"If he earns his money he gets his wages, if he does not, he must go."
Work, or the lack of it, has shaped the development and character of Carlton. Described by Richard Twopenny in 1883 as being "inhabited by the working classes ,1], Carlton grew up with a population of "mainly, artisans and clerks"[2]
A walk today around Carlton's streets will suggest that many early inhabitants had more money to spare than the term 'working class' would suggest. Carlton was a suburb of both employer and worker: the streets surrounding Carlton Gardens and Princes Hill reflect a more affluent class than the thousands of small terraces that lie in between, houses once inhabited by Carlton's predominantly artisanal population. This foundation of Carlton's workforce shaped not only the suburb's physical appearance, but had lasting implication's on its growth and prosperity. A population dependent on trade for its livelihood is subject to all the fluctuations of demand: while Carlton grew and prospered in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, the 1890s depression heralded a prolonged period of poverty and unemployment.
In 1880, Carlton had three floor mills, one brewery, three ginger beer manufactories, three foundries and several monumental stone masons. It also boasted over twenty five hotels, where the accommodation was "generally good, and the tariff usually low, being from about 20s to 30s per week." Carlton's proximity to the city made it a convenient place for travellers to stay, a suitable residential suburb for people working in the city and, for businesses who sought easy access to and from the city for themselves and their customers.
One of the characteristics of Carlton from its earliest development has been its dual function of providing for the demands of its residents, as well as servicing the needs of the wider Melbourne and Victorian community. Alongside the floor mills and foundries, Carlton was also home of the Melbourne Cemetery, Melbourne University, the Exhibition buildings and several hospitals and refuges.
In the nineteenth century Carlton's population depended on small, skilled trades for its livelihood. The workforce reflected the demands of a growing population: as the city of Melbourne expanded, Carlton responded to the need for builders, carpenters, iron founders, tailors and other artisanal trades. Tailors, hatters, shoemakers, smiths and founders, carriers, cabmen and wood carters were consistently the largest groups of artisans. Most would have learnt their trade elsewhere, often in England, before migrating to the colonies.3
Descriptions of Carlton's artisans and businessmen in Victoria and its Metropolis, reflect the different stages and changes many went through before settling in Carlton. William Phillips worked for the Victoria Steel Foundry in Victoria Street Carlton.
Born in Scotland in 1824, at the age of eleven he was apprenticed to an iron moulder. On completion of his apprenticeship he moved to England, working until 1852 when he left, bringing his wife and three children to Victoria. "He pitched his tent on the south side of the Yarra, and got work at once at Langlands foundry, Flinders street. Six months later he went to the diggings, but found himself at the end of nine months' search for gold a poorer and wiser man." Phillips returned to Melbourne and to Landlands where he worked until 1864 when he joined Messrs. D. Niven & J. M'Walker at their successful Victoria Steel Foundry.[3]
Carlton's was a moving population. People came and went with the availability of work, or worked when they could, at whatever was available. Many travelled outside Carlton to work, perhaps cycling or walking to factories in Fitzroy or Collingwood.
As the nineteenth century progressed, changes in the nature of production and methods of transport brought changes in the structure of industry and manufacture: larger factories replaced small scale businesses and individual craftsmen gave way to mechanised work processes. Cable trams replaced the old horse drawn trams and people could travel greater distances to work. Carlton continued to reflect changes occurring throughout urban Melbourne.
Children stayed at school longer, factory regulations became gradually enforced and different waves of migration introduced new employers and new workers, as well as new languages, shops and religions.
Work formed part of the daily lives of Carlton's residents, and work places were an integral part of the suburb's identity.
A walk along a Carlton street in the 1920s revealed a diverse mixture of houses, shops and factories:
"The corner shop of Elgin and Drummond Streets was something of a haberdashery, something of a dressmaker's place. Little was visible through the delicate curtains, as most articles were produced, stitched, embroidered, and made to order by the two elderly ladies, the identical sisters...There was also a yeast smelling cake and bread shop and further down a folly shop...The landmark of that side of the street was the Salvation Army Hall, a place for gatherings, free packets of Weeties, music and general activities...
"On the opposite corner was a carpenter's shop; monotonous rhythmic threatening saws and odors dominated all day. All the trades and residences blended alongside each other. Separating the two main factories of the street from the carpenter's was a bluestone cobbled lane. Poorly lit, a constant source of fear for those who entered their own houses by this route. Rats ran rapidly across the lane...The bakers backyard from Faraday Street held another phantom of terror because of the possible snakes that were hidden in the big log piles which fed the baker's oven. The chaff and grain yard with its heavy iron weights, and grim calloused men, helped also infest the area with vermin. Factories of clothing wear, knitters stood next to the big stables."[4]
During the nineteenth century, artisans made up the largest portion of Carlton's male workforce. Small artisanal workshops were scattered throughout. Bootmakers, tailors, tinsmiths, or the numerous monumental stonemasons around the cemetery often worked by themselves or with an apprentice. Of the 217 bootmakers in Carlton in 1885, some of them would have worked in boot factories, some in separate workshops, while others had their workshops in the same place as their home. Marjorie Palmer's grandfather, an invalid, had his workshop behind their house in Canning Street. It was there he made the kettles, billies, tin cups and plates that were the products of the tinsmith's trade.
