Editorial

Welcome to the 2025 issue of Provenance, PROV’s free online journal highlighting the diversity and richness of Victoria’s state archival collection for research and storytelling. The five articles in issue 22 explore social and cultural histories of Victorian people, places and buildings. All five articles contain individual stories that can only be retold through the insights offered by archival sources like those held by PROV. Without these sources, it would be difficult to piece together the facts and details of the people whose lives and voices exist beneath the larger and more mainstream historical narratives.

Victoria’s bluestone buildings are iconic, many being recognised for their heritage significance and often associated with emotional as well as cultural and structural value. In recognition of the values of the stone itself, in 2024 UNESCO recognised Malmsbury Bluestone as Australia’s first designated Global Heritage Stone resource. In her article ‘Bluestone sawing in Victoria: cutting a niche in the stone industry’, Susan Walter uses a wide range of archival and published material to argue that an understanding of Malmsbury Bluestone’s significance, as well as the architectural and heritage values of bluestone, requires recognition of the labour history of the skilled stonemasons and stoneworkers who created these structures. Walter’s case study highlights the innovative mechanical stone sawing technologies developed in the 1860s by stonemasons Thomas Glaister and Thomas Gamon, which allowed Malmsbury Bluestone to be effectively sourced and used for both buildings and everyday infrastructure in Melbourne during the nineteenth century. Glaister and Gamon were also pioneers of the eight-hour day, and successfully utilised their labour cooperatives to win lucrative government contracts, create jobs and compete with capitalists to produce quality bluestone for Victoria’s growing needs.

In ‘“Notoriously abandoned characters”: searching for the women in the Western Gaol 1854–58’, Sarah Mirams seeks to highlight the lives of women and children who were held at Melbourne’s Western Gaol between 1854 and 1858, a time of immense social change and a developing colonial society triggered by the Victorian gold rush. In the context of this upheaval, including increased population movement, rising crime and an absence of welfare supports, Mirams highlights the contradiction of the prison system as a place of incarceration and refuge for women and children. Primarily using government records such as prison registers, gaol inspection reports and inquests, alongside newspaper and court reports, Mirams uncovers glimpses of the lives of otherwise invisible and marginalised women, those who left behind no records of their own.

Chris Carpenter’s article, ‘The turbulent tales within the archives’, traces the lives of some of his ancestors, English immigrants who arrived in Australia in 1849. Using a combination of archives and births, deaths and marriage registrations, Carpenter recounts the story of his third great-grandparents, Richard and Maria Carpenter, and their children. Wardship, asylum and court records allow him to create a vivid narrative of three of their children: Richard Jnr, William and Elizabeth. Carpenter’s first tale reveals how Richard Jnr, the eldest child, fathered 27 children over the course of five marriages. His story unfolds through multiple aliases, and many instances of fraud and deception, and the serial abandonment of wives and children. What drove Richard Jnr remains a mystery, though there may be clues in the hardships endured by his brother William and sister Elizabeth, both of whom spent much of their lives in asylums.

Have you ever wondered how placenames in Victoria got their names? Ann Hodgkinson was curious to find who it was that gave their name to the burgeoning Geelong growth area known as Armstrong Creek. Combining research into the private diaries of local pastoralist Anne Drysdale and a range of other archival sources, Hodgkinson tells the story of John Armstrong and his family, Scottish immigrants who arrived in the fledgling Port Phillip District in 1839. Drysdale, a fellow Scot who arrived the same year, became John Armstrong’s employer in these early years of the colony. From labourer to overseer, Drysdale’s employment provided Armstrong with an opportunity to establish himself and lay the groundwork for his own successful businesses in the pastoral industry. Hodgkinson traces the narrative of Armstrong’s life and business, and the connections to the place that now bears his name.

The deeds of Frederick Bailey Deeming have ensured his notoriety as one of the best-known serial killers in Australia’s history. Tara Oldfield revisits his story to shift the focus onto his next intended victim, Kate Rounsefell. As is often the case with notorious historical characters, their victims tend to be defined by their proximity to infamy, and the attention they receive in historical accounts tends to relegate them to the sidelines and footnotes. Oldfield wanted to reverse this by telling Kate’s story, exploring her intentions as a newly arrived immigrant and a woman having to endure the social pressure to find a suitable match. This context allows us to better understand how she eventually succumbed to the persistent advances of a man she barely knew, a man for whom she did not have particularly strong feelings. Once the truth about Deeming is revealed, Kate becomes the object of salacious media attention and popular fascination. Thrust into the limelight as Deeming’s next victim, Kate’s actions are scrutinised minutely, and she has to fend off all manner of social stereotypes and presumptions about female propriety and conduct. Oldfield’s article is salient not just for giving us a retelling of the Deeming story in which one of his intended victims takes centrestage, but also to show how women today continue to face many of the pressures and prejudices that Kate Rounsefell had to deal with in the late nineteenth century!

Tsari Anderson and Sebastian Gurciullo

Editors, Provenance