Farewell to the East End (8 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Worth

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Poverty led to the abandoning of babies. How much of this really went on I don’t know, but we midwives were always being told about it. The women of Poplar would say ‘Gor! You don’ wanna go dahn Lime’ouse [or Bow or Millwall or wherever]. Dreadful people vey are. Leaves ver babies on doorsteps, vey do.’ And women of Limehouse would say exactly the same about the women of Poplar! We got the impression that babies were being left in droves on the doorsteps of every other parish. However, we never saw it, and no baby was left on the convent steps during the 1950s. I personally know a lady who comes from Manchester, and was born in 1940. She tells me that she was an abandoned baby. She was found on a doorstep one morning along with the milk bottles. The baby was very sickly, but although the couple who found her were poor, they arranged for her to go into hospital and paid for the specialist baby care. Then they fostered her for the rest of her childhood.
There are many reliable records of babies being left on workhouse steps, or at the door of one of the state-run orphanages in earlier years. These babies would be named by the workhouse and registered as ‘parents unknown’.
General Booth, in his volume
In Darkest England
, records that the Salvation Army ‘lasses’ frequently had newborn babies thrust into their arms by desperate young mothers, with heartbreaking words such as ‘You take him, dearie, he’ll have a better life with you. I can’t give him anything.’ Then the mother would disappear into the crowd, leaving no trace of her identity or address.
Infanticide – that’s an ugly word. Did deliberate infanticide go on before pregnancy and birth had to be attended by a registered midwife? It would have been a hanging matter, so the secret would have been well kept. I doubt if any mother would kill her newborn babe in cold blood, but desperate poverty could well drive a grandmother to do such a thing. History is full of grim realities. I recall reading in the national press some years ago of a Scottish woman in the remote highlands who had died at the age of ninety-three. After her death it was revealed that she had drowned seven babies born to her daughter, who was unmarried and of very limited intelligence. Forensic investigation uncovered the remains buried around the croft. What could go on undetected in the remote highlands of Scotland could well go on in the overcrowded slums of any great city, especially in centuries past. It must have happened times beyond number, and nobody knew.
Did fathers kill babies? Who knows? One of our elderly Sisters certainly thought so. I am not of the school that thinks men are the root of all evil, but it is certainly a possibility that some fathers may have been driven to it. Accident is more likely than murder, in my opinion. A newborn baby is very delicate. In overcrowded conditions someone or something falling on the baby could cause death; suffocation in the family bed could occur – there are many possibilities. It must also be remembered that domestic violence was an accepted part of life in some families. Women and children expected to be beaten up, and in such a scene a misdirected blow could easily kill a baby. If such a thing happened the mother would have done everything possible to conceal the death, and if the baby was unregistered she would probably get away with it. If her husband, the wage earner, was convicted of murder, it would be the gallows for him, or transportation if the judge was lenient. Either way, the family would be deprived of financial support.
Not all missing babies died, however. The more prosperous the family, the more reason for concealing an unwanted birth. A wealthy girl’s mother could keep her confined to the house, conduct the delivery herself, perhaps with the aid of a handy-woman, dispose of the baby, and no one would know. But how? A respectable matron could not go hawking a newborn baby around the workhouses and orphanages because, firstly, the baby would be refused admission, and, secondly, the neighbours would quickly find out. So an arrangement for private fostering, or ‘boarding’ as it was called, had to be found. Many handy-women had an ‘understanding’ with women who boarded babies, acting as intermediary, and taking a fee from both parties.
I knew a woman whose daughter, then aged twenty-four, had an illegitimate baby in 1949, which is not so very long ago. The woman said to me, smugly, ‘I took it away at birth, of course. My daughter was not allowed to see it. The baby went to an orphanage.’ It must have been a private commercial establishment, because the baby was not an orphan. Both parents were known and living.
A decade later, I delivered the baby of a young girl in Poplar. Throughout the delivery her mother shouted repeatedly that she would ‘get rid of the baby and put it in a home or institution’. At one stage she ordered me – the midwife – to ‘clear off’. She could deliver the baby herself and then get rid of it. I don’t know what she had in mind, but obviously she knew of some lawful way of disposing of an unwanted baby.
8
The standard of care in these private ‘homes’ for babies would depend entirely on the person in charge. One of my friends was an illegitimate child seventy-five years ago. She was sent from one private boarding or foster parent to another, and eventually went to live with a single lady who loved and cared for her and became a lifelong guardian and friend. By way of contrast a woman in Clapham was prosecuted in the 1920s for having eight babies (each of which she was paid to care for) in five cots in the basement of her house. The babies ranged from newborn to three years old. The toddlers could not walk. They had never been out of their cots. They could not talk; they had not heard enough language.
Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering. Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes,
thousands
) of little girls, some as young as four or five, in the illegal brothels of London, Paris, Brussels and Geneva. It broke her heart to see them. The children had a life expectany of two years, yet the brothel owners, frequently women, seemed to have an unlimited supply of little girls for their rich clients. ‘Clean’ children, who were free from venereal disease, commanded a high price. All this is well documented, but strangely Mrs Butler never mentions little boys, though this branch of the trade must have been going on.
9
Where did all these children come from? It could certainly not have been from the Salvation Army or the workhouses or state orphanages, nor from the established management orphanages such as Coram, Barnardo or Spurgeon. So from where, then?
A basic law of economics is that supply will meet demand. If brothel keepers wanted ‘clean’ children, unscrupulous women who boarded unwanted babies would supply them, for a price. No questions asked. Many children were not named or registered, and for those who were, a false birth certificate was provided. The parents or relatives probably never knew what had happened to their children. They just vanished as though they had never been born.
Baby selling – the last resort of a starving mother – was rife throughout the population explosion of the nineteeth century. This led to the terrible evil whereby traders, usually women, secured the custody of unwanted little ones, took out an insurance policy on their lives and then by neglect, cold and starvation ensured the death of the child and claimed the insurance. There are many recorded instances of this practice. Dr Barnardo is on record as having thwarted the murderous designs of a ruthless old harridan who had acquired three babies, insured them all, pawned their clothes, covered them in rags and left them without heat or food.
This must make terrible reading for anyone who is seriously studying family history. But life is made of happiness and tragedy in equal proportions, and we will never change that.
SOOT
 
