41. The life that disappeared into drudgery: Ellen Hopkinson (1853-75)

As the 20th century drew on, the story of Ellen, the eldest daughter, began to seem ever sadder and more pointless.  The younger generations looked with dismay and disapproval on parents whose daughters' lives disappeared into household drudgery.  Ellen Ewing, endeavouring to put the story in its own historical and religious context, wrote [1] 

Ellen c1867-8

Judged by common standards her pleasures had been few … Judged by higher standards, however, her life, all too short as it undoubtedly was, was supremely happy and supremely successful.  For her ardently affectionate and unselfish nature found ennobling and satisfying outlets in the love of her parents and of her sisters and brothers … Her life cannot be said to have been sad.  Who, then, shall say it was wasted?

Like little Alice, Ellen seems to have been delicate from the beginning.  She was born on 7 October 1853, the third child and first daughter.  Alice wrote to a friend on 11 March 1861

Ellen, a little over seven, is an interesting child, both in appearance and character.  She is a very thoughtful, very sensible, dear child.  She loves the name of Jesus, she has such sweet thoughts I often learn from her.  Oh pray that these sweet blossomings may be the precursors of fruit to be hereafter borne to the praise and glory of God [2]

Ellen's competence, sense of responsibility and love of her mother meant that she took on her mother's duties when very young.  She was not yet eleven when John wrote 

Poor Nellie cried in bed last night under the sense of responsibility and want of Mama's counsel and help [3]

She was nearly 13 when Alice wrote to John on 9 July 1866 that she 

had to devolve nearly all my maternal duties on dear Nelly … Nelly is invaluable to me and I do not think she feels it any hardship to minister to me. [4]

She was only to ready to please her mother and look after her.  She was fifteen when John wrote 

Our young ones all seem full of love for Nellie.  She makes a very good 'Missus' and it is good practice for her to have some domestic responsibilities thrown upon her, only she should not have too much writing and study at the same time. [5]

Young John's future wife Evelyn Oldenbourg met Ellen for the first time at their school, Ellerslie Ladies' College on Upper Park Road in the select gated community of Victoria Park.  She described in her memoirs how a plain, unhealthy-looking girl asked her, with spontaneous friendliness of indescribable charm, for the loan of a pencil.  Ellen became her chief friend and they had a great influence on each other.  To Evelyn, Ellen "was a noble simple Soul"[6].  She was two years younger than Evelyn, and was very grateful for Evelyn's help with schoolwork, which she found difficult – "Evelyn, you are an angel, barring the petticoats" she exclaimed.  Ellen might have felt a little out of her depth at Ellerslie, which was a seriously academic school, one of the new endowed schools for girls modelled on boys' grammar schools. 

By this time Ellen's letters show her adoration of her mother.  She wrote on 23 February 1870, when she was sixteen

My own beloved Mother,

Why did you spoil your sweet, precious letter by that horrid sentence?  As if you weren't the cleverest, sweetest, most perfect woman that ever walked the earth!" [7]

There is what can only be described as a blindness on Alice's part to see the effect on Ellen of the responsibilities that she piled on this devoted child, possibly because she felt overwhelmed and Ellen's willing help was so badly needed.  Perhaps she had no idea what it might it feel like to be Ellen, being a younger daughter herself.

In April 1870 Ellen had been visiting her new friend Esther Wells, who had come to the family as a governess five years earlier, and when she came back home to Manchester her mother went off on a visit to Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham.  (Ellen Ewing does not tell us why or for how long).

Ellen wrote to Alice with meticulous reports until she fell ill.  Alice wrote to John

When I read your letter I wished I was coming home … It seems as if I ought to be at my post … I know you will be Mother as well as Father when you are at home:  but you have to be away so much.  I fancy Lily attending lovingly to her 'Mother-Sister' 

And then

I longed for, yet half dreaded, your letter this morning.  It is such a relief to hear that dear Ellen is better.  I do hope the improvement will continue.  She is a fine girl.  She will be a finer woman.  She is one of the granite character; the waves of life will beautify as well as strengthen.  And then the polishing hand of the great Master Builder will tell in its every stroke upon her. [8]

John was clearly not quite happy about Ellen.  In his letter to Alice, reporting on the family and on Ellen's recovery, he wrote

Baby is tolerably bright and happy.  Nelly is most devoted to him and the stockings … I would have her out at Belmont nolens volens [ie. whether she liked it or not] yesterday and I think it did her good; she is over young to get mopish and stockingly [9]

He had taken Ellen from mending the stockings and made her go to Belmont where Alice's sister Ellen Milne and her family lived in the Cheshire countryside at Cheadle, and he added – surely by way of a hint to his wife – a story about a girl of the same age who had become a household drudge.

Ellen with Harry, taken in Southport 1868 or 1869

But between Alice's great readiness to leave Ellen in charge, and Ellen's willingness to take it on, it is no surprise to find Ellen writing, soon afterwards, on 26 May 1870

I know it is very wrong, but I feel as if I could not order another dinner; I do detest it … I have just been seeing the little ones to bed … 

I am a great deal better tonight except my back aches badly for I have been sewing as hard as I could all day.  You know it is Thursday of washing week and things seem to want more mending than usual. [10]

She is clearly trying to tell Alice that the task is too great.  Alice doesn't seem to respond.  

