On this Easter Sunday, I’m going to be at the Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church to hear Dr. Val Noone speak on ‘1916 Irish Rising: Australian Impact’. It starts at 11.00 am. on Sunday 27th March, 2016.
This year is the centenary of the Rising, and the University of Melbourne is conducting a two-day international conference on 7th and 8th April to commemorate and interrogate the event. There’s details about the conference here– it looks excellent.
A DANGEROUS PLACE
It is often amusing to Australians just how scared the rest of the world seems to be of the dangers of the antipodes. Snakes, spiders- even drop bears! But the depiction of Port Phillip as a Place of Peril seems to have started early.
There were industrial accidents:
A few days ago a poor man named Johnson in the employ of Messrs Alison and Knight, incautiously placed his hand on a piece of timber which the steam saw was then cutting up, and before he was aware of his danger his hand was caught by the machine and dreadfully lacerated. Doctor McCrae was immediately applied to, who found himself under the necessity of amputating one of the fingers, we are happy to add that the sufferer is now fast recovering. (PPH 9/3/41)
Then there were stingrays (if only you had taken heed Steve Irwin!)
EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE “We regret that one of the officers of the Majestic now lies seriously indisposed from the effect of a severe wound which he received whilst that vessel lay at Geelong. It appears that he was standing in the water near Point Henry, when a large string-ray drove its sting into his thigh and dragged him some distance before assistance could be afforded. He was taken on shore and put under the care of Dr Clarke, the assistant colonial surgeon, who with much difficulty succeeded in extracting the sting which measures eight inches in length and nearly one [inch] breadth. (PPH 9/3/41)
Even walking down Elizabeth Street (above the ‘River Williams’ which ran under it) you put your life in peril:
This beautiful and picturesque piece of water was on yesterday near being the scene of the loss of human life. A man in a state of inebriety rashly attempted to cross it, near Collin’s –street, instead of going over at the only fordable place, near Messrs. Lovell and Co, the consequence was almost fatal, he fell into one of the many holes with which the river abounds, and had it not been for the humane exertions of a person who stood on the banks, who on seeing his perilous situation instantly jumped off and ultimately rescued him, he must have been drowned. (PPH 9/3/41)
HOSPITAL
It was just as well, then, that the good people of Melbourne turned their attention to the lack of hospital facilities in the town. It is a good example of the way that public institutions were formed from scratch in a new community. On 5 March a meeting was held at the Police Court, with Superintendent Charles La Trobe in the chair, conferring respectability and authority on the proceedings. Justice of the Peace Thomas Wills moved, seconded by the Anglican minister Rev. A. C. Thomson, that
It appears to this meeting that the rapid Increase in population in Melbourne and the surrounding country, naturally involving a proportionate increase of cases of sickness, accidents and distress, renders necessary the immediate establishment of a Public Hospital, for the purpose of affording to patients clean and comfortable accommodations, regular medical attendance and the means of attention to diet and regimen.
It was decided that subscriptions would be opened immediately and once contributions reached £800, an application would be made to the government for a site and financial assistance in erecting a building for what would be known as “The Melbourne Hospital”. A provisional committee of nineteen men was established and a quick glance at their names reveals a microcosm of respectable networks within Port Phillip Society, many of whom I’ve mentioned before in this blog. There were seven J. P.s : Brewster, Lyon Campbell, Kemmis, Lonsdale [who acted at various times as both Police Magistrate and Sub-Treasurer], Simpson [also a Police Magistrate for a time], J. B. Were and Thomas Wills. The clergy of the dominant congregations were prominent: Rev. Geoghegan for the Catholics, Rev Orton [Methodist], Rev Waterfield [Congregational] and the two secretaries of the committee were Rev A. C. Thomson from the Anglican Church and Rev James Forbes of Scots Presbyterian. Dr Patrick M. D. was on the committee, as were a slew of other Esquires: Robert Deane; J. W. Howey; F. Manton; A.M. McCrae; A. McKillop; D. C. McArthur (manager of the Melbourne branch of the Bank of Australasia), and J. H. Patterson. Once the board had been appointed, La Trobe vacated the chair to the Rev. A. C. Thomson who took over the meeting which then adopted 17 regulations for the role of directors and subscribers which had clearly been formulated beforehand. (PPH 9 March 1841)
ARRIVAL OF THE JUDGE
Finally, and most importantly for this blog, Justice John Walpole Willis and his wife arrived on the evening of Tuesday 9th March by steamer from the Australian Packet which was moored out in the bay. The Port Phillip Herald welcomed him with some reservations
We hail the arrival of the first Judge with no small degree of pleasure, as the introducer of a new era into the monetary affairs of our province, and should he be the means of effecting as much good as is anticipated, his appointment will indeed be a blessing to our country of no small magnitude. He is generally understood to be an eccentric, learned and impartial Judge; and these three characteristics when united do not make up a bad mean. Every person has some peculiarity or deficiency of character, and those which would pass unobserved in a private individual appears of the first magnitude, when possessed and displayed by a Judge from his, in every sense of the term, elevated seat on the Bench. Hence it is, that Judge Willis’ eccentricities may not be greater or more numerous than those of many other men. In a Judge, ability and impartiality make up for many deficiencies, and, therefore, upon the whole, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon his appointment amongst us. (PPH 12 March 1841)
AND THE WEATHER
So what weather greeted our new judge? Pretty mild really, at about 65-mid 70s daytime temperatures (18-24 Celsius) . The warmest day was 15th March, with a morning temperature of 81 (27C)
Many people I know have had good things to say about the Tom Roberts Exhibition currently on at the National Gallery of Australia, and after finding that it is only on until 28 March, we made the snap (– well, snap for us-) decision to come up to Canberra for a couple of days.
