Something New

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We feature each week Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.

“RUSHING FOR GOLD – Life and Commerce in the Goldfields of New Zealand and Australia” Edited by Lloyd Carpenter and Lyndon Fraser (Otago University Press, $NZ45)

I have always found it difficult reviewing collections of academic essays written by many hands. Each essay will be so dense with information and meaning that it really requires a “close reading” – or perhaps a detailed counter-argument, if it is on a topic about which I know something. And yet any review which gave a “close reading” to all the contributions in such a collection would become unwieldy and over-long. This problem rears its head again as I look at this heavy (nearly 400 closely-printed pages) collection of twenty essays written by 23 people. [There are two contributions written in collaboration.]

Rushing for Gold has been jointly edited by Lloyd Carpenter (Lincoln University) and Lyndon Fraser (Otago University) and looks at New Zealand’s nineteenth century gold rushes with special – but not exclusive – reference to the trans-Tasman connection. These gold rushes were as much Australasian affairs as solely New Zealand ones. This fact was noted in Stefan Eldrid-Grigg’s racy and populist history of New Zealand’s gold rushes Diggers, Hatters and Whores (2008) and has also been glanced at in such recent works of fiction as Charlotte Randall’s Hokitika Town (2006) and of course Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries (2013). I have noticed that in the last decade there has been a growing interest in the gold-rush era of our history, by writers of fiction as much as by historians. Perhaps it is because our gold rushes can be framed as the nearest things in our history to the “wild frontier” phase of American history.

Rushing for Gold is not a “wild frontier” book or a piece of mythologising. Its sets of essays are grouped thematically into five parts.

The four essays of Part One are the ones which deal specifically with the Australian connection. Chris McConville, Keir Reeves and Andrew Reeves collaborate to chew over the issue of how much gold rushes in Otago and in the Australian colony of Victoria produced similar societies and mentalities. In his essay, Daniel Davy takes the more direct path of chronicling exactly how many Australians rushed to Otago and what social impact they had. “Victorian capital and commerce flooded into the province with a rapidity that stunned Otago colonists,” he notes, adding that the rushes “pulled Otago closer to Melbourne.” (p.45) In a dense demographic reading, Terry Hearn shows how the Tuapeka rush produced as much disillusioned movement of miners away from New Zealand as influx into the province. Finally, John Angus explains why, despite their populism and their desire to participate in politics, the influx of miners into Otago did not set off the type of political clashes that had happened in Ballarat in the 1850s. As one would expect, the figure of Vincent Pyke looms large in this chapter.

The next four essays deal with two ethnic groups who were involved in New Zealand gold rushes. One of these groups has been amply documented in relation to the gold rushes, and made the subject of films, TV documentaries and so forth. These were the Chinese, who are commemorated in three essays by James Ng, Joanna Boileau and Paul Macgregor. Ng is mainly concerned with the physical conditions under which the Chinese miners worked. He writes:

“When the Chinese miners arrived in Otago, European miners held the best claims and water rights, so newcomers got the rest, including worked-over and abandoned ground. In poor-yielding land, the work had to be methodical, and the Chinese miners excelled at this by working in cooperative parties. They readily took up poorer auriferous ground, which was apparently plentiful and mostly free when they first arrived, a practice which minimised competition and irritation between Europeans and Chinese.”( p.107)

Joanna Boileau talks about how the Chinese provisioned themselves and established a local tradition by producing both their own food and food for trade in market gardening. Paul Macgregor takes a broader picture on the social impact of Chinese in the area. This is a particularly nuanced essay, as Macgregor does touch on some Pakeha antagonism towards the Chinese, but also notes how well Chinese were able to establish themselves in local business and indeed how various the Pakeha response to them was. On the whole, the law protected the Chinese from the type of racially-inspired attacks to which they were sometimes subject.

