On the villa: idylls and ideals

So, why do we in Aotearoa call a villa a villa? What even is a villa? The former is a question that completely flummoxed me when someone asked it of me a few years ago. My response was, “because we do”. Which is a terrible answer for any question. But, here, today, I can tell you why and – generously… – I’m going to share this with you. I should say that this is a very once-over-lightly – many people have written whole (fascinating, I might add) books on the history of the villa. This blog post is but a short summary and, thus, equally short on nuance. There’s nothing wrong in it (hopefully!) but I have less than 1000 words (in theory) and much has been left out.

The villa: important enough to write a whole book about, but do you know why it’s called a villa?

Before we really get into things, I’d like to share James Ackerman’s excellent observation about villas with you (NB: not written in plain language, please don’t give up on the post at this point!): a villa “is a myth or fantasy through which over the course of millennia persons whose position of privilege is rooted in urban commerce and industry have been able to expropriate rural land, often requiring, for the realization of the myth, the care of a laboring class or slaves” (Ackerman 1990: 10). Not a man to hide his politics, Ackerman.

A classic Christchurch villa, albeit rather small and plain - and somewhat rundown. Image: L. Tremlett, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

It all starts with the Romans (something my high school classics teacher was fond of reminding us). The ancient Greeks might have been involved too, but I’m going to focus on the Romans. Wealthy Roman city dwellers, often political figures or at least public ones, developed the villa concept as a retreat from the stresses and strains of city life. More particularly, the stresses and strains attendant upon their lives in the city: the petitioners, the demands on their time, the speeches they needed to give, the plays they needed to write, etc, etc. All of which left them no time to think. And by ‘think’ here, I mean engage in deep contemplation about important matters, as opposed to the general day-to-day thinking about, say, what’s for dinner… (always a pressing concern, I find). Thus, they needed to escape, to have some peace and quiet, and so it was to their rural estates, known as villas, that they decamped. They didn’t just do serious thinking here, they enjoyed the healthier air, nature itself, a slower pace of life, and the opportunities for recreation, be that exercise, fishing, visits from friends or creative pursuits (Ackerman 1990: 35-36).

A slightly more decorative and larger villa, but still a classic Christchurch form - although the porch is a bit unusual. Image: F. Bradley, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

There was a major flourishing of the villa in the late medieval period (who knew?), and it is this period that the aforementioned Ackerman dates the association between the villa and the bourgeois, going so far as to describe the villa as a “bourgeois concept” (Ackerman 1990: 10, 63). This was when the good burghers of Europe began to develop a taste for villa life, much as envisaged by the Romans (that is, the house at the centre of an estate to which city dwellers could retreat to escape the city – in fact, ‘villa’ at this point in time often referred to the estate as a whole, not just the house). It stood in contrast to the homes of the feudal overlords, who typically lived in castles (in the countryside), which, while literal places of retreat during times of war, were by no means the places of figurative retreat that the Romans had built (Ackerman 1990: 63).

A very cute little bay villa, sans veranda. Image: M. Hennessey, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

From here, the villa spreads to England during the Enlightenment (obviously there’s a bit of a time lag, but see earlier comments re word count). In this period and location it gets caught up in ideas about property ownership, privacy, identity and labour (Archer 2005: 1). It continues to embody those same ideals as the Romans and the burghers associated with their villas: a house in the country, with land, to which busy and wealthy city dwellers could retreat (supported by the aforementioned labouring class). But, there is a new development: the villa begins to be built in suburbs, by middle class people, becoming what John Archer has described as the “bourgeois compact villa”, noting also that the suburb was a particular bourgeois location (Archer 2005: 45-52, McKellar 2011: 50-51). As a consequence – as the size of the land parcel these villas stood on reduced and the occupation of the occupiers changed – the villa comes to be more specifically about rest and recreation, and its economic role declines (Archer 2005: 46). These changes reflect the increasing wealth of the English middle class, the growing industrialisation of England and improving transport networks (Ackerman 1990: 17, McKellar 2011: 51). All of this was bundled up with a sort of moral panic on behalf of the English middle classes, as cities were increasingly seen as dirty, disease-ridden and poverty-stricken places that were not suitable to live in, particularly if you were raising a family (Archer  2005: 147). To this, a stand-alone (or, at a pinch, a semi-detached) house in the suburbs was the ideal solution, and enabled the separation of work and home (another key middle class ideal that was connected to all of this).

A much larger, but quite plain, bay villa. Image: M. Hennessey, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

As the size and wealth of the English middle classes grew, so too did the suburban villa proliferate. Its spread was aided by the books of people like J. C. Loudon, whose work popularised the bourgeois compact villa and provided numerous examples of the different types of villa that could be built. On the back of this, the growing number of architectural pattern books further spread and popularised the ideal, also making it more accessible to a wider range of people. By the time English colonial settlers began arriving in New Zealand in the early nineteenth century, the concept of the – bourgeois – villa was firmly entrenched in their cultural baggage, as it were. The first reference to a villa in a New Zealand newspaper dates to 1840 – in this case, to a “villa allotment” i.e. a section of land on which it would be suitable to build a villa (New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 6/6/1840: 4).

And that, folks, in just a little bit more than 1000 words, is how we came to have the villa in Aotearoa. It’s not just a house type, it’s an ideal: of peace and quiet and rest and recreation, a set of circumstances best achieved on a small parcel of land (big enough for a garden, and to separate you from your neighbours), in a standalone house, not in the central city, and it’s not a place of work. For men, at least. These ideals morphed and changed a bit here in New Zealand, but that’s a topic for another day. Before I sign off, though, I’d like to ask you to pause and think about these ideals might today relate to, say, a holiday house, or how they might have fed into the growth of the lifestyle block.

