#1870s britain

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Lilac silk afternoon dress, 1872-1875, British.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

John Everett Millais (1829-1896) "The North-West Passage" (1874) Oil on canvas Pre-Raphaelite Located in the Tate Britain, London, England The painting depicts an elderly sailor sitting at a desk, with his daughter seated in a stool beside him. He stares out at the viewer, while she reads from a log-book. On the desk is a large chart depicting complex passageways between incompletely charted islands.

Millais exhibited the painting with the subtitle "It might be done and England should do it", a line imagined to be spoken by the aged sailor. The title and subtitle refer to the repeated failure of British expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, a navigable passageway around the north of the American continent. These expeditions "became synonymous with failure, adversity and death, with men and ships battling against hopeless odds in a frozen wilderness." The search for the northwest passage had been undertaken repeatedly since the voyages of Henry Hudson in the early 17th century. The most significant attempt was the 1845 expedition led by John Franklin, which had disappeared, apparently without trace. Subsequent expeditions had found evidence that Franklin's two ships had become stuck in ice, and that the crews had died over a number of years from various causes, some having made unsuccessful attempts to escape across the ice. These later expeditions were also unable to navigate a route between Canada and the Arctic. Millais had the idea for the painting when a new expedition to explore the passage, the British Arctic Expedition led by George Nares, was being prepared.

[frogteethblogteeth]

Wardrobe designed by Christopher Dresser, c. 1876

[empress-alexandra]

Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia with her sister Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, during Russian state visit in 1873.

[diemelusine]

Caricature of James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford and 9th Earl of Balcarres, by Leslie Ward. Published in Vanity Fair, 11 May 1878.

[jeannepompadour]

Summer by John Atkinson Grimshaw, 1875

[colorizedhistory]

[millingroundireland]

From Glens Falls to Chester: The Mills family in the Adirondacks

This was originally the second chapter in my family history on the Mills family, but has been adapted and changed for this blog. All the sources are noted in a bibliographic essay at the end of this post, with maps and other photos throughout. Enjoy! This was originally posted on the WordPress version of this post. It has been split in a few posts so it is more readable on here.

By 1860, the Mills family was still in Bolton. John Mills was said to be 54 years old, still a miller, and his wife Margaret, age 36, was listed as a housekeeper. There were nine children in the household. Two of them, Joseph B., age 18, and Thomas, age 14, were farm laborers, presupposing that the Mills family owned a farm in Bolton. While Hetabella, age 18, did housework, the other children seemed to be too young to be listed with occupations. They included Edward (age 12), Dory A (age 10), Mary J (age 6), John C (age 4), Margaret E (age 3) and Benjamin W. (age 3/12). Bolton was similar to what it was in 1855, still undoubtedly having an agricultural and working-class character.

Four years later, in 1864, a woman named Margaret E. Mills declared loyalty to US, withdrawing loyalty to Great Britain and Ireland. This woman is likely Margaret Bibby. Unfortunately she did not state her age or place of birth.

The following year, 1865, the Mills family had moved back to Chester. John Mills was a 60-year-old farmer with his wife Margaret, 40 years old. This is the first census which states the number of John and Margaret’s children, which numbers 12! Within the household in the frame house, were 10 children, meaning that two of her children were not in the household. The names of those two children are not currently known. This census was the first to name Robert B. Mills, a person who was 2 ½ years old. Others in the household included Hattie B. Mills (age 21), Joseph B Mills (age 20), Thomas Mills (age 18), Edward Mills (age 18), Dora A. Mills (age 14), Mary J. Mills (age 9), John C. Mills (age 7), Margaret E Mills (age 5), and William Mills (age 4). With such a big family, it is likely that Hattie (same as Hetabella) took care of the family, especially Dora, Mary, John C., Margaret E., and William, who were younger than her. Joseph B. and Thomas likely worked on the farm with their father. This can only be inferred as the census does not state this directly.

Chester seemed to the same in some respects as it was when the Mills family lived there in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Nearby to the Mills family was the family of George Bibby. He was a 46-year-old farmer born in Ireland, with a family of six: his wife Ann born in the county, age 30, has five children, now married; Helen, age 9, Katherine, age 7, Samuel, age 6, William, age 4, and George, age 1 and 8/12. Also living in the household is his father, Samuel Bibby, age 67, born in Ireland, a laborer.

