Sorry, C.Steele, yes, I did miss that point - sanitary conditions were a constant problem here too, at the Missions and at the ration sites were there was also accommodation, like Victor Harbor.

Sorry, I thought you were focussing on another issue, why Missions were closed. Over here, the Anglican Mission at Poonindie, near Port Lincoln, closed, sort of, in the early 1890s, and I'm trying to find out why. There are six inches of microfiche in the State Library, equivalent I suppose to a metre of documents, that i want to look at. I suspect, from other sources like the Protector's letters, that the population there - which was never very big, around 100 - declined as some people moved (some of them back) to other Missions like Point Pierce and Point McLeay. A few families took up leases of land on Poonindie, private 160-acre blocks, rent-free, 14-year leases, renewable. That still seemed to leave a dozen or so people, who were still there some years later.

So, I am wondering if places like Coranderrk encountered the same issues, with some taking up leases of Coranderrk land, others going to other Missions, and some hanging on for some years after the place is supposed to have closed. That's for a Victorian researcher to check :)

To get back to your point: yes, mortality was much higher everywhere in the world back then than it is now, especially of young children, and perhaps it always has been. Health improvements over the past century and a half have maybe impacted precisely on those age-groups everywhere.

BUT - the birth and death records from one community here in SA show that the highest decade since the 1860s for infant mortality was the 1950s - the 1950s. Coincidentally, this was the decade AFTER the more enterprising people from that community had packed up and left, leaving behind the 'less enterprising'. Also coincidentally, the first time that a police station was set up in the 'white' community a mile away was in 1953. Not 1853, but 1953. Somebody should check that allout.

Cheers,

Joe