1
00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:06,840
Speaker 1: And Mabel's brother writes a letter to the State Children's

2
00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:10,200
Speaker 1: Council accusing Mabel of being a prostitute and saying that

3
00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:13,760
Speaker 1: she's living in a brothel just off Hindley Street, and

4
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,560
Speaker 1: that she has hidden her daughter away and that if

5
00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:19,000
Speaker 1: someone goes in checks they'll find that Mabel is being

6
00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:20,000
Speaker 1: very bad. Indeed.

7
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:22,919
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from The Herald Son and this is

8
00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,800
Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's

9
00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:30,160
Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today we're returning to the late eighteen hundreds

10
00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 2: and the dramatic tale of a vaudeville performer called Mabel Warling.

11
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:39,879
Speaker 2: Mabel gave birth in a destitute asylum after falling pregnant

12
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,720
Speaker 2: in scandalous circumstances. Then she ran away, joined a circus

13
00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:49,120
Speaker 2: and rubbed shoulders with star entertainers of her day, before

14
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:52,519
Speaker 2: she lapsed into a life of crime. To tell us

15
00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:56,760
Speaker 2: the remarkable tale, we're chatting today with Carin Ball, Senior

16
00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,840
Speaker 2: curator at the History Trust of South Australia. Karin has

17
00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:05,520
Speaker 2: written a book called Three Ring Circuits, The dramatic, mysterious

18
00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:09,640
Speaker 2: and tragic life of Mabel Wallely, a gestitute asylum girl

19
00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:11,960
Speaker 2: and you can find a link in the show notes

20
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:18,000
Speaker 2: to this episode. Welcome to the podcast, Karin, Hello, thank

21
00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:18,720
Speaker 2: you for having me.

22
00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:19,559
Speaker 1: Now.

23
00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:23,040
Speaker 2: I love the evocative title of your book. It says

24
00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 2: so much. It's called Three Ring Circus. The dramatic, mysterious

25
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:32,640
Speaker 2: and tragic Life of Mabel Wally, a destitute asylum girl.

26
00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:36,520
Speaker 2: Mabel really did pack a lot into her seven decades

27
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:38,560
Speaker 2: of life, didn't she.

28
00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:42,760
Speaker 1: She really did. Yes, yes, So she gives birth to

29
00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:46,200
Speaker 1: a daughter in the destitute asylum. She gets married, domestic

30
00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:48,160
Speaker 1: life never really works out for her, so she quite

31
00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:51,480
Speaker 1: literally runs away and joins a circus. This leads into

32
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:55,080
Speaker 1: a tale of love and loss. She rubs shoulders with

33
00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:57,840
Speaker 1: some of the big star entertainers per day, but then

34
00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:00,560
Speaker 1: it all goes wrong. The wheels fall off, and lapses

35
00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:03,680
Speaker 1: into a life of crime and spends the last thirty

36
00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:05,480
Speaker 1: years of her life living rough on the streets of

37
00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:08,320
Speaker 1: Adelaide and Melbourne, and spends a lot of time in

38
00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:11,400
Speaker 1: prison for being drunken, disorderly and a vagrant. So she

39
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:14,960
Speaker 1: has a very sensational tale, but things go wrong. I

40
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:18,560
Speaker 1: like to say, up, roll up for this tale of sex, stardom,

41
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,160
Speaker 1: betrayal and secrets.

42
00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,120
Speaker 2: Such a tragic story. Where does the whole tale begin? Korean?

43
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:31,560
Speaker 1: So it begins in little Adelaide, little old Adelaide, sleepy Adelaide,

44
00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:34,560
Speaker 1: at the far edges of the British Empire. So she's

45
00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:38,120
Speaker 1: born into this very volatile world of people coming and going,

46
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:44,640
Speaker 1: high traffic area. There's theaters, there's brothels, there's prostitutes, there's politicians.

47
00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:49,280
Speaker 1: So she's born into this very vibrant world where the

48
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:54,440
Speaker 1: European population of South Australia is surging past one hundred thousand.

49
00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:58,480
Speaker 1: And she from very early on, as many working class

50
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:02,639
Speaker 1: girls of her situation, she gets typified as a bad

51
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:06,840
Speaker 1: girl very early on. So when she's fourteen, she's surrendered

52
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:09,520
Speaker 1: by her mother to the care of the South Australian

53
00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:14,840
Speaker 1: government as an uncontrollable girl. And in that context, uncontrollability

54
00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:20,399
Speaker 1: usually means sexual activity. Boys are surrendered much less for uncontrollability,

55
00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 1: usually for things like petty theft, disorderly behavior like throwing

56
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,760
Speaker 1: stones at trains, all that kind of thing. For girls,

57
00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:31,399
Speaker 1: it's much more associated with bad behavior and bad sexual behavior.

58
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:34,600
Speaker 1: But you know, Mabel's a teenager. She's doing what teenagers

59
00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:38,080
Speaker 1: have always done. But she's yes, So she's surrendered by

60
00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:40,120
Speaker 1: her mother as uncontrollable and she ends up at the

61
00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:41,120
Speaker 1: girl's reformatory.

