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

 

34. Maids, housework & crinolines

In the years when the family was getting ever larger and there were small children in the house, Alice had the help of three young women to cook, clean and look after the babies.  These three girls lived in the house; we don't know if Alice paid for extra help by the day with the heavy cleaning or for a washerwoman to come in on washdays.  The housework would be divided up according to Alice's wishes.  The cook, for example, would almost certainly be responsible for cleaning her kitchen as well as making the food, and she might be expected to take care of the dining room.  She might serve breakfast if the maid was upstairs doing the bedrooms.  It would depend on how the house was organised and what was needed.  

In a Victorian household, the workload was heavy and all done by hand.  In 1930 Alfred Hopkinson looked back on his childhood and shuddered

In the old days the bed-curtains had to be taken down and put up again, the antimacassars on the chairs had to be regularly washed, practically all baking was done at home in town as well as in the country; and very good it was.  Sending clothes to the laundry was an unknown extravagance, and washing, ironing and starching were all done at home, even in quite small houses in towns.  Jam was almost wholly home-made and this involved really heavy labour for the housewife as well as for the servants .[1]

An antimacassar was the name given to a small cloth draped over the back of a chair to protect it from gentlemen's hair oil.  Alfred knew hair oil too, and only too well

In those early days it was not unusual to add to the miseries of child life by manufacturing at home some stuff which we knew as 'pomatum,' which was smeared on the hair of the unfortunate children, whose dress, compared with the children's dress of to-day, was a model of discomfort, of expense, and of unsuitability for its purpose  [2] 

And the work was to be done while encumbered with heavy clothes.  Alfred thought the change for the better in women's dress over his lifetime was marvellous.  He could remember the "hideousness of the dresses" in the late 1850s and early 1860s.  He had worn a crinoline himself when he was acting in a school play and could say from experience that they made active exercise quite impossible 

there might be half a yard of dress which trailed on the ground, and in the streets mopped up all the filth that lay about and carried it into the drawing-rooms of their acquaintance. [3]  

Later, he remembered, there was some "mysterious arrangement" made of elastic which could pull the dress up for crossing the road, but which sometimes would embarrassingly pull up only one side so that half the skirt was above the knee and the rest dragged on the ground. 

The coffee-pot waist was incompatible with health … As for decency, the less said about the crinoline and the garments of those days, the better.  They were expensive, inconvenient, ugly and so dangerous that women were sometimes burned to death through their dresses catching the flames even when they were standing at a distance from the fire. [4]

The cage crinoline that Alfred remembered had been a blessing for women when it appeared in 1856.  Crinolines had always been the horsehair-stiffened petticoat that was went with other layers of petticoats to create the dome shaped skirt that had been fashionable through the 1840s.  

The steel cage was much lighter to wear and quite cheap, so that all classes of women could be in fashion.  On 3 August 1935 the Sheffield Independent reported the oldest umbrella maker in Sheffield, 98 year old Eliza Riley who started work at the age of seven in a silk mill, remembering how she made her own crinolines from wire bought by the yard from the makers in Pond Street.  

"And I never showed my pantaloons, well not more than that," she added.  "Some girls wore them to the feet." 

Miles and miles of crinoline wire were being turned out by the Sheffield rolling mills alone.  They were usefully adaptable for maternity wear as Alice must often have found, because the hoops could be shifted to make more room and the sheer frilliness and flounciness of the fashions with their yards of fabric could incorporate unobtrusive openings in the bodice for nursing a babe. 

