Coogee Media

With the pace of development happening in Coogee with so much change to the built environment, especially in regards to the proposed redevelopment of the Coogee Bay Hotel site backing onto it, Vicar Street looks like it is in for big changes. We thought it would be timely, therefore, to take a look at the street's history, its origins, and some of its characters.

Downtown Coogee
Vicar Street, runs south from downtown Coogee Bay Road up a deceptively steep hill towards Carr Street. Until the late 1980s, you could take a shortcut through the car park (probably illegal, but who cared) of the old Oceanic Hotel. When that site was redeveloped, the car park was built over and the street is now definitely a dead end. Most would remember Vicar Street as being on the back entrance of the Coogee Bay Hotel: if drive you into the bottle shop on Arden Street, you'd exit through Vicar Street.

Vicar Street, looking south

Vicar Street, looking north

Early Development
Vicar Street first appears in the Sydney Sands Directories in the 1908 edition. A December 1907 advertisement offered a block of land for sale in the street, so it must have been formed around about time. It was spelt as "Vicker" sometimes (an older form of spelling "Vicar") but by 1910 had settled down to "Vicar". I could find no obvious reason for the name. For instance, there is no obvious person named 'Vicar' who it could have been named after.

At that stage a Mrs Mary Saville was occupying a building called "Ascot" on the corner of Belmore Road (as Coogee Bay Road was then known) and Vicar Street, but with a Belmore Road address/frontage. In 1910, the directory showed nine occupied buildings on the western side of the street, and in 1912 was joined by four occupied, including at No. 7 known as Claremont", which still stands today.

"Pioneer" Harry Yeldham
An early resident was George Henry "Harry" Yeldham, a real "pioneer". He lived on the western side of the street from its earliest times in a house called "Leura", which was likely at No. 8 Vicar Street (street numbering was not included in directories then). He was born in 1824 and came to Australia in about 1851, to the gold fields of Victoria. After gold mining, he came to Sydney and established and ran a successful coaching, carrier and wholesale business in the City which he handed over to his sons to run. He died on 29th March, 1911 aged 89. He was buried at Randwick General Cemetery (CE S plot 31).

Normandy No. 3 Vicar Street
The tall, impressive looking block of three-storied flats and shops on the eastern corner of Vicar Street, known as Normandy and numbered as "No 3" with its entrance in Vicar Street, was constructed around the start of World War One. It has long been a place where people who wanted to be near the beachside, could rent apartments and small units to live. One was the shark attack victim Mervyn Gannon who lived here in 1922 when he was attacked by a shark and died later in hospital (READ MORE about the shark attack ). In 1914, a small, furnished flat could be had for £3.10s. Some were advertised as having ocean and surf views.

A young 24 year old soldier, Harry Broad, who had rented a flat in Normandy for a couple of years before he enlisted in the Army in October 1939, was tragically found dead with a shot to the head on 24th January, 1940, on the roof of the building. He and another soldier were absent without leave (AWL) from the Army and had found their way to Coogee and persuaded the caretaker to put them up for the night. Broad had managed to smuggle his service rifle under his coat and used it to inflict the fatal wound in a locked cubicle in a shower room on the roof of Normandy used by tenants after they had come from the beach.

Claremont, No. 7 Vicar Street
"Claremont" would feature often in the history of the street. One dramatic event in April 1913, involved the tragic death of 39 year old Alfred Manwaring, whose parents, Mr and Mrs Jesse Manwaring, were living in "Claremont". Manwaring and a brother-in-law, Edward Thomas Rigney ( See Note 1), had demolished an old wooden cottage on the corner of Vicar Street and Belmore Road (I think it was the northern corner) and had built a large rack to hold the demolition's salvaged timber, ready for sale. Manwaring and another man were standing next to the pile directing a group of men who were unloading the timber from the rack as it was being sold, when the pile of timber, which witnesses described as sounding like a loud roar, collapsed trapping both men. Bystanders rushed to clear the timber away from them and pull them out to safety. Alas, it was too late for Manwaring who had a broken neck and was dead. They carried his body the short distance up Vicar Street to "Claremont" where his mother was confronted with the awful visage of her son's fate. Manwaring was buried at Randwick General Cemetery (Presbyterian B plot 7)

