Juanita Nielsen – Kings Cross Publisher, Victoria Street Green Ban Campaigner and Her Disappearance from the Carousel Cabaret – 4 July 1975

Juanita Nielsen (1937–1975), publisher of NOW and campaigner for Victoria Street. Jean-no, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On the morning of Friday 4 July 1975, Juanita Nielsen walked into the Carousel Cabaret in Roslyn Street, Kings Cross, to talk about an advertising deal for her little local paper, NOW. She was 38, an heiress to the Mark Foy's department store fortune, and for the past few years she'd been one of the loudest voices against the plan to knock down the old terraces of Victoria Street and put up high-rise towers. She was never seen again. Her handbag turned up by a freeway out west, two men from the club later went to jail for plotting to kidnap her a few days earlier, and a coroner's jury in 1983 found she'd died on or shortly after that day. Nobody has ever been charged with her murder, and her body has never been found.

This is one of Sydney's great unsolved crimes, and it sits right in the middle of a fight over what kind of city we wanted to be: the green bans, the builders labourers, the squatters, the developers and the Kings Cross underworld. Below is the story as best the sources tell it, and where they don't agree, I've said so.

Who Was Juanita Nielsen?

A Foy by birth

She was born Juanita Joan Smith on 22 April 1937 at New Lambton, Newcastle. Her father, Neil Donovan Smith, was English-born and heir to the fortune of Kathleen Sophia Foy, and her mother was Vilma Grace, née Meares. The Australian Dictionary of Biography calls Juanita a great-granddaughter of Mark Foy and says her father was a major shareholder in Mark Foy's Ltd. Wikipedia fills in the family tree a bit more: Neil's parents were John Joseph Smith, chairman and managing director of Mark Foy's, and Kathleen Sophie Foy, a sister of the store's founders Mark and Francis Foy.

Her parents split up soon after she was born and she grew up at Killara on the North Shore. She went to several schools, including Ravenswood at Gordon, passed her Intermediate certificate in 1952, and then went to work at Mark Foy's as a glove model before heading overseas in 1959.

Mark Foy (1865–1950) in about 1910. Juanita was descended from the Foy family that built the store. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The old Mark Foy's building in Liverpool Street, now the Downing Centre. Juanita worked here as a glove model and later ran a boutique in the store. g_kat26, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Abroad, then back to the store

While she was away she married Jorgen Fritz Nielsen, a Danish merchant seaman. The ADB says they had a Shinto ceremony at Kobe City in Japan in 1962. They divorced in 1967. After living in Morocco and Denmark she came back to Sydney alone in 1965 and opened the "Gear Box" fashion boutique in Mark Foy's city store.

In 1968 she fell out with her father for a while after leading an unsuccessful shareholders' revolt against a $4 million takeover offer for Mark Foy's by McDowell's Ltd. Once they'd patched things up, he bought her a terrace house in Victoria Street, Kings Cross, and a local newspaper called NOW, which she ran from home.

202 Victoria Street and the Newspaper NOW

Juanita Nielsen's house at 202 Victoria Street. It's now on the NSW State Heritage Register. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her house was 202 Victoria Street, one of a group of three terraces built in the 1850s on part of the old Telford Lodge estate, according to the heritage listing quoted on Wikipedia. The house is on the New South Wales State Heritage Register.

NOW came out fortnightly, put together at the house with the help of her business partner David Farrell. Juanita had style. The ADB says she wore distinctive clothes and a "beehive" wig and modelled the fashions and hairstyles for the paper's feature pages herself. She also used it to run what the ADB calls "a vigorous editorial campaign" for the green bans and against the Victoria Street redevelopment.

202 Victoria Street, photographed in 2012. Governor Macquarie, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Fight for Victoria Street

Frank Theeman's plan

From the late 1960s, developers were quietly buying up most of Victoria Street, says the Dictionary of Sydney. The big one was Frank Theeman (born Franz Wilhelm Thiemann in 1913, died 1989), an Austrian-born developer whose company was Victoria Point Pty Ltd. According to Wikipedia, the plan was three 45-storey apartment towers and a 15-storey office block, which meant knocking down everything that was there. The ABC describes it the same way: the Victorian terraces would go and three high-rise apartment blocks would go up in their place.

For the people living there, many of them working people on low rents, it meant eviction. The Dictionary of Sydney notes that the National Trust had tried to get Sydney City Council to protect the houses and got nowhere.

Victoria Street, Potts Point, in 2011. The old streetscape survived, though not all of it. hasitha_tudugalle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The residents, the BLF and the green ban

The locals organised a residents' action group and went to the NSW branch of the Builders Labourers Federation, led by Jack Mundey, Joe Owens and Bob Pringle. The BLF's green bans were simple: union members wouldn't work on a job the community didn't want. They'd already been used to save Kelly's Bush, The Rocks and Centennial Park.

The union put a green ban on Victoria Street, which stopped the demolitions. The date of that ban depends on which source you read, as I explain further down. Nielsen joined the Victoria Street Ratepayers Association, lodged her own objection with the council, and threw NOW behind the campaign. With her neighbour, the seaman, jazz musician and union activist Jack "Mick" Fowler, she played what the ADB calls "a prominent role in mobilizing local residents" against the demolitions and evictions.

Jack Mundey later wrote, in his book Green Bans and Beyond (1981, as cited by Wikipedia), that Nielsen was an "upper class" person who'd started out disapproving of unionism, communism and squatting, but who came round to being more sympathetic.

Jack Mundey, the BLF leader behind the green bans, in December 1977. Tribune (Australian newspaper), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Women of the NSW Builders Labourers Federation on the International Women's Day march in Sydney, March 1975. Tirin (takver), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Intimidation, and the kidnapping of Arthur King

Things turned nasty. In July 1973 Arthur King, who headed the residents' action group, was grabbed by two men and thrown in the boot of a car. Wikipedia, drawing on the 1994 parliamentary report, says he was held at a motel outside the city for three days and let go near the Venus Room in Kings Cross. He quit the action group and moved out of the area straight away, and because he didn't trust the police he didn't tell the real story until 1977. Peter Rees, in his 2021 book Killing Juanita (cited by Wikipedia), points to evidence that Kings Cross nightclub manager Jim Anderson was involved. The Dictionary of Sydney mentions King without naming him: "one green ban activist disappeared and returned too frightened to say what had happened to him."

Other residents were harassed by men working for Theeman to get them out. Wikipedia says these men were led by Fred Krahe, a former NSW detective sergeant reputed to be mixed up in organised crime. The Dictionary of Sydney says armed thugs vandalised Theeman-owned buildings marked for demolition and terrorised the residents. Neighbours took turns staying in each other's houses so no house was ever left empty.

One of the Victoria Street terraces, the kind of housing the residents were fighting to keep. Governor Macquarie, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The squatters and the January 1974 evictions

As tenants were forced out, squatters moved into the empty houses to stop the demolitions going ahead with non-union labour. Mick Fowler came home from a stint at sea in 1973 to find his rented house boarded up. He moved back in and fought to stay. He lost the court case in 1976, and Wikipedia says the strain was reputed to have contributed to his early death in August 1979, aged 51.

On 3 January 1974 police moved in and evicted the squatters. Both the Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia give that date.

Terraced homes towards the Potts Point end of Victoria Street. Clytemnestra, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The ban breaks, and Juanita keeps going

Late in 1974 the BLF's federal leadership took over the NSW branch and pushed out Mundey's team. The Dictionary of Sydney calls this the "Intervention," and the Victoria Street ban was lifted after it. Wikipedia goes further and says the federal leadership had been bribed by developers. That's a claim I'd treat as Wikipedia's, not proven. But Nielsen didn't give up. Wikipedia says the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association kept a ban going, and Nielsen talked the Water Board union into putting on its own ban. In 1974 she stepped up the attacks in NOW.

The pressure on Theeman was real. Rees's book, as cited by Wikipedia, has Theeman meeting Nielsen in February 1975 and failing to change her mind. By June 1975 his company's interest bill was said to be running at $16,800 a week. The ABC puts it simply: by 1975 the developer had spent millions buying up property and its debts were mounting.

At the same time a second fight was starting at Woolloomooloo, down the hill. Wikipedia says Nielsen was a member of the Woolloomooloo Residents Action Group, which began getting death threats around then.

The McElhone Stairs, which run from Victoria Street down to Woolloomooloo. Clytemnestra, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

McElhone Street, Woolloomooloo. The 'Loo had its own fight with developers in the mid 1970s. Jeremy from Sydney, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Carousel Cabaret

The Carousel, which went by the name Les Girls at other times, was a drag cabaret in Roslyn Street. The ADB calls it "a transvestite nightclub and underworld haunt." Wikipedia says it was one of the clubs controlled by Abe Saffron and that it was managed by Jim Anderson. According to the 1994 parliamentary inquiry, as cited by Wikipedia, Anderson owed Theeman $260,000. Saffron's son Alan wrote in his 2008 book Gentle Satan that his father had lent big money to a number of Sydney businessmen, Theeman among them.

