‘The Dreaded Pneumonic Influenza Has Made Its Appearance Amongst Us’: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19 in Gippsland, Victoria

Abstract

This article contributes to our understanding of the 1918–19 influenza pandemic from a regional perspective. It covers the Gippsland region in the southeast of Australia, which traverses the area from Melbourne to the New South Wales border, with a focus on detailing pandemic history at a finely-grained community level. While the public memory of the influenza pandemic is patchy I explore local and family histories to show a vernacular memory of its impact. I also argue that the capacity for Gippsland to respond to the crisis was based on mobilisation and activity carried out during World War I. The role of women in the voluntary sector was crucial in responding to this crisis, especially the Red Cross. At the same time the crisis revealed sometimes-hidden divisions, and I also consider examples of disagreement on issues such as the location of temporary hospitals or the impacts on border areas.

I acknowledge the assistance of Diane Cook from the Drouin History Group who helped with the research. Diane also contacted local and family historians who contributed their stories for which I am very grateful. An outline of this paper was delivered on 10 October 2019 at the VRI Hall at Traralgon; at the ‘Fighting for Peace: Aftermath, Commemoration and Regional Remembrance’ conference at Clunes on 11 November; and at Korumburra on 20 November 2019 to the Korumburra Historical Society. Thanks to the participants at these events, especially Linda Barraclough, and thanks also to the two anonymous referees for their input.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Niall Johnson, Britain and the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic: A Dark Epilogue (London: Routledge, 2006); Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influence of 1918, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Samuel Cohn, Epidemics: Hate and Compassion from the Plague to AIDS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). See also Humphrey McQueen, ‘The “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic in Australia, 1918–1919’, in Social Policy in Australia: Some Perspectives 1901–1975, ed. Jill Roe (Sydney: Cassell, 1976), 131–47; P. Curson and K. McCracken, ‘An Australian Perspective on the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic’, NSW Public Health Bulletin 17, no. 7–8 (2006): 103–7.

2 John McQuilton, Rural Australia and the Great War: From Tarrawingee to Tangambalanga (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1997); Philip Payton, Regional Australia and the Great War: ‘The Boys from Old Kio’ (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2012).

3 For example, the resource maintained by Philip Cashen which covers the Shire of Alberton in South Gippsland is an invaluable one: see https://shireatwar.com/ (accessed 20 September 2019). Other examples include the Combined Journal of the East Gippsland Family History Society and the East Gippsland Historical Society, Black Sheep, especially issue no. 89, March 2016, and its associated website, www.theirdutydone.com (accessed 1 August 2019).

4 Heatheranne Bulleen, ‘Pandemic Influenza at Oodnadatta, 1919: Aspects of Treatment and Care in a Multiracial Community’ (PhD thesis, Federation University Australia, 2018); P.G. Hodgson, ‘Flu, Society and the State: The Political, Social and Economic Implications of the 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic in Queensland’ (PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2017).

5 Nancy Bristow, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 6–8. See also Crosby, 311–17.

6 Geoffrey Rice, ‘Introduction’, in That Terrible Time: Eye-Witness Accounts of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand, ed. Geoffrey Rice (Christchurch: Hawthorne Press, 2018), 7–9.

7 Peter Hobbins, Georgia McWhinney and Alison Wishart, ‘An Intimate Pandemic: Creating Community Histories of the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic’, Royal Australian Historical Society (Sydney, 2019), www.rahs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Research-guide-final-version.pdf (accessed 20 February 2020).

8 Lucy Taksa, ‘The Masked Disease: Oral History, Memory and the Influenza Pandemic, 1918–1919’, in Academic Reading: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, ed. J. Giltrow, 2nd edn (New York: Broadview Press, 2002), 127–36; Shirleene Robinson, ‘Masks, Soap and Courage: Voices from the National Library’s Collection Speak about the Influenza Pandemic 101 Years Ago’, National Library of Australia Online Exhibition, www.nla.gov.au/stories/blog/behind-the-scenes/2020/03/31/masks-soap-and-courage (accessed 27 April 2020).

9 Jeremy Youde, ‘Covering the Cough: Memory, Remembrance, and Influenza Amnesia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 63, no. 3 (2017): 365.

10 John E. Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 13. I previously used Bodnar’s notions of official and vernacular memory. See Erik Eklund, ‘Official and Vernacular Public History: Historical Anniversaries and Commemorations in Newcastle, NSW’, Public History Review 14 (2007): 128–52.

11 But note that official and vernacular memory are not necessarily exclusive and do interact. See Eklund; Alexander Delios, ‘Commemorating Migrant Camps: Vernacular Memories in Official Spaces’, Journal of Australian Studies 39, no. 2 (2015): 252–71.

12 The best introductory source on regional newspapers in Victoria is Elizabeth Morrison, Engines of Influence: Newspapers of Country Victoria, 1840–1890 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005). See also Ken Inglis, ‘Questions about Newspapers’, Australian Cultural History 11 (1992): 120–7.