Katharine Watson

References

Ackerman, James S., 1990. The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Archer, John, 2005. Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

McKellar, Elizabeth, 2011. “The villa. Ideal type or vernacular variant?”. In Peter Guillery (ed.), Built from Below:  British Architecture and the Vernacular. Routledge, London. Pp. 49-72.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator. Available at: www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.

Carving out spaces: living above your business

In 1900, James Knight set about remodelling his business premises and home, which happened to be one above the other (Collins and Harman 1900, Press 17/3/1900: 4). He’d purchased the property the year before, having worked and lived there in the early 1890s (Lyttelton Times 19/3/1898: 6). At the time of purchase, the property – in High Street, Christchurch – consisted of three ground floor shops, each with a flat above. By the time James’s renovations were complete, it was just two ground floor shops and one flat upstairs, which he and his family (wife Charlotte and children Charles, Edith and Florence) promptly moved into (Collins and Harman 1900, H. Wise & Co. 1901: 209). It’s the layout upstairs that’s of particular interest to me, and the differences between the layout of this central city flat and your standard suburban house, and the complex picture they present.

James Knight’s premises prior to the alterations in 1900. The butchery was in the left-most shop. Image: Collins and Harman 1900.

Before we dive into that, though, a little context. In the 19th century Anglo-colonial world, particularly in England and the United States, the domestic urban landscape was characterised by the development of the suburb. This came about in part as a result of transport options that meant living further from your place of work was actually feasible (for those who could afford said transport options), but also as the central city was increasingly perceived as a dirty, dusty and disease-ridden place, thanks to the factories that sprang up as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Thus, again, those who could afford to decamped to the suburbs, where the houses were bigger (central city housing was often terrace housing) and there was greenery and the air was healthy. Of course this was bound up with money and class – those with working class occupations could rarely afford suburban living and had little choice but to live in often cramped inner-city housing (Archer 2005, Wright 1983). This is where New Zealand, and the opportunities it presented, differed: people from a wide variety of class backgrounds and with a range of occupations were able to live in the suburbs. And they did: my research indicates that occupational class was no barrier to purchasing land and building, and that this was, for most people, the preferred option and quickly came to represent the norm. You don’t need me to point out how this has shaped the New Zealand psyche (the same is also true of other British colonial nations, as Luke Malpass observed earlier this week).

But, when you couldn’t afford this, or simply chose to live in the central city, what did this actually look like, and how did it differ from a suburban home? Fortunately, the plans of Charlotte and James Knight’s renovations survive to shed some light on this.

Interior of James Knight’s butchery, c.1910. Image: Webb, c.1910.

In their original form, access to the flats above the shops was via stairs at the rear of the shop, meaning family and any visitors had to walk through the shop to get up to the living quarters. This would have been all well and good if you owned a tailor’s shop (as one of the other occupants did), but James was a butcher, and family and friends would have walked past numerous hanging carcasses to reach the staircase. Now, Victorians seem to have been a bit less squeamish about the realities of eating meat than we are today, but bear in mind that there wasn’t a whole of refrigeration going on at the time, so it may well have been a touch smelly and there might have been flies, particularly in the height of summer. There’s another factor at play, too.

During the Victorian era, the idea that work and home should be separate became increasingly prevalent among the middle class (this idea neatly sidestepped the fact that domestic work was, well, work). This seems to have been less of a concern amongst the upper middle class: doctors often had their consulting rooms in their houses and ‘gentlemen’ often had what was essentially a home office. For working class families, and particularly for the women in those families (who often took in work; Bishop 2019), such a separation was often impossible. Nevertheless, this was certainly the ideal for those with middle class occupations and likely also for many with working class occupations. Of course, covid has taught us that there are many reasons why this separation is a good idea and they have nothing to do with class or class aspirations.

The plans for the renovation of the ground floor, showing the central staircase. Image: Collins and Harman 1900.

But back to Charlotte and James. Not only did James convert the ground floor of his building from three shops to two, he changed how the first floor was accessed, giving it a completely separate staircase that was accessed from High Street, without having to go through the butchery (although there were also stairs at the rear of the shop). The family no longer had to pass through the shop with its carcasses to reach their home – and nor did they clutter up the shop space unnecessarily. But here’s where things get a little odd. After ascending the staircase, you arrived in the home, outside the bathroom and bedrooms, rather than next to the parlour or drawing room. Think about it: even today, the front door of your house typically opens into a communal space. Not only did Charlotte and James’s visitors arrive next to the bathroom, they then had to walk past all the family bedrooms and the servant’s bedroom (more on that in just a second) to reach the dining room. Most unusual. Bedrooms and bathrooms were typically considered to be the ‘private’ parts of a Victorian house, where guests were unlikely to venture. I am dissembling somewhat, as James’s office was near the top of the stairs, as was the sitting room (another oddity: most houses had a drawing room or a parlour, rather than a sitting room). This doesn’t change the fact you did land right outside the bathroom. I know I keep going on about this, but it flies in the face of pretty much all that I know about housing in the Anglo-colonial world.

The plan for the renovation of the first floor. Image: Collins and Harman 1900.

Another odd detail was that the sitting room was positioned in amongst the bedrooms. Its location, however, was consistent with the idea that this sort of communal space where guests might be entertained was at the front of the house. But, again, the sitting room was typically a ‘public’ space and bedrooms were private, so putting them in the same part of the house was fairly unusual. Although, to be fair, in smaller houses (often built by or for those with working class occupations), where there was no dining room (the Knights had a dining room), the front two rooms (in the ‘public’ part of the house) were typically  the master bedroom and the parlour.

