THE MEANINGLESS PUBLIC SMILE?
HOUSING, MASS
CONSUMPTION AND
MATERIAL AMBIGUITY
IN THE ROCKS, (c1833-c1931)
This thesis was submitted for examination in November 1999. It was reprinted, with minor typographical and grammatical ovmctions, in September 2000.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PRELUDE •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 1
1 INTRODUCTION •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 3 BACKGROUND .......................................................................................................................... 3
The Purpose .................................................................................................................................... 4 OU1LINE OF TI-lE STUDy ........................................................................................................... 4 LIMITATIONS AND ASSUMP110NS .............................................................................................. 5 KEy REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 5 DEFINITIONS ............................................................................................................................ 6
2 ApPROACHES TO HOUSES AND HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES ............. 7 HOUSE CONTENTS, HUMAN AGENCY AND SOCIAL RESISTANCE ............................................... 7 HOUSES AND SOCIAL DOMINATION .......................................................................................... 8 'SLUMS' ...................................................................................................................................... 10 ENVIRONMENT OF CHOICE AND ENVIRONMENT OF CIRCUMSTANCE ....................................... 11 SUMMARy .................................................................................................................................. 11
3 NATURE OF THE DATA ................................................... 12 'filE CUMBERLAND/GLOUCESTER STREETS SITE ...................................................................... 12 'filE NATURE OF THE DEPOSITS ................................................................................................ 12
Selection rif the Houses and Deposits .................................................................................................... 16 Comparabili!J rif the Deposits ............................................................................................................. 22
USING THE DEPOSITS ............................................................................................................... 24 Assumptions ............................................. ...................................................................................... 24 Methodology .................................................................................................................................... 25 Artifact Collection and Reporting ................................................ ........................................................ 25
CONGLOMERATE-HoUSEHOLD DEPOSITS ................................................................................ 25
4 THE HOUSES ............................................................... 26 HOUSING IN NINETEENTI-I-CENTURY SYDNEy ......................................................................... 26
The Rocks ...................................................................................................................................... 26 'filE CRITERIA ........................................................................................................................... 27 THE RANKING .......................................................................................................................... 31 SUMMARy .................................................................................................................................. 36
5 HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES: INTRODUCTION .............................. 37 METI-lODS ................................................................................................................................. 37
Minimum Vessel Counts ................................................................................................................... 37 'filE AGE OF GOODS ................................................................................................................. 38 LOOKING WITI-lIN HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES .................................................................................. 38
6 FURNISHINGS, TABLEWARES AND OTHER HOUSEHOLD GOODS. 40 FURNISHINGS, LAMPS AND ORNAMENTS ................................................................................... 40
Lamps and ughting ......................................................................... ................................................ 41 Ornaments .............. ........................................................................................................................ 42
FOOD-SERVING VESSELS .......................................................................................................... 43 Function ......................................................................................................................................... 43 Decorative Tjrpe .. ............................................................................................................................. 46 Drinking Vessels and Alcohol Consumption ......................................................................................... 48 Cutlery ........................................................................................................................................... 49
SUMMARy .................................................................................................................................. 51
The Meaningless Public Smile?
7 SMALL INDULGENCES:
JEWELLERY, TOYS AND OTHER PERSONAL ITEMS ................. 52 Jewellery ......................................................................................................................................... 55 Timekeeping Devices and Alber! Chains .......... ..................................................................................... 58 Clothing .............................................. ........................................................................................... 58
PERSONAL CARE AND HYGIENE ............................................................................................... 61 'Quack Cures' ................................................. ................................................................................ 62
CHILDREN'S Toys ..................................................................................................................... 62 SUMMARy ...............................................................................................•.................................. 64
8 PATHS OF IGNOBLE DESCENT?
GUESSING THE MARKET PLACE OF URBAN CONSUMERS •••••••••• 65 SHOPPING IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY ...................................................•.......................•... 65 SHOPPING IN SYDNEY ............................................................................................................... 66
Social Histories ................................................................................................................................ 68 Other evidence: Markets, Pawn Shops and Sellers on the Doorstep ............................................................. 68
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE .......................................................................................... 72 The Broken Record ........................................................................................................................... 75 Shopping and Archaeological Variability .............................................................................................. 76
THE URBAN MARKET PLACE AND ARCHAEOLOGY ................................................................... 76
9 ENVIRONMENTS OF CHOICE AND
THE MEANINGLESS PUBLIC SMILE .................................... 77 HOUSES AND HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES .............................................................•........................... 77 ENVIRONMENTS OF CHOICE ..................................................................................................... 78 SUPPLYING THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHOICE: THE AGES OF MAsS CONSUMPTION ..•................. 79 THE MEANINGLESS PUBLIC SMILE ............................................................................................ 80 MATERIAL AMBIGUITY AND THE COGNIZANCE OF SCALE ........................................................ 82
10 CONCLUSION ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 83
REFERENCES ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 85
ApPENDICES •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 90 1 SCHEDULE OF STRATI GRAPHIC UNITS ................................................................................... 91 2 UNDER THE FLOOR OF 5 CARAHERS LANE ............................................................................ 96 3 MINIMUM VESSEL COUNTS .................................................................................................... 114
The Meaningless Public Smile?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge and thank the following individuals and organisations, for their assistance, support and
feedback throughout the course of this study.
My supervisor, Roland Fletcher, for continuous support and conceptual input. Aedeen Cremin for dealing
with crises in the Roland's absence. Andrew Wilson for help with Maplnfo and site formation. John Clegg,
Tracey Ireland and Pirn Allison for other help along the way.
The Sydney Harbour Foreshores and Rocks Visitors Centre, particularly Wayne Johnson and Susan Duyker, for
providing me with reports and databases, and allowing me access to research archives.
Godden Mackay Logan for allowing me access to reports, maps and plans, the database, photographs and
slides. To the excavators and specialists of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site project, on which this
study is based, who provided information and feedback: Kate Holmes, Dominic Steele, Nadia lacono, Graham
Wilson and Grace Karskens. I wish also to make a general acknowledgement to the work of all those involved
in the project. Their detailed study of artefacts, family history research, and site development has been a great
benefit to the development of this study.
Especial thanks to Richard Mackay, Nadia lacono and Matthew Kelly, for advice and encouragement and
taking time out to review drafts.
Wendy Thorp, for giving me permission to draw upon concepts outlined in an unpublished report.
And finally, thanks to my family for tolerating me. Especial thanks to my sister, Anna, for proofing many
chapters of the text; my brother William for proofing other bits, assisting with figures and being courier; and
my aunt, Robby, for emergency supplies of Vitalite. And to Mark, for last-minute assistance and endless
patience and care.
This study has been assisted by the Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund.
PRELUDE
Outlining the limitations of his study of contemporary British housing The Things We See: HOllses, published in 1947, Lionel Brett began his book with an 'excuse'. He flagged to his reader the complexity of the material
world of domestic life that he could not address in a study of architectural style and fashion:
EXCUSE
The truth is that to write a book about Houses is as wild an undertaking as to write a book about People. Think of the great multitude of English houses, row upon row, smoking into city sunsets or shyly clinging to the skirts of village elms, the mind reels. This is a private world. Behind the decent or the defiant street face, behind the lamplit curtain, a personality as varied and as subtle as the human character itself is hidden. The neat photographer stops in a silent street, focuses, waits while a few children freeze and stare; then the sun comes out, the house smiles a meaningless public smile, and off he goes winding his film, having discovered nothing. After the builder has gone, and until death by bomb or pickaxe, the house is a home and can only be judged by processes quite beyond the scope of this series. All through, as we discuss fashion in the house's face and form and clothing, it will do no harm to realise that we are skating the surface of a lake of unknown depth.
This complexity will not be an 'excuse' in this study. In fact, it is its subject: the often incongruent relationship
between the 'meaningless' public fa~ade and world behind the lamp lit curtain. Archaeology provides the means
to judge some of the processes that were beyond Brett's study, to move toward an understanding of the
'home( s)' that filled the years between the builder and the pickaxe, in the life of a domestic dwelling. It is the world - material and social- between the builder, the pickaxe and the photographer that I wish to explore in
this study. And, while the 'depth of this lake' remains unknown, with archaeology, perhaps we can plunge a
little deeper.
1 Introduction P og e 1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
A review of published literature over the past decade or so, reveals a tendency for archaeologists who study the
material remains of the modem world, to analyse, interpret and discuss either houses or house contents, rarely
both - although there are exceptions.
Clearly, the frame of the house you live in and the goods brought into that house play a different role in daily
life, and interpretations we may derive from them will be different. There are some circumstances where the
interpretations that stem from them can be ahnost oppositional.
This is certainly true of the material world of the Rocks area of Sydney in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. When Sydney City Council officials inspected this area from the 1870s to 1900s, they considered many of the houses to be insanitary and, between 1880 and 1901, ordered the demolition of 4,000
buildings considered 'ruinous and dangerous' or 'unfit for human habitation' (Mayne 1993:102, 1990:51).
Archaeologists, however, examining the house contents deposited in the yards, cesspits and under floors from a
few blocks in the area, found domestic assemblages suggesting a clean and comfortable domestic environment
- a 'respectable working class'. Were we today to study only the houses, we might concur with the city
council men and journalists who sensationalised the 'slums' of the Rocks, for there is historical and
archaeological evidence of an urban precinct in decline. Were we to consider only the house contents, we
might argue for a quasi-middle-class level of comfort and overlook the tiny rooms and yards, the effects of
overcrowding, excessive subdivision, rising damp, crumbling walls and inadequate sewerage facilities.
It is not the goal to choose one interpretation over the other, what is interesting is where the two unexpectedly
meet: the respectable domestic assemblage existing within a shell of urban decay; small things moving into and
being consumed and discarded within the frame of a building that is showing the effects of being consumed
over a 40, 50 or up to 90 year period. It is this meeting point, or intersection that Lionel Brett touched upon
when he described the 'private world ... behind the lamplit curtain' undiscovered by the photographer who
could only capture the meaningless public smile of the house's fac;:ade.
This pursuit of such meeting points has been suggested by Leone and Crosby (1988) as a good approach to
exploring incongruence or ambiguity between historical and archaeological data. To my knowledge, no
historical archaeologist has proposed examining the incongruence between large-scale material data sets -houses and house contents. However, the statement that different parts of the material world are different has
been put forward by Roland Fletcher (1995). Each scale of material (city-scale or house-scale, for example)
changes at different rates over time and plays a different role in the 'restriction and regulation of community
life' (Fletcher, 1995: 8). While Fletcher's work has only recendy received attention in Historical Archaeology
(Connah 1999, Allison 1999: 17), it has an important bearing on the avenues of inquiry pursued in historical
archaeology, and is a founding principle of the framework of this study of housing in the Rocks.
1 Introduction P ag e 3
THE PURPOSE
The purpose of this study is to explore the apparent incongruence of houses and house assemblages in the
well-known urban environment of the Rocks, Sydney, in the later-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries -
the respectable interior versus the external 'slum'. The subject is as much the difference between two parts of
the domestic material world, as it is the interpretations we draw from each. While the aim is to reach a better
understanding of the past people and things of the Rocks, it also seeks to go beyond the particulars of one
neighbourhood, and address concerns important to other studies of domestic material remains.
I intend to explore the incongruence of houses and house assemblages, starting from the platform of the work
of others who have observed it, directly and indirectly, in studies pitched at a neighbourhood scale. I will examine five houses and their assemblages from the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site, excavated in 1994 by
Godden Mackay Heritage Consultants. Drawing on Wendy Thorp's elucidation of the 'environment of circumstances' and 'environment of choice' (see Chapter 2), I will pursue the question: 'can an environment of
choice be reconstructed within the frame of any environment of circumstance?' This can be demonstrated by
the similarity of household assemblages, including items considered 'luxuries' to working-class people, within the frame of different houses. Conversely, it may be disproven or diluted by the demonstration that better
quality goods are found in relation to the better houses.
This is, consciously, an archaeological interrogation of archaeological data, asking an 'archaeological question':
what is the relationship between these parts of the material world and what can that tell us about the lives of
people living in Rocks at that time of their deposition. This may seem to be in conflict with Thorp and
Karskens' (1992) important argument for the pursuit of 'historical questions' in historical archaeology.
However, 'historical questions' and 'archaeological questions' can exist in tandem and contribute to each other. In fact, it is the insights derived from both these authors and many others who have addressed historical
questions in their work on the Rocks, that has sparked this study.
OUTLINE OF THE STUDY
This study begins with a review of how some scholars have approached the study of houses and house
assemblages (Chapter 2), then an outline and discussion of the archaeological data used in this study (Chapter
3). The framework of the 'environment of circumstance' is established by assessing each building and
apportioning a relative order of 'quality' based on criteria outlined (Chapter 4).
The analysis of house assemblages, a more challenging and complex task, begins with observations of the
assemblages en masse (Chapter 5) and the rationale behind the more detailed discussion of household goods
(Chapters 6) and 'small indulgences' (Chapter 7). The aim of analysis presented in Chapters 6 and 7 is to
identify major similarities and differences between the house contents that mayor may not mesh with the
similarities and differences observed at the level of the building and houselot. Before moving on to the
interpretation of the similarities and differences identified, I consider the consumer market place, from which
these items may have been acquired (Chapter 8).
Having raised critical questions of the process of interpreting these houses and assemblages, I return to the
issue of material ambiguity and the question of creating an environment of choice within the environment of
circumstance. The discussions of issues that arose from patterns identified during the study are offered in a
way to resolve that ambiguity.
P ag e 4 The Meaningless Public Smile?
LIMITATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS
This study began with analysis of one of the richest deposits on the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site - 5
Carahers Lane, which promised to be a perfect case study of a back-lane terrace filled with all the wants of the
modem world. It was not long before it was realised that something was not quite right with the deposits.
However, it took many weeks of extensive analysis to demonstrate why: the artefacts from under the floor
boards of 5 Carahers Lane were not related to the structure and its occupation, making the deposits redundant
for this study. While relegated to an appendix - albeit a lengthy one - this discovery is an important
contribution of this study to the data bank and interpretation of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site.
However, the time invested in this discovery did have an impact on the rest of the study: a large body of
comparative data from the Jobbins buildings - adjacent to the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site - could
not be included in the analysis, as planned.
As the archaeological data under study has mostly survived in deposits accumulated under floors over the
lifespan of a building, or in yard deposits without clear terminus post quems, the analysis of them is an
examination of the lost and discarded items of several households (see Chapter 3). This study of a household
series does not allow for examination of subtle changes from tenant to tenant.
Throughout this study, quotations from historical documents and other studies are used to introduce
discussion, and offer interpretation, of the material remains. Conscious of lain Stuart's (1992) warning not to
decontextualise historical data, it is regrettable that more-extensive and perhaps more-representative collections
could not be retrieved. This is particularly so of historical data used in Chapter 8, however, sufficient
information on the lives of novelists discussed was easily accessible.
With confidence, I am reliant upon the observations and recording of the specialists within the database, as all
artefact analysis was conducted from the artefact database and the specialist reports. This study would have
benefited from sighting of the artefacts (to assist minimum vessel counts) and the recataloguing of Priority B
contexts (see Chapter 3). However, these tasks are well beyond the limits of this study, which sought to utilise
an extensive database of information about artefacts, deposits, residents and house conditions gathered from
the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets.
This study focuses on 'manufactured' goods and excludes detailed analysis of faunal material, representative of
foodways.
KEY REFERENCES
The starting point for examination of artefacts used in this study has been the six-volume set of the reports
covering the whole site. These reports were not only useful for direct information about the artefacts under
analysis, but for understanding the history and interpretive-potential of artefact classes and grouping. They
draw together much of the data about artefact types available to date. In particular, Nadia Iacono's report on
Miscellaneous Artefacts, Graham Wilson's on Ceramics, Martin Carney's on Glass, and Kate Holmes' on metal.
Grace Karskens' Main Report - 'New Perspectives from the Rocks' - and publication Inside the Rocks have
also been used extensively, for historical data (particularly residential occupation) and poignant discussion on
working-class culture. The excellence of these works has allowed substantial artefact-pattern recognition from
numerous and detailed database entries, and advanced the level of interpretation possible in this study.
1 Introduction P ag e 5
DEFINITIONS
Before proceeding, a few key terms used in this study require clarification.
For the purposes of this study, houses include the structure itself, its siting, yard, dimensions and services such
as cesspits. House contents include all portable or easily-acquired and easily-disposed-of things such as
furniture, clothing, toys, crockery and glassware that composed the possessions of the occupants of the house.
House assemblages are those parts of house contents used in one house - although not necessarily by one
family or tenant - that have formed and survived in an archaeological deposit, and been retrieved and
analysed by archaeologists.
I use the terms ambiguity and incongruence as Leone and Potter (1988) and Leone and Crosby (1987) have
defined: the areas of contradiction between two sets of data - the archaeological and documentary records, in
Leone, Potter and Crosby's model; different elements within the material world, in this study. The latter is
described here as the term material ambiguity. Importantly, however, 'ambiguity' is perceived by the
archaeologist, it is not inherent in the material. The purpose of detecting such ambiguities is to resolve it in a manner
that draws greater meaning from the disjunction, rather than agreement between data sets.
I define class as having occupational, economic and behavioural (both gestural and enhanced by material)
boundaries, the latter being the ultimate decider of class membership - which cannot be directly observed in
the archaeological record, and not always in the historical record. Historians and archaeologists tend to allocate
class categories by the occupation of the male head of the household (for discussion, see Fitzgerald 1987: 108-
109): a labouring or physical trade for the working class; or, clerical or managerial occupation for the middle class. There are however, gradations of status within these classes, based on heritage or wealth, for example.
Within the 'working class' there was an important distinction between skilled and unskilled workers, leading
many scholars to describe the group as the working classes rather than a unified class.
P ag e 6 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Chapter 2
ApPROACHES TO HOUSES AND
HOUSE ASSEMBLAGESl
As noted in Chapter 1, there is a tendency among some scholars of Historical Archaeology to analyse, interpret
and discuss either houses or house contents, rarely both. Archaeologists are often concerned with the 'small
things forgotten' - and the busy task of identifying and cataloguing them - and many articles and important
works in Historical Archaeology on a domestic scale derive interpretations about the lives of past people, based
on the contents of the house, with little reference to the frame itself. Similarly, other scholars who examine
housing, often do so with little reference to the house contents.
This is not to suggest that researchers are neglectful and are blind to the reality that houses once had contents.
In some studies, there is just not the room for detailed analysis of the two data sets. My concern is not the
simple identification or description of both, but the interpretations derived from one of them, when the other is
discounted. For, even in cases where houses and house contents are discussed in detail, rarely does a synthesis
of the two reach the final conclusions (Thorp is an exception to this). The few examples discussed here are not
intended as a literature review. However, it is important to first consider the meanings drawn from one or the
other. It is important also to examine approaches to these datasets in the urban environment that is the subject
of this study.
HOUSE CONTENTS, HUMAN AGENCY AND SOCIAL RESISTANCE
Many historical-archaeological projects of the 1990s are united by a central perspective of people and objects
that is best summarised by the term 'human agency'. It is a concept, informed by many important sociological
works, such as Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction, and drawn into archaeology by Daniel Miller (1987) and Grant
McCracken (1988). Largely reacting against the quantitative-functionalism of Stanley South, and in response to
interest in contextualisation throughout the discipline of archaeology, the concept is well summarised by Mary
C Beaudry, Lauren J Cook and Stephen A Mrozowski (1991) who argued that:
Attention to historical and cultural context allows human beings an active role in creating meaning and in shaping the world around them; they are seen to interact with their environment rather than simply react to it. Material culture is viewed as a medium of communication and expression that can condition and at times control social action (Beaudry et al1991 :153).
Interestingly, many studies that are founded on this conceptualisation study the items that constitute the 'house
contents' of this study. The case study used by Beaudry et al to illustrate the point described above is the Boott
Cotton Mills workers' boarding houses in Lowell Massachusetts.
Material evidence retrieved from the site is interpreted as being 'expressions' of a distinct - sometimes defiant,
sometimes aspiring - subculture. Clay smoking pipes with evidence of stems being broken before use is
1 Note that some historians discussed have dealt with historical records of house contents, not house assemblages as defmed by Chapter 1.
2 Approaches to Houses and House Assemblages P ogl 7
interpreted as 'a clear expression of membership in working classes' (Beaudry et al 1991: 168). 'Humble
aspirations to middle-class status' were reflected in household ceramics and 'deliberate choices of women to
purchase imitation jewellry' (Beaudry et a/1991: 167, 170). Many beverage-alcohol bottles were recovered and
many more medicinal-alcohol bottles (suggesting that the latter were consumed for the alcoholic rather than
medicinal value), despite the historically known ban on alcohol consumption at the boarding houses. The
evidence for alcohol consumption suggested that the secret drinking was an act of individualism, 'behavior the
workers chose for themselves' (Beaudry et a11991: 169).
Interestingly, Beaudry et a!s discussion was restricted to house contents and when discussed, the dwellings were referred to in social not physical terms. The dwellings were described as composing a corporate household
where a small, nuclear family dwelt, occasionally taking in boarders. Beaudry et a!s exclusion of the structure
- potentially one that bespeaks imposed control- might have tempered their assertion that the mill workers
exercised cultural hegemony. (Charles Orser makes the same critique in social terms, arguing that that downplayed the voice of 'corporate paternalism', in order to allow the 'subalterns to speak' [1996: 177],
effectively distorting the picture.)
There are some examples, however, where human agency is observed with reference to impositions of the
house that contained them. While in her article 'Embellishing a Life of Labor', Lizabeth A Cohen argued that
objects were used in a 'process of ordering [people's] personal environments' (1980: 291) akin to Beaudry's
studies discussed above, she discussed both house and content in her argument. She examined the use of space
and the selection of furniture in working-class houses from 1885 to 1915. At this time, working-class people
lived in houses constructed to a pattern of middle-class values, with an emphasis, for example, on the parlour
where guests were to be received. However, working-class people created their own environments within the walls of these houses. They had parlours but often chose to socialise in the kitchen. They also filled their
parlours with furnishings that fulfilled their desires, such as plush curtains and carpets, rather than middle-class
values of cleanliness which considered these goods as havens for too much dust. Cohen argued that the
limited opportunities for adequate working-class housing, and subsequent tolerance of inadequate housing,
'may have encouraged workers to value interior spaces even more'.
Writing from a social, historical perspective, recreating the lives of people, Cohen brought both houses and
house contents - a holistic household unit - into the equation. In this, her work differs from historical archaeologists whose artefact-categorisation analysis easily led to the loss of the structure that framed the
artefact distribution, and overlooked important restrictions that may have been in place. Cohen's concern, like
many historical archaeologists, was with human agency: trying to overturn the dominant ideology model where
the lower classes were seen to be (passively) adopting middle-class behaviours and goods. Instead, Cohen
would argue, they appropriated, personalised and incorporated selected middle-class behaviours into their own
environment. Unlike the historical archaeologists, Cohen's emphasis on individual control did discuss the role
of the house.
HOUSES AND SOCIAL DOMINATION
In contrast to archaeological house-content focused studies, some who study only houses address two issues: the ability of architecture to communicate symbols of power or order, to re-enforce social boundaries. For
example, Matthew Johnson (1992) discussed a pattern of symbolic expression and the assertion of power
relationships in the homes of the aristocracy and gentry of sixteenth-century England. He argued that many
non-functional aspects of Tudor housing, such as moats (which were expensive and often too small to be really
P ag e 8 The Meaningless Public Smile?
defensive), crenellated parapets, towers and heraldry decoration were deliberate reminders of feudal battlement
structures and thus, the feudal hierarchical order.
Importantly, these were external features, placed in the public gaze. Internally, some feudal features (such as
the central courtyard) persisted. There were also changes that marked the new age of more-private, more
comfortable social organisation within the house, such as an emphasis on the upper floors and especially the
'Great Chamber'. This mix of styles supports Johnson argument that the traditional, battlement features were
not a 'thoughtless continuance of old traditions' but a deliberate message communicated to social inferiors 'at a
time when those inferiors were ... discontent' (1992: 50-51). By creating a symbolic link with the past, these
features served 'to lend ideological support to the Tudor social order' (1992: 51).
Johnson's proposition is similar to Mark Leone's (1984) interpretation of William Paca's garden, Annapolis, as
a symbolic representation of the power of 'man over nature' (Leone 1984). William Paca was a lawyer and
governor of Maryland in late-eighteenth century who had a formal and ordered garden. Leone, having
excavated and reconstructed the layout, perceived its order to be a symbol of man over nature, being a
metaphor for Paca's position in society. He thus tried to demonstrate that the Paca garden was as much a
mental structure as a physical one. This example has been much debated, particularly over the issue of who the
symbol was for: the elites that Paca associated with or all the disempowered classes? (Orser 1996:166-168).
Johnson and Leone speak of the use of material things to communicate power and dominance, their subject
base is structures, houses and large gardens. They focus on the lives of those already imbued with economic
power, rather than 'the lower orders'.
Amos Rapoport (1982, 1990), pioneer of the field of Environment-Behaviour Studies, has put-to-pen a
statement on the theory behind buildings and personal identity, one that allows for differences in the material
world. He identified three components of the environment: fixed, semifixed and nonfixed features (1990:87-
101). Fixed-feature elements comprise standard elements of a building - ceilings, walls, floors - that are
literally 'fixed' or change rarely and slowly over time. Semifixed-feature elements - furniture, curtains, garden
layouts - 'change fairly quickly and easily ... [and] tend to communicate more than fixed-feature elements'.
They may be controlled and 'personalized' more successfully than fixed-feature elements of the environment
(1990: 89) - a point demonstrated by Cohen - and provide the basis of Rapoport's analysis. Nonfixed
feature elements are those related to human occupation of the fixed-feature spaces and interaction with semi
fixed feature elements: shifting spatial relations (proxemics) and body positions and postures (kinesics). While
these may be observed in snapshot photographs, or described in historical documents, these are not part of the
archaeological record. (Longer-term and large-scale proxemic patterns in relation to fixed-feature spaces -
such as the relegation of domestic assistants to servants' quarters - may be observable in archaeological
assemblage patterns.)
Rapoport's work is based on contemporary observation of houses in use, unlike archaeologists who see the
remains of houses and things that were used in them. He cites a case of architects in the 1970s classifying an area
a 'slum', despite it being 'highly maintained and greatly improved' because it was built and decorated in
materials (such as fake stone and fake brickwork) that they disliked (1990: 39). In other cases, however, bare
dirt junk yards, abandoned cars, refrigerators on the porch were the 'cues' to indicate that the area was a slum
(1990: 171-173).
2 Approaches to Houses and House Assemblages P ag e 9
'SLUMS'
There is a wealth of historical data on 19th-century 'slums' in cities across the world. 'Slums' were a standard
component of popular journalism, a genre created by and aimed at a middle-class suburban audience, happy to
contrast themselves with the filth and disorder of city-dwellers (Mayne 1991:4). Careful analysis of these
records, carried out by Alan Mayne (1982, 1991, 1993), has revealed that slums were indeed myths of the
bourgeoisie. Mayne's discoveries were certainly an important contribution to the study of 19th-century urban
life but one that can only leave the question: 'if not slums, then what kind of places were these?'
Archaeology has the potential to address such a question. The excavation of 'slums' has revealed that the
decrepit exteriors of 'slum' tenements, so colourfully described by 19th-century journalists, contained fine
house contents such as fine tea sets and dinner sets, glassware and 'moralising china' (ceramic wares with
moralising slogans). This pattern has emerged at four slum sites: the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site
(Karskens 199 6) and Lilyvale (Thorp 1994) in the Rocks, at Little Lon in Melbourne (Mayne 1995) and at
Five Points in New York (Yamin 1997). Not all (in fact, only one) have confronted the complex disjunction of
these suites of material evidence in material terms, more often than not because their research designs -
ethnicity, the truth about slum slander - had different paths to tread. The primary conclusions of these
studies are discussed below.
In the Main Report on the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site, the historian Grace Karskens, set out to
explore the Rocks neighbourhood 'from the inside' (1999b: 159). Noting the fashionable clothing, 'pleasing'
jewellry, moralising china and ornate perfume bottles and evidence for clean habits - soap and wash bowls
(1996: 137, 139, 157). Setting this assemblage into the context of small houses, crowded with up to twelve
people, and poorly serviced by ineffective drainage and insufficient cesspits (1996: 158-9) Karskens concluded:
What the artefact assemblages and building foundations reveal, in balance, ... that sweeping generalisations over time about 'slums' and 'slum dwellers' are unfounded (1996: 161).
While the two data sets remain distinct, the question Was the Rocks a workers' paradise or terrible slum?'
(1996:viii) does not require further resolution of the material complexity suggested therein. Importantly, this
conclusion sparked a clear and detailed discussion of mltural complexity - concurrent 'cultural strands' of pre
industrial and 'respectable' attitudes and activities (see also Section 2.3.4 'Clean, Comfortable .. , and
Respectable?,) - but the implicit material ambiguity remains marginal.
When Alan Mayne (1995) discussed the material record at the Little Lonsdale city block in Melbourne, his
findings were much more sensational. Citing the good-quality ceramics and champagne bottles at the
notorious area of Melbourne known as 'Little Lon' he concluded: 'interpretations grounded in slumland
sensationalism crumble in the face of archaeological evidence' (1995:386). However, these interpretations had
been crumbled by Mayne's expert historical analysis and insight, some time before archaeologists began digging
(Mayne: 1982,1991,1993).
Rebecca Yamin (1997) shared Mayne's conviction that 'slums are myths' (Mayne 1993:1), however, in her
article entitled 'New York's Mythic Slum' in the popular archaeological journal Archaeology, analysis of the New
York slum Five Points was less sensational in its explanation of the archaeological evidence. Depicting the
backdrop of noxious smells, waterway pollution, crowded tenements and ineffective sanitation systems, she
then described in detail the house contents retrieved from the excavation: elegant Chinese porcelain, fancy
glassware, a Staffordshire dog and Toby jug, miniature porcelain tea sets, and tea cups which depicted Father
Matthew, the founder of the temperance movement in Ireland (51).
Page 10 The Meaningless Public Smile?
