“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.

“Trow at Once ran to the Canal and Jumped in to the Rescue…” Or: The Heroics of a Victorian Tram Conductor:

In the 1700’s, at the height of the industrial revolution, canals cut across the green and pleasant land of Britain. They were to the 1760’s what railways were to the 1860’s; the veins of commerce pumping life from city to city, keeping the heart of industry pumping. Canals were densely packed virtually all the way from Liverpool to London via all the big manufacturing centres such as Birmingham and Sheffield in order to transport large materials or items in a mass and speed that was unachievable on roads at the time, especially for large freight such as coal (the price of which dropped dramatically once it could be transported in bulk by canal, as opposed to the more costly, time consuming and inefficient transport by road) When the railways came, however, the efficacy of the canal was trumped. Trains were much faster and could carry even more freight. In time, transport of goods via train became cheaper, too, and use of the canals declined.

Throughout England’s history, 56 canals have been abandoned, either reclaimed by nature, left as water-less ditches or filled in and urbanized. One such abandoned canal was the Newcastle-under-Lyme canal in Staffordshire. But why have I decided to write about a canal that was opened in 1800 and officially closed in 1935? What on earth is Victorian about that? Well, sometimes I find it can be more fun researching 19^th century events that are a little lesser known to the greater world. I find it can add fine detail and almost ‘humanize’ the behemoth that is the Victorian period if a little story like this is examined rather than a big story, such as, say, a war.

So, why am I writing about a now-disused canal in Staffordshire?

Well, in April 1894 the canal witnessed an act of Victorian heroism that is still commemorated in the area to this day.

The Newcastle-under-Lyme canal ran alongside London Road in Hanley, Staffordshire (although now there is no trace of it) and this road was served by a tram. On 13^th April 1894, the conductor of the tram was twenty-two year old local man Timothy Trow, and as his tram approached London road, four-year-old Jane Ridgeway was playing on the towpath…

Richard H. Weir, in his 1980’s Staffordshire-themed book ‘Six of the Best: A Potteries Companion’ describes the events that took place next:

‘Imagine the scene in 1894. In those days London Road was a cobbled highway, resounding to the screech of steam-trams as they slowed to a halt near this spot. Between pavement and water's edge were iron railings and a row of tall trees. As a tram drew close at 4 o'clock, one April afternoon, its young conductor heard screams coming from the canal. He looked up and, seeing a little girl, terrified and flailing desperately to stay afloat, wasted no time in vaulting the railings and plunging into the chill water to her rescue. By fate's intervention, he was tragically seized by a violent cramp and sank like a stone to the bottom. The child was later pulled out alive.’

A more detailed – if less pleasing to the imagination – version of the incident was reported in a midlands newspaper three days later following the coroner’s inquest:

STOKE-ON-TRENT

The Sad Death of a Tramway Conductor.

On Saturday Mr. J. Booth (coroner) held an inquest on the body of Timothy Trow (22), a conductor in the employ of the North Staffordshire Tramways Company, who met with his death while attempting to save a child from drowning. The previous afternoon deceased was in charge of the car working on the London Road section of the tramways. About a Quarter past four o'clock, just as the car was about to start from the West End terminus, attention was attracted by the sound of a splash in the adjoining canal, and on observing that a little girl had fallen into the water, Trow at once ran to the canal and jumped in to the rescue. He walked part of the way across, until be was up to the waist, when he suddenly sank very much deeper, and called out to his fellow workman, the engine driver, that he had the cramp. He appeared to become helpless, and a Mr. Henry Lloyd, of Berresford Street, Shelton, entered the canal to his assistance.

Deceased got hold of and struggled with to Lloyd, who was ultimately obliged to leave him to ensure his own safety, and Lloyd, being also seized with cramp, had to he assisted on to the towing-path. In the meantime the child had been rescued by John Forrester, of Wellesley Street, Shelton, who also made an attempt to reach the deceased, but without avail. Everything, in fact, was done to rescue Trow, but the efforts proved futile, and the body of the deceased was not recovered until about half an hour later.

The Coroner said that there could be no doubt that Trow lost his life in an heroic attempt to save that of the child, and appeared equally clear that the conduct of the other persons present when this distressing fatality occurred was very laudable.

The Jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death.”

            - Birmingham Daily Post, April 16^th 1894

Such was the empathy of local people for Trow’s actions they collected money for a memorial to be erected to remember him. The obelisk is still standing today, as can be seen below, sitting next to where the towpath of the canal would have been until 1935.

