Caroline Chisholm

by Sarah Goldman

  The second cause originated on the other side of the world. Just as the colony’s boom was reaching its zenith in the late 1830s, Britain’s economy sneezed and soon New South Wales caught cold. For mostly domestic reasons, the United Kingdom lurched into depression at the end of the 1830s, resulting in the colony’s trade with the homeland being slashed. During the seven years from 1833, New South Wales’s exports to Britain had increased on average each year by close to thirty per cent. In 1841 they fell by nine per cent; loans from back home were also called in, further draining colonial funds.21

  The third cause was beyond anyone’s control: drought. Lasting for some six years from 1837, it destroyed crops and livestock and sent the price of food soaring. Soon “wheat was at an enormous price in Sydney . . . twenty-seven shillings per bushel”.22 On Wednesday, 10 October 1838, The Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser wrote on its front page: “The dust is flying in clouds under the impetus of a parching wind . . . We are old hands, but we never heard of the owners deliberately killing the lambs because there was nothing to eat for the mothers . . . Mr Peters . . . out of 900 lambs has lost 600.”

  The combined fallout from these three devastating events was significant. Upwards of one thousand of the colony’s largest stockholders and merchants went bankrupt, along with at least two of Sydney’s banks. Thousands of sheep, the economic lifeblood of New South Wales, were “boiled down for tallow and fat on the outskirts of town”.23 With the colony teetering on the brink of financial disaster, the effects of the depression on the colony’s inhabitants were exacerbated by an influx of poor bounty immigrants, both men and women.

  In 1838, when Caroline took up residence, the drought was certainly causing some concern, but it was still only in its early days and the other ills were not yet apparent. One of the main reasons was the dilatory nature of communications: boats sailing between Sydney and Britain could take up to four months each way, so that by the time an official communiqué had been sent, a response decided upon and an answer given, the better part of a year could have elapsed, leaving both governments on either side of the world playing catch-up with the changing conditions.

  With the boom in the mid- to late 1830s, and knowing that London was planning to stop the transportation of convicts and, hence, the free supply of labour, squatters and farmers were crying out for workers. Sir George Gipps responded by applying for more free bounty immigrants to meet these needs, and, to counter the imbalance of the sexes, there was also an active decision by the Colonial Government to increase the numbers of women.24 For every fit and healthy female of good character they delivered to the colony of New South Wales, ships’ captains were paid a bounty of about £15 (worth $18,900 today). Some character references were real; others were forged by bounty agents.

  The trouble was that by the time the majority of free but poor and often unskilled bounty immigrants reached Sydney, the economy had turned; depression, unemployment and harsh conditions became the welcome mat laid out for their arrival. The increase of immigrants was staggering. Just over 6500 landed in 1840; by the next year, that number had risen to more than twenty thousand, in effect a surge of fifteen per cent of the total population of New South Wales. As Margaret Kiddle has pointed out, “Even without the depression, such a number would have been too great . . . to absorb quickly.”25

  In the spring of 1838, when Caroline arrived, there was barely an inkling of the impending trouble. Certainly Caroline saw disparity between rich and poor, but that would have seemed inevitable in such a society. Sometime in those first few weeks, for example, she and Archibald came across a group of Scottish Highland men, free immigrants who had been unable to find work. Their money was virtually gone, they were incapable of supporting themselves or their families, and their plight was exacerbated by their lack of English. Archibald spoke to them in Scottish Gaelic and, though it’s unclear whether it was his idea or Caroline’s, gave them some coinage. It was probably only a few shillings, but it wasn’t just a handout, it came with a business plan, a suggestion to the men to use part of the money to “purchase tools and wheelbarrows, whereby they might cut and sell fire-wood to the inhabitants”.26 This sounds very like Caroline. It was typical of the problem-solving in which she excelled and which was based on a commercial understanding rare among her sex at that time. Whilst concerned for the Highlanders’ immediate predicament, she was well aware that the only way to safeguard against lifelong poverty and destitution was to acquire marketable skills. It was the same strategy she had adopted in teaching household skills to her girls in India, and it was becoming her modus operandi.

