2. CHARITABLE RESPONSES TO LIFE-CYCLE POVERTY

B. Seebohm Rowntree's early twentieth-century study of poverty in York pointed to the significance of life-cycle poverty. The last critical period of poverty in this cycle occurred in old age, when individuals were unable to work and children had married and left home.Footnote ¹² Rowntree had derived his analysis from the examination of the lives of the very poor of York, but, as this essay argues, even those who held respectable positions in society could find old age a time of financial hardship. Until the 1908 Old Age Pensions Act, the elderly relied on their own resources and social networks to maintain them as they exited the years of paid employment.Footnote ¹³

In his volume of London charities, publisher Sampson Low identifies philanthropic entities that provided welfare for the elderly in two chapters. The first, entitled ‘Benevolent and provident pension funds’ listed groups that distributed pensions to those rendered ‘necessitous by untoward circumstances’. Most of these charities dispensed pensions to men (and sometimes their widows) who had worked in various trades or occupations such as schoolmasters and governesses, curates and ministers, seamen and licenced victuallers and those in the iron and metal trades. In his second chapter ‘Asylums for the aged’, Low addressed residential charities for the elderly; most provided local housing and sometimes small pensions to discrete occupational categories of individuals who were capable of independent living. The housing came under a variety of names; most common of the 120 listed were almshouses (85), asylums (12), hospitals (9) and colleges (8).Footnote ¹⁴ Often, these were endowed philanthropic institutions where the aged, (typically) working-class poor were offered free housing, and frequently a stipend of money or material goods. These were not places that offered institutional community living. Inhabitants lived independently in private accommodation and managed their own households. Though almshouses have typically been considered working-class housing, Patrick Joyce has noted that those named hospitals and colleges offered a more ‘superior’ reputation and they accepted those who had experienced ‘better days’.Footnote ¹⁵ This element of social class is fundamental to our understanding of St Scholastica's Retreat and will be examined in more detail in the next sections. The growth in numbers of almshouse foundations in the nineteenth century continued with some small stops and starts.Footnote ¹⁶ Much depended on place: the unevenness in development in certain locales was linked to economic vitality and urbanisation.Footnote ¹⁷ The precise number of almshouses in existence in the nineteenth century is unknown; the FACHRS project should go a long way to identifying almshouse residents as well developing an understanding of the continuities and changes of almshouse provision.

Charitable acts have always been a part of Catholic theology and practice reflecting both a religious obligation and a social expectation. Within the context of the nineteenth century, Catholic charitable giving was also influenced by the 1834 Poor Law. Government relief, particularly in the workhouse, was seen by Catholics as impersonal and devoid of the moral influence of charity that brought spiritual gains for both the recipient and the donor.Footnote ¹⁸ Catholic charitable initiatives were in part a reaction to government and public philanthropic institutions that Catholics believed placed too little emphasis on Catholic spiritual care, and may even have been aimed at conversion.Footnote ¹⁹ Catholic charities for the elderly came in the two forms noted by Low. Catholic organisations such as the Aged Poor Society and the Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm Poor were managed by lay Catholics and distributed pensions to working-class Catholics. There were also establishments for the elderly managed by religious institutes or the diocese (a few managed homes for retired priests). The majority of these were operated by two women's congregations, the Sisters of Nazareth and the Little Sisters of the Poor, who between them managed 35 homes for the aged poor by the end of the nineteenth century. These were typically homes for the infirm and those incapable of independent living and can be linked to the conventual model that had been in place since medieval times. In these places, the corporal and the spiritual were entwined. Both the medical practitioner and the priest were regular features in these institutions; the nuns provided medical welfare and spiritual care in the form of daily mass and regular devotions.Footnote ²⁰

