It is not surprising, then, that Elizabeth Berry was out to get a husband, and with the exacting social situation being what it was, she moved with some alacrity, for her goal was not likely to be one that could be realized overnight.
It would not be long before she made her move.
Elizabeth had been raised as a Catholic like her parents, but with her marriage she changed her religion to that of the Protestant Church of England, and with Thomas worshipped regularly at their local church, St Luke’s, where Thomas sang in the choir. Now, following her dismissal by Dr Shaw, the widowed Elizabeth resumed alone her attendance at St Luke’s, and very soon began to have some sympathetic meetings with the church’s curate and to offer to help him with his work, giving out tracts and such. And the association quickly became the subject of gossip. As one contributor to the Chronicle wrote, ‘The grass over her husband’s grave was scarcely green when she was often seen, flaunting about in a white dress, walking about with a curate…’
The young widow’s meetings with the curate took place at weekends when she was free from her nursing studies at the Manchester Infirmary. And it wasn’t long before the meetings developed into something rather more personal than might usually be the case for a grieving widow in need of a little tea and sympathy. In Mrs Berry’s book the relationship became somewhat romantic in nature – though how far, in truth, it went in this direction we cannot know. She, however, was both experienced and determined. Though while she was in no way naïve, the same cannot be claimed for the reverend gentleman. Although he was regarded as a victim of her machinations, and unlikely to have made the running, it was said that ‘she enamoured’ him to such a degree that – so she contended – he proposed marriage. The truth of the matter is now beyond discovery, but whatever happened it was not long before the young man’s relatives began strongly objecting to the union as a mésalliance, and the ‘courtship’ was broken off. In response, Mrs Berry, as determined and imaginative as ever, immediately threatened to sue for breach of promise, claiming in compensation the sum of £1,000 (£110,000 today).
The case did not go to court. While the young curate claimed to be well aware that her action was a ‘plant’ to obtain money, and stated that he was quite ready to defend the action in court, his mother had other ideas. She had no intention of seeing her son forced into such a scandalous situation, and went personally to confront the gay young widow. Speaking to her ‘in no stinted terms’, she told her plainly that she was on to her game, which was to obtain money regardless of the damage that such a court case would do to the character of her son, a young man just beginning to make for himself a position in life. ‘What sort of a woman are you?’ the curate’s mother asked. ‘I know that all you want is money. Tell me what it is and if it’s reasonable it shall be paid.’
The upshot was that Mrs Berry did not get her £1,000 – but she did receive from the curate’s mother the sum of £150.
So concluded that particular adventure – a ‘discreditable incident’ as the Chronicle described it, and one which further illustrates the darker side of Elizabeth Berry’s character. And while the affair didn’t bring her what she had hoped for – marriage – she ended up financially better off. She was, of course, well aware of the negative gossip that the affair provoked, but there can be no doubt that had she managed to land her fish she would have borne the contumely as she had borne such in the past. Although the clergyman’s mother accused her of being after her son’s money, there can be little doubt that it was indeed marriage that Mrs Berry was after, and with it the elevation of her social status. To rise from cotton-weaver and daughter of an illiterate mother to that of wife of a wealthy cleric would have been right in line with her ambitions.
Breach of promise is of course an antiquated concept now, and since the law was dropped in 1970 there can be no more prosecutions. And while no abandoned woman sues for damages today, neither does she, like some latter-day Miss Havisham, stay shut away in a darkened room in a greying wedding gown beside the remains of her rotting wedding breakfast, clutching her heart and murmuring that it is broken. As we well know, in the modern age with women no longer dependent on men and marriage, a scorned woman is less likely to seek financial redress than revenge. And while it has been known for some to go to the police with cries of rape, others have demonstrated other means of settling scores – perhaps pouring paint-stripper over the ex-loved one’s Mercedes or cutting up his Armani suits.
Elizabeth Berry, though, was a different kettle of fish. And it might be argued that in her particular situation she made the best of a bad job. Faced with the humiliation of being discarded, she could have faded into the background. But this was not her style, and although she had failed to catch the husband she wanted, still there was comfort in being given a handsome pay-off by the curate’s mother. And the fact that it was paid over so swiftly can only demonstrate how gravely the situation was regarded. But there again, perhaps the curate’s mother got the measure of the young widow, and realized that she was dealing with a very dangerous woman.
6
Another Death
Undeterred by the scandalous outcome of her affair with the curate, Elizabeth Berry would resume her efforts to find a new husband before too much time had passed. In the meantime, having come to the end of her medical schooling, and now a qualified nurse and midwife, she was ready to take the first steps on the path of her new career.
While undergoing her training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary it is likely that she had hopes of her future work taking place in pleasant surroundings. If so, she was to be greatly disillusioned, for she soon discovered that the options open to her were very limited. Generally, the only realistic offers of steady employment came from the country’s workhouses.
