Tag Archives: middle class

Early Christchurch women, breaking the rules: the exhibition.

Posted on by
1

The ideal Victorian woman

In Victorian society, a woman was to be meek, mild, virtuous and peaceful (Whiteside 2007). She was expected to marry and have children. She would stay at home, looking after her children and her husband and keeping the house perfectly. Public affairs were men’s matters, although a woman might engage in charitable or other social works, but nothing that could in any way be construed as ‘masculine’. She was selfless – everyone else always came first. She certainly wasn’t involved in politics, and nor did she run a business. At least, that was the theory!

Left: M Heslop & Co (Christchurch) fl 1870s: Portrait of unidentified man, woman and child. Ref: PA2-2063. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23056667. Right: well, it would be an alternative middle class family! Image: Observer 14/11/1903.

In fact, this standard was mostly applied to middle class women, and it seems to have been much less unusual for working class women to, well, work. But there were middle class women who broke these ‘rules’ of Victorian society too, in a range of ways. Discovering the lives of a number of these women in 19th century Christchurch – and our fascination with their ‘hidden’ lives – has led us to curate an exhibition: Women breaking the rules. You can see the physical display at Rewind at Ferrymead Heritage Park on Sunday 14 October, and also follow these women’s stories online via our Instagram exhibition @womenbreakingtherules.

Designed by A. Gibson.

But regardless of class, women were always defined in relation to the men in their life, whether father, brother or husband. So, being a spinster could be difficult and challenging. Much as we might not like it in this day in age, men provided often critical financial security for the women in their lives, particularly in a world where there was no pension or unemployment benefit, let alone a domestic purposes benefit. In fact, there was no state support of any kind in New Zealand until the end of the 19th century, and the poor were reliant on charities for support.

Unlike spinsters, widows seem to have had far more freedom and to have been more ‘respectable’ than unmarried women. While their situation might have been financially difficult, the range of jobs society approved of them taking on was broader than the range available for single women. And widows – as in some of the stories here – often ended up running their husband’s businesses, meaning they took on a variety of professions (Bishop 2012).

Women and work

Yes, women did work in the Victorian era! And not just as domestic servants – although this was far and way the most common occupation for women. In fact, some women ran businesses of their own. The jobs that women took on, though, and even many of the businesses they ran, tended to involve caring, or to be domestic in character. Jobs like teaching or nursing were both acceptable for middle class women (Bishop 2012).

Working class women could take on quite a range of work: dressmaker, needlework, hotelkeeping, storekeeping, confectionary, haberdashery, drapery and so on. Women could also earn money by taking in boarders, doing laundry or by looking after other women’s children. And let’s not ignore that they could be prostitutes. These were all ways of earning money that might fly under the radar and not be recorded officially (Bishop 2012).

Just relaxing under a tree, along with other women, working in the seaside or the countryside, riding a horse… working women and classy ones, all sort of women depicted through the artefacts! Image: J. Garland, C. Watson and M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Telling women’s stories

As regular readers of the blog will know, researching the lives of most people who lived in 19th century New Zealand is tricky – official records can be patchy or may not even exist (Minchinton 2017). People only turned up in the newspapers if they were famous, got in trouble or were advertising for servants, leasing or selling properties. Unless someone has a really unusual name, you often can’t be certain you’re researching the right person.

Mary Portelli, the antithesis of the Victorian ideal, a woman in endless trouble! Images. Right: Star 29/05/1895: 3. Left: Southland Times 20/09/1906: 2.

Studying women’s lives is even harder. For one thing, they changed their surname when they married. Then, they were often referred to only as Mrs…, without their first name, or including their husband’s name instead – for example, Mrs L. J. Smith. Women who ran businesses often traded under their husband’s name, or didn’t advertise at all (Bishop 2012). And, in general, women’s activities meant they didn’t end up in the newspaper.

The branded china L. J. Smith – and presumably Elizabeth, L. J. Smith’s wife – used at events he organised as caterer. Image: C. Dickson.

Despite these difficulties, archaeology and history reveal the lives of six Christchurch women who, in one way or another, broke the rules of late 19th and early 20th century society: Fanny Cole, prohibitionist; Elizabeth Robinson, chemist; Sarah Gault, dressmaker; Elizabeth Smith, caterer; Caroline Rantin, timber and coal merchant; and Mary Portelli, woman in trouble.

There are no Māori women in this exhibition, unfortunately, because we’ve not found any record of Māori women living in 19th century Christchurch. This isn’t to say that they weren’t, just that we’ve not found them yet. If you want to learn more, we highly recommend checking out the book He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women’s Voices from the Nineteenth Century.

