Caroline Chisholm

by Sarah Goldman

  Prior to the election, when names were sought for men to represent the Kyneton Borough, which also included Woodend and Malmsbury, in the new Legislative Assembly, Archibald was asked by more than one hundred local men to stand for the seat. He declined. It may have been that at fifty-eight years of age he wanted a quieter life. If elected, he would have been expected to travel regularly to Melbourne and fight for a range of causes, and he may well have had enough of that. Without doubt, financial concerns would also have played a part, as Members of the Legislative Assembly did not at this point receive any remuneration.

  Undaunted, the citizens of Kyneton turned to Archibald Jnr, asking him to represent them in his father’s stead. The younger Archibald did not qualify to vote, let alone to stand for the seat, on at least two counts: he was under age, being only twenty, and he did not meet the property requirements, given that the Chisholm Brothers business was probably owned either by his father or in partnership with his brothers and it is unlikely that they held the freehold.36 Residency was not an issue as it is now, but if it had been it may have also invalidated him, as his official address was 12 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne, where Caroline was living at the time, rather than Kyneton. Despite these prohibitions, Archibald Jnr accepted the nomination, his supporters either not knowing or caring about the rules.

  Archibald’s two opponents were another non-resident, Robert Nadir Clarke, and a forty-five-year-old local businessman, George Walker Johnson, a married man with eleven children, who was a freemason, chairman of the local Agricultural Society, a member of the Kyneton cricket club and of both the hospital and National School boards.37 Proving that politicians and voters may change but the issues rarely do, two topics being hotly debated on the hustings that year were the availability of land and education funding. Robert Clarke ran a rather quiet campaign, but there was definitely acrimony between the other two. Johnson attacked Archibald for his youth, his place of residence and his religion, whilst Archibald ridiculed Johnson for his mode of speech and lack of education.38

  Only 540 men were eligible to cast their ballots in the Borough of Kyneton on 7 October 1856. Voting was not compulsory, so not everyone turned up at the polling booth in the Police Barracks on Mitchell Street. The votes, particularly from the smaller towns, were counted early, and it appeared at first that Archibald was ahead in the hamlet of Malmsbury, but it was not to last, particularly when Archibald displayed a reticence alien to most modern politicians: “[At] 3 p.m. some uneasiness began to be felt by the friends of Mr Chisholm as to his return, and therefore requested him to record his own vote, but this he would not do, as he thought it did not look handsome in a candidate to vote for himself.”39

  The final results were announced at about 6 p.m. Robert Clarke had received 31 votes, and Archibald 123, but George Johnson had won the poll with a resounding 244 votes.40 Archibald had lost the election, but he had not disgraced himself, particularly considering that he was a twenty-year-old newcomer to the area. The following year, he was asked to consider standing for the next election but he declined. One benefit of the campaign was that it raised awareness of Chisholm Brothers, as large advertisements for the business often ran alongside election reports in newspapers.

  *

  For a little while, it seemed as though the family was finally on a stable financial footing — the Australian-born son, Henry, now going on for seventeen years old, even had enough money to invest in bank shares.41 The prosperity was not to last. Either the sons, like their father, were not good businessmen or maybe the profits just didn’t go far enough to cover all eight members of the family, particularly when they were spread across two households. The next monetary crisis, though, was still a little way into the future.

  In the following year, 1857, Kyneton bestowed another honour on Archibald Snr. The new Governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Barkly, was taking a spring tour of the colony and planned to spend a night in Kyneton. Archibald, who continued to sit on the magistrate’s bench, was asked to officially welcome him to the town. It was a big event. According to The Kyneton Observer, public buildings, hotels, shops and private homes were covered in bunting and banners proclaiming “Advance Victoria” and “Speed the Plough”. As the governor approached the courthouse he received a gun salute and hundreds of people crowded around to catch a glimpse of him and hear Archibald’s welcome. That evening the local manager of the Bank of New South Wales held a dinner at his home above the bank for Sir Henry and a selection of town luminaries and their wives. Archibald, and possibly his eldest son too, would have been amongst the guests, but there is no mention of Caroline attending either the daytime welcome or the dinner. Of course, she may have been absent, but that is highly unlike her, and there is evidence that she was in Kyneton a few days later.42 The inference is, of course, that Caroline’s star was waning, and the newspaper did not rate her a mention amongst so many significant townspeople and guests — something that would have been unimaginable only a few years earlier.

