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Monday 18 October 2010

L’Acadie

The electoral comté de l’Acadie was established by the reforms of 5 October 1829 and covered a vast area extending 32 kilometres along the western bank of the Richelieu and varied between 13 and 25 kilometres wide. To the south it bordered the United States and was adjacent to the comté de Chambly to the north-east. The comté was bordered to the west by the seigneurie de Beauharnois[1] and the township of Hemmingford. [2] In the 1830s, it contained six seigneuries and a small area held in frankpledge and common soccage. The comté included the parishes of Saint-Cyprien, Saint-Valentin and Saint-Édouard and parts of the parishes of Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie, Saint-Rémi and Saint-Philippe. Colonised following the War of American Independence, in the decades before the Rebellions, its socio-economic structure was dominated by the agricultural sector and showed little economic diversification. [3]

The comté, covered in place by marshes, was under-developed by Lower Canadian standards; it seems that the difficult conditions for colonists partly explain this situation. [4] The region showed uneven development between different seigneuries and between different farmers on the same fief. However, Acadie had several prosperous farmers among its 11,419 residents in 1831 even if conditions for the majority were poor. [5] Its seigneurs vigorously exploited their habitants and placed heavy economic burdens on both owners of land and tenant farmers.[6] Habitant debt was a chronic problem throughout the region.[7] The seigneurs undoubtedly contributed to levels of distress in Acadie and the seigneurial question became a political issue of major importance during the 1830s. Greer argues that evidence of the worsening relationship between the habitants and the seigneurs in Acadie can be found in the seven anti-seigneurial petitions its deputies presented to the Assembly between 1831 and 1836.[8] Divided between its Catholic French Canadian majority (72.3% heads of household in 1831) and a strong anglophone minority, the comté saw friction between the two linguistic groups. [9] This provided a basis for the growing radicalism of Patriotes and, in many respects the experience of Acadie was typical of the situation in the Montreal district.[10]

The seigneuries in Acadie, however, demonstrate the problem of trying to make generalisations about the area. The seigneuries of De Léry[11] and Lacolle[12], although both were owned by William Penderleath Christie, illustrate the problem. [13] De Léry was a strong settlement with 5,437 habitants in 1831, almost all French Canadian Catholics while Lacolle was less populated with only 2,150 habitants of whom 63% were Anglo-Protestants. The two seigneuries were the only ones in Acadie to have been granted under the French regime and to be managed by the agent William McGinnis.[14] The loyalist American settlers at Lacolle experienced relatively prosperous farming and paid the highest seigneurial royalties in Lower Canada during the 1830s. De Léry, by contrast, was not as prosperous and in 1835, several habitants were dispossessed because of arrears.[15] The remaining four seigneuries were, until 1820, part of the canton of Sherrington but they were included in Acadie as a government solution to litigation between the seigneur of Lasalle and the rightful owners of the canton. In 1837, the seigneurie of Saint-Georges (2,198 habitants largely French Canadian in 1831) was the property of seigneur François Languedoc, deputy of the comté from 1831 to 1834. The seigneuries of Twaite (346 habitants largely French Catholics) and Saint-James (502 habitants of varied ethnic origins) had been held since 1825 by John Boston, a Montreal lawyer and an important loyalist. Finally the seigneurie of Saint-Normand (437 habitants, more than 90% French Catholics) had been the fief of Collin McCallum since 1835. It appears that the level of both droits d’entrée and seigneurial dues were high across all of the seigneuries in Acadie.[16]

With 398 identified Patriotes, the comté de l’Acadie was strongly mobilised, particularly in the parish of Saint-Cyprien and in the village of Napierville,[17] areas with a strong French Canadian petite bourgeoisie who played a central role in the radical movement. [18] Based on the list of 2,100 Patriote names compiled by Bernard, Patriote support in the comté consisted largely of habitants (91% for the comté as a whole but higher in Saint-Valentin and Lacolle with 97% and 96% respectively. Anglophones were significantly under-represented in the Patriote organisation in the comté. Cyrille-Hector-Olivier Côté[19], a young doctor from Napierville and Lucien Gagnon[20], a 42 year old prosperous peasant from Pointe-à-la-Mule led the movement in Acadie. Côté had not only been deputy for Acadie since 1834 at the age of twenty four, but played a leading part in the planning of the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and acted as treasurer and general of the camp at Napierville. Under the pseudonym of ‘Agricola’, he took a radical position on seigneurial tenure.[21] Lucien Gagnon, famous for his violent temper, was less important than Côté although he was primarily responsible for mobilising Pointe-à-la-Mule and was an important recruiter for the Frères Chasseurs.[22]

