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"The Circumstance of my having become resident in a part of the town, adjacent to the haunts of the most vicious and degraded part of the community, has offered me ample op-

portunity of observing the extent to which vice and projligracy prevail in that Class, by which the District called

the Rocks is chiefly inhabited. "

ARCHDEACONBROUGHTONTO GOVERNOR DARLING Sydney, 19th June, 1830

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Contents

Acknowledgements. Introduction.

Chapter 1 -Household and Neighbourhood:Cornplernentary Contextual Tools?

1.1 A Question of Scale . 1.2 The Archaeology of the Household. 1.3 The Archaeology of the Neighbourhood. 1.4 Neighbourhood Archaeology in an Australian Context. 1.5 Conclusions.

Chapter 2 -Methodology. 2.1 Choice of the Survey Area. 2.2 Research Questions .

. 2.3 Methodology . 2.4 Mapinfo.

Chapter 3 -Relevant Historical Notes Concerning the Rocks and Millers Point.

3.1 Introduction. 3 .2 Neighbourhood. 3.3 Socioeconomic Status. 3.4 Ethnic Affiliation. 3.5 Land Use.

Chapter 4 -Archaeology in the Rocks and Mi11~rs Point. 4.1 Archaeological Strategies Within the Rocks and Millers Point. 4.2 Scale in Site Reportage. 4.3 Practical Applications of Neighbourhood Archaeology .

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Chapter 5 -Aggregate Profiles. 5.1 Restrictions Imposed by the Australian Historical Record. 5.2 Aggregate Area Profiles. 5.3 Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1828. 5.4 Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1861. 5.5 Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1901. 5.6 Conclusions.

Chapter 6 -Spatial Analysis. 6.1 Spatial Analysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1823-28. 6.2 Spatial ~alysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1865. 6.3 Spatial Analysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1901. 6.4 Conclusions.

6.5 Recommendations for Further Research.

Bibliographies

General Bibliography. Historical Bibliography. Archaeological Resources Bibliography.

Appendices

Appendix 1 -The Minark Database. la Minark Data Entry Form. 1 b Rationale Behind Minark Database; Variable Definitions. 1 c Consolidated Alphabetical List of Job Descriptions.

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Appendix 2 - Historic Maps. 2a Bibliography of Maps Utilised. 2b Harper's Map, 1823. 2c Digitised Copy of Harper's Map. 2d Trigonometrical Map of Sydney, 1865. 2e Digitised Copy of Trigonometrical Survey Map, 1865. 2fDarling Harbour Resumption Map, 1901. 2g Digitised Copy of Darling Harbour Resumption Map, 1901.

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Acknowledgements

There are numerous persons whom I need to thank for their help, support and, occasionally

sympathy. Judy Birmingham who was always enthusiastic as a supervisor, and Roland

Fletcher, for the numerous cappucino's, anzac biscuits, and the advice that came with them

during our Tuesday morning meetings. Andrew Wilson for his proof-reading, and for allowing

me to occasionally raid his bookshelves. lan Johnson, without whom Mapinfo would have

remained mysterious and unusable. Lastly thankyou to Fabian from the State Archives, who

could always pull an uncatalogued historical document out of his hat, and Anne Bickford who

lent me her newly imported Nan A. Rothschild book on New York City Neighbourhoods .

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Introduction

The primary question addressed in this thesis concerns a point of methodology;

whether the relatively new concept of 'neighbourhood' in archaeology provides an appropriate

mechanism for structuring historical context for Australian urban archaeological sites.

Relevant work by archaeologists in this field encompasses two broad phases. The first

defines and tests neighbourhood contextual models. The second explores the nexus of

archaeological and historical data produced through the application of the models.

Concentration in this study, is on the first phase. Although Australian historical

archaeologists have already expressed support or rejection of neighbourhood archaeology,

models as developed in America have not to date been imported or applied to specifically

Australian contexts. This thesis attempted to do just that; with no guarantee of success. Indeed

the prospect existed that American neighbourhood models were inappropriate and inapplicable

in many cases to the Australian urban environment, or at the very least to the chosen survey

area, in this case the Rocks and Millers Point in Sydney. In the eventuality that historical

contexualisation at the scale of the neighbourhood is impractical in an Australian context there

would remain little necessity in proceeding to the step of explicitly linking results to the

archaeological record.

Much in this thesis intersects with related disciplines, namely history, sociology and

urban geography. Compilation of a comprehensive view of the Rocks and Millers Point

through time requires reference to all of these fields. The discussion concerning the

"neighbourhood" presented here is not however entirely commensurable with definitions of

"neighbourhood" as 'utilised in geography, history or sociology.

Application of the word "neighbourhood" to describe the archaeology of social sub­

units within the context of the city is probably unfortunate given its imprecision. In this study

"neighbourhood" is used predominantly as an archaeological term. The debate concerning

appropriate methods of historical contextualisation for urban sites is an archaeological debate.

The neighbourhood approach as a contextual tool was designed specifically for the use of

archaeologists. Whilst therefore this study is set within an interdisciplinary framework which

includes these approaches, it concentrates as far as possible on relevant archaeological theory

in both Australia and America, and addresses, wherever possible specific excavation reports

from the Rocks and Millers Point.

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Certainly some work has been completed in geography that is of interest to historical

perceptions of neighbourhoods, but, for the most part the emphasis of this work has been

tangential to the field of archaeology. In the absence of an abundance of relevant research in

other disciplines upon which conclusions can be drawn about historic neighbourhoods in the

Rocks and Millers Point, this thesis attempts to explore the historic neighbourhood in a

manner that is primarily useful to the archaeologist as well, (I hope), as being of interest to

both historians and geographers.

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Chapter 1.

Household and Neighbourhood: Complementary Contextual Tools?

1.1 A Question of Scale

In order to operate effectively during research and excavation, it is essential that the

archaeologist orders available data, both historical and material into meaningful categories

for analysis. Currently within the sub-discipline of urban historical archaeology the question

of how to successfully order data, to thus conceptually define the city, and segregate it into

significant co~ponents amenable to analysis is being explored. One major conflict within

the discipline concerns the most appropriate technique in which the historical archaeologist

provides historical context for a site to be excavated.

This debate currently concerns household and neighbourhood methodologies. Each

approach has its advantages, and as is often the case the division between proponents of

each method is artificial in nature. Historical archaeologists seein polarised between what

should be complementary contextual tools. The basic nature of the problem is however

often ignored. The intrinsic question is not primarily one of correct methodology, but one

regarding scale.

It is the exception rather than the rule, that the archaeologist has the time or

resources to excavate an entire site. Consider the average industrial or pre-industrial city.

Size alone determines that one must be selective as to the areas that are excavated. If a

structure or series of structures is to be excavated, there are a number of ways in which the

remains can be investigated. Context can be provided for material remains in terms of a

range of different historic-functional scalesl including the individual, household,

neighbourhood, district, city-site, region, world (system) or combinations of all of these.

Schuyler sees the development of differing scales of analysis as intrinsically involved with

the development of historical archaeology as a mature discipline, with all of the above

contextual scales manifesting in the material record?

lSchuyler, R.L., 'Archaeological Remains, Documents and Anthropology: a Call for a New Culture History', in Historical Archaeology, Volume 22, Number 1, 1988 p.4l.

2Schuyler, R.L., 'Archaeological Remains, Documents and Anthropology .. .', in Historical Archaeology, V ol. 22, No. 1, 1988, p.4l.

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1.2 Archaeology of the Household

Examining the current literature, the error can be made of regarding the archaeology

of the household, due to its dominance, as the natural scale of analysis for an excavation.

However the 'household' approach has become prevalent in a relatively short space of time,

Wilk and Rathje pointing out:

'In the early years of American archaeology, whole cultures and phases were

the minimal unit of description and analysis.' 3

The hQusehold is the most common social and subsistence group in society, it is the

most common functional activity group.4 The basis of the household approach in

archaeology is the link between co-residents, the structures they inhabit, and manner in

which together these form a coherent economic unit which leaves its mark upon deposition

patterns; in short that intra-household activity impacts upon the social, material and

behavioural realms.5 Thus, a generally acceptable definition of a household is a 'co-resident

group occupying a bounded residential space'.6 Further definitional refinements involve the

functional aspects of the household. In Wilk and Rathje's terms the functions of the

household involve; production, (the procuring and transformation of resources), distribution,

(the movement and consumption of resources), transmission, (the transferral of rights and

property between generations), and reproduction, (the rearing and socialisation of children).7

The household is therefore not synonymous with the family, and multiple households

may occupy a single structure, or a single household may occupy many structures. In the

3Wilk, RR., and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', inAmerican Behavioural SCientist, Volume 25, Number 6, July/August 1982, p.617.

4Wilk, RR, and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, JullAug 1982, p.618.

5Wilk, RR., and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, JullAug 1982, p.618.

6(Paraphrased from Kramer), Kramer, C., 'Ethnographic Households and Archaeological Interpretation', in American Behavioural Scientist, Volume 25, Number 6, July/August 1982, p.673.

7While Wilk and Rathje include this as an intrinsic structural component of the household, I would object that this is not a cross-cultural universal and that there are documented household forms that are not based upon kinship ties and are thus not necessarily reproductive in character. Wilk, R.R., and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, Jul/Aug 1982, pp. 622-633.

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quest for ever more explicit terminology. Laslett and Goody developed the term, 'houseful',

referring to all persons resident in a single structure.s An implication of this fhrther

definition is that in the absence of adequate historical documentation it would be difficult

to differentiate the household from the houseful within a single structure or to separate

several contemporary households resident in the same structure from a single archaeological

deposit.9

A particular value of the household approach lies in the fact the household is

presented as cross-cultural in manifestation. The household has a universality and . availability that makes it responsive to efficient and dependable study. ID This supposition

is valid in that humans tend to settle in co-resident groups in territOlially defined spaces.

The household when conceived ofunder these terms tends to reduce and generalise what

amounts to a series complex human interactions. For example the umbrella term, 'household'

subsumes everything from extended kinship groups primarily focused around commercial

production, to twentieth century urban nuclear families where economic activity within the

household is non-commercial nature and commercial production is carried out at a place of

work separate to the residence. Commonality is always present, in the form of residency

and economic co-operation, in the fact that households live in and utilise shared material

culture. 11

The household approach was perhaps imported into the discipline due to the

anthropological training of the early historical archaeologists. The primary unit in theoretical

models and research in anthropology has been the household. Deetz, in acknowledgement

of this fact suggests that the concern about household variation through time and culture

merely masks the fact that the archaeology of .the household is primarily a strategy

8Kramer, C., 'Ethnographic Households .. .', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, Jul/Aug 1982, p.666.

9Beaudty, M.C., 'Archaeology and the Historic Household', in lv/an in the Northeast, Number 28, Fall 1984, p.35,

. lODeetz, J.J.F., 'Households: A Structural Key to Archaeological Explanation', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, July/August 1982, p,719.

llDeetz, J.J.F., 'Households: A Structural Key to Archaeological Explanation', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, July/August 1982, p.717 .

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I / accepting the family as a social unit amenable to archaeological investigation. U

1 Another rationale for the adoption of the household methodology is that:

' ... a theory of change in household organization can bridge the existing "mid-

I level theory gap in archaeology. ",13

This 'gap' is the presumed distance that lies between' the fonuation of grand theories of

'.1 cultural change and evolution and the artefactual evidence upon which the· archaeologist in

part relies. It is an unbridged 'gap' between the most particularistic to the most general

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scales.14 It is interesting that the inception of an archaeology of the neighbourhood caused . a spate of similar claims that this approach would solve the mid-range theory gap.

The archaeologist cannot excavate social units. Dwelling units must be inferred from

the archaeological record, and households from the dwelling units. IS Historical context is

provided in household archaeology through an intensive investigation of archival material

to locate the particular households that occupied a particular structure, the class, status or

ethnicity of members of that household, the relationship of household members to each

other, the length of their occupation of the structure and changes due to the household

lifecycle.

An attempt is then made to link particular archaeological deposits to particular

households, (even at times to individuals). Just how intensive the archival survey must be

is demonstrated by Friedlander. She advocates linkage of the archaeological data to

household life cycles including, birth, marriage, death, presence of boarders, infants, school

children, working children, and working wives. She considers that specific events and

situations could be linked with specific deposits. This, the foHowing of the family life­

course is termed longitudinal historical research, ~nd conceives of household deposits as

representing a series of 'telescoped' past events:

12Deetz, J.J.F., 'Households: A Structural Key to Archaeological Explanation', in American Behavioural SCientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, July/August 1982, p.718.

13Wilk, R.R., and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', inAmerican Behavioural SCientist, Vol. 25, Number 6, July/Aug 1982, p.617.

14Deetz, J.J.F., 'Households: A Structural Key ... ', in American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, Jul/Aug 1982, p.719. .

15Wilk, R.R., and Rathje, W.L., ' Household Archaeology', inAmerican Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 6, Jul/Aug 1982, p.618."

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1 ' ... just as a probate inventory enumerates what a person had accumulated at

death. tl6

The criticisms of this approach rest on a number of points. Firstly, the household

approach, (as utilised in historical archaeology), tends to operate most effectively with

residentially stable households. 17 It works best where a single household remains within ~

single structure over a long period of time, so that the changes in deposition patterns can

be detected as children are born, grow up and move out. The approach can produce an

image that society consists merely of an agglomeration of households. 18 This is a reduction I of actual hum;'" settlement behaviour and an inaccurate assessment of land u;-~~:;;;;, .. -

Humans settle in a number of different ways, not always in nuclear family units.

Furthermore settlement is often transient in nature, including boarding houses or other forms

'1 ~ of transient residences common in working class areas in the nineteenth century. Such

. :;~ I)'?· households are not as appropriate for the in depth historical contextual research that the

I ~· '" ~r household approach requires considering the probable lack of historical documentation of (J

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The most residentially stable of households, and therefore the most amenable to

/ household scmtiny are owner-occupiers. Unless care is taken the household approach could

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obscure the large proportion of the historic population that was never documented in the

historical record. Until after World War II the incidence of home ownership was restricted

to the middle and upper classesl9, lackson citing only a minimum 30 percent owner

occupation rate in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries.20 The claim of

16Binningham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire: International Perspectives on Urban Colonial Rubbish:, in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation: Australia in the World Context, The Australian Society for Historical Archaeology Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.159.

17That is not to say that this is intentional, just that deposition and historical documentation is most likely'to be affected by long tern residency, which in nineteenth and twentieth centuIy society is most likely to be due to a certain type of household.

18Zierden, M.A., and Calhoun, J.A., 'Urban Adaptation in Charleston, South Carolina, 1730-1820', in Historical Archaeology, Volume 20, Number 1, 1986, pp.29-43.

19Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory, Australian Practice', in Australian Archaeology, Volume. 33. p.52.

2°Jackson, R.V., 'Owner-Occupation of Houses in Sydney, 1871-1891' in Schedvin, C.B., and McCarty, J.W., (eds.), Urbanization in Australia: The Nineteenth Century, Sydney University Press,

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I proponents of the neighbourhood approach is that with well defined neighbourhood

I parameters even the artefact assemblages of undocumented or transient households can be

analysed.

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These ideas, typified by Friedlander often require a perfect case scenario. This

extreme case ofthe household approach rests upon the assumption that enough documentary

data exists to actually produce a family history and locate individuals within a family,

Linked to this precept is the assumption that enough refuse deposition is actually occurring

upon the allotment to anchor to the historical data to the material record . . Honerkamp and Fairbanks21 see the concern with deposit identification as

J particularly of concern in the urban environment.. They claim that disorganisation within

archaeological contexts and assemblages is possibly the central characteristic of the urban

archaeological record/2 due to the unique processes involved with deposit formation

processes in urban areas. They therefore see the search for tightly datable closed contexts

within urban sites as a inappropriate and possibly futile exercise?3

1.3 The Archaeology of the Neighbourhood

When compared with the more entrenched and developed household approach, an

alternative methodology, based upon the neighbourhood as appropriate scale of analysis

remains at a relatively embryonic stage of development.

/ One problem lies in definition. At the current stage of development no systematic

action has been taken to define the term 'neighbourhood'. This 'conceptual ambiguity' has

seen a large number of archaeologists indiscriminately utilising 'the neighbourhood' within

their analyses in a relatively unsophisticated manner, without considering what is really

meant. For the moment 'neighbourhood' remains a vague term that encompasses a range of

Sydney, p.42.

21Quoted in Zierden, M.A., and Calhoun, l.A., 'Urban Adaptation ill Charleston .. .', ill

Historical Archaeology, Vol. 20, No.l, 1986, p.38.

22Zierden, M.A., and Calhoun, l.A., 'Urban Adaptation ill Charleston .. .', in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 20, N 0.1, 1986, p.38,

23Zierden, M.A., and Calhoun, l.A., 'Urban Adaptation ill Charleston .. .', in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 20, No.l, 1986, p.38.

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scales from a single street frontage within a block, to an entire district comprising a number

of suburbs within a city. 24 ~ f 6-" O\A-L'-( r. Ftl. f-i 'rt. r CC-'_1 '~": ex' t'-~ The key idea behind any neighbourhood research is. sound; namely that any large

scale urban agglomeration is too extensive to allow intimate contact between all individuals

on a regular basis.25 Being too large to consist of a single social unit the urban population

fragments into a number of subdivisions based on a series of similarities. In· effect these

spatial units represent social or work territories of various social. units,26 As Keller states:

'[the n~ighbourhood is], a distinct territorial group distinct by virtue of specific

physical characteristics of the area and the specific social characteristics of the

inhabitants.,27

The study of the neighbourhood is not an innovation developed recently by the

archaeologist. Just as a conception of the household as an appropriate scale of analysis was

in some way imported into this field via that of social anthropology, a framework

comprising the neighbourhood as an appropriate analysis tool was imported from sociology.

Ernest Watson Burgess, a 'Chicago School' sociologist working in the 1920s was

essential to the development of neighbourhood scale research. Burgess is also well known

within historical archaeologist, his 'zonal hypothesis' for the development of cities being

adopted by archaeologists in the analysis of urban expansion. Indeed, the very concept of

the neighbourhood owes much to this model which suggests that a form of demographic

homogeneity, based upon economic power intersecting with residential land choice,

manifesting in concentric rings witllin the industrial city. Burgess was always fervently pro­

, neighbourhood, refuting the prevalent belief at that time, that the urban neighbourhood was

in terminal decline, due to increased population mobility, and the rise of impersonality and

24Jacobs, J., The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jonathon Cape, London, 1962, p.1l7.

25Rothschild, N.A., 'On the Existence of Neighborhoods in 18th Century New York: Maps, Markets, and Churches', in Historical Archaeology, Special Publication No. 5., (Living in Cities), p.29.

26Rothschild, N.A., 'On the Existence ofNeighborhoods ... ', in Historical Archaeology, Special Publication No. 5., (Living in Cities), p.29.

27Keller, S., The Urban Neighbourhood: A Sociological Perspective, Random House, New York, 1968, p.88.

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an increasingly bureaucratic society.28

Burgess proposed a methodology for discerning neighbourhoods within the urban /

environm.ent. He considered that the gross urban environment of a city naturally divided

into a nested series of sub-entities.29 In descending order from the whole city, (or city-site

as current terminology dictates), these were local districts, or communities, which in turn

divided into neighbourhoods. The centre of the IQcal community, Burgess defined as the

cross-section of the two business streets for the area. This intersection also represented the

: I area of highes~ land value. Each of the four areas bounded by these intersecting streets can

be considered a'separate neighbourhood?O This methodology was developed with reference

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to an existent population in Woodlawn, Chicago. Whilst it may have been appropriate for

sociologists of the day, the approach is singularly inadequate for archaeological research.31

Other urban sociologists provide methodologies designed to define the urban

neighbourhood. Sociologists however have seen little necessity in developing tmly

comprehensive definitions, involved as most are in the study of existent populations as part

of their own culturally specific urban environment. Sociological research regarding the

neighbourhood often suffers from confusion, that the sociologist attempts to address by

stating that neighbourhood organisation is an obvious component of the urban environment.

Perhaps it is inappropriate for the archaeologist to attempt to provide a hard and l '- \' ~~ the neighbourhood. The range and variation of behaviour ( I{ f: {( immediately observable i'-n-n-e-lgli-tiliourliooa interaction-does not perhaps lend itself to rigid I \) '- )( definition. Nor is it immediately clear what social or economic fWIction the neighbourhood r tiC" \

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performs. However, for the archaeologist this manner of escape' from explicit definition is

not available. In order to successfully study the bistoric neighbourhood, potentially and ----probably different in scale function and strength to its modern counterpart, it is cmcial to

develop a theory of how the neighbourhood would appear in both the historical and material I. - (;, - --\{- ( {l.} ----------- , -l~r\ ~

28Cottrell, L.S., Hunter, A., and Short, J.F., (eds.), Ernest W. Burgess: On Community Family ~ 6 and Delinquency, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pA.

29In his article, 'Can Neighbourhood Work Hav~ a Scientific Basis?'

30Burgess, E.W., 'Can Neighbourhood Work Have a Scientific Basis?', in Cottrell, L.S., Hunter, A., and Short, J.F., (eds.), Ernest W. Burgess ... , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pA3.

311t is especially inappropriate for the City of Sydney with its irregular topography and the absence of the Chicago grid street plan.·

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records.32 . ' ' (Cl yVr-

The danger however of the imposition of a rigidly circumscribed defimition is that 11 ~~ 'IS '7

such a step could narrowly and artificially reduce .. the neighbourhood to an inadequate I! (L ~ • definition, and even as yet insufficient research has been completed to isolate the crucial ()\t") 1) variables determining settlement heterogeneity or homogeneity within the urban >k (' "-environment. Rigid definitions regulating the analysis of urban patterning could deny

affirmation of the fluidity of human behaviour through time and obscure 'idiosyncracies' in

the historical r~cord through the notion that neighbourhoods were 'homogenous' in character.

The 'city-:site' approach, as expressed by Cressey and Stephens is an appropriate

starting point concerning the practical, archaeological, application of the neighbourhood

approach. Cressey and Stephens( proposed the 'city-site' approach, which attempts to provide

a more holistic approach in tl study of cities. Under its terms the whole city should be

regarded as the site under investigation, and any research should be carried within this

context.33 The city-site approach hopes to allow for a site to be understood in terms of the

entire city without the necessity to excavate the entire city.

'The whole city-site is the object of investigation. Yet the parts associated with

different status groups need to be delineated, surveyed and archaeologically

excavated to determine urban group material patterns.,34

Cressey and Stephens in their synopsis of the Alexandria Program present the

neighbourhood as an important unit for archaeological investigation in the urban

environment.

They developed a nested hierarchy with which to define the structure of the city.

This at its smallest level has the 'domestic zone', which is part of a household, proceeding

up through the street face, which is a component of the neighbourhood. All are components

of the city-site which is itself divided into the 'traditional' zones of periphery, semi­

periphery and core. These macro-scale divisions of the city into functional zones being an

32Certainly a key, and as yet unaddressed question remains how the neighbourhood operates economically. .

33Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach to Urban Archaeology', in Dickens, R.S., (ed.), The Archaeology of Urban America, Academic Press, New York, 1982, p.44.

34Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach to Urban Archaeology', in Dickens, R.S., (ed.), The Archaeology of Urban America, Academic Press, New York, 1982, pSO.

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I adaption of an urban model, in this case that of Sjoberg.

I A broad archival survey was utilised as their primary historiographical research

too1.35 Households were sti11located, and it was attempted to anchor specific households to

I specific structures if possible, or at least to particular street frontages. With a

neighbourhood scale investigation, rather than intensively studying the settlement of a

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particular structure or allotment, (as would be undertaken in a household scale

investigation), a broad archival survey was carried out for a number of standard variables,

over a large ~ea. For the city of Alexandria this was the entire city, but it was found that

a fifteen percent sample of individuals was sufficient to adequately predict settlement

patterning?6

The survey results attempted to locate nominally homogenous settlement patterns,

notable in terms of the key variables; class, ethnicity and religion. Since refuse deposits t I were not be referenced to individual families or households, they were studied within the

context of the residential areas uncovered by the survey. Such residential areas were defined

as:

'Neighbourhoodsassociatedwithhomogenousresidentiaipatterns

at one or more time phases.,37

The city-site approach as defined38 seems to be focused upon the settlement pattern {

concept,39 which is essentially descriptive rather than explanatory. Stephens and Cressey

merely map homogeneity or heterogeneity in a population without explanation. If an

35Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach .. .', in Dickens, RS., (ed.), The Archaeology o/Urban America, Academic Press, New'York, 1982, p.54.

36Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach .. .', in Dickens, RS., (ed.), The Archaeology 0/ Urban America, Academic Press, New York, 1982, p.55. The problem of sample size is addressed in Chapter 4.

37Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach to Urban Archaeology', in Dickens, RS., (ed.), The Archaeology o/Urban America, Academic Press, New York, 1982, p53.

38The actual data from the survey has not been published so there is only the research design to judge,

39The geographic and physiographic relationships of a contemporaneous group of sites within a single culture: Winters 1969: 111 from Wall, Diana Di Zerega, 'Settlement System Analysis in Historical Archaeology: An Example From New York City', in Historical Archaeology, Special Publication No. 5, (Living in Cities), p.65 .

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alternate concept is adopted, namely that the neighbourhood is a functional unit based upon

the provision of certain services, (economic and social), explanations may be developed as

to why sub-units of a society settle in discrete units. This would be a settlement system

analysis which stresses the functional relationships between a number of sites within a

single culture and would thus attempt to provide an e~planatory base for the neighbourhood.

Nan A. Rothschild is another important .. archaeological theorist developing

neighbourhood models through her work concerning the expansion of the City of New

York. The only researcher to publish a neighbourhood definition, this has since received . tentative acceptance as providing adequate explanative value. She states:

'1. They are places where groups of people spend a significant amount of time,

either at work or at home.

2. They are places that have a sense of identity, usually both self defined and \}

externally defined. ~t 3.They are often occupied by people with some common characteristics such as

ethnic origin, religion or socioeconomic status. They are places which provid~ ~~ &0: {)--'I,]

certain common services necessary to modern urban life.,40________ IM-~ o--r In keeping with this definition she sought to delineate discrete spatial units,

(neighbourhoods by her definition), in eighteenth century New York. A difference with the

city-site approach is the emphasis she gave to historic maps, themselves an archaeological

resource being:

' ... invaluable not only in determining the location of specific sites, but also in

delineating settlement patterns and, where relevant, topographic changes,.41

The key variables isolated as detenninin,g settlement clustering and generally \

available through reference to the documentary ~ were ethniCi~ relIgion, and

socioeconomic status, variables generally identical to those suggested by Cressey and

Stephens as essential to the discernment of homogenous residential patterns. Her

methodology however concentrates upon the last statement of the third point in her

definition of the neighbourhood, that of the service base that a neighbourhood potentially

40Rothschild., N.A., 'On the Existence ofNeighborhoods .. .', in Historical Archaeology, Special . . Publication No. 5., (Living in Cities)Rothschild., N.A., pp.31-2.

41Seasholes, N.S., 'On the Use of Historic Maps', in Beaudry, M.C., (ed.), Documentary Archaeology in the New World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p.92 .

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provides. Structures delivering services to an identifiable sector of the community were

plotted upon the chosen historic maps displaying topographicaUy discrete regions of New ~ York.42 The results of this exercise enabled her to show that service structures, such as

churches, schools and markets did cluster in significant way enabling her to define fourteen /"

spatial units, or neighbourhoods in the survey area.

A problem is that positive identification of historic neighbourhoods(through historic

research does not automatically correlate with the supposition that neighlourhoods manifest

in the materi~l record. The claim that neighbourhoods are connected with functional

economic behaviour was not proven archaeologically by Rothschild in her initial paper ..

Rothschild has since published the completed historic neighbourhood research, undertaking

a demographic survey of historical records in order to further her understanding of the

spatial units she delineates through the clustering of structures. This, and the manner in

which she links her nom inal neighbourhoods to the material record is accorded further

consideration in Chapter Four.

Honerkamp represents the third important methodological strand in the I archaeological investigation of the neighbourhood. He immediately defines the debate

between household and neighbourhood approaches as 'a question of scale.43 His experience (' .

of 'post-depositional forces' disturbing the material record of urban archaeological sites led

him to seek an alternate method of interlinking the archaeological and material records,

other than through direct correlation.44

Honerkamp's adllption45 of neighbourhood archaeology represents an approach that

42Defined mostly by 'breaks' in the street grids of the city

43Honerkamp, N., Households or Neighbourhoods: Finding Appropriate Levels of Research in Urban Archae%gy,Unpublished Conference Paper, 1987.

44Honerkamp,.N., Households or Neighbourhoods ... ,Unpublished Conference Paper, 1987, p.2. These are Honerkamp's words. 'Post-depositional forces' may not in fact exist, as 'disturbances' can / not in reality be disassociated with processes of deposition. From the moment of artefact deposition V a number of 'disturbances' contribute to the fonnation of an archaeological deposit.

45 Adoption, since he commenced his career as a keen pro-householder, castigating proponents of neighbourhood archaeology as possessing little faith, switched to a neighbourhood approach necessitated by the post-depositional forces that precluded household archaeology being successfully completed on his later sitos. Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory .. .', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.54.

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complements that of both Stephens and Cressey~ and Rothschild. His hypothesis states that

for the majority of households within an urban context little or no documentary material

is available. However, households reside within larger spatial units, namely

'neighbourhoods', that are discernible through the application of an accepted definition, such

as that developed by Rothschild.

corporat,Jactions influencing the social and material circumstances of households

within the neighThourhood unit are far more likely to have been recorded in the documentary

record/as part of the operations of governmental bureaucracy/than the actions of individual

residehts. Thi's supposition is not dissimilar to Burgess' whb at times chose to equate the

neighbourhood with Local Govenllnent Areas.

Perhaps the most important statement of Honerkamp is one that dispels any notion

that neighbourhood and household methodologies conflict:

'With neighbourhood parameters firmly in hand it becomes possible to

meaningfully interpret household artefact assemblages derived from the

'known' neighbourhood, even when the household in question is undocumented.

The converse of this statement is not true. Thus, even for archaeologists who

have a household fixation, scaling up provides a valuable and useful tool for

making sense of any site's particulars. ,46

Neighbourhood archaeology can therefore potentially answer a spectrum of questions ~

differing from those originating through household research.