The aim of her article was to provide a new perspective on historical, 'slumland' perceptions. As a
consequence, she focused on that component of the archaeological record that overtly counterpoised historical
myths - the house contents. In her concluding remarks, however, she did not omit the slum-like features of
the tenement house, she hints at the tension between the two:
The archaeology of domestic trash is no equal for dramatic tales of thieves, prostitutes, and gang wars. The physical remains ~e the artefacts], however, speak of determination to maintain respectability no matter how difficult the circumstances, to carry on ethnic traditions in the face of vicious stereotyping, and to endure abysmal, unsanitary conditions [the tenement] (53).
ENVIRONMENT OF CHOICE AND ENVIRONMENT OF CIRCUMST ANCE
Australian historical archaeologist Wendy Thorp (1994) addressed this tension more explicitly in her study of
the small, poorly sewered structures and the fine tea-cups and Satsuma china at Lilyvale, The Rocks (a site a
few blocks south of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site). Thorp argued that the house occupants created
'a comfortable and interesting environment within and separate from the walls that surrounded them' and
indulged personal whims irrespective of the external environment (Iborp 1994:sec 5.1.2). She thus came to an
understanding of two environments - one being the uncontrollable outer structure and services, the
'environment of circumstances', and the other, the controllable environment within the walls where small
luxuries can create comfort, an 'environment of choice'. Thorp acknowledged and consolidated the two
different and apparently conflicting data sets, rather than assessing the balance of evidence in order to conclude
that the site was or was not a 'slum'. She also adds a material dimension to the idea of social and economic
tension that Yamin raised. Her work at Lilyvale is significant for its apprehension and comprehension of an
ambiguous data set, a depth of understanding that found its ways into the conclusion of her work.
SUMMARY
Examples of finding 'human agency' in the historical-archaeological record focus on the use of small items -
such as alcohol bottles, ceramics and jewellery. The decrepit structures and the ineffective infrastructure of
houses is either mentioned and dismissed, or ignored, in such equations. It might be suggested that the focus
on house assemblages (small, portable things) has facilitated this emphasis on human agency. If those with
limited means had control over any aspect of their environment, it would be small goods which are physically
and economically easier to acquire and discard than a house of any proportion. When the structures are
brought into the picture, as in the case of Thorp (1994) and Cohen (1980), the human agency approach is
modified as the collection of house contents marks the limits of that agency.
This appreciation of the differential role of house and houses contents, as defined by Thorp, provides the
framework for the following chapters which explore five houses and house assemblages from the Rocks.
2 Approaches to Houses and House Assemblages Page 11
Chapter 3
NATURE OF THE DATA
In order to study houses and house contents, I required artefacts from occupation deposits that had a
securable relationship to the structure itself. This chapter outlines the background to the excavated material,
why some domestic assemblages were chosen and others not.
THE CUMBERLAND/GLOUCESTER STREETS SITE
The Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site is a block bounded by Cumberland and Gloucester Streets in the
upper, northwestern slopes of the Rocks, Sydney (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2). Its twentieth-century development
into engineering workshops and later a bus-parking station, was built upon the demolition rubble of thirty-four
homes, shops and pubs. These structures had themselves been built upon (or were extensions to) the
subdivisions of other homes, shops, pubs and, south of Cribbs Lane, butchers' slaughter yards. Thus, the
material remains preserved (with a few intrusions) under the concrete slabs offer a wealth of information
about the lives of people in the Rocks, from the early decades of the Colony to the early decades of the
Commonwealth.
These remains were uncovered, recorded, analysed and interpreted by a team of archaeologists assembled by
Godden Mackay Heritage Consultants, for the site owner, the Sydney Cove Authority (now the Sydney
Harbour Foreshore Authority). The excavation was conducted over seven months in 1994, artefact analysis
over fourteen months, culminating in the issue of Trench and Artefact Reports and the Main Report - New
Perspectives from the Rocks - in late 1996. These reports were published in September 1999.
THE NATURE OF THE DEPOSITS
During the excavation of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site, over 1,880 excavation units were recorded.
Over 450 of these relate to the five houses under study and were recovered from underfloor areas, cesspits
and yards (see Appendix 1 for a listing). The nature, formation and stratigraphic order of each deposit was
assessed in the field, recorded in excavation journals and on context sheets, and listed in the final report - as
per standard archaeological practice. The units were sorted into the following historical-site phases:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Phase 5
Phase 6
Phase 7
Phase 8
Pre-European Occupation, pre-1788
~arly European Occupation, 1788-1810
Formal Land Division, 1810-1833
Early Subdivision & Occupation, 1833-1851
Further Subdivision & Occupation, 1851-1880
Intensive Occupation & Decline, 1880-1900
'Plague' Clearances, 1900-1917
Engineering Works, 1917-1924
Phase 9 Post-Engineering Works Occupancy, 1924-1950
Phase 10 Bus Depot, 1950-1972
Phase 11 Sydney Cove Authority, 1972-1994
Page 12 The Meaningless Pllblic Smile?
This study is primarily concerned with Phases 5-7 (1851-1917) but spans Phase 3 (the construction of 128
Cumberland Street in 1833) to Phase 8 (when 128 Cumberland Street was demolished).
As artefact analysis and database entry was conducted after the writing of trench reports, many units were
phased without reference to detailed records of dates and are thus on observations made in the field, however,
there are exceptions (see for example, Carney 1999a: 154, 157). With the aid of the database, the phasing was
reviewed as part of this study and found to be accurate (the phasing periods are, after all, quite broad), with
one or two exceptions discussed below.
This study draws directly upon the identification of unit type and allocation of phasing as presented in the
Trench Reports (Godden Mackay 1999a: Vol 3). However, in the case of deposits recovered from under the
floor of 5 Carahers Lane, the analysis of artefacts - begun with the assumption that they were underfloor
deposits - drew into question the original interpretation that the deposits were underfloor accumulation.
Rather, a large proportion of the deposits is likely to be fill (from the yard) to support an underfloor drain.
(See Appendix 2 for a comprehensive discussion.) That such reanalysis could be made is a credit to the
recording of the excavation and the detailed analysis of artefacts conducted thereafter. As the deposits could
no longer be relating to the house that contained them, 5 Carahers Lane (and the many interesting artefact
patterns it had begun to show) was excluded from the study. No other house contents examined during this
study contained artefacts that contested their original interpretation.
3 Nature of the Data Page 13
The Cumberlandl Gloucester Streets Site
l ______ __ Figure 3.1 Location of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site, the Rocks, Sydney (Godden Mackay
1999: 15, courtesy GML).
P age 1 4 Tbe MeaninJ',leJJ' Publit Smile?
10) "I,..A,IG. •• " ... r .... r .HiIeoOIN' eoUt~Ol'"
Figure 3.2 The Cumberland/ Gloucester Streets Site, as excavated 1994. (Christina Kanellakis 1995; In Karskens 1999b: 63; courtesy GML)
J Nature of the Data Page 15
SELECTION OF THE HOUSES AND DEPOSITS
Houses were selected for the study if they were: one, used primarily for domestic occupation; two, if the house
was occupied during phases covering the period of decline (phases 5 and 6); three, there was a clear, secure
relationship between the structure and one or more occupation deposits; and four, the deposits were largely
undisturbed. TIlls left only five structures to be examined: 128 Cumberland Street, 1 Carahers Lane,
4 Carahers Lane, 4 Cribbs Lane and a small partitioned room of a hotel stable which contained a deposit
resembling domestic occupation. Each of these structures and their deposits are discussed below.
128 Cumberland Street
128 Cumberland Street was located in Trench A, excavated by Graham Wilson. It was only one of a row of
cottages known as 'Nicholas Rents', built in 1833, of which the foundations and deposits remained
substantially intact. While advertised as a 'detached shop', no grocers or shopkeepers were recorded in the
Rates Assessments or Sands Directories (see Godden Mackay 1999 [vol3]: 376). From 1865 to 1870, Mrs E
Lipscombe was listed as school mistress, dressmaker and boarding house keeper - occupations likely to have
been carried out there (her husband had been listed from 1859). It can be reasonably assumed that the
building was a residence at all other times.
TIlls detached cottage survived the demolitions and substantial disturbance by the engineering works phase
and Cumberland Street road realignments, which the other four row cottages did not. (Of these cottages,
Nu 124 was the first to be demolished on the site, in 1892; and approximately half-a-metre of yard deposit was removed from all four cottages during the engineering works phase. I)
The majority of structural remains of Nu 128 were intact, although the western wall along the Cumberland
Street frontage, which rested on bedrock has been removed. Remains of the outbuilding (with a concrete
floor) also survived; as did approximately 70 mm of yard deposit, assessed to have accumulated from 1880 to
1900 (Wilson 1999a: 52), although the building was not demolished until c1931. The foundations were
covered by a demolition layer and fill for post-Engineering phases of the site. There has been some
disturbance from later (post-1970s) alterations to the site - the installation of electrical cables - as a 1980s
coke bottle and a 1970s beer bottle were recorded in the underfloor deposit. As the area was sealed by a
concrete slab in the 1950s and no intrusions were identified as cutting into the deposit, the disturbance is
considered minimal and localised, with little impact on the integrity of the deposit. (This was confirmed by the excavator, Graham Wilson.)
I Only the rear wall of the cottages remained, along with cesspit fills. These houses were excluded from analysis in this study because of their lack of underfloor and yard deposits. This was unfortunate as they are examples of early speculative building and different to N" 128 which had an additional two rooms, yard space and was detached. Although not part of this study, comparison of their cesspit fills may be interesting.
Page 16 The Meaningless Public Smile?
o
'" .I z
CUMaERLAND STREET
L
1 Nahlre of the Data
t"-o 0-
U
0 III ;.:: .,
~ ::; 0
" III
0
IC> f'4
.. Z
Figure 3.3 Remains of 128 Cumberland Street, as excavated in 1994. (Redrawn from plans by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanel1akis, digitised by Christina Kanel1akis)
8 2 3 4 5.
Figure 3.4 Remains of 128 Cumberland Street, as excavated 1994, showing eastern rooms (centre), part of the western rooms (right), the outbuilding (back left) and landing (centre left). Looking south. (photo B68.0l: P Grant, 1994; in W'ilson 1999a: 41; courtesy GML)
PaJ!,e 17
1 Carahers Lane
The foundations of 1 Carahers Lane suryiyed to a depth of about 1.4 m - much of it being filled with rubble.
There was no internal diyiding wall, but a stone pier (B 100) was in situ, midway through the house. Extensive
underfloor occupation deposits were retrieyed to a depth of 300 mm, at which point there was 'quite a lot of
rubble, and comparatively fcw artefacts'. The depth of the foundations were measured by a sondage of
1 x 1.2 m, which reached bedrock \vith eyidence for quarrying (Holmes 1999a: 107, 111).
The deposit was well sealed by demolition rubble, and intrusions from later phases were mmor (concrete
foundation bases, as in 5 Carahers Lane, affecting the front wall of the terrace). The rubble contained three
layers (B031, B099, B 116 and B 154). Unit B 154, partly submerged in the first occupation deposit, BIOI seems
likely to represent the collapse and possibly burning of the staircase (Holmes 1999a: 113). Unit B 116 was a
charcoal-rich rubblc layer which had a large number of artefacts not found in such concentrations in other
rubble dcposits (buttons, beads, jcwellery items) and only a few artefacts that were (brick, slate, mortar, a few
door hinges wc re prcsent).
I I I I
~B
Pa,ge 18
!
0 1 2 3 4
It
It
• ...l
" .. .. III
• • • tJ
!
5rn
®
Figure 3.5 Remains of 1 Carahers Lanc, as excavatcd in 1994. (Redra\vn from plans by Franz Rcidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis)
Figure 3.6 Remains of 1 Carahers Lane (centre), showing front (right) and rear Oeft) rooms, with rubble in-fill and no cvident internal divide. Yard (far left) overhangs onto 3 Carahers Lane. Looking northwest. (photo B24.13: P Grant, 1994; in Karskcns 1999b: 145; courtcsy GML)
Tb, MeaninJ!.ieJ'· /'Jlbbi Smiler
4 Carahers Lane2
4 Carahers Lane was part of a structure probably built as a stable block (but possibly servants' quarters) before
1848, and com'erted to two tiny residences sometime before 1858 (the other being Nil 2 Carahers Lane). The
substantial building foundations and yard were revealed during excavation. The underfloor deposits reached a
depth of approximately 20 cm (two spits of 10 cm each), being laid on topsoil introduced in the Cribb era of
occupation (phase 3; C125 and C160) from previous use of the area (which was then part of the Bird in Hand
Hotel). The foundations were covered by demolition deposit (C025) and post-demolition fill (C086).
f
J I
fol I z I /1
/I -< I ' , ....l
f
I .' ., I DC I ill I
I
= -< I DC I -< I ~ I
I !
0 1
,- . f
I I
I
I .1
® !
2 3 4 Srn
Figure 3.7 Remains of 4 Carahers Lane, as excavated in 1994. (Redrawn from plans by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis)
Figure 3.8 Deposit in 4 Carahers Lane, looking west. (Photo B 18.1 0: P Grant, 1994; in Carner 1999a: 143; courtesy GML)
Street numbers are taken from 'Street Numbers as per Occupancy List', plan prepared by Graham \X'ilson, held by Godden i'.!ackay Logan, cf Karksens (1999a: 183) where it is labelled 2 Carahers Lane. Camel' (1999a) refers to it as ':\!assey's Terrace'.
1 Nature of Ihe Data Page 19
4 Cribbs Lane
Figure 3.9 4 Carahers Lane, as excavated, shO\ving cistern cut into to bedrock and substantial,
, sandstone-block foundations. Looking east. (photo B50.12a: P Grant, 1994; in Carney 1999a: 143; courtesy GML)
The footings of 4 Cribbs Lane were covered by demolition units E005 and E006. W11ile E005 was disturbed
by a drainage line (E145), it was not in the location of the terrace footings (hcono 1999a: 221). Underlying
the demolition was an occupation deposit of varying thickness, excavated in two 5 cm spits (E032-E035).
The terraces \vere built on earlier yard surfaces (E067, E037, E047, E(48) and a clear distinction between the
underfloor deposits and the earlier, top-most yard surfaces was not apparent (hcono 1999a: 221-2). The
interface deposit between these layers (E036, E037) was not included in the analysis.
Yard deposits were extant, however the cesspit substmcture (E077) was shared by residents from 2 Cribbs
Lane (the cesspit originally serviced a larger house on Cumberland Street) and thus has been excluded from
the analysis.
o 1 2 3 4 Srn
Figure 3.10 Remains of 4 Cribbs Lane, as excavated in 1994. (Redrawn from plans by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis)
Rear of 95 Gloucester Street
Figure 3.11 Rear room of 4 Cribbs Lane, looking west. (photo B38.33: P Grant, 1994; in !acono 1999a: 221; courtesy GNIL)
Excayation of the stables in the yard of the Wl1alers Arms hotel reyealed evidence for a small residence or
kitchen, formed by bricking in the northern end and installation of a fIreplace and \vooden floor (Carney
1999a: 148-150). The extensiye deposit was largely preseryed by a thick layer of demolition material (C009).
The excavator, Martin Carney, supposed that a bed, table, chair and chest would easily haye filled the room
and been occupied by one person (,or various persons indiyidually'), although he does not discount the
possibility that it was a kitchen. The water closet at the southern end of the stable was not excavated.
For the purposes of analysis, the deposit is assumed to be representati\-e of domestic occupation.
o 1
i Nature of the Data
2 3 4 5rn
Figure 3.12 Remains of the room at the rear of the Wl1alers Arms Hotel, as excavated in 1994. (Redrawn from plans by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis)
Page 21
.... Figure 3.13 North room of the \v11alers Arms Hotel stables, looking north. (photo B66.21: P Grant, 1994; in Carney 1999a: 150; courtesy GML)
~ Figure 3.14 Occupation deposit in the north room of the \y1halers Arms Hotel stables, looking east. (photo B 1 0.21: P Grant, 1994; in Carney 1999a: 150; courtesy GML)
COMPARABILITY OF THE DEPOSITS
Drawing meaning from artefact patterns can be problematic as the nature of archaeological record allO\vs
seyeral interpretations: cultural, discard (individual or community-based) and post-deposition processes and
phenomenon. It is often unknown whether artefact patterns are a product of genuine difference between past
people (ie, the residents in 1 Carahers Lane did own more selying than others), or some other element of the
material enyironment (other houses happened to haye floor mgs), or some aspect of the social world unrelated
to the object under study (eyeryone else cleaned out their underfloor space and/or chose to utilise municipal
cleaning services). W11ile in some cases such processes can and have been identified (eg 5 Carahers Lane),
others are open to speculation (for example, is the lack of post-1870s glassware evidence of garbage disposal
seryices or reduced consumption of those items?).
In her study of Chinese people in the Rocks, Jane Lydon (1999: 91-92) suggested that the failure to find
assemblages of an 'authentic' Chinese household may be due to the transient lifestyle of Chinese in the Rocks,
'which saw the household packed up and moved on within months or a year'; the city-wide mbbish collection
selyices which existed by the end of the nineteenth cenhlry; or, the extensive and 'furious' cleansing
operations following the plague of 1901, especially of Chinese premises. Transient occupation, mbbish
collection and the 'furious' cleaning of the post-plagues period are also applicable to the houses under study
and each is discussed below.
Rubbish Collection
\V11ile many authors cite the 'improvement' of mbbish collection seryices in the Rocks in the late nineteenth
cenhll)' (Carney 1999b: 98, Karskens 1999a: 89), little is known about how often or how much mbbish was
collected, or if these seryices did really operate in the back lanes of the Rocks. The only evidence to be
offered is the absence of artefacts from a known time frame. Martin Carney (1999b: 113) notes the small
quantity of post-1870 glass artefacts across the site as a whole, however, this may indicate recycling of glass
botdes, for a small return (see Carney 1999b: 98), particularly in periods of unemployment. It may be easy to
declare that if rubbish collection services were in place, then it is a process that affects all households and
consequendy has an equal effect on all house assemblages. However, some households may not have utilised
the service -leaving behind more of their house contents, on site, than others.
Transient Occupation
While many tenant-families lived a transient lifestyle, moving in and out within a year, others lived for a
number of years, in all houses. The longest period of occupation by one family in the houses under study
occurred at 128 Cumberland Street, which was occupied by the Doyle family for twenty-five years from 1896
to 1921; the Lipscombes having occupied it for eleven, from 1859 to 1870. The McKinleys occupied 4 Cribbs
Lane from 1877 to 1883. Two families occupied 1 Carahers Lane for periods of ten years - the Hines from
1877 to 1887 and the Foys from 1890 to 1900. (Note that the Foys spent only one year in 4 Carahers Lane
and 4 Cribbs Lane and are the only tenants known to have lived in more than one house under study.) Thus,
each house has a mix oflonger-term and short-term occupation.
List ojOcCllpants
(Source: Godden Mackay 1999 [V 013]: Appendix A)
Occupant N" Yrs
1 Camhers Lane George Wilson (1848-1848) <1 John McCraw (1858-1858) <1 Samuel Budgeman (1861-1861) <1
Timothy McNamara (1863-1863) <1 George Wilson (1867-1867) <1
James Warlow (1871-1871) <1 Thomas Hines, wharf labourer (1877-1887) 10 James Day (1888-1889) 1 James Foy (1890-1900) 10 Thomas Moran (1901-1902) 1
3 Nature of the Data
Occupant
4 Carahers Lane WilliamJones (1858-1858) Joseph Thomas (1861-1861) Thomas Verrell, waterman (1871) Martin Foley (1877-1880) William/Sarah English, laundry (1881-83) George Allardice (1886-1888)
James Foy (1889-1889) Peter Johnson (1890-1892) Charles Pascoe (1893-1893) William Bate, sanitary engineer (1894) George Mitchell (1895-1895) Joseph McDonald (1896-1900) Alice Gibson (1902-1902) Henry & Mary Walbum (1909-1914) GustaveJohnson (1915-1916)
N"Yrs
<1 <1 <1
3 2
2 <1
2 <1 <1 <1
4 <1
5
1
Page 23
List of Occupants Cont'd
Occupant NAYrs Occupant NAYrs
128 Cumberfand Street 4 Cribbs Lane
Henry Porter, constable (1845-1845) <1 William Berry (1848-1848) <1
Charles Woodham (1848-1848) <1 Daniel Mahoney (1851-1851) <1
Mary Porter (1851-1851) <1 John Gosling (1858-1858) <1
Hugh Maxwell (1858-1858) <1 Jane Stirling (1861-1861) <1
William Lipscombe, clerk/ accountant John Harding (1863-1863) <1 (1859-1864) 11 George Brown (1867-1871) 4 Michael Bellamy, blacksmith (1871-1872) 1 John McKinley (1877-1883) 14 William Brown (1873-1874) 1 S Newton (1896-1900) 4 Thomas Buxton (1875-1876) 1 James Foy (1902-1902) <1 Robert Lockwood, blacksmith (1879-1879) <1 Michael Curran (1907-1907) <1 Doyle family (1880-1896) 25
USING THE DEPOSITS
Unfortunately, many of the factors which may have affected deposit formation and survival discussed above,
cannot be resolved in this study beyond noting them as a possibility. For example, it is likely that a deposit
under the floors of 128 Cumberland Street began twenty years before the others, and continued a decade later.
However, there is no evidence of floor coverings that may have prevented the accumulation of deposit in 128
Cumberland Street for fifty years of the structure's life, or may not have. While it is known that all houses had
floorboards in c1901, it can be reasonably assumed that the boards were butted, rather than tongue-in-groove.
Little evidence of floor coverings was found during excavation, the only suggestion being some architectural
tacks in 4 Cribbs Lane, possibly used to tack down linoleum or oil cloth.
ASSUMPTIONS
For the purposes of this study, it will be assumed that the lack of evidence for flooring indicates that there was
none; that each house had butted boards; that the effects of deteriorated boards (allowing greater loss of
items) did not have a major impact on deposit formation. It must also be assumed that, over time, a
comparable proportion of house contents that were used in each house, found their way into the
archaeological records - that is, people lose or break things at a similar rate over time.
Underfloor Deposits
The underfloor deposits examined in this study are considered to be the gradual accumulation of items lost
through the floorboards, over many years, by many families.
Disturbance
These small areas of disturbance are an unavoidable feature of excavated tightly packed urban sites, and are
considered minimal in view of preservation of the site under rubble and concrete slabs. They are certainly
much more intact than the Jobbins Buildings underfloor deposits which were affected by squatter occupation
from 1985 to 1992 (Higginbotham 1992).
Page 24 The Meaningless Public Smile?
METHODOLOGY
Not all trench reports listed the houses to which the deposit belonged. Establishing the relationship between
the deposits and structures was one of the first tasks undertaken. Contexts were assigned to houses based on
the descriptions in the Context Lists, within the report and also on consideration of the contexts' phasing, as
defined by the authors, and confirmed by review of the artefact dates in the deposit, to establish an
approximate terminus post quem. Many of these were revised after the analysis commenced, and units no longer
considered appropriate were removed one by one from the analysis.
Demolition Units
Demolition units have been included in the analysis, for the possibility that they were dumped by the
householders prior to leaving, or may represent underfloor deposits from upstairs bedrooms, once the second
storey had been collapsed. (This was first considered on examination of the artefact-rich demolition deposits
of 1 Carahers Lane.) Potentially, they may be from other sources, and tossed in the confusion of a demolition
site. Artefacts from demolition contexts have been included in counts throughout the study, but marked with
"D" for demolition.
ARTEFACT COLLECTION AND REPORTING
In regard to excavation, all occupation deposits were excavated by hand, by spit, and arbitrary grid-square
(1 m) and sieved. (Godden Mackay 1999 [V 01 3]: 15) For the post-excavation analysis, stratigraphic units
were prioritised according to their expected ability to answer the site's research design questions (Carney
1999b: 17). Artefacts from higher priority units were analysed and catalogued very differendy - many glass
and ceramic sherds of different fabric and function being listed as 'bulk' entries, although some details are
recorded on the artefact database entry. A small number of yard deposits used in this study were from priority
B contexts. Consequendy, analysis of this material may slighdy alter the quantities presented in this study.
For some records in the Artefact Database (about thirty), the function or portion described in the Type Series
Description was at odds with the function and sub function entries for that Artefact ID. This is considered an
acceptable typographical-error rate for a database of its size, and in such cases the function and sub function
fields overrode the type series description. Its impact on the analysis presented herein is considered negligible
and is mentioned here for the sake of future studies utilising the database.
CONGLOMERATE-HoUSEHOLD DEPOSITS
The underfloor deposits from these five houses have a relationship with the structure itself. While this
important relationship may be confirmed, there is no way of independendy attributing particular deposits to
individual tenants. Thus, this study is not pursuing households, but household senes - a unit of study that
stands midway between the 'household' and 'neighbourhood' models on offer in historical archaeology (see
Bairstow 1991, Thorp & Karksens 1992; cf LeeDecker 1991: 32 who has criticised the neighbourhood
approach for conflating several individual households in a 'single refuse deposit'; see also Allison 1999). While
many historical archaeologists, particularly in North America, favour the household approach, archaeologists
outside the field have confronted the absence of discreet household assemblages, and are moving toward the
study of 'household series' (Smith 1992: 29-31).
3 Nature of the Data Page 25
Chapter 4
THE HOUSES
While the five houses under consideration are all from the same block, in the same suburb and were occupied
over a similar time period, there are differences between them - some subtle, some more obvious. Identifying
these differences, and giving them a rough order of quality, establishes a framework of the environment of
circumstance, within which to explore the environment of choice in the succeeding chapters. The differences
are based upon criteria presented below, and the difficulties of apportioning 'quality' to them, discussed.
HOUSING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY SYDNEY
In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Sydney experienced a population explosion (Kelly and
Crocker 1977: 31; Fitzgerald 1987: 7). While this era was perhaps most significant for its suburban explosion
creating new (and different) urban environments along the train line, it also saw intensification of older, inner
city suburbs like the Rocks. As demand for housing increased, rents rose, land was subdivided, replaced with
more, smaller dwellings and the people who needed to stay close to the city for employment, were packed in.
One of the most lamented features of housing in nineteenth-century Sydney (city and suburbs, although to
different degrees) were the 'jetty-builders' - speculators who bought land, erected a string of terraces as
cheaply as possible, and collected rents or sold off the dwellings. English visitors and temporary residents like
RE N Twopeny and James Inglis mocked the poor standards of the 'jerry-builders' and the architects'
association was outraged by the ridiculous mis-match of architectural styles and fashions (see Archer
- -1996: 117-119). Of greater concern to the select committee which was appointed to investigate the 'Condition
of the Working Classes of the Metropolis' in 1860 was the physical impact of such building in working-class
areas.
THE ROCKS
The Rocks was known as one of these areas of poor housing, overcrowding and inadequate sewerage facilities
and the Rocks 'rookeries' were a regular venue for mayoral inspections during the 1880s (Mayne 1990).
However, it was not the worst area of Sydney at the time - Darling Harbour took that privilege (Mayne
1982: 95). Neither were the houses under study the worst in the Rocks. Just a few streets away, in Longs Lane
or Cambridge Street, several houses shared the one water tap and toilet (Kelly 1996: 66, 67). The
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets block did get a mention, however, in the 1876 Sewage and Health Board
Report, and houses about the Whalers Arms were poorly drained, poorly sewered and condemned
uninhabitable (Mayne 1982: 95, Karskens 1994: 77), however, the comments appear to be restricted to the
older, c1830s structures on the Gloucester Street frontage, rather than the back-lane dwellings under study (no
mention was made of the building at the rear of the Whalers Arms). Some of the c1900 photographs,
particularly of the yards between Cumberland Street and Carahers Lane (see Figure 4.1) are among the most
squalid depictions of the area, but most show only minor wear and tear. Of course, historical and
photographic records for housing in the Rocks, while extensive, are a small sample of all housing - and likely
to be a highly unrepresentative sample, depicting the worst houses, so it is uncertain what rank these houses
held in the overall quality of the Rocks.
Page 26 The Meaningless Pllblic Smile?
Figure 4.1 Yards between Cumberland Street and Carahers Lane, c19no.
In contrast to housing in other parts of Sydney, these and other houses in the Rocks seem much worse. A.
typical terrace in Sydney in the 18705 had a 4.8 m frontage on a block of land roughly thirty-sLx metres long.
One in Paddington, offered for sale by Richardson and \'\'rench in 1877 was:
... built of brick on stone, with small garden plot, verandah and balcony in front, hall, 5 large rooms, kitchen with range, pantry, a weatherboard bathroom, wash-house with copper and tubs, wood and fowl house, well of water and garden at rear ... (Archcr 1996:86)
In contrast, the terrace houses undcr study had roughly frontages less than 3.5 m, all were at most about 18 m
long (1 Carahers Lane being only 10.5 m long), were without verandah, balcony, hall, wells, gardens, kitchens
and wash-houses - with notable exceptions. It is some of these attributes which distinguish the houses under
study from each other, as discussed below.
THE CRITERIA
Developing criteria for ranking a small selection of houses is challenging. As Max Kelly (1978: 67) notes, the
definition of 'adequate housing' or 'decent houscs' continues to change (sce also Lydon 1999: 46). ,\s Thorp
argues for the Lilyvale site, small rooms and lack of plumbing are 'not a sure indication of substandard
housing'. They are not 'good' or 'bad' but 'different' (fhorp 1994: 5.1.5). 'I11US in order to assess these house,
many factors must be considered. \vl111e no assumptions of thc 'betterncss' of these facilities will eyer be
perfect, it is a step forward from simple assumptions about back-lancs and tiny rooms.
The extensiye reporting on the condition of working-class housing does gi,"e us some idea of criteria used by
-I The I louses
official bodies. While this does not necessarily relate to the condition assessments made by tenants selecting a
house to live in, it is the best place to start. The primary concerns of the inspectors, as reported in daily
newspapers (see Mayne 1990), were the condition of building fabric and structure (leaking roofs, cracked walls,
sagging floors, broken windows) and insufficient facilities (space indoors and out, drains, cesspits, windows for
ventilation). For example, 13 Marian Street, Pyrmont - deemed 'clean as far as the sphere of the tenant was
concerned' - was condemned 'unfit for human habitation' in 1887 because the rooms were in total darkness
with bad ventilation, the floor rested on the ground, the drainage was 'execrable' and the yard 'too small to turn
around in' (Mayne 1990: 174).