So it is again no surprise to find that in early 1871 Ellen, at the age of 17, is in charge of the younger children (we don't know how many) in Stockport.  Three year old Harry, always delicate, often had attacks of pain and Ellen had looked after him devotedly since he was born.  Ellen wrote to her mother and again we can't help but notice that she is, to all intents and purposes, calling for help and relief

I felt very nervous about Baby because, when we were coming back from our walk, he began crying so with pain in his stomach.  I wrapt him your waterproof and went home as fast as we could; but he quite screamed with pain.  As soon as we got in I put his feet in as hot water as he could bear and it seemed to give him instant relief for he stopped crying at once and seemed to enjoy it so.  I then got him to drink some hot milk and, when he was warm, put him to bed where he slept for an hour and woke quite well and bright.  I should not have told you only I want to know if I did the best thing for him, and you know I should let you know if he should not be so well …. You must not be anxious about Baby; I will take the greatest care of him … Excuse this wretched writing; my arm still trembles with carrying Baby  [11]

The rest of the family knew that this bond of work and dependency between Alice and Ellen was bad for Ellen.  We don't know if anything was ever said, or could be said, but they never forgot Ellen's unremitting work for them all.

In 1873 John and Alice celebrated their Silver Wedding.  Evelyn Oldenbourg remembered John's speech – he said of Ellen, "We simply cannot do without her." [12]

 

In 1874 the family moved from 12 York Place to rent Grove House from the Whitworth Institute.  It was a much larger house, built in about 1830, and had a fine garden and a paddock in which they could keep a cow.  Evelyn remembered how tired Ellen was after the move – "almost too tired," wrote Ellen Ewing, "to rejoice in the additional cupboard space in the new home which should have gratified her highly developed sense of order."  [13]  Never robust or healthy, the poor girl was worn out.

On 20 September 1875 (Ellen Ewing's date of 1874 is not correct) Ellen fell ill with scarlet fever.  She died six days later on 26 September, ten days before her 22nd birthday.  

Mary, who had helped to nurse her, fell very ill.  But she survived and lived to a great and active old age.

Notes

[1] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 66

[2] ibid., p. 33

[3] ibid., p. 40

[4] ibid., p. 48

[5] ibid., p. 52

[6] ibid., p. 53

[7] ibid., p. 57

[8] ibid., p. 59

[9] ibid., p. 59

[10] ibid., p59-60

[11] ibid., p. 60

[12] ibid., p. 66

[13] ibid., p. 66

40. "Filled with longing for her baby": the babies who died

 Alice (1856-1858)

Alice was their fifth child and second daughter.  She was born on 27 April 1856 and was always rather delicate.  On 16 July 1856, when she was nearly three months old, her mother wrote 

Baby Alice looks so sweet so gentle and lamblike; it makes my heart ache to see her so pallid and thin [1]

She never grew strong – a friend writing to Alice in early 1858 asked after the "fair, pale Alice" – and on 8 May 1858, soon after her second birthday, she died of hydrocephalus, a build up of fluid in the brain.  John, who was with his little daughter at the end, wrote to his sister Ellen Tubbs

Our sweet lamb is safely gathered to the fold of the Good Shepherd – within His arms she rests forever … Dearest Alice was spared the last sight, and now all that remains of our sweet one is so beautiful in death that we can hardly cease to gaze and feel that indeed that there must be some connecting link between earth and heaven.  We shall have treasure now in heaven. [2]

The boys and Ellen were old enough – young John was nearly 9, Alfred nearly 7, Ellen 4½ and Charles 3½ – to feel the loss of their little sister.  Alice's grief never left her.  She wrote on 8 July 1859 as she was resting and recovering from the birth of Edward on 28 May,

Now that I am so much alone I seem to have my darling Ally in constant remembrance.  Those lustrous loving eyes are ever before me [3]

And Ellen Ewing described Alice many years later when she "spoke of the death of her little daughter, her voice still shaken with grief and her beautiful eyes still filled with longing for her baby". [4]

William Henry (1866)

No letters survive to tell us of the birth and death of little William Henry on 30 September 1866.  He died five minutes after he was born.  The doctor certified that the death was from Debility – he was too weak to survive.  His father was there at his death and registered the death and the birth at the same time.

Harry (1868-77)

Harry in 1870 with Lily,
Albert, Gertrude & May

Harry was the youngest of the family, born on 23 February 1868.  He was always delicate and was very much treasured by his older sisters.  His eldest sister Ellen was nearly fifteen when he was born and was already her mother's right hand at childcare and housework.  She cared for him devotedly until her untimely death of scarlet fever in 1875.  Her younger sister Mary felt that Harry was "a precious charge bequeathed to me by my beloved sister."  She had begun teaching him his first lessons when he was five and she was 16 – fitting it in with her schoolwork, it seems.  She and Ellen loved him like mothers; as she said nearly 80 years later

I loved him with a love beyond words [5]

Soon after his death she wrote an account of his short life, remembering

Reading was a task for him for, with his active nature, he found it wearisome to sit still.  History and geography, however, always went pleasantly and he more and more exhibited great intelligence.  The freshness and originality of his mind showed itself most of all, I think, in the remarks he made and the thoughtful questions he asked during the Scripture reading … We always read to him the simple Bible – he loved it almost from babyhood and greatly preferred it to any of the forms in which it is put for children. [6]

At New Year 1876 Mary took him along to begin at Miss Jackson's school.  He was there for two terms, leaving in the Michaelmas of 1876, and Mary taught him for a few weeks until the end of November when he started going with his big brother Albert to Mr Jones' school.  Each day Mary looked forward to him coming back from school, and she helped him with his lessons in the evenings.  She was sure he would have a bright future and was very ambitious for him.  

But in January 1877 14 year old Albert began to feel ill.  The next day the doctor diagnosed scarlet fever.  This was a fearsome scourge in the middle of the 19th century, causing an enormous number of deaths.  In the 1880s it was recognised to be a bacterial infection; effective treatment came at last with penicillin after the Second World War.

