Save the John Curtin Hotel


The John Curtin Hotel has played a role in much of the history of Melbourne—some of it untold and rightly to remain so. Such is the nature of pubs and their uniquely beer-soaked place in our social life. But it is part of our living history and it would be a tragedy to let a beating heart of Melbourne life be turned by property developers into apartments, just at the moment when we most need to nurture our pubs back to good health.

Known as The Lygon until the 1960s, the Curtin Hotel is no ordinary pub. Located opposite Trades Hall, it has a claim—if the beating heart analogy is to be continued—to being the left ventricle, where the real life of the labour movement was nourished.

Going back to the 1800s, the earliest activities of the Victorian labour movement couldn’t help but find a historic association with the pub across the road. The Palace of the Workers, the Workingman’s Parliament, has always drawn activity around it, so central has been the antagonistic relationship of workers and capital to the growth of Marvellous Melbourne. The union movement was given this specific parcel of land on the edge of the city precisely because it was undesirable—surrounded by brothels in what was then a red-light district. It wasn’t remarkable that there was a pub across the road: for most of the Curtin’s history there were in fact two (the Dover closed in 1980). The two buildings stood side-by-side for over a century of fun and frivolity, but also an extraordinarily rich history of political strategising. Had more of these behind-the-scenes stories found their way into the history books, they would justify heritage protection several times over.

It’s not so easy to excavate the role of the pub in Melbourne’s political life, but some is known. In 1886, when workers were organising against the notorious sweatshop clothing company Beath, Schiess and Co (the same antagonists from the famous Tailoresses Strike), the unionists found that Trades Hall couldn’t accommodate all the people who wanted to attend the meeting. The logical solution was to shift across the road to the pub. This was the same pub where, one hundred years later, the Victorian nurses would meet during their famous strike of 1986.

It is at the Hotel, during the height of the Cold War, that Frank Hardy and George Seelaf schemed up the legendary underground printing of the classic novel Power Without Glory. The Melbourne establishment did not want to see a book that exposed the power structures of the city, and so the author was made to answer the charge of criminal libel. No printers would touch the book, so it was up to Seelaf from the Butchers Union to coordinate an underground printing operation with books hand sewn by meatworkers, whilst also raising money for Hardy’s defence. It was a stunning victory for the labour movement, with much of it being organised over a beer in The Lygon.

The legendary feminist Zelda D’Aprano, who writes in her memoir of the chauvinist pub life in the 1960s, made a point of drinking with the men in the public bar of the Hotel. This took some fortitude, given the laws segregating women from these spaces. The pub itself didn’t enforce the sexist law, and these formative experiences of asserting her place in public space no doubt encouraged her to continue with the iconic political stunt actions she is well known for.

Further into the 1970s, as women were pushing for their place in traditionally male-dominated industries, one of the logistical problems presented to women was that they didn’t have toilets to accommodate them. In one instance, the Hotel stepped in to offer its facilities to allow a female refrigerator mechanic apprentice to continue with her training at the nearby trades school.

In the 1980s, Alf Bamblett from the band Stray Blacks established a regular fortnightly event at the Hotel to spotlight Aboriginal bands. Racist hostility in bars was a common experience, and so it is an important part of the story of the pub that it was a welcoming venue for Melbourne’s Aboriginal community.

The Curtin also holds an important place in the story of Melbourne’s gastronomic revolution in the 1970s. It was one of the first pubs to move away from the staple pub grub and to welcome the cuisine of the Italian community that was moving into Lygon Street. The Hotel’s kitchen became particularly famous for its steak sandwich. It is also one of the pubs that features in the contested history of how the parmigiana came to achieve its prominence in today’s established pub menu.

The compelling case for the John Curtin Hotel’s leading role in the ascendancy of the parma is that this particular pub, more so than any others in Carlton, was the hotbed of the professional gossips—that is, the political journos that covered the Trades Hall beat. As such, it is one of the iconic drinking establishments that regularly feature in the memoirs of Australian political journalists. With such intimate proximity across the bar from so many of the leading figures of politics (Bob Hawke, Norm Gallagher, Clyde Holding, Bill Landeryou, etc.), its publicans and bar workers were the most trusted lubricators of the Victorian political system.

One reporter in particular is worth mentioning by name: Vincent Basile. The first journalist in a mainstream newspaper to have a dedicated ‘ethnic affairs’ role, Basile reported on the stories of migrant experience during the golden years of The Age under Graham Perkin. Fellow Italian-speaker Bruno Coruzzi, the Curtin’s publican at the time, acted as something of a human telegraph across the Italian Lygon Street community. Coruzzi became an important fixer for Basile’s stories, which played a role in shifting the racist attitudes towards southern European migrants in particular.

During the 1980s, as unions began to move out of Trades Hall and the regular patronage of union office workers and officials dispersed, the pub across the road had to adjust to a dwindling clientele and try new things. The upstairs was gutted, and became a conference venue for hire. It is now a valued part of Melbourne’s live music scene.

