Trinket box

This box has several depictions of people playing sports which were popular among certain classes of people in Australia. Men can be seen playing golf, polo and taking part in rifle shooting. Two women can be seen playing tennis together. From the foundation of the South Australian colony migrants played the sports that were part of their life back 'home'. The leading Englishmen in the colony used sport to parade their wealth and social position. The games they played were the games of the English provincial gentry. Their favourite pursuits of hunting, sailing and polo required money and leisure, thus effectively excluding most people. Before the ‘New Women’ emerged in the 1890s, women did not play publically in competitive sports. Wealthy women with plenty of leisure time enjoyed a genteel game of croquet, archery or tennis, but only in the private gardens of their mansions. Rectangular brass box with illustrated lid.