POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Child's ceramic tea set

Object No. 93/110/1

Tea sets were given to girls as a way of preparing them for adult life when it was expected they would become competent wives and mothers. This 21-piece tea set in white ceramic was used in Australia in the 1920s and includes two handmade net covers for the sugar bowl and milk jug. Beaded covers like these were common in Australia at the time to stop flies from falling into the milk and sitting on the sugar. Flies were an annoyance at both city and country afternoon teas held outside when horse and cow dung encouraged their prevalence. The tea party came into its own as a social occasion during the Victorian age in Britain. This was during a time of prosperity when the general practice was one of conspicuous display. Owning elaborate tea and coffee sets was considered a necessity rather than a luxury. It followed that upper and middle class families furnished their children's nurseries with child-sized tea sets alongside the rocking horse and dolls house. The colonisation of Australia brought with it the established British 'tea culture'. Tea quickly became an extremely popular drink and gradually became less expensive and more widely used. Large quantities were consumed by city and country dwellers with the hot climate stimulating thirst. The dried leaves were light to transport overland, boiling the water killed harmful bacteria and the tea flavour masked the strong minerals found in bore water. Many families ritually stopped work and had a cup of tea in the morning and afternoon with homemade biscuits and cakes. The best tea service was kept for visitors, who came for morning or afternoon tea rather than a meal. Children's tea sets are now (in 2020) considered old fashioned toys purely for imaginative play rather than instruction and have been replaced by moulded plastic toy coffee machines. Horst Nixdorf, Curatorial Assistant, and Margaret Simpson, Curator, May 2020

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Summary

Object Statement

Child's tea set, 21-pieces with homemade milk jug and sugar bowl covers, ceramic, maker unknown, used by Joan Brewer, Australia, 1920s

Physical Description

This child's ceramic tea set comprises 23 pieces, 6 cups, 6 saucers, 6 shallow bowls, a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two handmade jug covers. The set is plain white ceramic with a clear glaze, gold border and repeating overprinted triple clover/shamrock/"fleur-de-lis" design in purple. Each cup features a ring foot, sloping sides with a loop handle and a gold border design on the outside rim. Each saucer features a ring foot, deep well and gold border design on the outside rim. Each bowl features a ring foot, deep well and gold border design on the outside rim. The teapot has a loop handle, sloping spout, and a gold border design on the shoulder and centre of the lid. The milk jug has a loop handle and gold border on the shoulder. The sugar bowl has a ring foot with a gold border on the inside rim. Two covers, one for the milk jug and one for the sugar bowl, were handmade additions to the set and are made of net edged with coloured glass beads to weigh them down.

PRODUCTION

Notes

It is thought that the tea set was made in the 1920s. There is neither information nor marks on it to identify the designer or manufacturer. The decoration used is of a style much used in ornamentation over time, particularly in heraldry. The fleur-de-lis (literally a stylised lily) has long been associated with the French crown while artists varied its design over the years to suit their tastes and patrons. The two net covers were designed and handmade by the donor, Joan Brewer, as a child.

