In which bottles are used, beer is drunk, and graphic design atrocities are committed

Posted on 21 February 2020 by Clara Watson

Over the past two blog posts we’ve been looking at a large assemblage of labelled bottles found under a house in Akaroa. Today on the blog we’re going to take a step back and look at how the bottles travelled from England to New Zealand. It’s something we’ve touched on a little bit already, but today we’re going to really break it down. It’s a little complicated, so to make things simple I’ve created an absolute masterpiece of a diagram to explain things. We’re going to focus specifically on beer exported from England, but a lot of the groups and cycles we’re going to talk about today can be applied to both other types of alcohol and other countries exporting to New Zealand in the 19^th century.

Might as well just leave the blog here. A picture says a thousand words, and when it’s one that has had as much thought and graphic design put into it as this, then really it says nothing at all. Image: C. Watson (not that anyone should ever reproduce this monstrosity).

Export Brewer

Export brewers were British breweries that were manufacturing beer to export to the colonies. We already talked about them in our first blog post on the assemblage, so I’m not going to go into too much detail here. For those of you who missed that first blog post (you should go back and read it) export brewing was never a large market for British breweries. Exporting beer was a risky business for obvious reasons, only certain types of beer were suitable to be exported, and there was enough demand in the local market that most breweries had no need to look to the export market for business. Two breweries come to dominate the British export market: Guinness and Bass and Co. Bass and Co. exported 30,446 cases of beer to New Zealand, worth £45,417, in 1873 (Hughes 2006: 295).

Bottle Manufacturer

As we’ve mentioned many times before on the blog, there was no successful local bottle manufacturing industry in New Zealand until 1922. Instead, bottles were imported from England and Europe in large numbers, with two million bottles imported in 1873 alone (Tasker 1989: 15). These bottles were manufactured by large glass factories. These factories were literally producing millions of bottles a year. Richard, Cooper and Co. of the Portobello glass works in Scotland were making 6,000,000 a year in 1898. Unfortunately, unless a bottle has a maker’s mark, we generally don’t know which factory made the bottle. If we talk about beer specifically, then most beer in the 19^th century was packaged in either black beer or ring seal bottles (see this blog for more information on these specific bottle types).

Export Bottler

The British-based export bottler would purchase beer from the brewer, bottles from the bottle manufacturer, bottle the beer and then export it to the colonies. Again, we talked a bit about this in the first blog, but we’ll still go into more detail here as the bottling companies played such a pivotal role in getting beer from England to New Zealand. Exporting beer was a risky business. The journey from England to New Zealand took well over 100 days and during that time the beer often went off due to shipping delays, temperature and humidity changes and contamination. Unlike the export brewery industry itself, which was essentially a duopoly between Guinness and Bass and Co., the export bottling industry was full of competition with Bass selling beer to over 50 different export bottlers by 1873 (Hughes 2006: 89). These bottling companies all competed with each other in the export market with the same products. The point of difference being, how the product was bottled and shipped, and if it had gone off along the way.

Robert Porter and Co. were one of the many export bottlers shipping beer to New Zealand, and we found several of their labels in our Akaroa assemblage. This 1891 account describes their bottling process. The beer was sent to Porter and Co. in butts of two hogsheads each via the railway, with Porter and Co.’s bottling factory conveniently located at Pancras-road, London, at the terminus of the Midland Railway Company. The beer remained stored in the barrel until it was ready to be bottled.

The first stage in the bottling process was washing the bottle. Whilst new bottles could be used, it was more common for old bottles to be reused and refilled. The 1891 account says that these were most often old champagne bottles (ring seals) and that bottles were imported from the continent for this purpose. The bottle was washed three or four times to remove the past contents, and then stored ready for filling.

Bottles were filled, corked then packed, at a rate of around 1500 dozen a day. A tin foil capsule was placed over the cork and the bottle was labelled with the brewer label and Porter and Co.’s Bulldog label. Bottles were left to stand for a day to make sure they weren’t going to explode, and then were packed, with eight dozen pints in a case and four dozen quarts in a barrel. The packers name was recorded inside the case, which was then loaded back onto a train for transport to the docks and then shipped to New Zealand.

The Agent

The agent was essentially the middleman between the export bottler in England, and the seller in New Zealand (or they were the seller themselves). Typically based in New Zealand, agents ordered stock from exporters and sold it to local hotels, storekeepers and grocers (depending on what the stock was). They could sell stock by auction or sell directly to other businesses and consumers.

A few of the many advertisements for Robert Porter and Co.’s bottled Guinness and Bass and Co. ale. Most advertisements had the brand of alcohol, who bottled it and the agents name (if you think this is complicated wait until we start talking about bottle reuse). Images clockwise from top left: Daily Telegraph 21/07/1899: 1; New Zealand Herald 09/04/1880: 7; Daily Southern Cross 15/11/1865: 7; Otago Daily Times 12/08/1893: 3; Press 16/09/1896: 3; Press 01/11/1894: 4.

The local brewer

Alongside all the imported beer and spirits that were available for purchase, there were also locally manufactured beers. Local breweries had serious advantages over export brewers- namely that their beer didn’t need to be shipped halfway across the world to reach the consumer- but also had to compete with the notion of “British is Best” and the familiarity that Bass and Guinness had in a foreign world. We’ll talk more about local breweries below in the bottle reuse section, for now it’s just important to remember that there were other beers available than Guinness and Bass (unlike spirits which relied on the export market).

Seller and Consumer

Finally we reach the end of the chain. The beer, having been brewed by the manufacturer, bottled by the exporter, sold by the agent, was now available for purchase by the consumer. Consumers could purchase beer direct from the agent, or importer, but most of the general public likely brought their beer from hotels (who in turn would have purchased from the agent).

