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Stephen Utick has postgraduate degrees in philosophy, theology, and science and society, and has worked on science and research policy in Commonwealth Government departments for 25 years. He has been a volunteer for the St Vincent de Paul Society since the age of 20, and researched Charles O’Neill’s life together with retired professional engineer Vince Dever, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, and also a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society for the past 16 years.
Net royalties from this book will go to the St Vincent de Paul Society’s work for the homeless in New South Wales and New Zealand.
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Engineer of charity
The remarkable life of Charles G ordon O’Neill
S T E P H E N
CAPTAIN CHARLES_title.indd 2
U T I C K
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This project has been assisted by City of Sydney. First published in 2008 Copyright © Stephen Utick 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email:
[email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Utick, Stephen, 1953Captain Charles, engineer of charity : the remarkable life of Charles Gordon O’Neill ISBN 978 1 74175 378 3 (pbk.). Includes index. Bibliography. O’Neill, Charles Gordon, 1828–1900. Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Australia - History. Society of St. Vincent de Paul New Zealand - History. Engineers - Australia - Biography. Engineers - New Zealand - Biography. Philanthropists - Australia. Philanthropists - New Zealand. 620.0092 Set in New Caledonia 11/14.5 pt by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Foreword Acknowledgements Prologue: The pauper’s bequest (Sydney, 1900)
vii ix 1
Part One: Scotland (1828–1863) 1 Young Charles O’Neill 2 The Christ of the Poor 3 A public reputation 4 Captain Charles O’Neill
7 19 31 41
Part Two: New Zealand (1863–1880) 5 ‘The new iniquity’ 6 Goldfields politician 7 The politics of progress 8 Lessons from abroad 9 Parliamentary roundabout, 1872–1875 10 Backlash in the Thames 11 City of Wellington 12 Charitable endeavours 13 Professional pride
57 69 80 92 101 110 117 126 134
Part Three: The Australian colonies (1850–1880) 14 Sacred quest 15 Gerald Ward’s legacy
143 148
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Part Four: New South Wales (1881–1900) 16 Foundation in The Rocks 17 Money for rent 18 Social respectability 19 ‘Captain’ Charles at the helm of charity 20 Plans, politicians and protectionism 21 Economic depression 22 Humiliation and ruin 23 Poverty and pestilence 24 Between heaven and earth suspended
159 169 179 189 199 205 216 221 230
Epilogue and reflection List of abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index
235 240 242 257 272
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Foreword
T
he life of Charles Gordon O’Neill was a remarkable one. Good biography always generates good social history, and in writing a biography of this little-known man, Stephen Utick tells us more than the story of one life. In the mid to late nineteenth century, cities like Wellington, Dunedin, Melbourne, Geelong and even Sydney were still very much in their infancy. New settlers were pouring off steamers and sailing ships across and between the colonies. This book reminds us of the restlessness of this period, of the challenges of building new cities and new societies, and of the fortunes and misfortunes of those who were involved. O’Neill’s energetic promotion of civic causes and technological innovations in New Zealand and Australia form part of that story, while his views on forest conservation set him apart. But it was the cause of Christian social justice, organisation of charity and love for the most destitute that would be the defining values of O’Neill’s life. An Irish Scot, as a young man he had witnessed at first hand the terrible poverty generated by the industrial revolution in his home city of Glasgow, and he reacted powerfully to signs of similar conditions being reproduced in the colonies, where public rhetoric denied the injustices of the old world. O’Neill’s response was to the reality of poverty, and not to the smug rhetoric. The outcome of this was his work to establish the St Vincent de Paul Society in the 1880s, most notably in New South Wales and particularly in Sydney. vii
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Beginning in the rough and tough inner-city area of The Rocks and spreading across the city, hundreds of residents began to visit the poor in their homes. In contrast to many other charities that required recipients to conform to demeaning rules, assistance was provided without reference to party or sect, while the provision of money for rent for working families and penny banks established positive methods of combating the worst outcomes of poverty. Stephen Utick has given us a fascinating story of an inspirational life, and the St Vincent de Paul Society is to be commended for undertaking this project as a way of better explaining its mission to Australians. Shirley Fitzgerald City Historian City of Sydney October 2007
viii
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Acknowledgements
y greatest debt of acknowledgement and thanks goes to Vince Dever, FIE (Aust), retired professional engineer and Society volunteer. Vince worked for eight years, untiringly, gathering essential material including key primary references, particularly on Charles O’Neill’s genealogy and his engineering exploits in three countries. The second greatest debt is owed to Paul Hennessy of the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Distribution Centre in Sydney, who coordinated an unceasing flow of emails, papers and photographs to bring this biography together. The salvage of this strange yet inspiring story is also thanks to the commitment of many individuals who, decade after decade, have sought after it. Those who have now passed away should be acknowledged first. Thomas Dwyer, whose notes on colonial Sydney still remain, is one of these. Cec Foley, who prepared an early pamphlet on Charles O’Neill during the 1960s, is another. Justice John Henry McClemens, former New South Wales Supreme Court Judge and President of the St Thomas More Society, recognised the significance of Charles’s story and published an early paper for the Australian Catholic Historical Society in 1971. Dr James Waldersee from Sydney University, and Professor Bede Nairn, from the Australian National University and the Australian Dictionary of Biography, both acknowledged the importance of Charles O’Neill. Dr Peter Bardell, from the United Kingdom, undertook some
M
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity early research into Charles’s professional background. Des Ryan contributed much to the understanding of the formation of the Society in New Zealand, and Charles’s role in it. Of special mention should be Ted Bacon OBE, a former Society President who, during the last months before his death, pleaded that Charles’s story be recovered. Acknowledgement should next be given to those who are, at the time of writing, very much alive. During the 1990s, Catholic historian Father Edmund Campion selected Charles O’Neill as among those featured in his book Great Australian Catholics. This was followed by a valuable research compilation by Sydney journalist Cliff Baxter. Cliff campaigned energetically to keep the quest alive. Thomas O’Neill (no relative), of Dumbarton, United Kingdom, has for several years provided key extracts from the old Glasgow Free Press and other rare material which helped us pull together the account of Charles’s early life in Scotland. The centenary of Charles’s death in 2000, followed by the Centenary of Federation event From Parliamentarian to Pauper in 2001, marked the beginning of a concentrated phase of research. This was undertaken in conjunction with the Australian Catholic University National. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Peter Camilleri, Rector, Signadou Campus, for his professional guidance, theologian Rev. Professor Anthony Kelly CSsR for his insights, Associate Professor Malcolm Prentis and research assistant Victor Quayle. I would like to thank the following institutions and associations who have helped in the recovery of those innumerable fragments. These include the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, United Kingdom; the K.R.A. Gibb Collection, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow; the Institution of Engineers, United Kingdom; the Society of Mary (Marist) Archives in Hunters Hill, Sydney, and in Wellington; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; the New South Wales State and Mitchell libraries, Sydney; the Sydney Catholic Archdiocesan Archives; the Veech Library, Catholic Institute of Sydney; the Balmain Association Inc.; the State Library of Victoria; the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te K¯awanatanga, Wellington; Wellington City Archives; the Thames Historical Museum, Grahamstown; the Thames School of Mines Museum and the Hauraki/Thames Indexing Group; the Coromandel Mining Museum; the Coromandel x
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Young Acknowledgements Charles O’Neill
Heritage Trust Inc.; Carson’s Books and Stationery, Thames; Grantham House Publishing, Wellington; Wellington Catholic Diocesan Archives; the Regional Maritime Museum, Port Chalmers; the Otago Settlers’ Museum, Dunedin; the Hocken Library, Dunedin; Cromwell and The Clyde Historical museums; the Tokomairiro Historical Society Inc.; and Te Manat¯u Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Wellington. Manuscripts also require attention, and I would personally like to thank Professor Emeritus John Molony of the Australian National University, Associate Professor Hugh Laracy of the University of Auckland, and Father Edmund Campion for their professional reviews and suggestions. The long list of thanks for examination of manuscripts includes Clara Finlay from Allen & Unwin publishers, Ken Scadden, Father Michael O’Meehan SM, Father Brian Quinn SM, Sister Jeanette Foxe RSJ, Aileen Dever, Greg Hogan, and Otago regional historian, Ian Church. I also note the professional genealogical research undertaken by Geraldene O’Reilly of Cambridge, New Zealand; the graphic design of Nathan Ahearne of Canberra; a contribution of the Dignan family; the Father Ward material contributed by Kevin Slattery of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Victoria; Western Australia St Vincent de Paul Archives records provided by Thomas Fisher; the Third Order of St Francis records provided by Helen Britton; archival assistance by Nora Jonkers at the Catholic Weekly; and the help of Dane Hiser, Dr Andy Marks and other members of the Society’s Communications Unit. I valued the support of Dr Shirley Fitzgerald; Frank Shugg, Mount Fairy, NSW; Father John Craddock SM, Wellington; Kevin Tansley, Dunedin; Vin Hindmarsh, Burnie; Pauline Garland, Sydney; John Finneran, Sydney; Dr Rory Sweetman, University of Otago; a whole contingent of Canberrans including Graham Upshall, Ruth Siharew, Martin and Janet Van Lith, Frank and Laraine O’Shea, Father John Eddy SJ, Robert and Wendy Altamore, David and Malcolm Simpson, Julian O’Dea, Gerard Prior, Frank Ryan, Roger Fitzgerald and Barbara Kirk; John Ransom, Bega, NSW; Dominic Burke for some Glasgow detective work; and not forgetting Bernard Blackstock, Marie Patterson, all members of the Society’s State Literature Advisory Committee, and any others I have inadvertently missed. Support by the Council of City of Sydney, through a History Publications Sponsorship Program grant, is warmly appreciated. xi
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Finally, I should acknowledge John O’Neill, the President, and other members (past and present) of the NSW Trustees Council of the St Vincent de Paul Society, for their patience and ongoing support, and a very special note of thanks to Vice President Ray Reynolds as someone I could always count on to set wheels in motion. Stephen Utick MScSoc UNSW MPhil ANU MA (Theology) ACU Literature Advisory President, NSW and ACT St Vincent de Paul Society (1996–2007) Honorary Research Associate, Australian Catholic University National (2005–2007)
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Prologue The pauper’s bequest (Sydney, 1900)
F
inancial ruin, thwarted ambition, and a fall from the polite circles of colonial society—it all appeared to be a humiliating end for Charles Gordon O’Neill. On 8 November 1900, the 72-year-old Irish Scot, nursed by nuns of the Sisters of Charity in Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital, breathed his last. A penniless bachelor, he had lived with an elder brother in cheap lodgings in Cumberland Street, The Rocks. Earlier that year, in this district of Sydney’s harbourside slums, rat infestation had spread bubonic plague. Yet the old man seemed to hold no fear of The Rocks, its dangers or its degradation. Charles and his inseparable brother John had been well-known and loved district identities. They had distributed rent money and food, courtesy of the offerings in the poor box he had helped to maintain for many years in the Catholic parish of St Patrick’s, Church Hill, a few blocks from Circular Quay. They had undertaken this charity on behalf of the St Vincent de Paul Society, a society of Catholic laypeople dedicated to providing assistance to the poor.1 Charles himself had led the Sydney movement from 1881 until his sudden resignation ten years later. The awful circumstances of his last years stood in stark contrast to much of his earlier life. He had once nursed a driving political ambition, matched by an entrepreneurial vision. This was far removed from the world of broken sailors, battling wharfies, street hawkers, destitute abandoned wives and orphans of the Sydney harbourside. He had once been a brilliant engineer, a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity London, and a twice-elected member of the New Zealand Parliament. Here was a man who had once formed a guard of honour to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and had the acquaintance of colonial politicians and governors including prime ministers of New Zealand such as Sir Julius Vogel and Sir George Grey. His friends never heard him complain. Some said that he saw in his sufferings and trials the will of the Almighty, to which one ‘must bow in holy submission’.2 Two days later, on 10 November 1900, his funeral cortege left St Vincent’s Hospital at 1.30 p.m. for the Mortuary Station in Central Sydney. A few friends gathered to join Charles on his journey to Rookwood Cemetery. Among them was William Davis, a fellow parishioner of St Patrick’s, and Thomas Dignan, a well-known local postmaster from the suburb of Millers Point. A Rookwood Catholic priest, Father Peter O’Reilly, read the burial prayers. There was little formality and no grand funeral. However, his friends from the St Vincent de Paul Society wanted to honour his memory. Two years later, in 1902, a handsome monument with a mottled maroon and grey marble base, capped by a white Carrara marble cross, was purchased by voluntary contributions and erected to mark Charles’s resting place. The cross was ornamented with scroll embellishments and its inscription urged the observer to ‘Of your Charity Pray for the Souls’ of Charles O’Neill and his brother John.3 Many years later, their remains were reverently placed, together with that monument, to rest among the unmarked graves of Sydney’s paupers in Rookwood Cemetery. Technological skill, political skill and access to capital—Charles had all that during his life. On his deathbed, he seemed bereft of everything. Many entrepreneurs with similar talents had made a fortune in the Australasian colonies and founded family dynasties. Charles, in stark contrast, suffered the shame of ruin and poverty. William Davis was a member of a Conference, the basic organisational unit of the St Vincent de Paul Society. Charles had founded it more than nineteen years earlier at St Patrick’s, Church Hill. Davis knew where Charles’s last and most valued possession had gone. Just before his death, Charles had handed to him a small black book, some 14.5 centimetres long by 9.5 centimetres wide. The book, a Manual of the St Vincent de Paul Society, published in 1877, contained the rules for the lay Catholic charitable association, and 2
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Prologue: The pauper’s bequest
was translated from the French. However, what might have remained a mystery, even to Davis, was a series of written jottings and pasted cuttings throughout the little book. These were arranged in cryptic order. They included the listed names and dates of the Conferences established in Sydney and the country town of Braidwood in southern New South Wales. Among this curious assortment was a printed report of an address by the Marquis of Ripon, a former Viceroy of India. It was followed by a set of cuttings of fifteen pious exhortations or quotations to inspire the reader. Fourteen were extracted from a Roman Catholic liturgical calendar. The fifteenth was a quote from John Morley, a British Member of Parliament, annotated as having been extracted from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph of 31 July 1886. The first of these exhortations recorded: ‘What the lily is amongst flowers, purity is among the virtues.’ A quaint Victorian sentiment perhaps, seemingly shipwrecked like Charles on the harsh realities of The Rocks with its cheap taverns, brothels and opium dens. Such flowers were, after all, not native to Australia—although they had been introduced into colonial gardens and were popular at funerals for the wealthy. William Davis took Charles’s little Manual away for safekeeping. It remained in drawers and closets for a century. From the inside cover of the Manual, one could observe that it had been printed in 6 Rue Furstenberg, Paris; 11 John Street, Aldelpi, London; 56 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin; and 266 Mulberry Street, New York. No personal or professional diary remained. Two months after Charles’s death, on 1 January 1901, Lord Hopetoun would proclaim the Commonwealth of Australia in Centennial Park. In colonial Sydney, thousands of kilometres from cities like Paris, London or New York, a new nation was coming into being. Dumbarton, the old capital of Strathclyde, near Glasgow in Scotland, lay far distant as well.
3
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Part One SCOTLAND (1828–1863)
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Chapter 1 Young Charles O’Neill
ownstream from Glasgow on the northern bank of the River Clyde, at the joining with the River Leven, stands Dumbarton Castle, a royal Scottish fortress. Locals call it ‘the Rock’. A royal burgh since 1222, Dumbarton had been the scene of many a saga in Scottish history. It had seen the likely burial of some of the remains of Robert the Bruce, the imprisonment of Wallace, and the escape of a young Mary Queen of Scots to France. The town’s fortunes were linked with those of the fortress until, in the early nineteenth century, shipbuilding and marine engineering would transform it entirely under the full force of the industrial revolution. The crest of Dumbarton portrays an elephant carrying a castle on its back, with the Latin phrase Fortitudo Et Fidelitas—meaning ‘strength and fidelity’. ‘The Elephant’ had been chosen as the name of a public inn owned by the Burgh of Dumbarton. In 1848, the Burgh Council was having difficulty in finding a tenant for the Elephant Inn with the financial means to pay its rent. Eventually, the Council settled on a bid of 96 pounds yearly rent by John Ogle O’Neill, an Irish-born spirit merchant and innkeeper. On 21 September 1849, John O’Neill’s bid was accepted and he was admitted as Burgess of the Burgh, with its consequent privileges and obligations. A year later, in November 1850, John O’Neill was elected as a Town Councillor. Despite being an Irish Catholic, he seemed to have had no difficulty in swearing an oath of allegiance to the Protestant Queen Victoria, the Head of the Church of England.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity John O’Neill had the welfare of a very large family to consider. Together with his wife Mary, he had earned his living in a mixed business in Main Street, Inverary, a small Argyllshire town to the north-west of Dumbarton. ‘John O’Neill & Co’ served as grocer and draper, as well as a wine and spirit merchant. John himself was born in 1798, and Mary (maiden name Gallocher, also Gallogher or Gallagher) in 1803. The couple had roots in County Sligo in Ireland, and had married on 22 November 1819, proclaimed both in the established church and at St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Glasgow. According to the 1841 census of the Parish of Inverary and Glenary, they had eleven children. They had six girls and five boys, among them Daniel (born 1820), Louisa Carolina (born 1822), Mary Ann (born 1830), Bridget Stewart (born 1831), Jean McDonald (born 1833), Andrew Scott (born 1835), William Campbell (born 1838), Catherine Ann (born 1839), and Maria Gordon (born 1840). Charles’s closest brother, John James O’Neill, was born on 9 May 1826. Charles Bryson—to be known later in life as Charles Gordon—O’Neill was born on 23 March 1828 and christened on 2 April. John O’Neill senior seemed at first to be prosperous. In the 1841 census, some fifteen people were listed as employees at his Inverary business. Daniel Gallocher, aged 70, was also listed as a resident and was most likely his father-in-law. The O’Neill family might have considered the move to Dumbarton a good business proposition. However, there were early signs that the Elephant Inn would become a financial worry for John O’Neill. As early as May 1851, there was an announcement of temporary dispossession of his goods and meetings with creditors. The O’Neill occupancy of the premises continued until February 1853, when the Burgh’s Property Committee ended the arrangement. John soon had to sell off the furnishings and effects to pay the arrears owed in rent. Still, as a spirit merchant and innkeeper, John O’Neill was more fortunate than most of his compatriots. He and his family would have witnessed at first hand a rising tide of human misery, as the Irish potato famine drove a flood of the destitute into the West Coast of Scotland. The potato blight fungus, spreading across Europe, had destroyed Ireland’s potato harvest in 1846, the main diet of Ireland’s rural population. The only hope for a million of the Irish population was to flee 8
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the country. In the wake of the famine, Ireland had become a nightmare—evictions, forced public labour, the harsh treatment of the poorhouse inhabitants, and starvation. Those fortunate enough to have saved the sum of around 4 to 5 pounds, sometimes paid by estate landowners who wanted to clear their land, could have passage to the United States and Canada. Typhus and malnutrition broke the lives of many on the journey. The bodies of those who died were unceremoniously dumped overboard. Many made a shorter journey across the Irish Sea to Britain and up the Firth of the Clyde, a less dangerous passage than on some of the ‘coffin ships’ heading for the New World. As a young man growing up along the Clyde, Charles O’Neill would have seen the wretched human cargo of men, women and children pouring out of the holds of foul vessels. For a Sunday pastime, some of Glasgow’s wealthy citizens would look down from their carriages and gawk at the tragic rag-tag queues of these Irish refugees dressed shabbily in green and brown. Victorian Scotland would not be the same again. The Irish presence in Scotland had been increasing since the failed 1798 Irish rebellion, with many people settling in the Glasgow district. By 1840, well before the famine, there were an estimated 120000 Catholics in Scotland, growing as a result of Irish Catholic immigration. This immigration would ultimately submerge the small remnant Catholic Church of the Highlands and the Islands which had survived since the Reformation. In 1850, those of Irish birth in Scotland had grown to about 200 000, most of whom were Catholic. The great Irish influx generated by the famine created major social and religious tensions within Scotland. These were particularly high in the industrial city of Glasgow where, by 1850, about 100000 Irish were settled. Western Scotland became a breeding ground for social and religious prejudice. Now among the factories, the native Scottish worker would compete for jobs with the Irish immigrant. Irish—Catholic and Protestant—were moving in increasing numbers into the new industrial hub of Glasgow and other towns, boosting the Scottish population to more than two and a half million. Many menfolk would become the ‘navvies’ of industrial Britain, performing the hard physical labour of building railways, mining in pits and digging roadworks. 9
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Orange Lodge, which had arrived in Scotland in 1798, stirred up a new wave of anti-popery revivalism. Scotland had, after all, been a bulwark of the Protestant Reformation for almost two hundred years. With the hordes of Irish Catholics flooding into western Scotland in the wake of the famine, the established Church of Scotland also became alarmed about the return of ‘popery’. Other political developments in early nineteenth century Britain also triggered bitter prejudice. An annual parliamentary grant of 8000 pounds to the Catholic Maynooth College in County Kildare, Ireland, the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850 all served to fuel sectarian bitterness. While the minority Catholic believers were free to practise their religion, deep public suspicion remained about their loyalty to the Empire. All this was a real threat according to the Scottish Reformation Society, which came into being in December 1850: . . . to resist the aggressions of Popery, to watch over the designs and movements of its promoters and abettors, and to diffuse sound and Scriptural information on the distinctive tenets of Protestantism and Popery.1
The atmosphere was ripe for public hysteria. An Italian political exile and renegade Catholic monk of the Barnabite order, Alexandro Gavazzi, lectured to packed houses. Gavazzi conducted a highly successful tour across Scotland in 1851, beginning in Edinburgh and including Glasgow among other cities. His lectures, delivered in Italian, highlighted the ‘Corruptions of the Roman Papacy’. His views on the despotic papal political and religious tendencies struck a sympathetic chord among the mostly Presbyterian audiences. The battle for work between Scottish worker and Irish soon turned into religious violence. Dressed for the part and rousing his audiences by blowing a horn, the so-called ‘Angel Gabriel’, James Sayers Orr, a wild preacher of mixed Scottish and African ancestry, would whip up his mostly working-class audiences into a frenzy of hatred against the newly arrived Irish Catholics. From his headquarters at Greenock, Orr’s ranting and mischievous antics inflamed mobs. The riots caused damage to Catholic homes and property in towns along the Clyde in 1851 and later in 1855. The Irish beggars were at the bottom of the Victorian social rung. They were lampooned and despised by most—from the historical writer 10
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Thomas Carlyle to the Communist political philosopher Friedrich Engels. Engels could not disguise his contempt: What does such a race want with high wages? . . . Drink is the only thing which makes the Irishman’s life worth having, drink and his cheery carefree temperament; so he revels in drink to the point of the most bestial drunkenness.2
Tensions even surfaced within the Scottish Catholic Church. The Irish newcomers were different in religious temperament and political views from their more established co-religionists. The manner of the native Catholic priest and layman, usually from the north-east of Scotland, was very reserved. It did not easily mix with the devotional energy of the Irish immigrant. The native Catholic Scot drawn from isolated Highland communities was, by the beginning of the age of Queen Victoria, a loyal member of her Empire and nervous about inflaming religious tensions among the Protestant establishment. The Scottish Catholic hierarchy was particularly unsympathetic to Irish political causes. Glasgow’s Bishop Murdoch, embarrassed and overwhelmed, hoped that the Irish nationalists of 1848 would have ‘a skinful of bullets’.3 In February 1851, a few years after the O’Neill family had settled in Dumbarton, a newspaper appeared in Scotland that would reflect the views of the Irish immigrant in Scotland. With James Donnelly as proprietor and a Mr Hamill as its first editor, the Glasgow Free Press promised its readers: A comprehensive abstract of the news of the current week, full reports of local meetings for Catholic purposes, an extensive synopsis of Irish Intelligence and a careful compilation of the instructive and amusing paragraphs which may appear in contemporary publications will be given in each number. It may be added that all quack, medical and other advertisements of an indecent nature will be excluded from its columns.4
Apart from Irish and parochial news, it provided a regular news service on anti-popery lectures, religious brawls and attacks on property. This earned a retort from a contemporary journal, The Scottish Protestant, that the paper was a ‘grossly vulgar, gasconading [bragging] caterer of Popish garbage’.5 11
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Glasgow Free Press soon turned its attention to the internal affairs within the Catholic Church in west Scotland. It gave space to allegations that the hierarchy was directing all business and important offices into the hands of native-born Scottish clergy, notably from the Enzie district of Banffshire. The slogan ‘Paddy pays and Sandy owns and that’s the way the money goes’ became a common catchphrase within its columns. The newspaper had a stormy seventeen-year history, until February 1868 when it was denounced by the Catholic Church itself and quickly killed off. During the 1850s and 1860s, snippets in the Glasgow Free Press revealed some of the more lively happenings at the Elephant Inn. John O’Neill and his son Charles frequently hosted testimonial dinners, many focusing on Irish causes. In July 1852 they hosted one in honour of a popular Catholic pastor, the Reverend T. Cody, who had moved from the Parish Church of St Patrick’s Dumbarton to a post in Glasgow. At this function, Charles compared the Irish Brigade, a military unit which had fought for France during most of the eighteenth century, with those Irish members of the British Parliament who were campaigning for Home Rule for Ireland: The Irish Brigade. The title itself placed the band in a great and glorious position—it recalled to their memories the valour, and the deeds and the achievements won by the resolute few who fled to a foreign country for that safety which relentless Saxon persecution denied them at home. They fled with hearts all glowing with the pride, honour and daring of independent Irishmen. Their prodigies of valour astounded Europe. This was the picture that the ‘Parliamentary Brigade’ were copying, although their warfare was of a different character.6
In October 1852, a large party of gentlemen gathered for an evening of jolly entertainment at the inn, with songs by Messrs Bell, Kirk and Nelson and ‘viands [foods] . . . all the most fastidious could desire’.7 The proceedings were presided over by a certain Thomas McFadyen of Alexandria. Patrick Smith, another spirit merchant in Dumbarton, ‘officiated as croupier [an assistant chair at a public dinner] with tact and skill’. They had come to celebrate the departure of a 26-year-old John James O’Neill and a 24-year-old Charles Bryson O’Neill to Glasgow, 12
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24 kilometres away. From there, each would pursue their respective careers as surgeon and civil engineer, although John James seems to have later switched to civil engineering himself. McFadyen’s address to this gathering gave a glimpse into the very early life and achievements of the O’Neill brothers: Mr McFadyen proposed the ‘health, long life, and prosperity of Messrs J. and C. O’Neill.’ In doing so, he passed a high and well merited eulogium on the young gentlemen for their talent, industry and truly Christian conduct since they came to Dumbarton, and fervently trusted that a continuance of such conduct would soon place their names high in the ranks of their respective professions; he pointed out to his young friends present, that godliness is its own reward, even in this life, and hoped the example before them would incite them to obtain similar honours.8
Charles, demonstrating perhaps more confidence than his elder brother John, responded on behalf of both ‘in a speech replete with modesty, good taste and feeling’. John James was to live very much in the shadow of Charles, who would later assist him in his professional life. At this stage, Charles’s mother, about whom little is known, was still alive. Hardly anything is known about Charles’s early schooling either. There were several good schools in the Inverary district of Argyllshire where, with some financial support, he could have received an early education.9 A little more is known about his training as a civil engineer. His six-year pupilage in the office of professional civil engineers Messrs Foreman and Cameron, and George Martin of Glasgow, would have cost a substantial sum—fees could range at that time from 500 to 1000 pounds over five years. Either as part of this pupilage, or on his own initiative, Charles attended lectures from Glasgow’s leading engineering and science academics including Lewis Gordon, Glasgow University’s first Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics from 1840 to 1855. Charles may have attended these directly at Glasgow University, or through a series of lectures offered by Professor Gordon and the chemist Dr R.D. Thompson at the Glasgow Mechanical Institute. Such lectures were sponsored by the Glasgow Philosophical Society at a cost of a shilling or two per lecture, and were well within Charles’s means. Charles is recorded as having studied under both Thompson and 13
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Gordon when he was finally elected to the London Institution of Civil Engineers in 1880. Until the late 1880s, when academic qualifications became a requirement, training in the engineering profession was like that of the trades. The requirements for election by one’s peers to engineering institutes were five years’ professional experience, demonstrated professional competence, achieving a position of responsibility and being older than 25 years. Charles O’Neill most likely followed this traditional path of apprenticeship. The father’s encouragement appears to have been a driving force for the O’Neill boys, and he must have acquired the resources to finance their education. Unless the father had the resources to employ private tutors, it is likely that their elementary education was at one of the better Inverary schools. Young Charles O’Neill would have commenced his pupilage around the early 1840s, about the age of fourteen. This was well before his family had moved to the Elephant Inn in Dumbarton. Although his official departure from Dumbarton was celebrated in 1852, he would have already spent considerable time in Glasgow. The grandeur of Glasgow, then the industrial capital of Scotland and ‘Second City’ of the Empire, must have stimulated the adolescent’s imagination and talents. Glasgow University stood as a symbol of scholarship dating back to 1451, when it was founded by Bishop Wilber Turnbull. In the city’s industrial heart, Charles would have heard and seen the throbbing, pounding and hammering of the new looms, spindles and factory engines—then among the most advanced in the world. Argyll Street, its main thoroughfare, was then to be counted as one of the most spacious in Europe.10 Charles could also gaze with admiration at the imposing architectural work of David Hamilton, who during the 1820s and 1830s had risen to rank among the finest architects in Scotland. Charles could examine the impressive masonry of Hamilton’s more imposing works, such as the Theatre Royal and the Royal Exchange in Queen Street and the rebuilt palace of the Duke of Hamilton. By 1847, his training complete, Charles acquired the position of Assistant Superintendent of Streets, Roads, Buildings and Sewerage, under the supervision of the Master of Public Works for the City of 14
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Glasgow, Mr John Carrick. Charles was to hold this position for fourteen years, and often acted in the public interest in the Glasgow Dean of Guild Court. In 1857, he was admitted as a member of the Institution of Engineers, Scotland. During the 1850s and early 1860s, Charles’s career blossomed with glowing reports in the Glasgow Free Press of his designs of schools, chapels and other public structures. Apart from his official post, his Catholic background would have been useful in gaining additional work designing new buildings commissioned by the growing Roman Catholic Church in Glasgow. However, his expertise was soon acknowledged by the wider Glasgow community. Many of the Catholic churches he designed were located on what were then the outskirts of the city. These probably included St Mary Immaculate Pollokshaws (1849), St Paul’s Shettleston (1850) and St Mary’s Maryhill (1851), and certainly the East Wing of St Aloysius Chapel, Springburn (1855–56) and St Peter’s Partick (now St Simon’s, 1858).11 Of these, only the latter two still remain standing. According to the Glasgow Free Press, some ‘very respectable Protestants’ were in attendance at the dedication of St Aloysius Chapel on Sunday 22 June 1856 and the paper commented that: Among the many splendid edifices designed by the able architect, Charles O’Neill, Esq, C.E., this new church especially reflects the highest lustre upon his professional ability.12
St Aloysius Chapel, like many of these constructions, reflected a revival of the medieval Gothic-style design common to Victorian churches and public buildings. This revival was led more widely in Britain by the Catholic architect Edward Pugin. Charles applied the Gothic style to the design of schools. Erected in 1854, St Patrick’s Schools, Dumbarton, was applauded by the public as among the finest buildings of the town: Everyone admires it—the massive and beautiful doorway is striking—the windows are divided by mullions and glazed with diamond shaped glass. Over the windows are labels resting, some upon well-carved heads, others on a variety of Gothic bosses.13 15
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles worked closely with stonemasons and sculptors to achieve the impressive outcomes he sought.14 He was soon expanding his range of architectural design. A two-storey primary school for St Andrew’s Parish in Greendyke Street, Glasgow (constructed in 1855 and since demolished), had a frontage with two contrasting gables.15 The first gable from the south was in Elizabethan Tudor style with a stone-roofed oriel window projecting out at upper floor level. According to the Edinburgh Building Chronicle: The oriel window forms the most striking feature of the front elevation, from its dimensions, its projections and graceful proportions. It rests on ornamental corbels, and is roofed with stone covers resembling large tiles, on the topmost of which rests a globe, books and a ship, symbolizing the world, learning and commerce.16
The second gable from the north was quite different. It was crow-stepped and had a four-light window on the upper level surmounting a row of four single windows and a central double-light window. Above this latter window was carved a shield with a bold Latin inscription Religioni et Bonis Artibus—meaning ‘For Religion and the Liberal Arts’. Each gable had a Celtic Cross at the apex. St Andrew’s was among three Glasgow schools designed by Charles over this period. To a local priest, Father Francis Danahar, speaking at a soirée at the Trades Hall on 2 January 1856, St Andrew’s building was ‘an ornament to the city of Glasgow’.17 Charles was clearly intent on making a religious statement through these designs. He had an opportunity to publicly outline his views at a social evening celebrating St Andrew’s New Schools on 30 June 1856. At this function, his work was praised as exhibiting ‘such evidence of architectural genius and art’.18 In this address, Charles exhibited a classical appreciation of the fine arts and architecture, and the role that they had played in conveying Christian ideas over the centuries. An extract reveals the sensitivity and depth of understanding which he applied to his projects: The Fine Arts speak a universal language—they are unfettered by the peculiarities of the idiom; they have not to contend with the limited meaning and feebleness of words.19 16
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More precisely, Charles appreciated how such arts traditionally presented a religious message: The Fine Arts have always presented to us innumerable subjects connected with religion, calculated in the nicest manner to raise our minds from earthly to spiritual things. At one time we are filled with the thoughts of the most sublime at the contemplation of the Transfiguration, at another we are struck with fear at the awful appearance and tremendous fall of the Rebel Angel; again a wonderful emotion seizes our minds, while we gaze between hope and fear when the Day of Judgment is shown to us—we see on one side the sublime and tranquil beauty of the blessed while on the other we see the horror and despair, and agony of the wicked.
Charles saw in architecture a supreme example of Catholicism’s patronage of the fine arts. In this way, he echoed much of the early nineteenth century romantic despair at the lost medieval past when compared with the squalors of the industrial cities. In his address, he even added a quotation from William Wordsworth’s 1832 poem Devotional Incitements: England, Ireland and Scotland were at one time studded with glorious examples of Catholic architecture; but a blight came over the land, and ‘Priest from their altars thrust, Temples are levelled in the dust, And solemn rises and awful form, Founder amid fanatic storm.’
Charles loved poetry. In his later life, he would often embellish his speeches by quoting a few lines—usually to emphasise a point he was making. He had an appreciation of history too. His 1856 address referred to the classical Greek sculptors of antiquity: But the ruins stand still, in noble defiance of decay, showing forth their Catholicity in language most telling—still bearing the object marks of six hundred years; and perhaps as on the sculptures of Phidias and Praxiteles in the Parthenon, travellers may with wonder and delight gaze upon the ruined abbeys and cathedrals of this country. 17
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles could afford to perform his eloquent rhetoric. Prospects seemed promising for a 28-year-old Victorian gentleman with a secure position in the city and a growing reputation. By 1856, he had moved from South Portland Street in South Glasgow to 40 Abbotsford Place, a genteel tenement that housed ministers of religion and city businessmen. There is no record of any romantic engagements for the well-to-do Charles. It was not uncommon for many in middle-class Victorian society—men and women, Catholic and Protestant—to remain celibate out of religious conviction if not financial circumstance. Yet Charles’s own prosperity was being built in a world of fierce commercial competition, where debt often cast a shadow over the appearances of good fortune. His father was now a wine merchant in Glasgow, possibly with premises in Saltmarket Street. However, John Ogle O’Neill might have still been in a precarious financial position, following the unsuccessful lease at the Elephant Inn in Dumbarton.
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Chapter 2 The Christ of the Poor
harles and his family belonged to Glasgow’s ambitious lower middle class—of small merchants, shopkeepers and newly educated professional workers. Less fortunate were the thousands of destitute Irish now crammed into a city with a population density of more than twelve thousand per hectare. Here, they would be crammed up to twenty to a room in some of the worst slums in Europe. Charles had already become acquainted with the horror of the Glasgow slums. These decaying, crumbling, loathsome piles, with seeping sewage, became infamous. In the 1860s, a report by Special Commissioners from Britain’s Daily Mail revealed the reality of life in tenements of Glasgow’s District 14, located in the Bridgegate area:
C
The floor is covered with men, women and children huddled up promiscuously in corners of the room on tressed beds or no beds at all or closet beds with doors which, if you enter, were carefully shut to exclude even a suspicion of fresh air, if such a thing were possible here. Rags, scraps of clothing and old clothing, grey with dirt and crawling with vermin, are wound in frowsy coils around the limbs of little children and grown-up men and women. A twisted mass of humanity and dirt too horrible to contemplate.1
In this world, struggling workers, Protestant and Catholic, eked out a battle for existence. Here, the only social outlet to be found was in the saloon bar or on the street. Whether you were once a poor Protestant 19
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity crofter from the Highlands or Catholic refugee from famine-plagued Ireland, there was always the dream of making a better living in a booming city like Glasgow. However, those fixed at the very bottom of the social heap were haunted by the grim prospect of the poorhouse. By tradition, care of the poor had been the responsibility of the established Church of Scotland. However, in 1843, this Church was financially crippled in the split known as ‘The Great Disruption’ when more than 400 ministers left it in protest at government control of clerical appointments. The breakaway ministers organised the Free Church of Scotland, or ‘Wee Frees’ as they became popularly known. The destitute were at the mercy of relief provided through the Scottish Poor Law Amendment Act put into effect in 1845. This law organised relief along the lines of Scotland’s 880 parishes, and gradually shifted assistance away from voluntary fundraising toward an assessment system. Unlike in England and Wales, the operation of workhouses (or ‘poorhouses’ as the Scots called them) was voluntary, and poor relief could be given either in cash or in kind. The able-bodied received nothing. Destitute Irish immigrants were at a particular disadvantage, and many were shipped back to Ireland to prevent them from becoming a public burden. The poorhouse was like an open prison. Institutions like the City Poorhouse in Parliamentary Road housed 1500 inmates, with only two baths serving all the males. The Barnhill Poorhouse housed 2000 inmates and was designed in the form of a quadrangle, with four courtyards along the same lines as a penitentiary. In return for meagre rations and harsh regulations, inmates struggled as they performed such gruelling tasks as stone breaking, milling, laundry and, perhaps for the more fortunate, gardening. The most dreaded task, picking oakum—the fibre of old ship’s ropes—reduced a worker’s hands to a mass of sores. Charitable enterprises, set up by benevolent middle-class organisations, made little headway in dealing with social problems. Instead, they only compounded religious, class and ethnic differences. Glasgow had ‘meetings for every purpose—to oppose Popery—to preserve the Sabbath—to give testimonials’, yet little substantial progress had been made in the actual education and relief of the destitute.2 According to James Walsh, president of a newly formed ‘Brotherhood of Saint Vincent’ in Glasgow, of which Charles was Secretary: 20
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Notwithstanding the general prosperity prevailing at present, yet it is well known to all who take an interest in the social conditions of the poor, that there are thousands of our fellow creatures of all ages, and of both sexes, in this city at all times in the most deplorable condition. Old age, helpless infancy, accidents, and bodily disease are associated with human life, and even in the most prosperous times must necessarily produce a vast amount of suffering.3
The life of some of these ‘fellow creatures’ in a city of growing industrial power is captured in Walsh’s report: The Brothers go to visit another house of woe, where they find a young woman twenty-six years of age, in great distress. She had been married but her husband had died six months previous. She had two children—one two years old, the other eight months old. She had supported herself during her husband’s illness, and since his death, by shirtmaking. She had to work night and day to earn as much as would afford herself and children a little bread, and to pay the rent of her miserable room. Sorrow, hard work, and starvation, had worn her almost to the bone. Her children had measles, and her youngest was exceeding fractious, and would not sleep in the day and so much hindered her in getting on with her work.4
Walsh added: They find in a miserable cellar, destitute of furniture, bedding or food, a widow and her two daughters—her husband had been dead eight years. Her daughters were aged . . . fourteen and ten years. The elder was very weak, pale and emaciated and far advanced in consumption. This poor woman had almost no means of support . . . Here is a poor girl dying of consumption, pining away without suitable nourishment from day to day, week to week, and from month to month, when her mother goes out to wash, her only companion is her little sister, there sitting on a block of wood in a miserable hovel, without a drink, except water to wet her parched lips.
Starvation and diseases such as tuberculosis and even cholera took their daily toll. Many children were orphaned; others received little or no education. Most of these ended up as street beggars. 21
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The plight of the poor, particularly in the industrial cities of nineteenth century Europe, had become a powerful motivation for a brilliant young French scholar, Antoine Frédéric Ozanam (known as Frédéric). In 1840, Ozanam, at the age of only 27, had been appointed Professor of Foreign Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. In May 1833, three years after a failed revolution in Paris, Ozanam had helped initiate a great charitable endeavour for the sake of the poor of Paris. At a meeting chaired by Emmanuel Bailly, a philosophy teacher and proprietor of the Catholic Tribune newspaper, Ozanam and five other young French students—François Lallier, Paul Lamanche, Felix Clave, Auguste La Tallandier and Jules de Vaux— formed a ‘Conference of Charity’. They formed a cell of Christian laymen who would visit the poor of Paris in their hovels and garrets, providing food, wood, clothing and words of spiritual encouragement. Ozanam and his followers had been galvanised by the taunts of young atheist, utopian socialists, followers of the French aristocrat and writer Comte de Saint-Simon. The young Saint-Simonians were a sect prefiguring the worldwide communist movement of Karl Marx and were inspired by the Comte’s tract The New Christianity. The Saint-Simonians enthralled the Parisian poor with stories of a future workers’ paradise, that would sweep away the reactionary Catholicism of Europe, the individualism of Protestantism and all the injustices of the industrial revolution. The influence of the Saint-Simonians waned in the face of a brutal reaction from the ruling French elites. On the other hand, the Conferences of Charity grew. The work of Frédéric Ozanam and his followers had been inspired by Sister Rosalie Rendu, a religious worker called a ‘Daughter of Charity’. Sister Rosalie taught, from her own experience on the streets, how to respond to the needs of the destitute by showing them love and respect, while preserving their dignity. She gave the new Brotherhood lessons in the practicalities of compassion. The Daughters of Charity had already established soup kitchens for the poor and provided care for orphans and the elderly. Their care for the victims of cholera, with the assistance of the newly formed Brotherhood, would eventually win back the respect of many of the rebellious Parisian population to Christian ideals. Sister Rosalie persuaded the fledgling group to adopt the name of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (or St Vincent de Paul Society), after 22
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The Christ of the Poor
the seventeenth century French priest who had served the poor and afflicted. In 1624, Vincent de Paul had founded an order of priests called the ‘Congregation of the Mission’ as a missionary order, particularly to the rural poor. Together with a widow, Louise de Marillac, he had founded both the Ladies’ Association of Charity for laywomen and the Daughters of Charity themselves, the latter in 1633. The drawing power of the new work of the St Vincent de Paul Conferences, or the ‘Brotherhood’, is recounted by James Walsh: Individually, none of us may be able to do much to relieve the wants of our fellow-creatures, but when banded together in such associations as that of Saint Vincent de Paul, it is impossible to calculate the amount of good that can be done. To visit the poor, to converse with them, to sympathise with them in their sorrows and afflictions, go a great way in cheering their minds. Those services are highly appreciated by the poor; they show them that they are not forgotten by their fellow creatures; they prove to them that they still live in a Christian country; and that the precepts of the religion of Jesus Christ are still followed by those whose lot in life is more successful than theirs.5
Frédéric Ozanam, through his spiritual leadership, provided an inspiration to a generation of Catholics who desired to bring the compassion of Jesus Christ to the poor of the new industrial societies. Inspired too by the sayings of Saint Vincent de Paul to treat the poor ‘as their masters’, the new lay Society of St Vincent de Paul provided an extraordinary contrast to a fearful Church suspicious of new social forces. Ozanam campaigned for the rights of workers in a short-lived newspaper, Era Nouvelle. However, he became disheartened about any real reform following the failure of a violent worker uprising in the France of 1848. By 1853, the same year as that meeting in the Glasgow Trades Hall, an ailing Frédéric Ozanam was in the last year of his life. Yet Ozanam had cause for satisfaction. His beloved Society had, by then, spread across Europe as well as the British Isles. In Paris alone, the Society had a membership of two thousand members visiting some five thousand families on a regular basis. It had some remarkable features for an early nineteenth century charity. First, it was formed as ‘a universal association of Christian charity, 23
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity as it knows no difference of creed, of colour, or of country, in the distribution of charity’.6 Religious observance, while encouraged, was not a requirement to receive help. Second, members also visited the living quarters of the destitute in pairs. This practice was not only for the sake of safety. They also wished to follow the teachings of Jesus who, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke, appointed 70 of his followers, sending them ahead in pairs to each town and city where he intended to go.7 Third, as the movement grew internationally, it gained the advantages of being a ‘confederation of benevolence’. Its Head Council in Paris could be ‘alive to any affliction that may happen in any city or country of the world’.8 An extraordinary example of how this could work was revealed by Walsh himself. Out of the 10000 pounds sent in one year to Ireland by Paris to relieve distress as a result of the potato famine, some 1000 pounds was donated by the Sultan of Constantinople (now Istanbul), a Muslim, through the Society’s Constantinople Conference. In January 1845, the Society was formally approved by Pope Gregory XVI, complete with spiritual privileges to members as well as benefactors. All this meant very little however in Victorian Britain, which gloried in its Empire and the world-leading technological and industrial expertise that served as its engine room. In 1845 Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli himself warned that it had become ‘two nations’, the rich and the poor, ‘between whom there is no discourse and no sympathy’. Despite the challenges of Chartism, it was a technological, not a social revolution, that had captured the imagination of the British public. In 1851, Frédéric Ozanam visited the splendid Crystal Palace Exhibition which had opened in Hyde Park, London. The exhibition displayed the wonders of the new industrial age that enthralled young engineers like Charles O’Neill across Britain. Ozanam, a man of the humanities, was no stranger to the potential of technological progress. The famous French physicist André-Marie Ampère had become Frédéric’s mentor in his youth. While admiring the wonders of engineering at the exhibition, Ozanam was however haunted by the slum conditions of the factory workers he had visited during his time in London. To the spiritually sensitive Frenchman, the new engines and machines must have appeared to have a dark side. 24
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By 1844, a branch of the Society was established in London. Two years later, the new Society arrived in Scotland. In 1846, the sympathetic Catholic Bishop Gillis in Edinburgh integrated an existing Holy Guild of St Joseph into the Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul, under the presidency of a distinguished antiquarian and convert, James Augustine Stothert. One of its early members, a solicitor James Bryson, founded the first Conference in Glasgow under the guidance of the Reverend William Gordon two years later in 1848 with the consent of Bishop Murdoch. The first members were solidly middle class, and comprised three businessmen, a coal merchant, a commission agent, an ironmonger, a painter, an artisan, a shopkeeper, a former teacher and a religious repository keeper. The Society spread quickly across Glasgow and the Western District of Scotland. By 1858, five years after Charles O’Neill gave his Secretary’s report at the Trades Hall, it had grown to 131 active members of some fourteen Conferences. In 1861, by which time Charles O’Neill was President of the Society’s Provincial Council for the Western District, it could claim eighteen Conferences with 268 members and 136 honorary members. Apart from eight Conferences within Glasgow itself, the surrounding towns including those along the Clyde could claim their own. Conferences like St John’s Port Glasgow, St Patrick’s Dumbarton, St Mirren’s Paisley, St Mary’s Hamilton, St Margaret’s Airdrie, St Mary’s Greenock and St Lawrence Conference Cartsdyke had sprung up across the Western District. Its members were a remarkable mix of Scottish middle-class religious idealists and Irish activists. The Society received information and reports called ‘Society Intelligence’, published by the Society in Ireland. It had been introduced there in December 1844 by Dr Bartholomew Woodlock, the President of All Hallows College, Dublin. Its activities did not escape attention. One Protestant critic, a Reverend Dr Duff of Edinburgh, would claim at a large protest meeting in Glasgow in 1874 that: It has local, central and general councils; quarterly meetings, Conferences, fetes, pilgrimages; it has passports and circular letters to its members. It adapts itself to all classes and conditions—addresses itself to the scholar, the soldier, the mechanic, the apprentice, the labourer—to the mother and the daughter, for all of whom it issues a suitable publication.9 25
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Society’s mode of operation in western Scotland, while drawing on the support of clergy, ironically reflected the kind of lay activity exercised by the local Presbyterian church. Talented members like Charles O’Neill helped it become a vibrant community organisation. The Society helped protect the Irish Catholic minority in Glasgow against the activities of rabble-rousers, while defending Irish folk culture and accent. Through its endeavours on behalf of the poor, the Society gave laypeople roles as spiritual guides and social organisers. It also served as a social safety net by providing assistance at critical points in life—birth, sickness, education, finding work and death. Amid the aggressive capitalism of the day, it offered the Irish immigrant a source of moral regeneration. The Society both benefited from, and was strengthened by, a number of social and religious interactions across Scotland. The petty discrimination and activities of bigots merely served to reinforce the Irish in their ethnic folk religion. Reminiscing on the past glories of an old culture, as reflected in Charles’s address at St Andrew’s New Schools, could offer a moment of escape from the harsh realities of the industrial slum. At the other end of the Victorian social spectrum, the energy of the Irish poor appealed to a certain kind of Tory social romantic. A number of conversions of men of wealth in Scotland provided a sympathetic environment, financially as well as socially, for the Society’s activities. Some, like John Patrick, the Third Marquess of Bute, were aristocrats. Others from a more liberal background, like Robert Monteith and David Urquhart, provided a new voice of Catholic social thought in Scotland. Meanwhile, liberal concerns about the reactionary tendencies of European Catholicism gradually faded away. Victorian society had come to accept the rights of individual consciences in religious practice. Moreover, the triumph of capitalism and social problems of the new industrial age had begun to pose questions about the relevance of Christianity itself. For the devout young Charles O’Neill, meeting this challenge was probably a key motivation. One Colonel Gerard, a Society supporter, describes the world in which the Society took root in Glasgow and which seemed so daunting: No doubt there is much to discourage those engaged in the work in a city and neighbourhood like this, where such fearful corruption abounds; where vice is looked upon as a sort of necessary evil that must be sullenly submitted to; and where religious bigotry and rancour so universally prevail.10 26
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James Walsh, the Glasgow Society President who probably served as mentor to Charles, prophetically highlighted the religious and social problem: The ignorance, brutality, vice, and wretchedness of the large cities of England and Scotland are unparalleled, compared with any other countries in the world . . . Selfishness is the great principle of Protestantism—make fortunes, become rich, outdo your neighbours by competition, become a millionaire and retire from business. The precepts of Him who was born in a stable, laid in a manger, associated with the poor, and who declared that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, are entirely lost sight of by Protestantism.11
There is no record of Charles himself repeating this kind of sectarian opinion, either then or in his later life. He worked well with and received the respect and attention of Protestant politicians, professionals and entrepreneurs. However, the sentiment could have played on his conscience. If Charles believed in such sentiments, did he actually have any guilt about making fortunes? Could he have come to think of the growing of personal wealth as a ‘betrayal’ of the Christ of the Poor? Many Protestants of the period were also guided by the example of Jesus Christ, including the teaching in the Gospel of Matthew that one ‘cannot serve God and wealth’.12 As early as 1826, evangelical minister David Naismith began his City Mission movement aimed at alleviating the suffering of Glasgow’s poor. It soon spread across Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. Such missionary outreaches against poverty were founded in the belief that the poor could rise above the misery of their lives if they accepted the truth of Jesus Christ, and acknowledged him as a personal Saviour. These missionaries in time came to realise, however, that they could not preach to the poor without filling their hungry bellies first. Teachings about charity and justice for humankind were central to the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. These drew their roots from the teaching of the prophets and the Wisdom tradition of biblical writings such as in Proverbs. For Christians, these culminated in the New Testament teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, and in parables or stories which teach a 27
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity lesson. The most notable of these parables is that of the Good Samaritan. It illustrates the compassion of a Samaritan who, despite being a member of the despised minority, comes to the aid of a man attacked and left dying by the roadside. This compassion is starkly contrasted with the behaviour of two respected religious figures who simply walk past the victim. The parable is an important extension of the ancient ‘Golden Rule’ of ethics in doing to others as you would have them do to yourself. In the Good Samaritan parable, true charity is extended even to the stranger who is recognised as one’s ‘neighbour’ as much as one’s relatives, friends or fellow nationals. Such charity also responded to the immediate and urgent needs of the ‘neighbour’. For compassion to be genuine, it could neither be conditional nor offered at one’s convenience. Another key teaching of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel of John was: ‘Just as I have loved you, you should also love another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples.’13 As a consequence, charity, or compassionate love and care to those in need, became a sign of witness in the age of the apostles and the early Church. The third century martyr, Saint Lawrence of Rome, was charged with dispensing the Church’s treasures to the pagan civil authorities. In response, Saint Lawrence presented the poor of Rome instead as the Church’s ‘real treasure’. In the medieval age, charity took its place as one of seven cardinal virtues. It was identified with the two other spiritual virtues of faith and hope. The remaining five cardinal virtues were the classical ones of justice, courage, fortitude, temperance and prudence. These would counterbalance the seven deadly sins—of pride, envy, lust, sloth, wrath, gluttony, and avarice or greed. In the eyes of James Walsh, the accumulation of wealth in the face of the poverty of industrial Glasgow was nothing less than greed. Through his Catholic religious heritage, Charles also had the examples of two great figures to inspire him with respect to his work with the poor. Both had founded influential religious congregations that had subsequently spread throughout the world. One was the thirteenth century Italian Saint Francis of Assisi who, as a young man, had discarded his father’s wealth in order to pattern himself on the poverty of Jesus Christ. The other was Saint Vincent de Paul himself, who had recognised the presence of Christ in destitute peasant folk: 28
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I should not judge poor peasants, men and women, by their exterior nor by their apparent mental capabilities. All the more is this so since very frequently they scarcely seem to have the appearance of reasonable beings, so gross and offensive they are. But turn the medal and you will see by the light of faith that the Son of God, whose will it was to be poor, is represented to us by these people.14
As a consequence, Vincent de Paul had urged a particular veneration in the service of the poor: Let us recognize that before God they are our lords and masters and that we are unworthy to render them our small services.15
Young Charles seems not to have been drawn to the pulpit, although younger sister Catherine Anne entered a Franciscan convent in 1854. From the beginning, Charles seemed more passionate about designing churches than preaching in them. Nonetheless, his religious ideals must have been a driving force in his life. What he most certainly believed was that generosity to the poor merited a divine reward, and that the good works of the Society were the means to gain it. As Charles explained in 1853: As our Blessed Redeemer has declared that even a cup of cold water given in his name shall not go without a reward; may not members of this Society, then, confidently trust as they most assuredly pray, that the choicest of blessings of Heaven may be poured down on those Charitable and generous-hearted Christians who contributed to the funds of the Society . . . and enabled them to relieve the wants of their fellow creatures.16, 17
Again in making his appeal to the Catholics of Glasgow, Charles made reference to the Beatitudes of Jesus Christ, in speaking about helping the poor: The smallest donation for the poor will be thankfully received, and distributed among the most deserving and the most destitute. However trifling it may be, it will assist in relieving their pressing wants—it may change a house of sorrow and long suffering into an abode of cheerfulness, industry, and peace; and it cannot fail to obtain for the giver a reward from Him, who, 29
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity while on earth, pronounced those sublime and beautiful words: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy.’18
Charity—through traditional giving of alms—might be seen as a traditional, indeed romantic, virtue. However, while the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century had generated vast wealth, it had also generated poverty on such a great scale as to make individual charitable acts seem ineffective. Charity needed to be combined with justice and the Christian churches had been too slow to realise it. Humanist writers such as Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, reformers such as the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Christian pioneers such as Frédéric Ozanam, William Booth and the Catholic Bishop Ketteler of Mainz were new voices urging change. Karl Marx and his new international socialist movement had a more radical and violent solution to the problem; for them, religion and Christianity in particular had become the ‘opium of the people’. For a young man like Charles, however, the works and ideals of Frédéric Ozanam’s new movement might offer a better way. Charles, at age 22, had joined the Society in Dumbarton as early as 1851, becoming its Secretary in August that year.19 The brothers Charles and John probably attended the first General Meeting of the Western District in Glasgow in July 1852, just prior to shifting their lodging permanently to Glasgow. By 1853, both brothers were very active in Society affairs and Charles had become Secretary for the Western District. A motivating factor was undoubtedly sympathy for the Irish people in their plight. At a meeting of the ‘Friends of the Irish Poor’ at the Bells Temperance Hotel in August 1857, Charles praised the work of a certain Captain McBride of Belfast who had made great efforts to alleviate conditions of the poor in that city. In March 1858, Charles and his brother John were appointed to a committee to raise subscriptions for the relief of the poor of Donegal in Ireland. This committee was formed at a General Meeting at St Andrew’s New Schools, during which a resolution expressed sympathy for the evicted Irish tenants: horror and detestation at the inhuman principle of exterminating God’s poor beings in the wilds of Donegal from the homes of their forefathers in favour of Scotch and English sheep.20
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here was a personality trait deeply ingrained in the culture of western Scotland. This manifested itself not only as a desire for public respect, but respect for oneself often demonstrated by measured self-control.1 As young Charles gained some prominence in the local Glasgow community, it is possible that this trait rubbed off on his own character. Charles might have initially shied away from the making of fortunes. However, he remained ambitious and, like his father and brother, enjoyed a convivial social life. His father became a supporter of the Glasgow Free Press, attending a function in honour of its owner Donnelly at the Star Hotel in July 1855. St Patrick’s Day dinners, public lectures and social evenings were all part of the O’Neill social circuit. Civil architectural and engineering projects brought Charles O’Neill’s professional talents to the attention of civic authorities. However, he did not always get the recognition he deserved. Between August 1854 and September 1855, Glasgow Town Council erected a second footbridge across the Clyde. A tollway, the St Andrew’s Suspension Bridge in McNeill Street, linked Bridgton and Hutchesontown. It was 220 feet (67 metres) long with 24-foot (7.3-metre) pylons at each end to support the cables. The pylons were made of cast iron in classical form with fluted Roman Corinthian columns providing supporting arches. The overall design of the bridge was by engineer Neil Robson. At its opening by the Lord Provost (Glasgow’s Lord Mayor), 31
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Robson did not give sufficient credit to the designer of the columns— Charles O’Neill. In May 1855, Charles applied for a vacant and more senior position of Superintendent of Streets and Buildings in Edinburgh. He received a glowing reference from Glasgow’s Municipal Police Committee, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In July 1857, Charles gained some brief celebrity in Edinburgh and most of Scotland. At this time, he was employed as a professional witness by the Crown in the High Court of the Judiciary of Scotland. The eyes of the Scottish public were fixed on the High Court in Edinburgh, where 22-year-old Madeleine Smith faced trial having been accused of poisoning her French lover Pierre Emile l’Angelier. Madeleine was granddaughter of no less than Glasgow’s supreme architect David Hamilton, who had died in 1843. Madeleine’s trial, one of the most famous in the history of Scotland, lasted nine days. She was acquitted, thanks to the brilliant defence of lawyer John Inglis with the jury returning the uniquely Scottish verdict ‘not proven’. Charles was given the task of making a plan of 7 Blythswood Square, the home of Madeleine’s father James Smith, located in one of Glasgow’s most fashionable districts. Charles was cross-examined on day three of the proceedings. His testimony was that of professional advice on the design of Madeleine’s bedroom, including whether there could have been access from the bedroom window to the outside pavement. It was through this means that Madeleine could have made contact with her lover Pierre. While Charles’s professional advice did not resolve any matters relating to the case, his engagement by the authorities was a sign of their confidence in his abilities. Five years later, in September 1862, Charles again found himself serving as Crown professional witness in yet another case which caught the public’s attention—the Sandyford Place Murder. This time it was the trial of Jessie McLachlan, who was accused of murdering Jess McPherson by 40 blows with a cleaver, at 17 Sandyford Place, Glasgow, in July 1862. Charles once again produced plans of the house for the trial. Jessie McLachlan was not as lucky as Madeleine Smith—she was found guilty by the judge Lord Deas and sentenced to hang. However, the case threw up some additional evidence against another suspect, an old man called Fleming. After a public petition by 50000 Glaswegians, there was a 32
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public investigation and a reprieve for McLachlan, although she still ended up spending fifteen years in prison. Towards the end of the 1850s, Charles gained further recognition from among the Glasgow Catholic community. Soon his work was being compared with the greatest contemporary Catholic Victorian architects. The Glasgow Free Press reported on the opening of St Peter’s Church Partick on 2 May 1858: Both internally and externally the building bespeaks admiration, and reflects infinite credit on its accomplished architect, Mr Charles O’Neill, to whose genius, and taste, we owe so many beautiful Catholic structures, and whose architectural talents have won him the same place among the Catholics of Scotland as that of J.J. McCarthy in Ireland and Edward Pugin in England.2
Whether such claims in the Glasgow Free Press merely reflected parochial interests is uncertain. Whatever the truth of the matter, Charles’s architectural talents were exceptional. In February 1860, he received the cheers of the crowd celebrating the opening of St John’s New Schools, Warwick Place, constructed in the Byzantine style. In his reply: he expressed his gratitude for the kindness shown him, and in his remarks said that some were inclined to think that he had perhaps made the buildings too ornamental or too fine, but he assured them that it had been his endeavour all along to raise a building worthy of the congregation.3
By the end of the decade, Charles’s work did receive the attention of the civil authorities, and Charles began to build a new circle of friends and acquaintances from outside the Catholic community. As a young professional working in architectural design and engineering, Charles had an understanding of the lure of Freemasonry. He dealt with many other professions and trades, including stonemasons. The working symbol of the craft of the stonemason, an apron, had long been adopted as the ceremonial uniform of the Freemasons, a male fraternity organised in ‘lodges’. Their endeavours were regarded either with respect or suspicion, depending on one’s religious conviction. Scotland 33
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity had an old acquaintance with Freemasonry. During the eighteenth century, Scottish Freemasonry developed substantially and prospered, even with its own Scottish rite. Unlike European Freemasonry, which had become increasingly sympathetic to atheism during the eighteenth century, Freemasonry in Britain—and Scotland in particular—acknowledged God as the ‘Great Architect of the Universe’. The first Papal Bull against Freemasonry was issued in the encyclical of Pope Clement XII, In eminenti, published on 4 May 1738. This was confirmed in the bull Providas by Benedict XIV in 1751. This condemnation of Freemasonry was not only because of the secrets it held, but also in the words of Clement’s encyclical, ‘Aliisque de justis ac rationabilibus causis Nobis notis’ (translated as ‘and on other just and reasonable grounds known to us’). It is thought that this latter had something to do with the lost cause of the Catholic Stuart pretenders to the throne of England and Scotland, and the role of Freemasonry in this intrigue. Yet for many young Scots in particular, the Scottish lodges retained a great attraction despite opposition to its teachings by Catholic and many Protestant churches. Scotland’s legendary poet Robert Burns was initiated as an apprentice Mason in 1781, rising ultimately to the status of a Master Mason. Burns had praised Freemasonry in his verse The Master’s Apron written in 1786: There’s mony [many] a badge that’s unco braw [uncommonly handsome]; Wi’ [with] ribbon, lace and tape on; Let kings an’ princes wear them a’ [all]; Gie [give] me the Master’s Apron.
