Exhibition notes.
Noble Women: Liverpool Cathedral. Lady Chapel.
Inspiration for my style of works, is the artist, Hokusai. Click link for further information to the artist Hokusai on artsy. https://www.artsy.net/artist/katsushika-hokusai
Elizabeth Fry
Angel of Newgate prison
Title of Painting: The Patchwork Quilt
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.
Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by the reigning monarch. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
Liz Fry 1817 aged 37 years old, Newgate Prison.
In this painting I wanted to depict Elizabeth Fry helping the women inside the prison with her friend Anne Baxton. I read Liz Fry was described as being very fashionable when she was younger with long blonde hair, wearing the empire fashion style of the time and a black turban. She was also described at one point as wearing purple boots and red laces. At first, I wanted to bring this younger more colourful side of Liz Fry into my painting and create a young portrait of her but after considering this and reading about Newgate and the great things she did, I felt it was more imporatnnt to create an image of Liz Fry and the women inside of the prison.
It became important to try and convey my own image of the inside of the prison while she was reforming it. I tried to imagine how it would be at first when she began with the chaos and the lack of spirit in the women. I read that she cleaned it up and bagan to help them to sew. Liz Fry would encourage them to make parchwork quilts.
Quilts have been for may years a symbol of collaboration and protest.
So, I pulled this into the painting imagining the cleaning, the washing, cooking, reading, teaching going on within this hopeless environment. For some reason as I was painting this, the artist Dufy came to mind and I found myself becoming involved with a Fauvist style of work because I enjoy this style of painting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Dufy
Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only three years, 1905–1907, and had three exhibitions.[1] The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.[1]
Elizabeth Fry was an amazing woman and pioneered the changes of the conditions for women in prisons. Without her help and influence, life in prison was next near to death. She campaigned and changed the environemt, introdiced, cleanliness, clothing, food and activities into the daily lives of these women, whereas before there was nothing, absolutely nothing except straw and a piece of bread. Children and babies died in the cells. Elizabeth Fry gave hope to the female prisoners and offered a new way of rahabilitating and treating prisoners.
When she began helping the prisoners there is an incident where she and her female friends gatheerd together scraps of material and encouraged the female priosners to make patchwork quilts that not only acted as blankets bu also brightened up the awful grim environment.
At the age of 37 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/res_cons/research/online_journal/journal_1_index/doing_time/index.html
Patchwork Therapy
There are numerous objects in public collections that testify to the therapeutic value attached to the needle, but less research has been carried out on the particular choice of patchwork as a tool of reform. (16) Fry herself was keen to highlight patchwork as an excellent choice for the women of Newgate:
'Formerly, patchwork occupied much of the time of the women confined to Newgate, as it still does that of the female convicts on the voyage to New South Wales. It is an exceptional mode of employing the women, if no other work can be procured for them, and is useful as a means for teaching them the art of sewing.'
Fry draws a subtle distinction here between patchwork and other forms of needlework. While patchwork is useful as an instructional tool (something that the sampler excelled at), it is exceptional in employing and occupying the women. The creation of intricate patchwork required a heavy investment of time. With a lack of active employment, the experience of prison life for many in the early nineteenth century was reduced to the soul-destroying slippage of hours into days. Fry was keen to instil in the prisoner the transformative potential of this experience, turning simply 'doing time' into the positive experience of having the time in which to do something, and restoring a sense of control and independence to the inmate.
Integral to the success of Fry's scheme was attaching value to this time spent: the union of a creative agenda with financial remuneration for the 'industries' carried out by the female inmates. These plans were initially resisted:
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/newgate.html
Kitty Wilkinson
Kitty Wilkinson wash-house pioneer (1785-1860)
Kitty Wilkinson, pioneer of health reforms and saviour of hundreds of lives during the cholera outbreak of 1842,
I will be painting Kitty 1810 aged 25 years old with children in front of River Mersey. Many of the children during the cholera eptdemic lost their parents. It was Kitty who opened her house to them and set up a school in her home. As well as creating hygenic conditions with her washing of clothes and linen she looked after the many homeless children who had no place to go.
In this painting, I wanted to show Kitty in a symbolic way standing with children that she cared for in front of the River Mersey. I took the seascape by Frederick Calvert of the River Mersey as my background and then created my own version of how I imagined Kitty in 1810.
The seascape by Calvert was later but it provided me with an idea of Liverpool during the early eighteen hundreds. I particularly love the seascapes and many other paintings by Calvert.
Liverpool, Lancashire from the River Mersey and New Brighton, 1838, a painting by Frederick Calvert.
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Frederick-Calvert/Frederick-Calvert-oil-paintings.html
I looked up many of the costumes of the time and added these to the children as well as Kitty. In the background I have inserted a washing line with clothes of the time Kitty has washed and now hang out to dry.
I wanted to portray Kitty in her youth looking bright, positive and pretty. I wondered if a woman wants to be remembered. she would like to be remembered pretty and young.
Kitty first started helping the people in poverty stricken areas wash their clothes and linen in Dennison street where she lived. Here they used her copper boiler to wash their clothes and hang their washing on her lines. This action by her for the neighbours and poor was very important during the cholera epidemic and without this help from Kitty many of the children and people of the time would have perished. Much happened to Kitty before she became known for her first washouse in Dennison Street. She married twice and spent most of her youth in the cotton mills and working as a domestic as well as working in order to keep herself and her family out of the workhouse. She was in her early forties when she became known for opening up her house to those to wash their clothes and linen during the cholera epidemic but even before that she had already helped so many people.
Kitty was living during very unhygienic times. Water was not installed for everyone. Many had to share one cold water pump in the district. Sanitation was not yet established or a proper sewage system and the ability to become ill was forever hovering in Liverpool. Kitty worked hard to prevent herself and her family from going to the workhouse. She lived and paid rent to live in cellars and attics until her hard work finally paid off and she was able to pay rent on her own house. Kitty's life was a long and hard life. She came over from Derry with her mother in 1794. The ship ran into a terrible and tragic unexpected storm amd her father went missing in the wreck. As they were saved by lifeboats Kitty's baby sister was also tragically blown from her mother's arms in amongst the mayhem blizzard, leaving only her mother, Kitty and her little brother. They arrived alone in Liverpool with this terrible experience looming in their minds.
This tragic accident not surprisingly had a lifelong affect on her mother. Kitty had to find work and fend for herself. At the age of 10 she was sent to the Liverpool workhouse and then sent to the Low Mill cotton mill in Caton, Lancashire where she was contracted to work for eleven years in this harsh environemnt, coming out at 21 to face the new Liverpool world and city, to look after her mother and went on to do many more good and wonderful good deeds.
Later, Kitty's work was eventually extended to Frederick street where the first public washouse was set up.
Kitty's work is honoured by Liverpool. She died at the age of 73 in 1860 and is buried in St James cemetary.
Grace Darling(Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842) was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838.)
Grace was born in 1815 at Bamburgh in Northumberland
I wanted ro present her at age 23 in the early hours of 7 September 1838, rowing her coble boat through a stormy sea. The Longstone Lighthouse where she lived is in the distance. She has spotted the wreck and survivors of the ship, SS Forfarshire on Big Hacar, a nearby low rocky island.
Title of Painting: The Rescue
I wanted the painting to be a seascape, at the same time mystical. depicting Grace Darling (age 23 at the time) through the historical story, rowing through the stormy sea in their coble boat to rescue the stranded passengers on the Hacar Rock, 7 September 1838. Grace, looking from an upstairs window of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, spotted the wreck and survivors of the ship, SS Forfarshire on Big Harcar, a nearby low rocky island. The Forfarshire had foundered on the rocks, broken in half and half had sunk during the night.
Although the painting depicts a factual story I wanted to make it more of a visionary image, one that was full of colour similar to a children's illustration. I have used the Japanese artist Hokusai as my inspiration for this painting, using flat shapes and simplicity to create the overall composition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai
The Forfarshire steamboat where the people had once been passengers sinks into the sea in the background.
The Forfarshire had been carrying 63 people. The vessel broke in two almost immediately upon hitting the rocks.
Longstone Lighthouse, where Grace and her father had lived and where she spotted the shipwreck is also in the distance.
Mrs Dawson, one of the stranded passengers on the rock sits there with her two children who tragically died in the shipwreck. She is holding them tenderly to her. The remainder people of the shipwreck stranded on the rock were eight sailors.
I wanted to show a dramatic but also a mystical painting that also focused on the stranded people.Grace kept the coble steady in the water while her father helped four men and the lone surviving woman, Mrs. Dawson, into the boat. Although she survived the sinking, Mrs Dawson had lost her two young children during the night.
The sea being stormy and the fact that Grace was able to rescue some of these people encouraged a spiritual element. I decided to include a fairy and a mermaid. The fairy being a comforting symbol of hope and the mermaid being a symbol of the sea and ancient maritime folklore.
Josephine Butler
A forgotten saint
Title of painting: Josephine Butler's visit to the Oakum rooms.
Josephine Elizabeth Butler (13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was a Victorian era British feminist who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes. She led the long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts from 1869 to 1886.
1868 campaign against contagious diseases act. Josephine would have been age 40
In my painting of Josephine, I wanted to capture the moment when she came face to face with the women of the oakum rooms. I wanted to create a painting portraying Josephine in profile in a dress of the time. The women around her I depicted as homeless and destitute but also people many women could identify with.
Josephine Butler was an incredible woman who in her time did something that was frowned upon and not normally done in a society that was very critical towards woman, believing that women had a specific duty to carry out in the way they conducted their lives. Josephien Butler was a social reformer in helping the prostitutes and so called 'fallen women' of Victorian times.
In the 19th century femininity was idealised in the image of the domestic "angel". Prostitutes and unmarried mothers were seen as sexually immoral and condemned as "fallen women". This powerful imagery of "good" and "bad", combined with a sexual double standard, acted as a constraint on women's freedom and sexual behaviour which men did not have.
The cases show the lack of justice given to "fallen women". Poor women who were prostitutes and brothel keepers or who had illegitimate children were targeted by the police force and dealt with severely. They received harsher sentences than normal and unmarried mothers underwent a degrading courtroom ordeal which often resulted in the loss of their maintenance cases.
To get around the fact that prostitution was not a legal offence, suspects were brought before the courts on a variety of charges such as being drunk and disorderly, fighting, and shouting obscenities. Any woman found loitering on the streets at night, who dressed in a certain way, was seen out with different men or who frequented public houses alone was suspected of being a prostitute.
Crimes connected with prostitution were one of the largest categories of female offence and the stigma of being a "fallen woman" meant harsher sentencing by the magistrates.
Victorian women are second-class citizens. They have fewer legal rights than men, and almost no political rights – in particular, they're not allowed to vote. By law, a married woman is the property of her husband, and her possessions – even her children – belong to him.
Josephine Butler opened up a house of rest for the sick and unwell women of Liverpool and she then went on to open a house and gardens, an industrial home for the healthy and active bare footed sand girls and other friendless waifs and strays. Josephine Butler set up what could be described as the first women's refuge for homeless and destitute women. There were times when she even invited them into her house to stay. She was a compassionate woman with an intellect and a heart of gold who sacrifced her reputation and status to help these women. She befirended these women and became dedicated to the cause of helping their suffering after vsiiting the oakum sheds of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. In 1865 Josephine Butler and her husband moved to Liverpool. Soon afterwards she began visiting the local workhouse.
On the ground floor a Bridewell for women, consisting of huge cellars, bare and unfurnished, with damp stone floors. These were called the "oakum sheds" where they came, driven by hunger, destitution or vice, begging for a few nights’ shelter and a piece of bread, in return for which they picked their allotted portion of oakum…. I went down to the oakum sheds and begged admission. I was taken into an immense gloomy vault filled with women and girls – more than two hundred at that time. I sat on the floor among them and picked oakum… Many of them… earned a scanty living by selling sand in the streets (for cleaning floors).
Oakum-picking involved teasing out the fibres from old hemp ropes — the resulting material was sold to the navy or other ship-builders — it was mixed with tar and used to seal the lining of wooden ships.
Employed beneath this open shed, huddling and crowding together, were about a hundred individuals picking oak-urn.. ."
1860s fashion
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?glossary/glossary.shtml
http://www.archive.org/stream/personalreminisc00butliala/personalreminisc00butliala_djvu.txt
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=167558§ioncode=6
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem "Remember", and for the words of what became the popular Christmas carol "In the Bleak Midwinter".
Christina Rossetti was born on the 5th December 1830 in London
Painting showing her at 20 years of age in the painting of the annunciation.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/art1.html
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/chris.html
http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/ENG_463_Christina_Rossetti
Title of painting
Ecce Ancilla Domini: The Annunciation
I wanted to make this a religious painting, pointing towards the pre-raphaelite subject matter of the circle of friends that Christina was involved with particularly her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti who painted her in The Annunciation in 1849. Dante Gabriel Rossetti rejected the tradition of representing the Virgin passively receiving the news. Instead he wanted the picture to have a supernatural realism, so I decided to try and capture this idea in my own style, presenting Christina as the Virgin Mary wearing Victorian clothes of the time. I have shown Christina holding the lily, a symbol of feminine purity and a copy of the bible.
Christina modeled for several of her brother Dante's most famous works. In 1848 she was the model for the Virgin Mary in his first completed oil painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, which was also the first to be inscribed with the initials "PRB", later to be revealed as standing for "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood".[1] The following year she repeated that role in his depiction of the Annuciation, Ecce Ancilla Domini.
Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunciation)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
1850
Oil on canvas
Agnes Jones: Angel of Mercy
Title of Painting. Agnes; Past to Future
(Agnes Elizabeth Jones (1832 – 1868) of Fahan, County Donegal, Ireland became the first trained Nursing Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. She gave all her time and energy to her patients and died at the age of 35 from typhus fever. Florence Nightingale said of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, ‘She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England.’)
Agnes Jones said of her work in the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, “I sometimes wonder if there is a worse place on Earth but I never regret coming, and I never wish to give it up'
I decided to create a painting of Agnes 1865 aged 33.
In this painting I wanted to show the contrast of past and future in the life of Agnes Jones.
The story of her life surprised me and I found myself creating a symbolic painting inspired by South American folklore painting. My inspiration for this painting came from the artist Frida Kahlo. I wanted to create a folk art narrative to describe the life of Agnes Jones.
Agnes came from a privilaged background and gave all of this up to become a nurse. She bagan by helping the people of her home country, victims of the Irish potato famine, later eventually working in the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary on Brownlow Hill (where the catholic Cathedral is situated today) It was here that she helped the poor and the sick who lived in wretched conditions.
The painting shows Agnes in her past, dressed in the affluent costume of the time. I have used the potato plant as a symbol of her past and her cause and strength, that of helping those in need. In 1859 she went to London, making contact with Florence Nightingale and Mrs Wardroper, senior nurse of St Thomas Hospital. Miss Nightingale said of her that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius" Agnes would have been 27 years old.
It was then,she decided to become a nurse where she trained at St Thomas hospital in London. Her nurse's dress is suspended in the middle of the painting. The left side of the painting shows the affluence and places that were part of her past such as Mauritius, Ireland. I have shown the beaches of Mauritius and the Liverpool Liverbird divides the painting into two sections.
On the right at the top of the painting, I have painted the old Liverpool workhouse infirmarty which was situated there on Brownlow hill before the Catholic Cathedral.
At the top of the painting I have painted an angel and a portrait of Florence Nightingale. Agnes was very devout and so religion and nursing were great influences. I put these two portraits above. On the right I have also depicted the interior of the Liverpool workhouse and the poverty.
I wanted these two contrasts of colour and affluence from her past to stand out against the future poverty and deprivation she dedicated her life to.
Agnes was commemorated in a statue, The Angel of Mercy, now situated in the Oratory building outside the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool.
Further notes on the Noble Women.
I am fascinated to read about the Victorian pioneer, Josephine Butler,who took up the cause of poor women in very difficult circumstances. Josephine was actively involved in a number of campaigns some in terms of education and the protection of married women's property and earnings but never the less she stepped aside from these movements in order to defend the seemingly indefensible, to identify herself with, and speak for women who were at the time regarded as "the sewers of society ". She regarded prostitutes of the time as being exploited victims of male oppression, and she attacked the double standard of sexual morality. So when a national campaign was begun in 1869 to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, she was an obvious woman to lead it.
In 1869 Josephine Butler began her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. These acts had been introduced in the 1860s in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces. Butler objected in principal to laws that only applied to women. Under the terms of these acts, the police could arrest women they believed were prostitutes and could then insist that they had a medical examination. Butler had considerable sympathy for the plight of prostitutes who she believed had been forced into this work by low earnings and unemployment. Butler's description of this at a public meeting - she had been known to refer to the procedure as "surgical rape" - caused Hugh Price Hughes, Superintendent of the West London Mission, who was thanking her formally on the platform, to leave the stage in tears[8] — something most unusual in those days and commented upon widely at the time.
Josephine Butler toured the country making speeches criticizing the Contagious Diseases Acts. Butler, who was an outstanding orator, attracted large audiences to hear her explain why these laws needed to be repealed. Many people were shocked by the idea of a woman speaking in public about sexual matters. George Butler, who was now principal of Liverpool College, was severely criticised for allowing his wife to become involved in this campaign. Butler continued to support his wife in her work despite the warnings that it would damage his academic career.
Josephine Butler dedicated her life to reforming and campaigning for the rights of prostitutes as well as campaigning for the rights of education for women.
Josephine Butler
Further information
Josephine Butler Memorial Trust
Josephine Butler Collection
Wikipedia
Josephine Butler was responsible for The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (NARCA) was an association set up in the United Kingdom to lobby against certain laws that were set up giving the police what were seen as overly severe and unfair powers over women.
Before this Repeal, The Acts meant that any woman who lived in, worked in, or passed through poor areas were subject to arrest and compulsory medical examination on the suspicion of being a prostitute. The Acts were often abused and labeled a misuse of police power: a number of women detained were not prostitutes but were compelled to undergo medical examination by police doctors.
1 Jan 1870: NARCA published in the Daily News a protest against the Acts, known as the Ladies' Protest. Notable signatories among 124 women were Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler, Mary Carpenter, Lydia Becker and Harriet Martineau. The treasurer was Ursula Mellor Bright.
1886: With the repeal of the The CD Acts, NARCA focused on demanding equal moral standards between the sexes and became the Ladies National Association for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice and for the Promotion of Social Purity.
There was a tragedy in Josephine Butler's life. Her beloved young daughter Eva died from a fall on the stairs when she was six years old. Josephine obviously never fully recovered from this but this tragic incident gave her strength in other ways.
9th January
I've begun reading a book about Josephine Butler. She came from a free thinking family. Her mother and father were ahead of their time. Her father was a campaigner for the anti slavery movement and fought for the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. Josephone's mother tried her best to educate her children and helped Josephine with the piano to the point where Josephine became a professional pianist. It is fascinating to read about them. She was brought up in Northumberland.
Note: Josephine Butler House
"The yellow-sandstone, 19th century property named after Victorian social reformer, Josephine Butler, will be refurbished as part of a major mixed-use development scheme."
http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2009/03/the-saga-of-josephine-butler-h.html
Liverpool regeneration expert Hilary Burrage (who took this picture) summarises the case on her blog, which also includes a very good history of the site.
To say this issue has been controversial is putting it lightly. The main question that now remains is whether Liverpool City Council will grant permission for Maghull to expand the existing car park.
What will the council do?
Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside MP, wants the council to force Maghull to reinstate the façade of the building and refuse the company permission for the car park extension.
-thumb-410x322.jpg)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=STdyZ-
http://www.liverpoolheritageforum.org.uk/famous.php?id=115
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/sep/21/art1
D2ZhEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false
University of Liverpool: Josephine Butler Collection.
Whisc: Women’s health information and support.
Liverpool Women’s Health Centre.
John Moores University: "Josephine Butler House"..
Josephine Butler Memorial Trust: Registered Charity.
Liverpool History Society
Victorian Society
Liverpool Heritage forum
Kitty Wilkinson. 1832 Cholera epidemic.
A. Kitty Wilkinson draws attention to ideas concerning health and hygiene during the cholera epidemic. This highlights many present hygiene issues for instance the spreading of MRSA in hospitals and swine flue.
B. Work on Elizabeth Fry draws attention to prisons, conditions and making treatment of prisoners more humane. She helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. She also helped the homeless This reflects on our present society, issues concerning prison overcrowding as well as its negative impact on inmates.
C. Christina Rossetti brings response to caring for animals and creative writing.
Christina Rossetti’s love of animals corresponds to the Great Vivisection debate.
Christina was very much opposed to animal vivisection.
D. Josephine Butler the social reform and rights of prostitutes as well as education for women. Josephine Butler repealed the CDA taking away the privacy and women’s rights.
E. Agnes Elizabeth Jones: Lady Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary 1861-1868. Welfare of the sick. The infirmaries of Victorian workhouses where humane, professional care of the sick was provided, pioneered by Agnes Jones in Liverpool and widely imitated, gradually developed into the free hospitals from which the modern National Health Service was created.
F. Grace Darling: Maritime heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838. Drawing attention to charities who work to save lives at sea such as the RNLI
Kitty Wilkinson
Wash-house pioneer (1785-1860)
The first 'Wash House.' Instigated By Kitty Wilkinson and her husband, opened in May 1842, in Upper Fredrick Street, Liverpool. The one above is a washhouse in Albert Street. After the epidemic there were many orphans in the area and Kitty took them in every morning teaching them their bible and hymns. Tom died in 1848. Kitty died twelve years later at the age of 73. and was buried in St James Cemetery, Liverpool, the grounds of which are now part of the Anglican Cathedral. The funeral was attended by many dignitaries and the many ordinary people of Liverpool who had been touched by a truly great lady.
When her mother died Kitty moved back to Liverpool where she married Tom Wilkinson a man she had met when she had worked in Caton. It was during the cholera epidemics of 1832-40 that Kitty rose to national prominence. The only boiler in Denison Street, where Kitty resided was in her scullery. Kitty offered it to the people of the area to wash any infected clothes or bed-linen, So many people took up the offer that Kitty had to fit the cellar out as a wash-house, and so the seed of the idea of a public wash-house was planted.
Mrs. Seward and her two surviving children arrived in the strange port of Liverpool and had the daunting task of providing for them without the support of her drowned husband. The family settled in Denison Street in the north end of the town, where Mrs. Seaward and Kitty found work as domestics. Their employer, Mrs. Lightbody, saw their potential and gave Mrs. Seward the task of teaching the other servants to spin and to make lace. Mrs. Lightbody, who was aged and infirm, found happiness in relieving the sufferings and supplying the needs of the poor. Kitty was greatly influenced by her employer and assisted her in her charity work. Kitty is quoted as saying that Mrs Lightbody, “became like a mother to me”. In turn, Mrs. Lightbody relied on Kitty because of her blindness and became very fond of her.
Work in the cotton mill
At the age of 11, life changed dramatically for Kitty and her brother. Mrs. Seward was suffering great ill-health and was unable to work or look after the children. As a result they were sent to what was considered a healthier environment, the cotton mill at Caton, Lancashire. It was here in Lancashire that Kitty met her future husband, Tom Wilkinson.
