If being so poor that you're forced into the workhouse to live wasn't bad enough,
imagine being trapped there like a prisoner
merely because your husband didn't want you to leave. This was the nightmare,
but genuine reality, that awaited some Victorian and Edwardian women
who found that marriage bound them both to poverty and detention against their will.
Workhouse admission and discharge was run by a Board of Guardians
and you would be brought before them to justify you being admitted at state expense,
and for your conduct – not that anyone wanted to be there if they had a choice –
conditions were terrible, purposely bad to encourage people to get a job –
regardless of how difficult this might be. There was little to stop you walking out
(at least for men and single women), because the Guardians could save poor law money.
An entire family went into the workhouse together when a husband was sick or invalid
and couldn't work to support his wife and children.
However, despite men, women and children being separated from each other when
admitted to maintain discipline and prevent what was called 'pauper breeding,'
husbands retained control over their wives and could prevent them from leaving –
even if a woman had found work and the opportunity to better herself and her family.
Now, you might think that makes no sense at all, for surely a man would want
better for his family. But once you get to the end of today's story –
which tells of a woman prevented from leaving the workhouse by her husband –
then you will discover that there was plenty in the the past that defies logic,
not least the law of 'marital authority,' an order which wasn't withdrawn until 1913.
Married and unmarried women were treated differently - unmarried women who were,
for example, pregnant and disowned by their families, could go to the workhouse
to give birth to a child and leave freely, whilst a married woman's life,
at least legally, was tied in 'coverture' (like property) to that of her husband.
This account is told by Margaret Nevinson (1858 – 1932), a British suffrage campaigner
who became a poor-law guardian in 1904, which gave her access to workhouses
and their inmates. This experience set her on a path to exposing injustices,
particularly when they affected poor women, and her work is credited
with helping to bring about improvement and a change in legislation.
At the end of her story you may well be left wondering if the reason the husband gave for
not wanting his wife to leave by virtue of his 'marital authority' masked an entirely different
one altogether, but I'll leave that for you to discuss your thoughts in the comment section.
The past was often cruel, and you will find out
exactly how cruel both life and the law could be.
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An unusual sense of expectancy pervaded the young women's ward;
Mrs Cleaver had gone down 'to appear before the Committee,'
and though the ways of committees are slow, and pauper-time worthless,
it was felt that her ordeal was being unduly protracted.
"She's having a dose, she is," said a young woman walking up and down,
futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. "I 'ate appearing afore them committees;
last time I was down I called the lady 'Sir' and the gentleman 'Mum,'
and my 'eart went pitter-patter in my breast so that you might have knocked me down
with a feather. 'Ere she is—well, my dear, and you do look bad——"
"Them committees always turn me dead sick, and, being a stout woman,
my boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration
and the great drops go rolling off my forehead.
Well, 'e's kept 'is word, and got the law and right of England behind 'im."
What reporters call a "sensation" made itself felt through the ward;
the inmates gathered closer round Mrs Cleaver, and screaming infants
were rocked and patted and soothed with much vigour and little result.
"Well," said Mrs Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed, "I went afore the Committee
and I says, 'I want to take my discharge,' I says;
I applied last week to the Master, but mine got at 'im first, and Master up and says —
"No, Mrs Cleaver, you can't go,' he says; 'your 'usband can't spare you,'
he says, 'wants you to keep 'im company in 'ere,' he says.
“Is that true, Master?' says the little man wot sits lost in the big chair.
'That is so, sir,' says Master, and then 'e outs with a big book and reads something
very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly understand,
as to how a 'usband may detain his wife in the workhouse by his marital authority.
'Good 'eavens!' says the little lady Guardian 'er wot's dressed so shabby.
