The Russell Street Babies

I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the women I wrote about in my thesis (THREE YEARS AGO!) and I’ve decided to write about four of them here. The information in this post is available online, from Trove, Genealogy SA, and an essay by Patricia Sumerling that was published by the Professional Historians Association (South Australia). I also used Margaret Barbalet’s “The Adelaide Children’s Hospital” for background. I haven’t referenced every individual article, but I have noted when I used Sumerling’s essay or the Genealogy SA database. A list of references is at the end.

Alice Ann Lemm lived in Russell Street, Adelaide near Tidmarsh’s Soap Factory. Russell Street still exists and runs between Wright Street and Gilbert Street. The soap factory was on Sturt Street, with frontages on Norman and Russell Streets, so I can only guess Alice’s house was near the corner. She probably lived in a small terraced single-storey house, similar to the ones in this photo of Sturt Street from 1877.

The fact that ‘near Tidmarsh’s soap factory’ was mentioned in the newspaper articles about Alice Lemm is very interesting. In 1878, it was referred to as ‘J. Tidmarsh & Co.’s stink factory’. In 1883, a person identifying him-or-herself as ‘Citizen’ wrote a letter to the “The South Australian Advertiser” stating:

“I beg to state that while I was residing in King William-street south (from 1875 to 1882) I and my family have continually been annoyed and sickened by the horrible stinks arising from that soap factory whenever the wind blew from that direction. Generally when after a spell of hot weather a cool change set in we were obliged to keep all our doors and windows shut on account of the smell, and could not get our rooms cooled like other people who lived farther away…My idea is that it emanates from every part of the factory, and not only from the fluid running into the sewer. My chief reason for leaving my residence in King William-street was the obnoxious smell from that soap factory, and I think it would be a blessing for the whole of South Adelaide if the factory could be stopped and re-established a long way out of town.”

A house so noticeably close to the factory would have been cheap to rent, and I can’t imagine the living conditions would have been too pleasant. Alice shared the house with four babies, one of whom was her own and the other three were the children of women Alice had met in the Lying-in ward of the Destitute Asylum whilst confined with her own baby.

Her three charges were named Edward James Satchell, William Frederick Garten Thomas and Annie Harris. She had also cared for the child of a woman called Hannah Saunders, but Hannah took her baby away after only two weeks. Edward and William both died in November 1879 – Edward was sixteen weeks and William was seven months.

When Edward died, a death certificate was given and his body was buried without an examination. According to the Genealogy SA database, an Edward Satchell died in 1879 and his relative was given as his father, James Wallace Tormey. Following Edward’s death, the City Coroner (Mr. Ward) made further enquiries and he and Detective Hammill found Alice living with the three other children, all of whom were extremely emaciated. Two were “lying on a deal box in an empty room with nothing but rags to lay on and cover them, and their lower extremities were very cold”. The Local Board of Health was notified to the situation, and the Coroner believed that two of the remaining three children were not likely to live. These two children were probably Alice’s child and Annie Harris, as witnesses at the inquest into William’s death said he was the strongest-looking of the three. Alice was also reported to the police by neighbours, who reported hearing the babies ‘roaring’ and that they were dirty and thin.

Grace Thomas, William’s mother, planned to take William to the Destitute Asylum for medical treatment but he died the day before. Dr. John Scott Wilson, junior house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, saw William before he died and gave a death certificate when asked for one, giving the cause of death as marasmus (a severe protein deficiency). William’s relative was listed as his mother, Grace Thomas. However, William could not be buried until the coroner had been consulted because another child in Alice’s care had also recently died.

The coronial inquest, held at the Old Queen’s Arms Hotel, found that William had been with Alice for two months and she was engaged as a ‘dry nurse’. He was fed bread, Neave’s food (a formula for babies and invalids) and a mixture of milk, water and sugar. After Edward’s death, Alice had asked William’s mother, Grace Thomas, to care for William herself but Grace pleaded with Alice to keep him for another week. Grace took charge of William a week before he died and had made arrangements to go to the Destitute Asylum with him.

Patricia Sumerling’s essay, “The West End of Adelaide”, mentions that three children died within a space of ten weeks. The Genealogy SA databases show an Annie Harris, daughter of John Bowden, and an Edith Alice Lemm, daughter of Alice Lemm, both dying in 1880.  

