Hyde Park Barracks

Initially constructed between 1817 and 1819 as a barracks for male convict labourers in central Sydney (Figures 1 & 2), Hyde Park Barracks became largely vacant following the end of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840 and in 1848 most of the main building was turned into the Female Immigration Depot. The depot functioned for nearly 40 years, housing tens of thousands of unmarried female immigrants and children who travelled on subsidised passages. They stayed just a few days, before leaving for employment or to join their family. From 1862, the depot shared the site with a Destitute Asylum that housed women who were unable to support themselves because of age, illness or disability. Women in the asylum tended to be older and stayed for longer periods than women in the depot. Both institutions were the responsibility of a single matron and relied primarily on the labour of the inhabitants to function (Davies Reference Davies2010, Reference Davies2015).

Figure 1.

Map showing the modern extent of New South Wales and the location of Hyde Park Barracks on Queen's Square, Macquarie Street in central Sydney (figure by author).

Figure 2.

Exterior of Hyde Park Barracks (photograph by author).

In 1886 the asylum moved to new premises and the depot closed in 1887; the site became a series of law courts. Renovations to turn the site into a museum prompted salvage excavations in 1980–81, revealing extensive archaeological deposits including some 80 000 artefacts found beneath the floorboards of the main building (Davies et al. Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013). Not only did the dry and stable conditions of the underfloor spaces promote preservation of organic materials, but the use of a numbered joist system to record artefact contexts enables comparison between and within areas (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Excavation of the underfloor deposits in 1980–1981 showing the system of joists beneath the floorboards (photograph courtesy of Hyde Park Barracks Collection, Museums of History NSW).

While Hyde Park Barracks has been the subject of many archaeological studies since 1980, including the Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City Project (e.g. Davies et al. Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013; Murray & Crook Reference Murray and Crook2019; see also Starr Reference Starr2015; Connor Reference Connor2021), parts of the collection remain understudied. As part of a larger study of food and dining in the Female Immigration Depot (Connor Reference Connor2023), this article presents findings from the macrobotanical collection at Hyde Park Barracks.

The archaeobotanical collection

The deposits in the underfloor spaces are palimpsests formed through accidental loss, deliberate concealment, waste disposal and rodent activity (Davies et al. Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013: 13–14). Most items are small and fragmentary, having fallen or been swept through convict-era floorboards and retained by the ceilings of the room below. Larger items could only have been deposited by lifting the floorboards. Deposits are divided into Joist Groups (JG) and Joist Spaces (JS) (Figure 4), although these divisions exist only beneath the floorboards. There is no stratigraphy within the underfloor deposits and there are artefacts from each of the different stages of building usage but most date from the period 1848–1887 when the building was jointly occupied by the Female Immigration Depot and the Destitute Asylum (Davies et al. Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013: 12).

Figure 4.

Layout and numbering of the underfloor spaces on levels 2 and 3 of Hyde Park Barracks (figure by author).

Consequently, the macrobotanical remains provide a partial record of plant-food consumption during the period of female occupation. The Immigration Depot occupied both the second and third floors from 1848 until 1862 when level 3 was taken over by the Destitute Asylum, while the matron had quarters at the western end of level 2. Separating out the items associated with each institution is difficult because of the lack of stratigraphy and because there was flexibility in the allotment of space as the number of women fluctuated.

The primary focus of this article is the edible plant species from the site, but several species that are unlikely to have been consumed as food are also included as they represent rare examples of engagement with plants in colonial Australia. Following a search of the existing catalogue and visual inspection of potentially relevant artefact bags, items were hand-sorted by taxa and recorded in a database (for a full explanation of methods, see the online supplementary material).