Glasgow’s Masonic lodges could trace their ancestry back to the appointment of Alexander Drummond, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, as Provincial Grand Master of the Western Counties in 1739. More than a hundred years later, in 1860, Drummond’s successor as Provincial Grand Master was Sir Archibald Alison, who had been made a baronet by Queen Victoria some eight years previously. His monumental History of Europe had provided him with a reputation in Europe as well, and in his learned addresses he made pointed attacks on ‘popery’. On 26 May 1860, Sir Archibald, a lawyer who had become Sheriff of Lanarkshire, laid the 34
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foundation stone of a new police station at Hillhead near Glasgow with due Masonic ceremony. Masonic ceremonies such as these were commonplace for public buildings. This time, it was an irony that the plan of the building was undertaken by a devout Catholic such as Charles O’Neill. The ceremony involved a march by recruits of a recently formed volunteer militia, the Lanarkshire Regiment, of which Charles also was a member. Hillhead Police Station was designed in the Italian style, and Charles’s plans had been approved by the Right Hon. Sir George Cornwell-Lewis, then Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. Just how well Charles’s work was being acknowledged by the establishment was recounted by Colonel Dreghorn at a testimonial to him in 1863, just prior to his departure for New Zealand: At a meeting of the Commissioners of Supply in the County of Lanark— Lord Belhaven in the chair—it was proposed to erect a model police station for the county at Hillhead, near this city. The chairman had formed so high an opinion of Mr O’Neill’s abilities as had induced him at once to propose that (Mr O’Neill) should be employed to prepare the necessary plans, which were carried out, and the building stands as a perfect model for the purpose intended.4
It was not to be the last time in his life that Charles would come into contact with prominent Freemasons through his professional activities. As a Roman Catholic, he could not consider joining them, although the temptation for any young professional of his time to ‘wear the Master’s Apron’ would have been a strong one. He was well aware of the possibility of advancement it might have brought. He would also have been well aware of the claims of the Freemasons that the ‘craft’ stood firmly on the side of science, engineering and progress, in contrast to what they saw as the reactionary tendencies of the Catholic Church. The activities of the Freemasons would become an important driving factor in Charles’s charitable quest some twenty years later. Masonic lodges traditionally practised benevolence towards their members, and in 1846 the Scottish Grand Lodge established a Fund of Scottish Masonic Benevolence. The purpose of this fund was primarily to benefit Scottish Freemasons and their dependants. 35
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity What the Freemasons of Glasgow thought of the activities of the St Vincent de Paul Society in the city is unknown. By 1860, the talented Charles O’Neill had taken over its Presidency. The Society of St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland had flourished considerably since its establishment by the Reverend Gordon some twelve years previously. James Walsh, in his final report delivered at St Andrew’s Schools in Greendyke Street, Glasgow, on the evening of 4 March 1859, described the spiritual beliefs of this Brotherhood: The Society of St Vincent de Paul assists all, without distinction of creed or country—it is a Society of universal charity. An eminent French preacher, in one of his many sermons on its behalf, says the following:—‘when Our Lord, in going to death, prayed for his disciples, he had them all before his eyes, embracing in his divine view all time and space. He saw the numerous associations of charity issuing successively from his blood, shed for the salvation of man. He saw yours; he blessed it, and implored for it the tenderness of His Father, and entreated him not to permit any of those who should have been amongst its members to be eternally lost.’5
This was an age when belief in the afterlife and divine judgment for acts committed during one’s own life was still strong. An act of charity was seen as both following the teaching of Jesus Christ, and paying homage to Jesus as the poor man crucified—the Christ of the Poor. Jesus’ teachings about the final judgment in the Gospel of Matthew reinforced this belief, as the reward of eternal bliss in the afterlife depended on how one treated one’s neighbour during one’s lifetime.6 Society members would be guided by seven traditional acts of ‘corporal mercy’ found in their Catholic Catechisms, perhaps distributed from Ireland.7 These acts instructed the believer to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit those in prison, to shelter the homeless, to comfort the sick, and to bury the dead. They would not only have the maxims of Saint Vincent de Paul on charity to serve as a guide. A new call to justice for the destitute would be informed by the insight of Frédéric Ozanam: The knowledge of social well-being and of reform is to be learned, not from books, nor from the public platform. But in climbing the stairs of the poor 36
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man’s garret, sitting by his bedside, feeling the same cold that pierces him, sharing the secrets of his lonely heart and troubled mind. When the conditions of the poor have been examined, in school, at work, in the hospital, in the city, the country, everywhere that God has placed them, it is then and then only, that we know the elements of that formidable problem, that we begin to grasp it and may hope to solve it.8
This religious fervour was reinforced by the experiences of its members in dealing with those battling to survive in the industrial slums. Walsh reported the following case: A poor young woman, in very destitute circumstances, being near her confinement, applied to the parochial board for relief last winter. The inspector would do nothing for her but send her home to Ireland. Her husband being there endeavouring to obtain work, he being long idle here, some charitable person paid his passage over, as he had a view of getting work there, and intended sending his wife when able. This poor creature in her present condition was afraid to venture on the water. Being in starvation, she applied to one of the Brothers, who gave immediate relief . . . This Active Brother soon discovered that the heartless drunken creatures with whom she stopped did not give her the nourishment allotted to her, but ate it themselves. This Active Brother got his wife to make ready tea, soup etc in her own house, and brought over every meal, and attended her for eight or ten days until she was able to rise, and then removed her to more respectable lodgings, and got the child baptised.9
The Society was also building better relationships with the Protestant authorities: At the annual picnic in August, for the younger part of the congregation and Sunday school, it has been the practice of the Brotherhood to invite not only the Catholic but the Protestant poor-house children. This has been found to produce much good feeling, and the inspector and governor of the poor-house were also invited, and entered into the spirit of the recreations and games.10
In the first four years since 1848, the Society had distributed some 881 pounds and helped more than 700 destitute people per week across 37
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Glasgow and western Scotland. In the first twelve years, it had distributed more than 6000 pounds and had made 100000 visits to the poor. In order to manage this social machinery, the Society’s Conferences within Glasgow were organised under a Central Council. As more Conferences were established outside Glasgow, the President-General of the Society in Paris appointed a Provincial Council for the whole of the Western Districts of Scotland. This latter had the same status as the Council in Edinburgh. Charles O’Neill was elected unanimously to the Presidency of the Society’s Council in the Western Districts of Scotland on 4 December 1859, succeeding James Walsh. His brother John, also living at 40 Abbotsford Place, was elected to Charles’s former position of Secretary. The significance of this unanimous election was acknowledged by Adolphe Baudon, who had become the Society’s third President-General in 1847. Baudon wrote to Charles on 13 March 1860: We have heard with satisfaction that the Presidency of the Provincial Council of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, for the Western District of Scotland, has devolved upon you, by the unanimous vote of the Conference; and that the office was not long vacant. An extra charge has thus been given you by our good Lord rather than an honour, and it is this spirit that ought to sway a true member of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. We have confidence in the unanimity of our Brothers who elected you, and which will be to you a powerful pillar of support.11
Between 1859 and 1861, under Charles’s guidance, Society income rose to more than 1100 pounds per annum, practically all of which was disbursed to the poor directly with a balance of 130 pounds retained for ongoing purposes. In 1861, with its 268 active members and 136 honorary members, the then eighteen Conferences provided relief for 21 710 individuals with 12 783 visits to the needy in their homes. The Glasgow of Charles O’Neill had by then grown to a population of more than a million. Charles O’Neill’s reports in the Glasgow Free Press provide a picture of the range of special works assisting the poor, in an age when little or no alternative support was otherwise available. In 1862, for example, 188 poor children were kept in school, 166 unemployed were helped to gain 38
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work, 282 were assisted into self-employment, 352 sick and dying were assisted, 58 poor were sent to friends, 25 sent to an infirmary, six given free passages to friends in the colonies and five given a proper burial. Reflecting the Society’s concern for religious and general education, some 1186 books were lent by the Society’s librarian. Given that these activities were very much lay initiatives, there could sometimes be misunderstanding between Society members and the clergy. In these early days, Society members often complained about lack of support from priests who were themselves overworked. Charles, however, could acknowledge the support of Glasgow Catholic Bishop John Gray for the Society’s charitable work. The support of the clergy was also vital as a source of income, particularly through the charity sermon. Sermons or lectures ‘on behoof [on behalf] of the Society’ throughout parishes raised more than 284 pounds in 1862, approximately a quarter of its total yearly income.12 Bishop Gray himself raised 22 pounds 17 shillings 10 pence after a lecture at St Andrew’s. Sermons by ‘star’ charity preachers became popular events. A good preacher could draw a response of somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds from a congregation. Apart from charity bazaars in parishes and small fundraising evenings in taverns and hotels, some substantial fundraising events were also supplementing the Society’s income in Glasgow. An annual concert held in the Glasgow City Hall raised 133 pounds in 1861 and 147 pounds in 1862. At these kinds of functions, forerunners of the contemporary charity rock concert, singers and pianists provided their services for free. In the case of the Glasgow concert, the Society also relied on the services of external volunteers, particularly a certain ‘Mr Lawson, Secretary to the Glasgow Abstainers’ Union, for his kindness in assisting them in making the Concert arrangements’.13 Social evenings were also provided for Society members, honorary members and their families. Such an evening, referred to as a Conversazione, was held at the popular Bells Temperance Hotel on 6 January 1863. This particular evening featured addresses on such subjects as education and the poor laws, including orchestral entertainment and refreshments. By 1862, Charles O’Neill had taken on the most senior offices within the Western Districts organisation, commenting in a letter to his Conference presidents on 18 November 1862: 39
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity From the position I held as President of the ‘Provincial Council’ of the District, and of the ‘Central Council’ of Glasgow; and also, as President of St Andrew’s Conference, I often found one duty interfering with the other. I therefore intimated to the Vice-President and Secretary of St Andrew’s Conference, in the early part of the present year, my intention of resigning my office as President of St Andrew’s Conference, in order to give my attention to all the eighteen Conferences alike. I was prevailed upon to delay this resolution, but, I still intend to put it into execution; after which, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing oftener, the members of the other Conferences of the District.14
From Charles’s experience as Secretary, and then President, of the Society’s Western Districts Council, he would learn the most effective means of raising and distributing charitable funds. In the mid-nineteenth century, at a time when support for the destitute was very limited, this must have been a remarkable effort. This was an age when much relief for the poor was focused on soup kitchens or ‘souper’ establishments. In many of these, the wretched would be urged to change their religion in return for a bowl of watery soup and a handful of breadcrumbs. Nonetheless, soup kitchens did have their place. Glasgow journalist Peter Mackenzie was inspired by the actions of Police Sergeant John Walker in trying unsuccessfully to save the life of an Irish mother and her child dying of starvation. During the 1860s, Mackenzie launched a campaign for Sunday soup kitchens. The aim of these would be to serve both Irish and Scottish poor. Mackenzie succeeded in establishing the Clyde Street Soup Kitchen, an institution which thrived in the face of taunts by bigots who complained that such work ‘desecrated the Sabbath’.15 At the same time, soup kitchens were not the answer either. The Society’s pioneer work in Glasgow and other industrial cities of Europe showed that charity could be organised in a more effective and respectful way, despite the prevailing social climate of suspicion and bigotry.
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Chapter 4 Captain Charles O’Neill
ow running the Society’s charitable machinery in Glasgow and Scotland’s Western Districts, Charles also gained a seat on the Society’s Supreme Council in Paris. In this capacity, he struck up a strong friendship with the Society’s President-General, Adolphe Baudon. The Council-General was itself undergoing a testing time in its home country France, thanks to the meddling administration of the French Emperor Napoleon III. The Emperor’s bureaucrats became suspicious that the Society might become a source of political opposition. As Charles recounted in his 1862 letter:
N
the French Government . . . would consent to the existence of the Society in France, if the members allowed themselves to be placed under an authority nominated by the Emperor. This, the Council-General refused to do—the consequence of which was the total suppression of all the Councils of the Society in France.1
The trigger for this attempt at suppression was a circular to French Prefects issued on 16 October 1861 covering charitable and philanthropic societies within their administrative areas. It was issued by the Emperor’s Minister of the Interior, Jean Fialin Persigny. Persigny favourably contrasted Freemasonry (which he saw could only be of benefit to France) with the St Vincent de Paul Society. While praising 41
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity the work of the individual Society Conference member, Persigny painted the organisation itself as a menace: Is it necessary that trustworthy men, who do good at Lyons, at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, should be advised and directed by a Committee at Paris? On the contrary, are they not in a better position than any others to know to whom to distribute their charity? Finally, must Christian Charity turn itself into a secret society in order to do good?2
The circular directed the registration of all Conferences who requested it, while attempting to suppress the Central and Provincial Councils. As to the Council-General, the Minister would ‘take the command of the Emperor as to the basis and principles upon which this central organisation might be formed’.3 It was a deliberate attempt to divide the Society’s Council-General from the Conferences. However, the attempt failed. Persigny had not reckoned with a wave of sympathy for the Society’s plight across France and Europe. Furthermore, of the French Conferences that survived the suppression, only 88 approved the Government’s proposal to nominate the President-General, compared with 766 that rejected it. Baudon’s response was to further consolidate the Society as an international confederation of benevolence. On that account, according to Charles: The President-General of the Society, in such an emergency, turned his attention to the placing of the Society on the most firm basis that the circumstances would admit of. In the event, therefore, of any matter taking place to prevent his freedom of action, he delegated his powers to three Presidents of the Society—those of Brussels, Cologne and the Hague, whose jurisdiction was beyond the French boundaries. In the meantime, he still continues to govern the Society out of France, with the same authority and in the same manner as formerly.4
As a newly elected member of this Council-General, Charles was at least a bystander in this delicate situation. What must have impressed him, however, was the potential for an international confederation of charity to operate beyond the boundaries of empires. 42
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Charles further commented for the benefit of his own little band of followers in western Scotland: It must therefore be a matter of great consolation to the members and supporters of the Society that it has not suffered the slightest injury out of France, and never can be totally suppressed either by internal treachery or open violence.5
The support of the reigning Pope, Pius IX, for the Society was also a comfort to Charles. During his pontificate, Pius continued to speak highly of the Society’s work. In an age of new missionary activity, the Church of Pius IX would also benefit from the colonial expansion of global European empires during the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the military posturing of Napoleon III provided Victorian Britain with yet another invasion scare, a mere three years after the end of the Crimean War (1854–56). After public agitation in April 1859 at St Martin’s Longacre, an initially sceptical British Government piloted a bill through the Commons supporting the statutory establishment of volunteer forces. Glasgow held its own public meeting in the Albion Hotel in Argyll Street and agreement was reached to form a volunteer corps. Charles O’Neill was among the early volunteer recruits, on 4 October 1859 joining the 10th Glasgow Corps which would become known as the 3rd Lanarkshire Regiment. His brother John, again following in Charles’s footsteps, was, like Charles, commissioned/elected as a lieutenant. There was a clear distinction between these rifle volunteers and the regular army. The volunteers were sufficiently trained to act as auxiliary units for army and militia forces, rather than to take their place in any front line. Early regulations allowed for only eight days’ drill in every four months, and such drills need not be regular. Furthermore, volunteers had to pay subscriptions and raise their own money. For young men like Charles O’Neill, the Victorian ideal of a selfsufficient military force—independent of political or contentious social issues—had its attractions. It would provide him with a uniform. It also gave Charles the opportunity to be featured in the background of a Victorian painting. North of Glasgow, beyond Loch Lomond and the town of Aberfoyle, lies the beautiful Loch Katrine. It was little known until Sir Walter Scott 43
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity featured it in his poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, published in 1810. In the late 1850s, in order to provide a clean water supply for the City of Glasgow, an aqueduct was constructed from the loch to the outskirts. No less a personage than Queen Victoria visited the loch on 14 October 1859 to open the new system. Among the Queen’s Guard of Honour, presented to her Majesty, were officers of the Glasgow Corps, including Lieutenants Charles and John O’Neill. The visit of the Queen to Glasgow and Loch Katrine was commemorated in the painting The Glasgow Volunteers 1861–1866 by the artist Thomas Robertson. In the background of the painting can be seen officers of the 3rd Lanarkshire Regiment, including Charles himself sporting a beard and moustache. From the records, Charles’s regimental uniform was: . . . dark grey, without facings and with black braid, black piping on the trousers, dark grey caps with black braid, and black pouch—and waist belts. The badges were a lion rampant on the cap and pouch-belt, and the arms of Glasgow on the clasp of the waist-belt.6
Apparently, the corps was well-endowed, with 2000 pounds being raised in subscriptions for equipment between 1859 and 1860. Charles became one of its most enthusiastic promoters, appearing in a public meeting at Glasgow City Hall in November 1859. During his four years in the regiment between 1859 and 1863, Charles appeared to be a popular figure. Colonel David Dreghorn, the regiment’s first Lieutenant-Colonel, ‘found him to be one of the most valuable and intelligent officers in the service’.7 Charles was promoted to the rank of Captain (fifth in seniority) on 6 February 1861. His talent for innovation shone through with the invention of the ‘Wimbledon’, a new system of rifle scoring involving miniature targets. Rifle shooting was a new skill, and Great Britain’s National Rifle Association had to draw up rules and regulations. The type of rifles to be used, the form of target at which to fire, the best way to count the number of shots, the proper position at which to shoot, and the system under which scoring should be conducted, all had to be worked out. The Glasgow Mail of 14 July 1863 reported on Charles’s contribution to this last problem: 44
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Among other services to the volunteer cause, he discovered a defect in rifle scoring, which he proposed to Lord Elcho to rectify. His lordship brought the matter before the National Rifle Association, and it was at once adopted.8
During this early age of photography, a 30-something Captain Charles posed for the camera some time during 1861–63. It became the first of at least four photographs that remain of him, marking his passage through an eventful life. The black and white photograph provides further detail of the uniform of the 3rd Lanarkshire Regiment (Rifle Volunteers). However, it is the strong features of Charles’s face that strike the eye. Both the portrait and the photograph reveal a prominent nose, piercing eyes, ruffled hair, and a rounded cropped beard fully covering the chin from ear to ear. Most marked is his pointed waxed moustache, a fashion of young Victorian gentlemen. In a rather comical manner, his moustache served to keep in place the strap of his military cap. By contrast, the Robertson painting supplies one feature which cannot be captured in a black and white photograph—Charles’s hair is depicted as auburn. Captain Charles’s contribution to the Volunteers was acknowledged prior to his departure for New Zealand. His friends from the Volunteers and professional circles gathered for a testimonial in his honour at the Clarence Hotel in George Square on a Saturday afternoon in September 1863. Colonel Dreghorn presided at the function and his former employer George Martin served as the ‘croupier’. As part of the testimonial, Charles received parting gifts: a costly and handsome case of professional instruments, and a purse of sovereigns, together with a superb colonial saddle and bridle, holsters etc. the special gift of Major William Smith Dixon, of Govan and Calderbank.9
By 1863, circumstances had made Glasgow an unhappy place for Charles O’Neill. Beneath the glow of professional success and public work on behalf of Glasgow’s poor, mistrust and misfortune were beginning to cast a shadow over the life of the bright young engineer. Charles had his share of sorrow and disappointment during the 1850s, not least the death of his mother. Mary O’Neill died on 15 April 1859, at the age of 56. She had given birth to at least eleven, possibly twelve, children during her lifetime. 45
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity A possible point of frustration for the ambitious young man was that he could not get promotion above the position of Assistant Superintendent, after serving some fourteen years in the post. Some credited his final decision to leave Glasgow to this lack of success. However, there were probably more pressing reasons. Charles left his public works employment for the city of Glasgow around 1861 and, for about two years, went into private business as a civil engineer. The experience was an unfortunate one. His business failed and, at the age of 35, Charles was declared bankrupt. As recorded in a notice placed by an M. Mackay, Agent, of 146 West George Street, Glasgow, in the Edinburgh Gazette of July 1863: The Estates of Charles O’Neill, Civil Engineer and Architect in Glasgow, and presently residing in West Regent Street there, were sequestrated (confiscated) on 16 July 1863, by the Sheriff of the County of Lanark. The first deliverance is dated 16 July 1863. The meeting to elect the Trustees and Commissioners is to be held at 12 o’clock noon, on Friday the 24th day of July 1863, within the Faculty Hall, St George’s Place, Glasgow . . . A Warrant of Protection against Arrest or Imprisonment for Civil Debt has been granted to the Bankrupt until the meeting for election of Trustees.10
The bankruptcy proceedings lasted through August with John Flint, an accountant in Glasgow, elected Trustee. In the Glasgow Bankruptcy Court of 8 August 1863, Charles’s deposition as bankrupt read: My assets, so far as ascertained, amount to £184 3s and 11p, but there are large claims due to me, on which I can at present put no value, the amount, if any, being dependent on the transactions being carried through. My losses amount to £899 and my ordinary debts are £833 15s 7p. The preference claims amount to £7.11
At a subsequent meeting with creditors on 17 August, Charles offered to pay his creditors sixpence in the pound, payable one month after his discharge, with security as well as the confiscation costs and those of the Trustee. It was something of an irony that a young man who had spent so much of his time and money helping the most destitute should now find himself without a penny. In the precincts of the Glasgow Bankruptcy 46
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Court, there was no ‘making of fortunes’, only the shame of financial failure. Even his senior responsibilities in the St Vincent de Paul Society failed to bring him the consolation he might have expected. The Glasgow Free Press of 18 July 1863, on one hand, pointed to the esteem in which Charles had been held: For many years this gentleman has taken a leading part in the Catholic affairs of this city, and the universal esteem in which he has ever been held was proved by his appointment some time ago to the Presidency of the St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland. Under his zealous and prudent management this important body has gone on, prospered and, developing itself year by year, till there is now scarcely a congregation of any note in which a branch Conference has not been established.12
But the paper also added: In this capacity, however, he did not fail to make enemies, and to meet with opposition, at times carried to unseemly lengths, even where he had a right to look rather for approval and encouragement.13
The Glasgow Free Press had picked up that Charles’s charitable activities had been regarded with suspicion and mistrust by a number in the Irish Catholic community of Glasgow. This community was in a chaotic state, a minority regarded with suspicion and taunted by bigots. The O’Neill family’s support of broader Irish causes may have caused Charles problems, particularly among some of the native Scottish clergy. Charles must have seemed a young upstart and he may have even antagonised some by his decisions. To provide alms in a traditional religious manner or even to run a soup kitchen might have seemed understandable, indeed praiseworthy, to the Victorian mind, Catholic or Protestant. However, the kind of voluntary charitable activity managed by Charles must have seemed incomprehensible at that time. Charles was neither a priest nor a minister, yet he had devoted his energy as a volunteer to manage a large charitable organisation. It would be another two years before William Booth and his wife Catherine would found the Christian Revival Society, the precursor to the Salvation Army, in London. 47
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Glasgow Free Press further commented on Charles’s predicament in Glasgow with insight: This is the fate which, owing to the chaotic state of Catholic society here, seems inevitably to await all who may be induced by their social standing to put themselves prominently forward, and take an active part in our political and religious concerns. Their zeal and energy are attributed to covert ambitious designs or even to unworthy motives, while their subsequent indifference and disgust are set down to incapacity and neglect.14
Charles probably stepped down from his Society positions in August 1863. His professional contribution to charity seems not to have been much appreciated. However, in addition to his architecture and engineering works, Charles would leave behind a legacy in this area too. In 1914, Professor John Phillimore, the first Catholic Professor at the University of Glasgow, and friend of English writer G.K. Chesterton, stressed the strength and importance of the St Vincent de Paul Society in western Scotland in staving off revolution and countering bigotry. It might not have been so successful in doing this, but for the passion and commitment of Charles O’Neill over the decade between 1853 and 1863. Charles might have been bankrupt, yet he had professional talents that were in demand. At age 35, those talents would provide him with the opportunity for a fresh start in one of the farthest flung reaches of the British Empire. His new opening came from the province of Otago, on the southern part of New Zealand, becoming affectionately known as the ‘Shaky Isles’ on account of its frequent earthquakes. Otago, a Wakefield settlement, had already become a popular destination for Scottish Presbyterian settlers. Charles had also gained valuable experience in railway construction. Steam railways were great symbols of progress in the Victorian era, and began to appear in Glasgow as early as 1831. Charles, as a young trainee engineer, would have been excited by the opening of the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway in February 1842. The exact details of Charles’s own work in Scottish railway construction still remain to be uncovered. Charles’s later reputation in New Zealand was apparently built on his experience in the laying of railway 48
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lines in the Scottish Highlands. Some years later the Wellington Independent, in its editorial of 1 June 1871, referred to Charles’s capabilities as being of value in handling the rugged ranges to the east across Wellington Harbour: One who has been successful, as he has been, in laying of lines of railways through the Highlands of Scotland may face even the redoubtable Rimutaka with some hope of a similar success.15
Charles’s new start came on the recommendation of a certain Mr Stevenson, a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers from Edinburgh, and an engineer for the Otago Provincial Government. Otago was entering its golden age, as British, European, Californian and Chinese prospectors flocked there to mine the precious metal. Many came from goldfields such as Ballarat and Bendigo in the Australian colony of Victoria. They were lured by discoveries of gold along the Arrow, Shotover and Clutha rivers in Otago. In March 1863, some 14 000 persons poured into the province’s capital of Dunedin. The gold yield in the province between the spring of 1861 and the winter of 1863 amounted to 42 tonnes. Most of this was initially extracted by miners working alluvial or river deposits with little more than a cradle and a dish. In September 1863, the population of New Zealand’s South Island province of Otago jumped to 60 000, 21 000 of whom lived within the newly proclaimed goldfields boundaries. The previously quiet and staid coastal settlement of Dunedin was transformed into chaos. With the prosperity of gold came all the accompanying allure of dancing halls, saloons and music halls. But Dunedin also became a town of shanties, calico tents, wretched ramshackle hotels and hovels, surrounded by the most unsanitary conditions. New townships such as Queenstown sprang up among the goldfields. Others would be established as new land was opened up for sale. Charles’s surveying and engineering skills in transport, mining and town planning would be in great demand in a colony like this. As a government surveyor for the province of Otago, he would earn a comfortable salary. 49
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles soon joined a flood of emigrants on departing ships along the Clyde. For those wishing to escape a life of drudgery in the factories of Glasgow, prospects in the Antipodes looked much better. The Greenock Advertiser of 22 September 1863 ran the notice ‘Glasgow to the Gold Fields of New Zealand’. It had been placed there by Patrick Henderson and Co. who operated a line of ‘Monthly Packets’ directly to the Otago goldfields, landing passengers and their luggage on the wharf at Dunedin. The shipping company reassured prospective passengers and shippers that: Ships of this Line have invariably embarked their Passengers on the day advertised; and intending Emigrants will please observe that the most satisfactory Certificates have been granted by the Emigration Officer at Otago to every ship of this Line, without any exception, as to the comfort and security in which Passengers arriving by them have been conveyed.16
One of the company’s sailing fleet, the Brechin Castle, was a 540-tonne clipper ship. It had been built like the most famous of clippers, the Cutty Sark, at Dumbarton on the Clyde. Fitted out for the passenger trade, it offered expansive decks, and superior lighting and ventilation. For a price of 30 pounds, well-off passengers were offered staterooms of great size in the ship’s poop deck. On board the Brechin Castle by ten o’clock on Saturday 26 September 1863, Charles O’Neill joined another 40 passengers on what would be a four-month journey to New Zealand. Under the skipper, Captain Parkinson, the clipper set sail from Glasgow on 1 October. A sea voyage like this could be long, often uncomfortable, and occasionally treacherous. Travellers would have to tolerate the ‘Doldrums’ of the Atlantic, the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and the winds of the ‘Roaring Forties’ across the Indian Ocean to Britain’s Australasian colonies. The tedium of such travel would only be broken by the occasional docking in some remote port. As for Charles, the sea journey, more than 20 000 kilometres, would be the longest one in his life. His father John O’Neill senior, three of Charles’s brothers and his younger sister would make their own sea voyages. Charles would have much time to reflect on his past life and what might await him in the Antipodes. An account by another emigrant 50
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passenger on the ship Persian was published in the Greenock Advertiser between 1864 and 1865. The correspondent, travelling from London to Otago, provides a detailed sketch of shipboard life in the early 1860s: How monotonous it becomes in the sea in calm weather, making everyone uncomfortably lazy, and desirous even of rough weather. The sailors themselves, although they have then little work, don’t like the calm. In our mess, composed of six, every one takes a turn of being what is called ‘captain’; that is he has to draw the stores for the mess, cook all the victuals, clean out the cabin by scrubbing the floor every day, and, in short, do all the work of a kitchen-maid on shore.17
Yet the traveller would be rewarded by sights astonishing to the eyes of a northern hemisphere Celt: Being now in the tropics, and feeling very uncomfortably warm, it is some compensation to know that we have some of the most beautiful sights to be seen at sea, glorious sunsets, ethereal skies, glittering stars, and azure blue seas, over which skim in flocks, the flying fish, little volleys of rifle balls sent along the surface of the water, throwing up in their progress jets of water. It is a very pretty fish, and looks very beautiful with its long wings spread out and its slender body.18
A report in the Otago Daily Times of 24 January 1864 described the Brechin Castle’s progress from the Cape of Good Hope: From the Cape was 37 days, with very rough weather, and experiencing latterly very severe north-easterly gales. On 29th November, she spoke and boarded the ship Chrysolite, for Melbourne, a signal having been made for medical aid, the second officer being at the time suffering from some mental affliction.19
In time, such ships would arrive off the coast of New Zealand. According to the passenger on the Persian: I had often read and heard of the high winds on the coast of New Zealand called ‘southerly busters’ and we have now had three days practical experience 51
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity of them. They are certainly most appropriately termed ‘busters’, as they blow with tremendous force, raising the sea to a great height, and sending the waves right over the ship. Any one venturing on deck is almost sure to get a wet jacket before he can return, so that we are cooped up in the fore cabin saloon, amidst the squalling of children, the chattering and talking of men and women, by the confused noise of which a state of mind is produced by no means conducive to thought and reflection, and often making it more pleasant to brave the winds and the wet decks.20
The Brechin Castle arrived in Port Chalmers, a sea port on the shores of Otago Harbour, some 13 kilometres to the north-east of Dunedin, on 24 January 1864. Charles would make many seaboard voyages back and forwards across the Tasman Sea. However, he would never return to Scotland. In the new colonies, fortunes could be made if not in gold or farming, then in the prosperous use of one’s own trade. The sentiments of the passenger of the Persian could have echoed Charles’s own: All agreed in thinking that I shall do well at Dunedin at my own trade, and from all I can learn from every source, I see nothing better for me than at once to begin my own business. I think of the hum-drum of life at home, and I am sure I shall put up with many hardships before I live in Glasgow again.21
As they had already done in the goldfields of New South Wales, and in places like Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria, miners in Otago were tearing up the pristine landscape in search of the precious metal. It was a topsyturvy world compared to that of Glasgow—a new colonial frontier, inspiring a totally different approach to life. Approaching the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin, as the ships neared the coast, passengers could sight that great bird of the sea, the albatross. These birds would often land on the ships. The passenger on the Persian described the reaction of the emigrants: There was an albatross caught to-day equal to that of yesterday. The passengers to-day were too excited about getting ashore to attend to their devotions; even those who made the greatest pretensions to sanctity are as remiss as any now.22 52
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Like an albatross, Captain Charles O’Neill too had travelled to the far end of the world. He must have felt far away from his Catholic Christ of the Poor. Christ, it was true, was preached passionately by the missionaries and settlers’ churches in Otago, but mainly through the devotional prism of strict Scottish Calvinism. Members of the Free Church of Scotland had founded a new home in Otago, a Wakefield-type settlement, some two decades previously. The Free Church settlers, led by Captain William Cargill, had arrived on the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing in 1848. They and the thousands who followed them were for the most part farmers, petty merchants and tradesmen who had, according to Cargill himself, the ‘principles and habits of Scotch piety’.23 They lived in strict, patriarchal families. Far from the slums of Scotland and the religious woes of ‘The Great Disruption’, they had tried to create a devout little world at this far end of the earth. It would be a little ‘Scotland of the Southern Hemisphere’—built on the Bible and the raising of sheep. Soon after, gold was discovered in Otago’s Lindis Pass in March 1861. Their little world—the world of the ‘Old Identities’ as they became known—came under siege. Wave after wave of colonial adventurers and prospectors poured in, seeking out neither the Bible nor shepherding work, but the god of gold.
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Part Two NEW ZEALAND (1863–1880)
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Chapter 5 ‘The new iniquity’
T
he year 1863 had been a tempestuous one in Her Majesty’s New Zealand colony, and particularly for its Governor Sir George Grey. Only a decade before, Grey had proclaimed the colony’s new Representative Constitution, following its approval as law by the British Parliament. New Zealand was to have a part-federal system of government. The Constitution had provided for a General Assembly with a Crownappointed Legislative Council and a directly elected House of Representatives. Its two major islands were divided into six provinces, three in the North Island—Auckland, New Plymouth and Wellington— and three in the South Island—Nelson, Canterbury and Charles O’Neill’s new-found home of Otago. In 1858, the General Assembly made it possible for new provinces to be formed, to meet the demand of petitioning settlers who wanted to take more control of their affairs. As a result, Hawkes Bay separated from Wellington in 1858 in the North Island, while in the South Island Marlborough separated from Nelson in 1859. New Plymouth changed its named to Taranaki province, while for a short period between 1861 and 1870, Southland at the southern tip of the South Island separated from Otago. Each province had its own directly elected superintendent and a provincial council, with elections held every four years. Suffrage was still limited; only British male subjects aged 21 or older and with freehold earning 50 pounds per year had the right to vote. New Zealand in time 57
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity would move further forward in democratic reform than other countries and, in 1893, it became the first to give women the vote. New Zealand’s colonial system of government soon proved to be a recipe for instability, based as it was on provinces with small numbers of settlers. Each province had to manage new resources, but many experienced acute financial difficulties. Political provincialism, fed by ambitious local politicians, greatly weakened the authority of the national General Assembly. However, a more immediate crisis was exercising the attention of Sir George Grey. More than half the land area of the North Island, including Taranaki and vast swathes of the provinces of Auckland, Wellington and Hawkes Bay, were practically ungovernable. The M¯aori, at that time, played no part in the P¯akeh¯a parliament. The M¯aori saw their cause betrayed by unfulfilled promises over land rights and possession following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. As a consequence, they waged war against the British settlers. There were outbreaks of hostilities in Taranaki in 1860 and 1861. A little later, on 4 May 1863, a small British military party on a road out of New Plymouth was tomahawked by M¯aori warriors who were convinced that the Governor himself was among them. Grey’s hope of peaceful racial integration fell apart and he feared that violence would spread further among the M¯aori tribes. The settlement at Auckland was now threatened by the M¯aori ‘King Movement’ in the Waikato district. Grey’s plan was to engage in a war of conquest and confiscation of ‘rebel’ land. He needed the support of the General Assembly to pay for this campaign. A loan of four million pounds would be needed, until the proceeds were realised from the sale of one and a half million acres of land worth two million pounds. The North Island provinces floundered financially as a result of the wars, while the South Island provinces of Canterbury and Otago prospered. The settlers and politicians of New Zealand’s prosperous south had, however, little desire to bankroll Governor Grey’s military campaigns. In October 1863, in the face of the fury of southern representatives, the administration of Premier Alfred Domett collapsed. It was replaced by a rather shaky coalition of northern politicians led by AttorneyGeneral Frederick Whitaker and Colonial Secretary William Fox. The Whitaker–Fox administration was to deliver what Grey needed—a New Zealand Settlements Bill to confiscate the land, a Loan Bill to finance the 58
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war and a Suppression of Rebellion Bill which suspended habeas corpus. The M¯aori might be ultimately defeated militarily and the prosperous south excluded from power, but New Zealand colonial politics were poisoned as a consequence. Governor Grey soon had opponents back in Britain, such as Colonial Secretary Edward Cardwell, who insisted that the New Zealand settlers bear the burden of the war themselves. Early in 1867, Grey himself was dismissed and returned to Britain, although he would later make a triumphal comeback as a political leader. For decades, New Zealand’s General Assembly, or National Parliament as it was to become, was plagued by short-term administrations and unstable alliances. It was onto this wild political merry-go-round that Charles O’Neill propelled himself in less than two years. Captain Charles O’Neill had arrived in Otago not as a soldier of fortune but as a civil servant surveyor for an ambitious provincial administration. The Otago politicians were keen to make Dunedin, then the commercial centre of New Zealand, its political centre as well—once it became certain that the seat of government would have to move from Auckland. By 1866, Otago had built for itself impressive Provincial Council Buildings, described by the famous writer Anthony Trollope as being grander than the Congress Building of the US state of Massachusetts.1 Between 1861 and 1871, Otago’s economy benefited from the extraction of 23 million pounds worth of gold, further boosted by a prosperous annual woolclip. There was intense jealousy between the Otago and Victorian colonies over the reputation of their respective goldfields. As they flooded into Otago, European and Chinese miners from the Victorian goldfields transformed the previously quiet backwater of the first Scottish settlers. Under the heady intoxication of gold fever, the older Dunedin soon gave way to a world of liquor, entertainment and then exotic pleasures, such as the pleasure pavilions of the Vauxhall Gardens. Such changes were regarded as indecent and scandalous by the pious ‘Old Identities’, but changes were inevitable. In 1862, fresh from the Victorian goldfields and a well-known music hall comic, the ‘Inimitable Charles Thatcher’ ridiculed the opinions of the old-time settlers from the boards of Dunedin’s Corinthian Music Hall: Go on in the same old fashion and ne’er improve the town, And still on all newcomers keep up a fearful ‘down’, 59
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Touch not that old Post Office, let that old jetty be, And thus you’ll be preserving ‘the Old Identity’.2
Despite these taunts, the ‘Old Identities’ embraced their new nickname somewhat affectionately. By contrast, the newcomers were labelled the ‘New Iniquity’. These included not only rough-and-tumble miners, but shrewd and ambitious entrepreneurs. Among the most significant of these was journalist Julius Vogel, who had arrived from Australia in October 1861. Vogel established the Otago Daily Times with a business partner, and became the editor of the first daily newspaper in New Zealand, advocating a strong provincial policy for Otago. Like James Macandrew, a canny Scot elected as Otago Superintendent in 1860 and again in 1867, Vogel became a prime mover for Otago development. Initially, Vogel went as far as to promote the separation of Otago from the rest of New Zealand. Later, he moved away from this to focus more on South Island rights, free from the financial drain of the wars. This platform soon gained him seats in both provincial as well as General Assemblies, although in the latter he first served on the opposition benches. Charles O’Neill’s political path became enmeshed with that of Vogel on several occasions. The times must have seemed very promising for a ‘New Iniquity’ like Captain O’Neill, soon to be known more informally as ‘Chas’ O’Neill. Working as an engineer and surveyor on a goldmining frontier, he must have seemed the embodiment of progress to miners living in tents, shacks and shanties. Charitable activity seemed no longer to be the most prominent aspect of his work, although he remained a devout Catholic. By 1864, there had been a major jump in the number of Roman Catholics in Presbyterian Otago to almost 7500 as a result of the gold rush, up from a tiny population of 140 in 1858. These were served by a handful of French priests of the Society of Mary (SM), or Marist Order, who had the responsibility for missions to the Polynesian islands assisted by a few devout laypeople. Dr Patrick Moran was appointed as the first Catholic Bishop of Dunedin in November 1869, although he was not to arrive until February 1871, well after Charles’s departure from Otago. Charles started his work as district engineer in the central goldfields region of Otago. Some four years previously, in July 1862, two Californ60
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ian diggers, Hartley and Reilly, made their first strike of gold, close to the future site of the town of Cromwell. By 1863 about 6000 miners worked in the Cromwell and Clyde districts, at first panning, later sluicing, for gold. This goldfield lay some 60 kilometres to the east of where Queenstown now lies, down the gorges following the Kawarau River, to Cromwell and the Dunstan Ranges. Thirty kilometres to the south-east of Cromwell lay further rich goldfields on the ‘mighty Molyneaux River’ (soon renamed the Clutha River) centring on towns such as Clyde and Alexandra. From May 1864, Charles’s days were spent overseeing the gruelling work of civil construction and dredging, possibly on horseback along the steep gorges. His early work is most likely to have included the construction of bridges, possibly across the Kawarau and the Roaring Meg and Gentle Annie creeks, the latter two named after popular local barmaids.3 He also prepared large schemes for a supply of water to the goldfields. Charles’s appointment with the Otago Provincial Government seems to have lasted until 25 January 1865. In 1866, Charles’s professional work focused on the development of the small town of Milton in southern Otago, at the centre of a fertile farming district. Originally called ‘Milltown’ after a flourmill built there in 1857, Milton lies some 60 kilometres to the south-west of Dunedin on the banks of the Tokomairiro River. The borough of Milton was proclaimed in April 1866, and Charles was appointed its engineer on a daily salary of 30 shillings between September and December 1866. The borough retained his services for a short period after, while ceasing to pay him a regular salary. His headquarters at this time seems to have been in the town of Cromwell. Three years later he reported to Parliament on the district: The Cromwell District had now become one of the most prosperous in the Province of Otago. The town of Cromwell was situated at the junction of two very large rivers, the Clutha and the Kawarau, and was the centre of an extensive mining district.4
Charles dabbled in a few goldmining ventures, and became a 25-pound shareholder in the Skipper’s Quartz Mining Company. While the influx of adventurous prospectors was welcomed by the New Zealand authorities, they also had some concerns. Many of the 61
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity newcomers would not settle down, often leaving the colonies after the success or failure of their endeavours. As early as 1858, a select committee of New Zealand’s General Assembly had recommended that provision be made for parliamentary representation of the gold-digging population. New Zealand’s colonial leaders feared a repeat of a Eureka Stockade-type rebellion, experienced a few years earlier in Ballarat, in the colony of Victoria. Gradually, voting rights were extended to miners. In 1862, with the outbreak of the Otago gold rushes, a Miners Representation Act and Representation Amendment Act provided them with a share of political power. Two new members of parliament representing the miners were to be elected across the whole province of Otago. Any adult male who had held a miner’s right for six months could vote without previous registration. All they had to do was present themselves with a copy of their licence, which cost 1 pound a year. Voting rights were soon extended to holders of goldfield business licences, which cost 5 pounds a year. Miners with other voting qualifications were also eligible to vote in other electorates. These changes were finalised by an electoral redistribution in 1865, in which the South Island gained an additional fifteen parliamentary seats in time for an election the following year. It was an age when politics was the leisurely pursuit of those of independent means. Just the same, it was not an attractive proposition to be so far away from one’s own business—usually between the months of June and October. Representing an electorate made up exclusively of miners scattered over the rugged terrain of Otago would have its own challenges. By 1856, all members of the House and Legislative Council received some compensation by way of an honorarium of 1 pound a day during sitting of Parliament. The elections for 70 seats in New Zealand’s fourth parliament took place between 12 February and 6 April 1866, involving a national total of just over 29000 registered electors. New Zealand had not yet introduced a secret ballot, by then operating in five Australian colonies. Influence and patronage could easily sway the decisions of the small number of voters. In the new Otago Goldfields electorate, only two candidates were nominated and were duly elected from the floor of the Clyde Court House on Monday 26 February 1866. For one candidate, Julius Vogel, 62
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proposed by a Mr Cope and a Mr Elliot, the election was another parliamentary stepping stone in an ambitious career. Vogel, who had seen his North Dunedin seat disappear in an electoral redistribution and was defeated in another Otago seat, had, nonetheless, found his way back into the General Assembly. The other unopposed candidate, proposed by a Mr W. Wells and a Mr J. Judge, both miners, was Captain Charles O’Neill. When the returning officer declared Vogel and O’Neill elected, the result was received with loud cheers from the crowd in the courthouse. Charles had been nominated by 69 electors led by a miner named Thomas Shanley. Their letter of nomination addressed to him was published in The Dunstan Times—the local newspaper. Charles’s supporters witnessed to his familiarity with the miners or ‘diggers’, his keenness to advance the goldfields interests and a thorough knowledge of the district. After only two years in Otago, Charles O’Neill had risen from obscurity to uncontested election to Parliament by the goldfields community, representing a population of about twelve thousand. This progress testified to his political instinct and talent for public speaking. Being the district engineer and surveyor would have provided him with a base to win the respect of Otago’s miners and prospectors. The Dunstan Times commented favourably on the election outcome: The latter gentleman’s experience on the goldfields does not extend over a long period, but the exercise of his profession as a civil engineer, and the opportunities afforded him while in charge of the roads in the goldmining districts, ought to make him a very desirable member.5
One of the first successful representations Charles made, together with other goldfields MPs, was to the Superintendent of Otago for the building of a road from Cromwell to Nevis Crossing in the south-west, following a promise of government financial aid. Charles consistently stood up for the rights of miners. He defended their contribution to New Zealand in the House in 1868: The works of the digger have given New Zealand a prominent place in the southern hemisphere, and the result of the diggers’ work will always be prominent as the parent of Commerce in New Zealand.6 63
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity For a number of reasons, miners tended not to settle on the land. However, Charles believed that miners could become less migratory and settle down if they could get land easily for a fair price. With his flair for facts and figures, and using the Australian colony of Victoria as an example, he pointed out what the miners could contribute: In 1857, the mining population was 125 000, and in 1867 they were about 60 000; still they had not left that colony, but had built cities, wharves, docks, bridges, railways, and all kinds of public works—in fact, they made Victoria a wonderful country.7
He had earlier commented in his post-election address that: The experiences of Victoria have shown that mining and agricultural populations in the immediate vicinity of each other, enjoy the greatest amount of prosperity.8
His 1866 election platform included extending legislative and administrative powers to country districts. He also wanted to relieve taxes on miners through reduction of the gold duty, and make the Otago port the main route for departure by steamships bound for Panama. He also claimed to support financial and legal separation of the ‘Middle Island’ (South Island) from New Zealand’s North Island.9 Charles made his way into the expanded General Assembly, its chambers now located in Wellington in refurbished Provincial Council Chambers. The chambers had been constructed in timber, although distinguished at least by having two halls with Gothic-style gable windows. Parliamentarians could enjoy the comforts of a smoking room and library. The building even had a modest dining room called ‘Bellamy’s’, named after the more prestigious establishment for providing food and liquor in the House of Commons. These early New Zealand parliaments, while comprised of gentlemen of private means, were more middle class and radical in view compared with the Home Parliament in Westminster. The members tended to be landholders, lawyers, retired military men, newspaper editors and public officials; most had emigrated from Britain and sought a more prosperous life. 64
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The previous parliament of 1861 to 1865 had been chaotic. It was racked by short-term administrations, disputes with Governor Grey, the conduct of the Land Wars, financial difficulties, and the ambitions and demands of the provincial governments. The Whitaker–Fox ministry lasted until November 1864, replaced by one led by Frederick Weld. Weld’s ministry itself only lasted a year. Weld resigned in October 1865, frustrated at Governor Grey’s manipulation of public affairs, and dissatisfied that the parliamentary administration was forced to fund native affairs and defence without any real control. Late in 1865 Governor Grey came to a deal with the then opposition leader Edward Stafford and his supporters, including provincialists like Julius Vogel, to guarantee supply in return for calling new elections. Stafford in turn became Premier, but was left with the problems of cutting expenditure and denying the demands of those who wanted complete political separation of the provinces. Separation had been a popular cause in Auckland as well as Otago, since the capital had now moved to Wellington. In an age when secession rights of states had been a trigger for the American Civil War, the issue was a serious one. At the 1866 election, a united block of Auckland members led by its Superintendent, Frederick Whitaker, who were sympathetic to separation, were returned to Parliament. Charles himself had stated in his election platform: I am an advocate for Separation from the Northern Island—financial and legislative—and for ever freeing the Middle Island from any further liability in Native affairs, and thus secure for the Province of Otago, the control over and benefit of her own revenues, subject to the existing liabilities of the colony, and her equitable contribution to the current expenses of the General Government.10
The cause of separation of the provinces was tested and collapsed in the Parliament in July 1866. The final outcome had unfortunate political consequences for Otago-based Charles O’Neill. During the parliamentary session, Frederick Whitaker introduced a proposal to strengthen provincial government in Auckland. Seizing the opportunity, the Otago Superintendent Thomas Dick, an extreme advocate of separation, sought to amend the motion in such a way as to establish full financial separation 65
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity of the ‘Middle Island’ provinces. Dick’s amendment failed dismally, rejected in Parliament by 42 votes to 24. Five Otago representatives— Charles O’Neill among them—voted against it. Charles could not bring himself in the end to support this kind of radical separation, so popular with the townsfolk of Dunedin and Port Chalmers. He also might have been dissatisfied with the way that the Otago Provincial Government was handling goldfields interests. Either way, he wrecked his provincialist credentials. The renegade Otago members, including O’Neill, faced angry protestors on their return to Port Chalmers where The Otago and The Queen arrived from Wellington on the mid-morning of Thursday 11 October with the full parliamentary contingent. Meanwhile separationist supporters, including Vogel, were treated to dinner at Dodson’s Provincial Hotel in Port Chalmers. From Port Chalmers, the paddle-steamer Golden Age ferried the members further up Otago Harbour to Dunedin, where a worse reception awaited the renegades. A band played the ‘Rogues’ March’ behind their backs, and the police had to protect them from missiles of rotten eggs. The Otago Daily Times in its account of the protest would report: How Mr O’Neill fared we could not learn with anything like certainty; but we know that his name was frequently mentioned by persons in the crowd, and that his conduct in the Assembly was not praised.11
The mob made five effigies of the respective members and ‘two wagons were got; and the effigies were dragged about the town’.12 They wanted to burn the effigies in Dunedin’s Octagon, but they realised that this act would incur a fine payable to their hated National Government. Instead, they vented their anger by jeeringly tossing the effigies—including one of Charles—off Dunedin jetty and into Otago Harbour. Perhaps Charles had managed to avoid the same fate by bolting across country on his arrival at Port Chalmers. Three years later, the Otago Daily Times scathingly described the five members as: that phalanx which has ever been ready to obey the behests of the longerheaded and better trained politicians of the north.13 66
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Charles’s vote against petty provincialism and in favour of a united New Zealand won him enemies in Otago. On the other hand, Julius Vogel, who had voted for the amendment himself (while at heart dropping the separation cause in favour of a milder form of provincialism), returned a political hero. In August 1866, Stafford, with the help of former supporters of Frederick Weld, was able to form a new ministry free from the influence of the provincialists. Stafford’s new ministry was able to stay in power until June 1869. Provincialism was now finished as a parliamentary force and Vogel stayed in opposition. The experience probably hardened Charles’s views further against provincialism. Speaking two years later about the provinces, he commented in the House: . . . if we examine . . . the workings of the provincial institutions, we find they have not been successful. Progress has been made no doubt, great progress as has almost ruined Southland; such progress as has distinguished Wellington by unfinished wharves, an unbuilt Wanganui bridge, and an untouched patent slip. Otago has made great progress, but that great progress was forced upon it by the gold fields.14
The land development policies of the Otago Provincial Government bore the brunt of Charles’s caustic wit. Charles claimed that land in the Clyde district of his own electorate was being promoted by that administration for development, despite the fact that it was unsuitable for cultivation: The act is well worthy of those comprising the Provincial Council of Otago, and adds another to the many reasons for the abolition of this detestable form of Government.15
According to Charles, the ‘shepherd kings’ who ruled the Otago Provincial Government were promoting pastoral tenants to the exclusion of other forms of development: It might just as well be argued that benefits would accrue to England or any other great European countries if they were turned into sheep-walks. We have only the two alternatives before us, of a country enclosed by wire 67
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity fences and converted into sheep pastures, or a country inhabited by God’s image in the shape of men, women and children employed in beautifying and fructifying the earth.16
Vogel, the mastermind of Otago provincial politics, did not escape Charles’s attention. He mocked Vogel’s thwarted ambitions in obtaining a ministerial post, noting that he had tried hard to cross ‘the great barrier wall which divides the Opposition from the Government’.17 Comparing the political discomfort of the portly Vogel with that of Humpty Dumpty, Charles chose his verse this time from the famous nursery rhyme: And all the King’s Ministers and Parliament men, Couldn’t set Humpty Dumpty on the wall again.18
Charles was brash and feisty in defending his causes and could hold his own in parliamentary debate. However, he was not the cunning politician that Julius Vogel was. Charles would get one more chance in New Zealand politics. By contrast, Vogel’s political career and ambition would pay off, leading to terms as Colonial Treasurer, and ultimately Premier.
