History Lab

In 1887 there were no less than 22 hotels in Darlinghurst. Over the next century and a half, the character, culture and clientele of Darlinghurst pubs evolved. This story explores the impact on Darlinghurst of two episodes of liquor licensing restrictions in NSW: six o’clock closing and the Sydney lockout laws. 

Image: Royal Sovereign Hotel, corner Darlinghurst Rd and Liverpool St, 1921 (City of Sydney Archives) 

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Terraces, flats, squats, bedsits, mansions, towers, camps and hostels: in Darlinghurst, housing is a mixed bag. This audio story explores the range of lifestyles afforded by Darlinghurst’s dense diversity of dwellings. 

Image: Pad with a View, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive) 

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This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnershi...

At St Vincent's Hospital, the Sisters of Charity have been delivering care to the people of Darlinghurst since 1857. This audio story visits St Vincent’s during three historic public health emergencies: the Spanish Flu, the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19. 

Image: Sister and nurse with home visitation car, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney (Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia) 

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In the rapidly gentrifying Darlinghurst of the 1980s, a turf war raged over one of its earliest trades. In this story, we visit the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers, looked out for each other and stood their ground. Along the way, veterans of the street-based trade describe a changing industry, sharing stories from the frontline of the fight for law reform and workers’ rights. 

If you would ...

Darlinghurst has always been a magnet and a haven for exiles and misfits. With writer and Darlo-phile Sunil Badami as guide, this audio story celebrates a handful of local characters and eccentrics, reflecting on the material conditions that enable unconventional people to thrive.   

Image: Hare Krishna, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive)  

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This audio story is a produ...

If you listen after rain, you can still hear the rush of water that used to flow from the sandstone ridge at the apex of Darlinghurst down to the harbour. This audio story goes in search of the creeks and cascades that sustained life and industry for Gadigal people, colonists and Chinese market gardeners, before being covered over by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city. 

Image: Rushcutters Creek, 1870-75 (Mitchell Library,...

After Jimmy’s trial, what happened to his brother Joe?

Joe has mostly been forgotten by history, and his presence in the archives is little more than a whisper.

From coronial records, family tales and a visit to a country pub, it becomes clear that Joe fell foul of the frontier, in life and death.

And yet, more questions remain: Was Joe Governor, an outlaw, killed lawfully?

How do his ancestral remains become another tr...

This is the tale of a prison colony trying to become a country and the murder case that stood in its way, but this is not a true crime podcast.

Jimmy and Joe Governor, two brothers from Wiradjuri and Wonnarua country, were the last proclaimed outlaws in Australia - wanted dead or alive.

120 years later we examine what has survived and what we can still learn from the Governor brothers' story.

To find out more visit: https:...

The Last Outlaws is the latest audio series to be released by Impact Studios, an audio production house embedded in the University of Technology Sydney.

The trilogy podcast is based on UTS Law Professor Katherine Biber’s tenacious and careful research of Jimmy and Joe Governor, Australia’s last proclaimed outlaws.

The Governor brothers' story has been told in books and film before, but never like this.

For the Governor fam...

Three days before Spain’s general elections in 2004 a series of bombs exploded on crowded Madrid commuter trains, killing almost 200 people.

The Spanish authorities found a plastic bag a few blocks away from one of the bomb sites with a single, incomplete fingerprint.

This was the trace linked to a man living 9000 kms away, a US Attorney in Oregon by the name of Brandon Mayfield.

We’ve been told that every fingerprint ...

When was the last time you were asked to sign something and did you stop to think how the strange squiggly mark you make on a page could be used?

The signature is a performative act, crucial to the law’s way of knowing, but it’s also been used as an instrument of power and control.

In this episode of History Lab we hear from a boy who was stolen, the man who took him away and the Judge who was asked to decide if a mother'...

'Making a Fortune' looks at the popularity and persecution of two of the most formidable fortune tellers of Federation Australia.

In the first decade of the 20th century, Australians were focused on the future. It was the dawn of a new century, and a newly-formed nation. But during this time, police were cracking down on a booming industry dominated by women—it was a service that society deemed superstitious, archaic and fraudul...

History Lab host Dr Tamson Pietsch hands over the mic to Dr Alecia Simmonds, an interdisciplinary scholar of law and history at the University of Technology Sydney. In this bonus episode they dissect how it is the law ‘knows’ and discuss how both history and the law rely on traces from the past to draw conclusions in the present. If truth is uncertain in historical archives - is it even harder to find in the courtroom?

Season 3 ...

Death, money and family are the key ingredients in any last will and testament. They also make a killer cocktail that unleashes a special force not present in any other part of the law.

In this episode of History Lab, we’re looking at how the law determines your last wishes through some truly unusual cases. Whether it's for reasons of urgency, eccentricity or expediency, courts around the world regularly have to make calls on th...

History Lab is back for a third season, fresh from wins at the New York Radio Festival Awards and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia.

In this special four-part series we’ll be exploring the ‘law’s way of knowing’, looking at histories that intersect with the law.

From fortune telling to fingerprints, unusual wills and the forensic theory that something is always left behind, join us as we delve into the trace...

Missing your History Lab fix? We’ve got something else for you in the meantime. Introducing a new season of All Things Equal. This series will take you into the school yard and beyond, where kids learn that things aren't always fair. Through the stories of real students and staff, Uniform will change the way you think about education; because when it comes to learning, one size does not fit all.

Subscribe to All Things Equal in ...