No 7 Vicar Street, Coogee Claremont

Another person who lived at "Claremont" was George Knight. When he died, aged 55, in September 1935, the Sydney Sun said that he was one of the best known men in Coogee having lived in the suburb for 51 years meaning that he would have had to have come here as a child in the mid-1880s. He was one of the founders of the Coogee Sports Club. One of his most valued possessions was a cup presented by King George V to his father Sidney William Knight whose horse won at a race staged at a meeting in honour of the King (then a midshipman) when he visited Australia with the Duke of Clarence in 1881. The Knights are buried at Randwick General Cemetery (Church of England, A, plots 194 & 195).

For as long as I can remember "Claremont", a four-unit apartment building, has been painted a pale yellow and has included a doctor's surgery. Someone I spoke to said that when they worked in the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) on the corner of Vicar Street and Coogee Bay Road in the late 1960s or early 1970s (then a neo-colonial style building), she visited a surgery in 'Claremont", a Dr. Summer-Hayes. Being so close to the beach she thought he should be called Dr. Summer Haze!

The Street Develops
As the decades passed, development progressed and all the lots in the street had homes built on them. During the 1930s two storey, art deco style apartment buildings were added to the mix of domestic architecture. In the early post-war period of the 1940s and 1950s, many families from older suburbs hankered for big backyards. Newspapers decried the rush to "flat living". Some families sought an escape to the western suburbs with big quarter acre backyards. European immigrants, however, were used to apartment living and generally liked the idea of living in a more cosmopolitan setting, like Vicar Street, near a major beach. Albert Foulkes, for instance, of 4 Vicar Street, who described himself as being born in Karlsruhe, Germany, but now stateless, announced in the press in August 1944, that he intended to seek naturalisation as an Australian.

Charles Bliss One of the most interesting residents of Vicar Street in the post-World War Two era was Charles Bliss (1897 to 1985). He lived at 2 Vicar Street. I remember him as a customer when I worked at Coogee Post Office when it was in Brook Street. He came to post copies of newsletters about his communications system known as "Blissymbolics". He was a jolly man with the air of a European intellectual. Those who knew him spoke glowingly of his great intellectual talents but tended to note that his work on human communications was not fully appreciated. I didn't take a lot of notice of him the, but now wished I had. He was like many people who lived near the beach in the 1960s: displaced persons from Europe, single ex-servicemen, widows - people with great potential but whose lives had been disrupted by the Second World War and were struggling to fulfil their dreams. Charles with persistence and hard work, managed to get somewhere near to achieving it. Charles was born Karl Kasiel Blitz in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the then borderlands with Russia. He became a chemical engineer, but when the Nazis invaded Austria, Charles, Jewish, was sent to Dachau concentration camp and then to Buchenwald. Through the fearless efforts of his wife, Claire (d. 1961), a Catholic German, was able to lobby the Gestapo on his behalf and have him released, but he had to leave for England immediately. Claire escaped to Greece, but the couple were separated until they could make their way separately to the foreign colony of Shanghai in China. With the Japanese invasion, Charles, this time with Claire, found himself back in a concentration camp. However, in 1946 they were able to migrate to Australia and arrived in Sydney with high hopes. During his incarceration, Charles had been working on a universal ideographic language, constructed of simple symbolic logic, and thought his work would receive serious academic attention in Australia. However, like so many new arrivals in a country, he found that the skills and expertise he brought with him was discounted. Going to labouring jobs by day, at nights, he worked tirelessly to perfect and publicise his language system. Eventually, he work bore fruit and he learnt that his system was being used in Canada to communicate with disabled children. In 1976 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to the community, particularly handicapped children. Charles died in 1985, with Blissymbols achieving great use for communication and language for people with learning difficulties because of their disability.

Wandering Kangaroo
One newcomer to Vicar Street caused more consternation. An "old man" kangaroo hopped along Vicar Street, Coogee one day in September 1951, jumped a fence, and playfully began to dig up a front garden. The garden belonged to Mrs. N. Fraser. From there he charged the fence and broke through to the next door garden which belonged to Mrs. L. Morrow. Mrs. Morrow's garden also suffered until an RSPCA officer arrived and "arrested" the wanderer. He was sent to Taronga Park Zoo, in the hope that an owner would claim him.

