WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome to the deep dive. You know, we spend 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:05.980 a lot of time on this show looking at really 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:08.759 sweeping historical narratives. Right. Or, you 00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:11.519 know, dense scientific papers or these sprawling 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:13.960 investigative reports. But the source material 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.239 we are diving into today is well, it's entirely 00:00:17.239 --> 00:00:21.039 different. We are looking at just a single. wikipedia 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.879 page yeah and not just any page it is literally 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:27.620 titled list of mayors of newtown which i mean 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:30.179 on the surface sounds like a complete cure for 00:00:30.179 --> 00:00:32.409 insomnia It really does. If you were to pull 00:00:32.409 --> 00:00:34.810 up this page right now, your first impression 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:37.210 would be that it's just this stark black and 00:00:37.210 --> 00:00:39.950 white table. A chronological ledger of municipal 00:00:39.950 --> 00:00:42.869 leaders for a place called Newtown in New South 00:00:42.869 --> 00:00:46.649 Wales, spanning from 1863 to 1948. Basically 00:00:46.649 --> 00:00:48.829 a spreadsheet. Exactly. It looks like the driest 00:00:48.829 --> 00:00:51.030 spreadsheet imaginable. You've got columns for 00:00:51.030 --> 00:00:54.070 years, columns for names, and a little column 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:55.929 on the side for notes. But that is actually the 00:00:55.929 --> 00:00:58.109 perfect setup for our mission today. Because 00:00:58.109 --> 00:01:00.450 when you know how to actually read a data... 00:01:00.460 --> 00:01:02.100 set like this, when you start looking at the 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:05.719 anomalies, the sudden shifts in formatting, and 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:08.120 most importantly, when you click on those tiny 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:10.900 superscript citation numbers at the very bottom 00:01:10.900 --> 00:01:13.200 of the page. Oh, the footnotes. Yes, the footnotes. 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:16.620 When you do that, that dry spreadsheet completely 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:19.219 shatters. It really does. It transforms into 00:01:19.219 --> 00:01:22.040 this dramatic, chaotic, and genuinely groundbreaking 00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:25.640 map of human behavior. It is a phenomenal exercise 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:28.340 in reading between the lines. We are going to 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:30.819 track the patterns today. day and dig into those 00:01:30.819 --> 00:01:33.879 archival citations to pull out the history that 00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:36.180 is basically buried underneath what looks like, 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:38.000 you know, basic bureaucratic record keeping. 00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:40.299 OK, let's unpack this. If we go to the very top 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:42.219 of the table, the very first data point is from 00:01:42.219 --> 00:01:45.920 1863. Right. February 17th, 1863, to be exact. 00:01:46.099 --> 00:01:48.599 But the person in charge, Frederick William Holland, 00:01:48.819 --> 00:01:50.640 he doesn't actually have the title of mayor. 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:53.319 No, he doesn't. The column header for these first 00:01:53.319 --> 00:01:56.019 few years is actually chairman. We see Holland. 00:01:56.650 --> 00:01:59.010 then Joseph Kingsbury, Henry Monroe, William 00:01:59.010 --> 00:02:02.010 Curtis, and James Conley. They are all listed 00:02:02.010 --> 00:02:05.750 as chairman up until early 1868. What's fascinating 00:02:05.750 --> 00:02:08.370 here is what that specific shift in terminology 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:12.389 implies about the realities of early local governance. 00:02:12.990 --> 00:02:16.310 Because the word chairman suggests a much more 00:02:16.310 --> 00:02:19.629 informal, almost committee driven approach. Yeah, 00:02:19.689 --> 00:02:22.270 that makes sense. Think about the 1860s in Australia. 00:02:22.590 --> 00:02:24.789 Yeah. These early leaders were likely just trying 00:02:24.789 --> 00:02:27.090 to get the absolute bare bones infrastructure 00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:29.849 of a municipality off the ground. Like dirt roads. 