Life in Colonial Victoria
HTAV Primary School Conference
20th August 2012
The Australian Curriculum: History is organised into two
interrelated strands:
Historical Knowledge and Understanding and
Historical Skills.
Historical Knowledge and Understanding
Content descriptions
specify what teachers are expected to teach
elaborations illustrate the content descriptions
History / Year 5 / Content Descriptions
Historical Knowledge and Understanding
The Australian Colonies
Reasons (economic, political and social) for the establishment of British colonies in
Australia after 1800. (ACHHK093)
The nature of convict or colonial presence, including the factors that influenced patterns of
development, aspects of the daily life of the inhabitants (including Aboriginal Peoples and
Torres Strait Islander Peoples) and how the environment changed. (ACHHK094)
The impact of a significant development or event on a colony; for example, frontier
conflict, the gold rushes, the Eureka Stockade, internal exploration, the advent of rail, the
expansion of farming, drought. (ACHHK095)
The reasons people migrated to Australia from Europe and Asia, and the experiences and
contributions of a particular migrant group within a colony. (ACHHK096)
The role that a significant individual or group played in shaping a colony; for example,
explorers, farmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, humanitarians, religious and political
leaders, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. (ACHHK097)
History / Year 5 / Historical Knowledge and Understanding / The Australian
Colonies
Content description
The impact of a significant development or event on a colony; for example,
frontier conflict, the gold rushes, the Eureka Stockade, internal exploration, the
advent of rail, the expansion of farming, drought.
Elaborations
• investigating an event or development and explaining its economic, social and
political impact on a colony (for example the consequences of frontier conflict
events such as the Myall Creek Massacre, the Pinjarra Massacre; the impact
of South Sea Islanders on sugar farming and the timber industry; the impact
of the Eureka Stockade on the development of democracy)
• creating ‘what if’ scenarios by constructing different outcomes for a key
event, for example ‘What if Peter Lalor had encouraged gold miners to pay
rather than resist licence fees?’
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Year5?a=H&layout=1
The Australian Curriculum, History Key inquiry questions
Year 5
The Australian Colonies in the 1800s
1. What do we know about the lives of people in Australia’s
colonial past and how do we know?
2. How did an Australian colony develop over time and why?
3. How did colonial settlement change the environment?
4. What were the significant events and who were the
significant people that shaped Australian colonies?
What do we know
about the lives of
people in Australia’s
colonial past and
how do we know?
Queen Victoria
[ 1819-1901 ]
By
Franz Xaver
Winterhalter
1837 Victoria crowned Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
Queen Victoria's family in 1846
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
left to right: Prince Alfred and Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales;
the Queen and Prince Albert; Princesses Alice, Helena and Victoria
1840 The Penny Post is introduced in Britain
George Baxter, News from Home
1854
George Baxter, News from Australia
1854
[Penny post 1840]
The Vulcan, the first steam locomotive on the Great Western Railway.
It ran on a short stretch of completed track on 28 December 1837.
1838
1839
1841
1843
1849
1850
Oliver Twist
Nicholas Nickleby
The Old Curiosity Shop
A Christmas Carol
David Copperfield
began his weekly journal
Household Words.
Charles Dickens
1812 - 1870
Frontispiece, first edition 1838
The Victorian Christmas
First edition frontispiece and title page (1843)
The Queen's Christmas
tree at Windsor Castle.
First commercially produced Christmas card,
designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole 1843
Illustrated London News, 1848
Edward Jenner
by James Northcote
1840 Smallpox vaccination - using cowpox - provided free in Britain
- other treatments of smallpox banned
Colonization spread
Britain’s Industrial
Revolution, culture,
language, religion and
politics to Australia.
Henry O’Neil, The Parting Cheer
An artist's impression of John Batman's treaty with Port Philip
aborigines in 1835 for the purchase of 600,000 acres of land.
The Australian Sketchbook by S. T. Gill, 1865.
S. T. Gill, Attack on Store Dray
S. T. Gill, Homeward Bound
S. T. Gill. Wool Drays
S. T. Gill. Bushman’s Hut
S.T. Gill, Cattle Branding
Ercildoune near Lake Burrumbeet
Von Guerard, Eugene, Koort Koort-nong homestead, near Camperdown, Victoria 1860
S. T. Gill, The New Rush
Main Street, Sovereign Hill Museum
(Ballarat 1851 – 1861)
Replica mud brick and bark dwelling at Sovereign Hill (secondary source)
Interior of mud brick and bark colonial dwelling at Sovereign Hill
Bark House, January 1883
(primary source)
Chimney crane in dwelling at Sovereign Hill
Speedwell Street, Sovereign Hill – recreated dwellings c. 1854
(secondary source)
Cottage at Ross Creek, near Ballarat c 1871-2
(primary source c.f. Speedwell Street, Sovereign Hill)
At Sovereign Hill costumed volunteers
can often be seen working in the
recreated cottages.
(Secondary source)
Pierre-Édouard Frère , Washing Day c 1878
(Primary source)
Post Office kitchen at Sovereign Hill
B class locomotive, Ballarat c. 1864
Ballarat produce market – next to railway station c.1860s
Part of cargo for sailing ship 'Samaco' specially chartered for Hugh V. McKay's machinery
train load of Sunshine Harvesters leaving Ballarat for export to Argentina 1903
Oxley Museum, Wellington NSW
Early stump jump plough – first invented in 1876
Old Ballarat Cemetery
Creswick Rd, Ballarat
History Achievement Standard
By the end of Year 5, students
• identify the causes and effects of change on particular communities,
and describe aspects of the past that remained the same.
• They describe the different experiences of people in the past.
• They describe the significance of people and events in bringing about
change.
• Students sequence events and people (their lifetime) in chronological
order, using timelines.
• When researching, students develop questions to frame an historical
inquiry.
• They identify a range of sources and locate and record information
related to this inquiry.
• They examine sources to identify points of view.
• Students develop, organise and present their texts, particularly
narratives and descriptions, using historical terms and concepts.
RESOURCES
2. Flies! – William Howitt (mp3 file)
“ The little black-devil fly all day attacked our eyes, nose and mouth: and great
blowflies in thousands blew our blankets, rugs and everything woollen, all over
with their maggots, which were at once dried upon by the sun. They covered
spaces of a foot square at once with them, all adhering by a sort of gluiness.”
(William Howitt Land, Labour and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria Longmans, London, 1855 quoted in
Nancy Keesing (ed) History of the Australian Gold Rushes by those who were there. Angus and
Robertson, Melbourne 1981 edition. P 110)
http://sheducationcom.ascetinteractive.biz/?id=audiolibrary#Flies
Search
Sovereign Hill Education
Teachers → Pod Casts
(Primary Sources) →
Audio Library → Flies.
S. T. Gill, Butchers Shamble,
Forest Creek
USEFUL WEB SITES for Australian History
Life in Colonial Victoria
TROVE
http://trove.nla.gov.au/
THE PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE OF VICTORIA (PROV)
http://prov.vic.gov.au/
SOVEREIGN HILL
www.sovereignhill.com.au/education
HISTORY PIN
www.historypin.com/community-schools/