By Dorothy Davis, Katharine Vernon and Duncan Leys
Following a wonderful visit to the Sydney Heritage Fleet (see report) on a glorious sunny June morning, our next event, with colder weather approaching, will be indoors.
‘Houses, Interiors, Gardens’, a tour of the Caroline Simpson Library Collection, located at the Mint in Macquarie Street [BOOKED OUT]
Thursday 13 August, 10.30am–12.30pm
‘Houses, Interiors, Gardens’, a tour of the Caroline Simpson Library Collection, located in The Mint in Macquarie Street, is planned for Thursday 13 August, 10.30am–12.30pm.
From lampshade designs to lino samples, seed catalogues to soap recipes, this small museum is a rich source of information and inspiration on the history of Australian homes, gardens and domestic life from the late 1700s to the present.
Among the many items in the collection are:
- home furnishings, wallpapers, paint colours, light fittings, leaded glass, floor coverings and garden ornaments;
- photographs, magazines, catalogues, sample boards
- and drawings illustrating home interiors;
- sheet music and music manuscripts; and
- examples of the work of 20th century Sydney interior designers such as Marion Hall Best and Leslie Walford.
The collection also includes various items relating to Glebe. A selection of items will be on display for our visit including some with a Glebe association, such as photographs of home interiors and catalogues from local timber merchant Hudson’s.
Bookings via Eventbrite: https://explore-heritage-collection-caroline-simpson-library.eventbrite.com.au
Cost: $20 (Glebe Society members), $30 (non-Glebe Society members).
Walks under consideration for later in the year include a stroll to The University of Sydney’s Carillon; Retracing the Glebe Society’s Activist Role over 50+ Years; Glebe Foreshore Transformation; and a visit to the White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale.
All Walks and Talks require booking. If bookings are open, a link will be included. For member-only events, please use the direct link supplied in the Bulletin.
Past 2026 Walks & Talks
Please note that a fuller list of past Guided Walks and talks organised by the Glebe Society is on our Eventbrite page. Then click on ‘Past’ and you will see a list of the 120 or so events held in the last 10 years.
The colourful history of Glebe District Rugby League Club: A talk by Max Solling
Sunday 28 June, 2-4 pm, Forest Lodge Hotel, 117 Arundel St, Forest Lodge
This talk on the early history of the Glebe District Rugby League Club was by Max Solling who literally wrote the book on Glebe’s Dirty Reds (An act of bastardry : Rugby League axes its first club: Glebe District Rugby League Football Club 1908 to 1929, Walla Walla Press, 2014).
The origins of the Glebe District Rugby League Club lie in a moment of upheaval in Australian sport. Before 1908, Rugby Union dominated, but it was governed by a rigid amateur ethos: players were expected to absorb the physical toll of the game without any financial support. For middle‑class players with stable incomes, this was an inconvenience. For working‑class men—like those who played for Glebe—it was untenable. These were labourers, wharfies, carters, and tradesmen whose livelihoods depended on their bodies. An injury on Saturday could mean no wages on Monday.
Many Glebe players were also union men, steeped in the politics of workplace justice. When the idea of a professional code emerged — one that recognised the economic reality of injury and offered compensation—it resonated deeply. The split from Rugby Union to Rugby League was therefore not just a sporting rebellion but a working‑class movement, and Glebe was at its heart.
Max’s photo‑rich presentation covered:
- The Players: From icons like Frank Burge and Chris McKivat to the many talented players who represented Glebe.
- Reputation: How the press cast Glebe as a fiercely tough—and sometimes notorious—side.
- The People Around the Game: Supporters, rivals, referees, and police, all part of the club’s colourful and gritty world.
- The Context: The venues including Wentworth Park, the War Years, the 1917 Players’ Strike, and the club’s expulsion on the eve of the Depression.
Cost: $5
Tour of the Sydney Heritage Fleet Shipyard on Rozelle Bay with Alex Byrne
Read Helena Kiljn’s report on the tour.
Sunday 21 June, 10 am
Through this tour, visitors learnt about the extensive restoration of harbour vessels including the 1912 Sydney Ferry Kanangra. The last of Sydney’s “K” class ferries, Kanangra, was built in Mort Bay in 1912 and is currently under restoration at the Sydney Heritage Fleet shipyard on Rozelle Bay. Its superstructure is timber drawn from the extensive lumber yards which used to surround Rozelle and Blackwattle Bays.
One of 70 “K” class ferries, Kanangra carried nearly 1000 passengers mostly on the City to Mosman and Cremorne route from 1912 to 1987 but also provided services for the 3000 workers on Cockatoo Island and peak hour services to Hunters Hill and Woolwich. She was converted from being coal-fired to diesel- engined in 1959, the last to be converted. She is the great survivor having seen two world wars, the Great Depression, the building of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House and survived a couple of collisions.