Like other children, Kitty had to sign an “indenture” which bound them to live at the Apprentice House and to spend the next ten years working in the cotton mill. After she had turned twenty she learned that her mother had returned to Liverpool from Ireland. Mrs. Seaward’s health had not improved over the years of separation from her children and so Kitty left the security of village life to look after her mother.
Return to Liverpool
Kitty and her mother found accommodation in Frederick Street in the south of Liverpool and both found domestic work. At the age of 25 Kitty opened a school so that she could have her ill mother with her during the day. Anything from between ten and ninety children attended, paying 3d per week. They were taught reading, writing and sewing. Kitty’s mother made lace and Kitty sold this in the evenings. However, Mrs. Seward’s mental health problems worsened and because of her violent behaviour Kitty had to close the school.
In 1812, Kitty married a French sailor by the name of Emanuel Demontee, and they had two sons together. However, whilst away at sea, Demontee was drowned, before the birth of his second child. As a widower, mother and carer of her own sick mother, Kitty managed to find domestic work. She was able to earn enough money to keep herself and her family out of the dreaded workhouse, as well as refusing to send her sick mother to an asylum.
Kitty found domestic work with the middle-class Braik family of Pit Street, Liverpool. Kitty soon began assisting Mrs Braik with her charity work, and when Mrs Braik died, she left instructions with her husband to look after Kitty. Mr Braik provided Kitty with her own mangle, which kept her in laundering work and made her more useful to prospective domestic employers. With the money she now earned, Kitty could afford to rent a small house in Denison Street. Here, she continued her pattern of helping out unfortunate people in her neighbourhood, taking in orphans and young widowed families, and sending the children to be educated at the Bluecoat School whenever she could afford to.
In 1823, Kitty married again, this time to Tom Wilkinson, a porter at the Rathbone’s mill in Lancashire whom she knew from her days at Caton. Tom was also keen to help the unfortunates of the neighbourhood, and was happy for their Denison Street house to be thrown open to the poor and orphaned.
The 1832 cholera epidemic
By the 1830s commerce in Liverpool was thriving, and hundreds of working-class people arrived in the city each week, looking for work. As they did so, the wealthier middle-classes, mainly merchants, moved away from the city centre, and as such living conditions deteriorated. Two elements of this deterioration – the lack of clean, running water, and the poor ventilation of air in working-class districts – allowed the cholera epidemic that was sweeping Europe to wreak its havoc in Liverpool, arriving in the spring of 1832. In a population of around 230,000, cholera would claim over 1,500 lives in Liverpool.
Kitty and Tom Wilkinson were in the fortunate position of having the only hot water boiler in their street, and so they invited their neighbours down to their cellar to wash their clothes and bed-linen, hoping to offer some measure of protection against the cholera. The Wilkinsons were aided in their work by the Liverpool District Provident Society and the benevolence of the Rathbone family, each contributing towards the provision of clean clothes and fresh bedding materials.
The Wilkinson’s wash-room became so popular that it was moved upstairs to the kitchen, with a rudimentary drying area established in the back yard. Kitty and Tom asked the neighbours who used their facilities to contribute one penny per family, per week to help towards water and new bedding costs.
At the same time, Kitty and a neighbour by the name of Mrs Lloyd established a rudimentary infant school, in Kitty and Tom’s bedroom. Local young orphans would be taught simple hymns and stories, continuing Kitty’s desire to see working-class children educated as best as possible.
By the mid-nineteenth century, public wash-houses were being established all over Liverpool, and in 1846 the authorities chose to recognise the pioneering work done by Kitty and Tom Wilkinson. They were offered the positions of Superintendents of the Frederick Street public baths and wash-house, which they accepted. In 1846, aged 60, Kitty was presented to Queen Victoria as she visited Liverpool, in recognition of her services to the city.
Kitty Wilkinson died in 1860, aged 73, and she is permanently commemorated in a stained glass window in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which honours the noble women of Liverpool.
http://www.stjamescemetery.co.uk/kitty.htm
http://www.scottiepress.org/projects/kittyw.htm
http://scriptorsenex.blogspot.com/2009/04/kitty-wilkinson.html
http://liverpoolauthors.tbpcontrol.co.uk/tbp.direct/customeraccesscontrol/home.aspx?d=liverpoolauthors&s=C&r=10000405&ui=0&bc=0
When Kitty was 25 years of age in 1810 she opened a school so that she could have her ill mother with her during the day. Anything from between ten and ninety children attended, paying 3d per week. They were taught reading, writing and sewing. Kitty’s mother made lace and Kitty sold this in the evenings. However, Mrs. Seward’s mental health problems worsened and because of her violent behaviour Kitty had to close the school.
Fashion of 1810
Elizabeth Fry
The Angel of Newgate Prison
At age of 43, meeting female prisoners at Newgate prison.
The next day, Elizabeth and her sister-in-law went to Newgate prison. The turnkeys warned them that the women were wild and savage, and they would be in physical danger. However, they went in anyway. On that and two more visits, they brought warm clothing and clean straw for the sick to lie on. Elizabeth also prayed for the prisoners.
After these initial visits, family difficulties, including the death of a daughter, kept her away from the prison for years. But during the Christmas season of 1816, she returned and began a ministry that lasted many years. She asked the women what she could do for their children, and together they agreed on the need for a school.
In 1817, Elizabeth organized a group of women into the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This group organized a school, and provided materials so the prisoners could sew, knit and make goods for sale. They took turns visiting the prison and reading the Bible to the prisoners.
Spreading Influence and Hardships
Elizabeth's work soon extended well beyond Newgate prison. In 1818, a committee of the House of Commons asked her to testify on prison conditions, the first woman to be called as such a witness. Societies like the Newgate Association sprung up at other prisons in Britain and Europe.
Her concerns went beyond the prisons. She also set up District Visiting Societies to help the poor, libraries for coast guards, and a nurses' training school. She influenced Florence Nightingale's nurse training program, and nurses trained by Fry's school accompanied Nightingale to the Crimea.
In 1827, Fry published a book called Observations, on the visiting superintendence and government of female prisoners. In that book, she not only laid out the need for prison reform, but raised broader concerns. She called for more opportunites for women and strongly condemned the death penalty.
Fry was so well known and respected that her work received support from Queen Victoria, and the king of Prussia visited her. But this did not save her from humiliation when her husband's bank crashed in 1828. Not only did this plunge the family into poverty, but their Quaker meeting disowned (removed from membership) her husband because he had put other people's money at risk.
Fry's brother Joseph John Gurney stepped in and took over her husband's business arrangement, arranging for his debts to be paid. He also arranged an annual stipend for Elizabeth, enabling her to continue her work. Fry continued her work until her death in 1845. More than a thousand people stood in silence as she was laid to rest in a Quaker burial ground.
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.
Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by the reigning monarch. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
Elizabeth Gurney was born in Gurney Court, off Magdalen Street, Norwich, Norfolk, England to a Quaker family. Her family home as a child was Earlham Hall, which is now part of the University of East Anglia.[1] Her father, John Gurney, was a partner in Gurney's bank. Her mother, Catherine, was a part of the Barclay family, who were among the founders of Barclays Bank. Her mother died when Elizabeth was only twelve years old. As one of the oldest girls in the family, Elizabeth was partly responsible for the care and training of the younger children, including her brother Joseph John Gurney.
At the age of 18, young Elizabeth was deeply moved by the preaching of William Savery, an American Quaker. Motivated by his words, she took an interest in the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday school in the summer house to teach children to read.
She met Joseph Fry (1777 – 1861), a banker and also a Quaker, when she was twenty years old. They married on 19 August 1800 at the Norwich Goat Lane Friends Meeting House and moved to St Mildred's Court in the City of London. They had eleven children in all[2] born between 1801 and 1822, including Katherine Fry (1801-1886), who wrote a History of the Parishes of East and West Ham (1888). Elizabeth Fry was recorded as a Minister of the Religious Society of Friends in 1811.
Joseph and Elizabeth Fry lived in Plashet House in East Ham between 1809 and 1829, then moved to Upton Lane in Forest Gate. One of their daughters, called Betsy, died at the age of five.
Prompted by a family friend, Stephen Grellet, Fry visited Newgate prison. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. They did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept.
She returned the following day with food and clothes for some of the prisoners. She was unable to further her work for nearly 4 years because of difficulties within the Fry family, including financial difficulties in the Fry bank. Fry returned in 1816 and was eventually able to found a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents. She began a system of supervision and required the women to sew and to read the Bible. In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain.
Thomas Fowell Buxton, Fry's brother-in-law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MPs. In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.
Fry and her brother, Joseph John Gurney, took up the cause of abolishing capital punishment. At that time, people in England could be executed for over 200 crimes. Early appeals to the Home Secretary were all rejected, until Sir Robert Peel became the Home Secretary, when they finally got a receptive audience. They persuaded Peel to introduce a series of prison reforms that included the Gaols Act 1823. Fry and Gurney went on a tour of the prisons in Great Britain. They published their findings of inhumane conditions in a book entitled Prisons in Scotland and the North of England.
Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society. The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them. The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain.
After her husband went bankrupt in 1828, Fry's brother became her business manager and benefactor. Thanks to him her work went on and expanded.
In 1840 Fry opened a training school for nurses. Her programme inspired Florence Nightingale, who took a team of Fry's nurses to assist wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.
Fry became well known in society. Some people criticized her for having such an influential role as a woman. Others alleged that she was neglecting her duties as a wife and mother in order to conduct her humanitarian work. One admirer was Queen Victoria, who granted her an audience a few times and contributed money to her cause.
Following her death in 1845, a meeting chaired by the Lord Mayor of London, resolved that it would be fitting "to found an asylum to perpetuate the memory of Mrs Fry and further the benevolent objects to which her life had been devoted." * A fine 18th century town house was purchased at 195 Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney and the first Elizabeth Fry refuge opened its doors in 1849. Funding came via subscriptions from various city companies and private individuals, supplemented by income from the inmates laundry and needlework. Such training was an important part of the refuge's work. In 1924, the refuge merged with the Manor House Refuge for the Destitute, in Dalston in Hackney, becoming a hostel for girls on probation for minor offences. The hostel soon moved to larger premises in Highbury, Islington and then, in 1958, to Reading, where it remains today. The original building in Hackney became the CIU New Lansdowne Club but became vacant in 2000 and has fallen into disrepair. Hackney Council, in 2009, is leading efforts to restore the building and bring it back into use. The building, and Elizabeth Fry are commemorated by a plaque at the entrance gateway.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REfry.htm
It is not possible to determine when Newgate first became a prison or when exactly the new gatehouse itself was originally built. Newgate was to be London's 5th gate into the city. There are reliable records going back to 1218 of it being used to house criminals. It was finally demolished in 1904 having been rebuilt at least twice along the way.
A new prison at Newgate was begun in 1770 and proceeded slowly. Before it could be finished, the building was badly damaged by fire during the Gordon riots of 1780 and it was not finally completed until 1785. This building was then used in that form until 1856 when it was remodelled internally to reflect the new perceptions of what a prison should be like. London's Millbank and Pentonville prisons had been designed to be the first modern prison and to practice the new "penitentiary system." This rebuild was very short lived as the building was very badly damaged, again by fire in 1877, and had to be largely rebuilt. With the passing of the Prisons Act of that year, Newgate ceased to be an ordinary prison and was used only for those awaiting trial and prisoners sentenced to death awaiting execution. Newgate had the great advantage, from the authorities' point of view at least, of being next door to the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) which was the trial venue for all of London's most serious criminals. It saved the cost and security risk of transporting prisoners by horse drawn van from other prisons for their trial. The Central Criminal Court Act of 1856 permitted prisoners from anywhere in the country accused of a very serious offence to be tried at the Old Bailey. The Act was passed to allow for poisoner, William Palmer (from Rugeley in Staffordshire), to get a fair trial free from local prejudice. The advent of an efficient railway system had made it possible to transport prisoners over considerable distances. Palmer was returned to Stafford prison for his execution. Similarly, Maria and Frederick Manning and Kate Webster were kept at Newgate during their trials and then returned to the county prisons for execution.
Newgate closed for good in late May 1902 so that the new Central Criminal Court which opened in 1907 (always known as the Old Bailey) could be built on the site. Here is a picture of Newgate just before demolition. The Debtor's door through which the condemned prisoners exited in the days of public hangings and the site of the gallows at that time are marked.
Up to 1877, in its several incarnations, Newgate was the principal prison for London and Middlesex and housed all manner of prisoners of both sexes, including those remanded in custody and prisoners awaiting transportation or execution and those imprisoned for debt.
When Newgate closed, its male prisoners and indeed its gallows were transferred to Pentonville while the female prisoners were moved to Holloway prison, which had been recently renovated and turned into London's only women's prison.
Conditions in Newgate in the early part of the 19th century were appalling and led to great efforts by early prison reformers such as John Howard and Elizabeth Fry to improve things. Elizabeth Fry was deeply shocked by the conditions that women were detained under, in the Female Quarter as the women's area was known, when she visited the prison in 1816. She found the place crowded with half naked women and their children. The women were typically waiting for transfer to the prison ships that would take them to the Colonies. Women were brought to Newgate from county prisons in the south of England to await transportation and kept there for weeks or months until a ship was available. Many of the ordinary women prisoners were drunk, due to the availability of cheap gin, and some were clearly deranged. They were kept in leg irons if they could not afford to pay the Keeper of Newgate for "easement." Fry formed an "Association for the improvement of the female prisoners in Newgate" and as part of that set up, a school within the prison for the younger children in 1817. The following year, she gave evidence to Parliamentary Committee on her findings. She was able to get a proper Matron appointed to look after the women in 1817 and conditions slowly improved. Prisoners under sentence of death were kept shackled and apart from other prisoners and in the case of murderers, fed on bread and water for the final 2-3 days of their miserable lives before meeting the hangman. Their only permitted visitors were prison staff and the Ordinary (prison chaplain). Conditions improved after 1834, condemned prisoners spending around 3 weeks awaiting execution after the law was changed to allow 3 clear Sundays to pass before they were hanged. They were no longer kept in irons and were given better food than the ordinary prisoners. They were also permitted visits by their families and friends.
As London was the crime capital of England, so it was that Newgate was the execution capital and between 1783 and 1902, a total of 1,169 people were put to death there or nearby (12 or 13 hangings being carried out at other locations prior to 1834). The total comprised 1,120 men and 49 women. The "Bloody Code" as it was known remained largely in force up to 1834. Over 200 felonies were punishable by death in 1800, although in practice people were only executed for about 20 of them. See analysis below. Those convicted of the more minor ones, although sentenced to death, typically had their punishment reduced to transportation. The concept of imprisonment as a punishment only really came in after 1840. Transportation ended around 1888.
Public executions were carried outside Newgate in the lane known as the Old Bailey from the 9th of December 1783 (following the ending of hangings at Tyburn). It is unclear where the gallows was erected before 1809 - contemporary reports talking of “outside Newgate” and “Old Bailey.” After 1809, almost all hangings took place on the portable gallows in front of the Debtors’ Door and continued here up to the 25th of May 1868, when Michael Barrett became the last to hang for the Clerkenwell bomb outrage that killed 7 people. Here is a photographic reconstruction of a typical group hanging.
During this time, 3 women were burned at the stake in the Old Bailey, for the crime of coining which was deemed to be high treason. They were Phoebe Harris, Margaret Sullivan and Catherine Murphy. In all 3 cases, they were first hanged until they were dead and then their bodies burnt. Similarly, the Cato Street conspirators who had also been convicted of high treason were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered there (the male punishment for high treason), but in fact were hanged and then beheaded (see later). There were to be 544 public hangings, including those of 25 women, between January 1800 and May 1868. These drew huge crowds, especially if one of the prisoners was notorious. From 1752 to 1809, the bodies of those executed for murder were taken to Surgeon's Hall in the Old Bailey where they were publicly anatomised. From then to 1834, the bodies could be returned to relatives for a fee. There were only two confirmed executions at Newgate in the years 1834-1836, those of John Smith and James Pratt, who were hanged for buggery on the 27th of November 1835. After 1836, only murderers were to be hanged at Newgate and their bodies were buried in unmarked graves within the walls. One hundred men and 8 women were to suffer for this crime between 1837 and 1902. Of this total, 58 men and 5 women suffered in private between the 8th of September 1868 and the 6th of May 1902 when George Wolfe became the last person to be executed here. There were 4 double hangings, a treble and a quadruple hanging during this period.
Executions and executioners at Newgate.
From around 1771 to September 1786, when he died, Edward Dennis was the official executioner and carried out 201 hangings and the 3 burnings at Newgate. He had previously officiated at Tyburn from 1771. On Tuesday, the 9th of December 1783, he and William Brunskill hanged 9 men and one woman (Francis Warren) side by side on the "New Drop" at Newgate’s first execution (see picture). Note that they all have white nightcaps drawn over their heads.
Sessions, as trials at the Old Bailey were known at that time, were held 8 times a year by then and it was normal to sentence those found guilty of crimes other than murder in groups at the end of the trial day. Murderers were sentenced at the end of their individual trials. Those sentenced to death for felony and not “respited” (commuted to transportation) were also hanged in groups - men and women together. Multiple executions were the norm at this time and took place normally around 6 weeks after the Sessions finished and the Recorder of the Old Bailey had prepared and presented his report indicating which prisoners were recommended for reprieve and which were to be executed. From July 1752 onwards, murderers had to be hanged within two days of their sentence, unless this would have been a Sunday, which meant that they were typically hanged on a Monday and often separately from ordinary felons, this day continuing to be used at Newgate for murderers up to 1880. Ordinary criminals could be hanged on any day of the week, Wednesdays being the most common one. Prisoners were led from the "Condemned hold" into the Press yard where their leg irons were removed and their wrists and arms tied. They were attended by the Ordinary and when they had all been prepared, were led across the yard to the Lodge and out through the Debtor's Door and up a short flight of steps onto the gallows.
Dennis hanged 95 men and one woman (Elizabeth Taylor for burglary) between February and December of 1785 at Newgate, with 20 men being hanged on one day alone (Wednesday, the 2nd of February). Dennis was often assisted at these marathons by the man who was to become his successor, William Brunskill, who went on to hang an amazing 537 people outside Newgate as principal hangman. He also executed a further 68 at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in the County of Surrey between 1800 (when it opened) and 1814.
John Langley took over from him in 1814 and hanged 37 men and 3 women in his 3 years in office, including Eliza Fenning. Click here for her story. He died in April 1817 and was succeeded by James Botting who was known as Jemmy. Botting hanged 25 men and two women during his two year tenure, during which in 1818, shoplifting was removed from the list of capital crimes at the instigation of Sir Samuel Romilly.
The gallows used by Dennis, Brunskill and Botting had two parallel beams from which a maximum of a dozen criminals could be hanged at once. (see picture) The platform was 10 feet long by 8 feet wide and was released by moving the lever or "pin" acting on a drawbar under the drop. The condemned were given a drop of between one and two feet so death was hardly ever "instantaneous." Occasionally, the mechanism failed and a simple beam and cart was used to get the prisoners suspended, as had been done at Tyburn. This method was used for the execution of Ann Hurle and Methuselah Spalding in February 1804.
In July 1819, James Foxen assumed the position having previously assisted Botting, and hanged 206 men and 6 women over the next 11 years. The 5 Cato Street conspirators became the last to suffer hanging and beheading on Monday, May 1st, 1820, for conspiring to murder several members of the Cabinet. Foxen was assisted by Thomas Cheshire for this high profile execution and an unnamed and secret person who actually cut off the traitor's heads. (see picture). In view of their crime, their bodies were the property of the Crown and were buried within Newgate.
Thomas Cheshire, or Old Cheese as he was known, officiated as principal at a quadruple hanging on the 24th of March 1829 of 3 highway robbers and one man convicted of stealing in a dwelling house. The gallows was now modified, from then on, having only one beam with capacity for 6 persons. (see picture)
William Calcraft took over from April 1829, his first job being the hanging of the hated child murderer, Ester Hibner, on the 13th of that month. Prior to taking up the position, he had sold pies at hangings and had got to know Foxen and Cheshire. Calcraft was to go on to hang a total of 86 people, including 6 women at Newgate, before he was retired in 1872. One of his most famous cases was Francis Courvoisier, who had murdered his master, Lord William Russell. Another was Britain's first railway murderer, Franz Muller, who he publicly hanged on the 14th of November 1864 for killing Mr. Thomas Briggs. Calcraft carried out both the last public hanging at Newgate (Michael Barrett) and the first private one 4 months later, that of Alexander Mackay on the 8th of September 1868. Mackay was 18 years old and had been convicted of the murder of Emma Goldsmith, his employer. The gallows had been erected in an enclosed yard near the Chapel, and the execution was attended by representatives of the Press. A little before 9.00 a.m., Mackay was led into the yard supported by the Chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Jones, and ascended a few steps onto the platform where he joined in with Mr. Jones' prayers. Calcraft pulled the lever and Mackay dropped a few inches and took several minutes to become still, according to contemporary reports. The black flag was raised over the prison after the trap had opened. His body was left hanging for an hour before being taken down and prepared for the formal inquest, which took place that afternoon. Mackay was then buried within the prison in an unmarked grave.
Like his predecessors, Calcraft was also responsible for carrying out floggings at Newgate and was paid a salary with additional monies for hangings and floggings. With the advent of a comprehensive railway network, he was able to work over most of the country in his later years and became Britain's principal hangman. During Calcraft's time, the number of executions fell dramatically (see below). Proper condemned cells had been constructed in Newgate during the early 1830's, created by knocking two ordinary cells into one (see picture) thus ending the use of the appalling "Condemned Hold" which was little more than a dark, feted dungeon. From 1848, condemned prisoners were guarded round the clock by two or three warders to prevent suicide. They took their exercise in a covered walkway known as Birdcage Walk or Dead Man's Walk, their cell being at the far end of this (the doorway visible in the photo).
William Marwood was Britain's next No. 1 hangman and officiated at 17 executions, including that of 45 year old Francis Stewart, for killing her grandson. Assisted by George Incher, he hanged the 4 Lennie Mutineers for murder and mutiny on the 23rd of May 1876 in Newgate's only quadruple private execution. This hanging was widely reported in the press. In 1881, a purpose built execution shed pictured here, containing a new gallows, was erected in one of the yards. This facility remained in use until closure in 1902, being then moved to Pentonville prison and first used there for the execution of John MacDonald on the 30th of September 1902. My friend, Aaron Bougourd, has kindly lent me this rare picture of the gallows and interior of the execution shed, one of the very few photos of a British gallows. This picture is copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without permission. You can see the metal bracket and chain hanging from the centre of the beam. Up to 4 brackets could be set up for multiple hangings. The lever is behind the right hand upright and there are pulleys for raising the trapdoors on each upright. A ladder is in the foreground leaning against the wall.
Bartholomew Bins carried out one hanging after Marwood, that of Patrick O'Donnell, before handing it over to James Berry who performed 12 executions here between 1884 and 1890. Berry was to hang Mary Eleanor Wheeler in 1890. Click here for her story.
