“Corporal Punishment and the Grace of God”: The Archaeology of a Nineteenth Century Girls’ Reformatory in South Australia

Abstract

The site of St John's provides a unique insight into the internal dynamics and materiality of a nineteenth century Catholic girls' reformatory and the silent lives of the young women, both inmates and nuns, who were confined there. The organisation and material culture of the site reflects the intersection of Australian colonial, Catholic and "middle-class" ideologies. This institution's purpose was to reform through the imparting of a Catholic hegemony of "appropriate" female behaviour and sexuality; this hegemony was supported by enculturation, which included the altering, confining, decorating and ordering of the St John's space. The site and its assemblage, whilst small, demonstrate the framework for, and materiality of, the reformatory system that was underpinned by deep traditions of female confinement based in Catholic institutional models. Gender as a social process is key to reading and interpreting the materiality of the St John's Reformatory for girls. Gender frames, informs and contextualises the materiality of the site, its aims, its operation and thus its archaeological interpretation. Further, the ideological gender roles and regimes related through historical accounts provide the context for the embeddedness of gender in the material culture found.

Managing moral reformation: the case of Queensland's reformatory for boys, 1871–1919

“…Ploszajska (1994) in a comparative study of two single-sex reformatory schools in 19th-century England, identifies gender and class as significant factors which influenced the physical design of reformatory schools. Similar observations have been recorded in Australian contexts, where gender has been identified as important in relation to both the materiality of reformatories and the modes of reformation enacted (de Leiuen, 2015; Wimshurst, 1984). However, relatively little has been written about how the presence of diverse inmate communities influenced the practices of reformatory institutions.…”

Collaboration on Whose Terms? Using the IAP2 Community Engagement Model for Archaeology in Kapunda, South Australia

“…The fieldwork aimed to locate and assess any archaeological remains surviving at St. John's, and to recover as much data as possible from artefacts and architectural features remaining in situ. Working with a Flinders University team of staff and students, Cherrie conducted predisturbance surveys in 2012 and 2013, and subsequently excavated three main areas: the church foundations, a structure documented as three extant cells, and a depression with surface artefact lenses (De Leiuen 2015). Susan Arthure's work was the subject of a Master of Archaeology thesis investigating Irish social identity at Baker's Flat.…”