In January 1880, Susan Harris was charged in the Adelaide Police Court with “abandoning her infant, whereby its health was permanently injured”. Following the inquest into William’s death, Susan gave Annie to a Mrs. Ashton and promised to pay her 10s a week. Susan then went to Lacepede Bay and did not pay Mrs. Ashton anything, so Annie was ‘sentenced’ to the Industrial School for three months, while charges were laid against Susan. Annie was “in a very emaciated condition, and it is doubtful whether [she] will live.” On Wednesday, 25 February 1880, a certificate stating that the Attorney-General was of the opinion that there was no case against Susan Harris was filed in the Supreme Court. 

Alice Lemm, Grace Thomas, Theresa Satchell and Susan Harris were all ‘confined’ in the Lying-in ward of the Destitute Asylum and were typical of its younger inhabitants. Alice, Susan and Grace were all recent migrants (Theresa might have been too, but it wasn’t mentioned in the reports). Alice was a domestic servant in Adelaide before she fell pregnant. Susan Harris also lived with her, but it appears that she must have worked and Alice cared for the babies. Grace worked as a general servant at the Buck’s Head Hotel in North Terrace. Theresa was also a domestic servant and was unable to find work with her son, which is why she gave him to Alice.  84% (449 out of 533) of unmarried mothers of children born in the Destitute Asylum between 1873 and 1883 were domestic servants.

An article that appeared in the Chronicle on 7 July 1883 pointed out that domestic servants rarely had any other home in the colony besides the one in which they worked. If they ‘offend[ed] against morals’, their options were extremely limited. With no job and no ‘parental roof’, the Destitute Asylum was the only place for them. This appears to have been the case with Alice, Grace, Theresa and Susan.

The ‘Alice Lemm case’ was spoken about in Parliament and it, along with other ‘baby farming’ cases (although Alice Lemm was not, strictly, a ‘baby farmer’) that occurred around the same time, led to the establishment of the State Children’s Department and the changes to the Destitute Persons’ Act that made unmarried mothers remain at the Destitute Asylum until their babies were six months old.

References:

‘An Alleged Nuisance’, Advertiser, 25 January 1883, p. 5

Barbalet, Margaret. The Adelaide Children’s Hospital 1876-1976. Adelaide: The Adelaide Children’s Hospital, 1975.

‘Coroner’s Inquests: A Case of Baby Farming’, Advertiser, 26 November 1879, p. 6

‘Death of an Infant’, Register, 7 November 1879, p. 4

Genealogy SA database

‘Maternity of Children: Destitute Asylum’, Chronicle, 7 July 1883, p. 5

'Nolle Prosequi', Chronicle and Weekly Mail, 28 February 1880, p. 11

[No title], Register, 13 January 1880, p. 1

Sumerling, Patricia, “Adelaide’s West-End”. In William Shakespeare’s Adelaide 1860-1930, ed. Brian Dickey, 27-41. Adelaide: Association of Professional Historians Inc., 1992. [Available online: http://www.sahistorians.org.au/175/documents/patricia-sumerling-the-west-end-of-adelaide.shtml]

‘Suspicious Death of an Infant’, Register, 26 November 1879, p. 6

Saddling Paddock

The Theatre Royal in Hindley Street was the first place in South Australia to show a ‘moving picture’, way back in 1896! It was a beautiful, imposing, multi-storey Victorian building that played host to, among others, Sarah Bernhardt, Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In 1962, it was demolished to make way for a carpark. The carpark is still standing. It’s near the police station.

There were many hotels on Hindley Street at that time – as there are today, of course – and the one nearest the Theatre Royal was the imaginatively named Theatre Royal Hotel. The Theatre Royal Hotel’s front bar was popular with theatre-goers, but it was the back room that provided a special service. This back room was colloquially known as 'the saddling paddock' and it catered for 'fallen women' and men who enjoyed the company of these women. The proprietor of the Theatre Royal Hotel kept the saddling paddock separate from the rest of the hotel and the Theatre Royal, presumably in an attempt to allow the 'respectable' theatre-goers to have their nightcap after a show and then go home. Licensing laws allowed hotels near the theatre to remain open half an hour later than the other hotels in the city to cater for the audience after a show finished. It was during that half hour that the saddling paddock became a ‘hotbed of evil’.

