British readers may remember ‘Brookside’, the Liverpudlian soap opera (best remembered, one suspects, for teenaged Anna Friel’s lesbian kiss). An earlier ‘Brookside’ comes to light in an Australian academic paper, which provides an interesting insight into conditions at a girl’s reformatory of that name.
A mounted policeman discovered seven hungry, cold teenaged girls huddling behind a tree, and took them in:
They told Constable Clifford of Ballarat Police that they had escaped two days earlier on 10 July from the Brookside Reformatory while doing farm chores. They had trekked 15 kilometres from the reformatory at Cape Clear, south-west of Ballarat, before they were found.
Brookside, Victoria’s first privately run Protestant home for wayward girls, was set up in 1887 in an era when the Victorian government and many welfare reformers thought wards would be better off in a homely environment away from state institutions.
In his police report, Clifford wrote that the girls “collectively complained of the tasks and treatment meted out to them”. The girls told him that Brookside’s inmates would be flogged with a heavy strap for any sign of insubordination…
The girls told Clifford that if they were returned to Brookside they would be severely punished for running away…
However, the police investigation repudiated any claims of ill-treatment. Reports of girls having their hands tied behind their backs were indeed true, but, said the reformatory doctor, this was necessary “to deal with is the extremely hurtful habit of masturbation”(!).
The case is still known since it was taken up by an investigative journalist, Alice Henry, who visited the Reformatory and studied the many incidents of corporal punishment recorded in punishment book. She produced a report entitled “Reformatories and Reform”, which was instrumental in bringing about change to the reformatory system. What happened to the seven girls is not reported.
Well that’s a bit of a surprise Abel, isn’t it. No one interested in this post!
Well I am, and I hope the history professors here are taking note of your research, because believe me, in three years of Australian History at university there wasn’t a mention of these goings on. Weren’t they just the meanest and nastiest people imaginable! You know right after reading this the tv happened to be on and I saw a docuentary about 4 women who had to give up their babies for adoption because it was considered so wrong for them to have become pregnant in the first place – and that was in the 1960s!! One woman in Sydney was declared mentally insane so that her doctor could approve the abortion. For the rest of her life she could only get menial jobs because she was officially “insane”.
That there is a blog like this where we can share our kinky thoughts shows how far we have come in such a short time. OK we like getting spanked, but we’re kinder to those who don’t.
Not disinterested… but it’s Saturday so my weekday routine (home from work, check e-mail, IC, Lowewood and Spanking Writers) is disrupted.
I think Brookside Reformatory might rather suit me though. Flogged with a heavy strap for any sign of insubordination? Where do I sign up? Perhaps they’d accept me in place of the seven escapees, as it clearly didn’t suit them. Anyone want to join me?
I have to wonder, if they tied girls’ hands behind their backs to stop them indulging in that “hurtful” habit in a Protestant home, what on earth would they do in a Catholic home?
I was channel surfing recently and fell upon “Ladette to Lady” on ITV (UK). It was splendid stuff; I mean err, shocking really! The bit I saw was where the girls had just enjoyed a meal, and after the staff had retired to another room for port and the like, the girls returned to form and had a food fight, and didn’t clear up. OK, obviously there was never any chance of them employing everything from the 1950s (sadly), I can;t help wonder if we will be getting a “Ladette to Lady Xtra” on ITV2 at some time, where the girls,not being brought up to the standard required of this Finishing School, are sent to the Abel Jenkins Reformatory for a proper education and discipline. If anyone is interested in catch up (UK only I would think) it is at the link below. I don’t know how long it is good for.
http://www.itv.com/Lifestyle/LadetteToLady/default.html
Having been to Australia every year for many years and knowing Ballarat well, I can beleive this story because girls (and boys)in schools, reformatories & domestically were disciplined with the cane & strap.
There was a programme on TV a few years ago based on the true facts about orphans from Liverpool who were shipped to Australia shortly after WW2. They were placed in an institution in Australia. One rather rebellious girl had an argument with a teacher and threw a plate of food at her. She was marched before the Headmaster, made to lift her summer dress. He selected a cane from a rack of 5 or 6 canes in like an umbrella stand and gave her 10 hard strokes of the cane across her knickers. I have this episode on video.
There was a story printed about 7 girls that escaped from Brookside and one of those girls Jessie Nairn is my Great Grandmother. If anyone has any more information I would love to hear from you.
Hi, Tracey
How fascinating to have a family link to the story.
The only other thing I can find is a newspaper article from 1899:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9538582
Hope that’s of interest too!
Tracey – found this report, too, but set a few years later, that describes more about Brookside:
http://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1897-II.2.2.3.10&l=mi&e=——-10–1——0picton–
And this book has some information about the establishment:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7vRMAnSow4YC&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=%22brookside+reformatory+for+girls%22&source=bl&ots=bNdNwYLkqJ&sig=3GtUtjoeRidCnyKYH2_oiF4077A&hl=en&ei=RYNcTouaMNO88gPpsPydAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thank you so much Abel for all your information its greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards
Tracey Dean