School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemNeither bad nor mad : the competing discourses of psychiatry, law and politics( 1999)Garry David's dramatic threats of violence against individuals and the community, as well as his acts of gross self-mutilation, set in train a discourse between psychiatry, the law and politics, which focused on the place of the severely personality-disordered in the institutional context. The Victorian Labor Government's determination to detain him in custody, in the absence of either criminality or a legally-defined mental illness, tested the way in which the historically uncertain boundary between 'madness and 'badness' is drawn, as well as the differences between the concept of a mental illness and a mental disorder. It is argued that Garry shared many of the characteristics of other personality-disordered prisoners', who are ultimately released and, therefore, the reasons for his preventive detention and singular actions of the Government need to be understood, especially in the light of the social justice strategies, which had enhanced the rights of mentally disordered offenders by limiting their detention in custody. A major theme explores why he was singled out, and the significance of the Government's decision to proceed with the implementation of 'one-person' legislation, which was clumsily drafted, out of step with fundamental legal principles, and came dangerously close to making him a martyr through the exercise of powers of attainder. A sub-theme considers the interaction between psychiatry and the law, particularly in the courtroom, and the different way in which each discipline constructs its response to the same problem. It was concluded that the state's unusual action was triggered by the coalescence of a number of factors, rather than any clear demonstration of Garry David's propensity for dangerousness, apart from his sel-mutilation. Of particular importance were: the arousal of intuitive fears about dangerous persons in the wake of some recent multiple killings; the Government's need to reaffirm its support for the Victoria Police; the influence of structural changes within forensic psychiatry; and finally, the way in which Garry's dramatic and articulate threats were intensified by his ability to violate his own body and by his unusual tenacity in resisting carceral pressure. The legacy of Garry David was three fold: more general preventive detention legislation was implemented under the provisions of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic); a niche was created for the treatment of some of the more severely personality-disordered; and the High. Court of Australia rejected singular legislation for dangerous persons. This case is a palpable demonstration of the need to safeguard the traditional distinction between the Executive and Judiciary, and it points to the inadvisability of governments directly intervening in professional areas of decision-making.
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ItemThe provision of hospital care in country Victoria 1840's to 1940s( 1999)Many hospital histories have been written whose authors have usually made exaggerated claims about the significance of individual hospitals. This narrow approach fails to take into account the influences of ideological and economic changes such as the rise of the Labour movement between 1890 and 1915, the erosion of the charitable ideal, the secularisation of Australian society and the increased acceptance of certain welfare provisions as a right rather than a privilege. This results in some misconceptions and a blinkered view of hospital development. A comparative analysis of how country hospitals were administered during this early founding period is important because it reveals that prior to 1862, three categories of hospitals were established, namely, working men's hospitals, custodial or hospital/benevolent institutions and semi-voluntary hospitals. All were controlled by hospital committees dominated by lay community leaders. Country hospitals provided an important focus for small communities with hospital committees defending their independence and resisting attempts by central authorities to wrest administrative control from them. The control exerted by an increasingly centralist State government over hospitals in country Victoria (heavily influenced by the medical profession), hindered their development to a greater degree than those in metropolitan areas. The mechanisms for achieving this were the enforcement of the Appropriation Acts from 1862 and the rigid implementation of the 1923 Hospital and Charities Act. Both of these kept hospitals tied to the voluntary/philanthropic model (or semi-voluntary model because charities received significant funding from the state) until the 1930s thereby delaying the establishment of more viable community hospitals. After the early 1930s, a transition from charities to community hospitals occurred. A major source of their concern was the already inequitable levels of funding compared to metropolitan hospitals. This inequity meant that Hospital Committees spent much time raising funds through enlisting subscribers, fund-raising and soliciting bequests. Their first collective action was the formation of the Country Hospitals Association in 1918. The number of charitable hospitals in country Victoria grew rapidly from fourteen in 1859 to thirty-four in 1891 and sixty-one in 1923. In that year there were also 476 private hospitals, which prior to the 1890s were little more than nursing homes. Whilst the Charities Board sought to control the spread of public hospitals, hospitals established by the Bush Nursing Association proliferated outside their control, leading to conflict between the Board and the Association. Funding for public hospitals dropped significantly between the 1890s and 1930s. At the same time there was an increase in the demand for beds in public hospitals by the lower middle classes who found private hospital costs prohibitive and wanted the higher standard of care provided in public hospital facilities. An increased dependence on medical technology led to an urgent need for the upgrading of Victorian country hospitals' technologically obsolete equipment. Additionally, Victorian hospitals were heavily influenced by North American views on efficiency and standardisation. Finally, the impetus to improve hospitals came in the 1930s when unemployment relief funds and a gambling tax levy subsidised new hospital facilities.
