On women and houses

When I started doing my doctoral research, one of the things I wanted to know was whether or not the houses women built were different from those men built. A naïve question, it turned out. The fundamental flaw was, in the absence of detailed archival records, how do you know if a woman built the house? (And by ‘built’ I mean, commissioned the construction of the house and had significant input into the design, form, layout and appearance of the house.) I analysed 101 houses from 19th century Christchurch for my thesis, and just two of them were built by single people. The remainder were built by people who were married and my assumption throughout was that such houses were built by the couple, rather than by just one of them. It’s often assumed that the person who owned the land (and took out the mortgage) built the house, as opposed to seeing this as a joint project by a married couple. This is an approach shaped by the landownership factor and also by the reality that men tended to be the financial provider in the 19th century Anglo world. There’s an assumption that extends from here to chief decision maker, although there’s no real justification for this.

Plenty has been written about women and houses in the 19th century, most of it in the context of Victorian society in England or the United States. It tends to revolve around the ideal promoted by advice books of the day that the house should be a private, domestic space, created and curated by women to provide men with respite from the evils of the (public, working) world, and in which to raise good moral, Christian children. It’s an ideal that’s often used to suggest that certain spaces within a house were feminine – the drawing room – and others masculine – the dining room – and also that men were responsible for the construction of the house, and women for its interior decoration (it’s easy to see where more recent stereotypes about the gender of architects and interior decorators have their origins). For various reasons (which I don’t have the time, space or inclination to go into today), it’s not an ideal that I think is particularly relevant to the analysis of houses in colonial settler New Zealand (with thanks to my thesis supervisors for helping me get to this point!).

This house was built on land owned by Rose Anna King . Regrettably, I’ve not been a to find out a thing about Rose (I don’t even know if that turret was original), except that she had no children. Image: Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

What, then, can houses tell us about the lives of women in colonial settler society in New Zealand? Quite a lot, I think, but today I want to focus on just one response to that question: they make women more visible, particularly when the construction of the house is framed within the context of a series of decisions made by a couple, as opposed to just the landowner. This point notwithstanding, for the sake of argument (and brevity), today I’m going to focus on some of the 11 houses from my thesis that were built on land owned by women, because this is a situation that particularly foregrounds women. In making these individual women visible, we can learn about women’s experiences more broadly.

These houses highlight that, while it was not common for women to buy or own property in 19th century Christchurch, it wasn’t unusual either. Where the women came by the money to fund these purchases is not clear, and it’s not clear if it was their own money or their husband’s money that was used (women sometimes came into marriages with endowments from their families, although this was typically the preserve of the wealthy). Only one of the women came from an obviously wealthy backgrounds (more on this below) and it’s possible that, in some instances at least, the property was in the woman’s name because of her husband’s financial troubles.

Margaret Stinnear (possibly née Stewart) purchased this land parcel and the adjoining one in 1893 and built two identical rental houses on them (LINZ 1893). Two years previously, her husband’s business had been the subject of a mortgagee sale and, on these grounds, it’s tempting to suggest that his financial woes led to this situation (Lyttelton Times 13/6/1891: 8). However, Margaret would go on to own a number of properties and I suspect it was her financial acumen that kept the family afloat, even financing two return trips to England (Lyttelton Times 3/10/1903: 9, Press 6/10/1908: 12, 24/2/1912: 14). Her estate was worth £2500 at her death in 1911. Another intriguing detail of Margaret’s life is that her only child, a daughter, was adopted (Stinnear 1911). Image: C. Staniforth, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

These women were all either working or middle class. Three were the daughters of farmers. Others were daughters of a carter, a miner, a stone mason and a stone quarrier, all working class occupations. Two of the women are known to have worked before they came to New Zealand. The fabulously named Matilda Sneesby (née Baker) was a stillroom maid in Marylebone, London, while Fanny Jane Langford (née Waite) worked as a nail maker even after her marriage (KenLederer 2025, Walandheather 2025). As noted above, none of the women are likely to have had money from their family – with one exception (see the picture below). Another would go on to be quite socially prominent, counting premiers and the like amongst her circle (Timaru Herald 19/12/1908: 2). But, for the majority of these women, their class background, and the fact that they were able to buy property in Christchurch, is a testament to the much greater opportunities available to working (and even middle) class families in New Zealand than in the British Isles.

