By Iain McIntyre
As most people would be aware the collapse of the New York Stock market in October 1929 led to a devastating global economic downturn. Reliant on overseas exports and heavily indebted to European and American banks, Australia was hit particularly hard.
Unsurprisingly not everyone was equally affected by the economic crunch and working class people, living in areas such as Brunswick, were forced to pay the price for other’s economic greed and mismanagement. Despite their parlous position many locals refused to take their situation lying down placing pressure on various authorities and in some cases winning improvements in their conditions.
Many Brunswick residents had seen their living standards fall during the 1920s and Australia was already in recession by 1927. Steady work had long been hard to find with much of the local industry employing seasonal and casual labour. Added to this, workers in the timber, tile and pottery industries had suffered major industrial defeats in the late 1920s.
Although there was a spike it is difficult to measure the exact degree of unemployment in Brunswick. Official statistics claim that close to a quarter of men and 12.5% of women were out of work by 1932, but the figure was undoubtedly higher because these statistics were primarily based on the number of unemployed union members. Regardless of the exact level, the area suffered with the main local charity, the Ladies Benevolent Society (LBS), reporting in 1934 that there was still “much sickness and malnutrition among parents and children.”