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Wheelbarrows 

We came across this interesting report whilst searching through the newspapers. It had nothing to do with what we were looking for but led us to consider an area of social history we had not looked into before. If you can excuse the pun, it turned out to be a very sobering few weeks of research.

Portsmouth Evening News 7 March 1878

As we read further it became clear to us that using a wheelbarrow to transport the inebriated  to the Police Station, was a frequent occurrence in towns and cities across the country! Did the Police Force in Deal and Walmer have a supply?  We decided that this practice needed further research.

In Victorian and Edwardian England drinking alcohol was deeply rooted in popular culture and a powerful source of economic interest. Public Houses and Beer Houses outnumbered places of worship. Brewers, such as the Igguldens in Deal, were often incredibly wealthy people. 75% of the population during this century were working class drinkers.

We know from reports in the local newspaper that  drunken behaviour and violence was a common occurrence in Deal and Walmer. It wasn’t just the men being anti-social, frequently it was women too. 

It was felt by many people in Victorian society that drinking was a threat to public order and women, in particular, were expected to be the upholders of moral decency in the family and community. 

The female drunkard was used as a cautionary figure representing a multiple threat to family and community. After all, weren’t women the domestic guardians of moral behaviour?

By the early years of the  1870’s  medical knowledge on the effects of chronic drinking amongst women had much improved but most Doctors were only interested in the upper class woman who was tippling to ‘steady her nerves’ or to help her enjoy the increasing number of Routs and Ball Suppers she might be expected to attend with her husband. Here she would consume several glasses of Champagne and Moselle during the evening. This class of woman would not be found drinking in a public house, but there were numerous females of the lower classes who did.

In 1871, the number of women having been sent to prison for offences arising from being either ‘Drunk and Disorderly’ or ‘Drunk and Riotous’ had risen dramatically throughout the country. 

In 1885 the Government under Prime Minister, Gladstone, granted grocers and others, licence to sell alcohol which some people said did more to promote drunkenness amongst women than anything else.The newspapers during the 19th century tell us that ‘low’ women frequented Taverns but women drinking in the home was certainly a problem. 

It became normal for many, ‘lower class’, women to purchase a few  bottles of beer with their daily groceries. Sometimes these were shared with their husbands but often they were drunk in the privacy of their own home resulting in them being accused of neglecting their children. Overlaying or overlying by mothers who shared a bed with their infants was often blamed on her rolling onto, and suffocating her child, whilst being in a state of intoxication.

The Case of Sydney Smee, June 1889

 Charles, a general labourer, and Clara Smee lived with their children, William, Edith and 18 weeks old Sydney at 6 Cannon Street, Deal. 

On the morning of the 5th June 1889, Dr W. F. Lovell was called to the home where he found Sydney lying on his back on a bed. After a thorough examination he concluded the child had been smothered.

At the inquest Dr Lovell informed the Coroner, Mr Mercer, that he knew the family well and had attended the house several times. The child’s mother, Clara, was an epileptic and had been receiving treatment. 

The father, Charles, went on to say they had already lost four children.

 Dr Lovell concluded he was satisfied there had been no foul play in the death of the child. He told the jury he had a theory and carried on to explain.  Clara had fed the boy during the night then experienced several fits and collapsed on top of him which resulted in her smothering little Sydney. The jury were directed by the Coroner, who stated he had eight to ten cases a year of overlaying, to return a verdict of accidental overlaying, which they did.

What a relief that must have been for Clara. Many women in her position would have been found guilty of the murder of their child by suffocation and sent to prison. This would have been a certainty if the attending Doctor or arresting officer had smelt alcohol on the mother.

The majority of lower- class married women  spent their lives caring for a large family, often heavily pregnant with their next child. They suffered from poor nutrition, no medical attention or advice and undertook the impossible task of trying to make a home in totally unsuitable surroundings. Most of the lower- class women’s housekeeping would be undertaken in one room with no running water. 

Multiple births meant bed sharing was a necessity, no privacy, and children were encouraged to play outdoors, roaming the streets unsupervised. Whether they had imbibed in a glass or two of alcohol or through sheer exhaustion, it wouldn’t be unusual for mothers in these circumstances to fall asleep leaving their brood unattended. 

 In a home with drying laundry draped in front of a fire or an unguarded lit candle, this situation would have been fraught with danger, and, in the eyes of the local magistrate, there was often only one person who took the blame, if an accident occurred.

