School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemCommunicable Knowledge: Medical Communication, Professionalisation, and Medical Reform in Colonial Victoria, 1855-66( 2020)This thesis examines the process of medical professionalisation in colonial Victoria from 1855-66. During this eleven-year period the medical profession of colonial Victoria were able to create Australia’s first long lasting medical societies and medical journal, found the first medical school, and receive legislative support of their claims to exclusive knowledge of medicine. The next time an Australian colony would have these institutions created would not be for another 20 years. This thesis examines these developments through a framework of communication, primarily from the medical community itself. Communication was central to the process that resulted in the creation of the above listed institutions. Here communication is examined as the driving force behind the two processes of professionalisation: the internal, community creating and boundary forming aspect; and the external process through which the community gains external recognition of their claims. For Victorian practitioners during the period of this study the internal process drives the creation of the societies, the journal, and the medical school, whereas the external process is typified by the campaign for ‘Medical Reform’ that sees the community engage in agitation for legislative backing of their conception of medicine as science over other alternate medicines. Communication was not isolated within the colony. As such the place of the Victorian medical community as a node within transnational networks of knowledge exchange is examined. As Victoria was better integrated into these networks than its colonial neighbours, an examination of the involvement of said flow of information in the creation of professional communities is considered an important part of this analysis. Behind these processes of community creation, I trace a thread of disunity sparked by professional differences. Highly publicised arguments over differences in medical opinion play out in the colonial press. This comes to a head at the end of the period of study. Despite their focus on communication the medical community ignores the role their public conduct plays in this process. The end result is that, while they were able to create these lasting institutions, their public conduct saw the public’s opinion of them stay low through to the end of the century.
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ItemThe voice of Methodism: temperance policy in Victoria, Australia 1902-1977( 2018)This thesis seeks to examine the influence of the Methodist Church in Victoria, Australia, on public policy in the twentieth century using the issue of Temperance as a case study. Methodists had a tradition of social activism dating back to their eighteenth-century founder John Wesley. While the Church took up many causes, Temperance had become its signature concern. The secular Temperance movement in Victoria, Australia was unable to bring about significant reform so Methodist activists became the prime instigators of change and secured changes to licensing in 1906. Methodists adopted a policy of ‘unswerving hostility’ to alcohol but, unable to adapt to social change in the following years, their influence slowly diminished. It was finally eclipsed in 1965 following a Royal Commission on Hotel Trading Hours. The Church, split between those clinging to traditional values and those seeking a better way to engage the community to their point of view, lost its reforming voice.
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ItemFrom commission to community: a history of salinity management in the Goulburn Valley, 1886-2007( 2007)This thesis investigates the evolution of government and public roles in salinity management within the Goulburn Valley, an important agricultural region of north-central Victoria. I argue that approaches to salinity management in the Goulburn Valley have altered over time to reflect variations in the connection between government and local communities. From 1905, the Victorian Government (as represented through its administrative body for water resources, the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SRWSC)) was led by a combination of developmentalist ideology and financial caution to install throughout north-central Victoria the fatal combination of extensive irrigation systems without adequate drainage. Despite early evidence of salinity problems resulting from their actions, the SRWSC did not experience a serious challenge to its institutionalised pattern of top-down advice and authority until the 1970s, when proposals for large-scale evaporative disposal schemes for salinity management met with angry responses from the farming community. Following an examination of community responses to two of the most controversial of these, the Lake Tyrrell and Mineral Reserve Basins salinity management schemes, I re-evaluate the subsequent Girgarre salinity control project in its historical context as a turning-point in government attitudes to community consultation. Through a close analysis of key policy documents, I then show how salinity management in the Goulburn Valley has developed since Girgarre to incorporate increasing levels of community participation, and proceed to examine the Australian Landcare movement as an effective, though flawed, system for community-based natural resource management. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the Goulburn Valley’s current situation, and emphasises very strongly the need for genuine community participation to ensure effective salinity management.
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ItemSpectacular! Spectacular!: Cole's book arcade, Melbourne: 1863 to 1927( 2008)This thesis will investigate Cole's Book Arcade, which operated in Melbourne's Bourke Street from 1863 to 1927. Cole's Book Arcade provides a case study with which to interpret social and cultural practices occurring in the context of Melbourne's retail and entertainment environment during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cole's Book Arcade was a product of its time and location. The thesis argues that the Arcade is an example of how Melbourne's citizens experienced modernity and leisure in the city during this historic period. It is necessary to define the boundaries of this case study. The thesis will also employ the definitions and practicalities of public history to examine the place of the Cole's Book Arcade story within The changing face of Victoria exhibition at the State Library of Victoria. The notions of cultural landscape, modernity, leisure, the New-World city, urban history and material culture will be employed to consider the significance of the entertainment and entrepreneurial environment of Cole's Book Arcade. Since the early settlement of colonial Melbourne, Bourke Street had been a popular destination for city dwellers to find entertainment. By the late nineteenth-century, modern cultural landscapes were emerging within New World cities. E.W. Cole was an entrepreneur who tapped into the commercial interests of a general public who embraced the popular leisure activities with shopping as their focus. This case study of Cole's Book Arcade will provide the historical record with greater knowledge of the personalities and places responsible for motivating these processes and outcomes.
