Category Archives: clay pipe

A Disturbing Discovery

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Disclaimer: the topics discussed in this blog post include descriptions of murder, torture and rape. Reader discretion is advised.

 

It was around a year ago that Underground Overground Archaeology again hit the mainstream news, this time with stories about our excavations at the site of the new Court Theatre (a few of those stories here, here, and here). While it’s great when media outlets publish stories about the archaeological work that we do, there are definitely pros and cons to the pieces. The main pro is, of course, that a much wider range of people get to hear about the archaeological work that we do in Christchurch, rather than just those that follow us on social media or keep up with this blog. The cons are that because the journalists that are reporting the stories aren’t archaeologists and often have word or time limits to keep to, their stories can be quite brief and often focus in on the stereotype that the only thing us archaeologists are interested in is ‘treasure’. Now, don’t get me wrong, us archaeologists are the first to get excited when we find a rare or unusual artefact, but we’re not pirates. For us, the real ‘treasure’ is the stories that the artefacts tell us about the lives of people of the past, rather than the artefacts themselves. Working out those stories comes long after excavation is finished and only happens once we have gone through all of the information we’ve collected, the notes on the features that we took when we excavated them, the results of the artefact analysis, and the information that we can draw from the historical record, and see what these three information sources, along with anything else we might have access to, can tell us. A lot of the time when we’re getting mainstream media interest, it’s at the time of the archaeological excavation, meaning that we haven’t yet worked out all the interesting stories as we are only at the start of figuring them out. That was very much the case when we were being interviewed about the Court Theatre site, where one of the ‘treasures’ that the journalists were most interested in was a clay pipe. A year later, we are now at a point where we’ve done most of the artefact analysis and we can actually start to narrow down some of those stories that the artefacts from the site are able to tell us.

A classic example of the use of ‘treasure’ by the mainstream media. While they’re not wrong, it does perpetuate the stereotype of archaeologists as Indiana Jones type figures, which is very much not the case. Image: Otago Daily Times.

The clay pipe in question is probably the most violent and confronting artefact that we’ve had come out of an archaeological site in Christchurch, at least in recent years. The pipe was elaborately moulded and depicted a man, wearing a turban and Indian style dress, holding a sword above his shoulder, ready to strike. Next to him is a woman lying with one arm raised, her chest bare and her dress pooled at her waist. A baby lies at her feet. A woman is shown fleeing on the side of the bowl. Stamped on the stem of the pipe was “NA NA SAIB” and “DELHI”.

Image: C. Watson

The clay pipe is depicting an event known as the Bibighar massacre, which took place within the 1857 Indian Rebellion. This rebellion happened when sepoys, or Indian soldiers, mutinied against the East India Company. The East India Company had had a presence in India since the early 17th century, and by the 19th century was effectively responsible for the government of India and was employing sepoys within their army. The reasons behind the mutiny were complicated but were mainly a result of an accumulation of grievances, mostly around the structure of the army and treatment of the sepoys, and the treatment of landowners and high-status individuals by the British. Sepoys in Meerut and Delhi mutinied against the British officers in May of 1857, with the rebel sepoys taking control of Delhi. News of the mutinies spread, with sepoys in some regions also rebelling, while in other regions sepoys fought for the British. In June of 1857, the sepoys under the leadership of the British General Wheeler at Cawnpore (Kanpur) mutinied. This led to the Siege of Cawnpore, where General Wheeler, the British soldiers, and their families, were trapped by the rebel sepoys in an entrenchment for three weeks with little water or food. The siege came to an end on the 27th of June when Nana Saib, an Indian nobleman who was a prominent leader in the rebellion, offered safe passage to Wheeler and the British to the nearby river where they could board boats and leave Cawnpore. Wheeler trusted Nana, as prior to the rebellion he had been an ally to the East India Company. However, upon reaching the riverbank and beginning to board the boats, the Indian sepoys opened fire on the British, resulting in many casualties. The 120 women and children that survived the massacre were re-captured and taken as captives. They were taken to a local house, Bibighar, with a group of another 80 women and children captured from another town later also taken to the house. On July 15, this group of women and children were massacred in a brutal killing.