The comté de l’Acadie was an important area of Patriote activity in both 1837 and 1838 and saw considerable military action. On 12 July 1837, an anti-coercive assembly took place at Napierville, the most important Patriote demonstration in the comté during 1837, according to La Minerve attended by 4,000 people.[23] The Patriote assembly was attended by Papineau, O’Callaghan, T.S. Brown, Côté, Gagnon and Merritt Hotchkiss[24] who like Côté was deputy for the comté and passed twenty resolution including one especially critical of the seigneurial system. On 24 July, there was also a loyalist meeting organised in the village of Napierville by Joseph Brisset and the seigneurs François Languedoc and John Boston.[25]

Two months later on 10 September 1837, a further Patriote assembly at Napierville denounced the dismissal of magistrates and militia officers by the colonial government and demanded that pressure should be exerted on loyalists to resign their posts.[26] Following this assembly and the reorganisation of the local militia, there were several charivaris, orchestrated by Côté, against a number of loyalists including Dudley Flowers[27], a lieutenant in the militia, curé Amiot of Napierville and Doctor Timoléon Quesnel, a local magistrate.[28] A delegation from Acadie, which only arrived at the last minute, attended the assembly at St-Charles on 23 October 1837 where Côté’s call to arms caused consternation among the more moderate Patriotes.[29]

The village of Pointe-à-la-Mule acted as the centre for Patriote initiatives in Acadie led by Gagnon, Côté and François Paradis.[30] Operations were largely aimed at intimidating and disarming loyalists and Captain George Phillpotts in a report to Colborne described the situation in Acadie as terrible. [31] An arrest warrant was delivered to Côté’s address. By mid-November, Pointe-à-la-Mule had become the site of an armed camp from where, led by François Nicolas and Amable Daunais, an attack on the soldiers at St-Jean was planned for late November. However, their force was too small and their contribution to the rebellion was to execute Joseph Chartrand, a loyalist volunteer from St-Jean was visiting the parish of L’Acadie and was accused of being a government spy. Tried by court-martial in the local schoolhouse, he was found guilty, tied to a tree and shot.

Côté and Gagnon had been among the first Patriote leaders to cross into Vermont on 20 November in search of weapons where they had been joined at Swanton by other fugitives but also welcomed by French Canadians already settled there. [32] Gagnon was soon back across the border gathering men and weapons and made his way back to Swanton with 66 recruits. With Patriotes already there and a few Vermonters, his force numbered around 200 men. On the evening of 6 December, about 84 Patriotes carrying substantial munitions moved across the border towards the town of St-Césaire where rumour placed Wolfred Nelson establishing a new camp. Gagnon had already succeeded in alarming Loyalists in the whole region and Colborne immediately dispatched troops and cannons to St-Armand. However, before his troops reached the border, the Patriotes were ambushed by 300 Missisquoi Volunteers led by Captain Oran J. Kemp at Moore’s Corner, a little crossroads between St-Armand and Philipsburgh.[33] During the twenty minute skirmish, five Patriotes including Bouchette were captured and one killed and the rest retreated across the border. This reverse put an end to the rebellion in 1837 and in February 1838 loyalist forces in the area were reinforced when 300 Glengarry Volunteers occupied Napierville.[34]

The comté de l’Acadie played a role in Robert Nelson’s attempt to invade Lower Canada from the United States in November 1838. At the head of French Canadian refugees and American volunteers, he planned to invade southern Lower Canada and then to march on Montreal. The majority of the Chasseurs gathered at Napierville on 4 November for the most important Patriote gathering during the rebellions. [35] Also, depending on the estimates, between 1,500 and 5,000 Chasseurs gathered in the parish of Saint-Cyprien. They were guided by a large flag with two blue stars hanging from the maypole of a local militia captain.[36] A hundred loyalists were imprisoned, including militia Captains C. Fortin and P. Gamelin and merchants T. Thompson, W. Wilson, L. Odell and Orange Tyler until freed by Colborne’s troops on 10 November.