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ItemThe private face of patronage: the Howitts, artistic and intellectual philanthropists in early Melbourne Society( 2005)This thesis investigates a case of upper-middle class, private patronage in Melbourne, focusing on three decades between 1840 and 1870. Evidence points to the existence of a lively circle of intellectual and artistic activity around the Quaker family of Dr Godfrey Howitt and his wife, Phebe, from the Midlands who arrived at the Port Phillip District in 1840. The presentation of a group of fine, rare colonial water-colours and drawings to the National Gallery of Victoria by a direct Howitt descendant, Mrs James Evans in 1989, was the point of inspiration for this subject. Godfrey Howitt, one of the first experienced medical practitioners in the colony, had much in common with the Superintendent of Port Phillip. Their friendship gave the Howitts entrée into the uppermost social circles of the colony. Financially, the family prospered due to Howitt's professional practice which insulated them against economic downturns and provided a steady accumulation of wealth. While as a Quaker, Phebe Howitt had little background in the fine arts, she began to exercise patronage in support of her artist friends, most of who arrived with the gold rush in 1852. With it came Godfrey Howitt's elder brother, William, a famous English author. In London in 1850, William and Mary Howitt's daughter, the feminist painter and writer, Anna Mary, had become engaged to Edward La Trobe Bateman. A brilliant designer and cousin of Superintendent La Trobe, Bateman introduced the young, still struggling Pre-Raphaelite artists with whom he was closely associated, to the English Howitts. Arriving in Melbourne in 1852, William was followed shortly afterwards by Bateman and two artists, including the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, Thomas Woolner. The gold rush also attracted Eugene von Guérard, and Nicholas Chevalier in due course. In 1856, as a guest of the Howitts' on her first Victorian visit, Louisa Anne Meredith, writer, botanical artist and social commentator, was introduced to their artistic and literary circle. The Howitts' friendship with these artists thus took on a very different hue from the normal patterns of patronage. Beyond commissioning works of art from artists returning empty handed from the gold fields, Phebe Howitt supported them in other ways until suffering a catastrophic stroke towards the end of 1856. During that period, the founding of the new Victorian colony's cultural institutions became a source of official artistic commissions for the first time. Through friends in influential positions like Justice Redmond Barry and Godfrey Howitt, Bateman was employed in various design projects for new public buildings and gardens. With the purchase of Barragunda at Cape Schanck in 1860, Godfrey Howitt assumed a central role as patron. In making the house available to Bateman and his artist friends, he and his daughter, Edith Mary, repeated the unusual degree of patronage formerly exercised by Phebe Howitt before her illness. By 1869, Woolner, Bateman and Chevalier had departed the colony and from 1870, von Guérard was taken up with the National Gallery of Victoria. Although succeeding generations of the family maintained contact with all the artists in their circle, by Godfrey Howitt's death in 1873, the prime years of Howitt patronage had passed.
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ItemA history of the House of the Gentle Bunyip (1975-90): a contribution to Australian church life( 2002)The House of the Gentle Bunyip was an ecumenical Christian community that existed from 1975 to 1996 in Clifton Hill, an inner Melbourne suburb. Founded by a Baptist theologian, Athol Gill, it drew many of its members from the Baptist and evangelical traditions. Mostly young adults, they perceived deficiencies in their churches and wanted to explore some of the radical implications of the Christian faith in a non-traditional setting. The Bunyip was influenced by the worldwide Christian community movement and changes in Australian society in the 1970s. It sought to respond to a decline within the institutional church evident from the 1960s and, in particular, to Victorian Baptist neglect of Melbourne's inner city churches. The Bunyip established a range of mission projects in response to the poor and needy including the homeless, aged, mentally ill and children disadvantaged by poorly-resourced inner city schools. It developed educational initiatives for clergy and lay people and sought to reclaim the communal aspects of the Christian faith by introducing its own pattern of corporate worship, community housing, membership agreements and leadership structures. The Bunyip established centres in Victoria and interstate, and developed links with a range of church and community networks. Over 150 adults and 30 children joined the Bunyip and the average length of stay was a little over four years. The community made a significant contribution to Australian church life by offering a viable alternative to the institutional church. It provided men and women with training, and opportunities for leadership and relevant practical service. It challenged Christians to take seriously the radical implications of the Gospel, especially in the areas of justice, care of the poor and community. Countless people were assisted through its mission programs. Many of its members and others influenced by Gill and the Bunyip completed degrees in theology and moved into ordained ministry, denominational leadership and urban or overseas ministry. Some used their Bunyip experience in community development, welfare work, education and peace-making. Although the Bunyip eventually declined and closed, its legacy continues through Fintry Bank, a supported accommodation program for sufferers of schizophrenia.