Table Of ContentRichard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
The Outdoor Living Supplement:
Outdoor Recreation in Post-War Sydney 1945 – 1975
Richard Strauss, BA (Sydney), BA (Hons) (Macquarie), DipEd (University of New England)
Sightseeing at Willoughby c.19651
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of History
Macquarie University
January, 2007
1 SRNSW: AK415, EPA 253, FH 136
i
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SYNOPSIS .................................................................................................................. III
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................. v
List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................. vi
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1
CHAPTER ONE POST-WAR URBANISATION: DILEMMA AND DEVELOPMENT
................................................................................................................................... 16
Urbanisation ....................................................................................................................................................... 18
Responses to urbanisation .................................................................................................................................. 22
Urbanisation and ‘the Australian way of life’ ..................................................................................................... 29
Civil defence ...................................................................................................................................................... 44
CHAPTER TWO PLANNING A BRAVE NEW WORLD ........................................... 48
‘Control’ ............................................................................................................................................................. 49
‘Decontrol’ ......................................................................................................................................................... 55
Rationalising time ............................................................................................................................................... 60
Rationalising space ............................................................................................................................................. 81
CHAPTER THREE THE ROAD TO SUBTOPIA ..................................................... 114
Everybody’s policy and nobody’s practice: decentralisation during the long boom ........................................ 117
Trouble in the County of Cumberland .............................................................................................................. 122
Urban consolidation ......................................................................................................................................... 150
CHAPTER FOUR ON THE GROUND: USE OF OPEN SPACE ............................... 153
Organised recreation ........................................................................................................................................ 158
Private recreation ............................................................................................................................................. 174
A better class of outdoorsman: conflict, conservation and sportsmanship ....................................................... 207
CHAPTER FIVE BREAD AND CIRCUSES: COMMODIFICATION ...................... 239
The expanding range of holiday migration ....................................................................................................... 244
Hotels, motels, resorts and caravan parks ......................................................................................................... 257
A girdle of theme parks .................................................................................................................................... 269
The accoutrements of adventure ....................................................................................................................... 276
Doing it yourself ............................................................................................................................................... 278
Camping gear ................................................................................................................................................... 281
Guns ‘n’ ammo ................................................................................................................................................. 285
In the creel ........................................................................................................................................................ 287
Guided exploration ........................................................................................................................................... 291
Vicariously there: armchair travel .................................................................................................................... 301
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 309
i
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 311
Primary sources .................................................................................................................................................. 311
Manuscripts ...................................................................................................................................................... 311
Magazines and newspapers .............................................................................................................................. 312
Works of reference ........................................................................................................................................... 313
Government publications .................................................................................................................................. 315
Archival sources ............................................................................................................................................... 316
Published primary sources ................................................................................................................................ 318
Secondary sources .............................................................................................................................................. 327
Manuscripts ...................................................................................................................................................... 327
Magazines and newspapers .............................................................................................................................. 328
Works of reference ........................................................................................................................................... 328
Government publications .................................................................................................................................. 328
Published secondary sources ............................................................................................................................ 331
Appendix 1: Sydney classified listings .............................................................................................................. 344
Appendix 2: Australian import statistics .......................................................................................................... 348
ii
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
SYNOPSIS
The Outdoor Living Supplement is a history of outdoor recreation in post-war Sydney. It makes
a contribution to the fields of urban history and the history of leisure. Outdoor recreation was a
planned response to the urbanisation of post-war Sydney, intended to mitigate the effects of
industrialisation and urbanisation on the Australian character. In due course outdoor recreation
became central to what was meant by ‘the Australian way of life’. Outdoor recreation was the
focus of intense commodification as the long post-war boom progressed, being an important
element in the development of Australian consumerism. Ironically then, outdoor recreation
extended the influence of industrialisation and urbanisation at the same time that it acted to
counter these phenomena. This thesis is comprised of five chapters. The first outlines the
perceived problems of urbanisation in Western thought and in Sydney in particular. The
second examines the popularity of post-war planning and planned responses to urban ills,
placing outdoor recreation within this context. The third deals with the unfolding, or the
unravelling of these planned recreational responses to urbanisation. The fourth chapter
examines the formation of cultural and social institutions around post-war outdoor recreation.
The fifth chapter demonstrates the extent to which outdoor recreation was commodified during
the long post-war boom. While maintaining a focus on outdoor recreation, the five chapters of
this thesis build a history of post-war Australia in which there is a shift from left to right in
politics, a movement from collectivism to consumerism in public life which characterised the
long boom. The forces at work were clearly dialectical, and as apparent in the narrow field of
leisure pursuits as they were in public policy. Post-war concerns with social justice brought an
emphasis on planning that fell short of the more utopian goals, but revived economic activity
and redefined social relations, leading to a shift in political consciousness and the
commodification of certain aspects of Australian culture.
iii
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
This work has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution.
