Madame Brussels; the life and times of Melbourne's most notorious woman

Item Description

Barbara Minchinton
Biography

Born in Prussia to a working-class family, Caroline Hodgson arrived in Melbourne in 1871. Left alone when her police-officer husband was sent to work in remote Victoria, she turned her hand to running brothels. Before long, she had proved herself brilliantly entrepreneurial- her principal establishment was a stone's throw from Parliament House, lavishly furnished and catered to Melbourne's ruling classes. Her death in 1908 signified the end of one kind of Melbourne and the beginning of another- in terms of prostitution, the city went from tolerance to complete prohibition in her lifetime.