He was replaced by James Billington who hanged 24 men and 3 women up to 1901, including Louisa Masset, the first person to be executed in Britain in the 20th century. Click here for her story. He also executed the infamous baby farmer, Amelia Dyer who at 57, became the oldest woman to be hanged in modern times. Click here for more on baby farmers. Another of his famous customers was Thomas Neill Cream who, in December 1892, standing hooded and noosed on the trap said, "I am Jack the.... " just as the drop fell. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that he was Jack the Ripper. Billington carried out the last triple execution at Newgate when he hanged Henry Fowler, Albert Milsom and William Seaman (for two different murders) on the 9th of June 1896.
The last hanging at Newgate was carried out by Billington's son, William, on the 6th of May 1902. The prisoner was 21 year old George Wolfe, who had beaten and stabbed his girlfriend, Charlotte Cheeseman, to death
Interesting to note that alot of the original buildings that were originally set up for the benefit of people who needed help have been allowed to fall into ruin and disrepair.
I will have to go and visit these locations.
Fashion in 18000 when Elizabeth Fry was twenty years old and married.
Newgate prison
Agnes Elizabeth Jones
Agnes Elizabeth Jones (1832 – 1868) of Fahan, County Donegal, Ireland became the first trained Nursing Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. She gave all her time and energy to her patients and died at the age of 35 from typhus fever. Florence Nightingale said of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, ‘She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England.’
Agnes Jones came to Liverpool at the age of 28 as the first qualified nurse in the country to be appointed to a workhouse, the Brownlow Hill Institute which stood on the site now occupied by the Roman Catholic cathedral. Hitherto, the care of the sick in such establishments had largely been left to their fellow inmates, but at the suggestion of the Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone (1819-1902), whose initiative had already established the city as the birthplace of district nursing, it was decided to experiment at Brownlow Hill by employing trained nurses
Agnes Jones was born at Cambridge into a wealthy family with both military and evangelistic religious connections. Her uncle was Sir John Lawrence, later Lord Lawrence who went on to become Governor General of India.
In the early years of Agnes Jones life, the family moved to Fahan in County Donegal, Ireland, though they followed her father's career with the army, notably to Mauritius. She was a deeply religious girl and was consumed by a passion to benefit her fellows and redeem herself from sin. During a holiday in Europe with the family she met and was deeply impressed by deaconesses who were from the Institution of Kaiserwerth, which had earlier overseen the early nursing experiences of Florence Nightingale. She visited the Institution in Bonn, returning home to Ireland to use the experience she had gained.
In 1859 she went to London, making contact with Florence Nightingale and Mrs Wardroper, senior nurse of St Thomas Hospital. Miss Nightingale said of her that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
In 1862 Agnes Jones commenced nurse training in the Nightingale School at St Thomas Hospital in London. When her years’ training was complete, Miss Nightingale called her "one of our best pupils". However her greatest work was ahead of her and was in Liverpool.
In 1865 she accepted an invitation from William Rathbone to take the leadership of an experiment he was conducting in the Brownlow Hill Workhouse, one of the biggest in the country. This was to bring trained nurses to the care of sick paupers. This was a radical deviation from the normal practices of workhouse management, which by law were obliged to deter the very poor from entering the workhouse by making conditions inside worse than those available to the working poor outside. The conditions in the workhouse were described "disorder, extravagance of every description in the establishment to an incredible degree"
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Jones
Like Gibson, who greatly admired him, the Italian Pietro Tenerani was a pupil of Thorvaldsen. It was Gibson’s view that ‘the works which will consign his name to posterity are chiefly of a religious character’. This monument, one of many overseas commissions executed by Tenerani in his Roman studio, dates from the last year of his life and shows the pure neo-classical style still flourishing well into the second half of the 19th century.
Agnes Jones came to Liverpool at the age of 28 as the first qualified nurse in the country to be appointed to a workhouse, the Brownlow Hill Institute which stood on the site now occupied by the Roman Catholic cathedral. Hitherto, the care of the sick in such establishments had largely been left to their fellow inmates, but at the suggestion of the Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone (1819-1902), whose initiative had already established the city as the birthplace of district nursing, it was decided to experiment at Brownlow Hill by employing trained nurses.
Agnes Jones took charge and brought immense improvements to the Institute, her achievements being described in these terms by Florence Nightingale: ‘In less than three years she had reduced one of the most disorderly hospital populations in the world to something like Christian discipline, such as the police themselves wondered at. She had led, so as to be of one mind and heart with her, some fifty nurses and probationers. She had converted a Vestry to the conviction as well as the humanity of nursing pauper sick by trained nurses, the first instance of its kind in England. She had disarmed all opposition, so that Roman Catholic and Unitarian, High Church and Low Church, all literally rose up and called her blessed.’
In 1868, at the age of 35, she died from typhus contracted through her work. Her achievements, however, were of lasting value, and the infirmaries of Victorian workhouses where humane, professional care of the sick was provided, pioneered by Agnes Jones in Liverpool and widely imitated, gradually developed into the free hospitals from which the modern National Health Service was created.
The monument represents the Angel of the Resurrection, seated and holding a trumpet, which accords with references to the Resurrection in the inscriptions on the base, composed by Florence Nightingale and the Bishop of Derry. The statue stood originally in the chapel of the Brownlow Hill Institute but was removed to the chapel of Walton Hospital when the Institute was demolished. In 1989 it was transferred to the Oratory.
The monument to Agnes Jones resides in the Oratory, Liverpool.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/oratory/oratory_cemetery.asp
Grace Darling
Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842) was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838.
Grace Darling was born on November 24, 1815, in Bamburgh, Northumberland in her Grandfather's cottage. Northumberland is on the far Northeast coast of England near Scotland. Grace's mother was named Thomasin and her father was William Darling, Principal Keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands. She was the fourth daughter and seventh child of nine children. Grace did not go to school; she was home schooled. She grew up on the island helping her mom and dad.
At 4:00 a.m., on September 7, 1838, Grace Darling and her father William, a Longstone Lighthouse off England's Northumberland Coast, woke with a start. The steamship Forfarshire had run ashore and broken in two in the North Sea, on the rocks by the lighthouse. Grace was just 22 but she saved 9 people, 4 sailors and 5 ordinary people by taking a rowboat and carrying them back to the shore. She fought hard against the powerful ocean waves to keep the boat off the rocks while her father went out on the rocks to get the survivors. One woman sat on the wreck with her two children, crying over their dead bodies. She was a survivor, named Mrs. Dawson. She lived to tell the tale. Grace and her father rowed out to the Forfarshire through some very bad conditions. Grace stayed with the first group as her father and two of the men from the ship went back for the others. Forty other people did not survive the crash. For three days Grace and her mother cared for the survivors at the lighthouse. Finally the survivors were able to go ashore.
Grace became an instant heroine. Sadly she died on October 20, 1942, probably of pneumonia or tuberculosis; she was buried in her hometown of Bamburgh, Northamberland, the same place she was born. Grace remains a heroine in England and school children learn all about her bravery.
Timeline
1815 - Grace Darling was born and lived in the Trinity House in the Farne Islands
1826 - 15th of February the Darling family moved to their newly built Longstone Lighthouse
1834 - First launching of the 150 ton steamship, Forfarshire at Dundee
1838 - Forfarshire crashes on rocks of Farne Island, Grace saves nine survivors
1839 - Both Grace and William were awarded specially minted Royal Humane Society Gold Medals
1842 - Grace dies, she is only 27
Longstone Lighthouse was built and designed by Joseph Nelson in 1826, and was originally called the outer Farne lighthouse.
The site has a long history in the need for a light, prior to the construction of the lighthouse. In the late 17th Century, Sir John Clayton, and later, in 1755, Captain J. Blackett requested a light for the island, however, both were turned down because they were unable to arrive at an agreement for a maintenance charge for the light.
But then, in the mid 1820's, the welfare of shipping won over and agreement for a lighthouse was finally decided.
The lighthouse originally used Argand lamps, but in 1952 was finally electrified, and in 1990, became fully automated.
The lighthouse is known for the wreck Forfarshire and the adventure of Grace Darling.
Description: At about four o'clock in the morning of 7th September 1838, the steamer 'Forfarshire' bound for Dundee struck the rocks near the Fern lighthouse and broke in two. She sank immediately and only nine people escaped the wreck. Grace Darling and her father rowed the lifeboat to the rocks in heavy seas and saved the survivors in a remarkable and famous rescure.
On 5 September 1838 the steamship Forfarshire set off
from Hull to Dundee. Her cargo included cloths, soap,
hardware, boiler plate and spinning gear. She also carried
about 60 crew and passengers.
The next day, the ship’s boiler began to leak and by the
morning of 7 September the engine stopped. The Forfarshire
began to drift. Suddenly, at about 4am, there was a great crash
as the steamship hit Big Harcar rock. There was no time to call
the passengers from their cabins and get them into the boats.
Within 15 minutes the ship had broken in two. The back half
was swept away and sank, with more than 48 people onboard.
That night, only Grace and her parents were in the
lighthouse. A fierce storm was blowing, with huge
waves battering the lighthouse walls.
At 4.45am Grace saw the wreck, but it was not until 7am that
it was bright enough to see survivors moving on Big Harcar rock.
William Darling thought that conditions would prevent the
launching of the North Sunderland lifeboat so he would have
to go himself. The only one who could help him was Grace.
Grace took blankets with her to warm the survivors. The tide
and wind were so strong that they had to row for nearly a
mile to avoid the jagged rocks and reach the survivors safely.
There were nine people still alive on the rocks but the coble
could only take five in the first rescue. William leapt out of
the boat and on to the rocks, which left Grace to handle the
boat alone. To keep it in one place, she had to take both oars
and row backwards and forwards, trying to keep it from being
smashed on the reef.
On the rocks, William found eight men, including one who
was badly injured. There was also a woman holding two
children, both of whom had died. Grace’s father and three
of the men rowed the boat back to the lighthouse, taking
with them Grace, the injured man and the woman.
Grace stayed at the lighthouse and looked after the survivors
with her mother. Her father and two of the Forfarshire crew
returned for the other four men.
Nine other people had survived. When the stern of the ship
was swept away, eight of the crew and one passenger managed
to scramble into the ship’s lifeboat. They were rescued by a
sloop from Montrose and taken to Shields that same night.
The next day, the ship’s boiler began to leak and by the
morning of 7 September the engine stopped. The Forfarshire
began to drift. Suddenly, at about 4am, there was a great crash
as the steamship hit Big Harcar rock. There was no time to call
the passengers from their cabins and get them into the boats.
Within 15 minutes the ship had broken in two. The back half
was swept away and sank, with more than 48 people onboard.
That night, only Grace and her parents were in the
lighthouse. A fierce storm was blowing, with huge
waves battering the lighthouse walls.
Soon the story of the wreck and the daring rescue was on
the front pages of all the newspapers. Grace Darling became
a heroine. Everyone wanted to know all about her, especially
what she looked like. Since there were no cameras in those
days, many artists visited the lighthouse to paint Grace’s
portrait. For years after the rescue, the lighthouse was
busy with visitors who wanted to see the famous Darling
father and daughter. Grace was sent hundreds of letters
and presents. She was often asked for a lock of her hair.
Both Grace and her father were awarded gold
medals from the Royal Humane Society,
and Silver Medals for Gallantry from the
National Institution for the Preservation
of Life from Shipwreck (now the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution).
Even Queen Victoria
sent her £50.
However, Grace did not enjoy all this attention. She found
that writing thank-you letters and sitting for portraits left
her little time to get on with her life.
In April 1842, only 4 years after the famous rescue, Grace
became ill with tuberculosis. This serious disease was very
common in the 19th century and killed many people. Grace
realised she did not have long to live so, with her family gathered
around her, she gave them each something from her collection
of medals and presents. On 20 October, Grace died. The funeral
in Bamburgh was very grand. Hundreds of people, rich and poor,
crowded the little Northumberland village to say goodbye.
Two years later, a memorial to Grace was put up in St Aidan’s
churchyard in Bamburgh.
Heroes
http://www.rnli.org.uk/assets/downloads/Grace%20Darling%20factsheet%20v2.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Darling
http://www.englandsnortheast.co.uk/Bamburgh.html
RNLI
http://www.rnli.org.uk/who_we_are/the_heritage_trust/grace-darling-museum
The Big Harcar is where the shiprecked people, (all nine, eight men and one woman with her two children who died clambered on to the rock.)
The Forfarshire. Description
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Forfarshire_(ship)
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC28952139&id=R6xS3DM_qVAC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=Forfarshire&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q=Forfarshire&f=false
Description: The interior of Longstone Lighthouse in the Farne Islands off Northumbria. Grace Darling and her parents are seen caring for the fortunate survivors saved from the wreck of the 'Forfarshire' paddle steamer on 7 September 1838. Despite a terrible storm, Grace and her father rescued eight men and women from the wreck and took them back to the lighthouse.
Creator: Parker, H. P. (artist): Lewis, C. G. (engraver): Isaacs, A. J. (publisher)
http://www.rnli.org.uk/who_we_are/press_centre/news_releases/news_release_detail?articleid=379324
Lifeboat heroine Grace Darling will be the inspiration for a new masterpiece this half-term at the Northumberland museum dedicated to her life.
As part of the Big Draw – a national campaign running this month to encourage more people to try their hand at drawing – visitors to the RNLI Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh will be able to help recreate a famous painting of Grace by JW Carmichael.
Words to the "Grace Darling Song" --
Twas on the Longstone Lighthouse, there dwelt and English maid;
Pure as the air around her, of danger ne'er afraid;
One morning just at daybreak, a storm-tossed wreck she spied;
And tho' to try seemed madness, "I'll save the crew!' she cried.
And she pull'd away, o'er the rolling sea,
Over the waters blue --
Help! Help!' she could hear the cry of the shipwreck'd crew --
But Grace had an English heart,
And the raging storm she brav'd --
She pull'd away, mid the dashing spray,
And the crew she saved!
http://www.elinordewire.com/gracedarling.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5872098
http://www.jstor.org/pss/60201003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farne_Islands
http://www.northumbria.info/Pages/bamburgh.html
Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti is one of the most significant voices in Victorian poetry. She is best known for her poetry collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, though her other works—The Price’s Progress and other Poems (1866), Singsong: a Nursery Rhyme Book (1872), Seek and Find (1879), and Called to be Saints (1881) merited enough acclaim for her to be considered as Tennyson’s successor as Poet Laureate.
Christina Rossetti was the daughter of Italian poet and scholar Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854), though she was born and raised in London. Her parents’ love for art, and the intellectual circles they moved in, left a strong creative influence on the Rossetti children. She and her three siblings were all writers, and her brother Dante Gabriel was also a painter. She modeled for his picture, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), as well as for the paintings and drawings for her family’s Pre-Raphaelite friends. Her family also helped introduce her talent to the literary world: her first poems were published by grandfather’s printing press, and her brother’s pre-Raphaelite journal, The Germ, featured seven of her earliest works.
Rossetti’s poetry is known for its rich religious undertones, reflecting her own spirituality and devotion to the church, and the influences of philosophers like Augustine and Thomas à Kempis and the metaphysical poet John Donne.
Between penning poems, Rossetti worked as a governess. In the 1880’s she developed a thyroid disease that left her an invalid. She continued to write, leading to the collections A Pageant and Other Poems (1881) and The Face of the Deep (1892) before she passed away from cancer on December 29, 1894.
One of the most important of English woman poets, who was the sister of the painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and a member of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement. 'A Birthday,' 'When I Am Dead,' and 'Up-Hill' are probably Rossetti's best-known single works. After a serious illness in 1874, she rarely received visitors or went outside her home. Her favorite themes were unhappy love, death, and premature resignation. Especially her later works deal with somber religious feelings.
Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
(from 'Up-Hill', 1861)
Christina Rossetti was born in London, one of four children of Italian parents. Her father was the poet Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854), professor of Italian at King's College from 1831. He resigned in 1845 because of blindness. All the four children in the family became writers, Dante Gabriel also gained fame as a painter. Christina was educated at home by her mother, Frances Polidori, a former governess, an Anglican of devout evangelical bent. She shared her parents' interest in poetry and was portrayed in the paintings and drawings of the Pre-Raphaelites. Christina was the model for his brother's picture The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), which was the first picture to be signed P.R.B. Jan Marsh has proposed in her biography Christina Rossetti: A Writer's Life (1995) that Christina was sexually abused by her father, but "perhaps like many abuse victims she banished the knowledge from conscious memory." However, this kind of speculative claims become highly popular in biographies in the 1990s.
Rossetti's first verses were written in 1842 and printed in the private press of her grandfather. In 1850, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the short-lived Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ, which was founded by her brother William Michael and his friends. When the family was in a financial trouble, she helped her mother to keep a school at Frome, Somerset. The school was not a success, and they returned in 1854 to London. Except for two brief visits abroad, she lived with the mother all her life.
Rossetti's deeply religious temperament left its marks on her writing. She was a devout High Anglican, much influenced by the Tractarian, or Oxford, Movement. Rossetti broke engagement to the artist James Collison, an original member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, when he joined the Roman Catholic church. She also rejected Charles Bagot Cayley for religious reasons.
By the 1880s, recurrent bouts of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder, had made Rossetti an invalid, and ended her attempts to work as a governess. Rossetti's illness restricted her social life, but she continued to write sonnets and ballads. Especially she was interested the apocalyptic books, and such religious writers as Augustine and Thomas à Kempis. She also admired George Herbert and John Donne. Among her later works are A PAGEANT AND OTHER POEMS (1881), and THE FACE OF THE DEEP (1892). She was considered a possible successor to Alfred Tennyson as poet laureate. To accept the challenge, she wrote a royal elegy. However, Alfred Austin was appointed poet laureate in 1896. Rossetti developed a fatal cancer in 1891, and died in London on December 29, 1894.
In 'After Death', which she wrote in 1849, the poet-speaker lays on a bed, with a shroud on her face, observing the surroundings before the burial. "He did not love me living; but once dead / He pitied me; and very sweet it is / To know he still is warm tho' I am cold." The theme of death appears next year also in her brother's poem 'My Sister's Sleep', (1850), in which death visits a family on a Christmas Eve. Rossetti's best-known work, GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS, was published in 1862. The collection established Rossetti as a significant voice in Victorian poetry. The title poem is a cryptic fairy-tale and tells the story of two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted the eat the fruit of the goblin men. After eating the fruit, Laura cannot see the goblins. Lizzie, whose refusal have angered the goblins, is attacked by them, and she saves her sister in an act of sacrifice. Laura, longing to taste again the fruit, licks the juices with which Lizzie is covered. "For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather." THE PRICE'S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS, appeared in 1866. SING SONG. A NURSERY RHYME BOOK was illustrated by Arthur Hughes in 1872. Rossetti also wrote religious prose works, such as SEEK AND FIND (1879), CALLED TO BE SAINTS (1881) and THE FACE OF THE DEEP (1892).
Rossetti's brother William Michael edited her complete works in 1904. He once said that "Christina's habits of composing were eminently of the spontaneous kind. I question her having ever once deliberated with herself whether or not she would write something or other, and then, after thinking out a subject, having proceeded to treat it in regular spells of work. Instead of this, something impelled her feelings, or "came into her head," and her hand obeyed the dictation. I suppose she scribbled lines off rapidly enough, and afterwards took whatever amount of pains she deemed requisite for keeping them in right form and expression." Rossetti's work has suffered from reductive interpretations, but she is increasingly being reconsidered as a major Victorian poet. Typical for her poems was songlike use words and short, irregularly rhymed lines.
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin by Gabriel Rossetti
Date: 1849
http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rossetti/rossetti.html
Agnes Jones: 1832-1868
Fashion 1852
Agnes Jones would have been aged
between 20 and 21 during the times of these fashions below.
Images 1852 and 1851
Nightingale in 1859. Agnes would have been twenty seven. This was when she met Florence Nightingale and Florence said:
" that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
Agnes would have been twenty four when this painting was created by Ingres in 1856
http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/school.htm
St Thomas Hospital History
http://www.thegarret.org.uk/stthomas.htm
Florence Nightingale Museum
http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/cms/
In 1865 she accepted an invitation from William Rathbone to take the leadership of an experiment he was conducting in the Brownlow Hill Workhouse, one of the biggest in the country. This was to bring trained nurses to the care of sick paupers. This was a radical deviation from the normal practices of workhouse management, which by law were obliged to deter the very poor from entering the workhouse by making conditions inside worse than those available to the working poor outside. The conditions in the workhouse were described "disorder, extravagance of every description in the establishment to an incredible degree"
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
1860 to 1940
When Florence Nightingale opened her Training School for Nurses in 1860, the profession gained more respect and a standard uniform. One of her students designed a uniform that included a long-sleeved dress with a starched collar, an apron with shoulder straps, and a frilly cap that tied under the chin. Later, cape-like garments called tippets were added to the uniform.
Miss Nightingale refused to admit “ladies,” as such, into her party. All must be nurses; all must eat the same food, have the same accommodations, wear the same uniform, except the nuns and sisters, who were allowed to wear their habits. And the uniform was extremely ugly. It consisted of a gray tweed dress, called a “wrapper,” a gray worsted jacket, a plain white cap, and a short woolen cloak. Over the shoulders was worn a holland scarf described as “frightful,” on which was embroidered in red the words “Scutari Hospital.” There was no time to fit individual wearers: various sizes were made up and issued as they came in, with unhappy results. Small women got large sizes; tall women got small. That a “lady” could be induced to appear in such a get-up was certainly a triumph of grace over nature, wrote one of the nuns. The uniform had not been designed to make the wearer look attractive. Scutari was a disorderly camp, teeming with drink-shops, prostitutes, and idle troops, and a distinguishing dress was necessary for the nurses’ protection. A Crimean veteran told Sir Edward Cook that he saw a nurse seized by a soldier in the street of Scutari, but the man’s mate recognized the uniform. “Let her alone,” he said, “don’t you see she’s one of Miss Nightingale's women.”
Early uniform: 1855
http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/uniform.htm
Photos of Florence Nightingale.
" a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
I would like to convey Agnes wearing the costume of the time surrounded by objects that would have a connection to her life.
In 1857 the Englishman Charles Worth set up a Paris fashion house at 7 Rue de la Paix a then unfashionable Paris district. In 1858 he made a collection of clothes that were unsolicited designs. He showed the clothes on live models and when people bought his original designs he became a leading fashion design couturier of the Victorian era. Until that time fashion details and changes were suggested by the customers. The House of Worth became a leader of ideas for the next 30 years.
Haute Couture during the Victorian period was an ideal foil for conspicuous consumption. Fragile gauze dresses decorated with flowers and ribbons that were made for wealthy young women were only intended to be worn for one or two evenings and then cast aside as they soiled and crushed so easily. Silk flowers, froths of tulle and pleated gauze trims would have emphasised the innocence of virginal girls whilst signalling their availability on the marriage market. Such conspicuous waste and conspicuous consumption were hallmarks of Victorian high living.
