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above is Bennett's slaughtering and tallow works... Offal in all stages of corruption, from the
pluck quite fresh, to the rank putrefaction of slime and coagulation, giving off deadly gases... is
spread out to an appalling extent.'
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thousand, but without a hospital... a city of wealth, but without a single grammar school, high
school or college; a city of harsh sounds, but without a peal of bells.1
Nonetheless, the Mayor, James Cuming, jovial and bearded former farrier and bonemill owner,
determined that the new citizens of Footscray would enjoy themselves, largely at his own
expense. Ten special trains took 4,000 sweating schoolchildren, teachers, parents and friends to
a picnic at Bacchus Marsh on a very hot day (100 F in the shade). 400 workmen - with
Richard Honeycombe and his son Richard among them? - were then treated to a beer-swilling
social. Finally, the English Governor of Victoria, Lord Hopetown, who was 30, was invited to
lead a procession of dignitaries through the streets and then attend a civic banquet and ball,
where he graciously, and tactfully, said: 'Many parts of Melbourne are attractive, such as Collins
Street, and such aristocratic suburbs as St Kilda. But I would like to know where Collins Street
and St Kilda would be, were it not for manufacturing districts like this? I might compare them to
a tree with the roots cut away. The workers of the land form the foundation of a country's weal,
and give life and prosperity to the whole.'
Loud cheers from corpulent, bearded factory owners greeted this remark: they were generally
convinced that they and their workers had never had it so good. But there was a spectre at that
feast that April night, whose face and presence would be fully seen and felt two years later.
On an April day in 1893, a woman hurried into a Yarraville shop. 'The bank's broke!' she cried
and collapsed. A little girl, Gertie, who was there, wondered how a bank could break. So did
many others when they heard that the Commercial Bank had closed. It was, according to local
historian, John Lack, 'the nadir of a two-year plunge into the deepest depression in Victoria's
history'.
Great Events in Australia's History succinctly describes how this came about.
'The long boom which began with the gold rushes of the 1850's lasted nearly 40 years. In that
time the population increased ninefold, and local industry began to meet half of Australia's
demand for manufactured goods. More land than ever before went under cultivation, and
innovations like wire fences, irrigation and improved machinery, ensured that it was better
farmed. Large amounts of British Capital had come into the country to support an expansion of
railway systems, a construction boom, and speculation in urban land and in the mining and
pastoral industries... The boom ended in the late 1880's. A severe drought in 1888, coupled
with overstocking on marginal lands, plagues of introduced pests [like rabbits] and plants, and a
drop in the wool price, meant that the rural sector declined rapidly. More importantly, in 1889
British bankers ceased lending to Australia. Colonial governments drastically cut back spending
on all public works, throwing thousands out of work. Although British funds represented no
more than a third of deposits in the banks, these withdrawals sparked a panic as local investors
rushed to withdraw their money. In Melbourne, the financial capital of Australia, the effects of
the depression
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were most devastatingly felt. Eight banks closed; fortunes and life savings were lost... As the
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