  After a short stay in Sydney, Caroline and Archibald decided to settle in the country, choosing Windsor, some fifty-six kilometres to the northwest, along a dry and dusty tract of highway via Parramatta. This tollway was considered so dangerous that some coach drivers refused to travel by it.27 Bushrangers were also a very real threat, including one of the colony’s most notorious highwaymen, Jack Donohoe, otherwise known as the Wild Colonial Boy. To avoid these risks, the Chisholm family may well have taken the scenic route: a boat up the coast from Sydney to Pittwater then along the Hawkesbury River to Windsor. Steamers had become something of a familiar sight on that particular stretch of waterway, and provided the locals with everything from “sugar to shoes and from farm implements to haberdashery”; they were, indeed, the lifeblood of Windsor.28

  There’s no obvious explanation why Caroline and Archibald decided to live at Windsor. Perhaps, after the rigours of India, they both craved the peace and tranquillity of country life, and the matter of travelling a few miles along a major watercourse would have seemed of no great import. Moreover, the town would have been described to them as a well-established community with good homes, churches, schools, a police force and a courthouse. Windsor was probably the most successful of the five towns founded in the area by Governor Lachlan Macquarie about 1810 and developed as the colony’s breadbasket; in the 1830s fruit and vegetables replaced wheat as the main crops. By then there was also blood on the ground: the original inhabitants, the Darug people, had been mostly killed or pushed out and the area occupied by some eleven hundred white settlers.

  The family’s first Australian Christmas came and went. Children of India, the boys had not known a cold English yuletide, and would have found nothing strange in the heavy, hot, oppressive days or the relentless buzzing of cicadas and other insects. Maybe they listened without understanding as the grown-ups lamented icy windswept landscapes and freezing nights around warm, smoky fires or even the harsher winter climate of Archibald’s Highlands, with its snowdrifts, frozen rivers and long hours of darkness followed only by the weakest daylight.

  As 1839 waxed, little seemed to infiltrate the respite that Caroline and Archibald were enjoying from a troubled world. Having engaged a nanny for the boys, a Miss Galvin, they settled down to enjoy a halcyon period of family life. The only time reality intruded was on their trips into Sydney. Whenever rural serenity palled a little for the innately adventurous couple, Caroline and Archibald left the children and travelled to the town to socialise with their new friends. Once there, they became aware of the slow emptying out of the colony’s prosperity; and it was during these visits that Caroline witnessed firsthand the dreadful plight of growing numbers of young bounty girls, wandering the streets with few prospects.

  Although the girls were meant to travel to Australia under the aegis of a married woman, many of them had little real protection on board the boats, either during the journey or when the vessel docked. Once they arrived in Sydney, they were allowed to remain on their boat for ten days with full rations, but as well as legitimate employers, brothel owners and single men looking for short-term “housekeepers” were permitted to board the boats to engage either willing or unwary girls. Moreover, once the ten days were up, the girls were forced to go ashore. Unable to find lodgings, many walked the streets looking for honest work.

  As Caroline became increasingly disturbed by the p
redicament of these females, she started to bring a few back to Windsor, housing them until she found them local employment. At one point she had up to nine girls staying with the family.29