Another family nearby was Thomas Bibby’s family, living in the household of the Wallaces. Hewas age 28, born in Ireland, a farmer and married to someone named Mary A. Bibby (age 25, born in Warren). There is also a family of Thomas Mills (age 59, born in Ireland, farmer) nearby who has a wife named Margaret (age 53, born in Ireland, has 12 children), John (age 23), Edward L (age 21), Margaret (age 19), Phebe (age 15), Thomas J (age 11), and Ellen Gray (sister, age 60, born in Ireland). It is not known if any of the Mills children were living with these individuals at the time, but is likely that they were living somewhere in Chester.

By 1870, the Mills family was still living in Chester. John Mills was a 66-year-old farmer married to Margaret, age 48. In the household was their 23-year-old son, Joseph B., a carpenter, their 21-year-old son, Edward E, a farm laborer, and their 19-year-old daughter, Dora A, a teacher. At home were the rest of the children, Mary J (age 17), John C (age 14), Maggie (age 11), Willie or William (age 7), and Robert or RBM II (age 5). Both John and Margaret noted that they had parents of foreign birth. Also on the same page was Samuel Bibby (age 73 born in Ireland), Thomas Mills (age 64, farmer, born in Ireland), his wife Margaret (age 57, born in Ireland), Thomas Bibby (age 34, born in Ireland).

As the years passed by, John and Margaret were getting older. As her Find A Grave entry reports, since she has no visible gravestone photo, she died in 1874 in Minerva, Essex County, New York. This cannot be disproved or proven by any records on the subject.

The 1875 census shows a 70-year-old John Mills still living in Chester, as a farmer, with seven children in the household. These included his son Joseph B, a 29-year-old millwright, his daughter Dora, 24-years-old, his daughter Mary, 21-years-old, his son John C, 18-years-old, his daughter Maggy, 16-years-old, his son William, 14-year-old, and his daughter Hattie, 31-years-old. The latter was married to a 37-year-old carpenter named Hannibal Hammond and had a 12-year-old child named Ellen. It is important to note that Margaret is not in the household, so from this record, her death date can be ante 1875, or more accurately sometime between 1870 and 1875. While the census takers could have missed her, considering she was in every since census since 1850 seems to indicate that she was not alive.

The families of Isaac Mills and George Bibby were also living in the area. Isaac Mills’s family consists of: Isaac (born in Ireland, age 62, farmer), Ann (wife, age 46, born in Ireland), Joseph W (age 26, born in Warren, farmer?), Edward B? (farmer? Age 24, born in Warren), Mary (age 21, born in Warren), James O (age 20, born in Warren). George Bibby’s family consists of: George (age 53, farmer, born in Ireland), Ann (wife, age 40, born in Warren), Ellen (age 20, born in Warren), Caty (age 20, born in Warren), Samuel (age 16, born in Warren), William B (age 18, born in Warren), Albert (age 8, born in Warren), Humbert, (8 11/12 months, born in Warren), and Samuel (father, age 78, born in Ireland, likely a farmer of some type). These two families may have been connected together by marriage or even Isaac could have been John Mills’s brother. Sadly, those specifics are not completely known.

In 1876, John Mills died in Minerva, Essex County, New York, apparently while he continued his job as a miller. I have contacted appropriate historical societies in hopes of gathering more information. It is possible that Mills family members were living in that area of New York, or even Bibby family members since his wife Margaret was buried there. Perhaps she was going on a trip to bisit her cousins or even her parents. We don’t know exactly but can only make historical suppositions.

To this day, the Warren County Historian’s Office has family files on the Mills and Bibby families. 17 individuals with the Mills surname living in Ireland (mainly in Cork) and two with the Bibby surname were living near or around Kilkenny at the time (1876).

By 1876, with the death of John Mills, the twelve children he fathered with his wife Margaret, were on their own. Each of them would chart their own, independent path. As Charles Frederic Goss wrote many years later, RBM I, was only 10 (or 12) when his father died. This likely had a strong psychological effect on him, as it would on anyone, especially one who is that young. It meant that those such as RBM I, his brother William, and other younger siblings had to make their own way.

