Tag Archives: 1850s people

Costume at Sovereign Hill: The Redcoat Soldiers

Posted on August 22, 2016 | Leave a comment

When you visit Sovereign Hill, you see lots of different kinds of costumes being worn by the staff and volunteers in the streets, shops and on the diggings. All our costumes tell stories about the kind of people who were really here in Ballarat in the 1850s. Some of our most photographed costumed characters are the Redcoat Soldiers, who tell the story of the British Army’s role in 19th century Victoria.

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Sovereign Hill’s daily Redcoat Soldiers parade.

Students often ask, ‘Why are they wearing bright red jackets? Soldiers today wear camouflage to hide in the bush, but a red jacket can’t hide you anywhere!’. These jackets, which are actually called coatees, were red for a number of reasons:

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A diagram explaining the different parts of a Redcoat’s uniform. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Redcoat Soldiers played an important role in the Eureka Rebellion and their daily parade around Sovereign Hill is one of our most popular events. We need to keep them looking ‘spiffy‘, so our Costume Department recently began a big project to make new uniforms for our hard-working soldiers.

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The two ‘tails’ on a coatee.

Every time our Costume Department makes a new outfit for one of our staff or volunteers, the team starts by doing some research. There are lots of paintings, photographs and written descriptions of the Redcoat Soldier uniforms, which help us re-create their outfits to look just like the real ones worn in the 1850s. We were very lucky in this instance to find a real 1840s-50s Redcoat coatee in the collection of a local history buff, which revealed secret pockets inside the coatee ‘tails’! We think these would have been used for storing gloves and hiding important documents. Next time you visit Sovereign Hill, ask a Redcoat soldier what he hides in his secret tail pockets.

This very old, fragile coatee also helped us understand what the lining and internal structure of the coatees should be, which not only makes them more comfortable for the people wearing them, but also makes those people look more muscular and broad-shouldered.

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The internal structure of a coatee.

The coatee was designed to make the chest of the man wearing it (only men could be in the British Army in the 19th century) look like a triangle (women desired to be hour-glass shaped), and epaulettes would be attached to the shoulders to make them appear even bigger. If you were an important officer in the regiment (team of soldiers), you would have received a ‘uniform allowance’ as part of your wages which you could use to decorate your coatee further.

shako

Left: An 1850s shako. Right: Sovereign Hill’s re-created shako.

The Sovereign Hill Costume Department have now created three different kinds of Redcoat uniforms for our daily parades: an officer’s uniform (in scarlet red), and soldiers’ uniforms and a drummer’s uniform (in madder red).  We were able to achieve the correct coatee colouring thanks to information from a uniforms supplier in England which has been making outfits for the British Army since the Battle of Waterloo – more than 200 years ago! Many details like buttons, pom-poms and embroidered trimmings for the new costumes had to be made by hand by skilled craftspeople, which took a lot of hard work to organise. Re-creating the hats – or shakos – presented one of the biggest challenges to the Costume team, but the new Redcoat costumes are nearly finished and ready for the daily parade.

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Drummers wore heavily-decorated uniforms.

All of our costumes tell stories about the history of clothing dyes, innovations in sewing techniques and machines, and developments in the manufacture of textiles, as well as showcasing the fashions of the time. The popular fashions of the 1850s also tell stories about community values and ideas about masculinity and femininity. What do your clothes say about you and the community you live in?

Links and References

Read about the role of the Redcoat Soldiers in the Eureka Rebellion: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2011/08/15/the-redcoats-connecting-history-lessons/

Sovereign Hill’s Redcoats firing their guns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loLdcXa0_w8

A wonderful V&A webpage about 19th century fashion: http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/0-9/19th-century-fashion/

Learn about ladies’ weird 1850s underpants…: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2013/09/06/gold-rush-undies-womens-fashionable-underwear-in-the-1850s/

What did children wear during the gold rush? https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2012/11/26/gold-rush-babes-childrens-fashion-in-the-1850s/

Men’s 1850s fashion: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2012/07/17/gold-rush-beaus-mens-fashion-in-the-1850s/

Women’s 1850s fashion: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2012/02/28/gold-rush-belles-womens-fashion-in-the-1850s/

The British Army during Queen Victoria’s reign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_during_the_Victorian_Era

A social story for ASD students preparing for a Sovereign Hill visit: http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/Here_come_the_Redcoats.pdf

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Posted in 19th century, 40th regiment, History Teaching, Museum, redcoat, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

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Goldrush Immigration – Push and Pull Factors

Posted on July 28, 2016 | 5 comments

To understand the thousands of people who chose to come to Ballarat during the gold rushes, we need to look at their motivations for leaving home for the dirty diggings. When gold was discovered in Ballarat in 1851, there were about 80,000 people living in Victoria. You can fit more than that in the MCG today! The population increased dramatically over the next ten years; by 1861, there were more than 500,000 people here! While most no doubt had their own unique, personal reasons for moving to Victoria during this time, let’s take a look at some of the things that may have pushed people out of their homes and pulled them towards gold mining towns like Ballarat.

‘Push factors’ – things that push people away from their homes – include wars, natural disasters, food/water shortages, a lack of paid jobs, and nasty community leaders. For example, if your country runs out of food and your family is hungry, you might decide to move to a new country where your family is less likely to suffer hunger again. This means that food shortage is your motivation to move; it’s the push factor for you and your family.

78.0973 Raffaello Carboni

 

The Australian gold rushes attracted lots of interesting characters – this is Raffaelo Carboni, a miner from Italy, who was in Ballarat around the time of the Eureka Rebellion.

 

‘Pull factors’ – things that pull people to a new home – include safety, food/water security, good job opportunities, and good community leaders. For example, if there’s not much opportunity for you to get a good job in your country, you might decide to move to a country with a strong economy and low unemployment, where you have a high chance of getting a great job. This means that good job opportunities is your motivation to move; it’s the pull factor for you.

The chance of finding a huge Ballarat gold nugget (which could make you so rich that you never had to work another day in your life), was a HUGE pull factor for people who wanted to improve their lives in the 1850s and 1860s. Thousands of people from all over the world heard about Ballarat’s rich alluvial goldfield and decided to try their luck on the diggings.

The kind of people who came in search of gold were usually young and usually male, but of course many brought their families. This gold-seeking adventure was often a one-way trip, and the work was hard and dangerous. Most people who came to Ballarat during the gold rushes were motivated by more than just gold – there were lots of push and pull factors for each person!

If you were from England, things that may have pushed you to Australia might have included overpopulation (lots of English cities were very crowded at this time thanks to the Industrial Revolution), limited social mobility (little chance of improving your life; if you were born poor in England in the 1850s, you were likely to stay poor, no matter how hard you worked) and frustrations with the government (the ‘Chartists’ were trying to improve democracy during this time in English history, but weren’t having much luck). Pull factors for the English, apart from gold, could have included Australia’s good weather (lots of English people still come for this reason), and the chance to buy land (almost impossible back in England, unless you were extremely rich).