13 For an analysis of this plurality of voices in one particular newspaper, ‘The Bulletin’, see Sylvia Lawson, The Archibald Paradox: A Strange Case of Authorship (Melbourne: Penguin, 1987). Adrian Bingham’s account of the popular press in interwar Britain is also an extended analysis of the value of newspapers as a historical source: Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-War Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004).

14 This point echoes Tom Ballantyne’s argument about the role of newspapers in the small New Zealand town of Gore. See his ‘Thinking Local Knowledge, Sociability and Community in Gore’s Intellectual Life, 1875–1914’, New Zealand Journal of History 44, no. 2 (2010): 144–7.

15 Some estimates go higher than 50 million. See D.M. Morens, J.K. Taubenberger and A.S. Fauci, ‘Predominant Role of Bacterial Pneumonia as a Cause of Death in Pandemic Influenza: Implications for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness’, Journal of Infectious Diseases 198, no. 7 (2008): 962–70.

16 A. Erkoreka, ‘Origins of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic (1918–1920) and Its Relation to the First World War’, Journal of Molecular Genetic Medicine 3, no. 2 (2009): 190–4; Howard Phillips, ‘Influenza Pandemic’, in 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/pdf/1914-1918-Online-influenza_pandemic-2014-10-08.pdf (accessed 28 April 2020).

17 J.S. Oxford, ‘The So-Called Great Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 May Have Originated in France in 1916’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 356, no. 1416 (2001): 1857–9.

18 C.H. Stuart Harris and K.F. Shortridge, ‘An Influenza Epicentre’, The Lancet 320, no. 8302 (1982): 812–13, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(82)92693-9; G. Dennis Shanks, ‘No Evidence of 1918 Influenza Pandemic Origin in Chinese Laborers/Soldiers in France’, Journal of the Chinese Medical Association 79, no. 1 (2016): 46–8.

19 J.M. Barry, ‘The Site of Origin of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Its Public Health Implications’, Journal of Translational Medicine 2, no. 3 (2004), https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-2-3.

20 F.M. Burnet and E. Clark, Influenza: A Survey of the Last Fifty Years (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1942).

21 US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, ‘History of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic’, www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm (accessed 20 September 2019).

22 Anthea Hyslop, ‘Forewarned, Forearmed: Australia and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic, 1918–1919’, in 1919: The Year Things Fell Apart, ed. John Lack (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019), 31–4.

23 Hodgson, 42–4; Hyslop, 31–3.

24 Curson and McCracken, 103–7.

25 Gordon Briscoe, Queensland Aborigines and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919 (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1996); Bulleen, 145–76.

26 See the Aborigines Protection Act, 1910, and ‘51st Report of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines’ (Melbourne: H.J. Green, Government Printer, 1925), 3–4, https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/digitised_collections/remove/25401.pdf (accessed 20 April 2020).

27 The Maffra Spectator, 30 January 1919, 3; Bruthen and Tambo Times, 30 January 1919, 3.

28 Hyslop, 34–5.

29 Gippsland Times, 30 January 1919, 3.

30 Victorian Yearbook, 1916–1917, 767, and Victorian Year Book, 1916–1917 (Melbourne: A.M. Laughton, Government Statistician, Government Printer, 1920).

31 Erik Eklund and Julie Fenley, ‘Towards a New Environmental History of Gippsland’, in Earth and Industry: Stories from Gippsland, eds E. Eklund and J. Fenley (Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2015), xv–xxxiii; David Harris, ‘The Imagined Lakes: The Gippsland Lakes, Australia: 1860–1900’ (PhD thesis, La Trobe University, 2014).

32 Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Melbourne, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1901–1918, no. 12 (Melbourne: G.H. Knibbs, Commonwealth Statistician, 1919); Victorian Year Book, 1919–1920.

33 Victorian Year Book, 1916–1917, 751.

34 Gippsland Times, 26 January 1919, 3.

35 Caleb Cluff, ‘A Lone Traveller Heading to South Australia Brought This Deadly Flu to Ballarat’, The Courier, 19 February 2020, www.thecourier.com.au/story/6639227/the-other-virus-how-spanish-flu-came-to-ballarat-in-1919/ (accessed 20 April 2020).

36 Alison Moir, ‘Into the West: The Movement of the Spanish Flu into the Far West New South Wales Border Towns and Beyond’, History (September 2019): 14–17, www.rahs.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AlisonMoir-Hist141Sept2019.pdf (accessed 1 May 2020).

37 See The Yarragon, Trafalgar and Moe Settlement News, 13 February 1919, 3; The Traralgon Record, 21 February 1919, 3.

38 Gippsland Times, 17 February 1919, 3.

39 Morwell Advertiser, 21 February 1919, 2.

40 Orbost and District Historical Society Newsletter 134 (February 2017): 2.

41 Gippsland Times, 17 February 1919, 3. See also Gippsland Times, 3 February 1919, 3.

42 Morwell Advertiser and Gazette, 14 February 1919.

43 Wilma P. Walls, Where Have the Years Gone? 100 Years of State School 3077: 1891–1991 (Korumburra: Wilma P. Walls, 1991).

