The Collection

Larrikins & Layabouts

These days being called a ‘larrikin’ is a badge of honour, but it wasn’t always so. For generations, there has been debate about the origin of the word “larrikin.”

The Sydney Gazette of July 21, 1825, referenced “larky boys’,” denoting the toughs of the times. The word ‘larrikin’ likely originated in a colonial courtroom when a young lad, accused of being a troublemaker, a hooligan and a public nuisance, defended himself to the judge by proclaiming he had been ‘larkin’ about’. Maybe his Irish accent made it sound like ‘larrikin about,’ but the word caught on and, up until the 1950s, was considered an appropriate description for a street troublemaker.

In truth, the larrikins of the nineteenth century were despicable creatures and best avoided. They were a scourge on Sydney’s streets.

Sydney’s first troublemaking gangs were the ‘cabbage-tree mobs’ of the 1840s and 50s.

A Sydney Herald writer described the Cabbage Tree mobs’ as: “An unruly set of fellows, native-born generally – sort of loafers, they are known as the cabbage-tree mob. They are identifiably dressed in a suit of fustian or colonial tweed, and wear the emblem of their order, the lowcrowned cabbage-palm hat.”

They were particularly a nuisance in Hyde Park, The Domain, and as yahoos outside Sydney’s theatres, where they would harass the public.

Larrikins appeared in the late 1870s. They operated in gangs called ‘pushes’. Mostly living in the poorer parts of Sydney – The Rocks, Pyrmont, Paddington, Newtown and East Sydney’s Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo – they were inner-city street toughs, nasty and aggressive. Their favourite sport was throwing blue metal (from railway tracks and street ballast) at windows – and each other – and it wasn’t beyond them to kick a man to death

Edward Kingslake, writing in The Australian At Home, in 1891, didn’t paint a pretty picture: ‘Let me give you a description of a typical male specimen as he may be found at the street corners about seven o’clock in the evening, expectorating tobacco juice and talking blasphemy. He is generally a weedy youth, undersized, and slight, but like all Australians who are cast in a lanky, not thickset mould, he is wiry and active, He has a repulsive face, low forehead, small eyes, colourless skin, and irregular discoloured teeth. His hat is either small, round and hard, or a black slouch. Female members of the push were called ‘donahs’ and were also flashy dressers with a taste for large hats, feathers and very high-heeled shoes.

Principal among the Sydney gangs were the Gipps Street push, the CowLane push, The Rocks push, Suez Canal push, Argyle Cut Push, and the Pyrmont, Ultimo, Waterloo and Sussex Street pushes.

Special groups like the butchers’ apprentices formed their own pushes—the Livers and the Blood Reds.

One of the larrikins’ favoured gathering grounds on Sundays and holidays was Chowder Bay (now Clifton Gardens), where the main attraction was a big dance hall. Here the members of the pushes and their “donahs” used to gather to dance, drink beer all day long and wait for a donnybrook brawl.

The squad of a dozen or so policemen regularly sent to Chowder Bay to keep order were rarely able to relax. Brawls were an almost inevitable feature of push outings.

In full regalia, larrikins were a fantastic sight. They wore a short cutaway coat known in polite circles as a “Seymour.” This coat had a velvet collar and was lavishly decorated with pearl buttons and braid. A red sash was worn around the waist, with tails hanging down the side.

Some of the larrikins grew their hair long, reaching to the coat collar. The trousers of the larrikin fitted like a second skin to the knees; then they flared out wider than a sailor’s bell bottoms.

But it was all about the boots! They had pointed toes with heels so high that the wearers minced with their knees thrust forward. Made of kid and patent leather, they were buttoned well up the calf. As a final touch, the toe-cap was covered with fancy enamel or carried a photograph of the gentleman’s girlfriend.

The larrikins usually sported small moustaches and smoked stumpy clay pipes. Though a few favoured small round hats like inverted cones perched on their well-oiled heads, and others preferred low-crowned broad-brimmed “boxer” head-gear, the majority wore a black felt hat with a brim of enormous circumference, adorned with a heavy black cord and large tassels.

If members of pushes liked fancy clothes, their girl friends were still more gorgeous. The donahs favoured violent colours – purple, puce, violet, scarlet and emerald green- often mixed. Ostrich feathers drooped over their straw hats, and they wore jackets of plush and velvet. Like the larrikins, the girls wore elaborate footwear. A favourite type of ornamentation was a scroll running up the side of the leg or a heart in which the lover’s name was embroidered. Maybe one leg would bear the legend “I love Bill” and the other “Bill loves me.”

The larrikin cult had a revival during the years from 1906 to 1911. Gangs gave themselves ostentatious titles such as the Gore Hill Tigers, the Silver Eyes, and the Bantry Bay Devils. In keeping with tradition, each member spent every spare penny on clothes—the more violent the colours, the better.