  Although she visited Kyneton often, Caroline continued to live in Melbourne. Her second son, William, however, was about to move on. Now almost twenty years old, he was married on Monday, 20 April 1857, by the Bishop of Melbourne, James Goold, to an Irish girl at St Francis Cathedral.43 Susanna McSwiney’s parents were listed on the wedding notices as Denis McSwiney, Esq. and Margaret Madden from County Roscommon. The young couple lived in Collingwood after the wedding, and William left Chisholm Brothers to work with his best man, James Mayne, a wine and spirit merchant in Melbourne.44 It may have been at this time that the Chisholms’ Melbourne businesses were sold; certainly, there is no evidence of Archibald or either of his other sons moving to Melbourne to manage them.

  Once William had left, there seemed to be little reason for Caroline to maintain her lodgings in Melbourne, and yet she did so until the end of the year. She was unwell again with a reoccurrence of her kidney problem and that may have prevented her moving or, as mentioned earlier, she may have wished to remain close to her doctor. Then, too, she was still overseeing the Shelter Sheds, continuing in a small way with family reunions and giving advice to new female immigrants. The main issue that interested her at this time, though, was the availability of land. By means of a letter-writing campaign and her involvement in the Victorian Land League, she tried to convince the government to free up land for small farms.45

  After all her years of hard work and frenzied activity, now, with Archibald and the children settled some one hundred kilometres from her, Caroline finally had time to herself to think, question and formulate ideas rather than just react to events. The results of her ruminations reflected her deep-seated radicalism and keen understanding of the human condition. She had always refused to conform to the nineteenth-century ideal of what a woman should be, rejecting the domestic sphere for a life of striving to achieve what she could for as many people as possible. In doing so she had been immensely successful. Now that she no longer had the physical strength to continue as she had once done, nor very possibly the desire, she was ready to move on to a more cerebral form of activism, considering and expounding ideas and promulgating them through the press. Some of her propositions were many decades ahead of their time and resonate strongly today. Where in the past she had simply insisted that all religions should be treated equally, now she took that notion further, attacking the institutionalised bigotry of the day and extending it to include ethnicity. In effect, Caroline was putting forward the idea of multiculturalism, a century and a half before the term was coined.

  Responding to the gold miners’ complaints about Chinese diggers in the goldfields, the Victorian Government had introduced, amongst other retrograde measures, a £10 immigration tax on the Chinese, who were also denied any of the arrival assistance offered to white people. Despite these rejections, the Chinese continued to settle in Australia and by 1857 there were well over 25,000 living in Victoria.46 Caroline made her position clear near the end of a long letter about immigration sent to the editor of The
Argus and published in June 1857:

  There is one great question, Sir, which at present affects us deeply, and which, I must confess, I have closely watched, and that is, the question of Chinese immigration. With respect to the Chinese, I cannot help apprehending that our neglect in providing shelter of some sort for them may some day cause a sweeping calamity. The excitement against the Chinese may be looked upon in some measure as a political dodge, in order to divert attention from the land question . . . This immigration cannot be stopped; . . . there will be no rest until man is recognised as man, without distinction of colour or clime.47

  It was a topic that she was to return to a few years later in New South Wales, but in Victoria at that time it won her few friends, the government refusing even to discuss the issue with her.

