Provenance 2015 Issue 14, 2015 ISSN: 1832-2522 Index About Provenance 2 Editorial 4 Refereed articles 6 Patricia Grimshaw and Hannah Loney ‘Doing their bit helping make Australia free’: Mothers of Aboriginal diggers and the assertion of Indigenous rights 7 James Kirby Beyond failure and success: The soldier settlement on Ercildoune Road 18 Cassie May Lithium and lost souls: The role of Bundoora Homestead as a repatriation mental hospital 1920–1993 30 Dr Cate O’Neill ‘She had always been a difficult case …’ : Jill’s short, tragic life in Victoria’s institutions, 1952–1955 40 Amber Graciana Evangelista ‘… From squalor and vice to virtue and knowledge …’: The rise of Melbourne’s Ragged School system 56 Barbara Minchinton Reading the papers: The Victorian Lands Department’s influence on the occupation of the Otways under the nineteenth century land Acts 71 Peter Davies, Susan Lawrence and Jodi Turnbull Historical maps, geographic information systems (GIS) And complex mining landscapes on the Victorian goldfields 85 Forum articles 93 Dr David J Evans John Jones: A builder of early West Melbourne 94 Jennifer McNeice Military exemption courts in 1916: A public hearing of private lives 106 Dorothy Small An Innocent Pentonvillain: Thomas Drewery, chemist and exile 1821-1859 115 Janet Lynch The families of World War I veterans: Mental illness and Mont Park 123 Research journeys 130 Jacquie Browne Who says ‘you can’t change history’? 131 1 About Provenance The journal of Public Record Office Victoria Provenance is a free journal published online by Editorial Board Public Record Office Victoria. The journal features peer- reviewed articles, as well as other written contributions, The editorial board includes representatives of: that contain research drawing on records in the state • Public Record Office Victoria access services; archives holdings. • the peak bodies of PROV’s major user and stakeholder Provenance is available online at www.prov.vic.gov.au groups; The purpose of Provenance is to foster access to PROV’s • and the archives, records and information archival holdings and broaden its relevance to the wider management professions. Victorian community. An editor is appointed to the board to co-ordinate The records held by PROV contain a wealth of production of the journal and the activities of the information regarding Victorian people, places, editorial board. All board members are appointed to communities, events, policies, institutions, the board by the PROV Director and Keeper of Public infrastructure, governance, and law. 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North Melbourne Victoria 3051 Australia Available at www.prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/ provenance-journal/author-guidelines Provenance journal publishes peer-reviewed articles, as well as other written contributions, that contain research drawing on records in PROV’s holdings. Open access policy Provenance is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. 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Copyright in each article remains with the author of the relevant article. Authors have the right to publish their articles elsewhere subject to acknowledgment of prior publication in Provenance. Users of the Provenance website may have rights to reproduce material from this site under provisions of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Copyright Act 1968. In addition to any such rights, unless there is a statement to the contrary, the author of each article has given permission for physical or electronic copies of the text and graphics in that article to be made for classroom or research use, provided: • Copies are distributed at or below cost; • The author and Provenance are attributed on each copy; • Notice of relevant copyright ownership is attached to each copy; and • The Editor, Provenance, is notified of the use within one calendar month of use. 3 Editorial Provenance 2015 In the midst of the centenary of World War I of resilience despite the awful psychological trauma commemorations, Provenance this year features inflicted by the war, as servicemen and their families a fascinating range of articles exploring different lobbied the government for appropriate treatment and dimensions of Australia’s participation in the war and its care. aftermath. Also in this year’s issue are two articles that Pat Grimshaw and Hannah Loney in ‘Doing their bit demonstrate the way that researching government helping make Australia free’ explore the predicament records can be used to explore the history and workings of Victorian Aboriginal servicemen and their families. of public institutions such as welfare and school The mothers of Aboriginal sons fighting for Australia systems. Cate O’Neill’s article ‘She had always been a in Europe had to engage in their own battle on the difficult case’ revisits the case of ‘Jill’, a state ward in her home front to retain control of their son’s military teens, brutalised by the Victorian child welfare system pay. The letters written by the mothers of Aboriginal once she became categorised as a ‘female delinquent’. servicemen reveal women who were proud and astute The article examines how Jill became a political football advocates for justice and equality in the face of as her case became fodder for a sensationalised media government policy as administered by the Board for circus and the machinations of the political cycle. The the Protection of Aborigines. Meanwhile in the Forum changes introduced in the aftermath of Jill’s tragic section, Jennifer McNeice’s article ‘Military exemption death by suicide were meant to address the failings courts in 1916’ reminds us of the often-overlooked of the child welfare system. O’Neill’s article, despite its reluctance of many men to leave behind their families focus on the political cycles of the 1950s, is a timely and economic livelihood despite the growing official contribution to the discussion about current inquiries and social pressures to follow their patriotic duty. into institutionalised child abuse, a reminder that Examining the records of the military exemption courts previous public controversies over these issues have that were established in 1916 to assess applications for not necessarily overcome institutional failings. Amber exemption from military service, Lynch’s article reveals Evangelista explores Melbourne’s Ragged School system the resistance to moves by the Australian Federal in her article ‘… From squalor and vice to virtue and government to enforce some kind of compulsory military knowledge …’, particularly the contribution of Hester service and the perils of patriotic jingoism. Hornbrook, a vehement Evangelical crusader who late in life established eight Ragged Schools in Melbourne A number of other articles in the issue explore the during the late 1850s and early 1860s. Under the aftermath of the war. In his revisiting of the debate influence of the Evangelical movement in England, about the outcomes of the Soldier Settlement Scheme, Hornbrook established schools that would cater to the James Kirby in ‘Beyond failure and success’ urges children of the poorest families, primarily out of an historians to take a more nuanced approach to austere conviction that the cause of their poverty was assessing the communities that grew up around soldier an underlying spiritual corruption that could only be settlement blocks across Victoria. Kirby achieves this addressed via