In January 1879, a journalist for “The Register”, who called himself ‘a midnight rambler’ wrote an article about the dark side of Adelaide, spending a night frequenting various hotels in the city. Of the Theatre Royal Hotel and the saddling paddock, he wrote this:

“The first of the resorts of the demi monde we visited was the much-talked of saddling paddock in connection with the Theatre Royal Hotel. It was then only half-past 9 o'clock and the place was not filled as it nearly always is after the opera is over — or the drama, or   whatever there has been on the boards at the Royal. But even at this comparatively early hour it was half-filled with the gay and fair (if I may use such words in their popular and not their literal signification). The room is a small one — perhaps 15 ft. by 20 ft.— and at one end is a counter at which drink is supplied to the women who frequent the place and who are absolutely refused any refreshment whatever in the front bar. This restriction is a two-edged one. While it keeps the front bar decent it concentrates the defilement, and makes access to it more easy and toleration of it more seemly. While the 'saddling paddock’ is not the scene of such conduct as is 'often described as going on there— it being an ordinary bar-room without sitting accommodation — it is undoubtedly the chief rendezvous for what may be termed the fashionable class of fallen women. The word ' fashion' in such a sense seems incongruous, but I let it stand. Probably the inordinate love of dress and idleness may have led to the fall of some of the gaudily dressed women to be found in this back bar-room.   Anyway the girls seen here are a different class from those met later on in our travels. The air stifles one with its sickly perfumes mixed with the inexpressible flavour of an overcrowded and heated bar-room. Some of the women are dressed in satins and silks, and some are ‘plastered with white and raddled with red,' as Thackeray says of the Court beauties of the time of the first gentleman of Europe.'”

The midnight rambler returned to the Theatre Royal Hotel later in the evening, after the show at the Royal had finished. The front bar was crowded with men, about a hundred, who took a nightcap and, the midnight rambler hoped, then went home. The paddock, however, was now ‘crowded with wanton women’ and an old man waited at the door ‘and in a fatherly way keeps out the boys’. Of the women, the midnight rambler wrote: 

“And the women, though they may wear lavender kid gloves with diamond rings outside, are most of them not unknown either at the Hospital or the Gaol, whence many sickening stories come. They are certainly not fit company for sons of respectable members of society, or for those whose past excesses have already led them once into embezzlement and seem likely to utterly ruin them. Even here there are grades among the women as there are ages— from the wretched old hag whom we saw outside strutting with two girls (having murdered two of her own daughters in the past, one dying in a state too awful to picture and the other committing suicide) to the young creatures not more than sixteen or seventeen, just entering on the abominable life, and to the older one whom we just see purchasing her bottles of spirits wherewith to supply herself and her guests after the ' paddock' shall be closed and the Christian Sabbath morning shall have been ushered in. I shall not speak of the hansom cabmen and the part some of them play in this repulsive drama of real life. I shall not even refer to the very few years that these unfortunates live after they have given themselves up to a life on the streets. It is undoubtedly a short life, and it is not a merry one. My object, however, is to state facts, and not to moralize.”

The midnight rambler’s article caused quite a stir, and three letters to the editor about it are particularly interesting. The first, published on 21 January 1879, was from the proprietor of the Theatre Royal Hotel:

“The general inference in the article so far as they regard the Theatre Royal Hotel, is that that hotel is responsible the fallen women being fallen women; whereas, on the contrary, the Theatre Royal Hotel neither has nor had anything whatever to do with their falling. Women in the ‘transit’ state between virtue and vice of that particular kind which your articles so unmistakenly indicate never appear at the Theatre Royal Hotel until they are full-fledged, Therefore, the hotel cannot fairly be blamed with making them so. The chiefs of the police inform me that I am in a measure bound to supply with refreshments any persons in a sober and quiet state who may ask for them. For this end I have arranged different rooms and compartments for different classes of people. The fallen women who may demand admittance to the Theatre Royal Hotel are admitted only to one particular part of the hotel, so as not to offend by any means any person who may visit any part of the theatre itself or other parts of the hotel, thus preventing by a very simple arrangement the possibility of any occupant of the stalls, pit, or gallery who may choose to take refreshments at the bar of my house from seeing any of these fallen women at all unless they themselves have a distinct desire to do so. Of course the dress-circle refreshment rooms are upstairs, and are kept rigidly select as every visitor very well knows. Another reason why I take exception to the general inference of the article is that while the Theatre Royal Hotel is only one of several licensed public-houses in the immediate neighborhood of the theatre who are granted nightly permits to remain open a short time after the Licensed Victuallers Act allows, and who by the way are as regularly and certainly crowded with fallen women as the Theatre Royal Hotel itself, with this difference, that they are not so carefully restricted to a room by themselves, still they are passed over in silence, and the whole wrath of the writer showered down in a culminating volume on the devoted head of the Theatre Royal Hotel.