Many of these observations were linked to the inspectors' tolerance of smell, and poor ventilation, damp and
overflowing sewers and drains were the high points in their disgust and condemnation. Council rates assessors
may have been less emotive when assessing houses, judging by the books which simply listed the number of
rooms, its fabric (brick, stone or wood), whether is was house or shop and the value was placed from there.
One indicator of building condition or comfort that archaeologists can measure is the quantity of rat bones.
While the number of bones is not necessarily indicative of the number of rats, major differences in quantity are
suggestive of less sanitary conditions. At the Boott Mills site in Lowell, Massachusetts, Mrozowski et al
identified several rat bones and rat-chewed remains in mill-workers' boarding houses, and no rat bones and
only one rat-gnawed artefact in an agent's house. Mrozowski et al (1996: 53) argued that the presence and
absence of rats 'pointed to a fundamental difference in the quality of life experienced' by the boarders and the
agent.
On the basis of these differences observed historically and on other archaeological sites, I have developed the
following assumptions that one house would have been more 'comfortable' than another if:
• • • • • • • • • •
the Rates Assessment value of the house, per room, was greater (see Figure 4.2).
it was situated on a main street;
it survived longer;
the house was detached;
the total floor space of the house was greater;
the yard was larger and had street access;
toilet facilities were present and situated away from the house;
it had more windows to allow better ventilation;
the site was well-drained and had less cause for damp; and
there were fewer rat bones.
These measures are coarse, and bring with them a value system that rewards space as a key determining factor
of assessing a more comfortable environment - a scarce resource in an overcrowded nineteenth-century city
- as well as the key elements in the building's construction or location that would have physical impacts on
daily life: the smell of nearby cesspits or the cold of rising damp. Of course, the extent of this impact depends
on many variables unknown to us. The number of occupants in a dwelling for example, can seriously alter the
importance of the size or value of the house - ten people living in a five-room house for £1 0 per year, may
have been worse than two people living in a two-room house for £2.
Other biases of each measure must also be acknowledged. The order of demolition from 1902 to 1932 (which
originally formed the framework for assessing quality of the houses) is not necessarily a good indicator of the
condition of the house at the time and is subject to the biases of the inspector. However, assuming all houses
were inspected by the same party, it serves well as a relative indicator. Also, regarding services, connection to
Page 28 The Meaningless Public Smile?
water was no guarantee of supply. During the 1875 investigation into sewerage and drainage in Sydney, it was
noted that the taps in the Smedmore cottages (on the Lilyvale site) had been without water for seven or eight
months (fhorp 1994: 4.4).
It is for this reason that as many attributes as possible are considered. These are presented in Table 4.1.
Before identifying the differences between different dements of the houses, it is worth noting that some
advantages and disadvantages were shared by all by virtue of being on the same block. For example, one of the
reasons for continuing to live in poor housing with unreasonable rent was the need for people to live near their
work, in the building trade or on the docks: those who showed up for work first, got the job (Mayne 1990: 62).
4 The Houses Page 29
Factor 128 Cumberland Street
Built by & Date 1833, Albert Nicholas, speculator
Demolished
Detached?
Nil Rooms
Area (approx. m 2
incL both storeys)·
Yard Access
Toilet Facilities
Nil Windows
Foundations, Bedrock and likely drainage problems
Rat bones
Sunlight
Materials
Before 1931; after garage took over from engineering works
Yes, but part of same speculative development with row of 4
4 rooms, hallway, outbuilding
House: 45 m2; Yard: 40 m2;
Outbuilding: 10 m2; Total: 95 m2
Yes
1, WC connected to sewerage over 7 m away from house
2 windows on Cumb. St face (rest unid)
Partly built on bedrock, on the top of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site slope
60 total; 1.5 per m2 floor space
Morning sun from Cumberland Street face
Brick on stone, shingle later COIT.
iron roof
4 Cribbs Lane
c1854
1915; after realignment of Cumberland St
Detached on W face, 1 of a row of 3
2 up, 2 down
House: 42 m2; Yard: 35 m2
Total: 77 m2
Yes, probably from pathway on Cribbs Lane
1, WC connected to sewerage over 7 m away from house (the substructure of cesspit was old & large & shared by Nil 4 & 6, but with individual closets)
Upper & lower storey
Single-block foundations, midway down slope, but no noted drainage problems.
271 total; 16 per m2 floor space
In shade from Bakery buildings opposite
Brick on stone, shingle later COIT.
iron roof
1 Carahers Lane
c1850; William Massey
c1902; Plague cleansing
No, 1 of 2 houses
2 ground; 1'/2 second-storey
House: 45 m2; Yard: 20 m2
Total: 65 m2
No
1, WC connected to sewerage Adj to rear wall of house
In each room, except second-storey lean-to
'Rather swampy spot', likely to have caused drainage problems. Rubblestone foundations, 7 m deep, with infilled rubble suggests rising damp (Holmes 1999a: 106)
451 total; 25 per m2 floor space
Minimal
Brick on stone, shingle later COIT.
iron roof
4 Carahers Lane
cl848
after 1907
No, part of subdivision of a stable
1 up, 1 down, verandah
House: 14 m2; Yard: 20 m2
Total: 34m2
95 Gloucester Street Rear
Date of 'residence' conversion unknown. Stables built c1830; described as cellar in 1872 and shed in 1901 (Carney 1999a: 148)
c1902; Plague cleansing (as part of HoteQ
No, part of subdivision of a stable
1 single-storey room
House: 6 m2; Yard: 0 m2
Total: 6 m2
Yes (the yard was at the front of the - (The Hotel yard was accessible house) from Cribbs Lane)
O? (Dove 1880 shows a WC within yard boundaries, but not on Trig Plan 1865 or Metrop. Detail 1890, nor excavation plans)
Upper storey, north face (rest unid)
Substantial regular cut sandstoneblock foundation walls, over lm deep, but built in an area prone to flooding (Carney 1999a: 142).
164 total; 15 per m2 floor space
Quite good, facing north, although probably in shade from Gloucester ~ buildings to the west
Brick on stone, shingle later COIT.
iron roof
o Probably used WC at the south end of stable, which probably serviced the whole hotel
Window on east face, looking into yard
Not excavated
167 total; 28 per m2 floor space
Sheltered by other buildings and gangways
Stone, COIT. iron roof
Figure 4.2 Attributes of houses understudy. (* based on site plan in Karskens 1999b: 63, excluding fireplaces and approximate yard boundaries from historic plans.)
THE RANKING
128 Cumberland Street stands out in relation to the other houses, being detached on a main street, having the
largest floor space, probably a hallway, an outbuilding, large yard, side access and well situated cesspit, 7 m
from the house. Its street frontage, in c1900, also had some decorative embellishments unlike other dwellings.
Being built partly on bedrock, there was less fill beneath the floors, and significantly less rats - 1.5 per m2
compared with 25 and 28 per m2 in 1 Carahers Lane and the residence in the yard of the Whalers Arms Hotel.
While the one of the oldest residential buildings in the group, it survived the longest and was a domestic
residence until c1931.
Some of these characteristics are shared with other dwellings. 4 Cribbs Lane, while having smaller rooms (and
no hall), more rats and being on a lane, it had a yard equivalent in size (although long and thin in shape) and a
cesspit situated 7 m away.
The best placement for 4 Carahers Lane in relation to other dwellings under study is difficult to determine.
The building was originally constructed before 1848 by land-owner William Masseyl to service a hotel and
residence fronting Gloucester Street. The building was converted to residences some time before 1858. While
it was the smallest under study, being one room up and one room down, its foundations were substantial and
was probably originally a stable (Carney 1999a: 142). It faced north, had a small verandah (which may have
been used as an extra room) and maintained a consistently high annual value, per room (see Figure 4.3). As
noted, the number of rooms is not the best measure of comfort, as a family of ten or two could live there and
in the case of 4 Carahers Lane, at time half a family could live there: William and Sarah English rented both 2
and 4 Carahers Lane from 1881 to 1883. The absence of a cesspit or water closet to service these houses, is
however, clearly suggestive of a less-comfortable house and stands 4 Carahers Lane out from other houses
under study. An 1880 plan (Figure 4.4) does show a WC within yard boundaries, but this was not present on
the 1865 Trigonometric Plan (Figure 4.5) or the 1890 Metropolitan Detail Plan (Figure 4.6). Neither was it
found during excavation, although the pit it is shown to be adjacent to on the 1880 plan was revealed (see Site
Plan, Figure 3.2). Despite this, it was considered fit to survive longer than the Carahers Lane terraces built at
least ten years later.
1 Or possibly William Henson, MU, whom Mary Ann Massey married following Massey's death in 1851. The houses appear on an 1854 plan and seem to be present on Wells' 1850 plan (Lydon 1993: np) although the configuration is unclear.
4 The Houses Page 31
Rates, Nett Value in Pounds, Assessed by Court of Quarter Sessions
60
55 • 50
45
40 • • • • Cwnb 128
35 • • • ... 30 • • • Cribbs 004
.. • • + 25 • • .. .. •.. Cara 001 • • 20 • • • • · ,. .. ~-.. • • • .~ .. Cara 004 15 • • •• • ..
• 10
O~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910
Rates, Nett Value per Room in Pounds, Assessed by Court of Quarter Sessions
15.0
14.0
13.0
12.0
11.0
10.0 \ -+-Cwnb 128
9.0 +. Cnbbs 004
8.0 - .. ' ... 7.0 • Cara 001
.. 6.0 • • • --Cara 004 5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910
Figure 4.3 Rates, nett value per room, 1860-1907.
Page 32 The Meaning/m Public Smile?
CUMBERLANDSTREET
GLOUCESTER STREET
-I The llouses
Figure 4.4 Extract from Percy Dove's plan of Sydney, 1880. (The WC is circled.)
Figure 4.5 Trigonometric Plan, 1865. (Water Board Archives, in Godden Mackay 1994: 46).
Figure 4.6 Metropolitan Detail Series, 1890. (i\fL, in Karskens 1994: 82)
Page 33
Figure 4.7 1-111 Carahers Lane on the right (NQ 1 in the foreground, NQ 11 in rear), 2 and part of 4 Carahers Lane to the left, c1901. (State Records; in Karskens 1999b:203;copy courtesy of Gl\1L)
\v11ile 1 Carahers Lane had a yard as small as 4 Carahers Lane's shared yard, it gains its place as one of the
worst houses for these features, and the evidence for damp, which is possibly why it was one of the fIrst houses
to be demolished, c1902. The ground on which it was built 'may have made for a rather swampy spot, not so
attractive for building' (Hohnes 1999a: 106). Its cesspit was built against the rear wall of the house, not only a
problem for the smell, but seepage into the building's foundations. It had no yard access, so before connection
to se\vage in 1865, waste from cleaning out the cesspit would ha\'e been carried through the house (Hohnes
1999a: 128-129). It had only three full rooms and a lean-to on the second storey, and is known to have housed
up to nine children and two adults from 1877 to 1887 (Karskens 1999b: 188). The other houses are likely to
have had similar crowding rates duoughout their history.
As 128 Cumberland Street stands above the other houses, the residence at the rear of the \V11alers Arms Hotel,
hereafter referred to as 95 Gloucester Street Rear, stands out as the worst. It is also, the most stereotypical of
slum housing, being a conversion from stables to a small, one-room residence, \vith only one window facing
the liotel yard, and crumbling walls, starkly photographed in c1901. In contrast to this, the exterior plastering
of other dwellings (while stained) are in fIne condition. \'(lhen plans were drawn prior to the demolition of dle
\X11alers Arms, no residence was recorded and the condition report referred only to the gangway and 'Shed'
which presumably included the whole stable building of which dUs 'residence' was part. The possibility that
this did operate as a kitchen should not be ruled out.
Page 34 nit' MeaninJ!,le.f.f l'ublti Jmild
Figure 4.8 Plans of 1 and 3 Carahers Lane, prior to demolition (plotted 19.13.02).
If 95 GLOUCE~r.R ~TRf:E.T
Figure 4.9 Plans of%alers Arms Hotel, prior to demolition (plotted 19.12.01), showing the 'Shed' .
.;. The Houses
SUMMARY
Assessing the size, facilities, potential for damp conditions, street access and rate-book value, among other
attributes, it is possible to order these buildings from 128 Cumberland Street at the top, followed by 4 Cribbs
Lane, next 4 Carahers Lane and 1 Carahers Lane, and finally, 95 Gloucester Street Rear at the bottom. Having
established an order for these houses, the task is now to see if the small things brought into those houses are
'better' and 'worse' in correspondence with the houses.
Page 36 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Chapter 5
HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES:
INTRODUCTION
The aim of analysing the selected house assemblages is to identify similarities and differences between them.
The initial research design for this study proposed to examine the quantity of artefacts by function, variability
in (decorative) type and age. The assessment of the age of artefacts has proven elusive and will be discussed
briefly, below. Variability in function and type form the basis of artefacts considered in the following chapters.
Another variable, machine-made and particularly commercially stamped goods have also been considered, and
is discussed in Chapter 8.
METHODS
The analysis of artefacts and their attributes was based upon the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site Artefact
Database (Microsoft Access) which was supplemented with information about each stratigraphic unit and its
related building as listed and discussed in the relevant trench reports (Wilson 1999a, Holmes 1999a, Carney
1999a, Iacono 1999a).
The approach to identifying patterns was to start with the broad picture - features of the assemblages en
masse - then focus on particular details, for example, tablewares and the different types of tablewares. This analysis was performed from countless crosstabs generated from the Access database, for each building,
function or sub function and grouped by the variable under examination - fabric type, for example.
Approximated minimum vessel counts were derived from these crosstabs, with reference to the full details of
individual artefact entries.
MINIMUM VESSEL COUNTS
The process for establishing minimum vessel counts from the site database is detailed in Appendix 3, however,
a few points require notation here. Underfloor deposits were excavated in subdivisions of squares and spits, to
enable analysis of spatial and potentially time-depth distribution. Consequently, two parts of a once-whole
object may happen to fall on either side of a one-metre square, and be entered as two entries in the database.
If the artefacts conjoined, this was noted in the database, however, if they happened not to, there is no sure
way of knowing whether the sherds represent one or more vessels. The same consideration applies to the
sherd of broken plate which may have fallen through the floorboards while the rest of the plate was discarded
in the yard, as was probably the case for the alphabet plate described in Chapter 6.
Thus, where artefacts of a similar type could not be identified as a separate vessel by function and sub function
(a bowl and cup, for example), regardless of location within the houselot, they were counted as a minimum of
one. In this process, thousands of sherds were reduced to 30-odd identifiable vessels, some of which may be
identified as more than one vessel on inspection of the artefacts.
5 House Assemblages: Introduction Page 37
THE AGE OF GOODS
Overall, the date ranges of artefacts from each house-assemblage was disappointing, largely due to the long
time-spans (over 50 and up to 100 years) of each deposit. While Stanley South's method for examining mean
dates of artefacts has been taken up, with modification, by some archaeologists (eg Wall 1994: 188-190), I
consider this method too arbitrary. The mean date of an artefact range is just as improbable as any other
selected date and my concern in this study is not to date the whole assemblage (having the construction and
demolition of the building as appropriate limit dates for the accumulation). Consequently, I examined only the
start-of-manufacture and end-of-manufacture dates.
Less than 3% of each assemblage! is known to have been manufactured after the construction of the building
and less than 0.5% known to have ceased manufactured before the construction of the building. While there
is not substantial evidence for very recent goods (those bought within the decades of the house's occupation),
this is not necessarily a reflection of the age of the goods. Most artefacts survive in such fragmented form that
their chronological identification is very broad. Many of the coloured transfer-printed wares for which no
manufacturer was identified, were dated as '1820s+', when the different colours were first produced. The
vessel may well have been produced in 1890, bought, used and broken in the space of five years, but that
information is simply not available. Certainly, the reverse is also true: a vessel may have been produced in the
1820s purchased second-hand or handed down a generation or two, and finally discarded in the 1890s. While
such information is important for identification of earlier deposits or deposits with a shorter time frame, it is
not useful for this study. When all variables affecting the time-lag between the date of manufacture (whenever
that is), the supply to customer, the uselife of the object (including recycling) and deposition, the hope of
effectively dating objects becomes rather dim.
Consequently, the age of goods and was discounted as an appropriate methodology for studying the deposits
en masse.
LOOKING WITHIN HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES
The task of determining that one house's assemblage is better than another is a challenging one, more so than
the task for buildings, because of the scarcity of independent reporting of working-class domestic assemblages
and their relative value. Most attempts to do this in historical archaeology are based on monetary value.
George Miller's (1980, 1991) ceramic price indices are a very detailed example of this2•
Charles LeeDecker (1991) has reviewed some primary classifications used by historians 10 the study of
consumer choices and income expenditure, which is relevant to this study of the environment of choice. Of
importance to rural and preindustrial households, there is a simple dichotomy between producer goods (for
example, tools and farming equipment) and consumer goods (for example, furnishings and personal items).
Consumer goods can further be categorised into 'items of necessity', 'items of convenience and comfort' and
'luxury items'. In a 1980 study by Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh of Maryland probate inventories from 1658 to
! Based on total number of entries, which is more accurate than sherd counts, but not as accurate as minimum vessel counts. The dates of each artefact were taken directly from the database and are based on known chronologies of fabric and decorative style, and individual patterns and manufacturers, where identified.
2 Miller has prepared extensive information from ceramic pricing lists, most of historical sources for the post-1850s period are American retailers' invoices and accounts, which are not necessarily comparable to the Australian ceramic market.
P ag e 38 5 House Assemblages: Introduction
1777, 'items of convenience and comfort' included coarse ceramics, bed and table linen, chamber pots and
interior lighting devices; 'luxury items' included objects made of 'silver plate' (LeeDecker 1991: 40).
What may be considered a necessity, an 'item of convenience and comfort', or a luxury changes over time and
between different social and income groups. What is luxury or squander to some, is necessary 'social capital'
- as Bourdieu (1984: 375) puts it - to others. The reverse is also true. This may be seen in a system for
classifying household expenditure adopted by the International Statistical Congress in the mid-nineteenth
century (LeeDecker 1991: 34-35). Three classes of expenditures were identified. Firsdy, 'physical and
material' or basic necessities being food, clothing, housing, fueL medical cares, and occupational expenses.
Secondly, 'religious, moral and intellectual' expenditures, or items whose utility extended beyond basic survival
but provided some benefit to the individual and society (expenditures on churches, schools, reading materiaL
charities or savings). And thirdly, 'luxurious and irnprovidential' expenditures on non-essential items such as
tobacco, alcoholic beverages, gambling and other forms of recreation, and toilet articles. If Richard
Waterhouse (1995: 81) is correct in his identification of working-class 'pub' culture, then some working-class
people may not have considered alcohol and tobacco a 'luxury', but a necessary part of social interaction and
maintenance of a support network - a utility which extended beyond basic survival but provided some
benefit to the individual.
Some historical archaeologists have identified what may be considered 'indulgences' or 'luxuries' to working
class people. Karskens, for example, has described jewellery as 'treasures of working people' (1999b: 138).
Mrozowski et al have described hair combs as 'small luxuries [which] were probably prized possessions that
aided personal hygiene' (1996: 55). (See also Thorp 1994: 5.1.2.) While these terms can be belitding - the
pride of a mill worker's possessions being a mere comb, and one to remove nits at that - they attempt to
describe a class of goods that we do not expect to find on the shopping list of the urban poor. These are
goods that provide evidence for consumption of goods additional to our perception of their daily needs which
were to be satisfied on a limited income, and in step with what we know of the fashions of the day. It is by
this definition that goods are grouped in Chapter 7. Goods described in Chapter 6 include those that may be
considered evidence of investment in domestic comfort, ornament or elaboration of daily domestic activities.
5 House Assemblages: Introduction Page 39
Chapter 6
FURNISHINGS, TABLEWARES AND
OTHER HOUSEHOLD GOODS
FURNISHINGS, LAMPS AND ORNAMENTS
In the early 1860s, the principal teacher of the Sussex Street Ragged School, Miss Danne, has left us with a
very bleak image of the furniture and furnishings in the houses she saw on weekly visits throughout the
neighbourhood of the Rocks:
Found three little boys in a wretched room in which was no furniture of any description-nothing excepting a shoemaker's bench and a few pieces of leather scattered on the floor ...
Obtained two girls and a boy from one house, or rather den, in which was no furniture but an old table and an old filthy stretcher, on which sat the mother of the children half-drunk ... (Ramsland 1986: 100)
The descriptions were published in Ragged School Journal, the 'annual report' of the School, aimed as much at
reporting the year's achievements as gathering donations for the next, and probably represents the most
desperate cases of poverty.
The archaeological sightings of furnishings are also unrepresentative, although for different reasons. This is
particularly so in underfloor deposits, as only those ephemeral parts of these more durable items fall off and
become part of the archaeological record. While we do not have the tables, chairs, sofas and bedsteads, the
upholstery tacks, tassels and fixtures such as door furniture, together give a small glimpse or impression of the
furnishings in the house. (A few of these items may be from clothing items, rather than soft furnishings
[Iacono 1999b: 66].)
As individual items, they offer little information on the furnishings from which they came. Upholstery tacks
indicate that at least one or two chairs or sofas were present, but of what size, style or fabric is unknown.
Tassels might imply what Lizabeth Cohen (1980) has argued for early twentieth-century working-class interiors
in America - these people had a taste for plush and excess decoration, despite middle-class hygiene concerns
for dust-free interiors. Castors might indicate the regular movement of furnishings within the house to
maximise the use of small spaces - although, two were found in the largest house in the study,
128 Cumberland Street, only one in 1 Carahers Lane and none in the others. The lock parts, padlocks and
single chest or cupboard lock in 1 Carahers Lane may indicate changing domestic security needs, as Holmes
(1999b: 42~29) has suggested, or perhaps just represents a normal life cycle of mechanical parts - more
being found in 128 Cumberland Street with the longest occupation span. Scattered throughout the houses,
with a slight concentration in 1 Carahers Lane and 128 Cumberland Street, they confirm that some furnishings
were there, unlike the dearth historic vision.
Page 40 The Meaningless Public Smile?
,t::J
~ ,t::J
~ El '" El '" ,t::J ,t::J ~ ::s ~ ,t::J is ~ ::s e ~ is ... u ... .t: ... u ~ ~ ~ ~
u 00 u u u 00 u u ~ OIl ~ OIl ..... """ """ Q'\ ..... """ """ Q'\
Padlock 1 1 Hinge 1 1
Door key 2 2 Plate 1
Door fittings 2 2* Upholstery tack 15 3 1 4
Castor (from bed or chair) 1 2 Tassel holder (could be 1 4 1
Cup hook 1 dress items)
Eye hook 3 Kapok: upholstery stuffing? 1
Hook (brass) 1* 1 Total 36 23 3 11
Lock 1
Knobs & handle (brass) 3 1
Table 6.1 Furnishing items. (* Item possibly not the listed subfunction.)
LAMPS AND LIGHTING
As Carney (1999b: 112) noted of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site as a whole, only a few lamp bases
and chimneys were ornate and decorated, most being plain. Of the houses under study, 1 Carahers Lane had
the most, and most decorative, objects relating to lighting, with at least three lamps - one painted in a floral
design and engraved 'REMEMBER ME', another floral, painted lamp, red, with a wavy lip and a white-glass,
pede stalled lamp base. Several other sherds, from a clear closed-rim lamp chimney and green and light-blue
glass sherds that may be from lamps, or some may be from vases, were also recovered. In addition, 1 Carahers
Lane had the only examples of lamp lustres - small prisms that dangle from lamps, and are both decorative
and aid the diffusion of light (Cuffley 1983: 125). While the three lustres were of a different size (two 21 mm
wide, the other 17.5 mm wide), they probably all came from the same lamp.
No lamp bases were recovered from any of the houses, however a lantern wick-adjustor marked
'CONNECTICUT' and probably predating 1879, was recovered from the east rooms of 128 Cumberland Street
Here, there was also at least one clear, lamp chimney - one sherd with floral decorations. Two base
fragments were recovered from the west rooms - one opaque pink, the other opaque blue.
In 4 Cribbs Lane, there were remains of blue lamp glass, a wide lamp rim with carronated shoulder, and a
wavy-lip rim fragment with remnant red paint and floral motif of the same type (Lighting/Lamp 454) as that
found in 1 Carahers Lane. The only evidence for lighting in 4 Carahers Lane is one clear, plain-rimmed lamp
glass and a small piece of plait-weave fabric (3 mm wide, weighing 0.5 g) which may be an oil lamp wick or an
electrical wire cover.
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods Page 41
'S ,r:J. <IJ
~ <IJ
~ = ~ ,r:J.
~ ~ ,r:J.
u ... ,r:J. :; u ... ~ ~ ~ ·c ~
u 00 u u u 00 u u .... ~ ~ ~ .... ~ ~ ~
Lamp lustre 3 Wide lamp rim with carronated 1
Lantern Wick Adjustor 1 shoulder
Lamp glass rim, wavy lip. Remnant of 1 1 Clear, floral lamp chimney 1
red paint and floral motif. Clear body sherds 103
Lamp base, painted floral design, 1 Green body sherds 18 engraved 'Remember me' Blue/Light blue body sherds 17 White pedastalled lamp 1 Plait-weave fabric: oil lamp wick or 1 Clear, closed-rim lamp chimney 1 electrical wire cover
Clear plain rim Minimum NQ Ughting Devices 4+ 3 3+
Base fragment, opaque - pink. 1 Table 6.2 Evidence for lighting devices.
Base fragment, opaque - blue. 1
ORNAMENTS
For the purposes of this study, 'ornaments' include purpose-made ornaments such as ftgurines and vases,
although no vases were found in the houses under study. However, photographs and depictions of Victorian
interiors suggest that often-functional household items were on display. Kitchenwares, for example, were
stored in open dressers and some decorative plates or bowls were never intended for food serving. 1bis may
have been the case only for affluent households (of which most interiors are recorded) and not a consideration
in working-class terraces. Historian and collector Peter Cuffley has suggested otherwise, arguing that residents
of Australian cottages and 'less affluent habitations' decked their mantlepieces with 'gloriously decorated'
commercial tins (ie for biscuits, confectionery etc), in place of china ornaments (Cuffley 1984: 184).
The house assemblages under study contain examples of purpose-made ornaments in the form of ftgurines.
Graham Wilson (1999b: 96) identified these as a kind of ftgurine produced by pottery factories very cheaply
(by the 1840s, one boy could produce 40-dozen ftgurines a day), that overran the better quality ftgurines
produced earlier in the century and toward the end of the century were considered 'vulgar'. Also known as
'fairings', they are known for depictions of popular people or current events or mundane (sometimes-indecent)
scenes (Riley 1997: 169; Miller and Miller 1989: 106). It is possible that one ftgurine from 1 Carahers Lane is a
depiction of Sir John & Lady Franklinl . Other ftgurines depict people, things, animals and gnomes, as listed in
Table 6.3.
1 Sir John was arctic explorer and Governor of Tasmania from 1837 to 1843.
Page 42 The Meaningless Pllblic Smile?
1 Carahers Lane 4 Cribbs Lane 128 Cumberland St 4 Carahers Lane
Porcelain 2 (1 wicker basket, 1 2 (1 human, 1 mise) 1 (mise) 1 (woman in feathered gnome head) bonnet), 1 green gilt (part
of the same?)
Earthen- 5 (2 horses, 1 naval 1 (mise) 1 (mise) (mise) ware couple [Sir John &
Lady Franklin?], 2 mise)
Other 1 (Chinese Steatite, unid)
Total 7 3 2 3
Table 6.3 Minimum number of figurines.
All houses excepting 95 Gloucester Street rear had at least two figurines. 1 Carahers Lane had the most and
most varied of these 'vulgar items', but 4 Carahers Lane had an 'exotic' fragment of worked steatite, likely to
be Chinese made and part of a scenic figurine (Iacono 1999b: 74-75).
FOOD-SERVING VESSELS
The three most distinct features of the food-serving vessels in the houses under study are the enormous
variability of decorative types retrieved from these houses, the lack of evidence for matching wares including
cup-and-saucer sets, and the presence of more specialised serving vessels in 1 Carahers Lane and 128
Cumberland Street. These are discussed below, with consideration of the type of deposition under study,
beginning with specialised functions.
FUNCTION
Discussing the whole site's assemblage from 1850 to 1900, Wilson (1999b: 320-321) argued that the range of
special-function vessels was reduced, and this may be seen as a more pragmatic and 'perhaps less-stifled'
approach to table settings and dining. Examining each house it is evident that, of the reduced range, most of
the vessels were recovered from two houses: 1 Carahers Lane and 128 Cumberland Street (75 and 100 food
and beverage-serving vessels). 1 Carahers Lane had the highest number of specialised serving vessels (platters,
cruet dishes, and vegetable dishes) and two types of glassware (rummers and shot glasses) not found in other
houses. 128 Cumberland Street, however, had the highest number in all other categories (excepting
unidentified vessels). 4 Cribbs Lane had no table-serving vessels and few beverage servers but fifteen plates
and bowls of different sizes (including a child's plate) and an egg cup. 4 Carahers Lane had a scatter of vessels
in each category, but a comparatively large number of tumblers and wine glasses. Of the three food-serving
vessels in the rear of 95 Gloucester Street, all were tea wares, making this the only serving vessel category
recovered from all houses. This may suggest that the occupant ate meals at the Whalers Arms Hotel, and
perhaps enjoyed a quiet 'cuppa' in their own residence. (See Table 6.4.)
