THE BOUNDARIES of CHARITY the Impact of Ethnic Relations on Private Charitable Services for Quebec City’S English-Speakers, 1759-1900

THE BOUNDARIES OF CHARITY The Impact of Ethnic Relations on Private Charitable Services for Quebec City’s English-speakers, 1759-1900

Thèse

Patrick Donovan

Doctorat en histoire Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.)

Québec, Canada

THE BOUNDARIES OF CHARITY The Impact of Ethnic Relations on Private Charitable Services for Quebec City’s English-speakers, 1759-1900

Thèse

Patrick Donovan

Sous la direction de :

Donald Fyson, Directeur Johanne Daigle, Co-directrice

RÉSUMÉ

Cette thèse porte sur les organismes privés de bienfaisance s’adressant aux anglophones de Québec entre 1759 et 1900. L’étude offre un portrait des différents organismes, des besoins auxquels ceux-ci répondent et des lacunes dans le réseau d’assistance. Au cours de la période étudiée, le rôle des organismes privés d’assistance s’accroît, alors que celui de l’État décroît. La compassion envers les pauvres augmente, engendrant de nouvelles organisations charitables pour les populations les plus marginalisées. En dépit de ce fait, la prison sert souvent de refuge pour compenser les failles dans le réseau.

Cette thèse montre plus précisément comment les relations interethniques façonnent le réseau d’assistance aux pauvres. Tout au long du demi-siècle suivant la Conquête, dans la ville de Québec, les autorités britanniques en poste soutiennent l’infrastructure charitable catholique établie lors du régime français, fait inusité dans l’Empire britannique. Après 1815, époque marquée par une forte immigration de Grande Bretagne et d’Irlande, de nouvelles associations bénévoles laïques voient le jour. La cooperation entre élites de différents groupes ethnoreligieux existe dans plusieurs associations. Les divisions ethniques s’intensifient toutefois entre 1835 et 1855, un changement engendré par une convergence de facteurs, dont la défaite du républicanisme patriote, un accroissement de la pratique religieuse, la mise en place d’écoles confessionnelles et l’émergence d’un nationalisme irlando-catholique plus robuste à la suite de la grande famine. Dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, le paysage de l’assistance se divise clairement entre trois réseaux parallèles : un pour les catholiques francophones, un pour les irlando-catholiques anglophones et un pour les protestants anglophones. Le Saint Bridget’s Asylum et le Ladies’ Protestant Home, fondés dans les années 1850, constituent des points d’ancrage forts pour ces réseaux. Les rares tentatives de remise en question des frontières ethniques se soldent par des tensions accrues et même de la violence. Malgré ces divisions, il existe un respect mutuel pour ces frontières dans les trois communautés de la ville, ce qui est inhabituel dans la plupart des villes nord-américaines.

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ABSTRACT

This thesis examines the private charitable sector for English-speakers in Quebec City from 1759 to 1900. It provides an overview of poor relief associations, the needs they addressed, and the gaps that remained. The role of private charities increased over the period studied, and that of the state decreased. Compassion toward the poor also increased, leading to new types of charitable organizations for the underclass. Despite this, the prison system served as a refuge to fill gaps in the private charitable sector.