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:32.669 Exactly. Dirt roads, basic sanitation, figuring 00:02:32.669 --> 00:02:35.419 out property lines. It requires a tremendous 00:02:35.419 --> 00:02:38.219 amount of resilience to chair a newly formed 00:02:38.219 --> 00:02:40.900 local body with very little precedent to lean 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:43.240 on. It feels like they were basically a startup 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:45.319 council. That's a great way to put it. And you 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:47.479 can see in the text that it wasn't until February 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:50.740 15th, 1868, which happens during Henry Monroe's 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:53.439 second stint in leadership, that the column officially 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:55.860 shifts. Right. He officially takes on the title 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:58.639 of mayor. And that is a distinct upgrade in status. 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.460 Yeah. Suddenly Newtown isn't just an ad hoc committee 00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:04.560 anymore. It's a formalized municipality with 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:07.979 a mayor. And the citations from this early era 00:03:07.979 --> 00:03:10.800 really reflect that sort of buttoned up foundational 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:14.340 period. The source notes for those early years 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:16.580 rely heavily on the New South Wales Government 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:20.080 Gazette and very brief formal notes in the Sydney 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.280 Morning Herald. Very official. Very polite. Exactly. 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:26.400 But the formal buttoned up era does not last. 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:29.520 Not at all. As we track the list into the late 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:31.840 19th century, the source text starts dropping 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:34.340 some serious hints about the human drama playing 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:36.159 out in these council chambers. Oh, definitely. 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:40.379 Let's look at 1896. OK. The mayor is James Smith. 00:03:40.419 --> 00:03:42.800 Now, if you scroll down to the citations and 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:44.979 look at a publication called The Australian Star 00:03:44.979 --> 00:03:48.819 from September 17th, 1896, the headline used 00:03:48.819 --> 00:03:51.439 in the reference is just incredible. It is so. 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:55.060 It literally reads Newtown Council, a deadlock. 00:03:55.550 --> 00:03:58.009 The mayor leaves the chair. That single line 00:03:58.009 --> 00:04:00.830 completely destroys the illusion of boring local 00:04:00.830 --> 00:04:03.490 government. You can instantly picture the scene, 00:04:03.650 --> 00:04:06.569 the gridlock in the room, the arguments echoing 00:04:06.569 --> 00:04:09.490 off the walls, the factions completely refusing 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:12.530 to budge. The frustration reaches such a boiling 00:04:12.530 --> 00:04:15.189 point that the mayor doesn't just adjourn the 00:04:15.189 --> 00:04:18.009 meeting. He physically abandons his post. He 00:04:18.009 --> 00:04:20.689 just leaves the chair. He just walks out. And 00:04:20.689 --> 00:04:23.350 the timeline of how they resolve it is just as 00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:26.069 revealing as the walkout itself. Right. The very 00:04:26.069 --> 00:04:28.589 next citation in the text, which is also from 00:04:28.589 --> 00:04:31.949 the Australian star, is dated September 23rd. 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:33.970 Almost a week later. Right. And the headline 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:39.029 is Newtown Municipal Council Alderman J .F. Smith. 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:43.040 re -elected mayor wow they had this massive theatrical 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:46.160 walkout on the 17th and it takes them almost 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.779 a full week of behind the scenes wrangling to 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.220 resolve the gridlock only to put the exact same 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.660 guy right back in the chair It highlights how 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:56.560 intensely personal and volatile this arena was 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:58.800 because the data shows the same names popping 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:01.420 up repeatedly during this era. William Rigg, 00:05:01.459 --> 00:05:04.060 for example, is noted as serving multiple non 00:05:04.060 --> 00:05:07.139 -consecutive terms stretching from 1892 all the 00:05:07.139 --> 00:05:09.279 way to 1913. Yeah, you see his name constantly. 