The Gentleman's Daughter (58 page)

48
LRO, DDB/72/86 (21 March 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB Ac 7886/78 (12 March 1754), J. Parker, Browsholme, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

49
LRO, DDB/72/447 (13 Oct. 1755), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

50
LRO, DDWh/4/72 (31 June 1814), B. Addison, Liverpool, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

51
See respectively LRO, DDB/72/158 (4 June n.y.), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/1497 (23 March 1800), D. Ridsdale, Leeds, to E. Barcroft; LRO, DDWh/4/89 (29 Oct. 1816), B. Addison, Liverpool, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

52
LRO, DDB/72/210 (11 Nov. 1767), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. Monstrously bellied women appealed to William Ramsden's sense of the absurd. He thought that the overdue Mrs Jones of Snowhill resembled in both shape and size ‘one of her husband's brandy butts’, and mused aloud on whether Bessy's ‘prominence’ was a real
‘Impediment’
: LRO, DDB/72/186 and 211 (n.d.), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to same.

53
The treatment Whitaker received from Dr William St Clare represented a variant of the lowering system aimed at calming a plethoric constitution, a ‘habit’ routinely associated with pregnancy. This ‘excitement or irritability of [her] nervous system’ was alleviated by early rising and moderate exercise, taking care on staircases and not to overheat. A dietary regime was thought unnecessary, but St Clare prescribed laxatives to avoid constipation. At the onset of pain or uneasiness, Mrs Whitaker was to lie down on the couch or bed, regularly shifting posture. When she felt intimations of miscarriage, he advised laudanum. Details are found in LRO, DDWh/4/92, 95, 102, 108, in (1816–21), Dr W. St Clare, Preston, to E. Whitaker, Roefield. Noble pregnancies received similar treatments, Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 129–35. The contemporary view of pregnancy as a period of physiological imbalance is summarized in Peters, ‘The Pregnant Pamela’.

54
For the quotations see repectively LRO, DDB/72/446 (13 Sept. 1755), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDGr C3 (n.d.), M. Greene to Mrs Bradley, Slyne, Lancaster; LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 95. On the general acceptance of maternal indisposition, see Pollock, ‘Experience of Pregnancy’ (see n. 43 above), pp. 46–7 and Lewis,
In the Family Way
, p. 149.

55
Anne Stanhope sent for her sister in 1749, when her due date loomed. Similarly, in 1769 the unmarried Bridget Downes went to stay with her pregnant sister in Manchester and felt she could not leave for some months. Lady Egerton was reported returning to Heaton House for her confinement. Betty Parker chose to return to her mother's house in Newton for the births of at least two of her children in the 1780s. Eliza Whitaker was delivered of her first son at her old home in Preston. On the peerage, see Trumbach,
Rise of the Egalitarian Family
, p. 183, and Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 159–62.

56
LRO, DDB/72/210 (11 Nov. 1767), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

57
The call to a male practitioner could be made in advance of the birth, at the onset of labour and in the event of emergency. The man-midwife might have seconded the efforts of a female midwife or replaced her altogether. Bookings could be made for all three calls: Wilson, ‘William Hunter’.

58
LRO, DDB/72/144 (19 Feb. 1756), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/445 (2 Jan. 1756), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

59
Wilson,
Making of Man-Midwifery
, p. 176.

60
Refer to LRO, DDB/72/82, 85, 86, 105, 118 (1753–6), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

61
LRO, DDB/72/146 (15 May 1756), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/176 (3 April 1764), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. There are a few Stuart narratives of birth: Mendelson, ‘Stuart Women's Diaries’, pp. 196–7. More modern reports can be read in Pollock,
Lasting Relationship
, pp. 34–8.

62
WYCRO, Leeds, TA 3/32, William Gossip's Memorandum Book, f. 113.

63
LRO, DDGr C3 (30 June 1821), M. Greene, Bedford Square, London, to Mrs Bradley, Slyne.

64
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 33.

65
On Bessy's month, see LRO, DDB/72/214 (12 April 1768), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. The postponement of breast-feeding until three or four days after birth is discussed in Fildes,
Breasts, Bottles and Babies
, p. 91, and deplored in Nelson,
Essay on the Government of Childen
, p. 47. For an example of a post-natal remedy, see WYCRO, Bradford Sp St 6/1/50 (12 April 1745), C. Sellwood, Billam, to Mrs Stanhope: ‘[This] Recpt I am going to write I had from Lady Northampton, she had it from [Dr] Rattclif. I never knew it fail in a Looseness wheather in a Lying In or at any other time …’

66
It is possible that the desire for a son an heir was so widely felt as to need no mention. Seventeenth-century gentlewomen expressed guilt when they failed to produce boys for the lineage, although girls could still be welcomed as proof of fertility: Crawford, ‘Construction and Experience of Maternity’, pp. 19–20, and Pollock, ‘Experience of Pregnancy’, pp. 39–40. However, a growing appreciation of daughters for their own sake amongst the eighteenth-century nobility is remarked by Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 65–6.