The consumption of alcohol was, during the 19th century, used in much the same way as it is now. Drinking establishments across Deal and Walmer were frequented by boatmen and workmen as a place of warmth, somewhere you could eat a hot meal, discuss the day’s events with neighbours, play cards and smoke.

 If a woman entered this male dominated establishment it was thought she was there either to cause trouble or was a prostitute plying her trade. Women were frequently ejected and the police called. There was brawling on the street and outside homes due to women over imbibing in alcohol.The reports in the local newspapers told us there were many women in Deal and Walmer who were being arrested, not only for being drunk but frequently for violence in the street as well as in the Beer Houses. Sometimes, fuelled by alcohol, women would spill out of their own homes to land a few punches and kicks on their neighbours, sisters or just people they were in dispute with. Once in front of the magistrate they would be treated with coldness, lack of understanding and being thought of as, ‘obstinate’, ‘violent’, ‘shameful’ and weak.Whereas a group of boatmen setting about each other was tolerated, not so if it were women. The female members of society were certainly not playing their part if they were arrested for falling over in the street, swearing and being involved in fisticuffs!

In 1871 it was reported the number of women, across the country, having been sent to prison for offences arising from being either ‘Drunk and Disorderly’ or ‘Drunk and Riotous’, had risen dramatically. We wondered why this was but no explanation was attempted by the writers of the report.

 We do know that towards the end of the century many of the Public Houses in Deal were managed by women.These ladies were often highly respected and sometimes feared, as they could be ferocious and ruled their establishment with a rod of iron!

We found several instances of the wheelbarrow being used by the police as a form of transport in Deal and Walmer in the local newspapers. It seems wheelbarrows were occasionally employed to ‘cart off’ men, and sometimes woman, who definitely couldn’t walk, stagger or be helped by the arresting officer towards the Police Station, where they could sleep off the effects of the alcohol they had consumed, before being brought up in front of the magistrates  for being ‘Drunk and Disorderly’ and occasionally ‘Drunk and Riotous’.

During an attempt at arrest the offenders would often be aggressive, lashing out at the hapless Officer or maybe just so intoxicated standing on their feet was an impossibility. The wheelbarrow must have been a godsend to the local policemen. 

Elizabeth Dyer was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Beach Street, Deal in October 1891. She was in such a helpless state P.C Ratcliffe had to place her in a wheelbarrow and drive her to the police station. In November 1876 Rebecca Clegg was charged with being drunk and incapable of taking care of herself. P. C. Goldsack found her in Lower Walmer and found it necessary to convey her to Deal Police Station in a wheelbarrow. 

But let’s not forget the men. In June 1866 an itinerant musician who gave his name as, Bland, was found in a ‘helpless state of drunkenness’ outside the Walmer Castle public house. He was unable to walk and PC Seath conveyed him to the station in the wheelbarrow.

We decided to look more closely at the lives of one of these women to see whether, most importantly, any of the sentences to ‘Hard Labour’ and fines either had an effect on their future behaviour ( did going to prison change their outlook?) or was the system in the Victorian era just setting them up to fail?

Maria Tringrove (Tringrave) (1821-1882)

One woman who was extremely well known to the Deal Constabulary and occupied a wheelbarrow on several occasions was Maria Tringrove (one of several spellings of her surname). After being wrestled from The Admiral Keppel and out into the street, following complaints from the Landlady, she was carted off to the Station, in a wheelbarrow,  as she was too drunk to walk and outwardly too violent to be contained by a single officer.

Original drawing by David Augustin

The following morning when she stood before the Bench the newspaper reporter described her as a ‘miserable looking woman’, which isn’t surprising as Maria has had a miserable life! She was perpetually homeless, in and out of Workhouses along the south coast and in the west country, and had lost two husbands and one of her eyes!

Maria Mason Marsh was born in Peter Street, Deal to George, a mariner and his wife Mary Marsh. Baptised in St Leonards on 21st September 1821 she was brought up within a large family. 

In April 1844 Maria married mariner John Blissenden, in Deal. John was born in Deal but like many other mariners he found work in London’s docks.So, shortly after their marriage they were  living in the Limehouse area of London’s Dockland.

 In the early part of the following year, 1845, Maria gave birth to a son and they baptised him Henry. Shortly after the birth of his son, John Blissenden disappears from the records. We can find no trace of him. By 1851, and still residing in the Docklands area, Maria had married again in Deptford, to Richard Tringrove, a Cornishman. 

