THE VICTORIAN LADIES’ SERICULTURE COMPANY

‘Contributions of mulberry leaves of the right kind would still be very welcome to Miss Anderson, at 6 Barkly-terrace, East Melbourne, where a portion of Mrs. Bladen Neill's sericultural operations are now being carried on.’ So stated The Argus on 12 February 1873.  6 Barkly Terrace was one of six three storey terrace houses in Grey Street.  All have since been demolished, the site now occupied by a car park.  It does not seem likely territory for experimental silk farming.  

Mrs Sarah Florentia Bladen Neill was the widow of Lt Col John Martin Bladen Neill, Colonel and Deputy Adjutant General of H.M. Forces in the Australian Colonies who had died in 1859 after a fall from his horse.  The couple had land at Corowa and it seems that for the next few years Mrs Bladen Neill lived there not only developing her skills in sericulture but also marketing her product abroad. She was French by birth and it was in France that she gained her first knowledge of sericulture.* In order to make herself thoroughly familiar with the latest methods she visited all the principal silk centres of the world and spent many months in research work in China, Japan and Southern Europe. She spent four months at a large silkworm farm in Switzerland. 

In January 1873 she wrote a letter to the editor of the Argus, using her Barkly Terrace address, explaining in some detail her ambitions and achievements. She had imported disease-free grain (eggs) with the help of the P & O Company who had supplied four tons of ice to keep it cool through the tropics.  She had already built up a strong market in Italy for her home grown healthy grain at a time when disease was prevalent in Europe.  She saw silk as an ideal supplementary crop.  Farmers could grow a few mulberry trees on a small plot of land and their wives and daughters could help with the suitably light labour of tending the silk worms over their two month cycle from egg to harvestable thread.  In the future reeling machines could be brought in and provide more employment opportunities for women and children.  She hoped that ‘many ladies, like their noble, and refined sisters in France and Italy, will not disdain to have magnaneries (silk-houses) attached to their establishments’

In another letter to The Argus only a week later she mentioned ‘that a silk-house was being erected at 6 Barkly-terrace, East Melbourne, where a limited number of ladies could arrange for being instructed in the new method of sericulture by a competent lady, who had kindly undertaken that office.’ We don’t know quite what this construction looked like but a description exists of the magnanerie at Mrs Bladen Neill’s own farm at Mulberry Farm, Corowa. ‘The magnanerie is 108 feet long by 30 feet broad and very lofty. It is substantially erected of timber, and roofed with bark.  This encloses a huge cage made of cheesecloth, in which four tiers of trays are suspended for the accommodation of the worms. The building being open at the sides permits a free current of air to circulate through it, which constitutes the great advantage of the system pursued by Mrs. Neill.’ This could accommodate 400,000 to 500,000 worms.  The Barkly Terrace example was no doubt considerably smaller.

By August 1873 Mrs Bladen Neill was ready to launch her company, the Victorian Ladies’ Sericulture Company.  A prospectus was advertised in The Argus.  Patroness was Lady Bowen, wife of the governor, and president was Sir George Verdon, politician and banker.  There were nine directors, all women, including Mrs Bladen Neill and Miss Anderson.  Another East Melbourne representative was Mrs Macgregor, wife of the Hon John Macgregor of The Pines, 99 Hotham Street, or Halloween as we know it.  Among those on the Board of Advice were the Hon the Minister for Land and Survey, James Joseph Casey,  and the Italian Consul, Cavaliere Giuseppe Biagi who would have been useful in trade negotiations and was another who lived locally at Wellington Terrace, once on the corner of Wellington Parade and Hoddle Street.  The broker was Gavin G Brown who then lived in a timber house on the corner of Gipps and Powlett Streets but within a few months he would pull it down to build the house now known as Crathre. 

J J Casey had already proved most helpful in ‘lending’ the company a portion of land in the Domain where it had a mulberry plantation and a magnanerie.  It was reported that ‘about half a dozen young ladies have been admitted as pupils into the establishment, and they do most of the work’. But in May 1874 this came to an end and the business moved to land at Mount Alexander which had been temporarily reserved for it.  The mulberry trees and silkworm eggs were all transported to the new establishment. Mrs Grover, the honorary managing directress of the company and who was ‘well versed in silk culture’, was to live there with her husband, journalist Harry Grover, and take in resident pupils who she would train in the work of sericulture.  

But things did not get off to a good start.  Mrs Macgregor placed an advertisement in The Argus in September the same year stating that due to the lateness of the mulberry trees in coming into leaf she would be much obliged if any ladies with mulberry trees in their gardens could send leaves to her and she would forward them daily by train up to Mount Alexander.  By December 1876 the site was deemed unsuitable after the mulberry trees had been badly affected by frost over the previous winter.  The farm is now in ruins but has been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR No. H1348) as being ‘important for its association with a relatively obscure nineteenth century industry and with the role of women in nineteenth century industry.’

The next move was to the Murray district where the climate proved favourable to the mulberry trees, although ‘marsupials’, prompted by drought conditions, found them a very satisfying alternative to their usual diet. Here the company employed M Etienne Thibault, a professional sericulturalist from southern France. He was critical of the company’s modus operandi, believing that it was trying to accomplish too much too soon, whereas it should be concentrating on getting the trees established before attempting to breed the worms.  Initially he, and other critics, felt it should restrict its goals to the export of cocoons only.  He was probably right. While the company’s products were praised internationally it never made a profit.

In 1881 Mrs Bladen Neill suffered severe injury when a kerosene lamp fell from an organ at which she was seated, setting fire to her clothes.  She never fully regained her full physical health and died in 1884 at the age of 56.  After her death the Victorian Ladies’ Sericulture Company quietly faded away.

*The 1851 English census reveals that in fact Sarah Bladen Neill was born in London.