None of my barmaids are allowed on any pretence whatever to apprcach the room set apart for  those unfortunates alluded to in your article…Still, if they will come, and I have already said I cannot prevent them it is better in my opinion that they should be kept apart by themselves than be allowed to mix amongst respectable people anyhow. No one wishes more sincerely than I do the arrival of the time when the Legislature will grapple with the enormous social evil, which is rotting to the core thousands of our most promising colonial boys; and when the question is fairly dealt with, and settled, satisfactorily no one will be better pleased, than John McDonald, of the Theatre Royal Hotel.”

The editor replied:

“The writers of the articles referred to had no intention of suggesting that fallen women, owe their ruin to frequenting the Theatre Royal Hotel. We have no doubt that Mr. McDonald's statements as to the style in which he conducts that establishment are strictly correct and that it is managed as well as any place can be where' loose women are allowed to obtain refreshments, the question at issue is whether it would not be better in the interests of respectable playgoers to refuse all such accommodation to persons of that class anywhere on the premises connected with the theatre.”

On 25 January 1879, a woman who called herself “A Young Wife” wrote at her horror of learning about the Theatre Royal Hotel’s shady side: 

“Being a young wife I have a natural horror of any pitfalls (recognised by the authorities) into which my husband may be ensnared. I frequently visit in his company the Theatre Royal, and have never up to the present time been uneasy when he has left me in the intervals to partake of refreshment; but now that I am aware of the existence of such a den almost in the theatre itself I shall be disposed to object to his leaving me for the purpose of entering an hotel containing such a hotbed of vice and debauchery.”

On 30 January 1879, a person known as “Observant” wrote five facts about the saddling paddock:

“1. That the ‘Saddling Paddock’ is allowed to remain through official connivance. 2. That there is no reason why the ‘Saddling Paddock’ should be allowed an existence. 3. That the ‘Saddling Paddock’ is altogether too public (i.e., too open to the public). 4. That it is unnecessary; and 5. That it serves no purpose whatever except the purpose of pollution.”

“Observant” acknowledged that people, especially young people, needed entertainment and the theatre (or, as he or she called it, ‘the drama’) was the place to get it. He or she was outraged that ‘noble Shakespeare’s art’ was being defiled by the goings-on of the saddling paddock, so near Adelaide’s major theatre.

I personally find it very interesting that “Observant” claims that the saddling paddock is ‘altogether too public’, yet “A Young Wife” had no idea of its existence, despite being a regular theatre patron. The fact that women weren’t permitted to front bars in any hotel at that time – in fact, I don’t think they were allowed until the 1960s – probably explains this. Her letter also leads me to wonder how long intervals were in 1879 for her to worry about her husband being ‘ensnared’ whilst partaking of refreshments?   

The saddling paddock was still in existence into the 1880s and remained after a change of management in 1884. In June 1884, a ‘special reporter’ for “The Register” took a similar journey to that of the midnight rambler and documented the experiences in an article. Another hotel on Hindley Street, Tattersall’s, now had a room on par with the saddling paddock. The saddling paddock itself was written about as such:

“The saddling paddock at the Theatre Royal, also known by the sweet name of the 'cowyard,' and by other equally choice titles, is of the same class as the Tattersall's room, but there is a vast difference between the appearance of the two places. The paddock is a snug little room, nicely decorated and set off with pictures representing theatrical stars. No special remarks need be made respecting this place, the existence of which has so long been regarded as a reproach to the management of the Theatre Royal. The hope was indulged in lately that the alterations to the building made by the new management would include the abolition of this undesirable institution, but apparently no steps are being taken in that direction.”

