LiveTheirStory

Whilst researching members of my family in the workhouse archives from Wicklewood, Norfolk, I ‘met’ Clarissa in the minute books of the Board of Guardians. Predictably enough, it was because her behaviour had been reported to the Board, but as I explored the records further it was clear that Clarissa’s story stands for the experiences of many young women unfortunate enough to be poor and alone in Victorian England.

The first record we have is of her entry into the workhouse, admitted by the Relieving Officer from her parish of Wymondham ‘much distressed’, and not able-bodied, in July 1837. She stayed a month, and was discharged at her own request with ‘No complaint’ recorded against her behaviour. However, two weeks later she returned, this time admitted by the Board, again not able-bodied, and with ‘bad eyes’. This time it seems she stayed in the workhouse, and thus began a series of events that expose the hypocrisy of a system that was supposed to alleviate distress. The Minutes take up the story:

8/4/1839

Clarissa Burton, an inmate of the workhouse having been guilty of disobeying the orders of the Master – ordered that she be confined to the dungeon for 2 hours and that her Dinner meal be taken off on Thurs and Sat next.

13/5/1839

The Master of the WH having reported that Clarissa Burton, an inmate of the House had, during the last week, been guilty of using profane languages and otherwise behaving disorderly, the Board enquired into the particulars of the case, when it was ordered that the said CB be confined to the dungeon for the space of 2 hours each day on Weds and Fri next, and that she be subjected to a stoppage of her Dinner meal on Tues, Thurs and Sat.

10/6/1839

It having been reported to the Board that Clarissa Burton, an inmate of the House was in a Pregnant state, and enquiry was commenced, but finding it too late to go into a full investigation it was resolved that this meeting do adjourn until tomorrow Tues 11th at 10 o’clock in the forenoon.

11/6/1839

The Porter [William Standley] and Clarissa Burton having been seen by Mrs Walton [the Matron] talking together, and coming out of the bathroom together – in consequence of which Mrs Walton removed the girl to another part of the house – and Ann Knyvett [the schoolmistress] having seen the Porter put his hand on the person of CB in an indecent manner, the Board is of the opinion that the Porter has been guilty of indiscretion. In the course of taking evidence it having appeared that there has been considerable laxity of discipline in the House, it was resolved that a Special Meeting be called for Thur 20th June at 11 o’clock to enquire into the general management of the Establishment.

15/7/1839

The Poor Law Commissioners in London, apprised of events, were of the opinion that: ‘… the conduct both of the Master and the Porter have been in the highest degree reprehensible.’ At the next Board meeting it was found that Standley was ‘guilty of familiar and improper conduct with the females of the house one of whom is actually with child and states him to be the father of the child, and although her evidence, she being a bad character, may be liable to doubt [my emphasis], yet it is distinctly proved that he was seen by the Schoolmistress to take an indecent liberty in the Dining Hall with the female alluded to.

Clarissa’s child was born in late autumn 1839, and the Board initiated bastardy proceedings in December to claim support from Standley [now the ex-Porter] for its maintenance in the workhouse.

So from entering the workhouse in what was clearly a vulnerable state, Clarissa descended first into disruptive behaviour (although we’re not told what) and finally into unplanned pregnancy at the hands of a man in authority. This in an institution whose Guardians had already tried and failed, earlier in the same year, to get permission to have unmarried mothers singled out through a special, striped dress and inferior meals to the those of the other inmates. The Poor Law Commissioners had taken a dim view of this plan:

The Guardians’ duties, they said, were only to relieve destitution, abstaining from mixing up with that relief sentences of reward and punishment… such separation as is required of bad characters from those whose reputation is untainted… may be obtained by arrangements in the building, but to impose a Dress which implies disgrace, or a reduction of food as a punishment for an offence not committed within the Workhouse, appears to the Commissioners to involve an undue exercise of the authority vested in [the Guardians].’

Reading the Minutes, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that Clarissa’s ‘disobedience’ and ‘disorderly’ behaviour – after 18, apparently trouble-free months in the House where previously there had been ‘no complaint’ about her – were intimately linked to what we would now see as a campaign of sexual harassment by the Porter that was witnessed by other staff. Tellingly, their report reveals she was not his only victim. Yet whilst Standley summarily lost his job (and there were some on the Board who argued against even this), the record leaves us in no doubt about what the Guardians thought of Clarissa, a ‘bad character’ whose word could not be trusted. Had there not been witnesses, the case might never have come to light, and their concern thereafter was simply to pursue the father for maintenance, as they did in every other case where the father’s name was known.

I’ll be writing what happened next in my next post on Clarissa Burton, ‘lewd woman’, 1839-1851.