Catholic almshouses were more distantly linked to the conventual model. St Scholastica's Retreat was part of a specifically Roman Catholic response to poverty: like earlier monastic establishments it addressed both the material and spiritual needs of elderly Catholics. Inhabitants of Catholic institutions would have easy access to clergy and frequent access to Catholic rites, rituals and sacraments. Also significant, with regards to the elderly, was the ready availability of the priest to give the last sacraments that would provide, according to Catholic belief, for a ‘good death’. Extreme Unction (the anointing of the sick) was the final sacrament administered to the dying and believed to convey the grace of patience to bear the trials of sickness and to ‘comfort and strengthen’ and help the dying ‘die a happy death’.Footnote ²¹ This was an important sacrament particularly for devout, ageing Catholics. However, unlike other Catholic almshouses, St Scholastica's was not located near a Catholic church. Harrison had intended St Scholastica's Retreat to be the centre of a larger Catholic community which would have included a parish church, presbytery and schools but that never happened. The small Catholic community in this area had been under the care of the Fathers of Charity (Rosminians) until 1874. Unfortunately, the Rosminians were unable to commit funds to building the complex that Elizabeth Harrison intended. Instead, weekly mass was held in the library, and from 1882 in the nearby small Catholic school which operated as a chapel on the weekends. The local Catholic community grew very slowly and a Catholic church was not built on the site until 1962. St Scholastica's residents, and their servants and co-inmates, were required to be Roman Catholic. But only one other requirement specifically related to their Catholic faith was noted in ‘Rights, Restrictions & Rules of Inmates of St. Scholastica's Retreat’: if an inmate died and no family could attend the Catholic funeral, the other three residents in the deceased's dwelling were required to attend the funeral services. It was assumed, and not explicitly stated, that as Catholics St Scholastica's residents would practise their faith regularly.

Catholic almshouses were not commonplace features of the British landscape. Five were operating in London in the nineteenth century, including St Scholastica's Retreat; and a sixth was located in Essex.Footnote ²² All were called almshouses except for St Scholastica's. ‘Retreat’ was not a term typically used in Catholic circles for charitable houses though a ‘retreat’, as a haven of peace or a place of spiritual reflection, could have reflected Harrison's religious aims for Retreat inhabitants. Harrison's use of the term ‘Retreat’ rather than almshouse is unusual; perhaps it was meant to reflect a more superior social status. She was probably aware of the Ministers’ Friend which operated a ‘Retreat’ for Congregational ministers in Hackney from 1851.Footnote ²³ Harrison founded St Scholastica's Retreat in 1861 for ‘poor and reduced Catholics’. These Catholics were not the working-class poor that as we have seen were so often the focus of charitable efforts. The recipients of this charity belonged to an unusual subcategory of the ‘poor’: downwardly mobile gentry or professional/commercial families.

3. ELIZABETH HARRISON AND THE BUILDING OF ST SCHOLASTICA'S RETREAT

Unlike the occupants of St Scholastica's Retreat, the Harrison family over the years had moved up in social class and economic status. It was family wealth that provided the funding for Elizabeth Harrison's charitable endeavours. Elizabeth's father Robert, a carpenter, married a carpenter's daughter, Ann Plowman, in Yorkshire. They moved to Hackney in the 1790s and by the 1831 census, Robert Harrison was listed as a timber merchant. The family business was subsequently managed by Elizabeth's two brothers who were both childless.Footnote ²⁴ The legacy received from brother Robert (1795–1852), through his wife Charlotte Scholastica's (1808–1858) estate, gave Elizabeth the funds necessary to fund two almshouses, St John's Hospice in Hackney and St Scholastica's Retreat in Clapton. St John's on Warburton Road was founded with her unmarried brother William (1802–1876) in October 1861 for Hackney's elderly poor.Footnote ²⁵ It seems likely that this foundation was nearer to William's heart than Elizabeth's, as the residue of William's estate was used to pay operating expenses and a stipend to each inmate and Elizabeth left nothing in her will to St John's.

The charitable work of Catholic lay women like Hackney-born spinster Elizabeth Harrison reflected a tradition of individual charity that is often ignored in the historiography.Footnote ²⁶ Harrison was an experienced hand at Catholic philanthropy. Her obituary in The Tablet, a well-read Catholic publication, opined she was one of the ‘most active and energetic members’ of charities for the relief of the poor. It also noted she was ‘indefatigable in her exertions’, ‘unsparing of personal pains’ and ‘long known as the life and mainspring of the benevolent society in which she was interested’.Footnote ²⁷ These descriptions give us a sense of her level of involvement in charitable work even before her founding of St Scholastica's Retreat. Her obituary identified her as a philanthropist with a strong will and a resolute social conscience with regards to the poor of Hackney.