Smiths and founders were closely connected with the building industry, as the predominance of lacework on Carlton's houses would suggest. John Anderson arrived in Victoria "in the early days, and worked as a journeyman blacksmith for a time, after which, about 1860, he commenced business as engineer and blacksmith in a small way, first in Swanston street and then in a'Beckett street, where he carried on until his death in 18 81. " [5] Anderson's foundry did iron work for Pentridge, the law courts, the gaol, as well as railway and general engineering and contractors' work. Conditions in this foundry were probably not as glamorous as the business sounds: furnaces created stifling temperatures and were subject to giving way and spreading molten metal over the floor.[6]
Larger workshops were sometimes family businesses. Robert Bruce arrived in Victoria in 1856. After a year on the gold fields, he returned to Melbourne and worked at several different foundries as both an employee and partner, before opening a foundry with his three sons in Bouverie Street in 1881. The business initially employed six hands; four years later, thirty six hands worked to make the driving wheels, engine cylinders and condensers used in flour mill machinery which the firm specialised in.[7]
This artisanal workforce was often considered an elite group of workers: as craftsmen they had spent many years learning their trade, were often self employed and therefore able to dictate their own working conditions. Wages were higher for the skilled tradesman than the unskilled and as the primary labour force, employment was thought to be more reliable. And many worked to an eight hour day. In reality, life was rarely so gilt edged. Demand could never be guaranteed and working conditions were often dismal. Workshops were invariably badly ventilated and poorly lit, and illness or accident could ruin a worker and his family. Marjorie Palmer's grandfather invalided through illness was unable to support his wife and grandchild. Her grandmother supplemented the family income by taking in washing, ironing, mangling and cleaning the local church.[8] The prospering foundry of John Anderson was secure enough to survive his death: his widow Marion took over, and the business employed a manager, and twelve to fifteen other workers.
Building was the most important single industry in Carlton in the nineteenth century. It comprised many different artisanal skills: masonary, carpentry, builders, bricklayers, etc., and was closely associated with other areas of employment such as contractors, engineers and founders.
Victoria and its Metropolis cites many examples of successful building companies in Carlton. Thomas Buttonshaw first began building in Carlton in 1853. He had arrived in Melbourne in 1852 and worked on many buildings before entering a partnership in Argyle Square where he worked for two years. Allured by gold, he spent two unsuccessful years at the diggings and returned to Carlton in 1857 where he worked as a builder for thirty years.[9]
In 1854, 50% of Carlton's male workforce were employed as skilled artisans, 44% of whom worked directly in building trades. The 1870s saw the peak of building in Carlton. In 1875 the percentage of artisans in the workforce had fallen to 45%; however the number of men working in building trades had increased to 67%. By 1885 the artisanal population had risen to 47% but in contrast to the general Melbourne trend,the percentage of those in building fell to 51%.[10] Once Central Carlton offered no room for further development, activity shifted to North Carlton. As The Carlton Gazette noted in 1886, commenting on Carlton's "rapid headway"[11]:
" What a couple of years ago was nothing but quarry holes and quagmires of mud, is now the site of handsome houses from the neat cottages of the workingman to the more pretentious villa residences of the successful merchant."
Shops and business places of every description are being erected in every direction, and one can scarcely turn a corner in the North without coming into contact with the builder's scaffolding.
While the ratio of building artisans to other artisans was higher for North Carlton in both 1875 and 1885, it also reflected the wider Carlton fall: 77% in 1875 to 63% in 1885. Presumably builders moved to other, less developed suburbs. Carlton builders did not restrict their work to Carlton and many of the more successful ones were responsible for erecting buildings all over the city and suburbs.
Most in the building trade worked an eight hour day, a victory won by the stonemason's union in March 1856. Carlton is not only home to the Trades Hall, a symbol of union solidarity, but witnessed one of the most significant events in the growth of organised labour. When, on 21st April 1856, two contractors refused to concede to the new hours, approximately 700 workers employed at Melbourne University downed their tools and began to march, gathering strength and momentum as they went. They marched first to a building being erected in Madeline Street, and from there to the Temple Court, the Western Market and on to Parliament House still under construction and terminated their march at the Belvedere Hotel in Fitzroy. Carlton's streets had served as the stage for this drama and its workforce a number of the actors. The building trades rejoiced at their newly won conditions.
Despite an eight hour day and the building boom, work for builders was not always plentiful or conditions glamorous. More frequently, employment was insecure and incomes unstable. Like other artisans, builders were vulnerable to seasonal variations in demand and the peaks and troughs of the unstable colonial economy. Work was irregular and a stonemason could not suddenly become a carpenter or bootmaker when there was no work offering for his trade, or if Melbourne's weather prevented work from continuing. And when work on one site finished, there were often periods of unemployment before another job was found, periods when a worker had to live on his savings or rely on anything his wife might be able to earn to supplement the family income. Accidents were another hazard: bad weather, tall buildings, the "builder's scaffolding" and the dangerous machinery of sawmills and joineries, were all part of the daily risks of work in the building industry. Compensation was virtually non existent: no work meant no pay.
Victoria and its Metropolis tells of the success stories of many workers, but we have little way of knowing how many failed, or how many suffered prolonged periods with insufficient work to keep themselves or their families together.
