On January 25th 1901 a ship called The Surrey arrived in Fremantle bringing 60 young women from England, one of the last so called "bride ships". In 1848, the Colonial Government offered free passage to young women aged fifteen to thirty-five and guaranteed them employment as servants, laundresses or needlewomen. In return for their free passage the women had to agree to stay in the colony as domestic servants for twelve months.
I have created a fictional character, Grace, for Room Service and have awarded her some of my own character traits and interests, including singing, reading and keeping a diary. In my podcast, Diary of a (teenage) Diva, I have been reading aloud teenage diaries and reconnecting with my dreams of becoming a singer, my thirst for adventure and generally optimistic nature. As part of the podcast I also read the diary of my own Great-Grandmother, Louie (pictured with my Granny on her lap) as they travelled from Cape Town to Sydney on a 4 masted sailing ship and have been leafing through the London News from 1860, perhaps a connection to Grace's Grandmother.
The reason I have put Grace on The Surrey is two-fold. Firstly the P&O Hotel opened in 1901 and I imagine that a number of the girls arriving on that particular ship would have found work there and secondly because there is (unusually) some documentation about a couple of the other girls on that ship. Firstly Kitty Page, a 25 year old woman who kept a diary of the voyage, detailing among other things, concerts aboard the ship which Grace (in my imagination) may have sung in. Kitty's diaries can be read in full at the State Library.
The second real character who I have included in Grace’s diary entries, was Laura Bartrop. Laura gave birth to two children, Kathleen (1902) and Herbert (1904) who both tragically died in infancy whilst under the so-called care of notorious ‘baby farmer’ Alice Mitchell. Alice eventually sentenced to 5 years hard labour for man-slaughter of one neglected baby, but 36 others were found to have died in her care.
As an unmarried, pregnant servant girl life would have been hard for Laura. I like to think that Grace was saved from a similar fate by the cautionary tales she learnt in songs. Folk tunes like “She was poor but she was honest” and "Sorry her Lot" warn of the perils of being a young girl in a cruel world, perhaps providing Grace with some reasons to choose a different path to her friend Laura. The recordings that you can hear were all made by me, at the P&O Hotel where you can imagine that Grace, always singing, has just stepped out into the other room.
Follow me on social media @divaliciouspenny and find out what is coming up here
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Also check out other Music events in Fremantle, Concerts in Fremantle, Trips & Adventurous Activities in Fremantle.
