'SCARCELY AN EQUAL CHANCE'

The address given for the birth of William Gordon Kenny, 'shoemaker's child', was not Albert Terrace but Collins Street, the road that marked the back of the Crowther grounds. The upper end of Collins Street was made up of cottages and light industries, and punctuated with the rear-ends of gentlemen's houses: tradesman's entrances, servants' quarters, and other outbuildings. The child was born not so far from the biblical stable that had been signalled by Gertrude Kenny's return on Christmas Eve. Crowther later recalled that Gertrude had lived 'under his roof' until 'the end of the last week in August', nine days after William's birth. At this point, Crowther indicated, 'circumstances rendered it necessary for her to leave'. The Crowthers had done what few other employers would have been prepared to do – given asylum to a servant until the birth of her child, but now she and the baby were on their own.2

Although there was a marked difference in the way government agencies and charities treated a 'marriage disrupted'3 mother like Gertrude Kenny, and a 'fallen', unmarried mother, she was ineligible for even the most meagre financial assistance. Bourgeois ideals of motherhood and female dependency were hastily withdrawn from application in the case of working-class women if the dependency threatened to transfer to the state. 4 Nor was the situation in which Gertrude Kenny found herself unusual: a woman

1

'A nameless woman, dependent on her own hands' labour for her daily bread, has scarcely an even chance…', 'One of Four', Words to Women: a plea to certain sufferers, Hobart: George Rolwegan, 1858, p. 21.

2

AOT SGD 13/1/9; Kenny v. Huston, pp. 11, 19.

3

Patricia Kelleher uses this term for women who have been widowed, deserted, or who have had to leave marriages. Patricia Kelleher, 'Maternal Strategies: Irish women's headship in Gilded Age Chicago', Journal of Women's History, vol. 13, no. 2, 2001, pp. 80-106, p. 87.

4

Anna Clark, researching concepts of 'breadwinner' through Poor Law legislation in England, reveals that the initial supposition of the Act, 'if a man could not support a family, he should not marry, and if a woman could not find a husband who earned enough, she must support herself and her children by earning wages,' gave way between the 1850s-'70s to increasing reformist argument about the primacy of the family and perniciousness of working mothers - aid being provided to respectable families whose male breadwinner was ill or unemployed, but not to single or widowed women, or women who were not 'respectable'. Widows were expected to find work and admit their children to the work-house. Anna Clark, 'The New Poor Law and the Breadwinner Wage: contrasting assumptions', Journal of Social History, vol. 34, no. 2, 2000, pp. 261-281, pp. 261-2, 268.

with a child, that is, and with no natural protector.5 Female heads of household were common in censuses and valuation rolls, and these were only the visible indicator of a much larger number of women organising responsibility for their children without the support of a man.6 There would always be, Hobart pamphleteer 'One in Four' wrote in 1858, women 'independent of a father, a brother, or husband'.7

Gertrude Kenny had examples of women as sole breadwinners around her. There had been Maria Tillard, who had worked her passage as a matron on the Constance in order to start a new life for herself and two daughters, and had then become matron of the Servants' Hostel. And Mrs Rishton, witness at Gertrude's wedding and matron of the Girls Industrial School, whose daughter lived with her and, when she was old enough, taught the younger inmates.8 The difference here was that the children of these women were old enough either to go into service themselves or assist their mothers. Infants and small children posed a much greater problem, especially for live-in domestic service, which provided by far the most employment for women.9 The kind of work that could be undertaken at home – sewing, for instance – was very poorly paid; taking in laundry was not much better and a considerable step down the social scale for

someone like Gertrude Kenny. Most 'daily' jobs in domestic service were also low on the ladder: charwomen and laundresses, although some work might have been gleaned as a nursery governess, giving lessons in private homes. If Gertrude were going out to work

5

In the 1860s the annual reports of the Hobart Town Benevolent Society tracked the economic and social fallout of an exodus of men to the goldfields during the previous decade. They also complained of the 'roving unsettled habits of most of the labourers, and desertion of families'. It was deserted wives and their children who formed the bulk of applications for relief. THAJ, Benevolent Society, Hobart Town: report for 1865, 1866/5; report for 1867, 1868/8.

