The Folk from the Wind Wound Isle > Chapter 20 : The Robertsons and the Demon Drink
page 127
The story of the Robertson family would not be complete without a section dealing with the influence of alcohol on individual lives. While for most Robertson descendants it has become a case of ‘alcohol - take it or leave it’, for others it has been a controlling influence, resulting in alcoholism at one extreme and crusading abstinence at the other.
As related in earlier sections, anecdotal evidence suggests that the first generations of Robertsons in Australia were great drinkers; with references to the use of whisky, the brewing and sale of cider and plum wine, and youthful irresponsibility that may have been exacerbated by the use of alcohol. As early as 1863 the prevalence of a sly grog trade was recognized by the newly formed Hampden and Heytesbury Council when it moved to employ a detective to prosecute sly grog sellers.1
Lottie Dickins claimed her father never drank because it made him ill and her Uncles Willie and Jim and their sisters gave up drinking after the religious revival of the 1870s. In 1881 Mr F. Harrison visited Port Campbell and gave a lecture on total abstinence. Later that year a liquor license was granted for Port Campbell: "... possibly a licensed public house will have the effect of doing away with sly grog selling which we have been informed has been going on for years in the district”.2
The Camperdown Chronicle reported a meeting at Port Campbell in August 1886, at which a committee was formed to ‘dethrone King Alcohol’. Mr W Robertson was appointed secretary of the new committee. “At the conclusion of a very successful meeting in the church, a number took the pledge and donned the badge of blue.”3
Lottie excluded Arthur Jnr from the list of those who gave up alcohol. She has not been the only one to report his continued drinking. Apparently Arthur was sometimes so drunk he had to be pushed up into the pulpit to preach. Once there he proclaimed the Lord’s word with passion.4 Agnes’ husband Michael McCue was fond of whisky and continued drinking throughout his life. And as a child, Jack McCue would be given a drop of whisky to put him to sleep.
Excessive drinking was not just a Robertson vice, Alan Ribbons tells of his paternal grandfather’s drunkenness and how as a child, he would have to help his mother deal with grandpa when his father was absent from home. Alan has a sign beside his front door declaring his house an ‘alcohol free zone’.
As related in the potted biographies, a number of family members drank heavily. It seems probable that one of the factors influencing James Need Robertson’s decision to give up his ministerial ambitions was a fondness for alcohol. He was certainly a heavy drinker in the memory of his grandchildren, although they believe this was mostly a social activity. There is a saying in that section of the family along the lines of: 'The family bought many bricks in the Peninsula Hotel at Maylands.’ James Need’s son Norman most definitely had a problem and lost his driving licence for life after a number of drink driving charges. By contrast, the influence of alcohol in that family had the opposite effect on their sister Adie and she was strongly teetotal all her life.
Adie illustrates the other side of the coin - a great abhorrence and life-long avoidance of alcohol. Some family members became very involved in the temperance movement of the first half of 20th century. Jack Robertson McCue’s involvement in the Anti-Liquor League, the Local Option Alliance and the Victorian Temperance Alliance is well recorded. One newspaper described him as “Victoria’s most famous wowser”.5 I don’t think it is a term Jack would have objected to. Jack was active in the various referenda and local option campaigns. At one time it was possible in Victoria for local districts to vote on whether a hotel license should be granted or whether their area should be alcohol free. Jack was able to claim success in many instances. In 1920 four hotel bars in Castlemaine were closed down. In the 1930 referendum, which offered a straight vote for or against licensing, 43% of Victorians voted for abolition. By 1938 the vote for prohibition dropped to 34%.6
In a letter to the Melbourne Sun in March 1953, Jack pointed out that “in 1907 Victoria had 3507 hotel licenses - today, with twice the population, she has less than half - about 1666, due largely to Victoria’s strong temperance sentiment.”7 Dry areas and local options were abolished in 1953 when a State Licensing Authority was set up in Victoria.
George Cairns told me that when Jack was on one of his anti-alcohol campaigns his brother Arthur would joke, ‘Jack’s on the beer again!’8
Others involved in temperance work were Nan Robertson, who worked with the Women’s Temperance Union in Victoria and WA, and Henry Saunders, who was secretary of the Temperance Union in Queensland.
As a child I heard tales of how alcohol turns your brain black and the first drink leads you on the road to ruin. None of this was taken too seriously. We had relations who refused to eat Christmas cake if it had alcohol in it, and pointing out that the alcohol evaporated with the cooking made no difference to them. The only alcohol in my mother’s house before World War II was strictly for medicinal purposes. When my brother Mac came back from the army at the end of the war Mum eased the rule about no alcohol in the house, deciding it was better for Mac to bring alcohol and his friends home, than to go drinking with his ex-army mates in hotels. I am sure she never breathed a word of this to Auntie Tot (Jack McCue’s wife) who was her friend. I’m glad to say none of us turned into alcoholics!
Among Robertson descendants as a group I have found a strong ambivalence about alcohol. Some individuals and sections of the family practice total abstinence. Others are accepting of alcohol on the basis that moderation is the key to safe alcoholic usage. And there are a few who have admitted to me their difficulties with the overuse of alcohol.
1 J. Fletcher, The Infiltrators’, p.9
2 Ibid, p.252. It is not clear from the way Fletcher presents this whether it was the magistrate granting the license or the applicant's solicitor who made this statement.
3 Taken from notes made by J. Fletcher, which are in the custody of the Port Campbell Museum
4 From Marjorie Mathieson and Marion Parker
5 The Melbourne Herald, 7.5.1972
6 Newspaper article by Geoffrey Tebbutt in the Melbourne Herald, 14.1.1956
7 The date of publication is not recorded on the copy of this letter that I have, but Jack’s letter is in response to one from Howard Palmer published on 13.3.1953
8 Interview with George Cairns, April 2000
Garry Gillard | New: 24 March, 2019 | Now: 5 September, 2022