Viv Carter started her talk, Wives, Widows, Sisters and Daughters: Tracing the lives of Victorian Women, by reminding us that before the 19th century women’s assets were nearly always in the control of a man; such as her father and then her husband. She might never derive the benefit personally of anything she inherited because legally the man in her life could use it as he thought fit.
The 1870 (Married) Women’s Property Act gave women some control over money and rented property that they had inherited. But it only dealt with women who were, or had been, married. Later in her talk, Viv mentioned that to protect female beneficiaries’ some women had stipulated in their Wills that the bequest could not be used by any future husband of the beneficiary.
Viv’s talk was based on the lives and financial circumstances of nine Victorian women, some of whom she had been researching for over 20 years. The basic research tools of census returns, parish registers and BMD certificates gave rise to her speculations about how these women had managed to prosper through their lives. In trying to make her speculations facts Viv used many other sources including Wills, Churchwardens accounts, newspapers etc. She also got in touch with another researcher via a tree match on ancestry. Viv said, that this American family historian, had been extremely helpful swapping information and sharing family photographs. Although, the unresolved question about MaryAnn’s American connections was did her parents send her sons, Stephen and Samuel by her husband John, to America after his death and provide an annuity for MaryAnn?
Viv covered the life of MaryAnn’s sister-in-law Jane Hall/Young, who after her husband John died, ran Employment Agencies in both Glasgow and London. Jane lived into her 80s and was independent to the end of her life.
The respective Wills of the husbands of Elizabeth Rippon née Moore and MaryAnn née Pearson indicated their lack of affluence at death. Despite, in the case of one husband who had held down two jobs. But the wives Elizabeth and MaryAnn, show that at the end of their lives they were each wealthier than their respective husbands had been. In the case of Elizabeth Walton, she was able to leave bequests to the 16 children of the marriage. Viv was unable to find hard evidence of how Elizabeth ran her husband's Butcher's shop; which she did for 20 years after her husband's death; whilst also managing rental property. As Elizabeth never remarried, did her husband’s three brothers help her?
Moving on to the first two Ogilvie sisters; Viv’s Great Aunt Celia and Harriet. The latter owned at least 2 houses despite being described as a servant in an 1865 newspaper report about her being discharged from Bankruptcy. The 1861 and 1871 censuses show Harriet as the proprietor of houses in Greenwich and Frimley. Harriet, a Widow, married James Oram, an itinerant Labourer in 1877. Viv thought this marriage could have been a way to hide the stigma of being bankrupt as on marriage she would have a new surname.
Two other Ogilvie sisters, Ann Skelton aged 43, and Mary Ann aged 55, appear to have played the marriage card too. Their respective husbands were both in their 70s at marriage. Viv surmised they were probably marriages of convenience, because a Widow had more freedom than a Spinster in that era. Viv showed several diagrams plotting the movements and occupations of the Ogilvie women and ended their story with an 1855 Chantry Court case involving Caroline Skelton Ogilvie. It involved £1,300, a large amount in those days but Viv has not been able to track down the outcome of this case.
To conclude her well researched talk Viv listed the occupations of the women under discussion and the skills they would have needed to carry them out efficiently; Governess, Landlady, Lodging House Keeper, Bank of Mum and Dad, Dressmaker, Shop Keeper, Companion.
Report by Tricia Baxter