There is a growing and disturbing trend for something called Home Education, where children are withdrawn from school and educated at home. Evidently this is popular, but raises many questions about the breadth of the child's education and social interaction and standards. However, it is obviously not new, and has led me to look at those families in the past who did educate their children at home and employ a governess. Alongside this, a project run by the FACHRS [Family and Community Historical Research Society - see www.fachrs.com ] is also investigating governesses across the country. I was allocated a Governess who was in Richmond in the 1881 census, but I became so intrigued by the life of this young Governess, I went on to look at others who were also in this district. So this month is all about the hidden life of those young women who went to be governesses and what became of them. The Leeds Intelligencer 7 January 1860 My allocated governess was Augusta Lucy Christie, born 1860, died 1923, but in the 1881 census was governess to a military family in Richmond. Her life was indeed an interesting one. She was born in London, although her parents had married in Great Yarmouth. Before her marriage, her mother had been a governess and in her widowhood returned to teaching. Her father was an Outfitter and the family had two servants. However Augusta's father died in 1872 and although he left the family comfortably off Augusta travelled all the way to Yorkshire to be a governess to the four children of Mrs Miller, widow of Major Dugald Stewart Miller of the North Yorks Rifle Militia. After teaching in Wolverhampton in 1891, Augusta ended up as companion / governess to the grown - up daughters of a Lancashire industrialist in Rawtenstall. Throughout her whole life Augusta had always lived in a house with servants, but she and her family [her mother and a sister also turned to teaching] had to work to earn their living. Where did Augusta gain her education ? Was she educated by her own mother or sent to school ? We do not know. But we do know she was a musician from a report of a concert in 1878 that praised her piano playing. So what did she bring to life in Richmond in 1881 ? And did she meet the other governesses ? The Governess by Richard Redgrave [1804 - 1888] V & A, on ArtUk website. Governesses appeared in the household of the titled, landed gentry, professional gentlemen, officers in the military and farmers. This last category interested me, how large a farm allowed enough income to employ a governess ? There are not many large farms in this upland area , but nevertheless I found some farmers who employed governesses. First of all the Big Houses - Aske Hall on the Zetland estate, the home of the Dundas family. In 1881 Lord Zetland employed a governess called Katherine Worth Playford to look after his three children. He also had another 26 servants in the hall, and plenty in cottages around the estate. Katherine Worth Playford was born in 1853 in Worth in Sussex, daughter of a Land Agent, who possibly worked for a large estate in the south, and had three servants of his own. Three of his daughters became governesses one eventually having her own school. Later in her life Katherine moved on to be a matron in a boys' preparatory school and then a boys' boarding school. So she remained within the realm of education, but not teaching. Marske Hall in Swaledale is a few miles to the west of Richmond and was the home of the Hutton family. In 1881 Fanny Plowright was the governess to four Hutton children and there were twelve more servants in the house. She was born in 1848, also in Sussex, the daughter of a teacher at a National School. After her father died Fanny had to make her own way in the world and came north to Yorkshire, but by 1891 had returned to live with her widowed mother in Nottingham. This is Brough Hall near Catterick the home of the Lawson family who were Roman Catholics. Their governess in 1881 was Angela Rienssett. Her unusual name has made it difficult to trace her life, but she was born in 1852 in London. In 1851, before her birth, there were three girls called Rienssett in a Catholic Girls' School in Pancras, London, undoubtedly the same family, and also in 1881, when Angela was in Brough Hall, a Louisa Rienssett was a French Governess in a Convent boarding school in Blackburn, Lancashire. Sir John Lawson had 15 servants looking after him at Brough Hall and there were seven children plus a tiny baby. In Richmond there were several military families linked to the 19th Regiment of Foot, the Green Howards, and professional gentlemen who were solicitors, doctors, clergymen etc. One of the solicitors was called Wensley Hunton and he lived on Maison Dieu, the road where it says Terrace Ho. on the map above . He employed Caroline Chester as a governess to his six children in 1881. She had not come far, she was born in 1856 in Hull, so at least she was a Yorkshire lass, and was the daughter of a solicitor, so perhaps there was a professional connection between her father and Mr Hunton. She had been brought up in a house with two servants, and coming to Richmond the Huntons had four servants in addition to the governess. Caroline had been sent away to a boarding school in Grantham where she had learned languages. By 1891 she was in Hornsey in London. Robert H King was a Land Agent in Richmond and a farmer of 90 acres, living on Frenchgate. He employed Frances E Allsop as governess to his three children and kept one other servant. Frances was born in 1860 in Oldbury, Worcestershire, daughter of a chemist and druggist, who later became a hotel keeper in West Bromwich. He also kept servants. Later in life Frances became a housekeeper. Also on Frenchgate in the household of Thomas Carter, doctor, who was married to a sister of the Hunton solicitor, and their three children was Amelia Jacobson, governess. She was born in 1859 in Hamburg. There