An 1888 advertisement for the infamous Occidental Hotel, stating the hotel kept only the best brands of wines, spirits and ales in stock. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this blog, the ad doesn’t say specifically which brands were in stock, but they probably included imported Bass and Guinness. Image: Press 25/10/1888: 8.

Joe Dicks was a Sydenham based wine and spirits importer. The above advertisement gives their 1891 prices for Bass and Guinness beers, along with other spirits. If you read the ad, you’ll notice that you could purchase bottled beer, or you could take along an empty bottle and fill it yourself. This brings us to bottle reuse. Image: Press 30/01/1891: 1).

Bottle Reuse

When we think about just the beer, the journey from England to New Zealand is a relatively straightforward one. It’s brewed in England, passes hands through a bunch of different people and companies, and gets drunk in New Zealand. The same cannot be said for the bottle it was contained in. Unlike today, when packaging is so ridiculously cheap that it’s killing the planet, packaging in the 19^th century was expensive. Because of that, bottles were used more than once, in a cycle of bottle reuse.

The (simplified) bottle reuse cycle. The start of the cycle is what we’ve talked about so far, with a bottle being filled with alcohol and sold to the consumer. Once the consumer had consumed their beer, the bottle could be sold or returned and then washed and filled again. Image: C. Watson.

Sold or returned to whom, you might have been wondering. Advertisements by local breweries, hotels and importers for bottles were a common sight in 19th century newspapers. Image, clockwise from top left: Press 23/03/1870: 1; Lyttelton Times 11/10/1895: 1; Press 25/11/1863: 1; Star 15/06/1869: 1; Press 20/02/1874: 3.

There are two points of bottle reuse in the journey of the beer bottle from England to New Zealand: one in England and the other in New Zealand. In the bottle exporter section above, we mentioned that the bottles exported to New Zealand were washed by the bottling company, as most often they were old bottles that were being reused. As we mentioned in our first blog on the assemblage, the export market made up only a minor proportion of brewers’ sales. Most English beer was bottled in England and consumed in England, meaning the bottles could go through the re-use cycle indefinitely.

Quitting being an archaeologist to become a professional diagram maker. This masterpiece shows the two cycles of bottle re-use. Image: C. Watson.

Once the original contents of the bottle were consumed, then the bottle was sold. From there it was washed, refilled and re-sold. Local breweries were reliant on the continual import of bottles into New Zealand as a source of bottles. Whilst they could purchase empty bottles directly from bottle manufacturers in England and import them to New Zealand, all bottles whether empty of filled carried a 1 penny import duty (Tasker 1989: 39), making it cheaper to buy already imported, used bottles.

Just as we find advertisements for bottles wanted in 19th century newspapers, we also find bottles for sale notices. All the advertisements listed here are from commercial businesses. It would make sense that aerated water manufacturers, hotels, and shops would be the biggest source of bottles given they were also the biggest consumers, but individuals could also sell their if they wanted to. Also interesting is the reference in the bottom right story of a Robert Gilmour being charged with selling bottles that still had old labels on them. This was presumably because he was refilling the bottles with a cheaper product than what they originally contained but was still selling them as containing the original contents. What a scoundrel. Image: clockwise from left: New Zealander 13/12/1848: 1; Westport Times 23/12/1871: 3; Star 14/12/1889: 2; Star 6/3/1897: 5; Cromwell Argus 16/3/1897: 4.

The cycle of reuse continued until the bottle was disposed of. The bottles we found at our site were interesting as they contained both imported and locally manufactured beer. The bottles that contained locally manufactured beer were likely once imported with Bass or Guinness in them, and then went through this cycle of reuse before being disposed of. The bottles that held imported beer appear to have never entered into the New Zealand cycle of bottle re-use, instead they were immediately consumed and disposed of (provided that they hadn’t been sold to the occupants of our house by a Robert Gilmour-esque figure who wasn’t replacing the labels on the bottles; proving the old adage of archaeology that we can never know anything for sure).

Clara Watson

References

Hughes, D. 2006. A Bottle of Guinness Please: The Colourful History of Guiness. Berkshire: Phimboy.

Tasker, J. 1989. Old New Zealand Bottles and Bygones. Wellington: Heinemann Reed.

Hotels, what versatile places!

Posted on 11 May 2018 by Maria Lillo Bernabeu

It’s been a busy month for Underground Overground Archaeology as we’ve been actively involved in New Zealand Archaeology Week 2018 running displays, historical tours, and talks – all of them highly successful thanks to history and archaeology lovers across the country!

Since we love Christchurch historical archaeology, a tribute to hotels is in order. These are spaces which were witness to the everyday life of both visitors and residents in the 19^th and early 20^th century, places in which the public and private sphere merged. This blog ties in with two events which took place during Archaeology Week 2018. An exhibition at the South Library displaying artefacts from hotels in Christchurch and Lyttelton held over the last month (perhaps you checked it out!). Also, a fantastic new Heritage Trail App was released during Archaeology Week named ‘Public Houses, Private Lives’. It is available for download from app stores and gives you the chance to discover some of the central Christchurch hotels for yourself. So, there are no excuse to get into it! Easy peasy! In keeping with the theme of hotels, today we’ll track down some distinctive aspects and activities that happened in the Christchurch hotels throughout the Victorian era… Righty-ho!

Observer 30/04/1910: 16. I couldn’t start without an image as ‘suite-able’ as this one! No comment from the Gender and Feminist Archaeologist…except perhaps to say that this is an illustrative example of the male perspective.

Hotels in mid-late 19^th century not only offered accommodation and entertainment to residents and visitors, they were a central hub for the community (for better or for worse). As establishments with bars or pubs, alcohol could be provided cheaply and in copious quantities to patrons.