In the last 10 years of her life, Harrison shifted her attention from the working-class poor to the gentry and professional and commercial classes through the building of St Scholastica's Retreat. She may have hoped that spiritual gains would continue to accrue for herself and her family.Footnote ²⁸ It is also likely that she wanted a lasting family memorial.Footnote ²⁹ Statues of St Scholastica and her twin brother St Benedict were fitted near the front door in Gothic niches.Footnote ³⁰ The Harrison coat of arms was displayed above the front door, along with the Harrison mottos Sapiens dominabiter astres and Facta non verba.Footnote ³¹ On the foundation stone near the front entrance was inscribed:

Harrison bought the property in what was to become the leafy suburbs of London in the hamlet of Clapton just north of Hackney village for £2,160 in 1859. She hired Edward Welby Pugin (1834–1875), the architect son of the well-known A. W. Pugin (1812–1852), to design the complex. The younger Pugin had already begun to make a name for himself designing churches and cathedrals, mostly in the Northwest of England. The Retreat's grand Victorian Gothic façade with its roof ornaments tipped with iron faced the London Road (later Kenninghall Road).Footnote ³² Building began on the north side of the plot in 1861 and by 1862 the first inhabitants entered the front terrace of six apartments. The final complex, completed in 1874, included 40 apartments each with a suite of 5 rooms plus a communal library. This was an almshouse of extraordinary proportions in comparison with other Victorian almshouses which tended to have only one storey with between 5 and 12 individual dwellings.Footnote ³³ St Scholastica's size and Gothic splendour (see Figure 1) reflected Harrison's intent to build a structure fit for the social status of the respectable gentry and professional/commercial classes.Footnote ³⁴

Figure 1.

Photograph of postcard ‘St Scholastica's Retreat’ by sludgegulper on flickr.com, used under the Creative Commons license CC By SA 2.0. https://www.flickr.com/search/?l=commderiv&q=st%20scholastica's%20retreat (accessed 20 August 2014).

Each of the 10 terraced houses held four apartments, two located on the ground floor and two above on the first floor. Inhabitants entered the front door into a corridor; on either side of the corridor were the inner doors to the first two apartments. Walking up a flight of stairs, one would find the two doors of the third and fourth apartments. Each door opened into a sitting room. Through the sitting room one could walk into the bedroom and behind that the kitchen and scullery and coal place which overlooked the back garden.Footnote ³⁵ On the second floor was the attic, where two rooms housed up to four servants (one for each inhabitant). The spacious front garden on the front of the Retreat faced the London Road but was large enough to allow for some privacy. The library was also used as a meeting room (and until 1882 operated as a temporary chapel) and included two large fireplaces and oil paintings of Robert, Charlotte Scholastica and Elizabeth Harrison (no longer extant).Footnote ³⁶ The stained-glass windows in the library (see Figure 2) included the Harrison coat of arms and the family mottos. All this has sadly disappeared; the entire structure was demolished in the 1970s as it was considered unfit for habitation and judged to be too expensive to modernise.

Figure 2.

Photograph of postcard ‘The Hall, St Scholastica's Retreat’ by sludgegulper on flickr.com, used under the Creative Commons license CC By SA 2.0. https://www.flickr.com/search/?l=commderiv&q=st%20scholastica's%20retreat (accessed 20 August 2014).

Harrison was fully committed to St Scholastica's Retreat, managing it personally until days before her death in 1867 when its management was passed on to five trustees.Footnote ³⁷ She was personally responsible for accepting the first group of inmates and she devised the ‘Rights, Restrictions & Rules of Inmates of St Scholastica's Retreat’. On her death, except for some small bequests, the entirety of her estate valued at over £36,000 was left to St Scholastica's.Footnote ³⁸ It is to the Retreat candidates and inhabitants that this essay now turns to in order to better understand how this community of ‘decayed members’Footnote ³⁹ of the middle classes of society was created and constituted.

4. SOCIAL CLASS

The document entitled ‘Rights, Restrictions & Rules of Inmates of St. Scholastica's Retreat’ elaborated on the list of qualifications of potential occupants: they were ‘poor and reduced’ Roman Catholics over 60 years of age belonging to the ranks of the gentry or professional or commercial classes. Accepted candidates could bring with them a spouse or other blood relative (limited to father/mother/brother/sister/son/daughter) as a co-inmate (only women over 50 years of age and men over 60 years of age) and one servant over 30 years of age.Footnote ⁴⁰ The population at St Scholastica's as derived from the census and the analysis of St Scholastica's register matches these criteria quite closely (see Table 1).Footnote ⁴¹ What is clear from the census data is that though the complex was completed in 1874, it was never fully occupied. One house was inhabited by the warden and his family and included offices for the warden and the trustees. In 1881, a porter and his family occupied another house (until 1884 when the separate porter's cottage was completed). The reason behind these empty apartments is provided by warden Harry Gilmore who notes that because investment income could not cover stipends for all occupants, the trustees left some apartments empty.Footnote ⁴²

Table 1

St Scholastica's Retreat: inmate statistics, 1861–1901

^a Data not available.

