Defining womanhood: Irish women and the Catholic church in Victorian Liverpool

Immigrants and Minorities

Volumn 18, Issue 2-3, 1999, Pages 168-188

  Kanya Forstner, Martha ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHURCH ROLE; GENDER ROLE; IMMIGRANT POPULATION; RELIGION;

ENGLAND(MERSEYSIDE); LIVERPOOL; UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 0033392171     PISSN: 02619288     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02619288.1999.9974973     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. D. Fitzpatrick, '"A Peculiar Tramping People": The Irish in Britain, 1801-1870', in W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A New History of Ireland under the Union, 1801-1870 Vol.V (Oxford, 1989), pp.650-51.
2. W. Rathbone, Social Duties Considered with Reference to the Organisation of Effort in Works of Benevolence and Public Utility (London, 1867), pp.14-15.
3. Liverpool Record Office (hereafter LRO), Liverpool Domestic Mission (hereafter LDM), Annual Report (1848), p.9.
4. LRO, Liverpool Central Relief and Charity Organisation Society (hereafter C.R.S.), Annual Report (1863-1864).
5. LRO, CRS, Minutes of the Public Meeting, 23 Jan. 1863.
6. L. Feehan, 'Charitable Effort, Statutory Authorities and the Poor in Liverpool c. 1850-1914' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1987), p.100. Feehan notes that the attitude of Catholic leaders towards the Central Relief Society eventually softened , although the rank and file relief workers were still reluctant to refer their Catholic clients to the Society.
7. M. Simey, The Charitable Effort in Liverpool in the Nineteenth Century (Liverpool, 1951). Republished as M. Simey, 'Charity Rediscovered': A Study of Philanthropic Effort in Nineteenth-Century Liverpool (Liverpool, 1992).
8. M. Simey, The Charitable Effort in Liverpool in the Nineteenth Century (Liverpool, 1951). Republished as M. Simey, 'Charity Rediscovered': A Study of Philanthropic Effort in Nineteenth-Century Liverpool (Liverpool, 1992).
9. The Porcupine, 20 Oct. 1866.
10. J. Belchem, 'The Immigrant Alternative: Ethnic and Sectarian Mutuality among the Liverpool Irish during the Nineteenth-Century', in O. Ashton, R. Fyson and S. Roberts (eds.), The Duty of Discontent: Essays for Dorothy Thompson (New York, 1995), p.243.
11. W. Lowe, The Irish in Mid-Victorian Lancashire: The Shaping of a Working Class Community (New York, 1990), p.114.
12. See SJ. Connolly, Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845 (New York, 1982). For a discussion of the social and ethnic divisions within Liverpool's Catholic community see J.A. Klapas, 'Geographical Aspects of Religious Change in Victorian Liverpool 1837-1901' (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1977).
13. See SJ. Connolly, Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845 (New York, 1982). For a discussion of the social and ethnic divisions within Liverpool's Catholic community see J.A. Klapas, 'Geographical Aspects of Religious Change in Victorian Liverpool 1837-1901' (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1977).
14. See M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Class, Gender and Religion: The Catholic Church and the Irish Poor in Victorian Liverpool', in I. Blanchard (ed.), New Directions in Economic and Social History (Avonbridge, 1995), pp.93-100. See also M. Kanya-Forstner, 'The Politics of Survival', Ch.6.
15. See M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Class, Gender and Religion: The Catholic Church and the Irish Poor in Victorian Liverpool', in I. Blanchard (ed.), New Directions in Economic and Social History (Avonbridge, 1995), pp.93-100. See also M. Kanya-Forstner, 'The Politics of Survival', Ch.6.
16. See J. Belchem, 'Introduction', in J. Belchem (ed.), Popular Politics of Riot and Labour: Essays in Liverpool History 1790-1940 (Liverpool, 1992), p.12.
17. LRO, LDM, Annual Report (1849), p.34.
18. In his memoir of growing up in an impoverished family in 1930s Limerick, Frank McCourt recalls that his neighbours continued to ostracise people whose relatives had accepted Protestant charity during the Famine almost a century before: There were families that are ashamed of themselves because their forefathers gave up their religion for the sake of a bowl of Protestant soup during the Famine and those families are known ever after as soupers. It's a terrible thing to be a souper because you're doomed forever to the souper part of hell. F. McCourt, Angela's Ashes. A Memoir (New York, 1996), pp.132-3.
