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overhanging the street, stood on the wrong end, and fell, almost impaling himself on a fence.
Meanwhile, fetid Footscray became a city, proclaimed as such (because its annual revenue
exceeded £20,000) on 20 January 1891 - much to the Footscray Advertiser's disapproval and
disdain.
It said: The town has become a city certainly, according to its rating value, but it is a city without
a cathedral, a city of 45 public houses and a Mechanics' Institute of weatherboard, with a small
library, mostly yellow backs and about 100 subscribers; a city dreary in the extreme, with
hardly a single tree planted in its streets to relieve the monotony of the landscape; a city of
bone-mills, but no picture gallery, museum or statues; a city of 19,000 people, but without
bowling green or lawn tennis ground; a city of lodge members by the
164
We last saw Richard's father, Richard, in Nicholson St, where he earned his living as a grocer
until 1885.
The following year he reverted to being a stonemason and moved to 76 Albert St in Footscray,
with his wife and his oldest and youngest daughters, Elizabeth Jane (called Jane) and Louisa.
Both were unmarried: Jane would be 38 in 1886 and Louisa 21. Richard lived there for 40
years, outliving not just his wife but three of his sons.
The house, on the corner of Walter Street, faced east. Built of bluestone blocks, it had a slate
roof and an iron picket fence at the front. At the back were some fruit trees and an almond tree.
It isn't there now, having been destroyed when a tram depot was built.
Footscray was a filthy place in those days. It was the most highly industrialised district in
Melbourne, which at that time contained 40 percent of the population of Victoria - which was in
turn the most highly industrialised of the colonies. 45 percent of the workforce of Footscray
were in manufacturing; 16 percent in quarrying.
By 1886, nearly half of Melbourne's more smoky, pungent and offensive factories and other
establishments (known as the "noxious trades') were situated in and near treeless, swampy and
smelly Footscray - slaughterhouses, tanneries, boiling-down works, bone-millers, works dealing
with hides, skins and wool, and those that made soap, candles, glue and manure. Their tall
chimneys spewed smoke, and gallons of blood from abattoirs flowed into the Saltwater River
(now called the Maribyrnong), as did factory refuse of every kind. Not surprisingly, the
Melbourne Regatta was moved from the Saltwater River to the lake in Albert Park in 1886.
The Footscray Independent described an odorous outing on the river in 1887: 'At high tide
there is about a foot of water, and at low tide, the water is absent, and the substratum of five or
six feet of black seething mud is exposed to the action of sun and air. The water was black and
stinking, the banks covered deep with inky slime, with a most odious stench; bubbles of gas
were constantly rising with a rotten effluvia, and some small fish that had found their way into the
putrid waters were swimming, dead or dying, on the surface... Here comes in a large box drain,
with a stream of mingled blood, water, and offal in masses pouring into the river... A dead
sheep, swollen ready to burst, floats close in shore, and on the banks stand a couple of night
carts. The Apollo Candle Works... closet accommodation for all [200 employees] is set on the
bank of the river and fitted to discharge into its waters... Above the Railway Bridge... pieces of
rancid fat, paunches, lights, dead lambs, dogs, etc line the shores, that are burrowed in all
directions with the holes of water rats. The gut factory pours in a stream of excrement and gut
scrapings... Next, the glue works swamp the shore with hair and parings from hides... Just
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