Tattersall’s was next to the Theatre Royal (on its right), so I can only assume that the Theatre Royal Hotel was on the other side. Photos of the Theatre Royal and Tattersall’s from 1878 and 1881 can be found HERE and HERE.

The only references after 1884 of ‘saddling paddock’ are of actual saddling paddocks – i.e. with horses, so I can only guess that it closed soon after the June 1884 article was written.

References:

“The Register”, 20 January 1879, p. 6

“The Advertiser” 21 January 1879, p. 6

‘The Register’, 25 January 1879, p. 11

‘The Register’, 30 January 1879, p. 6

“The Register”, 14 June 1884, p. 6

http://www.caths.org.au/cinemasa/cinemasa.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/5637183634/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/5636601991/

Painter, Allison. “Adelaide Hotels and Temperance 1860-1930” http://www.sahistorians.org.au/175/documents/author/painter/adelaide-hotels-and-temperance-1860-1930.shtml

Fenn Place {Part 2}

It’s time for another instalment of the history of Fenn Place, this one focusing on opium.

As early as 1841, just five years after South Australia was settled, South Australian newspapers warned readers about the effects of opium (“at the opium shops in Constantinople”): “A stupor, which lasts about eight hours…is attended by a gnawing of the stomach, but none of that nausea consequent upon the use of vinous or alcoholic drinks. The intoxication of this drug produces an utter listlessness and dislike to everything around the individual who cannot be happy or easy until he returns to the poison again. At length the appetite for food is destroyed, the mind becomes incapable of pursuing any study, the nervous system is quite unhinged, there is a sort of delirium tremens, the muscles become indolent and flaccid, and almost incapable of obeying volition. The body becomes deformed, the chest grows out, the ribs are crooked, one shoulder get higher than the other, the vertebrae are displaced and sunken, the head falls on one side, and all kinds of horrible contortions and distortions take place, until death puts an end to the miserable existence of the opium-eater...The Chinese opium-smoker, on whose countenance the love of opium is written, becomes decrepit in early life, his skin appears like parchment, and if but 25 years old, looks full twice that age, and all the results of opium-eating becomes his lot.” (Southern Australian, 24 August 1841, p. 4)

By the 1870s, opium eating was ‘added to the vices which already hold sway over so many thousands of our fellow-colonists in Australia’. Opium was sent from Hong Kong to Sydney ‘for consumption by the lowest class of European females in that colony’ and ‘it has been rumoured that in Melbourne the fallen women who have sunk to the lowest depths of infamy by illicit intercourse with the Chinese have for some time been in the habit of taking this deadly drug.’ (South Australian Chroncile and Weekly Mail, 14 August 1875, p. 5).

In 1879, Alfred Hughes, a forty-six-year-old storekeeper from Sturt Street, died from opium poisoning – he probably took laudanum before he died. In fact, most cases from Adelaide involving opium poisoning were from people taking laudanum. Opium dens were not very common in Adelaide, although they did exist.

Fenn Place was connected with opium in the early 1890s and in 1912 – a Japanese man residing in Fenn Place died from opium poisoning in October 1892 and a Chinese man was arrested for receiving a parcel of Chinese potatoes concealing two tins of opium from 3 Fenn Place. (South Australian Register, 26 October 1892, p. 6; The Register, 22 August 1912, p. 5).

In the early 1900s, there were an estimated 50 opium dens in Adelaide, mostly in the side streets and alleys of Hindley Street, but it soon fell out of favour. This might be due to the huge cost – the customs officials cracked down on the illegal importation of opium, which made it increasingly difficult to import and, therefore, very expensive in Adelaide – about £5 an ounce by 1928.