A variety of alcohol bottles recovered from the Occidental Hotel, where the alcohol bottles made up half of the artefacts found! All different shapes and sizes to cover all sort of consumer tastes: black beer, wine, porter, stout and other spirit or liquor bottles. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Archaeologically, we can certainly attest to the fact that alcohol was widely consumed at hotels as it forms much of the tangible evidence derived from the finds. Either dumped at the rear of the sections, thrown away into an open ditch or even accumulated underneath the dwelling. The Wheatsheaf Hotel was no exception. It was built by John Shand and Herbert Coupe in 1865. The men were granted a general license for premises, but they neglected to take it up within the prescribed time. The license was cancelled, and they had to reapply (whoops!). They didn’t waste their time in obtaining alcohol though. Lots of artefacts were found under the floor, dominated by a huge quantity of bottle corks, indicating that the patrons of the hotel certainly enjoyed a drink (or two). It’s worth noting that some of the alcohol bottles uncovered had been discarded whole and unexpectedly still sealed.

Top: Heaps of corks! Bottom: Sealed bottle! Specifically, Boord’s Gin. Joseph Boord was a distiller, who became famous for the Old Tom style of gin (Stephenson 2016). He first registered his ‘cat and barrel’ trademark for Old Tom gin in 1849. The trademark featured a cat sitting on top of a wooden cask. Boord stated that this was a pun referencing the ‘Old Tom’ in the name of the gin, which was named after a man called Thomas Chamberlain. Joseph Boord was still in business in 1903, when the company defended the trademark against a rival distillery. Image: C. Dickson.

Historically, local newspapers recorded a variety of stories of drunken and disorderly behaviour that resulted from such easy access to alcohol, including sporadic burglaries, drowning, assaults and murders, to name a few.

Criminal activity at 19th century hotels. Clockwise from left: Observer (6/04/1907: 12), Grey River Argus (14/10/1885: 2) and Press (14/07/1876: 3).

Drinking went hand in hand with other activities, like smoking, or games such as billiards, skittles and dominoes. The presence of clay pipes on hotel sites may be evidence for the social side of pipe smoking, or an indication of providing ‘home comforts’ to hotel guests. In regard to gambling, the City Hotel became famous for (ostensibly) having the best billiard room in New Zealand. The Caversham Hotel, in addition to being an accommodation house and pub, also provided games such as billiards and skittles (an early form of bowling). During the 1880s the hotel had an outdoor skittle ground, which was the site of several competitive matches during the decade (Star 31/01/1885: 2).

Left: Clay smoking pipes stems from the Oxford Hotel site made by Charles Crop, a London pipe manufacturer operating during the 19th century. His pipes are commonly found on archaeological sites in New Zealand and Australia (Ayto 1999: 14, Brassey 1991: 30, Macready et al. 1990: 57). Image: J. Garland. Right: Cutty smoking pipe and a clay pipe decorated with a three-masted sailing ship (most likely a clipper) and an anchor looped with rope on opposite sides of the bowl. Image: C. Dickson.

There is no archaeological record of billiards or skittles but of dominoes instead! Playing pieces consisted of a bone face and a thicker wooden backing. The game of dominoes was a popular pastime among both children and adults, particularly in pub or hotel contexts (Bone et al. 2017). Very few dominoes have been found on Christchurch archaeological sites, but at least one was found on the site of a 19th century hotel. Image: C. Dickson.

Leaving aside the drinking culture and related habits for a while, hotels hosted several sporting and social meetings and events, and many proprietors became notable figures in the community thanks to the visibility and respectability of their establishments. John George Ruddenklau was one of those gentlemen. He opened the City Hotel on the corner of Colombo, Cashel and High Streets (what used to be known as the Triangle Centre) in 1864. Although no archaeology was found on the site of the City Hotel, tiny pieces of a saucer and a teacup were found in other central Christchurch sites with the initials J.G.R. and the name ‘City Hotel’ transfer printed into the design. An excellent example of personal and commercial branding in the Victorian era. These marked ceramics suggest that Rudenklau was prosperous enough to afford its own customised china. Exactly how that china ended up on other sites in the city is unknown. He may have sold or given it away after his retirement in 1869, or it may have been ‘taken’ by guests of the hotel at any point during its operation.

Left: Shamrock patterned saucer and teacup with the City Hotel and the initials J.G.R printed on it. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu. Right: John George Ruddenklau, c. 1892. Image: Christchurch City Libraries, CCL PhotoCD 15, IMG0097.

Hotels were also recreational places to enjoy a meal and some entertainment, as well as providing a home away from home for travellers. A wide variety of table and serving wares is considered a characteristic of non-domestic assemblages like hotels, boarding houses and other commercial establishments associated with the provision of food and drink (Lawrence et al. 2009: 75-77). The presence of matching sets may indicate that the hotel chose to serve meals on matching plates and dishes, likely representing what must have been a first-class dinner experience for the guests. In particular, the Occidental Hotel became one of the most well-known hotels in Christchurch, with a room maintained solely for the use of visiting members of the Parliament – a clear indicator of the hotel status.

This set of Belmont patterned vessels made by the Staffordshire potter Pinder, Bourne and Co. (1862-1882) were found on the Occidental Hotel site. The range of tableware recorded, showed that dining was a formal activity at this site, with specialised forms such as a ladle, a cover dish, tureens and a number of plates and other serving wares.

Personal items are scarcely identified on hotel assemblages. These goods hold great value for archaeologists as they tell us about private lives within public spaces (i.e. hotels) in the Victorian era and provide evidence of daily domestic life within this unique space. They may have belonged to the proprietors, visitors or haven been provided to guests by the hotel itself. Their rarity is also what makes them captivating for us.

