We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some
historical sequence. By the fact of his living he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.1
Expected and unexpected scribes
There are those who write about personal accounts and those who create personal accounts. Both are of interest here. The first category includes the work of those who write about essayists, journal and diary writers or edit their manuscripts; particularly those interested in colonial women writers.2 Then there are those who wrote, scribbled, inscribed or otherwise crafted the diaries, reminiscences, margin notes in cookbooks, captions on the back of photographs, and letters. Their personal accounts include diaries, journals and other written forms intended for public scrutiny or private reflection. The accounts may have been connected to a task or particular time, like a visit or voyage, and exploring their purpose further connects the reader with the writer. Women’s writing was predominantly found in personal letters and journals and any collection provides an insight into their private sphere. Instances where a woman’s private diary has been brought to the public arena through
scholarly publication are presented first. Then published examples of women’s accounts, both public and ostensibly private, of living in colonial Tasmania are described. Examples of men’s accounts of private life, free or unfree, relevant in time and place to this research, are also identified.
English maid-of-all-work Hannah Cullwick kept a diary at the request of her ‘master’ Arthur Munby who urged her to record all the tedious, arduous, grubby and loathsome
1
C Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 12.
2 See, for example, P Clarke, Pen Portraits: Women Writers and Journalists in Nineteenth Century Australia,
Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988; P Clarke and Dale Spender, Life Lines: Australian Women’s Letters and Diaries, 1788-1840, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1996; Debra Adelaide, ed., A Bright and Fiery Troop: Australian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century, Ringwood: Penuin, 1988; and Dale Spender, Writing a New World: Two Centuries of Australian Women Writers, London: Pandora, 1988.
27
aspects of her work.3 In so doing she provided an exceptional insight into domestic service in the Victorian era and, despite not being in a colonial setting, generally the tasks and
environment were transferable. Cullwick was a woman different from the standard upper and middle class diary keeper or letter writer. She did not have the benefit of an extensive
education. Because of the diaries, Cullwick’s life, work and routines are precisely detailed. Cullwick was not famous: her entire life was played out in obscurity. 4 She was the daughter of a housemaid and a saddler: a contemporary of Eliza Williams.5 She was born, raised, worked and died in Shropshire and worked mainly as a lower servant: nursery maid, scullion, kitchen maid or maid-of-all-work. Cullwick’s other roles included pot girl, cook, housemaid, char, and housekeeper and this demonstrates the multiplicity of occupations in the Victorian household, and suggests variation in skill sets across roles in domestic service.6 Cullwick did not write for her own pleasure but for Arthur Munby, who wanted the diaries written so he could read them.7
Davidoff noted that Cullwick’s diary should be approached with caution for it was written for Munby’s eyes. It was not her freely chosen course and thus would have reflected her attitude towards him.8 Cullwick’s description of her early life and training show the pathway for female domestic servants: from childhood experience in the home to placement in a house under close supervision. Hannah had moved into service proper by age 14. That the employer exercised total power over the servant was instilled early.9 The importance of the record of Cullwick’s experience for this project is that it was contemporaneous. It provides an example of work and expectations from an English servant’s perspective. Her comments about management augment the colonial accounts by those who managed the servants.
3 Liz Stanley, ed., The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant, New Brunswick (New Jersey):
Rutgers University Press, 1984.
4 Stanley, The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant, p. 1. 5 Hannah Cullwick, (1833-1909)
6 Stanley, The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant, p. 3. 7
Their relationship spanned fifty-four years. Their life together, he a gentleman, she a servant, was conducted in secret. That Cullwick and Munby later married is a story told by others. Derek Hudson, Munby, Man of Two Worlds: The Life and Diaries of Arthur J. Munby, 1828-1910, Boston: Gambit, 1972; Leonore Davidoff, “Mastered for Life: Servant and Wife in Victorian and Edwardian England,” Journal of Social History, 5 4, Summer, 1974.
8 Leonore Davidoff, “Class and Gender in Victorian England,” in Sex and Class in Women’s History, Judith L
Newton, Mary P Ryan, and Judith R Walkowitz, eds., London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1983, p. 36.
9 This was exhibited by Cullwick not being told of her mother’s death until a fortnight after it occurred and,
when told, being required immediately to return to work rather than to visit her family. Davidoff, “Class and Gender in Victorian England,” p. 37.
28
Not every personal account makes for gripping reading. Urlich’s description of Martha Ballard’s life as a Maine midwife in the late eighteenth century placed the mundane on view as well as those aspects of a life that demonstrate capacity to meet its challenges.10 The day-to-day existence that was exhibited by Urlich contributes much to an understanding of individual lives in both their public and private spheres, and to the collective experience of members of the family and wider circle of associates of the diary keeper. Martha Ballard, a midwife whose practice extended in communities along the Kennebec River area of Maine, kept a diary between 1785 and 1812 which records the 816 deliveries she performed over that period. Without the diary, Urlich notes, Ballard’s life would be no more than ‘a succession of dates’ from birth, through marriage and childbirth to death.11
This thesis has adopted Urlich’s technique to connect the life of an individual within the context of their day. Ballard’s midwifery practice was set in the context of her marriage; the work and role of her husband (a miller and surveyor); the movement, relationships, trials and circumstances of her children; change in her community as it grew and became more populated; midwifery and medical practices of the day including learning and maintaining the skills, the social and professional relationships of her calling, and the impact that calling had on her personal health. Urlich captured the motion of Ballard’s life and that of her
community: the travel, shifting house, children leaving to marry, workers coming in and out, and the movement of the loom upon which the female domestic economy was based.
