School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemProstitution and the state in Victoria, 1890-1914( 1986)The later decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries were marked by considerable change in Victorian society. Rapid urban expansion and industrialization were among the most profound of these developments. They resulted in increasing problems of urban over-crowding, poverty, sanitation and, despite the youth of the cities, decay. Those in power began to see these urban problems as being partly related to the nature of working-class life, so sought to control aspects of working-class culture to an unprecedented degree. During this period, legislation relating to liquor, tobacco, drugs, and gambling, for example, were brought into effect for the first time or became more intrusive. Street life was becoming increasingly regulated. In 1891, for example, amendments to the Victorian Police Offences Act made important changes to the social construction of anti-social behaviour and placed increased power in the hands of the police and legal institutions to control the behaviour of individuals in public places. As part of this development, soliciting prostitution was made an offence for the first time. Women, too, had become subversive. Feminists demanded the vote, increased educational opportunities and threatened the established power differential between the sexes. At the same time, legislation was being passed and medical practices were emerging which increasingly impinged upon women's bodies and upon the areas of women's traditional power - life itself and child life. Kerreen Reiger has traced the increasing attempts to professionalize and rationalize family life, resulting in greater intrusion into the lives of women in relation to childbirth and motherhood.' Increasing attempts to control prostitution in Australia date from this same period, and can be seen as part of these processes. It was from the 1860s that an edifice of laws was constructed. Firstly, legislators were concerned with how women were forced into prostitution (procuring), the relationships between women working in prostitution and their children, and the spread of venereal disease. Later, from the 1890s, there was a new spate of legislation related to soliciting, the ownership and management of brothels, procuring, and living on the earnings of prostitution. During the same period a centralized, bureaucratized police force, which was crucially involved in the increasing control of prostitution, was established in Victoria. The prison system, too, became more organized and intrusive. By the later part of this period the move toward greater state intrusion into the area of prostitution was clear; the years 1890 to 1914 have been chosen for detailed study. This period was marked at the beginning by important new amendments to the Police Offences and Crimes Acts in 1891 and at the end by the advent of the First World War, which created new contexts and problems. (From Introduction)
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ItemThe settlement of Melbourne 1851-1893: selected aspects of urban growth( 1970-02)Melbourne was the obvious choice as a prototype of a nineteenth century colonial city in the following study in urban history. It succeeded early to a pre-eminent position within Victoria, indeed of the entire Australian continent and its position of supremacy went unchallenged until the twentieth century. It was never seriously threatened by the claims of rival cities such as Ballarat, Sandhurst or Geelong. In this respect, Melbourne was a classic primate city with a whole-state hinterland and was justly described as "the commercial metropolis of the South". Its favourable geographic location, centrally placed between eastern and western halves of the colony, together with its position at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay provided the logical point of convergance for a railway network spanning the reaches of the interior. This gave a nodal quality to the city which made it the sole effective input-output point for all commerce with the mainland interior.(For complete abstract open document)
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ItemSome aspects of the development of the metal trades in Ballarat 1851-1901( 1971-08)This thesis is an attempt to provide a special examination centering on some aspects on the development of metal processing and fabricating industries in the Victorian gold mining town of Ballarat from its foundation in 1851 to the end of its first half century in 1901. It is in effect a case study of a particular group of manufacturing activities made with the intention of improving general historians' understanding of the forces behind the establishment and growth of secondary industries in the non-metropolitan towns of nineteenth century Australia.
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ItemA history of the Royal Melbourne Hospital( 1954-11)This thesis covers the following: the hospital movement in Port Philip, the care of patients, the hospital and the University, the hospital and the community and the hospital at Parkville.
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ItemThe emergence of a bayside suburb: Sandringham, Victoria c. 1850-1900( 1971-03)The past neglect of the Australian city by historians is frequently the subject of lament. The neglect can be highlighted by noting that not only has the impact of the city been generally avoided in Australian historiography despite its overarching importance but also by the fact that Melbourne and Sydney still lack biographies. By contrast, major British and United States cities have had substantial treatment. Therefore, in the circumstance of very considerable gaps in Australian urban historiography, there is probably little need to justify a research topic which tackles the emergence of Sandringham, a Melbourne suburb in the late 19th century. Apart from the narrow and local purpose of providing a means by which local residents can further identify themselves with their community, a suburb history can provide a case study in urbanization which can be of relevance to the whole field of urban history and more specifically, it can enrich the written history of the city of which it is part.
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ItemLabour pains: working-class women in employment, unions, and the Labor Party in Victoria, 1888-1914( 1987-05)This study focuses on the experiences of working-class women spanning the years from 1888 to 1914 - a period of significant economic growth and socio-political change in Victoria. The drift of population into the urban centres after the goldrush marked the beginning of a rapid and continual urban expansion in Melbourne as the city’s industrial and commercial sectors grew and diversified. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the increasing population provided a larger workforce which also represented a growing consumer market. The rise of the Victorian manufacturing industries in this period also saw the introduction of the modern factory system. With the increasing demand for unskilled labour in factories, it was not only men who entered this new factory workforce. Young women and older children were, for the first time, drawn in appreciable numbers into the industrial workforce as employers keenly sought their services as unskilled and cheap workers. Women were concentrated in specific areas of the labour market, such as the clothing, boot, food and drink industries, which became strictly areas of “women’s work”. In the early twentieth century, the rigid sexual demarcation of work was represented by gender-differentiated wages and employment provisions within industrial awards.