Abe Saffron at the Roosevelt Club, Kings Cross, 22 September 1950, photographed for People magazine. State Library of New South Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kings Cross around 1950, a generation before the Victoria Street fight. Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The approaches in June 1975

The sequence that follows comes mostly from the 1994 parliamentary report and Peter Rees's book, both as summarised on Wikipedia.

• 13 June 1975. Anderson sent Nielsen an invitation to a press night at the club. NOW didn't give free plugs to businesses, so she wouldn't normally have been asked. She didn't go, and Anderson was said to be furious.
• 29 June. The Carousel's PR manager, Lloyd Marshall, asked her to a meeting at the Camperdown Travelodge, supposedly about advertising. David Farrell later said she got suspicious and didn't go.
• 30 June. Two Carousel employees, Edward "Eddie" Trigg and Shayne Martin-Simmonds, came to her front door saying they wanted to talk about advertising. Farrell answered instead. It later came out that they'd planned to grab her when she opened the door. Juanita listened from the next room. Farrell said she was by then seriously worried that her campaigning was putting her in danger, and she'd arranged to keep him told of where she was.
• 3 July, 5.30pm. Trigg rang to set up a meeting about the club advertising in NOW. They agreed on about 10.15am the next day at the club.

NSW Police describe it the same way: during the first investigation they found information about a conspiracy to kidnap her on Monday 30 June 1975, four days before she was last seen.

Friday 4 July 1975

She went to the Carousel that morning. At 10.30am she rang Farrell to say she was running late. The NSW Police reward notice says she was last seen at the Carousel Cabaret on Roslyn Street on the morning of Friday 4 July 1975.

Farrell reported her missing to police on the Saturday. When police spoke to Trigg he confirmed the meeting, showed them a receipt she'd given him for an advance on advertising, and said she'd left for a lunch appointment. In their first statements, Trigg and the club's receptionist Loretta Crawford both said Nielsen left alone. In 1976 Crawford changed her story and said Nielsen and Trigg had left together. A local real estate agent told police he'd seen her get into a yellow car outside the club with two men in it.

Her handbag and some belongings turned up beside a freeway in western Sydney. Wikipedia says this was near Penrith on Monday 7 July, and the police didn't release the news of her disappearance to the media until 8 July. The Canberra Times reported in July 1975 that police were searching for her body, then that her cheque book had been found near the Nepean River, then that the search had spread to empty buildings around the Cross. By October 1975 a $10,000 reward was on offer.

Kings Cross at night. Nielsen was last seen at the Carousel in Roslyn Street, just off the main drag. luke_reynolds, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Kidnapping Conspiracy Trials

In November 1977 Trigg and Shayne Simmonds (as the Canberra Times named him) were charged with conspiring to abduct Nielsen between 1 June and 4 July, and Lloyd Marshall was charged a week later. In an interview with police on 6 November 1977, as quoted on Wikipedia, Martin-Simmonds admitted the advertising story was a cover. He said the plan was to take her to see "people who wanted to talk to her," and that he didn't know who those people were.

At the 1980 trial the judge directed the jury to acquit Marshall because there was no evidence tying him to any plan to use force. The jury couldn't agree on the other two. Martin-Simmonds was retried in 1981, convicted and given two years. Trigg had skipped to the United States on a false passport. He was arrested in San Francisco in 1982, brought back, pleaded guilty and got three years in 1983.

It's worth being clear about what those convictions meant. The ADB notes that both men were convicted of conspiring to abduct her "on an earlier occasion," and "the trials did not directly involve events on the day she vanished."

The 1983 Inquest

The coronial inquest, held with a jury in 1983, was the longest in NSW history up to then, running 13 weeks and hearing 69 witnesses (figures from Peter Rees, cited by Wikipedia). Theeman denied Nielsen had been a threat to his plans. Saffron said he'd read about the disappearance in the papers and hadn't asked any further. Anderson agreed he was an obvious suspect but denied any involvement, and counsel assisting called him a "stranger to the truth." Anderson pointed the finger at Fred Krahe, who was dead by then. Counsel for the Nielsen estate argued that it would be a "very, very, unbelievable coincidence" for two separate groups to be plotting against her at the same time.

On 10 November 1983 the coroner and a jury of six found that she had died "on or shortly after 4 July 1975." They couldn't say where, how, or by whose hand. They added a line that's often quoted: there was "evidence to show that the police inquiries were inhibited by an atmosphere of corruption, real or imagined, that existed at the time."

The 1994 Parliamentary Inquiry

In 1994 the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority reported on the NCA and Jim Anderson. The ADB says the committee "further castigated investigative ineptitude in the case and emphasized links between her presumed murder, property developers and the criminal milieu at Kings Cross." Wikipedia adds that the committee questioned the NCA's use of Anderson as a protected informer when he was a suspect in the disappearance and in other crimes.

The ABC's summary goes further. It says the committee concluded corruption had hampered the police investigation, and that corrupt Kings Cross police were alleged to have been paid by developers to look the other way. Those are the ABC's words about allegations. They aren't findings against any named officer. The ABC also points to the Wood Royal Commission of the 1990s, which uncovered widespread corruption at Kings Cross police station.

Later Claims

The story kept turning up new claims long after the inquest. None of them has been tested in court, so I've listed them as claims and named who made them.

• Marilyn King, Trigg's former girlfriend, told a journalist that Trigg came home on 4 July 1975 with blood on his clothes and on the receipt in his pocket. She never gave evidence to the police or the inquest (reported by Peter Rees in the Good Weekend, 2015, as cited by Wikipedia).
• Loretta Crawford said in 2000 that she'd rung Anderson at his Vaucluse home to tell him Nielsen had arrived and that he was "quite pleased." She insisted he was in Vaucluse, not at Surfers Paradise as he always said. In 2004 she told the ABC's 7.30 Report that her earlier evidence had been false to protect Anderson, who had since died. She said she'd seen Nielsen's body in the club's basement with a small gunshot wound, Trigg and Martin-Simmonds present, and a third, unnamed man holding a pistol.
• John Glebe, her boyfriend at the time, told the inquest she'd been getting threatening phone calls and carried cassette tapes in her handbag that she said could "blow the top off" something she was working on. The ABC reports him telling the inquest she was writing an article that would have exposed the leading players in Sydney's illegal gaming industry.
• Eddie Trigg died alone in a rented room at the Abbotts Hotel in Waterloo on 25 February 2013. The Australian reported that he'd left a written account that "named names" and said where her remains were. Police searched his room but wouldn't say what, if anything, they found.

The Rewards

The money on offer has grown over the years:

• October 1975: a $10,000 reward for information leading to finding her (Canberra Times, 1 October 1975, listed by the ADB).
• July 1976: her father offered $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible (Canberra Times, 3 July 1976, listed by the ADB).
• 1982: the NSW Government announced a $50,000 reward (NSW Police).
• 21 June 2021: the NSW Government and NSW Police announced a $1 million reward. Police Minister David Elliott said Juanita "disappeared at the prime of her life and had a lot to live for." The case has stayed open under Strike Force Euclid and has been reviewed by the Homicide Squad's Unsolved Homicide team. Homicide commander Det Supt Danny Doherty said the aim was to find her "so her family may put her to rest." Her cousin Francis Foy told the ABC that "Juanita was very much loved by her family and very much missed."

What Became of Victoria Street

The first stage of Theeman's development was finished in 1978, according to Wikipedia. The Dictionary of Sydney gives a fair summing-up. The green ban stopped the "hideous high-rise development" and saved much of the streetscape, even though a lot of the low-cost housing was lost. Wikipedia says the design was changed and some houses got heritage protection. Kings Cross railway station, which opened in 1979, was part of the same burst of building around the Cross.

The terraces around Juanita Nielsen's house in Victoria Street, 2010. Clytemnestra, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An entrance to Kings Cross railway station on Darlinghurst Road. The station opened in 1979. Nick-D, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her Legacy

In July 1983 the Sydney City Council opened a recreation centre in the Juanita Nielsen Building at Woolloomooloo, near where she'd lived. It's still known today as the Juanita Nielsen Community Centre. There's also a white cross for her at South Head Cemetery in Vaucluse, in front of her family's monument.

