How a policeman’s wife became Melbourne’s ‘high priestess of prostitution’

As the wealthy owner of a string of opulent brothels in the notorious Little Lon red light district, Madame Brussels was dubbed the “worst and wickedest woman in Melbourne”.

Madame Brussels was a high-class brothel owner in Melbourne in the late 1800s. Picture: State Library Victoria

As the queen of the Little Lon red light district, Madame Brussels was one of early Melbourne’s most colourful characters.

The woman once dubbed the “high priestess of prostitution” built an empire of opulent high-class brothels in a lucrative career spanning 33 years.

Madame Brussels is the subject of the latest episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, available today.

Ben Oliver, founder of Melbourne’s Drinking History Tours, says Madame Brussels’ clientele included some of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful men – politicians, businessmen, sportsmen and military figures.

There was even said to be a tunnel from Parliament House in Spring St to one of Madame Brussels’ brothels nearby, so parliamentarians could sneak in unseen.

Oliver says Madame Brussels was smart, cultured, erudite and charming, but as someone who earned a living off prostitution – legal at the time – she was often slammed in the press.

“To the wowsers and people involved in the temperance movement, Madame Brussels really represented the epitome of all that was wrong with Melbourne, being the queen of Melbourne’s red light district scene,” he says.

“Besides the ‘worst and wickedest woman in Melbourne’, she was also described as a ‘hellish harridan’, the ‘queen of harlotry’ and, my personal favourite, a ‘morally putrescent prostitutes’ pimp’.

Born in Potsdam in Prussia, Caroline Hodgson migrated to Melbourne in 1872 with her new husband, who became a police officer and was assigned to country Mansfield.

Left alone in Melbourne, Caroline had to find a way to make ends meet, and within two years was running several brothels and calling herself Madame Brussels.

One of her bordellos was linked at the time to the infamous disappearance of the parliamentary mace in 1891 – a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

Rumours suggested politicians took the ceremonial mace to her brothel, where it was used for so-called “unparliamentary activities”.

But Oliver believes it is more likely the mace made its way to a different brothel, owned by one of Madame Brussels’ rivals.

Old Melbourne: Swanston Street, looking north from Flinders Street, in the 1870s.

The jewel in her crown was the most opulent of her brothels at 32 Lonsdale St, dubbed an “academy of pleasure”, frequented by a who’s who of Melbourne’s elite.

“The brothel was said to be quite ornately furnished with marble bathrooms and sculptures and artworks,” Oliver says.

“The women themselves who worked at Madame Brussels were carefully chosen. They were highly educated.

“This was more than a brothel. Guests were served dinner and the finest champagne. You could stay overnight if you wanted to, where you’d be served a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs and coffee. And many guests stayed for weeks on end.”

One client, a pastoralist, enjoyed an extended stay at Madame Brussels’ brothel after a financial windfall.

“He made 150 pounds in a land sale … so he decided to spend a week at Madame Brussels’. “To give you some context, 150 pounds was about 18 months’ salary for a skilled worker, so an insane amount of money to spend at one place.”

Oliver says the finest room available was the ‘’grand boudoir”, which could be booked for about 2000 pounds, the equivalent of hundreds of thousand dollars today.

“But certainly she had clientele who were willing and able to spend that kind of money,” he says.

Listen now to the interview in today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters on Apple/iTunes, Spotify, web or your favourite platform.

And listen to our previous episodes with Ben Oliver from Drinking History Tours including the Melbourne cop who was the real Sherlock Holmes, how Australia’s Willy Wonka founded a chocolate empire from his parents’ Fitzroy bathroom, and the party boy with a taste for gambling, grog and brothels who became Victoria’s most hedonistic police chief.

And see In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.