A further intriguing element of the layout of the flat was the position of the servant’s bedroom. In fact, the mere presence of a servant’s bedroom tells us something about Charlotte and James: that they could afford to employ a servant (full disclosure, James died with an estate valued at something like £25,000, but that was in 1918 and this was 1900 (Knight 1918)) and saw employing one as an important part of their lifestyle. I should perhaps have mentioned before now that James’s occupation – a business-owning butcher – positioned him and Charlotte securely in the middle class (if he were just a butcher, working for someone else, which is how his career started out, that would have been a working class occupation). But back to the position of the servant’s bedroom: it was pretty squarely in the middle of the house, which did make it close to the kitchen, etc. But family members couldn’t get from the dining room to their bedroom, or the sitting room, without walking past it. Again, this was unusual. Servant’s bedrooms were typically tucked away at the back of the house (in this flat, I would have expected it to be located back down by the scullery, or where bedroom 2 was), so that they, along with their work, could be hidden from view and kept out of sight of the family. Proximity to the kitchen was perhaps the deciding factor here.

There were multiple ways, then, in which the Knights’ flat did not conform to the norms of the day. This was no doubt a response to the spatial constraints of the original building, which was quite different in shape from your average house (typically square or rectangular, rather than this L-shape). Were the Knights aware of how much their home flew in the face of convention, of what visitors might have thought? I think they must’ve known it was unusual. The Knights didn’t reside here – business boomed and, by 1914, they’d moved to the west end of Cashel Street (NZER (Christchurch East) 1914: 68). As it happens, this was getting pretty close to the part of the central city favoured by the elite, being the land adjacent to Hagley Park and Cranmer Square, and the area immediately to the east – an area of greenness and spacious sections. I don’t know anything about the layout of this house – or the layout of other inner-city flats. An area that is ripe for further investigation – watch this space!

Katharine Watson

References

Archer, John, 2005. Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Bishop, Catherine, 2019. Women Mean Business: Colonial Businesswomen in New Zealand. Dunedin: Otago University Press.

Collins and Harman, 1900. James Knight premises. [architectural drawing] Armson – Collins Architectural Drawing Collection, MB 1418-31252. Christchurch: Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury. Link: https://kohika.canterbury.ac.nz/opac_canterbury/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/Description/Web_desc_det_rep?sessionsearch&fld=SISN&exp=32887

H. Wise & Co., 1901. Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory. Available at: ancestry.com.

Knight, James, 1918. Probate. Christchurch Probate Files 1855-2003, CH9756/1918 224 R22393867. Christchurch: Archives New Zealand.

Lyttelton Times. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

NZER (New Zealand Electoral Rolls). Available at: ancestry.com

Press. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Webb, Steffano, c.1910. Interior of James Knight's butchers shop in Christchurch. [photograph] Webb, Steffano, 1880-1967: collection of negatives, 1/1-004186-G. Wellington: Alexander Turnbull Library. Link: https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23073247

Wright, Gwendolyn, 1983. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

 Banner image: M. Hennessey, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

Of fish knives and sherry glasses: examining class in 19th century Christchurch

Edward Watson Tippetts lived alone. No wife, no children. No need to read anything into this, but it was unusual for mid-late 19th century Christchurch. As it happens, he may not have lived alone: although he never advertised for a servant, his lifestyle, gender and social situation indicate that it’s highly likely he employed one, and it’s possible that they lived in, as servants of the day often did. That Edward lived alone is not what makes him the focus of today’s blog post, however – it’s more of an interesting side bar, as it were. The real reason I’m writing about Edward is social class, and that his changing social position provides some insight into the nuances of investigating social class and material culture in Christchurch in the mid-19th century.

A Chinese export porcelain plate that Edward threw out. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Class feels like an old-fashioned topic to be writing about, particularly when you’re focusing on a privileged white man, but the reality is that class and social status were key to shaping the lives of colonial settlers in 19th century New Zealand. Thus, understanding how class functioned at that time and place is important for understanding life then. More than that, class continues to shape New Zealanders’ lives today, and exploring class in the 19th century can help us understand how it affects people’s lives today, and why that’s the case.

A chamber pot, decorated with the Cattle Scenery pattern, that Edward threw out. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

It’s generally accepted that, particularly during the early phase of British settlement of New Zealand, class boundaries were more porous here than in Britain. In part, this was because the colonial setting removed people from their context (and their support networks), enabling them to construct their identities as they saw fit. Further, this was a setting where money could talk (there was by no means a direct relationship between class and money in Britain, although there was a strong correlation) – and where it was possible for a far greater range of people to make significant amounts of money. Not only were class boundaries more porous, there was no true upper class (in the British sense) here, and occupations that were generally considered middle class in Britain were upper middle class occupations in New Zealand (McAloon 2004, Olssen and Hickey 2005). It’s important to recognise that the class system I’m writing about applied to New Zealand’s colonial settlers, not iwi Māori. Nor would it have applied to Chinese settlers.

One of the decorative salad oil bottles Edward threw out. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

Edward grew up in a middle class household in London (his father was a lawyer) in the 1830s and 1840s, immigrating to Christchurch in 1851, aged 21 (Ancestry 2024). Here, he founded the company Tippetts, Silk and Heywood with his fellow shipmates, Alfred Silk and Joseph Heywood (Macdonald 1952-64: 264). I’d like to hazard a guess that, Edward’s name being first in the business’s name, he put up the bulk of the funds for it. The partnership was dissolved in 1855 (Lyttelton Times 14/7/1855: 1). At around this time, Edward had a brief foray into the Australian goldfields, before returning to manage the Steam wharf in Heathcote. This was followed by a fairly short-lived investment in a hotel at Woodend, and then a lengthy period of employment as a goods shed manager on the railways (Macdonald 1952-64: 264).