  As 1857 drew to a close, Caroline’s health continued to deteriorate. She decided to leave Melbourne for Kyneton to live full time with her family. Her farewell dinner at the Duke of Kent Hotel in Lonsdale Street was a very different affair from the one organised to welcome her to Melbourne three and a half years earlier. This one was attended by about only forty people, with few persons of note to excite mention in the press. After toasts and speeches, Caroline responded that she was deeply gratified by the speakers’ praise, and that it was the tonic she needed because her exertions on behalf of immigration in Victoria had not been suitably backed up by the legislature. Reports in both The Argus and The Age described her speech as “complaining”, making her sound petulant because the government had not complied with her wishes on the questions of immigration and land.48 After almost twenty years of dedicated working towards her vision of settlement in Australia, it must have been difficult for Caroline to acknowledge that her time of influence and innovation may have passed. With the Australian colonies growing up, the style of immigration changing and a new assertiveness from the white constituency taking hold, she would need to redefine herself if she wanted to remain within the public sphere.

  Caroline was about to face the most grievous years of her life. She was desperately ill, seriously impoverished and would soon endure the heartache of losing a loved one. Yet with passion, intellect and humour, she would not only manage to find the strength to return to public life, but also make a major contribution to Australian society by influencing the way people would think and vote on the big questions affecting the colonies.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Female Radical

  1858–66

  Temperance Hall, Pitt Street, Sydney, Tuesday, 10 December 1860

  The quivering glow from the gas lamp illuminated the clock to the side of the stage. Caroline glanced at it. Seven-thirty. Still fifteen minutes until she was supposed to start and already the hall was full to bursting. From her vantage point above, Caroline looked down on hundreds of naked male heads. What gratified her most, though, were the hats: each one marked a woman, and she was surprised at how many she could see.

  She recognised some in the crowd as they looked up to the stage, caught her eye, smiled. Many of the men had been at her first lecture some five months ago. She wondered whether they had brought their wives this time, or if all these women had decided to attend tonight of their own volition. If that were the case, it showed some courage: females were rarely seen at political talks. The thought tickled her sense of humour. I wonder if they think of me as a woman, or just an oddity, she mused.

  The clock ticked on. Still ten minutes to go. The room was overcrowded now, hot, stuffy; the lights in the wall sockets flickered. More than one woman looked to be wilting. Caroline had an idea. She called her sons to her and sent them scuttling to find chairs in nearby rooms to put on the stage. Then, lifting her voice above the din, she spoke. “Ladies, Ladies,” her voice imperative, piercing the confused babble. “It is such a warm evening. It is cooler up here on the stage and we have chairs for your comfort. Please, ladies, join me,” she said, throwing out her arm invitingly.

  There was silence, and stillness. Caroline’s eyes alighted on two women she knew. She called them by name, insisting that they venture on stage. They were hesitant, possibly embarrassed by the idea of such a public display. Eventually one and then the other stepped up; there were cheers from some sections of the male audience. Other women followed until Caroline found herself at the centre of a female arc. The women formed an impressive and colourful background, seated neatly in their fulsome crinoline skirts, one touching the other, spread out behind her.

  Looking out at her now mostly male audience, Caroline noted that one or two wore mildly bemused expressions. She wondered if they understood the significance of what they were witnessing. Caroline did. The colony was in the midst of a fiercely contested election, but one in which only men could vote. Here tonight, hundreds of them had turned up to hear the issues discussed by a woman. Not only that, but whilst they were left to gather on the floor of the hall, a sisterhood, deprived of any political power, had risen above them, as though the women had now taken control.

  Caroline knew it was only an image, and one that would not be sustained, not this time at least. Still, it was a beginning.

