Penny Dreadfuls

If literacy rates are to be measured by one's ability to sign the marriage register (a somewhat dubious premise at best) then between 1840 and 1900, the rate of literacy increased from somewhere between half and two-thirds to around 97 per cent. There can be little doubt that literacy did increase dramatically during Victoria's reign and this can be attributed to a variety of factors; two of which were the movement toward and the expansion of popular education on the one hand, and the increasing availability of cheap reading material on the other.

Education for the lower and labouring classes in England was provided in the early years of Victoria's reign from a variety of non-government sources, and although it improved through her reign, the main thrust of what little was available emphasized such values as social conformity, knowing one's place, and subservience to one's betters. In 1870, the movement towards widespread, inexpensive mass education finally culminated in the passage of the Elementary Education Act, sponsored by W. E. Forster. This provided elementary education in England and Wales and a decade later, in 1880, schooling was made compulsory until the age of ten. While a great many children managed either to evade the acts, attend on only the the most irregular basis or leave school as soon as it was legal to do so, such schooling meant that the number of readers in the working classes was increasing. A new "class" of readers was being formed, the barely-literate. For these, as Richard Altick points out,

Because they possessed virtually no general information, their reading matter had to be devoid of all but the most familiar literary and historical allusions; they could not be expected to waste time puzzling over any more recondite kind. And because their attention spans were short, they needed a running supply of excitements, brief and to the point, and sentences and paragraphs to match.

The Victorian Era saw a revolution in publishing and particularly in works for the mass market. Improving works and religious tracts were produced in comparatively large numbers and were aimed at the lower end of the reading market. With the success of Pickwick Papers, first published in 1836 as a serial, it became clear that the market for "books" could be increased when they were sold in monthly installments. The greater demand, coupled with the reduction in printing costs meant that it was possible to supply the new market at a lower per-book cost.

Newspapers saw the abolition of the newspaper tax in 1855, and in 1861 the duty on paper. Thus, while The Times continued to sell, its dominant position was threatened by the increasing number of penny dailies (The Times continued to charge 3d until 1870). Even so, even the papers entering the market continued to appeal to a more educated class, at least until the 1880s when the impact of Forster's Education Act began to be felt. Sir Robert Ensor, in his magesterial Oxford History of England volume for the years 1870 to 1914, notes that the Education Act taught millions how to read, "without teaching them what to read." By the end of the century, the Evening News and the Daily Mail were directing their appeal to the newly literate working classes.

And it was at this class, the barely-literate, that the literary pap, whether in the form of cheap newspapers or Penny Dreadfuls was aimed. Its appeal extended beyond this class, however, reaching even the illiterate who would gather around a reader to hear the latest installment from the pen of (among others) the prolific author, G. W. Reynolds.

Penny Dreadfuls were inexpensive novels usually filled with violent adventure or crime and issued in installments. It was a popular genre, giving way, as literacy expanded to adventures aimed at a juvenile population. In their heyday, the Penny Dreadfuls (sometimes called "bloods" or "shilling shockers") were produced en-masse. The reader could be titillated with such titles as "Vice and its Victims," "Wagner the Wehr-Wolf" or "Varney, the Vampire" although perhaps the most famous of all, the tale of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street was rather more innocuously entitled, "String of Pearls: A Romance." Such works were liberally sprinkled with lurid illustrations and certainly appealing to the Costermongers according Mayhew.

What they love best to listen to - and, indeed, what they are most eager for - are Reynolds's periodicals, especially the "Mysteries of the Court."

"The Mysteries of the Court of London" which ran from 1848 to 1856 was Reynolds' sequel to "The Mysteries of London," his long running serial first published in 1844.

While most critics have treated the Penny Dreadful with disdain, there have been those who have been prepared to admit to a liking for this genre; even to its value. Noteworthy was G. K. Chesterton who described his taste in reading as:

one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for the sensational novel, the detective story, the story about death, robbery and secret societies; a taste which I share in common with the bulk at least of the male population of this world. There was a time in my own melodramatic boyhood when I became quite fastidious in this respect. I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was.

He then goes on to declare that any “literature that represents our life as dangerous and startling is truer than any literature that represents it as dubious and languid. For life is a fight and is not a conversation.” Certainly the Penny Dreadful more than fulfilled these criteria!

