Olde' Australia Brothels, Strip Joints & More

[Tania Admin]

I just love old pics and narratives about our history. It's important to share and keep it alive in the memories of others.

I will be adding things on here occasionally and if you have pics and/or old stories to tell, please do share them with us. Even better if it's industry related but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

 

[Tania Admin]

One of Sydney's streets in the 1840's. This was an area where criminals preyed on whalers with money in their pockets after a three month cruise. Ladies Of The Night relieved them of their money and the reputation earned by the locals left a lot to be desired.

Top pic is the olde Whalers Arms

 

[Tania Admin]

Sex work was one of the major ways poor women could earn a reasonable income in the 19th century. Especially unmarried women with babies.

But we don't hear people say "my great-great-grandmother was a sex worker". Nor do we often meet these women in our history books.

Social stigma belies the importance of prostitution in providing an independent living, and even property ownership, for numerous women in this period.

Prostitution is often lumped together with crime and slums in the historical imagination, but it wasn't illegal in gold rush Victoria.

Nevertheless neighbours in the "respectable" suburbs complained if women danced in the streets or appeared without a bonnet or showed their petticoats, so the police tried to confine sex workers to particular areas.

"These women must live somewhere," the police said in the superintendent's 1874 report, and that "somewhere" was the Little Lon district in Melbourne CBD's north-east corner, where the "dressed girls" were kitted out and lived in the "flash brothels" under the supervision of madams, and the less expensive street-walkers took their customers to the "short-time houses" and timber cottages in the back lanes.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02...ry-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592

 

[Tania Admin]

Caroline Hodgson (1851 – 11 July 1908), also known as Madame Brussels, was a well-known brothel proprietor and local identity of the Little Lon district in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, during the late 19th century.

Perhaps the most famous inhabitant of this patch was Madame Brussels and her Bellevue-Villa, still commemorated today with a bar of the same name on Bourke Street.
Clientele came from everywhere and every class, but proximity to the all-male enclave of Parliament and treasury was a distinct advantage for these fancy brothels.

Despite being legal, though, women had to keep quiet or risk arrest and imprisonment under laws against "disorderly behaviour" and "vagrancy".

The area has been extensively excavated by a series of archaeological projects over the last 30 years, and our recent intensive research on the artefacts recovered (held at Museum Victoria and Heritage Victoria) is revealing much more about the brothels and the women who owned them that had disappeared from memory.



Meet the real Madame Brussels
MADAME BRUSSELS was the most influential businesswomen in Melbourne in the late 1800s, amassing a great deal of property and cash. She had politicians and police wrapped around her little finger and managed to build an empire that thumbed its nose at the religious puritans of the conservative Victorian era.




Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02...ry-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592

 

[Tania Admin]

Mrs Bond's flash brothel
The brothel owned by one Mrs Bond on Lonsdale Street was so quiet that no-one knew it was there until archaeologists dug up her back yard in 1988.

The excavators speculated that the site had been a brothel and our work on the artefacts has confirmed it.

Alicia Bond arrived in Little Lon from Ireland as a widow but with a de facto husband suffering from tuberculosis.

In 1862, she had three young children to support, and when her son attacked her de facto husband she reported at the trial that "she could not see her children starve".

An absinthe bottle recovered from Mrs Bond's rubbish pit. (Supplied: Bronwyn Woff)

She "had at first taken in washing", she said to the court, "and then had to keep a brothel to support the family".

She started by renting a back lane cottage for a brothel, and eventually bought her own house on the main street and opened a grocery shop.
She then poured her earnings into buying cottages which she rented out to other sex workers.

This cover was very effective and the only reason we know about her brothel is because the artefacts recovered included an uncommonly large number of bottles (champagne (77), imported spirits (4) and absinthe (10) amongst the rubbish in her back yard, together with over 300 oyster shells.

Archaeological evidence shows Melburnians often ate oysters at this time, but they seemed particularly popular at brothels.

Such luxury items were typical of the higher class brothels, where the selection of dinner services and drinking glasses projected middle class status in order to create a familiar environment and attracted a wealthier clientele than the back lane cottages.

