Hawkers in the Southern Riverina and North-Eastern Victoria 1890–1930: A survey of newspapers and archival data

This document was developed as a background study to underpin several papers examining the history and the Indian hawkers in the Southern Riverina and North-eastern Victoria,15 and the various physical manifestations of that presence.16 Data on individual hawkers are few and far between. Itinerant hawk-ers, are, by the nature of their business, difficult to track in the historic record as the usual means of historic identification are largely absent. Since in the majority they were not colonial or Australian citi-zens, they were not eligible to vote, and would not have been included in electoral rolls, their business-es lacked a permanent shop front and as they relied on word-of-mouth, there are no advertisements in newspapers. The aim of this document is to compile data on individual hawkers as derived from public sources. Geographically, the study covers the Southern Riverina confined to the period until 1930. Both the chronological and spatial boundaries should be read cum grano salis.