With the proximity to Trades Hall though, the Hotel has never lost its subsidiary function as a free place to hold a meeting, and has hosted the full spectrum of community gatherings that could be associated with the political left: innumerable campaign meetings, and larger public events like commemorations of the world-leading Eight Hour Day.

My own earliest interactions with Melbourne’s political community were often closely accompanied with drinks at ‘JC’s’. Conversations would keep going long after the meetings, which this was part of the intention, to take politics to an informal setting to find out what people really think. It’s not all hushed conversation though, as no doubt some of the most passionate oratory in the city’s history has reverberated within these hotel walls after not even a few pints.

When I became an organiser of dance parties, we were so pleased to find a home in the John Curtin Hotel. These not-for-profit queer dance parties, ‘Orlando’ and ‘Captain Moonlite’, were always seen by us primarily as good cheer, but also served as part of an ongoing commitment to social solidarity, with the offer of a carers subsidy for people in need so they could attend. These events also put tens of thousands of dollars into various progressive causes, from marriage equality, Aboriginal rights and workers strike funds to refugee activism.

I hope that people who love this pub can come together to build a campaign to save this building * as a pub *, not just a facade. Not apartments with a wine bar below. As a place where you can walk in, pull up chairs, and start talking.

It’s not a radical notion that pubs deserve special protection. Only a few years ago when Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the British Labour Party, he advocated heritage protection for the remaining historical gay bars in London, in recognition of the role they serve to the community and the city as a whole. There’s never been a better opportunity for a test case about placing meaningful heritage protections on a pub than this threat to the John Curtin Hotel. If the Labor Party is serious about never letting another Corkman Hotel disgrace happen, then this is the time to reset the planning laws in a way that serves the strong community sentiment to protect pubs for their cultural function, as well as their architecture.

If the state government doesn’t come to the table, it needn’t be the end of the story for saving the John Curtin Hotel. There have been successful community protests to protect pubs in the past. One of the earliest pubs in our city, Mac’s (now trading as Captain Melville), was protected in the 1970s by a green ban imposed by the Builders Labourers Federation. The Bellevue Hotel in Brisbane was also protected by a green ban from construction unions: it was effective until the right-wing government of Joh Bjelke-Petersen sanctioned a notorious cowboy demolition outfit to commence their wrecking operation in the middle of the night. There’s now a lonely bronze plaque where the Bellevue once stood. The wounds of losing these historic meeting places take a long time to heal.

When it comes to venues like the John Curtin Hotel—our gathering places—we often don’t realise their role in our lives they are until the doors close for good. Pubs weave their way into the stories we tell. They link the generations and make a patchwork of the different mobs that choose to walk in through the door. They form something of our sense of belonging, even though we’ve all got our own story to tell. Pubs like the John Curtin Hotel, deserve to be fought for.

 

Alex Ettling

Alex Ettling is a historian currently working on a history of the John Curtin Hotel for a chapter in the forthcoming Knocking The Top Off: A Radical History of Alcohol in Australia.

More by Alex Ettling ›

Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places.

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  1. Nice article. We should also acknowledge the fantastic unsuitability of the name, given Curtin’s struggle with alcoholism. A leftwing version of the Harold Holt Swim Centre!

  2. Sure, it is important to fight for the past history and continuing presence of such iconic working class venues. There was a downside too, many were not such nice places and helped breed generations of family hardship, particularly pre music venue history. Played a few gigs myself in some of those pubs, saw many fights, and got paid peanuts for our troubles. Walking home at night was no walk in the park either. Alcohol was bad enough, and the introduction of a soft and hard drug culture didn’t help with street safety, particularly at night. All up though, good times too. Difficult to pin the balance though. Totally different to Kings Cross at the same time, another kettle of fish altogether.

    1. surreal, I would say this is the beauty of a pub like the John Curtin that is not amongst the busy thoroughfare of an “entertainment precinct”. As a band booker who has worked at numerous venues located across Melbourne, it’s my experience that having venues that are “destination venues” is that it protect our patrons from having to walk passed various drunken nightspot. The location has always felt important to my bookings.

      1. as can be seen below – the argument is not and never was about the pub per se – more about the many discourses swirling round and unsettling supposed settled times – and ultimately resettling upon a lowest common denominator – for now – déclassé, class and cultural identity wise

  3. Hi, I am curious about the source from which the author gets the fact about Uncle Alf Bamblett and the hotel. Was it the author’s interview with Uncle? Or was it from Yamatji scholar Dr Crystal McKinnon’s published information and interview she conducted with Uncle Alf Bamblett in McKinnon, Crystal. (2010). “Indigenous Music as a Space of Resistance.” pp.255 -272 in Edited by Tracey Banivanua Mar and Penelope Edmonds Making Settler Colonial Space MacMillan UK. Dr McKinnon’s work is a much cited paper and I would like to know where the author claims to know this information from if not from this published source. Please clarify your source for the information which currently has no reference, Alex. Further to this potential bad academic practice of failing to cite a source, I would like to add that it is a disappointing academic practice of white settlers to refer to other white male colonist sources (Frank Hardy) while failing to reference outstanding sovereign scholars in the field (Dr Crystal McKinnon).

