It’s a hard life

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (182) summarises articles that touched on working people and different aspects of their lives. They appeared during the last quarter’s schedule.

Victorian Bournemouth (182): tsunami of immigrant workers

Waves of immigration

Before commercial settlement around the Bourne Mouth, its human presence consisted of transient fishermen on the beach and scattered labourers moving around the extensive heathland. Organised development and exploitation of the area in pursuit of commercial gain experienced few obstacles. A constant need to increase the built environment brought gain for many involved: builder-developers, artisans, and labourers. A constant flow of immigrants provided the necessary manpower, people arriving from many parts, but not least from Dorset and Hampshire. By the 1880s, the indigenous natives inhabiting the northern heaths had experienced a fundamental transformation of their lifestyles and social traditions. Streets of terraced cottages in regimented format replaced scattered huts distributed across the heath. This area together with adjacent Winton and Springbourne, further to the south, grew into estates for working people, the men perhaps building the properties they rented. As Bourne Mouth became Bournemouth, so the moor down became Moordown. 

Change

Waves of immigrants swamped the natives, both in number and perhaps culture. The latter present on the heath for generations, created marriage alliances amongst themselves or, in some cases, with families in nearby settlements: Throop, Muscliffe, Holdenhurst, and so on. Census and parish register information suggests that they abandoned this practice and sought survival or even success by fusion with immigrants. Many males belonging to established local families married women who originated in places located at a comparative distance. Some appeared to find success and, even, social improvement. Some young men from labouring families acquired the artisan skills needed to build houses, providing higher incomes. Many did not, however. The retail economy appeared to lie in the grip of immigrants. Thus, local people moved from working as agricultural labourers to providing the menial slice of Moordown and Winton’s society. In one, perhaps two generations, an established way of life disappeared.

Victorian Bournemouth (182): survival and advancement for working people

Single mothers and infant mortality

That the Sisters of Bethany, founding their orphanage in 1872, chose Springbourne as its location perhaps passes an indirect comment on the area’s society. Baptismal records show that single mothers often delivered their child in Springbourne as well as the other suburbs housing working people. The moral outrage thrown by respectable people caused unmarried mothers of surviving children to face a tough future, where the survival of both remained uncertain. Local records show occasional glimpses of how each managed to proceed through life, sometimes together, but more often apart. Often, however, the child did not survive, adding to the steep statistics of infant mortality. In the suburbs during the last part of the Victorian period, far more people went into the ground as children than as adults. Most of these belonged to labouring families, on whom low incomes, cheap housing, and questionable drainage exacted a harsh toll.

Marriage

Two analyses suggested that young females brought up in labouring families perhaps had a greater interest in achieving social improvement than equivalent males. Although by this time most signed their names on the marriage certificate, some still used a cross. Amongst working people in the Greater Westover area, more young males did so than females. Thus, females stood further up the ladder that might lead to respectability than males. This finding appears to support or run in parallel to their willingness for a ‘mixed marriage‘. Such unions connected someone from a labouring family to one having artisan skills. Analysis suggests that labouring males showed the least inclination to engage in a ‘mixed marriage’. Females whose father worked at an unskilled occupation, however, showed a greater propensity to marry grooms working as artisans. Thus, young females born into the poorest families had a greater appetite for advancement than their peer males.

Victorian Bournemouth (182): working reputations

Private infamy

Respectable Victorian society used both the reputation of the Workhouse and its reality as a deterrent against volunteer paupers. The Commissioners and, later, the Councillors recognised that economic conditions could affect the income of men otherwise willing to work. Traces appear of local initiatives to stimulate employment amongst working men. Society, however, did not want sturdy beggars, people who could but wouldn’t get paid employment. Although critical of Poor Law administration, Dickens nevertheless portrayed Workhouse life in such a way as to underline the social ignominy of becoming an inmate. The cantankerous Reverend J. R. Pretyman, a Guardian at the local Union during the 1880s, understood how entering the Workhouse might send ripples of shame through networks of kin and friends. Outdoor relief brought less infamy since the recipients could keep their condition behind closed doors. If their situation did not show, people would not know.

Public fame

During the 1880s, people related to the Tolpuddle Martyrs settled in Springbourne. Genealogical analysis shows they connected with the Martyrs through kinship and marriage. Events and circumstances surrounding the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a later designation, described by contemporary press as ‘Dorchester Labourers’, provide another aspect of how the public saw working people. Their case became the equivalent of ‘click-bait’ for those having a socio-political agenda. The early Trades’ Union nexus used them as content broadcast through controlled media. They portrayed them as ‘working heroes’, crushed by an unfeeling establishment keen to protect privilege. Against their will, they became a media property, sustained on as long as injustice prevailed. Pardons pricked this bubble. Their flight to Essex and, later, Canada, suggests that ‘Dorchester Labourers’ wanted no part of this fame. Nevertheless, their case had offered hope to other labourers. The visitors may have found a positive reception in Springbourne, a labouring enclave.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (182) has summarised articles which touched on different aspects of life experienced by contemporary labouring people. It has addressed the scale of challenges brought by immigrants to the old, established labouring families resident on the ‘moor down’. Baptismal registers named and shamed single mothers, often from labouring background, making life hard for them and their children. Daughters of labouring fathers who chose to marry, however, showed an interest in social advancement. More often than their male peers, they married ‘upwards’, forming recognised unions with skilled workers. Working people, through poverty or oppression, became a convenient image for content creators and media owners who had social engineering as an objective.

References

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