City Pride - Sydney

Following on from the Venice carnival we arrive at the actual day of Mardi Gras. For those who are unfamiliar with the origin of Mardi Gras, perhaps a little information may help. In medieval times Christians put aside several weeks of fasting and abstinence before important Christian festivals like Easter and Christmas. The most common terms for these periods are Lent and Advent respectively. Lent begins tomorrow, the day after Mardi Gras. In preparation, Christians would eat up all the food that they were going to deprive themselves of all the way up to Easter, especially meat. They would also celebrate with carnivals. Actually, “carnival” comes from a 15th century Italian term meaning “remove meat”, which implies the word was created specifically for Christian Mardi Gras celebrations. Today people have generally dropped the fasting element.

Perhaps the most famous Mardi Gras carnivals take place in Brazil and New Orleans, but undoubtedly the most famous lgbt+ Mardi Gras is that held in Sydney, Australia. This year’s Sydney Mardi Gras finished this past weekend. So, as a belated celebration, here is the latest entry in my “City Pride” series about Sydney.

The area I’ve concentrated on is just south of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Because Sydney has so much lgbt+ history it has been difficult to narrow it down to just 12 locations. Most of them may be known to a lot of Sydney citizens, but I have, as always, tried to find some lesser known locations, people or events that show the diversity of the lgbt+ culture in Sydney.

First of all, the area covered is in the Sydney Electoral District (except for a tiny bit of the bottom left hand corner of the map). The current MP for the Sydney electoral district in the New South Wales parliament is Alex Greenwich (b. 1980, into a princely dynasty from Georgia – the country, not the US state), who has been the representative since 2012. He was the first openly gay elected member.

The locations are listed from north to south.

1) Speaker’s Corner, The Domain

John Webster (1913-2008) was a regular speaker at Speaker’s Corner for over 30 years. His distinctive voice is remembered by many older Sydney citizens of all political ideologies, genders and faiths. His opinion on all these issues evolved over the years. Briefly married twice, he is also known to have had gay relationships. His ashes were scattered around the Speaker’s podium.

2) St. James’s Church

In the summer of 1836 Rev. William Yate (1802-1877), a British missionary fresh from New Zealand, was appointed chaplain to this church. It was while he was here that reports were made to the authorities of his homosexual activity with sailors and Maori youths. Yate protested his innocence, and no evidence of actual sodomy was proven. Nevertheless, he was dismissed and was sent back to the UK by December. He took with him Edwin Denison, the Third Mate he “befriended” on the ship that brought him to Sydney. He died as chaplain of the Mariners Church in Dover.

3) Sydney Town Hall

One of the locations that were part of the demonstrations that took place in Gay Pride Week 1973. On 15 September activists marched to the hall. Among the banners they carried was what I consider to be the world’s first lgbt+ community flag – a black flag with a pink triangle in the centre. Previous flags had belonged to specific organisations, but in Sydney this flag was adopted by all sections of the community. I write in more detail about the use of this flag here.

Currently, there are a record four lgbt+ elected members on the city council, Zann Maxwell, Matthew Thompson, Mitch Wilson and Adam Worling, all elected last October. Zann Maxwell was appointed the city’s Deputy Mayor.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Sydney Olympics. At the end of each day of the torch relay there was a ceremony involving the lighting of a “community cauldron”. On the night before the opening ceremony the final leg of the relay went from Sydney Harbour Bridge and down George Street to the Town Hall. The last torch bearer was the world’s top female golfer at the time, Australia’s Karrie Webb, who lit the community cauldron.

4) St. Andrew’s Cathedral

One of the few non-political Australian state funerals took place here in 1986. It was to honour the Australian ballet dancer and choreographer Sir Robert Helpmann (1909-1986). He is most famous for his role as the Child Catcher in the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (a character invented for the film). Helpmann was the first in a long line of openly lgbt+ performers to play this character in its many theatre productions. These include Stephen Gately, Wayne Sleep, Paul O’Grady, Richard O’Brien, and The Vivienne.