    1. The information is on the public record in a number of places, including The Age, the website of the Premier of Victoria, ‘Snapshots of Aboriginal Fitzroy’ (2002) produced by Bunj Consultants in consultation with the City of Yarra and the Aboriginal Cultural Signage Reference Group, as well as on numerous public Facebook groups. A Google search reveals a number of writers and interviewers spanning a time period extending before Dr McKinnon’s published writing.

      Dr Bamblett’s fortnightly music events were an ongoing public event with a commensurate number of participants who can speak of its existence.

      There is no sourcing in the article which is consistent with the editorial style of similar pieces published by Overland online.

      A positive contribution to the discourse would have been to link Dr McKinnon’s article as a valuable resource for people who wish to explore the topic further. I encourage people to do so now, although it should be noted it is gated by the usual prohibitive costs of accessing academic writing.

  4. It’s disappointing and inexcusable to see articles like this (poor citation practices & little/no acknowledgement of sources, with perhaps the sole exception of white settler dude bros) published in 2022. Citation and acknowledgement of sources *improves* research, writing and truth claims. The response of the author is irresponsible to say the least: “There is no sourcing in the article which is consistent with the editorial style of similar pieces published by Overland online”. This claim is simply untrue. If this claim had any basis, I suspect Overland editors would be facing all sorts of complaints re: ethics and plagiarism. I’ve contributed pieces to Overland before and In my experience the editors take acknowledgement of sources very seriously. This piece needs to be adjusted to include appropriate acknowledgement of source material or retracted.

  5. Can the Editors of Overland please clarify the following claim from the author: “There is no sourcing in the article which is consistent with the editorial style of similar pieces published by Overland online.”

    This is a deeply troubling statement on a number of levels.

    1. Hi Amanda. I’ve spoken with Crystal and Shannon and reached out to Alex indicating that we want to get this right. While we encourage referencing we’re not an academic journal and don’t expect citations for all facts included in a historical piece, however we do place an emphasis on transparency and recognition of intellectual and cultural property. In our online magazine the onus is placed on authors to acknowledge their research themselves. We’re in contact to discuss the best step forward with this piece.

  6. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I am not an academic, and I am not white. I am a Black social historian, not paid by any organisation, and I wrote this article to help the campaign to save the pub, which is a valued social space in Melbourne. The stories I included were intended to elevate the place of some of the marginalised communities that have been involved in the John Curtin Hotel, and had largely been left out of the stories about the history of the pub in the mainstream media. It’s absurd that I’m being made a target by what appears to be a cloistered circle of academics who seem to feel they own the very existence of historical events.

    The decision of Overland to publish and validate this series of posts, including after my response, is extremely disappointing. It would take only a few minutes for an editor to Google the topic of Dr Alf Bamblett’s activity at the John Curtin Hotel and see that this is widely disseminated information.

    It’s acknowledged by the editor that articles of this nature do not require citation, and this should be the end of it. If this isn’t the standard, it is the task of the Overland editors to ask for these changes in the editing process and to take some responsibility for what they publish. It is disappointing that an editor would retrospectively place responsibility for this on the author because they don’t want to defend their editorial policy.

    If you want to set a different standard of attribution of articles of this nature, I would have been more than happy to meet those requirements. But it should be asked: why stop at just this one section of my piece? The whole article is a series of historical events that are sourced from people who have shared their stories with me (I’ve spoken to over 20 people for my research). There are other people who have researched/written/published, and contributed in various ways to build up a history of this shared social space that has existed for close to 150 years. There seems to be little commitment to name-check those people.

    In my earlier response I made it clear that there is an easily accessed source that predates Dr Crystal McKinnon’s academic work by close to 10 years. I’d never heard of Dr McKinnon’s work in this area (the essay doesn’t use the phrase “John Curtin Hotel” so it does not easily come up in searches). I still strongly feel there is no justification to include a citation to Dr McKinnon’s work, and that this is apparent in several ways.

    Some of the people in this thread are making very strong cases for the ownership of historical knowledge, which is a debatable proposition in itself, but I note that on your own terms there seems to be no problem in participating in the erasure of Liz Cavanagh’s 2001 research into Dr Alf Bamblett’s activity at the John Curtin Hotel. I myself have been speaking to participants who remember events taking place in this pub going back over 70 years: is it beyond the realm of possibility that I have interviewed people who recall Dr Bamblett’s activities in the early 1990s? The willingness to tarnish my reputation as a historian, before any clarity of the sources or research method is such an act of bad faith.

    Finally, the content within some of these comments is clearly libellous, and it has been published by Overland on a moderated board. It has caused reputational damage and been the cause of distress. I expect a written apology from the editors and the Overland board. Further, I will be consulting legal advice with regards to the defamatory statements by the individuals within this thread.

  7. Just a final comment to note that a number of the inflammatory posts were deleted (without editorial comment). It perhaps reframes my responses to appear disproportionate if a reader is following the thread as it appears now.

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