Sources: England and Wales Census, 1871–1901; St Scholastica's Retreat (SSR) Inmates Register.

The age and gender balance at St Scholastica's Retreat was quite consistent with the preliminary figures of the FACHRS almshouse project. Of those that were accepted, the average and median age was 66 years (FACHRS was 64 years), with the youngest being 55 years and the oldest 94 years. Retreat occupants were overwhelmingly female (84.62 per cent compared with the FACRS figures of 82.65 per cent in Middlesex), with 46 per cent unmarried and 47 per cent widowed women.Footnote ⁴³ Scholars have argued that women were often ‘heavily overrepresented’ in institutions (mainly workhouses) due to their ‘weak social situation’.Footnote ⁴⁴ Contemporary voices such as those of writer Ada Moore point to a dearth of education and employment opportunities for middle-class women, remarking that ‘decayed’ gentlewomen were part of ‘that large army of unmarried gentlewomen who are practically destitute’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Yet historians have not come to any firm conclusions as to whether such ‘decay’ was the common experience of unmarried middle-class women.Footnote ⁴⁶

Announcements promoting the opening of St Scholastica's Retreat in 1862 included a circular sent to the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales, an article published in The Tablet and a small notice included in the annual Catholic directory. These announcements highlighted the primary criterion for admittance into St Scholastica's: that of social class. St Scholastica's was promoted as a charity for ‘poor and reduced Catholics’ from the gentry or wholesale commercial or professional classes.Footnote ⁴⁷ This was not the social class that inhabited the majority of English almshouses. Preliminary FACHRS data indicate that English almshouse inhabitants were primarily from the labouring classes; frequently noted occupations from the census data included agricultural workers and labourers if male and nurses and servants if female.Footnote ⁴⁸ Low's handbooks suggested that pensions were often given to those a social class above the typical almshouse resident. St Scholastica's inhabitants had an even higher social status than this grouping.Footnote ⁴⁹

Elizabeth Harrison, and later the trustees, demarcated the parameters of the social class they wished to attract to St Scholastica's quite precisely by occupation. Occupational information about the applicant, husband of the applicant and, often, parents of the applicant was requested from candidates. Occupations documented in the register ranged from the rather imprecise ‘gentleman’ to the more descriptive ‘wholesale champagne and cork merchant’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Most applicants were female, and had no stated waged occupation, so nothing or ‘no profession’ was listed. In many cases father's employment was noted. More surprising was that the father's livelihood was recorded even when there was a notation of the widow's deceased husband's occupation. St Scholastica's trustees apparently wished to ensure that the applicant had not recently risen in social class or through marriage. Each potential inmate was interviewed to confirm that they were ‘of respectable character and behaviour’.Footnote ⁵¹ Correspondence with potential applicants also signalled the importance of social class. James Batchelor's application shows that he was a ‘dealer in silk and furniture fringes’ but trustee John Haly questioned whether this meant he was a manufacturer or warehouseman. Batchelor's response is not extant but he must have assured the trustees of his professional credentials, as he became a resident of St Scholastica's.Footnote ⁵²

Unfortunately, we have less occupational information for those who withdrew their application or were rejected, but at least three applicants were explicitly disallowed because of their social class. Irene Foscigier did not belong ‘to classes for whom [the] charity [was] designed’; her father was a foreman at Messrs Broadwood. The remaining two did not have occupations listed, but notes indicated of one applicant that her ‘rank in life [was] below those of other cases elected’ and, in the other, her ‘condition of life makes her ineligible’.Footnote ⁵³ Trustees intended that St Scholastica's Retreat would maintain the ideals of middle-class respectability and thus the class cohesion of its occupants was deemed crucial; respectability was intrinsic to this idealised class identity despite the financial penury of inhabitants.Footnote ⁵⁴