Her nursing career would last for six years, and all of it would be spent in a succession of workhouses in and around the towns of northern England. And to say that she detested the work would not be an exaggeration. Apart from being highly intelligent and regarding herself as superior to others of her station, she was fastidious to a degree. The milieu of the workhouse, then, would not have suited her for a moment, and it is hardly surprising that she was never content and kept moving on.
The last of the workhouses closed in the last century – but they were once ubiquitous, with hundreds scattered throughout the land. A brief look here at the institution will give some idea of the backdrop against which Elizabeth Berry’s life was played out over the six years of her nursing career.
For hundreds of years before our present national welfare system came into being in the mid-twentieth century the care of the destitute had been the responsibility of the parishes, housing the homeless in poorhouses or workhouses. The Union Workhouses, as they were called, came into being in the nineteenth century when it was decided that it was time for such institutions to be centrally controlled, with the same governing rules in place across the country. So rules were laid down. Pauper inmates would have food, clothing (uniform), and a bed provided. Those who were fit were made to work. No coming and going at will was permitted – so gates were locked and guarded, liberty being allowed only to trusted inmates at certain times. The sexes were segregated, inevitably leading to families being split up. Not only were the healthy poor given shelter, but the sick also, with care given to the blind, the lame, imbeciles, lunatics and the terminally diseased. Each workhouse was run by a Master, or Governor, some of whom, as is the way of the world, abused their positions, so that over the years numerous instances came to light of the most dreadful cruelties meted out to inmates. Charles Dickens’s workhouse setting for Oliver Twist was very much based on reality.
An illustration of the conditions found in some of the workhouses in the mid to late nineteenth century can be seen in a report made by an examiner from the Poor Law Board. It paints a remarkable picture – one which graphically reveals some of the horrors associated with the workhouses, and adds to their dark mythology.
The examination took
place in October 1866 at the Oldham Union Workhouse, by coincidence the same workhouse which, twenty years later, was to be Elizabeth Berry’s last place of employment, and the scene of Edith Annie’s death.
The government inspector sent to look over the place was Poor Law Board officer Mr R.B. Cane. Judging by his subsequent report, his investigation appears to have been fairly thorough and, one might hope, led to some much needed changes. It is worth quoting part of his report. He wrote (his underlinings conveyed here in italics):
About one fifth of the inmates are Roman Catholics; about half the remainder are Dissenters, and the rest belong to the Church of England. All the inmates who are able to do so, go either to church or chapel out of the workhouse on Sundays. A clergyman of the Church of England voluntarily performs a service in the workhouse on Sundays. “Town missionaries” visit the workhouse daily.
The ventilation of this workhouse is very imperfect, and the defect is immediately perceptible to the senses upon entering the wards. Many of the wards are close, dark, and gloomy. The water-closets are so imperfectly constructed that much of the foul air arising from them is drawn into the wards.
The children of both sexes are all quite young and small. They readily obtain employment as soon as they are old and strong enough; the boys go to the coal pits and factories; the girls become “nurse girls” and domestic servants. When in school, these children, boys as well as girls, are partly under pauper superintendence.
The men sleep together two in a bed, a most objectionable custom, and one that I hope to see entirely done away with very soon in this district. Smoking tobacco by the women as well as by men is prevalent in most of the wards here, as in many other workhouses in this district.
A woman who had been blind from her birth complained to me, though with much apparent hesitation and reluctance, that the pauper superintendent of the ward, of which she was an inmate, abused, swore at, and ill-treated the infirm women under her care; I inquired into the complaint, and came to the conclusion that it was well founded. The other inmates of the ward whom I questioned assured me that the superintendent ill-used them constantly; they seemed quite in fear of her. After consulting with the master and matron, it was arranged that this woman should be immediately superseded and removed from the ward, and her place filled by someone else.
There is a detached infirmary at this workhouse, and there are also detached wards called “fever wards”; there are no convalescent wards in either of these places. The number of sick and others requiring medical attendance at this time is eighty. Some of these cases, owing to the want of room, are placed in the ordinary sleeping wards, occupied by healthy persons in the main building.
The nursing, attendance, and general management of the sick in these wards is insufficient and unsatisfactory. Efficient nurses are urgently required, and they should be superintended and guided by a person of superior intelligence.
The sick are not always supplied with separate beds; in one ward two old men were in the same bed together. In another ward I found together a girl 13 years old afflicted by a “urinary complaint”, a woman with “itch”,* a child four years old with “whooping cough”, a middle-aged woman with venereal disease, and an aged woman who, from infirmity, was unavoidably of extremely offensive habits. Into these wards was lately sent a case of cholera, which shortly afterwards terminated fatally. The convalescent patients from the fever wards are sent to the infirmary, and they mix with the other patients there.
