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Three Good Questions

This is the sixth in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the news report fragments reproduced below during your research. What could you learn from them? How many research rabbit holes would they lead you down? In what new directions might they take your writing?

If you interrogate the image and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. Why did the collision happen (was it unavoidable)?
2. How accurately does the artist’s impression match witness testimony?
3. What became of the Bywell Castle?

Illustration published in the 14th September 1878 edition.

Illustrated London News (7th September 1878)

Front page editorial extract:

…the appalling catastrophe which occurred on the river Thames last Tuesday evening. The magnitude of this disaster exceeds anything of the kind which has been recorded for many years past. The details of the accident, so far as it has been possible to collect them, will be found elsewhere. It will suffice for our present purpose to state that the Princess Alice, one of the largest saloon-steamers of the London Steam-Boat Company, which had started in the morning with between six and seven hundred excursionists on board, came into collision, on her return passage, with a screw collier steamer, the Bywell Castle, near the middle of the stream, just off the City of London Gasworks at Beckton, a little below North Woolwich Gardens. Within about five minutes the Princess Alice, with her crowded freight of holiday passengers, went down in deep water. A few saved themselves by clambering on to the other vessel; some were picked up by the Duke of Teck, another steamer belonging to the same company, which was also up on her passage with a party of excursionists; but we are told that “the river, for a hundred yards, was full of drowning people, screaming in anguish and praying for help.”

Source: Illustrated London News (7th and 14th September 1878)

What Three Good Questions would you ask?

Three Good Questions (and some answers)

Last month I invited you to imagine that while doing some historical research you’d found a piece in the Illustrated London News from 4th February 1865 about fortresses on the Indus River. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing? And, if you interrogated the words and images closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first?

You can refer back to the full transcript of the article here. These are the illustrations:

My own Three Good Questions to get things started were:

1. Who built the three fortresses (and are they still standing)?
2. Who was Captain G.H. Ware?
3. What were the 51st Light Infantry doing in that region at the time?

To which my newsletter subscribers and social media followers added the following:

1. In the very top-left of the Skardo image, what is the man-made looking pyramidal structure?
2. When were the sketches made?
3. How did the population in this region experience being a “British province”? (Apart from understandably unwillingly. I’m curious as to the practicalities of this with regards to day-to-day life and impact on people who lived remotely.)
4. Are the “glaciers far surpassing those of the Alps” still there?
5. In the Skardo image, what sort of crops were being cultivated in the fields?
6. What was the fate of the fort at Kartsabrusha, and where was it?

The three sketches occupied a double-page spread when they were reproduced in the Illustrated London News, the 221 accompanying words on a following page really being no more than an extended caption. They’ve turned out to be a perfect example of how interrogating even a very brief article with good questions can quickly lead research in all sorts of interesting directions.

Current anglicised spellings are often quite different to those commonly used during the 19th century, so clarifying place names is probably a good place to start. Some are more obvious than others.

• Cashmere = Kashmir
• Punjaub = Punjab
• Jailum/Behut River = Jhelum River
• Little Thibet/Bulti = Baltistan
• Kartsabrusha = see below

Baltistan is a mountainous region in what is now the Pakistani-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. It constitutes a northern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. ⁽⁶⁾

The “glaciers far surpassing those of the Alps” are indeed still there, in fact Baltistan has the largest glaciers outside the poles, including Baltoro Glacier, Biafo Glacier, Siachen Glacier, Trango Glacier and Godwin-Austen Glacier. ⁽⁶⁾ However, as a result of climate change, life in the region is increasingly under threat from unstable lakes formed by melting glacier ice. ⁽⁷⁾

Kartsabrusha is something of an enigma. The only online references to the name as spelled are to the Illustrated London News article and its constituent artwork. Searches for countless spelling variations, and even a virtual navigation of the Indus, have failed to find a definite match.

About 25km north-west along the Indus from Skardo is the village of Basho, with another settlement called Khar Basho situated down a valley about 1.5km to the west. My best guess — and it’s no more than that — at the location of the Kartsabrusha fort is an outcrop on the north side of Basho.

The other two fortresses (in the Skardo image) are easier to identify. The larger one on the right is Skardu Fort, also known as Kharpocho (meaning “The King of Forts”), which was built towards the end of the 16th century by Ali Sher Khan Anchan and is today a tourist attraction. The smaller building on the level ground in the centre of the image is Dogra Fort, an 1840s addition by Zorawar Singh. It was destroyed during the First Kashmir War of 1947. ⁽⁸⁾

The pyramidal structure in the Skardo image appears to be the upper part of a Buddhist stupa, although drawn at an exaggerated scale. I haven’t found any stupas in that area still standing, although the importance of Buddhism in the spiritual lives of past inhabitants is demonstrated by the 9th-century carvings at Manthal Buddha Rock.

