The Driver of Philanthropy in Victorian Britain

Introduction: Gender or Class – the driver of Philanthropy in Victorian Britain?

Charity work provided women of Victorian Britain with a platform between the home, social politics and the public sector which was traditionally perceived to be predominantly secularised and patriarchal. It is the general consensus that women in mid-Victorian Britain were the hidden members of society, and played a crucial role as the domesticated ‘Angel of the House’.¹ However, this is rather limited understanding. On the contrary, women performed an essential role through the growing philanthropic movement, a role that provided elite and middle-class women with a platform to enter the public sector through the mentoring of the working class. Instead of conflicting with them, their gender ideals enabled them to contribute towards the civilising mission without them being accused of deserting their duties and perceived obligations within the home. Highlighted throughout the conduct literature produced at the time, philanthropy was the practice of religious principle in order to disperse knowledge of correct morals and socialisation,² and Catherine Hall stated that between 1790 and 1830 the philanthropic activities of women demonstrated how influential Evangelical religion was in the status and representation of gender ideals.³ Sarah Stickney Ellis wrote about the influence and role of the classes on the working population, and how it was the duty of the upper classes to reinforce the norms and values of Victorian Britain. The duty of women was central to the concept of domesticity, care and the provision of emotional stability. She notes that: ‘the sphere of women’s happiest and most beneficial influence is a domestic one…’⁴ and how upper-class women were ‘better qualified to address the weakest of her sex’.⁵  

The argument that there was an intersection between class and gender ideologies has been explored by a number of scholars including Elizabeth Langland who has analysed the representation of women through Victorian novels and literature.⁶ These notions have also been explored by Cannadine, who has noted that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not simply a transition from hierarchy to class structures in Britain. The social structure of rank was significant in the merging of the private and public sectors, and the active role of women was important in development of class influence and the maintenance of social order and class oppression.⁷ The pursuit of a career in sociability encouraged the participation of women within the public sector which maintained the social rank and structure outlined by Cannadine, and although gender politics were still predominantly patriarchal, there was a consensus throughout the elite and middle-class in asserting power and influence over the lower classes, with the genuine belief that it was their role as the higher members of society and civilisation to direct those in less fortunate positions towards a civil, moral life.⁸ Langland highlights that ‘social status [can] be indicated through a minute control of conventional behaviour’ which again reinforces the argument that social reform, philanthropy and charity work not only benefitted women in terms of fulfilling gender ideals and their responsibility of domesticity, but it fulfilled the needs of society in terms of the elite position over the labouring poor. Langland also refers to the contributions of Michael E. Rose, who argues that the middle classes and the elite perceived the lower classes as different from themselves, and they distinguished poverty as ‘a contagious disease.’⁹ However, the view of the middle classes and the elite was that this lifestyle could be reversed through the civilising mission: a mission where the enlightened classes educated the lower classes away from a lifestyle of lower morals and reliance upon being ‘fed’ by the parishes.

The purpose of this research project is to explore the relationship between aristocratic women and their philanthropic activities throughout the mid-Victorian period, particularly between 1770 and 1900 during the strongest philanthropic movement with some of the most influential aristocratic woman of the time. It explores what these activities were and applies the work of K. D. Reynolds, Elizabeth Langland, Catherine Hall and David Cannadine to the changing understandings of the nature of the British elite and aristocracy.  It especially focuses on the influence of class and gender ideals in the development and influence of public, and considers the key factors that inspired elite women, and women of the emerging middle class, to become engaged with the philanthropic movement and acts of social reform. It examines conduct literature such as Women of England, their Social Duties, and Domestic Habits by Sarah Stickney Ellis (1839)¹⁰ and the role of Victorian literature to explore whether an aristocratic woman’s duty towards philanthropy and charity were influenced by gender ideologies or social rank in Britain. The argument of this research concludes that philanthropy acted as an instrument for social control, and the desire to move up the social ladder reinforced the ideals of the aristocratic and middle-class women. Ideals of class and gender are analysed, and their application to social reform throughout the nineteenth centuries, and the case study of Octavia Hill, alongside the reflection on the influence of Lady Spencer and other elite women, is used in order to understand how class influenced the education of morals and civilisation throughout Britain through projects, societies and the socialisation of norms and values. Overall, the paper concludes with the rejection of the separate spheres concept through the research and historiography, which highlights that a platform for elite women and the middle classes to assert social control and their own social rank alongside men in politics was created through philanthropy, social reform and social politics.