Around midnight on 3 November, Robert Nelson and a dozen supporters including Charles Hindenlang and another called Touvrey, both soldiers of fortune who had served in the French army sailed northwards on Lake Champlain to the Canadian border. [37] Nelson had some $20,000 in cash, the remnants of the Chasseurs treasury, a six-pounder cannon and 250 rifles and ammunition. Both the force and the supplies were less than he expected. There had already been a decline in active American support for the movement because of the increased patrols on both sides of the border. Nelson was unperturbed expecting that the regulars garrisoned in Montreal would be drawn away by an invasion of the upper province. He seems to have learned little from the previous February. Much like De Lorimier at Beauharnois, rebel successes were in people’s minds rather than on the battlefield, propaganda to persuade hesitant Hunters south of the border to commit themselves to action.

Nelson landed at Vitman’s Quay, three miles north of the border and twenty miles from Napierville, about 1.00 am on 4 November to a silent welcome. There was no Patriote army but there were large numbers of loyalist volunteers at Hemmingford, fifteen miles to the west, at Lacolle six miles north and at Odelltown three miles away and regulars were stationed at Ile-aux-Noix. With difficulties, the small party hid the armaments and headed north arriving at Napierville about 9.00 am where Côté was waiting with nearly 3,000 men though only a tenth had arms. Nelson again proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada, Côté was made commander-in-chief and Hindenlang organised the companies and battalions. By the morning of 5 November, patrols were scouring the country for recruits and food and later that day, Hindenlang’s organisation complete, the army marched by Nelson in grand review. The following night, a force of 500 under the command of Côté, Gagnon, Touvrey and a Polish colonel Oklowski headed south towards Vitman’s Quay to retrieve Nelson’s guns. It swung to the west of Lacolle to avoid volunteers but between Lacolle and their destination blundered into a small volunteer force that was dispersed with hardly a dozen shots. This was sufficient to rouse the loyalist forces in Lacolle, the Lacolle Frontier Volunteers but the Patriotes continued to Vitman’s Quay to find the arms intact. With volunteers converging from Hemmingford in the west, from Lacolle and from the east across the Richelieu, the Patriotes tried to force their way through to Napierville. Yet, within fifteen minutes, they had scattered leaving eleven dead and the weapons and Côté and almost the entire Chasseur force headed south towards the border. By the morning of Wednesday 7 November, a few stragglers made their way back to Napierville and news quickly spread through the camp. By the evening, of the 3,000 who had gathered there, only 1,200 remained.

This defeat led Nelson, on Thursday 8 November to decide to try to retrieve the weapons presumably still in Lacolle and at 9.00 am, led his men south. By dusk, his force had fallen to 600 men and he ordered a night encampment and then rode off into the darkness, he later argued, to make his own reconnaissance. Hindenlang had sent out armed patrols and one apprehended Nelson who was dragged back to the camp. Nelson protested that he had not been making for the border but his officers were hard to convince and the camp was in uproar. A semi-trial followed at which he was finally able to allay Patriote suspicions of betrayal and on the morning of Friday 9 November, the army continued its march south. Hindenlang commanded the centre, the left surrounded Nelson and the right spread out through the fields along the road. However, at Odelltown, 200 loyalist volunteers were waiting with the Patriote cannon standing in front of the church. After two hours of indecisive fighting, the loyalists, now reinforced, surged forward to push the Patriotes out of the cluster of barns and buildings round the church and after five more sorties in the next hour the remaining Patriotes were exhausted and low on ammunition. Hindenlang moved to the left to consult Nelson, but he had not been seen for two hours. With volunteers arriving from Hemmingford and from Clarenceville across the Richelieu, the last of the Patriotes fled leaving fifty dead and as many wounded. By dusk, Nelson, who had slipped away from the battle, was safely across the border but Hindenlang was captured and taken north to Montreal. The battle of Odelltown was the decisive battle of the rebellion. With the rout of the Chasseur forces and Nelson’s flight across the border, the rebellion had failed. [38]

