GRAHAM CONNAH

The Archaeology of FrustratedAmbition: An Australian Case­Study

ABSTRACT

Questions concerning cultural adaptation are particularly im­portant in Australian historical archaeology because of thedistances involved in the European settlement of Australia,and the unfamiliar environment faced by early colonists..One such question concerns the socioeconomic and politicalfailure of some early colonial land-holders who ran estatesbased on assigned convict labor. A notable example wasMajor Archibald Clunes Innes, who during the 1830s and1840s developed extensive pastoral, agricultural, and com­mercial interests in what is now northeastern New SouthWales. At Lake Innes, near Port Macquarie, on what wasthen the very edge of colonial settlement, he created an estatefrom which he could control his various activities, whileliving in a style that he could never have aspired to in hisnative Scotland. The remains of his extensive brick-builthouse and stables, as well as the sites of a range of estatefacilities, reflect his ambitions for the future, while the survivalof this archaeological evidence largely results from thefrustration of those ambitions.

Introduction

The European colonization of Australia wasprincipally characterized by the enormous dis­tance over which migration took place, amongthe longest such mass movements of people inhuman history, a shift literally from one side ofthe globe to the other . Although the rapiditywith which these colonists spread out over ahuge continent was remarkable, taking much lesstime than the similar process in the UnitedStates, "the tyranny of distance ," as GeoffreyBlainey (1966) called it, the distance both ofAustralia from Europe and the distance betweenthe initial patches of settlement within Australia,has been a major element in Australian history.In seeking to understand this distinctive coloniza­tion experience, in which so many people movedso far and so quickly, Australian historians have,at one time or another, adopted a variety of theo-

Historical Archaeology, 1998,32(2):7-27 .Permission to reprint required.

retical frameworks , including frontier theory,staple theory, fragment theory, and world systemstheory (Jeans 1988). The historical geographerDennis Jeans has suggested that the last of these(Wallerstein 1980) has particular explanatorypower, so that the rapid colonization of this dis­tant continent can be seen as "the inevitable out­come of capitalist expansion" (Jeans 1988:59).

Such an expansion required large numbers ofEuropeans, from disparate socioeconomic and eth­nic backgrounds, to adapt rapidly to new andstrange environments, so distant from their placesof origin that most of them had little chance ofever returning. As a result, cultural adaptationhas become a major research theme among Aus­tralian historical archaeologists (e.g. Connah et al.1978; Birmingham and Jeans 1983), who haveincreasingly seen their task as considerably morethan merely supplementing the historical record.Indeed, they have generated and addressed theirown questions about such matters as the charac­ter of the colonization process, the emergence ofan Australian culture, the environmental conse­quences of European settlement, and the tragicconsequences of settler-Aborigine contact ( e.g.Birmingham et al. 1988; Birmingham 1992;Connah 1993; Murray 1993). The historical ar­chaeological record has also been seen as ameans of testing archaeological method andtheory, in controlled situations that can draw ondocumentary or oral sources ( e.g. Connah 1986,1994c).

One aspect of the process of cultural adaptationwhich has attracted the attention of Australianhistorical archaeologists, concerns the failure ofthe landed gentry and government officials tomaintain their early dominance of colonial soci­ety. For instance, comparing the Australian withthe Argentinian situation at the end of the 19thcentury, Jeans (1988:59) has pointed out that:"While Argentina remained in the hands of aland-owner dominated government, from 1858Australia was ruled by middle class men, sup­ported in universal male suffrage by the workingclass." In New South Wales the big land-hold­ers of the early 19th century, running extensive

8

estates on the basis of cheap convict labor, sawthemselves as an emerging ruling class, what oneof their political opponents satirized as a "bunyiparistocracy" (Clark 1980:38) . A bunyip is anAustralian term for a fabulous monster inhabitingswamps and lagoons, or alternatively an imposter(Allen 1990:149). Their failure to realize theirambitions resulted from a combination of socio­economic and political circumstances but the per­sonal weaknesses of individuals , such as igno­rance of the environment or extravagant lifestyle,also played a part in their downfall. Althoughlanded families of wealth and influence were toremain a feature of rural Australia, they werenever again to have quite the same aristocraticaspirations.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2 )

The archaeology of such frustrated ambitionshas been particularly studied in two instances inrecent years. The first is at Regentville, a man­sion built near Penrith , in the Sydney area ofNew South Wales, by Sir John Jamison, a manwho had served with distinction as a surgeon inthe Royal Navy, being present for instance at theBattle of Trafalgar in 1805 (Connah 1986; Wil­son 1988). The second is the case discussed inthis paper; that of Lake Innes House near PortMacquarie, New South Wales (Figure 1), built byMajor Archibald Clunes Innes, formerly of the3rd Regiment of Foot. He was rather more for­tunate in his battles, having arrived a day late forthe Battle of Waterloo in 1815 (Connah 1997).The ruins of the Innes mansion and its extensive

" !!llI.

~:~ ESlUarine water

~swamp

-Road&tmck.--o

- - -,\

//

PacificOcean

o

PacificOcean

FIGURE 1. Location of Lake Innes House and its associated sites: 1-4, bric kmaking sites ; 5, servants' village ;6,boathousesite; 7, house and stables; 8, home farm site ; 9, corduroy road . (Drawing by Graham Connah and Terry Moore , WarnersBay, NSW.)

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 9

stables were constructed of brick in the 1830sand 1840s at a place that was then on the mar­gins of European settlement. Together with itsassociated sites that represent the wide range ofactiv ities carried out on such a remote estate ,they provide an almost unique opportunity toinvestigate the ambition and failure of this manas represented by the material evidence. In ad­dition, this investigation provides important in­sight into the site-formation processes involved,for it can be argued that the extensive nature ofthe surviving evidence results rather from hiseventual failure than from his earlier achieve­ment.

This subject however, has a relevance beyondthat of early New South Wales or even of theAustralian colonization experience as a whole.The Innes estate is yet another example of thoselarge capitalistic agricultural enterprises, supportedby slave or other unfree (confined) labor, whichwere such a feature of European expansion fromthe 17th century onwards. Although there areobvious differences between the Lake Innes caseand such instances as the plantation settlementsof South Carolina (Lewis 1984:226-248), theplantation of Drax Hall in Jamaica (Armstrong1990), or the Vergelegen estate in South Africa(Markell 1993), such developments were, never­theless, comparable responses from the peripheryof the then world economic system. Entities likethe Lake Innes estate are also informative aboutthe worldview of their creators, in this case in­fluenced by ideas about social and economicprogress that derived from the Scottish Enlighten­ment of the 18th century (Dixon 1986). Menlike Innes saw themselves as extending civiliza­tion into wild and savage comers of the world;as agents of progress their personal ambitionswere conveniently justified. Some , however,misread their world or rather misread the way itwas changing, and they failed.

This paper first outlines the historical evidencefor Innes's ambitions and then examines theirarchaeological expression. Subsequently it con­siders his failure and the degree to which thathas shaped the material record and is reflected by

it. It concludes that human ambition and itsfrustration, aspects of human behavior so famil­iar to historians, can sometimes be the majorfactor in the creation of the physical evidencestudied by historical archaeologists.

