Secret and safe: The underlife of concealed objects from the Royal Derwent Hospital, New Norfolk, Tasmania

Abstract

This paper focuses on a collection of objects deliberately concealed beneath the verandah of a ward for middle-class, female, paying patients at Australia’s longest continuously operating mental health institution, the Royal Derwent Hospital in Tasmania. Cached in small discrete mounds across an area of some 50 square metres, the collection was probably concealed in the mid-20th century and contains over 1000 items of clothing, ephemera and other objects dating from 1880 to the mid-1940s. In achieving a possessional territory of such magnitude, this patient achieved a level of personal self-expression that is rarely encountered archaeologically, particularly within an institutional context. Analysis of this collection as an ‘underlife’ illuminates both functional aspects of the hospital and the hopes and desires of this particular, though still anonymous, patient and her vibrant world of things.

Investigating Underfloor and Between Floor Deposits in Standing Buildings in Colonial Australia

“…It is also worth noting that the combination of dry underfloor areas and a dust matrix provides excellent opportunity for organic preservation. Indeed, at the majority of sites discussed here, fragile organic materials such as paper, textiles, fibers, leather, and plant materials were well preserved and survived intact for over a century (Auld et al 2019;Bryant et al 2020;Davies 2013b;Winter and Romano 2019).…”

“…Casey (2004: 33) suggested this may be in part because the presence of cellars in many American buildings precludes the capacity for deposits to build up underneath floorboards, so they are rarely encountered. However, nineteenth-century Australian buildings are less likely to have cellars, and indeed Australian research certainly shows the importance of under and between floor deposits in archaeological research (e.g., Bryant et al 2020;Casey 2004;Murphy 2013;Winter and Romano 2019). Their interpretation requires an understanding of the construction, life span, and use of buildings.…”

“…Documentary evidence of this practice was provided from Port Arthur, Tasmania, where convict shoemakers were caught hiding contraband under floorboards (Booth 1833). Caching behavior, or the hiding of material beneath floorboards, is seen to occur primarily at institutional sites, such as schools and orphanages (Drummond-Wilson 2018), missions (Green 2018), prisons (Mein 2012), work houses (Davies et al 2014), and lunatic asylums (Auld et al 2019;Bryant et al 2020). Auld et al (2019) and Bryant et al (2020) reported a particularly spectacular episode of caching at the Royal Derwent Hospital in Tasmania, with large bundles of material being deposited, seemingly by a single inmate over decades.…”

“…Caching behavior, or the hiding of material beneath floorboards, is seen to occur primarily at institutional sites, such as schools and orphanages (Drummond-Wilson 2018), missions (Green 2018), prisons (Mein 2012), work houses (Davies et al 2014), and lunatic asylums (Auld et al 2019;Bryant et al 2020). Auld et al (2019) and Bryant et al (2020) reported a particularly spectacular episode of caching at the Royal Derwent Hospital in Tasmania, with large bundles of material being deposited, seemingly by a single inmate over decades. Likewise, Drummond-Wilson (2018) reported the caching of numerous toys and items valuable to children at the Perth Girls Orphanage, while Winter and Romano (2019) reported the deliberate placement of drug paraphernalia below floorboards at the Artillery Drill Hall in Fremantle.…”