Buildings archaeology

On the mysteries of doors

I know, I know: doors, on the face of it, are not the least bit mysterious. They’re quite solid and stable and kind of unassuming. I mean, they might feature in the odd drama – door slammed! – or serve as a tightly guarded boundary by a child – keep out! – but these are (hopefully) occasional roles. And for the most part, I’m guessing you don’t think too much about them – unless they start squeaking, of course… Before we get to the mysterious aspects of doors, let’s start by considering their function of a door. Which probably seems barely worthy of consideration, but bear with me.

A particularly fabulous late Victorian internal door. Image: F. Bradley.

At their most basic, doors provide access to a room. In so doing, they can also serve to keep heat in, or dust and dirt out. They can also keep noise and smells in (or out). Doors, then, are also a means of control – they help control the climate and environment of a room. They also control access: a closed door effectively means knock before entering, while an open door invites entry freely. Thus, they become part of a boundary, between spaces, or between people. In this way, doors can be used to control social interactions, essentially establishing boundaries between those in the room and those outside. In Victorian homes where servants were employed, such a mechanism could have been used to separate servants from family members and their activities.

If these were the function of a door, what of its appearance? Well, by far the most common internal door form in 19th century Christchurch was a four-panel door with a low lockrail (internal doors are my focus here today). In these doors, which you’re probably familiar with, the panels are set into bed mouldings. The position of the lockrail is important – this is where the handle and, perhaps more obviously, the lock were set, and a low lockrail was at about hand-height for most adults. But here’s the thing. The position of the lockrail changes in the early 20th century and becomes high – still perfectly reachable for an adult, but not so for a child. This has long intrigued me, because it’s the Victorian era that we think of as being that of children being seen and not heard. But a child could easily have opened a door in a Victorian era house. Not so much an Edwardian era one.

A typical Victorian era internal door, with four panels and a low lock rail. Image: K. Webb.

A typical Edwardian era internal door, also with four panels, but with a high lock rail. Image: K Webb.

Why, then, this change? I wish I knew. The simplest answer is fashion, but there is always a reason why fashions change – this is the whole point of material culture studies: nothing happens just because. There is a bigger shift that’s going on in New Zealand at around this time, with society becoming less formal. This sees a number of changes in houses, and the way space in them is used, but increasing the height of the door handle doesn’t fit with this (Leach 2000: 84-85). It may simply have been that doors needed to change, to look different, to mark those broader changes that were taking place.

But here’s another thing about those 19th century internal doors: they all had locks, presumably for extra security. As someone who’s not particularly good at locking even external house doors, this one bemuses me – and the crime rate in 19th century Christchurch was not that high. But the crime rate in the cities and countries Christchurch’s colonial settlers had left behind may have been, and so people may simply have been used to locks on internal doors as a standard thing. Edwardian internal doors also all had locks – in fact, I’m fairly certain locks on internal doors were a thing until at least World War II, but I don’t know exactly when they ceased to be the norm (nor when they first became common). The fact, though, that doors continued to be made with locks suggests that this was functionality that people wanted. I am curious, though, about when these locks stopped being the norm, and why that might have happened.

Which brings me to my final door conundrum: the position of them and the way they opened. It was by no means always the case, but doors were typically positioned in the middle of a wall. I appreciate that this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you live in a modern house, well, for starters, there are probably far fewer doors per room than there were in a Victorian house. But, more pertinent to the current discussion, in a modern house the door is typically at one end of a wall, and it opens back against the adjoining wall (in some cases, this was the only option, thanks to the layout of the house). Which makes sense, right? This way, the door doesn’t obscure the room and nor does it take up unnecessary space. But in 19th century houses, even when the door was at one end of the wall, it typically opened into the room, rather than swinging back against the adjoining wall. And in rooms where the door was positioned more centrally, it often opened in such a way that it obscured the bulk of the room as you entered (if you had to open the door when you entered). Why might this have been the case?

A standard villa, Bassett Street, Christchurch, c.1898. Notice how the doors into Rooms 2 & 8 are positioned centrally in the walls, and the way they open essentially obscures the room as you enter. Meanwhile, the doors into the other rooms are positioned at one end of the wall (which is unusual), but the doors do not swing back against the adjoining wall, but instead swung into the room. Image: P. Mitchell and K. Watson.

