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Henry Lawson in 1915. State Library of New South Wales, CC BY

Henry Lawson is one of Australia’s best-known poets. His married life, documented in Kerrie Davies’ newly published A Wife’s Heart: the untold story of Bertha and Henry Lawson, was tumultuous. Bertha and Henry were married in 1896 and had two children, Bartha and Jim. In an April 1903 affidavit, discussed in the following edited extract, Bertha alleged that Henry was habitually drunk and cruel. They received judicial separation on June 4 of the same year.

Written from Bertha’s lodging, 397½ Dowling Street, Moore Park, dated Monday, 15 June 1903:

Harry,

Your letter has just come.

Your papers are not here. I looked for them before. There are also a good many of my private letters and papers missing, and I thought they may be amongst your things. Re the children. I will not consent to let them go. Not through any paltry feelings of revenge, but as a matter of duty. You see, you left me, with these two little children. I was turned into the world, with 1/6 and not a shelter or food for them. I had to pawn my wedding ring to pay for a room. And then had to leave the little children shut up in the room, while I sought for work. And when I got work to do I had to leave them all day, rush home to give them their meals. And back to work again. And mind you, I was suffering torture all the time with toothache, and had to tramp the cold wet streets all day, knowing unless I earnt some money that day the children would go hungry to bed. (I was a fortnight working before Robertson gave Miss [Rose] Scott that money.) I had no money to pay a dentist. (I wrote to you at P.A. Hospital telling you, you were forcing me to place the children in the Benevolent Asylum and you took no notice of the letter.) I went to the Dental Hospital and had a tooth extracted. They have broken part of the jaw bone. And I go into hospital on Wednesday and go under an operation to have the dead bone removed. The children will be well looked after. While I am away I have to pay a pound where they are going. So I trust you will endeavour to send Mr Henderson some more again this week. You know my condition and I am certainly not fit at the present moment to struggle for a living.

As far as the case goes, the sooner it is over the better. You alone have forced this step. God alone knows how often I have forgiven you and how hard I struggled for you. And how have you treated me. Harry there is no power on the earth will ever reunite us. You are dead to me as far as affection goes. The suffering I have been through lately has killed any thought of feeling I may have had for you.

When you have proved yourself a better man and not a low drunkard you shall see your children as often as you like. Until then, I will not let you see them. They have nearly forgotten the home scenes when you were drinking – and I will not let them see you drinking again. I train them to have the same love for you as they have for me. And if baby’s prayers are heard in heaven, you should surely be different, to what you have been. They will have to decide the right and wrong between us, when they are old enough to understand. I think you are very cruel to make the statements you do about me. You know Harry as well I do they are absolutely false. Why don’t you be a man. And if you want to talk to people of your troubles, tell them drink is the sole cause. Do not shield yourself behind a woman. Mr Henderson cannot influence me one way or another, nor any one else. You had your chance to sign a mutual separation and you would not do it. I dread the court case and publicity more than you do. Still I will not draw back again. And I only wish it was settled and over today. I am so weary of struggling against pain and sorrow that I do not give a tinker’s curse for anything – or anybody.

Bertha.

UQP

*

Facts drift like the pollen on Dowling Street the day I visit. The terraces are rusted and dusted by the constant traffic driving past. One of them is undergoing renovation; through an open door you can see new floorboards, a glossy fireplace and rickety steps to the second floor.

Outside number 397, two plane trees have grown as tall as the terrace, and the balcony has been walled in with glass. Next door, the crucial fraction – 397½ – is written on the window above the door.

The terrace Bertha brought the children to is now painted an undercoat pink, with a green corrugated-iron balcony, windowed-in like its neighbour. Plants entwine the security bars, and large council garbage bins blight the entrance. Upstairs the tree branches are reflected in the windowpanes. It was from inside here, beyond today’s sky-blue front door, that Bertha wrote an angry letter to Henry about having to pawn her wedding ring and leave the children shut up in her room while she looked for work. She warned of more proceedings, perhaps to continue to full dissolution of marriage.

Their daughter, Barta, later wrote that her mother was sometimes overly dramatic. Bertha’s own mother lived in Sydney – surely that was an alternative to leaving them alone, or threatening to place them in the asylum? And what about her sister, Hilda?

But then conjecturing comes up against solid fact: You know my condition. Perhaps Bertha wasn’t thinking at all about anything except survival.

I will not draw back again.

*

Still the facts keep drifting. In April 1903, the same month she filed her affidavit alleging cruelty and drunkenness, Bertha had written to Henry on the 23rd, saying that unless he sent money she would be forced to place the children “in the Benevolent Asylum … I don’t care about myself, but I cannot see my children starve … I think it is most dreadfully cruel for any Mother, to have to part with her children let alone be placed in the position that I am in.” Initially it reads solely as financial but, having had two children, she must surely have suspected the significance of the missed periods, the swollen breasts, the heightened sense of smell that transforms the slightest scent into a stench. Or, perhaps, she tried to ignore them. There is no clear mention of a new baby in the letters until June.