Sir Joseph Noel Paton painted In Memoriam in 1858 in honour of the victims of the Bibighar massacre. We suspect that this painting was one of the source works that inspired the design of the pipe, particularly the positioning of the central woman and child.

‘The Chamber of Blood’ is a tinted lithograph by Vincent Brooks after Lieutenant C W Crump, Madras Artillery, No. 2. It was part of the series ‘A Pictorial Record of the Cawnpore Massacre’ published by Henry Graves and Co., London, in 1858.

A memorial to the women and children killed in the massacre was erected by the British. The memorial is built over the well in which the women and children’s bodies were thrown.Image: S. Bourne.

Many reasons have been suggested for why the women and children were killed. Some historians have suggested that they were killed in the hope that it would stop East India Company forces from approaching Cawnpore. Others have suggested that it was to stop information from being leaked to the British if Cawnpore fell, or to undermine Nana Saib’s relationship with the British, or that it was simply an act of revenge for British murders of Indian civilians. Following the massacre at Bibighar, British soldiers retook Cawnpore and took the sepoys as prisoners. The British forced the sepoys to lick the blood that stained the walls and floors of the Bibighar as punishment. They were then hung, or ‘blew from the cannon’, a method of execution where the victim is tied to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired. This method was used by the British in India as it destroyed the body and prevented Hindu and Muslim funerary rites from being carried out on the victim.  By the end of 1857, the British had largely regained control, with the final rebels defeated in June of 1858. The acts that took place as part of the Indian Mutiny included atrocious acts of violence by both sides. The rebellion resulted in the dissolution of the East India Company by the Government of India Act 1858, with the governing of India transferred to the British Crown.

Going back to the clay pipe that we found at the Court Theatre site, from an example in the Amsterdam Pipe Museum we know that the pipe was manufactured by French pipe manufacturers L. Fiolet. Louis Fiolet was a French pipe manufacturer based as St. Omer. Fiolet took over his grandfather’s business in 1834, adopting the usage of the ‘L. Fiolet’ mark at this time. Around 1885 Fiolet went into partnership with his son-in-law, George Audebert, as Fiolet and Audebert. Fiolet died in 1892 and the firm operated as Audebert Fiolet from 1893 onwards. Fiolet pipes are said to be second only to Gambier pipes in quality, and the company was one of the most prominent French pipe manufacturers in the 19th century, having a base in France and a shop in London (Hammond, 1987). While we can’t include a picture of the example from the Amsterdam Pipe Museum due to copyright, you can view it by clicking on the hyperlink. The Amsterdam Pipe Museum example shows that the pipe was coloured, with the Indian attacker’s skin coloured brown, and the British woman and the baby’s skin painted pink. Presumably our pipe was also painted, but that decoration  has weathered off our pipe due to it being buried in the ground for over 150 years.

At the time of our interviews a year ago, while we had worked out that the pipe was inspired by the Indian Mutiny, and we knew that it was made by L. Fiolet, we didn’t know the details of the Bibighar massacre that inspired the pipe. Having read the account of that massacre, it shines a new light on the brutality of the pipe. At the time of our interview, we made reference to how the pipe speaks to the globalised nature of the 19th century, the pipe being a French made pipe, inspired by Indian historical events, found in New Zealand. But it’s only now that we have done the more detailed research, that a more nuanced view appears.

The first reports of the Siege of Cawnpore and the massacre of British civilians were embellished by shocking tales of rape, torture and mutilation. Nana Saib, with his role in the munity and the massacre, became known as the ‘Tiger of Cawnpore’. Nana was the face of the massacre for the British public, and as a result of that became a pop culture villain who was referenced in tales about savagery and resistance to British authority within the empire. Plays, ballads, stories and paintings were quickly produced, with the sentiment of ‘remember Cawnpore’ an underlying message (Wallace, 2015). It is highly likely that Fiolet, with their presence in London and their targeting of the British market, were influenced by the popular culture of the period to produce the pipe, with the smoking pipe just one of several pop culture artefacts depicting the events of the mutiny and massacre. The depictions of Nana and the massacre in popular culture acted as propaganda, which was used by the British to generate public support for the British response to the rebellion, as well as justification for some of the atrocities carried out by British soldiers.