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:12.360 Harold Thomas Morgan serves terms in the 1890s, 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:16.079 the 1900s, and the 1910s. This is a tight -knit, 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:18.860 highly competitive ecosystem where grudges and 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:21.399 alliances are constantly shifting. And that volatility. 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:24.670 really seems to set the stage for a massive visual 00:05:24.670 --> 00:05:27.990 shift that hits the data set a few decades later. 00:05:28.069 --> 00:05:29.790 Yes. If you're scrolling down this list, everything 00:05:29.790 --> 00:05:32.110 looks fairly uniform for a long time. It's just 00:05:32.110 --> 00:05:34.569 a column of names. But then you hit December 00:05:34.569 --> 00:05:38.490 1925. Right. The newly elected mayor is Isidore 00:05:38.490 --> 00:05:41.970 Edwin Ryan. And right next to his name, an acronym 00:05:41.970 --> 00:05:45.410 suddenly appears in parentheses. A .L .P. Yes. 00:05:45.410 --> 00:05:48.029 A .L .P. Which stands for the Australian Labor 00:05:48.029 --> 00:05:50.360 Party. Right. And from an analytical perspective, 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:52.339 this is a massive turning point in the source 00:05:52.339 --> 00:05:54.939 material. Starting with Isidore Edwin Ryan in 00:05:54.939 --> 00:05:57.939 1925, almost every single mayor listed for the 00:05:57.939 --> 00:06:01.199 next two decades carries that exact same AOP 00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:03.660 designation. Yeah, completely takes over. Joseph 00:06:03.660 --> 00:06:06.839 Solomon in 1928, Reuben Sidney Guittard in 1929, 00:06:07.079 --> 00:06:09.899 Joseph Vincent Bugler in 1930. The acronym essentially 00:06:09.899 --> 00:06:12.199 dominates the column. Now, I want to be very 00:06:12.199 --> 00:06:14.800 clear for everyone listening. We are tracking 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.779 this purely because it is a distinct. verifiable 00:06:17.779 --> 00:06:20.459 data point in the text. Exactly. We must remain 00:06:20.459 --> 00:06:23.180 strictly impartial here. We are simply tracking 00:06:23.180 --> 00:06:25.279 the historical data points provided in the source 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:28.000 material. We aren't endorsing any political viewpoint 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.319 left or right. Right. We are just reading the 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.480 map. Exactly. The table explicitly changes format 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:36.339 to include this acronym. It marks a very clear 00:06:36.339 --> 00:06:38.939 moment where the historical record shifts from 00:06:38.939 --> 00:06:41.920 listing independent local figures to highlighting 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.899 national party affiliations. If we connect this 00:06:44.899 --> 00:06:47.560 to the bigger picture. The sudden, consistent 00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:50.180 appearance of a major national party acronym 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:53.259 in a local municipal list tells us a lot about 00:06:53.259 --> 00:06:55.420 how society was organizing itself at the time. 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:59.120 Before 1925, these were ostensibly independent 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:01.819 local businessmen or community leaders fighting 00:07:01.819 --> 00:07:04.819 it out. The introduction of the ALP designation 00:07:04.819 --> 00:07:07.920 marks the era where local councilists began to 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:10.360 be absorbed into the broader, highly organized 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:12.300 political machinery that was sweeping the country. 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:14.819 Yeah. Local politics was becoming a proxy for 00:07:14.819 --> 00:07:17.720 larger ideological organization. And the citations 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:19.600 from this period proved that this transition 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.279 was not a quiet one. Not at all. Let's look at 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:25.660 1928. William Henry Delve is mayor, and then 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:28.930 Joseph Solomon takes over in December. The citation 00:07:28.930 --> 00:07:31.269 for this moment from the Evening News on December 00:07:31.269 --> 00:07:35.269 12th, 1928 features a headline that is just two 00:07:35.269 --> 00:07:37.269 words long. It tells you everything you need 00:07:37.269 --> 00:07:39.769 to know. It really does. The headline is, Newtown 00:07:39.769 --> 00:07:43.430 Uproar. You don't get the word uproar in a newspaper 00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:45.910 headline unless the council meeting is completely 00:07:45.910 --> 00:07:48.910 devolved. Right. It suggests a fiercely contested, 00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:52.149 loud, and deeply divided environment. The shifting 00:07:52.149 --> 00:07:55.449 names, the new party acronyms, the dramatic headlines, 00:07:55.569 --> 00:07:58.209 it all points to a municipality experiencing 00:07:58.209 --> 00:08:00.949 serious