Ambition in the Historical Record

Archibald Clunes Innes was born on 4 May1799 at Thrumster, in Caithness, in the bleak farnortheast of Scotland. As the sixth son of Ma­jor James Innes of the 94th Regiment of theBritish Army, who seems to have been a minorlandowner from a relatively unimportant titledfamily, Archibald Innes would have had onlypoor prospects in life. Even after the death ofthree elder brothers, one at the Battle of Badajos,another at the Battle of Salamanca, and a third ofnatural causes, his future must have seemed verylimited (Burke' s Peerage 1975:1424). His besthope for making his way in life was to followthe family tradition and join the army. This hedid late in 1813 (Champion 1935:103), at theearly age of thirteen or fourteen (O 'Grady[1967:196] and Flowers [1967:3] give his year ofbirth as 1800), when he was commissioned as anEnsign in the 3rd Regiment of Foot, a regimentbetter known by its nickname as "The Buffs."This regiment belonged to Kent, in the southeastof England, so that the early part of Innes's mili­tary career (as an Ensign and then as a Lieuten­ant) must have given him ample opportunity toobserve the lifestyle of brother officers who camefrom more affluent backgrounds than his own. Itis unknown whether he saw active service or not,the Napoleonic Wars were nearing their end andhe does seem to have missed the Battle of Wa­terloo (Herman 1993:169). Indeed, the end ofthe war brought a brief period when he wasplaced on half pay and his prospects must haveseemed very poor. He was rescued, however ,from this by a brief appointment to the 58thRegiment, before returning to his original regi­ment in 1817. As a Lieutenant he seems tohave served for a while with the occupationforces in France and then with a peace-keeping

10

force in Ireland, being promoted to Captain in1821 (Howell 1993:2). His very survival in areduced peacetime army would suggest that hehad ability or influence , or perhaps both. Nev­ertheless, the times could have held out littlehope to him that he would ever be able to aspireto the landed privileges of some of those that hemust have met in Scotland, England, France, andIreland.

His big opportunity came when his regimentwas detailed for service in Australia, and he wasput in charge of the guard on the convict shipEliza, which arrived in Sydney late in 1822 car­rying 160 male prisoners (O'Grady 1967:196).In command of the Grenadier Company of the3rd Regiment, he was then sent to Van Diemen'sLand (now Tasmania), where he remained until1825, and particularly distinguished himself bythe capture of three runaway convicts who hadturned to bushranging and whom his soldierspursued for nearly three months through difficultcountry. Back in Sydney, he was appointedAide-de-camp to the Lieutenant-Governor of NewSouth Wales, and thus achieved entry to the top­most level of colonial society (Champion1935:104-105). By 1826 he was courting Mar­garet Mac1eay, the third of the six daughters ofAlexander Mac1eay, the Colonial Secretary ofNew South Wales, who was the highest rankingpublic servant in the colony and therefore closeto the Governor and other people of influence(Windschuttle 1988:16). Clearly, the Innes starwas on the rise (Figure 2).

His situation continued to improve when inlate 1826 he was appointed as Commandant ofthe remote convict settlement of Port Macquarieon the north coast of New South Wales, a placeaccessible at that time only by sea (O'Grady1967:196-197). Whether this was a move byMacleay to improve a future son-in-law's fi­nances and prospects, or merely an attempt byhim to distance Innes from his daughter , is un­known but Innes's appointment would suggestthat the colonial government did have a highopinion of his abilities. Port Macquarie was pri-

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

FIGURE 2. Archibald Clunes Innes (1799 - 1857) as ayoung army officer. Unsigned and undated painting butprobably about 1826. (Reproduced with the permission ofthe Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales,Sydney, ML ref. DG 408).

marily a prison settlement for the detention ofconvicts who had committed further crimes aftertheir arrival in Australia (O'Grady 1967:197), andin early 1827 had a prisoner population of 724(McLachlan 1988 :228) . It was a place withmany problems that would be no easy task for atwenty-seven-year-old officer to run. Indeed, al­most no Commandant at Port Macquarie held thejob for long and Innes survived for only sixmonths , being recalled in 1827 following officialcriticism of his administration. Nevertheless, onarrival back in Sydney in April 1827, he waspromoted to the rank of Brigade Major. Thisseems to have been in expectation of his depar­ture with his regiment to India, to which it hadbeen posted, but although the regiment wentInnes never did. In the October he became se­riously ill and seems not to have recovered un­til April 1828 (O'Grady 1967:201-203). The

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATEDAMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 11

nature of this illness is unstated but in the longterm it was a fortunate development so far asInnes's ambitions were concerned.

The immediate outcome of his illness was thatInnes resigned from the army, and in June 1828was appointed Police Magistrate and Superinten­dent of Police at Parramatta, near Sydney.Meanwhile, his pursuit of Margaret Macleay musthave continued, for in 1829 they were married inSydney at "one of the most magnificent wed­dings that the colony had then seen" (Flowers1967:3), at which even Governor Darling waspresent (O'Grady 1967:203-204; Windschuttle1988:17). In many ways this was a wise match,for both the Macleay and the Innes family camefrom the north of Scotland, Alexander Macleayhad the power and influence that would assist

Innes in his ambitions, and Macleay's financialposition was not such that he could afford toignore the opportunity to marry off a daughter.As a retired army officer, with the money fromthe sale of his commission in his pocket, Inneswas entitled to a free grant of land if he settledin the colony, and in addition his wife was alsoentitled to such a grant on her marriage. Inneshad seen enough of the Port Macquarie area toknow that when it was thrown open to freesettlement (as must inevitably happen), therewould be rich pickings for those who got in first.This, indeed, was exactly what happened in1830, when Innes was granted 2560 acres (1037hectares) and his wife 1280 acres (518 hectares)in the Port Macquarie area (O'Grady 1967:204).Innes, to use a modern idiom, had arrived.

FIGURE 3. Lake Innes House as it would have looked in the early 1840s. This view from the southeast is a compositeillustration based on a painting of 1839 by H. C. Allport and on an anonymous painting of 1842 (Lucas and Partners1987:Figures 5,8). (Redrawn by Elizabeth Dixon, Hampton , Victoria .)

12

At his own request, his land grant lay about 7mi. (11 km) southwest of the township of PortMacquarie and took in part of Burrawan Lake,otherwise known as the Big Lake, and later to berenamed Lake Innes. In 1831 he and his wifemoved into what they at first called "LakesideCottage" or "Lake Cottage," a relatively modestbrick dwelling which they had built on an el­evated site facing west towards the lake, with animpressive view across it to the distant NewEngland ranges. This was to become merely thefirst stage in the growth over the next decade orso of an impressive rural mansion of 22 rooms,known as "Lake Innes House" (Figure 3). Even­tually with attractive gardens and impressivestables, it formed the center of an extensive es­tate that included a home farm to supply thehouse with some of its food, accommodation fornumerous convict servants both near the houseand in a separate settlement a suitable distanceaway, brickmaking facilities, a boathouse on theside of the lake, and roads to both PortMacquarie in one direction and to the adjacentshore of the Pacific Ocean in the other (Connah1997). Yet the estate was hardly prime agricul­tural land. Although some parts of it had fertilesoil, much of it was stony and poor or marshyand badly drained, and most of it was heavilytimbered requiring a great deal of labor for clear­ance. Its choice suggests that the Inneses sharedthat romantic view of nature so common both inGeorgian Britain and among their social equals inthe colony of New South Wales . Indeed, theirestate was to attract the attentions of both paint­ers (Figure 3) and poets . As one of theirfriends, the Commissioner of Crown LandsGeorge James MacDonald , another Scottish exile,put it:How-like some vision of the painter's brain­The living landscape opens to the eye!Mountain, and wood, and lake, and grassy plain,The dim seen ocean, the surrounding sky,Blended in beauty 'mid the fading light,Steal o'er the soul and captivate the sight(Sheather 1986:89).

