To Watch or Restrain: Female Convict Prisons in 19th-Century Tasmania

As institutions established to manage exiled British felons, the Tasmanian female factories consisted of four women's prisons located throughout the island colony. The material world of these institutions mediated internal power relations. Superintendents, Convict Department Officials, and the female prisoners themselves manipulated site landscapes. Today, one of these institutions remains as a managed historic site. Tourists experience a tidy and unthreatening landscape of Australia's heroic convict heritage. By juxtaposing excavated archaeological remains with public presentations of convict sites, I explore the position of female convicts from the original penal landscape to the shadows of Australian history.     

Social Change in 19th-Century Rural Ireland and the Archaeology of the Narrow-Gauge Railway: The Case of Munster

Abstract

Railways are unusual archaeological entities. They lasted, in many cases, only for a short length of time, and in their locomotive-hauled form are of quite recent origin. There is a signifi cant amount of documentary information available, making it well-nigh impossible, as well as inadvisable, to rely solely on the extant material remains. The fact that later incarnations of some of these lines remain in existence today and are to a degree part of our lives means that we possess preconceived notions about rail travel. Railways have featured heavily in literature and art, as well as having infl uenced the development of communication networks, politics and social issues. All of these combined, aside from drawing our awareness to the magnitude of the importance of railways, make it difficult to look at them from an archaeological perspective, or to see what an archaeological perspective can bring to the study of railways. This paper examines what an archaeological study of the narrow-gauge railways of Munster (the south-west of Ireland) can contribute to an understanding of broader patterns of social change in 19th-century rural Ireland.     

Percival,Vickers & Co. Ltd: The Archaeology of a 19th-Century Manchester Flint Glass Works

Abstract

The Percival, Vickers & Co. Ltd glass works was amongst the largest glass manufactories in Manchester, and formed one of a regionally significant group of 19th-century glass works in the Ancoats district of the city. All of these works have since been demolished, and the paucity of surviving physical and documentary evidence is in stark contrast to the former importance of the city's glass-making industry. The Percival, Vickers site was recently subjected to a detailed archaeological investigation ahead of redevelopment, providing a unique opportunity to study the buried remains of a 19th-century glass works. In particular, variation in the design of the furnaces provided evidence for the technological development of the later 19th century, which has not otherwise been documented. Additionally, some 110kg of glass fragments recovered from the site furnished important evidence for the composition of 19th-century glass, although the results are beyond the scope of the present paper, which focuses on the documented history, structural, and technological elements of the site.     

Lightening the Load: Five 19th-Century River Lighters at Erith on the River Thames, UK

Five early-19th-century Thames lighters, up to 22 m long, in an excellent state of preservation, were recorded during pre-construction archaeological works. The lighters had been used as the main structural elements in a mid-19th-century river-wall. The lighters and river-wall are described, and aspects of the construction discussed. The craft exemplify utilitarian trends in early industrial age boatbuilding, and were essential in the development of the international port. Although comparatively recent in date, details of their 'bottom-up' construction are not well known.
© 2009 The Authors     

Irish-Catholic Immigrant Life In South Bend,Indiana: Refined Earthenwares and the 19th-Century Social Worlds of the Midwest

Abstract

When Father Edward Sorin established the University of Notre Dame in the 1840s, he sought Catholic laborers to assist him in the enterprise. He purchased land south of campus and created a residential neighborhood for Catholic immigrants, many of whom were Irish displaced by an Gorta Mór the Great Hunger. An archaeological field school in 2007 investigated the homelots that comprised this residential enclave. Analyses of the refined earthenwares from the Fogarty family were coupled with other historical and material evidence to elucidate the ways in which Irish-Catholic families negotiated the complex cultural landscapes of their new city.     

The Chapter-House of St Albans Abbey: Reconstructing its 15th-Century Vault

Before the 1978 excavation of the chapter-house site directed by Martin Biddle and the late Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, nothing was known about the 15th-century building, beyond the brief documentary references in the Register to its remodelling during the second half of the century in the time of abbots John of Wheathamstead and William Wallingford. However, the exceptional quantity of late Gothic masonry fragments uncovered during the excavation has made it possible to attempt to reconstruct features of its design, particularly the vaulting, and has transformed our knowledge of this important building. This article reviews the information derived from the study of the fragments of the vault, assesses its significance in the development of late Gothic vaulting, and speculates on the identity of its designer.     

