mangles discussed Stirling’s obsession with Ellen, and they agreed not to mention it to her. She had two more years at school, and because of her “extreme youthfulness and inexperience” (as Mary put it) it was best she not be informed about creepy sailors.

Stirling promised the Mangles he would respect this decision and wait until she had finished education. Mary did not believe him. She said he would either break the agreement, or—in an eerie phrase—break the spirit and keep to it only to the letter. Reading this prophesy is as disturbing today as it was in the 1820s.

Mary’s scepticism proved correct. Stirling could not keep his hands off her for the agreed time. Instead, he married her just before her sixteenth birthday. (Some WA historians are so embarrassed by this, they claim she had turned sixteen. She had not.)

There will be those who will say “Times were different then.” And indeed they were. Just as times were different in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. But that’s no excuse today, is it?

by Eddie

Now that’s entertainment

Bluebeard's Bloody Chamber, 1901

Bluebeard’s Bloody Chamber, 1901

We at Dodgy Perth know how to have a good night out. And we know that a good night out requires a man in drag and dismembered heads.

Sceptical? Read on.

The last time we met George Leake—lawyer and State Premier—some rotters were (and still are) hoping to knock down his widow’s house on Bellevue Terrace. Anyway, it turns out George had another talent. He made a very good drag queen.

In 1888 there was a special charity event at St George’s Hall on Hay Street. A building, we sadly note, now reduced to a parody of heritage conservation. Thank you District Court of WA.

After a few songs, the main act were waxworks borrowed from Jarley’s for the evening. The future Premier dressed up as ‘Mrs Jarley’, and he was surprisingly good at it.

The various waxworks were wheeled out while George—sorry, Mrs Jarley—cracked jokes and kept the crowd amused. There was Chang the giant, the Giant Killer, Jack Sprat and his wife, and Queen Elizabeth.

For those who believe product placement is a recent invention, the next tableaux was Mrs. Pears’ Soap and the Dirty Boy. Quickly followed by waxworks representing Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and Mrs Allen’s Hair Restorer. (Just don’t ask.)

The evening closed with Bluebeard’s chamber. Bluebeard himself was represented in the act of threatening his last wife’s existence with an uplifted scimitar. The heads of his previous victims were hung by their hair, all bleeding copiously, around the walls.

So: drag, rampant commercialism, and over-the-top gore. Sounds like Dodgy Perth’s ideal Saturday evening.

by Eddie

What’s in a name?

gloucester parkUntil the mid-1930s, Gloucester Park was called Brennan Park after one of the founders of the Trotting Association, James Brennan.

Known as the ‘father of trotting’ in this State, James dominated the local sport, and this didn’t make him popular with some of the committee who controlled the racecourse.

In 1935, taking advantage of a tour of the Duke of Gloucester to Australia and New Zealand, the committee announced that the course was changing its name to Gloucester Park. They telegrammed the Duke, and he graciously accepted the honour.

Only, the poor royal didn’t know what a firestorm was about to break around his head. The elderly James Brennan was not going to be robbed of his fame, and quickly organised a group to raise funds to have the original title restored.

As the two sides fought it out, the embarrassed Duke quickly announced that he would only allow the change of name if the entire membership of the Trotting Association was unanimous in its decision.

There was no possibility of such an agreement, but with James’ death in 1937, the issue appears to have been quietly forgotten.

It is, apparently, unlawful to name places after members of the royal family without their consent. If this was never actually obtained, perhaps it is time to restore the original name for our main trotting course.

by Eddie

Are flappers always slappers?

Photographic Negative - AcetateToday Dodgy Perth covers one of the most controversial questions in history: Is every Perth girl a slapper, or only some of them?

The evidence for the prosecution comes from an anonymous Katanning lady, who had just returned home after a six week holiday in Perth in 1929.

She had had hated every minute of it. Only back in the countryside could she once again breathe freely, away from an atmosphere contaminated by hypocrisy and senseless frivolity.

You see, a typical Perth girl is an empty headed, pleasure-seeking and selfish young miss with no thought for the future. All she thinks about is herself, her clothes and how to get men to adore her.

For hobbies, the young city woman likes only to dance, drink cocktails and smoke. Her greatest pleasure is to see how many parties she can get to into one evening.

And—we shudder to say it—the Perth lasses are using paint, powder and lipstick to make themselves appear more attractive to the menfolk. No country girl finds it necessary to “do up” every five minutes. They have deeper thoughts than whether or not their noses are shining.

Worst of all, these brazen hussies are openly speaking about topics which should never be spoken about. In public.

Thank god that the average country girl remains unsullied by modern ideas. For they are the last of their sex who can uphold the honour and dignity of true Australian womanhood.

The case for the prosecution rests, M’Lord.

The fair maids of Perth, though, were not going to hear such slander in 1929 without a response. Oh no.

For a start, the gay dresses worn to the dances are usually made by the girls themselves. And most have to make their own underwear as well.

Our country lass forgets that Perth women have real jobs, mostly in offices, and it is only natural they would seek entertainment in the evening.

Yes, they use make up. But also go to the gym, and attend night classes in business studies, English, French, dressmaking, millinery, and cookery classes. Unbelievable, isn’t it, how versatile the city girl is compared to her country counterpart?

In any case, do you really think that Katanning is that dull? When Perth lasses visit the country they find the parties there very far from tame, even thrilling. It’s not necessary to leave a small town to find something to shock a rural prude.

The case for the defence rests.