Peter Lalor (Montrose Cottage Collection)

 

Peter Lalor, leader of the miners in the Eureka Rebellion, moved from Ireland to Ballarat in 1852.

 

If you were from Ireland, the biggest push factor at this time in history would have been the ‘Great Hunger’ (also known as the Irish Potato Famine). Between 1845 and 1852, over one million Irish people died of starvation due to a disease called potato blight which destroyed their main food source: the potato. As a result of the Great Hunger, two million Irish people left Ireland and never returned – some moved to the United States of America and Canada, while many others came to Australia, in particular to Ballarat.

If you were from Scotland in the 1850s and you were the second son in your family, your big brother got to keep the family home and any land your family owned. That meant second sons had to make their own fortunes. This could have been one of the main push factors for the Scottish.

If you were from China, it was likely you were a peasant farmer in the 1850s. At this time in China, you didn’t have much chance of improving your life (limited social mobility), and opium was a big social/health problem (thanks to the [English] East India Company – who bought this highly addictive drug from India to sell in China for huge profits). This led to two wars between England and China during this time. These were the major push factors
for the Chinese miners. While gold was the major pull factor, the Chinese commonly had a different motivation than the Europeans when it came to spending their gold wealth. The Europeans tended to find gold to benefit themselves and their families, and many decided to stay in Australia after finding their fortune. The Chinese instead tended to find gold to take home to benefit not just their families but their entire villages; Chinese communities often worked together to pay for a ship ticket for just one or two miners, so that any gold they brought home was for the benefit of everyone. Some historians say that most of the Chinese miners were not really immigrants for this reason.

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John Alloo, from China, owned one of the first restaurants on the Ballarat diggings.

 

If you were from the United States of America, it was possible you had been a miner in the 1849 gold rush in San Francisco, California, or wished you had been. The pull factor of gold was probably the main reason Americans came to Ballarat.

If you were an Aboriginal Australian, you may have been on the Ballarat goldfield because this had been your family’s home for thousands of years, or you may have come from another part of Victoria as you had been forced off your homelands by invading farmers and miners. In terms of pull factors, some Aboriginal People did make money from gold during the gold rushes, while others worked as Native Police or farmhands. However, Aboriginal People had few choices at this time in history; it was very difficult to live their traditional lives any more whether they were on their homelands or not, thanks to the changes the new arrivals introduced.

STG Kangaroo Stalking

 

Without the help of Aboriginal People, many new arrivals to Victoria would have perished in the harsh conditions of 19th century Australia.

 

Australia – in particular its population – changed dramatically during the Victorian gold rushes of the 1800s. When did your family arrive in Australia? If you’re an Aboriginal Australian, your ancestors may have arrived 60,000 years ago. If your ancestors were convicts sent to Sydney, Hobart or (later) Western Australia, they may have arrived around 230 years ago. If your ancestors came during the gold rushes, they may have arrived 160 years ago.

Regardless of when your family arrived, the Australian story is a story of immigration.

Links and References:

A great TEDed video about push and pull factors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtQgwOOiBg

An overview of the impact of the Australian gold rushes: http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-gold-rush

Simple English Wikipedia on the Great Hunger: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Potato_Famine

Why do famines happen? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgae8SA-rcI

The influence of the Irish on Ballarat: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2014/07/09/goldfields-immigration-3/

The influence of the Scottish on Ballarat: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2013/06/24/goldfields-immigration/

The influence of the Jewish on Ballarat: https://sovereignhilledblog.com/2014/03/31/goldfields-immigration-part-2/

Research notes about the experiences of the Chinese in 19th century Ballarat: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/SovHill-chinesesballarat-notes-ss1.pdf

The impact of the Victorian gold rushes and 19th century immigration on Aboriginal People: http://sovereignhillhiddenhistories.com.au/

Australia’s immigration history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_history_of_Australia

 

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Posted in 19th century, Immigration, Indigenous, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

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In praise of washing machines

Posted on April 22, 2016 | 2 comments
full washing equip

An 1850s ‘washing machine’.

Many historians believe that the invention of electricity was the most important nineteenth century invention because it changed women’s lives dramatically. In the 1850s, there was no electricity and therefore no electric washing machine. What did this mean for those charged with washing the family’s clothes?

Nineteenth century gender roles, meaning the different kinds of jobs men and women were expected to do, were very strict – men worked outside the home in the ‘public’ world, while women worked inside the home in the ‘private’ world. Activities like working in mines or participating in politics were supposed to be performed by men, while taking care of the children and doing the family cooking and cleaning were activities performed by women. Nowadays, it is more common that all jobs, whether it’s mowing the lawn, making money from working in a factory or supermarket, or ironing clothes, are done by both men and women.

soap making

A tallow melting pan and a soap mold from the 1850s.

Washing clothes was a woman’s job in the 1850s. It required some very simple technologies: a large tub (bucket), a washboard, and some soap. Here, on the early diggings, most soap was homemade using tallow (which, in Ballarat, was sheep fat) mixed with some ash. Water had to be collected from creeks and lakes by bucket and was then heated over a fire. When Ballarat became a more established city, wealthier households built laundries in their gardens and installed ‘coppers’ (big copper buckets built over fireplaces) and garden water pumps (utilising underground ‘bore’ water) to make this work easier, but women still spent at least one entire day every week washing the family’s clothes.

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A laundry copper.

Have you ever heard the expression ‘She mangled her finger’? This comes from a clothes washing technology called a mangle. At first, these rollers, through which clothes would be squeezed near-dry, were hand-cranked, but when electric mangles were introduced many people (including children!) got their hands and hair caught in these machines with disastrous results. Thankfully, some of the most dangerous designs were outlawed. However, this wasn’t the only hazard to washer women. Irons made of heavy cast-iron were heated on the fireplace and then used to smoothe fabric. Modern irons are very safe in comparison! Women could easily burn themselves with 1850s irons, and getting serious burns (before antibiotics were invented) sometimes resulted in gangrene, blood poisoning and even death!

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A 19th century mangle, also known as a wringer.

Until the electric washing machine became a common household appliance in the 1950s, women dedicated large amounts of their lives to washing, rinsing, wringing-out, drying, and ironing clothes. Some academics, like Swedish statistician Hans Rosling, believe that the electric washing machine was ‘the greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution’ because it suddenly afforded women time for things like education, work outside the home, and politics, once the washing machine was introduced. Can you think of any other inventions which have had a similarly big impact on people’s lives?

