Family Life in Britain 1650 1910 - Palgrave Macmillan 2019

295 Pages·1910·4.73 MB·English

edited by carol beardmore, cara dobbing and steven king

Family Life in Britain, 1650–1910

Carol Beardmore · Cara Dobbing
Steven King

Editors

Family Life in Britain,
1650–1910

Editors
Carol Beardmore
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

Cara Dobbing
School of Media, Communication
and Sociology
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-04854-9
ISBN 978-3-030-04855-6
(eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04855-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967766

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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Steven King
School of History, Politics
and International Relations
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK

v

Contents

1
Introduction

1

Carol Beardmore, Cara Dobbing
and Steven King

Part I Economies of the Family

2
Family Fortunes: Marriage, Inheritance
and Economic Challenges in Scotland c.1660–1800

23

Regina Poertner

3
Victorian Professions: The Galvanising
(and Shaping) Force of Death on Families

47

Kim Price

4
“The Widows and Orphans of Servants Are Dying”:
The Conflict of Family in the Design and Application
of Nineteenth-Century Civil Servant Pensions

71

Kathleen McIlvenna

vi
CONTENTS

Part II Family Processes

5
Step Motherhood in the Nineteenth Century:
Elinor Packe and Continuing Family Cohesiveness,
1900–1911

97

Geoff Monks

6
Balancing the Family: Edward Wrench,
Baslow G.P., c.1862–1890
113

Carol Beardmore

7
The Family and Insanity: The Experience
of the Garlands Asylum, 1862–1910
135

Cara Dobbing

8
Conceptualising the ‘Perfect’ Family in Late
Nineteenth-Century Philanthropic Institutions
155

Steven J. Taylor

Part III Reconstituting the Family

9
Negotiating the Blending of Families: Tension
and Affection Between Step-Parents and Children
in Early Modern England
179

Maria Cannon

10 Family Beyond the Household: Constituting
and Reconstituting as Kin
203

Iain Riddell

11 Configuring and Re-configuring Families
in Nineteenth-Century England
229

Steven King

Bibliography
255

Index
281

vii

notes on Contributors

Carol Beardmore holds a part-time Lectureship at De Montfort
University and Associate Lectureship with the Open University, and
a Research Fellowship at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research
interests include the role of the land agent in rural communities and the
history of the family as it relates to working relationships within general
practice.

Maria Cannon is a Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University
of Portsmouth, UK. She received her Ph.D., titled ‘Families in Crisis:
Parenting and the Life Cycle in English Society c. 1450–1620’, from
Northumbria University in 2016. Her postdoctoral research focuses on
stepfamilies and examines the relationship between affection, tension,
and obligation in early modern family life.

Cara Dobbing is based at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research
examines the patients who circulated in and out of the Garlands Lunatic
Asylum from its establishment in 1862 until the beginning of the
First World War. Central to her work is recounting the pauper experi-
ence of insanity. Her latest article provides a snapshot of her research:
‘The Circulation of Pauper Lunatics and the Transitory Nature of
Mental Health Provision in Late Nineteenth Century Cumberland and
Westmorland’, Local Population Studies, Vol. 99 (2017), pp. 56–65.

Steven King is a Professor of Social and Economic History at the
University of Leicester, UK. He has wide-ranging interests in historical

viii
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

demography and the history of the family, particularly in relation to the
English and Welsh poor in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
His most recent work in this area is Writing the Lives of the English Poor,
1750s to 1830s (2018).

Kathleen McIlvenna is a Lecturer in History at the University of
Derby, UK with interests in nineteenth-century British social and cultural
history and more specifically histories of welfare, labour, old age and the
Post Office.

Geoff Monks is a Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK.
His research interests incorporate exploring how adult stepchildren and
step-parents maintained family relationships at a distance, and the man-
agement of landed estates. His latest article is ‘William Gould, Land
Agent and the Rural Community in Nottingham and Derbyshire 1783–
1788’ in Family and Community History 21: 2 (2018).

Regina Poertner is an Associate Professor of Modern History at
Swansea University, UK, with a specialism in legal history. Her current
research projects relate to British legal reform, c. 1750–1850, and inter-
war US law. Past publications include a monograph on continental influ-
ences in the constitutional debates of the British Civil War.