  She stepped forward to begin her talk. She would enjoy this evening.1

  In Melbourne, during the previous few years, Caroline had drifted, but 1858 was to become something of a watershed for her and her family. It blossomed with hope. Having settled into Kyneton life, Caroline’s health improved a little. When the Chisholms were invited to a neighbour’s wedding, their daughters, Caroline, now ten years old, and Monica, seven, both served as the bride’s attendants whilst Caroline was invited to make a speech to the happy couple. Kyneton was certainly a small town compared with Melbourne, but Caroline’s family was well liked there.2

  In March, William’s daughter, and Caroline’s first grandchild, was born in Melbourne and christened Josephine. Unfortunately, Caroline was unwell again and may not have attended the celebration. By the end of May, when she should have been celebrating her fiftieth birthday, she was suffering a serious reoccurrence of her kidney problem, leading doctors to suggest that she relocate to Sydney to benefit from the warmer climate. So, by the middle of the year, Caroline found herself back in the town she had quit more than a decade earlier. With her were her husband and their three youngest children, with Sydney, now twelve, joining the girls. Archibald Jnr, now twenty-two, and Henry, nineteen, stayed in Kyneton to dispose of the business as best they could, whilst William, twenty-one, remained in Melbourne with his wife and baby daughter.

  The relocation ushered in probably the most difficult time to date in the lives of both Caroline and Archibald. The journey from Kyneton to Sydney in winter would have been long, arduous and painful, particularly if, as was likely, they travelled overland by coach. Their finances were again precarious: the Kyneton business was not as prosperous as it should have been, and until it was sold they remained short of money; in the meantime, if they spent whatever they received from the store, they might have very little to fall back on in the future. Those financial concerns, though, were secondary to the issue of Caroline’s health. By the time the Chisholms arrived in Sydney, she was extremely ill.

  Archibald booked the family into the Post Office Hotel, in George Street, and called upon an old friend, Dr William Bland, to attend Caroline. A man whose very surname was a paradox, William Bland was then almost seventy years old and nearing the end of an extremely full and eventful life. Born in London, the son of a doctor, he was appointed a naval surgeon in India at the precocious age of twenty-three. The following year, during an argument in the officers’ mess, he killed a man in a duel. Convicted of murder, he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Sydney and arrived as a convict in 1814. Within eighteen months, Bland had been pardoned and had set up a lucrative private medical practice. A couple of years later, at the age of twenty-eight, he married Sarah, the twenty-year-old daughter of an evangelical missionary. It was not a happy union. When Sarah ran off with an officer of the East India Company, Bland decided t
hat this time legal action was preferable to guns. The court agreed, awarding him damages of £2000, but before he could collect the settlement the officer absconded, possibly with Sarah, who also vanished from the colony. Not long afterwards, Bland spent another year in jail for writing satires that insulted the then governor, Lachlan Macquarie. Over the next forty years, however, Bland became an upstanding member of society: a doctor, landowner and member of the Legislative Council. Although he still had an uneven temper, he was a man who liked to involve himself in the issues of the day. He also had an exceedingly kind heart and was a considerable philanthropist.

  Bland knew Caroline from her early days in Sydney, and came at once to her aid. These were dark days, with Caroline almost penniless and desperately unwell. At one stage, when even Bland thought she could be in her final hours, she overheard a bizarre conversation. Her surreal sense of humour was revealed in her recounting of the conversation at a later date:

  I was so far gone at one period, that a clergyman asked the doctor, in my presence, how many hours he expected I could survive. He remarked to the doctor as he stood by, as he supposed, my dying bedside, that as I was a strong-minded woman, he was sure he would be excused if he asked him how many hours he thought I could live — that he had a pressing engagement at Parramatta, and he would not like to be absent, as he would have to superintend the ceremonies at St Mary’s.3

  We don’t know Bland’s reply, but presumably the clergyman did go to Parramatta because Caroline had not done with life yet.

  Whether it was Bland’s talent or Caroline’s determination or a combination of both, she slowly improved, the inflammation to her kidneys abating. It would take a long time for her to recuperate and she would never be quite well again, but at least she had survived. Caroline was effusive in her gratitude to Bland, describing him as “that venerable and venerated medical gentleman, Dr Bland, who in the most liberal and kindest manner attended me, without expectation of fee or reward”.4