The other and, oddly, less-often-discussed ethnic group involved in New Zealand gold rushes were the Maori, the subject of an essay by Lloyd Carpenter. Among other things, Carpenter makes what should be the obvious point (but is often overlooked) that Maori were aware of some of the local gold deposits before the gold rushes began. He also documents some of the Maori diggers involved in the rush, and the fact that a very few Maori goldminers made it to overseas rushes in such places as the Yukon.

If the broad picture of the international nature of the gold rushes, and the various ethnicities involved, are dealt with in the first two sections, then Part Three turns to the matter of gender, without which no respectable modern socio-history can appear. Specifically, there are three essays on women in the goldfields of Otago and the West Coast. Sandra Quick takes on the large topic of how women were involved as hoteliers and illegal purveyors of liquor for the whole of the late nineteenth century. Julia Bradshaw’s contribution, entitled “Forgetting Their Place”, is one of the most nuanced in the collection. Discussing women of “abandoned character”, Bradshaw comes close to refuting the view that the goldfields swarmed with prostitutes. Many women thus labelled, she argues, were women who lived unconventionally (not married to their male partners, for example) but who were not necessarily career prostitutes. This is an interesting chapter as much about perception as about the objective facts of the case. As Bradshaw notes: “The courts and public opinion were relatively unforgiving if women stepped out of the sphere of what was seen as acceptable behaviour for women at the time.”(p.167). She instances the case of a hotelier’s wife being fined by a magistrate for using foul language as she attempted to eject forcibly a drunken customer. The magistrate suggested that her actions would have been perfectly acceptable had they been performed by her husband. On quite a different tack, Lyndon Fraser, who has twice published volumes about the early Irish in New Zealand, combines the themes of gender and ethnicity with an essay on Irish women in the West Coast rush, a sober account of how these deracinated women made careers in all spheres of life.

If I have been able to tick off the Aussie connection, ethnicity and gender as being the subjects of the first three parts of Rushing for Gold, it is harder to characterise the five essays of the fourth part. Part Four is headed “Goldfields Society”, but this seems to refer to the matter of social class and profession. Professor Tom Brooking’s essay “Harsh Environment, Softer Sociology” looks at the whole story of goldmining in the Dunstan area of Otago, from the first rush through the long period when an established gold-mining “industry” was operating there. Brooking laments the lack of real sociological analysis of people involved. Rosemary Marryatt observes what was, for one social class, the negative impact of the gold rushes. She tells the story of the run-holder (large-scale pastoralist) William Rees and his family, whose way of life was disrupted by the arrival of all the diggers. Lloyd Carpenter considers the number of businesses that were set up, either to support and provision gold-diggers or to “grubstake” them and finance them with loans. But he concludes that those who prospered on the back of miners’ toil were not a class apart – generally the goldfields’ merchants and bankers were no wealthier than the toilers in the goldfields themselves.

Remarks Carpenter: “Although a divide existed between miners and merchants on the goldfields, the divide was not one of wealth or even of the degree to which earnings were hard-won. The divide was simply along the nature of urban resident and mining-cottage dweller, of business-owner and miner. The nature of their respective operations produced a naturally dichotomised society, but the relationship between each was more symbiotic than adversarial.”(Carpenter, p.239)

Jeremy Finn considers the careers of fifteen lawyers who practised in the goldfields while Andre Brett analyses the impact of the gold rushes upon the rise (and later fall) of the New Zealand provincial system, and especially upon the development of railways in Otago and Southland.

When an historical process passes out of living memory, it enters the realm of legend. This is very much what the fifth and final part of Rushing for Gold deals with. Warwick Frost’s unexpected contribution considers the way tourists are encouraged to interpret and “act out” a mythologised version of the American Old West and of Australian colonialism in the USA and Oz, and what principles underlie such presentations. Implicitly, these principles could be applied to the Otago goldfields. Neville Ritchie’s chapter is the most matter-of-fact: a methodical survey of archaeological sites in Otago related to goldfields. And at the other end of the creative spectrum, the final chapter is the playscript of a musical entertainment devised by Fiona Farrell, concerning a group of entertainers who toured the goldfields putting on shows for miners. Their chief is Charles Thatcher, an historical figure from the goldfields, noted for his ability to whip up satirical songs for all occasions. Some of Thatcher’s songs are quoted in earlier chapters in this book.