A buff-bodied Bristol glazed jug thrown out by Edward. The relief moulding is of a pastoral scene, with people drinking under some trees. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

All this delving into Edward’s employment history is important, because I use occupation to define class. It’s not a perfect method (there isn’t one), but in Aotearoa we’re fortunate to be able to draw on some rigorous historical research about occupational class and status in the late 19th century (although the authors would note that this was developed in south Dunedin and should be applied with caution elsewhere; Olssen and Hickey 2005). Drawing on Olssen and Hickey’s work, then, Edward’s various occupations – small business proprietor and white-collar – were solidly middle class. But in his parents’ eyes, he would essentially have taken a step down the class ladder, as it were. But the archaeological and historical record show that Edward’s lifestyle in Christchurch befitted a member of the upper middle class in this city.

The sale of Edward’s goods and possessions, 1878. Image: Lyttelton Times 15/2/1878: 4.

Edward lived in Avonside for more than 10 years, in a house he probably built (LINZ c.1860: 425). This house had a drawing and a dining room, both of which were more typical of upper middle class that middle class houses (the latter typically had a parlour, as opposed to a drawing room, and was unlikely to have a dining room). These rooms were fitted out with, amongst other things, a loo table, various sideboards and set of croquet (which was surely more use outside, but no matter). The sale of Tippetts’s household goods in 1878 revealed a range of specialised dining accoutrements, such as dessert spoons, entrée dishes, a fish knife and a dessert service (Lyttelton Times 15/2/1878: 4). From the rubbish Tippetts threw out, we know he also had fancy glasses, some of which would have been used for serving sherry, as well as rather ornate salad oil bottles, Chinese export porcelain, a rather fabulous jug and a surprisingly pretty chamber pot, alongside your more standard black beer bottles and Willow pattern china.

Two of the sherry glasses Edward threw out. Image: M. Lillo Bernabeu.

It’s the things with specialised forms and functions – the dining room, the entrée dish, the fish knife, the sherry glasses – that are particularly indicative of upper middle class status in New Zealand in the 19th century (Lawrence et al. 2012, Watson 2022: 336). At this point, it’s important to note that, in England, these objects would have been associated with middle class status, demonstrating how class changed between the two settings. The purchase of specialised objects indicates sufficient disposable income to do so. More than that, though, it indicates the desire to embrace the lifestyle – and class – that these things embodied, whether it was because it was the class you had grown up in, thought appropriate for you or because it was the social class you aspired to (Bell 2002: 261). Something else that’s important to note is that it wasn’t just the ownership and use of these things that mattered, it was the ‘correct’ use of them – numerous advice and etiquette manuals of the day provided, well, advice on the correct (upper) middle class ways to behave, both recognising and feeding into social anxieties about not behaving correctly (Fitts 1999: 58-59). Given Edward’s background, it seems likely that he would have known how to use his sherry glasses and fish knives, and that he was replicating the lifestyle he was familiar with from his childhood and one that he felt befitted him. Research suggests that this lifestyle wouldn’t have been familiar to many of his middle class contemporaries in Christchurch.

The story of Edward, his house and his things highlights the twists and turns class takes as the context changes, as well as how the simple ascription of a particular class based on a category such as occupation is not the whole story. This was not news to me, but I loved exploring how this particular example played out. If nothing else, it highlights that everyone’s experience is different, and that it is all to easy to lose the nuance when you start talking about large categories, such as “the middle class”. These terms obfuscate and hide the reality of people’s lived day-to-day experiences, and how they adapted to their circumstances. Edward arrived in a new city, where class definitions and boundaries, although more porous than he was used to, were still very real, but things were changing, and there was the opportunity to move beyond the strictures of the world he had known. Whether or not he saw his life in these terms is hard to tell: while the occupations he pursued might suggest this, the material culture and lifestyle he embraced suggests that he had not left behind many of the cultural norms he was familiar with and that defined his family’s social class.

References

Ancestry, 2024. Edward Watson Tippetts. [online] Available at: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/70543637/person/392303379650/facts [Accessed 12 July 2024].

Bell, Alison, 2002. Emulation and empowerment: material, social and economic dynamics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Virginia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(4): 253-98.

Fitts, Robert K., 1999. The archaeology of middle-class domesticity and gentility in Victorian Brooklyn. Historical Archaeology 33(1): 39-62.

Lawrence, Susan, Alasdair Brooks, and Jane Lennon, 2009. Ceramics and status in regional Australia. Australasian Historical Archaeology 27: 67-78.

LINZ, c. 1860. Canterbury Land Index Deeds Index ‐ C/S 1 ‐ Subdivisions of rural sections register. Archives New Zealand, Christchurch office.

Lyttelton Times. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Macdonald, G. R., 1952-64. Macdonald Dictionary of Canterbury Biography. [online] Available at: https://collection.canterburymuseum.com/explore [Accessed 12 July 2024].

McAloon, Jim, 2004. Class in colonial New Zealand: towards a historiographical rehabilitation. New Zealand Journal of History 38 (1): 3-21.

Olssen, Erik and Maureen Hickey, 2005. Class and Occupation: The New Zealand Reality. Dunedin: Otago University Press.

Watson, K., 2022. 101 demolitions: how a disaster shed light on life in nineteenth century Christchurch. PhD thesis, University of Canterbury.