The crops being grown in the Skardo valley were likely to have been wheat and barley. ⁽⁹⁾

The question about how the region’s population experienced being a British province is one that I’m not going to attempt to respond to here, because such a big question deserves an answer that’s beyond the scope of this series. However, further reading on the subject might include Time’s Monster: History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire by Priya Satia (Penguin Books, 2022) and An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India by Shashi Tharoor (Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2016.)

As for Captain G.H. Ware, he was born George Henry Hibbert in Edinburgh on 9th November 1834 to Samuel Hibbert and Charlotte Wilhelmina Murray (Samuel’s second wife. She died in 1835.)

Samuel Hibbert added the patronym “Ware” on 8th March 1837. He was a medical doctor, geologist, antiquarian, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. ⁽⁵⁾ In George’s army records his surname is recorded as either Ware or Hibbert Ware, but elsewhere tends to be hyphenated as Hibbert-Ware.

In 1882, Mary Clementina Hibbert-Ware (wife of Samuel’s eldest son, Titus) published 250 copies of The Life and correspondence of the late Samuel Hibbert Ware.

George Henry Hibbert Ware joined the British army as an ensign in the 97th Regiment of Foot on 6th June 1854, became a lieutenant on 3rd November 1854 and a captain on 21st December 1855. ⁽¹⁾ Serving in the Crimean War, he was at the siege and fall of Sevastopol from 20th November 1854 and was severely wounded during a Russian sortie on the night of 30th August 1855. ⁽¹⁾ “…having been ordered out with a party under Captain Brinkley to retake a sap and bring in the wounded who were lying under the enemy’s rifle-pits, which duty he was performing in a gallant manner, when he received a severe wound which obliged him to retire. This officer did duty in the trenches… under trying circumstances, in a most unflinching manner.” ⁽³⁾

After being repatriated to Britain, he exchanged into the “51st (The 2nd Yorkshire West Riding) or The King’s Own Light Infantry Regiment” on 5th September 1856. Detachments of the regiment served during the Indian Mutiny (India’s First War of Independence) between 1857 and 1859, and the whole regiment took part in the Ambela/Umbeyla Campaign of 1863. ⁽¹⁰⁾

Six and half months before setting out on the Ambela Campaign, George married Maria Julia Bayly on 2nd April 1863 in Rawalpindi. The regiment by that time was stationed at Peshawar.

It seems likely that George made his three sketches while the regiment was on patrol during the summer of 1864.

The Commander in Chief of the British Army in India accepted George’s request to retire on 22nd October 1864. His retirement became official on 14th March 1865 and he received the full value of his commission. ⁽²⁾

After leaving the army George relocated his family to Canterbury on New Zealand’s South Island, where they stayed until returning to England and making a new home in Cheltenham in 1875. George and Maria had six daughters and one son together. George died in Exmouth, Devon, on 27th November 1877 at the age of 43. Maria survived him by another fifteen years.

The University of Manchester Library holds a number of letters from Captain Hibbert Ware written during his time in the Crimea, along with a variety of other family papers. He also seems to have invented, “an improved apparatus for shifting points on railways from an engine or train in motion.” ⁽⁴⁾

If you know or discover any more about any of the people and places mentioned in this post, or if you’d like to suggest further questions, please do tell me via the comments below.

Sources:

1. Hart’s New Annual Army List 1865.

2. The Edinburgh Gazette 17th March 1865.

3. Find A Grave.

4. The London Gazette, 3rd March 1865.

5. Wikipedia (with references), Samuel Hibbert Ware.

6. Wikipedia (with references), Baltistan.

7. Reuters, Mountain villages fight for future as melting glaciers threaten floods, Akhtar Soomro and Charlotte Greenfield, 22nd November 2023.

8. Wikipedia (with references), Skardu Fort.

9. J.R. Witcombe, The distribution of cropping systems in northern Pakistan, Agro-Ecosystems, Volume 3, 1976, Pages 285-290, ISSN 0304-3746, https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3746(76)90131-1.

9. National Army Museum, 51st (2nd Yorkshire West Riding), or The King’s Own Light Infantry Regiment.

Three Good Questions

This is the fifth in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the article reproduced below during your research. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing?

If you interrogate the images and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. What had Martial Bourdin intended to achieve?
2. Did the Autonomie Club have British members as well?
3. Were there any accomplices? (and was Henri Bourdin among them?)