The Obelisk on London Road Today

 So there we have a tiny piece of the nineteenth century jigsaw to add to the whole wonderful patchwork puzzle. Old newspapers can be an excellent source to find stories such as these, and even lesser stories, long forgotten by everyone, but which deeply affected people at the time they happened. I know its something I keep saying, but if you like history and enjoy researching, then I do recommend you try and get hold of an old newspaper and scan through the pages, it’s a great way to pass an hour or two!

“Go, Rest, Old Year! Thy Life is Ending…” Or: Happy New Year!

As 2013 beckons, I have selected a New Year’s poem with which to say not only a happy New Year to all, but also a monster thank-you to everyone who has read anything I’ve written this year; I remove my bowler hat and bow in humble thanks to you all, for without readers, I would not bother to clutter the internet by writing these pages.

And now, selected from the Leisure Hour New Year 1877 number, an anonymous poem with which to sweep away the old year and usher in the new:

Ah me! Ah me! The Year is dying;

When first he came in joyous state,

On youth and hope and strength relying,

We formed a hundred projects great, resolved and planned; but Time was flying,

And winter winds surprised us, sighing - 

"Too late! Too late!"

What lofty schemes employed our leisure,

The glad New Year should these unfold;

But Spring was surely made for pleasure,

And Summer's tale was quickly told;

Then Autumn filled his horned measure,

But while we revelled in his treasures

The Year grew old.

Oh, Spring, too soon thy zenith gaining,

Oh, Summer, of thy beauty shorn,

Oh, Autumn, for brief season reigning,

What fruit, what harvest, have ye borne?

The Year is grey, the Year is waning,

Few be the wintry hours remaining,

And we must mourn.

What, mourn when Christmas songs are sending

Their sweetest echoes o'er the earth?

What, mourn when rich and poor attending,

So gaily wait the New Year's birth?

Aye! Then must joy and sorrow blending

With retrospection, still be lending

Soft tinge to mirth.

So must we look, with gracious glances.

On deeds that rise to our distress;

So must we think of wasted chances,

For heavenly gain we did posses;

Of misspent hours, of foolish fancies,

Of broken vows, and small advances

In holiness.

Oh, it is well to pause and ponder - 

Shall every year thus lightly go?

Shall it be only ours to squander?

No, by the grace of heaven, no!

See, the dim future stretcheth yonder,

And thither, prayerless, shall we wander?

Not so, not so.

Go, rest, Old Year! Thy life is ending;

Thy strength is gone, thy glory fled.

Go, rest! While God our way defending,

We the new path before us tread.

Hark! As we listen, meekly bending,

The midnight bells proclaim, ascending.

The Year is dead.

                                            - Leisure Hour, New Year, 1877

Wishing everyone a prosperous, successful, and above all a happy new year!

”Streets of Dazzling Whiteness, Carpeted in Snow…” Or: A Post-Christmas Poem:

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas day and have had a super festive period! I return with another Christmas poem which is again a rather downbeat and melancholy affair, but nevertheless beautiful and evocative. The image painted by the writer is quite vivid here:

A Contrast

By E.M. Maizey

Halls of costly brightness,

Splendour, pomp, and show

Streets of dazzling whiteness,

Carpeted in snow;

Petted lap-dogs sleeping,

Couched at beauty's feet;

Human beings weeping,

Houseless in the street.

Fires brightly blazing,

Couches made to bear

Forms of dainty moulding - 

Hearts that know no care;

Roofless sheds containing

Creatures stamped with woe -

Wearied with complaining

Dying as they go.

Happy children treading

Carpet-covered floors;

Wretched young ones shedding

Tears at workhouse doors;

Parents, some! too wealthy

For the charge they bear;

Some! Oh, God! sustain them,

Crushed by grief and care.

                                      - People's & Howitt's Journal, 1850    

I will be back with one final piece of Victorian poetry on New Years day, but in the meantime, enjoy the remainder of the season! 

“My Christmas Fare a Scanty Meal of Dry and Stone-Like Bread…” Or Another Victorian Christmas Poem

One thing that always strikes me about Victorian Christmas poetry is the downcast and melancholy nature of it. Perhaps it’s just the particular efforts I have in my collection, but its quite rare that I come across happy and jolly Christmas poems, and this is no exception. The vivid imagery, though, is absolutely wonderful, and more than makes up for the gloomy subject. Maybe the Victorian poets liked to temper the festivities of the season by highlighting the predicaments of the less fortunate with their poetry? Who knows? But here is this weeks festive tear-jerker:

The Sempstresses Christmas Song

By Thomas Russell

Here's Christmas, but no holly-boughs on these lone walls are hung,

A gala time - but rind this hearth no carol rhymes are sung;

No merry greeting grateful comes to my neglected ear,

No footfall on the stair to tell of lov'd ones drawing near!