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ItemThe Australian Railways Union: railway management and railway work in Victoria 1920-1939( 1989)This thesis takes the Australian Railways Union as a focus for an examination of the Victorian Railways between the two World Wars. The development of the union is traced through the optimistic expectations of the early 1920s, the disillusionment which followed the union’s affiliation with the ALP and registration under the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, to the increasing polarisation of the union on political lines as the 1930s progressed. At the same time the union’s relations with, railway management are explored. The innovative management style of Harold Winthrop Clapp, whose term as Chief Railways Commissioner covered the two decades under discussion in this thesis, is examined and set in the context of developments elsewhere in Australia and overseas. The repercussions of Clapp’s administrative and technological changes in railway work are discussed throughout the thesis, and particular attention is paid to the relationship between such changes and job loss. The problems arising from lack of clarity over control of the Railways Department, which are also examined in a separate chapter, were common to other statutory authorities as well. The financial situation of the railways is discussed in relation to that of other Australian railways. The problem of transport regulation to prevent uneconomic competition between motor transport and railways, which received growing recognition during the period of this thesis, also receives special attention. During the Great Depression, the Victorian Railways Department and the ARU played a central role in the national arena. The railway basic wage case of 1930, which resulted in a ten per cent cut in wages, set a precedent for all major industries. The analysis of transcripts of this lengthy case has produced much which is of general significance for economic and labour history. In the final chapters of the thesis, the ARU is shown approaching the radicalism of the 1940s, when large scale industrial action was carried out under Communist leadership. The union in 1939, following two decades of activity as part of a federal railways union, and experience of arbitration and affiliation to the ALP, was very different from the union which had existed up until 1920 in Victoria, with its narrow sphere of activity bounded by ‘the railway fence’, and this thesis explores that transition.
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ItemVagrancy and the Victorians: the social construction of the vagrant in Melbourne, 1880-1907( 1990)In Melbourne between 1880 and 1907, the construction and propagation of a vagrant stereotype and its manifestation in law, constituted an important means of controlling the behaviour of individuals and groups who were perceived to be socially undesirable or economically burdensome.
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ItemThe state of modern Greek language as spoken in Victoria( 1986)This thesis reports a sociolinguistic study, carried out between 1981 and 1984, of the state of the Modern Greek (MG) language in Australia, as spoken by native-speaking first-generation Greek immigrants in Victoria. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of those characteristics of the linguistic behaviour of these Greek Australians which can be attributed to the contact with English and to other environmental, social and linguistic influence. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemThe hospital south of the Yarra: a history to celebrate the centenary of Alfred Hospital Melbourne 1871-1971( 1972-02)Although this work was commissioned for the purpose of celebrating Alfred Hospital’s first one hundred years, I have made no effort to cover all of those years. I have set out: 1. To isolate the historical precedents for current hospital procedures and in particular to explore the relationship between Alfred Hospital and the State Government. This task was burdened by the scarcity of early hospital records and of research in related fields of charitable and social welfare - which emphasizes the value of rescuing the hospital’s fast vanishing past from oblivion. 2. By attention to human relationships (that constantly inconsistent element in all institutional affairs) to evoke those unique qualities which distinguish Alfred Hospital from other similar hospitals. 3. To convey what the Alfred meant to the greatest number of people associated with it. 4. To provide a useful source of reference.