Alfred, who loved the outdoor life, remembered with dismay that

Fresh air at night was regarded with horror.  To prevent the night air entering long sandbags were placed at the foot of the doors and along the windows; the four-post bed was furnished with curtains which were carefully drawn at night; the feather-bed was common, and for fear of a draught on the head the night-cap was worn by both men and women [5]

Coal fires, gas lamps, oil lamps, no bathrooms.  "No one in these days," he wrote

can imagine the appalling sanitary arrangements in what were considered good middle-class houses in the 'fifties and early 'sixties [6]

The change in attitude over his lifetime to fresh water was, he thought, remarkable.  His parents moved in 1849 from 1 York Place (the council put the gross estimated rental value at £55) to a cheaper house, 39 Rumford Street (GER £45), where Alfred, Ellen and Charles were born.  By the time of Mary's birth in 1857 they were back in York Place, this time at Number 12 and in rather more prosperous circumstances – the gross estimated rental value was £50.  These are the houses that Alfred is describing here

Houses of £50, £60, £70 or even higher rents, which meant far more in those days than at present, were without bathrooms; in fact, to have a daily bath would by some estimable people have been thought rather a sensual pampering of the body.  

Young children, of course, had some form of bath; but I remember well staying at a small house in the country where the only chance for us was to be put in a receptacle called a dolly tub, usually used for the washing of clothes, and which we entered with some fear that we should be unable to climb over the high steep sides. [7]

(Dolly tubs were tall wooden or galvanised iron tubs used with a poss stick or posser – the name varied by region – for washday.  Replicas sell nowadays as planters for the garden)

Alice had plenty to occupy her with care of the children.  She breastfed her babies – she comments in a letter of 29 October 1859 that the doctor recommended that she should wean six-month-old Edward, "but I am not at all disposed to do so at present" [8] – and she gave the little ones their early lessons.  Alfred, for example was taught at home until he went to a kindergarten when he was nearly eight [9], while a letter of 19 May 1865 [10] shows that Edward was at school at six.

But with all the work to be done about the house, it is no surprise to find Alice mentioning darning, mending, dusting and spring cleaning in her letters.  We don't know what Alice thought her neighbours and friends expected by way of cleanliness and neatness in the home – but we do know that her friends and family were for years very worried about the way that Alice overburdened herself and her daughter Ellen and finally Ellen's younger sister Mary with household chores. 

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

Notes

[1] Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., Penultima (1930) pub. Martin Hopkinson Ltd, p. 306

[2] & [3] ibid., p. 307

[4] ibid., p. 308

[5] ibid., p. 306

[6] ibid., p. 304

[7] ibid., p. 305

[8] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. 30

[9] Penultima, p. 233

[10] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. 44

33. "Another olive branch": the arrival of babies

Alice gave birth to baby John barely ten months after her wedding day.   He was the first of a large family.  In less than 20 years – between 27 July 1849 and 23 February 1868 – Alice had thirteen babies.  She was 24½ years old when John was born; she was 43 when she gave birth to Harry, the thirteenth.  

Both Alice and John seem to have been quite unprepared for how soon they were to become parents and for the emotions that would wash over them.  On 4 April 1849 John wrote in a careful attempt at encouragement to Alice, who was visiting the family in Skipton 

At first the thought of such responsibility and others attaching to the parental relation, seemed too serious and weighty to contemplate without almost alarm, and I felt little interest or, perhaps while a bachelor, none in the idea; but now my paternal feelings are taking root and I find increasing pleasure in the anticipation of being a father.  It has seemed so odd to me while writing this last sentence; yet it is true and I cannot help feeling certain that, in a little time, you will experience yet greater interest in the thought of having a babe of your own than I do [1]

Alice replied miserably on 6 April 1849

I wish I could rejoice in looking forward; however, I will try to hope that a time will come when I shall be happy either in the expectation or in the realization of a mother's love, a mother's joy. [2]  

There is still a trace of formality in these letters, written after six months of marriage – this soon disappeared and their open and loving letters reflect over the years how they grew ever closer and more appreciative of each other. 

When, in the summer of 1861, Alice – now 37 years old and the mother of seven living children – took them to Abergele on the North Wales coast to recuperate from whooping cough, John wrote to her on 12 July

The true, faithful, confiding heart of my most precious and valued wife, the trustful fondness of my sweet children – all these are God's good gifts to me [3]

and she replied, thinking of the Manchester friends who were inviting John round while she was away,

Now you see, if you had remained a bachelor, what kind attentions you would have received.  Well, never mind.  Nobody would have loved you better than your old wife.  None would have valued your society so much as she does. [4]

Alice always had a livelier way with words than John; he was a very serious man while she combined her serious nature with a sense of fun. 