Tom Roberts was well worth seeing. There’s the iconic pictures of course- Shearing the Rams; The Breakaway; the big Federation picture- but I hadn’t really appreciated Roberts’ versatility until I saw the portraits, narrative pictures, Impressionist pictures all together in one exhibition.
I was surprised by this portrait, executed in 1900, which had quite a Bill-Hensonesque feel about it.
The exhibition was at pains, I thought, to distance itself from any mention of ‘Heidelberg School’, making only slight reference to ‘Eaglemont’ where it had to, and highlighting that Roberts, Streeton, Conder et al painted at ‘camps’ in various locations in Victoria and New South Wales. But, as a Heidelberg girl, I instantly recognized the Darebin Creek in this small painting which featured in the exhibition and also appeared as a prop on an artist’s easel outside the entrance to the exhibition.
The Australian art section has been relocated in the gallery and now is prominently displayed as soon as you come up the escalator. On the ground floor there is a sobering display of 200 painted traditional burial poles to mark the bicentenary and there are several rooms of indigenous artwork.
Remember Erik von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods and how he tried to convince us that indigenous artists were really painting astronauts? Haven’t heard much of that hypothesis since….
The Australian art exhibition is beautifully done, with interesting themes and a really broad exhibition of major Australian artists. It did, however, reinforce my awareness of how rich the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection is, too.
In the gardens outside was a striking sculpture Skyspace Within without. Externally it was a grass covered dome, but inside was a stone stupa suspended on a sheet of water, open to the sky. It reminded us of the Kaaba in Saudi Arabia, but instead of a swirling, chaotic mass of people surrounding the monolith, it stood silently with the water falling over the edges of an infinity pool. You could then enter the stupa itself, a cool, round, resonant room with a hole in the ceiling through which you could see the sky. I wish my pictures did it justice, but they don’t. You’ll just have to come see it for yourself.
Here’s a video walk-through
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTo8j02rx0
Then off to the War Memorial. As you might have gathered from other blog posts, I am rather ambivalent about the commemoration of war and its tendency to tip into celebration. The War Memorial is absolutely brimming with expensively mounted displays- it must be the best funded museum in the country, I think- but almost to the point of overwhelming you. The memorial is divided into First and Second World War wings, and the World War I section is excellent, as you might expect in these centenary years.
Our main reason for going was to find the works done by Steve’s grandfather, Charles Web Gilbert, who worked as a War Artist immediately after WWI. He created some of the dioramas that are displayed to such good effect, now supplemented by sound effects and multimedia photographs and film clips. The names of the war artists are not displayed on the dioramas, but we did find a small named sculpture of stretcher-bearers.
We were surprised to find that the large sculpture, previously called ‘The Memorial to the Light Horse’ had been shifted from its position close to the War Memorial to further down ANZAC avenue. This is not its only shift: the original was erected in Port Said in 1932 (several years after C.Web Gilbert died) and was severely damaged during World War II. The remnants were brought back to Australia and reconstituted in the statue that now stands along ANZAC avenue. Not a whisper of the artist for this one, either.
I very much liked the Hall of Memory, with its beautiful Waller stained glass windows. Looking out across the commemorative flame, I noticed that all of the tablets naming the wars that Australia has been involved in have now been filled on every surface of the rectangular space at the heart of the Memorial.
Oh that it could stop now.
Posted in Uncategorized
1988, 277 p.