As the nineteenth century progressed, artisanal trades became increasingly affected by industrialisation. Machines encroached on the craftsman's skill: the individual workshop became unprofitable when forced to compete with the machines and wages of the factory floor.
Alex Mair & Co. cnr. Victoria & Leicester Streets
Working hours for both shopkeeper and employee were long and demanding. The eight hour day was a luxury only dreamed of: shops opened early and closed late. Shop assistants worked long hours for low wages. Many were young, often aged fourteen or under, commencing work as soon as they left school. James Collins had a grocery shop in Rathdowne Street and presented evidence to the Royal Commission on Factories and Shops. He employed four staff, principally youths, but complained at their lack of formalised training:
"You get a lad now; he stops for five or six months till he fancies he knows something about the trade, and he goes to the next employer and is with him twelve or fifteen months at the trade; the result is he's never a tradesman."
Collins considered most boys "a loss to their employer" for the first twelve months, and paid them accordingly: 5s a week for their first year after leaving school. They worked a 52 hour week, plus two to four hours extra "to straighten things up and pack. " [23]
Carl Gerlach, a hairdresser in Lygon Street, claimed his employers needed to work a 60 hour week to earn a fair wage. " If a master cannot pay fair wages he must do the work himself, and he cannot do enough by himself to pay the rent and keep his family." Gerlach made no allowances for a poor worker: "We must pay a man according to what he is worth, if he earns his money he gets his wages, if he does not, he must go."[24]
Women also frequently worked as shop assistants in both large and small shops. Like their male counterparts, they worked long, hard hours, most of it spent on their feet, but they earned less than two thirds a man's wage.
Working hours and conditions varied between businesses and employers. In 1883 Mr J. Andrews ran a bakery in Madeline Street. Three other men worked with him for the ten or twelve hours he spent daily making bread. They began work at midnight, working until nine or ten in the mornings, except on Saturdays when a thirteen hour shift was more common. Theirs was not just a normal night shift though: dough had to be made each afternoon so the men rose at 3 4 pm, travelled to work to make the dough and returned home again for more sleep before the night's work; the bakers' job was one of the hardest. Andrews' employees received £2 lOs for their week's work, comprising as it usually did, at least 63 hours.[25] It was a reasonable wage for a skilled worker; others did not fair so well.
Bakers may have worked long and late hours in a near furnace like environment, but their conditions were probably preferable to the dairymen employed at a nearby dairy, also in Madeline Street. Wyndam Baker had been running his dairy for 27 years when the l902 Royal Commission into factories and shops called on him to give evidence. William Boyst, the secretary of the Milkman's Union, had earlier described a very large dairy in Carlton where the milk was known by the men who worked there as 'bug milk' because of diabolical sanitary conditions:
"the place provided by the employer for a large number of men to camp in or 'doss' as they call it, was so uncleanly and so unfit for human habitation, that the men preferred, six months out of the twelve, to sleep under the carts in the yard, rather than expose themselves to the risk of being tormented."[26]
The dairy was situated "immediately over a stable of seven horses, and the men climb into their abode up a steep ladder, or a straight ladder through a man hole and they have to endure the fumes arising from the horses, in the summer weather flies and other insects, and the stench is enough to poison a pig."[27] We do not know that the dairy Boyst spoke of was William Baker's, but the resemblance seems more than coincidental.
Baker's 44 employees worked 40 hours on the streets delivering milk, plus the time involved in the daily cleaning of the milk cars, horse, cart and harness. The unskilled hands, mostly aged from 17 to 20 years, were paid 15s, with skilled hands paid according to ability, ranging from 17s 6d to £2.
The unmarried amongst Baker's dairyman boarded with him and the Commission questioned him closely about their living arrangements. He refuted any claim that they slept above the stables, adding, "I have slept above the horses myself and I do not think it would be any more unhealthy than my own bed."[28]
Alongside these small, local shops and businesses, there were other stores geared towards Melbourne's population. In August 1896 The Weekly Times ran several articles on businesses of Carlton. Heading this feature was an article on Ball and Welch whose premises occupied three frontages on Faraday, Drummond and University streets:
"The establishment of Ball and Welch Limited is one of the finest and best known drapery warehouses in Australia. Its name is a familiar one not only all over Victoria, but in the neighbouring colonies; it has won general good will by the splendid stocks which are kept on hand, by the assiduity which is directed to giving satisfaction to those doing business with the firm, and by the honourable manner in which it carries out all its engagements, no matter how slight or how important."[29]
Ball and Welch moved to Carlton from Castlemaine in 1874. By 1896 the firm employed 320 hands: "the strictest injunctions are given to all employees," on the standard of work expected of them and their treatment of customers. The Weekly Times delighted in "the quiet civility which manifest[ed] itself in the establishment of Messrs Ball and Welch Ltd."[30] Frederick Smith, a draper's assistant for the store in 1883, was not so impressed: working from 9am to 9pm five days a week and 9am to llpm on Saturdays, did not inspire him to sing the praises of the store. Staff were paid "according to ability"[31], regardless of their length of experience. Women received half the wage of the men for the same work.
