Douglas Morrissey's unpublished thesis - a review, Part 1 [Brian Stevenson]

Douglas Morrissey, 'Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves: a Social History of Kelly Country', Ph D Thesis, LaTrobe University, 1987.

This unpublished work is very hard to find, but there is a copy in the library of the LaTrobe University, where the author did his thesis. Dr Morrissey, according to Alex McDermott, who praises the work in his writings, has apparently never been able to find a publisher. This may well be because the viewpoints and conclusions which go so definitely and definitively against the grain of so many previous statements and assumptions on the social and economic milieu that spawned the Kelly Gang.

I want to cover this thesis, a couple of chapters at a time, in this and subsequent blog posts. Because this work is all but inaccessible, and extremely important, I make no apologies for covering it in some detail. This post covers Chapter 1, 'Patterns of Settlement' and Chapter 2 'Selection in Kelly Country: Success or Failure?'

Dr Morrissey has done this the hard way. Rather than rely on oral history that is less than reliable, oversentimental or both, he set himself a task that, on the face of it, would not have seemed appealing to any but the most dogged of researchers. In Morrissey's words: 'Traditional explanations for the Kelly Outbreak rest heavily on rural poverty and selection failure.' He decided to test the hypotheses related to selector poverty and the inaccessibility and infertility of land in the Kelly country, factors that writers from Ned Kelly down to John McQuilton have seen as a key factor in the Outbreak. Calmly and clinically, and using Lands Department records that whose apparent dryness is only exceeded by their impartiality, he demolishes myth after myth relating to the background of the troubled and violent Edward Kelly.

In Morrissey's words, he decided 'to examine the economic fortunes of 265 selectors during their first decade or so on the land, roughly 1868 to 1880. All the selectors chosen lived in the adjoining land parishes of Greta, Glenrowan, Laceby, Lurg and Moyhu.' Surprisingly, at least for those who base their thoughts on such matters on Ned's claims in the Jerilderie and Cameron letters, the overwhelming majority of these selectors ultimately prevailed. 72 percent of selectors gained the freehold to their selections. In Greta, the figure was 79 percent. Those who got behind in their payments were treated with leniency and patience by the Lands Department, which extended the time in which they could pay, sometimes by years.

Incidentally, Ned Kelly himself seemed ambivalent towards the financial difficulties experienced by his mother, who frequently fell behind in her rent payments. Despite his earnings from stock theft - 'horses and cattle innumerable' - and his boast that he never worked for less than two pounds ten a week after his release from Pentridge, and his windfall 'earnings' at Euroa and Jerilderie, little of Ned's spare cash seems to have found its way to his beloved mother. In 1881 the Crown Bailiff inspected her selection and valued the improvements to her land at one hundred pounds, not much to show after a decade or so in which the Kelly family, including three strong sons and, for a while, an able bodied stepfather spent 'occasionally cropping a few acres and milking a few head of cattle', but became much more notorious for other activities. Mrs Kelly's selection was declared forfeited to the Crown on two occasions, in 1870 and 1880. Both times, the Lands Department allowed her to retain possession of the land, despite a strong recommendation from the police in 1880 that the forfeiture should be upheld.

Farming a selection had little appeal to Ned. In January 1875, a year after being released from Pentridge, he applied to take up 100 acres of land adjoining his mother's selection. He allowed the application to lapse for reasons that we will never know for sure, but we can at least infer that he believed that there were easier ways to earn money than farming. Even in an area, where, as Morrissey demonstrates, 'there is no evidence that poverty or [economic] failure was more prevalent than anywhere else.'


NOTE: The second installment in this ongoing series can be found at http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2011/05/douglas-morrissey-thesis-chapter-3.html