Eavesdroppers

A guest post by Dr George Redmonds, author of the Yorkshire Historic Dictionary.

If I were accused of eavesdropping I might be mildly embarrassed but I would certainly not expect to

be punished for it. The truth is that we use the word loosely these days, not stopping to consider that the eavesdropper was once the scourge of the local community – a person who lurked at night under the eaves of a neighbour’s house in the hope of gathering titbits of gossip that could then be turned to advantage. The serious nature of the misdemeanour is clear from definitions in Law dictionaries, one of which describes the eavesdropper as a person who ‘hearkens after discourse … to frame slanders and mischievous tales’.

Entry on Eaves-droppers from Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1768.

There is no record of just when eavesdropping started to be considered as an offence but in 1377, in Methley near Wakefield, Matilda Seamster was indicted at the manor court for listening under the walls of her neighbours’ houses at night and ‘narrating idle speeches’. That entry was in Latin, so the word ‘eavesdropper’ was not used but in Nottingham, in 1487, a jury found that Henry Rowley was a man who wandered around the village during the hours of darkness, and they indicted him as a common evys-dropper.

In Yorkshire it was more usual for the offender to be called an ‘eavesing dropper’ or an ‘easing dropper’ and a few early examples are found in the court rolls. In 1577, for example, Elizabeth Banke of Acomb, a village near York, was ordered to kepe hir house in the neight season and not be an esinge dropper; in Rastrick, in 1664, Elizabeth Dyson was presented for standeing under the ewse of the house of Joseph Goodheire as an ewseing dropper and was fined 10 shillings.

St Peter the Little, York today - now called Peter Lane

It is not difficult to see how the word had acquired its meaning. In Old English the noun ‘eavesdrop’ (yfesdrype) referred originally to the water that dripped, or dropped, from the eaves of a house, but from that it came to mean the edge of the roof itself. In 1338, the sale of a house in York, in the narrow lane called St Peter the Little, required the parties concerned to agree about the space they would need should repairs or rebuilding be necessary. Two English words that were included for greater clarity were gettes and efsdropes, that is to say the ‘jetties’ or overhanging upper storeys and the ‘eavesdrops’ or projecting parts of the roofs.

The Shambles, York
showing jetties and eavesdrops

Clearly, both of these affected the space available between the buildings at ground level and that could be a problem in narrow town streets – like the Shambles in York. As a consequence it became customary to restrict a person from building right up to the edge of his land, lest the water dripping from his eaves should cause a problem. That custom appears to be implicit in a Kent charter dated 868 where the word ‘yfæs drypæ’ is on record for the first time. It was in the space between the house wall and the ‘eavesdrip’ that our more inquisitive ancestors found shelter and were privy to a neighbour’s secrets. 

Etymologically, the Old English word ‘efes’ was actually singular but the final –s has been mistaken for a plural and that is how we interpret ‘eaves’ now. When John Tyndall wrote in 1872 that ‘water trickles to the eave and then drops down’ he was employing what is called a ‘back formation’ – as we do when we use the word ‘pea’ and not ‘pease’.



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Edit 25/01/2019 The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary is now available online at yorkshiredictionary.york.ac.uk

Introducing... the Yorkshire Historic Dictionary

Historic documents abound with unknown words. Some are localised or specialist terms which may still be in use today in isolated areas or amongst experts. Others are obsolete, having been either subsumed into a synonym or died out with changes in domestic or industrial practice.  Woodland managers still talk about standards in coppicing and falconry enthusiasts use the term nare but no-one wears strandling, drinks from a costrel or transports goods in a frail. Sometimes word survival is unclear: does anyone sleep under a caddow today? Do you frame thissen when you’re working purposefully? When you get into an argument are you fratching?

MD79 Northallerton Field Survey map 

In November 2017, we began an ambitious new fifteen-month project to create a dictionary of historic Yorkshire terms. Building on the work of Dr George Redmonds who has over a sixty-year career amassed a catalogue of 9,000 terms and phrases, the project will produce a published Yorkshire Dictionary (with the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society Record Series) as well as an interactive online version.

Language is important to our understanding of our culture, our identity, our heritage, our landscape. As I read through the Dictionary entries I am struck by the specificity of many of the terms. A frank is a stall or sty in which hogs are fattened. A gyle-fat is a vat in which the wort is left to ferment during brewing. A carr was wet boggy ground where willows and alders grew. To simply call these things, as we might today, a stall, a vat, or a marsh distances us not just from the objects but from the activities and landscapes they were connected with. This, in turn, devalues them and removes these aspects of our history from our collective identity.