It’s hard to know. Was it a concern for doors swinging back against the adjoining wall and damaging the latter that led to the angle of opening? Did a door opening into a room, and obscuring part of the room as it was opened, provide more of a sense of drama, more of a slow reveal of the contents of that room (remembering that Victorians had A LOT of things on display)? Or did it help to preserve the privacy of those in the room, particularly in a house where there were servants (and there were concerns about separating families and their servants; Leach 2000: 80, Macdonald 2000: 42)? Was that the door, with its moulded door surround, was more of a feature within a room if it were centrally positioned, and thus became part of the room’s display, as it were?

See? Doors are maybe not quite so immediately knowable as you thought. The mysteries they pose are not huge ones, but resolving them would help us to better understand human behaviours in the past, including people’s attitudes towards their house and the use of space in it, towards security and towards their relationships with other people, particularly other people with whom they shared their house. Human behaviours shift in response to and in line with broader changes in society, to changes in economic systems, morals and belief systems, amongst other things. These behaviours are not just reflected in our material culture – such as houses – but are negotiated through it.

 Katharine Watson

References

Leach, H., 2000. The European house and garden in New Zealand: a case for parallel development. In: B. Brookes, ed. At Home in New Zealand: Houses, History, People. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, pp.73-88.

Macdonald, C., 2000. Strangers at the hearth: the eclipse of domestic service in New Zealand homes c.1830s-1040s. In: B. Brookes, ed. At Home in New Zealand: Houses, History, People. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, pp.41-56.

On windows

These days, in Aotearoa, we expect a house to have windows. While this has by no means always been the case across cultures or throughout time, it was the expectation of the European colonial settlers who arrived in Christchurch in the 19th century. Conveniently for a buildings archaeologist (or anyone else wanting to work out when a house was built), not only were windows ubiquitous, they’re also quite useful for helping you work when a house might have been built. Caveat, though: all the dating information that follows is specific to Christchurch. These dates might be the same or similar for other parts of Aotearoa, but I don’t know that for sure. For other places, they might at least provide a useful starting point, or a rough indication. Which leads me to another caveat: I’d never recommend relying on just windows to date a house – I think of dating a house as a bit like a process of triangulation, as it relies on a range of sources.

Images of houses in Lyttelton and Christchurch from the 1850s and 1860s show that houses had either casement or sash windows, and at times, it’s quite hard to tell which. It’s also hard to know which type was more common in these decades – in the sample of 101 houses I analysed for my PhD, three of the four houses built during this period had casement windows. But, when you start looking at newspapers from the period, advertisements that mention sash windows were nearly ten times more common than those that mentioned casement or French windows (as they were also known).

A casement window. Casement windows (also known as French windows) hinged on the side.

A four-light sash window, formed from two sashes, one above the other, that slide up to open. Note the small horns or lugs at the base of the upper sash (& read on to find out more about them!).

By the 1870s, though, sash windows were the most common type of window used in Christchurch houses. In fact, they were pretty much the only type used in new builds, if the results of my analysis can be relied on (and I like to think they can). They would remain as such until the early years of the 20th century. Which brings me to my first dating tip.

Dating tip #1: if your house has (original) casement windows, it was built in the 1850s/1860s, or in the early 20th century – they come into vogue again c.1910.

Sash windows were available right from the outset of the colonial settlement of Lyttelton and Christchurch. More than that, sash windows were being made here from the 1850s. It’s perhaps more accurate to say that they were being assembled here from that time. As well as people advertising that they were making sash windows, there were advertisements in the paper for window glass (and glass putty), and people may have been making the frames here from scratch, or may have imported the frames/frame components and then added the glass. Why this would be, I’m not sure, but it may have reflected the potential for windows to break when shipped here.

R. C. Bealby, covering all the bases by selling glass, putty and sash windows in 1850s Lyttelton. Image: Lyttelton Times 22/2/1851: 1.

In the period between 1850 and 1900, sash windows changed in a couple of key ways. Firstly, there was the number of panes. The earliest sash windows had numerous small panes (or ‘lights’). I’m not sure at what point the four-light sash window (the sash window shown above is a four-light window, having two lights in each sash) becomes most common, as there weren’t enough pre-1880 houses in my sample to draw any firm conclusions about this. But I can tell you that standard-sized two-light sash windows begin to appear in the late 1870s (there’s a smaller type around earlier on), and were the predominant type by the early 1880s.

