Segment Two
The Sick Woman in Dray.
Roger
I’ll put the image in the transcript…
…here:
oops sorry Eli! I forgot the musical interlude.
Music File 2: AAMSO ‘Segment Music’ for 10 seconds
Eli
Right. Anyway. So, The sick woman in dray (Study for Black Thursday). What really caught my eye in this drawing was the expressions—the distress, the fear and how well Strutt captured it.
At first, I thought this was a rendering of one woman, all at different stages of an illness. Something physical or mental that was at the time wildly misunderstood. How did that work I wondered? Did Strutt just sit there and watch this woman in her distress, with the same detached manner as Gill seemed to with The Invalid Digger?
But the second part of the title kept bugging me ‘Study for Black Thursday’. I didn’t know what it meant, but something about it sounded almost familiar. And then I remembered something from terrestrial history. I don’t know if you remember Roger, but fires were often a big problem for humans in Earth’s history, before the development of superior suppressant technology. And the times when those fires got really bad would often be called ‘black’ days, Black Saturday, Black Thursday and so on.
So I looked into it and found that this was actually a sketch Strutt made for a larger painting called Black Thursday, February 6th, 1851, which depicted the first massive bushfire experienced by the colonial settlers of the time. Upon studying that painting, I realised the sketch was actually two women. One sickly woman being carted out of danger in a horse drawn cart and one accompanying her.
I was struck by how terrifying it must have been, to be a ‘sickly’ woman in that moment. To be potentially unable to flee the danger you knew was coming and have to hope that you would not be left behind in the panic. And I wondered about the woman with her, was she a sister, mother, friend or perhaps even a lover? How much she must’ve loved the ‘sickly’ woman, to refuse to leave, to risk her own life to save her.
This is by no means an isolated experience, there are examples of this deep love for those that wider society might’ve considered ‘acceptable losses’ throughout history.
In 2025 OECT a man died in a fire after refusing to leave behind his son—who also died—who was bedbound and needed special assistance to evacuate 1. Another man who was blind and physically disabled died in the same fires, while his mother tried desperately to get him help 2.
In short, this sketch reminds of me of the ones who have been lost to these tragedies throughout the centuries, the ones whose stories were never told and the ones who in another time and place might’ve been saved. Like I hope the ‘sick woman’ was saved.
We have an important piece of history here Roger, and we owe William Strutt thanks for bringing to light.
1. Kim, J 2025 A pitmaster and dedicated father died alongside his son waiting for help in LA fire, 13 January, NPR.org, accessed September 4 2025
2. MacMillan J & McLennan, B 2025, ‘Mother of Australian man killed in LA fires recounts desperate efforts to save son’, 12 January, ABC News, accessed 4 September 2025, <
Segment Three: The Benevolent Asylum
Unquiet Voices 