 

Mary went to the school to fetch Harry home and she spent the next ten days looking after him.  They were both kept rigorously out of Albert's sickroom and at nights Harry slept with his father.  When John was away, Charley – by then a 23 year old engineer – slept with his little brother.  The next morning, just as they must have been hoping he had escaped infection, Harry had a sore throat, then violent sickness.  John and Alice nursed him devotedly, coaxing him to take some food in spite of the painful soreness of his mouth and throat and mouth.  On Saturday 17 February they thought he had turned the corner and Alice wrote to Ellen Tubbs

My dearly loved Sister

I know you are rejoicing in our joy that our darling Harry is given back to us.  We have been passing through deep waters during this month – days and nights of interest and anxiety.  But God has not forgotten us; there has been daily strength for daily need.  Truly the Lord does give strength to His people [7]

But on the Monday he was suddenly worse.  Mary wrote in her record of Harry that  "acute rheumatism" set in – this would be rheumatic fever, which is one of the complications of scarlet fever.  He died peacefully at about half past nine at night on Wednesday 21 February 1877, two days before his ninth birthday.

Names of Harry, Alice & William Henry on family grave in Southern Cemetery, Manchester
(courtesy of Bob the Greenacre Cat at findagrave.com)

Two of John and Alice's daughters died before they were 35.

(The poor quality of the photograph is because my only source is the photograph in John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910)

Notes

[1] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 26

[2] ibid., p. 29

[3] ibid., p. 30

[4] ibid., p. 29

[5] ibid., p. 70

[6] ibid., p. 70

[7] ibid., p. 69

39. "My deafness! My deafness!"

Alice had to bear another loss, slow but inexorable, as growing deafness gradually afflicted her and increasingly cut her off from the helpful distractions of the outside world.

It is first mentioned by Alice in July 1866 in a letter from the summer holiday in North Wales.  She was 41 years old, was expecting her twelfth baby and was unwell, and, she said

my increasing deafness gives me a nervous feeling [1]

By 1870 it was worse.  She was consoling herself then with the thought 

I thank God I can see.  It is better to be deaf than blind … I must seek for more complete submission in this trial; it is only a small light cross after all [2]

By 1878, when she was approaching her mid-fifties, it was a real trial.  She wrote on 3 March 1878

My deafness! My deafness! How it interferes with pleasant communion and makes one dull and uninteresting [3]

She had some consolation – she was not cut off from her religion.  They lived very close to the Union Chapel, which Ellen and Mary had joined in 1873, and where the minister was the celebrated Dr Alexander Maclaren.  He was two years younger than Alice and John, and famous as an expository preacher – that is, he explained in detail the meaning of Scriptural texts.  A commanding figure in the pulpit, he had a clear, carrying voice which Alice could hear long after deafness cut her off from so much.  Listening to his sermons would be like listening to an excellent lecture.

Silver-plated ear trumpet c1801-1900
Science Museum Group

It seems likely that she consulted more than one doctor, but in 1881 she took advice from 46 year old Dr George Constantine Phipps who lived with his wife and four young children not far from the Hopkinsons.  Dr Phipps' advice was rather consoling, as Alice wrote on 22 April 1881

Dr Phipps called this morning and had a long chat with Mary – a good deal about my deafness.  He does not care for ear doctors and advised me to do the best I could with such mechanical aids as are available.  We liked his sensible talk.  It was rather comforting because he feels pretty certain I shall never be quite deaf.  Doctors disagree … He told Mary I should probably outlive many strong people for I was very wiry, something like his own Mother, who had never been robust, but now at 75, could walk five miles [4]

She didn't follow Dr Phipps' opinion of ear doctors when deafness began to be a real problem for her daughter Gertrude a few years later, and Gertrude visited more than one specialist.  The fact that the deafness was proving hereditary was particularly distressing – Alice wrote at about this time

It would seem to me that, if my children might be exempted from the trial, I would willingly bear an aggravation of my own affliction [5]

The isolation of deafness was a hard burden to bear.  She wrote to John in October 1881 from the house of young John and Evelyn and their family in London

I went to Chapel this morning with Evelyn, Eva and Alice.  I could not hear a word and, in my mood of mind, the isolation was too much for me; I had to come out.  [6]

Alice's own account on 9 May 1886 of how her deafness afflicted her spirits describes her sad position best

I was not very bright last night.  These waves of distress will come at times.  Shut in my own thoughts, if sad ones come to me, the clouds seem to darken and shut out the bright light.  I believe it is a temptation which, if not resisted, gets a firm hold of my spirit and destroys my peace of mind.  This special trial of deafness doubtless has a teaching; it touches me at many points.  I do want to learn my lessons; but am very slow.  [7]

The physical and emotional burden of pregnancies – the hormonal turmoil – the likely anaemia – the exhaustion of grief – the weariness that would come from managing servants and running a household – the feelings of failure when she had been irritable with the children – the strain from feeling responsible for so much – Alice bore all these.  And they were combined with a religion which was more of a challenge and a spur than a consolation, especially after the Revd James Griffin left Manchester in 1854 because of his health.

Who can say how these played into the times when Alice slipped into excessive housework?  Was she too tired to stop herself?  Had she fallen early in her married life into a habit that she simply couldn't kick?  This is such a sad and dispiriting picture.