6 _{Kelleher gives examples of women using multiple strategies to maintain agency in their}

parenting, even over large distances: migrating with older children, leaving younger children behind with relatives or in the workhouse until they are old enough or she has the financial resources to pay for them to join her, temporarily placing them in orphanages. Kelleher, pp. 80- 81, 92-93.

7

'It would seem to be almost forgotten that only a very limited sphere of employment is available to such; that their earnings are always precarious and never large; and that therefore women must always be more exposed to the assaults of poverty, and the temptations following in its train, than men can be. Many laws, too, operate against them. And so, whenever any sudden reverses or commercial crises spread a temporary distress among the masses of the people, women invariably suffer in far greater degree than men, and the unfortunate sisterhood receives a large accession of numbers. There is no reason why a woman should not make an excellent compositor, watchmaker, or accountant, as a milliner, a shop-girl, or quasi-governess. 'One in Four', p. 21.

8

2 November 1866; 7 June 1867. Girls' Industrial School (GIS). Records of Committee, Minute Books, UTA G3.

9 _{In Kelleher's study the number of female heads of household increased with age. About half}

she would need to rely on a friend, hire a nurse-girl (usually aged twelve to fourteen, and from a poor family or the Queen's Asylum), or find someone, perhaps the landlady or lodging house keeper of where she was living, to take the baby during the day. If she went into service she would have to farm the baby out, most commonly through casual networks for a weekly payment. For those who could not care for the child at all, the Queen's Asylum would take those who were voluntarily surrendered to the control of a government-appointed guardian. And older children could be sent to the Industrial School. 10 The option of infanticide was always present, though death resulting in simple neglect held less threat of punishment.11

Gertrude Kenny, though, was not without resources. Her incorporation into the household at Albert Terrace during her pregnancy, again being under the wing of a protector, was not only a haven for the moment, but contained a concomitant assurance; we will see you right. Crowther, when, as it appears, he terminated the mortgage contract with George Kenney, may also have exerted financial pressure on him to provide for Gertrude. Beyond Albert Terrace there is considerable evidence to suggest that she had built a network of friends, several of whom showed great loyalty during the later crisis of 1878-9. Mrs Eady, who ran the Highfield Hall Hotel and

Convalescent Home, would help Gertrude Kenny with more than just a place to live, and Mrs Eady's husband (or son) George, butcher of Elizabeth Street, provided sureties for Gertrude. There was Edward Gifford, who also provided sureties, and whose link to Gertrude Kenny was probably his wife (or mother), Sarah, a charismatic owner of a draper's shop.12 Lucy Grant, who would accompany Gertrude Kenny during one of her

10 _{Queen's Asylum Act, 25 Victoria, 5 (1861). This act broadened the scope of the institution}

which had been an imperial orphan school, primarily not for orphans but the children of female convicts. See also Joan Brown, "Poverty Is Not a Crime": the development of social services in Tasmania, Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1972, pp. 126-7; and the Industrial Schools Act, 31 Victoria, 37 (1867).

11

In recognition of the frequency of infanticide and the reluctance of many judges to pass a mandatory death sentence, the Offences Against the Person Act, 27 Victoria, 5 (1863), recognised the lesser crime of 'concealment of birth'.