In 1928, it had been fifteen years since an opium den had been raided by the police in Adelaide, but a photograph depicting a ‘typical scene’ in a Chinese opium den was published in The Register. It, and the accompanying article, can be viewed HERE. In the accompanying article, the journalist wrote that “within half a mile of the very heart of Adelaide there exists a Chinese opium den, probably the only survivor of many similar “joints” which jostled each other in the west-end about 25 years ago”. The den was known only to Chinamen, according to this article, and it was an unassuming building somewhere in the west end. ‘With rough concrete walls and floor, and plain wooden benches, the scene of the night’s entertainment is distinctly squalid and the atmosphere “could be cut with a knife.”’ In the early 1900s, non-Chinese men were using opium dens, which was considered ‘the worst evil’ by society at the time, but it was intimated that the opium dens of the late 1920s were used exclusively by Chinese people.

There were two raids on opium dens in Adelaide’s west end – Hindley Street and Fenn Place – in 1928 and 1929. In both cases, the men arrested for being in possession of opium were Chinese and cabinet makers. The Hindley Street opium den was in the Hooker’s Building on the southern side of Hindley Street and west of Morphett Street. If my sense of direction is correct, Hooker’s Building is still standing. This could be the opium den featured in the Register a few months earlier.

At 1pm on 1 December 1929, five detectives raided a two-storey house in Fenn Place. They seized a large quantity of opium, two opium pipes, and several lamps and trays. They also arrested a 46-year-old cabinet maker, Ah Fin, with having been in possession of opium. ‘The atmosphere in the house was said to be pungent with opium smoke’. The house, a two-storey structure, was very dark inside and the police used torches and matches to search. They also seized four bottles of Chinese liquor. Being in possession of opium was illegal because it was a prohibited import, but it was not an offence to be in possession of opium if it was not imported. The case against Ah Fin was dismissed at the Adelaide Police Court because it could not be proved that the opium had been imported. The deputy Government Analyst, Mr. W. T. Rowe, told the Court that he once made opium from poppies growing in his garden at Woodville, therefore proving that it was possible to make opium in South Australia (The Register/News Pictorial, 2 December 1929, p. 25; The Register/News Pictorial, 4 December 1892, p. 2; Chronicle, 5 December 1892, p. 3).

Intersection of Hindley Street and Morphett Street, facing north. Photograph taken in October 2012 from outside the 1928 opium den.

I have two more articles on Fenn Place planned, and hope to have them up later in the week.

Fenn Place {Part 1}

Fenn Place, 2012

Fenn Place is now a walkway through UniSA City West. It runs between North Terrace and Hindley Street and has a cafe and some university buildings, including one of the largest collections of Hawke-era memorabilia. Basically, it's an ordinary university thoroughfare. 

In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was the place to be...if opium dens, sly grog shops, thievery and the occasional shoot-out were your thing! 

I found a surprisingly large amount of information about Fenn Place, so I've decided to split into several posts, each focusing on a different aspect of life in Fenn Place. This one is about the Salvation Army Women's Shelter. 

The Salvation Army was active in the West End of the city throughout the late 1800s/early 1900s - the first Salvation Army Hall in Australia was built in Light Square in 1880. The Army ran several homes in the city - a Rescue Home in Gilbert Street; a maternity home in Carrington Street; a children's home in Norwood, among others. The Women's Shelter was originally in Rosina Street, but it moved to Fenn Place in about 1907 when "the gradual development of that quarter into a business street and the removal of many poor families to localities farther west induced the Army authorities to seek new premises in the western part of the city." (The Advertiser, 10 September 1909, p. 8). In 1907, The Advertiser referred to the Rosina Street shelter as a 'Slum Post' and admitted that Rosina Street was once one of the "lowest quarters" of the city, but had since become a respectable business thoroughfare so the Army decided to move further into the slums. Fenn Place is only about 600m west of Rosina Street, which only goes to show the vast differences in streets within Adelaide's Square Mile.

An old 2-storey building on Fenn Place
(Honestly, I don't know the history of this building - it just looks pretty)

The Women's Shelter was a two-storey building with seven beds - three upstairs at 6d. a night and four downstairs at 3d. a night. Its intention was to keep women off the streets at night and, perhaps, seeking a bed through 'immorality'. It was available only to women and they could not arrive before 5pm and had to leave by 8am. If they asked to stay the night on Saturday, they were allowed to stay until Monday and were given Sunday lunch. If the women wanted a meal, they received a cup of tea and a "big" slice of bread for a penny. Adjutant Scott, who ran the shelter in 1909, admitted that women did not always pay. Some women slept there regularly and paid regularly, but others "only promise to do so. You see, we take them in, and in turn they take us in, but still we are not hard, and again and again the same thing happens."