62
00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 2: And Karin, would she have been at school at all?

63
00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:48,000
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't have any schooling records for her, but

64
00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:50,680
Speaker 1: the records from that period of the late eighteen seventies

65
00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:53,680
Speaker 1: early eighteen eighties are quite patchy. But we can tell

66
00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,080
Speaker 1: from later letters that are on file with government records

67
00:03:57,120 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 1: that she has a very good, very good hand, She's

68
00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,000
Speaker 1: got good and writing, and she composes her thoughts well.

69
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,360
Speaker 1: The research I've done into the family seems to indicate

70
00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:08,200
Speaker 1: that one of her sisters might have been a student

71
00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,040
Speaker 1: teacher for a while, so I think that's where she

72
00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:15,040
Speaker 1: gets her good handwriting and way of composing herself on paper.

73
00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,600
Speaker 1: But I don't have any firm information about her education

74
00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,279
Speaker 1: because she's just in this very early period of compulsory

75
00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:22,640
Speaker 1: education in South Australia.

76
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:26,120
Speaker 2: And was she actually working as a prostitute? Do you

77
00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:27,560
Speaker 2: think at some stage?

78
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,719
Speaker 1: Well, she certainly gets accused as such by her brother

79
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:34,320
Speaker 1: later down the track, but I might get to that

80
00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,760
Speaker 1: in a moment when she's you know, when she's an

81
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:41,520
Speaker 1: uncontrollable girl being sent to the reformatory. It's probably much

82
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,000
Speaker 1: less serious. You know, it might be talking about but

83
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:46,160
Speaker 1: she might have a boyfriend, she might be engaging in

84
00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:50,160
Speaker 1: sexual exploration, that sort of thing. But you know, she's

85
00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,400
Speaker 1: really just a teenager being a teenager and doing what

86
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:57,480
Speaker 1: teenagers do. So at the reformatory, she's given basic training

87
00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:00,360
Speaker 1: on household tasks. She didn't already know those things from

88
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,359
Speaker 1: being in her parents' boarding house. And then she is

89
00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:07,480
Speaker 1: sent out into service. So she's fifteen or so, and

90
00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:11,200
Speaker 1: she's sent to work as a domestic at a house

91
00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:13,960
Speaker 1: in Norton Summit, so up in the Adelaide Hills, a

92
00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:18,080
Speaker 1: million miles away in many ways from the wild west

93
00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:21,240
Speaker 1: end of Adelaide. So she's sent to this house called

94
00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 1: Grove Hill, which is owned by the Giles family. We

95
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,560
Speaker 1: are a very wealthy family. And yeah, so she's at

96
00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:29,000
Speaker 1: this lovely property in the hills which is surrounded by

97
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:33,680
Speaker 1: orchards and gardens and has all this beautiful architecture. And

98
00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:36,440
Speaker 1: while she's there, she becomes pregnant to the young man

99
00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:37,680
Speaker 1: of the house. Ah.

100
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:41,080
Speaker 2: Interesting, So the young man of the house as in

101
00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:43,599
Speaker 2: a sort of the one of the children of the house,

102
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:45,200
Speaker 2: one of the teenagers.

103
00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:50,000
Speaker 1: So yes, yes, he's nineteen nineteen sixteen by that point

104
00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:53,640
Speaker 1: just about we know, you know from later descriptions of

105
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:57,440
Speaker 1: her that she's you know, she's tallish, she's five for

106
00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:01,719
Speaker 1: three five four, she's slim, she's got Hayes lies and

107
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,080
Speaker 1: being mable. She has a wild streak a mile wide,

108
00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:08,479
Speaker 1: and she attracts the attention of this young man, Charles Giles,

109
00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:11,000
Speaker 1: who's the young man of the house. And what's key

110
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:13,320
Speaker 1: to their relationship is that when he's twenty one, he

111
00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:17,599
Speaker 1: will inherit the entire estate from his grandfather. So yes,

112
00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:20,920
Speaker 1: so she is returned to the to the State Children's

113
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:24,880
Speaker 1: Council from Grove Hill. She's initially returned as unwell, but

114
00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:26,920
Speaker 1: it's rapidly discovered that she's pregnant.

115
00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:30,599
Speaker 2: Ah, and she was obviously just working as a maid

116
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:32,920
Speaker 2: while she was at this amazing home.

117
00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:35,320
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so she's just a house stage, she's just

118
00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,120
Speaker 1: a domestic servant. And this is what you know, this

119
00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:40,160
Speaker 1: is what happens to girls in service. They go out

120
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:44,400
Speaker 1: and they work as domestics, or they work for small businesses,

121
00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:47,159
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Boys tend to be sent to

122
00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 1: farms for agricultural labor, that sort of stuff. Or into apprenticeships.

123
00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 2: So what happens to this baby, given it's illegitimate, does

124
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,360
Speaker 2: it stand to inherit this fortune?

