“A Story of Human Wrong, of Human Suffering; of Evil, of Good; of Sorrow, of Succour…The Weakness and Trust of Woman, and the Treachery and Infidelity of Man.” Or: The Unwanted Children of the 19th Century:

The Victorian era gave birth to many institutions, most of which were hugely beneficial to society’s neediest lives, such as Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Ragged Schools and Battersea Dogs and Cats home. Such gestures, however, were not confined to the period of the Victorians, and whilst The Foundling Hospital may conjure up images of Oliver Twist-esque waifs and strays being educated by strict Victorian schoolmasters,

The Hospital (not actually a hospital, but a place that offered hospitality) was established in 1741, but ran from then, all the way through the nineteenth century, and well into the second decade of the twentieth.

Its purpose was to act as a home for destitute children, and to care for and educate them until they were old enough to seek work and look after themselves, thus removing them from the streets.

The children who occupied the Hospital would be the offspring of mothers who were unable to care for them. However, a woman could not simply turn up with a child born out of wedlock and turn it over to prevent a scandal; she had to prove her good character, and demonstrate that the father had walked out on the family, leaving her unable to cope, and with no option but give up the infant for its own benefit and hers.

The following article from Strand Magazine explores the history of the Foundling Hospital, and reveals that despite being generally a good thing for children, when it came time for them to step out into the real world, they – in particular the girls – could often struggle to adapt:

The Foundling Hospital is not an institution for the reception of foundlings. This will be news to five-sixths of our readers, and it is easy to imagine some of them exclaiming: “But do you mean to tell us that, if we discover a human mite abandoned on someone’s doorstep, and take it to the Foundling Hospital, it will not be admitted?” We do. “Why, then, call the place a Foundling Hospital?” Thereby hangs a deeply interesting story – a story of human wrong, of human suffering; of evil, of good; of sorrow, of succour – a veritable world’s story, focusing the large-souled sympathy of mankind, the weakness and trust of woman, and the treachery and infidelity of man.

The institution owes its origin to one of Nature’s noblemen; it is a monument equally to the head and the heart of Captain Thomas Coram. Captain Coram, in no ordinary sense of the word, went about doing good. His life was made up of attempts to improve something or somebody. Early in the eighteenth century, he used, in his walks between the City, where he had business, and Rotherhithe, where he lived, to constantly come across young children left by the wayside, “sometimes alive, sometimes dead, and sometimes dying.” In other countries such children would be taken up by the state, and cared for; in England nothing of the sort had ever been attempted, or even perhaps dreamed of. Captain Coram’s heart was touched by surely the most pitiable sight in creation, and to touch Captain Coram’s heart was to set the machinery of his resourceful brain in motion. He rightly considered such exposure of infant humanity a disgrace to civilization, and proceeded to enlist the services of the high-placed and the large-hearted in the cause. For seventeen long years he laboured against adverse circumstances, until, in 1739, his efforts were rewarded by a charter authorising the founding of an institution “for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children.”

A fine statue of Captain Coram, by W. C. Marshall, R.A., and a stone tablet to his memory, placed on the wall of the arcade in front of the building, are the first things to catch the visitors eye. Coram lived, we are told, to be eighty-four, and died “poor in worldly estate, rich in good works.” To help the new-born infant, he brought his grey hairs, if not in sorrow, at least in poverty to the grave. Like so many other benefactors of mankind, in striving to alleviate distress, this “indefatigable schemist” forgot himself, and had he, in his devotion, not had friends who gave more regard to his material needs than he gave himself, he might have closed his eyes to mundane affairs in want by the wayside, even as the objects of his solicitude opened theirs.

Foundling Girls

It is not necessary to go here at great length into the early mistakes made, or to describe how the institution failed of the purpose which the founder had in view. It was intended by him to meet the necessities of deserted motherhood; it came, in the middle of the last century, to be a receptacle for all the babes whom worthless parents did not care to keep. A basket was hung outside gates of the Hospital. On the first day 117 children were left in it, and a lucrative trade sprung up among tramps who, for a consideration, carried the little ones from all parts of England to the Hospital. In less than four years, 14,934 infants were thus disposed of.

These “regiments of infantry,” as a waggish commentator called them, overwhelmed the resources of the institution, and it is not surprising to learn that, from various causes, not more than 4,000 of the 14,934 survived, the indiscriminate admission of children had to be abolished. Later, it was decided to receive children for money, but this step resulted in other abuses, and we have the authority of the admirable account of the Hospital, compiled by a former secretary, and revised by the present, Mr. W. S. Wintle – a work which may be purchased for half a crown, and is well worth attentive study – for stating that, since January, 1801, no child has been received into the Hospital, either directly or indirectly, with any sum of money, large or small.

Today the practice is for the mother to take the babe before it is twelve months old to the Hospital, to make her statement before the authorities, and to leave the child to their care absolutely. She must be poor, she must be anxious to regain her good name, and no woman who petitions that her child may be admitted to the Hospital stands a chance of relief if she cannot prove that she has led a life of propriety previous to her misfortune. This point cannot be too strongly borne in mind. As the Reverend Sydney Smith, one of the preachers of the Foundling Chapel puts it:-

“No child drinks of our cup or eats of our bread whose reception, upon the whole, is not certain to be more conducive than pernicious to the interests of religion and good morals. We hear no mother whom it would not be merciless and shocking to turn away; we exercise the trust reposed in us with a trembling and sensitive conscience; we do not think it enough to say. ‘This woman is wretched, and betrayed, and forsaken’; but we calmly reflect if it be expedient that her tears should be dried up, her loneliness sheltered, and all her wants receive the ministration of charity.”

Foundling Boys

No instance of a mother going to the bad after she has been relieved by the Governors of the Foundling Hospital has, we believe, ever come to notice!