67
LRO, DDB/72/90 (16 May 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

68
LRO, DDB/72/234 (28 April 1770), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

69
For the traditional sequence, see Wilson, ‘Ceremony of Childbirth’, pp. 75–6. Highly ritualized confinements of four to six weeks were still common among the later eighteenth-century nobility: Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 193–201. It therefore seems likely that genteel women observed at least a modified lying-in. Certainly, Mrs Betty Parker of Alkincoats was expected to spend a period of her recovery ‘upstairs’, see LRO, DDB Ac 7886/47 (n.d.), E. Shackleton, Pasture, to B. Parker, Newton. Interestingly, I have found only one specific reference to churching in the papers of the
genteel. Perhaps the dinner parties given after the christening were the polite equivalent.

70
LRO, DDB/72/62 (20 March 1756), A. Pellet, London, to R. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/175 (26 Feb. 1763), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

71
See respectively, LRO, DDB/72/150 (16 Sept. 1756), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/149 (30 Aug. 1756), same to same; LRO, DDB/72/176 (3 April 1764), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/75 (22 Oct. 1769), B. Downes, Manchester, to A. Stanhope, Derfield; LRO, DDWh/4/89 (22 Oct. 1816), B. Addison, Liverpool, to E. Whitaker, Roefield; Hall,
Miss Weeton's Journal
,
II
, p. 139; LRO, DDB/72/1196 (21 July 1822), E. Parker, Selby, to E. Moon, Colne.

72
Laurence,
Women in England
, p. 80.

73
On the unfortunate Stanhope babies, see WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/5/2/30 (10 Oct. 1749), W. Stanhope, Leeds, to W. Spencer, Cannon Hall; Sp St/6/1/64 (Feb.–April 1753), same to J. Spencer, Middle Temple, London. Betty Parker's labour difficulties are recounted in LRO, DDB/72/334 (4 Nov. 1783), Wm St Clare (the elder), to T. Parker, Alkincoats. Concern for Anne Robbins is relayed in LRO, DDWh/4/68 (2 June 1814), D. Bowyer, London, to E. Whitaker, Roefield, and LRO, DDWh/4/75 (16 Aug. 1814), S. Horrocks, London, to same.

74
Stone,
Family, Sex and Marriage
, pp. 271–3; Trumbach,
Rise of the Egalitarian Family
, pp. 197–235.

75
While the Duchess of Devonshire's promotion of breast-feeding amongst the fashionable in the 1780s is cited
ad nauseam
, seventeenth-century campaigns against wet-nursing are less familiar. For a brief discussion, see Crawford, ‘The Sucking Child’. For a sobering exploration of the gulf between what women were told to do, what they thought they were doing and what they actually did, see Mechling, ‘Advice to Historians on Advice to Mothers’. The general pattern is described in Fildes,
Breasts, Bottles and Babies
, pp. 98–134, 398–401.

76
Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 209–12.

77
Ladies Dispensatory
, vii.

78
LRO, DDB/72/128 and 136 (n.d.), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

79
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/5/2/30 (20 Jan. 1749), A. Stanhope, Leeds, to W. Spencer, Cannon Hall; WYCRO, Leeds, TA 18/5 (25 April 1734), W. Gossip, Ware, to A. Gossip, Ogleforth, York.

80
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 28; LRO, DDB Ac 7886/47 (n.d.), E. Shackleton, Pasture, to B. Parker, Newton. Elizabeth Shackleton remained suspicious of artificial feeding on ‘pobs’, but was forced to acknowledge: ‘they say he do's well on it’. Her scepticism was well-founded. Although artificial feeding became the fashionable alternative to maternal breast-feeding, it was often a lethal practice. Inappropriate foods, a contaminated water supply and dirty utensils often spelt gastro-intestinal disaster. The calamitous results of an experiment with dry nursing at the London Foundling Hospital in the 1740s were well publicized: Fildes,
Breasts, Bottles and Babies
, pp. 304, 400.