Haute Couture is a French phrase for high fashion. Couture means dressmaking, sewing, or needlework and haute means elegant or high, so the two combined imply excellent artistry with the fashioning of garments. The purchase of a haute couture model garment is at the top level of hand customised fashion design and clothing construction made by a couture design house. A model haute couture garment is made specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance. The made to measure exclusive clothes are virtually made by hand, carefully interlined, stay taped and fitted to perfection for each client.
http://www.fashion-era.com/index.htm
http://www.vintagevictorian.com/60h_text.html
Hairstyles and Headdresses of the Civil War Era contains illustrations originally published in issues of Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's National Magazine from 1859-1864. Illustrations from my own collection were supplemented with those from the extensive collection of Patri and Barbara Pugliese. This volume is intended to assist ladies in more accurately reproducing the fashions of the period; the hairstyle is often the final part of the outfit to be considered but it is a part that greatly affects the success of a period persona.
"Headdresses for balls", says that impeachable authority the Moniteur, "are nearly always round, but much fuller behind and at the sides than in the front. They are generally a mixture of velvet, gold and silver ribbon, pearls, and even diamonds."
Godey's Lady's Book, August 1859
The most recognizable features of hairstyles from this Era are the center part, with the hair pulled to the sides, and the absence of bangs. This period style is often difficult for modern ladies to adopt as it is so very different from their everyday look. The success of any re-enactor's outfit is greatly enhanced by the correct hairstyle or headdress. Many of us do not have the amount of hair needed to create some of the styles illustrated in this book, but with the careful placement of false hair, ribbons, flowers and lace, a stunning effect can be achieved that is practically indistinguishable from the original. There are many ingenious way to produce the illusion of long hair; one illustration (Godey's, September 1862) shows how a lady can ingeniously add a false hank of hair (called a front braid) to her own braid to make it thicker.
Factors Affecting the Fashion Silhouette after 1860
We arrive at 1860 with four significant facts that were to seriously affect fashion of the future. Firstly the sewing machine had been invented, secondly clothes would in future become couture design led, thirdly synthetic dyes would make available intense colours. Fourthly in 1860 the crinoline domed skirt silhouette had a flattened front and began to show a dramatic leaning toward the garment back.
Charles Worth thought the crinoline skirt unattractive. However, he is associated with it, as he did manipulate the style, as a result the shape soon changed to a new trained, softer bustled version, which only the really rich found practical.
Important people during the Victorian times.
http://www.nettlesworth.durham.sch.uk/time/victorian/vpeople.html
Costume gallery
http://www.cartes.freeuk.com/
Civil War Era Dresses 1857-1867
This is the era of the crinoline, or the hoop skirt as we call it. Before the crinoline became popular, the full skirts were achieved with many layers of petticoats or even corded petticoats. Skirt widths could range from 150" for and average dress to 240" for evening dreses. Early skirts (pre 1863-4) were often cut from rectangular panels of fabric, and pleated onto a waistband. After this some skirts were gored to present less bulk at the waistline. Shoulder seam sloped well to the back at the armscye and the armscye was low on the shoulder actually resting on the upper arm. Sleeves were in several variations, becoming the most fitted after the civil war. Collars were often the "peter pan style" or other small collars or bits of lace that could be taken off for cleaning or a change.
Vintage prints
http://www.vintageprints.com/index.php
Harriet Martineau
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/RHE309/vicfembios/harrietmartineau.htm
Harriet Martineau's major contribution to the literature of 1859 was an April 1859 article for The Edinburgh Review focusing on another subject she was passionate about — the political and economic mistreatment of women in "Female Industry".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Martineau
Franz Xaver Winterhalter Countess Alexander Nikolaevitch 1859
Fashion
Josephine Butler, the daughter of John Grey and Hannah Annett, was born in 1828.
In 1869 Josephine Butler began her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. These acts had been introduced in the 1860s in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces. Butler objected in principal to laws that only applied to women. Under the terms of these acts, the police could arrest women they believed were prostitutes and could then insist that they had a medical examination. Butler had considerable sympathy for the plight of prostitutes who she believed had been forced into this work by low earnings and unemployment.
In 1869 Josephine would have been 41 years of age.
Fashion of 1869.
On the rocks, William found eight men, including one who was badly injured. There was also a woman holding two children, both of whom had died. Grace’s father and three of the men rowed the boat back to the lighthouse, taking with them Grace, the injured man and the woman.
Touched by God through plain Friends, Elizabeth struggled with the way she lived her life. Her interest in amusements wained. Although her family was not very sympathetic to her changes in religious attitudes, she found herself coming to use the traditional Quaker plain language and adopting plain dress. She started a Sunday school in the family home at Earlham Hall.
Kitty Wilkinson at nine years of age.
In 1794, Kitty’s parents decided to leave Derry for Liverpool, which was becoming a vast seaport, with an expanding dock and warehouse system. The family set sail in early February in fine, sunny weather but the next day, with England in sight, a violent storm developed. The small sailing ship was tossed about as it entered Liverpool Bay from the Irish Sea. Kitty and the rest of her family were holding on for dear life as the rain and wind lashed the ship, which by now had come to rest on the treacherous Hole Bank at the entrance of the River Dee. Kitty and her mother and the two younger children were taken onto the life-boat but there was no trace of her father. Without any warning the gale force wind snatched the baby from Mrs. Seward’s arms and washed her overboard. The heartbreaking experience of the voyage to Liverpool had a serious effect on Mrs. Seward’s future mental and physical health.
Image: Shipwreck.
Kitty and her little brother survived.
Crying woman
1794
The family settled in Denison Street in the north end of the town, where Mrs. Seaward and Kitty found work as domestics. Their employer, Mrs. Lightbody, saw their potential and gave Mrs. Seward the task of teaching the other servants to spin and to make lace. Mrs. Lightbody, who was aged and infirm, found happiness in relieving the sufferings and supplying the needs of the poor. Kitty was greatly influenced by her employer and assisted her in her charity work. Kitty is quoted as saying that Mrs Lightbody, “became like a mother to me”. In turn, Mrs. Lightbody relied on Kitty because of her blindness and became very fond of her.
1795
Ten years old, working as a domestic for Mrs Lightbody Denison Street.
http://www.liverpoolheritageforum.org.uk/famous.php?id=119
Work in the cotton mill
In 1796, at the age of 11, life changed dramatically for Kitty and her brother. Mrs. Seward’s was suffering great ill-health and was unable to work or look after the children. As a result they were sent to what was considered a healthier environment, the cotton mill at Caton, Lancashire. It was here in Lancashire that Kitty met her future husband, Tom Wilkinson. Kitty remined there for ten years, after which she returned to Liverpool to lok after her mother and teach for a while.
Education of children
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2592157
Image of a cotton mill at caton.
http://scoilnet.magicstudio.co.uk/asset/view/218664?from=search&return_to=%2Frepository%2Fbrowse%3Fsearch_text%3Dcotton%2Bindustry
Child labour: Cotton mills. Images.
http://www.lib.unc.edu/stories/cotton/images/
[edit] Water power (1770-1800)
Masson Mill, DerbyshireThe early mills were narrow and low in height, of light construction, powered by water wheels and containing small machines. Interior lighting was by daylight, and ceiling height was only 6–8 ft. Masson Mill in Derbyshire is a good example of an early mill. Mills were made by millwrights, builders and iron founders. These Arkwright type mills are about 9 feet (2.7 m) wide.[1] Spinning was done with a spinning mule, which was not restricted by patent, so many engineers experimented with improvements which they then tested in their own establishments. These men became the successful mill owners.[2]
Slater Mill was built in 1790 on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island by Samuel Slater (an immigrant and trained textile worker from England) using concepts from the earlier horse drawn Beverly Cotton Manufactory. Slater managed to evade restrictions on emigration which were put in place to allow England to maintain its monopoly on cotton mills. Slater Mill resembled a mill in Derbyshire that he had worked in.
Old Mill and Decker Mill (1901), Murrays' Mills, AncoatsWater powered mills were common. The first steam mills used the engine to drive a pump to raise water in order to run a water wheel. Though water continued to be used to drive mills in the country, the next development was the small town mills, driven by steam, situated alongside a canal which provided water for its engine. Murrays' Mills alongside the Rochdale Canal, in Ancoats were powered by 40 hp Boulton and Watt beam engines.[4] Some were built as room and power mills which let space to entrepreneurs. These mills, often 'L' or 'U' shaped, were narrow and multi-storied. The engine house, warehousing and the office were in the mill, though stair towers were external. Windows were square and smaller than in latter mills. The walls were of unadorned rough brick. Construction was to fireproof designs. They are distinguished from warehouses in that warehouses had taking-in doors on each storey with an external hoist beam.[5] Only the larger mills have survived.
Mills of this period were from 25 to 68 m long and 11.5 m to 14 m wide. They could be 8 stories high and have basements and attics. Floor height went from 3.3 to 2.75 m on the upper stories.
Boilers were of the wagon type; chimneys were square or rectangular, attached to the mill, and in some cases part of the stair column. The steam engines were typically low-pressure single-cylinder condensing beam engines.[6] The average power in 1835 was 48 hp.[7] Power was transmitted by a main vertical shaft with bevel gears to the horizontal shafts. The later mills had gas lighting using gas produced on site.[8] The mules with 250-350 spindles were placed transversely to get as much light as possible.
[edit] Remodelling and expansion (the rise of the factory) 1815-1855
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill
Child Labour
The Lancashire and Derbyshire mills needed a pool of cheap labour. Pauper children were boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 21, who were dependent on the Poor Law Guardians. Mill owners made contracts with the guardians in London and the southern counties to supply them paupers, in batches of 50 or more, to be apprenticed. Living condition were poor in 'Prentice Houses', and the children who were paid 2d a day worked 15 hour shifts, hot bedding with children on the other shift.
Robert Owen, the millowner, New Lanark never employed children under the age of ten, and opposed physical punishment in schools and Factories, he lobbied for parliamentary action. This resulted in
The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802
Limited hours of work to twelve a day.
Boys and girls to sleep in separate dormitories with no more than two to each bed
Compulsory education to be provided in the arts of reading writing and arithmetic
Each apprentice to be provided with two suits of clothes
On Sunday children to be instructed in Christian worship
Sanitation to be improved
Regulation was ineffective until the mills were subject to inspection in 1833. This did not reduce the number of children, half-timers worked mornings in the mill and spend the afternoon in the school room. While the number of children working in spinning as tenters did decline, more were employed in weaving because weavers were expected to tenter extra looms.
http://www.powerinthelandscape.co.uk/mills/col_val_mills_up.html
A cotton mill built in 1796 when Kitty would have been 11 years old.
In 1823, at the age of 38, Kitty married again, this time to Tom Wilkinson, a porter at the Rathbone’s mill in Lancashire whom she knew from her days at Caton. Tom was also keen to help the unfortunates of the neighbourhood, and was happy for their Denison Street house to be thrown open to the poor and orphaned.
__Elizabeth_Porter_Wheeler___(Reproduction_at_oceansbridge_com_).jpg)
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Fashion of the time
http://images.google.com/imgres
Folk art
http://www.encore-editions.com/americanfolkartists.htm
http://www.encore-editions.com/americanartists.htm
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?27415-Frederick-Street-Old-Liverpool-Named-after-Frederick-Louis-Duke-of-Edinburgh
Baths timeline
http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.1444
By the 1830s commerce in Liverpool was thriving, and hundreds of working-class people arrived in the city each week, looking for work. As they did so, the wealthier middle-classes, mainly merchants, moved away from the city centre, and as such living conditions deteriorated. Two elements of this deterioration – the lack of clean, running water, and the poor ventilation of air in working-class districts – allowed the cholera epidemic that was sweeping Europe to wreak its havoc in Liverpool, arriving in the spring of 1832. In a population of around 230,000, cholera would claim over 1,500 lives in Liverpool.
Kitty and Tom Wilkinson were in the fortunate position of having the only hot water boiler in their street, and so they invited their neighbours down to their cellar to wash their clothes and bed-linen, hoping to offer some measure of protection against the cholera. The Wilkinsons were aided in their work by the Liverpool District Provident Society and the benevolence of the Rathbone family, each contributing towards the provision of clean clothes and fresh bedding materials.
The Wilkinson’s wash-room became so popular that it was moved upstairs to the kitchen, with a rudimentary drying area established in the back yard. Kitty and Tom asked the neighbours who used their facilities to contribute one penny per family, per week to help towards water and new bedding costs.
At the same time, Kitty and a neighbour by the name of Mrs Lloyd established a rudimentary infant school, in Kitty and Tom’s bedroom. Local young orphans would be taught simple hymns and stories, continuing Kitty’s desire to see working-class children educated as best as possible.
By the mid-nineteenth century, public wash-houses were being established all over Liverpool, and in 1846 the authorities chose to recognise the pioneering work done by Kitty and Tom Wilkinson. They were offered the positions of Superintendents of the Frederick Street public baths and wash-house, which they accepted. In 1846, aged 60, Kitty was presented to Queen Victoria as she visited Liverpool, in recognition of her services to the city.
Kitty Wilkinson died in 1860, aged 73, and she is permanently commemorated in a stained glass window in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which honours the noble women of Liverpool.
Catherine (Kitty) Wilkinson (nee Seaward) was born in 1786 in Londonderry, Ireland. At the age of three Catherine's father decided to move the family to Liverpool. However, tragedy struck when the ferry the family were on collided with the Hoyle Bank as it neared the Mersey Estuary, Kitty's father and sister were drowned.
Kitty and her mother struggled to survive and at the age of 12 Kitty went to work in a cotton mill in Caton near Lancaster. It was during this period that Kitty attended night school where she learned to read and write. Soon afterwards she married a sailor who sadly, was lost at sea, leaving Kitty with two young children and a mother (who was now blind and insane) to support.
Goblin Market is about two close sisters, Laura and Lizzie, as well as the goblin men to whom the title refers, and another girl named Jeanie.
Although the sisters seem to be quite young, they live by themselves in a house, and are accustomed to draw water every evening from a stream. As the poem begins, twilight is falling, and as usual the sisters hear the calls from the Goblin merchants, who sell fruits in fantastic abundance, variety and savor. On this evening, Laura lingers at the stream after her sister has left for home. Wanting fruit but having no money, the impulsive Laura offers a lock of her hair and "a tear more rare than pearl."
Laura gorges on the delicious fruit in a sort of bacchic frenzy, then comes to her senses and, after picking up one of the seeds, returns home. Lizzie, waiting at home, and "full of wise upbraidings," reminds Laura about the cautionary tale of Jeanie, another girl who, having likewise partaken of the goblin men's fruits, died just at the beginning of winter, after a long decline.
Night has by then fallen, and the sisters go to sleep in their shared bed.
The next day, as Laura and Lizzie go about their work in the house, Laura dreamily longs for the coming evening's meeting with the goblin men. But at the stream that evening, as she strains to hear the usual goblin chants and cries, Laura discovers to her horror that, although Lizzie still hears the goblins' voices, she no longer can.
Unable to buy more of the forbidden fruit, pining away for the lack of it, Laura falls into a slow physical deterioration and depression. As winter approaches, Laura pines away and no longer does her household work. One day she remembers the saved seed and plants it, but it bears nothing.
Weeks and months pass, and finally sister Lizzie realizes that Laura is on the verge of death. Lizzie resolves to visit the goblin men to buy some of their fruit, hoping thereby to soothe Laura's pain. Carrying a silver penny, Lizzie goes down to the brook and is greeted in a friendly way by the goblins. But their attitudes turn malicious when they realize Lizzie wants to pay with mere money, and to carry the fruits home with her. Enraged, the goblins pummel and assault Lizzie, trying to make her eat the fruits. In the process, the goblins drench the brave girl in fruit juice and pulp.
Lizzie escapes to run home, hoping that Laura will eat and drink the juice from her body. The weakened sister does so, then undergoes a violent transformation of such intensity that her life seems to hang in the balance.
The next morning, though, Laura has returned to her old self, both physically and mentally. As the last stanza attests, both Laura and Lizzie live to tell their children of the evils of the goblins' fruits – and the awesome powers of sisterly love.
Since the 1970s, critics have tended to view Goblin Market as an expression of Rossetti's feminist (or proto-feminist) politics. Some critics suggest the poem is about feminine sexuality and its relation to Victorian social mores. In addition to its clear allusions to Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, and temptation, there is much in the poem that seems overtly sexual, such as when Lizzie, going to buy fruit from the goblins, considers her dead friend Jeanie, "Who should have been a bride; / But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died", and lines like "Lizzie uttered not a word;/ Would not open lip from lip/ Lest they should cram a mouthful in;/ But laughed in heart to feel the drip/ Of juice that syruped all her face,/ And lodged in dimples of her chin,/ And streaked her neck which quaked like curd."
The poem's attitude toward this temptation seems ambiguous, since the happy ending offers the possibility of redemption for Laura, while typical Victorian portrayals of the "fallen woman" ended in the fallen woman's death. It is worth noting that although the historical record is lacking, Rossetti apparently began working at Highgate Penitentiary for fallen women shortly after composing "Goblin Market" in the spring of 1859.
According to Antony Harrison of North Carolina State University, Jerome McGann reads the poem as a criticism of Victorian marriage markets and conveys "the need for an alternative social order". For Sandra Gilbert, the fruit represents Victorian women's exclusion from the world of art.[1] Other scholars – most notably Herbert Tucker – view the poem as a critique on the rise of advertising in precapitalist England, with the goblins utilising clever marketing tactics to seduce. Laura J. Hartman, among others, has pointed out the parallels between Laura's experience and the experience of drug addiction.
“Goblin Market” is a very Gothic poem. It has an interesting struggle between good and bad—first between Laura and Lizzie, then between each of the girls and the goblins. When the girls argue, Lizzie is the very proper, contentious sister. She is careful and doesn’t want to get in trouble. Laura, on the other hand, is more easily tempted by the goblins and tries the fruit. Lizzie is a good girl who doesn’t stray from her path; Laura tastes the forbidden fruit and pays heavily for her sins. The more important fight, though, is between the girls and the goblins. The goblins are very much like the gargoyles that can be found in Gothic architecture. They are “little men” who, like gargoyles, are pretty grotesque. They are “whisk-tailed” and “cat-faced.” They are strange, fantastic creatures. I picture them to be like some of the gargoyles at Oxford.
There is definitely a Christian undertone to the story. The goblins are wicked and evil little men who try to tempt the proper young maidens with forbidden fruits. They coerce Laura into trying their goods. The fruit is delicious and wonderful, but it poisons her blood and she becomes obsessed with finding more of this fruit. She becomes consumed by the forbidden fruit and eventually becomes sick because of it. Her loving and faithful sister, however, comes to the rescue and helps her out of her obsession. Laura gets the antidote and saves her sister. In the process, however, she must brave the goblin market and resist the temptation of the delicious fruit. Lizzie is saved by her sister, but only after a painful cleansing process—a sort of punishment for her sins. This could be related to a number of Biblical stories, including Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. It’s also similar to the idea that we all have to resist temptation every day and must repent heavily when we stray from the described path.
Christina Georgina Rossetti, one of the most important women poets writing in nineteenth-century England.
The publication of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems
in 1862 marked the first literary success of the Pre-Raphaelites.
A campaigner for animal rights she was also symbolic of the way women writers and artists found creative outlets in their work to scramble out of sexist and closed attitudes towards women in Victorian times. One of Christina Rossetti's more innovative poems, "The Iniquity of the
Fathers Upon the Children," is a dramatic monologue in which the poet
addresses the issue of illegitimate children by imagining that she is
one herself. Her desire to address such a subject can be linked to her
work for the House of Charity, an institution located in Highgate which
was devoted to the rescue of prostitutes and unmarried mothers. She
also broadened her poetry with "A Royal Princess" which dealt with
starvation, inequality, and poverty. This appeared in an 1863
anthology published for the relief of victims of the Lancashire cotton
famine.
The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as The Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–1865), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War.
Noble Women: Liverpool Cathedral. Lady Chapel.
Inspiration for my style of works, is the artist, Hokusai. Click link for further information to the artist Hokusai on artsy. https://www.artsy.net/artist/katsushika-hokusai
Elizabeth Fry
Angel of Newgate prison
Title of Painting: The Patchwork Quilt
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.
Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by the reigning monarch. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
Liz Fry 1817 aged 37 years old, Newgate Prison.
In this painting I wanted to depict Elizabeth Fry helping the women inside the prison with her friend Anne Baxton. I read Liz Fry was described as being very fashionable when she was younger with long blonde hair, wearing the empire fashion style of the time and a black turban. She was also described at one point as wearing purple boots and red laces. At first, I wanted to bring this younger more colourful side of Liz Fry into my painting and create a young portrait of her but after considering this and reading about Newgate and the great things she did, I felt it was more imporatnnt to create an image of Liz Fry and the women inside of the prison.
It became important to try and convey my own image of the inside of the prison while she was reforming it. I tried to imagine how it would be at first when she began with the chaos and the lack of spirit in the women. I read that she cleaned it up and bagan to help them to sew. Liz Fry would encourage them to make parchwork quilts.
Quilts have been for may years a symbol of collaboration and protest.
So, I pulled this into the painting imagining the cleaning, the washing, cooking, reading, teaching going on within this hopeless environment. For some reason as I was painting this, the artist Dufy came to mind and I found myself becoming involved with a Fauvist style of work because I enjoy this style of painting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Dufy
Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only three years, 1905–1907, and had three exhibitions.[1] The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.[1]
Elizabeth Fry was an amazing woman and pioneered the changes of the conditions for women in prisons. Without her help and influence, life in prison was next near to death. She campaigned and changed the environemt, introdiced, cleanliness, clothing, food and activities into the daily lives of these women, whereas before there was nothing, absolutely nothing except straw and a piece of bread. Children and babies died in the cells. Elizabeth Fry gave hope to the female prisoners and offered a new way of rahabilitating and treating prisoners.
When she began helping the prisoners there is an incident where she and her female friends gatheerd together scraps of material and encouraged the female priosners to make patchwork quilts that not only acted as blankets bu also brightened up the awful grim environment.
At the age of 37 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/res_cons/research/online_journal/journal_1_index/doing_time/index.html
Patchwork Therapy
There are numerous objects in public collections that testify to the therapeutic value attached to the needle, but less research has been carried out on the particular choice of patchwork as a tool of reform. (16) Fry herself was keen to highlight patchwork as an excellent choice for the women of Newgate:
'Formerly, patchwork occupied much of the time of the women confined to Newgate, as it still does that of the female convicts on the voyage to New South Wales. It is an exceptional mode of employing the women, if no other work can be procured for them, and is useful as a means for teaching them the art of sewing.'
Fry draws a subtle distinction here between patchwork and other forms of needlework. While patchwork is useful as an instructional tool (something that the sampler excelled at), it is exceptional in employing and occupying the women. The creation of intricate patchwork required a heavy investment of time. With a lack of active employment, the experience of prison life for many in the early nineteenth century was reduced to the soul-destroying slippage of hours into days. Fry was keen to instil in the prisoner the transformative potential of this experience, turning simply 'doing time' into the positive experience of having the time in which to do something, and restoring a sense of control and independence to the inmate.
Integral to the success of Fry's scheme was attaching value to this time spent: the union of a creative agenda with financial remuneration for the 'industries' carried out by the female inmates. These plans were initially resisted:
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/newgate.html
Kitty Wilkinson
Kitty Wilkinson wash-house pioneer (1785-1860)
Kitty Wilkinson, pioneer of health reforms and saviour of hundreds of lives during the cholera outbreak of 1842,
I will be painting Kitty 1810 aged 25 years old with children in front of River Mersey. Many of the children during the cholera eptdemic lost their parents. It was Kitty who opened her house to them and set up a school in her home. As well as creating hygenic conditions with her washing of clothes and linen she looked after the many homeless children who had no place to go.
In this painting, I wanted to show Kitty in a symbolic way standing with children that she cared for in front of the River Mersey. I took the seascape by Frederick Calvert of the River Mersey as my background and then created my own version of how I imagined Kitty in 1810.
The seascape by Calvert was later but it provided me with an idea of Liverpool during the early eighteen hundreds. I particularly love the seascapes and many other paintings by Calvert.
Liverpool, Lancashire from the River Mersey and New Brighton, 1838, a painting by Frederick Calvert.
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Frederick-Calvert/Frederick-Calvert-oil-paintings.html
I looked up many of the costumes of the time and added these to the children as well as Kitty. In the background I have inserted a washing line with clothes of the time Kitty has washed and now hang out to dry.
I wanted to portray Kitty in her youth looking bright, positive and pretty. I wondered if a woman wants to be remembered. she would like to be remembered pretty and young.
Kitty first started helping the people in poverty stricken areas wash their clothes and linen in Dennison street where she lived. Here they used her copper boiler to wash their clothes and hang their washing on her lines. This action by her for the neighbours and poor was very important during the cholera epidemic and without this help from Kitty many of the children and people of the time would have perished. Much happened to Kitty before she became known for her first washouse in Dennison Street. She married twice and spent most of her youth in the cotton mills and working as a domestic as well as working in order to keep herself and her family out of the workhouse. She was in her early forties when she became known for opening up her house to those to wash their clothes and linen during the cholera epidemic but even before that she had already helped so many people.
Kitty was living during very unhygienic times. Water was not installed for everyone. Many had to share one cold water pump in the district. Sanitation was not yet established or a proper sewage system and the ability to become ill was forever hovering in Liverpool. Kitty worked hard to prevent herself and her family from going to the workhouse. She lived and paid rent to live in cellars and attics until her hard work finally paid off and she was able to pay rent on her own house. Kitty's life was a long and hard life. She came over from Derry with her mother in 1794. The ship ran into a terrible and tragic unexpected storm amd her father went missing in the wreck. As they were saved by lifeboats Kitty's baby sister was also tragically blown from her mother's arms in amongst the mayhem blizzard, leaving only her mother, Kitty and her little brother. They arrived alone in Liverpool with this terrible experience looming in their minds.
This tragic accident not surprisingly had a lifelong affect on her mother. Kitty had to find work and fend for herself. At the age of 10 she was sent to the Liverpool workhouse and then sent to the Low Mill cotton mill in Caton, Lancashire where she was contracted to work for eleven years in this harsh environemnt, coming out at 21 to face the new Liverpool world and city, to look after her mother and went on to do many more good and wonderful good deeds.
Later, Kitty's work was eventually extended to Frederick street where the first public washouse was set up.
Kitty's work is honoured by Liverpool. She died at the age of 73 in 1860 and is buried in St James cemetary.
Grace Darling(Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842) was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838.)
Grace was born in 1815 at Bamburgh in Northumberland
I wanted ro present her at age 23 in the early hours of 7 September 1838, rowing her coble boat through a stormy sea. The Longstone Lighthouse where she lived is in the distance. She has spotted the wreck and survivors of the ship, SS Forfarshire on Big Hacar, a nearby low rocky island.
Title of Painting: The Rescue
I wanted the painting to be a seascape, at the same time mystical. depicting Grace Darling (age 23 at the time) through the historical story, rowing through the stormy sea in their coble boat to rescue the stranded passengers on the Hacar Rock, 7 September 1838. Grace, looking from an upstairs window of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands, spotted the wreck and survivors of the ship, SS Forfarshire on Big Harcar, a nearby low rocky island. The Forfarshire had foundered on the rocks, broken in half and half had sunk during the night.
Although the painting depicts a factual story I wanted to make it more of a visionary image, one that was full of colour similar to a children's illustration. I have used the Japanese artist Hokusai as my inspiration for this painting, using flat shapes and simplicity to create the overall composition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai
The Forfarshire steamboat where the people had once been passengers sinks into the sea in the background.
The Forfarshire had been carrying 63 people. The vessel broke in two almost immediately upon hitting the rocks.
Longstone Lighthouse, where Grace and her father had lived and where she spotted the shipwreck is also in the distance.
Mrs Dawson, one of the stranded passengers on the rock sits there with her two children who tragically died in the shipwreck. She is holding them tenderly to her. The remainder people of the shipwreck stranded on the rock were eight sailors.
I wanted to show a dramatic but also a mystical painting that also focused on the stranded people.Grace kept the coble steady in the water while her father helped four men and the lone surviving woman, Mrs. Dawson, into the boat. Although she survived the sinking, Mrs Dawson had lost her two young children during the night.
The sea being stormy and the fact that Grace was able to rescue some of these people encouraged a spiritual element. I decided to include a fairy and a mermaid. The fairy being a comforting symbol of hope and the mermaid being a symbol of the sea and ancient maritime folklore.
Josephine Butler
A forgotten saint
Title of painting: Josephine Butler's visit to the Oakum rooms.
Josephine Elizabeth Butler (13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was a Victorian era British feminist who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes. She led the long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts from 1869 to 1886.
1868 campaign against contagious diseases act. Josephine would have been age 40
In my painting of Josephine, I wanted to capture the moment when she came face to face with the women of the oakum rooms. I wanted to create a painting portraying Josephine in profile in a dress of the time. The women around her I depicted as homeless and destitute but also people many women could identify with.
Josephine Butler was an incredible woman who in her time did something that was frowned upon and not normally done in a society that was very critical towards woman, believing that women had a specific duty to carry out in the way they conducted their lives. Josephien Butler was a social reformer in helping the prostitutes and so called 'fallen women' of Victorian times.
In the 19th century femininity was idealised in the image of the domestic "angel". Prostitutes and unmarried mothers were seen as sexually immoral and condemned as "fallen women". This powerful imagery of "good" and "bad", combined with a sexual double standard, acted as a constraint on women's freedom and sexual behaviour which men did not have.
The cases show the lack of justice given to "fallen women". Poor women who were prostitutes and brothel keepers or who had illegitimate children were targeted by the police force and dealt with severely. They received harsher sentences than normal and unmarried mothers underwent a degrading courtroom ordeal which often resulted in the loss of their maintenance cases.
To get around the fact that prostitution was not a legal offence, suspects were brought before the courts on a variety of charges such as being drunk and disorderly, fighting, and shouting obscenities. Any woman found loitering on the streets at night, who dressed in a certain way, was seen out with different men or who frequented public houses alone was suspected of being a prostitute.
Crimes connected with prostitution were one of the largest categories of female offence and the stigma of being a "fallen woman" meant harsher sentencing by the magistrates.
Victorian women are second-class citizens. They have fewer legal rights than men, and almost no political rights – in particular, they're not allowed to vote. By law, a married woman is the property of her husband, and her possessions – even her children – belong to him.
Josephine Butler opened up a house of rest for the sick and unwell women of Liverpool and she then went on to open a house and gardens, an industrial home for the healthy and active bare footed sand girls and other friendless waifs and strays. Josephine Butler set up what could be described as the first women's refuge for homeless and destitute women. There were times when she even invited them into her house to stay. She was a compassionate woman with an intellect and a heart of gold who sacrifced her reputation and status to help these women. She befirended these women and became dedicated to the cause of helping their suffering after vsiiting the oakum sheds of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. In 1865 Josephine Butler and her husband moved to Liverpool. Soon afterwards she began visiting the local workhouse.
On the ground floor a Bridewell for women, consisting of huge cellars, bare and unfurnished, with damp stone floors. These were called the "oakum sheds" where they came, driven by hunger, destitution or vice, begging for a few nights’ shelter and a piece of bread, in return for which they picked their allotted portion of oakum…. I went down to the oakum sheds and begged admission. I was taken into an immense gloomy vault filled with women and girls – more than two hundred at that time. I sat on the floor among them and picked oakum… Many of them… earned a scanty living by selling sand in the streets (for cleaning floors).
Oakum-picking involved teasing out the fibres from old hemp ropes — the resulting material was sold to the navy or other ship-builders — it was mixed with tar and used to seal the lining of wooden ships.
Employed beneath this open shed, huddling and crowding together, were about a hundred individuals picking oak-urn.. ."
1860s fashion
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?glossary/glossary.shtml
http://www.archive.org/stream/personalreminisc00butliala/personalreminisc00butliala_djvu.txt
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=167558§ioncode=6
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem "Remember", and for the words of what became the popular Christmas carol "In the Bleak Midwinter".
Christina Rossetti was born on the 5th December 1830 in London
Painting showing her at 20 years of age in the painting of the annunciation.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/art1.html
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/chris.html
http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/ENG_463_Christina_Rossetti
Title of painting
Ecce Ancilla Domini: The Annunciation
I wanted to make this a religious painting, pointing towards the pre-raphaelite subject matter of the circle of friends that Christina was involved with particularly her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti who painted her in The Annunciation in 1849. Dante Gabriel Rossetti rejected the tradition of representing the Virgin passively receiving the news. Instead he wanted the picture to have a supernatural realism, so I decided to try and capture this idea in my own style, presenting Christina as the Virgin Mary wearing Victorian clothes of the time. I have shown Christina holding the lily, a symbol of feminine purity and a copy of the bible.
Christina modeled for several of her brother Dante's most famous works. In 1848 she was the model for the Virgin Mary in his first completed oil painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, which was also the first to be inscribed with the initials "PRB", later to be revealed as standing for "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood".[1] The following year she repeated that role in his depiction of the Annuciation, Ecce Ancilla Domini.
Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunciation)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
1850
Oil on canvas
Agnes Jones: Angel of Mercy
Title of Painting. Agnes; Past to Future
(Agnes Elizabeth Jones (1832 – 1868) of Fahan, County Donegal, Ireland became the first trained Nursing Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. She gave all her time and energy to her patients and died at the age of 35 from typhus fever. Florence Nightingale said of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, ‘She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England.’)
Agnes Jones said of her work in the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, “I sometimes wonder if there is a worse place on Earth but I never regret coming, and I never wish to give it up'
I decided to create a painting of Agnes 1865 aged 33.
In this painting I wanted to show the contrast of past and future in the life of Agnes Jones.
The story of her life surprised me and I found myself creating a symbolic painting inspired by South American folklore painting. My inspiration for this painting came from the artist Frida Kahlo. I wanted to create a folk art narrative to describe the life of Agnes Jones.
The painting, Self Portrait on the Borderline by Kahlo was my inspiration which shows a woman caught between two cultural landscapes, between her past and future.
http://www.fridakahlo.com/ Agnes came from a privilaged background and gave all of this up to become a nurse. She bagan by helping the people of her home country, victims of the Irish potato famine, later eventually working in the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary on Brownlow Hill (where the catholic Cathedral is situated today) It was here that she helped the poor and the sick who lived in wretched conditions.
The painting shows Agnes in her past, dressed in the affluent costume of the time. I have used the potato plant as a symbol of her past and her cause and strength, that of helping those in need. In 1859 she went to London, making contact with Florence Nightingale and Mrs Wardroper, senior nurse of St Thomas Hospital. Miss Nightingale said of her that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius" Agnes would have been 27 years old.
It was then,she decided to become a nurse where she trained at St Thomas hospital in London. Her nurse's dress is suspended in the middle of the painting. The left side of the painting shows the affluence and places that were part of her past such as Mauritius, Ireland. I have shown the beaches of Mauritius and the Liverpool Liverbird divides the painting into two sections.
On the right at the top of the painting, I have painted the old Liverpool workhouse infirmarty which was situated there on Brownlow hill before the Catholic Cathedral.
At the top of the painting I have painted an angel and a portrait of Florence Nightingale. Agnes was very devout and so religion and nursing were great influences. I put these two portraits above. On the right I have also depicted the interior of the Liverpool workhouse and the poverty.
I wanted these two contrasts of colour and affluence from her past to stand out against the future poverty and deprivation she dedicated her life to.
Agnes was commemorated in a statue, The Angel of Mercy, now situated in the Oratory building outside the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool.
Further notes on the Noble Women.
I am fascinated to read about the Victorian pioneer, Josephine Butler,who took up the cause of poor women in very difficult circumstances. Josephine was actively involved in a number of campaigns some in terms of education and the protection of married women's property and earnings but never the less she stepped aside from these movements in order to defend the seemingly indefensible, to identify herself with, and speak for women who were at the time regarded as "the sewers of society ". She regarded prostitutes of the time as being exploited victims of male oppression, and she attacked the double standard of sexual morality. So when a national campaign was begun in 1869 to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, she was an obvious woman to lead it.
In 1869 Josephine Butler began her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. These acts had been introduced in the 1860s in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces. Butler objected in principal to laws that only applied to women. Under the terms of these acts, the police could arrest women they believed were prostitutes and could then insist that they had a medical examination. Butler had considerable sympathy for the plight of prostitutes who she believed had been forced into this work by low earnings and unemployment. Butler's description of this at a public meeting - she had been known to refer to the procedure as "surgical rape" - caused Hugh Price Hughes, Superintendent of the West London Mission, who was thanking her formally on the platform, to leave the stage in tears[8] — something most unusual in those days and commented upon widely at the time.
Josephine Butler toured the country making speeches criticizing the Contagious Diseases Acts. Butler, who was an outstanding orator, attracted large audiences to hear her explain why these laws needed to be repealed. Many people were shocked by the idea of a woman speaking in public about sexual matters. George Butler, who was now principal of Liverpool College, was severely criticised for allowing his wife to become involved in this campaign. Butler continued to support his wife in her work despite the warnings that it would damage his academic career.
Josephine Butler dedicated her life to reforming and campaigning for the rights of prostitutes as well as campaigning for the rights of education for women.
Josephine Butler
Further information
Josephine Butler Memorial Trust
Josephine Butler Collection
Wikipedia
Josephine Butler was responsible for The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (NARCA) was an association set up in the United Kingdom to lobby against certain laws that were set up giving the police what were seen as overly severe and unfair powers over women.
Before this Repeal, The Acts meant that any woman who lived in, worked in, or passed through poor areas were subject to arrest and compulsory medical examination on the suspicion of being a prostitute. The Acts were often abused and labeled a misuse of police power: a number of women detained were not prostitutes but were compelled to undergo medical examination by police doctors.
1 Jan 1870: NARCA published in the Daily News a protest against the Acts, known as the Ladies' Protest. Notable signatories among 124 women were Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler, Mary Carpenter, Lydia Becker and Harriet Martineau. The treasurer was Ursula Mellor Bright.
1886: With the repeal of the The CD Acts, NARCA focused on demanding equal moral standards between the sexes and became the Ladies National Association for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice and for the Promotion of Social Purity.
There was a tragedy in Josephine Butler's life. Her beloved young daughter Eva died from a fall on the stairs when she was six years old. Josephine obviously never fully recovered from this but this tragic incident gave her strength in other ways.
9th January
I've begun reading a book about Josephine Butler. She came from a free thinking family. Her mother and father were ahead of their time. Her father was a campaigner for the anti slavery movement and fought for the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. Josephone's mother tried her best to educate her children and helped Josephine with the piano to the point where Josephine became a professional pianist. It is fascinating to read about them. She was brought up in Northumberland.
Note: Josephine Butler House
"The yellow-sandstone, 19th century property named after Victorian social reformer, Josephine Butler, will be refurbished as part of a major mixed-use development scheme."
http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2009/03/the-saga-of-josephine-butler-h.html
Liverpool regeneration expert Hilary Burrage (who took this picture) summarises the case on her blog, which also includes a very good history of the site.
To say this issue has been controversial is putting it lightly. The main question that now remains is whether Liverpool City Council will grant permission for Maghull to expand the existing car park.
What will the council do?
Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside MP, wants the council to force Maghull to reinstate the façade of the building and refuse the company permission for the car park extension.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=STdyZ-
http://www.liverpoolheritageforum.org.uk/famous.php?id=115
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/sep/21/art1
D2ZhEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false
University of Liverpool: Josephine Butler Collection.
Whisc: Women’s health information and support.
Liverpool Women’s Health Centre.
John Moores University: "Josephine Butler House"..
Josephine Butler Memorial Trust: Registered Charity.
Liverpool History Society
Victorian Society
Liverpool Heritage forum
Kitty Wilkinson. 1832 Cholera epidemic.
A. Kitty Wilkinson draws attention to ideas concerning health and hygiene during the cholera epidemic. This highlights many present hygiene issues for instance the spreading of MRSA in hospitals and swine flue.
B. Work on Elizabeth Fry draws attention to prisons, conditions and making treatment of prisoners more humane. She helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. She also helped the homeless This reflects on our present society, issues concerning prison overcrowding as well as its negative impact on inmates.
C. Christina Rossetti brings response to caring for animals and creative writing.
Christina Rossetti’s love of animals corresponds to the Great Vivisection debate.
Christina was very much opposed to animal vivisection.
D. Josephine Butler the social reform and rights of prostitutes as well as education for women. Josephine Butler repealed the CDA taking away the privacy and women’s rights.
E. Agnes Elizabeth Jones: Lady Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary 1861-1868. Welfare of the sick. The infirmaries of Victorian workhouses where humane, professional care of the sick was provided, pioneered by Agnes Jones in Liverpool and widely imitated, gradually developed into the free hospitals from which the modern National Health Service was created.
F. Grace Darling: Maritime heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838. Drawing attention to charities who work to save lives at sea such as the RNLI
Kitty Wilkinson
Wash-house pioneer (1785-1860)
The first 'Wash House.' Instigated By Kitty Wilkinson and her husband, opened in May 1842, in Upper Fredrick Street, Liverpool. The one above is a washhouse in Albert Street. After the epidemic there were many orphans in the area and Kitty took them in every morning teaching them their bible and hymns. Tom died in 1848. Kitty died twelve years later at the age of 73. and was buried in St James Cemetery, Liverpool, the grounds of which are now part of the Anglican Cathedral. The funeral was attended by many dignitaries and the many ordinary people of Liverpool who had been touched by a truly great lady.
When her mother died Kitty moved back to Liverpool where she married Tom Wilkinson a man she had met when she had worked in Caton. It was during the cholera epidemics of 1832-40 that Kitty rose to national prominence. The only boiler in Denison Street, where Kitty resided was in her scullery. Kitty offered it to the people of the area to wash any infected clothes or bed-linen, So many people took up the offer that Kitty had to fit the cellar out as a wash-house, and so the seed of the idea of a public wash-house was planted.
Mrs. Seward and her two surviving children arrived in the strange port of Liverpool and had the daunting task of providing for them without the support of her drowned husband. The family settled in Denison Street in the north end of the town, where Mrs. Seaward and Kitty found work as domestics. Their employer, Mrs. Lightbody, saw their potential and gave Mrs. Seward the task of teaching the other servants to spin and to make lace. Mrs. Lightbody, who was aged and infirm, found happiness in relieving the sufferings and supplying the needs of the poor. Kitty was greatly influenced by her employer and assisted her in her charity work. Kitty is quoted as saying that Mrs Lightbody, “became like a mother to me”. In turn, Mrs. Lightbody relied on Kitty because of her blindness and became very fond of her.
Work in the cotton mill
At the age of 11, life changed dramatically for Kitty and her brother. Mrs. Seward was suffering great ill-health and was unable to work or look after the children. As a result they were sent to what was considered a healthier environment, the cotton mill at Caton, Lancashire. It was here in Lancashire that Kitty met her future husband, Tom Wilkinson.
Like other children, Kitty had to sign an “indenture” which bound them to live at the Apprentice House and to spend the next ten years working in the cotton mill. After she had turned twenty she learned that her mother had returned to Liverpool from Ireland. Mrs. Seaward’s health had not improved over the years of separation from her children and so Kitty left the security of village life to look after her mother.
Return to Liverpool
Kitty and her mother found accommodation in Frederick Street in the south of Liverpool and both found domestic work. At the age of 25 Kitty opened a school so that she could have her ill mother with her during the day. Anything from between ten and ninety children attended, paying 3d per week. They were taught reading, writing and sewing. Kitty’s mother made lace and Kitty sold this in the evenings. However, Mrs. Seward’s mental health problems worsened and because of her violent behaviour Kitty had to close the school.
In 1812, Kitty married a French sailor by the name of Emanuel Demontee, and they had two sons together. However, whilst away at sea, Demontee was drowned, before the birth of his second child. As a widower, mother and carer of her own sick mother, Kitty managed to find domestic work. She was able to earn enough money to keep herself and her family out of the dreaded workhouse, as well as refusing to send her sick mother to an asylum.
Kitty found domestic work with the middle-class Braik family of Pit Street, Liverpool. Kitty soon began assisting Mrs Braik with her charity work, and when Mrs Braik died, she left instructions with her husband to look after Kitty. Mr Braik provided Kitty with her own mangle, which kept her in laundering work and made her more useful to prospective domestic employers. With the money she now earned, Kitty could afford to rent a small house in Denison Street. Here, she continued her pattern of helping out unfortunate people in her neighbourhood, taking in orphans and young widowed families, and sending the children to be educated at the Bluecoat School whenever she could afford to.
In 1823, Kitty married again, this time to Tom Wilkinson, a porter at the Rathbone’s mill in Lancashire whom she knew from her days at Caton. Tom was also keen to help the unfortunates of the neighbourhood, and was happy for their Denison Street house to be thrown open to the poor and orphaned.
The 1832 cholera epidemic
By the 1830s commerce in Liverpool was thriving, and hundreds of working-class people arrived in the city each week, looking for work. As they did so, the wealthier middle-classes, mainly merchants, moved away from the city centre, and as such living conditions deteriorated. Two elements of this deterioration – the lack of clean, running water, and the poor ventilation of air in working-class districts – allowed the cholera epidemic that was sweeping Europe to wreak its havoc in Liverpool, arriving in the spring of 1832. In a population of around 230,000, cholera would claim over 1,500 lives in Liverpool.
Kitty and Tom Wilkinson were in the fortunate position of having the only hot water boiler in their street, and so they invited their neighbours down to their cellar to wash their clothes and bed-linen, hoping to offer some measure of protection against the cholera. The Wilkinsons were aided in their work by the Liverpool District Provident Society and the benevolence of the Rathbone family, each contributing towards the provision of clean clothes and fresh bedding materials.