More specifically, this study demonstrates how changes in ethno-religious relations shaped the charity network. In the first half century after the Conquest of Quebec, British authorities supported the Catholic charitable infrastructure established during the French regime, which was unusual within the British Empire. After 1815, as immigration from Britain and Ireland increased, lay private voluntary associations emerged, including many that involved elite cooperation across religious and linguistic lines. Instances of cooperation decreased from 1835 to 1855 due to rising ethnic boundaries caused by the defeat of Patriote republicanism, an increase in religious practice, the establishment of separate confessional schools, and a new type of Irish-Catholic nationalism following the Great Famine. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the private charitable sector became sharply divided into three parallel networks with hardly any overlap: one for Francophone Catholics, one for English-speaking Irish Catholics, and one for English-speaking Protestants. Two core institutions founded in the 1850s, Saint Bridget’s Asylum and the Ladies’ Protestant Home, cemented the divide. Rare attempts to challenge these boundaries resulted in tension and even violence. Despite these divisions, there was a greater mutual respect of established boundaries among communities than in most North American cities.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RÉSUMÉ ...... iii ABSTRACT ...... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vii LIST OF FIGURES ...... ix LIST OF TABLES ...... xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / REMERCIEMENTS...... xiii INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Definition of problem ...... 1 Historiography ...... 9 Sources and Methodology ...... 25 Structure and Organization ...... 30 1. POST-CONQUEST CONTINUITY: CHARITABLE NETWORKS BEFORE 1815 ...... 33 1.1. Family and Church Networks ...... 33 1.2. Religious Institutions: Hôtel-Dieu and Hôpital Général ...... 35 1.3. The Role of Mutual Aid Societies ...... 42 1.4. Poverty and the Criminal Justice System ...... 43 1.5. Conclusion ...... 45 2. WORKING TOGETHER: CHARITABLE NETWORKS FROM 1815-1835 ..... 48 2.1. Factors Increasing Social Service Needs After 1815 ...... 48 2.2. New Typologies, Separate Spheres, 1815-1835 ...... 55 2.3. Aid to New Mothers: The Female Compassionate Society ...... 64 2.4. Men’s Voluntary Work: Sorting out the Adult Poor ...... 67 2.5. Early Protestant Homes: Anglicans at the Forefront ...... 91 2.6. Early Homes for Irish Catholics ...... 99 2.7. Irish Catholic Charitable Initiatives ...... 106 2.8. Conclusion ...... 108 3. THE QUIET DEVOLUTION, 1835-1855 ...... 111 3.1. Rising Ethno-Religious Boundaries (or the Quiet Devolution) ...... 111 3.2. Structural Changes and New Additions ...... 144 3.3. National Societies: the Saint George’s, Saint Andrew’s and Saint Patrick’s Societies...... 150 3.4. Catholic Male Volunteerism and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul ... 169 3.5. Expansion of Women’s Charitable Endeavours ...... 182 3.6. Charity and the State ...... 197 3.7. Conclusion ...... 202 4. “GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS”: 1855-1900 ...... 205 4.1. Anglophone Decline and Consolidation of the Charitable Network ...... 206 4.2. A Cohesive Irish Catholic Charitable Network ...... 213 4.3. Evangelicalism and its Impact on the Protestant Charitable Sector ...... 246 4.4. Vagrants and the Underclass: Between the Asylum and the Gaol ...... 268 4.5. Challenging Boundaries, or the Salvation Army Wars of 1886-1887 ...... 283 4.6. Conclusion ...... 297 CONCLUSION ...... 303

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 317

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1: Proportion of Vagrancy Convictions at the Quebec City Common Gaol, Yearly Averages for 1818-1822 and 1829-1835 ...... 90 Fig. 2: Number of Vagrancy Convictions at the Quebec City Common Gaol, 1829-1838 ...... 91 Fig. 3: Total Population of Quebec City and Montreal, 1852-1901 ...... 206 Fig. 4: Total Population of Quebec City by Ethnic Group, 1852-1901 ...... 208 Fig. 5: Quebec City’s Population by Percentage of Ethnic Groups, 1852-1901 ... 209 Fig. 6: Number of Residents at Saint Bridget’s Asylum (Excluding Staff), 1856- 1905...... 218 Fig. 7: Number of residents at the Finlay Asylum (Excluding Staff), 1865-1894 ... 248 Fig. 8: Number of residents at the Ladies’ Protestant Home (Excluding Staff), 1859-1905 ...... 255 Fig. 9: Comparison of the Number of Residents at the Ladies’ Protestant Home and Saint Bridget’s Asylum, 1859-1905 ...... 256 Fig. 10: Relative weight of Quebec City’s Protestant and English-speaking Catholic Populations, 1852-1901 ...... 257 Fig. 11: Evolution of the City Mission Movement in Quebec City ...... 262 Fig. 12: Vagrancy Committals by Gender at the Quebec City Gaol, 1830-1888 .. 271 Fig. 13: Percentage of Committals for Vagrancy by Gender at the Quebec City Gaol, 1850-1888 ...... 272 Fig. 14: Proportion of Anglophones among the Good Shepherd Sisters in Quebec City, 1851-1891 ...... 276 Fig. 15: Proportion of Anglophones among Penitents and Orphans in the Good Shepherd Sisters’ Homes in Quebec City, 1851-1891 ...... 277