Repeating what occurred in 1837, before Colborne arrived at Napierville the following day, Pierre-Remi Narbonne[39] surrendered to Lewis Odell.[40] The actions of loyalists and regular troops in 1838, unlike the previous year, were repressive and brutal in Acadie. In Napierville, for example, eighty houses were destroyed and in the parish of Saint-Cyprien 170 Patriotes were arrested. This did not represent the end of the Patriote agitation and secret assemblies took place at Pointe-à-la-Mule in the spring of 1839 and the seigneurie of Lacolle was the target of punitive incursions from March 1839 until June 1843. The comté de l’Acadie is important in trying to understand the character of rebellion in 1837 and 1838. Its particular socio-economic structure, the radicalism of its habitants and Patriote leaders as well as the importance of the military operations that occurred there placed Acadie at the centre of the Lower Canadian political crisis of the 1830s. [41]


[1] Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, (Éditions Élysée), 1978, pp. 111-114 on the seigneurie de Beauharnois.

[2] Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, 1986, p. 42; Courville, Serge, dir., Paroisse et municipalité de la région de Montréal au XIXe siècle (1825-1861), Répertoire documentaire et cartographique, (PUL), 1988, p. 51; Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux: Leadership régional et mobilisation politique en 1837 et 1838, (Septentrion), 2004, pp. 207-225.

[3] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 54, 62.

[4] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64.

[5] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[6] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[7] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 77.

[8] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 243; ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 79, 121, 124, 130.

[9] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 146.

[10] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 142; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43, 55

[11] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 175.

[12] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, pp. 178-180.

[13] Ibid, Noel, Françoise, The Christie Seigneuries: Estate Management and Settlement in the Upper Richelieu Valley, 1760-1854. See also, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 184-186.

[14] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 44 -46; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[15] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[16] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[17] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 85.

[18] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Rebellions de 1837-1838: Les Patriotes dans La Memoire Collective et Chez Les Historiens, p. 297.

[19] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 208-211; Messier, pp. 118-119.

[20] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 333-335; Messier, pp. 199-200.

[21] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 249.

[22] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 90-91.

[23] Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, (VLB), 1987, pp. 135-143.

[24] Messier, p. 240.

[25] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 156; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 254-255. Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 148-152.

[26] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 194-196.

[27] On Flowers, see DCB, Vol. 7, p. 239.

[28] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 213, 219, 222, 224, 242.

[29] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 89.

[30] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[31] Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, (Canada’s Wings Inc), 1985, p. 79.

[32] Bernard, Jean-Paul, ‘Vermonters and the Lower Canadian rebellions of 1837-1838’, Vermont History, Vol. 58, (1990), pp. 250-263.

[33] Bouchette, Robert-S.-M., Mémoires de Robert-S.-M. Bouchette 1804-1840, originally published in the Revue Canadienne, republished, Montreal, (1903), pp. 41-44, gives a participant’s account of Moore’s Corner. ‘Robert-Shire-Milnes Bouchette’, DCB, Vol. 10, pp. 77-78. Ibid, Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, pp. 144, 154.

[34] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[35] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 168.

[36] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 305.

[37] ‘Charles Hindenlang’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 411-412.

[38] Senior, Elinor Kyte, ‘The battles of Lacolle and Odeltown, 1838’, Journal annuel de la société historique de la vallée de la Chateauguay/Chateauguay valley historical society annual journal, Vol. 13, (1980), pp. 13-20.

[39] See DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 412, 484-485, 514; Messier, pp. 350-351.

[40] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 177, 178. Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Odell (1782-1843) commanded the 2nd Battalion Arcadian Militia and was in the Battle of Odelltown, 9 November, 1838.

[41] The Union Act of 1840, section 19 stated that ‘the said Counties of L’Acadie and Laprairie shall be united into and form one county to be called the County of Huntingdon...’

Saturday 16 October 2010

Fertility

Fertility levels had already stabilised by the 1830s.[1] The lower marriage age that had contributed to the increased natural growth of the early industrial revolution gave way after the depressed 1820s and 1830s to later marriage, a slight increase in the proportion of women who never married and lower birth rates of 35-36 per thousand women in the 1840s compared with over 40 per thousand around 1800.[2]

Sex education was as contentious then as it is today and for young girls was usually assigned to their mothers. However, this was increasingly felt to be an unsatisfactory approach and by the 1890s, there was considerable support for girls being taught ‘some of the necessary physical facts’. The content of that education remained a difficult question. The Reverend Edward Lyttleton was quite clear in 1900 that more sex education was needed but that girls required less information than boys. He argued,

...for most girls it would be enough for the parent to advise that the seed of life is entrusted by God to the father in a very wonderful way, and that after marriage he is allowed to give it to his wife. [3]

The problem was that sex education was inextricably linked to different views about female sexual character and the religious emphasis on moral restraint. There were certain limitations on marriage. First, new appliance methods of birth control (the rubber condom, Dutch cap and douche) were invented, marketed and adopted during the last decades of the nineteenth century but they were rather expensive for general use until after 1914. Since marital fertility was reduced, it must be assumed that some combination of sexual abstinence, coitus interruptus, accurate use of the safe period and induced abortion were the most likely means by which family limitation was brought about. [4]

Nineteenth and early-twentieth century writings on birth control provide a revealing source for attitudes towards female sexuality and social roles. Advocates of birth control were seen as supporters of atheism, depravity and social unrest especially by organised religion and the medical profession. Effective birth control shattered the link between sexuality and reproduction and created the real possibility of greater sexual freedom and control for women as well as helping to reduce family size. Michael Ryan, an evangelical physician argued in 1837,

None can deny that, if young women in general were absolved from the fear of consequences, the great majority of them…would rarely preserve their chastity. [5]

Chastity according to Ryan was a consequence of fear of pregnancy. Birth control brought the possibility of unrestrained female sexuality and with it the breakdown of sexual control and social order. Medical opposition to birth control was expressed in a mixture of warnings about the injurious results for health and the associated moral decline. The Lancet, virulent in its condemnation of contraception commented in 1869

A woman on whom her husband practises what is euphemistically called ‘preventative copulation’, is, in the first place necessarily brought into the condition of mind of a prostitute… [6]

There was, however, an unresolved problem in medical thinking grounded in class. Self-denial was recommended as fertility control. However, the working-class could not be expected to show restraint such was ‘the natural predominance of the animal life in the illiterate.’ [7] Doctors were generally unwilling to recommend contraception but also assumed that there was little restraint in working-class sexuality. This reinforced the widespread anxiety in the assumed sexual depravity and unrestrained breeding of the poor. Medical conservatism was illustrated when H.A. Allbutt was struck off the medical register for publicising birth-control methods in his popular The Wife’s Handbook in 1887. There were, however, strong public advocates of birth control and of the right of women to choose whether and when to have children. Francis Place and Richard Carlisle popularised methods of contraception in the 1820s. The publicity surrounding the Bradlaugh-Besant trial in 1876 was a major boost to the birth-control cause and opponents in the middle and upper classes felt increasingly pressure from what they called ‘the evil in our midst’.

Abortion was probably the most important female initiative in family limitation in this period, particularly among the very poor. In the 1890s and early 1900s, the British Medical Journal traced the diffusion of abortion involving the use of lead plaster from Leicester to Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield and though some of the larger Yorkshire towns. By 1914, abortion was common in 26 out of the 104 registration districts north of the Humber. Among northern textile workers, poverty and the need to work probably played the most important part in the decision to seek an abortion, but it is also important to recognise that working-class women saw abortion as a natural and permissible strategy. Withdrawal was undoubtedly the main method by which the decline in working-class fertility was achieved. One of the main reasons for this was the cost of sheaths: 2/- to 3/- for a dozen when the average weekly wage for labourers did not rise above 20/- a week. Withdrawal was a cheaper, if less reliable, method. It also raises the issue of women’s sexual dependency and that some degree of male co-operation was necessary.