There are numerous examples of the penny dreadful available on line. Click on the titles below to either download or read on-line the book named.

To download Wagner the Wehr-Wolf in text format click here.

To download Varney the Vampire in text format click here.

To read Vol. 1 of The Mysteries of London online click here.

To read The String of Pearls, the famous story of Sweeny Todd, online, click here.

To read G. K. Chesterton's comments on the Penny Dreadfuls click here.

It’s all in your head: Phrenology and the Victorians

Phrenology, the pseudo-science based on the belief that by examining the shape of a subject’s head, one can determine various traits of character and intelligence was based on the work of the Viennese physician Franz Josef Gall. Popularized in England by Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, it reached its zenith in the latter years of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth century before falling out of fashion.

Phrenology returned as a popular “science” in the middle and later years of the Victorian Era. Its popularity was so great that it even became the subject of lectures and classes amongst the working classes at the Windsor and Eton Mechanics’ Institution in the latter years of the 1830s.

From the middle years of the century forward, it gained in popularity despite an increasing debunking of it by the medical profession. Many phrenologists dabbled in a wide range of “alternative” therapies. When Samuel Adcock was murdered near Leicester, towards the end of June 1854, one of the suspects, Frederick Ashton, who claimed to be from New York, had

been lecturing on phrenology at Leicester for about six months, and he also professes to cure all sorts of diseases by means of flannel bands charged with electricity.

There were those, of course, who took it seriously or at least felt that it might possibly be a fruitful line of medical inquiry. Rev. Baden-Powell, father to the founder of the scouting movement, and Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, deplored the violence of the debates surrounding phrenology. He argued that this had “divested of its true philosophic character what ought to be simply a branch of inductive inquiry,” and went on to argue in From the Order of Nature Considered in Reference to the Claims of Revelation published in 1859, that

Calmly viewed, it exhibits only a set of the most unexpected relations, at first collected and examined in the most purely empirical manner, in complete absence of any theory; out of which, by slow degrees, a system has been elicited, of which it can only be said, that at present it exhibits just that sort of rough, general coherency which, in spite of numberless objections in detail, gives an assurance of something too deeply seated in truth to be put down as mere random coincidence or fanciful delusion.

Even so, there were many who felt that phrenology had been adequately tested and had failed. Thirty years earlier, in March of 1829, writing in the Edinburgh Review, Lord Macaulay described Phrenology as “laughable.” And by 1855, John Hilton, the foremost anatomist of his day, was combating the doctrines of this pseudo-science, “adducing many anatomical objections to prove the fallacies on which it is based.” Nonetheless, the medical profession was certainly not in full agreement as to the usefulness or even the theoretical structure of Phrenology. And while some treated it with disdain, it was not to fall fully into disrepute until well into the twentieth century.

Phrenology was often seen as a joke by Victorians. Light theatrical pieces tended to use it and practitioners were seen as either charlatans or dupes. In 1841, at the Strand a new piece, The Bump of Benevolence, appeared and while the review suggests it had little to do with phrenology, the title is clearly an allusion to it. In 1848, the Lyceum put on Astounding Phenomena, in which one of the main characters is a pseudo-professor of mesmerism and phrenology. In 1867, Tide and Time, A Tale of the Thames, offered viewers at the Surrey Theatre a trial in which an itinerant Professor of Phrenology saves the day (at least temporarily) for our heroine albeit not through any phrenological methods. Phrenology often played a peripheral role in theatrical pieces, and tended to be associated with itinerant “professors,” an association which surely carried with it a certain stigma.

Even as late as 1899, Phrenology could still be seen as a theatre piece. In the musical comedy, Florodora, for example, a song entitled “Phrenology” was described by The Times as “capital”.

Although it is easy to dismiss Phrenology, it was, of course, taken quite seriously by many. In the Tichborne trial, for example, Mr David Wilson, who told the court that he was a physician with a diploma from the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, testified that

he was chiefly engaged in examining the defendant’s brain—that is, he explained,his phrenological development. He believed, he said, firmly in phrenology.

