From the loft

The term ‘1950s kitchen’ conjures up a vision of shiny surfaces, labour saving appliances and endless, seamless bench space. Advertisements tell us this space is populated by an enchanting young woman with immaculate hair who, with housewifely care, protects her gown with a sweet little apron. It is a space where the twin virtues of hygiene and household happiness combine. The reality for many women living in inner-city Sydney was very, very different.

Post-war Sydney was in the grip of a housing crisis. Industry was struggling to reach pre-war production rates and the baby boom meant there were many recently formed families desperate to find a home of their own. Newly arrived immigrants were often appalled by the standard of accommodation on offer in the inner city. Ruth Park, an author who wrote about the inner-city ‘slum’ suburb of Surry Hills, could ‘hardly believe that such conditions could exist in a civilized country’ [SMH, 5 March 1947] . Many of the houses were damp, dirty and infested by vermin. A rat plague swept the city and housewives were encouraged to block up holes in their crumbling houses, remove food sources and use rat poison liberally in order to rid Sydney of these vermin.

Kitchen interior of residence on Great Buckingham Street, Redfern. 18 May 1953. (FP09_0071_005)

This image is one of a series of crime scene photographs taken of a kitchen in Redfern in 1953. The space is dark, cramped and decaying. The home belonged to one of the victims of Mrs Caroline Grills, a grandmotherly serial killer who used Thallium based rat poison to dispatch her victims.