How to Create the Perfect Wife (50 page)

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“This Little Innocent”:
Levene (2006), pp. 142.

64
   
Upon reception each child:
Pugh, p. 35. Billet books passim.

65
   
The General Reception, as it became known:
Wilson; Levene (2007), p. 41; Allin, pp. 4 and 7. Wilson suggests that the babies admitted during the General Reception accounted for 10 percent of all babies born in London in that period; Levene plausibly counters that the figure is more like 7 percent—still a staggering proportion.

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One child was described as:
Allin, p. 112.

66
   
Mortality rates leapt from an already tragic:
Of the total 14,934 admitted during the General Reception, only 4,400 (29.5 percent) lived to be apprenticed. George, p. 57. McClure gives the figure 81.29 percent for mortality between June 24, 1758, and September 29, 1760, but Allin points out that a disproportionate number of these babies in later years died before they were even sent to nurse, i.e., they were already on the verge of death when admitted. McClure, pp. 102, 261; Allin, p. 95. Levene states that from 1741 to 1799, nearly 65 percent died before they were apprenticed. Levene (2007), p. 18.

66
   
Thursday, May 24, 1757, dawned: Gentleman’s Magazine,
27 (1757), p. 252.

66
   
According to the hospital regulations:
The system for admitting babies is described in Regulations of the Foundling Hospital, 1757, FHA: A/FH/A/06/015/002.

67
   
The billet form, which survives to this day:
Billet Book 1757, FHA: A/FH/A/9/1/56, no 4579. The other six babies admitted the same day were numbered 4574, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 4780. A contemporary survey of the origins of babies admitted to the FH revealed that 100 babies came from St. James’s Clerkenwell and 28 from St. John’s Clerkenwell between June 2, 1756, and June 2, 1757, “as those persons declared who delivered them at the said hospital.” FHA: A/FH/M/1/8/39–42

67
   
Despite the assertion on the billet form:
Baptism registers, St. James’s Church and St. John’s Church, Clerkenwell, LMA, X027/029 and X097/244. Both registers were checked for 12 months previously. Curiously there is also no record in the billet books of other foundlings said to have been baptized at St. James’s so it is possible there was an alternative baptism system in place. The original St. James’s church was demolished and the existing church built between 1788 and 1791. Otway’s play was being staged at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane at the beginning of 1757 with celebrated actors Susannah Cibber and David Garrick in the lead roles. Also in 1757, the play was published, as part of Otway’s
Works.
With their usual gift for inventing witty names, the Foundling Hospital governors baptized one baby Monimia Orphan.

67
   
Clerkenwell was home:
George, pp. 175–76; Ackroyd, Peter,
London the Biography
(London, 2000) pp. 461–74. By 1798 about 7,000 artisans worked in the watchmaking trade producing an estimated 120,000 watches a year.

68
   
Illegitimacy rose throughout the eighteenth century:
Zunshine, p. 1; Adair, Richard,
Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England
(Manchester, 1996), pp. 5–11; Laslett, Peter,
Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations
(Cambridge, 1977), p. 113; Wilson. According to Laslett, illegitimacy rose between 1650 and 1800 from about 1 percent of all births to more than 5 percent. The figure was about 3 percent in 1757. There is a counter-view that it was the recording of illegitimacy that rose—rather than illegitimacy itself—because people were keen to ensure their babies were baptized in order to qualify for poor relief at a later stage. Personal communication, Else Churchill, genealogist, Society of Genealogists.

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The enigma mattered little:
General Register, FHA: A/FH/A9/2/1–2 (microfilm X41/3). Babies numbered 4574 (an unnamed girl, baptized Elizabeth Temple) and 4576 (a boy previously baptized John, renamed James Bickerstaff) lived to be apprenticed. The other four babies died before they reached five.

69
   
Her stay in the hospital was short:
Receipt, in Inspectors’ accounts, FHA: A/FH/Bl/18/10; Nursing Book A/FH/A/10/3/5. The receipt gives the wet nurse’s name as Mary Pemble, but on the reverse, this has been amended to Penfold so the initial name was presumably an error. No Mary Pemble can be found in parish records. The Inspections Book, microfilm X041/1, shows five babies were sent to Dorking that day, including no. 4576, James Bickerstaff, who was admitted the same day as AK. It was the usual custom for wet nurses to travel to the hospital to receive babies, then accompany them back home. The nursing book records that Ann was breast-fed.

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Although the charity’s legion of wet nurses:
For information on the Foundling Hospital wet nurses see Fildes. All the Foundling Hospital infants were breast-fed if they were still able to suckle thanks to the enlightened zeal of the physician William Cadogan, a governor of the charity who provided medical services free to the orphans from 1753. See William Cadogan,
An Essay upon Nursing
(1948).

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Living in the hamlet of Wotton:
Mary Penfold was born Mary Potter. She married Thomas Penfold on July 1, 1740, when both were living in the parish of Horley, in southeast Surrey. Following traditional courting custom, Mary was at least five months pregnant when she walked down the aisle. Her first son, James, was born soon after. The Penfolds had seven children baptized—James (1740?), Mary (1742), Betty (1749), Thomas (1751; died before 1757), John (1755), Thomas (1757) and Sarah (1758), according to the parish registers of Horley and Charlwood. There were six surviving children in 1757. All records are at Surrey History Centre. For background on English country life see Horn, Pamela,
Life and Labour in Rural England, 1760–1850
(Basingstoke, UK, 1986), especially pp. 12–19.