Why are these women important?

These six women were not the only exceptional ones who broke the rules. It turns out that there were many more women pushing the boundaries of Victorian society than we initially expected. The six women we’ve featured in this exhibition serve to highlight the lives and occupations of all these women, along with their concerns and daily battles and how they struggled against what was accepted and respectable (Whiteside 2007), whilst working within the confines of the ideals of that time. But slowly, slowly, pushing these boundaries would come to change society as a whole. So, let’s look at the archaeology and the historical record and bring women into the picture!

This exhibition is a joint production between Underground Overground Archaeology and the Christchurch Archaeology Project.

Katharine Watson and Maria Lillo Bernabeu

References 

Bishop, Catherine, 2012. “Commerce Was a Woman: Women in Business in Colonial Sydney and Wellington.” PhD thesis, Australian National University.

Minchinton, Barbara, 2017. “’Prostitutes’ and ‘lodgers’ in Little Lon: construction a list of occupiers in nineteenth-century Melbourne”. Australasian Historical Archaeology, 35, pp. 64-70.

Whiteside, Heidi, 2017. “’We Shall Be Respectable’: Women and Representations of Respectability in Lyttelton 1851-1893”. MA thesis, University of Canterbury.

Touring the past

Posted on by
Reply

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 19th and early 20th 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 20th 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).

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.

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-19th 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).

Sublime weed, Lady Nicotine… the smoking vice!

Posted on by
Reply

‘Tobacco divine, rare, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, a remedy to diseases…But, as it is commonly abused by most men, who take it as tinkers do ale, it’s a plague, a mischief, a violent purge of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul’ (Burton, 1948: 577).

Tobacco is a plant native to America, originally used in religious and medicinal practices by Native Americans. When Christopher Columbus arrived in America in 1492, the locals gave him dried tobacco leaves and then…consumption of tobacco took off among Europeans (Dayton University 2017).

This amazing French moulded clay pipe shows a Native American figure crouching at the front of the bowl, with a smoking pipe in his hand and tobacco leaves decorating the bowl on either side. We don’t yet know who the figure is, but it is the coolest artefact I’ve ever seen so far and also, it fits perfectly with our topic today, doesn’t it? Image: J. Garland.

Tobacco was likely first dried or toasted and chewed, or powdered for inhalation through the nose in what is known as ‘snuffing’. More recently, men and women started using pipes and the predecessors to modern cigarettes to smoke tobacco as a daily narcotic.

A slightly more modern container for ‘dried tobacco’. The label on this tin, found underneath the floors of a farmhouse on the outskirts of Christchurch, indicates that it originally contained cut cake tobacco, possibly originating in Antwerp. Cut cake tobacco was advertised for sale in tins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Mt Ida Chronicle 19/4/1888: 2): the most commonly referenced types appear to be Empire Cut Cake, from Dobie and Sons, and Four-Square Cut Cake (Auckland Star 29/6/1936: 14, Marlborough Express 8/8/1877: 3). Image: J. Garland.

The popularity of tobacco grew quickly in Europe due to its hypothetical curative properties, which were particularly encouraged by Jean Nicot, from whom the genus Nicotiana took the name (Rogers 2010). Over the years scientists began to investigate the chemicals in tobacco and came to understand the dangerous effects that smoking produces. As early as 1826, the pure form of nicotine was discovered and the conclusion drawn that it constituted a harmful poison (Rodgman and Perfetti 2013).

Left: Manawatu Times 18/04/1925: 3. Right top: Auckland Star 24/03/1931: 13. Right bottom: Northern Advocate 11/03/1932: 8.

While the English developed a predilection for the pipe, the Spanish preferred the cigar and The French took a liking to snuff. It was in Spain that the tobacco manufacturing industry produced the small and cheaper versions of the cigar, famously hand-rolled by women workers in Seville. That image captured the imaginations in France, and cigarritos became cigarettes, one of the most commonly used words in the world (Random History 2007-2017).

Snuff! Not just appreciated by the French, if this English bottle is anything to go by. Taddy & Co. snuff jar from London. Taddy and Co. were tobacconists and snuff merchants with a long history – this particular jar dates to their 19th century operations at 45 Minories, London. The company was established in 1740 in London as sellers of tobacco, snuff and tea (Matlach 2013). They became one of the most important tobacco companies in Britain and were well known for their cigarette cards showing famous actors, actresses, footballers or cricketers. The first of its kind that we’ve seen! Image: J. Garland.

