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William James Chidley
Portrait of W. J. Chidley in about 1916.
Born	c. 1860 Victoria
Died	21 December 1916 Callan Park Hospital for the Insane
Occupation	writer; philosopher; public speaker

William James Chidley (c. 1860 – 21 December 1916) was an Australian philosopher with unconventional theories on sex, diet and clothing.

Biography

Early life

William James Chidley was born in Melbourne in about 1860. He was one of five children adopted by English immigrants, who after a period in the Victorian goldfields, settled in Melbourne. He returned to England with his parents at an early age and whilst there his father engaged in the book trade, albeit unsuccessfully. The family returned to Australia when Chidley was five. Upon his return the family moved itinerantly throughout Victoria, with his father operating a transportable photographic studio. At times Chidley remained in Melbourne, boarding at school where he completed his education to age 13 at St. Kilda College. After assisting his father for a period in his photographic studios and working for a solicitor, Chidley was articled as an architect for four years. He found this “too dry” and engage in the profession of an itinerant crayon and water colour artist, drawing portraits for up to £10 each.

William James Chidley started life probably as an abandoned child, born in about 1860 probably in Victoria. He was adopted as an infant by John James Chidley, a toy warehouse proprietor, and his first wife Maria (née Carlin), living in Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The Chidleys also adopted three girls and another boy.^[A]

In the early 1860s the Chidley's and their adopted children lived in England for several years.

William James Chidley was born in Melbourne around 1860 and was adopted by John James Chidley, a toymaker and his first wife Maria (née Lancelott). His adoptive parents were followers of the teachings of Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. Chidley attended several different schools in Melbourne, leaving school at the age of 13 and continuing his education by reading in public libraries.

Flying machine.^[B]

Early working life

Chidley was apprenticed first to a solicitor and then to an architect, unsuccessfully. He began working for his adoptive father where he learned photography and developed a talent for drawing. As a younger man, Chidley supported himself by drawing for medical texts. This exposed him to various contemporary medical theories about human sexuality and Chidley formed the conviction that "there was something profoundly wrong with the way in which modern people had sex". He believed he had made an important scientific discovery that the human race had been living in error. Chidley promoted a raw vegetarian diet.

In about 1880 Chidley moved to Adelaide where he worked as an artist doing watercolour and crayon portraits.

In October 1882 William J. Chidley, described as an artist, and another man named Arthur Sadler, were arrested at Bridgewater for being involved in a quarrel in Waymouth Street in Adelaide, which resulted in the death of Thomas Maloney on October 10. Found not guilty.

In about 1885 Chidley met an actress named Ada Grantleigh (née Harris), who was married to Walter Thoms. Chidley lived with her intermittently until her death — in Adelaide until 1890, then in Sydney, New Zealand and Melbourne; an alcoholic, she died in 1908. He, too, lived through abject periods of alcoholism. They never married but adopted a son (reputedly hers). Ada Harris was born in about 1860, the daughter of John Harris, a furniture dealer. She married Walter Thom (when / where).

Chidley's adoptive father died in February 1891 at his home at Port Fairy North. Will.

During the period 1894-5 Chidley was employed as a black-and-white artist by R. B. Orchard. a prominent Sydney jeweller, and A. H. Thompson, who owned a photographic business.

Ada Thom died on 1 December 1908 at Melbourne Hospital, aged 48.

The Answer

Portrait of William James Chidley.

A cartoon featuring W. J. Chidley by Lionel Lindsay, published in The Evening News, 10 February 1914.

In 1911, Chidley published The Answer in Melbourne. The authorities attempted to prevent distribution by prosecuting booksellers and Chidley on the grounds that the pamphlet contained material "which would tend to deprave and corrupt the morals of any person reading it." Chidley sold copies to curious passers-by on the footpath.