On fireplaces

On fireplaces

Fireplaces. They were one of the key components of the Victorian-era home in Christchurch, in the sense that, like doors and windows, every house had one (I’m somewhat taking liberties with the definition of fireplace here, and counting a coal range as one). Fire, after all, was required for cooking (at least until the advent of gas, if you want to distinguish that – if you do, gas cooking stoves were being advertised in Christchurch papers from the late 1870s (Press 23/11/1878: 8)). The other essential service that fireplaces provided, of course, was heating, although you have to wonder just how much heat these often quite small fireplaces generated, particularly given the high stud and large size of some of these Victorian rooms, not to mention the lack of insulation. No wonder the Victorians wore so many clothes…

This coal register bears the words “THE CONGO”, with the bust of a mustachioed figure above. The bust is possibly that of Henry Morgan Stanley, who searched for the source of that river. Stanley was also known for his brutality towards African people.

Most houses from the sample I analysed for my PhD research did have more than one fireplace, and those that had only one were amongst the smallest of the houses – and thus amongst the most cheaply built, and occupied by poorer families. For context, in 1883, a double chimney with a cement hearth cost £10-£11 (and the mantelpiece was more in addition to this). Such a cost would have been more than 10% of the cost of building the cheapest cottage described in Brett’s Colonists’ Guide (Leys 1883: 725). Most houses had between two and five fireplaces and, unsurprisingly, the number of fireplaces increased with the number of rooms. But not always: one 11-room house had just two fireplaces and a 14-room house had three. Which, as I write this on a frosty Canterbury morning, seems like it would have particularly cold. But does provide an insight into how people chose to spend their money when building a house, with these families seemingly favouring space over heating (which seems less than ideal, given that increasing the size of a house would have increased the heating requirements).

For those who are interested in such statistics: on average, houses built by working class families had three fireplaces, while those built by middle and upper class families had four fireplaces. Which, if nothing else, serves to prove how minimal the differences between these occupational classes and the houses they built were (although the statistics tell me that these differences were “significant”).

A rather elaborately carved mantelpiece, found in a surprisingly plain house in St Abans.

If a house had just the one fireplace it was, of course, in the kitchen. If there were two fireplaces, the second was almost always in the parlour (or at least, the room intended to have been used as the parlour – some may have functioned as master bedrooms, depending on the size of the family). When there were two fireplaces, they were usually back-to-back, meaning that they shared the same chimney – this would have been cheaper to build than two standalone fireplaces. When there was a third fireplace, it was usually in the master bedroom. A fourth fireplace could go anywhere. Well, not quite. That somewhat flippant remark reflects the fact the houses with four fireplaces had greater complexity, both in the number of rooms and the range of room functions, meaning that there were more options in terms of where to put a fireplace. In general, though, if a room was designed to entertain people, it had a fireplace and, if it was a service room, such as a pantry, scullery or bathroom, it did not. Likewise, an analysis of plans for grand homes in 19th century Christchurch indicates that servant’s bedrooms were highly unlikely to have a fireplace. Which seems a little mean, but in fact few of even these houses had fireplaces in all the family bedrooms. Fireplaces were also unusual in halls, except in the very grandest of homes – Riccarton House, I’m looking at you.

Fireplaces, of course, required fuel, which could be either wood or coal. In the early days of Christchurch’s European settlement, wood is more likely to have been used than coal, as coal had to be imported and would thus have been relatively expensive. Wood, though, was not without its own problems. In late 1861, there was something of a firewood crisis: prices rose dramatically as men who had formerly worked in logging were lured away by the gold rushes (Lyttelton Times 15/8/1860: 4, 29/1/1862: 4). This led to the formation of the Christchurch Coal and Firewood Society (those Victorians did seem to feel like any problem could be solved by a society…; Lyttelton Times 25/9/1861: 6). The aim of the society was to use its larger purchasing power to obtain coal and firewood at a reasonable price for its members – as a bonus, it would also ensure the quality of the wood, that the correct amount was delivered and that it was stacked for you (Lyttelton Times 29/1/1862: 4, 5/2/1862: 5; Press 5/10/1861: 3). In theory, at least – letters to the editor indicate that this was not always the case (Lyttelton Times 5/2/1862: 5). The society also struggled to obtain sufficient wood (Lyttelton Times 29/1/1862: 4). Such factors no doubt contributed to its demise some six months after it was formed.

Some rather glorious fireplace tiles, featuring an intriguing combination of romantic imagery and strawberries. A reference to Strawberry Hill? Who knows. Image: K. Webb, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

What fireplaces did not require were fancy mantelpieces and fire surrounds, but being Victorians, many simply could not resist this possibility (fireplaces also didn’t require fancy chimneys but, seeing as all this analysis relates to post-earthquake recording, there was not a single surviving chimney top amongst the houses in my sample). Unsurprisingly, parlour or drawing room fireplaces were typically the most ornate in the house, and fireplaces became less decorative as the importance of the room declined. This blog from our friends at Underground Overground Archaeology has a few more examples of fabulous fireplaces.

Fireplaces fulfilled some basic needs in houses in 19th century Christchurch: they kept people warm and they provided a means of cooking. To be fair, the warmth factor is debateable – perhaps it’s more accurate to say that they provided an illusion of warmth… And good cheer, for who amongst us does not enjoy the warming crackle of a (safely contained) open fire? Fireplaces, too, could provide an indication of a room’s importance and particularly whether or not the room in question was intended to entertain guests. As with so many architectural features, then, fireplaces fulfilled a practical purpose and a decorative one, and there were messages of wealth and status continued within that decorative aspect.

