Once safely delivered, the neonate had to be sustained. Well before the birth elite women had decided whether they themselves would breast-feed the baby, and depending upon that decision had hired a nursery maid or found a wet-nurse. Such decisions have assumed a totemic role in many accounts of eighteenth-century motherhood. Somewhat perversely, Stone and Trumbach have both used the incidence of maternal breast-feeding as an index of blooming mother love in the period, by implication indicting all those apparently unloving mothers who bottle-feed today.74 Growing expectations that the ideal mother would breast-feed her own babies have been routinely remarked throughout the period 1600–1850, but whether a precise chronology can be constructed on the basis of propaganda is questionable. However, rigorous study by Valerie Fildes of all the available options verifies that the national trend over the period was one of increasing dissatisfaction with the alternatives to mother's own breast-milk.75 What this meant for practice at the local level at any particular point in time is another matter. While acknowledging the direction of change, Judith Lewis finds a striking diversity in infant feeding among the fifty noblewomen at the heart of her study. Despite an increase in maternal breast-feeding from 1760 to 1850, no single custom prevailed.76 What a national increase in maternal breast-feeding says about the complexities of maternal emotion for individuals also remains obscure. In fact, when eighteenth-century ideologues urged the ‘natural duty’ of breast-feeding, their principal lure was that the practice was beneficial to the mother's health.77 The exact meaning of breast-feeding to a nursing mother or concerned father awaits further research.
In the genteel families studied here, discussion of feeding decisions is confined to the letters women exchanged with women. Paternal preferences seem all but irrelevant. Yet the issue was undoubtedly charged with emotion. Jane Scrimshire betrayed an anxious need to be confirmed in her own decisions when she told Elizabeth Parker ‘I sho'd be glad to know whether you intend the Little one to suck or not I Hope you do’, and repeatedly asked ‘you have never said whether he suck'd or not Pray let me know your next’.78 The female decisions recorded here roughly correspond with a decline in wet-nursing, but the revealed trend is by no means decisive. In the 1730s in York Anne Gossip breast-fed her babies. In the 1740s in Leeds Anne Stanhope employed a ‘thorough, healthy good natured girl’ to serve as a live-in wet-nurse, as did Elizabeth Parker in Colne in the 1750s. Jane Scrimshire also opted for a wet-nurse in this decade, but sent her babies out of Pontefract to be suckled.79 In the 1760s the Londoner Bessy Ramsden breast-fed all her babies herself. In the 1780s Betty Parker's first-born was ‘obliged to be brought up by the spoon as his mother has not Milk for him’, provoking the grandmother's disapproval: ‘God bless him he has already experienced his Disappointments what a pitty he co'd not have the breast.’ However, she had the grace to concede ‘his uncle name sake was brought up by hand & he is no Skeleton’.80 In the 1810s Ellen Weeton had to abandon breast-feeding through illness and employ a live-in nurse. Elizabeth Addison suckled her babies, while the widowed Anne Robbins found relief and consolation in being a successful nurse. This is not to imply that between the 1730s and the 1820s women made a simple, once and for all choice between wet-nursing, artificial feeding and the breast, swayed only by contemporary medical opinion. As three of the preceding examples suggest, by no means all women were able to breast-feed, whatever their convictions.
The earliest account of the suckling and weaning of babies is that of Jane Scrimshire, who left a nursing record for the two youngest of her three children, Jenny, Tommy and Deborah. Born 19 June 1753, Tom Scrimshire was nursed away from home. He came back for at least two visits; his mother received regular reports and recorded her satisfaction. Tom was put into short coats in December 1753, he cut his first tooth in February 1754, and at nine months his mother began ‘to think of Weaning in about a Months time as the Learned say they shod never suck Less than half a year, not beyond a Whole year’. In September 1754, at fifteen months, he returned to the family for good. Deborah Scrimshire, however, was nursed away for a mere five months. Born in May 1756, when she came home for a visit in November her mother was loath to part with her, whatever the opinion of the learned. ‘Debby has been at Home these two months’ wrote Jane in January 1757, ‘her Pappa says nothing about her Going, so I shall not. She has got two teeth …’ It appears that the babe was promptly weaned, but the wet-nurse was subsequently hired as nursery maid.81 It should go without saying that the mere fact of wet-nursing is no proof in itself of maternal indifference or callous neglect.
