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The language of space and ownership in rural New South Wales in the mid-nineteenth-century: rural workers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Paula Jane Byrne
Paula Jane Byrne*
Affiliation:
Visting Fellow, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
Email: paulajanebyrne22@outlook.com
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Abstract

Language used in depositions in colonial New South Wales shows a mobile non-Aboriginal society of close surveillance, rumour and informing. This derived from the convict system. In response to this there was considerable play with marking and markers, including the widespread use of nicknames and emphasis on personal space. Outside of this was the dreamlike realm of entertainment to be had in public houses, Aboriginal camps and Chinese tents at the diggings. Aboriginal politics was present at all of these places but Aboriginal camps were also places of considerable danger.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , October 2021 , pp. 167 - 186
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Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1 Stephen Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835–1847 (Melbourne, Aus., 1964). Violence continued into the 1860s, punitive raids at Kempsey occurred as late as 1860. Sydney Morning Herald, 9th May 1860, on the Tweed River in 1866; see Bray Papers, ML MSS, 1929.

2 Nigel Parbury, Survival, A History of Aboriginal Life in New South Wales (Sydney, Aus., 1988). The areas of Aboriginal Country covered by this article include Kamilaroi/Gumeroi, Bunjalung, Dhungutti, Gumbaynggirr and Yuin. These groups have their own websites presenting their history.

3 David Vaissey, ‘Court records and the social history of seventeenth-century England’, History Workshop, 1 (spring 1976), 185–91.

4 Western Districts Letter Book, SR 4/10757, Inspector of Police Western Districts to Principal Superintendent of Police, 6th and 12th December 1866.

5 M. Muir, ed., My Bush Book, Katie Langloh Parker’s Story of Outback Station Life (Adelaide, Aus., 1982). Keith Thomas has noted that a sunburned woman was considered beautiful among the plebians of early modern England. Keith Thomas, In Pursuit of Civility (New Haven, CT, 2018), p. 100. For Aboriginal trade routes becoming non-Aboriginal roads and highways, see Dale Kerwin, Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trade Routes: The Colonization of the Australian Economic Landscape (Sussex, UK, 2010).

6 Supreme Court (hereafter SC), State Records NSW (hereafter SR) 9/6431, R v. David Callaghan, Hugh Johnson, January 1860.

7 Duncan B. Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper: A History of the Darling Downs (Sydney, Aus., 1968), p. 69.

8 Armidale Express, 29th August 1857, 8th August 1857.

9 SC SR 9/6404, R. v. Michael Casey, September 1856.

10 Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper. For Aboriginal people, see Paula Jane Byrne, ‘Wallambin: Looking at the Whites There’, in Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey, Kate Ellinghaus, eds, Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity (Melbourne, Aus., 20070, p. 44; Rachel Stanfield, ‘Moving Across, Looking Beyond’, in Rachel Standfield, ed., Indigenous Mobilities: Across and Beyond the Antipodes (Canberra, Aus., 2018), pp. 1–35.

11 William Ogilvie did not like the ‘flash’ servants he hired in 1855. Ogilvie Papers, ML 1068.

12 NSW Police Gazette, 1862–1930. Trove, the word flash was used 98 times between 1860 and 1869. It was used to describe appearance, and relates to dressing in clothes that were stylish and a well-kept appearance. It also related to ‘manner’, meaning the person spoke above his station in life. It was related to ‘dandy’, a word it appears alongside and is negatively used. It is not related to convict ‘flash language’. In 1905, Banjo Paterson wrote lyrics to ‘bush songs’ dating from the 1870s and one of these was ‘Flash Jack from Gundagai’, a song about shearing where ‘flash’ is used in a positive manner. Clement Semmler, A. B. Paterson (Melbourne, Aus., 1972).

13 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, UK, 1994).

14 Yuri Lotman, Universe of the Mind (Bloomington, IN, 1990), p. 195.

15 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend (Oxford, UK, 1993), p. 117.

16 Graeme Davison, ‘Sydney and the bush: An urban context for the Australian legend’, Australian Historical Studies, 18 (1978), 191–209.

17 Richard Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid (Fremantle, Aus., 2005).

18 Ibid., p. 169.

19 Angela Woollacott, Settler Society in the Australian Colonies, Self-Government and Imperial Culture (Oxford, UK, 2015); Robert Hogg, Men and Manliness on the Frontier (London, UK, 2013).

20 Minna Palander Collin, Arja Nurmi, Minna Devala, eds, The Language of Daily Life in England (Amsterdam, 2004).

21 Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things (New York, NY, 1988), p. 46.