Illustrated London News (24th February 1894)

Anarchist Conspirators In London

An accidental death, hideous and horrible, but scarcely deplorable, as it deservedly ended the pernicious existence of one of those detestable criminals who plot the wholesale murder of the innocent, the destruction of private and public property, and every other cruel mischief that fiendish cunning devises for the vain purpose of terrifying society to overthrow all social and political institutions, took place on Thursday afternoon, Feb. 15. in Greenwich Park. It is no new thing in London that gangs of foreign assassins should hold their secret meetings here, and should here prepare those explosive bombs which have been used either in the chief cities of France, Russia, Germany, Italy, or Spain, or a few years since in England and Ireland — Continental Anarchists and Irish-American Fénian “Invincibles” being miscreants of similar complexion. The Orsini bomb of February 1858, which failed to kill Napoleon III. in Paris, but killed and wounded other persons, was made in this country, and the assassin who threw it was resident in this city. No one, therefore, need be surprised at the discovery, now, of the “Autonomie Club,” in Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, frequented by about a hundred of the Anarchists belonging to different European nationalities, one of whom, a Frenchman named Martial Bourdin, has, fortunately for mankind, killed himself unintentionally with the vile and dreadful instrument that is in vogue among them for their absurd and monstrous schemes.

This man, born at Tours and twenty-six years of age, a tailor by trade, who had been some years in America, came to London four months ago, and joined his brother, Henri Bourdin, who is in the same trade, occupying a small workshop in Great Titchfield Street; but he was latterly out of work. On the day of his death, he travelled by the railway from Charing Cross to Greenwich, and walked into the park to the grassy knoll upon which stands the Royal Observatory, containing the telescopes and other costly scientific apparatus of the Astronomer-Royal. The dusk of evening had begun, near five o’clock, when the sound of an explosion was heard, to east and west, beyond the limits of the park. It was supposed that some accident had happened at the Royal Observatory, and the park-keepers hastened thither. They found this man on the path up the knoll, on his knees, in a pool of his own blood, still living and able to say, in English, “Take me home,” but with several large and deep wounds in the abdomen, one penetrating back to the spine, other wounds on the thighs, and the left hand torn off. He seems to have stumbled and fallen forward upon the bomb, which he carried in his left hand, and which was made to explode on striking the ground. They carried him, yet alive, down to the Seamen’s Hospital, where the surgeon attended to him, but he died fifty minutes after the explosion. He said nothing else but once, “I feel very cold.” A small fragment of the bomb, a curved piece of iron rather less than half an inch thick, with grooves on the inner surface, was extracted from the largest wound in his body. He was a very short man, 5 ft. 1 in. in height, with blue eyes, fair silky hair and moustache, and no beard. The spot where he was found is sixty or seventy yards from the Royal Observatory building. His pockets contained nearly thirteen pounds in money, papers concerning the preparation of explosive chemical mixtures, a ball ticket, and a card of membership of the Autonomie Club.

Source: Illustrated London News (24th February 1894)

What Three Good Questions would you ask?

Three Good Questions (and some answers)

Last month I invited you to imagine that while doing some historical research you’d found an article about a fundraising event for the Deaf community published in the Illustrated London News on 21st January 1865. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing? And, if you interrogated the image and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first?

You can refer back to the full transcript of the article here.

My own Three Good Questions to get things started were:

1. Why were the people without hearing referred to as deaf “and dumb” at that time?
2. If the fundraising soirée was only the second event of its kind in two years, was the association still relatively new? (and did it go on to flourish for the benefit of the Deaf community?)
3. Was the “finger language” in use in 1865 the same as modern British Sign Language?

To which my newsletter subscribers and social media followers added the following:

1. What provision was there at the time for the education of Deaf children, particularly pauper children?
2. Was Lord Carbery able to use his position to further contribute to the cause (financially, or through his influence)?
3. Were any Deaf people included in the list of “subscribers and friends of the association” (indeed, any of the drivers of the association?), or were they all relegated to the position of beneficiaries?

 
In 1841, the Refuge for the Deaf and Dumb was founded by George Crouch, a bookseller with five deaf children, to train Deaf young men for trades, and educate those with no previous schooling. ⁽¹⁾

By 1854 the organisation had evolved into the Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb with an overtly evangelical Christian outlook. It had a team of missionaries who visited members of the Deaf community in their own homes to help them into work and to deliver Anglican services in sign language. It became the Royal Association in Aid of Deaf People in 1986 (without the evangelism) and is now the Royal Association for Deaf people.

By the time of the 1865 fundraising soirée, the association was therefore in its eleventh year (of that incarnation.)

(Quite separately, the British Deaf and Dumb Association was founded in Leeds on 24th July 1890. It aimed to, “elevate the education and social status of the Deaf and Dumb in the United Kingdom.” In 1971, “and Dumb” was removed from the association’s name.)

