Respectable, Sober, and Industrious? Attitudes to Alcohol in Early Colonial Adelaide.1

Labour History

Volumn , Issue 70, 1996, Pages 131-155

  Adair, Daryl ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0346958919     PISSN: 00236942     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3828/27516413     Document Type: Article

References (127)

1. This paper has benefited from comments by Wray Vamplew, Brian Dickey, Terry Irving, and two anonymous referees acting on behalf of Labour History.
2. E. Richards, 'The Peopling of South Australia', in E. Richards (ed), The Flinders History of South Australia: Social History, Adelaide, 1986,117-122.
3. D. Pike, Paradise of Dissent: South Australia 1829-57, 2nd ed, Melbourne, 1967,151.
4. See S.G. and O. Chacklands (eds), The Poor Law Report, 1833, London, 1973.
5. . The South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register (hereafter Colonial Register), 12 August 1837. The rhetoric of sobriety, industry, and respectability was repeated by many popularisers of the new colony. See, for example, C.J. Napier, Colonisation, Particularly in South Australia, London, 1835.
6. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 150-155.
7. A.W. Metcalfe, For Freedom and Dignity: Historical Agency and Class Structures in the Coalfields of NSW, Sydney, 1988.
8. J. Walvin, Leisure and Society 1830-1950, New York, 1978, 33.
9. B. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815-1872, London, 1971, 37-45.
10. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, 37-39, 64-86.
11. P. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830-1885, London, 1978,18-55; A. E. Dingle, The Campaign for Prohibition in Victorian England, London, 1980, 7-35; B. Harrison, 'Pubs', in H. Dyos and M. Wolff (eds), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, Vol 1, London, 1973, 161-190; W. Vamplew, Pay up and Play the Game: Professional Sport in Britain 1875-1914, Cambridge, 1988, 44-50; and Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, passim.
12. Bailey, Leisure and Class, 9. The centrality of the public house in the social life of British towns and villages has a long history. See K. Wrightson, 'Alehouses, Order and Reformation in Rural England, 1590-1660', in E. and S. Yeo (eds), Popular Culture and Class Conflict 1590-1914, Sussex, 1981,1-27; and the 1930s ethnographic study by Mass Observation, The Pub and the People, rev ed, London, 1987 [1943].
13. Tabled in Votes and Proceedings, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1856-57, vol. 4,1170 (italics in the original). This was a standard form applying to all Australian colonies.
14. For example, in 1839, bill posters advertised a free lecture at the King's Head Inn, Chacewater, by Mr I. Latimer, emigration agent for South Australia, who would explain 'principles of colonisation'. Poster issued by Isaac Latimer, 'Emigration to South Australia', Mortlock Library of South Australiana (hereafter SSLM), D 6029/18 (L), 1839.
15. Isaac Latimer, 'Free Emigration to Port Adelaide, South Australia; An Opportunity Now Offers', SSLM, D 6029/15 L, 1839.
16. On the other hand, because of the economic and social interdependency of publicans and patrons, there may have been opportunities for bribery, or at the very least conflicts of interest, if an intending emigrant sought a reference from the local publican. I thank Wray Vamplew for suggesting this point.
17. This, in part, explains why emigration to South Australia was not a popular decision. Less than three per cent of the total emigrants from the British Isles journeyed to South Australia between 1836 and 1851. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 149,150,155.
18. H.R. Woolcock, Rights of Passage: Emigration to Australia in the Nineteenth Century, New York, 1978,120-122.
19. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 158-162.
20. Woolcock, Rights of Passage, 137, 139.
21. Stephens to Wheeler, 9 July 1835; quoted in Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 161.
22. Woolcock, Rights of Passage, 82-113, 317-318; E. Kwan, Living in South Australia: A Social History. Vol 1, Adelaide, 1987,14-18.
