The Nesbitt family of Goulburn about 1940. Front row, centre, Con and Teresa (Tess) with their children, Margaret, Agnes, Terry, Marie and Kathleen. Con’s generosity helped them all into buying their homes. Photo: Anne Powter family collection.
Years ago before legalised gambling was allowed in TAB shops, police armed with an axe swooped on a betting ring run from the rear of a home in Goulburn.
They chopped a hole in the large corrugated iron shed in the Verner Street backyard and swiftly arrested a group of men. Their main target was Con Nesbitt, a patriarchal figure in Goulburn, the Catholic Church, business community and most especially SP (starting price) betting circles.
Recalling that day, his granddaughter Anne Powter said her father Mick Jepsen, Con’s son-in-law, had been involved as well, taking bets over the phone. “My father was getting dragged out of that shed with a phone still in his hand,” she said.
Con’s grandson Paul O’Rourke said in the pre-TAB and poker machine years gambling and drinking prevailed as the most popular forms of entertainment and were a golden era for Con who organised all the action.
Con was born at Marulan in 1889, the seventh son of a fettler and one of nine children. The Nesbitt family had initially come from County Tipperary and sailed from Cork in Ireland to Sydney Cove. Con began his working life as an apprenticed barber. He and his wife Teresa raised five daughters and a son. One of the girls died prematurely of diphtheria aged three.
Family and the Catholic Church meant everything to Con. As well he bankrolled people into businesses. Following their marriages his four daughters and a son and their families lived in the neighbourhood; the Jepsens on the corner, the Kells across the road, O’Rourkes up the hill and younger Nesbitts around the corner. Most importantly, they were all within walking distance for Con. The McInerneys were at Collector.
“Papa used to say that if you were not a Catholic you weren’t much good and if you weren’t Irish you were no good at all,” Anne said.
Paul was only two years old when his mother Marie moved back to her parental home after his father Jack died. They lived above a hairdressing salon which Con owned. He also owned two barber shops. Later they moved to ‘Clonsilla’, named after a handy racehorse on which Con had won a sizeable bet. On the corner of Bourke and Church streets, Clonsilla today offers luxury holiday accommodation.
“There was a barber shop near the Tatts Hotel and he had an office out the back and that’s where they conducted their SP business,” Paul said. “In this office every afternoon all the blokes around town would come and play cards.”
Anne believes police had tipped off Con sometimes when the Sydney flying squad was coming to town. Other times, they kept quite about a planned raid, and bookmakers and their agents in barber shops and hotels would have to face the court.
Justin Kell, grandson of Con Nesbitt has learned more about his grandfather in later years, while another grandson, Paul O’Rourke, remembers the popular businessman when people relied on him for their betting entertainment. Photo: John Thistleton.
Later, when Marie, Paul and Sandra moved to a home in Verner Street, a big shed out the back was fitted out for illegal bookmaking. “There would be six blokes in this office on race days. The shed would be all locked up and the SP bookmaking was back in business,” Paul said with a grin.
When Paul left school he worked for Con’s son Terry, a bookmaker who operated at the old show ground. “I worked for him for many years on race days taking bets over the phone,” he said. Terry had became a registered bookmaker and at greyhound meetings fielded on the Sydney and Melbourne thoroughbred meetings.
In her account of the family’s history, Anne writes: “Stories abound about the pubs, the raids, the phones, the cards and trips to races as far away as Wagga Wagga. Then there were the characters including “Spag” Price, Tom McKenny who played cards in the dark room behind the shop where Terry was barbering and the office where Papa worked on his books at a huge desk.”
Following his death of a heart attack on the night of 22 May 1962 aged 72, Con’s obituary recorded that most of Goulburn’s barbers were apprenticed under him. A registered bookmaker for 50 years, he was always as ready to help a needy youngster as he was to take or make a bet.
“Con would go anywhere in the state to see a good football game or a good fight,” the Goulburn Evening Post said.
Paul said Con had presided over family and friends when the community was stronger and more clearly defined than it was today. Paying one’s debts meant a lot and business, while tough, made room for humanity.