The first annual meeting of the Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb took place at 15 Bedford Row in London on 30th April 1855. In the press-reported minutes of the meeting, the chairman, Whig MP Lord Robert Grosvenor, reminded the committee of how the association, “arose out of an institution established some time since in the Old Kent-road, for the reception of deaf and dumb persons born of poor parents.”

The Reverend E. Auriol of St. Dunstan’s commented that the, “deaf and dumb constituted a class peculiarly appealing to Christian sympathy. They were, by their natural misfortunes, excluded from ordinary agencies…”

The Reverend John Davies of St. Clement’s in Worcester referred to the, “intellectual capacity and moral and religious sensibility possessed by deaf mutes.” He went on to point out that across the country there were, “12,500 deaf and dumb persons, not one-tenth of whom had been brought under religious instruction,” and that an, “uninstructed deaf mute was a most melancholy spectacle. In some places, and at certain periods, such persons were looked upon almost as idiotic, without any intellectual powers, and as such were kept in an asylum specially set apart for them.”

The asylum mentioned is almost certainly the London Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, the first free school for Deaf children of the poor in Britain. It was founded in 1792 by the Reverend John Townsend on Grange Road in Bermondsey and moved to the Old Kent Road in Southwark in 1809. It remained in operation until 1902 when it was replaced by the Old Kent Road School. ⁽²⁾ A private Academy for the Deaf had opened in Edinburgh in 1760. ⁽⁵⁾

Following the opening of the London asylum [“asylum” here being used in the sense of “refuge” rather than implying the place was an institution related to mental health, despite the implication made by the Reverend John Davies], a network of educated deaf people spread across the city. By 1840, philanthropically-minded people [such as George Crouch], deaf and hearing, had realised that communicating with signs and written English was no guarantee of gaining successful employment in hearing society. ⁽³⁾

Returning to the meeting minutes from 1855, the Reverend J.B. Owen of St. John’s Chapel on Bedford Row, said that he, “had known many deaf mutes,” and that he believed their, “defect was, so to speak, a mechanical one; and if by mechanical contrivances that defect could be remedied, the same general effects might be produced on their minds by education, as were produced in the minds of others. Some deaf mutes, indeed, seemed to have even greater capacity than others, owing doubtless to that wonderful principle of compensation which the Creator had established.”

The words “dumb” and “mute” are used interchangeably throughout the minutes, always in the context of an absence of the use of speech rather than to a lack of intellectual capacity.

In 19th-century British English “mute” and “dumb” both meant “non-speaking”, and were not (intentionally) pejorative terms. They were used to identify people who were either deaf and used sign language, or were both deaf and could not speak (or had some degree of speaking ability, but choose not to speak because of the negative or unwanted attention attracted by atypical voices.) The North American pejorative usage of the word “dumb” to imply stupidity was first noted in the UK in 1928. ⁽⁴⁾

Hearing people’s awareness that Deaf people not speaking was in some way related to their deafness, and was not a reflection of their intelligence, is reiterated in Reflections On The Natural Condition Of The Deaf And Dumb by James Foulston, Principal of the (Irish) National Institution for Deaf and Dumb, published by G. Herbert, Dublin, also in 1855. The book is described in the press of the time as referring to, “…the true relation between the want of the faculty of hearing and that of speech, the latter being dependent on the former…” However, it also underscores a prevailing attitude held by many of the hearing-endowed evangelisers of the time when it says that, “…the moral disadvantages under which the deaf and dumb labour, and their consequent proneness to yield to the baser passions of our nature, in a greater degree than is the case with those who enjoy all the faculties through which [religious] instruction can be conveyed.”

The report of the 1855 annual meeting of the Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb includes an account of monies received from 54 subscribers and donors. The list doesn’t indicate each person’s hearing status. However, “Lady Carberry, Freke Castle, Co. York” (a pair of typesetting errors, it should read: Lady Carbery, Freke Castle, Co. Cork) is shown as having donated a sum of £5.

Lord Carbery isn’t mentioned anywhere in the report. It would be interesting to know if Lady Carbery made the donation on behalf of her husband (and, if so, why?) or if she was acting independently from him, perhaps with the intention of encouraging his patronage.

While a proportion of the 19th-century Deaf community were inevitably born without hearing, many were made deaf during childhood by diseases such as Scarlet Fever. ⁽²⁾ I’ve not found a source to confirm which category Lord Carbery fell into. However, neither have I found any mention of family members also being deaf, which perhaps suggests his condition was the result of disease rather than genetic inheritance.

Lord Carbery, whose full name was George Patrick Percy Evans-Freke, was born on 17th March 1807. On 12th May 1845 he succeeded as the 7th Baron Carbery and the 3rd Baronet Evans-Freke of Castle Freke in County Cork, Ireland. He married Harriet Maria Catherine Shuldham on 5th August 1852 in Cork. They had one daughter, Georgina, on 3rd November 1853.

