"I have another duty, equally sacred, a duty to myself " Dora: A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen,1879
1. Welcome to Our Foremothers - "Here is one story ..."
2. First Owners
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Pre 1863.
SOCIAL STORY: Melbourne 1863.
3. Sara and Sheyda Rimmer
On this page:
OUR STORY: Sarah Curry
KOORIE STORY: 1864 Corandarrk - Diaspora, the Start;
SOCIAL STORY: The Immigrants Home, 'The Fortunes of Mary Fortune'.
4. Smythesdale Goldfields
On this page:
SOCIAL STORY: Women on the goldfields - 'What a Woman on Ballaraat Can Do'; The Sandhurst Impersonator; the Sinking Cathedral.
5. The Egalitarian Idea
On this page:
KOORIE STORY: Resisting Oppression - Louisa Briggs;
SOCIAL STORY:
Enlightenment Thinking; Education; the Education Act. 1872.0's-80's - Free, Compulsary and Secular Education; Not Equal if you are Aboriginal
6. A Fair Go
On this Page:
OUR STORY: Sarah's 'Fair Go'.
KOORIE STORY: Struggles; Coranderrk Petition.
SOCIAL STORY: A Fair Go, the 1882 Tailoresses Strike, the Woman's Suffrage Society; the 'Mother of Womanhood Suffrage' - Louisa Lawson; Orphans & Institutions.
7. Going Backwards
On this Page:
KOORIE STORY:
the Half Caste Amendment Act oy Murphy; Coranderrk.
SOCIAL STORY - Reaction; 1890’s Economic Depression; Women's Paid Work.
8. Running Free
On this page:
OUR STORY: "NO DAUGHTER OF MINE ..."; Hard Yakka.
KOORIE STORY: Indigenous Exclusion.
9. Women Were Not Quiet
On this Page:
Social Story: The Hospital Run By Women For Women;The Victorian Lady Teachers' Association; The 1891 'Monster' Suffrage Petition - Vida Goldstein.
10. Building Peace at Home WW1
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY - Coranderrk Closure
SOCIAL STORY - Conscription; White Feathers; The Zurich Women's Peace Conference; Free Trade
11. A World Not Fit For Heroes
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Australian Aborigines League; Cummeraaginja; 26th January, Day of Mourning - Beryl Booth, Margaret Tucker.
SOCIAL STORY: Economic Depression; Making Do - Yvonne Smith.
12. Another War - WW2
On this page:
OUR STORY Our Family
KOORIE STORY: There's Work When We Need You - Nora Murray.
SOCIAL STORY: Pulling Together - Edith Morgan; After the War - Things Weren't All Rosy - Joyce Stevens.
13. Howard's Way - the 1950's
On this page:
OUR STORY
KOORIE STORY: Maralinga - Joan Wingfield, Gwen Rathman; More Protest - Warburton Ranges; Lake Tyers; More Protest;
SOCIAL STORY: Camp Pell; Conformity & Hidden Poverty; The Communist Party Dissolution Bill..
14. A Life Well Spent
On this page:
OUR STORY - Sad times
SOCIAL STORY: Hypocrisy; Hope - the Union of Australian Women; The End
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© Geraldine Robertson except for study, social justice and feminist sharing.
Our Foremothers |
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4. SMYTHESDALE GOLDFIELDS
On this page:
SOCIAL STORY: Women on the goldfields - 'What a Woman on Ballaraat Can Do'; The Sandhurst Impersonator; the Sinking Cathedral.
SOCIAL STORY – Sarah’s birthplace
Smythesdale grew out of, and existed, to service the goldfields.
THE P.O. & GOVT. BUILDINGS SMYTHESDALE 1866 STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA b31595 H1690
For women and children life could be both exciting and very, very, hard.
Three years before Sarah was born the ratio of females to males in Victoria was 64% - there were just over 6 women where there were 10 men. The ratio at goldfields was even lower, so women could be quite isolated.
They could be out of place, as this picture of fashion outside their homes at the goldfields shows.
They usually lost contact with their extended families by coming here.
There was mail, of course, but if you are worried about your baby you don’t want to wait for many months for a reply.
PIONEERING Gordon H Woodhouse State Library of Victoria H15362/48
Also, nearly everyone at the goldfields was young, so women not only had few women and no family to help them when they were giving birth and rearing their children, they often had no older people to turn to for advice.
PLUCKY GIRL with card sharps 16/6/1877 Richard Lee SLV PN16/06/77/00
Women and children were often left alone with their children in the towns and cities while their men were off at the diggings.
Sometimes they made the best of the situation by refusing to marry and by joining the men.
Mrs Edward Lacy Evans, called ‘The Sandhurst Impersonator’, was reported as working as a man for nearly 20 years on the goldfields.
This sketch (probably a lino cut) was in the Melbourne newspaper.
THE SANDHURST IMPERSONATOR - MRS EDWARD DE LACY EVANS James Curtis SLV IAN1/10/79/149
‘Weekly Times' of December 25, 1857
'What a Woman On Ballarat Can Do.''Sir - I removed to the Caledonian Lead a few months since, ... In a few days after being installed in my new quarters, my attention was attracted by the strokes of an axe, plied incessantly from morning until night. On observation, much to my surprise, I perceived the indefatigable wood-chopper to be a woman.
At first, however, as the stately gums and other primitive monarchs of the forest, one by one, came down with a groan and a crash, I naturally supposed that the limbs of the fallen were merely designed to supply the wood yard of a provident neighbour, but not so. …After the completion of this work, the conqueror next appeared in the field armed with maul and wedge, and with the utmost apparent good-will and determination, attacked the knotted trunks of the fallen trees.
Immediately in front of her tent, or bark hut rather, is a low piece of ground (where) she staked off the area of an acre and erected the fence (which, by the way, is a substantial one), as heretofore, unassisted by anyone, she very deliberately set about excavation of a drain several hundred feet in length for the vegetable garden. …
I may further add, that … with the assistance of another female, her partner, she keeps a milk dairy, a lot of poultry, and a herd of pigs. … Her reputation has become quite a prodigy in these parts and everyone in the neighbourhood should be able to point out the garden made and cultivated by a woman.I am Sir, A LOVER OF INDUSTRY www.ballarathistory.org
Men kept on disappearing. They went away to look for gold or other work and lost touch. It even happened they simply fell down mine shafts and that was the end of them.
Sometimes they went away to earn a living and it didn’t work out - the gold wasn’t there, or the investment collapsed.
There were many ways things might not work out. There was a Church of England cathedral built in Ballarat that had to be pulled down and rebuilt twenty years later - it was sinking. Could you imagine the cathedral pictured here sinking?
THE ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL BALLARAT A. C. Cooke 1886
SLV A/S27/07/86/117