In 1864 Ellen Boyt, 26, of Christchurch, Hampshire married John Ward of Islington, London, a blacksmith. He, Ellen and her illegitimate daughter Charlotte set up house in Islington.
Ellen had been a single parent in Christchurch, living with Charlotte and her impoverished family. She managed to eke out a living as a watch chain maker, the most common occupation for a young woman in that part of the world. She and Charlotte however decided to join the diaspora of regional working class women who moved to London in search of a better life.
With no other skills apart from domestic ones, and not being able to read or write, Ellen became a needlewoman. By 1871 she and John had two children of their own, Alice aged 5 and Ellen, aged 10 months. Charlotte, now aged 14, still lived with them, although employed as a domestic servant.
But John was no longer a blacksmith. He was blind, living on charity and an allowance from the parish. The address given in the 1871 census for the family states, "5 (otherwise No.2) Caroline Court, Islington."
"Courts" at this time were where the impoverished lived. They had their roots in the courtyard construction and communal way of living of medieval London. But by the time Ellen, John and their family came to live in this style of housing, courts were narrow, dead end streets of small terrace houses where many people shared each dwelling. Lacking piped water, the houses in Caroline Court would have been reliant upon a communal well and pump on the street. These became increasingly polluted over time, promoting the spread of waterborne diseases. That the Ward family lived in one of these houses attests to their straitened circumstances. In spite of severe overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, it was not until 1936 that Caroline Court and the adjacent Hope Place were finally designated as a slum clearance area and demolished.
In 1881, John ceased to be dependent upon the parish. His occupation was now "seller of music in street". As such, he would sing (or shout) ballads down the street until a crowd was drawn. He would not expect to be paid for his voice, but instead would sell copies of his songs for a halfpenny a sheet. He and Ellen, together with their six children were now living at 1 Paradise Court, Islington. By 1891 John had become a "street musician" with five of his children living at home with him, including Ellen, a glass bottle stop maker and Rhoda, a trim bead worker. Still resident in Paradise Court, they now lived at number 4.
John, a fiddler in his occupation as street musician, had stiff competition as such, as the streets of London had for many a year hosted an unco-ordinated, discordant symphony of sounds made by street vendors, beggars and various types of musicians and singers. Horses' hooves clattered over cobblestones, cab drivers shouted to each other as they passed, whole brass bands played on the street, drunken patrons tumbled out of pub doors, yelling all the while. Paper boys shouted out the news and costermongers advertised their wares at the tops of their voices. Not to mention dustmen going about their work and the children who danced and sang along with the organ grinders or laughed at Punch and Judy shows. London's streets played host to a never-ending din and cacophony of noises, day and night. It was no wonder John did not earn sufficient money to pay rent on a more desirable residence; just getting his tunes heard on the street would have been no mean feat. There were also many other street musicians about: Hector Berlioz, the French Romantic composer after visiting London in the mid-nineteenth century wrote that "no city in the world" was so consumed by music. He noted barrel-organists, barrel-pianists, bagpipers and drummers who filled the streets. And once one of these musicians stood on a corner and started up a tune, girls who may be walking past and children sitting in the gutter "begin to foot it merrily."* Some men would also join in, usually two together, while an appreciative crowd watched the dancing.
Ellen's tale is one of desperate poverty and a hard life lived in difficult circumstances. Yet, she and John appear to have lived a happy and for the times, long life together. Raising a large family with scant money, they appear to have given them a stable home. Part of a community, they remained living in the same suburb for many a year. Even when John lost his sight and ability to work as a blacksmith they accepted their plight and adjusted to their lot, their children growing to adulthood and eventually raising families of their own.
The writer is a descendant of Ellen and Charlotte Boyt.
*Charles Booth, in his survey of the East End
Reference: London: The Biography Peter Ackroyd Anchor Books 2000
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Mekons, the Edwardian Era & Today
In the spirit that fuelled the beginning of the punk era in the mid 1970s, long running post-punk band Mekons produced an album in 2011 entitled Ancient & Modern 1911 - 2011 drawing on their take on current times. They contend that history is repeating itself and compare what is happening in the world now to the Edwardian era, that 'golden afternoon' before World War I, when things changed forever.
Beginning in England in 1976 as a punk band, Mekons became one of the most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands. It still has most of its original line-up today. The late Lester Bangs described its members as "the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll" and their style has evolved over the years to incorporate country music, folk, alternative rock and cow punk. Galvanised by political events, such as the British miners strike in 1984, they are still not hesitant in commenting on contemporary times and events.
Inspired by similarities between the political landscape of the Edwardian era with that of today, the Mekons see a contemporary complacency that was all too present in English society during the period before the first World War. The ruling class was not in touch with the lives led by the majority of people in Britain; there was a significant gap between the affluent and the poor and a smugness in the upper class about its position. Imperialism reigned and those in power were blind to the needs of the common people, preferring to indulge in house parties, taking tea and maintaining a genteel façade at all times.
The title song Ancient & Modern is an elegant track reflecting this view and conjures up images of men in pith helmets at the helm of an empire which to them, was civilised and successful. Much like the Victorian era, however, there was a grimy underside to the wealth and propriety displayed by those in positions of power; the underclasses toiled incessantly to support and maintain a way of life that was becoming increasingly unsustainable due to its demands and pressures. The poor were becoming restless and resentful of their position on the bottom rung of society and by 1914, workers were holding strikes in an attempt to obtain rights for working long hours at arduous jobs which paid little.
All this flew in the face of the monied classes who lived in a cosy world where they played cricket on the village green, punted down the river in striped blazers and boaters, rode off with the hounds and had wives and mistresses while engaging in community singing and lavish picnics. Undercurrents in the form of mysticism, secret societies, radical modern art, Freud, dangerous poetry, anarchists, bombings, British concentration camps and suffragettes were gathering and eventually overpowered the old, complacent order of things.
Was all that really just over a hundred years ago? Maybe we should take a look at the world today and address the imbalances present in our own society before our own Sarajevo pistol crack jolts us out of our comfortable recliners and changes our way of living forever.
Geeshi, a rather mournful track, encapsulates the regret and difficulty those basking in the 'golden afternoon' sun were experiencing in adjusting to the great changes being wrought behind the scenes: Raise a glass of wine and try to still time, it says, in an attempt to halt unwanted changes.
But the rumblings of change were just out of view and kept that way, by a lot of the Edwardians. Night and day there was trouble that the eye could almost see/In the valleys that lay open/In the papers now recovered sing Mekons in their track Warm Summer Sun. So comfortable and apparently secure were the lives of the wealthy and privileged, they did not want to believe anything could possibly up-end them.
But up-ended they were. While the ruling classes weren't looking, reality took control and the old order of things died off at an alarmingly quick rate. Irrevocable change, and not just in the form of World War I, was forced upon them.
Parallels can be drawn with the worldwide situation prevailing today; human rights abuses still occur, along with economic inequality, regressive policies are being put into place by leaders not listening to the voices of their communities. There's a lot to learn from the Edwardians and Mekons have homed in on a period of history which should be resonating with those in positions of power today. Their fittingly elegant sounding album should be compulsory listening.
Many today would do well to heed the lyrics of Honey Bear: The further your story is from the truth, the more you need propaganda as politicians use the media prolifically to propound their view of what the populace needs. The same rhetoric that bred resentment just over a hundred years ago is being broadcast today and history will only repeat if those in power do not take heed of what went before.
The Edwardian era was synonymous with glamour, indulgence and extravagance. It officially came to an end at the beginning of World War I although its vestiges limped on until about 1920. The new millennium, with its monetary and intellectual wealth is busy tackling new trends in technology, inequality in terms of wealth and gender together with a growing awareness of damage to the world's ecology, but change is happening only slowly. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Beginning in England in 1976 as a punk band, Mekons became one of the most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands. It still has most of its original line-up today. The late Lester Bangs described its members as "the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll" and their style has evolved over the years to incorporate country music, folk, alternative rock and cow punk. Galvanised by political events, such as the British miners strike in 1984, they are still not hesitant in commenting on contemporary times and events.
Inspired by similarities between the political landscape of the Edwardian era with that of today, the Mekons see a contemporary complacency that was all too present in English society during the period before the first World War. The ruling class was not in touch with the lives led by the majority of people in Britain; there was a significant gap between the affluent and the poor and a smugness in the upper class about its position. Imperialism reigned and those in power were blind to the needs of the common people, preferring to indulge in house parties, taking tea and maintaining a genteel façade at all times.
The title song Ancient & Modern is an elegant track reflecting this view and conjures up images of men in pith helmets at the helm of an empire which to them, was civilised and successful. Much like the Victorian era, however, there was a grimy underside to the wealth and propriety displayed by those in positions of power; the underclasses toiled incessantly to support and maintain a way of life that was becoming increasingly unsustainable due to its demands and pressures. The poor were becoming restless and resentful of their position on the bottom rung of society and by 1914, workers were holding strikes in an attempt to obtain rights for working long hours at arduous jobs which paid little.
All this flew in the face of the monied classes who lived in a cosy world where they played cricket on the village green, punted down the river in striped blazers and boaters, rode off with the hounds and had wives and mistresses while engaging in community singing and lavish picnics. Undercurrents in the form of mysticism, secret societies, radical modern art, Freud, dangerous poetry, anarchists, bombings, British concentration camps and suffragettes were gathering and eventually overpowered the old, complacent order of things.
Was all that really just over a hundred years ago? Maybe we should take a look at the world today and address the imbalances present in our own society before our own Sarajevo pistol crack jolts us out of our comfortable recliners and changes our way of living forever.
Geeshi, a rather mournful track, encapsulates the regret and difficulty those basking in the 'golden afternoon' sun were experiencing in adjusting to the great changes being wrought behind the scenes: Raise a glass of wine and try to still time, it says, in an attempt to halt unwanted changes.
But the rumblings of change were just out of view and kept that way, by a lot of the Edwardians. Night and day there was trouble that the eye could almost see/In the valleys that lay open/In the papers now recovered sing Mekons in their track Warm Summer Sun. So comfortable and apparently secure were the lives of the wealthy and privileged, they did not want to believe anything could possibly up-end them.
But up-ended they were. While the ruling classes weren't looking, reality took control and the old order of things died off at an alarmingly quick rate. Irrevocable change, and not just in the form of World War I, was forced upon them.
Parallels can be drawn with the worldwide situation prevailing today; human rights abuses still occur, along with economic inequality, regressive policies are being put into place by leaders not listening to the voices of their communities. There's a lot to learn from the Edwardians and Mekons have homed in on a period of history which should be resonating with those in positions of power today. Their fittingly elegant sounding album should be compulsory listening.
Many today would do well to heed the lyrics of Honey Bear: The further your story is from the truth, the more you need propaganda as politicians use the media prolifically to propound their view of what the populace needs. The same rhetoric that bred resentment just over a hundred years ago is being broadcast today and history will only repeat if those in power do not take heed of what went before.
The Edwardian era was synonymous with glamour, indulgence and extravagance. It officially came to an end at the beginning of World War I although its vestiges limped on until about 1920. The new millennium, with its monetary and intellectual wealth is busy tackling new trends in technology, inequality in terms of wealth and gender together with a growing awareness of damage to the world's ecology, but change is happening only slowly. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Ellen: An Act of Bastardy
Christchurch, Hampshire in the mid-nineteenth century was an impoverished place, a market town whose inhabitants, living largely in small, rented, mud-walled cottages in streets known as Pit or Rotten Row, eked out a meagre living. The location, although on the coast, was a remote one and the most common ways of making a living were through shepherding, fishing, as a tradesman or labouring on a farm. But, these occupations paid hardly enough to allow a worker to support a family, so most inhabitants became regular participants in the illicit trade of smuggling. This last occupation was enabled by the town's proximity to the English Channel and the heathland surrounding it, where contraband was stowed pending the times when detection by customs officers was least likely. Similarly, it was enabled when a flock of sheep crowding a road delayed the passage of those same officers in pursuit of a wagon containing rum, tobacco and silk.
The townspeople had taken to smuggling as a strategy to survive in a harsh and ungiving environment. It seems they were always alive to new ways in which to make a living and when a new manufacturing industry set up shop in Christchurch, it was embraced enthusiastically by its inhabitants
This was the fusee watch chain industry. Commencing in Christchurch in the late eighteenth century, it required nimble fingers and accurate eyesight to rivet its tiny chain links together to produce a chain as fine as horsehair. Young girls gained employment making these chains from the age of 8, in the local factory or working from home, often at a specially extended window sill at the front of their houses, to catch the best light. Families encouraged their young to become watch chain makers; their wages were a valuable addition to family income, and often meant the difference between paying the rent or not.
As a source of work, watch chain making was thus a godsend to the average Christchurch family. Previously, occupations open to its female inhabitants had been flax spinning, knitting silk stockings and plaiting straw for hats; watch chain making was able to be performed by children who were going to school as they could perform it at home on a part time basis. The local workhouses provided some of the child labour employed by the manufacturers, but many of its employees lived at home with their families where the breadwinner had an ill-paid or seasonal occupation. It was ill paid work itself; even by the 1890s the most a worker could expect to receive was only 8s 6 d per week.*
The industry flourished in the early part of the nineteenth and continued until 1899, when Hart's Fusee Factory was closed and the one remaining watch chain maker, Rose Drover, became a nursemaid. The industry declined slowly; my great-great aunt Louisa Boyt, born in 1853 and a watch chain factory employee from an early age, only ceased work as such during the 1890s.
With meagre earnings and little to occupy themselves other than a Nonconformist Chapel, the townspeople of Christchurch were a rowdy lot in general. They drank, swore and regularly got into fights with each other, even (or especially) the womenfolk who often assaulted each other when drunk. Apart from twice-yearly fairs, the main form of entertainment for Christchurch's population was frequenting the taverns and ale houses present in every street, lane and alley of the town. Petty Sessions records show repeat offenders, such as a woman called Keturah Jeffrey who was found guilty of assaulting a 20 year old woman known as Love Ward outside an ale house where she and her friend Ionida had been watching a Mummers^ play in 1853:
Shrove Tuesday was a particular source of rowdiness, when a rabble regularly assembled and threw brickbats, potsherds, glass bottles and other dangerous missiles at the doors of the town's inhabitants. Guy Fawkes Night saw similar behaviour and the Magistrates Court records are full of public order offences as well as those relating to the desertion of families, along with another offence known as bastardy, the act of giving birth to an illegitimate child, and as such, levelled only at women.
Bastardy usually came to the attention of the relevant authorities by the admission of a pregnant, unmarried woman to the local workhouse, there being no hospitals available at this time. The unfortunate woman was questioned by the court as to the identity of the father of her child, who was then pursued by the parish for maintenance for his 'bastard'.
And so it was that Ellen Boyt, unmarried, aged 19 of Christchurch, Hampshire, watch chain maker, was charged with an act of bastardy (or 'misconduct') in 1857. She had given birth to a baby girl she named Charlotte on 26 February of that year in the Christchurch Workhouse before going back to the house of her parents to live with the baby. She could not write her name as she signed her daughter's birth certificate with an 'X.' As Ellen was unmarried, the baby's surname was recorded as "Boyt."
It may have been that Ellen's baby was conceived at the May Fair held in Christchurch. It appears this sort of thing mainly went on in the warmer months, or in stables, when the woman concerned was a single one and did not have access to a marriage bed. One said her 'connection' happened in this way throughout August, "generally in the afternoon."
The father of Ellen's baby was not forced into a shotgun wedding organised by the parish, as had been the case in the previous century when the father of a bastard was taken into custody and guarded while a marriage licence was purchased for the mother of his child and a parson paid to perform their marriage. Ellen stayed living with her poor, but generous parents and younger siblings as well as her baby in the down-at-heel location of Purewell for the next few years, apparently having no continuing relationship with the child's father. If he was a typical Christchurch man, and Ellen told Charlotte he was a 'sawyer', he would have had little money to give to her for their baby's upkeep.
'Connections' were always liable to take place. Young men who were apprentices were not allowed to marry until they were 21. It appears the fathers of bastards were not all callous or irresponsible; they were simply hamstrung by the laws of the time.
But Ellen's sawyer did not come to her rescue. She was to remain living with her family and working as a watch chain maker until she left Christchurch for London with her daughter some time between 1861 and 1863. It was to Islington, in north London that she fetched up, perhaps unsurprisingly, as Islington is adjacent to Clerkenwell, a long established watch making location where the 1861 census recorded 877 manufacturers of clocks and watches. Her migration was no doubt based on economics; she and Charlotte must have been a burden to the family, her father having died prior to the 1861 census. There were four younger children still living at home and her mother was working as a cook and domestic in 1861. Although Louisa and Eliza, the two youngest children aged 9 and 11 were 'scholars', it is likely they too worked as watch chain makers when not at school.
By 1871, Eliza and Louisa, their mother having died, were still living in Purewell as boarders with the Rose family. Hannah and David, their older sister and brother, a watch chain maker and bricklayer respectively in 1861, no longer lived in Christchurch. Hannah, and later Eliza, may have moved to Bournemouth, only five miles from Christchurch which, with its newly built hotels and villas, gave opportunities for employment to former chain makers as servants and chambermaids. Ellen and Charlotte clearly felt themselves to be a burden on their family, but Ellen may also have felt there was little future for Charlotte as a watch chain maker, with its low pay and the fact the work was becoming increasingly less available. In any event, Charlotte went to school; she was eventually able to write reasonably well and as a member of the poorer classes, Ellen may have reasoned that employment as a servant would always be available to her and more available in London, with its growing upper middle class.
And so Ellen and Charlotte joined the mid-19th century exodus of poor, working class women from country England to its capital to try their luck in that teeming metropolis where the streets, if not paved with gold, held better paid opportunities for willing workers than watch chain making in the impoverished, crowded, hand-to-mouth melee that was Christchurch.
Reference: The Christchurch Fusee Chain Gang Sue Newman, Amberley 2010
*The Christchurch Fusee Chain Gang, page 69
^Mummers were troupes of actors who performed seasonal folk plays. These plays often contained plots based on the underlying themes of duality and resurrection. A battle, representing good against evil, often took place between two or more characters. Main characters included a Hero, his chief opponent, a Fool and a quack Doctor. Either the Hero or his opponent (generally the Turkish Knight in southern England) are killed during their battle and the Doctor restores the dead man to life, with much conjecture from minor characters, such Little Devil Doubt and Robin Hood along the way.
The writer is the great granddaughter of Charlotte Boyt.
The townspeople had taken to smuggling as a strategy to survive in a harsh and ungiving environment. It seems they were always alive to new ways in which to make a living and when a new manufacturing industry set up shop in Christchurch, it was embraced enthusiastically by its inhabitants
This was the fusee watch chain industry. Commencing in Christchurch in the late eighteenth century, it required nimble fingers and accurate eyesight to rivet its tiny chain links together to produce a chain as fine as horsehair. Young girls gained employment making these chains from the age of 8, in the local factory or working from home, often at a specially extended window sill at the front of their houses, to catch the best light. Families encouraged their young to become watch chain makers; their wages were a valuable addition to family income, and often meant the difference between paying the rent or not.
As a source of work, watch chain making was thus a godsend to the average Christchurch family. Previously, occupations open to its female inhabitants had been flax spinning, knitting silk stockings and plaiting straw for hats; watch chain making was able to be performed by children who were going to school as they could perform it at home on a part time basis. The local workhouses provided some of the child labour employed by the manufacturers, but many of its employees lived at home with their families where the breadwinner had an ill-paid or seasonal occupation. It was ill paid work itself; even by the 1890s the most a worker could expect to receive was only 8s 6 d per week.*
The industry flourished in the early part of the nineteenth and continued until 1899, when Hart's Fusee Factory was closed and the one remaining watch chain maker, Rose Drover, became a nursemaid. The industry declined slowly; my great-great aunt Louisa Boyt, born in 1853 and a watch chain factory employee from an early age, only ceased work as such during the 1890s.
With meagre earnings and little to occupy themselves other than a Nonconformist Chapel, the townspeople of Christchurch were a rowdy lot in general. They drank, swore and regularly got into fights with each other, even (or especially) the womenfolk who often assaulted each other when drunk. Apart from twice-yearly fairs, the main form of entertainment for Christchurch's population was frequenting the taverns and ale houses present in every street, lane and alley of the town. Petty Sessions records show repeat offenders, such as a woman called Keturah Jeffrey who was found guilty of assaulting a 20 year old woman known as Love Ward outside an ale house where she and her friend Ionida had been watching a Mummers^ play in 1853:
After the Mummers had done...We left...As we were going out Jeffrey struck me on the side of my face and pulled the crown of my bonnet out, took my apron away and kept it. Threw me over in the road, tore the tail of my dress from my body...a young man named Duffett came out of the Halfway House, picked up my things for me...She had a baby on her left arm all the time.
Shrove Tuesday was a particular source of rowdiness, when a rabble regularly assembled and threw brickbats, potsherds, glass bottles and other dangerous missiles at the doors of the town's inhabitants. Guy Fawkes Night saw similar behaviour and the Magistrates Court records are full of public order offences as well as those relating to the desertion of families, along with another offence known as bastardy, the act of giving birth to an illegitimate child, and as such, levelled only at women.
Bastardy usually came to the attention of the relevant authorities by the admission of a pregnant, unmarried woman to the local workhouse, there being no hospitals available at this time. The unfortunate woman was questioned by the court as to the identity of the father of her child, who was then pursued by the parish for maintenance for his 'bastard'.
And so it was that Ellen Boyt, unmarried, aged 19 of Christchurch, Hampshire, watch chain maker, was charged with an act of bastardy (or 'misconduct') in 1857. She had given birth to a baby girl she named Charlotte on 26 February of that year in the Christchurch Workhouse before going back to the house of her parents to live with the baby. She could not write her name as she signed her daughter's birth certificate with an 'X.' As Ellen was unmarried, the baby's surname was recorded as "Boyt."
It may have been that Ellen's baby was conceived at the May Fair held in Christchurch. It appears this sort of thing mainly went on in the warmer months, or in stables, when the woman concerned was a single one and did not have access to a marriage bed. One said her 'connection' happened in this way throughout August, "generally in the afternoon."
The father of Ellen's baby was not forced into a shotgun wedding organised by the parish, as had been the case in the previous century when the father of a bastard was taken into custody and guarded while a marriage licence was purchased for the mother of his child and a parson paid to perform their marriage. Ellen stayed living with her poor, but generous parents and younger siblings as well as her baby in the down-at-heel location of Purewell for the next few years, apparently having no continuing relationship with the child's father. If he was a typical Christchurch man, and Ellen told Charlotte he was a 'sawyer', he would have had little money to give to her for their baby's upkeep.
'Connections' were always liable to take place. Young men who were apprentices were not allowed to marry until they were 21. It appears the fathers of bastards were not all callous or irresponsible; they were simply hamstrung by the laws of the time.
But Ellen's sawyer did not come to her rescue. She was to remain living with her family and working as a watch chain maker until she left Christchurch for London with her daughter some time between 1861 and 1863. It was to Islington, in north London that she fetched up, perhaps unsurprisingly, as Islington is adjacent to Clerkenwell, a long established watch making location where the 1861 census recorded 877 manufacturers of clocks and watches. Her migration was no doubt based on economics; she and Charlotte must have been a burden to the family, her father having died prior to the 1861 census. There were four younger children still living at home and her mother was working as a cook and domestic in 1861. Although Louisa and Eliza, the two youngest children aged 9 and 11 were 'scholars', it is likely they too worked as watch chain makers when not at school.
By 1871, Eliza and Louisa, their mother having died, were still living in Purewell as boarders with the Rose family. Hannah and David, their older sister and brother, a watch chain maker and bricklayer respectively in 1861, no longer lived in Christchurch. Hannah, and later Eliza, may have moved to Bournemouth, only five miles from Christchurch which, with its newly built hotels and villas, gave opportunities for employment to former chain makers as servants and chambermaids. Ellen and Charlotte clearly felt themselves to be a burden on their family, but Ellen may also have felt there was little future for Charlotte as a watch chain maker, with its low pay and the fact the work was becoming increasingly less available. In any event, Charlotte went to school; she was eventually able to write reasonably well and as a member of the poorer classes, Ellen may have reasoned that employment as a servant would always be available to her and more available in London, with its growing upper middle class.
And so Ellen and Charlotte joined the mid-19th century exodus of poor, working class women from country England to its capital to try their luck in that teeming metropolis where the streets, if not paved with gold, held better paid opportunities for willing workers than watch chain making in the impoverished, crowded, hand-to-mouth melee that was Christchurch.
Reference: The Christchurch Fusee Chain Gang Sue Newman, Amberley 2010
*The Christchurch Fusee Chain Gang, page 69
^Mummers were troupes of actors who performed seasonal folk plays. These plays often contained plots based on the underlying themes of duality and resurrection. A battle, representing good against evil, often took place between two or more characters. Main characters included a Hero, his chief opponent, a Fool and a quack Doctor. Either the Hero or his opponent (generally the Turkish Knight in southern England) are killed during their battle and the Doctor restores the dead man to life, with much conjecture from minor characters, such Little Devil Doubt and Robin Hood along the way.
The writer is the great granddaughter of Charlotte Boyt.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
"Tell Your Mother Holborn's Still There!"
"Tell your mother Holborn's still there!" is the postscript to a letter sent in 1950 from London to my mother by Vic, an English friend. He had worked with her and become acquainted with my grandmother Lily, a former Londoner, during his time living in Australia.
Holborn is adjacent to what is now Coram's Fields, which stand on what was the forecourt of the St.Pancras Foundling Hospital. If you walk through the remains of the Hospital's gatehouse at the southern end, you enter into Lamb's Conduit Street, Holborn. It seems my grandmother Lily ventured in this direction during her childhood at the Hospital, rather than into the adjacent Bloomsbury, before she finally left the area in 1897 to go into domestic service in another part of London.
I imagine my grandmother and the other children of the Foundling Hospital walking in about 1890 in a crocodile through its gate and down Lambs Conduit Street into the rest of Holborn. Perhaps they were on their way to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they could run and play freely, or maybe they walked further south, to Victoria Embankment, from where they could see the Thames.
Many of the buildings in Holborn today were built after the end of the nineteenth century, including Holborn Tube Station, which dates from 1906. The old Edwardian Holborn is found today near Grape Street and the more modern one near the Kingsway. Lambs Conduit Street, at the time of my visit in 2013, was a pleasant, pedestrianised thoroughfare full of boutiques, cafes and shops and the admirable People's Supermarket. It has been a local high street since before 1817, when 78 of its houses were occupied by retailers selling everything from cakes and medicines to toys and books.
Plenty of wares were no doubt available for sale in the street at the end of the nineteenth century, perhaps encouraging Lily to develop her habit of acquiring china, glassware, silverware, hats and jewellery. She set great store by having goods of quality throughout her life.
On the left, as the foundlings walk down Lambs Conduit Street from the gatehouse, they pass The Lamb, now a Grade II listed Victorian pub, at number 94. Another Victorian pub, The Perseverance, is at number 63. Twenty-two inns or taverns were recorded in Holborn in the 1860s, so it seems unavoidable that the foundlings would see these establishments and hear sounds of carousing and merriment from within as they passed by.
Lambs Conduit Street runs into Red Lion Street from which Lambs Conduit Passage will take the foundlings into Red Lion Square, after they walk past two more pubs: The Enterprise at 38 Red Lion Street and The Dolphin, dating from the 18th century, on the north eastern corner of the Passage and Red Lion Street. The foundlings, as they pass through the square, will notice numbers 14 - 17, still in existence today, which date from 1684 when they were built by speculative builder Nicholas Barbon, as well as other dilapidated houses dating from the 17th century. Number 17 was briefly the residence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter and he recommended the premises, despite their dampness and decrepitude, to William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in the 1850s. Later, in 1861, Morris set up the first headquarters of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co at 8 Red Lion Square to produce designs of furniture and furnishings using traditional craft methods, leading to the movement which became the Arts and Crafts Movement. The company moved to Queen Square, situated in Bloomsbury to the north, in 1881.
From Red Lion Square, the foundlings walk down Gloucester Street, across High Holborn and into Little Turnstile which connects with Gate Street before they reach Lincoln's Inn Fields. Just before Little Turnstile, the foundlings will see the Royal Music Hall on High Holborn, also known as the Holborn Music Hall and originally a Noncomformist chapel. Walter Besant says in Holborn & Bloomsbury, published 1903, that: "After 1840 it became a hall with lectures being given by free thinkers before being adapted to its present purpose in 1857."
At number 4 Gate Street the foundlings glance at the buildings known as Newton's Buildings, reputedly built in about 1658. They may also stray into Little Queen Street, which was cleared to make way for the construction of Kingsway in 1900. Larger streets, such as Great Queen Street, survived. It housed the Novelty Theatre which hosted the London premiere of A Doll's House in 1889, finally closing in 1941. At number 12 Gate Street, the Ship Tavern, established 1549, could be seen in an incarnation closer to its original from than the one on view today. I'm sure some curious foundlings succeeded in straying from the eyes of their masters and mistresses to get a closer look at the commercial establishments in Holborn while they were on rare excursions from the Hospital.
Slightly further west, if the foundlings cross what is now Kingsway and continue down High Holborn, they will come to a shop on the corner of Newton Street, otherwise known as 207 High Holborn. It's currently a Cards Galore shop, but during its history has been a pawnbroker, jewellery or antique shop after starting life in about 1834 as a tobacconist. By the 1880s, a jeweller by the name of Charles Shapland had taken over and ran it with a partner named Cloud as a clockmaking and pawnbroking business specialising in old jewels. Today, the shop still has its wooden frontage with wrought iron cresting, popular during the late nineteenth century. The foundlings would have been wide-eyed had they been able to view the contents of its windows, their experience of the luxuries within so limited as to be non-existent.
If the foundlings are walking directly to Victoria Embankment, after passing Lincoln's Inn Fields, they will come upon 13-14 Portsmouth Street, the home of the Old Curiosity Shop, a building which has existed as a shop since it was built in the 16th century. A dairy during the 17th century, it is reputedly the oldest surviving shop in Britain and immortalised by Charles Dickens in his novel of the same name, although the shop on which his book is based was actually nearer to Leicester Square.
Strangely enough, there is an Australian connection to the Old Curiosity Shop, through the Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn's four-times-great grandfather Andrew Tempany, a theatrical entrepreneur and actor. He leased the premises in 1859 as well those next door at 15-16 Portsmouth Street, where he set up house. By 1862, when he is recorded as being of 3 Little Wild Street in the Drury Lane area of Holborn, he was bankrupt and had been sent to a debtor's prison. Upon release, he worked as a clerk before being admitted to the Holborn Union Workhouse where he died in 1876. His daughter Elizabeth emigrated to Australia in 1863 aged 21 and gave birth there to Ben's great great grandmother. Andrew's son William had previously been transported to the colony for horse stealing - an act most likely precipitated by his mother Honor's death in 1849 during London's cholera epidemic. She left four young children and their father struggled to keep them fed and clothed; his theatrical and thespian endeavours failed, leading him to describe himself as an 'accountant' in the 1861 census, though his original occupation was that of "paint-stainer." Charles Dickens himself could not have imagined a more Dickensian character.
The foundlings, if they look to their right as they pass through Lincoln's Inn Fields, could not help but notice the area known as Clare Market which spread through a maze of narrow interconnecting streets. The market sold mostly meat, as well as fish and vegetables. Not affected by the Great Fire of London, decrepit Elizabethan buildings survived until 1900, when the area, by then a slum, was demolished to create Kingsway. By 1878 though, Walter Besant reports "a mission chapel had been established at its centre, together with schools and other benevolent and charitable institutions, such as a soup kitchen, a home for needlewomen and a workingmen's club had also gradually grouped."
This area had always been a busy, bustling thoroughfare, even in 1720 when Little Queen Street was described by the map maker Strype as being "a place pestered with coaches." By the time of Walter Besant's investigations, it had "the heavy traffic of the King's Cross omnibus passing through it."
Besant describes the Holborn Restaurant which formed part of one side of Little Queen Street as "a very gorgeous place and within is a very palace of modern luxury. It stands on the site formerly occupied by the Holborn Casino or Dancing Saloon." The foundlings must have gazed in wonder at such a luxurious temple of the upper class, or palace of racy entertainment as it was in its earlier incarnation.
If the foundlings continue walking down Little Queen Street, through Clare Market and onto Great Queen Street, past Great Wild Street, past the "Artizans Dwellings" indicated on Walter Besant's 1903 map and then go beyond Drury Lane, they will reach Covent Garden. Bounded on the east by Drury Lane and Long Acre to the north, the Royal Opera House is just south of Long Acre. The neo-classical market building designed by Charles Fowler in 1830 is the one still in existence today as Covent Garden Market, so if any of the foundlings manage to sneak away from their crocodile, they will gasp in awe at this magnificent glass roofed building and the abundance of goods and wares available for sale therein.
If, instead of going down Lambs Conduit Passage to Red Lion Square, the foundlings continue walking down Red Lion Street and then turn left on Theobalds Road, they will come to Gray's Inn Gardens, another open space where they can run freely and admire the cherry, birch and elm trees and 19th century buildings which still surround this garden square. The square was the place in the early 19th century where the poet Shelley, severely in debt, used to meet his future wife Mary Godwin on Sundays, the only day of the week when debtors could not be arrested.
Should the foundlings venture down Gray's Inn Lane (now Gray's Inn Road) and into Little Gray's Inn Lane (now Mount Pleasant) they will be confronted by the Holborn Union Workhouse. Foundling Hospital officials could well have pointed out the grim façade of this building to the foundlings as a place where they would end up should they not apply themselves diligently in the apprenticeships they will enter upon leaving the Hospital. Some buildings of the Holborn Union Workhouse remain today behind the gates of a plumbing company on Gray's Inn Road and in the back streets behind Mount Pleasant, there is an L-shaped building several storeys high with large Victorian warehouse style windows which housed the Casual Wards of the workhouse.
A little further along from Gray's Inn Lane, if the foundlings turn into High Holborn and continue to Holborn Circus, they will come upon the quiet, mysterious cul de sac known as Ely Place, the former residence of the Bishops of Ely and which houses the magnificent St Etheldreda Chapel, the oldest Roman Catholic church in Britain.
The gardens of St Etheldreda were said to produce the finest strawberries in London and a Strawberry Fayre was held there every June. By Charles Dickens's time, the fields of saffron which had surrounded Ely Place had given way to slum areas and it was to the street called Saffron Hill that Dickens had the Artful Dodger take Oliver Twist. The infamous Fagin's den and Thieves' Kitchen were nearby. I wonder if any plucky foundlings managed to attend a strawberry fair in Ely Place, as it's not certain the Hospital would have allowed them such frivolous activity.
More likely than not, though, the foundlings would have marched in their crocodile towards Victoria Embankment and its gardens, created in 1874. In summer, these gardens are open until 9.30 pm, Victoria Embankment having been lit by either electricity or gaslight since 1878.
It is here the foundlings are able to run, play games, cartwheel and be free of their daily routine for at least a few hours. So many sights and sounds have they seen on their path to this destination, they have had a truly memorable journey through the diverse and fascinating place that was Holborn in the 1880s and 1890s.
References:
Holborn & Bloomsbury (1903) Walter Besant. Available from Project Gutenberg
awalkinhistory.blogspot.com
londonhistoricshops.blogspot.com
Who Do You Think You Are? SBS Australia, Episode 3, Season 2, 17 January 2012
ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project
londonsstreets.blogspot.com
british-history.ac.uk
londongardenstrust.org
londonist.com
Neighbourhood Watch: Article by Josh Sims, Evening Standard, 18 October 2013
Pictured: The front door of The Lamb: 94 Lambs Conduit Street, Holborn
Holborn is adjacent to what is now Coram's Fields, which stand on what was the forecourt of the St.Pancras Foundling Hospital. If you walk through the remains of the Hospital's gatehouse at the southern end, you enter into Lamb's Conduit Street, Holborn. It seems my grandmother Lily ventured in this direction during her childhood at the Hospital, rather than into the adjacent Bloomsbury, before she finally left the area in 1897 to go into domestic service in another part of London.
I imagine my grandmother and the other children of the Foundling Hospital walking in about 1890 in a crocodile through its gate and down Lambs Conduit Street into the rest of Holborn. Perhaps they were on their way to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they could run and play freely, or maybe they walked further south, to Victoria Embankment, from where they could see the Thames.
Many of the buildings in Holborn today were built after the end of the nineteenth century, including Holborn Tube Station, which dates from 1906. The old Edwardian Holborn is found today near Grape Street and the more modern one near the Kingsway. Lambs Conduit Street, at the time of my visit in 2013, was a pleasant, pedestrianised thoroughfare full of boutiques, cafes and shops and the admirable People's Supermarket. It has been a local high street since before 1817, when 78 of its houses were occupied by retailers selling everything from cakes and medicines to toys and books.
Plenty of wares were no doubt available for sale in the street at the end of the nineteenth century, perhaps encouraging Lily to develop her habit of acquiring china, glassware, silverware, hats and jewellery. She set great store by having goods of quality throughout her life.
On the left, as the foundlings walk down Lambs Conduit Street from the gatehouse, they pass The Lamb, now a Grade II listed Victorian pub, at number 94. Another Victorian pub, The Perseverance, is at number 63. Twenty-two inns or taverns were recorded in Holborn in the 1860s, so it seems unavoidable that the foundlings would see these establishments and hear sounds of carousing and merriment from within as they passed by.
Lambs Conduit Street runs into Red Lion Street from which Lambs Conduit Passage will take the foundlings into Red Lion Square, after they walk past two more pubs: The Enterprise at 38 Red Lion Street and The Dolphin, dating from the 18th century, on the north eastern corner of the Passage and Red Lion Street. The foundlings, as they pass through the square, will notice numbers 14 - 17, still in existence today, which date from 1684 when they were built by speculative builder Nicholas Barbon, as well as other dilapidated houses dating from the 17th century. Number 17 was briefly the residence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter and he recommended the premises, despite their dampness and decrepitude, to William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in the 1850s. Later, in 1861, Morris set up the first headquarters of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co at 8 Red Lion Square to produce designs of furniture and furnishings using traditional craft methods, leading to the movement which became the Arts and Crafts Movement. The company moved to Queen Square, situated in Bloomsbury to the north, in 1881.
From Red Lion Square, the foundlings walk down Gloucester Street, across High Holborn and into Little Turnstile which connects with Gate Street before they reach Lincoln's Inn Fields. Just before Little Turnstile, the foundlings will see the Royal Music Hall on High Holborn, also known as the Holborn Music Hall and originally a Noncomformist chapel. Walter Besant says in Holborn & Bloomsbury, published 1903, that: "After 1840 it became a hall with lectures being given by free thinkers before being adapted to its present purpose in 1857."
At number 4 Gate Street the foundlings glance at the buildings known as Newton's Buildings, reputedly built in about 1658. They may also stray into Little Queen Street, which was cleared to make way for the construction of Kingsway in 1900. Larger streets, such as Great Queen Street, survived. It housed the Novelty Theatre which hosted the London premiere of A Doll's House in 1889, finally closing in 1941. At number 12 Gate Street, the Ship Tavern, established 1549, could be seen in an incarnation closer to its original from than the one on view today. I'm sure some curious foundlings succeeded in straying from the eyes of their masters and mistresses to get a closer look at the commercial establishments in Holborn while they were on rare excursions from the Hospital.
Slightly further west, if the foundlings cross what is now Kingsway and continue down High Holborn, they will come to a shop on the corner of Newton Street, otherwise known as 207 High Holborn. It's currently a Cards Galore shop, but during its history has been a pawnbroker, jewellery or antique shop after starting life in about 1834 as a tobacconist. By the 1880s, a jeweller by the name of Charles Shapland had taken over and ran it with a partner named Cloud as a clockmaking and pawnbroking business specialising in old jewels. Today, the shop still has its wooden frontage with wrought iron cresting, popular during the late nineteenth century. The foundlings would have been wide-eyed had they been able to view the contents of its windows, their experience of the luxuries within so limited as to be non-existent.
If the foundlings are walking directly to Victoria Embankment, after passing Lincoln's Inn Fields, they will come upon 13-14 Portsmouth Street, the home of the Old Curiosity Shop, a building which has existed as a shop since it was built in the 16th century. A dairy during the 17th century, it is reputedly the oldest surviving shop in Britain and immortalised by Charles Dickens in his novel of the same name, although the shop on which his book is based was actually nearer to Leicester Square.
Strangely enough, there is an Australian connection to the Old Curiosity Shop, through the Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn's four-times-great grandfather Andrew Tempany, a theatrical entrepreneur and actor. He leased the premises in 1859 as well those next door at 15-16 Portsmouth Street, where he set up house. By 1862, when he is recorded as being of 3 Little Wild Street in the Drury Lane area of Holborn, he was bankrupt and had been sent to a debtor's prison. Upon release, he worked as a clerk before being admitted to the Holborn Union Workhouse where he died in 1876. His daughter Elizabeth emigrated to Australia in 1863 aged 21 and gave birth there to Ben's great great grandmother. Andrew's son William had previously been transported to the colony for horse stealing - an act most likely precipitated by his mother Honor's death in 1849 during London's cholera epidemic. She left four young children and their father struggled to keep them fed and clothed; his theatrical and thespian endeavours failed, leading him to describe himself as an 'accountant' in the 1861 census, though his original occupation was that of "paint-stainer." Charles Dickens himself could not have imagined a more Dickensian character.
The foundlings, if they look to their right as they pass through Lincoln's Inn Fields, could not help but notice the area known as Clare Market which spread through a maze of narrow interconnecting streets. The market sold mostly meat, as well as fish and vegetables. Not affected by the Great Fire of London, decrepit Elizabethan buildings survived until 1900, when the area, by then a slum, was demolished to create Kingsway. By 1878 though, Walter Besant reports "a mission chapel had been established at its centre, together with schools and other benevolent and charitable institutions, such as a soup kitchen, a home for needlewomen and a workingmen's club had also gradually grouped."
This area had always been a busy, bustling thoroughfare, even in 1720 when Little Queen Street was described by the map maker Strype as being "a place pestered with coaches." By the time of Walter Besant's investigations, it had "the heavy traffic of the King's Cross omnibus passing through it."
Besant describes the Holborn Restaurant which formed part of one side of Little Queen Street as "a very gorgeous place and within is a very palace of modern luxury. It stands on the site formerly occupied by the Holborn Casino or Dancing Saloon." The foundlings must have gazed in wonder at such a luxurious temple of the upper class, or palace of racy entertainment as it was in its earlier incarnation.
If the foundlings continue walking down Little Queen Street, through Clare Market and onto Great Queen Street, past Great Wild Street, past the "Artizans Dwellings" indicated on Walter Besant's 1903 map and then go beyond Drury Lane, they will reach Covent Garden. Bounded on the east by Drury Lane and Long Acre to the north, the Royal Opera House is just south of Long Acre. The neo-classical market building designed by Charles Fowler in 1830 is the one still in existence today as Covent Garden Market, so if any of the foundlings manage to sneak away from their crocodile, they will gasp in awe at this magnificent glass roofed building and the abundance of goods and wares available for sale therein.
If, instead of going down Lambs Conduit Passage to Red Lion Square, the foundlings continue walking down Red Lion Street and then turn left on Theobalds Road, they will come to Gray's Inn Gardens, another open space where they can run freely and admire the cherry, birch and elm trees and 19th century buildings which still surround this garden square. The square was the place in the early 19th century where the poet Shelley, severely in debt, used to meet his future wife Mary Godwin on Sundays, the only day of the week when debtors could not be arrested.
Should the foundlings venture down Gray's Inn Lane (now Gray's Inn Road) and into Little Gray's Inn Lane (now Mount Pleasant) they will be confronted by the Holborn Union Workhouse. Foundling Hospital officials could well have pointed out the grim façade of this building to the foundlings as a place where they would end up should they not apply themselves diligently in the apprenticeships they will enter upon leaving the Hospital. Some buildings of the Holborn Union Workhouse remain today behind the gates of a plumbing company on Gray's Inn Road and in the back streets behind Mount Pleasant, there is an L-shaped building several storeys high with large Victorian warehouse style windows which housed the Casual Wards of the workhouse.
A little further along from Gray's Inn Lane, if the foundlings turn into High Holborn and continue to Holborn Circus, they will come upon the quiet, mysterious cul de sac known as Ely Place, the former residence of the Bishops of Ely and which houses the magnificent St Etheldreda Chapel, the oldest Roman Catholic church in Britain.
The gardens of St Etheldreda were said to produce the finest strawberries in London and a Strawberry Fayre was held there every June. By Charles Dickens's time, the fields of saffron which had surrounded Ely Place had given way to slum areas and it was to the street called Saffron Hill that Dickens had the Artful Dodger take Oliver Twist. The infamous Fagin's den and Thieves' Kitchen were nearby. I wonder if any plucky foundlings managed to attend a strawberry fair in Ely Place, as it's not certain the Hospital would have allowed them such frivolous activity.
More likely than not, though, the foundlings would have marched in their crocodile towards Victoria Embankment and its gardens, created in 1874. In summer, these gardens are open until 9.30 pm, Victoria Embankment having been lit by either electricity or gaslight since 1878.
It is here the foundlings are able to run, play games, cartwheel and be free of their daily routine for at least a few hours. So many sights and sounds have they seen on their path to this destination, they have had a truly memorable journey through the diverse and fascinating place that was Holborn in the 1880s and 1890s.
References:
Holborn & Bloomsbury (1903) Walter Besant. Available from Project Gutenberg
awalkinhistory.blogspot.com
londonhistoricshops.blogspot.com
Who Do You Think You Are? SBS Australia, Episode 3, Season 2, 17 January 2012
ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project
londonsstreets.blogspot.com
british-history.ac.uk
londongardenstrust.org
londonist.com
Neighbourhood Watch: Article by Josh Sims, Evening Standard, 18 October 2013
Pictured: The front door of The Lamb: 94 Lambs Conduit Street, Holborn
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Croydon Workhouse Minute Book 1881
The records of the Croydon Union Workhouse from 1881 show the sad stories of some of the poorer women and children living in the area at this time and the futile and ineffective punishments meted out according to the law of the time. An entry in the Workhouse's Minute Book for 26 July 1881 records:
It was resolved that Mr Henry John Upton R.O. be authorized to apply to the Magistrates at Croydon for a Warrant for the apprehension of Charles Lamb late of No.51 Wilford Rd. Croydon Mathamatical (sic) Instrument Maker for deserting and leaving his Wife Fanny and children Ellen aged 12 years Alice aged 10 years Charles aged 8 years Eliza aged 4 years and Maria aged 10 months in consequence whereof they became chargeable to the Common Fund of the Croydon Union on the 26th day of July 1881 and are still chargeable thereto.
It is not recorded why Mr Lamb left his family. It may have been due to lack of work or income, or perhaps drunkenness. Or to seek work elsewhere. He may have left in despair at being unable to support his family financially, in the knowledge the Union would look after them.
Another entry reads:
On the 27th August Michael Mann was sentenced to seven days hard labour for wilfully neglecting and refusing to support his Wife Hannah Mann who became chargeable to the Common Fund of the Union on the 15th July last.
It is clear that husbands left their wives and children to the mercy of the Union, even though they risked a jail sentence, albeit a very short one.
Alas, the law and punishment for abandonment of one's wife and children did not help Charlotte Boyt, abandoned and pregnant at this time, but unmarried. It did not extend to the apprehension of men who deserted pregnant fiancees.
And so Charlotte, even though she had some idea of the whereabouts of the father of her child, had no recourse but to seek help and shelter from the Croydon Workhouse when the birth of her child was imminent.
It was resolved that Mr Henry John Upton R.O. be authorized to apply to the Magistrates at Croydon for a Warrant for the apprehension of Charles Lamb late of No.51 Wilford Rd. Croydon Mathamatical (sic) Instrument Maker for deserting and leaving his Wife Fanny and children Ellen aged 12 years Alice aged 10 years Charles aged 8 years Eliza aged 4 years and Maria aged 10 months in consequence whereof they became chargeable to the Common Fund of the Croydon Union on the 26th day of July 1881 and are still chargeable thereto.
It is not recorded why Mr Lamb left his family. It may have been due to lack of work or income, or perhaps drunkenness. Or to seek work elsewhere. He may have left in despair at being unable to support his family financially, in the knowledge the Union would look after them.
Another entry reads:
On the 27th August Michael Mann was sentenced to seven days hard labour for wilfully neglecting and refusing to support his Wife Hannah Mann who became chargeable to the Common Fund of the Union on the 15th July last.
It is clear that husbands left their wives and children to the mercy of the Union, even though they risked a jail sentence, albeit a very short one.
Alas, the law and punishment for abandonment of one's wife and children did not help Charlotte Boyt, abandoned and pregnant at this time, but unmarried. It did not extend to the apprehension of men who deserted pregnant fiancees.
And so Charlotte, even though she had some idea of the whereabouts of the father of her child, had no recourse but to seek help and shelter from the Croydon Workhouse when the birth of her child was imminent.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Lily and The Foundling Hospital
In December 1882, Charlotte Boyt, of The Herne, Beddington Lane, Mitcham petitioned The Foundling Hospital at Corams's Fields for the admission of her infant daughter Lily.
Charlotte's was an unfortunate tale; she was aged 26 and had been a servant in more than one middle class household in the parish of Wallington, Surrey in recent years after leaving her birthplace of Christchurch, Hampshire. She became engaged to George Robertson, a bricklayer she met when they both lived at East Dulwich. George eventually had to take employment as a gardener in a different location, due to lack of work in his usual occupation. Their engagement continued for three and a half years, during which Charlotte was a regular visitor to the home of George and his mother, a widowed charwoman who lived at 3 Church Lane, Beddington. All was well, it appeared, apart from the fact of no wedding date being set, possibly due to George's lack of money and employment prospects.
Charlotte left her situation as a servant at Dr Hardy's, The Grove, East Dulwich to obtain one closer to where George now lived, on his suggestion. She was well-liked by George's mother who said in an interview with a Foundling Hospital official that she was most happy to have Charlotte as a future daughter-in-law.
One night when Charlotte and George were out walking, as they did to have time alone together, he "violently seduced" her. She found herself pregnant soon afterwards. She told no-one of the incident and it was not repeated. She and George, who initially acknowledged paternity, remained in contact. Towards the end of Charlotte's pregnancy however, he started to deny the fact the child was his, and disappeared from his mother's home shortly after the birth. Neighbours reported him as "going to Yorkshire to find work." George's mother stated she was not in a position to help Charlotte as due to George's actions, their relationship was now "at variance".
And so Charlotte entered the Croydon Workhouse for her confinement. She was delivered of a baby daughter on 27 September 1881 and named her "Lily Maud Boyt". No father's name was indicated on the baby's birth certificate. It is not known if Charlotte informed her family of the birth. What is certain is that she did not go back to live with them, as she was offered a position as a wet nurse on the recommendation of the midwife who delivered her baby, which she went to on 12 October 1881.
After 12 months as wet nurse for Mrs Rickett of Benleigh House, Park Hill Road, Croydon, Charlotte had to find another dwelling place for both herself and her daughter. Her options were limited; she could not take her baby with her to a live-in situation as a servant for a household and it appears she was able to resist the options of either prostitution, where she could possibly have kept Lily, or the workhouse, where they would have been separated in any event. She managed to find a situation as servant for Mrs Webber in her household at Mitcham, but her baby had to be relinquished, if she was to stay there.
She thus found herself journeying in December 1882 from the lavender fields of Mitcham to Bloomsbury for the purpose of petitioning the St. Pancras Foundling Hospital. If her petition was successful, she could be sure Lily would live in a safe place where she would be educated and looked after until she reached the age of 21. She would be released into domestic service at the age of sixteen, but the position would be one where the employer was found and approved by the Hospital.
Charlotte was eligible to petition for Lily to be accepted as a foundling as she was not married, not widowed and Lily was her first child. Lily was older at the time of the petition than the requisite twelve months stipulated by the Hospital, but this appears not to have been an issue. Charlotte wrote on her petition that George Robertson "is gone right away" and this fact was verified by interviews with George's mother and neighbours. Her petition was accepted on 5 January 1883.
Lily Maud was then received by The Foundling Hospital on 16 January 1883. On that same day she was baptised in the Hospital's chapel with the new name chosen for her by the Hospital. And so Lily became "Edith Irwin," the name by which she was to be known for the rest of her life.
Thanks to the staff of the London Metropolitan Archives who assisted in locating the actual Petition lodged by Charlotte Boyt for the admission of Lily to the Foundling Hospital.
Charlotte's was an unfortunate tale; she was aged 26 and had been a servant in more than one middle class household in the parish of Wallington, Surrey in recent years after leaving her birthplace of Christchurch, Hampshire. She became engaged to George Robertson, a bricklayer she met when they both lived at East Dulwich. George eventually had to take employment as a gardener in a different location, due to lack of work in his usual occupation. Their engagement continued for three and a half years, during which Charlotte was a regular visitor to the home of George and his mother, a widowed charwoman who lived at 3 Church Lane, Beddington. All was well, it appeared, apart from the fact of no wedding date being set, possibly due to George's lack of money and employment prospects.
Charlotte left her situation as a servant at Dr Hardy's, The Grove, East Dulwich to obtain one closer to where George now lived, on his suggestion. She was well-liked by George's mother who said in an interview with a Foundling Hospital official that she was most happy to have Charlotte as a future daughter-in-law.
One night when Charlotte and George were out walking, as they did to have time alone together, he "violently seduced" her. She found herself pregnant soon afterwards. She told no-one of the incident and it was not repeated. She and George, who initially acknowledged paternity, remained in contact. Towards the end of Charlotte's pregnancy however, he started to deny the fact the child was his, and disappeared from his mother's home shortly after the birth. Neighbours reported him as "going to Yorkshire to find work." George's mother stated she was not in a position to help Charlotte as due to George's actions, their relationship was now "at variance".
And so Charlotte entered the Croydon Workhouse for her confinement. She was delivered of a baby daughter on 27 September 1881 and named her "Lily Maud Boyt". No father's name was indicated on the baby's birth certificate. It is not known if Charlotte informed her family of the birth. What is certain is that she did not go back to live with them, as she was offered a position as a wet nurse on the recommendation of the midwife who delivered her baby, which she went to on 12 October 1881.
After 12 months as wet nurse for Mrs Rickett of Benleigh House, Park Hill Road, Croydon, Charlotte had to find another dwelling place for both herself and her daughter. Her options were limited; she could not take her baby with her to a live-in situation as a servant for a household and it appears she was able to resist the options of either prostitution, where she could possibly have kept Lily, or the workhouse, where they would have been separated in any event. She managed to find a situation as servant for Mrs Webber in her household at Mitcham, but her baby had to be relinquished, if she was to stay there.
She thus found herself journeying in December 1882 from the lavender fields of Mitcham to Bloomsbury for the purpose of petitioning the St. Pancras Foundling Hospital. If her petition was successful, she could be sure Lily would live in a safe place where she would be educated and looked after until she reached the age of 21. She would be released into domestic service at the age of sixteen, but the position would be one where the employer was found and approved by the Hospital.
Charlotte was eligible to petition for Lily to be accepted as a foundling as she was not married, not widowed and Lily was her first child. Lily was older at the time of the petition than the requisite twelve months stipulated by the Hospital, but this appears not to have been an issue. Charlotte wrote on her petition that George Robertson "is gone right away" and this fact was verified by interviews with George's mother and neighbours. Her petition was accepted on 5 January 1883.
Lily Maud was then received by The Foundling Hospital on 16 January 1883. On that same day she was baptised in the Hospital's chapel with the new name chosen for her by the Hospital. And so Lily became "Edith Irwin," the name by which she was to be known for the rest of her life.
