February 2024
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Interior, children’s bedroom
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
9.7 x 7.4cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Communities dismantled
Dismantled: late 16th century (in the sense ‘destroy the defensive capability of a fortification’): from Old French desmanteler, from des- (expressing reversal) + manteler ‘fortify’ (from Latin mantellum ‘cloak’).
At any age in life, having a stable place to live is vitally important to your physical and mental health. This is especially true for lower socio-economic individuals and families, older human beings, and people with a physical and/or mental disability.
The photographs presented in this posting by active Methodist and photographer F. Oswald Barnett were used to encourage government to remove the ‘slum menace’ – that is, a person or thing that is likely to cause harm; a threat or danger – in inner city Melbourne during the late 1930s-1970s. “Captured by Methodist social reformer F. Oswald Barnett, these photographs served to power his campaign to abolish the city’s inner-city slums and provide a better quality of life for Melbournians.”
“Slum portrayals were sensationalist and voyeuristic. Photos from the slums featured alcoholic mothers with loose moral standards, ‘vermin-infested kitchens’, and children riddled with fleas and head lice.”1
Of course, it is photography’s “ability to police and regulate its subjects, especially those lacking social and political power: the poor, presumed “deviants” or “criminals,” and workers”2 that is at play here. Value judgements about people’s lives and homes were made by do gooders, those of moral fortitude and in positions of power and comfort, likely those very people who had never experienced what it is to be poor, homeless or suffer from a disability. Class would have come in to it as much as the self lubricating disciplinary systems of church, state, hospital, prison that enable and enact power and control over others (Foucault).
And yet, and yet, despite their obvious poverty and “slum” residency (a squalid and overcrowded urban street or district inhabited by very poor people), F. Oswald Barnett’s photographs also document proud people and communities.
Observe the key of the front door hanging outside a hole in the door in Fitzroy. The key of the front door of the apartment house (c. 1935, below) and note the inference that “easy means of access is the open door to immorality.” A true moralists deduction given the evidence… whereas I would have thought it was a testament to the honesty and integrity of the community, and the lack of crime, that the key to the house could be left freely accessible. In Carlton. Slum pocket (c. 1930, below) two older women stand proudly in their front yards, positioned for and staring at the camera, a broom propped up against the picket fence where one of the woman has been sweeping down the cobbled street. In North Melbourne. Group of children in Erskine Place (c. 1935, below) eight children stand in a line for the camera, quizzical, sullen, smiling, barefoot. Collectively the possess a sense of camaraderie. Witness the two boys holding hands at the left of the image, probably brothers, the one brother looking with love at his brother who faces the camera. This sense of camaraderie, community and family is something all the modernisation in the world can’t buy.
The plan to excise the slums ‘for the common good’ and for immoral reasons, did not go according to plan.
“But abolishing the slums was proving to be difficult. The ‘demolitions program’ was beset with problems. By 1940, only 53 families had actually been moved into new houses. Synchronising demolition works with the building program was hard. The Commission did not have enough resources, and lacked the support of the labour movement.
The Housing Commission upped the ante. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Commission launched the most ambitious slum-clearance projects ever seen in Australia. Residents in Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond protested and refused to move. In 1969, the Carlton Association launched a PR campaign denouncing the schemes.
Finally, four years later, the Victorian government abandoned the slum clearance schemes, but by then, whole communities had been dismantled. The buildings that housed them had been demolished.”3
Whole communities had been dismantled for no apparent benefit. And this is exactly what is happening with the demolition of existing public housing in Melbourne at the moment, to be replaced by a mixture of social, affordable and private housing, often tripling the number of dwellings in redevelopments and totally destroying any sense of community that existed in that place, where people actively looked after each other.