In 1912, Chidley moved to Sydney, where he became a familiar bearded figure dressed in a Grecian-style tunic and sandals, giving public lectures and wandering the streets, carrying a bundle of his pamphlets. He preached the "Answer" to living a natural life to Sydneysiders. "Do nothing which is unnatural however slight" was his precept. He believed people should return to nudity, natural coition and a diet comprising only fruit and nuts to "be at one with Nature and one another". Chidley suffered constant persecution by the authorities, was committed to various asylums and even jailed. Regarded as a pervert, because he dared to mention sex in a repressed society, he was on the contrary something of a puritan in his teachings and lifestyle. In 1912 the courts imposed fines on booksellers who stocked "The Answer", and in 1914 the Supreme Court suppressed the publication.

Advertisement for a public lecture at Cowra on 16 April 1914.

On Saturday 3 August 1912 Chidley delivered "a lecture to women" and was arrested "for insanity". Chidley was detained at the Reception House in Darlinghurst "for medical observation". On 7 August he was brought before the Lunacy Court in Darlinghurst and committed to Callan Park. The certificate was signed by Dr. Chisholm Ross who afterwards told a reporter for The Sun: "Any man who writes nonsense of the kind found in his book... would lead me to the conclusion that he is insane". Apparently speaking on behalf of the whole medical community, Chisholm said "if we think he is insane that is a matter for us", adding: "That is what we are there for". A letter from 'Fair Play', published in The Sun, described Chidley as "an educated man, with a courteous manner, and a sound belief in fresh air,... who has been subjected to ridicule and abuse, simply because he follows his open-air theory in dress and living". The writer add: "To anyone who has conversed with him or heard him speaking, it comes as a surprise... to learn he has been arrested for insanity!".

On 17 August a public meeting was held at Sydney Town Hall "to consider the case of W. J. Chidley, at present confined at Callan Park Lunatic Asylum". An advertisement for the meeting, organised by R. B. Orchard and W. Lowe, invited "all lovers of fair play" to attend.

Chidley was charged with offensive behaviour, deemed insane by the Lunacy Court on 3 August 1912 and sent to the Callan Park Hospital. His case sparked a lot of public debate about the use of the law to imprison people in asylums and he won a lot of public support, people regarding him as a well meaning eccentric or crank deprived of his liberty and his right to speak freely.

On Thursday evening, 16 April 1914, Chidley delivered a lecture "to a very small audience" in Hogan's Centennial Hall at Cowra, in the Central West region of New South Wales. The local newspaper attributed the small attendance to unfavourable weather conditions and "the lack of publicity given to the lecture". Chidley had earlier "caused a sensation when he appeared in the streets in his rather meagre attire".

In August 1916 Chidley was released from an asylum under conditions that he "not address persons, and particularly women, by circular asking them to grant him interviews, in order that he might explain his theory to them." He was banned from holding meetings in public parks but he was soon addressing Sydney crowds in The Domain. On 16 February 1916 Chidley was again found insane and committed to Kenmore Mental Hospital at Goulburn.

Chidley wrote his autobiography, entitled "Confessions" and sent a copy of the manuscript to Henry Havelock Ellis. In 1935 Ellis sent this manuscript to the Mitchell Library, Sydney, remarking "Not only is it a document of much psychological interest, but as a picture of the intimate aspects of Australian life in the nineteenth century it is of the highest interest, and that value will go on increasing as time passes".

Death

Chidley attempted suicide on 12 October 1916. Whilst in the Reception House at Darlinghurst he poured kerosene on his clothes and set fire to himself, the result of which caused serious burns. He died suddenly on 21 December 1916 of arteriosclerosis, an inmate at Callan Park Hospital for the Insane.

Ref. widow & son. Ref.

