How on earth did they cope...

[Theyshallnotgrowold]

I've been researching my family tree and looking at the 1841 census got me thinking. The woman at home, seven kids under 10 crammed into two rooms, husband out all hours scraping a living. No accessible healthcare, heating, bathroom, electric, running water, modern appliances, convince food - the list goes on. I'm in awe of them.

I'm finding this thread so interesting. Are there any books about how the UK working class lived during the nineteenth and early twentieth century?

I read a book about servants in this era, it was fascinating

London labour and the London poor

People of the Abyss

Both focusing on the very poor however and of course the working classes werent just dirt poor there were better off families within those groups

Its a bit London centric but you would imagine its not that different information across the country for urban areas.

Wow, that's rude, what exactly is your problem? I mentioned the asylum because I personally couldn't have coped with the harsh reality of life back then and have suffered from mental health problems most of my life.

Thank you to the other posters who have shared their knowledge and stories.

I can really recommend this book:

www.amazon.co.uk/Eavesdropping-Jane-Austens-England-ancestors/dp/0349138605/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=3N7V7H9T6X48E&keywords=jane+austen’s+england&qid=1668370996&sprefix=jane+austen+s+england%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-2

It used letters written at the time to piece together what life was really like for a ‘normal’ person, and actually manages to follow up what happened to the individuals who wrote them in the end through birth/death/marriage records.

The childbirth chapter will stay with me though - very sad.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold i think gives amazing insight into late 19th century life.

'Angel Meadow' by Dean Kirby is about 19th Century Manchester slums. A very sad but interesting read.

You don’t have to go back to 1841. I can recall much of what you’ve written about as part of my living memory and I’m only 64.

A child in the 60s will have had access to the NHS, full time schooling, and some clean running water. That and free school meals for all children. Those slight improvements will have made an enormous difference to you, in comparison to your ancestors who lived in 1841.

The improvements are evident in infant mortality rates. In 1840 it was 321 per 1000 live births. In 1960 it was 24 per 1000. (In further comparison in 2020 it was 4 per 1000.)

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, fantastic book

My gg grandfather was killed in a stone quarry accident in the 1860s. Also killed in the accident was his son. Who was working in a stone quarry at the age of 12 .

Another branch of the family about 15 years earlier were moved from the village they were living in because they were destitute. There are records of them being sent back to the place they lived previously because they were 'on the parish'.

It used letters written at the time to piece together what life was really like for a ‘normal’ person, and actually manages to follow up what happened to the individuals who wrote them in the end through birth/death/marriage records.

I found letters the most interesting of all the records that are held in the archive. There is so much you can gain from a letter, even down to the handwriting and words underlined or written in capitals. A letter is very personal even if just a note it will give so much information about the person writing it, not just what they've written.

Another branch of the family about 15 years earlier were moved from the village they were living in because they were destitute. There are records of them being sent back to the place they lived previously because they were 'on the parish'.

If the parish you were living in could find a record of you coming from another parish and they could send you back - they would. This would save the parish money as another parish would then have to fund your destituation.

I have this one:

www.amazon.co.uk/War-our-Doorstep-Londons-Changed/dp/0091941504

It's really interesting!

Yes, I actually found the documents banishing them from the parish they were living in.

The census records show farm labourers still working in their seventies, no other means of support. They were given 'lighter' duties, paid commensurately less, and I suppose relied on family to help out

Re: a pp mentioning Anne, I don't think it's even between the lines. I can't remember the exact quotes but 'Anne's smile had something in it that hadn't been there before' and when she left her House of Dreams, she knelt down and kissed the hearth of the house where she had been 'carried across as a bride and where Joy had lived her one, brief day'.

I've researched my family tree back to 1783. Every generation had multiple members die of consumption. My own Granny had two siblings die of it. My Great, Great Auntie died in the same week as her 6 and 8 year old of malignant scarlet fever. I'm not sure that earlier generations grieved less. My Great Grandmother was consumed with grief when her children died.

Tuppence to Cross the Mersey is a good series too

My gran was born 2 decades later than yours, but her story was similar. Many of her siblings died of what were then common diseases, such as diphtheria. Of the few who made it into adulthood, three were killed in WW1.

A fascinating book about how women coped in the days before contraception was made available is "Dear Dr Stopes" - letters written to Marie Stopes by people from various classes, clergy, military, Church, etc. A proper eye-opener. If you think some of the threads on MN are bad about abusive husbands, wait till you read e.g. the heartbreaking letter from a farmer's wife in the 1920s whose doctor has warned her she won't survive yet another pregnancy, but refuses to tell her how to avoid it; meanwhile, her husband insists on his "natural rights". I think the book is out of print now but might be available secondhand on Amazon.

I've always assumed that when the census says "living on own means" it means there was some kind of independent income.

This. It would have meant savings or an inheritance, rather than earnings or poor relief.

Here it is

www.amazon.co.uk/Dear-Dr-Stopes-Sex-1920S/dp/0140055363

Ian Mortimer's "time traveller's guide to" books are excellent. Very readable. Maybe a bit earlier than the Victorian era but I'm a big fan.

www.penguin.co.uk/series/IANMORT/ian-mortimers-time-travellers-guides

Great recommendations thanks, a few potential stocking fillers in there.

Thank you for the recommendation - it sounds absolutely fascinating. I think someone on this thread beat me to the paperback edition on Amazon!

Agreed - they are great books.

interestingly rural poverty didn't always mean no food. Lark Rise to Candleford documents life in a village in about 1850s. Parents were farm labourers.
At one level they were very poor. Familes of 10 kids in a one up one down house.
But they had chickens, and the village kept a pig that lived off scraps, and was slaughtered in the autumn. The sides of ham/bacon hung in the kitchen from the rafters.
Walking to school barefoot along the lanes etc.

It is a fascinating mixture of nothing and happiness.

It's only really been in the last 40-50 years that life has massively improved/moved on.

I'm 50 and clearly remember both grandparents homes - outhouses with metal wash buckets in, outside toilets with scratchy toilet paper and wooden seats. All grandparents were one of multiple children (smallest side was 9 children). On my paternal side, my grandmother was left without her father after he died with the Spanish flu leaving his wife to cope with 12 children on her own. Grandma (aged about 5 at the time) also lost 2 siblings.

Can you imagine losing your husband and two children and just having to carry on? With no income? Grandma said she survived by taking in washing and cleaning.

I do think it's why my parents generation (so late 70's/80's) are so much better at dealing with hard times/grief/poverty etc having been brought up by parents who really went through tough times. My dad especially, his favourite saying is 'musnt' grumble'

So I don't think you need to go back at far as 1841.