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods Page 43
..c .. ..c .. u u e (IJ =: § (IJ =:
<t ;s e ..c () <t <t ..c
() ..c ..c .. U ·c G .. u .. ·c G <t <t <t <t U 00 U U U 00 U U
~ III ~ III ... ..,. ..,. Q\ ... ..,. ..,. Q\
Table Servingt Unid Bowl Large Bowl Unid 2 2 Dish Sauce 1 Cup Unid 4 Dish Serving 3 Jar Unid 1 Tureen Saucer Unid 2 Serving Platter Saucer/ Small Cruet Glass 2 Dish
Cruet Salt Dish Pot Unid
Unid Salt jar? Toto! 10 0 4 0
Unid Lid 3 1* Beverage Serving Toto! 10 6 2 0 0 Jug Unid 2
Individual Settings Jug Water ID
Plate Large 1 Bottle Decanter 2 6
Plate Medium 2 4 1 Bowl Unid
Plate Small 4 4 5 Bowl Punch 2*
Bowl Small 4 4 10 2 0
Plate Child's 2 Glasses Bowl Deep 8 3 Glass Rummer 2 Bowl Shallow Glass Shot 3* Cup Egg 1 Glass Tumbler 13 27 9 3 Plate Unid 5 2 2 2 Glass Wine 6 8 2
Toto! 12 27 4 15 0 Glass Wine/
Tea rummer?
Tea Cup 7* 8 1 3 3 25 35 11 4
Tea Saucer 4 12 2 6 Subtotal 75 100 25 33 3 Tea Pot Bowl Sugar Unidentifiable
Mug Unid Food Serv Vessels 124 58 55 54 10
Toto! 14 21 3 9 3 Drinking Vessels
125 56 58 54 10
Toto! 200 107 69 77 13
Table 6.4 Minimum Number of Food Serving Vessels. (t categories established by the author, not in the data-base, some vessels may be multi-functional; * the listed sub function of one vessel in the group is uncertain, see Database; Diameter of Bowl/Plate: Large, >20 cm; Medium, 12-20 cm; Small <12 cm.
Notably, the serving vessels are not dominated by large items (of the kind found in boarding houses such as
the Sailors Home [Lydon 1999: 48]) that might suggest a practical rather than decorative function. The only
serving platter was from 4 Carahers Lane and 1 Carahers Lane had three serving dishes and a tureen.
128 Cumberland Street had more small, relish servers than large dishes. However, the assemblages are not
specialised to the extent that Robert Fitts (1999) has found in middle-class New York (see Table 6.5),
suggesting the 'pragmatic' and 'less-stifled' table settings Wilson (1999b: 321) described.
Page 44 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Middle-dass New York Assemblages, c1860s- The Rocks, working dass, c1860-c1920 c1870s (Prity tkposits) (untkifloor & yard tkps.)
et! = Cl) ~ ,.Q 0
Cl) 0 ... Cl) ~ -E ~ ~ Cl) El =: ... 'tI .!:I ..cl ~ ~ = tII ,.Q
= ... <5
tII :@ .£ tII ~ Cl)
~ U :; :; U
~ .§ ~ <.-' ... 0 (J Q U U U 00 tII
~ = <.-' ~ ll'l ~ ll'l -.t .... -.t -.t Q-.
Butter dish 1
Celery/asparagus dish 1
Children's mug 1 1
Child's plate 1 I? 2
Creamer 1
Sugar dish 1 1
Glass cake plate 1
Glass compotes 2 2
Pickle dish 1
Salt cellar 1
Sauce dishes 1+ 1
Serving dish covers 1 1
Dishes with drainers 2 3
Soup plates 1+ 1+
(Soup) tureen 1 1 1
Platter 1
5 3 2 4 6 4 6 3
Table 6.5 Number of vessels with specialised function in middle-class New York privy deposits, c1860s-c1870s. (faken from Fitts 1999: 54; quantities were not described for some multiple vessels.)
Moralising, Children's and Educational Wares
Another type of specialised vessel that appears amid the study houses are wares described as 'moralising
china'. They are plates, mugs and bowls with mottos and images that describe good behaviour and habits, or a
child's name, argued to have initiated the responsibility of property ownership. Also included in this category
are images of important figures, such as church leaders. A growing collection of these wares has been
recovered from sites in the Rocks (eg Lilyvale ID 8425 and 17143), middle- and working-class New York (the
Atlantic Terminal site, Fitts 1999: 49-50; Five Points, Reckner and Brighton 1999: 78) and Californian gold
mining town (praetzellis and Praetzellis 1992). Praetzellis and Praetzellis (1992: 90, 92) argued that these
vessels reminded children of Victorian values - independence, frugality, hard work and rewards for good
behaviour - implying that the presence of these vessels is evidence for a commitment to an ideal or practice.
Among the thirty-five examples of moralising china on the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site (over all
phases) five were found in houses under study. 128 Cumberland Street had two alphabet plates: one a purple
transfer-printed ware (from the west room) showing the scene of a cricket match and at least one moulded
white plate, one sherd ('VVW') in the west room, another ('DEF') in yard fill which dates to Phases 7-8 (the
artefact may have been redeposited from earlier refuse). 1 Carahers Lane also had a small fragment of a white
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods P ag e 45
vessel with parts of the alphabet in relief decoratation. 128 Cumberland Street also had a small bowl
commemorating John Wesley, founder of the Wesleyan Church. William and Mrs E Lipscombe who were
married in the Wesleyan chapel, were resident in 128 Cumberland Street from 1859 to 1870 and it is possible
that the bowl was among their possessions (Karskens 1999b:175).
4 Cribbs Lane had a small plate with the image of a child asleep and a script or rhyme about sleep:
-OMPLAIN, / -BER AGAIN! / -S BED / -EA VY HEAD / -ITILE MORE SLUMBER: / HOURS WITIIOUT NUMBER
/ -NG HIS HAN- / STAN-NG HE-DS"
Again, there are parallels between 128 Cumberland Street and 1 Carahers Lane, and also 4 Cribbs, although
128 Cumberland Street had the most 'moralising china'. It is possible that the alphabet plates were related to
Mrs Lipscombe's school run from 1865 to 18702•
DECORATIVE TYPE
Many historical-archaeology studies have assessed or explored socio-economic status and other group
memberships by the decorative and fabric type of ceramic wares (for example, Fitts 1999 and Wall 1991).
While there is no simple correlation between ceramics and socio-economic status (Klein 1991), some major
differences in value can be established between cheap band-and-line wares and expensive hand-painted
porcelain, for example (Miller 1980, 1991).
Wilson (1999b: 320) has noted a decline in the quality of cerarruc food-serving vessels on the
Cumberland/ Gloucester Streets Site, attributed to the increased mechanisation of British potteries after 1848
and 'reflects not so much a lower standard of living but a lower standard of production'. The floral, hand
painted breakfast wares of early periods gave way to simple band-and-line wares, sponge-printed wares with
minimal hand-finish and heavy earthenwares known as 'hotel wares'. Only one such vessel was found in the
houses under study: in 1 Carahers Lane, which also had more of every other decorative type, except basalt
ware - from the cheaper band-and-line wares to the more-expensive transfer-printed and porcelain wares
(see Table 6.6). (Notably many of vessel functions in 1 Carahers Lane were unidentifiable.) Basalt ware, of
which only one fragment was recovered from 128 Cumberland Street, is a black, fine-stoneware fabric which
was and remains among the most expensive ceramic wares available (Wilson 1996: 29).
2 William Lipscombe, clerk/accountant is listed from 1859 to 1864, Mrs E Lipscombe, school/dressmaker/ boarding house is listed from 1865 to 1870.
Page 46 The Meaning/us Public Smile?
~ ~
§ '" ~ El '" ~ cG ~
cG ::s cG ~
is cG ~ is ~ :; u .. "; .. u .. "; cG ·c cG cG U 00 U U
.. U 00 U U
.. 0 U') 0
~ U')
F-I ~ F-I .... ~ ~ Q\ .... ~ ~ Q\
Band-and-Line ware Other Teawares 4 Teawares 1 Unidentifiable 8 4 3 16 Unidentifiable 2 2 4 8
Basalt ware Porcelain Table: individual Table: serving 2 2 Teawares Table: individual 9 11 3 4 27 Unidentifiable Teawares 2 12 2 17
Chinese wares Unidentifiable 54 25 18 4 101
Table: individual 2 3 Relief Dec E'ware Unidentifiable 6 2 3 11 Table: individual 2 2
Edgeware Teawares 2 3 5
Table: individual 2 2 Unidentifiable 11 3 9 24
Teawares Sponge-print ware
Unidentifiable 14 5 6 2 27 Unidentifiable
Glazed Transfer-printed Table: individual 1 1 2 Unidentifiable 4 4 Teawares 1 2 3 Whitewares Unidentifiable 13 8 5 27 Table: serving 4 2 7
Sponge Print ware 8 6 1 16 Table: individual 5 11 1 6 23 Table: individual 1 Teawares 2 3 2 8 Teawares 5 2 8 U nidentit!.able 9 6 18 Unidentifiable 2 4 7
Table 6.6 Ceramic food-serving vessels, by fabric/decorative type.
Teawares
Teawares is the only serving vessel category that is found in all houses, including the converted stables in the
yard of the Whaler's Anns which had no other serving vessels. Several types were represented, transfer
printed wares in all colours, Chinese wares, whitewares, sponge-printed wares and porcelain. However,
transfer-printed ware and Chinese wares were the most predominate, leaving most assemblages blue-on-white
or white, which a few splashes of colour. All houses had a range of these wares, except 4 Carahers Lane which
had only two saucers and one tea cup of Chinese origin.
Of the number of identifiable vessels of the one type, none composed matching sets, and surprisingly, none
composed tea-and-saucer sets, excepting one porcelain tea cup and one porcelain saucer from 128
Cumberland Street which may have fonned a set.
Some of the wares may be considered 'complementary' as Jane Lydon (1995 and 1999: 48-49) had found in
her study of Mrs Ann Lewis' c1865 privy from the Jobbins building, a row of terraces adjacent to the
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site. Lydon found a number of scenic transfer-printed cups, mostly purple
and argued that though not matching were 'complementary' (thus cohesive) and an indication of Mrs Lewis'
personal taste. The two examples of this occur in 1 Carahers Lane, which had four multi-coloured, sponge
printed ware tea cups and one saucer in different patterns (one floral, three geometric), with different coloured
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods Page 47
rims; and 128 Cumberland Street, which had five scenic blue transfer-printed tea cups and three saucers. It cannot be asserted a 'complementary' set as Lydon had argued for Mrs Lewis' boarding house, because this
study does not deal with one household, but several over time. If not 'complementary', these may be
considered a continued preference for these wares in this house.
Matching Sets
While the teawares may be thought complementary, there is evidence for matching sets for one or two food
serving vessels and unidentified vessels. Some houses also have the same pattern, in different colours. Most
of the matching sets were found in 1 Carahers Lane and 128 Cumberland Street and many were a coupling of
unidentifiable vessels with table serving or eating vessels. 1 Carahers Lane did have a few cross-sub function
matches: a 'Gem' plate and serving dish, a saucer/dish and plate in the 'View Over Lake' and a tea cup and
unidentified plate in 'Two Temples'. The same pattern also appeared in different colours, in the same or
different houses, as listed in Table 6.8. Note that this does not necessarily imply 'multi-coloured setl as each
colour may have belonged to different tenants. If they were sets, then 1 Carahers Lane had at least three
examples of pattern-matched sets.
~ ~ a '" ~ ~ a <'0 =' <'0 ~
~ u .... G <'0 =' <'0 Decoration Pattern <'0 ·c
~ u .... u 00 u U <'0
Type ~ ll') U 00 U name .... ~ ~ Q'\ ~ Pattern ..... ~
Transfer-printed 'Willow' 4 3 * * 'Fibre' Blue (x 2), Blue, Green Blue earthenware, 'Two Temples' 2 2 * * Green, Flow blue 'Gem' 2 Black, Grey
'Fibre' 2 * * 'Rhine' Grey, Blue Grey, Brown 'Asiatic Pheasants' 2 2 * 'Chantilly' Blue, Green 'Albion' 2 * 'Palestine' Blue Green Blue Floral (fS Nll 36) 2
'Seaweed' Blue Blue, Red As above, purple 'Cable' 2
N' sets of 3 2 Chinese blue & 'Canton' * * 2 * different colours white porcelain 'View over lake' 2 * * *
Table 6.8 Transfer-printed earthenwares of the same Total N' vessels matching 18 7 4 0 0 pattern, in different colours, across houses.
Total N' 'sets' 8 3 2 0 0
Table 6.7 Matching vessels. (* indicates single vessels)
DRINKING VESSELS AND ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
Reckner & Brighton (1999) have warned that the quantification of alcohol bottles does not necessarily
represent the amount of alcohol consumed (the same is true for tobacco pipes). Not only could the one bottle
be refilled with alcohol several times (thus several-bottles worth of alcohol was consumed from that bottle)
Page 48 TIx Meaningless Public Smile?
but it also may have been used once for alcohol, then repeatedly for non-alcohol-related products. In addition
to this, for working-class consumers, a large proportion of alcohol was probably consumed on non-domestic
sites: saloons in America, or pubs in Australia.
Richard Waterhouse concurs, writing that public houses were 'centres of male sub-culture, where men from
the working classes gathered to drink, gamble and socialise' (Waterhouse 1995: 81). Women were discouraged
from drinking in public and often drank at home, buying alcohol from public houses in jugs or decanters.
Karskens (1999a: 164) cites the case of Polly Ryan, resident of Playfair Street in the Rocks who often fetched
beer from the pub, but always hid the jug under her apron as she walked home. Each house under study,
excepting 95 Gloucester Street, had at least one jug or decanter; however 128 Cumberland Street had at least
six decanters and one jug, 1 Carahers Lane two jugs and two decanters. These two houses also had a
disproportionate number of glasses and alcohol containers, particularly 128 Cumberland Street which had a
large concentration of tumblers, at least twenty-seven. 1 Carahers Lane also had, in addition to tumblers and
wine glasses, two glass types not found in other houses: at least two rummers and two or three shot glasses.
Forty-four beer/wine bottles were found in 1 Carahers Lane and 66 in 128 Cumberland Street, in contrast to a
total of ten in the other three houses.
,l:l
~ El '" =: '" =: ~ = ~
,l:l
G ~ = ~ ,l:l
~ ... U ... ,l:l ... U :@ ~ ~ ·c ~ ~ ~
U 00 U U U 00 U U ~
U") ~
U") .... ...,. ...,. a-- .... ...,. ...,. a--
Alcoholic Non-alcoholic
Beer/Wine 44 66 2 8 3 Aerated Waters 5 7 3
Gin/Schnapps 9 8 5 Ginger Beer 2 2
Schnapps 1 1 Sarsaparilla 1
Spirit 1 1 Unid 3 3 2 4 2 Stout 1
Decanter 3 6
Total 61 94 6 22 5
Table 6.9 Minimum number of beverage containers.
CUTLERY
In regard to cutlery items, once again, 128 Cumberland Street had the broadest range of functional types,
including carving cutlery (part of a two-tined carving fork and a bone or antler handle, possibly from a carving knife3). 4 Cribbs had a small, bone spoon which may have been used for condiments or feeding babies
(Iacono 1999b: 82). In addition to (single) steel wares, 1 Carahers Lane, 128 Cumberland Street and
3 These have been counted as minimum one as they may well come from the same utensil.
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods Page 49
4 Carahers Lane all had 'silver' cutlery made of a cheaper material: Sheffield Plate - a silver coating over a
copper base. Holmes argued that 'this sort of cutlery would well fit the pattern of the site as containing people
who worked hard, liked their everyday artefacts to look good, but might not have too much spare cash to buy
the best' (Holmes 1999b: 414).
Holmes (1999b: 437) and Iacono (1999b: 81-82) have noted and speculated about the dearth of cutlery in
1 Carahers Lane: two bone handles and 1 spoon recovered from a sondage cut through the deep rubble fill. Three other cutlery items were present in the demolition layers and one in the interface deposit counted as
underfloor in this study (See Chapter 4). While in comparison to other deposits (even with only three items) it
contains a greater minimum than others, this is surprising considering the total quantity of items in 1 Carahers
Lane and the small quantity of items in the 95 Gloucester Street rear.
,l:l
El Ul ,l:l =: cG :I ~ ,l:l
!; U cG ·c G -; u 00 u u ...
Ir) 0 Subfunction Portion Material ... ~ ~ ~ =- r-
Sheffield Plate Silver
2-tined Fork Tines Silver/CuA 1 1
Spoon Bowl Silver/CuA 2 1 21D 5
Unid Handle Silver/CuA 1
Knife Handle CuA 1 1
Iron
Fork Tines Fe 1 1
Knife Blade Fe 1 1 1 1 4
Spoon Bowl Fe 2 2
Bone
Spoon, baby? Bone 1 1
Handles, composite: metal pins etc
Handle Bone 62D 3 3 0 14
Carving Knife Handle Bone/ 1 1 Antler?/ Fe
Minimum Number ofItems 62D 5 4 3 2 19
Table 6.10 Minimum number of cutlery items.
P ag e 50 The Meaningless Public Smile?
SUMMARY
From the house assemblages examined so far, one primary pattern stands out: across many items examined
128 Cumberland Street and 1 Carahers Lane - at almost opposite ends of the house ranking presented in
Chapter 4 - contained similar quantities and types of goods. This was apparent in the few items of
furnishings that have survived, lighting devices, the functional diversity of ceramic food serving vessels, the
presence of 'complementary sets', cutlery, drinking and alcohol-related vessels. It was not apparent in other
categories such as ornamentation and moralising china.
4 Cribbs Lane showed some interesting patterns, having no table serving-vessels, several individual serving
plates and possibly a child's plate. It was also more similar to 128 Cumberland Street and 1 Carahers Lane in
regard to moralising china and decorative lamps. Of the other houses, 4 Carahers Lane showed slightly more
diversity in food-serving vessels than 4 Cribbs Lane, had a few items of 'silver' (Sheffield plate) cutlery and had
some unusual ornaments including a Chinese steatite figurine, but overall appears to have a small number of
items in each category.
6 Furnishings, Tablewares and other Household Goods P ag e 51
Cbapter 7
SMALL INDULGENCES:
JEWELLERY, TOYS AND OTHER
PERSONAL ITEMS
In an excellent study of dress and cultural practice in Australia, Margaret Maynard (1994: 91) found little
historical or museological evidence of clotlUng worn by tlle working or 'under' classes. The group of working
class dressers that had attracted most attention were larrikins and their female companions, noted for their
ostentatious cloiliing and accessories. This is evident in Nelson Whitelocke's illustration 'Cafe Belles' (Figure
7.1) depicting an 'outrageous hip swathe' (rvIaynard 1994: 93), large bows, buckles and bonnet, and oversized
cross - ilie fineries of bourgeois fashion abused by those who used it in excess, rather ilian moderation.
Page 52
Figure 7.1 'Cafe Belles' by Nelson \X1hitelocke, an illustration from A Walk in ~ydn~y Streets, 1885 (in Maynard 1994: 95).
Tbe Meanif(glesJ Public Jmile?
Other working-class women were also mocked or treated with 'moral disdain' for what might be termed their
lack of proportion. Maynard (1994: 93) cites a satirical description of a shop-woman's daughter from 1868, who
was seen wearing:
A short dress, ... a chignon as large as a moderate sized pillow, and a pair of crystal earrings two inches and one line in length, and a colonial brooch of the magnitude of - we11, say a small cheese plate.
Other commentary was far less scathing and declared - in line with tales of the 'Workingman's Paradise'
that the lower classes in Australia were better dressed than their counterparts in Britain. Maynard critiques
these accounts as too generalised and speculates that some urban poor must have worn rags, but were
overlooked amid descriptions of city fashion. Certainly, some newspaper slum chronicles and the Ragged
School reports do describe people poorly dressed and in rags (although Maynard does not cite these).
Photographs of the Rocks area taken around 1900 certainly do not depict any ostentatious belles, nor rag
ridden individuals, although many children were barefoot. A 1901 photograph (Figure 7.2) shows a man and
boy outside the front of the Australian Hotel- probably John Murray, owner of the Hotel from 1894 to 1916
and a boy (his son or relative perhaps). An Albert chain is strung across the boy's jacket (notably, not a
waistcoat) and it is possible that Murray is also wearing one. The Simpsons - the grocers - are not so
embellished, but all are well dressed (Karksens 1999a: 123). In contrast, the children! gathered in Carahers
Lane in 1900 (Figure 7.3) are mostly barefooted and their dress appears to be of lesser quality, one small child
wearing what seems to be an oversized shirt - a hand-me-down?
Portrait photographs of some of the residents from the Cumberland/ Gloucester Streets site gathered by
Grace Karskens and reproduced throughout Inside the Rocks (1999a: 105, 119, 151, 153, 160, 170, 171, 182, 183,
184) offer an image more akin to Murray and his fob watch. Elaborately beaded and finished dresses, collar
and bodice jewellery are worn by women; fob watches and Albert chains by almost all the men - an
assemblage of items indicative of care taken in dress (for example, see Figures 7.4 and 7.5).
Some of these items were recovered from under the floors of houses under study and are discussed below.
! Those on step are possibly the Foy children (Karskens 1999a: 175).
7 Small Indulgences: Jewellery, Toys and Other Personal Items Page 53
Figure 7.2 Looking down Cribbs Lane from Cumberland Street (Mitchell Library; in Godden l\fackay 1999 [\'01 1]: 30, courtesy GML).
Figure 7.3 Carahers Lane, 1900, looking south. (State Records of NSW; in Karskens 199911: 203; copy courtesy Gl\IL).
Figure 7.4 Eliza" \nn :\{erchant \vho, \vith husband \,(!illiam, ran the \X;11alers Arms Hotel at 95 Gloucester Street, \vearing a dress with puffed sleeves, black-bead trimming and possibly metal buttons .. \ brooch or other decorative element can just be made out on her collar. She also wears a leontine chain and a tassel. (n d, in Karskens 1999a: 105)
JEWELLERY
Figure 7.5 Mar), .lane I lartle)" great granddaughter of Richard and Margaret Bvrne and David Champ soon after their marriage in 1899. (Karskens 1999a: 151)
The most extensive evidence for 'small indulgences' was the vast collection of jewellery, reccn-ered from all
houses under study (although only a few items were from the 95 Gloucester Street rear). The amoullt and
quality of these pIeces formed an interesting distribution pattern, noted by Nadia Iacono, author of the
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site Miscellaneous Art~lJdJ Report. \'V11ile 1 Carahers Lane had the most items of
jewellery, including one or two good-quality items, 128 Cumberland Street and cl Cribbs Lane had fewer items,
yet these were of a 'consistent high quality' (Iacono 1999b: 71).
For example, there \vcre five earrings in 1 Carahers Lane, only one in cl Cribbs Lane and one in
128 Cumberland Street, the latter, single item being of exceptional quality. It was a highly ornate earring with
four faceted beryl stones set in a clOlsonne (partitioned enamel) gold, filigree design (50990) and 'displays
highly skilled craftsmanship and stands alone as a piece of considerable value, even today' (Iacono 1999b: 69).
The earring from cl Cribbs Lane was a long, two-piece drop style ornament in a form popular after c1865,
composed of gilt copper alloy with red glass insets. The five earrIngs in 1 Carahers Lane included a leaf
shaped in bog oak on a copper alloy loop (bog oak, found in Ireland, was not used commercially until after
1820); a small copper alloy petal shaped bezel with a faceted purple glass setting; and another possibly-Irish
- :-;mall Imlulgences: .!cwdlcry, T()ys ano ()t1lCr Personal Items
earring handcrafted from silver and gilt copper in an elaborate Celtic knotwork design with faceted, round
green-glass settings in claw bezels (Iacono 1999b: 69).
Of (finger) rings, six were recovered from 1 Carahers Lane, three from 4 Cribbs Lane, two from
128 Cumberland Street and none from 4 Carahers Lane or the rear of95 Gloucester Street. 4 Cribbs Lane had
the most striking ring - a gold band fragment set with rubies - and also had two thin copper alloy bands
with claw bezels, one with a faceted blue-glass piece, the other missing its stone. Being small in size, these
latter two rings were probably for 'children or a woman's little finger' (Iacono 1999b: 68). 128 Cumberland
Street had two small, copper alloy bands, again possibly for children. 1 Carahers Lane had four copper-alloy
rings, two being plain bands; one quite thick and potentially to be worn by a man (Iacono 1999a: 68); another
thick band with floral decoration inscribed 'FRIENDSHIP'; and an ornate ring with twelve of thirteen diamantes
in beaded collets. A thick plain band, possibly a wedding band, was recovered from one of the lower
demolition layers.
Some of the other more precious items and decorative elements were recovered from 4 Carahers Lane and
128 Cumberland Street. 4 Carahers Lane had a bracelet charm, possibly of pure gold (shape is unidentifiable);
a small (1.5 cm wide) bird with outstretched wings carved from agate; and part of a green steatite block with
incised flowers, probably from China. 128 Cumberland Street had a gilt, press-moulded oval brooch, noted as
among the most valuable of brooches recovered from the site (Iacono 1999b: 67). The only other two
brooches recovered from houses under study were copper alloy (one from 4 Cribbs Lane, one from 4
Carahers Lane). 128 Cumberland Street also had two vulcanite chain links, possibly from chatelaines; an oval
locket case; and decorative elements including a clear drop pendant with a frosted flower either side, a red
carnival-glass cabochon, an oval shell ornament and a black-glass heart-shaped cabochon.
95 Gloucester Street rear had one vulcanite oval pendant, with a press-moulded tendril 111 the central
depression and a raised, beaded criss-cross line border. Two hat pins, which date from the 1890s when large,
flat hats became fashionable (Iacono 1999a: 68) were recovered from 4 Cribbs Lane and 1 Carahers Lane. The
former having a glass-ball, the latter a copper alloy leaf.
Brooch brooch Closure
Chain links chain bar
Pendant
Medallion? Locket case
Pendant/ watchback
Charm Bracelet
Earring
Ring
Hatpin
Tassel and holder
,.Q
e e ::I
U " u ~ ....
1 2 2
10 21
5
5 D 2**
'" ~ ,.Q
" ,.Q .. G " ·c u u ~ ~ ~
4
2
3*
,.Q
§ '" ~ " "
,.Q ,.Q .. U :; ·c G " u 00 u u
~ t'l .... ~ ~ 0\
Clasp 2 5
Decorative elements unidentifiable 6 3 2 paste 5 8 2 7 carnival glass 1 finding?
Table 7.1 Jewellery items, pastes and clasps (excluding beads). (* small ring probably for child or woman's pinky finger; D recovered from demolition layer)
Beads followed a pattern similar to, but less distinct than that of jewellery. Better quality or unusual beads
(the precious stones, ivory, porcelain) were found in all houses. There was, however, slighdy more in 128
Page 56 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Cumberland Street which had two agate and one rose quartz beads and 1 Carahers Lane which had one
chalcedony and one agate bead (see Table 7.2). These latter beads are 'rare and valuable' and likely to have
fallen from necklaces or bracelets (lacono 1999b: 44).
\Vhile many beads are used as jewellery and decorative elements, some perform more or other functions
(lacono 1999b: 42). Rosary beads, for example, were (and are) part of Catholic religious practice, rather
than merely decorative. Thirty-five, plain light blue beads 'of a size, shape and colour common in cheap
rosary sets available even today' (lacono 1999b: 42) were recovered from 4 Cribbs Lane and no other
houses under study.
1 ,J:l
CIJ e CIJ ,J:l ~ ,J:l ~ 01 01 ,J:l e ::I 01 :@ ... U ~ ·c G -; u ... G -;
01 .. 01 01 .. U QC) U U 0 U QC) U U 0
~ It')
f-4 ~ It')
f-4 .... "'" "'" Q'\ .... "'" "'" Q'\
Glass 167 157 19 170 3 521 Coral 1 Shell 8 3 5 11 27 Chalcedony 1
Ivory 3 2 5 Agate 2 1 4
Faience 1 2 1 5 Rose quartz
Porcelain 2 3 Total 182 167 26 185 5 570
Bone 1 Table 7.2 Quantity of beads, by type of Casein 1 material.
Black and particularly jet jewellery was popularised after the death of Prince Albert in 1861, which plunged
Britain (and the colonies) into a period of mourning, in 'wholehearted sympathy with Queen' (Riley
1997: 118; see also Iacono 1999b 70). No jet items were recovered from the houses under study; however
many black beads, buttons, pastes and other items were recovered - the most being from 128
Cumberland Street, 1 Carahers Lane and to a lesser extent, 4 Cribbs Lane (see Table 7.4). Interestingly, the
only identifiable jewellery item from 95 Gloucester Street rear was an imitation-jet pendant.
,J:l
~ CIJ
~ ~ ,J:l ~
U :@ G u QC) u u ~
It') .... "'" "'" Q'\
Imitation Jet buttons 44 32 8 18
Decorative elements (incl beads) 10 24 1 19
Jewellery Pieces 1 1
Total 55 57 9 37
Table 7.3 Black buttons, beads and jewellery items.
7 Small Indulgences: Jewellery, Toys and Other Personal Items P ag e 57
TIMEKEEPING DEVICES AND ALBERT CHAINS
While watches clearly perform the function of telling the time, portably, they were also a popular item of
Victorian fashion and were displayed conspicuously, over waistcoats, suspended on Albert chains.
Karskens (1999b: 175) notes that pocket watches became 'cheap, sturdy and reliable' from the 1870s and
are particularly associated with men. The portraits, and street photograph outside the Australian Hotel
mentioned above (Figures 7.1 and 7.3), indicate that some Rocks people followed this fashion.
Of the houses under study, there is a clustering of parts in 1 Carahers Lane and 128 Cumberland Street (see
Table 7.4). The parts may, however, represent only 1 watch per house - a watch key may easily fall off
and be replaced. 1 Carahers Lane did have the piece most indicative of the decorative function of these
items: a copper alloy tassel (with cap and six chain strings still attached), dating from 1870 to 1880. Such
tassels were commonly attached to the ends of leontine chains (also known as Ladies' Albert chains,
although Iacono [1999b: 70] notes they could be worn by men or women).
.c .c <I) 8 <I)
~ .c .c ~ .c =' ~ ~
~ ~ ... ·c u ... ... U ~ ~ ~ ~
Watches U U 00 U Watch Chains U U 00 U ... "It' ~ "It' ... "It' ~ "It'
Watch key 2 2 1 Albert Chain Bar 1
Watch/clock parts 1 1 1 1 Tassel 1
Watchback? 1 Guard Chain 1
Watch glass 1 Watch band buckle?