Links and references

A brief history of the washing machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine

A history of laundry: http://www.oldandinteresting.com/history-of-washing-clothes.aspx

A brief history of the mangle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangle_(machine)

A history of irons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_iron

A history of antibiotics and infection: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/treatments/Pages/The-History-of-Antibiotics.aspx

A teacher resource on ‘Laundry in the 19th Century’: http://www.ebparks.org/Assets/files/Laundry_19th_Century_06-01-09.pdf

 

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Posted in 19th century, inventions, women

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The arrival of the train

Posted on March 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

 

Ballarat West Railway Station

Ballarat West Railway Station c.1889. Image courtesy of The Gold Museum, Ballarat

Trains changed the world; however, nowadays their impact can easily be overlooked. For thousands of years before the invention of the train, people only had the help of horses and simple cart technologies to move themselves and their possessions around on land. When the train first arrived in Ballarat in 1862, the city celebrated in magnificent fashion; local people knew this technology would change our city forever. It confirmed Ballarat’s place on the map and was important in securing the city’s long-term success. As writer John Béchervaise has said ‘they were anticipating a marvellous twentieth century’ (Béchervaise, J. & Hawley, G. Ballarat Sketchbook, Rigby Limited, Melbourne, 1977, p52).

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S. T. Gill’s Arrival of the Geelong Mail, Main Road Ballarat, 1855. Image courtesy of The Gold Museum, Ballarat.

Many people don’t realise that Ballarat’s CBD (central business district) hasn’t always been centred around the train station. Until 1862, the most important part of the city was along Main Road, which is where you can now find Sovereign Hill. Before the train line was built, and trains started delivering passengers and cargo from first Geelong and later Melbourne to Lydiard Street, Main Road was true to its name; it was the centre of town!

There was another reason the Ballarat CBD moved from Main Road to Lydiard Street – fire. Most of the structures built along Main Road were either wooden or canvas, and after a series of fires and the introduction of the train line, Ballaratians started building in stone around the new train station. After all, community leaders wanted to make Ballarat a more permanent, established city, and these beautiful stone buildings from the 1800s are still enjoyed by millions of tourists each year.

The City of Ballarat website has this to say about the city’s historic train station: ‘Located in the heart of Ballarat, the Ballarat Station is a gateway to the city, a CBD landmark and one of the grandest Victorian-era station buildings in the state.’

The fact that one of the first grand train stations in Victoria was built in Ballarat demonstrates the importance of this goldrush city. Ballarat’s closest port is Geelong; therefore, the first railway tracks between the two cities began construction in 1858 and the line was officially opened by Governor Barkly in 1862 to move people and cargo between the goldfields and the tall ships in Corio Bay. Interestingly, on its first journey to Ballarat, the train ran out of wood to fuel its steam engine, so the crew were forced to chop down some trees in Meredith to ensure the train made it to Ballarat. In 1889 the Melbourne-Ballarat line was opened. The station we now call ‘Ballarat’ used to be called ‘Ballarat West’ as Ballarat East had its own station which has now been demolished. The famous clock tower was added in 1891 as train travel by this time was proving extremely popular; however, as the clock itself was very expensive, it wasn’t installed until 1984!

The train’s arrival in Ballarat meant two very important things for the people of this region. It meant that individuals and businesses could receive their goods with a much cheaper delivery fee, and farmers etc. could send their produce to market much more easily. On the day the first train arrived, the train station was decorated with banners that said ‘Advance Ballarat’ and ‘Success to the Geelong-Ballarat Railway’ (Dooley, N. & King, D. The Golden Steam of Ballarat, Lowden Publishing, 1973, p4). Thousands of people gathered in Lydiard Street to welcome the train, and balls, dinners and parties were held all over the city to celebrate.

phoenix

A history of Ballarat’s famous Phoenix Foundry. Find out more about this foundry and book here.

In addition to bringing the train line to the city to improve people’s lives, in 1873 Ballarat became one of the first Australian cities to manufacture trains. Ballarat’s Phoenix Foundry on Armstrong Street was the largest locomotive factory in Victoria until it ceased making engines in 1905. Businesses like the Phoenix Foundry couldn’t have existed without the railway close by.

While the train station gave Ballaratians easier access to Geelong and Melbourne, the Ballarat Train Station also provided people with access to leisure activities, like picnicking in places like Daylesford, and watching horseracing in Lal Lal. All around the station zone, city leaders have encouraged the building of what are now important Ballarat landmarks like:

To this day, the train station gives people access to all of these wonderful places in addition to important shopping areas and the Sturt Street sculpture gardens.

Trains gave Ballarat and its mines, factories and farms access to the big wide world. The locomotives that were manufactured here were a great source of pride for Ballaratians, as trains were a symbol of progress, technological skill, and serious financial investment for the city. Trains, like sailing ships in times past, and the cars and planes of today, changed our lives forever.

Links and References:

A fantastic video on the history of railroads around the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYAk5jCTQ3s

Some great interactive photographs of Ballarat ‘then and now’: http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1865396/ballarat-now-and-then-family-uncovers-historic-images/

The Ballarat train station on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat_railway_station

Horrible Histories on transport (song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLL2Txs8kCg

A short history of trains and stations in Ballarat: http://www.onmydoorstep.com.au/heritage-listing/68/ballarat-railway-complex

Bate, W. Lucky City, Melbourne University Press, 1978.

Béchervaise, J. & Hawley, G. Ballarat Sketchbook, Rigby Limited, Melbourne, 1977.

Butrims, R. & Macartney, D. Phoenix Foundry: Locomotive Builders of Ballarat, Australian Railway Historical Society, 2013.

Dooley, N. & King, D. The Golden Steam of Ballarat, Lowden Publishing, 1973.

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Posted in 19th century, Books for Teaching History, History Teaching, inventions, S T Gill, Sovereign Hill, train, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

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1850s Transport

Posted on June 25, 2015 | 3 comments

It is difficult to imagine life before cars, trucks, motorbikes and aeroplanes. Those who came to Australia during the gold rush however, travelled here, explored the place, and moved huge quantities of cargo long before the car, truck, motorbike and aeroplane were invented. How did they do it?

Let’s examine the journey of an imaginary gold miner who we will call Mr Yuilisses, or Mr Y for short, to better understand 19th century transport technologies.

The year is 1852. Like many well-educated young men, Mr Y has decided to try his luck on the Australian goldfields. He lives in the UK in the “cottonopolis” of Manchester, the first industrialised city in the world, where he has been studying canal engineering. The first part of his trip involves taking a train west to Liverpool (the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, was the first intercity passenger rail line in the world). He says goodbye to his parents, who he is unlikely to ever see again, as for the majority of gold rush immigrants to Australia, this was a one way trip (Serle, The Golden Age, 1977, p. 382). He then boards a noisy, dirty, uncomfortable steam train. He decides not to get a first class ticket as he is saving his pennies for gold mining supplies. The train is still 5 times faster than getting to Liverpool by horse (Nicholson, Steam, Steel and Speed, 2008, p. 7). This relative ease of movement makes Mr Y very grateful for the Industrial Revolution!

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Opening Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 15th September 1830. Most train carriages had roofs by 1852, but they weren’t much more comfortable than this.