23. Walvin, Leisure and Society, 38-39; Kwan, Living in South Australia, 14-18.
24. Robert Gouger, Diaries and Miscellaneous Papers, SSLM PRG 52; quoted in Kwan, Living in South Australia, 14.
25. E.K. Thomas (ed), The Diary and Letters of Mary Thomas (1836-1866) Being a Record of the Early Days of South Australia, third ed, Adelaide 1925; quoted in Kwan, Living in South Australia, 14-15.
26. W.H. Leigh, Travels and Adventures in South Australia 1836-38, [London 1839], facsimile ed, Milson's Point NSW, 1982,112.
27. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 158-161.
28. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 162. The fines were £5 for a first offence, and £20 for a second offence. For examples of charges laid, see South Australian Register (hereafter Register), 13 and 23 February 1850; and CSO, Letters Received, Public Records Office of South Australia (hereafter PROSA), GRG 24/6/A (1850) 2692.
29. In Adelaide there were complaints about the difficulty of proving such sales had taken place, with offending ship captains therefore avoiding a penalty. See, as examples, CSO, Letters Received, PROSA, GRG 24/6/A (1850) 1334,1822, 2691; and CSO, Letters Sent, PROSA, GRG 24/4/M (1846) 151, GRG 24/4/R (1850) 465.
30. Quoted in Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 161.
31. Quoted in D. Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, Adelaide, 1985,
32. For statistical records, see South Australian Government Gazettes.
33. A. Painter, 'Coopers and the Brewing Industry in South Australia 1862-1923', BA thesis, The Flinders University of South Australia, 1984, 21. This was also true of governments in the eastern colonies. See M. Roe, Quest for Authority in Eastern Australia, 1835-1851, Melbourne, 1965,170.
34. Colonial Register, 29 July 1837. Young agrees that, historically, duties on alcohol and licensing laws have been intended principally to raise government revenue, not reduce drunkenness. P.F. Young, A Review into the Liquor Licensing Laws of South Australia, Adelaide, 1984, 36-37.
35. R. Clyne, Colonial Blue: A History of the South Australian Police Force, 1836-1916, Adelaide, 1987,1-2.
36. Quoted in Clyne, Colonial Blue, 1.
37. The marines had originally been instructed to return to London, but they stayed until Hindmarsh's departure in March 1838. Clyne, Colonial Blue, 2..
38. For complaints about this, see E. Hasenohr, W.H. Gray: A Pioneer Colonist of South Australia, Adelaide, 1977, 24; J.W. Bull, Early Experiences of Life in South Australia and an Extended Colonial History, 2nd ed, Adelaide, 1884, 26-28; and the views of George Stevenson, Governor Hindmarsh's secretary, reported in Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 11.
39. See Bull, Early Experiences, 57.
40. Clyne, Colonial Blue, xix. For a contemporary account of crime and policing, see the reminiscences of Alexander Tolmer, Commissioner of Police in South Australia, 1852-1853 in M. Tonkin (ed), Some Adventures of Alexander Tolmer in Colonial South Australia 1840-1856, Adelaide, 1985.
41. Clyne, Colonial Blue, 29.
42. Colonial Secretary to High Constable, 5 January 1837, CSO Letters Sent, PROSA GRG 24/4/B (1837) 7/8.
43. Clyne, Colonial Blue, 2.
44. South Australian Statutes, Act No. 4,1837.
45. J.L. Hoad, Hotels and Publicans in South Australia, Adelaide, 1986, Part 1, 1.
46. J.L. Hoad, South Australian Hotel Records Prior to 21 February 1839, Gumeracha, 1988, 18-22.
47. Register of Publicans' Licences, 1837-38. PROSA GRG 45/13/1. This information is reprinted in Hoad, South Australian Hotel Records, 18-21. It is worth noting that Hack was a Quaker and founding member of the associated 'Society of Friends' in North Adelaide. PA. Nagel, A Social History of North Adelaide 1837-1901, Adelaide, 1974, 14. While Quakers did not necessarily advocate total abstinence from alcohol, they were generally sympathetic to the temperance cause. Indeed, one of the first temperance societies in Australia was founded by Quaker missionaries in Hobart in 1832. Roe, Quest for Authority, 165. Hack's endorsement therefore suggests a determination to ensure that the public house trade involved reputable conduct by licensees.
