The Landlady of The Resolution Hotel started its journey with a kernel of information I found just by chance – a snippet in Colin Whelan’s Drinking in the Rivers (New Holland Publishers, 2021)
‘ … the captain [said] … there had been several very suspicious deaths along the river at various times … Captain Brand … mentioned that most of those who had died or disappeared were women.’
That floored me. Although the snippet was recorded by a journalist in 1928, I wondered just how long these deaths and ‘disappearances’ of women had been going on? Trouble is, there wasn’t a lot else documented – Captain Brand’s anecdote is the only reference I found, so the mystery remains.
However it launched a story set in 1898 that took off from my keyboard.
Usually I go to Trove (the National Library of Australia’s digitised platform for Australian media from 1830) for my nuggets of history and interesting snippets to backdrop my stories. It’s a great resource for researching the big stuff, and the minutiae too.
In her recent past, our main character Biddy had suffered post-natal depression – called melancholia or neurasthenia then. My researching this was exhausting emotionally – there were doctors and scientists trying to find a reason and a cure at the time. Some of the treatments were regular purging and laxatives (for goodness’ sake!), and laudanum, an opium-based sedative that often caused other problems. Most women back then drew heavily on midwives for advice and treatments. Women whose cases were severe were often committed to hospital, their babies removed from them. It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that anything like proper research into the causes and treatment was done.
Then there were the publicans of the day – what a surprise to learn that many women held the licences to their premises. Women in Australia were well respected as publicans and landladies, a very different circumstance to their counterparts in Britain at the time. To see the picture more clearly, I read Dr Clare Wright’s Beyond the Ladies Lounge (Text Publishing, 2003). Our women publicans were likely the steely threads that held many towns together in times of hardship. So was Biddy going to become a reluctant ‘landlady’?
Another character, Biddy’s Aunty Dot, muscled in and told me she already held the licence to The Resolution Hotel – a rundown dodgy old hotel that offered refuge to those who needed it – but planned to hand it over to Biddy. I had to fall back on research I’d done earlier on the changing laws around women’s property rights in South Australia. According to the Married Women’s Property Act 1883, not only did women have the right to retain property in their own name after they married but were also just as eligible to apply to run public houses asmen, and often did it better. The South Australian parliament once again led the way, and was the first government in the colonies to pass these laws.
The Resolution Hotel was on the banks of the Murray, not far from the historical Von Rieben family hotel, who’d settled in the area in the 1850s. Paddle steamer freight, trade and merchandise had been running up and down the river since the 1850s. The area had been thriving.
So why would Biddy and her aunt struggle to make a living at the hotel?
Turns out, the railways came through the area in the late 1800s, offering faster and more reliable freight routes. Those businesses on the banks of the river previously reliant on paddle steamers all but died.
Drought had arrived too, and this one was a brutal one. It would be called the Federation Drought and last about eight years, 1895 to 1903. So the water in the river, delivered from the Murray-Darling basin, was drying up, and there weren’t any locks or weirs in those days to control flow.
Biddy knew it was time to get out and take Dot with her, for the sake of their health and well-being. But then along came trouble …
Other interesting snippets of history: it still overlooks the river, but the ruin of the Von Riebens’ hotel is now on private property. Overland Corner, where character Constable Percy Hanrahan was stationed, is famous for its pub, which is still open.
At the time the story is set, the South Australian Police Force’s metropolitan members had only just begun using horses, now known as the ‘Police Greys’. They are a recognised state heritage icon today. When character Constable Thomas Talbot is in his Adelaide police role, he’s very proud to have been assigned a grey.
You can visit Rosina Street in Adelaide near the city centre – Aunty Dot gives it a plug. It was renowned in the day for establishments boasting ladies of the night.
While South Australia had not been a host colony to any British government convict transportation earlier in the century, make no mistake – it was a wild place out the back, with any number of shady characters escaping the law.
I had fun with this one. I hope you enjoy reading The Landlady of The Resolution Hotel – it’s out now!
These women have been through hell - but it isn't over yet. Bestselling Australian author Darry Fraser's latest historical novel will have you on the edge of your seat.
In 1894, at the loneliest pub on the Murray River, four women are hiding from the truth - and it's threatening to find them.
Biddy's the publican at the Resolution Hotel, taking the reins from her fierce aunt Dot. Biddy's finally starting to feel like herself again - like who she was before she lost everything. But now she's accused of a crime she didn't commit, and the constable is hinting her aunt isn't innocent either.
When a man arrives offering Biddy an alibi, her surprise turns to shock when she realises who it is, someone she never expected to see again.
In the chaos, new guests arrive: Freya and Clara, both seeking refuge, and both desperate to conceal what they're running from.
There are plenty of secrets and past traumas among the women - and men - at the Resolution Hotel, but their ordeals aren't over yet. A cold-blooded murderer is in the area, and he's taken an interest in the isolated hotel.
Hunted by a killer, haunted by their pasts, they will need all their strength, courage and resilience to survive. But one of them will go too far ...