125
00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 1: Probably not, I think that's probably quite unlikely. But for

126
00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:05,560
Speaker 1: some reason, and we don't know exactly why the Giles

127
00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:08,520
Speaker 1: family pays the State Children's Council one hundred and fifty

128
00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:12,560
Speaker 1: pounds in consideration of all demands. Now, I have spent

129
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:15,480
Speaker 1: a lot of time going through the correspondence books for

130
00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:19,240
Speaker 1: various of these institutions, and I can't find any correspondence

131
00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 1: that tells us why they paid this one hundred and

132
00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:26,280
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. But it's a very very unusual tacit admission

133
00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:28,520
Speaker 1: of paternity on behalf of the Giles.

134
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:31,040
Speaker 2: Family, and it's also a huge amount of money at

135
00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:31,480
Speaker 2: that time.

136
00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:35,040
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it really is. Yes, we did the maths

137
00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:38,880
Speaker 1: and it's twelve years dipend for a state child. So

138
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:42,480
Speaker 1: it's what the family is basically paying off the government

139
00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:45,200
Speaker 1: for having to look after this child for the twelve

140
00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:47,480
Speaker 1: years that is the minimum that they would be that

141
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,680
Speaker 1: she would be in care. So Mabel has this baby

142
00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:53,560
Speaker 1: at the lying in home of the Destitute Asylum. So

143
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:56,840
Speaker 1: if anybody's been to the migration museum in Adelaide, my

144
00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 1: form alma mata. The two story building in the courtyard,

145
00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:01,960
Speaker 1: that's the lying in home. So Mabel would have had

146
00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,480
Speaker 1: her daughter in one of the upper upstairs labor wards.

147
00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:08,720
Speaker 1: And so that's the twenty sixth of November eighteen eighty eight,

148
00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:11,360
Speaker 1: and she has a little girl that she calls Hillgrove.

149
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:14,880
Speaker 1: So Hillgrove is not usually a girl's name, it's a

150
00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:18,600
Speaker 1: boy's name, and it is significantly the name of Charles

151
00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:22,360
Speaker 1: Giles's deceased little brother, who died about five years before

152
00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:26,560
Speaker 1: Mabel goes to work at the house. So I suspect

153
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:30,680
Speaker 1: that this is a potentially loving and consensual relationship between

154
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:32,719
Speaker 1: Mabel and the young man of the house. It might

155
00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:34,640
Speaker 1: not have been. She wouldn't be the first maid to

156
00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:37,520
Speaker 1: be despoiled by a man of the house, and she

157
00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:40,000
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't be the last. But the fact that she

158
00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:43,320
Speaker 1: calls her child this family name, it could be a

159
00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:45,679
Speaker 1: big middle finger from Mabel to the Giles's But it

160
00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:50,400
Speaker 1: could also be a much more loving and consensual relationship. Yeah.

161
00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:52,600
Speaker 2: Well, even the fact that she knows the name of

162
00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:53,800
Speaker 2: the deceased little brother.

163
00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:57,959
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, actually, that's an excellent point. I had never

164
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:00,000
Speaker 1: thought about that, so thank you for that wonderful detail.

165
00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:04,000
Speaker 1: So yes, so she named this child Hillgrove and that

166
00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:05,800
Speaker 1: does not go down very well at all.

167
00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:06,800
Speaker 2: How do you know that?

168
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,080
Speaker 1: Because the State Children's Council make her change the child's name.

169
00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:14,240
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

170
00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:17,520
Speaker 1: So it happens at some point in the baby's first

171
00:09:17,600 --> 00:09:20,960
Speaker 1: few months, but her birth is registered as Hillgrove Warley,

172
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:24,040
Speaker 1: and then by the time she's six months to a

173
00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:26,400
Speaker 1: year old, she's now being referred to in the official

174
00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:31,280
Speaker 1: documentation as Eleanor Giles Worley. So she's had her name

175
00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:34,960
Speaker 1: changed from Hillgrove, but she still retains the Giles. So

176
00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:38,840
Speaker 1: really interesting speculation. I don't have any firm answers, but

177
00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 1: that and the payment, the one hundred and fifty pounds payment,

178
00:09:42,840 --> 00:09:46,120
Speaker 1: does make me wonder if it's genuinely loving relationship. It

179
00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:48,840
Speaker 1: could also be, you know, an aion of a tacit

180
00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:52,079
Speaker 1: admission of guilt. It could be payoff to the authorities

181
00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:55,120
Speaker 1: for keeping is quiet. It could be all sorts of things.

182
00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:58,200
Speaker 1: But yes, there's lots to speculate about, maybe of costumesities,

183
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:00,520
Speaker 1: any of that money. You know that undred and fifty

184
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,600
Speaker 1: pounds doesn't go to her, it goes to the government.

185
00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 1: She may not even know that one hundred and fifty

186
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: pounds ever existed, but yes, it certainly. As a researcher,

187
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:12,680
Speaker 1: that really kind of caught my attention and made me think, oh,

188
00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:15,400
Speaker 1: what's going on here. There's all interesting stuff going on

189
00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:16,199
Speaker 1: in the background.

190
00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 2: Amazing, there's so much intrigue in her life and she's

191
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:20,079
Speaker 2: not even yet an adult.

192
00:10:20,880 --> 00:10:23,319
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, she's only a teenager at this point.

