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:
8672.58a The document is a formal letter dated 26 January 1934 from the Town Clerk, acting on behalf of the Bendigo Sewerage Authority (Bendigo City Council), to the Officer in Charge of the Sustenance Department in Melbourne. The purpose of the letter is to request permission for unemployed men receiving government sustenance to be allowed to undertake work for the Bendigo Sewerage Authority at the Sewerage Farm, Epsom.
The letter explains that the Sewerage Farm is located approximately five miles from the Bendigo Post Office. If approval is granted, motor bus transport would be provided to carry the workers between the worksite and the Bendigo Post Office. The City Engineer would also be responsible for making the workers available for the proposed duties.
The proposed work focuses on improving and maintaining public infrastructure and the surrounding environment. The men would be employed to clean existing channels and drains, construct new drainage channels where old ones had been abandoned, level mine dumps at former gold workings, grade uneven land, thin timber, and remove rushes and noxious weeds from swamps and creek frontages. These activities were intended to improve drainage, reclaim land, and reduce environmental hazards.
The letter also proposes employing men at the Sanitary Depot, Wellsford, where they would grub and clear scrubland and establish firebreaks along boundary fences adjoining State Forests or reserves. The same transport arrangements would apply to this work. The letter concludes with a formal expression of confidence that the City Engineer can organise the workforce and is signed by the Town Clerk on behalf of the Bendigo Sewerage Authority.