81
For Tom Scrimshire's babyhood, see LRO, DDB/72/124, 125, 128, 134, 135 (1753–4), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats. On Deborah Scrimshire, see LRO, DDB/72/156 (20 Jan. 1756), same to same.

82
For the quotations, see respectively LRO, DDB/72/214 (12 April 1768), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats, and LRO, DDB/72/295 (21 Sept. n.y.), same to same. On the mild contraceptive properties of lactation, consult McLaren, ‘Nature's Contraceptive’. The desirability of limiting family size must have been a subject of discussion in the Ramsden household, given this quip of the Reverend's when his wife conceived: ‘I wo'd it were the fashion with Children as with Kittens, viz. to keep no more than one can afford and to drown all the Superfluity': LRO, DDB/72/217
(3 Oct. 1768), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. The Ramsdens also debated taking to separate beds after the birth of their last child. A recent hypothesis offers abortion as a viable contraceptive method for women who sought to extend the interval between their labours, see Pollock, ‘Experience of Pregnancy’ (see n. 43 above), pp. 54–8. For a national account of contraceptive behaviour, consult McLaren,
Reproductive Rituals
, pp. 57–87. On the prohibition against sex, see Pollock,
Lasting Relationship
, pp. 53, 64.

83
LRO, DDB/72/183 (16 Feb. 1765) B. and W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats. Similarly, William Gossip was anxious about the weaning of his ‘poor babe’: ‘I hope your weaning of him has been attended with no ill consequences to either of you’: WYCRO, Leeds, TA Box 18/5 (25 April 1734), W. Gossip, Ware, to A. Gossip, Ogleforth, York; as were seventeenth-century parents: Macfarlane,
Ralph Josselin
, p. 88. Fildes explains that contemporaries saw weaning as arguably the most dangerous period of infancy, linked to specific ‘diseases’ and even death. Moreover, it not only signified a change of diet, but also a change of station, from suckling to small child: Fildes,
Breasts, Bottles and Babies
, p. 351.

84
Hall,
Miss Weeton's Journal
, 11, p. 141.

85
LRO, DDWh/4/124 and 40 (
c.
1813–1814), B. Addison, Liverpool, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

86
Nelson,
Essay on the Government of Childen
, p. 52. A similar impression is gained of the aristocratic experience: Lewis,
In the Family Way
, pp. 209–12.

87
LRO, DDB/72/264 (14 Oct. 1773), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

88
LRO, DDB/81/1506 (22 Dec. 1817), E. Parker, Selby, to E. Reynolds, Colne. Difficulties with her nursemaids are related in LRO, DDB/72/1196, 1208–9 (1822–5), same to E. Moon, Colne.

89
LRO, DDB/72/252, 269, 273, 281 (1770–75), B. and W. Ramsden, Islington and Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

90
On the teaching of John and George Larpent, see HL, HM 31201, Mrs Larpent's Diary, 1, 1790–95, fos. 19, 22. For expressions of educational philosophy, see HL, HM 31201, Mrs Larpent's Diary,
III
, 1799–1800, fos. 195–facing f. 196, 200, 207.

91
LRO, DDWh/4/88 (24 Aug. 1816), A. Robbins, Gloucester, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

92
LRO, DDB/72/58 (25 Feb. 1754), E. Parker, London, to R. Parker, Alkincoats.

93
Browsholme Letters, uncatalogued (16 May 1752), J. Scrimshire to ‘Mrs Parker, at Browsholme’; LRO, DDB/72/147 (24 June n.y.), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/161(a) (17 Nov.
c.
1757), same to same.

94
LRO, DDB/72/178, 201 and 264 (1765–73), B. and W. Ramsden, Charterhouse and Highgate, to E. Parker, later Shackleton, Alkincoats.

95
LRO, DDB Ac 7886/10 (23 Sept. 1779), P. Goulbourne, Manchester, to B. Parker, Alkincoats; WYCRO, Bradford Sp St 6/1/50 (n.d.), M. Warde, to M. Stanhope.

96
Balderston,
Thraliana
, 1, p. 158.

97
See LRO, DDB/72/134 and 445 (
c.
1755), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/75, 222, 214 (1765–9), B. and W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

98
See LRO, DDB/72/70 (2 Sept. 1756), Nurse Seedall, Alkincoats, to E. Parker, and LRO, DDB/72/69 (n.d.), T. Parker/Nurse Seedall, Alkincoats, to E. Parker; LRO, DDB/72/218 (29 Oct. 1768), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/174 (16 Sept. 1762), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

99
LRO, DDWh/4/88 (24 Sept. 1816), A. Robbins, Gloucester, to E. Whitaker.