Beside the poor sick and aged people in the Workhouse, the attention of Miss Elliot and myself was much drawn to the girls who were sent out from thence to service on attaining (about) their sixteenth year. On all hands, and notably from Miss Twining and from some excellent Irish philanthropists, we heard the most deplorable reports of the incompetence of the poor children to perform the simplest duties of domestic life, and their consequent dismissal from one place after another till they ended in ruin. It was stated at the time (1862), on good authority, that, on tracing the subsequent history of 80 girls who had been brought up in a single London Workhouse, every one was found to be on the streets! In short these hapless “children of the State,” as my friend Miss Florence Davenport Hill most properly named them, seemed at that time as if they were being trained on purpose to fall into a life of sin; having nothing to keep them out of it,—no friends, no affections, no homes, no training for any kind of useful labour, no habits of self-control or self-guidance.

It was never realized by the men (who, in those days, alone managed our pauper system) that girls cannot be trained en masse to be general servants, nurses, cooks, or anything else. The strict routine, the vast half-furnished wards, the huge utensils and furnaces of a large workhouse, have too little in common with the ways of family life and the furniture of a common kitchen, to furnish any sort of practising ground for household service. The Report of the Royal Commission on Education, issued about that time, concluded that Workhouse Schools leave the pauper taint on the children, but “that District and separate schools give an education to the children contained in them which effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism.” Accordingly, the vast District schools, containing each the children from many Unions, was then in full blast, and the girls were taught extremely well to read, write and cipher; but were neither taught to cook for any ordinary household, or to scour, or sweep, or nurse, or serve the humblest table. What was far more deplorable, they were not, and could not be, taught to love or trust any human being, since no one loved or cared for them; or to exercise even so much self-control as should help them to forbear from stealing lumps of sugar out of the first bowl left in their way. “But,” we may be told, “they received excellent religious instruction!” Let any one try to realize the idea of God which any child can possibly reach who has never been loved; and he will then perhaps rightly estimate the value of such “religious instruction” in a dreary pauper school. I have never quite seen the force of the argument “If a man love not his neighbour whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?” But the converse is very clear. “If a man hath not been beloved by his neighbour or his parents, how shall he believe in the Love of the invisible God?” Religion is a plant which grows and flourishes in an atmosphere of a certain degree of warmth and softness, but not in the Frozen Zone of lovelessness, wherein is no sweetness, no beauty, no tenderness.

How to prevent the girls who left Bristol workhouse from falling into the same gulf as the unhappy ones in London, occupied very much the thoughts of Miss Elliot and her sister (afterwards Mrs. Montague Blackett) and myself, in 1851 and 1860–61. Our friend, Miss Sarah Stephen (daughter of Sergeant Stephen, niece of Sir James), then residing in Clifton, had for some time been working successfully a Preventive Mission for the poorer class of girls in Bristol; with a good motherly old woman as her agent to look after them. This naturally helped us to an idea which developed itself into the following plan—

Miss Elliot and her sister, as I have said, resided at that time with their father at the old Bristol Deanery, close to the Cathedral in College Green. This house was known to every one in the city, which was a great advantage at starting. A Sunday afternoon School for workhouse girls only, was opened by the two kind and wise sisters; and soon frequented by a happy little class. The first step in each case (which eventually fell chiefly to my share of the business) was to receive notice from the Workhouse of the address of every girl when sent out to her first service, and thereupon to go at once and call on her new mistress, and ask her permission for the little servant’s attendance at the Deanery Class. As Miss Eliott wrote most truly, in speaking of the need of haste in this preliminary visit—

“There are few times in a girl’s life when kindness is more valued by her, or more necessary to her, than when she is taken from the shelter and routine of school life and plunged suddenly and alone into a new struggling world full of temptations and trials. That this is the turning point in the life of many I feel confident, and I think delay in beginning friendly intercourse most dangerous; they, like other human beings, will seek friends of some kind. We found them very ready to take good ones if the chance were offered, and, as it seemed, grateful for such chance. But good friends failing them, they will most assuredly find bad ones.”—(Workhouse Girls. Notes by M. Elliot, p. 7.)