By 1876, Dora was only 25-years-old, if we use the age in the 1875 census. She likely did not even know of the Packard family in Massachusetts or of a man named Cyrus Winfield Packard, who was only 24 at the time, and would later be her husband. She had not, like Cyrus, run away from home at a young age. This is not because she worked more than Cyrus, who came from a family of hard-working farmers who had roots dating back to Samuel Packard, an immigrant from England in 1638, and had moved from eastern Massachusetts, mainly in Bridgewater, to Western Massachusetts, specifically in Cummington and Plainfield. Instead, she possibly found at least some value in her life as a teacher and likely helping around the home (and probably the farm). This would serve her well in years to come.

© 2018-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts (factory labor, poverty, etc., increase), the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 establishes full-time police institution(s) in London. The "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The Irish Constabulary of 1837 sets up a national policing force and the County Police Act of 1839 allows justices of the peace across England to establish policing institutions in their counties (New York City gets a police department in 1844). The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

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"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to the land dispossession, poverty, and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion" (Scramble for Africa, US "American West", nation-building, conquering "frontiers"), as agricultural "revolutions" of imperial monoculture cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation, and as major imperial infrastructure building projects required a lot of vulnerable "mobile" labor. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroad networks and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, the racist expulsion of the "Tacoma riot".

Punished for being Algerian in France. Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

Mobility and confinement, the empire manipulates each.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.), you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app.

Too ill, too poor, too exhausted, too indebted to move, you are trapped. Physical barriers (borders), legal barriers (identity documents), financial barriers (debt). "Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. "Vagrancy" since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place, extracting their wealth and labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Purple silk day dress, 1870-1873, British.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

[steampunkwest]

An elderly Welsh woman stands outside her small house, 'Tŷ unnos', in rural Wales, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, c. 1880.

Una anciana galesa parada afuera de su pequeña casa, 'Tŷ unnos', en la zona rural de Gales, Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda, c. 1880.

[ltwilliammowett]

The Corinthians, by Russ Kramer

The first Corinthians were residents of the ancient Greek seaport of Corinth. A typical port town, Corinth was described as “a place of proverbial wickedness, energy, riches, noise.” The New Testament portrays them as a little unruly but fully capable of improvement.

Later, In Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare has young Prince Hal describe himself as “a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy.”

A Corinthian, then, was a spunky, robust guy or gal. This nickname would have appealed to the young American sailors of the 1870s who were challenging the yachting establishment by sailing their own boats. Until then most yachtsmen had just one well-proven ability, which was to write big checks for professional crews and captains.

The new alternate definition of “yachtsman” as an amateur (“Corinthian”) developed in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century and caught on in America. New Corinthian yacht clubs had fleets of small boats, and the rules required that they be raced only by Corinthian sailors who did all the work, had all the fun, and were paid not a nickel. By the 1920s, the average American yachtsman was a Corinthian “lad of mettle.”

[frogteethblogteeth]

December, Edward Poynter, 1870

[scotianostra]

On November 18th 1870 a riot broke out at Surgeons Hall Edinburgh.

A direct follow on from my post last week regarding Edith Pechey and Sophia Jex-Blake.

Jex-Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson, and Emily Bovell were studying medicine at Edinburgh University, at a time when most of the establishment considered the idea of women undergraduates, let alone doctors, preposterous.

Several hundred male students pelted the women with mud and rubbish as they arrived. The women struggled through the crowd until a supporter unbolted a door to hurry them inside. The rioters shoved a live sheep, used by the medical faculty, into the exam hall, causing further chaos. Jex-Blake was later sued by a student, Mr Craig, who she claimed was at the root of the riot, but she defended his claim. The court awarded him one farthing instead of the £1,000 he sought in damages and the case was seen as a victory for the Edinburgh Seven. Public support for the women started to grow with a report in The Scotsman urging “all…men…to come forward and express… their detestation of the proceedings which have characterised and dishonoured the opposition to ladies pursuing the study of medicine in Edinburgh.”