On the other hand and to put it into perspective, we have to remember that all Alice's confidences to John, and all the times she let off steam about how she felt and how she was coping, took place in the privacy of their letters.  It is as though we are overhearing them as they carry on telling each other their secret thoughts while they are apart.  The letters are like a mutual secret diary – and we have no idea what the lost letters would have told us.  Nor do we have any idea what outsiders thought.  Alice's brother-in-law Benjamin Harrison, the widower of her sister Jane, gives us quite a different picture of Alice in a letter of 1861

Were I placed as you are just now with six children in the whooping cough, I should either end or mend I think and yet I can fancy you with your never ceasing smile, even happy as a queen in the midst of it all. [8]

Next: 40. "Filled with longing for her baby": the babies who died 

Notes

[1] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 48

[2] ibid., p. 75

[3] ibid., p. 75

[4] ibid., p. 75

[5] ibid., p. 76

[6] ibid., p. 78

[7] ibid., p. 92

[8] ibid., p. 32

38. "Our dear boy has just gone to heaven": Death and Grief

Alice and John lived in a vast family network, held closely together by the constant letters passing between the women, by the joint holidays, the times they looked after each others' children and the visits paid to each others' houses.  There must always have been somebody to worry about.  

In the 1840s, when young John was born, Alice's sisters and sisters-in-law produced 14 babies between them.  In the 1850s, when Alice had six babies, there were 22 born across the Hopkinson and Dewhurst families.  In the 1860s, when Alice had another six babies, the other mothers added another 15.  In the 1870s, grandchildren began to be born to Alice and John, while her brother Tom Dewhurst and his wife Maria added another five to their large family.  The children lived in a sea of cousins.

And with the births, came the illnesses and the deaths.  Alice lost three children in infancy, one daughter at the age of 21 and another at the age of 33.  She and John were in their seventies when their son John and three of his children died in a climbing accident in the Alps.  Her brother Bonny Dewhurst and his wife lost a 7 month old baby and a boy of 13.  Three of Alice's sisters-in-law lost children.  Her sister-in-law Ellen Tubbs lost three children in early infancy, and a son and a daughter died in their early twenties of cholera in India.  Two of Elizabeth Rooker's four daughters died in infancy.

The first dreadful loss was Alice's beloved sister Jane.  In 1850, two years after the death of her schoolfriend Mary Harrison in Penrith, and a couple of days before little John's first birthday, Alice heard from Jane, who lived with her husband Benjamin Harrison in Bradford at 5 Hustler Terrace, Barkerend.  This row of houses for the comfortably-off middle classes had been built only a few years earlier on a plot that had belonged to the Bradford Union Workhouse.  (It is gone now – Barkerend was the name of the Leeds Old Road, now the A658, and Hustler Terrace stood between the junctions with Otley road and Heap Lane).  

O.S. 1850 Hustler Terrace, Bradford (National Library of Scotland)

Jane's husband Benjamin was himself from Skipton, one of the twin sons of a remarkable man who had begun work as a little child at the spinning wheel and had become a lay preacher and key figure in the Zion Chapel at Skipton.  Jane and Benjamin had two children – 4 year old Alfred and 1 year old John Frederick.

Little Alfred Harrison had fallen ill with dysentery – the "bloody flux", which we now define as gastroenteritis with bloody diarrhoea.  In those days adult patients were treated with blood-letting, warm baths, laxatives, enemas and Dover's Powder, which was a patent medicine made of opium, ipecacuanha and potassium sulphate, generally used to dull pain and induce sweating.  How much of these remedies little Alfred had to endure we do not know.  On the fourth day of his illness he fell into convulsions which lasted for 24 hours.  He died on 30 July 1850.  Alice will have been following the news with great anxiety and Benjamin wrote to her at once with this briefest of notes [1]

Dr Alice,

Our dear boy has just gone to heaven, Jane is better than could be expected.

Yrs affly

B. Harrison  

This was the very day that John had heard of the collapse of the Brinksway Mill and had taken the first train to Stockport where they were digging for the missing workpeople.  

Alfred was buried on 3 August 1850 at the Zion Chapel in Skipton, where his grandfather Harrison had once been sexton.  Two days later Jane fell ill with dysentery and Alice went to Bradford.  But Jane died a week later on 13 August with Alice at her side, and it was Alice who registered the death.  Jane was buried alongside her little son.

Jane was 33 years old.  She had been a comfort and advisor to the more volatile Alice all her life and Alice's sense of loss at Jane's death was still vivid fifty years later whenever she talked of her sister.  She loved to remember the doctor's description of Jane: "Your sister was the most unselfish person I ever knew". [2]

This memory, from such a traumatic and anxious time, can only have been an extra inspiration to Alice to follow a path of self-denial, a path which lay at the basis of her Puritan faith.  She wrote to John in 1874 about their new daughter-in-law Evelyn

I must give Evelyn some motherly advice, whether it pleases or not.  The more I see of life, the more I am convinced that, to a girl, the habit of self-denial is the most important accomplishment she can acquire, one absolutely needed for the discharge of her duty as a mother [3]

Did Alice tell herself that the excessive housework, which looked so worryingly unnecessary to her family, was simply putting their needs first?  The compulsion to create cleanliness and order would not be helped by the frightening disorder and uncertainty of the world around her.  

The fact that it was John, on whom she relied so much, who was the next to suffer the shock of a sudden bereavement, will have been very hard on them both.  John's mother Alice had stayed with them in Manchester for the first year of their married life and been with Alice at the birth of her first baby.  She wasn't in the best of health and was suffering from heart disease.  

In September 1849, when little John was about two months old, John took his mother by the night train to join her daughters in the much milder, but rather damper climate of Plymouth.  They must all have hoped that retirement to a new and softer climate would do her good.  He wrote to Alice on their arrival

By the preserving mercy of our Heavenly Father we reached this in safety – my dear Mother got through on the whole tolerably; but many times indeed was I glad that I could bear her company. [4]

On 12 September 1849 John looked over a house that he thought might suit her, and the next day they saw the landlord together.  Perhaps this was 10 Alfred Street near the Hoe, where she was living on census night 30 March 1851.  It was quite a new house, one of a planned terrace built in about 1830 – Plymouth was at the forefront of town planning at this time – and it was conveniently close to her daughters, Elizabeth Rooker at 1 Sussex Terrace and Mary Tubbs at 4 Athenaeum Terrace.  (10 Alfred Street survived the Plymouth Blitz in the Second World War; Elizabeth's and Mary's houses did not).  

