Forgotten Australia

When Sydney detectives confirm star Balmain rugby league player Bob Lulham has been poisoned with Thall-Rat, they begin an investigation that at first turns up few leads. A series of mysterious phone calls to the CIB keeps the police wondering until they finally make a shocking arrest. While the identification of the suspect is sensational, what emerges at the accused's committal hearing has jaws on the floor in 1950s Australia — a...

On the 20th of July 1953, Sydney detectives discovered that someone had used rat poison to try to murder star Balmain rugby league player Bob Lulham. More than 70 years later, this remains one of Australian sport’s most sensational, strangest and saddest scandals — and among the least remembered. In part one of this deep dive, we explore Bob’s proud family legacy – his father fought at Gallipoli on 25 August 1915 — and Bob’s meteor...

A judge is gunned down, we welcome our first test tube baby and we try to save the world’s rarest bird. Meanwhile, Sydney sets a record house price and the Village People score bigly Down Under. Plus: Why does President Trump love the YMCA? How did Aussies feel about a Moscow Olympics boycott? Which Hollywood actor’s history with Australia intersected with George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, Sidney Nolan and Port Arthur Gaol? And: the stra...

While Sydney welcomes African-American entertainers, Moree bans Aboriginal Australians from exercising their human rights on the land that’s always been their home. But this regressive act will have progressive consequences… eventually. Plus, while Australia plans to vaccinate against polio and the government commits ground forces to a war in Asia, the manhunt for escaped murderer Patrick Platts reaches a climax. But the Platt...

Up in the Queensland, a murderer and a robber break out of prison, while down in Canberra our Federal Parliament puts a couple of newspaper blokes behind bars for breaching privilege. Meanwhile, a veteran Aussie journo at Le Mans witnesses history’s worst motor racing disaster. Plus: Hollywood celebrities come Down Under - and turn one Sydney beauty’s life upside down.

To read Andrew Moore’s presentation on the Fitzpatrick-Brown...

Following the verdict, Ronald Griggs has one last trick up his sleeve to amaze Australia. 

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They’ll Never Hold Me:

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Having already been convicted by the newspapers, Ronald Griggs stands trial for the murder of his wife. If he’s found guilty, he’ll be sentenced to death.

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Want more original Australian true crime and history? Check out my books!

The...

In the first week of June 1930, America was on the brink of economic apocalypse with its Smoot-Hawley tariffs – and their effects would be felt terribly Down Under and around the world. In this very same week, Aussies set in motion a process that'd further guarantee we suffered horribly in the Great Depression. At least in good news, Sydney welcomed heroic aviatrix Amy Johnson in what was the first example of modern celebrity hyste...

After Lottie Condon’s shock confession, Ronald Griggs becomes infamous overnight when Truth newspaper publishes every sordid detail of his scandalous love life. But with his wife’s body exhumed and the true cause of her death established, public shame is soon the least of the embattled Methodist minister’s problems.

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Following the mysterious death of his wife in the mountain town of Omeo, rumours about Methodist preacher Ronald Griggs reach a fever pitch — and a veteran detective is sent from Melbourne CIB to investigate.

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Nearly a century before Erin Patterson was put on trial in the mushroom murder case, Australia was scandalised by allegations that a young preacher from country Victoria had poisoned his wife, Ethel, the mother of his baby girl, so he could be with his mistress, Lottie, the daughter of one of his most faithful churchgoers.

In this five-part mini-series, we delve deep into the life of holier-than-thou hypocrite Ronald Griggs, who sha...

In London this week, the Aussie suffragist Nellie Martel explains to English women how they can win the vote, while back at home pioneering feminist Louisa Lawson’s publication The Dawn teeters on the brink of closure. Plus: the first Empire Day; the final battles of the Russo-Japanese War mean a Nobel Peace Prize for Teddy Roosevelt; and in Sydney a ratcatching hero survives Bubonic Plague – again.

Kathy Bowrey: "The threat pos...

This week at the Cannes Film Festival, My Brilliant Career made Australian film history, while back home Rupert Murdoch became a Sydney TV mogul, setting the stage for his world-changing Fox News empire. Meanwhile, Aussies lived with limited television choices even as they remained unaware that one of their own was reshaping American screen entertainment with his cutting edge comedies and pioneering reality formats.

For free...

Pirates, sailors, mountaineers and the Abominable Snowman run riot through Sydney – a Sydney were you risk life and limb every time you catch a train. Also this week: scientists prove that the world is warming – and cite civilisation as the cause. Elsewhere, a young bloke tries to set a piano playing record, a Pommy athlete breaks through an ‘impossible’ barrier, Australian television is finally given a green light and American you...

85 years before American President Donald Trump gave unelected social media mogul Elon Musk unprecedented power with DOGE, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies gave unelected newspaper mogul Keith Murdoch unprecedented power as DGI - that is: Director-General of Information. But Rupert’s dad would overstep almost immediately and be widely criticised as an aspiring fascist dictator along the lines of Adolf Hitler – the very enem...

Just as Frank’s radio career is taking off, his private life is laid bare in a racy tabloid expose. But the sequel to this scandal is to be far more shocking and sinister. Nearly a century later, questions remain…

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Terribly wounded on 25 April 1915 at Gallipoli, AIF Private Frank Downes would be celebrated as The Blind Digger. After returning home on the first hospital ship from Egypt, he was an Anzac hero, a patriotic public speaker, a radio personality and a good husband and father. But Frank’s image was to be tainted by scandal and then shattered by a mysterious death that left Aussies wondering whether this war hero was a cold-blooded mur...

Did you have to be crazy to take on 10 cops at once? Was Percy Ramage 'perfectly insane'? The question was key but Melbourne’s best and brightest just couldn’t agree. Percy cashed in on his notoriety with a memoir and tried to go straight. But trouble was never far away – and a surprising tragedy loomed in a stormy future.

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In Melbourne and Geelong from the 1890s, Percy Ramage saw red whenever he saw the cops. Known as 'The Policeman Puncher', he was such a 'human tiger' that no-one knew where his badness ended and his madness began. But in trying to contain him, authorities would throw Percy into a gaol where prisoners were dropping like flies – with the ‘Prince of Rioters’ looking like he’d be the next to die.

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