Wilby Wilby Hotel
The Wilby Wilby Hotel was a hotel on the Narran River, along the road from Grawin to Goodooga. The hotel was first licensed in 1882 to Charles Thompson, but there was business of sorts in the area many years before. In 1867, the police were investigating sly-grog selling out of Wilby Wilby!
Wilby Wilby Hotel on a 1912 survey map. The hotel is central, just north of the Wilby Wilby Bore. Source: National Library of Australia.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, aka “Mrs. Wilby Wilby”. Photograph: Lightning Ridge Historical Society.
In 1899, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, aka “Mrs. Wilby Wilby” was fined £100 plus court costs for selling liquor without a license at Wilby Wilby. Not long after, she became the licensee for the Wilby Wilby Hotel.
In 1920, Mrs. Wilby Wilby was found murdered in her bedroom at the hotel, having been strangled; evidence included bite marks and a crushed larynx. A station worker, Jack Bland, was arrested and tried but acquitted, and the case remained unsolved.
The Wilby Wilby Hotel burned down.
Licensees: 1882 - Charles Thompson, 1888 - Charles Phipps, 1890s - Elizabeth Nolan Brown, 1906 - Charles Phipps.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘Deputation to the Right Worshipful the Mayor’, Empire, 16 July 1867, p. 5; ‘Government Gazette Notices’, New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 22 November 1882, iss. 47, p. 451; ‘News Summary’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 28 October 1899, p. 5; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 154.