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“Unemployed
at last!”
“Out
of work again.” With that cry, Thomas Dobeson opened his reminiscences
of five years of being in and out of work around Sydney in the late
1880s. He had trained as a machinist in England before immigrating with
his wife and children in 1886. Machinists were not skilled craftsman but
factory-hands who turned out fittings. He had been attracted by
publicity about New South Wales as “the workingman’s paradise, where
they pay 10/- a day and eight hours work and everybody happy.”
In
his 20,000-word narrative, Dobeson made no mention of unionism. His
social outlook was progressive, though not radical. As a person, he
remained aloof, clinging to a view of himself as a superior kind of
worker even as he chased pick-and-shovel jobs.
Dobeson
tracked the need that working people have to turn their hands to
whatever would put food on the table: he sharpens saws at sixpence a
time; finds a day’s work as a poll clerk; is caretaker for a Town
Hall; tenders for building repairs; fails as a shopkeeper.
His
anecdotes make it clear why he concluded that looking for work could be
harder than the work itself:
Let
us go together kind Reader and look for work. We take a morning’s
paper and go into town. I will take you to one advertisement. Wanted 6
good ______s, apply Sussex St at 9 o’clock. We go there at half past
eight and find the place easily. There is a crowd waiting for the same
purpose. We will count them. I would say without doubt there are about
120 here now and it wants five minutes to nine. Many men are picked
out before I see who the boss is. The successful ones get two days
work and then they are thrown out again.
But
I am not done with you yet. The day is early and we must not tarry. We
will see what is in the tenders. Here is one. Tenders wanted for
thoroughly doing up a house. Apply _________ Hotel … No sign of the
owner but there is a mob of painters, carpenters and labourers etc. We
wait for two hours. There are about 30 men here now and a lot more at
the end of the street. They don’t like to come nearer.
The
not entirely sober boss finally turns up to show the men what he wants
done:
This
painted. That colored. Those broken squares of glass replaced. All
this kitchen floor repaired which is cement. Fence repaired. In fact
everything like a new penny, says Mr Public House Keeper in a loud
voice. And so we all made out our tenders and delivered them into his
hand. This was to find material and labor. My tender was ₤4.5.0
and what I would make out of this would be very little about 3/- a
day.
The
publican went for the lowest bid, ₤2.10.0. “That is the way we
do it in this glorious country. Now dear reader it is time to go home.
Nothing to find after this time in the shape of work.”
Dobeson
later got a contract to put on a roof. He quoted ₤12. A rival
offered to do it for six. The contractor recognized that the work could
not be done for so little, so Dobeson prepared to start:
I
have the usual wait of two or three days for stuff. I get started. The
heat is intense. Being out in he glaring sun all day it peels the skin
off, but I begin to feel my old self again. Nothing like a bit of work
to pull you together.
Dobeson
learned to chase every possibility. He followed a cartload of timber to
ask its owner for work. The job had been let, but the Master asked him
to quote. Weeks passed. Then, one Sunday, the cart-owner gave Dobeson a
start: “Hard graft. Boss stands over you all day, with his lamps on a
fellow. The wage is a little over ₤2.10.0 a week. I am very
grateful for this little spell of work.”
Meanwhile,
Mrs Dobeson had earned six shillings from dress-making. Her effort
indicates that married women with children did more paid work than Mr
Coghlan registered in his statistics. Dobeson sold his overcoat for the
cost of the material, giving away the labour that he and his wife had
put into its making.
ML
MSS 1920 CY 731
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