I often find that my response to a book is largely influenced by the book that I read immediately before. For example, I found myself quite unable to pick up another fiction book for some time after reading War and Peace, and sometimes I want to get my teeth into something really meaty after reading some self-indulgent fluff. In this case, I came to David Lodge’s Nice Work as a face-to-face bookgroup read after just finishing the challenging (on all levels) A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. I must confess that much of the joy in reading this book was Lodge’s masterful, urbane and instantly comprehensible prose. In comparison with the book that I read immediately preceding it, this one just flew off the page.
David Lodge, as a former Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, is well placed to turn his wry, satirical eye to red-brick university life in his ‘Campus Trilogy’ comprising Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984), and this book Nice Work (1988). In this book, flame-haired feminist academic Robyn Penrose, trying hard to get a tenured position at the University of Rummidge (a thinly disguised Birmingham), agrees to be involved in a job-shadowing scheme as part of improving links between the university and the workplace. She is allocated to Vic Wilcox, the manager of an engineering firm. I think that you can guess what happens….
And it does, and to a certain extent there’s a reassuring predictability about the plot. What I really enjoyed about this book, though, is Lodge’s satirical but penetrating analysis of his characters. He’s not kind about either of them, but he does not lack affection for them either. Robyn is immured in the postmodernist sludge served up by Derrida and Kristeva that makes me shrivel up inside, while Vic Wilcox is one of those buttoned-up, slightly pathetic middle-aged men who might be driving his small company car next to you at the traffic lights at 8.00 a.m.
Not content with mere waspishness, Lodge has literary fun in the book as well. The epigraphs that separate the multiple parts of this book are sprinkled with quotes from 19th English novels, most particularly Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and there’s quite a bit of North and South in this book as well. It’s enjoyable without knowing any of this, but for those in on the joke, it adds another layer as well.
Posted in Book reviews, The ladies who say ooooh, Uncategorized
2013, 227 p.
I find myself quite at a loss to know how to talk about this book. It was raw and intensely sad, and also one of the most frustrating reading experiences that I have had in my life. The book is written in short, disjointed sentence with words missing and phrases left unfinished. It amazes me that, somehow, despite the difficulty in actually reading the words, the story is so powerfully conveyed in all its squirming discomfort and sorrow.
The story is told chronologically by a young, unnamed girl whose older brother suffered brain damage and behavioural difficulties after a childhood brain tumour. For a number of reasons, she embarks on her own spiral of degradation and self-defilement while her brother subsides into unemployment and depression before the brain tumour returns. It is a book steeped in guilt- oldfashioned, Catholic, rural Irish guilt- which reminded me of the equally gruelling Lars von Trier film Breaking the Waves. But at the points where the emotion is rawest and almost beyond words, the gasped, incoherent text is at its strongest in its inability to speak.
The language is a staccato stream-of-consciousness, largely composed of snippets of conversation and fleeting images and thoughts. It is a child’s voice, but it persists into adulthood, the tortured syntax a reflection of the tortured narrator:
Howl winter all through the night that year in the trees where we climbed on and the hedges on the road. No cars here. No one comes. Things crying in the fields for me. Say they want me and coming down the walls for. She’s coming Mammy. Who? The banshee. Don’t be silly. Sure isn’t your brother here? Won’t he mind you if anything comes along. Should I close the door or leave it open? I don’t know. Shut bad out or shut it in. Worse you. And said They are coming. For you and me. Stop it. Coming for us and we’re without the knife. What knife? The one that goes with the magic machine. What is it? Makes the noise for killing bad things. A big dark tunnel bangs. How do you know? That’s what I had, me shouting it burns awful ahhh. The doctor said fire come out my eyes. He didn’t. He did and these aren’t mind. They are so. Mine melted. These are goats. Goat eyes and the devil wants them back. My throat’s closing. Shut up. Ugh shut up. Mammy? But wakes me in the night. Goat eyes riding off into the sky.
It’s a very demanding book but it gives much. It teaches you to read it. (I found when I copied out this quote from near the start of the book, that having finished, I could understand it instantly. I struggled to make sense of it on first reading.) Like A Clockwork Orange and Ulysses , which likewise use their own idiosyncatic language, you need to almost stop reading with your eyes and just give over to your inner ear. There’s absolutely no skim reading here: you have to stop fighting against the text and just go with it. It is one of the most powerful books I have ever read.
In her review in the Guardian, fellow Irish writer Anne Enright ventured the suggestion that McBride might be a genius. I don’t know if McBride has other books to come – it took nine years to find a publisher for this one- but I will be bitterly disappointed if it’s a rehash or continuation of this one. I reserve my judgment about whether McBride is a genius herself but I think that this book is a work of genius. I hope it becomes and remains a completely unique classic.
AND, I’m counting this towards my Reading the World International Reading challenge as a book from Ireland. How appropriate on St Patrick’s Day!
