The explosion in Melbourne’s growth had far-reaching effects. Many immigrants, particularly those with families, were disheartened by what they saw when they left the cosy little floating world of their ship. The search for decent lodgings was the first challenge. Single young men could bed down in any nook or cranny, but fathers struggled to find accommodation for their dependants.
Solomon Belinfante, a Jamaican-born London Jew, had been assured of a room in Melbourne by one of his brethren. He went ashore with his pregnant 21-year-old wife Ada, their infant daughter Rebecca and her nursemaid, after a comfortable 78 days at sea under steam power.
We had lunch in a miserable place called Sandridge, wrote Belinfante (aged 40) in his diary, then walked to the omnibus ankle deep in mud…heartily sick of the Cohen promises to engage lodgings…heartily disgusted with the place. But Ada and Solomon soon settled in Collingwood, where he became a commercial broker and she got on with the business of having eleven more children.
At this stage the suburb of Collingwood had no roads and the stumps of newly felled gum trees poked out of the ground. A metre-high gum stub protruded right at the entrance to Martha Clendinning’s new abode. Martha and her daughter were lucky to find a room to rent in the house of the well known vocalist, Mrs Tester. Martha’s husband Dr George Clendinning stayed at a pub, sleeping on a billiard table.
The housing shortage underlay many of Melbourne’s social woes. All manner of temporary structures were erected to serve as lodging houses. And, not surprisingly, disease spread like wildfire through these unsanitary and overcrowded hostelries.
Colonial fever was a quaint name for a hideous ailment: typhus. It was spread by head lice and characterised by headaches, chills and the foul smell of rotting bodily fluids. It was exacerbated by overcrowding and poor hygiene. It took out young and old alike, and it frightened everybody. Women were known to shave their pubic hair so they wouldn’t get lice.
Influenza, scarlet fever, measles, tuberculosis and whooping cough all became endemic in Victoria in the 1850s. All associated with high immigration, high birthrate and congested living conditions.