Little Lon District
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Little Lon was the popular name for a
slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
and
red-light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are particu ...
in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia. The area was roughly bounded by
Lonsdale Street Lonsdale Street is a main street and thoroughfare in the city centre of Melbourne, Australia. It runs roughly east–west and was laid out in 1837 as one of Melbourne's original boundaries within the Hoddle Grid. The street extends from Sp ...
,
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
, Stephen Street (later
Exhibition Street Exhibition Street is a major street in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. The street is named after the International Exhibition held at the Royal Exhibition Building in 1880, and was previously known as Stephen Street fro ...
) and
La Trobe Street La Trobe Street (also Latrobe Street) is a major street and thoroughfare in the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It runs roughly east–west and forms the northern boundary of Melbourne's central business district. The street wa ...
.
Little Lonsdale Street Little Lonsdale Street is located in the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. A part of the Hoddle Grid, it runs roughly east–west. North of Lonsdale Street and south of La Trobe Street, Little Lonsdale Street's eastern end intersects w ...
itself ran through the block, and the area was further divided by numerous narrow laneways. In the nineteenth century the area consisted of timber and brick cottages, shops and small factories and was home to an ethnically diverse and generally poor population. Today there are few reminders of the area's former notoriety.


Prostitution, petty crime and larrikinism

Archaeologist Justin McCarthy suggests that by 1854, only twenty years after Melbourne was established as a city, the area was well established as a notorious "red light" and slum district. It was associated with prostitution, petty crime and
larrikinism Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning "a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good hearted person", or "a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions". In the 19th and early 20th centurie ...
. The numerous narrow back alleys and small cottages of this area housed, by this time, a growing number of prostitutes, '' The Argus'' newspaper at the time complaining of "females of the lowest and most disreputable class, who pursued their calling with the lowest and most filthy language and conduct." Prostitution was linked with "larrikinism" in official reports, as in the following description of the corner of Little Lonsdale and Leichardt Street from 1882: In 1891, Melbourne city's back slums were described by evangelist Henry Varley as "a loathsome centre in which crime, gambling hells, opium dens and degraded Chinese abound, and where hundred of licentious and horribly debased men and women are herded like swine". These places were "a disgrace to any civilized city on earth."
Fergus Hume Ferguson Wright Hume (8 July 1859 – 12 July 1932), known as Fergus Hume, was a prolific English novelist, known for his detective fiction, thrillers and mysteries. Early life Hume was born in Powick, Worcestershire, England, the second ...
's immensely popular ''
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab ''The Mystery of a Hansom Cab'' is a mystery fiction novel by the Australian writer Fergus Hume. The book was first published in Australia in 1886. Set in Melbourne, the story focuses on the investigation of a homicide involving a body discovered ...
'', written in 1887, described life in a slum in the nearby lanes behind
Little Bourke Street Little Bourke Street (abbreviated to Lt. Bourke St) in Melbourne's CBD runs roughly east–west within the Hoddle Grid. It is a one-way street heading in a westward direction. The street intersects with Spencer Street at its western end and S ...
, as exposed by its middle class heroes. Writing in 1915,
C. J. Dennis Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis (7 September 1876 – 22 June 1938), better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet and journalist known for his best-selling verse novel ''The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke'' (1915). Alongside ...
's humorous novel ''
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke ''The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke'' is a verse novel by Australian poet and journalist C. J. Dennis. Portions of the work appeared in '' The Bulletin'' between 1909 and 1915, the year the verse novel was completed and published by Angus & Robert ...
'' spoke of the "low, degraded broots" (brutes) of Little Lon. Little Lon's most opulent brothels tended to face main streets, but were discreetly run. "Disorderly" or "low class" brothels tended to be in the narrower laneways behind. Tobacconists, confectionery, cigar and fruit shops in the area also sometimes acted as fronts for prostitution. In the small houses of the laneways, single or small groups of prostitutes also ran the most primitive cottage brothels. For example, the still extant Number 17 Casselden Place was operated by a single Chinese prostitute known as "Yokohama" (Tiecome Ah Chung) as late as the 1920s. "Madam Brussels", facing Lonsdale Street, attracted a wealthy class of clientele, and consequently also greater notoriety, although prostitution itself was not illegal in 19th century Victoria. In 1878 a Select Committee Report on the ''Prevention of Contagious Diseases'' included the following evidence about Madam Brussel's brothel at 32-34 Lonsdale Street, from Sergeant James Dalton: Madam Brussels was far from the only elite brothel in the area. In 1867 Police Commissioner Standish introduced the visiting Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to a brothel run in Stephen Street by Sarah Fraser. Other "orderly" brothels also included those of "Scotch Maude" and Biddy O’Connor. In October 1891, the mace of the Victorian parliament was stolen. It was claimed that it had found its way to Annie Wilson's "Boccaccio House", in the Little Lon district, where it was supposedly used in a mock parliament. It was not recovered. The connection between Victoria's politicians and the brothels of Little Lon was reinforced when Chief Secretary Sir Samuel Gillott was revealed to have had ongoing financial dealings with Madam Brussels.


