{"id":181729,"date":"2018-03-15T07:19:12","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.australiantraveller.com\/?p=181729"},"modified":"2023-02-20T12:41:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T01:41:45","slug":"story-of-sydney-mr-eternity-arthur-stace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.australiantraveller.com\/nsw\/sydney\/story-of-sydney-mr-eternity-arthur-stace\/","title":{"rendered":"The curious story of Sydney’s Mr Eternity"},"content":{"rendered":"
Compelled over decades to chalk \u2018Eternity\u2019 on the city streets, Arthur Stace has gone down in history as a Sydney folk hero.<\/h5>\n

Almost every day before dawn for 37\u00a0years, Arthur Stace would write the word \u2018Eternity\u2019 on\u00a0the streets of Sydney in chalk, rendering it in a beautiful copperplate script. He was for a long time anonymous; his identity a mystery until it was revealed by the Sunday Telegraph in 1956, when Stace was aged 72.<\/p>\n

\"Arthur

A rare photograph of Arthur Stace, from 1963 (photo: Trevor Dallen\/Fairfax Syndication).<\/p><\/div>\n

Or so the story goes. Artist and lifelong Sydney resident Robert Eadie remembers Stace from the 1940s and \u201950s as a friend of\u00a0his grandfather\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWe all knew he was the\u00a0man who wrote on the footpaths, but my\u00a0understanding later was that \u2018nobody\u2019 knew that,\u201d he says. \u201cWell, we did.\u201d Eadie was a schoolchild growing up in Pyrmont when Stace would call into his house around 8am on his way back from a morning\u2019s signwriting.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019d have a cup of tea with the old fella in the lounge room,\u201d he says. Eadie\u2019s next door neighbour, a boy named Huey, would pinch chalk from his Catholic school for Stace to use.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe Catholic school had very creamy, soft chalk, which Arthur preferred,\u201d he says. \u201cWhereas the public school where I went had more brittle, harder, whiter chalk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

A former soldier and a reformed alcoholic, Stace had converted to Christianity when he heard the evangelist Reverend John Ridley preach at the Burton Street Tabernacle in Darlinghurst about how he wished he could \u2018shout eternity through the streets of Sydney\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Arthur

A tribute to Sydney’s history: Eternity Playhouse.<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, the restored Baptist church is named Eternity Playhouse in honour of Stace, and is home to the Darlinghurst Theatre Company.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u00a0was [here that] Arthur Stace heard the sermon that inspired him and his one-man mission,\u201d says Glenn Terry, the company\u2019s CEO and creative producer. The cursive letters are presented with pride on the building\u2019s fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cMy understanding is that it was a personal sort of gesture to his God, really,\u201d says Eadie on Stace\u2019s motivation. \u201cHe didn\u2019t expect a reward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Nonetheless, he became mythologised and his message an unofficial emblem of the city: it features joyously in the\u00a0work of the late artist Martin Sharp, and\u00a0was beamed around the world in lights from\u00a0the\u00a0Harbour Bridge as part of Sydney\u2019s Millennium celebrations.<\/p>\n\n

When Stace died in 1967 he was on his way to becoming a Sydney folk hero, dubbed Mr Eternity or Eternity Man.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt turned him into somebody that he probably wasn\u2019t,\u201d says Eadie. But all the same, \u201che would have been amazed… he would have been delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compelled over decades to chalk \u2018Eternity\u2019 on the city streets, Arthur Stace has gone down in history as a Sydney folk hero. Almost every day before dawn for 37\u00a0years, Arthur Stace would write the word \u2018Eternity\u2019 on\u00a0the streets of Sydney in chalk, rendering it in a beautiful copperplate script. He was for a long time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":181731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"article.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[840],"tags":[4479,4542,5716,4515,5515],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe curious story of Sydney's Mr Eternity: Arthur Stace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Compelled over decades to chalk \u2018Eternity\u2019 on the city streets, Arthur Stace has gone down in history as a Sydney folk hero.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The curious story of Sydney's Mr Eternity: Arthur Stace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Compelled over decades to chalk \u2018Eternity\u2019 on the city streets, Arthur Stace has gone down in history as a Sydney folk hero.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.australiantraveller.com\/nsw\/sydney\/story-of-sydney-mr-eternity-arthur-stace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Australian Traveller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AustTraveller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-14T20:19:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-20T01:41:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s1.at.atcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/AT_2018MAR12_MagazineStory_MrEternity.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Imogen Eveson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" 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