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Auckland New Zealand late 1800s

In 1889 some 800 women in Auckland were said to be “soiled doves” which if true meant that about 8% of the female population between the ages of 15 and 40 were prostitutes. The reason for so many being “on the game” was more economics and demographics in the new colony rather than the inherent morality of the inhabitants. Unemployment was rife, with most immigrants arriving without pre-arranged employment.

Evening Post 21 January 1887

In the 1840s there were about three men for every woman living in New Zealand. This balance improved in the 1850s but worsened again in the 1860s when shiploads of men arrived for the Coromandel gold rush. In 1871 Auckland had five bachelors for every two spinsters and interracial marriage with Maori was a rare event. In fact Maori men also outnumbered Maori women. This gender imbalance improved as the century turned.

Economically, New Zealand was going through hard times in the late nineteenth century.To give you an idea of how tough the times were the Wellington Evening Post, edition of 12 December 1885 quoted the following Auckland breakdown of the figures for the unemployed; Labourers – 220; carpenters -59, bricklayers – 15 ; platelayers – 10, other artisans – 158; total, 442. There are also 200 wives and 603 children dependent on the married men.

And by June 1887 life had not got any better…

Grey River Argus
“Auckland, June 20. A distribution of food to the poor took place this morning, the demand exceeding the supply. The food, which was presented by a number of citizens, was given to 187 families, representing 854 people.”

The 1880s and 1890s are known as the long depression in New Zealand with widespread unemployment marked the 1880s. Emigrant ships discharged their passengers at ports where unemployment was already rife and especially in the winters when there was no seasonal work to be had on the land there was visible hardship and distress. Immigrants who had arrived, primarily from England and Scotland in the 1870s began to send less positive messages home and the free settlement ship passages ended. Fewer new settlers arrived, and people began to leave looking for work and, as many New Zealanders today, many went to Australia, where Marvellous Melbourne was experiencing a boom brought on by the gold strikes.

In 1888 about 10,000 more people left New Zealand than arrived, and in the years from 1881 to 1900 the net gain from migration was only about 40,000 (almost 100,000 less than in the decade of the 1870s). By the dawn of the 20th century New Zealand had fewer foreign-born people than 20 years before and the proportion of the non-Maori population who were born overseas went from a half to under a third.
In the towns, work was very difficult to find – high competition for the few jobs available meant that employers could pay extremely low wages to employees. Sweatshops of women and children appeared (working 72 hour weeks), and when an investigation was called into workplaces of New Zealand, a full-scale scandal resulted – the workplaces of NZ were like the ones back in Britain!

The Sweater

(Poem from the Lyttelton Times, 23 March 1884)

Who robs the widow of her right,
By work that takes her day and night,
To earn her poor starvation mite?
The Sweater.

Who is it who makes girls go astray,
To earn their bread in a sinful way,
Because for work he will not pay?
The Sweater.

Who is that will cheat and lie,
And every cunning trick will try,
His greed of gain to satisfy?
The Sweater.

Who is the vilest, meanest thief,
That trades in flesh and blood and grief,
Till from his fangs death brings relief?
The Sweater.

He is society’s disgrace,
And must be told so to his face;
So out with him, leave him no place,
The Sweater.

Women, put in the invidious position of having to feed themselves and their families, were easy pickings for pimps.  With the foreshore reclamation of Auckland Harbour, Fore St evolved into Fort St and by the 1880s it was the haunt of prostitutes. Customers were led into the back lanes amongst the barrels or even further into the decrepit laneways and slums off Chancery Lane and Queen Street became known for as a “parade for immoral characters”.

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