You have got to the end of this review probably as exasperated as I am. Given the variety of its contents, Rushing for Gold has led me to do what is a very bad habit of mine. I have listed conscientiously and name-checked diligently the various contents of this volume like a good bibliographer but a bad reviewer. You see, I have barely passed reasoned judgment on the volume at all. I have simply told you what is in it.

Time to ‘fess up. Some of the essays really held my attention for the human stories they told and the vivid accounts they gave of living and working conditions a century-and-a-half ago. Others are more in the nature of academic exercises. From that point of view, Rushing for Gold is a mixed bag. As always in a well-illustrated book, the many images are fascinating. I am always intrigued by the way outdoors photographs taken in the nineteenth century, because of the primitive nature of early cameras, wash out backgrounds so that panoramic shots of towns and settlements leave them floating in blank-space, like revenants. Thus it is with the photo of the boomtown of Naseby in the 1860s. I am sorry that the front cover presents us with a rather cluttered design. But apart from that gripe Rushing for Gold succeeds in its aim of being the highly informative tome it is.

Something New

We feature each week Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books 

“FAR FROM ‘HOME’ -  The English in New Zealand” edited by Lyndon Fraser and Angela McCarthy (Otago University Press, $NZ45)

            At all times since New Zealand was first settled by Pakeha, the largest single group of immigrants has been the English. But the very dominance of the English strain in New Zealand has made it virtually invisible. If such a large portion of the population are of English descent, then English-derived customs and habits of thought are taken as the New Zealand norm, and therefore not worthy of special study. Irish-, Scottish- and other-derived customs and habits of thought are seen as deviations from this norm, and therefore of greater historical interest. The English strain is merely part of the landscape.

            Recently in our universities there has been an upsurge of interest in our Celtic forebears. History departments offer courses and papers in Irish and Scottish studies, and many academics have contributed to these studies, including Lyndon Fraser and Angela McCarthy. Fair enough. Older – and now superseded – history books tended to be very Anglo-centric in the judgements they made, often conveying uncritically ideas about English skills as colonisers and settlers in the Wakefield and Canterbury myths. But perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far. Perhaps papers and monographs on West Coast Irish and Dunedin Scots have begun to give the impression that these were the only interesting nineteenth century immigrants to New Zealand. Maybe the time is right to say something, with real documentation, about specifically English immigrants and their experience.

            This, at any rate, appears to be the impulse behind  Far From ‘Home’, a collection of eight academic essays by various hands. From different perspectives, the essays look at the Englishness of immigrants between 1840 and the early twentieth century with, in some cases, briefer afterthoughts on the situation since then. In their introduction the editors make it plain that Far From ‘Home’ can hardly be the last word on the topic. Among these essays there is, for example, no systematic study of the religion that the English brought with them, unlike the way migrant studies of the Scots or Irish inevitably discuss their Presbyterianism and Catholicism.

            As I see it, the eight essays divide into two types – those that give the necessary documentation on English migration in general; and those that offer some quirky or individual perspective.

            Take the “necessary” essays first.

            Stephen Constantine’s contribution “In Search of the English and Englishness” is the inevitable demographic study making clear that of British emigrants to any part of the old empire, the majority were always English rather than Scots or Irish, but that majority was never as great a proportion of the total as the majority of English was in Britain itself. For example, by 1901, and judging from their points of departure, British immigrants to New Zealand were 54% English,  23% Scots,  21% Irish and 1% Welsh. In Britain itself, the English made up 74% of the total population, the Irish and Scots about 11% each, and the Welsh 5%. Even if the English were the largest group, therefore, New Zealand was proportionately more Scots and Irish than Britain itself was. To compound this fact, Constantine also notes that many immigrants listed as “English” in demographic records were people of Irish and Scots parentage who had settled in England only a short time before emigrating to New Zealand.