48. South Australian Statutes, Act No. 11839; E.J. Thomas, 'History of South Australian Licensing Legislation', Public Service Review, March 1930, 23; Young, A Review into the Liquor Licensing Laws of South Australia, 25, and Hoad, Hotels and Publicans, Part I, 1.
49. See D. Adair, '"Respectable, Sober and Industrious": A Social History of Public Houses and Alcohol in Early Colonial Adelaide, 1836-C.1870', BA thesis, The Flinders University of South Australia, 1989, 59-107; and D. Adair, 'Public-house Sports', in W. Vamplew, K. Moore, J. O'Hara, R. Cashman, and I. Jobling (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport, Melbourne, 1992, 282-283. The multi-functional role of public houses will be the subject of a further paper by this author. For the period post-1870 in Adelaide, see A. Painter, 'Hotels', in B. Dickey (ed), William Shakespeare's Adelaide 1860-1930, Adelaide, 1992, 87-105.
50. Colonial Register, 14 September 1839; Mercury and South Australian Sporting Chronicle, 17 Novemer 1849.
51. These included Buck's Head Family Hotel, North terrace; and Doran's Family Hotel in Currie street. In addition, the present-day Criterion Hotel in King William street began as the Family hotel between 1857 to 1863; and the current Duke of York hotel in Currie street was also known as the Family hotel from 1857 to 1900. Hoad, Hotels and Publicans, Part III, 81,140,169, 283.
52. See the advertisement for the Port Hotel in the Southern Australian, 10 November 1838.
53. A.E. Dingle, 'Drink and Drinking in Nineteenth Century Australia: A Statistical Commentary', Monash Papers in Economic History, no. 6,1978, 2.
54. Young, A Review into the Liquor Licensing Laws of South Australia, 363.
55. Like women who ran boarding-houses and hostels, female publicans had an economic and social responsibility which was unusual for women in this period. While many of them became licensees after the death of a husband, several women were awarded licences in their own right. Adair, 'Respectable, Sober and Industrious', 44-45.
56. S. Horan, 'More Sinned Against than Sinning? Prostitution in South Australia: 1836-1914', BA thesis, The Flinders University of South Australia, 1978, 22. See also S. Horan, "'More Sinned Against Than Sinning?"', in K. Daniels (ed), So Much Hard Work: Women and Prostitution in Australian History, Sydney, 1984, 87-126; and C. Nance, 'Women, Public Morality and Prostitution in Early South Australia', Push From the Bush, no. 3, May 1979, 33-43.
57. Painter, 'Hotels', 88. See advertisements in the Register, 24 January 1844. For discussions of brewing in Adelaide, see A. Painter, Jolly Good Ale and Old: The History of Coopers Brewery 1862-1987, Adelaide, 1987; and M.H. Ward, 'Some Brief Records of Brewing in South Australia', Pioneers Association of South Australia, no. 5,1950-51,1-22.
58. Register, 13 January 1843.
59. Painter, 'Hotels', 88.
60. Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 73.
61. H. Hussey, More Than Haifa Century of Colonial Life and Christian Experience, Adelaide, 1897,61..
62. For example, in 1849 the 'Carrara Water Machine' was available in forty-four (out of eighty-eight) taverns in the city of Adelaide, and fifty-two inns in the outer villages. Mercury and South Australian Sporting Chronicle, 17 Nov. 1849.1 have not found complaints about the quality of carbonated soft drinks in Adelaide, unlike Sydney, where the Select Committee on Intemperance was told by a medical practitioner that ginger beer and lemonade were 'doctored' with alum and sulphuric acid. A. W Martin, 'Drink and Deviance in Sydney: Investigating Intemperance, 1854-5', Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 68, 354-55.