The three papers cited aptly summarise the theoretical aspects cllTently addressed

by the primary American archaeologists involved in the development of neighbourhood

archaeology. No one provides a exhaustive m(fthodology to apply to a given urban

environment, although through combining the compatible concepts of each, (for whilst all

three differ in approach there is a 'high degree of commonality between'them), a more

systematic approach can be developed which avoids the weaknesses of each theorist's

approach considered in isolation.

Together -they provide a generally workable definition of the neighbourhood via

Rothschild, and two major methodological strands. The first utilises a broad demographic

survey organised around a small number of standard variables as the primary

46Honerkamp, N., Households or Neighbourhoods".,Unpublished Conference Paper, 1987, p,7.

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historiographical tool. The resultant data from this survey can potentially be displayed

spatially upon historic maps, to provide an understanding of the demographics of the

historical population in terms of the then extant built environment. This approach implicitly

conceives the neighbourhood as a conglomeration of households, and indeed the

demographic survey has much in common with the historical techniques utilised within

investigations at the level of the hou.sehold, If considered in this manner, the major

difference is that the neighbourhood survey is 'shallow' and covers a wide spatial region,

whilst the ho,!sehold approach has 'depth', being far more intensive whilst covering a

considerably smaller region.

The second methodological strand is that proposed by Honerkamp which envisages

the neighbourhood more as a socio-spatial unit within the city upon which corporate,

governmental organisation exercises its power.

1.5 Neighbourhood Archaeology in an Australian Context

The identical discussion, that involving proponents of household or neighbourhood

archaeology has been propagated in the field of Australian historical archaeology. The

discussion which has to some extent placed the two methodologies in conflict should be

considered premature. To date minimal work has been undertaken in Australia that could

be considered directly as neighbourhood archaeology.

The Australian debate is best typified by regarding two articles, the first; 'The

Refuse of Empire Revisited' by Judy Birmingham who could be termed a moderate

household advocate, and the second being a response to Birmingham's article; 'Urban

Archaeology: American Theory, Australian Practice' by Damaris Bairstow, who could ~e

considered more radically pro-neighbourhood.

Birmingham's major criticism of the neighbourhood approach is based within the

results of the Charleston Program. The excavation of an entire region, (a block for

example), held at a homogenous status occupation tends to obscure 'idiosyncratic

behaviour'47. Despite the criticism she provides admits, (thro~gh reference to Beaudry):

' ... no ready solution as to how one should go about sorting out several

47Birmingham, J., ''The Refuse of Empire ... ', in Birmingham, J. et. al., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.155.

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contemporaneous households from a single backlot or feature'.~

Further reference to Beaudry shows cautious support of higher scales of analysis in that:

'We must. .. place the individual site, our microcosm into the wider contextual

frame of the neighbourhood, city or region, as well as the environment as all

of these things existed in the past. ,49

Beyond the subtle admission of the necessity to further develop such techniques,

Birmingham as a whole reflects Schuyler's opinion, that the primary contribution of

historical arc~aeology will always be at the level of the houselot and the household, 50

material culture being seen at 'its most informative' when linked to the generating

household.51 This does not however relate to a wholesale rejection of the neighbourhood,

but an endorsement of nested analytical units such as typified by the city-site approach.

Bairstow makes the contentious claim that the Australian historical record is not in

nature as rich as the comparative American records. A proponent of the neighbourhood

approach she cites a higher scale of analysis as valuable where 'post-depositional

disturbance' obscures the ability to link specific deposits to specific occupation horizons,

or where a high level of occupation turnover occurs.52 Her belief that the Australian

historical record is particularly poor, (a probably unsupportable point), is utilised to buttress

her pro-neighbourhood position. Karskens concurs with this attitude, not that the Australian

historical record is particularly poor, but that:

'There are very few direct written records from and about the mass of Sydney's

48Binningham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Birmingham, J. et. al., (eds.), Archaeology and C%l1isatiol1 ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.157

49Binningham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Binningham, J. et. al., (eds.), Archaeology and C%nisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.157.

50Birmingham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988 p.159.

51Birmingham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.159.

52Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory .. .', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.54. The problems with the concept of 'post-depositional disturbance' were noted above.

15

I ordinary people,.53

I In this sense the neighbourhood approach can be seen to address the problem of providing

historical context for undocumented sectors of the population, usually the working classes

I and ethnic or other minority groups rather than the middle and upper classes that are well

documented historically.54

What Bairstow fails to consider is that, for the neighbourhood approach to operate

effectively, there needs to be a usable set of household data, produced through reference

to historically documented households, which can be utilised as an 'anchor,55 to provide . information upon likely differences due to status or ethnically related variables in the

I artefact assemblages'. 56

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For the moment the entire debate and dichotomy caused by it seems completely

premature. As the matter stands little or no work has been completed in Australian

Historical Archaeology at the scale of the neighbourhood. Bairstow concedes that; ' .. .the

possibility of discovery at the household level cannot be abandoned',57 while Birmingham

states of the Charleston excavations:

'Presumed high and low status were compared, as were site function

differences; results while sufficiently satisfactory to encourage development of

the neighbourhood approach, indicated that status and function indices were

probably not sufficiently sensitive. ,58

Birmingham therefore seems to have adopted the more cautious and probably sensible view

53Karskens, G., and Thorp, W., 'History and Archaeology in Sydney: Towards Integration and Interpretation', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical SOciety, Volume: 78, Parts 3&4, December., 1992, p.55.

54Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory .. .', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.52.

55Zierden, M.A., and Calhoun, J.A., 'Urban Adaptation in Charleston .. .', in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 20, No.l, 1986, p.30.

56Birmingham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.155.

57Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory .. .', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.55.

58Birmingham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire .. .', in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... , The ASHA Inc., Sydney, 1988, p.155.

16

1 that the neighbourhood approach needs to be further developed and tested for Australian

1 conditions before being applied in Australia. Judging from their articles neither Binningham

or Bairstow wish a single scale of analysis to be mandatory, both seeking judicious and

I appropriate use of contextual tools.

The neighbourhood research that has been completed in Australia has mostly been

'1 at the hands of urban economic historians and geographers rather than archaeologists. From

an archaeological point of view such work is of greater practicality than that of the

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sociologists, a~ economic historians have tended to study historic settlement patterns within

an economic framework. Examples of such work are seen in Graeme Aplin's work.

In 'Socio-spatial Structure of Australian Cities', and 'Models of Urban Change' Aplin

attempts to plot socioeconomic patterning through an analysis of population data drawn

from contemporary directories. Mapping the data, based upon 'di~trict' a tenn which seems

to be synonymous with electoral districts, he reveals the socio-spatial structure of early

Sydney. His social map depicts the ratios within each district of the four socioeconomic

groups that he defines. The research is primarily aimed toward the application of models

of urban growth, typified by the zonal hypotheses of Burgess and Sjoberg which address

the expansion of the city. However, his results which clearly show areas preferred by

professionals, (around Hyde Park in 1844), or labourers, (The Lower Rocks in 1844)/9

provides the archaeologist with good clued as to geographic regions within Sydney

amenable to neighbourhood analysis.

Badcock and Urlich Cloher are another example of contemporary urban geographers

working with the concept of the ·neighbourhood. In developing research questions dealing

with urban renewal in Inner Adelaide60 they. sought to express their results as

'Neighbourhood Change', However whilst their research is thorough61 they again

demonstrate the weaknesses inherent in current definitions of the neighbourhood. For these

59 Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change: Sydney 1820-1870' in Australian Geographic Studies, Volume 20, 1982, pp 150-1.

. 6°in two articles; Badcock, B.A., and Urlich Cloher, D.U., 'Neighbourhood Change in Inner Adelaide 1966-76', in Urban Studies, Volume 18, 1981, pp.41-55. and Badcock, B.A., 'Neighbourhood Change in Inner Adelaide: An Update', in Urban Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4., 1991, pp.553-558.

61Their thesis is actually tangential to the issues raised in this essay, and need only be lightly treated.

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researchers the neighbourhood is defined as a Census Collectors District. It would seem

logical that a neighbourhood would encompass its own internally and externally proscribed

boundaries, fluid in nature and through time. It would also seem improbable that

neighbourhood boundaries would automatically coincide with bureaucratic boundaries of

any kind, be they suburban or that of a local government area.

Thus this research offers the same problems as ApIin's work, namely that the whilst

the methodology utilised in neighbourhood research remains broadly similar across

disciplines, th~ data is sought for differing purposes. The geographers, while researching

the neighbourhood in its own right, are more interested in applying demographic data to the

entirety of the city and to manageable s.ub-units of the whole city. These smaller analytical

areas only need reflect general socioeconomic differences that can be observed in

comparison between districts or other bureaucratic divisions. The advantage of utilising

bureaucratic urban subdivisions, namely Census Collectors Districts or Local Government

Areas, is that in this way one's historical database exactly matches the urban area being

studied. Stable sources of infonnation often exist for extant geographic regions with an

independent governmental or quasi governmental status. Whilst this provides the benefit of

efficiency, the approach does not represent a sophisticated interpretation of the tenn'

'neighbourhood' which at best is reduced to the status of a convenient synonym for certain

bureaucratic units.

Badcock and Urlich-Cloher in their research demonstrate the similarity in

neighbourhood research across various disciplines. Whilst hamessing their methodology to

research questions particular' to geography they utilise generally the same techniques as

employed by the majority of neighbourhood researcl).ers, namely broad demographic survey,

in this particular case mapping the socio-economic status of household hyads. The potential

adoption of a technique whose primary application has been in the field of geography into

that of archaeology suggests that research questions utilised by the historical archaeologist

to provide historical context for the individual site need not be developed solely through

history. Hypotheses distilled from related disciplines such as geography may similarly be

tested against the archaeological record.62

The history of social demographic surveys in Australia is quite long; one of the

62Bairstow, D., 'Historical Archaeology at the Crossroads', in Australian Archaeology, No. 18, June 1984, p.36 .

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earliest being conducted by W.S. Jevons in the 1850s. He, in unpublished research

attempted to produce a number of 'social maps' of Sydney attempting to describe the /

various nature of the settlement sub-divisions in Sydney. His approach was not greatly at

variance at with either the approaches of Graeme Aplin or for that matter Rothschild.63 His

work, although incomplete, remains a valuable record of settlement patterns within Sydney

in the nineteenth century.

1.6 Conclusions

It is important to place this debate within the context of changes in the discipline

/ of historical archaeology. Much of the work undertaken both at the level of the

neighbourhood and the household has been done so utilising a functionalist framework.64

The ideology is thus; that both scales are sub-units of the entirety of society, and that the I function of the part contributes to the action of the whole. The city-site approach is easily

subsumed under this definition.

However the advent and growth ofpost-processual archaeology would seem to draw

into question tlle entire basis of the household/neighbourhood deb~te, by fundamentally

undermining the methodologies.65 The relativist ethos inherent in post-processualism with

its tenets of the rejection of objectivity, the necessity to understand the contextual whole

before the part, and its attack on positivism are not compatible with either approach

currently being discussed.66 Relativism with its tenet of the uniqueness and incomparability

of individual cultures and periods certainly has an impact upon household archaeology's

claims about the universality and cross-comparability of households.

Extreme relativism which disclaims the search for general theories of material

63Jevons' work whilst unftnished remains quite interesting as a view of mid-nineteenth century written by a contemporary. The manuscript was deposited at the Mitchell Library. Jevons, W.S., Some Remarks on the Social Map of Sydney, Unpublished Manuscript, ML MSS R864.

64Rathje, W.L., and McGuire, R.H., 'Rich Men ... Poor Men', inAmerican Behavioural SCientist, Volume 25, Number 6, July/August 1982, p.705

65Redman, CL., 'Distinguished Lecture in Archaeology: In Defense of the Seventies-The Adolescence of New Archaeology', in American Anthropologist, Vol. 93, No. 2, June 1991, p.300.

66Yrigger, E.G.; 'Post Processual Developments in Anglo-American Archaeology', Norw. Arch. Rev., Vol. 24, No. 2, 1991, p.66.

19

I culture and dismisses archaeology as a source of knowledge about the past is in direct

I opposition to the idea that the historic household or neighbourhood could be delineated and

understood through ever refining definitions, rigorous historic scholarship, demographic

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survey, and the linkage of historical data with precisely classified artefact assemblages.67

Household and neighbourhood archaeology as it stands seems to be part of a more positivist

strand of the discipline, whic~ does not claim any absolute knowledge of the past, but does

present interpretations with the support of empirical data.68

The sometimes divisive character of the current 'debate' involving methodology has . obscured the basic nature of the argument, and destroyed any sense of commonality

between the approaches. The most sensible solution is to encourage usage of the appropriate

contextual methodology to fit the appropriate research design, or to design projectes which

utilise both approaches in a complementary way.

The neighbourhood methodology seems to be utilised to its greatest potential where

city-wide archaeological strategies are in place. With systems such as the Alexandria project

in operation there remains little argument for archaeologists to retain a particularistic

approach to a single site. The neighbourhood approach is a logical solution where the

archaeologist seeks to provide context for a series of structures at a scale that lies mid-way

between the household, and the macro spacial patterns that manifest within the entire

conurbation. As to whether it represents a 'logical' solution within an Australian context is

a question still under consideration.

Considering the literature available on the neighourhood approach it would seem that

neighbourhood researchers are attempting to coherently develop a specific methodology in

order to discern neighbourhoods. All such stud~es seem to involve the utilisation of

demographic data extant in the historical record, with the potential linkage of this data to

historical maps 69

/1 For all its processually driven positivistic attitude nowhere is an actual household

methodology explicitly stated. A primary claim of household researchers is based upon the

definition of the household. To reiterate; the household is defined as a group of co-resident

67Trigger, B.G., ;Post Processual Developments .. .', Nom. Arch. Rev., Vol. 24, No. 2,1991, p.68.

68Trigger, B.G., 'Post Processual Developments .. .', Nom. Arch. Rev., Vol. 24, No. 2, 1991, p.72.

69Themselves an archaeological resource

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persons, living within a bounded residential space. Household researchers70 stress that a

single household may not be coterminous with a unitary stmcture. That is, a single

household may inhabit more than one structure, or more than one household may inhabit

a single structure. Household archaeologists often, of necessity, or unwittingly give primacy

to the material stmcture rather than to the household in question. It often seems that

household archaeology is the archaeology of houses.71 This is connected with the stmctural

way in which historical archaeology is perfor& within a living cily excavation can

only be carried, out within the parameters delineated by pragmatism. An excavation of, for (

example, a single houselot provides a static analytical window by which to observe transient

human behaviour. The allotment is an enduring feature, the households that inhabit it are I not. The archaeologist is therefore primarily studying the inhabitation history of a stmcture/, A /7 --rather than the coherent histories of the numerous inhabitant families. Vi 0

Furthermore the data extracted from any excavation is usually rendered serviceable

through cross-comparison to other historical households, the artefacts being given meaning r "It;? . through reference to the contemporary societal norms. The household, being an integral part \

/ of society does not exist in isolation, and is given meaning tllTougb";ef;r~nce to the socleiil""\ k.0 'I. ' of which it is a part. The neighbourhood scale of analysis is not in direct conflict with that

of the household. A neighbourhood approach is therefore of use in attempting to explain

the settlement patterns within the urban agglomerations, of which households are the

constituents.

~onversely, for the neighbourhood approach to be successful the cross-comparative

material 'needs to be provided from historically documented householQ-s to help anchor the

data. As Schuyler proposes; 'historical archaeology will always make its major contribution

at the ~ite level of analysis172, but that higher scales of analysis are possible if thorough site

specific work is carried out within the 'community' boundary. -~-

This is not to say that neighbonrhood archaeolDmature methodology is

70 Household research is of course interdisciplinary in nature

7lThis is also implied by both Binningham and Friedlander. Binningham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire ... ', in Binningham, J. et. al., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... ,ASHA Incorporated, Sydney, 1988, p.1S8.

72Schuyler. R.L.. 'Archaeological Remains, Documents and Anthropology ... ', in Historical Archaeology, Volume 22, Number 1, .1988 Qp. Cit., p.4l.

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appropriate for instant application. The methodology is as yet embryonic in its development.

For the moment the majority of work has been upon the refinement of the historical side

of the neighbourhood equation. Even so this requires further work. The current state of

affairs sees neighbourhood research fraught with vague or non-existent definition. This is

termed a 'conceptual ambiguity' by Suzanne Keller, in that within the neighbourhood a

number of functions are conceived of as unitary that are actually separate in nature. These

considerations are:

1.T~e physical properties of neighbourhoods t 2.The neighbourhood as a series of human relationships and activities I 3. The role of the neighbour.73

, I Keller, a sociologist, provides the archaeologist an interesting theory as to the economic

role of the neighbour that could possibly be amenable to archaeological testing. She helps

lclllUffiinate intra-neighbourhood relationships by attempting to define the role of the

neighbour. This simple point is one that has been ignored by most archaeologists. In

attempting to deal with thelarger scale issue of settlement patterns on the broad scale, the

question of the role and inter-relationships of neighbours has been ignored. This is an

intrinsic component of a coherent neighbourhood approach for historic~l archaeology that

as yet still needs to be developed.

A model of neighbouring behaviour would help to show whether' or not the

neighbourhood makes an impact on the material record, especially in terms of houselot

deposits. Keller is once more of assistance in this question, although her research is not

primarily directed at the archaeologist. She sees neighbouring relationships ':fluid in nature

and differ over both time and space. The most !mportant point for the archaeologist is that

she sees neighbouring as involving:

'exchanges of services, information, and personal approval among those living

near one another ..•. The aid exchanged among neighbours is both material and

spiritual' .74

73Keller, S., The Urban Neighbourhood: A Sociological Perspective, Random House, New York, 1968, p.10.

74Keller, S., The Urban Neighbourhood ... , Random House, New York, 1968, p.44.

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1 Keller's research75 claims that neighbouring is explicitly linked not merely to the clustering

I of essential services, but to the spatial orientation of housing which favours neighbourhood

relationships forming, a concept that would manifest in the material record. She also

, 1 includes borrowing and lending of material culture as an intrinsic form of neighbouring

behaviour.

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This borrowing pattern changes from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and is carried

out under a spectrum of informal, but strictly applied rules. Specific categories of item are

/ included in th~ exchange of material items. For example in some areas household or garden

V tools, but not cooking utensils were exchanged, in some areas food was frequently

exchanged. In other neighbours were expected to drink in each others houses, in others

neighbours were not allowed beyond the doorstep.

All of these forms of behaviour would impact upon the material record, and, having

been only cursorily treated by archaeologists demonstrates that historical archaeology has

a long way to go before the neighbourhood approach becomes a fully developed and

validified analytical tool.

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75 Which is too extensive to fully cite in an essay of this scale

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Chapter 2

2.1 Choice of Survey Area

The primary step in attempting to 'import' the concept ofthe neighbourhood as utilised

by American theorists into an Australian context was to identify an area, sufficiently

documented, and of suitable archaeological interest upon which to conduct a study. The

choice of the area now comprising the Rocks and Millers Point, as one amenable to a

neighbourhood analysis was based upon a series of factors, listed as follows. The points are . not prioritised in any fashion.

1. The area remains the earliest extant European settlement in Australia, and as such

historical, including cartographic records involving the inhabitants and structures of

the area are extant even to the earliest phase of Sydney's development.

2. 'Millers Point is [regarded as] the finest surviving intact example of early

community and site infrastructure, [in Australia],. t

3. The bounded topograph~.ofthe area readily demarcates the potential study area2 in

support of Rothschild's supposition that a neighbourhood be geographically as well as

socially definable.

4. The survey area is divided into two distinct regions3, (the Rocks as distinct from

Millers Point, which are divided geographically, although linked with the completion

of the Argyle Cut.

5. Any study undertaken would have a logical temporal endpoint, namely the outbreak

of plague in 1900 after which the area un~erwent redevelopment, the relocation of

sectors of the resident populace presumably partially disrupting any pre-existent

neighbourhood inter-relations.

6. The Rocks and Millers Point contains one of the largest groupings of nineteenth

century buildings extant in Sydney. Furthermore the area, especially Millers Point has

lLandscan Pty. Ltd. Landscape Strategy Study, Department of Housing, Northbridge, September 1987, p.t.

2The area is of course bounded by water with access to the rest of the city being provided through an interface with the CBD.

3The Rocks and Millers Point.

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retained its residential character despite its proximity to the CBD. Consequently, due

to the state of relative preservation the area encompasses a rich archaeological record.

7. The area has traditionally been perceived as housing a close-knit community with

maritime, Irish, and Roman Catholic associations.4

8. Both the Rocks and Millers Point have been the focus of numerous archaeological

excavations, and whilst much of this work has been exclusively at the particularist

level of'the site, a number of reports have been submitted that deal with the Rocks

and ~il1ers Point as a single archaeological entity. The area therefore provides a

report base that deals with the goals of historical archaeology from the finest to the

most broad of analytical scales.

9. In light of Rothschild's definition, that neighbourhoods are functional spatial units

that provide services, the Rocks and Millers Point are served by a extensive range of

services including a number of churches, schools, a retail axis and employment

prospects, including in this case the important wharfage areas.

As utilised in this thesis the terms 'the Rocks' and 'Millers Point' refer to an area

slightly larger than that currently understood by the term. The boundaries of the survey area

encompass the eastern street face of George Street, Margaret Street and Margaret Place,

which mn from George Street to Darling Harbour, and thence following the peninsula

coastline around Millers and Dawes Points to Circular Quay. The area was designed to

include Church Hill, which is inclusive of three churches of differing denominations.

2.2 Research Questions

With reference to the theoretical issues. raised in the first chapter, the following

I questions were thence devised and applied to the chosen survey area. Again the research

questions are not places in any order of priority, nor are they necessarily answered in this

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order in the body of the thesis.

1. Is the historical record, (including cartographic resources), broad enough and of

4Most of these points are paraphrased from, Landscan Pty. Ltd. Landscape Strategy Study, Department of Housing, Northbridge, September 1987, p. I

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sufficient quality to provide an adequate base for neighbourhood analysis?

2. At what scale do archaeologists operate in the area? Is there an expressed need, as

reflected in the research designs for various excavations, for archaeological

investigation at a scale above that of the particular site?

3. By referring to primary historical documents, the field of history and related

disciplines, did the residents of the Rocks and Millers Point self-define their area as

a neighbourhood or community?5

4. Through a similar approach, were the Rocks and Millers Point externally defined . by residents of the city as a whole as a distinct social or spatial unit?

5. If the area was indeed regarded as distinct, does this difference reflect

demographically at an aggregate level for the region in such historic statistics as are

available~ (such as those provided by Returns of the Census)?

6. Are households in the Rocks and Millers Point settling coherently within subunits

."1 ) of streets, streets, blocks or subunits of ~e entire survey area, as determined by the

I ~~ '--../ variables of religion, ethnicity or socioeconomic status?

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V An ancillary project connected with the answer of Question 6, was to formulate a

database, for spatial display, utilising a computer mapping system. Whilst this system

necessitated a structure commensurable with the questions above, it was deemed impOltant

110t to restrict the variables merely to those appropriate for this project. It was hoped to design

an interactive tool with which queries, beyond the scope ofthis thesis could be addressed, and

to which data could be added at a future date.

In that this thesis only deals with a small area of the City of Sydney, the database was

designed in common with another research project dealing with the commercial centre of the

city. This allows the possible cross-comparison of results from these two separate areas in the

future. 6

50f course there may be a number of neighbourhoods, or communities in the area.

6see Bloom, M., Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology IV ThesiS, (incomplete at time of writing), Sydney University, 1993.

26

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2.3 Methodology

The pivotal question posed by this study is the sixth in the latter list, that regarding

coherent settlement patterning. The processes of addressing the previous four are mote

straightforward and the method for their answer are for the most part stated as part of each

question. The first, that of whether the Australian historical record, or more precisely the

historical record of Sydney provides enough data to conduct a neighbourhood study, is

automatically addressed through the operations of answering the succeeding four questions.

It shQuld be noted that a cursory examination of accessible historical documents

suggests that information concerning the historic population within the terms of the

demographic variables isolated by Rothschild, (namely, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and

religious affiliation), are available through Commercial Directories, parish registers, electoral

roles and similar records documenting an extensive population base. However, whether the

information held is serviceable, or fragmentary is the question that requires confrontation.

The second question seeks to address whether archaeologists excavating within the

Rocks and Millers Point deem that analytical approaches at a scale higher than that of the

particularistic site are necessary. Archaeological investigations in the area range from the scale

of the 'archaeological master strategy' to excavation reports detailing the individual site. The

Rocks and Millers Point fall under the auspices of two planning bodies; the Sydney Cove

Redevelopment Authority, which controls the Rocks and the Sydney City Council which

remains the majority owner of Millers Point. It is of int,erest to examine the differing

approaches regarding their archaeological policy taken by both these entities.

In terms of individual site reports, th,ere remain too many to summarise in a study of

(

this scope. A number of the most recent are therefore considered, and the research designs v

of each are examined for questions that are more amenable to neighbourhood research than 1 the site specific approach which most utilise.

The third and fourth questions deal with the supposition that neighbourhoods are social

spaces that are both internally self-defined by their residents, and externally defined by

residents of the city at large. The only instantly accessible path to the perceptions of the past

residents of the Rocks and Millers Point is through history. Certainly the chosen survey area

has been well documented through time, and statements have been made about its population,

both by historians, and by residents of the time. From Bishop Broughton in the 1830s, W.S

Jevons in the 1850s, to the collection of oral histories concerning the late nineteenth century,

27

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historical comment has been recorded concerning the nature of the population of the Rocks

and Miller Point A relevant historical summary should therefore clarify ~he point as to

whether the Rocks, Millers Point, or both were considered a distinct social space,

Honerkamp's assertation that 'a path to the discernment of the neighbourhood is

through documents detailing corporate action forms the basis for question five, The Returns

of the Census provide the most rea.dily accessible source of nineteenth century demogra.phic

data which for certain years provided statistics for sub-units of the entire city, namely at the

Ward, (sub-u~it of a Local Government Area), and Parish scale. Fortunately the Parish and

Ward boundaries are basically commensurable to the region delineated as the survey area.

An analysis of this type chronicles the broad demographic profiles of the entire

population. Historic perceptions of the populace of the area'provided through the historical

survey can be tested against the census statistics helping clarify commonly held prejudices

concerning the area, (notably that the area was 'Irish', or 'working class' for example).

The methodology utilised in addressing question six was developed with reference to

the American research models cited in Chapter One that were designed to assist in the

delineation of the 'neighbourhood' historically as a contextual tool for the archaeologist.

The key elements of the approach involves the linkage of historic maps with the

results of a broad demographic survey regarding isolated variables concerning household

heads, combining the data from a wide range of historic documentary sources. Technically

the approach of ~patially patterning household heads is most closely related to the work of

Cressey and Stephens as represented by the 'city-site' approach.

With the survey area selected; a relevant timeframe through which to address the

research questions had to be imposed. The erratic production of Sydney's cartographic record

meant that the available maps of the' area, their quality, and the information they recorded

would determine the years in which surveys could possibly be enacted.

The years of the initial and final surveys were easily established. The first

demographic survey would be undertaken in the year when the first accurate map displaying

the structures and services available was produced of the area. This was revealed to be the

Harpers Map of 1823.7 A survey within the late part of the eighteenth or early nineteenth

centuries was considered essential III chronicling the pre~industriaI phase of Sydney's

7For a complete list of both maps considered for utilisation and the information they record refer to the Map Bibliography.

28

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development whilst transportation was still in operation.

The logical final survey was 1900-1901 the year in which an outbreak of plague

occurred within the Rocks and Millers Point area. This epidemic could be conceived of as the

1 ultimate endpoint of the process of'slummification' of the area. The outbreak foreshadowed

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the wholesale governmental resumption and consequent cleansing and redevelopment of both

the residential quarters and the waterfront area. It seemed counter-productive to proceed

beyond 1901 due to the disruption to communities caused by the resumptions and

redevelopments.8 A detailed property map was commissioned for production in 1901 by the . New South Wales Government of the time dealing with the resumed sections as gazetted.

Despite a regrettable gap ill the cartographic record for the 1870s9, it was possible to

locate usable maps for the intervening demographic surveys in general 20 year periods from

1823 to 1901. The selection of suitable historic maps available for linkage with the results

of a demographic survey, and providing a generally consistent timeframe were therefore:

1823, Harper's Map of Sydney

1842-43, Wells Maps of the City of Sydney

1864-65, Trigonometrical Survey of the City of Sydney

1880, Percy Dove's Map of Sydney

1901, Darling Harbour Resumption Map.lO

Three of the survey options were finally selected, these being for the years 1823, 1865 and

1901.

Key variables were isolated with reference to Rothschild's neighbourhood definition,

as essential to revealing urban settlement patterns, these primarily being, ethnicity,

socioeconomic status and religion. Two further. variables were considered of sufficient

importance for inclusion, land use, which enables quantification of the range of services

accessible in the survey area, and the convict status of households, which remains of

8It would however have been interesting to study the manner in which the reconstruction of the Rocks and Millers Point was undertaken by the Sydney Harbour Trust, Were the plans for this reconstruction representative of 'artificial' neighbourhoods based upon early twentieth century ideals of the operations of a community? Was the new housing an attempt in social engineering to solve the problems of an area associated with vice?

9Bairstow, D., Millers Point Site 8900: Archaeological Master Strategy, Department of Housing, July 1987, p.22.

lOFor full details see Map Bibliography.

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importance to the early phase of Sydney's development.

A demographic survey was undertaken for ,each of the years for which a map had been

selected. The chosen variables were applied to the range of households whose spatial location

within the Rocks and Millers Point could be ascertained. Ideally the households located by

surveying the historical record could thence be linked, with a greater or lesser proportion of

accuracy to a spatial location on the associated historic map.

Household information was drawn from a number.of documentary sources,l1 including

household census and muster returns, the Sands Directory, and parish records for the various . religious denominations with churches proximate to the survey area. A database structure

accounting for these variables was developed for use with MINARK. The variable list,

variable definitions, and rationale for the socioeconomic scale and land use lists are all listed

in Appendix qne. The historic maps utilised~ their archival location and descriptions are listed

in Appendix Two.

Restrictions posed by the utilised documentary sources became obvious with the

process of data collection. Rather than solely representing an obstacle to the completion of

this neighbourh~od analysis, lacunae in the historical record need to be addressed in

themselves as indicative of the type of questions that can be successfully asked and answered

in contextual research for historical archaeology. These restrictions enable insight into the

sectors of the population for whom no historical information was systematically collected, or

if it was now is no longer extant. Such undocumented sectors of society, most likely

represented by the urban poor are of course of great importance to the historical

archaeologist,12 for investigation into the lifeways of these households is only pos'sible through

archaeological techniques. Problems encountered. with the historical record, and alterations

imposed upon the original research design are listed in Chapter 5.1, 'Restrictions imposed by

the Australian Historical Record' as part of the initial question, that of the quality and range

of available documentary sources.