  In July 1839, an Australian child, a third son, Henry, was born to Caroline and Archibald in Windsor. Thereafter, the harmony of their recent reprieve was to be short-lived, and never really reoccur. At the end of the year, Archibald received orders to return to the subcontinent. He was needed there to help replace East India Company officers who were being sent to China, where Britain was engaged in a dispute that would go down in the history books as the Opium Wars. Britain had developed an unquenchable thirst for all things Chinese, particularly tea, and the Chinese had been more than happy to sell it to them, but only in exchange for silver. That had created a difficulty for the British traders because of the increased cost. Then the British had discovered and fuelled a ravenous desire among the Chinese for the Indian-grown opium drug, leading to the balance of trade swinging significantly back in favour of the British. Now the Chinese were attempting to make opium illegal and stop its sale altogether. So the East India Company troops were sent to China, in a tactical display described as “gunship diplomacy”, to prevent the Chinese from destroying the British opium trade. Several skirmishes ensued, ending in the Treaty of Nanking of 1842, which, among other conditions, ceded Hong Kong to Britain. It was not just a clash of two cultures, but a war for mercantile supremacy.

  Shortly after the Chisholms’ second Christmas in New South Wales, Archibald set sail for India. It was January 1840; Caroline stayed behind with their three sons: Archibald Jnr, soon to be four years old; William, almost two and a half; and the baby, Henry, just six months old. It would be close on five years before Archibald returned; by then he would carry the rank of major, but his health would have suffered. Caroline, on the other hand, would be in her prime.

  One wonders why Caroline remained in Australia when Archibald departed. Maybe she was unwilling to subject herself and the children to the stringency of living in India again or, more likely, in New South Wales she had found a society that not only needed her but in which she could flourish. She had lived in this would-be replica of the Old World for sixteen months, long enough to appreciate both the dissemblance and the possibilities behind its rugged, ruthless exterior. Before he left, Archibald, witnessing her growing empathy towards the bounty immigrants, had suggested that they would be “fit objects for her charitable zeal and energy”.30 India had given Caroline experience; now Australia would make her famous.

  CHAPTER 6

  Flora’s Story

  1840–41

  Sydney, 1840

  Skirting behind Petty’s Hotel, she became aware of a young woman, just a few yards ahead, scuttling hurriedly away, avoiding her. Caroline stared and her heart jumped; there was something familiar about that girl: the way she walked, the turn of her head, bowed now as she hurried forward.

  Determined to overtake her, Caroline ran a little, and, catching up, laid a hand on her arm. The girl stopped. For a few seconds she stood, head bent, chest heaving, and then she raised her face. There before Caroline stood the wreck of her “Highland Beauty”, Flora. How different she was now from the lovely girl Caroline had first seen in a tent near the Immigration Barracks. Gone were the modest dress and the shining blonde locks in demure ribbons. The ruddy rose of the Highlands was changed for the tinge of rum; she had been drinking, but she well knew what she was about.

  “Tell me where you are going,” asked Caroline.

  “To hell,” scoffed Flora, walking on past.

  Caroline kept pace with her. “Let us talk,” she tried again.

  The girl stopped, sneering, “No, Mrs Chisholm. You can’t help me. I’m not one of your good girls.” She turned aside but called back over her shoulder, “Get away from me. You’re no use to anyone.”

  She headed for Lavender’s Ferry. Caroline was determined not to lose her, and stayed with her. She asked again where Flora was going.

  “Over there,” she pointed across the bay. “My mistress lives over there.”

  “Then I will go with you. I want to say a few words to you,” said Caroline.

  “Do what you want,” she shrugged.

  Caroline paid the fare for both of them and sat next to Flora as the boat crossed to the other shore. No words were spoken. Disembarking, the girl ambled along by the water. There was a look on Flora’s face that Caroline recognised, a desperate agony, beyond words. She looked from the girl to the water, glittering silver-grey in the late afternoon sunlight. There was something about Flora’s manner that suddenly made Caroline aware of what she was planning. She felt an icy coldness rising within her.

  She tried to distract the girl. She knew what had been happening in Flora’s family, so she asked softly, “Did you see your mother die?”

  The girl stopped and sank down on the rocky beach as though punctured by a pin prick. “No, she died happy,” came the self-mocking answer.

  “Are you a mother?” asked Caroline as gently as possible, as she sat down beside her.

