A History of Women's Lives in Hove and Portslade

Preface

The status of women has long been problematic. Great strides have been made but equality in all spheres remains elusive. Progress has not been linear either, but rather in the nature of swings and roundabouts. For example, in early Christian times women were regarded as co-workers with men and there was even a female deacon called Phoebe. But once the church evolved into a patriarchal organisation, it took hundreds of years before women were permitted to take such a step again.

It is a fact not generally known that Sussex was the last county in England to be converted to Christianity. The parish priest became a male authority figure to ordinary folk. At Portslade there were mediaeval wall paintings in St Nicolas Church depicting the Last Judgement with anguished souls roasting in the flames of hell. Parishioners might not be able to read or write but they would certainly notice the paintings.

At Hove and Portslade the ancient custom of Borough English was followed, which preceded the Norman Conquest. Borough English meant that property descended to the youngest son or daughter, or to the youngest brother or collateral heir. It was a pragmatic approach because the eldest sibling was more likely to have become established in life while the youngest might still be of tender years. Under Norman rule primogeniture inheritance became dominant. But still Borough English persisted at Hove and Portslade. Another ancient custom was widow’s bench. This upheld a widow’s right to continue living in her late husband’s property.

Sussex as a whole did not follow the sixteenth-century trend for witch-hunting. All the same, on 21 May 1588 Margery Banger, widow, and her daughter Joane, both of Hove, were charged with being ‘vehemently suspected to be notorious witches’. A few days later John Bradford of Hove was accused of being their supporter. Fortunately, four stalwart women came forward as ‘compurgators’ – that is they testified as to the innocence of the three accused. They were Elizabeth Collen of Brighthelmstone, Joane Alley of Hove plus Joane Bradford and Margaret Burton (place of origin unspecified). As a result, on 18 June 1588 the three accused were discharged. The only recorded execution of a witch in Sussex took place in 1575 when Margaret Cooper was hanged at Horsham.¹

In early Victorian times a married woman enjoyed status in society but had no rights. On her wedding day her property and money went to her husband. There were stories, both fiction and fact, where a naïve heiress, beguiled by a charming suitor, found out once married that he was just after her money. It was not until 1882 that the Married Women’s Property Act was passed and women could keep their own money and property after marriage.

Parliament had already instituted legislation to improve women’s lives. For example, in 1844 the Factory Act decreed women should work no more than twelve hours a day while women were granted limited access to divorce under the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. There was further progress in 1870 when married women were allowed to keep any money they might earn. But it is surprising to note it was not until 1878 that an Act decreed a married man must support wife and children financially.

However, when it came to granting women the right to vote on an equal footing with men, it was a different matter entirely. Women came to realise that without a vote they had no political muscle. It took so long for women to convince the powers that be of the justice of their cause that some suffragettes turned to violence.

An all-round education was not generally considered important for females and indeed there were gentlemen who considered too much learning was detrimental to their delicate health.

If a middle-class woman found herself in reduced circumstances and obliged to earn a living, there were few openings apart from becoming a governess or a lady’s companion. But a governess fell uneasily between two stools because she was not a servant and definitely not part of the family.

Mrs Edmund Vallance in 1908. Jane Mortimer married Edmund Vallance in 1872. He trained as a doctor at the Sussex County Hospital and saw service as an Army medic in India and Abyssinia but by 1875 he was on the reserve list. (Brighton Season 1908/1909).

In November 1932 Edmund and Jane Vallance of 38 St Aubyn’s, Hove, celebrated their Diamond Wedding. Mrs Vallance told a reporter that life for young people, particularly girls, was now so much better. She thought marriage used to be drudgery in many ways because,

everything had to be done at home and women were worked to death … when I think back to what my governess used to teach me, I wonder that I managed to read or write or anything else … we were taught a lot of religion but nothing practical. In everything we had to be ladylike. If a girl went out into the street without a pair of gloves it was thought shocking.²

In the 1950s it was still considered normal for a female to leave employment once she became a married woman. It was deemed a slight to a man’s status as breadwinner if he could not earn enough to keep a wife.