Romantic though the location of the LakeInnes estate was, it would seem to have been a

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

poor choice for someone trying to build up afortune. Innes however, had clearly set his sightshigh and appears to have intended the estate tobe merely the center of an expanding network ofproperty and commercial interests. In Scottishterms, he was to be the laird, with his personalpiper and Gaelic-speaking visitors (Herman1993:60-61), sitting in his impressively situatedcountry residence from which he controlled anever-expanding socioeconomic complex . Startingwith a lucrative contract to supply provisions tothe government establishment at Port Macquarie(Windschuttle 1988:18), his activities were bothwidespread and diverse . By 1843 a variety ofland holdings in different locations totaled 30,062acres (12,175 hectares), in addition to town lotsin Port Macquarie (including a hotel and a wind­mill) and Kempsey, a store in Port Macquarieand one in Armidale, and several leasehold sta­tions on the Macleay River and in New England(O'Grady 1967:211-212). Furthermore, he bredhorses that were exported to India for use asarmy remounts (Sheather 1986:105), planted oneof the first vineyards in the area, even venturedwith several other entrepreneurs into shipbuilding,although the Macquarie Packet which they con­structed was wrecked on its maiden voyage(O'Grady 1967:207). So varied and extensivewere his interests, indeed, that the distant townof Glen Innes, high on the New England Table­lands, was named after him (O'Grady 1967:208).Behind all this activity, it appears, Innes wasconvinced that Port Macquarie would become theport of entry for northern New South Wales, outof which the wool and other products of theNew England highlands and the adjacent coastwould be exported and into which all the much­needed supplies for a rapidly developing regionwould be imported (Herman 1993:57). So con­vinced was he of this, that he was instrumentalin getting a road (Figure 1) built from PortMacquarie up into the New England Tablelands(O'Grady 1967:208-209), a road completed in1842 that became known after him as the"Major's Line" (Oppenheimer 1977:163). This,he thought, would provide a vital route for thegrowing commercial activity from which, advan-

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 13

tageously placed near Port Macquarie, he wouldbe one of the major beneficiaries.

In the short term, Innes's ambition was real­ized. By the early 1840s, he and his wife hadestablished one of the most impressive mansionsoutside Sydney, and were renowned for theirgenerosity, hospitality, and lavish lifestyle. Therewas a constant stream of visitors and guests, andafter the death of Innes's younger brother Georgein 1839 his widow and her two daughters even­tually went to live at Lake Innes as well. Thiswas fortunate indeed, for one of the daughters,Annabella Boswell as she became after marriage,left a fascinating account of growing up thereduring the period 1843-1848 (Herman 1993).Although she lived to the age of 90, only dyingin 1916, and towards the end of her life re-castfor publication much of the original diary thatshe had kept, Annabella Boswell 's Journal ratesas one of the classics of early Australian litera­ture . She provided firsthand evidence of thevarious activities at the fine brick-built house andstables, and (separately) even left a sketch-planidentifying the uses of many of the rooms (Lucasand Partners 1987:8). She wrote about the gar­dens, the numerous servants , the fine furniture,the paintings (including a Veronese), the Chineseporcelain made to order, the silver, the books,and a chandelier in the dining room (Herman1993:54-56, 134). Another contemporary ac­count, by Mrs. Henry Harding Parker, confirmedthis picture of affluence, which according to hereven included the luxury of a "bathroom, towhich the water was laid on" (Howell 1993:12).

Perhaps the high point of Innes's attainment ofhis ambition came in 1847, when the Governorof New South Wales, Sir Charles FitzRoy, andhis wife Lady Mary FitzRoy, and their party,were gue sts at Lake Innes House (Herman1993:124-135). This was at a time when a newform of government for New South Wales wasunder discussion and when leading pol iticianWilliam Charles Wentworth was hoping for thecreation of an Australian aristocracy, who wouldsit in a sort of Australian House of Lords. Hisidea of a hereditary colonial peerage was sharplyrejected in 1853 (Clark 1980:36-41 ) but Innes,

who was one of his friends, was clearly hopefulof a better outcome. Without any official justi­fication he designed himself an Australian coat ofarms, on which was the Latin motto: Dum spirocoelestia spero (Howell 1993:18), which O'Grady(1967:219) translates as "While 1 live I aspire tothe highest. " Although this was no doubt in­tended to sound idealistic, it could also be seenas a blatant statement of ambition; translated intomodern idiom it might well be rendered as"While I'm alive I want the lot." For behind thegenerosity and the hospitality to people whom heperceived to be of his own class, lurked a darkerside to Archibald Innes. Like many of the es­tates that Europeans created in the parts of theworld into which they expanded, the Lake Innesestate, and indeed all of Innes 's success , wasfounded on unfree labor. Not black slaves as inthe Americas but convicts, usually (but not al­ways) of British origin, men and women whowere assigned by the colonial government towork for landed proprietors who did little morethan feed and house them, often in a minimalfashion. In the Innes case , we know that in1837 he had 90 such assigned servants and hadclearly used his influence to obtain representa­tives of many of the trades necessary to buildand run Lake Innes House, as well as engage inhis other activities . His assigned convicts in­cluded, for instance, four brickmakers , a brick­layer, a carpenter and joiner, a plasterer, a painterand glazier, a slater, a well-sinker and pump­borer, three grooms, two stablemen, and aharnessmaker and horsebreaker (Butlin et al.1987; Principal Superintendent of Convicts n.d.a,n.d.b). He would also have had a lot of un­skilled labor. Such people have left us few first­hand accounts of their lives but it so happensthat one convict who was assigned to Innes fora time did have his reminiscences recorded manyyears later, long after he had finished serving histime. This was William Delaforce, born London1817, died Port Macquarie 1900, sentenced toseven years transportation at the age of 17 forhousebreaking, a crime that even at the end ofhis life he claimed he had not committed("Woomera" 1984:5, 11). In 1838 Delaforce and

14

two others were digging drains through theswamps at the Innes estate when "the boss," whofrom the context was Innes, came to see howthey were progressing with the work. Accordingto Delaforce, one of them said to him: "Youought to allow us a little more tea and sugar, forthis is hard work; to say nothing of being up toour knees in water all day." Innes's response issignificant: "Go on with your work," he is re­ported to have said, "I think a good floggingwould do you more good than tea and sugar"("Woomera" 1984:22-23).

Ambition in the Archaeological Record

Lake Innes House was derelict by the begin­ning of this century and, following destruction byfire, rapidly degenerated into an overgrown ruin.The sites of the various associated activities onthe former estate had already become lost in adense regrowth of vegetation. Although logging,mining, and other activities subsequently tookplace on a small scale in the area, it was gener­ally unaffected by the modern development ofPort Macquarie and its surroundings into a popu­lar place for both holidays and retirement. Theruins remained known to local historians, how­ever, whose interest led to some amateur clear­ance of vegetation from the house and stables inthe late 1950s, an action that merely acceleratedvandalism and large-scale theft of materials byother less idealistic members of the public. Thiswork did, however, enable architect RichardRatcliffe to draw a reconstructed plan and somereconstructed elevations of the main buildingcomplex (Herman 1993:Appendix II). It alsoresulted in Bertram Watson producing an unpub­lished typescript about the house and its builder(Watson [c.1980]), a series of drawings (Watson1982-1984), and four newspaper articles (Watson1982a, 1982b, 1982c, 1982d). The interest gen­erated by these activities eventually led to thepurchase, early in the 1990s, by the New SouthWales National Parks and Wildlife Service, of alarge part of the original estate. This followedthe preparation of a conservation analysis and

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

draft conservation policy, on behalf of the Ser­vice, by Clive Lucas and Partners (1987) ofSydney. The intention of the New South Walesgovernment was (and still is) that the area shouldbe conserved as an historic site and as a wildlifesanctuary (it possess one of the relatively fewsurviving koala colonies). Before this could befully realized, however, a detailed archaeologicalanalysis of the site was needed, and this hasbeen undertaken by the writer since 1993, as acollaborative project of the National Parks andWildlife Service and the Department of Archae­ology and Palaeoanthropology at the Universityof New England (Connah 1994a, 1994b, 1997).A team of students and ex-students has spentsomething in excess of 600 person-days survey­ing, drawing, photographing, and note-taking, ina non-invasive investigation of the whole com­plex of sites. No excavation has been under­taken, although considerable vegetation clearancehas been carried out, mainly by the NationalParks and Wildlife Service but also by theproject team. In addition, there has been anongoing program of conservation at the main site,which is now open to the public on a limitedbasis . Further analysis of visible evidence isplanned, particularly at some of the associatedsites, and it is also intended to develop a care­fully targeted excavation program over the nextfew years.