Her story has been told on screen and in print:

• The Killing of Angel Street (1981), directed by Donald Crombie, a fictional version. Crombie later said the makers were "peculiarly warned off" while making it.
• Heatwave (1982), directed by Phillip Noyce.
• The Beehive (2018), an art documentary by Zanny Begg, named after her famous hairdo.
• Killing Juanita (2021), a book by journalist Peter Rees.
• "Hey Juanita" (2016), a song by Urthboy.

Walk down Victoria Street today past the terraces and the backpackers and it's easy to forget how close it all came to being bulldozed. A lot of what's left is there because people like Juanita Nielsen, Mick Fowler, Arthur King and the builders labourers stood in the way.

Juanita Nielsen's house, Victoria Street, in 2019. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

South Head Cemetery at Vaucluse, where a white cross remembers Juanita Nielsen beside her family's monument. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 22 April 1937 – Juanita Joan Smith born at New Lambton, Newcastle.
• 1952 – Intermediate certificate. She goes to work at Mark Foy's as a glove model.
• 1959 – Leaves Australia.
• 1962 – Marries Jorgen Fritz Nielsen at Kobe, Japan.
• 1965 – Returns to Sydney and opens the Gear Box boutique at Mark Foy's.
• 1967 – Divorce.
• 1968 – Leads the failed shareholders' revolt against McDowell's takeover offer for Mark Foy's.
• Late 1960s–early 1970s – Moves into 202 Victoria Street and takes over NOW. Developers buy up Victoria Street.
• 1971, 1972 or April 1973 – BLF green ban on Victoria Street (sources differ).
• July 1973 – Arthur King kidnapped and held for three days.
• 3 January 1974 – Police evict the Victoria Street squatters.
• Late 1974 – Federal BLF "Intervention". The green ban is lifted.
• February 1975 – Theeman meets Nielsen and fails to change her mind.
• 13, 29 and 30 June 1975 – Approaches from Carousel staff, including the 30 June plan to grab her at her door.
• 4 July 1975 – Last seen at the Carousel Cabaret, Roslyn Street.
• 5 July 1975 – David Farrell reports her missing.
• 7 July 1975 – Handbag found near Penrith (per Wikipedia).
• October 1975 – $10,000 reward offered.
• July 1976 – Her father offers $50,000.
• November 1977 – Trigg, Martin-Simmonds and Marshall charged with conspiracy to abduct.
• 1978 – First stage of the Victoria Street development finished.
• 1979 – Kings Cross station opens. Mick Fowler dies in August.
• 1980 – Marshall acquitted. Hung jury on the other two.
• 1981 – Martin-Simmonds convicted and jailed for two years. The Killing of Angel Street released.
• 1982 – Trigg arrested in San Francisco. NSW Government offers $50,000.
• 1983 – Trigg jailed for three years. Juanita Nielsen centre opens in July. Inquest finding on 10 November.
• 1994 – Parliamentary Joint Committee on the NCA reports.
• 2000 and 2004 – Loretta Crawford's new accounts.
• 25 February 2013 – Eddie Trigg dies at Waterloo.
• 21 June 2021 – $1 million reward announced.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When the green ban went on. The Dictionary of Sydney says the NSW BLF placed the ban in April 1973. Wikipedia's Juanita Nielsen article says 1972. Wikipedia's Victoria Street article says 1971.
• Who raised her. The ADB says her mother raised her at Killara. Wikipedia says her maternal grandmother did.
• Her school. The ADB biography and Wikipedia name Ravenswood at Gordon. The ADB's own life summary lists Pymble Ladies' College.
• When she got the house. The heritage listing quoted on Wikipedia's Victoria Street page says she bought 202 Victoria Street in 1968. Wikipedia's Nielsen article says her father bought it for her in the early 1970s. The ADB says her father bought it after they reconciled following the 1968 takeover fight.
• Finding the handbag. Wikipedia says her handbag was found near Penrith on Monday 7 July. The ABC says "a week later." The Canberra Times reported her cheque book found near the Nepean River on 14 July 1975.
• Who left the club with her. Trigg and Crawford first said she left alone. Crawford later said she left with Trigg, and in 2004 said she never left the club alive. A real estate agent said he saw her get into a yellow car with two men.
• The motive. The usual view is that she was killed over her Victoria Street and Woolloomooloo campaigns. John Glebe and journalist Barry Ward (in The Bulletin, 2005) suggested she was about to expose illegal gambling and corruption.
• Her name. NSW Police spell it Roslyn Street in one place and quote the minister as saying "Nielson." The usual spelling is Nielsen.

My Earlier Posts

• The Battle of Blood Alley – Eaton Avenue – Kings Cross – 7 May 1929
• Kate Leigh & Tilly Devine – Sydney's Razor Gang Queens
• Bea Miles – Sydney's Shakespeare-Reciting, Taxi-Fighting Bohemian
• Arthur Stace – Mr Eternity
• St Vincent's Hospital – Victoria Street – Darlinghurst
• Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras – From the 1978 March to Today
• The Windmills of Darlinghurst Road and Roslyn Street – Kings Cross
• Kings Cross Theatre – Junction of Darlinghurst Road & Victoria Street
• Woolloomooloo Wharf
• The Widening Of William Street – East Sydney & Kings Cross

Sources

• Richard Morris, "Nielsen, Juanita Joan (1937–1975)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nielsen-juanita-joan-11241, including its list of Trove newspaper reports (Canberra Times, Tharunka, Tribune, 1975–78). Life summary: adb.anu.edu.au/lifesummary/nielsen-juanita-joan-11241
• Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann, "Green Bans Movement", Dictionary of Sydney, 2011, dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/green_bans_movement
• NSW Police Force, "Disappearance of Juanita Nielsen – $1,000,000 reward", police.nsw.gov.au
• ABC News, "NSW Police announce $1 million reward for information about Juanita Nielsen's suspected murder", 21 June 2021, abc.net.au
• Wikipedia, "Juanita Nielsen", en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Nielsen, which draws on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority report National Crime Authority and James McCartney Anderson (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994), Peter Rees, Killing Juanita (ABC Books, 2021), Jack Mundey, Green Bans and Beyond (1981), Alan Saffron, Gentle Satan (2008), and press reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and the ABC 7.30 Report (16 February 2004).
• Wikipedia, "Victoria Street, Sydney", en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Street,_Sydney, quoting the NSW State Heritage Register listing "Juanita Nielsen's House" (H01929).
• Wikipedia, "Mark Foy's", en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foy's
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture.

Luna Park Sydney – Milsons Point – From Bridge Workshops to the Ghost Train Fire and Back

In short: Luna Park has grinned across the harbour at Milsons Point since 4 October 1935. It was built on the old Dorman Long yard where the steel for the Harbour Bridge was made, and its rides came by ship and rail from a failed Luna Park at Glenelg in Adelaide. It was packed through the war years and loved by generations of Sydney kids. Then on the night of 9 June 1979 the Ghost Train caught fire and seven people died, six of them children. After that came a long run of closures, rebuilds, fights with the neighbours and battles with developers. The park finally reopened for good in April 2004, and in 2010 it went onto the NSW State Heritage Register.

Before the Fun: Ferries, Trains and Bridge Steel

Long before anyone thought of a fun park, this was Cammeraygal country. The Cammeraygal people are the traditional owners of the North Sydney area and have lived there for at least 5,000 years.

After 1788 the land between Lavender Bay and Careening Cove was granted to a private soldier, Robert Ryan. It passed through surveyor-general Charles Grimes to Robert Campbell by 1805, and James Milson settled there in the 1820s. That's where the name Milsons Point comes from. Billy Blue, the Jamaican ex-convict, started the first ferry across the harbour in 1830. By 1837 there was a regular wharf and waterman's service at the point. A vehicle ferry was running by 1860, a tram line ran up to North Sydney from 1886, and the North Shore railway was pushed down to Milsons Point in 1893.

From 1924 the foreshore became Dorman Long's workshops, where the steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge was fabricated and assembled. Once the bridge opened in 1932 the yard wasn't needed any more, and North Sydney Council called for tenders to develop the site.

Clearing the Milsons Point site for Dorman Long's Harbour Bridge workshops, where the steel was fabricated. This is the ground Luna Park now stands on. Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Working the angle crimping machine in the Milsons Point workshops, August 1926. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fabricated bridge members loaded on a barge at the Milsons Point workshops, 28 October 1926. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From St Kilda to Glenelg to Milsons Point

The first Luna Park opened at Coney Island in New York in 1903. Australia's first opened at St Kilda in Melbourne on 13 December 1912. It was built by the American showman J.D. Williams with the Phillips brothers, Harold, Leon and Herman, and Melbourne's park still has its famous mouth entrance.