Candidates were also required to be born in or otherwise domiciled in Great Britain for 10 consecutive years.Footnote ⁵⁵ Elizabeth Harrison emphasised the connection to Hackney with her stated preference for Hackney residents, but St Scholastica's was always meant as a national institution. It was advertised in the national Catholic press, thus encouraging a wider assortment of applicants. This was contrary to the typical almshouse occupants who have traditionally been linked to place, local inhabitants being the primary intended recipients.Footnote ⁵⁶ Likewise, and despite being advertised nationally, Retreat occupants had strong links to London. The census analysis (Table 1) confirms that 22 to 37 per cent of occupants were Londoners by birth. The register indicates also that 72 per cent of all inmates had London addresses before entering. However, given the increasing numbers of Irish emigrants to Britain in the nineteenth century, the majority of whom were Catholic, restricting entry to those born or resident in Great Britain for 10 years would seem like a harsh and exclusionary parameter. It is difficult to gauge why Elizabeth Harrison would have included this clause. She would be an unlikely candidate for anti-Irish sentiment. Her sister-in-law Charlotte Scholastica was Irish-born and they appeared to have a close relationship, given the naming of St Scholastica's Retreat. Harrison chose as Trustee and handpicked successor for daily business matters, Cork-born John Haly, Charlotte Scholastica's brother. Yet, the census indicates only six of the occupants over the 40-year census period were Irish-born (presumably, they were offered admission under the 10-year rule). This is probably simply a matter of timing. Trustee John Haly's response to a challenge to this rule in 1874 points to more robust numbers of Irish occupants:

It also points to the sensitivity to this ‘Irish question’. It is true, of course, that the majority of the Irish in Britain would have been working class and thus ineligible for entry into St Scholastica's Retreat. John Belchem's work on Liverpool's nineteenth-century Irish middle class indicates that they fashioned themselves as a ‘self-enclosed, self-sufficient network’ which could be interpreted by the English as an ‘Irish Catholic apartness’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Perhaps such Irish ‘apartness’ was considered too difficult to integrate into what was meant to be a community of like-minded and socially equal occupants. The overall emphasis on social class points to the significance of class cohesion to Elizabeth Harrison and the trustees of St Scholastica's Retreat.

5. ‘MIXED ECONOMY OF WELFARE’

The commercial leadership of the nineteenth-century middle classes has been woven into the narrative of the great nation, industrialisation and progress. Missing from this discourse, though, was financial uncertainty, more commonplace than normally assumed for the middle classes. Changing industrial technologies brought opportunities but also strains and insecurity; fears of bankruptcy were very real.Footnote ⁵⁹ A middle-class family's financial security altered with the deaths of wage-earners, the fickleness of employers, downturns in the economy or poor qualifications, education or work skills. While we do not know the financial circumstances of all applicants who applied to enter St Scholastica's, causes of economic instability were occasionally noted in the register and provide a window into the causes of middle-class economic distress. Dr William Kenny and his wife Theresa were admitted in April 1880. His private fortune had been used to ‘pay the defalcation of a Trustee who had absconded’.Footnote ⁶⁰ Frances Dudley Ward, a retired governess and daughter of an army officer, applied for entrance into St Scholastica's in 1896; her conversion to Catholicism had led to her financial insecurity.Footnote ⁶¹ Sixty-three-year-old spinster Frances Cuddon, whose father was a managing clerk in Wright's Bank, indicated that the bank's failure in 1840 ‘ruined the family’.Footnote ⁶²

Importantly, Retreat inhabitants were not destitute. Accommodation was provided free of charge, but inhabitants were expected to provide for their own maintenance with a guarantee of an annuity of £80 (£60 if female).Footnote ⁶³ For those who could not guarantee this annuity, Elizabeth Harrison's legacy initially allowed for a stipend of up to £40 to make up for the shortfall. Effectively this meant that the minimum guarantee of annuity became £40 (£20 if female). But shortly after Harrison's death, investment capital began to decline. Trustees began limiting the number of occupants in St Scholastica's Retreat. In 1890, stipends were dropped to a maximum of £25 per annum, which meant that the effective guarantees of annuity rose to £55 (£35 if female).Footnote ⁶⁴