Scientists, however, remained divided on the question of phrenology and it continued to be a subject of some interest. According to The Times of 24 February 1887, at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute (Francis Galton in the Chair) a paper was presented by Professor David Ferrier on the subject of the functional topography of the brain.

He expressed his belief that in the present state of our knowledge the data of a scientific phrenology were still very deficient. Here was reason to believe, however, that if the subject were taken up from different points of view by anatomists, physiologists, psychologists and anthropologists, great progress might be made.

Considering Ferrier’s brilliant career in neurology and neurosurgery, it is difficult to see such a statement as little more than damning of phrenology with faint praise on the one hand or a willingness to accept the name but not the discipline. In fact, he had made his position quite clear three years earlier when, in speaking to the British Association meeting at Bradford in September of 1873, he commented, that

The great work now to be done was to further ascertain the exact scientific localization of the different faculties by examining scientifically the convolution of the brain a work which Gall had begun, but which unfortunately he left off for the more unsatisfactory science of phrenology.

In the popular arena there seems to have been no shortness of practitioners and few if any requirements for one to put up one’s shingle. George Burgess, for example, on his 70th birthday on 12 June 1899 wrote in his diary that

since January 1861 I have been practising Phrenology in the Arcades, Bristol. But my deafness since 1871 has greatly interfered with my pleasure, and my profits, in my work.

Burgess’ formal education was limited for, as he notes, he “finally left off schooling about age 14, a poor scholar”. Although he trained as a stone-cutter and was apprenticed to a marble works in the United States, he enjoyed Phrenology, describing it as “fairly profitable, and … a real good and useful profession.” It is possible that while in the United States Burgess was influenced by the phrenologists, Orson Squire Fowler and his brother, Lorenzo.

Lorenzo Fowler was to later open offices in London where he performed a phrenological examination of Mark Twain. Some time in 1872 or ’73, the ever sceptical Twain visited Fowler’s establishment using a pseudonym. He found Fowler indifferent and the reading so balanced in terms of his strengths and weaknesses as to amount to nothing in the end. One surprise, however, was to be told that he had a cavity where a bump should have been and this was an indication that he lacked a sense of humour!

By the early 1900s, much of the theory of Phrenology had been replaced by the nascent work of psychotherapists like Sigmund Freud whose work was beginning to impact on theories of the mind as well as by the increasing study of the brain itself.

To download George Combe, A System of Phrenology (1837), all 664 pages, click here.

Madame Rachel: Beautiful for Ever

In the 1860s, it was not uncommon to find advertisements on the front page of The Times for a book on beauty by one Madame Rachel. The book, more of a pamphlet at only 24 pages, was published in 1863, and could be purchased at 47a New Bond-Street. Available to the discerning buyer for only 2s. 6d. it was entitled Beautiful for Ever, and, according to the advertisement, was a book "on Female Grace and Beauty." Certainly Madame Rachel had no lack of imagination when it came to describing her products! Such "puffery" was not unique, nor was it limited to the beauty products available for women. The Gentleman's Magazine, in December, 1863, ran a half-page advertisement for Rowlands' products; calling its Macassar Oil, "a delightfully Fragrant and Transparent preparation ... an Invigorator and Beautifier beyond all precedent." Its Kalydor, which was a skin preparation for women, was "unequalled for its rare and inestimable qualities" not to mention "the radiant bloom it imparts to the Cheek."

The 1860s was a decade in which beauty was increasingly seen as a commodity. The design of the commodity was based on those who were considered the beauties of the age. Morality had little to do with this as Skittles, one of the great courtesans of the nineteenth century, was widely admired and imitated by all classes of women. It was to those who sold "beauty" that many women turned, hoping to improve their chances, whether of marriage or of entering into a satisfactory liaison, by improving their looks.

Madame Rachel, or Sarah Rachel Leverson, was born in 1806. She claimed that she entered the beauty business as a result of having her head shaved when she was hospitalized with fever.

This greatly distressed her, for she was very proud of her ... fine flowing locks. ... The medical man ... told her ... that he would give her something that should make her hair grow rapidly and be more beautiful than ever.