Katharine Watson

References

Leys, T. W., 1883. Brett’s Colonists’ Guide and Cyclopedia of Useful Knowledge: Being a Compendium of Information by Practical Colonists. H. Brett, Auckland.

Lyttelton Times. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Press. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

To buy or to rent? Considering home ownership in 19th century Christchurch

House – and land – ownership. This was one of the factors that attracted European colonial settlers to New Zealand in the 19th century. Not surprising, really, when you think about the situation in England at the time (where most of those colonial settlers came from). There, property was a source not just of social status and power, but also of the ability to vote (for men…) and thus the ability to participate in the political system. And yet, it’s been estimated that, at the time, only 10% of houses in cities were occupied by their owners (most of whom were presumably from the upper classes). In the biggest cities, such as Birmingham and London, that proportion fell to just 1-2% of houses (Davison 2000: 12, 14, 16). In this context, it’s not surprising that home ownership took on an almost symbolic – and definitely political – importance for working class people. Nor is it surprising that members of the ruling elite, in turn, began to see working class home ownership as a threat to their power (Davison 2000: 9-11). Which brings me to this rather breathtaking quote from one John Robert Godley:

the age of equality is coming upon us, and our business is not so much to struggle against it, with a view to repulse it altogether, as to retard its progress and modify its effects…no man can look upon the state of our working classes; their ignorance in all which is important for them to know, the immense space which divides them in habits, tastes, pursuits, and feelings, from the rich; above all the widespread indifference to religious obligations, without trembling at the thought of their speedily acquiring political power.

             Quoted in McAloon 2000: 162.[1]

Such attitudes may well have contributed to the Canterbury Association’s decision to price the poorer settlers out of the property market through their sufficient price model. This was a model that quickly fell by the wayside, and home ownership was to become widespread among colonial settlers.

Home ownership was much more achievable in 19th century New Zealand for these colonial settlers than in their home countries due to the relatively cheap and abundant supply of land. Of course, this land was only cheap and abundant thanks to the means by which it was acquired from Māori by the various agents: sales for ludicrously small amounts of money (with conditions that then weren’t honoured) or war and raupatu (confiscation). This land might have been ‘cheap’ at the time, but the long-term consequences of Māori loss of land have been anything but.

While home ownership was more achievable, by no means everyone chose to rent, and home ownership would not have been an option for some. There are no statistics about the number of rentals in 19th century New Zealand (in fact, no such data exists until 1916, when nearly half of all homes were rented; Schrader 2013), and gaining a detailed understanding of the rental market and particularly the rental experience is difficult. Considering the houses that were rented out does, however, offer some insights into renting in Christchurch in the 19th century (I will return to the renters themselves shortly). For my PhD, I spent what felt like months doing statistical analyses (numbers and I, it’s not a happy relationship), resulting in exactly three paragraphs in my final thesis. And some tables. But it wasn’t a complete waste of time: now I can say with confidence that there were almost no statistically significant differences between rental houses and those built for owner-occupiers in 19th century Christchurch. In fact, the biggest difference was that rental properties were much more likely to be built in the central city than in the suburbs, whereas owner-occupier houses were pretty evenly split between the two areas. Which tells us something about the economics of building rental properties (bearing in mind the usual caveats about samples, and mine definitely had a geographic bias). But the houses themselves varied in the same way owner-occupier houses did, reflecting the range of people who rented, and their requirements.

The houses shown in the images above were all either built as rental properties or, as in the case of the first house shown, rented out after a period of being occupied by their owner . Images: P. Mitchell, M. Hennessey, F. Bradley, K. Webb, Ōtautahi Christchurch Archaeological Archive.

Researching tenants is much harder than researching houses, and the reasons for this are instructive. In the absence of diaries or letters, the easiest way to gain an understanding of someone’s life in 19th century Christchurch is through newspapers (it helps that these are freely available online, unlike some historical sources). But many people did not appear in the newspapers (although the number who did is surprising). Court cases would warrant an appearance, so too would advertising for servants (which women might do but obviously this required a certain level of wealth), advertising your business, appearing at ‘important’ social events, or being involved in public affairs or an organisation of some sort (meeting attendees’ names were often recorded). Death notices, too, but birth notices often didn’t mention a woman’s name, only referring to her husband. And there are random mentions, too, like people selling chickens. But if you didn’t do any of those sort of things, you didn’t appear in the papers. And many of the tenants I chose to research simply didn’t appear in the papers (or had annoyingly common names: John Taylor, for example…). This tells me that these were not people who were prominent in business affairs or the city’s social or political life, they were not wealthy and they didn’t have advertise for servants (to be fair, the houses they rented told me that all of this was likely to have been the case). These are the sort of people you might expect to rent, people whose circumstances suggested they couldn’t afford to buy a property. What was also notable about many of the tenants I came across was that they were often at a particular property for only 2-3 years. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about these people to know why that was the case, and whether they moved into a house of their own from their rental, for example.

One group for whom circumstances are likely to have made property ownership pretty difficult was women on their own, particularly those with no family to turn to and, in the case of widows, women who hadn’t been left a reasonable estate by their deceased husband. In the absence of an adult male wage, life was not easy and financial hardship common (Cooper and Horan 2003: 193). One such renter was Mrs Sarah Gault, who rented a pretty little new build in Gloucester Street. Sarah lived here for several years in the 1880s with her children (and possibly also her elderly parents, who she is likely to have supported), and ran her dressmaking business from the house. Women would have visited her here to be measured and fitted for their new clothes. While circumstances may have forced renting upon Sarah, the house that she chose to rent was fashionable and attractive and, I like to think, a key part of her business strategy, designed to appeal to the sort of women for whom she made clothes.

