What would we do without glue? Well, it’s estimated that each person in  U.S.A and the U.K. uses 18.2kgs of glue annually. I’m probably more of a Sellotape/Blu-Tack person myself, but those statistics sound impressive! The development of commercial synthetic glues dates from the 1920s and has taken us a long way from using flour and water as wallpaper paste to the point where modern super glues are able to surgically glue flesh wounds together (or accidentally glue your fingers together during your latest DIY project), or even take forensic fingerprints from glass or plastic surfaces.

It’s widely accepted that the first evidence of glue was a substance made by the Neanderthals ca.15000 years ago. They added animal fat to pigment to make water resistant cave paintings in Lascaux. Not to be left out, the Ancient Egyptians made use of similar animal glues in wooden furnishings and the production of papyrus, and the application of animal glue by the Ancient Greeks and Romans can still be seen today in mosaics and mended pottery. From this time until the innovations of the industrial revolution, glue was largely made from animal hides, bones, connective tissue (collagen) and hooves (not just from old horses that were sent to the glue factory). These organic sources were boiled and reduced to gelatine and could be used or dried and stored as a powder. The powder could be later mixed with water and cooked until the desired thickness was obtained (History of Glue 2016).

The first British glue patent was issued in about 1750 but, closer to home, the New Zealand Glue Company had been operating in Woolsten, Christchurch since before 1875. Christchurch’s drainage board petitioned the court for the factory to cease from discharging its effluent into the Heathcote River (Star 15/03/1918: 6, Sun 16/03/1918: 11).

Auckland Star 16/05/1936: 4)

From the industrial revolution to the 1920s both homemade and commercial adhesives were usually based on natural sources. Recipes required at least two basic components— a binder and a solvent.  Extra ingredients were used to increase tack, improve water resistance, flexibility, strength, shelf life and repel insects (Cannon 2010). For instance, animal glue was often cooked with an acid such as vinegar or nitric acid to keep it liquid at room temperature (Cannon 2010). The addition of coagulated cow’s blood was also handy, as it became waterproof when heated. Other binders such as gelatin, fish glue, starch, flour, dextrin, and gum arabic (from the acacia tree), rubber, and egg albumen were also used (Cannon 2010).

Phew! As a reward for sticking with me for the scientific portion of this post – hold tight for a selection of these really great vintage glue jokes…

(Wairarapa Daily Times 23/01/1897: 2).

(North Otago Times 06/07/1901: 1).

Funny right? Now for the specifics – the pot of glue that inspired this post was one that we have found a few times in Christchurch. It was manufactured by Gloy Glue during the early 20th century, (though this company was formed by the 1890s). The proprietor was A. Wilme Collier who operated his adhesive business from 8th Avenue Works, Manor Park, London. This company also manufactured special pastes for photographic purposes, as displayed at the British Industries Fair in 1922 (Blanco & Bull 2013).

The recipe for the vintage Gloy Glue formula is not available. This is often the case with patent records (which can be vague), and they sometimes included statements allowing the patent holder the right to change the formulation or substitute ingredients at will (Cannon 2010). However, Gloy was later reported to have contained dextrin (from starch), mixed with magnesium chloride – which is sometimes used as a coagulant to make products thicker and more viscous. Vegetable glues like this were popular for paper, as they are fast setting, but have a low bond strength (Cannon 2010: 18). Modern day internet reviews appear to be critical of Gloy Glue’s quality. But in my opinion, any manufacturing company that survives for over a century shows real stick-ability, so they must have been doing something right.

Early 20th century Gloy Glue pot. Image: J. Garland.

Perhaps their success was partly due to their catchy marketing – Gloy was first advertised in New Zealand newspapers in 1914, and was amusingly described as “A clean paste for clean people.” Enticing!

(Grey River Argus 6/06/1914: 5).

Rhyming works! A 20th century advertisement for Gloy. The texts reads:
The label is red and “Gloy” pale blue,
the bottle is one to remember you.
Armed with brush you go ahead
“Gloying” daily for daily bread.

It may be that we come across adhesive bottles much more frequently than we are able to identify – they were often packaged in bottles that were the same as those used for ink, and the main defining characteristic of such a bottle would be a wide mouth to access its viscous contents (Lindsey 2016). As is the problem with most artefact identification, general shapes and typing can only take us so far – product manufacturers don’t always adhere to the status quo of shapes. For instance, here is another example of a Gloy glue pot: this type of wide mouth stone ware jar (without the Gloy label), could have contained any number of viscous products.

Gloy Stoneware pot.