The Lake Innes House site complex providesmaterial evidence of Archibald Innes's ambitionsat two levels, the general and the particular. Atthe general level the scale and diversity of activi­ties on the estate (Figure I) are indicative of hisconfidence in the future, as well as his desire tocreate a largely self-sustaining property. Further­more, the size and sophistication of the brick­built house and stables (Figure 3), which com­prise the principal elements of the main site,make them unique for this part of New SouthWales for the time when they were constructed.These were ambitious domestic buildings for the1830s and 1840s, in a part of the colony onlyjust opening up to European settlement, and withpoor communications with Sydney other than by

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION : AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 15

••••• Io 2 4 6 810m

CBR· C4t1l",fill«l wfthtxlt:krubble

F • Foundation

FP · Flnp".e

FWS · FII/«J wflh .011

GB · Giant bltmboo •_ •_.L • Ledge . ~~

R • Render

SO · SHied doorway

SS • Send.tone 61.".

== STANDING BRICK WALLS

till COLLAPSED WALL

§ CONJECTURED WALL POSmONS

~ TREE (LIVING)

~ TREE (DEAD I STUMP)

DENSE BRICK SCATTER

G::3 LIGHT BRICK SCATTER

lIIll SLOPE

EI FIREPLACE & CHIMNEY

II3l CONSERVATION BRACING

[9) TIMBER WITHIN WALLS

~ BRICK FOUNDATIONS

FIGURE 4. Archaeological plan of Lake Innes House and its stables. The numbers are explained in the text. Linear featurerunning through the site is a wooden walkway constructed by the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service,for visitor access. (Drawing by Elizabeth Dixon , Hampton, Victoria and Malcom Abel and Doug Hobbs, Armidale, NSW.)

sea. Scarce public buildings and churches werea different matter but this was at a time whenmost settlers were constructing homes with tim­ber-slab walls and bark roofs, and when thosewho could build in stone or brick did so in amore modest fashion than at Lake Innes. Eventhe future city of Armidale, eventually one of themore important centers inland of Port Macquarie,was founded only in 1839 (Walker 1966:15) and

by 1847 consisted of scarcely a dozen buildings(Champion 1935:110). In such a context, thehouse and stables at Lake Innes were remarkableindeed, and even in their present ruined condi­tion, with some walls surviving to roof heightbut others totally destroyed or buried in theirown rubble, these buildings are impressive fortheir extent and their complexity, as Innes clearlyintended them to be (Figure 4). In addition, they

16

are remarkable for the large number of handmadesandstock bricks that had to be made for theirconstruction, most of them fired in clamps (ofwhich the remains of several have been located)on the estate itself.

The plan of the house and stables (Figure 4) isparticularly informative about Innes's lifestyle andhis perception of his own social position. Inter­preted in the light of the contemporary sketch­plan left by Annabella Boswell, it can be seenthat the house was L-shaped, with an enclosedcourtyard between its two wings (Figure 4, No.13). In its final form, the western-facing wing(which had at first comprised the entire house)was mainly occupied by the public day-roomssuch as the library, the dancing room, the diningroom, and the drawing room (Nos. 4-6). Thefront door (No.1) opened onto an inner verandawith sandstone steps at each end (Nos . 2-3),beyond which there was also an outer veranda ofwhich no trace has survived. The southern-fac­ing wing consisted of bedrooms (Nos. 7-12, 14­15, 18), some with dressing rooms and most withfireplaces, arranged along one side and part ofthe other side of a corridor (No. 16-17) that ledto a doorway at the eastern end of the wing.Along the southern wall of this wing ran a ve­randa (Nos. 20-21), onto which French windowsopened from the adjacent bedrooms, so that theserooms would have been some of the coolest inthe house. The bedroom at the northwesterncomer of this wing (No. 18) formed part of theground floor of a three-story block, that appar­ently had a schoolroom and two more bedroomson the first floor, and a "lookout" on the topfloor with windows at each side (Figure 3).Attached to the eastern end of the bedroom wingwas a building containing a bathroom and priv­ies (No. 19), that could probably have been en­tered from either the door at the eastern end ofthe wing or from a door at the end of the south­ern veranda, enabling the male and female mem­bers of the household or visitors to maintain theirprivacy. Overall, the house was clearly intendedto provide comfort and convenience for the Innesfamily and their more important visitors, with

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

space for wining, dining, music, dancing, andeducating their children, as well as for generalrecreation and relaxing.

In the 1840s, when Annabella Boswell lived inthe house, its usual occupants seem to have con­sisted of three adult women (assuming at leastone of the maids lived in the house) and fourgirls, with Innes and his young son the onlymales present. Probably for this reason, as wellas because of lack of space within the house,single male visitors were accommodated in a"bachelors' hall," as it was called (No. 23), thatwas attached to the kitchen (No. 22) in an adja­cent but separate building at the northeast comerof the house. To the east of the kitchen, whichhad a cellar beneath its floor, was a range ofrooms that included servants' accommodation, alaundry, a wine cellar, a store, and a dairy (Nos.24-27). These rooms fronted a yard for dryingclothes, in which was situated an undergroundcistern (No. 28), fed from the roofs of the sur­rounding buildings, that provided the water sup­ply for the house. Collectively, this service areaof the main site is indicative of the range andscale of domestic servant input that was neces­sary to run the house itself, and to provide itsoccupants with the lifestyle that they enjoyed.

Horses were essential in 19th-century Australiafor any reasonable lifestyle. Goods were oftentransported by bullock-dray, often the onlywheeled vehicles that could cope with the appall­ing tracks that passed as roads. For personaltransportation, however, you rode a horse or youtraveled in a horse-drawn vehicle. The onlyother way to get about was to walk or, whenpossible, travel by boat along the coast or on itsadjacent rivers . Given the scale of Innes'shouse, therefore, it should be no surprise that thestables covered almost as large an area. Indeed,their remains are more substantial and in ratherbetter condition than those of the house, probablybecause they were less attractive to vandals andthieves during the 20th century and because theirless fenestrated walls were stronger. From thoseremains and to some extent from AnnabellaBoswell's sketch-plan (which shows only a part

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 17

of these buildings), it appears that the Innesstables provided quite exceptional facilities forthe housing not only of horses and vehicles butalso the servants who worked with them . Inshort, the stables were just as ambitious as thehouse and its associated services . The physicalevidence suggests that in their final state theyaccommodated only fifteen horses, probably justthe more valuable animals such as the personalmounts of Innes and his wife, the carriagehorses, and perhaps the more prized stallions andbrood-mares, while other horses were turned outinto nearby paddocks. Nevertheless, those keptwithin the stables were privileged animals: eachwith its separate wooden stall, in a brick build­ing paved with sandstone slabs beneath whichran a drainage system (western part of No. 34,Nos. 35-36). The horse accommodation openedonto a central yard (No. 37), around which thestable complex was arranged . An open-frontedbuilding (No. 44) housed various wheeled ve­hicles, probably the more valuable ones, and sev­eral other buildings provided accommodation forstable workers, such as grooms and coachmen.The best of this appears to have been in the two­storied gatehouses, a pair of which flanked eachof the main entrances to the stable yard (Nos.30-31, 42--43). Each of these comprised a liv­ing room on the ground floor, with a fireplacefor cooking and warmth, and a room on the firstfloor for sleeping, both stories being providedwith window ventilation. Cramped they mighthave been but they would have given the basiccomforts and one of them had, indeed, been ex­tended by the addition of an extra room (No.41). Other stable workers seem to have been ac­commodated in the central room of the buildingon the southern side of the stable yard (No. 39),which was provided with a fireplace and prob­ably had a loft that was used as a sleeping spaceand which also extended over the room on eachside (Nos. 38, 40). These latter rooms, togetherwith three rooms on the eastern side of the stablecomplex (Nos. 29, 32-33), may have been usedfor storage of saddles, harness, and miscellaneoustack, as well as other horse -related equipment

and also fodder and grain. In the case of thethree eastern rooms this is made more likely bythe existence of horizontal slots on the insideface of some of their walls, formerly containinglengths of timber to which other fittings, such asshelves or racks, could have been attached. It isalso significant that each of these three roomshas an unglazed circular opening in the upperbrickwork of its eastern wall , for these wouldappear to have been owl-holes (Roxburgh andBaglin 1978:88), intended to encourage owls toenter and hunt for rodents, always a problem instable storage areas. In addition, it is possiblethat these rooms may also have contained loftsthat could have provided rough sleeping facilitiesfor stableboys and the like. Finally among theamenities in the stables, privies were provided atseveral locations, particularly it seems in theroom at the northeastern comer (eastern part ofNo. 34), which could be entered both from insideand outside of the stable complex .