The "best" of the women earned money and meals with domestic work, and Adjutant Scott could not say how the others occupied their time. Life at the Shelter was not easy, for the volunteers who ran it and the women who lived there. "There are some dreadful characters among them, and they abuse us horribly when, because there is no vacant bed, we are compelled to refuse them admittance...As you can see the place is kept clean and fresh, and I assure you it is not a nice undertaking to have to clean the dormitories after they have been occupied by some women, who are as unpleasant in their habits as it is possible to be." The Salvation Army volunteers (known as "Slum Post girls" in 1907) wore wide-brimmed hats and white aprons with 'For His sake' emblazoned in red on their chests. These girls supplied food, cleaned houses and cared for children if the parents were unwell, as well as supervising the women at the Shelter and organising their meals. They moved about 'the lowest parts of the city', but were never "interfered with" or "insulted". (The Advertiser, 27 June 1907, p. 6)

The same old 2-storey building on Fenn Place

The Shelter also distributed food to needy families and, in 1909, there were about thirty families receiving assistance. They received bread and vegetables sourced from market gardeners who were "exceedingly good to us. When vegetables are plentiful they are generous indeed, and the poor people at this end of the city should be grateful, as we are, to the growers who present large parcels of their produce to us weekly."Since the Army did not "wish to be taken advantage of", officers visited the homes of the people asking for assistance and made enquiries as to "his other habits, and so forth". 

An apology, a TV recommendation, and a list

I'm sorry for not blogging for awhile and leaving you hanging with the photo from the last post.

It's Bonython Hall at the University of Adelaide on North Terrace and, unfortunately, I don't actually have a post for it right now! HERE is a photo of it when it was first built and HERE is some brief information about its history. I love that Bonython wanted it to have sloping floors so people couldn't dance there!

I feel like all I do lately is make apologies for not being able to do anything besides uni work, but the year's almost finished and then I'll have plenty of time to write here!

Have any of you been watching Tony Robinson's Time Walks? Adelaide is the last episode and I can't wait to see where he visits!

For now, I have a list of some Adelaide history questions that have been running around my head for a couple of weeks and, I'm sure, will be answered here at some point:
1. Why is there a statue of Robert Burns outside the State Library?
2. What was on the State Library site (the new building with the glass front) before? I know there was the library built in the 1960s, which was demolished for the new library, but what was there before that?
3. What was on the UniSA City West site before UniSA City West? I know it has street names (George Street, Fenn Place, Register Street), so I assume it had houses - I've done a little bit of research into this already and, let me tell you, it's pretty juicy. 

Corner of Fenn Place and North Terrace: I have a feeling this little angel face could tell some amazing stories if they could talk!

I found the Ship Inn!

I found the Ship Inn…

Remember Sophia? She was the one who gave birth in a hen house in a garden on Currie Street. Earlier in the morning, she'd had a nobbler of brandy at the Ship Inn and the hen house was next door. I had never heard of the Ship Inn before learning about Sophia. It wasn’t the name of any pub I knew in Adelaide. I looked on the digitised newspapers, but ‘Ship Inn’ disappears soon after Sophia’s time and I couldn’t find anything else. Until I found this.

It's a bit small, but part of it says: "Going through Light Square, which at this time [1860s] was occupied by fallen women, we pass a number of cottages until we arrive at The Ship Inn, now the Bedford. A little farther on were a number of cottages and a large block of land, and so we come to Gray street." The author clearly ignored North Street, or it didn't exist at the time. 

This article popped up when I searched for ‘Currie Street’ (I guess ‘Ship Inn’ didn’t read well on their search engine). So, by World War I, it had been renamed the ‘Bedford’. So, I did another search for Bedford Hotel, Currie Street and found a photo from 1891, some ten years after Sophia’s time. I won’t post the photo here, as it’s under copyright and I don’t want to get in trouble(!), but the link is here [opens in a new window] if you want to look at it yourself. I think it looks quite nice. The caption underneath reads: “Currie Street, north side, right side of the Bedford Hotel is 2 yards west of Elizabeth Street and frontage is 15.5 yards”.