The design of the smoking pipe highlights the British view of the mutiny, and of Nana Saib as the ‘Tiger of Cawnpore’. The Indian sepoy’s skin is coloured brown, he is wearing a turban and Indian dress, and is armed with an Indian style sword, all clear indicators of his race and position. The woman is bare breasted, her clothes pooling at her waist and her hair loose. Her skin is painted pink, a clear reference to her ethnicity as British, and her half-nakedness both symbolises her vulnerability and gives connotations of rape. The baby at her feet is also painted pink and is naked, emphasising its vulnerability. The scene of the pipe depicts the atrocity of the Bibighar massacre and the most horrific of the actions by the Indians at the Siege of Cawnpore and is clearly designed for the British narrative of the events. The choice to depict women and children as the primary victims of the mutiny, rather than the largely male-dominated East India Company and military power structures the sepoys were rebelling against, was a deliberate one, and can be seen as the weaponization of white femininity in defence of the (patriarchal, European) imperial power structures at play in India at the time. Of course, historical events are often filled with contesting views. If the pipe manufacturer had been influenced by the Indian sepoy perspective on the Siege of Cawnpore, then the pipe might show the sepoys attacking the British, or the British forcing the sepoys to lick blood off the walls of the Bibighar, or tying them to cannons to execute them. In the 21st century we can’t ignore the power imbalances created by colonialism and the impossible standards that disempowered people were held to, where there was never a correct means of resistance. But we can acknowledge this and acknowledge that the British also committed atrocities, while still viewing what was done to the British women and children as a horrific act.

For the Victorian British and the perspective that was created through depictions of the mutiny in popular culture, Nana was the embodiment of the nightmare of British imperialism and empire building. He represented “the latent treachery of all subject races, the rejection of British Progress, the destruction of the sacred family unit” (Wallace, 2015: 611). The rubbish pit in which our smoking pipe was found dates to the 1860s, around the year 1866. In 1860s New Zealand, the New Zealand Wars were being fought in Taranaki and Waikato. By understanding the history of the events that the pipe depicts, and the image of Nana Saib in Victorian popular culture as the Tiger of Cawnpore, one has to wonder if the pipe’s presence in Christchurch was intended as a warning to British colonists living in the city, a reminder of what the local population can do when oppressed. The pipe is more than an example of the global trade connections that existed in the 19th century, it’s a symbol of British imperialism and the consequences of that. And understanding that history, and the relevance of that history to our current day society, is the true treasure that archaeology can uncover.

Clara Watson

References

Hammond, P., 1987. The London Commercial Agents of French Clay Pipe Manufacturers Fiolet and Audebert Fiolet. Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter. 15: 16-21.

Wallace, B., 2015. Nana Sahib in British Culture and Memory. The Historical Journal. 58 (2): 589-613.

 

2022 – Turns out it can get worse.

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With the dawn of a new year (yes, we know it’s already April May June July, no we are not accepting constructive criticism at this time) the Under Over team has hit the ground running. The dream of a leisurely start back to the working week was quickly dashed with the rise of the new Court Theatre build. Kirsa assured us it would be a straightforward and easy site. Kirsa was in fact wrong. We have also been juggling many other sites, as per usual.

So, what have we all been up to? Our historians are hysterically working their magic, Clara is buried somewhere in the lab, while Jamie and Carly are sticking it out in Moncks Bay and the redzone. Nigel is in a brick barrel drain and Ashburton AND Akaroa (at the same time?!), Hamish is covered in rust, and Tristan is glued to a microscope. Our lovely lab team, Wendy and Naquita have frantically been washing shoes and torpedo bottle bases, Kirsa has been on field school (lucky) and invoicing (unlucky), and Neda, Rebecca, and Alana can be spotted in the wild somewhere in the CBD. All in all, the whole team has been putting in some major mahi these past few weeks months, and we thought we’d kick off the blog this year with some of our cool finds (It’s still technically the start of the year because we haven’t hit June July August yet, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it). We’ve summarised it down to our most dastardly sites and exciting finds for you (translation: we wrote most of this in early March… we’ve been busy).

Buckle up kids.

