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Authors: Laurence Lerner

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Page 239

Bibliography

Here, finally, are some of the striking child deaths I have come across in memoirs and letters, excluding those I have used in the text, which are, of course, documented in the notes. (A similar list, with which I have avoided overlap, can be found in Linda Pollock's
A Lasting Relationship: Parents and Children over Three Centuries
[Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1987], pages 123135.) Such a list obviously makes no claim to completeness, but each has at least a mite of interest, and they all contribute to a sense of what the subject meant to people in the nineteenth century. I give where possible the date, age, and cause of death, a quotation from the comments, and at least one source.

HENRY GURNEY AGGS
(1846: 19: typhus). "This dear youth early evinced a retiring and thoughtful demeanour, with a marked ingenuousness of character. His complaint was considered a feverish cold, that, with attention, would soon pass off until fourth-day evening, the 25th of 11th month, when there was an increase of fever. He spoke to his mother with deep and affectionate feeling, especially mentioning a book which he wished to be destroyed, if he would not recover.'I have never read it through, it is an improper book; I have laid it aside; it was given to me by, but I wish no-one to read it. Do thou burn it, dear mamma.' On First-day morning, the 13th, seeing the light breaking through the curtains, he turned to his Father who was watching by his side, and said sweetly, 'the dawning of the sabbath.' About a quarter before seven in the evening, his redeemed spirit gently passed from the body"
(The Annual Monitor for I848,
or
Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends for I847).
Among the obituaries regularly appearing in
The Annual Monitor
(York, 1842-) are several of young people (of which this is a representative sample) and occasionally of children.

MARTIN BENSON
(1878: 17: tubercular meningitis). "He closed his eyes as for sleep, and then turned his head a little towards the room, awoke afresh, and gazed with a beautiful expression at a part of the room where nothing visible stood: plainly saw something and exclaimed, 'How lovely.' These words were the last he uttered."E. W. Benson (father). "My dear Arthur, Martin is dead. Martin is

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gone to hefen. I am so happy that Martin is gone to Jesus Christ. I hope we shall all go to HIM very soon. He is Saint Martin now."Hugh Benson (brother, aged 6). David Newsome,
Godliness and Good Learning
(1961).

DAUGHTER OF WILLIAM BRADBURY
(1839: ?: ?). Dickens's letter of condolence speaks of "the certainty of a bright and happy world beyond the Grave, which such young and untried creatures (half Angels here) must be called away tothe happiness of being always able to think of her as a young and promising girl, and not as one whom years and long sorrow and suffering had changedabove all the thought of one day joining her again where sorrow and separation are unknown."
Letters of Charles Dickens
Pilgrim edition, 1:515.

LIONEL BURNETT
(1890: 15: consumption). "He has a mournful little way of calling 'Mamma' that would bring me to him if I were dying on my bed. If I move away from his side he says, 'Oh!
where
are you going? Don't go, Mamma darling.'" Ann Thwaite,
Waiting for the Party: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett
(1974).

ELDEST SON AND THREE YOUNG DAUGHTERS OF SIR THOMAS FOWEL BUXTON
(1820: 10 and younger: "inflammatory disorder," whoooping cough and measles). "'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' I have much desired her life, but willingly do I resign her into the hands of the Lord, praying Him that He would mercifully make her death the means of turning me more nearly to the Lord."
Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton
(1860).

SON OF J. W. CROKER
(1820: "of tender years": "water on the brain"). "He takes nothing; he has an odd kind of nervous sighing or groaning, very frequent."
Correspondence and Diaries of John Wilson Croker
(1885).

ELIZABETH, ELDEST SISTER OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY
(1791: 9: a "spark of fatal fire fell upon that train of predispositions to a brain complaint which had hitherto slumbered within her"). "I wearied the heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks. Obstinately I tormented the blue depths with my scrutiny, sweeping them for ever with my eyes, and searching them for one angelic face that might, perhaps, have permission to reveal itself for a moment. I saw white fleecy clouds [that] grew and shaped [them]selves into visions of beds with white lawny curtains; and in the beds lay sick children, dying children, that were tossing in anguish, and weeping clamorously for death."
Autobiography
of Thomas De Quincey (183451).

DORA DICKENS
(1851: 8 months: ?). Dickens wrote to his wife: "Little Dora, without being in the least pain, is suddenly stricken ill. I do notwhy should I say I do, to you my dear!I do not think her recovery at all likely. I cannot close without putting the strongest entreaty and injunction upon you to come home with perfect composureto remember what I have so often told you, that we never can expect to be exempt, as to our many children, from the afflictions of other parentsand that ififwhen you come, I should even have to say to you 'our little baby is dead,' you are to do your duty to the rest, and to shew yourself worthy of the great trust you hold in them." (Dora was already dead when he wrote this letter.)
Letters,
Pilgrim edition (6:353).

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LAMBTON DURHAM
(1831: 13). "Why did it fall on this heavenly boy, whilst I and so many others, who would be no loss to the world, are spared? I can think of nothing else, and am quite unnerved for the battle I have to fight."Lord Grey (grand father).
Life and Letters of Lord Durham,
ed. Stuart J. Reid (1906).

WILLIE GASKELL
(1845: 10 months: ?). Three years later his mother wrote: "I have just been up to our room. There was a fire in it, and a smell of baking, and oddly enough the feelings and recollections of three years ago came over me so stronglywhen I used to sit up in the room so often in the evenings reading by the fire, and watching my darling darling Willie, who now sleeps sounder still in the dull dreary chapel-yard at Warrington."
The Letters of Mrs Gaskell
(1966).