A two-light sash window, with just a single pane of glass in each sash. Unlike the four-light sash shown above, there are no horns on the upper sash in this example.

Dating tip #2: If your house has four-light sash windows, it was probably built before c.1885. If it has two-light sash windows, it could have been built any time from c.1875 and was almost certainly built after c.1885.

The other change in sash windows occurred at around the same time (although not always on the same windows). This was the appearance of horns (or lugs) on the upper sash. Most sources suggest that these horns fulfilled a structural purpose: as the glass panes in sash windows increased in size (which happened as the number of panes decreased), horns were added to the upper sash to improve the strength of the corner joint and better support the weight of the glass (Sash Window Restorations, 2023). Like two-light sash windows, sashes with horns first appeared in Christchurch in the late 1870s, but were not common until the early 1880s. Windows without horns did persist, however.

Dating tip #3: well, it’s much the same as #2 – if your house has sash windows without horns, it was probably built before c.1885. If it has windows with horns, it could have been built any time from c.1875 and was almost certainly built after c.1885.

Of course the adoption of technology never quite works in a nice, orderly chronological fashion (and, let’s face it, if it did, it would be so much less interesting – although easier): you will find sash windows with two-lights and no horns, and others with four-lights and horns (as in the examples shown here). You’ll also find houses from the 1890s with four-light windows, and houses from the 1860s with two-light sash windows (but these tended to be a narrower form, not the dimensions that were common by the late 19th century). Old forms persisted, building elements were reused, fashion worked in peculiar ways and there were always early adopters.

This house was built by Harriet and John Snell in c.1899, but had two-light sash windows (with horns). John was a dealer and in 1897 he was advertising the sale of building materials from the recently demolished Central Hotel, including sash windows (Star (Christchurch) 9/9/1897: 3, 17/11/1897: 3). The Central Hotel was extant by at least 1863 and would not have had two-light sash windows (Lyttelton Times 29/7/1863: 3, 20/4/1865: 6). It is possible that the sash windows in the house at 558 New Brighton Road came from that hotel. Image: K. Webb.

But wait, there’s more! Yes, there’s another way that windows can help us date when a house was built: the shape of the bay window. Think of bay windows as having three main forms: splayed, rectangular and octagonal. Photographs indicate that rectangular bay windows were not unusual in the 1850s and 1860s, particularly on houses built in the Gothic style (which often had the aforementioned narrow sash windows). In the 1860s and 70s, though, the splayed bay was the predominant type, with the rectangular bay appearing again in the early 1880s, and quickly becoming the most common form. In Christchurch, it seems as though it wasn’t until the late 1890s that the octagonal form was used (although I know this form was introduced earlier in the 19th century elsewhere in New Zealand).

Plan view of a splayed bay window.

Plan view of an octagonal bay window.

Plan view of a rectangular bay window.

Dating tip #4: Splayed bay windows? Probably built in 1860s or 1870s. Rectangular? Probably built in the 1880s or 1890s (but perhaps the 1850s or 1860s, although these are of a somewhat different shape than the later ones). Octagonal? Late 19th or early 20th century.

Before I finish, I want to squeeze in a couple more window titbits. No one, I am sure, will be surprised to learn that, the more windows a house had, the wealthier the occupant is likely to have been. There’s a certain irony to this because, also, the more windows, the colder the house no doubt was. Clearly, if you were wealthier, you probably had more fireplaces, but there were only so many you could have, and those 19th century fireplaces only put out a certain amount of heat – and that wasn’t much, regardless of how wealthy you were. Windows also came in varying sizes, at varying prices. But there’s another way that wealth came into play. Most rooms only had one set of windows. Of course, it was only possible for rooms on the corner of a house to have more than one set of windows, but it was only in the homes of the wealthy that this was likely to have been the case. The majority of corner rooms just had the one set.

The cost of sash windows in New Zealand, 1883. Source: Leys 1883: 724, 728, 730.

