Money box
Maker & role
Rock Pottery, Manufacturer
Production date
circa 1840
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Object detail
Production place
Collection
Measurements
H: 17 x W: 15 x D: 11cm (H: 170 x W: 150 x D: 110mm)
Signature & marks
Labelled ‘Wesleyan Chapel’ prominently on the principal facade
Credit line
Gift, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2006
Caroline Simpson Collection, Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caroline Simpson Collection, Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Money box, c1840
Description
Staffordshire (Prattware) earthenware money box, by the Rock Pottery, Mexborough, Yorkshire. The money box takes the form of the ashlar-coursed, slate roofed and chimneyed Bank Street Wesleyan Chapel, Mexborough, with detailing in the Picturesque Gothick style (the late 18th – early 19th century precursor to the Gothic Revival). Its ‘façade’ has two red doors (with the words ‘Wesleyan Chapel’ between them) with three arched windows above. The windows and doors have yellow ochre architraves, drip moulds and sills. The chapel is flanked by standing putti-esque figures, each draped with a sash. There are two windows to one end and single on the reverse. A strip of grass is depicted around the chapel, above a base decorated with a zig-zag motif, the whole resting on small bun feet. There is a coin slot in the rear roof, which is painted blue-grey resembling slate.
Acquisitions for Vaucluse House are guided by the period of occupation by the Wentworth family, from 1827-1853, based where possible on inventories and other documentary evidence. Where direct information is not known acquisitions are based on documented information about other houses of similar period, style and quality.
The Methodists were one of several protestant sects in the colony of New South Wales that grew out of movements of dissent from the Church of England in the 17th – 19th century and contributed to the Evangelical movement, or Evangelicalism that was to have a significant influence on the Church of England in the late 18th – 19th centuries. Women from prominent colonial families (such as the Macleay daughters of Elizabeth Bay House) were particularly active in evangelical activities. The Wentworth daughters Fanny Katherine, Laura and particularly Thomasine, were evangelical in outlook, pinning Scriptural texts to their father, William Charles Wentworth’s dressing room door out of concern for his agnosticism (Liston, p88).
A moneybox is a suitable object for the Vaucluse House nursery. One did not have to be Wesleyan Methodist to have a money box in the form of a chapel – a sympathy with the Evangelical movement, a taste for the Gothic or Picturesque or an enjoyment of a moneybox in the form of a building may have guided its purchase. It is an appropriate acquisition as part of the wider Vaucluse House collection related to childhood.
This moneybox is part of the significant Caroline Simpson collection. Caroline Simpson (née Fairfax) was a descendant of the London Missionary Society preacher Francis Oakes (1770 - 1844) and the Congregationalist John Fairfax (1804 - 1877). She had an interest in English non-conformist and evangelical history and endeavour throughout the globe.
Acquisitions for Vaucluse House are guided by the period of occupation by the Wentworth family, from 1827-1853, based where possible on inventories and other documentary evidence. Where direct information is not known acquisitions are based on documented information about other houses of similar period, style and quality.
The Methodists were one of several protestant sects in the colony of New South Wales that grew out of movements of dissent from the Church of England in the 17th – 19th century and contributed to the Evangelical movement, or Evangelicalism that was to have a significant influence on the Church of England in the late 18th – 19th centuries. Women from prominent colonial families (such as the Macleay daughters of Elizabeth Bay House) were particularly active in evangelical activities. The Wentworth daughters Fanny Katherine, Laura and particularly Thomasine, were evangelical in outlook, pinning Scriptural texts to their father, William Charles Wentworth’s dressing room door out of concern for his agnosticism (Liston, p88).
A moneybox is a suitable object for the Vaucluse House nursery. One did not have to be Wesleyan Methodist to have a money box in the form of a chapel – a sympathy with the Evangelical movement, a taste for the Gothic or Picturesque or an enjoyment of a moneybox in the form of a building may have guided its purchase. It is an appropriate acquisition as part of the wider Vaucluse House collection related to childhood.
This moneybox is part of the significant Caroline Simpson collection. Caroline Simpson (née Fairfax) was a descendant of the London Missionary Society preacher Francis Oakes (1770 - 1844) and the Congregationalist John Fairfax (1804 - 1877). She had an interest in English non-conformist and evangelical history and endeavour throughout the globe.
Accession number
V2007/15
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