Richard Strauss
iv
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
Acknowledgements
A long research thesis is a true test of character and at times I have been found wanting. Along
the way I have benefited from the assistance, and often the forbearance of a great number of
individuals. Foremost among these is my partner Robin Adamson, who has shared my
thoughts and buoyed my spirits. Emeritus Professor Duncan Waterson has been a great friend
and mentor, challenging and inspiring me, and never sparing the red ink on a critical read.
Professor George Parsons has been a source of wise advice and laconic criticism. Jon Streat
has heard my theories declaimed and has had the decency to find them entertaining. Tom Sear
has been a font of wisdom and a shrewd critic. Patricia Strauss has had a tough job, giving the
thesis a thorough proofread without being too cruel. Graham Strauss has been a pillar of
strength through the whole experience, encouraging me to follow my dreams. My brother Peter
Strauss has been of great assistance, giving IT support and calm reassurance across continents
and time zones. The late Max Kelly set me on this course, and I hope that I have managed to
heed his advice that I not produce a thesis on Sydney’s recreation that merely repeats
‘Katoomba’ 100,000 times.
v
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
List of Abbreviations
ACF Australian Conservation Foundation
ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions
AIF Australian Imperial Force
AIPS Australian Institute of Political Science
ALP Australian Labor Party
ANTA Australian National Travel Association
ASIO Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation
CCC Cumberland County Council
CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
CTIA Caravan Trades and Industries Association
CPA Communist Party of Australia
EPA Environmental Planning Authority
MLA Member of the Legislative Assembly
NRMA National Roads and Motorists Association
NLA National Library of Australia
NSW New South Wales
NSWNPWS New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service
ORP Outdoor Recreation Party
ORRRC Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission
PSCC Planning Scheme for the County of Cumberland
RAIA Royal Australian Institute of Architects
RAAF Royal Australian Air Force
SPA State Planning Authority
UBD Universal Business Directory
YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association
vi
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
THE OUTDOOR LIVING SUPPLEMENT: OUTDOOR
RECREATION IN POSTWAR SYDNEY, 1945 – 1975
2
Bluey and Curley Annual, 1947
Introduction
The core hypothesis of this dissertation is that planned outdoor recreation generated
consumerism. Post-war leisure began with a promise and ended in a catalogue. Planned
visions of a leisured post-war world entailed the rationalisation of time and space through an
interventionist state and a civically engaged population. By the end of the long boom leisure
had changed from a concept of civic participation and public subsidy to an actual field of
private consumption. Outdoor recreation was central to the development of a ‘leisure ethic’
that reinforced capitalist, urban values as well as mitigating them. However, this hypothesis
must be qualified. Australian recreation had a not insignificant commercial aspect before the
post-war period, and some idealism and government support has still been attached to leisure
despite its recent heightened commercialisation. The broad thrust of the analysis, however,
survives.
This thesis draws on distinct bodies of historical scholarship, particularly those relating to
town planning, leisure and tourism. This is not, however, a thesis on the town planning
profession, nor a critique of the extensive body of scholarship that has accrued to it. In many
1
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
ways it is an essay in urban history, although it deals mainly with historical responses to
Sydney’s urbanisation and not with urbanisation per se. It therefore draws heavily on historical
scholarship on the urbanisation of Sydney, contributing an added dimension in return. Urban
history is a well developed field of study, and continues to be so. Lionel Frost notes that the
field was legitimised by N. G. Butlin’s seminal analysis of urban markets and private
3
investment in housing in his Investment in Australian Economic Development 1861-1900,
while urban history may conservatively be said to have progressed through J. W. McCarty ’s
4
comparative analysis of Australian capital cities, Graeme Davison The Rise and Fall of
5 6
Marvellous Melbourne, and then to an abundance of scholarship in the eighties . Mark Peel ’s
7
history of Adelaide’s satellite, Elizabeth, is a landmark work of urban studies. Tim Rowse ’s
8
analysis of scholarship on suburbia remains a standard work, as does Robin Boyd ’s The
9
Australian Ugliness. International scholarship, drawing on the traditions of Ebenezer
10 11 12 13
Howard, Patrick Abercrombie and Lewis Mumford is now headed by Peter Hall but
there are a host of other voices. Locally, Sydney ’s urban history has been a productive field.