2014 (original 1980), 224 p.
No, I haven’t come over all ANZAC-y now that the Gallipoli commemorations are over. I’ve taken over a column in the newsletter of my local Heidelberg Historical Society, which looks at Heidelberg 100 years ago, using the local newspaper. Of course, a hundred years ago in 1916, the newspaper was full of homefront war news and I found myself wondering how typical it was- hence reading this book.
This book was originally published in 1980 under the title The Australian People and the Great War. In the preface to this new 2014 edition, McKernan, who was a doctoral researcher at the Australian War Memorial when he wrote the original book (rather than its Deputy Director as he was later to become), explains how he was distracted from his official research on Australian churches in the Great War by the newspapers and School Papers in the AWM’s collection. It seems odd, given the deluge of ANZACery in the last few years, that he was writing in a scarcely-furrowed field. He writes that at least one publisher at the time had shown some interest in the war by publishing Patsy Adam-Smith’s The Anzacs in 1978 but that
Few others were at all interested and I was thought, by academic colleagues, to be a bit strange for working on a war topic. How times have changed! (p. v)
That’s for sure! But given thirty-six years and the tsunami of publication that has taken place since then, this book stacks up pretty well. McKernan can see its shortcomings:
Many things are missing from this book, but such was the state of my historical understanding then. And the state of the profession, I might add. Today, most obviously, I would seek to include the story of Indigenous Australians on the homefront, as I have done for more recent books. I should also have written about Australian nurses in my chapter on Australian soldiers. I might also have looked more closely at unemployment and the downturn in the economy that the war caused. I apologize to those who look to find these important themes, but such were my limitations then. (p. VI)
As he goes on to say, there have been many books since devoted to what he dealt with in a chapter in this book. I think of Janet Butler’s Kitty’s War on nurses (my review here); Rosalie Triolo on Our Schools and the War; Bart Ziino’s A Distant Grief on war graves; Marina Larssen’s Shattered Anzacs (my review here) on injured returned soldiers, as a start. But as a book “for the broad Australian community” this is a very good broad-brush treatment, well bolstered by identified sources. McKernan doesn’t need to apologize too much.
In his opening chapter, ‘The War in Australia’ he points out that the war had an immediate effect on the local economy through a rapid increase in prices and a sudden increase in unemployment, with many men placed on reduced hours. He emphasizes the different experience of middle-class and working-class families at home during the war, and announces his intention to concentrate on ‘ordinary people’, drawing on School Papers, parish records, Red Cross reports of local charitable activity, letters, and local papers as a way of tapping into this class-based diversity of experience.
Chapter 3 ‘Seedplots of Empire Loyalty: The Schools at War’ noted the gendered responses expected of children: that the girls would knit and the boys would play manly sports. Victorian schools, under the influence of Frank Tate, were particularly active in fundraising. The practice of saluting the flag daily began in late 1917 in Victoria. Honour boards, particularly in private schools, were a form of pressure to enlist, and he notes that the Greater Public Schools were especially strong on conscription.
In Chapter 4 he examines the role of Australian women in war, and in particular the class basis of Red Cross activity. This is something that I’m noting locally in the Heidelberg district, where the very middle-class Ivanhoe Red Cross quickly outstripped the more working and lower middle-class Heidelberg and Fairfield. Because it was voluntary, unpaid work did not affect women’s status as it did in the United Kingdom, and it ebbed away quickly without trace when the war came to an end, thus confirming rather than challenging the place of women in society.
‘Muddied Oafs’ and ‘Flannel Fools’, Chapter 5, looks at sport and war. Many sports competitions halted for the duration, although class perceptions come in here too. There was strong criticism of working class ‘slackers’ who continued to play rugby and football, but the continuation of horse-racing, a middle-class sport, was justified on the grounds that it improved the breed of the horse (and thus assisted the war effort). However, despite the heavy use of sporting analogy in promoting enlistment, sport was not a fixation amongst working-class people, and playing footy on the weekend was not the cause of the indifference to enlistment that the middle-class complained of.
Chapter 6 seemed a little out of place in this book which has the home front as its emphasis. ‘From Hero to Criminal: the AIF in Britain 1915-19’ looks at the behaviour of Australian troops in England during the war. England was culturally familiar as ‘home’ through a steady diet of childhood literature, and the first Anzac Day march was held in April 1916 in London (not Australia)- the only march to honour a specific body of troops held like this during the war (and a cause of some resentment among the British troops who were at Gallipoli too). The march was only just one factor in the increasing wariness between British and Australian soldiers. There were misdemeanors committed in garrison towns by Australian soldiers. Those soldiers in turn were disgusted by the class distinctions and poverty they saw in Britain and the sight of women working.