Cait Kelly, in an article on the Guardian website in July 2023 on the proposed demolition of the Barak Beacon estate in Port Melbourne comments on Margaret Kelly, the last resident left living in the estate. “When Kelly moved in to Barak Beacon she was a 43-year-old single mum who had spent years in and out of different homes. The housing estate gave her stability. She raised her son, who now has an international career as a game developer, grew flowers in the garden and watched as her neighbour’s children grew up. She said she was “shattered” to be having to fight to stay in her home. “This was our safe home,” she said. “And that’s what it’s been for so many tenants.”4
For many people, secure and stable public housing has been their safe space from the vicissitudes of the world. No longer. Today in Victoria and across Australia, these havens of security and community are being dismantled to be replaced by public-private housing, shared spaces and high density living.
Which brings me to the Grosvenor Precinct (Brunning, Woodstock & Grosvenor Street residences) in Balaclava. HousingFirst, a not-for-profit community housing organisation (providing social housing to over 2000 people across Melbourne) – which purchased the precinct in 1989 “to build and construct accommodation for older persons” – hand delivered a letter at 5pm on the Friday of a long weekend, dropped into the letterbox of each resident.
The letter states, “At HousingFirst, we work hard to continually improve our housing because we want you to enjoy living in a home that meets contemporary standards, where you and your family can live your best life.
We’re pleased to announce the redevelopment of our Grosvenor Precinct (Brunning, Woodstock & Grosvenor Street residences) in Balaclava.
The redevelopment will provide 68 new architect designed environmentally sustainable homes with modern amenity and beautiful shared spaces for all to enjoy.
To accommodate the changes, you will need to move out of your current home into alternative accommodation that will be arranged by HousingFirst for the period of construction. However, you will have first right of return to the new developed homes once the new homes are complete, and we’re confident the enhanced amenity with be worth the inconvenience.”5
This letter arrived without warning to the residents of the precinct on a Friday night of a long weekend without any consultation, as a fait accompli.
It is believed that the redevelopment of 68 units (which more than triples the number of units on the precinct) will be a mixture of private and public housing although this knowledge has not been formally addressed to the current tenants in the form of a letter. The percentage of public and private housing is uncertain in this point in time. And, despite the protestations of the letter, there is no legal guarantee at the moment that any of the current tenants will be offered first preference in the new development and apartments upon completion.
The older, disabled people who live in this “precinct” sit on a valuable parcel of land (and therein lies one of the major problems). They enjoy units close to the shops, with single or double bedroom villas with their own very small courtyard garden. It is a quiet precinct with little noise and no violence or drug use and the villas are modern and well maintained. The residents are now being placed in multi-storey blocks of flats with noise at all hours of the night, nowhere to house their pets, drug users living down the corridor and litter everywhere. Residents who have already been forced to move have noted that their mental and physical health has deteriorated under the stress of these new living arrangements. HousingFirst is destroying a stable, loving community that cared about each other for the sake of modernisation and, let’s be honest, probably profit.
The whole community is up in arms, both the public housing residents who are left in the precinct together with the residents of privately owned homes in the surrounding area, who themselves have formed a committee to oppose the redevelopment.
This underhand development enacted under a “cloak” of secrecy (see the definition of “dismantling”) has been thrust on vulnerable, older, disabled people without consultation … and is typical of what is going on all over Victoria, as public housing is torn down across the state to be replaced by a mixture of mainly private housing with a bit of public housing thrown in for good measure. All in the name of high density inner city living and supposedly more “modern” amenities without any regard to culture, friendship or community.
It is therefore ironic that the HousingFirst website states that, in terms of building communities, it is their belief that “social and affordable housing is the foundation on which we build strong communities… The service we provide is more than just a safe, secure place to call home. We know that homes transform the lives of our residents. HousingFirst helps our residents put down roots which means home becomes community.”6
Home becomes community! What a load of lip service…
In terms of their residents they state, “Everyday we work with our residents and stakeholders, developing relationships built on our values of integrity, respect, inclusiveness, collaboration and accountability.”7
In all of these areas, these values, their supposed values, have truly been washed down the drain.