The analysis of annuities can shed some light on the personal finances of the inhabitants but there are factors that limit the overall analysis and contradict the stated guarantees listed above. First, Elizabeth Harrison was known to have made exceptions to the annuity requirements while she was managing St Scholastica's. Second, the annuities of only 85 inmates (of 117) were documented. Annual annuities from 1861 to 1900 averaged £39, though they ranged from £9 to £85 per annum.Footnote ⁶⁵ Extant minutes and correspondence with the Charity Commission indicate that trustees, prior to 1888, were more likely to offer places to those that had higher guaranteed personal allowances in order to minimise the stipend distributed by St Scholastica's Retreat. This reflected their concern that investment interest would not stretch far enough to meet the needs of all occupants.Footnote ⁶⁶

Annuity sources were included in the records of 76 residents.Footnote ⁶⁷ Half derived some or all of their annuity from personal investments. Family support was also significant; 26 family members provided annuities. This corresponds with Pat Thane's contention that families did not always take in elderly family members, suggesting the elderly preferred living independently.Footnote ⁶⁸ Friends, Catholic elites and charitable associations also contributed to annuities. Of the inhabitants, 14 were subsidised, at least in part, by charities such as the Molyneux Fund or the Universal Beneficent Society.Footnote ⁶⁹ In nine cases, friends or named individuals provided some financial support. Here, we find some explicit links to the Catholic elite that point to the significance of social networks. Some candidates were financially supported by English and European Catholic nobility. Miss Georgina Crowe was given £5 per annum from the Duchess of Norfolk and another £5 from the Lord and Lady Compton.Footnote ⁷⁰ Countess Tasker guaranteed an annuity of £20 per annum for Miss Anna Harding.Footnote ⁷¹ Some had employment links to the Catholic aristocracy. Inmate Henri la Serre, a ‘gentleman’ whose parents were ‘ruined nobles’, received a £20 annuity from the Duke of Norfolk whose son he had taught in the 1860s.Footnote ⁷² Mary Spain was a governess in the family of the French monarchist politician Auguste-Louis-Albéric, Prince d'Arenberg (1837–1924) who paid her annuity of £50 per annum.Footnote ⁷³ What this analysis suggests is that financial impoverishment and residency in St Scholastica's Retreat did not necessarily mean estrangement from friends and family; social and familial networks remained important sources of support even after inmates entered St Scholastica's Retreat.

Another resource for Retreat occupants was co-residency. The decennial censuses indicate that the community at St Scholastica's ranged from 32 to 51 individuals (Table 1). Only two or three inmates in each census decade were married; most were widowed or unmarried. Though allowed to bring in servants, only 4 of 18 inmates had a servant in 1871 and this dropped to 1 out of 32 inmates in 1901. More inmates had co-inmates, though this did not remain a popular option according to census data; in 1871 half the inmates had a co-inmate but the ratio declined thereafter. The register suggests a more robust incidence of co-residents. Of the 46 (out of the 117) inhabitants with co-residents listed in Table 2, the majority of co-residents were spouses (14) and daughters (16).Footnote ⁷⁴ Seven co-residents were servants and nurses. In 12 cases, the co-inmate became an inmate upon the death of their co-resident inmate. In one unusual case, one inmate brought in four additional family members to reside at St Scholastica's. Frances Kirkby was accepted as an inmate in 1869 with her 55-year-old daughter Fanny May as co-inmate; a second daughter Jessica appeared in the 1871 census. Frances died in 1875, and Fanny May was elected an inmate. In 1881, the census records her living with her sister Elizabeth as co-inmate and in 1891, with both Elizabeth and her brother Herbert. In 1890, Herbert became a co-inmate. In 1895, Elizabeth Kirkby died. Four years later, the last of the Kirkbys, Fanny May and her brother Herbert, died.Footnote ⁷⁵ Altogether, a member of the Kirkby family resided at St Scholastica's for 30 years.Footnote ⁷⁶ These patterns of co-residence point to the mutuality of self-help amongst family members. The elected inmate supported another family member by providing free lodging. But this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement, as the co-inmate could also act as caretaker. Several examples of this exist in the records. Joseph Richardson's 41-year-old daughter, Mary Jane, was admitted as his attendant.Footnote ⁷⁷ In the 1871 census, 67-year-old Elizabeth Kurton's co-inmate Sarah Flint, her cousin, was listed as her servant.Footnote ⁷⁸ This highlights the fluidity between family member and carer/servant. It is likely that more co-inmates were carers than is reflected in the extant documents, as St Scholastica's did not employ a resident doctor or nurse for residents until the twentieth century.