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ItemThe Victorian charity network in the 1890's( 1976-06)Poverty was widespread in Victorian society in the later nineteenth century, but the colony remained proud that it had not had to resort to a Poor Law in order to meet the needs of the less fortunate of its citizens. Instead, the relief of the destitute was the responsibility of a large number of voluntary charitable agencies, most financially dependent on the government to a greater or lesser extent, but totally under the control of those private citizens who chose and were able to make regular donations. (For complete precis open document)
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ItemReading and after: literary community, identity and practice in Melbourne circa 1886-1910( 1998)The period around the turn of the century saw a remarkable flowering of literary activity in Melbourne, marked by enthusiastic participation in the reading, writing and performance of literature. These activities were formed around a combination of historical, pedagogical moral and social models, and acted as significant markers of personal and communal values and cultural prestige. On one level these activities mark a response to tensions brought about by the shift in the nature of the reading public and the mass media in the nineteenth century. In a period of increased accessibility of literature, barriers were put in place to determine the validity of literary experience, and maintain its status as an elite form. On another level, the forms which they took and the meanings which they represented, were a direct response to local social forms and practices. It was possible for the self-educated and the unprivileged to redefine themselves by their knowledge of literature and its practices. The incorporation of the ideology of reading into social life and communal belief systems meant that these ideas and values operated differently in respect of different social groups. This thesis brings together a variety of aspects of print reception culture in Melbourne, in particular the differences which gender, class and religious affiliation could make to expectations and experiences of reading and writing. The different forms which these responses could generate even within a circumscribed historical and geographical region mark patterns of convergence between aspects of the literary and their social and political contexts.
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ItemThe Victorian Labor Party, 1885-1894( 1984)The Victorian labor party, compared with its counterparts in the other colonies, had a retarded development as a distinct and independent radical party. It was smaller in number and played less of a role in forming and making ministries by August 1894. Victorian labor's slow growth was due to the strong grip of the liberal reform tradition with its progressive and strong liberal party of the 1870's, which advocated radical reforms, such as protection and land taxes, that appeased the workers. And labor was largely overshadowed by and relied on the leading liberals' stronger electoral appeal, legislative initiatives and performance in parliament, which continued into the 1890' s. Liberalism’s attraction ensured that, from the birth of the labor party, labor would see itself as an ally of the liberal party, fragmented and disunited as it was from the mid - 1880's, and as a separate, radical force within the liberal reform tradition, as well as a totally independent radical party of the workers and unionists, who had not been properly represented by the liberals. The other main factors in labor's lack of strength were the party's limited appeal to only a section of the working class (artisans rather than miners, rural workers and non-unionists), the party's lack of financial and organizational independence in depressed times, the rampant apathy and divisions within its ranks, the union movement and the working class, and the peculiarities of the unfair electoral system. But the labor party, as defined, had earlier origins (1885) and was more independent of and influenced the liberals than has previously been supposed. It was influential in having its policies adopted or supported in and out of parliament and in moulding, to some degree, Victoria's political system. Contrary to the view that the THC and craft unions were uninterested in direct representation of labor, it was the Melbourne craft and semi-skilled unions, rather than the new unions of Shearers and Miners, which were the most interested and active of all the other trade unions in forming and furthering support for the labor party. Although the Sydney Trades and Labour Council played a bigger role in forming the largest labor party in 1891, the THC had a larger part in initiating the party from 1885 and controlling the PPL at the top levels than has previously been thought. At the 1886 and 1889 elections, the labor candidates showed the magnetism of liberalism by using labor and liberal titles interchangeably and espousing the same major policies. But they were distinguished by having their own committees, receiving union and unofficial THC support, and pushing for specific grievances and interests, especially protectionist, of the skilled workers or THC, as well as their own. The maritime strike of 1890 was not a turning point in the moves for direct representation, then, as moves had started in the eighties, but it served, like the depression, as a great impetus by helping to radicalize the workers into wanting greater representation and more reforms. Before June 1891 Victorian labor, with three parliamentary members, had achieved very little success in obtaining labor legislation; but, in this, it was in a similar position to its counterparts in the other colonies, and, indeed, it was in a stronger