The seventh chapter ‘Manufacturing the War: ‘Enemy Subjects’ in Australia’ examines the enlargement of the term ‘enemy subject’ to encompass any Australian natural-born subject whose father or grandfather was a subject of a country at war with the King. Many people had wildly exaggerated perceptions of the direct German threat to Australia. This chapter deals particularly with anti-German feeling, and here perhaps we do see the datedness of the book because it could easily have been extended to include peace activists and unionists who also came to be seen as enemy subjects.
Chapter 8 ‘The Other Australia? War in the Country’ questions the idea that country and urban Australia had separate interests. He points out that country regions felt that they had contributed to the manliness of Australian soldiers, but this is not borne out in the figures. There was slightly higher enlistment from rural areas, but as he points out, in a face-to-face society like a country town, the pressure to enlist would be stronger. In many ways, war unified country and town, with the realization that despite all the bluster, city workers were not ‘soft’. The referendum on conscription coincided with the first sittings of the exemption courts which highlighted how few men could claim exemption from enlistment and the severity of conscription, which may have contributed to the defeat of the referendum.
‘The Grey Years’ looks at the initial euphoria at the end of the war, but the creeping sadness of the influenza epidemic and the return of so many wounded and damaged soldiers. The celebration of the armistice on 8th November on the basis of a rumour was premature, and they had to celebrate all over again a few days later. A public holiday was called, but there was confusion over whether it was to be on Tuesday or Wednesday, so in effect, there was little work between Friday 8th November and Thursday 14 November. Three faultlines were to break open in society: i) the returned men ii) the so called ‘patriotic classes’ and iii) the rest. ANZAC day had a fitful start. In 1921 the Federal Government declared 25 April a public holiday, but state governments did not follow their lead. In 1925 the Victorian government made ANZAC Day a public holiday, but insisted that all shops, hotels, racecourses and theatres be closed lest it be degraded by secular pleasures. The other states joined in by 1928 and the first dawn service was held that year.
I enjoyed this book. It is generously endowed with many black-and-white pictures that take up often 1/2 the page, and I liked the vignettes of individuals and their families that are woven through the text. It is narrated in a gentle, accessible tone, but well-supported in the footnotes. It thoroughly stands up to republication more than thirty years after it first appeared.
Posted in ANZAC, Australian history
Okay, I confess that I’d never heard of Dalton Trumbo but I had heard of the House Un- American Committee that trawled through Hollywood looking for Communist sympathizers. I only watched the first series of Breaking Bad, so I have only warm feelings towards Bryan Cranston, who was wonderful in this movie. I kept looking at Helen Mirren, wondering if it was her or not (it was), and I enjoyed the re-creation of black-and-white film vision which was inserted into the movie at various times. I was amazed to think that the HUAC was only finally terminated in 1975. And I’m sure that it’s no surprise that the movie was produced during a time of surveillance and judicial control of radical Islam and ‘Un-American’ activities.
This first week of March 1841 was marked by comings and goings.
COMINGS
The arrival of the 700 ton barque Argyle from London via Plymouth after a journey of 120 days was big news. In reality, the ship had a rather inglorious entrance, limping into Hobsons Bay after becoming stranded near Swan Island near Queenscliff. I’m perhaps particularly attuned to the experience of emigration after reading Roslyn Russell’s book High Seas and High Teas but this particular journey has been well-described, largely because of the presence of a number of notable female first-class passengers whose writings and work have added substantially to our knowledge of early Port Phillip society. Foremost amongst these was Georgiana McCrae and her four children. Brenda Niall has given an evocative account of the journey in her excellent biography Georgiana, drawing on Georgiana’s journal of the voyage. Also present on the journey was Susanna (Sarah) Bunbury, accompanying her husband Capt Bunbury with her two year old son, and she also conveys a lively picture of Port Phillip through her correspondence. (There’s a fantastic article by Trudie Fraser on the Bunburys and their time in Fitzroy ‘The Bunbury Letters from New Town’ available online through the Fitzroy Historical Society’s webpage at http://www.fitzroyhistorysociety.org.au/publications.php.)
As well as’ Captain Bunbury, Lady and Child’ and ‘Mrs McCrae and Four Children’, there were eight ‘intermediate’ passengers and 228 bounty emigrants (PPH 2/3/41). For a full list of the passengers, see http://www.oocities.org/vic1840/41/am41.html The bounty emigrants, selected and accompanied by Mr John Marshall, were particularly welcome. Anne Drysdale’s journal in Bev Roberts’ book Miss D and Miss N refers often to the difficulties in obtaining labour during these early years of the 1840s. A list published in the Port Phillip Herald on 5 March listed the skills of the labour available, inviting parties desirous of engaging their services to apply to the Surgeon:
MARRIED Labourers 23; Carpenters 83; Brickmaker 1; Shepherd 2; Painter, Gardener, Butler, Stonemason, Stockman, Sawyer, Groom 1 each
SINGLE MEN Labourers 36, Shepherds, 10, Carpenters, Ploughmen and Gardeners 2 each.
