ABSTRACT
By the 1890s, the institutions that constituted the mixed economy of colonial welfare represented successive generations of thinking about and acting on poverty and charity. Each of them had antecedents in the institutions of the old world, and reflected shifts in thinking in British charitable and religious circles. To describe them as part of a mixed economy is to note the distinctive division of labour between the state and civil society. We noted in the previous chapter the importance of ideas about the autonomy of institutional charities from the state, and the ways this preferred model reflected ideas about moral community and vigilant benevolence. These imperatives and preferences were reflected in what had been constructed over previous decades, as colonial Australians responded to poverty. State responsibility was held at arm’s length by working through largely autonomous and informal charities, which were left to go their own way to practise their charity infused by their faith.