The type of adhesive pots that we most often see in our assemblages may also have originally contained mucilage – mucilage being the sticky substance found in plants like aloe vera. Although mucilage for adhesive purposes is generally made of seaweed, flax seed, bark and roots (Lindsey 2016).

Type of glue or mucilage pot commonly found in Christchurch. Image J. Garland.

Just like animal glue, mucilage is non-toxic. So in the 19^th century it would have been fine for the weird kid at school to be eating paste – in fact, other usages for mucilage (that’s a mouth-full), was its common inclusion in cough medicine and as an alleviator of sore throats.  See below for a homemade recipe for children’s cough syrup from 1907. I’m not sure how many of us have exotic South American plant species in our pantries – but hey, it’s organic!

Cromwell Argus 13/05/1907: 7.

Using slightly more common ingredients, here’s a 19^th century recipe for mucilage that you can try yourself:

(New Zealand Herald 2/08/1893: 5).

Within the New Zealand newspaper archives we can see the application of glue developing from more practical DIY uses – like plugging draughts in your floor (New Zealand Herald 29/08/1931: 6), and simple advertisements and recipes for strong glue (Otago Witness 23/10/1875: 3), or waterproof glue (Bruce Herald 8/6/1888: 6) – to its use in leisure projects for the 20^th century idle housewife.

(New Zealand Herald 21/03/1874: 1). Perfume to taste? Hair is organic too.

These more modern glue ads offered descriptions for an array of craft and knick-knack projects, from instructions for  “smartening” one’s umbrella by gluing a bottle cap to it (Evening Post 16/04/1938: 19), and  “silencing” one’s chairs and trays by gluing felt to their undersides (New Zealand Herald 1/08/1925: 6). You could even use glue to stiffen the train of your wedding dress, and thus render train bearers unnecessary in your wedding party (Evening Post 2/11/1938: 25). If you’re more even game than those dames, you could build an 8ft canoe out of 35 coat-hangers, a few strips of canvas, bit of oil cloth, two pieces of wood, a box of drawing pins, paper clips, and a bottle of glue (this sounds like MacGyver recipe!) – and it cost less than 30 shillings to make! (Evening Post 11/01/1937: 6).

The same archives inform us that glue was also employed for more criminal enterprises at this time – most amusingly, in a Parisian jewellery heist, featuring a Baroness with literal sticky fingers! She was caught stealing a diamond ring which was stuck with glue to the palm of her hand (Mataura Ensign 1/05/1911: 5 ). Also, you may have heard about the starving citizens of Leningrad having to eat the glue off their wallpaper during the siege of WWII? – Here, an Oldham street vendor uses glue to thicken and strengthen the gravy in his pies! To make matters worse, he stole the glue (Grey River Argus 13/06/1905: 4). When he was caught, he was sentenced to three months hard labour (for stealing the glue, not for feeding glue to his patrons). But like I said, it’s organic, and contains only 5.9 calories per postage stamp!

By Chelsea Dickson

References

Blanco & Bull 2013. Swift Polish & Blacking Co. [online] Available at:  http://www.blancoandbull.com/boot-cleaning/swift-polish-blacking-co/’

Cannon, A., 2010 Australian Adhesives for Paper 1870-1920. 2010 AICCM Book, Paper and Photographic Materials Symposium. [online] Available at:  https://aiccm.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/BPG2010/AICCM_B%26P2010_Cannon_p15-21.pdf

Gloy Manufacturing Company, Ltd 1897, Patent, Application for Trade Mark titles Gloy depicting octopus in respect of a semi-fluid substances called ‘gloy’ which is used for adhesive purposes by the “Gloy” Manufacturing Company Limited, National Archives of Australia, series number A11708, control symbol 2001, barcode 4993635.

Of all the house sections in all the world, ‘The Smiths’ had to walk into mine. Between 1897 and 1899, that is…

Today on the blog I’ll refrain from making jokes about ‘Brangelina’ and the 2004 movie that shares its name with this post (especially regarding news of their coincidentally timed divorce). Instead, I’ll tell you a tale about the trials, tribulations and triumphs that I experienced recently, while researching the history of a family with the most gloriously common name – Smith. You will also get a peek at how we carry out some of our historic research.

Smith has been the most common surname in New Zealand and England since the 19^th century. So it wasn’t surprising that it was a difficult task to find information on the family of Smiths who owned a house section in Strowan between 1897 and 1899. Large deposits of domestic rubbish were found on this site, and they contained artefacts that were dated from 1897 onwards. This house section only had one previous owner, and he was known to be living in another area of Christchurch at the time, so it seemed logical that the Smiths could have deposited this rubbish.