Sophie Anderson, Foundling Girls in the Chapel Copyright Coram in the care of the Foundling Museum
Thanks to the staff of the London Metropolitan Archives who assisted in locating the actual Petition lodged by Charlotte Boyt for the admission of Lily to the Foundling Hospital.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Charlotte & the Workhouse
Charlotte was in love. With the bricklayer to whom she had been engaged for three years. They had not married as they had not enough money to rent a home; bricklaying work had all but ceased in London and George had been forced to take on gardening work instead. Charlotte had fallen pregnant after George seduced her one night when they were out walking, as they did to seek time alone, seeing as George lived with his widowed charwoman mother.
Being pregnant, with no family in London and George now denying paternity, Charlotte arrived at the door of the Croydon Union Workhouse in late 1881. As related in Oliver Twist, the parish workhouse was where one went if found destitute on the streets or unable to pay rent on a home. With unmistakable images in mind of the situation in which Oliver Twist's mother found herself, my great grandmother Charlotte had herself classified as a pauper when she was eight months into her pregnancy and her situation as a live-in servant was no longer tenable.
Her admission details were recorded on 4 August 1881 in the workhouse's Discharge & Admission book as:
- Charlotte Elizabeth Boyt - No. affixed to the Pauper's Clothes: 31
- Next Meal after Admission: Supper - Parish from which admitted: Wallington
- Calling: Servant - By whose order admitted: Ebbutt
- Religious Persuasion: Baptist - Observations on condition at the time of admission:
- When Born: 1857 Pregnant
Charlotte entered the Croydon Workhouse Infirmary in the old workhouse in Duppas Hill, where it had remained after the new Croydon Union Workhouse opened in 1866 in Queens Road, Croydon. She had been born in Christchurch, Hampshire but had come to London in order to work. Her employer, Mrs Parrott, was unwilling to keep her on in her situation as a household servant, once her pregnancy could no longer be concealed. Until well into the twentieth century the only hospitals which made no charge for treatment were the infirmaries attached to workhouses, so Charlotte, having little money, had no choice but to enter a workhouse in order to be attended by a midwife during her labour.
Whilst resident in a workhouse an inmate was required to work and "picking oakum" became a common occupation in Victorian era prisons and workhouses and could not leave unless they found a job outside. "Oakum" was a preparation of tarred fibre used in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and deck planking of iron and steel ships. It was recycled from old, tarry ropes by painstakingly unravelling these into fibre. I don't know if Charlotte was required to engage in this occupation or if she was allowed to partake in a less arduous one such as crocheting lace cuffs, which Charlie Chaplin's mother did as a resident of the Lambeth Workhouse in 1896 when she, Charlie and his brother were forced by poverty and ill health to live there. Records now made available by the London Metropolitan Archives show that workhouses at this time were no more benevolent in regard to other conditions: Charlie was placed on a 'number 4' diet, basically a diet of gruel. I expect a similarly meagre diet was the only one available to Charlotte 15 years earlier once she entered the workhouse door. At the new Croydon workhouse in Queens Road it seems women were employed in the laundry, but whether Charlotte, in her advanced state of pregnancy was put to work in the Infirmary laundry, I do not know.
It would be several weeks before she gave birth, an event recorded on 28 September as:
- Boyt female infant - By whose order admitted: Burt
- Parent: Charlotte - Observations on condition: Girl
It must have been an extremely difficult and dispiriting time for Charlotte, as her future after the birth was an uncertain one, save for the sad fact she may have had to live in the workhouse until her child was old enough to be sent to a workhouse school. She may then have been able to resume her live-in occupation as a servant, unhampered by a child.
But, on 15 October 1881, she was discharged at her own request "with a female infant." The Croydon Infirmary Midwife had been impressed by Charlotte, finding her "respectable and well-disposed" and so recommended her as a wet nurse to a Mrs Rickett. Charlotte was thus spared any further time in the workhouse and able to leave with her baby for a secure situation, at least for the time being.
Thanks to the staff of the Family Studies Section of the Croydon Library, who enabled my research by making available the Croydon Workhouse Admission & Discharge Books, Minute Books and Creed Registers for the relevant period.
References: Article by Daniel Cochlin, Daily Mail Online, 16 September 2008
My Autobiography Charlie Chaplin (1964) Barnes & Noble
The Croydon Workhouse Paula McInnis & Bill Sparkes (KEY Croydon & The Croydon Society)
Being pregnant, with no family in London and George now denying paternity, Charlotte arrived at the door of the Croydon Union Workhouse in late 1881. As related in Oliver Twist, the parish workhouse was where one went if found destitute on the streets or unable to pay rent on a home. With unmistakable images in mind of the situation in which Oliver Twist's mother found herself, my great grandmother Charlotte had herself classified as a pauper when she was eight months into her pregnancy and her situation as a live-in servant was no longer tenable.
Her admission details were recorded on 4 August 1881 in the workhouse's Discharge & Admission book as:
- Charlotte Elizabeth Boyt - No. affixed to the Pauper's Clothes: 31
- Next Meal after Admission: Supper - Parish from which admitted: Wallington
- Calling: Servant - By whose order admitted: Ebbutt
- Religious Persuasion: Baptist - Observations on condition at the time of admission:
- When Born: 1857 Pregnant
Charlotte entered the Croydon Workhouse Infirmary in the old workhouse in Duppas Hill, where it had remained after the new Croydon Union Workhouse opened in 1866 in Queens Road, Croydon. She had been born in Christchurch, Hampshire but had come to London in order to work. Her employer, Mrs Parrott, was unwilling to keep her on in her situation as a household servant, once her pregnancy could no longer be concealed. Until well into the twentieth century the only hospitals which made no charge for treatment were the infirmaries attached to workhouses, so Charlotte, having little money, had no choice but to enter a workhouse in order to be attended by a midwife during her labour.
Whilst resident in a workhouse an inmate was required to work and "picking oakum" became a common occupation in Victorian era prisons and workhouses and could not leave unless they found a job outside. "Oakum" was a preparation of tarred fibre used in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and deck planking of iron and steel ships. It was recycled from old, tarry ropes by painstakingly unravelling these into fibre. I don't know if Charlotte was required to engage in this occupation or if she was allowed to partake in a less arduous one such as crocheting lace cuffs, which Charlie Chaplin's mother did as a resident of the Lambeth Workhouse in 1896 when she, Charlie and his brother were forced by poverty and ill health to live there. Records now made available by the London Metropolitan Archives show that workhouses at this time were no more benevolent in regard to other conditions: Charlie was placed on a 'number 4' diet, basically a diet of gruel. I expect a similarly meagre diet was the only one available to Charlotte 15 years earlier once she entered the workhouse door. At the new Croydon workhouse in Queens Road it seems women were employed in the laundry, but whether Charlotte, in her advanced state of pregnancy was put to work in the Infirmary laundry, I do not know.
It would be several weeks before she gave birth, an event recorded on 28 September as:
- Boyt female infant - By whose order admitted: Burt
- Parent: Charlotte - Observations on condition: Girl
It must have been an extremely difficult and dispiriting time for Charlotte, as her future after the birth was an uncertain one, save for the sad fact she may have had to live in the workhouse until her child was old enough to be sent to a workhouse school. She may then have been able to resume her live-in occupation as a servant, unhampered by a child.
But, on 15 October 1881, she was discharged at her own request "with a female infant." The Croydon Infirmary Midwife had been impressed by Charlotte, finding her "respectable and well-disposed" and so recommended her as a wet nurse to a Mrs Rickett. Charlotte was thus spared any further time in the workhouse and able to leave with her baby for a secure situation, at least for the time being.
Thanks to the staff of the Family Studies Section of the Croydon Library, who enabled my research by making available the Croydon Workhouse Admission & Discharge Books, Minute Books and Creed Registers for the relevant period.
References: Article by Daniel Cochlin, Daily Mail Online, 16 September 2008
My Autobiography Charlie Chaplin (1964) Barnes & Noble
The Croydon Workhouse Paula McInnis & Bill Sparkes (KEY Croydon & The Croydon Society)
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