No. 2 Vicar Street in 1992 & 2000

WESTPAC BANK was on the corner with Coogee Bay Rd & Overturned Car in 1992

Backpacker Overcrowding?

Local MP Ernie Page raised concerns about illegal backpacker hostels

Vicar Street's close location to the Beach and public transport and a generous supply of rentable apartments, made it a very attractive destination for young backpacking holiday makers, students and short term workers. From the 1990s and into the 21st century, the street acquired an international atmosphere as young people from around the world sought accommodation there. Some older residents complained that the apartments being rented were grossly overcrowded with perhaps 20 young people living in two bedroom flats designed for 2 or 3 people. It was difficult for overcrowding not to engender unsightly mess and noise and disrupt the lives of older locals. Many claimed it was a type of illegal hostel accommodation. Others were concerned about the danger to lives if a fire were to break out in an overcrowded, unofficial hostel. The NSW State Parliament introduced legislation in attempt to control the situation and the then local State Member for Coogee, the late Ernie Page (1935 - 2018), raised the matter in state Parliament: " ... I was contacted by one of my constituents who owns three units in a block of flats in Vicar Street, Coogee. That is her retirement income. Next to that block is a large, old block of flats. In her letter she told me that the noise, filth, general inconvenience and disorderly conduct from that block of flats caused her tenants to move out. Garbage was thrown out of windows, and bottles and used condoms were thrown out and littered the street and footpath near her property. That has had a huge impact on that small street in my electorate. To date, Council has not been able to do anything to cut back on the illegal use of those premises ... "

One problem was when a few irresponsible travellers left Coogee to return home, they simply dumped their motor vehicles in the street knowing they were practically exempt from any consequences once they left Australia. The Council could not dispose of the vehicle until the registration had run out. They became unsightly and took up valuable public parking spaces until they could be removed. I remember back in 1992, photographing an abandoned vehicle where someone had taken the simple expedient of upending the ownerless car onto its roof so that it sat on the adjacent footpath next to the Westpac Bank in Vicar Street.

Young Travellers Beneficial
One of our readers, Andrew, provides a very different perspective:

I am an ex-resident of Vicar Street and backpacker. in 2000. I stayed in Flat 1, 21 Vicar Street, with probably 6 other people in 2000, for what was essentially a 2 bedder. Well, I say bed, we had mattresses on milk crates! The lady who ran it was I think of Eastern European origin, or maybe she ran it for someone. Either way I remember a news report on the local TV news (Channel 10? My memory is hazy) about "the mess backpackers were making". The next day we had a film crew down with a male reporter and they were desperately trying to get inside the flat to shoot some footage. We didn't let them in and the lady was really worried about it. We watched the report on the news that evening and curiously they'd made a big song and dance about all the "rubbish left outside the flat" , yet what they failed to point out was that there was rubbish outside every flat as it at a designated time the Council would come and take stuff away that people didnt want, so they just left it on the pavement at the bottom of their drive. Ironically there was no rubbish at the bottom of ours as we didnt have much to throw away! We did get broken into though and we did have lots of cockroaches ... euk!

23 years later and it was easily the happiest time of my life. Sure, there was some loud music and no doubt shouting on the way back from the Coogee Bay Hotel , but I don't remember at any point any disagreements with the neighbours. I loved Coogee,it always will have a special place in my heart. Sadly the Coogee Bay Surf Shop no longer does the "Enjoy Coogee, it's the real thing" t-shirt (with the swirly Coca-Cola text). My second t-shirt eventually got so many holes in it I had to throw it away!

Many others backpackers also disputed the idea that international travellers were a big problem. Yes, they say, the actions of a small minority are reprehensible but it should be remembered that the average backpacker was on a working visa spending money in our shops and small businesses. Unlike tourists who stay in the five-star hotels and eat at the top restaurants, they are willing to do the work some Australians shy away from in the health care, cleaning, manual labour, restaurant and entertainment industries, and keep our agricultural industries afloat.

One thing for sure! International and young travellers gave the street character, if not always welcomed. In the last couple years with the COVID19 pandemic, the street is certainly much quieter and has lost some of its flair.

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