H idden underneath the floorboards of the Destitute Asylum for almost a century, what once were cast-offs have now become a physical legacy of South Australia's history. The owner would likely have been one of the many destitute women who were critically in need of housing, following the immigration waves of the 1850's.

The following extracts are taken from the book by Mary Geyer, 'Behind the Wall: The women of the Destitute Asylum Adelaide, 1852 - 1918' (published by Axiom Publishers in association with the Migration Museum, 1994)

I ndex

A critical need to house the destitute...

Why the old system was failing...

A new answer to an old problem...

The increasing demands on the Destitute Asylum...

Times were rough..

No rights for women

Social expectations..

Low employment expectations..

Conditions in the Asylum...

Food allowance

Shelter for the imbecilic and infirm..

Conclusion

Museum Reference Material

Bibliography

Immigration Excesses
An excess of 5,112 single female immigrants arrived in the colony between 1853 and 1855. They came contrary to the agreement between the South Australian Immigration Department and the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in the United Kingdom which specified that equal numbers of men and women would immigrate to South Australia. The excess of single female immigrants had become a burden on the colonial coffers by 1855. At that time 96 recently-arrived single women were unable to gain employment as domestic servants and were supported by the South Australian Government . By the end of June 1855 the number had risen to 470. During July, August and September an average of 772 women were maintained by the colonial authorities. However, the Adelaide Female Immigration Depot, a quadrangle to the north of the Destitute Asylum, on land now part of the University of Adelaide, could accommodate only 60 women at a time. The rest were housed at the Destitute Asylum or in whatever makeshift accommodation could be found. Many women remained on the ships in which they had immigrated for up to two weeks after their arrival in South Australia.

Maintenance Act,1843
The South Australian government had initially hoped that people such as these women would be supported by family members. This hope had been enshrined in the 1843 Act of the South Australian Parliament to 'provide for the maintenance and relief of deserted wives and children and other destitute persons'. The act stated that three generations of relatives were responsible for the maintenance of poor and destitute family members who were not able to work. Justices of the Peace were empowered to assess the means of relatives, either in South Australia or any of the other colonies. Although the Maintenance Act did not formally acknowledge the role of the government in the welfare of South Australia's colonists it implied that the government would support destitute people who did not have any relatives in the colony.

A new solution: The Destitute Asylum
Despite the increasing demand for food and accommodation for the destitute in South Australia during the 1850s and early 1860s, the colonial authorities were reluctant to establish a workhouse in the colony on the English models. Such an institution was in conflict with the principles behind the 1836 foundation of South Australia. According to the Wakefieldian theory of ' Systematic Colonisation', the emigration of the correct proportions of capital and labour from Britain to the new province would create an ideal society free from the social, political and economic problems which plagued industrial Britain. It was believed the new settlement would be self-sustaining, prosperous and virtuous. There would not be any need to provide for paupers because poverty would not exist. Temporary difficulties caused to some workers and their families by uncertain seasons could be alleviated by aid given to them in their own homes. Reluctantly, however, South Australian legislators came to realise that there were homeless and helpless poor whose needs could not be met by small, temporary subsidies to their income. Their answer, expressed in legislation and erected as stone and brick as the Destitute Asylum, was a separate institution where the poorest and most dependent could be regulated and hidden from the affronted gaze of respectable citizens.

Supply and demand
The number of destitute persons relieved by the government had been growing steadily for a number of years. In 1853, the government relieved 464 persons. In the following year the number had risen to 685. In 1855, the colonial authorities gave assistance to a staggering 3,027 destitute.

Year Women Men Children 1869 55 119 190 1878 102 188 155 1888 126 238 3 1898 116 143 2 1908 141 267 3

Rough Times
The committee suggested a number of reasons for the astonishing number of destitute persons during 1855: a bad harvest, which 'diminished employment and increased the cost of living': an excess of female immigrants, 'which reduced the price of labour, and threw many out of work', the failure of children to support their parents; the desertion of wives and children by men who left the colony to go to the Victorian goldfields; the incidence of men falling on hard times at the goldfields and, though willing, being unable to send funds to their families. There was also the numerous accidental deaths of miners who left widows and fatherless children in South Australia.

No Womens Rights.
Until the 1858 Matrimonial Causes Act a husband owned whatever money his wife may have earned, and indeed the very clothes she stood in, because as a married woman, she did not have the legal right to own property. According to the law, married women were protected by their husbands. In fact, many were exploited by them.

