Historical information

Dr Michele Matthews has been a local and social historian for nearly three decades since she first used correspondence held by the then Bendigo City Council for her Honours thesis. She is an ardent advocate for the use of local history records to tell Victorian and Australian history from a grassroots perspective. Michele’s MA thesis, ‘A forgotten “Father” of Federation: Sir John Quick 1852‑1911’ (2003), and her PhD thesis, ‘Survivors, schemes, Samaritans and shareholders: the impact of the Great Depression on Bendigo and District 1925‑1935’ (2007), both drew heavily on Bendigo and district records.

Physical description

Michele Matthews Collection: PHD Research - Relief during the great depression

This item includes the following documents:

8672.40a This document is a letter from the City Engineer to the Finance Committee of the Bendigo Town Council, dated 29 June 1932, outlining how the Unemployment Relief (Amendment) Act 1932 could be implemented locally. The Act required unemployed men receiving government sustenance payments to undertake municipal work in return for their benefits.

The engineer explains that a schedule has been prepared setting out the number of hours each recipient must work according to their family size and level of sustenance. Individuals and larger families would work varying numbers of hours, generally spread over two to six days. The intention was to organise the labour into practical working days while ensuring that each man completed enough work to account for approximately three weeks' worth of sustenance. However, the engineer notes that existing regulations only permitted payment for up to two weeks at a time, making the scheme difficult to administer unless the government granted special permission to vary this rule.

The letter also details how the scheme would be managed. Each unemployed worker would receive a personal work demand when collecting sustenance, with weekly lists prepared showing how many men were needed for two-, three-, four-, or five-day work periods. The City Engineer would oversee planning, work allocation, supervision, and record-keeping. He points out that the Council would need to purchase tools such as picks, shovels, and mattocks, estimate ongoing maintenance costs, employ foremen and an additional clerk with engineering costing knowledge, and organise time sheets and payments.

A significant practical concern was the provision of transport. Much of the proposed work involved excavation and earth removal, requiring numerous drays and horses. Since the legislation made no provision for supplying these, the Council would bear the expense. The engineer estimated that the minimum additional weekly cost to the Council would be around £65, excluding the relatively small cost of materials.

The report concludes by identifying a series of public works that could be undertaken by the unemployed workforce. These included widening roads and streets, removing hills and embankments to improve visibility, constructing new roadways, clearing creeks and drainage channels, cleaning road verges and footpaths, removing rock outcrops, extending streets, building crossings, and screening gravel for road and footpath repairs. The engineer emphasises that most of these projects required little material expenditure while providing valuable improvements to local infrastructure, provided that full days of labour could be obtained from those employed under the relief scheme.