Abstract
In this chapter we examine the historical context of the backfilling of decommissioned cesspits and privies with domestic waste. This is a practice known throughout the modern world in metropolitan cities throughout the Anglophone world. Like many aspects of urbanisation, it was one subject to increasing regulation in the Victorian era as population densities increased and politicians, councillors, engineers and entrepreneurs worked to solve the many problems linked to the management of services and waste.
This chapter is an expansion and refinement of an earlier work, The Analysis of Cesspit Deposits from The Rocks, Sydney published by the authors in Australasian Historical Archaeology 22 (pp. 44–56).
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- 1.
There was a similar response in other cities across the globe, for example, New York; see Geismar 1993: 63.
- 2.
This is the same year that the Nuisances Prevention Act was passed in Sydney which still permitted construction of new cesspits despite the availability of sewerage mains.
- 3.
In at least 1875, the owner formally applied to the City Engineer to connect their property to the sewer mains (Sewage and Health Board – Minutes of Inquiry, 1875, p. 5 in V&P 1875, vol. 4, p. 345). Note the occupier was responsible for the regular clearing of cesspits.
- 4.
It is said that some middle-class families were so ashamed to be seen collecting water supplies from public fountains or pumps that they sent their children to do it for them (Clark 1978: 60–61).
- 5.
Note, many aerated water and other bottles were reused.
- 6.
See Groover 2001 for a statistical predictive response to this problem on rural sites occupied by several generations of the same family.
- 7.
The research design underwriting the Cumberland and Gloucester streets investigation was organised around five main research questions concerning class, gender, standards of living, neighbourhood character and governance (Godden Mackay and Karskens 1994: 72 & 1999).
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Murray, T., Crook, P. (2019). Sanitary Reform and Comparative Assemblage Analysis: Methodology. In: Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City in Nineteenth-century Australia. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27169-5_7
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