15.2: Introduction and Figures
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Like many other topics the subject of the materiality of writing in 18 th –20 th century Britain has received relatively little attention, principally because it has been conceived of as part of an unproblematic “familiar past” (Tarlow and West 1999) that is perceived as similar to the present or sufficiently well understood through other sources that archaeology does not have a significant contribution to make. There are also other major issues that differentiate the 18th–20th centuries from earlier periods, most notably that the material culture is predominantly mass-produced in a way that few earlier examples of writing are; additionally many types of material culture of the period are truly global in extent. In contrast with earlier periods in Britain where there is relatively limited archaeological evidence for writing, the problem here is that the amount of data is often too large. One way to approach this richness of data is to eschew the more broad brush quasi ‘culture-historical’ approaches often adopted for earlier periods, where material spanning several centuries and large geographical areas is studied in order to generate a large enough ‘corpus’ of material to make meaningful comments. Instead the evidence from 18th–20th century Britain allows us to work on a much more intimate scale of individual households at particular points in time as represented by ‘feature groups’.
Any such attempt to consider 18 th –20 th century writing must recognise that the dominant material upon which writing was produced was paper, which is rarely preserved archaeologically even in 18th–20th century contexts, although there are exceptions (Crook and Murray 2006: 66–69, 80–85; Dickens 2001: 117, 124). This is true of many periods, where post-depositional processes and environmental conditions have often largely destroyed all traces of the dominant writing material. In the case of the 18th–20th centuries much of the material has been recovered from material dumped in below ground features where conditions have destroyed all paper, although in contrast to earlier periods we have a much better understanding of 18th–20th century writing on paper since vast corpora are preserved in libraries and archives. Despite the poor preservation of paper in 18 th –20 th century archaeological contexts, many forms of writing that do survive archaeologically on more durable mediums are related in some way to the dominant paper medium. That the relationship between writing on paper and other mediums is often complex and ambiguous is perhaps best illustrated by an example found on a stone at the Nine Ladies stone circle in Derbyshire, where a graffito of the name “Bill Stumps” is incised onto an outlying orthostat of a Bronze Age stone circle ( Figure 1 ). The incising of this name mirrors a fictional incident in Charles Dickens’s The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club published in 1836–1837, raising the question of whether the writing on the stone was inspired by Dickens writing on paper or whether Dickens was inspired by the inscription. Dickens does not appear to have visited the area until after he wrote the book so it is concluded that his writing published and circulated in a paper-based form inspired the graffito (Guilbert 2001).
Although paper rarely survives archaeologically in 18 th –20 th century contexts, it has recently begun to be viewed from a more archaeological, or at least material culture standpoint. Particular attention is being paid to the materiality of paper-based writing, of the 19th century (Hack 2005; Hall 2000; Marsden 2006; von Mucke 1999), as part of a general ‘material turn’ (Pykett 2005) in Victorian studies inspired largely by the work of Asa Briggs (1988) who asked historians to contemplate Victorian materialities, not least because the Victorians themselves were fascinated with objects and things.
While English is, unsurprisingly, the dominant language encountered in inscribed material culture from British sites of this period, a range of other European languages is occasionally attested, particularly French, but the next most common language is Chinese (see below). The majority of, but not all, examples of written objects during this period were mass produced. In theory this resulted in the production of virtually identical examples, and this has implications for many of the themes relevant to the materiality of writing. Prior to the 18 th century many, perhaps most, examples of writing that individuals encountered were effectively unique. This constitutes a markedly different type of encounter and it is notable that the earlier types of writing that were mass produced, most obviously coins, are largely absent from considerations of the materiality of writing. 18 th –20 th century mass production is, however, counteracted to a certain extent by the fact that some of the ‘mass production’ was relatively small-scale with localised distributions where products travelled at most a few dozen miles, whilst some types are truly global in their reach with examples found distributed around the world (see below). Additionally the great expansion of choice in some types of material at this time, such as ceramics, meant that, although produced on a massive scale, they might well be locally unique and restricted to a single household in an area. Such considerations must underpin the nature of the particular engagements with writing that will be presented subsequently.
Figure 1: The Nine Ladies Bronze Age embanked stone circle, Stanton Moor, Derbyshire, with the “Bill Stumps” graffito on the broken King Stone. Photograph courtesy of Chris Collyer.
Figure 2: Plan showing the location of the Grand Arcade site within Cambridge and features discussed. Contains Ordnance Survey data © crown copyright and database right 2012.
Table 1: Quantities and percentages of objects Grand Arcade, Cambridge. *MNI = Minimal bearing writing from selected feature groups at Number of Items.
Figure 3: Material from Francis Tunwell’s planting bed, F.6425. Marked clay tobacco pipe of Samuel Wilkinson and seal from a Pyrmont water. Drawings by Vicki Herring.
Figure 4: Material from The Cock Inn cellar, F.3029. Pottery with “for my dear”, ale mark, transfer printed and hand-painted “R. Hopkins” and “The Sailor’s Return and Farewell” jug. Drawing by Vicki Herring and photographs by Dave Webb and author.
Figure 5: Sarah Dobson’s planting pit, F.3010, showing its location in the garden. Author’s photograph.
Figure 6: Children’s cup with decoration and text from Isaac Watts’s song “Whene’er I take my walks abroad” from F.3010. Photographs by Dave Webb.
Figure 7: “Sicilian” pattern vessels from F.3010. Photographs by Dave Webb.
Figure 8: Material from Thomas Wicks’s soakaway, F.6412. Sauceboat belonging to Wicks, clay tobacco pipes manufactured by James and Ann Pawson and bottle seal stamped “EG 1770”. Author’s photograph, drawings by Vicki Herring.
Figure 9: Material from Barrett’s sunken rectangular garden structure, F.4060. Trajan pattern jug, Martaban jar with boar stamp and bottles with Emmanuel College seals. Photographs by Dave Webb, drawings by Vicki Herring.
Figure 10: Material from Barrett’s brick-lined cellar, F.4106. Children’s cups and registration mark from Copeland teapot (not to scale). Author’s photographs.
Figure 11: Material from Robert Sayle cellar, F.4027 and F.4127. Queens’ College eggcups, R. Sayle & Co label and sign language plate. Photographs by Dave Webb and author, drawings by Vicki Herring.
Figure 12: Blocks and brick from the 1845 warehouse marked with the initials of the tenant at the time Edward Jay, plus his wife Jane Maria Jay, assistant James Baker, eldest daughter Maria Jane Anne Jay and son Edward Jay their son. Plus view of the frontage sign of Emmanuel College. Photograph by Dave Webb, drawings by Vicki Herring.