‘Kitchen Fragments and Garden Stuff’

Abstract

This paper seeks to draw welfare and Indigenous history into the same analytic frame by analysing the religious impulses underpinning ideas about welfare for Indigenous people and poor whites in a period of acute transition for the poor law between 1815 and the 1830s. During these years the conceptual framework of the new poor law (less eligibility, pauperisation, indoor relief) came to dominate attitudes towards poor whites, particularly in the Australian convict colonies where poverty was frequently associated with vice, but lurked uncertainly around the edges of discourse regarding Aborigines. Even when it came to be directed at Aborigines, concerns over the issue of compensation lingered to distinguish the white poor from ‘the poor Aboriginal’.

Notes

My thanks to Patricia Curthoys for research assistance, to participants at the Australasian Welfare History Workshop for discussion and to Grace Karskens for commenting on this paper.

²Robert Van Krieken, Children and the State: Social Control and the Formation of Australian Child Welfare (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991); Tim Rowse, White Flour, White Power: From Rations to Citizenship in Central Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Naomi Parry, ‘“Such a Longing”: Black and White Children in Welfare in New South Wales and Tasmania, 1880–1940’ (PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2007).

³Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (New York: Knopf, 1984).

⁴Brian Harrison, ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, Victorian Studies 9, no. 4 (1966): 353–74.

⁵R.H.W. Reece, Aborigines and Colonists (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1974); J.D. Bollen, ‘English Missionary Societies and the Australian Aborigine’, Journal of Religious History 9, no. 3 (1977); John Ferry, ‘The Failure of the New South Wales Missions to the Aborigines Before 1845’, Aboriginal History 3 (1979):1; Barry J. Bridges, ‘The Church of England and the Aborigines of New South Wales 1788–1855’, (PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 1978); Jean Woolmington, ‘Early Christian Missions to the Australian Aborigines: A Study of Failure’, (PhD thesis, University of New England, 1981); Michael Christie, Aborigines in Colonial Victoria (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1979); John Harris, One Blood (Sydney: Albatross, 1990).

⁶Hilary M. Carey, ‘“Attempts and Attempts”: Responses to Failure in Pre- and Early Victorian Missions to the Australian Aborigines’, in Mapping the Landscape: Essays in Australian and New Zealand Christianity, eds Susan Emilsen and William Emilsen (New York: Peter Lang, 2000); Alison MacKinnon and Wilfred Prest, Citation, The Serle Award, 2006, to Jessie Mitchell, ‘Flesh, Dreams and Spirit: Life on Aboriginal Mission Stations 1825–1850’ (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2006), <http://www.theaha.org.au/prizesandawards.htm>, accessed 21 December 2007; Richard Broome, Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005).

⁷Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Ringwood: Penguin, 1987), 85.

⁸Claire McLisky, ‘“Due Observance of Justice, and the Protection of Their Rights”: Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Moral Purpose in the Aborigines Protection Society Circa 1837 and its Portrayal in Australian Historiography, 1883–2003’, Limina 11 (2005): 57–66; Elizabeth Elbourne, ‘The Sin of the Settler: The 1835–36 Select Committee on Aborigines and Debates Over Virtue and Conquest in the Early Nineteenth-Century British White Settler Empire’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4, no. 31 (2003): 1–17.

⁹Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World (Melbourne: Scribe, 2007), 74–75.

¹⁰Elbourne, 5.

¹¹I am indebted to Grace Karskens for this point based on her forthcoming history of early Sydney, personal communication with author on 11 February 2008.

¹²Neil Gunson, ed., Australian Reminiscences and Papers of L.E. Threlkeld, Missionary to the Aborigines, 1824–1859 (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1974), 8–9.

¹³Kay Anderson, Race and the Crisis of Humanism (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).

¹⁴Brian Dickey, No Charity There: A Short History of Social Welfare in Australia, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1980), Chapter 1.