The Phillips connection is the key to Sydney's story. In October 1929 David Atkins was granted a lease to build a scenic railway (the Big Dipper) on Colley Reserve at Glenelg, the Adelaide beachside town. In 1930 the lease was widened to take in a Ferris wheel, a Noah's Ark, the River Caves and a Goofy House. Atkins and Herman Phillips set up Luna Park Glenelg Ltd, and the park opened on 8 October 1930.

Glenelg never really worked. Crowds fell away, the council wouldn't cut the rent, and it unanimously refused requests to open rides on Sundays. Locals also complained that the park drew undesirable types. Atkins went looking elsewhere and in 1934 found the old Harbour Bridge construction site on Lavender Bay. The Glenelg company went into voluntary liquidation late in 1934. When its assets were auctioned on 8 April 1935, Atkins and Phillips bought the lot.

Colley Reserve and the newly opened Luna Park at Glenelg, Adelaide, in 1930. Many of these rides later came to Sydney. Government Photolithographer (S.A.), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The front of the Big Dipper at Glenelg, 29 December 1930. This coaster was later pulled down and rebuilt at Milsons Point. State Government Photographer (SA), State Library of South Australia, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Luna Park Glenelg seen from its Ferris wheel. W.H. Bamford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Phillips and his associates won the North Sydney tender and formed Luna Park (NSW) Limited, on a 20-year lease that Wikipedia dates from 11 September 1935. Over three months the Glenelg rides were pulled down and carted to Sydney. Stuart Brothers did the job under David Atkins, Ted Hopkins and Arthur Barton. Wikipedia says the build employed almost 1,000 engineers, structural workers, fitters and artists. The original plans and drawings are held at the State Library of NSW.

Not everyone wanted it, and the complaining started early. As far back as April 1935 there were protests from North Shore residents. Members of the "Parks and Playgrounds Movement" called it the result of "a deplorable lack of aesthetic taste" and likened it to "Coney Island under the Tower of London". Those sorts of complaints have followed the park ever since.

Opening Night, 4 October 1935

Luna Park opened on 4 October 1935 and was a hit from the first night. The big drawcard was the Big Dipper, the wooden coaster brought over from Glenelg. Built in 1930, it was a copy of Melbourne's Big Dipper designed by Miller & Baker. It was 800 metres long, ran for three minutes, could reach 84 km/h and, with all three trains running, carried 72 people.

After that first season the park shut for the winter so the rides could be overhauled and repainted and new ones added, and that winter break stayed part of the routine until 1969. The North Sydney Olympic Pool opened next door in 1936.

Finalists in a bathing beauties competition at Luna Park, Sydney, 1937, photographed by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

"Hollywood Hotel" girls at Luna Park, 29 September 1938, photographed by Sam Hood for Fuller's Theatres. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Face

You can't think of Luna Park without the face. The original idea came from Melbourne's entrance and from the "face" mascot of Steeplechase Park at Coney Island. The first Sydney face was made for the 1935 opening by the Melbourne scenic artist Rupert Browne. It was modelled on the Man in the Moon and called Mr Moon. It sat between two 26-metre Art Deco towers whose scalloped spires copied the top of New York's Chrysler Building. The whole entrance was lit by what was then the largest neon display in Australia, and Mr Moon's eyes lit up and moved from side to side.

The face is about 9 metres high. The early ones were only chicken wire, plaster and paint, and the weather wore them down, so every repair job changed the expression a bit. In broad strokes, here are the versions Wikipedia lists:

• 1935: Rupert Browne's Mr Moon.
• 1938: the first facelift, again designed by Browne.
• 1947: another facelift after faulty neon caused a fire that damaged the left spire. The neon was replaced with incandescent globes.
• 1950s–1960: by the late fifties the face had sagged and distorted so badly it looked grotesque. Arthur Barton, the park's artist, redesigned it as the first "happy" face, inspired by Old King Cole. Every face since has followed it.
• 1973: pop artist Martin Sharp, working with Peter Kingston, repainted it with a new expression, a clown-like mask and strong primary colours.
• 1979: the spires were taken off because the structure had deteriorated.
• 1982: a new fibreglass face, modelled on the 1973 one. After the 1988 closure the whole entrance came down, and the 1982 face was given to the Powerhouse Museum in May 1994.
• 1993–1995: a new fibreglass face by Natureworks, based on Barton's 1960 design. The towers were rebuilt in the style of the 1935 originals, and that's the entrance you walk through today.

The entrance face and towers, photographed for the State Heritage Register listing. Patricia Hale, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The War Years and the Atkins & Hopkins Era

During the Second World War Luna Park was a magnet for servicemen out with their girlfriends or looking to meet someone. That brought sex workers to the area too, and big brawls were common, usually between Australian home defence troops and American sailors on leave. Because non-essential electricity was cut back, the neon was switched off and the ride fronts were dimmed. The outside lights were also browned out in case of a Japanese sneak attack.

In 1950 Atkins and Hopkins bought out the Phillips brothers. The two travelled the world looking at parks in the Netherlands, the United States, Germany and Britain, and brought ideas home. One was the Rotor, the spinning drum that pins you to the wall, which was first installed in 1951. Atkins died in 1957 and Hopkins took over as manager. Through the 1960s television and the car took people elsewhere, and the park fought back with new attractions. The best known was the Wild Mouse coaster, first opened in 1963.

Luna Park in 1968. wilford peloquin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Luna Park in April 1969, the year Ted Hopkins retired and sold the lease. wilford peloquin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Rides People Remember

The Big Dipper

The old wooden Big Dipper ran at Milsons Point from 1935 to 1979. On 26 April 1946 a 33-year-old man from New Caledonia was killed after sitting on the edge of a car against instructions and being thrown into a support pole on a corner. On 16 April 1979 a steel runner came loose and stopped one train, and the next train ran into it. Thirteen people were hurt and the Dipper never reopened. It was knocked down and burnt with most of the old park in 1981. Two of its cars were bought at auction: one is on show at Luna Park and the other is in the Powerhouse Museum collection.

The River Caves

The River Caves was an Old Mill-style boat dark ride. It had been part of the Glenelg lease, came to Sydney with the rest, and was demolished in 1981. Its "Toyland" section was caught by the Ghost Train fire in 1979.

Coney Island

Coney Island, also called Funnyland, dates from 1935. Wikipedia describes it as the only operating 1930s funhouse left in the world. It has giant wooden slides, a joy wheel, revolving barrels, moving walkways and obstacle courses, and its layout is almost the same as on opening day. Arthur Barton's restored murals hang inside. In 1981 the Friends of Luna Park bought the amusements for $9,200, on condition they stayed in the building, and that saved them from demolition.

Inside Coney Island, with its slides and murals. Patricia Hale, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Coney Island from outside. Merbabu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Wild Mouse

The Wild Mouse first opened in 1963. It has been pulled down and moved off the site several times, but it has stayed put since 1995. Wikipedia says it is one of only three wooden Wild Mouse coasters left in the world. It shut in August 2022 for a big rebuild and reopened in March 2025.

The Wild Mouse, which first ran at Luna Park in 1963. Saberwyn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An old Wild Mouse car on display inside Coney Island. Tamgarat, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ferris Wheel

There was a Ferris wheel at Glenelg, but the 35-metre, 24-gondola wheel at Milsons Point today came in with the 1982 Harbourside rebuild.

The Ferris wheel, which came to the park with the 1982 Harbourside rebuild. Jeremy from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace began in 1935 as a dodgem hall and offices. It has since been a dance hall, a BMX track, a games arcade, and a restaurant and bar, and now it holds function rooms.

The Crystal Palace, built in 1935 as a dodgem hall and offices. Patricia Hale, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

1969 to 1979: New Owners, Martin Sharp and the Slide

Hopkins retired in 1969 and sold the last six years of the lease to World Trade Centre Pty Ltd. Barton retired in 1970, the last of the original showmen. The new owners dropped the winter closures, so there was no longer a regular break to maintain the rides. They also applied to put a $50 million trade centre on the site, with seven high-rise buildings and a heliport, but the State Government rejected it. Old rides were scrapped for American thrill rides. For a while the slogan changed from "Just for Fun" to "The Place Where Happiness Is", and there was a short-lived mascot, "Luna Bear – the Space Age Koala".

From 1973 Martin Sharp and Peter Kingston, and later Richard Liney and Garry Shead, did major artwork throughout the park. Sharp said: "It took us a while to realise that Luna Park was an artwork in itself, a city state of illusion, a brilliant feat of engineering with imagination, created and maintained by men." The lease ran out in 1975 and the park kept going on a week-to-week basis. Wikipedia's fire article says the lessees by then were the developers Leon Fink and Nathan Spatt. Talks over a new lease went nowhere after Neville Wran became Premier in 1976.