Ellen Ewing wrote that from the day of their wedding they were "lovers for ever"[5] and that 

as their cares and responsibilities increased so did their solicitude and help for each other.  

She added

John was, by nature, more unselfish than Alice and had more opportunities for succouring her [6]

and the letters she quotes show his constant concern for her health and strength.  On 2 April 1868 he wrote

I am rejoiced indeed, more than I can express, to hear of your continued progress.  It gives me fresh strength every morning for the day.  If you are well and bright I can get on and can work with a will [7]

They lived, wrote Ellen Ewing, in an "atmosphere of perpetual exaltation and admiration", of "constant mutual admiration, as well as love and sympathy." [8] 

John was always aware of the burdens on Alice and determined to take his share.  Away on business to Sweden, he wrote on 3 February 1853 from Karlshamn 

I hope to come home with the anxious desire and earnest resolution to try to make you and the dear ones happy there – to put away any cloud that may sometimes, though rarely, damp our sympathies and shade our intentions.  I have been thinking more of your household cares and will try to share them more fully so that they may be less of a burden to you – and will try to leave the cares of work, of business within the office doors – except so far as your own dear sympathy in them shall sometimes make them lighter for me.  So we will bear each other's burdens, and they will be lighter for us both [9]

They were united in their religion and in their understanding of life and their purpose in the world.  This shared view sustained them both, in good times and bad, as we can see when Alice wrote to John in 1853 

I could not help shedding tears when I read of your business disappointments.  This is your special trial my husband; it must be one.  Is it not intended to be one?  Is it not a part of your education for eternity?  Let us try to look on our disappointment, our blighted hopes in this way, remembering that this is not our rest. [10]

Their thirteen children were

1.  John, born Friday 27 July 1849

2.  Alfred, born Saturday 28 June 1851

3.  Ellen, born 7 October 1853

4.  Charles, born 16 November 1854

5.  Alice, born 27 April 1856.  Died aged 2

6.  Mary, born 16 August 1857

7.  Edward, born 28 May 1859

8.  Elizabeth Lilian ("Lilian"), born 24 October 1860

9.  Gertrude, born 9 May 1862

10.  Albert, born 7 October 1863

11.  Mabel ("May"), born 17 December 1864

12.  William Henry, born 30 September 1866.  Died soon after birth

13.  Harry Dewhurst, born 23 February 1868.  Died aged 9

(Ellen Ewing described the first pregnancy at length and gives the date of birth for all except Lilian, whose birthday I have taken from the 1939 Register.)

Alice and John were not alone in having such a large family.  Alice's brother Tom had thirteen children and Bonny Dewhurst had seven.  John's sister Ellen Tubbs had nine and his sister Mary Tubbs had ten.  So many "olive branches" as a friend of Alice coyly called babies in a letter of 1866

I hear you are promising your good husband another olive branch.  Doubtless it is all well though suffering nature cannot see it so, and even faith at times finds it hard to believe.  Still your offspring, even now, are beings of joy and comfort to you amid all the care and anxiety you have for them [11]

If Alice ever felt well and happy during pregnancy, Ellen Ewing does not mention it.  And it's noticeable that, apart from the tiredness, back ache and usual pains which come with pregnancy, her descriptions are all of Alice's state of mind.  

This was worst of all in her first pregnancy.  In early April 1849 she was in a depressed and anxious state and spent some time in Skipton.  To add to her misery, the depression brought on some form of spiritual crisis.  Ellen Ewing wrote of her "spiritual distress – worse than many a physical pain" and that her "habit of religious introspection" was made rather "morbid by the depression of her spirits" [12] but she does not quote from any of the relevant letters.  Perhaps Alice suffered something like the crisis of despair described by Mrs Sarah Buchannan (see "Becoming a member of the Rusholme Road Chapel") or the feeling of worthlessness described by Fanny Burnett (see "Henry Burnett & Fanny Dickens at the Rusholme Road Chapel" ).  Perhaps it was a frightening loss of confidence in God's Providence and a sort of terror at the thought of being responsible for a new little soul.  