The location of the stable complex in relationto the house is also indicative of Innes's aspira­tions. Although the stables actually adjoin theservice area of the house , they were designedand positioned in such a way as to be out ofsight from either its public rooms or bedrooms.Indeed, isolated within their surrounding wall, setback from the house front by approximately 100ft. (30 m), attached to the comer of the housecomplex furthest removed from the drawingroom, separated from the front of the house bygardens: every effort seems to have been madeto have the stables conveniently near but to in­sulate the occupants of the house from the sights,sounds, and perhaps smells of horses and work­ers . Significantly, Annabella Boswell recordedthat during the heyday of Lake Innes House itwas "quite an event to visit the stables, and al­ways with my uncle" (Herman 1993:159). Closeto the house they may have been but they wereno place for a genteel young lady, unless suitablyaccompanied and no doubt the stablehands previ­ously warned. Innes was apparently quite con­vinced about the superior position of both him­self and his family in colonial society.

18

Furthermore, the continuing growth of Innes'sambitions is reflected by the construction se­quence of the house and stable complex, as sug­gested by the archaeological evidence and thedocumentary sources. It appears that the earliestwork dates from 1830-1831 and the latest modi­fications to about 1848. Effectively, however,the complex seems to have already reached itsmaximum development by 1843, so that its en­tire constructional history probably extended overless than 19 years and most of the work wascompleted within 14 years. Building work seemsto have been episodic rather than continuous,prompted no doubt by the growth of the Innesfamily (in addition to those mentioned there weretwo sons who died in infancy), and by the avail­ability of money, labor, and materials. Analysisof the evidence suggests a four-stage sequence ofgrowth, although this is somewhat hypotheticalbecause of the difficulty of putting precise dateson some parts of the complex (Figure 5). Nev­ertheless, this sequence is clearly eloquent ofInnes's ambitions: commencing with a modestcountry cottage, probably with an externalkitchen, his residence grew in size and complex­ity until it was one of the most important ruralmansions in New South Wales. As such, it wasobviously intended to be something more thanmerely functional; it was also to be a materialexpression of his success.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

That being the case, his residence conformedto many of the fashions of the colonial Georgiandomestic architecture of the period (Herman1970; Roxburgh 1974). Basically, its layout re­flected British ideas, but these were modified tosuit Australian conditions in ways typical of thetime: first, the building was mainly single-sto­ried ; second, there were verandas around thehouse walls; third, there was an extemal detachedkitchen. Like many of his colonial contemporar­ies, Innes was probably his own architect , al­though he may have been influenced by the ideasof John Verge (Broadbent et al. 1978), one ofthe best known of Australia's early architectswho designed his father-in-law's magnificentElizabeth Bay House, in Sydney, and whom hemust surely have met. It is also likely that heconsulted one or more of the architectural patternbooks that influenced colonial domestic architec­ture at this time (Irving 1985:50-51). The bestknown of these, by John Claudius Loudon, wasnot published until 1833 (Loudon 1833), butAlexander Macleay (his father-in-law) possesseda copy of it and Innes may well have consultedit before extending his house during the 1830sand early 1840s. Earlier pattern books , con­cerned specifically with rural residences, thatmight also have given him ideas, include thoseof John Plaw (1800, 1802) and John Papworth(1818). So the means certainly existed for Innes

El

FIGURE 5. A hypotheticalconstructionsequence for Lake InnesHouseand its stables. (Drawingby Linda Emery,Exeter,NSW.)

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 19

to make sure that his mansion conformed to themost fashionable ideas of taste and suitability, asit clearly had to if it was to achieve its objective.

Archaeological traces of the gardens at LakeInnes House are also evidence of Innes's grandplan. These consist of the remains of a low re­taining wall of brick, holes left in the externalbrickwork of the western wall of the stable com­plex to support a trellis, and a number of exoticspecies which appear to be survivors from theformer gardens. Notable among the latter areseveral clumps of giant bamboo (Bambusaarundinacea), rose (Rosa bracteata), shell ginger(Alpinia speciosa) , agave (Agave sp.), polygala(Polygala myrtifolia) , maurandia (Maurandiabarcliana), and mysore thorn (Caesalpiniadecapetala) (Lucas and Partners 1987:20).Annabella Boswell frequently mentions the gar­den , including the bamboo and the roses(Herman 1993:51, 65), and it is clear that itplayed an important part in the daily life of thehouse. The family of Innes's wife , theMacleays, were very much interested in naturalhistory (Windschuttle 1988) and she was presum­ably instrumental in the planning and manage­ment of the garden. Indeed, it has been assumedthat she was responsible for the introduction ofthe mysore thorn, a rare exotic in Australia thatby the late 1980s had engulfed much of the ru­ins in an impenetrable tangle. Like much else atLake Innes House, the gardens were apparentlysomewhat out of the ordinary.

Moving from the general to the particular,there are numerous details among the archaeo­logical evidence that are also indicative ofInnes's ambitions. There has, for instance, beenconsiderable care taken in selecting and follow­ing the bonds employed in the brickwork. Theseare English bond in most of the house, whereinside wall surfaces were plastered and externalsurfaces rendered and scribed to resemble expen­sive ashlar masonry, and the more attractiveFlemish bond on the outside of the stable com­plex, where the brickwork was intended to beseen. The inner faces of stable walls are alsoEnglish bond, as are the engaged columns that

FIGURE6. Western side of the northwestern gatehouse ofthe stables complex. Note the selective use of both Flemishand English bond in the sandstock brickwork, also thequeen closers near the edges of the engaged columns .The serious structural crack to the right is caused by thelack of foundations. A small room has been added to theface of this building late in the construction sequence.(Photograph by Bryan Asha , Kenthurst , NSW, 1993.)

reinforce the outside of those walls. To ensurethe regularity of the bond selected, queen closers(Plumridge and Meulenkamp 1993:214) havebeen used near comers, window and door aper­tures, and at brickwork junctions. Without doubt,the brickwork that could be seen was intended tolook good (Figure 6), and where it was actuallycovered with rendering the purpose was toachieve the effect of stonework that would havebeen even more prestigious. Indeed, in limitedinstances actual masonry was used, for paving

20

the house verandas and the horse accommodationwithin the stables, and most notably for the el­egant steps at each end of the front veranda, butits sparing use would suggest that it was prohibi­tively expensive. Both the sandstone utilized andthe workmanship would suggest a Sydney origin,and the cost and trouble of shipping such heavymaterial in the small coastal craft available wouldhave precluded its more extensive use. In fact,it would also have been necessary to transport aconsiderable amount of lime to the site, for thelarge quantities of mortar, rendering, and plaster

FIGURE 7. Eastern side of the bedroom chimney servingrooms at 9 and 10 in Figure 4. Note the scribed renderingover the stretcher-bond brickwork and the indications of ashingled, pitched roof . (Photograph by Bryan Asha ,Kenthurst , NSW, 1993.)

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

FIGURE 8. Bedroom fireplace in room at 14 in Figure 4.Note the lime-plastered walls , the header bond used at theback of the hearth , and the spaces left for wooden blocksto which the fireplace surround and the skirting board wereattached (all the rooms in the house had suspended timberfloors) . Scale in 1 cm and 5 cm divisions. (Photograph byBryan Asha, Kenthurst , NSW, 1993.)

used in the construction of the house and stables,but at least some of this would have been avail­able in the Port Macquarie area.