After a freezing, windy journey in an open carriage he alights at Crown Street Station in Liverpool. Next, he has to organise a ticket for a ship to the Antipodes (Australia). He decides to travel on a “clipper” – a very fast, yacht-like sailing ship – and gets his equipment for the long journey in order. While basic rations (food/water) are part of the ticket price, Mr Y needs to take clothes and his own bedding. If he were a woman and mother he would probably think to take some seeds or fruit tree seedlings to make sure his family are fed once they settled on the goldfields. However, Mr Y is going by himself, so he is more focused on gold than food and knows there will be plenty of mutton to be eaten in the new state of Victoria (only made separate from NSW in 1851). After all, until gold was “discovered” (by non-Aboriginal people) in 1851, Victoria’s main export was wool from the 5 million sheep farmed across the state.

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An 1855 poster advertising the Red Jacket clipper ship.

If Mr Y were extremely lucky, the clipper would take him from Liverpool to Melbourne in as little as 3 months. If he bought the cheapest ticket – in steerage, below the waterline at the very bottom of the ship – he not only risked his life through exposure to unhygienic conditions, but also a lack of air and potentially days of total darkness if the weather turned bad. Rarely were people in steerage class allowed to use candles or oil lamps in their highly flammable environment, even when the hatches were battened down (the openings in the deck for ventilation/sunlight were closed during storms). Buying a first class ticket didn’t make the journey much more comfortable. Read more about the horrendous conditions on 19th century sailing ships here and here.

When Mr Y arrives in Melbourne having survived his trying journey via the Great Circle Route (one of the most dangerous parts of which was Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast– where 638 ships are known to have sunk!), safe and scurvy-free thanks to all of the lime juice he drank and pickled cabbages he ate (an idea of British Navy surgeon James Lind), everything in 1852 Melbourne costs a fortune! A bed for the night, supplies to take to the goldfields, even the cost of clean water was a rip-off… Of course the reason these “goods” (products) were so costly, was because most had made the long, expensive journey from the UK to the Australia just as he had. Little did Mr Y know such things were even more expensive on the diggings! Once he had stocked up on tent canvas, a mattress, a shovel, gold pans and a wheelbarrow, he would investigate how to get to Ballarat, and if indeed that was a good goldfield to venture to. In 1852 there was much talk among the people at the port that Ballarat’s gold had run out, and that the Bendigo Creek was a better bet. But who could you trust for such advice? If he selected Ballarat the journey could be shortened by taking a “steamer” (boat) from Melbourne to Geelong, which only takes half a day and shaves 3 days off the walk, but again the tickets were quite expensive.

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Map of the Roads to all gold Mines in Victoria, lithograph by J.B. Philp, 1853.

Our brand new, inexperienced gold miner Mr Y decides to head to Ballarat after all, and early the next morning he sets out with many others making the same journey. His expensive mattress becomes waterlogged after a big storm on the first day of the 113km walk, so he decides to abandon it along with the hundreds of other pieces of broken, spoiled, or foolishly heavy equipment others before him have dumped along the way. He wishes he had paid the ridiculous price to travel by wagon (or at least have his belongings sent by bullock dray) but the price was far too high. He had heard that the journey by wagon is so bumpy that most people end up walking anyway, as the jarring motion of the wagon makes many “seasick”.

While there is no actual road to the diggings of Ballarat, there is already a well-worn path that takes Mr Y past beautiful eucalypt forests, the likes of which he has never seen before. It takes him over hills and creeks (which he has heard are sometimes so deep and dangerous on the road from Geelong to Ballarat that you have to pay the local Aboriginal People to make bark canoes to get your mining gear across), and eventually he arrives within earshot in Ballarat on day 3 of his journey. He can barely sleep for all of the exciting noise he can already hear coming from the goldfield, now little more than a few miles (kilometres) away. If he had approached Ballarat from Geelong he would be staying in Mother Jamieson’s Inn just south of Mt Buninyong (in 1849 this was the “the busiest town in Victoria outside Melbourne and Geelong”), but instead he’s sleeping under the stars (close to the town we now know as Ballan), yet again.

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William Strutt, En route to the diggings, pencil and watercolour, 1851. Reproduced with the permission of the Victorian Parliamentary Library.

Mr Y finally arrives at the Ballarat diggings, and looks in wonder at the tent city in front of him, bursting with adventurers from all over the world. He lives in a tent for the first few months, then a slab hut, and then, once he finds a large gold nugget, he builds a house and gets married. Up until this point, his only means of transport around Ballarat has been his own two feet, but now he can afford to buy a horse to help with his mining work and deliver his children to school.

Horses were incredibly useful on the goldfields for both transport and work. Apart from being used to move people and cargo, they could also be attached to whims, Chilean mills and puddling machines to extract gold from mud, clay and rock. However, horses are dangerous, and back then were responsible for many deaths and injuries, and are still the most likely animal to kill you in Australia! In the 1860s, camels were imported to Australia for Burke and Wills ill-fated expedition, but there weren’t any in Ballarat at this time. As far as we know Ballarat has never had a resident camel!

After an exciting life of adventure, pioneering, and hard work to secure his family’s comfort, let’s imagine Mr Y dies in 1885, one year before the first car was invented. His great-grandchildren living in Ballarat would become the first of his descendants to own cars, as cars didn’t become popular and affordable here in Australia until well into the 20th century.

Links and References:

Sovereign Hill Education: Transport in the 1850s, Research Notes for secondary school students: http://education.sovereignhill.com.au/media/uploads/sovehill-pdf-file/SovHill-transport-notes-ss1.pdf

Horrible Histories on the pioneers of transport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLL2Txs8kCg

SBS Gold on goldrush transport: http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=18

Clipper ship routes and records: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_route

A fantastic blogpost about 1850-1870 ocean journeys to Australia: http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/journeys-australia/1850s70s/

Another which is terrifying!!: http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/journeys-australia/1850s70s/privies-and-hygiene/

“See the Land from an Aboriginal Canoe” – Aboriginal bark canoe technology was in high demand in the 1800s: http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/seeing-the-land-from-an-aboriginal-canoe/seeing-the-land-from-an-aboriginal-canoe/

Is your train commute quicker now than it was 100 years ago? http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/is-your-train-commute-quicker-than-90-years-ago-the-answer-might-surprise-you-20150219-13gx1c.html

The history of Australian immigration: http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/immigration-timeline/

Website on the last surviving clipper ship, City of Adelaide:  http://cityofadelaide.org.au/

An interesting article on scurvy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/captaincook_scurvy_01.shtml

The introduction of cars to Melbourne: http://museumvictoria.com.au/marvellous/powered/car.asp

Henderson, W. F. and Unstead, R. J. Transport in Australia, A & C Black LTD., London, 1970.

Nicholson, John. Steam, Steel and Speed: Transport, Trade and Travel in Australia 1850s-1920s, Allen & Unwin, NSW, 2008.

Serle, Geoffrey. The Golden Age: A history of the colony of Victoria 1851-1861, Melb. Uni. Press, Vic, 1977.