193
00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:26,400
Speaker 2: We'll be back shortly to find out what happened next,

194
00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:35,160
Speaker 2: So stay with us. So what happens once she becomes

195
00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:38,839
Speaker 2: so she's able to stay there until she's eighteen, and

196
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:40,000
Speaker 2: then what happens then?

197
00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:45,280
Speaker 1: So what happens next is Mabel turns eighteen, and she

198
00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:48,640
Speaker 1: collects her daughter from the industrial Score and she goes

199
00:10:48,679 --> 00:10:53,760
Speaker 1: about her way. But things don't go smoothly. And we

200
00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:58,200
Speaker 1: talked earlier about whether she's accused of prostitution. Her daughter

201
00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:01,360
Speaker 1: is probably about a year and a half, yes, she

202
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:05,000
Speaker 1: said Toddler and Mabel's brother writes a letter to the

203
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,679
Speaker 1: State Children's Council accusing Mabel of being a prostitute and

204
00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:11,920
Speaker 1: saying that she's living in a brothel just off Hindley Street,

205
00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:15,240
Speaker 1: and that she has hidden her daughter away and that

206
00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:17,719
Speaker 1: if someone goes and checks, they'll find that Mabel is

207
00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 1: being very bad indeed, and this causes a great flurry

208
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:24,440
Speaker 1: at the State Children's Counsel, who send an inspector round

209
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:27,000
Speaker 1: to do a check, and they find Mabel in bed

210
00:11:27,160 --> 00:11:29,280
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day with a young man

211
00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:33,000
Speaker 1: partially clothed, and of course this doesn't look good at all,

212
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:35,240
Speaker 1: and they go and pick up her daughter from the

213
00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:38,719
Speaker 1: foster mother that Mabel has secreted her with, and they

214
00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 1: take the child into care, and poor Mabel, she really

215
00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:46,559
Speaker 1: suffers from this decision. She writes several letters to the

216
00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:49,520
Speaker 1: State Children's Council asking for her child back, but of

217
00:11:49,559 --> 00:11:52,480
Speaker 1: course she's been judged of being of low repute and

218
00:11:52,559 --> 00:11:54,839
Speaker 1: poor character, and they're not going to release the child

219
00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:58,000
Speaker 1: to her. So Mabel's about eighteen and a half, she's

220
00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:00,720
Speaker 1: nearly nineteen at this point, and what's she going to do?

221
00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:03,240
Speaker 1: She has no legal recourse to get her child back.

222
00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:07,720
Speaker 1: The State Children's Counsel is her baby's legal guardian because

223
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:10,240
Speaker 1: she's been found of living in a brothel and her

224
00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:13,320
Speaker 1: mother is a poor character. So she thinks about it

225
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:15,600
Speaker 1: for a little while, and Mabel being Mabel, she's always

226
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:19,520
Speaker 1: got a wily solution to these sorts of problems. And

227
00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:23,720
Speaker 1: she gets married in July eighteen ninety one. She marries

228
00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:27,120
Speaker 1: a young man called Henry Hawkins, and he is very

229
00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:30,000
Speaker 1: slightly higher than her in the social scale. He has

230
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,680
Speaker 1: quite a whiff of drama about him. He was born

231
00:12:32,679 --> 00:12:35,679
Speaker 1: in colonial Fiji and came to Australia when he was

232
00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:40,680
Speaker 1: a very small child, and his father very dramatically dies

233
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:44,400
Speaker 1: or died in eighteen seventy two on one of the

234
00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:49,319
Speaker 1: Northern Telegraph the Overland telegraph Line expeditions. So Henry has

235
00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:53,000
Speaker 1: this little kind of cachet of colonial drama, and he's

236
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:55,880
Speaker 1: born overseas, and he's a printer. He's only young, he's

237
00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:58,040
Speaker 1: in his early twenties. He's two or three years older

238
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:02,559
Speaker 1: than her, and he works at a the Christian Colonist newspaper.

239
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:05,320
Speaker 1: And so the day after the wedding he starts writing

240
00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:08,240
Speaker 1: to the State Children's Council saying I would like to

241
00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:12,120
Speaker 1: take charge of my stepdaughter please. Actually those letters aren't

242
00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,920
Speaker 1: very successful, and you can see the letters at State

243
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:18,120
Speaker 1: Records at Cavern. It was an utter delight to be

244
00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:21,320
Speaker 1: able to go to State records. Wonderful colleagues, and they

245
00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:24,080
Speaker 1: got the letters out for us, so we could read

246
00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 1: Henry's letters to the State Children's Council and Mabel's letters

247
00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:31,680
Speaker 1: to the State Children's Council, and it's really wonderful. It

248
00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:34,000
Speaker 1: puts you over their shoulder, just really looking at how

249
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:36,000
Speaker 1: they feel where they're trying to get this child that

250
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,080
Speaker 1: means so much to both of them, trying to get

251
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:40,960
Speaker 1: her return to them and.

252
00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 2: Finding it had to understand why they were still refused.

253
00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:47,680
Speaker 2: If there were two loving parents that wanted to adopt

254
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:49,080
Speaker 2: or to take back this child.