The general public knows most of the Foundling Hospital from a visit to the chapel on a Sunday morning. Anyone who is prepared to drop a silver coin into the plate at the door is admitted. The spectacle is impressive. In the galleries at the west end of the chapel, on either side of the organ, are seated some five hundred boys and girls, better behaved probably than any other considerable number of young people who appear in church regularly every Sunday. Their happy faces are perhaps a greater pleasure to gaze upon than their healthy voices are to listen to. Divine service over, at one o’ clock they march into their respective dining-rooms, the boys being in one wing of the building and the girls in the other. Grace in the former is sung to the accompaniment of a cornet, which one of the boys plays. When they take their places at table, the spectator will find none lacking in appetite for the simple honest repast. On the opposite side of the building the girls are doing not less justice to themselves and those who have provided and prepared the dinner.

The Chapel

The scene on any Sunday morning in the year 1891 is precisely that which Charles Dickens described in “No Thoroughfare,” a quarter of a century ago: -

“There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards, and the heavy framed windows through which it shines, and the paneled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth’s pictures. The girls’ refectory (including that of the younger children) is the principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not infrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at these points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight.”

There is not much to see in the classrooms, which will not be fully conveyed in our illustrations. As we enter the boys room, we are momentarily startled by the shuffle of feet as every boy rises respectfully in his place. Not being professional school inspectors, such honours are not often accorded us. Resuming their seats, the class work goes on as at any ordinary school. So with the girls. The most interesting of the classes is that of the infants. On the day on which we visit the Foundling for the especial purpose of this paper, they are turned out of their ordinary room, and are squatted on the floor of another in sections before blackboards, and with slates in their laps. They are the veriest, chubbiest urchins imaginable, and, as we approach, three or four of them turn their smiling faces up to ours. They evidently expect to be spoken to, and we ask them what they are doing?

            “Writin’,” answers a babe of very few summers.

            “Writing what?” we ask.

            “Good,” is the reply, as a little finger points to the blackboard on which the word is written in bold characters.

            “And are you good?”

            “Es,” and with a “That’s right!” we pat the baby cheek, and think many things. Poor little mites, and yet happy withal! Motherless, fatherless, friendless, and yet inmates of an institution which is not such a bad substitute for father, mother, and friends. What would they be but for it? Recruits perchance in the ranks of shame into which their mothers might have drifted. And their mothers? Who knows but that somewhere out in the world, women are living, and working, and sleeping; dreaming, wondering how fares the helpless mortal for whose existence they are responsible, for whom they still bear a love which no barrier of separation can obliterate?

Foundling Infants

From the school-rooms let us go to the museum, where are stored some valuable and many curiosities. Pictures by Hogarth and others line the walls, and it is an interesting item of information that the Royal Academy of Arts, to which the fashionable world flocks today, was suggested to the founders by the crowds of people who in the last century went to see pictures exhibited at the Foundling Hospital. Artists rallied strongly to the support of the institution, which also enlisted the services of Handel, who devoted his “Messiah” to its benefit, and presented the organ which is still in use. Lovers of art history and art treasures will find much on the walls and in the show-cases of the Foundling Hospital to gratify them. What will attract the majority of people more, however, than Handel’s gifts, or Hogarth’s or Sir Joshua Reynolds’ canvases, are the tokens which it early became necessary to stipulate should be left with the child for the purpose, if need be, of identification. All sorts of things were left, from a coin or a key, to a trinket of piece of ribbon. Hearts and wedding rings are numerous, the former, no doubt, emblems more often than not of broken hearts, the latter eloquent of disappointed hopes. In some instances, the token took the shape of a verse.

 

The Museum

What becomes of the inmates of the Hospital when the time arrives to turn them out into the world to gain a living? The boys, at the age of fourteen, are usually apprenticed to some trade. A great many of them, however, who have formed part of the juvenile band at the Hospital, join the bands of the army and navy. In this position they seem to do especially well. Testimonials of gratitude from lads brought up at the Hospital are not wanting. One is a handsome Chinese vase, bearing the inscription:

“Presented to the Foundling Hospital by George Ross, Corporal, Band, 74^th Highlanders, as a small token of gratitude for the years of childhood spent in the institution. Hong Kong, 15^th February, 1879.”

Another is an inkstand made of Irish bog oak, and was

“Presented to the Governors of the Foundling Hospital by Corporal Samuel Reid, a foundling, of her majesty’s Regiment Military Train, as a token of deep gratitude. April 26, 1868.”

The girls go into domestic service, and with initial care make excellent servants. In these days, when good domestics are so difficult to get, the demand for foundling girls is much greater than the supply. Whatever the deprivations of the children may be on account of the want of individual motherly love, the real hardships of the lives of the girls begin when they leave the Hospital. They are educated in everything save worldly knowledge. Where an ordinary girl runs errands for her parents, and becomes a little woman by the time she reaches her teens, the foundling girls remain in absolute ignorance of how to purchase any single article, or transact the simplest affairs outside the home. This is one drawback.

Girls in Class

Another and sadder is when, standing on the threshold of the great world, they realize that they are not as the majority of other girls are. They go to service, and they have not a friend of any kind to see or to talk about. Do what it will, the Hospital cannot supply the place of relatives, and, however much her origin may be screened from her fellow servants, in all probability the time comes when the latter say:

            “How strange we never hear you speak of your father, or your mother, or your sister, or your brother.”

Then the lonely maiden invents little stories and tells fibs, which the most truthful among us may pardon, respecting the father and mother who are dead, or whatever other explanation may occur to her. If the inquisitive world only knew what pain its thoughtless enquiries may cause!

A visit to the Foundling Hospital will afford food for many an hour’s reflection. We are often urged to recognize woman’s equality with man. The Foundling Hospital is a pathetic reminder of her eternal inequality.

- Strand Magazine, 1891

The Foundling Hospital is no longer there, but Captain Coram’s name still lives on in Coram’s Fields, a children’s park (into which adults are only allowed if accompanied by a child under sixteen) situated between Regent’s Park and Clerkenwell where the hospital stood for 187 years before it was moved outside London in the 1920’s.

A plaque at the entrance to the park commemorates the history of the area with these words:

THESE GROUNDS

The site of the Foundling Hospital established in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram were offered for sale as building land in 1926 when owing to changing social conditions the old Hospital was sold and demolished.