As with the ‘excising’ of slum pockets for the ‘common good’ in the late 1930s onwards in Melbourne – an exercise of futility if ever there was one – so the destruction of perfectly modern villa units with their own garden, a small community of older and disabled people who look after each other, and their spreading to the uncertain winds of poorer physical and mental health (I already have reports that where people have been moved they are suffering with both) is outright social vandalism.
Talk about trashing your brand. Well done HousingFirst you have achieved that admirably!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Sarah Matthews. “Slums of Melbourne,” on the State Library of Victoria Blog website August 6, 2015 [Online] Cited 12/02/2024
2/ Joseph Entin. “Milton Rogovin’s Approach: Photography, Class, and the Aesthetics of Making Space (2008),” on the ASX website July 12, 2010 [Online] Cited 12/05/2018
3/ Sarah Matthews, Op cit.,
4/ Cait Kelly. “Last resident of Port Melbourne housing estate vows to fight for her home after eviction notice,” on the Guardian website Thursday 20 July 2023 [Online] Cited 23/02/2024
5/ Letter to the residents from HousingFirst 3 November 2023
6/ Anonymous. “Building Communities: Creating Inclusive & Diverse Communities,” on the HousingFirst webiste Nd [Online] Cited 23/02/2024
7/ Ibid.,
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All F. Oswald Barnett photographs are public domain on the State Library of Victoria website. They have been digitally cleaned and balanced by Marcus Bunyan.
Building Communities
Our Belief
We believe social and affordable housing is the foundation on which we build strong communities. Securing housing first allows us to then support the well-being and full participation of low income, disadvantaged Victorians.
The service we provide is more than just a safe, secure place to call home.
We know that homes transform the lives of our residents.
HousingFirst helps our residents put down roots which means home becomes community.
Our Residents
Everyday we work with our residents and stakeholders, developing relationships built on our values of integrity, respect, inclusiveness, collaboration and accountability.
Anonymous. “Building Communities,” on the HousingFirst website June 2020 [Online] Cited 12/02/2024
The land at Grosvenor, Brunning and Woodstock Streets Balaclava was purchased in 1989 to build and construct accommodation for older persons. Construction commenced in 1992 with final completion in 1994.
The property comprises:
10 x 1BR units (2 in Brunning St, 2 in Grosvenor St, 6 in Woodstock St)
8 x 2BR units (4 in Brunning St, 4 in Grosvenor St)
2 x 3BR units (Grosvenor St)
4 parking spaces at Woodstock with street parking and resident permits available
all units are wheelchair accessible.
DHS holds nomination rights over 2 units in each Brunning and Grosvenor, as well as for 4 units at Woodstock.
Text from the HousingFirst website
Map of Woodstock, Brunning and Grosvenor Streets, Balaclava, Melbourne
Photograph of the units in Woodstock Street, Balaclava
The Great Depression saw Australia’s unemployment rate rise to 32% by 1932, is seen through the eyes of photographer F. Oswald Barnett in his powerful images of poverty-stricken inner Melbourne suburbs such as Fitzroy, Collingwood and Carlton.
From the vault: Melbourne slums of the 1930s
The first video in our brand new series, From the Vault, provides a rare glimpse into the slums of Melbourne 100 years ago.
Captured by Methodist social reformer F. Oswald Barnett, these photographs served to power his campaign to abolish the city’s inner-city slums and provide a better quality of life for Melbournians.