Happy archaeologists recording a large rubbish pit. Image: C. Dickson

The information that we had about the Smiths was available from the certificate of title for this land parcel, and was limited to their names and occupation (Many Anne Smith, the wife of Henry William Smith (carrier)). Now this would normally be sufficient information for us to determine if this couple lived on this section at the time that they owned it, as they would usually be listed in the Wises Post Office Directories and/or the New Zealand Electoral Roll. In this instance, no one with the last name Smith was recorded to be living on or owning a section on the appropriate street in Strowan at this time, nor was there any mention of them in the newspapers – so it would be easy to assume that this rubbish pit must have been made by a later 20^th century occupant of this site.

This being said, the rubbish deposits in question contained large quantities of artefacts – many with dateable manufacturers’ marks, and many which could be dated by the techniques used to make them. As no maker’s mark was later than 1897 and no machine made glass bottles were present (machine made bottles began to be produced in the first decade of the 20^th century), it seemed more likely that these rubbish pits were filled in the 19^th century.

Pharmaceutical bottle which probably represented Spencer Vincent Pharmacy, located at 214 high Street, Christchurch. This company was first mentioned in Christchurch newspapers in 1897, and this bottle represents the youngest dateable artefact from the rubbish deposit (Donaldson 1990: 151. Star 17/06/1897: 3). Image: C. Dickson

So who could have thrown out the rubbish? The neighbouring sections surrounding this land parcel were not purchased until the 20^th century, and the land wasn’t located in the highly populated central city – so it also seemed unlikely that this rubbish was deposited here by people who lived in the area.  Our section was not located near the corner of an adjacent road, so it seemed unlikely that our residents would use another road for access…

However, the resources that we have available for this type of research were compiled during the 19^th century when recording methods were not always reliable or consistent. As such, we do sometimes come across errors and missing information. A closer look at the postal records of an adjacent road provided a very welcome “Henry Smith (carrier)” as a resident of an unnumbered house in the relevant block along Strowan Road, despite the fact that our modern road (Lloyd Street) had been created more than a decade before! I won’t bore you with too many further details, but the situation became much more complicated from here, and involved making maps showing where all of the residents listed on both of these roads lived (for the next decade). This can be confusing, because the houses are unnumbered, and not all the houses are always listed – so the method involves chasing consistent occupation of unnumbered houses. Tricky right? (To add to the headache, there were about five mistakes in post office directory over this period, and the residents of Lloyd Street were listed on Lloyd Street some years, and Strowan Road other years). Needless to say, complicated and time consuming, but highly rewarding when the pieces (or people) fall into place (yay!). The situation resulted in evidence of consistent occupation of our section by the Smiths from 1897, and then two more families in early 20^th century. Too easy?

Little personal information was available about Henry William Smith, apart from where he resided before and after he lived in Strowan, and the fact that he worked as a carrier in Christchurch in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. During this period, he gave evidence at a court case regarding an eviction dispute – he had helped an evicted shop owner move her soiled, rain drenched goods, after her landlord took the roof off her shop! Nice guy. Mary Anne’s occupation is recorded as a housewife carrying out domestic duties at this time.

Henry Smith (hero!).  An excerpt from the long-winded court case. You think your landlord is unfair!? (Press 10/03/1905: 07).

In 1900, Annie and Robert Meynell purchased the property. Robert was a local contractor who cleaned rivers and drains and was wounded in WW1 (Sun 27/06/1917: 3). The Meynells had a similarly uneventful representation in the local newspapers during their lifetimes, but they leased the house for a couple of years to a character with a much more colourful past. Raphael Portelli (whose antics we have come across before), was a fishmonger who appeared in Christchurch court many times in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. He was charged with a flurry of misdemeanours, including, but not limited to: public drunkenness, using obscene language (Star 19/10/1892: 3), cruely ill-using a horse (Star 26/07/1899: 3), assault, and breaking a window (Star 13/06/1900: 3), driving a cart after sunset without lights 17/04/1901: 3), being drunk while driving a horse and cart (Press 17/07/1901: 3), crashing his cart into someone else’s deliberately (coincidentally, this was the cart of Peter Thompson,  who had previously charged him with assault Star 22/05/1902: 3). His ten-year-old son was even charged with stealing a tricycle (Star 18/06/1896: 3). Imagine how that getaway must have gone!

