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.

Missing pieces

There are a lot of artefacts in the Christchurch assemblage. We don’t have an exact count, but I’d estimate there’s somewhere between 300 000 and 400 000 objects represented. Each of these artefacts has a story, but not all of those stories are fully known. In some cases, we know where an artefact came from, who made it, who sold it, who owned it, what it was used for, how it came to be here and why it was thrown away. In other cases, we may only know the answer to one of these questions or, as is typical of archaeology, the answers to these questions only raise other questions that we don’t have answers to. Sometimes there are so many possible answers that we may never be able to narrow it down to the correct option. It’s an aspect of archaeology that gets lost a little bit in light of the attention on the information and the things we do find out – there’s still a lot of mystery in the past and sometimes that mystery, that uncertainty about how something came to be here, why it was made or bought or thrown away, becomes as much the part of an artefact story as the things we know to be true. For today’s blog, then, I’ve decided to put together a little showcase of some of the artefacts from the Christchurch assemblage whose stories are still missing a few details.

This small dish was found on a mixed commercial and residential site in Christchurch’s CBD. It’s made from porcelain, decorated with a brown slip glaze, through which another design has been etched. This style of decoration, found on porcelain, was popular in the 1720s when it was known as Batavian ware, in reference to the port of Batavia, now known as Jakarta, through which some Chinese export porcelain was transported. Some of this porcelain, which had distinctive blue and white painted decoration, was then covered with a dark brown glaze and decorated by European engravers, who etched out windows in the brown glaze to the original design or created bird and branch motifs like the one here. Here’s where the mystery starts – this dish, while it has the brown glaze and etched design, does not appear to be Chinese export porcelain, nor is there any blue hand painting visible beneath the glaze. The decoration is quite crude, not nearly as refined as some examples from the 1720s. It was also found in an 1850s-1860s context in Christchurch, and we have to wonder how it came to be there. There was something of a revival in the style in the early 1800s, but even that is too early to for the dish to have been purchased in New Zealand or even purchased in Europe and then brought over with the early European settlers. It’s most likely that it was an inherited piece, something sentimental or valuable enough to be held onto, passed down through a family and brought to Christchurch by whoever owned it. But it’s still unclear who made it and when – is it less-refined original or a later imitation of the original Batavian ware and, if so, who made it?
Image: J. Garland.

This wee gem of an artefact was found in association with an 1860s shop and residence on Colombo Street. The Younghusband family occupied the site, with John Younghusband running a stationer’s and fancy goods store at the front, while his family resided to the rear of the section. This cutlery handle, likely from a knife, has “FOR A GOOD BOY” hand carved into the side. It’s a phrase that’s not uncommon to find on children’s artefacts from the time – we find a lot of christening cups, in particular, that say things like “a present for a good girl”, usually printed or hand painted in gilt lettering. This is the only example I’ve seen of the phrase used on a knife handle and I’m curious to know how it came to be there. Was it a gift from one of the Younghusband parents to one of their sons? Was it a reminder to the child to mind their manners at the dinner table? Could it have been something carved by the boy himself, for some reason obvious to him? Was it treasured? If so, why was it thrown away? Were there accompanying forks and spoons with similarly carved handles? I will never know.
Image: J. Garland.

This chamber pot base bears the mark of Sampson Bridgwood and Son and was found on a site on Gloucester Street in central Christchurch. What’s interesting about this mark is that the name “S. Bridgwood and Son” has been painted over, for no immediately obvious reason. It may have been a piece that the manufacturer didn’t want to claim as theirs? Perhaps it was resold by someone else who pretended to be the manufacturer? Was the mark printed on the base by accident (this seems unlikely!) and subsequently covered up? Was it produced by the pottery during a period when it was unable to trade as Sampson Bridgwood and Son? I wish I knew!

Image: K .Bone.