The Imaging of Samoa in Illustrated Magazines and Serial Encyclopaedias in the Early 20th-Century

Drawing on English language sources and material relating to the colonial administrations of Western Samoa (now Samoa) and American Samoa, this examination of photographically illustrated serial encyclopaedias and magazines proposes an alternative historical analysis of the colonial imaging of Samoa, the most extensively covered field in Oceanic photographic studies. Though photographs published between 1890s and World War II were often ‘recycled’, without acknowledging the fact that they were taken much earlier, and despite claims in the text of illustrated publications of an unchanged, enduring, archaic tradition in Samoa, the amazing variety of photographic content often offered contradictory evidence, depicting a modern, adaptive and progressive Samoa. Contrary to orthodox historical analysis, the images of Samoa in illustrated magazines and encyclopaedias were not limited to a small repetitive gallery of partially clothed women and costumed chiefs; and the ways in which readers understood Samoa from photographs and text raises questions still to be explored.     

A 17th-Century Kiln Site at Potterspury,Northamptonshire

Abstract

This report describes the excavation in 1965 of two adjacent wood-fired pottery kilns producing decorated and undecorated coarse wares and glazed fine wares during the second half of the 17th century. One kiln was of single flue type; the other, larger kiln, was double flued. The post-medieval kilns at Potterspury in Northamptonshire are reasonably well documented and it seems fairly certain that the kilns at present under discussion belonged to Leonard Benton. Their working lives began slightly before 1646 and terminated shortly after 1664. The products of the kiln are very diverse and include a great variety of the lead glazed, slip decorated wares which bear remarkable similarities to the Metropolitan wares of the London area and to the late 17th-century slip wares of Yorkshire.     

The Aberdeen University expedition to Cyrenaica, 1951. Part II: The oasis of Jalo

Mountain Madness. By Winifred Fortescue. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 176. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons Ltd., 1943. Price 10s. 6d.

Travel in England. By T. Burke. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 154. London: Batsford, 1943. Price 10s. 6d.

The Home Counties. By S. P. B. Mais. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 136. London: Batsford, 1943. Price 10s. 6d.

My Travels Through Chad. By P. O. Lapie. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 198. London: John Murray, 1943. Price 10s.

The Unconquered Isle: Malla, By Ian Hay. Pp. 208, with 33 Illustrations and 2 Maps. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1943. Price 7s. 6d. net.

The British Empire: Its Structure and Spirit. By Eric A. Walker. Pp. 250. London: Oxford University Press, 1943. Price 12s. 6d.

Man and His World. By Dr. James Mainwaring, M.A., D.Litt., F.R.H.S. Illustrated. Vol. I. The Evolution of the Old World. Pp.250. Vol. II. The Evolution of the Modern World. Pp.340. London, 1943.

A Portrait of Canada. By J. H. Stembridge. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp.164. London: Humphrey Milford at the Oxford University Press, 1943. Price 10s. 6d.

Return to Happiness. By J. Lied. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. xi+318. London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1943. Price 18s.

Federalism and the Small States. By Sir J. A. R. Marriott. Demy 8vo. Pp. 123. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1943. Price 5s.

A Short History of Canada for Americans. By A. L. Burt. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. xvi+279. University of Minnesota Press and Humphrey Milford, London, 1943. Price $3.00.

Greenland. By Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1943. Price 12s. 6d.

Headhunting in the Solomons. By Caroline Mytinger. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 334. London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1943. Price 151.

The World To‐day. By Barbara Ward. Illustrated. 7 1/2 × 4 1/2. Pp. 121. London: Oxford University Press and H. Milford, 1943. Price 3s. 6d.

Traveller from Tokio. By John Morris. Demy 8vo. Pp. 163. London: Cresset Press, 1943. Price 10s. 6d.

Igloo for the Night. By T. Manning. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. Pp. 252. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1943. Price 5s.