JESSY GLADSTONE
(1850: 4: meningitis). "In April of [1850] a little daughter, between four and five years old, had died, and was buried at Fasque. The illness was long and painful, and Mr Gladstone bore his part in the nursing and watching. He was tenderly fond of his little children, and the sorrow had a peculiar bitterness. It was the first time that death entered his married home" (John Morley,
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone
, 1908). "Gladstone was reported as being 'for some hours in a state of such violent grief as to cause positive alarm to those around him. Then, suddenly , his sense of duty got the upper hand; thence forward he was perfectly calm, and returned in all respects to the demeanour and habits of his everyday life.' He reported to Catherine: 'I have kissed the coffin where it lies: but the stones will not be laid down until tomorrow is over; and therefore my last visit is not paid'" (Richard Shannon, Gladstone, 1984). I should add that Morley follows the account of Jessy's death with an account of the death of Gladstone's father, which he regards as having had a far deeper effect on him.

SON OF WILLIAM HARCOURT
(1862: ?: "fever and brain disorder"). The father wrote to Thomas Hughes, in reply to a letter of condolence: "I really feel as if all my heart strings were snapped. My happiness was so wrapped up in the little boy that I feel it must be very long before either mind or body can rally from the shock. My wife bears up with an angelic courage. Women behave better in their trials because they are better. Watts did for me yesterday a sketch from the cold clay which Perugino might have envied. It really is my little darling as he lived. I shall write on his grave, 'For this angel doth always behold the face of my father which is in heaven.'" (A. G. Gardiner,
The Life of Sir William Harcourt
, 1923).

FANNY HAYDON
, second daughter of Benjamin Robert Haydon, the painter (1831: 2 years 9 months & 12 days: "suffusion of the brain"). "The life of this child has been one continued torture: she was weaned at three months from her mother's weakness and attempted to be brought up by hand. This failed, and she was reduced to a perfect skeleton." Haydon engaged a wet nurse, but had pangs of conscience when he realized that the nurse's own child was being sacrificed. "When the nurse's time was up, Fanny withered and today, after two convulsive fits, expired without a gasp." She was buried in Paddington new churchyard. "Two trees weep over her grave. No place could have been more romantic and secluded.''

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Haydon lost three more children, Alfred (1833: 7: ?), Harry, "my favourite child" (1834: 4: ?) and Georgiana (1835: 12: ?). He passed four days "sketching Harry's dear head in the coffinhis beautiful head! What a creature! With a brow like an ancient god!" As he watched Georgy "in her convulsions, her beautiful head had a look of power and grief no-one could forget. It's dreadful work. I tried to sketch her dear head but could not. The look was of another world, as if she saw sights we could not see and heard sounds unfit for our mortality. Sweet innocent!"
Autobiography and Journals of B. R. H.
(1853; ed. Malcolm Elwin, 1950).

EFFIE HUGHES
(1856: ?; scarletina). Effie had a "lurking mischief" in the head, which might well cause serious illness before the age of 1415; "she could never have been so fit for God's kingdom again or he would have left her to go gleaming about the house with her little golden head rejoicing our hearts."Thomas Hughes (father) to Lord Goderich. British Library Add MS. 435547. (I owe this reference to Norman Vance).

FANNY PEABODY
(1844: ?: scarlet fever). Shortly after the death of her mother, Amelia Peabody, which seems to have been a far greater blow to William Peabody; Fanny "improved in character" after her mother's death.
Sermons by the late Wm. B. O. Peabody, with a memoir by his brother
(Boston, 1849).

MARY SHAFFNER
(1866: 10 months: pneumonia). Her mother, finding it difficult to accept the death, remarks on her "plump and natural" appearance in her coffin. Diary of Carry Frances Shaffner, quoted in
Victorian Women,
ed. Hellerstein, Hume, and Offen (1981).

HERBERT SOUTHEY
(1816: 10: illness "of a strange and complicated naturesubsequent examination showing a great accumulation of matter at the heart"). "Death has so often entered my doors, that he and I have long been familiar. The loss of five brothers and sisters (four of whom I remember well), of my father and mother, of a female cousin who grew up with me and lived with me; of two daughters, and of several friends have very much weaned my heart from this world."
Life & Correspondence of Robert Southey
(1850).

HARRIET STREATFIELD
(1842: 7: ?). Her grandnmother, Elizabeth Fry, spoke at the funeral, expressing thankfulness "that the lamb taken was a believing child, one rather peculiarly impressed with the fact of redemption. and forgiveness of sins through Christ; and in practice, an obedient gentle-spirited creature, and according to the measure of so young a child, unusually full of good works and alms deeds, for she gave much to the poor, whose tales of woe, (whether true or false, she did not stop to inquire,) always touched her."
Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry
(1847).

Page 243

The following bibliography is selective and includes only works actually cited or used.

I. Primary.

Brontë, Charlotte.
Jane Eyre
. 1848.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson.
Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin's
. 1888.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson.
Giovanni and the Other
. New York, 1892.

Butler, Josephine E.
An Autobiographical Memoir
. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1909.

Butler, Josephine E.
Recollections of George Butler
. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1892.

Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell: Memoirs. London, 1860.

Camus, Albert.
La Peste
. 1947. Text from Camus,
Théatre, Récits, Nouvelles
. Bibliotheque de la Pléiade. Paris: NRF, 1962.

Canton, William.
The Invisible Playmate
. 1894;
W. V. Her Book
. 1896;
In Memory of W. V
. 1901. Reprinted together in Everyman's Library. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1911.

Cecil, Rev. Richard.
Remains
. Arranged by Josiah Pratt (with memoir by Mrs. Cecil). N.d.

Clissold, Rev. Henry.
The Happy Land, or Examples of Early Piety
. London, 1854.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.
Poems
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.
Selected Letters
. Ed. H. J. Jackson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.

BOOK: Angels and Absences: Child Deaths in the Nineteenth Century

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