The Wilkinson’s wash-room became so popular that it was moved upstairs to the kitchen, with a rudimentary drying area established in the back yard. Kitty and Tom asked the neighbours who used their facilities to contribute one penny per family, per week to help towards water and new bedding costs.
At the same time, Kitty and a neighbour by the name of Mrs Lloyd established a rudimentary infant school, in Kitty and Tom’s bedroom. Local young orphans would be taught simple hymns and stories, continuing Kitty’s desire to see working-class children educated as best as possible.
By the mid-nineteenth century, public wash-houses were being established all over Liverpool, and in 1846 the authorities chose to recognise the pioneering work done by Kitty and Tom Wilkinson. They were offered the positions of Superintendents of the Frederick Street public baths and wash-house, which they accepted. In 1846, aged 60, Kitty was presented to Queen Victoria as she visited Liverpool, in recognition of her services to the city.
Kitty Wilkinson died in 1860, aged 73, and she is permanently commemorated in a stained glass window in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which honours the noble women of Liverpool.
http://www.stjamescemetery.co.uk/kitty.htm
http://www.scottiepress.org/projects/kittyw.htm
http://scriptorsenex.blogspot.com/2009/04/kitty-wilkinson.html
http://liverpoolauthors.tbpcontrol.co.uk/tbp.direct/customeraccesscontrol/home.aspx?d=liverpoolauthors&s=C&r=10000405&ui=0&bc=0
When Kitty was 25 years of age in 1810 she opened a school so that she could have her ill mother with her during the day. Anything from between ten and ninety children attended, paying 3d per week. They were taught reading, writing and sewing. Kitty’s mother made lace and Kitty sold this in the evenings. However, Mrs. Seward’s mental health problems worsened and because of her violent behaviour Kitty had to close the school.
Fashion of 1810
Elizabeth Fry
The Angel of Newgate Prison
At age of 43, meeting female prisoners at Newgate prison.
Once again at a key moment in her life a visiting Quaker minister from America plays an important role. In 1813, Stephen Grellet came to ask for her help. He had visited some prisons, and was horrified by the conditions in the women's prison at Newgate. Hundreds of women and their children were crowded into the prison, many sleeping on the floor without nightclothes or bedding. Elizabeth immediately sent out for warm material and enlisted other women Friends to help make clothing for the infants.
The next day, Elizabeth and her sister-in-law went to Newgate prison. The turnkeys warned them that the women were wild and savage, and they would be in physical danger. However, they went in anyway. On that and two more visits, they brought warm clothing and clean straw for the sick to lie on. Elizabeth also prayed for the prisoners.
After these initial visits, family difficulties, including the death of a daughter, kept her away from the prison for years. But during the Christmas season of 1816, she returned and began a ministry that lasted many years. She asked the women what she could do for their children, and together they agreed on the need for a school.
In 1817, Elizabeth organized a group of women into the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This group organized a school, and provided materials so the prisoners could sew, knit and make goods for sale. They took turns visiting the prison and reading the Bible to the prisoners.
Spreading Influence and Hardships
Elizabeth's work soon extended well beyond Newgate prison. In 1818, a committee of the House of Commons asked her to testify on prison conditions, the first woman to be called as such a witness. Societies like the Newgate Association sprung up at other prisons in Britain and Europe.
Her concerns went beyond the prisons. She also set up District Visiting Societies to help the poor, libraries for coast guards, and a nurses' training school. She influenced Florence Nightingale's nurse training program, and nurses trained by Fry's school accompanied Nightingale to the Crimea.
In 1827, Fry published a book called Observations, on the visiting superintendence and government of female prisoners. In that book, she not only laid out the need for prison reform, but raised broader concerns. She called for more opportunites for women and strongly condemned the death penalty.
Fry was so well known and respected that her work received support from Queen Victoria, and the king of Prussia visited her. But this did not save her from humiliation when her husband's bank crashed in 1828. Not only did this plunge the family into poverty, but their Quaker meeting disowned (removed from membership) her husband because he had put other people's money at risk.
Fry's brother Joseph John Gurney stepped in and took over her husband's business arrangement, arranging for his debts to be paid. He also arranged an annual stipend for Elizabeth, enabling her to continue her work. Fry continued her work until her death in 1845. More than a thousand people stood in silence as she was laid to rest in a Quaker burial ground.
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.
Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by the reigning monarch. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note.
Elizabeth Gurney was born in Gurney Court, off Magdalen Street, Norwich, Norfolk, England to a Quaker family. Her family home as a child was Earlham Hall, which is now part of the University of East Anglia.[1] Her father, John Gurney, was a partner in Gurney's bank. Her mother, Catherine, was a part of the Barclay family, who were among the founders of Barclays Bank. Her mother died when Elizabeth was only twelve years old. As one of the oldest girls in the family, Elizabeth was partly responsible for the care and training of the younger children, including her brother Joseph John Gurney.
At the age of 18, young Elizabeth was deeply moved by the preaching of William Savery, an American Quaker. Motivated by his words, she took an interest in the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday school in the summer house to teach children to read.
She met Joseph Fry (1777 – 1861), a banker and also a Quaker, when she was twenty years old. They married on 19 August 1800 at the Norwich Goat Lane Friends Meeting House and moved to St Mildred's Court in the City of London. They had eleven children in all[2] born between 1801 and 1822, including Katherine Fry (1801-1886), who wrote a History of the Parishes of East and West Ham (1888). Elizabeth Fry was recorded as a Minister of the Religious Society of Friends in 1811.
Joseph and Elizabeth Fry lived in Plashet House in East Ham between 1809 and 1829, then moved to Upton Lane in Forest Gate. One of their daughters, called Betsy, died at the age of five.
Prompted by a family friend, Stephen Grellet, Fry visited Newgate prison. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. They did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept.
She returned the following day with food and clothes for some of the prisoners. She was unable to further her work for nearly 4 years because of difficulties within the Fry family, including financial difficulties in the Fry bank. Fry returned in 1816 and was eventually able to found a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents. She began a system of supervision and required the women to sew and to read the Bible. In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain.
Thomas Fowell Buxton, Fry's brother-in-law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MPs. In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.
Fry and her brother, Joseph John Gurney, took up the cause of abolishing capital punishment. At that time, people in England could be executed for over 200 crimes. Early appeals to the Home Secretary were all rejected, until Sir Robert Peel became the Home Secretary, when they finally got a receptive audience. They persuaded Peel to introduce a series of prison reforms that included the Gaols Act 1823. Fry and Gurney went on a tour of the prisons in Great Britain. They published their findings of inhumane conditions in a book entitled Prisons in Scotland and the North of England.
Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society. The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them. The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain.
After her husband went bankrupt in 1828, Fry's brother became her business manager and benefactor. Thanks to him her work went on and expanded.
In 1840 Fry opened a training school for nurses. Her programme inspired Florence Nightingale, who took a team of Fry's nurses to assist wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.
Fry became well known in society. Some people criticized her for having such an influential role as a woman. Others alleged that she was neglecting her duties as a wife and mother in order to conduct her humanitarian work. One admirer was Queen Victoria, who granted her an audience a few times and contributed money to her cause.
Following her death in 1845, a meeting chaired by the Lord Mayor of London, resolved that it would be fitting "to found an asylum to perpetuate the memory of Mrs Fry and further the benevolent objects to which her life had been devoted." * A fine 18th century town house was purchased at 195 Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney and the first Elizabeth Fry refuge opened its doors in 1849. Funding came via subscriptions from various city companies and private individuals, supplemented by income from the inmates laundry and needlework. Such training was an important part of the refuge's work. In 1924, the refuge merged with the Manor House Refuge for the Destitute, in Dalston in Hackney, becoming a hostel for girls on probation for minor offences. The hostel soon moved to larger premises in Highbury, Islington and then, in 1958, to Reading, where it remains today. The original building in Hackney became the CIU New Lansdowne Club but became vacant in 2000 and has fallen into disrepair. Hackney Council, in 2009, is leading efforts to restore the building and bring it back into use. The building, and Elizabeth Fry are commemorated by a plaque at the entrance gateway.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REfry.htm
It is not possible to determine when Newgate first became a prison or when exactly the new gatehouse itself was originally built. Newgate was to be London's 5th gate into the city. There are reliable records going back to 1218 of it being used to house criminals. It was finally demolished in 1904 having been rebuilt at least twice along the way.
A new prison at Newgate was begun in 1770 and proceeded slowly. Before it could be finished, the building was badly damaged by fire during the Gordon riots of 1780 and it was not finally completed until 1785. This building was then used in that form until 1856 when it was remodelled internally to reflect the new perceptions of what a prison should be like. London's Millbank and Pentonville prisons had been designed to be the first modern prison and to practice the new "penitentiary system." This rebuild was very short lived as the building was very badly damaged, again by fire in 1877, and had to be largely rebuilt. With the passing of the Prisons Act of that year, Newgate ceased to be an ordinary prison and was used only for those awaiting trial and prisoners sentenced to death awaiting execution. Newgate had the great advantage, from the authorities' point of view at least, of being next door to the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) which was the trial venue for all of London's most serious criminals. It saved the cost and security risk of transporting prisoners by horse drawn van from other prisons for their trial. The Central Criminal Court Act of 1856 permitted prisoners from anywhere in the country accused of a very serious offence to be tried at the Old Bailey. The Act was passed to allow for poisoner, William Palmer (from Rugeley in Staffordshire), to get a fair trial free from local prejudice. The advent of an efficient railway system had made it possible to transport prisoners over considerable distances. Palmer was returned to Stafford prison for his execution. Similarly, Maria and Frederick Manning and Kate Webster were kept at Newgate during their trials and then returned to the county prisons for execution.
Newgate closed for good in late May 1902 so that the new Central Criminal Court which opened in 1907 (always known as the Old Bailey) could be built on the site. Here is a picture of Newgate just before demolition. The Debtor's door through which the condemned prisoners exited in the days of public hangings and the site of the gallows at that time are marked.
Up to 1877, in its several incarnations, Newgate was the principal prison for London and Middlesex and housed all manner of prisoners of both sexes, including those remanded in custody and prisoners awaiting transportation or execution and those imprisoned for debt.
When Newgate closed, its male prisoners and indeed its gallows were transferred to Pentonville while the female prisoners were moved to Holloway prison, which had been recently renovated and turned into London's only women's prison.
Conditions in Newgate in the early part of the 19th century were appalling and led to great efforts by early prison reformers such as John Howard and Elizabeth Fry to improve things. Elizabeth Fry was deeply shocked by the conditions that women were detained under, in the Female Quarter as the women's area was known, when she visited the prison in 1816. She found the place crowded with half naked women and their children. The women were typically waiting for transfer to the prison ships that would take them to the Colonies. Women were brought to Newgate from county prisons in the south of England to await transportation and kept there for weeks or months until a ship was available. Many of the ordinary women prisoners were drunk, due to the availability of cheap gin, and some were clearly deranged. They were kept in leg irons if they could not afford to pay the Keeper of Newgate for "easement." Fry formed an "Association for the improvement of the female prisoners in Newgate" and as part of that set up, a school within the prison for the younger children in 1817. The following year, she gave evidence to Parliamentary Committee on her findings. She was able to get a proper Matron appointed to look after the women in 1817 and conditions slowly improved. Prisoners under sentence of death were kept shackled and apart from other prisoners and in the case of murderers, fed on bread and water for the final 2-3 days of their miserable lives before meeting the hangman. Their only permitted visitors were prison staff and the Ordinary (prison chaplain). Conditions improved after 1834, condemned prisoners spending around 3 weeks awaiting execution after the law was changed to allow 3 clear Sundays to pass before they were hanged. They were no longer kept in irons and were given better food than the ordinary prisoners. They were also permitted visits by their families and friends.
As London was the crime capital of England, so it was that Newgate was the execution capital and between 1783 and 1902, a total of 1,169 people were put to death there or nearby (12 or 13 hangings being carried out at other locations prior to 1834). The total comprised 1,120 men and 49 women. The "Bloody Code" as it was known remained largely in force up to 1834. Over 200 felonies were punishable by death in 1800, although in practice people were only executed for about 20 of them. See analysis below. Those convicted of the more minor ones, although sentenced to death, typically had their punishment reduced to transportation. The concept of imprisonment as a punishment only really came in after 1840. Transportation ended around 1888.
Public executions were carried outside Newgate in the lane known as the Old Bailey from the 9th of December 1783 (following the ending of hangings at Tyburn). It is unclear where the gallows was erected before 1809 - contemporary reports talking of “outside Newgate” and “Old Bailey.” After 1809, almost all hangings took place on the portable gallows in front of the Debtors’ Door and continued here up to the 25th of May 1868, when Michael Barrett became the last to hang for the Clerkenwell bomb outrage that killed 7 people. Here is a photographic reconstruction of a typical group hanging.
During this time, 3 women were burned at the stake in the Old Bailey, for the crime of coining which was deemed to be high treason. They were Phoebe Harris, Margaret Sullivan and Catherine Murphy. In all 3 cases, they were first hanged until they were dead and then their bodies burnt. Similarly, the Cato Street conspirators who had also been convicted of high treason were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered there (the male punishment for high treason), but in fact were hanged and then beheaded (see later). There were to be 544 public hangings, including those of 25 women, between January 1800 and May 1868. These drew huge crowds, especially if one of the prisoners was notorious. From 1752 to 1809, the bodies of those executed for murder were taken to Surgeon's Hall in the Old Bailey where they were publicly anatomised. From then to 1834, the bodies could be returned to relatives for a fee. There were only two confirmed executions at Newgate in the years 1834-1836, those of John Smith and James Pratt, who were hanged for buggery on the 27th of November 1835. After 1836, only murderers were to be hanged at Newgate and their bodies were buried in unmarked graves within the walls. One hundred men and 8 women were to suffer for this crime between 1837 and 1902. Of this total, 58 men and 5 women suffered in private between the 8th of September 1868 and the 6th of May 1902 when George Wolfe became the last person to be executed here. There were 4 double hangings, a treble and a quadruple hanging during this period.
Executions and executioners at Newgate.
From around 1771 to September 1786, when he died, Edward Dennis was the official executioner and carried out 201 hangings and the 3 burnings at Newgate. He had previously officiated at Tyburn from 1771. On Tuesday, the 9th of December 1783, he and William Brunskill hanged 9 men and one woman (Francis Warren) side by side on the "New Drop" at Newgate’s first execution (see picture). Note that they all have white nightcaps drawn over their heads.
Sessions, as trials at the Old Bailey were known at that time, were held 8 times a year by then and it was normal to sentence those found guilty of crimes other than murder in groups at the end of the trial day. Murderers were sentenced at the end of their individual trials. Those sentenced to death for felony and not “respited” (commuted to transportation) were also hanged in groups - men and women together. Multiple executions were the norm at this time and took place normally around 6 weeks after the Sessions finished and the Recorder of the Old Bailey had prepared and presented his report indicating which prisoners were recommended for reprieve and which were to be executed. From July 1752 onwards, murderers had to be hanged within two days of their sentence, unless this would have been a Sunday, which meant that they were typically hanged on a Monday and often separately from ordinary felons, this day continuing to be used at Newgate for murderers up to 1880. Ordinary criminals could be hanged on any day of the week, Wednesdays being the most common one. Prisoners were led from the "Condemned hold" into the Press yard where their leg irons were removed and their wrists and arms tied. They were attended by the Ordinary and when they had all been prepared, were led across the yard to the Lodge and out through the Debtor's Door and up a short flight of steps onto the gallows.
Dennis hanged 95 men and one woman (Elizabeth Taylor for burglary) between February and December of 1785 at Newgate, with 20 men being hanged on one day alone (Wednesday, the 2nd of February). Dennis was often assisted at these marathons by the man who was to become his successor, William Brunskill, who went on to hang an amazing 537 people outside Newgate as principal hangman. He also executed a further 68 at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in the County of Surrey between 1800 (when it opened) and 1814.
John Langley took over from him in 1814 and hanged 37 men and 3 women in his 3 years in office, including Eliza Fenning. Click here for her story. He died in April 1817 and was succeeded by James Botting who was known as Jemmy. Botting hanged 25 men and two women during his two year tenure, during which in 1818, shoplifting was removed from the list of capital crimes at the instigation of Sir Samuel Romilly.
The gallows used by Dennis, Brunskill and Botting had two parallel beams from which a maximum of a dozen criminals could be hanged at once. (see picture) The platform was 10 feet long by 8 feet wide and was released by moving the lever or "pin" acting on a drawbar under the drop. The condemned were given a drop of between one and two feet so death was hardly ever "instantaneous." Occasionally, the mechanism failed and a simple beam and cart was used to get the prisoners suspended, as had been done at Tyburn. This method was used for the execution of Ann Hurle and Methuselah Spalding in February 1804.
In July 1819, James Foxen assumed the position having previously assisted Botting, and hanged 206 men and 6 women over the next 11 years. The 5 Cato Street conspirators became the last to suffer hanging and beheading on Monday, May 1st, 1820, for conspiring to murder several members of the Cabinet. Foxen was assisted by Thomas Cheshire for this high profile execution and an unnamed and secret person who actually cut off the traitor's heads. (see picture). In view of their crime, their bodies were the property of the Crown and were buried within Newgate.
Thomas Cheshire, or Old Cheese as he was known, officiated as principal at a quadruple hanging on the 24th of March 1829 of 3 highway robbers and one man convicted of stealing in a dwelling house. The gallows was now modified, from then on, having only one beam with capacity for 6 persons. (see picture)
William Calcraft took over from April 1829, his first job being the hanging of the hated child murderer, Ester Hibner, on the 13th of that month. Prior to taking up the position, he had sold pies at hangings and had got to know Foxen and Cheshire. Calcraft was to go on to hang a total of 86 people, including 6 women at Newgate, before he was retired in 1872. One of his most famous cases was Francis Courvoisier, who had murdered his master, Lord William Russell. Another was Britain's first railway murderer, Franz Muller, who he publicly hanged on the 14th of November 1864 for killing Mr. Thomas Briggs. Calcraft carried out both the last public hanging at Newgate (Michael Barrett) and the first private one 4 months later, that of Alexander Mackay on the 8th of September 1868. Mackay was 18 years old and had been convicted of the murder of Emma Goldsmith, his employer. The gallows had been erected in an enclosed yard near the Chapel, and the execution was attended by representatives of the Press. A little before 9.00 a.m., Mackay was led into the yard supported by the Chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Jones, and ascended a few steps onto the platform where he joined in with Mr. Jones' prayers. Calcraft pulled the lever and Mackay dropped a few inches and took several minutes to become still, according to contemporary reports. The black flag was raised over the prison after the trap had opened. His body was left hanging for an hour before being taken down and prepared for the formal inquest, which took place that afternoon. Mackay was then buried within the prison in an unmarked grave.
Like his predecessors, Calcraft was also responsible for carrying out floggings at Newgate and was paid a salary with additional monies for hangings and floggings. With the advent of a comprehensive railway network, he was able to work over most of the country in his later years and became Britain's principal hangman. During Calcraft's time, the number of executions fell dramatically (see below). Proper condemned cells had been constructed in Newgate during the early 1830's, created by knocking two ordinary cells into one (see picture) thus ending the use of the appalling "Condemned Hold" which was little more than a dark, feted dungeon. From 1848, condemned prisoners were guarded round the clock by two or three warders to prevent suicide. They took their exercise in a covered walkway known as Birdcage Walk or Dead Man's Walk, their cell being at the far end of this (the doorway visible in the photo).
William Marwood was Britain's next No. 1 hangman and officiated at 17 executions, including that of 45 year old Francis Stewart, for killing her grandson. Assisted by George Incher, he hanged the 4 Lennie Mutineers for murder and mutiny on the 23rd of May 1876 in Newgate's only quadruple private execution. This hanging was widely reported in the press. In 1881, a purpose built execution shed pictured here, containing a new gallows, was erected in one of the yards. This facility remained in use until closure in 1902, being then moved to Pentonville prison and first used there for the execution of John MacDonald on the 30th of September 1902. My friend, Aaron Bougourd, has kindly lent me this rare picture of the gallows and interior of the execution shed, one of the very few photos of a British gallows. This picture is copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without permission. You can see the metal bracket and chain hanging from the centre of the beam. Up to 4 brackets could be set up for multiple hangings. The lever is behind the right hand upright and there are pulleys for raising the trapdoors on each upright. A ladder is in the foreground leaning against the wall.
Bartholomew Bins carried out one hanging after Marwood, that of Patrick O'Donnell, before handing it over to James Berry who performed 12 executions here between 1884 and 1890. Berry was to hang Mary Eleanor Wheeler in 1890. Click here for her story.
He was replaced by James Billington who hanged 24 men and 3 women up to 1901, including Louisa Masset, the first person to be executed in Britain in the 20th century. Click here for her story. He also executed the infamous baby farmer, Amelia Dyer who at 57, became the oldest woman to be hanged in modern times. Click here for more on baby farmers. Another of his famous customers was Thomas Neill Cream who, in December 1892, standing hooded and noosed on the trap said, "I am Jack the.... " just as the drop fell. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that he was Jack the Ripper. Billington carried out the last triple execution at Newgate when he hanged Henry Fowler, Albert Milsom and William Seaman (for two different murders) on the 9th of June 1896.
The last hanging at Newgate was carried out by Billington's son, William, on the 6th of May 1902. The prisoner was 21 year old George Wolfe, who had beaten and stabbed his girlfriend, Charlotte Cheeseman, to death
Interesting to note that alot of the original buildings that were originally set up for the benefit of people who needed help have been allowed to fall into ruin and disrepair.
I will have to go and visit these locations.
Fashion in 18000 when Elizabeth Fry was twenty years old and married.
Newgate prison
Agnes Elizabeth Jones
Agnes Jones came to Liverpool at the age of 28 as the first qualified nurse in the country to be appointed to a workhouse, the Brownlow Hill Institute which stood on the site now occupied by the Roman Catholic cathedral. Hitherto, the care of the sick in such establishments had largely been left to their fellow inmates, but at the suggestion of the Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone (1819-1902), whose initiative had already established the city as the birthplace of district nursing, it was decided to experiment at Brownlow Hill by employing trained nurses
Agnes Jones was born at Cambridge into a wealthy family with both military and evangelistic religious connections. Her uncle was Sir John Lawrence, later Lord Lawrence who went on to become Governor General of India.
In the early years of Agnes Jones life, the family moved to Fahan in County Donegal, Ireland, though they followed her father's career with the army, notably to Mauritius. She was a deeply religious girl and was consumed by a passion to benefit her fellows and redeem herself from sin. During a holiday in Europe with the family she met and was deeply impressed by deaconesses who were from the Institution of Kaiserwerth, which had earlier overseen the early nursing experiences of Florence Nightingale. She visited the Institution in Bonn, returning home to Ireland to use the experience she had gained.
In 1859 she went to London, making contact with Florence Nightingale and Mrs Wardroper, senior nurse of St Thomas Hospital. Miss Nightingale said of her that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
In 1862 Agnes Jones commenced nurse training in the Nightingale School at St Thomas Hospital in London. When her years’ training was complete, Miss Nightingale called her "one of our best pupils". However her greatest work was ahead of her and was in Liverpool.