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Quebec City Population by Ethnic Origin, 1805-1842 ...... 49 Table 2: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Prior to 1835 ...... 56 Table 3: Religious Affiliation of Quebec Emigrant Society Administrators, 1819- 1834...... 73 Table 4: Population by Religious Affiliation in Quebec (City & County), 1831, 1861...... 125 Table 5: Population by Religious Affiliation in Selected Regions of Lower Canada, 1844 ...... 127 Table 6: Quebec City Population by Ethno-religious Origin in 1842 and 1852 ..... 135 Table 7: Occupational Structure of Adult Male Population by Ethnic Group in Quebec City (EGP2), 1852 ...... 137 Table 8: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Between 1835 and 1855 ..... 149 Table 9: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Between 1855 and 1900 ..... 212 Table 10: Place of Birth of Adult Residents at Saint Bridget’s Asylum, 1856- 1915...... 220 Table 11: Proportion of Catholics among English-, Scottish-, and Irish-origin Population in Quebec City, 1871, 1901 ...... 266 Table 12: Proportion of Committals by Voluntary Confession at the Quebec City Gaol, 1860 ...... 270

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / REMERCIEMENTS

This thesis would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC). Thanks also to Jeffery Hale Community Partners, the Équipe de recherche en partenariat sur la diversité culturelle et l’immigration dans la région de Québec (ÉDIQ), and the Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (CIEQ) for contracts that allowed me to pursue research for this thesis. Moreover, research on English-speaking organizations in Quebec City conducted for the Morrin Centre, and financed by the Department of Canadian Heritage, helped me situate my results in a broader context.

Thanks to my thesis advisor Donald Fyson for the quality of his supervision, his rigorous attention to details, his novel suggestions for sources, and his easygoing attitude to the inevitable delays that occurred. Merci aussi à ma co-directrice Johanne Daigle, qui m’a aidé à bien définir mon sujet, à mieux comprendre le domaine de l’assistance et qui partageait bien son enthousiasme contagieux pour ces recherches. C’était un immense plaisir de travailler avec vous deux et j’espère qu’on pourra collaborer davantage à l’avenir.

This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of staff at BAnQ’s archive centre in Quebec City, especially Rénald Lessard and Christian Drolet. Thanks also to Joe Lonergan for facilitating access to the Irish Heritage Quebec archives, and to Richard Walling for helping me obtain access to the Saint Patrick’s Parish archives. James Sweeny was an invaluable help in unearthing unexpected treasures at the Quebec Diocesan Archives in Sherbrooke.

I’d also like to thank the many scholars that gave me useful advice, support, and opportunities along the way, especially Lorraine O’Donnell, Brian Lewis, Chedly Belkhodja, Martin Pâquet, Janice Harvey, Brigitte Caulier, Martin Petitclerc, France

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Parent, Louisa Blair, Alex Tremblay-Lamarche, Robert Grace, Simon Jolivet, Peter Toner, Rod MacLeod, and Marianna O’Gallagher.

Finally, thanks to my life partner Anne-Frédérique Champoux for regularly twisting my arm and putting up with my erratic sleep patterns throughout this process. Thanks also to my son Quentin Donovan for existing (even though his arrival on the scene halfway through my doctoral studies slowed me down considerably). Merci aussi à ma mère, Renée Lamontagne, qui me rappelait parfois qu’elle souhaitait me voir obtenir mon doctorat de son vivant : voilà, je l’ai!

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INTRODUCTION

Definition of problem

La charité est universelle et ne distingue pas entre les souffrants . . . La misère seule est l'objet de nos recherches, et jamais nous ne distinguons entre Canadien Français, Anglais ou Irlandais.1

This quote, taken from the first report of Quebec City’s Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in 1848, suggests that charity is blind to ethnic divisions. At first glance, this seems sensible: a charitable mindset, one that is concerned for others, would seem to require a broad, compassionate, selfless spirit that is at odds with sectarianism. However, the real world rarely lives up to such ideals. Charity was not always guided by empathy, but also by concerns related to social order and public security. Some of those involved in charity work were also motivated by a personal desire for religious salvation. Moreover, volunteerism was not always entirely voluntary, as there was social pressure among the upper classes to engage in charity; many saw it as their duty. Charitable organizations struggled with limited resources and had to establish criteria to determine who received help and who didn’t. They distinguished between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. They also drew distinctions along ethnic and religious lines.