After eight years of anxiety as to its fate, the site was eventually preserved for the use and welfare of the children of Central London by the generosity and vision of Harold Viscount Rothermere, by the efforts of the Foundling Site Appeal Council, by the co-operation of the Governors of the Foundling Hospital, and of the Education Committee of the London County Council, and by the enthusiasm of many thousands of donors, large and small, who contributed their money, or their toil to the saving of these nine acres, henceforth to be known as

CORAM’S FIELDS  

“To Promote the Health and Cleanliness of the Working Classes…” Or: Victorian Public Baths and Liverpool’s “Saint of the Slums”:

As you can well imagine, health, hygiene and cleanliness in the nineteenth century city was far below the standards we are used to today. This lack of public sanitation led to outbreaks of disease – particularly amongst the poor in their crammed slums – in Britain’s Victorian cities.

In an attempt to combat these conditions of squalor and filth, parishes opened public baths, which were exactly as you’d expect; buildings in poor neighbourhoods where poor people could wash themselves and their clothes. The first of these appeared in Liverpool in 1828, when the Corporation of Liverpool opened a salt-water bath at St. George’s Pier Head, but it wasn’t until the 1840’s that public baths and wash-houses really took off in earnest, with the first fresh, warm water public bath being opened on Frederick Street in Liverpool in 1842.

Two years later the Association for Promoting Cleanliness Among the Poor was founded, and set about establishing bath and laundry houses in London. The first appeared in Glass House Yard, East Smithfield, and for the price of a penny each the poor could bathe and wash themselves. Cleanliness at home was also encouraged and to help with this the APCA handed out whitewash (an extremely cheap and mildly antibacterial white paint containing lime) and paintbrushes so the poor could paint the walls of their tenements, rooms or filthy garrets clean.

The East Smithfield bath proved a success, with over 85,000 people utilizing the facility in the space of a year. This triumph lead to the passing of the Public Baths and Wash Houses Act in 1846, which promised “To promote the health and cleanliness of the working classes, and as a necessary consequence, improve their social condition and raise their moral tone, thereby, tendering them more accessible to and better fitted to receive religious and secular training.” The act also – perhaps more importantly – gave parishes the power to raise money to provide more public wash houses, and so inevitably, following on from the success of the Smithfield bath, more quickly followed in London.

The first “model” baths opened in 1847 in Goulston Square, Whitechapel, and by 1851 seven parishes had raised enough money through ratepayers to open public baths, including St. Pancras, Marylebone and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. In 1850 the Whitechapel, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Marylebone baths were used by a combined total of half a million people.

Of course, public baths and whitewashing alone could not stop the spread of diseases, and it was one such outbreak that sowed the seed for the public bath and wash house movement to be born in Liverpool. An 1832 cholera epidemic in the city saw one plucky citizen rise to prominence in the war on slum diseases. 

Kitty Wilkinson was born Catherine Seaward in Ireland in 1786 but at the age of nine left the emerald isle with her parents and sister and set sail for a new life in Liverpool. As they approached the city their boat capsized. Kitty and her mother made it to Liverpool, but her father and sister were swept out to sea, never to be seen again. They were alone and destitute.

At twelve she made her way to Lancashire and found work in a cotton mill as an apprentice- notoriously hard and dangerous work – before returning to her mother in Liverpool eight years later in 1806, at which time they both went into domestic service. In 1812 Kitty, then aged twenty six, married French sailor Emanuel Demontee. They had two children, but before the second was born the sea once again cruelly struck Kitty’s life; taking her husband whilst he was on duty aboard a ship and leaving her widowed and her children without a father. The incident must have brought back painful memories. Following Emanuel’s death she returned to domestic service, but this did not last long.

Kitty Wilkinson

She had acquired a mangle as a gift and soon put it to good use, setting herself up as a laundress to support her two children, as well as her mother with whom she still lived. She married again in 1823, this time to warehouse porter Tom Wilkinson (from whom she takes her now familiar name), and lead an otherwise uneventful life. 

For nine years at least.

And so the cholera epidemic struck Liverpool in 1832, and Kitty – being the only person in her neighbourhood with a boiler – quickly took matters into her own hands by inviting people from her street to use it to wash their clothes and linen. She also showed them how to use chloride of lime (bleach powder) to clean them. Effectively this was the first example of a public wash house, and Kitty’s actions saved who-knows-how-many lives during the outbreak.

After seeing the success of her wash house, and how effective her methods of combating disease had been, Kitty began to campaign for the opening of public baths in the city so the poor could continue to wash themselves. Her deeds had been noticed by Liverpool councilor and future mayor of the city, William Rathbone, who supported her initiative, which was ultimately successful, leading as it did to the aforementioned Frederick Street baths, of which Kitty was appointed superintendent.

Kitty, whose work earned her the nickname ‘The Saint of the Slums’ died in 1860 at the age of seventy four, and is buried in St. James Cemetery.

In September 2012 a statue of Kitty Wilkinson was unveiled in Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall, where the working class former cotton mill worker and domestic servant sits alongside fellow eminent Liverpudlians such as William Roscoe, Robert Peel, George Stephenson and Gladstone. Kitty’s statue is the first in the hall of a female.

In 1910 a memoir of Kitty’s life was published entitled ‘The Life of Kitty Wilkinson, a Lancashire Heroine’ written by Winifred Rathbone, and in 1927, Herbert Rathbone, the great nephew of councilor William Rathbone published ‘A Memoir of Kitty Wilkinson of Liverpool, 1786-1860: with a short account of Thomas Wilkinson, her husband’

Any Kindle owners interested in knowing more about Kitty may be interested in Michael Kelly's eBook, 'The Life of Kitty Wilkinson' available on Amazon here at a very reasonable price.