22 Ann Laura Stoler, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Time (New York, NY, 2016), p. 72.

23 That legal regimes construct personhood is the perspective of Colin Dayan, The Law is a White Dog (Princeton, NJ, 2011).

24 Murrurundi Bench of Magistrates (hereafter MBM) SR 7/6203 A, undated.

25 MBM SR 7/6201 B, reported 20th October 1881.

26 MBM SR 7/6201 B, Police office Tamworth to Murrurundi Bench, 23rd February 1883; Mrs C. Carter to Inspector of Police, 28th October 1899.

27 MBM SR 7/6201 B, Police Office Scone, 1st October 1844.

28 SC SR 9/6388, R. v. Donald McLaughlin, April 1854.

29 Miscellaneous papers relating to Aborigines, Dixson Library, DL ADD 81, Depositions taken by Richard Bligh, JP, Acting Coroner, 26th August 1848.

30 George Farwell, Squatter’s Castle (Sydney, Aus., 1973).

31 Russell Ward explored this kind of masculinity in The Australian Legend.

32 Byrne, ‘Wallambin, Looking at the Whites There’, p. 44.

33 SC SR 9/6404, R v. David Walters, 1856.

34 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Mary Cott, November 1855; SC SR 9/6404, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

35 MBM SR 7/6203, Jonathon M. Steele to Murrurundi Bench of Magistrates, 20th December 1849.

36 SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854, the impetus for the case against the squatter Bucknell came from Aboriginal workers.

37 Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, p. 53.

38 MBM SC SR 7/6203, John Williams, 8th July 1846.

39 MBM SR 7/6203, James Juchan, 13th October 1880.

40 SC SR 9/6369, R v. George Beresford, February 1855.

41 MBM SR 7/6201 B, Application for Publican’s Licence, October 1844.

42 MBM SR 7/6201 A, Application for Publican’s Licence, 9th March 1858.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Wee Waa Letterbook, Magistrates to Colonial Secretary, 15th October 1856,.

47 MBM SR 7/6201 A, William Burrow, 7th November 1842.

48 MBM SR 7/6201 B, Lewis Cohen, 21st September 1849.

49 MBM SR 7/6021 A, James Buckley, 26th July 1853.

50 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853; SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Clarke, September 1853; SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

51 MBM SR 7/6021 B, James Shanahan, 5th September 1854, p. 20.

52 SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Clarke, September 1853.

53 SC SR 9/6361, Supreme Court Depositions.

54 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

55 MBM SR 7/6203, Nicholas Connor, 30th April 1846.

56 SC SR 9/7369, Supreme Court Depositions, R v. John Connor, July 1855; SC SR 9/6396, R v. John McMullan and Duffy, February 1859; SC SR 9/6431.

57 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Mary Cott, November 1855; SC SR 9/6411, R v. Samuel Haulk, 1856.

58 SC SR 4/6423, R. v. William Godwin, Supreme Court, 1859.

59 Ibid,

60 SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Clarke, September 1853.

61 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

62 Paula Jane Byrne, ‘ Depositions, household space and ownership in colonial New South Wales’, Canterbury Law Review, 25 (2019), 117–43.

63 SC SR 7/6201 B, David Todd, 23rd July 1845, Murrurundi Bench of Magistrates.

64 SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Clarke, September 1853.

65 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855; SC SR 9/6426, R v. George Martin, February 1859.

66 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

67 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Mary Cott, November 1855.

68 MBM SR 7/6201, Police Office Murrurundi, 23rd July 1845.

69 Byrne, ‘Depositions, household space and ownership in colonial New South Wales’.

70 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Roger and Jemmy, June 1858.

71 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Billy Cuppy, August 1855.

72 ML MSS 1068, Ogilvie Diary, knife, 26th January 1852; ML MSS 1929, Joshua Bray Diary, gun, 8th September 1866; ML A2 068, Charles Tindal to Father, knives, 10th October 1845.

73 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

74 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

75 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Thomas Mercer, alias Cox.

76 SC SR 9/6411, R v. John Beresford, September 1857; Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper, p. 71.

77 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Mark Gray, February 1858.

78 Armidale Express, 24th January 1857, 28th February 1857

79 SC SR 9/6410, R v. White and Smith, August 1855.

80 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

81 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

82 SC SR 7/6201 A, Police Office Murrurundi, 23rd July 1845.

83 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

84 Ibid.

85 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Mary Cott, November 1855.

