Life in Canberra in 1924: Construction, footy and drinking in Queanbeyan

Wind the clock back 100 years and the capital looks something like this: the hulking silhouettes of a partly-built Parliament House and mostly built Hostel No.1 (now the Hyatt Hotel) rise from the land over near Capital Hill, with nothing but dusty, treeless plains between. The spire of St John’s, Reid dominates the skyline across the river, and the only other major building of note is the Eastlake Powerhouse.

A light tramway runs from the powerhouse to the Yarralumla Brickworks, and dotted across the capital at the site of several major infrastructure projects - including its first main sewer - are rows and rows of tents, housing the thousands of men who’ve come from across the world to build Canberra from the ground up.

Life for the construction workers is no picnic: long hard days of labour and sleeping on mattresses made of hay in between. It’s little wonder, then, that they live for the weekends, which include two main pastimes.

Heading over the border to drink in Queanbeyan.

In 1910, Minister for Home Affairs King O’Malley (yes he was a real person) banned liquor licences in the new Australian Capital Territory, marking the beginning of a 17-year dry spell for Canberra. This meant the thirsty workers building Canberra were forced to cross the border into Queanbeyan for a drink.

In his 1988 thesis, the Australian National University’s HJ Gibbney describes King O'Malley's liquor policy as “a national joke” .

“The policy had always been resented in the Territory and, as the population expanded, both the law and its evasion became something of a national joke.

“Queanbeyan hotels made large profits from thirsty Territorians and every Saturday afternoon in Queanbeyan became something of an orgy.

“Crawford Vaughan, a prohibition leader, wrote: ‘I saw Queanbeyan on Saturday and it was what one could expect in a town invaded by thousands of men from constructions camps … while it is deplorable to see crowds wandering from pub to pub, the conditions were no worse to than I have seen in towns adjacent to other construction works of a similar magnitude.’

“The law prohibited sale but not consumption and ‘sly grog’ prosecutions were not infrequent. Most men who visited Queanbeyan brought back bottled liquor, either for themselves or for friends, and despite the restrictions, there was a considerable trade in empty bottles.”

Taking to the field for a game of Aussie Rules.

Most of Canberra's 1924 population lived mostly for sports, with drinking and gambling enthusiastically pursued on the sidelines.

HJ Gibney: “Australian Rules Football probably boasted the largest following, including some influential men. The first president of the Federal Capital Territory Australian National Football League, established in 1924, was Jeremiah James Dillon, a 114 kilogram, Victorian-born miner, who had come from the West Australian goldfields.

“Employed as a foreman on the main sewer, he was said to have a remarkable flow of profanity and to be totally illiterate. He smoked a heavy pipe beneath an equally heavy moustache and travelled between the jobs he controlled by a horse-drawn sulky.

“Besides 'Rules' Football, he also sponsored Rugby League through his team known as 'The Sewer', was active in the Westridge Tennis Club and was prominent in cricket.

“Probably the first Canberra sporting team sent interstate narrowly lost an Australian Rules match on 15 August 1925 to a Sydney metropolitan team but was given a civic reception in the Sydney Town Hall.”

Photos in this article courtesy of the ANU Archives, National Capital Authority, National Geographic, National Archives of Australia and The Canberra Page.