The aim of this study has been to demonstrate the importance of accounting for writing as material and as part of individual and social practice. The ‘feature group’ approach has an important contribution to make to the study of the materiality of writing of 18th–20th century Britain. Whilst each feature contains its own narrative, the aim of analysis at the scale of the ‘feature group’ was not solely to consider the individual assemblage in isolation but as a starting point for discovering larger patterns. The ‘elephant in the room’ is the fact that what survives archaeologically is only a subset of past writing materialities. The most common medium for writing in 18th–20th century Britain, probably by several orders of magnitude, was undoubtedly paper. This did not survive in any of the feature groups discussed, but in those rare archaeological instances where paper does survive from this period it vastly outnumbers writing on other materials (e.g. Crook and Murray 2006). Archaeologically, this scenario where the dominant medium for writing is the least likely to survive is paralleled in other cultures (e.g. Waal 2011). It is clear that in 18th–20th century Britain writing on paper was regarded as the norm, with all other materials viewed as secondary. Indeed many of the examples discussed are derived either directly or indirectly from writing on paper. Examples of this include the cup with text from a published poem (Figure 6), the Sicilian pattern vessels which rely upon a novel for much of their meaning (Figure 7), the Trajan pattern jug whose imagery relates to the Panegyricus Trajani (Figure 9) and children’s mugs which derive from and in one case actually depict the bible (Figure 10), the book par excellence of Britain during this period. In other cases the writing makes no sense without the existence of writing on paper; for example registration marks are meaningless without both the enabling Act of Parliament and the supporting ‘paper trail’ of the individual registration process (Figures 9–11). The archaeological preponderance of writing on what might be viewed as secondary expression raises significant questions about what studying its materiality can tell us.
The use of writing, both on paper and other materials, becomes increasing prevalent over the period in question. As a counterpoint to this phenomenon the texts and their meanings on materials other than paper in many cases becomes less visible — apparently not meant to be read by those who are otherwise consumers of the objects. Furthermore, much of the writing relates to regulation and there are also repeated links to the education of children and both commercial and institutional branding. All of these phenomena, as well as the crucial underpinning factor of increasing literacy rates at this time, must therefore be situated in the context of major historical processes of the period such as modernity, capitalism and consumerism. The archaeological study of writing as material practice at the scale of feature groups sheds light on how particular households in specific temporal, spatial and social milieux interacted with those forms of writing that survive. At a broader level these specific examples attest to the development and spread of a text-saturated culture, a phenomenon which is inextricably intertwined with the major historical processes affecting 18th–20th century Britain.