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Of all babies sent to wet nurses:
Allin, p. 142. Excluding those who died before being sent to nurse, a total 53.5 percent died under the age of two from 1757 to 1760.

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Ann’s survival, in the face of such odds:
Hugh Kerr supervised an impressive 601 foundlings during his total service to the hospital, making him the charity’s second busiest inspector. His voluminous correspondence in the FH archives testifies to his industrious dedication. See “A list of the places where the children were nursed,” FHA: A/FH/M/1/8/1–371; and Allin, pp. 127–28.

71
   
“The poor Women think it Extreamly hard”:
Letters Hugh Kerr to the governors, correspondence, K, 1759, FHA: A/FH/A/6/1/12/10/1–73.

71
   
“shewed the most lively sorrow”:
John Grant to the governors, read to the General Committee on July 18, 1759, FHA: A/FH/A/M/1/5/57–62.

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No sooner had she said goodbye:
Shrewsbury vouchers (bills) 1759, FHA: A/FH/D/2/46.

72
   
Ann was presented to a new nurse, Ann Casewell:
Receipts, AK and DV, August 24, 1759, FHA: A/FH/A/10/1/8/1. Ann Davies married John Casewell on March 19, 1752, and had two children, Mary born April 6, 1755, and Robert born October 5, 1757: Pontesbury Parish Register. They lived in the hamlet of Longden.

72
   
Growing up with her new foster family:
Ann and Deborah were brought to the hospital on April 6, 1765. Shrewsbury Waste Book, FHA: A/FH/D2/29/2.

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The Shrewsbury governors:
Regulations for the Government of the Orphan Hospital at Shrewsbury, FHA: A/FH/M01/13. The comment from a spot check is from April 9, 1763, Visitors Book, FHA: A/FH/D2/6/1.

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Pressed by the board in London:
December 20, February 3, 1762, Letter Book 2, FHA: A/FH/D/5/2. The comment was made by Roger Kynaston, who chaired the governors, to Taylor White, the London treasurer, December 6, 1760, correspondence K 1760, FHA: A/FH/A/6/1/13/11/1–42.

73
   
When one of the girls:
Thomas Morgan to Taylor White, April 24, 1762, July 30, 1763, Letter Book 2, FHA:A/FH/D/5/2. TW was the first Shrewsbury secretary, who was sacked in 1765 for misconduct. Although he was kindly and well-meaning his organization was chaotic. It was discovered that the records of 30 children sent from London were missing from the Shrewsbury files. Several children were without names, some had the names of children recorded as dead, some had disappeared without trace and there were two girls with the name Mary Bennet and another two called Ann Edwards.

73
   
She seems to have been selected:
Children in the House 1763–8, FHA: A/FH/D2/9/3.

74
   
The following year, when she turned twelve:
Letter London to Shrewsbury, March 4, 1769, London subcommittee minutes, March 4, 1769 to June 2, 1770, FHA: A/FH/A/3/5/8.

74
   
the charity’s “Instructions to Apprentices”:
Instructions to Apprentices, 1754, cited in McClure, pp. 263–64.

75
   
The tale had been evoked by Edmund Spenser:
Day certainly alluded to Milton’s play in one of his own verses, “A Ballad,” written in his journal in 1767 or 1768. Telling the story of a simple shepherd who kills himself beside the River Severn for unrequited love, Day’s poem invokes the pagan river goddess with fraught words that would resonate in the future: “And thou forgive a simple Swain, / O fair Sabrina honor’d Flood! / If by thy Banks untimely slain, / He tinged thy virgin Stream with Blood!” TD, Commonplace book, Essex RO, D/DBa Z40.

75
   
Day added the surname Sidney:
Other writers—e.g., Scott—have suggested that Day named Sabrina after the seventeenth-century republican martyr Algernon Sidney. But Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86) is the more likely inspiration. In Day’s children’s book,
Sandford and Merton,
the hero Harry relates the story of Sir Philip being fatally wounded on the battlefield; when he is offered a drink of water he directs his servants to offer it instead to a poor English soldier who is likewise dying. Harry describes this sacrifice as an example of “the greatest virtue and humanity.” Day,
Sandford and Merton,
ed. Bending and Bygrave, pp. 271–72. Sabrina’s surname is variously spelled Sidney or Sydney (even by Day and Sabrina herself) as spelling of names often varied during the eighteenth century.

76
   
Once again Day told the charity’s officials:
Apprenticeship indenture for Dorcas Car, FHA: A/FH/A/12/9/58. In contrast to Sabrina’s certificate, this bears Edgeworth’s genuine signature.

76
   
Like Sabrina she was described as “beautiful”:
Seward (1804), p. 26.

76
   
Each possessed an “extraordinary beauty”:
Burney, French Exercise Book (Berg). My thanks for translation to Sophie Kilic and Rachel Hall.

77
   
A year younger than Sabrina, Lucretia:
Billet Book 1758, FHA: A/FH/A/9/1/117, no. 10413. As with Sabrina, there is no trace of Ann’s baptism in the baptism register of St. James’s, Clerkenwell.

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“They were eleven and twelve years old”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 209–10.