She tried, sometimes successfully, to escape it by paying attention to outside events.  Her sister Jane, heavily pregnant with her second, tried to help her reason her way out of it.  Her sisters-in-law wrote her kind, encouraging letters saying that they had been depressed too.  Ellen Tubbs wrote from Ireland on 24 April 1849

Most likely you possess Dr Bull's little book, if not you would find it very useful – "Hints for Mothers". [13]

Dr Thomas Bull's manual, Hints to Mothers for the Management of Health During the Period of Pregnancy and in the Lying-in-room had come out in 1837 and so it was relatively new.  It was very popular with middle-class women, and was revised in edition after edition through the century.  Perhaps Ellen Tubbs was thinking of advice on these lines (this is from the 1865 edition)

Pregnancy occasions in some women, in the early months, a very excitable state of their nervous system, yet without disease.  In consequence of this continued irritation, the temper of such persons is sometimes rendered less gentle and patient than is consistent with their usual character. One of the most naturally amiable and sweet-tempered women that I am acquainted with, is always thus affected when pregnant … This claims a kindly regard and forbearance from a husband and friends …

If Alice had bought the book, we can only hope she wasn't too much alarmed by this sort of passage (again from the 1865 edition)

Observation and daily experience prove the fact, that any serious mental disturbance to which the mother may be exposed during the pregnant state will tell upon the future constitutional vigour and mental health of her offspring.  A sudden gust of passion, or indeed any violent mental emotion, will sometimes be followed by an immediate effect upon the system; and convulsions, haemorrhage or a miscarriage may ensue. … A calm and equable temper, a life of quiet cheerfulness and active duty, are most conducive not only to the health of the parent, but to that of the offspring also

This was followed by the discouraging account of a respectable woman whose "premature child, puny and fretful, late to smile, with a head much larger than it ought to be" was the result of her being very depressed in pregnancy because of her husband's obsessive worry about his ability to support a large family.  

And Alice might not have welcomed Ellen Tubbs' depressing reminder of the pandemic of Asiatic Cholera that had begun the year before.  It was the second in her lifetime, as the first dreadful appearance of cholera had been in 1832, and it was a disease which, in those days when rehydration wasn't understood, had a mortality rate of 50%

Does Cholera prevail in Manchester?  Here it is ravaging in surrounding districts and in this town there are many who have been cut down in the last three weeks.  We are close by the Hospital whence seven coffins were taken on Sunday, and the fifth is now going away today.  What is our life! [14]

Alice was clearly in low spirits, spiritual agony and anxiety for some weeks.  She was daunted by the thought of the responsibilities she was taking on and she was also, unsurprisingly, frightened.  She wrote to John in her letter of 6 April

What a weight of responsibility seems to attach to the parental relationship!  I do often feel – who is sufficient for this?  … You know some other reasons why I fear – some of them, I fear very selfish ones, I wish I could rise above them 

We are not told the fears but we can imagine that the thought of the pain of childbirth and the risk of death must have loomed very large.  Things had been so different the year before, she added, trying for a little cheerfulness

Do you remember last Good Friday, how gallantly I scampered with you over Malham Moors?  Fancy me there now!  I am growing stouter and stouter; I think change of air has had some effect; so you must prepare yourself for the worst! [15]

Malham Moor, by Trevor Littlewood

More than a fortnight later, on 23 April, she was still in the same state of distress

I would like for once to send you a cheerful letter; but I fear, if my note bears the impress of my feelings, it will tell you more of sadness than of gladness.  Forgive me if it be so for I cannot disguise my feelings when I write or talk to you my own kind husband. [16]

As Alice approached the birth, we can only hope she was cheered and encouraged by the message her sister Jane had sent on 12 May after she gave birth to her second baby, John Frederick.  Jane's husband Benjamin wrote