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Posted in Immigration, Sovereign Hill, Victorian Gold Rush

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Queen Victoria

Posted on May 13, 2015 | 2 comments
statue

Statue of Queen Victoria in Sturt Street, Ballarat.

Queen Victoria ruled the largest empire in human history, and was Australia’s monarch during the gold rush. She ruled over 458 million people and was queen for a record 63 years! The people of Ballarat loved her so much that they paid for a marble statue of her to be made and placed it in front of the Ballarat Town Hall in 1900.

12 curious facts about Queen Victoria:

1. Queen Victoria survived 7 assassination (murder) attempts! She was so brave; after police failed to catch the second of these failed assassins on 29th May, 1842, she drove her carriage along the same road the day after the attack to tempt the man to fire his gun at her again. When he foolishly did, undercover policemen arrested him. Queen Victoria was unharmed, and the assassin, named John [James] Francis, was punished through transportation to Tasmania as a convict.

ass

Part of a ‘broadside’ (news poster) on Francis’ attempted assassination of the Queen, printed in 1842 by E. Lloyd.

2. Victoria wasn’t your ordinary 19th century woman. At a time when women were believed by most people in Europe to be weak and intellectually inferior to men, she became queen of a huge empire at the age of 18 and was one of the best educated people in the world (read more about this here). Very interestingly, Victoria asked Prince Albert to marry her, rather than the other way around. This was because nobody by law could ask the Queen to marry them. This situation would have been very uncommon during this era. Read more about life for the average Victorian woman here.

3. The political parties in England (the “Whigs” and the “Tories”) had a huge argument – called The Bedchamber Crisis – over who Victoria’s maids should be. Being close to a king or queen through helping to dress them, tutoring their children, or even cleaning their chamber pot was considered an extremely important political position, as such jobs gave you a lot of time to potentially talk to and influence the monarch.

4. During the height of the Irish Potato Famine (known in Ireland as The Great Famine or Great Hunger), despite anger from English Anglicans (Protestants), Queen Victoria donated £2,000 of her private wealth to help the suffering (Catholic) Irish. In modern money this would be about $2 million (Australian dollars).

dress

Queen Victoria in her famous white wedding dress.

5. Queen Victoria is believed to be the bride who popularised the white wedding dress. Before her wedding to Prince Albert in 1840, brides wore coloured dresses. As a keen supporter of British industry, Victoria wore a white, machine-made dress with handmade lace for trimmings, including her veil. Very soon after Victoria and Albert’s wedding, women all over the British Empire were wearing white to be married. Queen Victoria loved this dress so much that she often wore it, or parts of it at her wedding anniversaries, the baptism of her children, and later in life at her children’s weddings. When she died in 1901, she was even buried with her cherished wedding veil covering her face (along with a plaster cast of Prince Albert’s hand).

6. While Victoria was an intelligent, strong-willed woman who took a lead role in managing the British Empire during her time as queen, women couldn’t vote in Britain until long after her death, and she is thought to have been against the idea of female emancipation (women’s right to vote).

7. Queen Victoria was an only child, and had a difficult relationship with her mother who, many historians argue, wanted to control Victoria and thus keep royal power for herself.

8. Victoria and Albert had 9 children, naming them (in order) Victoria, Albert, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice. In total, they had 42 grandchildren. Their first grandchild, born to daughter Victoria (Jr) and her husband Prince Frederick of Prussia (Germany), was named Wilhelm and became the last German Kaiser (emperor) who is considered largely responsible for causing World War 1.

9. Victoria gave birth to her two youngest children under the influence of chloroform, which was really the first general anaesthetic. The church was not happy about her decision to have (and by way of her fame, promote) pain-free childbirth, as they believed it was against the teaching of The Bible. She didn’t listen; Victoria hated being pregnant, hated childbirth, is thought to have suffered postnatal depression, and didn’t breastfeed her own children. In her detailed diaries, she wrote “Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife”.

10. Until recent times, it was common for European royals to keep the power in the family so to speak. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, was actually her cousin.

11. Victoria passed the haemophilia gene (which stops your blood from clotting, so you can bleed to death from a simple scratch) to many of her children and grandchildren.

pound

A gold sovereign (£1 sterling) from 1851, the year gold was discovered in Australia, featuring Queen Victoria’s profile.

12. The love of Victoria’s life, Prince Albert, died from typhoid at the age of 42 in 1861. Typhoid is a horrible bacterial infection which, without treatment causes a fever, digestive system failure, a rash, blood poisoning, and in many cases results in death. Antibiotics weren’t developed and made available until the 1940s, long after Alfred’s death. Victoria remained in mourning for the rest of her life, and wore black in memory of Albert until the day she died.

During Queen Victoria’s reign, Britain went to war with China twice (called the Opium Wars), primary education was made compulsory and free, vaccination against smallpox became compulsory, Prince Albert managed the hugely successful Great Exhibition of 1851, London’s famous underground railway – the Tube – was developed, the telephone was invented, the Irish Potato Famine occurred, and our state, Victoria (named of course after our beloved queen), became a separate colony. She lived and ruled the largest empire on Earth during a fascinating time in history!

Links and References

Child-friendly website about Queen Victoria: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/victoria/

Horrible Histories on Queen Victoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaLHJCKy3I

List of the largest empires in history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

On assassin John Francis’ transportation to Tasmania: http://www.linc.tas.gov.au/events/featured/research/john-francis

Queen Victoria’s wedding dress: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_dress_of_Queen_Victoria

Curious facts about Queen Victoria: http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-queen-victoria

A timeline of Victoria’s reign: http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=victoria

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Posted in 19th century, History Teaching, Queen Victoria, Sovereign Hill, The Great Exhibition, Victorian Gold Rush

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Oh, Sovereign Hill is a museum!

Posted on March 24, 2015 | Leave a comment
lollies

Hard-boiled lollies YUM!!!

Many of our guests – young and old – get confused about Sovereign Hill. Some people think that it is a theme park because panning for gold, eating lollies and riding in horse-drawn carriages is so much fun. However, Sovereign Hill is actually a museum, meaning it is a place where Ballarat’s history is studied, artefacts are collected, and Australia’s gold story is shared with visitors. Most museums tell their stories through displays in glass cases, but we teach visitors about the past through living exhibits.

Why does Sovereign Hill do this?

The first part of the answer challenges us to think about the purpose of studying history – why learn about the past? History helps us understand who we are; it explains why we speak the language we do, why we dress a certain way etc., and it also helps us understand the wider world and our place in it. It teaches us to avoid repeating the mistakes that others have already made, and to appreciate all of the good things about 21st century life. History also helps us see that there are other ways of living, of organising our society, of thinking about ourselves, and that things can and do change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Also let’s not forget all of the weird and wonderful characters, events, technologies and fashions from the past that make people of all ages giggle and gasp!