growing pains as the political stakes 00:08:00.949 --> 00:08:04.069 get higher. Which makes the next major data point 00:08:04.069 --> 00:08:06.910 in this list so remarkable. Here's where it gets 00:08:06.910 --> 00:08:08.910 really interesting. Oh, this is my favorite part. 00:08:09.029 --> 00:08:11.189 If you keep moving down the timeline past the 00:08:11.189 --> 00:08:13.529 upwars and the entrenched party politics of the 00:08:13.529 --> 00:08:17.329 1920s and early 30s, you hit December 1938. Yes. 00:08:17.410 --> 00:08:20.490 The new mayor is Lillian Fowler. Serving from 00:08:20.490 --> 00:08:25.170 December 1938 to December 1939. And the text 00:08:25.170 --> 00:08:27.410 at the very top of the Wikipedia page in the 00:08:27.410 --> 00:08:29.750 introductory notes makes sure to highlight her 00:08:29.750 --> 00:08:32.389 significance. It does. She is documented as the 00:08:32.389 --> 00:08:34.809 first female mayor in Australia. Think about 00:08:34.809 --> 00:08:37.090 that. Imagine looking back through that entire 00:08:37.090 --> 00:08:40.769 list. Decades of Fredericks, Williams, Josephs, 00:08:40.769 --> 00:08:44.529 and Jameses stretching all the way back to 1863. 00:08:44.909 --> 00:08:47.470 Just a wall of men's names. A total wall of men. 00:08:47.549 --> 00:08:51.059 And then... Right before the 1940s, Lillian Fowler's 00:08:51.059 --> 00:08:53.299 name appears. It's incredible. And the text also 00:08:53.299 --> 00:08:55.240 notes she didn't just stop at local government. 00:08:55.340 --> 00:08:57.500 She later became a member of the Legislative 00:08:57.500 --> 00:09:01.320 Assembly, an MLA for Newtown from 1944 to 1950. 00:09:02.029 --> 00:09:04.250 The magnitude of that milestone is incredible, 00:09:04.409 --> 00:09:05.909 especially when you consider the context we just 00:09:05.909 --> 00:09:07.970 established. She didn't just break a glass ceiling 00:09:07.970 --> 00:09:10.429 in a quiet, polite, bureaucratic office. She 00:09:10.429 --> 00:09:12.669 walked into a political arena that the citations 00:09:12.669 --> 00:09:16.009 have already proven was prone to gridlock, walkouts, 00:09:16.149 --> 00:09:18.529 and literal uproars. Yeah, a total shark tank. 00:09:18.789 --> 00:09:22.629 Exactly. To navigate that specific room, to build 00:09:22.629 --> 00:09:25.730 enough consensus to take the mayoral chair, and 00:09:25.730 --> 00:09:28.129 to use that momentum to reach the state level 00:09:28.129 --> 00:09:31.870 speaks to an extraordinary level. of political 00:09:31.870 --> 00:09:34.570 skill and resilience. It is a perfect example 00:09:34.570 --> 00:09:38.549 of why data is never just data. Behind that single 00:09:38.549 --> 00:09:41.309 line in a table is a massive shift in Australian 00:09:41.309 --> 00:09:44.110 political history. Absolutely. But as serious 00:09:44.110 --> 00:09:47.049 and groundbreaking as Lillian Fowler's term was, 00:09:47.409 --> 00:09:50.210 the source material also reveals that the Newtown 00:09:50.210 --> 00:09:53.450 Council had an undeniably eccentric side. They 00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:56.250 really did. In fact, the citations reveal a pattern 00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:58.389 for breaking political stalemates that is genuinely 00:09:58.389 --> 00:10:00.509 hard to believe. You were talking about the fact 00:10:00.509 --> 00:10:02.490 that they repeatedly resorted to drawing names 00:10:02.490 --> 00:10:04.769 from a hat. I am. We already established they 00:10:04.769 --> 00:10:07.110 were prone to deadlocks back in 1896 when the 00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:09.509 mayor stormed out. Right. But apparently, as 00:10:09.509 --> 00:10:12.190 the decades rolled on, they found a new, incredibly 00:10:12.190 --> 00:10:15.490 unorthodox way to solve a tied vote. Yeah. They 00:10:15.490 --> 00:10:17.230 didn't debate until someone flipped their vote. 00:10:17.350 --> 00:10:19.450 They didn't hold a runoff election. They literally 00:10:19.450 --> 00:10:21.490 threw the names in a hat and pulled one out. 00:10:21.850 --> 00:10:23.789 And this wasn't an isolated incident that happened 00:10:23.789 --> 00:10:26.429 once and was immediately outlawed. The footnotes 00:10:26.429 --> 00:10:28.929 provide undeniable evidence that this was a recurring, 00:10:29.110 --> 00:10:31.649 accepted, democratic solution for this municipality. 00:10:32.049 --> 00:10:34.429 The sheer volume of citations backing this up 00:10:34.429 --> 00:10:38.490 is wild. It is. Let's start in 1920. An evening 00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:41.230 news article from December 22nd has the headline, 00:10:41.509 --> 00:10:44.570 Mayors in the Hat. That establishes the president 00:10:44.570 --> 00:10:48.090 right there. Then you move forward to 1925, an 00:10:48.090 --> 00:10:51.250 article from The Sun on December 16th. The headline 00:10:51.250 --> 00:10:54.870 is, they drew for it. So five years later, the 00:10:54.870 --> 00:10:57.350 council finds itself in the exact same impossible 00:10:57.350 --> 00:11:00.409 deadlock and uses the exact same bizarre solution. 