Mrs Bond's brothel was not in the class of Madame Brussels', but it had at least eight rooms and a prominent Lonsdale Street frontage.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02...ry-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592

 

[Tania Admin]

Mary Williams's disorderly house

Around the corner and down a side street, Mary Williams rented two very basic, detached two-room cottages from Mrs Bond.

Rubbish discarded in her cesspit indicates a very different class of brothel.

There were no imported champagne or absinthe bottles here, only beer/wine bottles (90), two gin/schnapps bottles, one cognac bottle and 165 oyster shells.

Mary came from Ireland via a brief marriage in Adelaide, but in 1870, when she was still in her 20s, she left South Australia with George Williams and found herself in Little Lon.

Within months George was in prison for theft and, in 1872, Mary was described by a policeman as a "drunkard" running one of the most disorderly houses in the lane.

She had two babies while she was there, but both died in infancy.

Mary Williams' brothel doubtless attracted less well-to-do clients than Mrs Bond's and Madame Brussels', but sex work provided her with a better standard of living than domestic service or factory work could have done.




Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/sex-work-in-19th-century-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592

 

[Tania Admin]

A working community

Sex work in the Little Lon district was fraught with dangers, but it also had its upside.

Women worked on their own, with friends, or in brothels run by madams (not by men).

There was a community of support around the women, often including relatives and the publicans, pawn brokers, grocers and dressmakers they patronised.

Both sides of the coin are evident in the story of Mary Murray, who rented one of Mrs Bond's cottages.

The Bond family tombstone at Melbourne's general cemetery.(Supplied: Barbara Minchinton)

She died after being badly beaten by a client, but it was a friend who took her to hospital.

The women relied on each other and there are many other stories of support. For example, when Mary Williams went into labour, she was attended by a neighbour.

Wages for the kind of domestic work available to women with children (like Mrs Bond) were extremely low, and even lower for girls.

In 1878, two young women earning 12 shillings a week as domestic servants told a policeman their wages "wouldn't keep them in boots", and they earned more from street work on their nights off.

After her de facto husband's death, Mrs Bond raised her three sons on the proceeds of her brothel.

At the same time, she poured her earnings into property, living and running her grocery/brothel in one house, and renting others to sex workers like Mary Williams and Mary Murray.

When Mrs Bond died her property portfolio would have been the envy of many.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02...ry-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592

 

[Paco]

Oh yes , I remember most of these ladies.!! They were very gentle with me when I first started visiting brothels !

 

[Tania Admin]

This era of relative independence for female sex workers was not to last.

The idea of "respectability" was growing and groups like the Salvation Army and the church missions saw prostitution as primarily a moral issue rather than an economic one.

Soliciting in the streets was criminalised in 1891, and the Police Offences Act 1907 made it illegal for landlords and madams to profit from prostitution.

This effectively put the flash brothels out of business and sent Victoria into an era of protection rackets and women working under the surveillance and control of men.

1907
POLICE OFFENCES STATUTE.
NEW VAGRANCY CLAUSE.
Under the Police Offences Act 1907 the
police are given extended powers for dealing
with those persons who are classed as " idle
and disorderly." In the past the police
have complained that they have been un-
able to deal with these undesirables because
of the loopholes for escape existing in the
act. The amended act, however, gives
them fuller powers, and should enable them
to deal with the "hawks" of society. The
Police Offences Act 1907, which has just
been circulated, provides:—" Where any
member of the police force has reasonable
cause to believe that any person has no law-
ful means of support or has insufficient law-
ful means of support, he may arrest such
person either with or without warrant, and
have such person brought before a court
of petty sessions, or justices, or may summon
such person to appear before a court of
petty sessions." The accused person has
himself to show that he has sufficient law-
ful means of support, for the next clause
reads:—"If such person fails to prove to
the satisfaction of the court of justices that
he has sufficient lawful means of support,
he shall be deemed to be an idle and dis-
orderly person within the meaning of part 3
of the principal act, and may be imprisoned
with or without hard labour for any time
not exceeding twelve months. The fact
that any person charged under this section
can produce or prove that he possesses
money or property shall not be taken into
account in deciding the charge against such
person unless he shows by his own or other
evidence that he honestly obtained such
money or property." The act also deals with
persons living on the earnings of pro-
stitution, and it is provided that anyone
letting a house to a tenant knowing that
such tenant will conduct it as a house of ill-
fame will be liable to apenalty of £20.