5) Junction of William Street and College Street, Australia Museum

During WorldPride 2023, hosted by Sydney, many artistic expressions of lgbt+ culture were on display. One of the most unusual, located outside the museum entrance, was the Progress Shark, a huge life-size model of a great white shark dressed in a Progress Flag-inspired lycra swimsuit. Created by Sydney-based artist George Buchanan, the shark quickly became a tourist attraction and icon of WorldPride. Like many artworks created for the occasion it was taken down afterwards.

6) 110 Bathurst Street

This is currently a modern multi-storey building home to various businesses, but back in the 1920s it was a residential area. This address was, for a couple of years, the art studio and salon of Australian sculptor and artist Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge (1869-1948) and her partner Baroness Helene von Kügelgen (d.1948). Although they lived in Rome most of the time, Dora revisited Sydney and produced many works for Australian clients. These included designing the ANZAC medal, and many sculptures that are now lost or destroyed.

7) 29 Pelican Street

In 1948 this address became the home of Iris Webber (1906-1953), described by local newspapers as “the most violent woman in Sydney”. She is a perfect subject for one of my “Extraordinary Lives” series. Condensing her life down to a few sentences has been difficult, but here goes. Iris was married twice and had at least two female partners. She shot three men (including her first husband, and killing another) but was acquitted each time. She was either arrested or convicted of assault at least 4 times (twice with a tomahawk). She was arrested many times for busking and begging, illegally selling alcohol, and robbery (with her then partner Vera). Iris’s last court appearance was for contempt of court in 1952.

8) National Art School, formerly Darlinghurst Gaol.

This old jail once housed several notable lgbt+ prisoners, the most well-known being the bushranger known as Captain Moonlite (Andrew Scott, 1842-1880). Born in Ireland, Scott can be said to have been a bit of an adventurer, travelling the world fighting as something of a mercenary before arriving in Australia in 1867. While living as a lay reader in a church in the gold fields, he was masquerading as Captain Moonlite, robbing a local bank agent. Caught and convicted, Scott met James Nesbit in jail and the two formed a relationship. After release he struggled to find work, and attacked a cattle station with his gang. Nesbit was killed, but Scott was captured and later hanged in the jail.

The current art school opened in 1921 has had many lgbt+ alumni and has hosted many exhibition by lgbt+ artists.

9) Green Park – LGBT Holocaust Memorial

This monument, designed by Jennifer Gamble and Russell Rodrigo, commemorates the many lgbt+ victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust. The pink triangle that gay prisoners were forced to wear has become an iconic symbol of gay rights in the 1970s. The Jewish Museum is located across the road to the north on Burton Street. In this year when we remember the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II it is essential we recognise diversity of opinion by people on all sides, without anger, hatred, or violence.

10) 301 Forbes Street – Qtopia

Sydney’s first permanent lgbt+ museum, said to be the world’s biggest, opened here in February 2024 in buildings that were originally Darlinghurst’s police station. As the police station it was where people arrested on homosexual charges were held in custody. This included a large number of participants in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras in 1978, people who proudly sport the name of The 78ers. Sadly, a sign of the times included police brutality against those in custody. The museum also has sections on AIDS, and a reconstructed AIDS ward from the neighbouring St. Vincent’s Hospital where many AIDS patients were treated.

11) Junction of Campbell Street and Little Bourke Street

On the night of 31 March 1962, the body of Frank McLean was discovered several metres south of this junction. He was one of several gay victims of William MacDonald, whom the media labelled as “The Mutilator”. MacDonald picked his victims up in gay venues, took them to a private location and murdered them, slashing their bodies and severing their genitals. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in 2015.

12) Taylor Square – The Rainbow Crossing

Sydney’s famous crossing was first established in 2013 for that year’s Mardi Gras. However, due to concerns that people standing on it to take selfies put them in danger of being run over, the city removed it. This sparked as spate of graffiti chalk rainbow crossing popping up across the city in protest. Thankfully, the city council realised the importance of such a statement of identity and repainted crossing in 2019.