Denis,

You are of course absolutely right to point out that clay smoking pipes
featured specifically Australian-themed decorations, as with the (in?)famous
'Squatters Budgeree' design (and appear to be too modest to reference for
everyone else's behalf: Gojak D. & Stuart, I. 1999. 'The potential for the
archaeological study of clay tobacco pipes from Australian sites',
Australasian Historical Archaeology 17:38-49).

Away from the world of clay pipes, we also know that Stephen Green of
Lambeth (c.1820-1858) was making stoneware bottles for Tasmanian firms (at
least) prior to the 1860s, largely because we have marked examples from
Green for specific companies.

But the one conclusion that both of our posts inevitably lead us towards is:
we have a lot of work to do before we understand the mechanics of the
interaction between taste and trade in colonial Australian

Alasdair


-----Original Message-----
From: Denis Gojak [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 February 2004 22:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Blue-bodied earthenware

Alasdair

Makers of clay tobacco pipes certainly catered for distinctive Australian
tastes in their figurative and decorated products.  The 19th century makers'
lists include distinctively named Australian models like Sydney, Squatter,
Australian and so on.  The question is whether they were sold to:

A: The British home market to get a flavour of the exotic, like going to
American Outback Steakhouse chain and hundreds of Scruffy 'OMurphy Pubs

B: Your regular Australian bloke[ette] as part of his / her unconsciously
distinctive identity

C: For new chums, fresh off the boat, thinking that by sucking on a
Squatter's Budgeree they might pass as locals, rather like tourists from a
certain nation who seem to head straight off the plane for the shop that
sells the hats with the little dangly corks and Aboriginal dot painting
T-shirts.

So many marketing opportunities for the canny 19th century potter!  We tend
to think of consumers making choices but with Australia reliant on maritime
trade the traders, importers and retailers certainly played a very strong
role in determining what was available to be bought.  I know there are store
books and papers, as well as Australian mail order books equivalent to Sears
Roebuck, that may provide info on tastes and choices for ceramics from c.
1850+ but don't know if any archaeologists have systematically trawled them.

Denis

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Denis Gojak
Banksia Heritage + Archaeology
PO Box 457
Newtown NSW 2042
Australia

W    02 9558 0220
F     02 9558 4120
M    0413 030 293
E    [log in to unmask]








----- Original Message -----
From: "Alasdair Brooks" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: Blue-bodied earthenware


> First of all, thanks to everyone (particularly George, whom I've also
> thanked off-list) who's participated in this discussion of blue-bodied
> earthenware / drab ware / dyed body ware.
>
> Three points really stand out in this discussion for me in terms of the
> archaeological significance of these wares:
>
> 1) Blue is overwhelmingly the most common colour in archaeological
> assemblages.  I haven't personally seen any other colour in an
> archaeological assemblage in 15 years of working in the eastern US, UK,
and
> southeastern Australia - but I've seen plenty of blue (I do have reports
of
> green bodies from NZ).
>
> 1) Archaeologically speaking, these materials are clearly far more
relevant
> to Australia and New Zealand than to North America.  While quite uncommon
> down here, they turn up fairly consistently - but they would appear to be
> extremely rare in North America.
> They're also probably relevant in the UK as well, as suggested by work
I've
> previously done on 19th-century Wales and a couple of pieces I saw in the
> MOLAS collections this past August.  We need a bit more work to be sure
> either way, but even here they seem to be more common in Australasia than
in
> the UK
>
> 2) So why Australasia?  I don't know yet. But I can rule out some
> possibilities for Australia specifically (with apologies to our colleagues
> across the Tasman Sea). Past research of mine (which should be published -
> fingers crossed - in the next 12 months or so), has shown that the
> Australian market was strongly affected in the 1860s by the disruption in
> the pottery trade caused by the American Civil War - the latter is almost
> certainly responsible for the presence of white granite wares in 1860s
> Australian assemblages.  Yet since the blue-bodied material turns up on
> sites that pre-date the 1860s, and doesn't really turn up in the US before
> then, I think we can discard a Civil War connection.  In the same
research,
> I've also discussed the high probability that certain Staffordshire
potters
> specifically catered to the newly wealthy Australian market in the wake of
> the Australian gold rush of the 1850s.  This raises the totally untested
> hypothesis that blue earthenwares were shipped to Australia as a response
to
> an emerging taste trend in the post-gold rush market.  While I can't rule
> out some sort of connection here, reports of examples from 1840s contexts
in
> Western Australia would indicate that this can't be the only reason.
> Which perhaps leaves us with the possibilities that...
>      A) What we're seeing here is the shipping of unpopular /
unfashionable
> goods to an 'immature' colonial market, much as happened with
Staffordshire
> exports to much of North America prior to the war of 1812.
>      B) There might well be some sort of connection to an emerging
> Australian taste, but if so, it raises the intriguing possibility that
> potters were reacting to this emerging taste _before_ the gold rush.
>      C) I might be getting far too excited about a ware type that
> realistically doesn't turn up that much, even in Australia and NZ, and the
> significance of which is therefore open to question.
>
> Alasdair Brooks
>
>