1848 – the year of revolutions across Europe, Chartism at home and, out in California, the first Gold Rush – was full of courtship in Manchester and Skipton.
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| The Adamson family: National Portrait Gallery |
We have no photographs of John and Alice when they were young – they would both have their 24th birthdays that year – but we can imagine that they and their friends looked rather like the Adamson family (left). We will have to imagine the colours of the clothes by looking at websites such as this one. As this was before the invention of aniline dyes, colours were not as intense and bright as they would be in the later 19th century.
This calotype of 1844-5 from the studio of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson shows Robert Adamson (standing, left) and his brothers, two sisters and sister-in-law.
Robert Adamson became a photographer when poor health cut short his apprenticeship as a millwright. He was three years older than John Hopkinson. His brother John Adamson (standing, right) was a doctor, physicist and lecturer. His sisters (Melville with knitting and Isabella, standing behind her) were much the same age as Alice Dewhurst.
John Hopkinson's letter of proposal, filled with his devotion and longing to marry her, must have been very welcome and cheering to Alice Dewhurst. Only three weeks earlier her schoolfriend Mary Harrison (described in 19. Alice Dewhurst goes to school in Halifax, 1836) had died at her aunt's home in Penrith.
The doctors put her death down to typhus, which the newspapers were reporting as prevalent from Ulverston to Carlisle and for which the "morbid state of the atmosphere" was being blamed. As there was still some confusion between typhus and typhoid fever and the causes for both were then still unknown – body lice in the case of typhus, contaminated water for typhoid – it was quite possibly typhoid. The next year would see the second pandemic of Asiatic Cholera spreading across the country; it was another disease whose origin in water contaminated by faeces was still unknown at the time.
John's letter was written on 7 February. He and Alice were formally engaged at Skipton on 11 February, John's birthday. The next day he wrote in his book "February 12th. Walked out with my Alice".
From this point on, they began to write to each other – rather formal and slightly stiff letters at first. They told each other of going to chapel, of sermons heard. Ellen Ewing in John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 comments that they exchanged letters "the noticeable feature of which was enthusiasm, not for the recipient as might have been expected, but for the type of Christianity, then probably at its zenith".
But with visits and letters they grew to know each other better and to be increasingly comfortable in each other's company. We only have the extracts quoted by Ellen Ewing but we can see a progression.
On 3 March Alice wrote
On Wednesday I visited the poor woman who had lost her husband so suddenly; she appears to feel her loss deeply and yet she is resigned; … I always feel particularly pleased to find instances of this kind amongst the very poor; there are so many circumstances attendant upon their situation which appear to me calculated to blunt the finer feelings of our nature. The middle walk of life seems the most favourable to the cultivation of the home affections
She signs herself
Accept my warmest love and believe me everYour affectionately attachedAlice
Knowing the influence on John of the Revd James Griffin and his deep sympathy for the poor, we can see that John's reply seems to be both encouraging and gently correcting Alice:
I am interested in the story of the poor woman whose sorrows you have been striving to heal. I do think with you that there is much more true affection and tender feeling among the poorer ranks of life than we are apt sometimes to suppose – that generous, even refined feelings, are not infrequently hidden beneath a rough exterior.
They spent time together towards the end of April and explored the limestone uplands above Skipton. "Do you remember last Good Friday, how gallantly I scampered with you over Malham Moors?" wrote Alice a year later.
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| Malham Moor by Trevor Littlewood |
Ellen Ewing's quotation from Alice's letter of 12 May shows that her letters were growing livelier – and that she and her 20 year old sister Lizzie and brother Tom, then 18½, were still able to play boisterously like puppies
I have just been enduring a severe castigation from my younger brother and sister, and have returned from the wars with trembling hands and beautified with a variety of bruises. I think, when you come, we must have a battle on even terms
(Perhaps readers will be able to remember, as I can, similar rather juvenile larks at that age?)