“Members Shall Discourage the Wanton Destruction of Birds, and Interest Themselves Generally in their Protection” Or: In the Name of Fashion: Feathers, Carnage and Protest in Victorian England: - a Guest post by Jayne Shrimpton

In June I wrote about Victorian attitudes to animal rights, including vegetarianism and the birth of the NAVS (National Anti Vivisection Society) and the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

Following this, I spoke with Jayne and was thrilled when she agreed to write a guest post for me on the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and how it came about.

I knew Jayne had an extensive set of historical photographs, and I was thrilled when she decided to include some of them to accompany her article. The photos’ included in this post are probably the best on this blog anywhere.

Quite enough chatter from me, here is Jayne’s guest post:

Many dress history enthusiasts would agree that sumptuous feathers and plumes have helped to create some of the most visually stunning millinery, accessories and trimmings over the centuries. But beneath the glamorous paintings, fashion plates and photographs and carefully-preserved hats and costumes lurk cruelty and devastation – disturbing facts that reveal the dark side of fashion.

An obsession with feathers

Since the Middle Ages birds’ plumage has played a significant role in western dress. As early as the 12^th century feathers were used to embellish Venetian masks and by the 15^th century feathered trimmings were an established element of aristocratic dress, expressing wealth and status. Ostrich feathers were worn with jewels as hat decorations during the Tudor era and single ostrich feathers or plumes (clusters of feathers) remained fashionable over hundreds of years. Other feathers in vogue during the 17^th and 18^th centuries included osprey, heron, peacock and even vulture feathers, worn with a flourish in vast hats or ornamenting the exaggerated ‘macaroni’ wigs of the 1770s - described by the artist and writer, Mrs Delany, as ‘waving plumes, preposterous Babylonian heads towering to the sky’. By the later 18^th century, the fashion for feathers had extended lower down the social scale, leading to the near-extinction of wild ostriches. 

In the 1820s and 1830s, ‘Romantic’ extravagance influenced fashion and as garments, headwear and other dress ornaments grew ever more exuberant and inventive, fur and feather accessories were much admired, from swansdown boas (‘tippets’) and enormous fur or feather muffs, to wide-brimmed hats trimmed with ostrich or marabout stork feathers. Ostrich plume headdresses were also a requisite of Court dress – a tradition that prevailed through the 18^th to 20^th centuries.

1820 Fashion plate from La Belle Assemblee showing Court dress and ostrich plumes.

Victorian novelties

As material wealth increased for the rising Victorian middle classes, so the pace of fashion accelerated and the desire for display and novelty became more pronounced. At the same time colonial expansion across the globe and the exploration of distant lands introduced new and ever more exotic commodities and natural specimens to European markets: these included previously unknown varieties of birds, fuelling the fashionable demand for feathers, wings and even entire birds to decorate hats and other articles of dress. To the plumage of numerous native British birds such as grebes, gulls, egrets, herons, finches, jays and pheasants – to name but a few - were now added a rich and vibrant assortment of feathers and body parts of exquisite and, in many cases, rare species of bird including the humming bird, lyrebird, bird of paradise, quetzal and scarlet tanager.

Fashion’s favourite

Early in the Victorian period feathers were used mainly for millinery: for example in the late 1830s and early 1840s the precious male bird of paradise plume was much admired for bonnet trimmings. By the late 1850s hats were returning to fashion - headwear that provided a solid base for decoration and heralded the era now recognised as the most destructive for the world’s bird population – the years broadly spanning 1860 until 1921. Neat hats of the 1860s were often trimmed with the tip of an ostrich feather or a bird’s wing, or were circled with feathers. Then during the 1870s, as fashions grew more elaborate again, there was a marked increase in the use of feathers (and fur) to decorate hats and other items of women’s dress. Feathers were incorporated into day and evening headdresses and hair ornaments and by mid-decade whole stuffed birds were appearing on headwear, mounted on wires and springs to convey an impression of ‘natural’ movement. 

Carte de Visite, 1865

By this time feathers might also be incorporated into items of jewellery such as earrings and corsage (bodice) ornaments, while stylish muffs were often made entirely of feathers or stuffed with eiderdown. Fans also became ultra-fashionable during the 1870s and 1880s, trimmed with a light feather edging of marabout or formed entirely of natural or dyed feathers of different varieties, including cock, pheasant and pigeon feathers. Screen-type fans were also popular in the last quarter of the century: often these were adorned with a small stuffed bird such as a tiny iridescent humming bird.

Late Victorian feather fans

The most bizarre and - some would say – repulsive trends in late-Victorian millinery occurred in the 1880s. During the latter half of the decade hat crowns grew tall, offering a generous display area for not only entire birds, perched upright or posed with wings outstretched, but, in the most extreme examples, an extraordinary array of animal and organic matter, from stuffed mice and reptiles to leaves, twigs and grass – a contrived habitat in miniature on the head.

As ladies’ hats grew wider and increasingly plate-like during the 1890s, crowns and brims were literally heaped with complex arrangements of bows, flowers and plumage – so much so that it is difficult to find an image of a fashionable late-Victorian hat that doesn’t feature feathers, wings or a whole bird.

Hunting, shooting and taxidermy

The Victorian passion for birds and feathers and apparent lack of concern about wearing dead creatures on the person went hand in hand with the popular pastimes of hunting and shooting. Many birds whose plumage, heads and bodies ended up as fashionable women’s dress ornaments were unashamedly pursued by sportsmen, who thought nothing of targeting whole colonies of birds. The art of taxidermy had also been progressing since the mid-19^th century, reaching its commercial heyday in the 1880s and 1890s – a pursuit that not only complemented hunting and shooting, but was even recommended in contemporary publications as a genteel pastime for women. 

