One of my few regrets on last year's trip to Sydney was that I was not able to tour Susannah Place. I learned about it from an ad while taking making transit. Susannah Place is a "terrace" of four rowhomes built by Irish immigrants in 1844 to address the housing shortage. Having lived in a slightly younger row home in Trenton when we were newlyweds, I am attracted to the style of home. Unlike our early 20th century homes, these smaller homes started with two rooms on each floor, and were built with running water and included outdoor toilets.
Susannah Place is open Wednesday through Saturday by arranged tours of no more than eight people. Our tour started with a young couple from Poland. About halfway through a mother and daughter joined us, the mother only spoke Spanish. The daughter planned to translate, but the guide wanted to tell us as much as possible in the allotted time and did not give many pauses. I felt our guide, a young woman whose name I did not note, spoke directly to us. She could see me fastidiously making notes, but did not comment on it.
As it was drizzling our tour began in the living room at #62. We were encouraged to sit on the couches. Many of the larger pieces in the homes are from the period, but not from the families. At times we were told not to touch things or lean against the walls. Unfortunately for me, and for this post, photography is not allowed inside the houses.
Our tour began with an introduction to the concept of "standing archaeology." As defined by our guide, their intent is to keep the buildings as they were when they were used, but make them safe for tour groups. Remediation has been on-going. When I was there last year two of the homes were being renovated, when they are done, they will be on display while the other two are renovated. Looking at my pictures from last year, there is not scaffolding visible.
The rest of this post is a transcription of my notes from the tour. I was able to comfortably sit on plush chair with thick armrests and soak up the stories. The next post will pick up with the rest of our day.
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The Western occupation of the area now known as The Rocks dates back to 1788 when the British "discovered" it. The Australians are vigilant about reminding everyone the land used to belong to the indigenous people, sometimes saying it still does, and that we are only borrowing it. In the case of The Rocks, the Gadigal people were displaced by the British.
In 1788 the British landed in what we now know as Sydney. Captain Arthur Phillip and the non-convicts settled on the eastern side of the harbor in what is now the Botanical Gardens. They moved the convicts to the western side, which is now called The Rocks, in a tent city while they built homes (likely by convicts). "The Rocks" was first its description, then it became its name. Over time it became a mixed class area.
Fast forward to 1844 when Susannah Place was built. Convicts arrivals were slowing down, and ended in 1848 as the British government realized they were populating a colony with convicts. Not a sustainable business plan.
They devised a plan to assist good people to move here. Edward and Mary Reilly took them up on this offer in the 1830's. They built this home. Their Irish/English niece Susannah came with them. (She was likely an out-of-wedlock child.) At that time, The Rocks was shifting towards becoming a working class neighborhood with properties filled with many absentee landlords who were reaping the profits.
Mary and Edward Reilly moved into #62, and rented the other three homes. They were not absentee landlords. These four homes were built solidly and to code with a wall between each home that stretched from the attic to the basement. These details contributed to why they are still standing in 180 years later. The end home was always meant to be a shop. Rent was higher for the corner house because it came with a business. The homes had tall ceilings and came with their own toilets -- something not common in the 1800s. The toilets were in the miniscule backyards and were cesspools. In the 1860s they were connected to the city's sewage system.
Fast forward to 1900. The Bubonic Plague was raging in nearby Millers Point. There were 303 cases, and 103 deaths in only eight months. The government decided the area of The Rocks should be demolished, after all by the 1890s this area was considered to be a slum. Clearly, by demolishing the homes, the area would become more hygienic, and technically the government owned the land and could do whatever they pleased. So what if that would mean displacing over 100 families. One doesn't have to stretch their imagination too far to recognize even with the unfriendly ground, this was prime real estate.
These four homes were deemed too well constructed to be demolished.
Fast forward to the 1940s. The homes were part of Sydney's public housing system. Something as an American I can't begin to understand. The rent was cheap. Working class families lived here, including the O'Briens and Thompsons.
Fast forward to 1990. Susannah Place becomes a museum and is protected.
With the new designation, forward thinking people set out to interview people who lived in the homes. Through those interviews, and other research, they are keeping their stories alive.
Patricia Thompson, her mother, stepfather, and two sisters lived at #62. It was a two up/two down style home, akin to how homes were built in Britain. Every room had a fireplace, which is much more important in dreary Britain than it is in sunny Sydney. They moved here because, though old and rundown, it was 20 shillings a month cheaper than where the family had been living. Even with the reduced rent, they were still never fully paid up.
Patricia has fond memories of living in the small home.
In the 1920s, the area was connected to electricity. The electric company, though, would not connect to anyone who was not fully paid up on the rent. Instead they received a coin operated gas meter so they could get enough electricity to cook and eat dinner.
As I sit here on my laptop with a lamp shining on this cold and cloudy morning, directly below our solar panels, listening to the heater kick on when the temperature dips below 70 degrees, and music playing on my cell phone, I cannot imagine rationing electricity.
Patricia's family never got electricity. She remembers reading books by streetlamps. She and her sisters lived upstairs and shared their clothes. The first one up was the best dressed. All of their clothes were second hand, and most did not fit well. Her 14th birthday was on a Friday. She celebrated at school. On Monday, she started working at a department store on Bradley. She walked to work in order to pocket the tram fare that her mother gave her. Her stepfather worked at the wharf. Her stepbrother (Baby Ronny) was born upstairs. In the 1930s, due to a decline in international shipping, her stepfather lost his job and walked the area to collect scrap metal to make money.