On the marriage entry both Maria and Richard were both ‘widowed’. We discovered that Richard had lost his first wife, with whom he had a son also named Henry, in 1850. Was Maria truly a widow? We couldn’t discover any evidence to substantiate that marriage certificate declaration.

During the next four years we lose track of Maria until she shows up in the records of Wapping Workhouse. Her entry in the log states her husband has ‘deserted’ her and her 10 year old son is in an ‘establishment’. We thought it was likely young Henry had been sent to a NauticalTraining Ship where young boys were given the skills to enable them to become  seamen as, by the age of 15,  Henry had signed up for the Royal Navy at Fishguard. In 1861 we found him, along with a lot of other 15 year olds, on board a ship docked on the River Hamoaze, near Devonport, in Cornwall. He was entered in the census as ‘Boy Second Class’.

The next time we read about Maria it is 1863. She is in front of the Petty Sessions Court in Deal. She tells the court she is married and gives her age as 36 although she is in fact 42 years old. Maria is in trouble for being drunk and disorderly and using abusive language to her brother, Henry Marsh, and threatening to break his windows. She is found guilty and sent off to Sandwich Gaol.

From now on Maria’s life is a disaster. In 1864 she is variously described as being of ‘slovenly appearance’, in 1865 she’s a ‘Miserable looking woman’, 1867 she had ‘no home’. 

In 1870, she’s ‘drunk and riotous’ and ‘extremely violent’. By October 1873 the newspapers  referred to her as ‘An Old Offender’ after she’s found guilty of assaulting a landlady and breaking a window at The Lifeboat beer house on the seafront at Deal. In 1874 as ‘An Obstinate Woman’ she was to be found in the town of Battle after having refused to wash socks and handkerchiefs in the workhouse laundry which meant another seven days in prison with hard labour. 

In 1876 she was back in Deal giving the Relieving Officer of the Eastry Workhouse a hard time. By August of that year, she was once again sentenced to one month’s hard labour in Sandwich Gaol for being drunk, violent and found begging in Mrs Jones’ Millinery.

During our research we were surprised to discover the distances Maria travelled. Always on the move we found her in Littlehampton, West Sussex, where once again, she’s being sentenced for being drunk and riotous, and in 1877 she turns up in Bodmin Gaol, Cornwall, picking Oakum for her crime of causing 26 shillings worth of damage to glass in a window at St Austell Union Workhouse. 

A few months later she is back in Poplar Workhouse and still being arrested for being drunk in the street. 

By 1881 Maria appears to be using the Stepney Union Workhouse as a base but the following year she is moved to the Sick Asylum in Poplar where she dies as a result of Chronic Bronchitis aged 61 years.

Almost every week women who had been imprisoned for drunkenness were discharged on Monday; imprisoned on the same day or the next; released on Thursday and Friday and in Sandwich Gaol again on Saturday! Daily there were cases where the woman returned to gaol after having less than a week’s liberty. It would seem the Prison discipline was of little or no use in such cases. 

So how did these women afford to be imbibing on such a regular basis? Where did they find the money? The routine for some of these women was on a Monday morning, to take their husband’s Sunday clothes to the pawnshop, pledge them and spend the money they received on alcohol. On the following Saturday, when their men received their wages, the clothes were taken out of pledge and then returned to the Pawnbroker the following Monday!

When we came upon that small article written over two centuries ago about ‘Wheelbarrows being ordered by a Police Force’ it made us laugh. It would give us a light hearted subject to research and write about. As we delved deeper into the social history of Deal and Walmer and discovered the miserable and unfortunate life of one of our local female wheelbarrow occupants, Maria Trengrove, both our understanding and sympathies for  these  wretched women grew. It was shocking to find the constant deprivation so many of them suffered; being looked down on by the educated and wealthy citizens of this town. Complained about and sent to prison and suffered the indignities of hard labour time and time again.

Later in our research we came across  what looked like, during an initial read, a whimsical, Victorian poem. The anonymous composer had their words printed in both a Scottish newspaper in 1880 and in the Deal, Walmer and Sandwich Mercury. Perhaps the Editors of both the newspapers in Dundee and Deal and Walmer felt the sentiment of this poem would make the intended impression on their readers. The writer may well have been a member of the temperance movement.

Deal,Walmer & Sandwich Mercury 7 February 1880

 

 

Sources and further reading:
The Female Malady by Elaine Showalter
Secret Sins by Russel Davies
London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White
Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)