In a Deed of Settlement signed by both Lord and Lady Carbery three months after their marriage, Lord Carbery is recorded as being, “Deaf and Dum [sic], but being capable of reading.” The Peerage notes that he, “conversed on a slate.”

At the time of the 1865 fundraising soirée, Lord Carbery was approaching his 58th birthday. I’ve not yet found any evidence of how else he may have supported the Deaf community. He died on 25th November 1889 at the age of 82, five years after the death of his wife.

The other question I wanted to research was whether the “finger language” in use in 1865 was the same as modern British Sign Language? In the sense likely intended by the journalist, the short answer seems to be yes. However, the use of signs and finger spelling are separate skills, which together form what is now referred to as British Sign Language.

In 1698, an anonymous Deaf author published Digiti Lingua, containing manual alphabet charts that laid the foundation for the British Sign Language two-handed alphabet. ⁽⁵⁾

The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf was held in Milan in 1880 and attended mainly by hearing teachers of deaf children. It passed a resolution banning the use of sign languages throughout the world. Enthused delegates returned home from all over Europe to weed out Deaf teachers, to eradicate the use of sign language in schools, and to cut down classes to sizes that could be managed by hearing teachers. The British Deaf and Dumb Association was subsequently founded at a time of intense controversy about the use of sign language and finger-spelling in the education of deaf children, and about the exclusion of Deaf people from national decisions that affected their lives. In a world dominated by hearing people, hearing people acted on behalf of Deaf people, but they did not represent their true interests or share their aspirations. ⁽⁶⁾

The Elementary Education (Deaf and Blind Children) Act was passed in 1893, which accepted, in full, the recommendations of the Milan Congress and led to an era of Oralism in British Deaf schools. British Sign Language wasn’t officially recognised by the British Government until 2003. ⁽⁵⁾

Figures quoted by The Elizabeth Foundation suggest that around 1,460 babies are born deaf each year in the UK, with many more being born with some degree of hearing impairment, while according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), one in five adults in the UK today are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus.

If you know or discover any more about any of the people and organisations mentioned in this post, or if you’d like to suggest further questions, please do tell me via the comments below.

Sources:

1. Linda Isaac (ed), Full Circle: The History of RAD, Royal Association for Deaf people

2. H Dominic W Stiles, London Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries, 2012

3. John Lyons, On becoming (Paid) Deaf Missionaries in 1870s London: The Life and Times of Samuel W. North and John P. Gloyn, paper presented at Social History Society Conference, Lincoln, 2019

4. Wikipedia (with references), Deaf-mute

5. UCL, History of British Sign Language

6. British Deaf Association, History

Three Good Questions

This is the fourth in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the article reproduced below during your research. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing?

If you interrogate the images and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. Who built the three fortresses (and are they still standing)?
2. Who was Captain G.H. Ware?
3. What were the 51st Light Infantry doing in that region at the time?

Illustrated London News (4th February 1865)

SCENERY OF CASHMERE AND THE UPPER INDUS

The territory of Cashmere, to the north of the British province of the Punjaub, is almost quite shut in by lofty mountains — secondary ranges of the Himalayas — the summits of which are covered with perpetual snow. Its principal outlet is the Baramula Pass, by which the river Jailum or Behut (the ancient Hydaspes), which drains the whole of the inclosed basin and is navigable for light vessels, emerges into the vast plain of the Punjaub, to join the Sutlej and other rivers there, which discharge themselves into the Indus. We are indebted to Captain G. H. Ware, of the 51st Light Infantry, for a sketch of the Baramula Pass; as well as for two views of the scenery of the Upper Indus, in Little Thibet: the larger one represents the village of Skardo, or Iskardo, the capital of a little State called Bulti, on the frontier of the Chinese empire. Here is a large fortified building perched upon a rock overlooking the River Indus, with cultivated ground on one side, and a desert of white sand on the other; a second fortress, with a few houses about it, lies beneath; and snowy mountains, with glaciers far surpassing those of the Alps, surround the place on every hand. Another illustration gives a view of the fort of Kartsabrusha on the Upper Indus.

Source: Illustrated London News (4th February 1865)

What Three Good Questions would you ask?

Three Good Questions (and some answers)

Last month I invited you to imagine that while doing some historical research you’d noticed an advert for Meinig’s Patent Portable Galvanic Electro-Generator in the 1854 edition of Hart’s Annual Army List. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing? And, if you interrogated the advert closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first?

My own Three Good Questions to get things started were:

1. Who was Mr. Meinig? (and was he in any way medically qualified?)
2. What did a two-ounce Galvanic Electro-Generator look like?
3. Was this blatant quackery or did it actually have some therapeutic benefits?