Will of John Dickson, clothier, March 1587/8

Through capturing these words and their meanings and making them freely available to the world we hope to promote a greater understanding of Yorkshire’s culture and identity, both in relation to the past and as it relates to the people of Yorkshire today. While dialect has receded it has certainly not died out and there are plenty of words and phrases in the Dictionary which will be recognised by modern readers. We hope that modern users of Yorkshire dialects will help to enrich the dictionary by providing their own evidence of use of dialect terms - perhaps even recording people using terms in their day-to-day lives.

The Dictionary will have sophisticated interpretative elements to enable the terms to be explored not just for meaning but for geographic or temporal use, as well as how terms related to particular industries or practices, or specific types of landscape. All of the software created will be open-source, so that (hopefully) other interested organisations can create their own regional language dictionary.

The Yorkshire Historic Dictionary project was generously funded by the Marc Fitch Foundation in memory of David Hey, who died in 2016. David was a respected and admired local and family historian who published works on (among others) the history of Sheffield, rural metalworkers, and surname history. He was a long-time friend and collaborator of Dr George Redmonds. The project is based at and managed by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, in partnership with Dr George Redmonds and the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society.

For further information about the project, follow the dedicated Twitter feed @YorksDictionary or contact the project archivist at alexandra.medcalf@york.ac.uk

Edit 25/01/2019 The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary is now available online at yorkshiredictionary.york.ac.uk

Revealing the Registers: thoughts of an indexer

Our Marc Fitch Fund Project Archivist, Helen Watt, gives us some thoughts and reflections following the completion of initial work in indexing one of our Archbishops' Registers and attempts to answer and old indexers' question - can you ever really be sure when using a previous index? 

Having worked on the pilot for ‘York's Archbishops’ Registers Revealed’ in 2012, generously funded by the  Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, it is excellent to be able to put the theory devised during that pilot into practice. Thanks to funding from the Marc Fitch Fund, since October 2015, work has been underway on Registers 31 and 32 using the newly-developed indexing tool. This period covers 1576-1650 and includes the tenures of Archbishops Edwin Sandys (1577-1588), John Piers (1589-1594), Matthew Hutton (1595-1606) in Register 31; and the archiepiscopates of Archbishops Samuel Harsnett (1619-1631), Richard Neile (1632-1640) and John Williams (1641-1650) in Register 32. 

Since the examination of Register 31 was completed last month, it is now possible to reflect on the process of indexing a register of the Archbishops of York of this date and, crucially, the kind of material found within it. To put them into some context, none of the registers for this period have been subject to any previous indexing work - unlike their medieval predecessors where various published and indexed versions have been created since the 19th century. 

First of all, the quality of images of the registers produced during the Mellon project is excellent, especially for remote use, The images may also be greatly enlarged, so that even the smallest, faintest penstrokes may be read with ease.

Thanks to the quality of the images, we were able to discern this date as being the 'xvth day of febuarie' (Reg 31 f 76v)

The schema of subject headings compiled during the pilot has been integral to indexing subjects found in register entries, although some amendments have had to be made to cater for the post-reformation matters found in this register, as well as for matters to do with probate and archbishops’ visitations.

When indexing persons, there are two methods of dealing with personal names in the tool, either by inputting details of an individual straight into an entry, or by populating the Persons List with details before indexing. Using the second method, it was possible to draw on the work of several other projects, such as the Clergy of the Church of England Database, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae (via British History Online), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, particularly for parish and higher clergy, to build up the required information and so streamline input of persons.

Similarly, to speed up the indexing of places, not only could the project draw on lists of places compiled during the Borthwick Institute’s previous work on the Cause Papers, but also automatically harvest place-names from the Digital Exposure of English Place-names (DEEP) and the online Ordnance Survey.

As regards the contents of the register, these have mainly comprised probate of wills and grants of administrations, confirmations of elections of bishops and archbishops’ visitations, and guides to the procedures involved in all of these topics will be made available shortly. Wills copied into the register are mostly those of clergymen and although there is an existing index in the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series vol. 93 (1937), comparison between this index and the original wills has allowed small errors to be corrected, mostly concerning dates of wills and probate - understandable when you consider the quality of the images we are working with now!

