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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-boy-girl-a-crime-journalist-and-a-black-activist-meet-the-radical-ratbags-of-19th-century-melbourne-247099>
"“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,” wrote
English author L.P. Hartley in
The Go-Between (1953). Modern Melburnians may
feel the same. But while they live with an increasing cityscape of skyscrapers,
the past is not far away.
Consider Scots Church in Collins Street. Its spire tip was for some time the
highest point in the city, but now it is relatively low compared to surrounding
buildings. The idea behind its vantage was different to modern planning
decisions: it indicated the Presbyterians had a closeness to Heaven not
possessed by other Christian denominations.
Certainly, the beliefs of many 19th-century Melburnians appear equally odd. The
pseudoscience of Phrenology held that the shape of people’s skulls denoted
their character. Phrenologist Philemon Sohier was even allowed to take plaster
casts from the heads of freshly hanged criminals. His wife Ellen, an Antipodean
Tussaud, then used the casts to create realistic replicas for the Chamber of
Horrors in their associated waxworks.
But equally, while researching my recent book on colonial crime writer Mary
Fortune, I encountered individuals living in 19th-century Melbourne who seem
startlingly modern. A wealthy teenage girl who dressed in drag for months as
The Boy-Girl, likely as a protest. A radical journalist and sometime criminal
who published a lurid true-crime newspaper. And a Black author and activist who
advocated for workers’ rights, the unemployed and men of colour.
This trio did not fit the mould – nor do they fit our preconceived views of
what colonial Australians were like. They were ratbags: a term extremely
expressive of the national character, then and now. They had the strength of
character to be different, subversive, even to protest publicly. They did what
they wanted, against constraints – and they deserved better than to be
forgotten."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