There were some female high-flyers. For instance, Baroness Evelyn Sharp (1903–1985), who had cousins in Hove, became a top civil servant. She had the advantage of being the daughter of a clergyman who believed in education and she attended St Paul’s School and Somerville College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in Modern History. By 1946 she was the highest earning woman in the civil service and was the first woman to hold many posts, the most prestigious being Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. She was an advocate of the Green Belt as well as New Towns. She was a powerful force in committees and found no difficulty in working until late at night while still being bright as a button the next morning. She worked with different ministers including Nye Bevan, Dalton, Macmillan, Sandys and Crossman. By 1965 she was earning £8,285 a year (equivalent money in 2017 £149,677). She had piercing blue eyes, rapid speech and in her youth was an excellent tennis player and also enjoyed striding through the Alps.

However, after Baroness Sharp retired she told an interviewer she regretted never marrying and having a family. In those days combining the two was thought to be practically impossible. Whilst today, such a course is possible, it is still a juggling act laced with guilt. Whichever way you look at it a woman is still constrained by biology. Nature decrees her best childbearing years are the twenties, which is precisely the time a young woman is finishing her education or carving out a career.

This book gives an insight into the lives of women in Hove and Portslade. There are tales of ordinary women gleaned from personal interviews conducted over many years as well as accounts of some extraordinary and talented women.

CHAPTER 1

Birth, Marriage and Death

In times past, births routinely took place at home. When the time came, a local midwife or relative would help with the birth. The doctor was sent for only in exceptional circumstances, although society women might expect the family physician to be in attendance.

Many families had to go through the experience of losing sick or premature babies. For this reason baptisms were sometimes carried out soon after birth to ensure that the child’s soul went straight to Heaven. In the days before compulsory registration, the entry of a record of baptism at the local church was the first evidence of a person’s existence.

Alfred and Lucy Ford lived in Cowper Street, Hove and their first child was Edith Annie Ford born in 1900. They were surprised and delighted to find a basket full of beautiful baby clothes left on their doorstep by an unknown benefactor. Mrs Ford took Edith in her finery to Mr W. Wright of 26 George Street, Hove, to have a souvenir photograph taken (Mrs Marriot).

There was a Lying-in Institution for poorer women at Brighton from 1830 but it was not until much later that a branch opened at 9 Portland Road, Hove. In 1922 the institution moved into premises in Buckingham Road, Brighton, once occupied by Brighton Grammar School and became known as the Sussex Maternity Hospital; it remained there until the 1960s.

Mr and Mrs Friese-Greene lived at 9 Worcester Villas (Author).

There was a special charity at Hove to help expectant mothers in poor circumstances. Miss Lowe founded it in 1858 and it was called Hove Maternity Society. Bags of linen were lent to women for their confinement. In 1880 the society merged with Hove Nursing Society that provided the services of a nurse for poor people when they were sick without any money changing hands.

One woman had her experience of childbirth disrupted by an unusual crisis. She was Edith, wife of William Friese-Greene, one of the early Hove film pioneers. In 1910 the couple and their children lived in a rented house at 9 Worcester Villas, Hove. Unfortunately, her husband had been declared bankrupt for the third time and the bailiffs arrived at the house to see what valuables might be appropriated. But at least they had the delicacy to adjourn to the garden when Edith began screaming with labour pains.³

Cissie Peters and Dorothy Oden in 1908. Dorothy’s parents ran a bakery at 73 Abinger Road, Portslade. Perhaps the bakery was doing a roaring trade because Dorothy wears a splendid piece of lace (C. Peters).

In 1901 the population of Hove was 29,695, with 6,840 in Aldrington, which by then had been joined to Hove; at Portslade the population stood at 5,504. It is interesting to note that in 1905 Hove’s Medical Officer of Health stated Hove had a low birth rate compared to other towns. This was because a great part of the female population was engaged in domestic service while another large swathe consisted of well-to-do ladies who took up residence at Hove in later life. The birth rate at Hove in 1904 was put at 17.4 per cent of the population while at Portslade it was 31.9 per cent. But there were not many servants employed at Portslade and it was predominantly a working-class area.