As a rule the mistresses, who were all of the humbler sort and of course persons of good reputation, seemed to welcome my rather intrusive visit and questions, which were, of course, made with every possible courtesy. A little by-play about the insufficient outfit given by the Workhouse, and an offer of small additional adornments for Sundays, was generally well received; and the happy fact of having such an ostensibly and unmistakeably respectable address for the Sunday school, secured many assents which might otherwise have been denied. The mistresses were generally in a state of chronic vexation at their little servants’ stupidity and incompetence; and on this head I could produce great effect by inveighing against the useless Workhouse education. There was often difficulty in getting leave of absence for the girls on Sunday afternoon, but with the patience and good humour of the teachers (who gave their lessons to as many or as few as came to them), there was always something of a class, and the poor girls themselves were most eager to lose no chance of attending.

A little reading of Pilgrim’s Progress and other good books: more explanations and talk; much hymn singing and repeating of hymns learned during the week; and a penny banking account,—such were some of the devices of the kind teachers to reach the hearts of their little pupils. And very effectually they did so, as the 30 letters which they wrote between them to Miss Elliot when she, or they, left Bristol, amply testified. Here is one of these epistles; surely a model of prudence and candour on the occasion of the approaching marriage of the writer! The back-handed compliment to the looks of her betrothed is specially delightful.

“You pointed out one thing in your kind letter, that to be sure that the young man was steady. I have been with him now two years, and I hope I know his failings; and I can say I have never known any one so steady and trustworthy as he is. I might have bettered myself as regards the outside looks; but, dear Madam, I think of the future, and what my home would be then; and perhaps if I married a gay man, I should always be unhappy. But John has a kind heart, and all he thinks of is to make others happy; and I hope I shall never have a cause to regret my choice, and I will try and do my best to do my duty, so that one day you may see me comfortable. Dear Madam, I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to me.”

The whole experiment was marvellously successful. Nearly all the poor children seemed to have been improved in various ways as well as certainly made happier by their Sundays at the Deanery, and not one of them, I believe, turned out ill afterwards or fell into any serious trouble. Many of them married respectably. In short it proved to be a good plan, which we have had no hesitation in recommending ever since. Eventually it was taken up by humane ladies in London, and there it slowly developed into the now imposing society with the long name (commonly abbreviated into M.A.B.Y.S.) the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. Two or three years ago when I attended and spoke at the annual meeting of this large body, with the Lord Mayor of London in the chair and a Bishop to address us, it seemed very astonishing and delightful to Miss Elliot and me that our small beginnings of thirty years before should have swelled to such an assembly!

My experience of the wrongs and perils of young servant girls, acquired during my work as Whipper-in to the Deanery class, remains a painful memory, and supplies strong arguments in favour of extending some such protection to such girls generally. Some cases of oppression and injustice on the part of mistresses (themselves, no doubt, poor and over-strained, and not unnaturally exasperated by their poor little slave’s incompetence) were very cruel. I heard of one case which had occurred just before we began our work, wherein the girl had been left in charge of a small shop. A man came in out of the street, and seeing only this helpless child of fifteen behind the counter, laid hands on something (worth sixpence as it proved) and walked off with it without payment. When the mistress returned the girl told her what had happened, whereupon she and her husband stormed and scolded; and eventually turned the girl out of the house! This was at nine o’clock at night, in one of the lowest parts of Bristol, and the unhappy girl had not a shilling in her possession. A murder would scarcely have been more wicked.

Sometimes the mistresses sent their servants away without paying them any wages at all, making up their accounts in a style like this: “I owe you five and sixpence; but you broke my teapot, which was worth three shillings; and you burnt a tablecover worth two, and broke two plates and a saucer, and lost a spoon, and I gave you an old pair of boots, worth at least eighteen-pence, so you owe me half-a-crown; and if you don’t go away quietly I’ll call the police and give you in charge!” The mere name of the police would inevitably terrify the poor little drudge into submission to her oppressor. That the law could ever defend and not punish her would be quite outside her comprehension.

The wretched holes under stairs, or in cellars, or garrets, where these girls were made to sleep, were often most unhealthy; and their exposure to cold, with only the thin workhouse cotton frock, leaving arms and neck bare, was cruel in winter. One day I had an example of this, not easily to be forgotten. I had just received notice that a girl of sixteen had been sent from the workhouse (Bristol or Clifton, I forget which) to a place in St. Philip’s, at the far end of Bristol. It was a snowy day but I walked to the place with the same odd conviction over me of which I have spoken, that I was bound to go at once. When I reached the house, I found it was one a little above the usual class for workhouse-girl servants and had an area. The snow was falling fast, and as I knocked I looked down into the area and saw a girl in her cotton dress standing out at a wash-tub;—head, neck and arms all bare, and the snow falling on them with the bitter wind eddying through the area. Presently the door was opened and there stood the girl, in such a condition of bronchitis as I hardly ever saw in my life. When the mistress appeared I told her civilly that I was very sorry, but that the girl was in mortal danger of inflammation of the lungs and must be put to bed immediately. “O, that was entirely out of the question.” “But it must be done,” I said. Eventually after much angry altercation, the woman consented to my fetching a fly, putting the girl into it, driving with her to the Infirmary (for which I had always tickets) and leaving her there in charge of a friendly doctor. Next day when I called to enquire, he told me she could scarcely have lived after another hour of exposure, and that she could recover only by the most stringent and immediate treatment. It was another instance of the verification of my superstition.

Of course we tried to draw attention generally to the need for some supervision of the poor Workhouse girls throughout the country. I wrote and read at a Social Science Congress a paper on “Friendless Girls and How to Help them,” giving a full account of Miss Stephen’s admirable Preventive Mission; and this I had reason to hope, aroused some interest. Several years later Miss Elliot wrote a charming little book with full details about her girls and their letters; “Workhouse Girls; Notes of an attempt to help them,” published by Nisbet. Also we managed to get numerous articles and letters into newspapers touching on Workhouse abuses and needs generally. Miss Elliot having many influential friends was able to do a great deal in the way of getting our ideas put before the public. I used to write my papers after coming home in the evening and often late into the night. Sometimes, when I was very anxious that something should go off by the early morning mail, I got out of the side window of my sitting-room at two or three o’clock and walked the half-mile to the solitary post-office near the Black Boy (Pillar posts were undreamed of in those days), and then climbed in at the window again, to sleep soundly!

Some years afterwards I wrote in Fraser’s Magazine and later again republished in my Studies: Ethical and Social, a somewhat elaborate article on the Philosophy of the Poor Laws as I had come to understand it after my experience at Bristol. This paper was so fortunate as to fall in the way of an Australian philanthropic gentleman, President of a Royal Commission to enquire into the question of Pauper legislation in New South Wales. He, (Mr. Windeyer,) approved of several of my suggestions and recommended them in the Report of his Commission, and eventually procured their embodiment in the laws of the Colony.

The following is one of several letters which I received from him on the subject.

“Though personally unknown to you I take the liberty as a warm admirer of your writings, to which I owe so much both of intellectual entertainment and profoundest spiritual comfort, to send you herewith a copy of a Report upon the Public Charities of New South Wales, brought up by a Royal Commission of which I was the President. I may add that the document was written by me; and that my brother Commissioners did me the honour of adopting it without any alteration. As the views to which I have endeavoured to give expression have been so eloquently advocated by you, I have ventured to hope that my attempt to give practical expression to them in this Colony may not be without interest to you, as the first effort made in this young country to promulgate sounder and more philosophic views as to the training of pauper children.

“In your large heart the feeling Homo sum will, I think, make room for some kindly sympathy with those who, far off, in a small provincial way, try to rouse the attention and direct the energies of men for the benefit of their kind, and if any good comes of this bit of work, I should like you to know how much I have been sustained amidst much of the opposition which all new ideas encounter, by the convictions which you have so materially aided in building up and confirming. If you care to look further into our inquiry I shall be sending a copy of the evidence to the Misses Hill, whose acquaintance I had the great pleasure of making on their visit to this country, and they doubtless would show it to you if caring to see it, but I have not presumed to bore you with anything further than the Report.

