By John McKechnie AO, KC
It must have been a great picnic.
It was Boxing Day 1880 and more than 2,000 men, women and children descended on the Clontarf recreational grounds by Sydney Harbour in specially hired steamers and pleasure craft.
Among the happy throng was a journalist, William Traill, wearing his trademark Tam o’Shanter who recorded the scene in an article subsequently published in a new magazine, the Bulletin.
“At Clontarf it was not an excursion – it was an orgy … the dancing was that of satyrs and bacchantes in soiled and squalid finery or rumpled gowns that had at first been stiffly white.
“There were no manly youths and as for the girls – there was beauty of feature here and there, blurred by traces of intemperance and ravages of excess.
“Young Australia was represented by faces prematurely old – countenances cunning, debased, dully sensual …
“But worse still among the flushed panting bevy of young girls clinging in romping abandon to promiscuous partners were some unworn childish faces with the devil’s mark not yet stamped upon their features, but obviously preparing to have the seal set upon them before another day.”
There was more in the same vein – much more.
Now the owners of the Clontarf picnic grounds were two brothers, William and Thomas Moore, who had inherited the 60-acre property from their father, Isaac Moore. Over the years, simple shelters had been replaced by bars, dining rooms and dance halls. Clontarf was a popular place for picnics and the Moores ran their own steamers from central Sydney to Clontarf.
Clontarf had been the scene of much drama 12 years before. In 1868, the 23-year-old son of Queen Victoria, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, was attending a sailor’s picnic when Fenian dissident Henry James O’Farrell shot the Prince in the back at close range. The assassination was foiled by double thickness rubber suspenders the Prince was wearing, which deflected the bullet somewhat. The wound was nevertheless serious and required weeks of recuperation.
O’Farrell was immediately tackled and disarmed.
Police had difficulty in preventing the crowd from lynching O’Farrell, but eventually he was taken away in a steamer. A month later, after trial, he was hanged despite Prince Alfred’s appeal for clemency.
In due course, the citizens of New South Wales erected a public building in honour of the vice regal visit – The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Back to the Moores. When another disparaging article was published, they sued the owners of the Bulletin, John Haynes and JF Archibald (he of the art prize), for defamation.
The trial took place before Sir William Manning and a jury. Justice Manning had a personal connection with Clontarf. He was standing next to Prince Alfred when he was shot. He was almost shot himself when attempting to overpower O’Farrell.
The jury heard 11 days of conflicting evidence before bringing in a verdict. The Bulletin had defamed the Moore brothers. The damages? One farthing, the smallest coin in the realm. Normally this would deprive the plaintiff Moore brothers of their costs, but the Judge ordered Haynes and Archibald to pay the plaintiffs’ costs amounting to 3,000 pounds.
Haynes and Archibald appealed to the Full Court, Chief Justice Martin, Justice Windeyer and, curiously, because he had been the trial judge, Justice Manning. The appeal concerned the admissibility of some other articles published in the Bulletin. The Chief Justice and Justice Manning held they had been properly admitted. Justice Windeyer dissented. The appeal was dismissed.
Haynes and Archibald did not have the kind of money to pay the Moores’ costs, especially as the Bulletin had received another defamation judgment against it in a different matter for 1,000 pounds. They were obliged to sell their interests in the Bulletin to none other than William Traill, the author of the defamatory article. (They later rejoined as minority shareholders).
Both Haynes and Archibald were imprisoned for their refusal to pay the Moores’ costs. After six weeks they were released when a public subscription raised the necessary 3,000 pounds.
Picnics on a grand scale continued at Clontarf despite, or perhaps because of, the scandal attracted by the article. After many years, the land passed from the Moores and was sold off for subdivision. A small Clontarf public reserve remains, adjacent to Sandy Bay and opposite Spit Bridge.
John Haynes became a parliamentarian, living until 1917. JF Archibald suffered a nervous breakdown and sold his interest in the Bulletin in 1914, dying in 1919.
William Traill, still wearing a Tam o’Shanter, established the Bulletin as a popular journal. He sold out in 1886 and his other ventures did not prosper. He died in 1902.
The Bulletin lasted until 2008.
Adapted from Moore v Haynes (1880) II NSWR 327. Articles from Trove and the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