‘Morris Cigarettes’ box. In 1847, the famous Philip Morris was established, selling hand rolled Turkish cigarettes. Cigarettes became popular around this time when soldiers brought them back to England from the Russian and Turkish soldiers. Philip Morris was a British tobacconist and cigarette importer, who first manufactured Morris cigarettes, known as ‘Philip Morris English ovals’, in 1854. The name was later used for ‘Philip Morris Inc. Ltd’, established in New York in 1902 (Wikipedia 2017), when he set up a New York headquarters to market its cigarettes, including a now famous Malboro brand. In 1924 Morris began to market its cigarettes to women and gained 38% of the market. ‘Morris Cigarettes’ were first advertised in New Zealand newspapers in 1910 (Temuka Leader 4/01/1910: 1). Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Smoking for pleasure received its greatest endorsement from Sir Walter Raleigh in the 16th century (Latham 2017), and even today, smoking remains prevalent in many cultures, despite its increasing reputation as a bad habit.

A saucer, decorated with a Chinese scene in which a long pipe is smoked. How cool is that? CHANG is the pattern name. This Chinoiserie design featured two figures, dressed in oriental clothing, in a garden or house and the saucer. was made by Holland and Green, in production between 1853 and 1882 (Godden 1991: 331). Image: J. Garland.

Tobacco smoking arrived in New Zealand with the earliest European settlers and tobacco consumption increased quickly during the mid and late 19th century. It wasn’t just an elitist habit, but was also widely spread among the middle and lower classes, especially among working men. Tobacco was fairly accessible at all levels of society and, increasingly, the paraphernalia of smoking – such as clay tobacco pipes – were cheap and disposable.

One of our favourite artefact types, as you well know. In the second half of the 19th century the production of decorated clay pipes increased. These commemorated events, carried slogans and advertisements, animals, fruits or flowers, and they were categorised as fancy clays or fancies (Ayto 1994: 7). We’ve talked about them a few times in older posts either on the blog or Facebook because they are pretty, and we love them! A perfect example of these ‘fancies’ is this smoking pipe featuring the royal bust of Queen Victoria on one side and the words ROYAL JUBILEE PIPE on the other side. This pipe was made for commemorating 60 years of Victoria’s reign in 1897. Also, the name of DUNEDIN is impressed on the one side of the stem, while M[C]PHEE is impressed on the other, referring to George McPhee. He was a tobacco pipe maker in Glasgow from 1861 onwards with his wife, who was a tobacco pipe trimmer (White 2016: 16). George McPhee arrived in New Zealand in 1880. George’s son, John McPhee, started pipe making experiments with a concerted effort to re-launch the business in Dunedin around 1890 and he was making clay tobacco pipes until 1908 (White 2016: 27). The McPhees were at the front of a brand-new industry for New Zealand and they appeared to be the first New Zealand clay pipe makers (White 2016: 27-28). Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

The stem of this pipe, collected from a Christchurch site, is longer than 120 mm, indicating that it belonged to a long pipe like a churchwarden. This type of pipe was easily broken, and it was said that Charles Dickens invented that name or at least he was the responsible for perpetuating the name (Ayto 1994: 6). Churchwarden pipes were mentioned in New Zealand newspapers from at least 1872 onwards (West Coast Times 16/10/1872). The stem had a W. SOUTHORN & CO / BROSELEY maker’s mark, referring to William Southorn, a tobacco pipe manufacturer based in Broseley, Shropshire, England. He established his pipeworks as early as 1823 and they were making tobacco pipes until the 1950s (Science Museum 2017). Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

It wasn’t until 1900 when cigarritos became the most common tobacco product on the market. Along with modern advertising, a key innovation took place at the end of the 19th century century: Virginian James Bonsack patented a machine in 1881 that produced 200 cigarettes per minute, as many in a day as forty human employees rolling by hand! Cigarette smoking increased during the World Wars, during which they were given free to soldiers. An easy way for the companies to create loyal customers! Evidence of this universally widespread habit is recorded archaeologically – we’ve found a variety of American and British brands under the floors of Christchurch houses.

W.D. and H.O. Wills maker’s mark on the top of the lid. This company was founded in 1786 and went by various names before 1830 when it became W.D. and H.O. Wills. Tobaccos and cigarettes made by W.D. and H.O. Wills were very popular with New Zealand smokers. The company began manufacturing tobacco products in New Zealand in 1919 at its factory in Petone, Wellington (British American Tobacco New Zealand 2017). Tobacco was processed and sold under several brand names, some of which were still used by Imperial Tobacco until the second half of the 20th century. The company pioneered the use of cigarette cards within their packaging. Image: C. Dickson.