Secondly, despite religious and cultural beliefs that delayed the adoption of family limitation in some sectors of society, increasing secularisation caused barriers to be broken down. The argument that family limitation represented the diffusion of birth control from the professional and upper middle-classes (the maid learning from her mistress) to the lower classes does not stand up to close examination. Among the first to limit family size were ‘skilled’ non-manual and commercial workers such as shopkeepers, and clerks who were also prominent among cautious late-marriers. There were considerable differences in marital fertility between different types of area in 1891. Relatively low birth rates in textile districts and residential towns, with large numbers of single women in domestic service and middle-class households, contrasts with earlier and more universal marriages with larger families among iron and steel-making and coal-mining communities where the abundant use of high-paid boys and young men in the mines reduced incentives to limit families, while fewer opportunities for female employment and the stereotyping of women meant that girls married earlier.[8]

Thirdly, social factors such as the availability of marriage partners in areas of high emigration or persistent out-migration throughout rural England limited marriage levels and affected births.[9] Limitations on marriage in certain occupational groups, for example, living-in domestic servants and farm labourers, also affected local fertility patterns.[10] The general increase in the mean age of marriage to about 25.8 years for women and some two years higher for men by 1850, and further increased from the 1870s, also reflected changing economic circumstances and the desire for more spending power and independence. [11] There were considerable differences between industrial areas, where there were more and earlier marriages and rural areas where marriages tended to be later and between different social classes. Urban labourers and miners married young; prudent white-collar workers, shopkeepers and the middle-class postponed marriage until they felt able to afford it. Many single children who moved to the city, whether as a domestic servant or an industrial or office worker often lived for a time in lodgings before taking on family responsibilities. Hence the large number of households with lodgers reflected in census enumerators’ books.

Fourthly, economic incentives to limiting the number and spacing of births were strong where women were prominent in the workforce. In the mills of Lancashire or West Yorkshire or in the Potteries women might delay having children or have a smaller family and return to work as soon as possible. Increasing numbers of women involved in shop and, from the 1890s, office work might also have deferred marriage and limited their families. Among the middle-class, the increasing expense of raising children with rising costs for domestic servants and school fees, as well as a growing desire for greater freedom and more money to spend on luxuries and entertainment, were obvious incentives to having fewer children. Even within geographical areas there were often significant differences in rates of marriage. In London, there was a very close relationship between the proportion of women married and the percentage of women employed in domestic service. In Hampstead the proportion married was 0.274 while in Poplar, in the East End, it was 0.638 in 1861 and little had changed by 1891.

As child mortality gradually declined from the 1860s, there was less need for large families and more incentive to put space between births so as to avoid excessive pressure on mothers and households. The average family size fell from 6.2 children in the 1860s, to 4.1 for those marrying in the 1890s and to 2.8 for the 1911-marriage cohort. The rapid decline in the average age at which the mother’s last child was born, from age 41 to 34 over this period is a clear reflection of deliberate spacing and limitation of births within marriage. In the nineteenth century marriage set the bounds for sexual activity. This does not mean that illegitimacy, bridal pregnancy, prostitution and adultery were uncommon, especially in certain localities, but it does give marriage a direct demographic importance that is all but lost today. Illegitimacy or bastardy existed in the nineteenth century and in East Anglia and eastern England in general was sufficiently large for one to begin to doubt the importance of marriage as a social and legal event.[12] But elsewhere in England, and especially off the coalfields, non-marital fertility was low enough in 1851 at only 5% or 6% of births were illegitimate for the institution of marriage still to be accepted as having particular importance as a regulator of fertility rates. By 1911, only 4% of all births were illegitimate in England and Wales. It can be asked whether the forces that resulted in decline in marital fertility also led to the reduction of non-marital fertility. [13]


[1] Wrigley, E.A., ‘Explaining the rise in marital fertility in England in the “long” eighteenth century’, Economic History Review, Vol. 51, (1998), pp. 435-464.