Why is Sovereign Hill a museum with living exhibits such as costumed people, fragrant horse poo and a creek complete with real gold? Because we think this is the most engaging and exciting way to learn about history. When you step through our gate you are sent 160 years back into the past, to a world of dirty miners, daggy troopers (policemen), and impractically-dressed but pretty ladies in big crinolines. Instead of looking at a display in a glass case, you get to talk to our costumed staff to learn about the past – do stop to have a chat, they are all very friendly!

gold panning

“Eureka!! I found some gold!”

Play is another important part of our living museum – try your hand at gold panning, go bowling, or make a candle. You can also taste history here – try some goodies from the bakery, or a lolly, or five. Lastly, you can smell the past – the lovely perfumes of the Apothecary (known in modern times as a pharmacy/ chemist) on Main Street were actually believed to prevent sickness! You will have so much fun in our museum that you won’t even realise you are learning. We believe that is the best way to make learning about the gold rush era stick in your head.

butcher's shambles

“Butcher’s Shambles” by S. T. Gill. You can find our Butcher’s Shambles at the bottom of the Red Hill Gully Diggings.

Of course not all of our exhibits are completely accurate for very practical reasons. If our museum really smelt like Ballarat did during the gold rush, you wouldn’t come. Nobody would! In the very early days after gold was discovered here in 1851, there were no sewerage pipes… You couldn’t flush away “your business”; you just tipped your chamber pot out wherever you could. By law you had to dig a hole to pour your poop down, but sometimes such muck just ended up on the street, along with the piles of horse and sheep manure. Talking of sheep, historians estimate that about 1000 sheep per day were walked into Ballarat to be butchered and eaten during the busiest part of the gold rush. This led to rotting scraps lying in huge piles next to the butchers’ shambles (shop), and this meant flies! I hope you agree that we have made the right decision in cleaning history up a little.

The most important thing we want you to do during a visit to Sovereign Hill is empathise with the people who were here 160 years ago. When you empathise with someone you try to put yourself in their shoes, and see the world through their eyes. When you walk around our Chinese Camp, try to imagine you were a Chinese gold miner living here in 1855.  What was life like for you? As you walk around the tents, imagine you were a woman with 4 children living on the diggings while your miner husband hasn’t found any gold. How would your family survive?

trooper

“No Gold License eh?!”

One of our favourite education sessions that school students enjoy is called “Gold Fever”. Maybe your class has visited us to play it, and you remember what it felt like to be a miner getting picked on by the nasty troopers. By competing to be the richest, and therefore, most successful miners, teams have to work together, be a little sneaky about Gold Licenses, and keep their eyes on the dodgy bankers. These are all problems Ballarat’s miners had to deal with on a daily basis. This game is all about teaching students to empathise with others and to understand how different life was in the past.

So, museums exist to teach people about history, while also teaching skills like empathy, critical thinking and chronology (putting historical events in order and understanding how one event often causes the next). Do you think Sovereign Hill does a good job at teaching visitors about history?

Links and References:

What is a museum? – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum

Why go to a museum? – http://colleendilen.com/2009/07/31/10-reasons-to-visit-a-museum/

Why study history? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLE-5ElGlPM 

Studying History is important – http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/why_history_matters.html

A great YouTube Chanel dedicated to teaching History – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q

Sesame Street explain empathy – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_1Rt1R4xbM

For teachers; empathy theory – https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization

Should museums teach facts or skills?: http://museumquestions.com/2015/01/26/schools-and-museums-can-museums-teach-content-to-school-groups/

The National Centre for History Education (Australian Government) on empathy –  http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=794&op=page

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Posted in History Teaching, Museum, museum education, Sovereign Hill

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A Deaf Digger

Posted on February 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

Having recently learnt about a very interesting deaf man who spent some time on the Victorian goldfields during the 1850s, we thought we would share his story with you.

Frederick John Rose.

Frederick John Rose.

Frederick John Rose was a deaf man from England. He was born in 1831 and became profoundly deaf due to Scarlet Fever. He was educated at a Deaf School in Old Kent Road, London.

Rose came to Australia with his younger brother in 1852 when he was 21 years old. He began work as a cabinet maker in South Melbourne but was soon keen to try his luck prospecting for gold. He walked to the goldfields near Bendigo in 1853. Unfortunately he had no luck finding gold so he worked as a carpenter/builder.

While working in Bendigo, Rose saw a series of letters in the newspaper The Argus. One letter was from an unknown author who claimed there were as many as 50 deaf children living in Victoria who were without any form of schooling. Another letter was from a widow, Mrs Lewis, with a deaf daughter. Mrs Lewis wrote appealing for anyone who could educate her daughter Lucy. Rose had not realised there were so many deaf children in Victoria and so he decided to establish a school for the deaf in Melbourne. He wrote about this intention as a letter to The Argus and received answers from parents with deaf children who were interested in supporting the development of a school.

In 1860 the school, which has now become The Victorian College for the Deaf, was established and Lucy Lewis was the first pupil. By 1861 the school had eight students. Rose was now married and he and his wife had to keep renting new, bigger premises due to the increase in student numbers. Further enrolments led to Rose and his associates lobbying with the local church for a purpose-built school and in 1866 they moved into the new building and became a school and support service for Deaf children. The school and support service continued and still operate today as Deaf Children Australia, a not-for-profit agency supporting deaf and hard of hearing children and their families, and The Victorian College for the Deaf.  The school itself is no longer solely located in the original building (although some classes still occur within its facilities) however the original building still stands and is now listed with Heritage Victoria.

Frederick J. Rose continued as Superintendent and Headmaster of the school until 1891 when he was forced to leave when the school’s board of management decided to focus more on education taught through speaking and listening rather than signing. This was a result of the resolutions passed at the 2nd International Congress on Education of the Deaf. [See Milan Congress 1880 here and the rejections of the 1880 resolutions in 2010 here.]

Throughout his life, Rose raised lots of money for various organisations supporting deaf people and was a highly respected member of the community. He died in 1920 at the age of 89 and is buried in the St Kilda Cemetery in Melbourne. See a signed version of his story by Stan Batson, a highly respected deaf man, here.

Learning about the story of Frederick J. Rose has highlighted some of the historical discrimination deaf people have faced, and in some cases still face in Australia, in terms of access, education and also immigration. Jan Branson and Don Miller have written extensively on this topic. In 1998 they wrote about ship captains getting fined for bringing “infirm” people to Australia or New Zealand. Fortunately for F. J. Rose, and for all of Victoria’s deaf people past and present, he arrived in Australia before these immigration laws were created!

The sign language used by deaf people in Victorian times evolved as all languages do over time, and has today become what is called Australian Sign Language, or Auslan. This language is specific to Australian deaf people and is not ‘universal’; something many people mistakenly believe. Each country has its own sign language and culture that is particular to the deaf people living in those countries. This means that people in England use British Sign Language (BSL), people in America use American Sign Language (ASL) and people in France use French Sign Language (LSF). Auslan has links to both British and Irish sign languages because when deaf people migrated here or were transported here as convicts they brought their languages with them.

