Unexplored Riches in Medical History | Behind-The-Scenes at The Children's Society

Some behind-the-scenes snapshots of the Unexplored Riches in Medical History project at The Children's Society Records and Archive Centre. These photographs represent some of the 30,000 children's case files that are being catalogued and indexed. Many include telegrams, medical reports, personal letters and application forms from the late 19th and early 20th Century.

Watch this short film to find out more about The Children's Society archive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGeDtaBeXYo

First Night of the Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark | A Shakespearean Diary Imagined

This is an extract from a creative writing piece, written for the FutureLearn online course 'Shakespeare's Hamlet':

June 1603 

Last night I did see a play called The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. It is by that playwright William Shakespeare. I went to see it at the Globe theatre by the Thames with sister Mary and Master Forte. The Lord Chamberlains Men did quite a job – I have never seen a play like it! We ate oranges and hazelnuts as the performance went on quite late, but I had to stop eating when the scenes were dark and frightening. We did see a ghost and it was quite like seeing it right there in front of you, haunting your night! There mention of purgatory and heaven and I do think Mr Shakespeare was quite brave in saying that as I’m quite sure our dear Queen does not share those sentiments with her sister. Richard Burbage played Hamlet and was quite the handsome prince. I do like Shakespeare's plays - he made Denmark a dark place unlike Mr. Kyd could.

To find out more about FutureLearn and upcoming online courses visit: https://www.futurelearn.com

New Year, New You? | 2015 on Days With The Dead

Hello to you and I hope that 2015 is treating you well. Lets not mention the unacceptable gap between my last post and this one, which leads me onto my main point. I've never been much of New Years Resolutions person and 2015 isn't much different. Generally we make too many ambitious resolutions and give up the gym, teetotalism or museum date nights after January. However, I've decided to put finger to keyboard and set in stone some historical goals for the year ahead. 

As I mentioned before, I have been atrociously bad at keeping up with this blog over the past year and that has partly due to not having time and not making time for genealogy. I hope my goals for 2015 will change this!

1) Start researching more of my family tree again.

2) Blog my progress here on Days With The Dead.

3) Volunteer in a museum/archive/library.

4) Read at least 1 non-fiction history book.

What are your historical goals this year?

Sisterhood, Family and World War One: The Children's Society

Image: http://www.delsjourney.com/images/news/news_01-12-10/1-8804-Swang-Children.jpg

As an anthropologist one question particularly steadfast question about humanity is family. What does family mean? Why do we have them? Often, why do we put up with them? In my past two weeks at The Children's Society I have been particularly struck by family and siblings relationships, particularly in relation to the First World War. Family is a delicate topic in relation to adoption, fostering and charities such as The Society. Often notable for it's absence in case files, families can be estranged or in some cases pull together at times of grief or war. 

Maud's father died serving in the British Navy during World War One, on HMS Research in 1918. He left behind eight children and a wife in an 'asylum'. Far from being one of the heart-wrenching case files, Maud's is cheerier as her siblings rallied round to help each other after their father's death. In a touching and rare hand-written correspondence Maud's sister Clara writes to her when she is convalescing following influenza: "you can come and live with me until you get strong". She says: "I can look after you and be a mother to you". 

Another wartime child, Violet, lost her father as a soldier in the War. Estranged from her family, she emigrated to Canada when she turned eighteen. This was an eventful time as she was hit by a car and fractured several bones. Becoming pregnant whilst in Canada relatives sent for her to come back to England, where she was pronounced "immoral", before subsequently giving birth, the child dying 5 hours after birth. Reflecting thoughtfully in a letter, Violet said she had learnt a lesson!

About the Unexplored Riches in Medical History project:
http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/unexplored_riches/about.html

The Unexplored Riches blog: 

http://chilsoc-blog.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/category/unexplored_riches

My other blog: 

http://cupcakesandcosmeticsbyclare.blogspot.co.uk

Poverty, Child Prostitution and The Children's Society

(Image: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article1123840.ece)

Much of the classical tale of charity is based upon the child saved from the extremes of poverty who goes on to have a prosperous, respectable life. Many of the case files in The Children's Society archives describe in detail the families and poverty in which these children were living before they went to the Society. Case File A described concern that the child should never "return to the miserable court and life of starvation" and that all of the children in the family were "ill-kempt half fed and very dirty". The majority of the Society's cases were born into poverty related either to unemployment, alcoholism, disease or death, and the work of charities such as the Society helped usher in the sea change of prosperity in these children's lives. 

