Emma Lancaster: This is an Impact Studios production from the University of Technology, Sydney. Before we start, please be aware if you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you should know that this episode contains the voices and names of deceased persons. Please listen with care.
Leroy Parsons: This is a story about two brothers.
James Wilson-Miller: She started talking to me about these blackfellas, these two bad black fellas that came through Singleton one day.
Loretta Ethel Parsley: They did a bad thing.
Leroy Parsons: And the complex realities they faced in life
Loretta Ethel Parsley: Where he was walking in the two worlds.
Leroy Parsons: As well as death…
Loretta Ethel Parsley: He had blood on his hands.
Leroy Parsons: The Last Outlaws in Australia. The story of Jimmy and Joe Governor has been told before. But never like this.
Loretta Ethel Parsley: Welcome to Country [in language] This is my story through Jimmy Governor. If it wasn’t for Jimmy, I wouldn’t be here.
Leroy Parsons: For the first time. The Governor descendants will share their story.
Loretta Ethel Parsley: Jimmy was fighting for his family
Leroy Parsons: But that family man snapped.
Professor Katherine Biber: Jimmy Governor was an outlaw, and he probably was guilty of all of these horrific, violent murders, primarily of white women and children. And yet every legal defence, every legal process, every legal opportunity was provided for him. And I’m interested in why.
Leroy Parsons: In this three part History Lab series, we’re pulling on the threads of one of Australia’s great misunderstood histories.
Loretta Ethel Parsley: He fell in love with a non-Aboriginal woman and that changed everything.
Leroy Parsons: We’ll find out what the Governor brothers reveal about Australia, about the start of our Federation, our legal system, a global body trade driven by race science and what their story tells us about black and white Australia.
Leroy Parsons: This may be the tale of a prison colony trying to become a country and the murder case that stood in its way.
Professor Katherine Biber: Local people would come and strike a match on the sole of his feet
Kaitlyn Sawrey: To find it would be a needle in a haystack.
Dr Murat Kekic: Well, we’re going to go through every bit of hay.
Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker: Oh God, what I really want to say… Am I allowed to swear?
Loretta Ethel Parsley: It could be a love story, it sounds like a love story.
Professor Katherine Biber: The archives are always not some pure and true source.
Kaitlyn Sawrey: So who do we trust? Nobody?
Leroy Parsons: This is the story of The Last Outlaws. Subscribe to The Last Outlaws wherever you get your podcasts and find out more at TheLastOutlaws.com.au
Emma Lancaster: The Last Outlaws, a three part History Lab series, dropping September 22.
Terraces, flats, squats, bedsits, mansions, towers, camps and hostels: in Darlinghurst, housing is a mixed bag. This audio story explores the range of lifestyles afforded by Darlinghurst’s dense diversity of dwellings.
Image: Pad with a View, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive)
Credits
This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Producer: Catherine Freyne
Sound engineer: Judy Rapley
Music:
Featuring:
At St Vincent’s Hospital, the Sisters of Charity have been delivering care to the people of Darlinghurst since 1857. This audio story visits St Vincent’s during three historic public health emergencies: the Spanish Flu, the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19.
Image: Sister and nurse with home visitation car, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney (Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia)
Credits
This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Producer: Catherine Freyne
Sound engineer: Judy Rapley
Music: Blue Dot Sessions; The Tudor Consort licensed under CC by 3.0
Archival: ABC Content Sales
Featuring:
In the rapidly gentrifying Darlinghurst of the 1980s, a turf war raged over one of its earliest trades. In this story, we visit the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers, looked out for each other and stood their ground. Along the way, veterans of the street-based trade describe a changing industry, sharing stories from the frontline of the fight for law reform and workers’ rights.
If you would like to sign the petition to bring the statue of Joy back to Darlinghurst, visit http://tiny.cc/dfhavz
Image: Woods Lane 1968 (Tribune negative; Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales courtesy SEARCH Foundation)
Credits
This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Producer: Catherine Freyne
Sound engineer: Judy Rapley
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Archival: ABC Library Sales
Featuring: