Paula Jane Byrne
Biographic Data
| ID | 555241 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paula Jane Byrne |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paula Jane |
| FAMILY NAME | Byrne |
| SIGNATURE | BYRNE P J |
| AFFILIATIONS | State Library of New South Wales |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2919-1061 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Intimate Relations and the Keonjhar Rebellion of 1891
The entanglement of intimacy and political and military power in India has formerly been the domain of ‘political domesticity' or ‘soft power’. However, letters to a memsahib during the occupation of a Princely State in 1891 allow access to the intimacies of power in military actions and the importance of male play in military encounters. The letters further illuminate the key place of intimacy in analyses of imperial power and allow us to contem…
‘The Anti Laundress’
Three languages of service in the Hunter Valley show the emotional impact of new labour systems on valuing and self-valuing in work. The newspaper advertisements present a self-image of the servant as a negotiator for wages and conditions, and servants read these advertisements and formed attitudes from them. Their language suggests they were significant players in the modernising of work. Wealthy employers sought the cheapest labour possible, an…
Generation One
The first generation of non-Aboriginal children born into the First Nations/Aboriginal country had their own relationship to colonising. For them, Aboriginal people were negotiated as part of play. The children escaped the strictures of work or classroom to spend time at the Aboriginal camps located near the homesteads, or to indicate Aboriginal presence on the stations. The locating of First Nations/Aboriginal people as part of play had an influ…
An Altar Cloth in the Colonies
A pattern for an altar cloth sent to the Australian first wave feminist Rose Selwyn in 1876 is indicative of the capacity of women to make theological statements through sewing. This altar cloth created on Kamilaroi/Gumeroi and Anaiwon country drew on symbols that challenged the Anglican Church and perhaps male power itself. Close analysis of the materials used and the language of the pattern shows the diverse influences on the colonising culture…
Imaginary Worlds and Child Readers at Kurrajong Heights in the 1890s
Innovation in the Courts
Close reading of documents produced by the early courts in New South Wales show two young men, formerly barristers at the Northern Assizes, innovating in their court rooms. Such innovation derived from their merchant background rather than the traditions of mercy or paternalism of the Assizes. In such innovations colonial agents were empowered and could shape the workings of the courts themselves. Minutes of the court show the impact of new kinds…
The Barrackman in Colonial New South Wales
Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Australia, was opened by Governor Macquarie in 1819. As an institution it stood at the intersection of new and fashionable discussions about prisons and imprisonment, naval discipline, and the emergence of a diligent and Methodist-influenced culture of clerks. Together they created the meaning of the walls and wards, the fabric of the building. Confinement produced “Barrackmen,” a distinct subculture produced outside…
Australian Squatter Space 1850–1880
Young men of empire seeking their fortune in Australia incorporated violence against Indigenous people into their lives as part of leisure. This derived from the persona created by romanticism. Squatters created an emotional community that valued capital at the expense of family and emphasised uniformity, they were a transitory people travelling to England and Europe. They held a specific relationship to the Aboriginal polity in which they lived …
Clothing, Emotion and Consumption in Colonial New South Wales
On the Hunter River of New South Wales older Regency esthetics of light- colored floaty fabrics were still dominant in the 1830 s and 1840 s. This esthetic was engaged in by both men and women though men were forging the tailored working clothes look of the squatter. While cut and tailoring were important to men, a look was to be achieved, fabric and its tactile nature was important to women. One distinguished oneself by the fabric one chose. Squ…
Tracing a Female Mind in Late Nineteenth Century Australia
Rose Selwyn (1824–1905) was a first wave Australian feminist and public speaker. The poetry, art, and scraps of writing Rose left in her archive allow the reader to piece together an intellectual history, a genealogy of the making of self. Rose attained her way of being through several contemporary influences—the mysticism of Tractarianism, a concern with death and its meanings, an interest in the literary edges of the world, a concern with the s…
The Development of White Democracy in an Australian Aboriginal Locality
Early expressions of democracy in one Australian locality emerged from punitive raids by Whites on Aboriginal camps. Such actions occurred side by side with active and imaginative participation in the institutions of the democratic state, which challenged the reach of government. This polity was brought into being amidst confusion, which also created, by its gaps, opportunities for the unenfranchised, such being women and the Aboriginal people. Y…
The language of space and ownership in rural New South Wales in the mid-nineteenth-century
