Six o'clock swill

Opposition in South Australia to changes to hotel hours prior to referendum in 1938

The six o'clock swill was an Australian slang term for the last-minute rush to buy drinks at a hotel bar before it closed. During a significant part of the 20th century, most Australian and New Zealand hotels shut their public bars at 6 pm. A culture developed of heavy drinking during the hour between finishing work at 5 pm and the bars closing at this early hour.

The rush to drink

The six o'clock closing time was introduced partly in an attempt to improve public morals and get men home to their wives earlier. Instead, it often fuelled an hour-long speed-drinking session, as men raced to get as drunk as possible in the limited time available. An unintended consequence was that glasses were saved during the hour after quitting time until the last call came for drinks. Then the emptied glasses could be refilled. "The bartender didn't carry your glass to the tap. He carried a pistol-shaped spigot hitched to a long tube and squirted your glass full where you stood."

Introduction of early closing

Six o'clock closing
Place	Adopted	Abolished
NSW	1916	1955
SA	1915	1967
Tas	1916	1937
Vic	1916	1966
QLD	1923	1966
NZ	1917	1967

Six o'clock closing was introduced during World War I. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Rechabites campaigned successfully for limits on the sale of alcohol and beer. Although the temperance movement had been active since the late 1870s, they mounted the successful argument in 1915 and onwards that a "well-ordered, self-disciplined and morally upright home front was a precondition for the successful prosecution of the war."

The first state to introduce early closing was South Australia in 1915 where the rationale was a war austerity measure. Six o'clock closing was adopted in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania in 1916. It was introduced in New Zealand in 1917. Queensland introduced eight o'clock closing in 1923.

Max Dupain's photograph of A Barmaid at Work in Wartime Sydney. Petty's Hotel, Sydney, 6 p.m., 1941.

The question of closing hours was put to New South Wales voters in June 1916. The question had previously been put to the vote in December, 1913 when the results of the Local Option Poll were in favour of 11 o'clock closing. The 1916 vote was influenced by a recent riot involving soldiers. In February 1916, troops mutinied against conditions at the Casula Camp. They raided hotels in Liverpool before travelling by train to Sydney, where one soldier was shot dead in a riot at Central Railway station.

Although it was introduced as a temporary measure, in 1919 it was made a permanent measure in Victoria and South Australia. The New South Wales Government brought in temporary extensions and discussed putting the matter to a referendum. In 1923, however, without testing the matter by a popular vote, 6 p.m. was enacted in NSW as a closing time.

Hotels catered for a short heavy drinking period after work before the early evening closing by extending their bars and tiling walls for easy cleaning. The phenomenon changed Australian pubs as rooms in the building were converted to bar space; billiard rooms disappeared and bars were knocked together.

Western Australia remains the only Australian state that never adopted the early closing times.

6 o'clock closing was meant to reduce drunken mayhem however it encouraged it, due to the short time men had to consume alcohol between "knock off time" and 6pm, They often drove home from the pub extremely drunk. Car crashes and assaults by men upon their wives and children were at their highest between 6.30pm and 8pm.

In any case the law was an extreme failure, sports and cosmopolitan clubs were considered private bars and were allowed to trade alcohol till very late and many men would "preload" their alcohol - often buying multiple flagons of beer before the swill and taking them home or to private parties.

Extension of closing time

Closing time was extended to 10 o'clock in Tasmania from 1937. The issue of ending early closing was voted on in New South Wales in 1947 but the proposal was voted down, however a vote in 1954 narrowly won, and closing hours were extended to 10 p.m. in 1955. Hours were extended in Victoria in 1966, and South Australia was the last state to abolish six o'clock closing with legislation introduced by Don Dunstan in 1967 and the first legal after-6 p.m. beer being drunk on 28 September.

Bar closing times were extended to 10pm in New Zealand 9 October 1967 3 weeks after a referendum . An earlier referendum, in 1949, had voted three to one to retain six o'clock closing although there was partial repeal of the law in 1961 which allowed restaurants to sell liquor until midnight but not hotel bars.

References in culture

The Bar (1954) by John Brack

The bar (1954), a painting by John Brack which was based on the Six o'clock swill was sold for a record price for an Australian painting of $3.17 million. Another painting by Brack, Collins St., 5 pm. (1955) held by the National Gallery of Victoria is also based on the 5-o'clock rush to get to the bar.

Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid, an autobiography of a depression era barmaid, describes the six o'clock swill, at a time (1952) when it was presumed that the reader would be familiar with the concept.

See also

• Public house
• Longest bar in Australia
• Binge drinking

External links

• Dinkum Aussies: Events: The Six O'Clock Swill
• Literary quotes about six o'clock closing
• University of Technology Sydney: Journalism: Pubs and People
• State Library of New South Wales: Picture of patrons at the Northern Club Hotel toasting the introduction of 10 p.m. closing, 1 February 1955
• The Political Economy of Six O’Clock Closing (in New Zealand) Tim Mulcare. (Rich Text Format)