I'll deck my Robin's cage to day afresh with groundsel bloom,

He'll warble his accustom'd note until the shadows loom;

The busy needle while I ply, and gather thread on thread,

My "Christmas fare" a scanty meal of dry and stone-like bread.

The golden days of infancy, when berries red and white

were mingled on our walls at home, I'll dream of them at night;

I'll fancy that these icy limbs are frolicking again,

As then they gambolled, though I know the fancy will be vain.

The holly and the mistletoe, ah! What are they to me?

To see them waste their greenness here, a mockery would be;

Enough to know the freshness of my heart hath passed away,

It needs no forest-gathered things to tell me that today!

I've opened my casement window, that the warbling of my bird 

May mingle with the joyous strains that in the streets are heard;

And the pealing notes of countless chimes come softly stealing in,

As if to woo my darkened thoughts to gladness back again.

The laugh of merry childhood comes mingling with their strain,

Enough! I cannot hear that sound, I'll shut it out again;

It brings the tear-drop in mine eye, retards my feeble hand,

There, Robin, sing to only me thy carol soft and bland.

                          - People's and Howitt's Journal, 1850

This is to be my last post before Christmas day, so may I wish all readers a happy and joyous Christmas day, and here’s hoping Father Christmas brings you all that you desire!

'The Poor Sempstress' by Richard Redgrave, 1843

“What Can I give Him, Poor as I am?” Or: Christina Rossetti & Our First Christmas Poem for 2012:

Christmas is almost upon us again, and I find myself in the familiar place of bringing you little-known Victorian Christmas poetry as has become my custom here for the last couple of years. However, for my first Christmas poem this year (last week’s was only a poem about winter) I have decided to opt for a piece of poetry by someone famous.

My usual source for Christmas poetry is Victorian periodicals, which published poems by members of the public, aspiring writers and little-known published writers alike. I must reiterate here that I am not into poetry, but I can appreciate a simple poem, and I find something a little more sincere and interesting about poetry written by non-famous Victorians.

That said, I have chosen to usher in the Christmas season this year with quite a famous poem by quite a famous Victorian poet.

Born in London in 1830, Christina Rossetti was, as you may have guessed, if you don’t already know, the sister of the great pre-Raphelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as well as of the writer and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood William Michael Rossetti and author Maria Francesca Rossetti. She was the youngest child in this great artistic family; and as well as her talented siblings, her father was an Italian poet, and her mother, whilst not herself of an artistic bent, was the sister of John William Polidori – the author of one of the first English vampire stories, The Vampyre, in 1819.

Christina, growing up in a household overflowing with artistic ideas, soon began to show promise as a poet. By the age of twelve she had written a book of poetry, and by eighteen she had published her first two poems (Death’s Chill Between and Heart’s Chill Between) in the literary magazine Athenaeum. Many of her early poems focused on death and loss and were somewhat melancholy. When she was nineteen Christina began contributing poems to the (ultimately unsuccessful) Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyn.

Christina Rossetti by Dante Rossetti, 1866

Goblin Market and Other Poems – by far her most famous collection – was first published in 1862, when Christina was thirty-one. This was her first work widely available to the public and proved to be very successful, receiving critical acclaim from, not only the press, but eminent and popular poets of the day, including Tennyson. In the year prior to the release of Goblin Market the great female poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning had died in Italy, leaving her place as Britain’s premier female poet vacant. The success of Goblin Market and Other Poems saw Christina take on that mantle, becoming the most popular female poet in the country, although she never quite reached the same heights of fame and popularity as Browning.

Christina sat as a model for her brother, Dante, for some of his best known paintings, including his first oil painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, for which, at the age of eighteen, she was the model for the Virgin Mary. This painting was was the first instance of a piece of work bearing the initials ‘PRB’, which signified the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In the paintings it is quite plain to see that she was a handsome woman; despite this, as well as her great talent, Christina never married. She was engaged to James Collinson, a painter and founding member of the pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, but his converting back to Catholicism following a crisis of conscience (having reverted to Anglicanism in order to marry Christina) caused staunch Anglican Christina to end the relationship in 1850. She also turned down the hand of Charles Cayley – the linguist best known for his translations of the work of Dante Alighieri – on religious grounds, and also the offer of painter and agnostic John Brett.

