Perhaps there are few letters after the late 1860s because after that John made sure that he had a proper holiday and stayed with the family instead of commuting to work. In 1869 he drove himself – with his work in the business, as a city councillor, as superintendent of the Rusholme Road Sunday School – to the point of a breakdown in health. We get a glimpse of his busy life from a letter to Alice on 23 February 1857
You will like to know all that goes on … Sunday. Went down to school, had 19 or 20 present – attentive and I enjoyed the teaching … Took the first girls' class – their stillness and silence almost appalled one … I commenced with trembling but was enabled to speak with more freedom than I anticipated … After school, to united prayer meeting at Saville Street, then a pleasant time with the babies …
A fine lecture in the evening from Mr S. on the scripture proofs of the doctrine of Inspiration – for an hour and twenty minutes …
Have rectified the smoking nursery completely and improved front parlour at the same time. Very busy at Works … Left at 6.25, took the new four horse bus to Hydegrove, came over field – washed – saw children – tea and down at meeting only ten minutes after time [1]
In 1869 Alice's brother-in-law Dr William Harrison wrote, warning him to stop all work for a month at least
I have not come to this conclusion abruptly. Knowing so well how mischievous symptoms are which attend nervous exhaustion and how often they lead on to danger, it is found that, without early and decided treatment, there is often laid a foundation for disturbances which cannot be removed even by prolonged care and the best attention. [2]
Possibly after this crisis, John spent the holidays with Alice and the children instead of commuting back to work and keeping in touch by letter. Alice took many breaks on her own in search of rest and recuperation.
Her parents and sisters had always kept a watchful eye on her strength – she seems to have a tendency to outrun her resources and become entirely depleted. Soon after her marriage, her solicitous sister Jane advised her "to lay up a stock of strength for the Winter". But the pregnancies and her inability to restrain herself from overwork frequently pulled her down and then she would escape household duties entirely. Possibly her worst breakdown in health was in 1877 after little Harry's death. That year she became steadily more reduced and from then on it seems Mary took the entire household management into her own hands. In the spring she went to visit young John and his family and wrote to John at home
I feel no interest in shopping or sight seeing … I am very fond of the dear children; But I am changed; it seems impossible to get up the life and energy to win little children. I think that will never come back to me. I shall never win love, only hold that which is already mine [3]
By the summer she had become very unwell, unable even to walk up and down stairs, and was taken to Thirlmere in the Lake District by Mary ("the personification of patience and self-control"). At last she was able to write to John
These last 24 hours I seem to have risen to the surface after being submerged for a time. My mind is clear and natural and my body seems to belong to me – Alice Hopkinson. [4]
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. 27
[2] ibid., p. 53
[3] ibid., p. 72
[4] ibid., p. 73
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