Page 26 of When Jess Wainwright’s Curiosity Was Satisfied (Wainwright Sisters #4)
Notes to Reader
O ne of the most frequent questions I receive from readers is, "Why don't you write about dukes and the ton?"
Without diving into a quagmire, I'll try to give you a succinct answer: I don't write about dukes and the ton because I find it hard to relate to them. I'm from a working class family and ninety-nine percent of my forebears were either farmers or tradesmen. I want to explore stories about what their lives were like and the ways they were similar to my own.
Now on to a brief summary of the extensive research that went into the backdrop and characters of this book.
I. Jess's profession as a teacher and mandatory public schools in England.
Jess's profession wasn't formalized until the official passage of the Public Schools Act in 1868. Prior to the passage of that act, most village schools originated from the belief of the clergy that every man, woman and child should be literate enough to read the bible. Village schools began as Sunday schools, and by 1839, Parliament was providing annual funding for their continuation. In 1862, the government sought to enforce more oversight in the administration of these semi-parochial schools and introduced standardized testing. By the end of the sixth standard, boys and girls who attended the school were expected to be able to read, write, and calculate basic arithmetic. The girls were also expected to be competent at needlework.
In Chapter One, Jess points out to Cadoc that many of her students have gone on to a secondary education. Most of those students would have attended what was known as a “training school”, and some may have apprenticed under Jess or another teacher before being accepted. Training schools gave individuals with a working class background the opportunity to earn a teaching certificate.
II. Child labor in the Welsh mines.
The compact size and stature of children meant they were ideally suited to work in the more cramped spaces of a mine. This included the narrow shafts that went from the pit to the surface. Because enlarging these shafts meant extra expenditures the mine owners would rather apply toward the expansion of the mine itself, they weren’t suited for adults to stand in or navigate.
I went down a rabbit hole on Hoopla and checked out From the Cradle to the Coalmine: The Story of Children in Welsh Mines by Ceri Thompson. Children as young as five operated the ventilation gates and were often crushed by the heavy carts being hauled through them. The mining shafts were so narrow and steep, the coal was hauled up by boys with a harness attached. The average age of these boys was about twelve years old.
Because of pressure in Parliament from wealthy mine owners, mining wasn’t included in the child labor reform law, the 1833 Factory Act. In 1840, Lord Ashley finally convinced Parliament to set up a Royal Commission to investigate the working conditions of children employed in the mining industry. The resulting report was the first government report to include pictures, and was finally published in 1842, in spite of attempts to repress it.
The law was finally passed in 1842 and banned all females and boys under ten from working underground, established a Commissioner of Mines whose duty was to conduct regular inspections, and prohibited anyone under the age of fifteen from being in charge of machinery.
III. Eisteddfod and englyn
The first eisteddfod happened in 1176 when Rhys ap Gruffydd invited singers and poets to his castle in Cardigan for a feast and a competition. The eisteddfod that Cadoc and his family would have been familiar with evolved around 1789.
Today, the National Eisteddfod is one of the largest cultural celebrations in the world, and can draw upwards of ten thousand contestants.
The englyn is a traditional Welsh form of short poetry that uses quantitative meters and certain rhyming patterns that must be adhered to. The englyn penfyr that Cadoc’s brother composed for the competition is always a stanza of three lines. The first line consists of ten syllables, traditionally in two groups of five, the second line has between five and six syllables, and the third line has seven syllables. Syllables seven through nine of the first line introduce the rhyme that is repeated on the last syllable of the other two lines.
IV. Victorian methods of contraception
Contrary to popular belief, the coitus interruptus method, or “pulling out”, wasn’t the only means of contraception. There were several treatises on the subject written in the first third of the nineteenth century. The first such treatise was a series of pamphlets and handbills published and distributed by Francis Place in 1823, and highlighted the benefits of using a sponge for the British working class. By this time, the well-travelled upper classes were well acquainted with the use of a sponge. A small segment of sponge was attached to a ribbon and soaked in a spermicidal mixture such as alum and water. The detriment the use of alum caused to women who used this mixture wasn’t identified until decades later.
By far the most popular of these guides to contraception was Richard Carlisle’s Every Woman’s Book . It sold over ten thousand copies and recommended condoms, coitus interruptus and the sponge method.
In 1834, Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy introduced the use of the vaginal douche. It was nothing more than a syringe that squirted a spermicidal mixture shortly after intercourse. (The recommended time was between five and ten minutes immediately after the act.) The solutions recommended for the syringe were alum and water, sulphate of zinc with water, vinegar and water, sodium bicarbonate (saleratus) with water, or liquid chloride with water. The woman squatted over a bowl to perform the ablution.
The first mention of a condom is in reference to King Minos of Crete. Contemporary texts of the time tell us that his wife Pasiphae used a goat’s bladder because his semen was said to contain ‘“scorpions and serpents.” Egyptians dyed glans caps in a variety of colors to distinguish amongst the classes and to protect themselves from bilharzia, or parasitic worm infestations. During the English Civil War there was an outbreak of syphilis among soldiers. To combat the outbreak, condoms made of fish, cattle and sheep intestine were distributed to soldiers.
Condoms have been called wetsuits, jimmies, rubbers, nightcaps and all kinds of other things. But the name “condom” comes from an actual historical figure. King Charles II of England became so conflicted by the number of his illegitimate offspring, he sought out the physician, Colonel Condom. Colonel Condom knew the sheathes made of animal material had been used to prevent venereal disease, and prescribed them to the monarch for contraceptive use as well.
Condoms began to be sold wholesale in the late eighteenth-century, and a female merchant, Mrs. Phillips, became the most prominent supplier when she opened a warehouse on the Strand. These early condoms were almost exclusively formed from animal intestines.
When Charles Goodyear invented rubber vulcanization, the use of intestines began to fall out of favor. Vulcanization consists of heating together sulfur and natural rubber to create a more malleable and durable material. By 1860, condoms were being produced on a large scale, and were popular because they were cheaper than condoms made from intestines or bladder and could be reused. Skin condoms became outdated by the end of the nineteenth-century.
I will discuss the widespread use of abortifacients used in one of my Substack posts. These are delivered to your mailbox as a newsletter if you’re not on the app, so make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter if you want more details. You can subscribe via the drop down menu in the upper left hand corner of my website.
V. Women and Entomology
Jess's catalog of dragonflies was inspired by the historical figure, Eleanor Ormerod.
Eleanor's first scientific publication was a treatise on the poisonous secretions of the Triton newt. She tested her hypotheses on both her cat and herself, and even put the tail of a live newt into her mouth. The effects of that tail, which included foaming at the mouth, oral convulsions and an aching head, were all carefully described in the paper.
The many insect collecting walks Eleanor went on meant she frequently interacted with the farming community. Farmers often complained to her about their pest problems and she realized they were in need of science-based advice for protecting their crops. Eleanor decided to practically apply what she'd learned from her observations and own 1877 she began publishing a series of annual reports with methods of agricultural pest control recommended and explained.
Eleanor based her recommendations on questionnaires she circulated in agricultural communities all over the country that asked farmers to document the pests they had observed and how they'd attempted to manage them. She took this crowdsourced ground-level data and meshed it with her own knowledge to offer practical advice. Her recommendation for the use exclusion nets and manual removal formed the backbone of modern, environmentally friendly, integrated pest management strategies.