Language used in depositions in colonial New South Wales shows a mobile non-Aboriginal society of close surveillance, rumour and informing. This derived from the convict system. In response to this there was considerable play with marking and markers, including the widespread use of nicknames and emphasis on personal space. Outside of this was the dreamlike realm of entertainment to be had in public houses, Aboriginal camps and Chinese tents at t…
War People
Apart from descriptions of ideas of race, Australian historiography has not perceived acts of violence to Aboriginal people in their wider social and political context. Analysis of perpetrators has derived from family histories but this, so far, has been limited to studies of emotion. One family’s and one area’s experience of frontier violence shows that it was thought about in terms of ‘volunteering’ and democratic participation. The new technol…
Jury Trial in Colonial New South Wales 1840–1870
This article explores how the mid-19th-century jury saw itself as dominating the Maitland Circuit Court in New South Wales: it interrupted judges in their summing up, questioned witnesses and decided on cases despite legal argument. In doing so, the jury formed part of a ritualised political culture of early democracy where formality combined with outspoken independence. Jury behaviour was not checked by judges or commented on as being unusual or…
The New South Wales Bar and Aboriginal people
Aboriginal defendants appearing before the New South Wales Supreme Court came from specific geographical areas where one might say that English sovereignty existed. In other areas, Aboriginal people were treated as a conquered people. For those who were caught in the legal system, their uncertain legal situation resulted in the initial establishment of the industry of interpretation that would shape much of the court’s history. Moves to have Abor…
Convict Women Reconsidered… and Reconsidered
A colonial female economy
Freedom in a bonded society
(1997). Freedom in a bonded society: The administrative mind and the ‘lower classes’ in colonial new South Wales. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 21, Fatal shores, pp. 51-58
Economy and free women in Colonial New South Wales
Criminal Law and Colonial Subject
Criminal Law and Colonial Subject
1810–1830 was a crucial period in the development of New South Wales, when the legal foundations of a free-settler and emancipist society were laid. This book explores the relationship of a colonial people with English law and looks at the practice of law among the ordinary population. Paula Jane Byrne traces the boundaries between property, sexuality and violence, drawing from court records, dispositions and proceedings. She asks: what did ordin…
Life Lines
The Public Good
Finding Australia. The History of Australia to 1821
Criminal Law and Colonial Subject
A colonial female economy
Freedom in a bonded society
(1997). Freedom in a bonded society: The administrative mind and the ‘lower classes’ in colonial new South Wales. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 21, Fatal shores, pp. 51-58
Finding Australia. The History of Australia to 1821
The Public Good
Criminal Law and Colonial Subject
1810–1830 was a crucial period in the development of New South Wales, when the legal foundations of a free-settler and emancipist society were laid. This book explores the relationship of a colonial people with English law and looks at the practice of law among the ordinary population. Paula Jane Byrne traces the boundaries between property, sexuality and violence, drawing from court records, dispositions and proceedings. She asks: what did ordin…
Life Lines
Criminal Law and Colonial Subject
Economy and free women in Colonial New South Wales
Freedom in a bonded society
(1997). Freedom in a bonded society: The administrative mind and the ‘lower classes’ in colonial new South Wales. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 21, Fatal shores, pp. 51-58
A colonial female economy
Convict Women Reconsidered… and Reconsidered
The New South Wales Bar and Aboriginal people
Aboriginal defendants appearing before the New South Wales Supreme Court came from specific geographical areas where one might say that English sovereignty existed. In other areas, Aboriginal people were treated as a conquered people. For those who were caught in the legal system, their uncertain legal situation resulted in the initial establishment of the industry of interpretation that would shape much of the court’s history. Moves to have Abor…
War People
Apart from descriptions of ideas of race, Australian historiography has not perceived acts of violence to Aboriginal people in their wider social and political context. Analysis of perpetrators has derived from family histories but this, so far, has been limited to studies of emotion. One family’s and one area’s experience of frontier violence shows that it was thought about in terms of ‘volunteering’ and democratic participation. The new technol…
Jury Trial in Colonial New South Wales 1840–1870
This article explores how the mid-19th-century jury saw itself as dominating the Maitland Circuit Court in New South Wales: it interrupted judges in their summing up, questioned witnesses and decided on cases despite legal argument. In doing so, the jury formed part of a ritualised political culture of early democracy where formality combined with outspoken independence. Jury behaviour was not checked by judges or commented on as being unusual or…
The Development of White Democracy in an Australian Aboriginal Locality