            Constantine’s study is empire-wide, and in discussing reasons for emigration it balances up need (pauperism; poverty etc.) with inducements (the imperial power’s desire to stock colonies with the British-born). In the matter of the ruling class in colonies (governors, premiers etc.) Constantine concludes that there were more English-born than Irish-born or Scots-born, but again English dominance was not as overwhelming as it was in Britain itself. Most intriguingly, however, Constantine considers the difficulties of defining “Englishness” in this empire-wide context. It is reasonable to see the Anglican church as English, but professing Anglicans were a minority in all major British dominions, and were never the majority that the English-born were. Many English people were, after all, Methodists, Baptists etc. Likewise, the playing of certain games (rugby, cricket) and social class are useless as demographic markers of “Englishness”. Judiciously, Constantine concludes:

            “Englishness, like other expressions of national identity in most peacetime circumstances, was usually a ‘soft’ force. It rarely predominated over a sense of self, prompted social behaviour, defined social interactions, determined a particular church allegiance, or constrained cultural interactions with others from the United Kingdom….there was not, in any case, a singular English identity, but many.” (Pg.38)

            Marjory Harper’s “Everything is English” deals in detail with how English immigrants were recruited, what areas of England they came from, and the preconceptions they had about New Zealand (fear of “cannibal islands” etc.). She considers such matters as how disappointed many were when prospects in New Zealand were oversold to them. In her conclusion she notes there was not one uniform system of emigration from England and she speaks of “the consistently contentious status of agency activity, manifested in internal jealousies, external rivalries and the complaints of disappointed immigrants.” (Pg.59)

            The contribution of  Lachlan Paterson “Pakeha or English?” raises the obvious question of whether the indigenous people saw any difference between the various strands of British immigrants. Ingarangi (England) and Ingarihi (English) tended to be used by Maori as synonyms for “Britain” and “British”. Drawing extensively on both Maori-language and English-language nineteenth century newspapers, Paterson argues that Maori also tended to see “English” and “Pakeha” as synonymous. Because the English were numerically the largest immigrant group from Britain, it was predominantly their culture which became the Pakeha norm in Maori eyes.

            As for the perspective of English immigrants themselves, David Pearson’s “Arcadia Reinvented?” differs from other essays in this book by being based on the twentieth century experience of living witnesses. Drawing on 82 long interviews with English immigrants who arrived between 1953 and 2007, Pearson attempts to reconstruct their attitudes and reasons for coming to New Zealand, and their attitudes towards both New Zealand and Britain after they had put down roots here. He sees some differences in attitudes between pre-1980s and post-1980s migrants.

            Thus far for the sensible, inevitable and “necessary” essays in a collection of this sort – an essay on demographics; an essay on how English immigrants were recruited; an essay on Maori understanding of immigrants; and an essay on English immigrants’ self-understanding. As source material they are valuable, but I admit to finding the remaining essays in the book – namely those that take a more unexpected aspect of the English influence – to be more readable and entertaining.

            Greg Ryan’s essay “ ‘Burton ale’, London Porter and Kentish Hops” concerns the production of beer and beer-drinking habits in New Zealand. Most beer consumed here was imported from England until the mid-19^th century. Ryan recounts such bizarre tales as brewers of inferior local beer in Dunedin seeking out empty bottles from England so that they could palm off their inferior local product as the real English thing. From his account it is clear that New Zealand-brewed beers were regarded as much inferior to imported English varieties right into early 20^th century and only gradually was a distinctive New Zealand beer standard established.

            Angela McCarthy’s “Migration and Ethnicity among English Migrants in New Zealand Asylums” notes that while the English made up the largest group of  inmates, they were not as over-represented in New Zealand psychiatric institutions as the Irish were. Her speculation on why this should have been so suggests how the “scientific racism” of superintendents’ notes on patients did not apply to English patients, whose ethnicity was not commented upon. In other words, English aberrations and eccentricities could be accepted as “normal”. Irish (and other ethnic) eccentricities and aberrations would be regarded as dangerous mental ailments.