There were some women who needed to work for a living and the loss of wages in order to care for her baby was problematic. Revd Walter Kelly, vicar of Hove, was the originator of a scheme to help such women and almost £380 was raised for the project by the end of 1877. On 29 October 1877 at 56 Livingstone Road the Hove Day Nursery was opened especially for the children of working mothers, or whose mothers were too ill to look after them. Remarkably, the nursery was open every weekday from 7.30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In this family portrait taken in 1916 Charles Ernest Forrest wears the uniform of the Royal Garrison Artillery. His wife Charlotte May holds the hand of their son Reg. It was still normal for infants of both sexes to wear dresses (R. Forrest).

By the 1890s there were twenty-one children at the nursery. The cost was four pence a day for a child from six weeks to one year and just one penny a day for older children.

In 1903 the opening hours were reduced to 8.30 a.m. to 8 p.m. The cost was revised to five pence a day with one penny for food provided. A total of sixty children attended the nursery.

Not surprisingly, by 1917 Hove Day Nursery was in financial trouble and a full report was sent to Hove Council because there were only a few pounds left in the bank. The report stated that Mrs Lely had run the nursery for forty years with ‘devoted care’. Thirty babies belonging to working mothers were looked after but the premises were old and there was no garden.

In 1921 the nursery moved to 12 Goldstone Villas. In 1924 Hove Council resolved to make an annual grant of £100 to the nursery after learning that the charity had an overdraft of £272.

The nursery was still in full swing in 1938 when, in the financial year ending on 1 April, some 9,126 attendances had been recorded; the highest number since the peak year of 1929. The cost to mothers had risen to seven pence for a full day’s care but a second child from the same family could be admitted for four pence (£1 in 1938, is equivalent to around £60 in 2017). The staff consisted of a matron, sister, qualified nurse, probationers and kitchen staff.

The Second World War added an extra burden to the nursery. In 1943 number 57 Clarendon Villas was leased from Dr Barnado’s as a wartime nursery and was run in conjunction with the Goldstone Villas one. There were twenty-five places at Goldstone Villas for children under 2, and fifty places at Clarendon Villas for children aged from 2 to 6.⁴

In Victorian times a pregnant unmarried domestic servant was in for a hard time. This happened in 1861 at 37 Lansdowne Place, the home of George Ballard, Brunswick Commissioner. The servant was turned out of the house and miscarried the child while on the way to the workhouse.

Gwendoline Peters aged 3 years old in 1919. Her father Frank Peters was maintenance foreman at Portslade Gas Works and also goalkeeper for the Gas Works football team (R. Forrest).

A servant in that situation usually tried to conceal her pregnancy for as long as possible because when her employer found out she would be sacked without a ‘character’, or in other words there would be no reference to give to a future employer. On occasions a servant managed to complete her pregnancy without giving the game away.

Such a woman was Sarah Parsons, aged 24. She worked for Miss Mary Ann Harding who kept a lodging house in Lansdowne Place in 1885. Sarah had been in her employ for some eight weeks and Miss Harding noticed she was putting on weight. But Sarah claimed there was something the matter with her stays. In her bedroom Sarah privately gave birth to an illegitimate baby boy weighing 4lbs and she hid him under a petticoat in a black box, but her secret was discovered. The jury at the inquest held at Hove Town Hall had to decide whether or not the child had had a separate existence or not. There was some medical doubt on this point and so an open verdict was returned.

Caroline Sherwood was an unmarried mother who had a good job as cook to Judge Furner at 54 Old Steine, Brighton. Her daughter boarded with childminder Hannah Delves at a cost of 2s 6d a week. Caroline had three brothers, one was in Australia; she was desperate to go there too and had papers already signed, but she must have regarded her daughter as an impediment to her new life. In March 1853 when Caroline was aged 22, she murdered her little girl.

Witnesses saw Caroline with her daughter walking up Hove Drove (now Sackville Road, Hove). Four young men on their way to a pigeon-shooting contest later discovered the child’s body