That the appearance of the brickwork was im­portant, is also shown by indications that manyof the doorways and windows had rubbed-brick

FIGURE 10. How not to construct a foundation for a two­storied building: two courses of brickwork straight ontoclay . This is the northern wall of the southwestern gatehouseof the stables complex. Seale in 1 cm and 5 cm divisions .(Photograph by Graham Connah, 1997.)

21

back-to-back fireplaces (Figure 8) that originallyhad wooden mantelpieces and surrounds . Al­though the parts of the chimneys that would havebeen visible were covered with scribed rendering,their design and indeed their very existence wereclearly intended to impress the beholder. Con­forming as they did to the fashion of the period(cf. Herman 1970:139; Stapleton 1985:27), theywere eloquent of both comfort and good taste, atthe very edge of civilization. Given the mild cli­mate of Port Macquarie, there would have beenrelatively few days when fires would actuallyhave been needed in the house: in short, therewere indeed times when the chimneys were func­tional but at all times they would have beenprominent status symbols.

In addition to these positive indicators ofInnes's ambitions, there are also some highly sig­nificant negative ones. Elegant though the chim­neys were, Annabella Boswell's account wouldsuggest that their design and construction leftsomething to be desired . On the night of 10March 1848, by which time few servants wereleft at the house, there was a violent thunder­storm that lasted for some hours, and "every bed­room was inundated through their fireplaces, andwe wandered about like ghosts, with basins and

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATEDAMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY

flat arches at their heads (Herman 1970:134),although little evidence of these has survived andin the case of the house this fancy brickworkwould have been obscured by rendering. Otherexamples of showy brickwork include the curvedperimeter walls at the northwest and southeastcomers of the stable complex, and a series ofdecorative blind owl holes on the external face ofits northern wall. Perhaps the most impressivelooking pieces of brickwork, however, are thesurviving chimneys of the house (Figure 7).Built in stretcher bond above wall level, deco­rated with two double string-courses, and withbrick flue-caps, these served carefully constructed

FIGURE 9. Leaning brickwork at the western end of thenorthern perimeter wall of the stables. The lack of founda­tions has brought this wall close to the point of collapse.Scale in 1 cm and 5 em divisions. (Photograph by BryanAsha, Kenthurst, NSW, 1993.)

22

house-cloths in our hands drying up the water asit came in, till about four o'clock, when thestorm abated" (Herman 1993:161). The archaeo­logical evidence would suggest, indeed, that thewhole building complex of house and stables wasput up with more regard for appearance thanconstructional quality. The fancy Flemish bondbrickwork on the exterior of the stables and onthe eastern end of the house was merely a veneeron the outside of English bond brickwork, towhich it was tied with headers not every othercourse as it should have been but only everyfifth course, the other headers consisting of halfbricks. This use of snapped-header constructionmeant that the better quality bricks needed forthe Flemish bond wall face would go further, andseems to have been a cost-saving strategythought up by late 18th-century developers inLondon (Asha 1996:125). In the case of LakeInnes House it was a great mistake , for in anumber of instances the external Flemish bondveneer is now peeling away from the rest of thewall. Even more serious, however, whole sec­tions of wall have collapsed or are leaning pre­cariously (Figure 9), while other parts of thebuildings have serious structural cracks (Figure6). Foundation failure seemed to be the mostlikely cause of this but in the absence of any ar­chaeological excavations the character of thefoundations was unknown. For this reason, theNational Parks and Wildlife Service cut two in­spection holes prior to deciding on the most suit­able conservation measures. One of these wasoutside the north wall of the southwest gatehouseof the stable complex (Figure 10), and the othersimilarly located near the center of the north wallof that complex. In both cases they revealedwhat appears to be a complete lack of founda­tions. Whether the situation is similar for all thestable buildings and for the house as well isuncertain, but it would seem quite likely . Itappears that Innes was in too much of a hurryand more inclined to spend money on appear­ances than on basic quality. It may even havebeen that he saw Lake Innes House as merely astopgap, until such time that he could afford tobuild an even grander mansion, that might com-

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2 )

pare more favorably with his father-in-Iaw 'sElizabeth Bay House, in Sydney, at that time oneof Australia's finest residences.

Failure and its Archaeolog ical Consequences

In the end, however, Archibald Innes failed:his finances collapsed and his ambitions werefrustrated. When he died in Newcastle (NewSouth Wales) in 1857 his only published obitu­ary consisted of merely a few lines to record hisdeath (O'Grady 1967:218). Among local histo­rians, who sometimes regard early colonial fig­ures with more adulation than they merit, hisfailure is usually attributed to the economic de­pression of the I840s, and certainly this was amajor factor in his ruin as in that of many of hiscontemporaries (McMichael 1980). The expan­sion of Australian capitalist pastoralism throughthe boom years of the 1830s was followed by acollapse in wool prices on the international mar­ket during the I840s. Furthermore, this occurredat a time when the assignment of convicts ceasedin New South Wales (1839) and even their trans­portation was discontinued (1840), so that thesupply of assigned unfree labor that had sup­ported the activities of people like Innes began todry up. At the very time that profits fell, thecosts of labor escalated as land-holders had toemploy free labor, that being in short supplycould demand decent wages, which not surpris­ingly tended to be highest at the margins ofsettlement. Thus the depression was particularlydifficult to cope with in an area like PortMacquarie but, to make matters even worse, thegradual running down of the convict settlementthere meant that by 1848 the town was "almostdeserted," according to Annabella Boswell(Herman 1993:167). For Innes the situation wasdisastrous. By the early 1850s, with the loss ofmost of his income-producing ventures, living atLake Innes House became a luxury that he couldno longer afford , even though he managed toretain possession of the heavily mortgaged prop­erty and seems to have avoided actual bank­ruptcy. He was forced to seek employment thatwould pay him a salary, in 1852 becoming As-

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 23

sistant Gold Commissioner at Hanging Rock,near Nundle in northern New South Wales, andin 1853 being appointed police magistrate atNewcastle, a position that he held till his death.His wife then returned to Lake Innes but diedthere the following year in 1858.

Although it is tempting to attribute Innes's fail­ure solely to economic and even political circum­stances beyond his control, there seems littledoubt that he himself also contributed to the di­saster. He did this in two ways. First, he failedto properly understand the geographical environ­ment of the Port Macquarie area . The entranceto the Hastings River on which the town stoodwas obstructed by a dangerous, shifting sand bar,as he well knew, so that there was little likeli­hood that it could be developed into a significantport and indeed this was never to happen . Fur­thermore, his attempt to open a road up to theNew England Tablelands, that would provide amajor commercial artery linked to the future portat Port Macquarie, was also a failure . Althoughthe "road" was completed, much of the 116 mi.(187 km) of the terrain through which it passedto Walcha was so difficult, and the surface of theroad so poor, that the only wheeled vehicles thatcould manage it were bullock-drays (Figure I).Indeed, even they had substantial problems, sothat in 1847 it was recorded that one dray hadtaken 10 days to travel 20 mi. (32 km) of thisroad (Oppenheimer 1977:163). In such circum­stances, a more southerly route was developed byothers, linking the pastoralists and agriculturalistsof the interior with the Hunter River, near themouth of which grew up first the port ofMorpeth and then that of Newcastle, the lattereventually becoming one of Australia 's maincommercial gateway s.

Second, Innes overreached himself financially ,apparently borrowing heavily to develop his over­numerous pastoral and commercial interests dur­ing the good years, instead of consolidating hissituation as a safeguard against a possible eco­nomic downturn . A risky strategy at any time,it seems that in his case it resulted from funda­mental personal weaknesses that his wife's eldestsister, the intelligent, educated, and sensible

Fanny Macleay, had identified as early as 1826.According to her, Archibald Innes had "not savedanything since he has been here. . .. He is veryidle." Later in 1831 and 1832 she wrote: "Heis sadly extravagant" and "I hope that Archy willyet prosper notwithstanding his little failures inprudence" (Windschuttle 1988:16, 18). It seemsthat with the passage of time his little failuresbecame larger and larger, and that Lake InnesHouse was one of them . Life in an officers'mess, instead of a formal education, had hardlyequipped him to become a successful entrepre­neur and businessman; his social ambitionsclearly exceeded both his financial abilities andhis common sense .