Prudence McClurg (née Bassett) almost certainly used family money to buy the land this house was built on. She certainly bought it from one uncle and subsequently mortgaged it to another (LINZ 1894, 1897). She was part of a complex family network of Irish immigrants, a number of whom were quite commercially successful and, between them, owned quite a bit of property. Image: P. Mitchell, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

And what of the houses these women built? Well, they were mostly quite modest, with just one bay villa amongst them. The rest were mostly standard villas, with two being standard cottages, indicating a low level of capital. Similarly, most of them had a villa layout, although again there were two with a cottage layout. In fact, most were typical Christchurch houses – which may go some way towards answering my original question? And, perhaps also testify to the predominance of the plain, flat-fronted, symmetrical standard villa in Christchurch, and everything that was embodied in that. The houses ranged in size from five to 10 rooms, and the women had varying numbers of children. Two of the women had no children, a situation my research indicates would have been unusual, and this on its own makes these women stand out (perhaps it is more than coincidence that these are the two women about whom I have the least information, but perhaps not). Maria Hardie, on the other hand, had seven children (two of whom did not survive infancy). Her family would have lived in particularly cramped conditions in their tiny cottage. Under these circumstances, it’s highly unlikely Maria’s family enjoyed the use of a parlour. Most of the families would have lived in more spacious circumstances, with some children no doubt sharing rooms, but still with a parlour, giving them a reasonable amount of living space. Which brings me to one other thing these women had in common: none of them advertised for servants. Of course, this doesn’t mean they didn’t have servants, and the size of the houses the Bassetts and Sneesbys lived in indicates that the servants would have been a possibility for them.

Scroll through the slideshow below to learn more about the women, their houses and their lives. For each of the women, I tried to find at least one factoid that was unrelated to their parents, husband or children, but for a handful this proved just impossible, highlighting how small a trace they left in the historical record.

Annie Twyneham’s house, presumed to have been actually physically built by her builder. Annie also owned the adjacent section, where an identical house was built. And, for the factoid: was a member of Our Father’s Church, a ‘free’ church established in Christchurch in 1882 (Lyttelton Times 6/6/1908: 6). Image: F. Bradley, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

Clara Ann Holder’s neat little house (somewhat modified in the 20th century). Clara was one of the two women who didn’t have any children. Image. P. Mitchell, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

Can you spot the very slight aysmmetry of this house? It was built by Maria Weidner, a widow. Maria was born in Prussia and became a naturalised British citizen in 1899 (Ancestry.com). The asymmetry puzzles me: there was just no need! Did the builder make a mistake? Image: P. Mitchell, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

Harriett Snell! Grocer, dress-maker, teacher of dress-making, co-owner of a successful secondhand good business. And builder and owner of this nice little rental property in New Brighton. Image: K. Webb, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

Tainui, the Sumner rental property built and owned by Susan Kirk. Susan and her husband would later move to Timaru, and become socially quite well-connected (Timaru Herald 19/12/1908: 2). Perhaps one of the advantages of small-town life… Image: K. Webb, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

We’re lucky this house survived until the earthquakes: Fanny Jane Langford nearly burnt it down when she spilled kerosene onto a pile of clothes that had caught fire (Press 14/5/1890: 6). Although we don’t have any information about what this house looked like inside, the lack of sidelights on either side of the front door suggests it may have had a cottage layout. A cottage layout would have saved in construction costs, and perhaps these savings were used to buy the rather lovely Chicago windows. Such trade-offs in costs were not unusual in house-building. Image: Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

The house that Matilda Sneesby built. About Matilda I can unfortunately say very little, except that this would have been a long way from her days as a stillroom maid in London - I wonder if that young woman dreamt of owning a lovely home like this in the suburbs? And, if so, did she ever imagine that dream would come true? And that several of children, including at least one daughter, would attend university (Press 7/11/1895: 6; Star (Christchurch) 20/12/1899: 4). Image: P. Mitchell, Ōtautahi Christchurch archaeological archive.

While these women left little trace in the historical record, in building, they left a physical mark on the city, contributing to its appearance and the development of Christchurch’s own particular style of domestic architecture. In this, we can also recognise that they shared a desire to improve their situation – and those of their families – and the means to act on that desire. While improvement is a motivator for many migrants, not all in the 19th century were fortunate enough to be able to afford to build. I’ve discussed renting in 19th century Christchurch previously, and last week’s post touched on boarding, and there were certainly homeless people in the city These were much more financially precarious positions than these women enjoyed (with the exception of Maria Hardie – follow this link to the blog I wrote about her family to learn more about that). These women, then, draw attention to some of the experiences of women who came to Christchurch in the 19th century. Their lives are by no means representative of a broad cross-section of women, but they show how the stereotypes of women’s lives in the 19th century can be challenged by looking more closely at their individual lives and the houses they built.

Katharine Watson

References

KenLederer, 2025. Fanny Jane Waite. [online] Available at: https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/person/tree/111401256/person/280097991423/facts

LINZ, 1893. Certificate of title 156/52, Canterbury. Landonline.

LINZ, 1894. Certificate of title 160/219, Canterbury. Landonline.

LINZ, 1897. Certificate of title 173/22, Canterbury. Landonline.

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

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

Stinnear, Margaret Stewart, 1911. Probate. [online] Available at: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/1865481

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

Walandheather, 2025. Matilda Baker. Available at: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/20142703/person/252127956595/facts

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.