2.4 Mapinfo

l1See historical sources bibliography.

12Bairstow, D., 'Urba,n Archaeology: American Theory, Australian Practice', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33. p.51 .

30

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The survey of historical records which formed the central database from which the

historical demographics of the Rocks and Millers Point could be examined comprised 37 /'

primary variables divided again into 154 sub-variables13 recording information concerning

approximately 2183 historic households, (see Appendix One). A conservative estimate is that

over 33000 separate pieces of information were collected and are stored within this database. 1 Data management was therefore a primary concern, The theoretical models under <

consideration postulated that it was necessary to not merely analyze the collected data 7 statistically, but display it spatially. A task of this scale would not have been possible utilising . any manual technique. It was therefore decided to utilise Mapinfo, a Windows based mapping

, 1 system not specifically designed for archaeological use yet flexible enough to provide

maximum results from a rather fragmented data set.

This program has more usually been used in marketing, or in the public sphere by c/' A emergency services The adaption of Mapinfo for use in archaeological r~search represents

'I work that has application beyond the constraints of this thesis. The mapped database now

exists as a historical and archaeological14 tool independent of this study, capable of expansion

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and addressing questions about the Rocks and Millers Point different from those framed by

exploration into historic neighbourhoods.

In the body of this study the most obvious impact of Mapinfo are the illustrations

upon historical base maps of the demographic profile of the population through time.

However, static representations of queries made of data in the Mapinfo system is a poor way

of demonstrating the adaptability alld scope of the system.

The necessity to produce illustrations in an A4 format produced problems of clarity

for maps whose optimal display size is larger thap. page size. Furthermore the printing of ,

maps in a grey scale limited the amount of information, namely the number of variables that

could meaningfully displayed on ally one map. The true versatility of the system is most

readily apparent on a monitor where maps can be displayed at the required scale, and in

colour so that a wide range of variables can be displayed at anyone time.

Perhaps the most important facet of the Mapinfo environment is that it is not merely

13 About a third of these were fmally utilised.

14 Although for the purposes of this study mostly demographic data was collected, the database structure contains default variables covering information about the built fabric of the Rocks and Millers Point in the past. .

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restricted to the production of interesting visuals, Due to the fact that complex queries can

be made of the database, and then displayed spatially, the number of potentially mappable

questions is only limited by the permutations and combinations delineated by the number of

variables defined, Mapinfo therefore had the ability to assist in generating research questions

that had not even been considered at the beginning of this project. This enabled the most to

be made of the disjointed nature of much of the historical record transcribed into the database.

Chapter 6 concerns the spatial analysis of the Minark data utilising Mapinfo,

32

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Chapter 3.

3.1 Relevant Historical Notes Concerning the RocI{S and Millers Point.

Rothschild posited that the primary demographic indicators of importance to

neighbourhood research as ethnicity, religious affiliation, and socioeconomic class. These

variables do not only interest the archaeologist. History and related disciplines provide

considerable information that can assist in developing expectations as to the nature of the

households, communities, and sub-units of communities resident in the Rocks and Millers

Point in the past. Any historically documented information that can be distilled from relevant

literature, (especially comments regarding perceptions about the demographics of the historic

popUlation), can be utilised to compare against the information compiled in the MINARK

database, the statistics recorded within the Returns of the Census, or the spatially displayed

Mapinfo data .

The collected data, as a grouped series of demographic variables, cannot reveal the

perceptions of past resident of the City of Sydney regarding the Rocks and Millers Point. Nor

can the past residents of the Rocks and Millers Point be interviewed as to self-perceptions

conc.erning their locality. The question as to whether the Rocks and Millers Point was

internally conceived, or externally conceived of as a distinct social space is one that is best

answered for the moment by turning to history.

Unfortunately little history has been written about 'neighbourhoods' per se within the

Rocks and Millers Point. However the popular historic conception of the Rocks and Millers

Point as an Irish, Catholic, working class area already classifies the area in terms of the

variables stated above.

The following section is primarily set out in sections commensurable with the relevant

MINARK entries. Other variables possibly affecting settlement in the area, such as

topography, not covered by the database are also addressed in this chapter. Special attention

has been given to information that can be specifically tested against census data, or in terms

of the spatial analysis conducted with Minark and Mapinfo .

3.2 Neighbourhood

The question as to whether the Rocks and Millers Point formed a distinct socio-cultural

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entity within the larger context of the City of Sydney needs to be addressed' Certainly a

picture that has been built up of the area that has alternately stressed infamy or community.

It is ignominy that is stressed in Archdeacon Broughton's diatribe in 1830:

' ... vice and profligacy prevail in that Class, by which the District called the Rocks

is chiefly inhabited •.•. prostitution, adultery, drunkenness and theft are their

habitual occupations.' 2

W.S. Jevons, amongst the first to attempt to map socioeconomic status within Sydney in 1858

paints a similar picture of the area: . 'One young but intoxicated woman whose' wicked, [ugly] face was further

disfigured by a black eye and a bruised, swollen forehead presented as striking

a picture of the depth of vice as I saw •... I am acquainted with some of the worst

parts of London •.• but no where have I seen such a retreat for filth and vice as

'the Rocks' of SydneyY

Other such reports of infamy have included for example the prevalence in the later century

of the violently territorial gangs or 'pushes' in the region.

Lately conceptions have shifted away from the reportage of vice to the tentative

assertation of commudity within the poverty of the nineteenth century working class.4

However this conception IS relatively recent, Karskens stating that minimal work has been

undertaken in defining the dynamics of any such communities as developed in the area. The

usually dominant paradigm, focusing upon Irish, working class Catholics also can obscure the

'Founded in the pre-industrial.phase of Sydney's development? they argue' that as the City refocussed upon successive, different central cores, the Rocks and Millers Point, isolated geographically upon a peninsula remained as an essentially pre-industrial enclave differing from the majority of the city. Whilst this argument is interesting the position of the Rocks and Millers Point as an area close to the city centre and important to both shipping and production makes it a hard point to justifY. Karskens, G., and Thorp, W., 'History and Archaeology in Sydney: Towards Integration' and Interpretation', Journal of the Royal A ustra/ian Historical Society, Vol. 7'8, Parts 3&4, Dec., 1992, p.71.

2 Archbishop Broughton to Governor Darling, Historical Records of A ustralia, Volume XV, Series 1, The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, June 19th, 1830, p.72S.

3Jevons, W.S., Some Remarks on the Social Map of Sydney, Unpublished Manuscript. (No Page References).

4Karskens, G'j and Thorpj W'j 'History and Archaeology in Sydney: Towards Integration and Interpretation', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 78, Parts 3&4, Dec., 1992, p.72.

34

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operations of smaller sub-cultures within the area, such as the Chinese, of whom relatively

little is known.5

There is thus an admitted deficit in the history of community within the Rocks and

Millers Point, whilst the economic history of the area has been somewhat more elaborately

explored by the discipline of history. It was necessary therefore, for insight into nineteenth

century community to also turn to other areas of information.

The field of oral history proved particularly useful. Oral histories have been collected

from inhabit~ts of the Rocks and Millers Point sporadically for a number of years. The

earliest of these located was published in 1901 and records the nature of the Rocks in the

early 1840s. The latest were recorded only recently, and usually chronicle details about tlle

earlier part of this cen~ry. oralrhiSIOrieS are of particular importance, despite the assumed

inadequacies of human memory, as they record the perceptions of the residents as to the

nature of their local community.

Oral histories therefore provide very different information from history as a discipline.

In detailing self perceptions concerning the locale immediate to the home environment, they

often demonstrate what geographers term 'cognitive mapping,.6 This:

'is a process composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an

individual acquires, codes, stores, recalls, and decodes informa.tion about the

relative location and attributes of phenomena in his everyday special

environment. ,7

Geographers claim that human spatial behaviour is dependent upon the cognitive map

of the environment of the individuai, and that the ~ost detailed of these mental maps are of

the locality adjacent to the home.s By a proc~ss of interview geographers found that

5Karskens, G., and Thorp, W., 'History and Archaeology in Sydney .. .', J.R.A.H.S. Vol. 78, Parts 3&4, Dec., 1992, p.73.

6Stimson, R.J., 'Social Differentiation in Urban Space and Residential Choice: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations', in Stimson, R.J., The A ustralian City: A Welfare Geography, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1982, p.39.

7Stimson, R.J., 'Social Differentiation in Urban Space .. .', in Stimson, R.J., The Australian City: A Welfare Geography, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1982, pAD.

8Burnley, I.H., The Australian Urban System: Growth, Change and Differentiation, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1982, p.218.

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individuals spatially defined the extent of their neighbourhood, and that although perceptions

were skewed due to individual household position, there was strong comparability between

individuals' perceptions as to the extent and shape of neighbourhoods.9 This broadly matches

'a point of neighbourhood definition, namely that neighbourhood should manifest as areas self­

defined by residents as well externally defined by others. IO

Although it is not possible to similarly interview the past residents of the Rocks and

Millers Point oral histories can be utilised for indications for self-detennined neighbourhood

boundaries. In 1988 Trish FitzSimons of Randwick College of TAFE undertook an oral . history project in the Rocks and Millers Point interviewing the older residents of the area,

I mostly women.l1 The personal histories record much that is of use including concepts of

1 community in the area as well as infonnation about distinct ethnic groups such as the Chinese.

Neighbourhood references, references to spatial perceptions of the area, and references to I,'

distinct ethnic communities follow, as drawn from oral histories dealing with the late

I nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I CATHERINE RONAN:-'As a child I didn't know anything of Miller's Point. I only knew the

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Rocks From Dawes Point up the Flagstaff and around ·that area almost in a circle.'

CATHERINE RONAN:-'There was a street which ran between Harrington Street and George

Street, called Queen Street. There was a terrace of houses on each side of the street, mostly

occupied by Chinese merchants. A lot of the Chinese merchants used to go around with big

baskets to carry on their backs and take merchandise around to the people and sell it. They

knew all the children around because the children used to use the streets backwards and

forwards.

And when one of them died they used to lay them out and people would come in and go

around and view the Chinese. Of course everybody knew the Chinese, they knew the people

9Burnley, I.H., The Australian Urban System ... , Lougman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1982, p.219.

lORothschild, N.~., 'On the Existence of Neighborhoods in 18th C~ntury New York: Maps, Markets, and Churches, in Historical Archaeology, Special Publication No. 5., (Living in Cities), p

llFitzSimons, T., 'The Point's changed a Terrible Lot'-Memories o/the Rocks and Millers Point, Randwick TAFE Outreach, Sydney, 1988, p.iii.

36

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too. They'd come in and pay their respects and as they went out the door~ they'd get a little

parcel. It was a piece of red paper, with three or four pennies in it, and each person got one

of those off the Chinese that was letting you out the door; to show respect and to keep the

evil spirits away.'

ELSIE SOLOMON:-'We were never allowed down Millers Point when we were children,

There used to be a street called Princes Street. There was a bridge going across Princes Street

and we used to climb up and look down, you know, and that was Millers Point. That was like ,

another domain to us.'

Ronan's statement demonstrates a number of interesting points; namely it shows

children to be active participants of street culture; possessing an intimate knowledge of the

proximate locale. Ronan shows that she only possessed a 'mental map' of the region close to

her household, (when young), and that sh.e had no knowledge of the adjacent Millers Point,

conceiving it as a quite separate space; an unknown quantity. Solomon's recollections are of

the same nature. Living in the Rocks as a child, she also conceived Millers Point as outside

her territory, another domairi~ 12

Ronan illustrates that the local Chinese were settling collectively, (note Queen Street),

either for social or commercial reasons. The Chinese are also depicted as retaining their

cultural traditions. Despite this they are not portrayed as alien to the majority of the

community, the locals knew them and were quite willing to participate in their customs.13

Figure 3.21 depicts the students of a c}ass in St. Phillip's Anglican School in 1895; two of

which were Chinese. However interesting refereI).ces to beneficial interaction between the

Chinese and other groups within the Rocks and Millers Point may be, they are more than

outweighed by the institutionalised racism of the day. In 1875 for example the Sydney City

and Suburban Sewerage and Health Board undertook an investigation of the' ... evils connected

12Children remain keen observers of their surrounding environment, and have been interviewed by geographers as part of neighbourhood perception studies: (the Sydney Area Family Study), see Homel, R., and Burns, A., 'Through a Child's Eyes: Quality of Neighbourhood and Quality of Life', in Burnley, 1., and Forrest, 1., Living in Cities: Urban ism and Society in Metropolitan A ustralia, AlIen and Unwin, Sydney, 1986.

13There are of course many statements that contradict to this oral history, (Check with the SCRA which archives and actively supplements oral histories collected from long-term residents of the area.)

37

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with the residence of Chinese in this city.'14 The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901,

(colloquially known as the White Australia Policy), was directed at diminishing Chinese

immigration, and there is evidence that Chinese were restricted to a small range of

occupations.15

LETITIA PEET:-'When you said you were from Millers POInt, the boys wouldn't bring you

home. You'd get your throat cut they'd say down there ... .I used to walk home .. .! don't think

it was dangero~s. If you thought ~omeone was following you could knock at anybody's dOOf

and they'd take you in until he went.'

HELENA GOSS:-'The rest of Sydney thought Millers Point was a dreadful place. That you

were fighting all the time and you were drunk all the time and that you were really hopeless.

You wouldn't dare tell anyone you lived at Millers Point...No you wouldn't dare say you came

from here. And yet it was the safest place out. You could walk through Argyle cut at twelve

o'clock in the night on your own a~d nobody would interfere with you.'

'She'd [Granny Moss] help, whatever would happen with them, you know. Perhaps they just

wanted nufsing .... She'd give them their medicine or anything like that? She wasn't paid. That

was just neighbourly. All the neighbours used to do that...1t was the old English, Irish and

Scottish people round here.'

FANNY DUGGAN::..'Millers Point hasn't changed much In my lifetime, except for the

occupants. Now it's not like a big family, accepti~g another member into it as it was then.

Strangers come into the district and they remain strangers and you never feel akin to

them ... you never get to know them intimately.'

MRS F ARRER:-'And if anybody died, they would come and if you were Catholics they would

have a sheet on every wall in the room and a big, black crucifix .... every shopkeeper would

l~SW Legislative Council, Journal 26 PT 2 187516:557ff, drawn from Lydon, E.C.J., Archaeological Monitoring: Unwins Stores 77-85 George Street, The Rocks Sydney, Sydney Cove Authority, Sydney, p.17.

15Lydon, E.C.J., Archaeological Monitoring: Unwins Stores ... , S.C.A., Sydney, p.17.

38

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shut his door. .. all blinds would be down and the people would stand outside. You know, it

was close.;.Something you don't find today ... There was a closeness, it was 10vely.,I6

The preceding recollections of various residents illustrate admirably the distinction

between extemal perceptions of the area as contrasted with the' self-perceptions of residents

within the locality. The oral histories are also pertinent in addressing the shift in conceptions

that Karskens describes, between presenting the Rocks an Millers Point as an area of

·1 degradation an,d vice, to one that accepts that the area housed close-knit communities.

One of the common perception concerned the dangers of the area, the streets of which

1 were considered the territory of rival 'pushes' or gangs. Pushes were territorial in nature and

the extent of their territories tended to emphasise the natural geography. It is noteworthy that

1

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for a substantial part of the later nineteenth century Millers Point possessed a separate

territorial push from 'the Rocks Push'P

Both Goss and Peet admit that most residents of Sydney saw the area as intrinsically

dangerous, whilst they saw it as secure, with all doors open in case of trouble. The other

residents spend time describing the communal qualities of their 'neighbourhood'. Goss

especially describes the actions of her grandmother, (Granny) 'In according help to those in

need as the norm, as 'neighbourly'. She also provides the implication that this neighbourly

behaviour was in some sense due to the ethnicity of the persons involved .

3.3 Socioeconomic Status

In the early phase of Sydney's development convict transportation had an obvious

impact upon the demographic structure of the Colony's population.I8 Within the late eighteenth

and early nineteenth centuries Sydney had a small elite population of that was outnumbered

by the majority of the populace which consisted mostly of unskilled workers, convicts and ex-

16All preceding quotes from oral histories are from FitzSimons, T., 'The Point's changed a Tenible Lot'- Memories of the Rocks and Millers Point, Randwick TAFE Outreach, Sydney, 1988.

17Kass, T., A Sodo-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Rousing, Sydney, May 1987, p.82. ' , '

18Curson, P.H., 'The 'St. Phillip's Project': The Historical Demography of Inner Sydney 1788-1888', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney: Essays in Urban History, Sydney University Press, Sydney, p.t 08.

39

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

convicts.19 Transportation eventuated in an unbalanced gender ratio and provided a generally

young, adult, unskilled workforce.2o Nicholas and Shergold found in an analysis of three social

indicators within convict records namely occupation, literacy and height, that 'convict settlers

sent to New South Wales were ordinary members of the British and Irish working classes'.21

The high level of convicts and those who were once convicts in the Rocks and Millers Point

suggests a predominantly working class population. The development of a middle class in

Sydney was therefore a phenomenon which occurred throughout the nineteenth century.22

Residential settlement of the Rocks occurred early, with a plan by Leseur, drawn in . 1802 showing 80 houses in the area, (see Figure 3.31).23 Atkinson attempts to quantify the

composition of these early households postulating the existence of some 200-250 family

households for all of Sydney, 'families' comprising usually young male and female partners

in a monogamous condition, (marriage was rare in early Sydney), and possibly one or two

children.24 This analysis is borne out by the 1804 muster which suggested four to five persons

per household.

There is little information describing socio-spatial patterns within Sydney for the late

eighteenth and the very earliest part of the nineteenth century except in the broadest of terms.

However, Edwards attempts to quantify spatial differentiation in residential settlement patterns

determined by higher socioeconomic status for the 1820s and 1830s. Whilst this does not

explicitly mention the Rocks and Millers Point Edwards does not associate the area with more

19 Aplin, G., 'Socio-spatial structure of Australian Cities 1850-1901', in Burnley, I., and Forrest, 1., (eds.), Living in Cities ... , AlIen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985, p.28.

20Curson, P.H., 'The 'St. Phillip's Project' ... , in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.108.

21Nicholas, S., and Shergold, P.R., 'Convicts as Workers', p.82.

22Aplin, G., 'Socio-spatial structure .. .', in Burnley, I., and Forrest, J., (eds.), Living in Cities ... , Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985, p.28.

23Atkinson, A., 'Taking Possession: Sydney's First Householders', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant: Sydney Before Macquarie, New South Wales University Press, Sydney, 1988, p.78.

24Atkinson, A., 'Taking Possession .. .', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant ... , N.S.W.U Press, Sydney, 1988, p.78.

40

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'aristocratic' groupings.25 Instead the region about Macquarie's administrative area near Bent

Street was considered a fashionable area for settlement amongst the colonial elite, and the

northern end of Castlereagh Street was an area of settlement for the 'professional-merchant'

I classes. Edwards submits that a more privileged neighbourhood developed in this time to the

'.1 I I ·1 I

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north and east, whilst the commercial district clustered about King Street.26 The Rocks and V Millers Point falls within neither of the areas maintaining its military and maritime focus,

Mac1ehose's 'Picture of Sydney and Strangers' Guide to New South Wales, 1839'

describes the ~uilding of wharves and shipyards along the foreshore of Darling Harbour on

Kent Street, stating:

' ... the water frontage in the vicinity is of less value than in most other parts of V

the harbour of Sydney; but not withstanding this disadvantage, it has been

formed into wharfs. ,27

Mac1ehose also bemoans the fact, (in describing Windmill Street), that few proprietors of

wharfs in the area had taken up residence in the locality despite the advantages of the view

and proximity to the places of business.28

In the 1840s parts of the Rocks had become dominated by the elite as a fashionable

area of residence:

'In those days The Rocks could boast of being the abiding place of very many

highly respectable families. I am referring to the more elevated portion of what

we knew as The Rocks, and not to that part where the whalers, sailors and old

hands used to congregate. ,29

Aplin demonstrated this pattern empiricaliy with reference to Low's Commercial Directory in

1844. This had occurred in part due to the establis1;unent of many merchant firms in the area

2SEdwards, N., 'The Genesis of the Sydney Central Business District 1788-1856', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P. Sydney, p.44. His words.

26Edwards, N., 'The Genesis of the Sydney Central Business District 1788-1856', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P. Sydney, p.44-45.

27Maciehose, J., Maclehose's Picture of Sydney ... , J. Maclehose, Sydney, 1839, p.63.

28Maclehose, J., Maclehose's Picture of Sydney and Strangers' Guide in New South Wales for 1839, J. Maclehose, Sydney, 1839, p.77.

29Walker, E., 'Old Sydney in the 'Forties: Recollections of Lower George Street and 'The Rocks", in Journal of the Royal A ustralian Historical Society? Volume XVI, Part IV 1930.

, ... 41

I in the 1830s, the owners of which sought residences close to their businesses. Lower Fort

I Street was an area particularly popular with the elite,as Maclehose commented:

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

' ... a number of respectable dwelling houses have lately been erected on the north

side of the street, having a fine appearance from their uniformity of build, and

are mostly occupied by opulent persons.t30

Areas of Millers Point, were also popular with the elite in the 1840s, Victoria Terrace

on the elevated western headland of Millers Point, comprised of fashionable three storey v'

residences con~tructed in 1837. A number of persons important in the Colony, including the

French Consul lived there in the 1840s.31 Other large residences such as Spencer Lodge,

(which later became the Nurses' Residences for the nearby hospital) were constructed in the

vicinity in the 1830s and 1840s. By 1901 these had become boarding houses subdivided, or

had been demolished,

After the 1840s, and at least by the 1860s the process of slummification and decline v/ had commenced. Jevons reflects this in a statement from 1858:

'Nowhere have I seen such a retreat for. filth and vice as the Rocks of Sydney.

Few places could be found more healthily and delightfully situated, but nowhere

are the country and beauty of nature so painfully contrasted with the misery and

deformity which lie to the charge of man. ,32

In the 1850s a/'the Rocks was therefore considered a working class district betraying an

ageing and decaying appearance, and regarded as unwholesome amongst the general

population.33

This popular portrayal may have somewhat obscured the truth as throughout this

period, when the Rocks and Millers Point was in d~cline, it continued housing a substantial

population of professionals, retailers, and merchants as well as the expected unskilled

30Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department ofRonsing, Sydney, May 1987, p.25.

31Wheeler, J.S.N., 'Old Miller's Point, Sydney', in J.R.A.HS., Vohune 48, Part 4, August 1962, p.303.

32Jevons, W.S., Some Remarks on the Social Map of Sydney, Unpublished Manuscript. (No Page References).

33Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice: Sanitation and Social Policy in Victorian Sydney, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1982, p.5.

42

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labourers.34 For example, in 1855 Aplin demonstrates that the colonial elite tended to cluster

in areas of 'high environmental amenity ... ',35 but that the old elite enclave of the elevated

region of the Rocks had been increasingly settled by the working class, which had always

dominated the 'Lower' Rocks. Streets he identifies as containing a population containing over

50 percent of a single socioeconomic group are George Street, which was dominated by small

shopkeepers, dea.lers and craftsmen retailers. The residential core of the lower Rocks, (as

bOlmded by George Street to the east and the 'spine' of the peninsula to the west), is described

as populated b~ labourers, seamen and other unskilled. Professionals in 1855 settled in Argyle

Place, Northern Lower Fort Street, Victoria Terrace, Crown Road, along the raised spine of

the peninsula, and around Church Hill.

Despite Aplin producing evidence of district and street scale socio-economic patterns,

he qualifies these findings, stating that many areas were mixed in socioeconomic terms and

did not manifest clear boundaries. The heterogenous profile of many districts, including the

Rocks and Millers Point delineated that many street did not possess a majority of anyone

SOCIOeconomIC groupmg:

'In general, districts were less strictly delimited on socio-economic lines than were

those of later times, or those of the mature industrial towns of Britain. ,36

The opinion implicit in this statement is that spatial patterning is specific to the urban

environment or culture under examination. If Aplin can delineate differences between a high

level of socio-spatial structuring in British industrial cities, and more minimal patterning in

within the Australian urban environment, then similar differences could well exist between

the American and Australian urban environments ,despite the sometimes avowed similarity .

between American and Australian cities. Aplin's r:esearch suggests that an importation of

American neighbourhood archaeological models may not produce results commensurable with

those experienced in America.

The qualified heterogeneity of the population of the Rocks and Millers Point continued

into the 1870s when the area, whilst containing a higher level of unskilled workers than the

34Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.9.

35 Aplin, G., 'Socio-Spatial Structure .. .', in Bumley, 1., and Forrest, J., Living in Cities ... , Alien and Unwin, p.29. '

36Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change ... ', inAustralian Geographic Studies, Vol. 20,1982, p.154.

43

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eastern wards of the City, (which were more popular with the elite, reflecting a pattern already

developing in the 1820s), also contained a higher proportion of white collar households than

the outlying suburbs.37 The division between the poorer western Wards and the eastern ran

1 approximately along George and York Streets. Fitzgerald proposes that these white collar

households settled in the better drained elevated portions of the Rocks and Millers Point; a

.' I residual enclave, as it were, of the large number of high status households which populated

the area in the 1840s.38

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The decline of the Rocks and Millers Point as an area popular with the elite could also

be conceived of as part of the process of transition of Sydney from a pre-industrial to an

industrial pattern. In the latter half of the nineteenth century a net shift occurred with the

middle and upper classes leaving the inner city to settle in the suburbs, as accessibility was

becoming less important in terms of residential land choice for the elite. The lack of efficient

public transport necessitated that labourers maintained their residence close to their place of

work.39 Models of pre-industrial settlement, such as proposed by Sjoberg postulate the city

core as dominated by the elite with socioeconomic status decline away from the central area,

to the periphery .40 However the reality of the situation in the Rocks is perhaps more

successfully modelled by a theorist such as Vance who proposed a more complex mixing of

social groups in terms of households of a higher status settling along major thoroughfares,

with back lanes within city districts dominated by the pOOr.41

Honerkamp's proposal that the relative status of districts or 'neighbourhoods' can be

37The proportion of domestics in the populace servicing white collar households can also determine the relative wealth of a city region. Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp, Sydney 1870-90, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987, p.22.

38Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... O.V.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.24.

39It was not until the 1870's that Sydney started to develop the public transport infrastructure common in industrial cities. Prior to this transport in the city was reliant upon animate energy. Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change: Sydney 1820-1870', in A u..<:tralian Geographic Studies, Vol. 20, 1982, pp.155-157.

4°Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change: Sydney 1820-1870', inAustralian Geographic Studies, Vol. 20, 1982, p.2.8. .

41Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change: Sydney 1820-1870', inA ustralian Geographic Studies, Vol. 20, 1982, p.28.

44

' . . .

"1' "', .' .. . . . - . "

.. " '

I · .'. ", ,": ::'-'"-::. . . '. .

·1· .... · I"::.

. ,

·1····· .,

:1:"

:'.'1::·', ; >1': :~~.~;

. ~. ~

. . .' .

:1":'"

:"1 .' ',' -:,. · . " · ' ... ' .

'<:1"<::, :..: .... . . . ':-:-I":::':>~': ., . ~ .. ,.

· . " - .

":::-1':'-',": · .'

-' ~ " ....... '

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'.

determined by the date of arrival of services such as water, which tended to be directed to

areas of high status rather than low, can be applied to the Rocks and Millers Point.' The first

water supply in Sydney was that provided by Busby's Bore in 1837, too distant for the

provision of water to Millers Point. By 1844 water pipes had been laid in a number of streets

but were only connected to the houses of the rich. Public pumps, such as that at the corner

of Windmill Street and Lower Fort Street, or water carters provided water to the majority of

the populace.

Sewerage services and gas lines follow a similar'pattern with a number of sewerage

pipes .being laid in 1851; utilised mainly by the wealthy. Landlords had to be forced to

connect their properties to the system after 1870.42 Despite the proximity of the AGL

gasworks, (started in 1837), to the Rocks and Millers Point, gas lighting in the area was the

preserve of the wealthy. Most lights in the area were provided in front of public houses by

law. Gas cooking was a lUXury that only became popular after the 1890s, and even in the

1840s Walker relates that much family cooking had to be done at public ovens.

Growing concern about the state of working class housing led to corporate action on

the part of the Sydney City Council. The establishment of the office of CH043 and Inspector

of nuisances in 1857 was meant to combat the state of bad working class housing which was

perceived as the ' ... root of City ill-health and immorality.,44

The first house to house survey of the housing conditions within slums, undertaken by

the Sewage and Health Board in 1876, revealed that area proximate to Windmill Street as

one of the worst residential areas in the City, the report describi~g the region as

'uninhabitable' .45 Admission was made that a pub, t1:l,e Whaler's Arms was a focal point of this

neighbourhood. This potentially reveals a special role for public houses in providing a sense

42Kass, T.,A Socio-Economic History oIMiller's POint, N.S.W. Department ofHollsing, Sydney, May 1987, pA2.

43Community Health Officer? Unfortunately Fever, Squalor and Vice does not expand the abbreviation.

44Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.146

45Mayne, A.J.e., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.95.

45

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of social cohesion; having a particular 'use' area from which a specific clientele was drawn.46

The report also described that the poor lived within a maze of small passageways,

residential courts and steep stairways off the major roads.47 It was a common practice for

speculator builders, when constructing on a major thoroughfare to leave a small area at the , ,t-, \ c-

\ 1;'- r; rear of allotments accessed by narrow, private access ways, to form small closed courtyards.48 ~,iT '~,

I ,~/CUl de sacs and courtyards gave rise to the form of slum development ~hic~ w~s' peculiar to ~, t . 1:-'

j.n Sydney; developing in more inconspicuous clusters rather than as entire districts.49 This

I ~ 'j construction practice delineated that many of the slum areas of Sydney were not comprised i\ •

j of subdivided, degraded housing stock, but were specifically constructed as speculative 'slum'

I~ housing for the poor.50 Construction of houses in these residential courtyards tended to be built

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

abutting the rear walls of the larger allotments facing the major thoroughfares. The central

courtyard therefore tended to accumulate the refuse from all the honseholds.51

Small accessways such as described were not listed as addresses within commercial

directories, parish registers or other documents drawing demographic information from a

broad population base. The potential therefore exists that the persons listed in any historic

demographic survey as having an address within the Rocks or Miller Point, were those who

resided on major thoroughfares, possessing a relatively higher socioeconomic status compared

with the very poorest who would remain unrecorded in the historical record. Terry Kass

proposes a direct correlation between those who record an 'unknown' status in the historical

record, and the poorest sector of the community.52

. 46Mayne, A.J.e., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.95;and Rothscbild, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods: The 18th Century, Academic Press mcorporated, London, 1990, p.43.