'Is that the law of England?' "Then they all began talking at once most excited,
and the little man in the big chair beat like a madman on the table with a 'ammer,
and no one took the slightest notice, but when some quiet was restored the little man
asked me to tell the Board the circumstances. So I says 'ow he lost his work through being
drunk on duty, which was the lying tongue of the perlice, for 'is 'ed was clear,
and the drink alas taking him in the legs, like most cabmen, and the old horse keeps sober.
It was a thick fog, and he'd just got off the box to lead the horse through the
gates of the mews, and the perliceman spotted 'is legs walking out in contrary directions,
though 'is 'ed was clear as daylight, and so the perlice ran 'im in and the beak
[judge or magistrate] took his licence from 'im, and 'ere we are.
"Now I've got over my confinement, and the child safe in 'eaven, after all the
worry and starvation, I thought I'd like to go out and earn my own living —
I'm a dressmaker by trade, and my sister will give me a 'ome; I 'ate being 'ere—
living on the rates, and 'e not having done better for us than this Bastille —
though I alas says as it was the lying tongue of a perliceman — it seems fair I should go free.
The lady wot comes round Sundays told me I ain't got no responsibility for my children
being a married lady with the lines. Then the little man flew out most violent:
'Don't talk like that, my good woman; of course you have responsibility for your children;
you must not believe what ignorant people tell you.'
"Then I heard the tall, ginger-haired chap wot sits next to the little man
'im as you unmarried girls go before to try and father your children —
I 'eard 'im say quite distinct: 'The woman is right, sir; married women are not responsible
for their children, but I believe the husband is within his rights
in refusing to allow her to leave the workhouse without him.'
"Then they asked me to retire, and the Master told me to come back 'ere, and I should know
the result later. Oh, Lord! I'm that 'ot and upset with the worry of it all, I feel I'll
never cool again," and Mrs Cleaver wiped her brow and fanned herself with her apron.
"Single life has its advantages," said a tall, handsome woman, who was nursing a baby
by the window. "You with the lines ain't been as perlite as might be to us who ain't got 'em,
but we 'as the laugh over you really. I'm taking my discharge tomorrow morning,
and not one of 'em dare say me nay; I needn't appear afore Boards
and be worried and upset with 'usbands and Guardians and things afore I can take myself
off the parish and eat my bread independent." "But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf?
Not for want of asking, I'll be bound." "No, it wern't for want of asking; fact is,
I was put off marriage at a very early age. I 'ad a drunken beast of a father as spent his time
a-drinking by day and a-beating mother by night—one night he overdid it and killed 'er;
he got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the workhouse schools;
it would have been kinder of the parish to put us in the lethal chamber,
as they do to cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we grew up somehow,
knowing as we weren't wanted, and then the parish found me a situation,
under-housemaid in a big house; and then I found as the young master wanted me,
the first time as any human soul had taken any interest in me, and, oh, Lord!
I laughs now when I think what a 'appy time it was. Since then I've had four children,
and I have twenty-five shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can
make at the cooking. I lives clean and respectable—no drinking, no bad language;
my children never see what I saw and heard, and they are mine — mine — mine.
I always comes into the House for confinement, liking quiet
and skilled medical attendance. I never gets refused—the law daren't refuse such as me.
I always leaves the coming in till the last moment; then there are no awkward questions,
and when they begin to inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street
are expecting next week, their husbands all out of work, and not a pair of sheets
or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one room, too,
with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent, but having the lines,
it's precious hard for them to get in here, and half of them daren't come
for fear he and someone else will sell up the 'ome whilst they're away.
You remember Mrs Hall, who died last week? Well, she told me that her husband
swore at her so fearful for having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way,
and what with all the upset and starvation whilst she was carrying the children,
she took fever and snuffed out like a candle.
No, the neighbours don't know as I'm a bad woman;
I generally moves before a confinement, and I 'as a 'usband on the 'igh seas.
"Well, I'm going back tomorrow to my neat little home,
that my lady-help has been minding for me, to my dear children and to my regular income,
and I don't say as I envies you married ladies your rings or your slavery."