Court Theatre – Performing Arts Precinct

If any of you readers have been watching or reading the news recently (yes, we are famous now) you may have heard about the Court Theatre site. Additionally, if you  visited the library in January or February you may have spotted us working at the new Court Theatre site on the corner of Colombo Street and Gloucester Street. We were easy to spot given we were in full cover white asbestos suits – which are great in 30-degree heat (Rebecca here, did you know you can still get sunburnt through a full coverage suit? *Single tear smiling face*). Fun fact: asbestos itself is one of the few weaknesses of the archaeologist (along with alcohol free beer and snakes – naturally).

Figure 1. An archaeologist in the wild. If you listen carefully, you can hear them begrudging the asbestos.

The new Court Theatre site was originally home to Cookham House, a boot factory in operation from 1851. Many other businesses were soon established on the site facing Colombo Street. These included grocers, a butcher, a jeweller, a China and glassware shop, a confectioner, photographers, solicitors, drapers, and more. Essentially, this was a major boujie shopping centre, comparable to The Crossing or Merivale (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Colombo Street looking south in the 1880s. Image: Burton Brothers Studio, c.1884c.

With it being the site of a former boot factory, we had initially joked about how we would find large pits full of shoes. Unfortunately, the joke was on us as this was literally what we found (Figure 3). Feature 1 was a very large rubbish pit with “an entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes” (any Douglas Adams fans out there?). How many shoes you ask? Two fridges full.

Figure 3. Feature 1 half sectioned with the compressed layer of archaeological shoes, some bottles, and underlying roofing slate.

In total we encountered 49 archaeological features. I too was disappointed we didn’t have one more to get to 50 but believe me 49 was plenty. We encountered all sorts of features including rubbish pits of the large, extra-large, and outrageously large variety; multiple wells and artesian bores; building remains such as foundations and pile holes; a brick cesspit; a latrine; an infilled gully; and much more. With bulk earthworks only recently finishing we haven’t completed our analysis just yet, so stay tuned for future updates. But in the meantime, here are some photos!

Figure 4. X marks the spot of yet another very large archaeological feature.

Figure 5. A brick cesspit – don’t wonder too hard about what those layers are made up of.

Figure 6. A red brick well!

Figure 7. A yellow brick well! (follow, follow, follow, follow)

Figure 8. A clay smoking pipe recovered from a rubbish pit at the Court Theatre site – we may have an upcoming blog on clay pipes so stay tuned!

Superlot 15 – Cambridge Terrace

Much like the name suggests, there were many super things about Superlot 15. The ground was super hard, it was super hot, and the archaeology was super cool. Unlike the Court Theatre rebuild, which featured a fun viewing platform shaped like a large library, you probably didn’t see us digging at Superlot 15. This is because we were hiding a metre below the surface in the one corner on the site that was filled to the brim with archaeological features. Fun fact – the metre-high edge-of-excavation was to the west, so we spent a lot of time baking in the sun! Luckily, we had Brent on site who took it upon himself to build us a sunshade made up of various bits and pieces lying around on site, which we highly appreciated. We love an innovative king. He also gave us biscuits. Is he the best digger operator ever? We think so.

Figure 9. Local archaeologists grateful for shade on hot day. Photo also featuring variations of the ‘sexy sunhat’ and ‘naughty neckshade.’ Safety first, everybody! Make sure to bring electrolytes to site on a hot day (it’s got what plants crave).

The area currently dubbed ‘Superlot 15’ is an area originally made up of parts of 6 town sections, which was used for residential purposes. The houses were owned and built primarily by Edward Coxhead Mouldey and Charles Wellington Bishop. While the Bishop family likely lived on the section until the 1890s, Edward Mouldey owned Town Sections 229-233, and we suspect he did not personally live in all 8 houses on his own. Following his bankruptcy in 1888, ownership of Town Sections 229-233 eventually passed to Alfred Bullock, who leased the 8 dwellings. Aerial imagery from the 1940s suggests the 19th century houses survived well into the 20th century!

Figure 10. Detail from Strouts’ 1877 map of Christchurch showing buildings present on the relevant town sections. Town Sections 227 and 228 (coloured blue) were owned by the Bishops until the 1890s. The project area is indicated in red. Image: Strouts, 1877.

Figure 11. Aerial image from 1946, showing buildings previously on Superlot 15. 263 Cambridge Terrace (Town Sections 227 and 228) indicated in blue. The project area is outlined in red. Image: LINZ, 1946.

