An “Artistic Display of Wares”: The Wallpaper Trade During Otago’s Goldrush, 1860-1867

Abstract

ABSTRACT In comparison with interior design and architecture studies in Britain, Europe, the United States and Australia, little research has been conducted on interiors of the 19th century in New Zealand. Publications on New Zealand’s architectural heritage have largely focused on house exteriors, often including only passing reference to components of interior design. The fragments of knowledge about New Zealand’s early interiors that emerge from existing literature provide insight into the web of factors that shaped them. These include socio-cultural factors, the influence of media, and global and local economies. Picking up on these themes, this paper focuses on the wallpaper trade in Otago prior to, during and following the goldrush, between 1860 and 1867. The picture that emerges is of an Antipodean trade in predominantly British wallpapers, and a trans-Tasman network that facilitated the flow of wallpapers and traders between the Australian colony of Victoria and the province of Otago in New Zealand. Insights into the wallpaper patterns available in 1860s Dunedin are provided by photographs of shop windows and the display of wallpapers in the Furniture Court of the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition, as well as an archaeological sample from the 1860s.