I was to tell you that she got through it much better than she anticipated, and recommends you to look forward to having to go through the same course of nature's penalty without fear [17]

Most of Alice's depression lifted when baby John was born on 27 July 1849, but she seems to have been left with some post-natal baby blues after the birth.  Luckily she found that caring for him helped take her out of herself.  On 14 September 1849, when he was two months old, she wrote to John

You ask me to tell you what I do and how I feel.  As soon as you were gone I could not help indulging my feelings for a little while.  Then dear baby required attention and thus my thoughts were diverted.  I have not felt nervous at night and the little pet has been very good … I am in very good spirits; I have been too busy to cry.  We rise early and the maids go to bed at ten or before.[18]

In the later pregnancies she seems always to have felt some "nervous strain", as Ellen Ewing describes it, but it seems the spiritual distress did not come back.  She must have been feeling well during her next pregnancy because, a month before baby Alfred was born, John was wondering whether Alice could join him in London where he had been to the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace.  

Overwhelmed with admiration for the "wondrous extent and magnificence" of the exhibition, he wrote to her on 5 May 1851 

I have been thinking and thinking whether you might not come.  If once you were here there would be no further difficulty for the place is not overcrowded or overheated – there is an abundance of comfortable backed seats so that even an infirm person might see a great deal without fatigue … We saw many ladies there yesterday evidently in your condition [19]

The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace

But we don't know if she went.  

Ellen Ewing says that Alice felt her "old introspective doubts" while she was pregnant with Alice, her fifth baby, but these seem to be more personal than spiritual:

Oh for the grace to fulfil my mission far differently from what I have done in the past! [20]

she had written on 15 September 1855 when the pregnancy was only about two months advanced.  She was brooding on whether she had spent too much of her energies on housework and not on time with the children, and on the anxiety of bringing up children in "just and right principles".  Baby Alice was born on 27 April 1856, and that summer Alice was still feeling very nervous, writing to John from Skipton

My mind is in a perpetual agitation about the business of this life and I perceive, not the undercurrent of peace, rather a restlessness of spirit.  You would pray for me, my own best friend, that God would again speak peace to my soul [21]

 A visit to her sister Ellen Milne and her little children did her good.  Ellen's husband James Milne had taken Belmont, a very comfortable country house with some 20 acres of land, outside Cheadle in Cheshire.  The auction particulars from its sale in 1834 describe it lyrically – its luxuriant plantations and shrubberies, pine and melon pits, hot-houses, gardens and lawns, and the handsome rooms, the seven bedrooms and water closet upstairs, and every convenience including a brewhouse.

Alice wrote to John on 19 September 1856

I feel it is pleasant to be out here today; everything looks green and pleasant; it seems to relieve my irritability.  I had a good cry last night about my impatience:  I feel it is so bad for the children [22]

She often described herself as feeling "fidgety" and when she was pregnant with Gertrude this reached such a pitch that Ellen Ewing describes her as "excessively nervous"[23].  While expecting Edward she seems to have been physically ill as well.  On 19 January 1859, four months before his birth, she wrote

I am glad to say I feel better today; I can sit up longer without feeling faint and my knees do not tremble so much when I walk [24]

This was only about nine months after the death of two year old Alice; in old age, Alice's voice still shook with grief when she spoke of the loss of her little girl.  She had suffered a terrible loss.  And of course these repeated pregnancies were exhausting.  

Penmaenmawr c1890-1900

Nobody can be surprised to read that Alice, pregnant with her tenth, was worn out after struggling round Penmaenmawr in July 1863 in search of lodgings for the sisters-in-law and their families who wanted to join the Hopkinsons on their holiday on the North Wales coast:

I was completely overdone; the post office woman looked at me with tender compassion after my hurried round. [25] 

The only surprise is that they didn't realise it would be kinder to find someone else to do the job.

