Politics > Pyrmont at War
Pyrmont at War
From the 1890s until the 1950s Australia’s wars had a distinctive impact on Pyrmont. It was a strategic port and home to itinerant sailors and waterside workers, from all over the world. Their diverse loyalties, mobility and insecurity predisposed them to enlist in armed forces, or sail away to fight in foreign wars.
Much of this involvement can neither be counted nor traced. Many men crossed the Tasman to fight in the New Zealand wars (1845 to 1872) and returned (like George Sparkes the policeman) to work in Pyrmont. But Pyrmont’s best remembered contribution was “The Pioneer” gun boat, built by ASNC in 1863.
Pyrmont men may have served with the British expedition against the Mahdists in the 1880s. NSW Lancers were likely among the naval reservists who formed the NSW contingent to help suppress the “Boxer rebellion” in China (1899-1901). But few Pyrmont men had the skills to meet the British need for mounted infantry in the South African War of the same years.
These adventures were marginal to Australian life, but the First World War – the Great War – was central. Thousands of soldiers, sailors and medical staff enlisted. Before long, bitter divisions erupted over the conduct of the war, splitting the Labor Party and especially Irish families, and provoking conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Afterwards, the slow collection of funds for the War Memorial helped to heal these wounds.
Though Australia played no formal part in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), individuals did, mainly (like Billy Young’s father) supporting the Republic against Franco. Most were supporters of the Communist Party, which enjoyed wide support in Pyrmont during the impoverished 1930s.
On the cusp of the Second World War, wharfies struck against the export of pig iron to Japan. The war itself shook Pyrmont to its foundations: many volunteered; many more (including deportees on the Dunera) passed through the new Jones Bay wharves; Australian troops embarked and disembarked; Americans camped in Wentworth Park and sailed from Glebe Island.
Even more than in 1917, the waterfront was a battle ground between armed forces anxious to move men and materiel at speed, and wharfies determined to regain their long-lost working conditions. One outcome was the end of the “bull system”, bringing industrial relations into the twentieth century.
Peace revealed new international tensions as the old colonial powers sought to restore their authority in Indonesia and Indochina. Pyrmont became involved in the struggle between Dutch forces seeking to recreate Netherlands East Indies, and the nationalists declaring Indonesian independence. Wharfies and Indian seamen acted to prevent war supplies from reaching the Dutch and British Indian forces trying to restore colonial order.
The Korean War was much less divisive politically. Afterwards, ships quit Darling Harbour and Pyrmont lost its relevance. And in the 1960s and 1970s student and squatter protesters against the Vietnam war opposed the war, as did many people across Australia.
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