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Battle of Central Station | |||
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Date | 14 February 1916 | ||
Location | Sydney, Australia | ||
Methods | Rioting, protests, looting, attacks | ||
Parties | |||
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Casualties and losses | |||
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Many injuries |
The Liverpool riot of 1916 also known as the Battle of Central Station was an event in Sydney, Australia where a large group of Australian soldiers rioted through the streets of Sydney and surrounding areas on 14 February 1916 and into the early morning of 15 February.
Following Australia's entry into World War I, many Australian men volunteered to fight in Europe and were stationed in camps around Australia to receive military training before being shipped to the front. Issues at the Casula Camp in Liverpool in Sydney's south west had resulted in the appointment of George Rich, a High Court judge, to conduct a Royal Commission on the military camp. The report of the Royal Commission, published on 20 August 1915 included the following:
Drink. The evidence before me was that the liquor sold at Liverpool and the vicinity was free from adulteration and up to standard, except in one instance, where the sample taken was five points below standard, the dilution being water. I have no evidence as to the purity of liquor sold elsewhere, except that the effect of some of the liquor on the men was so extraordinary as to suggest alcoholic poisoning. The effect of excessive drink is to impair the efficiency of the soldiers, and endanger their health in the way I have mentioned above, and to expose them to temptations they might otherwise avoid.
If all hotels were closed to soldiers for the sale of liquor it is a matter of policy about which I express no opinion whether a wet canteen should be allowed where the quality and quantity of liquor are under strict control, and the profits are paid back to the soldiers, or a canteen should be established in which liquor would be supplied under a doctor's order, or what other steps should be taken to supervise effectively the sale of drink.
...
- 6. Public Houses
All public houses throughout the Commonwealth should be closed to soldiers for the sale of liquor. Alternatively the public houses at Liverpool and within a radius of five miles of the Camp, should be closed to soldiers at 6 o'clock. (See War Precautions Regulations 1915, r. 12).
Pickets should be placed in or near the hotels and instructed to see that no drink is carried away from the hotels by the soldiers in bottles or other receptacles for liquor.
A further alternative is to place these hotels out of bounds. The sale of liquor to civilians and smuggling by them to soldiers should be strictly prevented. [1]
At 9.00am on 14 February 1916, at Casula Camp, it was announced to the recruits that the current training session would be extended into the evening, meaning a 27-hour stretch for some of the recruits. [2] Five thousand recruits refused to accept extra duty and went on strike to protest the poor conditions at the camp. The soldiers left the camp and marched towards the centre of Liverpool, where they were joined by other recruits from camps around the area. The number of protesters now reached as many as 15 000. They invaded a number of local hotels, drinking the bars dry, refusing to pay and started to vandalise buildings. [3]
The soldiers then gained control of Liverpool train station, overpowered the engineers and commandeered trains heading towards Sydney, where they began rampaging drunkenly through Sydney streets, smashing windows and targeting anyone with a foreign-sounding name, including Italian restaurants, even though Italy was an ally of Australia in the war. Shops and hotels were looted and people were forced to take refuge in churches to avoid the soldiers. Police reinforcements were called in and began battling the soldiers in the streets of Sydney.
At Sydney's Central Railway Station, armed military guards found a group of over a hundred drunken soldiers destroying a toilet block and demanded they surrender. A shot was fired by a rioting soldier over the guards' heads and in response the guards returned fire, killing one soldier and seriously injuring eight others. This incident had a sobering effect on the soldiers and many began surrendering to police and military guards, although small bands of soldiers continued to cause damage throughout the night.
Following the riot, described as the "most disgraceful episode in our military history", about a thousand soldiers were court-martialled and either gaoled or discharged from the army. [4] However, Australia was desperate for recruits to fight the war, so many soldiers escaped punishment and were sent overseas while the government, anxious to keep the image of the Australian digger as positive as possible, discouraged the media from covering the event. [5]
As a result of the riots, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania introduced 6.00 p.m. closing of hotels to guard against a repeat occurrence, matching South Australia's introduction the previous year. It was not until 1955 that New South Wales closing was extended to 10 p.m. [6]
The only remaining physical evidence of the riot is a bullet hole, in marble stonework near the entrance to Platform 1, at Central railway station, Sydney. [7]
Casula is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 34 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Liverpool.