John stayed in Plymouth for a few extra days as he wasn't well, and then he left his mother and sister Alice in their new home and went back to 1 York Place.  About a fortnight later, he and his Alice and baby John moved to 41 Rumford Street, a rather cheaper house and much nearer the Rusholme Road Chapel and John's works.  

        

Bath chair, Roman Baths Museum by Rwendland

John had always been very close to his mother.  She was deeply interested in his life, he valued her advice extremely and he wrote to her in great detail about all his concerns in business and at the chapel.  His love and gratitude for her was evident.  By the spring of 1850 she was using a bath chair to go out, and John wrote to her in March

I hope you will continue, dear Mother, to go out in your chair so long as the weather will permit … You did not have so many holidays when you were young as most others have, so it is only fitting that you should take the more and enjoy them in your leisure now that you are old [5]

But she did not have long to enjoy her leisure.  In early April 1852 she had begun to suffer from oedema, a build up of fluid.  The congestion grew worse and she died at 10 o'clock in the morning of 14 May 1852 at home at 10 Alfred Street with Alice beside her.  She was 65 years old.  John had set off for Plymouth but did not get there in time.

His mother was buried five days later in her son-in-law Alfred Rooker's vault in the new cemetery at Plymouth.  It was a very sad blow for her children.  Three months later John's sister Mary Tubbs wrote to Alice in Manchester

I have felt for some time that my beloved parent would not continue long with us and, for her sake, I do indeed rejoice to know that her weariness and suffering are exchanged for perfect rest.  That she is with her Saviour in whose presence is fulness of joy is untold consolation.  And yet, dear Alice, I cannot tell you how I daily miss her even now and it seems to me that I can never feel so thoroughly at home here as before my dear Mother's death.  Her love did indeed sweeten our lot.  Dearly as I loved her I knew not fully what she was to us until we lost her. [6]        

The Hopkinson and Dewhurst families between them suffered twenty deaths in the 1850s and 1860s, ten deaths in each decade.  It was during these years, when there must have been so many letters of condolence to write and receive, that the family began to be worried about Alice's over-zealous cleaning.  And two of the deaths were of her own children.  In the 1870s she and John lost their daughter Ellen at the age of 21 and two years later 9 year old Harry, the pet of the family, both of scarlet fever.      

Next:  39. "My deafness! My deafness!"

Notes

[1] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 15

[2] ibid., p. XXV

[3] ibid., p. 63

[4] ibid., p. 8

[5] ibid., p. 18

[6] ibid., p. XXX

37. "The weight of responsibility as a Mother": educating little children

We know that the older children helped by teaching the little ones.  Alfred wrote in 1930

Being the eldest but one of a large family I watched, and sometimes could be of some help in, the education of the younger children, as my elder brother in a better and more effective way helped me [1]

In the same way, Mary taught her little brother Harry.  But we also know of occasions when Alice took on paid help with teaching the little ones.  There is a glimpse of a governess or nursery governess in June 1857.  John wrote from Manchester to Alice in Skipton about the children, saying that he thought 

How these dear ones do repay a little devotion to them and thought of them.  Miss K. has not got hold of them by the right end. [2]

He may possibly mean Miss Neild (thinking the K was silent as in knee) who is mentioned in 1858, 1862 and 1863.  John describes her as "Mother's Help" in his notes on the family holiday of August 1862.  It seems likely that Miss Neild was someone that Alice called upon when extra help was needed.  She may well be the Miss Maria Neild listed in the 1861 census 35 miles from Manchester at Vine Grove, Birkdale on the Lancashire coast.  This Miss Neild was born in Manchester in about 1810 and describes herself as "formerly a governess".

In February 1858 Alice was in Skipton.  She wrote to John on 6 February saying

I heard from Miss Neild this morning.  One piece of information distressed me sadly; she says Johnnie is not kind to Alfred and Nellie.  If I have time I will write Johnnie a line this evening. 

This news had shaken Alice considerably.  She continued

Dearest I do increasingly feel the weight of responsibility as a Mother.  When I see these fruits, natural products of the unregenerate heart, I tremble and look forward with deep anxiety for the future [3]

It's possible that Miss Neild remembered Alice's distressed reaction of 1858 when she wrote to her with news of the children five years later.  She certainly knew what pride Alice took in the way her children treated each other.  Alice left Miss Neild in charge in February 1863.  She may have gone away for a rest, possibly feeling particularly nervous and strained as she was actually in the early weeks of expecting Albert, her tenth.  On 7 February Miss Neild wrote to her brightly

My dear friend,

I know you will like a line on Sunday morning to say how your precious children are.  All good!  There!  What more shall I say? 

She gave a minute account of each child (not included in the edited letters) with the reassuring words

It is very pleasant to see in all the great love they have for each other. [4]

In May 1865 Alice realised that she needed more regular help with the children's early education.  She and John began to search carefully for a governess with the right principles and Nonconformist background who could take Alice's place in the nursery.  They were very taken with the letter of application received from the 19 year old Esther Wells of Nottingham and the explanatory letter sent by her elder sister Miss Anne Eliza Wells. [5]  They decided to give Esther a trial and she arrived in Manchester at Midsummer.  

