How the Collis family brought sly grog and crime to Collingwood’s Perry St

It was the street to blame for Collingwood’s bad rap, and there was one notorious family that made Perry St such a dangerous place to go that the council had to tear down their houses just to get rid of them.

Perry St was run by the notorious Collis clan and gave Collingwood its bad reputation.

Collingwood’s Perry Street had a reputation for violence and lawlessness from the 1870s until 1917.

Much of the blame for this rested with the Collis family.

They owned three houses side by side and created such a headache that eventually the Collingwood Council demolished their buildings just to get rid of them.

“Perry St is the most disorderly locality in Collingwood and has been for some time past.” reported a Sergeant Crisford on the 15th of March, 1916.

Today, Perry St is a seemingly peaceful thoroughfare that runs parallel with busy Johnston St from one side of Collingwood to the other.

Back in the old days, however, it was a dangerous place to be.

Arthur Collis as an older man, in 1940. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria.

Charles Collis in 1904, who went on to marry a well-known Melbourne brothel keeper. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria

George Collis junior. He and his father, George Collis senior were busted for sly grog in their new home of Fitzroy the same year as this photo was taken, 1920. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria

The worst part of Perry St used to be about halfway along, between the intersections with Campbell

and Harmsworth streets. There, in the space of 100 metres, three hotels systematically traded

outside licensing hours. Drink was available day and night, resulting in lots of drunken violence.

Things didn’t improve when the Collis family bought a block of three houses in between the hotels and commenced selling alcohol without a license.

The parents of the family, George and Agnes, were both British immigrants.

They married in Melbourne in 1865 and moved into a house in Collingwood.

George worked hard as a cab driver and by 1874 he’d saved enough to take over the license of the Collingwood Arms Hotel, situated on the same Johnston Street site that the Bendigo Hotel occupies today.

The Collis homes were on Perry St between three pubs known to trade outside licencing hours. They can be seen marked out here using a Metropolitan Board of Works Map from 1899.

The Bendigo Hotel in Johnston St, Collingwood, occupies the site on which George Collis senior’s Collingwood Arms Hotel once sat. Picture: Michael Shelford.

1874 was a year of great tragedy for George and Agnes, two of their children dying on the same day.

Their daughter, aged three months, died of whooping cough, and their son, aged two years, fell victim to measles.

They were the fourth and fifth of eleven children born to the marriage.

In 1876 they sold out of the hotel and bought three houses side by side in Perry St.

The properties took up half the block and were almost straight behind their old pub.

The family moved into one house and lived off the rent of the others.

Collingwood was notorious for larrikin street gangs in the late 1880s and it didn’t take long for the Collis boys to get involved.

In 1886, the eldest of their family, George Collis junior, aged 16, was arrested after his gang fought police on Victoria St.

1899 Police Surveillance Returns featuring the Collis premises, 4th entry from the top. Picture: Michael Shelford.

George Collis junior, eldest of the Collis children, in 1898. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria:

The Collis boys were members of the Fernside football team which used to play on the park behind Collingwood Town Hall.

They were banned because of vandalism and violence, and then became a gang instead: the ‘Fernside Push’.

In 1902, Fernside Push member, Horace Clements, admitted in court that the gang used to meet nightly behind the Collingwood Town Hall and do a headcount: “so that we might know how many coppers it was safe to attempt to lay out”.

In 1898, two of the Collis boys, George junior and Richard, were involved in a drunken brawl near their house.

The brawl resulted in the death of a man, and Richard was fortunate not to have been

charged with manslaughter.

From Johnston St, looking down Little Palmer St toward Perry St. The Collis residences were at the end of the lane on the right. The Collis site is now occupied by the red brick warehouse which can be seen on right of picture. Picture: Michael Shelford

Perry St, not far from the site of the Collis houses. Picture: Michael Shelford

As the family grew up, they occupied all three of their Perry St houses at various times.

In 1899 the Collis premises were featured in the Police Surveillance Returns: a tome compiled by police on a yearly basis which listed the worst addresses in Melbourne for crime-related activity.

By this time most of the boys had extensive criminal records for thieving and assault.

From the 1890s to 1906, their neighbourhood was also getting a lot of police attention because of an illegal gambling venue: John Wren’s Collingwood Tote.

The Tote, on Johnston St, was so close to the Collis premises it could be seen from their side lane.

Though illegal, the Tote was an incredibly popular venue, with thousands going there to place a bet on busy race days.

In 1902 the Tote was robbed. The Collis boys brawled with another gang as a direct result of the robbery, and Alexander Collis was shot in the arm.

Horace Clement, a member of the ‘Fernside Push’ larrikin gang, in 1907. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria.

1912 saw the death of the mother, Agnes.

Though the Collis family had sold sly grog in Perry St for decades, it was when 6 o’clock closing legislation was introduced in 1916 that their business in this illicit market really took off.

Pubs were suddenly not allowed to sell alcohol after 6pm any day of the week, and when drinkers were kicked out at 6, a lot of them went to the Collis’s.

It wasn’t just Collingwood locals either: cabs and cars visited from all around Melbourne.

Letters to the police from neighbours flowed in.

They complained of all-night partying, vehicles coming and going, brawls and bad language. The Collis’s were fined numerous times, but it seemed to have little effect.

The problem got so bad that the police conspired with the Collingwood Council and had the houses condemned as unfit for habitation.

The buildings were subsequently demolished in February 1917.

Sergeant Selwood summed up police sentiment by dryly reporting that: “This should put a stop to complaints in this locality and, I presume, start complaints by neighbours where Collis again settles”.

George Collis senior and George Collis junior settled up the hill in Fleet St, Fitzroy.

They were fined for selling sly grog there three years later.

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Originally published as How the Collis family brought sly grog and crime to Collingwood’s Perry St