The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or city centre is often referred to simply as "Town" or "the City". The Sydney city centre extends southwards for about 3 km (2 mi) from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement in which the Sydney region was initially established.
The War Precautions Act 1914 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which gave the Government of Australia special powers for the duration of World War I and for six months afterwards.
Lieutenant-General Francis Grose was a British soldier who commanded the New South Wales Corps. As Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales he governed the colony from 1792 until 1794, in which he established military rule, abolished civil courts, and made generous land-grants to his officers. He failed to stamp out the practice of paying wages in alcoholic spirits, with consequent public drunkenness and corruption. Although he helped to improve living conditions to some degree, he was not viewed as a successful administrator.
Edmondson Park is a suburb in the South West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Edmondson Park is located 32 kilometres from the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Liverpool.
The six o'clock swill was an Australian and New Zealand slang term for the last-minute rush to buy drinks at a hotel bar before it closed. During a large part of the 20th century, most Australian and New Zealand hotels shut their public bars at 6 pm. A culture of heavy drinking developed during the time between finishing work at 5 pm and the mandatory closing time only an hour later.
The Houston race riot of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny, was a mutiny and riot by 156 soldiers from the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, taking place on August 23, 1917, in Houston, Texas. The incident occurred within a climate of overt hostility from members of the all-white Houston Police Department (HPD) against members of the local black community and black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan. Following an incident where police officers arrested and assaulted some black soldiers, many of their comrades mutinied and marched to Houston, where they opened fire and killed eleven civilians and five policemen. Five soldiers were also killed, some by friendly fire.
During World War I, recruitment marches or snowball marches to state capital cities were a feature of volunteer recruiting drives for the Australian Imperial Force in rural Australia. Between October 1915 and February 1916, nine marches were held starting from various points in the state; the most notable was the first march from Gilgandra, New South Wales, known as the Cooee march. The March of the Dungarees took place in south-eastern Queensland in November 1915. In 1918, in an effort to promote recruitment, another march was staged, but this was less spontaneous and the marchers in fact travelled by train.
The following lists events that happened during 1916 in Australia.
Brigadier General John Patrick McGlinn, was an Australian public servant and a senior officer of the Australian Army during the First World War.
Alcohol laws of Australia are laws that regulate the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The legal drinking age is 18 throughout Australia. The minimum age for the purchase of alcoholic products in Australia is 18. A licence is required to produce or sell alcohol.
John "Barney" Hines (1878–1958) was a British-born Australian soldier of World War I, known for his prowess at taking items from German soldiers. Hines was the subject of a famous photo taken by Frank Hurley that depicted him surrounded by German military equipment and money he had looted during the Battle of Polygon Wood in September 1917. This image is among the best-known Australian photographs of the war.
Major-General James Alexander Kenneth Mackay,, usually known as Kenneth Mackay, was an Australian soldier and politician.
The New South Wales Mounted Police Unit is a mounted section of the New South Wales Police Force. Founded by Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane on 7 September 1825, the Mounted Police were recruited from the 3rd Regiment of Foot, stationed in NSW at the time, to protect travellers, recaptured escaped convicts and supress Indigenous resistance to colonisation. The force remained the mounted division of the colonial forces of Australia in the colony of New South Wales until 1850, when it took on a more civilian role. The NSW Mounted Police Unit is the oldest continuous mounted group in the world.
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (CPAC), commonly referred to as Casula Powerhouse, is a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Casula, a south-western outer suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Before being renovated and converted into an arts centre, the building was known as Liverpool Powerhouse. Since 2016 CPAC has hosted the Blake Prizes, comprising two art prizes and a residency, as well as the Blake Poetry Prize.
A referendum concerning the closing hour for licensed premises and registered clubs was put to voters on 10 June 1916. The referendum was conducted on the basis of optional preferential voting. Preferences were not counted as a majority voted for 6:00 pm closing time.
A referendum concerning the closing hour for licensed premises and registered clubs was put to voters on 15 February 1947. The referendum was conducted on the basis of optional preferential voting. Preferences were not counted as a majority voted to maintain the 6:00 pm closing time.
A referendum concerning the closing hour for licensed premises and registered clubs was put to voters in New South Wales on 13 November 1954.
A referendum concerning introducing prohibition in New South Wales was put to voters on 1 September 1928.
A referendum concerning whether hotels should be allowed to trade on Sundays was put to voters in New South Wales on 29 November 1969 but was unsuccessful.