"I have another duty, equally sacred, a duty to myself " Dora: A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen,1879
1. Welcome to Our Foremothers - "Here is one story ..."
2. First Owners
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Pre 1863.
SOCIAL STORY: Melbourne 1863.
3. Sara and Sheyda Rimmer
On this page:
OUR STORY: Sarah Curry
KOORIE STORY: 1864 Corandarrk - Diaspora, the Start;
SOCIAL STORY: The Immigrants Home, 'The Fortunes of Mary Fortune'.
4. Smythesdale Goldfields
On this page:
SOCIAL STORY: Women on the goldfields - 'What a Woman on Ballaraat Can Do'; The Sandhurst Impersonator; the Sinking Cathedral.
5. The Egalitarian Idea
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Resisting Oppression - Louisa Briggs;
SOCIAL STORY:
Enlightenment Thinking; Education; the Education Act. 1872.0's-80's - Free, Compulsary and Secular Education; Not Equal if you are Aboriginal
6. A Fair Go
On this Page:
OUR STORY: Sarah's 'Fair Go'.
KOORIE STORY: Struggles; Coranderrk Petition.
SOCIAL STORY: A Fair Go, the 1882 Tailoresses Strike, the Woman's Suffrage Society; the 'Mother of Womanhood Suffrage' - Louisa Lawson; Orphans & Institutions.
7. Going Backwards
On this Page:
KOORIE STORY:
the Half Caste Amendment Act oy Murphy; Coranderrk.
SOCIAL STORY - Reaction; 1890’s Economic Depression; Women's Paid Work.
8. Running Free
On this page:
OUR STORY: "NO DAUGHTER OF MINE ..."; Hard Yakka.
KOORIE STORY: Indigenous Exclusion.
9. Women Were Not Quiet
On this Page:
Social Story: The Hospital Run By Women For Women;The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association; The 1891 'Monster' Suffrage Petition - Vida Goldstein.
10. Building Peace at Home WW1
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY - Coranderrk Closure
SOCIAL STORY - Conscription; White Feathers; The Zurich Women's Peace Conference; Free Trade
11. A World Not Fit For Heroes
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Australian Aborigines League; Cummeraaginja; 26th January, Day of Mourning - Beryl Booth, Margaret Tucker.
SOCIAL STORY: Economic Depression; Making Do - Yvonne Smith.
12. Another War - WW2
On this page:
OUR STORY Our Family
KOORIE STORY: There's Work When We Need You - Nora Murray.
SOCIAL STORY: Pulling Together - Edith Morgan; After the War - Things Weren't All Rosy - Joyce Stevens.
13. Howard's Way - the 1950's
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Maralinga - Joan Wingfield, Gwen Rathman; More Protest - Warburton Ranges; Lake Tyers; More Protest;
SOCIAL STORY: Camp Pell; Conformity & Hidden Poverty; The Communist Party Dissolution Bill..
14. A Life Well Spent
On this page:
OUR STORY - Sad times
SOCIAL STORY: Hypocrisy; Hope - the Union of Australian Women; The End
Our Foremothers is published by
Women's Web Inc.
Telephone: 03 9486 1808
www.womensweb.com.au
womensweb@iprimus.com.au
© Geraldine Robertson except for study, social justice and feminist sharing.
Our Foremothers |
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7. GOING BACKWARDS
On this Page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY:
the Half Caste Amendment Act;
SOCIAL STORY: Reaction; 1890’s Economic Depression; Women's Paid Work;
We now introduce Mary Daphne Cutts, one of my grandmothers and one of your great, great, grandmothers.
She was born to Sarah Chandler and William Charles Cutts at Warracknabeal on the 19th April 1889, attended by a doctor and two nurses.
She was the second daughter in a family of many daughters, and later a son. Known as Daphne, I knew her as Nana Ritchie.
The world Nana was born into was different from that of her mother.
KOORIE STORY: the Half-Caste Amendment Act
1886
After much trouble and Aboriginal protest against the coertion practised by managers and the Protection Board, a Royal Commission recommended all Aborigines of mixed descent (except for young children) under the age of 34 be moved off the Reserves. Thus began the policy of assimilation which removed children from mothers.
Taking Time, a women's hitorical data kit Yvonne Smith, Union of Australian Women
The Victorian Colonial Government passed an amended Act ... that stated that only ‘full-blood’ Aboriginal people and ‘half-caste’ Aboriginal people over the age of 34 were entitled to government assistance on Aboriginal reserves.
The Government implemented the Act in January 1890 with the purpose of eventually closing down all missions and reserves in the state. The Act resulted in many Aboriginal people and families being forced off the missions and reserves, dividing families and communities.
http://www.abc.net.au/missionvoices/The Board refused assistance to those it expelled from the reserves.
This effective separation of communities and family members caused distress and protest.
www.foundingdocs.gov.au
The hope for a better world, a fair go for everyone, the egalitarian spirit and generosity to those who are different seems to have almost died by the 1880's.