To which my newsletter subscribers and social media followers added variations of the following:

• If the device was worn under clothing, how was it powered up (if the user was in the theatre, for instance)?
• What was meant by “mild streaming electricity”?
• What would you get for the top price of 30s.?
• What were the other discoveries?
• Why was it being advertised with the image of a half-naked woman?

The science and practical applications of electricity were the subjects of intense research during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, from Benjamin Franklin’s experiments into the nature of lightning in the summer of 1752 and Luigi Galvani’s discovery of bioelectromagnetics in 1791, to Alessandro Volta’s 1800 development of the first battery (voltaic pile) and Michael Faraday’s invention of the electric motor in 1821.

One of the 19th century’s pioneers of the use of electricity in the field of medicine was a British doctor called Golding Bird, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a member of the London Electrical Society. ⁽¹⁾ In the June 1846 issue of The Lancet, for instance, he contributed an article entitled: On The Employment Of Electro-Magnetic Currents In The Treatment Of Paralysis.

In 1851 Dr. Bird received a visit from a Prussian-born electrical engineer by the name of Isaac Louis Pulvermacher. Speaking very poor English, he presented a sample of his invention of a galvanic chain, or “Magic Band”, for evaluation. An adaptation of the voltaic pile, each cell in the chain consisted of a wooden rod concentrically wound with copper and zinc wires. These sat in grooves that brought the wires close to each other without touching. Soaking the rods in an electrolyte, such as vinegar, activated the battery action and by connecting many rods in series the voltage could be increased to high levels. Dr. Bird found the basic device useful for experimentation and was persuaded to write a testimonial with the objective of introducing the device to doctors in Edinburgh. ⁽²⁾

It is at this point that Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig enters the story as what we would now think of as Isaac Pulvermacher’s sales and marketing agent. In a series of newspaper advertisements, including the medical press, he made the most preposterous claims backed up by Dr. Bird’s testimonial (although it doesn’t feature in the Hart’s New Annual Army List advert.) Charles Meinig sometimes gave himself the title of “Doctor”, but was not medically qualified. Dr. Bird complained about the misrepresentation of his comments, but the energetic Meinig ignored threats of legal action and set about establishing an extensive network of stockists and agents. ⁽²⁾

What differentiated the product variations in terms of price seems to be the number of rods in each chain. The more a customer paid, the longer the chain.

1856 illustration of Pulvermacher’s Galvanic Chain (the function of the boxed handles is unclear)

In a letter to the editor of the Association Medical Journal on 4th April 1853, Dr. Golding Bird wrote:

The chains usually sold are too feeble to afford a sensible shock or even any physiological sensation; they are, moreover, often directed to be worn round the body, in which case, as every link would come in contact with the skin, no concentration of force, no current, would be developed at the poles…

…I can only deeply regret that a certificate given in faith to recommend a scientific instrument to the notice our profession, should have been employed to advocate it a quack remedy [my emphasis]. As I stated in the Lancet in 1851, “It must be recollected that the current evolved has no peculiar properties and that it will effect nothing more than that evolved by any other means. It is indeed deeply to be regretted that so convenient a source of electricity runs the risk of losing favour in the sight of educated men generally, and of our profession in particular, by being injudiciously puffed in the public prints by advertisements claiming for it a medical influence it in no wise possesses.”

In response, the Association Medical Journal stopped printing Meinig’s adverts in 1853. However, despite Dr. Golding Bird’s death in October 1854, mention of his disputed testimonial still featured in Meinig’s advertising in The Lancet throughout 1855.

How much of Meinig’s Electro-Generator was based on Pulvermacher’s device is not known. He may even have been selling existing stocks of the Pulvermacher chain under his own name. Meinig continued to advertise until at least 1859, at which point there seems to be no further coverage in the newspapers. However, Isaac Pulvermacher continued in the same promotional vein, also quoting Dr. Bird’s testimonial, and the company he founded remained in business until 1951. ⁽²⁾

As for why Meinig’s 1854 advert in Hart’s New Annual Army List features a half-naked woman above the “Electricity Is Life” slogan, a fair degree of speculation is required.

Emerging from a tree (or is it a thunder cloud?) riven by lightning, and bestowing a life-giving bounty of fruit and flowers, on close inspection the female figure appears to be a variety of nymph, a nature deity from ancient Greek folklore. In art and literature, nymphs have always tended to be depicted naked or semi-naked. ⁽⁴⁾ In that respect at least the advert might be said to be in keeping with convention.