I have since learned with great pleasure from an official Report sent from Australia to a Congress held during the World’s Fair of 1893 at Chicago, that the arrangement has been found perfectly successful, and has been permanently adopted in the Colony.

While earnestly advocating some such friendly care and guardianship of these Workhouse Girls as I have described, I would nevertheless enter here my serious protest against the excessive lengths to which one Society in particular—devoted to the welfare of the humbler class of girls generally—has gone of late years in the matter of incessant pleasure-parties for them. I do not think that encouragement to (what is to them) dissipation, conduces to their real welfare or happiness. It is always only too easy for all of us to remove the centre of our interest from the Business of life to its Pleasures. The moment this is done, whether in the case of poor persons or rich, Duty becomes a weariness. Success in our proper work is no longer an object of ambition, and the hours necessarily occupied by it are grudged and curtailed. Amusement usurps the foreground, instead of being kept in the background, of thought. This is the kind of moral dislocation which is even now destroying, in the higher ranks, much of the duty-loving character bequeathed to our Anglo-Saxon race by our Puritan fathers. Ladies and gentlemen do not indeed now “live to eat” like the old epicures, but they live to shoot, to hunt, to play tennis or golf; to give and attend parties of one sort or another; and the result, I think, is to a great degree traceable in the prevailing Pessimism. But bad as excessive Pleasure-seeking and Duty-neglecting is for those who are not compelled to earn their bread, it is absolutely fatal to those who must needs do so. The temptations which lie in the way of a young servant who has acquired a distaste for honest work and a passion for pleasure, require no words of mine to set forth in their terrible colours. Even too much and too exciting reading, and endless letter-writing may render wholesome toil obnoxious. A good maid I once possessed simply observed to me (on hearing that a friend’s servant had read twenty volumes in a fortnight and neglected meanwhile to mend her mistress’s clothes), “I never knew anyone who was so fond of books who did not hate her work!” It is surely no kindness to train people to hate the means by which they can honourably support themselves, and which might, in itself, be interesting and pleasant to them. But incessant tea-parties and concerts and excursions are much more calculated to distract and dissipate the minds of girls than even the most exciting story books, and the good folks who would be shocked to supply them with an unintermittent series of novels, do not see the mischief of encouraging the perpetual entertainments now in vogue all over the country. Let us make the girls, first safe; then as happy as we can. But it is an error to imagine that overindulgence in dissipation,—even in the shape of the most respectable tea-parties and excursions,—is the way to make them either safe or happy.

The following is an account which Miss Florence D. Hill has kindly written for me, of the details of her own work on behalf of pauper children which dovetailed with ours for Workhouse girls:—

“I well remember the deep interest with which I learnt from your own lips the simple but effective plan by which you and Miss Elliot and her sister befriended the elder girls from Bristol Workhouse, and heard you read your paper, ‘Friendless Girls, and How to Help Them,’ at the meeting of the British Association in Dublin in 1861. Gradually another benevolent scheme was coming into effect, which not only bestows friends but a home and family affections on the forlorn pauper child, taking it in hand from infancy. The reference in your ‘Philosophy of the Poor Laws’ to Mr. Greig’s Report on Boarding-out as pursued for many years at Edinburgh, caused my cousin, Miss Clark, to make the experiment in South Australia, which has developed into a noble system for dealing under natural conditions with all destitute and erring children in the great Colonies of the South Seas. Meanwhile, at home the evidence of success attained by Mrs. Archer in Wiltshire and her disciples elsewhere, and by other independent workers, in placing orphan and deserted children in the care of foster parents, enabled the late Dr. Goodeve, ex-officio Guardian for Clifton, to obtain the adoption of the plan by his Board; his wife becoming President of one of the very first Committees formed to find suitable homes and supervise the children.

After my efforts above detailed on behalf of the little Girl-thieves, the Ragged street boys, the Incurables and other Sick in Workhouses, and finally for Befriending young Servants, there was another undertaking in which both Miss Elliot and I took great interest for some years after we had ceased to live at Bristol. This was the Housing of the poor in large Cities.