255
00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:54,600
Speaker 1: Well, Henry apparently has reputation for being a drinker, so

256
00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:56,480
Speaker 1: there's a note on the bottom of the file that

257
00:13:56,520 --> 00:14:00,120
Speaker 1: says that he has a poor reputation as well, and

258
00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:02,880
Speaker 1: that initially it's not thought that it's in the interest

259
00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:05,400
Speaker 1: of the child, but something changes. They eventually managed to

260
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,200
Speaker 1: persuade the State Children's counsel to give it a try,

261
00:14:08,679 --> 00:14:12,560
Speaker 1: and so little toddler Eleanor she's called Eleanor at that point,

262
00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:14,920
Speaker 1: and we think her nickname is probably nell Or Nellie,

263
00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:18,760
Speaker 1: and she is returned to Mabel and Hawkins.

264
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:23,240
Speaker 2: Amazing, and what happens next. So for a little while

265
00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,920
Speaker 2: they're a happy family. They're a happy family, and that's

266
00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 2: the early few years of the eighteen nineties. They pass

267
00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:33,080
Speaker 2: in wonderful serenity. Nothing happens.

268
00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:37,920
Speaker 1: They're inspected regularly that the household is doing well and

269
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,480
Speaker 1: that the child is being well cared for. And then

270
00:14:40,520 --> 00:14:44,320
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety four, Henry requests permission to take eleanor

271
00:14:44,400 --> 00:14:47,920
Speaker 1: baby Eleanor out of South Australia. They're planning a trip

272
00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:50,160
Speaker 1: to New South Wales and they're going to take this

273
00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:53,320
Speaker 1: child out of the state, out of the colony, sorry

274
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:55,320
Speaker 1: as it was at the time, And they get permissioned

275
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:57,720
Speaker 1: to do that, and nothing has heard of them for

276
00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:02,360
Speaker 1: two years, and they come back in eighteen ninety six. Now,

277
00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:05,680
Speaker 1: from the point of view of the State Children's Council,

278
00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:08,200
Speaker 1: this is all fine. She's been traveling with her stepfather,

279
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:12,960
Speaker 1: that's all well and good. But what it's happening behind

280
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,800
Speaker 1: the scenes, what is happening behind the scenes, is much

281
00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:20,160
Speaker 1: much more interesting. So it turns out that Mabel has

282
00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,520
Speaker 1: a career as a vaudeville singer, and her daughter has

283
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:27,000
Speaker 1: also been singing on the stage as a small child.

284
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:29,720
Speaker 1: So as four and five year old. She's performing at

285
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:34,760
Speaker 1: the races because Mabel's brothers are jockeys and she's performing

286
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,080
Speaker 1: on the stage. And when this news hits the State

287
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:41,240
Speaker 1: Children's Council they go ballistic threat to take the child

288
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:41,880
Speaker 1: away again.

289
00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:47,680
Speaker 2: So were they traveling in New South Wales and performing

290
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:52,160
Speaker 2: on stages around New South Wales or was that all

291
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:53,760
Speaker 2: just a bit of a furfee.

292
00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 1: It's very hard to tell because there's lots of changes

293
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:03,320
Speaker 1: of names, and it's across multiple colonial lines. Before nineteen hundred,

294
00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:08,040
Speaker 1: all of these colonies have entirely separate administrations. So from

295
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,640
Speaker 1: what I've been able to piece together, Mabel travels to

296
00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:14,520
Speaker 1: New Zealand, she begins performing as her stage name is

297
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:18,920
Speaker 1: Triscy Darcy, and her little daughter is also performing with

298
00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:22,800
Speaker 1: Mabel's brothers who have a small kind of traveling show

299
00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 1: at this point. And then so when Mabel comes back

300
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 1: in early eighteen ninety six, her daughter is also performing

301
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:34,200
Speaker 1: with this traveling show, and that's when the State Children's

302
00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:36,040
Speaker 1: Council gets wind of it. They've managed to keep its

303
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:39,160
Speaker 1: secret while they've been into state. They've probably been further

304
00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:41,160
Speaker 1: than New South Wales. They may have even gone as

305
00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 1: far as Fiji to go and see Henry Hawkins family.

306
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:47,800
Speaker 1: But I haven't found any definitive proof of that. But yes,

307
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:51,320
Speaker 1: they're desperate to keep this performance aspect quiet from the

308
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:54,800
Speaker 1: State Children's Council because obviously vaudeville and the theater and

309
00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:58,000
Speaker 1: circus they're all considered to be quite low forms of entertainment,

310
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:01,600
Speaker 1: some lower than others, and it's not felt to be

311
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:04,240
Speaker 1: in the best interests of the child. So they're trying

312
00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:07,520
Speaker 1: to keep the secret. But somebody spots them and it

313
00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:09,680
Speaker 1: all goes to.

314
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:13,359
Speaker 3: Pooh, have you been able to come? Have you come

315
00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 3: across any more descriptions of the show and what Mabel

316
00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:20,440
Speaker 3: and her daughter were doing. Was it singing and dancing

317
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:24,879
Speaker 3: and so forth? Yes, there's lots of singing. Mabel is

318
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:28,919
Speaker 3: described as a serio comic, which means that she's doing.