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Chapter 6 Goldfields politician
n a time before political parties had begun to appear in the colonies, members like Charles voted on issues according to their own independent judgment. The politics of gold and the goldfields naturally exercised much of Charles’s attention. In mid-1867, the issue of who really controlled the Otago Goldfields—the General Assembly in Wellington or the Otago authorities—came to a head. The trigger was the re-election of James Macandrew as Superintendent for Otago in February 1867, despite having been dismissed seven years before for financial mismanagement and serving time in jail for debt. Macandrew’s re-election came as a major embarrassment for Premier Stafford, who had been responsible for originally removing Macandrew from the position in the first place. The management of the Otago Goldfields had, until then, been devolved to the Superintendent and the Provincial Government. Stafford’s response was to appoint James Bradshaw, a government supporter, who had just scraped into the seat of Goldfields Boroughs by a few votes, to assume control of the Otago Goldfields. Julius Vogel now sensed an opportunity to damage his political opponent Stafford, and at the same time establish his credentials as New Zealand’s de facto Opposition leader. Vogel used his political power base in the Otago Provincial Government to create havoc for more than two months, while both the national and provincial authorities remained at loggerheads over the goldfields. Despite their reservations about
I
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Macandrew’s character, the bulk of the Otago members opposed the National Government’s heavy-handed treatment of the province. This time Charles joined on the side of Vogel in the House to oppose the measure, and his was among the 24 votes cast against the Stafford Government’s move on 17 July 1867. The result was close with only 28 votes in favour. The Stafford Government had its way in placing the Otago Goldfields under national control. Removing the duty on gold had been a key policy on Charles’s election platform. He made a major speech on this issue in August 1868, seconding a motion by another Otago MP, Charles Haughton. This motion was to reduce the duty for the Otago Goldfields by sixpence per ounce per year until it was abolished. Charles O’Neill made the case that removing the duty would encourage the production of gold and further New Zealand’s interests. Victoria had abolished it and its economy still flourished. Furthermore: The present tax or duty upon gold was very heavy, and he could not understand why the miner should have so great a tax imposed on him.1
In what must have been a disappointment for Charles and his supporters, the motion put forward to reduce the duty failed by only two votes. In October 1868, he spoke in favour of a bill to reduce duty on the goldfields of Auckland province, containing the newly discovered goldfields on the Coromandel Peninsula. He hoped that: the time would soon come when they would abolish the duty on gold altogether, as he looked upon it as a very great hardship for the digger.2
Another goldmining issue was the establishment of mining boards for the goldfields districts. Once again, using Victoria as a prime example, Charles saw these as bringing enormous benefits: Victoria is divided into six mining districts, namely Ballarat, Sandhurst, Castlemaine, Beechworth, Maryborough, and Ararat, and in each there is a legislative body termed a mining board, ten members for each board. Such boards would be most advantageous to the whole mining community, and a great boon to the gold fields generally in New Zealand.3 70
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This motion failed too—this time by eight votes. However, Charles was establishing himself as something of a parliamentary expert on goldmining—pulling out the latest statistics and geological and surveying reports from both New Zealand and the Australian colonies. From July 1866, he also served on a Parliamentary Select Committee, which had the objective of consolidating New Zealand’s goldfields legislation. A photograph of Charles O’Neill MP, about the age of 40, was probably taken in Wellington during 1868. He was photographed in a seated pose, popular with Victorian gentlemen, adjacent to a curtain. His features appear to be a little more refined than the Lanarkshire Regiment photograph taken a decade before in Scotland. His hair was more smoothly styled, the prominent features of his eyes and nose remain, and his beard had grown considerably. A small pocket watch dangled from his waistcoat. He also held a scroll in his right hand— whether it was some parliamentary document or speech, or merely a prop, remains a mystery. His speeches in New Zealand’s fourth parliament reveal a mind welltrained in researching the contemporary affairs of his day. He reported on developments in California, as well as in the Australian colony of Victoria. Both had succeeded in building up their economies further, after having first struck it rich with gold. Many of his parliamentary addresses looked to the betterment and progress of the miners and their communities, as well as the best ways that New Zealand might advance in terms of economic and civic development. One of his earliest questions in the House, directed to the Postmaster-General, was whether the contractors delivering the goldfields mail were required to pay a fee for crossing the Otago Goldfields rivers by punt. Forest conservation became one of Charles’s favourite issues. His first contribution was to support a motion by Henry Potts, MP for Mount Herbert in Canterbury province, in October 1868. He identified a parallel situation observed by a prominent European writer about the treatment of America’s forests: Settlers, where little timber existed, were impressed from the first with the idea of planting trees; whereas when settlers found themselves in the middle of a forest, the primary idea with them was to destroy the timber. 71
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity There were difficulties in every way with regard to this subject; the varying land laws, the objects for which forests were to be preserved— whether for purposes of utility—in which case the course to take would be merely to guard against undue waste—or for climatic purposes, in which case, of course, destruction of timber must be prohibited for any purpose.4
He would occasionally pepper his speeches with sayings from Celtic history and folk culture. Perhaps it was his way of emphasising his Scottish credentials to others in the House. Accusing the Otago provincialists of being blind to the welfare of New Zealand, he compared their insular attitudes with those of the old Highland clans: Is it, as Lord Colonsay said of the Clan Chattan, ‘a thing in the blood, or what is it,’ what cause some to be so bound to provincialism as to close their eyes to anything that may be advanced for the welfare of the people?5
Speaking unsuccessfully against a Divorce Bill in September 1867, Charles drew from an old Scotch proverb, ‘Many blame the wife for their own thriftless life’, to suggest that divorce might work against the interests of women.6 In these colonial times, men were the sole breadwinners and women were extremely vulnerable if their husbands deserted them. Ironically for a Catholic bachelor, his comments on the Divorce Bill remain one of the few public statements he made in the House during his first term on issues relevant to religion. Charles pointed out that consideration ought to be given to the views of the Roman Catholic minority of New Zealand’s colonies, who believed marriage to be a sacrament and that marriage ties should not be tampered with by Parliament. Once again, he set out his facts and figures: The Catholic population of this colony was not so small a minority that it should not receive consideration. As far as he could learn, they numbered 80 000, which was a large proportion of the whole of the Colony, amounting as it did, to about 220 000 [Europeans], and he did not think it was proper that they should introduce a law which would have no effect on so large a portion of the people.7 72
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Charles referred to the teachings of Jesus in scripture: ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife, and shall marry another, committed adultery.’8 He could not resist throwing in classical history as well: When divorce laws were most frequent among the Romans, marriages were most rare; insomuch that Augustus was obliged by penal laws, to force men of fashion into the married state, a circumstance which is scarcely found in any other age or nation.9
This argument made no sense to another MP, who responded that the House should ‘seriously think of what was being done in their own day, and not refer back to the days of the Romans’.10 Charles was only one of a number of early New Zealand parliamentarians who professed Catholicism. Despite the Protestant make-up of the settler population and the intense anti-popery feeling in Presbyterian Otago, a few Catholics of prominence were elected to Parliament—its first Speaker Sir Charles Clifford among them. The Catholic convert Thomas Bracken, elected as member for Dunedin Central in 1881 soon after Charles O’Neill left for Australia, composed the poem God Defend New Zealand, which ultimately became the New Zealand national hymn. Charles would occasionally voice his concerns on broader social issues, often coloured by his background as a Victorian gentleman. Given the benefits of his previous military training in the Lanarkshire Regiment, it was not surprising that he supported military drill in public schools, recounting the physical benefits: He knew boys at home who were bent and round-shouldered, but who, after getting three months’ drill, walked straight and erect, with chest well forward; in fact, showing strong evidence of improved strength and health.11
On most issues, Charles served as a liberal voice in the New Zealand Parliament. He supported the establishment of lunatic asylums in the colony and, in a time of renewed native unrest, better pay for the colony’s Armed Constabulary Force. He also attacked a Treason Felony Bill brought forward by the Stafford Government in July 1868, at the request of Britain’s Secretary of the Colonies. According to Charles, the measure was too heavy-handed. The proposed bill gave excessive powers 73
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity of prosecution based on the evidence of only two witnesses before justices of the peace. It allowed too much intrusion upon a man’s wife and family and infringed the people’s liberties: He trusted that in a free country they would not allow the freedom of that country to be bound with such shackles, but that the House would, by its vote, abandon an Act which, boa-constrictor-like, would compress and destroy the vitals of a nation’s freedom.12
The Treason Felony Bill was the colonial government’s response to clamp down on dissent by any Fenians or Irish agitators active in the New Zealand colonies promoting independence for Ireland, as well as M¯aori taking arms.13 The year 1868 was one of significant change and turmoil in the New Zealand colonies. In February, under pressure from the British Government, Governor George Grey was forced to resign, to be replaced by the more ceremonial figurehead, Sir George Bowen. Stafford’s political opponent William Fox returned to New Zealand and regained his place in the Parliament. The first M¯aori representatives made their way into the Parliament as well. As a result of an 1867 Maori Representation Act, introduced by Hawkes Bay Superintendent and MP for Napier, Donald McLean, New Zealand’s first M¯aori members were elected between April and May 1868. Four special parliamentary seats had been created for them—three in the North Island, one in the South Island—to represent an overall population of 40000 to 50000 M¯aori. Two new goldfields seats were also created and their European members were also elected. Ominously for the Stafford Government, after two years of relative quiet, it faced a renewed upsurge of M¯aori unrest on the North Island. An uprising supported by Titokowaru, a M¯aori chief in May 1868, was soon followed by the escape of resistance leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki and his followers, then imprisoned on the Chatham Islands. After landing in Poverty Bay, north of Hawkes Bay, on a seized schooner, Rifleman, on 10 July, Te Kooti launched major attacks on European settlers on the east coast of the North Island. The Stafford Government now faced a growing crisis over its handling of native affairs. 74
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The Stafford Government then made a fatal mistake of moving an armed constabulary force of 57 men away from Hawkes Bay on the east coast. The Government feared attacks by M¯aori on colonial settlements around the South Taranaki Bight on the west coast—including the fortified coastal town of Wanganui in Wellington province. As a result, Stafford lost the support of Donald McLean, alarmed at the vulnerability of Hawkes Bay to Te Kooti’s raids. In September, Charles supported the Stafford Ministry in its initial handling of the crisis, given the threat by the Hauhaus to the Taranaki settlements on the North Island’s west coast. The Hauhaus or Pai M¯arire, against whom Te Kooti himself had fought, was a fanatical religious movement with mixed pagan and Old Testament beliefs. They identified the M¯aori as God’s new chosen people with a mission to drive the P¯akeh¯a from New Zealand. Their warriors were convinced that a cry of ‘Paim¯arire hau hau’ would protect them against a bullet. Referring to a previous speech by Mete Kingi, one of the new M¯aori MPs, Charles voiced his concerns: One could not but feel astonished and astounded at the speech which had been delivered by Mete Kingi on the previous evening, when he said, and his authority could not be doubted, that wounded men in the late engagements at Ngutu-o-te-manu were cut up and eaten by the Hauhaus, and who exultantly said that the flesh was good and like the flesh of an ox . . . At a time when the wives and children of the settlers had been sent into Wanganui as a place of temporary safety, and when it was rumoured that armed natives were within ten miles of that town, it was no time to talk of withdrawing the troops. They had to look to the lives of the people, and that was a matter of more importance than anything else.14
However, the fears of Donald McLean about the threat on the east coast were soon justified. In November 1868, 33 European settlers, including men, women and children, were massacred in Poverty Bay. For a few months, McLean worked with the Government, but soon fell out with Stafford. Confidence in the Government fell away in the first half of 1869, and, on 29 June, Stafford’s opponent William Fox succeeded in passing a vote of no confidence. Charles O’Neill, too, had changed his mind. This time, his vote counted among the 40 that toppled Stafford’s Government. 75
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles’s attention was by then turning to developments on New Zealand’s North Island of a different kind. Some hundred kilometres south-east of Auckland, across the Firth of Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula, new discoveries of gold excited the New Zealand colony. The picturesque Coromandel Peninsula, today part of the wider Hauraki region, became popularly known as the Thames—although today this refers only to the town of Thames. Gold had been discovered in the Kapanga Stream as early as 1852. However, subsequent mining ventures came in fits and starts, due to the distraction of goldfields opening up elsewhere. A second burst of mining activity in 1861 was cut short two years later as local M¯aori joined in the Waikato War. After several years of negotiation with local M¯aori tribes, local Civil Commissioner James Mackay and government authorities finally came to an agreement with native leaders Te Hoterini Taipari, Raika Whakarongatai and Rapana Maunganoa to allow mining operations on their lands. The Government would lay out the townships, the local tribes would receive the rents, while the Government gained mineral rights over the workings beneath the sites. The pressure from Auckland City to promote the development of the goldfield was great. Since the New Zealand capital had moved to Wellington, Auckland’s business and commerce had suffered and there was substantial unemployment. The Thames Goldfield was proclaimed on 30 July 1867, by an Irishman, the Auckland Deputy Superintendent Dr Daniel Pollen. It would cover the mouth of the Kauaeranga River in the southern end, the junction of the Kakaramata Stream and its source on the ridge of the hills. It would also cover the sources of the Karaka, Waiotahi, Moanataiari and Kurunui streams, extending up to various spurs and ridges, and down the mouths of rivers flowing into the Thames Firth. British and American miners, as well as those from the Australian and New Zealand colonies, poured in with their tents or built huts. On Sundays, braving the mud and the planks across the pits, young men could be seen parading around the hills in their coloured checkered shirts, moleskin trousers, broad sashes and broad-brimmed soft felt hats. Some saw themselves as ‘gentlemen diggers’ with their own private little claims. Others were labourers. The northern banks of the Kauaeranga River soon became the site of the town of Shortland. In the flatlands to the north, the locality between 76
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the Waiotahi and Moanataiari streams became known as Tookey’s Flat. Between Shortland and Tookey’s Flat, a third settlement, Grahamstown, sprang up. All three settlements soon merged into what became the larger town of Thames. Between 1868 and 1870, the population grew to 15 000, although the Thames electoral district of 1871 was estimated to contain just over 12000 people. This represented at least a fifth of the non-M¯aori population of Auckland province at the time. A natural supply of kauri wood furnished the materials for huts, buildings and shaft workings that sprang up around Shortland’s main thoroughfare, Pollen Street. In 1868, the Thames Miner’s Guide provided a sketch of the district: The hills at the back of the town . . . are . . . pierced with innumerable tunnels that very much resemble an immense rabbit warren . . . The walk from Shortland by the Mission station to the further extremity of this settlement will repay anyone with a treat . . . and words cannot explain the view.15
The Guide described the scene at Shortland: After traversing for some distance the lowlands, you suddenly ascend a hill, which completely hides from view the creek which winds round in curves immediately below; on the opposite side, a valley under Ma¯ ori cultivation, with the huts and wharves scattered in all directions; in the distance, you have the range on three sides, with the Thames river flowing by on the other. On the other hand you have the digger’s township, with its hundreds of newly erected houses and tents, scattered all over the plain, and the steamers and small craft at anchor in the channel or at the landing place. The township of Shortland is exceedingly well laid out, the streets are wide and very numerous, the houses are substantial, and in Pollen Street tolerably uniform.
While more than 11500 mining licences were issued in 1868, the small claims were unsustainable and many of the gentlemen diggers would proclaim these unprofitable fields as ‘duffers’. Most of the small claims were bought out by larger mining companies, who had the resources and machinery capable of crushing and processing the gold-bearing quartz rocks. It was these companies that would reap the benefits of mines such 77
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity as Golden Crown, the Moanataiara, the Waiotahi and the famous Caledonian. A number of the diggers remained as labourers in the mines. None of this was lost on Charles O’Neill who realised, after his unhappy experience in Otago, that he might need to seek a fresh field for his professional and political activities. Speaking in the House in mid-1868, he observed: . . . Auckland is rising rapidly; the gold discoveries of the Thames will be the means of making it yet wealthy, and the 500 square miles of auriferous [gold-bearing] country within its boundaries, will force the importance of Auckland upon the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere.16
While he continued to represent the interests of the Otago goldfields, he now turned his attention to that of the Thames as well. His platform for reducing the gold duty, a reputation as the ‘digger’s MP’, combined with his expert knowledge could open up new prospects. The need to depart from Otago was probably confirmed in his mind, following his support for an unsuccessful motion in September 1869 to persuade the House to meet in Dunedin for a session. By then, he had settled in the North Island, having gained a new position in Auckland province. He also needed a salary so that he could pursue his political activities—his daily parliamentary honorarium was only paid during the winter months while Parliament was in session. The new post was that of mining surveyor for the Thames district, an appointment made by the Deputy Superintendent of Auckland province on 1 August 1868. His services were in demand. On 28 January 1869, the then Superintendent of Auckland, John Williamson, appointed him Provincial Engineer and Chief Surveyor of the Thames Goldfield. Charles had also become Thames’s Engineer-in-Chief of Railways, Tramways and Wharves, with an annual salary of 400 pounds. He was also appointed by the Governor as Justice of the Peace on 24 March 1869. Charles hoped to strike it rich himself. While operating out of Auckland, he also had premises in Shortland. In August 1869, he was named as one of ten shareholders of the newly registered McIsaacs’ Extended Gold Mining Company. The company’s operations were on the Karaka Creek separating Shortland and Grahamstown, with headquarters, like other such companies, in the Grahamstown Royal Exchange. 78
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He invested 1500 pounds—then a small fortune—for 750 of the company’s 9000 shares. Whatever qualms he might have had in his youth about the ‘making of fortunes’ were now gone. In the House, he began to speak more on Thames’s issues. During a debate in June 1869 over a memorandum suggesting that there might be a presence of Irish Fenian agitators on the goldfield—the district had attracted a significant number of Irish ‘diggers’—Charles joined others in debunking the rumour: They all knew that the diggers were a hard-working, honest, generous class of men, who tried to do their best to make money by constant and excessive toil, and who never turned their backs upon poor comrades, or passed by suffering unheeded.17
He successfully moved a motion that the M¯aori be fully informed of the amount of revenue received on their behalf from the miners’ rights: because some natives expressed dissatisfaction at the distribution of the revenue obtained from the miners’ rights on that gold field.18
By mid-1869, it was increasingly likely that the Thames would soon have its own parliamentary representation. Charles had his eye cast on this new seat, but so did the member for Franklin, William Swan. If Charles wanted to win the parliamentary prize, he would have to fight for it. That goal required some influential political allies.
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Chapter 7 The politics of progress
T
aking office in mid-1869, the new administration of William Fox did not seem to have bright prospects. New Zealand had been financially drained by the Land Wars, and residual distrust remained between the provinces of the North and South Islands. The new Government was supported by another unstable mix of interests, although it did have the highly respected Donald McLean as Native Minister. Julius Vogel had now gained the post of Colonial Treasurer, and in June 1870 introduced a public works and immigration policy that became a turning point in New Zealand’s colonial development. The centrepiece of the plan was a major program of railway construction in both North and South Islands. This was to be financed by a combination of borrowings, land payments and returns to contractors. It was to be accompanied by an ambitious immigration scheme providing opportunities for the industrious. However, Vogel’s immigration scheme could also discriminate against the most needy, who now sought to escape their wretched conditions in Britain and Europe. Despite previous reservations he might have had about Vogel, Charles now supported the Government and Vogel enthusiastically on the new public works platform. However, he gently reminded the House in July 1870 to look more sympathetically on the victims of economic depression: They were not in nearly so bad a state as many other countries, although there had been a good deal of commercial depression. San Francisco, by a 80
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late account, had a large number of people out of employment, while New York had about 40 000 idle, and London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester had considerable numbers of the unemployed, but the depression had been very general over the world.1
He also reminded the Government that New Zealand had to be fair in its dealings with immigrants: He thought that in this colony, immigrants had been enticed to come out on representations that land was so easily obtainable, and that grants, free grants, could be got. Now, 50 or 100 acres sounded large and comfortable in the old country—quite an estate—but little did the immigrant know that he might get almost barren rocks or some wild secluded spot in the bush, far away from civilization, on which he would have to make a livelihood for himself and children.2
If the New Zealand colony wanted immigrants, it would also need to develop quickly. Charles demonstrated a remarkably advanced understanding of economic progress by the standards of 1870: The history of countries showed that their depression and success most unaccountably rolled on in periodical waves, and if this colony had felt a wave of depression, the returning tide would bring it much success.3
Charles then proceeded to deliver a major address highlighting the significance of the great symbol of nineteenth century progress—the steam railway. Speaking of the rise of the locomotive in America, he observed that: The first locomotive which was ever seen in America was imported from Mr Stephenson’s locomotive engine factory at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1829 and was for some time exhibited as a curiosity in New York; shortly after that time the railroads began to be formed, and were carried on with that fearless determination peculiar to the Americans, so that at the commencement of the present year [1870] America had 48 869 miles [78 647 kilometres] of railways . . .4 81
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity By contrast, he demonstrated how little progress had been made in New Zealand: They discussed in solemn earnestness, in Parliament, the advisability and practicability of constructing 1500 miles [2414 kilometres] in ten years, while America gladly and eagerly completed 6592 miles [10609 kilometres] in one year.
Soon after, in a debate on a Railway Gauge Bill, he forcefully argued that the colony adopt a uniform but narrow gauge for its own railway lines: The advantage of a narrow gauge was that sharp turns were more easily overcome. The 3 feet 6 inch [approximately 1.07-metre] gauge was not a new gauge. It was adopted in Russia, India, Chile, Queensland and other countries. The question had been discussed at the Institution of Engineers, and the opinion was decidedly in favour of that gauge.5
The 3-feet 6-inch rail gauge eventually became New Zealand’s standard. For more than a year, Charles had been presenting himself as something of a voice of progress within the House. In August 1869, he urged support—without success—for a Public Health Bill: He believed that all social improvement must have root in cleanliness. Town sewers and house drains were absolutely necessary to human progress. Philanthropy and benevolence worked in vain, surrounded by subsoil and surface filth and foul air.6
He set out his views of technology and its impact upon the progress of society in a speech in July 1870, in defence of the patents system. As an inventor, it was an issue on which he would have a personal interest. Patents are a set of exclusive rights granted by governments to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for regulated public disclosure of their inventions. Patents even then had a history going back 500 years in Europe. The first patent statute was instituted by the Republic of Venice in 1474, and a Statute of Monopolies was passed by the English Parliament in the reign of King James I. In Charles’s day, patents were being widely introduced in most developed countries. New Zealand had its own 82
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Patents Act passed in 1860, although some in the New Zealand colonies and England still opposed the patent system. Charles vigorously supported patents and argued that New Zealand, because it had a smaller population than England, needed a longer period of time for a patent to be lodged, because it would take more time to evaluate the effect of the patent. Charles also claimed that the inventor was a new class of citizen. An inventor was one who could transform society, whether in leading countries such as the United States or the developing colonies of Australasia: For his own part, he thought that patents ought to be continued, and that the inventor and patentee was quite as much entitled to all the protection that could be given to him as a labourer was to his hire. Inventors, as a class, had conferred inestimable benefits upon mankind. He looked upon inventors as the very aristocracy and brain of industry, and they ought to be protected. The inventor had often to spend a great deal of time and money in bringing his invention to perfection, and in getting it introduced: he had often to labour for years without any return, expecting to derive some benefit from it ultimately—just as the farmer, who had put seed into the ground, expected in due time to reap his crop.7
Charles finished his address, as he was wont to do, with a quotation. This time it was drawn from the English liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill, who had stated that attempts to undermine patents ‘would make men of brains still more than at present the needy retainers and dependents of men of money bags’.8 Charles’s amendment, to extend the time for patents to be lodged to fourteen years, passed the House by fourteen votes. He promoted scientific and technological developments for New Zealand. He pressed for telegraph extensions across the North Island, from Auckland to the town of Napier on the east coast, and from Auckland to the Thames. He also supported a 150 000-pound investment in a waterworks, and the establishment of a botanical gardens in Wellington. Another cause was finding the best route for a new submarine electric telegraph cable: 83
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity If the House decided upon having a line of telegraph connecting this country with Great Britain, he would be in favour of [it] going from New Zealand direct to Sydney.9
Charles thought that an alternative route via Queensland would require a longer cable and be more expensive, adding that: In 1866 communication was had between England and Australia, through India, in thirty days, and it would be a great advantage to have communication from Australia to New Zealand in a few minutes.
His enthusiasm extended to civic progress at the local level. He seconded a motion in favour of town boards or borough councils, with the consent of ratepayers, having the powers to levy householders for the establishment of fire brigades. He saw that such a bill would be: . . . the greatest advantage to the goldfields towns, where the houses were mostly built of timber, and, if a fire broke out at one end of the town, it would rapidly consume the whole of the town.10
His concerns about this were vindicated two years later, when fire destroyed the centre of Shortland. Meanwhile, Shortland and Grahamstown continued to boom as miners continued to pour into the Thames. In 1870, the year of the great ‘Caledonian boom’, the Caledonian mine alone would ultimately yield more than 265902 ounces (or 7538 kilograms) of gold. More than 33000 mining licences were issued. Charles’s prospective new constituency of the Thames was as colourful as any other gold rush district. More than one hundred hotels sprang up there. Among them were such establishments as the Theatre Royal, Hotel and Café on the corner of Williamson and Owen streets, Grahamstown—‘unquestionably the only Temple of Drama in the district’. The American flag would fly every fourth of July on Curtis’s Pacific Hotel, the biggest in Grahamstown. Its proprietor, Charles Curtis, served a free pork and beans dinner to every American citizen on that day, including to a regular called ‘Shanghai’, an African–American otherwise known as Colonel Richard Davis. The 84
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usual goldfields entertainments followed, including the ‘Inimitable Thatcher’, who found yet another venue for his satiric political ditties— this time in the Shortland playhouse. On 18 November 1869, the Thames was the scene of a lively election battle between supporters of John Williamson, the sitting Superintendent for Auckland province, and Mr T.B. Gillies. Gillies ultimately won the election narrowly, polling 2531 votes to Williamson’s 2478. However, the result in the Thames booth, in the courthouse on the corner of Pollen and Grey streets, Shortland, was 818 votes for Williamson compared to 433 for Gillies. The secret ballot had still not yet been introduced, and electors had to have their votes recorded publicly by the returning officer. Williamson’s supporters were said to have tried to impede the entry of Gillies’s supporters into the courthouse. When the results for the Thames booth were announced, the pro-Williamson mob ran amok. They smashed the windows of the Gillies election committee rooms and the Bendigo Hotel, and attacked the offices of the local newspaper, the Thames Advertiser. The incident was raised in a debate prior to the passing of the Ballot Bill during the 1870 session of the New Zealand Parliament. Charles, a Williamson appointee, made it clear where his sympathies were: The election at the Thames had not been such a riotous affair as had been represented. Nothing had taken place at all like was witnessed in England, in Ireland, or in the Highlands of Scotland, where once 600 electors would not be allowed to land from the steamer at Inverary Quay, and any person offering to receive or fasten the steamer’s ropes was immediately tossed aside or knocked down.11
By contrast, he thought the Thames election incident was relatively tame: No conduct of that sort had taken place at the Thames on the polling day, and practically the effects or the results of the election day would speak for themselves. There were no cases brought before the Police Court on the following day of assault or drunkenness; there were no broken arms, or broken legs or broken ribs. 85
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity At the same time, he remained a strong advocate of the secret ballot. Without the secret ballot, the voters could be personally pressured by the powerful and wealthy: The ballot system would be the means of equalizing the poor man with the rich man; it would snatch away the power, which the rich had by their wealth, of carrying on with the most pernicious effects those strong systems of bribery and corruption which had been so marked in England.
By 1870, other members of the O’Neill family had also settled in the Thames district. Charles’s father, John Ogle O’Neill, had arrived in New Zealand by 1870 and spent the final four years of his life in quiet prosperity. At age 72 and a widower, he married a 46-year-old Coromandel widow, Elizabeth Holloway, in Auckland on 12 March 1870. John and Elizabeth O’Neill moved to Kapanga settlement which lay on the outskirts of Coromandel Town, almost 60 kilometres north of Grahamstown. The location was given the name ‘O’Neilltown’, possibly reflecting the father’s property holdings. Charles, now serving as the Thames’s Chief Surveyor and Engineer, had a huge undertaking ahead. Much of his work would be undertaken in the Provincial Engineer’s Office in Auckland. The Thames district became a maze of goldfield workings, pumps, mineshafts and batteries which pounded and processed the gold-bearing quartz. Horse tramway tracks ran from the mines to the batteries, and from the workings down to the jetties and wharves to Coromandel Harbour and the Thames Firth. There was a constant demand for new construction in the goldfields as well as provision for a water supply across Auckland province. In January 1871, he presented a report to the Superintendent on the costing of a proposed canal connecting Brighams and Kume¯u creeks to the north of Auckland. He is also known to have superintended the construction of the Mt Eden powder magazine in Auckland. His advice was sought after by many senior colonial figures, including John Ormond, a Minister for Public Works and Hawkes Bay Superintendent, on engineering appointments. O’Neill’s Esplanade, a road to the north of Grahamstown, was probably named after Charles during his term as Thames MP, sometime after he moved there in 1870. 86
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His first direct involvement with tramways in New Zealand also began in the Thames. Just prior to a visit of Governor Bowen and his wife to the Thames on 13 January 1870, Charles engaged a certain Mr Elliot of Auckland to build a tramway carriage to carry the vice-regal couple to the Tararu Creek mineworks. The carriage was decorated with mottled kauri wood panels and, after a later inquiry by Auckland Provincial Council, was found to have cost more than 166 pounds 9 shillings 6 pence. The vice-regal couple never had the pleasure of the ride. In a trial on the morning of the visit, the carriage was thrown off the rails when it hit a fallen tree branch. The unfortunate horse was dragged over the embankment, and the carriage with its twenty passengers narrowly missed plunging 9 metres below into Tararu Creek. Charles’s ‘celebrated mottled kauri carriage’ became something of a local legend. It eventually appeared on Thames Borough’s coat of arms, depicted as being pulled by a primitive locomotive shaped like a coffee pot. During the 1871 parliamentary session, Charles tried to introduce a bill to enable a tramway to run the main street of the Thames. A year later, during a debate on a Tramways Bill, Charles, along with other members, drew attention to a new tramway operating along the beachfront from Tararu and Grahamstown. Operated by the Grahamstown and Tararu Tramway Company, this tramway was formally opened in December 1871. The mottled kauri carriage was back in use and being pulled by an engine travelling up to 13 kilometres an hour. Troops of urchins would try to race with the tram along the foreshores. The tramway lasted until 11 November 1874, when it closed down due to lack of demand. By this time, steamers were now able to make their way directly to Grahamstown and Shortland. With the goldfields operations in mind, Charles lodged his first patent in August 1870, in partnership with another civil engineer in Grahamstown, Daniel Simpson. This patent was: . . . for the exclusive use within the colony of New Zealand of an invention in the means of using fixed wire and other ropes, chains, bars, or other materials for carrying loads from one point to another by gravitation or any known motive power.12
The patent also included a method of enabling the loads to pass the supporting structures without hindrance. 87
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Practically nothing is left of the engineering projects that Charles supervised during his time in the Thames. The mottled kauri carriage is no more, but one curious memento remains in the Auckland War Museum. It is an ornate carved wooden wheelbarrow complete with the engraving ‘Thames Railway, Charles O’Neill, Engineer-in-Chief, 1869’. It was used by Auckland province Superintendent John Williamson, as he ceremoniously ‘turned the first sod’ of construction on the Thames to Tararu tramway on 22 May of that year.13 In the Victorian colonial age, gaining senior positions required patronage from those in high position. Charles’s patron was none other than the Native Affairs Minister Donald McLean. Charles’s correspondence to McLean reveals something of this relationship. Charles believed that his position as Provincial Engineer was precarious now that Williamson had been defeated in the race for Superintendent. Writing privately from the Engineer’s Office in Auckland to McLean in October 1870, Charles revealed his disappointment at not gaining a senior national appointment: Now I did think that my services would have been wanted by this Colonial Government . . . You know how slender are the ties that bind me to the Provincial Government here, and how suddenly they may be broken. I therefore cannot but feel disappointed that I have been so totally ignored. I thought perhaps your kind references would have been used on my behalf.14
He continued to correspond with McLean as the 1870s progressed. The letters contained the usual representations on behalf of constituents, requests for help with obtaining jobs, expediting payments and the like, including for relatives. The patronage system caused growing problems for the National Government as the 1870s progressed, and served to encourage an attitude of extreme deference to superiors. To the modern eye, this could appear as grovelling. However, it was deemed acceptable behaviour for the times. Charles would sometimes adopt this deferential manner to impress his political superiors in national and provincial politics. In reality, it was the only way to advance up the greasy pole or to secure badly needed employment. The sixth New Zealand general election took place between 14 January and 23 February 1871. The number of New Zealand voters had 88
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grown to more than 41500 electing a parliament of 78 MPs, including those for the reserved M¯aori seats. With public support moving towards Vogel’s development plans, New Zealand seemed prepared to leave its earlier problems well behind. Charles’s decision to pursue his political ambitions in the North Island proved insightful, aside from the political difficulties he had experienced in Otago. The South Island goldfields seats of Westland and Otago were abolished in the 1870 redistribution. Charles O’Neill and Julius Vogel now sought re-election in North Island constituencies. Vogel, riding a wave of popularity, was elected unopposed for Auckland City East. Charles, a supporter of the Government’s program, had to battle it out in the Thames against William Swan, previously the MP for Franklin. At the same time, the special miners’ voting rights were still in place. Charles’s parliamentary reputation as the ‘miners’ representative’ counted in his favour in a district like the Thames. During the latter part of 1870, he wasted no time in gathering his supporters. Early in 1871, election nomination notices began to appear in the New Zealand Herald: To Charles O’Neill Esquire, Sir, We the undersigned Electors of the Thames Goldfields Districts, request that you will allow yourself to be put in Nomination to represent our District in the General Assembly, at the coming General Elections, and we pledge ourselves to do our utmost to secure your election. We are sir, your obedient servants, [signed by 357 Electors] Thames, October 31, 1870.15
His formal reply, like that of other political nominees, was inserted at the bottom of the nomination notice: Gentlemen. I cannot feel but highly honoured at receiving your very large and influential Requisition, and I have much pleasure in complying with your request. I have the honour to be gentlemen, Your obedient servant, Charles O’Neill Auckland, November 10, 1870. 89
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Nonetheless, the correspondent for the New Zealand Herald was much less enthusiastic for his cause. Its unnamed correspondent linked Charles’s supporters to the same rowdy mob that had disrupted the Auckland superintendency elections at the Thames a year earlier: Mr O’Neill again meets his friends tomorrow evening to expound his views on the questions which will be put before the House during the ensuing session, and as it is on the eve of polling day, no doubt the opportunity will be taken to organize his party . . . it would be well while this is before them to urge upon his followers the necessity of avoiding like intimidation, as the community at large are determined that the scenes which were enacted at the election of the Superintendent shall not be repeated without the strong arm of the law.16
The correspondent added curtly: I am led to these remarks by the attitude of several pugnacious individuals, supporters of Mr O’Neill, who at Mr Swan’s meeting, on Saturday, made themselves very prominent in their gesticulations, and an attempt at setting a ‘striking’ example.
Charles was drawing his main support from the miners of the northern Coromandel Peninsula, who were quite prepared to use their fists if necessary. Swan’s main support came from the towns of Grahamstown and Shortland. The correspondent concluded that the result might be close. Referring to Charles’s chances: Up to the last few days, I never, for a moment doubted that he would be returned by a small majority, but the public have had the opportunity of judging of the merits of each candidate before them, and the ability which marked Mr Swan’s exposition of his stewardship has won him the best of friends, who hitherto were waverers.
The correspondent’s opinions about Swan’s prospects appeared borne out by the early returns for polling at the Thames and Tapu two days later. Charles had gained only 487 votes to William Swan’s 503. However, the votes of the miners of Coromandel had yet to be counted. 90
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On Friday 10 February 1871, a large crowd gathered in the rain near the end of the Thames wharf. They awaited the arrival of the Lalla Rookh from Coromandel with the news of the final count. Charles had gained another 213 votes against a mere 28 for his opponent. The overall count now gave him a solid majority of 171 votes and the Coromandel voting had been orderly. Charles O’Neill was back in the New Zealand Parliament—this time as the member for the Thames, the colony’s premier gold district.
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Chapter 8 Lessons from abroad
T
he 1871 elections, New Zealand’s first by secret ballot, endorsed the Fox administration. However, there was an influx of 33 new parliamentary members who delivered a new political dynamic in the House of Representatives when it convened again in June. Despite the election success, Prime Minister Fox’s leadership became progressively weaker. Meanwhile, Julius Vogel, now in the process of seeking loan monies from London for his public works program, exercised a growing dominance over Parliament. Charles returned to Wellington, to long sittings and to the inconvenience of a Parliament House undergoing a more elaborate Gothic reconstruction. In April, the Wellington Independent revealed that he had resigned his post as Auckland Provincial Engineer. His relations with the Auckland Superintendent Gillies, now also a member for Auckland City West, had probably broken down completely. He disliked Gillies’s administration of the Thames goldfields and may have been actively seeking its separation from Auckland province.1 In the fractious parliamentary session of 1871, during a debate on an Election Petitions Bill, he commented that: He was not aware whether the General Government had interfered in elections but he certainly did know that the Superintendent of the Province of Auckland had interfered in provincial elections.2 92
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Charles’s departure from the Auckland position would ultimately have ramifications for his political future. As in Otago, petty provincial politics would wreck his political ambitions. For the time being however, he enjoyed the privilege of representing the Thames. His professional engineering activities would focus increasingly on Wellington province. In the House, he raised the usual provincial concerns. One was the need for a road to link the Ohinemuri goldfields at the southern part of the Coromandel Peninsula with the settlement of Katikati in Tauranga Harbour on the Bay of Plenty. He seconded a motion in favour of building a new bridge to the south of Auckland, at what is now the suburb of Mangere. Many other issues were ones that Charles had raised during his first term. At the close of the 1871 session, he urged Government to introduce new legislation to consolidate the Gold Fields Acts. Throughout that session, he had argued the case once again for reducing fees on miners’ rights from 20 to 10 shillings, and for a reduction in the excise duty of gold. He pointed out that between April 1857 and June 1871, New Zealand had exported some 5897909 ounces of gold, worth some 22918177 pounds. At the same time, the colony’s European population had grown from 60000 in 1859 to 250000 in 1870. As Thames MP, Charles proudly stated: Could anyone deny that the working of the mines had raised the colony into a high position, not confined to the southern hemisphere, because its gold fields were known over the whole world? They had at the Thames one claim, the Caledonian, of about five acres in extent, which had already paid dividends, during the past six months, of nearly half a million sterling . . .3
He urged New Zealand again to learn from economic developments in California and Victoria. On the issue of patents, he argued that New Zealand follow the example of Melbourne and New York by having proper facilities for the display of railway plans, models and other patent specifications. The Government had simply been depositing them in the Wellington Customs House. New Zealand, he thought, could also benefit from the construction of a national library. On the other side of the ledger, New Zealand could also learn from the mistakes made overseas. The conservation of forests again received 93
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity his attention. Speaking in support of a Canterbury Forest Trees Bill, Charles warned that: In other countries where timber had been recklessly removed, great droughts had set in ruining the country and scattering the population, as had often happened in France, where they were now planting trees to avoid a repetition of such occurrences.4
He thought that the Wellington province had already experienced the ‘evil effects’ of denuding the countryside of trees: On one side of the Rimutaka hill, they had been burnt away for the purpose of constructing roads there; and the result was that there had been such floods as had been never known there before, clearing away culverts, bridges and everything before them. The same thing had occurred in the Hutt Valley.
Along with its growing importance as a political and social centre, Wellington had also gained an unenviable reputation as colonial New Zealand’s most dirty city. With a population then well above 7500, it lacked any adequate sewerage system. It was not surprising that later during the 1871 session, Charles was among those making the case for better public health and town planning. He reminded Prime Minister Fox of the need to re-introduce a Public Health Bill. The planned legislation had been undermined by the provincialists in the previous parliament because of the powers that such a bill might concede to the national Parliament. Charles believed the matter to be an urgent one: They did not know the moment that an epidemic might break out in the Colony, and there was no provision to meet such a terrible contingency. He thought the Government should really take the matter into their serious consideration and, if necessary, they should have no hesitation in appointing a health officer, who would carry out the preliminaries requisite in the event of any epidemic occurring.5
The idea of town planning was still a novel one in the 1870s, despite developments in many of the old European cities. With new towns 94
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springing up across New Zealand, he urged that the new public works program include regulations for wide and regular streets. In November 1871, Charles moved the second reading of a Plan of Towns Regulation Bill: It was a matter of the highest importance from a sanitary point of view, as it necessarily affected the health of the people. In the old country, a vast amount of money was expended in widening the streets of towns which had been badly and irregularly built. In one instance, a city with which he was well acquainted—Glasgow—had expended one million sterling in two or three years in purchasing old properties for the purpose of widening the streets, in order to improve the health of the people.6
Town planning was to become one of his greatest causes. However, in 1871 he gave most substantial attention to the issue of religious education in schools—or rather its lack, namely ‘Godless’ education. In September 1871, Charles spoke in support of the Government’s amendments to an Education Bill. In the late nineteenth century, established and developing western nations had to grapple with instituting public systems of education which met both the requirements of parents and the religious and moral beliefs of society. In this period, the Christian churches, Protestant and Catholic, held considerable authority in social and education matters. The issue of how to deliver a good secular public education, while supporting the denominational schools with their moral values, had now arrived in New Zealand as well. Proposed legislation before the New Zealand Parliament would provide support for denominational schools, without any restricting clause about the quality of teachers and the standards of textbooks. The debate took place as the Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, Patrick Moran, for whom education was an important battleground, fought strongly against the existing provincial education scheme in Otago. The education policy of the Otago Provincial Council not only refused support for denominational schools, it also allowed the use of history textbooks which were anti-Catholic in nature. This, thought Charles, meant that the system was not entirely secular as well. Charles’s address in favour of the Education Bill provides an insight into a Catholic lay view of the issue. He commenced his address by 95
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity supporting a point made by William Fitzherbert, the MP for Hutt, that any legislation should also make provision for the education of adults as well. New Zealand would benefit from schools which taught the knowledge of the colony’s new industries—mining, farming and agriculture. Always the engineer, Charles urged that schools be constructed along the railway lines, so that children might more easily be able to travel to classes. He also opposed any compulsory clauses in education legislation which might take away the natural rights of parents, as this would force children to break the fourth of the Ten Commandments in the Bible— ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’. As for the Bible itself, he noted that the proposed bill made provision for its reading in schools, but agreed with others that indiscriminate reading ‘was not proper’. It was not just a question of which version of the Bible you were referring to—Protestant or Catholic. According to Charles, the Bible was most difficult to understand, particularly for children. It could also be easily misinterpreted, and: he would give them an instance as to how it had been interpreted by a Ma¯ ori,—and the Ma¯ oris were keen and cunning reasoners. He was asked how many wives he had, and he answered in a very melancholy tone, he had only four. The clergyman of the district, remonstrating with him, told him how wrong it was to have four wives,—that the Bible taught them to have only one wife. ‘Why,’ said the Ma¯ ori, ‘didn’t you give me the Bible?’ ‘Yes’, answered the clergyman. ‘Well,’ said the Ma¯ ori, ‘I find in that book that Solomon was the wisest man in the world, and I also find that Solomon had three hundred wives. Kapai, Solomon!’7
He spoke strongly in favour of the denominational system of education, and supported former prime minister and MP for Timaru, Stafford. Stafford argued that the Otago system of education was failing even on the fundamental point of reading the Bible in schools. Charles also supported Bishop Moran’s position on education put forward to the Chair of a Select Committee in Dunedin. The Committee Chair had asked the Bishop what principle in the education ordinance was antagonistic to Catholicism. Charles reminded the House of the Bishop’s response, which had been: 96
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The principle is this: the education proposed to be given is, as far as Catholics are concerned, a purely secular education, such as all denominations might accept. The Catholic principle of education is this: education is for a man’s entire life, here and hereafter; it should therefore be both religious and secular, and as the religious is the more important, and the only one that can establish a real sanction for man’s moral conduct, the secular should necessarily be built up upon the religious and subordinated to it. The Church therefore deprecates the separation of those two as unnatural and injurious to society as well as religion.8
He followed up with a review of the policies towards denominational education, including the outcomes across Europe and the United States. Charles thought that the results of ‘Godless’ education could be seen at work in France. France had not heeded the words of Jean-Etienne Portalis, a past Minister for Instruction under the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who said: There is no instruction without education; no proper education without morality and dogma.9
Charles pointed out that the New Zealand Parliament should take a warning from the violence of the Paris Commune of 1870. The Commune was a revolutionary regime which temporarily took control of Paris between March and May 1871, following France’s defeat by Prussia in 1870. He saw the bloody outcome as alarming, commenting: A few months ago one-third of Paris was burned; Notre Dame, one of the finest cathedrals in the world was fired; the Archbishop of Paris was apprehended on the charge of being the ‘servant of a man called God’, and was cruelly murdered in cold blood while still a hostage;—all the effects of education without religion, and of infidelity.10
However, even with the Land Wars coming to an end, New Zealand seemed to exist in a different world from the blood-stained boulevards of Paris. Charles’s European perspective must have sounded strange to a colonial society of the British Empire, dominated by provincial concerns. 97
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Despite all this, the Government was forced to drop the proposed legislation. James Macandrew and his Otago supporters, on whom the Government relied for support, did not wish to see Otago’s education policies overturned. As for the Otago Daily Times, it was opposed to the public paying for the ‘superstitious teaching’ of the Catholics, or the Anglican creed of respectability which aimed at: a picturesque reproduction of old English village life and the aesthetic effect obtained by the bowing and scraping of the lower orders to their ‘superiors’, [and] to his reverence the curate.11
Charles would continue to raise the spectre of ‘Godless’ education, even after his departure from Parliament. Five years later, in 1876, when New Zealand adopted a new Education Bill, Charles had a further public say on the issue. As a leading Catholic layman, he was invited by the Catholic Bishop of Wellington, Francis Redwood, to offer some words of welcome on the arrival of the Marist Brothers in the city. Charles’s welcoming address repeated the theme: He would ask, what was education without religion? A very striking example of this was shown in France, where the effects of the late war and the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the Commune were the results of a Godless education.12
As 1872 dawned, the Fox Government was beginning to run into trouble on more worldly concerns. Despite the contracts set up by Treasurer Julius Vogel for the building of railways and the promotion of immigration from Britain, progress appeared to be too slow. Vogel’s trips abroad to promote investment into New Zealand also came in for criticism. Charles O’Neill, too, had been abroad in the first half of 1872, travelling across the Tasman to New South Wales and Victoria. It is difficult to see what kind of private life, if any, Charles had during this period. He lived out of a trunk, the Victorian equivalent of a suitcase, with long stretches of journeying by horseback, carriage and steamship across the seas and terrain of the Australasian colonies. His travels must have been gruelling and probably a reason why he campaigned for transport 98
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improvements. He paid for the cost of this travel out of his own pocket.13 While in Victoria and New South Wales, he met with a large number of colonial officials and politicians. On his return in July 1872, Charles reported to Parliament that: . . . he had recently visited the Royal Mints both in Victoria and Sydney, and they seemed to give every satisfaction.14
As New Zealand itself had such a prosperous gold industry, he believed that it too should establish branches of the Royal Mint: Honorable members knew that in America mints had been formed wherever gold was abundant. In San Francisco, a mint was established four years after gold was discovered in California; but then, no doubt, America was quick and wise in her action in these matters, as in the construction of railways and other works, while England and her colonies were slower in their movements.
There were also lessons from Victoria where, he observed, the colony had devoted substantial public funds for mining exploration. His Australian travels during the early 1870s convinced him of the bright prospects of the Antipodean wine industry. His approach to this was interesting, considering his later association with the Total Abstinence Association. Between 1873 and 1875, he urged the Parliament to consider reducing or removing the duty on Australian wines: A great deal of attention was given to Australian wines in England now . . . in London, the unanimous verdict of experts was that English importers could not any longer ignore Australian wines, which were favourably pitted against the most delicate wines of France and Spain.15
Charles believed that quality wine could be a means of reducing public drunkenness: Every honorable member knew that in France, Spain, Italy, and in other countries of Europe where good wines were used, and freely used—it was very rare to find cases of drunkenness.16 99
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The reasoning was that the public would prefer quality alcohol to getting drunk on cheap gin, whisky or spirits. He did not foresee that New Zealand would in time develop its own wine industry. While in Melbourne, he had the advantage of examining ‘the beautiful process of photolithography’ at the Victorian Crown Lands Office.17 Photolithography had developed in the nineteenth century as a means of transferring photographic images onto stone or lithographic plates for printing. He pointed out that for a mere 60 pounds, New Zealand could buy the technology and that it could then be used to illustrate drawings of patents. He successfully moved that abstracts of patent specifications be illustrated by copies from the original drawings, and that these be presented to Parliament each year. In October 1872, he provided a glimpse of what was possible in a technological age of progress. He noted the wonders on display in Washington DC, in museums that would in time form the collections of the Smithsonian Institute: They would do well to take a leaf out of the book of America, where the Patent Office at Washington was one of the greatest institutions in the United States—in fact it was one of the National Museums of America . . . Models of every machine in the States were to be seen there. People went from all parts of America to consult books which could only be found at the Patent Office, and the collection is one of the best technical libraries in the world.18
Charles’s visions for New Zealand were to prove too ambitious for such a relatively new colony. New Zealand then had a population of only a quarter of a million settlers, then the equivalent of a provincial British city. Overconfidence could also describe the mood of a government now floundering amid unfulfilled promises.
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Chapter 9 Parliamentary roundabout, 1872–1875
T
he Fox Government drifted further into troubled waters in September 1872. Opposition leader Edward Stafford succeeded in winning a no confidence motion on the Government’s public works and immigration policy by three votes, and won a follow-up motion by four votes. Stafford gained control of the ministry but his success was short-lived. Julius Vogel, now without a ministerial post, worked furiously to undermine him. On 4 October, Stafford’s ministry in turn lost the confidence of the House by two votes. Stafford failed to persuade Governor Bowen to dissolve Parliament and resigned a few days later. A new government was formed with George Waterhouse, Legislative Councillor for Wellington, as Premier, while Julius Vogel returned as Treasurer and Donald McLean as Native Minister from 11 October 1872. The Waterhouse Ministry proved to be only a prelude to the Premiership of Julius Vogel which commenced in March 1873. Vogel’s political ambition had finally paid off, and he held the high office while dominating Parliament during the next two years. In 1875, there was another change to the Premiership, this time to Dr Daniel Pollen, Legislative Councillor for Auckland and former Colonial Secretary. Throughout the political turmoil of mid-1872, Charles remained a staunch supporter of Vogel’s public works and railways plan. He maintained that the Government’s opponents were diehard provincialists and opponents of progress. In the House on 4 September, Charles attacked 101
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity those seeking to undermine the Fox Government, drawing on a quotation from seventeenth century poet John Dryden to make his point: Tis hard for Kings to steer an equal course, And they who banish one oft gain a worse.1
Since the beginning of 1871, Charles identified himself with the government party.2 This benefited him at first, particularly in his battle to win the Thames constituency. However, Charles’s political future soon became hostage to government fortunes. As the Fox, Waterhouse, Vogel and Pollen governments followed in succession, events seemed to work against Charles’s political ambitions. His predicament was compounded by the necessity of having to seek employment far south in the province of Wellington. He was no longer always on the ground where it mattered, in the Thames or the Coromandel Peninsula, although he maintained a residence in Princes Street, Auckland, until 1875. By 1872, the Fox administration had lost considerable support across Auckland province. Progress on the development of railways stalled and there had not been the expected influx of immigrants. For much of the remainder of his term, Charles kept questioning ministers about these problems. He raised the issue of the delayed construction of the Thames waterworks. A stamp office set up in the Thames for processing documents had closed down and Charles requested that it be reopened. Domestically, the failure to progress the Thames waterworks cost Charles much support. Furthermore, he seemed more distant than ever from his demanding constituency. He did not meet with the electors of the Thames district on return from Australia on 11 July 1872, but provided a lengthy address published in the Thames Advertiser four days later. With reference to the waterworks, he reported: The delay in carrying out the works is altogether inexplicable to me, and I shall certainly make it my business in the coming session, to urge upon the government the great importance of immediate action.3
In his printed address, he pointed to much legislation relevant to Auckland province passed during the previous session—but there were failures too, such as his unsuccessful attempts to reduce the miners’ rights 102
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fee, as well as the gold duty. Charles stressed his support of the public works program, but noted: Unfortunately, I cannot point to either vigour or earnestness in the prosecution of Public Works since the last session, although I am aware that some works are going on in the colony.
He made representations on behalf of a committee seeking to alter the boundaries of a new municipality of the Thames, to include the Tararu township and wider lands. After consulting with the Attorney-General, Charles’s reply was: . . . think it would be better to await decisions of Provincial Council or to alter boundaries to meet views of Superintendent . . . Whatever you settle upon, let me know and I will render all assistance in my power.4
Despite his growing political problems in the Thames, Charles would make a significant contribution to public affairs during his remaining time in Parliament. He continued to press for consolidation of the goldmining laws. He served on a wide range of House Select Committees including those dealing with goldfields bills and petitions (1871), Otago waste lands administration improvement (1872), the submarine electric telegraph (1872), a Royal Mint (1872), an Auckland Improvement Bill (1872), colonial defence (1872 and 1873), public works and immigration (1872 and 1873), goldfields (1873 and 1875), waste lands (1875) and the House Committee (1873 and 1875). During May 1875, he unsuccessfully lobbied to become Chair of Committees. More significant were his contributions to debates on labour safety and forest conservation, and in pioneering town planning legislation. Safety conditions in the colonial mining operations were primitive, and accidents there could often have fatal outcomes for miners and other workers. Speaking on a Coal Mines Regulation Bill in the 1873 session, he noted the conditions of miners employed in the Bay of Islands, Whang¯arei, Waikato in the North Island, and Nelson, Canterbury and Otago in the South. He urged tightening of the legislation to ensure proper regard of safety conditions: 103
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity He did not think the Bill was too stringent, and if it went into Committee, he would like to make it far more so, especially in respect to making managers of mines and companies responsible for all accidents in the working of them. Such a measure could not be too soon put into force, and the legislature ought not to delay making a law on this subject until accidents had taken place.5
Mining accidents soon became a sensitive issue in the Thames goldfields. On 24 January 1874, one of two steam boilers supplying the engines of the Kurunui Gold Battery, one of the biggest on the goldfield, exploded, killing three men. In February, the new Governor Sir James Fergusson appointed Charles as one of three commissioners to investigate the causes of the accident and to report on other machinery and boilers on the goldfields. The use of bad water in the boiler—in this case, sea water which had corroded it—was identified as one of the main causes of the accident. The report by Charles and his fellow commissioners, James Stewart and Joseph Nancarrow, was presented to Parliament in April 1874. Among other improvements, the report recommended an improved system of boiler inspection and tests for engineers, as well as certification of boiler attendants. This work paved the way for a new administration of the inspection of machinery. In July 1874, during debate on a Regulation of Mines Bill, he urged better regulation of ventilation in mines, as well as proper regulation of steam boilers: In looking over the Bill, he observed that provision was made for an adequate amount of ventilation to be constantly produced in every mine; but what was an adequate amount? . . . A specified number of cubic feet of pure air should be given to every man or boy working in a mine, and care should be taken to see that pure air only was supplied, and that all intake air should travel free from all stagnant water, stables and old workings.6
He also argued that any legislation should compel the owner or manager of the mine to see that pure air was conveyed to all the mine workings. Charles began to widen his interest in safety issues. In August 1875, he commented on the poor state of maritime equipment that he had encountered: 104
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In nearly every case where he had been at sea he had found that the boats were not properly equipped, and were in such a state that they could not have been lowered at a moment’s notice if any accident had occurred. One boat on the starboard would be destitute of oars and sails; one on the port side would probably be without a plug, or partly filled with lumber, and the other unfit for immediate use.7
He urged that regulations underpinning New Zealand’s steam navigation laws be tightened up, and that masters and owners be subject to heavy penalties for not providing sufficient lifeboats. This needed a more uniform system of ship inspection across all the ports in the colony. With more time in Parliament, Charles might have continued promoting improvements in labour conditions. Fatal industrial accidents were becoming more frequent in New Zealand. While laws such as the Regulation of Mines Bill and the Inspection of Machinery Bill were passed, their full implementation through the colony was being hindered by provincial administrations. In September 1875, he proposed the preparation of a yearly report on all mining accidents in New Zealand, including the verdicts at inquests, and details of casualties and the impact on their dependent families. During his time as a surveyor on the Otago goldfields in the South Island, Charles witnessed considerable destruction of valuable forest timber in the quest for gold. By 1873, the issue was once again beginning to receive the attention of the Government, although no measure had yet been developed for consideration by the House. In October, Charles once again urged action as he had done five years earlier: A measure for the conservation of forests of the colony was one that would require the careful consideration of the House and the Government, so that history might not be able to relate that they received a fertile country but, by a criminal want of foresight, transmitted to posterity a desert.8
Charles, acknowledged by Minister McLean as one of the main proponents in the House for conservation, was now promoting a Royal Commission to report on the state of the forests and the best way to secure their future. The kauri pine, the noblest of New Zealand trees, was already in danger of becoming extinct as a result of indiscriminate 105
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity burning of trees. Charles urged that New Zealand take account of regulations for the planting of timber, already practised overseas: In Japan, it is said, that for every tree that was cut down another was planted. In Biscay, where one was cut down, two must be planted . . . The destruction of the forests of New Zealand had been, for the most part, caused by willful and culpable fires.9
Massive and unchecked felling of trees continued during the 1870s. This was driven by the demand for timber for railways and building construction. The railways were also providing new logging access to previously untouched forest. In 1874, Premier Julius Vogel—soon to become Sir Julius Vogel— advanced his own plans for conserving forests for commercial use. The conservation plans of that time were primarily focused on saving forests for future commercial use. However, there was strong opposition to the forestry plans by provincialist parliamentarians. Charles spoke even more forcefully on the need for forest conservation, pointing to the reduction of New Zealand’s forest land from more than 15 million acres in 1868 to 12 million in 1873. Charles, who had worked on two successive bills, showed a far greater appreciation of the wider impact of deforestation than the vast majority of his colleagues. Certainly, he was concerned about the supply of timber. However, his addresses on the subject also showed an appreciation of the wider environmental damage that such practices caused. For example, drawing from recorded experience in Europe, he commented: We know that, by the destruction of forests, climate is most seriously altered . . . I may instance one department of France, in the valley of the Rhone, which supported 27 000 people, but which the destruction by fire of the forests which surrounded it, it has become a barren shingle bed.10
This was radical thinking for the 1870s. In contrast to the indiscriminate exploitation of timber, Charles urged the Parliament to consider a more scientific approach to the development of New Zealand native timbers, including kauri, totara, rata and manuka. In August 1874, he presented a report by a Captain E.W. Ward, a Royal 106
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Engineer at the Sydney Mint, who had undertaken trials on the strengths of these timbers as early as 1856. New Zealand would also pay a heavy price should it squander a resource so necessary for the construction of railways, bridges, piers, jetties and houses. Charles went as far as to identify a social cost of losing the forests: It affected the poor man more than the rich, for a time would come when timber would become so scarce and valuable, that houses would cost more to erect, and rents would become higher, which the poor man would feel more than the rich.11
The main focus of Charles’s social concerns focused on the poorly built cities springing up through the colonies. They were becoming ramshackle—without building standards, adequate drainage or treatment of sanitation. In August 1874, he urged better implementation of New Zealand’s Public Health Act that had come into force two years earlier. He read to the House the findings of a paper by a certain Dr Bakewell delivered to the Otago Institute in Dunedin: The lowest lodging-houses in the lowest slums of London are better ventilated and more wholesome than the bedrooms of many well-to-do people in Dunedin. The hotels and lodging houses of the second and third class are simply frightful. I [Dr Bakewell] have been called in to see many patients sleeping in rooms wholly destitute of means of ventilation, in which there was not more than 200 cubic feet [5.6 cubic metres] to each inmate.12
Major streets and thoroughfares had insufficient width or uniform proportions. They were hazardous, impeded traffic and commerce, created fire hazards and contributed to sanitation problems. Speaking in August 1875, Charles had observed that: The inhabitants of Sydney were much aggrieved at the narrowness of George Street, their principal street; and the day would come when the inhabitants of Sydney would force the Corporation or the Government to purchase the property which would enable them to widen the street for the health of inhabitants.13 107
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity As for Auckland, Charles noted that ‘they had at present a city without water or sufficient drainage’.14 In August 1873, he supported an Auckland Improvement Bill, not only because it would advance the development of that city: but also because it would be necessary, in making those improvements, to clear away some narrow lanes and miserable houses which ought not to be there; in fact the Act would be a sanitary Act.15
Charles himself knew that the first step was to introduce new town planning regulations for New Zealand. In every year since 1871, he tried to introduce his Plans of Towns Regulations Bill into the House. His 1871 bill got as far as passing through the House, but was thrown out during a second reading in the Legislative Council, and only on the casting vote of the Speaker. A Select Committee on the bill, chaired by Minister Donald McLean, was appointed in August 1872 and reported in October. The Committee came out strongly in favour of the principles outlined in the previous bill. It urged that another one be drafted, and that plans for new towns be shelved until such legislation came into effect. The bill failed to get sufficient momentum in 1873, and it was thrown out at a second reading in 1874. Up until 1875, Charles worked hard to carry the Plans of Towns Regulations Bill through Parliament. He ultimately succeeded, the bill being committed to the Legislative Council for a final time in August 1875. This final bill, containing the bulk of Charles’s proposals, passed through Parliament on 12 October and came into effect the next year. The Plans of Towns Regulations Bill required that the plans of all towns be approved by the Governor prior to sale. The levels of streets needed to be clearly indicated on plans to avoid planning disasters, such as street lines running through perpendicular rocks. There was to be adequate provision for recreational reserves, proper sites for cemeteries, suitable access in streets for rubbish and sewage disposal, and land reserves outside town settlements for quarries and rubbish dumps. Such regulations, taken for granted in contemporary cities, were quite an advance in 1875. Charles had to compromise on a few details. He wanted street widths 108
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in cities and towns set at two chains (40.2 metres) but had to settle for 99 feet (30.2 metres). The legislation only applied to plans on Crown land, and did not extend to private land. This restriction was something Charles deeply regretted. However, the measure became Charles’s main legislative achievement during a decade in Parliament, and a historical milestone for town planning in New Zealand.
