The White Hat Guide to John Smith

John Smith
Businessman, Publican, Mayor, Entrepreneur
1816-1879

John Smith, a man of humble beginnings, owned so many pubs and was mayor of Melbourne so often (seven times) that he was sometimes referred to as 'the Dick Whittington of Melbourne'. He supported the Eight Hours Movement and was one of the leaders of the first Eight Hours March in 1856. He can thus be considered as one of Melbourne's first chardonnay socialists although I don't think chardonnay was available at his hotels

John Smith was born in Sydney in 1816 where his father was a shoemaker. When John Smith arrived in Melbourne in 1837, the settlement was barely two years old and he taught at the Aboriginal Mission on the other side of the Yarra (where the Botanic Gardens now stand). The young Smith always had an eye for business and politics. He set up a wood yard in Collins Street and then found what many Australian men would regard as the perfect wife - her father gave John Smith a pub! This was the Adelphi Hotel in 'The Lane' - a small street close to the docks and renowned for its rough taverns. A boutique hotel of the same name now stands on the site. Few passers by notice the unusual glass bottomed swimming pool which looks down on the street below, but in Smith's time there would be many laying in the gutter looking up.

Smith expanded his stable of pubs and then added a theatre. The position for the Queens Street Theatre seemed strangely chosen. It was on the dark outskirts of town near the old cemetery. But guess who owned the only nearby pubs where patrons could slake their thirst? S. T. Gill has left us a delightful painting of the audience at Smith's Queen Street Theatre. Ask your guide on a White Hat Tour to show you a reproduction of this painting.

John Smith's house is one of the very few pre-gold rush residences still preserved in Melbourne city. The grave of John Smith can be visited on White Hat Tours' Tour of Melbourne Cemetery.

At the age of 26 Smith was elected to Melbourne's first council and remained a councillor for the rest of his life. In the days before secret ballots, the grog always flowed freely at Smith's pubs on election day and there was always a good chance of drinks on the house if Smith got elected. He was also elected to the colony's upper house (1851-1856) and then lower house (1856-1879). He was Minister for Mines form 1869 to 1870.

Smith Street Collingwood is named after John Smith. It is in Smith Street that you can see a monument to another of Melbourne's pioneers - little Johnny Fawkner. As with Fawkner, Melbourne's establishment could never ignore his common roots and populist manner (and his marriage to a Catholic!) and they saw to it that he never received the knighthood he would have loved.

A portrait of John Smith can be found in the picture collection of the State Library of Victoria.