Perth’s all-inclusive venue The Court Hotel has recently updated it’s marketing description describing itself as a home to Perth’s LGBTIQA+ community since the early 1900s.
Was a typo or a stretch of the imagination?
The venue is one of Perth’s longest running establishments having originally been built in 1888, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t filled with LGBTQ community until the early 1990s – some 90 years later than claimed.
Connections Nightclub has always proudly declared that they are the longest running LGBTIQA+ venue to remain in the same location, having begun operations in 1975. Next year they will celebrate the milestone of their 50th birthday.
After OUTinPerth asked the venue about the claim, a spokesperson for operator Australian Venue Co said they would “update the wording on our website as it currently doesn’t accurately represent the history.”
Jo Darbyshire, who curated a memorable exhibition of Western Australia’s LGBTIQA+ history at the WA Museum, shared some info about where our community spent time in the past.
The Palace Hotel in Perth city was one of the earliest hotels where gay people congregated. The front bar at the Palace was known in the ‘50s as a place for ‘gay high society’; those working in amateur theatre and the ABC. It is mentioned in No End to the Way, which is thought to be Australia’s first gay novel, written by in 1965 by Perth’s Gerald Glaskin (under the pseudonym Neville Jackson).
Fremantle however did it first. An article in the Sunday Times on 23 June 1901, complained of a ‘den of disgusting depravity’, and historians believe it refers to the billiards room of the Newcastle Club Hotel in Fremantle, which is thought to be WA’s first gay bar. The venue was known as The Newport Hotel for many years but recently transformed into Flight Club.
In the early 1980s the Bertha Collective began as the Pub Collective at the Beaufort Hotel/Lone Star Saloon, Northbridge. They staged women’s dances and parties at the Onslow Reception Centre, the Ukrainian Hall, the Leederville Hotel and Canterbury Court.
Another popular venue in the 1980s included The Red Lion, which is now the Aberdeen Hotel. Over the decades it’s had many different names including the All Nations Hotel, Cosmopolitan Hotel, Union Hotel, Red Lion Inn/Hotel, then the Aberdeen Hotel, later shortened to the Deen, then it became The Game, before returning to being The Aberdeen.