63. For example, the Maid and Magpie Hotel, Stepney, advertised 'Tea Gardens' in the 1870s. SSLM LOC 252 B 11591.
64. C.G. Kerr, 'A Exelent Coliney': The Practical Idealists of1836-1846, Adelaide, 1978, 65.
65. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 200; Kerr, 'A Exelent Coliney', 121; Hoad, Hotels and Publicans, Part III, 10, 592.
66. 'Extracts from the Reminiscences of the Hon. Boyle Travers Finniss', SSLM 1071, 7-8. For similar evidence in New South Wales, see Roe, Quest for Authority in Eastern Australia, 171.
67. T. Griffiths (ed), The Life and Adventures of Edward Snell, North Ryde NSW, 1988, 100.
68. G. Hamilton, Experiences of a Colonist Forty Years Ago, 2nd ed, Adelaide, 1880, 13.
69. E. Richards, 'Immigrant Lives', in Richards (ed), Flinders History of South Australia, 143-154.
70. Quoted in Kerr, 'A Exelent Coliney', 73.
71. Quoted in Bull, Early Experiences, 56-57.
72. Quoted in Richards, 'Immigrant Lives', 144. Note also J.W. Bull's labourer who, after being paid a lump sum wage, arranged with some mates to meet at a public house and 'have a spree' with his earnings. Bull, Early Experiences, 151.
73. Hoad, Hotels and Publicans, Part III, 138.
74. T. Hardeman, 'Reminiscences of Mr Thos, Hardeman's Colonial Life', n.d., SSLM D5661 (L), handwritten, no page numbers..
75. Hardeman, 'Reminiscences'.
76. Extract from a letter dated 6 May 1840 published in the South Australian Record, 21 November 1840, written by 'A Gentleman of High Honour and Integrity'; cited in J. McLellan Papers, SSLM PRG 195.
77. Painter, 'Hotels', 91.
78. S. Garton, '"Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard": Social Reform and the Problem of "Habitual Drunkenness" in Australia, 1880-1914', Labour History, no. 53, November 1987, 38.
79. For discussions of early anti-drink campaigns in other colonies, see Roe, Quest for Authority in Eastern Australia, 165-190; E. Windschuttle, 'Women, Class and Temperance: Moral Reform in Eastern Australia 1832-1857', Push From the Bush, no. 3, May 1979, 5-25; and R. Kilner, 'Temperance and the Liquor Question in Tasmania in the 1850s', Tasmanian Historical Research Association: Papers and Proceedings, vol. 20, no. 2, June 1973, 82-97. For temperance campaigns in the later colonial period, see S.E. Close, 'Social Attitudes to Liquor and Liquor Legislation in South Australia, 1876-1917', BA thesis, The University of Adelaide, 1961; A. Hyslop, 'Temperance, Christianity and Feminism: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria, 1887-1897', Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 66, April 1976, 27-49; and Garton, 'Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard', 38-53.
80. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 512. Unfortunately there are no official records for this group, but there are twenty-three newspaper references to the society from 1840 to 1848. These include notices of meetings to be held and, particularly in the Register, didactic commentary. See the index to PROSA GRG 24/4 AND 24/6. The society did, however, continue beyond 1848.
81. Register, 4 July 1849, 7 January 1850, and 2 January 1851, cited in Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 512.
82. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 512.
83. Observer, 20 June 1861, cited in M. Hardy and M. Blackburn, 'A History of the Woodville District to 1974', SSLM 'V 1395,110.
84. Particularly John Stephens in the Register and Observer, and James Allen in the Times. See Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 512; and Hussey, Colonial Life and Christian Experience, 78-79.
85. The South Australian Temperance Advocate, Vol. 1, no. 1, July 1841, SSLM 'Z' Pamphlet 178,1-8. It is not known how long the journal continued, as the only surviving edition is the first.