Plant foods at Hyde Park Barracks

The documentary records for both the Female Immigration Depot and the Destitute Asylum suggest a diet that was unlikely to leave much archaeological evidence of plant foods. In both institutions the daily ration consisted of one pound of bread, one pound of meat, one pound of vegetables or potatoes, one-quarter ounce of tea, one and one-quarter ounces of sugar, and one-half ounce of salt (The Sydney Morning Herald 1850; Immigration Agent 1855; Government Asylums Inquiry Board 1887). Breakfast and supper consisted of sweetened tea and bread with dripping. For dinner, the main meal of the day, beef or mutton was boiled with vegetables (including carrots, turnips, pumpkins, leeks and parsnips) and herbs (such as marjoram, parsley and thyme) to make a soup, which was thickened with barley or flour and seasoned with salt and pepper (King Reference King1863; Royal Commission on Public Charities 1874: 75; NSWLAVP 1887). At other times the meat was baked and served with roast or boiled potatoes (NSWLAVP 1887: 450, 464).

There are scattered hints in the records, however, of a variety of other plant foods consumed at the barracks. Daily reports by the matron show that sago, oatmeal, arrowroot, rice, mustard and black pepper were ordered for the sick. On special occasions, such as Christmas, the women ate roast beef, plum pudding, cakes and fresh fruit, and were given extra tobacco (Evening News 1882). At an anniversary dinner in 1865: “The tables were ornamented with flowers and laden with dishes of beef, fowl, mutton, ham, and various viands, followed by plum puddings … after that cakes, fruit, and varied dessert” (Empire 1865: 5). In 1885, at the “annual treat”, a donor supplied “an abundance of fruit” (The Sydney Morning Herald 1885: 5). Beyond these occasions, women could purchase items from hawkers, receive food as gifts, barter among themselves or work for extra tea, sugar or tobacco. The women's movement outside the institution was restricted but not prohibited; women in the depot walked to church while women in the asylum could request leave once a month, providing opportunities to acquire food.

While this suggests that a wider range of plant foods was consumed at Hyde Park Barracks than initially thought, boiled root vegetables and ground spices are unlikely to preserve archaeologically. Furthermore, the most likely locations for finding macrobotanical remains, the kitchen and the privies, were not excavated at the site. Despite this, reanalysis of material from the main building revealed 3543 desiccated macrobotanical specimens from at least 34 plant types, including 28 named taxa (Table 1). These are organised below under vernacular food categories rather than botanical classifications, for the purposes of assessing how food was commonly experienced.

Table 1.

Number and weight of macrobotanical specimens from Hyde Park Barracks underfloor collections.

Fruit

The most abundant macrobotanical remains are stones from fruit including peaches/nectarines, cherries, plums and apricots (Figure 5). These fruits grew well in the Australian climate, with peaches growing feral in creek beds (Karskens Reference Karskens2020: 244, 249). There are also small quantities of seeds from apples or pears, as well as grape seeds and pedicel (stem), citrus peel and date seeds. A receipt for purchases for the Immigration Depot shows that grapes were purchased in the form of raisins and currants around Christmastime, probably for making seasonal British desserts such as plum pudding, fruit cake or mincemeat (Immigration Agent 1867). However, the presence of the grape stem may suggest that grapes were also eaten fresh. Similarly, while candied or grated citrus peel could have been used in cooking, the large fragments of dried citrus peel suggest that they were removed from fresh fruit.

Figure 5.

Selection of plant remains recovered during the excavation of underfloor deposits, including fruit stones, nut shells and dried citrus peel (photograph by Jamie North, courtesy of Hyde Park Barracks Collection, Museums of History NSW).

The 119 fragments of desiccated citrus peel represent a rare find, the first of their kind reported in Australia (for an Egyptian example, see Bouchaud et al. Reference Bouchaud, Morales, Schram, van der Veen, Fiorentino and Zech-Matterne2018). While definitive identification of the type of citrus has not been possible, some are more likely than others. Australia's native citrus fruits are too small and their peel too thin to be a good match. Similarly, dried lime peel is thinner, while larger types of citrus including citron, pomelo and grapefruit can be excluded because they are too big. The faint orange colour and torn edges (indicating the rind was peeled off the fruit) suggest that oranges or mandarins are plausible candidates.