This collection also tells a fascinating story about the history of Melbourne’s housing reform movement more broadly. Barnett himself was instrumental in helping to lay the foundations for what would become the Housing Commission of Victoria – although as you’ll discover in this film, its remit to excise the slums ‘for the common good’ did not go according to plan.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Bathroom interior
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
24.1 x 19.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Collingwood
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Collingwood. Glasshouse Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
5.4 x 8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View of road paved with bluestone disappearing between corrugated iron fence on left hand side and paling fence on the right. Weatherboard house behind paling fence. Large brick building bearing the words, “Foy & Gibson” visible in the background.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Collingwood. Little Oxford Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
5.4 x 8.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View of street with single storey brick/weatherboard/stone houses along the right hand side and other houses visible in the background. Girl standing on footpath outside one-roomed house. Two boys standing in the middle of the road and a car parked on the left hand side.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Collingwood. Victoria Place.
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
5.4 x 8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Collingwood. Plan of house, No. 12 Hood Street.
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print, hand-coloured
10.5 x 6.8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Collingwood. Hood Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
5.4 x 8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Map of contemporary Melbourne showing two of the locations pictured in F. Oswald Barnett’s photographs of Collingwood
Frederick Oswald Barnett (1883-1972) was an active Methodist. In 1923 a visit to an inner-city slum shocked him deeply and, concerned for the welfare of the children in particular, he enlisted the aid of young Methodists in a campaign which led to the establishment of the Methodist Babies’ Home in South Yarra in 1929. At the same time he was studying part time at the University of Melbourne (B. Com., 1928); his master’s thesis of 1931, based on the result of 150 questionnaires, was published in 1933 as The Unsuspected Slums.
Barnett set up a study-group of forty people drawn from various community organisations, who met weekly in his office to discuss problems of housing reform. His group soon widened its activities to form the nucleus of the slum-abolition movement of the early 1930s. In his public campaign Barnett used a combination of scientifically gathered data and sometimes emotional presentation; he urged his audiences to write to the premier (Sir) Albert Dunstan, who finally agreed to inspect the slums for himself. In 1936 the premier appointed a Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board, of which Barnett was a member: it recommended establishment of a housing scheme run by a commission of experts, a policy which his group had long advocated. When the Housing Commission of Victoria was set up in 1938 Barnett became vice-chairman until 1948, when he declined reappointment.
Barnett frequently contributed to public discussion of housing, poverty and related issues through newspaper articles, public addresses and pamphlets, which included, with W. O. Burt, Housing the Australian Nation (1942) and, with Burt and F. Heath, We Must Go On: A Study in Planned Reconstruction and Housing (1944). In 1941-49 he was a director of the City Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd and chairman from 1946 of its Victorian board, but he was asked to resign when it was known that he was auditor to Australia-Soviet House, Melbourne. In 1952 his was virtually a lone voice attacking proposals for multi-storey flats as public housing, in an address from his familiar platform, the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon at Wesley Church.
E. W. Russell. “Frederick Oswald Barnett (1883-1972),” on the Australian Dictionary of Biography website 2006 first published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, 1979 [Online] Cited 11/02/2024
Fitzroy
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. The Bungalows
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.5 x 10.0cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. A group of four cottages
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.7 x 10.0cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. The key of the front door of the apartment house
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
9.4 x 7.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. The key of the front door of the apartment house (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
9.4 x 7.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. View from the Brotherhood of St. Lawrence
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.6 x 9.4cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. Rear view of house
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy Town Hall
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
8.0 x 5.3cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. Tin house, Ward’s Lane
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.2 x 9.6cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View down lane paved with bluestone. Paling fence on right hand side, single storey brick houses on the left, one appearing to have a tin structure attached. Double storey houses visible in the background.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. Argyle Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Fitzroy. Martin i.e. Market Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.0 x 9.4cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
As far back as the 1850s, slums existed in inner city Melbourne. Slum dwellers lived a squalid existence. Often, they had no bathrooms, or sewerage. They lived in ramshackle housing, with leaky roofs and holes in the walls.
In 1923, active Methodist and social reformer F. Oswald Barnett visited an inner city slum. He was so shocked that he was moved to write the following lament:
WHAT CAN I DO?
Oh God.