86. Temperance Advocate, 2-3.
87. Nance, 'Women, Public Morality and Prostitution', 33-34; Windschuttle, 'Women, Class and Temperance', 13-17, 21; Kilner, 'Temperance and the Liquor Question in Tasmania in the 1850s', 85.
88. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 512.
89. A. Hunt, This Side of Heaven, Adelaide, 1985,189.
90. Garton, 'Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard', 38. But there were temperance advocates in local government and parliament, including G.W. Cole, J.B. Neales, and Tommy 'Teapot' Reynolds. See K.K. Donoghue, 'The Constitutional and Administrative Development of South Australia from Responsible Government to Strangway's Act of 1868', MA thesis, The University of Adelaide, 1950, 89-90; and Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 472.
91. Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 165, 187.
92. Garton, 'Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard', 45.
93. B. Dickey, Rations, Residence, Resources: A History of Social Welfare in South Australia From 1836, Adelaide, 1986, 28-30, 38.
94. Garton, 'Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard', 38-53.
95. J.B. Sheridan and J.W. Bakewell (eds), South Australia: The Magistrates Guide, Adelaide, 1879, 390-91.
96. South Australian Statutes, Act No. 1 of 1839. This was aside from officially sanctioned boxing and wrestling contests.
97. Police — Report on the Conduct of Hotels in the City of Adelaide, 1852-54, PROSA GRG 5/15, 25 January 1853, 28 January 1853, and 2 February 1853.
98. South Australian Statutes, Act No. 9 of 1863, Clause 57. The penalty for a first offence was £10, a second offence was £20, while a third transgression could mean loss of licence.
99. South Australian Statutes, Act No. 1 of 1839, Clause 26. For a discussion of the 'tippling clause', see Young, A Review into the Liquor Licensing Laws of South Australia, 584-585. The significant point was that debts could only be legally recovered if they were 'bona fide contracted at one time to the amount of twenty shillings or upwards'.
100. Sheridan and Bakewell, South Australia: The Magistrates Guide, 391-92.
101. Colonial Register, 12 August 1837. This prohibition on the sale of alcohol to Aborigines continued to 1965. Young, A Review into the Liquor Licensing Laws of South Australia, 26,189-194.
102. See, for example, an account of sailors from the Buffalo who dressed Aborigines in colonial garb, plying them with tobacco and grog. Bull, Early Experiences, 36.
103. For example, in the local court at Goolwa on 25 July 1860 George East was convicted of supplying spirits to two aborigines, and fined £1. Register, 4 July 1860.
104. For example, Jim Crow, a 'native', was charged in the Adelaide Police Court with being drunk and disorderly. He was fined 2/6 and, in default of payment, 24 hours imprisonmnt. Adelaide Police Court Minutes, 1847-1936, PROSA GRG 65/1/1,19 April 1847.
105. This is true also of historians of drink. Compare, for example, Dunstan's celebratory account of beer in Australian culture, with Whitlock's critical discussion of alcoholism and drink-induced violence. K. Dunstan, The Anther Nectar: A Celebration of Beer and Brewing in Australia, Melbourne, 1987; and F.A. Whitlock, Drugs: Drinking and Recreational Drug Use in Australia, Melbourne, 1980.
106. Martin, 'Drink and Deviance in Sydney', 342-360.
107. Government Gazettes, while listing revenue from imported alcohol, did not consistently provide details of the quantity and types of imported drink. Moreover, there are no reliable records for beer production before 1894. Painter, 'Coopers and the Brewing Industry', 21.
