During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, charitable work and social activism was one of the major ways that women could contribute to and participate in public life. An 1894 report from Mrs Edwards, secretary of the Port Melbourne Dorcas and Benevolent Society, reflected that despite the “extent of the poverty in the district” due to the depression, “in Port Melbourne at all events the springs of charity had not ‘run dry’.” Amongst the work of the Dorcas and Benevolent Society in supporting families and unemployed workers, the women of the society also supported “24 poor women … through their time of trouble”, with the report concluding that “the children of many of these, we have every reason to believe, would have been left motherless had it not been for the timely help afforded.” The social and religious stigma faced by unmarried mothers during the late nineteenth century often limited their ability to access charitable aid, and the non-denominational assistance of the Dorcas Society in Port Melbourne was therefore significant in providing food, money and medicines to women in need. Dorcas Street is named after this society who met in a number of houses and halls in the area.
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