In 1865 she accepted an invitation from William Rathbone to take the leadership of an experiment he was conducting in the Brownlow Hill Workhouse, one of the biggest in the country. This was to bring trained nurses to the care of sick paupers. This was a radical deviation from the normal practices of workhouse management, which by law were obliged to deter the very poor from entering the workhouse by making conditions inside worse than those available to the working poor outside. The conditions in the workhouse were described "disorder, extravagance of every description in the establishment to an incredible degree"
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Jones
Like Gibson, who greatly admired him, the Italian Pietro Tenerani was a pupil of Thorvaldsen. It was Gibson’s view that ‘the works which will consign his name to posterity are chiefly of a religious character’. This monument, one of many overseas commissions executed by Tenerani in his Roman studio, dates from the last year of his life and shows the pure neo-classical style still flourishing well into the second half of the 19th century.
Agnes Jones came to Liverpool at the age of 28 as the first qualified nurse in the country to be appointed to a workhouse, the Brownlow Hill Institute which stood on the site now occupied by the Roman Catholic cathedral. Hitherto, the care of the sick in such establishments had largely been left to their fellow inmates, but at the suggestion of the Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone (1819-1902), whose initiative had already established the city as the birthplace of district nursing, it was decided to experiment at Brownlow Hill by employing trained nurses.
Agnes Jones took charge and brought immense improvements to the Institute, her achievements being described in these terms by Florence Nightingale: ‘In less than three years she had reduced one of the most disorderly hospital populations in the world to something like Christian discipline, such as the police themselves wondered at. She had led, so as to be of one mind and heart with her, some fifty nurses and probationers. She had converted a Vestry to the conviction as well as the humanity of nursing pauper sick by trained nurses, the first instance of its kind in England. She had disarmed all opposition, so that Roman Catholic and Unitarian, High Church and Low Church, all literally rose up and called her blessed.’
In 1868, at the age of 35, she died from typhus contracted through her work. Her achievements, however, were of lasting value, and the infirmaries of Victorian workhouses where humane, professional care of the sick was provided, pioneered by Agnes Jones in Liverpool and widely imitated, gradually developed into the free hospitals from which the modern National Health Service was created.
The monument represents the Angel of the Resurrection, seated and holding a trumpet, which accords with references to the Resurrection in the inscriptions on the base, composed by Florence Nightingale and the Bishop of Derry. The statue stood originally in the chapel of the Brownlow Hill Institute but was removed to the chapel of Walton Hospital when the Institute was demolished. In 1989 it was transferred to the Oratory.
The monument to Agnes Jones resides in the Oratory, Liverpool.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/oratory/oratory_cemetery.asp
Grace Darling
Grace Horsley Darling (24 November 1815 – 20 October 1842) was an English Victorian heroine on the strength of a celebrated maritime rescue in 1838.
Grace Darling was born on November 24, 1815, in Bamburgh, Northumberland in her Grandfather's cottage. Northumberland is on the far Northeast coast of England near Scotland. Grace's mother was named Thomasin and her father was William Darling, Principal Keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands. She was the fourth daughter and seventh child of nine children. Grace did not go to school; she was home schooled. She grew up on the island helping her mom and dad.
At 4:00 a.m., on September 7, 1838, Grace Darling and her father William, a Longstone Lighthouse off England's Northumberland Coast, woke with a start. The steamship Forfarshire had run ashore and broken in two in the North Sea, on the rocks by the lighthouse. Grace was just 22 but she saved 9 people, 4 sailors and 5 ordinary people by taking a rowboat and carrying them back to the shore. She fought hard against the powerful ocean waves to keep the boat off the rocks while her father went out on the rocks to get the survivors. One woman sat on the wreck with her two children, crying over their dead bodies. She was a survivor, named Mrs. Dawson. She lived to tell the tale. Grace and her father rowed out to the Forfarshire through some very bad conditions. Grace stayed with the first group as her father and two of the men from the ship went back for the others. Forty other people did not survive the crash. For three days Grace and her mother cared for the survivors at the lighthouse. Finally the survivors were able to go ashore.
Grace became an instant heroine. Sadly she died on October 20, 1942, probably of pneumonia or tuberculosis; she was buried in her hometown of Bamburgh, Northamberland, the same place she was born. Grace remains a heroine in England and school children learn all about her bravery.
Timeline
1815 - Grace Darling was born and lived in the Trinity House in the Farne Islands
1826 - 15th of February the Darling family moved to their newly built Longstone Lighthouse
1834 - First launching of the 150 ton steamship, Forfarshire at Dundee
1838 - Forfarshire crashes on rocks of Farne Island, Grace saves nine survivors
1839 - Both Grace and William were awarded specially minted Royal Humane Society Gold Medals
1842 - Grace dies, she is only 27
This is where Grace saw the shipwreck from. Longstone Lighthouse.
Longstone Lighthouse was built and designed by Joseph Nelson in 1826, and was originally called the outer Farne lighthouse.
But then, in the mid 1820's, the welfare of shipping won over and agreement for a lighthouse was finally decided.
The lighthouse originally used Argand lamps, but in 1952 was finally electrified, and in 1990, became fully automated.
The lighthouse is known for the wreck Forfarshire and the adventure of Grace Darling.
Description: At about four o'clock in the morning of 7th September 1838, the steamer 'Forfarshire' bound for Dundee struck the rocks near the Fern lighthouse and broke in two. She sank immediately and only nine people escaped the wreck. Grace Darling and her father rowed the lifeboat to the rocks in heavy seas and saved the survivors in a remarkable and famous rescure.
The rescue
On 5 September 1838 the steamship Forfarshire set off
from Hull to Dundee. Her cargo included cloths, soap,
hardware, boiler plate and spinning gear. She also carried
about 60 crew and passengers.
The next day, the ship’s boiler began to leak and by the
morning of 7 September the engine stopped. The Forfarshire
began to drift. Suddenly, at about 4am, there was a great crash
as the steamship hit Big Harcar rock. There was no time to call
the passengers from their cabins and get them into the boats.
Within 15 minutes the ship had broken in two. The back half
was swept away and sank, with more than 48 people onboard.
That night, only Grace and her parents were in the
lighthouse. A fierce storm was blowing, with huge
waves battering the lighthouse walls.
At 4.45am Grace saw the wreck, but it was not until 7am that
it was bright enough to see survivors moving on Big Harcar rock.
William Darling thought that conditions would prevent the
launching of the North Sunderland lifeboat so he would have
to go himself. The only one who could help him was Grace.
Grace took blankets with her to warm the survivors. The tide
and wind were so strong that they had to row for nearly a
mile to avoid the jagged rocks and reach the survivors safely.
There were nine people still alive on the rocks but the coble
could only take five in the first rescue. William leapt out of
the boat and on to the rocks, which left Grace to handle the
boat alone. To keep it in one place, she had to take both oars
and row backwards and forwards, trying to keep it from being
smashed on the reef.
On the rocks, William found eight men, including one who
was badly injured. There was also a woman holding two
children, both of whom had died. Grace’s father and three
of the men rowed the boat back to the lighthouse, taking
with them Grace, the injured man and the woman.
Grace stayed at the lighthouse and looked after the survivors
with her mother. Her father and two of the Forfarshire crew
returned for the other four men.
Nine other people had survived. When the stern of the ship
was swept away, eight of the crew and one passenger managed
to scramble into the ship’s lifeboat. They were rescued by a
sloop from Montrose and taken to Shields that same night.
The next day, the ship’s boiler began to leak and by the
morning of 7 September the engine stopped. The Forfarshire
began to drift. Suddenly, at about 4am, there was a great crash
as the steamship hit Big Harcar rock. There was no time to call
the passengers from their cabins and get them into the boats.
Within 15 minutes the ship had broken in two. The back half
was swept away and sank, with more than 48 people onboard.
That night, only Grace and her parents were in the
lighthouse. A fierce storm was blowing, with huge
waves battering the lighthouse walls.
Soon the story of the wreck and the daring rescue was on
the front pages of all the newspapers. Grace Darling became
a heroine. Everyone wanted to know all about her, especially
what she looked like. Since there were no cameras in those
days, many artists visited the lighthouse to paint Grace’s
portrait. For years after the rescue, the lighthouse was
busy with visitors who wanted to see the famous Darling
father and daughter. Grace was sent hundreds of letters
and presents. She was often asked for a lock of her hair.
Both Grace and her father were awarded gold
medals from the Royal Humane Society,
and Silver Medals for Gallantry from the
National Institution for the Preservation
of Life from Shipwreck (now the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution).
Even Queen Victoria
sent her £50.
However, Grace did not enjoy all this attention. She found
that writing thank-you letters and sitting for portraits left
her little time to get on with her life.
In April 1842, only 4 years after the famous rescue, Grace
became ill with tuberculosis. This serious disease was very
common in the 19th century and killed many people. Grace
realised she did not have long to live so, with her family gathered
around her, she gave them each something from her collection
of medals and presents. On 20 October, Grace died. The funeral
in Bamburgh was very grand. Hundreds of people, rich and poor,
crowded the little Northumberland village to say goodbye.
Two years later, a memorial to Grace was put up in St Aidan’s
churchyard in Bamburgh.
Heroes
http://www.rnli.org.uk/assets/downloads/Grace%20Darling%20factsheet%20v2.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Darling
http://www.englandsnortheast.co.uk/Bamburgh.html
RNLI
http://www.rnli.org.uk/who_we_are/the_heritage_trust/grace-darling-museum
The Forfarshire. Description
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Forfarshire_(ship)
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC28952139&id=R6xS3DM_qVAC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=Forfarshire&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q=Forfarshire&f=false
Description: The interior of Longstone Lighthouse in the Farne Islands off Northumbria. Grace Darling and her parents are seen caring for the fortunate survivors saved from the wreck of the 'Forfarshire' paddle steamer on 7 September 1838. Despite a terrible storm, Grace and her father rescued eight men and women from the wreck and took them back to the lighthouse.
Creator: Parker, H. P. (artist): Lewis, C. G. (engraver): Isaacs, A. J. (publisher)
http://www.rnli.org.uk/who_we_are/press_centre/news_releases/news_release_detail?articleid=379324
Lifeboat heroine Grace Darling will be the inspiration for a new masterpiece this half-term at the Northumberland museum dedicated to her life.
As part of the Big Draw – a national campaign running this month to encourage more people to try their hand at drawing – visitors to the RNLI Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh will be able to help recreate a famous painting of Grace by JW Carmichael.
Words to the "Grace Darling Song" --
Twas on the Longstone Lighthouse, there dwelt and English maid;
Pure as the air around her, of danger ne'er afraid;
One morning just at daybreak, a storm-tossed wreck she spied;
And tho' to try seemed madness, "I'll save the crew!' she cried.
And she pull'd away, o'er the rolling sea,
Over the waters blue --
Help! Help!' she could hear the cry of the shipwreck'd crew --
But Grace had an English heart,
And the raging storm she brav'd --
She pull'd away, mid the dashing spray,
And the crew she saved!
http://www.elinordewire.com/gracedarling.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5872098
http://www.jstor.org/pss/60201003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farne_Islands
http://www.northumbria.info/Pages/bamburgh.html
Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) biography:
Christina Rossetti is one of the most significant voices in Victorian poetry. She is best known for her poetry collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, though her other works—The Price’s Progress and other Poems (1866), Singsong: a Nursery Rhyme Book (1872), Seek and Find (1879), and Called to be Saints (1881) merited enough acclaim for her to be considered as Tennyson’s successor as Poet Laureate.
Christina Rossetti was the daughter of Italian poet and scholar Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854), though she was born and raised in London. Her parents’ love for art, and the intellectual circles they moved in, left a strong creative influence on the Rossetti children. She and her three siblings were all writers, and her brother Dante Gabriel was also a painter. She modeled for his picture, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), as well as for the paintings and drawings for her family’s Pre-Raphaelite friends. Her family also helped introduce her talent to the literary world: her first poems were published by grandfather’s printing press, and her brother’s pre-Raphaelite journal, The Germ, featured seven of her earliest works.
Rossetti’s poetry is known for its rich religious undertones, reflecting her own spirituality and devotion to the church, and the influences of philosophers like Augustine and Thomas à Kempis and the metaphysical poet John Donne.
Between penning poems, Rossetti worked as a governess. In the 1880’s she developed a thyroid disease that left her an invalid. She continued to write, leading to the collections A Pageant and Other Poems (1881) and The Face of the Deep (1892) before she passed away from cancer on December 29, 1894.
One of the most important of English woman poets, who was the sister of the painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and a member of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement. 'A Birthday,' 'When I Am Dead,' and 'Up-Hill' are probably Rossetti's best-known single works. After a serious illness in 1874, she rarely received visitors or went outside her home. Her favorite themes were unhappy love, death, and premature resignation. Especially her later works deal with somber religious feelings.
Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
(from 'Up-Hill', 1861)
Christina Rossetti was born in London, one of four children of Italian parents. Her father was the poet Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854), professor of Italian at King's College from 1831. He resigned in 1845 because of blindness. All the four children in the family became writers, Dante Gabriel also gained fame as a painter. Christina was educated at home by her mother, Frances Polidori, a former governess, an Anglican of devout evangelical bent. She shared her parents' interest in poetry and was portrayed in the paintings and drawings of the Pre-Raphaelites. Christina was the model for his brother's picture The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), which was the first picture to be signed P.R.B. Jan Marsh has proposed in her biography Christina Rossetti: A Writer's Life (1995) that Christina was sexually abused by her father, but "perhaps like many abuse victims she banished the knowledge from conscious memory." However, this kind of speculative claims become highly popular in biographies in the 1990s.
Rossetti's first verses were written in 1842 and printed in the private press of her grandfather. In 1850, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the short-lived Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ, which was founded by her brother William Michael and his friends. When the family was in a financial trouble, she helped her mother to keep a school at Frome, Somerset. The school was not a success, and they returned in 1854 to London. Except for two brief visits abroad, she lived with the mother all her life.
Rossetti's deeply religious temperament left its marks on her writing. She was a devout High Anglican, much influenced by the Tractarian, or Oxford, Movement. Rossetti broke engagement to the artist James Collison, an original member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, when he joined the Roman Catholic church. She also rejected Charles Bagot Cayley for religious reasons.
By the 1880s, recurrent bouts of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder, had made Rossetti an invalid, and ended her attempts to work as a governess. Rossetti's illness restricted her social life, but she continued to write sonnets and ballads. Especially she was interested the apocalyptic books, and such religious writers as Augustine and Thomas à Kempis. She also admired George Herbert and John Donne. Among her later works are A PAGEANT AND OTHER POEMS (1881), and THE FACE OF THE DEEP (1892). She was considered a possible successor to Alfred Tennyson as poet laureate. To accept the challenge, she wrote a royal elegy. However, Alfred Austin was appointed poet laureate in 1896. Rossetti developed a fatal cancer in 1891, and died in London on December 29, 1894.
In 'After Death', which she wrote in 1849, the poet-speaker lays on a bed, with a shroud on her face, observing the surroundings before the burial. "He did not love me living; but once dead / He pitied me; and very sweet it is / To know he still is warm tho' I am cold." The theme of death appears next year also in her brother's poem 'My Sister's Sleep', (1850), in which death visits a family on a Christmas Eve. Rossetti's best-known work, GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS, was published in 1862. The collection established Rossetti as a significant voice in Victorian poetry. The title poem is a cryptic fairy-tale and tells the story of two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted the eat the fruit of the goblin men. After eating the fruit, Laura cannot see the goblins. Lizzie, whose refusal have angered the goblins, is attacked by them, and she saves her sister in an act of sacrifice. Laura, longing to taste again the fruit, licks the juices with which Lizzie is covered. "For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather." THE PRICE'S PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS, appeared in 1866. SING SONG. A NURSERY RHYME BOOK was illustrated by Arthur Hughes in 1872. Rossetti also wrote religious prose works, such as SEEK AND FIND (1879), CALLED TO BE SAINTS (1881) and THE FACE OF THE DEEP (1892).
Rossetti's brother William Michael edited her complete works in 1904. He once said that "Christina's habits of composing were eminently of the spontaneous kind. I question her having ever once deliberated with herself whether or not she would write something or other, and then, after thinking out a subject, having proceeded to treat it in regular spells of work. Instead of this, something impelled her feelings, or "came into her head," and her hand obeyed the dictation. I suppose she scribbled lines off rapidly enough, and afterwards took whatever amount of pains she deemed requisite for keeping them in right form and expression." Rossetti's work has suffered from reductive interpretations, but she is increasingly being reconsidered as a major Victorian poet. Typical for her poems was songlike use words and short, irregularly rhymed lines.
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin by Gabriel Rossetti
Date: 1849
http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rossetti/rossetti.html
Agnes Jones: 1832-1868
Fashion 1852
Agnes Jones would have been aged
between 20 and 21 during the times of these fashions below.
Images 1852 and 1851
This dress above was in fashion when Agnes went to London and met Florence
Nightingale in 1859. Agnes would have been twenty seven. This was when she met Florence Nightingale and Florence said:
" that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
Agnes would have been twenty four when this painting was created by Ingres in 1856
At the age of 30, In 1862 Agnes Jones commenced nurse training in the Nightingale School at St Thomas Hospital in London. When her years’ training was complete, Miss Nightingale called her "one of our best pupils". However her greatest work was ahead of her and was in Liverpool.
Fashions of the 1860s include square paisley shawls folded on the diagonal and full skirts held out by crinolines. Auguste Toulmouche's Reluctant Bride of 1866 wears white satin, and her friend tries on her bridal wreath of orange blossoms.
Fashion 1862 when Agnes was thirty years old and when she commenced nurse training in the Nightingale School at St Thomas Hospital in London.
The School for Nurses
Sometimes Florence Nightingle would take the entire class of nurse probationers from the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas Hospital on holiday outings to Lea Hurst. This photo was taken on such a day with an older Miss Nightingale and Sir Harry Verney, who was active in the school and the Nightingale Fund which supported the school independent of the hospital.
http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/school.htm
St Thomas Hospital History
http://www.thegarret.org.uk/stthomas.htm
Florence Nightingale Museum
http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/cms/
In 1865 she accepted an invitation from William Rathbone to take the leadership of an experiment he was conducting in the Brownlow Hill Workhouse, one of the biggest in the country. This was to bring trained nurses to the care of sick paupers. This was a radical deviation from the normal practices of workhouse management, which by law were obliged to deter the very poor from entering the workhouse by making conditions inside worse than those available to the working poor outside. The conditions in the workhouse were described "disorder, extravagance of every description in the establishment to an incredible degree"
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
Miss Jones contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever.This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period.
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also, a local housing association has named a large student hall of residence after her.
1860 to 1940
When Florence Nightingale opened her Training School for Nurses in 1860, the profession gained more respect and a standard uniform. One of her students designed a uniform that included a long-sleeved dress with a starched collar, an apron with shoulder straps, and a frilly cap that tied under the chin. Later, cape-like garments called tippets were added to the uniform.
Miss Nightingale refused to admit “ladies,” as such, into her party. All must be nurses; all must eat the same food, have the same accommodations, wear the same uniform, except the nuns and sisters, who were allowed to wear their habits. And the uniform was extremely ugly. It consisted of a gray tweed dress, called a “wrapper,” a gray worsted jacket, a plain white cap, and a short woolen cloak. Over the shoulders was worn a holland scarf described as “frightful,” on which was embroidered in red the words “Scutari Hospital.” There was no time to fit individual wearers: various sizes were made up and issued as they came in, with unhappy results. Small women got large sizes; tall women got small. That a “lady” could be induced to appear in such a get-up was certainly a triumph of grace over nature, wrote one of the nuns. The uniform had not been designed to make the wearer look attractive. Scutari was a disorderly camp, teeming with drink-shops, prostitutes, and idle troops, and a distinguishing dress was necessary for the nurses’ protection. A Crimean veteran told Sir Edward Cook that he saw a nurse seized by a soldier in the street of Scutari, but the man’s mate recognized the uniform. “Let her alone,” he said, “don’t you see she’s one of Miss Nightingale's women.”
Early uniform: 1855
http://www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/uniform.htm
Photos of Florence Nightingale.
Ideas for a painting for Agnes Jones.
I think I want to portray Agnes when she was about twenty seven years old. This would have been about 1859. At this time she would have been deciding seriously to go into nursing.
She would have met Florence Nightingale who said she was. . ." a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius"
I would like to convey Agnes wearing the costume of the time surrounded by objects that would have a connection to her life.
In 1857 the Englishman Charles Worth set up a Paris fashion house at 7 Rue de la Paix a then unfashionable Paris district. In 1858 he made a collection of clothes that were unsolicited designs. He showed the clothes on live models and when people bought his original designs he became a leading fashion design couturier of the Victorian era. Until that time fashion details and changes were suggested by the customers. The House of Worth became a leader of ideas for the next 30 years.
Haute Couture during the Victorian period was an ideal foil for conspicuous consumption. Fragile gauze dresses decorated with flowers and ribbons that were made for wealthy young women were only intended to be worn for one or two evenings and then cast aside as they soiled and crushed so easily. Silk flowers, froths of tulle and pleated gauze trims would have emphasised the innocence of virginal girls whilst signalling their availability on the marriage market. Such conspicuous waste and conspicuous consumption were hallmarks of Victorian high living.
Haute Couture is a French phrase for high fashion. Couture means dressmaking, sewing, or needlework and haute means elegant or high, so the two combined imply excellent artistry with the fashioning of garments. The purchase of a haute couture model garment is at the top level of hand customised fashion design and clothing construction made by a couture design house. A model haute couture garment is made specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance. The made to measure exclusive clothes are virtually made by hand, carefully interlined, stay taped and fitted to perfection for each client.
http://www.fashion-era.com/index.htm
http://www.vintagevictorian.com/60h_text.html
Hairstyles and Headdresses of the Civil War Era contains illustrations originally published in issues of Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's National Magazine from 1859-1864. Illustrations from my own collection were supplemented with those from the extensive collection of Patri and Barbara Pugliese. This volume is intended to assist ladies in more accurately reproducing the fashions of the period; the hairstyle is often the final part of the outfit to be considered but it is a part that greatly affects the success of a period persona.
"Headdresses for balls", says that impeachable authority the Moniteur, "are nearly always round, but much fuller behind and at the sides than in the front. They are generally a mixture of velvet, gold and silver ribbon, pearls, and even diamonds."
Godey's Lady's Book, August 1859
The most recognizable features of hairstyles from this Era are the center part, with the hair pulled to the sides, and the absence of bangs. This period style is often difficult for modern ladies to adopt as it is so very different from their everyday look. The success of any re-enactor's outfit is greatly enhanced by the correct hairstyle or headdress. Many of us do not have the amount of hair needed to create some of the styles illustrated in this book, but with the careful placement of false hair, ribbons, flowers and lace, a stunning effect can be achieved that is practically indistinguishable from the original. There are many ingenious way to produce the illusion of long hair; one illustration (Godey's, September 1862) shows how a lady can ingeniously add a false hank of hair (called a front braid) to her own braid to make it thicker.