Parts 4 4 2 Parts 3 0 0
Min. Na watches Min. Na chains 0 0
Table 7.4 Number of watch parts.
CLOTHING
While complete garments are rarely preserved in an archaeological context, other ephemeral indicators,
such as buttons, buckles and other, non-fixed accessories, are abundant.
Buttons
Most of the buttons retrieved from the houses under study were popular throughout their occupation
spans. Fabric-covered buttons, glass and nacre buttons were all being mass-produced and readily available
by the 1850s (lacono 1999a: 45, 52-32). From 128 Cumberland Street and 4 Carahers Lane, two 'livery'
buttons, associated with a relaxed 'sporting-style' of dress, fashionable in later decades of the century
(lacono 1999b: 51). Two pre-1800 buttons were also recovered, one from 1 Carahers Lane and another
from 128 Cumberland Street. As noted by Iacono (1999b: 50), they may indicate second-hand mending or
possibly, 'a resistance by older residents to participate in changing styles of fashion occurring from the
1850s'. However, their presence in such small numbers carries little weight. (See Chapter 8 for further
discussion of buttons.)
P ag t 58 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Buckles
Of the belt and other buckles recovered, 128 Cumberland Street had the two most interesting pieces: one a
belt clasp with depiction of a cricket bowler, the other depicting a leaping dog or fox on the obverse face
- a style described as a waistcoat buckle (Iacono 1999a: 59). Buckles from other houses were mosdy rust
encrusted or fragmentary, excepting a pearl-shell buckle to slide over fabric found in 1 Carahers Lane (see
Table 7.5).
J;i. Il!::: e '"
(J
J;i. = co = e ~ G ... u -; co co U 00 U U
... III 0 ... ~ ..,. ..,. Q\ E-t
Belt Buckle 7 4 1 2 1 15
Cuff link 1 1
Solitaire 5 5
Stud 12 7 4 8 2 33
24 11 5 11 3 54
Table 7.5 Number clothing accessories. (Note not minimum number of clothing items.)
Men's Accessories
In addition to a disproportionately large quantity of buttons, the house assemblage from 1 Carahers Lane
had twelve studs (one a carnival glass) - for fastening the cuffs and collars of men's shirts, and five
solitaires - spring-loaded 'elaborate and showy' studs' of these, also known as 'bachelor buttons' - which
were not recovered from anywhere else on site. (See Table 7.5.) Solitaires were manufactured for a limited
period between 1870 and 1890 and their presence indicates awareness of contemporary fashion trends by
men living in, or visiting, 1 Carahers Lane (lacono 1999b: 57). 4 Cribbs Lane also had several studs and
one cuff link suggesting a similar interest male fashion.
Non-prescription Spectacles
A number of spectacle lens and frames are found in the houses under study. Being blue or clear and flat,
they are non-prescriptive lenses and likely to have been used as a fashion or 'protective' item, as mail-order
catalogues advertised them to be useful for (lacono 1999b: 72). At least one was found in all houses
excepting 95 Gloucester Street rear, with at least three items from 128 Cumberland Street and possibly
more than one from 1 Carahers Lane (see Table 7.6).
7 Small Indulgences: Jewellery, Toys and Other Personal Items Page 59
'S '" ..c ~ ::s ~ ..c ... U ... ·c ~ ~
u 00 u u .... ~ ~ ~
Frame 1
Lens 62 4 1
Lens & Frame 1 1
MinimumNQ 1-6 3 1 1
Table 7.6 Non-prescription Spectacles.
Shoes
Little can be said about the quality of shoe items directly in the houses under study, as only fragments have
survived, despite the fact that good-quality shoes have been identified elsewhere on the
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site. The Leather Artefacts Report by Rebecca Bower focused on
concentrations of better preserved shoes in wells and cesspit. However, the presence of offcuts may be
indicative of shoe mending within the home (Bower 1999a: 127). This may suggest that these were poorer
quality shoes or good shoes worn over a long period of time. As with ceramics, the decline in quality may
be a consequence of an overall decline in quality - a topic which, as Bower (1999: 121, 132) has noted,
requires further study. The greater number of these fragments in 1 Carahers Lane may suggest that more
shoes were mended here than in other houses, suggestive perhaps, of poorer-quality shoes (see Table 7.7).
However, such a conclusion is perhaps too speculative to be given weight.
The few shoe buckles recovered from the site give a better idea of the sorts of shoes worn - or rather,
one or two of the sorts of shoes worn. 4 Cribbs Lane had the most ornate shoe buckles, one being brass
with an ornate leaf and flower motif; the other with a shell and fan motif. Another shoe buckle in 128
Cumberland Street was also decorated with a tendril pattern. One of the four buckles from 1 Carahers
Lane is decorated, another stamped 'PARIS / SOLID' .
..c El '" ..c ~
~ ::s ~ ..c ~ U ~ ·c G u 00 u u OIl e-.... ~ ~ ~ Q\ Cl
Shoe Upper 1 1
Shoe Sole 20 3 1 2 26
Shoe Heel 1 1 2
Shoe Heel protector 8 5 1 1 1 16
Boot Upper + sole 1
Shoe Nail 13 1 2 18 34
Shoe Buckle 4 1 1 4 2
47 10 6 24 88
Table 7.7 Shoe elements.
2 Artefacts are missing so may represent one frame.
Page 60 The Meaningless Pllblic Smile?
PERSONAL CARE AND HYGIENE
The lack of toothbrushes found at the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site surprised the specialist, Nadia
Iacono (1999a: 80), suggestive perhaps of poor dental hygiene. In addition, there was no evidence for wash
basins (despite the recovery of others from 3 Carahers Lane and 124 Cumberland Street) or toothpaste jars,
and only three jars were recovered across the site, all from demolition contexts (phases 7-8: D003, C004,
C026). Neither were soap containers recovered from these houses.
The lack of toothpaste and soap containers on site does not necessarily mean that the residents did not use
soap and toothpaste, nor necessarily that they did not buy these products. Soap is more often sold in
paper, without packaging, or tin (Cuffley 1984: 183, 185). Toothpaste may also have been purchased in tin
or tubes from the 1890s (Cuffley 1984: 184, 187), which may not survive in an archaeologically
recognisable form. Also, wash basins may have been made from enameled ware - cheaper, but
sometimes decorative - or other tin wares, rather than ceramics. While this may indicate a difference
between these houses and the more 'middle-class' wash basin and table, it does not preclude an absence of
hygiene. The other possibility is that soap was made at home, or bought from the local soap works in
Gloucester Street (prior to its demolition in the 1880s). It is also possible, that the tenant used the equally
effective alternative to manufactured toothpaste: salt, which was used well into the twentieth century
(.Murray 1998: 142).
There were more examples, however, of hair combs, items that related to personal appearance, more so
than hygiene. 4 Carahers Lane (the house without a cesspit) had two toothbrushes - one 'the ideal'
toothbrush. 128 Cumberland Street also had a toothbrush. 1 Carahers Lane had an 'UNBREAKABLE'
vulcanite comb and two black and one brown 'HARBURGER' nit combs. Most combs were vulcanite,
excepting a wood comb in 1 Carahers Lane, and a wood comb and casein comb in 4 Cribbs Lane. (See
Table 7.8.)
~ ~
8 '" 8 '" ~ ~ <'I ::s <'I ~ <'I ::s <'I :@ ... U ... ... U ... <'I <'I ·c <'I <'I
U 00 U U U 00 U U ... ~ ~ ~ ... ~ ~ ~
Hair Comb 5 5 2 6 Perfume 3 3 1
Hair Comb, Nit 3 1 Almond Cream 1
Hair Brush 1 Hand mirror 1 1
Tooth Brush 1 2 MinNlI 4 4 2
Breath Freshener 1
Chamber Pot 1
Bath Chain 1
9 9 5 7
Table 7.8 Items associated with personal hygiene and care.
7 Small Indulgences: Jewellery, Toys and Other Personal Items Page 61
'QUACK CURES'
Beverley Kingston (1994: 47) has argued that patent medicines, all-purpose pills, cocoa, laxatives, and
cleaning products (especially soap) and other products advertised as promoting better health were 'the first
items to attract the attention of surplus disposable working-class income' in America, Britain and Australia.
Martin Carney also notes the popularity of patent medicines after the 1860s and 1870s and that on the
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site overall, 'medicine containers are present in low, but not unusual
numbers' (Carney 1999b: 114). Of the houses in this study, by far the most pharmaceutical equipment was
from 1 Carahers Lane and 128 Cumberland Street (see Table 7.9) which both contained the few examples
of popular 'quack cures' (Holloway's ointment for example). This suggests, perhaps, that the residents of 4
Cribbs Lane, 4 Carahers Lane and 95 Gloucester Street were less 'willing to pay good money in the hope of
feeling better' (Kingston 1994: 47).
.&l
§ en ~ e .&l ... u :8 ~ ~
U co U U .... ~ ..,. ..,. Castor oil bottles 3 1
Medicine bottles (clear, blue, green) 6 7 1 4
Light green bottle, possibly of Chinese origin 1 1
Bottle marked: '[J.? Nei?]lson Syd[ney)' (1832-42) 1
Bottle marked: 'CS/JW?L' (1860+)
Holloway's Ointment Jar (1851+) 1
Ointment jar marked: '12 T- / Lombard-' 1
Plain fine-earthenware jars 1 2
Syringe plunger head, hatched 1 2
Total 14 15 4
Table 7.9 Minimum number of pharmaceutical jars and other equipment.
CHILDREN'S TOYS
A large number of fragments of dolls and doll tea sets were recovered, and many from 1 Carahers Lane
(see Table 7.10). These doll parts are from small dolls (probably about 10 cm long) with porcelain heads
sewn onto stuffed-cloth bodies. Most had painted hair and facial details, with the exception of one doll
head from 128 Cumberland Street which once held a wig and glass eyes and was marked '[GERM]ANY'.
Among the many in 1 Carahers Lane, one was noted as having roughly painted hair and facial details. Two
were bonneted - one in 4 Carahers Lane, the other in Nu 1 - a style that became popular in the 1880s.
Similarly, most doll's tea-set items, including ten cups and the only tea pot, were recovered from 1 Carahers
Lane, but other house assemblages had items of diverse function - a fruit stand and jug from 128
Cumberland Street, and possibly a sugar bowl from 4 Cribbs Lane and 4 Carahers Lane (see Table 7.11).
Marbles recovered from houses under study were mostly limestone (see Table 7.12), the least valuable
material for marble making, and Iacono notes that they 'not necessarily the preferred choice' of marble
Page 62 The Meaningless Pllbac Smile?
players (Iacono 1999b: 77). Of the more valuable marbles (porcelain, glass, fine stoneware), most were
from 4 Carahers Lane (seventeen), 1 Carahers Lane (sixteen) and 128 Cumberland Street (thirteen). (See
Table 7.12.) Most small, toy figurines and the like were also found in 1 Carahers Lane and 4 Carahers Lane
(see Table 7.13). (Other aspects of toys recovered from these houses are discussed in Chapter 8.)
~ e '" ~ ::s ~
~ ... U 1;1 ~ -; 1 ~ '" ~ U 00 U U ... 0 ~ .... s:::1 "'" "'" f-! ~ U ~ ~ G -;
~ ~
U 00 U U ...
Porcelain 5 4 2 1 13 <'l 0 .... s:::1 "'" "'" 0- f-! Bisque 2 1* 3 Limestone 70 54 59 P 66 250
7 4 2 2 16 Glass 6 2 10 3 21
Table 7.10 Minimum number of dolls. Porcelain 5 P 4 2P,G 3 P 4 P, 2G 16
Fine stoneware 5 1 2 8
Terracotta 5 3 8 ~
Ballot box? 1 e '" ~ ::s ~
~ ... U ... ~ -; Bennington ~ ~
U 00 U U ... 0 .... s:::1 "'" "'" f-! Total 86 67 76 75 305
Cup 10 3 1 4 18 Table 7.12 Marbles. Saucer 1 1 1 3 (P painted; G glazed; all others plain.) Teapot 1
Plate 2 1 1 4 ~ e '" ~ Jug 1 ~
~ ::s ~ ~ G ... u -; ~ ~
Fruit Stand 1 U 00 U U ... lI) 0
Item 1 .... s:::1 "'" "'" 0- f-!
1
Lid (sugar bowl?) 2 Flat moulded toy figurine: probably a 1
1 1 soldier 14 7 3 7 31 Lead toy figurine: alloy horse & rider 1
Table 7.11 Doll's Tea Sets. Tin or lead moulded toy boat 1
Toy sovereign 1
Toy watch 1
Toy wheel 1 2 3
3 2 3 0 0
Table 7.13 Toys figurines and other small toys.
7 Small Indulgences: Jewellery, Toys and Other Personal Items Page 63
SUMMARY
The 'small luxuries' in the houses under study appear in a slight variation to the pattern observed of
furnishings and other household goods in Chapter 6. What is clear from the jewellery, clothing ephemeron
and accessories, toys, is that the things we 'consider small luxuries' do occur in all houses, but the two 'best'
houses (128 Cumberland Street, 4 Cribbs Lane) had more best-quality jewellery items. 4 Carahers Lane
also had a few good-quality items. 1 Carahers Lane had a vast range of jewellery items, toys and a few
items exceptional as evidence for male fashion. Significantly, while few tablewares and other items
occurred, 95 Gloucester Street rear did have one item of jewellery, a pendant - in fashionable black.
In regard to personal hygiene and some fashion accessories such as spectacles, 1 Carahers Lane is once
again on par with 128 Cumberland Street. 4 Carahers Lane, as well had some surprisingly good-quality
items, or items indicative of 'better' behaviour - such as toothbrushes (but no frivolous items such as
perfume), and also a large quantity of marbles, despite the comparative lack of other items overall.
In regard to toys, 1 Carahers Lane had the most, notably many more dolls and doll's tea sets than other
houses, while the quantities of marbles and tin toys were more comparable.
Page 64 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Chapter 8
PATHS OF IGNOBLE DESCENT?
GUESSING THE MARKET PLACE OF
URBAN CONSUMERS
In the preceding two chapters, items from each household assemblage were compared on the basis of their
relative value. Artefacts do not survive with price tags, and independent pricing of goods for Australia in the
mid- to late-nineteenth century is rarel . Thus, the value of artefacts is inferred from differences in the artefacts'
function, fabric or decoration. For example, dolls with wigs and glass eyes generally cost more than dolls with
painted features. Many of these assumptions are based on consideration of the type of manufacture (the more
time or skill required to make the item, the more valuable it would be) or the value of materials used (rubies
instead of glass, for example). Often, this is supported by pricing data known from other contexts, such as
George Miller's (1980, 1991) price index for American ceramics.
However, there are other factors external to the object that may also affect its value in general terms. One of
these is the 'market place' or the place from which an object was acquired. Some of the jewellery, beads,
perfume bottles and dolls described in Chapter 7 are likely to have been expensive, suggesting consumers
apportioned a considerable degree of their income to 'small indulgences' (some more so than others). But what
if they were bought second-hand from a local pawnshop, or from a market bazaar that stocked damaged and
stolen goods 'arrested in their ignoble descent from the shops to the gutter'? While the implications of this are
reserved for discussion in Chapter 9, this chapter explores the kinds of market places where Rocks people may
have shopped and the possibilities and problems of identifying this in the archaeological record.
SHOPPING IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
While some attention has been paid to the impact of market accessibility on ceramics assemblages (see Klein
1991) and other aspects of shopping (Cook et aI1996), few studies have examined the actual market place or
places where goods were purchased. Consequently, little consideration has been given to the impact that the
place may have had on the selection of domestic goods, beyond the observation that regions distanced from
central markets will be supplied with different goods (see Klein 1991). Other studies that have utilised records
from local stores have used these records as a means to assess the availability of goods. Amy Friedlander
(1991), for example, examined probate inventories of New Jersey farmers in the period from 1795 to 1815 and
made some comparison with local storekeepers' inventories. The farmers chose to invest - and expressed
their status, as Friedlander argued - in landholdings, livestock and farm machinery rather than in expensive
household goods, which were known to be available from the local stores, but not listed in the probate
inventories (1991: 26, 28).
1 The prices of many goods in America are readily accessible in facsimile print of mail-order catalogues (eg Montgomery Ward 1895). Surviving nineteenth-century Australian catalogues do not seem to have prices. A Hall & Co.'s furniture catalogue is an exception to this.
8 Paths of Ignoble Descent?: Guessing the Market Place of Urban Consumers Page 65
In Susan Henry's Model for Consumer Behaviour, based on contemporary, economic and marketing theories
of consumption, there are twenty-one factors affecting consumer decision-making! (See Figure 8.1.) While
'Marketing Efforts' and particularly 'Distribution' would cover the market place, there is litde discussion of the
impact that the shopping environment may have on the 'decision', and consequendy that the 'Acquisition'is
not simply the enactment of a decision made prior to a shopping excursion.
Such a consideration might be expected in Lauren Cook, Rebecca Yamin and John McCarthy's (1996) article,
'Shopping as Meaningful Action: Towards a Redefinition of Consumption in Historical Archaeology'. Their
primary concerns, however, were to assert (or reassert) that 'material items are often consciously and
intentionally used by people to communicate conceptions of self to others' (1996: 59) - akin to the theses of
Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood (1996 [1978]), Daniel Miller (1987) and Grant McCracken (1988). This
brings to the fore just one of the twenty-one factors oudined by Henry ('Social Needs,). Cook et al (1996: 60) only briefly mention three acts or stages of shopping and use the term to encompass the need to purchase and
consume, not stricdy the activity and specific decisions made in a physical market place - the corner store, the
department store or the pawn shop.
Despite the lack of this discussion at the level of model-building, at least two studies have addressed and
utilised the impact of the market place on consumer decisions. Paul Mullins (1999) examined African
American consumers in the years after the abolition of slavery. He demonstrated that African-Americans of all
socioeconomic classes purchased national-brand preserved goods exclusively, rather than locally produced
goods where the marketer or shopkeeper could short-supply or adulterate the food of dark-skinned shoppers,
if he or she so desired. Ann Smart Martin (1996) examined household goods listed in probate and store
records from eighteenth-century Virginia. She observed the tendency of less-affluent frontier customers to
purchase one or two items throughout the year from the local store. Wealthier customers, having more funds
at their disposal, were recorded to purchase several vessels at once and others are known to have ordered large
quantities of goods from London. Martin (1996 99) speculated that the apparent disinterest in matching wares
by less-affluent consumers was an impact of this process of acquisition.
In both these cases, the place and act of purchase has an important impact on the goods selected.
SHOPPING IN SYDNEY
The two consumer contexts described by Mullins and Martin are relatively unique to America. While prejudice
against Afro-American consumers may also have been experienced by Aborigines or non-Anglo migrants to
Australia, no such residents are not known in the houses under study. (It may not be a racist phenomenon,
however, as Cuffley [1984:183] notes the introduction of seals and ribbons on perfume botdes protected
against substitution of lesser-quality contents in shop-served goods.) Also, Martin's - and other American
studies (eg Friedlander 1991) - are blessed by the abundance of probate data and the survival of local
storekeepers' inventories - resources sadly lacking in Australia (Bairstow 1991: 52, 56)2. However, there are
other resources to suggest the kinds of market places that Rocks consumers may have partaken in.
2 It appears that some records for general stores in rural .\ustralia have survived, see Marshall and Moore 1978: 26-27, 32.
Page 66 The Meaningless Pub/i,' Smik?
THE DECISION
'-EXTERNALINFLUENCE~
Marketing Efforts Socio-cultural Environment Product [riformal Sources Price Family Distribution Reference Groups Promotion Social Class
Subculture
,-INTERNALINFLUENCE + Needs I Self- 14 Psychological
Actualisation Motivation
b Ego Needs t~ Perception ><
........ Sdf-_ ~ Learning 0
1 Social Needs Personality -- IQ
:.: (Friendship, Belonging) Attitudes u
Safety and Security Needs ..: I (Protection, Order, Stability)
..I IQ
Physiological Needs I Prepurchase search (Food, Water, Air, Shelter, Clothing) & evaluation of----------. Experience
(Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) alternatives
; r-;:I-- Income l Faciltator or Constraint
.. ~I ACQUISITION I
Purchase, barter, home production, hunt & gather, theft
" USE
" I POST-USE DISPOSITION
..------- .. ~I 1 FU:er 1 I wss I No further
Abandonment use .. / .~ I Recycle, re-use I Residue I No residue
/ "'-& .. By
1
I Notby I I Discard I household household 1 .. ..
I Same or different I I Sell, give I Defacto Primary Refuse
functional category away refuse 1 i I .. I POST-DISPOSITION MOVEMENT
" I Secondary Refuse I .. I ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD
Figure 8.1 A general model for the acquisition and use of a consumer good (after Henry's [1991: 5] 'general model of consumer behaviour,).
8 Paths of Ignoble Descent?: Guessing the Market Place of Urban Consumers P ag e 67
SOCIAL HISTORIES
Two historians have provided accounts of shopping in Sydney and Australia: Frances Pollon's (1989) history of
retailers and Beverley Kingston's (1994) 'social history' of shopping. Both historians correctly describe the rise
of department stores in the city and inner-city suburbs - Iredale & Co. (later Lassetters), Fanners, Mark Foys,
Anthony Hordems, David Jones and Grace Brothers - and refined shopping arcades, such as the Strand in
Sydney (1892) and also the Queen Victoria Markets (1898). While the luxuriousness of French, American and
English 'palaces of consumption' was played down in the Antipodes - it 'was "un-Australian" (and also
expensive)' (Kingston 1994: 26) - department stores in Australia were still embodiments of a new kind of
market place focussed on the customer's needs and desires, and required a new kind of genteel behaviour.
However, these stores were not necessarily the 'palaces of consumption' for working-class consumers. Of
Melbourne in the 1880s, Kingston writes that uncertainty in working and living conditions 'tended to
discourage the accumulation of household or other possessions' and most 'necessary' shopping took place at
local markets, cheap grocers or corner stores (1994: 38). By the early twentieth century, it seems working-class
consumers had more money to spend on non-essential goods. 'Variety stores' such as Coles - the one
shilling, later two-and-six store - were in the market place and catering to less-affluent consumers. Kingston
saw this success as related to:
... the hunger for more, and more affordable, consumer goods in working-class suburbs where families were on the brink of respectability, moving beyond necessities like food and clothing to small items which made life more comfortable, housekeeping easier and more versatile, or gave the satisfaction of personal adornments (1994: 48, emphasis added).
Attempting to snag both markets, the Myers store had 'bargain basements' and bargain trading days, which at
times provoked tension between 'the kind of customer who came looking for the "real bargains" to be found in
the basement and those who were in search of quality upstairs' (Kingston 1994: 48). It was not until 1928, that
Coles were confident that there were enough 'bargain shoppers' to establish a city store - opposite Myers.
Bargain shopping seems to have been in operation well before this, and considered with some disdain. In 1893
Louisa Lawson wrote that it should be:
... part of a girl's education to ~eam how to] shop wisely and well- to know that bargain counters are to be avoided if they do not present something that one really wants (in Kingston 1994: 29).
While Kingston allocates some of these developments to the years after the demolition of many houses under
study, they are important for two reasons. Firstly, they associate working-class shopping practices with a sense
of 'indecency', a greedy indulgence of cheap trash, that strikes a distinction to middle-class, department store
shopping. Secondly, Kingston's description of early-twentieth-century shopping befits the house assemblages
described in Chapter 7 and Chapter 6, more so than the 1880s account of 'essentials only'.
OTHER EVIDENCE: MARKETS, PAWN SHOPS AND SELLERS ON THE DOORSTEP
Other historical, literary and oral sources specific to Sydney and the Rocks, concur with the elements of
working-class shopping that Kingston has identified and also suggest other 'market places': pawn shops and
door-to-door selling.
Page 68 The Meaningless PHblic Smile?
The 'Huge Bazaar of the Poor'
Louis Stone's (1871-1935) novel Jonah, detailed the unhappy rise of a Cardigan Street larrikin to wealth and
respectability. It is thought to have been written in 1908 (published 1911), based on the Stone's memories and
'painstaking observation' of life in Waterloo where he lived and taught school children from 1889 to 1893
(Kiernan c1990). In it, Stone describes a scene of Paddy's Market (1998 [1911]: 93-97) - the 'huge bazaar of
the poor' where 'no caprice of the belly ... [nor] ... want of the naked body' could not be gratified by consumers
who 'counted in pence'. The stalls were packed with a jumble of second-hand and damaged goods:
... the drift and refuse of a great City. For here the smug respectability of the shops were cast aside, and you were deep in the romance of traffic in merchandise fallen from its high estate - a huge welter and jumble of things arrested in their ignoble descent from the shops to the gutter.
At times a stall was loaded with the spoils of a sunken ship or the loot from a city fire, and you could buy for a song the rare fabrics and costly dainties of the rich, a stain on the cloth, a discoloured label on the tin, alone giving a hint of their adventures.
Some items of the kind recovered from the houses under study were also described: scented soap and perfume
stirring young women's 'instinctive delight in luxury' - for a few pence; second-hand clothes with 'mysterious
darns and patches [that] cheated the eye like a painted beauty at a ball.' Children:
... pricked their ears at the sudden blare of a tin trumpet, the squeaking of a mechanical doll .... The mothers, harassed with petty cares, anxiously considered the prices; then the pennies were counted, and the child clasped in its small hands a Noah's ark, a wax doll, or a wooden sword. (Stone 1998 [1911]: 97)
Which items were bought seems to have mattered little to the shoppers in Stone's market. He concludes his
description, noting:
... the stream of people ... clutching in their arms fowls, pot-plants, parcels of groceries, toys for the children, and a thousand odd, nameless trifles, bought for the sake of buying, because they were cheap
Trading In
William Lane's Worktng Man ~ Paradise: An Australian Labour Novel, first published in 1892 and set in the Rocks,
suggests a more considered and deliberate consumption strategy and expression of identity - or desired
identity. It described how Mrs Phillips, 'a workingman's wife', yearned for a 'a room' (a parlour) and scraped
and saved her pennies to gather a gilt-framed mirror, a sofa, four 'spidery' chairs, a round table, a 'wonderful
display of wax apples under a glass shade', a sideboard, white-lace curtains, linoleum for the floor and various
ornaments and pictures of noticeable appearance (Lane 1998: 5-6).
While being the subject of envy and dislike for her 'distinction', falling wages and rising rents forced the family
to rent out the room and barter the furnishings at a pawn shop, in exchange for more appropriate items. The
mirror, sideboard and waxed fruit were moved to the kitchen, and 'stood like the lingering shrine of a departed
faith' (Lane 1998: 5-6). The sofa, chairs and table would then have been bartered for other furnishings, and
were probably sought for utilitarian purposes - simply something to sit on - than the 'room' that had,
temporarily, fulfilled Mrs Phillips' aspirations.
Fact or Fiction?
It is unknown ifMrs Phillip's sofa (or even Mrs Phillips) really existed or their stories were based on real people
and events, and the use of historical literature as historical fact can be misleading. While Lane's novel is set in
the Rocks, it is uncertain how much time he spent there between 1885 when he arrived in Australia from
8 Paths of Ignoble Descent?: Guessing the Market Place of Urban Consumers Page 69
England and became a journalist in Brisbane (Australian Enryclopaedia 1990: 290) and 1892, when the novel was
published. While a journalist, he was not of the calibre of 'slum' reporters, and he is in fact known as a social
reformer, involved in the trade-union movement. The result of his bias may still be the same Gust as the
Ragged School reports were also): beating up the decrepitude and hopeless repression of urban poverty in
order to get attention and make a change. Similarly, Louis Stone's vivid description of Paddy's Markets is an
outsiders' view - although it is known he lived on the 'inside'3, in Waterloo from 1889 to 1893, the novel was
written with more than a decade's hindsight.
Both novels stem from a genre of writing that several archaeological investigations in the Rocks have sought to,
and have, overturned (Iborp 1994, Karskens and Godden Mackay 1999, Lydon 1999). The consideration of
these works in this study should not be read as reversion to the old 'slum' vision, but the possibility that the
activities described are accurate, even if the overtones - condemnatory and empathetic - are false. That is,
perhaps working-class consumers did purchase second-hand and damaged goods from markets and pawn
shops, and perhaps shopping at the markets was more of an event than a task.
The possibility that goods were bought regardless of what they were or may have represented, calls into question
the appropriateness of classification systems used in studies of working-class consumption (see Chapter 5) and
the limits of studying consumer items as conscious expressions of individual identity (Cook et aI1996).
The Rocks
Concerning the Rocks, occupancy data collected for the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site (Godden Mackay
1999 [V 01 3]: Appendix A) suggests the presence of pawn shops on site. Three pawnbrokers occupied 108 and 110 Cumberland Street from 1861 to 1880 (for all years excepting 1866 and 1871-1873). Eight 'dealers'
occupied nine different houses on Cumberland and Gloucester Streets from 1861 to 1879. Seventeen
fruiterers, grocers and 'provision' storekeepers were listed in five buildings from 1851 to 1915. 118
Cumberland Street operated as a bakery or grocery store throughout its lifespan from 1844 to 1915.
Other shops may have operated from houses on site, but were not listed. There were grocery stores in streets
surrounding the Site - two can be seen in Figure 8.3, including one in the Susannah Place terraces which
operated from 1845 to about 1930 (Historic Houses Trust 1993: 'Nil 64'). Residents of the Rocks and Millers
Point in the early decades of the twentieth century, also describe grocery salesmen (they seem to be all men)
who sold vegetables, rabbits, fish, milk and bread, door-to-door (FitzSimons 1988: 52-3), and probably
occurred in the nineteenth century. Regardless, it seems residents on the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site
needed only walk one or two blocks for their groceries.
Interestingly, no dealers or pawnbrokers are listed after 1880. This suggests an improvement in the spending
capacity of the site's residents that is at odds with all other accounts of this period of 'Intensive Occupation
and Decline' (Godden Mackay 1999[V 013]: 17). It is likely that stores selling these goods were elsewhere.
Then again, it may be that pawnshops and small-scale retailers were replaced by centralised markets, such as
Paddy's Markets, or less-exclusive department stores such as Nock and Kirkby's store in Lower George Street,
while the practice of doorstep grocery shopping continued.
