Season 5, episode 9. October 1882 - November 1883. We follow Janie and Fred's first year of as newlyweds as they settle into married life in Middlesbrough, but back in Handsworth, Sheffield, all is not well. 1883 proves a year of highs and lows, of birth, marriage and death.
Season 5, episode 9. October 1882 - November 1883. We follow Janie and Fred's first year of as newlyweds as they settle into married life in Middlesbrough, but back in Handsworth, Sheffield, all is not well. 1883 proves a year of highs and lows, of birth, marriage and death.
[Intro]
Welcome back to My Love Letter Time Machine, Hi, I’m Ingrid Birchell Hughes, and I’ve been serialising the love letters of my great great Grandparents, Fred Shepherd and Janie Warburton. Travel 140 years back in time with me now where we take a look at Victorian history through their eyes and today, we try and piece together their first year as newlyweds in Middlesbrough.
[Mr & Mrs Fred Shepherd]
If you’ve decided to rejoin me after the wedding and the last of Janie and Fred’s letters, thank you so much, I will do my best to flesh out the rest of their story even though we no longer have the letters to carry us through.
Actually the whole process of doing that last episode proved to be unexpectedly emotional. Several times during the week as I wrote the script - I found myself, well, sobbing to be honest. In the middle of the week I met up with Fred and Janie’s great grand-daughter - Jeanie - in other words my Mum. When I got in the car I explained that I’d just done the last of the letters and started to cry again. “Why is this so emotional?”, I said, “It's like the letters carried their last breath + even though they are both long gone, doing all this has portrayed their lives so vividly, it’s like they breathe again.” Mum, bless her, said "You've made sure that they will be remembered forever, they will never ever be forgotten, I think they would be so proud and in awe" We both cried then! Then a wry look on her face, she said: "I don't think Emma would though" … and I think that’s true to be fair. But then we started talking about how important Emma's story was, and that however hard it is to escape domestic violence situations now, it was even harder then, + despite Emma’s problems w drink, and even though it financially crippled them, her parents got her a divorce + protected her. I’m so proud that I’ve told Emma’s story too.
So how do we put the rest of Janie and Fred’s lives together? I’ve gone through the records I have, some newspaper articles about people they knew, and I offer you here what I think may be the most plausible timeline for Janie and Fred’s first year of marriage.
In the Sheffield Daily Telegraph for the 17th October 1882 there appeared this announcement:
"Shepherd—Warburton.-Oct 12, Handsworth, Fred Shepherd, Middlesborough, youngest son of the late Alfred Shepherd. Attercliffe, to Jane, youngest daughter of James Warburton, Handsworth."
The day after their wedding, Fred and Janie would have made their way to their new house in Milton St and Fred would have taken great pleasure in showing Janie around and all the things that he had prepared. I think Janie would have been beside herself with excitement at being able to make a home and get her creative teeth into all the things she might want to make to make it beautiful. Knowing these two, I’m pretty certain they’d have taken advantage of being away from prying eyes too. As things were, they were not going to have that much of a honeymoon as their free time was going to be mostly taken up with unpacking their belongings and wedding presents, and moving in.
That’s not to say they didn’t have any leisure, as mentioned in Fred’s last couple of letters, they had been invited by his friends Mr & Mrs Phillips, to take a trip that Saturday a few miles north on the coast to Tynemouth:
Courtesy of Henry the eighth basically taking a wrecking ball to England’s monasteries, Tynemouth is home to a spectacular ruined priory situated on an impressive rocky headland. The dramatic views of which have provided romantic and moody inspiration for a great many artists and poets, including JMW Turner and Winslow Homer. Actually Fred may well have just missed the great American artist, as Homer’s watercolour painting ‘Tynemouth Priory, England’ was only done the year before in 1881. It depicts a moody sky, beneath which three gruff fishermen on a choppy sea, pull a net into a dingy. The etherial silhouette of the priory can be seen on the horizon in the distance.
Adjacent to the priory is the beautiful and golden Long Sands Beach, and as a destination for Mr & Mrs Phillips to bring their young newly-wedded friends it couldn’t have been more suitable. A walk along the shore, a ramble around the priory and then tea in some sweet little cafe in the town sounds like the perfect day out frankly.
On the Sunday Fred would have taken Janie to church and throughly enjoyed charming everyone with his new bride, and on Monday they would have set to with a will sorting out their home when the furniture arrived. I wonder if the firm of lodgers, aka Banks and Alvey, were pressed in to service one evening to help out with the heavy lifting.
Fred’s week off would have soon been over and he and Janie would have started to adjust to their new rhythm of being a married couple. We know from their letters that Janie and Fred were not only accepting of the traditional view of the wife being in the angel in the home supporting her provider of a husband, they were enthusiastic about it. I imagine they would have been delighted with their new life.
Not six weeks after their wedding, Janie would have noticed that she’d missed a period. I’m curious to know how long she’d have waited until telling Fred, but given his propensity for writing them down in his diary, I’m sure he’d have been on it like a flash.
You might remember Janie mentioning her Advice to a Wife book by Pye Henry Chavasse. I mentioned in the podcast before that in terms of popularity it was pretty much the Victorian equivalent of ‘What to Expect When You Are Expecting’.
In it there is a chapter called ‘The count’ and it comes with a pregnancy table for every day of the year. If you know “the last day of the periods” you can read across to the date ‘on or about’ when labour will start.
I’m convinced that soon after Janie noticing she was later, and the arrival of morning sickness, perhaps around the beginning of December, her shy admission to Fred would have been shortly followed with the pair of them sat at the table, with Fred’s diary, and the Advice to a Wife book open at the pregnancy chart. I have an inkling that this is where Fred felt that he could shine, and Janie would have smiled indulgently while he declared with happy confidence that their first child would be arriving at the beginning of the next September.
The Advice to a Wife book has this to say about morning sickness and attitudes to early pregnancy:
“A good way to relieve [morning sickness] is by taking, before rising in the morning, a cup of strong coffee. If this should not have the desired effect, she ought to try an effervescing draught :— Take of — Bicarbonate of Potash, one drachm and a half; water, eight ounces: Two table-spoonfuls of this mixture to be taken with one of lemon-juice every hour, whilst effervescing, until relief be obtained.
A glass of champagne, taken the over-night, I have sometimes found to be the best remedy, and if it have the desired effect it certainly is the most agreeable. I have known, too, cider, where other things have failed to succeed in abating morning sickness."
The book also encourages moderate walking and states “Bear in mind, then, that a lively, active woman has an easier and quicker labour, and a finer race of children, than one who is lethargic and indolent. Idleness brings misery, anguish, and suffering in its train, and particularly affects pregnant ladies. Oh, that these words would have due weight, then this book will not have been written in vain i The hardest work in the world is having nothing to do ' '•' Idle people have the most labour;" this is particularly true in pregnancy; a lady will, when labour actually sets in, find to her cost that idleness has given her most labour! "Idleness is the badge of gentry, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of Naughtiness, the step-mother of Discipline, the chief author of all Mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, the cushion upon which the Devil chiefly reposes, and a great cause not only of Melancholy, but of many other diseases, for the mind is naturally active, and if it be not occupied about some honest business, it rushes into Mischief or sinks into Melancholy”
Blimey talk about purple prose! To my modern ears the tone in the Advice to a Wife book seems frequently hectoring and pompous however the information is far more accurate that I would have at first believed. Although there are a few occasional bits that are so unscientific they charge off into superstition, such as being able to tell the sex of the baby with how severe the labour is. Given that the child will be showing up in a matter of hours, that seems rather redundant. Mind you I rather like the idea of being prescribed champagne…
I don’t know when Fred and Janie would have started telling family and friends the happy news, Janie’s next period would have gone missing around Christmas time and it’s possible that they couldn’t help themselves to let a few close people know. Their happiness would have been tempered however with the news back in Handsworth, that Janie’s father James had fallen ill with bronchitis a few weeks before. Health already bad, and a chest infection in Winter for James was a frequent occurrence, but it would have been apparent by Christmas that this time it wasn’t shifting. I’m sure Janie’s inclination would have been to visit home but I willing to bet she might have decided not to travel being so early on in her pregnancy.
Their first Christmas and the New Year of 1883 as Mr and Mrs Shepherd would have opened up their social life with a great many invitations and it would have started to properly consolidate their place in their community in Middlesbrough.
It’s possible Janie sat for a photograph in the Spring of 1883 (although it could be later) and I suspect this may well have been taken during one of her pregnancies. Her midriff is conveniently hidden behind by the back of a chair on which she is resting her hands. She looks happy and has put on some weight around her face. The dress has corset style lacing detail on the front which means it could have been let out as her pregnancy progressed. Her hair is styled with a curled fringe at the front (I think you say bangs in North America) which was becoming very fashionable, and you can just make out her wedding ring on her hand.
During that spring Janie would have had news from home that James was still poorly and this would have properly worried her. I’m sure she would have been writing many letters full of her news, and no doubt by now James and Maria would have known that their next grandchild was on the way. It would have cheered James a little to know that his youngest was doing so well. I wonder also if Fred received a letter from John Meays enclosing his comments regarding the following news article where it appears he’s been doing his civic duty:
By the way the term ’snap’ s n a p is a Northern English word for a work lunch, presumably for the noise lid made on the tin it which it was often packed.
In the South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times for Friday 13 April 1883 it reads:
Steeling a Watch.—Arthur Bailiff and James Henry Reavey, Broomhill, were charged with stealing a watch, the property of Wm. Bunting, on the 5th [of this month] Wm. Bunting, a miner, working at Cortonwood Colliery, said he went to work on the 6th … at 6 a.m., and hung his coat and waistcoat in the gate end. He left his watch in his waistcoat pocket. About 10 o'clock Bailiff and he partook of "snap" together. He looked at his watch put it back again. Bailiff said. "Aren't you frightened of anyone stealing your watch," and he (witness) said he was not. Bailiff then said to witness, "Providing I took it should you have any suspicion of me.” Witness said if any person had more right to the watch than he had they should take it. Bailiff subsequently went to look at the time and returned. Witness shortly afterwards went to his waistcoat and found the watch gone.—Mr. Hickmott appeared for Bailiff, and cross-examined the complainant at some length who said he had never known any man go to look at his watch without his permission.— Richard Milner said he worked as a trammer for James Holmes at the Cortonwood Colliery. He saw the prisoner Bailiff go along the road leading to the spot where complainant had placed his clothes.—John Meays, manager to Messrs. Horsfield and Hull, pawnbrokers Wombwell, said on Friday night, the 6th, prisoner Reavey came to his shop to pledge a watch. He looked at it and asked him who it belonged to. He said it had been given him to pledge by a man whom he did not know, but he could swear to him if he saw him. He gave the two prisoners into custody. Police-constable Hutchinson said he received Bailiff into his custody who asserted that he was innocent. He subsequently received Reavey into his custody, who said he found it in Bunting's working place after he left work, and that Bunting had told him Bailiff had taken his watch. He afterwards searched Reavey's clothes at his lodgings and found the guard produced in his pocket.—Mr. Hickmott contended that there no evidence against his client.—Bailiff was discharged and Reavey was sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment.”
Seems a bit of a coincidence that Reavey took the watch on the very day that Bailiff had asked William if he was worried about it being stolen. It’s very interesting to me that John Meay’s kept an eye out for dodgy stories. No doubt part of his job as a pawnbroker.
A few weeks later Janie would have got a letter with the worst possible news.
After suffering for six months with bronchitis, James Warburton came down with a severe infection and for 4 days struggled with all the associated symptoms of fever, diarrhoea and possibly even delirium. I can only hope that one of the family were able to get a letter to Janie to warn her that her father was failing. Did she manage to get home in time - she would have been 5 and a half months pregnant so a journey wasn’t out of the question.
This Summer I flew back from Canada to be by my step-father’s side before he died and I only just made it although, he wasn’t able to talk by then. To feel a sense of connection with Janie in this moment, quite takes my breath away. The last time she’d seen her father was on her wedding day, my heart absolutely breaks for her.
Poor James’ system by this point was so depleted and with there being no antibiotics at this time, he had no chance to fight off the infection. He died on the 12th of May 1883. His family around him. He was 69 years old.
I have his death certificate here. It records as cause of death Bronchitis 6 months, Erysipelas & Diarrhoea 4 days. Erysipelas is a kind of severe celulitis caused by Streptococcus, but it doesn’t usually cause diarrhoea. I can’t know for certain, but I’m wondering if James succumbed to sepsis. The death was registered by William, and states he was present at the death. Yet another example of William being the reliable eldest son taking care of his family. It’s funny how his character is shining though even these tiniest of details.
Even if she hadn’t made it in time to say goodby before he died, Janie and Fred must have traveled home for the funeral, which was held the 16th of May - Fred’s birthday actually - no promised celebration for him that day.
The year before James had escorted Janie the few steps from the Cross Keys to the St Mary’s for her wedding, now she and Fred walked behind the rest of the family as they escorted James on his final journey. He’d been a carpenter, a maltster, a keen cricketer in his youth, and despite a gruff temper, was dearly loved. The family would have been grieving deeply. After the service James Warburton was laid to rest in a quiet corner of the churchyard, a mere 20 footsteps from the pub that he had run for nearly 20 years.
I do wonder what this did to Janie and Emma’s relationship. There’s a part of me that worries Janie would have blamed Emma for James’ death, but another part of me wonders if both of the women’s natural compassion and shared grief would have brought them together a little. It’s impossible to know.
The return to Middlesbrough would have been painful and somber.
I hope that the knowledge Janie was carrying James’ grandchild might have brought her some comfort however bittersweet, and slowly she’d have embraced the preparations for her child’s arrival. For Fred, as well as impending fatherhood, things at work were really picking up as the North Eastern Steel Company produced its first commercial steel in the form rolled railway track. They were now a serious venture.
Sometime during this year, Fred and Janie decided to move away from Milton Street to the neighbouring street of St Pauls Road. Did they feel that Milton St prove unsuitable for some reason or was there something more attractive about the new house. Perhaps Fred received a raise in salary and they decided that a nicer place would be more desirable with the baby on the way. Mind you setting up home all over again while you are pregnant must have been exhausting. As the time for Janie to give birth drew near she would have needed support and I wish I could know what that support would have looked like.
Robert Robert’s in his book The Classic Slum describes working class midwifery as follows:
“Women having babies at home were always ‘confined’…Any neighbourhood had half a dozen middle-aged women with special skills who could be booked for the lying in.” In the Advice to a Wife book Pye winges on for an alarming number of pages about the importance of choosing the right experienced ‘monthly nurse’ and recommends that one be hired even in early pregnancy, although heaven forfend that the woman in question have anything to say to a visiting physician. We can’t know if Janie engaged a professional midwife or if she just made recourse to Fred’s old landlady Mrs Gordon, and whatever network of women she was connected too. Janie might even have wanted her mother to come and be with her specially, but given that James was now gone, would it have been too hard for Maria to leave the Cross Keys?
Whatever she chose, as the Summer started to make its shift into Autumn, on the 3rd of September, Janie and Fred welcomed their first child, a son, and named him Frederick.
The pattern of tragedy following joy in 1883 continued and just a couple of weeks later, Fred had to deal with the following disaster at work:
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail - Wednesday 19 September 1883
EXPLOSION OF MOLTEN METAL. SEVERAL PERSONS INJURED. [telegram from our reporter.] A dreadful accident occurred at the North-Eastern Steel Works, Middlesbrough, to-day (Wednesday.) The works bad been thrown open to the inspection of the members of the Iron and Steel Institute, and were visited about noon by several gentlemen, including Mr Davison, who is resident in tho vicinity of Leeds. About 12 o’clock a large company were in the Bessemer shop watching the operation of transferring a mass of molten metal from the cupola to No. 2 Bessemer converter, when the bogey on which the metal was placed came off the line, and it was whilst several men were engaged pressing it on that the metal slipped off and fell to the ground. A terrific explosion ensued, masses of metal flying in all directions. Several spectators were fearfully burnt, including Mr Davison, who nearly had his sight destroyed. John Jackson, C. Lister, Ed. Rowden, M. McGravy, and several other workmen were burnt about the body. They were removed to the Infirmary. Later articles report that several men later died from their injuries. As the commercial clerk for the firm, poor Fred would have had to go to their various families with the final wage packets.
As their first wedding anniversary approached another of the Handsworth village elders was lost and Janie would have be very sad to have received the following black bordered memorial card, almost identical to her fathers, that reads “In Memoriam - In Affectionate Remembrance of George Allen, died October 7th 1883, Aged 55 years. Interred this day at Handsworth, nr Sheffield, October 10th 1883.”
This was the Mr Allen who so often featured in Janie and Fred’s writing, he was the the deliverer of all their letters and would often give Janie a lift in his pony a trap up the hill from Darnall. Like Maria carrying on the business of the Cross Keys, Mrs Allen became the postmistress and carried on the business alone at least for the next decade.
After year full of highs and lows, it’s nice to know that there was one last bit of good news for Janie and Fred.
As well as the earlier article, John Meays has left behind quite the record in the newspapers over the next decade, and I’m going to be telling some of his story next time. He shows up in 1883 as secretary to the Wombwell Horticultural Society and in October in a report on the rather catchily named BARNSLEY POULTRY, PIGEON, RABBIT, AND CAGE BIRD SOCIETY where’s he’s recorded as wining a prize for a pair of bantams. I imagine however that the notice John have been most proud of this year was as follows:
Meays-Liversidge Nov 29th at the Parish Church Rotherham, by the Rev. C. E. L. Corfield, M. A. John Meays, Wombwell to Mary Burkitt, second daughter of Mr W. J. Liversidge, Ickies House, Rotherham.
Back in season 2, in the episode ’Several young men wanting wives’ Fred had a letter from John Meays dated the 7th Dec 1881 in which he made mention of his strong desire for matrimony, referred
to the idea of he and Fred being each other’s best men and even offered a heartfelt prayer, he wrote:
“Your remarks respecting a certain event in communication with myself are quite premature, in fact if you are thinking of officiating (as you doing[sp?] at my event) at mine, before you take the step yourself, I am afraid yours will not come off, as soon as you anticipate.
…
Certainly I should be only too glad if mine was going to take place soon, but fate + the pocket are against it. […] I had a letter from Charlesworth a few days ago, + he describes it, as a sort of Oasis on the Desert of Life, green […] days of loving quiet coming after stormy ones.
My sincere prayer is, may Him which bears us on in love’s flowing stream, bring us both in due course to the happiest time of our life as soon as possible.”
John’s prayer had finally been answered and I can only imagine what a beaming bridegroom he would have made.
On his and Mary’s marriage record, the witnesses are all relatives including a William Meays so I wonder if he was John’s best man rather than our Fred. Would Fred and Janie have brought little Frederick all the way to Rotherham when he was just 12 weeks old? I think that would have been highly unlikely. It would have been cold and probably wet, I can’t imagine it would have been considered safe. In 1880 the infant mortality rate for children under the age of five was 238 deaths for every thousand births. That’s nearly one in four. I think it more likely that Fred may have attended John and Mary’s wedding by himself leaving his infant son safely in Janie’s care. While he may have been a little forlorn having to attend the wedding alone, he must have felt rather satisfied that his dear friend John had had his prayer answered and had joined in that “happiest time of our life”.
And that brings us to the end of 1883. Gosh I am missing the letters, we spent nearly a years worth of podcasts on 1882 with the letters and here, we’ve galloped through one year in just one episode. What a difference.
Now next time will be in two weeks - I’m going to take a weeks break - My Love Letter Time Machine is up for another award, this time for the International Women’s Podcast Awards for the second year running, in the category of ‘Moment of Compelling Story Telling’. So I’m going up to that London. I’m so delighted to have been shortlisted and so proud. Thank you all of you for continuing to listing and your continued support. However I will be back - as I said in two weeks, where we continue with the rather extensive exploits of dear old John Meays.
[outro]
Thank you so much for listening to My Love Letter Time Machine. Would you consider showing the podcast some love by clicking on the ratings, leaving a review or sharing it with someone who you think might enjoy it. You can also find excerpts of Fred and Janie’s letters on instagram at my love letter time machine all one word and you can write to me at my love letter time machine at gmail dot com.
Until next time, take care.
© Ingrid Birchell Hughes 2023