Top: Cardboard cigarette boxes. CHESS SPECIALLY SELECTED VIRGINIA LEAF/ HIGNETT Bros & Co / ENGLAND CIGARETTES. Bottom: THE ‘GREYS’ SILK CUT VIRGINIA TOBACCO. This second one was reused as a shopping list, headed with the words: ‘Supply Stores’. A range of items can be read: ‘butter, sugar, eggs, […], biscuits, soda, […], cornflour, cookies, jellies, […] fruit, […], dried fruit. What a splendid example of reusing and recycling! Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Top and bottom view of a matchbox. Matchboxes are a relatively uncommon find on Christchurch archaeological sites. They are made of tin, which often remained heavily rusted but still identifiable by the shape. It is believed that Richard Bell from Wandsworth, London, was the earliest exclusive manufacturer of matches (as we know them now), from 1832 onwards (Anson, 1983). Unluckily, this example lacks embossing and we don’t have any information about manufacturer and/or brand, which is a shame. It is a good one though! Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Luckily, we also have a tiny piece of an embossed matchbox! Bell and Black were a match making partnership operating during the mid- 19th century, although exact dates are unclear. Richard Bell began a match business in London in the 1830s and was joined at some point by Black (Anson 1983). Bell and Black matchboxes have been found on sites throughout New Zealand and Australia dating to the mid-late 19th century and accounted for 13% of all matches imported into New Zealand between 1870-1894 (Tasker 1993). The New Zealand market was as good as gold for Bell and Black and in 1895, they decided to open a factory in Wellington. In 1910 the two-successful match producing factories in New Zealand became one: Bryant and May, Bell and Company (Tasker 1993). The new firm consolidated its position and still produces most of the matches used in New Zealand. Left: M. Lillo Bernabeu. Right: Grey River Argus 21/07/1894: 4.

Tobacco also played a significant role in the construction of identity and gender, the notions of masculinity and femininity from the 19th century onwards, both here in New Zealand and across the world. According to the principles of liberalism, men were all self-controlled and rational, while women were biologically incapable of both values (Hilton 2000). The image of respectable male smoker was constructed in the public sphere, into which women could not enter without putting their reputation into risk. And of course, a respectable female didn’t smoke.

How to resist to the charms of cigarettes? Advice for women! Due to their maternal role as the caretakers of children, they shouldn’t smoke? Fair enough, says Dr Roberston Wallace…Gender does matter, and smoking was supposed to be – and probably, actually was – a man thing . Press 27/05/1905: 9.

Observer 7/05/1898: 13. Mrs Cunnington was member of Women’s Social and Politic League, and highly influential in cultural and social life in Christchurch in the late 19th and early 20th century. Of course, you know what I’m thinking…she was colleague of another politically active woman: Fanny Cole. Instead of an image of the popular Sir Walter Raleigh encouraging the smokers, I chose Mrs Cunnington, because she was a woman also endorsing smoking as a good thing, at a time when smoking was a practice typically associated with men. We love (well, I love) transgressor women (in the positive meaning of the word): women who broke the established rules to achieve equality rights. And Mrs Cunnington was one of those, as was Mrs Cole, in their different ways.

As the Temperance Union brawled to reduce alcohol consumption, women also starred in the struggle against the vice of smoking. Observer 1/10/1901: 12.

The male smoker was not just a consumer, but instead a true friend and a passionate follower of the goddess nicotine. The pleasure of smoking could be enjoyed along with other entertainments like dancing, drinking or gambling, a kind of freedom only stopped apparently, by getting married (see below).

Observer 1/02/1908: 17.

Lastly, let’s say that smoking as male habit turns around well into the 20th century, when women began to smoke, in part to liberate themselves symbolically from political and social oppression. Smoking as an expression of maturity, sexiness and sophistication linked to the liberal notions of independence and individuality, eventually lessened the male monopoly on tobacco.

See, definitely entangled with gender issues! Free Lance 18/07/1914: 8.

Evening Post 3/12/1927: 15. Hope you allow me the ironies today. I absolutely agree, it seems a comfy suit. But I don’t understand why in particular for the smokers. Ha! Gotcha! To put the smoking stuff in your pockets! There is no doubt, clever design!

Unfortunately, we haven’t found much sure evidence of women smoking (or specifically of men, to be fair) in the archaeological record. Women feature as decoration on clay pipes, and we’ve found a few examples decorated in styles usually associated with ‘the feminine’, but – as we’ve discussed before on the blog – attributing gender to objects in archaeology is not always as easy as we would like.