3 Orser (1996: 161-164) has argued that 'outsiders' can never really be on the 'inside'.
Page 70 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Figure 8.2 .\ woman and children browsing outside 12() Cumberland Street in about 1895 (Karskens 199%: 153), and probably ber..veen 1897 and 1901 \vhen greengrocer J ames Strong occupied the building. (Royal Australian Historical Society; in Karskens 199%: 153; digital copy courtesy Gi'lfL)
Figure 8.3 Cumberland Place, east of the Cumberland/ Gloucester Streets Site, 1901, shO\ving P Stewart's 'cheap cash grocery' in the southeol·most Susannah Terrace (right) and part of another grocery store Oeft). (i'l1itchell Library, in Karskens 199%: 173, copy courtesy GMI,)
P a.~ e 7 1
Second-hand or Second Quality?
By the end of the century, mail order catalogues displayed preoccupation with 'quality' and ranks of quality,
suggesting that in addition to goods fallen from favour and sold second-hand, some goods were simply
produced cheap. The American catalogue by Montgomery Ward's (1895), A Hall & Co's household furniture
catalogue in Sydney (1897) and Feldheim, Gotthelf & Co also in Sydney (1905, see Cuffley 1984) all contain
examples of goods offered in two or three varieties of quality. For example, Lassetters - the 'Universal
Providers' offered fully cut spirit decanters for 12s 6d, half cut for 7 s 6d and plain for less than half the price of
the fully-cut: 5s 6d (Lassetters 1976 [1911]: 63). A Hall & Co. offered five furnishing suites for cottages ranging
from £10 9s 6d to £103. The latter suites not only had more items, but the selection items were more elaborate:
a 'Best Kapok Top Mattress ... 1st quality' in place of a simple Wool Mattress' or a 'Marble Top Washstand
with tile back' and a freestanding towel rack, rather than a plain 'Pine Washstand, Towel Rail fixed' (A Hall &
Co. 1994 [1897]: 2, 13). Feldheim, Gotthelf & Co. offered 'Superior Quality Dressed Joint Sleeping Dolls' and
'Common Quality Dressed Jointed Sleeping Dolls' (Cuffley 1984: 102).
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
There is some archaeological evidence to suggest participation in new forms of shopping and the new kinds of
goods that coincided with this phenomenon. Some of the marks of market-bazaar shopping - 'a stain on the
cloth, a discoloured label on the tin' - are too ephemeral to hope for survival in the archaeological record.
Others, such as manufacturers' and retailers' names on coins, buttons, bottles and jars have endured in small
quantities and suggest a small degree of engagement with large retail firms.
Several buttons, for example, bear the names of some of the earliest retail giants - D Jones, Anthony Hordem
& Sons, Mark Foys - and many others (some from the United Kingdom) which are not well known. In
addition, these and other buttons show small slogans such as 'Best Quality', 'Extra Superior Quality', or
'Improved Patent'. As with the mail order catalogues, these suggest a preoccupation with quality from the
manufacturers' side that may be new, or may simply be a new way of expressing it, one that lasts beyond the
point of acquisition. Interestingly, the vast majority of both these types were found in 1 Carahers Lane. (This
was also the case for combs discussed in Chapter 7.)
~ '" =: et ~ ~
~ U ~
G "; et .t: U 00 U U .. .,., 0 .... ~ ...,. ...,. Q\ f-4
Manufacturer 25 1 2 6 34
Product Slogans 14 2 1 17
Totol 39 4 7 0 51
% of 011 buttons 7% 0.4% 3% 3% 0% 4%
Table 8.1 'Retail' buttons marked with the manu-facturer's name or slogans such as 'Best Quality', 'Extra Superior Quality' or 'Our Own Make'. (Some manufacturers buttons also had slogans.)
45 40
35 30 25 20 15 10
5 0
~ -S 00 N u ;::s
U
e on ~
'" ~ u ·c '<t U
'<t
~
6 on 0\
• manufactureJ
D slogan
Figure 8.4 Chart showing disproportionate quantity of 'retail' buttons in 1 Carahers Lane.
P 0 g e 7 2 The Meaning/m Pllblic Smile?
The vast difference between the quantities of buttons suggests that the occupants of 1 Carahers Lane were
visiting large department stores and buying clothing off-the-rack more than the occupants of other houses did.
However, the latter may also have shopped in the same places but purchased items with plain, nacre buttons,
for example. Military and naval buttons in the collection, however, were not available from retail oudets and
may be evidence of purchasing military uniforms second-hand, or the seamstresses taking in repairs of sailors
or other visiting officers (Iacono 1999b: 49).
'S <IJ
~ .,
~ ..c ~ ... U ... ~ G -;
~ ~
U 00 U U ....
It) 0 .... s::l ~ ~ Q\ ~
Military 4 1 2 7
Naval 7 3 2 12
Total 11 4 0 4 0 19
% of al/ buttons 2.1% 1.5% 0% 1.6% 0% 1.6%
Table 8.2 Military and naval buttons, possibly indicative of second-hand trade of defence-service uniforms, and probably related to seamstresses. (Figures taken from Iacono 1999b: 49)
Other indicators of retail shopping, commercial tokens, were not found at all in 1 Carahers Lane. These small
copper and bronze tokens were manufactured by retailers from 1849 to 1868 (when they were made illegal in
NSW) to be used as currency in their stores, usually in denominations of a penny or half penny (pollon
1989: 358;Johnson 1991: 41). 4 Carahers Lane had four of these tokens: one for H Cohen's Monster Clothing
Hall, Sydney (1857); one for a Tasmanian pawnbroker, T Friedman (1857); one for Robert Hyde & Co.'s
General Marine Store, Melbourne (1861); and another, souvenir token which was also found in 4 Cribbs, made
by Hanks and Lloyd Australian Tea Mart, Sydney, to commemorate the opening of the Sydney railway on 26
September 1855. 128 Cumberland Street had an undated token for a Sydney tobacconist.
While these tokens appear to be the most explicit statement of retailing among archaeological assemblages, they
are not representative and possibly unrelated to where the occupants of each house shopped. As the date of
their deposition is unknown, it is possible that these tokens were used as game pieces long after they were made
illegal, just as Chinese coins are known to have been used for gambling Oohnson 1999: 262).
Other recreational items suggest a resistance to goods on offer on the retail scene. Despite the quantity of dolls
discussed in Chapter 7, and the manufactured, purpose-made game pieces shown in Table 8.3, which suggest
ready consumption of new consumer goods, there were a small number of clearly home-made or modified
gaming pieces ground into small circular discs from transfer-printed ceramic vessels (see Table 8.3). A few
marbles were gathered from the Codd-patent stoppers of glass botdes (see Carney 1999b: 115) and one marble
was roughly carved into dice.
8 Paths of Ignoble Descent?: Guessing the Market Place of Urban Consumers Page 73
'S en ~ .0
~ :s ~ :g ... u ... 6 <ii ~ ~
u QC) u u ... an 0 .... ~ ~ ~ Q\ E-t
Pupose-made Marble 86 65 76 75 303
Glass 6 2 10 3
Dice* 1 2 3
Domino 1 2 4 7
Cast Lead Game Pieces (unid motifs) 1 8 9
89 67 76 89 322
Modified Codd bottle stopper marble 6 6 2 1 3 18
Dice ground from marble 1 1
Ground-ceramic Game Pieces 1 7 1 IS 9
8 13 3 2 3 28
Totol 97 80 79 91 4 350
Table 8.3 Manufactured and home-made gaming pieces. (*probably machine-made, 1 in 4 Cribbs is hand-made; S
sondage)
4 Cribbs Lane demonstrated the most evidence for 'retail recreation', having more purpose-made game pieces
(including eight of the nine manufactured game pieces) and only two 'home-modified' items. 4 Carahers Lane
also had the majority of shop-bought marbles, including the most glass marbles which were mass-produced
after 1846 (Iacono 1999b 77) and occur on the site surprisingly low numbers. The most 'home-modified' items
came from 1 Carahers Lane (with the marble-modified dice and six Codd marbles in addition to 86 purpose
made marbles) and 128 Cumberland Street (with seven game pieces modified from ceramic vessels and six
Codd marbles in addition to 65 purpose-made marbles).
In relation to ammunition, 128 CumberIand Street followed this trend, having the least evidence for the use of
modem guns and weaponry4, containing six gun flints and lead shot which were used in older, flintlock
firearms and no cartridges (see Table 8.4). 1 Carahers Lane and 4 Cribbs Lane together had 15 cartridges from
pistols or rifles and possibly revolvers, ranging in calibre from .22 to .45. Kate Holmes, author of the Metol
Artefacts Report for the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site, suggested that the four .22 cartridges recovered
from 1 Carahers Lane were from 'Ladysmith' revolvers, otherwise known as 'the prostitute's favourite'. There
were several other .22 revolvers not necessarily associated with women - nor women of ill-repute - although
according to Richard Arnold (cited by Holmes 1999b: 440) the 'Ladysmith' was in 'great demand as personal
defence weapon'.
4 No weapons were recovered, however, all houses but the rear of95 Gloucester Street had ammunition. Holmes (1999b: 438) notes that many of the unidentified metal parts may be part of the guns and gunlocks.
Poge 74 The Meaningless Public Smile?
.c a '" .c ~ =' ~ ~ u <i! et et ...
U 00 U U 0 .... s:::1 ~ ~ E-t
Cartidges 8 ID 7 16
Flint and shot 6 8
9 6 2 7 24
Table 8.4 Ammunition.
THE BROKEN RECORD
Another dimension of archaeological inquiry that may shed light on the 'quality' of objects is how many got
into the ground in the first place: they broke. For example, the upholstery tacks discussed in Chapter 6, were
identified by their heads only, the shafts were missing, suggesting they popped off items of furniture. The
presence of fifteen tacks in 1 Carahers Lane and the few in the others might suggest that 1 Carahers Lane had
old or cheap furnishings, or perhaps they just had more use. Also, all watch keys excepting one from
128 Cumberland Street were missing both their attaching rings and the key itself, perhaps suggesting that all but
the one from 128 Cumberland Street were of poorer quality. Some glass artefacts from 1 Carahers Lane and
128 Cumberland Street were noted as having 'usage wear' (see Table 8.5), but notin other houses under study.
While this mostly occurred on alcohol bottles (suggesting their reuse for other purposes, or frequent refilling
from the pub, see discussions in Chapter 6), some usage wear was noted on a wine glass and decanters from
128 Cumberland Street and one of the lamps from 1 Carahers Lane. While it is difficult to infer 'poor quality'
or aged goods from these few, ephemeral examples, more-extensive analysis may return useful results.
Whether this can assist speculation about goods being purchased 'cheap' or second-hand remains uncertain.
lCara 128 Cumb Total
U U/Pd U U/Pd U U/Pd
Beer/wine bottle 3 1 2 5 5 6
Gin/ schnapps bottle 3 2 3 2
Glass tumbler 2 3 4 5 4
Wine glass 1
Decanter 2 1 2
LamQ base 1
Total 9 3 8 10 17 13
Table 8.5 U sage wear on glass items. (U: usage wear; U / Pd: could be usage wear or post-discard wear)
8 Paths of Ignoble Descent?: Guessing the Market Place of Urban Consumers Page 75
SHOPPING AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL VARIABILITY
One fmal consideration that is just as uncertain as evidence for broken or over-used goods is the degree of
variability of artefact types. Martin (1996) argued that the fewer matching vessels bought by less-affluent
consumers may be a result of purchasing goodsin smaller quantities. It may be that the same pattern found in
the houses under study is related to the variability at the market place. Complete sets of tablewares are less
likely to be found in pawn shops or in market stalls of damaged goods, than in department stores, thus
customers shopping here would be more likely to purchase items piece by piece - and get a different pattern
each time.5 Consequently, fewer matching sets will be found in the archaeological record, which is certainly the
case in this study (see Chapter 6).
THE URBAN MARKET PLACE AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Three kinds of market places may be identified in nineteenth-century Sydney: department stores, the domain of
the middle class and focal point of consumer studies of the era (Glennie 1995: 185-190); working-class
'bazaars' which sold second-hand and damaged goods; and small-scale pawn shops, such as those on the
Cumberland/Gloucester Streets block from 1860 to 1880. Concomitant with these changing market places
was an emphasis on the quality and rank of items. This perhaps facilitated an appropriate distinction between
these increasingly standardised goods, and allowed retailers such as A Hall & Co. to service customers of
different socio-economic needs, by stocking similar items of different quality.
The archaeological signature of these items may be teased out from the 'quality-assurance' slogans stamped on
buttons, combs and other items; the additional features of a doll suggesting 'superior' rather than 'common
quality'; and potentially other less-conclusive indicators such broken watch keys. However, the signature of a
'huge bazaar of the poor' or a pawn shop, rather than the department store, is more challenging to trace. As
the few features of damaged goods are unlikely survive in the archaeological record, the only potential signature
lies in the variability of the assemblage as a whole. That is, if the goods on offer to working-class people were
'arrested in their ignoble descent', then the collection was assembled by random processes: delivery carts that
happened to have accidents; second-hand items that were used, unwanted and happened to be given away or sold.
This would have an impact on the selection of goods bought by consumers and consequently, the remains of
that selection: the archaeological assemblage. The pattern might be a random collection of finer things: perfume bottles, mismatched china, thimbles, toy dolls, along side guns and alcohol bottles, lacking in other
items: items that, on face value, suggest different value systems and together do not form a picture we may read
as a cohesive 'culture', as can be read from middle-class assemblages (see Fitts 1999, the 'Culture of
Conformity,). Unfortunately, and particularly in this study of conglomerate house assemblages, the variability
that has been detected has many other explanations.
5 Interestingly, when Coles opened in 1914, they sold simple, Johnson Bros crockery by the piece. While this may have been simply to keep prices under one shilling [Kingston 1994: 47], perhaps it was also to cater to existing consumption strategies, limited by income and indifferent to middle-class strategies that valued matching sets.
Page 76 The Meaningless Pllbfi .. Smile?
Chapter 9
ENVIRONMENTS OF CHOICE AND
THE MEANINGLESS PUBLIC SMILE
In 1850, half a world away from Sydney but at the core of its social and economic world, Prince Albert
declared:
Nobody who has paid any attention to the peculiar fiatures of the present era, will doubt ... that we are living at [si~ a period of transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed all history points-the realization of the uni!J of mankind. (Speech at the lord mayor's banquet, 1850, in Greiff 1995: 6, emphasis added.)
Although he did not live to see it, one wonders if Prince Albert would have considered that the 'unity of
mankind' had been accomplished by the end of the century when the Victorian era was drawing to a close and
the 'rookeries' of the Rocks were being overhauled. I suspect rather that the countless technological
revolutions that affected daily life (gas and later electric lighting, mechanized printing, railways, to name but a
few) - the 'peculiar features' that he described - became common place for some, concurrent with the
growing divisions of humankind - class, gender, race. Such divisions were in fact fuelled rather than resolved,
by other features of Victorian life - economic rationalism, scientific classification and the 'cult of domesticity'.
While it seems Albert was misguided about the direction of the change, that he was cognizant of peCIIliar ftatures
and that these were indicators of a transition of any sort is revealing.
The nineteenth century was the stage for significant changes in the material world of British and other
European cultures scattered throughout the new world. These might be considered the maturation of what we
know as the Industrial Revolution. Some changes, such as the flood of mass-produced goods, were generated
by industry and the methods of large-scale manufacture. Others, such as the proliferation of substandard
houses and inadequacy of sewerage facilities, were fuelled by social circumstances - the swelling populations
of many cities which grew ahead of the provision of amenities (Fitzgerald 1987: 7). Coming from different
directions, these changes in the material world applied different pressures and relieved other tensions, some of
which may account for the 'ambiguity' that can be seen when we contrast houses and house assemblages from
this period.
HOUSES AND HOUSE ASSEMBLAGES
From Chapters 4, 6 and 7, and additional analysis in Chapter 8, the following patterns in houses and houses
assemblages were observed. The best house, 128 Cumberland Street, overall had more items indicative of
domestic comfort including good-quality. However, its distinction is marginal in relation to 4 Cribbs Lane (the
'second best' house) and surprisingly, 1 Carahers Lane (arguably, the 'second worst' house); either, and
occasionally both, of which had a similar quantity, quality or range of items. 4 Carahers Lane also produced
some notable items of personal and household adornment, and personal hygiene, despite having lesser
quantities overall.
The 'worst house', the room at the rear of the Whalers Arms Hotel, lacked items from almost all categories.
The absence of all crockery or food preparation items - excepting three teacups - reduces the likelihood of a
9 Environments of Choice and the Meaningless Public Smile Page 77
kitchen serving the hotel, as Carney (1999a: 150) had speculated. The few items it had - a few sewing pins
and two bobbins, beads, a belt buckle, a shoe heel, one marble, three tea cups, three beer/wine bottles and a
few cudery items - does suggest loss from daily traffic of a person, perhaps over a period of time much
shorter than the other residences. Assuming this assemblage is from domestic occupation over a similar time
period, it certainly ranks the 'worst' among the assemblages under study for its paucity of items. However,
even from this room with no other evidence for domestic embellishment (such as ornaments) or even basic
equipment (crockery), evidence for personal adornment was recovered in the form of a vulcanite pendant.
Overall, the differences between house assemblages, in relation to their houses, were inconsistent. In the area of
specialised table-serving vessels, for example, there was comparison between the 'best' and one of the 'worst'
houses. In other areas, such as jewellery where the quality of artefacts was measurable, the two best houses
stand out for their quality, but the others all have an extensive range of jewellery and decorative wares, and
some high-quality pieces. The house that lacked hygiene equipment at the large-scale, there being no cesspit (4
Carahers Lane), was the one with the most evidence for personal hygiene, in the form of toothbrushes, albeit
only two.
The only element of consistency offered by the analysis is that all houses, even 95 Gloucester Street rear, had
evidence for personal adornment.
ENVIRONMENTS OF CHOICE
Thus, while there is evidence for some association between the best houses (128 Cumberland Street and
4 Cribbs Lane) and better quality assemblages, particularly in regard to jewellery, there was also a prevailing
association between the assemblage of these houses and one of the worst, 1 Carahers Lane. These
'mismatched' associations, and particularly the case of 1 Carahers Lane and to a lesser extent 4 Carahers Lane
demonstrate that there is no necessary correspondence between the frame and contents of a house and suggest
that an environment of choice can be created within a limiting environment of circumstance. That is, regardless
of the hindrances of these houses - the cramped yards, small rooms, smelling or absent cesspits - it was
possible to fill the interior with a diverse range of items, many of good quality. The house does not dictate the
living conditions: just because the house is poorer, does not mean the residents are condemned to poor
contents.
However, 95 Gloucester Street is an exception to this, suggesting that in some cases, the 'environment of
choice' has less ascendancy over the 'environment of circumstance'.
Displaying the greatest divergence between house and house assemblage as explored in this study, 1 Carahers
Lane and 4 Carahers Lane are the best examples of material ambiguity at this house-assemblage scale, yet all
houses would be and have been considered as such at the neighbourhood scale.
How then did this state of affairs come about, or is it merely an effect of our interpretive strategies? The
following discussion of the supply and consumption of goods and houses in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries forms an exploration that attempts to draw greater meaning from this ambiguity, than would be
achieved by the study of one of its parts: the comfortable interior or the external slum.
Page 78 The Meaningless Public Smile?
SUPPLYING
THE AGES
THE ENVIRONMENT OF
OF MASS CONSUMPTION
CHOICE:
Working-class people are often absent from historical studies of the 'conswner revolutions' that have been
sighted on many continents and in many ages, ranging from the sixteenth century to the interwar years of the
twentieth (Glennie 1995: 164, 177). The works better-known to historical archaeologists suggest that the age of
modern conswnerism was in the eighteenth century. While this study does not incorporate comparative data
from previous phases, it may be argued that, for the working-class conswners, it is the late nineteenth century
that should be considered the dawning age of mass conswnption. This age may be considered the result - not
of the beginning of mass-produced goods - but the ongoing effects of large-scale production.
For example, by the 1850s, English potteries had implemented large-scale measures to increase efficiency,
making more cups, plates and figurines, cheaper (Wilson 1999b: 320). New synthetic materials such as
vulcanite also became readily available from the 1850s (Iacono 1999b: 84) and were used for jewellery, hair
combs and smoking pipe mouthpieces. In 1845, the Excise Tax on glass was lifted reducing the price of clear
glass by tenfold in some cases, and paving the way for a range of purpose-shaped, food-condiment and
perfume vessels. While these were taken up in many of the houses, 1 Carahers Lane is particularly notable for
having many of the items described here ('vulgar' figurines, food condiment jars and perfume bottles, for
example).
It is these goods which compose the environment of c~oice outlined above.
That working-class people did embrace the fruits of the industrial revolution, once within their reach, is not
surprising. What is of greater interest, is which fruits they chose to take on first. The evidence from the
houses under study suggests that it was a unique pattern that did not follow the tenets of middle-class
respectable culture. In the Rocks houses under study, the level of the greatest diversity occurs in the realm of
personal adornment, about the body - an 'environment of choice' not just within the walls but walking
beyond them and in the street. It may be argued that the fruits of mass production that were taken up by these
people in the Rocks were those involved with personal appearance: jewellery, clothing (buttons), beads,
accessories, and less so those products related to what we might consider middle-class concerns of hygiene
(toothbrushes, toothpaste).
Interestingly, this only partiallY concords with the kind of early twentieth-century conswnerism that Beverley
Kingston has described as the core success of one-shilling variety stores. Kingston argued that working-class
conswners on the 'brink of respectability' took an interest in other more-practical items such as housekeeping
products, in addition to items of adornment which gave personal satisfaction (1994: 48, see discussion Chapter
8). Perhaps what we are seeing in the houses under study is a development of this kind of conswnerism, taking
on new goods one at a time, on their own terms.
It may be argued that the seeds of the variety store and bargain basements of twentieth-century conswnption,
were in the market bazaars of the nineteenth century. While, as outlined in Chapter 8, there are no secure
grounds to suggest that the market bazaar operated as Stone described nor that Rocks conswners partook in
this style of shopping. It is a possibility nonetheless, and one that has significant implications for studies of
conswnption. For, at the market bazaar, the goods to be consumed played second fiddle to the chatter, activity
and social interaction of the market place - not to mention the fairgrounds and circuses that sprang up beside
them (Fitzgerald 1992: 62). Having tracked the 'paths of ignoble descent', these goods considered small luxuries
9 Environments of Choice and the Meaningless Public Smile Page 79
to archaeologists and historians of consumption, may not have been valued by their owners in the way we
might expect.
If Stone's account bears some truth, they are 'trifles' ... bought for the sake of buying, because they were cheap,
perhaps not markers of respectability or conscious personal improvement. Neither would they have been the
'pride of a mill workers' possessions' as Mrozowski et al (1996: 55) had argued for Boott Mills boarders, nor the
means by which the residents of Five Points 'expressed their rights and identities' by purchasing the latest styles
of ceramics and objets d'art, as Cook et al (1991) argued in their 'redefinition' of shopping in historical
archaeology.
Neither would these goods be considered incongruent in the context of their houses - degraded goods in
deteriorating houses.
Karskens (1999b: 188) has described the 'stark contrast' between the cramped conditions of 1 Carahers Lane
and the 'luxuriousness' of the jewellery found therein. Yet these artefacts are from the same context, they
belong together and were part of the material world of some tenants. They do not in themselves present a
contrast to each other. \X'hat is really being contrasted is what we assume 'luxurious jewellery' to mean with
what we assume cramped conditions to mean. As Thorp has warned, we cannot approach the cultures of the
past with our own set of values. Perhaps the residents of 1 Carahers Lane were unconcerned by the lack of
space, the cesspit against the back wall; perhaps they thought even less about the jewellery we describe as
'luxurious'. \X'hile it is the apparent anomaly of our interpretations of these items that intrigues us, with a small
shift of perception, we might see that these elements exist, unproblematically, side by side.
THE MEANINGLESS PUBLIC SMILE
To return now to the other suite of material change: houses, which were the subject of municipal inspections
and overriding cause for concern of material life in the Rocks (Kelly 1997: 69; Lydon 1999: 32-33). Their
deterioration was not just based on the age of some of them, but also the poor standard to which many were
built in the first place by speculators and 'jerry builders', as described in Chapter 4. Sydney City Council
alderman Jack Fitzgerald wrote in 1907: 'slums cannot be manufactured in a day' (Lydon 1999: 32) and
certainly, urban decay is a long-term process, that in the Rocks was much bemoaned as early as the 1840s. By
the end of the century, it was considered 'the oldest part of Sydney which should have disappeared by now'
(Lydon 1999: 33).
One of the teachers of the Ragged School commented in 1872:
One house I visited was up a narrow dirty lane. It was unfit for human beings to live in-a miserable, broken down place ... It is almost impossible that people living in such places can rise above their degraded positions. It seems to deaden every nice feeling and make them indifferent to everything pure and holy. (Ramsland 1986: 102)
In contrast, an Englishman, James Inglis wrote of houses in Sydney's suburbs in 1870:
Even the less pretentious structures bear many marks of good taste, and an advanced order of embellishment. Indeed, the suburban villas of Sydney inhabited by the well-to-do tradesmen, the highly intelligent, quick-witted, practical, money-making middle classes, give one a high opinion of the material prosperity, and the solid domestic comfort which their appearance implies. (Our Australian Cousins, in Evans 1986: 22)
The absence of these 'marks of good taste' in the Rocks and other areas known for inadequate housing, seem
to have conveyed the opposite message - the absence of 'domestic comforts' - that historical archaeologists
Page 80 The Meaningless Public Smik?
have read within the walls. This historical commentary, and an understanding of the incongruence of the
material world of the Rocks, gives us an opportunity to examine the flip side of the use of the built
environment to convey messages of personal identity and conformance to shared cultures and beliefs. Rocks
housing can be seen as the underside ofWilliam Paca's garden and the feudal order of sixteenth-century English
houses, discussed in Chapter 2 and more akin to Rapoport's description junk-yard slums, identifiable as such
because they neglected to construct a respectable fas:ade, rather than consciously creating a 'slum' exterior. While
in the suburbs new codes of 'respectability' were developed, Rocks housing did not adopt those codes and the
material- outdated and worn - failed to send the messages in the new language of buildings.
It is in this sense that Rocks housing may be considered a meaningless public smile, of the kind Lionel Brett
described. While it is perhaps better to consider it a meaningless public frown, the expression is meaningless in
the sense that the reading drawn from it, was not invested with meaning by those who lived behind it. The
outsiders who did draw meaning from it based their interpretation on the absence of the familiar.
Attempting to understand the meaning invested by residents of the Rocks in their own built environment is
difficult, but there are some hints. Detailed research on residents reveals how many moved from house to
house on the same block every few years (Godden Mackay 1999 [Vol 3]: Appendix A; see also the diagrams
throughout Karskens 1999, showing the different houses on the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets block in
which the one family lived at different times). Some extended families occupied houses next door to, or
opposite each other, and sometimes, they 'swapped houses'. Dolly Bonnette who lived on Playfair Street,
recalled how her mother would say she 'felt like living back in Nll 9', so Dolly would move to her house for a
few months before her mother changed her mind and they swapped back (Lydon 1999: 40). This fluidity of
house-moving can be read two ways. Firstly, the families transcended the small spaces that the environment of
circumstance offered them. Secondly, while this may suggest a failure to engage with the environment of
circumstance, we might speculate that there was some connection or affection for these structures, if Dolly's
mother flIt like being back at Nll 9.
These abstract arguments should not in anyway alter our perception of the pf[ysicali!J of poor conditions -
there were some residents in genuinely substandard conditions. It is concerned with the time of demolition
and clearance; it describes not the every day living conditions, but one of the causes, or perhaps facilitators and
media, of why slum housing was such a contentious issue and succeeded in achieving the reacquisition of prime
waterfrontage in Sydney. The middle-class had developed and learned new codes for reading the built
environment when they moved out to the suburbs from the 1870s on - and the message was forcibly
displayed on the exterior, the street face. It is probable that when they returned to the Rocks, finding no
signatures of their own environment, they read the absence of building features to mean the absence of what
such features stood for in the suburbs.
Of course, to suggest that the perception of a society in moral degeneracy in the Rocks from the outside was
facilitated - if not sparked by - its outdated public fas:ade is conjectural. While it can only be supported by a
handful of observations about the 'mix of styles' in the Rocks, it does allow for the interrelationship between
those who lived in the spaces, the goods they used, the buildings they lived in and the people who condemned
them; more so than arguing that the buildings were better than they probably were, or the goods worse. Yet,
this does not change the fact of the conditions of the working class - who suffered the effects of relocation to
other suburbs (Karskens 1999b: 206-207). For they had not the means to control or manipulate the material
world at that scale - the scale that was, perhaps, sending the greatest messages. It also provides a further
dimension if not worth to the world they could manipulate: their personal assemblage and interior spaces.
9 Environments of Choice and the Meaningless Public Smile P ag e 81
MATERIAL AMBIGUITY AND THE COGNIZANCE OF
SCALE
Recall the argument put by historian Margaret Maynard regarding the dress of the 'lower orders' and
contemporary commentary that they were better dressed than their British counterparts, discussed in Chapter
7. Rightly concerned by the assumed homogeneity of dress in the working classes - and the implication that
the 'true poor' were obscured from sight - she cited Shirley Fitzgerald's economic-historical thesis that 'many
material aspects of life in Sydney deteriorated after 1870' (Maynard 1994: 93, see also Fitzgerald 1987: 7, 226).
Yes, many aspects such as sewerage and housing did deteriorate, however, the condition of the city does not
determine the condition of people's dress. It is clear from this study that good-quality items could exist within
the frame of less-comfortable dwellings.
The trap Maynard fell into was attempting to generalise the overall condition of the poor from one part of their
material world - clothing. She assumed that the poor must dress poorly, and, as nineteenth-century
observations suggested otherwise, she raised the bias of these historical accounts. W'hile some people possibly
had no choice but to dress poorly, there is no reason why the 'lower orders' could not live in substandard
housing and dress well and fashionably, rather than live in a better home, but have less disposable income.