319
00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:31,320
Speaker 1: You know, kind of light operetta, that sort of thing.

320
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:35,000
Speaker 1: Apparently she has a really nice voice. Her daughter is

321
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,640
Speaker 1: quite the stage sensation. So she's by eighteen ninety six,

322
00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 1: she's seven or eight, she's eight, and she is causing

323
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:47,840
Speaker 1: a real flurry when she's performing. She's probably doing sentimental ballads,

324
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,359
Speaker 1: plantation songs, that sort of thing is very popular in

325
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:54,240
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties. What is also happening on stage is

326
00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:57,160
Speaker 1: around Australia and around the anglophone world, is that people

327
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: are doing a lot of work in blackface. So I

328
00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:02,480
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember things like the Black and

329
00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 1: White minstrel show that used to be on TV in

330
00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:10,000
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. That sort of blackface performance has

331
00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:12,199
Speaker 1: a long, long history. It's got hundreds of years of

332
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:17,399
Speaker 1: history of white folks blacking up to perform, and in

333
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,320
Speaker 1: the late the latter part of the nineteenth century, it's

334
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:24,000
Speaker 1: everywhere everybody is performing, So it's unlikely that Mabel her

335
00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:26,560
Speaker 1: daughter did, but they would be on stage with male

336
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:30,000
Speaker 1: actors and singers who were performing in blackface. There was

337
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,120
Speaker 1: also quite a bit of cross dressing on stage, which

338
00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:36,560
Speaker 1: was very titillating to audiences, but also causes a lot

339
00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:40,800
Speaker 1: of tension that these gender roles can be dispensed with

340
00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:43,800
Speaker 1: so easily. It's all the sort of stuff that you

341
00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:46,479
Speaker 1: know is swirling around us now with this people on

342
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:48,680
Speaker 1: the right getting upset about drag and all that sort

343
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:51,960
Speaker 1: of thing and seen as destabilizing in many ways. So

344
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:56,720
Speaker 1: the vaudeville and live performance world and circus world of

345
00:18:56,760 --> 00:18:59,840
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth centuries is a much more interesting place

346
00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:04,720
Speaker 1: we might think these days. It's very it's very international.

347
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:07,080
Speaker 1: All of these troops know each other, all of the

348
00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:11,199
Speaker 1: performers are interconnected in many ways. They're either related, or

349
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:13,399
Speaker 1: they've worked with each other, or they owe each other money,

350
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:16,280
Speaker 1: or they've got their big break together. So this is

351
00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:18,800
Speaker 1: how Mabel and her daughter start performing on stages in

352
00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:22,000
Speaker 1: particularly in Adelaide on Hindy Street with some of the

353
00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:24,479
Speaker 1: really quite upcoming names of the day, who will then

354
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:26,880
Speaker 1: go on to perform around Australia and internationally.

355
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:29,760
Speaker 2: And was it always a mother and daughter act? Were

356
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:31,000
Speaker 2: they always performing together?

357
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,600
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No. I think that Mabel often

358
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:36,600
Speaker 1: is traveling on her own, and I think that that

359
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:39,960
Speaker 1: means that her daughter is with either with her father

360
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,600
Speaker 1: or with one of Mabel's brothers and their families. So

361
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:48,119
Speaker 1: Mabel has three brothers. The oldest one, Walter, is the

362
00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:50,000
Speaker 1: one who accuses her of being a prostitute, and they

363
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,359
Speaker 1: obviously have quite a difficult relationship. Her middle brother, Frank,

364
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,360
Speaker 1: is her favorite brother, and then her youngest brother, Alfred,

365
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:58,480
Speaker 1: is the baby of the family. So Frank has a

366
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:02,840
Speaker 1: small traveling show, which they end up calling Barton's Circus.

367
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:06,240
Speaker 1: Barton is the family stage name, and that's one of

368
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:08,560
Speaker 1: the reasons why it's so difficult to track all these

369
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:11,600
Speaker 1: people because they're using Barton, they're using Darcy, they're never

370
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:15,240
Speaker 1: using Walley or Hawkins, but they're using lots of other pseudonyms.

371
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,840
Speaker 1: Throughout her long life, Mabel understands the power of crafting

372
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 1: a new identity by sliding on the new name. You know,

373
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,720
Speaker 1: she changes names like she's changing her dress. She puts

374
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:29,760
Speaker 1: on accents to pretend to be from elsewhere. She's clearly

375
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:34,240
Speaker 1: drawing on this huge family performance vein of you know,

376
00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:37,080
Speaker 1: the family has been performing for several decades. It actually

377
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,119
Speaker 1: turns out, and that's one of the things that happens

378
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:42,080
Speaker 1: in the book is that I uncover the history of

379
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: this family performance gene you might say, which turns out

380
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,280
Speaker 1: to have its genesis right in the eighteen seventies. I

381
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 1: get to that later.

382
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 2: And did Henry ever perform or was he more of

383
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 2: a backstage manager.