Among the many excellent citizens who then and always have done honour to Bristol, there was a Town Councillor, Mr. T. Territ Taylor, a jeweller, carrying on his business in College Green. At a time when a bad fever seemed to have become endemic in the district of St. Jude’s, this gentleman told us that in his opinion it would never be banished till some fresh legislation were obtained for the compulsory destruction of insanitary dwellings, such as abounded in that quarter. We wondered whether it would be possible to interest some influential M.P.’s among our acquaintances in Mr. Taylor’s views, and after many delays and much consultation with them, I wrote an article in Fraser’s Magazine for February, 1866, in which I was able to print a full sketch by Mr. Taylor of his matured project, and to give the reasons which appeared to us to make such legislation as he advocated exceedingly desirable. I said:—

“The supply of lodgings for the indigent classes in the great towns has long failed to equal the demand. Each year the case becomes worse, as population increases, and no tendency arises for capital to be invested in meeting the want....

“But, it is asked, why does not capital come in here, as everywhere else, and supply a want as soon as it exists? The reason is simple. Property in our poor lodgings is very undesirable for large capitalists. It can be made to pay a high interest only on three conditions:—1st, That the labour of collecting the rents (which is always excessive) shall not be deducted from the returns by agents; 2nd, That very little mercy shall be shown to tenants in distress; 3rd, That small expense be incurred in attempting to keep in repair, paint, or otherwise refresh the houses, which, being inhabited by the roughest of the community, require double outlay to preserve in anything better than a squalid and rack-rent condition.

“Convinced long ago of this fact, philanthropists have for years attempted to mitigate the evil by building, in London and other great towns, model lodging-houses for the Working Classes, and after long remaining a doubtful experiment, a success has been achieved in the case of Mr. Peabody’s, Alderman Waterlow’s, and perhaps some others. But as regards the two great objects we are considering,—the elevation of the Indigent, and the prevention of pestilence,—these schemes only point the way to an enterprise too large for any private funds. All the existing model lodging-houses not only fix their rents above the means of the Indigent class, but actually make it a rule not to admit the persons of whom the class chiefly consists—namely, those who get their living upon the streets. Thus, for the elevation of the Indigent and the purifying of those cesspools of wretchedness, wherein cholera and fever have their source, these model lodging-houses are even professedly unavailing.”—Reprinted in Hours of Work and Play, pp. 46, 47.

Mr. Thomas Hare had, shortly before, set forth in the Times a startlingly magnificent scheme whereby a great Board should raise money, partly from the Rates, to build splendid rows of workmen’s lodging-houses, of which the workmen would eventually, in this ingenious plan become freeholders. Mr. Taylor’s plan was much more modest, and involved in fact only one principal point, the grant of compulsory powers to purchase, indispensable where the refusal of one landlord might invalidate, for sanitary purposes, the purification of a district; and the greed of the class would inevitably render the proposed renovation preposterously costly. Mr. Taylor’s Scheme, as drawn up by himself and placed in our hands, was briefly as follows:—

“An Act of Parliament must be obtained to enable Town Councils and Local Boards of Health (or other Boards, as may hereafter be thought best) to purchase, under compulsory powers, the property in overcrowded and pestilential districts within their jurisdiction, and build thereon suitable dwellings for the labouring classes.

“The usual powers must be given to borrow money of the Government at a low rate of interest, on condition of repayment within a specified time, say from 15 to 20 years, as in the case of the County Lunatic Asylums.”

Miss Elliot and I having shown this sketch to our friends, a Bill was drawn up embodying it with some additions; “For the improvement of the Dwellings of the Working Classes,” and was presented to Parliament by Mr. McCullagh Torrens and my cousin John Locke, in 1867. But though both the Governments of Lord Derby and of Lord Russell the latter of whom Miss Elliot had interested personally in the matter were favourable to the Bill, it was not passed till the following Session; when it became law (with considerable modifications); as 31, 32 Vict., Cap. cxxx., “An Act to provide better dwellings for Artisans and Labourers,” 31st July, 1868.