The Foundations of a Colonial Society
In June 1876, Melbourne’s Scots Church stood as a symbol of the city’s growing prosperity and moral aspirations. Its stark, unadorned interior reflected a Protestant ideal—direct communion with God, unmediated by statues or stained glass. The congregation, dressed in the finest silks and black serge, embodied the wealth and respectability of a city transformed by gold and industry. Yet beneath this veneer of piety and progress, tensions simmered.
Melbourne in the 1870s was a city of contrasts. The wealthy elite, including squatters, bankers, and merchants, worshipped in grand churches while drunken Indigenous Australians and impoverished laborers roamed the streets. The prevailing belief was that Australia was destined to be a white man’s country, with Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups pushed to the fringes. The Bulletin, a radical newspaper, captured this sentiment in 1883, declaring that Aboriginal people were no more meant to be civilized than caged birds.
Industrialization and Urban Struggles
By the 1880s, Melbourne and Sydney had become bustling industrial hubs. Factories producing clothing, ironworks, and furniture employed tens of thousands, many of them women and children working grueling hours for meager wages. The rise of manufacturing brought wealth to some but also exploitation. Women in Carlton and Fitzroy toiled in cramped, poorly lit rooms, while larrikin gangs—young working-class men with a penchant for violence—terrorized the streets.
Larrikinism was a distinctly Australian phenomenon. These young men, dressed in pointed shoes and flashy attire, formed gangs like the Fitzroy Murderers and the Richmond Dirty Dozen. They disrupted church services, harassed women, and brawled with police. Their behavior was seen as a legacy of convictism—a rebellious streak passed down from Australia’s penal origins. The Bulletin blamed harsh colonial punishments for fostering a culture of brutality, arguing that floggings and hangings had only deepened working-class resentment.
The Salvation Army and Moral Reform
Amid the chaos, the Salvation Army emerged as a force for moral reform. Arriving in Melbourne in 1882, its preachers denounced sin with fiery sermons and brass bands. They targeted larrikins, drunkards, and the urban poor, promising salvation through temperance and hard work. While some dismissed their methods as theatrical, others saw them as the last hope for a society teetering on the edge of barbarism.
Meanwhile, spiritualism and rationalism gained followers among the educated elite. Figures like Alfred Deakin, a future prime minister, dabbled in phrenology and astrology, searching for meaning in an increasingly secular world. The debate over faith and reason played out in public lectures and newspapers, with some rejecting Christianity altogether in favor of scientific progress.
The Boom and Bust of the 1880s
The 1880s were also a decade of speculative frenzy. Silver and tin discoveries in Broken Hill and Tasmania sparked a mining boom, while land prices in Melbourne and Sydney soared. Men like Thomas Bent, a flamboyant politician and land speculator, amassed fortunes through shady deals. But by 1888, the bubble burst. Banks collapsed, and investors faced ruin. The Bulletin mocked the greed of the elite, predicting that the working class would soon rise against their oppressors.
Women’s Rights and Republicanism
As economic tensions grew, so did demands for social change. Louisa Lawson, a pioneering feminist, launched Dawn in 1888, advocating for women’s suffrage and independence. She railed against a society where men controlled every aspect of women’s lives—from childbirth to burial. Meanwhile, republicans like William Lane called for an end to British rule, envisioning an Australia free from monarchy and class oppression.
Henry Lawson, Louisa’s son, captured the spirit of rebellion in his poetry. His Song of the Republic urged Australians to cast off colonial subservience and forge their own destiny. Artists like Tom Roberts painted the Australian landscape with a new nationalist vision, while radicals in Sydney clashed with loyalists during Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebrations.
The Legacy of the 1880s
By the decade’s end, Australia stood at a crossroads. The wealth of the elite contrasted sharply with the struggles of workers and the marginalized. The push for women’s rights, republicanism, and labor reform signaled a growing demand for change. Yet old prejudices—against Indigenous Australians, the Chinese, and the working poor—persisted.
As drought ravaged the land in 1888, Henry Lawson warned of an impending reckoning:
“The wealthy care not for our wants, nor for the pangs we feel;
Our hands have clutched in vain for bread, and now they clutch for steel!”
The 1880s had laid the foundation for modern Australia—a nation grappling with its identity, torn between loyalty to empire and the desire for independence, between faith and reason, between wealth and justice. The struggles of this decade would echo through the coming century, shaping the Australia we know today.