When, according to the story, this product worked, Madame Rachel began using it to colour grey hair and soon expanded her claims to her ability to remove wrinkles and generally to cheat the ageing process. It was particularly this reversal of nature's ageing process that had great appeal. The products sold by Madame Rachel and her ilk were of a most dubious nature. They promised much and great claims were made for their ingredients as well as their efficacy. In reality, however, most were simple concoctions, sometimes dangerous, but certainly unlikely to live up the the extravagent claims made for them. All through the nineteenth century goods were adulterated and so-called "beauty aids" were not an exception.

Among the many "beauty" products offered by Madame Rachel were such delights as "Circassian Beauty Wash" and "Magnetic Rock Dew Water of Sahara, for removing Wrinkles;" the former for a price of one guinea and the latter for two guineas. A bottle of "Jordan Water" could be purchased for from ten to twenty guineas and something called "Venus's Toilet," for the same price.

Madame Rachel was, however, much more than a "beautifier." She was certainly a confidence trickster and various sources suggest she was a brothel keeper - or at least a provider of accommodation for sexual activities - as well. Much of the information on Madame Rachel comes from the newspapers where her criminal activities were well covered, a contemporary work, The Extraordinary Life and Trial of Madame Rachel, made up largely of reports in The Times, and a rather scurillous work, History and Trial of Mdme Rachel or, Beautiful for Ever, a penny pamphlet. Certainly Madame Rachel was well enough known to serve as the model for Madame Sara in the first part of a story by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace "The sorceress of the Strand" which appeared in the Strand Magazine for October 1902. In it, Madame Sara is described as

A professional beautifier. She claims the privilege of restoring youth to those who consult her. She also declares that she can make quite ugly people handsome. ...This woman deals in all sorts of curious secrets, but principally in cosmetics. Her shop in the Strand could, I fancy, tell many a strange history. Her clients go to her there, and she does what is necessary for them.

The great music hall performer, Arthur Lloyd, reflected the interest in the 1868 trial with his song, Mrs. Mary Plucker Sparrowtail, in which the eponymous lady goes to a beauty shop run by Madame Brachel where she tells us,

I paid her a couple of thousand and got my pick,
Of the most beautiful requisite cosmetic,
Prhaps you'll think me a lunatic,
Talking to you in this way.
She said a great Duke had fallen in love with me,
This was the truth, and the truth she could prov' to me;
Very soon he was introduced to me,
And adored me from that day.

In August of 1868, Sarah Rachel Leverson, aged 43, was charged with unlawfully obtaining 600 pounds from Mary Tucker Borradaile by false pretences. In addition there was a further charge of conspiring to defraud Borradaile of 3,000 pounds. After listening to the evidence, the Jury retired but was unable to reach a verdict after five hours and was discharged. The following month, Madame Rachel was again placed on trial. The retrial allowed the further evidence to be brought forward.

Mary Tucker Borradaile, according to her own testimony, was the widow of a Colonel and had been married for twenty-two years, six of which were spent in India with her husband. She had first met Madame Rachel in 1864 and had purchased some of her products. She continued over the next several years to visit the shop and buy beauty products until, in 1866 Madame Rachel "suggested a mode by which she could be made 'beautiful for ever,' asking for £1,000 for making her so." Clearly to encourage Mrs Borradaile to do so, Madame Rachel told her that a particular nobleman, Lord Ranelagh, was in love with her and would marry her. The sorry fraud took its course; Lord Ranelagh denying he had ever "authorized her to use my name in any way as representing a desire or intention on my part to marry Mrs. Borradaile." It was a story about exchanges of letters in false names, money obtained under false pretences and a confusing body of contradictory evidence.

In the end, the jury believed that Mrs. Borradaile had been the victim of a scheme by Madame Rachel to obtain money by false pretences. A sentence of five years penal servitude was passed on Sarah Rachel Leverson. Apparently she did not learn her lesson, but went back to the "beauty" business. She was to appear at the Old Bailey ten years later where she was once again convicted of fraud and sentenced to another term of five years penal servitude. Sarah Rachel Leverson, Madame Rachel to the beauty trade, died, still in prison, in 1880.

To download a copy of The Extraordinary Life and Trial of Madame Rachel At the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London, 1868, click here. A list of her extraordinary products (and their prices) can be found on pp. vi-vii.