Perfume bottles. Right: This one may have held a fragrance, based on its size and octagonal shape, similar to the J. M. Farina Cologne bottles found on other Christchurch archaeological sites. Left: Piesse and Lubin bottle. They were perfume manufacturers established in 1855 in London. Their fragrance was first advertised for sale in New Zealand newspapers as early as 1857 (Wellington Independent 20/05/1857: 3). In the 19th century, perfume became intimately entangled with gender. Despite the growing popularity of perfumes in the written record towards the end of the 19th century, especially for women, we don’t find that many perfume bottles on archaeological sites here in Christchurch. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Clockwise from top: John Gosnell’s Cherry Toothpaste first produced in the 1850s, hair comb made from vulcanite or vulcanised rubber (brushing and combing the hair was a frequent recommendation in the 19th century newspapers and magazines to encourage a healthy hair), bone toothbrush made in Liverpool by an unknown manufacturer. Image: J. Garland.

To conclude our particular approach to the daily life at Christchurch hotels though the artefacts and other sources, I’ll return to the beginning: hotels were an important part of the social development of both the public and private areas in the 19^th and the early 20^th centuries. Who knew hotels were such versatile places!

Just witty! (Observer 7/09/1912: 17).

Maria Lillo Bernabeu

References

Ayto, E. G., 1994. Clay Tobacco Pipes. Shire Publications

Bone, K., Dickson, C. and Whybrew, C., 2017. 6 Winchester Street, Lyttelton: Report on Archaeological Monitoring. Unpublished report for Holloway Builders Ltd.

Brassey, R., 1991. Clay Tobacco Pipes from the Site of the Victoria Hotel, Auckland, New Zealand. Australasian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 9: 27-30.

Godden, G., 1991. Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks. Crown Publishers, New York.

Grey River Agust. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed May 2018].

Lawrence, S., Brooks, A. and Lennon, J., 2009. Ceramics and Status in Regional Australia. Australasian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 27: 67-78.

Macready, S. and Goodwyn, J., 1990. Slums and Self-Improvement. The History and Archaeology of the Mechanics Institute, Auckland, and it’s Chancery Street Neighbourhood, Vol 2: The Artefacts and Faunal Material. Science and Research Report 92, Department of Conservation, Wellington.

Observer. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed May 2018].

Press. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed May 2018].

Star. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed May 2018].

Stephenson, T., 2016. The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace. Ryland Peters and Small, London.

Wellington Independent. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed May 2018].

Touring the past

Posted on 2 February 2018 by Chelsea Dickson

It seems almost expected now that many of us will go on semi-frequent overseas jaunts and visit the spectacular local scenery that New Zealand has to offer. However, most of us probably don’t often think about when these destinations became tourist hotspots, or what holidays were like for the early settler “tourists” of New Zealand. Tourism was definitely not something that was initially available to all economic classes and it isn’t something we can easily identify in the archaeological record (click here to see an earlier post about early tourist souvenirs). However, even though the archaeology of a broad concept like tourism might be scarce, we sometimes find physical evidence of things located more on the periphery of tourism. But more about that next week – today we will take a look at how written records and images of destinations and transport links can give us an idea of how some lucky (or plucky) Victorians explored their new home in Aotearoa.

As previously mentioned on the blog, the desire to take a break from colonial city life was probably felt by many of Christchurch’s early inhabitants. The high temperatures of summer and the inadequate sanitation in Christchurch increased heath concerns and diseases. Day excursions out of the city were popular from the 1870s and summertime public holiday expeditions from the central city to the nearby beaches were made readily available to many city folks with the introduction of the tram system. Steam and horse trams were used from 1882, but electric trams made travel more efficient between 1905 and 1954 (after which time buses replaced them on the city routes; Christchurch City Libraries). The late 19^th and early 20^th centuries saw grandiose train stations being erected around the country to link more destinations together, while (perhaps more importantly), also improving transport routes for goods and trade.

Construction of the electrical tramways in Christchurch [1905]. Laying the lines in High Street. Image: CCL File Reference: CCL PhotoCD 9, IMG0046.

The Temuka railway station [1908]. Designed by George Troup (1863-1941), who was at the time Chief Draughtsman for New Zealand Railways, it was built in 1906. It no longer exists. Image: CCL File Reference: CCL PhotoCD 9, IMG0013

And here’s a similar looking version in Kaiapoi…

Kaiapoi railway station [1908]. Built in 1904, it shows the features, such as porches, turrets and lattice windows, typical to its designer, George Troup (1863-1941). Only one third of the building now remains. Image: CCL File Reference CCL PhotoCD 9, IMG0014.

A larger quantity of New Zealanders began to obtain more leisure time by the 1920s. Increased wages and the introduction of shorter working weeks gave many workers more of an opportunity to explore New Zealand’s exceptionally beautiful surroundings. With this came the hey-day of rail tourism in the 1920s and 1930s. It was at this time that New Zealanders were quoted as being “the greatest travellers in the world” by Wellington’s Evening Post (Ministry for Culture and Heritage; Evening Post 24/09/1923: 6). The statistics backed up such claims, stating that 21,000 of these “travel minded New Zealanders” were carried as passengers on trains in the Wellington District alone, during the 1936 Easter period (Evening Post 15/4/1936: 11).