 
Chapter 1: Aristocratic Women and Philanthropic Activities in Victorian Britain, 1770-1900.

‘It is from a high estimate of the high importance of class in
upholding the moral worth of our country’
Sarah Stickney Ellis, 1839.¹¹

K.D. Reynolds notes in her monograph Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain how organised philanthropy was an extension of women’s maternal functions. It was a social and public platform where aristocratic women emerged themselves into the providing care and education of the deserving poor. Aristocratic women attended various social events and were often contacted through letters of appeal and correspondences where they were solicited for subscriptions and donations to various causes and institutions. However some played a more significant role within philanthropic movements: single women or women with grown children often provided moral guidance in an attempt to remodel and shape the norms and values of the working class.¹² They directed, instructed and influenced the lower-class women and children with regards to improving living conditions, and encouraged an awareness of hygiene, domesticity, work ethic and sociability,¹³ either as benefactors or through direct involvement as a way of extending their role from the home, particularly within parish schools.¹⁴ The cases of Octavia Hill and Lady Spencer in particular to present an argument of the significance of philanthropy and the extension of women’s domestic ideologies which encouraged and enabled their status within the public sphere through philanthropy, religion and social reform. Like many other elite women, Octavia Hill was actively engaged with the education of children and the education of working class women. Octavia Hill’s role within Victorian Britain was influential if it was not entirely unique. She was heavily involved in the reformation and development of the working class, and her role challenges the historiography that argues gender ideologies had more influence on the role of women and their participation in communal and national social reform, for example Gillian Darley argues in the biography Octavia Hill – A Life that Octavia Hill was driven more by her disapproval of party politics and the advantages of wealth and rank as opposed to her position as a woman.¹⁵ Octavia was born into a lower middle-class background, and worked her way throughout the ranks of social status in order to influence and change the morals of the ‘deserving’ working class. She bridged all three social classes through her work, and enlisted volunteer elite and middle-class women to educate the deserving poor and working classes through home visits. Her approach to educating the poor has been described as managerial, stern but fair and the social housing projects, bridged the gap between the elite and the working poor through the implementation of a mentoring, guidance and education system of development.¹⁶ Octavia Hill was an active and firm believer of an inclusive society, and was subsequently involved with various projects throughout her lifetime which included the co-founding of the National Trust, involvement with the Charity Organization Society and managed the birth of social housing alongside John Ruskin.¹⁷ Her work with the Social Housing Reform highlighted her beliefs, and she stated in Homes of the London Poor (1875) that ‘The people’s homes are bad, partly because they are badly built and arranged; they are tenfold worse because the tenants’ habits and lives are what they are’.¹⁸ She further stated in an article which appeared in the Fortnightly Review (November 1866) that she ‘…was equally certain that sanitary improvement itself depended upon educational work among grown-up people.’¹⁹  These quotes can be applied to support the theory that gender ideals had an influence on the need to engage with social reform. It also demonstrates how Octavia Hill’s experience with the challenges of poverty and oppressions of class had an impact upon her ‘dogmatic’ approach and managerial approach which she adopted  to the education and influence on the tenants under her care and supervision, and to her assertive contribution to social reform.