Case Files B and C are a severe example of the situation many of the children had been living in. These Case Files are for two young sisters, under the age of 10, and describe them as being "found residing in a house for the purpose of prostitution". Whilst shocking in our time these two girls were part of the "veritable slave trade" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/20097046) of child prostitution in Victorian England. Attitudes to sex and prostitution at the time are mirrored by the fact that the age of consent was only raised from 12 to 13 in 1875, and finally to 16 in 1885. The extensive sex trade in Victorian England was a daily reality for many, especially city dwellers, and these changes in law doubtless helped to change the situation.

To find out more about the Unexplored Riches in Medical History project see the website:

http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/unexplored_riches/about.html

Or the project blog:

http://chilsoc-blog.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/category/unexplored_riches

Victorian Morality and Disease in The Children's Society

(Image from: http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/unexplored_riches/about.html)

The recent financial crisis and the 'working poor' crisis, highlighted in particular by Sport's Relief's Famous, Rich and Hungry (featuring Jamie Laing and Rachel Johnson), has brought into sharp focus the reality of poverty and malnutrition in the UK. I have been working with The Children's Society, for eight weeks now, on their Unexplored riches in medical history project. Helping to delve into their records and archives centre, trawling through case files that go back to the 1880s, I have been looking detailing the medical histories of children looked after in Society homes into a database. In working on this project I have come across fascinating cases and details of life in Victorian England that I wish to share. This post is to signpost my initial thoughts and feelings on the project:

1) Firstly, there is a strong dynamic between the old Children's Society and the new Children's Society. The Victorian Society focused largely on housing children born into poverty in children's homes, often training them for domestic service. Today the focus has shifted to fostering and adoption services.

2) Secondly, aside from the medical history revealed within the case files, archives and case histories are gold dust for social historians and anthropologists alike. As historians know, it's one thing to learn the facts of historical events from a history textbook, but the real life cases are far more revealing, of emotion and suffering.

3) Malnutrition and poverty often come hand in hand. Largely unmentioned in the case files in the fact that many of the children taken into the Society's care were suffering from malnutrition. As my job is to discover what illnesses and diseases the children were suffering from it can feel frustrating when many are merely described as 'weak' or 'in need of a change'. The likelihood is that if they were fed a better diet and had healthy weights, then they would be less susceptible to disease. 

4) The Christian ethos and backbone of the Society also shines through in the letters and reports of the case files. Notes were made on the children's characters and moral background, and they were taught trades and social values in order to teach them good old fashioned Victorian morality. This is doubtless one of the ways in which the Society has changed.

Madness and Death in Edwardian England

Black sheep and family secrets are usually stumbled across unexpectedly in family history research. At least that's how it happened in my case. I have discovered a few intriguing secrets along the way and I'm sure everyone has there skeletons in the closet as it were. However, these stories are also often the hardest to tell. My story started with a discovery 16 months ago. Doing a series of random online searches for records of my paternal great-great grandmother Ada Radcliffe, I came across her probate record which unleashed a long-kept secret. Far from revealing that she had left a fortune after her death, the record claimed that she had died in the City of London-lunatic-asylum. Further digging at the London Metropolitan Archives confirmed that she had been an inmate at the London Hospital in Stone, Kent, and died of 'Chronic melancholia' and 'Pulmonary tuberculosis' there in 1906. She died just a couple of months after her husband left to make a new life for himself in Canada (and then New Zealand), leaving two sons and a daughter behind. The death was hushed up and family were told that she had been ill and died in hospital. This was stretching the truth. This is one of the saddest and heart-breaking life stories that I have come across and one that will stay with me for a very long time. 

Thank you for reading.