Ball & Welch, cnr Faraday and Drummond Streets
King and Godfree was another Carlton business servicing the wider Melbourne community. In 1896 the firm employed about thirty workers and ran nine delivery carts to transport goods to customers who lived up to twenty miles beyond Preston.[32] Dave Campbell joined the firm in 1938, aged 14. He remembered it as a "good class shop. It wasn't a true Carlton shop, never was. It serviced a lot of areas in Melbourne and carried a lot of things that other shops wouldn't keep, like maize oil and olive oils, salt herrings and smoked salmon. I would never have heard of smoked salmon until I went to work at King and Godfree. The average Carlton people just couldn't afford anything like that. We virtually had two trades: a top trade and the local trade. "[33]
Shopkeeping was one area of employment where many women worked. Some may have carried on a business. After the death of a husband, others opened and ran them independently. In 1886, the friends of a Mrs Watkins bought her a small business on the corner of Palmerston and Station Streets so she could escape her dependence on a husband who beat her! [34l
Dave Campbell's first day at King & Godfree's:
"I was to start as the boy in the number four shop the mutual store. It was a man and boy shop. The first thing you had to learn about was the broom: you had to be able to sweep and clean and you had to try to be neat and tidy in everything you did. I was working with Roy Cuther, a hell of a nice fella, and he said, "Bring everything up to the front of the shelves and make it look nice and neat and square." I was only a wee little dot as a fourteen year old and I got the tomato sauce, and the next minute, BANG!, four or five bottles down on the floor. I can still see that White Crow tomato sauce! I held my breath and I thought "oh well, this is the end of things," but Roy soon smoothed it over and we went from there." [35]
Unlike Fitzroy and Collingwood, work in Carlton during the nineteenth century was not concentrated in large manufacturing industries but in small scale workshops. Textile and clothing workshops a significant place of employment for women and children were scattered throughout Carlton. Many had no ventilation, were poorly lit, stifling in summer and freezing in winter, and offered no protection from the hazards of industrial machinery. Often situated above living quarters or at the back of houses, conditions in many of these small factories were appalling and wages at subsistence level.
In 1883 a Royal Commission on Employees and Shops visited several clothing businesses in Carlton. When the committee visited the Clothing Establishment of Mrs Brown in Queensberry Street, Carlton, they found the work room "close, foul smelling and badly ventilated." Mrs Brown employed 30 machinists, all women. Only twelve worked on the premises, the rest being "mostly married people working in private houses." All were paid piece work. Mrs Brown claimed she herself worked from nine in the morning to twelve at night in order to make a living: "My husband is a cripple and cannot work and I have eight children, and I have to do it to make a living." She considered her own, private establishment a much more suitable place for women to work than in a large factory: "There is too much low language carried on in a factory...It is not fit for a young girl to hear that."[l2]
Edward Cornell, of Cornell's Drapery in Madeline Street, considered he treated his 38 staff very well. They "cannot said to be overworked...We do everything to make them comfortable, and the young ladies are accommodated with seats when not engaged in work." Mr Cornell obviously did not consider the fact that for the first twelve months of their dressmaking and millinery apprenticeship, the female apprentices received no salary, was detrimental to their 'comfort'. The fact that the small room in which they worked was "so constructed that, during summer, the heat must have been almost unbearable,"[l3] also seemed to escape his consideration. The most that women, in this or other factories, could hope to earn per week was 25s, others struggled to earn 12s or l5s, barely subsistence wages.
Wages and hours were only one concern of factory workers. The conditions they worked in could seriously damage their health and create irreversible physical problems. Employers were conveniently able to disregard these facts. When the 1883 Royal Commission on Employees and shops inquired of Jacob Lowenthal, a slipper manufacturer in Faraday Street Carlton, whether he was aware that his premises were unsuitable for the purposes of a factory, he replied: " I am quite aware of that, and have been endeavouring to purchase the premises, in order to make them more suitable for business."[l4]
By comparison, the employees working in the clothing factory of Messrs. Banks & Co. must have considered themselves extremely fortunate, provided of course, that the description offered by Victoria and Its Metropolis is accurate! The book sang the praises of the new factory, built in 1884. It was
"pleasantly situated in Pelham street, Carlton, in proximity to the university gardens and othergrounds, which gives it an advantage as a workroom over other factories situated in the centre of the city. It is substantially built of brick, and comprises three flats, each 95' by 65' and 13'high, is lighted by 36 windows on each flat, is amply provided with both inlet and outlet ventilation, and being only recently built it accords strictly with the requirements of the Factories Act. It is also equipped with power to drive the sewing and cutting machines, thereby saving labour and adding to the comfort of the hands, a six horse power gas engine being provided for the purpose. The number of hands engaged at starting was about 30, and at the present time, when in full work, about 200 are employed, which includes indoor and outdoor workers. The average wages of first class hands are from 20s to 27s 6d per week on 48 hours, all prices being paid accord ing to the union log and are for piece work. Cutters average £2 10s and pressers £2 5s per week." [15]
Victoria and its Metropolis did note the comparison between this factory and others built before the 1873 Factories Act.
Working conditions in the nineteenth century were notorious and there was no compensation for injuries incurred through work: if you didn't work, you didn't get paid. If a self employed worker died or became incapacitated, the livelihood of his family was at stake.
Change came slowly. In 1951 Bill Toner severed his thumb in a machine at David Coopes textile factory. Mrs Toner was pregnant with her second child and for the three months during which Bill was off work, they had no income.