In the nineteenth century, retailers and distributors of ceramics would sometimes stamp their own mark on the vessels they sold or exported, advertising their business and asserting their status as reputable merchants through their wares. We have a few examples of this from nineteenth century Christchurch businesses – not just on ceramics, but also on clay pipes. What’s unusual about these two pieces is that the marks refer to merchants based in Chile and Indonesia. Rogers Y Ca, or Rogers and Co., were an importing firm based out of Valparaiso, Chile from the 1880s, while Herman Salomonson was a Dutch merchant linked to the port of Semarang in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. Neither of these were big trading ports for the import/export of domestic ceramics to New Zealand specifically, although they were part of the more general global trade network in which New Zealand (and the nineteenth century British empire) participated. How did these artefacts come to be in Christchurch? Were they picked up by a sailor or merchant at some point and eventually discarded in the city when broken or no longer wanted? Are they evidence of indirect trade with these two merchants or ports – items that were sold or distributed from Valparaiso or Semarang to somewhere else - London, maybe - to Christchurch? I have theories, but no certainties, unfortunately.

Image: J. Garland

Found underneath an 1880s house in Christchurch, this message in a bottle remains one of the most simultaneously exciting and disappointing artefacts I’ve ever worked with. The excitement was in the mystery of the artefact as it was found, with the message visible in the bottle but still unknown, not to mention the thrill of unrolling it when it had been extracted, knowing that we were reading words that had been hidden for more than a century. The disappointment was in the utter mundanity of the message, which simply states that the bottle had been put under the house on this day in this year by this person. No reason is given, there is no indication of who the culprits were in relation to the house (and no secrets to be revealed!). Maybe it was put there to commemorate something (but what!?), maybe it was put there out of sheer boredom. Who were these people? Why was it witnessed? Could it have been a hoax? I still have questions.
Image: J. Garland.

Not actually from Christchurch, this one. This book, which, despite its apparently salacious title, is actually a novel with temperance themes (the man trap is a pub, get it?), was found in the walls of a nineteenth century house in Ashburton. We know who wrote it, when it was published and even what the story was – I believe the text is freely available online if anyone wants to read it. What I’m still curious about, however, is how it came to be inside the wall of a house. We know people sometimes used paper as (very flammable) insulation, but if this book was meant to have the same purpose, it would likely have been found with many more books or pieces of paper than it was. Was it secreted away by someone whose tendency towards temperance was frowned up by other people in the house? Was it lost? Why, oh, why was the book in the wall.
Image: J. Garland

-Jessie

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/

Unexpected paths

I never thought I’d come back to live in Christchurch, let alone find myself irrevocably entangled with its archaeology. I’m not actually from the city, having grown up in North Canterbury, but Christchurch was still the urban centre I was most familiar with as a child, the place where my dad grew up, the location of my first flat after school, the city whose streets and shops and restaurants held memories and stories, both my own and my family’s. It was also the city – too close to home – that, having gone to university in Otago, having left, I couldn’t actually see myself coming back to.

Then the earthquakes happened.

I don’t think I ever actually defined a timeframe, but I know that when I first came back to work in Christchurch – initially in late 2010, as an intern for Kat in the period between the September and February earthquakes, and then more permanently in 2012 – I didn’t think I’d be here that long. I definitely did not expect to still be here more than 10 years later, still working with the city’s archaeology, still talking about it, still – thankfully! – finding interest in the city’s story, especially as it relates to material culture.

This sounds a little negative, I know, like the city sucked me in despite my resistance, a kind of grasping, elastic force that I temporarily escape but can never leave. That’s not quite right – it’s more that, in terms of my involvement with this collection and this project, one of the most significant aspects has been how unexpected it was, or rather, how much working with the archaeology of Christchurch at this scale has defied every expectation I had. I’m not still here because I can’t leave, I’m still here because I find it absurdly fascinating (this is, in itself, also unexpected, given how much I hated New Zealand colonial history at school – I am genuinely very amused that this is where my career has led me).

In which, contrary to the point made in the previous paragraph, the author has very literally been trapped by mounds of artefacts. Image: Wendy Gibbs.