Threading Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle on the Victoria Embankment

On the Victoria Embankment in London, passed by millions of pedestrians every year, is an Egyptian obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle. One of three, the other two are in New York and Paris, it is made of red granite and stands 68 feet tall. Passerbys occasionally stop and look at it or take a photograph for their album, but few would know the dramatic story of how the 180 ton monolith came to be erected in London, far from its original home.

The obelisk was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Egyptian Viceroy, to commemorate the Battle of the Nile in which the British, under Nelson, defeated the French Fleet in August 1798; and the victory of the British under Sir Ralph Abercrombie over the French in March 1801 at the Battle of Alexandria. Although the British government graciously accepted the gift, it refused to pay for the transportation of the massive obelisk to London; a cost estimated at around 5,000 pounds. In fact, as early as 1801 plans had been put in train to bring Cleopatra's Needle to London but they had been dropped when it was feared that the removal of the artefact would offend the Turkish authorities.

In the 1830s, the matter was still very much in the public eye. According to W. R. Wilde in Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe and Along the Shores of the Mediterranean, (2d ed. 1844),

Captain T. C. Head, who, in 1833, brought this matter strongly before the public, adds, 'that twelve years had elapsed since the notification was made, and the Needle of Cleopatra remains in its neglected state.' There seems to be a disregard of courtesy, as well as of policy, in not accepting the offer of a grateful prince.

Exactly what was to be done with the gift was a topic of popular discussion in the 1850s. Mr Punch himself, in 1851, seemed to delight in playing word games with the obelisk. At one point, he expressed his view that there seemed

some difficulty in getting the public to have an eye to Cleopatra's needle, which is, nevertheless, valuable, on account of its connexion with the thread of history.

There was, however, more serious discussion in the House of Commons in 1852 about it being brought to England by the proprietors of the Crystal Palace newly relocated in Sydenham.

It was to be brought at the proprietors' expense but the Government reserved the right, should the Crystal Palace not prove as popular as expected, to take possession of it on the payment of the Proprietors' expenses. Toward the end of the decade, Charles Dickens's All the Year Round, was expressing the view that something needed to be done. The Needle belonged to England and should be brought home! Nonetheless, it was not until the mid-1870s that serious efforts were made to bring the obelisk to England.

At a dinner party at the home of the well known artist, Edward A. Goodall, John Dixon, an engineer, proposed that the Needle be brought to England by private means. Not long after this, Erasmus (later Sir Erasmus) Wilson offered to fund the project. Wilson was a highly successful dermatologist interested in Egyptian antiquities and a man of varied and widespread interests.(1)

The Pontoon "Cleopatra"
The plan that was settled on for getting the obelisk to England revolved around the placing of the Needle in an iron cylindrical pontoon, 95 feet long and with a diameter of 15 feet. It had a draft of 9 feet, a displacement of 270 tons and with internal supports at ten foot intervals and elastic packing to secure the obelisk from shocks, it was well designed to take and transport the enormous "Needle." The pontoon had a rudder at its stern and a small deck house on top of the cylinder which allowed the steering of the "Cleopatra" as the pontoon was named. The deck house could house a small crew. In addition, although it was to be towed by steamer to London there were two small sails which were designed to steady the pontoon.

By 1877, The Illustrated News could tell the public that the

obelisk of ancient Egypt, which has been left lying so long half buried in the sand at Alexandria, is now about to be made an ornament to the city of London.

There were a few, not unexpected, problems.Very rough weather enroute from Alexandria to Gibralter was sufficient reason for the Captain of the Steamship Olga to decide that it was prudent to put into Algiers for coal. After setting out again, the Olga once more ran into bad weather. On Sunday, 13 October 1877 in a force 7 to 8 gale in the Bay of Biscay, the "Cleopatra" had to be abandoned . In an attempt to rescue those on the pontoon, a boat with six crew from the mother ship was swamped and all six lost their lives. The men are commemorated on a bronze plaque attached to the foot of the needle's mounting stone. Eventually Captain Booth was able to get the Olga next to the pontoon and rescue Captain Carter and the five remaining crew aboard "Cleopatra" which was abandoned and presumed lost.

Within a few days, however, and despite a pessimistic assessment from Captain Carter, the Cleopatra was found floating comfortably in the sea some distance off Ferrol, a coastal town in northwest Spain. On Friday, the 19th of October, The Times reported the receipt of the following telegram from Lloyds.