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Chapter 10 Backlash in the Thames
R
igorous surveying exploits combined with the pressure of parliamentary life may have aged Charles considerably. A photograph taken of him in Wellington in July 1874 shows him with a more solid face than the one taken six years before. His eyes are less sharp although perhaps gentler in expression. His hair has receded slightly and his beard is closer cropped and now tinged grey. Nonetheless, an unmistakable air of authority remains. What he did for relaxation and recreation remains a mystery. One possibility is rifle shooting, a carry-over from his Lanarkshire Regiment days, and a popular bush activity. In October 1875, he unsuccessfully sought financial support for New Zealand representatives to enter an International Rifle Match in Philadelphia to coincide with an 1876 exhibition.1 The year 1874 was a sad one for Charles. His father John Ogle O’Neill died on 20 October. Regrettably, Charles was outside the colony at the time, probably in Australia. His brothers John James, William Campbell and Andrew Scott were among the main mourners at a funeral held in St Colman’s Church, Coromandel, four days later. Little is known about Andrew Scott, but William Campbell O’Neill had a distinguished career as a surveyor in his own right, eventually becoming a foundation member of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. In 1876, after having served in the Waikato Engineer Corps, William moved to Whangaroa, a town situated north-west of the Bay of Islands. He worked in partnership with another surveyor, Robert Campbell, 110
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before establishing his own practice in the Northland coastal town of Mangonui. Two years later, William married a Miss Celia Shaw but they had no children. William died in 1913. John James, Charles’s inseparable older brother, also undertook some surveying work. Between 1871 and 1872, he was engaged in some pioneering work relating to the supply of water to the Thames goldfields. In October 1871, he completed a survey which suggested using the Kauaeranga River at the Thames as a water source. In June 1872, he surveyed railway routes between Auckland and the town of Riverhead to the north. Unfortunately, work for John James was intermittent, payment was often delayed, and there must have been long intervals when Charles had to support him. In both February and July 1872, Charles wrote to Minister Donald McLean asking his help in having his brother’s accounts paid.2 In January 1875, Charles again wrote, seeking his help in acquiring a position for John as district surveyor in Poverty Bay. It is uncertain whether this appeal was successful. The letter revealed that if his brother obtained the appointment, ‘a considerable burden would be taken off my shoulders’.3 In all likelihood, he probably supported John James for much of the future as well. In the absence of any wife or family of his own, Charles’s relationship with his brother, and later his younger sister Maria Gordon O’Neill, remained close. It was an age when individuals often delayed consideration of marriage until a notional ‘right time’ came. If it never did, as in Charles’s case, then there could be stronger ties between family members. Within the colonies, there seemed to be some concern about the high number of bachelors and spinsters.4 In goldfields districts, where Charles spent much of his time, there would often be little in the way of female company. As for tampering with marriage, Charles, with his strict Scottish and Irish-Catholic background, would have none of it. He attacked a proposed Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill with as much vigour as he had opposed the Divorce Bill during his first term. In August 1872, he once again railed at divorce: It seemed to him that divorce could now be obtained in this Colony just about as easily as it was said it could be in Chicago, where, when the great American railway stopped, they could hear shouted out ‘There’s ten minutes for divorce, and twenty minutes for refreshments.’5 111
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, a measure promoted in 1872 by William Steward, the MP for Waitaki, would allow a man to marry the sister of a deceased wife—something then frowned upon by the Christian churches of the main denominations. Charles saw the new measure as the thin edge of the wedge—potentially allowing a man to marry a whole family one after another. The debate on this issue continued into 1874, with Charles arguing without success that it was ‘emphatically dangerous to the morality of the colony’. He was not alone. A number of key political identities, including Stafford, Macandrew and Vogel, also opposed the measure.6 It was something of an irony that Julius Vogel, the one time hero of New Zealand’s provincial government system, would become its nemesis. As Premier, he had seen which way the political wind was blowing. There was growing public concern about the financial state of a number of the provinces, notably Auckland and the very small ones like Hawkes Bay and Marlborough. Political figures as diverse as Fox and Stafford were moving towards this conclusion. Opposition from the provinces to the Forestry Bill proved something of a last straw for Premier Vogel. On 13 August 1874, Vogel put three measures before Parliament. The North Island provinces—Auckland, Wellington, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki—would go; Wellington would be declared the seat of New Zealand’s Government; while localisation of land revenue would remain. The bell finally tolled for the provinces of New Zealand when the proposals were ultimately passed by a margin of 46 votes to 21 in the House on 20 August 1874. It would take a little further time and more legislative work, but an Abolition of Provinces Act was assented to on 12 October 1875. Provincial councils ceased to operate although superintendents remained in office until 1 November 1876. The provinces themselves were replaced by counties. Provincialism had been the bane of Charles’s political life from the beginning. The parochial ‘Lilliput’ politics of the provinces were a stumbling block to the kind of progress he saw as vital for New Zealand, particularly in education, health and public works. According to Charles, their administrations diverted public works’ monies into the major towns and away from developing areas such as the goldfields. While jubilant at the prospect of reducing provincial power, he believed that the early measures did not go far enough, and advocated that all the provinces of 112
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North and South Islands should go. Speaking just before the final vote on the measure, he observed: I believe it would be far wiser to have swept away all the boundaries of the provinces at one swoop. I think, when a Ministry brings forward a measure of this importance, it should be done with courage and boldness.7
He appreciated the magnitude of the changes before the colony: Doubtless, it is a very serious thing to rub out the old landmarks and territorial divisions of the provinces, and I cannot but admire those Superintendents who strive to uphold their rights on behalf of the Provinces. But this is an age of progress and the welfare of the people as a whole demands our first attention and consideration . . .8
At the same time, Charles’s own political fortunes were dragged down by government inaction. During the 1874 session, he begged Vogel to consider a submission by an Auckland deputation, who sought the construction of a railway between the Thames and the Waikato district. He urged the Government to proceed with roads linking the Thames to Tauranga on the Bay of Plenty and to the inland settlement of Cambridge to the south-west. During the 1875 session, his final year in Parliament, he questioned the delay in constructing a railway between Auckland and Riverhead to the north of Waitemat¯a Harbour, and to the Bay of Islands. He also queried the Government’s lack of progress in the construction of lighthouses off the coast of Auckland province. In addition to these frustrations, a series of calamities struck the Thames itself. In May 1874, two years after fire had wiped out much of Shortland, Grahamstown was battered by a stormy high tide which wrecked much of the low-lying town. A section of the Grahamstown and Tararu tramway was also damaged. Charles also appeared to be caught in a dispute between the Auckland Provincial Government and the National Government, as to whether the Grahamstown foreshore be handed over to the Thames municipality.9 Meanwhile gold production in the Thames dropped sharply between 1873 and 1876, although it would recover in the late 1870s. The mood of the Thames was far less optimistic than that during the 1871 boom. 113
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles’s own financial position was getting worse. He appeared to have lost the small fortune that he had sunk into the McIsaacs’ Claim. Between 1868 and 1870, the mine yielded only 201 ounces of bullion, worth about 550 pounds.10 His financial problems were also compounded because of money owed to him for his services to Auckland province. In May 1875, he wrote to the Superintendent, requesting back-payments owed to him worth 68 pounds 7 shillings, dating back to 1869 when he was Auckland’s Engineer-in-Chief.11 That Superintendent was none other than Sir George Grey, who had returned to the colony and come out of retirement from his retreat on Kawau Island. When Auckland Superintendent John Williamson died early in 1875, Grey had seized the opportunity and was elected in March both to the superintendency and Williamson’s House of Representatives seat of Auckland City West. As the architect behind the old provincial system established under the Constitution Act of 1852, Grey viewed its prospective demise with dismay and fury. An Auckland anti-abolition delegation led by W.C. Wilson, editor of the New Zealand Herald, successfully persuaded Grey to lead the cause. During the 1875 parliamentary session, Grey campaigned vigorously although unsuccessfully against the progress of the Abolition of Provinces Bill. The provinces were a lost cause, but he led a growing political backlash in Auckland province. Between 1874 and 1875, Sir George Grey mobilised a small army of supporters across the province to fight the abolition of the province of Auckland. Among Grey’s supporters was a group of young social radical politicians and lawyers, including Patrick Dignan, John Sheehan and William Rees—some with Irish-Catholic credentials. They were drawn to Grey’s campaign by fears that the changes would benefit wealthy landowners and the Bank of New Zealand. Ominously for Charles, they began to pick up support from the Irish miners of the Thames and other workers who had probably supported him in 1871. There may have also been concerns that revenue from the goldfields would be diverted away from Auckland province. As one of the main proponents for the abolition of provinces as well as a ‘Wellington centrist’ politician, Charles was an obvious political target for the anti-abolition campaign. Moreover, other political problems were coming back to haunt him. 114
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Throughout his second term, and perhaps with a little self-interest in mind, Charles argued forcefully to increase the parliamentary representation of the Thames, because of its financial contribution to the colony and its rapidly increasing population. In August 1872, he urged that there be an additional member for the Thames district and presented two petitions within a couple of days—one from 2150 residents seeking an additional representative, another from 1700 residents seeking an additional two. Ultimately, a Representation Bill in 1875 made provision for one additional member for Thames. However, there was still anger in the Thames, now with a population of more than 14000, and 3700 voters. Charles appeared to be under some local pressure to deliver. On 3 October 1875, he received a rather blunt telegram from Thames Mayor William Davies, which he read out in the House the following day. It read: Public feeling of Thames very strong against Representation Bill. Opinion is that a great injustice will be done to Thames if only allowed two members. Speak strongly in the House to this effect.12
Charles might have had some trepidation standing again for the Thames. As late as 17 December, only one candidate, a local, William Rowe, had emerged. Charles’s political prospects grew worse as election day dawned. Both Sir George Grey and Sir Julius Vogel decided to stand for the Thames, despite being candidates in other seats. Vogel’s candidacy would drain away the votes of Government supporters from Charles. Sir George Grey and Sir Julius Vogel were expected to win such a ballot, and Charles was now a political minnow squeezed between two giants. Polling for the seventh New Zealand election began on 20 December 1875. It continued until 29 January 1876, with more than 56 000 electors now choosing 88 parliamentarians. There were seven candidates for the two Thames seats, including Charles. On 30 December, the New Zealand Herald cast its own judgment on Charles O’Neill: The Thames has seemed fated hitherto to be unhappy politically, but is now abundantly blessed with candidatures both in number and quality. During 115
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity the last Parliament, the constituency, by far the largest in the colony, was represented in the assembly by one who never appeared before the electors from the time he was returned, and who so completely cut himself away from them and their interests that apparently he has now less chance of being elected than any other man.13
The editorial continued, with perhaps further indirect criticism of Charles: We believe that the best representatives of the Thames would be thoroughly independent local men, having full knowledge of the requirements of the district, and who could act independently of any party for the special interests of the place.
The Thames results were surprising, although the outcome was still a shocking one for Charles. The New Zealand Herald reported the preliminary tally on 7 January. Sir George Grey, already a victor in Auckland City West, had won one of the two seats with a solid 975 votes.14 However, Vogel lost with only 685 votes. The surprise winner of the second Thames seat was William Rowe with 865 votes, a new local hero who was carried shoulder-high to the Bendigo Hotel after victory was announced. Vogel had the consolation of being returned as one of the members for Wanganui and consequently another term as Premier and Colonial Treasurer, until he resigned in September 1876. Grey chose to remain member for the Thames, and stepped down from Auckland City West. Charles’s own early tally according to the New Zealand Herald was a miserable 24 votes. He finally paid the price of spending too much time in Wellington, of too many absences from the colony and from the Thames in particular. Perhaps he had accepted the inevitable and not campaigned in earnest. In any case, he learned the hard lesson that parochial politics counted more at the ballot box than utopian visions of the future. Perhaps, too, he had lost the heart for politics and really wanted to focus on his engineering pursuits. Charles’s last question in Parliament had been to enquire when the submarine cable would be laid between New Zealand and Australia, noting proudly that he had been Chairman of a Select Committee on this question.15 Within six years, Charles would leave permanently for Australia himself. 116
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Chapter 11 City of Wellington
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ince 1871, Charles had turned his attention to Wellington province. He needed new employment after leaving the Chief Engineer’s job in Auckland province. He also had some minor business interests in Wellington, being a modest 10-pound shareholder in the Hard Working Gold Mining Company with offices in Wellington’s Lambton Quay. The City of Wellington had grown steadily, despite the previous shock of an earthquake in 1855 which transformed the foreshore landscape of its harbour. By the early 1870s, Wellington province had a non-M¯aori population of more than 24000. It was benefiting too from its new status as colonial capital. Situated on the southern tip of the North Island, Wellington and the Hutt Valley were separated from the eastern side of the North Island by the Rimutakas mountain range, the southern part of a much larger range, the Tararua. In the early days of settlement, the Rimutakas range proved a formidable barrier to the transport of agricultural produce and timber from the fertile Wairarapa district to the east. In 1858, Robert Stokes, a Legislative Councillor for Hawkes Bay and editor of the New Zealand Spectator, put forward the idea of a railway through the Rimutakas. Then, it seemed a wildly optimistic idea. Nine years later, in 1867, a public meeting was held in Wellington to consider its feasibility and to form a public committee. The committee urged that a preliminary survey be undertaken. Charles, a supporter of Wellington Superintendent Dr Isaac Featherston, was engaged to 117
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity undertake this work together with a Wairarapa settler, Thomas Kempton. The survey was completed and a report submitted to Dr Featherston in January 1868. However, there was no subsequent action by the Wellington Provincial Government, possibly due to lack of funds. There was also a growing realisation that constructing a railway in this terrain would be a formidable engineering feat. The outlook changed in 1870 following Vogel’s new public works and railways program. Both the National Government’s Ministry of Public Works and the Wellington Provincial Government employed surveyors to carry out surveys over the Rimutakas during 1870 and 1871. Charles was directed by Superintendent William Fitzherbert to undertake the survey on behalf of Wellington province. He completed his survey between May and July 1871. His subsequent report, dated 20 July 1871, was published in the Wellington Independent four days later. It proposed a railway system between Pakuratahi on the Wellington side of the ranges to the settlement of Featherston on the Wairarapa side, with the key feature being a 130-chain (2.6-kilometre) brick-lined tunnel which, he claimed, would cost 85800 pounds: The length of the tunnel as shown, is 130 chains, and the length of line along the route from the Golden Fleece Hotel, Pakuratahi, to Featherston, is eight and three quarters miles [14.1 kilometres]. The distance between the same points, along the main creeks, is nine and a half mile [15.3 kilometres]. The length of the road between the same points is eleven and a half miles [18.5 kilometres].1
However, Charles’s plan had competition from one developed by John Rochfort, an outstanding surveyor contracted by the National Public Works Department. Rochfort’s alternative route was for the line to follow Pakuratahi Gorge through the Rimutakas. Rochfort also had the support of John Carruthers, the colony’s Engineer-in-Chief. After examining the O’Neill plan, Rochfort calculated that his alternative route could save in excess of 22000 pounds, despite being over eight miles thirty-three chains (13.5 kilometres) longer. Charles had an opportunity to press his own plans when, in March 1872, he rode with a party of officials including John Carruthers and the Minister for Public Works on an inspection tour across the route. In the end, John Rochfort’s survey plans won out, 118
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possibly because of the difficulty of constructing the long tunnel proposed by Charles. With surveying completed that year, construction of the Rimutaka railway commenced quickly and was opened for traffic in 1878. The railway, which ultimately extended from Wellington to the town of Masterton in the Wairarapa, became one of the few in the world to adopt a centre rail on the tracks, with special locomotives called ‘Fell Engines’ to run on them. Given the windy and unstable terrain, the line had a history of some tragic derailments. Charles’s proposed route, particularly the tunnel, remains as a colonial railway curiosity although tunnels would ultimately form part of the line. With hindsight, Charles’s recommendation about the need for timber ‘trestle work’ to support construction of the line appeared to have been sound advice, whatever flaws the plan might otherwise have had. With Wellington now settled as New Zealand’s capital, the city and the wider province grew more rapidly, rising to a European population of more than 61000 in 1881. In 1878, the heyday of Charles’s engineering pursuits, the City of Wellington probably had about 19000 residents. There would be many opportunities for a talented professional like Charles to contribute to the development of the city. From 1876, both Charles and his brother John James leased Wellington terraces, the latter in Bolton Street. Charles probably served as Wellington Provincial Engineer from July 1874 until the end of provincial government in November 1876. After then, he made use of this experience to build an entrepreneurial practice in Wellington that would last until 1880. Tramways in Victorian cities had been primarily horse drawn, but during the 1870s some cities were beginning to experiment with steam engines. The quantity of horse manure building up in the streets was becoming a major problem and had to be cleaned up regularly. As early as 1873, Charles had a dream of introducing a major steam tramway system into Wellington, and pursued the venture soon after the New Zealand Parliament passed the Tramways Act in 1872. Together with a contractor with surname Thomas, he gave notice of an application to the Superintendent to build a tramway in the city in July 1873. Under this early plan, the tramway track was to have a gauge of three feet six inches (107 centimetres). The tram was to start from 119
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity opposite the Princes Hotel and then move down Molesworth and Charlotte streets to Lambton Quay. After the Quay, it would pass along Customhouse Street and then follow a route that included Willis Street, Manners Street, Courtenay Place, Taranaki Street, Buckle Street, Sussex Square and along Adelaide Road to the outer city. Neither this early plan nor one developed by Charles in 1875 was implemented. Charles continued to take a strong interest in the development of the City of Wellington. In 1878, he pressed for proper implementation of his town planning legislation, when the National Government proposed to hand over reclaimed land in the inner suburb of Thorndon to Wellington City Corporation. An important relic of Charles’s contribution to the development of Wellington is a map, drawn up in 1879, of the ‘City of Wellington & Town Belt’, published by Lyon and Blair, Steam Lithographers of Wellington. It was presented early that year to the Governor Sir Hercules Robinson. The plan shows the city around Wellington Harbour and the city as it then was, to a radius of 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) to the north. The map included the final city tramway line that Charles and his business partners had constructed a year earlier. The New Zealand Mail described it as a valuable reference document: This map . . . includes about 100 new streets, showing the wonderful progress of Wellington during the last few years; in fact, without this map anyone might be puzzled to know the situation of such streets as Pita Ruastreet, Victoria-avenue, Joseph-street, or Broadway-terrace, &c. The map shows the suburbs of Kilbirnie, Melrose, Vogeltown, Wadestown, and the road to Island Bay, &c, and the new city boundaries as defined by last year’s Act of Parliament, the line of City Tramways, quarter-mile [400-metre] distances from the Post Office . . . 2
One architectural contribution of Charles to Wellington, a remnant of which still remains, can be found in Ngaio Gorge, Kaiwharawhara. By 1878, a new site had to be found where Wellington’s explosives could be stored safely, rather than being carted dangerously through the city to the Mount Cook barracks. The powder magazine complex was constructed in the Kaiwharawhara site between 1879 and 1880, designed by Charles and 120
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built by Frank Oakes of Hutt. The complex started off as two magazines with stone walls, slate roofs and a receiving house. Stables, a coach house and a keeper’s house were built later. This powder magazine, the second known to have been designed by Charles in New Zealand, was not the only architectural project he embarked on during the late 1870s. Sixty kilometres to the north-east of Greymouth, on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, lies the town of Reefton (or originally Reef Town). Named after the rich goldbearing quartz reefs around the surrounding hills, it became the focus of a gold rush with several thousand moving into the town. It soon had its own stock exchange, attracting investors in major gold-crushing companies. At the height of the 1870s boom, Reefton gained the quaint name of ‘Quartzopolis’. Reefton’s mines would in time produce some 67 tonnes of gold between 1870 and 1951. The town would also go down as a New Zealand first in 1888, when engineer Walter Price installed a dynamo in Dawson’s Hotel, making it the first building in the southern hemisphere to be illuminated with electricity. Charles’s contribution to Reefton was to design a timber church for the Catholic parish of Sacred Heart. The parish itself was founded in 1874 and construction of the church took place during 1878 and 1879 at a cost of 2400 pounds.3 The New Zealand Tablet, the Catholic journal set up by Dunedin’s Bishop Moran in 1873, reported positively on the start of the project: The site of the building is most eligible and central and will be the first object that will catch the traveller’s eye, no matter from what direction he arrives in Reefton.4
The focus of Charles’s own worship and possibly much of his Wellington social life was the Church of St Mary in Hill Street, Thorndon. St Mary’s was completed during the late 1860s as an imposing Gothic building complete with buttresses. It would stand until 1898 when it was destroyed by fire after its tower caught alight. At the turn of the century, a new Church of the Sacred Heart was built on its ruins. In January 1880, when St Mary’s was preparing to receive its new organ, Charles was engaged in preparing plans for the extension to its gallery to accommodate the organ and choir.5 121
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity In November 1874, a new young bishop had arrived in the Catholic diocese of Wellington following the death of its first bishop, Philippe Viard. Born in Staffordshire, England, and raised locally in Waimea near Nelson, Francis Redwood was an intelligent and learned young theologian. He had been ordained a priest of the Society of Mary, also known as the Marist Fathers, and served as its Provincial for the diocese as well. This French religious order of priests and religious brothers had grown out of a promise made in 1816 by a group of seminarians and newly ordained priests to found a society in the name of Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ. In 1836, when it was officially approved by Rome, Father Jean-Claude Marie Colin was elected as its first SuperiorGeneral. A year later, an order of religious brothers called the ‘Little Brothers of Mary’, or ‘Marist Brothers’, was established by Father (in the course of time, Saint) Marcellin Champagnat at Lavalla. In January 1838, two Marists accompanied the newly appointed Vicar Apostolic for Western Oceania, Monsignor Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier, later Bishop of Auckland, in setting up a mission station in the far north-west of Auckland province in Hokianga. Pope Gregory XVI sought a new missionary effort in Oceania. The French colonial possessions in the South Pacific, New Caledonia among them, would serve as a base to support that effort. From that time, the Marists, despite harassment by some competing Protestant missionaries, made a substantial contribution to the steady growth of the Catholic Church in the new colony, including a mission to the M¯aori. Redwood’s Wellington diocese totalled 23 districts, among them Wellington, Hutt, Masterton, Napier, New Plymouth, P¯atea, Wanganui, Feilding and Meeanee. It also included the northern portion of the South Island including Nelson, Blenheim and Picton, as well as the west coast settlements of Westport, Greymouth, Reefton, Hokitika and K¯umara. Until 1887, the diocese included Christchurch and the Canterbury district. Reporting back to Rome in 1878, Bishop Redwood stated that the general population within the diocese included 210000 European settlers and 9500 M¯aori. Of the settlers, some 25000 were Catholic, to which he could add 1000 M¯aori. Catholics could only count about one seventh of the population if that; 60 per cent were Anglican. The southern portion of South Island, including Otago and Southland, comprised the diocese of Dunedin, established in 1869. There, 122
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Bishop Moran now presided, conducting his energetic public campaign against a newly emerging secular Education Bill. Auckland diocese, established like Wellington in 1848, had no bishop between 1875 and 1879. Now that Wellington was emerging more clearly as the New Zealand colonial capital, Redwood’s appointment was a vital one for the small but growing Catholic Church in the colony. From one side of the faith divide, Catholic settlers often found it difficult in a social environment where Freemasonry had popular appeal, and anti-popery, Orange Lodge and anti-Fenian campaigns could erupt in the colony. Clashes such as those on Boxing Day 1879 between Irish Hibernians and Orangemen in Christchurch and Timaru were violent, if occasional, realities of colonial life.6 Yet despite the strength and passion of its Protestant missionary effort, there were signs that New Zealand was already emerging as a new secular nation. The impact of the debate between faith and reason that had raged in nineteenth century Europe was now bearing fruit in New Zealand. A new Education Bill passed in November 1877. It had originally been moved by Charles Bowen, MP for Kaiapoi, on the basis that its secular approach was a means of avoiding conflict among Christian denominational teaching. The secular learning environment, now influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, encouraged the view that evolutionary theory could be applied to the development of religion. To the new secular rationalists, all religion was a superstition. Against this new thinking, the Protestants brandished the King James Bible, and the Catholics their Rheims-Douay version together with an approved catechism. Bishop Moran’s campaign, which Charles had supported in Parliament, had not succeeded in persuading New Zealand legislators. The new education legislation also meant that Catholics, like all denominations, would have to pay for their own education system. With even rudimentary Bible teaching excluded from schools, the new education system became even more secular than it might have been. Bishop Redwood appreciated the threat to religious belief when he publicly attacked education based solely on reason. Redwood soon had plans for a Catholic boys school in Boulcott Street, Wellington. In June 1876, in a meeting of Catholics at St Mary’s to welcome the Marist Brothers who would soon staff it, he put the Church’s perspective firmly to the assembled faithful: 123
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Their principles as Catholics were as fixed as the Catholic Church herself, and the system of purely secular education could not be admitted by them, because it was false in its origin and pernicious in its consequences, and had been condemned by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in all parts of the world.7
The second of the two Wellington lay Catholics chosen to address the throng at the 1876 meeting was Charles O’Neill.8 He gave a welcome to the Marist Brothers on behalf of the Irish community, the core of the Wellington Church: He felt sure there were none who would give them a more hearty welcome—‘caed mille f a¯ ilte’ [a hundred thousand welcomes]—than those who hailed from Ireland, a people who always clung fondly round their clergy—their ‘sogart ar¯oon’ [precious priest].9
Charles followed this up by raising the ‘Godless’ education spectre, as he had done in Parliament in 1871. His point on this was that belief in God had to be supported by education, because belief in God underpinned social morality and to strip it away would have disastrous social consequences. Bishop Redwood and the assembled audience would probably have agreed with him wholeheartedly. He did not go so far as to name Freemasonry as responsible for such civil rebellion, although this kind of conspiracy link was made in the Catholic New Zealand Tablet. It is not known whether Bishop Redwood had formally approached Charles to speak on behalf of the people, or whether Charles volunteered his services. Either way, Charles’s presence there must have been of benefit to the Wellington Catholic diocese, given his public preeminence in the city as a former parliamentarian and an esteemed civil engineer. Charles’s public activities would sometimes feature in the Wellington press up until 1880. In October 1878, Charles once again performed the role of speaking on behalf of Wellington Catholics. The occasion was the welcome home of Mother Mary Cecilia Benbow, the Assistant Superioress of the Convent of Mercy in Wellington. Two years previously, she had gone to Europe to bring back sisters who would be willing to serve the cause of religious education for New Zealand girls. Mother Mary Cecilia was 124
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successful, and had now arrived back with Mother Mary Clare and nine other nuns to staff a foundation convent at Hokitika on the west coast of the South Island. Charles’s address was a warm one: It gives us the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to thank you, Rev. Mother Mary Cecilia, for your meritorious work, also you, Rev. Mother Mary Clare, and the nine good sisters who accompanied you, likewise those who preceded you, for your noble and heroic zeal and sacrifices in leaving your dear native land, your homes, friends, kindred, all, everything, for the great and high cause of advancing the glorious interests of religion by education.10
By 1876, Charles was again actively advancing the interests of charity through the St Vincent de Paul Society. In this task, he was following the lead of the Marist priests, who had remembered the challenge of serving the Christ of the Poor. What both also shared was a cultural and historical link to the French city of Lyon, which had been home not only to Marists but to the Society’s intellectual guide, Dr Frédéric Ozanam.
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uring the second half of the nineteenth century, the Marist missionaries spread their Catholic faith across much of the western Pacific. On 28 April 1841, the missionary priest Peter Chanel was clubbed to death with an axe on Futuna Island, and would ultimately become revered as the first saint and martyr in Oceania and the South Pacific. The early trials of the French Marist priests in New Zealand were not as dramatic as in some of the Pacific Islands. However, to minister to the few scattered Irish Catholic settlers and the occasional M¯aori, they endured the problems of language difference, and the hardship of long journeys on foot, crossing rivers and penetrating the bush. There were no grand cathedrals, ornate European vestments or historic shrines to console them. Rather, as French missionaries in a farflung outpost of the British Empire, they could be viewed with suspicion. In August 1860, Father Jean-Baptiste Chataigner and his superior Father Seon arrived in Christchurch, then the headquarters for the Provincial Government of Canterbury. In time, Father Chataigner was known affectionately as ‘the Apostle of Canterbury’. Before departing for Timaru in 1869, he stayed for a decade to serve the Catholic immigrants, mostly Irish, now arriving through the port at Lyttelton Harbour, a few kilometres to the south-east of Christchurch. The vast majority of these were very poor, arriving through the assisted schemes managed by the Canterbury Provincial Government, and later through Premier Vogel’s immigration plan. During the 1870s, Charles’s acquaintance Dr Isaac
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Featherston, serving in Britain as New Zealand’s Agent General, soon opened immigration offices in Dublin and Belfast, opening the way for 25 000 Irish immigrants to come to the colony. Many of these settlers arrived in desperate circumstances; others were sick and incapacitated, unable to work after the long sea voyage. It was possibly the plight of many of these that inspired Father Chataigner to establish a Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society in July 1867 with the aid of a schoolmaster, Edward O’Connor. It met in a schoolroom in Ferry Street (now Ferry Road), Christchurch, headed up by a Mr Hughes as President and O’Connor serving as Vice President and, at times, Secretary. J.G. St J. Baker, a convert from Wesleyan Methodism, also served as Secretary and corresponded with others in the colony interested in the Conference work.1 Among a list of twenty or so of the Conference members can be found a certain ‘C. O’Neill’.2 If this was Charles O’Neill, he might have played some background role in this Conference, although being MP for Otago Goldfields would have restricted any serious involvement. Members sought religious inspiration during their meetings with pious readings, such as The Christian Sanctified, The Precious Blood and Life of Saint Vincent de Paul as well as from the Society’s Manual. Serving a poor community, the Christchurch Conference had to raise its funds for its charity through secret collections, and through ‘entertainment teas’ held every six months. On 19 July, the humble Ferry Road schoolroom was crowded and according to the Lyttelton Times: An excellent tea had been provided, after which the room was cleared and a public meeting took place. Mr Hughes occupied the chair, and gave an outline of the objects of the Society, mentioning what had been effected through its instrumentality. Mr Connor the secretary, read the report, by which it appeared that the Society possessed the nucleus of a good library; that through the exertions of the society several cases of distress had been relieved, and that there was a small balance to its credit . . . the proceedings of the evening were enlivened by some musical selections both vocal and instrumental, well executed by some lady and gentlemen amateurs.3
Because of a ruling by Pope Pius IX of 8 February 1859, women working in association with the Society could belong to a Ladies Society of St 127
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Vincent de Paul.4 This was a separate association with a Cardinal Protector in Rome and with headquarters in Bologna.5 A women’s association of this kind operated in tandem with the Christchurch Conference. They visited charity cases where visits by men might be deemed improper or against the Society’s rule.6 They reported on their own visits to the poor to either the chaplain, Father Chataigner, or the Conference President. The Conference maintained the important principle of not enquiring into the religion of the person in need. On one occasion, they assisted a Protestant ex-minister and his family seeking passage to Melbourne. The Christchurch Conference was probably not aggregated (that is, formally affiliated) with the Society’s headquarters in Paris. The process was little understood at the time. As late as 1882, Charles informed the Society’s President-General, Adolphe Baudon, that he would ‘do what he could to urge the Conference in Christchurch’ to aggregate, but by this time the Christchurch Conference was again in recess.7 Given that it operated within the proper spirit and rule of the Society, it could be considered New Zealand’s first Conference, and the second in Australasia after one established in Melbourne. It lasted until 1874. The departure of Father Chataigner would have been a heavy loss, although the Conference was supported spiritually by Dean Chervier and other Marists. The New Zealand Tablet, reflecting on this in 1925, noted that: When we consider the struggles endured by the early settlers and the many setbacks to progress they endured, it was indeed a great achievement on their part to maintain a society of this nature and also a tribute to their faith, devotion and charity.8
A Christchurch Conference was re-established on 22 June 1875 with Father Henri Belliard as President and William Shanley, the librarian in the earlier Conference, now serving as Vice President.9 It even had its own ‘wardrobe keeper’ in charge of donated clothes. The New Zealand Tablet was positive about its prospects: Although the Society has been in existence but a few weeks, it has not only commenced its good work, but has already made a great headway, and will undoubtedly prove a credit to the Catholics of Christchurch and a blessing to the poor, be they Catholic, Protestant or Jew.10 128
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This revived Conference, meeting regularly in the Christchurch Catholic presbytery, would last until 1880.11 In August 1879, the correspondent of the Tablet reported that the Society was beginning to engage the services of women again: Hitherto the good work has been carried on by men only, but I believe the ladies of the congregation intend (if they have not already done so) forming themselves into a society to see after those delicate cases which men cannot very well enquire into.12
In November 1868, a Catholic layman of Wellington, a certain Mr Wiggins, wrote to the Christchurch Conference Secretary, Mr St J. Baker, seeking information on the Society, and asking for a copy of the St Vincent de Paul Society’s rules. Baker subsequently sent the material but there was no real outcome. Some years later, on 31 May 1875, the Marist priest and pioneer Father John-Baptiste Petitjean chaired a preliminary meeting in a schoolroom in Hill Street, Thorndon, to form ‘a society under the patronage of Saint Vincent de Paul’.13 Father Petitjean, born in 1813 and ordained twenty years later, was then in the last eighteen months of his life. At this meeting, he succeeded in enrolling 25 members with a certain Mr Gardiner accepting the role of President.14 It was clear that the priest was the driving force behind this development, and the new members heavily reliant on his advice: Two cases of distress were brought under the notice of the meeting, which were left to Father Petitjean to be dealt with according to his discretion.15
By 1876, Charles O’Neill had moved to Wellington. No later than September 1877, he assumed the role of President of St Mary’s Conference operating from Wellington Cathedral. The first account of his activities appeared in the New Zealand Tablet in June 1878, by which time the Conference had been running three years. Furthermore, the death of Father Petitjean in September 1876 would have been a serious setback for the fledgling Conference. Whether Charles actively sought the position, or was actively persuaded to take it on, remains unknown. In 1878, there were now 30 active members in all and according to a 129
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity further account in the New Zealand Tablet, it was meeting fortnightly in a comfortable room in the presbytery, ‘ornamented with some beautiful engravings, representing religious scenes’—conspicuous among them one of ‘Saint Vincent de Paul engaged in his great mission of charity’.16 The operations of the Conference were further explained: The Conference is opened with the recital by the President of the prayer, Veni sancte spiritus [Come Holy Spirit] followed by an invocation to Saint Vincent de Paul. The Secretary having read the minutes of the last meeting, the members report the progress of the cases in their care during the interval.
The work of the Conference also included the welfare of an orphan: The Society has at the present time thrown on its hands a little orphan girl of three years old, who is nursed at the Providence under the care of the good Sisters in charge of that estimable institution for a small weekly sum paid for by the Society, until some charitable person shall adopt her.
In the face of the sadness in handling cases of destitution, Charles seemed to encourage a sense of camaraderie among the members: As the aim of the Society, apart from its charitable nature, is to encourage a spirit of Christian good-fellowship among its members, and to make the Conference popular, the members, having disposed of the charitable task, engage in readings and cheerful and instructive conversation for an hour. Many humorous anecdotes are related in this room by the members connected to their various visits to the poor in their out-of-the-way dwellings.
This 1878 account in the New Zealand Tablet provides an insight into how Charles could keep the volunteers committed to the charitable cause, through encouraging fellowship and humour. After a break of perhaps fourteen years, Charles was again serving the Christ of the Poor. He also knew what he must do. He would write back to an old acquaintance in Paris. By 1877, Adolphe Baudon had served in the post of PresidentGeneral for almost 30 years. Baudon was born in Toulouse on 28 March 130
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1819, into a family of Parisian financiers. In 1842, five years before he took charge of the St Vincent de Paul Society as its third PresidentGeneral, he was appointed to the Council of State as Receiver-General in the city of Rouen. He had steered the Society through such upheavals as Minister Persigny’s attempt to seize control in 1861, and the social upheaval that followed in the wake of France’s defeat by Prussia in 1870, including the Paris Commune. He had also actively promoted the Society as an international ‘confederation of benevolence’ or charity, particularly across Europe, and he had travelled to Belgium, Holland and England to nurture its growth. Perhaps the high point of his leadership had been an audience with Pope Pius IX in 1854, only thirteen months after Frédéric Ozanam’s death. In his report to the Pontiff, Baudon pointed to the establishment of 1532 Conferences in the 22 years since the Society’s foundation. France had 889 Conferences, Germany had 160, and Italy 70. The British Isles now had 80, with the first Conference formed in England on 12 February 1844, thanks to the representations of an Englishman, George Wigley, who had known Frédéric Ozanam while a member of the Society in France. It was also helped by the promotion of an English priest, Father Ignatius Spencer, from the same Spencer family as Diana, Princess of Wales. Father Spencer had met with Baudon some years before and subsequently wrote a number of articles on ‘French Charity’ for England’s Catholic newspaper The Tablet. There were Conferences in Egypt and Turkey, and the work was spreading to the Americas. There was even one established in Melbourne, in the Australian colony of Victoria. Globally, by 1853, the Society was assisting 50 000 families with a turnover of 2.5 million francs annually. A visit by Baudon to Dublin in 1856 proved very successful. As a result, Particular Councils were formed in Dublin and Cork and, within another three years, 31 new Conferences were formed across Ireland. The Society in Ireland would prove to be a valuable source of advice to Charles O’Neill when he continued his charitable activities in New South Wales. Charles’s communication with Baudon was received with great pleasure. The text of Baudon’s reply, dated 4 September 1877, was reproduced in the New Zealand Tablet early in 1878: 131
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity I am extremely happy to be able to renew with you the correspondence opened up by you in Glasgow, but too soon broken off; and it is with greatest pleasure that I learn from you that you have founded a Conference of St Vincent de Paul in Wellington. It is the first that has existed in that distant land, and our Council is overjoyed at the happy news of its foundation.17
Baudon continued: Knowing your zeal, I need not recommend to you to make every effort to advance the new Conference conformably to rule—to meet every week, to visit the poor frequently, to celebrate the Feasts of the Society in a suitable manner, to read from time to time the rule as well as the monthly report of our association, of which an English edition is published in Dublin. Write often to us and we shall feel grateful to you.
Baudon made no reference to any other Conference in the Australasian colonies. This suggests that, at least by 1877, no Conference other than the one in Melbourne had yet been aggregated or affiliated with Paris. As for the Melbourne Conference, Baudon wrote in the same letter: ‘Some time ago, a Conference was formed in Melbourne, but we fear it is broken up.’ The Society in Paris had received no news from Melbourne for more than seventeen years. He next appealed to Charles: Could you not, with the assistance of the good Marist Fathers, re-establish it; and found new Conferences in Sydney and the other chief cities of Australia? It is much to be feared that the Masonic lodges are very numerous in those cities. Why should Catholics always allow these lodges to surpass them in zeal and energy?18
Baudon’s own boldness should be noted here. His international confederation of charity, based in Paris, was now considering the welfare of the inhabitants of the Australian colonies—the subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Not surprisingly, the tentacles of Freemasonry seemed to be a consideration in the Society’s operations. Yet Baudon also gave the Freemasons some grudging respect by recognising their efforts in the field of benevolence. 132
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Above: The Glasgow Volunteers 1861–1866, by Thomas Robertson. Captain Charles O’Neill appears in the background. Courtesy Glasgow Museums Collection, Registration 11-13
Right: Detail from The Glasgow Volunteers 1861–1866, showing Charles (arrow).
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Columns of the St Andrew’s Suspension Bridge, Glasgow, designed by Charles O’Neill (1854–55).
The Thames Municipality coat of arms (designed by F.A. Pulleine in 1874): Charles’s celebrated ‘mottled kauri carriage’ is drawn by a locomotive shaped like a coffee pot. Courtesy Graham Stewart Collection, Wellington NZ
Carved kauri and rimu wooden wheelbarrow, engraved with Charles’s name (1869). Auckland War Memorial Museum, through Thames Historical Museum
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State Library of New South Wales. Graphic overlay by Nathan Ahearne
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Bird’s-eye view of The Rocks, Sydney, in Charles’s time, based on 1900 map. Courtesy of the State Reference Library,
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Gravestone of Charles and John O’Neill, first erected 1902, relocated 1961, Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney.
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Photograph of young St Vincent de Paul Society volunteers from Sydney’s Haymarket: Fred Cahill, Thomas Dwyer and Michael Cahill (early 1880s). Grand Charity Concert Programme (August 1882)—concert held in Sydney’s Garden Palace.
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A second letter, also dated 4 September 1877, and signed by Baudon and his Vice President Dangin, announced the aggregation of the Wellington Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society on 3 September.19 It would be the second known aggregated Conference in Australasia. The aggregation letter provided guidance as to the choice of members, the focus on visiting the poor, the need for communication with other Conferences, and respectful relations with the clergy. It also emphasised the necessity of humility, perseverance and resignation in the face of difficulties. Charles must have been proud of the achievement. However, the public announcement of Baudon’s appeal may have also left him in a quandary. Although he knew the Australian colonies well, it also meant setting out on a gruelling mission across the Tasman Sea. Meanwhile, as 1878 dawned, Charles was preparing to see a great professional dream become a reality.
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harles soldiered on with his campaign to bring tramways to New Zealand. In July 1873, he made an application to lay down street tramways within the City of Auckland. Later in October 1875, in a note to Sir George Grey, he endorsed a request by Dewar and Co. to construct a tramway from the Thames to the goldfields. On 25 March 1876, citizens of Wellington read in the New Zealand Gazette of an application to the Wellington province Superintendent to make and use a tramway within the City of Wellington. This time the entrepreneurial promoters were a trio, comprising Charles, accountant Thomas Kennedy MacDonald and, leading the venture, another Wellington civil engineer, John Henderson.1 The proposed route was somewhat different from earlier proposals that Charles had been involved with. The tramway would run from Wellington’s Pipitea Point, where the railway station connected with the Wellington to Masterton railway. From there, the route proceeded along Thorndon and Lambton quays to Willis Street, and then to Manners, Cuba, Ingestre and Vivian streets, Cambridge Terrace Roadway and Sussex Square. From Sussex Square, it would progress along Adelaide Road to nearby Drummond Street. There would then be a branch line operating from Grey Street and finally from Lambton Quay to the east side of Customs House Quay. The innovation was that the tramway would be driven by steam engines rather than horses. It would be a major development for early
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Wellington, with the core of its inhabitants clustered around Te Aro, Willis, Cuba and Aro streets. Down in Wellington Harbour, one could still see M¯aori canoes moored among the steamers and sailing ships. Approval for the venture was given on 29 June, and construction continued for two years at a cost of 40000 pounds. The terminus was at a depot in Adelaide Road on the corner of King Street, which would house six steam engines and fourteen passenger cars. The small steam engines, with names like Zealandia, Hibernia, Florence and Wellington, had been manufactured by the firm of Merriweather and Sons of London, at a cost of 975 pounds each. They were disguised as horsedrawn passenger carriages, their pistons hidden, while coke was used as a fuel to cut down on smoke. The cabbies of the city dreaded them, fearing that their horses would rear up at the sight and sound of these new vehicles chugging their way through Wellington streets. Charles himself had been long aware of the issues, but had been supremely self-confident that it would not cause a problem. The introduction of the Grahamstown to Tararu tramway in the Thames was proof enough for him. He spoke in Parliament on the Tramways Bill in 1872: That was a strong argument against those who had so often spoken against having a railway from Wellington City to the Hutt—who had said that the locomotive would frighten the horses and be the cause of danger and injury.2
Streamers lined Wellington’s streets for the opening on 24 August 1878. The Governor, the Marquis of Normanby, had the pleasure of riding in the Zealandia, the first of five gaily decorated passenger cars, and declared the system open. The city crowd, P¯akeh¯a and M¯aori, gaped in amazement. There were no horses and the carriages could travel at 6 miles (9.6 kilometres) an hour. The Wellington Tramways Company staged an opening luncheon banquet with 200 guests, including the Mayor, politicians and civic dignitaries, the Captain and crew of HMS Nymphe, as well as Charles O’Neill and John Henderson. It was promoted as the first street rail, steam tramway system in the southern hemisphere.3 A few days earlier, however, during a trial with the Mayor, the correspondent of Wellington’s Evening Post had reported some ominous equine behaviour on Wellington’s streets: 135
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity A few of the horses showed slight signs of surprise at the novelty, but only two proved at all obstreperous, one insisting on executing a polka (arranged as a solo for four feet) on the footpath, while the other . . . was equally resolute in performing a war dance in front of the engine and, after passing it, making vicious efforts to rap double knocks on the door of the engine cab with its heels.4
The observant correspondent quickly identified the source of the problem: It was manifest throughout that what startled the horses was not the engine, but the car which most foolishly had been painted a glaring scarlet picked out in gold.
Soon the Wellington cabbies, seeing their business under threat, launched a protest campaign. They obstructed the engines with their carriages up to three abreast in front, and cut across the tracks causing abrupt stoppages. They even petitioned the Governor. Apart from the distraction of the gaudy carriages, Charles and his team had underestimated the impact of the engines in a city system with narrow thoroughfares. Within two years, the Wellington Tramways Company ran into financial difficulty and was sold to a Wellington businessman, E.W. Mills, for 20 000 pounds, half the construction cost. The tramway switched to horse traction and the engines were sold, ultimately spending their days on the Sanson to Foxton railway. To what extent Charles was affected financially by this is unknown, although others headed up the company. He must have invested in it himself and if he had to wear major losses, it would have crippled him financially. However, it did not seem to diminish the technical achievement. The New Zealand Mail, in its report on the opening, observed that: It must have been a proud day for Mr C. O’Neill, C.E., whose efforts to promote this work were recognized by Sir J. Vogel, ‘who termed him the father of tramways of the colony’.5
The remnants of the Wellington tramway system, its tracks, would last until the mid-1960s when they were pulled up to make way for bus routes. 136
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Even before this development, Charles’s financial position had become increasingly precarious. Like many an entrepreneur, he was beginning to overextend himself. His mentor Sir Donald McLean, a wealthy man, had generously loaned Charles some money to ‘overcome certain difficulties’.6 When Sir Donald died in 1877, Charles wrote apologetically to Sir Donald’s son explaining why he had been unable to pay his debts and that he was currently ‘very poor indeed’: I have been singularly unfortunate in business. The railway scheme in which I have taken so prominent a part is slowly going in now. I trust it will be a success soon, for the rails are in Wellington.7
On the bright side, Charles revealed that he had: other business which I now look forward to. I am in hopes to be enabled to pay with gratitude, whereas I hope and ask you now to kindly bear with me until I get on a better business footing.
This other business was the development of a new form of street pavement, called ‘Caithness flagging’. In December 1877, he indicated that it was his intention to lodge a patent for it. Perhaps his business activities picked up a little in 1878, for he could invest a modest 20 pounds in the Golden Point Gold-Mining Company operating near Marlborough. However, to develop the business further, he needed to inject capital. For that reason, he travelled back and forth across the Tasman by steamer, seeking other investors and customers in the Australian colonies. Whether he ever paid back the McLean debt is unknown. He received a boost in 1879, when the flagging won a first-class award of merit at the Sydney International Exhibition, held in Sydney’s Garden Palace between September 1879 and April 1880. This Exhibition emulated the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London. The flagging paved the Exhibition’s western entrance, and was commented on in the press as showing ‘an equality of wear and durability under friction to be found in very few natural paving stones’.8 In July 1880, aldermen of the City of Sydney, accompanied by the then City Architect and Surveyor, G.A. Mansfield, admired it greatly after a sample was laid in Pitt Street. It appeared at the time to have a bright future in Sydney streets, and 137
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity there were reports that a company had been floated to manufacture the flagging stones. Despite this promising start, Charles probably never raised sufficient capital to build the business. Back in New Zealand, he also had disputes with the Borough Council of Wanganui and the Wellington City Corporation over use of his flagging. The outcomes did not go Charles’s way, and he had probably undersold the licence to use his patent. The Wellington City Corporation, for example, paid 250 pounds for the licence issued on 8 April 1878. The whole venture probably came to an end before he decided, either by financial necessity or sheer frustration, not to repay the patent renewal fee in 1881. Nonetheless, Charles became something of a Wellington celebrity. He was a member of the Wellington Philosophical Society, one of the city’s early learned institutions. In March 1879, Charles introduced a deputation from a newly formed Naval Brigade to the then Minister for Defence, seeking enrolment of brigade volunteers. Colonel G. Whitmore, a tough and controversial soldier who had had the distinction of defeating Te Kooti, was pleased and agreed to take the proposal to the Governor. Civil defence was one of Charles’s many interests during his decade in Parliament, further stimulated by membership of the Colonial Defence Select Committee. Charles probably retained close connections with colonial officers and personnel. He also had a close acquaintance with a lawyer and later resident magistrate, Lowther Broad. Lowther, a Catholic convert, was the younger brother of Charles Broad, the Otago Goldfields magistrate and later a community leader active in Anglican Church affairs. Charles met the Broad brothers on his arrival in Otago, as early as 1864. Charles Broad was resident magistrate for Otago Goldfields, while Lowther served as goldfields warden at Queenstown during the 1860s. Lowther later turned up as a manager of the ill-fated McIsaacs’ Extended Gold Mining Company.9 Charles would retain a close friendship with him, even after the former’s departure to Australia. The problem of orphans had grown across the colonies in the wake of the gold rushes and settlement schemes. Many parents had come to untimely deaths, due to arduous sea voyages, accident, disease or perilous pursuits across the new territories. From 1875, there was pressure for the establishment of an orphanage in Nelson. Many years 138
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later, during an 1891 testimonial to Charles in Sydney, Judge Lowther Broad recounted the progress of the orphanage which, by then, housed 200 to 300 children. After some initial difficulties, the establishment was set up as a government institution. Magistrates had the power to send children to the orphanage school, including ‘all the Catholic waifs and strays of the colony’.10 Lowther Broad’s testimonial implied that Charles might have been involved with the welfare of many of these orphans. The year 1880 marked the high point for Charles’s professional career. On 13 January, at a meeting in Great George Street, Westminster, in London, he was unanimously elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was nominated by New Zealand’s Chief Engineer John Carruthers. Carruthers must have been greatly impressed by Charles’s work, despite differences with Charles over the Rimutakas railway route many years before. This added further to Charles’s credentials, which also included membership of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland and Fellowship of the Architectural Institute. The Evening Post briefly noted the achievement: The body is one of the highest class in the professional world of England, and we congratulate our townsman on the recognition that the honour conveys.11
Despite the esteem in which he was held in Wellington, Charles was probably making the decision to move on, returning briefly for the last time in July 1880. On 2 September 1880, Charles wrote to the veteran New Zealand Attorney-General, Frederick Whitaker. In view of his past public office, Charles asked Whitaker for consideration for appointment as an acting or assistant commissioner for Melbourne’s International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, Agricultural and Industrial Products. This International Exhibition was held in the Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens, from September 1880 to the end of April 1881. He planned to stay at the Menzies Hotel, the original Menzies in Bourke Street and a favourite with graziers visiting Melbourne. He penned the letter from Petty’s Family Hotel, Church Hill, in Sydney. Petty’s was, by then, a base for his activities in the Australian colonies. 139
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Part Three THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES (1850–1880)
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Chapter 14 Sacred quest
etween January 1880 and July 1881, Charles made a total of at least nine steamer trips, passing through the ports of Wellington, Sydney and Melbourne. Continually braving rough crossings of the Tasman Sea, his stamina must have been sorely tested. He had not just business in mind. He had decided to take up Baudon’s challenge to bring the St Vincent de Paul Society to the Australian colonies, despite some earlier, unsuccessful attempts at this in Victoria and South Australia in 1873. He had already replied to Baudon from Wellington, and in later correspondence reminded him that:
B
I informed you that I was doing my utmost to accomplish your desires . . . and communicated with the Archbishops of Melbourne and Sydney. Both these good Prelates were most favourable to the establishment of the good Society in their Dioceses.1
In order to establish the organisation and promote it to the Catholic faithful, Charles first had to receive the blessing of their hierarchy. In January 1880, he sought and obtained a personal interview with Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan, Sydney’s second Catholic archbishop. According to Charles, the interview was promising: ‘He received me most kindly and held out the most encouraging of hopes.’2 Charles next corresponded with Archbishop James Goold, Melbourne’s first Catholic bishop, and its archbishop since 1874. 143
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles reported on the outcomes at a general meeting of St Mary’s Conference, Wellington, at the Cathedral presbytery on the evening of 2 March. At that meeting chaired by Bishop Redwood, Charles announced his quest to the assembly. Charles revealed that Archbishop Vaughan ‘at once gave his permission and hearty approval for the establishment of a Conference in New South Wales’.3 Archbishop Goold, in his reply from Melbourne, had stated: that the establishment of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Victoria is most desirable; and should a favorable opportunity offer for securing to this Archdiocese the very great advantages of the Conference referred to, I will, with God’s help, avail myself of it.4
Charles also had a positive response to the establishment of the Society in Auckland when he spoke to Archbishop Steins. He had learned that Bishop Moran in Dunedin would also encourage its formation. Bishop Redwood, rising to loud cheers, added his own words of support: He had always felt a deep interest in the Society, and this night’s proceedings showed him clearly that the members had been most zealous in their endeavours to carry out the true spirit of the Society in all their labours.5
The Bishop, noting the reinvigorated Christchurch Conference, expressed a wish for the establishment of further Conferences in New Zealand. At the time, Charles was aware that the Christchurch Conference had not been formally aggregated, but his time in New Zealand was now growing short. As for St Mary’s Conference in Wellington, it was then well-served by its spiritual adviser, Father John McNamara, who had experience of the Society’s work in London, by a Mr Sheridan as Secretary, and a Mr Duigan as Treasurer. Secretary Sheridan reported that during 1879, St Mary’s Conference had raised 55 pounds 19 shillings 6 pence, and had spent 55 pounds 12 shillings 6 pence on the relief of Wellington’s poor. Practically all had been collected from members’ pockets. Bishop Redwood, possibly with an eye to Charles’s imminent departure, expressed the hope that: 144
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members would persevere in regular attendance at all their weekly meetings, for regular attendance always showed a business-like determination in the working of the Conference which would always be attended with the richest benefit to themselves as well as to the poor under their charge.6
However, as Charles himself would find, the blessings of bishops do not necessarily result in an army of volunteers. In the absence of the kind of background mentoring and, indeed, zealotry of Charles O’Neill, both Christchurch and Wellington Conferences ceased to function for a while after 1880, although the seeds were sown for later years. A slogan appeared at the beginning of the New Zealand Tablet report of the Wellington meeting. It read: The title of the poor to our commiseration is their poverty itself, we are not to enquire to what party or sect they belong.7
Even in the 1880s, it was a radical idea among the Christian churches. In the Victorian age, one could have sympathy for, and give assistance to, the poor within one’s own congregation. However, it was another thing to extend that sympathy and assistance to those who were not, including those without religious belief at all. This ideal of charity ran counter to sectarian pressures and the activities of bigots. The slogan was taken from a ‘St Vincent’s Manual’—that is, a Manual of the St Vincent de Paul Society—and it was clear that the Society in Wellington had access to one. Charles O’Neill certainly had received it, most likely ‘the English version published in Dublin’ referred to by Baudon in his September 1877 letter. It was published in 1877, and possibly sent out later on Baudon’s instructions. It became Charles’s spiritual aide and consolation, and something of a talisman for his sacred quest. Within the inside cover on the right-hand side of the Manual, someone had written an inscription. It was not in Charles’s writing.8 It read: May the lessons of heavenly wisdom contained in this little book comfort, strengthen and guide you in all the vicissitudes of your exile.9
The word ‘vicissitude’ means a change of personal circumstance as a result of the twists and turns of life. Given Charles’s extraordinary life, it 145
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity was already an apt description of his situation. It would become even more so, given the nature of the quest that he was about to undertake. Yet the use of the word ‘exile’ remains a mystery. Did the writer know something about Charles’s personal circumstances? Perhaps it was just a romantic turn of phrase—The Exile of Erin was then a popular Irish ballad. When Charles departed New Zealand permanently in 1880, there was no cloud hanging over his reputation and he was still receiving favourable mention in the Wellington press. One twist in Charles’s situation was the drain on his remaining capital over eighteen months, as he embarked on this quest at his own expense. He had counted on some success with the Caithness flagging venture to either offset this or build a new business in Australia. However, neither materialised, and at journey’s end he would have been practically broke. Another turn was that Charles’s quest to establish the Society in the Australian colonies did not run as smoothly as he had expected. Back in Sydney in May 1880, he received a personal sanction by Archbishop Vaughan to establish the Society. Through the intervention of a Society admirer, Henry Austin, a meeting was called with twelve influential Sydney Catholics, in the presence of the Archbishop himself.10 Charles went to great pains at the meeting to explain the Society, its aims, objectives and the advantages that it would bring to the poor of New South Wales. The outcome of the meeting was not what Charles wanted. Writing back to Baudon, he reported: It was considered wiser or more advisable to delay further proceedings, consequently all action was suspended and the establishment of the Society delayed. I was much disappointed and aggrieved at the result . . . 11
Charles did not elaborate on what went wrong at the meeting. Perhaps the idea of providing charity to all, without enquiring as to belief, was too radical for some. Perhaps it was just a natural conservatism. Charles probably stayed on in Sydney until just after 2 September 1880, when he penned a letter to New Zealand Attorney-General Whitaker seeking employment at the Melbourne Exhibition. His destination was Melbourne itself, at that time and in the wake of the gold rushes, the most populous city in the Australian colonies. Later in his October 1881 report back to Baudon, Charles explained: 146
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Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, and the population of the colony of Victoria is about one million, Melbourne itself having over a quarter of a million people.12
Charles had been to Melbourne several times now, including in 1872 when he had made contacts in the city. During his two terms of Parliament, he had spoken glowingly of the economic progress Victoria had made in the wake of the gold rushes. It was there in Melbourne, as early as 1854, that the first Society Conference in the Australian colonies had been founded by a London-born priest of Irish parents, Father Gerald Ward. Because that Conference had subsequently disappeared, Baudon in Paris had commissioned Charles to rekindle it.
