Abstract
The biography of a stoneware ginger bottle stamped with the retailer mark “Buicchi Bros” is approached from four different perspectives, each of which can be read as separate texts and illuminate context and use. The first discusses the events following the object’s discovery, noting how different archaeologists played a part in its accumulating histories. Second, Basilio and Ernesto Biucchi – two second generation Ticinese (Swiss Italian) brothers – are introduced by considering their fundamental role in this bottle’s life. Third, the bottle is positioned within the arena of soft drinks consumption in late nineteenth-century London. The article concludes by bringing the past into the present by introducing the descendants of the Buicchi brothers while discussing tangibility in historical archaeology. When these different inquiries are woven together, the role that both individuality and ethnicity played in the bottle’s history is negotiated via different media: marking of the stoneware bottle with the Biucchi name, the brothers’ participation in making and selling soft drinks and the restaurant business (and those they employed).
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Acknowledgments
This would have been a lesser article if not for the input of Tony and Edwina Biucchi, whose willingness to share their family stories and provide ephemera was vital. Thanks must go to Lisa Elliott, whose curiosity and findings stimulated this work. Support for initial research was also supplied by the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC). Thanks to Adam Corsini of the LAARC and his father John for helping in the genealogical research. Finally, thanks to the archivists at the Camden Local Studies and Archive Centre and Islington Local History Centre for their assistance. The bottle itself is stored in the LAARC, curated under the site code ASS90, and can be viewed by appointment.
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Jeffries, N. (2009). A Biography of a Stoneware Ginger Beer Bottle: The Biucchi Brothers and the Ticinese Community in Nineteenth-Century London. In: White, C. (eds) The Materiality of Individuality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0498-0_4
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