'The Girlhood of Mary Virgin' by Dante Rossetti, 1848

From 1859 until 1870 she volunteered at the St Mary Magdelene House of Charity in Highgate, which was a refuge for former prostitutes. Her experiences here with the fallen women lead many to believe the idea for her poem Goblin Market – the protagonists of which are two sisters, and there being a distinct undercurrent of sexual imagery throughout – to have been born there.

In the early 1870’s Christina was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a thyroid disorder that includes insomnia, palpitations and hair and weight loss amongst a long list of possible symptoms. By the 1880’s the bouts of the disease had become so severe that she was made an invalid, but she continued to write. The following decade saw further health complications when, in 1893 she developed breast cancer. The tumour was removed, but returned in September 1894. Three months later she died in London.

Christina is buried in the Rossetti family plot in Highgate Cemetery West.

In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti, c. 1872

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty,

Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim

Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk

And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

Angels and archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Thronged the air,

But only His mother

In her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the Beloved

With a kiss.

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb,

If I were a wise man

I would do my part,

Yet what I can I give Him,

Give my heart.

Christina never achieved the heady heights of success – in life or after – that her brother Dante did, but she did leave behind a body of work, which, unlike a lot of nineteenth century poetry, is quite accessible and enjoyable to read, particularly the fairy-tale-esque Goblin Market.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Pre Raphaelites, or seeing their work, the Tate is currently running an exhibition entitled ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde’ but hurry, the exhibition ends on 13th January! See details here:

“The Touches of Winter are Round us; and Weather yet Wilder Draws Nigh…” Or: a Winter Poem:

It has become somewhat customary here to usher in Christmas with some Victorian festive poetry, and this year will be no different. There’s something about nineteenth century winter and Christmas-themed poems that really evoke – to me, anyway – the spirit of past Christmasses; and by that I don’t mean Victorian Christmas necessarily, but even festive periods as early as twenty or thirty years ago, when, to me, Christmas seemed a little more simple than it does now.

Perhaps it was just where I was living at the time, or maybe (more likely) that I was a child, but I’m sure there were more carol singers, snowy days and a shorter build-up to Christmas than now; but maybe I look upon the past with rosy spectacles.

Today’s poem is not one about Christmas, but rather, now that there is a chill upon the air and we’ve had a little snowfall here in Britain this week, one about winter.

If you find modern-day Christmas a little bit of a blur, then I hope you’ll enjoy the simple spirit of the poems featured here over the next couple of weeks.

'London in Winter' by William Walcot, 1909 

Here’s this year’s first:

An Old Body's Winter Song.

The touches of Winter are round us;

He is busy with wind and with rain,

The leaves are all swept from the branches,

The pools are brimful in the lane.

How sombre the noontide! how sullen

The lowlands, where snowflakes fly fast!

How plaintive the notes of the robin!

For Winter has reached us at last.

The touches of Winter are on us;

Our cheeks waning pallid and thin,

Our eyes fading slowly in colour,

Bespeak some sure fading within.

But if mind has grown larger and purer,

Its thoughts and its aims all more clear,

Its perceptions of truth all corrected,

We care not tho' Winter is here.

The touches of Winter are on us;

Our hands are now feeble and slow,

Our feet totter round the small garden -

Are chilly beside the hearth glow.

But if in the long past behind us

Our words and our works have been great

In number and kind, and refreshing,

We welcome our winter estate.

The touches of Winter are on us;

How dull beats the heart in the breast!

The breath comes and goes in long pauses,

We are fond of our room and our rest.

But if the soul's hope has been garnered,

The will trained to strike passion dumb,

Tho' bruises and blood linger on us,

We are thankful our winter has come.

The touches of Winter are round us;

And weather yet wilder draws nigh,

Stormy days with their weltering cloud rack,

Frigid nights with no star in the sky.

But if in the world beyond this world

Springs life free from cold or decay,

Oh, Winter, you herald His working

Whose will is as right as His way.

                                                              - Alfred Norris, from Leisure Hour, 1877

More festive poetry next week, and if you’ve enjoyed this, click on the ‘poetry’ label in the ‘looking for something specific?’ list of words on the right more.