numerical position in parliament than N.S.W. labor at that time. Between 1891 and 1894 labor's influence in and out of parliament grew and it helped to shape the modest beginnings of a modern political party system, as party lines, although still somewhat loose, became more defined and polarized. Victorian labor was not as significant in moulding the party system as its counterparts in the other colonies. They were numerically larger, and so were a major third party or a partner in a ministry, and labor and anti-labor lines were more pronounced in those colonies. But it had a larger role in shaping politics up to August 1894 than has been argued by writers. In 1891 the labor party had introduced some new features. The pledge resulted in the party's higher unity in voting than other parties in the Assembly in 1892. Its extra-parliamentary organization, although not as elaborate as that of the old liberal party of the 1870's, was unique in that it was larger than that of other Victorian parties, was based upon union support and most of its executive and parliamentary representatives were from union and THC ranks. Labor was more radical than liberal in wanting more urgently the enactment of further protection, which was a dividing line between them from the eighties, the end of subletting and the introduction of a minimum wage, the legalization of eight hours, one man one vote, conciliation and arbitration, a higher income tax and other taxes, land nationalization, and some banking and financial reforms. Accordingly, there was much agitation in and out of parliament, especially between 1892 and 1894. Because of its significant influence upon the Shiels government in regard to taxation, especially the increased customs duties, labor was indirectly responsible for the fall of the liberal government, as many liberals deserted supporting it and voted for the conservative Patterson government. Labor was largely responsible for the conservatives' uniting in and out of parliament. The conservatives became the most cohesive group in parliament, as party lines deepened between liberal and conservative. As protection and other policies were placed in jeopardy or were not enacted, labor drew closer to the liberal forces to unite in order to defend these policies and helped to oust the Patterson regime in 1894.
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ItemWithout natural protectors: histories of deserted and destitute colonial women in Victoria 1850-1865( 1995)This thesis combines a social history of deserted wives with a cultural history of wife desertion. It does so within a particular historical moment, the Victorian gold-rush era, when there was much attention given to wife desertion as a pressing social problem. The study covers the years between 1850, the eve of gold discovery in Victoria, and the mid-1860s, by which time the acute social disturbances associated with the gold rushes had subsided, and the state had enacted its first major piece of welfare legislation, the 1864 Neglected and Criminal Children's Act. The central argument of this thesis is that, in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria, there developed a radical disjunction between the material needs of deserted wives and the cultural need to resolve the tensions and erase the contradictions invoked by their presence. This influenced both the forms of assistance available to deserted wives and the ways in which others imagined the amelioration of their condition. The first section of the thesis explores how deserted wives and their children emerged as the principal category of the colonial poor in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria. Although deserted wives are the main subjects of the thesis, they were not the only colonial women solely responsible for their dependent children. I also consider widows and single women with children, who shared the need to provide support for their families. The second part of the thesis is a detailed examination of the survival strategies undertaken by impoverished deserted wives, widows and single women with children. It draws on the traditions of social and welfare history and explores the opportunities for agency that existed in colonial women's interactions with private charitable societies and institutions. The thesis also challenges some of these historiographical traditions, which are focused on the dominance of private charitable effort, by undertaking a close analysis of the relationships between poor white women and officers of the state. A study of the operation of the Deserted Wives and Children Act and of the broader interactions between magistrates, police and destitute supplicants at the court house highlights the complex and ambiguous association between women and the state. In the third section of the thesis, entitled 'The Politics of Welfare', I move beyond daily survival strategies to examine how these interactions led to the formation of authorities on welfare matters in the colony and created public comment on wife desertion. Although widows and single women with children also faced problems in providing for their families, their fate, unlike that of deserted wives, did not capture the public imagination. Middle-class reformers and charity groups highlighted the prevalence of family desertion in ways that revealed as much about their own social and cultural anxieties as they did about the problems faced by deserted wives. The section examines the place of deserted wives in the rhetoric of two reform movements: the campaign for industrial schools, which culminated in the passing of the Neglected and Criminal Children's Act, and the land reform movement. Deserted wives were powerful cultural symbols of the dislocations of gold discovery, and of urban poverty, that reformers appropriated and used for their own ends.