12

The acquaintance with Sarah Gifford is likely to have originated during Gertrude's employment as a parlourmaid and nursery governess when her duties consisted of a great deal of

needlework. Sarah was transported after being discovered with parlours and bedrooms and attics full of luxury fabrics, silks, lace, velvets – all consignments that had never reached their destination –'lost' in transit between Paris and London. She set up a highly successful and legitimate business, supplying the gentry with similar wares at No. 1 Elizabeth Street. A portrait of Mrs Gifford, painted in 1858, shows good-humoured eyes and a mischievous, even roguish lift of the lips to this otherwise rather matronly woman with a heavy face. It was executed by the society painter, Robert Dowling, and its commission was a bold act of assertion for a woman who had been transported as a convict only fifteen years before; a woman whose fourteen-year

bleakest moments, was certainly more than an acquaintance in 1870. She had named one of her daughters Gertrude Alice in 1869. Lucy might well have been someone prepared to raise William Gordon with her own children.13

But the raising of William Gordon was one responsibility taken from her. On 18th September, only seven weeks after his birth, this winter child died of pulmonary congestion and convulsions.14

Around the time that Gertrude Kenny's baby was dying, Victoire Crowther was taken up with an encroaching crisis at the Girl's Industrial School. The incumbent matron was 'gentle', 'patient', and 'trustworthy'; but there was a 'want of order' in the School.15 Victoire, as President, took on the responsibility of thanking the matron for her kindness and telling her that her services were no longer required. A year before, when they had sought a replacement for the highly competent Mrs Rishton, the ladies received two applications. One, Miss Hale, came highly recommended; but the other was chosen, as 'a married person as matron was desirable'. Miss Hale was offered, and accepted, the position of sub-matron.The awkward contradiction of status versus managerial ability may well have provoked her resignation in September which, in turn, exposed the weaknesses of the matron. The committee concurred that a matron must be procured 'capable of enforcing obedience and order in the school', although this was not spelt out in the advertisement they inserted in the Mercury: 16

A MATRON will be required in December for the Female Industrial School, Murray Street, Hobart Town. Salary £30 per annum. Also a trained

SCHOOLMISTRESS for the same Institution. Salary £25 per annum. References to be forwarded before the 25th inst. To Mrs GEORGE SALIER, New Town Road.17

sentence had only just expired. She advertised her wares in these pre-advertising days with a combination of adventurous tantalisation and sensual promise. She was always about to open, or just had opened a box off a ship that had arrived in port: soft quilted satin slippers, wreaths and flowers of silver and gold, velvet bonnets, kid gloves direct from Allemonde & Co, Paris. Trial 22 August 1842, Old Bailey Record: t18420822-2525 http://www.oldbaileyonline.org accessed 2 November 2009; Portrait by William Dowling in AOT Allport Library, ADRI AUTAS001124067141; advertisement in Colonial Times, 7 October, 1856.

13 _{Lucy Grant was living in Campbell Town in 1870. AOT Pioneer database.} 14

Died Elizabeth Street. AOT RGD Hobart District, 1870/100.

15 _{3 June 1870; 5 August 1870; 2 September 1870; 7 October 1870. UTA GIS.} 16 _{Ibid. 6 August 1869; 2 September 1870.}

17

At the meeting held on 31st October, the ladies discussed who of the applicants was best suited to these two posts. The choice of matron 'fell on' Mrs Kenny.18 Not only did she exhibit the 'staid habits, high moral character and ways of order and regularity' that had commended her to the Crowthers, she was also, unlike poor Miss Hale (who had left after a frustrating year of working for someone less able than she), married (but husbandless) and maternal (but childless).19 Three weeks after the death of her son, Gertrude Kenny had secured a highly challenging position and one that, unlike domestic service, could be seen as an advancement towards a public career. The choice 'falling' on Mrs Kenny suggests the nepotistic influence of Victoire Crowther with the other ladies murmuring blind consent; but this would be to ignore both the strength of character of Victoire's fellow members, as well as the undoubted abilities of Gertrude, and the long association she is likely to have already had with the institution.

