Barry Dickins to talk on Squizzy Taylor: 16 November 2006

Barry Dickins is to speak about Squizzy Taylor on at the Collingwood Library on Thursday 16 November 2006 at 6.30 p.m. (bookings 1300 650 444). The library is in Abbotsford, next to Collingwood Town Hall on Hoddle St and Collingwood Station. Dickins’s play “Squizzy Taylor” has apparently just completed a successful season at the Carlton Courthouse Theatre, but I missed it. I’m glad it was successful because this lover of Smith St sounded a bit down on the writing side of things in this article. Joseph “Squizzy” Taylor was born in 1888 and shot dead in 1927, aged 39, having married at St James’s Fitzroy, committed murder at Glenferrie Station in 1923, and died at St. Vincent’s after a Carlton shootout. According to the brilliant online edition of the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

“Between 1913 and 1916 Taylor was linked to several more violent crimes including the murder and robbery of Arthur Trotter, a commercial traveller, the burglary of the Melbourne Trades Hall, in which a police constable was killed, and the murder of William Patrick Haines, a driver who refused to participate in the hold-up of a bank manager at Bulleen. Taylor was tried for the murder of Haines and found not guilty. Although rarely convicted after 1917, Taylor remained a key figure in an increasingly violent and wealthy underworld. His income came from armed robbery, prostitution, the sale of illegal liquor and drugs, as well as from race-fixing and protection rackets. With Paddy Boardman, he conducted an efficient and lucrative business in rigging juries, a service of which he made regular use. …

‘Squizzy’ was a colourful figure in the drinking and gambling clubs of Fitzroy, Richmond and Carlton. A dapper little man who dressed loudly, he strutted through the courts, race-courses and theatres. While hiding from the police, he wrote letters and verse to the press. Yet he had few redeeming qualities. Taylor won lasting notoriety by imitating the style of American bootleggers; he never matched their influence or immunity from the law, and at the time of his death could no longer command fear or loyalty from the underworld.”

Racing Victoria’s John Wren exhibition

The Good Ol’ Age has alerted me to the fact that from 7 September 2006, the Victorian Racing Museum in Federation Square is holding an exhibition about John Wren, pictured, at one time Australia’s richest man. Born in Collingwood in 1871, he died in Fitzroy in 1953 aged 82, having lived across the river in Kew, in what is now Xavier’s junior school, Burke Hall (then Studley House), a man who would have been an avid reader of Abbotsford Blog (but not its reviews of pubs and bars, for he was a teetotaller) had he only lived to see the day. He had toured the virtuosic violinist Fritz Kreisler, set up an opera company, owned The Criterion restaurant opposite St Paul’s, built a racecourse in Richmond, supposedly given two million pounds to charity over 5 years, bet his life savings on a legendary Melbourne Cup winner, Carbine, owned the 1904 Caulfied Cup winner, Murmur, built a public pool on the Yarra at Abbotsford, preferred the Collingwood Football Club to the Melbourne Club, and promoted boxing and cycling. What else he did besides is a matter of some controversy, though he did get right up the nose of my relative, Bill Judkins (one of Keith Dunstan’s favourite wowsers). The Judster was a Methodist lay preacher who, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, saw “Wren, drink, gambling and Catholicism all combined into one terrible evil.” Short, bandy and sharp-featured, the Wrenster and the Judster were apparently frequently mistaken for one another to their mutual embarrassment. Continue reading “Racing Victoria’s John Wren exhibition”

Go Get Car Pod in Abbotsford

I declare the Abbotsford Editor an Abbotsford identity. Such a cultured and interesting life he leads according to his blog. He gets interviewed on the radio, goes to Abbotsford soirees where amateurs play Dvorak four hands, and judges literary competitions. And yet he shares the more mundane aspects of his existence too, the latest and most interesting of which is his early adopting of a commercial car sharing scheme of the kind which is nascent in Melbourne following a contribution of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state government by way of “development funding” (and talk of a universal smartcard by next year which would work in all public transport, including car sharing vehicles) but which is old news in some other places. This one is Go Get which has a pod just near the Collingwood Library, and operated the first Melbourne programme in conjunction with the City of Darebin. The other main player in Melbourne is Flo, with cars in Richmond and a substantially different pricing structure. Continue reading “Go Get Car Pod in Abbotsford”