There are no proper dining tables for those who are able to sit up and take their food. Consequently, they are obliged to place their plates upon the beds, their knees, their seats, and on the tops of the night stools [commodes]. Tables and table linen are much required.
Mr Cane’s compelling report is interesting in many ways, not least in his recording of how a sub-standard nurse was removed and replaced on the spot for her unacceptable behaviour. That incident aside, the report presents a picture akin to hell, and shows well why individuals would consider anything rather than go into a workhouse – and in many cases end their miserable days there.
As noted, Mr Cane’s examination of the Oldham workhouse was made in 1866, twenty years before Elizabeth Berry would step over the threshold, and by which time many improvements had been made. However, during her nursing career she would have been faced with conditions very similar to those observed by Mr Cane, and with her fastidiousness she must have recoiled from some of the demands made of her.
We are told that Mrs Berry’s first post on completing her nurse’s training was at the Prestwich Asylum in Manchester. But as with her brief employment as housekeeper by Dr Shaw, it didn’t last, and after a very short time, for reasons not known, she was dismissed. Her next employment was somewhat further afield, at the Wellington Union Workhouse in Shropshire. She is said to have remained in this post for about nine months. Before leaving her situation, however, there took place a most surprising and tragic event.
Now and then, in between the periods of her employment at the various institutions, Elizabeth made calls at the home of her in-laws, the Sandersons, at Miles Platting, where Harold and Edith had been sent to live. And it was to their house in Albion Street that she repaired when she had been given some time off from her duties at the Wellington workhouse in the late summer of 1882. On her arrival she announced that she had come to take the children away on holiday.
Elizabeth and Edith Annie, c. 1882. From a photograph likely to have been taken on a trip to Blackpool.
The coastal town of Blackpool – ‘where enjoyment is the watchword of the day’, as the Chronicle would have it – was a popular and not overly expensive resort for those northerners who wanted a breath of sea air, and Elizabeth Berry had gone to stay in the town on more than one occasion. Early that September, a year after her husband’s death, she packed up Harold and Edith’s things and, with the excited children beside her, set off for the coast and the bright lights of the town.
After finding lodgings they spent their days enjoying the beach and the other diversions and amusements on offer, and taking refreshment in the seaside cafés. All seemed to go well, and it is likely that Harold and Edith enjoyed themselves. Tragically, however, on the return journey home on 18 September the children fell ill. By the time they arrived back at Miles Platting their condition was giving cause for concern. Fortunately, Edith recovered, but Harold’s condition worsened. Two weeks later, on Thursday 27 September, he died.
His death will be examined later in this book.
Harold’s body was laid to rest next to his father’s in Manchester’s Harpurhey Cemetery. His life having been insured with the Prudential Insurance Company, his bereaved mother promptly collected the due sum of £5.
*
A skin disease correctly named scabies, caused by Sarcoptes scabiei, a minute oval-shaped mite, just visible to the naked eye. The female burrows in the skin, forming small tunnels in which she lays her eggs. The eggs hatch and it is the movement of the larvae which causes intense itching, so giving the disease its common name. In earlier times in Great Britain scabies was rife among the population and virtually untreatable. Even today it requires the most careful treatment.
7
And Yet Another Death
The year following Harold’s death Mrs Berry left the Wellington Workhouse to seek new employment, and in April 1883 took up a position at the Union Workhouse at Burton-upon-Trent* in Staffordshire. A new building, it was a cut above many other such institutions, and possibly as a result of its relative comforts and mod-cons Mrs Berry’s period of employment there was to be the longest in her nursing career. Even so, it was still a workhouse, and the future she had in mind did not embrace years on end of tending to the needs of the neighbourhood’s down-and-outs, imbecilic vagrants, disease-ridden ex-prostitutes and incontinent septuagenarians.
She stayed until the end of October 1885, after which she went to Miles Platting to spend the rest of the year with the Sandersons and Edith Annie, her remain
ing child, and there to be joined for the Christmas period by her mother, who travelled from Castleton.
While staying in Miles Platting Mrs Berry had applied herself to the matter of finding new employment, and in January she applied for a post at the Chesterfield Union Workhouse in Derbyshire. The year now was 1886. It would prove to be a momentous year for her, and yet another year of drama and loss. She could not know that it was also to be her last year of freedom.
Her application to the workhouse meeting with success, it was arranged that she would assume her duties on Monday 1 February. As things turned out, however, she was to spend only one day in the job.
As agreed with the Board of Guardians, she arrived at the workhouse on the 1st and put in her first day’s work, but on returning at eleven the next morning she informed an astonished Mr George Shaw, Clerk to the Guardians, that she would have to leave. That morning, she said, she had received a letter from her mother in Castleton, Rochdale, saying that she was seriously ill. Therefore she would have to go to her at once. By half-past eleven she was out of the building, and next day was on her way to Castleton to see her mother.
There Must Be Evil Page 4