She was a physically active and intrepid girl:
If I had many walks with Tom as my leader I should become quite an accomplished climber. He does not allow walls to be an impediment. I had to scramble over several in our evening's ramble; he met with no serious objections to his mode of procedure
While Alice's letters became more playful, it seems from the extracts that John's were rather sober and plodding. Sir Gerald Hurst, who wrote the Preface to John and Alice Hopkinson and who was married to their granddaughter Margaret, wrote
John Hopkinson had not a light touch and, I imagine, little sense of humour
By June, Alice was teasing John that he might prefer the quiet of a bachelor life to having
a saucy woman's tongue to interrupt your solemn musings, nothing to do when you come home but to make yourself comfortable
and John was assuring her earnestly
So quiet, so free, "no woman's tongue to interrupt my solemn musings" – pardon, 'tis that which constitutes my lack and makes a vacancy mind cannot fill.
And, very sweetly
I honestly told you my Alice that I liked you the better as I knew you better, and spoke the truth
He told her of his working day
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| Armley Mills, now the Leeds Industrial Museum by Mark Stevenson |
After parting so reluctantly with you on Monday afternoon I was soon in Leeds whence, after making one call, I pursued my way to Armley Mill, where I found an accident had occurred on Saturday to the works requiring immediate attention. I doffed my coat and hat and was soon at work, accepting by the way the offer of one of the workmen of some bread and butter and tea from a can (both capital) … I reached York Place at half past eleven – and was at the works at six … This morning I left home at 5 o'clock …
He and Henry Wren were feeling pressure of work and criticism
Do what we will, Henry Wren and I are abused on all sides. He is sorest now; I am getting case hardened and past feeling …
I do mean now to try to make my working hours shorter – and later must try, if it is possible by method, arrangement and punctuality to secure more despatch – that is, to do the same work in less time …Henry Wren has been asking more about my overhours work at Chapel etc, and suggesting, again very deferentially, that I should, for the present, exchange some of them for light outdoor exercise. He proposed a riding horse for the firm and my scruples on this head are weaker than they were …
(Henry Wren, I am fairly sure, was an Anglican)
By July Alice was making her views on women's abilities and rights to education very clear to John
In the meantime you can study Benjamin Parsons On the Mental and Moral Dignity of Woman. He is a champion, though I am not quite sure that all his arguments are the soundest possible. And we must also overlook a degree of coarseness; but his intention is so good that we will readily accord him every indulgence. I mean we of the womankind ...
Alice was up-to-date with her reading – Benjamin Parsons' book (which can be read online) had only been published in 1842. His subject was women's mental powers and education and he was forthright:
Most of us have seen boys and girls learning the same lessons and studying the same subject, but we never found that the girls were inferior to the boys … I never yet could detect any mental inferiority in girls, as scholars. Indeed, my own observation would lead me to give them the preference over boys in their aptitude to learn … I am fully persuaded that experiment and observation can detect no inferiority whatever in the minds of females, during infancy, childhood, or youth.
But once the girls grew up –
That young gentleman who aspires to her hand, although very polite and agreeable withal, is such an ill-informed personage, that an intelligent woman for a wife would quite bewilder him, and by contrast sadly expose his folly; and therefore he has come to the prudent conclusion that he will never marry a woman who knows more than himself; consequently, the lady is doomed to employ all her skill to contract her intellect to the dimensions of her lover's. Books are abandoned or thrown away; French is forgotten, and perhaps English at the same time; and every effort is made to educe mental paralysis, until, perhaps, this seraph of a woman seems in part assimilated to the mere animal who is to be her companion until death
He thundered his conclusion:
To limit female education and acquirements, and doom husbands, son, and daughters to the sway of ignorance and caprice, is to inflict on society and on the nation one of the heaviest calamities.
Alice never attempted to hide her intellectual capabilities and literary tastes and John was proud of her. Years later he quoted a remark of his sister Mary
Your wife's mind, John, is too good to be spent on secondary objects.
By August Alice was writing to John teasingly and her sister Lizzie was so much at home with him that she could tease him too
I feel concerned about your wounded leg, fearing that you will not take the necessary care. It would be a serious affair if I had to make you. But alas! that would be useless; you are such a master; I will not say My Master. Oh no! "There's time enough for that, says I." I am still Alice the untamed, living in the land of liberty, town of Single Blessedness …
Lizzie sends her respectful compliments; she hopes you will take care of your leg as she certainly would not admire a cork legged bridegroom.