Ballard’s diary was daily and descriptive. The reader also learns of the weather, who was in and about the Ballard residence, who ate and slept there, work done in the extensive gardens, and the cultural accessories associated with the major life passage events: birth, marriage, death. Urlich linked Ballard’s life to the wider historical themes of the period: early settlement, the development of industry and economy, the growth of townships in the remote and wild country, midwifery and medical practice, the role of women in the domestic and wider economy, to suggest a few.
The book is arranged chronologically. The diary is not fully transcribed but excerpts from selected months and years are presented at the beginning of each chapter as examples of social, medical, climatic, and familial events. While there is repetition of some events, this is handled by acknowledging the repetition and using it as a base from which to build new perspectives. The research entailed identifying the individuals and events in the diary and
10 Laurel Thatcher Urlich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785 – 1812,
New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1990.
29
then describing their life and place in the context of both Martha’s life and the historical themes. It is extensive and thorough. Urlich’s work is an example of shifting the focus from minutiae of life to the wider historical context in which that life was lived, and thus informed the approach to this thesis. Urlich fully describes the events that surround the daily entries. She provides a historical account of the event, identifies and describes the key players or issues that it includes, and links the event to the diary and day of Ballard. This technique can be taken as an example of the depth of research as well as the complexity of the issues associated with seemingly innocuous people and events. It is by tracing the role of people over the years that their character is exhibited.
One aspect of life writing and historiography is consideration of public and private accounts of life in colonial Tasmania that are relevant to the overriding spheres of this research: the history of private life in colonial Tasmania, the influence of gender roles and patriarchy within it. Vickery notes the importance of reading widely of personal papers and documents, rather than simply the set that is of specific interest, in order to have context for the individual and their words, and to have a broader understanding of their circumstances, or, as she puts it, ‘to reconstitute the pyramid of local society’.12 Published volumes include Louisa Meredith’s account of living in various houses in Tasmania as she followed the career of a peripatetic husband.13 From her we learn about ‘gentry’ life in more straightened
circumstances, her economies, strategies to maintain an intellectual life in remote and small communities, the pressures of child raising, the disappointment of having to move house, and the isolation from distant family and friends. The manuscript diaries and reminiscences by middle-class women who led private lives in colonial Tasmania can be drawn on to provide insight into domestic arrangements, the management of servants and the hardships of family life in the period.14 Mary Morton Allport’s unpublished journals are one of Tasmania’s earliest extant examples.15 Allport was a well-educated woman who was accomplished in music, French and drawing as befitted a lady.16 Hers is the diary of a town wife with children.
12 Amanda Vickery, “Golden Age to Separate Spheres: A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English
Women’s History,” Historical Journal, 36 2, 1993, p. 31.
13
Louisa Anne Meredith, My Home in Tasmania During a Residence of Nine Years, 2 Volumes, London: John Murray 1852. Facsimile published Swansea, TAS: Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical Society, 2003
14 See, for example, Amelia Read, “Reminiscences of Amelia Read (formerly Wilson), 01 January - 31
December 1870;” Kezia Elizabeth Hayter, “Diary of Kezia Elizabeth Hayter, 1 January 1842 - 31 December 1842;” Louisa Birchall, “Diary of Louisa Birchall, 1 December 1885 - 15 January 1887;” and Margaret Mickle, “Diary and Reminiscences, 26 Ocober 1853 - 30 April 1892,” all Hobart: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
15 Joanna Richardson, “An Annotated Edition of the Journals of Mary Morton Allport, Volumes 1 and 2,”
unpublished PhD thesis, English, Journalism and European Languages, University of Tasmania, 2006.
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It centres on the needs of her family, the illnesses and complaints of her husband and children, the cost of living, bills, purchasing food, cooking, visits and visitors, clothing, and the needs of chaperoning and managing her growing children.
Men also wrote journals of daily life coupled with their business affairs. George Gatenby, who lived at Bicton in the Midlands contemporaneously with Sarah Leake writing at Rosedale, offered a well-to-do man’s view of life.17 Gatenby noted the weather, his financial position, his visitors for lunch, and the major crops and stock of his farm. Near neighbour of the Leakes, James Mercer, who lived at Morningside on the banks of the Macquarie River, kept a diary of the farm routine and of social and civic life in Campbell Town.18 Written in the 1860s, it nonetheless provides images of social and community events, life on a mixed agricultural and pastoral estate, and the tensions of providing advice and support to family and associates on business and private matters. These perspectives broaden the view from a single property and place the work of the Leake men at Rosedale in a wider community context.19 William Archer’s farm management journal formed the original material for work about male convicts labouring on the Brickendon estate. It had a number of attributes that went beyond the daily journal: a record of conversations, decisions and reports from the overseer including details that may later be required in actions against convicts. 20
William Johnston, who came to live in Campbell Town in 1855, offered a man’s perspective on domestic matters within the context of his work as master of a Campbell Town school.21 Johnston’s wife and children feature in his journal, as do school routines, problems of not being paid and making money stretch, Campbell Town social life, and his relationships with people of all spheres. John Leake was a trustee of Johnson’s school and was mentioned in this respect as were several other of Leake’s associates.22 While each of these diaries conveys a day-to-day life, as lived by the writer, as they saw it and for their use, they provide a collective view of lives of the period and in the setting of the thesis.