86 SC SR 9/6399, R v. James Clarke, April 1854.

87 SC SR 9/6426, ‘He ran up the town’, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

88 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

89 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Thomas Crane and Eliza Cameron, May 1850.

90 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Joseph Sawyer, December 1856.

91 Ibid.

92 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Jemmy – a Chinaman, June 1859.

93 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Joseph Sawyer, December 1856.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid.

96 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

97 Paula Jane Byrne, ‘Space and ownership in depositions: the cultural basis of litigious New South Wales’, Canterbury Law Review (2019).

98 SC SR 9/6396, R v. Wright Harrison, December 1863.

99 SC SR 9/6396, R v. Michael Sullivan, January 1854; SC SR 9/6404, R v. Ling Lieu, Tiro Swee and Johnny, October 1856.

100 SC SR 9/6457, R v. Jacky Hippi, December 1862.

101 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Joseph Sawyer, December 1856.

102 SC SR 9/6361, R v. John Boyle, December 1849.

103 SC SR 9/6396, R v. James Fitzpatrick, July 1853.

104 SC SR 9/6426, R. v. James Martin, February 1860.

105 SC SR 9/6404, R v. David Walters, February 1856.

106 SC SR 9/6404, R v. David Walters, February 1856.

107 SC SR 9/6388, ‘Men in the house’, R v. Elizabeth Cameron and Thomas Crane, May 1850; SC SR 9/6388, R v. Wright Harrison, December 1853; SC SR 9/6426, R v. George Martin, February 1859.

108 Beverley Kingston, The Oxford History of Australia: Glad Confident Morning, 1860–1900, Volume 3 (Melbourne, Aus., 1988), pp. 53–5.

109 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Mark Gray, February 1858.

110 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Joseph Sawyer, December 1856; SC SR 9/6411.

111 SC SR 9/6431, R v. John McMullan, Duffy, December 1859.

112 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Francis Foot, May 1859.

113 SC SR 9/6396, R v. Michael Sullivan, January 1854.

114 SR 9/6426, R v. Thomas Smith, December 1858.

115 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Joseph Sawyer, December 1856.

116 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Jemmy – a Chinaman, June 1859; SC SR 9/6361, R v. John Boyle, December 1849.

117 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Alexander Mason, December 1853; Byrne, ‘Depositions and the cultural basis of litigation’.

118 SC SR 9/6357, R v. William Thomas, August 1850; SC SR 9/6388, R. v. Michael Cunningham, January 1855; SC SR 9/6388, R v. Alexander Mason, 17 December 1853.

119 Graeme Davison, The Unforgiving Minute: How Australia Learned to Tell the Time (Melbourne, Aus., 1993).

120 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Ling Lieu, Tiro Swee and Johnny, October 1856.

121 Ibid.

122 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

123 SC SR 9/6369, R v. George Beresford, February 1855.

124 SR SR 9/6411, R v. Roger and Jemmy, June 1858.

125 Roger Millis, The Wallabadah Manuscripts (Sydney, Aus., 1980); Paula Jane Byrne, ‘War people: punitive raids, democracy and the white family’, Genealogy, 4:4 (101) (2020), 1–16.

126 SC SR 9/6410, R v. Robert Ward, alias Robert Cooper, alias Bob the Lawyer, July 1857.

127 SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854.

128 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Davy Storr, October 1855.

129 ‘Two gins’ were with McLaughlin and Henry Romaine on the night of an attack by the men on an Aboriginal camp. SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854, one of the wealthy Bucknell brothers had ‘gins’ who assisted him in skinning cattle referred to as ‘his gins’ who lived in his hut. Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings 1857, 1858.

130 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

131 Sydney Morning Herald, 9th May 1860.

132 Miscellaneous papers relating to Aborigines, Dixson Library, DL ADD 81, Depositions taken by Richard Bligh, JP, Acting Coroner, 26th August 1848.

133 Bray Family Papers, ML MSS 1929, Diary of Joshua Bray and Samuel Gray, 16th September 1866; Tindal Letter Book, ML A2068, Charles Tindal to Father, 21st August 1853; James Martin Diary, 7th September 1877; Illustrated Sydney News, 15th September 1867; The Rockhampton Bulletin, 11th November 1861; Illustrated Sydney News, 15th April 1865; Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 5th April 1865; SMH, 8th April 1865, 14th February 1874; Portland Guardian, 24th February 1874; Brisbane Courier, 2nd February 1875; SMH, 17th December 1881; SMH, 9th January 1886; SMH, 14th July 1888; Northern Territory Times, 26th December 1890; SMH, 3rd August 1900; SMH, 11th August 1900; SMH, 14th August 1900; J. E. Bennett, ‘Queensland Pioneers’, The Central Queensland Herald, 6th October 1938.