384
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,879
Speaker 1: I think he does do some performing. There's a couple

385
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: of reports that he is traveling with a fox. So

386
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,639
Speaker 1: this is when Edison has developed the phonograph of the

387
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:07,239
Speaker 1: wax cylinders. People might be familiar. You can always google it,

388
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 1: so that it's a way of recording sound that's very

389
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:14,840
Speaker 1: new and very exciting. And so he is traveling as

390
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:18,719
Speaker 1: mister Darcy with a phonograph. And then the brothers, Mabel's

391
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 1: brothers have this small performing circus and they're doing all

392
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:25,000
Speaker 1: the side shows and playing at the races again and

393
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 1: doing all these little venues around South Australia, Country, South

394
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 1: Australia and Victoria. And really that's how they kind of

395
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 1: keep going until the end of the eighteen nineties. And

396
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:39,360
Speaker 1: then in eighteen ninety nine they notify the State Children's

397
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:42,440
Speaker 1: Council that they're moving to Melbourne and Mabel and her

398
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,399
Speaker 1: daughter disappear out of the historical record.

399
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,399
Speaker 2: We'll be back shortly to hear more about Mabel's life,

400
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 2: so stay with us so before they disappear. Just from

401
00:21:57,960 --> 00:21:59,480
Speaker 2: the records that you do have, do you get any

402
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 2: impression about whether Mabel's daughter enjoyed being on the vaudeville

403
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:06,359
Speaker 2: circuit or whether she was forced into this.

404
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:11,680
Speaker 1: Well, no, I think she really enjoyed it. I've read

405
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 1: quite a few biographies of circus families from the period

406
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 1: and the general consensus seemed to be because this is

407
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,280
Speaker 1: the golden age of Australian circus, so the eighteen eighties

408
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 1: to the nineteen teens really once moving pictures come along

409
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 1: in a serious way. In the nineteen teens, it kind

410
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 1: of starts to fall off. But these last couple of

411
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 1: decades and first decade of the New century are really

412
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 1: considered a golden age of Australian circus, and family troops

413
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 1: would travel the length and breadth of the country. It

414
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 1: was a very free world for children in some ways.

415
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't do a lot of schooling. They

416
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,440
Speaker 1: got to be with friends who were having lots of adventures.

417
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,399
Speaker 1: They were, you know, seeing parts of the country that

418
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: most of their school friends would never have seen and

419
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: having experiences that they would never have had. But it

420
00:22:56,119 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: does come at a cost. You know. It's a very

421
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 1: physically hard world, traveling by wagon almost exclusively, sleeping under wagons, camping,

422
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,159
Speaker 1: and there's reports of babies being born in tents on

423
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: the road, all that kind of stuff. But I think

424
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,680
Speaker 1: for a kid, you know, you're growing up with your cousins,

425
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: So Ellenor's cousins, so Mabel's brothers have got a couple

426
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,399
Speaker 1: of children by that point, so you know there's a

427
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: kind of built in family unit and they're having fun.

428
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:23,880
Speaker 1: You know, they get to do all this really interesting

429
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: stuff from a very young age. You know, children were

430
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: put on the stage and in the script in the

431
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:30,920
Speaker 1: circus ring from three or four.

432
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 2: And we're Mabel and Henry actually breaking any laws by

433
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,679
Speaker 2: putting Mabel's daughter on the stage in this way and

434
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 2: taking her on tour or was it more that this

435
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 2: was just something that was frowned upon.

436
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not illegal, but it's, as I said, it's

437
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,679
Speaker 1: not considered to be entirely proper. There's always the whiff

438
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 1: of the disreptible to the traveling shows, particularly the smaller ones.

439
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: We're not talking about the big you know, the big

440
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: international circuses and the big outfits like Burdens and It's Geralds,

441
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: who are quite well, quite well respected, but these small

442
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:07,920
Speaker 1: jobbing family shows, you know, they're really just kind of

443
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: at the very bottom of that scale. But yes, all

444
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,120
Speaker 1: indications seem to suggest that the children enjoyed doing it.

445
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: They weren't really paid to do it, but you know,

446
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: they are having experiences that children would never have had normally,

447
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 1: and it becomes it becomes a way of life for them.

448
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,200
Speaker 1: It's natural for them. All their family and friends are

449
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: doing it, So why would you want to sit down

450
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: in one place and go to school?

451
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 2: So true, So take us now to Melbourne. So this

452
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 2: is where we lose part of the timeline. I guess

453
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 2: we don't really know what happened for a period there.