Octavia Hill was a firm believer that poverty was not only linked to lack of financial stability and materials, but also restricted space, a belief which influenced the foundation of the National Trust, which aimed to provide open, rural spaces for the working-class population to enjoy outside of the urban living conditions. Her beliefs stemmed from her involvement with various guilds which included the Ladies’ Guild, a workshop which developed the skills of working class women and girls. Octavia’s mother, Caroline Hill, was appointed as manager and book-keeper with very little experience. Through the experiences as overseeing the toymakers at one of the workshops held through the Ladies’ Guild, Octavia Hill was able to appreciate how the thin ‘line between poverty and ruin could be.’²⁰ Octavia Hill felt that the previous method of poor relief proved to be discriminative towards various cases, and for those who were not able to receive relevant relief, guidance or care were faced with the other alternative of entering the workhouse. Darley states that Octavia Hill’s unique approach and understanding of the ‘deserving poor’ was influenced by her affection towards the poor classes, and how she viewed them as individuals as opposed to a mass population of poor, uncivilised people. Whilst Darley describes this sensitivity as contradictory to her firm approach to social reform, it emphasises the understanding and empathy in Octavia Hill’s work.²¹
Later in her career, Octavia supported the regulations that were implemented through the Charity Organisation Society, which became an organisation and ‘a movement to reform the spirit not only of charities but of society.’²² It focused on the aim of targeting those in need through a referral scheme, where volunteers would visit the families who had applied and assess their needs accordingly. There were conditions to the successful application of aid which included those who were already in employment, who had worked for a substantial amount of time and were retired, and families who lived by a conduct of high morals; no drunkards, no prostitution and those who were involved in crime were also marginalised by the COS.  It had an influence on later legislations, such as Richard Cross’s Artisans’ Dwelling Act (1875) and was formed in what Darley describes as a time of panic, disorganisation and fraudulent claims.²³ During a time where there was national poverty, unemployment and crisis (for example, the Lancashire Cotton Famine), the aims of the COS were to remove the indiscriminate supply of aid, influence the working and pauper classes through guidance as opposed to help; this  was essentially a mirror of Octavia Hill’s idea of reforming the lower classes. Other charitable organisations such as Ellen Ranyard’s Bible Women, the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association (1843) and the Society for the Relief of Distress (1860) all used the method of voluntary elite visitors to the poor in order to guide and attempt to ‘civilise’ the poor. It provided moral and ethical guidance to the tenants. There was a strong focus on education, budgets, domesticity and ensuring a strong work ethic were all primary goals, and were quite effective. However, whilst these organisations and societies provided guidance and education it was perceived as an invasion of privacy and many of those who applied for the assistance of the COS were often at a point of desperation. The weekly visits to the tenants of the properties enforced the monitoring the progress of the working-class population and this application of managerial observation of the tenants can be viewed as a tool of social reform and control. Using the case of Octavia Hill, there are various reports which detail the interactions between herself and her tenants, including a man who was to be evicted if he did not agree to send his children to school.²⁴ Octavia’s response demonstrates that instead of guiding the man in question towards a better quality of life, he was instructed that to remain in the house he was to adhere to her wishes:

‘…it isn’t quite the only thing I insist on. I cannot allow anything so wrong as this neglect of the children and overcrowding to continue where I have the power to prevent it.’²⁵

 
The language used highlight the air of authority which Octavia asserted over her tenants in order to direct them towards a better moral and civil conduct with conditions applied to tenancy which often extended beyond weekly rent payments. Through the influence on the father, Octavia would in turn have a domino effect on the socialisation of the children: class ideologies would be spread through word of mouth and imitation and through this social rank would have been reinforced.
From this, it is quite evident that class and social rank provided women with the means and ability to enter the public sphere through philanthropic activities and social reform, and assert their authority over the lower classes – something which they held in common with the elite and middle-class men. However, elite women also used the relationship between education and religion as a mechanism to enter a social arena. Again, they could provide charitable services as a way of fulfilling their roles as women but also to practise their faith. This can be seen through the collection of charitable letters and philanthropic activities of Lady Spencer, highlighted in the research of Donna T. Andrew who analyses the relationship between class, gender and charity.²⁶ Lady Spencer was known for her deep involvement in philanthropic activities, and was largely involved with the poor relief in her community in the late eighteenth century.²⁷ She closely supervised and managed a Sunday school, and was head of a committee which focused upon the workhouse and poor relief in Wimbledon. Her efforts continued long after the death of her husband in 1783 and her continued efforts in private charity, subscriptions and donations demonstrated her own self-fulfilment as a woman and of her deep religious values. Andrew explains how Lady Spencer was without class prejudice, but the expected obligation and duty that Lady Spencer felt as a result of her social rank and her commitment to her faith: ‘moved by a tangled combination of guilt and remorse, a sense of obligation and occupation as well as a desire to control and ameliorate the lives of the poor’.²⁸ She founded the Ladies Charity Association in 1773, which was a committee of information, sources and opportunities available only to the influential and important in the elite circle.²⁹ Her meticulous ordering and maintenance of charity letters highlights her religious commitment and fulfilment as a Christian and as a woman. This religious devotion was not always demonstrated by elite women. Lady Londonderry’s collection of papers, for example, highlights little personal belief but she maintained a strong position within the Church in the nineteenth century.³⁰ J. Hart highlights how sermons and religion were used to educate the working class on a mass scale, and they were received by heads of households as well as working class women and children, and used the speech of Lady (Elizabeth) Londonderry stated that leisure time should be used in a rational order which is ‘orderly, industrious, religious’ in order to conform to the social norms and values of the elite and middle classes.³¹ From this evidence, the role of women within the Church and educational institutions can be used to criticise the concept of separate spheres, as their involvement with the community has been argued to be an extension of their perceived obligations as women, with a commitment to paternalism as opposed to the view of full segregation from the Church and responsibility of educating the working classes.

