The Rocks Push was a notorious

larrikin Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning "a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good hearted person", or "a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions". In the 19th and early 20th centurie ...

gang A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

, which dominated The Rocks area of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

from the 1870s to the end of the 1890s. In its day it was referred to as The Push, a title which has since come to be more widely used for cliques in general and the left-wing movement the Sydney Push.

Activities

The gang was engaged in running warfare with other larrikin gangs of the time such as the Miller's Point Push, Straw Hat Push, the Glebe Push, the Argyle Cut Push, the Forty Thieves from Surry Hills and the Gibb Street Mob. They conducted such crimes as theft, assault and battery against police and pedestrians in The Rocks area. Female members of the Push would entice drunks and seamen into dark areas to be assaulted and robbed by the gang. The leaders of the Rocks Push were crowned through victory in bare-knuckle boxing matches. Larry Foley, later to be regarded as the 'Father of Australian Boxing' was the leader of a Roman Catholic larrikin gang known as the Greens. On 18 March 1871, at the age of twenty-one, Foley fought Sandy Ross, leader of the 'Orange' or Protestant group. The fight lasted 71 rounds before police intervened.

References in literature

Australian authors of the time mentioned the Push in various of their works. A poem called ''The Bastard from the Bush'', attributed to

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

, and a sanitised published version, ''The Captain of the Push'', describe in vivid and colourful language a meeting between a Push leader and a "stranger from the bush": Another contemporary poet,

Banjo Paterson Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 18645 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the ...

, describes a group of tourists who go to visit the Rocks Push, and paints the following picture of the appearance of the gang members:

Wiry, hard-faced little fellows, for the most part, with scarcely a sizeable man amongst them. They were all clothed in “push” evening dress—black bell-bottomed pants, no waistcoat, very short black paget coat, white shirt with no collar, and a gaudy neckerchief round the bare throat. Their boots were marvels, very high in the heel and picked out with all sorts of colours down the sides.Andrew B. Paterson, ''An Outback Marriage'' Chapter 3: "In Push Society"
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Paterson also said, addressing Lawson in ''In Defence of the Bush'', One of the most famous haunts of the Rocks Push was Harrington Place, also known as the "Suez Canal" (supposedly a pun on "sewers"), one of the most unsavoury places in Sydney in its time.

Activities

References in literature

See also

References

Further reading