CHAPTER
XII.
BRISTOL.
WORKHOUSE GIRLS.
Beside the poor sick and aged people in the Workhouse, the attention of Miss Elliot and myself was much drawn to the girls who were sent out from thence to service on attaining (about) their sixteenth year. On all hands, and notably from Miss Twining and from some excellent Irish philanthropists, we heard the most deplorable reports of the incompetence of the poor children to perform the simplest duties of domestic life, and their consequent dismissal from one place after another till they ended in ruin. It was stated at the time (1862), on good authority, that, on tracing the subsequent history of 80 girls who had been brought up in a single London Workhouse, every one was found to be on the streets! In short these hapless “children of the State,” as my friend Miss Florence Davenport Hill most properly named them, seemed at that time as if they were being trained on purpose to fall into a life of sin; having nothing to keep them out of it,—no friends, no affections, no homes, no training for any kind of useful labour, no habits of self-control or self-guidance.
It was never realized by the men (who, in those days, alone managed our pauper system) that girls cannot be trained en masse to be general servants, nurses, cooks, or anything else. The strict routine, the vast half-furnished wards, the huge utensils and furnaces of a large workhouse, have too little in common with the ways of family life and the furniture of a common kitchen, to furnish any sort of practising ground for household service. The Report of the Royal Commission on Education, issued about that time, concluded that Workhouse Schools leave the pauper taint on the children, but “that District and separate schools give an education to the children contained in them which effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism.” Accordingly, the vast District schools, containing each the children from many Unions, was then in full blast, and the girls were taught extremely well to read, write and cipher; but were neither taught to cook for any ordinary household, or to scour, or sweep, or nurse, or serve the humblest table. What was far more deplorable, they were not, and could not be, taught to love or trust any human being, since no one loved or cared for them; or to exercise even so much self-control as should help them to forbear from stealing lumps of sugar out of the first bowl left in their way. “But,” we may be told, “they received excellent religious instruction!” Let any one try to realize the idea of God which any child can possibly reach who has never been loved; and he will then perhaps rightly estimate the value of such “religious instruction” in a dreary pauper school. I have never quite seen the force of the argument “If a man love not his neighbour whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?” But the converse is very clear. “If a man hath not been beloved by his neighbour or his parents, how shall he believe in the Love of the invisible God?” Religion is a plant which grows and flourishes in an atmosphere of a certain degree of warmth and softness, but not in the Frozen Zone of lovelessness, wherein is no sweetness, no beauty, no tenderness.
How to prevent the girls who left Bristol workhouse from falling into the same gulf as the unhappy ones in London, occupied very much the thoughts of Miss Elliot and her sister (afterwards Mrs. Montague Blackett) and myself, in 1851 and 1860–61. Our friend, Miss Sarah Stephen (daughter of Sergeant Stephen, niece of Sir James), then residing in Clifton, had for some time been working successfully a Preventive Mission for the poorer class of girls in Bristol; with a good motherly old woman as her agent to look after them. This naturally helped us to an idea which developed itself into the following plan—
Miss Elliot and her sister, as I have said, resided at that time with their father at the old Bristol Deanery, close to the Cathedral in College Green. This house was known to every one in the city, which was a great advantage at starting. A Sunday afternoon School for workhouse girls only, was opened by the two kind and wise sisters; and soon frequented by a happy little class. The first step in each case (which eventually fell chiefly to my share of the business) was to receive notice from the Workhouse of the address of every girl when sent out to her first service, and thereupon to go at once and call on her new mistress, and ask her permission for the little servant’s attendance at the Deanery Class. As Miss Eliott wrote most truly, in speaking of the need of haste in this preliminary visit—
“There are few times in a girl’s life when kindness is more valued by her, or more necessary to her, than when she is taken from the shelter and routine of school life and plunged suddenly and alone into a new struggling world full of temptations and trials. That this is the turning point in the life of many I feel confident, and I think delay in beginning friendly intercourse most dangerous; they, like other human beings, will seek friends of some kind. We found them very ready to take good ones if the chance were offered, and, as it seemed, grateful for such chance. But good friends failing them, they will most assuredly find bad ones.”—(Workhouse Girls. Notes by M. Elliot, p. 7.)
As a rule the mistresses, who were all of the humbler sort and of course persons of good reputation, seemed to welcome my rather intrusive visit and questions, which were, of course, made with every possible courtesy. A little by-play about the insufficient outfit given by the Workhouse, and an offer of small additional adornments for Sundays, was generally well received; and the happy fact of having such an ostensibly and unmistakeably respectable address for the Sunday school, secured many assents which might otherwise have been denied. The mistresses were generally in a state of chronic vexation at their little servants’ stupidity and incompetence; and on this head I could produce great effect by inveighing against the useless Workhouse education. There was often difficulty in getting leave of absence for the girls on Sunday afternoon, but with the patience and good humour of the teachers (who gave their lessons to as many or as few as came to them), there was always something of a class, and the poor girls themselves were most eager to lose no chance of attending.
A little reading of Pilgrim’s Progress and other good books: more explanations and talk; much hymn singing and repeating of hymns learned during the week; and a penny banking account,—such were some of the devices of the kind teachers to reach the hearts of their little pupils. And very effectually they did so, as the 30 letters which they wrote between them to Miss Elliot when she, or they, left Bristol, amply testified. Here is one of these epistles; surely a model of prudence and candour on the occasion of the approaching marriage of the writer! The back-handed compliment to the looks of her betrothed is specially delightful.
“You pointed out one thing in your kind letter, that to be sure that the young man was steady. I have been with him now two years, and I hope I know his failings; and I can say I have never known any one so steady and trustworthy as he is. I might have bettered myself as regards the outside looks; but, dear Madam, I think of the future, and what my home would be then; and perhaps if I married a gay man, I should always be unhappy. But John has a kind heart, and all he thinks of is to make others happy; and I hope I shall never have a cause to regret my choice, and I will try and do my best to do my duty, so that one day you may see me comfortable. Dear Madam, I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to me.”
The whole experiment was marvellously successful. Nearly all the poor children seemed to have been improved in various ways as well as certainly made happier by their Sundays at the Deanery, and not one of them, I believe, turned out ill afterwards or fell into any serious trouble. Many of them married respectably. In short it proved to be a good plan, which we have had no hesitation in recommending ever since. Eventually it was taken up by humane ladies in London, and there it slowly developed into the now imposing society with the long name (commonly abbreviated into M.A.B.Y.S.) the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. Two or three years ago when I attended and spoke at the annual meeting of this large body, with the Lord Mayor of London in the chair and a Bishop to address us, it seemed very astonishing and delightful to Miss Elliot and me that our small beginnings of thirty years before should have swelled to such an assembly!