The six o'clock swill was an Australian and New Zealand 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 p.m. A culture developed of heavy drinking during the hour between finishing work at 5 p.m. and the bars closing at this early hour.
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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."[1]
| 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, the successful argument in 1915 and onwards was that a "well-ordered, self-disciplined and morally upright home front was a precondition for the successful prosecution of the war."[2]
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. Western Australia remains the only Australian state that never adopted an early closing time.
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.[3]
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, the government enacted 6 p.m. as the closing time.[4]
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.[4]
The laws were meant to reduce drunken mayhem but it encouraged it because of the short time men had to consume alcohol between "knock off time" and 6 p.m. Men often drove home from the pub extremely drunk. Car crashes and assaults by men upon their wives and children were at their highest between 6.30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
In any case, the law was a 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 by buying multiple flagons of beer before the swill and taking them home or to private parties.
Closing time was extended to 10 p.m. 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, but 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-six beer being drunk on 28 September.[5]
Bar closing times were extended to 10 p.m. in New Zealand on 9 October 1967, three weeks after a referendum .[6] An earlier referendum, in 1949, had voted three to one to retain six o'clock closing, but there was partial repeal of the law in 1961, which allowed restaurants to sell liquor until midnight but not hotel bars.
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.
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.
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