Using a timeline to organize historical research material Timelines | #OnePlaceTimelines | Oct 2025

I started researching my One-Place Study, the Lying-in Department (1878-1918) at the Destitute Asylum in Adelaide, South Australia (Figure 1), about four years ago for my master’s degree. At that time, my focus was on the personal circumstances of the inmates, as they were called, namely the destitute, pregnant, mostly unmarried women who could not finance or provide a roof over their heads for their own confinements. Data collection was time-consuming, but sources easily accessible as the original, surviving records of the Destitute Asylum and the Destitute Board responsible for welfare management in South Australia have been digitized and are available online at FamilySearch. Tracing the history of the Lying-in Department building itself turned out to be a more complex research activity.

To gain a clearer picture of the female inmates’ daily lives within context I decided to investigate the history of the building in which they were accommodated. My research included gathering information about significant social, historical and physical events including the building’s planning and construction and changes in use over time, relevant legislation, management of the inmates, and details about the resident staff.

While the Lying-in Department building was not erected until the late 1870s, from the earliest days of the Destitute Asylum’s foundation in 1851 the Destitute Board had identified pregnant women as a distinct category of homeless individuals who required welfare support from the Government. Research using a range of primary and secondary sources, accessed both online and physically at the State library and the State Government archives, demonstrated that material and facts about the building, like why, when and where it was built, and how its use evolved, were scattered, disparate, and, potentially, overwhelming. To make sense of the myriad sources and pieces of information that spanned many decades over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries I decided to create a timeline, in other words, a chronological arrangement of facts and events related to the building.

I abstracted fragments of information from primary sources such as Government commissions and legislation, Destitute Board reports and minutes, newspaper articles, maps and plans, and secondary sources including journal articles, archaeological reports and photographs. I created a timeline in the form of a simple Word table to capture and organize the material chronologically (Figure 2). I allocated one fact or event per row, starting with the oldest, and five horizontal columns, one each for the year or date of the fact or event, details about the fact or event (what happened and where), the relevance of the fact or event to the overall history of the building and its occupants (for instance, changes made to the building and its management, and how this impacted the inmates’ day-to-day lives), details about the source (so that I could retrace my steps and cite the document at a later date), and notes.

Creating a timeline enabled me to identify the sequential order in which key facts and events occurred within a single location that has provided a credible and trustworthy chronological history of the building and its occupants. It helped to improve the accurate linking of historical facts and events to the Lying-in Department building, particularly those that are pertinent to a One-Place Study. For the first time, I was able to piece together its build year, when it first opened and when it closed. The chronology demonstrated that the Lying-in Department building became operational in the latter half of 1878 until mid-1918, facts about the building which up until the development of a timeline had eluded me.

A historical chronology also offered the opportunity to identify the issues and concerns spanning many years that led to the construction of a purpose-built Lying-in Department in 1877/78. As early as 1865, an Adelaide newspaper reported that in the women’s quarters there “is an apartment for lying-in women, but it is dirty and very ill ventilated. It cannot be aired without creating a draught, which, of course, would be dangerous to the inmates.”[1] The following year, a Destitute Board report highlighted the crowded state of the Destitute Asylum and the need to separate lying-in women from other female inmates, particularly impressionable young girls from the Reformatory.^[2] The Committee of the Legislative Council on Destitute Establishments in the Colony reiterated this observation and suggested the need for a separate ward at the Hospital in Adelaide for women requiring maternity care.[3] The timeline highlighted how the Destitute Board’s desire to house lying-in women away from the general women’s quarters was often impossible due to a lack of suitable accommodation.

