On Friday the 9^th of November 1827 the members of the Sydney Turf Club gathered for a dinner in honour of their late patron, the former Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane.  During a series of increasingly drunken speeches, the Society delivered a pointed insult to the current Governor, Ralph Darling: they chose to accompany the obligatory toast to his health by playing a song – “Over the hills and far away” – that symbolised their desire for his swift departure.  The scandal that ensued led to the dismissal of several colonial officials and helped precipitate the political crisis that divided the colonial elite during the final years of Darling’s term.

This episode illustrates the crucial importance of public dinners and the ritual of drinking toasts as a form of political expression in colonial New South Wales.  Toasting – and the reporting of toasts – served as a performance of deference and loyalty to the traditional hierarchies of British and colonial society; but when subverted, they became a means of protest and a key forum of proto-democratic politics.  In a society without democratic institutions, public conduct took on political meaning and public drinking was a key symbol of political allegiance.