The room we were sitting in was considered the "good room," the parlor. It was a formal space. The children never went in there unless invited. It was for visiting people only. The bureau was filled with glass wear, and there was a broken clock on the mantle to show they were doing "well." They used the space on Sundays during family time to listen to music on the crank gramophone. In later years they had an electric radio connected to a car battery so they could listen to whatever their father chose to listen to (remember, their electricity came from a coin box). Dad loved listening to Destiny of the British Empire, which Patricia and her sister hated. After the show, they were allowed to listen to what they wanted.
I can't imagine that with only four rooms, they gave one up to keep up appearances.
Fast forward to the start of World War II. Life changed for the family. Soldiers heading to war walked down the street in front of them to the ships. Most did not come home. Read my future post about the War Memorial in Canberra. The girls made lemonade and sandwiches and kept the formal parlor door open so the young men could have a dance and a chat with the girls before leaving for training.
Patricia's parents divorced in 1957. Our guide showed us a picture of one of her sisters. She got married and moved to the west end.
Today the walls are covered in peeling green paint. As council homes, they were provided with paint, but not necessarily a color you would like.
We moved from the parlor in #62 to the back room, and a different era.
Fast forward to the 1960s. Ellen and her family lived here. In 1990 she and her husband, Dennis Marshall, were the last residents to leave. She is part of the reason they even have a museum. She believed in the history of the buildings at a time when the city was trying to kick out the dock workers and working class people to modernize the area.
Some things really never change.
The Rocks Resident Group formed to preserve the voices of the working class.
Ellen moved in as a child, and moved out thirty years later a married woman. She was a seamstress who made dresses to be sold in department stores. She sewed curtains to put in the windows of the empty houses to make them look as if people lived there. They rigged up the lighting, too. All the time, the city was practicing the "demolition by neglect" approach. She kept them standing for 30 years.
She talked about the Green Ban Movement of the 1960s and 1970s when builders refused to work on undesirable projects. Jack Mundey stepped in to save the area by telling the residents, if they want to save the area, he'll put it in the "green ban," and no union people will work on them. While this has the feel of ancient history, Dr. Mundey only passed away in 2020 at the age of 91.
Ellen's family added a kitchen to the back, giving it an extra room. At one point SEVEN people lived in this tiny house.
Visitors are not allowed upstairs. It just isn't safe. Therefore, we then moved next door to the room behind the shop. This was the first spot to be restored as termites had eaten the floor. At one time, this was the longest corner store in the area. It stopped being a store in 1935.
From 1900-1903 the shopkeeper went bankrupt. Much research has gone into the shop. They found a list of its contents. Looking at shadow marks on the walls, they can tell where shelves had been. Through oral histories, they learned more.
They interviewed Jim Youngein when he was in his 80s. His father, Hubert, jumped off the boat when he arrived in the Sydney Harbour from Sweden and immigrated to Australia. If only it were that easy today!
He and his wife Clara Jane moved into the shop in 1903. She maintained the shop. He worked on the docks. Savvy businessmen of the day connected to their communities. They offered barrels of dry goods based on their weight. Sold items members of their communities missed from home. They built relationships. They knew when members of their community had inconsistent work and might not be paid every week. They then extended a bit of credit and let them "pay on tick," with green stickers affixed to their accounts when they paid off the item. This helped them afford things out of budget.
At this point, a light went off in our heads. We grew up after the era of "green stamps," but knew about them. This was the precursor to that movement.
Today the shop / museum entrance stocks items the store might have had in 1915.
Clara Jane and Hubert ran a successful corner store. They knew all the local gossip. They stocked the store with Swedish delicacies, such as pickled herring and dried fish. In the back room the family lived. Through Jim's interviews, the museum learned there was a window between the two spaces so Clara Jane could keep an eye on both the store and the family at the same time. No need for a security camera.
In 1935 when the shop closed, the front room became a parlor.
They were a relatively wealthy family. They had photographs on the walls, a piano that came from Germany, and an ice box (which was also used to store items for the shop, but was in the house to keep it away from direct sunlight). The children all had piano lessons. His sister Dotty married the piano tuner. Six people lived in this home. Jim said, sometimes he slept in the basement so he could have privacy.
I learned something I never thought about before: ice. The ice man for the Youngein family came in the back door to deliver the ice. But, where did he get it? It doesn't freeze anywhere close to Sydney.
The ice came all the way from North America! Yes, we take ice for granted in New Jersey, but in those days, Australia imported their ice from the the northern states; it stopped in India along the way. Of course, some of their product melted before arriving in Australia. Eventually the first ice factory was created in Victoria using sawdust left over by the logging industry as insulation.
In the 1880s the family added extensions, including moving the basement kitchen to the ground floor. It was insulated in the 1950s.
The backyard had a cesspit (drop toilet). At night the soil man would reach over the fences to lift up the chamber pot to empty it. It was an extra fee to also clean the pot. The backyard was only a few feet deep. In 1914 a washroom was added downstairs to create their first roomed off bathroom.
On that note, we left Susannah Place.
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