I looked up local newspapers at the time and here is a selection:
The Grenville Advocate
Tuesday, Jan 31, 1888
… Woman, it is gladly admitted, have a strong claim upon our respect and consideration, but it is exceedingly questionable whether we shall best prove the sincerity of our admiration by virtually unsexing them and introducing them into the devious and difficult paths of political warfare.Women thoroughly understand and willingly accept the position the Creator has assigned to them, and we shall certainly not improve that position by altering the clearly defined sphere in which she is intended to live and move and have her being, as well as adorn, the domestic circle.
To extend the franchise to females and to invite them to take their places in the senate would have the effect of turning every household into an electioneering office and every fireside into a political debating society.
The Warracknabeal Herald
Thursday August 2 1888
(We wish) to ascertain what progress has been made by the Imperial authorities towards arriving at an understanding with China which would protect the colonies from an influx of Chinese immigrants.Thursday Sept 20, 1888
(The Newcastle Colliery Strike)
It is impossible even for any single individual to foresee how far-reaching the consequences of some of his actions or what their effects may be in the future, and when the operatives of such an important industry to the number of nearly 1,000 throw down the gauntlet and bid open defiance to their employers, leaving machinery and workings to the value of several millions of pounds idle and undeveloped, bold indeed would be the prophet who would predict where the matter would end..(Regarding) the reckless manner in which men in the receipt of wages that would be looked upon as almost fabulous in Europe, threw up their employment.
Such statements may be the means of bringing us a number of laborers anxious for employment, which would secure them “A fair day’s wages for a fair days work”, and if this were so, the inconvenience and loss the public were suffering would not be endured in vain.
Thursday November 1 1888
We have supported the government consistently and loyally … (but) the proposed Electoral Act Amendment Bill is a measure regarding which we find ourselves totally opposed, insofar as the proposal to make voting compulsory at elections is concerned.
1890’s Economic Depression
Australia and the Western world experienced another economic depression in the 1890’s, after recovering from the 1850's depression.
Not everyone suffered. Labour was cheap and some people flourished, but one in three men became unemployed.
There is no record of unemployed women - and many women and children, naturally, were affected.
Feeding the workless slv.vic.gov.au
A politician in the Victorian Parliament stated that women would get no relief from the government as long as there was even one unfilled servant’s job available that a woman could take!
The Victorian Charity Network in the 1890’s.
Poverty was widespread in Victorian society in the later nineteenth century, but the colony remained proud that it had not had to resort to a Poor Law in order to meet the needs of the less fortunate of its citizens.
Instead, the relief of the destitute was the responsibility of a large number of voluntary charitable agencies, most financially dependent on the government to a greater or lesser extent, but totally under the control of those private citizens who chose and were able to make regular donations.
…. With the depression the money available to charitable organizations declined at a time when the need was markedly increasing, and the system of which the colony had been so proud manifestly failed to cope.
Swain, Shurlee L. (1976) PhD thesis, History, University of Melbourne.
Women's Paid Work
Public Servant Act
In 1890 the Public Service Act No. 1133, Section 43, Victoria, made married women ineligible for appointment to the Public Service.
After passing of the Act retirement was compulsory on marriage. Married women were retrenched during the (economic) depression of the 1890’s and lost permanent rights in employment, from the Public Service.
Yvonne Smith Taking Time Union of Australian Women
For example:
Grace Neven began employment with the Education Department in 1878, at the age of 17 .…
The following report was received at the Education Department on 20 March 1893, from District Inspector A.Fussell:
“I have the honor to say that it has come to my knowledge that the head teacher of the above school is improperly in the service. Miss Neven has been married, I understand, for some two years past to a Mr Stevenson. Mr Stevenson almost immediately after his marriage lost his reason, and is now confined in a lunatic asylum.”
The memo on the docket of the letter reads:
” /Urgent/ Inform Head teacher that it has come to the knowledge of the Dept. that she is a married woman – say that under the PS Act she has forfeited her position as a teacher and she must at once cease duty.”
Public Records Office, Victoria www.womenaustralia
The opportunities for women to earn a living were severely restricted.
Women earned 54% of what men earned for the same job; the 8 hour day did not apply to them, and they were often paid piece rates.
Domestic work was the most common way for girls and women to earn a living.
But the Eight Hour Day – Domestic Service site said: “Domestic servants were poorly paid and worked long hours. Even by the 1890’s most servants were still working around 14 hours a day.
Marjorie Theobold,
Knowing Women, Cambridge University Press:
" an 11 year old girl rises at 5.15 am goes for the cows, milks 2 cows, sets the breakfast, washes up, goes to school.She returns to her dinner in the middle of the day and washes up before going back to school. When school is over she gets morning wood and feeds 2 pigs, goes again for the cows milks two of them, sets the tea and takes the cows back to the paddock.
After tea, she cleans her boots, washes up the tea things, darns her own stockings, Mrs Hartmann’s and a child’s socks, does her homework and goes to bed at 9.30 pm.”
I have no way of knowing if our family suffered in this depression.
Another forefather, Thomas O’Brien, was made a Councillor, went on a trip to Ireland and provided an elaborate wedding for his daughter in the 1890’s .
It looks as if the Depression didn’t hurt him badly.
Perhaps our family was safe?