Windows, then, like halls, are one of the components of a house that can tell you more about a house than you might have first thought. They’re perhaps a little more ‘practical’ than halls in that regard, being able to help us work out when a house was built – although they also have insights to offer in terms of wealth and class. Stay tuned for a future post on doors…

Katharine Watson

References

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

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

Sash Window Restorations, 2023. “History of the Sash Window: Part 3.” Sash Window Restorations. Accessed 7 September 2023. Available at: https://sashwindowrestorations.co.uk/history-of-the-sash-window-part-3/

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

Underground Overground blog: The Christchurch Public Library

Libraries are wonderful institutions, providing so much more than books to read and consult (although that’s pretty important!) and I, personally, would be lost without our local Christchurch public libraries. This post from Underground Overground explores the history and architecture of the Christchurch Public Library, from its beginnings as the Christchurch Mechanics’ Institute, until its eventual demolition following the earthquakes.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about the library complex, check out the following blog posts about the archaeology and architecture of the librarian’s house, which stood immediately to the north of the old library until it, too, was demolished following the earthquakes.

Shelter from the storm

Shelter. It’s one of the most basic of human needs, but there wasn’t a lot of it around for those colonial settlers arriving in Whakaraupō/Lyttelton Harbour in the late 1840s and early 1850s. In fact, when organised settlement commenced in December 1850, there was largely nothing: you couldn’t rent or buy a house and, quite frankly, you’d struggle to find someone to build you one. But it didn’t take long for this situation to change: there were houses for sale or rent by late January 1851 (Lyttelton Times 25/1/1851: 1), which is pretty impressive. While this early development of the housing market is pretty interesting and is an idea worth examining, today I’m going to explore what these 1850s houses looked like.

The first advertisement found for a house for sale or rent in Christchurch or Lyttelton, which dates from January 1851. Bear in mind that the first Canterbury Association colonial settlers arrived in December 1850. Image: Lyttelton Times, 25 January 1851: 1.

For those who arrived in this very earliest wave of colonial settlement, the first housing options were fairly basic. For two weeks, you could stay in the immigration barracks, which had been built by the Canterbury Association in anticipation of the housing shortage (Innes 1879: 11). After that, you were on your own. Some settlers lived in tents made from blankets, others in iron stores and some in turf cabins (Lyttelton Times 11/1/1851: 4). Dr Barker, of course, had his famous studding-sail tent. And then there was what seems to have been a particularly Canterbury ‘thing’: the V-hut. Which was basically a house with a roof but no walls. Or you could think of it as an antecedent of the A-frame house. Some settlers enlisted the labour of Māori, and had raupō whare built for them (and they were described as whare by the settlers of the day; Innes 1879: 22). And some had ‘portable houses’ – that is, prefabricated dwellings, although these do not seem to have been common (Hancock 1996).

V-huts in Christchurch. Image: Dr Alfred Charles Barker, Canterbury Museum, Accession no. 1958.81.372.

But soon more substantial dwellings were being built, with the first reference to a weatherboard house dating to February 1851 (Lyttelton Times 15/2/1851: 1). Only a handful of houses – or even buildings – from this era survive in and around Ōtautahi Christchurch, including the Deans cottage, Englefield Lodge, the former Middleton homestead, Chokebore Lodge, Tiptree cottage, and Stoddart cottage. Englefield, Middleton, Chokebore and Tiptree were cob buildings, while the Deans and Stoddart cottages were clad in weatherboards. The latter is likely to have been the more common building material, given that it was quicker to build in and more readily available. It is certainly what is most visible in photographs of the day, such as Dr A. C. Barker’s photographs of Christchurch from the early 1860s (see below).

Looking west down Armagh Street, c.1859-60, with Riccarton Bush in the distance, showing the predominant type of house at the time. Image: Dr Alfred Charles Barker, Canterbury Museum, Accession no. 1944.78.122.

