Archaeology in Oceania, Vol. 00 (2015): 1–8 DOI: 10.1002/arco.5071 “Corporal Punishment and the Grace of God”: The Archaeology of a Nineteenth Century Girls’ Reformatory in South Australia CHERRIE DE LEIUEN Flinders University ABSTRACT The site of St John’s provides a unique insight into the internal dynamics and materiality of a nineteenth century Catholic girls’ reformatory and the silent lives of the young women, both inmates and nuns, who were confined there. The organisation and material culture of the site reflects the intersection of Australian colonial, Catholic and “middle-class” ideologies. This institution’s purpose was to reform through the imparting of a Catholic hegemony of “appropriate” female behaviour and sexuality; this hegemony was supported by enculturation, which included the altering, confining, decorating and ordering of the St John’s space. The site and its assemblage, whilst small, demonstrate the framework for, and materiality of, the reformatory system that was underpinned by deep traditions of female confinement based in Catholic institutional models. Gender as a social process is key to reading and interpreting the materiality of the St John’s Reformatory for girls. Gender frames, informs and contextualises the materiality of the site, its aims, its operation and thus its archaeological interpretation. Further, the ideological gender roles and regimes related through historical accounts provide the context for the embeddedness of gender in the material culture found. Keywords: gender, girls’ reformatory, ideology, institutions, religion Correspondence: Email: cherrie.deleiuen@flinders.edu.au INTRODUCTION The site known as St John’s, near Kapunda in South Australia, provides a unique insight into the internal dynamics and materiality of a nineteenth century Catholic girls’ reformatory and the silent lives of the young women, both inmates and nuns, who were confined there. This paper teases out the archaeological signatures of the institution’s ideology, reading the landscape, architecture, artefacts and written accounts as discourses on femininity and masculinity. Reflecting on a growing literature about the archaeology of institutions internationally (Baugher 2010; Beisaw & Gibb 2009; Gilchrist 1994; Myers & Moshenska 2011; Spencer-Wood and Baugher 2001), and in an Australian context (Casella & Fredrickson 2004; Davies et al. 2013; Gibbs 2007; Piddock 2007) it is apparent that the lived experiences of institutionalised young women and girls have remained largely unidentified or subsumed within studies of adult populations in prisons or asylums. The exceptions are studies by Casella (2000, 2001, 2007) and De Cunzo (1995, 2001, 2006), who focused on gender, sexuality and power as themes to explore the experience of institutionalised female children and young women. The research presented in this paper also fills a gap in the archaeology of religious men and women in Australia. Though in operation only from 1897 to 1909, the site of St John’s is an intricate microcosm of the reformatory experience that elucidates important currents in late nineteenth century social and political thought about female juvenile crime and detention in colonial Australia. THE GENDERED INSTITUTION The theme of gender is vital to understanding institutions from historical and archaeological perspectives, as demonstrated by Casella’s 2001 study of the Ross Female Factory. Bosworth (2000) argued that the rise of separate women’s institutions, asylums and specifically reformatories are continuums of far older practices that were markedly influenced by deep-rooted Judaic, Christian and Greco-Roman ideologies. Such ideologies informed eighteenth and nineteenth century notions of “appropriate” masculine and feminine behaviour and the criminalisation of female sexual delinquency. Perhaps the best known – even infamous – template for female institutions was the Magdalen Asylums (or Laundries) first established in 1758 in England to deal with the twin social problems posed by female prostitution and unmarried mothers (Finnegan 2001: 8). In nineteenth century Australia, the Catholic Church created separate Catholic and gender-based reformatories in response to a growing Catholic underclass (see Kovesi 2006). Despite the differences between Australia and Europe, all Catholic institutions shared distinctive features C  2015 Oceania Publications