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Extract

Title
Women for a price
Description

A rare direct reference to prostitution on the gold fields, Lord Robert Cecil’s anecdote about a digger paying for female companionship is often quoted.

Published Source
Scott, Ernest (ed.), Lord Robert Cecil’s gold fields diary, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1935. Details

Versions

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    Type
    Transcript
    Source

    Keesing, Nancy (ed.), Gold fever : the Australian goldfields 1851 to the 1890s, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1967. Details

Themes

Related Published Resources

isPartOf

  • Scott, Ernest (ed.), Lord Robert Cecil’s gold fields diary, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1935. Details

Transcript

We stopped several times on the road…to refresh the inner man at coffee shops – a euphemism, generally speaking, for unlicensed grog shops... At one of them we saw a digger in his jumper and working dress walking arm in arm with a woman dressed in the most exaggerated finery, with a parasol of blue damask silk that would have seemed gorgeous in Hyde Park. She was a lady (so the driver told us) of Adelaide notoriety, known as Lavinia, who had been graciously condescending enough to be the better half of this unhappy digger for a few days, in order to rob him of his earnings. A digger informed me that when he was at Bendigo a lady had offered “to be his wife” for the moderate charge of 1/6. These women are no rarities on the diggings.

Created: 17 March 2006, Last modified: 24 August 2006