In this thesis, I will examine ethno-religious issues within the charitable sector with two purposes in mind. First, I aim to provide a broad structural overview of Quebec City’s many private charitable associations targeting its English-speaking minorities over a period roughly spanning 140 years. Secondly, I will demonstrate that cooperation across ethno-religious lines within this sector decreased between the British Conquest and the turn of the twentieth century, and that rising ethno- religious boundaries were instrumental in structuring the network itself. Following the Conquest, the largely Protestant ruling authorities initially supported the

1 Recueil de la correspondance des conférences du Canada avec le Conseil général de Paris et des rapports des assemblées générales, (Quebec: Société de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Atelier typographique de Léger Brousseau, 1867), 26.

Catholic charitable infrastructure established during the French regime. As immigration increased after 1815, new charitable organizations were founded, including many that involved elite cooperation across ethno-religious lines. However, by the turn of the twentieth century, the private charitable sector had become sharply divided into three parallel networks with hardly any overlap: one for Francophones, one for Irish Catholics, and one for Protestants. These divisions were shaped by historical events taking place not only in Quebec, but elsewhere in North America and Western Europe. Although the Quebec City situation had its own specificities due in part to its unique demographic makeup, the exceptionalism and “bonententisme” often present in descriptions of ethnic relations in the city should not be overstated. The evolution described above was roughly mirrored in other northeastern cities such as Montreal and Boston. The same ethno-religious divisions also occurred in other civil society institutions.

Nineteenth-century Quebec City is an interesting and often overlooked laboratory for the study of ethnic relations. The city is overwhelmingly French-speaking today, and is arguably the least ethnically-diverse major city in Canada, but this was not always the case. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Quebec was the major port of entry for migrants. By 1860, over 40% of the population was English- speaking,2 compared to fewer than 2% having English as a mother tongue today.3 Although the city’s minorities have received some scholarly attention, particularly the Irish Catholic minority, the way ethnic groups related to each other is rarely a primary concern.

2 There is no mother tongue data in the 1861 census. However, 43.6% of Quebec City’s population consisted of people who were neither Canadian natives of French origin, natives of France, or natives of Switzerland. See: Canada, Census of the Canadas 1860-61 (Quebec: S.B. Foote, 1863). Census manuscript databases for the same year show that 42.0% of the population was not of Francophone Catholic origin, based on origin data and surname analysis. See: Centre interuniversitaire d’etudes québécoises à l’Université Laval (CIEQ-Laval), “Population et histoire sociale de la ville de Québec (PHSVQ),” http://www.phsvq.cieq.ulaval.ca/ 3 1.93% of the population listed English as a mother tongue in Quebec (Census Metropolitan Area) during the 2016 Census, or 15,270 people out of 789,355. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/

Montreal has been the focus of most studies dealing with urban ethnic relations in the province, yet Quebec City provides an interesting contrast. For one, it is the only major North American city where Francophones have always been a majority.4 Secondly, Quebec City experienced an important decline of its English-speaking Protestant and Irish Catholic minorities in the second half of the nineteenth century, whereas percentages in Montreal remained stable.5 Furthermore, Quebec City did not experience the significant influx of migrants from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe that redefined and added complexity to ethnic relations in Montreal in the twentieth century. Studying how ethnic groups evolved in such a different environment leads to a more nuanced understanding of ethnic relations in the province and in North America as a whole.

Given that the charitable sector is situated at the hazy confluence of the social, medical, psychiatric, educational, religious, and criminal justice fields,6 it is important to clarify the limits of this study. My primary focus is on the major private charities that provided aid to a significant number of English-speakers. I include poor relief organizations that targeted abandoned infants, orphan and dependent children, needy unemployed or poor adults, and the indigent elderly. These include both outdoor relief groups that distributed aid, and indoor relief institutions that housed the needy. Hospitals are largely excluded, with some exceptions; the historiography of medicine is often considered separately, and this study is more interested in the social service dimension than in the health/medical one.7 I also