However, even before the boom in the early 20^th century, tourism was present here. Some of our ancestors got to witness a few things that we didn’t, namely, what was arguably our best natural scenic attraction – the Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana. These were located in the ‘hot spot’ of Rotorua and were a must-visit destination for the visitors to New Zealand (or those who could afford it), prior to their destruction by the volcanic eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. The local Tūhourangi people were heavily involved with the tourist industry here, protecting the terraces from vandals, and providing food, transport and accommodation for visitors (McClure 2010). But this wasn’t smooth sailing – government intervention stifled Māori initiatives with levies and local Māori also had no interest being personal tourist attractions, as shown when the government constructed a model village to depict Māori lifestyle in 1903 (McClure 2010).

Group of tourists on the White Terraces, circa early 1880s (prior to the 1886 Mount Tarawera Eruption). Photograph taken by Charles S. Spencer. Image: Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference Number: PAColl-6075-58.

When travelling west from Christchurch, Aoraki/Mount Cook was the gem of the Mackenzie Country and the first Hermitage Hotel was constructed there in 1895. The mountain had been ascended for the first time the previous year, but the hotel accommodation improved visitor comfort and accessibility to the slopes. This paved the way for more tourists and future mountaineers, some of whom travelled from as far as Great Britain and the continent for the climb (Press 15/2/1896: 7). Amateur photographers were noted among such climbing parties, attracted by the “new and unique series of views” (Press 15/2/1896: 7). Women were also getting in on the action – photographs on display at the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch inspired Sydney local, Emmeline Freda Du Faur, to be the first woman to scale the peak. Her 1919 climb was the fastest to that date (Langton 1996). You can learn a great deal more about the early tourism and the archaeology associated with Aoraki/Mount Cook here on one of our previous blogs.

The Hanmer Hot Springs Tea House [1905]. It opened on 21 Nov. 1904 and in the 1904/05 season earned £108. It was a popular and pleasant resort in all weathers. Image: CCL: File Reference CCL PhotoCD 9, IMG0002.

Satisfied customers in 1914 (Fielding Star 4/2/1914: 2).

Mt. Cook and the old Hermitage before it was destroyed by flooding in 1913
[ca. 1910]. The original hotel is pictured. This was a 13-roomed house built of cob and completed in 1895. It was situated at the foot of the Mueller Glacier and accommodated about 30 guests. A cage took tourists across the Hooker River to the Tasman glacier. The hotel was damaged by flood in January 1913, and two months later was destroyed beyond repair by a second flood (Press 4/4/1913:4. The Hermitage Mount Cook centennial 1884-1984). Image and caption: CCL File Reference CCL Photo Collection 22, Img00344.

In 1901 the control of the Hermitage Accommodation House passed to the newly formed Dept. of Tourist and Health Resorts. The 1904/05 season saw 175 visitors and earned £924 pounds. Photograph taken 1905 Image: CCL File Reference CCL PhotoCD 9, IMG0001.

The intrepid kiwi travel spirit is widely felt in our modern society. This ardent idea was clearly passed down through the generations from early pioneers who travelled to the other side of the world to make new homes for themselves. That being said, for the intrepid Victorian traveller, Fiordland must have seemed the most remote and sensational place to visit and it was frequently was – by explorers, hunters, prospectors, sealers and whalers ever since Captain Cook moored in Dusky Sound during 1773. Premier Julius Vogel introduced the New Zealand Forests Bill in 1874, recognising our forest resources as finite and although it didn’t happen until 1952 Fiordland National Park is now New Zealand’s largest conservation area. However, it wasn’t until the end of the 1880s that scientists became concerned that hunting, the introduction of predators, pests and deforestation having a negative impact on our native flora and fauna (Ministry for Culture and Heritage). The caption in the 1884 photograph below says it all: “tourists” make up a hunting party in Dusky Sound – note the woman among them who braving the elements of sun or rain.

Tourists in small boats hunting in Wet Jacket Arm, Dusky Sound, Fiordland [ca. Jan. 1884]. Burton Bros. Image: CCL, File Reference: CCL PhotoCD 3, IMG0006.

Of course, New Zealand pioneer travellers weren’t always confined to their new shores. Their initial journey from Great Britain to the colony was long – 75 to 120 days in a mid-19^th century sailing ship, but this was shortened to about 40 days by the 1890s following the introduction of steamers to the British-New Zealand route (Wilson 2005). The faster passage made returning to Great Britain and the continent feasible for an extended period of time or for “the season.” Historically, this was a social time when the leaders of fashionable society returned to London from the country or abroad, including many young women seeking marriage prospects. Local newspaper excerpts from the late Victorian era to the Georgian era record snippets of the comings and goings of the wealthier elite, naming where and with whom they were visiting (Otago Daily Times 10/1/1913 2; Marlborough Express 18/8/1919: 8: Bay of Plenty Times 10/8/1927: Press 13/3/1928: 10). Colonists also took the opportunity to return to their homeland to visit the family they had left behind – such as the Lyttelton couple we met recently on the blog. This tragic story started with a holiday visiting family in the Orkney Islands and ended with a fatal fall from a cliff leaving only a widow to return to Lyttelton alone (Star 20/8/1890: 3).

But on a nicer note to end – although us modern kiwis may have missed out on the wonder of the Pink and White Terraces, there is still plenty of natural beauty left for us to enjoy. The spectacular landscapes of New Zealand have been commented often in historic newspapers (Otago Daily Times 10/1/1913 2). They have also thankfully been preserved for us through conservation efforts such as Premier Richard Seddon’s 1903 Scenery Preservation Act – his vision for which saw our land not just as an economic resource but a place that had scenic, scientific and historic value (Ministry for Culture and Heritage).

Asked about the South Island on the map he is showing to the American travel agency heads, the government official dismisses it with a yawn. Scales, Sydney Ernest, 1916-2003: That? – nothing there but scenery. Otago Daily Times, 14 January 1954. Image: Alexander Turnbull Library: Reference Number: A-311-4-003.

