Gold and Graffiti: Tales of Melbourne: November 2015

Melbourne elders soon realised they had need of a goal. Small cramped alleys and lanes off the downtown streets grew to be a hotbed of larrikins, larceny, debauchery and violence. The ‘back slums’ they were called and the Melbourne lockup, which started out as a 2-roomed hut belonging to John Batman, one of Melbourne’s founders, was eventually replaced by a more significant structure that had a roll call of nearly 60 males and 9 females on its opening in 1845, just prior to the discovery of gold.

Numbers changed over time, with the wax and wane of the gold rush. The little huts and dirt tracks of the goldfields were soon replaced by wide streets and long boulevards making room for the many immigrants, including convicts, relocating from other states, who came further afield looking for work often well removed from the government seat that was Sydney and its surrounds. With the separation from New South Wales in July, 1851 Victoria could no longer send away her serious offenders, then with the discovery of gold just a month later the population grew sevenfold in just the ten years to 1860.

The relatively new Melbourne Goal became quickly overcrowded so an extension had to be built, and that was no sooner completed when two more floors of debtor’s cells and single cells were added in order to cope with the influx. As well, temporary stockades were set up in more populous suburbs to try to alleviate the crises. Hulks were even moored in the bay to take some of the prison overflow short term. Growth became so rapid that nine complete new prisons were built in that decade, the largest being Pentridge, which opened in Coburg in 1858.

We toured the old Magistrate’s court on one of our days when we walked in downtown Melbourne. It sits on the site of the old Supreme Court where Ned Kelly was sentenced to death, and where many of Melbourne’s most notorious criminals stood to hear their grim fates, including hanging. Many of us wore costumes of the era and enacted bits of the trial of Ned Kelly. We walked through heavily graffitied cells and found time to read some of the very poignant comments of some of the inmates, both male and female. Often in a state of hopelessness.

We learned of the in-house violence and tragedy which highlighted the sad plight of those who were unlucky enough to have to attempt to survive in such places. Australia’s early goals were far from pleasant.

One thing we didn't tend to think about in history classes was how and where our early settlers in Australia lived. One of our sightseeing days in Melbourne clarified this for us somewhat. Albeit, long passed our school days.

When gold was discovered in 1851 Victoria became overrun with diggers, heading for the goldfields, as well as an influx of merchants catering to their needs. For many, if they had a home at all, it was likely a tent in a huddle of other tents which could cost something in the vicinity of five shillings a week at the time.

As the crowds grew, the demand for housing quickly became critical. Luckily for the Aussie newcomers, the Californian gold rush had happened earlier, and manufacturers in England had already learned to cater to the demand for cheap, affordable housing that could be easily transported overseas, and easily constructed, on arrival. So that slower design phase had already passed. Aussies, then, with the will and the means, had only to go in search of a catalogue from which they might order from abroad any portable iron flatpack in any configuration they desired, from a one bedroomed home to a church, a theatre, or even a factory, if they so desired. And they did. Hundreds upon hundreds of portable iron structures were ordered. Then it only needed the wait for the ship to arrive with their order.

The flat packs were unloaded on the docks as complete as the original order inventoried. Some packs came with wallpaper and water closets, others with carpet and furniture included. In some constructions the external iron sheet walls were simply made to easily slide into slotted corner supports pre-cast to accept the corrugated wall sheeting and to reduce the chance of water ingress. In other cases, the very crates which held all the components were made to measure carefully so that they might became lining boards, for the walls or floors, once deconstructed. Even Ikea would likely have been very impressed.

Many of these portable homes arrived and were erected. We found three, all together, on one National Trust site in South Melbourne. Two of the smaller homes had been rescued from demolition and were moved quite recently; the other, larger one, was in situ, backing onto a street known as Tin Pan Alley, because of the proliferation of metal houses that once lined both sides of the lane. It was erected in 1853, and just two years later its value, in the Rate book, was listed as £44. And still it stands.

These metal structures were not conceived simply as temporary homes for the latest goldfields. They were the forerunner for metal structures that were to grow higher and wider than ever before, given the strength of the material. So impressed was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, at the displays at the Great Exhibition in 1851, that he ordered a good sized ballroom for Balmoral to be made of iron, 60 x 24 feet, which was packed and delivered in just weeks.

We learned, too, not to assume that a house would have always been ready and available for some of our governors when they first stepped onto Australian shores. Charles La Trobe, first appointed superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales in 1839, then, later, lieutenant-governor of Victoria, bought his own house on the boat with him when he learned, that as yet, there was no official house built for him and his young family.

This was earlier than the iron flatpacks of the gold rush period. La Trobe’s cottage was packaged for shipping as prefabricated panels of timber. The initial structure was for only two rooms, but his builder soon added a much needed dining room built of local material as the imported panels were raised and connected. And the house grew as the family grew with later extensions for a library and a nursery and outbuildings for kitchens and servants quarters.

But over the many decades since then the cottage has deteriorated and what little is now left of the home has been preserved. The remainder reconstructed along the lines of the original home. And re-sited in the Botanic Gardens. Interestingly, the cottage still displays some pieces of the La Trobe family’s original furniture in the house museum run by National Trust volunteers.