The Ghost Train Fire, 9 June 1979

The Ghost Train was one of the 1935 opening-day rides. Its building, between the Big Dipper station and the River Caves, had first been a storeroom for gear arriving from Glenelg. Cars went in through a door marked "Hell's Doorway" and were pulled along about 180 metres of track, mostly in pitch dark, past dancing skeletons, an ape monster, a dragon's head and Dracula in a graveyard. There was also a fake fireplace with paper "flames", and witnesses said that is where the real fire started.

That Saturday night John and Jennifer Godson and their sons Damien and Craig were down from Warren on holiday. The boys had already been on the Ghost Train once and wanted another go. Jennifer went to buy an ice cream and came back to find John and the boys had gone on without her. Five Waverley College boys were on the ride too: Jonathan Billings, Richard Carroll, Michael Johnson, Seamus Rahilly and Jason Holman.

The fire broke out at about 10 pm, with around thirty-five people believed to be on the ride. The fake fireplace confused some riders at first. Once people realised the fire was real, the operators began pulling riders out as the cars came through the doors, and Jason Holman was one of them. The fire brigade was called at 10:14 pm. The crews had to fight their way in on the one road while thousands of people were leaving, then found "no water pressure whatsoever" from the hydrants and hoses that "leaked like sieves". They had to pump water out of the harbour. The ride had no sprinklers and burnt fiercely, spreading into the River Caves' Toyland before it was out at 11:17 pm. At 11:30 pm the bodies of John, Damien and Craig Godson were found, and Jonathan Billings, Richard Carroll, Michael Johnson and Seamus Rahilly were found in another section. Seven were dead, six of them children. Luna Park shut that night.

The Inquest

Police at first put it down to an electrical fault and ruled out arson. The firemen who photographed the scene noticed that the switchboard area was untouched, which, according to Wikipedia's fire article, "wasn't consistent with an electrical fault". The coroner's inquest began on 13 August 1979 and reported in September. The coroner, Anderson, found the cause "cannot conclusively be stated". He thought the most probable cause was litter lit by a cigarette or match from a rider, but said the evidence "does not allow me to say". He found management had failed to bring in proper fire protection, despite warnings from North Sydney Council and the fire brigade eighteen months earlier, and that the owners had failed in their duty of care, though not to the level of criminal negligence. It also came out that a design consultant had advised fitting sprinklers to the Ghost Train in December 1977 and the advice wasn't followed. New laws on fire exits followed.

The Saffron Claims

This is where the story gets murky, and it's best to say who claims what. About a quarter of the 80 witnesses called to the inquest were let go without giving evidence. Decades later several of them said they had seen "bikies" in the park that night and smelt kerosene on the ride, and some said police pressured them to change their stories. Martin Sharp spent more than thirty years arguing that the fire was deliberately lit on the orders of the underworld figure Abe Saffron so he could get hold of the site.

A National Crime Authority inquiry in the mid-1980s found that Harbourside Amusements, the company that took the lease after the fire, employed two of Saffron's cousins and a nephew, but it didn't find him directly linked to owning the park. It couldn't fix a cause either, but said the police investigation and the inquest had been ineffective. Saffron denied any role and died in 2006. In 2007 his niece Anne Buckingham was quoted in the Herald as calling it "a bad accident that was meant to be a warning", then publicly denied the quote. His son Alan called it "a straight-out accident". A 2021 ABC investigation, Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, concluded that Saffron was responsible and that police covered it up. As Wikipedia puts it, there were court hearings in late 2024 about a possible second inquest, and in 2026 anonymous police sources were quoted as saying one was unlikely. No court has ever found who or what started the fire.

Remembering Them

Waverley College held a memorial service for its four boys at St Mary's Cathedral on 15 June 1979, and another service for the Godsons was held in Warren. A memorial tree and bench went in at the park in 1995 but were lost in the 2003 redevelopment. In 2004 a plaque with the victims' names was put on the outside wall of the Big Top, which stands on the site of the Ghost Train. In August 2007 a memorial designed by Michael Leunig and carved by Peter Kingston was unveiled in Art Barton Park, just behind Luna Park.

The memorial to the seven people who died in the 1979 Ghost Train fire, designed by Michael Leunig and carved by Peter Kingston, in Art Barton Park. Thisbe Schultz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The memorial plaque at Luna Park for the victims of the Ghost Train fire. TheGRVOfLightning, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Closed, Opened, Closed Again

1979–1982: Save Luna Park

The government called for tenders at the end of July 1979. A "Friends of Luna Park" group formed, and a Save Luna Park march went from the Opera House to the face, finishing with a free concert headlined by Mental As Anything. The National Trust classified the face. Australian Amusements Associates won the tender in September 1980 and took over in June 1981. Everything except the face, the Crystal Palace, the Rotor and Coney Island was bulldozed and burnt. The rebuilt park opened on 29 April 1982 as the "Harbourside Amusement Park". A dispute with the previous owners meant it couldn't use the Luna Park name until August that year.

1988–1990: The Lease Fight

In 1988 independent engineers said several rides needed urgent repair and the park closed again. The face was moved inside and the towers came down. The lease passed to Luna Park Investments Pty Ltd, which did little to reopen the park while plans for apartments and hotels on the site kept surfacing. The government gave it a deadline of 1 June 1990 to reopen. When that passed, the lease was terminated and the Luna Park Reserve Trust took over. The Luna Park Site Act 1990, gazetted on 12 October 1990, set the site aside for amusement and public recreation.

1995–1996: The Big Dipper Noise War

After a restoration that began in January 1993, Luna Park reopened in January 1995. Its star ride was a new steel Big Dipper, a 40-metre looping coaster designed by Arrow Dynamics. The Environment Protection Authority approved it only with strict noise limits, soundproofing for affected neighbours and set times when it couldn't run. Neighbours still took legal action over the noise, and Wikipedia says they were backed by business figures whose redevelopment bids had been knocked back. Bad weather kept crowds down, and the new Carr government withdrew its guarantee of a $14 million loan and replaced the Trust's board with an administrator. The park closed on 14 February 1996. The steel Dipper went to Dreamworld in 2001 and runs there as The Gold Coaster.

2004: Open for Good

Metro Edgley won the redevelopment tender in July 1999, and work finally got going in 2003. Over 14 months the rides were restored, the Crystal Palace was turned into function rooms, and the Big Top, a 2,000-seat hall, was built on the old Big Dipper site. Luna Park reopened on 4 April 2004 and has stayed open since. Even then the neighbours went back to court in 2005 and again in 2007, and the Supreme Court dismissed the second case on 6 February 2009.

The Big Top, built in the 2003–04 redevelopment on the site of the old Big Dipper. Saberwyn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The new Big Dipper in October 2021, just before it opened. Tamgarat, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Heritage Listing

Luna Park went onto the NSW State Heritage Register in 2010, listed as the Luna Park Precinct, entry 01811, at 1 Olympic Drive, Milsons Point. Several of its buildings and rides had also been on the old Register of the National Estate. On top of that, the Luna Park Site Act 1990 means the land is set aside for an amusement park and can't be turned into anything else, which is exactly what the Friends of Luna Park fought for.

The park still changes. A new single-rail Big Dipper opened on 26 December 2021, and in June 2024 Brookfield sold the lease, which runs to 2044, to the Oscars Group.

The entrance to Melbourne's Luna Park at St Kilda, the 1912 park that started the Australian family of Luna Parks. Nicholas Cole, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Melbourne's Luna Park, Briefly

Sydney's park is the younger sibling. Melbourne's Luna Park at St Kilda opened on 13 December 1912 and has run almost continuously ever since. It was built by J.D. Williams and the Phillips brothers, the same Herman Phillips who later helped bring Luna Park to Glenelg and then Sydney. Its Big Dipper was the model for the coaster that crossed from Adelaide to Milsons Point.

