MEGAscene • Issue 11 - 2018
SA PARANORMAL
By Allen Tiller Royal Arms Hotel The Royal Arms Hotel, on the corner of St Vincent Street, Todd Street and Timpson Place was established in 1878. In his book “Hotels and Publicans in South Australia”, author Bob Hoad writes: ‘These modern premises are built on top of an earlier inn which was at the original street level. This earlier inn (of ten rooms) was connected by tunnel to the wharves.’ The Royal Arms Hotel is built upon the remains of a much smaller hotel, thought to have been built around 1851. Much of that former hotel still sits below the Royal Arms today and is used as cellars. The “cellars” would have once been at street level until the raising of the Port to stop flooding. There have long been rumours that this hotel was part of the “crimping” practices that saw drunk men knocked out with a “Mickey Finn” and forced through a tunnel which is rumoured to go through to the Dockside Tavern basement, then out to the Port River.
Royal Arms Hotel To back up these claims, during a refurbishment of the hotel, a room was found that contained a steal barred room, much like a prison cell. This “cell” in the basement, hidden behind an old fireplace and uncovered during a renovation was believed to be a holding cell for drugged men, and once enough were collected, they were run through the tunnels out to the river.
On Friday the 23rd of September 1898 the Commodore of the Adelaide Steamship company, Captain T.W. Lockyer passed away, at the age of 62, in one of the upstairs boarding rooms of the hotel. Captain Lockyer was known as a kind and generous man, A “Mickey Finn” (or, ‘slip them mickey’ as we and some say, it could be his spirit haunting know it today,) is the act of dropping a drug upstairs in the hotel. into a beer or other drink, and giving it to a victim. Most often the barman, or publican The spirit is described as a plump gentlemanly would receive a cut of the Captains payment figure, often in what appears to be white or be in on the crimping from the start. clothes with a coloured stripe on the legs. A mutton chop beard, and a fat red face. The drugged man would be ushered to a Captain Thomas William Lockyer is buried at “quieter” place, and then, either knocked out the Cheltenham Cemetery. or fall into a drug induced coma. The crimping gang would take the sleeping man out through There are also unsubstantiated claims that a secret passage down to the water and use a Cypriot Sailor, named Marcus Tzimopoulos a longboat to take the future sailor to the haunts the cellar of the Royal Arms hotel waiting ship at Outer Harbour. awaiting his revenge on assailants that cut his throat. It is claimed by a local psychic that this These poor souls would be forced to work at throat cutting murder happened sometime sea on a ship, or swim back to land, and as around 1879, but I can find no record of such most men in the late 1800’s could not swim, an event happening. the choice was obvious. 56