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United Services Hotel
Also known as United Service[] Hotel/Inn. St George's Terrace, Lot L3, on the south side of the Terrace, three lots from the corner of Barrack Street.
Tuckfield:
In a like manner, another couple, Private George Bell Hodges, also of the 63rd, and his wife, Mary, conducted a business. On 5th September 1829 Mary Hodges was assigned lot no. L3 in occupancy. This was the birth of the United Service Tavern, which, until 1970, was still in business, snuggled between modern skyscrapers in St. George's terrace, Perth; it was then the oldest public house still in business in the city. The Criterion, previously under several other names, now holds this honour, and strangely enough, the site was first occupied for a pub by Edward Barron. In May 1832 Mary Hodges applied for the fee simple to her holding:
Buildings, dwelling house, bakery and outhouses of brick valued at £250: Enclosures, £35.10; Cultivation £5, Drains £1.10; Clearing £5.
This valuation was accepted and lot no. L3 which extended from St George's terrace to Bazaar terrace, became her property. For the years 1833 and 1834 she held a licence and apparently opened her place as an inn or hotel. In August 1835 George Hodges, who by now had received his discharge from the army and had been assigned lot no. 7, announced in the Perth Gazette that he thanked patrons of the United Service Hotel and that he had opened a new lodge and commodious house on no. 7, Bazaar terrace. A month later James Dobbins, also an ex-member of the 63rd regiment, announced that he had taken over the United Service Hotel, but because Hodges had also named his new place the United Service Hotel, Dobbins changed the name of his premises from Hotel to Tavern. Any further confusion was obviated when Hodges' place became known as Hodges' Hotel; well known as a meeting place for a number of societies and so forth, it was close to the main Perth wharf at William street and close to where the doomed Esplanade Hotel is today.
In April 1836 Hodges announced that he had enlarged his premises and that a shop was attached. In April 1841 G. B. Hodges and family announced their intention to leave the colony at the first opportunity. Whether they did or not is unknown, but at least neither he nor his wife were listed again as holders of the annual licences.
Adams:
George Hodges's wife Mary was the first woman to own a town lot in the colony ,having acquired it two years before her husband was discharged from the army. The United Services Hotel was on lot L3, on the south side of St George's Terrace, three lots from the corner of Barrack Street, and therefore diagonally south-west just across from the Barracks itself and the power centre of the inchoate town. "George Hodges' parents were the owners of Perth's principal bakery and inn. George Hodges Sr., who originally came to the colony with the military detachment, ostensibly ran the business, but is was an open secret that his business prosperity was largely due 'to the good management of his wife'." (Adams, quoting E. Stone, Some Old-Time Memories, Prahran, Victoria, 1918).
References and Links
Adams, David 1981, '"Superior" boys schools in a pioneering community: the Swan River Settlement, 1829 to 1855', Early Days, vol. 8 part 5: 75-93.
Tuckfield, Trevor 1971, 'Early colonial inns and taverns', Early Days: Journal and proceedings of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society, Part 1, '7, 3: 65-82; Part 2,7, 7: 98-106.
Dodgy Perth 2016, United Service Tavern.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 23 August, 2023 and hosted at freotopia.org/hotels/unitedservices.html (it was last updated on 23 August, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.