This tour took visitors through the Fleet’s extensive maintenance and restoration facilities, the Fleet’s various vessels and went on board Kanangra to hear her history and view the restoration. It was led by Glebe Society member and Heritage Shipyard volunteer, Alex Byrne, and other volunteers who work on Kanangra.
Cost: $25 (Glebe Society members), $35 (non-Glebe Society members), which covered a contribution to Sydney Heritage Fleet which charges for its tours to ‘Keep the Fleet Afloat’
Explore Waverley Cemetery with Max Solling
Thursday 21 May, 9.15 am–12.45 pm
This tour enabled us to explore one of Sydney’s oldest, most beautiful and most historic locations – Waverley Cemetery. Heritage-listed and poised on the cliff-tops at Bronte, this Victorian and Edwardian gem is situated in one of Sydney’s most striking locations, the cliffs between Tamarama and Clovelly, overlooking the glittering Pacific Ocean.
Guided by the always expertly-informed Max Solling, we visited the final resting places of many prominent Australians including Henry Lawson, Dorothea Mackellar, Fanny Durack, Victor Trumper, Henry Kendall, Carla Zampatti and others, many of whom have a surprising link to Glebe. The cemetery is also famed for its imposing memorial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion, noting that tragic history from Michael Dwyer to Bobby Sands.
Cost: $25 (Glebe Society members), $35 (non-Glebe Society members)
Glebe Town Hall – The People’s Place
Sunday 19 April, 2–4 pm at Glebe Town Hall
Did you know that Glebe used to have its own elected Council? For nearly 70 years (1880–1948) Glebe Town Hall was the administrative centre of the Glebe Municipal Council but it also served many other community purposes.
For generations it was the place for meetings and events – weddings, dances, concerts, wartime balls, live theatre and so on. When most people who lived in Glebe were tenants and walked to wherever they needed to go, it was a meeting place for local associations, political groups and sporting clubs, a venue for boxing tournaments, election campaigns, lectures and debates about big issues of the day such as Federation, Prohibition and Conscription. It was a critical place in the early history of the Labor Party. The Glebe Labor Electoral League (as party branches were then called) met there and meetings could be feisty.
One hundred and thirty-five men–and two women–served as aldermen (councillors) on the Glebe council. Over time they evolved from being from the property-owning elite, to local self-employed Glebe businessmen, to being Labor controlled in the 1920s and 30s.
Join us to hear our well-known local historian Max Solling tell us more about its history, the battlers, stirrers and other colourful characters associated with the Town Hall.
View a photographer’s studio-home and his iconic Glebe works (members only event)
Saturday 21 March, 4 pm.
A unique event – a visit to the studio and home of art photographer Tom Psomotragos was held on Saturday 21 March at 4 pm. Tom generously invited Glebe Society members to his renovated warehouse studio home, built on land which was part of the original Lyndhurst Estate.
Well-known for his photographs of local Glebe identities, Tom will gave us a preview of his photographic collection documenting Glebe’s living industrial history, including the old fish market, the barges and bridges.
A brief report on this event by Katharine Vernon, Dorothy Davis and Helena Klijn, April 2026
Our first event of the year was a terrific visit to photographer Tom Psomotragos’ home/studio on Saturday 21 March.
On our tour of the three floors of their wonderful renovation, Tom and wife Deb explained the process of its conversion from a dye and ink factory built in the 1890s on land that was previously part of the Lyndhurst Estate. This was followed by light refreshment while viewing photographs Tom has taken of life in Glebe including the former Fish Markets.
We received gratifying positive feedback from members who attended.
Pubs, people and place in Glebe and Forest Lodge
Sunday 1 March, 4–6 pm, Forest Lodge Hotel
In the late nineteenth century, there were 27 pubs in Glebe and Forest Lodge. Now there are eight.
Max’s talk, ‘Pubs, People and Place in Glebe and Forest Lodge’, began in the 1840s, when pubs were places for male drinking and were concentrated in the poorer parts of Glebe and Forest Lodge. Gentlemen did not frequent pubs, and women were largely excluded, although some were licensees.
Issues of temperance and respectability, the influence of religion, the power of the breweries, economic conditions and government resulted in policies such as a prohibition on Sunday trading and 6 o’clock closing. At the same time, pubs were places where local sporting, civic and other organisations could meet.
This talk by Max Solling, Glebe’s foremost historian, ranged over the history of our local pubs and the social, economic and policy forces that shaped their place in our community
See a fuller report of this talk that appeared in the April 2026 Bulletin.
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