We had already spent quite a bit of time on Superlot 15 since works began and had found a scattering of archaeological features across the site, but nothing too dramatic. Turns out this gem was truly saving the best (?) for last. In the space of two days, we went from 10 features to 29, and we entered what I like to call ‘Survival Mode.’ There’s nothing quite like densely packed earth to push your excavation skills to the limit. The crew at Superlot 15 were very patient with us while we desperately tried to wrap our head around these features.

Figure 12. A small portion of our small area, showing rubbish pits in the fore, mid, and background.

Figure 13. Facing the opposite direction from the previous photo, some more features. A lot of the features on this site appeared to be connected for various reasons; these rubbish pits were connected/disturbed via a 20th century drainpipe. It made for some interesting digging!

A large amount of drainage features were encountered on site – earthenware pipes, a brick sump, and a brick chamber for an artesian well. This confirmed what we had suspected all along – whoever was living here did at some point have running water and plumbing – wow! The rubbish pits on this site came in all shapes and sizes, mostly containing a lot of household refuse typical to the 19th century including a wide range of ceramics, torpedo bottles, condiment bottles, tonnes of sheep bones, piles of oyster shells, and some other fun finds. Pictured below is Rebecca holding an anchovy paste jar. You can see by her expression that she is shocked people would eat something so repugnant. Another fun find was the Cavalier smoking pipe pictured below. This site is not yet finished, so stay tuned for more hard-packed earth.

Figure 14. Rebecca gasping at the anchovy paste jar recovered at Superlot 15. Endorsed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, we however, remain sceptical of the product.

Figure 15. Local French man featured on smoking pipe.

Figure 16. A half-sectioned rubbish pit with layers. From this view we can tell the rubbish was being deposited from the west (right) side of the feature. Feet included for artistic purposes only.

Updates from The Lab

The stoneware bottle pictured below is an unusual find. It was made for a specific pub, but not a pub in Christchurch, or even New Zealand. The impression on the bottle reads “BRAY/ Six Bells/ Chelsea base: FULHAM/ STONE/ POTTERY”. This tells us the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery, which was founded by John Dwight in 1672 and primarily manufactured stoneware up until the 1950s (Oswald, et al., 1982). Six Bells was a public house located at 197 Kings Road in Chelsea, that was established by at least 1722 and is still operating today as a restaurant. Members of the Bray family are listed as the publicans from at least 1823 until at least 1866. By 1881, a Christopher J. Aston is listed in the post office directories as the manager, indicating that the Bray’s association with the pub ended sometime after 1866 and before 1881 (pubwiki, 2022).

This suggests then that the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery specifically for the Bray family and the Six Bells pub – in Chelsea. It is hard to date the flask based on the available evidence, but a manufacture date range from approximately 1823 until 1866 is assumed.

While examples have been found on other Christchurch archaeological sites of table wares that have been commissioned specifically for hotels, there have not been any examples of stoneware bottles commissioned by, or for businesses located outside of New Zealand. Searches of Heritage New Zealand’s digital library revealed that it is probable that this is the first example of this type of bottle found on a New Zealand archaeological site. Google Image searches could not find a similar bottle, suggesting that either not many of the bottles were produced, or that not many have survived and that they are rare. It is likely that the stoneware bottle was brought specifically by Mr Bowley to New Zealand. Further historical research would need to be conducted into the Bowley family to determine what their connection to Chelsea and the Six Bells pub was, but the presence of the bottle would suggest that there was some connection.

Figure 17 . The stoneware bottle manufactured for the Six Bells pub in Chelsea.

To Conclude

All in all, the team have been working really hard (as per usual) and it’s been a rather exciting start to the year. Christchurch continues to surprise us with new archaeological discoveries and while we jest about how exhausting our sites have been recently, we wouldn’t have it any other way (Rebecca here – still advocating for a three-day weekend personally). While we quietly pray for a brief reprieve from field work to tackle our reports, we do in fact thrive in the chaos. Stay tuned for future finds as rumour has it, someone has a stadium to build or something.