Tune in next week for the next instalment of the historic tourist industry where we take a look at the archaeological evidence of possible tourist accommodation – specifically hotels and boarding houses.

Safe travels everyone!

Chelsea Dickson

References

Langton, G. 1996. ‘Du Faur, Emmeline Freda’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1996, updated December, 2005. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3d17/du-faur-emmeline-freda (accessed 2 February 2018).

McClure, M. 2010. ‘Tourist industry – Māori entrepreneurs in Rotorua’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/tourist-industry/page-2 (accessed 31 January 2018)

Wilson, J. 2005. ‘The voyage out – Early steamers’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/the-voyage-out/page-6 (accessed 1 February 2018).

Wilson, J. 2006. ‘Canterbury places – Hanmer and Lewis Pass’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/canterbury-places/page-3 (accessed 1 February 2018).

Tanks!

Posted on 1 September 2017 by Hamish Williams

Anyone in the office will tell you that I have a keen interest in military history, especially anything related to the World War 2 period. I like my airplanes, yes (hats off to the de Havilland Mosquito, that twin engine plywood wonder) but I’m also a big fan of tanks. Last week I officially added to my bucket list a visit to the Tank Museum in Bovington. Camp Bovington in Dorset is the birthplace of the tank, and Camp Bovington’s Tank Museum has on display the largest collection of tanks in the world. One day I will make that pilgrimage…

I’ve been thinking about armoured vehicles a little more than usual recently. Perhaps this has been because some large construction sites that I’ve worked on lately have felt a bit like urban battlegrounds, bustling with big machines, and complete with all the smoke, dust, noise, and chaos of an urban war zone set against a ruinous backdrop of a half demolished/half rebuilt city. Reminiscent of that time in 1942 when I stood with my comrades in defence of the Stalingrad Tractor Factory? Hmm, maybe only just a little.

After an epic binge on David Fletcher’s Tank Chats last week, I decided that a blogpost about my two favourite Christchurch tanks was long overdue. First though, a few fast facts about tanks. The tank as we know it was developed in 1915 as an experimental weapon to break the stalemate of the trenches on the Western Front (Lest we forget). The Brits were the first to put the tank into battle, at the Somme in September 1916, where it had some success. The first British tank was called ‘Little Willy’. Little Willy was soon replaced by ‘Big Willy’ (the rhomboid shaped Mark 1) because Little Willy wasn’t long enough to cross trenches (sometimes it seems, size IS everything). Tanks were not actually developed by the Army, as one would naturally assume, but by the Navy, and they called them ‘Landships’. To throw the Boche off the scent, a less descriptive name was adopted as a security measure – tanks. The name stuck. Water tanks as a war winning wonder weapon? Yeah right! Codewords always work in wartime.

Of course, not all tanks are weapons of war, and the tanks that have popped up in Christchurch’s archaeological record in recent times were not designed and built to serve as offensive weapons, though they certainly did play a part in fighting different sorts of battles. So, let me tell you about two of my favourite Christchurch tanks.

The Fire Tank

I had my first run in with one of the city’s fire tanks in a trench on Manchester Street in July 2015, when SCIRT were digging up the road to lay a new water mains pipe. It was well concealed at shallow depth below the road surface, and at first glance I was a little intimidated by its immense size – it was nearly 40 metres long!

The Manchester Street tank, as first exposed. Image: Hamish Williams.

The fire tank on Manchester Street was one of six built by the City Council in 1885 for the fire brigade so they could better wage war against fire. Fire was a serious and recurrent threat to Christchurch in the early years, because so many buildings were of timber construction and they often stood so close to each other. A small fire in one building could very quickly turn into an inferno capable of destroying a whole city block. Because the council did not begin works on developing a high pressure piped water supply system until 1909, at first the fire brigade had to make do fighting the flames with water they got from local wells, or with what could be pumped directly from the Avon River. This was a less than satisfactory arrangement, especially when wells were dry, artesians yielded only a trickle, or worse still, if fires broke out at some distance from the river, and the fire brigade’s hoses weren’t long enough.

Each of the six tanks built in 1885 had a capacity of 25,000 gallons (approximately 114,000 litres) and were capable of supplying water over a radius of 1000 feet (305 metres). Each tank cost £300 to build, and each were served by their own artesian wells (Press 31/12/1884:2). Just completed, in September 1885 the Manchester Street tank was the lucky tank selected for official testing. It was calculated that the steam powered pumps of the brigade’s two fire engines ‘Deluge’ and ‘Extinguisher’ would be able to drain the entire tank in just over 33 minutes, however they managed to empty it in 31 minutes – quite an impressive achievement (Star 23/9/1885:2, Star 29/9/1885:3). In the following years the underground tanks proved to be an efficient weapon that saved people and property, however they sometimes had a tendency to overflow through their manhole access covers, of which there was one at each end (Press 12/1/1886:2). Even after the fire tanks were to some extent made obsolete – when the high pressure water reticulation network was finally laid on – these underground fire tanks were not forgotten or destroyed, but were retained, held back in ‘strategic reserve’, just in case.

Fire Tank! Image: Hamish Williams.

Well built, the fire tank had an arched roof and brick walls three layers thick, with an internal width of 2.2 metres and a height of 1.8 metres. Despite the efforts of two pumps, it was not possible to remove all of the water from the tank, which had its crown arch broken out so the new water mains pipe could be laid right through its entire length. It was difficult to investigate this feature because of all the water, and because this tank was technically a confined space, our access was restricted on safety grounds. Tanks sure can be dangerous for archaeologists!

The tank, after half the water was pumped out and the crown of the arch removed. Image: Hamish Williams.