For Lake Innes House, the consequences ofInnes's failure were that it ceased to be relevant.No longer the center of his socioeconomic net­work, impossible to run and maintain without aplentiful supply of unpaid labor, and unsuitableas an income-producing farm, it became a clas­sic example of a white elephant, a useless andtroublesome possession that nobody reallywanted. The very reason for its existence hadbeen lost. In August 1853 the house and estatewere advertised for sale but there were no buy­ers. It remained with Innes and subsequently hiswife and then his son, and was used intermit­tently by them or by tenants or was vacant (from1871 to 1874 it even had a different owner) un­til 1879 when it was finally sold. Records forthe second half of the 19th century are poor butthe impression gained is of a collection of build­ings that gradually deteriorated, so that by theturn of the century the house was no longer hab­itable (Lucas and Partners 1987:7, 14-15, Figures10-12). Fire, weather, vegetation , theft of mate­rials, and vandalism over the following ninetyyears reduced the buildings to the ruins that nowexist.

Paradoxically, it was the frustration and failureof Innes's ambitions that now make it possible tostudy those ambitions archaeologically. Had hebeen successful, he would almost certainly havereplaced the house and many of the other build­ings as time went on. This is exactly what hap­pened on many other Australian rural properties

24

during the second half of the 19th century andthe early part of the 20th century. At SaumarezHomestead, near Armidale, for instance, a dwell­ing that had originated in the 1830s was sweptaway in 1888 and replaced with a grand housethat was not even on the same site and whichwas made even larger in 1906, while most of theearly work buildings were ousted by new struc­tures during much the same period (Philp andOppenheimer 1986). It is in the nature of afunctioning viable rural enterprise that new gen­erations demand houses with more comfort andconvenience and that changing pastoral and agri­cultural practices render other buildings unsuitableor obsolete. At Lake Innes House this did nothappen, it was as if the clock had stopped about1850, so that as a result we can study directlythe products of Innes's ambitions over the twoprevious decades. This can be done not only atthe house and stables but also at a range of othersites, that have the potential to inform us aboutthe many different aspects of life on a convict­based rural estate, in Australia, during the secondquarter of the 19th century. Although somemodification of the evidence must inevitably havetaken place during the period between about1850 and 1900 (the house and stables wereroofed with wooden shingles, for instance, andthese would probably have needed replacement atsome time), it does seem as if activity was lim­ited to fairly basic maintenance and there is noindication of any new constructional work afterabout 1848. In the main, what we are left withis the archaeological expression of Innes's ambi­tions, which has survived, to the extent that ithas, because of the frustration of those veryambitions.

Conclusion

The ruins of Lake Innes House, and the vari­ous sites associated with them, provide an almostunique opportunity to study the operation of anearly colon ial rural estate in Australia. Theywere the product of one man's ambition to cre­ate a lifestyle for himself, his family, and his

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

friends, that he could not have hoped for back inhis native Scotland. They represent a crucialstage in the process of cultural adaptation bysome British settlers, who were willing to risk allon the chance of making a fortune from free orcheap land on the other side of the world. Withassigned convicts as virtual slave labor, who hadonly to be fed and housed and often ratherpoorly, pastoral production and investmentseemed to be the quickest way to economic suc­cess, social position, and political power. Thegold discoveries of the 1850s were to change allthat but even before that happened some settlers,like Innes, had to learn the hard way that theyhad misread the economic future, misunderstoodtheir geographical environment, and let their per­sonal ambitions run away with their commonsense. Nevertheless, both their aspirations andtheir failures have shaped part of the archaeologi­cal record, so that in a case like that of LakeInnes House we actually have what might becalled the archaeology of frustrated ambition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to record his sincere thanks tothe New South Wales Nat ional Parks and Wild lifeService for help and cooperation, part icularly fromDenis Gojak, Eric Claussen , and Neville Fenton .Thanks are also due to the Department of Archaeologyand Palaeoanthropology at the University of NewEngland for both logistic and financial support, DougHobbs, Malcolm Abel, and lain Davidson having helpedin many ways . In addition, the author is muchindebted to John Hodgkinson, a volunteer ranger withthe National Parks and Wildlife Service Port Macquarieoffice, for his very valuable assistance in the field, andto members of the Port Macquarie Historical Society foraccess to their records of Lake Innes House. Mentionshould also be made of the previous work at this siteby Richard Ratcliffe, Ronald Howell, the late BertramWatson, and Clive Lucas & Partners. Without theirearlier efforts the latest work would have been verymuch more difficult , if not at times impossible .Particular recognition is also due to Bill Boyd, who hasworked so hard at Lake Innes House in recent years.Furthermore, the dedication and imagination of over 50students and former students, who have participated inboth the fieldwork and the preparation of its results,must be recorded. Some have done far more thanothers but without the help of all of them the project

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 25

could never have succeeded. There is not space toname them here but details have been providedelsewhere (Connah 1997). Finally, acknowledgment isdue to the Dixson Galleries, State Library of New SouthWales, Sydney, for permission to reproduce Figure 2(ML ref. DG 408) , and to the Department ofArchaeology and Anthropology, Australian Nationa lUniversity, Canberra, for their hospitality to the authoras a Visiting Fellow.

REFERENCES

ALLEN , R. E. (EDITOR)

1990 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English .Eighth edition . Clarendon Press, Oxford .

ARMSTRONG, DOUGLAS V.1990 The Old Village and the Great House : An

Archaeological and Historical Examination ofDraxHall Plantation St. Ann 's Bay, Jamaica . Blacks in theNew World series, edited by August Meier. Universityof Illinois Press, Urbana .

ASHA, BRY AN

1996 The Diagnosis of Ruination Processes in ColonialBrickwork at Lake Innes House . Unpubl ished Masterof Letters thesis, Department of Archaeology andPalaeoanthropology, University of New England,Arrnidale .

BIRMINGHAM, J UDY

1992 Wybalenna : The Archaeology of CulturalAccommodation in Nineteenth Century Tasmania: AReport ofthe Historical Archaeological Investigationof the Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island.Australian Society for Historical Archaeology ,Sydney.

BIRMINGHAM, JUDY, DAMARlS BAIRSTOW, AND ANDREWWILSON (EDITORS)

1988 ArchaeologyandColonisation : Australia in the WorldContext. Australian Society forHistorical Archaeology,Sydney.

BIRMINGHAM, J . M ., AND D . N. JEANS

1983 The Swiss Family Robinson and the Archaeology ofColonisations. Australian Journal of HistoricalArchaeology 1:3-14.

BLAI NEY, GEOFFREY

1966 The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance ShapedAustralia 's History . Sun, Melbourne.

BROADBENT, 1., M . DUPA IN, I. EV ANS, AND C . L UCAS

1978 The Golden Decade ofAustralian Architecture: TheWork ofJohn Verge. David Ell Press, Sydney .

BURKE'S P EERAGE

1975 Burke 's Peerage and Baronetage. The 105th edition .Burke 's Peerage, London .

B UTLIN, N. G ., C. W. CROMWELL, AND K . L. SUTHERN(EDITORS)

1987 GeneralReturnofConvictsinNewSouth Wales, 1837.ABGR in association with the Society of AustralianGenealogists, Sydney .

CHAMPION, BEN W .

1935 Major A. C. Innes, 3rd Regiment of Foot. RoyalAustralian Historical SocietyJournaland Proceedings21(2):103-116.

CLARK, C. M. H.1980 A History ofAustralia. VoLIV, The Earth Abidethfor

Ever: 1851-I 888. Reprint of1978 edition. MelbourneUniversity Press, Carlton, Victoria .

CONNAH, GRAHAM

1986 Historical Reality: Archaeological Reality. Excavationsat Regentville, Penrith, New South Wales, 1985.Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology 4:29­42.