The Mid Victorian Silhouette 1860-1880
Factors Affecting the Fashion Silhouette after 1860
We arrive at 1860 with four significant facts that were to seriously affect fashion of the future. Firstly the sewing machine had been invented, secondly clothes would in future become couture design led, thirdly synthetic dyes would make available intense colours. Fourthly in 1860 the crinoline domed skirt silhouette had a flattened front and began to show a dramatic leaning toward the garment back.
Charles Worth thought the crinoline skirt unattractive. However, he is associated with it, as he did manipulate the style, as a result the shape soon changed to a new trained, softer bustled version, which only the really rich found practical.
Important people during the Victorian times.
http://www.nettlesworth.durham.sch.uk/time/victorian/vpeople.html
Costume gallery
http://www.cartes.freeuk.com/
Civil War Era Dresses 1857-1867
This is the era of the crinoline, or the hoop skirt as we call it. Before the crinoline became popular, the full skirts were achieved with many layers of petticoats or even corded petticoats. Skirt widths could range from 150" for and average dress to 240" for evening dreses. Early skirts (pre 1863-4) were often cut from rectangular panels of fabric, and pleated onto a waistband. After this some skirts were gored to present less bulk at the waistline. Shoulder seam sloped well to the back at the armscye and the armscye was low on the shoulder actually resting on the upper arm. Sleeves were in several variations, becoming the most fitted after the civil war. Collars were often the "peter pan style" or other small collars or bits of lace that could be taken off for cleaning or a change.
Vintage prints
http://www.vintageprints.com/index.php
Harriet Martineau
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/RHE309/vicfembios/harrietmartineau.htm
Harriet Martineau's major contribution to the literature of 1859 was an April 1859 article for The Edinburgh Review focusing on another subject she was passionate about — the political and economic mistreatment of women in "Female Industry".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Martineau
Franz Xaver Winterhalter Countess Alexander Nikolaevitch 1859
1859
Women's rights
Victorian ladies
Victorian nurses
Victorian clothing
Grace Darling would have been 23 in 1838 during the boat rescue.
Fashion
1838
1837
1837
Josephine Butler, the daughter of John Grey and Hannah Annett, was born in 1828.
In 1869 Josephine Butler began her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. These acts had been introduced in the 1860s in an attempt to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces. Butler objected in principal to laws that only applied to women. Under the terms of these acts, the police could arrest women they believed were prostitutes and could then insist that they had a medical examination. Butler had considerable sympathy for the plight of prostitutes who she believed had been forced into this work by low earnings and unemployment.
In 1869 Josephine would have been 41 years of age.
Fashion of 1869.
Prostitution
The Fallen Woman
The state regulation of prostitution, as established under the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869, and the successful campaign for the repeal of the Acts, provide the framework for this study of alliances between prostitutes and feminists and their clashes with medical authorities and police. Prostitution and Victorian Society makes a major contribution to women’s history, working-class history, and the social history of medicine and politics. It demonstrates how feminists and others mobilized over sexual questions, how public discourse on prostitution redefined sexuality in the late nineteenth century, and how the state helped to recast definitions of social deviance.
Grace Darling would have been 23 in 1838 during the boat rescue.
On the rocks, William found eight men, including one who was badly injured. There was also a woman holding two children, both of whom had died. Grace’s father and three of the men rowed the boat back to the lighthouse, taking with them Grace, the injured man and the woman.
Elizabeth Fry would have been twenty in 1800. This was the year she married Joseph Fry.
Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) (21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.
On February 4, 1798, this vain youth attended meeting for worship wearing purple boots and scarlet laces. That meeting was attended by a visiting American Quaker minister, William Savery, whose ministry touched the girl's heart. She wrote about her reaction, "I have felt there is a GOD." Later, when visiting London, she had the opportunity to hear Savery's ministry again.
Touched by God through plain Friends, Elizabeth struggled with the way she lived her life. Her interest in amusements wained. Although her family was not very sympathetic to her changes in religious attitudes, she found herself coming to use the traditional Quaker plain language and adopting plain dress. She started a Sunday school in the family home at Earlham Hall.
Kitty Wilkinson at nine years of age.
In 1794, Kitty’s parents decided to leave Derry for Liverpool, which was becoming a vast seaport, with an expanding dock and warehouse system. The family set sail in early February in fine, sunny weather but the next day, with England in sight, a violent storm developed. The small sailing ship was tossed about as it entered Liverpool Bay from the Irish Sea. Kitty and the rest of her family were holding on for dear life as the rain and wind lashed the ship, which by now had come to rest on the treacherous Hole Bank at the entrance of the River Dee. Kitty and her mother and the two younger children were taken onto the life-boat but there was no trace of her father. Without any warning the gale force wind snatched the baby from Mrs. Seward’s arms and washed her overboard. The heartbreaking experience of the voyage to Liverpool had a serious effect on Mrs. Seward’s future mental and physical health.
Image: Shipwreck.
Kitty and her little brother survived.
Crying woman
fashion form this time
1794
The family settled in Denison Street in the north end of the town, where Mrs. Seaward and Kitty found work as domestics. Their employer, Mrs. Lightbody, saw their potential and gave Mrs. Seward the task of teaching the other servants to spin and to make lace. Mrs. Lightbody, who was aged and infirm, found happiness in relieving the sufferings and supplying the needs of the poor. Kitty was greatly influenced by her employer and assisted her in her charity work. Kitty is quoted as saying that Mrs Lightbody, “became like a mother to me”. In turn, Mrs. Lightbody relied on Kitty because of her blindness and became very fond of her.
1795
Ten years old, working as a domestic for Mrs Lightbody Denison Street.
http://www.liverpoolheritageforum.org.uk/famous.php?id=119
Mrs. Lightbody, who was aged and infirm, found happiness in relieving the sufferings and supplying the needs of the poor. Kitty was greatly influenced by her employer and assisted her in her charity work. Kitty is quoted as saying that Mrs Lightbody, “became like a mother to me”. In turn, Mrs. Lightbody relied on Kitty because of her blindness and became very fond of her.
Work in the cotton mill
In 1796, at the age of 11, life changed dramatically for Kitty and her brother. Mrs. Seward’s was suffering great ill-health and was unable to work or look after the children. As a result they were sent to what was considered a healthier environment, the cotton mill at Caton, Lancashire. It was here in Lancashire that Kitty met her future husband, Tom Wilkinson. Kitty remined there for ten years, after which she returned to Liverpool to lok after her mother and teach for a while.
Education of children
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2592157
Image of a cotton mill at caton.
http://scoilnet.magicstudio.co.uk/asset/view/218664?from=search&return_to=%2Frepository%2Fbrowse%3Fsearch_text%3Dcotton%2Bindustry
Child labour: Cotton mills. Images.
http://www.lib.unc.edu/stories/cotton/images/
[edit] Water power (1770-1800)
Masson Mill, DerbyshireThe early mills were narrow and low in height, of light construction, powered by water wheels and containing small machines. Interior lighting was by daylight, and ceiling height was only 6–8 ft. Masson Mill in Derbyshire is a good example of an early mill. Mills were made by millwrights, builders and iron founders. These Arkwright type mills are about 9 feet (2.7 m) wide.[1] Spinning was done with a spinning mule, which was not restricted by patent, so many engineers experimented with improvements which they then tested in their own establishments. These men became the successful mill owners.[2]
Slater Mill was built in 1790 on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island by Samuel Slater (an immigrant and trained textile worker from England) using concepts from the earlier horse drawn Beverly Cotton Manufactory. Slater managed to evade restrictions on emigration which were put in place to allow England to maintain its monopoly on cotton mills. Slater Mill resembled a mill in Derbyshire that he had worked in.
Old Mill and Decker Mill (1901), Murrays' Mills, AncoatsWater powered mills were common. The first steam mills used the engine to drive a pump to raise water in order to run a water wheel. Though water continued to be used to drive mills in the country, the next development was the small town mills, driven by steam, situated alongside a canal which provided water for its engine. Murrays' Mills alongside the Rochdale Canal, in Ancoats were powered by 40 hp Boulton and Watt beam engines.[4] Some were built as room and power mills which let space to entrepreneurs. These mills, often 'L' or 'U' shaped, were narrow and multi-storied. The engine house, warehousing and the office were in the mill, though stair towers were external. Windows were square and smaller than in latter mills. The walls were of unadorned rough brick. Construction was to fireproof designs. They are distinguished from warehouses in that warehouses had taking-in doors on each storey with an external hoist beam.[5] Only the larger mills have survived.
Mills of this period were from 25 to 68 m long and 11.5 m to 14 m wide. They could be 8 stories high and have basements and attics. Floor height went from 3.3 to 2.75 m on the upper stories.
Boilers were of the wagon type; chimneys were square or rectangular, attached to the mill, and in some cases part of the stair column. The steam engines were typically low-pressure single-cylinder condensing beam engines.[6] The average power in 1835 was 48 hp.[7] Power was transmitted by a main vertical shaft with bevel gears to the horizontal shafts. The later mills had gas lighting using gas produced on site.[8] The mules with 250-350 spindles were placed transversely to get as much light as possible.
[edit] Remodelling and expansion (the rise of the factory) 1815-1855
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_mill
Child Labour
The Lancashire and Derbyshire mills needed a pool of cheap labour. Pauper children were boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 21, who were dependent on the Poor Law Guardians. Mill owners made contracts with the guardians in London and the southern counties to supply them paupers, in batches of 50 or more, to be apprenticed. Living condition were poor in 'Prentice Houses', and the children who were paid 2d a day worked 15 hour shifts, hot bedding with children on the other shift.
Robert Owen, the millowner, New Lanark never employed children under the age of ten, and opposed physical punishment in schools and Factories, he lobbied for parliamentary action. This resulted in
The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802
Limited hours of work to twelve a day.
Boys and girls to sleep in separate dormitories with no more than two to each bed
Compulsory education to be provided in the arts of reading writing and arithmetic
Each apprentice to be provided with two suits of clothes
On Sunday children to be instructed in Christian worship
Sanitation to be improved
Regulation was ineffective until the mills were subject to inspection in 1833. This did not reduce the number of children, half-timers worked mornings in the mill and spend the afternoon in the school room. While the number of children working in spinning as tenters did decline, more were employed in weaving because weavers were expected to tenter extra looms.
http://www.powerinthelandscape.co.uk/mills/col_val_mills_up.html
A cotton mill built in 1796 when Kitty would have been 11 years old.
Like other children, Kitty had to sign an “indenture” which bound them to live at the Apprentice House and to spend the next ten years working in the cotton mill. After she had turned twenty she learned that her mother had returned to Liverpool from Ireland. Mrs. Seaward’s health had not improved over the years of separation from her children and so Kitty left the security of village life to look after her mother.
Kitty and her mother found accommodation in Frederick Street in the south of Liverpool and both found domestic work. At the age of 25 Kitty opened a school so that she could have her ill mother with her during the day. Anything from between ten and ninety children attended, paying 3d per week. They were taught reading, writing and sewing. Kitty’s mother made lace and Kitty sold this in the evenings. However, Mrs. Seward’s mental health problems worsened and because of her violent behaviour Kitty had to close the school.
1806 when Kitty was about 21 years of age she returned to Liverpool from cotton mill.
1810 at age of 25 she opened the school with her mother who was ill.
In 1812, Kitty (27) married a French sailor by the name of Emanuel Demontee, and they had two sons together. However, whilst away at sea, Demontee was drowned, before the birth of his second child. As a widower, mother and carer of her own sick mother, Kitty managed to find domestic work. She was able to earn enough money to keep herself and her family out of the dreaded workhouse, as well as refusing to send her sick mother to an asylum.
Kitty found domestic work with the middle-class Braik family of Pit Street, Liverpool. Kitty soon began assisting Mrs Braik with her charity work, and when Mrs Braik died, she left instructions with her husband to look after Kitty. Mr Braik provided Kitty with her own mangle, which kept her in laundering work and made her more useful to prospective domestic employers. With the money she now earned, Kitty could afford to rent a small house in Denison Street. Here, she continued her pattern of helping out unfortunate people in her neighbourhood, taking in orphans and young widowed families, and sending the children to be educated at the Bluecoat School whenever she could afford to.
In 1823, at the age of 38, Kitty married again, this time to Tom Wilkinson, a porter at the Rathbone’s mill in Lancashire whom she knew from her days at Caton. Tom was also keen to help the unfortunates of the neighbourhood, and was happy for their Denison Street house to be thrown open to the poor and orphaned.
Fashion of the time
http://images.google.com/imgres
Folk art
http://www.encore-editions.com/americanfolkartists.htm
http://www.encore-editions.com/americanartists.htm
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?27415-Frederick-Street-Old-Liverpool-Named-after-Frederick-Louis-Duke-of-Edinburgh
Baths timeline
http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.1444
1832 Cholera epidemic hits Liverpool; Kitty and Tom Wilkinson turn their kitchen at Denison Street into a wash-house for their neighbours.
1842 First Public Wash-house and Private Baths establishment opened in Frederick Street.
The 1832 cholera epidemic
By the 1830s commerce in Liverpool was thriving, and hundreds of working-class people arrived in the city each week, looking for work. As they did so, the wealthier middle-classes, mainly merchants, moved away from the city centre, and as such living conditions deteriorated. Two elements of this deterioration – the lack of clean, running water, and the poor ventilation of air in working-class districts – allowed the cholera epidemic that was sweeping Europe to wreak its havoc in Liverpool, arriving in the spring of 1832. In a population of around 230,000, cholera would claim over 1,500 lives in Liverpool.
Kitty and Tom Wilkinson were in the fortunate position of having the only hot water boiler in their street, and so they invited their neighbours down to their cellar to wash their clothes and bed-linen, hoping to offer some measure of protection against the cholera. The Wilkinsons were aided in their work by the Liverpool District Provident Society and the benevolence of the Rathbone family, each contributing towards the provision of clean clothes and fresh bedding materials.
The Wilkinson’s wash-room became so popular that it was moved upstairs to the kitchen, with a rudimentary drying area established in the back yard. Kitty and Tom asked the neighbours who used their facilities to contribute one penny per family, per week to help towards water and new bedding costs.
At the same time, Kitty and a neighbour by the name of Mrs Lloyd established a rudimentary infant school, in Kitty and Tom’s bedroom. Local young orphans would be taught simple hymns and stories, continuing Kitty’s desire to see working-class children educated as best as possible.
By the mid-nineteenth century, public wash-houses were being established all over Liverpool, and in 1846 the authorities chose to recognise the pioneering work done by Kitty and Tom Wilkinson. They were offered the positions of Superintendents of the Frederick Street public baths and wash-house, which they accepted. In 1846, aged 60, Kitty was presented to Queen Victoria as she visited Liverpool, in recognition of her services to the city.
Kitty Wilkinson died in 1860, aged 73, and she is permanently commemorated in a stained glass window in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, which honours the noble women of Liverpool.
One of the windows in Liverpool Cathedral is dedicated to notable Liverpool women. One of these is Kitty Wilkinson, a name known to all folk who are enthusiastic about Liverpool and its history.
Catherine (Kitty) Wilkinson (nee Seaward) was born in 1786 in Londonderry, Ireland. At the age of three Catherine's father decided to move the family to Liverpool. However, tragedy struck when the ferry the family were on collided with the Hoyle Bank as it neared the Mersey Estuary, Kitty's father and sister were drowned.
Kitty and her mother struggled to survive and at the age of 12 Kitty went to work in a cotton mill in Caton near Lancaster. It was during this period that Kitty attended night school where she learned to read and write. Soon afterwards she married a sailor who sadly, was lost at sea, leaving Kitty with two young children and a mother (who was now blind and insane) to support.
When her mother died Kitty moved back to Liverpool where she married Tom Wilkinson a man she had met when she had worked in Caton. It was during the cholera epidemics of 1832-40 that Kitty rose to national prominence. The only boiler in Denison Street, where Kitty resided was in her scullery. Kitty offered it to the people of the area to wash any infected clothes or bed-linen, So many people took up the offer that Kitty had to fit the cellar out as a wash-house, and so the seed of the idea of a public wash-house was planted.
The first 'Wash House.' Instigated By Kitty Wilkinson and her husband, opened in May 1842, in Upper Fredrick Street, Liverpool. The one above is a washhouse in Albert Street. After the epidemic there were many orphans in the area and Kitty took them in every morning teaching them their bible and hymns. Tom died in 1848. Kitty died twelve years later at the age of 73. and was buried in St James Cemetery, Liverpool, the grounds of which are now part of the Anglican Cathedral. The funeral was attended by many dignitaries and the many ordinary people of Liverpool who had been touched by a truly great lady.
Christina Rossetti
Goblin Market (composed in April 1859 and published in 1862) is a poem by Christina Rossetti. In a letter to her publisher, Rossetti claimed that the poem, which features remarkably sexual imagery, was not meant for children. When the poem appeared in her first volume of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems, it was illustrated by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Goblin Market is about two close sisters, Laura and Lizzie, as well as the goblin men to whom the title refers, and another girl named Jeanie.
Although the sisters seem to be quite young, they live by themselves in a house, and are accustomed to draw water every evening from a stream. As the poem begins, twilight is falling, and as usual the sisters hear the calls from the Goblin merchants, who sell fruits in fantastic abundance, variety and savor. On this evening, Laura lingers at the stream after her sister has left for home. Wanting fruit but having no money, the impulsive Laura offers a lock of her hair and "a tear more rare than pearl."
Laura gorges on the delicious fruit in a sort of bacchic frenzy, then comes to her senses and, after picking up one of the seeds, returns home. Lizzie, waiting at home, and "full of wise upbraidings," reminds Laura about the cautionary tale of Jeanie, another girl who, having likewise partaken of the goblin men's fruits, died just at the beginning of winter, after a long decline.
Night has by then fallen, and the sisters go to sleep in their shared bed.
The next day, as Laura and Lizzie go about their work in the house, Laura dreamily longs for the coming evening's meeting with the goblin men. But at the stream that evening, as she strains to hear the usual goblin chants and cries, Laura discovers to her horror that, although Lizzie still hears the goblins' voices, she no longer can.
Unable to buy more of the forbidden fruit, pining away for the lack of it, Laura falls into a slow physical deterioration and depression. As winter approaches, Laura pines away and no longer does her household work. One day she remembers the saved seed and plants it, but it bears nothing.
Weeks and months pass, and finally sister Lizzie realizes that Laura is on the verge of death. Lizzie resolves to visit the goblin men to buy some of their fruit, hoping thereby to soothe Laura's pain. Carrying a silver penny, Lizzie goes down to the brook and is greeted in a friendly way by the goblins. But their attitudes turn malicious when they realize Lizzie wants to pay with mere money, and to carry the fruits home with her. Enraged, the goblins pummel and assault Lizzie, trying to make her eat the fruits. In the process, the goblins drench the brave girl in fruit juice and pulp.
Lizzie escapes to run home, hoping that Laura will eat and drink the juice from her body. The weakened sister does so, then undergoes a violent transformation of such intensity that her life seems to hang in the balance.
The next morning, though, Laura has returned to her old self, both physically and mentally. As the last stanza attests, both Laura and Lizzie live to tell their children of the evils of the goblins' fruits – and the awesome powers of sisterly love.
Since the 1970s, critics have tended to view Goblin Market as an expression of Rossetti's feminist (or proto-feminist) politics. Some critics suggest the poem is about feminine sexuality and its relation to Victorian social mores. In addition to its clear allusions to Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, and temptation, there is much in the poem that seems overtly sexual, such as when Lizzie, going to buy fruit from the goblins, considers her dead friend Jeanie, "Who should have been a bride; / But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died", and lines like "Lizzie uttered not a word;/ Would not open lip from lip/ Lest they should cram a mouthful in;/ But laughed in heart to feel the drip/ Of juice that syruped all her face,/ And lodged in dimples of her chin,/ And streaked her neck which quaked like curd."
The poem's attitude toward this temptation seems ambiguous, since the happy ending offers the possibility of redemption for Laura, while typical Victorian portrayals of the "fallen woman" ended in the fallen woman's death. It is worth noting that although the historical record is lacking, Rossetti apparently began working at Highgate Penitentiary for fallen women shortly after composing "Goblin Market" in the spring of 1859.
According to Antony Harrison of North Carolina State University, Jerome McGann reads the poem as a criticism of Victorian marriage markets and conveys "the need for an alternative social order". For Sandra Gilbert, the fruit represents Victorian women's exclusion from the world of art.[1] Other scholars – most notably Herbert Tucker – view the poem as a critique on the rise of advertising in precapitalist England, with the goblins utilising clever marketing tactics to seduce. Laura J. Hartman, among others, has pointed out the parallels between Laura's experience and the experience of drug addiction.
“Goblin Market” is a very Gothic poem. It has an interesting struggle between good and bad—first between Laura and Lizzie, then between each of the girls and the goblins. When the girls argue, Lizzie is the very proper, contentious sister. She is careful and doesn’t want to get in trouble. Laura, on the other hand, is more easily tempted by the goblins and tries the fruit. Lizzie is a good girl who doesn’t stray from her path; Laura tastes the forbidden fruit and pays heavily for her sins. The more important fight, though, is between the girls and the goblins. The goblins are very much like the gargoyles that can be found in Gothic architecture. They are “little men” who, like gargoyles, are pretty grotesque. They are “whisk-tailed” and “cat-faced.” They are strange, fantastic creatures. I picture them to be like some of the gargoyles at Oxford.
There is definitely a Christian undertone to the story. The goblins are wicked and evil little men who try to tempt the proper young maidens with forbidden fruits. They coerce Laura into trying their goods. The fruit is delicious and wonderful, but it poisons her blood and she becomes obsessed with finding more of this fruit. She becomes consumed by the forbidden fruit and eventually becomes sick because of it. Her loving and faithful sister, however, comes to the rescue and helps her out of her obsession. Laura gets the antidote and saves her sister. In the process, however, she must brave the goblin market and resist the temptation of the delicious fruit. Lizzie is saved by her sister, but only after a painful cleansing process—a sort of punishment for her sins. This could be related to a number of Biblical stories, including Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. It’s also similar to the idea that we all have to resist temptation every day and must repent heavily when we stray from the described path.
Christina Georgina Rossetti, one of the most important women poets writing in nineteenth-century England.
The publication of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems
in 1862 marked the first literary success of the Pre-Raphaelites.
A campaigner for animal rights she was also symbolic of the way women writers and artists found creative outlets in their work to scramble out of sexist and closed attitudes towards women in Victorian times. One of Christina Rossetti's more innovative poems, "The Iniquity of the
Fathers Upon the Children," is a dramatic monologue in which the poet
addresses the issue of illegitimate children by imagining that she is
one herself. Her desire to address such a subject can be linked to her
work for the House of Charity, an institution located in Highgate which
was devoted to the rescue of prostitutes and unmarried mothers. She
also broadened her poetry with "A Royal Princess" which dealt with
starvation, inequality, and poverty. This appeared in an 1863
anthology published for the relief of victims of the Lancashire cotton
famine.
The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as The Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–1865), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War.