Auslan was recognised by the Australian government as a “community language other than English” and the preferred language of the Deaf community in policy statements in 1987 and 1991. However, this recognition is yet to filter through to many institutions, government departments and professionals who work with Deaf people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslan)

Deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind people may have differing needs or individual preferences to ensure access to clear communication. This may involve working with Auslan/English interpreters, Tactile Signing interpreters, seating arrangements, lighting, written information or gaining information through non-verbal signals such as facial expressions, lip patterns and body language.

In the days before technological advances such as mobile phones, the internet, television or even electric lighting, many deaf people met by gas light in the streets of Melbourne. These lights allowed deaf people to chat long after the sun had gone down.

This sign indicates that an event or video etc. has an Auslan interpreter.

This sign indicates that an event or video etc. has an Auslan interpreter.

Australian Deaf Culture is specific to the deaf community here in Australia. It contains a wealth of history, humour, customs, etiquette, and of course the language of Auslan is integral to all people who are members of the deaf community. Read more about Deaf culture here.

In many ways it can be useful to consider Auslan and the deaf community as a minority language community rather than a disability group. The deaf community in Australia have a different language, culture, history and customs to the mainstream community in Australia. In this way they are similar to people who have migrated to Australia from other countries, except that deaf people have not migrated. For this reason, many people feel there are strong similarities between deaf communities and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities who also have different languages and cultural practices compared with broader society. If we think about the deaf community like that it becomes easier to understand the challenges they face as a minority language seeking recognition, access and fair treatment in our society.

Did you know that there are also Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who use a sign language for cultural reasons and at certain times? Some of these communities have deaf people as well and use different signs to Auslan to communicate. Read more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and signing here.

Links and References:

Timeline of F. J. Rose’s life: http://www.deafchildrenaustralia.org.au/FJ_Rose_Chronology

Short biography of F. J. Rose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_J_Rose

Interesting article on the history of Australian government discrimination against deaf immigrants: http://deafhistoryaustralia.com/tag/frederick-j-rose/

The Victorian College for the Deaf: http://www.vcd.vic.edu.au/6354650/victorian-college-history.htm  

The history of Auslan: http://www.auslan.org.au/about/history/

An explanation of deaf culture, do’s and don’t’s for interacting with deaf people, and a history of Auslan: http://www.aussiedeafkids.org.au/deaf-culture.html

On deaf culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture

Utmost for the Highest: The History of the Victorian School for Deaf Children, by J. H. Burchett, Melbourne, 1964.

No Longer By Gaslight, by John W Flynn. Adult Deaf Society, East Melbourne. 1984.

How not to say “I beg your pardon?”: http://bit.ly/17g0PfE 

Deaf History – Milan 1880: http://deafness.about.com/cs/featurearticles/a/milan1880.htm

A New Era: Deaf Participation and Collaboration, Vancover 2010: http://nad.org/sites/default/files/2010/July/ICEDNewEraVancouver2010.pdf

Frederic John Rose. Founder of the Victorian Deaf and Dumb Institution: http://bit.ly/1CGKgST 

Deaf History: Frederick John Rose: http://www.auslanstorybooks.com/fj-rose.html      

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Posted in Deaf History, History Teaching, Immigration, Indigenous, Sovereign Hill, Victorian Gold Rush

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It’s beach time!

Posted on December 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

As this blog already contains several posts about the history of Christmas, this festive season we have decided to explore the history of beach holidays!

1

An early bathing machine.

Bathing in the ocean became popular in Europe in the 1700s, before Australia was colonised by Britain. Both immersing yourself in the water and drinking sea water were considered to cure all kinds of illnesses. As a result, many of Europe’s rich and powerful would spend a “season” at the seaside, bathing most days using a bathing machine. Believe it or not, winter was considered the best time to do this.

2

Ladies “Bathing Dress”- 1858, from the magazine Harper’s Bazaar.

A bathing machine was a hut on wheels in which people changed into their swim suits. This carriage-type contraption was then pushed into the water (using man power, horse power or sometimes even steam power) so the bather could step out and immediately lower themselves into the water. Some bathing machines had tents that would extend out and enable bathers to enter the water in complete privacy, while some came with “dippers” or “bathers”. These were attendants of the same sex as the bather who would dunk you underwater the correct number of times to cure whatever illness you had been diagnosed with.

Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert believed that sea bathing was beneficial to one’s health, and in 1846 he had a bathing machine installed on the beach near their summer palace on the Isle of Wight. Victoria and her daughters regularly used the bathing box to enjoy the water. The queen’s bathing box, used to preserve her modesty, is now fully restored and on public view.

3

Queen Victoria’s bathing machine has a veranda at the front where curtains concealed her from view whilst she bathed. Inside is a changing room and a plumbed-in toilet. The whole contraption was run into the sea from the beach along a long ramp, and pulled back using a wire rope and winch!

By the 1850s, when gold was discovered here in Ballarat, dippers had gone out of fashion. However, people continued to visit the seaside especially after train travel made reaching the beach cheap and convenient.  Some historians think that the main motivation now was pleasure and holiday making although many people still believed a visit to the seaside was good for your health. By this time people were going to the beach during summer rather than winter.

Bathing soon became popular here in Australia although in some parts of the country it was banned during daylight hours up until 1902 because a wet woman in a swim suit was considered an indecent sight. Furthermore, some men were said to enjoy swimming naked, so you definitely couldn’t do that in public.

4

St Kilda Esplanade, main beach (1864).

The St Kilda Sea Baths were opened in 1860 to take advantage of the popular seaside excursion trend. These enclosed sea baths were thought to keep bathers safe from Australia’s scariest sea creatures. However, even before the baths were built, St Kilda was a popular swimming spot. In the 1840s it already had bathing boxes (bathing machines with their wheels taken off), and by 1854 Captain Kenney had deliberately sunk a ship just off the beach and put out ropes to it for people to swim along. Once the St Kilda train station was opened in 1857 more sea baths opened and regular swimming competitions were held. As businesses, the baths were not the financial success the owners hoped as the majority of visitors to St Kilda soon became confident to swim in open water.

Since these humble beginnings, going to the beach has now become a normal part of Australian life. Most Australians live on or near the coast, and some of our beaches like Bells in Torquay, Bondi in Sydney and the Gold Coast near Brisbane are considered to be among the best in the world. Interestingly, having tanned skin was avoided by European women during the nineteenth century, as it showed you were poor and had to work outdoors like a peasant.

Like swimming, the history of swimwear is also fascinating, read all about it here. Enjoy the summer sun and happy holidays!