Statue of a sleeping water nymph in the Grotto at Stourhead, Wiltshire

Unlike the general press, the target audience for Hart’s New Annual Army List was primarily British Army officers and civil servants (i.e. men from privileged backgrounds who’d received classical educations) with whom the nymph symbolism might be expected to resonate. On the other hand, Meinig may simply have chosen an image he thought might titillate a male readership. Given his overall approach to marketing, that much less cultured explanation is perhaps the more likely one.

Meinig and Pulvermacher’s marketing methods may not have been ethical, but they certainly achieved their aim of generating widespread product awareness. Pulvermacher’s hydro-electric chains, for example, made a cameo appearance in Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel, Madame Bovary. ⁽³⁾ A week before his death in June 1870, Charles Dickens ordered a voltaic chain from Pulvermacher & Co. in the hope it might relieve his gout. ⁽²⁾ In 1907, unnamed “… sellers of invigorating electric belts…” are mentioned in Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent, as being like the story’s protagonist and, “…men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baser fears of mankind…”

Electrotherapy continues to play a role in modern medical and sports rehabilitation practices, although its effectiveness in different contexts is widely debated. ⁽⁵⁾

If you know or discover any more about any of the people and devices mentioned in this post, or if you’d like to suggest further questions, please do tell me via the comments below.

Sources:

5. Wikipedia (with references), Electrotherapy.

Three Good Questions

This is the next in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the article reproduced below during your research. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing?

If you interrogate the image and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. Why were the people without hearing referred to as deaf “and dumb” at that time?
2. If the fundraising soirée was only the second event of its kind in two years, was the association still relatively new? (and did it go on to flourish for the benefit of the Deaf community?)
3. Was the “finger language” in use in 1865 the same as modern British Sign Language?

Illustrated London News (21st January 1865)

ASSOCIATION IN AID OF THE DEAF AND DUMB

The second annual soirée of this association was held at the Hanover-square Rooms on Monday week. It was attended, not only by the subscribers and friends of the association, but also by a large number of the deaf and dumb themselves. After tea the chair was taken by Mr. Philip Cazenove, who addressed the meeting in a short speech, which the Rev. S. Smith, the chaplain of the association, translated on his fingers for the benefit of the deaf and dumb visitors. On the conclusion of the chairman’s speech, Mr. Smith exhibited the phenomenon of an address delivered simultaneously to the ears and eyes of the different portions of the meeting. He informed them that, although sufficient funds had not yet been accumulated to allow the committee to begin to carry out the objects of the association, they were in hopes that before another year had passed they might be enabled to commence. The objects in view were:— First. A place of worship for the deaf and dumb, who could not benefit by oral instruction and had generally too limited a knowledge of book-language to read the service to advantage. Secondly. To give assistance to aged and infirm deaf mutes, some of whom were known to be working for a bare subsistence at upwards of seventy years of age. Thirdly. To provide a room for weekly lectures and for weekly reading, where the deaf and dumb might meet together to improve themselves and interchange ideas. In aid of these objects about £2000 had already been raised. The Queen had showed her interest in the undertaking by a donation of £50. Lord Carbery, himself deaf and dumb, had given £100; and if another £1000 were raised the committee thought they might commence the work. It was not easy to find a site such as was needed, and it was thought advisable that the institution should be located somewhere between Portland-place on the one side and Gray’s-inn-lane on the other. Mr. Smith said he also hoped to raise a fund to give prizes to deaf mutes for proficiency in painting, skill as workmen, or steadiness of conduct. Some of them were good artists. A deaf and dumb artist had only the week before gained a silver medal at the Royal Academy. Mr. Smith’s speech was closely attended to, and those who watched him frequently gave loud tokens of their approbation. The Rev. Arthur Casimir, Dr. Grosvenor, the Rev. W. Cadman, and other gentlemen, also addressed the meeting; and Professor Artis gave some recitations, which were translated, like the speeches, by Mr. Smith into the finger language of the deaf and dumb. After a vote of thanks to the chairman had been passed, as the serious business of the evening was over, its lighter entertainments were commenced by Professor Matthews, who ascended the platform and exhibited some wonderful tricks of legerdemain. He announced that he would perform a whole evening for the benefit of the funds of this association. This was followed by a performance [of] vocal music, Mr. Wass’s new cantata being sung by a party of amateur friends; and the evening closed with the illumination of a Christmas-tree and the distribution of many articles thereon suspended among the juvenile visitors. We give an illustration of this entertainment for the sake of its benevolent object.

Source: Illustrated London News (21st January 1865)

What Three Good Questions would you ask?

Three Good Questions (and some answers)

Last month I invited you to imagine that while doing some historical research you’d found an article about the East Kent Fire Brigades published in the Illustrated London News on 27th September 1879. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing? And, if you interrogated the image and words closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first?

You can refer back to the full transcript of the article here.