134 MBM SR 7/6201 B, Letter Police Station Murrurundi, 22nd October 1900.

135 Miscellaneous papers relating to Aborigines, Dixson Library, DL ADD 81, Depositions taken by Richard Bligh, JP, Acting Coroner, 26th August 1848; SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854.

136 SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854.

137 SC SR 9/6410, R. v. Robert Ward.

138 SC SR 9/6426, R v. John McMullen, December 1859.

139 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

140 SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Clarke, September 1854.

141 SC SR 9/6388, R v. James Johnson, January 1855.

142 SC SR 9/6438, R v. Henry Blanchenhargen, June 1855.

143 SC SR 9/6361, R v. Neil O’Donnell and Patrick Cullen, December 1849.

144 SC SR 9/6404, R v. Thomas Mercer, alias Cox, November 1856.

145 SC SR 9/6432, R v. William Murphy, February 1860.

146 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Dent, alias Thomas Gardiner, 1853.

147 SC SR 9/6432, R v. David Callaghan, December 1859.

148 SC SR 9/6431, R v. David Callaghan, Hugh Johnson, January 1860.

149 SC SR 9/6432, R v. David Callaghan, December 1859.

150 MBM SR 7/6201 A, Colonial Secretary Circular, 5th March 1850.

151 SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854.

152 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Michael Cunningham, February 1855.

153 SC SR 9/6368, R v. Lafferty and Johnson, December 1850.

154 SC SR 9/6369, R v. George Beresford, February 1855.

155 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Michael Sullivan, January 1854.

156 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Francis Foot, May 1859; MBM SR 7/6202 B, Eliza Wilson, 10 July 1849.

157 SC SR 9/6411, R v. Patrick Welsh, December 1850.

158 SC SR 9/6404, R v. David Walters, February 1856.

159 SC SR 9/6388, ‘The deceased and prisoner were mates’, R v. Thomas Crane and Elizabeth Cameron, May 1854; SC SR 9/6410, R v. White and Smith, August 1856; SC SR 9/6388, R v. Thomas Marshall and Bernard Hammell, July 1855.

160 SC SR 9/6431, R v. David Callaghan, Hugh Johnson, January 1860.

161 SC SR 9/6410, R v. White and Smith, August 1855.

162 SC SR 9/6397, R v. Donald McLaughlin, July 1854.

163 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Thomas Crane, Elizabeth Cameron, May 1850.

164 SC SR 9/6457, R v. Jacky Hippi, December 1862.

165 SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

166 MBM SR 7/6203 A, Evidence of Elizabeth Williams, 24th February 1853. The word ‘convict’ shows the longevity of the convict system in language, similarly in 1858 Mark Gray feared he would be ‘transported’. SC SR 9/6419, R v. Mark Gray, February 1858.

167 SC SR 9/6432, R v. Billy and Tommy, December 1859; SC SR 9/6396, R v. John Connor, July 1855.

168 SC SR 9/6388, R v. Robert Ashley, January 1854.

169 SC SR 9/6388, R. v. Donald McLaughlin, April 1854.

170 Ibid.

171 Bucknell case, Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings, 1857, 1858.

172 P. Fox, Sweet Damper and Gossip, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla, 1994.

173 MBM SC SR 6202 A, James Buckley, July 1853.

174 SC SR 9/6426, R v. Kenneth Matheison, March 1859.

175 SC SR 9/6410, R v. Robert Ward, August 1856.

176 SC SR 9/6369, R v. George Beresford, February 1855.

177 SC SR 9/6410, R v. White and Smith, August 1856.

178 MBM 7/6203 A, John Cundy, 4th May 1852.

179 MBM 7/6201 B, Edward Harris, 24th February 1846.

180 MBM SR 7/6202 A, John Tuckwell.

181 SC SR 9/6431, R v. David Callaghan, Hugh Johnson, January 1860.

182 Hans Medick, ‘The proto-industrial family: the structural function of household and family during the transition from peasant society to industrial capitalism’, Social History, 1–3 (1976), 291–315.

183 Ibid.

184 Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime (Sydney, Aus., 1979); Maggie Brady, ‘Alcohol Fermentation in Australian Aboriginals’, in Helaine Selin, ed,. Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures (Netherlands, 2014).