Topic: Special reporter (Sydney Morning
Herald), 1851 ‘Sanitary state of Sydney No. V’ Source: Sydney Morning Herald. 1
March 1851, pp. 2.
For context this is one of the first essays I ever wrote
when I started uni around 2010, so there will be errors somewhere along the
line, and I have rewritten some parts as it is just a touch bad to read as my
first attempt. I am more surprised that I found the early essays on my
computer. I either have physical copies of the marked essays, or I have digital
scans from the markers. I have thought that some of these essays even though they can be badly written are still interesting to read about the past.
For the historian to interpret the source: The
sanitary state of Sydney in 1851, you would have to look at not only the
primary source but other sources that have been published for a better
understanding of what is being researched. The issues related to the article
were that the working class had lower incomes that lead to living conditions
that lacked the basic necessities that we today take for granted like waste
disposal, general hygiene and regulations that dictate how close dwellings are
supposed to be to other buildings. The lower classes had to live in squalor in
close proximity to other people and were unhygienic. It was vastly different to
how the wealthy lived and they were often oblivious to how the conditions or
turned a blind eye. During a short time period the population did explode when
events occurred like the finding of gold. The issues within Sydney in the 1850’s
era was different to todays, and the source illustrates how people lived in
early Sydney and what resources they had to survive on. When reading about early
Sydney, people don’t usually think about the living conditions of the people.
During the 1850s, the Sydney Morning Herald
published an article on the living conditions of people who lived in the city.
Looking back the people of today would not realise how well off they are as the
people back then lacked the basic necessities such as a roof over their heads
while living in cramped conditions. People were living so close together there
were at least 20 to 30 people per house and they were located in buildings
known as slums located off the main streets. The
Sydney Morning Herald reported that there was very little guttering and
street cleaning. They also found it would cost thousands of pounds just to put
in piping for each property, which the landlords were not willing to pay.
Landlords tend to let their properties slip in quality as they forget to remove
the refuse or even refused to put in proper piping for the basics that we take
for granted like water, or even water closets that were private as many used
and abused the system. Tenants and owners both abused the system in the
agreements they had made to each other. Tenants refused to pay rent if the
owner refused to clean up the property such as take the refuse away. If one
group did one thing, the other would have followed the same path and then the
properties became rundown.
The population of Sydney increased between 1850 and
1888 especially when gold was found. The population increased to around one
million. Over crowding was part of the character of Australian colonial cities
as they were port cities. The cities were the main entry points for people
migrating to the Australian colonies from locations like England. Seasonal
workers and people from the transport industry put strain on the limited accommodation
that was available.
Various groups of people from upper society walked
through the slum locations in Sydney, one group of councillors were even
escorted by the police as protection. Professor William Stanley Jevons found
The Rocks area of Sydney to be stricken with filth as waste from houses ran
down the street as there were no guttering. The waste would eventually end up
sitting at the next house in the street. Trenches that were dug did little to
stop the stench and the soaking of the waste that went through the foundations
below. He mentions that sewers and drains of proper construction are quite
unknown. He also walked through several other areas such as Redfern and Durand
alley. ‘Durand Alley was by Jervon’s point of view ‘where the lowest and most
vicious classes predominate and the abodes were of the worst description’.
Durand Alley was a notorious slum area in the Haymarket area of Sydney.
For running water to be placed on your property it was
cost prohibitive when you were from the working class areas than if people were
living in decent areas that were wealthy. The general public had to share a
privy, while the wealthy could afford a private water closet. Those who were of
the working class had to share one privy between several houses and were often
in a bad state. A family in each room, which was bare of anything but rags and
was filthy. One house that the reporter for the SMH reported on, one of
the rooms were eleven square feet and the back rooms were nine by 11 feet with
the ceiling height being around 8 feet.
By the 1870s Sydney had a population of 135,000 people. This had increased by 1889 when Sydney had a
population of 360,000 residents and Melbourne with 420,000 residents and were
the largest cities in Australia. All major Australian cities apart from
Adelaide had a lack of sewerage.
In 1876, a report made by the Sydney City and Suburban
Sewerage and Health Board found the worst form of overcrowding to be the
closely packed rows of badly constructed tenements and the back of the large
dwellings in courts and lanes leading out of the main streets. They lacked
ventilation as they were closely packed together. The Board wanted an amended building
act to include proper drainage, size of yards as examples. The members of the
Board were in two or thee groups wandering through the city looking at the
slums off the main streets. They found the worst cases of overcrowding in the
formerly named Broughan Place now known as Rowe street between Pitt and Castlereagh
streets. The committee entered several houses and one occupied by a cab driver
named Ryan in Abercrombie Lane, they found on one floor husband and wife both
who were drunk with several children all in a filthy state. Upstairs they found
two women in an equally filthy state. The building was not ventilated and the
committee members were swarmed by fleas after entering the kitchen, they made a
hasty retreat from the building.