Table 2

St Scholastica's Retreat: number of co-inmates, 1861–1900^a

^a Total of 117 inmates.

Source: St Scholastica's Retreat Inmates Register.

Historically, almshouses were for those who were capable of independent living and St Scholastica's was no different in this regard. The ‘Rights and Restrictions of Inmates’ stipulated that ‘no lunatic or insane person, nor any bed-ridden person, nor any person afflicted with outward disease declared to be contagious or incurable shall be admissible either as an inmate or as a co-inmate’.Footnote ⁷⁹ Therefore any subsequent infirmity or physical decline could mean withdrawal. The friends of Madame Augustine Georgen removed her from St Scholastica's ‘on account of her great age and having no one to attend upon her’. She was 84 years old at the time.Footnote ⁸⁰ Two additional inmates left for Nazareth House, the home for the aged run by the Sisters of Nazareth.Footnote ⁸¹ Former teacher Catherine Holland became ill and left for St Mary's Hospital in Stone run by the Dominicans of St Catherine of Siena.Footnote ⁸² After a severe illness, Julia Ravenscroft's brother insisted she leave St Scholastica's so she could have ‘better attendance’.Footnote ⁸³ In all these cases, the implication was that the inmate needed long-term medical or personal care. Family and friends were still available when the inmate's health declined and independent living was no longer possible. In addition, there were other Catholic forms of institutional support available, such as Nazareth House and St Mary's Hospital, when inmates could no longer live independently. For many, St Scholastica's was not the ‘last resort’.Footnote ⁸⁴

Inhabitants accessed a mix of resources, from personal assets, kinship relationships, friendship and charitable networks, as part of a ‘mixed economy of welfare’ so often discussed by welfare historians in Britain. This term, used to describe the numerous ways that the poor made ends meet, has found its place in histories of the poor who used state-funded poor relief, philanthropic resources and informal sources, such as friendship and family networks, to subsist through times of financial hardship.Footnote ⁸⁵ This concept also has its place in our discussion of middle-class downward mobility. Numerous applicants had some personal sources of income, though perhaps not enough for independent living in their own homes. But for many more, additional financial supports were necessary. Kin relationships were for some of utmost importance; many inmates derived their allowances from family members. Also, in other cases, a reciprocal relationship may have existed where inmates provided accommodation (and future inmate status) for a family member whilst the family member co-inmate provided nursing or other bodily aid.

6. DOMESTIC SPACES AND IDENTITY

Despite its charitable status, St Scholastica's Retreat was successful in developing an institutional identity that did not pauperise its occupants. Elizabeth Harrison, and later St Scholastica's Retreat trustees, sought a set of inhabitants whose ‘rank in life’ was similar; they relied on occupation to identify appropriate inhabitants but that alone was not enough.Footnote ⁸⁶ What this section will argue is that the well-kept home was an important signifier of middle-class status and respectability even (and maybe especially) for those whose financial position was unstable.Footnote ⁸⁷ St Scholastica's provided this home, but in order to make certain that inmates conformed to expected middle-class ideals, the trustees upheld explicit rules regarding standards of interior design and cleanliness.

As mentioned earlier, the location of St Scholastica's Retreat in Clapton denoted the significance of place. Elizabeth Harrison located St Scholastica's Retreat in Clapton where the ‘situation of building [was] healthy, being in the immediate neighbourhood of Hackney-downs’.Footnote ⁸⁸ Charles Booth's 1898–1899 maps colour the surrounding urban residences of Clapton pink and red to indicate the middle-class tenor of the locale.Footnote ⁸⁹ The Victorian Gothic structure built by Pugin was suitably impressive and appropriate to these environs. Streets were wide, and buildings plots appeared spacious.