Bessy Ramsden nursed her four children, Billy, Betsy, Tommy and Dick herself. ‘As I am a nurse,’ she reported in 1768, ‘I take great care of myself and drink porter like any fishwoman.’ But breast-feeding was not without its difficulties and side effects. Dame Bessy suffered headaches, loss of concentration and diminishing sight all of which she attributed to nursing, yet she was determined to persevere: ‘I have been almost Blind & am still dim sighted. It tis Thought that suckeling is the occasion of it, but I don't care to give a hearing to that subject, as my littel Tommy shall not Loose his comfort, Tho' his Mama's peepers suffer for it.’ Nevertheless, Bessy Ramsden was evidently conversant with the positive benefits of her practice:
My Littel Boy has not for this three week been from my Bed or lap half hour at a time. For to my shame (Tho' happy it was for him) I still suckel him. therefore dear Madam do not take it into your head that I am in an increacing way for thank God I am not.
Either she drew on the widespread belief in the contraceptive power of prolonged lactation, or she acknowledged the conservative prohibition against intercourse while breast-feeding. Either way, she registered a desire to delay weaning and control her own fertility.82 Weaning, however, might also have been postponed for its own sake, for it was seen as an arduous transition, traumatic and very dangerous for the child and possibly hazardous for the breast-feeding mother:
Betsy is to be shod tomorrow & in a month will I hope be able to run alone: but what will you think when I tell you she is not yet Weaned. how to set about it is more than I know: this may serve to shew that some of your suspicions are Groundless & that the number of your relations is not Likely to encrease soon at least at the Charterhouse.83
Women were not unaware of expert opinion and fashion, yet the decision to commence weaning could be swayed by contingent factors. In 1756 Jane Scrimshire had Deb weaned before the six-month ‘minimum’ simply because she wanted the infant home. Women's ambivalence on the issue of weaning had not waned by the early nineteenth century, neither had the vagaries of circumstance. Ellen Weeton had her daughter Mary weaned earlier than she would have liked because of the nurse's uncivil conduct: ‘I am sorry to wean the child so soon, but the nurses conduct has been so very reprehensible, that I must part with her. She has behaved well to the child, and had she been but commonly civil to me in any degree trusty I would have kept her some months longer’.84 In 1813, well aware of current medical opinion, Elizabeth Addison consciously delayed weaning her ten-month old baby boy. Perhaps she breast-fed in order to avoid another pregnancy, for her fears of childbirth were intense: ‘I nurse him yet,’ she declared, ‘notwithstanding the fashion of weaning at 3 or 4 months.’ Three months later, only outright conflict with medical authority forced her hand: ‘I have at last weaned [my little boy] much against my inclination,’ she reported, ‘but I was persuaded to it or at least ordered to do it, by Mr Shuttleworth when he attended John.’85 Whatever the timing, however, ‘the arduous task of weaning’, like teething, was a source of considerable anxiety to both parents across the eighteenth century, as indeed it had been in earlier centuries. Still these northern remarks offer considerable evidence to support the contention that infant feeding was an area of considerable female autonomy, women being prepared to resent and resist medical opinion which did not suit their own inclinations. As James Nelson complained in 1753, ‘the precise Term of a Child's sucking is a point much controverted, particul
arly among Ladies, but nothing ascertain'd’.86
* * *
In the elite family the care of and responsibility for young children fell principally to the mother, supported by a nursery maid. Even with the help of a servant, it is evident women found their responsibilities all-consuming, leaving little or no time for the pleasures and activities of spinsterhood or the honeymoon years. What is less clear, however, is the precise division of labour between a mother and nursemaid. It would appear plausible that maids performed the menial tasks such as cleaning, washing, making children's meals and sewing, while mothers amused, educated and disciplined their children. But here evidence is at its most fragmentary. Bessy Ramsden felt her nursery maid had enough to do without needlework, consequently she spent the evenings trying to catch up with her making and mending, and bewailed ‘it is not without Constant imploy that I can keep them out of Raggs’. Yet Bessy was undoubtedly an extraordinary employer. She fully expected her friends to expostulate, ‘What, don't her maids do the needel work?’87 In the 1780s Betty Parker employed a full-time nurse, who was supposed to be with the infant at all times, enabling the mother to continue a comparatively lively local social life. Half a century later Ellen Parker declared when a mother of one, ‘I have not a regular nurse girl, only an occasional assistant when busy’. But in the 1820s, with a growing brood of five she was forced into reliance on a regular maid, something which proved a chronic source of anxiety. She feared some women were too feeble to manage the turbulent spirits in her nursery, while others she suspected of neglect and outright cruelty when her back was turned.88
19 ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales & her Infant daughter, attended by Lady Chomondely’, 1797. Royal maternity is celebrated in this image of the unfortunate Princess Charlotte as a babe in arms, born in 1796. The young princess died lingeringly in childbed in November 1817, aged twenty-one, an event that registered in the letters of countless ladies that year.
20 ‘Morning Dress’, depicting an affectionate mother and child, from Ackermann's Repository of Arts (1810).
21 ‘Goodnight’, 1808, depicting another indulgent mother.
This is not to imply that elite mothers spent only an amusing couple of hours each evening with their offspring. Nursemaids were seen as a supplement to the mother, not a replacement. Children were routinely described as companions and mothers took seriously their role as educators and entertainers. In the 1770s Bessy Ramsden was reported reading the new play to her brood and she presided over the staging of a play. In order to see how ‘her Bratts behave themselves’ and because she still had ‘a Taste for tweedledum & tweedle dee’, she accompanied them to children's parties and private balls and took ‘the tribe’ out on jaunts to Greenwich and Kensington. In fact, Mrs Ramsden claimed (not with unvarnished truth as it turned out) that for the sake of taking the children out into the sunshine, she had given up visiting entirely.89 Anna Larpent consciously saw herself as a teacher. She set aside ‘stated times for regular study even in infancy’; and devised a rigorous programme of domestic reading for her yawning young sons. Countless afternoons were spent escorting them round educational exhibitions and panoramas. Larpent took issue with much fashionable educational theory, disagreeing with Maria Edgeworth on many points and boasting subsequently,
I never found my children troublesome – I always tried to feed their minds as well as their bodies … by encouraging observation & interest in what they see. & by early giving them an idea of getting information … I was always ready to hear them read spell &c. A good nurse should always be ready to suckle her child. A good mother should always be ready to feed its mind.90
In the 1810s, although never believing she was ‘calculated for a School Mistress’, another Londoner, the widow Anne Robbins, taught her children reading, writing, spelling, Latin grammar, accounts and geography.91 A complete maternal performance, from which many women drew much pride, could be intellectually as well as practically demanding.
Even for the employing classes, the social constraints of child-rearing were very real. If the different roles of men and women were discussed in relationship, men were associated with important matters and women with children: ‘I hear Mrs Parker is confined by the natural effects of matrimony and yourself by the workmen’, wrote Ned Parker to his cousin Robert Parker in 1754.92 Motherhood devoured almost all reserves of physical and emotional energy for, at the very least, a decade of a fertile woman's life. Ten years of Elizabeth Parker's life (c.1753–62) were absorbed by pregnancies and caring for children under five; Jane Scrimshire spent eleven years so employed (c.1751–61); and Bessy Ramsden thirteen (c. 1763–75). All three women became poor correspondents for this period of their lives. Indeed, Jane Scrimshire prophesied in 1752 that Elizabeth Parker's long, witty letters would soon be a thing of the past: ‘therefore Dear Mad'm pursue it as long as you're able for I have a Strange Suspicion that when you become a Mother & a Housekeeper you'll be as bad as some other people …’ And sure enough Mrs Scrimshire was soon able to tease the young matron: ‘I am not at all surpriz'd you don't answer your Correspondents as punctually as you used to Do.’ But Scrimshire had to make similar amends herself, pleading maternal responsibilities: ‘I ought to have thank'd my dear Mrs Parker last post for the many Civilitys & favours we Recd at Alkincoats but a thousand Petits riens that happens in Familys prevented me giving myself that pleasure and you a Journal of our travels.’93 No born correspondent, Bessy Ramsden's letter-writing lapsed almost completely in the 1760s, since husband William was prepared to maintain the correspondence on her behalf. William completed her half-finished letters and made her excuses: ‘Mrs R. was called up to her Nursery or she woud not have left off so abruptly.’ Her occasional letters are testament to constant domestic interruption: ‘My littel folks are making such a noise that I cannot tell what I write.’ It was not until 1773 that she felt in a position to contemplate devoting time to letter-writing:
my time is always imployed and if I do take a pen I always meet with some interrupsion – but I hope now to mend – as I have Lay'd by my cradle I shall have more time and be quite a fine Lady, thank God the Barns [are] now … out of the way in the nursery … My little folks are now pestering me [for] their Tea, so shall conclud.94
In fact, motherhood was so well associated with a decline of social intercourse that a lazy, but unmarried correspondent was able to jest, ‘would you advise me to be married and then I can get my mother in law to write all my letters, for when I am Breeding, therefore consequently sick, it will be a good excuse to save myself the trouble’. Mary Warde complained when a distant correspondent mounted the altar: ‘it was very elegantly said by Orinda to Poliarchus that the Marriage of a Friend is the Funeral of Friendship.’95 Once embarked upon a maternal course, married women had only limited time and creative energy to invest in anything beyond household and kin; a point forcibly made by an extraordinary woman, Hester Thrale, when criticized for her incomplete record of Doctor Johnson's sayings:
little do these wise Men know or feel, that the Crying of a young Child, or the Perverseness of an elder, or the Danger however trifling of any one – will soon drive out of a female Parent's head a Conversation concerning Wit, Science or Sentiment, however She may appear to be impressed with it at the moment: besides that to a Mere de Famille doing something is more necessary & suitable than even hearing something; and if one is to listen all Eveng and write all Morning what one has heard; where will be the Time for tutoring, caressing, or what is still more useful, for having one's Children about one: I therefore charge all my Neglect to my young one's Account …96
As new mothers, genteel women became less mobile and their time for company was radically reduced. Although Jane Scrimshire and Elizabeth Parker longed to meet ‘to Compare notes about our young ones’, they reconciled themselves to the indefinite postponement of cross-county visits while carrying and nursing their infants. Bessy and William Ramsden never embarked on their long-discussed trip to Lancashire and Yorks
hire. Initially, the long journey north was thought too much for the babies and later plans were scotched by the children's numerous illnesses. In 1768, breast-feeding her third child, the ever-gregarious Bessy Ramsden complained that she had only got out of the house three times since her confinement. She felt obliged to pay a promised visit, ‘but the Lord knows when, for I find full imployment in my nursery’.97 Still, as time went on, a semblance of pre-children social life was re-established. Deputizing a willing husband or trusted servant for a few hours, cards, tea, assemblies and oratorios might again be enjoyed in polite urban centres like Preston, Pontefract, York and London. For the women of the remote Whalley parish, however, polite sociability depended upon considerable mobility and long visits. Elizabeth and Robert Parker made at least one tour alone together without their children, though not without detailed progress reports from the children's nurse; and, after at least a five-year delay, the Scrimshires made the trip from Pontefract to Colne in the summer of 1757. With much planning, packing and determination, it was possible for an older family to be fairly mobile. By the late 1760s the Ramsdens were escaping the disease-ridden capital every summer to tour about the home counties and south coast in two post-chaises, and once Elizabeth Parker's sons went to school and she purchased an all-weather carriage, her friends anticipated a resumption of local jaunting.98
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