Esther Wells c1875

She was not of the servant class and there was no question that she would be paid £12 a year.  John wrote to Alice on 21 May 1865

I care little about the amount provided you really have the help in this respect that you need.  Suppose that you begin with £25 raising it as may be proper hereafter.  I do trust that this young lady may be one after your own heart and that she may be a great comfort and help to you  [6]

How long Esther actually worked for them as a governess is not clear.  It seems from the extracts from letters written by Ellen and Esther in February 1870 that Esther was still employed, but that she was also a great friend of Ellen, who went to stay with her in Nottingham a couple of months later.  And in 1873 she married Ellen's brother Alfred.

Besides the servants, nurses, mother's help and governess, Alice also had a great deal of help from John.  He was always a practical help.  On 23 February 1857 he wrote

Have rectified the smoking nursery completely and improved front parlour at the same time [7].  

He was efficient at shopping for her.  When she was away in Skipton in January 1858 leaving Miss Neild in charge, she wrote to John with a list of commissions, of which these are quoted

If you are in Market St will you buy two yards of plaided material at Jenkinson's for a dress for Alfred … I brought a dress of mine but find it will cut more advantageously for the girls.  Father would be glad if you would bring two pairs of nice soles about 2½ lbs or 3 lbs each pair.  Also a good fresh lobster if the price is not too extravagant … When you come will you bring a good clean chemise for me; there is one in the dining room ottoman [8]

He was a very engaged father.  He was, wrote his grandson Bertram, "a teacher of exceptional ability" and a man who, "more than most fathers, made companions of his children" [9].  He always seems to have had time for children.

By the end of the 1870s, Alice was in her fifties.  After thirteen pregnancies and the death of little Harry, the serious breakdown in her health had left her very reduced.  Ellen, who had been the willing slave to domestic duties, had died in 1875 and 18 year old Mary had taken over Ellen's duties.  Work in the home was nothing new for her – she had always had to fit it in with her schoolwork – but luckily she was physically and mentally much stronger than Ellen.  

By the end of the decade it seems that Mary had taken on even more work.  Ellen Ewing tells us that letters from 1878 and 1879 refer to Mary "ordering the meals, attending to the laundry, dealing with her Mother's correspondence, interviewing her younger sisters' teachers and visiting the sick poor".[10]  Was this mostly when Alice was away from home?  What did Alice do for herself?  We don't know.  This was the beginning of Mary's lifetime devotion of her talents to the support of her mother.  Highly efficient and intellectual, Mary had a natural authority.  Her friends later used to say she would have made a fine headmistress.

"Learning and teaching are her great pleasures" as her Mother wrote.  And again "She is more fitted to rule than obey." [11]

But her mother became her "precious charge" and she took on the burden of the spring cleaning and household management.

Next:  38. "Our dear boy has just gone to heaven": Death and Grief

Notes

[1] Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., Penultima (1930) pub. Martin Hopkinson Ltd, p. 221

[2] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 27

[3] ibid., p. 29

[4] ibid., p. 37

[5] ibid., p. 45

[6] ibid., p. 46

[7] ibid., p. 27

[8] ibid., p. 29

[9] Original Papers by the late John Hopkinson, D.Sc., F.R.S. edited with a Memoir by B. Hopkinson, B.Sc (1901), Vol 1, pub. CUP, (available online at archive.org), p. xiii

[10] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. 74

[11]  ibid.

 

36. "Our three servants are all members of the Church": Alice & the servants

We don't know whether maids found the Hopkinson house too much of a hard place because of the amount of work expected from them.  We can't tell from the letters or the censuses who they were or how long they stayed – except in the case of Annie Prosser, who came to the family in 1884 when Mary Hopkinson was running a smaller, older household with a kindly efficiency.  Annie, who was three years younger than Mary, had been in her Sunday School class and she stayed with Mary for years.  

Mary Hopkinson in 1902

Mary clearly had the gift of friendship and loyalty.  In 1939, when she was 82 and living at 'The Firs' in Bowdon in Cheshire, her elderly household consisted of herself, 79 year old Annie (incapacitated, but still in charge of the kitchen), and 64 year old Julia Berry, who had been working for Mary since at least 1921 as house parlourmaid and was now helping out in the house unpaid, together with Julia's incapacitated husband Frederick.  

At Mary's 90th birthday, she wrote to Gerald Hurst, "my faithful old Annie" was brought to the house by car from her retirement home so they could have tea together.  When Annie died in 1948, the notice in the Manchester Evening News read

She faithfully served the Hopkinson family for many years and continued with Miss Mary Hopkinson, The Firs, Bowdon, as dear friend and helper.  Deeply mourned by her Nephews, Brothers, and Sisters. 

We can't say whether Alice had the same gift of keeping her staff's loyalty.  The Hopkinsons, especially at the beginning, were employing young women, under 25 and often in their teens.  They were always likely to move on or get married.  The maids can't be easily tracked or even distinguished from each other as the letters always refer to them by Christian name only.  Some aren't mentioned in the letters or censuses at all.  We have no idea, for example, of the identity of the nurse that Alfred described when he wrote that he was "a very young child when an elderly nurse who belonged to the sect of the Plymouth Brethren first made her appearance looking excessively solemn and gloomy". [1]

But there are some interesting points.

On 3 March 1854, when Alice was in the early weeks of expecting her fourth baby (though she very probably didn't yet know it), she was in Skipton and she was engaging a new nurse.  She wrote to John

Baby's nurse will only bring her baby; she is obliged to leave her little girl in the work house as they will allow her nothing.  I was sorry for the poor woman this afternoon; she finds that the woman she is lodging with here is a bad character.  This she was told at the board, and at the same time taunted with her own past misconduct.  I did feel for her.  God is indeed more merciful than our fellow men [2]

She was taking on a woman who probably had one or two illegitimate children and whose little daughter was in the workhouse.  It seems the Board would not give an allowance for the child to be boarded out of the workhouse, presumably with the Hopkinsons.  It's true that this is a cheap hire, but Alice's sympathy is very real.