 Chapter Illustration for 'Taxidermy' by Urbino & Day, 1884

Slaughter and carnage

Feathers and birds for use in the fashion industry, especially for millinery, fetched high prices and hunters operated all over the world. Both Paris and London were important auction centres but London was the world’s principal feather mart, one London auction record alone listing more than one million heron and egret skins sold between 1897 and 1911. Ostriches were farmed commercially from the late-1880s in South Africa, marking the beginning of a lucrative world-wide industry and introducing more humane methods of obtaining the desirable feathers, although wild ostriches (which can’t fly) were still hunted in some countries, being pursued on horseback until they dropped from exhaustion, then shot or clubbed to death. Many other birds were the victims of shockingly inhumane actions and almost unbelievable cruelty: for example, the wings of living gulls were sometimes pulled off, leaving them to die in slow agony in the sea, while young kittiwakes (a small species of ocean-going gull), whose attractive markings were especially admired, suffered a similar fate - their wings hacked off while they were still in the nest. Other fledglings were left to fend for themselves after the parent birds were thoughtlessly killed. 

Protest and early legislation

In some enlightened mid-Victorian circles there was growing concern about the wholesale destruction of native British birds for their skins and plumage, although motivation was primarily conservationist, rather than emotional, reflecting genuine fears for the future survival of certain species. Particularly worrying was the trade in ‘grebe fur’ - the skin and soft under-pelt of the breast feathers of the great crested grebe - commonly used as a fur substitute in ladies' clothing. Once the fashion for ‘grebe fur’ caught on, the superb head frill feathers of the adult grebes' breeding plumage also became highly desirable in the millinery trade. The feathers could only be taken by killing the birds and as a result the numbers of great crested grebes fell rapidly to the point where they became almost extinct in Britain and Ireland, by 1860.

A leading protestor was eminent ornithologist, Professor Alfred Newton, who campaigned especially for the protection of birds of prey and seabirds during the breeding season and was instrumental in seeing the first legislation passed in 1869 - the Sea Birds Preservation Act. This was designed to reduce the effects of shooting and egg collection during the breeding season and gave limited protection to many species including the auk, diver, eider duck, gannet, grebe, guillemot, gull, kittiwake, loon, oyster catcher, petrel, razorbill and tern. Other legislation followed, notably the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1880, but the disturbing trends continued, especially the wearing of ever more exotic feathers in ladies’ hats, which was alone responsible for the extermination of millions of egrets, birds of paradise and other rare species.

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

In 1889 the embryonic Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) was formed as a pressure group campaigning against the use of bird skins and feathers in the millinery industry. First called The Plumage League, the organisation was founded by Emily Williamson (wife of the explorer and writer, Robert Wood Williamson) at her house in Didsbury, Manchester. The rules of the newly-formed Society were straightforward:

‘That Members shall discourage the wanton destruction of Birds, and interest themselves generally in their protection 

That Lady-Members shall refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for purposes of food, the ostrich only excepted.’ (1889)

In 1891 the Didsbury group joined forces with Mrs Phillips and the ladies of the Fur and Feather League in Croydon to found the Society for the Protection of Birds. The new organisation began as it meant to continue, producing its first publications in the same year - two pamphlets and three leaflets, including W H Hudson’s ‘The Osprey, or Egrets and Aigrettes. Leaflet no 1: 

Destruction of Ornamental Plumaged Birds’.

In its earliest days the Society consisted mainly of women and, ironically, some of its staunchest supporters were exactly the kinds of high-ranking society ladies who might have been expected to wear fashionable feathers, including the Duchess of Portland, who became the Society's first President, and the Ranee of Sarawak. A number of other influential Victorians, including Professor Newton, also lent their support to the cause of the SPB, which gained widespread publicity, leading to a rapid growth in membership and a widening of its aims. 

In 1897 the Society acquired its first London offices at 326 High Holborn, with paid members of staff, and in 1898 moved to 3, Hanover Square, renting offices from the London Zoological Society. The growing influence of the SPB led Queen Victoria to confirm an Order in 1899 that certain military regiments should discontinue wearing osprey plumes. Finally, just 15 years after its foundation, the Society received a Royal Charter in 1904 from Edward VII, becoming the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Hat, c. 1909 - 1912

The final ban

Despite the early success of the RSPB, the international trade in plumage continued to prosper. By 1898 the export of egret feathers from Venezuela had resulted in the killing of up to two and a half million birds, while over 41,000 humming bird skins from Central and South America were sold in London during 1911 alone. The Edwardian era produced some of the most lavish and decadent displays of feathers in dramatic hats and sinuous trailing boas, a fashionable trend that ensured the continuing endangerment of many bird species worldwide. In 1908 the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Bill was first introduced to Parliament: this prohibited the importation of the plumage of any bird (including skin or body of a bird with the plumage) into the United Kingdom, with the exception of the plumage of African ostriches and eider ducks. However the bill was not passed for another thirteen years, until 1921, and didn’t come into force until April 1922. By then the world had changed, fashion had moved on and ornate feathered hats and accessories were no longer in vogue.  

Many thanks to Jayne for agreeing to do this, and for the amazing pictures she sent over to accompany her article. 

If you like, you can catch Jayne every year at ‘Who Do You Think You Are, Live’ and you can visit her website at www.jayneshrimpton.com

“…An Abuse of our Powers over the Animals…”, Or: Victorian Animal Rights & the Societies that Promoted them:

Despite not being a Victorianist herself, ‘Miss Amateur Casual’ occasionally likes to click upon this blog and see what I have been writing about. Occasionally she will read a few lines, but the subjects are not of great interest. (She is interested in a different period in history – the 1960’s. A time about which I know nothing, other than it gave the world the Beatles, the mini-skirt and someone called Mary Quant.)

This week I thought I would surprise her by combining my favourite topic (The Victorian period) with a couple of her favourite topics, and see if I could write a post about vegetarianism and animal welfare in the Victorian period.

I had high hopes for writing something about animal welfare, as I knew this had been a concern for our ancestors prior to Victoria becoming Queen, but I was less confident about finding any information with regards to vegetarianism, as I have always believed the Victorians were staunch eaters of meat, but, I was surprised with what I found…

I shall begin with the world’s foremost animal charity, and what they were up to in the nineteenth century:

The RSPCA

Richard Martin

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was founded by a group of twenty two reformers led by the M.P Richard Martin (who would, due to his kindly ways, go on to earn the nickname ‘Humanity Dick’), champion of morality and philanthropist William Wilberforce, (better known for his work in abolishing the slave trade) inventor and author Lewis Gompertz, and clergyman Reverend Arthur Broome. 