A lot of the houses were so run down with a patchwork
of materials that were put together, white ants had attacked the buildings
making them a hazard. The Committee Board reported their findings they had
found a lot of houses had little to no ventilation, many were made of early
colonial timbers now rotten. The Board members pointed out that if anyone
wondered how long the material lasted, the buildings were a good place as any
to observe the date of when the houses were constructed.
Sydney City and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board
Committee reported that the drainage in Sydney in a wretchedly defective state
and in an urgent need for complete system of underground sewers. They found lot
of the buildings they had visited, the drainage went out into the street. They
also found that the smell was unbearable especially when the dwellings had bad
ventilation.
In 1877 the city building surveyor Edward Bradridge
drafted a City Improvement Bill even though the colonial government wasn’t
interested in cleaning up the slum areas. The Sydney City and Suburban
Sewerage and Health Board wanted to have the authority to condemn and knockdown
buildings they thought unsafe and they didn’t at the time to have the power to
do so. When a select committee was formed in the Legislative council, they took
advice from city builders and architects. The city of Sydney improvement act
was passed in 1879, but the council and government who had formed an
improvement board, both shared power, This didn’t please either group as they
argued that one or the other was obstructing them in the role to remove slums.
In 1900 the black plague arrived in Sydney. Arthur Payne
collapsed from unknown causes, a doctor from the health board by the name of
John Ashburton Thompson happened to be the president and medical chief officer.
(marker poorly worded) The doctor made an examination of Arthur and found a
mark on the ankle that looked to be a puncture mark made by something
such as a flea. A committee discovered that in the slum areas in Sydney there
were swarms of fleas mainly on the bodies of giant well nourished rats. Dr
Thompson said there were at least 100,000 people that lived in the right
conditions for an outbreak of the plague. Although the doctor had been correct about
how the plague was bought about by the flea being transported by the ratr, the
Victorian science at the time was unsure if the illness travelled through the
air, water or by touch. One of Dr Thompson’s colleagues inspected the wharves
where there had been reports of dead rats on the eastern side of Darling
Harbour. When WG Armstrong inspected and told the wharf owners what they should
clean up. Some time later Dr John Thompson toured the area and found the wharf owners had
done nothing in cleaning up the refuse. There were one hundred and three deaths
from the first attack of the plague and the health board set about cleaning up
the area and cleansing the filth. By the end of March, the government took
action and closed off whole blocks to be cleaned. The ramshackle makeshift
buildings were pulled down. Approximately 4000 houses were inspected and cleansed.
There were several small outbreaks in the years after the first outbreak and by
1907, the authorities seemed to be taking heed of Dr Thompason’s last report in
keeping man and rat separate by improving the construction of buildings.
The condition of housing and the general works like
water and waste disposal wasn’t just the problem for property owners, it was
also on the local government as well. Several departments were fighting over
who had the power to remedy the situation. This lead to the outbreak of the
black plague in the 1900’s where a doctor had made the correct diagnosis and
was basically waved off by those higher up who likely had agendas of their own.
Anyone researching into the finer details of a city such as Sydney today
wouldn’t know the living conditions were extremely bad in the 1900s and
earlier. The black plague wasn’t the only disease that was around during the
1900 outbreak. Smallpox, typhoid and measles appeared especially when the
conditions were right. A doctor in 1877 by the name of Sir Thomas Watson
commented the diseases were a contagion and preventable yet the Sydney Morning
Herald shot him down not believing a word he said.
What people usually research would be the people of
the city and not how they lived and those that lived in virtual squalor off the
main streets of the city of Sydney. The privileged person in the era of time
wouldn’t have known either until people such as city councillors toured areas
with their own eyes and written reports on the living status of those who
resided in the slum areas. Building regulations were unheard of at the time
when people lived in termite infested buildings that could fall down. Todays
standard where we have modernised facilities like regular waste disposal like
garbage collection. When modern conveniences are disrupted like phone lines cut
or powerlines bought down they are restored within a couple of days if not
sooner.
Additional information
Some of those who died in the black plague in 1900
Sydney can be found in some of the cemeteries in North Head Sydney. These are
known as Quarantine cemeteries and interesting places to visit.
The Rocks have locations where there were health
issues like plagues are marked with plaques. There are walking tours and the
YHA has a museum under it of what conditions were like.
Some of the slum areas were in Paddington, Redfern, Waterloo
and so on. There are interesting sources to read up on and even see pictures
online. The Police and Justice museum in Sydney has information about crime in
Sydney.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
