Abstract
Continuing the theme of previous chapters on how infants fared at the hands of mother-surrogates, this chapter will visit the conventions of child care of working-class day-carers and baby-minders to identify the part they played in the high northern IMR. It will explore how day-carers and baby-minders looked after the infants they were paid to supervise and protect on a daily or weekly form. It will firstly address the historiography of the women employed in this occupation. Then, through individual case studies, it will investigate the relationship between carers and infants in Lancashire in particular (day-care was less common in Yorkshire, as mothers there could often take their infants to work with them). The discussion will then move on to consider in broad terms the practice of loco-parentis, examining its nature and characteristics in more detail to identify whether the actions of day-carers and baby-minders had a detrimental effect on the northern infant mortality rate.
‘She asked me if I would nurse Lewis who was three weeks of age, I agreed for the sum of 5s per week’.1
In 1877, Lewis, the infant son of Jane Jones, was cared for by the babyminder Isabella Mason, of Darwen, Lancashire, whilst his mother went to work. For working-class mothers like Jane Jones, the infant- and childcare services provided by self-employed, private child carers like Mason were essential.
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Notes
M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death, Child Care and the State’, The Baby-farming Scandal and the First Infant Life Protection Legislation of 1872’, in Continuity and Change, 9, pp. 271–8 and L. Rose, (1986) The Massacre of the Innocents (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 97.
M. Hewitt, (1958) Wives and Mothers in Victorian Industry (London: Rockliff), p. 129.
E. Roberts, (1984), A Woman’s Place, An Oral History of Working Class Women (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), p. 141 and 143.
D. Bentley, ‘She-Butchers: Baby Droppers, Baby Sweaters, and Baby-Farmers’, in J. Rowbotham and K. Stevenson (2005) eds. Criminal Conversations, Victorian Crimes, Social Panic and Moral Outrage (Ohio) pp. 198–214.
E. Roberts, (1984) A Woman’s Place, p. 1.
E. Roberts, (1986) ‘Women’s Strategies, 1890–1940’, in J. Lewis, (1986) Labour and Love, Women’s Experience of Home and Family 1850–1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), p. 225
E. Roberts (1986), ‘Women’s Strategies’, p. 234.
For details of Emma Paterson see S. Alexander, (1994) Becoming a Woman (London: Virago), p. 57.
M. Hewitt, (1958) Wives and Mothers, p. 130–31.
E. Roberts, (1984) A Woman’s Place, p. 145
J. Lewis, (1986) Labour and Love, p. 83.
J. Lewis, (1986) Labour and Love, p. 83.
Bentley does not give a precise numbers of baby-farmers, other than to state its number was very high. D. Bentley, (2005) ‘She-Butchers: Baby Droppers, Baby-Sweaters, and Baby-Farmers’, in J. Rowbotham and K. Stevenson (2005) (eds.) Criminal Conversations, Victorian Crimes, Social Panic, and Moral Outrage, (Ohio State University Press) pp. 198–214, and especially p. 201; J. Hinks, (2014) ‘The Representation of Baby Farmers in the Scottish City, 1867–1901’, Women’s History Review, 2014; 4, pp. 560–70; J. Ikin, (1865) ‘Abstract from a Paper on the ‘Undue Mortality of Infants and Children, in Connection with the questions of Early Marriages, Drugging Children, Bad Nursing, Death Clubs and Certificates of Death’, etc. Reprinted from the “Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Sciences Congress at Sheffield, Baines and Sons, (NAPSS), (Leeds). See also M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death, Child Care and the State’, and L. Rose, (1986) The Massacre, p. 97 and particularly chapter 11.
D. Bentley, (2005) ‘She-Butchers’, p. 201.
L. Rose, (1986) The Massacre, p. 17.
P. Thane, (1978) ‘Women and the Poor Law’, p. 29.
M. Anderson, (1971) Family Structure in Nineteenth Century Lancashire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death’, p. 271.
M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death’, p. 271, P. Thane, ‘Women and the Poor Law’, p. 32 and L. Rose, The Massacre, pp. 30–32.
P. Thane, (1978) ‘Women and the Poor Law, in Edwardian England’, History Workshop Journal, 6, (1978) pp. 29–51, and M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death,’ p. 271.
E. Roberts, (1984) A Woman’s Place, pp. 141–4.
H. Hendrick, (1994) New Perspectives: Child Welfare 1872–1989 (London: Routledge), p. 46 and D. Bentley, (2005) ‘She Butchers’, p. 201. David Bentley argues this was not new as ‘the practice of baby-farmers deliberately murdering, by starvation or worse, children entrusted to their care was, practiced as early as 1724’.
A. Davin (1978) ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, History Workshop Journal, 5, pp. 9–65, passim.
A. Davin, (1978) ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, p. 55.
J. Purvis, (2000) Women’s History: Britain, 1850–1945: an Introduction (London: Routledge), p. 59.
E. Roberts, (1984) A Woman’s Place, p. 144.
E. Roberts, (1984) A Woman’s Place, p. 144.
Mrs A11, (1978) M. Llewelyn Davies, Maternity, p. 146.
