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at Collingwood, and her name was Jane Olive Clark. Jack was 21. His father, Richard, is again
apparently absent, Jack's brother, Thomas, acting as a witness. Although Jack's trade is given at
his marriage as 'mason', he had temporarily become a carpenter by the time the first of his five
children was born, on 16 December 1883, in North Fitzroy. From there the family moved to
North Carlton for a year or so and then to Footscray - from where Jack followed his older
brothers, Richard and Thomas, to South Africa. Unlike them he stayed there for many years; his
family joined him; and when his wife Jane died there in 1918 he returned to Australia.
Richard was the last of the four brothers to marry, and his marriage was preceded by that of a
younger sister, Harriet (known as Ettie) who married a carpenter and joiner, Joseph Steel, in
March 1883, when she was not yet 20. Joe Steel who was born in Ireland, was a railway-
engine stoker, who had wanted to be a policeman (according to Aunt Lil) but wasn't tall
enough. He and Ettie had ten children, one of whom, Florence, married Ernest Williams, a
footballer of some renown. Ettie, who was close to her sister, Louisa, was a bit of a wit; she
always had something to say. She would be sharp, but never cross.
Richard's bride was Fanny Mary Jones, who had been born in Collingwood and was a
domestic servant; she was 25. Her father was a brassfinisher. Dick was 28, a stonemason, and
lived in Barkly St, Footscray. Richard and Fanny, who were married in the Collingwood
Registrar's office on 1 February 1886, settled in Footscray - until he too went to South Africa.
Fanny remained in Footscray, at various addresses, throughout her married life and
widowhood, a total of 56 years. She and Richard had three daughters and one son, whose
descendants dwell in Melbourne to this day.
161
Some outsiders referred to Footscray as 'Stinkopolis', or - when the Council tried to change the
name to West Melbourne - as 'Worst Smelldom'.
It was almost as bad on land. Richard's house in Albert St was within sight and sound of the
Wiiliamstown railway line and less than a kilometre from the river.
John Lack, in A History of Footscray, writes: 'Virtually none of the streets, footpaths or rights of
way were formed, these tasks being left to municipal councils. By the late 1880's... only three of
some 200 streets had been metalled for their full width, one-third of the rights of way were
unmade, and two-thirds of the street channels [gutters] were neither paved nor properly
levelled. Footscray's residential areas simply stank. Stormwater, household slops and refuse,
and sewerage, seeped beneath houses or formed stagnant pools around them... Addressing
itself to the problem of nightsoil, Council slowly abolished cesspits and introduced a single-pan
system, arranging in 1887 for the emptying of closets at least once a week. But as neighbouring
shires refused until 1891 to allow the deposition of nightsoil, Footscray had perforce to retrench
it into the public reserves and gardens, themselves areas of non-porous soils. For years after,
urine and faeces festered at railway station privies, or drained into nearby streets and creeks.'
The death rate from typhoid was very high in 1887(11 out of 1,000) and nearly 60 percent of
children aged less than five died that year.
There was nonetheless a strong and proud community spirit, of the 'We can take it' kind. People
lived and worked locally and communally enjoyed themselves, mainly in pubs, at football and
the races; Aussie Rules Football had begun in 1858. Most were home-owners. For property
was fairly cheap - a four-room cottage with a large garden could be rented for 12 shillings a
week, or bought for less than £300. Although the roads and streets were poorly made and still
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