Luna Park and the towers of Milsons Point seen from the harbour, December 2013. Saberwyn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1830: Billy Blue starts the first ferry across the harbour.
• 1893: North Shore railway extended to Milsons Point.
• 1903: The first Luna Park opens at Coney Island, New York.
• 13 December 1912: Luna Park opens at St Kilda, Melbourne.
• 1924: Dorman Long begins using the Milsons Point site to fabricate Harbour Bridge steel.
• 8 October 1930: Luna Park Glenelg opens in Adelaide.
• 1932: The Harbour Bridge opens and the workshop site is freed up.
• Late 1934: The Glenelg company goes into voluntary liquidation.
• 8 April 1935: Atkins and Phillips buy the Glenelg assets at auction.
• 4 October 1935: Luna Park opens at Milsons Point.
• 1936: North Sydney Olympic Pool opens next door.
• 1938: First facelift for the face.
• 1947: Neon fire damages the face and the left spire.
• 1950: Atkins and Hopkins buy out the Phillips brothers.
• 1951: The Rotor is installed.
• 1957: David Atkins dies and Ted Hopkins becomes manager.
• 1960: Arthur Barton's "happy" Old King Cole face.
• 1963: The Wild Mouse first opens.
• 1969: Hopkins retires and sells the lease.
• 1973: Martin Sharp and Peter Kingston repaint the face.
• 16 April 1979: Big Dipper collision, 13 injured.
• 9 June 1979: Ghost Train fire, seven killed, and the park closes.
• September 1979: The inquest finds the cause can't be conclusively stated.
• June 1981: Most of the old park is bulldozed and burnt.
• 29 April 1982: Reopens as Harbourside Amusement Park, and gets the Luna Park name back in August.
• 1988: Closes again after engineers' reports.
• 12 October 1990: Luna Park Site Act 1990 gazetted.
• January 1995: Reopens with the new steel Big Dipper.
• 14 February 1996: Closes after the noise fight.
• 2001: The steel Big Dipper goes to Dreamworld.
• 4 April 2004: Reopens for good.
• 2010: State Heritage Register listing.
• 2021: ABC's Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, and the new Big Dipper opens on 26 December.
• June 2024: Lease sold to the Oscars Group.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Who brought Luna Park to Sydney. Wikipedia's Luna Park Sydney article names the Glenelg owners as Herman Phillips, his brothers and A.A. Abrahams. Its Luna Park Glenelg article puts David Atkins up front: Atkins held the first lease, founded the company with Herman Phillips, and went scouting for the Sydney site himself.
• When Barton's happy face went up. One section of the Wikipedia article puts Barton's Old King Cole redesign after the 1950 buyout, among the 1950s changes. The section on the face itself dates it to 1960.
• When the face's towers were rebuilt. The Wikipedia history says the towers were rebuilt during the 1993 restoration, while its section on the face says 1995.
• What started the Ghost Train fire. Police said an electrical fault. The coroner said the cause couldn't be conclusively stated, and the most probable cause was a cigarette or match in litter. The NCA couldn't fix a cause. Martin Sharp, later witnesses and the 2021 ABC series point to arson linked to Abe Saffron. Saffron denied it, and his son called it an accident. None of this has been tested in court.
• How many have died on the Big Dipper. Wikipedia's Big Dipper article lists a fall on New Year's Eve 1932. That was at Glenelg, three years before the ride came to Sydney, so I've left it out of the Sydney story.

My Earlier Posts

• Sydney Harbour Bridge 80th Anniversary (2012)
• Bradfield - The Harbour Bridge - The Trains - Water
• Sydney Trams – From Horse Trams to Light Rail
• Sydney Harbour Panorama Magazine
• Carabella House - North Sydney
• Glass Negatives from the Holtermann Collection & Holtermann Mansion, North Sydney
• North Sydney Post Office and Courthouse

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Luna Park Sydney": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park_Sydney (includes CC BY 4.0 text from the NSW State Heritage Register entry 01811, Luna Park Precinct)
• Wikipedia, "Sydney Ghost Train fire": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Ghost_Train_fire
• Wikipedia, "Big Dipper (Luna Park Sydney, 1935)": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dipper_(Luna_Park_Sydney,_1935)
• Wikipedia, "Luna Park Glenelg": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park_Glenelg
• Wikipedia, "Luna Park, Melbourne": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park,_Melbourne
• Sam Marshall, Luna Park – Just for Fun, 2nd ed., Luna Park Sydney Pty Ltd, 2005 (main printed source cited by the Wikipedia articles)
• Godden Mackay, Luna Park Conservation Plan, 1992 (cited by Wikipedia)
• Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, including State Library of NSW (Sam Hood and Ted Hood), State Library of South Australia and the NSW State Heritage Register photo set. Individual credits are under each picture.

The Attempted Assassination of Prince Alfred – Clontarf – 12 March 1868 – Henry James O'Farrell and the Fenian Scare

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in March 1868, a man walked up behind Queen Victoria's son at a charity picnic on the beach at Clontarf, put a revolver to within a few feet of his back and fired. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the first member of the royal family ever to visit Australia, went down shouting that his back was broken. He lived. The gunman, Henry James O'Farrell, very nearly got lynched on the sand, and six weeks later he was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol.

It's remembered as the first attempted political assassination in Australia. What came after it is just as much of a story: a colony gripped by panic about Fenians, a law rushed through Parliament in a single day, Henry Parkes chasing a conspiracy that was never found, Sydney's first Nightingale nurse at the Prince's bedside, and in the end a great hospital in Camperdown that still carries his name.

"Attempted assassination of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh at Clontarf, N.S.W.", wood engraving by Samuel Calvert, 1868. Samuel Calvert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The First Royal Tour

Alfred was born at Windsor Castle on 6 August 1844, the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He joined the Royal Navy at 14 as a midshipman, and by 1866 he was a captain in command of HMS Galatea, a steam frigate that still carried a full set of sails. That same year he was made Duke of Edinburgh.

The Galatea was a 26-gun wooden screw frigate, launched at Woolwich in 1859, about 280 feet long with a crew of around 450. With the Prince in command she set out on a world cruise in 1867, calling at Rio de Janeiro, Tristan da Cunha and the Cape before crossing to Australia. The National Museum of Australia has the Prince landing at Glenelg, outside Adelaide, on 31 October 1867. It was the first royal tour this country had seen, taking in South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland.

Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in a captain's undress uniform of the Royal Navy, photographed in Sydney by Montagu Scott about 1868. Montagu Scott, State Library of New South Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

HMS Galatea, the frigate Prince Alfred commanded on his world cruise, about 1868. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The crowds were huge everywhere, and things didn't always go well. In Melbourne in November 1867 a Protestant hall was decorated with a picture of William of Orange beating the Catholic armies at the Battle of the Boyne. Irish Catholics gathered outside and threw stones, shots were fired from inside the hall into the crowd, a Catholic boy was killed and a riot followed. A free public banquet a few days later turned into another riot when about 40,000 people turned up for food and wine laid on for 10,000 and the Prince cancelled. At Bendigo three boys were burnt to death inside a firework model of the Galatea.

Sydney Puts On a Show

The Galatea came into Sydney from Tasmania on 21 January 1868. The Prince was met at Circular Quay by the Colonial Secretary, Henry Parkes, and the Governor, Lord Belmore, in a pavilion built for the occasion, and was driven through the crowds to Government House. After about a month he went up to Brisbane for a week, then came back to Sydney in early March, when his staff asked for a lighter round of engagements.

The triumphal arch at the Prince's Stairs, Circular Quay, put up for the Duke of Edinburgh's landing in January 1868. Photographer unknown, State Library of New South Wales, No known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

HMS Galatea in Farm Cove, with Government House to the left, about 1870, when the Prince was back in Sydney on a later visit. Photograph attributed to Charles Pickering. Attributed to Charles Pickering, State Library of New South Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There was a man in the crowd at the Quay that first day who had come to kill him. Henry O'Farrell later said: "I had gone to Circular Quay on the day of the Prince's arrival in Sydney, and I intended to shoot him there, but the opportunity did not present itself."

Who Was Henry James O'Farrell?

O'Farrell was born about 1833 at Arran Quay in Dublin, the youngest child of William O'Farrell, a butcher, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The family moved to Liverpool and then to Melbourne, arriving early in 1841. Henry was schooled at David Boyd's school and St Francis's school, went on to St Francis's seminary and received deacon's orders. He spent 1853–54 studying in Europe, but in 1855 he fell out with Bishop Goold and was never ordained.

He tried sheep farming near Clunes, then became a grain merchant at Ballarat in partnership with his cousin Joseph Kennedy. Things went downhill from there. In 1864 his brother Peter, a leading Melbourne solicitor, lost his reputation in a libel case and fled the colony, and Kennedy soon afterwards died of delirium tremens. O'Farrell failed in speculations, fell into debt, took to drink and brooded over never becoming a priest.

In January 1867 he had a serious breakdown, with bouts of delirium tremens, talk of plots to poison him, waving pistols about and threatening to kill people. Two of his sisters took him to Melbourne. Back in Ballarat he collapsed again and had several epileptic fits. In September 1867 he went to Sydney and stayed at Tierney's Currency Lass Hotel until he was asked to leave because of his strange behaviour. From December he lived at the Clarendon Hotel on money his sister sent him, and the ADB says he became noticeably agitated whenever Fenianism came up. On 11 March 1868 he practised pistol shooting at Waverley.