The house Mrs Sarah Gault rented in the mid-late 1880s. Image: M. Hennessey, Ōtautahi Christchurch Archaeological Archive.

While Sarah’s occupation was a working class one, renters were by no means exclusively working class people (Olssen and Hickey 2005: 207). At the other end of the spectrum were Caroline and Charles Todhunter, who rented a brick cottage on Cranmer Square in the early 1890s. Charles had a varied career, having been a timber merchant for a time and involved in the brewing industry. In 1890, he bought Westerfield station, near Ashburton. When he died in 1916, he left an estate of over £27,000, a substantial sum of money for the time (I don’t what Sarah Gault’s estate was, but I think it’s safe to assume it was nothing close to this; Macdonald 1952-64: T290, McAloon 2002: 15). That the Todhunters took up their rental in 1890 is probably no coincidence, given that Caroline Todhunter is consistently listed in the street directories as the occupant of the house (the street directories listed the head of the household, and women were only listed when there was no man in residence). It seems likely that this was a town house that the Todhunters chose to rent, with Caroline and at least some of their children living there, while Charles was based at the station. While this could be interpreted as a reflection on their marriage, there is another component to this story: Margaret, the couple’s eldest daughter, and in her mid-20s at this point, was attending the nearby Canterbury College (Press 29/10/1892: 8).[2] Further, newspaper references record her active involvement in Christchurch life: St John Ambulance (Star (Christchurch) 16/9/1892: 3), the Girls’ Friendly Society (Lyttelton Times 7/12/1892: 3) and attending any number of balls and other social events (Press 11/11/1892: 4, 21/9/1893: 5, 11/10/1894: 6). Presumably, then, the family had rented a house in the city to provide Margaret with a range of educational and social opportunities (the younger children may have been similarly involved, but they were less visible in the papers of the day).

The Todhunter lived in the rear, brick part of this house, the timber part having been added in c.1900.

The Todhunters were by no means the only well-to-do family I came across who rented, although the reasons why other families like this had chosen to rent were not always so clear-cut. For example, Supreme Court judge John Denniston and his wife, Mary, rented Linwood House for five years at the end of the 19th century. In fact, Linwood House – one of the grandest in the city in this era – was rented out on a number of occasions from 1877 on.

Linwood House, 2003. Image: Jackie Snowdon, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16775483

Renting, then, was by no means confined to poor people, or people with working class occupations, and the range of rental options available reflected this, with rental properties in 19th century Christchurch ranging from the small and ordinary to the grandest of homes. While home ownership was undoubtedly the preferred option for many, there were some for whom this would never have been a possibility, whether due to their financial situation, the security of their employment or their gender. Some, though, chose to rent for other reasons, such as the Todhunters and their town house. Nonetheless, the ideal of home ownership was an important one, and one that has persisted to the present day. This is perhaps why Aotearoa has never developed the culture of successful, stable long-term renting seen in other parts of the world, and why attitudes towards renting often remain negative.

Katharine Watson

References

Cooper, Annabel, and Marian Horan, 2003. Down and out on the Flat: the gendering of poverty. In: Barbara Brookes, Annabel Cooper and Robin Law, eds. Sites of Gender: Women, Men and Modernity in Southern Dunedin, 1890-1939. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Davison, Graeme, 2000. Colonial origins of the Australian home. In: Patrick Troy, ed. A History of European Housing in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 6-25. 

Lyttelton Times. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

McAloon, Jim, 2000. Radical Christchurch. In: John Cookson and Graeme Dunstall, eds. Southern Capital, Christchurch: Towards a City Biography 1850-2000. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, pp. 162-192.

Olssen, Erik and Maureen Hickey, 2005. Class and Occupation: The New Zealand Reality. Dunedin: Otago University Press.

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

Schrader, Ben, 2013. Housing – tenure. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. [online] Available at: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/graph/38662/housing-tenure [Accessed 23 February 2024].

Star (Christchurch). [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Underground Overground blog: Displaying Wealth and Status in Buildings - Part Two

On today’s blog post from our friends at Underground Overground Archaeology, you can take a look at all the fancy features in a grand Christchurch home - and there’s a toilet… Check it out here.

Underground Overground post: displaying wealth & status in buildings

Today’s blog post from Underground Overground Archaeology explores the home of the Ballantyne family, built in 1898. In this post, Jamie looks at the relationship between wealth, status and display in housing, focusing on the exterior of the house. Read all about it here.

On halls

The hall. It’s probably not the most important room in your house (if you even have a hall) – chances are, it’s more a thoroughfare than a in which space you actually do things. In fact, in modern houses, the hall is often quite the minor bit-part player, serving as nothing more than a route from A to B, and maybe a space to hang some things. It’ll come as a surprise, then, to learn that the esteemed Jeremy Salmond has described this unassuming room as the dictator of the house plan (Salmond 1986: 173). Of course, he was referring to the role of the hall in Pākehā houses in 19th century New Zealand, not houses designed in the 21st century. Not only were the houses of that era different from those designed today, it was also a different social and cultural context, so halls meant different things and were used in different ways. And so this is what today’s blog post sets out to explore: the importance of the hall in Pākehā 19th century houses in New Zealand.

A classic Victorian villa hall.