Aftermath

But an attempt was made to discredit Chidley even in death, with a medical officer claiming that the post-mortem showed that he had syphilis. This article examines previously undiscovered material on Chidley's medical examination from his first admission to the Callan Park asylum in August 1912 which strongly suggests that Chidley did not have syphilis then and could not have contracted it later. The Chidley affair signalled the development of a new, but short-lived, 'political' phenomenon in NSW: the willing intervention of asylums to protect the community from ideas which governments considered harmful, where the existing laws had little purchase.

Continuing public discontent with asylum policies was to be a major factor in the calling of a Royal Commission into lunacy in 1923.

Cultural resonances

George Hutchinson wrote the two-act play No Room for Dreamers which was a reconstruction of Chidley's life, described as "a sad, comic tale of a bourgeois society with no place for the idealist".

During 1980 the play No Room for Dreamers, written and directed by George Hutchinson, had a successful run in Sydney. The play was a reconstruction of Chidley's life carried out (in the words of one reviewer) "with considerable licence". In spite of its attempt to place Chidley in an Australian historical context, the play "abstracted the sex reformer from his social milieu, to present his as an eccentric figure, out of place and out of time".

Publications

• The Answer or the World as Joy: An Essay on Philosophy (1915)
• Confessions of William James Chidley (1977)

Notes

A.^ In May 1854 William Sherry and his wife Margaret both died on the same day in their Collingwood flat, due to "congestion of the brain produced by constant intoxication". The couple had five children, three boys and two girls, aged from two to eleven. The two orphaned girls, Ellen and Jane were aged five and two. Maria Chidley, who lived with her husband in nearby Brunswick Street, had attempted to feed and clothe the two girls as the parents were "on the last stages of their path to self-destruction". Maria had previously lost her own child, and "formed a strong attachment to the girls". The Sherry children had been baptised as Catholics and in July 1854 Father Gerald Archbold Ward, a priest at St. Francis' church in Melbourne, was appointed guardian of the two girls. Maria Chidley then approached Ward and "begged him not to take the girls from her". The Chidleys were Protestants (possibly Presbyterian). Despite his sectarian concerns Ward relented and, as he later claimed, allowed her to retain them for a three month trial period on the condition they were brought to him once a week. Whatever arrangements had been made eventually descended into sectarian rancour. In September 1855 Ward applied to the Supreme Court of Victoria for custody of the two girls. Ward described Mrs. Chidley as a "sanctimonious lady" who was "twisting" the minds of the children "whilst plying them with gifts". ... In October 1855 in the Supreme Court of Victoria John and Maria Chidley were appointed guardians of Ellen and Jane Sherry, described as "female infants". Both children had been living with the couple prior to the court order. The two children had previously been under the guardianship of the Catholic priest Father Gerald Archbold Ward.

B.^ In late March 1888 it was reported that John Chidley, of Port Fairy, had "invented a flying machine". Chidley made a trial of the machine "in the presence of the Mayor and several leading men and representatives of the press", but "owing to a strong wind the machine upset, throwing Chidley, jun., out violently".

References

Sources

• Mark Finnane (1981), 'The Popular Defence of Chidley', Labour History, No 41, November 1981, Liverpool University Press, pages 57-73.

• Kevin Slattery (2004), An Enduring Legacy: Fr. Gerald Ward: Founder of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Australia, St. Vincent de Paul Society Victoria Inc.

Further reading

• Frank Bongiorno (2014), The Sex Lives of Australians: A History, Black, Inc.

• William James Chidley (1977; edited by S. McInerney), The Confessions of William James Chidley, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press.

• William James Chidley. "William James Chidley papers, 1896–1927". State Library of New South Wales.

• A. C. Curtis (1926), The Philosophy and Public Life of William James Chidley.

• Robert Holden; Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2005), Crackpots, ratbags & rebels: a swag of Aussie eccentrics, ABC Books, ISBN 978-0-7333-1541-1

External links

• Catie Gilchrist (2014). "William Chidley at Speakers Corner". Dictionary of Sydney. Dictionary of Sydney Trust. Retrieved 9 October 2015.[CC-By-SA]