Ordinarily, it would be safe to assume that any of these residents could have deposited our assemblage, due to the time lag between the manufacture and the deposition of an artefact. However, this assemblage contained a group of artefacts which became a lot more exciting upon realising the Smiths lived here…

You may remember a matching ceramic tea set we posted on our page back in January –  It featured the monogram of a mysterious caterer that appeared to have two different initials and the ability to run his business posthumously? This tea set was found on our section.

L. J. Smith catering tea set, showing correct and incorrect monogram. Image: G. Jackson.

On further inspection, it appeared that one of the two similar sets of initials on these matching tea sets was a mistake. The correct monogram printed on these ceramics can be attributed to Leo Josephus Smith, who was a well-regarded caterer in Christchurch from 1891 to his death in 1897. He catered everything from balls and Lodge functions to school picnics, and – that’s right – he also had the last name SMITH! We have covered the fact that Smith represents a common surname, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that these artefacts turned up on a section occupied by someone with the same last name, during a contemporary time. The likely explanation is that Leo and Henry were brothers – we know from Leo’s obituary that he was the seventh son of Mr W. H. Smith, who arrived in Christchurch “with the pilgrims” (Star 25/10/1897: 4). Henry’s initials match those of Leo’s father’s and it is possible that he was given his father’s names. As the catering business appears to have continued after Leo’s death in 1897, it is possible that Henry and Mary Anne were involved in the continued operation of the business. This is supported by an advertisement in the Press in 1898 which names H. W. Smith as the caterer for a 40-year anniversary picnic of the ship Zealandia (Press 28/09/1898). It turns out that the Zealandia had a William Smith as steerage passenger (Lyttelton Times 22/09/1858: 4). It sounds a lot like this passenger was their father!

And so we come to the end of this historical journey. I hope you’ve shared my excitement about this site – it’s pretty unusual to find an artefact with someone’s name on it, and even more uncommon to have a connection between this person and the occupant of the site where it was found. What’s also cool is that fragments of this tea set were recovered from several rubbish pits at this site – which means that we can assume that they were all deposited at roughly the same time. In this instance, this can only have happened during the three years that the Smiths lived on the section – which is a small window of time in the grand scheme of archaeology!

A piece of the tea set where it was found – inside a metal barrel containing charcoal and other artefacts. Image: C. Dickson

Chelsea Dickson

References

Donaldson, B., Hume, G. and Costello, S., 1990. Antique Bottle and Containers of Christchurch and District. Christchurch Antique Bottles and Collectibles Club, Christchurch.

Today we’re going back to Christchurch’s hinterland, this time to Kura Tāwhiti/Castle Hill, a place that’s still an important and valued part of the city’s surrounds. But in the interests of full disclosure, I feel like I should let you know that, well, I don’t love it in the way that a lot of people do. I can see that it’s beautiful and those rocks are amazing and the archaeology and history’s pretty cool, too (read on for more of that), but it doesn’t move me in the way that it moves other people. I think it’s the lack of water – I need a lake or, better still, a river, to go with my mountains and tussocks. Now that I’ve got that off my chest…

Kura Tāwhiti. Image: K. Watson.

The occupants of Otautahi/Christchurch have been visiting Kura Tāwhiti/Castle Hill for centuries. In fact, like Aoraki/Mt Cook, Kura Tāwhiti has Tōpuni status under the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998. Kura Tāwhiti translates as “the treasure from a distant land”, which is a reference to the kumara. For tangata whenua, Kura Tāwhiti was an important mahinga kai, particularly for those living at Kaiapoi. It was a source of kākāpō, kiore (Polynesian rat), kiwi, tuna (eel) and weka. And it was closely associated with the Ngāi Tahu trails through the Southern Alps, because of the kai and the shelter it could provide. Ngāi Tahu left evidence of their presence here in the form of rock art.

Pākehā followed Māori in 1858, when the Porter brothers took up what would become Castle Hill station. The Porter brothers may have lived in a stone hut near the quarry on the road into what is now Porters ski field, and I believe that the remains of this hut can still be seen today. Six years later, some more brothers took over the station – the Enys brothers, who were in this farming business for the long haul (Acland 1975). Shortly after the Enys brothers came the gold miners, seeking a route to the West Coast (some hardy souls travelled over the Coleridge pass trail, at the head of the Porters ski area, following an old Māori trail), but then along came Arthur Dobson and now we have Arthurs Pass. (Side note: one other archaeological site near Porters that you should be aware of is the old coaching stop. There’s very little to see today, just some old fence posts and fencing wire, but it’s nice to know it’s there.)

The remains of the hut near the Porters ski area. Image: K. Watson.

