Backyards and gardens fulfill different functions today from earlier this century. Then the typical backyard would have had a dunny (toilet) against the backshed, with the dunny pan collected from the back lane; a wash house with a copper, a clothes line; a water tank with mint and parsley growing underneath; a lemon tree, and maybe room for chickens.

Activity in the backyard tended to be divided sexually. The women did the washing and the flower garden. Men chopped the wood, lit the copper on wash day and used the wash house, even when there was an indoor bathroom.

Municipal councils did not collect rubbish, so much of it was disposed in or around the backyard. Children were not specially catered for, although there may have been a patch of grass for them to play on. Children's play equipment, swimming pools, barbeques, etc were not part of the backyard. This kind of backyard provided places for children to play, but was not designed for that purpose.

In 1889, an investigating committee into living conditions in the Rocks, Sydney, found 14 houses, each of 2 rooms less than 3 m sq. These houses contained around 60 people, who shared 4 water closets. The living density in the inner city of Sydney was high: in 1891 Darlington had 61.88 people per acre, and Paddington had 44.11 people per acre.

Adelaide began constructing a sewerage system in 1878, and Sydney shortly afterwards. Melbourne established a Board of Works, responsible for developing a sewerage system in 1890, although they had had a clean, publicly owned water supply since 1853. Perth was sewered between 1906 and 1920. Brisbane, although it started planning in 1916, did not get under way until 1923.

The larger backyards of contemporary Australian suburbs tend to be a feature of recent cities. In longer established, more densely populated urban areas the same functions had to be performed in smaller spaces and different ways.

The backyard has slowly evolved from its domestic functionality. In Perth in 1876, it was proposed that no one should keep pigs within fifty yards of a neighbour's house. Although this proposal was defeated, because it stopped the poor from keeping pigs, in 1886 pigs were banned completely as insanitary, and were replaced by rubbish tips, also insanitary.

In the late forties and early fifties the straight clothes lines began to be replaced by the rotary 'Hills Hoist' clothes Line, which was in turn later replaced by retractable lines and driers.

Now the back garden has tended to become an adult-dominated family area for entertaining and recreation. Few of the functional qualities remain, instead it has become a 'public' place, like the front garden, to be shown off.

Source:
George Seddon, The Australian Backyard, from Australian Garden History, Vol 3 1991 p 2 - 9 ML Q635.099405/2

References:
Laughlin, G. P. Spatial Statistics and the future Australasian Conference on Urban and Regional Planning Informations Systems. Proceedings 1994 Addendum

Rubbo, Anna Rethinking the suburban sprawl Labor Forum June 1985 p 25-28 ML Q329.305/25