Feminine pipes? Who knows! Anyway, on top, two colourful pipes decorated with flowers and at the bottom, a fancy pipe with a female figure ridding side-saddle along the stem. Certainly, an elegant lady! Image: J. Garland.

At this point, only left an essential question…is smoking a vice?

What a witty man… Observer 1/12/1906: 16.

Maria Lillo Bernabeu

References

Anson, D., 1983. Typology and Seriation of Wax Vesta Tin Matchboxes from Central Otago: A New Method of Dating Historic Sites in New Zealand. [online] Available at http://nzarchaeology.org/cms/NZJA/Vol%205%201983/NZJA5.115-138Anson.pdf [Accessed November 2017]

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

British American Tobacco New Zealand, 2017. [online] Available at: http://www.batnz.com/group/sites/BAT_9VNKQW.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DO9T5K5C [Accessed November 2017}

Burton, R., 1948. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Tudor Publishing. New York.

Dayton University, 2017. The History of Tobacco, [online] Available at: http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/tobacco/history.htm [Accessed November 2017]

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

Hilton, M., 2000. Smoking in British popular culture 1800-2000. Perfect Pleasures. Manchester University Press. Manchester and New York.

Latham, A.M.C., 2017. Sir Walter Raleigh. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Raleigh-English-explorer [Accessed November 2017]

Paper Past. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. [Accessed November 2017]

The Long Tobacco Road. A History of Smoking from Ritual to Cigarette, 2009. [online] Available at: http://www.randomhistory.com/2009/01/31_tobacco.html [Accessed November 2017]

Rodgman, A. and Perfetti, A., 2013. The Chemical Components of Tobacco and Tobacco Smoking. CRC Press. Taylor & Francis Group. Boca Raton. London. New York.

Tasker, J., 1993. NZ Matches and Matchboxes. Ohinemuri Regional History Journal, Vol. 37. [online] Available at http://www.ohinemuri.org.nz/journals/65-journal-37-september-1993/1370-nz-matches-and-matchboxes [Accessed November 2017].

White, S., 2016. The McPhees: New Zealand’s first clay pipemakers. Archaeology in New Zealand, v. 59, pp.10-28.

 

Class, wealth & power

Posted on by
2

The challenge for this week’s blog was to consider class and buildings – more specifically: houses. When I decided to write this post, I thought it’d be relatively straightforward – I have a really interesting house to tell you about, and it definitely has something to say about social stratification. But I’ve started writing this about four times now, and each time it’s beaten me, because I’m struggling to understand and outline what this house says about class. As Jessie outlined in our last post, class is tricky. And the more you look at it, the harder it seems to get. To echo our last post further, we just don’t understand class in 19th century Christchurch well enough yet to begin to try and interpret very real objects in relation to this slippery, ephemeral concept.

North elevation, cottage. Image: L. Tremlett and M. Hennessey.


North elevation, cottage. Image: L. Tremlett and M. Hennessey.

Let’s start with the basics. I think we can all agree that social stratification is readily apparent in houses today. It was no different in 19th century Christchurch. But what sort of social stratification are we actually seeing? Class is only one means by which society is stratified. The two other primary means are power and wealth, both of which are easier to define than class – and can clearly be related to class, and/or each other. Power can be social power, or economic, political, financial or even the power of celebrity. At its most simplistic level, wealth relates to how much money you have, and can also include the value of your assets. I’m sure economists and accountants have much finer, more nuanced ways of defining this concept, but we’ll stick with the obvious for now.

Of these three concepts, it seems to me that wealth is easiest to examine through tangible objects (whether the china you buy or the house you live in). It’s still not that simple, though: you might not choose to spend your money on material goods, preferring instead to travel, or to invest for the future, or to donate to charity. Or you could live on credit, living beyond your means to maintain a facade of wealth (possibly for status-related reasons). Different things, after all, are important to different people.

When it comes to houses and interpreting the wealth of the occupant, there are some other factors that need to be considered. Did the occupant build this house for themselves? Or did they buy a house that someone else built? Or are they a tenant? And if this last is the case, is it an indication of a relative lack of wealth, of an inability to generate sufficient income to pay a deposit? New Zealand society today places a high value on owning your own house, but was this always the case? I don’t know too much about the housing market in 19th century Christchurch, in terms of what sort of deposit was required and/or what the mortgage rates were – this isn’t to say this research hasn’t been carried out, just that there hasn’t been time to look into this for this post.