The houses in Barker’s photographs were small cottages, sometimes one storey, sometimes two, clad in weatherboard, with a shingled gable roof and at least one fireplace (with an external chimney). And when I say small, I mean small. Helpfully, in 1851, house size (in feet) was a key metric in real estate advertisements, and so I can tell you that the largest advertised for sale or rent was 66 m2 (Lyttelton Times 5/4/1851: 4). Most were in the 20-30 m2 range, but one was just 11.1 m2 (Lyttelton Times 17/5/1851: 8). These houses typically had between one and four rooms, although one was advertised as having nine, and, if Charlotte Godley’s reminiscences are anything to go by, would not have offered full protection from the elements (Godley 1951: 170, 191; Lyttelton Times 13/9/1851: 1). By the end of the decade, real estate advertisements only used the number of rooms to quantify the size of houses, making it difficult to analyse how this changed over the period. But it’s clear that these later houses had more rooms, with most of those advertised having between four and nine rooms. Most would have looked like those in Barker’s photographs, but some were able to add a bay and street-facing gable to their house (creating the bay cottage form), or dormer windows (Watson 2022: 47).

Māori who were living or staying in or around Christchurch in the 1850s are recorded as having whare, but there is no written description of what these looked like (Taylor 1952: 48, 58). It’s possible that these were akin to wharepuni, a house or sleeping house, built of raupō, ponga (although possibly not here in Canterbury) and kiri (bark), with a thatched gable roof. Wharepuni typically had a low door and may or may not have had a porch or window. Prior to European arrival, wharepuni often had earthed-up walls, but this became less common in the 19th century (Schrader 2013). The raupō whare Europeans employed Māori to build may have been quite similar in appearance to this.

But here’s the thing. Most people might have been building houses like those shown in the picture above, but the elite were not. It’s perhaps naïve of me, but I remain surprised at how quickly the wealthy sought to distinguish themselves from everyone else through their housing. So, by 1857, Joseph and Sophia Brittan had built a brick Regency ‘pile’ (see below). To be fair, it wasn’t their first house in Christchurch, but still (Watson 2022: 118-119). The use of brick would have been enough to distinguish the house from others of the period, but it was also large, visually impressive and built in a recognisable architectural style. It was a very long way removed from the wooden cottages in which most of the colonial settlers were living, and was very much an expression of status, wealth and power – or the aspiration to these things (Watson 2022: 127-128). And then there were the Wilsons, who I’ve talked about previously over here. Actually, I only talked about John Cracroft Wilson, which was entirely remiss of me.* The point about the Wilsons is not so much that their house looked impressive, it was the size of it. (see also below) Built in c.1855, it had at least 10 rooms (Watson 2022: 103, 108). I don’t have a square metreage for it, but it was a long way from 11 or even 66 m2. These houses both survived until the Ōtautahi Christchurch earthquakes and, like most of the other houses of this period that remain standing, were atypical of 1850s dwellings.

Linwood House, 2003. Built c.1857 by Joseph and Sophia Brittan. Image: Jackie Snowdon - given to me by the photographer, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16775188

Jane and John Cracroft Wilson’s 13 room house, built in c.1853-54. Image: supplied.

There are two things that stand out for me in this very brief survey of Christchurch’s domestic architecture in the 1850s. The first is how quickly the real estate market in the city developed and the second is the aforementioned speed with which – and extent to which – the wealthy were able to distinguish themselves. These observations are both indicative of the fact that while, on the one hand, houses are very much about shelter from the elements, they are also about far more than that. To state the obvious, they are an object that can be bought, sold or rented for profit and personal gain. But they  can also be used for personal advancement in another way, as a means of achieving a certain status in society or a way of displaying the status you either have or aspire to. All of this is, of course, much easier if you are wealthy.

Katharine Watson 

 

*Fortunately I have a chance to redress that balance and you can all join in. On 26 July, I am giving an online seminar about women and houses in Victorian Christchurch, and Jane Cracroft Wilson is one of those who I will talking about. Come along, it’ll be fun! Details here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/asha-seminar-series-women-and-their-houses-in-victorian-new-zealand-tickets-671344237687

References

Godley, Charlotte, 1951. Letters from Early New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd, Christchurch.

Hancock, Lynne, 1996. Settler housing in New Zealand. Journal of Architecture 1(4): 313-334.

Innes, C. L., 1879. Canterbury Sketches; or, Life from the Early Days. Lyttelton Times, Christchurch.

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

Schrader, Ben, 2013. “Māori housing – te noho whare - Wharepuni to European house.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand [online]. Available at: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/maori-housing-te-noho-whare/page-1 [accessed 13 July 2023].

Taylor, W. A., 1952. Lore and History of the South Island Maori. Bascands, Christchurch.