The decision to allow them to study was later overturned on an appeal by Claud Muirhead, Senior Assistant Physician at the Royal Infirmary, supported by around 200 students. Unable to graduate, the battle moved to London. Jex-Blake was instrumental is setting up the London School of Medicine for Women. In 1876, the Enabling Bill gave medical examining bodies the right to admit women. Jex-Blake and Pechey did their MD in Berne, Switzerland, then sat the Irish exams with the College of Physicians in Dublin, finally becoming registered doctors in Britain. In 1877, Jex-Blake opened Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women and Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women the following year.

The pics include first hand accounts written by Sophia Jex-Blake and Edith Pechey respectively outlining the abuse received from male students.

[curioushabitforarivergod]

I LOVE the historical context you add to tom riddle meta. im curious. at that time how important and wealthy would tom riddle sr likely have been? i.e. how nice was the life that Tom missed out on by growing up in the orphanage instead of with his dad?

Omg thanks so much!

We don't actually know much about the Riddles. They likely lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire, or the very west of Cornwall (200 miles from Surrey as per Goblet of Fire), but I think it's more likely they lived in the North, specifically in Yorkshire. The Riddle's name is probably locational rather than profession based, and from a village called Ryedale in the North Riding of Yorkshire. It was probably mutated over time because spelling wasn't standardised or even close to standardisation when last names were beginning to become a thing (roughly 11th century in Britain).

Okay, now the reason I went into that is because I believe the Riddles were the big guys back in the day (by which I mean late medieval period c. 1100s until the late 1500s) and were the kind of wealthy landowners who employed serfdom potentially even past the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. I know a lot of people place them as merchants who made money from trade but based on their name and location (Yorkshire is famous for its sheep) I think it's more likely they were landowners. They probably had pretty solid generational wealth, potentially even being landed gentry (a class of gentry who made their money on leasing land and known as lords of the manor), although I'm fairly certain they lost most of this later. I don't think they ever were part of the peerage (the level above gentry in the British aristocracy who hold hereditary titles) but gentry usually married into peerage and vis versa so they were likely quite connected despite never being "Lords" themselves. They got their name through their association with the village as the big whigs.

Even if the Riddles had kept up serfdom for a century or so after the Peasants Revolt (entirely plausible), serfdom was abolished by Elizabeth I in 1574. Whenever they stopped working as part of the feudal system, I don't think it had major impacts on their wealth. Like I mentioned above, they were probable landed gentry, making their money by leasing out land and still profiting off the lower classes.

With the Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural Depression of the 1870s, I think they would've lost quite a bit of money, potentially even their place as landed gentry. They would've still been quite rich, but their wealth was probably in decline and they had to look elsewhere. Maybe they never succeeded in this.

The thing is, we know next to nothing about the Riddles and the family we see through Tom Riddle's eyes is one that's lost status and connections because of the scandal of Riddle Snr. having run off with Merope without being married and (rumours have it!) having a child out of wedlock. The Riddle family probably declined economically with WWII (and to a lesser extent WWI) as well, although they never got a chance to really see the era through properly due to their… untimely deaths.

I think if Tom had been raised by the Riddles, they may not have fallen so far, providing Riddle Snr. married Merope before her death, or at least had falsified documents that he did. Tom would've still grown up in declining wealth, but more than enough money still to not have to work. Life for Tom would've been far better, what without starvation, disease, poverty and later, bombs and would've remain largely untouched by the war. The Great Depression wouldn't have it so hard, and Tom, not being surrounded by so much death, would've been fundamentally altered. I'm not sure what the Riddle's reaction to Tom being magic would've been like, but I'll leave that to any writers. All in all, Tom missed out on a far better life.

Thank you so much for the ask! It really made my day!!

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

✧.* ~ Three Generations of British Victorias ~ ✧.*

Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, 1819-1901

Victoria Princess Royal, Crown Princess of Prussia, Empress of Germany, 1840-1901

Princess Viktoria of Prussia, Princess of Schaumburg Lippe, 1866-1929

Princess Victoria of Wales, 1868-1935

Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, Grand Duchess Viktoria Feodorovna of Russia, 1876-1936

Missing from photo:

Princess Victoria of Hesse and By Rhine, Marchioness of Milford Haven, 1863-1950

Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig Holstein, 1870-1948

Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen Consort of Spain, 1887-1969

✧.*