John McQuilton

Doing the ‘back block boys some good'∗: The exemption court hearings in north‐eastern victoria, 1916

The hearings before the exemption court held in north‐eastern Victoria during the 1916 conscription campaign offered insights into the way people viewed the war, and demonstrated the extraordinary discretionary power available to a hostile magistrate, and an unsettling inconsistency in decisions handed down, as well as the careful planning that had gone into the war effort by farming communities and, intriguingly, the importance of the ‘bachelor uncle’ in the economic structure of families in regional society.

Soldiers’ Wives Can Starve

The wives of the men serving in South Africa were far more likely to receive assistance from the Empire’s Patriotic Fund than the invalided men, a reflection of the gendered nature of colonial society where an all-male middle-class committee exercised its patriarchal ideology as the protector of women and children. The women, however, were hardly passive recipients of the fund’s assistance. They were far more likely to engage the fund’s committee in their applications. The fund’s assistance for widows was limited to helping them with their applications for pensions or allowances issued from London.

Assisting a “Noble Cause”

The public raised the bulk of the money for the Empire’s Patriotic Fund. Fundraising involved all sections of the Victorian society and seemed to temporarily transcend class barriers. Most of the money was sent to London although a sum was held back for local needs. Despite repeated requests, it was not until May 1901 that the fund was incorporated into the imperial system when it became an arm of Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund. By then, the fund had developed its own system for handling applications for assistance lodged in Victoria for the dependants of men fighting in South Africa and the men discharged as medically unfit for service.

Machinery and Methods

The Empire’s Patriotic Fund had no precedent for dealing with applications from those affected by war. Therefore, it relied on established practices governing social welfare with an emphasis on the “deserving” and the “non-deserving” poor. The fund’s assistance was short-term in nature and consisted of a mixture of grants, material assistance, advances, allowances and supplementary payments set within a complex system of imperial and Victorian government systems of assistance. There was also a marked gender differentiation in its approach to applications: women were far more likely to receive the fund’s support than the men discharged as medically unfit.

Spite, Ire and A Sense of Entitlement

The Empire’s Patriotic Fund Committee’s decisions sometimes created a sense of grievance, particularly on the part of men invalided home who felt that the assistance they received was inadequate for men who had been incapacitated whilst serving their country and empire. They challenged the idea that they were the recipients of charity: rather, they believed that society owed them a debt for their war service, a debt that was not being properly discharged. How these men pursued that sense of entitlement varied, but for two applicants it bordered on the pathological.

The Empire’s Patriotic Fund

Sir Malcolm McEacharn launched the Empire’s Patriotic Fund in January 1900 to provide support for the dependants of the men at war in South Africa, and men invalided home because of wounds or illness, across the empire. Its genesis, however, lay not with the male civic leaders of Melbourne society but with an anonymous writer to the Age newspaper who signed herself as “An Australian Woman” and Lady Janet Clarke. It raised over £65,000. Local government bodies acted as local branches of the fund and, controversially, donated to the fund from municipal coffers.

Mothers, Sisters, Guardians and Fathers

Providing support for other family members who were dependants of the men at the front had been given little thought by the Empire’s Patriotic Fund when it was established. Elderly parents and mothers, especially widowed mothers, had received passing attention. Siblings, guardians and widowed mothers whose dead sons had been their main source of support were not part of the fund’s public discourse. The fund therefore had no general policy when it came to applications from siblings, guardians or widowed mothers whose dead sons had been their main source of support, yet they did apply for assistance. The fund followed London’s practice of considering each case on its merits, with mixed results.

A Changing Focus: The Invalided Men

Men discharged as medically unfit accounted for almost three-quarters of the applications submitted to the Empire’s Patriotic Fund. The fund’s grant system served it well for most cases. Longer-term assistance in the form of allowances, however, was needed for men who were unable to return to their pre-war occupations. The allowance system was caught between the needs of invalided men and the fund’s principle of short-term assistance. Contradictory decisions were made and, faced with dwindling reserves, the fund took an increasingly harder line with applicants. Central to the fund’s decisions was the medical examination for male applicants.

Taking Advantage of the Public’s Generosity?

Like all public charities at the turn of the twentieth century, the Empire’s Patriotic Fund was careful in the vetting of applications to ensure that no one took advantage of the public’s generosity. The fund certainly detected some attempts at fraud, but there were other cases where they failed to do so and, in one case, the fund’s committee was completely wrong in its identification of an applicant as a malingerer.

Introduction: Private Benevolence

In 1900, the Premier of Victoria was asked at a public meeting what plans the government had for assisting the dependants of men fighting in the Boer War and for men incapacitated by that war. The bulk of any such assistance, he replied, would depend mainly on the support provided by Britain and public benevolence.