SINGLE WOMEN Housemaids 23; cooks 2; farm servants 19; dressmakers 2, laundresses 2 and ladies’ maids 3.
GOINGS
Although most emphasis is placed on the people who are arriving in Port Phillip, there was a steady trickle of people leaving Port Phillip as well. Some went back to England permanently, others shuttled between ‘home’ and the colonies depending on family circumstances, while others moved to other colonies and settlements within Australia. Willian Henry Yaldwyn was one of the latter. He differed from many of the other settlers at Port Phillip in that he was an English landowner in his own right who emigrated to the colonies with his family. He was a leading member of Port Phillip Society in its earliest years and prominent as a magistrate, member of the Melbourne Club, committee man for the Melbourne Fire and Marine Insurance , the Proprietary College and the Melbourne and Port Phillip Bank. He was on the organizing committee for regattas and the Committee to Welcome Lady Franklin in 1839- a journey described by Penny Russell in This Errant Lady (which I reviewed here)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Yaldwyn
In March 1841 he left for NSW and Queensland, where he ended up a member of the Queensland Legislative Council. The people of Port Phillip gave him a good send-off from Melbourne:
DINNER TO MR YALDWYN. “On Friday evening the farewell dinner to Mr Yaldwyn came off with great éclat at the Adephi Hotel. The public room was laid out tastefully and redounded much to the honor of ‘mine host’. About a quarter to eight o’clock dinner was announced and fifty-three sat down to a sumptuous feast, consisting of all the delicacies the season could afford. After the cloth was removed Mr Powlett was called to the chair, when, after the health of the Queen the Royal Family &c had been drunk, and responded to with the innate loyalty of Britons, the chairman rose and proposed the health of their respected guest Mr Yaldwyn, which was drunk with the customary honours, and one cheer more. Mr Yaldwyn returned thanks in a suitable speech in which he expressed deep regret at his departure from among them. After several minor toasts had been drunk, the party broke up about two o’clock when every one present seemed pleased with their evening’s entertainment.” (PPH 2 March 1841 p. 2)
SCHOOL DAYS
Education at this stage was not controlled by government regulation and was delivered through sectarian schools and private enterprise. There were frequent advertisements in the papers for schools, many of which opened and closed almost without trace. Mr James Smith advertised that term would begin on 8th March at his school which would be conducted in connection with the Independent or Congregational denomination of Christians in Melbourne. The curriculum would consist of English, Reading, Spellng, Writing, mental and slate Arithmetic, English Grammar, History, Georgraphy, Elements of Geometry &c.
The pupils will be instructed as far as practicable according to the system of the British and Foreign School Society, Mr S. being thoroughly acquainted with that system, having been regularly trained at the Normal Institution, Borough Road, London. Hours of teaching from 9 till 12, and from 2 till 4.30 p.m (PPH 5/3/41)
Meanwhile, Mrs Williams and Miss Casey advertised their establishment for the young ladies of Melbourne:
Mrs Williams and Miss Casey beg to announce to the inhabitants of Melbourne that they intend opening a Seminary for the instruction of young Ladies. The course of Education will comprehend French and English in all its branches, including Writing and Arithmetic. Mrs W. And Miss C in soliciting the patronage of the public, rest their claim for support on their determination to pay the most unremitting attention to the religious and moral instruction of those pupils who may be entrusted to their care, as well as on the experience they have already acquired, while engaged in many respectable Schools and Families in the south of Ireland, where they have had opportunities of studying and adopting the several improvements in the modern system of education. (PPH 5 March)
FIRE AND FIREWOOD
In the early years of Port Phillip, much of the area surrounding Melbourne was quickly combed by timber-gatherers. By 1841 they were having to range further afield:
FIREWOOD. In consequence of the extension of the town and the great increase of inhabitants, this necessary article has lately become very scarce and the price has risen in proportion. The persons who procure a livelihood by supplying the town with fuel have now to go out some distance into the bush before they can get wood of a proper description for burning- the clearances in the immediate vicinity of the town are in many places converted into pleasure gardens which though devoid of the sublimity attendant upon the “mighty monarchs of the forest” yet carrying a feeling more homely, remind us of the chastened features of our native land. (PPH 2 March p. 3)
But where there’s firewood, there’s fire:
