FEDERATION 1901: A ST KILDA OVERVIEW

FROM NATION BUILDERS. GREAT LIVES AND STORIES FROM ST KILDA CEMETERY. PUBLISHED WITH KIND PERMISSION BY FRIENDS OF ST KILDA CEMETERY © www.foskc.org

United now a nation great and free
One land one people and one destiny
Federation Sonnet,
St Kilda Advertiser, 16 February 1901

On New Year's Day 1901, the people of St Kilda experienced their first day as citizens of the new Commonwealth of Australia. As the 'Gateway to Melbourne', St Kilda was to play an integral role in the opening of the first parliament of the Commonwealth by the Duke of Cornwall and York. Plans were anxiously being made to prepare St Kilda for the Royal arrival at St Kilda Pier on 6 May.

There were other reasons for civic pride in a city, just 46 years old. Many St Kilda residents, as well as local groups such as the St Kilda Branch of the Australian Natives Association (ANA), had been active in the successful referendum campaign. Local ANA member, George Turner, had been selected as the first federal treasurer of Australia. John Hoad, another St Kilda ANA member and former teacher at the Brighton Road School, was about to become the first Australian head of our military forces. Former resident Alfred Deakin would become attorney-general and eventually prime minister. Isaac Isaacs, who had married into St Kilda's Jewish community, would later join the Deakin ministry, the new High Court and become the first Australian-born governor-general.

A glance through the pages of the St Kilda Advertiser from January to May 1901 gives us an insight into the life and times of local people during those first months of nationhood. For example federation sonnets in the paper expressed the nationalist fervour:

Twas sung by poets and foreseen by seers
United now, but bounded by the sea,
One government, a land of liberty
Where each man equal stands among his peers.

This nationalist feeling was tempered with strong loyalty to the British Empire. On January 22 Queen Victoria died after a reign of 64 years. The Victorian era had ended just as Australian nationhood was beginning. The St Kilda Council sent a cable to England:

On 15 January Mr. Purves Q.C addressed the Prahran Branch of the ANA on 'Australia and Australians in the 20th Century'. He modestly forecast a great destiny for the new Commonwealth:

'Physically perfect' people however still required such mundane services as sanitation, the lack of which had been blamed for many deaths in St Kilda in recent years. The previous year there had been a bubonic plague scare. In January 1901 tenders were called for the cleaning of the Elwood Canal. Despite complaints, the council was claiming the nearby abattoirs were in good condition. Plans were underway to dredge the polluted Elwood Swamp that would usher in a mini-land boom. A nuisance was reported from manure carts standing in High Street - Councillor Stringer blamed the Chinese cart drivers playing dominoes all day in a local shop. Mysterious 'offensive smells' were being investigated from the corner of Hotham and Carlisle streets.

In February the Advertiser reported that 1,165 homes in St Kilda had finally been connected to the new sewerage system serviced by the revolutionary Spottiswoode pumping station. Deaths from disease were steadily dropping despite the fact that in 1900 there had been deaths from enteric fever (25), diphtheria (10) and scarlet fever (9). There had been 369 children born into the new century from a St Kilda population of 20,544 persons. Moves were under way by council to appoint a veterinary surgeon to inspect the dairy cattle of St Kilda. Many households kept cows at the rear of their premises and sold milk in unhygienic conditions from the front. There was public concern because milk was usually diluted with pump water of dubious quality - 'the cow with the iron tail'.

Quack medicines were thriving with medical cures and personal testimonials prominently advertised in the Advertiser:

The paper reported that in January the State Government had appointed a cabinet committee to investigate the dangers to health posed by overcrowding at the St Kilda and Carlton cemeteries. Mr. Charlie Truelove, the cemetery manager at St Kilda (as well as local choirmaster), would later be dismissed for mismanagement. On the 26 January, however, Mr. Truelove was returning to St Kilda from a successful choir tour of Tasmania. He would shortly lead the united church choirs in Prahran Town Hall in a memorial service for Queen Victoria.

On 19 January Councillor Jacoby had held out 'the half promise' that the St Kilda rate would be reduced to 1/9 by the next year. The rates were drawn from 4,181 dwellings and 4, 593 ratepayers. The defense of the city was in good hands with the St Kilda Rifle Club meeting regularly.

