Biography
Catherine Jones: A Pauper Biography
This is an imaginative recreation of her life:
Catherine Jones sighed inwardly as she slipped out of bed and peered under the sheets, trying not to disturb her sleeping sister.[1] Still no blood; still no sign. The late autumn air whistled around the thin walls, reminding her that 1774 was drawing to end. She thought back to the early summer and counted the months again. The missed monthly courses and the stomachaches had been on the back of her mind for almost six months now,[2] but she had chalked it up to her meager food supply.[3] However, as her stomach began to grow, she could hardly hide it from her family any longer. Catherine squeezed her eyes shut, readying herself to walk to St. Andrew Undershaft parish workhouse. She had heard of women doing this before, trudging up to the workhouse gate, their wombs round with a child after an ill-advised night with a man. This summer, she thought Daniel Southerland, a Chelsea Pensioner, was different than the other veterans and ne’er-do-wells skulking around the London streets.[4] But this autumn he was nowhere to be found, and now she was on her way to the workhouse.
“You know who the father was,” her sensible sister had advised. “You might do well to go to the workhouse soon. That way you have someplace safe to give birth and you can track your Daniel down to pay security.”[5] Catherine bit her lip, imagining the matron’s forbidding frown, not to mention the workhouse men, whispering “slattern” and “whore” as she walked past.[6] But her sister was right. She needed help, and she would rather leave on her own terms than be disowned by her parents.[7]
A week later, Catherine was adjusting to life at the workhouse--from the onion gruel to the strict 8 p.m. bedtimes.[8] At least it meant three regular meals to nourish her and the baby growing inside her. At their last meeting, on November 21, the Workhouse Committee had agreed to inquire after Daniel’s whereabouts, and they would be officially examining Catherine at their next meeting.[9] She had a new bedfellow at the workhouse, too. Elizabeth Randall had been admitted a few days after Catherine, also pregnant. Unfortunately, Elizabeth was unsure of the child’s father.[10] Nonetheless, Catherine encouraged her to speak to the matron about having the committee send out a warrant to apprehend him. He, too, might be able to pay security and help Elizabeth establish herself independently.[11]
On December 19, 1774, Catherine and Elizabeth stepped nervously into the committee room.[12] They knew that the board would be discussing their pregnancies today, and they were unsure what to expect of the consequences. Would they be allowed to stay in the workhouse after they had given birth and had children to raise? Would they be given extra money to care for their newborns, or would the fathers be found to help? Neither one of them had the answers, but these questions were racing through both of their heads. They would soon find out. Jones was called up to the committee first, and asked to swear an oath of truth before it.[13] She then proceeded to inform the board members of the circumstances of her pregnancy - how a night with Daniel Southerland had led to his fathering of her unborn child, and that how she wished to find him so that she could receive support from him with their new child.
After hearing the story presented by Ms. Jones the board dismissed her and invited Ms. Randall up to testify. She also swore into the committee and confessed that, unlike Catherine, she did not know the father of her child, or where he currently resided. There was some whispering among the committee members upon hearing this, but Elizabeth continued. She requested that the committee investigate the father of her child as well, because she too would need support raising it. If they could find him, she thought, then they could certainly get him to pay security for her child as well.
The board members spoke quietly amongst themselves for some time. When they returned, it was announced that the house would be working to obtain the proper warrants in order to apprehend Mr. Southerland, seeing as the father of Ms. Jones’ child surely should pay security for the child.[14] Catherine was ecstatic! She had been worrying non-stop for days about what she would do without help and money to raise her child, and hearing this took a huge weight off of her shoulders. Then they turned to Ms. Randall, and addressed her. They announced that they would put out a warrant for the father of her child as well, however, seeing as they had very little information and did not know of his whereabouts, she should not expect much to come of it. Elizabeth was displeased upon hearing this news, but she knew showing so to her superiors would bring her nothing more than castigation, so she carried on as usual nonetheless.[15]
In early March, Catherine gave birth to a baby boy and named him John. However, Daniel had never been apprehended, so Catherine gave John her own surname, Jones.[16] It had been a difficult birth and Catherine took a long time to recover.[17] Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s daughter had been stillborn just the previous week.[18] Even in her grief, Elizabeth was an immense help to Catherine during her lying in, taking Catherine food and medicine and doting on John.[19] Because of this, the workhouse matron observed Elizabeth’s skill and offered her a position as a Nurse for the parish.[20]
That fall, as the London air grew chillier and the leaves began to turn, Catherine knew she would be discharged soon. She had already received permission to remain in the workhouse for several months past her lying in, but the workhouse would become too crowded once winter came. Finally, on October 11, 1775, the order came that she was to be discharged “on Wednesday next.”[21] Elizabeth found Catherine sobbing in the lying in room that night and sat down on the bed beside her. “Shhh, shhh, it’s alright,” whispered Elizabeth. “I’ll watch over your John. He’ll be in good hands, Catherine, love.” Catherine nodded, still gasping from her tears, but feeling a little relieved to know Elizabeth was there for her.
At least until 1784, when John was nine years old, Elizabeth was his nurse, ordering him proper clothes as he grew.[22] He didn’t know a life outside the poor relief system and didn’t remember the early months he spent with his mother. Meanwhile, Catherine found the means to get by until 1782, when she re-entered the St. Andrew Undershaft workhouse.[23] Perhaps she and John reunited then. Perhaps she never told John the truth during that one small window of opportunity in 1782.[24] In 1789, when John Jones was about 14, he was apprenticed to Samuel Oliver.[25] So when Catherine sought relief from the workhouse from 1793-94 and 1797-1800, she had lost her chance to see her son again.[26] Whether or not Catherine Jones remained in contact with John, she showed impressive tenacity, surviving the London streets when she was able and relying on the workhouse when she seemed to have had no other recourse.
[1] Adding a family for Catherine Jones was purely a liberty taken so that she had somewhere to leave when she went to the workhouse.
[2] It was common for women at this time to go up to 6-7 months without knowing they were pregnant. The assumed date of conception is based on a combination of this knowledge and the date at which she first appears in the St. Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Minute Book as pregnant. Susannah Ottaway, e-mail message to authors, January 24, 2018; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[3] Susannah Ottaway, e-mail message to authors, January 24, 2018.
[4] “Ordered that proper Inquiry be made after Daniel Southerland an out Pensioner of Chelsea Hospital being charged by Catherine Jones of being the Reputed Father of the Child or Children she is now Pregnant with...” Chelsea Hospital was an institution for veterans, hence our inference that Daniel Southerland was one. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[5] In this part of the story we wanted to exhibit both the position of weakness and the agency from within that position that Hitchcock and Shoemaker discuss: “And they were the most vulnerable of Londoners, forced by their poverty to apply for parish relief. Their common characteristic was that they were confronted by the need to negotiate from a position of relative weakness.” Hitchcock and Shoemaker continue later in their Introduction that “As a result the tactics of the poor and criminal were necessarily focused on incremental changes in pursuit of short-term advantage, and on the conservative maintenance of well-understood relationships and rights. However, in many ways this incremental character made the agency of plebian Londoners more effective, since it is easier for an overseer or a judge to make an exception in one instance than it is to respond to a wider challenge to the system’s legitimacy.” Catherine’s sister is totally fictionalized to create a dialogue exhibiting this agency. Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, “Introduction” in London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 4, 18.
[6] We took creative license in imagining Catherine’s fears, based on the discrimination towards mothers of illigitimate children in our in-class exercise and sources that represent the cultural memory of the workhouse.
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (Cambridge: Penguin Classics, 2011), ProQuest Information and Learning https://literature.proquest.com/searchFulltext.do?id=Z001585940&childSectionId=Z001585940&divLevel=0&queryId=3028818813941&trailId=15FFF56A297&area=prose&forward=textsFT&refno=PCS20118&queryType=findWork; Austin Mason and Susannah Ottaway, “Course Introduction - ‘Let's Start with a Story…’” (class activity, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, January 3, 2018).
[7] “The engagement of the paupers and criminals with the systems of relief and justice necessarily took on a character determined by the motivations that underpinned them.” Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, “Introduction” in London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 18.
At this moment, Catherine is exerting a great deal of agency over her situation for personal reasons rather than in a way that intends to create systematic change. We also took liberties to assume that Catherine’s parents might respond to an illegitimate child this way.
[8] "Gressinghall," in F.M. Eden, The State of the Poor (London, 1797), 458, 465.
[9] “Inquiry after Dan Southerland rep^d Fath of a Bastard: Ordered that proper Inquiry be made after Daniel Southerland an out Pensioner of Chelsea Hospital being charged by Catherine Jones of being the Reputed Father of the Child or Children she is now Pregnant with in order for his giving security for the same” from November 21, 1774 minutes. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[10] In the minutes from December 19, 1774, Elizabeth Randall is mentioned for the first time alongside Catherine Jones. It was unclear whether or not Elizabeth knew of her unborn child’s father, since both men are referred to only as “the reputed Fathers,” but since he was not mentioned by name we took the liberty of assuming she did not know. Others might assume Daniel Southerland was the reputed father of both women’s children, based on his appearance in the previous entry. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[11] When Catherine passes on her knowledge of this system to Elizabeth, she is exemplifying on a small scale what Hitchcock and Shoemaker describe as “a creative and imaginative agency of shared intent, composed of individual actions motivated by individual circumstances, but exercised collectively, and often publicly, as a result of common experiences and shared understandings.” Again, the contact and dialogue between the two women is fictionalized.
Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, “Introduction” in London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 22.
[12] “Jones & Randall to be sworn touching their Pregnancy & to get Warrants against the reputed Fathers of their Bastards” appears in the Committee’s minutes, indicating these women’s presence in the room. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[13] Jones and Randall were to “be sworn and Examined touching their Pregnancy.” St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[14] The minutes from December 19, 1774 indicate that “Warrants be got to apprehend the Reputed Fathers of the Children they are now Pregnant with in order for their giving security for the same.” St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p226-227,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1546.
[15] When describing “public transcripts,” James C. Scott notes that “With rare, but significant, exceptions the public performance of subordinate will, out of prudence, fear, and the desire to curry favor, be shaped to appeal to the expectations of the powerful.” Here, Elizabeth is playing into the public transcript of subordination. The earlier conversations between the two women are meant to bring out the “hidden transcripts” at play when the powerful are not around.
James C. Scott. “Behind the Official Story” in Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 1-16, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1np6zz.5.
[16] In 1780 and 1781 a child named John Jones shows up as being nursed by Elizabeth Randall, and 1784 with a “Mrs. Randall,” presumably the same. He is the right age to be Catherine Jones’ son, so we made that choice, from which the rest of our narrative stems. Daniel Southerland never shows up in the records again. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p5,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1582; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p23,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1600; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p55,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1632.
[17] On October 11, 1775, it is “ordered that Catherine Jones be discharged on Wednesday next.” As discussed earlier, we are assuming that Catherine conceived the child early in the summer of 1774 and gave birth in the spring of 1775, meaning she stayed at the workhouse for several more months. Even if Catherine had come to the workhouse right after conceiving a child in the fall of 1774, an October dismissal would still give her ample time for lying in. Extra space at the workhouse, health problems, or some combination of both could have allowed Catherine to extend her stay. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p232-233,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1549; Susannah Ottaway, e-mail message to authors, January 24, 2018.
[18] Although Elizabeth Randall comes to the committee about her pregnancy, there is no evidence of her giving birth or raising a child.
[19] Here, we are taking complete creative license based on the narrative of friendship we’ve created between the two women.
[20] In 1781, in the “Out Door Poor” category “Elizabeth Randall Nurse to John Jones applied for Cloaths for him…” This entry in particular indicates Randall’s employment as a nurse for the workhouse. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p23,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1600.
[21] St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1748-1780 p232-233,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1549.
[22] In an entry from 1784, a “Mrs. Randall” receives “one Guinea to cloathe Miller Potter and John Jones two poor children at Nurse with her.” We presume this is Elizabeth Randall, since we have the aforementioned evidence of her being nurse to John Jones. This is the last entry referring to her as their nurse. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p55,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1632.
[23] Catherine Jones is in the Workhouse Minute Book for clothes ordered at three different times in 1782. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p34,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1611; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p38,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1615; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p42,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1619.
[24] Ibid. We know both Catherine and John Jones were around the workhouse at this time but have no evidence of their personal contact.
[25] In 1789, there are two records of John’s apprenticeship (and since teenagers were apprenticed he would remain the right age for Catherine’s child): “Ordered Indentures of Apprenticeship [next page] between John Jones & Samuel Oliver of St Mary Stratford to Bow Taylor for Batchelor’s [?] Gift”
St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p114,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1691; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p115,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1692.
“John Jones Apprentice to Saml. Oliver applied for a Suit of Cloathes. Ord^d. & Mr. Oliver to make them” St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p116,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1693.
[26] The dates when Catherine Jones ordered clothes imply that she was at the workhouse during two more periods of her life. She never appears for any other notable reason. St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p154,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1731; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p155,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1732; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p157,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1734; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p161,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1738; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p206,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1783; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p223,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1800; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p225,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1802; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p229,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1806; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p233,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1810; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p253,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1830; St Andrew Undershaft Workhouse Committee, “St Andrew Undershaft - Workhouse Minute Book 1780-1801 p257,” Virtual Workhouse Digital Archive, accessed January 26, 2018, https://virtualworkhouse.carleton.edu/items/show/1834.
