Barbara Minchinton

A must-read biography of an enigmatic personality who helped shape early MelbourneMadame Brussels, the most legendary brothel keeper in nineteenth-century Melbourne, is still remembered and celebrated today. But until now, little has been known about Caroline Hodgson, the woman behind the alter ego. Born in Prussia to a working-class family, Caroline arrived in Melbourne in 1871. Left alone when her police-officer husband was sent to work in remote Victoria, she turned her hand to running brothels. Before long, she had proved herself brilliantly entrepreneurial: her principal establishment was a stone's throw from Parliament House, lavishly furnished and catered to Melbourne's ruling classes. Caroline rode Melbourne's boom in the 1880s, weathered the storm of the depression years in the 1890s and suffered in the moral panic of the 1900s. Her death in 1908 signified the end of one kind of Melbourne and the beginning of another: in terms of prostitution, the city went from tolerance to complete prohibition in her lifetime. Drawing on extensive research, author and historian Barbara Minchinton deftly pieces together Madame Brussels' story and recreates a fascinating, colourful period in Melbourne's history. This is a major biography of an Australian icon.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Melbourne’s Little Lonsdale Street – locally known as ‘Little Lon’ – was notorious as a foul slum and brothel district, occupied by the itinerant and the criminal. The stereotype of ‘slumdom’ defined ‘Little Lon’ in the minds of Melbournians, and became entrenched in Australian literature and popular culture. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne tells a different story. This groundbreaking book reports on almost three decades of excavations conducted on the Commonwealth Block – the area of central Melbourne bordered by Little Lonsdale, Lonsdale, Exhibition and Spring streets. Since the 1980s, archaeologists and historians have pieced together the rich and complex history of this area, revealing a working-class and immigrant community that was much more than just a slum. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne delves into the complex social, cultural and economic history of this forgotten community.