Book Launch: The Women of Little Lon

We are thrilled to have Fiona Patten MP launch Barbara Minchinton’s The Women of Little Lon.

This book is a vivid account of a remarkable but little-known chapter in Melbourne’s history. Sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women. While today a popular bar and a city lane are famously named after Madame Brussels, the identities of the other ‘flash madams’, the ‘dressed girls’ who worked for them and the hundreds of women who solicited on the streets of the Little Lon district of Melbourne are not remembered. Drawing on the findings of recent archaeological excavations, rare archival material and family records, historian Barbara Minchinton brings the fascinating world of Little Lon to life.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.