44 Traralgon Historical Society Inc., excerpts from the Farmer Journal, 1919, compiled by John W. Davidson, www.traralgonhistory.asn.au/journalextracts.htm (accessed 21 September 2019).

45 Gippsland Times, 28 November 1918, 4.

46 Gippsland Times, 6 February 1919, 3, and 17 February 1919, 3.

47 S.L. Knobler, A. Mack, A. Mahmoud et al., eds, ‘The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? Workshop Summary’, in Institute of Medicine (US) Forum on Microbial Threats (Washington: National Academies Press, 2005).

48 Lori Loeb, ‘Beating the Flu: Orthodox and Commercial Responses to Influenza in Britain, 1889–1919’, Social History of Medicine 18, no. 2 (2005): 208–10.

49 Traralgon Record, 10 January 1919, 6.

50 Loeb, 203–24; Bulleen, 44–5.

51 See Melanie Oppenheimer, The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross 1914–2014 (Sydney: HarperCollins, 2014); Melanie Oppenheimer, ‘“The Best P.M. for the Empire in War”? Lady Helen Munro Ferguson and the Australian Red Cross Society, 1914–1920’, Australian Historical Studies 33, no. 119 (2002): 108–34, https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610208596204. I am also influenced by Joan Beaumont’s work on patriotic women in World War I. See her ‘Whatever Happened to Patriotic Women, 1914–1918?’, Australian Historical Studies 31, no. 115 (2000): 273–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610008596131.

52 Marian Moser Jones studied the localist response to the 1918 pandemic in the USA through the lens of the American Red Cross. See her ‘The American Red Cross and Local Response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: A Four-City Case Study’, Public Health Reports 125, no. 3 (2010): 92–104, https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549101250S312.

53 Traralgon Record, 11 February 1919, 2, and 26 September 1919, 3.

54 Traralgon Record, 7 February 1919, 2.

55 The Maffra Spectator, 10 February 1919, 3.

56 The Maffra Spectator, 6 February 1919, 3.

57 ‘Influenza. Legal Obligations’, The Maffra Spectator, 3 February 1919, 2.

58 The Maffra Spectator, 6 February 1919, 3.

59 ‘Department of Health. An Official Circular’, The Age, 30 April 1919, 10.

60 Gippsland Times, 17 February 1919, 3.

61 Louis V. Daniels, ‘Cranswick, Geoffrey Franceys (1894–1978)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cranswick-geoffrey-franceys-9855 (accessed 20 August 2019).

62 The Herald (Melbourne), 22 February 1922, 1.

63 Gippsland Times, 6 February 1919, 3.

64 Ballarat, for example, opted for tents set up at the showground. See The Ballarat Star, 27 January 1919, 4; Cluff.

65 Victorian Year Book, 1919–1920, 21.

66 Sarah Mirams, ‘School and Scandal in Mallacoota’, Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria 6 (2007): 8; Sarah Mirams, ‘Dreams and Realities: E.J. Brady and Mallacoota’ (PhD thesis, Monash University, 2010), 128–9 and 136.

67 Bombala Times, 14 February 1919, 4.

68 Delegate Argus, 7 August 1919, 2.

69 Twofold Bay Magnet and South Coast and Southern Monaro Advertiser, 15 February 1919, 3.

70 Bombala Times, 14 February 1919, 4.

71 Table Talk, 20 February 1920, 6; Sarah Mirams, ‘“The Attractions of Australia”: E. J. Brady and the Making of Australia Unlimited’, Australian Historical Studies 43, no. 2 (2012): 270–1, https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2012.677457.

72 Gippsland Times, 3 February 1919, 3.

73 Peter Synan, Gippsland’s Lucky City: A History of Sale (Sale: City of Sale, 1994); Ann Andrew and Anne Edwards, Two Turrets and a Dome: A History of the Gippsland Base Hospital, 1860s to 1980s (Sale: A. Andrew & A. Edwards, 1992).

74 John Pearson, ‘Gippsland’s Great War Nurses’, Gippsland Heritage Journal 16 (June 1994): 10–23.

75 These family history stories were collected by Diane Cook in 2019. I want to thank Diane and the individuals named who agreed to share their family experience.

76 Gippsland History group, www.facebook.com/groups/1755971574632862/; the group had 15,994 members as at 14 August 2020.

77 Yarram Standard, 7 May 1919.

78 Hyslop.

79 Victorian Year Book, 1919–1920, 158.

80 Peter Curson, Deadly Encounters: How Infectious Disease Helped Shape Australia (Bury St Edmunds: Arena, 2015), 60–87.

81 Samuel Cohn, Epidemics: Hate and Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 520–1. I am indebted to Mary Sheehan for this reference.

82 West Gippsland Gazette, 18 February 1919, 3. The report mentions Traders’ Associations in Sale, Warragul, Bairnsdale, Maffra and Stratford taking such action.

83 Robert Craig, ‘Influenza Pandemic 1919’, https://medicine.uq.edu.au/blog/2019/03/influenza-pandemic-1919 (accessed 16 August 2019).