were four other servants in the house. What happened to her next is not known, but there was an Amalie Jacobson, foreigner, aged 29, on the passenger lists for the ship "Scythia" bound for Boston, America out of Liverpool in 1891. This was the Officers' Mess at the Barracks in Richmond, although the married officers lived in the town with their families. Lizzie Annie Bliss was governess to the three children of Captain Herbert S Gipps. She was born in London in 1859 and had been educated at a boarding school in St Pancras. Her father was a Telegraph Station Master, and also an amateur musician. He married twice, and his second wife and daughter were also musical. Lizzie disappeared after the 1881 census, no record of her marriage or death, but she could have gone abroad. Lizzie had two sisters who were governesses. Captain Gipps kept three other servants in his household. Another military family lived at St Martins, just outside Richmond, Major Samuel Harrper Powell and his six children. Major Powell (retired) kept four other servants. Their governess Charlotte Woodford was very creative with her age and was born around 1833 in Oxfordshire. Her father was an accountant / bank manager and kept one servant. Charlotte was a governess in 1871 in Lambeth before coming north in 1881. In 1891 she was living with a widowed sister in Paddington, London and died in Lambeth in 1910 unmarried. This is Rudd Hall which is just south of Catterick, a little distance from Richmond. Another German governess was here in 1881 in the household of William Edward Williamson, an annuitant, which means he had a private income and did not work, and his three children. Sara F M Rickmann was born in 1860 in Mecklenburg and there were four other servants in the house. So now to the farmers who could afford to have a governess in their home to educate their children. In some cases it may have been because the farm was very isolated, but I was interested to see what size of farm could afford such a luxury. John Cragg Thwaite farmed at Feldom in 1881. This is now all part of the vast acres that are owned by the Ministry of Defence for training purposes and is very high moorland. But John Cragg Thwaite managed to earn enough income to employ Lizzie Boyle as a governess to his seven children and a small baby. He said that he had 466 acres, but this would be entirely marginal grazing land on open moor. In addition to the governess he had one domestic servant and two farm servants living in. Lizzie Boyle was born in 1842 at Hilton which is between Stokesley and Yarm, not that far away, and she was a widow. In 1891 she was governess to another farming family near Richmond, William Henry Robinson at Applegarth. Stainton is just to the south west of Richmond, over a moor, and is also land now owned by the Ministry of Defence, and they have a training camp at Wathgill, on this map. But in 1881 Robert Deacon farmed at Stainton and employed Edith Sanders as a governess to his two children. He did not say in the census how much land he farmed, but the majority of his farm would be moorland. Edith Sanders was born in 1842 at Linthorpe, now part of Middlesbrough, and Robert Deacon had one other servant. In 1881 Robert Simpson farmed 204 acres at St Trinians [above] and employed Catherine E Scott as governess to his nine children who were aged between 2 and 17 years. He had three other servants living in. I have not found out much about Catherine other than her appearance in 1881 when she said she was born in Birmingham in 1861. Just to the north of Richmond are two villages called Caldwell and Eppleby, these are on better quality land which will grow arable crops. In Caldwell Frank Dent farmed 116 acres and employed a governess called Ada Paine for his five children plus one other servant. The Dent household is interesting in itself, being a local family, although Frank was born in Southampton. However, Ada Paine came from Great Paxton in Huntingdonshire and was a daughter of a farmer called Jabez Paine who had 500 acres. By 1891 Ada was back with her own father, so what drew her up to Yorkshire I do not know. In Eppleby a farm called Low Field [just north of this map and nearer to Piercebridge] was occupied by Jonas Hall who farmed 600 acres and employed Mary S Stoddart as governess to his six children plus another two servants. The family who have recently had Low Field have run part of it as a Pick-Your-Own fruit farm, and I can vouch for the deliciousness of their fruit. But in 1881 Mary Stoddart had left her native London, she was born in 1850 in Islington, to be a governess. I am intrigued by her name as Stoddart is also a local name but she definitely came from London, daughter of John Stoddart, a watchmaker. Her sister and her mother became school teachers and in 1891 Mary had left Yorkshire and gone to Hackney to teach music in the school run by her sister Emily. So what can be understood about these Governesses ? Firstly, many of them came from great distances. Many of them came from servant employing households, some that can be traced in subsequent censuses never married. But tracing people through the censuses gives a very limited view of their lives, one snap shot every ten years is not really much to go on. What happened in between ? There was one governess in Richmond who was "out of employ", and I am sure this happened a lot. So if your accommodation was tied to your job where did you go between jobs ? Clara Sowerby was born in 1858 in Darlington daughter of Joseph Sowerby of Middleton in Teesdale who was a Land Agent and his wife Susannah. After Joseph died Susannah ran a private school in Darlington and at least one other of her daughters became a governess. In 1881 Clara was out of employment and living with a married sister in Richmond, but by 1891 was back in Darlington teaching music and living with her mother who kept one servant. Clara died unmarried in Darlington in 1914. So there was no protection of employment, and if out of work what happened to Governesses if they did not have extended family to take them in ? I will end this piece with some details of court cases which reveal the precarious position of Governesses. In 1855 the Newcastle Journal dedicated a whole page to a scandalous case concerning a Governess. She was Jane Beatrice Jones and a Roman Catholic priest had got her pregnant and she subsequently had a baby boy, and was going through the courts to get maintenance from him [brave girl !] . The story revealed her life as a governess. Miss Jones said that she was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman, but had converted to Roman Catholicism. Her governess career ranged from being at a school near Sheffield kept by a Miss Lewes, then she went to be governess to a family called Barkas in Yorkshire for 5 or 6 years, then she went to Loughborough and gave private lessons and had a house and a servant, then went to a convent in Loughborough for two months, then had a spell as a day governess to a family, then went as a governess to Leicester to a Catholic family but did not stop as the mother was a "vulgar gossip". She had friends at Wolverton Hall and stayed there for a while before taking a position as a governess to the Ayre family at Stockton on Tees. Here she was unhappy with the domestic situation and confessed such to the local Catholic Priest, Richard Singleton, who comforted her in more ways than one. She moved out of the Ayre's home in Stockton into his house for the period of November and December, and lo and behold, a baby boy was born the following August. During the court case "Miss Jones then appeared in court with the child in her arms, who to all appearance was a fine stout healthy boy, and, as stated by the counsell, resembled the Reverend gentleman" The court confirmed that the Reverend gentleman had to pay maintenance. Another case in 1877 was about a woman who had been a Baby Farmer and was sentenced to hanging for murdering babies. This was not an unknown phenomenon in Victorian times. The mothers of illegitimate babies paid some woman to care for their infants and often they were never seen again. In many cases the paid Baby Farmer took the money, did away with the infant and claimed they had died of natural causes. Sophia Martha Todd was one such unscrupulous woman and was sentenced to death, but later received a reprieve as it could not actually be proved how she had done away with the last victim. However, in the court case she gave her life story and at one time had been a governess ! She was the daughter of a civil engineer from Glasgow who had gone out to Barbadoes and married the daughter of a Planter. Sophia Martha was the result of that marriage and her father had brought her back to England to be educated. She was then sent to Brussels to finish her education and from there she became a Governess to a Polish nobleman. She became proficient in languages, lived in Russia, but then came to Yorkshire as a governess, then a language teacher in Lancaster, where she met and married a farmer. Life then took a downward turn, the farm did not make money, the husband went to work on the railways and she became a bar maid in Liverpool ! [Perhaps her languages were useful there ?] After the death of her husband she took to Baby Farming, one child she deliberately abandoned in the street, another she suffocated, and the last one was wilfully murdered. In 1890 the newspapers reported on a case where a poor governess was employed by a household, the rest of the servants left, and she was expected to be cook, cleaner and maid as well as Governess. Her name was Harker and she was from Richmond in Yorkshire. She had an unusual name, the newspapers called her Miss Willan Harker, one census has her as Gillan Harker, but most have her as Miss Hannah W Harker. She was employed by a surveyor at Stockton on Tees for the modest salary of 25 shillings a month. This was not very much but she could eat in the house, although not live with them. She had to rent a place which took most of her salary. She had to teach three children English and music, but found two toddlers were put in her charge as well. When other servants left she had to take on extra duties in the household and decided to leave. She complained and was shown the door and was suing the family for a month's wages in lieu of notice. In the court case it was alleged that she had been in an asylum (though I have not found her in one) ten years prior to being a governess at Stockton. The judge made an order that she should be paid with costs. She must have continued as a governess because in 1891 she was at Cleveland Villas, Eston (now part of Middlesbrough) a governess to the family of Herbert le Neve Foster, a manager of the steel works, and his two small children. This governess was the daughter of John and Esther Harker born about 1856 in Richmond. Her father was a Court Bailiff for the County Court and she had sisters who also became governesses. When her mother was widowed she ran a small school in Richmond and three of her daughters were teachers. After the mother's death one daughter took over as principal of the school, and Hannah Willan and another sister were the teachers. This picture is called The Lesson by William Oliver [1823 - 1901] Sheffield Museum, care of ArtUk website
So, we just catch glimpses of Governesses, a world now disappeared and almost forgotten, but all these women were once part of the communities in which our ancestors lived. They travelled, they were brave, they had to put up with much and received little in return, but for those who could afford it they provided a limited form of Home Education. Of course there is much more to be said about Governesses, but that would be a whole lecture ...... or even a course of study.
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