And your petitioners humbly pray ...

Drinking

Spirit Merchants 1857

In the 1850s, the sale of spirits was restricted to licensed premises. An annual licence could be obtained upon payment of 100 pounds. Owners of shops caught selling ‘sly grog’ (illegal alcohol) had their stock confiscated and were ordered to pay a fine or jailed for seven months. The income from selling sly grog was so great, though, that the penalties deterred no one.

Henry Thompson, the owner of licensed premises in Rushworth, complained in this petition that stores, restaurants and tents had been built a short distance from his licensed premises, where spirits were “vended (sold) in the most open manner”, even in the presence of police.

Thompson claimed he had ”strictly” obeyed the law, and demanded that the laws relating to sly grog selling were properly enforced.

Beer Bill 1860

Presented by William Jones MP

In the 1850s, the Victorian Government made it illegal to sell alcohol on the goldfields. This was done to reduce lawlessness and drunken disobedience.

This petition, presented by residents of the County of Evelyn (in the Yarra Valley), supported a bill before Parliament that would legalise the sale of colonial- manufactured beer in restaurants and other establishments.

Petitioners reminded Parliament of the laborious nature of their work, which caused “great waste of body and much thirst”. They claimed that throughout the goldfields the water was “most unwholesome”, and public drinking houses were “many miles distant from the populous localities”. They were confident that legalising the sale of ‘colonial beer’ would have a beneficial effect, reducing the consumption of spirits and the popularity of unlawful liquor (‘sly grog’).

Barmaids and Seduction 1884

Presented by William Anderson MP

In the late 19th century, public drinking houses (hotels or pubs) were unpopular among church leaders and groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. A particular concern for these moral campaigners was the employment of women as barmaids. They claimed that barmaids were hired primarily as sexual objects to entice male drinkers, and argued that this was degrading to women.

In 1884, a Royal Commission recommended that the employment of barmaids be prohibited. Its report found, among other things, that many bars in Melbourne were virtual “brothels in disguise”. This petition from the Presbyterian Church supported the recommendation of the Royal Commission.

Employment of women in pubs was banned in Victoria in 1916 and was only permitted again in the late 1960s.

Sly grog shanty, S.T. Gill 1869. La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria