RAHS Day Lecture – The True Story of the Dog on the Tuckerbox

Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 2 April 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm

Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000

Cost: Free

Event Description:

In 1932, the Australian Prime Minister unveiled the statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox, in Gundagai, NSW, on the Hume Highway halfway between Sydney and Melbourne. As the town’s ‘pioneer memorial’, it would become arguably the most popular purpose-built tourist attraction until the ‘Big Banana’ in 1964. To coincide with the opening, Royal Doulton released a collection of souvenir ware; other souvenirs of the Dog on the Tuckerbox would multiply through the rest of the twentieth century.

The statue celebrated a popular story – told in an 1857 poem, and later poetry and song – about an unlucky bullocky whose team had become bogged ‘nine miles from Gundagai’. To cap it all off, his dog sat on his tuckerbox. Or did he?

About the speaker:

Richard White retired from the University of Sydney in 2013, having taught Australian history and the history of travel and tourism there since 1989. He is a Councillor of the RAHS and initiated the establishment of the History Council of NSW. His publications include Inventing Australia, On Holidays: A History of Getting Away in Australia, and Symbols of Australia (new edition 2020).