-Rebecca and Alana <3

The Colleen Bawn

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The girl I love is beautiful, she’s fairer than the Dawn; She lives in Garryowen, and she’s called the Colleen Bawn

The above quote is taken from Dion Boucicault’s 1860 play, The Colleen Bawn. The play is based on an 1829 novel, The Collegians, written by Gerald Griffin, which itself is based on the 1819 murder of Ellen Hanley. You might be wondering what stories of a murder that took place over 200 years ago have to do with Christchurch archaeology. Well, dear reader, I was wondering the same.

We recently excavated a clay pipe with the name “COLLEEN BAWN” stamped on the stem. The mark was one I had never seen before, and the pipe was incomplete meaning I did not know if there were any other markings on the bowl. I began my research on the pipe by sharing it in the Society for Clay Pipe Research group, which was my first introduction to the story of Colleen Bawn. As an avid true crime podcast listener, I was rather excited (if that is not too morbid to admit) that the pipe we found could have a connection to a 200-year-old true crime case.

The pipe stem in question. The COLLEEN BAWN marks, located on either side of the stem, are shown below the pipe. Image: C. Watson.

Let us travel back to Autumn 1819, to Kilrush, Ireland, where the remains of Ellen Hanley had just washed ashore. Only 15 years old, Ellen Hanley was well known for being both beautiful and kind, and was given the moniker Colleen Bawn. The name comes from the Irish cailín bán, meaning white girl or pure/innocent girl. Ellen was raised by her uncle, a farmer in County Limerick, after her mother died when she was young.

In the months prior to her murder, Ellen became acquainted with John Scanlan. John, in his early 20s, was a member of the local minor aristocracy, a former Royal Marine, and a heavy gambler. John began to visit Ellen in secret, eventually persuading her to marry him. The two eloped in early July 1819, marrying in secret as John feared his family would not approve of the marriage. The marriage was short and unhappy. A young protestant clergyman met Ellen on a passenger boat, and she confided in him that she regretted leaving her uncle’s farm and that her new husband had spent her dowry on alcohol and gambling. John Scanlan also regretted the marriage, quickly tiring of his new bride and the secrecy of the marriage. He enlisted the help of his servant, Stephen Sullivan, and together they planned her murder.

On July 14th Scanlan and Sullivan took Ellen for a trip in Scanlan’s boat. In the middle of the river Sullivan shot Ellen with a musket. He then stripped her of her clothes, weighed down her body by tying it to rocks, and threw her into the river. Ellen’s disappearance was noticed several weeks later when Maura Sullivan, Stephen Sullivan’s sister, was seen wearing Ellen’s clothes. Six weeks after the murder Ellen’s body washed up at Moneypoint. While the body was too decomposed to identify, the rope tying the body to the rocks was identified as having been lent to John Scanlan. Scanlan and Sullivan quickly disappeared, and police soon determined that the body was the missing Ellen, and that Scanlan and Sullivan were the murderers. Scanlan was found hiding at his parent’s property and was put to trial in March 1820. Despite being defended by the famous lawyer, Daniel O’Connell, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Scanlan hung on March 16th 1820, with Sullivan caught, tried and hung shortly after.

A memorial to Ellen Hanley is located at the graveyard in Killimer. Image: Irish Waterways History.

Despite being a true story, the fate of Ellen Hanley has all the makings of an excellent narrative: a secret romance, an innocent girl who had a tragic fate, and an evil villain who was punished for his crime. That may be what made the play, The Colleen Bawn, which was based on the murder, so popular in New Zealand and around the world. Newspaper advertisements show that the play was performed regularly in Christchurch from 1864 into the early 20th century.

An 1864 advertisement for the Colleen Bawn play being performed in Christchurch. Image: Press 27/04/1864: 1.

So, what is a name referencing a murdered Irish girl doing on a clay pipe in 1890s Lyttelton? To understand this, it is first important to understand that clay pipes had uses other than just as a vessel for smoking. The clay pipe has its origins in the 16th century, following the introduction of tobacco from the Americas. As tobacco decreased in price, its popularity increased and along with it the number of pipe manufacturers. Pipes were mass manufactured using moulds, meaning the bowls could be easily decorated in elaborate styles and the stems could be stamped with marks (I highly recommend watching this video to see a demonstration of how pipes were made). As a result, decoration and marks on pipes could be used as advertisements, symbols of political events/movements, groups, or current events, as well as just decoration for its own sake.