Understanding the people of Little Lon

Recent writers have emphasized the vibrancy and complexity of Little Lon's population of migrants and itinerant workers, and challenged the stereotype of the area as a miserable slum. This also seems to have been born out by the major archaeological studies conducted in the area in 1988 and 2002, which discovered a wide variety of objects from abandoned cesspits and rubbish dumps. Many were typical of domestic use in the nineteenth century, but a number gave indications of a flourishing community and occasionally, prosperity. Dr. Alan Mayne has commented; "Little Lon was clearly not, as the slummer genre would have it, an unstable mishmash of listless and directionless deviants. Nor were its inhabitants passive victims to poverty." By the end of the nineteenth century, the area had become home to a diverse migrant population of Chinese, German Jews, Lebanese and Italians.


Changes in the early twentieth century

Leanne Robinson comments that in the early twentieth century the Little Lon district began to change significantly. Newspapers had increasingly demanded a cleanup of the area, John Norton's ''The Truth'' being particularly vocal in its attacks, especially on Madam Brussels, the "queen of harlotry." Workshops and small factories increasingly took over the area. Many of the hotels and brothels were gradually being demolished and "prostitutes found themselves forced into... areas such as Gore Street and the notorious 'Narrows' around the Fitzroy Town Hall" Policemen had greater powers and prostitutes were subject to new laws. Around 1914, the buildings between 6 and 34 Lonsdale street, including Madam Brussels former brothel (which had closed in 1907) were demolished and replaced by small factories. However, people continued to live in the area until the 1950s, when much of the district was compulsorily acquired for redevelopment by the Federal Government. In the early 1990s, a former resident of the Little Lon district was interviewed. Marie Hayes lived in her parents' home in Cumberland Place (in the northern half of the district) until she married in 1940. Of Little Lon she said


The area today

In the northern half of the district, all buildings and streets were demolished in the late 1950s to make way for Commonwealth buildings. Today, only a few nineteenth century buildings survive in the southern half of the area. These include * 17 Casselden Place, a former house built in 1877. Typical of cottages built in the mid nineteenth century and originally one of a terrace of six. This is the only nineteenth century single story dwelling in the area to survive. * Oddfellows Hotel, built c.1853 at 35-9 Little Lonsdale Street. Although now a licensed premises, this building has had a number of uses, including a Chinese furniture maker's factory. * Black Eagle Hotel built c.1850 at 42-4 Lonsdale Street, now a shop. * Factory at 25 Little Lonsdale Street. A former shop and forge, built about 1868 for engineer Alexander Lugton. This is one of few surviving examples of the small businesses that operated in the area in the nineteenth century. The company expanded in the late nineteenth century and eventually took over a number of buildings in the district. * Elms Family Hotel, on the corner of Spring Street and Little Lonsdale Street. This is the only commercial business in the area that has operated continuously on the same spot in the district since the mid nineteenth century, although the building has been remodeled. The hotel ceased operation in 2016. * Church of England Mission building, next to the Elms Family Hotel, one of a number built in the district by Church missions to cater for local residents. * 118-162 Little Lonsdale Street, 100 metres west of the area. A small streetscape of former shops and dwellings between Exploration lane and Bennetts Lane, that most resembles the Little Lon of the nineteenth century. Several other buildings in the district have been redeveloped or incorporated into modern office blocks. These include * "P.N.Hong Nam" Building at 268 Exhibition Street. This was built as a factory and shop c.1910. * "Khyat and Co" Building at 76 Lonsdale Street. Built as a factory in 1922. * "Coopers Hotel" at 282 Exhibition Street. Originally built as a hotel for James Cooper in the 1850s, but later delicensed. The building served as a Mission building, a home for girls, and later a post office before being reopened as a hotel. Major archeological digs were conducted in the area in 1988 and 2002. Many of the objects uncovered are on display at Museum Victoria in a recreated "Little Lon" streetscape.Museum Victoria "Unearthing Little Lon"
Accessed 16 April 2017


See also

*
Geography of Melbourne Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, Australia, is situated on the southeastern fringe of the Australian landmass and in the southern central part of the state. Melbourne covers an urbanised area (generally excluding nearby rural areas) of ...


References


External links

{{Commons category, Little Lon district, Melbourne * Museum Victori
Museum of Victoria webpages on Little Lon
* Alan Mayn

at emelbourne.net.au History of Melbourne Slums in Australia Melbourne City Centre