Henry James O'Farrell, photographed in Sydney by Montagu Scott in 1868. Montagu Scott (1835–1909), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sailors' Home Picnic at Clontarf

Clontarf takes its name from the site of the Battle of Clontarf near Dublin. It sits on the north-eastern side of Middle Harbour with a long, sheltered beach facing west. From the early 1860s the Sydney publican Isaac Moore and his family ran pleasure grounds there, advertised in 1863 as "the oldest, largest, and most shady pleasure grounds in the harbour", with quoits, skittles and cricket bats always on hand. By the time Moore died in 1866 his sons had made it a favourite spot for holiday excursions.

The picnic on Thursday 12 March 1868 was a fundraiser for the Sydney Sailors' Home, organised by the barrister and politician William Manning, and the Prince had agreed to come. Five steamers ran people across from Circular Quay through the day. A big marquee was put up as a "luncheon saloon", a tent was pitched opposite the beach for the Prince and his party, and yachts and steamers dressed in flags lay at anchor off the beach. By midday there were somewhere between two and three thousand people on the grounds.

George Podmore's watercolour "Balmoral Beach, Clontarf Entrance, Middle Harbour", dated 1877, though the date may be 1897. George Podmore, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sydney Sailors' Home building in George Street, The Rocks, as it stands today. Rangasyd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Emily Nuttall Thorne was there, and her handwritten account is now in the State Library of NSW: "directly we saw the little 'Fairy' coming we ran along the beach to the little pier at which he would land. All the yachts saluted him as he passed by them." The Prince came over from the Galatea on the steam yacht Fairy and landed at the Clontarf jetty at about two o'clock. The committee met him with an address, and after lunch and a toast to the Queen he went across to his own tent at about 3.20 pm.

The Shooting

From the tent, the Prince and Sir William Manning walked over towards a clump of trees by the beach where a band was playing, and the Prince handed Manning a cheque for the Sailors' Home. O'Farrell had been standing in the shade with a group of people. He came up behind the Prince and, once he was within five or six feet, pulled out a revolver, took aim and fired.

The bullet hit the Prince in the middle of the back, about two inches to the right of the spine. He fell forward onto his hands and knees. The National Museum of Australia gives his words as "Good God, I am shot … My back is broken." Manning sprang at O'Farrell but lost his footing and fell, and O'Farrell turned the gun on him.

Who Grabbed the Gun?

This is where the accounts start to differ. Wikipedia's account, drawn from the newspapers, says a coach-maker named William Vial grabbed O'Farrell from behind and pinned his arms to his sides, the revolver went off as they struggled, and the second shot hit a bystander named George Thorne in the foot, who fainted. The National Museum of Australia says instead that "a Mr Thorne" tackled O'Farrell and wrestled the gun off him as he tried to fire again. There's more on this further down.

Whoever got to him first, plenty of others piled in, and there were shouts of "lynch him" and "hang him". Police under Superintendent Orridge took charge of O'Farrell and had the greatest trouble keeping the crowd from "tearing him limb from limb". By the time they got him to the wharf and aboard the steamer Paterson, the clothes had been ripped off his upper body and he was bruised and bleeding.

According to Wikipedia's article on Alfred, Vial was the master of a Masonic lodge and had helped organise the picnic, and the Prince presented him with a gold watch for securing his life.

The Wound and the Nightingale Nurses

Three or four men carried the Prince to his tent, where several doctors took over. They found the bullet had gone in to the right of the lower spine and run around the line of the ribs, lodging just under the skin at the front of his abdomen. He never lost consciousness. Seeing how worried everyone was, he told them: "Tell the people I am not much hurt, I shall be better presently." At about five o'clock he was carried aboard the steamer Morpeth on a litter and taken back to Sydney.

Why the wound wasn't worse depends on who you read. The Dictionary of Sydney says the bullet glanced off his ribs. Wikipedia's article on Alfred says it ricocheted off a metal clip on his trouser braces, and its Clontarf article puts it down to his India-rubber braces crossing at that spot.

Lucy Osburn, Lady Superintendent of the Sydney Infirmary, photographed by Freeman Bros & Prout about 1869. Freeman and Prout, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney had trained nurses waiting, just. Henry Parkes had asked Florence Nightingale for trained nurses for the Sydney Infirmary, and Lucy Osburn was appointed lady superintendent. The ADB says she and five trained sisters, including Haldane Turriff, reached Sydney on 5 March 1868, only a week before the picnic. Born in Leeds in 1836, she had trained at the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas's Hospital, and the ADB says she was "called on to supervise the nursing of the wounded Duke of Edinburgh" within a week of arriving. Wikipedia's Alfred article says six Nightingale-trained nurses led by Matron Osburn looked after him for the next two weeks.

He mended quickly. The doctors reported on 16 March that he could sit up, though the wound still hurt now and then, and by late March he was said to be regaining strength "as rapid as the most sanguine could expect". According to the Dictionary of Sydney and Government House, he had recovered completely by the end of March.

The Fenian Panic

Sydney's reaction was enormous. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote the next day: "One universal feeling of sorrow, shame, and rage pervades the community. The whole colony has been wounded in the person of its Royal guest." On 13 March an "indignation meeting" at the Pavilion in Hyde Park drew somewhere between seventeen and twenty thousand people. One count puts the number of indignation meetings across the colonies at 250 or more, most of them within a week of the shooting. The Dictionary of Sydney describes "an outpouring of prejudice and racism towards Catholics and Irish", and Orange lodge membership in New South Wales grew fast, peaking in 1876 at over 19,000 members in 120 lodges.

The Fenians were the Irish republican brotherhood, founded in the United States, that had carried out violent attacks in Canada, and Australians had already been reading about "Fenian terrorism" in England. When police were struggling with O'Farrell at Clontarf, several of them later testified, he claimed to be a Fenian.

Henry Parkes and the Treason Felony Act

On 18 March Parkes, as Colonial Secretary, went to see O'Farrell in gaol with the Speaker, William Arnold. According to the Herald, the prisoner was "very communicative" and claimed he had written orders from the Fenian leadership to execute the Prince. That same day the Legislative Assembly put the Treason Felony Act through every stage in one sitting, and it had vice-regal assent by evening. It allowed up to two years' jail for language "disrespectful to the Queen" or for "expressing sympathy with certain offenders", and the Dictionary of Sydney notes that it made it an offence to refuse to drink the Queen's health.

Henry Parkes, the Colonial Secretary who led the hunt for a Fenian conspiracy in 1868. From "Eminent Citizens of New South Wales, 1850–1900". Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Parkes wrote to the Victorian Colonial Secretary, James McCulloch, saying his government knew O'Farrell was one of a group of Fenians, some of them in Victoria. No such group was ever found. Police and detectives turned up nothing, and Parkes came to be seen as having whipped up public hysteria and sectarian feeling for political gain. Even so, in a speech at Kiama in August 1868 he insisted the government had proof of a conspiracy. He resigned as Colonial Secretary in September 1868.

In December a select committee chaired by William Macleay was set up to look into the alleged conspiracy, and by February 1869 it had found there was no Fenian conspiracy behind the shooting. Parkes then got the Assembly to vote that the report was "made an instrument of personal hostility against a member of the House", and it was struck from the parliamentary record.

The Trial

A preliminary hearing began the day after the shooting before the magistrate Houlton Voss, held in the debtors' prison at Darlinghurst Gaol and running from 13 to 16 March. O'Farrell was arraigned on 26 March for wounding the Duke of Edinburgh with intent to murder, and pleaded not guilty. His trial opened in the Central Criminal Court on Monday 30 March before Justice Alfred Cheeke.

Henry O'Farrell in Darlinghurst Gaol, a pencil drawing by Francis Newry, 1868. Francis Newry (1842-1915), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

His barrister, Butler Aspinall, came up from Melbourne and argued he was insane, "a man whose intellect was in such a state that he could not be held to be responsible for his actions." The jury was out for about an hour and came back with a verdict of guilty, and Cheeke sentenced him to death.

The Prince Asks for Mercy

On 5 April the Prince wrote to Lord Belmore asking that O'Farrell's life be spared. His reason was that under English law attempted murder wasn't punishable by death, and he didn't want the man treated more harshly in Sydney than he would have been in England. The letter didn't become public until February 1869. O'Farrell's sister also petitioned the Governor, arguing that her brother was insane and had nothing to do with the Fenians. The Executive Council met on the evening of 6 April, the night the Prince sailed, and let the sentence stand.

The Galatea left Sydney in early April. The National Museum of Australia dates the sailing to 4 April, while Wikipedia puts the Prince's departure on 6 April. He reached Spithead on 26 June 1868, seventeen months after he'd set out.

The Hanging at Darlinghurst

O'Farrell was hanged inside Darlinghurst Gaol at nine o'clock on the morning of 21 April 1868, just forty days after the shooting. The newspapers said he met his death "with the most imperturbable nerve and firmness". He was buried in the Catholic section of Rookwood Cemetery.