19. LRO, LDM, Annual Report (1849), p. 35.
20. LRO. North End Domestic Mission (hereafter NDM), Minutes of the General Meeting of Subscribers, 1859.
21. LRO, NDM, Annual Report (1877), p.5.
22. LRO, NDM, Annual Report (1878), p.10.
23. LRO, NDM, Annual Report (1879), p.5.
24. LRO, St. Vincent de Paul Society, St. Mary's Conference (hereafter SVP), Minute Book (1868-77). Unfortunately, this is the only record of the St. Mary's Conference that has survived. However, it is a remarkably rich source documenting the relief work of the conference as it was recorded at its weekly meetings. St. Mary's Church on Highfield Street was originally established in the eighteenth century to cater to the spiritual needs of a small Catholic population. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the church had become the religious centre for a largely Irish population in one of the most squalid and densely populated parts of the town. See J. Davies, 'Parish Charity: The Work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Mary's Highfield St., Liverpool, 1867-1868', North West Catholic History, Vol.17 (1990), p.37.
25. T. Burke, Catholic History of Liverpool (Liverpool, 1910), pp.122-3
26. Lancashire County Archives (hereafter LCA), RCLv, Bishop Goss's Visitation Sermons, 12 June 1864.
27. In December 1872, for example, the conference received almost L.3 from the church collection box. [LRO, SVP Minute Book, 12 Dec.1871.]
28. B. Aspinall, 'The Welfare State within the State: The Saint Vincent de Paul Society in Glasgow, 1848-1920', in WJ. Shields and D. Wood (eds.), Studies in Church History: Voluntary Religion (Oxford, 1988), p.447.
29. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 9 Nov. 1869.
30. Ibid., 22 March 1871.
31. LRO, Catholic Benevolent Society, Annual Report (1811).
32. LRO, Catholic Benevolent Society, Annual Report (1863).
33. J. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight (Chicago, IL, 1992), p.55.
34. Catholic leaders often urged nuns to make home visits to the poor. In one sermon Father Nugent recommended that the Sisters of Charity visit the homes of the poor 'to encourage the use of whitewash and the washing of the children'. Nugent was especially optimistic of the results that might come from such encounters as many of the Sisters were from 'some of the best families, including Lord Herrie's daughter, Miss Middleton.' Liverpool Mortality Sub-Committee, Report and Evidence, 1865-1866, 1866, p.207. Despite such efforts, nuns seem to have been most active in the schools of the parish and do not figure prominently in Victorian chronicles of life in the streets and homes of Liverpool's Irish community.
35. Quoted in K. Kearns, Dublin Tenement Life: An Oral History (Dublin, 1994), pp.30-31.
36. See AJ. Kidd, '"Outcast Manchester": Voluntary Charity, Poor Relief, and the Casual Poor 1860-1905', in A.J. Kidd and K.W. Roberts (eds.), City, Class and Culture: Studies of Cultural and Social Policy in Victorian Manchester (Manchester, 1985), pp.48-73. As Kidd notes for private charities in Manchester, applicants received relief not as a right, but as a privilege if they could satisfy the specific criteria of deserving.
37. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 1 Sept. 1868.
38. Ibid., 9 Nov. 1870.
39. Ibid., 3 March 1868.
40. Ibid., 9 Nov.-21 Dec. 1870.
41. The prominence of female drinkers within working-class neighbourhoods had long been a concern of officials and social commentators in the city. In 1850, Abraham Hume recorded with disdain that in the mainly Catholic parish, St. Simon's, there were 51 public houses and 51 beer shops, or one for every 25 families. Hume regretfully observed that these establishments were frequented as often by women as by men. The consequences of this state of affairs were indeed grievous: 'property squandered, domestic comfort destroyed, children neglected, propriety outraged, industry suspended, virtue despised'. A. Hume, Missions at Home (London, 1850), p.14. Of the 6350 female prisoners in the Borough Jail in 1870, 4461 of them were Catholic. Commenting on this statistic, Henry Gibson, the acting Catholic chaplain in the institution, noted that a great many of the women who came under his care were habitually charged with being 'drunken and disorderly'. Further, he observed that drink was most prevalent among the lowest class of the poor who, for the most part, belonged to the Catholic church and who came from localities 'chiefly peopled by the poorest Irish'. LRO, Magistrate's Court Records, Justices Sessions, Gaol and House of Correction, The Roman Catholic Chaplain's Report, 27 Oct. 1870.
42. LRO, Magistrate's Court Records, Justices Sessions, Gaol and House of Correction (1870-78), Prison Minister's Report, 25 Oct. 1877.
43. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 26 Oct. 1870.