These men got together in a coffee shop in London in 1824 and created the world’s first animal welfare charity, which they named ‘The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ or the SPCA. The Society had great success in its first year, bringing sixty three offenders of cruelty to animals – mostly from Smithfield Market – before the courts, where they were all convicted. Despite this initial success, the Society – which was a charity, let us not forget – began to see the money they had managed to raise running out, and by January 1826, they were nearly £300 in debt. Reverend Arthur Broome had become the Honorary Secretary of the Society upon its establishment, and as such was responsible for the Society, and therefore its debts too. For failure to pay these debts, he was, in January 1826, thrown into prison. The SPCA rallied, and they managed to collect enough money to pay off their debts and Reverend Broome was released.

William Wilberforce

During Reverend Broome’s incarceration, Lewis Gompertz had temporarily taken over as the Honorary Secretary of the Society, a role which he remained in after Reverend Broome was released.

Lewis Gompertz was somewhat of an eccentric man. He was an inventor (aren’t the eccentrics’ always?) and always maintained that he would do nothing in his life to cause suffering to animals. This belief was such that not only was he a vegetarian, but also refused to ride in coaches because he believed that pulling coaches and carts caused suffering to horses and donkeys. To alleviate the need for such quadruped power for transport, in 1821 he came up with his most notable design; a hand-crank to be applied to a small cart which the driver used to propel his vehicle, thus removing the requirement for a horse or donkey to pull it. He applied the hand-crank design to Baron von Drais’ bicycle design, and came up with the vehicle below. 

Bicycle showing Gompertz's Crank

When the SPCA was first set up its primary focus was to investigate animal welfare at markets, knackers yards (where horses that were unfit for work were killed and their meat and bones used) and the welfare of the pit ponies that were used in coal mines. Animals in entertainment were also in need of charity, and Gompertz and the SPCA did all they could to make dog pits – in which dogs fought each other to the death whilst onlookers made bets and watched – illegal, as well as other blood sports such as bear-baiting and bull-baiting. To achieve all this, Richard ‘Humanity Dick’ Martin had managed to pass an act of Parliament in 1822 to prevent cruelty to animals. The act, known as the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822, or more simply as Martin’s Act, was discussed in meetings with magistrates set up by Gompertz, in which he tried to make them understand the importance of it, and to realize that cruelty was occurring to animals everywhere and needed to be stopped.

At the time, Magistrates of the land paid very little heed to Martin’s Act, and despite the pleas of Gompertz, they did not enforce it. This ignorance toward his act of Parliament lead Richard Martin to take matters into his own hands, and prosecuted Bill Burns, a costermonger, for cruel treatment of his donkey. But this was not all; Richard Martin knew that the magistrates would not convict Bill Burns, and so sent for the donkey to be brought to court. Incredibly, his request was allowed and Bill Burns’ donkey was brought in to the astonishment of the magistrates who observed the wounds and injuries on the animal. Richard Martin’s ‘stunt’ was a success – not only was Bill Burns fined, but the case garnered a lot of publicity in the press. Artist P. Matthews painted the incident.

'The Trial of Bill Burns' by P. Matthews

With the help of the SPCA, bear-baiting and bull-baiting were abolished in 1835.

After Victoria was crowned Queen in 1837, she soon became patron of the SPCA, and in 1840 gave the charity permission to add the Royal ‘R’ to their name, making them the more familiar sounding charity we know today, the RSPCA.

In 1876, parliament passed the Cruelty to Animals Act, which we shall investigate further shortly…

The RSPCA soon set their sights on other areas in which animal mistreatment occurred, one culprit being the fashion industry, the victims of which included birds, foxes and even cats. In 1898 one million egrets were killed in Venezuela alone in the name of fashion, and so in 1919, with the help of the RSPCA the ‘Plumage Act’ was passed which banned the use of certain birds’ plumage for fashion.

Visit the RSPCA website rspca.org.uk where you can make donations if you wish, and you can also follow them on Twitter under @RSPCA_official 

Victorian Vegetarianism:

As I mentioned in the introduction, this was the part I did not have high hopes for, and so was surprised with my findings. I’ve never really looked into Victorian diets, other than to look at what general kinds of meals each class would be used to, and to my surprise vegetarianism DID exist in the Victorian era. In my ignorance, I guessed that the vegetarian movement first began in England probably in the twenties or thirties, but what with the Victorian fascination with health and the benefits of things such as ‘sea air’, its hardly a surprise that they stumbled upon this lifestyle choice.

The Victorian era was one of many medical and scientific advances, but in terms of health and medicines, what they knew was far from what we are used to. Outbreaks of disease were at every turn, such as the famous outbreak of cholera in London in 1854 (which you can read about here) as well as a host of other hygiene – or rather, lack thereof – related diseases and infections.

SO, where does vegetarianism fit in? Well, it was seen as an alternate lifestyle promoting the belief that not eating meat is far healthier for the body and will help it to avoid diseases. But where did this belief start?

The first vegetarian society was formed in England by MP for Salford and social reformer, Joseph Brotherton and his wife (who was the first person to publish a vegetarian cookbook, as far back as 1812) at a conference at a vegetarian hospital called Northwood Villa in Ramsgate, Kent in 1847. Their society championed a “simple life and ‘pure’ food, humanitarian ideals and strict moral principles.” This evidently caught the imagination of some people, as one hundred and fifty signed up for the society on the day, with their membership six years later being 889 strong. The members of the Vegetarian Society believed in their ‘pure’ diet for not only health reasons, but also moral ones, believing it wrong to kill another animal merely to eat it.

This belief naturally went hand in hand with strong feelings against other acts of animal cruelty such as vivisection, or scientific testing on animals, and some vegetarians allied themselves with the temperance movement (which was against alcohol) to demonstrate their moral views on life.