M. Arnot, (1994) ‘Infant Death’, p. 284.
D. Bentley, (2005) ‘She Butchers’, pp. 208 and 206–14; J Knelman, (1998) Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press (London: University of Toronto Press) especially, p. 208 and Chapter 6; L. Rose, (1986) The Massacre, Chapter 11.
The Leeds Mercury 22 September 1860. Whether this was a custom well known to this area is not known, but could be suggested as the trade of selling humans was not only linked to infants. E.P. Thomson has shown that ‘wife sales’ could be common in Yorkshire. Wife selling was how the working-class practiced divorce. Should the man tire of his wife he could sell her at market. See E.P. Thompson, (1980) The Making of the English Working-class (Harmondsworth: Penguin) and E.P. Thompson, (1991) Customs in Common (London: Merlin Press)
L. Rose, (1986) The Massacre, pp. 93–107.
Isabella seems to have acted no differently towards Lewis than mothers who as Jane Humphries has argued were an ‘abiding presence’ and who ‘loomed large’ as constant providers. J. Humphries, (2010) Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 142.
A. Levene, (2007) Child care, Health and Mortality at the London Foundling Hospital, 1741–1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 91. ‘Wages’ for these nursing duties were however ‘often irregular, and rarely exceeded five shillings a week.’ Although larger payments for nursing were not uncommon, these usually represent cumulative disbursements, and so mask the often modest individual payments which constituted the total sum. A. Levene, Child care, p. 91.
A. Levene, (2007) Child care, p. 91.
A. Levene, (2007) Child care, p. 91 and K. Morgan, (2011) The Birth of Industrial Britain: Social Change 1750–1850 (Harlow)), pp. 69 and 71–6.
Dr. Edward Smith, ‘Dietaries for the Inmates of Workhouses’, Report to the President of the Poor Law Board of Dr. Edward Smith, F.R.S., Medical Officer of the Poor Law Board, and Poor Law Inspector. PP 1867–68, 4, p. 190.
For the case of Ann Riley see PRO ASSI 52/2: Ann Riley. Michael Rose and Steven King have argued that the north resisted many of the defining aspects of the New Poor Law Amendment Act. This change in ‘nursing’ policy appeared to reflect the philosophical underpinning of the 1834 reforms, which saw a marked shift away from the local parochial responsibility for the administration of relief towards a more centralised system overseen by government. This sea-change in welfare administration bound the fate of the poor to Malthusian and utilitarian doctrines which argued that poor relief bred poverty, particularly amongst poor women, and that the parochial administration of relief was both inefficient and corrupt. There are few specific references to pauper children being cared for by parish nurses made by guardians in the areas I have looked at. See the Poor Law Books of Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford. See also S. King, (2006) Women, Welfare and Local Politics 1880–1920 (Brighton: Sussex Academic) chapter 2 and particularly pp. 29–30. Steven King argues that Bolton was an anomaly in its limited provision of pensions throughout the nineteenth century and S. King, (2000) Poverty and Welfare, in England, 1700–1850: A Regional Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 135.
Dr. Edward Smith, ‘Dietaries for the Inmates of Workhouses’, PP 1867–68, 4, p. 191.
Dr. Edward Smith, (1867–8) ‘Dietaries’, p. 191.
See the 1860s editions of The Leeds Mercury, such as 8 and 10 October 1864, and The Leeds Times, and The Yorkshire Post, in which 60 cases of maternal infant neglect and infanticide are reported during this period. See also N. Williams, (1994) ‘Infant Mortality in an Age of Great Cities: London and the English Provincial Cities Compared, c.1840–1910’, Continuity and Change, 9, p. 191.
‘Report of the Orphan Home, Headingley Hill’, Leeds, 1867–1880 (Leeds 1880). This orphanage was an anomaly during this period in its housing of infants. See Leeds Central Library Ref: L. Hea. 362 Book No. L D 05224500. See also F. Crompton, (1997) Workhouse Children: Infant and Child Paupers under the Worcestershire Poor Law, 1780–1871 (Stroud: Sutton), p. xv.
For example see the editorial editions of The Leeds Mercury on 28 September and 4 and 5 October 1864 and J. Braithwaite, (1865) ‘An enquiry into the causes of the high infant death rate in Leeds’, The Thoresby Society, 41, (Leeds), pp. 145–53.
J. Lewis, (1986) Labour and Love, p. 83.
A. Wilson, (1985) ‘Participant or Patient? Seventeenth Century Childbirth From the Mother’s Point of View’, in R. Porter, (ed.) Patients and Practitioner; Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 129–44.
S. King, (2010) Women, pp. 45 and 54.
S. King, (2000) Poverty and Welfare, p. 214.
S. King, (2000) Poverty and Welfare, p. 211.
F. Crompton, (1997) Workhouse Children, p. xv.
P. Thane, (1978) ‘Women and the Poor Law’, p. 29.
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Reynolds, M. (2016). Day-care and Baby-Minding. In: Infant Mortality and Working-Class Child Care, 1850–1899. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137369048_6
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