The hair-do was highly important. No larrikin considered himself worthy of being seen with his fellows unless his hair conformed to the prevailing fashion —combed straight down over the forehead to form a fringe.

Push dances are remarkable for their solemnity and observance of push etiquette and for a weird dance known as a ‘teetotum’, which resembled dimly the ghost of a waltz fettered in heavy chains. Push picnics are enlivened by the music of the mouth organ and the concertina and by the free use of stimulants. The Push dances often went from dusk to dawn.

The death knell to the push came in 1911 when the Federal government introduced compulsory military training. In the Army, Australia’s footloose youths gained a more stable perspective and were on the right road to good citizenship.

Sydney in the ‘roaring twenties’ was the age of Gatsby-types and a new youth culture. Women saw themselves as ‘flappers’ who wore short skirts (just at the knee was short for that time), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behaviour. Actresses like Louise Brooks and Clara Bow were key to popularising the flapper style of dress.

There was a male version too – the ‘flapjack’ – wore his hair well-oiled and plastered back, the trouser-waist baggy and, most importantly, hot socks. Some went a little further – In 1927, two young men, aged 18 and 22, were arrested in St Leonard’s Park for behaving offensively. Both were dressed in girls clothing. They pleaded guilty and were fined five pounds each. Arresting officer, Constable Clark, said: ‘They were dressed in expensive girl’s clothing, with bracelets and necklaces. Their faces decorated with lipstick, and they spoke in a feminine tone as ‘shemale flappers’.

Jazz was the favourite type of music among the flappers. It was considered to be the ultimate in modernity and sophistication. It also had a whiff of rebellion and danger to it. While the older generation was still doing the Waltz and the Foxtrot, or listening to classical music, the younger generation was going crazy for dances like the Charleston and the Lindy Hop.

The forties and the Second World War saw our young men knuckle down in uniform, fighting on foreign shores. Women worked for the war effort including many joining the Women’s Land Army.

Post war, the 1950s witnessed a new attitude and a new youth tribe appeared in the guise of bodgies and their female counterpart, widgies. Rebellious but not as violent as the larrikin. They were nonetheless seen as a threat to society.

The Sydney Morning Herald of January 1951 announced their arrival: A new species of youth known as the “bodgie” has appeared lately on the Sydney scene. The chief habitat of “bodgies” is said to be Kings Cross. According to popular belief they can be recognised by their American-style clothes, with wide ‘drape’ shoulders and trousers tight at the ankles. They are also reported to affect the “Cornel Wilde” haircut, which leaves the hair long at the back.

Because of alcohol licensing laws, Sydney’s bodgies and widgies hung out at the milk bar! The jukebox was playing Elvis, Little Richard and The Everly Brothers as they jitterbugged, jived, bunny hopped and did The Madison.

The mid-fifties also saw the rise of the beat generation and folkniks. Duffle coats, desert boots and long hair and emergence of rejection of standard narrative values. Many looked to spiritual quests, the exploration of Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

By the sixties, another tribe, ‘ folkies’ were gathering at the Folk Attick in Kings Cross, the Troubadour in Newtown and, in January 1965, thousands descended on our very own Newport Folk festival, staged at Newport Oval.

Between the mid-sixties and seventies, the world turned upside-down as traditional modes of authority were questioned. Widespread social tensions developed concerning sexuality, women’s rights and indigenous rights. It was the hippy-dippy age of Aquarius and counter-culture with defiant alternative lifestyles.

Sexual freedom, especially gay rights came to the forefront in 1978 when 54 gay and lesbian demonstrators were arrested in Kings Cross after a Mardi Gras Fair at Taylor’s Square. Homosexuality had been criminalised in 1900, and for decades gays were victimised and entrapped by the vice squad. By the seventies, gay and lesbian Sydneysiders were slowly emerging from the closet after decades of covert private parties, art balls and secret gatherings in Hyde Park and the Domain.

In 1984 Premier Wran successfully introduced a private members bill decriminalising homosexuality.

From the eighties onwards Sydney started to change and grow up. We realised, after all, we were a big city. Post-war immigration saw us become one of the most multi-culturally diverse cities on the planet. It’s a work in progress.

Youth culture has always been fluid – we create social tribes for a sense of belonging. Expressed in dress, hair do’s and don’t’s, slanguage and even physical mannerisms. Tribes come and go like a parade – cabbage-tree mobs to larrikin pushes to beatniks to bikies, bodgies and widgies. Then came sharpies, rockers, surfies, punks, goths followed by emos, bros, lads, skins, hipsters and even self-professed bogans. It’s a never-ending parade of life and never dull.