¹⁵C.H. Currey, ‘The Foundation of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales on May 6, 1818’, Journal and Proceedings, Royal Australian Historical Society vol 48, part 1 (1962); Noel Gash, ‘A History of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales’ (MA thesis, University of Sydney, 1967); Ron Rathbone, A Very Present Help: Caring For Australians Since 1813 (Sydney: State Library of New South Wales Press, 1994); Dickey.

¹⁶NSW Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence, Report, 1814, 4.

¹⁷NSW Society, 15

¹⁸NSW Society, 14.

¹⁹NSW Society, 14.

²⁰Norman S. Fiering, ‘Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 37, no. 2 (1976): 195–218; Report of the Grand Jurors, 28 September 1825, Historical Records of Australia, vol XI, p. 861, cited in John Bostock, The Dawn of Australian Psychiatry (Brisbane, 1951), 21.

²¹Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Annual Report, 1820, 8.

²²Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Annual Report, 1820, 11; Annual Report, 1822, 2.

²³Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Annual Report, 1829, 20.

²⁴Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Annual Report, 1833, 14.

²⁵Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Annual Report, 1833, 13.

²⁶J.R. Poynter, Society and Pauperism: English Ideas on Poor Relief, 1795–1834, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969), 234–36.

²⁷Anthony Brundage, The English Poor Laws (Houndsmills: Palgrave, 2002), 44–60.

²⁸Erin Idhe, Edward Smith Hall and the Sydney Monitor (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2004), 86.

²⁹Barry J. Bridges, ‘The Sydney Orphan Schools, 1800–1830’ (MEd thesis, University of Sydney, 1973), 567–75.

³⁰John Ramsland, Children of the Backlanes (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1986), 5, 10, 12; Female School of Industry, Annual Report, 1827, 5.

³¹Patrick O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1987), 23.

³²Marjorie Barnard, Macquarie's World (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1941), 91.

³³Gunson, 57.

³⁴Cited in Eris O'Brien, Life and Letters of Archpriest John Joseph Therry (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1922), 317.

³⁵O'Brien, Chapter VI.

³⁶Gunson, 57. For the potential of a study of Irish/Aboriginal relationships see Bob Reece, ‘The Irish and the Aborigines’, in Irish Australian Studies, eds Tadhg Foley and Fiona Bateman (Sydney: Crossing Press, 2000), 192–204. On links between British colonial discourse directed towards the Irish and Indians and Africans, see Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 49.

³⁷Cited in A.T. Yarwood, Samuel Marsden: The Great Survivor (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1977, 1996 edition), 98.

³⁸NSW Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence, Minutes, 8 May 1813; Nicholas Hudson, ‘From “Nation” to “Race”: The Origin of Racial Classification in Eighteenth-Century Thought’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 29, 3 (1996): 247–48.

³⁹Cited in Jean Woolmington, ‘The Civilisation/Christianisation Debate and the Australian Aborigines’, Aboriginal History 10, no. 2 (1986): 91.

⁴⁰Mackaness, George, ed., Some Letters of Rev Richard Johnson (Sydney: Australian Historical Monographs, 1954).

⁴¹Gunson, 11–12.

⁴²Yarwood, 160–61.

⁴³Yarwood, 148–51.

⁴⁴Some historians who refer to ideas about pauperisation include Jessie Mitchell, ‘“Country Belonging to Me”: Land and Labour on Aboriginal Missions and Protectorate Stations, 1830–1850’, Eras, Edition 6, <http://arts.monash.edu.au/eras/edition_6/mitchellarticle.htm>; McLisky; Michael Smithson, ‘A Misunderstood Gift: The Annual Issue of Blankets to the Aborigines of New South Wales, 1826–48’, Push, no. 30 (1992): 73–108.

⁴⁵Mitchell, ‘Country Belonging to Me’, 1.

⁴⁶Yarwood, 101.

⁴⁷William Shelley to Governor Macquarie, 8 April 1814, Historical Records of Australia, vol. 8, 370.

⁴⁸Governor Macquarie to Earl Bathurst, 8 Oct 1814, Historical Records of Australia, vol. 8, 370.

⁴⁹Governor Macquarie to Earl Bathurst, 368.