 Someone asked me at a conference recently if I was just going to talk about Christchurch archaeology for the next twenty years, the answer to which is basically, yes. There’s enough research potential in this dataset to fuel the work of more than one lifetime. So much of that potential, the most interesting aspects of it – at least to me – are the questions and studies that can only be answered through the collation of the data into a form that allows for large scale analysis of the city’s history as a whole. I want this data to enable researching Christchurch as an entity in itself, as well as the exploration of individual stories, places and objects within that greater whole. During the years I spent analysing artefact assemblages recovered from post-earthquake archaeological work here, the connections between people, places and things across the city became more and more evident. The questions I wanted to ask were increasingly about material culture use across neighbourhoods and suburbs, about commerce at a city-wide scale[1], about the connections that existed within social, political, geographical, religious and cultural communities and how they might be represented by the archaeology – and material culture – of the city. It became impossible to see each of these sites – thousands of them, now – as anything but one part of a much greater archaeological landscape. The dataset recovered from that landscape requires nothing less than to be curated and conserved for the future in a way that both realises the scale and interconnectedness of the city it represents and makes that data available to answer the questions it poses, from the small to the ridiculously huge.

It's a little bit overwhelming at times, the scale of what we’re trying to do with this project. At last count, there are over 1400 excavation projects represented in the Christchurch archaeological archive, almost a million fragments of artefact material, thousands of features from the city’s urban landscape – rubbish pits, drains, buildings, wells, cultural layers, buried floors and foundations – and tens, if not thousands of anecdotes about the people of the city and the places they lived. Each of those objects has a story, each site has a story (usually, more than one!), every person has a story – together, the clamour of all those stories can be deafening. But, I think, to torture the metaphor a little bit, they all deserve to be heard or, at least, to be made available to those who wish to hear them.

A selection of artefacts from the dataset. Image: J. Garland.

 Hopefully, this database – and, more generally, this project overall – will go some way to making this possible. There is so much that can be done with this dataset and – as Kat said in her post a couple of weeks ago – if we don’t try to use it, if we don’t make it available to be shared and researched and interrogated, what was the point of collecting it in the first place? I want people to be able to look up the archaeology of their house; to find the rubbish that their great-great-grandparents threw away in the 1870s; to learn about the teenager who held up a carriage on Riccarton Road with a stolen antique pistol; to wonder why someone stuffed a handwritten copy of a poem about cowboys down the back of a fireplace; and to know that the bar they’re currently having a drink in was preceded, more than a century ago, by a hotel that once housed performances of naked people in ‘frozen’ tableaus of well-known moments of history. More than that, I want people to be able to research the history of dental hygiene across the city through the prevalence of toothpaste pots and toothbrushes in household waste, to see the palimpsest of the city’s infrastructure through the drains and roads layered under our feet or the way that Christchurch’s urban development impacted water use and quality in the nineteenth century through changes in wells and modifications to rivers and water channels. Or, you know, any of the myriad of other possible questions that could be asked of the dataset.

This copy of the poem “Lasca”, by Frank Desprez, was found folded up behind a fireplace, while this article recounts the rather dramatic events of the 3rd of October 1879 and their apparent origin in the bad influence of impure literature. Image: J. Garland and Star 10/01/1880: 2.

 Like Kat, I feel a bit of a responsibility for this collection, to make sure people know about it, to see its potential realised, I suppose. It may not have been what I expected, but I feel very privileged to have been able to be part of the archaeological work here and I guess I want everyone to be as fascinated by what’s been found as I am. Because it is fascinating. Sometimes I wonder, if I’d had access to something like the Christchurch collection when I was at school, would I have been more interested in the history of my own community? I genuinely don’t know the answer – I was a bit particular (and very stubborn) as a teenager – but I’d like to think that the ability to connect that history to places I knew or to hold pieces of that past in my hand might have gone some way to making it slightly less surprising that this is where I ended up.

- Jessie

[1] Spoiler, this one I’m actually trying to answer!

Where this started

For me, this is personal.

I came to Ōtautahi Christchurch in 2000 and, by late in the year, was working as a self-employed archaeologist. I was 23 and I did not know what I was doing. For much of the 10 years that followed, I was the only person doing any archaeology in the city, all of it as a consultant, in response to the legislation that protects archaeological sites in Aotearoa, and all of it relating to the European settlement of the city. As a result, and also because, although I’m not from Ōtautahi Christchurch, I had grown up not far from the city and it had loomed large in my childhood, I began to feel a sense of ‘ownership’ of that archaeology.  Ownership is too strong a word, but I guess I felt personally invested in the city’s archaeology.