The Benevolent Asylum’s admissions and discharge ledger is an album of life stories, like this one on Wednesday, April 5 1903: “Father Frederick sent to Gaol for four months for neglecting to support. Mother dead. Children committed by Newtown Police Court.” It’s fearful to look, then a relief to find that young Barta and Jim Lawson weren’t there then.

Statue of Lawson by George Lambert in the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, dedicated in 1931.

In July, Bertha was clearer still: “I am forced to write to you. I do not think you realize my position. I will be laid up either the end of October or first week in November … There is the nurse to engage, and all my sewing to do, you know I have not any baby clothes.”

Counting nine months back to summer from her due date – it was February, and they were still living in Manly when the Critic article gossiped that Mrs Lawson and Henry were sighted holding hands as they strolled around the beach cliffs. She must have conceived during this brief reunion. Now she warned Henry: “I have to solely depend on you for an existance [sic]…I cannot walk far or stand long … You promised I should have every comfort. I am not asking you for that but for bare necessary’s”.

Bertha might have blanched at food, but put her upset tummy down to stress. Realising that she was with child could have finally driven her to the lawyers, to pin down an agreement for continual support. But there was no mention of pregnancy enhancing her vulnerability in the April affidavit.

The baby is coming. The father is not. What do you do? Do you to try to reconcile again for the baby’s sake? Or is it too late?

Too late.

*

Each word Bertha wrote feels like a clue: “I think considering what Dr Brennand told you and after all your promises, it is most cruel that I should suffer all that agony again. If it were not for the sake of Jim and Bertha, I should not go through with it.”

Did she mean that she would not go through with having the baby? Abortion was an open but illegal secret, especially in the bohemian world that Henry and Bertha inhabited. In a leather-bound report, Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth-Rate and the Mortality of Infants in New South Wales, published in 1904, a witness told the commission he had treated 150 women suffering from “the effects of abortion” at his hospital. Hannah Thornburn had died only the previous year, three days after she had collapsed from a feverish infection.

Despite his prominent Macquarie Street practice, Bertha’s doctor, Henry Wolverine Brennand, was not one of the doctors, midwives, pharmacists, undertakers or religious witnesses who gave evidence to the royal commission that investigated the prevalence of abortion and contraceptive practices among women in New South Wales. These women and their midwives were, predictably, being blamed for the declining birth rate despite many being in Bertha’s position, where they were reluctantly increasing it.

Bertha wrote to Henry of her pregnancy: “it is not a very cheerful prospect to look forward to, knowing as you know well, I will very likely die.” She sounds like she is being dramatic again, but pregnancy complications were dramatic in 1903.

Bertha may have given birth with a midwife at home, or at Crown Street Women’s Hospital. Or she may have been helped by the Benevolent Society of New South Wales, which took in not only children but also destitute and single mothers at their “lying in” wards. On today’s flickering microfilm, those emotional lives are again compressed into crisp factlets, such as: “Single. Pregnant. Alleged father. Emergency. Married. Deserted.’”

The only thing certain is that Bertha and Henry’s last baby was stillborn sometime in late 1903. A nurse would have certified the stillbirth, and no other notification was required. This lack of birth or death registration was raised at the Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth-Rate and the Mortality of Infants in New South Wales, because of its potential to conceal infanticide and midwifery negligence.

Bertha confirmed: “the little one that we lost was born and the sad time came of our parting. For sorrow had come to us, and difficulties.”

The sorrow.

A Wife’s Heart: The Untold Story of Bertha and Henry Lawson by Kerrie Davies is published by UQP. It will be launched in Sydney by Jane Caro at Berkelouw Books, Paddington, on Wednesday, April 5. Kerrie will also be appearing at the National Folk Festival on Friday, April 14.

Kerrie Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Emergency services in Australia are struggling to hold onto their volunteer staff. In New South Wales, for example, only half of the 1,700 volunteers who join the State Emergency Service are still active members a year later. In Western Australia, the overall yearly turnover is 12-18% and rising.

This represents a serious drain on the sector. Precise volunteer numbers are not always collated, but we estimate that more than 240,000 emergency service volunteers across Australia help to protect regional, rural and remote communities where the sprawling areas make it impractical to rely solely on career emergency workers.

The large turnover is an economic liability, as training and uniforms (including personal protective equipment) are expensive. Meanwhile, the constant drain of volunteers can affect not just operational capacity, but morale too.

Volunteer brigades and units are managed by the volunteers themselves. This can lead to tensions between these quasi-independent groups and the paid staff who work in the regional, district of head office. But such tensions can also arise within the volunteer groups themselves, and effective leadership is therefore a crucial element in retaining new recruits.

Keeping volunteers on board

Our research group has therefore partnered with Australian emergency service agencies to try to give leaders the interpersonal skills required to support members and hold onto volunteer staff more effectively.

To do this, we trialled a training program based on self-determination theory (SDT). Our results suggest this could be a very useful tool.

Self-determination theory recognises three basic psychological needs required for motivated, happy staff:

• autonomy: the need for volition, to make decisions and express one’s personal initiatives and ideas

• competence: the need to feel effective and capable

• relatedness: the need to feel accepted and part of the group

Self-determination theory’s basic psychological needs have been researched and applied across diverse social environments such as homes, workplaces, schools, sports teams, and health care. Research suggests that when workers’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are met they are more motivated, engaged, satisfied, and less likely to be considering quitting.