            Lyndon Fraser’s “Memory, Mourning and Melancholy” concerns English attitudes to death and funerary customs as revealed in New Zealand cemeteries and other records. It is more diffuse and, dare I say it, more entertaining than some more tightly-structured essays in this volume. Fraser says much of his material comes from records in the more “English” settlements of Canterbury and Nelson, but he also quotes extensively from English imaginative literature. He considers the extent to which middle-class and upper-class funerals had been commercialised and become ostentatious in the nineteenth century, in a way that was often ridiculed by writers like Dickens and Emily Bronte; and that was later frowned upon in New Zealand.

            He considers the frequency of child mortality (“Death tracked birth like a bloodhound in the nineteenth century and, as the Christchurch registers show, exacted a terrible toll on infants and young children.” Pg.115 ). To his immense credit, Fraser enters into the spirit of the age he is writing about, and deals respectfully with the words of comfort – which can seem sentimental to us – which grieving parents had engraved on the tombstones of children. He also notes the real comforts of religion which nineteenth century mourners were given. In nineteenth-century New Zealand there was the habit, inherited from England, of carving up municipal cemeteries into denominational plots.

            There is a bizarre side to Fraser’s chapter when he deals with funerary portraits, trinkets, mementi mori and other keepsakes of the dead. Even more bizarre are his comments on the dangers of burial at sea for immigrants en route to New Zealand (sharks were likely to feed on “buried” corpses descending through the briny).

            If this chapter has a weakness, as far as the overall theme of the volume is concerned, it is a failure to point up the Englishness of it all by showing how these English mortuary practices differed from those of the Irish and the Scots.

            The final essay, Janet Wilson’s “ The ‘New Chum’ ”, examines “Writings of the English Diaspora in New Zealand 1860-1914”. It marches through that New Zealand-English poetry which is no longer esteemed (Alfred Domett attempting to transpose Victorianisms into heroic epic by the use of Maori names); and that which is still esteemed (Blanche Baughan). It does the same with novels and prose from Butler’s Erewhon, and the works of Lady Barker to Satchell’s The Greenstone Door. In each case, Wilson considers how much these writers expressed a certain dislocation in adjusting to a radically different climate and landscape, and how much they attempted to depict New Zealand according to established English literary norms.

            Wilson’s judgements are very much those of the current lit-crit “revisionism” (as in Stafford and Williams’ Maoriland) which refuses to see authentic New Zealand literature as beginning only in the 1930s, and which sees much literary merit in those colonial perspectives that were once regarded as passé. In other words, Wilson does not accept the “nationalist” idea of New Zealand literature which saw it as becoming more “authentic” the further it got from the colonial era. She posits that our literature will always to some extent be connected with that of Britain and ends with comments on the  (New Zealand-born, English-resident) Fleur Adcock; and (English-born, New Zealand-resident) Peter Bland.

            As you can see from these extensive comments, I have retreated into my common trick of summarising this book’s contents without passing too much judgement upon them. Of course Far From ‘Home’ will be a great source-book for researchers and other historians. Of course not all the essays are written with the same panache and style.

            Only two other comments need be made.

            First, I am still a little uneasy about the use of the term “diaspora” (“scattering” or “dispersal”), which is justified in the editor’s introduction and which is most clearly explained in Janet Wilson’s essay, where she says “migration” suggests going from one culture to another whereas “diaspora” suggests taking your culture with you and trying to implant it. Very well. I accept that in this sense the term can be justified of English emigrants. Nevertheless, ‘diaspora’ is still most commonly used for forced migration (as in the Jewish diaspora after the destruction of the second temple; or the Irish diaspora after the famine). I think it remains an inappropriate term for an English migration that was largely voluntary. To overuse the word is to drain it of any real meaning.

            Second, while some essays in this book do raise the problem of defining “Englishness”, I am not satisfied that all essays really tell us how distinctive English immigration to New Zealand was from Scots or Irish migration. As with the matter of English religious practice, this could mean that there is much more study yet to be done on this topic.