HISTORY

Notes

This tea set belonged to the donor, Joan Brewer, and was used by her as a child. It forms part of a donation of material to the Museum in 1993 including a handmade set of pyjamas, night dress and needlework samples which Joan undertook for her Intermediate Certificate in 1934 for which she received 'A' grades. This was at a time when domestic high schools for girls aimed at training them to be competent wives and mothers. Children's tea sets According to Decker (Musées de Sarreguemines), the first records of children's tea sets appeared in the 16th century. These sets originated in Germany and were made in pewter (an alloy of tin and lead) and copper. In the 18th century the toy industry began to expand, and miniature tea sets fashioned in faience (fine tin glazed earthenware) and porcelain began to be produced at factories such as Meissen and Chelsea for the children of the very wealthy. Because of their fragility, they were precious possessions and their use was often restricted to special occasions and under the supervision of adults. As a child, Queen Victoria was given a miniature tea set by her aunt, the Duchess of Clarence. Queen Victoria's doll's house at Kensington Palace features its own Regency dining room, set up with tea for two, with tiny chairs gathered around the table. In the Victorian era, upper-class families would furnish their children's nurseries with child-sized tea sets, often scaled down replicas of their parents' elaborate tea sets. By the late 19th and early 20th century children's ceramic tea sets became popular amongst middle class families too as they emulated the upper classes in taking tea. By the mid. 20th century and with the emergence of plastics, tea sets became available to every child. This new material was strong, safe, easy to mould and could be mass produced very cheaply, though for this reason not many remain. Consumption of tea in Australia The concept of afternoon tea was introduced in England by Anna Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the mid. 1800s. With dinner not scheduled until eight o'clock, the Duchess became hungry in the afternoon and would ask for a tray of tea, bread and butter and cake to be brought to her room. This became a habit of Anna's and she began inviting friends to join her for this afternoon ritual. By the 1880s 'afternoon tea', which was usually served in the drawing room between four and five o'clock, had evolved into an event where upper-class and society ladies were adorned with gowns for the occasion. The colonisation of Australia brought with it the established British 'tea culture' though it was not part of the official rations for the First Fleet in 1788, but rather only part of the personal possessions of officers. The first tea imported into the colony occurred probably in 1794 and it was not until 1819 that tea was listed as an official convict ration. Some of Australia's early colonists grew their own tea bushes but it was not until the 1890s that Australia's first tea plantation was established by the Cutten Brothers at Bingil Bay near Innisfail, in far north Queensland. Tea quickly became an extremely popular drink with large quantities of it being consumed by people in both the city and country. Geoffrey Blainey said that in Australia "lived the most obsessive tea drinkers in the world" and on average we drank 4 kilograms of it a year. The reason for tea becoming our preferred beverage can be attributed to numerous factors. It was a custom that had been transported from Britain where a strong tea culture had evolved. Tea was also lightweight and relatively inexpensive right across the country (at one point it was even less expensive in Australia than in Britain). Furthermore, as local water was often of questionable quality, tea masked its impurities and poor taste. In contrast, coffee, which is very popular today (2020), was drunk much less frequently than tea except in districts where the population was of German descent. This was principally due to coffee's poor flavour. Blainey says that coffee was often kept by households not for drinking but as a disinfectant. In the mid. 1800s tea was drunk initially from a quart pot and later from the fabled 'billy'. Many working men and later swagmen in the bush carried billy cans. Alfred Bushell opened a tea shop in Brisbane in 1883. He was a tea dealer who had moved to Brisbane after the death of his wife Agnes, daughter of the renowned British tea family, the Brookes. The business quickly boomed and Alfred sons, Walter and Phillip, expanded operations to Sydney in 1899 where they traded as Bushells and Company, the 'Tea Men'. In 1920 Bushells acquired land in Harrington Street, The Rocks, in Sydney where they built a seven-storey factory and established their corporate headquarters. Bushells occupied these premises for over 40 years and by the 1960s dominated the tea market in all Australian states. Traditionally, tea in Australia was drunk without milk and piping hot. As the popularity of black tea from India increased, the habit of adding milk became more prevalent, aided by increasing supplies of fresh milk in cities and later in country towns from local dairies. Australia's ongoing propensity for consuming tea continued throughout the years until rationed during WWII, when supplies from the Dutch East Indies were interrupted. A coupon system was introduced which did not cease until 1950. There were reports of thefts of tea chests and a black market in tea coupons flourished. A 2016 Roy Morgan Research Survey found that over a 12-month period almost 50 percent of Australians over the age of 14 (9.8 million people) drank at least one cup of tea a week, with the average being 9.5 cups. The most prolific age demographic was found to be the 65-year-old plus cohort who on average drank 11 cups per week. Horst Nixdorf, Curatorial Assistant References J. Miller, 'Miller's Antiques Checklist', Mitchell Beazley, 1995. G.L. Freedman, 'Yesterday's Toys', Century House, 1962 E. Decker, 'A History of Children's Tea Sets', Curatorial article, Musées de Sarreguemines, France, sourced from Tea Happiness, USA. G. Blainey, 'Black Kettle and Full Moon - Daily Life in a Vanished Australia', Penguin Books Australia, 2003 A. Heathcote, 'Timeline: A short history of Australian tea' (article), Australian Geographic, 2017. Sourced at https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2017/07/timeline-a-short-history-of-australian-tea/ http://www.childs-tea-set.com/child-tea-set-history.htm http://www.tea-happiness.com/2018/11/history-of-childrens-tea-set.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/93g8F4T1SUuqqIb4k3BcKw https://www.britannica.com/technology/toy https://www.fleurdelis.com/fleur.htm https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Afternoon-Tea/ https://www.bushells.com.au/about-bushells https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5053149 https://www.neradatea.com.au/our-story/our-history https://www.thespruceeats.com/history-and-types-of-british-tea-435180 https://www.tea.co.uk/history-of-tea https://www.worldpartea.com.au/tea-the-drink-of-australian-convicts-200-years-ago/ http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6937-tea-party-australians-love-a-cuppa-201608290942 Correspondence on museum object file.

SOURCE

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs Brownless,1993

Acquisition Date

24 March 1993

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