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Website: www.illawarramercury.com.au WEEKENDER Saturday, June 16, 2012 11

FLASHBACK

Going postal

We are looking for interesting photos from the past. Send us an old

photo along with a description of the picture.

Email entries to history@illawarramercury.com.au or post photos

(copies only) to Weekender Editor PO Box 1215 Wollongong 2500.

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Elizabeth June (EJ) Paine’s Post Office store, undated, onthe SE corner of Allen St and Mt Keira.

HERITAGEFLASHBACK HERITAGE

When miner’s wife Annie Murphy

became postmistress at Mt Keira in 1899,

residents living closer to Wollongong in

a locality known as Paradise took issue

at her location further up the mountain,

according to historian Anne Wood.

A petition was circulated to have the

outlet more centralised, this followed by

a counter-petition led by Wollongong

Mayor Henry Osborne MacCabe to have

the office remain at Mt Keira. Those in

support of Mrs Murphy won the day with

130 signatures to 45.

But the matter was again raised in 1902

when Paradise storekeeper Dempster

Robson petitioned for the contract and

won.

Matthew Paine became postmaster in

1908, conducting the business from his

store on Mt Keira Rd. When he died in 1916,

his wife Elizabeth June and

daughter took over.

GENSEA

Paying price for fashionA tight corset proved deadly

for one young woman, writes

MICHELE HOCTOR.

Women have alwaysbeen devoted tofashion, sometimes totheir owndetriment. CREDIT: From

the collections of theWollongong City Library andthe Illawarra HistoricalSociety.

GENEALOGYSEARCH TIP

For insight into women’sVictorian era fashion and

their place in society, go towww.fashion-era.com

A YOUNG SYDNEY WOMAN PAID THEultimate price for fashion in June 1874 whenan inquest found she was killed by her tightcorset.

At the hearing, the doctor who conductedthe post-mortem examination said hefound some of the principal vital organsseverely injured and out of their naturalplace, the cause attributed to tight lacing.

‘‘That such an injury to the system islikely to result from that practice is at onceapparent to everyone and yet, strange to say,young ladies will try to improve upon natureat the risk of not only of injuring theirconstitutions, but of actually destroyingthem,’’ the Mercury said.

In November 1875, a Maitland manexpressed his opposition to the ‘‘absurdcustom’’ of women wearing hats at the backof their heads, exposing themselves toheatstroke.

‘‘Sometimes, I have observed a goodquarter of a yard between the head and thehat; by which means the face is exposed tothe full rays of the burning sun,’’ he said.

Women were not the only ones to sufferfor fashion.

In February 1876, a London newspaperreported that a considerable demand forsmall birds, especially robins and wrens, forthe decoration of ladies’ hats, had led to

demand outstripping supply.‘‘It is urged that whatever legal power

exists should at once be put in force toensure their protection.’’

Other fashions ranged from silly todownright expensive.

Take the fashion ‘‘frivolity’’ of 1875 withthe extensive range of stockings that camein every colour and featured the mostexquisite designs.

According to the Home Journal, one pairof stockings which ‘‘excited muchadmiration’’, was in lemon colour and theinstep of each foot was covered withbunches of black currants, with their twigsand leaves ‘‘most delicately embroidered inthe coloured silks’’.

‘‘Stockings so embroidered are, of course,enormously dear, (however) the mania isinstilled, and henceforth the woman of theworld takes rank according to herstockings.’’

In March 1876 the London Courier saidthat the petticoat was no longer in vogue.The ‘‘grande mode’’ was that the femalebody be encased in a ‘‘fourreau of therichest material so constructed that withevery movement the lines of the limbs shallbe fully displayed’’.

Not only was this new fashion,complemented by thickly wadded drawers,deemed immodest, the narrowness of thestyle checked the movement of the wearer.

‘‘The enormous crinolines of a dozenyears ago were no less absurd, perhaps; butthey were certainly more decent,’’ theCourier concluded. ■

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