1993 The Archaeology ofAustralia 's History . CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

1994a Handraulic [sic] Archaeology at Lake Innes House.Australasian Society for Historical ArchaeologyNewsletter 24(3) :6-8.

I994b Lake Innes House, Port Macquarie. Guide-leafletproduced for the New South Wales National Parks andWildlife Service by the Department of Archaeologyand Palaeoanthropology, University ofNew England,Arrnidale.

1994c [published 1996]Bagot 's Mill: Genesis and Revelationin an Archaeological Research Project. AustralasianHistorical Archaeology 12:3-55.

CONNAH, GRAHAM (EDITOR)

1997 The Archaeology ofLake Innes House : Investigatingthe Visible Evidence 1993-1995. Published for theNew South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.Connah , Canberra.

CONNAH, GRAHAM, MICHAEL ROWLAND, AND JILLIANOPPENHEIMER

1978 Captain Richards 'House at Winterbourne : A Study inHistorical Archaeology. Department of Prehistoryand Archaeology, University of New England,Arrnidale .

DIXO N, ROBERT

1986 The Course ofEmpire: Neo-Classical Culture in NewSouth Wales 1788-1860. Oxford University Press,Melbourne .

26

F LOWERS, E.1967 Innes, Archibald Clunes (1800-1857) In Austra lian

Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, / 788-/850: 1-2,edited by A. G. L. Shaw and C. M. H. Clark, pp. 3-4.Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria.

H ERMAN, M ORTON

1970 The Early AustralianArchitectsand their Work. Secondedition. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

H ERMAN, M ORTON (EDITOR)

1993 Annabella Boswell 's Journal : An Account ofEarlyPort Macquarie. Reprint of 1981 edition, originallypublished in 1965. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

H OWELL, RO NALD

1993 Riches to Ruin: A Man-A Mansion and A Lake.Hastings District Historical Society, Port Macquarie .

IRVING, R OBERT

1985 Georgian Australia . In The History and Design oftheAustralian House , edited by Robert Irving, pp. 32-63.Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

J EANS, D ENNIS N.1988 World Systems Theory: A Theoretical Context for

Australian Historical Archaeology. In Archaeologyand Colonisation: Australia in the World Context ,edited by Judy Birmingham, Damaris Bairstow, andAndrew Wilson, pp. 57-63. Australian Society forHistorical Archaeology, Sydney.

L EWIS, KENNETH E.1984 The Amer ican Frontier: An Archeological Study of

Settlement Pattern and Process. Studies in HistoricalArcheology series, edited by Stanley South. Academ icPress, New York.

L OUDON, J OHN C LAUDIUS

1833 An Encyclop aedia of Cottage , Farm and VillaArchitecture and Furniture. Longman, Rees, Orme,Brown, Green and Longman, London.

L UCAS, CLI VE, AND PARTNERS

1987 Lake Innes House Port Macquarie, New South Wales,Austra lia : Conservation Analysis and DraftConservation Policy. Unpublished report prepared forthe National Parks and Wildlife Service (New SouthWales), Sydney.

M ARKELL, A NN B.1993 Buildingonthe Past: The Architectureand Archaeology

of Vergelegen, Goodwin Series 7:71-83, Martin Halland An n Markell , ed itor s . South AfricanArchaeological Society.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(2)

M cLACHLAN, IAEN

1988 Place ofBanishment: Port Macquarie / 8/8 to / 832.Hale and Iremonger, Sydney.

M cMICHAEL, PH ILIP

1980 Crisis in Pastoral Capital Accumula tion: A Re­

interpretation of the 1840s Depression in Colonial

Australia. In Essays in the Political Economy of

Australian Capitalism, Vol. 4, edited by E. L.

Wheelwright and Ken Buckley, pp. 17-40. Australia

and New Zealand Book Compan y, Brookvale, NSW.

MURRAY, TIM

1993 TheChildhoodofWilliam Lanne: ContactArchaeologyand Aboriginal ity in Tasmania . Antiquity 67:504-519.

O 'GRADY, F.1967 Archibald Clunes Innes. Journalofthe RoyalAustralian

Historical Society 53(3):196-221 .

OPPENHEIMER, JILLIAN

1977 Communication Routes and the Pattern of Settlement

in New England to 1850. In An Atlas ofNew England.

Vol. 2, The Commentaries, edited by David A. M. Lea,

John J. J. Pigram, and Lesley M. Greenwood, pp. 153­

170. Department of Geography, University of New

England, Armidale.

P APWORTH, J OHN 8.1818 Rural Residences, Consisting ofa Series ofDesignsfor

Cottages, Decorated Cottages, Small Villas, and otherOrnamental Buildings. Ackermann, London.

PHILP, A NNE, AND JILLIAN OPPENHEIMER

1986 Saumarez Homestead: An Outline History and Guide.The National Trust of Austral ia (NSW), Sydney.

PLAW, JOHN

1800 Sket ches for Country Houses, Villas, and RuralDwellings. Taylor, London .

1802 RuralArchitecture;orDesigns,from theSimple Cottageto the Decorated Villa. Taylor , London.

PLUM RIDGE, A NDREW, AND WIM M EULENKAMP

1993 Brickwork: Architecture and Design. Abrams, NewYork.

PRINCIPAL S UPERINTENDENT OF C ONVICTS

n.d. a Annotated Printed Indents. Archives Office of NewSouth Wales, Sydney.

n.d. b Bound Indents. Archives Office ofNew South Wales,Sydney.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRUSTRATED AMBITION: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY 27

R OXBURGH, R.

1974 EarlyColonialHousesof'New South Wales. LansdownePress, Sydney.

R OXBURGH, R. , AND D. B AGLIN

1978 Colonial Farm Buildings ofNew South Wales. Rigby,Adelaide.

SH EATHER, N ANCY

1986 Free Settlement. In Port Macquarie: A History to1850, edited by Frank Rogers, pp. 80-122. Reprint of1982 edition. Hastings District Historical Society,Port Macquarie.

S TAPLETON, IAN

1985 How to Restore the OldAussie House. Reprintof 1983edition. John Fairfax, Sydney.

W ALKER, R. B.

1966 OldNewEngland: A HistoryoftheNorthern TablelandsofNew South Wales 1818-1900. Sydney UniversityPress, Sydney.

W ALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL

1980 The Capitalist World-Economy . Reprint of 1979edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

W ATSON, B ERTRAM 1. H.1982a Please Don't Let Me Die! Part 1. Port Macquarie

News, 26 November.I982b Please Don't Let Me Die! Part 2. Port Macquarie

News, 29 November.1982c Please Don't Let Me Die! Part 3. Port Macquarie

News, I December.

1982d Please Don't Let Me Die! Part 4. Port MacquarieNews, 3 December.

1982- Unpublished plans and other drawings of Lake Innes1984 House. Copies in Port Macquarie Historical Society

Museum.[c. 1980] A Short History of the Life and Labors of Major A.

C. Innes also Lake Innes Mansion. Unpublishedtypescript, Port Macquarie Public Library LSB. INN.

WILSON, A NDREW

1988 The Failed Colonial Squire: Sir John Jamison atRegentville . In Archaeo logy and Colonisat ion:

Australia in the World Context, edited by JudyBirmingham, Damaris Bairstow, and Andrew Wilson,pp. 123-138 . Australian Society for HistoricalArchaeology, Sydney.

W INDSCHUTTLE, ELIZABETH

1988 Taste andScience: The Women ofthe MacleayFamily1790-1850. Historic Houses Trust of New SouthWales, Glebe.

" WOOMERA"

1984 The Life and Experiences of an Ex-convict in PortMacquar ie. Reprint of 1899 edition. K. Delaforce,n.p.

GRAHAM CONNAHDEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY ANDPALAEOANTHROPOLOGYUNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLANDARMIDALE, NSW 2351, AUSTRALIAANDDEPARTMENTOFARCHAEOLOGY ANDANTHROPOLOGYAUSTRALIANNATIONAL UNIVERSITYCANBERRA, ACT 0200, AUSTRALIA