HISTORIES OF IMMIGRANT AUSTRALIA
- Summary
Subsequent to on site study in Williamstown (9 August 2013) and analysis of primary and secondary historical sources, this report imply that most of the existing nineteenth century edifices of Williamstown correlate to an era following the mass migration of the Gold Rush period.
Nevertheless, whilst subjective buildings may not expound or reinforce attributes of the immigrant, when taken jointly and measured in connection to the general waterfront landscape they do give some obvious understanding of the immigrants’ experiences. They also display the need of colonial Victoria to hastily structure community and social life so as to combat the disorder and mayhem of the earliest wave of gold emigrants.
As a discovery, all of the sites measured here amount to our understanding of migration whilst questioning various attributes of what we read from written sources.
- Background
There has been dynamics in the environment of the Williamstown waterfront in last 160 years. It was one of the key places at which the Gold Rush immigrants crossed the threshold of Victoria. Various structures still exist from the period of the gold rush migration: they include hotels or jetties, public buildings and piers (Field Trip: 2013).
On the contrary to the written records, they reflect a more structured and ordered community than existed in the gold rush period (khan, 2002:p213).
Nevertheless, they can be read in provisions of immigrant security and health and with some comprehensive examination and reflections on written records they can provide us a sense of the skills of the immigrants paralleling the sentiments by Doust about the constructing of immigrant life after the initial settling in experience (Doust: 2008:p38).
If we view these as fundamentals in a wider landscape soon than as isolated single edifice the logic of bureaucratic and confusion unawareness is manifested. Considering the buildings and the written sources, there is some sense why there was chaos on the first immigrant and why later there was order upon the arrival of the second group.
2. Sites
2.1 The Timeball Tower Point Gellibrand
The Timeball Tower Point Gellibrand is one of the areas you can mirror the attributes of the 1850’s immigration as beyond Williamstown, the railway line has been closed with the buildings constructed here in the twentieth century demolished. The barren open area of the point does give a clear manifestation of what awaited immigrants (Doust, 2008:p38).
The Timeball Tower was the only visible building in the 1850s. Presently, it stands in isolation on the points (Victoria Heritage Database). It is made for shipping and creates a strong contrast on which immigrants were dumped as they landed to the open space (Doust, 2008:p38). There was void of services to the new arrivals: the one building for shipping and the open land with no buildings for immigrants explained it all (observations field trip 2013).
- Prince of Wales Hotel
The prince of Wales hotel situated in Nelson Place was Originally or rather initially built in the 19 century in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty seven(1857), probably to a customize by Charles Laing (masterpiece), this is one of the earliest hotels and public buildings in Williamstown. It was first owned by a prominent colonial surgeon- surgeon John Wilkins. Presently it is in use, occupied by the Titanic Theatre Restaurant (Doust, 2008:p38).
Standing at the Williamstown’s threshold from Point Gellibrand the hotel would have presented some logic of civilization and familiar British attribute to immigrants (Doust, 2008:p38). It signifies English community life. Nevertheless, the few gold rush migrants who could use the facility (hotel) in the wide mass may have encountered this not others. It is an 1857 edifice and has a small number of decorations and it is less grand than later facilities (hotels and public buildings).
It is nonetheless a symbol of the life of the waterfront which continued in and around hotels. There is a logic of the hostility of the port and maybe when related to the drinking fountain in Commonwealth reserve tells us about the worries we have seen in the media about the reason to make the Golden period immigrants into settled ‘reputable ‘local sooner than disorderly nomadic diggers. Campbell’s examination of Irish immigration also mirrors the task of immigrants and their social networks but does not mirror on the more unruly side of emigrant endeavors. This hotel mirrors some of the less ‘reputable’ attributes of immigrant experiences (Campbell, 2002:p45).
2.3 The Williamstown Morgue
Currently located in the old Port of Melbourne Authority site, the previous mortuary is one of Williamstown's oldest structures, vital architecturally but more particularly for its responsibility in history of Williamstown. The Georgian style edifice is considered to be the earliest morgue erected in Victoria (at its initial location nigh Gem Pier in 1859) and was made in bluestone with prisoner labor. The edifice was later repositioned thrice. Access to the Mortuary is given by Lantern Ghost Tours in a 1.5 hour significant ghost tour (Campbell, 2002:p45).
This small bluestone building is a reminder of the troubles facing migrants. Only a small building there is nothing stylish in it rather it is a dark dismal simple building, it indicates just how basic life was for various gold period immigrants. It shows that the immigrants were subjected to all kinds of dangers. As federal building it also mirrors the growing task of the nation in managing and ordering the activities and the endeavors of immigrant.
Following the Passenger Acts colonial authority and their migration agents were obliged to take more of the protection in board shipping into relation and quality of life (Argus 7 September 1857, p.5; reference week 2).
3. Discussion
Robins ‘Article (1968) on the Irish Orphan Girls mirrors on some of these problems where the colonial authorities believed that they could bring out women to civilize the community and lost their tempers( angered) when they discovered the true background of migrant Irish orphans. Williamstown mirrors some of the means immigration was used to educate and civilize the gold migrants.
Accountably, these buildings give logic of place in Williamstown in the 1850s (can make on to picture how the place looked like and the practices that were carried out.). They are national commercial buildings and when taken jointly the pub, morgue and open landscape can be seen as mirroring the hostility of the digging rush, the insecurity of immigrants and the manner in which government authority had to take an interest in their welfare and security. They did so by examining any key crises on board ships, including the deaths of passengers. In a nutshell, they tried to reinforce what’s in the written sources.
References
Caldwell, R. (2007). The gold era of Victoria: being the present and future of the colony in its commercial, statistical, and social aspects. New York: W.S. Orr and Co.
Conrad, S. (2010). Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kahn, A. F. (2002). Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush: A Documentary History, 1849-1880. New York: Wayne State University Press.
Lewis, O. (2007). Sea Routes to the Gold Fields - The Migration by Water to California in 1849-1852. New York: Read Books.
Paul Lynch, A. M. (2011). Hospitality: A Social Lens. New York: Routledge.
Pierce, P. (2009). The Cambridge History of Australian Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Doust, J ‘Two English immigrant families in Australia in the 19th century’, The history of the Family, 2008, vol:
Campbell, M. ‘Ireland’s furthest shores: Irish immigrant settlement in nineteenth-century California and Eastern Australia’, Pacific Historical Review, vol. 71 no. 1, February 2002: 59-90
Robins, J.A. ‘Irish Orphan Emigration to Australia, 1848-1850’, Studies, vol 57 no 226 Winter 1968: 372-387
