“Hostels and Communal Feeding Are not the British Way of Life”

Abstract

The early 1950s witnessed growing unrest among British migrants housed in Australian migrant hostels. In 1952, British migrants organized marches to protest about communal feeding, withheld payment for accommodation and fought with police trying to evict them. They also exploited the letters pages of newspapers to mobilize local public sympathy, especially through letters by British women voicing their frustration at not being able to cook for their families. This paper considers the complaints made about food in the migrant hostels, relating these to the role of the British women as wives and mothers, and to the central role that women played in protesting about hostel conditions. The paper contrasts the British protests of 1952 with those by single British men in 1947 and by single Italian men in 1952, in whose protests food played a very different role.

Keywords:

• Australia
• migration
• hostels
• family food practices
• gender
• identity