Notification of the Vacancy after the death of Abp Sandys, 1588 

Even though these wills are well-known through that index, the new indexing tool has made it possible for them to be searched and explored online, making them so much more widely accessible and available and opening up their contents for research, so that many aspects of clerical life could now be studied. 

For instance, the pious preambles of wills, often not simply formulaic in nature, but long and involved, together with the titles of books left as bequests, may reflect the doctrinal inclinations and learning of these clergymen. We might also see the clergyman as farmer, and father of his family as well as shepherd of his flock. We can sometimes see far-reaching connections with the Universities, with court, members of London Livery Companies, and relationships with gentry and noble patrons. 

Long preamble in the will of  Ralph Kay, vicar of Topcliffe, 1613

With the commencement of work on Register 32, all these topics and more are bound to be further illuminated, so, as they say, watch this space!

Living Legends: the Marks and Gran Archive at the Borthwick

Sunday 13^th September saw the presentation of the British Comedy Society’s Living Legends of Comedy Award to the writing partnership Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. Often thought of solely as comedy writers, the Marks and Gran Archive held at the Borthwick illustrates their wider work in the development of television comedy; and especially their ground-breaking work in the ‘comedy drama’ genre.

Born in north London, Maurice Gran (1949) and Laurence Marks (1948) initially met at a Jewish youth club in Finsbury Park, North London in the 1960s, though their creative partnership would not spark into like until they began attending ‘Player-Playwrights,’ a scriptwriting club that met at the British Drama League offices in Fitzroy Square.

A chance meeting between Marks and comedy writer Barry Took led to an opportunity for Marks and Gran to write for The Frankie Howerd Show. They continued to submit scripts and in 1980 their sitcom, ‘Holding the Fort,’ was commissioned by London Weekend Television and ran for two years.
Their comedy-drama ‘Shine on Harvey Moon’ was a success, running for three years in the 1980s before being revived in 1995. The duo followed up this success with popular sitcoms such as ‘The New Statesman,’ 1987–92, ‘Birds of a Feather,’ 1989–98, and ‘Goodnight Sweetheart,’ 1993–99. ‘The New Statesman’ won an International Emmy Award in 1988 and a BAFTA for best comedy series in 1991.

In 1989 Marks and Gran set up their own production company, Alomo Productions. The company’s first production was 'Birds of a Feather'. Subsequent Alomo productions include ‘Get Back,’ 1992-93, featuring Ray Winstone as a victim of the economic recession, ‘Goodnight Sweetheart,’ and comedy drama ‘Love Hurts,’ which ran from 1992-1994. In 1992 Marks and Gran were awarded the prestigious BAFTA Writers’ Award.

Marks and Gran (left) with the cast and production team of Birds of a Feather

In 1996 they were commissioned by Channel 4 to write ‘Mosley,’ a mini-series telling the story of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. In 1993 a meeting with playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn led to Marks and Gran their first play, ‘Playing God,’ a comedy about a dying rock star that premièred at Ayckbourn’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2005.

 In 2006 they followed this with ‘The B’Stard Project,’ a stage adaptation of their New Statesman sitcom which toured the UK until 2007 and enjoyed a run in the West End, and in 2010 their play ‘Von Ribbentrop’s Watch’ premiered at the Oxford Playhouse, based on their 2008 Radio 4 drama of the same name. In 2012 they co-wrote a ‘Birds of a Feather’ stage show which subsequently toured the UK before the show’s revival on television in 2014.

In 2008 Marks and Gran were invited to write the script for a new musical, ‘Dreamboats and Petticoats,’ based on a popular compilation album.

In addition to writing for stage and screen, both Marks and Gran are Visiting Lecturers at the University of York, running student workshops in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television.
Stretching over 35 boxes of diverse material, the Marks and Gran Archive (ref MGRA) presents the researcher with a unique archive of drafts. scripts, audio-visual recordings, correspondence and background research material that give a unique insight into the duo’s creative process.

