Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

An archaeological perspective on the influences of Victorian values and city-wide health in Parramatta, New South Wales

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Format: paperback
136 pages
ISBN: 9781761540110

Publication: 01 Jul 2025
Series: Studies in Australasian Historical Archaeology
Publisher: Sydney University Press

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For more than 30 years, archaeologists have recorded and studied the colonial past of Parramatta, the second-oldest European settlement in New South Wales. Archaeological investigations provide a wealth of information that contributes to the interpretation of the landscape, the history of the town’s development and our understanding of the people who lived there. Cleanliness is Next to Godliness uses archaeological assemblages generated by these investigations as the basis for exploring what these mainly British settlers and their descendants held as societal beliefs, principles and norms (termed “Victorian values”), which emerged concerning cleanliness and health-related issues.

Dr E. Jeanne Harris explores the ways in which the colonial population of New South Wales was heavily influenced by “Victorian values”, which encouraged good health practices through a clean lifestyle. Eight residential sites were chosen for examination based on the following four criteria:

  • sealed rubbish deposits
  • a long 19th-century date range
  • a cross-section of social classes
  • identified resident(s) associated with the location and deposits.

Synthesising these findings, Cleanliness is Next to Godliness analyses the evidence for social reforms that promoted both public health initiatives and personal health practices, providing insight into the everyday lives of those who lived in Parramatta in the 19th century.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness is the first scholarly work that presents the archaeology of Victorian social conventions as evidence of something more than respectability manifested as socio-economic status, manners and etiquette.

  • List of figures
  • List of tables
  1. Introduction: 19th-century health and Victorian values
  2. Brief history of Parramatta
  3. Creating a case study
  4. Australian class and social structure
  5. The archaeology of social class
  6. The history of colonial medicine, public health and environmental reform
  7. The archaeology of personal health and social reforms
  8. Colonial Parramatta: a medical anthropological approach to health and class

Concluding remarks

  • Appendix
  • References
  • Index

Format: paperback
Size: 297 × 210 mm
136 pages
Copyright: © 2025
ISBN: 9781761540110
Publication: 01 Jul 2025
Series: Studies in Australasian Historical Archaeology