Stone and citrus fruits would have been familiar to immigrants from the British Isles, other fruits available in Sydney might have seemed more unusual. Watermelon grew abundantly in New South Wales and was appreciated for its sweet juiciness. One writer praised the “beautiful peaches and delicious water-melons that we ate, on first landing in the town of Sydney, made us forget the imprisonment of a seven months’ voyage” (The Monthly Magazine 1827: 254). Watermelon seeds found at the western end of the level 2 hallway suggest that they were also appreciated at the barracks.

Thirteen fragments of dried plant membrane (Figure 6) from the level 3 landing compare favourably to banana, demonstrating a fibrous pedicel and longitudinal bundles on the outer skin (van der Veen Reference van der Veen2011: 99). If these are banana peel, this will be only the second example of desiccated macro-remains from cultivated banana reported worldwide (van der Veen Reference van der Veen2011: 98).

Figure 6.

Dried plant membrane, possibly banana skin, from JG39 and JS8 (figure by author).

Six fragments of fruit peel found on the level 3 landing have a distinctive scale pattern consistent with fruit from the soapberry family, probably lychee. These fragments add to the single lychee seed identified from excavations of nineteenth-century housing at Mountain Street (Fairbairn Reference Fairbairn2007), providing evidence for the consumption of this Southeast Asian fruit in nineteenth-century Sydney. Although lychees were grown in tropical parts of Australia, boxes of lychees and lychee-nuts (dried lychees) mentioned in shipping records suggest that they were largely imported from Hong Kong (Daily Telegraph 1886: 4; The Sydney Morning Herald 1889).

While the lychee highlights connections between Sydney and Asia, 19 dark-brown seeds point to movement in a different direction, towards Central or South America. These seeds come from what was probably a single annonaceous fruit such as a cherimoya, a soursop or a sugar/custard apple. Although these fruits have been identified in Peru (Pozorski & Pozorski Reference Pozorski and Pozorski1997; Bonavia et al. Reference Bonavia, Ochoa, Tovar and Palomino2004) and India (Pokharia et al. Reference Pokharia, Sekar, Pal and Srivastava2009), this appears to be the first archaeological evidence of annonaceous fruit in Australia.

Vegetables

Both the lychee and cherimoya-like fruit reveal that the range of species consumed at Hyde Park Barracks went far beyond familiar fruits from the Old World. This also extends to the desiccated vegetable remains, which include corn cobs and pumpkin seeds—taxa from the Americas. Maize was introduced to Sydney via the Dutch Cape Colony by the first settlers in 1788 and became strongly associated with convict rations (Cushing Reference Cushing2007). Ground maize was eaten at Hyde Park Barracks, but official records do not mention corn cobs. The cobs come from level 3 contexts that also contain convict artefacts (e.g. government-issued convict clothing, coins, datable clay pipes and bottles) (Starr Reference Starr2015), so it is possible that they date back to the original use of the site as a barracks for male convicts. Working on the garden to the north-east of the barracks or around the city would have given convicts access to corn while it was growing, and the small size of the cobs may represent illicit harvesting of under-mature corn.

Several examples of cucurbit seeds were found at the site and those that can be more readily identified are more like pumpkin, gourd, marrow or squash rather than melon or cucumber. Pumpkin was probably one of the vegetables used in the soup at Hyde Park Barracks (King Reference King1863) and, as with corn, pumpkin is a product of the Americas that was not eaten extensively in the UK, but which became an important part of the Australian diet (Santich Reference Santich2012: 3–12). The cucurbit seeds came from the matron's quarters (JG19–24, JG60–62) on the second floor, which is consistent with the matron's family eating meals cooked in their private kitchen. Cooking in this area is also supported by the presence of 18 fragments of monocotyledon skin (Figure 7a). Although ornamental species of bulbs cannot be excluded, these fragments are consistent with the skin of alliums such as onion or garlic.