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

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.

The Francises: living beyond their means

Harriet and Joseph Francis strike me as ambitious young things. Which is no bad thing. They arrived in Christchurch in 1876, newly married, pregnant and ready to tackle colonial life (Church of England Marriages and Banns 1875, Lyttelton Times 23/9/1876: 2). As with most migrants to New Zealand, they were seeking something better than they had left behind. Joseph came from a family in Wiltshire, all of whom worked in the woollen mills (England Census 1861). Except for Joseph, who trained as a law clerk (England Census 1871). Was this his decision, to take a different (and ‘better’) career path from his parents and siblings, or was it one made by his parents? We’ll never know and, on balance, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. The point is that, even before he left England, Joseph was on a different trajectory from the rest of his family. Unfortunately, I know far less about Harriett and thus it’s difficult to explore what might have motivated her.

Harriet and Joseph Francis, c.1875-76, possibly taken prior to their departure for New Zealand. Image: private collection, Liz Francis.

Although Harriett and Joseph’s early life in the city is hard to trace, I know that they lived in Oxford Terrace, before moving to Peterborough Street and that Joseph worked as a waiter (Lyttelton Times 23/9/1876: 2, Wise’s 1878-79: 66). In 1878, Joseph bought a 405 square metre section in the Avon loop, an area that was just starting to develop as a working class suburb (LINZ 1878). Very soon thereafter, he commissioned architect J. C. Maddison to design a house for this land (Lyttelton Times 1/10/1878: 4). Now, there’s not a lot of information on how common it was to commission an architect to design a house in 19th century Christchurch, or even less about much it cost to do so, but I suspect it added significantly to the cost of a build. Further, in my PhD research, I looked at a sample of 101 houses from across Christchurch and just eight were designed by architects, three of whom were architects designing houses for themselves.

The advertisement calling for tenders for the construction of Cora Villa. Image: Lyttelton Times 1/10/1878: 4

So why did Harriett and Joseph choose to commission an architect? Good question. It’s also a question for which there is no clear answer, because the resulting house was, well, spectacularly ordinary (PIC). Advertisements for the rental or sale of the house never mentioned that it was designed by Maddison (who would go on to be quite a prominent architect in the city) and it’s hard to see that the Francises gained anything for this expense. There is one tantalising detail, however, that could explain things. Joseph Francis worked as a waiter at the White Hart Hotel, owned by Joseph Oram Sheppard (Globe 31/1/1879: 3). Maddison designed extensions to the hotel in 1876, and it is possible that Sheppard recommended Maddison’s services to Joseph (Lyttelton Times 15/8/1876: 1). 

Harriett and Joseph called their new house Cora Villa, named for one of their children who died in infancy (BDM Online, n.d., Lyttelton Times 27/11/1879: 1). Not only was the house fairly ordinary for its time and place, it was also a curious mixture of spending and saving. While the sash windows on the street-facing elevation were single pane, those on the sides and rear had two panes, a less fashionable and probably cheaper form. Likewise, only the street-facing elevation had rusticated weatherboards, with cheaper plain weatherboards used on the sides and rear. The house was small, too: at 78.9 square metres, it was smaller than the average working-class house. Money had also been saved by not having any built-in internal decoration, such as a hall arch or ceiling roses, ceiling cornices or plinth blocks. There were, however, four fireplaces, which was unusual for a working class house. Another unusual feature was that lath and plaster linings were used throughout the house – kitchens and sculleries were more typically lined with match-lining, which was cheaper than lath and plaster.

The very standard villa that J. C. Maddison designed for Harriet and Joseph. Image: P. Mitchell.