There was a degree of continuity as well as change in the attitude towards the poor classes as opposed to spontaneous developments of norms and trends. For example, there was consistent recognition in the need to prevent the ‘deserving’ poor from entering the workhouse, and the gap between relief and the recipients following the dismemberment of the community parishes. There was a real sense of fear towards feeding the bad nature of pauperism, and so the shift from help to guidance resulted in the birth of many charity organisations. Furthermore, elite women were not just concerned with the working classes; they had influence within social politics and influenced wealthy familial and other connections developing their extended network of contacts through social events such as bazaars and personal visits to politically influential men and their wives. The organisation of bazaars was a developing trend of urban life in the nineteenth century, and they provided a method for women to enter the public space in order to raise money and awareness for various institutions, schools and causes.³² Whilst bazaars were a quick method of raising money, it provided women with the responsibility of establishing a cultural identity for the middle classes and the elites. It can thus be argued that charity and philanthropic activity enabled elite women to enter the public sphere in positions which did not compromise their roles as women or their familial ties. The emotional role of women with an emphasis placed upon compassion and education enabled aristocratic women to influence the working classes and deserving poor in a manner befitting their status and gender, and their influence reinforced aspects of social control throughout Britain. Public and organised charity provided a platform for the aristocracy and middle classes to assert authority and created a method of reinforcing social cohesion and control, but it also created a new gender identity for women which moved away from a contained ‘Angel in the House’ concept.


 
Conclusion: Philanthropy served Social Rank.
Not everyone welcomed this. Whilst Stickney Ellis was in favour of women with few familial commitments to commit to a life of public service, she emphasised that social kindness could lead to a neglect of the ideals of domesticity and distract women from their primary duty as the ‘Angel of the House’.  Furthermore, Octavia Hill’s perception of femininity and the ideals of womanhood correlated with that expressed in Sarah Stickney Ellis’s conduct literature, where the perception of obligation and duty is apparent in Ellis’ comment that ‘Society is to the daughters of a family, what business is to the son.’ This quote demonstrates the perceived ideal which constructed a woman’s identity as carer in order to fulfil moral expectations.³³ Octavia Hill encouraged the education of women and the rights for property ownership, but she was not actively involved with the suffrage movement of women as she felt that the working woman’s role was to provide the solid foundations for the children within the home environment, encouraging the moral standards to be passed through their upbringing and socialisation. It can be argued from the historiography and observations made that it was in the interest of Octavia Hill’s social rank and her development within the public sector which enabled her to have such an influential position within the philanthropic movement. Her relationship with key politicians and social figures, such as John Ruskin, gave her the voice and stature to mirror her views, policies and ideologies of class structure, education and morality through her projects including housing projects, the National Trust and her position within the Charity Organisation Society. In the case of Lady Spencer, many of her letters and memories express her joy in serving others, but it was emphasised in particular when it represented the partnership she shared with her late husband even after his death: ‘to remind me of my Lord's [her husband's] never failing Generosity and Humanity and of the earnestness with which I executed and sometimes endeavoured to imitate his benevolence’.³⁴ The relationship that Lady Spencer had with her husband even after his death demonstrates how gender ideals were essential for the participation of women within the public sector, although this would demonstrate the influence of patriarchal as opposed to the proposed separate spheres concept which segments the roles of men and women from one another. Andrew points out the language of endearments used by Lady Spencer in her letters and notes, referring to her husband always as ‘My Lord’ which indicates a mutual respect and loyalty throughout their marriage, and this was perhaps the motivation behind Lady Spencer’s involvement with charity, aid and philanthropic causes: the fulfilment of gender ideals within the family environment where elite Victorian women were perceived as altruistic, delicate and compassionate. It also portrays the relationship elite women had with social politics – they were keen on aiding the poor but their loyalties lay with their duties as wives, mothers and the domestic sector.
To conclude it is clear to see that social rank intersected with the gender ideals of aristocratic women in order for them to enter the public sector in a compassionate, influential and educational manner. They did not make decisions within parliamentary politics, but they were significant throughout social politics and spreading ideas and information, both through the working, poor classes and throughout their own connections. Cannadine’s statement that there was a shift from hierarchy to social structure is essential in the understanding of the mind-frame of the elite, and whilst this essay has focused on the contributions of the middle-classes as well as the elite, the ideas of class management and the mission of civilisation transcended through the various institutes and social arenas, including bazaars, coffee houses, dinner invites, voluntary visits to poor houses and legislation which was implemented throughout the century. Gender and religious principles were influential in the socialisation of women and the perception of their identities within society, and the loose concept of separate spheres is rejected as men and women, including John Ruskin and Octavia Hill, worked in partnership to achieve similar goals of moral guidance and socialisation among the poorest population of Britain.