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Chapter 15 Gerald Ward’s legacy
ictoria was proclaimed a separate colony from that of New South Wales in July 1851. A year before its proclamation, on 7 September 1850, Father Gerald Ward had arrived on the 787-tonne Digby at Hobson’s Bay on the western side of the Port Phillip settlement. He was accompanied by a Father Patrick Dunne and 42 other passengers. The two priests had arrived to support the Catholic Mission in Melbourne, headed up by Dr Goold and assisted by pioneer Melbourne priest Father Patrick Geogeghan. The mission was serving an estimated population of 5600 Catholics out of 23100 settlers and a mere 100 surviving indigenous people. Aged 45, short, stout and of a nervous disposition, Father Ward was recruited to join the mission, following pastoral service in the town of Runcorn in Cheshire. Father Ward was hampered in his pastoral service as he had neither the stamina nor the confidence to ride a horse. By April 1851, he had been appointed to the parish of Geelong, serving more than 1500 Catholics. The then parish of Geelong took in a large section of western Victoria including the towns of Colac and Ararat and all the country between Geelong and Queenscliff, on the western side of the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. A few months earlier, in February 1851, gold discoveries (claimed by Edward Hargreaves, but since disputed) were made near Bathurst, New South Wales. In June, it was Victoria’s turn, as Jim Esmond, an Irish miner who had experience in California, announced a successful gold
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claim at Clunes. In August, even bigger finds were found in the Buninyong Ranges, south of Ballarat. The Victorian gold rush had begun, as the able-bodied male populations deserted Melbourne and Geelong for the diggings. Before the end of the year, hundreds of ships arrived in the colony, crammed with fortune seekers. Victoria’s population of more than 77000 in 1851 was swollen by over 94 000 new arrivals in 1852. Between 1851 and 1852, the population of Geelong jumped from just above 8200 to more than 20100 residents. At Geelong, the main port of entry for the goldfields, Father Ward and his assistants found themselves swamped with the demands of the new immigrants. In February 1853, Father Ward was re-assigned duties. Residing at an overcrowded presbytery at St Francis’ Church in Melbourne, he journeyed back and forth by horse and buggy, or by the paddlewheel tugboat Firefly servicing Williamstown. Williamstown was then the poorest district in the colony. Much of his time was spent looking after the spiritual needs of convicts in prison hulks moored off the Gellibrand Point Lighthouse. His health suffered and in October he was posted back to the Melbourne mission stationed at St Francis’. The mission serviced two churches in the city. One of these, St Francis’, was on the corner of Elizabeth and Lonsdale streets. The other, St Patrick’s, occupied the site of what would later become St Patrick’s Cathedral. At the beginning of 1853, despite the best intentions of its Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, the city of Melbourne was a chaotic mess. The influx of immigrants suffered from a desperate shortage of accommodation. On Emerald Hill, south of the Yarra River, a town of tents and huts sprang up, accommodating some 7000 immigrants. Rents and prices of food soared. According to ‘Gold Seeker’, correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald: . . . that a worse regulated, worse governed, worse drained, worse lighted, worse watered town of note is not on the face of the globe . . . nowhere in the southern hemisphere does chaos reign so triumphant as in Melbourne.1
Lawlessness, recklessness and street violence were then common features of Melbourne life. Abandoned and often homeless children roamed the streets in packs. Neglected children became a serious 149
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity problem for the colony—not just the orphans but those who were the unwanted products of short-term relationships and prostitution, or who were illegitimate. As Charles O’Neill would discover much later in the Wellington of the 1870s, care of orphans was a primary concern for colonial charity. During the mid-1840s, private and church charities were set up in Melbourne to alleviate the most distressed cases of poverty. These included the Masonic Lodge, the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, the Wesleyan Strangers’ Friend Society and the Anglican St James’s Dorcas Society. While the new colonial government of Victoria took on responsibility for social welfare, much of the actual work was left to these institutions. The Catholics, through the Friendly Brothers (not related to the St Vincent de Paul Society), also placed vulnerable children in board and lodging. Father Patrick Geogeghan of the Melbourne mission had established the Friendly Brothers in 1845, along the lines of the Friendly Brothers of St Patrick in Ireland, after a paralysed parishioner was dumped outside his door. In 1849, the Friendly Brothers spent 290 pounds and assisted 663 men and 240 women, purchased a hearse and buried ten Catholic paupers. Father Ward had probably become familiar with the activities of the Friendly Brothers during his time at the Melbourne mission. For various reasons, Father Ward thought that another association was needed and had made up his mind to establish a Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society. As he was later to admit, the main reason for doing so was ‘for the protection of male and female orphans’.2 Father Ward was undoubtedly inspired by this through the example of Saint Vincent de Paul in rescuing the abandoned children of Paris. Father Ward’s work with orphans earned him much affection during his remaining ministry, although he would get into intemperate and public arguments with a Presbyterian minister over the custody of two Catholic orphans, daughters of the Sherry family. Father Ward’s important legacy was to preside over the first meeting of a Melbourne Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society on 5 March 1854. On Sunday 30 April, an inauguration ceremony was held at St Francis’ Church, which was reported a few days later:
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ST. FRANCIS ON SUNDAY.—A most imposing spectacle was witnessed in this place of worship on Sunday last, in consequence of the inauguration of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. At 11 o’clock a pontifical high mass was commenced by the Right Reverend Dr Goold, as celebrant, assisted by Dr Fitzpatrick, Dean Slattery and the Rev Mr Stack, officiating as deacon and sub-deacon, and the Rev Mr Ward as master of ceremonies. The Rev Dr Shiel preached the panegyric of the saint, and his discourse was an elaborate and eloquent specimen of pulpit eloquence. After the last gospel, fifteen candidates approached the altar, and kneeling before the bishop were duly received into the order and obtained his Lordship’s benediction. The church was densely crowded, and many were obliged to leave, unable to gain admittance.3
With Father Ward as its President and Mr M. Keogh as Treasurer, the Conference relieved 179 cases and, remarkably for its first year, provided 314 pounds 8 shillings 6 pence worth of assistance. Ward was diligent and an application was made to the Society’s headquarters in Paris for aggregation of the Melbourne Conference. The CouncilGeneral approved it on 2 October 1854. The Conference received a copy of the Society’s Manual in French. What little is known of its existence can be gleaned from a submission in February 1855 to the Victorian colonial government seeking a share of government funds for charitable works. In that submission, the Melbourne ‘Brotherhood’ stated that its activities: comprise sundry works of Charity, but especially the relief of the destitute, in a manner as much as possible, permanently beneficial, and the visitation of poor families. Every opportunity is seized of bearing consolation and instructions to the sick and to prisoners—to children indigent, abandoned or imprisoned—and of procuring religious ministrations to those who stand in the need of them at the hour of death.4
Father Ward saw the Melbourne Conference as a vital support for his work with orphans. In August 1854, he rented a cottage in John Street, Prahran, the first of three cottages forming an orphanage. In late 1854, the need for a more permanent Catholic orphanage became more urgent when a new
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Governor, Sir Charles Hotham, agreed to pass on responsibility to the Anglican community at a site on Emerald Hill. Following representations by the Catholic Vicar-General, the Victorian Government agreed in early 1855 to provide the Catholic community with its own two-acre site on the corner of Cecil and Raglan streets, not far from the Anglican one. Father Ward began raising money for the construction of the orphanage with zeal, and it is more than likely that members of the Melbourne Conference also provided great support. The orphanage building fund had raised 360 pounds by the time he placed an advertisement in The Argus newspaper on 10 July 1855, assuring potential donors that the children would be given: the undivided attention of an approved superintendent and matron . . . towards fitting them, by religious, educational and industrial training, for the pursuits best adapted to them.5
Conference members were present with Father Ward at a High Mass held in a marquee on the orphanage site on Sunday 7 October 1855. The architects, George and Schiedner of Victoria Parade, provided a sketch of the building designed in Italian style to Bishop Goold, after which the Bishop laid the foundation stone using a silver trowel furnished by Society members.6 There was a Latin inscription on the stone, a portion of which, after translation, read: This Building was raised by the pious labours of the Society of St Vincent de Paul under the guidance of a Cathedral Priest of St Francis’ the Rev Gerald A. Ward. May this aforesaid building be a refuge for orphans, a product of the folly of man and the fearful happenings and dangers of a perverse world.7
The event attracted prominent citizens, including the parliamentarian and later Victorian premier, the Hon. John O’Shanassy MLC, and Caroline Chisholm, known for her pioneering work in support of poor immigrant women and unemployed girls. The construction of the orphanage cost 3000 pounds. It was hampered by lack of skilled construction workers and was not ready to accept its first charges until March 1857. An order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy, gained visitation rights there and by early 1858 it housed some 60 orphans. 152
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Father Ward’s declining health contributed to a premature death on 14 January 1858, at the age of 52. Bishop Goold presided over his funeral at St Francis’ Church on 16 January. The procession along Elizabeth Street to Melbourne’s General Cemetery was reported by the Melbourne Morning Herald: The coffin was borne by citizens. Having arrived at the resting place of this truly benevolent ecclesiastic, a circle was formed by the bishop and the clergy, and the last solemn rites, according to the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church were performed by his lordship who during the ceremony manifested strong symptoms of sincere sorrow for the loss of so valuable a priest . . . It was heart-rending to see the poor orphans weeping over the grave of their late benefactor.8
Sydney’s Freeman’s Journal later paid Father Ward this tribute: This pious, zealous and unostentatious priest was noted for his most active benevolence and practice of charity, numerous, unassuming and it may be said, universal. He was endeared to all who knew him, by the kindly sympathy of his generous heart, and the geniality of his disposition, and the fervid anxiety he evinced for the poor of the mission . . . He was a great follower of Saint Vincent de Paul.9
With Father Ward’s death, any further record of the Melbourne Conference disappeared. Perhaps with the establishment of the St Vincent de Paul Orphanage at Emerald Hill, members may have seen no further need to continue. Victoria and Melbourne in particular entered an age of prosperity as they reaped the wealth of the goldfields. Great mansions, public buildings and institutions were being built and, by the 1870s, colonial politicians like Charles O’Neill could speak of Victoria’s bounty and progress. Poverty was not yet a focus in a new land where hardworking settlers could make a fortune. Yet the flame of the Society’s charitable service would be rekindled in Father Ward’s old parish of St Mary’s in Geelong. Some sixteen years later, on 26 June 1874, the Victorian Catholic newspaper, The Advocate, reported: 153
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity That a society for the relief of the indigent Catholic poor of Geelong is urgently required, has been demonstrated by several incidents of recent occurrence in that town. To establish such a society was the object of a meeting of the ladies of the Geelong district, held last Sunday afternoon in St Mary’s School . . . The members of that society devote a large portion of their time to the relief of the destitute poor and the sick. And although it might be supposed that in as prosperous a country like Victoria no necessity for such a society existed, still it was undeniable that amidst our apparent prosperity instances of great poverty were by no means infrequent. It was to meet such cases as these—cases that did not come from within the sphere of the Hospital or the Benevolent Asylum—that the Society was established in Geelong.10
The reported meeting took place on Sunday 21 June, with more than 50 ladies present at the school hall, following an enthusiastic sermon by the local priest Rev. J.L. Hegarty. It was chaired by Archdeacon Slattery who, with the assistance of Fathers Hegarty and Moore, called for a divine blessing on the formation of a branch of the Ladies Society of St Vincent de Paul. A number of ladies were unanimously elected as office holders until July the following year; these included Mrs Burns as President, and Mrs Treacey and Mrs McGonigal as Vice Presidents.11 The ladies had two classes of membership: visiting members who performed the active work, and honorary members who raised funds and goods, including through an Art Union. They had no real support from government authorities. They split up the city of Geelong into districts, each with designated visitors. Within twelve months, they had spent 320 pounds. They kept meticulous records of donations, in quaint Victorian manner, including such items as a ‘Crimean shirt’, ‘one stays and pinafores’, and ‘five hats and a shawl’. To the credit of generations of Geelong women, the St Mary’s Conference became the longest continuing women’s Conference in Australia. It was separate from the male branch of the Society, and there are some questions about whether it operated fully under the required processes. Nonetheless, it operated within the spirit of the Society. The example and success of the Geelong ladies made an impression on Catholic women across rural Victoria. Later, during the 1880s, Ladies Society branches sprang up in Sandhurst (February 1883), Ballarat (May 1884) and Sale (March 1888). With great heart, these Society women 154
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initiated many works of domestic charity to struggling families across rural Victoria. Their offerings included house repairs, regular donations of stamps, boxes of imported tea, loads of wood, fresh meat from the country markets, other grocery items and clothing. Between 1865 and 1876, there was another flicker in the Society’s flame within the Australian colonies. This time it was in the far west, in the city of Perth, first settled in August 1829 and the capital of the colony of Western Australia. In 1870, that colony received its first representative government, a Legislative Council, by which time the colony had grown to a population of more than 24700 including about 6600 Catholics. John Gorman, born of Irish parents in 1821, had arrived in the colony with his family aboard the ship Minden in October 1851. A private in the 50th Regiment, he was ultimately promoted to Sergeant Major, Perth Commandant’s Clerk. John Gorman placed a notice in the Perth Gazette and Western Australian Times on 1 September 1865, announcing the establishment of the Society of St Vincent de Paul on 24 July. He also advertised a meeting on Tuesday 5 September in the Perth Hall of the Catholic Young Men’s Society. The meeting, coinciding with a fundraising tea, raised 13 pounds for charity. Little is known of the Perth Conference’s operations, apart from a remaining report dated December 1865 showing that it raised 44 pounds 15 shillings and gave out 22 pounds 5 shillings 5 pence. The 23 cases it handled during that year included providing dresses to poor girls, boots for a poor boy, and relief on nine occasions for a man and wife and his five children which included: cabbage and onion plants etc. to set in his garden together with a hoe and clothing for the children who were not presentable.12
The Conference had about 270 subscribers and was also involved with supporting local orphanages. This included the establishment of St Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys in Subiaco, where men and women volunteers may have been involved in management of the facility until 1876. John Gorman died on 13 April 1872, and this may have hastened the end of the Conference’s activities by 1876 at the latest. There was no record of its aggregation in Paris. 155
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity In September 1880, by which time Charles O’Neill had arrived in Melbourne, there was no surviving male Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society on the Australian continent. The Ladies Conference at St Mary’s was busy servicing the poor of Geelong, although possibly not operating under the full processes of association. Charles’s eight months in Victoria were a profound disappointment. He won a second order of merit for his Caithness flagging at the Melbourne International Exhibition in Carlton Gardens, but did not get a commissioner’s job. Worse still, his sacred quest had stalled again. As in Sydney a few months before, the locals were not familiar with the Society’s objectives. In his correspondence to Baudon, he reported that he: met with several clergymen and influential gentlemen . . . and did all I could with the full approval of the Lord Archbishop to establish the Society, but I was not successful and I was again grieved at my want of success.13
Yet he still retained faith in his mission, adding: No doubt all of these disappointments and trials are God’s most holy will— and I feel sure that the Society will yet flourish in Melbourne and other cities in Victoria.
Five years later on 15 July 1885, a young Dublin Irishman, Francis Healy, established a Society Conference at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral with the assistance of Dean Thomas Donaghy. Charles’s prediction did come true. However, he would have his own success in New South Wales.
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Part Four NEW SOUTH WALES (1881–1900)
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Chapter 16 Foundation in The Rocks
n October 1881, Charles wrote back to Adolphe Baudon in Paris about his new home city: ‘Sydney is the capital of the Colony of New South Wales, which has a population of 800 000 and Sydney itself contains about 200 000 inhabitants.’1 New South Wales, Britain’s oldest colony on the Australian continent, had also benefited from the discovery of gold, as well as its production of wool and mutton. By 1881, Sydney could mark its ninety-third year since the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson. Thanks to the magnitude of the Victorian gold discoveries, Melbourne had at that time surpassed Sydney in population, but Sydney too had seen its own population double in the first twenty years following the gold rush. The symbol of colonial Sydney’s prosperity and hope was the Garden Palace, where Charles had proudly displayed his Caithness flagging at the International Exhibition two years earlier in 1879. With the coming of the Exhibition, the City of Sydney for the first time presented itself to the world. The Palace lay to the east of the city near Government House in the Domain park, although in 1882 it was destroyed by fire. From the Palace’s ornate dome and towers, a colonial sightseer could gaze back across Sydney Cove to the west—to the old Sydney town of The Rocks. Beyond the masts of sailing clippers, the steam packets and the occasional ferry, the western side of Sydney Cove appeared as a warren of stone or brick buildings and terraces. In the early twentieth century, it would ultimately become the site of the southern approaches to Sydney’s
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Harbour Bridge. In 1880, the district just behind the waterfront housed more than 1000 people, and it was growing rapidly. On the waterfront itself, one could see the bulky Commissariat Store and four-storeyed Sailor’s Home built in 1864 to provide sailors with respectable lodging. Yet respectability was not the reputation which The Rocks had gained throughout the nineteenth century. Here lay wild taverns and disreputable establishments—with names like ‘The Mermaid’, ‘The Three Jolly Sailors’, ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ and ‘The Steam Packet Inn’. Here was ‘Jack Tar’s ruin’, where many a sailor would find himself spiked with adulterated liquor or seduced and later robbed by some of Sydney’s less reputable citizens, male and female. Cheap brothels provided the only female company a sailor could find. While much of the talk about ‘wild whores’ had become exaggerated since convict days, drunkenness could certainly loosen up behaviour. For those in need of more desperate consolation, opium dens could be sought down dank, cobblestoned lanes. For the more pious, a Mariners’ Church opened in 1859. Nathaniel Pidgeon, a Wesleyan preacher and cabinetmaker, had arrived in Sydney in 1841. Until his death in 1881, he led a number of supporters in an outreach which would soon become the Sydney City Mission. One of Pidgeon’s supporters, Thomas Roseby, recounted: One of the horrors that haunt the memories of my boyhood is that of a neighbouring inn, whose proprietor suddenly fell dead when serving at the bar; the drinking went on and at last the tipsy revellers laid bets with one another as to whether ‘the old man’ was really dead.2
Benjamin Short, an insurance canvasser for the Australian Mutual Provident Society, arrived in Sydney with his family in 1860. Short provided the dynamism and vision that helped establish the Mission in 1862 with the assistance of clerical and lay leaders from Sydney’s Protestant churches. The church authorities of the Victorian era continued to promote virtue and evangelical conversions throughout the nineteenth century. However, they seemed to have little impact on The Rocks and its wild larrikin culture of knockabout, bawdy men and women. Yet the district also provided a first step up for those struggling to establish a business or trade in a new country. Nestled among the shabby terrace houses and converted warehouses providing accommodation for 160
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dockside labourers, one could also find the mansion of a rich sea merchant or trader. Georgian columns and wrought iron balconies could be found on the ‘Snob Hill’ of Lower Fort Street. The gateway to the Australian colonies, it was the first home of many new immigrants, European and Asian. Here, too, were the establishments of many Chinese merchants winning respect for both their business acumen and their civic contribution. To the east of George Street North were the docks of Circular Quay. Moving to the west and running roughly in parallel with George Street, north to south, lay Harrington, Cambridge, Gloucester, Cumberland, Princes and Upper Fort streets. Upper Fort Street ran past the Sydney Observatory. The Rocks was intersected by Argyle Street including the Argyle Cut. The Cut was a thoroughfare, chiselled by convicts through sandstone, to allow passage right through from Circular Quay. Then, one could see and hear the clatter of cartage, as carriage horses hauled their burdens up from the Quay. The Cut passed under three bridges up to Observatory Hill and then to Argyle Place and Millers Point on the western side. From Argyle Place, one could travel north up Lower Fort Street to Dawes Point on the harbourside. On the southern end of The Rocks, the main east to west intersections were located at Essex Street and, to the south, Grosvenor Street. Housing at The Rocks was shocking even by the standards of the day. The experience of crowded accommodation must have reminded Charles of the conditions he had left behind in Glasgow decades before. Squalor and lack of sanitation were the hazards. According to government official William Stanley Jevons: Nowhere have I seen such a retreat for filth and vice as the Rocks of Sydney. Few places could be more healthily and delightfully situated but nowhere are the country and the beauty of nature so painfully contrasted with the misery and deformity which lie to the charge of man.3
In The Rocks’ more hideous corners, human excrement would pile up, while sewage could find its way into the household water supply. Families would cross narrow planks across open sewers. In back lanes dominated by lines of washing, mobs of grubby children played in the gutters, crowded out of their cramped hovels. 161
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity It was against this extraordinary backdrop that ‘Captain’ Charles O’Neill was to support ‘a large army of poor retainers’, and command his own little battalion helping Sydney’s colonial battlers. For Charles, the contrast between vice and virtue, wealth and poverty in this place must have fed his convictions. While carrying the airs and graces of a Victorian gentleman, Charles, with his greying beard, heavy suits and an occasional rosette in his lapel, would not have appeared out of place. Perhaps his Celtic manner—a curious mixture of Irish romanticism and Scotch practicality—combined with a certain air of authority and a burly frame awed the locals. As his reputation for visiting and helping the more desperate locals grew, he was probably regarded with affection. Without strength of character, he would not have lasted long in such a place. But then, for a man who had spent much of his youth visiting the worst of the Glasgow slums, The Rocks probably held little foreboding for him. Nor would he be alone in his charitable quest. On the northern side of Grosvenor Street, flanked by Cumberland and Harrington streets, stands the stone church of St Patrick’s, Church Hill. Its foundation stone was laid in 1840 and it was officially opened in 1848. On both these occasions, it was publicly stated that Father Jeremiah O’Flynn, Australia’s first free Catholic priest, had, before his deportation by Governor Macquarie in 1818, left the consecrated wafer of the Catholic Eucharist (to devout Catholics, the actual body of Christ) in the home of an Irish ex-convict, William Davis, in Grosvenor Street. Davis much later donated the land on which St Patrick’s would stand. The actual story, clouded by oral tradition and pious suggestion, was probably a little more complicated. There is evidence that the Eucharist was left by O’Flynn in the house of another ex-convict, Jack Dempsey, in Kent Street, Sydney. It is also possible that the Eucharist might have been moved from one to the other location. To a young French Marist priest, Father Peter Piquet, born in 1852 in Lyons, and only a year in the colony in 1881, such a place was indeed hallowed ground for that reason. It was here also that Archdeacon John McEncroe, its first parish priest, had helped establish early Catholic newspapers in Australia. This activity culminated in the Freeman’s Journal which started in 1849 and would last for nearly a century. 162
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The Marists had taken charge of St Patrick’s in 1868 with McEncroe’s death, beginning with parish priest Father Joseph Monnier. In the early years, their position had been tenuous. Sydney’s first Catholic Archbishop Polding, an English Benedictine and Vaughan’s predecessor, provided at best lukewarm support. Being a small parish, there were arguments about its continuation, including the viability of St Bridget’s Church-School—since 1835, Australia’s oldest Catholic Church, located in Kent Street near Argyle Square. There were also disagreements over the sale and disbursement of church properties. More significantly, the district was a very tough one and many parishioners of The Rocks and Millers Point were not active churchgoers. However, by 1880, the Marists had established a more solid foothold in the parish. St Patrick’s became a haven of devotion for many Irish Catholic immigrants. It impressed them with its ornate altar, stained glass windows, statuary, candlesticks, its organ made in London by Gray and Davidson, and its special devotions to Mary Mother of Jesus Christ, Saint Joseph and the other Catholic saints. It would also become Charles’s own spiritual home for the remaining nineteen years of his life. Because of the Marist presence, it retained a distinctly French and partly international flavour—something that might have also appealed to Charles. In 1881, its parish priest was Father Charles Heuzé. Father Heuzé had been a secular priest who had ministered at the siege of Vicksburg during the American Civil War. By then, his health was very poor. However, three new priests, soon to be known affectionately as the ‘French Shamrocks’, had arrived: Father Pierre Le Rennetel in 1879, and Father Piquet and Father Augustin Ginisty in 1881. Together with another Marist, Father Coué, they would play an important role in Charles’s sacred quest, by referring desperate locals to the newly formed Society. ‘Father O’Rennetel’, as he was dubbed by parishioners, was of Breton birth but educated in Ireland, and was warm, intelligent and witty. Piquet, who would ultimately become Charles’s spiritual mentor, was popular and practised poverty and piety with zeal, although such traits would later get him into trouble with church authorities. The ‘French Shamrocks’ clearly had an interest in the Society’s work. Poverty was a way of life for most residents of The Rocks. Such was their reputation that they could move around the district, unharmed even by the razor and larrikin gangs who attacked and robbed those walking alone 163
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity after dark. Le Rennetel and Piquet, with their French accents, priestly garb and thick beards, could probably unnerve a wild colonial Sydney tough. Some of that reputation would soon rub off onto Charles himself. Anecdotal stories about Piquet’s ministry would grow, like his beard, as the years progressed. He was received with reverence by the local Chinese and was once escorted to a low attic on the top of an opium den in a lane in the Chinese quarter known as ‘Suez Canal’, later to become Harrington Lane. Here, with the encouragement of her companions, a dying Chinese woman received from Piquet the consolations of the last rites. ‘Suez Canal’ had a filthy and dangerous reputation—a place where garbage and slops drained down to the Quay and where bodily attacks were commonplace. Then there was the story of the ‘miracle of the sovereign’ apparently revealed by Piquet around the table of his priestly community. While out on a sick call, he was approached by an elderly derelict for money so he could buy some food. Piquet recounted that he knew that he did not have anything on him, but continued: ‘He persisted so much, though, that, to please him, I put my hand into my trousers pocket and was amazed to find a sovereign there! Surely that is miraculous!’ Le Rennetel is said to have replied: ‘Miraculous! I should think not. I looked for my trousers all the morning and now know why I couldn’t find them.’ The old derelict got the sovereign, but Piquet spent the rest of his life trying to deny the incident. The ‘French Shamrocks’ also gained a reputation as approachable in the confessional, probably because of their appreciation of the more earthy desires of human nature. This was something lacking in many Irish priests with their harsher training. In this most cosmopolitan corner of colonial Sydney with its rough taverns and brothels, having a ‘French priest’ hear one’s confession became popular. The Marist Fathers were not the only Catholic religious order making an impact on the lives of the locals. The Sisters of Mercy had opened a school under the St Patrick’s crypt in 1866. In 1875, they swapped their Harrington Street accommodation, a shoddy double-storey cottage dubbed by Father Monnier as ‘the most contemptible convent in Australia’, for more acceptable accommodation on the corner of Grosvenor and Harrington streets. The Sisters of Mercy soon constructed a new convent on the site and operated a Mater Misericordia 164
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home nearby in the parish. The Marist priests moved into the dilapidated cottage until new premises were built next door by Father Le Rennetel in 1889. By April 1872, the Marist Brothers had opened a school and monastery in Harrington Street. In June 1880, yet another religious order had arrived in the district. The Sisters of St Joseph, founded by Mother Mary MacKillop (ultimately Blessed Mary MacKillop and most likely Australia’s first saint), began operating a girls’ school at the original church school of 1835 at St Bridget’s. They also operated one for boys at the St Bridget’s Hall, erected by Father Monnier in 1872, further south down Kent Street. In 1881, the Sisters of St Joseph acquired ‘Cheshunt House’ for a new convent, located at 3 Cumberland Street and with a second frontage on Lower Fort Street. The property also served as a ‘providence’, with the functions of a nursing home for old and infirm women, a refuge and a girls’ orphanage. On the evening of Sunday 24 July 1881, as light shone through the panes of the street-level windows with their ramshackle louvre shutters, a motley group of local residents knocked at the door of St Patrick’s presbytery in Harrington Street. Given the numbers present, they probably decided to move down to a schoolroom under the church. None were prominent citizens. They were mostly poor, yet a number had some commercial skills and held city jobs. They were all acutely aware of the plight of their desperate neighbours, in an age when only the pittance of charity could help. Joseph J. Spruson, an assistant registrar of copyright from Princes Street, and Jacques (James) Carroll, a land agent with lodgings at Wentworth House, Church Hill, took on the respective roles of Secretary and Treasurer of what would become the St Patrick’s Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society. Michael Fay, a customs officer from Kent Street, would become its Vice President. John Casey, a ‘poor sacristan’ given a note of commendation by the Conference in 1883 for the sake of a pilgrimage to the ‘Holy Places’, was a foundation member, as was Daniel Spillane, a house agent. In 1894, Spillane shared accommodation at 125 Harrington Street with William (Bill) J. Coogan, a draper. Whether or not Coogan was among the very first, both he and Spillane would later take on important leadership positions at St Patrick’s. One happy sign was the attraction of the movement to local community figures. Bartholomew Higgins, a local 165
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity police sergeant, and Patrick Monaghan, a storeman, may have both joined in 1881. Those who did attend on the evening of 24 July, or any subsequent meetings, would have been impressed by the formidable presence of Charles O’Neill. In reality, he was a fallen colossus, a man who had probably spent his remaining capital on this extraordinary quest and would now have to rely on independent contract work to pay his bills. However, the locals of St Patrick’s must have been impressed with his bearing and knowledge of the world. Charles had probably already briefed the Marists on this undertaking. According to Father Piquet: Being a French association it was obvious that Brother O’Neill addressed himself to the then French Priests of St Patrick’s viz. Fr Heuzé SM, Fr Le Rennetel SM, Fr Coué SM and myself, and without any formal claim to priority, which after all is but a trifle . . .4
Father Heuzé would become the first spiritual adviser to St Patrick’s Conference. Following Father Heuzé’s death a few years later, Father Piquet succeeded him in this role, serving as chaplain for more than half a century. The guidance that the Marist Fathers offered the Society was invaluable in nurturing the Society’s spiritual growth during the early decades of its formation in New South Wales. There was a reciprocal benefit for them, too, in having a practical arm of charity in the district. The foundation list of members of the first Conference and therefore the Society in New South Wales—excluding Father Charles Heuzé SM—certainly included Charles O’Neill (President), Michael Fay (Vice President), Joseph Spruson (Secretary), Daniel Spillane and John Casey. The names of the other nine of the fourteen enrolled as members at a follow-up meeting on Sunday evening 31 July 1881 are unknown. Based on a list for 1885, other possible foundation members could have included any one of Denis Gaynor, Francis McDermott, John Leavey, A. McGluichey, George Morrisson, J.J. Callinan, Charles McGrath, Bartholomew Higgins, Thomas Monaghan, Patrick Monaghan, William J. Coogan, Patrick Baptist, James P. Field, John Sheehan, James Murphy and William Barrett. There were nineteen members in all by St Patrick’s first anniversary. They were issued with membership cards entitled ‘For 166
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the Poor’ signed by Charles, complete with the slogan ‘we are not to enquire to what party or sect they belong’. Given the nature of The Rocks district, it would be a gruelling test for every volunteer. Some would resign within a few years, although a few would also return as their personal circumstances permitted. Survival in such a place also hinged on charismatic leadership of an enduring quality. A report of the outcome of the meeting published in the Freeman’s Journal on 30 July gave little indication of what that might be, and simply read: A preliminary meeting of gentlemen interested in the formation of a branch of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in this city was held on Sunday evening in St. Patrick’s Presbytery. The objects of the Society were fully explained, and a committee formed to bring about the establishment of a Branch here.5
Charles, from his temporary lodgings in Tasman House, 1 Grosvenor Terrace, excitedly penned a letter to Archbishop Vaughan the day after the meeting: I have the great pleasure and honour to inform Your Grace, that yesterday the 24 Inst. [Sunday within the Octave of the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul], a meeting of Catholics interested in the establishment of a Conference of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, was held in St Patrick’s school room. The Rev Father Heuzé SM in the Chair, after being introduced to the meeting by the Rev Chairman, I explained the objects, aim and end of the society, and that I had been requested by the President-General (M. Baudon) in Paris, to endeavour to establish the good society in Australia, and had received from Your Grace, the best and wisest consent, for the formation of the Society in Sydney.6
Charles, in his letter, informed the Archbishop that ‘eleven gentlemen, practical Catholics’ had enrolled themselves as active members and added, ‘I believe more will be enrolled at the next meeting on Sunday 31 Inst’. They also had some funds at their disposal; a woman had given Father Heuzé a donation of 1 pound, while several gentlemen present had subscribed 7 pounds 5 shillings. 167
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles now sought Archbishop Vaughan’s formal approval: to give the Society of St Vincent de Paul your formal approval for the establishment in New South Wales, and your blessing to the present members and to all other future members, and to all benefactors of the Society.
Two days later, on 27 July 1881, Charles received the reply he wanted from Vaughan: I am very glad of this; and hereby approve of the establishment of the society in the Archdiocese of Sydney; giving my Best Blessing for this holy work, and all who may join in it.7
Charles must have been overjoyed and relieved. His quest had been acknowledged by the Archbishop as nothing less than a ‘holy work’, and he had at last regained a foothold for the Society on the Australian subcontinent. Vaughan also had further good news for Charles, finishing off his letter by adding: I should be very glad if you would call on the V. Rev. Dean Sheridan, my Vicar-General, as he too, is anxious to promote the spread of the Society. I have told him that I would ask you to do so.
The Archbishop’s own hand might have also been at work here, particularly after the embarrassing failure to initiate firm support for Charles’s venture a year earlier.
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side from his cathedral duties, Dean John Sheridan was also the parish priest of St Francis de Sale’s church in the Haymarket, well to the south of The Rocks. Later better known as St Francis’ Haymarket, it served that part of the city now dominated by Sydney’s Central Railway Station. At night the streets were poorly lit, the gloom being only relieved by the occasional lamplight. Describing the district in the 1870s from boyhood recollection, a Society pioneer Thomas Dwyer recorded that it was:
A
one of the poorest in Sydney, but the residents were as a rule, a very decent lot, composed principally of respectable, hardworking people. But in later years, however, a most undesirable class came to reside in many parts of the district.1
Despite its rowdiness, it was a cut above The Rocks. The noisy and colourful Haymarket included three long tin sheds making up the original ‘Paddy’s Markets’, as well as numerous breweries. On Saturday nights, young colonial Sydneysiders would seek out a romantic rendezvous. They would be surrounded by the raucous calls of the stallholders and din of that popular nineteenth century street instrument, the ‘hurdy-gurdy’. Dean Sheridan’s flock would have to contend with half a dozen pubs in the immediate vicinity of the church front in Campbell Street. Hard drinking started as soon as the pub doors opened. It was not 169
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity surprising that Sheridan himself had become the leading promoter of the local temperance movement. One of Sheridan’s parishioners, Mr M. Murphy, owned a pub himself—the Albion Hotel, on the corner of Sydney’s Campbell and Elizabeth streets. By coincidence, on the morning of that same Sunday when St Patrick’s Conference first convened up at Church Hill, Murphy had encouraged fourteen other men to join him in the hotel parlour to discuss the possibility of forming a Society Conference. At the gathering, they collected 9 shillings 9 pence for the local poor. Among the fourteen were three friends and young men about town, Fred Cahill, Michael Cahill (no relation) and that same Thomas Dwyer who would later record his recollections of Sydney’s Haymarket. Dwyer, a teacher, carried a small brown laminated school exercise book, the front of which contained examination results of first and second classes at a Certified Denominational Roman Catholic School in Gulgong, New South Wales. During the gathering, Dwyer began to record the minutes for what would very soon become St Francis’ Conference, Haymarket. For almost a century, probably around inner Sydney pubs, some would argue that St Francis’, not St Patrick’s, was the first Conference in New South Wales. It was of course the spirit of such things, not the timing, that really mattered. In any case, Murphy’s pub gathering was only a preliminary meeting with no officers elected and no official sanction, critical in those times, by church authorities. The evening meeting at St Patrick’s might also have been preliminary in nature, but it did elect members to positions and, most importantly, within three days it had the sanction of the Archbishop. Fred Cahill was deputised to ask Dean Sheridan for a hall to hold the next meeting of the new society. The core of the St Francis’ Conference met again on Friday 29 July 1881. At this Friday night meeting, two days after the Archbishop had sanctioned the formation of St Patrick’s Conference, Sheridan opened the proceedings by referring to St Francis’ as ‘the proposed Society’ and expressed the pleasure of the Archbishop in the undertaking. Fred Cahill then mentioned that he had been to see Charles O’Neill: the gentleman who was the means of first introducing the matter in this Colony, and was happy to inform the meeting that that gentleman expressed 170
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his readiness not only to assist the movement by every means in his power but also to bring about the affiliation of this branch with that of Paris.2
At this Friday meeting, Fred Cahill was appointed President, P. Dignam Vice President, Thomas Dwyer Secretary, and T. Moran and J. Brady as joint Treasurers. They agreed to meet with Charles O’Neill the following Monday. As for Mr Murphy, it appears that he preferred to remain an honorary rather than an active member, but he agreed to subscribe 1 pound a year. Mr Brady began work on a poor box, a model of which Dwyer lovingly sketched in his exercise book. Charles duly appeared before the young men on Monday 1 August, with Sheridan again in the chair. Charles was once again in his orator’s mode and he explained that: He could bear witness to the benefits it had conferred on the poor and needy both in a material and spiritual way.3
Furthermore, he added: It appeared to be an inspiration from Divine Providence that caused them to form this society here in Sydney and the most wonderful part of it was that they in St Patrick’s had actually formed a similar society on the same day. In this he considered that God had shown his great concern for the poor in Sydney. He ventured to predict that although at present the numbers were few there was a great future for the society.
The meeting agreed that the Conference be called ‘the Saint Francis Branch of the St Vincent de Paul Society’. It would meet every Friday evening at eight o’clock. For Charles, it would be another sign of divine favour on his quest. He now had committed young followers like the Cahills and Dwyer to follow him in a war against poverty in the colony. Dwyer, a young ‘true believer’, would soon proudly prepare Society addresses with Charles’s approval.4 In his Manual, Charles later listed under ‘Dates of Establishment of Conference and Aggregration Dates’: 1. St Patrick’s 1881 24 July 2. St Francis’ 1 August. 171
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The actual date for St Francis’ Conference foundation should perhaps have been 29 July, but to Charles, acknowledged now as the overall leader of the Sydney movement, that is how it all appeared. The young men at Haymarket were enthusiastic, printing a thousand slips setting out the work of the Society and distributing them at church doors. In order to help their local battlers in colonial Sydney, the fresh volunteers of St Patrick’s Church Hill and St Francis’ Haymarket needed to raise a steady stream of donated funds. Some would be donated by members in secret collections at their weekly meetings. Another way was through the boxes at the entrance to churches, inscribed ‘FOR THE POOR’. These poor boxes stood like sentinels, beckoning parishioners and the passing public, children included, to drop coins and hopefully notes through the slots. At a meeting of the Haymarket Conference on 19 August, Charles moved a vote of thanks to Mr Brady for completing the poor box for St Francis’, although some thought that the box was placed too high for children to drop in their coins. At St Patrick’s on the evening of 18 September, Father Heuzé appealed to his parishioners to ‘deposit their alms in the Society’s Poor Boxes at the Church doors’.5 At Haymarket, honorary members and benefactors, men and women, would make monthly subscriptions—usually a shilling a month. Members used wardrobe presses at the back of the church hall to store donated clothing. Some early case records of St Francis’ Haymarket still remain. The cases included a 36-year-old man from Penrith with an injured leg who needing lodging before going to an infirmary; a bankclerk from Belfast who needed a 1-pound ticket to Melbourne; and clothing, books and groceries worth 1 pound 16 shillings 6 pence for a woman and her son living in a city residence called ‘Hancock’s Tower’. Like at St Patrick’s, St Francis’ volunteers were soon to discover the greatest need of the poor in colonial Sydney—money for rent. The influx of new immigrants to New South Wales following the boom years had led to a chronic shortage of housing. Working families in particular experienced cramming into slums and terraces as the demand for inner city accommodation grew. In an age before modern city transport, workers had no choice but to live close to their place of work. The cramming was such that even young children would have to be put 172
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outside on mats in the street during the day. Bad enough as it was in the Haymarket district, it was much worse in places like The Rocks. There, up to seven or eight people could live in one small house, often sharing unhygienic toilets and poor washing facilities. As warehouses were converted into cheap lodgings, absentee landlords seemed to care little but to squeeze money out of the new arrivals. There were different classes of accommodation dating from the earliest colonial times. ‘Boardings’ usually meant comfortable rooms with reasonable meals provided for short-term visitors, such as sea captains, merchants and better-off overseas visitors. ‘Lodgings’ were for long-term tenants, often the only accommodation that city workers and their families could access. Some lodgings were reasonable for the period, offering clean beds with linen for a price. Most were not. The world of lodging houses and residentials, including the squalor of decaying, stale, smelly rooms, would ultimately become Charles’s own. Up to one-fifth of the adult population of Sydney lived in lodgings and boarding houses, and there were hundreds clustered around the main thoroughfares of The Rocks. Underneath the church in the comparatively spacious hall, or undercroft, at St Patrick’s Church Hill, ‘Captain’ Charles presided at his weekly meetings around a polished, round, red cedar table. Its thick central pedestal was supported by a base complete with legs carved to resemble the claws of some unknown beast.6 It was a formidable prop to the sharing of colonial Sydney’s most desperate stories. The house agent Daniel Spillane must have been familiar with the worse cases of rough treatment and eviction. Charles, as he opened his little Manual, had, however, struck a problem. This was adapting European charitable practices to the needs of Australian colonial society. The rules of the Society, developed in Paris, strongly disapproved of providing money directly to the poor. Instead the Manual contained a quaint, although in this situation useless, piece of advice: For one farthing, the poor can have a footwarmer filled, which if properly conducted, will last from 8 in the morning till 10 at night . . . They reserve what wood may be provided by the Bureau de Bienfaisance and other committees of charity to cook their soup and warm their food.7 173
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity On 3 October 1881, as he finalised the aggregation papers for St Patrick’s and St Francis’ Conferences, Charles wrote back to Paris pleading for approval to give money as well as food: May I say generally in Australia, provisions are much more easily obtainable by the Poor than can be obtained in Europe, while houses or lodgings are expensive here in Sydney—hence it has been found necessary to give relief in money with due precautions—for payments of house rents and lodgings—especially to recipients who could easily obtain sufficient food.8
On 29 November 1881, Adolpe Baudon replied, giving qualified approval: I comprehend the reasons that have led to our brothers to accord charity in money for payment of rent; but it is very desirable that charity of that nature should be exceptional, and that the poor should know that the customs and rule of our Society are not to give money except in very rare cases.9
By then, the Haymarket Conference was actively providing assistance to needy lodgers. In October, they had arranged to pay Mrs Brown, a lodging-house keeper, 2 shillings and 6 pence per day for all lodgers sent ‘except in the case where the person required more than a week’s lodgings when the charge was to be 15 shillings a week’.10 Charles, in his report back to Paris for the year 1881, assured the Society that St Patrick’s Conference was: fully alive to your constant expression of the danger of giving any money relief, and is now endeavouring to arrange that as little as possible relief in money will be given in future.11
Later in November 1884, Baudon clarified the issue of paying the rents for Sydney’s poor: . . . in general our Conferences abstain from paying this heavy expense, but our members do not enforce this except in exceptional cases of misery.12
As for loans to the poor, the rules could be flexible on this too: 174
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A Conference would soon be ruined if it were to lend to the poor, but a certain amount might be lent to an intelligent man to put him in the way of honestly gaining a living.
However, the constraints on providing money for rent must have been relaxed due to the great demand. At St Patrick’s, ‘allowances’ began to be provided to individuals and families throughout The Rocks, almost certainly for payment of rent and usually at the rate of 2 shillings and 6 pence. Residents in Upper Fort, Prince, Cumberland, Gloucester, Harrington, Essex and Kent streets, Caraher’s and Gas lanes, and establishments such as the Model Lodging House ended up on the St Patrick’s casebook. Some, poignantly, had no address at all. Allowances were also paid to destitute inmates, probably with serious physical or other incapacity, on their way to Parramatta and Liverpool asylums or hospitals.13 In his October 1881 letter to Baudon, Charles was pleased to announce that two more Conferences had been formed, in addition to those of St Patrick’s and St Francis’. On 28 August, a meeting at St Mary’s Cathedral schoolroom chaired by the Rev. M.H. Ryan had resulted in the establishment of a Conference at St Mary’s Cathedral. Its first President, William J. Cracknell of Palmer Street, Woolloomooloo, would become one of Charles’s key associates in building up the charity in the city. On the evening of Sunday 11 September, with Dean O’Brien in the chair, another Conference was formed in the schoolroom of St Benedict’s Broadway in front of 250 people. The meeting elected John Bridge as President. In addition to the enrolment of male members, 25 women later gave their names as benefactors for the Broadway Conference. On both occasions, Charles addressed the gatherings, explaining the St Vincent de Paul Society’s objects and benefits. Within the space of two months, Charles had a platform of four Conferences serving the city’s poor. He added the two new Conference names under the list in his Manual before drawing a line marked with the year 1881. St Patrick’s and St Francis’ Conferences were aggregated with Paris on 21 November 1881, and St Mary’s and St Benedict’s on 3 February 1882. At this point, Charles was guided by advice from Baudon in Paris: It is important at the beginning to form a good nucleus, and to penetrate the little group with the true spirit of the Society, which is easier to accomplish 175
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity when the Conference is still small in numbers [than] when it appears solidly established, and thus attract to its bosom new members, who, on entering, will naturally become animated with its spirit.14
In 1882, the number of active members declined slightly. One reason may have been that volunteers had to commit to weekly meetings and visits to some of Sydney’s worst hovels and slums. By the end of the first three years of the Society’s operations in Sydney, membership had reached 61, with twelve honorary members. In total, they had helped 712 people by the end of 1881, rising to 4893 cases up until 31 December 1883. St Patrick’s seemed to have the greatest demand with more than 800 cases each year. Between 1881 and 1883 they raised more than 1004 pounds 2 shillings 6 pence and had spent 978 pounds 15 shillings 10 pence on Sydney’s poor. Nothing was hoarded. Such sums may appear modest by contemporary standards. However, a sum of 3 shillings could pay the weekly rent for a family, while 1 pound could pay for steamship fare from Sydney to Melbourne by steerage. Threepence halfpenny could buy a 2-pound (900-gram) loaf of bread, 6 pence a 14-pound (6.5-kilogram) sack of potatoes, 6 pence halfpenny a pound (450 grams) of cheese, and 24 pence a pound (450 grams) of tea.15 To inform the public about the objectives of the Society’s work, Charles placed Society news and information in Sydney’s Catholic newspapers, including both the Freeman’s Journal and The Express. Among his new followers, Charles encouraged what would now be called a sense of group identity or bonding. The symbol of this was a small white rosette, later with a blue trim, with a small crucifix pinned at the centre. The person who prepared them was Charles’s younger sister Maria Gordon O’Neill who, after following Charles to New Zealand, joined him in Sydney soon after his arrival. Little is known of her, other than that she lived in Flagstaff Cottage, Birchgrove Road, Balmain, had a strong devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and that she sang at church services. Aged only 42, she died within a few years of her arrival on 23 February 1883 and was buried in the old Petersham Cemetery. Charles, writing to Baudon in May 1883, described her affectionately as ‘my darling sister’ and ‘the only one in the colonies’. Charles was profoundly heartbroken, adding ‘I try to bear the sorrow but her loss to me has been great indeed’ and ‘much deep and great grief’.16 It is 176
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probably in remembrance of her that Charles Bryson O’Neill would thereafter refer to himself as Charles Gordon O’Neill. Maria’s rosettes or ‘badges’ were to be worn by Society members as they marched in procession at Holy Communion on special occasions, such as the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul celebrated on 24 July. The practice was well-entrenched by 1887, as described in the Freeman’s Journal: The Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul was celebrated on the 24th of July by the members of the Society of St Vincent de Paul at St Mary’s Cathedral. Over 200 members and about twenty aspirant members met in St Mary’s Hall, and wearing the badge of the Society—a small white rosette on which rests a crucifix—marched two deep to the Cathedral where, in a body, they assisted at Holy Mass, celebrated by the Rev. Father Byrne, and received Holy Communion.17
The religious motivation of the new recruits departed radically from the rough-hewn gospel of the city’s early evangelical missionaries. One of a series of exhorations pasted in Charles’s Society Manual contains the words, ‘Oh! If you knew the joy you give to God when you devote yourself to the salvation of souls’. There is an evangelical flavour to this exhortation certainly, but two cuttings that follow moderate it, as follows: ‘Greet cheerfully the importune person who visits you. God sends him to you’ and ‘Do not refuse an alms which is asked of you, and give to God by giving to the poor.’18 The emphasis therefore was not on the conversion of the poor, but the idea that the poor were ‘messengers sent by God’ to prove one’s worth in the practice of charity. Whether the desperate citizens from The Rocks and the inner Sydney slums picked up on this is uncertain. However, the noble sentiment behind it must have had an appeal in a society where religious belief was still strong. Not all these ‘messengers’ were illiterate or without skill. In April 1882, the Society received a desperate letter from a stranded unemployed telegraphist, written in a Kent Street soup kitchen. The writer, not a frequent churchgoer, requested help to go to Queensland to seek employment: I can do nothing as long as I am here without clothes or money. You will see now from the circumstances which I state unreservedly here the helpless 177
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity and almost hapless state I am in. You know what this place is and can fancy my position. I have no friends or acquaintances.19
Later, Charles, in his first report as Head of the Society’s Particular Council of Sydney, outlined the practice of charity more formally: The giving of charity is not, on the Roman Catholic theory, a mere satisfying of the good and generous promptings of the human heart, but a scriptural and religious obligation, and our alms must be proportionate to our means.20
This was a view of a minority Christian church, in a colony where sectarian bigotry and bitterness were rife. With the rise of Fenianism and growing pressure for Home Rule for Ireland, the political atmosphere had become very poisonous. Charles’s new movement had to proceed with caution in Sydney.