The fire tank stands out as a favourite tank of mine not just because of its impressive size, but also because, like many of the 19^th century structural features about the city that we have been lucky enough to investigate, it had been built entirely by hand, brick by brick. Furthermore, these bricks had been laid in a bloody great big deep trench that had been dug by hand, in a part of the city where there are elevated groundwater levels. Build a massive underground water tank in a swamp? Best of British to you mate!

The northern end of the tank, after being filled in with hard fill in preparation for laying the new water mains. Image: Hamish Williams.

Ship Tank

Much smaller than the fire tank, the ship tank was uncovered earlier this year at shallow depth in what was originally the backyard of the Occidental Hotel. This 4 ft cubic tank of mild steel had been buried in the ground for use, we strongly suspect, as a cesspit. When the hotel was connected to the city’s newly completed sewer system in 1882, the tank was filled in, mostly with bricks and other building debris that we reckon came from the demolition of the back part of the hotel.

The ship tank cesspit. In the background Angel and Teri are exposing the foundations of one of the hotel’s fireplaces. Maybe a bit more about that feature in a future blogpost folks, so watch this space. Image: Hamish Williams.

Brick rubble in the tank. The foundations of the hotel’s fireplace was built from the same kind of bricks that were dumped in the tank – so there’s a connection there. Image: Hamish Williams.

In amongst the fill of the tank, we found a large cast-iron lid of 480 mm diameter that provided confirmation for us that this old steel tank was in fact a repurposed ship tank, made by John Bellamy’s tank works in Millwall, London. From the 1850s these riveted steel boxes with tight fitting circular lids began, in increasing numbers, to replace wooden barrels for the transport of drinking water and other perishable items in the holds of ships. Ship tanks have been found in numerous 19^th century archaeological contexts across the world. In Australia, ship tanks were cleverly adapted for other uses, including rainwater tanks, sheep dips, eucalyptus oil stills and water troughs (Pearson 1992). A John Bellamy tank of identical form has also been found at Lusitania Bay on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, where it is suspected to have been used for the storage of penguin oil, of all things.

The cast-iron ship tank lid, marked JOHN BELLAMY BYNG STREET/ MILLWALL LONDON. In the middle of the lid is a central bung, which could be removed to allow access to the tank without having to remove the whole lid. Image: Hamish Williams.

It’s hard to say which Christchurch tank is actually my favourite of the two, both have their charms. I think that if I had to choose just one though, I would have to choose the ship tank. Why? Because the ship tank that we found behind the hotel demonstrates adaptive reuse – something that archaeologists always have to consider when making interpretations about things from the past. Over their lifetime, artefacts both big and small can be modified to serve different functions, and these modifications can reflect different owners, ideas, and changing circumstances (among an infinite number of other possible things). An impervious steel tank built for the storage of water was later modified for the purpose of storing poo, well before the completion of Christchurch’s sewerage system meant that on site poo storage was no longer necessary. On top of this, the tank ended its use-life as a convenient place for dumping rubbish. In a similar vein I suppose, the modified ship tank reminds me of different kind of Christchurch tank –the Bob Semple Tank. If the perceived threat of Japanese invasion at the outbreak of World War 2 makes you think about how you can defend New Zealand’s shores when your Home Defence force has no tanks, all you need to do is modify, arm, and armour up a bunch of old Public Works Department D8 caterpillar tractors in a most Monty Python-esque fashion in the local railway workshop. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have any standardised design blueprints, or if you don’t even know whether it will work. If the enemy don’t arrive, and your underpowered, under-armoured, silly looking impractical tractor tanks end up being the target of public ridicule, hey, you can always find another use for them, you can always change them back.

Hamish Williams

References

Pearson, M. 1992. From Ship to the Bush: Ship Tanks in Australia. Australasian Historical Archaeology 10(1) 22-29.

Phillips, T., 2010. Always Ready: Christchurch Fire Brigade: 1860-2010. Christchurch: New Zealand Fire Service, Transalpine Fire Region.

Press [online]. Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Star [online]. Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Whisky, that philosophic wine, that liquid sunshine

Posted on 21 October 2016 by Jessie Garland

It is a well-known truth, in this office at least, that archaeology and whisky go well together. Or, perhaps more accurately, that archaeologists and whisky go well together. With a few exceptions (you know who you are, gin drinkers), it is not at all uncommon to find yourself in the company of an archaeologist with a fine appreciation for a single malt (or two, or three). With that in mind, it’s a bit of a wonder that we haven’t thought to write a blog post combining the two before now (honestly, archaeology and whisky are two of my favourite things, what were we thinking).

It won’t surprise any of our readers, I think, to hear that alcohol bottles are one of the most common artefacts we find on 19th century sites (here in Christchurch and throughout New Zealand). Despite the temperance movement in the late 19th century and the many discussions and testimonies about the evils of the demon drink, alcohol remained a popular product. As with the gin bottles we discussed a while back, however, it can be difficult to know exactly which types of alcohol were originally contained in these bottles – unless we have a label or embossing (and even then, these bottles were reused over and over again for a variety of products). Fortunately for this post, as it happens, we’ve been lucky enough to find a few examples that do have labels, each with their own story to tell about whisky consumption in Christchurch.

“Black beer” bottles of various sizes found in Christchurch. While a large number of these were probably used for beer, the larger quart sizes in particular would also have been commonly used for spirits like whisky and gin. Image: J. Garland.

Old Johnnie Walker. Established in Kilmarnock in the mid-19th century, John Walker (and then John Walker and Sons) has making whisky for far longer than some of you might be aware. It’s advertised in New Zealand newspapers throughout the latter decades of the 19th century. This particular bottle, found on a site in Rangiora, has been cut with a hot wire around the shoulder of the bottle to create a preserving jar out of the base (the jar like shape of the cut base would be used to store fruit or preserves and sealed with wax). Image: C. Dickson (left), Southland Times 16/04/1887: 4 (right).