"If it wasn't for Bill's mother who lived next door, we would have starved. She used to bring us in half a cabbage and some potatoes and different things like that and when he got his £240 compensation, we owed £200. We ended up with £40."[16]
"Women who were forced to take in work orgo house cleaning were exhausted and many died young."
The home, the traditional place of much of women's work, was not only a place for housework, but the site of much other work done by women: childcare, sewing, piece work, taking in boarders, domestic service. Some of it was paid, much of it unrecognised.
The variety of paid work available for women was limited. We have no way of knowing how many women in Carlton were employed as servants; some do appear in the school registers. However there were probably many more who did not have children and therefore cannot be traced. Marjorie Palmer's mother went into domestic service at the age of twelve, to the home of a minister. Most of the mothers who appear in the registers of the Carlton State School worked as charwomen or laundresses. It was hard physical work and provided little security of income. Some women relied on this as their only source of income, others used it to supplement the family earnings. One advantage was that women could take in washing and ironing, still supervise their children and be able to perform their own domestic work as well. There were also disadvantages: as Marjorie Palmer noted "Women who were forced to take in work or go house cleaning were exhausted and many died young."[l7] Bill Toner's mother took in washing and ironing. "She used to starch the collars and cuffs of the shirts and she'd iron from sixty to seventy, even eighty shirts a day. She'd stand at the end of the table with a few blankets and a sheet over the table and iron. She was as good as the Chinese laundry. She also used to go and work down at a shop twice a week and do their washing and ironing at their house and a bit of housework." [18]
Sweated labour was another alternative for women and could be done at home. Most clothing factories relied on a combination of on site and sweated labour. It was exploitative and poorly paid, but often the only choice women had. At least they could regulate their own working hours and conditions. With the influx of migrant workers in the 1950s sweating became more common. Work was delivered to homes and collected once completed. Women sewed for hours on end. The noise of the machines sometimes created tensions between neighbours.
"If they made a lot of noise with their machinery, Mrs Next door would growl about it. She'd be knocking on the door saying 'Your machine's waking my baby.' The women worked into the nightime to get it finished; they'd have their children to look after, so they'd put their children to bed at night and off they'd go. They'd sew 'till 11 and 12, maybe 1 or 2 in the morning."[l9]
In households where the male's income was sufficient to support the family, the daily demands of domestic work kept women fully occupied. Marjorie Palmer remembered her grandmother's work:
"There were not enough hours in the day for the heavy, hard work that women had to cope with. Washing was boiled in 'fire coppers' if one could afford one, otherwise in kero tins on open fires sometimes in backyards. Flat irons were heated on stoves to iron all the starched shirts, blouses, dresses, sheets and pillow slips, table cloths, serviettes etc. Bar soap was rubbed into the soiled wet clothes and linen, then rubbed on a wash board of corrugated iron till one's hands stung. All had to be rinsed by hand in wooden troughs.
"She'd have two big cans outside kerosene tins some bricks built to make a hob, across them two iron bars and under that, wood. When she ran out of wood she'd go out and slog into it and cut the wood herself. And that's how she did her washing. It was terrible. And then there'd be the ironing ..."
"Cooking was done on open fire. It had to be cleaned of ashes, scraped and polished with black lead after use. Cooking pots were of heavy black iron, otherwise of tin which accounted for a great amount of burnt food. Kettles of iron were terribly heavy when filled. These were also black leaded and polished. Doorsteps were polished black to hide the fact that they were of blue stone."
In the days before electricity and running water, even the simple requirements of lighting and bathing demanded work: "Lamps had to be filled with kerosene and their smokey glass chimneys washed and polished...Bath tubs of heavy galvanised iron had to be filled with warm water carried from the copper in tin or galvanised buckets."[20]
The responsibility of managing the family finances invariably fell to women. In Carlton, where living standards were low and poverty common, this could be a difficult task. Sam Delmo was one of nine children. His father worked occasionally as a wharf labourer and he remembers his mother's life as a constant struggle. "She had a horrible life. I think she had one skirt on for about twenty years."[21]
Hotels have provided a source of work, recreation and accommodation for Carlton's population and visitors since its earliest development. Thirty four men and women were employed in hotels in Carlton in 1856.[36] By 1885 the ninety eight male innkeepers suggest how important the industry had become to the suburb. It was also very important for women. Carlton State School registers list many women as innkeepers but even they don't indicate the number of women who worked as barmaids and domestics in the hotel industry. The Royal Commission on Employees and Shops in 1883, described the work of barmaids as
"particularly distressing. Their hours of attendance are exceedingly protracted; they labour under many moral and physical disadvantages; and have to submit to conditions destructive to health. In the majority of instances they are compelled to remain in attendance from 14 to 16 hours, and even 18 hours out of the 24."[37]
Brewing, another side of the hotel trade, was also very important in Carlton. Carlton and United Breweries is now one of the few large industries in Carlton. It was formed in 1907 with the amalgamation of six breweries, of which The Carlton Brewery was one. Established on Bouverie Street in 1864 by John Bellman, the company passed through a number of different owners, amalgamations and financial crises, until by 1907 it was a profitable business. In 1923 CUB was supplying 647 city and suburban hotels and 344 country hotels with beer.[38]
The Bush Inn, cnr. Victoria & Bouverie Streets. c. 1870s
Work in the nineteenth and early twentieth century began at an early age. Child labour was common, sometimes commencing as young as seven or eight. If economic necessity demanded, children could be sent out to do all sorts of jobs: working as delivery boys, shop assistants, domestic help, factory work. The practice of employing child labour took many years to eradicate. In 1937 The Carlton Times observed: "A walk through Carlton late at night will find factories in full swing. Early on winter mornings undersized and undernourished girls, with a meagre lunch tucked under their arms, make up the major number of pedestrians on Carlton streets." [39]
When compulsory school became more rigidly enforced, children worked around school hours. Dave Campbell sold Heralds.