17 George Gatenby, “Diary of George Gatenby of ‘Bicton’ Campbell Town, 9 November 1847 to 31 January
1858,” Hobart: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
18
James Mercer, “James Mercer’s Diary for 1866,” in Campbell Town Tasmania: History and Centenary of Municipal Government, Campbell Town, TAS: Campbell Town Municipal Council, 1966.
19 The Leake Papers include items of correspondence to John Leake from both George Gatenby and James
Mercer on estate and business matters.
20
Andrew John Gregg, “Convict Labour at Brickendon: The Diary of William Archer Senior, ” unpublished BA Honours thesis, History, University of Tasmania, 2005, p. 6. Archer’s journal is 1829-30.
21 William Johnston, “Diary and Household Notes, 12 March 1855 - 31 July 1857,” Hobart: Tasmanian Archive
and Heritage Office.
22
Names mentioned by Johnston that also appear in Sarah Leake’s journal include Rev Brickwood, Dr Valentine, William Morrison, Dr Boyd and her father Mr Leeke [Leake].
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It is rare to find the diary of a Vandemonian domestic servant for, irrespective of their status as convict or free, they were embedded in a working-class culture that treated written artefacts as ephemeral. There are documents relating to the business of getting on in the world; generally found in collections representative of the ‘master’. This is the case with the majority of letters held in the Leake Papers that were written by convict servants and farm workers. Most are from men and relate to wages or other business matters but there are examples of private correspondence that indicate more personal relationships.23
Collections of private letters, like those found in the Leake Papers, and those of Lady Denison or Ellen Viveash augment diary, journal and reminiscences and give immediacy to the life and issues experienced by their writers.24 While letters and journals only tell us what was on the writer’s mind at the time, they serve to illustrate the wider concerns of their life and to give context to their contemporaries’ writing.
Convict records indicate that many convicts could write, at least a little. The letters of those who were literate, and those who were penned by literate others, can indicate the changing experiences of servitude. Hindmarsh noted the shifts in the writing style of each of the convict brothers, Richard Taylor and Simon Brown, in their letters to family, as their experiences of servitude changed.25 They employed religious, fictional, biographical and other tropes and set phrases to describe aspects of their lives. They also appear to have used form letters and scribes each of which were readily available and widely used. Hindmarsh argued that letters could be read ‘as a form of autobiography in progress,’ and each letter offers a partial account of the life as it progressed.26
A ‘hidden history’ of affectionate and caring domestic relationships may be illuminated through letters.27 The letters of Richard Taylor and Simon Brown are also examples of this. Picton-Phillips’ research identified that:
23 For example, Olive Dormer (nee Bloor) wrote to Sarah Leake from New Zealand thanking her for money and
to offer family news, and she wrote a condolence letter to Charles Leake upon the death of his father. Olive Dormer to Sarah Leake, c1863, and, Olive Dormer to Charles Leake, 27th May 1868, Leake Papers, Hobart: Special Collections, University of Tasmania.
24 Leake Papers; Pamela Statham, The Tanner Letters: A Pioneer Saga of Swan River & Tasmania 1831-1843,
Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1981; Richard Davis and Stefan Petrow, eds., Varieties of Vice-Regal Life (Van Diemen’s Land Section) by Sir William and Lady Denison, Hobart: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 2004.
25 Bruce Hindmarsh, “ ‘Wherever I go I Whill Right to You’,” in Chain Letters: Narrating Convict Lives, Lucy
Frost and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, eds., Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001, p. 172.
26 Hindmarsh, “ ‘Wherever I go I Whill Right to you’,” p. 173. 27
Christina JV Picton Phillips, “Convicts, Communications and Authority: Britain and New South Wales, 1810- 1830,” unpublished PhD thesis, History and Classics, University of Edinburgh, 2002, p. 2.
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… there was an ongoing tension between the bureaucratically desensitising effects of individual entries [in the indents] and the ghostly human beings whose recorded physical characteristics… gave the illusion of virtual corporeal reality.28
The people came to life. While her study was of the continuing personal links between those transported and those left behind as part of enhancing the understanding of transportation, this work considers letters between those in servitude and the masters as an example of the enduring bonds that could be formed.
A cohort of convict women can be identified amid women letter writers in New South Wales up to 1857, among them Mary Talbot, Margaret Catchpole, Ann Robinson, Mary Oliver (later McDonald), Mary Reiby, Ann Chapman and Lydia Esden. 29 Their letters cover the full range of personal entreaties, hopes and disappointments; describe their fears; and