References
¹D’Cruze, S. ‘The family’, in Williams, C. (ed.). A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain,  (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004), p. 263
²Davidoff L. and Hall C., Family Fortunes – Men and women of the English middle class 1780-1850, (London: Routledge, 1994) p. 421
³Hall C., White, Male and Middle Class – Explorations in Feminism and History, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007) p. 89
⁴Stickney Ellis S., Women of England, their social duties and domestic habits; p. 40
⁵Stickney Ellis S., Women of England, their social duties and domestic habits; p. 46
⁶Langland E., ‘Nobody’s Angels: Domestic Ideology and Middle-Class Women in the Victorian Novel’ Modern Language Association, Vol. 107, No. 2 (Mar. 1992)
⁷Cannadine D., Class in Britain, (London, Yale University Press 1998) p. 60
⁸Langland E., ‘Nobody’s Angels: Domestic Ideology and Middle-Class Women in the Victorian Novel’ Modern Language Association, Vol. 107, No. 2 (Mar. 1992) p. 294
⁹Rose, M. E., ‘The Disappearing Pauper: Victorian Attitudes to the Relief of the Poor’ cited  in Langland E., ‘Nobody’s Angels: Domestic Ideology and Middle-Class Women in the Victorian Novel’ p. 295
¹⁰Stickney Ellis S., Women of England, their social duties and domestic habits, (Second edition) (Pentonville, 1839)
¹¹Stickney Ellis S., Women of England, their social duties and domestic habits, (Second edition) (Pentonville, 1839) Preface
¹²Reynolds K. D., Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain, (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1998)
¹³Reynolds K. D., Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain, p. 10
¹⁴Larsen R. M., ‘’In small things forgotten’: Finding Women in the Clergy Returns of the Archbishop of York’s Visitation in 1865.’ Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 80 (2008) p. 196-197
¹⁵Darley G., Octavia Hill – A Life, (London: Constable and Company Limited, 1990) p. 13
¹⁶Robert Hewison, ‘Ruskin, John (1819–1900)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., Jan 2010 [www.oxforddnb.com/view/article…, accessed 24 March 2013]
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²¹Darley G., Octavia Hill – A Life, p. 143
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²⁸Lady Spencer in her letters to Mrs Howe, cited in Andrew D. T., Noblesse Oblige, Female Charity in an Age of Sentiment, (London, Routledge, 1996) p. 277
²⁹Langford P., Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689-1798, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 574
³⁰Reynolds K.D., Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain, p. 74
³¹Londonderry, Frances Anne, 279; Hart J., ‘Religion and Social Control in Nineteenth-Century Britain’ in Donajgrodzki A. P. (ed.), Social Control in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, (Croom Held, 1977) p. 108-37
³²Morgan S., A Victorian Woman’s Place – Public Culture in the Nineteenth Century, (London; Tauris Academic Studies, 2007) p. 116


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