FIRE “We have often observed with alarm the idiocy of some persons in lighting large fires in close proximity to their habitations and this too, regardless of the weather and the calamitous consequences that may ensure, and we have perused with astonishment the annals of Melbourne without finding, as the negligence of the inhabitants would lead us to expect, more than one conflagration since the foundation. On Saturday evening a fire broke out in the chimney of a house situation in the rear of Mr Rushton, Little Collins-Street. The strong wind at the time accelerated the power of the flames which rose to an alarming height; fortunately the rain during the day had left an abundance of water on the [stove? stone?] which some men present assisted to draw, and the fire was soon got under. It appeared it owed its origin to the usual carelessness, a large fire had been piled on the hearth, which coming in contact with the charred timber in the chimney soon ignited, and spread through the entire: had not assistance been at hand and the flames permitted to increase, the consequences might have been serious, as the house is situated amidst a cluster of others built in the same frail manner and situated immediately behind the principal thoroughfare of the town, Collins Street. (PPH 2 March p. 3)
WATER
Meanwhile, there were increasing complaints about the quality of the drinking water that was being drawn from the Yarra. A small natural waterfall at about the site of the present Queens St Bridge separated the fresh water of the Yarra from the salt water coming up from the bay. Water carters drew from the Yarra and delivered it to householders at a cost of 6 or 7 shillings per load. On 2 March, the Port Phillip Herald published a letter written Dr Clutterbuck to Superintendent La Trobe, complaining about the brackish state of the water. La Trobe responded:
I beg leave to assure you and the gentlemen who have added their signatures, that having been subjected during the whole summer to the same inconvenience as my neighbours, and believing, moreover, that the brackish water is one cause (though not the only one) of the sickness which has prevailed of late, especially among new comers, I could neither be indifferent as an individual or as a public officer.” (PPH 2/3/41 p.3)
It was popularly believed that the poor water and drains had contributed to the illnesses suffered by many of the recent immigrants who had arrived on board the Argyle. The Port Phillip Herald pointed out that it was the duty of government to apportion some of the general revenue
to the formation of sewers with drains through the marsh into the Yarra, below the fall, to carry off the filth and excretions, which are daily collecting in the lower parts of the town, putrefying and exhaling pestiferous miasmata in a climate where it is actually requisite to fight against nature to render it unwholesome…[Recently arrived immigrants] instead of recovering from any lurking symptoms of disease they might have contracted on board ship, immediately on landing and exchanging the pure breeze of the ocean for the stagnant currents of the back slums of Flinders-lane, were attacked with what has been emphatically termed the “Yarra fever”, for the results of which we refer to the destitute widows and orphans, whose husbands’ and fathers’ remains lay mouldering in our churchyard. (PPH 5/3/41)
AND THE WEATHER?
The weather for the week was generally fine, with light winds freshening occasionally. The highest temperature for the week was 86 degrees (30C) on 5 March, with a little rain the following day.
2005, 308 p.
This is a re-read for my bookgroup, but I read it in 2007 and quite frankly could not really remember much about the book. What I did remember, however – and what strikes me anew on re-reading it- is how well it captures the post-9/11 anxiety about international news, and the interior conversations we tend to have about our own personal security in the face of international insecurity.
In the opening pages, successful neurosugeon Henry Perowne wakes early on Saturday 15 February 2003 to see a plane engulfed in flames streaking across the London skyline. Surely this news will saturate the media and yet, as he goes about his affairs on a normal Saturday – playing squash with a friend; buying fish for a family dinner that night- what he expected to be another 9/11 dwindles into insignificance as news. Securely ensconced in his upper-middle class, educated existence, he is thrust into a different form of terrorism when and where he least expects it.
The book has parallels with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, or James Joyce’s Ulysses. All three books are contained within a 24 hour period, describing the interior thoughts that bubble underneath an ordinary day.
Saturday is written in the present tense, which is a tense that I generally dislike because it makes me feel unsettled and anxious. But in this case, that is exactly the feeling that McEwan wants to convey, and it works well. Master writer that he is, he handles shifts in time well. Much of the book is steeped in banality, but as a reader you are fearful, expecting disaster with the turn of each page.