Maynard's argument is one of determinism, the kind that the 'slum journalists' and observers held, physical
decay determined personal moral decay; for latter historians, poor houses necessitate poor clothing and if
observers did not describe the clothing of paupers, it must be hidden from the historical record. In a strange
reversa~ archaeology has brought to light exactly what one observer saw: good clothing. This is not to slight
Maynard's excellent work on dress and its cultural role (her observations on the dress of poor urban dwellers is
only a small part of her work), nor is it a slight on any research that focus on one part of the material world.
Perhaps such studies may be enhanced by the cognizance of what those things are likely to suggest, and what
they are likely to exclude.
P ag e 82 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Chapter 10
CONCLUSION
I set out in this study to establish whether within the frame of a condemnable house (the environment of
circumstance), a small patch of domestic comfort (the environment of choice) - of the sort in 'better' homes
- could thrive, and did so in the Rocks in the late-nineteenth century. That is, despite overwhelming historical
and pictorial evidence for an urban precinct in decline, tenants could exercise control over their material world,
at a small scale.
This was explored by taking a method used in the analysis of historical and archaeological data and applying it
to differences noted within the material world of the past, between houses and house assemblages. These were
analysed, compared and contrasted as independent datasets. Their reassembly revealed relationships between
household assemblages that transcended the relationships between the houses from which they came.
I argue that the environment of choice is evident in this 'mismatching' of houses and house assemblages - the
inconsistent relationships between the range and assessed-quality of assemblages and the houses they came
from. At this level, the inconsistency confirmed that these houses, particularly 1 Carahers Lane and 4 Carahers
Lane, were case studies in material ambiguity. Resolution of this ambiguity was sought in the exploration of the
changing components of the residential complex. On the one hand was the physical deterioration of housing
in the Rocks, concomitant with the creations of new urban environments in the suburbs; and on the other, the
development of manufacturing industries that provided the consumer market with a new, diverse range of
affordable items. Both material changes occurring in the nineteenth century at different scales, they provide us
with a material-based perspective - an archaeological perspective - that can both confirm and contest the
historical record by appreciating the complexity of material world and the differential impact this may have on
the lives of people.
This achieved a fusion of the approaches to houses and house assemblages described in Chapter 2, allowing for
an interrelationship between the bias of outside observers who read a meaningless public smile and the agency of
tenants who lived in self-created worlds behind the lamp lit curtain that were not determined by the messages,
or physical attributes of the structure.
At the end of the day? The overturning of the 'slum' vision of the Rocks by the archaeologists who interpreted
this material at the broad scale still holds. Rocks people did invest part of their money on a range of goods,
both serviceable and additional to need, that mqy well have provided some comfort when used. A further layer
can be added to this observation: there is a pattern in 'small indulgences' of mass-consumption that were
chosen. These give insight - not to individual choices as Cook et al (1996) called for - but a collective
selection of goods that had only recently come within the reach of these consumers. And their decisions in
choosing from them were far from the passivity which trickle-down theorems might suggest, for they did not
choose goods characteristic of middle-class values.
In this light, and concurrent with Louis Stone's description of a good 'fallen from their high estate', we see the
potential for artefacts to smile a meaningless public smile - that seems like bourgeois aspirations, but conceals the
more interesting facet of the equation: how working-class people interacted with their own material world,
indifferent to the practices of the middle-class.
10 Conclusion Page 83
These paths have led to new perspectives that go beyond the Rocks and the analysis of five houses and house assemblages. In addition to detailing unusual and previously unnoted site formation processes on the
Cumberland/Gloucester Street site, this study offers insight into the material, and some social dimensions of
working-class housing and consumption.
While sparked by an acknowledgement of the complexity of the material world as an entity in itself, and the
complexities of the interpretations we draw from it, the research design proved to be simplistic in its
segregation of 'houses' and 'house assemblages'. The task of demonstrating this complexity, making it
'testable', is challenging and required a series of assumptions about our ability to draw meaning from the past. Environments of choice and circumstance are more complex than a simple division between a house and its
contents. For houses have many attributes which a tenant may pick and choose from, within limits, and house
contents also have their limits, drawing the house within the environment of choice and the limitations of
circumstance within the house walls.
When we stretch the boundaries of archaeology, using a framework and informed by a theory that acknowledges difference in the material world, new insights can be learned and perspectives of dualism and antagonism in the
past can be shifted. This work - and the demonstration that different material scales will have different
meanings - may also be applied to other situations of slums. It draws the phenomenon of the Rocks, Little
Lon, Five Points - not as coincidentally similar scenarios, or the effect of globa~ middle-class ideology (see
Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1992) - but a common effect of the differences between goods and buildings that
change over time.
This study had to start at a small scale, dealing with five houses and house assemblages - a formidable task as
it is. The expansion of this study to examine material culture of greater diversity - not only working-class
structures that survived the demolitions (the Jobbins buildings adjacent to Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site)
and other houses in areas of Sydney that did not (the Paddy's Market site), may give support to the ideas
offered in this study or clarify the patterns here, that were, it is acknowledged, subtle. However, the true test
would be the comparison of 'solidly middle-class' and suburban housing and its material culture, an
archaeological resource we are yet to get our hands on.
Page 84 The Meaningless Public Smile?
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References Page 89
ApPENDICES
1 SCHEDULE OF STRATIGRAPHIC UNITS ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 91
1 CARAHERSLANE ..........•..................................................................................................................................... 91
128 CUMBERLAND STREET .................................................................................................................................. 92
4 CARAHERS LANE ................................................................................................................................................ 94
4 CRIBBSLANE ....................................................................................................................................................... 94
95 GLOUCESTER STREET REAR .......................................................................................................................... 95
GRAND TOTAL ....................................................................................................................................................... 95
2 UNDER THE FLOOR OF 5 CARAHERS LANE •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 96
THE MODEL ........................................................................................................................................................... 96
. THE CASE FOR YARD FILL FOR TIffi DRAIN .................................................................................................. 103
EVIDENCE FOR UNDERFLOOR ACCUMULATION .......................................................................................... 111
POST-DISCARD WEAR AND FRAGMENTATION ............................................................................................. 111
THE REMOVAL OF PART OF THE DRAIN ........................................................................................................ 113
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................... 113
IMPLICATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................... 113
3 MINIMUM VESSEL COUNTS ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 114
SPECIFIC CASES ................................................................................................................................................... 115
Page 90 The Meaningless Public Smile
Appendix 1
SCHEDULE OF STRATIGRAPHIC UNITS
The follo~g schedule has been prepared from the Trench Reports for Areas A, B, C and E (Wilson 1999a,
Holmes 1999a, Carney 1999a, Iacono 1999a) and the Artefact Database. The context type was allocated by me.
The Phase refers to the following site phases:
Phase 1 Pre-European Occupation, pre-1788
Phase 2 Early European Occupation, 1788-1810
Phase 3 Formal Land Division, 1810-1833
Phase 4 Early Subdivision & Occupation, 1833-1851
Phase 5 Further Subdivision & Occupation, 1851-1880
Phase 6 Intensive Occupation & Decline, 1880-1900
Phase 7 'Plague' Clearances, 1900-1917
Phase 8 Engineering Works, 1917-1924
Phase 9 Post-Engineering Works Occupancy, 1924-1950
Phase 10 Bus Depot, 1950-1972
Phase 11 Sydney Cove Authority, 1972-1994
The 'Entries' refers to the number of artefact lds, the quantity to the total quantity of fragments.
1 CARAHERS LANE
Unit Description Unit Type Phase Entries Qty Wgt (g)
EAST ROOM
BI0l 1 st occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 1869 11401 34419 B154 charcoal concentration, between BIOI, B155, No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 35 53 603 B155 2nd occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 675 3563 14043 B189 3rd occup. No. 1, below B155 Underfloor 5 6 333 1591 5122 B203 sondage through rubble, No. 1 Rubble 5 5 43 270 1865.5
Sum 2955 16878 56052.5
WEST ROOM
B040 Fireplace, No. 1 Structural 5 5 3 4 5.5 B099 interface, B031/101,116 Underfloor 6 7 1 10 BI0l 1 st occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 1639 6993 21060.9 Bl16 charcoally demol. No. 1 Demolition 7 7 1 1 0.5 B154 charcoal concentration, between BI0l, B155, No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 154 271 938.5 B155 2nd occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 723 3617 12031.5 B189 3rd occup. No. 1, below B155 Underfloor 5 6 499 2069 5933
Sum 3020 12965 39969.9
Appendix 1 Context Schedule Page 91
Unit Description Unit Type Phase Entries Qty Wgt (g)
BOTH ROOMS
B031 demolition, No. 1 Demolition 7 7 60 562 1386 B099 interface, B031/101,116 Underfloor 6 7 146 526 633.5 B100 stone floor support, No. 1 Structural 5 6 1 1 B101 1st occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 10 70 34 B116 charcoally demo!. No. 1 Demolition 7 7 161 522 578 B155 2nd occup. No. 1 Underfloor 5 6 5 8 46 B189 3rd occup. No. 1, below B155 Underfloor 5 6 4 5 1 B203 sondage through rubble, No. 1 Yard 5 5 40 108 25 B387 unstrat. No. 1 interior Underfloor, 5 7 12 44 61.5
Sum 439 1846 2765
YARD
B104 yard build up? No. 1 backyard Yard 5 6 38 193 1610 B106 disturbed fill? No. 1 backyard Yard 5 8 13 45 253.5 B129 pipe trench fill, No. 1 Service feature 5 6 31 146 226 B13? pipe trench fill, No. 1 Service feature 5 6 1 47 B130 drain pipe Goins B082) Service feature 5 6 2 2 B134 brown loam, yard surface Yard 5 6 254 1619 354.5 B145 pipe trench fill, No. 1 bck. Service feature 0 0 4 22 35 B145 pipe trench fill, No. 1 bck. Service feature 5 6 56 350 1774.5 B150 drain pipe joins B130, B082 Service feature 5 6 1 1 96 B151 sandy demolition No. 1 back. Demolition 4 6 8 7 298 B158 Cut for trench (pipe B150) Cut 5 6 1 12 39 B193 barrel remnant in B134 Structural 5 6 2 1 B194 posthole fill, No. 1 backyard Posthole fill 4 6 8 4 39 B208 adjacent and cut by B207 (No. 1 backyard) Yard 5 6 26 120 384 B239 mixed fills, No. 1 back. Yard 5 9 7 12 533 B261 grey/brown surface, No. 1 Yard 4 6 8 6 243 B415 ?= B106, No. 1 backyard Yard 5 8 8 16 18
Sum 468 2556 5950.5
CESSPIT
B197 1 st fill, mixed, in B 196 (cesspit no. 1 bckyd) Cesspit 5 6 8 18 7 B198 2nd fill, loam, in B 196 (cesspit no. 1 bckyd) Cesspit 5 6 40 156 28.5 B207 3rd sandy fill, B 196 (cesspit no. 1 bckyd) Cesspit 5 6 27 57 699 B211 4th fill, cesspit B 196 (cesspit no. 1 bckyd) Cesspit 5 6 74 293 6.5
Sum 149 524 741
TOTAL Sum 7037 34775 105485.4
128 CUMBERLAND STREET
EAST ROOMS
A008 humic loam occupation deposit room Underfloor 4 9 142 599 1324 A321 occupation deposit 128 Cumb St E rooms Underfloor 4 8 1585 5570 17032.6
Sum 1727 6169 18356.6
WEST ROOMS
A011 humic loam occupation deposit room Underfloor 4 9 152 530 1381 A320 occupation deposit 128 Cumb St W rooms Underfloor 4 8 942 2612 10475
Sum 1094 3142 11856
Page 92 The Meaningless Publif Smile?
Unit Description Unit Type Phase Entries Qty Wgt (g)
OUTBUILDING
A331 brick wall for outbuilding 4 6 2 1 A332 ss footing for outbuilding A331 4 6 1 A336 occupation deposit associated with outbuilding Occupation 4 6 1 1
A331, 128 Cumberland St
Sum 4 2
YARD
A004 sandstone rubble/ shell mortar walls, footings 128 Refuse Pit 4 6 1 Cumberland
A018 matrix waterbome sand + deliberate dumping 4 8 105834 134 A020 Sandstone cobbles in brown sandy loam matrix 4 6 83 299 16.8 A040 loam surface 4 7 11 33 90 A046 Sandstone and brick paving for gully traps A013 Yard 4 6 4 4
and A014 A048 loam/rubble fill around A013 and A014 4 9 45 335 1778 A064 trench fill around gully trap A014 4 8 13 23 51 A068 Drainage line attached to A013 and A014 Service feature 4 8 2 2
Al16 ash dump Deposit 4 8 3 3 A117 surface composed of crushed brick Yard 4 6 6 6 A118 sandy loam 4 6 151 1308 344.5 A121 ash/loam dump Deposit 4 6 354 4448 331 A121 ash/loam dump Deposit 4 6 9 13 76 A143 cut for post A144 Cut 4 9 9 22 A145 fill around post Al44 Fill 4 9 16 24 87 A146 fill behind and below A096 Fill 4 9 4 2 19 A153 Refuse pit filling A154 Yard 4 6 22 51 951.5 A156 fill in pit A155 Fill 4 6 13 23 104 A158 I bm sandy loam fill with surface 4 6 123 492 862.5 A184 shelly lime deposit forming surface in backyard 4 6 2 12 11 A185 ash/ charcoal/loam surface in backyard Yard 4 6 51 203 5.5 A196 fill in gully trap A014 Fill 4 8 35 204 121.5 A198 coarse yellow sand filling cut A197 Fill 4 6 30 135 1870.5 A203 sandstone rubble and loam Rubble 4 6 90 329 2 A206 fill within trench A205 4 8 23 67 82 A207 thin sandy deposit between A203 and A204 4 6 28 74 177 A218 I gry bm sandy loam trench fill in A217 4 8 17 46 120 A220 timber post Post 4 8 1 1 A221 posthole fill assoc with A220 Posthole fill 4 8 11 36 53 A223 timber post Post 4 6 1 1 A224 posthole fill assoc with A223 Posthole fill 4 6 27 71 373 A232 brick base below gully traps A013 and A014 4 6 2 1 A233 timber post Structural 4 6 1 A234 dark grey sandy loam 4 6 15 45 31 A238 grey sandy loam, chcl, rubble refuse fill in pit A243 4 6 27 81 450 A245 cut for gully trap A232 Cut 4 6 7 7 A249 small patch of loose sandy loam, Refuse fill in pit 4 6 9 12
A251
A257 refuse fill in pit A256, coarse clean yellow sand 4 6 2 13 A276 fill in pit A275 Fill 4 6 9 9 17 A302 posthole fill in A301 Posthole fill 4 6 1 27 A324 refuse fill in A323 4 6 13 14 29
Appendix 1 Context Schedule Page 93
Unit Description Unit Type Phase Entries Qty Wgt (g)
A327 pit for refuse 4 6 1 6 A328 refuse fill in pit A327 4 6 43 252 122 A330 bk/mortar/cgi rubble 4 9 16 23 37 A338 yard surface Yard 4 6 41 236 407 A339 yard surface - ash and refuse Yard 4 7 47 291 550 A340 yard surface - ash and refuse Yard 4 8 42 246 1197 A341 sandstone footing for landing, 128 Cumberland St Structural 4 6 3 6 A343 fill in buried barrel A342 Fill 4 6 139 791 16 A344 fill within landing A341 4 6 1 0.5 A346 sandstone/loam surface 4 6 8 21 1 A351 loam and rubble fill 4 9 16 25 29 A352 demolition rubble/ fill Demolition 4 9 32 115 554.5 A354 footing for privy Cesspit 4 6 1 A355 trench fill in A353 Cesspit 4 6 5 5 851 A356 loam and rubble yard deposit Yard 3 6 18 41 199 A363 brick footing for privy? 4 6 1 A365 refuse in pit A364 4 7 25 43 200
Sum 1815 11411 12351.8
TOTAL Sum 4640 20724 42564.4
4 CARAHERS LANE
INTERIOR C070 Occupation Underfloor 5 6 1187 4617 13985 C074 Wall Structural 4 4 32 85 51 C075 Occupation Underfloor 5 6 645 1981 5530 C080 Occupation Underfloor 5 6 113 464 631 C112 Cut for wall Cut 4 4 1 C138 Ash Underfloor 6 6 16 64 274.5 C184 Mortar mortar 4 4 3 4 2
SUIII 1997 7215 20473.5
YARD C029 Demolition fill Demolition 7 7 5 9 6 C031 Ash surface Yard 7 7 14 56 47 C035 Fill Fill 6 6 38 235 94.5
Sum 57 300 147.5
INTERIOR AND YARD C025 Demolition fill Demolition 7 7 36 280 1638.5
Sum 36 280 1638.5
TOTAL Sum 2090 7795 22259.5
4 CRIBBS LANE
E005 2Cribbs, building demolition Demolition 7 8 4 6 12 E058 2Cribbs, construction Construction 5 7 13 24 32
Sum 17 30 44
NORTH ROOM
E030 2CribbsN, ash deposit Deposit 5 7 2 4 E032 2CribbsN, underfloor deposit, Terrace 2 nth rm Underfloor 5 7 810 3652 5750
Page 94 The Meaningless Public Smile?
Unit Description Unit Type Phase Entries Qty Wgt (g)
E032/ 2CtibbsN, underfloor deposit, Terrace 2 nth nu Underfloor 5 7 1
E034 2CtibbsN, underfloor deposit, Terrace 2, nth nu Underfloor 5 7 518 1645 3720
E039 2CtibbsN, construction Construction 5 7 1 0.5 E093 2CtibbsN, fill in foundation cut 092 Fill 5 5 67 384 692.5
Sum 1399 5685 10163
SOUTH ROOM
E031 2CtibbsS, sth footings 5 5 1 2 E033 2CtibbsS, underfloor deposit - Terrace 2, sth nu Underfloor 5 7 645 2806 8488
E035 2CtibbsS, underfloor deposit - Terrace 2, sth nu Underfloor 5 7 651 2747 8875
E057 2CtibbsS, fill in cut 056 Fill 5 7 22 60 650
Sum 1319 5615 18013
SONDAGE
EOO6 2CtibbsSG, building demolition Demolition 7 8 39 122 1501.5 EOO7 2CtibbsSG, underfloor deposit - Terrace 2 Underfloor 5 7 109 499 256
Ctibbs Lane, sondage
E015 2CtibbsSG, foundation trench fill 5 7 9 65 207
Sum 157 686 1964.5 Yard Area E042 2Ctibbs Y, gravel and basalt paving Yard 5 7 6 6 23 E043 2Ctibbs Y, terrace yard deposit Yard 5 7 37 287 58 E055 2Ctibbs Y, yard loam Yard 5 7 11 21 72 E075 2CtibbsY, yard surface Yard 5 7 11 67 131 E076 2Ctibbs Y, yard surface Yard 5 7 46 566 1281 E079 2Ctibbs Y, demolition rubble deposit Demolition 5 7 12 29 0.5 E086 2CtibbsY, coal dump 5 7 8 10 8 E095 2Ctibbs Y, mortar deposit - demolition? Demolition? 3 7 1 0.5 E096 2Ctibbs Y, pit of loose yard loam Yard 2 7 52 147 21.5 E112 2Ctibbs Y, foundation trench fill Fill 5 7 34 199 316
Sum 218 1332 1911.5
TOTAL Sum 3153 13516 32108
95 GLOUCESTER STREET REAR
COO9 Demolition fill Demolition 7 7 12 127 988 C055 Occupation 5 6 1 6 7 C055 Occupation Occupation 5 6 351 2341 3381
Sum 364 2474 4376
GRAND TOTAL 17284 79284 206793.3
Appmdix 1 Context Schedule Page 95
Appendix 2
UNDER THE FLOOR OF
5 CARAHERS LANE
Analysis of the artefact assemblage in deposits under the floor level of 5 Carahers Lane began on the basis of
the interpretation presented in the Trench Report (Holmes 1999a: 108--109): an underfloor deposit, formed by
the gradual accumulation of small items falling through the floorboards, with a number of larger items which
were likely to be the result of deliberate discard, by lifting floorboards - a practice noted by archaeologists
excavating other sites in the Rocks (Lydon 1999: 47) - or deposited when floorboards were raised for
maintenance or replaced.
However, the size of the assemblage - over 82,000 artefacts - in comparison with other assemblages ranging
from 500 to over 28,000 (a surprising quantity in itself) began to ring alarm bells and suggested a formation
process other than the accumulation of ordinary domestic refuse, despite the domestic content of the artefact
assemblage and its presence under the floor. I soon began considering other scenarios: that some or much of
the deposit was dumped after abandonment of the houses (and retrieval of floorboards) and prior to
demolition; or, that some or much of the deposit was put down as fill, taken from the yard, to support and
level a drain that was installed in the house at some time after construction. The first scenario, was based on
photographic and documentary evidence of the amazing amount of rubbish relocated during the 1900 plague
clearances and the speculation that the demolitions carried out by the Sydney Harbour Trust over the ensuing
decade-and-a-half may have been similar. It was soon discounted as far too circumstantial. The second
scenario had been sparked by the observation that horns and horn cores - unusual domestic artefacts -
recovered from the deposit formed a distinct pattern oscillating around an underfloor drain in the terrace.
Several hundred horns and horn cores were also recovered from a pit (B218) within the yard of Nil 5, that
predates the construction of the terrace. As more artefacts patterns were analysed, this second scenario became more and more likely. As Schiffer has noted, the identification of formation processes is based on
inference and requires the analysis of many attributes (1987: 267). The arguments to support my 'best-case
scenario' are presented below.
THE MODEL
If 5 Carahers Lane is not an underfloor deposit and is fill, taken from the yard, used to support and level the
drain, then we would expect the artefact assemblage to have particular (and hopefully identifiable)
characteristics. If yard fill, the material could be refuse discarded by butchers (including George Cribb) who
used the area as a slaughter yard prior to 1833. Alternatively, it could be discard from one or more post-1833
households, dumped when this lot was unoccupied (after 1833, and prior to the terraces' construction). Thus,
it could be refuse from the adjacent terraces (Nln 1-3) which were constructed at least 6 years before Nil 5 was
built (c1850-d856).
If it is a combination of all three, then the deposit should contain slaughter waste and 'normal' domestic yard
refuse. The presence of this yard fill does not preclude the accumulation by loss or potentially deliberate
discard of underfloor material from the occupation of the terrace. And so, the household refuse could be large,
yard-discarded (and redeposited) items or small, underfloor accumulations. The artefacts should be early in
Page 96 TIN Meaningless Public Smile?
date, similar to other site deposits from earlier periods. Being redeposited fill, you would expect widespread
dispersal of sherds - ie travelling conjoins - outside and within the deposit. However, dispersal within the
deposit may be a factor of 'normal' disturbance of underfloor deposits by rats, underfloor maintenance or the
ground movement caused by heavy machinery. If it is the dumping of several households over time, and
supposing the breakage rate of artefacts was equal, you would expect large numbers of household material, 5-
10 times that found elsewhere, and this magnitude should be relatively constant across all groupings of the
domestic activities.
Following is an outline and discussion of the history, stmcUue and artefacts of 5 Carahers Lane, to attempt to
understand the fonnation of the 'underfloor' deposits, and if it best fits the model outlined above.
Historical Background to 5 Carahers Lane
The house at Nu 5 Carahers Lane was a two-storey, four-roomed terrace constmcted between 1856 and 1858.
It was the northern house in a row of four terraces built by Owen Caraher, owner of the local soap and candle
factory and resident of 111 Gloucester Street (Karskens 1996 [VoI2]: 24) and his business partner. The rooms
measured 12'5" x 12' and 12'5" x 7'11 (3.8 m x 3.6 m and 3.8 m x 2.4 m) and the yard approximately 14' x 14'6"
(4.3 m x 4.4 m). (See Figure 1.) There was no access to the yard other than through the house, or possibly
other yards. 1 Twelve tenants or tenant-families are recorded for 28 of the house's 44-year occupation, leaving
16 years unaccounted for. Only two women are listed, the rest are male. Up to 1877 tenants are recorded as
living there for one year, thereafter, the tenants stayed longer, there being only four tenants over the next 20
years. None of the tenants of Nu 5 are recorded as occupants of other houses on site, again suggesting a
transient lifestyle. Of course, they may well be families related by tmnamed-maternal, rather than paternal ties
(for other examples, see Kllrskens 1999, throughout).
Figure 1 Floor plan of 5 Carahers Lane. (Redrawn from plans by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis)
1 No such accesses are visihle in a c1900 photograph of the yards.
/lppendi;\" 2 Under the Floor of 5 Camhe", Lane
The Stratigraphic Context and Recovery of the Deposit
The building, lot and underfloor deposits of 5 Carahers Lane were excavated to bedrock, in two parts: fust the
northern half which had been exposed after the removal of twentieth-century deposits from the whole site,
then the southern half after additional material was removed. After the northern half was excavated, a standing
section showed a stratigraphic break of constrnction material, midway through the deposit in both rooms,
although the pattern was clearer in the back room and there was an additional lens of material 15 cm above.
The section was just centimetres away from the drain which ran east-west through the building and was
revealed once the remaining overburden was removed.
The deposit was broken into 5 cm spits and a 1 m-square grid, which followed dips and rises in the deposit and
the boundaries of the rooms, and was sieved through a 2.5 mm screen. Volumes for each unit were recorded
by the bucket -load.
The deposit is described as dark brown humic deposit, with patches of rnbble through the upper four spits
(french B Notes). It was well-sealed by a 'yellowish rnbbly' demolition layer (Holmes 1999:113), and intrnsion
from the post-1917 Engineering Works was clear and localised, being one cut approxinlately 50 cm square and
filled with concrete, in the east room lying over part of the drain and part of the fueplace. Several of these
concrete bases were found across the site. The occupation deposit also lies over deposits relating to the
constrnction of the terraces (B417 and B162) and two pre-constrnction postholes (B461 and B462) (Holmes
1999:97 and 118 [Matrix]). This confirms that the deposits were formed after constrnction and prior to the
demolition of the building.
The Drain
A brick and sandstone drain sits upon the fifth spit of occupation material - a sandy, lens of construction
materia~ approximately 22 cm down from the top of the fust occupation deposits in the east room (french B
Notes, see Figure 2). A 'fairly solid base of corroded metal' was also fowld in the drain (french B Journal,
I: 70). The sandstone blocks in the external and internal foundation walls through which the drain passes are
roughly cut, suggesting the drain was an addition to the building, not planned for in dle initial construction.
This corresponds also with the observed layers of constrnction duoughout the deposit. However, it deserves
noting that the fueplaces in both rooms are built upon what appears to be artefact-rich fill, rather than
sandstone rnbble as in other buildings (see Figures 3-5). This might suggest that the whole floor was infilled
- to support the fueplace. While the drain may have been installed later2, it may have been on fill put down at
the time of construction. Alternatively, the fireplace-fill may have been compacted only under the area of the
fueplace.
2 ,-\n 1858 trigonometric survey plan (Lydon 1992: HP 116) shows a pipeline running under the floor of the southern terrace (Nu 9, later Nu 11), in addition to a pipe system that led from Gloucester Street, to the cesspits of the Jobbins buildings, to the cesspits in the yards of the Carahers Lane terraces and 128 Cumberland Street. This pipeline is not apparent in the 1865 trigonometric survey (Godden Mackay and Karskens 1994: 46).
'[be Meum;I}',!e ... ,. Pub!:" Smiler
.N" NUII:'''' .~~. tAN @!)
.~~~~~ @:> ~ I. fc.GOI'4r,""
,---I I I
rWAtA. I@
A\.
!10UfH !1E'C,fI ON fH~OU~H NO. 5 CA~AHE'~~ ~N . ORAIN
Figure 2 Section of the drain in 5 Carahers Lane. (plan by Franz Reidel and Christina Kanellakis, digitised by Christina Kanellakis, Plan Nll. 200, courtesy GlYfL)
Figure 3 Drain and fireplace in the east room of 5 Carahers Lane, looking south. ll1e feature resting on the drain is a concrete base from the Engineering \Vorks phase of the site's history. (photo: P Grant 1994, B44.22, Courtesy G'\[L)
Figure 5
Figure 4 Drain and fireplace in the west room of 5 Carahers Lane, looking south. (photo: P Grant 1994, B44.18, Courtesy GML)
Detail of cut through west wall of the back room of 5 Carahers Lane, looking cast. \vl1i1e the left block is neatly cut, the rough cutting of the right block suggests the drain was a later addition. (photo: P Grant 1994, B70.36, Courtesy GML)
A more precise date of the drain's installation is difficult to establish. As the drain itself was not excavated, no
definitive terminus post quem is available. An approximate date of the late-1860s is suggested by the lack of
artefacts which post-date 1867 below the level of the drain in the rest of the room. This coincides with the
installation of sewer pipes in Carahers Lane in 1866 (Karskens 1999a: 89) - and the drain which continues
under the Lane, may well connect with this pipe. However, the attempt to date a feature by artefacts which
have been lost or discarded in situ or redeposited from yard fill and then moved around once deposited (as I
will demonstrate), is tenuous.
A portion of the drain is missing in the back left corner of the front room, although it is clear that the drain did
continue throughout the whole house from the yard to the front wall of the house, on an east-west axis. The
drain has slumped, and so the direction of the drain is difficult to confmTI, however, it is likely that it followed
the site's topography, and carried water from the yard to the front of the house and probably under the street.
As noted, it is uncertain (although likely) that the drain connects with the sewer pipe laid under Carahers Lane
in 1866.
The Artefact Assemblage
Before discussing the composition of the artefact assemblage, it is important to note that its vast size compared
to other underfloor deposits is not a factor of the area or length of occupation of the houses. In fact, when
these two factors are considered, the underfloor deposits of 5 Carahers Lane are just as large, if not larger.
Assuming that each deposit accumulated over the entire occupation-span of each building, 5 artefacts per day
would have to have been deposited at 5 Carahers Lane, in contrast to the 1.8 required at 1 Carahers Lane and
negligible 0.1-0.5 at all other buildings (see Tables 1-2, below).