Social Expectations
According to the social values of the day women were expected to be maternal, pure, domestic angels, removed from the desires of the flesh. The subjugation of women by men also had an economic dimension. Men were traditionally 'breadwinners' and their wages reflected this role. Women's employment was poorly paid, keeping them financially dependent on male guardians.

Low Employment Prospects.
The 1885 Report of a Royal Commission into the Destitute Act of 1881 states that 'Practically the only occupation for the inmates capable of any kind of work is such employment as may be found for them in the ordinary routine of the Asylum'. The Commissioners reported that only 59 of the Asylum's 385 male and female inmates had 'any duties' however light'. It described the Destitute Asylum as 'a hospital for the aged, decrepit, or diseased' rather than a workhouse such as those in Britain.

Conditions in the Workouse
The Commission evaluated the fifty-year-old model of the 1834 Poor Law of the United Kingdom, which strictly speaking did not provide 'outdoor' rations to those in need. The 1834 Poor Law's only provision for relieving poverty was indoor relief in the notorious workhouses of urban and rural England though in practice, outdoor relief continued as before. The 'idle' poor, it was popularly thought, would find the alternative of the workhouse to an honest day's work so degrading and miserable that they would be forced back into the labour market, thus ensuring that the community would only have to support 'deserving' cases of poverty.

Food Allowance
The 1885 Report on the Destitute Act detailed a typical diet at the Destitute Asylum. For breakfast and the evening meal they ate dry bread and drank tea. Their lunch consisted of vegetable soup, boiled mutton or beef and potatoes. There were vegetables other than potatoes twice a week. One person's daily allowance was: 453g of bread, 226g of beef or 340g of mutton, 14g tea, 57g of rice, 57g sugar and 7g of salt. This dreary diet was only improved after Catherine Helen Spence, the social reformer, became a member of the Destitute Board in 1897.

People of the Asylum
The Commissioners of the day suggested that South Australia follow the example of Victoria. By Victorian law a master of a ship that brought a 'lunatic, idiotic, deaf, dumb, blind or infirm' passenger into the colony was responsible for that passenger's maintenance for five years. The law read;

'Our statute book has prohibited the landing of convicts on our shores: it requires ships and passengers from ports infected with dangerous diseases to be quarantined... but it contains no provisions for securing imbecile or infirm persons, who may be shipped from other places to South Australia, shall not, immediately upon their arrival, become chargeable to the public.'

These people eventually, however, ended up at the Destitute Asylum.

Conclusion
In 1883 married women were allowed to own property and assets in their own names. In some instances they could regain custody of their children. In 1894 women gained the vote in the elections for the colonial Parliament. In 1896 women who had been forced to leave violent and abusive husbands had a right to the government maintenance allowance for widows and deserted wives. Parliament debated the possible introduction of a pension for the aged as an alternative to support by the Destitute Board. This measure was passed by the Australian Federal Government in 1909. Two years later a South Australian government introduced a widows pension and empowered the Destitute Board to make cash payments to ill or injured persons. The legislation of 1909 and 1911 substantially reduced demands on the Destitute Asylum. It closed in 1917 when the Old Folks Home opened in Magill.

Museum Reference Material

REGNO: HT 85.791 (S)
OBJECT: BOOTS
SOURCE: Found underneath floor - Destitute Asylum
MANUF: c 1890s
DIMEN: All in cms: 18 x 261 x 7.5 b

MATERIAL: Leather, brass, canvas ? laces

CONDITION: Very poor. Brass buttons + hooks + nails on sole are green. Coated in mud Heel and sole badly worn down with bottom layer of leather breaking off. L. Shoe: coming undone and edges curled on r. front. Tongue bent and out of shape. R. Shoe: leg of boot that would encase ankles and lower calf is bent to left and immovable.

DESCRIPTION: A pair of boots found under the floorboards of the Mothers' Ward of the Destitute Asylum in 1985. 1890's fashion with rounded toes encased by a V-shaped plate of leather which is patterned. When worn would have gone just above the ankle. Very well made and neatly stitched from inside. Sole and heel made up of a number of flat pieces of leather (sole 2, heel 8) joined together with brass nails. Formerly brown in colour fastened with laces through the bottom and through 4 hooks on each side at the top. Canvas tap/loop on the top back either to hang boots or assist putting them on. Subject area: WOMEN, DESTITUTE ASYLUM, SOCIAL WELFARE, TRADES,BOOKMAKING, GALLERY 2, GALLERY 1.