This wasn't the only time she undertook a family holiday while pregnant – hardly surprising, as she was so often pregnant in the summer – and it wasn't an easy task even though the servants went too.  Travelling to Wales in such a large party with all the trunks, the tin bath, perambulator and all the equipment for a seaside stay must have been quite a strain, without reckoning the work involved in managing the household in an unfamiliar place.  

To add to the workload, John seems usually to have been at work, joining the family at weekends and in 1864 at Llanfairfechan she had an extra two teenagers – her sister Ellen's boy John Milne and John's niece Mary Tubbs.  But she loved to gather family together, writing cheerfully to John when young John Milne had decided to stay on and accommodation was going to be tight

I will enquire about beds out, for, during the hot weather, it is best not to have too many in a room

adding

We shall have to compress a little tighter to accommodate all [26]

In 1862 and 1864, when she was expecting Gertrude and May, her letters sounded strong and confident as she got near to term.  John was away on business at the end of April 1862 when she wrote to him to reassure him that he didn't need to hurry home in case she went into labour

I feel a decided change these two days; less of faintness and exhaustion … However, there is as yet no positive indication.  Therefore I hope you will stay over Thursday; it would be a pity for you to leave your work unaccomplished … No one would make up for you; but I would not bring you home on a peradventure [27]

And in October 1864, when her sister was so worried about Alice that, without telling her, she called out the doctor, Alice wrote to John from Skipton 

Do not be anxious about me.  I promise to act very prudently.  I do feel the case is a little critical but quite hope the pain will pass off and all will be well.  Our times are in His hands who will arrange all wisely [28] 

But two years later, in early July 1866 when she was expecting William Henry, the baby who died at birth, it was quite a different matter.  There had been a succession of family deaths in the previous two years – Alice's parents, two of the adult children of John's sister Ellen Tubbs, Alice's sister Jane's widower Benjamin Harrison, and the traumatic deaths in childbed of her sister Lizzie and John's sister Mary.  So it is no surprise that, on holiday in North Wales, Alice was not well.  She wrote to John on 7 July 1866,

I shall have Nelly to sleep with me.  I was so faint for some time last night that I feel it unwise to be alone.  And my increasing deafness gives me a nervous feeling [29]

She was so feverish at one point that she had to "devolve nearly all my maternal duties on dear Nelly."  Nelly (Ellen, the eldest daughter) was then twelve years old and already an invaluable helper. 

I cannot help longing for strength and vigour to do more for my large family 

she wrote to John

I do hope I shall get safely to my home again to abide the time, whether it be for life or death. [30]

What were the duties that 12 year old Nelly had taken on?  How did Alice manage her household?  What did she do and what did her servants do?

Next:  34. Maids, housework & crinolines

Notes

[1] & [2] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. 14

[3] & [4] ibid., p. 32

[5] ibid., p. 11

[6] ibid., p. 23

[7] & [8] ibid., p. 51

[9] & [10] ibid., p. 23

[11] ibid., p. 49

[12] ibid., p. 13

[13] ibid., p. 15

[14] ibid., p. 15

[15] ibid., p. 14

[16] ibid., p. 14

[17] ibid., p. 15

[18] ibid., p. 16

[19] ibid., p. 21.  The Great Exhibition opened in 1851, not 1852 as stated by Ellen Ewing

[20] ibid., p. 25

[21] & [22] ibid., p. 26

[23] ibid., p. 34

[24] ibid., p. 29

[25] ibid., p. 38

[26] ibid., p. 41

[27] ibid., p. 34

[28] ibid., p. 42

[29] ibid., p. 48

[30] ibid., p. 48

32. Starting married life: Manchester 1848

When Alice came back with John to Manchester on 5 October 1848, it was to the house of her new mother-in-law.  In fact, there were three Alice Hopkinsons at Number 1 York Place:  61 year old Alice, John's mother; 24 year old Alice, his new wife; and 20 year old Alice, his sister.

O.S. map 1848-50:  York Place, Manchester
National Library of Scotland

Weeks later the youngest Alice left Manchester to join her married sisters, who were thriving comfortably in Plymouth.  Elizabeth Rooker's husband Alfred was already an Alderman and they had a one year old – yet another Alice – while Mary Tubbs and Charles had little Charles and Mary.  The two families lived not far from each other in the old part of Plymouth near the Hoe.