Fourth draft script of Relative Strangers, 1986

The Archive includes items related to Birds of a Feather, Shine on Harvey Moon, the Frankie Howerd Show, The New Statesman (both stage and screen) and Goodnight Sweetheart (again, both stage and screen versions). The archive also contains a wealth of supporting materials (including research, drafts and correspondence) enabling the researcher to get inside the creative process – the tensions, the successes and creative precision which brings a production to life. Additionally, there are scripts for projects which, for one reason or another, never saw the light of day, including scripts and a rare recording of Still William, excerpts of will be shown on Sunday as part of the British Comedy Society presentation.

Although the collection is still in the process of being fully listed, a detailed box list is available. The Archive was deposited with us as part of the Samuel Storey Writing and Performance collection, which includes the archives of Sir Alan Ayckbourn, David Storey, Charles Wood, Julia Pascal, Peter Whelan and Barry Took.

Gary Brannan and Sally-Anne Shearn

Who came to see the Retreat? A look through the Retreat Visitors’ Books

Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington didn’t visit the Retreat!

The monarch would never have signed herself “Queen Victoria” in 1856, and the signature of the Iron Duke in 1821 fails to match up with authenticated examples. Mischievous or deluded patients from the democratic Retreat “family” were probably responsible for these entries.

Queen Victoria’s name appears in the visitor’s book RET 1/4/4/2 but we don’t think it is a genuine signature

But many well-known people, from all over the country and from abroad, really did come to see the Retreat in its early days and they signed their names in the Retreat General Visitors’ Books: three volumes covering the years 1798-1822 (RET 1/4/4/1), 1822-1835 (RET 1/4/4/2) and 1837-1861 (RET 1/4/4/3).

Genuine royal visitors included the Grand Duke Nicholas, brother to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, who visited with a party of Russian notables on 12 December 1816. Important Russian visitors seem to have been a feature of the Retreat’s early years: in August 1814, the Emperor’s physician came, as did a Russian princess, and in July 1818 Grand Duke Michael, another brother of the Emperor, arrived with his suite.

 

Browse through the images of the 1837-1861 visitor book (RET 1/4/4/3) within the Wellcome Library’s player

On 25 August 1822, “Augustus Frederick, Kensington Palace”, signed his name in the Visitors’ Book. This was Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843), the sixth son of George III. The Duke was very interested in the arts and sciences, was involved in many charities, and had progressive political views, being a supporter of the abolition of the slave trade and of Catholic emancipation.

Augustus Frederick’s signature

Such an interest in reform characterised many Retreat visitors. The Utopian idealist Robert Owen, who developed the socially enlightened and pioneering model village of New Lanark (like the Retreat, this was a place of pilgrimage for all who were interested in progressive social ideas) visited the Retreat on 6 May 1815, remarking that “on visiting houses of this kind his feelings had been harrowed up but at this house he was not so affected”. Another well-known social reformer, who visited the Retreat several times, was the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.

The three Retreat General Visitors’ Books have long been well-known to Retreat historians, and they repay close study. Yet there has been no thorough analysis of them to examine the appeal of the Retreat and to tease out the meaning of its fame among different social groupings. There is not even a complete index of the visitors’ names. But clearly, visitors flocked as a result of the publicity generated by Samuel Tuke’s Description of the Retreat, (1813). As William Brereton Grime, a visitor from Manchester, remarked on 4 July 1816, he “was confirmed in the good opinion he had formed of it by reading Mr Tuke’s book”. The model care offered by the Retreat not surprisingly attracted those who were also involved in the management of the insane.  Thomas Maynard Knight from Finsbury Square, London, for example, came on 16 and 17 April 1817 “on purpose to gain information respecting treatment etc being about immediately to open a house called The London Retreat for the reception of about 12 Persons mentally disordered”.

Looking through the names of visitors, they clearly fall into a number of often overlapping categories: the famous visitors, who came largely in the earliest years when the Retreat was such a novelty; doctors from Britain, Europe and  the USA, coming to see the Retreat regime for themselves; Quakers, coming to see the Retreat of which they must have heard so much (and perhaps because a family or friend was a patient); ordinary people, often whole families or larger parties, visiting the Retreat because it was famous (sometimes one can clearly see local people bringing their guests to see the Retreat because it was one of the tourist sights of York), and some visitors who defy these categorisations, such as the seven Seneca Red Indian warriors, who signed the visitors book on 8 May 1818 with their names in pictures: Long Horns, Beaver, Black Squirrel, etc. They had been brought to England to be toured around theatres, and they were then appearing at the York Theatre Royal. In this case, it was not the Retreat that was being shown off but the visitors themselves who were the object of interest: a number of local Quakers came up to the Retreat to meet them.