44. Offering evidence before the Mortality Sub-Committee, Mr. Thomas Roberts, a relieving officer, while recognizing the need to collect information from an applicant's neighbours was somewhat sceptical about the veracity of the data received on these occasions: 'when we make inquiries about people, it is with the greatest difficulty that we can get information. We actually have to bribe parties to give us information.' Liverpool Mortality Sub-Committee, Report and Evidence, 1865-1866, 1866, p.164. For the nature of women's sharing networks in Liverpool, see M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Politics of Survival', Ch.2. For a discussion of the vital assistance working-class women extended to each other, see E. Ross, 'Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London before World War I', History Workshop Journal, 15 (1983), pp.4-27.
45. Offering evidence before the Mortality Sub-Committee, Mr. Thomas Roberts, a relieving officer, while recognizing the need to collect information from an applicant's neighbours was somewhat sceptical about the veracity of the data received on these occasions: 'when we make inquiries about people, it is with the greatest difficulty that we can get information. We actually have to bribe parties to give us information.' Liverpool Mortality Sub-Committee, Report and Evidence, 1865-1866, 1866, p.164. For the nature of women's sharing networks in Liverpool, see M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Politics of Survival', Ch.2. For a discussion of the vital assistance working-class women extended to each other, see E. Ross, 'Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London before World War I', History Workshop Journal, 15 (1983), pp.4-27.
46. Offering evidence before the Mortality Sub-Committee, Mr. Thomas Roberts, a relieving officer, while recognizing the need to collect information from an applicant's neighbours was somewhat sceptical about the veracity of the data received on these occasions: 'when we make inquiries about people, it is with the greatest difficulty that we can get information. We actually have to bribe parties to give us information.' Liverpool Mortality Sub-Committee, Report and Evidence, 1865-1866, 1866, p.164. For the nature of women's sharing networks in Liverpool, see M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Politics of Survival', Ch.2. For a discussion of the vital assistance working-class women extended to each other, see E. Ross, 'Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London before World War I', History Workshop Journal, 15 (1983), pp.4-27.
47. For a discussion of the ambivalent character of gossip in working-class women's lives, see M. Tebbutt, 'Women's Talk? Gossip and Women's Words in Working-Class Communities, 1880-1939', in A. Davies and S. Fielding (eds.), Workers' Worlds: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford, 1880-1939 (Manchester, 1992), pp.49-73.
48. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 5 Jan. 1869.
49. Ibid., 25 Jan. 1871.
50. Ibid., 25 Nov. 1873-5 Jan. 1874.
51. Ibid., 6 May 1873.
52. LRO, CRS, Rules of the Society, 23 Jan. 1863.
53. A. Kidd, '"Outcast Manchester"', p.52.
54. LRO, CRS, Annual Report (1869).
55. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 15 March 1870.
56. Ibid., 20 Jan. 1874.
57. In the first half of the nineteenth century Ribbon Societies offered similar benefits to migrant workers. See J. Belchem, '"Freedom and Friendship to Ireland": Ribbonism in Early Nineteenth-Century Liverpool', International Review of Social History, 39 (1994), pp.43-5.
58. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 30 Nov. 1870.
59. Ibid., 22-28 July 1874.
60. B. Clarke, Piety and Nationalism:Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895 (Montreal, 1993), p.117.
61. B. O'Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood: A Book of Instruction for Women (Dublin, 1883). The book was first published in America but it was praised by Catholic priests throughout the diaspora who had to cater the spiritual needs of parishes constituted largely by working-class immgrants.
62. Ibid., p.24.
63. Ibid.
64. B. O'Reilly, True Men We Need Them. A Book of Instruction for Men in the World (Dublin, 1878), p.80.
65. M. Kanya-Forstner, 'Politics of Survival', Ch.3.
66. R. Stewart (ed.), Nathaniel Hawthorne's English Notebooks (New York, 1941), p.17.
67. LRO, Head Constable's Special Report Book, 1875-1877, 7 May 1877.
68. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 24 Feb. 1868.
69. Ibid., 16 April 1873.
70. Ibid., 17 Feb. 1874-5 Dec. 1876.
71. Ibid., 26 April 1870.
72. Ibid., 9 April 1872-10 Oct. 1876.
73. S. Alexander, 'Women's Work in Nineteenth-Century London: A Study of the Years 1820-1850' in E. Whitelegg (ed.), The Changing Experience of Women (Oxford, 1982), p.33.
74. LRO, CRS, Annual Report (1873).
75. LRO, CRS, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 16 Jan. 1874.
76. LRO, CRS, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 7 Feb. 1873.
77. Liverpool Daily Post, 27 March 1875.
78. Ibid.
79. LRO, SVP, Minute Book, 21 May 1871.
80. Ibid., 18 July 1871-15 April 1875.
81. McCourt, Angela's Ashes, pp.64-5.