108. The basic wage for a police officer in New South Wales was less than half that paid to a mechanic, so there was a powerful economic rationale for police to increase their earnings through arrests. Consequently, police surveillance of hotel surrounds increased, with constables more likely to arrest rather than caution those accused of drunkenness. Indeed, there were accusations that police misrepresented conviviality as drunkenness. M. Sturma, 'Police and Drunkards in Sydney, 1841-1851', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 27, no. 1,1981, 48-56. A South Australian Police Reward Fund was initiated in the 1840s, but there were no rewards relating to petty offences like drunkenness. Clyne, Colonial Blue, 91, 93.
109. Nance, 'Women, Public Morality and Prostitution', 35.
110. South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 1846-1855.
111. S.K. Mukherjee, A. Scandia, D. Dagger, and W. Matthews (eds), Source Book of Australian Criminal and Social Statistics 1804-1988, Canberra, 1989, 378, 423. Comparisons of convictions for drunkenness as against all other summary offences can only be made from 1859 on, because between 1856 and 1858 there are no statistics for the total number of convictions in magistrates courts.
112. W. Vamplew (ed), Australians: Historical Statistics, Broadway NSW, 1987, 26, 30. Mukherjee et al, Australian Criminal and Social Statistics, 423. Furthermore, this does not take into account the possibility of repeat offenders.
113. Adelaide Police Court Minutes, 1847-1936, PROSA GRG 65/1/1.
114. See minutes of a meeting of the Licensed Victuallers Association, reported in the Mercury and South Australian Sporting Chronicle, 14 September 1850.
115. For example, at the John Bull, Currie street on a Sunday: 'Door open and prostitutes drinking in the bar'. Police — Report on Conduct of Hotels, 6 Feb. 1853. Similarly, at the nearby Prince Albert, Currie street, on a Sunday, '4 men and two women were drinking and singing at the bar'. Police — Report on Conduct of Hotels, 8 January 1854.
116. See Mukherjee et al, Australian Criminal and Social Statistics, 281-83, 337-38, 374-75, 458-59.
117. In the next few years, however, the proportion of female convictions did fall considerably. Mukherjee et al, Australian Criminal and Social Statistics, 240.
118. For further discussions, see Garton, 'Once a Drunkard Always a Drunkard', 42, 49; and Windschuttle, 'Women, Class and Temperance', 17-18.
119. Hamilton, Experiences of a Colonist Forty Years Ago, 72.
120. See J. Stephens, The Land of Promise; Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia, London, 1839; and W. Smillie, The Great South Land: Four Articles on Emigration, Designed to Exhibit the Principles and Progress of the New Colony of South Australia, Adelaide, 1838.
121. For example, in 1845 there were forty-five public houses in Adelaide and Port Adelaide, with a further forty licensed premises in country areas. In the same year there were thirty-five houses of worship in the whole of South Australia. During the next twenty-five years the number of churches increased significantly, but they remained fewer than the public houses until the late 1860s. Register of Publicans' Licences, 1837-1870, PROSA GRG 45/13/1, 2, 3; South Australian Statistical Returns, 1840-55; South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 1856-1870. Detailed statistics are available on request from this author.
122. D. Hilliard and A. Hunt, 'Religion', in Richards (ed), Flinders History of South Australia, 200.
123. On settlement myths, see G. Davison, 'Cities and Ceremonies: Nationalism and Civic Ritual in Three New Lands', New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 24, no. 2, October 1990, 97-117. For studies that emphasise the contested nature of such claims to community and collective identity in Australia, see R. White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Sydney, 1981; and D. Adair, '"On Parade": Spectacle, Crowds, and Collective Loyalties in Australia, 1901-1938', PhD thesis, The Flinders University of South Australia, 1994. .
124. Quoted in Whitelock, Adelaide: A Sense of Difference, 45.
125. P. Howell, 'The South Australia Act, 1834', in D. Jaensch (ed), Flinders History of South Australia: Political History, Adelaide, 1986, 46-48; Richards, 'Peopling of South Australia', 121; and Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 151.
126. Pike, Paradise of Dissent, 153-54.
127. For a similar conclusion in another context, see T. Brennan, Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-century Paris, Princeton, 1988.