47Mayne, A.l.e., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.95.

48Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... O.U.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.62.

49Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... O.U.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.62.

50Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... O.U.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.62.

51Pitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... O.U.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.63. Again we see that refuse disposal in the Rocks and Millers Point often did not occur in a household specific manner, on individual houselots.

52Kass, T., A Socio-Economic HistOlY of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.17.

46

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,'I

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'I ~I

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"

The back lanes and hidden residential courts and slums within the survey area certainly

provided a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' for the City authorities, Beyond the 1870s a

growing argument for the simplistic solution of slum destruction was proposed to destroy the

'hot-beds of disease, haunts of vice and centres of crime and misery,.53 However the

establishment of the City had a great predilection to forget the existence of the concealed

slums which ',,,wou.ld not be allowed to exist were they not thus hidden from pu.blic

observation ... ,54 It is not surprising that information concerning these forgotten residential areas

remain hard to locate within the historical record.

It was not however until 1877, with the City of Sydney Improvement Bill, (passed in

1879), that strict new building codes were introduced that specified minimum standards of

craftsmanship and hygiene for newly constructed housing stock in the qty.55 By 1888 a

comprehensive system of inspections of housing stock was in place under the auspices of the

City Corporation. The reports, (held in the Council Archives), would remain a valuable

archaeological resource as it recorded in detail the nature of each structure including standards

of drainage and ventilation and the state of the yard. The MINARK _d.a.tabase primarily

compiles the demographic data available concerning the pOPulace~~ult variables

were included to record structural details, if further work is eve~'dUl~~ By 1891, the population density of the City of Sydney was 37.13 persons per acre.

This figure which encompassed Gipps Ward, (an area broadly commensurable with the Rocks

and Millers Point), is misleading as the City of Sydney at large contained a predominance of

commercial propedies. The residential areas of the city were consequentially more cramped.56

The indicator of number of persons per dwelling for Gipps Ward was 6.9 persons per dwelling

in 1891, not the largest ratio amongst the city wards, but nonetheless larger than any suburban

area.

Kelly demonstrates in his study that the slums of the City of Sydney were indicated

53Mayne,A.J.C.,FeverSqualorand Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982,p.170. fromSMH,July, 1876, editorial.

54Lord Mayor of Sydney in Sewage and Health Board Reports, March, 1876, in Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.l71.

55Mayne, A.J.e., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.l48.

56Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and Pestilential: The Sydney Slum Observed 1860-1900', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.69.

47

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by the City Wards whose populations were declining most rapidly, Gipps Ward was not one

of these, but Brisbane Ward, (one block of which lies within the survey area), posted a decline

between 1871 and 1891 of -35.2 percent determining it as one of the three 'slum' Wards in

the City of Sydney.57 Gipps Ward, whilst technically not a slum ward, (although the housing

standards of George Street North, Harrington, Cumberland and Cambridg.e Streets were

considered appalling),ss was experiencing population increases combined with declining

standards in housing stock.59 Kelly states that the population of Gipps Ward was 10845 in

1891.60 Refere~ce to the 1901 Census reveals Gipps ·Ward'~ population to be 958861 a

percentage decline during that period of 11.6 percent. By 1901 therefore Gipps Ward was not

merely in decline, but could be classified, (under Kelly's terms), as a slum.

'Disease scares' had occurred in the City of Sydney from the 1870s, and the perceived

correlation between disease, poverty and unhygienic personal and residential standards led to

a statement by a Corporation official in 1868, concerning the entire western portion of the

City; 'Nothing can improve this, the most unhealthy part of the City, but reconstruction of the

whole.'62 To an extent this wish was finally granted but only after the passage of almost three

decades. The plague outbreak of 1900 lasted between 19 January, and 9 August. The first case

was Arthur Payne, who lived in Ferry lane: in the Rocks, and in total 303 cases were reported,

103 of which were fata1.63 Thirty eight percent of infection occurred in Brisbane Ward,

57Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and PestilentiaL', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.72.

58Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and PestilentiaL', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth . Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.74.

59Kass, T., A Sodo-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987,

60Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and PestilentiaL', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Centwy Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.7l.

GlABS Colonial Microfiche .-62Graham, Mayne, A.le., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.168.

63Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and PestilentiaL', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.78.

48

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

adjacent to the survey area, with a significant number in Gipps Ward. (See Figure 3.32).64

Overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions contributed to contagion, over 50

percent of which was concentrated in slum -areas.65 The maritime links of the Rocks and

Millers Point, and its role as originator of infection foresaw the wholesale re1sumption of the

area by the government for redevelopment. This procedure could be seen J as an extreme

case of reaction to the process of slummification as pa.rt of the cycle of decline leading to

redevelopment.

3.4 Ethnic Affiliation

Prior to European settlement the areas now called the Rocks and Millers Point tvet t;. (

occupied and utilised by the original Aboriginal inhabitants of the now Sydney region.

Excluded from the census records, later Aboriginal residents are obscured in the historical -

record.

As has been noted above, there was a considerable Chinese presence in the Rocks and

Millers Point. Indeed, 'This part of George Street and the Rocks [that proximate to Unwins

Stores] was the centre of Chinese occupation and activity from the 1850s,66 In 1901 Queens

PI~ce, marginally outside the survey area was a further focus of Chinese activity.67 It is also

interesting to note that in 1861 residences in Queen's Place were described as 'the most

wretched, unhealthy, dwellings in the City,.68

Terry Kass in a breakdown of ethnic composition states that there was no

preponderance of Australian born in the area. English born were generally m a lower

Mnere was another plague outbreak in 1902, and although, again the majority of cases were in the Sydney City area, accounting for 67 percent of cases, only one case occurred in Gipps Ward. Curson, P.R., 'The Impact of Inequality', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.u.P., Sydney, p.56.

65Kelly, M., 'Picturesque and PestilentiaL', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Cent1llY Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.78.

66Lydon, E.C.J., Unwins Stores ... , S.C.A., Sydney, 1991, p.1/.

67PitzSimons, T., -'The Point's changed a Terfible'Lot'- Memories of the Rocks and Millers Point, Randwick TAFE Outreach, Sydney; 1988.

68Aaron, for the Sydney City Council, 1861, from, Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.147.

49

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proportion than the rest of the city, with a higher proportion of Scottish and Irish, After 1871

there was an increasing concentration of Germans, other Europeans, and American males.69

The mixed ethnic composition of the Rocks and Millers Point was a reflection of the number

of newly arrived immigrants who settled in the area.70

Clyde Street was named after the large numbers of Scottish who settled there.7l This

immigrant wave had occurred by approximately 1834 and had comprised primarily of

Glaswegian artisans emigrating under the Reverend Doctor John Dunmore Lang.72 The

Scottish remai~ed a minority with only approximately 4-6 percent of persons recording

Scottish birth. However comments about areas such as Clyde Street suggest that a number of

the Scottish settled collectively. The archaeological significance of this area has been lost with

the Clyde Street being destroyed when the highland of Millers Point was cut away with the

restructuring of wharfage post -dating 1901,

The Irish are often perceived to have fOImed a considerable proportion of the

population. Certainly there was an influx of Irish into the area post-dating 1846, although the

Irish were never dominant in the area. In 1846 only 10.7 percent of the population of Millers

Point was Irish with the ratio being 13 percent in 1871. The largest ethnic group resident in

the survey 'zone has tended to be Australian born individuals, (16.4 percent of Millers Point

population in 1846, 47.7 percent in 1871). Citing individuals as Australian born addresses

their place of birth, but not their sense of ethnic identification. The relatively low number of

persons of Irish birth in the area is a figure that possii hides a large number of Australian

born persons of Irish parentage. .

Commentators of the nineteenth century however seemed to have been preoccupied . .

with the perception of the area as working class, .Catholic and Irish. Elwes in 1854 noted

69Kass, T., A Socio-Economic HistOlY of Mille]Js Point, N.S.W. Department of Rousing, Sydney, May 1987, p.13.

70Kass, T., A Sodo-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Rousing, Sydney, May 1987, p.l3.

71Kass, T.,A Socio-Economic History of lvliller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Rousing, Sydney, May 1987, Street Names.

72Maclehose, J., Maclehose's Picture of Sydney ... , J. Mac1ehose, Sydney, 1839, p.77.

50

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Millers Point as '".chiefly inhabited by Irish~ they are bad and dirty,.73 Elwes comment also

reveals the conception of the day which perceived 'Irish" 'working class" and criminal as

almost analogous terms. To some extent a linkage can be proven between the Irish (or

Catholics) as a group with strong working class connections. Fitzgerald correlates the

socioeconomic status of districts with their proportion of Irish and Catholics. In 1870 for

example 58,7 percent of Irish were in unskilled or semi-skilled positions, improving to 53.7

percent in 188774. Her results demonstrate that districts with a higher than municipal

proportion of. Irish or Catholics correspond with areas generally of a working class

composition, thus suggesting that the proportions of Catholics in any given area can be

utilised as a rough indicator of the socioeconomic status of that region.75 Census returns can

be utilised to provide these figures for the Rocks and Millers Point. Common nineteenth

century perceptions concerning the demographic makeup of the Rocks and Millers Point

would suggest an elevated proportion of Irish and Roman Catholics in the area?6

3.5 Land Use

At the foundation of the Colony of New South Wales a distinct differentiation in land

use was initiated by Governor Phillip, with the Governor and his administrative staff

positioned on the eastern side of the Tank Stream and the Marines and convicts on the

western side.77 In 1823 this differentiation could still be discerned. A zonal grouping ofland

use based on the Harper Map of 1823, undertaken by Robinson shows the land use of the

peninsula comprising the Rocks and Millers Point as 'Military/Administration,.78 Governor

73Drawn from Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, Teny, p.l4.

74Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.120.

75Fitzgerald, S., Rising Damp ... Q.U.P., Melbourne, 1987, p.47,

76hish and Catholic grouping of course significantly overlapped, but are not wholly analogous to each other.

77Proudfoot, H., 'Fixing the '~ettlement on t~e Shore: Planning and Building', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant ... , N.S.W.U. Press, Sydney, 1988, p.55.

78Edwards, N., 'The Genesis of the Sydney Central Business District 1788-1856', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, pAl.

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Phillip also foresaw the area north of a line running from W oolloomooloo to Darling Harbour

as being reserved as Crown Land, a concept that had already fallen into abeyance by the

Governorship of King.79

Even in the early phase of Sydney's development the Rocks and Millers Point was a

focus for maritime activity. Waterfront land was reserved in 1797 for as shipyard on an are.a

now placed between the Museum of Contemporary Art and Cadman's Cottage. Preceding 1823

a number of important buildings were constructed in the area. Fort Phillip, Old St Phillip's

Church, (place,d in the area now called Lang Park), Dawes Point Battery and the Military

Barracks were all completed prior to 1810, and still survived in 1823. Similarly Cadman's

Cottage, (which was the headquarters for smaller water craft operating on the harbour), was

constructed in 1816, and the Commissariat Store was another major, early addition to the built

environment of the colony. Of all these buildings only the walls of Fort Phillip; and

Cadman's Cottage survived to the present.

In these early times the topography of the area largely delineated that the Rocks was

largely separated from Millers Point by the rocky spine of the peninsula. Kent Street was only

completed in the 1830s, and the Argyle Cut in the late 1840s. Without these links, the only

access points to Millers Point were via water, Lower Fort Street, or a walking track following

what would later be Kent Street.80 The isolation of Millers Point in this time could delineate

that it had a differing socio-spatial structure to that of the Rocks, particularly in the 1820s

when settlement of the area had occurred, but the final street access system had not.

Tenure of the land was held originally at the governor's pennissioil, in the fonn of a

letter of occupation that was commercially tradable. By 1792 however the practice of the

granting of leases over property had been institl,lted, (although they were only granted

sporadically), by Phillip before his departure.81 It was Governor King who attempted to

regularise the arbitrary nature of land tenure by. making a general offer of leasehold tenure

79 Atkinson, A., 'Taking Possession .. .', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant ... , N.S.W.U. Press, Sydney, 1988, p.72.

8°Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Faint, N.S.W. Departinent of Rousing, Sydney$ May 1987, p.6. .

81Atkinson, A., 'Taking Possession .. .', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant ... , N.S.W.U. Press, Sydney, 1988, p.79.

52

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in 1803.82

During the Governorship of Macquarie, the centre of commercial activity in the

settlement was the locality about the intersection of George and Market Streets, following the

relocation of the markets there.83 The early establishment of George Street as a commercial

axis was in part due to its role as the maj~r route to the hinterland of the settlement.84 By

1840 the commercial focus of the settlement had shifted:

'Lower George Street was the business centre of the town ... [where] nearly all the

shopph;tg was done.,85

Whilst 'commercial' the processes of manufacture and sale were still associated with

residential structures, a 'mixed' land use indicative of a pre-industrial urban pattem.86 The

retail emphasis on George Street is a land use pattern maintained virtually to this day,

although the business centre of 'town' has shifted to the south.

The Rocks and Millers Point had a particular concentration of lodging and boarding

houses, (the Il}lst hUmbljltermed 'sixpenny' lodging houses), suggesting a high concentration

of poor, transient labourers.87 Those clustered about Cumberland, Gloucester and Harrington

Streets were reported as particularly unwholesome in the 1876 Select Comnirttee Report on

Common Lodging Houses.88 The committee saw the lack of privacy within these institutions

and the mixing of sexes as leading, in the slums in which these institutions were often set up,

82Atkinson, A., 'Taking Possession ... ', in Aplin, G., (ed.), A Difficult Infant ... , N.S.W.U. Press, Sydney, 1988, p.82.

83Edwards, N., 'The Genesis of the Sydney Central Business District 1788-1856', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.u.P., Sydney, p.38. . '

84Edwards, N., 'The Genesis' of the Sydney Central Business District 1788-1856', in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.4l.

85Walker, E., 'Old Sydney in the 'Forties .. .', in J.R.A.H.S., Volume XVI, Part N 1930, p.12.

86Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change .. .', in Australian Geographic Studies, Volume 20, 1982, p.l55.

87The sixpelmy boarding houses were only one class of transient residence, providing accommodation only by the night. Other more respectable institutions existed where it was possible to pay for accommodation for up to a fortnigh!,at a time. Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.96. .

88Kass, T., A Sodo-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Rousing, Sydney, May 1987, p.52.

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to a demoralisation amongst the populace; (in the literal sense).89 The location of the boarding

house as associated with the poorest segment of the community could potentially be indicative

of settlement clusters of 'working class' households.

Boarding houses continued as unregulated institutions and the failure of the Common

Boarding House Act to succeed in passage through parliament meant that substandard -::;:

conditions in these establishments continued at least to 1892.90 The concept that uncleanliness

amongst the working classes was a causal factor in immorality was a key point in seeking

reform.91 In th~ absence of legislation controlling proprietors of lodging houses as a whole,

model lodging houses sought to address the problems of unsanitary conditions.

The Model Lodging House Company which was publically floated in 1878, and

supported by eminent individuals, obtained property on Kent Street (within the Survey area),

that was still operational in 1901. The property was resumed after the 1900 plague outbreak

and the Sydney Harbour Tmst directly took on its operation in 1902.92 The S.H.T. published

statistics of occupation after is assumed control with 46979 persons seeking accommodation

in 1902-3 and the number ranging fr~m 58000 to 62000 in succeeding years to 1907.

Conside~ng that in 1901, 13.1 percent ,of Gipps Ward, (broadly an~lo~ous to the survey area),

comprised of boarding houses the potentially large transient population resident within the

Rocks and Millers Point becomes apparent, associable with casual and seasonallabour.93

This boarding house population mostly consisted of the poorest sector of the

community, comprising seamen, labourers or the casually employed. These persons, the

'travelling poor', do not appear in directories or indeed many of the usual historical documents

utilised to study historic demographics. A study of the lifestyle of this poorest segment of the

community is hence only possible through the appJication of archaeological techniques,

89Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , D.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.146.

90Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , UQ.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.l52.

91The 1870's epidemic disease scares, which included an outbreak of smallpox in Millers Point in 1877 also highlighted the need for reform. Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.l62.

92Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.:..S~W. Dnartment of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.55. ,-~

93Kass, T., A Socio-Economic HistOlY of Millel,1s Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.52.

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Model Lodging Houses however~ whilst providing a better standard of accommodation

tended to charge fees higher than the 'sixpence' norm, (ninepence for the Kent Street Model

Lodging House), a price that was 'as effectual a bar as the closed door of a mansion'.94 This

combined with their small number, determined that the movement failed to cater for the

majority of the transient working class.95 The statistics concerning the-Model Lodging House

cannot provide a complete picture of the number of perS~)llS utilising boarding houses as the

number of beds offered in a year does not equate with the number of individuals housed.in

a single year. These establishments only offered accomodation for the night, and presumably

a large proportion of the persons utilising boarding house style accommodation were long­

term residents of such institutions. Other than the 'sixpenny' boarding houses another category

short-term housing existed, proving housing for a period longer than a single night. Higher ,

quality boarding and lodging houses~ (indeed~ many eminent persons spent time in boarding

houses), were particularly common in Millers Point.96

The passing of the City of Sydney Improvement Bill in 1879, a failure in many

respects, led detractors to chronicle its deficiencies. One such statement reveals an interesting

practice of speculative builders of housing for the poor in the mid to late nineteenth century.

These speculators dumped garbage and other refuse on vacant hmd in order to level the

ground for building.97 This practice, which continued into the 1880s means that potentially the

base upon which much of the nineteenth century housing fabric of the Rocks and Millers

Point is built consists of urban refuse, a consideration for archaeologists excavating in the

area.

Another reference concerning refuse disposal highlights another possible problem

which could effect the household archaeology meth~dology of attempting to associate refuse

deposits with specific households. The initial house to house survey of the Sydney City slums

undertaken by the Sewage and Health Board in 1876 revealed that overcrowding, specifically

in the Rocks was so bad, and the topography in parts, so steep, that refuse thrown from a

94SMH, quoted in Mayne, A.I.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.l54.

95Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, ,p.152. . . .

96Kass, T.,A Sodo-Economic History of Millers Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.53.

97Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.149.

55

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house in one street would land in the next,98 In a similar manner the rubbish of those

households occupying the elevated streets of the Rocks, (and generally those households were

considered to have a greater socioeconomic status that those occupying the 'lower' Rocks),

washed onto the houselots of the lower streets.99 Conducting household archaeology

concerning the urban poor in the Rocks could be problematic considering the potential mixing

of refuse deposits a.nd the undocumented na.ture of the households involved.

By 1911 the owner-occupation ratio for Sydney as a whole was 31 percent with 66

percent tenanted, with the area comprising Sydney City itself recording owner occupation

ratios of 10-17 percent for private dwellings. The Rocks and Millers Point had an even

stronger trend towards a low ratio of owner occupation, with only 5 percent of structures in

Windmill Street being owner occupied in 1902.100 The vast majority of dwellings in the

central city area were therefore tenanted whilst the majority of houses in outer suburban areas

were owner occupied, HurstvilIe for instance possessing an owner occupation rate of 58

percent. There furthermore seems little connection between building fabric and socioeconomic

status in this area. Despite its a~ittedly low status pro~le for much of its history, by 1901

Gipps Ward had the largest proportion of stone buildings in Sydney, and amongst the lowest

of 'temporary' structures. IOI

High tenancy rates in the Rocks and Millers Point reflects a population more mobile

than that dominated by owner occupiers. This is readily seen through reference to baptismal

records. As families returned to church to baptise successive children there is a tendency for

the family to have changed tenanted address whilst remaining within the same district. The

practice of the very poor of sub-letting their small residences further also delineates that many

of the poorest households were not recorded in the historical record which tended to give

precedence to the primary tenant.

As an area for which maritime industry played a major role, land use associated with

98Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice ... , UQ.P., St. Lucia, 1982, p.95.

99Mayne, A.J.C., Fever Squalor and Vice .. :, U.Q.P., St. Lucia, 1982, ·p.63.

looKass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.46. Of course, after the governmental resumptions were complete all the occupants of Millers Point became tenants.

IOIKass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, pAS.

56

I wharfage is an important consideration. The first Wharf in Sydney was built near the original

hospital in the Rocks. This was replaced by King's Wharfin 1813, (later, Queen's Wharf). The

I first privately owned wharf was also in the Rocks, constructed in 1803 by Robert Campbell.

1 .'1

'·1

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Both institutions were still in existence in 1901.102

By the 1830s Walsh Bay was being utilised by whaling vessels. A major expansion

in wharfage occurred in the 1830s propagated by merchant firms. After 1872 coastal shipping

tended to anchor in the southern portion of Darling Harbour, ~hilst Millers Point attracted the

overseas trade. l03 For most of the nineteenth century the foreshores of the peninsula had been

associated with primarily commercial land dealing with various maritime trades. These . ,

included wharfage, but also importantly boatbuilding, (note the huge Cuthbert's Shipyard on

the western headland). As the, century progressed, shipbuilding faded as an emphasis and

wharfage became the major maritime usage of the foreshore areas. Land proximate to the

wharves was of course sought for the construction of Wool or Bond Stores.

Large scale land reclamation at the foreshores of Darling Harbour provided new land

)

for wharfage. The comparison of the coastline in 1823 with that of 1865 reveals the extent

ofland reclamation in the area, (See Figure 3.51).

102 Andrews, G., P011 Jackson 200, A n Affectionate Look at Sydney Harbour, Reed Books, Sydney, 1986, p.62. '''''. . ',-', , .

103Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.19.

57

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I I

i I I

Figure 3.21: St. Phillip's Students, 1895: (Note the two

Chinese pupils).

Mitchell Library Historic Photograph Collection (05220)

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I I I

Figure 3.31 (Overleaf), Leseur's Map of Sydney, 1802.

from Kelly, M., Sydney Takes Shape, Sydney, 1979.

I l. Stream 2. Signal Ba ttery 12. Lieutenant Governor Generars House 25. Government wharf 32. Hou",«, 3. Hospital buildings 13. Lieutenant Governor General's garden 26. General stores 33. Brick works bc-I ungins tn 4. Hospital brought out from Europe 14. Public School 27. Store for clothing, ropes, etc. 34. Road Mr. Palmer 5. Mr. Campbell's store 15. Store for dried vegetables and grain 28. Public stores 35. First gallows set up in New Holland 6. Buildings under construction 7. Mr. Bass's boat. 16. Soldiers' barracks 17. Barrack square 29. Government House and garden (di~sed)

8. Hospital wharf 9. Prison 18. Officers' quarters 19. Powder magazine 30. Governmen t miU and bakery 36. Gallows in use 37. Burial ground I 10. Store for spirits and salt provisions 20. Church 21. Windmills 22. Bridge 31. Government printing press and printing 38. Brickfield Village, where there are

It. Parade ground 23. Battery 24. Saltworks works for the Sydney Gazette manufacturies of tiles, pottery, crockery, etc. I PLA:\ I ... ",. /

( IJE'l~1 '/IIJJ~~ D/:''' 817J.A\'1;l r

Capital€' des Colonies A 1l\!:L.USl'S,

;. '.' ,X,I .:,' J,','

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,'1 'M"'~lli'llt diM' I't,!t'!J('/lldlJ ,(" ){r Boullalll!l'I'

I brr ~) 1802 .

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Figure 3.32 Map depicting Plague cases in Sydney, 1900/01.

Mitchell Library, M4 811.18/1900/1

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Coastline, 1823

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o 300 Scale, (Metres)

I I I 'I I I I I I 'I I I I I I I I I I I

Chapter 4

4.1 Archaeology in the Rocks and Millers Point.

Karskens and Thorp take issue with the manner in which archaeological excavations

have been conducted in the Rocks and Millers Point. They refer to the rapidly increasing

corpus of archaeological data for these areas and indeed for ml of Sydney, .pointing out:

' •.• no important historical, "answers", no integrated "new view" of the past has

emerged from this material.' I

What they s~e as missing are not merely 'answers' but more appropriate questions. The

pertinent issue is raised; namely that for the historical archaeologist such questions are not

designed in isolation, but drawn from either the primary historical record or compatible

research from related disciplines such as history or geography. Appropriate questions and the

development of theoretical frameworks regarding the operation of past society are essential

in the adequate and 'meaningful' interpretation of the archaeological record.

The current state of affairs seems to reflect the reverse situation. Archaeologists in

current site excavation reports have tended towards ever more detailed descriptive inventories

of archaeological d~ta, (,Stamp Collecting' in Connah's tenns),2 paired with only lim~red and

particularistic historical research. This mode of operation hinders cross~comparison between

sites and interpretations that provide insights into higher scale areas into which the site is

subsumed.3 Whilst this 'micro~study' of the particular site may tenuously belong under the

rubric of household archaeology, it does not quite match the ideal that both Beaudry and

Friedlarider espouse of pre-defined research questions conjoined with rigorous historical

. inquiry ..

4.2 Archaeological Strategies within the Rocks and !\tIillers Point.

Unlike the majority of Sydney, the Rocks and Millers point has had, due to its

admitted historical and archaeological importance, the opportunity to develop coherent

archaeological policies. This is mainly due to the Rocks falling under the planning auspices

lKarskens. and Thorp, p.52

2Karskens, p.52-3

3Karskens, p.53.

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of the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority, whilst the majority property owner of Millers

Point is the Department of Housing rather than private owners. 4

The development of Management Plans in the area has only been a recent event, with

the SCRA not requiring mandatory archaeological investigations to be undertaken on its

development sites until 1988.5 The institution of mandatory investigation has seen the number

of investigations undertaken radically multiply to 23 up to the year 1991.6 On the other hand,

Millers Point, despite an Archaeological Master Strategy being produced in 1987 has seen

a dearth of ~xcavation, with only 3 archaeological investigations of any type occurring

between the years 1987-1991.7

Although the inventory of exc,avations within the area has not been inconsiderable, the

type of excavation undertaken has tended not to be of large scale research excavation projects.

Rather projects have remained at the stage of archaeological monitoring, test or re~cue

excavations.

Despite the commissioning of a management plan, up to 1991 the Department of

Housing did not operate within its guidelines, neither did they either list archaeological sites

or provide prior notification of other than major modifications to building stock.8 With the

archaeological significance of Millers Point until recently being only tacitly admitted by a

government department it is not surprising that a holistic approach to the archaeology of the

area has not been developed.

The commissioned master strategies do not appear to encourage the adoption of any

particular research goals. Rather they appear to have been conceived as a framework that

summarises the significance of the Rocks and Millers Point, attempts to qualify structures or

.4This is due to the 1900-1901 land resumptions which vested the land in the Sydney Harbour Trust, with control over the properties passing more recently to the Department of Housing.

5Mider, D., The Rocks and Millers Point Archaeological Management Plan: A Summary of Archaeological Investigations 1978-1990, Unpublished Report, Sydney, 1991, (Summary).

~der, D., The Rocks and Millers Point Archaeological Management Plan: A Summary of Archaeological Investigations 1978-1990, Unpublished Report, Sydney, 1991, (Summary).

7Mider, D., The Rocks and Millers Point Archaeological Management Plan: A Summary of Archaeological Investigations 1978-1990, Unpublished Report, Sydney, 1991, (Summary).

8Mider, D., The Rocks and Millers Point Archaeological Management Plan: A Summary of Archaeological Investigations 1978-1990, Unpublished Report, Sydney, 1991, (Interview Response).

59

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areas that are of archaeological significance or that could contain archaeological deposits. The

major initiative they offer is a coherent sampling programme.

There has always been a danger that the neighbourhood approach to archaeology could

be misused as a quick and easy technique for providing shallow historical context for certain

types of. archaeologcal deposit. Auger surveys and other archaeological deposit saIP.pling

strategies potentially result in artefact assemblages with little historical c.ontext

Bairstow states within her recommendations for archaeological sampling for 'Millers

Point Site 8900'9:

'It is envisaged that in most instances sampling will be limited to the retrieval of

artefacts as an indicator of socio-economic history. Thus when a sufficient sample

has been obtained of a site-type within a given area ... to establish a socioeconomic

pattern, further archaeological investigation can be limited to sites of

unanticipated variation from the established norm.,lO

This passage suspiciously resembles the neighbourhood archaeology approach in all but name,

not surprising for an historical archaeologist considered a proponent of neighbourhood scale

analyses. Bairstow's sampling strategy would eventuate in assemblages- for which little

historical context would have been provided. She envisages that socioeconomic patterns would

be reflected within the material record and therefore the samples taken from certain 'type­

sites'.

Bairstow's sampling strategy for Millers Point, can at least be seen as influenced by

the household and neighbourhood debate. Bairstows proposition was not explicitly framed as

a neighbourhood scale investigation, (perhaps she did not see it as such), and therefore she

escaped the necessity of defining the neighbourhopd and explicitly undertaking demographic

surveys. At the very least she hoped to be able to detect artefact patterns determined by

socioeconomic variables in her archaeological samples drawn from 'type-sites'. This aim is

not distant from American neighbourhood research which encountered distinct problems in

attempting to define archaeological indicators sensitive to socioeconomic variables for 'type

sites' provided with 'shallow' or neighbourhood historical context (See Chapter 4.4).

9Site 8900 is the Department of Housing designation for Millers Point.

lOBairstow, D., Millers Point Site 8900, Department of Housing, Sydney, 1987, p.5.

60

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4.3 Scale in Site Reportage.

For the purposes of this study it is beneficial to understand the manner in which

archaeology is practised within the Rocks and Millers Point; to inquire whether archaeologists

are currently formulating research designs for their sites that deal with a higher scale of

analysis than the single site or houselot. The role of the archaeological master plan needs

consideration also, especially to determine the extent to which policy planners hope for

excavation and research to be carried out within a coherent framework that treats the region

as an entity ~n its own right.

'l Not having the scope to comprehensively survey the numerous excavations in the area,

only a sample of the most recent excavations and conservation plans are here considered,

these being;

Scarborough House Archaeological Report

Archaeological Monitoring: The Australian Hotel and Adjoining Shops, The

Rocks, Sydney

Susannah Place, Archaeological Report

Archaeological Monitoring:Unwins Stores, George Street, the Rocks, Sydney.

In each of the four site reports the historical context provided is short in nature,

usually between three and five pages in length. The primary concerns of the contextualisation

are site specific. The information provided primarily deals with sequences of land ownership,

tenure and occupation.