The house I’m going to tell you about today was built as a rental property, but would eventually be occupied by someone who owned it. The house was in the northeast corner of the area bounded by the four avenues, and was built in the early-mid 1880s. It was a rather lovely little house. It was a single-storey bay villa, with a decorative barge board and a finial on the gable end (as an aside, we don’t often see these things on the 19th century villas we record, possibly because they get removed during the 20th century), and a verandah next to this. The bay had a decorative bay window with a pair of sash windows in it and the front door had both fan and sidelights, and there was another pair of sash windows next to this. In keeping with the fashion of the times, this facade was clad in rusticated weatherboards.

Decorative features on the street-facing facade: finial (top left), bay window (right) and bargeboard (lower left). Image: L. Tremlett.


Decorative features on the street-facing facade: finial (top left), bay window (right) and bargeboard (lower left). Image: L. Tremlett.

Already, these components would have told the visitor to the house something about its occupants. The key things were the fashionable rusticated weatherboards; the double – rather than triple – sash windows; the decorative features; and the narrowness of the facade, indicating a relatively small building (this was no quarter-acre section). Based on what we’ve seen elsewhere in Christchurch, I think that these would’ve told the visitor that someone ‘respectable’ lived here, someone who could afford the niceties of life, but who also lived modestly, whether through choice or circumstance – and I cannot stress strongly enough that these are suppositions, untested hypotheses, and should not be taken as truths.

When the visitor opened the front door, they would have seen a ‘properly’ laid out Victorian home (regrettably, we know nothing about the furnishings, furniture or bric-a-brac the occupants used to decorate this house – another problem when examining status via a house). Straight ahead was an arch (with lovely plaster consoles) that separated the public and private spaces. Between the front door and the arch, there was a door to the master bedroom, where you could stow your coat while visiting and, to the left, the parlour or front room, where the visitor would have been entertained.

Looking down the hallway from just inside the front door, with the door to the master bedroom at right. Image: L. Tremlett.


Looking down the hallway from just inside the front door, with the door to the master bedroom at right. Image: L. Tremlett.

Most visitors probably never went into the ‘private’ part, and thus never knew what was in there. So they wouldn’t have known that, while there were ceiling roses in the parlour and master bedroom, there were none in the rooms in the rear of the house. In addition, the height of the skirting boards reduced behind that arch and so did the thickness of the doors. And there were plinth blocks in front of the arch, but none to the rear. Plinth blocks aren’t even something we find in homes that we think belong to the moderately or the comfortably well-off – I think of plinth blocks as being restricted to the homes of the truly wealthy. We don’t see them often. There might have been other differences, too, but these were the ones that were still evident in 2013. Of course, the visitor could well have suspected these differences, given the image presented by the house’s facade, and because these differences between public and private spaces were not uncommon in Victorian villas. But the reality is that, in houses of this size (and in a house with ‘only’ pairs of sash windows on its street-facing facade), I wouldn’t have expected these differences, because we don’t often see them in small houses – which could be a problem of survival.

Top: the ceiling rose in the parlour. Bottom: the plinth block in the parlour. Image: L. Tremlett.


Top: the ceiling rose in the parlour. Bottom: a plinth block at the base of the door between the parlour and the hall. Image: L. Tremlett.

The first occupant of this house was a Mrs Sarah Gault, a dressmaker who lived there from 1886 until 1889. Mrs Gault was Irish. She arrived in New Zealand in 1883, with her father Davis Black, other members of her paternal family and an Alexander Gault (Press 23/4/1883: 2, 9/6/1890: 4) – husband, brother-in-law, son? It’s not been possible to work out so far. Mrs Gault set up her dress-making business in Fitzgerald Avenue, operating from her home, a common practice for dressmakers in the 19th century (Malthus 1992, Star 21/4/1884: 4). A year later she moved into the house in question here, and continued to operate her business from home (Star 3/11/1885: 4). In the Wises Post Office directories (sort of like the White Pages, listing who lived at what address), she was listed as the only occupant of the house in question – this doesn’t mean that she was the only occupant, but it does mean that she was the chief breadwinner, and possibly that there wasn’t a man living at the house (as the male of the house was typically listed in the directories). In 1889, Sarah Gault moved elsewhere in the city, and continued to run her business from home (Star 10/9/1889: 2).

Mrs Gault’s trade meant that she would have received her clients at home, measuring and fitting them in her parlour (Malthus 1992). In her line of work, image may have been very important, depending on the type of clientele she wished to attract. The ceiling roses and plinth blocks, and the barge boards and finial, may have conveyed to her clients that, although she lived in a small house, she understood how one was ‘supposed’ to live and even – this could be quite a stretch – that she was ‘respectable’, often held to be a terribly middle class characteristic. (But to me those plinth blocks suggest something more than middle class.) These features may also indicate the type of client she wished to attract.

