The extent of Richard Deeming’s crimes will never truly be fully realised. With rumours of his possible crimes across many countries, and links being made to murders often attributed to Jack the Ripper, Deeming became a notorious figure in early Australia. Like many men before him, Deeming had tried to run from his past sins and make a life for himself in Australia. However, the one thing Deeming couldn’t flee was his own cruel nature.
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The Six O'clock Swill
Rum was what kept the men of the colonies moving. Its desirability helped to build towns and cities, and its proceeds even funded a hospital. Life in colonial Australia was punishing, and the “tipple” alleviated some of the challenges of being isolated at the bottom of the world in a strange and hostile new land.
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Bawdy Houses
Sex work was the only way some women could survive in the colonies, but it was risky work, and some women became trapped in cycles of poverty from which there was escape. Others did not live to tell their tales.
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Letters Home
Faced with the existential dread that wartime brings, Australians wrote. They wrote journals, letters, postcards, memoirs, memorials, and poems to capture what they were seeing and how they were feeling. In this episode we explore the voices of Australians during the First World War.
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Lunatic Asylums
Asylums and their inhabitants were kept out of sight and out of mind. Escapes, violence, murders, and suicides were all splashed across the headlines of the papers. But most importantly, behind the high walls, people lived out their lives, squirreling away what precious few items they held dear, working in the gardens and kitchens, and waiting for the day when they might be free.
Australia. The Antipodes. The gothic dungeon at the bottom of the world. A land of reversals. Where swans are black instead of white. Where colonisers brought their own dark subconscious and had it realised huge and grotesque upon the landscape.
This series will examine colonial and post-colonial history to understand where we’ve come from and how this shapes who we are today. How did we get from there to here? And after such bloody beginnings, what spectres still haunt the Australian subconscious?
Who are the Ghosts of the Australian Psyche?
New Zealand