Attempts are made to describe the area surrounding the particular site, but in the

absence of a historical contextual and archaeological framework at a scale larger than that of

the site such attempts tend to be limited to historical generalities.

Research questions posed and other statements within site reports do tend to suggest

the need for contextual data tailored for archaeological use covering the areas controlled by

the Department of Housing and the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority.

The Susannah Place Report states:

'Susannah Place was part of the Millers Point/ Rocks neighbourhood. As

described by those who lived there early this century, it was a closely knit

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working-class community •.. 'u

These excavations, as an important part of the research framework see the explored sites as , ,

significant not only due to variously, historical interest, the age of the structure or site, its

archaeological potential, or to the continuity of occupation. Significance is also accorded due

to a number of more abstract principles. A first of these is:

'The site is part of the Rocks and Millers Point, recognised as being of great I significance. 'll

This sentiment of importance accorded due to a relationship with the surrounding geographic ,

area is repeated in the other three reports. The Australia Hotel statement of significance states:

'The site forms part of the Rocks area's inner city townscape and ,

demonstrates •.. working and lower middle class lifestyles of the early twentieth )

century.' 13

The importance accorded the Rocks and Millers Point, as a coherent entity is reflected

again in the various Management Plans for the area. Excavators in a~empting to address this

point see a major research question as attempting inter-site comparison between the

archaeological assemblages of the various excavated s,ites in the. area. ,Lydon states the

proposition, of the Susannah Place excavations, that site reports toncerning the surrounding J area, when considered together provide,' ... some idea of the neighbourhood in the nineteenth

century'14

Of course inter-site comparisons can be achieved with currently available data. If1be

aim of inter site comparison is to better understand the Rocks and Millers Point as a whole,

then 'neighbourhood research is of intrinsic value. The call for such compari~ons are directly

associable with a perceived necessity for scales of analysis above that of the site studied in

isolation. As Lydon states:

' ... taking the scale of approach of household specific studies, we will eventually

llLydon, E.C.J., Susannah Place Archaeological Report, Sydney Cove Authority, Sydney, 1992, (4.0 Social Fabric/Relations).

12Lydon, E.C.J., Susannah Place Archaeological Report, S.C.A., Sydney, 1992, (Statement of Significance).

l1Lydon, E.C.J., Archaeological M-onitoring: The A ustralian Hotel and Acijoining Shops, The Rocks, Slldney, Sydney Cove Authority, Sydney, 1991, (1.2 Statement of Significance).

14Lydon, E.C.J., Sllsannah Place Archaeological Report, S.C.A., Sydney, 1992, (3.0)

62

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be able to form aggregations of groups of these units according to shared

characteristics, forming 'building block[s) ... enabling historical archaeologists to

move to a higher level of abstraction (for example and entire social group, a

particular social or economic process). ,,15

The question of what represents the appropriate methodology to 'shift to a higher level .. 1·--1;7

of abstraction' remains an unanswered question, and by no means is it unanimous that the [ /

neighbourhood approach should fill this (unoccupied) niche. Beyond the development of the

neighbourhoo,d concept as a contextual tool based upon sound ge0graphic principles, a handful

of archaeological excavations have been undertaken. The problematic results proceeding from

the American application of neighbourhood models are discussed below.

4.4 The Practical Application of Neighbourhood Archaeology.

The archaeological premise behind a neighbourhood methodology is entirely dependent

upon the discernment of strong demographic patterning in the urban environment. This

patterning is determined through clearly defined variables, in the geographic area, or areas

under study. The spatial clustering of households that were s.ocioeconomically similar in

character provide areas of settlement homogeneity that are potentially reflected in artefact

patterns within the archaeological record.

The discernment of 'neighbourhoods' as defined by the discipline of historical

archaeology is therefore not an end in itself. Providing historical context for any site or area

remains one half of the historical archaeological equation. As is obvious from Chapter oJ).e,

there are researchers involved in developing a methodology to discern the urban

neighbourhood through reference to the historical record. The next logical step; that oflinking

the defined 'neighbourhoods' to the archaeological record in some manner, has rarely been

addressed.

The developmental phase of neighbourhood archaeology occurred generally in the late

eighties, with little publication occurring since that time on the subject. Nan A. Rothschild,

15Lydon, E.C.J., Unwins Stores, 77-85 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney, Sydney Cove Authority, Sydney, 1991, p.44.

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in publishing her [mal report on her New York Neighbourhoods16 in 1990 represents possibly

the most recent publication dealing with the subject, with her bibliography reflecting the late

eighties concentration of publication.

Stephens and Cressey perhaps provide the most concise summary of the archaeological

rationale behind the methodology:

'The delineation of historic context is clearly the major prerequisite to

identification, evaluation and archaeological interpretation of residential localities.

Thus, in the Alexandria Project we turned to the methods used in urban

geography to differentiate activity areas and residential localities associated with

socioeconomic-ethnic status groups over time. rl7

However the entire concept of the neighbourhood rotates about the concept of

homogenous residential patterns through time. The implication of this statement, although it

has rarely been explicitly stated is, the equation that persons residing within an area that is

considered 'homogenous' will, due to generally identical socio-economic profiles, utilise

material culture in generally the same manner.

This argument is by no means proven, and primarily rests upon the assumption of . -

homogenous settlement patterns manifesting. Cressey and Stephens however only conduct a

demographic survey concerning a 15 percent sample of the documentary records under

consideration to identify 'homogenous' patterns. 18 Rothschild follows a similar sampling

strategy, only investigating 20 percent ofthe population ofthe city in the eighteenth century. 19

For the entirety of this eighteenth century city her 'Basic Data Archive' consists of 1706

households concerning eight variables for all the wards of New York City for all time periods . . -

studied in the eighteenth century. Furthermore _ the implication of the large number of

'unknowns' recorded for households under variables such as religion are nowhere explicitly

I~Rothschild, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods: The 18th Century. Academic Press Incorporated, London, 1990.

17 Cressey and Stephens equate their 'residentiallocalitles' with neighbourhoods. Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach to Urban Archaeology', in Dickens, R.S., (ed.), The Archaeology of Urban America, Academic Press, New York, J982, p.54.

18Cressey, P.J., and Stephens, J.F., 'The City-Site Approach .. .', in Dickens, R.S., (ed.), The Archaeology of Urban America, Academic Press, New York, 1982, p.55.

19Rothschild, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods .... Academic Press Inc., London, 1990, p.9L

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addressed. In a contrast highlighting the scale of her (under)-representation of the population

this study of basically a single ward in the City of Sydney comprises the information

concerning 19 primary variables for 2183 households over three survey years.

Similarly, to demonstrate homogeneity of settlement patterning in Sydney in 1855,

Aplin only displayed the few streets that had over 50_ percent of one occupational group. This

filtered out a large segment of the population. It is through samples -such as these that )'

'homogeneity' is defined. There is a possibility that if Rothschild's or Cressey and Stephen's

sampling str~tegies were applied to the Rocks and Millers Point a false sense of the

demographic profile of the area would be engendered. The historical record already

demonstrates a chronic under-representation of semi-skilled workers, unskilled workers, and

members of the transient population of the area. A 15-20 percent sampling strategy could

potentially give primacy to the large number of documented skilled workers, and dampen the

demographic influence of the small or undocumented but crucial minorities which resided

within the survey area, including households of high socioeconomic status, the Scottish or the

Chinese.

The neighbourhood approach therefore seeks to discern, through reference to the

historical record residential homogeneity in the historic urban environment. With the

demographic profile of a bounded, homogenous residential cluster known, artefact patterns I within the archaeological record of this area can be sought,· sensitive to the ethnicity, or I socioeconomic status of the household 'type' resident within the cluster, (neighbourhood). The

rationale behind tllls process is that households of a similar socioeconomic profile would

utilise material culture in a similar manner. It seems improbable that any such artefact

patterns could be discerned utilising such an artiti~ially delimited definition of homogeneity

based on relatively small population samples, which could suppress variability in the

demographic profile of the populace.

Rothschild, in the archaeological investigation of the neighbourhoods she defines,

manages to mostly avoid the more difficult questions of how to link nominal neighbourhoods,

to the ~rchaeological record. The neighbourhood she chooses 1'01: her case study is a high

status residential area already a region which presumably would possess good historical

documentation. The archaeological excavations she utilises as comparative material represent

sites perfectly tailored for a household approach, including the Stadt Buys block; the old

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'Town Hall' of Dutch New York.

Food remains are isolated as a key artefactual classification, sensitive to the both

differences in ethnicity and socio-economic status. Despite this alleged sensitivity to;

Rothschild's primary variables concerning' neighbourhood definition, and some success in

demonstrating differ~nces in faunal assemblages originating from households' of differing .'~.- ~- .. ," ~

status20, Rothschild finally concludes:

'There is a great deal of individual variation here, and the data available to

reflect socioeconomic position are not sufficiently precise to monitor the

relationship between food and class. 121

Cheek and Friedlander undertook an excavation that was more successful in linking

their material remains to their conception of the area at a scale above that of the ho~selot. The

socioeconomic spatial distribution of households at block 743 in Washington D.e. was

somewhat to that revealed in the Rocks and Millers Point through the historical survey, with

lower status households living along back lanes, and high status households living in

residences along street frontages facing major thoroughfares.22

The back lane residences were mostly occupied by black households. The' strong

ethnic identification of these households suggested a differing artefact pattern to the

residences facing onto major streets, which were primarily occupied by white households. The

major concern was the conflation of the variables of ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Differential artefact patterning could occur either ·be caused though ethnic differences or

socioeconomic differences, but ' ... separation of the variables did not seem possible,.23

In analysing faunal remains Cheek and Fri"edlander encounter the identical problem

to Rothshild in not being able to associate more e~pensive cuts of meat with assu~ed higher

20That she demonstrates socioeconomic differentiation in areas she defines as affluent neighbourhoods seems to argue against a theory of social homogeneity.

21Rothschild, N.A.; New York City Neighbourhoods ... , Academic Press Inc., London, 1990. p.166.

22Cheek, C.D., and Friedlander, A., 'Pottery and Pig's Feet: Space, Ethnicity and Neighborhood in Washington, D.C., 1880-1940', in Historical Archaeology, Volume 24, Number 1, 1990, p.34.

23Cheek, C.D., and Friedlander, A., 'Pottery and Pig's FeeL.', in HA., Vol. 24, No. 1, 1990, p.38.

66

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status households.25 Ceramic price scaling did not reveal any major differences in ceramic use

patterns between low status black or higher status white households. Otto's research on I plantation sites suggested that on black sites there was a higher proportion to hoIlowware to 7 _ flatware, reflecting a differing food preparation and presentation techniques, but once more, ) ~,~,~.'" vessel form.,differences did not manifest between the two household types. J

Detectable differences in artefact distribution were, an almost three times highen

incidence of stoneware on street deposits compared with alleyway deposits, glassware

associated with street deposits manifested a greater variety of vessel forms, and a large

number of buttons appeareq in alleyway deposits.26 A number of differences concerning floral

and faunal 'foodways' were also discernible.

Although the residential pattern in Quander Lane27 was superficially similar to that in

the Rocks and Millers Point, differences in artefactual assemblages due to ethnicity or status

would presumably be even harder to discern in the Australian case. A conflation of ethnic and

socioeconomic variables also occurs in the Rocks and .Millers Pint with poverty being -

associated with the Irish. However the absence of historical records concerning households

resident off major thoroughfares delineates a difficulty in proving that back lanes were

dominated by"the Irish. There is however some evidence that the Chinese settled collectively

in certain areas; and presumably followed different food preparation traditions to the majority

European populace. Unfortunately, although Gipps Ward had one of the highest concentrations

of Chinese households in Sydney, they always remained a very small proportion of the

populace.

Rothschild, Cheek, and Friedlander encounter the problem, -that their archaeological

status and ethnicity indicators produce results ~ot entirely consistent with their defined,

homogenous neighbourhoods. This supports a cnticism of neighbourhood archaeology namely

. that:

' •.. results, while sufficiently satisfactory to encourage development of the

25Cheek, C.D., and Friedlander, A., 'Pottery and Pig's FeeL', iuH.A., Vol. 24, No. 1, 1990, p.52 .

260ther than appearing in large nwnber in white military sites, a larger than expected number of buttons within deposits is apparently a signature oftblackt sites. No reason is presented for this. Cheek, C.D., and Friedlander, A., 'Pottery and Pig's FeeL.', in H.A., Vol. 24, No. 1, 1990, p.55.

27 The Cheek and Friedlander excavation site.

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neighbourhood approach, indicated that status and function indices were I probably not sufficiently sensitive,.27

Lydon's Unwins Store excavation demonstrated admirably the problems inherent in

attempting to apply a notion of homogeneity to the Rocks. Unwins Stores, occupying 77-85

George Street. In 1865, (a survey year for this study), the tenants of 77-85 George Street

included Nom Woh and Co., Chinese merchants, William Shaw, a surgeon, a boarding house,

(run by Antonio Amareal, possibly an Italian), two other retailers and a tenant of unspecified

occupation. I~ this one structure an incredibly cosmopolitan mix of status, ethnicity, land use

and occupation is recorded, and by no means is this pattern an isolated case. Despite Chinese

occupation associated with number 81 George Street, only a small sample of artefacts were

collected associated with this household; certainly too small to test for artefact patterns

associated with the Chinese. The Susannah Place excavation report states:

'Common to all areas are butchered bone fragments ... Variation within this group

is of little importance ... '28,

delineating that food remains cannot easily be analysed in a m?nn.er._~Qmparable with the

approaches of either Rothschild or Cheek and Friedlander.

27Binningham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire ... ', in Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... , AS.H.AIncorporated, Sydney, 1988, Birmingham, p.155.

28Lydon, E.C.J., Susannah Place ArchaeologicalReport, S.C.A, Sydney, 1992, (6.0).

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Chapter 5

5.1 Restrictions imposed by the Australian Historical Record.

A conclusion Bairstow reaches is that the Australian historical record is too

fragmentary to permit thorQ.\lgh historical contextualisation at the scale of the household. I In ". .:"; ..... ~-~;;..-;=

one sense this conclusion is true, in that for the State of New South Wales and the City of

Sydney census records have either been destroyed or never released, there is a lack of

personalised tax records2, electoral rolls only record limited information; the list can be

continued in chronicling perceived limitations in the broad historical base of the State.

Bairstow however uses the assumed deficits in the historical record as a primary

motivator in turning to an archaeology of the neighbourhood. This seems reasonable in that

the development of neighbourhood archaeology was instituted originally in order to address

cases where the historical record was poor and linkages were not discernable between

households and artefact deposition.

Bairstow castigates Australian historical archaeologists for following American theory

without regard for the Australian context.3 She then advocates the acceptance of an American

research model which had never been applied within an Australian context. Bairstow, does

not ask the question, whether the Australian historical record able to support neighbourhood

research in the manner envisaged by the American theorists.

The historical retord as exists is the result of a number of socio-cultural processes

acting over time. There are many cases where information sought after was never collected,

or has subsequently been lost. The issue is not a moral one; the Australian historical record

contains certain information about the past and questions must be asked of that record with

reference to the constraints imposed by its nature. The American histprical record is not

IBairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory, Australian Practice', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.56.

2Binningham claims that tax infonnation may be substltute'd with fufonnation from land survey files. Birmingham, J., 'The Refuse of Empire ... ', in· Birmingham, J. et. aI., (eds.), Archaeology and Colonisation ... , ASHA Inc., Sydney, 1988, p.l53.

3Bairstow, D., 'Urban Archaeology: American Theory, Australian Practice', in Australian Archaeology, Vol. 33, p.52.

69

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'better' or 'worse', merely different.4

Both approaches utilise historical data in differing ways. Neighbourhood and

household research ask different questions of the same records, and are not thus

incompatible. It must be initially stated that an initial examination of available records in

New South Wales would indicate that sufficient historical sources exist to be able to discern . ~s:

the demographic variables necessary for neighbourhood research.

* Directories typified by Sands Directory in Sydney provide a primary resource for

archaeologists seeking household naID:es, addresses and occupational data. Despite the

I occasional lack of dependability in the recording of names and addresses the major problem

is that by the late nineteenth century occupation is not recorded for the majority of residents,

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necessitating supplementary reference to the occupational data held in electoral roles. As ,,/'

Aplin has calculated only about a tenth of the total population5 is recorded within these

directories. Primacy is granted to male household heads, and primary tenants. Boarders are

not at all recorded, nor are sub lessees or most households resident off major thoroughfares,

having irregll:lar addresses. There is thus a significant under representation within these

directories of tinskilled persons and occupational data for women.

* The census records of New South Wales also prove problematic. The destruction of

individual household returns as a privacy concern immediately removes the ability to reorder

the census data in terms of geographic areas other than the official areas for which statistic~

were produced. Moreover the destruction of other censuses, (such as the 1881 returns, lost

in the Garden Palace tire), or the restrictions ofo~hers, (the 1901 40useholdreturns are only

accessible through the passage of an Act of State Parliament) create further lacunae in the

available demographic data. Lack of standardised collection or analysis provisions also

delineate that cross comparability between various years is impaired.

* A major difficulty that exists concerns the discernment of women in the historical

.'~ . 4It should be considered that if American Historical Record are unifonnly more comprehensive

than their Australian counterparts, there would never have been any need for the neighbourhood emphasis of the Charleston or Alexandria projects.

5Aplin, G., 'Models of Urban Change ... ', in A ustralian Geographic Studies, Vol. 20,1982, p.150.

70

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record. The structuring of the demographic survey database to primarily enumerate household

heads inadvertently introduced a gender bias against women. Historical records within the

nineteenth century tend only to provide reference to women in the absence of a male

household head. Even in instances where a woman was listed as the household head, the

tendency was for there to be very little subsidiary information in terms of religion or

occupation, It is therefore not surprising that the overwhelming majority of household heads

included within the database are male.

The inclusion of a variable that accounted for the gender of household heads. If . women as a group were obscured in the historical record, at least the occupations of female

household heads could be analysed.

* A variable that could not be coherently collected was ethnic affiliation. Whilst some

parish records do nominally record place of birth as part of the marriage register, only the

most general address was necessary to register a marriage, (usually only the locale 'Sydney'

was provided).6 The recording of place of birth also differed according to the officiating

religious offices, the church, or the denomination in question.

It being': generally impossible to securely link marriage register names to spatial

locations, most use was made of baptismal records which unfortunately only provide a record

of religious denomination. Baptismal records tended to record exact addresses providing a

more secure linkage between individual religion, and spatial location.

The structural formation of the parish records determined that at best only a .

representative sample of religious affiliation could be drawn from them. Since all years could

not be searched a sample was chosen usually the.three years about the survey date, more if

time permitted. This was based on the grounds that high population mobility within th~

survey area delineated that beyond the three year range, address as accorded in the Sands

Directory could not be held constant as confirmation of a household head's identity. Despite

this, the recurrence of common names with registers covering the same reason means that

a certain amount of mis-identification of the religious affiliation of household heads must

have occurred.

It remains far easier to utilise the existent parish records to reconstitute entire family

6The presbyterians tended to record addresses fairly exactly.

71

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groups due to the internal cross-checking possible as various family members appear in the

register at different times, than locate individual household heads for a specific year.

By any indicator work with parish records is laborious and time-consuming/ Curs on

concurs with the stated problems inherent with historical parish records, having collated a

database as part of the St. Phillip's ~_<m!ographic project. His major conclusion is that: .. ',"-, .. ''-:.;:.;~.:~

'Errors and mistakes of omission, lapses in consistency and accuracy by parish

clerks tend to detract from the usefulness of the registers. ,8

However, he also states that careful cross-checking can help limit the inconsistencies within . the records. To provide the greatest degree' of accuracy for research such as this in a

manageable amount of time, a smaller survey area would have to be studied .

* The large number of 'unknowns' in the database was initially surprising considering

the reputedly 'good' historical record of the Rocks and Millers Point. However, Rothschild

in her database for eighteenth century New York laboured under the same restrictions.

Rothschild utilised religious affiliation to extrapolate ethnicity, (for example she equated

membership of the Dutch Reform Church as indicating Dutch ethnicity). From the place of

birth records available in parish records it quickly became obvious that religious affiliation

did nor always strongly correlate with place of birth. Rothschild's method of extrapolating

ethnicity was therefore avoided.

5.2 Aggregate Profiles.

Honerkamp, in proposing an archaeology of the neighbourhood suggested that

neighbourhoods be delineated through reference to corporate or municipal records that

register activities that impacted upon the entire community rather than the individual

household.9 Under these terms census records become an important tool in neighbourhood

7Curson, P.R., 'The 'St. Phillip'sProjecf', ill Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth CentUlY Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.116.

8Curson, P.R., 'The 'St. Phillip'sProject", in Kelly, M., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Sydney ... , S.U.P., Sydney, p.114.

9Honerkamp, N., Households or Neighbourhoods ... Unpublished Conference Paper, 1987, pA.

72

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study. 10

Except for isolated years the individual household returns recording the raw data

provided by census collectors are not accessible. However the Returns of the New South

Wales Census, which record the aggregate statistics for the colony are available for analysis.

AB each individual household entry within the MINARK database often did not record a full

data set,!1 it was logical to turn to census data for any aggregate data necessary.

The New South Wales Census proved particularly useful, as the information collected

by the authorities, (generally structured around place of birth, religion and occupation), were

broadly identical to those considered important for neighbourhood research. Census data,

however comprehensive was only beneficial where statistics are provided for small sub-units

of the entire colony. Of course no census provides statistics exactly commensurable with the

survey area as defined in this study. Ward and Parish statistics whilst only recorded for

certain censuses proved ideal for producing an aggregate demographic profile.

Gipps Ward is the closest political sub-unit that matches the Rocks and Millers Point

survey area. The ward encompasses most of the peninsula its, boundary12 stretching from

west Margaret Place, north up the Darling Harbour coastline, around Dawes Point, and down

George Street to Charlotte Place. This area almost exactly matches the survey area, excluding

only a single block, (that bounded by Charlotte Place" George Street and Jamison Street),

which lies within Brisbane Ward.13 (See Figure 5.21).

St Phillip's Parish as defined in the earlier part of Sydney's history14 circumscribes

an area larger than the survey region as defined. The boundaries are generally identical to

that of Gipps Ward, except that St. Phillips Parish includes the eastern side of George

Street, and that its southern boundary is further. south, at King Street, stretching from the

shores of Darling Harbour across to George Street. (See Figure 5.22).

Conceptions about the demographic nature of the survey area, drawn from history,

10Honerkamp, N., Households or Neighbourhoods ... Unpublished Conference Paper, 1987, p.5.

lIFor religion and ethnicity the sample often reached only 15 percent

12Very generally, for political boundaries change quite regularly. This incarnation of Gipps Ward existed c.1856-60's, the closest archived political map to the 1861 census.

13AO Map 36.

14in this case, 1835, AO Map 286.

73

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geography and archaeology could thus be tested against the statistics as provided by the

census in the case where ward and parish data were available. Where such information was

not recorded, the colonial statistics were supplemented by the data held within the MINARK

database. Appendix One should be consulted for definitions of all variables cited within the

statistical profiles .

74

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Figure 5.21 (Overleaf), Map Depicting Ward Boundaries in

the City of Sydney.

A.O. Map 36.

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1835.

A.O. Map 286.

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5.3 A Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1823-28.

Whilst a colonial census was undertaken in November of 1828, a comprehensive

statistic~l~nalysis of the collected data is not available. As it exists the 1828 census remains

in the fornl of the household returns or the summary list of data contained within the returns.

The absence of comprehensive statistics necessitated that the profile of the survey area for

this period be undertaken with the data held in the MlNARK database . . The primary historical source utilised in compi1ing the 1823 database were the

District Constables' Notebooks. District Constables were instructed to visit each household

within their collection area and record the inhabitants, as a cross check for the colonial

muster. The 1822 Population Muster of New South Wales and the first colonial census of

1828 which do not provide adequate information about spatial location of households to be

utilised in their own right were used as a cross-check for the Constables' Notebooks and as

a source of additional information.

The surviving District Constables' Notebooks that were utilised dated from 1822-23.

These only covered certain streets comprising Charlotte Place, Princes Street, Canlbridge

Street, Gloucester Street, Harrington Street, CumberIand Street and Argyle Street. Whilst

information was available for George Street this was not included since there was no method

through which to discern which households lived within the survey area. The District

Constables recorded households by bracke~ing the name entries of co-resident persons on

their list. The convention usually observed placed the household head, (usually a male)

followed by his 'wife', (in some cases it is obvious that couples were cohabitants but not

married), with children listed after parents. Placed last were servants, boarders or other

persons involved with the household group.

Persons who could definitively be given a place within a specific household but who

were not household heads, including servants, boarders and assigned convicts were listed in

the notes entry of the database. However persons whose household position was 'unclear were

recorded separately, although without household head status. (These are termed non­

household heads within the text) The database as structured for 1823 thus allows comparison

between the demographic qualities of household heads with the profile of adults co-resident

within the households.

75

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Within the surveyed streets 707 persons were resident, living within approximately

193 households. There are thus 193 household heads, and 118 entries involving non­

household heads with an indeterminate position within established households. A breakdown

of household size revealed a range from the single person household, to a maximum

household~size of 11 persons. Not all large household units were comprised of a nuclear

family with a large number of children, a number consisted of co-nisident unrelated adults.

(See Figure 5.31).tS

The gender of household heads revealed an interesting divergence between 1823 and . the succeeding survey years. (See Figure 5.33a and 5.33b). In 1823 79.9 percent of

household heads were male, with only 19.1 percent of household heads being female.

Initially this seems to be a low proportion, yet the 1865 proportion of female household

heads was only 10.1 percent, and the 1901 proportion was approximately 11.5 percent. The

number of female household heads in 1823 was therefore almost double the proportion

recorded in the succeeding two survey years. This difference increased even more

dramatically when the level of gender disparity in the early period of the history of New

South Wales was factored in. In 1828 only approximately 25 percent of persons within the

': colony of New South Wales were women, (see Figure 5.32). As a general measure, if gender

parity was presupposed in 1823 the relative proportion of female household heads would

have almost double to approximately 38 percent.

The large number of female household heads could be attributed to a number of

tentative reasons;

1. There were a large number of unmarried female convicts in the area.

2.A number of women were married to co.nvicts who were assigned to other parts of

the colony.

3.As convicts were not allowed to be landholders, women married to convicts were

nominated household head.

4.The marriage rate of early Sydney was very low, and whilst couples did co-reside

in a generally monogamous condition there was a far higher proportion of women of

an 'independent' status.

ISThe Figure numbers refer to the graphs and tables reproduced immediately after each chapter section. The raw data if it was drawn from the MINARK database is reproduced in Appendix 1 d.

76

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An analysis of socioeconomic status revealed a distinct difference between household

heads, and 'non-household heads'.16 Only 25.9 percent of household heads in 1823 belonged

to the three lowest socioeconomic rankings,n those considered 'working class'. (See Figure

5.34d). Alternately 14 percent of household heads belonged to the two highest

"~~ socioeconomic, 'white collar' rankings, (See Figure 5.34e). This was divergent from the 'non­

household head' entries. For these there were no individuals inclu~ed in the two highest

socioeconomic ranks, while 62.7 percent exist in the lowest three.

This ~ifference became explicable when the settler status of the two groups was

studied. Only 16.6 percent of household heads were convicts, whilst 48.3 percent of the 'non­

household heads' registered as convicts (See Figure 5.36d). A hypothesis that may be posed

from these figures is that the 'non household heads' as persons co-resident within established

households were part of them as a fairly transient labour or servile population18. The

transience was observed in cross-referencing the 1822-3 District Constable Notebooks with

the 1828 census. The convict population was the most mobile segment of the population,

changing residence as they were assigned to different persons or institl,ltions, and resettling

__ once their penal terms had expired.

The settler status data could be conDated into three broad groups, the first combined

free settlers and those born in the colony as individuals essentially 'free'. The second

consisted of convicts only, as a group under governmental control, whilst the third consisted

of persons were convicts, but had been granted a degree of freedom ranging from a ticket

ofleave to an absolute pardon, (See Figure 5.36e). Of household heads, some 65.8 percent

were individuals who were once convicts, but had been granted a degree of freedom, 28.7

percent were convicts, and 17.1 percent were fi:ee settlers of born within the colony. In

contrast only 34.8 percent of 'non-household heads' were granted freedom to some degree

from a prior convict status and 48.3 percent were convicts.

Household heads were far more likely to have been ex-convicts or 'free' whilst a large

proportion of the co-resident adults within their households were convicts. The 12.7 percent

of non-household heads who were free settlers could reflect the high incidence of taking

l~e following figures all include the frequency of unknowns, factored into the percentages.

17Those classifiable as 'working class'.

18Many are described in historical records as 'Government Servants'.

77

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boarders within the early nineteenth century. A household head survey alone does not

provide an holistic picture of population characteristics in the region in 1823. The household

head data taken in isolation obscures the high munber of convicts, servants and boarders co­

resident with nuclear families in the area.

Since religious affiliation was routinely collected for both the 1822 muster and the

1828 census a good religious profile could be provided for the area. 19 If the number of

households for which religious affiliation was unknown are removed from the percentage

figures 73.4~ percent of household heads were designated as Church of England,20 with a

third that many Catholics at 24.24 percent, (See Figure 5.35d), the only other denomination

recorded involved two Jewish individuals. Proportions did not significantly diverge between

, household and 'non-household' heads.

Ethnicity was not recorded at all in early records. Rothschild however proposed a

tentative linkage between religious affiliation and ethnicity. If a broad correlation is assumed

between membership of the Church of England and an English ethnic affiliation, and a

similar correlation between Catholicism and Irish ethnic affiliation, the religious profile

seems to suggest that the primary component of the population was English, with a smaller

Irish component. Logically the proportion of household heads who were born in the colony

would be lower than in succeeding decades when they became the dominant sector of society

as the colony aged and transportation lessened. This supports Kass's statement that waves

of immigration including the Chinese, Germans and Americans, occurred in later decades,

most post-dating 1840. The Rocks and Millers Point did not possess the 'cosmopolitan'

religious profile of succeeding years.

From the preceding information it is obvious that distinct demographic differences

existed within the surveyed households.21 In general established nuclear families were co­

resident with boarders or labourers and convicts. This matched a pre-industrial pattern where

place of work and place of residence were undifferentiated. The very fact that demographic

19Unknowns are recorded for 57.4 percent of the entries.

2°Religious affiliation was recorded ill the census and musters with an abbreviated scale for all religious denominations, including fairly minor groups such as Lutherans. Anglicans were not accorded a separate abbreviation but were recorded as 'Protestants'.

