Article (2): illusion of Continuity

Introduction

Article (2) considers the ‘illusion of continuity’ that Bio-Digs of any detail, scanty or rich, suggest. It also shows how press clippings can add texture to this outline comprised of official sources.

Article (2): Discussion

The prize

Connecting any two pieces of biographical data with some certainty suggests success for much ‘noise’ can occur. The individual gave ‘wrong’ information, by error or intention. The enumerator misunderstood. He may have fallen prey to social prejudice. For example, enumerators appear to pay more detailed attention to affluent people than servants. At the last step, OCR, while excellent, can stumble, sending an individual into documentary obscurity. Despite this, tracking individuals through the record sets of Victorian Bournemouth can occur, sometimes in considerable detail and without any apparent ‘gaps’.

The problem

This apparent continuity, however, remains only an illusion. It ignores everything happening to a person except at the official record points. Consider this. The Census records details, including residence, for one night of an individual’s life every ten years. Baptism, wedding and burial data captures the individual for a much shorter period of time on a single occurrence (leaving aside remarriage). Thus a complete Bio-Dig from cradle to grave accounts for a few hours of each person’s life. Much can happen to a family just in the gap between two census points. The life of Joseph Cutler illustrates this.

Article (2): Joseph Cutler, carpenter

The Australian interlude

The 1851 Census recorded Joseph, born in or near Christchurch, staying with his sister and her husband in Lymington. Soon, he married a local lady with whom he had a daughter, born there in 1854. The next Census placed them in Islington. A scenario could grow about movement from the provinces to the capital. A closer look at the 1861 listing, however, reveals the presence of his son, Frederick, born in Geelong, Australia. Hence, Joseph perhaps caught the smell of gold, sailing to the other side of the world in the company of his wife and, no doubt, his little daughter. Thereafter, the family, with an additional member, returned to England before the next Census. Had the boy died, evidence for their Australian expedition would not have surfaced from the ‘official’ records.

The return home

As it happens, Joseph Cutler returned to Bournemouth where he built his first house: ‘the large and commodious villa residence, called Creswick House, situate on the West Cliff.’ In celebration, he gave a dinner for the working men and some friends, around 60 people all told. The happy chairman addressed the gathering, perhaps after consuming his measure of the ‘wines [which] were abundant in quantity, and excellent in quality’. In the speech, Joseph ‘spoke of the honours he had received in Australia’. The Christchurch Times for 4th August, 1866, provided ample coverage of the event. This example illustrates how considerable care must attend these reconstructions produced by this analytical approach, but that applies to the approach of any historical analysis. It also shows how newspapers can, on occasion, fill in some gaps between the ‘official’ milestones in a reconstituted life.

Article (2): press clippings

Valuable resource

Online providers have already made available a substantial amount of valuable information, but the resource will grow. Subject to normal problems with OCR, press accounts should feature within historical analysis. Nevertheless, as with the official recording process, some care should apply usage of press clippings. The most important point echoes that of possible social prejudice amongst census enumerators. Entrepreneurs published newspapers as a business. Thus, content angled towards customers, literate people for the most part belonging to the higher levels of society. Editors tended to mirror society as much as mould its opinions. Working people tended to appear as recipients of benefits or court justice. Still, harvesting detail about Bournemouth residents from their newspaper appearances can provide valuable information to add flesh to a Bio-Dig skeleton. Consider, once again, the case of Joseph Cutler.

Community life

After his celebration dinner, Joseph Cutler proceeded to further success in the construction market. In 1867, he had nine cottages and four pieces of land ready for sale. That year he also had invested in another builder, who went bankrupt. The next year he just missed election onto the Improvement Commission. In 1869, however, he suffered ‘extensive failure’, having debts of almost £6,000. Yet he recovered. He did not lose reputation, later becoming a councillor and alderman. His press obituary of 1910 remembered him as a ‘pioneer of [Bournemouth’s] early days’. Also, it recalled how he had served well ‘in many other ways than as a public servant’. In 1875, for example, while chatting to the draper A.R. Rogers, he noticed smoke coming from the latter’s shop. Cutler ran inside to save the owner’s children. The grateful father presented Cutler with a ‘handsome meerschaum pipe and tobacco pouch’.

Takeaway

Article (2) has examined both the promise and the pitfalls of the ‘illusion of continuity’. Press clippings, where existing, add texture to statistical life-stages. Personal documents – letters and diaries – would provide further detail, but their scarcity resembles that of the most rare orchids.

References

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