St Scholastica's Retreat provided its inmates with apartments that included a suite of rooms which allowed for clearly delineated activities: sitting room, bedroom, kitchen, scullery with pantry, coal-place as well as an attic room for shared servants’ accommodation. This regulation of space through segregation of activities and functions was a marker of middle-class identity.Footnote ⁹⁰ That these spaces were private was emphasised by the trustees and minuted in 1892 when the warden reported his concern that he did not maintain a set of keys for inmates’ rooms. When Miss Morgan lost consciousness, he had had to enter her residence through a window. The trustees, in response to his ‘expression of anxiety’, reminded him that it was not their duty (or his) to intrude upon the privacy of inmates and their rooms should be looked upon as private.Footnote ⁹¹ Richard Trainor, in discussing middle-class housing, noted a strong desire for privacy and St Scholastica's Retreat provided this for its inmates.Footnote ⁹² Though a library existed as a common room, this was not communal living. St Scholastica's Retreat inhabitants lived independently, managing their own household, handling their own finances and arranging for their own meals.

However, the prescribed rules documented in the ‘Rights and Restrictions of Inmates’ for decorating and spatial planning were scrupulous. The sitting room floor was carpeted ‘and if possible of one material and pattern’. It could not be used as a kitchen or a bedroom. Residents were instructed to ‘introduce household goods and furniture as can be conveniently and properly placed for ordinary use’. Rule VI indicated:

There were prescriptions regarding the outdoor environment also: ‘No drying, bleaching, airing linen, clothes etc in front premises, open ground, gardens; no alterations of walks, flowerbeds, etc.’ Exceptions to the rules were made on occasion. In 1895, the warden noted that 72-year-old Mrs Aves and some other inmates placed boxes of flowers near the outer doors. The response of the Trustees indicated some cautious leeway that considered the ‘amusement’ of the inmates:

Respectability went hand in hand with a preoccupation with cleanliness and this was also reflected in St Scholastica's rules and minutes.Footnote ⁹⁵ Rule V indicated that inmates should be ‘cleanly and orderly in the care of their rooms’. While there is no surviving evidence of regular inspections of internal spaces, there are occasional notes about untidiness in the correspondence and minutes.Footnote ⁹⁶ Inhabitants whose rooms were not up to a certain standard of hygiene were admonished in person and in writing. When the warden noted that Miss Isabella Gray's rooms were not clean, the solicitor was instructed to ‘write to that Lady upon the subject’.Footnote ⁹⁷ The same complaint was made of Elizabeth Steed and the warden was requested to ‘draw Mrs Steed's attention to the need of cleanliness in her apartments owing to the shortcomings of her servant’.Footnote ⁹⁸ Retreat rules were exact about cleanliness. The apartments were to be cleaned weekly. The occupants of the upper and lower floors were to take turns washing the landing and watercloset and sweeping and washing the back external flight of stone steps. The back step was to be washed twice a week, while the front door step and doormat were to be shaken weekly. Monthly, inmates of the lower floors took turns to wash the basement or paved lobby. Inmates paid for chimney sweeping when necessary. There were also rules about lighting the gas each evening at dusk, and then lights out at 10 pm: ‘the inmate in charge of the basement shall each night fasten the external doors at 10 pm when everyone was expected to be within the apartment’.Footnote ⁹⁹ This was part of the code that John Burnett argues defined middle-class status. The home became not only a place of comfort and protection from the outside world, but also:

St Scholastica's Retreat register and correspondence indicate that it was well regarded even amongst those who were financially better off; 11 applicants were rejected or withdrew because their income or property holdings exceeded the maximum limits set by the Trustees.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Inmate Mariana Monteiro, author of As David and the sibyls say (1905) noted her address, ‘St Scholastica's Retreat’, in the preface of this text, which would suggest she felt no embarrassment at living in charitable accommodation.Footnote ¹⁰² Relations of trustees can also be found in St Scholastica's. Susannah White (c. 1789–1877), the aunt by marriage of trustee Stephen White (1837–1906; trustee 1890–1906), resided in St Scholastica's from 1863 to 1877 after the death of her husband, surgeon Edward White. Their son (and Stephen White's cousin) George White (c. 1823–1898) with his wife Lavinia (1831–1910) entered in 1886. Lavinia remained in St Scholastica's after George's death, bringing in her sister-in-law Agnes White (also Stephen's cousin) as a co-inmate.Footnote ¹⁰³ There is little evidence of the ‘social subordination’ or the ‘whiff of failure’ that Frank Prochaska claims was intrinsic to inter-middle-class charities.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Rather than understanding St Scholastica's and almshouses for the middle classes as arenas of failure, we might better understand them as philanthropic housing necessary to maintain the social order. Almshouse places were much coveted and did not necessarily lead to a loss in social status.