Victorian Women--Illegitemacy--Foundlings

The social stigma and lack of any financial provision for  having a child out of wedlock was impossible for many young women to bear . A Foundling Hospital such as this one was the answer to the problem in 1883.





                                                     


The Foundling Hospital , Guildford Street, London 1883

                                                                                  

 

Victorian Grandmothers

Fish Wives


Fisher girls had a hard life packing herrings caught off the east coast of England in barrels of salt and brine for curing and delivery inland.They had a reputation for being tough, hard swearing and drinking women.Hardly surprising when you think how cold it must have been  by the ocean .Raw hands and the  smell of fish hanging around you were an added burden.

Victorian Grandmothers

Rural Occupations


Lace Makers



                             

If you have ancestors from Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire then some of them would probably have been lace makers.These children and women look romantic in their country setting but the interiors of the cottages were damp, dark and overcrowded , many of them died young from tuberculosis.The light was better outside .
They were paid a pittance for the very hard work needed to produce pillow lace but it was the difference between the family having a living wage and extreme poverty, their husbands and fathers were mainly agricultural labourers.At least you were excused chores such as potato picking as your hands had to be kept soft to handle the lace.

Family History Sites

I have spent hours trying to get into findmypast .co.uk to be told constantly that they are busy. I have paid the top subscription to this site .When my subscription runs out I will not join again. Ancestry is so much better..

Bought some old books at a book sale on Saturday ,some interesting illustrations


Did your ancestors emigrate ?

And for those of us still in the UK this is the interior of a Northamptonshire cottage, the condtions that people wanted to leave

More will follow

Ancestors and Lace Makers

For my next family history article I am looking at my husband's lace making ancestors from Olney.In the 1850s there were hundreds of women making pillow lace at home.Most of them were the wives and daughters of agricultural labourers and the money they brought in kept impoverished families going.
At the age of four little girls were sent to a school to learn lace making and their catechism. If their attention wandered they had their noses rubbed raw in the sharp pins holding the lace.

I have a small collection of bobbins from the 1850s with the names of their owners inscribed like the one named Betsy.

                                                                  







It is getting hard to find original old photos of these ladies that do not have copyright.