Early expressions of democracy in one Australian locality emerged from punitive raids by Whites on Aboriginal camps. Such actions occurred side by side with active and imaginative participation in the institutions of the democratic state, which challenged the reach of government. This polity was brought into being amidst confusion, which also created, by its gaps, opportunities for the unenfranchised, such being women and the Aboriginal people. Y…
The language of space and ownership in rural New South Wales in the mid-nineteenth-century
Language used in depositions in colonial New South Wales shows a mobile non-Aboriginal society of close surveillance, rumour and informing. This derived from the convict system. In response to this there was considerable play with marking and markers, including the widespread use of nicknames and emphasis on personal space. Outside of this was the dreamlike realm of entertainment to be had in public houses, Aboriginal camps and Chinese tents at t…
Australian Squatter Space 1850–1880
Young men of empire seeking their fortune in Australia incorporated violence against Indigenous people into their lives as part of leisure. This derived from the persona created by romanticism. Squatters created an emotional community that valued capital at the expense of family and emphasised uniformity, they were a transitory people travelling to England and Europe. They held a specific relationship to the Aboriginal polity in which they lived …
Clothing, Emotion and Consumption in Colonial New South Wales
On the Hunter River of New South Wales older Regency esthetics of light- colored floaty fabrics were still dominant in the 1830 s and 1840 s. This esthetic was engaged in by both men and women though men were forging the tailored working clothes look of the squatter. While cut and tailoring were important to men, a look was to be achieved, fabric and its tactile nature was important to women. One distinguished oneself by the fabric one chose. Squ…
Tracing a Female Mind in Late Nineteenth Century Australia
Rose Selwyn (1824–1905) was a first wave Australian feminist and public speaker. The poetry, art, and scraps of writing Rose left in her archive allow the reader to piece together an intellectual history, a genealogy of the making of self. Rose attained her way of being through several contemporary influences—the mysticism of Tractarianism, a concern with death and its meanings, an interest in the literary edges of the world, a concern with the s…
An Altar Cloth in the Colonies
A pattern for an altar cloth sent to the Australian first wave feminist Rose Selwyn in 1876 is indicative of the capacity of women to make theological statements through sewing. This altar cloth created on Kamilaroi/Gumeroi and Anaiwon country drew on symbols that challenged the Anglican Church and perhaps male power itself. Close analysis of the materials used and the language of the pattern shows the diverse influences on the colonising culture…
Imaginary Worlds and Child Readers at Kurrajong Heights in the 1890s
Innovation in the Courts
Close reading of documents produced by the early courts in New South Wales show two young men, formerly barristers at the Northern Assizes, innovating in their court rooms. Such innovation derived from their merchant background rather than the traditions of mercy or paternalism of the Assizes. In such innovations colonial agents were empowered and could shape the workings of the courts themselves. Minutes of the court show the impact of new kinds…
The Barrackman in Colonial New South Wales
Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Australia, was opened by Governor Macquarie in 1819. As an institution it stood at the intersection of new and fashionable discussions about prisons and imprisonment, naval discipline, and the emergence of a diligent and Methodist-influenced culture of clerks. Together they created the meaning of the walls and wards, the fabric of the building. Confinement produced “Barrackmen,” a distinct subculture produced outside…
‘The Anti Laundress’
Three languages of service in the Hunter Valley show the emotional impact of new labour systems on valuing and self-valuing in work. The newspaper advertisements present a self-image of the servant as a negotiator for wages and conditions, and servants read these advertisements and formed attitudes from them. Their language suggests they were significant players in the modernising of work. Wealthy employers sought the cheapest labour possible, an…
Generation One
The first generation of non-Aboriginal children born into the First Nations/Aboriginal country had their own relationship to colonising. For them, Aboriginal people were negotiated as part of play. The children escaped the strictures of work or classroom to spend time at the Aboriginal camps located near the homesteads, or to indicate Aboriginal presence on the stations. The locating of First Nations/Aboriginal people as part of play had an influ…
Intimate Relations and the Keonjhar Rebellion of 1891
The entanglement of intimacy and political and military power in India has formerly been the domain of ‘political domesticity' or ‘soft power’. However, letters to a memsahib during the occupation of a Princely State in 1891 allow access to the intimacies of power in military actions and the importance of male play in military encounters. The letters further illuminate the key place of intimacy in analyses of imperial power and allow us to contem…
Australian History and Society (17 works) · Political science (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (14 works) · History (12 works) · Colonialism (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Art (6 works)