11/25/2023 0 Comments Billiards hall 7th streetThe Bulli billiard saloon was home to a resident SP bookie with ‘pencils’ kept busy out the back in a tin shed on Saturdays. Quilkey likely thought the respectability of a civic leader did not sit easy with hosting a billiard saloon. ![]() Thirty six year old Quilkey ran the saloon until he was elected onto the Bulli Shire Council as an alderman in 1932. Inset: Billiard saloon operator, Con Quilkey. The former Bulli Sports Club, Billiard and Hairdressing Saloon, when it traded as a hardware store in the 1980s. Rankine had a short stay, with local identity Cornelius “Con” Quilkey taking the reins in 1925. The saloon was opened by Ronald Rankine in December 1924 and boasted two tables, a tobacconist and barber shop. Quilkey’s Bulli Billiard and Hairdressing Saloon was built by local tradesman Charley Gray opposite Bulli Family Hotel in 1924. He was back in the Bulli Court House six months later on the same charged and had his fine jacked-up to £50.Ĭon Quilkey, who operated a billiard saloon, opposite the Family Hotel at Bulli, was also convicted of using his premises for betting purposes in September 1929 and was fined £30. Smith had just over £9, the proceeds of gambling, confiscated. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Mathat Hugh Smith, of Woonona, was charged with operating a billiard-room for the purpose of betting, and was fined a whopping £30. Betting on billiard games had attracted the attention of SP Bookies, and they were soon accommodating punters for horse racing and other sporting fixtures. It was the infamous days of the six o’clock swill.īy the late 1920s the billiard halls were becoming notorious for their illegal activities. Six o’clock closing left no time for billiards and only time for sinking as many beers as possible after work, before the dreaded call of last drinks at 6pm. In addition, crowded bars in pubs were cleared of their billiard tables to make space for valuable drinking space. With pubs forced to close at 6pm, halls sprang-up all over the district as an alternative evening recreational venues. Purposely built billiard halls grew in popularity with legislation forcing the early closing of hotels in 1916. Although publicans had billiard and bagatelle tables as early as the 1860s, the first purpose built billiard saloon in the northern part of the Illawarra was opened by John Pritchard, just north of the old Denmark Hotel at Bulli in 1886. In an effort to keep the saloons in check the government introduced the licensing of public billiard tables. Publicans built billiard halls near their hotels to attract working class men, who drank and gambled heavily on the results of individual games. The popularity of billiards increased with the manufacturing of tables in the colony during the 1850s. Like most working class areas in Australia, the Illawarra region, south of Sydney, had its fair share of billiard rooms, frequented by coal miners, with at least a couple of them trading in the larger towns. Generally in stones throw of a pub, they were more than often a front for illegal activities, such as gambling and sly-grog. ![]() Most of the men were not playing billiards, buying tobacco, or even having a haircut, they were making their way to a tin shed out the back of the saloon, where the resident ‘starting price bookmaker’ (SP bookie) was waiting to take wagers on horse races, broadcasted from an old radiogram.īlue collar workers devotedly visited their local bookie at the billiard saloon for a punt on the races from the 1920s through to their demise in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Īlthough billiard saloons or halls were a social institution and meeting place within many Australian communities, they were often looked down upon by the law, and by those who considered themselves “respectable”. RELIGIOUSLY, during most of the first half of last century, a steady stream of men could be seen crossing the road, backwards and forwards, from Bulli’s Family Hotel to the billiard and hairdressing saloon, on Saturdays. ![]() Tom Richards (right) of Thirroul playing billiards in the Thirroul saloon about 1925.
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