Within the midwifery practice it was noticed that several babies had developed various infections: sticky eyes, pustules, aural discharge, diarrhoea, an infected umbilical stump. Not all babies were affected, but of those that were, one became quite ill. Swabs were taken for analysis, and the report came back from the pathology lab. All the infections were caused by the same strain of staphylococcus aureus. Where was it coming from?
All Sisters and nurses had to be screened, and the analysis proved that Cynthia was carrying a staphylococcus aureus infection, which she was passing on to the babies. Gentle Cynthia was horrified that she was the cause, especially as she did not look or feel ill in any way. But the report from the lab was incontrovertible. She was taken off work straight away and treated with antibiotics, and the infection cleared.
All the babies were also treated with penicillin, and they recovered. In previous decades, before the advent of antibiotics, some of the babies affected might have died. Certainly one or two would have developed chronic otitis media, or pink eye, or a lung infection, which could lead to something worse. But antibiotics, being new in those days, were more effective.
Cynthia was off work for two weeks, and returned to the district with confidence. No more infections occurred amongst the babies.
 
The first case Cynthia went to on returning to work was in a comfortable little house in Bow. It was a nice sort of home to be working in and everything was going well: the young mother having her fifth baby was progressing in labour; her mother was looking after the four young children downstairs; her grandmother, an experienced matriarch for whom childbirth was less alarming than a visit to the dentist, was competently helping Cynthia. She – the grandmother – was looking at the fire.
‘Sulky ole fire, that. Needs a bi’ of life in it afore this baby’s born. We wants a nice warm room for ve new baby, eh, nurse?’
She picked up the poker, stirred the sluggish embers and opened the air vent. Flames leaped up the chimney. There was a rumbling from somewhere near the roof and a cascade of soot fell, completely dousing the fire. The grandmother screamed and rushed forward with a sheet of newspaper in an attempt to contain the soot in the grate. But there was a second rumble, louder than the first, and another fall of soot came rushing down the chimney, smothering the poor woman and flying all over the room. Cynthia’s sterile delivery equipment, carefully laid out on the chest of drawers, was covered in soot; the white bed linen was black; the lovingly prepared crib with its white lace and bows was black; Cynthia, aseptically prepared for delivery in a sterile white gown, cap, mask and gloves, was black; and the woman lying on the bed was black, although she was past caring – the second stage of labour was approaching and she was suffering a massive contraction prior to full dilation of the cervix. Cynthia gazed at the scene and raised her gloved hands in horror. Her first instinct was to wash them, and she rushed over to where the washing bowl stood. But a film of soot was floating on the water, and soot clung to the sticky wet soap. She tore off her gloves and was relieved to see clean hands.
‘Oh my Gawd,’ moaned the grandmother, ‘I never seed nuffink like it. What’s you goin’ ’a do, nurse?’
‘There is nothing I can do. If a baby is going to be born, no power in the world will stop it. We will have to continue like this. You go downstairs for some more hot water, and take this bowl with you and get it washed. You can also ask if there is any more clean linen in the house. I don’t think there will be time to get another sterile delivery pack from Nonnatus House, but you could try.’
With the last contraction the waters had broken, and viscous amniotic fluid was flowing over the absorbent mattress coverings. Falling particles of soot were rapidly sticking to it.
As Cynthia spoke particles of soot blew off her mask, so she tore the thing off. She would be better without it. The upper part of her face and eyes were black, her mouth, nose and chin were white. She looked like a comic turn.
Poor Janet, sweating profusely from the pain and pressure of advanced labour, had soot sticking to her entire body. It had even managed to penetrate beneath her nightdress. She raised her legs and vaguely rubbed her hands down her thighs, perhaps to wipe the soot away, but it only served to make thick, slimy black streaks.
‘Oh Gawd, wha’ a mess,’ she moaned, beginning to pant. ‘Vere’s anuvver contraction comin’, I can feel it. Aaah ...’ she groaned in agony.
Cynthia did not need to make a vaginal examination. She could see the head descending.
‘Don’t push, Janet, whatever you do. Just pant, quickly, like a little dog. In, out, in, out – quick, shallow breaths. That’s right, keep panting. I need to turn you over onto your left side in order to deliver the baby.’ (We were taught, in those days, to deliver on the side.)
In the meantime the grandmother had taken the washing bowl away and returned with clean hot water. She also had some clean towels and sheets.
‘We can take ’er into anuvver room, nurse.’
‘That would be nice, but I doubt if it will be possible. The baby might drop out on the landing! See here, I’m holding the head back as it is. Another contraction and it will be born.’
‘Oh Lor, vis is awful. Jim’s gone down the road to ring ve Sisters, but he’s not goin’ ’a be in time, is he?’
‘No. Just keep panting, Janet. Everything is all right. A bit of soot isn’t going to do you or the baby any harm.’
Cynthia’s warm, soft voice had a reassuring effect on the two women. The contraction was passing. Janet looked up and relaxed. She giggled, and then began to laugh uncontrollably.

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