So maybe you can tell something about class by looking at a building? While this building doesn’t say much to me about power (at least, not in a simple, immediately obvious way – it might be possible to extract some more subtle readings of power), it may say something about the relative wealth of its occupants: it suggests to me that Mrs Gault was doing reasonably well, business-wise, as this is unlikely to have been cheapest rental around – but maybe it was a financial stretch for her, and she chose it because of the image it conveyed to her clients? It’d be interesting to know about the house she moved to next, and why she moved there. Certainly, there’s nothing in the newspapers to suggest that she was in financial difficulties. What I’ve outlined is a theory only, though, it’s an untested hypothesis, and the next houses we record may prove all of this completely wrong. But I guess that’s the joy of doing research: you develop a theory, you test it, you see what you learn. And slowly, slowly, you maybe begin to understand.

Katharine Watson, Luke Tremlett & Rosie Geary Nichol

References

Malthus, J., 1992. Dressmakers in nineteenth century New Zealand. In Brookes, B., Macdonald, C. and Tennant, M. (eds). Women in History 2: Essays on women in New Zealand. Bridget Williams Books, Wellington.

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

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

Stay classy, Christchurch

Posted on by
Reply

Class is a complicated concept, historically and in the present day. It’s difficult to define, somewhat ephemeral, and yet so clearly there in our societies and our cultures. For better or for worse, social stratification has been part of human life for a really long time now and it shows, in our material culture, in our buildings and in our landscapes.

As a consequence, class, much like gender, is visible in the archaeological record, although not without a whole lot of complications (as is always the way, really). If there’s anything I’ve learned while I’ve been researching this (other than how idiotically ambitious it was to try and write about class in a short blog post), it’s that class is one of those concepts that depends.

To start with, it depends on how we’re interpreting it, and on what kind of ideas and experiences we’re using to make sense of it. It’s very easy, when interpreting and talking about concepts like class, to project our own present day ideas back onto past societies, because they’re the frame of reference we’re working from. I know that our discussions about class here in the office over the past week have constantly touched on class as we understand it now, especially as we tried to untangle our thoughts about what it is and how it’s represented in our material culture.

It also depends on how we’re defining it: are we talking about a part of society which shares similar socio-economic characteristics – i.e. income, social values, social behaviour, consumer choices – or are we talking about a part of society explicitly defined by the way it contrasts with other parts of society. After all, the ‘lower classes’ are only so-called because of how they differ from the ‘middle classes’ and the ‘upper classes’, aren’t they?

A 'definition' of middle class from 1896. Image: Star

A ‘definition’ of middle class from 1896. Image: Star 18/07/1896: 3

Typically, from a characteristics perspective in Western society (and I’m being really general here), upper class denotes inherited family prestige and/or great wealth; middle class tends to refer to a combination of ‘white collar’ professions, comfortable incomes, a certain level of education and/or social manners; and lower or working class to blue collar jobs, lower end incomes, lower levels of education, etc. We’re certainly used to hearing these kinds of class definitions for Victorian society, if not for our own.  Even as I’m writing this, though, I find myself disagreeing, thinking of exceptions, of variations within these definitions. How accurate, how universal are these distinctions? I end up with more questions than answers (and more than a little brain melting).

It depends on how we’re looking at it. From an archaeological perspective, we interpret individual and group behaviour and activities through the physical remnants of people’s lives. This includes intangible concepts like class, which are represented in the things people buy and use and the differences in those things between separate social groups. These differences could be stylistic, they could be cost or value based, they could be functional. If we’re using ceramics, we could look at the differences in decorative techniques and patterns between households, the differences in the types and forms of teawares and tablewares that people owned, or the relative cost of those different objects.

Ceramics from Violet Cottage. Clockwise from top left: a tureen, a Fibre-decorated side plate, the base of a serving dish and a colander. Image: C. Dickson.


Ceramics from Violet Cottage. Clockwise from top left: a tureen, a Fibre-decorated side plate, the base of a serving dish and a colander. Ceramics like these can offer insights on the social status of their owners, through the variety of forms present, the decorative techniques and patterns used and the relative value of the vessels. Image: C. Dickson.