 

Browse through the images of the 1798 - 1822 visitor book (RET 1/4/4/1) within the Wellcome Library’s player

So what names in the visitors’ books have caught my eye?

Amelia Opie (1769-1853) visited on 9 December 1834. She was a novelist, poet, radical and philanthropist, the wife of the painter John Opie and the friend of the writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. She had become a Quaker in 1825 and must have been interested to see the famous Quaker Retreat.

Ignatius Bonomi (1787-1870) visited on 14 September 1815. He was a Durham based architect, who gained a considerable architectural practice in the north east of England. He is sometimes called “the first railway architect”, because in 1824 he designed the first railway bridge, over the River Skerne at Darlington, for the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Bonomi later had a family connection with York: his sister Mary Anne married Dr George Goldie (1784-1853), who became York’s premier physician and was also a very frequent visitor to the Retreat, often bringing guests with him.

Having studied nineteenth century doctors for my doctoral thesis, I was interested to see some old friends visiting the Retreat. On 9 September 1819 the young, recently qualified, Manchester surgeons Thomas Fawdington and John Boutflower visited the Retreat together: at that time they were junior resident doctors at the Manchester Infirmary, which was given as their address. They went on to have successful careers in Manchester and Salford respectively, and were both active as teachers in the Manchester medical schools. In June 1819, Joseph Atkinson Ransome, Honorary Surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, came to the Retreat, and in September 1822 Edward Carbutt MD, Honorary Physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, was a visitor. Both of these doctors were Quakers. It is not known what other connections, if any, Carbutt had with the Retreat, but in the Retreat archive (RET 8/8/2) is a copy of a handbill which was issued by Carbutt in 1815 to support his cause during a dispute he was then having with a doctor competitor for the post of physician to the Manchester Infirmary.

As my son now lives in Copenhagen, I was interested to see two Copenhagen doctors signing the visitors’ books. Dr Franz Gothard Howitz of Copenhagen came on 9 August 1818 and Dr Carl Otto, came on 9 April 1822. These men were successively Professors of Forensic Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, and Otto also succeeded Howitz as physician to the Copenhagen prison. Howitz had argued that many of the criminals in the prison were in fact mentally disordered and could thus not be responsible for their crimes. Both he and, to an even greater extent, Dr Otto, were phrenologists (phrenologists believed that the size and shape of the skull indicated mental faculties and character traits). A closer reading of the Retreat visitors’ books shows that other phrenologists visited the Retreat. On 17 March 1817, for example,“B. Donkin  London, Craniologist, Disciple of Dr Spurzheim” came. Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832), a German physician, is famous as one of the chief proponents of phrenology. And in fact he himself had visited the Retreat only two months earlier, on 30 January 1817; recorded in the visitors’ book as “Dr Spursheim (Craniologist)”.

This is one of a series of blog posts published as material from the Retreat archive is digitised and made available online. More information about the Wellcome Library funded project to digitise the Retreat archive can be found on the project pages of our website. Digital surrogates from the Retreat archive project so far are available via the Wellcome Library.

Kath Webb

Borthwick Institute

May 2015

Slow and Steady Wins the Pace

The renowned ecclesiastical architects Pace and Sims were prolific. Both were involved in a wide range of projects, from restoring Castle Howard, to designing memorials at churches and cathedrals, and constructing imposing new buildings such as Keele University chapel. During our work experience project, we unfortunately did not see any of the plans for the new builds. However, we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to catalogue renovations and extensions, which showed their subtle skill in combining modernism with medievalism. Indeed, Durham University’s Palace Green library bears witness to this. Another aspect revealed through the archives is the careful, methodical way in which they worked; it often took many years for projects to be completed for they were known for working at a slow pace. In fact, George earned the nickname ‘Snail’s Pace’ for this very reason! 

The firm became one of the Europe’s most productive ecclesiastical architecture practices in Europe, with over 700 churches and cathedrals being built, extended, and updated by Pace and Sims. This is certainly reflected in the Borthwick’s collection. Whilst they did work for larger and more famous churches such as Armagh and Newcastle cathedral, the majority of their work focussed upon the parish church, like St Mary’s, Beverley, St Giles’, Copmanthorpe, and St Mary’s, Northchurch. 