One of the most common examples of a clay pipe with multiple uses that we find in Christchurch are Heywood pipes. Joseph Heywood ran a business as a commission agent, among other things, from 1851 in Lyttelton. Heywood commissioned clay pipes bearing his name from English pipe manufacturer Charles Crop and we’ve found them on multiple sites in Christchurch dating from the 1860s to the 1880s. Heywood appears to have used the pipes to advertise his business (the 19th century equivalent of businesses buying pens that have their name on them) and was not the only company in Christchurch to do so. We’ve also found pipes from the businesses Trent Brothers and Twentyman and Cousin (see this blog specifically on advertising pipes for more detail). Image: C. Watson.

Keeping with the Irish theme, this pipe is an Inniskilling pipe. It depicts Derry castle with a border of clover leaves and a crown above it. Below the castle is a banner with THE INNISKILLING stamped on it and beneath this a sphynx with a second banner reading EGYPT. The Inniskilling refers to an Irish regiment of the British army that began as a local militia raised in 1689 to fight against James II. The regiment became part of the British army and was sent to several battles both in Britain and overseas. Inniskilling pipes were made by several pipe manufacturers between approximately 1880 and 1920. In the case of this one, the pipe is commemorating the Inniskilling’s time in Egypt, and can be seen as an example of contemporary political events being used as pipe decoration. Image: C. Watson.

Our Colleen Bawn pipe may function as both an advertisement and a kind of pop culture reference for the time. When I began researching the pipe, I wanted to know what the phrase ‘Colleen Bawn’ would mean to a person living in 19th century New Zealand. Would they instantly recognise it as a reference to the murdered Ellen? Or could it be a reference to something else. The easiest way to find this out was by using Papers Past, an online database containing thousands of New Zealand newspapers. Searching the name ‘Colleen Bawn’ resulted in 9,912 hits, indicating that even if I had never heard the phrase Colleen Bawn, people in the 19th century were familiar with it. The earliest reference was to a ‘Colleen Bawn’ clothing item, which was a type of cloak worn by Irish farm girls. From the limited information I’ve been able to find so far, I think the cloak was probably red, similar to a Little Red Riding Hood cloak, and that the name is a reference to the Colleen Bawn play, although I haven’t been able to find anything that specifically proved that. Colleen Bawn cloaks only appeared in 1860s-1870s advertisements, indicating either they dropped out of fashion or the style was no longer referred to as a Colleen Bawn.

The earliest newspaper reference I could find to ‘Colleen Bawn’. Image: Press 9/11/1861: 7.

Other newspaper advertisements referred to a ship called the Colleen Bawn that was operating in New Zealand in the 1860s and 1870s. But aside from that, the vast majority of newspaper references were to the Colleen Bawn play.

Dion Boucicault, author of the play, even visited New Zealand in the 1880s doing a tour of the play in which he played one of the main characters. Image: Lyttelton Times 10/11/1885: 1.

Given our pipe was found in an 1890s context (by which time almost all newspaper references were in relation to the play), and that clay pipes generally only had a short use-life, it seems very likely that our pipe is referencing the Colleen Bawn play. It’s not clear if the pipes were ordered to advertise the play (similar to the Heywood pipes), or if they were a current event reference (like the Inniskilling pipe, but with more of a pop culture angle). It could be that they were the 19th century equivalent of going to a Taylor Swift concert and coming home with a Taylor Swift t-shirt – an object to advertise that you went to the play and remember the experience. Regardless of why the pipe was made, it tells an amazing story and it is interesting to view the clay pipe as both an artefact of late-19th century pop culture in New Zealand, and a reference to a young girl’s tragic fate.

Clara Watson

Further Reading and Information

There are many stories online about the murder of Ellen Hanley. These accounts are all broadly similar, with a few variations to the story. I’ve based mine on accounts from Irish Waterways History,  IrishCentral, The Irish Times and Clare County Library.

-If you’re interested in reading Gerald Griffin’s book, The Collegians, that was based on the murder, then it is available online on Google Books.

-If you’re interested in reading the play, then the script is available on Project Gutenberg.

-There was also a 1911 silent film based on the play. This is available online on YouTube.

At the time of writing this blog, I haven’t been able to find another example of a Colleen Bawn clay pipe. If there is anyone out there who has one or has seen one then please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.