What shall I do about these little ones,
These children of the slums,
These helpless, unwashed babies of the slums,
Who crawl along on bare and filthy floors,
Who feed with sticky flies,
Who play in evil-smelling lanes,
Whose mothers cannot keep them clean,
In body or in soul?1
Enlisting the help of other young Methodists, Barnett began a campaign for social change. Together, they successfully advocated for the establishment of the Methodist Babies’ House in South Yarra in 1929.
Barnett went further. Along with several other photographers, he began taking photos of the slums, using them as fuel in his push for social reform. The pictures, combined with emotive language, simultaneously shocked and captivated the public.
Melbourne historian, Dr Andrew Brown-May, observes that from the 1850s onwards: ‘Slum depictions, fashioned in words and illustration, endured as a powerful genre in Melbourne’s cultural landscape.’2
Slum portrayals were sensationalist and voyeuristic. Photos from the slums featured alcoholic mothers with loose moral standards, ‘vermin-infested kitchens’, and children riddled with fleas and head lice.
The campaign to rid Melbourne of its slums steadily gained momentum over the next century. In 1937 the Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board produced a damning report on the ‘slum menace’:
‘The Board records its horror and amazement at the deplorable conditions … Hidden behind wide, spacious streets there are slum pockets which are hotbeds of depravity and disease’.3
The Board recommended urgent measures to combat the problem, including the rehousing of slum dwellers and reclamation of slum areas. Its report led to the creation of the Housing Commission of Victoria.
In 1938, the Victorian government passed legislation to facilitate a ‘war on slums.’ The Housing Commission was tasked with ‘excising’ slum pockets for the ‘common good’.4 The Commission built flats to rehouse the slum dwellers. At the same time, it went about acquiring cheap land in suburbs such as Coburg, Brunswick, Northcote, Fitzroy and Richmond.
But abolishing the slums was proving to be difficult. The ‘demolitions program’ was beset with problems. By 1940, only 53 families had actually been moved into new houses. Synchronising demolition works with the building program was hard. The Commission did not have enough resources, and lacked the support of the labour movement.5
The Housing Commission upped the ante. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Commission launched the most ambitious slum-clearance projects ever seen in Australia. Residents in Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond protested and refused to move. In 1969, the Carlton Association launched a PR campaign denouncing the schemes.
Finally, four years later, the Victorian government abandoned the slum clearance schemes, but by then, whole communities had been dismantled. The buildings that housed them had been demolished.
Society moved on to other concerns. But the slum stereotype lives on in our records. It is the only version of the truth that remains.
You can view the entire F. Oswald Barnett Collection online.
References
1/ Barnett, F.O. [1945?], I hear the tramp of millions, Rawson’s Book Shop, Melbourne
2/ ‘Slums’, Encyclopedia of Melbourne
3/ Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board, 1937, First (progress) report, with appendices and supplements [microform] : slum reclamation : housing for the lower-paid worker; short term programme, H.J. Green, Government Printer, Melbourne
4/ Freestone, R., 2010, Urban nation : Australia’s planning heritage, CSIRO Publishing in assoc. with the Dept. of Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts, & the Australian Heritage Council. p. 217
5/ Howe, R. (ed.), 1988, New houses for old : fifty years of public housing in Victoria 1938-1988, Ministry of Housing & Construction, Melbourne, p. 41
Sarah Matthews. “Slums of Melbourne,” on the State Library of Victoria Blog website August 6, 2015 [Online] Cited 12/02/2024
Carlton
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. David Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.3 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View down paved street. Two storey brick houses on either side. Child leaning over front fence on left hand side. Two dogs, child and other single storey houses visible at end of street.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Two mothers
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
9.5 x 6.5cm mounted on card 15.2 x 10.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Two mothers (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
9.5 x 6.5cm mounted on card 15.2 x 10.1cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Carlton Place
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.1 x 9.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Entrance to a slum pocket
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
6.4 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Slum pocket
c. 1930
Gelatin silver print
7.3 x 9.8 cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Little Barkly Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.6cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Little Barkly Street (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.6cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Kitchen interior with woman and three children
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.2 x 9.9cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Interior view of kitchen with open fireplace. Containers and utensils on mantelpiece above fireplace. Woman and three children seated around a wooden table in front of fireplace.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Wash-house and bath-room, 48 Palmerston Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.6cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Wash-house and bath-room, 48 Palmerston Street (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.6cm mounted on card