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T
he sectarianism of Sydney had taken a particularly nasty turn more than a decade before. On 11 March 1868, Henry O’Farrell, a failed Catholic seminarian with a disturbed mind, shot and wounded the Duke of Edinburgh in the eastern suburb of Clontarf. Before facing the gallows at Darlinghurst Gaol on 21 April, there were rumours that O’Farrell had claimed that he had been influenced by the ‘wrongs of Ireland’, most notably the mass starvation that had followed in the wake of the potato famine and the eviction of Irish tenants by harsh landlords. In the wake of this incident, New South Wales’s most prominent politician, Henry Parkes, waged a strong campaign against Irish immigrants, going so far as to denigrate them as ‘baboons’. Anti-popery and anti-Irish feeling became rampant in the state, although much of it had been sown earlier by the clergyman John Dunmore Lang. In response, writers promoting Irish activism appeared in Sydney’s Freeman’s Journal. Irish organisations such as the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society had appeared in Victoria in 1871. They spread across Australia and New Zealand during the 1880s, during the same period when Charles had begun his quest. While these activities presented an opportunity for social acceptance, it also presented something of a challenge as they also exposed the political divisions and factions in Irish Australia. During the early 1880s, the drive for 179
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity respectability in Irish Catholic Australia commenced in earnest. It reached a high point when Sir Patrick Jennings became the first Irish Catholic Premier of New South Wales. Charles increasingly emphasised his Irish background with even more passion than he had in promoting his Scottish connections in Otago. As a former colonial parliamentarian, Charles retained an interest not only in colonial affairs but those in Britain and Europe, which he shared with the young Father Piquet. They probably shared stimulating conversations on these topics. To help him in his activities, Charles soon began to receive Society bulletins from Europe. He also received ‘Irish Intelligence’ by corresponding with Irish baronet, Sir John Bradstreet of Dublin, head of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Ireland. Charles was active in collecting inspirational extracts of such material, to inspire his followers as they faced hostile or suspicious attitudes. Two such extracts were eventually cut out and pasted in Charles’s Society Manual, probably some time after 1885. The first, ‘The Illustrious Ozanam’, was a short report referring to the Society’s Bulletin, promoting the comments by Cardinal Laurenzi about the deceased, revered Society co-founder, the Frenchman Frédéric Ozanam. It also promoted a New York book on Ozanam’s life by Kathleen O’Meara with a preface by the English Cardinal Manning. The extract featured written quotes by Ozanam shortly before his death, conveying Ozanam’s commitment to the Society’s cause: Our little Society of St. Vincent de Paul has a great share in the preoccupations and consolations of my journey . . . and this dear Society is also my family; next to God, it was the means of preserving my faith after I left my good and pious parents,—I love it therefore, and cling to it with all my heart.1
The second, a printed news report from an unknown source, was entitled The Marquis of Ripon on the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It told the story of the Marquis of Ripon, the Viceroy of India, a Catholic convert who at one time had been ‘Grand Master of the Masons in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’. Lord Ripon, or George Frederick Samuel Robinson, was a peer and senior figure in Prime Minister Gladstone’s Liberal Government. A Christian-Socialist, Lord Ripon had 180
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converted from evangelical Protestantism and Freemasonry to Catholicism in September 1874. The conversion caused a storm in evangelical circles. The Times in particular was scathing, calling for an end to Ripon’s career: Such a step involves a complete abandonment of any claim to political or even social influence in the nation at large, and can only be regarded as betraying an irreparable weakness of character.2
Despite Ripon’s subsequent retirement from public office, Gladstone later found cause to appoint him to the viceroyalty in 1880. According to the printed extract, Ripon had joined the St Vincent de Paul Society in Bombay, while serving as Viceroy. The account was no doubt a clever piece of propaganda used by Charles to demonstrate the virtues of the new movement. A key figurehead of the Empire had not only left Freemasonry but had joined his beloved Society. What the Marquis is recorded to have said about the Society was perhaps just as important to Charles’s platform: It is not only a society for the purpose of giving a certain number of rupees, or of sovereigns, or francs to the poor of any country; it is a society for the purpose of binding men together and of bringing to the homes of the poor that which is more valuable than money—a deep, earnest, loving Christian sympathy. But brethren, we are bound to say that it is not only for the sake of the poor that we do this; it is [for] our own sake also.3
A key reason for Adolphe Baudon’s commissioning of Charles was to provide an alternative to the Freemasons’ charitable activities. Even in places like The Rocks, Freemasonry had its attractions for seamen and merchants seeking fellowship and a sense of moral or civic purpose. A viceroyal endorsement like this had its value during a period when the political loyalty of those holding minority religious views could be questioned. As for Home Rule for Ireland, a cause to which Prime Minister Gladstone would himself be converted in 1886, Charles made his own sympathies very clear. He became a subscriber to the Irish Land League and other organisations set up to support the dispossessed from Ireland. 181
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity He was also elected to the Committee of the Irish National League of New South Wales when it held its first annual meeting at the Guild Hall on 13 February 1884.4 The League had been promoted in Sydney following a visit by League Leader John Redmond in February 1883. Redmond’s visit provoked an agitated response from the militant sectarians on the Protestant side. A meeting addressed by Henry Parkes, at Sydney’s Protestant Hall on 6 March, sparked confrontation with League supporters: There appeared to be an organised body of dissidents near the main entrance and, immediately the proceedings commenced, they started a series of interruptions in the form of groaning, hooting, hissing and yelling.5
There is no evidence of Charles supporting such riotous conduct. However, he remained a very active supporter of the Irish National League, occasionally presiding at its meetings. He eventually served as its Vice President in 1888. On one occasion in September 1886, Charles persuaded a talented barrister, J.G. O’Ryan, to give a Monday evening charity benefit lecture for St Patrick’s Conference on the topic of Home Rule for Ireland. The Marist Fathers Ginisty and Piquet, New South Wales League President F.B. Freehill, and J. McGuiness, President of the Shamrock Club, were all present at the function, ironically held at the new Masonic Hall. The sales of tickets were good. However, ‘attendance in the Hall was not what it should have been’.6 Despite Gladstone’s support, the Home Rule Bill failed in 1886. However, Home Rule for Ireland remained a cause for many Irish-born colonists. Charles’s church and Irish connections were useful in seeking ‘bread and butter’ contract work in designing schools and other church buildings. He joined the Engineering Association of New South Wales in 1883. Later he set up business with his brother John James, who had moved to Sydney in 1885. The first known business address was 24 O’Connell Street in 1883, and was followed by a succession of addresses in Elizabeth Street between 1885 and 1891. The 1888 address at 86 Elizabeth Street bore the name of ‘Harbour Tunnels Office’, an intriguing one for any passer-by of the time.7 After a short residence in the inner suburb of Balmain, Charles settled permanently in 200 Cumberland Street, The Rocks.8 182
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There is no doubt, however, that his business activities played second fiddle to his charitable ones. Personal charity required a commitment of time and energy, yet encouraging the scores of Sydney volunteers in its practice was something of an even greater order of magnitude. There was also the orchestration of charity fundraising, the art of which he had learned back in Glasgow. Charity balls, picnics and soirées were very popular during the period. In the Victorian age, such gatherings not only provided entertainment but were vital in making key social connections whether in romance or business. Charles encouraged his volunteers to make use of such functions. Within a year of Charles’s first arrival in The Rocks, the evening lights shone brightly in St Bridget’s (later renamed St Brigit’s) Hall, in Kent Street, Millers Point. This now demolished building, built in 1856, then served as both schoolroom, run by the Sisters of St Joseph, and a community hall. One occasion was 9 November, the evening of the Prince of Wales’s birthday, when 200 dancers performed a ‘quadrille’ to the music of the Imperial Band under the direction of a certain Mr McIlveen. Another event, held there on 30 January 1882, had a distinctly ‘O’Neill’ touch. It was announced in the Freeman’s Journal as ‘a popular and scientific entertainment’ in which ‘a series of artistic dissolving views of the most magnificent scenery in Ireland, and other interesting subjects, will be exhibited by the Oxi-calcium light’.9 Front seats for this ‘magic lantern’ show cost 21 shillings, back seats 1 shilling and children entered half-price. The beneficiary of these early efforts by Charles and St Patrick’s Conference was the St Joseph’s Sisters’ Providence Home for orphans and aged, destitute women in Cumberland Street. Charles reported back to Paris that 40 pounds had been raised for the home as a result of such efforts. In April 1883, the Providence Home also benefited from a Fancy Fair or Bazaar held at Tattersall’s new buildings on the corner of Hunter and Castlereagh streets. The fair opened between 3 and 6 p.m. in the afternoon and 7 and 10 p.m. in the evening, with Charles O’Neill and Joseph Spruson at the door selling 1-shilling entry tickets. The fair’s attraction included a ‘Magnificent Suite of Furniture’ to be raffled through the purchase of a 1-pound ticket. Once again Charles persuaded the 183
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Imperial Band to perform, while European artistes such as Signora Fabris, Madame Merz and Herr Alpine sang to the accompaniment of pianos supplied by manufacturer Mr W.H. Paling. Charles could not resist drawing upon such attractions as a concert room in which ‘music is heard from a distance through the TELEPHONE’ and a wonderful ‘ILLUMINATED CHRISTMAS TREE’—all crowd-pleasers in the early 1880s.10 Charles appeared to be determined to build the Society’s appeal beyond Irish Catholics to the wider Sydney community. The Charity Concert ‘for the relief of the poor’ was a colonial favourite. Before it was destroyed by fire, the Garden Palace formed the backdrop for one of these held on Saturday afternoon, 19 August 1882, under the patronage of the New South Wales Governor, the Rt Hon. Lord Augustus Loftus, and Lady Loftus. The prestigious guest list included prominent politicians such as Sir John Robertson and Sir Patrick Jennings, as well as the Mayor of Sydney. A two-part program featured vocal items composed by Rossini, Handel, Donizetti and Verdi, with a full orchestra conducted by a Mr J. Delany, and selected pieces by the New South Wales Artillery Band. The Society kept the practice going through the 1880s and beyond. A Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert, to help the work of a new Conference of Sacred Heart, Darlinghurst, was performed in the New Oddfellows Hall in Elizabeth Street on 17 April 1888. The loyal Madame Rosaly Merz, who had also featured in the Garden Palace extravaganza, performed yet again, this time with the piece entitled Dear Bird of Winter. Its two-part program also included comedy, including a skit by one Harrie Williams, temptingly billed as ‘Right before the Missus’. In May 1891, the Young Australia Minstrels provided entertainment to benefit the Society’s Marrickville Conference, with Charles and his brother John in the audience. John O’Neill joined St Patrick’s Conference in 1886, and became one of two secretaries in a higher administrative structure that Charles was planning for his Society. This would be a Particular Council of Sydney. From his experience in Glasgow, Charles understood that if he wanted to advance the Society’s cause in the fight against poverty, he would need to advance the machinery of charity. Individual Conferences might do their work in helping the needy in their own locality; however, a coordinating council would help them better manage 184
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resources to help as many as possible, while promoting the growth of the organisation. He had this in mind as early as October 1881, when he informed Baudon that: the necessity will soon arise for the formation of a Central or Special Council in Sydney, and I will take steps to soon organise a Council.11
Importantly, since settling in Sydney he had quickly gained the confidence of the local clergy and of Archbishop Vaughan in particular. On 17 April 1883, two days before his final departure, Vaughan publicly paid tribute to ‘the immense amount of good that was done in relieving real distress’ by the Society in Sydney.12 His address reflected the optimism of 1883, when despite the growing poverty in The Rocks and inner Sydney, the colonies were still benefiting from development in the wake of the gold boom. In front of the assembly at St Mary’s Cathedral, including Charles and his followers, Vaughan commented: Although we were a very wealthy and prosperous community, still wherever there was a great deal of wealth and a great deal of prosperity, there was also to be found a great deal of trouble and there were many persons really in want, but would shrink from coming forward to beg.
Vaughan added that such people, thanks to ‘the instrumentality of this society’ and ‘the delicacy of persons belonging to it’, had been able to receive help ‘without being distressed by its reception’. Charles apparently joined the gathering of dignitaries on board the steamer City of New York to farewell Archbishop Vaughan on his way back to Rome, via the Americas. According to a later account by W.J. Cracknell, Charles was one of the last to speak to the Archbishop, who told him ‘to take care of the Society of St Vincent de Paul’.13 This kind of endorsement was all that Charles needed. Charles’s wish for a Particular Council was realised at a meeting held in the Inspector’s Room at St Mary’s Cathedral on 29 January 1884.14 The meeting had a distinguished visitor from France, Dr Earnest Michel LLD, French lawyer, traveller and author. Michel was both a Member of the Society’s General Council of Paris and President of its Council in Nice. Michel’s role was to inspect and report on the Society’s operations 185
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity overseas. Michel’s address covered the expanding ‘confederation of benevolence’ in places as diverse as northern Europe, Canada, the United States, central America, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Asia, ‘Hindustan’, the Holy Land and Algiers. The French representative must have been satisfied with Charles’s efforts. During the second half of the meeting, presided over by Dean Sheridan, Sydney’s Catholic Vicar-General, a Particular Council for Sydney was formed. Charles became its President, John Bridge and W.J. Cracknell Vice Presidents, R.A. Norris its first Treasurer, while J.J. Spruson and Fred Cahill became its first Secretaries. Charles had persuaded F.S. MacDermott, a manager at the Federal Bank on the corner of King and Pitt streets, to take on the post of Council Treasurer. Charles now had impressive administrative machinery at his disposal to project his movement across the greater Sydney metropolitan area. During the year 1884, the first year of the Particular Council’s activities, the Society received an income of more than 212 pounds from poor boxes, 49 pounds from secret collections from members at meetings, 52 pounds for charity sermons and lectures, 38 pounds from concerts and entertainments, and 230 pounds from collections, donations and subscriptions. Help for Sydney’s poor included more than 250 pounds for groceries, 140 pounds for rent, 63 pounds for cash assistance, 40 pounds for board and lodging, 27 pounds for paid passages, 14 pounds for burials of the poor, and 13 pounds for clothes and bedclothes. Meat supplied by St Francis’ Conference and payment of medical expenses amounted to 1 pound 18 shillings each. During the year, Charles presented a Society Manual to a Mr Ahern, a member of a newly formed Conference in Adelaide, to give to its President Dr James O’Connell. In May 1884, Englishman E.F. Troy had made representations to Adelaide Catholic Archbishop Reynolds to set up a Conference there, and soon after, two others, Dr Frances MacCree R.N. and F.X. Duigan, helped with its foundation. A Conference at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral was formally established on 1 February 1885, meeting in the Cathedral Hall Library. Its activities included support for boys incarcerated in the ship hulk, the Fitzjames, which was used as a makeshift reformatory. Charles soon provided guidance to its new President, Dr James O’Connell, on the proper aggregation procedures with Paris.15 It must have also pleased Charles 186
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to report that Auckland, New Zealand, now had a Conference established by Father Tuckwell.16 Vaughan’s replacement, Archbishop Patrick Francis Moran, arrived on 8 September 1884 and demonstrated his own support by providing a 10-pound donation while presiding over a November meeting of the Council. Moran, not the same as his namesake in Dunedin diocese, New Zealand, allowed his scholarly lecture entitled The Civilization of Ireland before the Anglo-Norman Invasion to be printed and sold for the Society’s benefit. The year 1885 proved to be an auspicious year for the Society of St Vincent de Paul worldwide and in New South Wales in particular. On 12 May 1885, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed Saint Vincent de Paul as the patron of all associations of charity throughout the Catholic world. After being summoned to Rome, Archbishop Moran returned to Sydney a Cardinal—Australia’s first—having been created by Pope Leo in July. The New South Wales Society, in its welcome address to the new Cardinal, proudly reported: Your Eminence will be glad to learn that the progress of the Society has been most satisfactory during your absence from the Colony. When you took charge of the Archdiocese in September 1884, there were only four Conferences in existence in Sydney; now there are ten established, and others in the course of formation in Sydney and elsewhere, and the poor being assisted to the extent of about 1000 pounds per annum.17
Charles seemed to be impressed by the powerful figure of Moran, pasting in his inseparable Manual a prayer approved by the Cardinal on 8 December 1885, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The text selected by Charles was one that invoked the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, to help the poor and suffering ‘in the miseries of this life’. The prayer foreshadowed a heaven in the afterlife ‘where there will be neither sadness, tears, nor grief, but eternal joy, bliss and beatitude’.18 The Society soon became popular in Sydney, boosted by the support of the Church hierarchy. The momentum was such that, during 1885, six new Conferences sprang up across the Sydney metropolitan area. These were St Joseph’s Balmain (10 May), Our Lady of Mount Carmel Waterloo 187
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity (7 June), St Joseph’s Newtown (14 June), St Patrick’s Parramatta (28 June), St Charles’s Waverley (19 July), and St Francis Xavier’s Lavender Bay on Sydney’s North Shore (16 August).19 Charles presented himself at the establishment of each Conference, and dutifully listed each one in order of their establishment, under the first four already entered in his Manual. The Manly Times, reporting on Sydney’s North Shore Conference, reflected a new tolerance: You can’t convert a hungry man, but by ill-timed preaching you can make a hypocrite of him. Feed him first, teach him self-help or self-control. The speeches of Mr Charles O’Neill, Father Kelly, and Father Brennan and others who know the working of this unostentatious charity leave nothing to be desired. About the religion of the projectors, none but sour fanatics have any need to say anything. Their work is a work of humanity, and that’s all good men care about.20
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espite this increasing commitment, Charles continued to dominate proceedings around the cedar table in the undercroft of St Patrick’s Church. The business of St Patrick’s Conference continued to hum along each week, as Charles and his fellow Society volunteers disbursed the modest donations and bequests to The Rocks’ most needy cases. The weekly cash balance would stand at about 10 pounds, with a few pounds extra each week coming in from the poor boxes and the occasional bequest. There was a list of regular cases where weekly allowances between 2 and 5 shillings would keep a family from falling too far behind in their rent. References, provided by the Sisters of Saint Joseph or the Marist priests, identified needy families. Drunkenness and losing one’s job was a common enough story for many a breadwinner. A colonial magistrate who once posed the question, ‘My good woman, can’t you get your husband to pass a public house?’, received the reply, ‘Yes, but I can’t get him past twenty’.1 By 1886, there were more than 26000 arrests for drunken behaviour in New South Wales, in a population of just under a million.2 While inner Sydney was awash with pubs, The Rocks had the rowdiest and wildest, where the fiery ‘Nancy Whiskey’ or other adulterated liquor had a toxic effect on a battler’s brain. The worst form of adulteration was with the alcohol of ‘fusel oil’. Drinkers would twitch and tremor after scoffing the liquor down the throat, and some would collapse in a coma.3 Many of the
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity colony’s larrikin children came from homes where one or more parent lived in drunken squalor. In time, such children would cram the industrial or reformatory schools. Public drinking was a particularly sensitive problem for the Irish Catholic community, who made up so much of the poorer sections of colonial society. They were frowned upon by the straitlaced or by genteel snobs for their rowdy and boisterous celebrations in pubs, hotels and inns. The clergy, beginning with Archdeacon McEncroe in the 1840s, introduced Irish Catholic temperance societies, driven more by moral energy than public pressure. Charles, who had many years earlier in the New Zealand Parliament expressed his own concerns about poor liquor and drunkenness, joined up as a founding Central Council Member of the Total Abstinence Association in April 1885. Members were expected to set an example by not drinking in pubs on Sundays or Saturday evenings, and neither to give nor accept ‘treats’ (that is, ‘shouts’ at the bar). Was it likely that Charles, so familiar with the taverns of Glasgow, had a drinking problem of his own? No evidence exists that he did have one, although he certainly had a public commitment to abstinence. The poignant cases of drunken abuse and neglect in The Rocks were recorded at St Patrick’s very simply: . . . the husband is in the same state as last week. The wife thinks of entering the Benevolent Asylum and leaving the children with St Joseph’s Providence. The wife had promised to go to the Police Court to prosecute her husband, but she did not put in an appearance, though Bros. Higgins and Morrisson marked some considerable time for her.4
Injured workers, who had no support or compensation to rely on, faced a very desperate plight. A worker with an injured hand, residing in the Model Lodging House, wrote in June 1885 thanking Charles and Father Coué for the kindness shown to him just before his departure for the Liverpool Asylum (Hospital). The letter sought further assistance in obtaining work but added poignantly: I think it would be better not to give any employer to understand of my being in the Liverpool Asylum, as it may prevent them from engaging me.5 190
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Stranded and financially distressed immigrants continued to appear on the Society’s books. In September 1885, the Conference voted to provide 2 pounds to pay for an unemployed doctor’s fare to travel by horsedrawn coach to the town of Tumbarumba near Albury. With the proximity of St Patrick’s Church to the Sydney docks, the Marist priests and the Conference members would often be approached by such new arrivals. There is no doubt Charles was in his element among the ebb and flow of humanity, steering this extraordinary ‘ship of charity’. Taking a lesson from the popularity of the Masonic lodges in the port, the district could be a useful one for recruitment as well. In January 1885, Charles wrote a letter of commendation to Michael Flynn, the Senior Boatswain of the Flagship HMS Nelson, noting that: We trust you will join the Conference of the society wherever you may be stationed, and promote works of religion and charity with the same zeal in those places that we have witnessed during your stay in Sydney.6
These activities reached a new level when a member of Charles’s Particular Council observed that many sailors and marines attending St Patrick’s did not have a prayer book. The Council then decided that each Catholic sailor and marine must have one. The Council subsequently sought permission of all the various captains of the men-of-war in Sydney Harbour, including HMS Nelson, HMS Miranda and HMS Harmer. Permission was granted and on 16 August 1885, 75 officers and seamen from these ships met with Charles at St Patrick’s Hall.7 Father Le Rennetel, now in charge of St Patrick’s and who had himself once been an officer in the French army, gave a well-received talk on ‘moral courage in peace and war’.8 Charles addressed them too, expressing the hope that the gift would be accepted in the same spirit of friendship, kindness and fraternal love. In the afternoon of 16 August, Charles headed off across the harbour to Lavender Bay for his address to establish the North Shore Conference at St Francis Xavier’s parish. According to a tradition among old St Patrick’s members, he actually rowed across the harbour himself. It would certainly not have been out of character for Charles, who was acquiring a detailed knowledge of Sydney Harbour for professional reasons. 191
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity The Marists must have found the presence of ‘Captain’ Charles something of a comfort. A combination of Gallic devotion and Celtic eccentricity seemed to work in the rough-and-tumble of The Rocks. While a French priest from Lyons might have few quibbles with the British Empire, the local Sydney colonists might not always feel the same way about him. Le Rennetel and the French Marists did have to be careful in an age of imperial jingoism and colonial one-upmanship. On one occasion, a decade later in 1895, Le Rennetel had to write an explanatory letter to Cardinal Moran, rebutting a claim that the French flag had been flown up a flagpole, above the English one.9 Among the ‘intelligence’ gathered by Charles was an 1886 address by the new American Cardinal, James Gibbons, in Washington DC. Cardinal Gibbons claimed personal knowledge of the Society’s cofounder Frédéric Ozanam and his family, and set out three reasons why the poor should be visited by Society members face to face.10 The first reason was the utility of charity. This meant becoming personally acquainted with the needs of the poor person while ensuring that every penny or dollar was spent ‘equally and conscientiously’. According to this principle, it was not the amount of money given but the number of persons helped that should be the objective. The second reason was one of building friendship with the poor and sick. Members were not paid employees, but were there to offer sympathy and encouragement, words of kindness. Underpinning this sentiment was the religious belief that all men and women were united as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. The third reason was a sentiment attributed to Saint Vincent de Paul, supported by Ozanam’s teaching, that there should be a spiritual benefit in visiting and alleviating suffering. In witnessing directly the suffering of the poor in slums, alleyways and byways, one’s own problems and pain seemed insignificant by comparison. In an age before mass media could make a viewer insensitive to pictures of human misery on a gigantic scale, it made a compelling motivation. It was also a reflection of an ancient classical virtue, that only those who had ‘walked in the path of suffering and trial could sympathise with the sufferings of others’.11 Cardinal Gibbons quoted the Roman poet Virgil to prove the point: ‘Suffering myself, I can learn to sympathise with the sufferings of others.’12 192
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To the new Society volunteers living in the rough-hewn colonial Sydney of the mid-1880s, this must have sounded very inspiring. On the evening of 28 June 1885, a significant little band of locals gathered in a schoolroom next to the original St Patrick’s Church in Parramatta, led by a local churchman Archdeacon Rigney. Hugh Taylor, the local State MP and a mild radical linked to workers’ causes, was present, as was the local Alderman W.J. Ferris. Parramatta, one of New South Wales’s earliest settlements, was then still only a town on the outskirts of Sydney. Charles and many of his inner city followers were present, keen to form a Conference there. A new kind of volunteer was being sought—the local politician. Charles, with his previous political background, was keen on recruiting such public figures to his movement. F.S. MacDermott, the bank manager who had already served as Charles’s first Treasurer of the Sydney Particular Council, spoke to the gathering. In an out-of-character address for a bank official, MacDermott claimed for the Society that: All classes, high and low, rich and poor, could unite in doing those noble works of God, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the sick.13
In colonial Sydney, where strict Victorian attitudes of class still prevailed, the idea of the well-to-do and the worker going out to perform these charitable acts together seemed very appealing. Alderman Ferris came forward as Conference President hoping that ‘the Society would flourish in their midst as well as he wished it’; while seventeen other Parramatta locals became members. Charles had already succeeded in attracting other key political recruits. Roger Kenniff, an Alderman from Balmain, became President of St Joseph’s Conference in that suburb when it began in May 1885. Thomas M. Williamson, the State Member for Redfern, in June 1885 offered himself as President of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Conference, based in the inner Sydney industrial suburb of Waterloo. Another Alderman, James Harrisky, also joined the Waterloo Conference shortly before his death. During 1886, Williamson joined Charles on his recruitment drive and played the role of speaker on several occasions, such as at the formation of a Conference at Our Lady of the Assumption church-school in Missenden Road Camperdown on 12 September. 193
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Two weeks later, Williamson accompanied Charles on a long horsedrawn journey by carriage or cart to southern New South Wales. Since 1852, the hill town of Braidwood, with views of the Budawang Ranges, had prospered with thousands flocking to the goldfields in the surrounding country of Araluen, Bells Creek and Majors Creek. It was the kind of settlement that Charles knew so well in his many travels throughout the Australasian colonies. Sheep grazing, gold and later wheat would make it rich, but there were also floods and mining accidents. The granite Catholic Church of St Bede’s, completed in 1856, had already become a town landmark, complete with a grand old bell standing in a belfry next to the church. On 26 September, the pair addressed a local gathering, possibly in the presbytery, during which eleven new members signed up with the St Vincent de Paul Society. Archdeacon M. D’Arcy, the local priest, could not help remarking: that it was a curious coincidence that the first Conference established outside of Sydney and suburbs was in Braidwood, the chief town of the County of Saint Vincent.14
Charles’s recruitment campaign of 1886 added another five Conferences, and a sixth for youth volunteers attached to Williamson’s Waterloo Conference. These youngsters, known as ‘aspirants’, were aged between twelve and seventeen years of age. Apart from those at Camperdown and Braidwood, the names of Sacred Heart Sydney (1 March), St Thomas’ Petersham (11 April) and St James’ Forest Lodge (22 August) were added to the written list in Charles’s Manual. Active Society membership quadrupled in two years, growing from 65 in 1884, to 195 in 1885, and 290 in 1886. More volunteer members meant more visits, and importantly an increase in the numbers of families and individuals helped. By 1886, Society members in New South Wales were making more than 4800 visits for the year, directly helping some 1500 people. Financial assistance given that year exceeded 1300 pounds. The influx of members brought with it professional skills and new ideas to help those in need. By 1886, Charles’s machinery of charity had acquired the professional skills of his political champion Williamson as ‘solicitor for the poor’, appearing on behalf of desperate clients in court cases. A certain Dr Brownless served as ‘medical officer for the poor’, among a team of five 194
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city doctors.15 James Carroll JP, the new President of St Charles’ Conference Waverley, was a City Auditor, and volunteered to manage the books of the Particular Council of Sydney. Individual Conference Presidents were tasked to report on any interesting or important case which might help the Society better understand the poor in their communities. Parramatta’s Alderman Ferris was among the first to comply: When one of our members visited Sydney he heard of a poor girl who was in a dying state, being kept in an underground room, unfit almost for a healthy person to live in; so he made a full enquiry, and after some trouble he arranged for her to be conveyed . . . to Parramatta, where she was admitted into St Joseph’s Hospital through our Society, and having remained in the Hospital some few weeks, she became quite restored to health, so well that we obtained for her a situation, and the Society provided her with the means to proceed to same, which she now holds.16
The number of charitable Ladies Associations sprang up and seemed to flourish in those areas where the Society was also most active, mainly serving as auxiliaries. Father Le Rennetel established a Ladies Association of St Anne, active in supplying clothing to the local needy of The Rocks. Another Ladies Society started charitable work at Woollahra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, while a St Elizabeth Society for Ladies started in Waterloo. Cardinal Moran himself established a Ladies Association of Charity at St Mary’s Cathedral. This Association helped purchase a Leichhardt mansion called Elswick House for Aged Men and Women, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. During 1886, the Society raised 71 pounds 9 shillings for Elswick House, which paid for, among other things, a horse and wagon and floor coverings. It also hosted a Christmas Dinner to cheer up the aged inmates. Under Charles’s organisation, new volunteers developed novel charity fundraising schemes for the colonial era. Perhaps the quaintest of these were artificial shamrock buttonholes sold on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1887.17 Members from St Patrick’s, St Mary’s Cathedral, St Benedict’s Broadway, and the Waterloo and Parramatta Conferences participated in the promotion. These buttonholes, probably sold for a penny or so each outside churches, on street corners or in pubs, raised a 195
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity total of 9 pounds 5 shillings in profit.18 The money went towards teaching trades to boys at an Industrial Orphan School run by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan Convent at Manly. An art union raffle of a model yacht raised 13 pounds. On the wider scale of fundraising, the Society’s Sydney charity entertainments were raising more than 200 pounds a year by 1887. During 1888, subscriptions were raised for the purchase of a boat for an orphanage run by the Sisters of St Joseph at Kincumber on the Central Coast, north of Sydney. Sadly for Charles, his old friend Baudon, now in poor health, stepped down from the position of President-General of the Society in Paris in July 1886. Baudon’s successor, Antonin Pagès, was elected in November that year. The year 1887 saw two important golden jubilees. Queen Victoria celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her ascension to the British throne, while the reigning pope, Leo XIII, celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his priestly ordination. Leo was one of the first popes to align the Church with the modern world—one symbol being the establishment of the Vatican Observatory. It was a matter of some pride for Charles that his Society in New South Wales had donated 25 pounds 5 shillings 1 pence to an overall total of 4800 pounds or 120000 francs to the Pope’s charitable works in celebration of the Papal Jubilee. Charles recorded the contribution in his Manual, with a note that the St Vincent de Paul Society had grown to more than 82511 members worldwide, since its formation in 1833. Society membership in New South Wales had settled to about 260 active members in 1887, a slight drop mainly because the Braidwood Conference ceased operations. Nonetheless, the impact of the Society continued to grow, with more than 6100 visits assisting some 2300 needy families and individuals. Lord Carrington, the New South Wales Governor, was suitably impressed enough to make a 2-pound donation. A 2-pound donation was, at that time, almost the weekly wage for a Sydney worker. Meanwhile, in Victoria, under the guidance of Francis Healy, the St Vincent de Paul Society began to make considerable progress in its own right. A Society Night Shelter had opened on 17 October 1887 in 311 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy, providing night lodgings and breakfasts for the homeless. By June 1888, there were three Conferences established, 196
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at St Patrick’s Cathedral (July 1885), St Peter and St Paul’s South Melbourne (April 1887) and, for a short while before June 1888, St Joseph’s Collingwood. Francis Healy was unanimously elected President of a Particular Council of Melbourne on 23 June 1888, at 100 Elizabeth Street in Melbourne. By then it had 36 active and 64 honorary members. Healy would encourage the Society’s work in Melbourne through ‘missions’ or special works including Our Lady’s Hospital Mission, the Royal Park Depot for Boys, a Consumptive Sanatorium at Greenvale, and even a Braille Writers’ Association for the Blind Conference. The Society in Melbourne also benefited from the active support of Sir Anthony Colling Brownless, the Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University. Francis Healy and Charles shared each other’s reports and, in some cases, volunteers. One of Charles’s secretaries, Henry Egan, became Secretary of the Particular Council of Melbourne after moving from Sydney to Melbourne. The year 1888 marked yet another special anniversary. This was the centenary of the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson, marking the beginning of the colony of New South Wales. As part of the celebrations, the New South Wales Government arranged to give ten thousand rations to the ‘deserving [i.e. compliant and law abiding] poor’. These charity rations consisted of: 2 loaves of bread, 2 lbs. [90 grams] White Sugar, 1⁄2 lb. [227 grams] Butter, 1 lb. [450 grams] Currants, 4 lbs. [1.1 kilograms] Flour, 1 tin of preserved Fish or Jam, 1 Joint of beef or mutton 6 lbs. [2.7 kilograms] weight, 1⁄4 lb. [225 grams] Tea, 1 lb. [450 grams] Cheese, 1 lb. [450 grams] Raisins, 1 Cake Tobacco and Pipe, 1 Quart [1.1 litres] Milk, and 7 lbs. [3.2 kilograms] Assorted Vegetables.19
The rations were distributed among all religious denominations. Charles was asked by the Government to assist in the distribution, which he did, and subsequently received the thanks of the Government Centennial Celebration Commission for his service on the distribution committee. It was a noble public gesture in the dying years of the Australian colonies’ age of gold. A growing financial and economic crisis was looming or, in Charles’s own words once uttered in the New Zealand Parliament, a ‘wave of depression’.20 This time depression would come on an unprecedented scale. ‘Captain’ Charles, with his Christian ideals and 197
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity his remarkable machinery of charity, was about to sail into a turbulent social and economic hurricane. During 1888, with the death of Adolphe Baudon, and the retirement after 32 years of Sir John Bradstreet as President of the Society in Ireland, Charles lost his two closest international mentors. As events were to play out, he would feel their loss greatly.
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Chapter 20 Plans, politicians and protectionism
s Sydney grew during the 1880s, successive governments in New South Wales grappled with the problem of providing metropolitan transport. Redfern Station, then the inner city railway terminus, was the main point at which suburban commuters would have to catch horsedrawn cabs or omnibuses around the city. Redfern itself became increasingly congested. In 1880, Sir Henry Parkes’s Government introduced a system of city and suburban tramways. While popular with the public, trams did not solve the growing transport congestion. Merchants were dissatisfied and agitated for an extension to the city railway to service Sydney’s wharves, including those at Circular Quay, Woolloomooloo and Darling Harbour. Parkes was out of office in 1883, and an administration run by Premier Alexander Stuart and Colonial Treasurer George Dibbs began looking at tunnels under the city as a means of expanding the railway system. However, Sydney Harbour remained a major barrier to extending city transport to the North Shore. Apart from ferry crossings, there were two other feasible ways by which public transport could cross Sydney Harbour. One of these was by bridge, the other by tunnel. A decade later, between 1895 and 1899, two bridge and two tunnel proposals were before the New South Wales Parliament in individual private bills. The issue would not be resolved until well into the early part of the twentieth century, when a final decision was made to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
A
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles, through his Harbour Tunnels Office business, was one of a number of engineering pioneers to put forward proposals for an extension of the inner city railway. Charles’s proposed city railway extension would run from Union Street in Pyrmont, continue obliquely across Darling Harbour to King Street, and from King Street by tunnel to Circular Quay. This system would total seven-eighths of a mile (1.4 kilometres). However, his vision did not finish there. Charles was one of the first to propose tunnels under Sydney Harbour for rail and passenger traffic. Together with another civil engineer, F.B. Gipps, Charles prepared tunnel plans in January 1885 and submitted them to Treasurer Dibbs. The plan was also discussed by a parliamentary delegation to William John Lyne, the Minister of Public Works in Sir Patrick Jennings’s Cabinet in November 1886. The plan as it developed would consist of two tunnels. One would connect Fort Macquarie, on Bennelong Point where the Sydney Opera House now stands, to Beulah Street, North Sydney. Another would connect Dawes Point at the northern tip of The Rocks to Milsons Point, North Sydney. Both would meet up with existing tramways at the north and south sides of Sydney Harbour. The tunnels would have been supported by cast-iron cylindrical rings in segments, using tunnel construction techniques then used for tunnels under the Thames River in London. In March 1887, another delegation met with Sir Henry Parkes, back again as Premier, submitting a two-year construction plan. The length of the tunnels would be one and a half miles (2.4 kilometres) at an estimated cost of 450000 pounds. Parkes’s initial view was positive, and according to Charles, he was quoted as saying: that it will be my duty to bring the matter before the notice of the Government at an early date, and I will add now that no one can say anything against the public usefulness of the work.1
During the following months, Charles and his business colleague took underwater soundings and borings of the harbour bottom. At the end of July, the Freeman’s Journal reported with some anticipation that: The tunnel scheme proposed by Mr Charles O’Neill M.I.C.E. and Mr F.B. Gipps, C.E., for connecting the North Shore with Sydney is assuming 200
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something like practical shape. The tunnels company are now, we understand, employing divers to examine the bottom of the harbour. Armstrong’s patent marine telescope, with electric lights, will be used.2
The sounding and borings revealed substantial layers of silt on the harbour floor, in places more than 60 feet (18.3 metres) thick, which forced Charles to extend and alter the construction plans. In 1890 Charles discussed these soundings and other construction details in evidence at a New South Wales Royal Commission on City and Suburban Railways. His colleague Gipps, a nephew of an early New South Wales governor, also had some embryonic ideas including the use of rivers to generate electricity in the Snowy Mountains.3 Charles was consulted by New South Wales legislators on water supply plans. These included a scheme for the town of Temora in southern New South Wales. In 1888, he also gave advice on the development of legislation seeking to supply water for the far west town of Broken Hill, which included the feasibility of pumping water from the Darling River. Charles was keen to cultivate his political acquaintances in order to promote his engineering projects. He seemed to work well with a wide range of political figures across the sectarian divide. By 1889, new political factions were being formed in New South Wales, roughly aligned around free trade and protection. The political landscape would be dominated by the premiership of three figures. On the protectionist side was Sir George Dibbs, in power between February and March 1889 and later between 1891 and 1894. The free trade side was led by Sir Henry Parkes, back as premier for the last time between 1889 and 1891, and later by George Reid, premier between 1894 and 1899. The free trade and protection issue was strong enough even to divide Labour Electoral League members elected in 1891. One of Charles’s key political connections, the Society solicitor Thomas Williamson, was now no longer in the New South Wales Parliament. However, during the latter half of the 1880s, Charles became a close friend of another solicitor, Thomas Slattery, an Irish Catholic MLA who represented the country district of Boorowa. Boorowa, in southern New South Wales, had a vibrant and prosperous Irish immigrant community. 201
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles might have met Slattery as early as 1885, when both participated in the inauguration of the Total Abstinence Association. A protectionist, Slattery served as Minister for Justice in Dibbs’s short-lived minority government of 1889, returning as Secretary for Mines and Agriculture in 1891. It may have been Slattery who encouraged Charles to announce his candidacy on 30 January 1889 for the seat of Sturt at state elections to be held the following month. Sturt, centred on the towns of Broken Hill and Silverton, would have been the kind of mining district so familiar to Charles. He had gained some local prominence, having advised the New South Wales Government on the Broken Hill water supply in June the previous year. Unfortunately, Charles’s involvement in this election was marked at the outset by considerable confusion. He ultimately stood against another protectionist candidate, Wyman Brown, a popular local police magistrate, while another candidate, De Courcy Browne, was also nominated although ultimately did not stand. While it was not then uncommon for several protectionist candidates to contest the same seat, Charles’s initial problem was that he was mistakenly recorded in the Sydney papers as a free trader. On Charles’s arrival in Broken Hill on 8 February, he received a telegram from party leader George Dibbs asking him to withdraw from the contest, as Wyman Brown was seen as the protectionist candidate with the best local connections. Despite being regarded as an outside chance, Charles set up headquarters in the Cumming Exchange Hotel in Silverton. Charles at first appeared willing to comply with Dibbs’s request. At an opening address at Broken Hill’s Theatre Royal on 9 February, he outlined a number of his policies. These included water conservation on a large scale, the construction of light rail to the settlement at Menindie, a telegraph to Broken Hill itself, cheaper mineral leases with more secure tenure for smaller miners, and advocacy of a labourer’s right to purchase cheap land up to 20 acres.4 However, he concluded the address by revealing Dibbs’s request and announced his intention to withdraw. It was not an outcome that many of his supporters wanted to hear. One of them, a Mr Nolan, immediately rose in the theatre. Nolan attacked Dibbs’s candidate as being part of ‘a clique of capitalists’ and then described the forced withdrawal of Charles’s candidacy as an insult.5 202
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Charles probably gained heart from all this and, changing his mind again, continued on with the campaign. In the end, Wyman Brown won the seat of Sturt handsomely on 13 February, by 644 votes to Charles’s tally of 246. As an outsider and given the confusion surrounding his candidacy, the outcome for Charles was moderately respectable. However, what may have damaged Charles’s campaign more than these hurdles was a letter from ‘an elector’ published twice in Broken Hill’s Silver Age. The anonymous letter pointed out to the interested reader that: Mr Wyman Brown is by far the better known . . . Of Charles O’Neill, the other candidate, we know very little except what he tells us of himself. He talks very grandly of borrowing 20 000 000 pounds . . . for irrigating the western district. He tells us he was a colleague of Sir Julius Vogel in the palmy days when that statesman was piling up the public debt of New Zealand, the burden of which is so crippling now. It seems a pity that Mr O’Neill, after assisting to place that unfortunate country in the sorry plight she is now, did not stop there and do what he could to help her out of it.6
Charles would probably have lost anyway. However, his past political associations and mistakes had come back to haunt him. It was the last time he stood for any political office. Charles’s continued association with Thomas Williamson provided a more useful outcome. Willamson, now in local government in the northwestern Sydney suburb of Rydalmere, played an important role in helping with the establishment of a Catholic church-school there between 1889 and 1890. Charles did the architectural work for the Holy Name of Mary Church, which was constructed at a cost of 600 pounds. It was probably one of Charles’s last architectural projects. The church was finally opened by Cardinal Moran in late February 1890. The building only lasted until 1915 when it was destroyed by fire. Back at Church Hill, Charles and the St Patrick’s Conference had instituted a bold new project. From 7 September 1889, a Penny Savings Bank was established with Father Le Rennetel’s warm approval.7 It was set up primarily to encourage habits of thrift in children, particularly in The Rocks and other inner Sydney suburbs. However, it could also be used by their parents, and was open to Catholic and non-Catholic 203
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity depositors alike. No limit was placed on the amount deposited, be it a penny or a pound. With industrial and financial turmoil spreading across the colonies, the families of The Rocks would soon need every penny they could scrape up.
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T
he age of gold and speculation came to an abrupt and sorry end. Property prices in Victoria slumped. Investment from British banks evaporated. Wool and wheat prices plummeted. Local banks collapsed with investors losing every penny. The Australian lands of prosperity and plenty became transformed into lands of unemployment and turmoil. By the mid-1890s, the misfortune of the economic crash was compounded by the onset of drought. In 1890, a maritime strike paralysed the colonies, while strikers fought ‘scabs’ or free labourers in blockades of many colonial ports. Other unions supported the maritime workers with industrial action of their own, but this action was met with force. The Government of Victoria panicked when a public meeting was called by labour supporters on 31 August 1890. Before the meeting, military forces were organised and there was no doubt as to their intentions. A thousand military volunteers were addressed by Colonel Tom Price, son of a sadistic Norfolk Island convict superintendent: Fire low and lay them out. Lay the disturbers of law and order out so that the duty will not again have to be performed. Let it be a lesson to them.1
This rash act helped bring down the Victorian Government, and failed to stop some 60 000 union supporters attending the meeting. The 205
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity strikers received the sympathy of many church leaders, among them Brisbane’s Anglican Bishop, and Sydney’s Cardinal Moran who tried to arbitrate and preached ‘in their demands, the men have right and reason on their side’.2 In 1891, a shearers’ strike broke out in Queensland in response to squatters trying to force bush labourers to accept reduced wages. The squatters brought the issue to a head by insisting on using Chinese and Kanaka or other ‘blackleg’ labour. The tense labour climate fuelled a heightened fear of Chinese immigration. The ultimate failure of the strike was a turning point for the future of organised labour in the Australian colonies, ultimately leading to the formation of what would become the Australian Labor Party. Meanwhile, along the country roads and in the woolsheds of the Australian colonies, a new kind of poverty could be seen. It was captured by writer Flora Shaw who wrote of the condition of shearers on the ‘wallaby track’: . . . the roughest of existence in which intervals of work are probably unknown and unimagined by anyone who has not endured it . . . ninety per cent of the wandering population is unmarried, and they may die hungry, thirsty and homeless in the bush without greatly affecting any other human lives.3
In Sydney, in angry protest, the unemployed gathered under the statue of Queen Victoria in King Street. For those living in Sydney’s slums, it was no longer just a matter of living in squalor—desperate hunger was now a daily reality. For a Christian activist like Charles O’Neill, an economic depression meant a call to even more practical charity. Between the years 1889 and 1891, under his guidance, the St Vincent de Paul Society in New South Wales grew again. Another six Conferences sprang up across the industrial slum suburbs of inner Sydney as the bitter winds of depression and unemployment blew with increased ferocity. St Bede’s Pyrmont (August 1889), Our Lady of the Suburbs’ Camperdown (September 1889), St Fiacre’s Leichhardt (March 1890), St Brigid’s Marrickville (May 1890), St Augustine’s Balmain East (September 1890), and St Vincent de Paul’s Redfern (January 1891) were established and the names listed in 206
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Charles’s Manual. By 1890, Charles had established a total of twenty Conferences with 314 members, providing more than 1763 pounds worth of assistance and making 8861 visits to the poor in that year alone. W.J. Coogan, now Vice President of St Patrick’s Conference, began promoting the idea of establishing an institution in which poor boys could learn industries and trades. In May 1891, the young men at St Francis’ Conference set up a committee to provide lodgings for abandoned boys. The first residence was a four-room house in shabby Upton Lane, Surry Hills, but the boys’ home soon moved to 231 Riley Street. It housed ten boys. In the face of rising poverty, new ideas now came to the Australian colonies, to challenge the complacent views of the past. Romantic visionaries like William Lane and his New Australia movement left the colonies to seek another paradise in Paraguay. Around the shearers’ camps and in the slums, the pamphlets of American socialist Henry George, who argued for the abolition of all taxes except on the value of land, became increasingly popular. In the Sydney magazine The Bulletin and in other published works, writer and poet Henry Lawson captured the harsh conditions of many living in the bush, but also a new national sentiment. Lawson’s mother-in-law, the radical socialist and feminist Bertha McNamara, wrote in her pamphlet describing living conditions of the battlers: . . . if Australia at present presents the Working Man’s Paradise, I should hardly care for a glimpse even of the Workingman’s Hades [hell].4
The new volunteers of the Leichhardt Conference, from an early report, were among those who confronted this ‘Workingman’s Hades’: A poor man with his wife and three children were living near the Long Cove River [now Darling Harbour] in a hut constructed of old palings and zinc. The hovel was so low that the visiting brethren had to almost crawl through the opening that served as a door. The palings which formed the sides were so far apart that the contents of the hut could be seen at night from outside, the wind and rain beating through the walls . . .5
The Conference President J.I. Sheerin made a present of a new weatherboard room complete with flooring and a galvanised iron roof. On a 207
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity public holiday, a number of Leichhardt Conference members arrived at the site of the hovel, just after the new room had been transported there. According to this same report, they came: some bringing hammers, others saws and other tools, and laboured all that day, till when evening fell the house was erected, roofed, floored, and fit for habitation.
Amid the unfolding economic collapse, Charles, due to his own naivety and poor business judgment, would soon find himself in a ‘Hades’ of a different kind. In a time of financial chaos, even if a bank accepted their accounts, the savings of the poor were vulnerable. If the bank itself collapsed, as many did across the Australian colonies during the early 1890s, the savings of depositors—rich or poor—would all be lost. Over the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Penny Bank set up at St Patrick’s survived, protecting the savings of children and vulnerable working families in Sydney’s Rocks. It proved its value during the Great Maritime Strike of 1890. From September 1889 to December 1890, the St Patrick’s Penny Bank received 1000 pounds in deposits. Over the same period, 400 pounds was withdrawn, including 225 pounds over the period of the Strike itself.6 Another, smaller Penny Bank was set up by the Darlinghurst Conference at the same time as the one at St Patrick’s Church Hill.7 Children and their parents queued up between 7 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. every Saturday evening at Federation Hall in Grosvenor Place, Church Hill. The number of depositors grew steadily from around 400 during its first year, rising to 650 in the mid-1890s.8 Even as late as 1900, the bank supported about 471 depositors investing 1200 pounds. During the 1890s, the bank’s own savings earned interest of 31⁄2 per cent, through investing in the Savings Bank of New South Wales, which also survived the crash. This financial buffer covered the interest of 21⁄2 per cent that the Penny Bank paid to its poor depositors. The Northumberland Banking Company, with its headquarters at 28 Hunter Street, Newcastle, on the New South Wales Central Coast, had advertised a nominal capital of 50000 pounds in 1890 based on an original valuation of 1 pound per share. However, such promotion was 208
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deceptive as the bank never actually raised that level of capital. The bank had several branches across Newcastle and the surrounding Hunter district, including West Maitland and Wallsend. There was no connection between the St Patrick’s Penny Bank and the Northumberland Banking Company, save for a joint association with Charles O’Neill. Why Charles became involved with the Northumberland Banking Company in July 1890 remains a mystery. The company serviced the Hunter region, whereas Charles’s business activities were based in Sydney. Either Charles’s main interest was in expanding his business interests, or (perhaps more tragically) he may have wished to gain further expertise in order to advance the charity banks. The most likely explanation is that its Managing Director, George Samuel Hadfield, was keen to trade on the good reputation of prominent, respected community figures. It was then common practice for companies starting up operations to offer them a number of shares.9 Charles opened an account at the bank with a few pounds as early as February 1890, several months before the company was set up. Hadfield later offered Charles 100 shares in the company, nominally worth 100 pounds. Hadfield had never paid for these shares himself and ran the business with the assistance of a young accountant, Charles Low, who served as general manager. The company’s Board of Directors more or less seemed to accept this arrangement with minimal supervision, an acceptable practice in nineteenth century commerce. As a director, Charles also received a small sum for management expenses. Charles actually attended only one directors’ meeting, held on 31 October 1890, and was not directly involved with the company’s management afterwards. At the meetings of directors, Charles conveyed his vote by proxy, probably exercised by Hadfield himself. Charles’s only other bank activities, and this too suggests that Hadfield was trading on Charles’s good name, was to open several branches in Newcastle.10 Charles compounded his vulnerability to the bank by applying for an additional 250 shares on 27 October; his formal account now stood in debit by 39 pounds 7 shillings 6 pence.11 Like so many other banks, the Northumberland Banking Company did not survive the financial crisis. In October 1891, the company fell into serious financial difficulties and there was a run on it by depositors. 209
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Many customers, mostly miners and small business people, were ruined. The order for winding up the company was granted by the Equity Court on 5 October 1891, and Herbert Priestley, a clerk employed by the liquidator L. Lloyd, began to discover serious discrepancies in the books. In September 1891 and with the bank’s closure, Charles’s account overdraft had risen to 393 pounds 10 shillings and not a penny had been repaid. Some months prior to the collapse of the Northumberland Banking Company, Charles had given notice that he intended to retire from the Presidency of the Society’s Particular Council in Sydney. One could only speculate on the reason. He might have grown weary of the increasing workload of that position, or he might have actually had some underlying premonition or disquiet about the performance of the Northumberland Banking Company. His decision was made clear on 19 July 1891, at an Annual General Meeting and Breakfast. The function was held in the school hall at St Benedict’s Broadway, coinciding with the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul. It was also only a few days before the tenth anniversary of his successful quest to establish the St Vincent de Paul Society in New South Wales. About 250 members of the Society attended the Sunday Breakfast served up by the City Catering Company. The special guests included the Auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Sydney, Dr Joseph Higgins; Charles’s political friend, Thomas Slattery; Judge Lowther Broad from New Zealand; Charles’s loyal Vice Presidents Thomas Williamson and William Cracknell; and a Franciscan priest from St Charles’s parish in Waverley, Father P.B. Kennedy. The tributes to Charles and his band of volunteers flowed abundantly. Charles himself had much to be proud of—more than 12 239 pounds worth of assistance given to the poor of New South Wales in ten years.12 Bishop Higgins spoke first and: recognised the great services rendered to charity by the young men who mainly conducted the organisation and . . . although he hoped not of an envious disposition . . . he really envied Mr Charles O’Neill and his splendid band of co-workers in what they had accomplished.13
Thomas Slattery later added his praises to the young volunteers: 210
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who had been brought up in the school of self-denial, and out of their own pockets they had contributed sums which had shown such a glorious result as they had before them.14
As Bishop Higgins noted, in the first six months of 1891, the Society in New South Wales had received 889 pounds 19 shillings 6 pence, and had given out assistance worth 807 pounds 11 shillings 11 pence. Included in this latter total was 44 pounds 16 shillings 3 pence given by the St Martha’s Ladies Association in Darlinghurst. A special work of the Ladies Associations was to make and repair old clothes for distribution. In addition to the team of doctors who provided medical services free to the poor, at least four chemists supplied medicines free of charge. Vice President W.J. Cracknell presented Charles O’Neill with a framed testimonial address, produced by John Sands and Company, together with a purse of gold sovereigns. The testimonial featured what would be the last known photograph of Charles, this time taken in July 1891. The original photograph reveals a bald Charles, with a white walrus moustache and the remains of a close-cropped beard. The eyes, while piercing, give a softer, kindlier impression than in photographs taken earlier in his life. A quaint floral buttonhole, complete with maidenhair fern, is pinned prominently on his lapel. In his address, Cracknell revealed that Charles had tried to establish the Society in the Australian colonies of Victoria and South Australia as early as 1873. After providing a short history of the Society, Charles responded by thanking the assembly for their beautiful present. Slattery and Judge Lowther Broad, in turn, followed up with their own testimonials to Charles. Slattery noted the many years that ‘Charles had been fighting poverty and wretchedness’. Judging from Slattery’s reaction and, despite Charles himself being such a public figure, the extent of Charles’s charitable activities was generally unknown outside the gathering. Slattery admitted publicly that: this great work had been done in such a quiet and unobtrusive way that even he [Slattery] as an intimate friend of O’Neill had no idea of his work until that morning.15 211
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Judge Broad recounted some of the considerable charitable achievements of the past twenty years in Australia and New Zealand, including the story of a Catholic orphanage in Nelson which had been taken over by the Marist Brothers. Charles’s desire to step down from the Presidency of the Society’s Sydney Particular Council had been made known already. Slattery, during his address, commented that: He regretted to hear that he [Charles] contemplated retiring from the high position of president which he held for so long and with such benefits to the community.16
As events played out, Charles remained in the Presidency until 3 December 1891 at the expressed wish of Cardinal Moran. It was long enough to represent the Society at the Second Australasian Conference of Charity, and to provide fares worth 2 pounds 7 shillings 6 pence to a destitute elderly couple who needed to return to the mid-west town of Orange by rail. Amid the surrounding gloom of depression and labour unrest, a new campaign had begun across the Australasian colonies. The cause of Federation, initiated by the efforts of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy followed up by Sir Henry Parkes, was now on the political agenda. The colonial premiers met in Melbourne in February 1890, and in March 1891 delegates from the Australian and New Zealand colonies met in the Legislative Assembly Chamber of the New South Wales Parliament. A new draft constitution for Australia was drawn up. Sir George Grey, now a popular figure, was among those New Zealanders present at the 1891 Assembly. In the end, the New Zealand colony went its own way. Federation had many setbacks as well as acrimonious debates about a proper constitution. However, within a decade, Federation of the Australian colonies became a reality. The new spirit of inter-colonial cooperation was beginning to spread to Australian and New Zealand charitable organisations as well. In November 1890, the Charity Organization Society of Melbourne had instituted a series of Australasian conferences on charity. Charles attended the second of these, chaired by Professor Edward Morris, and held at the Melbourne Town Hall between 17 and 21 November 1891. More than two hundred delegates attended, representing 100 charitable 212
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societies, hospitals or institutions, including two New Zealand organisations. These included the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and non-religious public bodies such as the benevolent and friendly societies. Despite the patronising, ‘do-gooder’ attitudes, these Australasian conferences were genuine attempts to look at better ways of providing charity through: receptivity towards new ideas, of intelligent yet sympathetic criticism of old methods, of recognition of the magnitude of existing problems, and of future perplexities and dangers.17
By stepping aside from the sectarianism of the age, the colonial charities had at least made a small step towards learning from each other about the challenge of responding to a long list of desperate needs. The gathering at Melbourne’s Town Hall heard speeches about many of them. The colonies now had to deal with managing industrial schools, slums, care of orphans, housing the aged and infirm, drunken parents, the growing numbers of unemployed, deserted wives and families, ‘ragged schools’ which provided education to poor children, lunatic asylums, and the care of tuberculosis sufferers. The gathering did expose a problem for charity in the emerging Australia. This was motivating the general public to support philanthropy. Sydney Maxted, a bureaucrat speaking on behalf of the government charities in New South Wales, foreshadowed a future great debate in Australia over who should shoulder the responsibility for charitable care. Maxted’s comments could be seen as serving the interests of the colonial bureaucracy, but they did uncover an embarrassing fact. New South Wales and the other colonies were, by the standards of the day, among the most prosperous societies in the world. Only one person in 199 was a pauper in New South Wales, compared with one person in 41 in Britain. Maxted claimed that New South Wales provided, through its taxes, 11 shillings 10 pence per head for all ‘benevolent’ activities including lunatic asylums and prisons, but that philanthropic organisations received only 5 pence per head from the public. Maxted did not suggest by this that the public were mean-spirited, but rather blamed the situation: from that defect in our system of charitable organisation which leaves the bulk of the pauper population to be supported wholly from general revenue, 213
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity and closes the most important avenues for the exercise of benevolence against the philanthropist and reformer.18
The fact that the needs of the poor should be the primary concern appears entirely missing from Maxted’s address. Just the same, the level of public apathy was hardly encouraging for any philanthropist. The field was left mostly to the charismatic religious figure, seeking to remind the more pious about the teachings of Jesus Christ—the Christ of the Poor. A ‘star’ guest speaker was the celebrated William Booth, now ‘General’ of the Salvation Army. The Army had made its appearance in South Australia as early as September 1880, with open air meetings in Adelaide’s Botanic Park by John Gore and Edward Saunders. Its first officers, Captain and Mrs Thomas Sutherland, arrived in the colonies in 1881. Although the Salvationist pioneers received some rough treatment by violent mobs in the early days, the Army’s work spread to New South Wales and Victoria in 1882 and to other states. It appeared in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1883. Booth used the conference to urge support for his ‘Darkest England’ Scheme, a plan to bring thousands of Britain’s most desperate poor to farm Australia’s rural lands. The Catholic counterpart to the Salvation Army, the St Vincent de Paul Society, was represented by a Mr C.H. Grondona from Melbourne, two Bendigo ladies—Mrs J.G. Edwards and a Mrs Mahony—and Charles himself representing New South Wales. Mrs Edwards briefly commented on how young ladies of Bendigo were supervised in visiting poor families. While none gave papers, Charles did join in discussions on certain issues, perhaps revealing something of his inner concerns. His views were more enlightened than those of many delegates. One was clear empathy with sufferers. Charles rebuked Maxted’s narrow attitude that dependent tuberculosis victims had been sent to Australia by their doctors merely to die. Charles believed: that consumptives were not sent in order that they might die at sea, but to give them a chance of life and becoming strong and well in a new country.19
Charles strongly supported Mr J. Roseby of the Sydney Benevolent Asylum in urging public support for the boarding out of neglected children. He urged that ‘it was wiser to err on the side of being too 214
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generous’ on this issue.20 His contribution should be seen in the light of comments by the esteemed Professor Morris, who believed that the state assuming responsibility for housing neglected children was outright communism. Charles’s views about family life came to the fore once again. The colonial parliaments were not doing enough to legally enforce the responsibilities of husbands. This applied to many well-to-do citizens as well, who deserted their families. He thought that all this ‘revealed a melancholy and deplorable lack of family love’, and suggested that the Australian colonies should follow New Zealand’s lead, by making it a misdemeanour for anyone attempting to desert the colonies and abandon their dependants.21 Under New Zealand legislation in force at that time, family deserters could face up to twelve months in prison.22 It was with some irony that Charles should mention prison sentences. Within a few weeks, he faced the real prospect of one himself.