"That was a competitive business. The Herald car would come to our shop, you'd be clamouring to get your share and you'd take off straight away round into McPherson Street, around Drummond Street, up into Richardson Street and into the Rising Sun Hotel. In the meantime the kids from a shop in Patterson Street would try to beat us to the Rising Sun. So we'd race one another for those three blocks but the you'd have to try to beat the Lygon Street mob before they'd get down there. And of course the first one into the pub!"[40]
Dave's two brothers took a wooden truck to the Victoria Market on Saturday mornings and carried people's purchases home. "There'd always be something about, you'd find something if you wanted something." Child labour was cheap.
Few children continued schooling to secondary level, since their families needed the money. As Dave Campbell put it "Everybody was in the same boat and you just accepted it."
Sam Delmo started his first full time job at thirteen, driving pigs from the cow market [now the site of the Royal Melbourne Hospital] to Newmarket. "I went to earn two bob to bring it home to buy something for the kids to eat." Sam went on to do numerous jobs: "There isn't a job you can mention that I can't tell you about."[41]
For girls, factory work provided the most common form of employment. At thirteen, Win Wilson went to work at Prestige Hosiery in Coburg. She'd catch the cable tram to Park Street and walk the last six kilometres.[42] Work was closely supervised and regimented. Lily Banks [alias] remembers her boss at a textile factory pacing up and down between the machines saying "Time marches on girls. Time marches on!"[43] Girls who went to work at shoe factories "really had to work. You had a quota to do and you didn't put your head up and talk." [44]
If work has been a shaping force in Carlton's history, so too has the lack of it. As early as 1860, the Wives of Men Unemployed in North Melbourne and Carlton' petitioned members of the Legislative Assembly, Pleading the desperation of their situation: [45]
"It is with feelings of the sincerest regret, that we, the undersigned are compelled to take this step through out of the path prescribed for our sex; but when we see our children wanting bread and with no means of supplying that want, and with no prospect for the future, we are compelled through necessity, to appeal to you as husbands and fathers for something to alleviate our present condition and to give us some hope for the future, for God only knows what is to become of us and our children as our husbands cannot find employment... "
The fate of the 178 wives who signed the petition, and their families is unrecorded. If the members did endeavour to assist their cause, there doubtless would have been hundreds more in a similar plight. The grand mansions of south Drummond and Rathdowne Streets being erected at the same time, tell little of the hardship suffered by the less fortunate of Carlton's residents. While the goldfields captured the focus of the colony's imagination and economic prosperity, life for many in the inner suburbs was characterised by poverty rather than gold.
Like other suburbs, industry in Carlton was very vulnerable to seasonal variations in demand and the peaks and troughs of the unstable colonial economy. Work for the skilled artisan was not always plentiful, nor conditions glamorous. For women and the 11% of Carlton's male service and unskilled labourers security in employment was only dreamed of. When the depression of the 1890s hit, Carlton's residents suffered. Work statistics for 1895 reveal a drop in the total male population, reflected especially in the number of artisans. Those with trades went elsewhere in search of work, joined the ranks of labourers or became unemployed. The grand mansions of Carlton became boarding houses and many of the smaller terrace houses were classified as slum areas. Unable to pay their rent, people were evicted and their plight left to charity or family support. In June 1892 Mrs Clarina Stringer "the keeper of a wood yard in Tyne Street, Carlton, " had a warrant for distraint"[46] issued against her by Mr Archibald Davidson, her landlord of Shakespeare Grove, Hawthorn. When the bailiffs came to confiscate her belongings, she "menaced them with bellows", pleaded half an hour's grace in which to raise the money and went to seek the help of friends. The Salvation Corps a group of unemployed united to help others in distress arrived and loaded all her goods and wood into a cart. Over 300 people joined the party which was intercepted by the police and Stringer's goods were redirected to a local auctioneer in Station Street. Mrs Stringer stood to lose not only her furniture but her livelihood as well. The auctioneer and four garrisons barricaded themselves behind steel shutters and iron bars. By 5 o'clock the crowd reassembled and attacked the stronghold. A "vigorous use of batons" by police heralded the end of the siege and Mrs Stringer's defenders, speaking of the conflict between class and capital, "retired to an evilsmelling right of way not far off where equally unsavoury doctrines were preached by a number of speakers." [47] Carlton, in the eyes of the Argus, was associated with the most subversive elements of society.
"It was a terrible time, really shocking. You couldn't buy work, you just could not buy work."
As the depression made itself felt among increasing numbers of families, shops closed, businesses shut down and the gentry of Carlton sold their houses and moved to more respectable suburbs or, victims of the land bust, joined the more impoverished of their neighbours.