The Sydney History Group’s work during the eighties brought together a substantial body of
scholarship. Leonie Sandercock’s Cities for Sale extends Butlin’s approach to the economic
14 15
history of cities, as does Daly ’s Sydney Boom, Sydney Bust. Peter Spearritt ’s Sydney Since
16
the Twenties has long been the standard reference of Sydney’s urban history and its revised
17
publication as Sydney’s Century: A History has been an invaluable addition. More recently
2
Alex Gurney, Bluey and Curley Annual, The Sun News Pictorial Feature, Melbourne, 1947, p.37
3
N . G. Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861-1900, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1964
4
J. W. McCarty, Australian Capital Cities in the Nineteenth Century, Department of Economics, Monash
University, Carlton, Vic, 1970
5
Graeme Davison, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic, 1978
6
Lionel Frost, ‘The Urban History Literature of Australia and New Zealand’, Journal of Urban History, Vol.22,
No.1, November 1995, p.141-153 gives a useful discussion of urban historiography
7
Mark Peel, Good Times, Hard Times: The Past and Future in Elizabeth, Melbourne University Press, Carlton,
Vic, 1995
8
Tim Rowse, ‘Heaven and a Hills Hoist: Australian critics on suburbia’, Meanjin Vol.37 No.1, 1978, pp.3-13
9
Robin Boyd, The Australian Ugliness, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1961
10
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Swan Sonnenschein, London, 1902
11
Patrick Abercrombie, Town and Country Planning, Oxford University Press, London, 1943
12
Lewis Mumford, City Development: Studies in Disintegration and Renewal, Secker and Warburg, London,
1946
13
Peter Hall, Cities in Civilisation: Culture, Innovation and Urban Order, Phoenix Giant, London, 1999
14
Leonie Sandercock, Cities for Sale, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1975
15
Maurice T. Daly, Sydney Boom, Sydney Bust: The City and its Property Market, 1850-1981, George Allen and
Unwin, Sydney, 1982
16
Peter Spearritt, Sydney Since the Twenties, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1978
17
Peter Spearritt, Sydney’s Century: a History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999
2
Richard Strauss, The Outdoor Living Supplement
18
Paul Ashton made significant contributions to the field, with a particularly fruitful
19
collaboration with Duncan Waterson producing Sydney Takes Shape: a History in Maps.
Lionel Frost categorised what he saw in 1995 to be the four promising developments of
Australian urban history. These were inquiry into the origins of capital cities, work on cities
other than Sydney and Melbourne, a proliferation of local history and a rising concern in the
community for the state of the cities. This thesis does not promise a great deal ni any of the
20
first three of Frost’s senses, and may make only an ingenuous claim to the fourth. Instead, the
author hopes to make some contribution to the understanding of the way Sydneysiders have
reacted to their city, and the ways in which these reacti ons have impacted on the environment,
the economy, the culture, and the city itself. It is, as its title suggests, a supplement to the great
body of scholarship that has already accrued to urban history, and a more novel addition to the
newer field of the history of leisure.
There is also in this thesis a focus on leisure and tourism, particularly domestic tourism
21
originating in Sydney. Davidson and Spearritt ’s Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia
Since 1870 has been most useful in this regard, as has Richard Waterhouse’s Private
.22
Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture since 1788. The recently
published history of the Australian holiday, On Holidays, by Richard White and a number of
his research students, has been extremely useful in the preparation of this thesis. The fifth
chapter of On Holidays, ‘The Heyday of the Holiday: 1945 – 1975’, attributed in part to Lila
Oldmeadow has been an invaluable reference in a field where there is very little written
23
work. White comments that it is surprising that “there has been no history of the holiday in
24
Australia, despite the formative role Australia has played in its development.” In the course
of this thesis, forms of recreation that are not tourism (defined by the Bureau of Tourism
18
Paul Ashton, The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1995
19
Paul Ashton and Duncan Waterson, Sydney Takes Shape: a History in Maps, Hema Maps, Brisbane, 2000
20
Lionel Frost , op.cit., p.150
21
In 1983 the American scholar Roy Rosenzweig noted that the history of working class leisure was an obvious
but largely unexplored corollary to industrial labor history. Despite significant contributions over the intervening
decades, the field is still ripe for exploration. See Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What we Will: Workers and
Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983
22
Jim Davidson and Peter Spearritt, Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia Since 1870, Melbourne, Meigunyah
Press, 2000; Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture
Since 1788, Longman, Melbourne, 1995
23
‘The Heyday of the Holiday’, in Richard White et al., On Holidays: A History of Getting Away in Australia,
Pluto Press, Sydney, 2005, pp.119-153
24
White et al., On Holidays, p.xv
3
