Six o'clock swill
The six o'clock swill (in a sense, six o'clock binge ) referred to the rush to hotel bars in Australia and New Zealand to drink alcoholic beverages before the bars had to close. For much of the 20th century, Australian hotels had to close their bars as early as 6 p.m. in response to excessive drinking between the usual end of work at 5 p.m. and curfew an hour later.
The early closing time at 6 p.m. was introduced for two main reasons: it was hoped that it would improve public morale and that men would return to their families earlier after work. In fact, this led to an hour of binge drinking as the men tried to get as drunk as possible in the limited amount of time. Another consequence was that local guests kept their glasses until curfew; the empty glasses were not discarded, but refilled directly at the tables by the barman after calling out the last round with the help of a nozzle on a long hose.
Introduction of the early closing time
| Closing time at 6:00 p.m. | ||
| region | introduced | abolished |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 1916 | 1955 |
| South Australia | 1915 | 1967 |
| Tasmania | 1916 | 1937 |
| Victoria (Australia) | 1916 | 1966 |
| New Zealand | 1917 | 1967 |
The 6:00 p.m. curfew was introduced during the First World War . The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Independent Order of Rechabites ran a successful campaign to limit the serving of alcoholic beverages and beer. Although the abstinence movement had been active since the late 1870s, because of the war, they were able to make the successful argument that a "well-ordered, self-disciplined and morally honest home front was a prerequisite for the successful course of the war".
The first state to introduce curfew at 6 p.m. was South Australia in 1915 , where the rationale was wartime austerity measures. It was also adopted in New South Wales , Victoria and Tasmania in 1916 and introduced in New Zealand a year later. Queensland introduced a curfew at 8 p.m. in 1923.
The issue of curfew was put to voters in 1916 for a vote. A vote had already taken place in December 1913 favoring a closure at 11 p.m. The 1916 vote was influenced by the 1916 soldier mutiny known as The Liverpool Riot. They protested against the conditions in their camp in Casula , New South Wales. She ransacked hotels in Liverpool City before taking the train to Sydney, where a soldier was shot dead in a riot in Sydney Central Station .
Although originally decided as a temporary measure, the early curfew was made permanent in 1919 in Victoria and South Australia. The government extended the measures and discussed a referendum on them. In 1923 the early closure in NSW was made permanent without a further referendum. Western Australia remained the only Australian state that never introduced early opening hours.
The hotels ensured the short, heavy drinking time by extending the bars and tiling the walls for easy cleaning. Other rooms in the pubs were expanded as a bar and the billiard rooms disappeared.
Easing the early curfew
In Tasmania, curfew was rescheduled to 10 p.m. in 1923. In New South Wales one voted unsuccessfully in 1947 to abolish it, another vote in 1954 led to the extension of the opening hours to 10 pm from 1955. The opening hours were extended in 1966 in Victoria as well. South Australia was the last state to end the closure with a law introduced by Don Dunstan . On September 28th, the first legal beer was drunk there after 6 p.m.
New Zealand extended opening hours to 10 p.m. after a referendum in October 1967. In a vote in 1949, the population voted 3: 1 to keep curfew at 6 p.m.
References in culture
The 1954 Bar , a painting by John Brack depicting the six o'clock swill, sold for a record $ 3.17 million Australian dollar for an Australian painting. Another painting by Brack, Collins St, 5 pm, from 1955 is owned by the National Gallery of Victoria and depicts the rush to the bar at 5 pm.
The book Caddy, the Story of a Barmaid , an anonymous autobiography of a barmaid from the economic crisis, describes the six o'clock swill at a time when it could still be assumed that the reader was familiar with it. The book was made into a film in the Australian film Caddy .
Web links
- Dinkum Aussies: Events: The Six O'Clock Swill
- Quotes about the six o'clock closing
- University of Technology Sydney: Journalism: Pubs and People
- New South Wales State Library: Image of guests at the Northern Club Hotel toasting 10 p.m. curfew, February 1, 1955
- Tim Mulcare : The Political Economy of Six O'Clock Closing . (RTF 1.5 MB) June 1999, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; accessed on January 20, 2016 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ AJ Peluso, Jr : Saloon Nudes . 2001, archived from the original on February 8, 2012 ; Retrieved January 20, 2016 (quoted by Red Smith in a report on the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne ).
- ↑ Joan Beaumont (Ed.): Australia's War, 1914-18 . Allen & Unwin, Sydney / St. Leonards, NSW 1995, ISBN 1-86373-461-9 , pp. 81 .
- ^ LL Robson: Australia and the Great War 1914-1918 . Macmillan, North Sydney 1969, ISBN 0-333-11921-5 , pp. 12 and 63-65 .
- ↑ a b J. M. Freeland: The Australian Pub . Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1966, pp. 175 .
- ↑ Peter D. Strawhan : The Importance of Food and Drink in the Political and Private Life of Don Dunstan . (PDF; 1.6 MB) University of Adelaide , November 2004, p. 61 , archived from the original on July 22, 2008 ; accessed on January 20, 2016 .
- ^ Jock Phillips : Sports and leisure - The 'six o'clock swill' . In: Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , September 15, 2015, accessed September 16, 2018 .
- ↑ Jonathon Green: The freat art robbery. In: Arts Reviews. The Age, April 15, 2006, accessed December 22, 2007 .