The years between the 1890s and late 1930s were years of struggle for most Carlton residents. The area became identified more as an inner city slum than the prospering suburb it had been or now is. For men, paid work was scarce and during the 1930's depression, the cycle of unemployment and evictions began again. Harold Green was 26 and manager of a grocer's shop in Coburg when he lost his job in preference for a younger, cheaper, employee. Married with one child, he received £1.2.6 sustenance which he collected from the Sustenance office at the Rathdowne Street Primary School, along with a work ticket:
"The work I was allotted was in the streets of Carlton digging holes for trees in the centre of the street...The holes were seven feet long, six feet deep and five feet wide. All of the soil had to be dug out, first the road metal and then down into the clay, throwing it out until it was six feet deep."[48]
Bill Toner had been working at the Melbourne Chair company for four years when he was put off. "You couldn't find work. It was impossible. If you had a job you were lucky. That's the way it went. In Collingwood they had a lot of shoe factories and my name was in every one. If they ever wanted somebody I was ready to work, but they never wanted anybody."[49]
The 1930's depression left few people unaffected. For many, the memory of the fruitless search for work, the difficulty of finding enough money to feed a family and the humiliation of having to rely on charity for food, clothes and housing is still vivid and often disturbing. As Alice Bissot commented, "It's so long ago and it's a period in my life I'd rather forget really."[50] Alice moved to
Denny O'Brien, Carlton's Bottle O
Carlton from the country when her husband's tailoring shop was forced to close and lived with her mother in Drummond Street. Like many other men, her husband went to work on the Boulevard, sustenance labour. "The people who worked on that Boulevard with my husband were solicitors, hotel keepers, professional people. You couldn't buy work, you just could not buy work."[51]
Women always a cheaper source of labour found work when men could not, at times providing the only stable income for the family. Many were employed in the increasing number of local factories. Others, like Alice Bissot, did domestic work. "We had to have some money and he couldn't get work. Somebody had to try and do something." Alice did washing and housework for people who could afford it. "Washed their floors. One lady said to me 'I don't know how you can keep so slim.' And I said 'Well if you had to get down on this floor and do what I'm doing, you'd get slim too!"' One woman Alice worked for in Kew gave her the bus fare to get to Preston. She walked and saved the money.
World War II heralded many changes. Women took up the increased opportunities for employment, able now to afford the improved public transport. Win Wilson joined many other women travelling across town to the Footscray munitions factory. The demand for men also increased, both at home and at the front. Bill Toner got a job at Davies Coop in Collingwood, making uniforms for the soldiers.
Post war Carlton has witnessed many different changes. The arrival of migrants, students in increasing numbers, followed by the gentrification of the suburb, have transformed Carlton. Building now takes the form of renovation.
Occupation statistics for Carlton's residents have been gained from two sources: the Victorian Government census of 1854 and the Melbourne City Council's citizen rolls. 1854 was the first and last government census to isolate Carlton then a small suburb of 3060 from the MCC until 1971 when Carlton's population had grown to 21590.
The occupation tables of Carlton's residents, have been compiled from the Melbourne City Council's Citizen Rolls for the years 1875, 1885, 1895, 1910. These rolls list the name, address and occupation of male residents and ratepayers in Carlton those eligible to vote. Of course not all ratepayers were residents: owners of rented property often lived elsewhere but still paid rates and were entitled to vote. The majority of these were classified as 'gentlemen' and invariably lived in the likes of St. Kilda, Brighton or Toorak suburbs south of the Yarra. As the purpose of these tables is to give a breakdown of the occupations of Carlton residents, we have not included men who lived outside Carlton. In 1885, 119 'gentlemen' owned property in Carlton and lived elsewhere.
From 1895 onwards, the Citizen Rolls usually indicate whether the occupant owned or rented their place of residence, and the value of the property. Unfortunately these details are not consistent. Not all property values are included, nor are owner occupiers always stated, however it would be possible to gain an impression of owner occupier figures, given the time and inclination.
The occupation categories we have used were taken from Bernard Barrett's The Inner Suburbs. The work of each citizen was assigned to an appropriate category although the description of some occupations left their actual function in some doubt. For example in 1875, 159 citizens were listed as 'Gentleman'. We have included these in the category 'Independent Means' under 'Professional and Managerial', however whether all these gentlemen were well to do property owners living off unspecified income, or citizens too old to work, or unemployed, is unclear: 'unemployed' and 'pensioner' do not appear as occupation descriptions in the Citizen Rolls, but that does not indicate an abscence of either in nineteenth century Carlton. It is possible the term 'gentlemen' was used in a more embracing way than the word implies.
As already noted, the Citizen Rolls list only male residents. When women do receive the vote and begin to appear in the rolls they seem to be included only when they are heads of households or property owners. Mostly their occupation is cited as 'lady', with a few 'innkeepers' scattered throughout. Hence for information on the occupations of Carlton's female residents, the Citizen rolls are of limited use.
School registers provide a more useful insight into the variety of work women in Carlton were employed in. When a child first presented for enrolment, the occupation of his or her parent or guardian was noted. If the father was dead or had left the family, the mother's occupation was listed. Most commonly, women's occupations appear as 'charwomen' or 'laundress', with many also listed as shopkeepers, innkeepers, bakers, other food and drink traders, or servants. The occupational information the registers provide is not comprehensive enough to compile statistical data from, however they do remind us that women frequently worked to supplement the family income and in the absence of a male breadwinner, women carried the burden of providing for the family.
