School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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    Communicable Knowledge: Medical Communication, Professionalisation, and Medical Reform in Colonial Victoria, 1855-66
    Orrell, Christopher Edward Gerard ( 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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    The voice of Methodism: temperance policy in Victoria, Australia 1902-1977
    Barelli, Kenneth Douglas ( 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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    Democracy at work in a gambling state? : a testing case for Habermas's proceduralism
    Berry, Elizabeth ( 2001)
    Jurgen Habermas's proceduralism is represented as a dynamic discursive model appropriate for normative analysis of complex modern constitutional democracies.^1 This discourse theoretical approach to the relationship between law and democracy focuses on the interplay between informal public sphere activity, and the formal deliberative processes, and legislative output. William Rehg has noted that the argument is "pitched at a very abstract level",^2 but has also referred to the fact that in Between Facts and Norms Habermas also "descends to the level of the real democratic procedure. ... "3 The, less formal level of Habermas's proceduralism has been further articulated in discussions and articles. The concern of this thesis has been to test this less formal level of Habermas's procedural model, and to reach some conclusion regarding the capacity for this theory to provide explanatory and/or critical insights into the social practices of a modern constitutional democracy. The less formal level of Habermas's procedural model has been tested against the background of gambling public sphere activity and gambling related legislative processes in the State of Victoria in different time periods. The conclusion has been reached that, while this test has revealed some problems for empirical analysis, and some limitations regarding the analysis of modern capitalist societies, the investigation undertaken here does, nevertheless, provide critical and explanatory insights into the way democracy works in a specific historical context. This is to certify that - (i) the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the preface, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is 30,000 words in length, exclusive of endnotes, appendices and bibliography.
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    Damaged goods : hepatitis C and the politics of the Victorian Blood exchange
    Klugman, Matthew ( 2000)
    In February 1990, the Victorian Blood Transfusion Service (VIC BTS) became one of the first transfusion services in the world, to implement testing for the newly isolated hepatitis C virus. In this thesis, I trace the development of hepatitis C policy by the Victorian Transfusion Service. Policy development was complicated by the known indeterminacy of some hepatitis C test results, as well as the Service's desire to avoid a further AIDS-like crisis. In particular, the Service had to decide how to minimise the risk of hepatitis C infection to recipients, and what to do with the donors and recipients infected with the hepatitis C virus. In making these decisions, the VIC BTS was reshaping its relationship with donors and recipients, and this re-configuring of the relationships of Victorian blood exchange through the development of hepatitis C policy, is an underlying theme of this thesis. From its inception in 1929, the Victorian Service maintained a donor-oriented culture in which the health of donors and recipients was always a key priority. For Service staff, the voluntary gifts of donors made blood-banking a special enterprise, informing a 'moral economy' whereby the Service felt obligated to meet the needs of both donors and recipients. However, with the advent of the AIDS crisis in 1980s, the confidence of donors (and the public) in the safety of the Victorian blood supply fell, and some recipients, allegedly infected with HIV, initiated litigation against the Service's parent body, the Australian Red Cross Society. In response, the Victorian Service came to distrust the gift of blood, controlling and managing its risks by way of practices designed to assess other ordinary commodities. Blood came to be treated by the Service, and the Federal Government, not so much as a gift, but as an ambiguous commodity. The development of hepatitis C policy produced a growing tension between the Transfusion Service's longstanding 'moral economy', and its new, pharmaceutically informed, risk-assessment practices. On the one hand, the Service was very risk-averse in its policy development, implementing testing with great swiftness, and deferring all donors with indeterminate test results. Even when the Service later became aware that some of these donors had probably never been infected with hepatitis C, its desire to maintain as safe a blood supply as possible, necessitated the continuing deferral of all donors with indeterminate results. On the other hand, the Service felt obligated to provide the best care and treatment feasible for potentially infected donors. With few government resources available for the management of hepatitis C, the Victorian Service devoted great time and energy to ensure deferred donors could be confident in the interpretation of their test results, and would receive expert care and treatment if necessary. The tension between the special ethical nature of Victorian blood exchange, and the management of blood as a dubious commodity, came to a head in the development of lookback policy. The Victorian Service felt a clinically-informed, 'moral obligation' to 'look back' and locate individual recipients who may have been infected by blood transfusions contaminated with hepatitis C. However, others viewed hepatitis C lookback from a more distanced, population perspective, arguing that it was a technical issue to be resolved through a cost-assessment analysis. Such an analysis showed hepatitis C lookback would be inefficient and expensive as a public health intervention. Although major hepatitis C lookback programs were eventually supported at a national level, the `correct' way of developing Victorian transfusion policy remains open to debate. What is clear, however, is that future policy development by the Victorian Service will continue to reflect, and to reshape, its relationships with donors and recipients.
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    From commission to community: a history of salinity management in the Goulburn Valley, 1886-2007
    Howes, Hilary Susan ( 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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    Spectacular! Spectacular!: Cole's book arcade, Melbourne: 1863 to 1927
    Rhodes, Jane Elise ( 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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    The private face of patronage: the Howitts, artistic and intellectual philanthropists in early Melbourne Society
    Clemente, Caroline ( 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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    A history of the House of the Gentle Bunyip (1975-90): a contribution to Australian church life
    Munro, Marita Rae ( 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.