It seems that the Francises never lived in Cora Villa. Instead, just over a year after Maddison called for tenders for its construction, Joseph advertised it to rent (Lyttelton Times 27/11/1879: 1). Instead of living in their new house, Harriett and Joseph embarked on a career in hotelkeeping, assisted by one J. O. Sheppard (Lyttelton Times 27/11/1879: 1, 14/7/1880: 3). But things were not to go well and this relationship was not one that would benefit the young couple. In 1881, Joseph sold Cora Villa to Sheppard (LINZ 1878). The following year, Sheppard called in his debts, and Joseph was forced to give up the Rolleston Hotel and declare bankruptcy. A court case over Joseph’s debts to Sheppard revealed that he owned land in Waimate, Rolleston and Christchurch, but was heavily mortgaged (to the sum of at least £1400) and carried other debts relating to the purchase of supplies for the hotel (Star 30/6/1882: 3). Sheppard himself turned out to be in financial difficulties and was declared bankrupt the following year (Macdonald 1952-64: S290). Sheppard no doubt demanded repayment of Joseph’s debts to stave off his own bankruptcy, but the state of Joseph’s finances suggests it is unlikely he could have run the Rolleston Hotel for much longer, although he may have been able to avoid bankruptcy.

The Francises put their new house up for rent shortly after it was built, with no mention of Maddison’s involvement. Image: Lyttelton Times 27/11/1879: 1.

It is tempting to see the young Joseph as having come under Sheppard’s sway whilst working at the White Hart Hotel. Sheppard, who was only five years older than Joseph, was from a well-known family of hotel proprietors. Prior to his bankruptcy, he had done very well out of the White Hart (Macdonald 1952-64: S290). It is easy to imagine a situation where Joseph looked up to and was somewhat bedazzled by the successful Sheppard and was convinced that he could follow the same path to success. The two may even have become friends, given their similar ages. Perhaps Sheppard convinced Joseph that he too could make his fortune from hotels. Or perhaps it was a straightforward business arrangement. It is impossible to know from this distance. Joseph’s use of an architect to design Cora Villa certainly suggests someone who did not always make sound financial decisions, or decisions for the right reasons, and the details of his finances in 1882 support this. What is clear is that the relationship between the two men was fundamental to the trajectory that Harriett and Joseph’s lives took in Christchurch. 

Harriett died in 1887, leaving Joseph with four children (BDM Online, n.d., Star 19/5/1887: 2). As was not uncommon in such a situation, Joseph remarried quickly, to Nellie Britt (BDM Online, n.d.). Remarrying quickly after the loss of a spouse was common for men in particular, in order not just to provide care for his children (and himself), but to keep the family on a sound financial footing (Cooper and Horan 2993: 207-208). Joseph and Nellie would have two children, only one of whom survived to adulthood (BDM Online, n.d.). Little more is known of Joseph’s life. By 1889, he was once again working as a waiter in a hotel, this time in Timaru, where he would live until his death in 1894 (NZER (Timaru), 1893: 22, Timaru Herald 21/3/1889: 3, 3/7/1894: 2, Wise’s 1892-93: 49).

What can we learn from this story of Harriett and Joseph and the house they built in the Avon loop? In the first instance, I think it speaks to their ambition and their desire for a better life in New Zealand. Part of that better life was the dream of owning a home of their own, with some land. This is a dream that was common to many of New Zealand’s 19th century settlers, and one that would have been far out of reach of a law clerk – or a waiter – in England at the time. It also speaks to the centrality of land, and land ownership, to the dreams of many of those 19th century settlers. And, even though things did not work out well for Harriett and Joseph, it gives an indication of the relative affordability of land and building in that time and place (thanks, in part, to the way in which it was cheaply acquired from Ngāi Tahu). In these things, Harriett and Joseph’s story speaks to the roots of the strong tradition of home ownership in Aotearoa. Finally, it also highlights that the hopes and dreams of those who came to New Zealand in the 19th century were not always met, and that the ‘settler’ experience was not always characterised by ‘success’.

Katharine Watson 

References

Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) Online. Available at: https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

 Church of England Marriages and Banns [online]. Available at: http://home.ancestry.com.au/

 Cooper, A. and Horan, M., 2003. Down and out on the Flat: the gendering of poverty. In: B. Brookes, A. Cooper and R. Law, ed. 2003. Sites of Gender: Women, Men and Modernity in Southern Dunedin, 1890-1939. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Pp. 207-208.

 England Census [online]. Available at: http://home.ancestry.com.au/

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

 LINZ, 1878. Certificate of title 34/251, Canterbury. Landonline.

 Lyttelton Times [online]. 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

 New Zealand Electoral Roll (NZER) [online]. Available at: http://home.ancestry.com.au/

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

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

Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory, 1866-1954 [online]. Available at: http://home.ancestry.com.au/