[2] Soloway, R.A., Demography and Degeneration, (University of North Carolina Press), 1990 and Szreter, Simon, Fertility, class and gender in Britain 1860-1940, (Cambridge University Press), 1996 deal with the controversial question of declining fertility in contrasting ways. Woods, R. and Smith, C. W., ‘The decline of marital fertility in the late nineteenth century: the case of England and Wales’, Population Studies, Vol. 37, (1983), pp. 207-225 and Woods, R., ‘Social class variations in the decline of marital fertility in late 19th century London’, Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 66, (1984), pp. 29-38 are important papers. Gillis, J.R. et al., (eds.), The European Experience of Declining Fertility: A Quiet Revolution, 1850-1970, (Blackwell), 1992 and Lestheaghe, R. and Wilson, C., ‘Modes of Production, Secularization and the Pace of the Fertility Decline in Western Europe 1870-1930’, in Coale, A.J. and Watkins, S.C., (eds.), The Decline of Fertility in Europe, (Princeton University Press), 1986, pp. 262-291 provide a European perspective..

[3] Lyttleton, Edward, The Training of the Young in the Laws of Sex, (Longman, Green), 1900, p. 85.

[4] Banks, J.A., Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England, (Liverpool University Press), 1964, McLaren, A., Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England, (Croom Helm), 1977 and Soloway, R.A., Birth Control and the Population Question in England 1877-1930, (University of North Carolina Press), 1982 provide a useful introduction to a vexed subject.

[5] Ryan, Michael, The Philosophy of Marriage, in its social, moral and physical relations: With an Account of the Diseases of the Genito-urinary Organs, which Impair Or Destroy the Reproductive Function, and Induce a Variety of Complaints: with the Physiology of Generation in the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms..., (John Churchill), 1837, p. 12.

[6] ‘Checks on Population’, The Lancet, 10 April 1869, p. 500.

[7] Ibid, ‘Checks on Population’, p. 500.

[8] Williams, N. and Galley, C., ‘Urban-rural Differentials in Infant Mortality in Victorian Britain’, Population Studies, Vol. 49, (1995), pp. 401-420 and Williams, N. and Mooney, G., ‘Infant mortality in an “age of great cities”: London and the English provincial cities compared, c.1840-1910’, Change and Continuity, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 185-212.

[9] Anderson M. & D.J. Morse, ‘High Fertility, High Emigration, Low Nuptiality: Scotland’s Demographic Experience, 1861-1914’, Population Studies, Vol. 47, (1993), pp. 5-25, 319-343.

[10] Seccombe, W., ‘Starting to Stop: Working Class Fertility Decline in Britain’, Past and Present, Vol. 126, (1990), pp. 151-180 and debate with R. Woods, Past and Present, Vol. 134, (1992), pp. 200-211. See also Seccombe, W., Weathering the storm: working-class families from the industrial revolution to the fertility decline, (Verso), 1993.

[11] Lewis, Jane, (ed.), Labour and Love: Women’s experience of home and family 1850-1940, (Basil Blackwell), 1986 is a good starting-point on the experience of home and family. Lane, Penny, Victorian Families in Fact and Fiction, (Macmillan), 1997 provides a novel analysis of the issues. O’Day, Rosemary, The Family and Family Relationships 1500-1900, (Macmillan), 1995 takes a longer perspective. Banks, J.A., Victorian Value: Secularism and the Size of Families, (Routledge), 1981 is concerned with the implications of changing gender-ratios in the late nineteenth century and continues the argument about birth control. Gillis, J.R., For Better, For Worse; British marriages, 1600 to the present, (Oxford University Press), 1985, takes a long perspective on marriage while Dyhouse, Carol, Feminism and the Family in England 1880-1939, (Cambridge University Press), 1991 looks at the politics of the family.

[12] Levene, Alysa, Williams, Samantha and Nutt, Thomas, (eds.), Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700-1920, (Palgrave), 2005 contains several relevant papers; see also Crafts, N.F.R., ‘Illegitimacy in England and Wales in 1911’, Population Studies, Vol. 36, (1982), pp. 327-331.

[13] Anderson M. ‘Fertility Decline in Scotland, England and Wales and Ireland: Comparisons from the 1911 Census of Fertility, Population Studies, Vol. 52, (1998), pp. 1-20.