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harles O’Neill was arrested by two Sydney detectives in King Street, Sydney, on 4 December 1891. George Hadfield, the Managing Director of the failed Northumberland Banking Company, was arrested the same day in Sydney’s Hyde Park, as were Charles Low and another director Walter Sidney in Newcastle. Appearing before Captain Fisher, the Magistrate, O’Neill and Hadfield were charged—together with Low and Sidney—of conspiring ‘to cheat and defraud Joseph Smith and others of divers sum of monies’.1 Joseph Smith, a rural fencer from Willow Tree in the New England district, had deposited a sum of 300 pounds in the company’s West Maitland branch in April 1891. Four months later, in the middle of a run on the bank, the company failed to honour an agreement to repay Smith. Charles now joined George Hadfield, Charles Low and fellow director Walter Sidney in custody in Maitland Gaol. The preliminary hearing in the Newcastle Police Courts was held over the week between 10 and 16 December 1891, during which only Charles lacked legal representation. The Northumberland Banking Company Case, as it became known, received attention in both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate in December 1891. It was a major press item again in early 1892 when the trial itself was held. From the outset, the evidence of serious financial malpractice by Hadfield and Low began to mount. The position of Charles O’Neill and
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Walter Sidney was recognised as somewhat different from Hadfield and Low, but there appeared to be serious incriminating evidence. One piece of evidence was Charles’s outstanding overdraft. There was also an incomplete promissory note for 294 pounds 16 shillings 1 pence, with ‘C. O’Neill’ pencilled in the bottom—although the witness did not think that the signature was Charles’s.2 Weighing the pros and cons, the Police Magistrate judged: that Sidney and O’Neill certainly occupied a different position to either of the accused, but that they [the Bench] thought that all the defendants should be brought to trial. They did not agree with what had been said as to the injury that would be done to either Sidney or O’Neill by sending them for trial. In fact, their characters would stand better if they were tried before a judge and jury and acquitted on the charge, than if they were discharged at a preliminary hearing.3
All four accused were remanded to appear in the Newcastle District Court on 29 February 1892, although bail was allowed. Charles was released on a personal surety of 300 pounds, which he must have been able to raise either himself or with the assistance of friends.4 Charles’s decision, before warrants were issued for his arrest, to step down from all Society offices including the Presidency of St Patrick’s Conference, demonstrated his integrity. It protected the object of his sacred quest, the Society of St Vincent de Paul in New South Wales, from any immediate connection with a public financial scandal. Yet it must have been a terrible psychological blow, apart from public humiliation and damage to his personal reputation. Despite all he had contributed and sacrificed in the previous decade, he would now have to disappear as the public face of the Society. At a meeting of the Society’s Sydney Particular Council at St Patrick’s Church Hill on Monday 14 December, Charles’s loyal Vice President William Cracknell encouraged the Council to write a letter of sympathy to Charles, commenting: He did not believe him to be guilty of the charge made against him and had no doubt his innocence would be proved satisfactorily after the investigation had taken place.5 217
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Charles briefly visited the Council at a special meeting a week later. The minutes recorded the following simple, yet sad, address: After the usual prayers, Brother O’Neill addressed the meeting and expressed his gratitude to the Council for its resolution of sympathy with him in his trouble and assured the Brothers that his constant prayer would be for the welfare of the Society—he then retired . . .6
The Newcastle Quarter Sessions opened with more than the usual ceremony on 29 February 1892, with the Mayor and many civic dignitaries present. The City of Newcastle now had a brand new courthouse. His Honour Judge Backhouse presided over the first trial held there— the Northumberland Banking Case. The trial was one of conspiracy to cheat and defraud, this time ‘Peter Norgard and other customers, shareholders and depositors of the Northumberland Banking Company’.7 The trial lasted for three days, during which Charles and the other accused were under the glare of public officials and an angry Newcastle public. The Crown Prosecution team, Wilfred Blacket and C.G. Heydon, had little difficulty in exposing the conspiracy to defraud by George Hadfield and Charles Low. The accused pair’s activities involved making false statements in balance sheets.8 The pair signed over large sums of money to each other, deposited money into each other’s accounts, then withdrew it as ‘directors fees’ to cover it up or speculated with the proceeds.9 At least 14000 pounds was missing. Proving that Charles O’Neill and Walter Sidney were part of such a conspiracy was, however, another matter. Charles was fortunate to be defended by his close friend, Thomas Slattery, who, as Minister for Mines, gave out an air of authority in a courtroom set in this mining city. J.H. Want QC defended Walter Sidney, and also helped Charles’s case in many respects. The Crown was unable to prove that certain promissory notes allegedly signed by Charles O’Neill and Walter Sidney actually bore their signatures. A witness, Alexander Low—the brother of the accused Charles Low—confirmed that neither director had either examined the books or signed the schedules.10 At the same time, the practice of these directors of signing blank scripts, leaving it to be filled in later by the Managing Director, was deemed as a common but improper practice 218
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rather than an illegal one. Both appeared to be disconnected from the management of the company itself. However, the real problem for Charles was explaining the big overdraft of more than 393 pounds, despite Hadfield’s obvious manipulation of the accounts. Prosecutor Heydon tried to mount a case that the big overdraft was proof of Charles’s complicity in the scams of the banking company. Slattery’s defence was to show that the responsibility for allowing overdrafts resided with George Hadfield who, despite initial reservations, was only too willing to extend Charles’s overdraft when he learned of Charles’s connection with the Broken Hill Water Supply Scheme. Slattery piled on the table, as character references, Charles’s commissions from the Lanarkshire Regiment and testimonials from prominent New Zealand politicians including William Fitzherbert, James Macandrew and John Williamson. Sensing that his case against Charles was slipping away, prosecutor Heydon accused Charles, unfairly and in retrospect incorrectly, of pocketing 100 pounds on the pretext of standing for the Broken Hill election and then not doing so. Heydon’s final shot at Charles was cutting: . . . the fact remained that he owed the bank over 300 pounds and had never lodged a shilling of security or paid any of it back. It would take a lot of commissions in the Lanarkshire Rifles to make the accused honest enough to see that for months he was closely identified with a bogus institution.11
The jury delivered its verdict on Wednesday 2 March 1892. George Hadfield and Charles Low were found guilty, receiving prison sentences, while Charles O’Neill and Walter Sidney were acquitted.12 Charles might have been exonerated but, aged 63 (an advanced age for those times), he probably emerged from the trial a shattered man. He had been drawn into a trap by a swindler who treacherously tried to implicate Charles in a web of malpractice. Yet Charles’s own business ineptitude had been exposed for all to see. In its editorial of 4 March 1892, the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate could not resist the comment: This case, among other things, ought to show all those who consider that the position of a director of a bank is a more or less ornamental one, the absurdity and danger of their belief.13 219
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity With banks crumbling everywhere, the Australian colonies learned the hard lesson of the ‘vicissitudes’ of economic fortune and the need for better financial systems. Although judged innocent, Charles’s involvement in the business would hang like an albatross around his neck. Being associated with a rotten financial institution, responsible for the loss of the life savings of many hardworking people, must also have been galling for someone who committed so much of his life to working for the poor. Perhaps Charles had been unable to fully cover his overdraft before the run on the bank began, but he might have to do so now. As Slattery put forward in Charles’s defence: He was still liable for the money, and would have to pay it, if he could, and he was no worse than those many others who got advances from Hadfield.14
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Chapter 23 Poverty and pestilence
T
he departure of Charles from the New South Wales Presidency of the St Vincent de Paul Society left both the Particular Council and Cardinal Moran in a state of considerable anxiety.1 The charitable work of the Society was more desperately needed than before, given the deepening economic slump. A competent figure had to be found to lead the organisation that Charles had painstakingly built. For a short time until his departure back to England in March 1893, an Englishman, W.T. Synnott, filled the role of President with the Cardinal’s approval. Cardinal Moran took Society affairs into his own hands. On 25 January 1892, Moran wrote to Baudon’s successor as President-General of the Society in Paris, Antonin Pagès, informing him of the situation. Pagès reply was stiff, conveying minimal sympathy for Charles: The General-Council and I have thanked God that Your Eminence has taken the interests of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in hand, as the arrest of its president could have proven to be a mortal blow. Mr O’Neill was only known to us by his services to our Society, first in Glasgow where he founded several Conferences, then in New Zealand and finally in Sydney. There was nothing that could make us doubt his honourable character and his dedication. If the Vice-Presidents of the Particular Council did not impose his resignation, they should have forewarned us. We would probably have intervened by asking Mr O’Neill to retire before the lawsuits started.2 221
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Pagès’s letter did not acknowledge Charles’s decision to voluntarily retire, or (from a French perspective admittedly) acknowledge presumption of innocence under English law. Cardinal Moran’s concern about the conditions of the poor also reflected developments within the Catholic Church in Europe. Belatedly, and partly in response to the new dawn of an international Socialist movement, the Church began to recognise the rights of workers in an age of unfettered capital. In May 1891, Pope Leo XIII released an encyclical, On the Condition of the Working Classes, or Rerum Novarum, defending the rights of workers, including just wages, rights of association through unions, and assistance in times of unemployment, sickness and old age. The views of Frédéric Ozanam and other nineteenth century progressive Christian thinkers were finally beginning to bear fruit. There was a longer term political impact in Australia too. Within a few decades, the Victorian industrial judge and politician Henry Bournes Higgins was influenced by such thinking in his legislation supporting minimum wages for labourers. Moran had now built up solid connections with a rapidly developing labour movement since his support of the maritime strike. A Public Lecture on the Rights and Duties of Labour, published in August 1891, made it quite clear where his sympathies lay. Referring in his lecture to the brutalisation of humanity uncovered by a Royal Commission on the housing of the London poor, Moran emphasised: Let no one imagine that religion and morality have nothing to say about the condition of these things.3
The misery of the slums could now be found in the inner Sydney suburbs, albeit on a much smaller scale. In 1892, the Society was called upon to assist in the distribution of monies from the ‘Town Hall Fund’ set up by the Mayor, parliamentarians and prominent citizens, to help the unemployed and their families. Between July and December, 331 pounds was distributed from this fund. Three new Conferences were also established that year—in Surry Hills (June 1892), Hunters Hill (June 1892) and Randwick (October 1892). The boys’ home shifted from Surry Hills to Thomas Street, Five Dock, in June 1892. The problem of long-term leadership of the Society in New South Wales still remained, but not for long. Louis Francis Heydon, the new 222
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president of Hunters Hill Conference, had an imposing pedigree. Heydon served as lawyer and parliamentarian, Minister for Justice in the Robertson Ministry, Attorney-General in the Dibbs Ministry and, from December 1893, Member of the State Legislative Council. Heydon had little personal connection with Charles himself, although both seemed to have been members of the Total Abstinence Society. Charles O’Neill’s earlier strategy of encouraging politicians to join the Society in New South Wales was now benefiting the Society considerably. Cardinal Moran had little difficulty in persuading Louis Heydon to accept the President’s role, writing to him in May 1894: I must ask you to acquiesce in what appears to be the wish of the Particular Council of the St Vincent de Paul Society that you should be President. A stranger coming in as President will not be acquainted with the routine of work and with the many great things that may be achieved by the Society.4
Louis Heydon held the position of President of the Particular Council of Sydney, now with offices in Lyndhurst Chambers, 84 Elizabeth Street, between July 1894 and July 1897. In August 1896, the boys’ home was moved from Five Dock to 21 acres at Westmead near Parramatta, and placed under the supervision of the Marist Brothers. Heydon, in turn, was succeeded by T.E. Murphy, who had served as Secretary under Charles, with W.J. Coogan serving as Vice President. Given the strength of the Society’s organisation in New South Wales, Louis Heydon immediately sought approval from President-General Pagès in Paris for the setting up of a Superior Council of Australasia. Paris approved this development in April 1895. The Superior Council was constituted in Sydney on 8 October 1895, and formally instituted by the Society’s Council-General on 9 December 1895. Louis Heydon became its first President. Such a Council, the forerunner of the Society’s National Council of Australia, brought together representation from the Particular Council of Melbourne led by Francis Healy, from Adelaide in South Australia, from Brisbane in Queensland, and from Wellington and Christchurch in New Zealand. The Christchurch Conference had been revived again by Bishop J. Grimes on 29 July 1888. In Queensland, disastrous floods of the Brisbane River caused extensive damage to properties in the then poor district of 223
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Red Hill in Brisbane in 1893. Red Hill’s parish priest, Father J. Hegarty, urged his congregation to do something to help the locals with repairs. Out of these activities, Queensland’s first Conference, St Brigit’s of Red Hill, was established on 18 February 1894. In its first six months, the Conference provided aid worth 7 pounds 16 shillings 2 pence, as well as clothing provided by the parish Sewing Guild. Father Hegarty, writing to Louis Heydon in September 1894, confirmed that the work of the Conference would continue: There is a great deal of depression among the working classes in Brisbane at present—owing to the scarcity of work. There is much work to be done by the Society with God’s assistance in trying to relieve the poor, to assist them in sending their children to school by supplying adequate clothing.5
Tasmania’s first Conference was established at the Church of the Apostles, Launceston, under the guidance of Archdeacon M. Beechinor in 1899. With representation across the Australian states, the Society of St Vincent de Paul was therefore ‘federated’ in Australia under its Superior Council, five years before Australia’s own Federation. Its central administration in Sydney was built on the machinery of charity left behind by Charles. In 1900, the Society in New South Wales had 31 Conferences, with more than 550 members, and provided assistance worth more than 1800 pounds. Charles O’Neill did not abandon the Society or its work for the poor. He rejoined the St Patrick’s Conference in 1893 and, together with his brother John, remained on the list of active members attending meetings regularly until a few months before his death in November 1900. It has been generally accepted that Charles was ruined financially as a result of his involvement in the Northumberland Banking Company debacle. In a sense, this might have been true, given that Charles might have been morally obliged to make good the losses on his account with the bank, as his Defence Counsel, Thomas Slattery suggested. As Charles was acquitted, he would not on the other hand have to pay court costs, and the remaining losses on the bank shares were on paper only. The actual state of Charles’s finances is unknown, but the end result may have been to wipe out his business assets. 224
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By early 1895, he had resigned from the Institution of Civil Engineers. His last known professional advice was to a Royal Commission on the Sydney City Railway Extension on 13 April 1897. This plan was for a double line of railway from the Eveleigh Railway Yards, in Redfern, to Bridge Street in the city, at a cost of 300000 pounds, and a tunnel with railway line under Sydney Harbour from Bridge Street across to Lavender Bay connecting with Sydney’s North Shore line, at a cost of 320 000 pounds. Nothing came of the plan, and it is unlikely that Charles was able to earn a regular income at this late stage of his life. Both he and his brother John lived in poverty during their final years. Yet the fact remains that Charles seems to have lived in squalid circumstances even before his final business failure, in the decrepit lodging house of 200 Cumberland Street, The Rocks. What little he had might have been used to support his older brother John who was probably in even more desperate circumstances. One of Charles’s closest friends and his spiritual mentor, Father Peter Piquet, later made an intriguing observation about Charles at the very beginning of his extraordinary quest for the sake of the poor: The funds at the start were very low, like the Founder and his Brother John, very poor. But such was his unbounded trust in Divine Providence, and optimistic turn of mind, that I do not remember the little vigorous Conference, ever to have turned down a deserving case.6
While making a living, Charles never accumulated a great deal of money during the 1880s and appeared to live on the edge financially. Little evidence remains of documented personal acts of giving, outside charity undertaken by the Society. If he made personal sacrifices himself, he ensured that it was done secretly. What is more revealing is to examine Charles’s attitude to holy poverty. This is an ideal that the devout may recognise as a sign of sanctity; but to those chasing wealth, utter madness. Charles’s devotion to the ideals of Saint Vincent de Paul was matched by his devotion to Saint Francis of Assisi, in serving the poor. The son of a wealthy merchant, Saint Francis’s sacrifice of his own wealth to the poor, for the sake of the Christ of the Poor, remained a powerful religious ideal in Christian spirituality for centuries. Catholic laypeople who wished to follow the spiritual ideals of Saint Francis could join the 225
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Secular Franciscans, or Third Order of Saint Francis. While not expected to adopt a complete renunciation of worldly goods, the Order’s members were expected to wear a scapular and cord, receive the Catholic sacraments regularly, and practise kindness and charity. Such religious movements were popular in the late nineteenth century, when there were 5000 members of the Order across the Australia colonies and 1500 in Sydney alone. The focus of Franciscan worship in Sydney was at the Friary in Victoria Street, Waverley. The Friary’s cornerstone was laid by Cardinal Moran on 1 March 1891, attended by a host of Sydney dignitaries and politicians, including Sir Patrick Jennings. The Friary itself was formally opened in March 1893. Charles was associated with the Third Order for a number of years. Franciscan priests such as Father Kennedy had closely supported the St Vincent de Paul Society’s work with Sydney’s poor. At the ceremony in 1891, Charles attended not only as President of the St Vincent de Paul Society, but as Lay Head of the Third Order of St Francis as well. In adopting both Vincentian and Franciscan spirituality, Charles clearly aimed at achieving a new level of spiritual discipline. That discipline could have meant the sacrifice of money for the sake of the Christ of the Poor. Being Lay Head of the Secular Franciscans also meant setting some kind of example—although his acts of personal charity would remain totally hidden. All this might be understandable given Charles’s own woeful financial history in what had been the colonial age of gold. Perhaps Charles believed that his financial and entrepreneurial failure was a sign. Perhaps he was haunted by a belief that the making of fortunes was truly a betrayal of the Christ of the Poor. Was there any evidence that Charles looked at it this way? There was at least one piece, the third among the series of the fifteen pious exhortations pasted in his Society Manual. It read: ‘“My God and my all”, S. Francis’ constant prayer, explains his poverty and his wealth.’7 Charles’s practice of quoting poetry to make a point of things that really mattered may provide a clue to his attitude to material goods. If Saint Francis’ prayer truly explained his ‘poverty and wealth’, did it explain Charles’s poverty and wealth as well? There is no proof here, but the inclusion of the sentiment implies that this was the example that Charles was trying to follow. While Father Piquet was Charles’s spiritual 226
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adviser at the very end, it is probable that Charles also sought advice from both Father Le Rennetel and the Franciscan priest Father Kennedy. In a practical and humble way, Charles continued his commitment to serving the poor through St Patrick’s Conference. However, Charles probably served more as a mentor to the Conference than attending anymore to the more difficult cases. His closest friends included postmaster Thomas Dignan, President of St Patrick’s Conference since 1897, Father Peter Piquet, the police sergeant Bartholomew Higgins, and later William Davis. Dignan, a Millers Point postmaster from Argyle Street well-loved by locals, had joined in 1888. In 1899, a new member joined St Patrick’s Conference in the person of Wilfred J. Spruson, son of the late Joseph Spruson, the Conference’s first Secretary. Wilfred was the kind of member that Charles could readily relate to—a Catholic protectionist politician and patent agent who had already campaigned to apply electricity to tramway traction. In 1898, young Spruson had won the state seat of Sydney-Gipps (Millers Point) from the Labor candidate George Black. An ardent supporter of the new Federation, he was soon to campaign for slum clearance, a position that would ultimately cost him his seat in 1901. He also used his position to obtain blankets, later distributed by St Patrick’s Conference, for some of his poorer constituents.8 Very soon, Spruson and his constituents had a major cause for alarm. At the beginning of 1900, with Sydney’s population edging closer to half a million, the crowding in the inner city grew worse. As for The Rocks, for too long the city authorities ignored the festering rot of jerrybuilt slums, foul docksides and basements, open sewers and filthy toilets. Bubonic plague had spread by stealth around Asia and the Pacific. There was an outbreak in South China (1893), Hong Kong (1894), Bombay (1896), Mauritius (February 1899), and Noumea (December 1899). On 19 January 1900, a van driver, Arthur Payne of Ferry Lane near Windmill Street, fell ill and was diagnosed with the feared disease. Although Payne and his nearest neighbours were hastily transferred into quarantine, it was not until March that eradication plans stepped up. By then, posters had appeared on Sydney’s streets, printed in Chinese and English, warning of the plague’s introduction by diseased rats. Between January and August 1900, some 303 Sydney residents were infected, and 103 died. 227
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity George McCredie, a consulting engineer, was appointed by the State Government on 23 March to oversee quarantine operations. Panic soon spread across Sydney, and in the quarantined areas, including The Rocks, house by house clean-ups began in earnest. The old district known by Charles was now being turned upside down. Rubbish was burned and treated with carbolic acid. Walls, buildings, fences and toilets were limewashed. The day after McCredie’s appointment, Wilfred Spruson wrote to Cardinal Moran describing the health and moral conditions of a neighbourhood about 200 yards (183 metres) from St Patrick’s Church. The vivid descriptions convey the scenes that Charles and his followers had themselves confronted in their local war against poverty. According to Spruson, this was a place that ‘no self-respecting person could or would live in’: It comprises 15 or more houses (rent 3s to 5s per week I am informed) none of which face a thoroughfare, all of them facing a yard which is reached by a lane and is common to all houses. All the houses are overcrowded and filthy and you can readily imagine that the sanitary state of the whole place leaves much to be desired; all the conveniences are under one roof in the yard to which I have referred . . . At least four of the houses are brothels.9
Spruson could hardly resist drawing attention to problems of another kind. It was a time, too, of racial discrimination. Many in the Chinese community were unjustly maligned, and were often the victims themselves of unscrupulous or uncaring landlords. While imbued with Victorian prejudices, Spruson’s comments were meant to draw attention to social conditions which contributed to the personal degradation of the young. Spruson expressed his distaste as he described a health inspection in the Chinese quarter near Lower George Street: Opening the door of the opium den we found two filthy chinamen lying on a bed smoking opium, whilst on another bed, a few inches from the first one, there lay a young woman asleep; she was 18 or 19 years old, and wore neither boots nor stockings; she woke upon our entering, lit a cigarette and conversed in a manner which proved that no womanly reserve was left in her. 228
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Again, during an inspection of another such establishment, Spruson recalled: I found there a young fellow of 16 or 17 smoking opium with a well known white woman . . . The young man was only a learner, as one might observe by his awkward handling of the pipe.
Spruson concluded in his letter to the Cardinal: We cannot have a city of good houses; but we may erase from the city those blots on common decency which disfigure its poorer quarters and are nesting places for crime and degradation.
Charles O’Neill, once the brilliant architect and town planner, might have had his own views on the matter. He could not bequeath good houses, but he did bequeath a small army of volunteers who would be there in answer to a call for help from the desperate. The poverty problems of inner Sydney remained, indeed were heightened, with a worse depression some 30 years later. In 1930, at the height of that depression, a now aged Father Piquet commented on the work of St Patrick’s Conference of 1900: The initial Conference developed remarkably, and under the Presidency of Brother Thomas Dignan, called the Father of Millers Point, it proved an inexhaustible granary to our countless poor, and to the charity works undertaken by the ever spreading Society.10
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Chapter 24 Between heaven and earth suspended
T
he religious exhortations inserted in the Manual provide further clues to the kind of spiritual values that guided Charles during the final years of his life. The series was most likely compiled by Charles during the early to mid-1880s. All bar the last in the series, a Daily Telegraph extract dated 1886, came from a Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.1 The first of these, ‘What the lily is amongst flowers, purity is among the virtues’, points to chastity. It is very likely that Charles, a Victorian bachelor, remained celibate and valued chastity, sacrificing his own sexual desires for the sake of his sacred quest. There was always temptation to stray, with no shortage of brothels or similar allurements in The Rocks. Yet there was never any hint of anything else but chastity during his life. He was, of course, well past his prime by the time he settled in 200 Cumberland Street, and probably directed his emotional energies into charitable work. The second and sixth exhortations relate specifically to prayer. Respectively, they read: ‘If you knew how to pray, and if you loved to pray, how good and fruitful your life would be’ and ‘To pray is to hold in our hand the key of all heavenly treasures’. The practice of prayer is the sign of a deeply religious person, whether or not it is accepted by unbelievers. These exhortations, and religious references in Charles’s own correspondence, reveal his attachment to prayer. Moving past the third exhortation on Saint Francis and poverty, the fourth and fifth exhortations were contained in a single cutting. The 230
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fourth exhortation was, ‘Remain always peaceful, calmly continuing your daily labour; even more than that, be joyful’. It conveys an overall impression of serenity in daily living. The sentiment captures something greater than mere stoicism, and must have had added significance as Charles faced destitution in old age. The fifth exhortation, ‘Do not depart from God, how pleasant it is to live always with those who love us’, reinforces the view that Charles believed himself to be an instrument of divine purpose, and that his relationship with God was also a loving one. The seventh exhortation, ‘The saints were men of few devotions, their power was their love, their touchstone their intention’, reveals yet again Charles’s fascination with the Christian saints. Importantly, the sentiment reinforces the point that the real example set by the saints lay in the practice of love or charity, rather than mechanical religious practice. The eighth exhortation is an evangelical cry noted earlier, a theme appreciated by Christian missionaries of all denominations: ‘Oh! If you knew the joy you give to God when you devote yourself to the salvation of souls.’ The ninth and tenth exhortations, also noted earlier, are respectively, ‘Greet cheerfully the importunate person who visits you. God sends him to you’, and ‘Do not refuse an alms which is asked of you, and give to God by giving to the poor’. They indicate the kind of approach, distinctly not a judgmental one, that Charles adopted in his face-to-face dealings with the destitute. The eleventh exhortation reads, ‘Words cannot express the beauty of a soul of a man who dies in the grace of God’. This sentiment probably reflected Charles’s hope that he would attain this kind of holiness. It might have become of more importance as he entered his twilight years and approached death himself. The twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth exhortations describe in different ways the wisdom of charity. Respectively, they read: ‘If we but knew how to be kind, we would bring happiness everywhere with us’, ‘What a void in a life is a day without devotion, without some charitable action’, and ‘Good advice is more precious than gold, a kind word is still more precious than good advice’. Each sentiment values kindness and charity, above all, in life. Whether there is some further hidden code in the order of these exhortations is uncertain. They were probably meant to be reflected 231
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity upon, rather than be read aloud. Even if they were not used in some personal ritual by Charles, these exhortations remain a fascinating insight into Victorian religious psychology. This is further suggested in the final, the fifteenth, in the series of exhortations which drags the reader away from these pieties, with a jolt, into the hard reality of the slum. The Daily Telegraph extract quotes an Irish MP in the British Parliament: ‘What more Christlike than this sentiment of Mr John Morley’s “I count that day basely passed in which no thought is given to the hard lot of garret and hovel, to forlorn children and trampled woman?”’ 2, 3 This final quote conveys the ideal of ‘the holy MP’, crusading for social justice, something that Charles may have secretly wished to become himself. More powerfully, however, it also identifies the vulnerability of women and children in these conditions. For the bachelor Charles, this latter sentiment must smack of some pathos. Did he see himself as their noble protector, or does the sentiment represent the family he never had? Despite the devout Catholicism of Charles and his circle, the Irish community in The Rocks did not actively share it. While connections with Gaelic culture, family ties and neighbourhood associations were celebrated, Catholic devotion was not always carried on through the generations.4 Charles’s own spirituality was more complex than the Irish Catholicism of his family ancestry, although it appears to have been built firmly upon it. From his youth, he developed an appreciation of classical religious aesthetics—expressed in the design of church and school architecture. Well before such religious ideals became popular, his spiritual life also focused on ‘the option for the poor’, by serving them according to the principles of Saint Vincent de Paul and the social justice vision of Frédéric Ozanam. During the late 1880s, Charles seemed to have been drawn further to the ideals of charity, poverty and simplicity based on the example of Saint Francis of Assisi. Yet there is one other, easily overlooked, aspect of Charles’s spirituality—the joyful encouragement of the celebration of community in social activities, festivals, fundraising entertainments, and Communion breakfasts. Charles promoted a sense of the community worship far beyond the altar rail. On 8 November 1900, Charles died in St Vincent’s Hospital, not of bubonic plague but of complications caused by ‘senile gangrene’. Until his death, while ‘mindful of the great charity work to the last’, he was 232
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attended by Father Piquet during his last days in the hospital.5 Now alone and helpless, his older brother John James was cared for by the Little Sisters of the Poor Home in Randwick. He survived Charles by less than a year, dying on 13 June 1901. John’s remains joined those of Charles in the Roman Catholic Section of Rookwood Cemetery. During the final years of his life, Charles had lived a life of public obscurity. The embarrassment of the Northumberland Banking Case had taken its toll on the public man. Yet the pioneer of charity was still regarded with affection. According to the obituary appearing in the Freeman’s Journal in July 1902: No two figures were better known in the streets of Sydney than those of Charles O’Neill and his brother John, who was his inseparable companion . . . A lengthy volume could be written concerning the attachment of the two brothers, and the many anecdotes of pathetic simplicity, mutual forbearance, and self-sacrifice of the two pious men who lived more in heaven than on earth.6
The obituary was published six days after a ceremony held on 6 July 1902 to mark the erection of the white marble cross and its ornamental base at the grave site. The monument was bought from the quarries of sculptors Messrs McMurtrie and Co. of Orange, and the cost was met by Society members through voluntary subscription. The ceremony was led by Father Le Rennetel and a large contingent of Society members and other friends of Charles. By this time, the magnitude of Charles’s achievement had dawned slowly, as the obituary also commented: As in most undertakings that are destined to flourish, his efforts met with considerable opposition, many assuring him that there was no need for such an organisation in Australia. But with the eyes of charity he saw differently from others, who, though more worldly wise perhaps than he, had the interest of indigent humanity less at heart.
Caught somewhere between heaven and earth was an apt epitaph for Charles even after death. There was some sense of unfinished business. Charles’s and his brother’s remains were exhumed after almost 50 years on 23 June 1961, almost 80 years after the foundation of 233
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity St Patrick’s Conference. At that time, the Society had acquired a large plot at Rookwood Cemetery which was used to bury the paupers of Sydney—and that is where the monument was moved and the remains were interred. On 22 July 1961, another pilgrimage, this time led by Monsignor F. Kerr, marked the end of the project. Kerr’s panegyric reflected the sense of growing reverence for Charles’s memory: Lovely as this monument is to human eyes and pleasing as it must be to Almighty God, yet lovelier still and still more pleasing to Him is the monument of which Charles O’Neill with God’s help, was the architect—the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Australasia.7
Burial among Sydney’s paupers was perhaps a most fitting end. Within the inside lefthand cover of Charles’s old Society Manual lay a separate cutting, with a verse attributed to Saint Vincent de Paul. It read: ‘Those who love the poor in life shall have no fear of death.’ Perhaps Charles could now truly rest in peace.
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harles O’Neill was inspired by two nineteenth century movements. One was liberal progress with its belief in technology. The other was the emerging Christian social conscience and the championing of charity and social justice. In time, he turned away from the mad scramble for wealth and position, and devoted himself to the care of those left behind, and to the encouragement of others who would do the same. A haunting theme of his extraordinary life was ‘vicissitude’, ironically and anonymously penned within the jacket of his Society Manual. The twists and turns of fortune marked Charles’s extraordinary life and career in Scotland, New Zealand and finally New South Wales. The life and death of Charles Gordon O’Neill did matter. With the exception of ill-judged involvement in the disastrous Northumberland Banking Company, his endeavours usually benefited many, mostly the poorest of the colonial settlers. However, ruin for Charles became a recurring, tragic outcome. As he packed up his trunk and moved on, he would, at best, become a footnote in someone else’s saga—if he was recognised at all. With each twist and turn, two facets of Charles’s personality came to light. These revealed an inner tension. That tension was accentuated in Charles’s endeavours; endeavours that often demonstrated genius, albeit a flawed one. Despite his entrepreneurial spirit, he had, like many an innovator, little talent for business. The tragedy of the Northumberland
C
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Bank debacle was to expose publicly, and in a very humiliating way, this shortcoming. First, from his Irish ancestry he gained his fervent Catholic faith, the devotion to saints and heroes, sympathy for the victims of the Irish potato famine, and a passionate commitment to follow the teachings and ideal of the Christ of the Poor. Out of this was born the dreamy young architect, designing his little Glasgow churches and schools to demonstrate the glories of God. He became a young religious idealist fired with the social justice ideals of Dr Frédéric Ozanam, principal co-founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society. In mid-nineteenth century Glasgow, one of the great hubs of the industrial revolution, he learned the talents and skills of inspiring charity volunteers, bringing the enterprise of civic charity well above the level of the humble soup kitchen. To practise charity oneself is one thing. To lead and inspire others to make that commitment can be much harder in the face of prejudice and bigotry. He questioned the harsh judgment that the poor be ‘deserving’ to receive help, which meant that they live by the strict precepts of a rigid moral code, and be ‘respectful’ to the giver. Second, his Scottish training also made its mark. From this came the desire to pursue an engineering career, the fascination with machinery, invention and progress, and the ambition of ‘Captain’ Charles of the Lanarkshire Regiment. In the age of the railway and civil construction, the Victorian engineer was a hero. Charles was undoubtedly captured by this ideal. He learned the pragmatic skills of his profession, enabling him to make his way in societies often racked by sectarian bitterness. Charles should be recognised as among the first notable Catholic architects in Scotland since the Reformation. He was still some way from fulfilling his potential in this field before leaving it behind. The rest of his architectural work in other places, while worthy, was not as significant. In New Zealand, Charles made his mark as a pioneer surveyor and civil engineer, contributing to the early development of Otago, Auckland and Wellington. The Wellington Steam Tramway, despite its fate, justly earned him the title of ‘father’ of New Zealand’s tramways. In New South Wales, Charles’s engineering exploits were not as eminent, although his pioneering work on Sydney Harbour tunnels remains worthy of note. During Charles’s ten years of parliamentary service, he expounded a vision of what New Zealand could become through the application of 236
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technological expertise. As the member for Otago Goldfields, he rejected self-serving provincialism and fought hard, if often losing, battles on behalf of the miners. He fashioned for himself the role of visionary for New Zealand’s future, addressing the need for gold-driven development, patents and innovation, reinforced during his term as New Zealand’s first Member for the Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula. His town planning legislation was a milestone in the civic development of the young country. He also made contributions to early New Zealand debates about the need for forest conservation, and labour safety and conditions. It was, however, all too much for a colony just emerging from the Land Wars. He became hostage to the fate of Vogel’s overly ambitious development plans and, disconnected from the proud constituents of the Thames, was politically dumped in short measure. A gregarious bachelor, Charles learned to build social networks and administrative and promotional machineries. These would, in varying degrees, benefit the poor in three countries. In time, as his political and entrepreneurial fortunes waned, the two facets of his personality fused to create that of the ‘Engineer of Charity’. His actions went beyond philanthropy to embrace a devoted empathy for the poor and those volunteers who served them. Religious zeal for the sake of the poor became, in the end, the defining feature of Charles’s life—a sacred quest that began in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1876. Here, with the support of the priests of the Society of Mary, he managed to place the St Vincent de Paul Society on a firmer footing in that country through proper aggregation with the Society’s organisation in Paris. Father John-Baptiste Petitjean SM and Charles O’Neill should be acknowledged as the principal co-founders of the Society in New Zealand. However, Father Jean-Baptiste Chataigner SM and the members of Christchurch Conference of 1867 should also be remembered as foremost in its development. The Society of Mary again joined Charles in spreading his beloved Society to New South Wales in 1881, and here Charles succeeded brilliantly. Father Gerard Ward of Melbourne should be remembered as a founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Victoria in 1854, as well as a principal co-founder of the Society in Australia. However, Father Ward’s venture was short-lived with his death in 1858. It was because of the disappearance of the Melbourne Conference that Charles O’Neill 237
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity was directed by Adolphe Baudon, the Society’s President-General, to embark on his sacred quest to the Australian colonies twenty years later. Charles’s success in founding the Society in New South Wales should also mark him as a principal co-founder of the Society in Australia. There are others, too, who rightly should be acknowledged as foremost in the foundation of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia—Sergeant-Major John Gorman of Perth, the Geelong Ladies Society of St Vincent de Paul, Francis Healy of Melbourne, and Louis Heydon, first President of the Society’s Superior Council of Australasia. By 2005, more than a hundred years later, the Society had grown to 40 000 members in Australia and about 3000 in New Zealand. In New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory alone, it had grown to over 21 000 members and associates. Charles’s major charitable achievement was to establish his organisation before the colonies’ first great depression of the 1890s, in a time before governments provided significant support or assistance for the poor. The slogan, ‘provided without reference to party or sect’, meant assistance provided to anyone, Protestant or Catholic, believer or nonbeliever. Charles also had to struggle against the apathetic view that the Australasian colonies would become so rich that charitable endeavours were unnecessary. In no less than a decade, and despite the colonies’ potential wealth, the colonists themselves would, like Charles, learn the meaning of the ‘vicissitudes’ of fortune. Many struggling pioneer families and individuals in Sydney and across New South Wales would owe much to ‘Captain’ Charles and his growing army of retainers, as they doled out money for rent, paid their food and medical bills, and set up penny banks for the children. Charles’s generosity was marked by a passionate commitment to the cause and welfare of the poor over most of his life. His generosity was of a magnitude and with an outcome far greater than had he simply made a fortune and given it away for their benefit. Just how much he actually gave away himself, we may never know. Out of religious conviction he almost certainly kept this a secret. The measure of his generosity was simply that, because of his exploits on behalf of the battling pioneers of Sydney and New South Wales, he had nothing left to give. Charles’s generosity has been marked by some historians who have commented that, in time, Charles O’Neill may stand among those 238
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whom the Catholic Church reveres as among ‘the chosen ones in God’s Kingdom’.1 Sydney rose to become one of the greatest cities of the southern hemisphere, worshipping the creation of wealth, technology and the celebration of life. It has none the less remembered and celebrated a number of strange, yet somehow inspiring, individuals who have stood in stark contrast to its popular and triumphant hedonism. Arthur Stace, the early twentieth century religious loner who scrawled the word ‘Eternity’ on city pavements, is one. ‘Captain’ Charles, with his exploits for the sake of the Christ of the Poor, now deserves to stand among them. The true wealth of a city does not consist solely of the assets of individuals which, given the ‘vicissitudes’ of economic or personal fate, may disappear. That wealth is reflected in the richness and generosity of its community life— which includes support for those for whom prosperity has passed by.
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List of abbreviations ADV AGE APGG ArchNZ ARG AS ATL CM COG
COManual
DH DT DTel EG EP FJ GA GDM GFP GH
The Advocate (Melbourne) The Age (Melbourne) Auckland Provincial Government Gazette Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te K¯awanatanga The Argus (Melbourne) Australian Star Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington Catholic Monthly (South Australia) Charles Gordon O’Neill, Engineer and Apostle, pamphlet based on article in The Record, January 1967, by Cec Foley with foreword by Ted Bacon, re-published 1995, Sydney: St Vincent De Paul Society, James Maloney Press Manual of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, published 1877, with subsequent annotations and pasted cuttings by Charles O’Neill Dumbarton Herald The Dunstan Times Daily Telegraph (Sydney) Edinburgh Gazette Evening Post (Wellington) Freeman’s Journal Greenock Advertiser Glasgow Daily Mail Glasgow Free Press or the Free Press Glasgow Herald
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List of abbreviations ICN IGI JACHS JNZHR LT MArcHH MM MMH MT NMH&MA NZGG NZH NZM NZPD NZT ODT OW PGWAT SA SAA SC SMH StFCMB
StPSVD Casebook SVDPA SVDP100Years
TA TS WASVDPA WCArch WI
Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth) International Genealogical Index (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society Journal New Zealand House of Representatives Lyttelton Times Marist Archives, Hunters Hill, Sydney The Marist Messenger Melbourne Morning Herald Manly Times Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate The New Zealand Government Gazette New Zealand Herald New Zealand Mail New Zealand Parliamentary Debates New Zealand Tablet Otago Daily Times Otago Witness Perth Gazette and Western Australia Times The Silver Age (Broken Hill) Sydney Archdiocesan Archives (Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney) The Southern Cross (Sydney) Sydney Morning Herald St Francis’ Conference Minute Book, 1881 (T.J. Dwyer, Secretary) (unpublished, in St Vincent de Paul Society Archives, Sydney) Case Book of St Patrick’s Conference Church Hill 1892 to 1900 (unpublished), MArcHH St Vincent de Paul Society Archives, Sydney S.F. Egan, The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Australia—1854–1954—The First 100 Years (Sydney: St Vincent De Paul Society, James Maloney Press, 1981) Thames Advertiser Thames Star Western Australia St Vincent de Paul Society Archives, Perth Wellington City Archives Wellington Independent
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Notes
Prologue 1 The Society is, however, neither a formal arm of the Catholic Church nor does it operate under the Church’s Canon Law. 2 ‘The Late Charles O’Neill MICE.’, FJ, 17 November 1900, p. 12. 3 The full inscription read: Of Your Charity Pray For The souls of CHARLES O’NEILL M. Inst. C. E. Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society IN AUSTRALASIA Who died at Sydney, Nov. 8 1900, Aged 72 Years. AND OF HIS BROTHER JOHN Who died at Sydney, June 13 1901, AGED 74 YEARS ‘Requiescant in pace’
Chapter 1 1 J. Handley, ‘Religious and Racial Discord’, Chapter 4 in The Irish in Scotland (UK: John S. Burns, 1964). 2 J. Burrowes, Irish, The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City (Edinburgh and London, UK: Mainstream Publishing), pp. 122–3. 3 Correspondence Bishop Murdoch to Rev. Dr Kyle, 21 April and 20 August 1848, Blairs Papers, Scottish Catholic Archives, Edinburgh. 4 J. Handley, ‘The Glasgow Free Press’, Chapter 3 in The Irish in Scotland (Part I). 5 ibid. 6 GFP, 3 July 1852, p. 1. 7 ibid., 23 October 1852, p. 2.
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Notes 8 ibid. 9 Charles could have attended schools like the Inverary Grammar School or Englishspeaking School for Irish youth. See A. Fraser, The Royal Burgh of Inverary (UK: St Andrew’s Press, 1977), pp. 193–224. 10 A useful description of the Glasgow of the 1850s is given in Jimmy Powdrell Campbell’s summary of the Madeleine Smith Case (accessed 5 May 2005), available from http://www.amostcuriousmurder.com. 11 E-mail correspondence from Paul McCormick of Jordanhill Glasgow, based on the research of the late Father Patrick Tierney, former archivist of the Archdiocese of Glasgow, 15 September 2002, SVDPA, Folder 65. The Dictionary of Scottish Architects lists Charles’s work under John Carrick from 1853 onwards. See entry for Charles O’Neill (accessed 21 March 2006), http://www.codexgeo.co.uk/dsa. 12 GFP, 28 June 1856, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 1. 13 GFP, 21 January 1854, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 1. 14 ibid. 15 The extract from the Edinburgh Building Chronicle as reproduced in the GFP, 21 January 1854, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 1. 16 An oriel window is a bay window either on an upper floor, supported by brackets or corbels, or projecting from the face of a wall at a ground floor level. A corbel is a carved block of stone projecting from a wall. 17 ‘Report on the General Meeting in the Trades Hall Last Saturday’, GFP, 5 January 1856, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 1. 18 ‘Progress of Catholic Education in Glasgow; Splendid Soiree in St Andrew’s New Schools’, GFP, 5 July 1856, p. 3, extract, SVDPA, Folder 1. 19 ibid.
Chapter 2 1 See Daily Mail report cited in J. Burrowes, Irish, The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City (Edinburgh and London, UK: Mainstream Publishing), p. 91. 2 ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Account of Mr James Walsh’, GFP, 24 September 1853, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 2. 3 ibid. 4 ibid. 5 ibid. 6 ibid. 7 See Luke 10:1. 8 ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Account of Mr James Walsh’, GFP, 24 September 1853, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 2. 9 B. Aspinal, ‘The Welfare State within the State: The Saint Vincent de Paul Society in Glasgow, 1848–1920’, Studies in Church History 23 (1986), p. 445. 10 ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Address of Colonel Gerard’, GFP, 24 September 1853, p. 2, SVDPA, Folder 2. 11 ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Account of Mr James Walsh’. 12 See Matthew 6:24. 13 See John 13:35. 14 This is translated from the Documents of St Vincent de Paul, vol. 11, p. 32, cited in
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 15 16 17 18 19 20
T. McKenna, Praying With St Vincent de Paul, Companions for the Journey series (Winona Minnesota, US: St Mary’s Press, 1994), p. 59. ibid., p. 60. ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Report by Mr Charles O’Neill’, GFP, 24 September 1853, p. 2. The sentiment is drawn from Mark 9:41 and Matthew 10:42. ‘The Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul: Meeting of the Catholics of Glasgow: Report by Mr Charles O’Neill’, p. 2. See Matthew 5:7. ‘Presentation to Charles O’Neill’, FJ, 25 July 1891, p. 15. GFP, 13 March 1858, p. 2, extract, SVDPA, Folder 1.
Chapter 3 1 See Jimmy Powdrell Campbell’s view of architect David Hamilton from Madeleine Smith Case (accessed 5 May 2005), available from http://www.amostcuriousmurder. com. 2 GFP, 8 May 1858, p. 2, extract, SVDPA, Folder 1. 3 GFP, 3 March 1860, p. 2, extract, SVDPA, Folder 1. 4 ‘Testimonial to Mr Charles O’Neill’, GFP, 3 October 1863, p. 13. 5 ‘Scotch Intelligence, April 1860’ in Society of St Vincent de Paul (Irish) Bulletin (1860), p. 262. 6 See Matthew 24:31–46. 7 Catholic catechisms listing the seven corporal acts of mercy were available throughout Ireland in the nineteenth century. 8 Right Reverend Monsignor Baunard, Ozanam in his Correspondence, as translated by a member of the Council of Ireland of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (Dublin, Ireland: Veritas Publications, 1925), p. 279. 9 ‘Scotch Intelligence, April 1860’, p. 265. 10 ibid., p. 264. 11 ‘Report of the Proceedings of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland, during the years 1861 and 1862’, GFP, 28 March 1863, p. 13. 12 ibid. 13 ibid. 14 ‘Letter from the President of the St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland to the Presidents of Conference’, GFP, 28 March 1863, p. 13. 15 J. Burrowes, Irish, The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City (Edinburgh and London, UK: Mainstream Publishing), pp. 98–100.
Chapter 4 1 ‘Letter from the President of the St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland to the Presidents of Conference’, GFP, 28 March 1863, p. 13. 2 C. Murphy, The Spirit of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (Dublin, Ireland: St Vincent de Paul Society, 1944), p. 24. 3 ibid. 4 ‘Letter from the President of the St Vincent de Paul in the Western District of Scotland to the Presidents of Conference’, p. 13. 5 ibid.
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Notes 6 J. Grierson, Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force (UK, London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1909, 1972 reprint), pp. 231–2. 7 ‘Testimonial to Mr Charles O’Neill’, GFP, 3 October 1863, p. 13. 8 Extract from the GDM, 14 July 1863, as quoted in ‘The Appointment of Mr Charles O’Neill’, GFP, 18 July 1863; extract, SVDPA, Folder 20. Lord Elcho, 10th Earl of Wemyss, formed the London Scottish Regiment in 1859. 9 ‘Testimonial to Mr Charles O’Neill’, p. 13. 10 EG, 17 July 1863, p. 13, extract, SVDPA, Folder 1. 11 GH, 8 August 1863; extract, SVDPA, Folder 1. 12 ‘The Appointment of Mr Charles O’Neill’, GFP, 18 July 1863, p. 9, extract, SVDPA, Folder 20. 13 ibid. 14 ibid. 15 Editorial, WI, Thursday 1 June 1871. 16 ‘Glasgow to the Goldfields of New Zealand’, GA, 22 September 1863; extract, SVDPA, Folder ‘BRECHIN CASTLE’. 17 ‘Diary of a Greenock Passenger, per ship Persian, From London to Otago, New Zealand’, GA, vol. LXI—no. 8461, 10 December 1864. 18 ‘Diary of a Greenock Passenger per ship Persian, From London to Otago, New Zealand’, GA, vol. LVI—no. 8488, 11 February 1865. 19 ODT, 24 January 1864, p. 4. 20 Diary of a Greenock Passenger, vol. LVI—no. 8488, 11 February 1865. 21 ibid. 22 ibid. 23 E. Olssen, A History of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand: John McIndoe Ltd, 1984), pp. 33–4
Chapter 5 1 Anthony Trollope’s comments on Otago are recorded in his Australia and New Zealand published in 1873. 2 ibid., pp. 475–6. The ‘Inimitable Thatcher’ (1830–78) made a name of himself as a comedy lecturer doing the rounds of the colonies. 3 COG, p. 6. See also A.P. Burke, correspondence to C. Foley, 8 June 1962, SVDPA, Folder 18. 4 NZPD, vol. 5, 1 July 1869 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1869), p. 331. 5 Editorial, DT, 24 March 1866. 6 NZPD, vol. 2, 7 August 1868 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868), p. 366. 7 ibid., 18 September 1868, p. 459. 8 ‘To the Electors of the Goldfields Boroughs, From Charles O’Neill’, DT, 3 March 1866. 9 The South Island of New Zealand has been traditionally referred to as the ‘Middle Island’ given that there is a third, although relatively small, island to the south across the Foveaux Strait called Stewart Island. 10 ‘To the Electors of the Goldfields Boroughs, From Charles O’Neill’, 3 March 1866. 11 ODT, 12 October 1866, p. 5. 12 ibid.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 13 Otago Daily Times extract cited in A. McLintock, The History of Otago, The Origins and Growth of a Wakefield Class Settlement (Otago Centennial Historical Publications 1949, reprinted Christchurch, New Zealand: Capper Press, 1975), p. 566. 14 NZPD, vol. 2, 7 August 1868, p. 366. 15 NZPD, vol. 3, 18 September 1868 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868), p. 459. 16 ibid. 17 NZPD, vol. 2, 7 August 1868, p. 366. 18 ibid.
Chapter 6 1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
NZPD, vol. 2, 6 August 1868 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868), p. 28. NZPD, vol. 4, 15 October 1868 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868), p. 345. ibid., 8 October 1868, p. 228. ibid., 7 October 1868, p. 190. NZPD, vol. 2, 7 August 1868, p. 365. Lord Colonsay (1793–1874) was a famed Scottish judge and Lord Chief Justice from 1852–67. The Clan Chattan was a powerful grouping of Scottish clans, dating back to the thirteenth century. NZPD, vol. 1, Part II, 23 September 1867 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1867), p. 1044. ibid. ibid. See Matthew 19:11. ibid. ibid. ibid., 25 September 1867, p. 1089. NZPD, vol. 2, 21 July 1868, pp. 65–6. On St Patrick’s Day 1858, James Stephens and Thomas Clark Luby started the Fenian organisation in Ireland known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. NZPD, vol. 3, 18 September 1868 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868), p. 460. A. Isdale, Thames Gold Mines with Maps, Outline History of Thames and History of the Principal Claims (Thames New Zealand: A. Isdale, 1952), p. 8. NZPD, vol. 2, 7 August 1868, p. 366. NZPD, vol. 5, 16 June 1869 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1869), p. 128. NZPD, vol. 6, 12 August 1869 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1869), p. 427.
Chapter 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
NZPD, vol. 7, 15 July 1870 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1870), p. 493. ibid., p. 497. ibid., p. 493. ibid. NZPD, vol. 8, 31 August 1870 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1870), p. 447. NZPD, vol. 6, 13 August 1869 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1869), p. 471. NZPD, vol. 8, 22 July 1870, p. 55. ibid., p. 56.
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Notes 9 10 11 12 13
ibid., 23 August 1870, p. 192. ibid., vol. 8, 4 August 1870, p. 316. NZPD, vol. 7, 22 June 1870, p. 59. NZGG, 26 August 1870, p. 410. Information from Auckland War Museum, supplied by courtesy of the Thames Historical Museum, New Zealand. 14 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 20 October 1870, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. 15 ‘To Charles O’Neill, Esq.’, NZH, 7 January 1871, p. 1. 16 ‘Election News’, NZH, 8 February 1871, p. 2.
Chapter 8 1 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 31 July 1871, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers0478. 2 NZPD, vol. 10, 18 August 1871 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1871), p. 80. 3 ibid., 30 August 1871, p. 168. 4 ibid., 15 September 1871, p. 459. 5 NZPD, vol. 11, 17 October 1871 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1871), p. 356. 6 ibid., 6 November 1871, pp. 840–1. 7 NZPD, vol. 10, 7 September 1871, p. 328. 8 ibid. 9 ibid., p. 330. 10 ibid. 11 The quote is from ODT, 6 September 1871. 12 ‘Catholic Schools and Education in Wellington’, NZT, 30 June 1876, p. 14. 13 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to the Hon. Frederick Whitaker, 2 September 1880, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, Archives Reference: 77-248-030478. 14 NZPD, vol. 12, 26 July 1872 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872), p. 138. 15 NZPD, vol. 15, 24 September 1873 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1873), p. 1361. 16 NZPD, vol. 16, 23 July 1874 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1874), p. 197. 17 NZPD, vol. 13, 23 October 1872 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872), p. 921. 18 ibid., 16 October 1872, p. 921.
Chapter 9 1 NZPD, vol. 13, 4 September 1872 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872), p. 84. The quotation is from Dryden’s poem Tarquin and Tullia. 2 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 15 March 1871, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MSPapers-0032-0478. 3 ‘Notices: To the Electors of the Thames District, Auckland, 12 July 1872’, TA, 15 July 1872, p. 2.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 4 L.P. O’Neill, Thames Borough Centenary 1873 (Thames, New Zealand: compiled by Thames Star, 1973), p. 73. 5 NZPD, vol. 15, 3 September 1873 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1873), p. 874. 6 NZPD, vol. 16, 14 July 1874 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1874), p. 68. 7 NZPD, vol. 17, 4 August 1875 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875), p. 181. 8 NZPD, vol. 15, 1 October 1873, p. 1545. 9 ibid. 10 NZPD, vol. 16, 31 July 1874, p. 356. 11 NZPD, vol. 15, 1 October 1873, p. 1546. 12 NZPD, vol. 16, 31 August 1874, p. 1023. 13 NZPD, vol. 17, 4 August 1875, p. 191. 14 NZPD, vol. 15, 28 August 1873, p. 687. 15 NZPD, vol. 14, 5 August 1873 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1873), p. 219.
Chapter 10 1 NZPD, vol. 18, 8 October 1875 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875), p. 324. 2 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 2 February 1872 and 27 July 1872, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. 3 Charles O’Neill, Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 12 January 1875, courtesy ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MSPapers-0032-0478. 4 NZPD, vol. 12, 2 August 1872 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872), p. 261. 5 ibid. 6 NZPD, vol. 16, 23 July 1874 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1874), p. 204. 7 ibid., 20 August 1874, p. 804. 8 ibid., p. 805. 9 NZPD, vol. 17, 20 August 1874 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1874), p. 793. 10 J.F. Downey, Gold-Mines of the Hauraki District (Christchurch, New Zealand: Cansonbury Publications, 1935, reprinted 2002), p. 135. 11 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Sir George Grey KCB, Superintendent Auckland Province, 13 May 1875, AP2/31, 1508/1875, ArchNZ, Head Office, Wellington, New Zealand. 12 NZPD, vol. 19, 4 October 1875 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875), p. 171. 13 Editorial, NZH, 30 December 1875, p. 2. 14 ‘The General Elections: The Thames’, NZH, 7 January 1876, p. 3. The final count may have seen a slight adjustment to the tallies. 15 NZPD, vol. 19, 21 October 1875, p. 613.
Chapter 11 1 ‘Wellington and Wairarapa Railway, Mr O’Neill’s Report, 20th July 1871’, WI, 24 July 1871, p. 3. 2 NZM, 26 April 1879, p. 17. 3 The Church of the Sacred Heart in Reefton still stands; a plaque commemorates Chas O’Neill as architect. See Catholic Diocese of Wellington, To Commemorate the Centennial Celebrations of The Sacred Heart Parish, Reefton, 1874–1974 (Hokitika, New Zealand: Richards and Meyer Ltd, 1974), p. 6.
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Notes 4 ibid. 5 EP, 10 January 1880, p. 2. 6 M. O’Meeghan, Steadfast in hope, The Story of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington 1850–2000 (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press, 2003), p. 109. 7 ‘Catholic Schools and Education in Wellington’, NZT, 30 June 1876, p. 14. 8 ibid. The first speaker was a Mr W. Johnson. 9 ibid. 10 ‘St Mary’s Convent, Wellington’, NZT, 18 October 1878, p. 17.
Chapter 12 1 D. Ryan, Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand (Wellington, New Zealand: Society of St Vincent de Paul, 2002), pp. 9–10. Officers of the Christchurch Conference (1867–1874) included B. Hughes (President), E. O’Connor, F. Shanley, R. Houlihan and R. Loughnan (Vice Presidents), J.G. St J. Baker (Secretary), W. Plunket (Treasurer), W. Shanley (Librarian), W. Harvey (Sub-librarian). 2 ibid. In addition to a certain C. O’Neill, other members (not serving as office bearers) included members G.S. Smith, Tandy, T. O’Connell, Heslip, M. O’Donoghue, T. Hynes, Booth, E. Riordan, Molly Gamble, J. Jaffe and L. Mallurza. 3 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, LT, 20 July 1867, p. 2. 4 SVDP100Years, p. 8. See also E. Bond, Society of St Vincent de Paul Victoria (Melbourne, Victoria: St Vincent de Paul, 1980), p. 30. 5 ibid. The Ladies Society of St Vincent de Paul had its origins in Bologna in Northern Italy in 1856, following the care given by women to victims of cholera, and to surviving widows and orphaned girls in particular. They are not to be confused with St Vincent de Paul’s Ladies Association of Charity which operates under its own rule. 6 D. Ryan, Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand, p. 10. Among the names in the record were Mesdames Lloyd, Hornbrook, Sheath, Loughnan, Thompson, Oliver, Woledge and Sims. 7 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 14 February 1882, SVDPA, Folder 29. 8 D. Ryan, Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand, p. 11. 9 ibid. Office bearers were Rev. Fr Belliard SM (President), W. Shanley (Vice President), T. O’Connell (Treasurer and Librarian), R. Houlihan snr (Wardrobe Keeper) and R. Houlihan jnr (Secretary). 10 ‘News of the Week’, NZT, 16 July 1875, p. 11. 11 D. Ryan, Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand, p. 11. 12 ‘Christchurch’, NZT, 8 August 1879, p. 11. 13 ‘Wellington: Formation of a Branch of St Vincent de Paul Society’, NZT, 12 June 1875, p. 14. 14 See NZT, 12 June 1875, p. 14. Other office bearers included Mr McDonald (Vice President), Mr Sheridan (Treasurer) and Mr Crofts (Secretary). 15 ibid. 16 ‘Wellington’, NZT, 14 June 1878, p. 11. 17 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, NZT, 11 January 1878, p. 15. 18 ibid. 19 ‘Letter of Aggregation to the Society of St Vincent de Paul’, NZT, 11 January 1878, p. 15.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Chapter 13 1 Wellington City Tramways Company Limited, Deed of Consent, Contracts, Specifications, Prospectus, Plans etc, etc (Wellington, New Zealand: Lyon and Blair Steam Printers, 1876), pp. 1–2. 2 NZPD Hansard, vol. 12, 26 July 1872 (Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872), p. 132. 3 G. Stewart, The End of the Penny Section (Wellington, New Zealand; Grantham House Publishing, rev. enlarged 1993 edn), p. 11. 4 ‘First Passenger Trip on the Tramway’, EP, 22 August 1878, p. 2. 5 NZM, 31 August 1878, p. 19. 6 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Donald McLean jnr, 4 August 1877, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0859. 7 ibid. 8 EP, 6 July 1880, p. 2. 9 APGG, August 1869, No. 53, p. 698. 10 ‘The Society of St Vincent de Paul. Celebrating its Tenth Anniversary in Sydney’, FJ, 25 July 1891, p. 15. 11 EP, 17 March 1880, p. 2.