My own Three Good Questions to get things started were:

1. Does the top-right inset show a semaphore signal tower? (If so, what was its purpose? Was it just built for the demonstration or as a permanent feature in Westgate-on-Sea and other towns?)
2. To what extent did Edmund Davis’s resort become a commercial success?
3. Were Edmund Davis and Captain Henry Davis related?

According to the Margate Civic Society, “Deal’s four-storey semaphore tower was built in 1821 as part of a chain of 12 communication towers, which enabled the navy to send messages to the Admiralty in Greenwich.” So the semaphore tower pictured in the illustration is almost certainly a link in the chain of twelve.

I haven’t explored the commercial success or otherwise of Edmund Davis’s resort, but the place mentioned appears to be Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens. In Mick Glover’s St Peters and the Forgotten Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens (2014), they’re described (48 years earlier) as follows:

“The gardens cover an area of about two acres and a half, interspersed with splendid marquees, and a pleasing and beautiful series of cosmoramas; as many as two thousand persons have assembled here in one day. The ordinary price of admission is one shilling, for which refreshments to that amount are supplied. The amusements commence about four o’clock, and last till dusk, during which time and excellent band for quadrilles and country dances is in attendance. In the rear of the principal garden is a bowling green, kept in the best condition.”

I’ve admitted defeat when trying to find a familial connection between Edmund Davis and Captain Henry Davis. I can say for certain that they weren’t brothers. They may have been cousins, but it’s equally possible their shared surname is simply a coincidence.

Edmund Francis Davis was born in Chiswick in April 1845, the fifth of eleven children. His father, James Phineas Davis, was an attorney and solicitor. His mother, Eliza (also née Davis), was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Aside from his resort enterprise, Edmund was a solicitor like his father. He married Florence Aria, from Kingston, Jamaica, in 1867. They had three children and employed nine servants at their St. Peter’s Cottage home.

Florence died while the family was in Los Angeles, California, in October 1887, where Edmund seems to have set himself up as a real estate agent.

Edmund remarried in Boston, Massachusetts, only eight months later. His second wife, Matilda Hodges, originally came from Hamburg in Germany and was thirteen years his junior. Edmund died in Chicago, Illinois, the following year at the age of only 44. His children ended up back in England.

A potentially interesting avenue of further research would be to look at how the Davis and Aria families earned their livings in Jamaica in the latter 18th and early 19th centuries.

After reading the full article from 1879, a number of you suggested variations of the same Three Good Questions:

1. Are the two uniformed gentlemen pictured just behind the leading fireman Captains Henry Davis and Sidney Wilmot?
2. Were fire brigade uniforms standardised across the country at that time?
3. What were their uniforms made of? (Did they provide much in the way of protection?)

The “Mr. Sidney Wilmot, captain of the Tunbridge Wells Fire Brigade” was Benjamin Sidney-Wilmot, aged 37. There’s a photograph of him taken around 1900 here, along with masses of genealogical information. He was born Benjamin Goldsmith in Cambridge in 1842 and changed his surname to Sidney-Wilmot shortly after his marriage to Beatrice Gilbert in 1866. The family moved to Kent around 1883. As well as founding the Tunbridge Wells Fire Brigade, Benjamin was a burgess of the town and acted as a political agent for the Conservative party.

Although it’s almost impossible to be sure, based on comparison with the 1900-era photograph, the right-hand figure in the illustration might well have been Captain Sidney-Wilmot. If so, then the figure on the left is probably Captain Henry Davis.

As for the questions about uniforms, according to Greater Manchester’s Fire Service Museum, “In 1866 the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in London was set up and this brigade had a huge influence on uniform design generally. They wore a blue double-breasted tunic, blue trousers made of waterproof cloth with black leather boots and a leather belt. They also wore a brass helmet. Many brigades adopted a variation of this uniform with a brass or leather helmet carrying the brigade’s emblem.”

If you know or discover any more about any of the people and places mentioned in this post, or if you’d like to suggest further questions, please do tell me via the comments below.

Source: Hart’s New Annual Army List (1854)

Three Good Questions

This is the next in an ongoing series of posts about historical research, featuring news articles, adverts, and other sources mostly from Britain in the 19th century.

Just for fun, imagine you stumbled across the advert above during your research. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing?

If you interrogate the image closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first? You can send me your suggestions via the form at the bottom of the page.

I’ll collate the questions, and begin to answer some of them, in a follow-up post. Subscribers to the ThreesWrite Newsletter will receive that before it’s published on the website.

Here are my first Three Good Questions:

1. Who was Mr. Meinig? (and was he in any way medically qualified?)
2. What did a two-ounce Galvanic Electro-Generator look like?
3. Was this blatant quackery or did it actually have some therapeutic benefits?

What Three Good Questions would you ask?