Links and References

The history of sea bathing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_bathing

19th century bathing history: http://consideringausten.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/so-you-want-to-go-swimming-in-regency-england/

18th and 19th century bathing history: http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/04/15/victorian-prudes-beachside-bathing-machines/

History of St Kilda Baths, Melbourne: http://www.stkildaseabaths.com.au/history

History of sun tanning: http://www.skincancer.org/prevention/tanning/tale-of-tanning

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Posted in 19th century, History Teaching, Queen Victoria, Sovereign Hill, Uncategorized, Victorian Gold Rush

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Ten 1850s Inventions and Innovations

Posted on October 29, 2014 | 5 comments

Some very weird and wonderful things were created during the Industrial Revolution (c. 1750-1900) and the 1850s in particular – the same decade that Ballarat’s gold rush got underway – saw some fascinating inventions and innovations.

ss great eastern

Brunel’s SS Great Eastern with its sails and steam-powered water wheel. This photo was taken in New York Harbour, 1860.

Seafaring Inventions

SS Great Eastern (ship) – Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an incredible engineer and designer during the early 1800s. He was a pioneer of steam-powered travel, and the SS Great Eastern was his third iron-hulled, steam-powered sailing ship (it had sails to use the wind and a steam engine when it was calm). This “Great Babe” as he called it, was specifically designed to bring travellers from the UK to Australia – 4,000 at a time to be exact – without needing to stop and refuel anywhere along the way. This was the largest ship in the world when it was launched in 1858, but sadly it suffered damage on its first journey south. Find out more about this amazing man and his remarkable feats of engineering here.

sub armour

Phillips’ Submarine Exploring Armour, 1856.

Submarine Exploring Armour – Lots of submarine designs had been tested out since as early as 1580, but even in the 1850s they weren’t being taken too seriously. An American shoemaker named Lodner D. Phillips, patented (a design that is licensed for production and sale by one person or company) a submarine propeller design in 1852 which allowed his home-made subs to go down to 30 metres. Phillips also patented something much more interesting in 1856: submarine exploring armour. Little is known about the success of this invention; no one appears to have actually worn one to explore the deep.

a-7095-atl (1)

Whalers hunting sperm whale (prized for the huge amounts of oil found in its head called “spermaceti”- used by these deep diving animals for sonar communication). Date: 1847 By: Illustrated London News (Newspaper); Duncan, Edward, 1803-1882. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

Electric Whaling Apparatus – Hunting whales was big business during the 1800s; while the majority of Australian whaling was concentrated in Tasmania and New South Wales during the 1850s, Portland in southern Victoria produced tonnes of whale oil, meat and bone. Whale products were used to fuel street lamps, light train carriages, make corsets and beauty products, and provide protein in people’s diets. Even a type of whale pooh was prized – for perfume manufacture would you believe! In 1852 two German men decided to improve whale hunting technology by electrifying the whale harpoon (spear); once the harpoon pierced the skin of the whale, the animal would receive 8 electric shocks, which were guaranteed to kill it… Find out more about this invention here.

Domestic Technologies

Dishwasher – The first dishwasher was patented in the US in 1850 by Joel Houghton. It was a wooden machine with a hand-powered wheel that splashed water on dishes. It barely cleaned anything but it was a starting point for the design of the electric dishwasher.

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Advert for the Singer Manufacturing Company.

Sewing Machine – Many people had tried to design a machine that could sew clothing, shoes etc. but none of the designs before the 1850s were particularly popular, practical or affordable. That was until Isaac Merritt Singer came along, combined earlier designs and lodged a patent for his foot-powered machine in 1851. “Singer did not invent any notable sewing-machine advances, but he did pioneer the hire-purchase system and aggressive sales tactics” (International Sewing Machine Collectors Society website).  This eventually quite radically changed how people made their own clothes. Clothes that had traditionally been made (mostly by women) by hand, could now be completed in a fraction of the time, and this brought down the price of clothes and allowed the average person to own a greater variety of outfits and keep up with fashion trends. Apparently, “a sewing machine could produce a man’s shirt in about one hour, compared to 14 ½ hours by hand” (Draznin, Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day, pp. 66–68). Singer had some legal trouble with previous sewing machine designers, but as he streamlined earlier designs, he is often credited with designing the machine that people still use in homes and factories today.

The Zip – Sick of dealing with slow and annoying buttons, cords and ribbons to do up your clothes? Elias Howe Jr. was, so he invented the first zipper-style clothing and boot fasteners. Patented in 1851, his “Fastening for Garments”, was described as an “automatic, continuous clothing closure”, but it didn’t really work very well. Howe got distracted by sewing machine designs, and another attempt at making a zipper wasn’t made until 42 years later.

Washing Machine – While the wash board had been invented in 1797, 1851 was the year the first drum (big bucket) washing machine was patented. An American by the name of James King set out the design groundwork for the modern washing machine; however his 1851 version was hand-powered. There were a few steam-powered washing machines being used in the UK and US during the 1850s, but they were huge and only affordable to big clothing factories and hotels.  The invention of the electric washing machine changed the world.

irons

Two charcoal irons from the Sovereign Hill collection.

Charcoal Iron – Before the electric iron was invented in 1882 by Henry W. Seeley, people relied on fires to heat up their irons to then press their clothes. The charcoal iron was patented in 1852, and unlike the simple flatirons (which you placed on your stove to heat up) in common usage before its creation, its base is a container to hold hot charcoal. Interestingly, at this time some irons were fuelled with whale oil or kerosene! The charcoal iron was considered a better option than most on the market as it stayed hot for a long time (and wasn’t fuelled by a flammable substance!).

Medical “Advances”

Scarificator – This odd blood-letting device used by doctors to cure all kinds of illnesses, was already in existence in the early 1800s, but it was refined and improved by Frederick Leypoldt in 1851. Interestingly, Leypoldt was not a doctor, but thought that making a scarificator smaller was worth patenting.  Find out more about this curious medical practice here.

Sometimes small, local inventions save lives

bal bucket

The Ballarat Hook.

Ballarat Hook – Many of the miners who came to the Ballarat goldfields were middle-class, well-educated men. When they realised that having a heavy bucket of rocks and mud (and hopefully gold) swinging above your head on a flimsy “S” hook while you stand at the bottom of a mineshaft was a little scary, they developed a solution to this potential disaster. The Ballarat Hook keeps you safe below while still allowing you to easily release the bucket at the end of the day to take it home for safekeeping.

Links and References

The Industrial Revolution and the history of human energy use – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM1IyIyr-Zc&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNjasccl-WajpONGX3zoY4M

Who was I. K. Brunel? – http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/isambard_kingdom_brunel/,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel

On submarines – http://www.submarine-history.com/NOVAone.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine

The history of sewing machines: http://ismacs.net/sewing_machine_history.html

The history of washing machines – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine

Everyone wants a washing machine because they are magical – http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine

The history of irons – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_iron

Strange medicine – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting

Draznin, Yaffa Claire. Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day (#179), Contributions in Women’s Studies Journal, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001, pp. 66–68.

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Posted in 19th century, History Teaching, inventions, Victorian Gold Rush

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