In May we used photo and film resources to look at Marvellous Melbourne in the 1880s. This was the end of the long economic boom that started in the 1860s. Throughout that period the Victorian colonial government, industrialists and home owners had borrowed massive amounts of money from overseas investors to fuel this boom. We still see some of the extraordinary buildings they erected: the State Library/Art Gallery; the exhibition building; government house, the State Treasury and Parliament to name but a few. Hospitals and asylums as well as an ambitious sewerage plan that pumped sewage over to the Spotswood Pumping Plant [now the Spotswood Science Museum] as well as a huge railway network that spanned the state including many uneconomic branch lines. Industry moved into bigger factories in the outer suburbs of Preston, Brunswick and Footscray and workers followed this, investing in family homes.
It couldn’t last. Wheat and wool prices started to drop, British investors withdrew their capital making huge losses, unemployment rose, the price of land and houses crashed and in 1893 the banking system also crashed. NSW and Victoria were worst hit but the depression lasted in the cities till Federation in 1900.
Meanwhile in western NSW and central Queensland a drought caused havoc in the wool industry in marginal areas. We looked at the Shearers Strike of 1891 aided by some great folksongs of the era to gauge the effects on the working class shearers. Strike breakers were brought in, men on the wharves went on strike and police numbers were increased to control huge camps of shearers. Although the strike failed after many weeks, it resulted in the formation of the first Labour Party in the world whose aim was to represent working families and the campaign to get working class men to register to vote.
Meg Dillon
It couldn’t last. Wheat and wool prices started to drop, British investors withdrew their capital making huge losses, unemployment rose, the price of land and houses crashed and in 1893 the banking system also crashed. NSW and Victoria were worst hit but the depression lasted in the cities till Federation in 1900.
Meanwhile in western NSW and central Queensland a drought caused havoc in the wool industry in marginal areas. We looked at the Shearers Strike of 1891 aided by some great folksongs of the era to gauge the effects on the working class shearers. Strike breakers were brought in, men on the wharves went on strike and police numbers were increased to control huge camps of shearers. Although the strike failed after many weeks, it resulted in the formation of the first Labour Party in the world whose aim was to represent working families and the campaign to get working class men to register to vote.
Meg Dillon
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