Darlinghurst Gaol from the air about 1930, after it had closed as a prison. Adam.J.W.C., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Instead of a speech from the scaffold he left a written statement, and it caused a row of its own. When Parliament asked to see it, Parkes said Cabinet would have to consider it first. The next day William Macleay read out a copy in the Assembly anyway. In it O'Farrell took back his Fenian story, saying he "had not the slightest foundation" for claiming others were ready to do the deed, and that he had "no foundation for stating that there was a Fenian organisation in New South Wales." The ADB quotes his own explanation: "From continually thinking and talking of … 'the wrongs of Ireland', I became excited and filled with enthusiasm for the subject, and it was then under the influence of those feelings that I attempted to perpetrate the deed for which I am now justly called upon to suffer." Nobody ever found out how the copy got out of the gaol.

The ADB's verdict is blunt. It says the excitement around the crime "made a fair trial impossible", and that the Prince's efforts to save O'Farrell "support the view that the correct verdict would have been not guilty because of insanity." It also calls the shooting an important factor in sharpening sectarianism in the colony. The family's story had one more twist: on 21 August 1882 Henry's brother Peter shot at Archbishop Goold at Brighton in Victoria.

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

Sydney wanted something lasting to mark the Prince's recovery. At a public meeting called by the Mayor, the city resolved to raise "a permanent and substantial monument" by public subscription, and settled on a hospital to be called Prince Alfred's Hospital. Wikipedia's O'Farrell article dates that meeting to 20 March, and its article on Alfred to 23 March. The plan was first to build it on the Sydney Infirmary site in Macquarie Street, but the Infirmary's board turned the idea down.

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown. The main administration building stands between the Victoria and Albert Pavilions, which are on the NSW State Heritage Register. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Parliament passed an Act incorporating Prince Alfred Hospital on 3 April 1873, and Thomas Holt was its founder and director from 1873 to 1883. The Mansfield Brothers designed the buildings, work on the Administration Building and the first pavilions started in 1876, and the hospital opened in Camperdown in 1882. The Dictionary of Sydney says the Prince allowed his coat of arms to be used as the hospital's crest. In 1903 King Edward VII granted the title "Royal", and it has been Royal Prince Alfred, or RPA, ever since. The Victoria and Albert Pavilions, designed by Walter Liberty Vernon and finished in 1904, were also built to commemorate the Prince's royal visit.

The Victoria Pavilion at RPA, designed by Walter Liberty Vernon and completed in 1904. Collywolly, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Melbourne raised money in the same way, and the National Museum of Australia notes that the Alfred Hospital there opened in 1871. In Sydney, Prince Alfred Park and a street at Circular Quay were also named after him. As for Lucy Osburn, she stayed on and, in the ADB's words, "successfully established trained nursing on Nightingale principles in New South Wales" before she resigned in 1884.

Clontarf Today

Clontarf stayed a cheap and fairly out-of-the-way spot for a long time. During the 1930s Depression a tent city of several hundred people grew up on Clontarf Reserve, in tents made of hessian coated with whitewash, lime and fat to keep the rain out. During the Second World War beachfront blocks went for £100, and people said "you couldn't even give it away". It only became easy to reach after the new Spit Bridge opened in November 1958, and in 1960 the beach was washed away by the tsunami from the Chilean earthquake.

The Dictionary of Sydney says a Norfolk Island pine, planted to mark the place where the Duke was shot, still stands in Holmes Avenue. The yachtsman Ben Lexcen, who designed the winged keel of Australia II, had premises next to the Clontarf marina. In 2021 Transport for NSW named one of its new Manly ferries Clontarf.

Clontarf Beach today, seen from the Spit to Manly walk. Dragonfly27356, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• About 1833: Henry James O'Farrell is born at Arran Quay, Dublin. The family reaches Melbourne early in 1841.
• 6 August 1844: Prince Alfred is born at Windsor Castle.
• 1866: Alfred is made Duke of Edinburgh and is in command of HMS Galatea.
• January 1867: O'Farrell has a serious mental breakdown at Ballarat.
• 31 October 1867: The Prince lands at Glenelg, South Australia. It is Australia's first royal tour.
• November 1867: There is a sectarian shooting and riot during the Melbourne visit.
• 21 January 1868: The Galatea arrives in Sydney.
• 5 March 1868: Lucy Osburn and her Nightingale sisters reach Sydney (ADB date).
• 11 March 1868: O'Farrell practises pistol shooting at Waverley.
• 12 March 1868: At the Sailors' Home picnic at Clontarf, O'Farrell shoots the Prince in the back.
• 13 March 1868: An indignation meeting in Hyde Park draws up to 20,000 people, and O'Farrell's preliminary hearing begins.
• 18 March 1868: Parkes visits O'Farrell, and the Treason Felony Act passes in a single day.
• 20 or 23 March 1868: A public meeting resolves to build Prince Alfred's Hospital.
• 30 March 1868: The trial is held before Justice Cheeke, and O'Farrell is found guilty and sentenced to death.
• 5 April 1868: The Prince writes to Lord Belmore asking that O'Farrell's life be spared.
• Early April 1868: The Prince sails for England, and the Executive Council confirms the sentence.
• 21 April 1868: O'Farrell is hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol.
• 26 June 1868: The Prince reaches Spithead.
• September 1868: Parkes resigns as Colonial Secretary.
• February 1869: The Macleay committee finds no Fenian conspiracy, and its report is expunged.
• 3 April 1873: Parliament passes the Act incorporating Prince Alfred Hospital.
• 1882: Prince Alfred Hospital opens at Camperdown.
• 30 July 1900: Alfred dies at Coburg as reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
• 1903: Edward VII grants the title "Royal".

Where the Sources Disagree

• Who grabbed O'Farrell, and who was shot in the foot: Wikipedia's O'Farrell and Alfred articles say William Vial pinned O'Farrell's arms or wrested the gun away, and that George Thorne was hit in the foot by the second shot. The National Museum of Australia says "a Mr Thorne" tackled O'Farrell and wrestled the weapon off him.
• Why the wound was slight: The Dictionary of Sydney says the bullet glanced off his ribs. Wikipedia's Alfred article says it ricocheted off a metal clip on his braces, and its Clontarf article says it struck where his India-rubber braces crossed.
• Lucy Osburn's arrival: The ADB says she reached Sydney on 5 March 1868. Wikipedia's Alfred article says February 1868.
• The hospital meeting: Wikipedia's O'Farrell article dates the public meeting to 20 March, and its Alfred article to 23 March.
• When the Prince sailed: The National Museum of Australia gives 4 April. Wikipedia's O'Farrell article says the Prince left Sydney on 6 April, the evening the Executive Council met.
• The Prince's words: The National Museum of Australia gives "Good God, I am shot … My back is broken", Government House gives "Good God, my back is broken", and Wikipedia gives "My back is broken".
• The pistol: The National Museum calls it a double-barrelled pistol, and Wikipedia calls it a revolver.
• Peter O'Farrell's fall: The ADB dates his libel case and flight to 1864. Wikipedia puts the libel trial in February 1863 and has him gone from Victoria by early 1864.

My Earlier Posts

• Hangings at Darlinghurst Gaol – The Executions and Famous Prisoners
• Darlinghurst Gaol & Darlinghurst Court – Forbes Street & Taylor Square – Darlinghurst – NSW
• Darlinghurst Gaol – Taylor Square – Bourke Street – Forbes Street – Burton Street – Darlinghurst Road
• First Sydney Exhibition Building – Prince Alfred Park – Central – Sydney
• Sydney Past & Present – Chapter 16 – The Sixties & Seventies
• The Man O'War Steps – Farm Cove – The Navy's Landing at Bennelong Point

Sources

• Mark Lyons and Bede Nairn, "O'Farrell, Henry James (1833–1868)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ofarrell-henry-james-4322
• John Griffith, "Osburn, Lucy (1836–1891)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osburn-lucy-4345
• Garry Wotherspoon, "Assassination attempt on Prince Alfred 1868", Dictionary of Sydney, dictionaryofsydney.org
• John MacRitchie, "Clontarf", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/clontarf
• National Museum of Australia, "Defining Moments: First royal visit", nma.gov.au
• Government House Sydney, "150 Years on – The Story of Australia's First Attempted Political Assassination", governor.nsw.gov.au
• State Library of NSW, Emily Nuttall Thorne, "'Clontarf', an account of the attempted assassination of Prince Alfred", 1868, sl.nsw.gov.au
• Wikipedia, "Henry James O'Farrell", en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha", en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "HMS Galatea (1859)", en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Royal Prince Alfred Hospital", en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Clontarf, New South Wales", en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Lucy Osburn", en.wikipedia.org
• Pictures from Wikimedia Commons, with credits under each image.