For example, archaeological studies elsewhere in the world have associated plain or minimally decorated tea and dinner sets with middle class Victorian households, for whom they’re not just aesthetically pleasing, but associated with ideals of gentility, domesticity and a kind of conformity with the fashions and ideals of their neighbours (Fitts 1991). Other studies have looked at the different types of ceramic vessels people owned: the more variety of types – i.e. the more elaborate and specialised the dinner set – the better off the household might be (Brooks 2002). Even more studies have looked at the relative cost of certain types of ceramic, to see if they might correspond to differences in the social status of households (Miller 1991). There’s always a danger here, though, of making broad, uncritical assumptions about social status or beliefs from artefacts (i.e. we have plain ceramics, therefore we have a middle class household). It definitely helps to have a good historical record for the site or assemblage:  the more historical context we have, the more we can use material culture to explore how people navigated and dealt with social classes, rather than just using it to identify a certain class.

A bone china jug from Christchurch, with sprigged decoration. Bone china, particularly plain or minimally decorated examples, have been considered characteristic of the middle classes elsewhere in the world (Fitts). Unfortunately, we don't yet know how this applies to a Christchurch context. Image: C. Dickson.

A bone china jug from Christchurch, with sprigged decoration. Bone china, particularly plain or minimally decorated examples, have been considered characteristic of the middle classes elsewhere in the world (Fitts 1991), and a reflection of certain middle class values, like domesticity, virtue and modesty. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know how this applies to a Christchurch context. Image: C. Dickson.

Context is hugely important when it comes to questions like this. More than anything else, I think, our understanding of social class depends on where and when we’re looking at it. Class is quite a fluid concept and reflects the various social, economic and cultural processes of different times and places. The characteristics of the different social classes in Christchurch, for example, are not the same as the characteristics of those classes in London, or even America, although they may be influenced by them. They’re not even the same as other cities in New Zealand. We’re operating in a very different social and historical context here: different background, different population demographic, different physical, social and economic environment. It’s been said that Christchurch’s upper class, or ‘elite’, was smaller and far more fluid than its British counterpart: here, the upper classes included professionals (lawyers, business owners, etc) who would elsewhere have been considered middle class (McAloon 2000: 193-221). It’s also likely that the so-called middle class of the city was larger than elsewhere and, again, more varied. Although, really, it’s hard to say.

You have to ask then, how did the idiosyncrasies (economic, political, cultural) of Christchurch society affect the definitions of classes in the city? Did it make the differences between what would elsewhere be considered the lower class and the middle classes less pronounced? Was there more mobility between the social classes here than elsewhere? Did people back then actively consider themselves to be middle or upper or lower class or are we just giving them our own labels? Were distinctions in the material culture of different social classes more or less obvious than in, say, England? And most of all, can we see this in the archaeological record?

The answer to the last one is yes, probably, but it’s going to take a while. At this stage, we haven’t excavated enough sites with known class contexts to make any meaningful interpretations of social status in 19th century Christchurch. Before we can start to explore how people in different social groups were using material culture we need to look a bit more at what those different social groups were and how we might be able to associate them with certain types of artefacts. And that requires lots of archaeological sites with good historical records, and the time to compare them all. It’s difficult, but not impossible, and certainly something we’re working on.

As of now, we really only have a few very, very preliminary observations on social status in Christchurch. We’ve noticed that a lot of the residential sites we’re digging up here have very similar artefact assemblages: this might reflect a less pronounced class distinction in the city, the prevalence of one particular social class (the middle) here, or that the material culture of Victorian Christchurch is just too uniform to be a good indicator of class. Alternatively, it might just reflect the sample of sites we’ve excavated so far. We certainly haven’t noticed the kinds of patterns here that have been commented on elsewhere: there’s not been much of a prevalence of plain ceramics here, or contrasts between assemblages with a wide variety of forms and those with just a few types. We have noticed some interesting correlations between the styles of buildings and the social positions or professions of their occupants, especially when it comes to the contrast between the public and private spaces within houses (next week’s post!). It’ll be intriguing to see how these observations change as time goes on and we gather more data. No matter what, it should be interesting!

Jessie Garland

References

Brandon, J. C., 2009. A North American perspective on race and class in historical archaeology. In Majewsk, T. and Gaimster, D., eds. International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, pp. 3-16. Springer, New York.

Brooks, A., 2002. The cloud of unknowing: towards an international comparative analysis of eighteenth and nineteenth century ceramics. Australasian Historical Archaeology 20: 48-57.

Fitts, R., 1991. The archaeology of middle-class domesticity and gentility in Victorian Brooklyn. Historical Archaeology 33(1): 39-62

McAloon, J., 2000. The Christchurch elite. In Cookson, J. and Dunstall, G., eds). Southern Capital Christchurch: Towards a City Biography, 1850-2000., pp. 193-221. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch.

Miller, G.,1991. A revised set of CC index values for classification and economic scaling of English ceramics from 1787 to 1880. Historical Archaeology 25(l): l-25.