A timeline approach provided me with the opportunity to analyse the impact of significant facts and events on the building, its inmates and resident matrons.  For example, the Destitute Persons Act, enacted in 1881, included provisions for the Destitute Board to detain unmarried mothers in the Lying-in Department for a period of six months from the birth of their babies.[4] The aim of this compulsory period of residence, known as the detention clause,[5] was to increase the mother’s bond with her young infant through breast-feeding as a way to decrease the incidence of early infant mortality and baby farming.[6] However, this extended length of stay led to overcrowding of the wards in the new Lying-in Department building. Designed to accommodate about thirty women at a time,[7] on 1 July 1886 it housed 44 inmates, 37 of whom had already given birth.[8] Several young women clearly objected to the detention clause. Voting with their feet, a handful left the refuge of the Lying-in Department prior to the birth of their infant, while a few absconded over the boundary wall with their newborn infants before their obligatory six-month stay was up.

Facts and events placed in the timeline also illuminated changing attitudes towards unmarried mothers in the early twentieth century, and the impact this had on the Lying-in Department building. Notably, there was a sharp reduction in the need for lying-in facilities resulting from the Government’s introduction of a maternity allowance payment of £5 for new mothers, equivalent to two weeks wages and intended to cover medical costs in 1912.[9] By 1918, when the Lying-in Department building closed its doors for the last time, the number of women that remained in the institution on 30 June was three,[10] compared with 23 inmates ten years earlier.[11]

Ultimately, a timeline helped me to organize and integrate relevant facts and events related to the Lying-in Department building that I had collected from multiple primary and secondary sources, including architectural, historical and social. This process of arrangement and assimilation into one coherent structure provided me with a deeper knowledge and a more nuanced understanding about the Lying-in Department building and its occupants. It introduced a sense of clarity and accuracy to the facts and events which shaped the day-to-day lives of the female occupants and their babies, and the wherewithal to embark on the next stage, reporting the findings!

 

Contact: Dr Dawn Jennifer

 

REFERENCES

[1] The Adelaide Express. (1865) The Destitute Asylum. The Adelaide Express. 02 October. p. 3a. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article207604340 : accessed 29 September 2025.

[2] The South Australian Government Gazette. (1867) Destitute Board Office, March 14^th, 1867. The South Australian Government Gazette. 21 March. p. 273a-b. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/other/sa_gazette/1867/12.pdf  : accessed 29 September 2025.

[3] The South Australian Register. (1867) Committee on Destitute Establishments. The South Australian Register. 23 October. p. 2e. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39188873 : accessed 29 September 2025.

[4] The Destitute Persons Act 1881. 44° and 45° Victoriae, No. 210. South Australia. Adelaide: E. Spiller. https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/home/historical-numbered-as-made-acts/1881/0210-Destitute-Persons-Act-No-210-of-44-Vic,-1881.pdf : accessed 29 September 2025.

[5] Way, Samuel James. (1885) Second and final report of Commission appointed to report on the Destitute Act, 1883: together with minutes of proceedings, evidence, and appendices. Adelaide: E. Spiller, Government Printer. p. XXVIII.

[6] The South Australian Government Gazette. (1881) Destitute Board Office, Adelaide, March 8th, 1881. The South Australian Government Gazette. 17 March. p. 826b. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/other/sa_gazette/1881/11.pdf : accessed 29 September 2025.

[7] Donovan and Associates, Danvers Architects (1983). SA Museum redevelopment: conservation analysis, Destitute Asylum, Kintore Avenue. South Australia Public Buildings Department. p. [page numbers omitted from publication].

[8] The South Australian Government Gazette. (1886) Destitute Board Offices, Adelaide, August 9^th, 1887. The South Australian Government Gazette. 18 August. p. 381a. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/other/sa_gazette/1887/36.pdf : accessed 28 September 2025.

[9] Maternity Allowance Act 1912. (No. 8). Australia. Canberra: Federal Register of Legislation. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1912A00008 : accessed 29 September 2025.

[10] The South Australian Government Gazette. (1919) Annual report of the Destitute Board. The South Australian Government Gazette. 20 February. p. 418b. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/other/sa_gazette/1919/8.pdf : accessed 28 September 2025.

[11] The South Australian Government Gazette. (1908) Destitute Board Offices, Adelaide, September 10^th, 1908. The South Australian Government Gazette. 24 September. p. 647b. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/other/sa_gazette/1908/39.pdf : accessed 28 September 2025.