Halls have quite a long history in English housing. They date back as far as c.1400, when an open hall was the heart of the house, where quite the range of activities took place: eating, business meetings, gatherings, etc. They were a room where things happened, not just a thoroughfare. And the majority of houses had a hall, around which they were centred (the homes of the very poorest being the exception). Another great description of the hall comes from Matthew Johnson, who refers to halls of the 15th century as “part of a common spatial vocabulary that materialised a common set of household and patriarchal values that run up and down the social scale” (Johnson 2015: 28). The hall’s function began to change in the 16th century, as ideas about privacy where certain activities should take place changed and houses began to have more rooms, each with their own designated function (whether the change in ideas or the more rooms came first, I’m not sure – it’s possibly a bit chicken-and-egg; Johnson 2015: 28).

A house with no hall. Image: P. Mitchell & K. Watson.

The hall persisted, however, and for New Zealand’s 19th century English settlers, it was almost as fundamental to their concept a house as a kitchen or bedroom – okay, maybe not quite on that level, but more important than a bathroom, which I think really puts things into perspective (although that reflects a whole different set of ideas – and technologies). Only the very earliest arrivals, or the very poorest, built houses without halls. But as soon as someone could afford a house with a hall, that was what they built. This hall was the entrance into the house, something that’s quite different from modern house designs, serving to prove that an entrance hall is not, in fact, fundamental to the concept of a house, but that this idea was a social construct, born of a particular set of ideas, in a particular time and place.

Cottage layout. In this layout, the hall was only one room deep, ending at the kitchen. A bedroom typically opened off the kitchen. Image: P. Mitchell & K. Watson.

To be fair, the hall was not entirely without practical function. For one, it served as a buffer to help keep the dirt and grime and miasmas (literally, bad airs, and believed by many Victorians to be the cause of various infectious diseases, until they cottoned on to germ theory) out of the living spaces in the house, such as the parlour/drawing room, bedrooms and any other such rooms you might have been able to afford. It might also have served to help keep the heat – such as it was – in those rooms in winter. It also allowed for the aforementioned segregation of space, particularly separating work spaces from living spaces, and ensuring the privacy of those using the living spaces. This was particularly important in houses where servants were employed. And there was another function, too, that a hall could fulfil: a place for kids to play. Of course, the extent to which a hall could fulfil any of these functions depended largely on its size. But, to modern eyes at least, it was something of a waste of space. And it was a waste of space that you were paying for the privilege of having.

Villa layout. In this layout, the hall was more than one room deep and all the living spaces opened off the hall. Work spaces, however, might be interconnected. Image: F. Bradley & K. Watson.

So, what were halls like in 19th century Christchurch? Well, they came in four basic forms (see images above and below), which I have defined partly based on my research and partly based on the work of Jeremy Salmond (Salmond 1986: 154-155). These four forms also defined the layout of the house. And it’s when looking at who built what sort of hall/layout that one of the less obvious things about a hall is revealed: there was a clear relationship between the class of the builder (used here to refer to the person who commissioned construction of the house) and the layout chosen (see the graph below).

Half-villa layout. This was a variant on the villa layout, typically (but not exclusively) found in semi-detached houses. The hall ran along one side of the house, rather than through the centre of it. Image: Dalman Architects.

The relationship between class and house layout.

The narrowest of halls, just wider than the front door. Image: P. Mitchell.

But it wasn’t just in relative length that the hall varied, it also varied in width, and this mattered too. Here’s how. In part it mattered because, the wider your hall, the more things you could display in it – and if you were very wealthy, it could become wide enough for a fireplace. And the heads of dead animals. Houses with a cottage layout generally had halls that were barely wider than the front door, a combination that truly minimised the amount of space required for the hall (and thus reduced building costs). Houses with a villa layout typically had halls that were wide enough to accommodate sidelights on either side of the front door (see the image below). Given this clear relationship (see the graph below), and given that we already know that there was also a relationship between house layout and class, it is not surprising that there is also a relationship between sidelights and class.

The relationship between house layout and the presence or absence of sidelights.

The relationship between class and the presence or absence of sidelights.

Thanks to those sidelights (or the absence of them), then, a casual passer-by knew what the layout of your house was (the front door of 19th century houses in New Zealand typically faced the street). And what class you were. Of course, there were other factors that might equally have told them this, such as the size of your house and what suburb you’d built in. But there were few other features of your house (such as bay windows, or verandas, or eaves brackets or other decorative components) that were a reliable indicator of the class of the person who built the house (in Christchurch, at least – things may well have been different elsewhere). Where things get really interesting, though, is when houses don’t fit this pattern (I’m also intrigued that it was only a small number of houses that didn’t fit said pattern, but that’s something for another day). Did couples who built houses with a cottage layout but with sidelights place more importance on external appearances than their contemporaries? Were they consciously trying to make their house look ‘better’, or did they just like sidelights (and see them as letting more light into what could be quite a dingy space)? Those who built a house with a villa layout but without sidelights would have saved money by not having them, but why did they choose to save money in this particular way? Did they not care that people might think they were working class as a consequence (and, quite frankly, why should they have cared)? Was how the house functioned – in terms of the separation of rooms and privacy – more important?

A front door with sidelights on either side. Image: F. Bradley.

 I was surprised, when I carried out my analysis of the relationship between different features on the exterior of house (bay windows, verandas, eaves brackets, number of windows, etc) and class of the builder that it was, of all things, sidelights that were most important. They seem so unassuming. And this is really the moral of this particular story, as it were: the broader structures and patterns that underly society are expressed materially, and sometimes in seemingly quite mundane and unexpected things. The particular power of archaeology is its ability to reveal and explore these relationships, to look at the patterns but also to examine what doesn’t fit the pattern – and why.

K. Watson

References

Johnson, Matthew, 2015. “English houses, materiality, and everyday Life.” Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 26 (1): 27-39.

Salmond, Jeremy, 1986. Old New Zealand Houses 1800-1940. Reed, Auckland.