To try to apply this approach to volunteer emergency services, we developed a nine-week program called Inspire Retain Engage (IRE), to teach leaders to interact with their members using SDT principles.

The program consisted of a one-day face-to-face training to learn about self-determination theory and leadership, where leaders worked together to identify key strategies to support each of the three basic psychological needs. For example, leaders could build relatedness by getting to know volunteers and their interests.

Participants then developed their own nine-week action plan that they implemented in their units and brigades with the support of an online mentor. This was followed by a final day of reflection, sharing successes and identifying best practice.

We piloted the IRE program in 2014 with volunteer leaders from the New South Wales State Emergency Service and the NSW Rural Fire Service. It was then further refined and tested in 2016 with volunteer leaders and staff of the Victoria State Emergency Service and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

In total, we have trialled this approach with 72 members from four different volunteer-based emergency service agencies.

We evaluated the program’s impact by surveying IRE participants, volunteer members supervised by participants and other volunteer leaders not a part of the program, both before and after IRE.

The findings revealed that the self-determination theory principles – encouraging autonomy, competence and relatedness in their role – were linked with higher job satisfaction among volunteers, and a more widespread intention to continue volunteering with their current agency. Basic psychological needs accounted for 56% of the variance in volunteers’ job satisfaction and 49% of turnover intention.

Getting results

When emergency service leaders were surveyed about current volunteer leadership courses available respondents told us that such training is often hard to access, limited in scope, and does not focus on interpersonal skills.

The results of the evaluation showed the IRE program improved leaders’ managerial orientation. When compared to other leaders in the organisation, program participants adopted more motivational and less controlling managerial approaches nine weeks later. In addition, 46% of members reported a difference in their team leader’s interactions with them during the program.

Overall, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. 100% of leaders agreed that self-determination theory was a valuable model for emergency service leadership, and 84% said they would recommend the program to other leaders in their organisation.

As of 2017, the IRE program is available to all emergency service agencies in Australia and we are satisfied with its benefit to volunteer leaders, staff and their agencies.

But of course, only time will tell whether this kind of thinking will improve retention of our valued volunteer emergency workers in the long term.

Michael Jones's research is supported the Commonwealth of Australia through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

Vivien Forner and Yoke Berry do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

We are dairy farmers in Scotland who rear our calves to eight weeks of age in hutches clearly visible to the public next to a road. Walkers, cyclists and motorists stop to view and photograph the calves in their happy and comfortable environment. We have never had a negative comment as to their welfare and since starting to calve in September – the last one arrived on Sunday night – no antibiotics have been required to treat any ailment with the calves.

Though I would agree that the calves pictured in your article (Dairy is scary. The public are waking up to the darkest part of farming, theguardian.com, 30 March) looked too big for the hutch accommodation provided, I find this to be the healthiest method to rear calves for the first period of what is in our interest to be a happy, contented and productive life.
Robin Young
Dunblane, Stirling

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Australia is embarking on a transition from an electricity system that relies largely on coal to one that may one day be 100% renewable. Last week’s closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired generator was an important milestone on this path.

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A small employer

The renewables sector is estimated to have directly provided only 11,150 full-time equivalent jobs in 2015-16. The Australian labour force exceeds 12.6 million people. The sector thus makes a small contribution to national employment, although one that is quite important in some local economies.

Around half of the jobs in renewables in 2015-16 were in installing (and maintaining) rooftop solar systems. Hydroelectricity generation provides 1,840 full-time equivalent jobs, a number that is likely to increase if pumped storage is to make a larger contribution to smoothing Australia’s electricity supply. Biomass provides 1,430 full-time jobs, and the wind industry around 620.

The fact that renewables is a small employer - especially once installations are up and running - is not a bad thing. If renewables were labour-intensive, they would be expensive.

Up then down

The rise and then fall in renewables jobs is primarily a result of what has happened to installations of rooftop solar. The annual number of small-scale solar installations (PV and solar water heaters) skyrocketed over the four years to 2011. This rapid growth was spurred by generous feed-in-tariffs, rebates, and rules for federal government solar credits. There was also a national program to install solar panels on schools.

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The largest fall in renewables jobs has been in Queensland, a state that substantially tightened its feed-in-tariff scheme for rooftop solar in several steps from 2011 on. Queensland also holds the title of having Australia’s highest residential rooftop solar PV penetration rate (32%). South Australia is not far behind, at 31%.

Ramping up large-scale renewables

Recent years of policy uncertainty and backtracking have not helped the rollout of large-scale renewables. The termination of Australia’s carbon price and downwards renegotiation of the Renewable Energy Target had chilling effects on investment.

Those events are now behind us. With continued reductions in the cost of renewables, brighter days for the sector appear to be ahead, especially if our governments get policy settings right.

We can expect particularly rapid growth in jobs installing large-scale solar PV. Just last week, for example, it was announced that South Australia is to have a large new solar farm.

Paul Burke receives funding under the Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Researcher Award scheme.

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