Chapter 14 1 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 2 ibid. 3 ‘Wellington Diocese—Society of St Vincent de Paul’, NZT, 19 March 1880, p. 15. 4 ibid. 5 ibid. 6 ibid. 7 ibid. 8 See findings of J.H. McClemens KCSG, ‘Charles Gordon O’Neill, The Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia’, in JACHS (1971), pp. 72–83. 9 COManual. 10 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy SVDPA, Folder 29. 11 ibid. 12 ibid.
Chapter 15 1 ‘Jottings from the Note Book of a Gold Seeker No. V, Rides and Rambles in and Bout Melbourne’, SMH, 4 November 1852, p. 2. 2 K. Slattery, An Enduring Legacy, Fr Gerald Ward, Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia (Box Hill, Australia: St Vincent de Paul Society, Victoria, 2004), p. 15. 3 ‘St Francis on Sunday’, MMH, 2 May 1854, p. 8. A panegyric is a speech of praise. 4 E. Bond, Society of St Vincent de Paul Victoria (Melbourne, Victoria: St Vincent de Paul, 1980), pp. 14–17.
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Notes 5 ‘St Vincent de Paul’s Orphanage, Emerald Hill’ (advertisement under the name of ‘Gerald A. Ward, Treasurer’), ARG, 10 July 1855, p. 7. 6 ‘Orphanage of St Vincent de Paul, Emerald Hill’, ARG, 8 October 1855, p. 5. 7 ‘Laying the Foundation Stone of the Orphanage of St Vincent de Paul’, AGE, 8 October 1855, p. 6. 8 ‘Funeral of the Rev. G. Ward’, MMH, 18 January 1858, p. 5. 9 Freeman’s Journal quoted in W. Ebsworth, Pioneer Catholic Victoria (Melbourne, Victoria: The Polding Press, 1973), p. 155. 10 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul, Geelong’, ADV, 27 June 1874, p. 6. 11 ibid. Office holders of the Geelong Ladies Society of St Vincent de Paul included Mrs Burns (President), Mrs Treacey and Mrs McGonigal (Vice Presidents), Mrs Bedford (Treasurer), Mrs Elsdon (Secretary), Mrs Hourigan (Lady Custodian). 12 First Report of the Council of the Society of St Vincent de Paul’s First Meeting, Perth, 8 December 1865, WASVDPA. 13 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29.
Chapter 16 1 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy SVDPA, Folder 29. 2 J. Owen, The Heart of the City, The First 125 Years of the Sydney City Mission (Kenthurst, NSW: Kangaroo Press, 1987), p. 16. 3 Jevons’s ‘Remarks’ are cited in M. Kelly, ‘Picturesque and Pestilential: The Sydney Slum Observed 1860–1900’ in M. Kelly (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Sydney, Essays in Urban History (Sydney, New South Wales: Sydney University Press in association with The Sydney History Group, 1978), p. 73. 4 See Father Peter Piquet SM, correspondence to W.J. Davis, 16 May 1930, copy SVDPA, Folder 52. 5 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, FJ, 30 July 1881, p. 15. 6 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan, 24 July 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 7 Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan, correspondence to Charles O’Neill, 24 July 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29.
Chapter 17 1 T.J. Dwyer, ‘Reminiscences of Old St. Francis’ Church at the Haymarket’, unpublished typed manuscript, date unknown (post 1931), SVDPA, p. 3. 2 StFCMB (from rear), minutes of Meeting held on Friday 29 July 1881, SVDPA. 3 ibid., minutes of Meeting held on 1 August 1881. 4 Dwyer prepared an address for Charles, delivered at St Mary’s Cathedral on 17 April 1883. See FJ, 21 April 1883, p. 16. 5 ‘Society of St. Vincent de Paul’, FJ, 24 September 1881, p. 15. 6 This table is on display at the St Vincent de Paul Society’s New South Wales headquarters at West Street, Lewisham, Sydney. 7 COManual.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 8 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 9 Adolphe Baudon, correspondence to Charles O’Neill, 29 November 1881, reproduced in Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, From 1st January to 31st December 1884 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1885), pp. 14–15, SVDPA, Folder 59. 10 StFCMB (from rear), minutes of Meeting held on 14 October 1881. 11 Society of St Vincent de Paul Paris, Tableau Statistique, De la Conférence de St Patrick’s, Archdiocèse de Sydney, New South Wales, Annee 1881, 27 March 1882. 12 Adolphe Baudon, correspondence to Charles O’Neill, 6 November 1884, translated copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 13 StPSVD Casebook. 14 Adolphe Baudon, correspondence to Charles O’Neill, 29 November 1881, reproduced in Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, From 1st January to 31st December 1884. 15 W. Vamplew (ed.), Australian Historical Statistics (Sydney, New South Wales: Fairfax, Syme and Weldon, 1987), p. 222. 16 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 May 1883, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 17 FJ, 30 July 1887, p. 18. 18 COManual. 19 Anonymous (in confidence), correspondence to the Secretary, St Patrick’s Conference, St Vincent de Paul Society, 20 April 1882, SVDPA, Folder 53. 20 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Council of Sydney, New South Wales, 24th July 1881 to 31st July 1883, p. 6.
Chapter 18 1 COManual. 2 Cited in A. Denholm, Lord Ripon 1827–1909 (London, Great Britain: Croom Helm Ltd, 1982), pp. 118–19. 3 COManual. 4 ‘Annual Meeting of the Irish National League, Sydney’, FJ, 23 September 1883, p. 8. 5 ‘Mr Redmond’s Mission’, SMH, 7 March 1883, p. 5. 6 ‘Mr. J.G. O’Ryan on Home Rule’, FJ, 16 September 1886, p. 15. 7 Successive business addresses were 225 Elizabeth Street (1885), 53 Wentworth Court, Elizabeth Street (1886), 86 Elizabeth Street (1884), ‘Harbour Tunnels Office’, 86 Elizabeth Street (1888), and 30 Elizabeth Street (1890–1). 8 Research from the Balmain Association Inc., through the Sands Directory, has revealed that Charles may have lived in what was then called Glassop Street, Balmain, up to 1883 (probably to be close to his sister Maria Gordon). 9 See advance notice, FJ, 28 January 1882, p. 11. 10 See notice, FJ, 14 April 1883, p. 11. 11 Charles O’Neill, correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. 12 FJ, 21 April 1883, p. 16. 13 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Minutes of the Particular Council of Sydney, 19 July 1891, copy, SVDPA, Folder 12.
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Notes 14 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Council of Sydney, New South Wales, 24th July 1881 to 31st July 1883 (Sydney, New South Wales: The Express, 1884), p. 5. 15 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, From 1st January to 31st December 1884 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1885), p. 7. E.F. Troy served as Vice President of the Adelaide Conference. 16 ibid. 17 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the year 1885 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1886), p. 11. 18 COManual. 19 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, From 1st January to 31st December 1884, back cover. 20 ‘Charity Indeed’, MT, 29 August 1885.
Chapter 19 1 C. Baxter, A Man for the Millennium: Charles O’Neill (Sydney, New South Wales: Society of St Vincent de Paul, NSW/ACT, 1999), p. 22, SVDPA. 2 Legislative Assembly, New South Wales, Report [First Part] of the Intoxicating Drink Inquiry Commission together with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices (Sydney, New South Wales: Charles Potter, Government Printer 1887), p. 45. 3 ibid., p. 37. 4 Minutes Meeting 11 September 1885, St Patrick’s Conference Minute Book, August–September 1885, MArcHH. 5 (In confidence) Copy, correspondence to Charles O’Neill, St Vincent de Paul Society, 25 June 1885, SVDPA, Folder 53. 6 Copy, correspondence Charles O’Neill to Mr Michael Flynn, 24 January 1885, SVDPA, Folder 53. 7 Minutes Meeting 14 August 1885, St Patrick’s Conference Minute Book, August–September 1885, MArcHH. While the minutes of 14 August refer to this event taking place the following day (15 August), later reports establish this event as actually having taken place two days later (16 August). 8 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, for the year 1885, p. 12. 9 Correspondence Fr Le Rennetel to Cardinal Moran, 1895, Reference U2311/48, SAA. 10 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the year 1885 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1886) pp. 28–9. 11 ibid. 12 ibid. 13 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, FJ, 4 July 1885, p. 15. 14 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, FJ, 2 October 1886, p. 19. 15 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Year 1886 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1897), p. 10.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 16 17 18 19
ibid., p. 11. ibid., p. 10. ibid., p. 22. Society of St Vincent de Paul, Reports of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Years 1887 & 1888 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1889), p. 26. 20 NZPD Hansard, vol. 7, 15 July 1870, p. 493.
Chapter 20 1 New South Wales Royal Commission on City and Suburban Railways, Progress Report on the Extension of the Railway into the City and the North Shore Bridge Connection (Sydney, New South Wales: G.S. Chapman, acting government printer, 1891), p. 52. 2 FJ, 30 July 1887, p. 16. 3 M. Bergmann, The Snowy Mountains River Scheme: how did it Manage Without an EIA?, Public Policy Program Discussion Paper No. 60, The Australian National University (February 1999), Introduction. 4 ‘The Sturt Election. Mr O’Neill at Broken Hill’, SA, 11 February 1889, p. 2. 5 ibid. 6 ‘To the Editor’, SA, 11 February 1889, p. 2. 7 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Years 1889 & 1890 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1891), p. 22, SVDPA, Folder 59.
Chapter 21 1 J. Harris, The Bitter Fight, a pictorial history of the Australian labour movement (Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1970), p. 79. 2 ibid. 3 ibid., p. 81. Flora Shaw later became Lady Lugard. 4 The quote is from Bertha McNamara’s 1894 pamphlet Commercialism and Distribution of the Nineteenth Century. 5 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Year 1891 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1892), p. 7. 6 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Years 1889 & 1890 (Sydney New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1891), p. 22. 7 Society of St Vincent de Paul, New South Wales, Minutes of the Particular Council of Sydney, Minutes of General Meeting, 19 July 1891, copy, SVDPA, Folder 12. 8 The Bank, Report for the week ending 22 May 1897, St Patrick’s Conference Minute Book, 1895–1900, MArcHH. 9 According to Charles O’Neill’s defence counsel, Thomas Slattery, it was a ‘common thing for a company just starting operations to give prominent men a number of shares’. See ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 2 March 1892, p. 6. 10 ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 2 March 1892, p. 6. 11 ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 1 March 1892, p. 6.
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Notes 12 Society of St Vincent de Paul, Report of the Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, To the Council-General in Paris for the Year 1891 (Sydney, New South Wales: O’Hara & Johnson, 1892), p. 11. 13 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, SC, 15 August 1891. 14 ‘A Noble Order, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, £10,000 in Charity’, AS, 20 July 1891. 15 ibid. 16 ‘Society of St Vincent de Paul’, SC, 15 August 1891. 17 Charity Organization Society of Melbourne, Proceedings of the Second Australasian Conference on Charity, held in Melbourne from 17th to 21st November 1891 (Melbourne, Victoria; Robert S. Brain, government printer, 1892), pp. v–vii. 18 ibid., p. 44. 19 ibid., pp. 75–6. 20 ibid., p. 40. 21 ibid., p. 55. 22 ibid. Charles noted New Zealand’s Destitute Persons Act (1877) and the Amending Act (1887) as the relevant pieces of legislation.
Chapter 22 1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14
SMH, 5 December 1891, p. 9. ‘Northumberland Banking Company’, NMH&MA, 11 December 1891, p. 6. ibid. ibid. Society of St Vincent de Paul, New South Wales, Minutes of the Particular Council of Sydney, Minutes of General Meeting, 14 December 1891, copy, SVDPA, Folder 12. ibid., 21 December 1891, copy, SVDPA, Folder 12. ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 1 March 1892, p. 6. ibid. The so-called ‘coke syndicate’ was one of these. See ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 2 March 1892, p. 6. ibid. See evidence of Alexander Low. ibid. See Heydon’s summing up of the case. ‘The Northumberland Banking Company’s Case’, NMH&MA, 3 March 1892, p. 7. Hadfield and Low would later be sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in Parramatta Gaol. Editorial, NMH&MA, 4 March 1892, p. 7. See Slattery’s comments on Charles’s liability in ‘The Northumberland Banking Cases’, NMH&MA, 2 March 1892, p. 6.
Chapter 23 1 Cardinal Moran communicated with the Particular Council of Sydney, requesting that each Conference provide a delegate to meet with him, in order to determine a successor. This was not formally Society procedure, but indicates the sensitivity of the Society’s work for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. 2 Antonin Pagès, copy of correspondence to Cardinal Patrick Moran, 15 March 1892, Louis Heydon papers, MArcHH. This extract has been translated from French.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity 3 Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, Lecture on the Rights and Duties of Labour, 17 August 1891 (Sydney, New South Wales: Finn & Brothers and Co., 1891), p. 15. 4 Cardinal Patrick Moran, correspondence to Louis Heydon, 31 May 1894, Louis Heydon papers, MArcHH. 5 Father J. Hegarty, correspondence to Louis Heydon, 3 September 1894, Louis Heydon papers, MArcHH. 6 Father Peter Piquet, correspondence to W.J. Davis, 16 May 1930, copy, SVDPA, Folder 52. 7 COManual. 8 Thomas Dignan, correspondence to Editor Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1900, MArcHH. 9 W.J. Spruson, correspondence to Cardinal Moran, 24 March 1900, Reference U23131-23, SAA. 10 Father Peter Piquet, correspondence to W.J. Davis, 16 May 1930, copy, SVDPA, Folder 52.
Chapter 24 1 COManual. 2 The extract comes from ‘The Church of the Future’, DTel, 31 July 1886, p. 4. 3 John Morley (1838–1923), was a member of the ‘Irish party’ within Gladstone’s Liberals, and served as Chief Secretary. 4 See comments about mid-nineteenth century Irish settlers in The Rocks, in G. Karskens, The Rocks, Life in Early Sydney (Carlton South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1997), p. 67. 5 Father Peter Piquet, correspondence to W.J. Davis, 16 May 1930, copy, SVDPA, Folder 52. 6 ‘The Late Charles O’Neill, Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia and New Zealand, Unveiling a Monument at Rookwood’, FJ, 12 July 1902, p. 25. 7 COG, p. 40.
Epilogue and reflection 1 Also see comments by the late Professor Bede Nairn relating to Charles’s sanctity in E. Campion, Great Australian Catholics (Richmond, Victoria: David Lovell Publishing, 1997), p. 49.
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PROLOGUE: THE PAUPER’S BEQUEST (SYDNEY, 1900) COManual, SVDPA Death Notices, SMH, Friday 9 November 1900. FJ, 17 November 1900, p. 12; 12 July 1902, p. 25. New South Wales Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Certified Death Certificate, Charles O’Neill, 1900, copy SVDPA, Folder 3. O’Keefe, H. General Manager Catholic Cemetery Trust, Rookwood Cemetery, correspondence to Pat O’Flynn, NSW State President, St Vincent de Paul Society, 23 January 2001, SVDPA, Folder 3.
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Anonymous (‘A Sketch by a Member of the Society’). The Society of the St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland (1845–1945). Dublin, Ireland: Brindleys Limited Printers, 1945, p. 3. Aspinal, B. ‘The Welfare State within the State: The Saint Vincent de Paul Society in Glasgow, 1848–1920’, Studies in Church History 23 (1986), pp. 445–51. Bardell. P. ‘The Early Days of Charles Gordon O’Neill’, The Record, Autumn 1999, 9. Baunard, Right Rev. Monsignor. Ozanam in his Correspondence, as translated by a member of the Council of Ireland of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Dublin, Ireland: Veritas Publications, 1925, p. 279. Beckett, I. Riflemen Form: A Study of the Rifle Volunteer Movement, 1859–1908. UK: Aldershot, Ogilby Trusts, 1982. Bishop Murdoch, correspondence to Rev. Dr Kyle, 21 April and 20 August 1848, Blairs Papers, Scottish Catholic Archives, Edinburgh. Bloy, M. ‘Catholic Emancipation’ in the Victorian Web, literature, history and culture in the age of Victoria (accessed 5 January 2005), available from http://www.victorianweb.org/ history/emancipation2.html. Brett, H. White Wings: Volume 1: 50 years of Sail in New Zealand Trade. Auckland NZ: The Brett Printing Company, 1924, p. 250.
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Bibliography Nolan, T. Historic Gold Trails of the Coromandel. Wellington, New Zealand: A.W. Reed, 1997, p. 24. NZGG, 1866, p. 148; 26 August 1870, p. 410; 21 February 1878, p. 212; 20 June 1878, pp. 906–7. NZGG, Province of Wellington, vol. 16, no. 28, 24 July 1869. NZGG, ‘Wellington City Tramways’, 17 July 1873, p. 436; 17 July 1875, p. 770. NZH, 7 January 1871, p. 1; 8 February 1871, p. 2; 11 February 1871, p. 2; 21 October 1874, p. 2; 26 October 1874, p. 3; 7 December 1875, p. 2; 17 December 1875, p. 5; 30 December 1875, p. 2; 7 January 1876, p. 3. NZM, 31 August 1878, p. 19; 15 March 1879, p. 17; 26 April 1879, p. 17. NZPD, 1864–66, 24 July 1866, 9 August 1866. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1867, pp. 808. NZPD, vol. 1, 17 July 1867, Part II, 20 September 1867, 23 September 1867, 25 September 1867. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1867, pp. 112–13, 1007, 1044, 1089. NZPD, vol. 2, 21 July 1868, 6 August 1868, 7 August 1868; vol. 3, 18 September 1868; vol. 4, 7 October 1868, 8 October 1868, 13 October 1868, 15 October 1868. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1868, pp. 28, 30, 65–6, 190, 228, 295, 345, 365–6, 460. NZPD, vol. 5, 1 July 1869, 24 June 1869, 16 June 1869; vol. 6, 12 August 1869, 13 August 1869, 1 September 1869. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1869, pp. 128, 304, 331, 427, 471, 910–11. NZPD, vol. 7, 22 June 1870, 15 July 1870. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1870, pp. 59, 493, 497. NZPD, vol. 8, 22 July 1870, 2 August 1870, 4 August 1870, 31 August 1870. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1870, pp. 55–6, 209, 316, 447. NZPD, vol. 9, 16 August 1870, 23 August 1870, 31 August 1870. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1870, pp. 16, 192, 435. NZPD, vol. 10, 18 August 1871, 30 August 1871, 7 September 1871, 15 September 1871, 6 November 1871. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1871, pp. 80, 167–8, 184–5, 330, 327–8, 459, 466, 840–1. NZPD, vol. 11, 17 October 1871, 30 October 1871, 31 October 1871, 16 November 1871. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1871, pp. 356, 642, 671, 1106. NZPD, vol. 12, 25 July 1872, 26 July 1872, 1 August 1872, 2 August 1872, 8 August 1872. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872, pp. 127, 132, 138, 140–1, 261, 363. NZPD, vol. 13, 5 September 1872, 4 September 1872, 26 September 1872, 27 September 1872, 4 October 1872, 8 October 1872, 16 October 1872, 23 October 1872. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1872, pp. 84, 155–6, 381, 394–5, 579, 581–2, 921. NZPD, vol. 14, 5 August 1873. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1873, p. 219. NZPD, vol. 15, 28 August 1873, 3 September 1873, 11 September 1873, 24 September 1873, 1 October 1873. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1873, pp. 687, 873–4, 1052, 1361, 1545–6. NZPD, vol. 16, 14 July 1874, 16 July 1874, 22 July 1874, 23 July 1874, 31 July 1874, 12 August 1874, 20 August 1874, 24 August 1874, 31 August 1874. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1874, pp. 68, 120, 175, 197, 204, 356, 557, 804–6, 879, 1023. NZPD, vol. 17, Legislature of New Zealand Summary, 28 July 1875, 30 July 1875, 3 August 1875, 4 August 1875, 20 August 1875. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875, pp. 87, 123–4, 149, 181–2, 190–1, 793. NZPD, vol. 18, 15 September 1875, 4 October 1875, 8 October 1875, 21 October 1875. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875, pp. 171, 324, 352–3, 611.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity NZPD, vol. 19, 21 October 1875. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1875, p. 613. NZPD, vols 20–21, Legislature of New Zealand Summary, 1876. Wellington, New Zealand: Didsbury, 1876. NZT, 12 June 1875, p. 14; 16 July 1875, p. 11; 30 June 1876, p. 14; 11 January 1878, p. 15; 14 June 1878, p. 11; 18 October 1878, p. 17; 8 August 1879, p. 11. ODT, 5 March 1866, p. 5; 19 October 1866, p. 4. Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879. Sydney, New South Wales: Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1881, p. 142. O’Meeghan, M. SM. Steadfast in hope, The Story of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington 1850–2000. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press, 2003, pp. 97–100, 104–9, 116–17, 172–4. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 20 October 1870, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. O’Neill, C. Report by the Provincial Engineer upon the proposed Kaipara Canal to the Superintendent Auckland Province, 18 January 1871, copy, SVDPA, Folder 45. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 15 March 1871, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 31 July 1871, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, 2 February 1872, 27 July 1872, 12 January 1875, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Mayor and City Council of Auckland, 3 February 1873, AP2, Box 28, 380/73, ArchNZ, Head Office, Wellington, New Zealand. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to Sir George Grey KCB, Superintendent Auckland Province, 13 May 1875, AP2/31, 1508/1875, ArchNZ, Head Office, Wellington, New Zealand. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Sir Donald McLean, Minister for Native Affairs, 17 May 1875, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0478. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to Sir George Grey, 25 August 1875, (Attachment) AP2, Box 38, 3265/75, ArchNZ, Head Office, Wellington, New Zealand. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to Donald McLean Jnr, 4 August 1877, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0032-0859. O’Neill, C. Charles O’Neill Esq to the Corporation of Wellington, Licences to Use Patent No 25, 545, 8 April 1878, Ref.00002:9:545, WCArch. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Mayor and City Councillors, Wellington, 13 June 1878, Ref.00233:2:1878/748, WCArch. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Minister for Public Works, 22 August 1878, Ref.00233:2:1878/1259, WCArch. O’Neill, C. Plan of the City of Wellington & Town Belt. Wellington, New Zealand: Lyon & Blair, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, Map Collection 832.4799a, 1879, Acc.16121. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to the Hon. Frederick Whitaker, 2 September 1880, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand, Archives Reference: 77-248-03-0478. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 14 February 1882, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. O’Neill, L.P. Thames Borough Centenary 1873. Thames, New Zealand: compiled by Thames Star, 1973, p. 73. OW, 13 October 1866, p. 8.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity PART THREE: THE AUSTRALIAN (1850–1880)
COLONIES
Chapters 14–15 ADV, 27 June 1874, p. 6. AGE, 8 October 1855, p. 6. ARG, 10 July 1855, p. 7; 8 October 1855, p. 5. Bond, E. Society of St Vincent de Paul Victoria. Melbourne, Victoria: St Vincent de Paul, 1980, pp. 10, 14–17, 32–6. Cannon, M. Old Melbourne Town Before the Gold Rush. Main Ridge, Victoria: Loch Haven Books, 1991, pp. 251–3. COManual, SVDPA. Ebsworth, W. Pioneer Catholic Victoria. Melbourne: The Polding Press, 1973, p. 155. Goody, L.J. K.B.E., D.D., D.Ph. Martin Griver, Second Catholic Bishop of Perth (1814–1886). Perth, Western Australia: Vanguard Press, 1986, pp. 65–6. ICN, Column 6, 13 September 1865, WASVDPA. ICN, Column 4, Supplement, 24 April 1872, WASVDPA. McClemens, J.H. KCSG. ‘Charles Gordon O’Neill, The Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia’, JACHS (1971), pp. 72–83. Melbourne International Exhibition 1880. Official Awards. Melbourne, Victoria, 1880, pp. 384–6. MMH, 18 January 1858, p. 5; 2 May 1854, p. 8. NZT, 19 March 1880, p. 15; 11 January 1878, p. 15. O’Neill, C. Correspondence to Adolphe Baudon, 6 October 1881, copy, SVDPA, Folder 29. PGWAT, 1 September 1865, p. 2. Ryan, D. Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand: Society of St Vincent de Paul, 2002, pp. 3–4. Serle, G. The Golden Age—The History of the Colony of Victoria 1851–1861. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1968, p. 67. Slattery, K. An Enduring Legacy, Fr Gerald Ward, Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia. Box Hill, Australia: St Vincent de Paul Society, Victoria, 2004, pp. 1–3, 6–7, 9–11, 15–20, 22–5. SMH, 4 November 1852, p. 2. Society of St Vincent de Paul. Minutes Particular Council of Sydney, New South Wales, 19 July 1891, copy, SVDPA, Folder 12. SVDP100Years, pp. 8–10. WASVDPA, First Report of the Council of the Society of St Vincent de Paul’s First Meeting, Perth, 8 December 1865. Western Australian Catholic Record, ‘Philanthropy and the Society of St Vincent de Paul’ (6 February 1877), p. 4. Wynd, I. St Mary of the Angels (2nd edn). Geelong, Victoria: Geelong Historical Society, 1979, p. 20.
PART FOUR: NEW SOUTH WALES (1881–1900) Chapters 16–24
Anonymous. Correspondence to the Secretary, St Patrick’s Conference, St Vincent de Paul Society, 20 April 1882, SVDPA, Folder 53.
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Harris, J. The Bitter Fight, a pictorial history of the Australian labour movement. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1970, pp. 74, 79–82. Hegarty, Father J. Correspondence to Louis Heydon, 3 September 1894, Louis Heydon papers, MArcHH. Holy Name Parish Centenary History Committee. Holy Name of Mary Parish Rydalmere, Centenary 1889–1989. Sydney, New South Wales: W.R. Bright & Sons, 1989, pp. 17, 21. Hosie, J. Challenge: The Marists in Colonial Australia. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1987, pp. 198–9, 230–1, 241–2, 247, 259, 265–6, 269–70. Hosie, J. ‘Australia’s Oldest Catholic Church’, JACHS, vol. 11 (1989), pp. 44, 52–3. Hosie, J. ‘Davis, Dempsey and the Leaving of the Blessed Sacrament—the Controversy and a Possible Solution’ in The Australasian Catholic Record (January 1990). Hosie, J. St Patrick’s 150 years, The sesquicentenary of ‘everyone’s second church’ St Patrick’s, Church Hill, Sydney. 1844–1994. Sydney, New South Wales: Society of Mary, Blue Gum Printing, 1994, pp. 1, 12–16. Karskens, G. The Rocks, Life in Early Sydney. Carlton South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1997, pp. 67, 71–3. Kearney, T.M. ‘The life and times of Henry Bournes Higgins—politician and judge (1851–1929)’, JACHS, 11 (1989), pp. 41–2. Kelly, M. A Certain Sydney 1900, A Photographic Introduction to Hidden Sydney 1900. Sydney, New South Wales; Doak Press, 1977, pp. 6–8. Kelly, M. (ed.) Nineteenth-Century Sydney, Essays in Urban History. Sydney, New South Wales: Sydney University Press in association with The Sydney History Group, 1978, pp. 26–7, 68, 73. Kelly, M. Anchored in a Small Cove. A history and archaeology of The Rocks, Sydney. Sydney, Australia: Sydney Cove Authority, 1997, pp. 40–1, 49–50, 54, 64, 69, 73–5, 80–1, 94–5. Kelly, Reverend Father C. (ed.). The Provincial Chronicle of the Holy Spirit Province Australia—New Zealand Calendar of Source Material and Chronological Epitome, Franciscan Community in Australia 1879–1905, vol. 7, January 1953, pp. 48, 54. Le Rennetel, Father P. Correspondence to Cardinal Moran, 1895, Reference U2311/48, SAA. Molony, J. The Worker Question, A new historical perspective on Rerum Novarum. North Blackburn, Australia: Collins Dove, 1991, p. 134. Moran, P., Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney. Lecture on the Rights and Duties of Labour, 17 August 1891. Sydney, New South Wales: Finn & Brothers and Co., 1891, p. 15. Moran, P., Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney. Correspondence to Louis Heydon, 31 May 1894, Louis Heydon papers, MArcHH. MT, 29 August 1885. Nairn, B. ‘Spruson, Wilfred Joseph (1870–1939)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp. 39–40. New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Report [First Part] of the Intoxicating Drink Inquiry Commission together with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices. Sydney, New South Wales: Charles Potter, government printer, 1887, pp. 37, 44–5. New South Wales Parliament, Legislative Assembly. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly 1887–88, vol. 2, Sydney, New South Wales: government printer, 1888, pp. 877–8.
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Index abstinence, total 99, 190, 202, 223 Adelaide, City 186, 214, 223 aldermen, Sydney and suburbs 137, 193, 195 Alison, Sir Archibald, Sheriff of Lanarkshire 34 ‘Angel Gabriel’ Orr 10 Anglican Church, Anglicans 98, 122, 138, 150–2, 206 architect, Charles O’Neill as 14–17, 31, 33, 46, 48, 120–1, 182, 203 architecture churches designed by Charles O’Neill 15, 29, 33, 121, 182, 203, 236 other by Charles O’Neill 15–16, 26, 33, 48, 120–1, 182, 236 arts and religion, Charles O’Neill’s views 16–17, 232 Assembly, General, New Zealand, see Parliament Assembly, Legislative, also Government, New South Wales 197, 199–201, 212, 223 asylums, colonial 73, 154, 175, 190, 213–14 Auckland, City 76, 83, 86–9, 101–3, 108, 111, 113–14, 116, 122–3, 134, 144, 187 Auckland, Province and Provincial Government 57–9, 65, 70, 76–8, 85, 87, 90, 92–3, 112, 114, 117, 122, 236
Bills (and Acts), New Zealand Parliament 58–9, 62, 70, 72–3, 82–3, 85, 87, 92–6, 98, 103–9, 111–12, 114–15, 123, 135, 215 boardings, Sydney 173–4 see also lodgings Booth, William, Salvation Army 30, 47, 214 Bowen, Sir George, New Zealand Governor 74, 87, 101 Boys’ Home, Sydney, later Westmead Boys’ Home 207, 222 Bradstreet, Sir John, President, St Vincent de Paul Society, Ireland 180, 198 Braidwood, New South Wales 3, 194, 196 Brechin Castle, S.S. 50–2 Broad, Lowther 138–9, 210–11 Broken Hill, New South Wales election for Sturt, 1889 202–3, 219 water supply 202, 219 brothels, The Rocks, Sydney 3, 160, 164, 228, 230 Brotherhood of St Vincent, see St Vincent de Paul Society Brown, Wyman, successful candidate, election for Sturt, 1889 202–3 Brownless, Dr, medical officer, Sydney 194 Brownless, Sir Anthony Colling 197 Burns, Robert (The Master’s Apron) 34
bachelors 1, 72, 111, 230, 232, 237 Bailly, Professor Emmanuel, co-founder St Vincent de Paul Society 22 Ballarat, Victoria 49, 52, 62, 70, 154 ballot, secret, including Charles O’Neill’s views 62, 85, 86, 92 Bank, Penny Savings Sacred Heart Darlinghurst 208 St Patrick’s Church Hill 203–4, 208 bankruptcy, Charles in Glasgow 46 banks 205, 208–10, 216–20, 224, 235 see also Northumberland Banking Company Baudon, Adolphe, President–General, St Vincent de Paul Society 38, 41–2, 128, 130–3, 143–7, 156, 167, 174–6, 181, 185, 196, 198, 221, 238 Bay of Plenty, New Zealand 93, 113 bazaars, charity 39, 183–4 Benbow, Mother Mary Cecilia 124 Bendigo, Victoria 49, 52, 214 Bible, education and debates 53, 96, 123 bigots and bigotry 26, 40, 47–8, 145, 178–9
cables, submarine (cross-Tasman links) 83–4, 116 Cahill, Fred, St Francis’ Conference, Haymarket 170–1, 186 Cahill, Michael, St Francis’ Conference, Haymarket 170–1 Caithness flagging 137, 146, 156, 159 Caledonian, gold mine 78, 84, 93 California, Charles O’Neill’s references 71, 93, 99, 148–9 Canterbury Province and Provincial Government, New Zealand 57–8, 71, 94, 103, 122, 126 Cardinals 128, 180, 187, 192, 195, 203, 206, 212, 221–3, 226, 228–9 carriage, the ‘celebrated mottled kauri’ 87 Carruthers, John, New Zealand Engineer-in-Chief 118, 139 Catholic Church, Catholics Europe, particularly France 22–3, 30, 97, 196, 222 Great Britain (excluding Ireland) 8–12, 15, 18–19, 25–6, 29, 33–4, 39, 47–8, 131, 180–1 Ireland 25, 36, 131, 179
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Index New South Wales 1, 143, 146, 162–4, 167, 170, 176, 178–80, 184, 186, 190–1, 194, 203, 210, 232 New Zealand 60, 72–3, 95–8, 114, 121–4, 126, 128–9, 139, 212 Queensland 223–4 South Australia 186 Tasmania 224 Victoria 143, 148, 150–4, 196–7, 214 Western Australia 155 celibacy 18, 230 Celtic history, culture 7, 16–17, 34, 72, 146, 162, 187, 192 Central Railway Station (also Mortuary Station), Sydney 169 charity, confederation of 24, 42, 131–2, 186 charity, fundraising Australian colonies 150–2, 154–5, 172, 176, 182–4, 186–7, 194–7, 210–12, 224 Christchurch, New Zealand 127–8 Scotland 37–40 charity, machinery of 38, 41, 184, 186, 194, 198, 224, 237 Charity, Second Australasian Conference, 1891 212–15 Charity, Sisters of 1 Chataigner SM, Father Jean-Baptiste 126–8, 237 Chinese labour, miners 49, 59, 206 The Rocks, Sydney 161, 164, 227–8 cholera 21–2 Christ, Jesus, teachings on the poor 23, 27–30, 36, 192 ‘Christ of the Poor’ 27, 36, 53, 125, 130, 214, 225–6, 236, 239 Christchurch, New Zealand 122–3, 126–9, 144–5, 223, 237 Circular Quay, Sydney 1, 161, 199–200 City Mission movement 27, 160 Clan Chattan 72 Clyde, Otago, New Zealand 61–2, 67 Clyde, River and Firth, Scotland 7, 9–10, 25, 31, 50 communism 11, 22, 30, 215 concerts, charity 39, 184, 186 Conferences and Councils, see St Vincent de Paul Society Coogan, W.J. (Bill), St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill, Sydney 165–6, 207, 223 Coromandel, New Zealand 70, 76, 86, 90–1, 93, 102, 110, 237 Coué SM, Father 163, 166, 190 Cracknell, William J., St Mary’s Cathedral Conference, Sydney 175, 185–6, 210, 211, 217 Cromwell, Otago, New Zealand 61, 63 Cumberland Street, The Rocks, Sydney 1, 161–2, 165, 175, 182–3, 225, 230 Daily Telegraph, Sydney, extract in Manual 3, 230, 232 Davies, William, Mayor of Thames, New Zealand 115 Davis, William, St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill, Sydney 2–3, 227 depression, economic, including 1890s 80–1, 197, 206, 212, 224, 229, 238 Dibbs, Sir George, New South Wales Premier 199–202, 223 Dignan, Thomas, St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill, Sydney 2, 227, 229 divorce, Charles O’Neill’s views 72–3, 111 Donnelly, James, proprietor Glasgow Free Press 11, 31 drunkenness 11, 85, 99, 160, 189–90 Dryden, John (Tarquin and Tullia) 102 Duke of Edinburgh, attempted assassination in Sydney, 1868 179 Dumbarton, Scotland, including Burgh 3, 7–8, 11–15, 18, 25, 30, 50
Dunedin, New Zealand 49–50, 52, 59–61, 63, 66, 73, 78, 95–6, 107, 121–2, 144, 187, 214 Dunstan, Otago, New Zealand 61, 63 Dwyer, Thomas, St Francis’ Conference, Haymarket 169–71 Edinburgh, Scotland 10, 16, 25, 32, 34, 38, 46, 48–9 education, early, of Charles O’Neill 13–14 education, ‘Godless’, including Charles O’Neill’s views 95–8, 123–4 education, particularly of poor 20–1, 26, 39, 95–8, 112, 124–5, 152, 196, 213 elections New South Wales, electorate of Sturt, 1889 202–3, 219 New Zealand, 1866 62–5 New Zealand, 1871 88–92 New Zealand, 1875–76 114–16 electric dynamo at Reefton, New Zealand, 1888 121 Elephant Inn, Dumbarton 7–8, 12, 14, 18 Engels, Friedrich, views on Irish 11 ‘engineer of charity’, Charles O’Neill as 237 Engineer, Wellington Provincial, Charles O’Neill as 119 Engineer-in-Chief, Auckland Province, Charles O’Neill as 78, 86–8, 114 engineering, professional institutions 1, 14–15, 82, 139, 225 engineers New South Wales 200–1 New Zealand 87, 104, 110, 139, 118–19 Scotland 13, 24, 49 entertainments for charity 39, 183–6 Evening Post, Wellington 135–6, 139 Exhibition, Crystal Palace, London, 1851 24, 137 Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880–81 139, 146, 156 Exhibition, Sydney, 1879–80 137, 159 exhortations, pasted in Charles O’Neill’s St Vincent de Paul Society Manual 3, 177, 226, 230–2 Exile of Erin, ballad 146 famine, Irish potato, 1840s 8–10, 20, 24, 179, 236 Featherston, Dr Isaac, Wellington Superintendent 117–18, 126–7 Federation, of Australia 3, 212, 224, 227 Fenianism 74, 79, 123, 178 Fitzherbert, William, Wellington Superintendent 96, 118, 219 forest, destruction and conservation, Charles O’Neill’s views 71–2, 93–4, 103, 105–7, 237 Fox, William, New Zealand Prime Minister 58, 65, 74–5, 80, 92, 94, 98, 101–2 France, religion and politics, nineteenth century 12, 22–3, 41–3, 97–8, 131 Francis of Assisi, Saint 28, 225–6, 230, 232 Francis of Assisi, St, Secular Third Order, membership 225–6, 232 Free Church of Scotland, or ‘Wee Frees’ 20, 53 Freeman’s Journal, Sydney (including extracts from) 153, 162, 167, 176–7, 179, 183, 200, 233 Freemasonry 33–6, 41, 123–4, 132, 181 ‘French Shamrocks’, Marists at St Patrick’s Church Hill, Sydney 163–4 Gallocher, Gallogher or Gallagher, Mary, Charles’s mother 8, 13, 45 Geelong, Victoria 148–9, 153–4, 156, 238 Gillies, T.B., Auckland Superintendent 85, 92 Glasgow, Scotland, including city and people 3, 7–21, 23, 25–41, 43–8, 50, 52, 81, 95, 132, 161–2, 183–4, 190, 221, 236
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Glasgow Free Press (including extracts from) 11–12, 15, 31, 33, 38, 47–8 Glasgow Volunteers, 1861–1866, painting by Thomas Robertson 44–5 God, also ‘Godless’ 13, 27, 29, 30, 34, 37, 53, 68, 72, 75, 95, 97–8, 124, 144, 156, 171, 177, 180, 193, 221, 224, 226, 231, 234, 236, 239 gold, age of prosperity 49, 64, 153–4, 159, 185, 197, 205, 226 gold discoveries Australian colonies 49–50, 148–9, 159, 194 New Zealand 49, 53, 59–61, 70, 76–8, 84–6 gold, duty on, Charles O’Neill’s views in favour of reduction 64, 70, 78, 93, 103 golden jubilees of 1887 196 goldfields and gold mines Thames, New Zealand 76–8, 84, 86–7, 93, 104, 114, 138 other, New Zealand 49, 52, 59–61, 117, 121, 137 goldfields politics, New Zealand 59–64, 66, 69–71, 76, 79, 84–5, 88–93, 102–4, 113–16 Goold, Archbishop James 143–4, 148, 151–2 Gorman, John, St Vincent de Paul Society pioneer, Perth, Western Australia 155, 238 Governors, New South Wales 162, 184, 196, 201 Governors, New Zealand 2, 57–9, 65, 74, 78, 87, 101, 104, 108, 120, 135–6, 138 Governors, Victoria 149, 151 Grahamstown, New Zealand 77–8, 84, 86–7, 90, 113, 135 grave, of Charles and subsequently John O’Neill 2, 233–4 ‘The Great Disruption of 1843’, Scotland 20, 53 Grey, Sir George, New Zealand Governor 2, 57–9, 65, 74, 114–16, 134, 212 Greymouth, New Zealand 121–2 Hades (Hell) 207–8 Hadfield, George, Managing Director, Northumberland Banking Company 209, 216–20 Hamilton, David, Scottish architect 14, 32 Hauhaus 75 Hawkes Bay, New Zealand 57–8, 74–5, 86, 112, 117 Haymarket, Sydney early 1880s 169–74 health, public, Charles O’Neill’s views 82, 94–5, 107, 112 Healy, Francis, President, St Vincent de Paul Society, Melbourne 156, 196–7, 224, 238 Henderson, John, co-promoter Wellington Steam Tramway, New Zealand 134–5 Heuzé SM, Father Charles 163, 166–7, 172 Heydon, C.G., Crown Prosecution, Northumberland Banking Company Case 218–19 Heydon, Hon. Louis Francis, New South Wales State Minister 222 First President, St Vincent de Paul Society, Superior Council of Australasia 223–4, 234 Hibernian Societies 123, 179 Higgins, Bartholomew, St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill, Sydney 165–6, 190, 227 Higgins, Dr Joseph, Auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Sydney 210–11 Highlands, Scottish 9, 20, 49, 85 Holloway, Elizabeth, second wife of John Ogle O’Neill 85 Home Rule for Ireland, see Ireland hotels, inns and taverns Dunedin and Port Chalmers, New Zealand 49, 66, 107 Glasgow, Bells Temperance Hotel 30, 39 Glasgow, other 31, 39, 43, 54, 190 Melbourne, The Menzies (the original) 139
Reefton, New Zealand, Dawson’s Hotel 121 Silverton, New South Wales, Cumming Exchange 202 Sydney 3, 139, 160, 164, 169–70, 190 Thames, New Zealand, Bendigo Hotel 85, 116 Thames, New Zealand, other 84–5 Wellington, New Zealand 118, 120 ‘Humpty Dumpty’, Julius Vogel as 68 Hutt Valley, New Zealand 94, 96, 117, 121–2, 135 ‘identities, old’ 53, 59–60 industrial revolution, in Europe 7, 9, 14, 22–4, 30, 236 industrial schools or industrial orphan schools, Sydney 190, 196, 213 ‘iniquity, new’, Charles O’Neill as 60 Institution of Civil Engineers, London, including Charles O’Neill’s membership 1, 14, 49, 139, 225 ‘Intelligence’, from Ireland 11, 25, 180, 192 Ireland anti-Irish reaction, Glasgow 9–12, 20, 26 anti-Irish reaction, New South Wales 179–82 anti-Irish reaction, New Zealand 74, 79, 123 Home Rule 178, 181–2 MPs in House of Commons 3, 12, 232 potato famine, see famine St Vincent de Paul Society 25, 131, 180, 198 Irish, culture in Sydney 162–3, 179–83, 190, 232 Irish Land League, Charles’s support 181 Irish National League, New South Wales, Charles’s involvement 182 Irish poor in Glasgow, O’Neill family support 30, 38–9, 47 Jennings, Sir Patrick, New South Wales Premier 180, 184, 200, 226 Jevons, William Stanley, writing on squalor of The Rocks, Sydney 161 Justice of the Peace, Charles’s appointment in New Zealand 78 Katrine, Loch, Scotland 43–4 kauri, trees, timber 77, 87–8, 105–6 Kennedy OFM, Father P.B. 210, 226–7 Kent Street, The Rocks, Sydney 162–3, 165, 175, 177, 183 Labour, Electoral League, also Labor Party 201, 206, 227 Ladies Association of Charity 23, 195 Ladies Charitable Associations, Sydney 1880s 195, 211 Ladies Society of St Vincent de Paul Society Geelong, 1874 153–4, 238 instituted 1859 127–8 rural Victoria, 1880s 154–5 Lambton Quay, Wellington 117, 120, 134 Lanarkshire, Scotland 34–5, 43–5, 71, 73, 110, 219, 236 Lavender Bay, North Sydney 188, 191, 225 Le Rennetel SM, Father Pierre 163–6, 191–2, 195, 203, 227, 233 Leo XIII, Pope 187, 196, 222 licences, mining 62, 77, 79, 84, 93 Lodge, Orange 10, 123 lodges, Masonic 33–5, 132, 191 lodgings and lodging houses Dunedin 107 Sydney 1, 160, 167, 173–5, 182, 207, 225 Low, Charles, general manager, Northumberland Banking Company 209, 216, 218–19 Macandrew, James, Otago Superintendent 60, 69, 70, 98, 112, 219
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Index McIsaacs’ Extended Gold Mining Company, also Claim 78, 114, 138 MacKillop, Blessed Mother Mary 165 McLachlan, Jessie, trial 32–3 McLean, Sir Donald, New Zealand Native Affairs Minister 74–5, 80, 88, 101, 105, 108, 111, 137 Manual, St Vincent de Paul Society, 1877, including that carried by Charles 2–3, 127, 145–6, 151, 171, 173, 175, 177, 180, 186–8, 194, 196, 207, 226, 230–2, 234–5 marine safety, Charles’s views 104–5 Marist Brothers 98, 122–4, 165, 212, 223 Marist Priests, see Mary, Society of Ma¯ori, 58–9, 74–7, 79, 89, 96, 122, 126, 135 Ma¯ori, first representation in New Zealand Parliament 74–5, 89 Mary, Mother of Jesus 122, 163, 176, 187 Mary, Society of Mary (SM) or Marist Fathers, priests 60, 122, 125–6, 128–9, 132, 162–6, 189, 191–2, 237 Maxted, Sydney, New South Wales charity bureaucrat 213–14 Melbourne, City 51, 93, 100, 128, 131–2, 139, 143, 144, 146–53, 155–6, 159, 172, 176, 196–7, 212–14, 223, 237–8 mercy 20, 30, 36 Mercy, Sisters of 124–5, 152, 164 Merz, Madame Rosaly 184 Millers Point, Sydney 2, 161, 163, 183, 227, 229 Milton, New Zealand 61 mining accidents and safety, including Charles’s views 103–5 mining companies, Charles O’Neill’s investments 61, 78, 114, 117, 137–8 Mint, Royal, mints 99, 103, 107 models, for patent designs 93, 100 Moran, Bishop Patrick, Catholic Bishop of Dunedin 60, 95–6, 121, 123, 144 Moran, Cardinal Patrick Francis, Archbishop of Sydney 187, 192, 195, 203, 206, 212, 221–3, 226, 228 murder cases, Scotland, Charles as professional Crown witness 32–3 Murphy, Mr M., publican Albion Hotel, Sydney 170–1 ‘Nancy Whiskey’ 189 naval ships, navy 135, 138, 191 Napoleon III 41, 43 New Zealand Herald 89–90, 114–16 New Zealand Tablet 121, 124, 128–31, 145 Newcastle, New South Wales 208–9, 216–18 Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners’ Advocate 216, 219 Northumberland Banking Company, including trial 208–10, 216–20, 224, 233, 235–6 opium dens, The Rocks, Sydney 3, 160, 164, 228–9 orphans, and orphanages 1, 22, 113, 138–40, 150–3, 155, 165, 183, 196, 212 Otago, Province of, New Zealand 48–53, 57–73, 78, 89, 93, 95–6, 98, 103, 105, 107, 122, 127, 138, 180, 236–7 Otago Daily Times 51, 60, 66, 98 O’Neill, Charles Gordon (Bryson), 1828–1900, birth 8 death 1, 232–3 election as MP for Otago Goldfields, 1866 62–3 election as MP for Thames, 1870 89–91 ‘Gordon’ as middle name 176–7 grave 2, 233–4 legacy 2–3, 48, 235–9 Member, Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE) 1–2, 14, 139, 225
on trial, Northumberland Banking Company Case 216–20 photographs of 45, 71, 110, 211 reburial, 1961 2, 233–4 see also selected topics O’Neill, family 8, 11–14, 19, 45, 47, 50, 86, 111 father, John Ogle, 1798–1874 7–8, 12, 18, 50, 86, 110 mother, Mary nee Gallocher, 1803–1859 8, 13, 45 sisters and brothers Andrew Scott 8, 110 Bridget Stewart 8 Catherine Anne 8, 29 Daniel 8 Jean MacDonald 8 John James 1–2, 8, 12–13, 30, 38, 43–4, 110–11, 182, 184, 199, 224–5, 233–4 Louisa Carolina 8 Maria Gordon 8, 111, 176 Mary Ann 8 William Campbell 8, 110–11 oxi-calcium light, for magic lantern entertainment 183 Ozanam, Blessed Dr Frédéric, principal co-founder St Vincent de Paul Society 22–4, 30, 36–7, 125, 131, 180, 192, 202, 232, 236 Pagès, Antonin, President-General, St Vincent de Paul Society 196, 221–2 Paris 3, 22–4, 38, 41–2, 97, 128, 130–2, 147, 150–1, 155, 159, 167, 171, 173–5, 183, 185–6, 196, 221, 223, 237 Parliament, British 3, 10, 12, 57, 64, 82, 232 Parliament, New Zealand 57–8, 61–9, 71–4, 78–9, 82–7, 89, 91–116, 119–20, 123–4, 135, 138, 147, 190, 197 Parramatta, New South Wales 175, 188, 193, 195, 223 patenting, Charles O’Neill’s views 82–3, 93, 100, 237 patents, of Charles O’Neill 87, 137–8 paupery 1–2, 19–21, 37, 150, 190, 213, 234 Persian, S.S. 51–2 Persigny, Jean, French Minister of the Interior 41–2, 131 photolithography 100, 120 Piquet SM, Father Peter 162–4, 166, 180, 182, 225–7, 229, 233 Pius IX, Pope 43, 127, 131 plague, bubonic 1, 227–8, 232 Plans of Towns Regulation Bill, New Zealand 108–9 Pollen, Dr Daniel, New Zealand Prime Minister 76, 101–2 poor boxes 1, 171–2, 186, 189 poor, conditions in nineteenth century Europe, particularly Glasgow 8–11, 19–24, 26–7, 29–30, 36–40, 47–8 poor, conditions in nineteenth century Sydney 1, 161, 164, 169, 172–8, 183–91, 193–7, 203–4, 206–8, 211–12, 222, 225–9, 234 Poor, Little Sisters of the 195, 233 popery, campaigns against or anti–popery 10–11, 20, 34, 73, 123, 179 popes 24, 34, 43, 122, 127, 131, 133, 187, 196, 222 powder (gunpowder) magazines, Charles O’Neill’s involvement in construction 86, 120–1 Presbyterian Church, Presbyterians 10, 26, 48, 60, 73, 150 protectionism, and protectionist politics, New South Wales 201–3, 227 Protestants, early St Vincent de Paul Society relations with 15, 27, 128 provincialism and provincial politics, New Zealand, Charles O’Neill’s views 65–8, 72, 88, 93, 112–14, 237 Pugin, Edwin, Victorian Catholic architect 15, 33
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Captain Charles, Engineer of Charity Queen Victoria 2, 7, 11, 34, 44, 132, 196, 206 Queensland 82, 84, 177, 206, 223–4 Queenstown, New Zealand 49, 61, 138 railway engineering, Charles O’Neill’s work 48–9, 78, 88, 117–19, 135–7, 139, 200–1, 225, 236 railways, progress, Charles O’Neill’s views 64, 80–2, 99, 101–2, 106–7, 113 Redfern, Sydney 193, 199, 206, 225 Redwood SM, Bishop Francis 98, 122–4, 144 Reefton, New Zealand 121–2 Reformation, Protestant in Scotland 9–10, 236 Regiment, 3rd Lanarkshire volunteers 35, 43–5, 71, 73, 110, 219, 236 rifles, rifle shooting 43–5, 110 Rimutakas, New Zealand 49, 94, 117–19, 139 Ripon, Lord or Marquis of 3, 180–1 Rocks, The, Sydney 1, 3, 159–65, 167, 169, 173, 175, 177, 181–3, 185, 189–90, 192, 195, 200, 203–4, 208, 225, 227–8, 230, 232 Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney 2, 233–4 St Andrew’s Cathedral, Glasgow 8, 16, 39 St Andrew’s New Schools, Glasgow 16, 26, 30, 36 St Andrew’s Suspension Bridge, Glasgow 31–2 St Benedict’s Broadway, Sydney 175, 195, 210 St Francis’ Church, Haymarket, Sydney 169–72, 174–5, 186, 207 St Francis’ Church, Melbourne 149–50, 153 St Joseph, Sisters of 165, 183, 190, 196 St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney 175, 177, 185–6, 195 St Mary’s Cathedral, Wellington 121, 123, 129, 144 St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne 149, 156, 197 St Patrick’s Church, Church Hill, Sydney 1–2, 162–7, 170, 172–3, 175, 189–91, 196, 203, 208–9, 217, 228–9 St Patrick’s Church, Dumbarton 12, 25 St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill 1–2, 165–7, 170–6, 182–4, 189–91, 196, 203, 207–8, 217, 224, 227–9, 234 St Vincent de Paul Society established England 131 established Ireland 25, 131 established New South Wales, colony of 165–7 established New Zealand 127–30, 132–3 established Queensland, colony of 223–4 established Scotland 25–6 established South Australia, colony of 186 established Tasmania, colony of 224 established Victoria, colony of 150–1, 153–6 established Western Australia, colony of 155 formal approval by Pope Gregory XVI 24 foundation Conference of Charity, Paris, 1833 22–3 growth during nineteenth century 23–4, 131–3 Particular Council of Melbourne 197, 223 Particular Council of Sydney 184–6, 191, 193, 195, 210, 212, 217, 221, 223 Superior Council of Australasia 223, 238 Salvation Army 47, 214 San Francisco 80, 99 seven cardinal virtues 28 seven deadly sins 28 sewage and sewerage systems 14, 82, 94, 108, 161, 227 shamrock buttonholes, sold on St Patrick’s Day 195–6 Sheridan, John, Very Rev. Dean 168–71, 186 Shortland, New Zealand 76–8, 84–5, 87, 90, 113 Sidney, Walter, Director, Northumberland Banking Company 216–19
Slattery, Thomas, New South Wales Minister 201–2, 210–12 legal defence of Charles O’Neill 218–20, 224 Smith, Madeleine, trial 32 soup kitchens 40, 47, 177, 236 Spruson, Joseph, St Patrick’s Conference, Church Hill, Sydney 165–6, 183, 186, 227 Spruson, Wilfred, MLA for Sydney-Gipps 227–9 surveying, Charles O’Neill’s work 49, 59–60, 63, 71, 78, 86, 105, 110, 117–19, 236 Swan, William, New Zealand politician 79, 89–91 Sydney, City 99, 107, 132, 137, 139, 143, 146, 153, 156, 159–64, 167–74, 176–9, 182–9, 191–7, 199–200, 202–3, 206–10, 212, 216–17, 221–9, 233–4, 238–9 Sydney Morning Herald 149, 216 Tararu, Tararu Creek, New Zealand 87–8, 103, 113, 135 temperance movement 170, 190 Thames, New Zealand 76–9, 83–93, 102–4, 111, 113–16, 134–5, 237 Thatcher, ‘the Inimitable’ Charles, music hall comic 59, 85 Thorndon, Wellington 120–1, 129, 134 town planning, New Zealand, Charles O’Neill’s promotion 49, 61, 94–5, 103, 108–9, 120 tramways, New Zealand, Charles O’Neill’s promotion 78, 87, 119–20, 134–6, 236 tunnels, Sydney Harbour, Charles O’Neill’s plans 182, 200–1, 236 United States, Charles’s views on technological and economic progress 71, 80, 83, 93, 99–100, 148–9 Vaughan, Archbishop Roger Bede, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney 143–4, 146, 163, 167–8, 185, 187 viceroyalty, Viceroy of India 3, 180–1 see also Marquis of Ripon vicissitude 145–6, 220, 235, 238–9 Vincent de Paul, Saint 22–3, 28–9, 36, 127, 129–30, 150, 153, 167, 177, 187, 192, 210, 225, 232, 234 Vogel, Sir Julius, New Zealand Prime Minister 2, 60, 62–3, 65–70, 80, 89, 92, 98, 101–2, 106, 112–13, 115–16, 118, 126, 136, 203, 237 Waikato 58, 76, 103, 110, 113 Wanganui 67, 75, 116, 122, 138 Ward, Father Gerald 147–53, 237 Wars, Land, New Zealand 65, 80, 97, 237 waterworks, Thames 83, 102 Wellington, City 64–7, 69, 71, 76, 83, 92–4, 98, 101, 110, 112, 114, 116–24, 129, 132–9, 143–6, 150, 223, 236–7 Wellington, City and Town Belt, map (1879) 120 Wellington Independent 49, 92, 118 Wellington, Province of 49, 57–8, 75, 93–4, 102, 112, 117–19, 134, 236 Wellington Steam Tramway 119–20, 134–7, 236 wheelbarrow, carved, with Charles O’Neill’s name 88 Whitaker, Frederick, New Zealand Attorney General 58, 65, 139, 146 Williamson, John, Auckland Superintendent 78, 85, 88, 114, 219 Williamson, Thomas, MLA for Redfern 193–4, 201, 203, 210 ‘Wimbledon’, rifle scoring 44 wines, Australian, Charles O’Neill’s promotion of 99 Wordsworth, William (Devotional Incitements) 17
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