In 1885 the Vegetarian Society merged with the London Food Reform Society. The LFRS had been formed in 1877, with baker Thomas Allinson (you can still buy his bread in the UK today) one of its founding members. He advocated the vegetarian diet due not only to its health benefits, but also because, as a lifestyle, it was cheaper than eating meat.

When the two societies merged, the LFRS effectively became the London branch of the Vegetarian Society. This lasted for three years, until the Vegetarian Society formed the London Vegetarian Society, (of which Mahatma Ghandi would go on to become a member of) which even published its own magazine, ‘The Vegetarian’ which is still in publication today.

The Vegetarian Society have a website if you’re interested in such things, vegsoc.org  and if you Tweet, they are also on Twitter under the name @vegsoc 

The NAVS (National Anti Vivisection Society)

As we observed with both the beginnings of the RSPCA and the vegetarian movement, animal rights and morality towards animals gathered momentum in Victorian England, and the third main society of the age that demonstrated this was the National Anti Vivisection Society (NAVS)  

In England in the 1870’s, the estimates were that there were around 300 tests per year carried out on animals for scientific research, and with feelings of sympathy toward animals running high in some sections of society, a group was set up to oppose these tests. The founders of this group were the fiery feminist Francis Power Cobbe, and humanitarian Toni Doran. Their cause was anti-vivisection, and so, naturally, they named themselves the National Anti Vivisection Society, and set about garnering support.

Frances Power Cobbe

They were rather successful in recruiting supporters; they published leaflets containing articles opposing animal experimentation, and soon found their cause being championed by politicians, social reformers, clergymen, doctors, and, amongst their crowning glories, Lord Shaftesbury and Queen Victoria herself. The NAVS called for parliamentary action to stop experimentation on animals ‘In Her Majesty’s Empire’ and they almost succeeded, but for a counter-movement by eminent British scientists of the day masterminded by none other than Charles Darwin, which derailed the NAVS campaign and allowed the practice to continue.

However, Public opposition to vivisection led the Government to appoint the First Royal Commission on Vivisection in July 1875. It reported its findings in January 1876, recommending that special legislation be enacted to control vivisection. This led to the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, (as I mentioned earlier).This act not only legalised vivisection but also allowed the scientists doing it total secrecy. They were given licenses behind closed doors to practice animal testing, and the locations of their laboratories were also kept a secret, with anybody not associated with the experimentation – from the common man to the Member of Parliament – denied access to the work. This meant that the numbers of animals used in experiments – as well as the number of licenses given to scientists – rose every year for the next hundred years.

The 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act remained in force for 110 years, until it was replaced by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986.

The NAVS attended a Council meeting on 9th February 1898 where the following resolution was passed:

“The Council affirms that, while the demand for the total abolition of vivisection will ever remain the ultimate object of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, the Society is not thereby precluded from making efforts in Parliament for lesser measures, having for its object the saving of animals from scientific torture.”

This resolution was passed, but fiery Francis Cobbe was still not satisfied. She did not want the Society to appear to be happy with anything less than total abolition of animal testing, and as a result, after the Resolution was passed, she left the NAVS and formed the ‘British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection’ to demand total and immediate abolition of animal experiments. The resolution of 1898 has remained the policy of the NAVS until this day.

Anna Kingsford, a spiritualist and vegetarian was also an opponent of vivisection. She decided that the best way to attempt to see the practice abolished was to study medicine. She studied in Paris, and in 1880 passed her exams. Upon doing so, she wrote a thesis entitled; ‘L'Alimentation Végétale de l'Homme’ this was later published in England under the title; ‘The Perfect way to Diet’. Her thesis earned her a diploma.

Anna also felt the need to embark upon a spiritual mission to spread the word about vegetarianism and anti-vivisection. In 1882 she gave a lecture at Girton College, Cambridge, in which she used strong words to condemn meat eaters for abusing species’ of a lower order than themselves.

During their campaigning, the NAVS received written backing from many people, below is a typical pamphlet of support, many of which appeared in newspapers or handbills. This is a typical example of a powerful article against vivisection written by a Doctor, Arthur Beale, who bases his opposition on both scientific and moral grounds:

WHY I OPPOSE VIVISECTION, By Dr Arthur Beale:

Dr Arthur Beale

LIKE most members of my profession, I was nurtured in the belief that vivisection is an important, useful, and justifiable adjunct to medical science. But reflection and experience have convinced me to the contrary. I therefore oppose vivisection today from a strong conviction — first, that it is a course entirely at variance with true culture and the progress of society; second, that it is a method of research entirely unscientific; third, that it accumulates facts which, as honourable members of my own profession have said, are not only useless but directly harmful, as they only confuse the mind; fourth, on moral grounds. Besides being an unnatural procedure, it is one that is pernicious alike to the experimenters and to society, and an abuse of our powers over the animals.

I maintain that vivisection is at variance with culture and progress, because for true culture and progress the great essential is healthy sentiments with a strong altruistic motive, i.e. one where all personal gains are subservient to the summum bonum of the community, to humanity at large. It is indeed sentiment that makes man what he is, and the obligations between individuals are greatly heightened by the obligations felt to protect those below and weaker than themselves, especially the animals. Now vivisectors repudiate all sentiment, which they speak of as "sloppy," and to this degree they keep back the highest culture and progress.

Vivisection is unscientific, since, if science means anything at all, it means knowledge. True knowledge not only requires observation of phenomena, or effects, but the interpretation of such in relation to other phenomena. Vivisection has acquired and registered certain facts. But that no real knowledge has resulted from the observation of such phenomena must be patent to any unprejudiced person who has taken the trouble to read both sides of the question. Prof. Lawson Tait's refutations of the vivisectors' assumptions of the utility of vivisection must appeal very strongly to the profession and to the laity, and stand to–day unanswered.

The claims made on behalf of vivisection are, I maintain, misleading and contradictory. It is such a practice as this which makes medicine an art perhaps, a science never. We have lost the key that would permit us to know anything of disease per se. This age of medicine is one of dry empiricisms and guesswork. No one can say for certain what is the cause of disease. We make some shrewd guesses and are satisfied, till a more shrewd guess upsets us. We think, but we do not know! Vivisection does not help us, it only makes the confusion worse by adding contradictory evidence. This is not science. It deals with superficial facts, whilst the real operations are working beyond the ken of the medical five senses.