Ferrol, Oct. 18, 10.50 a.m.

The "Fitzmaurice," steamer, from Middlesbrough for Valencia, fell in with and recovered at sea the Cleopatra's Needle recovered Cleopatra's Needle, 90 miles north of Ferrol.

Less than a month later, at 7.00 a.m. on Tuesday, 15 January 1878 in fine weather, the Cleopatra resumed its voyage to England in tow behind the paddle tug, Anglia. the great obelisk arrived in the Thames estuary six days later, as debate raged over a permanent location for the needle.

Finally, on Friday, the 15th of February, the Board of Works approved a site on the Thames Embankment at the Adelphi Steps. By the middle of September, the obelisk had been erected and within a month, the site had been cleared of all the material used in the erection of the needle. There it still stands, passed by millions of pedestrians every year of whom few, if any, know its true story.

To download a copy of James King, Cleopatra's needle : a history of the London obelisk, with an exposition of the hieroglyphics (1883), click here.

(1)For further information on Wilson and particularly his involvement with Turkish Baths, click here or go to Malcolm Shifrin's wonderful website at http://www.victorianturkishbath.org.

Wet Nursing in Victorian England

Morisot, The Wet Nurse (1880)

In recent years there appears to have been a resurgence in "cross-feeding," the practice of breast feeding of infants by other members of the family than the mother. Although often differentiated from "wet nursing," where the nurse was an outsider hired to breast feed, the principle of using the non-maternal breast is much the same. There is no question that wet nursing has been widely practiced in a great many cultures including Victorian England. In 1863, The Medical Times and Gazette, noted that in cases where it was inadvisable to give the child the breast, "amongst the higher classes who can afford to have a wet nurse, a good one should at once be procured." It went on to caution, however, that "amongst the lower orders the child should be fed, in great part, 'upon the bottle,'" even though this was not as satisfactory a method as wet-nursing but certainly "much more desirable than the exclusive use of the deteriorated milk of the mother."

Two major issues surrounded the question of wet-nursing. First, was whether or not it was desirable, in a general sense. when the mother was capable of breast feeding and, second, the question of safety; was the milk from a wet nurse, often unknown to the family, safe. A number of other issues were raised during the century, many of which revolved around questions of social class behaviour. For if one believed that the lower and labouring classes were unclean, immoral and animalistic one had to ask why a healthy woman capable of breast feeding, would turn to a wet nurse.

Assuming the need or desire for a wet nurse, the safest way to acquire such an employee was through a Lying-in Hospital. The Times regularly carried advertisements. Typically, Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital advertised in March of 1888 that "wet nurses [could be] promptly supplied on application to the Matron," and the General Lying-in Hospital in York road, Lambeth advertised in the last year of the century, on 4 September, that "Wet Nurses ... can always be obtained on application to the Matron." In addition wet-nurses were sometimes available through the workhouses. According to The Times of 15 October 1836, in some workhouses, when a woman was admitted and gave birth, the parish officers would, after the birth, recommend them "as wet nurse, which is their usual mode of providing for unfortunate persons of this kind."

One of the foremost critics of the system of wet-nursing in the middle years of the nineteenth century was the Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne described in the Dictionary of National Biography as "a militant and controversial philanthropist." A frequent writer to The Times, he was well known under his signature, S.G.O. and held the living at Durweston in Dorset. On 4 September 1852, his letter "the Wet-Nurse System," was published in The Times. In it he attacked the wet-nursing system on the grounds that it was destructive of the lives of the children of the wet-nurses. He quoted the registrar of the rectory sub-district of Marylebone who, in his return to the Registrar-General, pointed out that in the month of August he "registered the deaths of 19 children under one year old," and then went on to write that most of them were "brought up by hand" and amongst the number "some of them were illegitimate."

The mothers obtain situations as wet-nurses, and their own offspring are left without any one to take proper charge of them. The food given is often improper, and it is irregularly administered. Usually in about four or five months death occurs, literally and truly for the want of nature's own nutriment--breast milk.

