Great Depression: Bankstown Riot, 1931

On June 17, 1931, a riot broke out in Bankstown, Sydney, in protest of rent evictions taking place during the Great Depression. Seventeen men were arrested for serious affray, and sixteen of them received sentences of hard labor in prison.

Sydney in 1931 was in the depths of the Great Depression. High levels of unemployment and limited benefits meant that some poorer families were unable to keep up their rent payments, and faced eviction from their homes. This led to protests and disturbances in a number of suburbs, in particular at Bankstown on 17 June 1931.

Seventeen men were arrested for riot and serious affray, and were remanded in custody without bail. During their incarceration, the government received petitions with 10,000 signatures demanding their release and an inquiry into Police action. This appears to have had little effect, as sixteen of the seventeen were eventually found guilty and sentenced to hard labour for terms of three to eighteen months.

Organisations such as the International Class War Prisoners Aid were very active in lobbying on behalf of prisoners in these situations. As the tone of the correspondence indicates, the association was decidedly unimpressed with the response from a Labor government to their request to receive a deputation. These records provide a glimpse of the volatile political and social climate of early 1930s Sydney.

Related: The Sydney Morning Herald. (1931). Bankstown Riot. Seventeen men committed for trial

These digitised documents are from NRS-333: Attorney General and Justice Special bundles, 1874-1984.