2IExcept in terms of religious affiliation.

78

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differences could be ,delineated within households argues against the supposition that a

survey of household heads alone provides a strong indicator of the nature of the entire

household. The linkage between household head and the socioeconomic profile of the entire

household is possibly strong in nuclear family units. However, where adults largely

independent of the family group are co-resident with family units, or where the household

is composed of non-related co-resident adults 'the linkage is weaker. This factor needs to be

taken into consideration within the nineteenth century where taking boarders was a common

way to suppl~ment family income, or where the lack of differentiation between place of work

and place of residence meant that labourers or apprentices often lived within their employers'

households.

79

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Figure 5.31 NUMBER OF PERSONS PER HOUSEHOLD, 1823

._., Variable No. of relevant Total number of Mean Std.dev. Min Max entries persons

#PEOPLE 178 707 3.972 2.420 1.00 11.00

FIGURE 5.32 Ratio of Females and Males in the Colony of New South Wales, 1828*

GENDER NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Males 27611 75.44% Females 8987 24.56%

Total 36598 100.00%

*Data drawn from the 1828 Census

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I­I I

FIGURE 5.33a

GENDER OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS IN 1823

GENDER NUMBER PERCENTAGE

UNKNOWN 1 0.5% FEMALE 37 19.1% MALE 155 79.9%

.- NOT APPLICABLE 1 0.5%

TOTAL 193

Figure 5.33b. Gender of Household Heads, All Survey Years

90.00%

80.00%

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00% • Male

3000%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00% +-'----

Year 1823 Year 1865 Year 1901

I I I I I I I I I I I I I

:: I

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FIGURE 5.34a SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS OF ALL PERSONS IN 1823 DATABASE

STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 1 57 18.4% ProfessionallHigh White Collar 2 5 1.6% ProprietarylLow White Collar 3 22 7.1% SkilledITrade 4 79 25.5%

Service/Semi-skilled 5 33 10.6% Unskilled 6 91 29.4% Unclassifiable 7 23 7.4%

. , No Occupation 8 0 0.0%

TOTAL 310

FIGURE 5.34b SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS, 1823

STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 1 42 21.8% ProfessionalfHigh White Collar 2 5 2.6% ProprietarylLow White Collar 3 22 11.4% Skilled/Trade 4 ' 59 30.6% Service/Semi-skilled 5 19 9.8% Unskilled 6 31 16.1% Unclassifiable 7 15 7.8% No Occupation 8 0 0.0%

TOTAL 193

I I I I I I I I I I I

60,00%

I 50.00%

I 40.00%

I I 30,00%

2000%

I 10.00%

I 0.00%

I I I I

FIGURE 5.34c SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS OF NON-HOUSEHOLD HEADS, 1823

STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unkno"vn 1 16 13.6% ProfessionaliBigh White Collar 2 0 0.0% ProprietarylLow White Collar 3 0 0.0% Skilled/Trade 4 20 16.9% Service/Semi-skilled 5 14 11.9% Unskilled 6 60 50.8% Unclassifiable 7 8 6.8% No Occupation 8 0 0.0%

TOTAL 118

Figure 5.34d, Socioeconomic Status of Household and Non-household Heads, 1823

Household

• Non-Household Heads

Unknown High INbite Low 'Nbite Trade/Skilled Semi Skilled Unskilled Unclassified No occupation Collar Collar

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.34e: Socioeconomic Status of Household and Non-Household Heads Categorised into White Collar and Working Class (Unknowns

not depicted) ..

80%

70%

60%.

50%

40%

300/0

20%

10%

0% +--'------Household Heads Non Household

Heads

Collar

• ,AI ~,~Ir .. ,~ Class

r--------------------------- -

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

i I I I

-,

FIGURE 5.35a Religious Affiliation of All Entries in 1823 Database

RELIGION NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Uknown 178 57.4% Roman Catholic 32 10.3% Church of England 97 31.3% Methodist 0 0.0% Presbyterian 0 0.0% Congregational 0 0.0% Jewish 2 0.6% Lutheran 0 0.0% Other 1 0.3%

TOTAL 310

FIGURE 5.35b . RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS, 1823

RELIGION NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 102 52.8% Roman Catholic 23 11.9% Church of England 67 34.7% Methodist 0 0.0% Presbyterian 0 0.0% Congregational 0 0.0% Jewish 0 0.0% Lutheran 0 0.0% Other 1 0.5%

TOTAL 193

I I FIGURE 5.35c

Religious Affiliation of Non-Household Heads, 1823

I RELIGION NUMBER PERCENTAGE

I Unknown 77 65.3% Roman Catholic 9 7.6%

I Church of England 30 25.4% Methodist 0 0.0% Presbyterian 0 0.0%

I Congregational 0 0.0% Jewish 2 1.7% Lutheran 0 0.0%

I Other 0 0.0%

I TOTAL 118

I I I Figure 5.35d: Religious Affiliation, 1823, (Unknowns Removed)

8000%

I 70.00%

I 60.00%

50.00% Non-Household Heads

I 40.00%

3000'10

I 20.00'10

I 10.00%

O.OO'/.,

I Roman Catholic Church of England Jewish

I I I

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FIG URE 5.36a Settler Status of All Database Entries, 1823

SETTLER STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 2 0.6% Free Settler 40 12.9% Born in Colony 11 3.5% Convict 89 28.7% Ticket of Leave

..,., j ... 10.3%

Free by Servitude 92 29.7% Absolute Pardon 9 2.9% Conditional Pardon 35 11.3% Other 0 0.0%

TOTAL 310

FIGURE 5.36b SETTLER STATUS OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS, 1823

SETTLER STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 1 0.5% Free Settler 25 13.0% Born in Colony 8 4.1% Convict 32 16.6% Ticket of Leave 24 12.4% Free by Servitude 65 33.7% Absolute Pardon 9 4.7% Conditional Pardon 29 15.0% Other 0 0.0%

TOTAL 193

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

50.00010

45.00%

40.00%

35.00%

30.00%

25.00%

20.00%

1500%

10.00%

5.00%

FIGURE 5.36c Settler Status of Non-Household Heads in Database, 1823

SETTLER STATUS NUMBER PERCENTAGE

Unknown 2 1.7% Free Settler 15 12.7% Born in Colony 3 2.5% Convict 57 48.3% Ticket of Leave 8 6.8% Free by Servitude 27 22.9%

Absolute Pardon 0 0.0% Conditional Pardon 6 5.1% Other 0 0.0%

TOTAL 118

Figure 5.36d: Settler Status of Household and Non-Household Heads in 1823.

I Household Heads I I

~ Non H~usehold Heads J

0.00% +.c::==----t-L-

Unknown Free Settler Born in Colony

Convict Ticket of Free by Leave Senntude

Absolute Conditional Pardon Pardon

I I I I I I I I

70.00~.

I 60.00%

50.00%

I 40.00%

I 30.00%

20.00%

I 10.00%

I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.36e: Settler Status grouped in terms of Free .Convicts. and Freed Convicts. 1823

[J Household Heads

"Free" Base "Convict" Base "Ex Convict" Base

I I I I I I I I I I I I 70.00%

I 60.00%

50.00"10

I 40.00%

30.00%

I 20.00%

I 10.00"10

0.00%

I

I I

I I

I

I

Figure 5.37a

PROPORTION OF MARITIME EMPLOYED PERSONS RECORDED IN 1823

EMPLOYMENT NUMBER PERCENTAGE ...

UNKNOWN 88 28.6% MARITIME

EMPLOYED 26 8.4% OTHER 194 63.0%

TOTAL 310

Figure 5.37b: Maritime vs Non-Maritime Employment, 1823

Unknown Maritime Employed

Type of Employment

Other

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5.4 A Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1861

The census of the Colony of New South Wales in 186122 proved the most useful of

the three censuses examined. Analyses were provided that broke down the aggregate statistics

for the entire colony into the smaller scale units, including local government area, parish, and

city, necessary to make census data usable in a study such as this.

By 1861 radical demographic changes had swept through the Rocks and· Millers

Point. A first historical conception to be tested was the question of the proportion of Irish

within the area. The dominant group 'as categorised by place of birth were those actually

born in the Colony at 42.49 percent. The large.st 'ethnic' grouping originating outside of New

South Wales in Gipps Ward was the English born at 22.99 percent. The Irish only comprised

20.26 percent ofthe Gipps Ward popUlation. (See Figure 5.41d). Initially the position ofIrish

born as the third largest 'ethnic' group in the Rocks and Millers Point appeared to dispel the

perception of nineteenth century commentators that the area was primarily Irish, as no ethnic

group represented a majority of the inhabitants.

However, rather than viewing the Gipps Ward statistics in isolation, a comparison

with the New South Wales average provided an interesting result. Figure 5.4lfrepresents the

divergence positive or negative23 of the Gipps Ward profile from the New South Wales

colonial average. The Irish born in Gipps Ward demonstrated the largest divergence, with

a proportion almost 5 percent greater than the colonial average. Scottish born persons were

also resident in Gipps Ward with an incidence almost 1 percent greate~ than the colonial

average. The relative concentration of the Irish within the area suggests that they had a

greater visibility within the community. This would account in part for historical

commentators' remarks about the 'Irish' settlement of the area. Another factor is that the high

proportion of persons born within the colony resident in Gipps Ward may obscure an

accurate analysis of ethnic affiliation. Ethnicity is not exclusively linked to place of birth but

is also connected with parentage and socialisation. A large proportion of the 'Born in Colony'

residents of Gipps Ward may have possessed Irish ancestry.

22 ABS Colonial Microfiche, Fisher Library.

23The x axis can therefore be regarded as the colonial average.

80

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One initially puzzling factor was that Figure 5041 f revealed that Gipps Ward had a

concentration of Chinese residents over 2 percent under the New South Wales average. This

did not match historical statements describing the area, which reputedly possessed a

significant Chinese population. If the proportion of Chinese in Gipps Ward was compared

with the proportion of Chinese in the City of Sydney or the Colony as a whole, the

inconsistency was resolved, (See Figure 5Alg). From this figure it is apparent that Sydney

City possessed a low proportion of Chinese settlement and the majority of Chinese lived

outside the n;etropolitan area. Gipps Ward possessed almost five times the proportion of

Chinese compared with the City of Sydney, (of which it was a subdivision), which amounted

to 61 percent of all Chinese living within the City boundaries. From his analysis of the 1861

census data Kass concludes that the concentration of Chinese in Gipps Ward was

'remarkable',24

A similar approach can be applied to the variables of religious affiliation and

socioeconomic status. The broad religious profile of Gipps Ward in 1861 resembled that of

ethnic affiliation, with no single group dominating. Proportionally the largest denomination

was the Church of England, with 45.44 percent of Gipps Ward residents adherent to this

religion. Roman Catholicism was the second largest denominational grouping, attracting

34.11 percent of the Gipps Ward population, (see Figure 5.42b). Compared with the 1823-28

figures the absolute dominance of the Church of England in the area was significantly

diminished.

Comparing the Gipps Ward profile to the New South Wales average showed that the

proportion of Roman Catholics in Gipps Ward was almost 6 percent higher than the c'olonial . . .

average, (see Figure 5A2c). There is a degree .of conflict between the actuality of the

demographic profile of Gipps Ward in the mid-nineteenth century, and historical perceptions

which suggested a possible domination of the area by Irish or Catholic communities. Gipps

Ward was not dominated by these groups, yet possessed a greater proportion of Irish born

arid Catholics than the colonial average. The greater visibility of the Irish or Catholic groups

in the Rocks and Millers Point area, and the association of Irish Catholicism with poverty

makes understandable the potentially misleading historical comments.

24Kass, T., A Soda-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department ofHollSing, Sydney, May 1987, p.13.

81

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The occupational data recorded in the 1861 census was categorised through a system

that did not completely separate industry from status. While it therefore was not completely

comparable with Armstrong's socioeconomic scaling system as used in this study, (see

Appendix One), Arm~trong's categories could be applied with a certain degree of accuracy.

Gipps Ward was dominated by the 'working classes' (See Figure 5.43b), which combine

Armstrong's groups; 'Skilled/Trade 4', 'Service/Semi-Skilled 5', and 'Unskilled 6'. These three

groups accounted for approximately 53.4 percent of the Gipps Ward population25• The actual

distribution ot residents amongst the occupational groups is obscured by the large proportion,

(42.78 percent), of 'Unclassified' residents, (see Figure 5.43c). This group combined

unclassified occupations, students, children, and women with no occupational description.

If this segment of the population is removed, leaving only the persons with definite

employment, the figure for the three combined 'working class' groups overwhelmingly

increases to 94.46 percent.

The Rocks and Millers Point were considered to have strong maritime roots with their

close proximity to wharfage and shipbuilding facilities. If the proportion of persons directly

employed in maritime trades is calculated for Gipps Ward, Sydney City, and New South

Wales as a whole, (See Figure 5.44b), of these groupings, Gipps Ward had the highi!:st

proportion of mariners. The working class dominance of the Rocks and Millers Point, and

the high level of maritime employment are both compatible with historical perceptions of the

area. However, mid-nineteenth century commentators also remarked upon the demographic

charactetistics of different streets. Historic censuses did not aggregate data into runts smaller

than the individual ward, but the household head information within the MINARK. database . ' ,

could be analysed at the scale of the individual ~treet.

A number streets were isolated as potentially of interest, having attracted historical

comment. The first pair to be contrasted were Argyle Place and Clyde Street. Argyle Place

was an area associated in the historical record with a more elite residential settlement in the

1840s, with similar households possibly occupying the area in the 1860s. Clyde Street was

a thoroughfare associated with a high working class, Scottish, and possibly Presbyterian

population.

25This figure increases overwhelmingly to 94.46 percent if the unclassified occupational data is removed.

82

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Contrasting the socioeconomic status for both streets revealed considerable difference,

(see Figure 5 .45b), On Argyle Street there was a low proportion, (l 0.5 percent), of household

heads of 'unknown' socioeconomic status. Furthermore there was a significant number of

white collar workers and sIGlled tradespeople, with a corresponding under-representation of

unskilled groups, In contrast, on Clyde Street there was a high level of household heads with

'unknown' socioeconomic status, (41.4 percent), no high white collar workers, and over 50

percent of households recording a skilled/trade socioeconomic status.

This pattern becomes more apparent when the socioeconomic groups are conflated . into three groups 'Ut:Um0wn', 'White Collar', which combines the 'High White Collar' and

'Low White Collar' groups and 'Working Class' which combines 'Skilled, Trade', 'Semi­

Skilled' and 'Unskilled' groupings. (see Figure 5.45c). Column '2+3' which represents white

collar households demonstrated that almost 40 percent of households on Argyle Street were

white collar, compared to under 10 percent on Clyde Street. This pattern reverses when

households of 'Unknown' socioeconomic status are examined. Clyde Street recorded over 40

percent of households as of unknown socioeconomic status and Argyle Street just over 10

percent as 'unknown'. Both streets recorded an almost identical ratio of working class

households, (column 4+5+6) with a proportion of almost 50 percent.

This supports a number of historical points made in Chapter Three. Argyle Street can

be shown to have possessed statistically a higher proportion of white collar households to

Clyde Street, supporting historical comments suggesting that Argyle Street was more

attractive to the elite than Clyde Street. The high level of unknowns on Clyde Street,

considered working class in -historical records, supports Kass's claim that semi-skilled and , . . .

unskilled working class household heads were le$s likely to have possessed a well defined

occupational description, and were therefore were more likely to be recorded as 'unknown'

in historical records. Both Argyle Place and Clyde Streets however recorded an almost

identical 'working class' proportion of household heads at approximately 50 percent. Argyle

Place despite attracting a proportion of wealthier, white collar households possessed a general

mix of socioeconomic groups. Indicators of the relative status of a street therefore seems

most easily determined by the residential settlement choice of the elite rather than the

relative proportion of working' class families.

Sample size was too small to determine whether Clyde Street possessed a significant

number of Scottish households as suggested by the historical record. However 12.9 percent

83

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of the Presbyterian household heads26 isolated in the Scots Church parish records were

resident on Clyde Street. If, as Rothschild suggests, a strong correlation exists between

religious affiliation ana ethnicity, the historical perception that Clyde Street was a Scottish

area can in part be supported.

The pattern revealed for Argyle Place and Clyde Street can be replicated for a

number of areas in the Rocks and Millers Point. For example Victoria Terrace, an area in

Millers Point popular with the elite, and Wentworth Street, a thoroughfare equated with

'working-class' households, displayed an almost identical pattern to Argyle Place and Clyde . Street. In most such cases the proportion of working class households remained stable, with

the mixture of white collar and unknowns altering with the presumed socioeconomic status

of the street. The shift manifested in a low proportion of white collar households and a high

proportion of households of an 'unknown' socioeconomic status on streets considered as poor,

and as a higher proportion of white collar households and a low proportion of households

of an 'unknown' socioeconomic status on streets considered wealthier. Almost no streets

studied demonstrated a clear dominance of any single demographic type.

One pair of streets did display a distinctive dominance of socioeconomic groups.

Street numbers from'; 1-44 on north Cumberland Street were isolated as a subset of

households occupying high ground and possibly associated with elite residences. These were

compared with Windmill Street, an area once again considered working class and associated

with a neighbourhood focused about the Whalers' Arms Pub, (see Figure 5.36b).

On North Cumberland Street 61.1 percent of households were associated with white

collar households; only 5.6 percent could be considered working class. The high number of

unknowns at 33.3 percent could be considered ind~cative of the number offemale household

heads in this street who did not record an occupation in commercial directories, (see

Appendix Id). In comparison Windmill Street only recorded 5 percent of households as

white collar and a massive 87.5 percent of households as working class with the majority of

these being skilled tradespeople. These two streets were the most consistent with American

research models in having a 'homogenous' residential pattern for the socioeconomic variable.

A statistical breakdown of the demographic data available concerning the Rocks and

Millers Point supports the historical profile that suggests the area was a distinct social space.

26The survey only isolated 31 Presbyterian household heads.

84

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In the years 1861 to 1865 the Rocks and Miller& Point possessed a population that was more

visibly Irish and Catholic than the colony as a whole. Gipps Ward also possessed one of the

highest proportion of Chinese and Mariners of any geographic area in Sydney. Demographic

differentiations can also be revealed at the scale of the single street, with most of the

perceptions of historical commentators concerning single streets being supported by the

demographic data.

Despite the areas distinct profile, the area remained quite heterogenous in these years

and was not dominated by any single grouping. Statistical breakdowns can only provide a , '

broad demographic analysis of demographic profile of the Rocks and Millers Point. For the

I moment it seems that the neighbourhood archaeology hypothesis of residential homogeneity

cannot be proven by the statistics. Certain trends may be detected in certain streets but there

1 1 1

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always seems to be a profound mixing of socioeconomic groups. The question of residential

homogeneity is one that is best answered through the spatial display of the household data

with Mapinfo as was undertaken in Chapter Six.

'I 85

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Place ofBbth

N.S.W Other Australasia England

'Wales Ireland Scotland British,Dominions China Germany Other Unspecified

Total

Place of Birth

N.S.W Other Australasia England Wales Ireland Scotland British Dominions China Germany Other Unspecified

Total

Figure 5.41a

Nationality, in Colony of NSW, 1861

Persons Male Female Percentage of Total 1861

160298 80106 80192 45.69 4694 2442 2252 1.30

84152 53163 30989 23.98 1378 912 466 0.41

54829 27611 27218 15.61 18222 11006 7216 5.19 3469 2258 1211 1.00

12988 12986 2 3.70 5467 3590 1877 1.55 4499 3888 611 1.27 864 526 338 0.25

350860 99.95

Figure 5.41 b

Nationality, by various region, 1861

Gipps Ward Parish of St. Phillip City Census District

Persons % of Total Persons %ofTotal Persons %ofTotal

3068 42.49% 4550 42.06% 23726 42.05% 127 1.76% 191 1.77% 1059 1.88%

1660 22.99% 2570 23.76% 14844 26.31% 25 0.35% 38 0.35% 196 0.35%

1463 20.26% 2126 19.65% 11249 19.94% 435 6.02% 682 6.30% 3106 5.51%

94 1.30% 121 1.12% 662 1.17% 100 1.39% 123 1.14% 163 0.29% 59 0.82% 126 1.16% 517 0.92%

176 2.44% 279 2.58% 827 1.47% 10 0.14% 1 0.11% 70 0.12%

7220 99.96% 10852 100.00% 56394 100.00%

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I

50

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

45.00%

40.00%

35.00%

30.00%

25.00%

20.00%

15.00%

10.00%

5.00%

0.00%

%

NSW

Figure 5.41e Breakdown of NationaJity, (in percent) Colony of New South Wales, 1861

Place of Birth

Figure 5.41d Persons Categorised by Place of Birth, Gipps Ward, 1861

Ireland S(x'itl&nd BN11!dt Domini"""

Place of Birth

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

5.00%

4.00%

3.00%

2.00"10

1.00%

0.00%

-1.00%

-2.00"10

-3.00%

Ireland

FigureS.41 f 1861 ,Divergence of Gipps Ward from N.S.W. Colonial Average;Place of Birth

Scotland British Dominions

Unspecified

Place of Birth

Figure S.41g. Proportion of Chinese Persons, by Region, 1861

l=Gipps Ward, 2=St Phillips Parish, 3=Sydney City, 4=NS,",' Average

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.42a

Religion by region, 1861

Gipps Ward St. Phillips Parish City Census District NSW

Persons % Persons % Persons % %

CofE 3281 45.44% 4958 45.69% 23853 42.30% 45.70% Pres 740 10.25% 1142 10.52% 5457 9.68% 9.90% Cong 112 1.55% 158 1.46% 1568 2.78% 1.10% Meth 231 3.20% 377 3.47% 3031 5.37% 6.70% Baptis.ts Lutherans Other Prot 213 2.95% 338 3.11% 3121 5.53% 2.80% RC 2463 34.11% 3557 32.78% 17773 31.52% 28.80% OtherChristians Hebrew 43 0.60% 135 1.24% 10lO 1.79% 0.50% Islam-Pagan 87 1.20% 110 1.01% 125 0.22% 3.60% NonChristians

Other 50 0.69% 77 0.71% 456 0.81% 1.00%

Figure 5.42bPersons categorised by Religion, Gipps Ward., 1861

50.00%

45.00%

40.00%

35.00%

30.00%

25.00%

20.00%

15.00%

5.00010

0.00% CofE

NB: C ofE Curch of England Pres= Presbyterian

Cong- Congregational Meth- Methodist

Other Prot= Other Prou..'Stant RC= Poman Catholic

Cong Meth Other Pro« RC

Denomination

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.42c. Divergence of Gipps Ward from NSW Colonial Average; Religion.

6.00%

5.00%

4.00%

3.00%

2.00%

1.00%

0.00%

-1.00010 CofE

-2.00%

-3.00%

-4.00%

NB: C ofE Curch of England Pres= Presbyterian

Cong= Congregational Meth= Methodist

Pres

Other Prot= Other Protestant RC= Pornan Catholic

Cong Other Prot

Denomination

RC Hebrew Other

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.43a

Occupations by area, 1861

City Census District Gipps Ward St. Phi/lips Parish NS.W.

Persons % Persons % Persons % Persons %

HWC2 350 0.62% 29 0.27% 14 0.19% 1293 0.37% LWC3 1530 2.89% 309 2.85% 212 2.94% 8876 2.53% Trade~l 11389 2l.51% 2171 20.01% 1419 19.65% 72247 20.59% Semi Skilled 5 15463 29.20% 3091 28.48% 2081 28.82% 117610 33.52% Unskilled 6 1989 3.76% 536 4.94% 358 4.96% l3047 3.72% Unclassified 7 24947 47.12% 4444 40.95% 3089 42.78% 135774 38.70% Unemployed ~ 461 0.87% 2013 0.57%

Total 56129 10580 7173 350860

Figure 5.43b: Socioeconomic Status of all Persons, Colony of New South Wales, 1861

4000% i

35.00%

30.00010

2500%

2000%

15.00%

1000%

5.00%

0.00% +-'-----+-HWC2 LWC3

NB: HWC2= High White Collar 2 L WC3= Low White Collar 3 Trade 4= SkilledITrade 4

Trade 4 Semi Skilled 5

Unskilled 6 Unclassified Unemployed 7 8

Socioeconomic Status

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure5.43c: Socioeconomic Status of all persons, Gipps Ward, 1861

45.00%

40.00%

3500%

3000%

2500%

2000~

15.00%

10.00% ~

5.00%

0.00% -t------+-

HWC2 LWC3

NB: HWC2= High White Collar 2 L WC3= Low White Collar 3 Trade 4= Skilledffrade 4

Trade 4 Semi Skilled 5

Ullllkilled6

Socioeconomic Status

Unclassified 7

Unemployed 8

Figure 5.43d: 1861,Divergence by of Gipps Ward from NSW Colonial Average by Occupational Grouping

5.00% 4.00% 3.00% I

2.00% . 1.00% 1

0.00% +-1 ____ .--,~-------+---1.00010 HWC 2 LWC3 -2.00% . -3.00% -4.00010 -5.00%

Unskilled 6

Socioeconomic Status

Unclassified 7

1 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 1

I-I I

1 1 1 1 1

,I

Mariners

%

6

5

4

3

2

o

.-

Figure 5.44a

Proportion of Mariners, by Region

Gipps Ward Sydney Census District St Phillips Parish N.S.W.

Persons % Persons % Persons % Persons

382 5.29 523 4.82 889 1.58 3141

Figure 5.44b. Proportion of Persons Directly Employed as Mariners, 1861

1 2 3 4

l=Gipps Ward, 2=St. Phillips Parish, 3=Sydney City, 4=NSW Average

%

0.9

I I I Figure 5.45a

Comparison of the Socioeconomic Status of Household Heads, Argyle Place and I Clyde Streets, 1865

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Argyle Place Clyde Street

Number % Number %

-Unknown 2 10.5 12 41.4 High White Collar 2 2 10.5 0 0 Low White Collar 3 5 26.3 2 6.9 Skilled/Trade 4 9 47.4 15 51.7 Semi-Skilled 5 0 0 0 0 Unskilled 6 1 5.3 0 0 Unclassifiable 7 0 0 0 0 Unemployed 8 0 0 0 0

Total: 19 29

Figure 5.45b:Comparison of the Socioeconomic Status of Clyde Street and Argyle Place, 1865

60

50

40

% 30

20

10

0 Unknown HWC2

NB: HWC2= High White Collar 2 L WC3= Low White Collar 3 Trade 4= SkilIedfTrade 4

• Argyle Place

LWC3 Skilledlfrade4 Semi-SkiIled5 UnskiIled6 Unclassifiable7 Unemployed8

Socioeconomic Status

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

60

50

40

% 30

20

10

o

_Figure 5.45c Socioeconomic Status of Household Heads on Argyle Place and Clyde Street, 1865.

Unknown 2+3 4+5+6

Socio«onomic Status

NB: "2+3"= "High White Collar" and "Low White Collar" "4+5+6"= "SkilledITrade", "Semi-Skilled", and "Unskilled"

• ArgyiePiace

Clyde Street

I I I I I I I I I I I

80.00% ~

I 7000%

I 60.00%

I 50.00%

40.00%

I 30.00%

I 20.00%

I 10.00%

0.00%

I I I

Figure 5.46a: Comparison of Status, North Cumberland and Windmill Streets, 1865

Socioeconomic Status

Unknown

HigbWhite Collar

Low White Collar

North Cumberland

Street

33.30%

Windmill Street

7.50%

5%

10%

Figure 5.46b: Comparison of Status, North Cumberland and Windmill Streets, 1865

North Cumberland Street

Unknown High While Low White Skilled Trade Semi-Skilled Unskilled Unclassified No OccupatIOn Collar Collar

I I

'·1 .'1 I

·1 I I ,I

·1 '1 :1 I I I

:1 '1 '1 :1 I

5.5 A Profile of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1901.

The 1901 census household returns were retained, but remain inaccessible through

an Act of the Parliament of New South Wales. The statistical breakdown of the raw data is

available, but was carried out in a manner inconsistent with the 1861 census. Statistics were

only calculated for the State at large, and for the City of Sydney. The only data available at

the scale of Gipps Ward involves structures and habitations rather than purely demographic

infonnation.

Population density in the strict sense cannot be provided. However the number of

persons per residential dwelling could be calculated. Gipps Ward possessed a density per

structure of 6.4 persons, (see Figure 5.51c). This figure was above that of both Sydney City

and the suburbs, but as Kelly demonstrated certain wards of Sydney possessed densities

higher that of Gipps Ward. The higher density of occupation within Gipps Ward suggests

occupation of the area by lower status socioeconomic groups.

The structural materials utilised in construction revealed no linkage between

socioeconomic status and the material of which dwellings were constructed, (see Figure .;

5.51e). The amount of brick and stone utilised in dwelling construction decreased with

distance from the core area of Sydney City. In Gipps Ward 27.83 percent of structures were

constructed of stone, a proportion over double that of Sydney City, and an indicator of the

age of the buil~ fabric of the area. Materials other than brick or stone utilised in building

construction increased, away from the city. Only 2.52 percent of structures in Gipps Ward , .' .

were built of material other than. brick or stone. !his proportion increased to 61.4 percent

of structures in New South Wales as a whole.

Dwellings could be categorised into size ranges, determined by number of rooms per

structure. ,Another suburb, in this case Woollahra was chosen to contrast with Gipps Ward.

W oollahra was chosen on the grounds that it was remote from the oldest core region of

Sydney, and potentially possessed a different residential and demographic pattern to Gipps

Ward. Categorising residential structures into number of rooms per dwelling revealed a

marked difference between Gipps Ward and Woollahra. Gipps Ward displayed a higher

proportion of 'one', 'two', and 'three to four' room dwellings than Woollahra, and a

correspondingly lower proportion of multi-roomed structures from five to twenty rooms, (see

86

I I I

.'1 I I I I I ,I

I I I I I

:1 'I "I :1

11

Figure 5.51h). Gipps Ward therefore possessed a high density of persons per structure and

those structures tended to be of a smaller size in terms of number of rooms. This once more

suggests an occupation of the area by households of a lower socioeconomic status.