The Girls' Industrial School, or the Hobart Town Female Refuge as it was named at its inception in early 1862, was one of many responses to the devolution of imperial power and responsibility. And while it was a response to very particular local circumstances, it drew on ideas and structures for dealing with child destitution and juvenile delinquency that had entered legislation in Britain as a result of the cessation of transportation to Tasmania and other colonies.20 In the absence of a convenient offshore depository for the most problematic of its population, Hobart's Courier reported in 1854 that British legislators were heeding petitions asking that criminality be nipped 'in the bud', that 'polluting springs of evil' be 'shut up', and that 'the bulk of street-walking children' should be rescued 'from the contagion and bad example of associations'.21 The scheme adopted in Britain had been devised by the reformer Mary Carpenter, who imagined two kinds of institution in her 1851 treatise: one was the Reformatory, intended for the dangerous classes (that is children under 16 who had committed a crime and who would otherwise be sent to an adult prison); the other the Industrial School, intended for the perishing classes, children under fourteen, whose current environment and way of life was judged to predispose them to crime and immorality.22

18

31 October 1870; 2 December 1870. UTA GIS.

19

Kenny v. Huston, p. 19.

20

Reformatories 1854, Industrial Schools 1857, consolidating legislation, 1861. Derek Phillips, 'The Care and Education of Hobart's Poor in the Mid-Nineteenth Century', Papers & Proceedings of the Tasmanian Historical Research Association, vol. 30, 1983, pp. 101-111, pp. 104, 110.

21 _{Lord Palmerston. HTC, 31 May 1854.}

22 _{Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile}

It was all too clear that the dangerous and perishing classes were over-represented in Tasmania, and that the devolution of imperial authority, however much desired, left the colony with a heavy social and economic burden. It did not take long for Mary

Carpenter's ideas to permeate colonial consciousness. In March 1858, a few weeks before Gertrude Kenny's arrival in the colony, the Mercury drew attention to a City Missioners' report of 'wandering and discarded' children in Hobart. This was picked up by an editorial in the Courier which noted that these 'City Arabs' often had 'either no parents or such parents as are much worse than none'. They skulked in the streets during the day and slept in 'pigsties, unfinished houses and boilers' at night. Frequently they were picked up for pilfering and appeared before Police Magistrates like William Tarleton who were reluctant to sentence them to adult prisons. The Courier proposed that the British system be introduced in the colony.23

The ladies behind the establishment of the Female Refuge may have been more influenced by individualistic intervention than broad social change; their response informed by a notion that only they, in contrast to poor parents, could provide the kind of moral leadership necessary to guide the children into responsible citizenship. As 'One in Four' put it:

How great a blessing it would be for the children of the poor … for any child indeed, to have a wise and virtuous friend to whom they could bring their sorrows; or who, like an angelic visitant would follow them through all the trials and temptations of girlhood and womanhood, ever attendant with good counsel and the strength most needful for the hour. How many a girl might be saved from a sad and sickening life – or worse – if she had but some judicious friend to advise her.24

the discipline of delinquency', Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 36, 2008, pp. 149–161, p. 150.

Mary Carpenter appeared before the 1852 Parliamentary Committee on Criminal and Destitute Children. Pamela Horn, The Victorian Child, New York: New York University Press, 1997, p. 204.

23

Mercury, 30 March 1858; HTC, 23 April 1858.

24 _{'One in Four', p. 22. Schroeder argues that Carpenter's position was also very much informed}

by her class: 'Carpenter's reformed child was one who resembled a very specific notion of what childhood should look and sound like; poor homes and neighbourhoods could provide none of the moral pedagogy which would not only make each child into a productive citizen but, more importantly, grant the child a self and a soul. The reformatory was thus imagined as a surrogate middle-class home and family for the outlaw child, who would come to experience the pressure of law not as a set of moral strictures (as in the poorly-managed, retributive penal institutions Carpenter routinely criticized) but as a feeling of love. This feeling of love would engender a desire to obey, the result of a kind discipline soon recognized and welcomed.' Schroeder, p. 156.

A petition organised by the Benevolent Society, although arguing for institutions for both boys and girls, honed in on the latter. They 'viewed with alarm the very many female children in Hobart Town who are neglected by their natural Guardians, and consequently are acquiring habits, resulting, in all likelihood to result in ruin to themselves and serious danger to the Community'.25

In the broader conception of reformatories and industrial schools, the former as a post-