⁵⁰Yarwood, 160–61.

⁵¹Robert Dixon, The Course of Empire: Neo-classical Culture in New South Wales (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 24.

⁵²Cited in J. Brooke and J.L. Kohen, The Parramatta Native Institution and the Black Town: A History (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1991), 60.

⁵³Governor Macquarie to Earl Bathurst, 368.

⁵⁴Cited in Brook and Kohen, 22; Elbourne, 9–10.

⁵⁵Brook and Kohen, 250–51.

⁵⁶K.J. Cable ‘Cartwright Robert’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), 211–12.

⁵⁷Brook and Kohen, 92–94.

⁵⁸Cartwright to Macquarie, 263–64.

⁵⁹Rev Robert Cartwright to Governor Macquarie, 18 January, 1920, Historical Records of Australia, vol. X, 266–72.

⁶⁰Rev Robert Cartwright to Governor Macquarie, 18 January, 1920, Historical Records of Australia, vol. X, 264.

⁶¹Rev Robert Cartwright to Governor Macquarie, 18 January, 1920, Historical Records of Australia, vol. X, 269–70.

⁶²Rev Robert Cartwright to Governor Macquarie, 18 January, 1920, Historical Records of Australia, vol. X, 270.

⁶³Jan Kociumbas, The Oxford History of Australia, vol. 2, 1770–1860 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992), 142–43.

⁶⁴Stephen Judd and Kenneth Cable, Sydney Anglicans (Sydney: Anglican Information Office, 2000), 7–9.

⁶⁵C.D. Rowley, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society (Ringwood: Penguin, 1972), 19.

⁶⁶Hilary Carey, Believing in Australia: A Cultural History of Religions (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 59.

⁶⁷K.J. Cable, ‘Sadlier, Richard’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 2, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), 414.

⁶⁸Archdeacon Scott to Governor Darling, 1 August 1827, Historical Records of Australia, vol. XIV, 55–63.

⁶⁹Archdeacon Scott to Governor Darling, 59.

⁷⁰Gunson, 44–46, 56, 46.

⁷¹Richard Broome, ‘Victoria’, in Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines Under the British Crown, eds Ann McGrath (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995), 129.

⁷²While there is some evidence that blankets were given to Aborigines before this time; Michael Smithson argues convincingly that blankets were given regularly in significant numbers from 1826. Smithson, 73–108.

⁷³This section is based on both Smithson and R.H.W. Reece, ‘Feasts and Blankets: The History of Some Early Attempts to Establish Relations With the Aborigines of New South Wales, 1814–1846’, Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 2 (1967): 190–206. Robert Foster, ‘Feasts of the Full-moon: The Distribution of Rations to Aborigines in South Australia: 1835–1861’, Aboriginal History 13, nos 1–2 (1989): 63–78, found a similar pattern of ration distribution developing in South Australia.

⁷⁴Smithson, 81–83.

⁷⁵Cited in Alan Lester, ‘British Settler Discourse and the Circuits of Empire’, History Workshop Journal 54 (2002): 28.

⁷⁶Cited in Reece, ‘Feasts and Blankets’, 200–201.

⁷⁷Cited in Reece, ‘Feasts and Blankets’, 200–201.

⁷⁸NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 1845, NSW Legislative Council, Votes and Proceedings, 17.

⁷⁹NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 1845, NSW Legislative Council, Votes and Proceedings, 53.

⁸⁰NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 1845, NSW Legislative Council, Votes and Proceedings, 44.

⁸¹Lester, ‘British Settler Discourse’, 33, 40.

⁸²Smithson, 91.

⁸³Cited in Smithson, 86.

⁸⁴Cited in Smithson, 99.

⁸⁵Anderson, 142.

⁸⁶James Backhouse, A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co, 1843), Appendix P, cxxxvi.

⁸⁷James Backhouse, A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co, 1843), Appendix P, cxxxvii.

⁸⁸NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 5.

⁸⁹NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 8.

⁹⁰Lester, ‘British Settler Discourse’, 33.

⁹¹NSW Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 9.