1. Twopenny, R. Town Life in Australia, (1883) Penguin, Australia, 1977. p.l7.
2. Whitworth, R.P. (ed.) The official Handbook and Guide to Melbourne, Melbourne, 1880. p.234
3. Victoria and its Metropolis. p. 615.
4. Rothberg, Yetta Thousands of Years Through the Eves of a Child, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1980. p.6
5. Sutherland, Alexander Victoria and its Metropolis: Past
and Present vol II B(1888) Today's Heritage,p. 590
6. Cannon, M. Life in the Cities. Australia in the Victori an Age, Nelson, Melbourne, 1975. p. 270
7. Victoria and its Metropolis. p. 594
8. Mrs Marjorie Palmer. Interview with Katie Holmes, 28/8/87
9. Victoria and its Metropolis. p. 632
10. Melbourne City Council Citizen Rolls. cf. pp. 22,23.
11. The Carlton Gazette, 11/lV1886
12. Royal Commission on Employees and Shops 1883 (R.C. on E & S.). VPP, 1884, vol 3.
13. ibid.
14. ibid.
15. Victoria and its Metropolis. p. 592
16. Marjorie Toner. Interview with Elizabeth Stafford, 5/8/1987. Tape 2, side 2
17. Marjorie Palmer. Reflections on Carlton. Lee St. Pri mary School, Nth. Carlton. p. 8
18. Marjorie Toner. op.cit. Tape 2,side 1.
19. ibid.
20. Marjorie Palmer, op cit., p.7,8.
21. Sam Delmo. Interview with Elizabeth Stafford, 6/8/1987. Tape 1,
side 2.
22. See table
23. Royal Commission on Factones and Shops, 1902. (R.C. on F & S) VPP. 1902 3, vol 3. 24. ibid.
25. R.C. on E & S. op. cit. 26. R.C. on F & S. op.cit. 27. ibid. 28. ibid. 29. The Weekly Times, 29/8/1896 30. ibid.
31. R.C. on F S., op. cit. John McIntosh, director and manager, Ball and Welsh.
32. The Weeklv Times. 29/8/1896
33. Dave Campbell. Interview with Elizabeth Stafford & AMemarie Law, 2/9/1987. Tape 1, side B.
34. The Carlton Gazette, 6/11/1886
35. Dave Cambell, op. Cit.
36. Victorian Govt. Census, 1856.
37. R.C. on E & S. op. cit. 1884, vol.2. 38. CUB records.
39. The Carlton Times, 18/3/1937
40. Dave Campbell, op.cit. Tape 1, side B. 41. Sam Delmo. op cit.
42. Win Wilson. Interview with Katie Holmes, 28/10/1987. 43. Lily Banks (alias). Interview with Elizabeth Stafford, 6/8/1987. Tape 1, side A.
44. Win Wilson, op.cit.
45. Votes and Proceedings of L.A.,Victoria, vol.2, 1859 60 46. Argus, 17/6/1892.
47. ibid.
48. Harold Green in Be Proud Of Your Trees: Stories From Carlton. Year 6, Lee St. Primary School, Nth Carlton, 1984. p.3,4.
49. Bill Toner. Interview with Elizabeth Stafford, 5/8/1987. Tape 2, side 2.
50. Alice Bissot. op.ciL
51. ibid.
p.3: Courtesy Church of All Nations. p.5: Courtesy Rob Fallshaw.
P.7: La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, H4681.
p.8. La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, H4452.
p.9. Elizabeth Stafford, Carlton Forest Project.
p.l0. La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, H4903.
p.11. Courtesy Dave Campbell. p.l2. Courtesy Rob Fallshaw.
p.l3. Australia Today, LaTrobe Library.
p.l5. La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, H81.33/29, MFN 554.
p.l6. La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, H26292.
p.l7. Courtesy Church of All Nations.
p.l9. Courtesy Sister Camilla, St. Brigid's, Nth. Fitzroy.
Research: Elizabeth Stafford with Katie Holmes
Written by: Katie Holmes
Layout and design: Marg Fallshaw, Katie Holmes and Elizabeth Stafford
Cover design: Catherine Gleeson
Thanks to Princes Hill School Park Centre, Ann Clendinnen and Biddy Williams, for accommodating and sponsoring us, and to Dave Campbell, Bill and Marjorie Toner, Alice Bissot, Lily Banks (alias), Majorie Palmer, Win Wilson and Sam Delmo for sharing their time and memories. Thanks also to the staff of the La Trobe Library for their patience and assistance in our search for photographs. Barson Computers provided a computer, Co Design ergonomic chairs, and CEP the funding to make the project possible.
CARLTON FOREST GROUP:
Catherine Gleeson, Katie Holmes (coordinator), Annemarie Law, Elizabeth Stafford, Marie Sturt
Printing: Ability Press, Regent, Vic.
Publisher: Carlton Forest Project, C/o Princes Hill School Park Centre, Arnold St., Nth. Carlton, Vic.
Copyright: This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without the written per mission of the publisher.
Photos on pp. 5,6,7,8,10,11,18,19, courtesy of the La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria. Copyright for photos, pp. 5,6,7,8,10,11,18,19, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.
ISBN: 0 9587922 1 6