Two yards west of Elizabeth Street (estimated, of course. I didn’t bring a ruler with me) is now…not a hotel. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a photo because the building is being renovated and there were fences up. I did get a photo of the side of the building, though. The wall is made of stone and looks old - who knows what it could tell us if it could talk?!

Mrs. Gearing, the woman whose hen house Sophia gave birth in, lived next to the Ship Inn. I found this carpark on Elizabeth Street – maybe this was where Sophia’s baby was born? Maybe not? If Mrs. Gearing lived on the other side of the Ship Inn, Sophia might have given birth in this carpark. 

All I can say is there’s a lot more than meets the eye. There are buildings in Adelaide that look old and look like they could tell a lot of stories, but this one – at first glance – is not one of them.

When the weather is a little nicer, I'm going to explore more of the west end and take lots more photos. Until then, have a photo of Light Square...just because. [You can see how dark and miserable it was - this is the middle of the day!]

Meet Violet...

When I was researching last year, I came across so many stories that I just didn't have room for in my thesis. I've now written a few of them, and here is the first. (The others will follow soon, I promise!)

On 4 February 1901, 32-year-old Arthur Viant admitted himself to Adelaide Hospital with a stab wound in the middle of his back. It was three quarters of an inch deep, and could have caused considerable damage to the lungs if it had been a little deeper, and probably caused by a pen knife. Viant discharged himself within a few hours, after telling police that it was Violet Rawlinson who stabbed him.

Violet Rawlinson was arrested and brought before the Adelaide Police Court, but the charges were dismissed because Viant failed to appear at the hearings and, therefore, did not give evidence. Police Inspector Sullivan told the court that Viant was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the first hearing, which is why he did not attend, and asked for an adjournment for the next day. When he did not turn up again at the second hearing, the judge dismissed the case: “The fact of the prosecutor not appearing in this case leaves no course open but to dismiss it. The prosecutor was the man injured, and if he does not like to go on with the case it would better to let the matter drop.” Viant’s injuries do not appear to have affected him too much, as he was arrested for assault within a week.

Violet Rawlinson, although very young, was not unknown to the Adelaide Police Court. Since her first appearance as a child in 1886, she had a string of arrests to her name, mostly for drunkenness and using indecent language and one charge of ‘loitering’. Violet was a product of state care. She was sentenced to the Industrial School when she was ‘a little girl’ because her father, George Rawlinson, was “not a proper person, owing to his intemperate habits, to care for his child”. For reasons I don’t know (but I can only guess for bad behaviour), Violet was later sent to the Edwardstown Girls’ Reformatory from the Industrial School – the Industrial School was like a state-run orphanage, for children whose parents could not care for them, whereas the Reformatory was a juvenile prison.

In January 1895, Violet escaped the Reformatory and was hidden by her sister, Caroline, at Broken Hill. The authorities found her soon enough, brought her back to Adelaide and she was punished with three days of bread and water at the Reformatory. Her sister, for concealing her, was fined.

Three years later, she was released from the Reformatory, having turned eighteen. In August 1898, she was arrested for loitering with Emily Prettyjohn, Florence Barlow and Daisy Mullet, and they were all let off with a fine. 

(I haven't been able to find any other information about Emily, Florence and Daisy.)

Girls who made it through the Industrial School or Reformatory were ‘educated’ to be domestic servants, although many did not receive work because of their pasts, especially the Reformatory girls. It carried a stigma and many people did not want girls who were possibly thieves or who displayed bad behaviour working in their houses. Prostitution was a realistic option for these girls to earn money. Although Violet was only caught ‘loitering’ once, she was always arrested in the west end of the city (Light Square, Hindley Street, Burnett Street and Eliza Street). The north-west quarter, especially Light Square and Hindley and Rosina Streets, was the red-light district. Violet would have been in the same company as prostitutes and violent, dangerous criminals (including Arthur Viant, who was very well-known to the police). Also the fact that she was walking the streets at night with a pen knife, and found herself in a situation where she stabbed someone speaks volumes about the sort of life she was leading.

After 1906, when she was arrested for using indecent language in Hindley Street on 14 February, Violet disappears from ‘public life’. If she was about eighteen in 1898, then she would have been just twenty-six years old.