The deaths of the infants born to women who became wet nurses were not always simply a lack of care or nutrition. There was always the suspicion that it might have a secondary monetary rationale. An article in The Times of 18 January 1849, dealing with Burial Clubs, reports stories about wet nurses enrolling their own children in multiple burial societies in order to profit from deaths brought on by illness and lack of nutrition while their mother wet nursed another woman's child. Worse still were those cases where a wet nurse would enrol the nursing infant in one or more burial societies.

Of great concern, too, was the question of the transmission of disease, and particularly venereal disease from the wet-nurse to the baby. As it was not uncommon for a wet nurse to be the mother of an illegitimate child, there were constant questions about their morality. In the 1860s, when the treatment of the disease was still a subject of much speculation, The Medical Times and Gazette, explored the possibility of the communication of syphilis from a wet-nurse to an infant. What seems to have been overlooked, however, was the possibility of the transmission of syphilis from a baby to a wet nurse. David Kertzer, in Amalia's Tale, writes about the legal fight of an Italian peasant woman for justice after she contracted the disease from a baby she was wet nursing. Although she won the case, during the years in which it was fought, Amalia Bagnacavalli lost her own little girl to syphilis, her husband contracted the disease and her pregnancies ended with the death of the newborn either at birth or shortly thereafter. One cannot help but wonder how frequently this pathetic tale was repeated in England in the nineteenth century.

Moralists often concerned themselves with the notion that a wet nurse, having borne an illegitimate child, was living in the lap of luxury. A Mr H Turner, a chemist, writing in The British Journal of Homoeopathy in 1857, summed up the prevailing attitude when he described the wet nurse as one

who generally turns out a nuisance in the house, barely endurable. If the nurse has lost her own child of nearly the same age as the one she is engaged to suckle, her health good, and all parties satisfied, then nothing can be said against the arrangement; but if her own offspring is living, and if it has to be taken from her, and deprived of its own proper nourishment, an unnatural and cruel wrong is inflicted on the poor helpless and innocent sufferer; and if, as is often the case, the selected nurse is a mother but not a wife, the encouragement to immorality is so direct and positive, as to be shrunk from by all right minded persons, and vice is rewarded with a good home, good living, and little or no work.

It is a view echoed by the Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne when he said he did "not know which to rate highest, the cruelty or the immorality to which the wet-nurse system offers so liberal a premium."

Even Mrs Beeton who is more than fair-minded and balanced in dealing with wet nurses expresses her concern that there are always those amongst them who "are too often both selfish and sensual, performing, without further interest than is consistent with their own advantage, the routine of customary duties."(1) Mrs Beeton then goes on to describe at some length what a prospective employer should look for in selecting a wet nurse. And, once selected, it was necessary, according to Mrs Beeton, to watch the wet nurse like a hawk.

There are two points all mothers, who are obliged to employ wet-nurses, should remember, and be on their guard against. The first is, never to allow a nurse to give medicine to the infant on her own authority: many have such an infatuated idea of the healing excellence of castor-oil, that they would administer a dose of this disgusting grease twice a week, and think they had done a meritorious service to the child. The next point is, to watch carefully, lest, to insure a night’s sleep for herself, she does not dose the infant with Godfrey’s cordial, syrup of poppies, or some narcotic potion, to insure tranquillity to the one and give the opportunity of sleep to the other. The fact that scores of nurses keep secret bottles of these deadly syrups, for the purpose of stilling their charges, is notorious; and that many use them to a fearful extent, is sufficiently patent to all.

Such concerns seemed not to bother those who, for whatever reason, used wet nurses; and those who chose to do so were amongst the highest in the land. Certainly Queen Victoria did not breastfeed her children. An 1858 Anecdotal Memoir of the Princess Royal, justifies this decision on grounds of the Monarch's busy schedule.

State duties and Court requirements ... did not permit one in so exalted a position as Her Majesty to devote herself to this delightful task, at least with that unremitting attention which the health of the babe rendered necessary, and therefore, though deeply to Her Majesty's regret, a wet nurse was appointed.

Just how dissapointed Victoria was is, of course, open to speculation since apparently she chose not to breast feed any of her children. What was good enough, however, for the Monarch was certainly good enough for her subjects and wet nursing continued all through Victoria's reign and beyond.



(1)Isabella Beeton, Book of Household Management (London: 1861), para 2436.