It is this fear of imminent disaster, both personally and globally, that captures living in a internet-connected, news-saturated post 9/11 world. I identify with this. Part of my awakened interest in world events has been driven in equal part by a desire to understand but also a fear that momentous. terrifying, world-changing things are happening right now somewhere in the world, and that I don’t yet know it. Henry Perowne feels it too:
He takes a step towards the CD player, then changes his mind for he’s feeling the pull, like gravity of the approaching TV news. It’s a condition of the times, this compulsion to hear how it stands with the world, and be joined to the generality, to a community of anxiety. The habit’s grown stronger these past two years; a different scale of news value has been set by monstrous and spectacular scenes. The possibility of their recurrence is one thread that binds the day… Everyone fears it, but there’s also a darker longing in the collective mind, a sickening for self-punishment and a blasphemous curiosity… Bigger, grosser, next time. Please don’t let it happen. But let me see it all the same, as it’s happening and from every angle, and let me be among the first to know. (p 176)
I share his response:
It’s an illusion, to believe himself active in the story. Does he think he’s contributing something, watching news programmes, or lying on his back on the sofa on Sunday afternoons, reading more opinion columns of ungrounded certainties, more long articles about what really lies behind this or that development, or about what is most surely going to happen next, predictions forgotten as soon as they are read, well before events disprove them?…His nerves, like tautened strings, vibrate obediently with each news ‘release’. He’s lost the habits of scepticism, he’s becoming dim with contradictory opinion, he isn’t thinking clearly, and just as bad he senses he isn’t thinking independently. (p.180)
I very much like Ian McEwan as a writer and this book is no exception. It’s a pleasure to read such smooth, masterful prose.
My rating: 9/10
Source: CAE bookgroup.
Posted in Book reviews, The ladies who say ooooh
There were complaints about the muddy state of Elizabeth Street right from the start.
During the past week we have received several communications from our fellow townsmen relative to street nuisances which at the present time, when disease and death are enacting their part among our population, would be too flagrant for us to leave unnoticed. We might refer to several which our attention has been drawn to, but we will confine ourselves to some which have come under our own immediate notice. In the principle thoroughfare of Melbourne (Collins Street) close to the Edinburgh tavern, a drain in a site of putrescence is allowed to flow into the street, from whence it shapes its course into Elizabeth Street, and after flowing for some distance through the centre of a crowded population, it finally falls into the Yarra. We would ask our man, must not the pestiferous exhalations arising from it be prejudicial to the health of the inhabitants residing in its immediate vicinity; assuredly it must, even the most apathetical would acknowledge the truth of our statement. Another crying evil is the stagnant water which is suffered to remain in the streets, and which, in the course of few days through the warm weather is in a state of decomposition- this latter evil will in time be remedied by the entire macadamizing the streets- but the former should be immediately looked to, or the consequences that may arise may be most serious. We are positive that our indefatigable police magistrate will now allow such a nuisance to exist one day when this attention is once attracted to it. (PPH 23/2/41 p.2)
Not only were the streets in poor condition, but they were infested with urchins setting off crackers. Fireworks are becoming an increasing problem in Melbourne today, after being banned for many years, but it seems that they were available in Melbourne as early as 1841. I wonder where they got them?
On Wednesday evening parts of Collins and Elizabeth streets were annoyed by the vagaries of several urchins, who to the manifest detriment of horse and foot passengers were giving vent to their love of mischief by the firing of crackers in the streets. This disagreeable nuisance some time since attracted the attention of the constables who very wisely put a stop to it. We trust that a recurrence of the evil will meet with their prompt attention. Whilst on the subject of nuisances, a short-sighted friend has requested us to give a hint to the different tradesmen on the impropriety of leaving boxes in the street opposite their respective houses at night, the result generally being some wounded limbs. We hope the practice will be discontinued. ( PPH 26/2/41 p.2)
Meanwhile, the good ladies of the Episcopal parish had complaints about dust on the pews. It seems odd that ‘drift sand’ would be a problem, especially when the beach was so far distant.
The attention of the churchwardens is particularly requested to the state of the pews or seats in the Episcopalian Church. Oceans of drift sand cover the benches to the infinite annoyance and inconvenience of the fair sex. A hint to the sexton from those in authority in church matters would no doubt have the desired effect. (PPH 23/2/41 p.2)
THE WEATHER
It sounds as if they were pleased to have a cool change:
THE WEATHER. During the past week an evident change has been observed in the temperature of the weather, the hot and scorching days have been succeeded by mild and pleasant weather, very similar to the autumn at home, the [?wind?] is free and healthy and the nerves properly braced. We are happy to understand that notwithstanding the past warmth of the season the hopes of the agriculturalist have been crowned with success.(PPH 26/2/41 p.2)
And indeed, the Government Gazette shows that the week 22-28 February was cloudy, with the highest temperature on 25th (85 degrees or 29.4 celsius) but heavy rain on the 26th and following days. It records the rain for the week as 5.145 but I don’t know what this refers to (surely not inches??). Nonetheless, given that the rainfall. total for the month was 6.778, most of it fell in this last week of February. Does anyone else know what these figures would be measuring?
Posted in Uncategorized
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 