#hackett street

[penultimo]

Charlie Hackett, cigar man, King of Ultimo

Let us tell you about Charlie Hackett (1899-1976).

We've had a bit of help from Michael R. Matthews in putting this together. (source)

They called Charlie Hackett the King of Ultimo (allegedly)

Hackett was a Labor Party man, and he (partly) grew up on Macarthur Street, down the bottom of the hill near Wattle Street, near the putrid swamp (aka Wentworth Park). Hacket served on the NSW Legislative Council for twenty years, and was Secretary of the Pyrmont-Denison branch of the Labor Party for forty years. Hackett known around Ultimo as a man to thank for local employment. In 1943 he landed a role in the NSW Upper House after the death of J.F. Coates.

In the 1940s Hackett managed to bring Ben Chifley to a local party branch meeting in Ultimo (can anyone think of any other times that PMs have visited Ultimo - other than to go to the ABC?)

In 1959 the NSW Labor Government attempted to legislate the end of the Legislative Council - a "self-destruct" bill was sent to the Legislative Council ... and Hackett (and five other Labor MLCs) crossed the floor against the bill. It didn't pass, and we still have a Legislative Council in NSW. Matthews has suggested that Hackett didn't actually object to the principle of the Legislative Council's dissolution, but he knew the bill meant losing any rights to gilt-edged retirement pay outs and associated privileges.

Hackett later supported the Government's attempts to strengthen the rights of tenants in the Landlord and Tenant Act. But by 1965 his political career was over: "I didn't even bother going in to vote for myself."

Here's a quote from Matthews (since it's from him we borrowed this information, he can have the last say): 

"Right to the end, Charlie [Hackett] would attend City Council meetings, sit in the public gallery, chomp on his oversized cigar and ruminate [...] In 1971 he told Alan Gill on the Herald that the only way he would leave Ultimo wold be 'when he was carried out feet first'. This was how he did leave his home at 70 Macarthur Street." 

Hackett Street carries Charlie's name. 

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Hackett Street, 1930s and 2010

Hackett Street, known as Bulwara Rd from 1905 to 1950, looked like this in the 1930s:

Image sourced from the City of Sydney Image Library. 

Today Hackett Street looks like this:

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that aint no lane

Ultimo local, Kitty, reminds us that the narrow little Hackett Street in fact used to be called Bulwara Lane. Its status as a lane proved to be a problem for the lane's inhabitants in the 1950s: a lane's slummy associations made it tricky to get hired for work.

Labor MP Charles Hackett pushed for all Lanes to be renamed Streets, to give lane dwellers the respectability they deserved. Thus the name change from Bulwara Lane to Hackett Street. The Powerhouse Museum verifies this random neighbourly chatter. 

What is kind of stupid about this is - there is ALSO a Hackett Lane -- albeit a pedestrian thoroughfare only, but it's a lane. Curiously, that's where the state government subsequently chose to set up a stack of public housing. 

One Penultimite knows Hackett Lane rather well - when she was a teenager she had a boyfriend, N, who lived there with his tarot-card reading mother, 5 cats and a Staffordshire terrier. N lived in an amazingly tiny sandstone cottage (see above) on Hackett Lane - which made for a pretty quirky subsidised housing experience. This would have been idyllic, had it not been for the Staffie's incredible dog farts, farts with olafactory powers so overwhelming, they could actually be sensed down the road on Harris Street.