 

[HappierNow]

This era of relative independence for female sex workers was not to last.

The idea of "respectability" was growing and groups like the Salvation Army and the church missions saw prostitution as primarily a moral issue rather than an economic one.

Soliciting in the streets was criminalised in 1891, and the Police Offences Act 1907 made it illegal for landlords and madams to profit from prostitution.

This effectively put the flash brothels out of business and sent Victoria into an era of protection rackets and women working under the surveillance and control of men.

1907
POLICE OFFENCES STATUTE.
NEW VAGRANCY CLAUSE.
Under the Police Offences Act 1907 the
police are given extended powers for dealing
with those persons who are classed as " idle
and disorderly." In the past the police
have complained that they have been un-
able to deal with these undesirables because
of the loopholes for escape existing in the
act. The amended act, however, gives
them fuller powers, and should enable them
to deal with the "hawks" of society. The
Police Offences Act 1907, which has just
been circulated, provides:—" Where any
member of the police force has reasonable
cause to believe that any person has no law-
ful means of support or has insufficient law-
ful means of support, he may arrest such
person either with or without warrant, and
have such person brought before a court
of petty sessions, or justices, or may summon
such person to appear before a court of
petty sessions." The accused person has
himself to show that he has sufficient law-
ful means of support, for the next clause
reads:—"If such person fails to prove to
the satisfaction of the court of justices that
he has sufficient lawful means of support,
he shall be deemed to be an idle and dis-
orderly person within the meaning of part 3
of the principal act, and may be imprisoned
with or without hard labour for any time
not exceeding twelve months. The fact
that any person charged under this section
can produce or prove that he possesses
money or property shall not be taken into
account in deciding the charge against such
person unless he shows by his own or other
evidence that he honestly obtained such
money or property." The act also deals with
persons living on the earnings of pro-
stitution, and it is provided that anyone
letting a house to a tenant knowing that
such tenant will conduct it as a house of ill-
fame will be liable to apenalty of £20.

Interesting...thank you Tania

 

[richm]

I'd be intrigued to see the stats if that whole act was in place now ... what would be the arrest rate for the idle & disorderly?

And thanks Tania ...

 

[Treecat]

This is a very interesting topic Tania. I wonder what happened in WA in the same era.

 

[Tania Admin]

This is a very interesting topic Tania. I wonder what happened in WA in the same era.

Thank you. I do like to keep things interesting

I will be posting about WA in the future

 

[SilverSurfer44]

I've read a most of those extensive posts above in this thread, which I've found to be enlightening, informative and admirable. Well done.

 

[Tania Admin]

I've read a most of those extensive posts above in this thread, which I've found to be enlightening, informative and admirable. Well done.

Thank you.

I have sourced information from other sites but do believe it's history worth sharing.

 

[Tania Admin]

Kalgoorlie's Hay Street grew out of the 1890s gold rush, which sent prospectors and prostitutes to Western Australia's Goldfields in search of fortune. At its peak, the strip was lined with dozens of brothels.


The Red House

The Pink House

 

[Tania Admin]

Have any of our members been here?

The Australian Club is a private club founded in 1838 and located in Sydney at 165 Macquarie Street. Its membership is men-only and it is the oldest gentlemen's club in the southern hemisphere.

"The Club provides excellent dining facilities, en-suite bedrooms and apartments, a fully equipped gym, and on Level 7 of the building in which the Clubhouse is located, are first rate business facilities which Members and resident guests may access."

 

[sircurious]

Have any of our members been here?

The Australian Club is a private club founded in 1838 and located in Sydney at 165 Macquarie Street. Its membership is men-only and it is the oldest gentlemen's club in the southern hemisphere.

View attachment 115652

Attached is the list of past & present Australian Club members. Having a quick look at the list you have to be a blue blood (Liberal party member), moneyed (in earning your money from farming, business, inherited wealth) and be educated at one the prestigious boys schools that are predominately located in Victoria/NSW.

List of Australian Club members - Wikipedia