Genuine pure whisky will never injure the system.

Advertisements for whisky in the 19th century were many and varied. This one, for Teacher and Sons, makes the oft-used claim that “Genuine pure whisky will never injure the system; it is the common inferior stuff which is the curse of the world.” Image: Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser 3/06/1904: 2.

In which an enterprising chemist with only the best of intentions claims to have removed the “drunk” from whisky, but not the exhilarating powers. Amazingly, his discovery doesn’t seem to have taken off. Image: Dunstan Times 30/08/1909: 2.

This label has a bit of a story behind it. We sent it off to the good folks at Whisky Galore, who managed to trace it to the Saucel distillery in Paisley, Scotland – one of the biggest distilleries of the late 19th century (apparently producing over a million gallons a year in the 1890s), but one that has now been completely erased from the landscape. The distillery was established c. the 1790s and continued through into at least the early 20th century (it was taken over by the Distiller’s Company in the early 1900s). It was bought by James Stewart and Co. in 1825 and, although it was resold in 1830 to Graham Menzies, continued to carry the Stewart name for quite some time. There are several advertisements to be found in New Zealand newspapers in the 1860s and 1870s for Saucel or ‘Stewart’s’ whisky from Paisley. Image: J. Garland (left), Taranaki Herald 05/03/1864: 4 (right).

Squirrel whisky! We do not recommend. Image: Tuapeka Times 8/07/1908: 1.

Another old establishment, the Kirkliston distillery was established in 1795 in West Lothian, Scotland. It had a series of owners during the 19th century, including Andrew Stein, who installed a Stein continuous triple still, John Buchanan and Co. and, eventually, John Stewart and Co., who bought it in 1855. Stewart and Co. installed a Coffey still, taking the distillery back to large scale grain distilling rather than using pot-stills. John Stewart and Co., and the Kirkliston distillery, were one of the six Scottish whisky manufacturers who formed the Distillers Company in 1877 (see below!). The Kirkliston distillery was apparently also a large producer, with estimates of 700 000 gallons a year in the 1880s. It’s quite often mentioned in New Zealand newspapers, especially in the 1860s and 1870s. Image: (from top right down) C. Dickson, Press 4/01/1865: 2, Otago Daily Times 1/09/1865: 1, Press 16/11/1864: 5 and Dickson, C. (right).

See? Whisky is totally medicinal. Image: New Zealand Herald 29/07/1925: 12.

Thom and Cameron may be the most common whisky manufacturer we’ve come across in the archaeological record (this is not to say that they were the most commonly consumed, just that their bottles may survive better in the ground that most). They were established in 1850 and had premises in Glasgow, although I’m not sure if this is where the distillery was or not. They made a variety of whiskies, including Glenroy, Rob Roy, Hawthorn, Old Highland Whisky, Special Reserve Whisky and, my personal favourite, Long John Whiskey (named after Ben Nevis whisky distiller John Macdonald, who was apparently quite tall). A description of their distillery in 1888 mentions “immense vats of American oak’, including some that held 10 000 gallons. Image: J. Garland (left), Press 03/10/1895: 1.

We also found the fragments of a Thom and Cameron jubilee whisky jug on a site on St Asaph Street last year. The jug, which depicts a particularly sour faced looking Victoria (she has definitely got her eye on you), would have been made in 1887 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s 50 years on the throne. Image: C. Dickson (left) and The Sale Room (right).

Idle men need Duff’s whisky. Now you know. Image: Auckland Star 9/09/1933: 8.

This flask has a metal capsule seal with the mark of the Distillers Company Ltd, or D. C. L. These guys were formed in 1877 by six Scottish distilleries. By the early to mid-20th century, they had become one of the leading whisky (and pharmaceuticals) companies in Scotland. Image: J. Garland (left), Press 22/04/1916: 5.

We don’t know much about this one, unfortunately. James Heddle was a whisky, gin and cordial manufacturer or distributor based in Leith, Scotland during the latter half of the 19th century. We have advertisements for his products in New Zealand during the 1870s, including for lime cordial, old tom gin and scotch whisky. Image: C. Dickson (left), Wanganui Herald 16/05/1879: 4, Press 22/03/1871: 4, Press 13/01/1925: 10.

As well as importing bottles of whisky, people imported casks and bottled the spirits here. This bottle label says “SCOTCH WHISKY, bottled in New Zealand by B. Perry, OCCIDENTAL HOTEL.” The Occidental was a well-known and well-loved establishment on Hereford Street in Christchurch that was still running until just before the earthquakes. Benjamin Perry, who was proprietor of the hotel during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, holds the distinction of being one of the only licensed victuallers in the city to never be in breach of his liquor license. We couldn’t find any specific reference to whisky being bottled at the hotel (although we did find other references to whisky at the hotel…), but we did find a notice in the paper in the 1910s advertising for washed whisky bottles, presumably for that very same purpose. Image: J. Garland (left), Sun 27/07/1918: 11 (top right), Press 17/01/1903: 8.

And, last but not least, whatever you do, don’t ruin the whisky punch with water. Image: Evening Star 23/01/1884: 2.

Jessie Garland

References

Papers Past. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Townsend, B., 2015. Scotch Missed: The Original Guide to the Lost Distilleries of Scotland. Neil Wilson Publishing, England.

Christchurch uncovered

Exploring Christchurch's past through archaeology

Category Archives: Hotel

In which bottles are used, beer is drunk, and graphic design atrocities are committed

Touring the past

References

Tanks!

Whisky, that philosophic wine, that liquid sunshine