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Surviving widowhood: life alone in rural Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

GLENDA STRACHAN  and
LINDY HENDERSON
GLENDA STRACHAN
Affiliation:
Both of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia.
LINDY HENDERSON
Affiliation:
Both of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia.
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Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century in the remote farming district of Dungog in the colony of New South Wales on the Australian continent, widows faced harsh economic realities. Using civil registration records, census data, newspaper reports, statistical returns, family histories and other sources, we have, where possible, reconstructed the lives of these widows, particularly those with dependent children. This paper discusses the range of survival strategies used. It presents statistical evidence from official records, and adds vignettes of the lives of a handful of widows whose strategies can be explored more completely using additional historical sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 2008 , pp. 487 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

END NOTES

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16 See E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The population history of England 1541–1871 (Cambridge, 1981), and E. A. Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen and R. S. Schofield, English population history from family reconstitution 1580–1837 (Cambridge, 1997).

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23 For example, David Adams ed., The letters of Rachel Henning (Ringwood, Victoria, 1969).

24 Death certificates recorded the date and place of death, cause of death, duration of last illness and whether attended by a doctor, parents of the deceased, informant, when and where buried and the presiding clergy, birthplace, marriage(s), children born of all marriages (sometimes omitting deceased children).

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28 L. T. Ruzicka and J. L. Caldwell, The end of the demographic transition in Australia (Canberra, 1977), 34.

29 Ibid., 34.

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34 Barry Reay, Microhistories (Cambridge, 1997), chapter 1; Townsend, Valley, 81–8.

35 Glenda Strachan, Ellen Jordan and Hilary Carey, ‘Susannah and Elizabeth: the contributions of women to the resources of the Hunter region’, in Cynthia Hunter ed., Riverchange (Newcastle, 1998), 115–47.

36 New South Wales Parliamentary Papers, vol. 5 (1886), 227–55; John Fisher, ‘Land, labour and co-operation in the Williams Valley, New South Wales in the late Nineteenth Century,’ unpublished manuscript (n.d.) in the possession of the authors, 1–4.

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39 Strachan and Henderson, ‘Deaths in a rural community’.

40 Dribe, Lundh and Nystedt, ‘Widowhood strategies’.

41 New South Wales Legislative Assembly votes and proceedings, vol. V (1886), Appendix 2.

42 Alfred Yewen, Yewen's directory of the landholders of New South Wales (Sydney, 1900).

43 New South Wales Legislative Assembly votes and proceedings; Yewen's directory.

44 New South Wales Civil Registration Certificates of Births, Deaths and Marriages (see note 17 above).

45 Pine Brush is situated about equidistant from Dungog and Clarence Town. The birth of some of the children and Vincent's death were registered at Clarence Town. The New South Wales online historical index of births, deaths and marriages has supplemented the more detailed records obtained for the Dungog district; see www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/search.htm.

46 The census identified ‘head of household’ on the date of the census, and this was usually the husband and father. However, if he was absent for any reason, the wife and mother was usually designated ‘head of household’ for census purposes.

47 Dungog Chronicle, 21 April 1891.

48 Maitland Mercury, 16 January 1872.

49 Waugh's Australian almanac for the year 1861; The Australian almanac for the year 1868; Australian almanac for the year 1875; Moore's Australian almanac and handbook for 1880; Moore's almanac, 1884–6.

50 In 1879 Henry, aged 26, married Mary Ann. He erected new premises and expanded the store, dying in 1901 at the age of 48 (Dungog Chronicle, 24 September 1901).

51 Ibid., 25 October 1896.

52 Ibid., 7 June 1896; see the illustration of the house in Newcastle Herald, 27 July 2002.

53 New South Wales online historical index of births, deaths and marriages; see note 45 above.

54 Glenda Strachan, ‘The reproduction of labour power: the work of midwives and “handywomen” in rural New South Wales, 1850–1880’, in Robert Hood and Ray Markey eds., Labour and community: proceedings of the sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1999 (Wollongong, 1999), 170–5.

55 The Civil Registrations and Anglican Church parish registers are both used in this research: the civil marriage certificate in use for most of this period lacks the necessary information as the wrong form was gazetted.

56 Details from Civil Registration Certificates of Marriages, Dungog District, 1856–1910, and Anglican parish registers, 1854–1894.

57 New South Wales Civil Registration Certificates of Deaths; see also Strachan, Glenda, ‘Present at the birth: midwives, “handywomen” and neighbours in rural New South Wales, 1850–1900’, Labour History 81 (2001), 24Google Scholar.

58 New South Wales online historical index of births, deaths and marriages; see note 45 above. Names may be illegible in the original certificates and some individuals with names that occur commonly cannot be identified with certainty.

59 Strachan, ‘Settling the wet frontier’, 6.

60 Strachan, ‘The reproduction of labour power’, 173.

61 Moore, So the sun shines, 39–40.

62 Old Age Pension Act (NSW), 1900. There were strict means and behavioural conditions.

63 Strachan and Henderson, ‘Lost labourers’.

64 Strachan, Jordan and Carey, ‘Susannah and Elizabeth’.

65 A. W. McMinn, ‘James Murray 1928–1909’, Australian dictionary of biography, vol. 5 (Melbourne, 1974), 320–1; Stephen Garton, ‘Out of luck’: poor Australians and social welfare 1788–1988 (Sydney, 1990), 50; John Ramsland, Children of the backlanes: destitute and neglected children in colonial New South Wales (Sydney, 1986), 139.

66 Dungog Chronicle, 2 August 1898.

67 New South Wales online historical index of births, deaths and marriages; see note 45 above.

68 Wall, ‘Elderly widows and widowers’.

69 Townsend, Valley of the Crooked River, 148–9; Moore, So the sun shines.