St Mary's Northchurch Church Elevation

St Mary’s, Northchurch has an ancient history; the church claims to be one of the oldest in Hertfordshire. It is believed that a Saxon church was on the site and some Saxon stonework can still be seen in the west and south walls. The majority of the building is related to the 13-15th century, which matches the parish church expansion pattern seen nationally, as well as some Victorian additions (a vestry, a porch and a new north aisle). Sims was involved in quite a radical alteration of the interior of the church: the choir stalls and organ were moved from the north transept to the west end of the church. This significantly altered worship as it affected the acoustics and the procession. However, the changes did not end here as a new nave altar was built underneath the crossing. The Victorian interior was thus heavily impacted upon by Sim’s efforts. The simple but robust style effortlessly blends into the sensitive Victorian-cum-Medieval décor. 

Copmanthorpe Church in York has a similarly extensive history with its Roman and Saxon roots. It began life as a Norman single cell church but slowly expanded over time; its plain outside does not continue inside as the elegant beamed roof adds a touch of symmetrical sophistication. St Giles’ church required some more modern features and hence, Sims was called upon. He designed a new vestry and kitchen. Whilst searching through the archive we discovered extensive sketches and photographs of what the interior was to look like as well as being treated to a photograph of the finished product. 

St Mary's Beverley floor plan 1985

 In Beverley stands the beautiful church of St Mary’s, called by Sir Tatton Sykes in the 19th century, “Lovely St Mary’s, unequalled in England and almost without rival on the continent of Europe!” It has undergone numerous building phases. Indeed, in the medieval period building work was almost continuous. This is reflected in a plan, from 1895, catalogued by us whilst on the placement, which dates each section of the church. Both Pace and Sims worked on the Beverley church but the archive contains plans from Leslie Moore and John Bilern too. Therefore, we were able to see the metamorphosis of the interior and exterior over a period of 100 years. The new roof for the south chapel in its rich blue effortlessly works alongside the stained glass and other decorated ceilings. 

The Pace and Sims archive therefore allows the transformation of churches to be investigated, illluminated, and inspected. By just briefly analysing three parish churches, it is possible to notice how much of an impact, whether subtle or sublime, both architects made upon the ecclesiastical fabric of England.  

This post was written by students from the University of York on a work experience placement.

You can read more about the experience of earlier students on the work experience programme and the Pace and Sims Archive at Keeping Pace and Keeping up the Pace (and Sims) at the Borthwick. 

The York Lunatic Asylum Scandal

The York Lunatic Asylum opened in 1777, at a time when little was understood about mental illness. Without organised institutional care available, families were left to deal with the mentally ill at home as well as they could. It was usual to chain lunatics to the walls and to leave them naked (it was not thought possible for mentally ill people to feel cold) and alone. Madness turned people into animals.

                                                

Although there were grand ideals when it was first conceived of providing 'relief to those unhappy sufferers who are the objects of terror and compassion to all around them', York Lunatic Asylum soon fell onto a darker path. In 1790 a Quaker woman called Hannah Mills died at the York Asylum. No Friends had been allowed to see her during her six-week residence, to support her faith or to see the conditions in which she was being held. This led William Tuke to encourage the foundation of the Retreat in York, an institution built upon the Quaker idea that everyone should be treated kindly, and as an equal.

William Tuke (1732-1822)

Concerns about the York Asylum continued to grow. After William Vickers was badly treated by the staff at the asylum, a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding called Godfrey Higgins interested himself in the case. Vickers had been released from the hospital bruised, lousy, dirty and so weak he could hardly stand. Other poorly-treated patients were discovered: Reverend Schorey who had been kicked down the stairs by his keeper, and Martha Kidd whose hip was dislocated during her stay. A meeting was called to examine Higgins' accusations and nearly 40 local gentlemen (including members of the Tuke family and a number of their friends) took advantage of an old rule and paid £20 in order to qualify as governors of the asylum and effect change.

Investigations discovered that the number of patients at the Asylum had been growing, but poor financial management meant that the institution was struggling and conditions for the patients were poor. This should have caused a higher death rate but the figures published in the Asylum's annual reports did not reflect this. Closer examination of the steward's books made it clear that deaths had been concealed. In addition, it was discovered that the physicians at the Asylum had misappropriated significant sums of money from the institution. Before further assessments could be made, a fire began which destroyed one wing of the asylum and all of its early records. Four patients died. Rumours said it had been set by the steward deliberately to conceal the truth but this was never proven. Dr Best was never charged for his fraud but was forced to resign due to ill health.

