In 1891 the Morrisons had lived on Davis Street for around a year. Their house was one of the smallest and least expensive on the block, with just four rooms and a rent of £1 8s. Given that their three surviving children would have been 25 (John Alexander), 20 (George), and 18 (Helen), it is possible that they lived on their own, though also likely that Helen, being unmarried, was still at home. The signature on the petition reads 'H. Morrison' and not 'Mrs. Morrison', so perhaps the younger Helen signed rather than her mother. With no small children at home, Helen senior may have found work to support the family's income and missed her chance to make history. Though the family lived on Davis Street for several more years, they had moved on when their son, George, died in 1897.

It seems as though the Morrison family had had their fair share of loss and strife by 1891. Did the elder Helen sign the petition with hopes of putting a sad past behind her? Did the young girl sign with dreams of a bright future? Like Agnes, and probably thousands of other women, Helen's history is tied up in her children. After George's death, no further records exist for Helen, and she quite literally disappears from history.

These stories come from public records, and the variety in the tales they tell is amazing. While details of Helen's birth, marriage and death remain unknown, the early life of her neighbour Ellen Louisa Langley is a virtual open book. Ellen lived two doors down from Helen, just on the other side of Eliza at 17 Davis Street. Her family, the Stokes, was originally from Tasmania, but they moved to Bacchus Marsh, about 55 km from Melbourne, around the time Ellen was born in 1864. The town was a stopover on the way from the goldfields in Ballarat and provided produce for Melbourne markets. Ellen eventually married Thomas Edwin Langley in Collingwood in 1883, and their daughter, Florence Beatrice (apparently a popular name at the time, perhaps in homage to Florence Nightingale), was born the same year in Carlton.

The Stokes/Langleys seem to have been another close family. Ellen's mother, Mary, and father, Henry William, lived nearby until their deaths. It appears, however, that Ellen may have favoured her mother over her father, as two of her children bore her mother's name (Mary Louisa and Linda Mary), whereas her two boys, though given three names each, had not a Henry or William among them. Then again, the names Thomas and Edwin were also notably left out; perhaps it had become a bit too close in their five-roomed house by the time the boys were born in the mid-1890s.

Ellen's family was one of the most stable, at least in terms of accommodation. They lived in their house on Davis Street for at least seven years, far outstripping their neighbours in longevity. Their consistency helps us measure the true effects of the Depression that hit Victoria in the 1890s. In 1891, their house was rented for £1 10s; six years later, they were only paying 18s. Nearly every house on the block saw a comparable decline in rental prices. Similarly, several landlords with multiple houses either lost their property or apparently sold it as best they could. As we saw with the Lewis family, four of the houses on the block were converted into larger homes managed by the Northern Assistance Society. In their variety of experiences, the women of Davis Street are nonetheless extremely average, representative of their time.

Sarah Josephine Whelan was born in 1867 in Sunbury, the eldest of ten children. How she met her husband William Coulthard is unknown, but they married in the Melbourne parish of Boroondara in 1888. William had been born in Boroondara, but the new family relocated to North Carlton in time for the birth to their first daughter, Lillian (Lillie) Mary, the same year they married. By 1891 they had another daughter, Eveline (Evelyn in later records). It appears they lived on Davis Street just long enough to sign the petition; Sands & McDougall only place them on the street for one year. The couple had five more children, losing two of them, in Carlton or North Carlton. As any mother would, Sarah seems to have had difficulty accepting the loss of her children. Veronica Maude was born and died in 1901; another daughter, Elise, died shortly after in 1903, at age nine. Sarah waited another four years before giving birth again, this time to her last child, Albert Joseph, in 1907.

Sarah's will and probate records paint a fractured picture of the Coulthard family in later days. It appears there was a dispute amongst Sarah's children after her death in 1947. Albert Joseph was named executor, but Evelyn, George and Vincent contested her will. They stated that they were her children, 'All of whom are entitled as some of her next of kin to share in her property'. The complaint was withdrawn five months later. It would be unwise to read too much into the family's personal business, but it does paint a sad portrait of Sarah's last days. According to an affidavit in her probate record, Sarah was sitting up in bed when she wrote out the will. Both her frail signature and her death a month later indicate that she may have already been bedridden. If she did deliberately exclude three of her children in her final days, we can only wonder at the effect of the years on the woman who had signed the petition in 1891.¹⁶

Ada Riley married Walter Simpson, a man ten years her elder, in London in 1881. The trip out to Australia must have been challenging, as she gave birth to George Henry in Carlton the following year. Morning and sea sickness could not have been a pleasant combination. The couple seem to have moved to the block on Davis Street by the time the last of their five children, Agnes Maude, was born in 1890. The Simpsons, like the Fergusons, Manders and Langleys, lived on Davis Street for a number of years. In fact, they lived next door to the Fergusons, sharing a landlord and a floor plan. Jessie and Ada must surely have known each other. We are left to wonder, however, whether or not they were friends. Between the two of them, there would have been eight children under ten years of age in 1891, six of whom were girls around the same age. We can safely hope that Ada and Jessie had time for tea and a chat while the girls played, though let us also hope - given the sanitation conditions at the time - that they played inside the house.