Kim Price is a Research Associate at the University of Liverpool, UK. His
research focuses on the medical profession, public health and healthcare
for marginalised population groups in nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Britain and the British Empire.

Iain Riddell is completing his Ph.D. at the University of Leicester, UK,
his doctoral study has explored the construction of a new theoretical and
methodological approach to British records in order to recover, expose
and discuss ideas of British kinship behaviours in the nineteenth century.
His previous work has covered social connectedness in modern commu-
nity settings.

Steven J. Taylor is a historian of childhood and medicine. His research
explores ideas and constructions of childhood health, lay and profes-
sional diagnoses, ability and disability, and institutional care. His first
monograph, Child Insanity in England, 1845–1907, was published by
Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. He is currently researching the experience
of special schools in the early twentieth century.

ix

List of figures

Fig. 3.1
Beazeley family tree (Source Beazeley, Alexander’s Journal)

53
Fig. 10.1
Map of the Cardno kinship cluster centred upon the
Kinharrichie Mill, Ellon, southern Buchan (Ancestry.co.uk,
‘1861 Scotland Census’; Ellon; 3; P15; L5; CSSCT1861_28;
Methlick; 4; P4; L11; CSSCT1861_30; Ellon; 3; P13; L3;
CSSCT1861_28; Ellon; 3; P16; L3; CSSCT1861_28)

206
Fig. 10.2
Two generations of Cardno, Kinharrichie (Ancestry.co.uk,
Iain Riddell)

207
Fig. 10.3
Three generations of Fraser, Skilmafilly (Ancestry.co.uk,
Iain Riddell, ‘Riddell Family Tree’, Iain Riddell)

208
Fig. 10.4
A Blacksmith Kinship nexus focused upon the Fraser
blacksmiths of Skilmafilly, Savoch, in Buchan (Ancestry.co.uk,
Original data—Scotland. Scotland Census: ‘King Edward; 10;
P9; L650; Yr1841’; ‘Tarves; 1; P4; L14; CSSCT1851_52;
Yr1851’; ‘Tarves; 1; P1; L11; CSSCT1891_72’; ‘Tyrie;
1; P2; L13; CSSCT1851_52; Yr1851’; ‘Tyrie; 1; P8;
L13; CSSCT1871_44’; ‘Strichen; 2; P24; L15; Roll:
CSSCT1861_33’; ‘Cabrach; 1; P11; L3; CSSCT1851_42;
Yr1851’; ‘Pitsligo; 4; P10; L10; CSSCT1871_42’)

214
Fig. 10.5
The migration zones of the Fraser and Cardno related
domestic groups

217

x
LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 10.6
Fraser and Cardno kinship presence and events in Ontario
(Ancestry.co.uk, ‘Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations
of Marriages, 1869–1928; MS932; 401’, Robert Cardno/
Alice Johnston; Scotlandspeople.gov.uk, Aberdeen Sheriff
Court Inventories, James Craig, SC1/36/35; Toronto,
Ontario, Canada; County Marriage Registers, 1858–June
1869; MS248; 17, Alexander Mutch/Mary Ann Simpson)

218
Fig. 10.7
Fraser and Cardno kinship presence and events in Manitoba
(Ancestry.co.uk, 1901 Census of Canada, ‘Census Place:
Louise, Lisgar, Manitoba; 4; 37’; ‘Year: 1901; Census Place:
Louise, Lisgar, Manitoba; 11; 101’; ‘Census Place: Louise,
Lisgar, Manitoba; 3; 28’; ‘Year: 1901; Census Place: Louise,
Lisgar, Manitoba; 1; 8’; ‘Census Place: Louise, Lisgar,
Manitoba; 1; 3’ and 1916 Canada Census of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, and Alberta: ‘Census Place: Manitoba, Lisgar,
16; T-21926; 13;147’; ‘Census Place: Manitoba, Lisgar, 19;
T-21927; 4; 34’; 1911 Census of Canada, ‘Manitoba, Lisgar,
sub-district 12’; ‘Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801–1928’,
Registrations of Marriages, 1869–1928; MS932; 78)

219
Fig. 10.8
Maps of Aberdeen city and the Cardno familial units
(Ancestry.co.uk, Iain Riddell, ‘Riddell Family Tree’,
Iain Riddell)

221