As an example of the confusion so caused might be mentioned the following: For generations calomel was a trusted drug for specific purposes, but especially for its supposed action on the liver, till Dr. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, declared, that every one in the past had been wrong, on the strength of the results of his painful experiments on dogs, and these experiments proved beyond doubt, to the professor, that this drug had no effect on the liver. But Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, a surgical authority we cannot ignore, declined to assent to this view, and in The Archives of Surgery (January, 1893) says:—

"In the present unsettled faith in drugs we cannot afford to neglect items of evidence from any witness. It is not so long since we were told, 'as the result of conclusive experiments,’ that it is a mistake to believe that mercury has any action on the functions of the liver. So far am I from putting any faith in such conclusions that I look forward with hope to a return of the time when calomel enjoyed the confidence of the public as well as that of the profession."

Other vivisectors found that the useful ingredient of lemons (citric acid) acted as a most deadly poison on cats and dogs, and yet it had only beneficial effects on man. Such experiments convince me that vivisection proves everything and nothing. Common salt, we are told, on the authority of intelligent men, if given in very attenuated doses, has been known to produce poisonous results, and yet we will carelessly take large quantities regularly. All this points to the fact that we know practically nothing of the laws that control the effect of drugs on the body. What, indeed, shall we say of those dangerous animal poisons that vivisectors are so proud of? We are expected to swallow (metaphorically) all the nonsense that comes with such experimental filth as anti-toxin, Koch's consumption cure, Pasteur's nostrum for hydrophobia, etc., and yet we own we know nothing of the direct effects of these things; not one is a reliable preventive or protection, and most are dangerous.

After all, the question is a moral one. It is Might not Right that gives the animals into the power of the vivisector. If we grant that vivisection is necessary, man is the proper medium — experiments on animals are so confusing — and no man more appropriate than him who is so ardently in favour of the practice. I unhesitatingly say that if he who declares vivisection to be necessary will not yield his own living body to the knife, but instead secures an inoffensive animal for the purpose, and then dares to say this is for the sake of humanity, he is no scientist, but an arrant coward and hypocrite. But I believe the apparent sanction of many disciples of Aesculapius (A God of healing and medicine – ED) to this practice is due to an indifference to the subject, and many hundreds in their hearts feel a keen repugnance to it, whilst not caring to expose their opinions. Have I not heard that bold and devoted champions of this cause have been treated most insultingly and unprofessionally. We must never let the esprit de corps interfere with our duty to the public, to Humanity, and to Truth. We have no ill-feeling to vivisectors, but we regret the blindness that holds them to their task and which makes them dispensers of suffering and injustice to the dumb. We must learn to wander back to the true path of service that knows no harshness; to teach the suffering humanity how to keep well and live well, and then vivisection and its nauseating details will go.

ARTHUR A. BEALE, M.B., C.M. 175, Clapham Road, S.W.

Much like the RSPCA and Vegetarian Society, NAVS have a website where you can learn more and also donate to their various good causes navs.org.uk and once again if you Tweet, you’ll find them under @AnimalDefenders.

I hope that ‘Miss Amateur Casual’ finds this post interesting, and that, of course, those of you kind enough to still be reading also find some interest in it. I have certainly found it interesting to research and learn about these societies and movements. The Victorians are not that far away in the dim and distant past from us, and I think finding out that they had similar sentiments as many people in our time about topics such as these makes them seem more human, and less like the stereotypical parodies that many see them as.


Post Script:

After reading this post, Why-Lydia of The Gothic Heroine was kind enough to leave an excellent
comment about one of the women mentioned above, Anna Kingsford. The comment was so comprehensive that I decided to add it to the bottom of this post, because Anna Kingsford certainly appears to have been a remarkable lady, but one about which I knew nothing prior to researching this subject.

Why-Lydia has summarized Anna's achievements better than I could have done, so I have, with her blessing, added her comment to the bottom of this post as a post script.

Why-Lydia says:

I'm so pleased you featured Anna Kingsford in your review. I have been a great admirer of this remarkable woman for many years, and it was her influence as much as anything that encouraged me to turn vegetarian over 20 years ago.

She really was fascinating in that she managed to do so much in her tragically short life. For many years she was incapacitated by lung diseases and she died in 1888 at the age of 41.

As you state, she studied for her doctorate purely so that she could argue her vegetarian and anti-vivisection views with a firm medical background. Since at that time women weren't admitted to medical school in England she was forced to go and study in Paris.

In addition to her work on animal rights, she had also been a campaigner for votes for women in the 1860s. She also edited a women's magazine, to which she contributed regular items on "advice from a lady doctor" on womens health and social issues.

In her later life she became involved in mysticism, initially through Mme Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, Kingsford was at one time leader of the London Lodge, and later, following a split with Blavatsky she initiated her own Esoteric Christian Union. She published a major work The Perfect Way which described her views on religion.

Much of her inspiration came from dreams and visions, which we may now consider were induced by the drugs she was taking for her illnesses, but which were certainly assumed to be communications from her spirit guides at the time. In common with a number of other mystics at the time these were claimed to be recoveries from lost teachings of the ancients, and are recorded in her book "Clothed With the Sun".

Anna was definitely a controversial and colourful character, and well worth exploring further. A long winded, and somewhat biased biography exists written by her collaborator (some might claim lover, but I don't subscribe to that) Edward Maitland.

She also managed to produced a book of poems, a novel and a book of short stories, all of doubtful quality, although there are a few good tales in her book "Dreams and Dream Stories".

She married early, a civil servant who became a C of E vicar in Atcham just outside Shrewsbury. I've never found out exactly why, but sometime after her death he changed his surname, whether it was to escape from some scandal that involved her I'm not sure. She was buried in the grounds of his church, I visited the grave a few years ago.