Pommy Town
Remembering the Lysaght Workers' Estate in Australia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3206023 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helen Macallan (University of Technology Sydney, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Pages | 72-94 |
| Publication date | 2018-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dby003 |
| OpenAlex | W2794860273 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
In 1921 the English iron and steel manufacturer, John Lysaght Ltd, opened mills in East Mayfield, Newcastle, Australia. The company built a housing estate adjacent to the works to accommodate the seventy-five men (and their families) brought from Bristol and Newport to operate the new works. The focus of this essay is on the myths, memories and lived experiences of the residents of the former estate, who were poorly received, not least because they arrived at a time of acute job and housing shortage. Thus, the estate was dubbed ‘Pommy Town’, a negative label denoting it as English despite the fact that more than half the residents were Welsh, and the speech and habits of the newcomers were regarded as suspiciously ‘foreign’. The essay offers a portrait of the social dynamics of an Australian industrial city in the first half of the twentieth century. It seeks to recall the lives of industrial workers and their families, figures increasingly not given their due in a post-industrial age.
Archaeology · Art history · Economic history · Economic shortage · Economics · Economy · Estate · Expatriate · Government (linguistics) · Mythology · Political science · Portrait · Real estate · Sociology · Welsh · Australian History and Society · Classics · Gender Studies · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |