Birmingham Women: Catherine Hutton, Writer and Home Crafter (1756-1846)

Catherine Hutton (11 February 1756 to 13 March 1846) was part of the Birmingham Hutton family, the daughter of stationer, book seller and historian William Hutton and his wife Sarah Cock.*1* Catherine was a weaver of tales as well as a needlecrafter, a weaver of threads, and was putting pen to paper right up to her death at the age of 91. She was particularly a fan of Jane Austen, as she explained 'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance'.*2* In 1813 she published her first novel, The Miser Married (1813), and published two subsequent novels, The Welsh Mountaineer (1817) and Oakwell Hall (1819). Catherine published other fiction and articles in magazines, and her published letters outline the life of a middle-class woman at this time. 

Equipage - Displaying Workmanship & Craftswomanship in the Eighteenth Century

A gilt metal equipage with enamel adornments and watch, made in Birmingham, c. 1770.
Sold at Bonhams in 2011 for £3,250.

These items are generally called chatelaines but the name 'chatelaine' was a Victorian invention; during the eighteenth century these articles were called equipage. Equipage was hung from women's dresses at the waist and were produced to both hold and display useful things that a lady may need to hand, such as watches, seals, thimbles, scissors, needle cases, other sewing tools such as button hooks, note cards, perfume bottles and bonbonnières.

The example, above, was almost certainly made in Birmingham, and possibly in a manufactory like John Taylor's.

Birmingham Objects: Catherine Hutton's Purse

Purse made by Catherine Hutton in the early 1800s.

Catherine Hutton was the daughter of the Birmingham's first historian William Hutton; she never married, and after the family home was burnt down in the riots of 1791, she took to company less and less. Two years after the riots she wrote to a friend: "Last Monday I broke the spell by visiting the Miss Mainwarings, and I was found so rusticated, so antiquaited, that the first thing they did was to take my cap to pieces and make it up in a different form. Now, mark my resolution. I visited three families on the three following days, and I have engaged myself for two evenings next week. Be so good when you write to say something about fashion, that I, who used to be an example, may not be quite a scare-crow".

Like her father, she was a prolific writer, and was putting pen to paper right up to her death at the ripe old age of 91. She was a particular fan of Jane Austen, as she explains "I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance". In 1813 she published her first novel, The Miser Married (view here), and other fiction was published in magazines, as well as articles and letters she wrote surrounding everyday matters.

The purse, above, is part of the Hutton collection at Birmingham Archive.

Catherine Hutton at ages 43 and 83, she was born 11 February 1756 and died 13 March 1846.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.37: The Opportunities of Industry - Corbett's Temperance Hotel (Paradise Street & Hill Street)

Corbett's Temperance Hotel in about the 1870s, it had opened in 1842.
The building dated from about 1750. The street leading down is Hill Street.

In October 1842 Joseph Corbett (1791-1868) opened his boarding and coffee house on Paradise Street.* This was a fine part of town, just opposite the newly opened Town Hall, so presumptions could easily be made that Joseph was a middle class man in business and always had been, but this could not be further from the truth. Joseph was about 50 years old when he, and his wife, started up the hotel on Paradise Street, and Joseph had taken all the opportunities that the industrial town of Birmingham offered, working his way up from poverty.

Joseph wrote about the ‘frightful poverty’, the ‘cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings’ of his childhood.* His father had been a drunk, so his mother had financially supported her family of eleven children by working long hours in the manufactories, and ‘one and all of [the children were] forced out to work so young that [their] feeble earnings would produce only 1 [shilling] a week’.* The young Joseph had been sent out as an errand boy at the button makers Hammond, Turner & Sons** where his parents worked when he was about seven years old, and had worked at that same company as a button burnisher (polisher) until he left to start up the hotel.* Joseph had some attributes that would have aided his rise through society, mainly his ability to read and write exceptionally well (his father could write, but not his mother), and a marriage to Ann Willington who seems to have come from a lower middle-class family, and who would have had some good connections.* His writing ability was found unusual; Hammond, Turner & Sons** was approached by the Commission on Child Labour in 1840 and Joseph produced a 1,500 word document describing his own experiences and thoughts on the matter of child labour, and with a sense of surprise the commission noted that ‘[t]his most creditable statement, the product of a Birmingham mechanic, is inserted without a single alteration of any kind’. The word ‘mechanic’ is used at the time to describe members of the working classes, and the commission felt the need to note that the excellent quality of Joseph’s statement was all his own work.

By 1840 Joseph was earning a good wage, between 30 and 35 shillings a week, but to be able to open a boarding house two years later he must have still been frugal with his wages. He didn’t agree with wives with children working the ten hour days in the manufactories, so it is unlikely that his wife had worked in their early marriage, but she did run a business making and selling straw bonnets from the late 1830s, which would have helped their financial position. Neither did Joseph drink; he became a member of the Birmingham Temperance Society and District Union (BTSDU) which had been initiated in 1830, and by 1843 he was sitting on the committee with some of Birmingham's most notable inhabitants. So it seems that by sheer hard work, being employed by a fair employer, by having the ability to read and write better than most in his situation, by marrying well for his position and by being careful with wages, Joseph managed to work his way out of the poverty that he was born into.

Joseph never turned away from his roots though, and also, never seems to have been allowed to. In the year he died, 1868, John Alfred Langford called him ‘an ornament to his class’, and the reason that Langford felt moved to write a long obituary about Joseph Corbett in his new book was because of all the good work that he had done in Birmingham from the early 1830s.* Joseph had become good friends with Thomas Attwood (whose statue is in Centenary Square), and was one of only two working class members of the Birmingham Political Union fighting for, among other things, universal suffrage;* Joseph himself received the vote for the first time in 1838, a right that he had personally battled for.* He fought against slavery, corresponding with the well known anti-slavery campaigner Joseph Sturge, and also worked as a guardian and overseer of the poor from about 1842, working for better conditions for the poor and to improve the conduct of the overseers.* His own experiences had ‘kept alive a deep anxiety for the emancipation of thousands of families in this great town (Birmingham) and neighbourhood, who [were] in a similar state of horrible misery’.* As well as this he was chairman of a committee in 1846 which was attempting to end the imprisonment of debtors, as, even though the Birmingham Court of Requests*** had been closed two years previously, other courts had jurisdiction in Birmingham; he wished to stop the ‘injustice, oppression and cruelty inflicted upon the Working and Humbler Classes of Society’ by these courts.*

Although some of Joseph’s opinions on women may seem a little distasteful today, mainly the idea that women with children should always look after them at home, and that the education of women in household duties was neglected, we must take them in context of the times. There were no childcare facilities, so children had to be looked after at home by someone, and it was not socially conceivable that a man could perform that role. Also, men’s wages were usually higher. Joseph formed these opinions through his own personal experience; his own mother, so Joseph described, had ‘worked in a manufactory from a very early age’.

'She was clever and industrious, and [...] was regarded as an excellent match for a working man. She was married early [and] became the mother of eleven children: I am the eldest. [...] She had children apace. As she recovered from her lying-in, so she went to work, the babe being brought to her at stated times to receive nourishment. As the family increased, so everything like comfort disappeared altogether. The power to make a home cheerful and comfortable was never given to her. [...] She made many efforts to obstain [sic] from shop work; but her pecuniary necessities forced her back into the shop. [...] I have known her, after the close of a hard day's work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together washing and mending clothes’.*

Joseph’s involvement in the temperance movement can also be attributed to his childhood, he makes it very clear that his father was a drunkard and spent his time at the tavern rather than looking after his family.* The temperance movement had come from America and advocated moderation and abstinence from alcohol, and promoted the opening of alternative venues for socialising and relaxation other than public houses, such as Joseph Corbett’s own coffee house. The opening of temperance hotels followed in a similar vein, allowing travellers the option of places to stay that did not include a ready supply of strong liquor. But Joseph, unlike others, did not just want the closing down of the ale-houses, he wanted other leisure pursuits to replace drinking, such as ‘gymnastic exercises, quoits, cricket, &c,; public gardens, walks, baths, reading rooms, &c’.* Joseph’s temperance hotel was one of only around half a dozen in Birmingham, so was an important aspect of the Birmingham temperance scene. Corbett’s Temperance Hotel, then, was just another part of Joseph’s attempt to do some good, and once he had it, he also used the building in other beneficial ways, as many charitable institutions held their meetings at Corbett’s Hotel (see below).*

With all this charitable work, much of the running of the hotel was probably left in the hands of Joseph’s wife, Ann. He may have had strong opinions about the role of women in the upbringing of young children, but Ann, and the couple's daughter and several of the couple’s granddaughters worked in a number of strong roles throughout their lives. The couple’s granddaughter had helped them in the hotel since the age of about sixteen, and continued running it after Ann’s retirement even though she herself was married and had a young child. Other granddaughters were musicians or worked in their own right, and were recorded on the census as such, which was unusual for the time. This suggests that Joseph was possibly an open minded man of his time.

With all that Joseph Corbett achieved in his lifetime it seems strange that he is not remembered, but his position in society would be the likely cause of that. Despite all the work he did, his lack of large amounts of disposable income (there is nothing quite like putting a hundred pounds towards the building of a school that will get your name on a plaque), and his impoverished roots would not have advocated him to be immortalised, like Thomas Attwood, Joseph Sturge or the Cadbury’s, all of which Joseph had connections with. He is, I suppose, a bit of a 'working class hero', working quietly in the background to do what he thought was right and to improve the lives of the poor, of which he knew all too well what they endured. Hopefully this post gives him a little of the recogition that he deserves.    

--------------------------------
NOTES
I would really appreciate any more information on Joseph Corbett or other interesting Brummies.
* References on request
** To find out more about the button makers Hammond, Turner & Sons visit: http://hammond-turner.com/
*** I have written a number of posts on the conditions of the Court of Requests, see them here.
The image is courtesey of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.

Dinner at Three & Tea at Six

In July 1779 Catherine Hutton accepted an invitation to dine and take tea with a Birmingham friend, Mr. Shuttleworth. Her description of the evening offers an intriguing insight into the social life of the Georgian middle classes in Birmingham, and the kinds of food served.

"At three o'clock we sat down to table, which was covered with salmon at top, fennel sauce to it, melted butter, lemon pickle and soy; at the bottom a loin of veal roasted; on one side kidney beans, on the other peas, and in the middle a hot pigeon pie with yolks of eggs in. To the kidney beans and peas succeeded ham and chickens, and when everything was removed came a current tart. Mr. Shuttleworth's behaviour was friendly and polite; he was attentive to the wants of his guests, and helped them to everything they wanted in a moment, without the least appearance of ceremony. He is sensible and lively, and I think the most of a gentleman of any man I ever knew. After dinner we had water to wash, and when the cloth was taken away, gooseberries, currents and melon, wines and cyder. Mr Shuttleworth asked me for a toast, and I gave him Mr. Rolleston, by whom we had been most elegantly entertained in that very room some years before. At a little before five, my mother, Sally Cocks, and I retired into the drawing room, where I amused myself with reading and looking at the prints till six, when I ordered tea, and sent to let the gentlemen know it was ready. Mr. Purcell and my uncle went away, Mr. Shuttleworth, Mr. Collier, and Mr. Silver came and drank tea with us, which I made for them. After tea Mr. Shuttleworth and I chatted very sociably about Matlock, to which place he goes to-morrow. At seven o'clock we took leave, after having spent a most agreeable day."*

It is interesting to see how the men and women separated after dinner and then reunited for tea at six. Catherine doesn't mention any food coming with the tea, but perhaps that went without saying.

~ Painting:

Still Life Tea Set, by John Liotard. 1783.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.23: Asserting Difference - Division Inside Christ Church (Victoria Square As It Was)

Christ Church from the collection at Birmingham Art Gallery, c. 1850.

Absent building. Stood from c. 1805 till 1899. 
Explore inside and outside Christ Church by clicking here.

Christ Church, that sat where New Street and Ann Street met, was the first church in Birmingham to offer free pews for the poor. The population had been rising so rapidly in Birmingham that space in the churches was squeezed, and with the additional drawback of payment, the wealthier classes feared that the poorer amongst them would begin to not attend church which could trigger 'Indifference to the highest Duties, Violation of the Sabbath, and Depravity of Morals'.* In 1805 Isaac Hawins left £500 (later increased to £1000 by his executors) to the opening of a free church, and the project was initiated, though with struggles to find additional funding, the church was not consecrated till 6th July 1813, still unfinished. The church was divided into separate areas; the free seats on the ground floor and the paying pews in the galleries around (see painting above), each accessed by separate doors.

The galleries were accessed by a central door at the front of the church, inside of which was a ‘double flight of stone steps, of geometrical construction, with balustrades of elegant appearance, which [... were] formed of tubes of iron coated in brass'.* The galleries themselves were fronted in mahogany, attractively decorated and supported by elegant Doric columns;* it was these seats that helped to pay for the running of the church. The free seats were reached from one of two side doors that were also placed at the front of the church, the doors could have been more separate, but still maintained a division so that the wealthier church goers did not need to mix with the poorer among the congregation even as they filed into the church. These free pews were also of mahogany but of a much simpler design. At the front of the church was the finely carved altarpiece, which was surrounded by brass railings above which was 'painted a cross appearing in the clouds, by Barber' (just visible in the painting).* Those writing about the church particularly noted the organ by Thomas Elliot, who made the organ for the Chapel Royal in St. James' Palace, among others.

This layout of Christ Church is an example of class separation and asserting difference by physically and visually sectioning off parts of the built environment. The poor below, would have felt their inferior situation as the wealthier sat above them, possibly keeping an eye on their behaviour and their morals.

During the 1830s Christ Church was divided in another way, probably by Rev. John George Breay, an enthusiastic Evangelical preacher who was at Christ Church from 1832 till his early death in 1839. At this time the church became separated between men on one side and women on the other and the practice gave rise to the following verse:

'Our churches and chapels we generally find
Are places where men to the women are joined;
But at Christ Church, it seems, they are more cruelhearted,
For men and their wives go there and get parted.'*

There seems to be no explanation of how long the practice took place; whether it was a short-lived experiment that ceased due to, perhaps, critisism from sources such as the verse, or whether it was continued. But at this time Evangelical preachers, among many others, were asserting difference between men and women. Breay himself believed that women needed skills that would help to 'qualify [them] for social duties' by this he means 'as wives, mothers, or friends',* basically in an supporting role. Throughout Breay's own life he was supported by his wife Phyllis, she established and ran a clothing club as well as a great deal more, and after her husbands early death continued to work tirelessly for charitable causes for another 30 years, as well as writing at least three books. Her gravestone at Christ Church recorded her as Breay's widow, helpmeet and the mother of his children, ignoring all of her own achievements.* 

The inside of Christ Church during demolition in 1899, with two details
of the interior decoration. The clouds from Joseph Barber's painting are
just visible, as is some carving and painted decoration.

NOTES
* References on request

The Employment of Children in the Button Trade: Statement from Joseph Corbett

Taken from the ‘Commission on Child Labour’ of 1841, looking at the employment of children in the button trade. Folios 129 to 133. Evidence collected by RD Grainger Esq. from Hammond, Turner & Sons at their Snow Hill manufactory. These folios contain a number of statements, all of which can be seen here, reproduced in this post is the statement from Joseph Corbett.

Mr. Joseph Corbett
Has been employed more than 40 years at Messrs Turner’s as a button burnisher. The average wages in this trade, in full work, are from 30s. to 35s. a week, but there is often a want of employment. Has often been consulted by the mechanics generally on occasions when they required advice. Has been applied to by mechanics in reference to the objects of this inquiry. Has taken an active part in public proceedings connected with the trade of the town. Was one of a deputation consisting of two from the button-makers appointed to wait on His late Majesty George IV., and other branches of the royal family, nobility, &c., in order to induce them to encourage the trade. On this occasion received several votes of thanks from the masters and men. In 1837 was again appointed a deputy to wait on Viscount Melbourne relative to the distressed state of the nation.
The witness handed in the statement marked [G.]

[G] Statement of Mr. Joseph Corbett
1. Children of both sexes are sent to work at too tender an age, particularly female children. During their childhood, at a time when fresh air and freedom from confinement are so essential, they toil throughout the day, acquiring not the least domestic instruction to fit them for wives and mothers. I will name one instance, and this applies to the general condition of females doomed to, and brought up amongst, shop-work.
My mother worked in a manufactory from a very early age. She was clever and industrious; and, moreover, she had the reputation of being Virtuous. She was regarded as an excellent match for a working man. She was married early. She became the mother of 11 children. I am the eldest. To the best of her ability she performed the important duties of a wife and mother. She was lamentably deficient in domestic knowledge; in that most important of all human instruction, how to make the home and the fire-side to possess a charm for her husband and children, she had never received one single lesson.
She had children apace. As she recovered from her lying-in, so she went to work, the babe being brought to her at stated times to receive nourishment. As the family increased, so anything like comfort disappeared altogether.
Poor thing, the power to make home cheerful and comfortable was never given to her. She knew not the value of cherishing in my father’s mind a love of domestic objects. My heart aches when I reflect upon her anxious and laborious situation.
Not one moment’s happiness did I ever see under my father’s roof. All this dismal state of things I can distinctly trace to the entire and perfect absence of all training and instruction to my mother. He became intemperate; and his intemperance made her necessitous. She made many efforts to abstain from shop-work; but her pecuniary necessities forced her back into the shop. The family was large, and every moment was required at home.
I have known her, after the close of a hard day’s work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together washing and mending of clothes. My father could have no comfort here. These domestic obligations, which in a well regulated house, (even in that of a working man, where, there are prudence and good management,) would be done so as not to annoy the husband; to my father they were a source of annoyance; and he from an ignorant and mistaken notion sought comfort in an alehouse.
My mother’s ignorance of household duties; my father’s consequent irritability and intemperance; the frightful poverty; the constant quarrelling, the pernicious example to my brothers and sisters; the bad effect upon the future conduct of my brothers; one and all of us being forced out to work, so young, that our feeble earnings would produce only 1s. a week; cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me. They keep alive a deep anxiety for the emancipation of the thousands of families in this great town and neighbourhood, who are in a similar state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the instruction of the female in the work of a house, in teaching them to produce cheerfulness and comfort at the fire-side, would prevent a great amount of misery and crime. There would be fewer drunken husbands and disobedient children. As a working man, within my own observation female education is disgracefully neglected. I attach more importance to it than to anything else. They impart the first impression to the young susceptible mind; they model the child from which is formed the future man.

2. As regards males and females promiscuously together in one manufactory, I do consider it as having a most immoral tendency. I have always found, where the intercourse was promiscuous, the females to be careless in their dress, indecent in their conversation, unchaste in their conduct; in fact, they are inferior in all respects to those who are kept apart from the male sex. Look at the young women employed the higher department of the manufactory, the warehouse for instance, under the superintending care of a master of sober and moral character. Here will be neatness of dress, decent and becoming conversation, and attention to business. Intellectual education, whether from a Sunday school or other sources, produces a marked distinction of improvement. It is not difficult to imagine a young female, of pleasing face and person, exposed, by being placed in a manufactory, to the lewd remarks and familiarities of the coarse and dissipated of the other sex. Perhaps not one idea of virtue was ever established in the mind of this susceptible and credulous creature. She is now put in the certain path to ruin and seduction. She is often treated as an inferior being; until some infamous seducer flatters to obtain her ruin. She is the victim of her own confiding and unsuspecting nature, but she is branded for being extremely vicious.
Suppose the weekly earnings of a female to be 6s, and this is above the average, out of this she has to pay for lodgings, for clothes, and for the making of them too, for she cannot make them herself never having been taught; her washing after work-hours, she will do herself; in her outlay she most be frugal to keep clear of the inconveniences of debt.
There can be little or no saving in this instance. Suppose the poor creature to be put to half time, or to be thrown out of work all together, she has no parents, no friends to fall back upon, resources she can have none; what then is the alternative?
The answer is obvious.

3. With respect to “turn outs,” much bad feeling is oftentimes created by the unwillingness of a principal to listen to the complaints of their work-people; to talk over kindly; and with a good feeling, their mutual differences. By this means misunderstandings would be made clear; concessions made; unjust and unfounded suspicions on both sides prevented; and the painful suffering to families, and loss of property to the masters need not take place.
It is a fact that in my trade, at our place, no “turn out” ever took place; and yet our list of prices is a standard for the town; my shopmates were all well informed, and still more my employer was open at all times to easy access. He never refused to listen to the most trifling complaint. The manager also was a man of an amiable disposition.
His mediations were just and satisfactory to both parties. I remember with pleasure the testimony of a silver snuff-box being presented to him for his honourable and conciliatory conduct.—(Inscription: “Presented to Mr. Joseph Conway, as a tribute of respect, by a few friends in the employ of Messrs. Hammond, Turner, and Son, May the 7th, 1828.”)
The only instance of anything like disaffection took place at our manufactory in the beginning of 1838. It had no reference to prices. It was concerning privileges. A wrong notion prevailed. The best informed were open to conviction, and kept to their work; the others, 4 of them, who were extremely ignorant, left their work, but soon afterwards repented of their precipitate and short-sighted conduct.

4. I have seen the entire ruin of many families from the waste of money and bad conduct of fathers and sons seeking amusement and pastime in an ale-house. From no other single cause alone does half so much demoralization and misery proceed.
Here I am forced back to the painful scenes of my childhood. Thousand and millions resort to the ale-house for conversation and amusement; and it would be anything but paternal on the part of Government to break up, or attempt to break up these places, without furnishing them with other recreative resources, as for instance, gymnastic exercises, quoits, cricket, &c.; public gardens, walks, baths, reading-rooms; &c.
Having worked in a manufactory 40 years, the effects of ignorance amongst the working people have been the cause of much uneasiness to myself.
The better a man was educated the better workman he made; and more civil and obliging to his employers, and the more respected and valued by them. I speak from the experience and observation of many years. Instruction and kindness towards the working classes has an elevating tendency. Women’s minds are often debased by the coarse and brutal conduct and conversation of their masters. The one mode of treatment creates better servants, and therefore better domestic characters; the other produces viciousness and brutality of feeling.
If the rich knew how much they could accomplish by condescension and example they would not be so scanty of kindness to the poor.
As a proof what kindness may produce, I will speak of my own place of work.
An aunt was employed upwards of 70 years; my mother 30 years; my father 30 years; myself upwards of 40 years; a son, who works under me, is now within a few days of being of age. Others have worked at the manufactory from periods of 10 to 50 years.
December 7, 1840. (Signed) JOSEPH CORBETT.
[Note.—This most creditable statement, the product of a Birmingham mechanic, is inserted without a single alteration of any kind.]