Figure 7.

Monocotyledon skin, possibly an allium such as onion or garlic (a), and a desiccated chili pepper and seeds (b) recovered from underfloor deposits on level 2 (figure by author, photograph of chili pepper courtesy of Hyde Park Barracks Collection, Museums of History NSW).

Landscape plants

The macrobotanical collection at Hyde Park Barracks also provides evidence for a range of plants, both native and imported, that were probably not eaten at the site including palm seeds, a rose, an acorn, sprigs of bottlebrush and tea tree. A seed from a quandong is also present in the collection; this was an historically important foodstuff for Aboriginal people in southern Australia (Pardoe et al. Reference Pardoe, Fullagar and Hayes2019). While settlers did use the fruit for cooking, the stones were also used for toys and jewellery. Eaten or not, this quandong must have travelled a long distance from an area west of the Great Dividing Range.

Another species of note is the woody pear, which, despite its name, is not edible. The woody pear is a shrub or small tree native to the east coast of Australia. This specimen (Figure 8) is labelled in ink with the botanical name of the plant—Xylomelum pyriforme. Although it is not possible to know who took the time to identify and label this woody pear, it is a very tangible example of the encounters that all new arrivals in Australia must have had with unfamiliar plants.

Figure 8.

Woody pear inked Xylomelum pyriforme, approximately 50mm long (figure by author).

Snacking in the dormitories

The 34 plant types found in the underfloor collection from Hyde Park Barracks reveal a rich range of species encountered by the inhabitants, and the distribution of these remains is equally informative. By mapping the joist groups and joist spaces where botanical remains were found, it is possible to visualise activities taking place in different parts of the building. Mapping makes it clear that, rather than reflecting formal cooking and dining in the kitchens or dining rooms, the data presented here result from snacking in the dormitories and hallways along with some cooking in the matron's quarters.

Overall, the distribution of the botanical remains shown in Figures 9 and 10 reflects the taphonomic processes which produce underfloor occupation deposits. Experimental work has shown that artefacts are likely to cluster around the edges of rooms and near doorways as a result of sweeping (Winter et al. Reference Winter, Green, Benfield-Constable, Romano and Drummond-Wilson2021), and the resulting concentration of artefacts along walls and near doorways is clear at Hyde Park Barracks. These areas of increased deposition may also result from caching behaviours as the ends of floorboards are easier to lift (Davies et al. Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013: 14).

Figure 9.

Distribution of botanical specimens in the underfloor spaces on level 2 with some unusual species highlighted in colour (figure by author).

Figure 10.

Distribution of botanical specimens in the underfloor spaces on level 3 with some unusual species identified by different colours (figure by author).

Other areas of increased deposition seem to relate to the functioning of spaces within the building. For example, Davies and colleagues (Reference Davies, Crook and Murray2013: 18–19) suggest that the third-floor landing (JG37 and JG39) was a space for smoking and socialisation in the asylum based on the presence of the large number of pipes, matches and newspaper fragments in the underfloor spaces. The botanical results support this interpretation, finding both loose tobacco (also in JG18 JS15) and extensive evidence of food consumption in this area.

In the dormitories, most of the botanical remains are from fruit or nuts; items that could be eaten raw. This includes what appear to be individual deposition events. In the middle of the level 2 dormitories, for example, citrus peel was found in two discrete groupings (in JG27 JS8 and JG33 JS5), as if someone had peeled a fruit and stuffed the peel through a gap in the floor. Similarly, the annonaceous fruit seeds were in a group in JG32 JS13; this is the only place that these seeds were found so it is likely that they came from a single fruit. By contrast, apart from the corn cobs, the remains of vegetables that are more typically cooked prior to consumption, including cucurbits and possibly allium, were largely found at the western end of the second-floor corridor. These specimens are likely to represent the cooking that the matron and her family did within their quarters.