BldgCode Total Occup Per Per Per Table 1 Qty (Yrs) Yr Wk Dy U ndeifloor occupation deposits, showing
5 Carahers Lane (1858-1902) 82364 44 1871.9 36.0 5.1 the total number of fragments recovered, and the average deposition of arleJacts
1 Carahers Lane (1854?-1902) 28286 44 642.9 12.4 1.8 per year, month and dC!)'.
2 Cribbs Lane (1848?-1907) 11093 59 188.0 3.6 0.5
128 Cumberland Street (c1834-c1921) 8848 87 101.7 2.0 0.3
4 Carahers Lane Qate 1840s-1907) 8036 60 133.9 2.6 0.4
Armsden-Talbot House (c1811-1896?) 6984 85 82.2 1.6 0.2
Cribb's Shop (c1817-1907) 5552 90 61.7 1.2 0.2
1 Cribbs Lane (1848?-1907) 797 59 13.5 0.3 0.0
The King House (c1822--c1907) 242 85 2.8 0.1 0.0
The Bird in Hand (c1823-1907?) 134 84 1.6 0.0 0.0
105 Gloucester Street (c1860-1994) 11,761 133 88.4 1.7 0.2
Another consideration in comparing the underfloor deposits is the area the deposits covered, and as Table 2
shows, the number of artefacts in 5 Carahers Lane is in no way explained by its area size. In fact, it had the
second smallest area, approximately 4 m2 being taken up by the drain, fireplaces and later intrusions (4 Carahers
Lane was the smallest with only one room up and down.). And so, when area is considered, the extremity of
difference is roughly doubled.
Appendix 2 Under the Floor of 5 Carahers Lane Page 101
BldgCode Total Area No Per Perm2
Qty (m2) Rooms m 2 peryr
5 Carahers Lane (185~1902) 82364 13 2 6335.7 144.0
1 Carahers Lane (1858?-1902) 28286 18 2 1571.4 35.7
2 Cribbs Lane (1848?-1907) 11093 16.5 2 672.3 11.4
128 Cumberland Street (c1834-c1921) 8848 39 2 228.0 2.6
4 Carahers Lane (late 18405-1907) 8036 10.5 1 765.3 12.8
Armsden-Talbot House (c1811-1896?) 6984 33.0 2 211.4 2.5
Cribb's Shop (c1817-1907) 5552 21 2 266.2 3.0
105 Gloucester Street (c1860-1994) 11,7613 54 4 217.8 1.6
Table 2 Underfloor occupation deposits showing the total number of fragments recovered, the total area of floor space, the number of rooms, the number of artefacts per nI and average deposition of artefacts per year, per nI.
Neither can a case be argued that the underfloor deposits of 5 Carahers Lane were subject to a greater, post
deposition rate of fragmentation from later industrial use of the site, for example - ie the 82,000 artefacts
were derived from 10,OOO-odd objects as in other houses, but were smashed-up by other, later processes.
However, the workshops from this period covered the whole site, and concrete footings are found in all
trenches - there is no (known) reason why 5 Carahers Lane would be more affected than other areas.
Measuring the artefacts themselves, the rate of fragmentation may be assessed, at a gross scale, by the average
weight of (weighed4) glass and ceramic sherds in each assemblage: the greater the fragmentation, the less the
average weight per glass or ceramic sherd. Of course, some ceramics are heavier than others, however, for a
ballpark measurement of fragmentation, the variation is considered acceptable. The average weight of sherds
was actually consistent across all underfloor deposits, ranging between 6.5 and 8.5 g, with the exception of
Cribb's Shop at 4.5 g. The weight is slightly greater in 5 Carahers Lane (8.5 g) - indicating slightly less
fragmentation than in other underfloor deposits.
In addition to the sheer number of artefacts, there are other peculiarities about the deposits from under the
floor of Nll 5. Firstly, unusually large bone and ceramic artefacts were noted by the Trench Supervisor, along
with the 'pins, buttons and fish scales' which are considered indicative of accidental loss through floorboards
(Trench B Journal; Holmes 1996a: 17). Nll 5 also contained two medium-sized dogs and several cats (Steele
1996d: 90).
3 Phase 3 occupation, taken from graphs Higginbotham 1992: 37-38 4 Not all artefacts were weighed. For this measure, only weighed artefacts were counted.
Page 102 The Meaningless Public Smile?
THE CASE FOR YARD FILL FOR THE DRAIN
Horns and Horn Cores
A total of 284 horns and horn cores were present in the underfloor deposits of 5 Carahers Lane; 413 were
recovered from a pit fill in the rear yard. Across the site, other densities of horn cores were found in levelling
fills and pits in yard areas relating to the Cumberland and Gloucester Street dwellings constructed during and
after George Cribb's and other butchers' occupation of the area. In all the areas, the horn cores are associated
with waste from Cribb's slaughter yard - some of it to fill and level the site (Carney 1999a: 164-5), but mostly
(80%) from refuse pits (Steele 1999: 203). When the horns appear in a deposit under the floor, however, the
explanation becomes more complex. Following preliminary analysis of the material (and outlining the need for
further work) bone specialist Dominic Steele suggested that the horn cores represented a 'previously
unrecognised' animal-based, 'cottage industry' operating at 5 Carahers Lane. This is supported also by evidence
of working other animal-products, eg whale teeth, which do not occur elsewhere on site. The tenants may have
discovered, recovered and utilised the material from the yard. So, while is it most probable that the cores are
redeposited from the Cribb phase, it is uncertain whether they worked and discarded under the floor by tenants
or put down under the floor in a construction event.
The horns are distributed in a distinct pattern: they occur exclusively below the level of the drain in the back
(west) room and almost all above the drain in the front (east) room. (See Figure 6.) If the horn cores are part
of fill from the yard, then this pattern may be explained by using fill from different parts of the yard or
different depths of the B218 pit (there may have been household refuse on top). For example, the front room
was filled first with a horn-core-Iess layer of deposit above the pit; then the back room was filled with a deposit
from the top of the pit, then a sandy lens was put down to lay the drain on, placing the sandstone blocks and
bricks, then more horn-core-rich deposit was used to pack around the drain in the front room, and fill from
some other part of the yard in the back room.
If they are related to home-industry or -craft, this would require that a number of tenants continued the
practice or, that the tenant responsible for the work, lived in the terrace at the time of the drain's installation
and shifted their workplace from the back to the front room at exactly the time that the drain was installed, and
the stratigraphic break (the sandy lens for the drain) formed - perhaps too great a coincidence. It would also
require tenants to dig through yard surfaces installed qfter the laying of a drain in the yard.
There is other evidence for the working of animal products: sawn, sperm-whale tooth off-cuts (8 of the site's
collection of 15) and a few fragments of deer antler were also found throughout the deposit (Steele 1996d: 90).
Notably, they are present in nowhere near the numbers that the horn cores are. While these fewer, whale-teeth
fragments are likely to be evidence for home-industry, whether this was the work of the tenants of 5 Carahers
Lane or another, earlier household is now uncertain.
Appendix 2 Under the Floor of 5 Carahers Lane Page 103
1----- .-----. l
East Room
70.----------------------------------
60
50 II
" 940 :t' .. ~ 30 '--
OJ 20 r- --
10 '-- ~
0 • , ,--,- , , I I
I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spit No
West Room
70
60
50
r-- ~
r-- ~
20 r-- ~
JO ~ r-- ~ ~
o • -2 3 4 5 6 7
Spit No
-------------.------~ ----------
Yard,Pb3-S
450 -r------------
400
350
300
150
100
50
o
BotbRooms
I Figure 6 Horn and horncore fragments, 5 Carahers Lane interior and yard.
w.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 +------------------
50 +---------.---------
} 40+------------------
"'30 g 20
10
o 2 4 5 6
Spit No
--------------------------------------------------
Page 104
9 10 Interface
The Meaningless Pllblk Smile?
Dating the Artefacts
As noted above, if the deposit is redeposited yard refuse, then the assemblage should indicate an early
occupation date. The spits beneath the level of the drain (spits 5-10) have only 21 artefacts dating from after
1858 (its construction date) and none dating later than 1867. The spits above the drain, only have 21 artefacts
dating from after 1867, and none after 1890. In contrast, the underfloor deposit of 1 Carahers Lane (which
was also demolished in 1902 but built as early as 1850) had 66 artefacts post-dating 1858 (33 post-dating 1867
and 150 dating from 1850) and only 2 after 1890. As Nu 1's deposit size was about one-third of Nu 5's, Nu 1
had ten times more artefacts contemporaneous with its occupation (0.5% of the total) compared to Nu 5
(0.05%).
This suggests that the age of the deposit is much older than the occupation of the structure (c1858-1902).
However, this is not a meaningful observation - or a surprising one if literature on manufacture-deposition
lag is observed (see for example, Hill 1982) - considering the small percentages of the deposit under analysis:
only 10% of the deposit is dateable and only 1 % manufactured in less than a ten-year period. Thus, many of
the other dateable artefacts in the underfloor deposits may well have been produced in the 1870s, but it is
impossible to tell with the broad manufacture or popularity date-ranges of some types.
Co'!ioins There are a small number of conjoined artefacts (20 altogether) that have unexpectedly travelled to and from
spits within - and between - both rooms, and even into the yards of other properties. Figure 7 shows these
conjoins in a battleship-curve format, each 1 mm black block representing one sherd, with the type and date of
the artefact listed across the top and the spits, per room on the left.
The most interesting are conjoined artefacts that cross the double lines, showing that they have moved across
rooms. The sherds of seven objects have found their way across rooms, sherds of two from both rooms into
the yard, one from the rear room into the yard of the Bakery, three doors north of Nu 5 (but accessed through
Cribbs Lane or Cumberland Street), and another from the rear room into the yard of Cribb's Shop, on
Gloucester Street (this context dated to Phase 4-5, probably under Massey's ownership and occupationS).
Another sherd from the rear room found its way into levelling fill used over the area of 1 Carahers Lane for the
Engineering Workshops.
While all except one of the room-crossing sherds were found below the level of the drain in the west room,
their counterparts in the east room are found either in the top three spits, or lowest four spits, including the
construction layer. This layer also had conjoins with the notorious bone pit in the yard and a refuse pit below,
and with the drain-construction lens (Spit 5) in the back room - the same spit with the conjoin to Cribb's
Shop yard, again suggesting links with pre-subdivision yard fill.
The fill contains 14 fragments of post-1828 colour transfer-printed ware, at least 2 post-1835 glass tumblers, 3 post-1820s tobacco pipes and one post-1850s medical/pharmaceutical jar.
/lpp<'I/(Ii.y 2 Uncler thl' Floor of 5 (:arahcrs I ,am' Page 105
'" N co .... 0- 0 .... 0 CO -0 N CO '" 0 0- -0 N ""' I = one "herd f,;; ;:::: ""' '" .... 0
Total fragments r- 0- -0 N '" -0 0- r- ~ co S ""' ~ ""' N N '" .... 0 -0 0 0- N N '" r- 0 .... .... 0 ""' 0 -0 0 -0 ""' N
~ N .... .... '" co .... r- -0 r- ~ -0 '" ""' '" '" .... '" '" '" '"
~ N co '" '" -0 -0 co co 0- 0- 0 N ~ r- '" ~ -0 N co '" -0
No SE, >1 frag '" ~ '" '" co ~ co r- N 0- -0 '" N .... co 0- ~ 0 ~ on '" .... '" '" '" '" .... .... '" N N N N '" No. Cj between
~ r- ~ N N '" N .... '" N ....
squares, but within ~
Chin. B/W Pcln 57, r=== r=== r==
N i_ 1800-1900 (Cj 17) i-
TI' E'warc - Red, 8 .., -~ - -1828+ (Cj 64) -Chin. B&W Porc. 58,
N 1800-1900 (Cj 16)
TI' E'ware - Blue 256, N
1848 (Cj 83)
TP E'warc - Green 49, on -1828+ (Cj 86) -
Chin. B&W Porc. 65, ::l --1780-1900 (Cj 3)
Tab Pipe 298, N
1830-1861 (Cj 12)
TP E'ware - Brown 31, .., 1840-1930 (Cj 97)
Tab Pipe 436, nd (Cj 13) .., Chin. B&W Pore to, .., -1800-1900 (Cj 9) -Tab Pipe 298,
~ .. 1830-1861 (Cj 1) -Chin. B&W Poree. 8,
~ • -I 1800-1900 (Cj to)
Chin. B&W Pore. 65, ~
1780-1900 (Cj 4)
Sit Glzd Stnwr - Brown '"
..... 57, nd (Cj 1(4) ,...,.-
Edgcware - Blue 25, .., 1770-1890 (Cj 85)
Tab Pipe 435, nd (Cj 14) N
Tab Pipe 345, .., -1820-1870 (Cj 25) -Chin. B&W Pore. 7, 1800-1900 (Cj 7)
on '1 • Tob Pipe 345, on .. i--f-- i -1820-1870 (Cj 34) ~
Chin. Fine Stnwr 7, QC) .. ~ • 1780-1900 (Cj 23) - ,---- i--
~ ~ i~ I~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ; ,~ I~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ; 0
~I~ co '" 0 0
Latest Date in Unit '" '" '" '" .... co .... N N N
~ ...;. i~ o:l o:l o:l U ]
i i li Ij i j j i i i I~ " glJ li i j i j j i co ]I~ ~' tt] n ~~ 0
!-< 0 .", 5- " u '-" wl ci: ~ El 0 if) 8
118 III § .5 8 ~ o:l 0 Cl Ij ~ u
~! - _._.L __ ~ Ij-East Room West Room Backyard lL !:::=: =
Figure 7 Travelling conjoined artefacts, by number of fragments.
Pu.ge 106 The Meanin.gless Public Smile I
The movement of conjoins across rooms suggests their deposition in one, trans-room event (such as the
introduction of fill from the yard to lay the drain), rather than loss or discard of two-parts of the one vessel in
two rooms by the tenants. Thus, the fill above and below the drain is from the same event - additional fill
being packed around the drain once in place (in which case the filling of horn in one half of one room and the
other half of the other, is arbitrary). This is important, as the conjoins which have travelled throughout the
deposit may be related to a single-event deposition of accumulated refuse, or may be explained by the effect of
some post-deposition movement, such as sherds from Conjoin 3, clearly discarded at the time of demolition,
which were recovered halfway (25 cm) through the deposit.
While the small number of travelling conjoins is telling, 378 other conjoined artefacts which were listed as
single elements have remained together within their square and spit. While most of these consist of only two
fragments, 165 were composed of three or more. Thus, despite the strange movement of 20 objects, many
more stayed put, and unfortunately, of the rest (36,000, taking out bone) which are listed as individual elements,
it is almost impossible to tell.
Household Heating Waste
Large quantities of fuel and fuel-waste, generally considered evidence of the burning of household fIres -
charcoal, coa~ coke and others - were present in the underfloor deposits of 5 Carahers Lane. The quantity of
waste is comparable with 1 Carahers Lane, although together these two stand out in their vast quantity. Iacono
(1999b: 66) suggests that this may represent the need for more ftres, being damp houses, or that there was less
clearing out of the underfloor spaces. However, the clustering of different types of fuel in different parts of the
room, at different depths in the deposit (see Figures 8-10) does not suggest filtering through floorboards of
waste by sweeping, but rather dumping or shovelling. A signifIcant amount of coal (450 g) was recovered from
the yard pit (B218) where the horn cores were recovered. While not a signifIcant point on its own - coal can
come from other refuse deposits, domestic or industrial - this is yet another 'link' between the underfloor
deposits within the house and the yard deposits from previous phases.
/Ippendiy 2 Under the Floor of 5 Caralwrs 1.:lIle P (/.g e 1 0 7
o 00 West Room
-lOO 350 300 250 200 150 100 50
• Charcoal Coal 11 Coke Waste
Figure 8 Household Fuel and \'Caste, 5 Carahers Lane, by room and spit.
East Room
o 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Weight (g)
70
60
50
40
30
20 -
10
Spit I
Spit2
__ ~ll==..L, AI A2 A3 A4 BI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 D2 D3 D4
Spit3
70 I
Lht=;:~ -~--~=-=-i== -=~ 20H ~~--
I: t~ TD,=~~ ___ ~ _~TLl Al A2 A3 A4 SI B2 B3 B4 Cl ('2 C3 C4 DI 02 D3 D4
70 _
""I 50 I 40 1---~----
Spit 4
30 ~ -
~: ll111ii1t--::II o1IU,,]lt=_
AI A2 AJ A4 Bl B1 83 B4 Cl C2 ('3 C4 DI D2 D3 [)4
SpitS
D ___ ~ <.0-,- -AI .'\2 A3 A4 BI B2 m B4 Cl ('2 (', ("4 DI [)_~ D.~ 1>4
• Charcoal ]Coal L jCoke !Waste
70 I
""j 50 I
Spit6
A I A2 A3 A4 SI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 D2 D3 D4
===== ~ ~--------------
Spit 7
40
1 lJ
~ lo:d~l-il--.=~==
70
"" 50
4()
30 t
A I A2 A3 A4 BI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 02 D3 D4
SpitS
AI A2 A3 A4 BI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 02 D3 D4
Spit 9
~~ l=-:-~I:~,=."~, AI A2 A3 A4 BI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 DI D2 D3 D4
Spit 10
I I i 11
)
AI A2 A.~ A4 HI B2 BJ H4 Cl C2 ('3 ('4 DJ 02 DJ ()4
Figure 9 Household Fuel and Waste, 5 Carahers Lane, east room, hI' square and spit-
Appellfiiy 2 Under tht: Floor of 5 Carahcrs Lane p {/,~ e 1 0 9
70
6"
'" 41)
30 t
20 ;
10;
Spit I
o i-J!!!iL - c
I 70
7" 601
50 j
40J 30 j
20 j
10 '
O·
60 1
50 ~-
40
JO •
20 .
10 t
A I A2 AJ A4 BI 82 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 D2 D3 D4
Spit2
Al A2 A3 A4 BI B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 DI D2 D3 D4
Spit 3
Al A2 A3 A4 BI B2 83 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 DI D2 D3 D4
Spit 4
Al A2 A) A4 III 82 B3 B4 Cl Cl ('] ('4 DI D2 D3 D4
70
60
50
40
10
20
10
o
West Room, Spit 5
A! A2 A3 A4 HI B7 BJ B4 Cl Cl CJ ('4 Dj 1>2 1)3 1)4
.Charcoal ]Coal Coke I Waste
7()
60 j
50 t
40 ;
30 i
20 ;
10 I
o I
70
60 I 50 j
40 1
30 !
70
60 '
50 '
40 •
30 '
20 ;
10·
o .
640 620 600 580 560 540 520 500 480 460 440 420 400 380 360 340 320 .100 280 260 240 220 200 180 160 140 120 lOO SO (,()
Spit6
-I --:=1:=:=----.- -~---- - .. ~~----- -~--~
yll. T T .... ~,-,- -r------r-~-~ AI A2 AJ A4 AI B2 B3 R4 Cl Cl C3 C4 DI D2 03 D4
Spit 7
Al A2 A3 A4 III 112 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 DI D2 D3 D4
Spit8
AI A2 A3 A4 III B2 B3 B4 Cl C2 C3 C4 01 02 D3 D4
Yard
40 I 20 11
Figure 10 Ilousehold Fuel and \'Vaste, 5 Carahers I ,anc, west room, hv syuarc and Spll
I' (/ .~ ell 0 '/lie Meamn,l/eH Public J",de:'
EVIDENCE FOR UNDERFLOOR ACCUMULATION
Small Things
While the evidence so far suggests that a large proportion of the deposit is a result of secondary deposition
from the yard, a smaller - but significant - proportion of the deposit contains 'small things', evidence for
accumulation through loss between the floorboards (Holmes, Iacono and Lydon). Surprisingly, the quantities
of these small things under the floor of 5 Carahers Lane, are less than double that of other houses (excepting 4
Carahers Lane which contained one quarter the number of Nil 5), despite there being three- to ten-fold more of
the total deposit.
This was measured, at a gross scale, by the number of fragments in activity groupings that contain small things:
sewing (pins and thimbles), clothing (buttons, hooks and eyes), economy (coins) and clerical (pens, slates). In
addition, fishscales were described in the notebooks but do not appear to have been catalogued. Figure 11
shows clearly that despite the fact that 5 Carahers Lane had 80,000 artefacts and 1 Carahers Lane had 28,000,
when small items are considered, the numbers are comparable - as clearly demonstrated in the contrasting
steepness of the two graphs.
This suggests that part of the deposit was formed by underfloor accumulation, in addition to yard refuse, which
is to be expected. While it may seem safe to assume that this relates to the occupation of the house - both
before and after the installation of the drain - such a basis is not secure enough to pursue substantial analysis
and would lend itself to circularity.
POST-DISCARD WEAR AND FRAGMENTATION
Finally, two other factors that do not accord with the yard-redeposition model require consideration: post
discard wear and fragmentation. The degree of fragmentation in 5 Carahers Lane has already been shown to be
similar, if not less fragmented, than other underfloor deposits, which is surprising for deposited fill. You would
expect more evidence for post-deposition wear on redeposited yard refuse, and the absence of such substantial
evidence does support the argument for underfloor accumulation.
Much more post-discard and usage wear was recorded for glass artefacts in the uppermost two spits, than in
any other. There were 285 glass fragments recorded with post-discard wear in Spit 1 and 38 in Spit 2, in
contrast to the 20 recorded throughout all other spits. Similarly for usage wear, there were 23 and 81 fragments
in Spits 1 and 2, respectively, with a total of 17 recorded throughout the other spits. While these are a small
percentage of the total quantity, they suggest that it is the uppermost spites) that have experienced the greatest
redeposition or perhaps the greatest use. Considering that the 81 fragments in the west room are localised in
square AI, near the back door, it is probable that this relates to some kind of clean-up at the time of
demolition.
/1/'1"'//1"\: 2 LinJ", the l'loor of 5 (:arahl'rs I.anl' p (/.~ ell 1
1- sCar.
CloIhing
~====================-~-~~~ 1 Cars
128Cumb
I ~,--------
I ~LJ--------"----= ------10#( f¥ I Clerical Economy Clothing Sewing
~------------~-------------------'
900 800
700
600
SW
400
300 ;
200 I lOO
o i
Clerical
35
Clerical
2 Cribb.
Economy CloIhing
Massey's
159
&:OOOITl\' Clothmg
Figure 11 Small things in 5 Carahcrs I,anc.
P a.~ e 112
Sewing
165
Sewing
Total Small Thing.
1600
1429
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
5C ... IC .... I28Cumb 2Cribbs Massey's
All Artefacts
The Meaningless Public Smile?
THE REMOVAL OF PART OF THE DRAIN
The drain has been truncated by approximately 50 cm and the foundation wall patched, at some stage prior to
demolition (see Figure 1 and Figure 3). The 'gap' where the drain preswnably once was, is filled with a deposit
that was not distinguished from the deposits in the rest of the room, suggesting that perhaps the whole room
was filled (or re-filled) with the one deposit after part of the drain was removed. In the west room, while the
course of the drain was not truncated, several bricks have been removed from the wall of the drain. These will
have a further impact on the integrity of the already-redeposited deposit. Another, less-likely possibility is that
the feature did not continue throughout the house, despite the cut in the foundation wall in which case, the
feature could not be a drain. From the photographs, the truncated end of the drain does look suspiciously
deliberate, however, the turned brick at the end is loose and ill fitting. The neatness of the cut is likely to be
due to the removal of one or two sandstone blocks - what they were used for, why they dug through a foot of
damp soil for it, and left the other blocks behind, is uncertain.
CONCLUSION
The deposit from under the floor of 5 Carahers Lane was extraordinary. It was of a magnitude unlike any
other deposit created by the occupants of dwellings in the Rocks, or in other urban sites. While this does not
itself disprove the possibility that what we see at 5 Carahers Lane is simply a higher quantity and proportion of
the rubbish used by tenants in the house, it requires substantial evidence to support the claim. However, the
evidence that is available suggests that the phenomenon of 5 Carahers Lane is related to a structural
component of the dwelling - the drain - rather than the household-waste practices of a nwnber of tenants
who lived there. This model better explains the overall quantity and the presence of artefacts unexpected in
underfloor contexts.
Thus, despite its homogeneity which was visible in the field, the deposit under the floor of 5 Carahers Lane was
probably fonned by two processes: one from a single event - fill introduced from the yard to support and
level the drain; the other, the accwnulation of items lost under the floorboards by the tenants of 5 Carahers
Lane before and after the installation of the drain. To what extent larger items were disposed of under the
floor by lifting floorboards, in addition to larger items brought in with the yard fill, cannot be assessed. Thus,
the deposit may be an amalgam of more than one - and potentially several - households' discard, and
secondary-industrial yard deposit (the horn cores) and it is impossible to distinguish the different components
with any certainty.
IMPLICATIONS
If the deposit is partly or wholly yard fill and a mixture of several houses this has some impact on
interpretations offered for artefacts suggested in the site reports and critical implications for the use of the
deposit in this study. If yard fill, then 5 Carahers Lane does not provide evidence of extensive underfloor
discard by lifting floorboards. Thus, there is no certain .or testable relationship between a large and identifiable
part of the assemblage within the walls, and the house itself. Thi~ renders 5 Carahers Lane inappropriate for
this study which is hinged upon the relationship between a house and its assemblage.
Appendix 2 Under the Floor of 5 Carahers Lane Page 113
Appendix 3
MINIMUM VESSEL COUNTS
As Michael Schiffer notes, counting sherds is 'inherently unsatisfying ... for they have no obvious or direct
equivalence to any phenomenon in the systemic [ie active, cultural] context' (1987: 19). By the same token, the
ready alternative to sherd counts, minimum vessel counts - extrapolated by archaeologists from these sherds
- have no direct relationship either. Other methods such as measurement by weight have also been proposed,
however, (as is the case most techniques) the method should suit the research design (Schiff er 1987: 20) and
the data.
Minimum vessel counts are important to this study in the analysis of functional diversity in many artefact
categories, and matching sets in the case of ceramics: two sherds from the one plate should not be counted as
representative of two plates. Minimum numbers were calculated from the database based on all described
artefact features that indicated that two sherds could not have come from the same vessel.
Ibis was achieved by grouping quantities of artefacts that may have come from the vessel and segregating
those that clearly did come from a separate vesseL indicated by their fabric and decoration type, the portion of
the object present or the presence of a maker's mark on ceramic plates for example. Conjoined and 'single
element' [SE] (artefacts within each unit known to have come from the same object) were identified and, along
with additional sherds of similar type on some occasions, were counted as one vessel. ('Individual element'
[lE] sherds could not be identified as part of the one vessel.)
As stratigraphic units - particularly underfloor deposits - were subdivided into squares and spits to enable
analysis of spatial and potentially time-depth distribution, two parts of a once-whole object may happen to fall
on either side of a one-metre square, and be entered as two entries. If the artefacts conjoined, this was noted in
the database, however, if they happened not to, we have no sure way of knowing whether the sherds represent
one or more vessels. Thus, simple aggregation of SE entries is not a representative minimum vessel count, and
neither can each lE sherd be counted as each representing one object.
The calculation of minimum vessel counts for this study takes these possibilities into account. That is, where
artefacts of a similar type could not be identified as a separate vessel by function and sub function (a bowl and
cup, for example), regardless of location within the houselot, they were counted as a minimum of one. For
example, function-unidentifiable sherds of black transfer-printed earthenware were found in each room of the
house and in yard deposits and were counted as minimum one. If these unidentifiable sherds were counted
according to context, the number of unidentifiable vessels would be raised approximately 25%. Whether they
are evidence of a set of matching wares, or differential and/or re- deposition of the same vessel is simply
unknowable from the database (and I suspect even the sherds themselves - many weighing only 0.5g), and is
left out of the analysis.
Notably, this poses problems for the interpretation of contexts. In 5 Carahers Lane, conjoins across rooms
were one of the primary indicators of a deposition event unrelated to room divisions. Consequently similar
sherds found in different units are counted as a minimum of one, because they might be from the same vessel.
However, they are not considered evidence of substantial redeposition because they might not be conjoins.
Page 114 The Meaninglm Pllblic Smile?
Clearly, they are one or the other, but there is not way of choosing which one from the database, and even
upon viewing the artefacts may still not be known.
Consequently, the minimum vessel counts are an absolute minimum, and would probably be raised on sighting
of the artefacts. The counts were based on the assumption that sherds of similar fabric (eg earthenware) and
different pattern, come from different vessels. It is possible that some sherds of the same fabric and
decoration type (especially blue transfer-printed earthenware) with different patterns, figures or scenes are from
two parts of the one vessel and for this reason, 'miscellaneous' patterns (incl whitewares) were discounted,
unless of a unique identifiable vessel-function. In some cases, particularly hand-painted wares, this was
distinguishable by rim decoration (different colours bands for example), assuming that the rim decoration
around each vessel was continuous, even if the scenery or floral arrangement changed. The likelihood of this
occurring is narrowed considerably by the elimination of sherds with no identifiable features of the vessel's
function and it is considered negligible for the purpose of this study.
This is deliberately cautionary and it is acknowledged that changes would certainly be made on observation of
the artefact collection.
SPECIFIC CASES
In regard to ceramic vessels, All bases were counted as one vessel. All rim and body sherds in different fabric
and decoration were counted as one vessel (often there was only one fragment to represent these vessels). llim
sherds in the same fabric, but with a different rim decoration to already-counted vessels, were also counted as
one. No body or rim whitewares were counted as they could conceivably come from the white spaces of
decorated vessels that had already been counted; however, the bases were as all were stamped 'whiteware' etc.
All other body and rim sherds were discounted.
Owing to the survival of many bases of glass vessels, the calculation of the minimum number began with a
count of bases, and non-base body fragments were counted as 1 where: (a) their colour was different (NB this
included distinction between 'Blue', 'Light Blue' etc); or (b) their form was different, ie round sections and
chamfered sections. llims were not counted. Distinction of sub function was used as Carney notes, the
distinction between forms and their function are often minimal. In some cases, sauce bottle stoppers
outnumbered the presence of bases, and formed the basis of the minimum number count.
Cutlery items were counted by the number of handles which outnumbered the quantity of blades. Fragments
were not counted, unless in a material that had not yet been observed. End tips were only counted if all other
handles had tips.
Jewellery, beads, buttons and marbles, being whole items except for one or two, were bulk counted by
quantity.
Appendix 3 Minimum Vesse! Counts Page 115