Image: K. Bone.

When the earthquakes struck in 2010 and 2011, I was still one of the few people in the city doing archaeological work. Because of the way things worked out – because I was ambitious, because I was in the right place at the right time, because, if ‘my’ city was going to be dug up, I did not want that to be happening without me – because of all this, I became the nominated archaeologist for much of the archaeological work in and around the city post-earthquake. I suddenly found myself employing a whole bunch of people, and doing very little archaeology myself. I became a manager, and, while I knew a whole lot more about doing consultant archaeology than when I was 23, I still did not really know what I was doing. I learnt a lot, although some things I did not learn until it was all over.

To say ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ is (a) a cliché and (b) not accurate, but it’s pretty close. I employed and worked with a lot of amazing people, and we did some incredible archaeology and I remember laughing a lot. And, as already mentioned, I learnt a lot. But it was not easy, as it was not easy for anyone working in that post-earthquake construction environment. The hours were long, the work was intense and never-ending, there was not enough time and there were a lot of pressures, from all directions.

All of this might seem tangential to forming a charity to preserve and share the archaeological archive recovered in and around Ōtautahi Christchurch as a result of the earthquakes. It’s not. This is part of what drives me: the blood, sweat and tears that I and others have shed in the creation of this archive. And the money. People paid a lot of money to have this data recovered. They paid that money essentially because legislation in Aotearoa protects archaeological sites, and if you are going to modify or destroy an archaeological site, you must pay to have the data from it recovered. This legislation is founded on the belief that archaeology is a public good, because all New Zealanders stand to benefit from the information that can be gained from an archaeological site. That’s because archaeology can tell us things that we can’t learn from any other source.

Image: F. Bradley.

This is the other thing that drives me: the potential of this archaeological archive, and the taonga it contains. And by ‘taonga’, I mean the information it contains. This is the real treasure at the heart of this archive: information about people and places. I believe this information – these stories – are a taonga, thanks to their ability to connect us to the past, to help us understand that past and to bring that past alive. One of the founding principles of CAP is to make this information freely available – not just the research results (we’ll do that, too), but the information itself, so that anyone can ask any questions they want of the data, whoever they are. For while on the one hand I believe that this archive should be retained, I do not believe it should be retained if no one is using it. So we have two tasks ahead: preserving the archive and ensuring it is used. Fundamentally, we want to realise the potential of all that was invested in the creation of this archive.

So, how are we going to do this? Well, first up, we’ve formed a charitable trust, so that we can apply for funding. And we’ve begun that process of funding applications. In the first instance, we’re seeking funding to build a database and a website. The database is to hold all the information, and the website is to make it freely available to researchers and the general public. At the same time, we’ll be promoting the data and the database via blogs and social media posts that demonstrate (a) what’s in the archive and (b) something of the range of research questions that can be asked of it. In addition to that, we’ll be running public programmes (think exhibitions, talks and hopefully work with local schools) to share the material in the archive. Longer term, we want to have a space where people can come and access the material themselves, and to work much more closely with professionals and non-professionals alike, on both research topics and public events.

Image: J. Garland.

And before I sign off there’s another reason why this is personal. It frustrates the heck out of me that this archive is not protected by legislation, that there is no permanent long-term home for it in Aotearoa, and thus that it is left to private individuals to save and preserve it. This speaks volumes to me about how we, as a nation, value our ‘cultural’ heritage (not that I needed this particular piece of evidence, thank you very much). This is a situation both brought about and exemplified by the fact that our own history was not a compulsory part of the school curriculum until this year.

Yes, I am a bit angry and frustrated, but more so, I am passionate and I am determined. I know that this archive is worth preserving and, with Jessie and Hayden, I know that we can achieve this. T. E. Lawrence probably isn’t who you automatically turn to for inspirational quotes (and, yes, flawed), but here you are (also, please forgive the gendered language):

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are the dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

We have our eyes wide open.

Katharine Watson