And we do know more about the women who worked for the family in 1861 and 1862.

On 7 April 1861 John and Alice were living at 12 York Place and there were three servants living in the house:  Mary A Smith, aged 24 from Darlington, was the cook; Emma Wood, aged 24 from Manchester, was the housemaid; and Anne Cookson, aged 23 from Blakeley in Lancashire, was the nurse.   

A month earlier, on 11 March 1861, Alice had written to a friend

Our three servants are all members of the Church; two of them are really conscientious Christians.  The nurse exerts a good influence over the children [3].

But she didn't always get on with Anne (often called Annie) Cookson the nurse.  On 3 July 1862 she wrote from Skipton, where she had taken the new baby and 4 year old Mary, to John, who was in London with John and Alfred.  Anne was in Manchester with the other four children

I have good accounts of the home children.  In writing to Anne I told her we would give her £11 next year and received a reply in which ignorance, impudence and self conceit pointed every sentence.  My indignation towered high.  Her aim is not to give up her place but to get £12 by some means or other.  I have not particularly liked any of the girl's letters; they are somewhat presumptuous in tone

Later she wrote

I had a long letter from Anne this morning the result of a repentant spirit. [4]

Anne stayed on because she did not want to leave the children.  John's notebook shows that she went on the family seaside holiday a few weeks later, together with Emma Wood as cook and Alice's "mother's help" Maria Neild.[5]  Anne seems to have stayed on for several more years, and it seems likely that Alice is complaining about Anne Cookson in letters from 1865 and 1866.  On 16 March 1865 she wrote

Anne does not seem disposed to make any great effort to relieve me; she is not in her most agreeable mood [6]

And on 7 July 1866

this is one of her disagreeable days. [7]

But in 1867 when two year old May was ill, fractious and difficult, Alice had to admit Anne's skill and good qualities

Annie is very patient and nice with her.  I do admire and respect her in her vocation, but do not enjoy companionship with her. [8]

Was Alice expecting too much and too low a wage from her servants?  In March 1872 when she was trying to find servants, John wrote to her from Stockport

Mr Barton was quite interested in your want of servants and promised to make enquiry in his neighbourhood and held out prospects of success, said the girls liked to get to Manchester, that one must give good wages for good servants and mentioned £11, 12, 13 and 14 as requisite to secure good ones [9]

So if girls liked to get to Manchester, how was Alice finding it difficult to hire someone?  Mr Barton seems to be saying she should expect to have to pay more.

In the Preface, Gerald Hurst drew attention to this episode [10], noting that the highest yearly wage required by a good Manchester servant in November 1872 was £14.  He made no comment, leaving his readers to draw their own conclusions.  Inflation was very low in those years, and prices rose very little between 1862 and 1872.   A wage of £11 in 1862 might have risen with inflation to £11-10s (£11 and 10 shillings – 20 shillings made £1).  It rather seems that Alice, frugal herself and accustomed to self-denial, did not expect to pay much for servants.

Next:  37. "The weight of responsibility as a Mother": educating little children

Notes

[1]  Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., Penultima (1930) pub. Martin Hopkinson Ltd, p. 65

[2]  John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 24

[3] ibid., p. 34

[4] ibid., p. 34

[5] ibid., p. 35

[6] ibid., p. 43

[7] ibid., p. 48

[8] ibid., p. 50

[9] ibid., p. 61

[10] ibid., p. IX

35. Alice and the "pressure of overwork and routine drudgery"

Alice saw the care and education of her children as her sacred duty.  She prized their sympathy, confidence and love.  She loved to read to them, teach them and share her passion for poetry with them.  But she couldn't help herself when it came to housework.

On 3 July 1863 she wrote to John, who was away on business while the family was at Penmaenmawr

I have just been eating some cold rice pudding after regaling the better part on an interesting chapter on Dr Chalmers.  It is such a treat to sit in quiet and read half an hour, oblivious of the rent trowsers, the worn stockings or the dusty room [1]

He must have been very pleased to think of her sitting restfully – incidentally, she was not reading light fiction but a book of pen portraits of famous men, Dr Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) being a celebrated Scottish Presbyterian minister, theologist and political economist – and wrote back the next day

I must try to bring you a new selection of reading – and so get you to rest sometimes in spite of yourself and the holey stockings  [2]

She went to Skipton to recover from the holiday, and her sister Lizzie took her in hand.

I was in bed till noon for my good sister ran away with my clothes and fed me with good things before she would allow me to rise [3]

she wrote to John, who was delighted to hear it.  On 16 August 1863 he wrote

My own beloved and most precious wife,

I was very glad to have your welcome letter this morning.  It reminds me of my sister Mary's words "Your wife's mind, John, is too good to be spent on secondary objects" 

Alice had said she felt much happier after she had accepted the weakness and exhaustion as her appointed trial.  He urged her 

Be content to vegetate for a season.  Trees and flowers do not blossom nor make much wood while the fruit is ripening [4]

But it was a recurrent difficulty for her.  In 1864 John wrote to her

You are always a help and solace to me except when you get over-weighted with work and then you pull me down when you are sinking and I cannot extricate either you or myself [5]

And the following year he wrote

Now that you are away you can judge of some things better than when you are in the whirlpool of daily occupation here.  So I want you to think by what means you may keep your mind lightest and freshest when you get back, and what alterations you can make in domestic arrangements to leave you more at liberty from pressure of overwork and routine drudgery

and Alice replied

The reform I think most about is to see more of my little children.  I shall set Annie to do some household business which I have done and thus secure a certain portion of time with my babies [6]

She was very clear on the theory – she wrote on 29 October 1859

a mother's life has many joys to counterbalance the anxieties and responsibilities … And I can see, when looking from a distance, that it is right to set oneself free to enjoy the peculiar pleasures of one's lot as much as possible; I feel it is intended we should be happy [7]

but putting it into practice was far more difficult.