On Saturday 4 September, a little more than a fortnight before the wedding, John had an unexpected setback. It perhaps shows John Dewhurst's character, described by his granddaughter Mary as "quick-tempered, impulsive and outspoken" and casts further light on why his brother Isaac left their partnership. When John Hopkinson proposed to Alice – as he explained to her in a stilted but heartfelt letter written on the Monday – it was with no thought of any private money she might have
I loved you for your own sake, and wished to marry you because I loved you – I do so still – I never have had any other reason
He hadn't even thought about the Dewhursts' financial position. He had simply told Mr Dewhurst, in their first private interview, all about his own situation and prospects. Mr Dewhurst had said something to the effect that "he could give his daughter something tidy". John had assumed that this meant he was going to make some sort of marriage settlement. But, he assured Alice, "money on your side found no item in my calculations".
On the Saturday, as he left Skipton, John thought he had better explain what he could do for Alice himself apart from what he earned in business – presumably he thought his future father-in-law was expecting him to tie up some capital sum in her name – and check out Mr Dewhurst's plans. Slightly defensively and sounding rather hurt, he told Alice that he felt that this was
A question with regard to the propriety of which I do not entertain the slightest doubt
Something seems to have gone rather wrong here. John Dewhurst seems to have said that he had made the same provision for Alice as for her elder sisters, but John Hopkinson was left with no idea whether this meant on marriage or by his Will. Now Alice had written to John, but as her letter didn't survive we don't know what had been happening in Skipton, what was said by Mr Dewhurst, or what had passed between Alice and John. We have only his answer, quoted by Ellen Ewing. It begins
My own dearest Alice
The frankness of your note has relieved me from some perplexity, and I shall endeavour to answer it with equal candour.
In our intercourse hitherto there has been no reserve on my part, and I do not intend that there should be any in the future.
Perhaps there was some question about whether they could afford to marry, whether John had been deterred by the question of money – he assured her that
If we do not assume any wrong standard, I believe we may be comfortable. I care little for the artificialities of life. If I wish for wealth it is for your sake, that you may be a remove farther from want. Do not oversestimate me in character, position or intelligence. If you expect too much you may be disappointed. Dearest Alice, I have long loved you for your own sake – the basis of my affection is unchanged.
He signed his letter
Your own true lover,John
Alice wrote back, Ellen Ewing noted, with "with religious reflections and contrition" saying
Weak, thoughtless and full of faults as I am, I would fain hope that the endeavour to promote your happiness, resulting from true affection, will not be altogether unavailing, I feel as if I had much to say: but my heart is too full to write
All was well between them. Preparations for the wedding gathered pace. On 16 September Alice sent John a very practical note
My dearest John
Will you send by post six of the cards you said you would get for tieing round the cake; we wish to have the cake for Manchester packed. If we wait till you come, there will be so many things to do, cards, directing, etc., that we should have rather too much bustle to do anything well.Ellen arrived in safety at half past six. The various etceteras she brought are all approved.We shall look for you by the half past four train on Tuesday.
With kindest love to you Mother and sisters. Believe me, in very great haste. Your own affectionateAlice
SkiptonSaturday afternoon,1848
On Tuesday 19 September John arrived with his mother, sisters Alice and Mary in Skipton. The next day he and Alice were married at the Zion Chapel by the Revd R Gibbs. John Dewhurst rather characteristically put the announcement in a new weekly journal that he was evidently supporting. It was called The Standard of Freedom and came out on Saturdays at a cost of fivepence. It called for subjects dear to John Dewhurst's heart – Free Trade and religious liberty.
Meanwhile the newly married couple had left Skipton for York on their way for a fortnight's honeymoon in Scotland.