The indicator of number of persons per room rather than number of persons per

structure revealed additional differences between Gipps Ward and Woollahra, (See Figure

5.51j) The number of persons per room was uniformly higher in Gipps Ward than Woollahra

even disregarding the size of dwellings. Density per room decayed almost uniformly as

dwelling size increased. However, in Woollahra the ratio dropped under one person per room . at the moderate dwelling size of five to six rooms. In Gipps Ward the density only dropped

under one person per room one when dwelling size reached eleven to fifteen rooms. Intensity

of occupation was therefore far greater in Gipps Ward, where large residences were

intensively occupied. The subdivision of the large mansions in Gipps Ward that occurred

with the abandonment of the area by the urban elite, (the subdivision of Spencer Lodge in

Millers Point has already been noted), could account for this intensive occupation of larger

residences.

Whilst demography cannot be tested in Gipps Ward utilising census data, the

household head survey could be utilised to provide the necessary statistics and easily

compared with the 1865 survey. A comparison of socioeconomic status demonstrates the

change that had occurred in the area since the 1860's, (see Figure 5.52c). A deskilling of the

popUlation had eventuated with the number of white collar households in 1901 halved from

1865 levels. Furthennore the largest socioeconomic grouping, that of skilled tradespeople

dropped from 74.53 to 58.51 percent. There was a corresponding increase in semi-skilled and

unskilled occupations amongst household heads. ,By 1901 the area was therefore far more

visibly a 'working class' district than it had been in the 1860s, with the elite moving to areas

of greater amenity. This process is logical if placed within the context of the slummification

of the Rocks and Millers Point that occurred from the 1840s until the land resumptions in

1901. Despite the deskilling of the population employment in maritime based industry

remained stable. (See Figure 5.53b).,

Ch,anges in land use through time can also be demonstrated, (see Figure 5.54b). It has

been proposed that a primary indicator of the shift from a pre-industrial to industrial society

involves a decline in the association of place of work with place of residence, (a'mixed'land

use), and the rise of purely commercial land use. Land use in the Rocks and Millers Point

87

I I

.. I :1

I 'I 'I I I I I 1 ,I ,',I "

:'1 ,:: I ,

:1 "

'j

.: I

,: I

'I

followed this pattern, (see Figure 5.54b). In 1901 the amount of residential land increased

slightly. However the most obvious change occurred in commercial and 'mixed' land usage.

The amount of land utilised by persons resident at their place of work markedly declined,

and there was a corresponding increase in the amount of purely commercial land use in the

survey area. The decline in the number of households registering as skilled or trade in 1901

compared with 1865 is in some small way linked with the disappearance of small businesses

that the decline in mixed land use suggests.

Other changes in the demographic structure of the Rocks and Millers Point could be . detected, but these were fairly minor. The most notable change was the increase of Roman

Catholics resident in the area, (See Figure 5.55b). If there is a broad link, as Fitzgerald and

Aplin suggest between the proportion of Catholics in an area and the socioeconomic status

of that area, an increase in the Catholic population would indicate a decrease in the

socioeconomic profile of the Rocks and Miller Point. As was shown above, a deskilling of

the population had occurred between 1865 and 1901, and this was matched with a

corresponding increase of the proportion of Catholics in the area in 1901.

In 1901 the Rocks and Millers Point had therefore demonstrably altered from the

years 1861-1865. The population had desIGlled, the elite relocated, and the number of

Catholics increased. In 1901 the Rocks and Millers Point was far more visible an area

associable with a working class Catholic population than in 1865. The evidence provided by

the census shows a high population density, both by structure and by room, compared with

other areas within Sydney. All of these indicators support the historical picture of the area

concerning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; that of a working class slum.

88

- - - - - -

~Ward 5486 4102

New South Wales

- - - - - - -

Figure 5.51a. Population and Structural Material, by Region, 1901

ToCaI PopWtin

9588

Total Hab~

15(f)

268711

420

14581 10793

IQ51 2

1525

*Adobe Concrete Pise

I

5200

- - -

Wood

13

140482

)

L&P/ W&nM'B*

1

4952

* *Lathe and Plaster Wattle and Daub Mud/Daub

CICIf···

o

8874

- -

21

3886

***Canvas Calico Tents

- -

~-----------------------------------------------------------

I I I I I I I I I I I I

7

I 6.5

6 5.5

I 5 4.5

Number 4

I of 3.5

Persons 3

2.5

I 2 1.5

I 0.5

0

I I I

Figure 5.51b, Number of Persons per Structure, by Region, 1901.

Region

Gipps Ward

Number of Persons Per Structure

6.35387674

Figure 5.51c: Number of Persons Per Structure, by various region, 1901

Gipps Ward Sydney City Suburbs City and Suburbs

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.51d: Proportion of Dwellings in City and Suburban Areas, Categorised by Construction Material in

1901.

Region

Gipps Ward

%ofStone Dwellings

27.83%

%ofBrick Dwellings

69.65%

Figure 5.51e: Structural materials, by Region, 1901

90.00%

80.00%

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

4000%

30.00%

20.00"10

10.00%

0.00%

Gipps Ward

Sydney City

Suburbs City and Suburbs

%Otber Materials

2.52%

Total

100.00%

'Yoof Stone DweUings

• o/oOf Brick Dwellings

NewSouth Wales

• %Other Materials

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.51 f Frequency of Dwellings in Various City and Suburban Regions, Categorised by Number of

Rooms, 1901.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.51g: Proportion of Dwelling Sizes, Categorised by Number of Rooms, in various City and Suburban

Regions, 1901.

I I I I I I I 45.00%

I 40.00%

I 35.000/0

30.00%

I 25.00%

I 20.00%

15.00%

I 10.00%

I 5.00%

I 0.000/0

I I I I I

, I

-, Figure 5.51h: Proportion of Dwelling Sizes, Categorised by Number of

Rooms, in Gipps Ward and Woollahra, 1901

I

I 0 Gipp. W"d

• Woollahra

One Two 3&4 5&6 7tolO lltoI5 16to20 Over20

Number of Rooms

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.51i: Number of Persons per Room, Categorised by Dwelling Size, in Gipps Ward and Woollahra,

1901

2

1.8

1.6

lA

1.2

Number 1 of

Persons 0.8

0.6

OA

0.2

o

N umber of Rooms

Persons Per Room

Gipps Ward Woollabra

Figure 5.51j: Number of Persons per Room, Categorised by Dwelling Size, (determined by number of rooms in the Structure),Gipps Ward

and Woollahra, 1901.

One Two 3&4 5&6 7tol0

Number of Rooms in Dwelling

Ilto 15

i CJipps Ward

• Woollahra

16to20

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.52a Comparison of Socioeconomic Status, 1865 and 1901

Socioeconomic Status

Year 1865 Year 1865 Year 1901

Number Percentage Number

Year 1901

Percentage

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 5.52b: Comparison of Socioeconomic Status, 1865 and 1901, (Unknowns Removed from Percentages)

80.00%

7000%

6000%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00%

Figure 5.52c: Comparison of Socioeconomic Status, 1865 and 1901, Unknowns Removed

• Year 1901

High White Low White Skilled! Semi- Skilled Unskilled Unclassed No Collar Collar Trade Occupation

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

80.00%

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

4000010

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

Figure 5.53a: Comparison of the Proportion of Mariners within the Survey area, 1865 and 1901

Year 1865 Year 1865 Year 1901 Year 1901

Industry Number Percentage Number Percentage

Figure 5.53b: Proportion of Mariners, 1865 and 1901, Unknowns Disregarded

• Other

0.00% +--'------

Year 1865 Year 1901

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

Figure5.54a: Comparison of General Land use Categories, 1865 and 1901.

Year 1865 Year 1865 Year 1901 Year 1901

General Land Number Percentage Number Percentage Use

Figure 5.54b: Comparison of General Land Use Category, Unknowns Disregarded.

• Year 1901

0.00% +-'---

Residential Mixed Cortlnlercial Civic Religious Vacant Allotments

I I I I I I I I I I I 50.00%

45.00%

I 40.00%

35.00%

I 30.00%

25.00010

I 20.00%

15.00%

10.00%

I 5.00%

0.00%

I

I I I I I

Table 5.55a: Comparison of Religious Denomination, 1865 and 1901

Year 1865 Year 1865 Year 1901 Year 1901

Religious Denomination

Number Percentage Number Percentage

Figure 5.55b: Comparison of Religious Affiliation, 1865 and 1901, Unknowns Disregarded

Year 1865

• Year 1901

Church of Roman Presbyt- Methodist Congregati Jewish Other England Catholic enan on- alist

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

-,

80,00%

70,00%

6().OO%

50J)0%

40,00%

30J)0"/O

20J)O"Al

\0,00%

0,00%

Figure 5,56a: Gender Ratio of Land Owners Within Survey Area, 1901.

Figure 5.56b: Gender Ratio of Land Owners in Survey Area, 1901, (Unknowns Disregarded)

Male Female Not Applicable

I 1 I · ... 1 :1

····1

.'1 ~I

1 ·1 ·1 ·1 '·1 .-:1 '1

.. :1 ·~.I

···.1

:;1 "1 ..

5.6 Conclusions.

Form these various profiles through time, a number of statements concerning the

Rocks and Millers Point may be made. Aplin's grouped local government areas can be

broken down, back to the scale of the Ward revealing that the Rocks and Millers Point did

indeed differ demographically through time to the rest of Sydney. These differences can be

discerned in terms of ethnicity, socio-economic status and religion. However, it is simplistic

to imply that this difference delineated that the area taken as a whole operated as a single

social unit.

Whilst manifesting a distinct demographic profile, the Rocks and Millers Point can

by no means be considered homogenous. This is supported by the fact that demographic

differences in the population can be detected even at the scale of the single street. These

differences seem not to be determined strictly in terms of ethnicity or religious affiliation,27

but depend more upon the socioeconomic status of the involved households.

A key indicator seems to be the residential choice of where the top two

socioeconomic groups as defined deci~:ed to reside, (as the comparison between Clyde Street

and Argyle Place demonstrated for 1865)."This factor matches predictions that the urbari elite

possess a greater ability to exercise their economic power in residential land choice than the

poorer segments of the community.

Even in terms of socioeconomic status, the areas in the Rocks and Millers Point

settled by the elite do not represent areas of nominal homogeneity. In general most streets

surveyed demonstrate a demographic 'background' of a large number, (usually approximately

50 percent), of 'Skilled-Trade 4', working class households. This result may be an effect of

the Armstrong socioeconomic classification used, which usually provides, through its

adaptation to nineteenth century sources, a larger data set for 'Skilled-Trade 4' than is

warranted. A reworking of this socioeconomic group, perhaps in terms of industry groupings

could well provide a better understanding of socioeconomic patterns in the area. Continuing

work with parish records could also provide a better basis for revealing religious and ethnic

patterns, and correcting misassigned entries within the database., '. '" . .. .

With the data currently available spatial patterning does manifest. Demographic

27 Although this may be an effect of the smaller ethnic and religious sample.

89

I I I I I I -I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

patterns as can be shown to have existed do not display a strict territoriality and patterns

overlap considerably. However the ideal as proposed in neighbourhood models, that of

neighbourhood homogeneity is absent. The reality lies between these two poles. If taken at

a scale above that of the household, the Rocks and Millers Point was an area of complex

social interactions some ostensibly 'neighbourhood' oriented.

-,

90

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Chapter 6: Spatial Analysis

6.1 Spatial Analysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1823-28

The 1823 Harper's map of Sydney technically records a great deal of historical

information, including allotment boundaries, structures and property owners. However, the age

of the map generally diminished its usefulness in this study. Access was only permitted to

degraded copies of the map in which details of the Rocks and Millers Point had been lost,

(see Appendix 2b). Harper produced a map index recording property ownership, but this failed

to include the Rocks and Millers Point area. With the absence of street numbering it proved

problematic to link households recorded in the census, muster and District Constables' -,

Notebooks to actual allotments or structures. These historical records only provided simple

street designations. The position of households in relation to each other could be determined

as District Constables collected their data through walking along the streets in their collection

area and interviewing residents. This process would not have been entirely random.

The spatial locations accorded to the household entries are therefore somewhat

arbitrary. The convention used to provide a spatial10cation for households followed the Sands

Directory procedure, with households distributed east to west, north to south sequentially

along a given street. The digitised copy of Harper's Map, (Appendix 2c), recorded the street

and block pattern for the area, with households represented with a small diamond symbol. The

1823 database recorded both household heads and persons of an indeterminate position within

established households. Only the 192 household heads were mapped. The raw data for all of

the household entries is reproduced in Appendix Id. The household survey included the

streets bounded by Harrington Street in the east, Princes Street in the west and Charlotte Place

to the -south. These were the -streets recorded in the area within the -surviving District

Constables' Notebooks for the years 1822-23.

It was considered that the early nineteenth century was the most likely period in which

urban neighbourhoods could be observed. This was because it was the earliest period in which

good historical documentation was available. Early nineteenth century Sydney was also a pre­

industrial city. Later in the century, increased population mobility due in part to the rise of

public transport initiated the expansion of the suburbs and the abandonment of the city core

area by the elite. Increased mobility also delineated that there was less necessity to be within

walking distance of work.

91

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Despite the equivocal quality ofthe spatial data, spatial clustering of households could

be discerned in the 1820s. In 1823 the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church

were virtually the only two religious denominations with adherents within the area, 1 (see

Figure 6.11). Households adherent to the Church of England were proportionally more

frequent in proximity to St. Phillips Church, (then in the centre of Church Hill, bounded by

Charlotte Place and Church Street). Catholic households were interspersed with Church of

England households between Essex Street and Argyle Place. There was no Catholic place of

worship in the area at this time.

In form, this 'clustering' determined through religious affiliation does not match

Rothschild's results for New York. For the year 1703 Rothschild could map entire streets with

a homogenous ethnic-religious2 settlement pattern with the English and Dutch settling in

separate areas. Churches tended to be the 'magnet' for these ethnic-religious clusters, although

other economic considerations, such as the necessity to be near the waterfront could be causal

in the formation of a residential cluster.3 By 1789 she demonstrated that these Dutch or

English 'neighbourhoods' had almost completely dispersed. Rothschild proposed that this

decline in many of the traditional ethnically focused neighbourhoods was due to a decline in

the importance of ethnicity as a socially organising principle. Economic identity grew in

importance as a socially organising principle in the late eighteenth century supplanting

ethnicity as a determinant in residential land choice.4 This is of particular importance to

neighbourhood research within an Australian context. If ethnic and religious clustering of

households was declining in importance within eighteenth century New York, ethnicity and

religion as a widespread socially organising principle may not be of particular importance in

early nineteenth century Sydney.

The religious 'cluster' proximate to St. Phillipts Church in the Rocks was not

ITwo Jewish individuals were isolated in the demographic survey.

2Rothschlld detennined the ethnicity of households through their religious affiliation.

3Rothschlld, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods: The 18th Century, Academic Press Incorporated, London, 1990, p.99. Some clusters simply existed as ethnic foci with no particular organising principle, Rothschlld, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods ... , Academic Press Incorporated, London, 1990. p.l03

4Rothschlld, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods ... , Academic Press Incorporated, London, 1990, p.99.

92

I I I I I I ~I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I

commensurable with Eighteenth century New York ethnic-religious 'neighbourhoods'.

Rothschild could delineate areas that were demographically homogenous, (within thee limits

of her small sample size). Church of England households in the Rocks in 1822-23, whilst

displaying some tendency to settle near the church, were interspersed with households of

differing demographic profiles. No prediction could therefore be made with any certainty of .

the type of household residing in that particular area.

An important demographic consideration for this period was the impact of convict

transportation upon the social structure. The distribution of totally free households; households

whose heads were either 'free settlers' or 'born in the colony' was mapped, (see Figure 6.12a).

Did free,settlers prefer to reside in proximity to one another? It is a fair assumption that 'free'

householders would have perceived themselves as socially distinct from the majority convict

population. The evidence from Chapter five showed that free settlers often had convicts

resident within their households, as a source of labour. This suggested that 'free' households

may not have expressed their social difference through a distinctive residential land choice,

but would have been interspersed amongst households of other demographic profiles.

The most obvious element of Figure 6.12a was the small number of 'free' households

in the area, and their wide distribution throughout the streets surveyed. Free Settlers were

therefore not expressing their social differentiation from the convict population through a

separate residential land choice. There was however a small cluster of Free Settler households

which matched the pattern of Church of England households in clustering near Church Hill.

The small number of 'free' households in the area meant that vast majority of the population

was therefore convict or ex-convict, (see Figure 6.12b).

The distribution of convict or ex-convict households reveals another interesting small­

scale pattern. The northern portion of Cumberland Street was dominated by convict

households, whilst further to the south the block frontages facing Gloucester, Cambridge and

Harrington Street were dominated by 'Free by Servitude' households. The few households on

northern Princes Street were also 'Free by Servitude. The southern area between Charlotte and

Essex Street, which manifested a clustering of Church of England Households was mixed in

terms of Convict/Settler Status, with a general mingling of convict, ex-convict and free

households, (compare Figures 6.12a and 6.12b).

Very few high white collar families resided within the survey area in 1822-23 Three

of the five isolated high white collar households settled near Charlotte Place and Church Hill,

93

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

(see Figure 6. 13a). A cluster of White Collar households resided in this area. The region near

Church Hill, bounded by Charlotte Place, Essex Street, Princes Street and Harrington Street

was associable with a population that was observably ':free' Church of England and white

collar, although not exclusively so. A significant number of households of differing

demographic profile also lived within the area. The distribution of working class households

revealed that a large number of working class households, ('skilled/trade', 'semi-skilled', and

'unskilled' were interspersed with the 'Church of England', 'white collar', :free 'households' ,

(see Figure 6.13b).

Working Class households were distributed throughout all of the streets. A distinctive

cluster·-of unskilled households was associable with an area on north Cumberland and

Gloucester Streets, south of Argyle Street. This distribution matched the location of the

convict households, (compare Figures 6.12b and 6.13b). The distribution of household heads

employed directly in maritime industry did not reveal any significant patterns, and maritime

workers were not found to cluster near waterfront areas. However, the survey streets, drawn

from the District Constables' notebooks did not include those closest to the waterfront. No

conclusive results regarding maritime employment may thus be proposed.

The hope that the Rocks and Millers Point in the early nineteenth century would

exhibit strong settlement patterning was only true to a certain extent, with a proportion of

residential clustering associated with the population in this period. Neighbourhood

archaeology proposes that the population in a given area should in certain cases divide into

,demographically similar households that settle in proximity to each other creating

homogenous residential areas equatable with 'neighbourhoods'. Settlement patterns of this

variety do not manifest within the survey area. The neighbourhood model was hoped to be

predictive in nature. If areas of homogeneity could be delineated then predictions could be

made describing undocumented households within the 'homogenous' area. Although certain

trends may be observed within' the historical popUlation of the Rocks and Millers Point

between the years 1823-28, these 'patterns' are equivocal and do not represent areas of

homogeneity. The population does not easily separate into distinct groupings settled within

specific geographic areas. The different household typed interspersed with one another render

it impossible to predict with any accuracy the type of household likely to be found on a

particular street.

94

- - - - - -

Figure 6.l1a, (1823) Religious Affiliation

o Church of England (72) • Roman Catholic (23)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.232 km

- - - - - -

/ /

/ /

/

/

-/

/ /

//r

- -

/ /

- - - - -

- - - - -

Figure 6.12a, (1823) Convict/Settler Status

• Born in Colony (8) ° Free Settler (26)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.1 56 km

- - - - - - - - -z ~ ____ w::.:::in=dmi=·:::lI-=S.:.:.tree:..;c...t __

01[-I I I I I I \ I \ I I \ I \ I \ I I \ \ \ I \ \ \ \ I \ I \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ I \ \ \ \ \ \ \ I \ \ \ I \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

IUI \ I \ I \",\ \~I lii' \~\ I I I \ \ \

Fort Phillip

---I 1

1 I

/ 1

/ / ... 1/ IV;

Ik I~i

/ /

I I I 1 I I 1

~==_...'"I

I \ I \ I I I \ \ I I \ / / / / /F ..... I I / / / / / I ............... \ \ / / / / / I / / ..... \ \ / / / I I / / .......... \ \ / / / ,0 / I / , - .......... \\ /1 /, 011 // ' \ \ 1 1 1 / 7 / 0/ f / \ \ I I. ',0 / / / / I \ I I / I I / / I

~ \ 11 11 /i) // I

L 1 / 110 /1 // I

ILJI oiL I /,6 If / 1 / I / I ;. I Crescent Sire J f , I , f :

00 et I I1 ,/ I

I I~/! 0 I

•

- - - - - -

- - - -

Figure 6.12b, (1823) Convict/Senler Status

o Convict (34) • Conditional Pardon (29) ° Free by Servitude (65)

Scale: 1 cm=O.164km

- - - - - -I

J ~ WUldmillSIrCCI

~1~:: _____________ ~ \ , ----I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I III I I I I I<IlI le l \~\ I I I I \ I \ \ \ I I \ I \ I I I I

8 1 j

-, I

1 , 1

1 1 ,

/1 u /} ,

I 1 1 I I I I I

- -

I I I / , I 9" • " 1 '-,

- - -

\ \ /', , 1 le, "'5; II 11" I1 o If,;) I \ \ /' II /f:, Itb / \ I I '/.1 , I 1 /11. I I(' I I I I I I iJI I I

L::j I 1 1 I I I1 (y 10 I I 1 1 I I I I el I I

L I I IL' // I/° : .1 tJ' 11 'I I C"""""I ~.J ,0 I ( I /0

OD : ° • F "/. , I L..a.-' 10 & 0

~ a~ 0 L~ /

\

/ / /

- - - - -

- - - -

Figure 6.13a, (1823) White Collar Households

• High White Collar (5) e Low White Collar (22)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.136 km

- - - - -I I I I I I I I 1 \ I \ I 1

\ \ I I \ I \ 1 I 1

----------

- -----------

I \ I I I I I I I \ I \

Fort Phillip

1 1 I \ \ I \ I \ I I I I I I I I I 1 I 1 I I I I 1 I I I I 1 I 1 I I I ..!3

\ HI ~

- - -

\i\ i / ~II'II \~ \ ::a ! / \ \ r~:Str~t / /17;0 I I / I I / I I I / / I........ I / I \ \ I If""'" '-, I I \ \ / I I """ ..... ,- ....... , I I l \ I I I / ,.,., --I ! , \ / I I I I '...... ......." \ I I I I / I ............ -.. ...... _ \ \ I / / I I I /...... ....... ... \ \ I I I I / / f ............ '-" I I I /1 /1 // I \ I I 1/ .,/ 1/ I I \ / / le / / / / / \ I / /1 /1 // I \1 II /1 1/ 1/ I

~ \ 1/ I /1 I/O // I

~-~...J L U/ ./

L' o//~ // !

/ I I / I I I C I I 1 / .1 / I

rescel11S - I (I // I ootreet 1 6 1 e/ / 1 I I I I / I I I~/ 0.

Charlotte Place

- - -

!f'\ \

/ /

/

- -

- - - -

Figure 6.13b, (1823) Working Class Households

o SkillediT rade (60) G Semi-Skilled (19) • Unskilled (33)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.143 km

- - - - - - -Windmill Stteet

Dl[-~::::::::"--

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I , ,

----

, I I I I I I I I I I I I \ I I .!13

--------

FortPhillip

- - -

\!i\ ~ \b1\ <Il r;/'; G

'B' ~ • , \:.1 \ < .; \ \ ~-t$ 0 • 0 /7;' \ , /"",~et /0 / /0 \ \ /0 / 1', • / " / \ \ / .j ;0 "" "'" ~I / \ \ ,/ oj / / 0'" • !..."

- - -

\\ G//(/) j/ // " "'~ II \ ,'{' oj /0 'f i, ()~I /0"'" "

, I J 7 I " I I '" 11 01/ J \

\ \ '/ / / I I / /0' ~ I I 0/ to ." I I I / :

~I \ "I f ~I/ //0· f \ \ 'L ,/ ,/ I 10 I / ·t / f ----,-...J I I 1I /1 I \

f'..._- 0 1/ /1 I ~'''''CelltStre -, 1 ( I /10 I

G,' " L / / .1 10 I

DOe( ,I • : le / /0 f ) I~//O • I

/ /

Clwloltc Place

- - -

- - ----.. ~---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~ - - -

Figure 6.14, (1823) Industrial Breakdown

-

• Directly Maritime Employed (19) o Other Employment (129)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.158 km

- - - - - -____ J ~ Wmdmill Street

o ~c: _______ ~ ________ ~ \ \ --------I I I I , I , I I , I , I I I I , I I I I I \ I \ , I \ I \ I I I I \ \ I I \ I I \ , I , I , \ \ \ \ , I , \ \ , I

-----------

Fort Phillip o

o

/ /

- -

\ I \ !il

\.~\ r:~ · IV" _ )

le\ ~ I \;.:\ ~ d I \ J

" 0 0 /7; I , /. / /

\ \ IQ/ r/ / \ , -, b'..... I ...., I I \ }} 0/ /', ',C; I

- - -

, , / //f) \ \ } / } I er ',~ / I \ / I 0/ / / i>" '-,__ ~ \ \ a} /0 I} / / C; r.~ -_.~ I I / / I io 9' ,6 " /0 --__ 11 1,0/ 1 1/ IY/O I \ \ } / }I IY/ 1I / \

I I 01

le a'} /1 1I I ~ I I /' / / 0'/ // :

C::j \ } / I I /1 to / la I \

L } / ,I / 01/ ,

/ I I 6' // c/ / : 0/ UI ; I I ;0, \ Cres<;lltS~-1 ,a / ( I/O I

OD I 0 ~ p 0/ la , , ,~//o Q I J

Charlotte Place /

G D~ 00 /

- - -

I I I I I I ~I

I I

6.2 Spatial Analysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1865

The base map utilised for the 1865 spatial analysis of households within the Rocks and

Millers Point was the Trigonometrical Survey Map of the City of Sydney, 1865, (see

Appendix 2d). Addresses of historic households were procured from the Sands Directory for

1865. The survey map whilst depicting structures and allotments did not record street numbers

for the survey area.5 Similarly a large number of households recorded in the Commercial

Directory and in the Rocks and Millers Point were not accorded street numbers. It was

therefore almost impossible to link households accurately to spatial locations on the map.6

Sands Directory provided cross-street information through which households could be linked

in accurate order with respect to each other along specific block faces. The digitised copy of

the Trigonometrical survey, Appendix 2e, represents each household as a small diamond

symbol, with l301 residential households, businesses and institutions surveyed. The raw data

for each of the survey entries is reproduces in Appendix Id.

Even compared with the 1823 spatial analysis, little spatial clustering of households,

in terms of ethnic-religious variables occurs.7 Religious affiliation, when mapped revealed a

very dispersed pattern, (see Figure 6.21a). The households affiliated to the two dominant

religious groups, Roman Catholics and Church of England lived interspersed amongst each

I other. There was no observable clustering of households adherent to a particular denomination

around the churches servicing the area. The sample of Methodist and Presbyterian households

I was too small to be representative, even so households as adherent to those denominations

were widely dispersed, (see Figure 6.2Ib). One feature evident from this map was that four

I I I I I I I I I

of the thirty Presbyterian households surveyed were resident on Clyde Street, an area

associated with a strong Scottish presence. g

The Chinese were the most 'visible' ethnic group within historical records due to their

50ther sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey map, including that for central Sydney recorded street numbers. Some annotated street numbers were added at a later date to the map, but these did not match the information provided by the Sands Directory.

~xcept in the case of well known structures, institutions or businesses.

7This could be due to the sample size concerning religion; religious affiliation was recorded for 19.5 percent of household entries

8Clyde Street was not labelled due to its small size. It is the street directly southwest from Argyle Place.

95

I I I I I I

··1 I I I I I I I I I I I I I

distinctive surnames. As a significant sub-community within the Rocks and Millers Point they

would also have been highly visible due to their distinctive form of dress cultural traditions

and appearance. Census data revealed that Gipps Ward possessed the highest proportion of

Chinese households in the Sydney City area. The historical survey similarly revealed a

distinctive Chinese community within the region. Figure 6.22a maps the spatial location of

the Chinese households, the majority of which were located along George Street, the retail

axis of the area. The small cluster of Chinese households on George Street west, north of

Charlotte Place is noteworthy, in their position opposite Queen's Place, (which branched east

off George Street). Queen's Place was a thoroughfare associable in the late nineteenth century

with a--heavy concentration of Chinese merchants.9 Unfortunately Queens Place fell outside

of the survey area boundaries and therefore it could not be conclusively shown whether the

Chinese household cluster on George Street was on the periphery of a significant ethnic

concentration.

The two variables most sensitive to household spatial patterning were socioeconomic

status and land use, both economically determined variables. Their relative sensitivity to

settlement patterning compared with the variables of ethnicity or religious affiliation

resembled Rothschild's experience in finding that as New York's development progressed

ethnicity or religious affiliation was in many cases supplanted by economic circumstance as

the primary principle of social organisation. 10 Mapping commercial and 'Mixed'

residential/commercial land use revealed the level and nature of. commercial activity in the

Rocks and Millers Point, (see Figure 6.23a). The immediately obvious distribution of sites that

involved in any type of formal commercial activity is the strong concentration of these

households on George Street. This was expected on a thoroughfare that was the business

centre of the 'town' in the 1840s, and which retained its commercial emphasis to the present.

Figure 6.23b magnifies the central streets on the peninsula for clarity.

The foreshore of the area, presumably utilised by wharfage or shipbuilding facilities

was dominated by a purely commercial land use, representative of larger commercial

enterprises. In comparison George Street, especially north of Charlotte Place was dominated

9FitzSimons, T., "The Point's changed a Terrible Lot"- Memories of the Rocks and Millers Point, Randwick TAPE Outreach, Sydney, 1988.

I~othschild, N.A., New York City Neighbourhoods ... , Academic Press Incorporated, London, 1990, p.99.

96

I I I I I I ~I

I I I I

by 'mixed' land use, representing small businesses with the household head resident at his or

her place of work. South of Charlotte Place purely commercial land was more frequent as

George Street entered the actual business centre of Sydney, which had moved south, away

from the Rocks and Millers Point.

The commercial focus of George Street was further emphasized when contrasted with

the distribution of residential land in the area, (see Figure 6.23c), Residential property was

the dominant land use within the survey area, however George Street was almost completely

absent of purely residential land. This did not mean that the residential streets were absent

of formal economic activity. A considerable number of households were running small

businesses in the residential core west of George Street, (see figure 6.23a).