We don't, in fact, know how Alice spent her days.  The letters – which were a sort of running conversation between John and Alice while they were apart – have gone.   So have the many detailed letters she sent to friends and family.  Her correspondence must have taken up a great deal of her time.  We can see that family often stayed with Alice and John.  But did her circle of friends and neighbours make and receive morning visits?  Did they entertain each other to dinner?  Did Alice regularly teach at Sunday School?  We know that her elder sister Jane, in her short married life in Bradford, was (to paraphrase Mary Hopkinson) a centre of blessed influence in Bradford, especially among the students of the nearby Airedale Independent College, a dissenting academy for the training of Nonconformist ministers.  Did this example inspire Alice? Did she have time for voluntary charitable work?  How much of her time was absorbed in pregnancy, childcare and housework?  We only know that her family and friends watched in frustration as Alice, with so much intelligence, understanding and ability, got lost in darning and dusting.

When she wrote to John on 10 January 1865 of the recent Mothers' Meeting,

We had a comfortable Mothers' Meeting.  I ventured a remark by way of comment now and then to take off the sameness and call forth sympathy and feeling [8]

his pleasure in hearing her take a leading part is clear:

It has been a great gratification to hear that you felt at liberty at the Mothers' Meeting; you have so much ability of this order that it should not be lost or subordinated to darning or dusting, important and necessary as these are in their way … Are you taking care of yourself my precious one? … you are so thin and so far from strong [9] 

But Alice never seems to have been able to cut back on the housework for long.  On 30 June 1867, young John aged nearly 18, gave her a scolding

John Hopkinson jnr 1867-8

My dear Mother,

Alfred told us that baby was a little better but that you were not taking proper rest.  Now that won't do at all, and I can hardly see any necessity for it because you have Annie to watch baby half the time, and any other work there is, is not of the slightest importance as compared with your health and comfort in the estimation of any but yourself.  It spoils our pleasure very much not having you with us; but it is worse when we cannot trust you to take care of yourself; it makes one want to be at home to make you rest.  Alfred says you sew more than is good for you.  Now that is infinitely worse than it would be to mend [illegible].  Do see that your health is more valuable to your children than all the stockings, coats, trousers, etc., in Christendom [10]

But Alice still could not help herself.  On 11 May 1871 she wrote 

I have been working hard as long as my strength would hold out … A Spring Clean with eight children depending on one is rather much I find … I certainly could not leave the business to my present servants without supervision.[11] 

We can see how zealous the Spring Clean was from Mary's description in a letter to Alice on 20 June 1885: 

Gertrude, May and I have had a very happy day.  Our spirits were good enough to make us quite hilarious even over curtain mending and we came to the conclusion that 'the three old maids of Lee were as happy as happy could be' … The mornings are entirely taken up with housework and mending.  I am sure your heart would be quite satisfied could you see me finding out dust in nooks and crannies and looking sideways to discover its whereabouts [12]

And unfortunately one effect of Alice trying to lighten the burden on herself was that she burdened poor, willing Ellen.  On 26 May 1870 Ellen wrote to her

I know it is very wrong, but I feel as if I could not order another dinner; I do detest it … I have just been seeing the little ones to bed … I am a great deal better tonight except my back aches badly for I have been sewing as hard as I could all day.  You know it is Thursday of washing week and things seem to want more mending than usual [13]

It was very understandable – after the sudden deaths of her sister Lizzie in May and her sister-in-law Mary Tubbs in June – that Alice should be writing on 9 July 1866 

Nelly is invaluable to me and I do not think she feels it any hardship to minister to me [14]

but it was too much of a burden for the adoring and devoted Nelly, who was never strong.  She was not yet eleven when John wrote to Alice in Skipton 

Poor Nellie cried in bed last night under the sense of responsibility and want of Mama's counsel and help [15]

And Ellen Ewing wrote 

There is still in memory a vivid word picture by one of the brothers, portraying Ellen, weakly as she was, hard at work over the family's "chores" throughout the whole of many a fine day [16]

We can see from Alice's comments when she went to visit young John and his new wife that Alice had her own high standards and expectations of housekeeping.  She struggled with Evelyn's ways, writing to John on 21 April 1873

I must follow up your advice and not trouble about scratched furniture, plate, etc, and all best things in daily use.  I say to myself it is only a matter of money – earlier replacement, no great concern if they can afford it, and, if not, they must use the spoilt or do without.  What say you to my conclusions? [17]

Next:  36. "Our three servants are all members of the Church": Alice & the servants

Notes

[1] ibid., p. 37   

[2] & [3] ibid., p. 38

[4] ibid., p. 39 ripening

[5] ibid., p. 40 myself

[6] ibid., p. 44 babies

[7] ibid., p. 30 happy

[8] ibid., p. 42 feeling

[9] ibid., p. 43 strong

[10] ibid., p. 49 christendom

[11] ibid., p. 65 supervision

[12] ibid., p. 66 whereabouts

[13] ibid., p. 59 usual

[14] ibid., p. 48 me

[15] ibid., p. 40 help

[16] ibid., p. 65 day

[17] ibid., p. 63