The families wrote to them while they were away. Alice's sister Jane sent a letter which, Ellen Ewing wrote, began with "the usual hopes" for their spiritual welfare and went on to say
The party you left behind on your wedding day were as happy as possible to be under the circumstances. Our dear father and mother kept up wonderfully and the two dear sisters, who were most certainly the greatest sufferers, bore up heroically …
I feel very sorry to hear that dear John's leg is far from well; I do hope you will neither of you exert yourselves too much. Remember now that you ought to lay up a stock of health for the Winter and not exhaust what little strength you have by trying too much …
I do not know when it became the custom – a sort of cult of sensibility – to dwell on the suffering of the families left behind by the young couple nor for how long this lasted. John and Alice's daughter-in-law Esther wrote a very self-pitying letter to her daughter after Margaret's wedding in 1905. In this case I think the "two dear sisters" were John's sisters. Ellen Ewing comments on the "possessive quality of the sisters' affection for their only brother" shown in his sister Elizabeth Rooker's letter to him of 12 April
Remember one visit to Skipton is equal to a dozen letters. So, since you are able to pop over now and then, I cannot allow that it is needful for you to spend much time in writing also – this portion must be devoted to us I think … Do write very soon. Remember you have three sisters here all longing to hear.
Alice's father wrote to them while they were in Scotland but no letters from Alice's mother from any period have survived. There is no way of knowing whether she wrote too many to keep or whether she always left it to her husband and younger daughter Lizzie to write. At some point, possibly before the elder girls' marriages, she began to suffer from very poor health and left the household management in her daughters' hands. Alice spoke with admiration to her own daughter Mary of her mother's "uncomplaining patience and her great power of endurance" but we have no clue as to her illness.
Ellen Ewing comments on John Dewhurst's lack of full stops (which was usual in his generation) and occasional spelling faults. Here is his letter of 23 September 1848 in her transcription
Dear Alice,
I am in receipt of your very welcome Letter dated Sunday 21 inst presuming you were well when you wrote as you say nothing to the contrary; you may probably get a sight of the Queen and prince Albert while you are in Scotland; they appear to be very much thought of in that part and they both appear inclined to make themselves very agreeable: your thanks for past favours are accepted and your pardon for all past faults but I do not recollect any (only the last) which cannot be repaired and that is leaving us: but John will say that is no fault, therefore I suppose we must take it for granted you must excuse all blunders as I have written in haste, may the Lord bless and protect you from all dangers and bring you both safe to your intended abode.
I am Dear Alice,Your affecte Father,J W Dewhurst
His letters are in great contrast with the letters from the Hopkinson and Dewhurst daughters, who had all attended the sorts of schools which produced a uniformly decorous and formal way of writing. The Hopkinson daughters were greatly given to pious reflections; possibly an awareness of their illegitimacy made virtue and piety even more imperative. Ellen Tubbs wrote
You are the first sister we have acquired and it is delightful to have our circle enlarged and our affection strengthened by one who is one in heart with us and with whom we shall journey to the same everlasting rest.
She adds in a more chatty tone
You sent us a noble piece of cake, and very excellent it is. For all the wedding symbols accept our thanks
Elizabeth Rooker "after elaborate expressions of regret" (Ellen Ewing's comment) that she could not help to prepare 1 York Place for Alice's arrival, wrote
We must not expect your lot to be perfectly exempt from trials; for, during our earthly pilgrimage, the cloud will sometimes obscure the brightest path; but, as far as human foresight can devine, there is every prospect of yours being a truly happy home, and most sincerely do I rejoice with Dearest John and yourself in the happiness which is at present your portion and which seems to be laid up in store with you. To have such a pastor as our beloved Mr Griffin is no ordinary privilege. May our Heavenly Father continue to smile on you …
John Dewhurst was much more down to earth about the Revd James Griffin. Possibly he had listened to what he felt was excessive praise of Mr Griffin from his daughter Ellen and from the visiting Hopkinson women – he was clear-sighted about the dangers of creating a cult around a highly valued pastor
I hope he will continue long amongst you and that his labours will be blessed as they appear to have been, and that you may not make too much an Idol of him as sometimes there is very great danger in doing so with men of his worth.
On Thursday 5 October, showered with good advice and prayerful wishes by their families, John and Alice came home to 1 York Place. They would begin their married life in Manchester in a household shared with John's mother and sister Alice.
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