This weekend is the last chance for Bendigo residents to see the wonderful exhibition Taverns to Temperance: Pubs of Bendigo at the Post Office Gallery – a social history exhibition space operated by Bendigo Art Gallery.
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This incredible exhibition illuminates the history of pubs and drinking culture in Bendigo.
In a place where drinking beer was once seen as safer than drinking water, pubs were prolific as centres for social and commercial life in Bendigo and the city once boasted a pub on every corner.
The exhibition traces the history of pubs and drinking in Bendigo: from the sly grog tents of the goldfields, home-style ‘taverns’, the flourishing brewing industry (including the famous Cohn brothers) and the changing role of pubs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A typical smaller hotel of the mid-1850s consisted of two or more rooms for the public with the publican’s family and kitchen provisions at the rear, more remote hotels might also house a store, exchange gold for currency, and operate a postal service.
Women were instrumental in the development of the pub industry although women were not permitted to drink in public bars until the 1970s.
A large proportion of early publicans’ licences were held by women who operated pubs as a means to provide for their family.
Conversely, women also played a large part in resistance against the growing industry surrounding pubs and drinking.
The groundswell of temperance societies and later the ‘6’o’clock lock out’ all sought to disparage the consumption of alcohol and improve family life for women and children.
Through the cloudy glass of a well-worn goldfields ‘nobbler’, this exhibition views pubs as places of entertainment, accommodation, social and political activism and even autopsies and inquests.
Taverns to Temperance: Pubs of Bendigo closes on Sunday, December 3.
The Post Office Gallery is located in the old Post Office building, 51–67 Pall Mall and is open daily 9am to 5pm.
Coming up
The next exhibition at the Post Office Gallery, Bendigo for Business, Sunshine and Pleasure, highlights the history of tourism in the Bendigo region and will open on Friday, December 15.
The eclectic promotional brochures, photographs, souvenirs, postcards and other ephemera featured in this exhibition will reveal how the city’s many assets and attractions have been uniquely promoted through the decades to entice visitors from far and wide.