00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:03.070 But it doesn't stop in the 1920s. You jump all 00:11:03.070 --> 00:11:05.889 the way to the 1940s. A citation from the Sydney 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:09.009 Morning Herald, December 6th, 1944. The headline 00:11:09.009 --> 00:11:12.649 reads, Mayoralty won on draw from hat. This is 00:11:12.649 --> 00:11:15.190 right in the middle of the 20th century. Modern 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:16.970 political parties are involved and they are still 00:11:16.970 --> 00:11:19.690 using a hat. And then the very next year. The 00:11:19.690 --> 00:11:23.269 Sydney Morning Herald, December 5th, 1945, headline, 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:26.429 draw from hat elects mayor. They did it two years 00:11:26.429 --> 00:11:28.830 in a row. Two years in a row. You can almost 00:11:28.830 --> 00:11:30.970 picture the local journalists just waiting outside 00:11:30.970 --> 00:11:33.289 the council chambers every December with their 00:11:33.289 --> 00:11:35.289 notepads, wondering if the hat was going to make 00:11:35.289 --> 00:11:37.700 an appearance. Oh, absolutely. But when you really 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:40.820 analyze that quirky pattern, it tells you something 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:44.120 deeply revealing about the margins of local politics 00:11:44.120 --> 00:11:46.740 in Newtown. How so? Think about what has to happen 00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:49.519 for a council to resort to a game of chance. 00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:53.220 The factions must have been split perfectly down 00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:55.279 the middle. It means the political divisions 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:57.940 were so entrenched and the alliances were so 00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:01.139 rigid that absolutely no one was willing to compromise. 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:04.320 They would literally rather leave the leadership 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:07.330 of their entire municipality. to blind luck, 00:12:07.509 --> 00:12:09.730 they can concede a single inch to the opposing 00:12:09.730 --> 00:12:13.669 side. It's hilarious on the surface, but it represents 00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:16.210 a profound failure of negotiation. They were 00:12:16.210 --> 00:12:18.710 so stubborn that drawing a slip of paper from 00:12:18.710 --> 00:12:21.289 a hat became standard operating procedure. Exactly. 00:12:21.549 --> 00:12:23.750 It's fascinating, but as we move past this hat 00:12:23.750 --> 00:12:26.970 -drawing era of the mid -1940s, we run into the 00:12:26.970 --> 00:12:29.629 final and perhaps biggest historical mystery 00:12:29.629 --> 00:12:32.620 in the text. The list abruptly terminates. Right. 00:12:32.779 --> 00:12:35.139 We have been tracking this continuous timeline 00:12:35.139 --> 00:12:38.299 of municipal history for over 80 years. Mayors 00:12:38.299 --> 00:12:40.559 serve one year terms, sometimes two. The succession 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:44.360 is clear. We get to December 1947 and Ruben Sidney 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:47.620 Goddard is elected. Then on July 27th, 1948, 00:12:48.059 --> 00:12:50.759 Ernest Gerard Wright takes over. Okay. And then 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:54.590 nothing. On December 31st, 1948, the list just 00:12:54.590 --> 00:12:57.529 stops. It's a wall. There are no mayors listed 00:12:57.529 --> 00:13:01.870 for 1949, no names for 1950. The entire municipality 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:04.549 just seemingly vanishes from the record. To figure 00:13:04.549 --> 00:13:07.289 out why a municipality suddenly stops having 00:13:07.289 --> 00:13:10.009 mayors, we have to connect a few data points 00:13:10.009 --> 00:13:12.289 that are buried quite far apart in the source 00:13:12.289 --> 00:13:15.200 material. We actually have to look decades backward 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:17.200 to understand the end of the timeline. Let's 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.379 trace it. If you look back at the term of William 00:13:19.379 --> 00:13:22.700 Rigg in 1911, there is a specific citation from 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:25.419 the Sun newspaper on February 15th of that year. 00:13:25.899 --> 00:13:28.639 The headline poses a question. What is it? Will 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:30.600 they amalgamate? Will they amalgamate? Meaning, 00:13:30.700 --> 00:13:33.120 will they merge or be absorbed by another local 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:35.620 government body? Exactly. That rumor was already 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:38.039 generating headlines 37 years before the list 00:13:38.039 --> 00:13:40.659 ends. That question clearly hung over the council 00:13:40.659 --> 00:13:43.919 for decades. And if we jump all the way from 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:47.259 that 1911 rumor to the very last citation on 00:13:47.259 --> 00:13:50.799 the page dated August 13th, 1948, we find a reference 00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:52.600 to the Government Gazette of the State of New 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:55.539 South Wales. Okay. The text of the citation simply 00:13:55.539 --> 00:13:59.500 reads, Local Government Act, 1919 Proclamation. 