  Flora gasped, shook her head slowly, eyes intently seeking Caroline’s. She took Caroline’s hand and held it over her heart. “God is merciful,” she whispered. “I am not with child.”

  “May I see that letter?” Caroline asked, noticing for the first time a piece of paper tucked into Flora’s partly exposed bosom. Flora nodded and handed it to Caroline, who spread it open. It was from Frank, Flora’s brother, who had been with their mother in Sydney when she died. The letter told of her final hours and taunted Flora for the life she now led: “You have humiliated our family, we all share a part of your shame. Thank God our mother knew nought of it. I do not know if God or I could or even should forgive you . . .”

  The words were harsh, but Caroline saw something else in them. “Your brother loves you, even now. Will you let me speak to him?”

  “No, no,” cried Flora. “He is better off without me. I loved my brother better than anyone, anyone save . . . him . . . But Frank curses me for my life now.”

  “Were there any in your family that ever committed suicide?” Caroline asked abruptly.

  The girl shuddered. “It’s there I mean to drown myself,” she whispered, pointing to a distant spot where the rocks were jutting out into the last of the sunshine winking off the water. “It’s there we went often and there I mean to die.”

  “You must not,” Caroline responded urgently, taking Flora’s hand and cradling it between her own.

  “Why should I not? What is there for me in this life? He tricked me. Now I’m a slut, a harlot, a whore. Degraded, my brother says. The only decent thing I’ve done was to keep it from my mother.”

  “Your mother knew you for a good girl. There is a way back to virtue.” Tentatively, Caroline put out her arms to Flora. The girl dropped her head onto Caroline’s shoulder, clinging close like a child. Then Flora recounted her story.

  Shadows lengthened and the air chilled as dusk crept across the water and onto the rocks where Caroline sat with her fallen Highland Beauty. Flora told of the past few months since she had gone with the man who had taken her from the Immigration Barracks. She had believed he meant to marry her. He gave her clothes and pretty bits of jewellery, but after a few weeks, having satisfied himself, he grew bored with her. He told her he had a wife, and said he wouldn’t marry the likes of her anyway. Then he left her. That’s when she started drinking.

  “He turned me into a filthy whore, Mrs Chisholm. If you only knew how dirty I feel. I’ll never be clean again. No one will ever want me.”

  “Do you have a mistress over here?” asked Caroline.

  “No, I have no mistress, save the drink. I just said that to get rid of you,” she answered.

  “My poor child,” whispered Caroline. Flora finally let go. She sobbed, her young body racked by shudders. When the weeping eased, Caroline spoke gently to her, describing all the love a mother has for a child and a brother for a sister. Then of the
future. “I will help you. I can, you know.” Caroline said. “But first, you must vow to me that you will not attempt to end your life. You are too precious.”

  Finally, Flora promised, and agreed to let Caroline approach her brother. They crossed back to the other side in the ferry. Caroline procured cheap but respectable lodgings for Flora, not far from her own inn. In the morning, they would go together to look for Frank.1

  Caroline was obsessed with Flora. According to her own account, the young “Highland Beauty” was the catalyst that propelled her towards helping the destitute bounty women. In Caroline’s eye, Flora was the living, breathing embodiment of the dangers present in Sydney and what Caroline fervently believed to be her personal moral duty to minimise those perils.

  It was probably quite early in 1840 when Caroline first became involved with Flora. With Archibald back in India, she was spending less and less time in the relative wilds of Windsor. Although she did involve herself with the local community there, including helping to collect subscriptions for an orphan school and a Catholic girls’ boarding school — contacts which were later to be useful to her — it was still obviously not enough to keep her occupied.2 Maybe the community in Windsor was too limited, or possibly she was lonely or bored. Whatever the case, Caroline gravitated towards Sydney. Her relative freedom of movement suggests that either she left her three young sons in Windsor with Miss Galvin or else brought the nanny and the boys with her to town. Certainly, while delving into the haunts of the bounty women, she was not hampered by her children.