Examining the 'specific' land use of the surveyed, households enabled further

quantification of the variety of commercial activity within the Rocks and Millers Point. 11 The

spatial distribution of artisianal workshops, public houses and retail establishments was

therefore mapped in Figure 6.23d. George Street encompassed a mixture of commercial

activities, with retail establishments being the most widespread, (see Figure 6.23e for the

magnified George Street area).12 The distribution of Chinese households, which primarily

settled on George Street supports Lydon's claim that the Chinese were restricted to a small

range of occupations, most of which involved with merchant businesses, or artisanal work,

(compare with Figure 6.22a).13

West of George Street artisanal workshops clustered to the south towards Charlotte

Place. These were mostly small businesses that matched the distribution of 'mixed' land use

I properties shown in Figure 6.23b. North of Essex Street retail establishments were the primary

commercial activity away from George Street. These small businesses, interspersed with the

I residences in the area mainly represented family shops servicing the local population;

including butchers, fruiterers and grocers. The most popularly recognised ?f patterns was

I I I I I I I

revealed through the distribution of pubs, which were usually placed on, or near street

llSee variable definitions, Appendix 1.

12The most interesting area is on western George Street, (see Figure 6.23e), two blocks north of Charlotte Place. This block face divided almost equally between artisanal workshops on the southern half and retail establishments on the northern half. There was also the ubiquitous pub on the (northern) street corner.

13Lydon, E,.C.J., Unwin's Stores, 77-85 George Street, The Rocks Sydney, S.C.A., Sydney, p. 17.

97

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

corners.

Household heads directly employed in maritime industries generally did not cluster

near the commercial wharfage and ship-building areas which presumably provided

employment. Figure 6.24a demonstrated that maritime employed household heads were widely

dispersed throughout the entire area. This probably reflected that the Rocks and Millers Point .

were compact enough to permit workers easy access to the waterfront no matter where they

resided on the peninsula. As was demonstrated in Chapter 5 the Rocks and Millers Point

possessed one of the highest proportions of maritime workers of any Sydney City area. Whilst

there was a distinctive benefit for maritime workers to live within the Rocks and Millers Point

area there seemed to have been little further advantage in choosing to reside in absolute

proximity to place of work. Maritime employed household heads were conspicuous in their

absence from the Church Hill region and George Street. The 'mixed' business and retail

establishments of George Street were therefore not commercial enterprises solely servicing

maritime trade.

The distribution of 'white collar' households revealed the residential land choices of

the elite, (see Figure 6.25a). Neither high nor low white collar households formed a majority

group in any single area. Low white collar households were however far more dispersed in

throughout residential streets. The residential land choice of high white collar households was

the most specific. High white collar households seemed to have a preference for areas of ' high

environmental amenity'. The street frontages occupying high land, especially the spine of the

peninsula included Upper Fort Street and Cumberland Street North both of which possessed

a higher proportion of high white collar households. The Cumberland Street north area, which

was analysed in Chapter 5 represented the highest, almost homogenous concentration of white

collar households. The Cumberland Street north pattern perhaps reflects a remnant enclave

of the more wide-scale settlement of the high land of the Rocks and Millers Point in the

1840s. This supposition cannot be proven without another demographic survey being carried

out for this year.

Another elevated area, the headland of Millers Point, (to the far northwest of the map)

possessed a number of white collar households. These were mostly associable with

shipowners, shipbuilders, wharfingers and others involved in maritime industry or

bureaucracy. Low lying areas with a higher proportion of white collar households included

Argyle Place and Church Hill, the former facing a small area of public open space, the latter

98

I I I I I I ~I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I

proximate to public open space at Church Hill, and the old churches in the area. Both areas

were more amenable residential areas attractive to the elite.

In no single street were white collar households dominant; as is obvious in Figure

6.25b. Working Class households were the major social sector and were heavily distributed

throughout the entire area. The only exception was Cumberland Street north, which possessed .

no working class houSeholds and a majority of white collar households, (as calculated in

Chapter 5; compare Figures 6.25a and 6.25b). An obvious element of the distribution of

working class households was the high dominance of the 'skilled trade' social group, with a

corresponding under-representation of 'semi-skilled' and 'unskilled' households. The

'skilledftrade' grouping had an overwhelming dominance on George Street; expected on a

street dominated by small family-owned businesses. The under-representation of semi-skilled

and unskilled households in part is due to Armstrong's classification system, which eventuates

in a naturally large 'skilled/trade' subset. However another consideration is that historical

records naturally under-represented these groups. Many household heads in the Sands

Directory were not accorded an occupational description, and those persons were most likely

to have been semi-skilled or unskilled workers with no fixed occupation definition.

99

--------------------

Figure 6.21a: (1865) Religious Affiliation

o Church of England (117) • Roman Catholic (77)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.264 km

_. - -_. ------------------. --------------------

Figure 6.21b: (1865) Religious Affiliation

• Methodist (11 ) o Presbyterian (30)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.259 km

--------------------Argyle Place

National School

I I I I I I I I I

Queen's Wharfl

I I I I I I I I I

I I

Figure 6.22a: Chinese Households Land Use, 1865

• Mixed, CommerciallResidential (13)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.125 km

--------------------

Figure 6.23a: Land Use, (1865). Commercial and Mixed Land Use

• Commercial Land Use (77) o Mixed Land Use (300)

Scale: I cm = 0.200 km

- - - - - -

• o

- - --Argyle Place

- -

o •

- - - - - - -

Figure 6.23b: Land Use, (1865). Commercial and Mixed Land Use

• Commercial Land Use (77) o Mixed Land Use (300)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.115 km

-

--------------------

Figure 6.23c: Residential Land Residential Land. (1865)

o Residential Land (865)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.203 km

- ----~ -- ---------------------------------------------------

Figure 6.23d, (1865). Specific Land Use

• Artisanal Workshops (77) ePubs (53) o Retail Establishments (132)

Scale: I cm = 0.275 km

--------------------

Charlotte Place

»~ ;§.V [7~

06' ~ 0

U

I I I I I I I

0 I I I

c==J I I I I I I

I I I I I I I

Figure 6.23e, (1865). Specific Land Use

• Artisanal Workshops (77) ePubs (53) o Retail Establislunents (132)

Scale: 1 cm = 0.140 km

--------------------

Figure 6.24a, (1865). Maritime Employment, 1865

• Maritime Employment (254)

Scale: I cm = 0.265 km

--------------------

Figure 6.25a: Status, (1865). White Collar Households

• High White Collar (49) o Low White Collar (96)

Scale: I cm = 0.127 km

_I

~~ ~~- -~~-------------------------------------------

Figure 6.25b: Status, (1865) Working Class Households

o SkillediTrade (668) & Semi-Skilled (71) • Unskilled (ll)

Scale: I cm = 0.259 km

·-- .~.--.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Figure 6.25c: Status, (1865) Working Class Households

o SkilledfTrade (668) GSemi-Skilled (71) • Unskilled (11 )

Scale: 1 cm=O.170km

I I I I I I

6.3 Spatial Analysis of the Rocks and Millers Point, 1901.

The base map utilised for the spatial analysis of the distribution of households in 1901

was the Darling Harbour Resumption Map, 1901. This map was commissioned for the Sydney

Harbour Trust as part of the land Resumptions post-dating the 1900 plague outbreak, and thus

recorded information essential to the bureaucracy overseeing that redevelopment. Only eight .

map panels survived from the survey area, of which seven were held at the State Archives.

Six of these were appropriate for digitisation, (see map bibliography). Street numbers,

allotments, subdivisions, and mortgage details were all included, (see Appendix 2f). Since

street numbers, allotments, and subdivisions were all visible on the map panels the digitised

copy 6I'the Resumption map linked households accurately to individual allotments, (see

Appendix 2g). Small diamond symbols represent the 547 surveyed households for this year.

I The raw data of the household head survey is reproduced in Appendix 1 d.

Only the two major religious groups, (the Church of England and the Roman Catholic

I Church), were mapped for 1901 as the sample of households adherent to smaller

denominations was too small to be representative, (see Figure 6.31). On the blocks west of

I George Street Church of England and Catholic households were interspersed with each other,

whilst the sample for the headland of Millers Point and Lower Fort Street remained too small

I to comment upon. Argyle Place however possessed a high number of Catholic households,

and no recorded Church of England households. Argyle Place, in direct proximity to Holy

I Trinity Church of England. However rather than the residential area close to the church being

dominated by Church of England households, settling nearby to be close to a place of

I I I I I I

worship, . Argyle Place was dominated by Catholic households. Churches need not be

indicative of ethnic clustering. In her original article Rothschild defines and described the

boundaries of 'neighbourhoods' in New York City without reference to the historical

demography of the areas. She determined the placement of 'neighbourhoods' through the

distribution of Churches and other institutions servicing the community.14 This process

primarily centred around the foundation date of institutions. Certainly in the pre-industrial

city; the 'walking' city, being within walking distance of work and place of worship would

14Rothschild, N.A., 'On the Existence of Neighborhoods in 18th Century New York: Maps, Markets, and Churches', in Historical Archaeology, Special Publication No. 5., (Living in Cities), pp.30-37.

100

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

have been an important consideration. The location of a high Catholic population proximate

to Anglican Holy Trinity Church represents the danger in attempting to define historic

neighbourhood boundaries without reference to the historical demographics of an area.

Whilst it remained impossible to expose definitive 'neighbourhoods' within the spatially

displayed 1901 data, the changes tested statistically in Chapter 5 between 1865 and 1901 were'

easily observable, (see Figure 6.32a). The distribution of commercial, and 'mixed'

commerciallresidentialland revealed the continuing strong small business emphasis of George

Street, with its mixture of commercial and 'mixed' land usage. Apart from a few small

commercial or mixed properties on Harrington and Argyle Streets thoroughfares excluding

George-Street were almost entirely free of formal commercial activity. This was a marked

decline in comparison with 1865 where a substantial amount of formal economic activity,

in the form of 'mixed' land use and the operation of small retail establishments, and artisanal

workshops was carried out away from the major retail axis, (compare Figure 6.32a with

Figure 6.23b). As can be observed in the wharfage complex south-west of George Street

North the waterfront areas were still utilised as purely commercial land by larger commercial

enterprises involved in maritime activities.

This decline can instantly be observed when the distribution of retail establishments,

businesses, public houses and artisanal workshops is mapped. George street was

overwhelmingly dominated by these groups, a majority retail establishments. Away from

George Street the only formalised economic activity other than in the wharfage areas were

the public houses, which still retained their prominent positions on street corners, (as they still

do today). The numbers of proprietorial, working class business people in the area had

markedly diminished.

The decline in the amount of 'mixed' land usage compared to 1865 could be attributed

to the transition Sydney entered after the mid-nineteenth century, transforming from a pre­

industrial to industrial city. A primary indicator of this shift was the decline in 'mixed' land

usage as a firm distinction between place of work and place of residence became

widespread. 15 It is interesting to note that the diminishment in 'mixed' land usage was

confined to the residential streets, and not to the retail axis; to George Street itself. George

Street continued to house a significant proportion of small 'mixed' land use businesses with

I5Sjoberg, G., The Preindustrial City: Past and Present, The Free Press, Texas, 1960, p.324.

101

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I I

the household head resident at place of work Presumably this pattern declined as the

twentieth century progressed; little 'mixed' land usage is observable on George Street North

in the present.

The distribution of residential land remained generally identical to 1865, with George

street in 1901 almost entirely free of residential land. Away from the waterfront which was

utilised by commercial maritime enterprises, and George Street residential and use was even

more dominant than in 1865 with the removal from the residential areas of most of the small

businesses and workshops, (see Figure 6.32b). Household heads directly employed in maritime

industry in 1901 did not cluster within the residential areas close to their presumed places of

work near the waterfront and the wharves, (see Figure 6.33). As in 1865 George Street was

almost completely devoid of retail establishments, or artisanal workshops that directly serviced

maritime industries.

F or all land usage recorded in the 1901 database the distribution of owner occupied

as compared with rental property could be calculated, (see Figure 6.32d). Rental was the

primary form of land tenure, with owner-occupation representing only eleven properties.

Entire streets appear to have been almost entirely comprised of rental properties; including

Lower Fort, Harrington. Cambridge and Gloucester Streets. The only street with a notable

I proportion of owner occupied residences was Princes Street. The western street frontages

possessed six of the eleven owner-occupied properties in the entire survey area. Princes Street

I which occupied part of the spine of the Rocks and Millers point Peninsula was associable in

the 1840s with elite residences as the elevated land was of'high environmental amenity'. The

I pattern of an increased rate of owner occupation in this area did not correlate with an

increased incidence of white collar households in the area.

I Jackson calculated only a five percent owner-occupation rate for Windmill Street in

"1901 a proportion far below the 31 percent owner-occupation rate for Sydney as a whole.16

I From the data collected for the entire survey area, only 6 percent of properties were owner

occupied compared with 94 percent of properties as rental. Land ownership was vested in a

I I I I I I

small number of absentee landlords, many of whom possessed large property holdings.

16Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of lvfillers POint, N.S. W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.46 and lackson, R.V., 'Owner-Occupation of Houses in Sydney, 1871-1891' in Schedvin, c.B., and McCarty, l.W., (eds.), Urbanization in A ustralia: The Nineteenth Century, Sydney University Press, Sydney, p.4l.

102

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Amongst the landlords were a number of powerful members of the elite, (see the raw data

in Appendix Id), which in part explains the amount of time it took for the reform of laws

concerning the state of substandard tenanted housing.

In terms of socioeconomic status the decline in the number of white collar households

in the area was immediately obvious, (compare Figure 6.34a and 6.25a). Only five high white·

collar hOllseholds were recorded within the 1901 survey area. Argyle Place, a third of the

properties of which were occupied by white collar households in 1865 possessed only two in

1901. Similarly the headland of Millers Point, which had attracted a moderate number of

white collar households involved in maritime enterprises retained only five in 1901. The entire

area was overwhelmingly dominated by working class households, without its 'leaven' of

higher status households, (see Figure 6.34b). The large number of allotments that did not

record a socioeconomic status for the resident household(s) reflected the decline, outlined by

Kass, of households recording a specific occupational description. He saw this growth in the

number of 'unknowns' as an increase in the proportion of 'semi-skilled' and 'unskilled'

households in the area. 17 The dominance of 'working class' households over 'white collar'

households was obvious, a broad increase apparent between the years 1865 and 1901 of the

number of unskilled household heads, (compare Figure 6.34b and 6.25b). If the allotments not

recording a socioeconomic status generally represented undocumented 'unskilled' households,

this dominance would be overwhelming. George Street remained monopolised by

'Skilled/Trade' households, associable with the minor proprietorial retail businesses that

operated in the area.

17Kass, T., A Socio-Economic History of Miller's Point, N.S.W. Department of Housing, Sydney, May 1987, p.l7.

103

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 6.31, ~1~1) Religious Affiliation

gland (29) o Churcb of En . (25) .Roman~lic

Scale: 1 cm = 0.190 km

\ Figure 6.31 I

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I I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

. re 6.32~ (1901) Flgu Generall..and Use

(19) Commercial Land 'dential Land (54) • . Cormn1 Resl o 'Mixed' km

Scale: 1 cm 2 0.192

-­•

1 Figure 6.32a i __ _

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 6.32b, (1901) General Land Use

'dentialLand (243) oResl

1 '1 cm =0.186 km Scae.

I Figure 6.32b __ 1_-

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

632c (1901) Fig~~ Land Use

____ I Workshop (2) • Arti........ (2)

iness Office (9) ~Bus

• Public Housel. hment (46) .\ Estab IS o Retal km 1 '1 cm=O.197 Scae.

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,I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I

2 (1901) Figure 6.3 c, Specific Land Use

........ 1.- (2) eArtisanal W~~"'1' (2) o Business Office (9) e Public Hous;'isbment (46) oRetailEstab

Scale: 1 an=O.1971cm

i Fi-~~re 6.32c 1_-

I I I I

, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 6.32d, (1901) Land Tenure

. -. (11) • Owner OccuPied • '''l''"''] (221) o Rental Property km

Scale: 1 cm '" 0.189

~-~

Figure 6.32d

I !I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 6.33, (1901) Industrial Breakdown

. . Employed (37) • Directly Mantune (163) o Other Employment

Scale: 1 cm = 0.185 km

Figure 6.33

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

, I

I I I I I

34 (1901) Figure 6. ~Ids White Collar H

. Collar (.5) • HigbWhi~: Collar (12) o Low

Scale: 1 cm = 0.185 km

I Figure 6.34a

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Figure 6.34 WorIcingCI b, (1901) ass Households

o Skilledffrade 9 Semi-Skilled (108) • Unskilled (19)

S (3S) cale: 1 cm=0.171 km

[ Figure 6.34b I

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6.4 Conclusions

It has been shown through a review of historical literature that the Rocks and Millers

Point was internally defined by its residents as a separate social space, and externally

perceived as a distinct social region within the City of Sydney. An analysis of census and

independently collected data further determined that these historical perceptions of the Rocks "

and Millers Point had a basis in the historical demographics of the area. In terms of age,

geography, its historical and archaeological significance and its association through time with

distinct socioeconomic sub-communities, the Rocks and Millers Point were prime candidates

in which to test neighbourhood archaeology models developed in America.

'"The spatial analyses, which were designed to reveal whether the historic households

of the Rocks and Millers Point clustered, as determined either by ethnic-religious or economic

variables within the three survey years did not eventuate in a replication of the results

demonstrated in American neighbourhood research, typified by the work of Rothschild.

Rothschild conclusively defined distinct geographic areas within New York City associable

with households of a similar demographic profile determined by either economic or ethnic­

religious variables. The two key results of Rothschild can be summarised in the words,

'homogeneity' and 'boundaries'. Rothschild's 'neighbourhoods' were bounded spaces within

which nominal homogeneity of the population existed.

Various spatial settlement patterns could be delineated and commented upon

concerning the distribution of the historic population of the Rocks and NIillers Point ..

Especially for the years 1865 and 190t"the patterns mainly manifested in terms of land use

and socioeconomic status. Land use patterns are primarily present due to 'economic

considerations'. The 'Mixed'land use on George Street was due to the thoroughfare's attraction

as a retailing axis. The original attraction of this axis was due to George Street being the land

route out of the original settlement of Sydney. Even in terms of socioeconomic status

patterning, the primary indicator of any particular streets was shown to have been the

residential land choice of the elite. Again this was a pattern primarily determined by

economics, for the elite could afford to exercise economic power and reside in areas of high

environmental amenity.

No real correlations could be defined concerning demographic household 'types'.

Where settlement patterns appe"ared, however weakly, as determined by a particular variable,

the same area would be varied with reference to another variable. Unlike Rothschild's results,

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there was no confluence of a number of variables, (ethnicity and religious affiliation with

occupation/socioeconomic status) into a broad demographic household 'types' settled in

proximity to one another.

The failure of the spatial analysis to reveal widespread, homogenous settlement

clusters in the Rocks and Millers Point except in the most general of terms argues against an '

introduction of 'neighbourhood' archaeology as utilised in the United States. It was hoped that

neighbourhood models provided an explanative and predictive tool through which the

behaviour historical urban populations could be understood. With strong neighbourhoods

defIned predictions could be made concerning the nature of undocumented households within

the same region. Without the ability to delineate areas of 'homogenous' settlement in terms

of religious affiliation, socioeconomic status, or ethnicity there remain no defIned

'neighbourhoods' with which to address ,context for undefIned households or to which the

archaeological record could be linked.

More investigation needs to be undertaken into historic neighbourhoods. Despite the

criticism of the current methodology no denial has ever been made proposing the non­

existence of 'neighbourhood' as a loose socio-spatial grouping existing between the large scale

social organisation of the city, and the individual household. i8 It is proper therefore that the

historical archaeologist attempt to understand, defIne and quantify neighbourhood behaviour.

Demographic surveys of the sort undertaken within this study go part of the way in

addressing this question. The failure of the spatial anruysis to detect widespread and stable

areas of settlement homogeneity is not to suggest that neighbourhoods did nor exist in the

Rocks and Millers Point in the nineteenth century, for sense of communio/ that existed within

this area was well documented in both oral and traditional history.

What it does suggest is that the variables of socioeconomic status, religious affiliation

and ethnicity area not suffIciently sensitive to detect urban neighbourhoods in the Rocks and

Millers Point in the nineteenth century. As has been discussed Rothschild had greater success

in attempting to defIne urban neighbourhoods in New York City in the eighteenth century ..

If, as she suggests economic considerations were more important in later dates in determining

18Keller further suggests that the neighbour holds an intermediary position between the friend and , relative. Keller, S., The Urban Neighbourhood: A Sociological Perspective, Random House, New York, 1968, p.1l8.

105

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. "

social organisation, new variables in addition to socioeconomic status need to be isolated as

sensitive to the socio-spatial settlement behaviour of historic households. Data concerning

structures derived from census statistics revealed an interesting correlation between room and

structure densities and the perceived socioeconomic status of the Rocks and Millers Point.

Collection of the data concerning unutilized variables in the Minark database could reveal

further correlations between the characteristics of the built environment of the area, and the

profile of the households that inhabited those structures.

Another possibility exists, that historic neighbourhoods were not necessarily

homogenous in character, and that social inter-relationships between households may have

been cat'fied out without those households being in absolute proximity to one another. The

'use areas' of social institutions such as churches and the geographic territories of the various

sub-communities may thus have significantly overlapped producing an image of heterogeneity

within the survey area. Attempting to develop and archaeological model to account for this

more complex form of behaviour would be a difficult task, bur pref~rable to utilising the tiny

population samples evident in American neighbourhood research to suppress evidence of the

variability within historical populations.

One area ripe for investigation remains the area of 'neighbouring' behaviour. Nowhere

in archaeological theory has there been investigation into area beyond the social construction

of urban neighbourhoods. An investigation of neighbouring behaviour would require a

conceptual shift in the archaeological investigations of the neighbourhood. To date

neighbourhood archaeology investigations are descriptive in nature, attempting to describe and

map settlement clusters. An investigation of neighbouring behaviour would necessitate

investigation into the economic role of neighbourhoods and neighbouring behaviour.

This does not mean that the descriptive approach has no merit. The application of a

demographic survey to the Rocks and Millers Point area enabled a quantification of the

population shifts and changes throughout the nineteenth century. Whilst most historical

archaeologists excavating within the Rocks and Millers Point operate within the scale of the

household, much of the archaeological interest of the area is not limited to this scale alone.

The Rocks and Millers Point is of interest due to its survival as an almost intact area,

chronicling the development of the Sydney City area virtually from its foundation to the

twentieth century. This concern, of attempting to understand the area as a whole is reflected

in the endeavours of historical archaeologists to provide inter-site comparisons in order to

106

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build up a holistic view of the Rocks and Millers Point through a mosaic of particularistic

household excavations. It also results in propositions that a single site is representative or a

microcosm of the 'nineteenth century' neighbourhood. Such statements tend to be made

without reference to the historical demographics of the area, and without firm justification

beyond generalisations drawn from the discipline of history.

The demographic survey undertaken for the Rocks and Millers Point attempted to

provide a more secure understanding of the nature of and changes in the historical population

of the Rocks and Millers Point. Expansion of the variables utilised to include information

about the built environment could further assist in understanding the relationship of the

historical population with their built environment. The fragmentary nature of many historical

documents recording a broad population base The Minark and Mapinfo database and

population maps provide a cross-referenced record of Sand's Directory data, parish records,

electoral rolls, muster data, census data and District Constables' notebooks, all of which can

be displayed spatially on a range of historical base maps. The compilation of information

from all these documents into a single resource ameliorates the fragmentary nature of some

of these records, their occasional inaccessibility, and other difficulties in their usage. All

historical archaeologists in working in the area must utilise these documents at some stage

in the attempt to provide historical context for a site. The uniting of these records into a

single resource represents an economical and efficient way in which to utilise historical

documents. It is therefore urged that work with the database is continued and expanded. In

drawing attention to the flaws in a neighbourhood approach to archaeology, and through this

process enabling a better understanding of the nature of the historical population of the Rocks

and Millers Point this study was successful.

107

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6.5 Recommendations for Further Research

The following points represent future steps that could be taken to expand the MINARK

database:

l.Further work with the parish records is warranted to cross-check for misassigned .

entries and expand the religious affiliation population sample.

2.Immigration records should be examined to provide a more representative sample

of the ethnic affiliation of households independent of parish records.

3.Data should be collected addressing the default variables regarding the built

-environment of the Rocks and Millers Point. Information could easily be drawn from

the Sydney City Council Rates books.

4.With the completion of a rates-book survey further work with the historic maps

utilised could be undertaken to link households in 1865 and 1823 to specific

allotments providing greater accuracy in the attempt to map the distribution of

differing household or building types.

5.The 1901 survey can be expanded, although another base map would have to be

located for this year, as the Darling Harbour Resumption Map as held at the archives

is incomplete.

6.Further years could be entered into the database. A timeframe of a survey for every

twenty rather than forty years could easily be un<;lertaken. This would utilise the extant

maps for the years 1842-3 and 1880.1 An 1840s survey would be of great interest for

it would enable a study of the presumed elite residences occupying the high land of

the peninsula.

lSee Chapter 2.

108

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Historical Sources.

District Constable's Notebooks

For Sydney: recording, Cambridge Street, Gloucester Street, Princes Street, Argyle Street, Harrington Street, Cumberland Street, Charlotte Place. 1822-23

Location: AO NSW 411218-19 On Microfilm; AO NSW Reel 1254

I Census and Musters

I General;Land and Stock Muster 1822

~I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Location: HRC929.3944/GEN

Census of New South Wales Household Returns

Location: HRCQ929.3/CEN

Statistical Return of the Colony of New South Wales

Nov 1828.

"Blue Book" 1822

Return of the Census of New South Wales 1861

Return of the Census of New South Wales 1901

Location: ABS Colonial Microfiche, Fisher Library

Commercial and Street Directories

Sands Directory Sands Directory

Location: Fisher Microform

1865 1901

Hurstville City Library Microform

Electoral Rolls

Electoral Roll 1901

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Location:

Records of the Church of England Holy Trinity (The Garrison Church)

Baptisms

Banns

Marriages

Records 1-10 1 and years 1864-65 1899-1902 1843-51 1851-54 1856-63 1863-68 1899-1901

Location: Society of Australian Geneaologists Reel 107, (Mitchell Library Microfilm)

St. Phillips Church, Church Hill

Baptisms

Marriages

Location: S.A.G. Reel 91.

pp.I-18 pp.36ff to 1867 1839-1856

Baptisms 1900-1902

Location:S.A.G. Reel 145

Marriages 1900-1902

Location:S.A.G.Reel 140

Records of the Catholic Church St. M my s Cathedral

Baptisms Frames 1-107 Year Commencingl865-Frame269

Location: S.A.G. Reel 201

St Patricks Church, Church Hill

Marriages 1899-1901

.--------------------------------

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Baptisms 1863-65 1899-1901

Location: Restricted S.A.G. Reels, Mitchell Library

Drawn from the Records of the Uniting Church in Australia Congregational Church Glebe/Suny Hills

~anciages -1871

Location: S.A.G. Reel 103

Presbyterian Church Scots Church, Church Hill

~annages 1858-1862

Location: S.A.G. Reel103

1862-1866 1866-1868 1875

~anciages 1898-1901

Location: S.A.G. Reel 106

105 Princes Street

I Records 1861-1862

I Location S.A.G. Reel 103

I 18 Lower Fort Street

Records 1869-1870

Location: S.A.G. Reel 103

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Wesleyan Methodist Church

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Sydney: York Street Circuit

Records Baptisms Marriages

Location: S.A.O. Reel 132

Frames 228-254 1861-1883 1850-1856

I Early Methodist Church Registers Princes Street and York Street

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Marriages

Location: S.A .. O. Reel 34

-1858 1895-97 1899-1901

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I I Archaeological Resources

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Author: Bairstow, D. Archreport: Millers Point Site 8900: Archaeological

Master Strategy

Year: 1987 Site: Site 8900 Excavator: ExcAuth: Department of Housing Urban

Renewal Group RTN:

Notes:

Author: Bairstow, Damaris Archreport: Millers Point Site 8900 Historical

Archaeological Report, Stage 1 Appendices

Year: 1988 Site: 32 Merriman Street, and 55 Kent Street Excavator: Damaris Bairstow and Sydney ExcAuth: The Dept of Planning Urban

Renewal Group RTN:

Notes:

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Author: Blackmore, K., Harris, S, Knox, P, & Archreport: Millers Point Conservation Policy

Year: 1990 Site: Site 8900 Excavator: ExcAuth: Department of Planning

RTN:

Notes:

Author: Howard Tanner and Associates Archreport: Miller's Point Statemant of Significance

and Related Policy Considerations

Year: 1987 Site: Millers Point Site 8900 Excavator: ExcAuth: The N.S.W. Department of

Housing, (Inner City Project RTN:

Notes:

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Author: Landscan Pty Ltd, Landscape Architects Archreport: Millers Point Site 8900 Landscape

Strategy Study

Year: 1987 Site: Millers Point Site 8900 Excavator: ExcAuth: Department of Housing

RTN:

Notes: Deals mostly with the urban infrastructure of the area.

Author: Lydon, E.C.J. Archreport: Susannah Place Archaeological Report

Year: 1992 Site: 58-64 Gloucester Street, (Susannah PI.) Excavator: Lydon, E.C.J. ExcAuth: Sydney Cove Redevelopment

Authority RTN:

Notes":

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Author: Lydon, E.C.J. Archreport: Archaeological Monitoring: Unwins

Stores, 77-85 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney

Year: 1991 Site: 77-85 George Street Excavator: Lydon, E.C.J. ExcAuth: Sydney Cove Redevelopment

Authority RTN:

Notes:

Author: Lydon, E.C.J. Archreport: Scarborough House Archaeological Report

Year: 1992 Site: Between Mill Lane and Argy1e Street Excavator: Lydon, E.C.J. ExcAuth: Sydney Cove Redevelopment

Authority RTN:

Notes:

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Author: Lydon, E.C.J. Archreport: Archaeological Monitoring. The

Australian Hotel and Adjoining Shops, The Rocks, Sydney

Year: 1990 Site: Section 75, Allotments 8 & 13 Excavator: Lydon, E.C.J. ExcAuth: Sydney Cove Redevelopment

Authority RTN:

Notes:

Author: Mider, Dana. Archreport: The Rocks and Millers Point

Archaeological Management Plan:lnvestigations 1978-1990

Year: 1991 Site: The Rocks and Millers Point Excavator: ExcAuth: Archaeological Management Plan

for the Rocks and Millers RTN:

Notes:

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Author: Stephany, J. & Wyatt-Spratt, N. Archreport: Conservation Plan for No 30 Harrington

Street The Rocks

Year: 1986 Site: 30 Harrington Excavator: ExcAuth: Sydney Cove

Authority RTN:

Notes:

Street

-Redevelopment