 

Affluent patients at the Asylum were generally well treated. It was the poor who suffered. On a surprise inspection in March 1814, Godfrey Higgins insisted that the staff opened locked doors near the kitchen. When the key could not be found he threatened to break open the doors with a poker. Finally he gained entrance and found 'a number of secret cells in a state of filth, horrible beyond description', full of female patients, 'the most miserable objects I ever beheld'. Elsewhere, 'you might see more than 100 poor creatures shut up together, unattended and uninspected by anyone'.

 In August 1814 at the governors' annual court, new rules were made and the officers of the asylum were all dismissed. The staff were replaced with help from the Retreat Hospital.

In the aftermath, there was a full parliamentary enquiry to which Godfrey Higgins, Samuel Tuke and others contributed. The report was published in 1815 and can be read for free via GoogleBooks. 

Alexandra Medcalf, Archives Assistant

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You can read more about the Retreat here and more about the Tuke family here here and here

New website reveals the story of the lost Aero Girls (and boys)

Nearly a year after the search for the real life Rowntree Aero Girls began, I am delighted to announce the launch of a website dedicated to the remarkable stories of the women and men behind this collection of postwar paintings.

Left to right: Stephanie Tennant, Aero Girl portrait by Anthony Devas [R/Aerogirls];
Stephanie Tennant (Archive photograph, 1960s); Aero advert, 1956 [R/Guardbooks/W20] 

As many as 40 Aero Girls portraits appeared in Rowntree Aero chocolate advertising between 1950 and 1957, in British newspapers, magazines and early ITV commercials. An accompanying slogan proclaimed, “For her - AERO – the milk-chocolate that’s different!”

These representations of modern young women formed part of a successful campaign to relaunch the Aero bar onto the UK market following a break in production during the Second World War. Since the early 1990s, 20 of the portraits have been stored in the Rowntree & Co. Ltd Archive, with little known about the artists or the sitters. While the advertisers J. Walter Thompson wanted the portraits to stand out as being ‘different’ - like the chocolate itself - they kept the female sitters anonymous, and the product firmly in the foreground.

The Search

After launching a public appeal for information and hosting a landmark exhibition at York Mansion House in October 2013, we were contacted by our first living ‘Aero Girl’, Pamela Synge. Synge, now in her 90s, is a visual artist, performer and writer. Her portrait was also the only Aero painting to feature in a television advert, on the newly-launched ITV in 1955. 

Another of our early successes was tracing the last living Aero artist, Arnhem veteran Frederick Deane, whose recollections provided the names of two more Aero Girls, former JWT Art Department employee Rhona Lanzon and the Vogue model MyrtleCrawford. Then, in March 2014, we discovered that the renowned contemporary painter (and soon to be winner of the John Moores Painting Prize 2014) Rose Wylie had been an Aero Girl. Wylie reflects that she was a “rebellious art student” at the time, adding that her true image was “more punk than Mills & Boon cover.” In fact, many of the other Aero Girl sitters also worked in the creative industries, as painters, lithographers, film directors and dancers.

Relatives of the Aero Girls and Aero painters have been tireless in helping us to piece together countless fascinating stories behind the paintings, which lead from the battlefields of the Second World War, through polite society in post-war London, to present-day celebrity, touching on art, social history, fashion, the changing role of women and even the Profumo Affair.

Who Were the Aero Girls? project website pages (York Digital Library, 2014)

A new website gathers together archive images, footage, biographies and first-hand accounts about the Aero Girls collection for the very first time and you can explore it all at York Digital Library. 

Over the last few days we have been contacted by another Aero Girl, the subject of Anthony Devas’ Art Student (c.1950). Painter and former art teacher Barbara Pitt was aged 17 and studying at Goldsmiths College of Art, London, when Devas painted her portrait. She moved to South Africa in 1965, and contacted us from her home in Cape Town with some colourful reminiscences of bohemian London and invaluable material from her own archive.

We would love to continue adding information to our online resource. If you would like to contribute to the ‘Who Were the Aero Girls?’ project please contact us at borthwick-institute@york.ac.uk

Kerstin Doble, Project Curator: Who Were the Aero Girls?