In February the Advertiser expressed the view that the White Australia policy should not be about racial hatred and expressed concern that the new federal government's attitude to Queensland black labour could destroy the sugar industry. Letters were also published from St Kilda boys serving in the South African (Boer) War reassuring their mothers that they were alive and well.

New goods and services were on offer in the Advertiser. Valkyrie Cycles were sold by Junction Cycles for £12.10/- each. The Metro Gas Company offered free cooking demonstrations on the use of gas stoves that could be bought in Inkerman Street.

In March, George Turner the local councillor, former mayor and recent Victorian premier was campaigning at the St Kilda Town Hall for the new Federal Seat of Balaclava. His extraordinary popularity with St Kilda voters was explained thus by the Advertiser:

His vacated state seat for St Kilda was also being contested by local hopefuls. In January Mr. R.S. Bradley, the schoolmaster of Queen's College, Barkly Street, had sought the vote from 400 people at the Town Hall. He spoke on land reform, reducing the number of politicians in parliament and women's suffrage. The Advertiser reported:

Local political hopefuls and the Elwood League were also campaigning for the extension of the St Kilda railway line to Elwood and from there to Brighton. The face of St Kilda was changing dramatically as cable cars and trains brought day-trippers to Melbourne's most accessible seaside resort and entertainment precinct. In March a delegation met with the minister for railways at the George Hotel. However Councillor Bent of Brighton managed to inveigle the minister into his cab and gallop off with him on a tour of his electorate.

Advertisements by J. Munro, auctioneer, were also prominent in the Advertiser in early 1901. Mr. Munro was a disgraced land boomer who had been premier during the bank crash of 1893 that initiated a disastrous depression. In 1901 St Kilda was still experiencing the after-effects. The mansions and estates of the dispossessed wealthy were being converted to boarding houses, flats, guesthouses for holiday makers and entertainment places on the St. Kilda foreshore. One of Turner's last acts as premier was to implement an old age pension, one of many progressive social measures to alleviate the desperate poverty at the time. In February 1901 public servants were taking submissions from queues of local aged people and assessing them on the spot. The Advertiser gave witness:

One of the greatest industrial reforms had been the eight-hour day. In late April the Advertiser reported that the Eight Hour Day March been canceled due to poor weather. The Advertiser feared the recurrence of the floods that had caused 200 refugees to be housed in the Prahran Town Hall several years earlier.

As the date of the federation celebrations approached, the Advertiser revealed a sense of panic about St Kilda's preparedness for the celebration of the new parliament. There were acrimonious debates between councillors over whether there were sufficient flagpoles in Fitzroy Street. Should the shelter shed on St Kilda Pier, known locally as the 'Cow Shed', be demolished or disguised? Should the proposal for a massive fountain near Kenney's Baths - 'a miniature Niagara' - be accepted?

However, great effort was being made. Fences on the Lower Esplanade were painted and 800 feet of St Kilda Pier was re-decked and covered with matting and a carpet strip:

School children were marshalled to sing and would receive packages of sweets containing miniature photographs of their Royal highnesses. A fireworks' display was organised on Beaconsfield Parade. From the Upper Esplanade could be witnessed the practice manoeuvres of 'vast battleships' of friendly nations, spouting black smoke and firing deafening guns. The horses drawing the Royal procession had been subjected to cheering crowds, bands and blaring trumpets so that they could withstand even 'an earthquake.' The George Hotel was being draped in red, blue and orange streamers.

The piece de resistance was the St Kilda-Prahran Arch under construction at St Kilda Junction. It comprised three lofty spans 90 feet in height with eight 'battlemented towers' adorned by 150 flags and 1,200 yards of red and blue drapery.

Two days before the Duke's visit, the Advertiser reported with relief that that the Arch 'now has at a distance the appearance of solidity'. The same description, perhaps, could apply to the sense of nationhood emerging throughout Australia in municipalities like St Kilda at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The first Federal Parliament

The Duke of Cornwall and York, later to become King George V had arrived in St Kilda on 6 May 1901 in preparation for his role in opening the first federal parliament at the Melbourne Exhibition Building on 9 May 1901. Australian artist Tom Roberts was commissioned to paint the event for 1,000 guineas ($22,000) and the 5.5 x 3.3 metre canvas took more than two years to complete.