“I Never Noticed She Was Dirty”: Fatherhood and the Death of Charlotte Duffy in Late-Nineteenth-Century Victoria

Abstract

In Melbourne, 1880, fourteen-year-old Charlotte Duffy died of “hip disease” complicated by extreme neglect. Her parents were charged with criminal negligence. Matthew and Annie Duffy were both convicted, but Matthew Duffy's conviction was overturned on appeal, the court ruling that “in point of law” a father was not required to take any part in the day-to-day care of his children. This article uses the death of Charlotte Duffy as a focal point for an analysis of the gendered category of father in late-nineteenth-century Victoria, arguing that despite the clear delineation of male and female parenting in official discourse, the increasing strength of the ideal of conjugal masculinity was expanding the definition of fatherhood within the middle class. By the end of the nineteenth century, fatherhood implied a more intimate involvement with children than before: a new conception that worked to both extend and restrict the privileges of masculinity.