So, yes, the Enys brothers. There were two of them, John and Charles, and it was John who had most to do with the station and was a regular Renaissance man, being heavily involved in scientific pursuits. And the science he was particularly interested in was that of butterflies (the name of which I will leave as a challenge for you, dear reader), but was also intrigued by plants and geology. Which was fortuitous for him. He is known to have collected fossils from Kura Tāwhiti (now held at Canterbury Museum and Te Papa Tongarewa). And it is perhaps John Enys who is responsible for having brought Kura Tāwhiti to the attention of the wider scientific world – Julius von Haast (director of the Canterbury Museum) visited in 1865 and 1873 and James Hector (director of the Colonial Museum) visited in 1869 and 1872. Enys’s interest in science led him to be the first to identify Ranunculus paucifolius at Kura Tāwhiti (although someone else may have described it earlier) – this is a rare native buttercup (Richards 1951).

The rocks were not just of interest for scientists – capitalists were interested too, because these rocks are limestone, a stone that’s easy to carve and has a beautiful colour that looks fantastic on Gothic buildings. Builders and the like were interested in the stone from at least 1863 (Press 3/5/1863: 2). Fortunately, transporting this heavy material was just too difficult in the absence of rail. Enys quarried some stone for his station buildings, and the Castle Hill hotel (built in 1871, near the modern Castle Hill village) was built from Castle Hill stone (Richards 1951: 6, Taylor 2005: 39). But perhaps the most prominent use of this stone is in our cathedral, Cathedral Church of Christ, Christchurch, where it was used for the font, in the western entranceway and the finial on the spire (Press 20/4/1877: 3, Star 3/6/1881: 3, 23/12/1881: 3). The stone is believed to have been carved by a mason named Davies (Richards 1951: 29). Frustratingly, this has been impossible to prove.

It is reputed that the stone for the cathedral font was cut from this stone. It’s now fenced off to preserve the names carved in it. Image: K. Watson.

The signature of William Davis, carved into a shelter at Kura Tāwhiti. Image: K. Watson.

Enys used the rocks for another practical purpose, establishing yards on the north side of the rocks. Now, the important thing about these from my point of view is that there’s no direct historical record of them: they only survive in the archaeological record. And you too can go and discover them for yourselves today. Just be careful not to turn your ankle in the giant holes left by the posts that have rotted away. Yes, wooden posts. Who knows where the wood came from, but a good distance away.

The remains of a hopper associated with processing lime at Kura Tāwhiti. Image: K. Watson.

Good heavens, so many words and we’ve not even reached the tourists. And it’s the tourism I find particularly fascinating – in the 1890s, Kura Tāwhiti was a popular health resort, believed to be very good for you because of that bracing mountain air and the spectacular scenery (Press 19/3/1890: 4, Star 25/6/1894: 4). No mention of the hellish coach ride, which would surely have taken several days to recover from. For a while, Kura Tāwhiti was even touted as the ideal location for a sanatorium. But it was the distance – and no doubt the coach ride – from Christchurch that saw Cashmere selected as a more accessible alternative (Press 22/7/1905: 11, 31/8/1905: 2; Star 5/2/1909: 1). The the idea didn’t go away: in the 1930s, the Sunlight League wanted to establish a solarium for tuberculosis sufferers at Kura Tāwhiti (Press 29/6/1934: 12, 6/4/1935: 2). And then there were just the general visitors, seeking to take in the beauty of the area and – as the outdoor recreation movement grew – the walks and other activities. Which leads us straight to rock climbing, and the somewhat more friendly-to-limestone pursuit of bouldering.

When you think about it, Kura Tāwhiti has a number of elements of the New Zealand story wrapped up in one beautiful package: Māori and Pākehā connections (and very likely, the restriction of Māori access to their mahinga kai following the Pākehā take up of land), pastoralism, science, nature, beauty, intriguing geology, tourism and sport. There’s art, too, which I’ve not had to time to mention. And preserving that story is archaeology. All of what I’ve related here can be seen in the physical fabric of the place – and more besides. We’ve only told you half the story.

Katharine Watson

Acknowledgements

Research by Christine Whybrew, & the Department of Conservation, who commissioned the work that led to this blog.

References

Acland, L. G. D., 1975. The Early Canterbury Runs. 4^th ed. Christchurch: Whitcoulls.

Press [online]. Available at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Richards, E. C. (ed.), 1951. Castle Hill. Christchurch: Simpson and Williams Ltd.

Star [online]. Available at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Taylor, I. D., 2005. The Road to the West Coast: A history of the road over Arthur’s Pass. Heritage Press Ltd.