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Contemporary photograph of 48 Palmerston Street, Carlton
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Airedale Place
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.2 x 9.8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Somerset Place
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
6.0 x 9.8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Somerset Place (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
6.0 x 9.8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
Carlton. Ormond Place
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
6.1 x 9.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Map of contemporary Melbourne showing five of the locations pictured in F. Oswald Barnett’s photographs of Carlton
One of the most visible and lasting effects of the Great Depression was the housing crisis in the poor working class areas of Melbourne and Sydney. Many of the nineteenth-century houses had fallen into disrepair, overcrowding was endemic and a great number of families lived in squalid and unhealthy conditions. Throughout the decade ‘slum’ abolition movements in Melbourne and Sydney ran public campaigns to place public housing on the political agenda, leading to the creation of the first state Housing Commissions.
In Melbourne, Methodist layman F. Oswald Barnett led a campaign calling for slum demolition and the rehousing of residents in government-financed housing. He took hundreds of photographs that were used in public lectures and to illustrate the 1937 report of the Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board. This led to the creation of the Housing Commission of Victoria in 1938, with its first major project being the Garden City estate at Fishermans Bend. In Sydney a similar campaign led to the Housing Improvement Act of 1936 and the construction of the first fifty-six home units at Erskineville.
Text from the National Gallery of Victoria
The photographs in the F. Oswald Barnett Collection were taken by Barnett and other unidentified photographers in the 1930s. Many of them were used to illustrate a government report on slum housing and/or made into lantern slides for lectures in a public campaign. F. Oswald Barnett was born in Brunswick, Victoria. A committed Methodist and housing reformer, he led a crusade against Melbourne’s inner city slums. In 1936 he was appointed to the Slum Abolition Board and from 1938-1948 he was the vice-chair of the Housing Commission. In this position he attempted to shape compassionate public housing policy. He later protested vigorously against proposed high-rise housing.
Text from the Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th century Australia
West Melbourne and North Melbourne
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. The lavatory to a Dudley Mansion
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
7.4 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View of a poorly constructed lavatory building on the edge of a stretch of water. Construction material is mainly corrugated iron. Rail freight car and industrial landscape in the background.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. The lavatory to a Dudley Mansion (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
7.4 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. A Dudley Mansion
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.5 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. A Dudley Mansion (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.5 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. A group of Dudley Mansions
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.8cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
View across hillside and stretch of water to a group of shanties. Industrial landscape in the background.
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. One of the Dudley Mansions
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
West Melbourne. One of the Dudley Mansions (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.4 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Row of four houses
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
7.3 x 9.6cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Group of children in Erskine Place
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
10.0 x 7.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Group of children in Erskine Place (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
10.0 x 7.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Group of children in Erskine Place (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
10.0 x 7.5cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Hardwicke Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
7.2 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. Hardwicke Street (detail)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver
7.2 x 9.7cm
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
F. Oswald Barnett (Australian, 1883-1972)
North Melbourne. No. 19 Byron Street
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
F. Oswald Barnett Collection
State Library of Victoria
Public domain
Contemporary photograph of Byron Street, North Melbourne with number 19 half way along on the left. All apartment complexes now…
F. Oswald Barnett. “An Apology to the Slum Dweller,” in F. Oswald Barnett. I hear the tramp of millions. Melbourne: Printers Pty Ltd, 1945? pp. 12-13. 36 p.: ill.; 21cm.
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