454
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 1: No, no, This is one of the frustrations of doing

455
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: this sort of research. So without going into too much

456
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: detail and giving too much away, they moved to Melbourne

457
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: and it would appear that Mabel and Henry split. He

458
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: goes off to Western Australia to become a minor and

459
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: she is with her daughter, and her daughter then goes

460
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: to South Africa as part of a traveling show at

461
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 1: the height of the Boer War. This really blew my

462
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: mind when I found out about this. So your listener's

463
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: probably familiar with the Second Boer War, which was fought

464
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: from eighteen ninety nine to nineteen oh two, I think

465
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: from memory. So it's between the South African Boers and

466
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: the British authorities who want to secure rights to all

467
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: the gold that's coming out of the ground. And the

468
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: early ones about Diamonds in the eighteen seventies, and so

469
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: it's an active war zone in the northern parts of

470
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: the Southern African continent, and so the idea that you

471
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: would take a troop of children performing children to this

472
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: sort of environment seemed completely unhinged to me. But the

473
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: general feeling seems to have been that so long as

474
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 1: the performing theatricals kept to the southern parts, so kept

475
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,439
Speaker 1: to the coastline, that they would be fine, although there

476
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: are certainly reports of theatrical troops having some quite hair

477
00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: raising escapes from the fighting areas in the early nineteen one,

478
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh two. So yeah, it's a completely bizarre

479
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: thing to do to take these little children, you know

480
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: that anything from seven or eight up to about thirteen

481
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: or fourteen, and they go to South Africa. And so

482
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: her daughter spends two years touring South Africa as a

483
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: performing theatrical.

484
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 2: And who were they performing for. They weren't performing for

485
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: soldiers on breaks or anything like that.

486
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they do, they do do some performances for military,

487
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: but mostly it's just performing the same vaudeville traveling circuit.

488
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: So all of these, you know, all the anglophone colonies

489
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: are obsessed with live performance and they're desperate to get

490
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: performers from overseas because it's exciting and new and it's

491
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: all about, you know, keeping the market share interested. So

492
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: traveling troops from Australia to South Africa or you know,

493
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: British troops would go to South Africa, or they would

494
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: come to Australia. It's a very interconnected and very very

495
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 1: mobile world. And so yes, you would think that, you know,

496
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: a little kid that was born in Adelaide at the

497
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: destitute Asylum is not going to end up on the

498
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: stages of at least three continents, but she does. It's

499
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: a very very exciting story to have been able to uncover.

500
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: How did you and first come across this story?

501
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: So Mabel came to my attention when I was a

502
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: curator at the Migration Museum and in twenty fifteen we

503
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: were redoing the gallery. There's a permanent gallery at the

504
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,479
Speaker 1: museum that talks about the history of the site. So,

505
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, the two story building at Migration Museum

506
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: is the former lying in home and the whole courtyard

507
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,400
Speaker 1: is all that's left off Adelaide's Destitute Asylum. So Adelaide's

508
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: Poorhouse's workhouse, and so we've always had a gallery that

509
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: tells that story. And in twenty fifteen I was one

510
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: of a team of three with my wonderful former colleague,

511
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: Nikky Sullivan and then director of Migration Museum who's now

512
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: Head of Collections, Mandy Paul, and we did the research

513
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: to revitalize and bring new stories into this gallery, and

514
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,959
Speaker 1: Mabel was one of the stories that we found. So

515
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: Nicky and I were State records at Cavin looking through

516
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: the registers and we found that detail of the one

517
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pounds being paid to the State Children's Council,

518
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: and that really was what pequed our interest. It was

519
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: like Maybel kind of reached up out of the archive

520
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,959
Speaker 1: and tugged on shold on our sleeve and said, you know,

521
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: there's something really interesting here if you dig, and so

522
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: we did. And so if you go to Migration Museum,

523
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: there are four story boxes in that gallery which tell

524
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: four different family stories from the asylum, and Maybel is

525
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: number three of four, and so we did some research.

526
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: We did know the research about her daughter being born

527
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: in the building and then her having to ask for

528
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: her back, so we knew her story up to eighteen

529
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: ninety nine, and something about it after we delivered the

530
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: gallery opened in twenty sixteen. Something about her story just

531
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: kind of stuck with me and I had to find

532
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: out what happened, because at that point we didn't know

533
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: anything about the theatrical performances, because Mabel had been very

534
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: successful about hiding that. We didn't know anything about South Africa.

535
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,719
Speaker 1: We didn't know anything about the family circus. We had

536
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: been in touch with some of Mabel's brother's descendants who

537
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: told us a bit more about the circus stuff, but

538
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: they also didn't know a lot of this detail. They

539
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: didn't know what had happened to Mabel's daughter, They didn't

540
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: know about any of the performing aspects. So gradually I

541
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: just unpicked it. Over five years or so, she just

542
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't leave me alone. She was very insistent that all

543
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: of this come to light.

544
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 2: We'll leave part one here and we'll return on Thursday

545
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: to hear about Mabel's thrilling life as a vaudeville performer,

546
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 2: the challenges she faced, and her lapse into a life

547
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: of crime. Thanks for listening. This has been in Black

548
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 2: and White, a podcast about some of Australia's Forgotten Characters,

549
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me Jen Kelly, edited by Nina Young,

550
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 2: and produced by John Ti Burton. You can find all

551
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 2: the stories and photos associated with their episodes at Heraldsun

552
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 2: dot com dot au slash I be a Double. If

553
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 2: you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd love you to leave a

554
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 2: five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Even better, leave a review.

555
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 2: Any comments or questions please email me at in black

556
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 2: and white at Heroldsun dot com dot au. Any clarifications

557
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 2: or updates will appear in the show notes for each episode,

558
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 2: and to get notified when each new episode comes out,

559
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: make sure you subscribe to the podcast feed