Professor John Smyth talks about the story behind Sanuel Thomas Gill's lithograph of John Alloo's Chinese restaurant. Video by Gwen Liu.
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00:00 That is the only image that exists of John O'Lough's restaurant in Main Road, 1853.
00:06 Now the man who did that was an alcoholic, Samuel Thomas Guild.
00:09 They didn't have cameras in those days.
00:11 This was the cheapest way of being able to represent what was going on, an artist.
00:16 But this guy traded his drawings for food and lodging or alcohol.
00:21 We think that's how that sketch came about.
00:25 If you read that Chinese on the top there, you'll read and see it says "Rubbish".
00:30 That is just, he didn't know anything about that so he just put squiggles.
00:34 But that restaurant, that picture became really iconic.
00:39 It actually established John O'Lough as a figure.
00:43 [ Silence ]