00:14:00.409 --> 00:14:03.190 Furthermore, the overarching archival source 00:14:03.190 --> 00:14:05.789 for this entire list of aldermen is credited 00:14:05.789 --> 00:14:08.490 as the City of Sydney Archives. So what does 00:14:08.490 --> 00:14:11.149 this all mean? By synthesizing all those fragments, 00:14:11.389 --> 00:14:13.529 the persistent early rumors of amalgamation, 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:16.409 the decisive government proclamation in the second 00:14:16.409 --> 00:14:19.230 half of 1948, and the fact that Newtown's municipal 00:14:19.230 --> 00:14:21.590 records now reside in the City of Sydney Archives, 00:14:21.950 --> 00:14:24.470 it paints a very clear picture. Yeah. The independent 00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:26.629 municipality of Newtown ceased to exist on the 00:14:26.629 --> 00:14:29.919 last day of 1948. It was absorbed into a larger 00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:32.779 municipal body, likely the city of Sydney, bringing 00:14:32.779 --> 00:14:36.139 an 85 -year run of independent mayors to an abrupt 00:14:36.139 --> 00:14:38.419 end. It's like reading the final sentence of 00:14:38.419 --> 00:14:40.519 a novel, but the sentence is just a dry legal 00:14:40.519 --> 00:14:42.860 citation. That's a great comparison. Which brings 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:44.840 us back to the core reason we wanted to dive 00:14:44.840 --> 00:14:47.740 into this specific source material today. You 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:50.519 might assume that an old Wikipedia list of mayors 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:53.299 is just dead data. Right. But this list proves 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:55.460 that a spreadsheet is never just a spreadsheet. 00:14:55.700 --> 00:14:59.659 It is a dense, coded map of human history. Behind 00:14:59.659 --> 00:15:02.860 these columns of dates and names, you have trailblazing 00:15:02.860 --> 00:15:05.559 women changing the landscape of Australian politics. 00:15:05.860 --> 00:15:09.200 Yes. You have massive political uproars, mayors 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.720 storming out of council chambers, and a government... 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:14.779 so fiercely divided that they spent decades choosing 00:15:14.779 --> 00:15:17.039 their leaders by pulling a name out of a hat? 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:19.639 This raises an important question. It reminds 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:21.659 us to look closely at the mundane records of 00:15:21.659 --> 00:15:24.820 the past. History isn't solely forged in massive, 00:15:24.860 --> 00:15:27.559 sweeping global events. No, it's not. It is built 00:15:27.559 --> 00:15:30.340 in these hyper -local, often chaotic moments. 00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:33.059 The bitter arguments in a small council chamber, 00:15:33.340 --> 00:15:35.980 the slow institutionalization of party politics, 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.419 the hard -fought milestones of equal representation. 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:41.799 These local realities eventually ripple out to 00:15:41.799 --> 00:15:43.940 shape the society we live in. They absolutely 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:46.379 do. And as we wrap up, I want to leave you with 00:15:46.379 --> 00:15:49.639 a final thought to mull over. We look back at 00:15:49.639 --> 00:15:52.940 Newtown in the 1920s and 40s, and we laugh at 00:15:52.940 --> 00:15:55.179 the idea that drawing a name from a hat was an 00:15:55.179 --> 00:15:58.480 accepted, legally documented way to solve a political 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:01.080 crisis. Right. It seems crazy. It feels entirely 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:03.960 absurd to us today, but it makes you wonder what 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:06.559 unconventional, slightly ridiculous methods are 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:08.580 we using in our own modern institutions right 00:16:08.580 --> 00:16:10.799 now. Oh, that's a good point. What bureaucratic 00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:13.279 workarounds or quirky unwritten rules are we 00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:15.980 employing today that historians 80 years from 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.059 now will look back on with that exact same... 00:16:18.059 --> 00:16:20.539 sense of amusement. Think about that the next 00:16:20.539 --> 00:16:22.460 time you find yourself sitting in a gridlocked 00:16:22.460 --> 00:16:24.659 meeting. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive 00:16:24.659 --> 00:16:26.779 into the archives. We will see you next time.