Alice Dewhurst had written laughingly to John in July 1848 before their marriage that she knew very little of housekeeping.  If she wasn't simply joking, she will have learned as much as she could from her mother in the weeks before her wedding.  She had been the eldest daughter in the house for three years by then, so she must really have had a very good idea of how her home in Skipton was run.  Her younger sister Lizzie took over the running of the house when their mother's poor health got too much for her, but we don't know when this happened.  

We know of Mrs Dewhurst's character – Mary Hopkinson described her grandfather Dewhurst as  "quick tempered, impulsive and outspoken" and grandmother Dewhurst as "calm, equable and more reticent" [1].  Perhaps that gives us an idea of how she might run a house.  But we never hear her voice because there are no letters from her.  She seems to have left letter-writing to her husband and Lizzie – she probably felt she hadn't had good enough schooling, and writing was better left to her better-educated daughters – and Ellen Ewing comments  

So far as the material for this record is concerned, there are no letters either to or from her and very little about her. [2]  

In Manchester, Alice had to learn how to deal with the servant girls who had been hired by John's mother.  We catch a glimpse of this when she wrote to John on 14 September 1849 

Tell dear Mother I can manage to tell Anne of her omissions and commissions if she will only do the things she says she will [3]

and then she had to learn to hire and manage staff on her own.  We don't know whether she found that neighbours and servants in Manchester had different ideas and standards from the people she knew in Skipton, but she had her mother-in-law at hand for the first year and her sister Ellen Milne was nearby.  

Next:   33. "Another olive branch": the arrival of babies

Notes

[1]  John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. XXIII

[2]  ibid., p.42

[3]  ibid., p.17

31. John & Alice Hopkinson: 1848 to 1910

At the end of the Second World War three of John and Alice Hopkinson's thirteen children were still alive, and they were all in their eighties.  It was the eldest, Miss Mary Hopkinson, who led the plan for a history of their parents' lives.  The task was taken on by her niece, Ellen Ewing, the widow of Sir Alfred Ewing and the daughter of Mary's eldest brother John.  

The result was the book John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, which begins with a preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, whose wife Margaret was one of the granddaughters.  Mary Hopkinson provided the Introduction to set the scene, with her own memories of her parents and little vignettes of their later lives – friends, family, holidays.  Ellen Ewing created a history of John and Alice told through extracts from their many letters, written whenever they were apart.

As far as anyone can tell, all the letters Ellen Ewing used in her account were destroyed after her book was published.  We don't know how many letters there were – we don't know whether we would have agreed with her choice of extracts – we can't check the accuracy of her transcriptions – we have no way of knowing whether we would have come to Lady Ewing's conclusions.  We can see that she thought of her work as a stop-gap because of the constraints under which she was working.  She wrote at the end of the book [1]

For a variety of good reasons, Mary Hopkinson and others wished that the history of her parents should, in part at any rate, be perpetuated.  This book is the result.  It is too fragmentary to be in any sense a complete biography.  

She describes her part in the book as a

selection, not always judicious, from the great number of private letters, sometimes almost illegible, together with the avoidance of such commentary as might offend the susceptibilities of the Living still closely connected with the Dead.  For some future family historian there awaits a congenial task in, say twenty years, when there should be ample scope, free from present day restrictions and inhibitions, among the abundant material still available.

But we don't have the abundant material, so I'll make do with what we have and I'll supplement it, where I can, with further research together with material from the memoirs written by John and Alice's children and grandchildren.  This is, in fact, a re-working of Ellen Ewing's book, with extras and a fair bit of social history because it's very hard to convey the lost world of Puritan Manchester Nonconformity without showing John and Alice in their proper setting.  Unfortunately they didn't leave us many photographs of themselves, so I've had to make do with what I have.

Next:  32. Starting married life: Manchester 1848

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., pp 110-111