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ItemThe organisation of the Catholic laity in Victoria, 1911-1930( 1972)This thesis deals with the form of lay organisation which came to be known as “Catholic Action”, in the sense of “a tightly structured organisation that serves as an arm of the hierarchy in lay life”. The body created to assist the hierarchy in co-ordinating lay activity during this period was a federation of Catholic lay societies, under clerical control at the parish, diocesan and national levels, the pattern for which had been exported from Rome to many countries. The Australian Catholic Federation was inaugurated in Melbourne on 12 December 1911. By the end of 1914 it had appeared in South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania, but seems to have spread no farther. It is with the introduction of this movement to Australia and its progress in Victoria, until it was abandoned there in 1930, that I am chiefly concerned. Neither the source of the Federation movement nor its ecclesiastical direction received much emphasis in the speeches of its leaders or in Catholic publications. On the contrary, it was the “lay” character of the Australian body and the role of local grievances in its formation that were stressed. Throughout its existence, the Australian Federation was to experience tension between the professed and the actual nature of its inspiration and government. (from introduction)
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ItemShow business: a history of theatre in Victoria 1835-1948( 1949)...The material available to the student of the theatrical history of this State and Nation, is relatively sparse, and extremely scattered. Much has been covered in newspaper articles, but no attempt has ever been made to pull the material together and show it as part of a continuous story, superimposed upon the background of the political, social and economic history of the State. That is what I now attempt to do. If it does nothing more than bring the basic information within reasonable compass, I will not feel I have failed. If, on the other hand, it should arouse an interest in either the history or the practice of Theatre, in its widest sense, so that a multitude of young men and women may be rescued from the slough of saccharine sentimentality into which Hollywood has led them, to an increasing interest in legitimate Theatre, the development of which is considered by some to be a concomitant of National greatness, then I shall feel that I have indeed succeeded. (From introduction)
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ItemShadows on the landscape: memorial aspects of the Great Ocean Road( 1999)Victoria's commemorative landscape is made up of a series of natural and constructed features comprising roads, bridges, memorial sculptures, avenues of honour, coastal fortifications and military memorabilia, yet their memorializing function is largely unrecognized by the general population. Some of these memorials have been linked with the scenic landscape and have become privileged as tourist sites. Their original meanings, however, have been blurred by twentieth century progress. This thesis examines one component of Australia's memorial landscape, the Great Ocean Road in South West Victoria, and questions whether there is a parallel between the Western concept of a memorial landscape and the notions of spirituality in the land which are a primary component of the belief structure of indigenous peoples. This leads to an examination of the local geographical landscape in relation to Aboriginal massacre sites, and a questioning of the congruence between such sites and the now memorialized battlefields of World War 1. Chapter One deals with the history of the Great Ocean Road and traces its development and construction from 1916 to 1932. Chapter Two examines the place of the Great Ocean Road in the overall scheme of post World War 1 memorialization, and questions why its original function has been so little recognized by the community. Chapter Three looks at the complex relationships between the physical and spiritual elements of the land as perceived by Aboriginal culture, investigates the Aboriginal massacre sites within close proximity to the Great Ocean Road, and questions why no memorials have been raised to Aborigines who died defending their land. The theoretical base of the thesis is supported by the notion that landscape is socially and culturally determined, and that place can be invested with spiritual potency. Finally, it is argued that for a place to retain its spiritual strength, regardless of the culture, the spiritual content must be recognized, ritualized and constantly refreshed within the culture.
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ItemHow the south-east was held: aspects of the quadripartite interaction of Mount Gambier, Portland, Adelaide and Melbourne 1860-1917( 1977)This thesis examines aspects of the "perennial theme of discussion", acknowledging the involvement of four participants, viz., Mt. Gambier, Portland, Adelaide and Melbourne. The assertion of regional generality was supported by the fact that between 1866 and 1921 the Mt. Gambier district rarely contained less than 39% of the total population of the South-East of South Australia. Indeed, in 1911, over 48% of the region's population lived in the vicinity of Mt. Gambier. Furthermore, as Hirst noted, Mt. Gambier was the only old South Australian country town to maintain a steady rate of growth between 1870 and 1917. These facts contributed to the belief, to be longheld by both Adelaide and Melbourne, that Mt. Gambier was the key to the South-East of South Australia. The holding of Mt. Gambier was then thought to be a necessary precursor to the holding of the South-East. Learmonth and Logan have each produced very useful studies of the Victorian port of Portland and its hinterland. Their perceptions, however, remain essentially "Victorian". While the proximity of the border between Victoria and South Australia was acknowledged, no rigorous attempt was made to study historically its regional influence. This thesis also aims to remedy that situation. (From introduction)