4 English-speakers formed a majority in Montreal between 1832 and 1867. See Gillian Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850" (Ph.D., Université de Montréal, 2007), 75. 5 Ronald Rudin, The Forgotten Quebecers: A History of English-Speaking Quebec, 1759-1980 (Quebec: Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1985), 179. 6 Louise Bienvenue, "Pierres grises et mauvaise conscience : essai historiographique sur le rôle de l'Église catholique dans l'assistance au Québec," Études d'histoire religieuse 69 (2003) , 12. 7 Exceptions are made for some early hospitals: the Hôpital Général, for instance, was more like a charitable home than a health care institution, and is described in detail in chapter 1. For a recent overview of Quebec’s medical history, see: Denis Goulet and Robert Gagnon, Histoire de la médecine au Québec 1800-2000 (Quebec: Septentrion, 2014).

largely exclude the public network, which dealt more with delinquent children,8 criminals,9 and the insane,10 in part because these networks have been studied extensively elsewhere. However, given attitudes that tended to criminalize many innocent poor in the nineteenth century,11 I cannot entirely exclude the role of prisons as de-facto charitable institutions in Quebec City, especially considering the fact that they sheltered a disproportionate number of English-speakers. Sources relating to the gaol will therefore serve to show the insufficiency of the private network at different times. The primary focus of this study nevertheless remains the private network.

The period studied ranges from the British Conquest (1759) to the turn of the twentieth century (1900). The former year was chosen for obvious reasons, since

Two hospitals specifically targeted English speakers in Quebec City: the Marine and Emigrant Hospital and Jeffery Hale’s Hospital. The former is dealt with in many general histories of health care and medicine in Quebec, including the study listed above. For more information on the latter, see Patrick Donovan, "L’hôpital Jeffery Hale : 150 ans de relations interethniques," Cap-aux-Diamants, no. 121 (2015), 25–28; Alain Gelly, Centre Hospitalier Jeffery Hale, 1865-1990 / Jeffery Hale’s Hospital Centre, 1865-1990 (Quebec: Jeffery Hale’s Hospital Centre, 1990). 8 The care of delinquent children was undertaken by reform and industrial homes. This separate network, which did not include institutions founded specifically for Quebec City’s English-speaking communities, has been studied extensively. See: Sylvie Ménard, Des enfants sous surveillance : la rééducation des jeunes délinquants au Québec (1840-1950) (Montreal: VLB, 2003). For Quebec City, see: Dale Gilbert, "Dynamiques de l’institutionnalisation de l’enfance délinquante et en besoin de protection : le cas des écoles de réforme et d’industrie de l’Hospice Saint-Charles de Québec, 1870-1950" (M.A., Université Laval, 2006); Andrée-Anne Lacasse, "L'institutionnalisation de l'enfance déviante : le cas de l'Hospice Saint-Charles (1870-1950)" (M.A., Université Laval, 2010). For Montreal, see: Tamara Myers, Caught: Caught: Montreal's Modern Girls and the Law, 1869-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006); Véronique Strimelle, "La gestion de la déviance des filles et les institutions du Bon Pasteur à Montréal (1869-1912)" (Ph.D., Université de Montréal, 1999). 9 See: Donald Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2006). For Quebec City’s gaols, see: Donald Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society: The Quebec Gaol, 1812-1867," in Iron Bars & Bookshelves: A history of the Morrin Centre, ed. Louisa Blair, Patrick Donovan, and Donald Fyson (Montreal: Baraka Books, 2016); Martin Mimeault, La Prison des Plaines d’Abraham (Quebec: Septentrion, 2007). 10 See: André Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec de 1600 à 1850 (Montreal: Boréal, 1991); Peter Keating, La science du mal : l’institution de la psychiatrie au Québec 1800-1914 (Montreal: Boréal, 1993); Vincent St- Pierre, "Portes ouvertes sur l'institutionnalisation de la folie à Québec : étude de l'Asile de Beauport, 1845- 1893," Université Laval, M.A., 2017. 11 See: Jean-Marie Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre : sur la régulation de l'assistance et de la répression pénale au Québec au 19e siècle (Montréal: VLB Éditeur, 2004), 102-103.

the shift from French to British political power signals the beginning of separate English-speaking communities.12 The study ends at the turn of the twentieth century, which was a turning point for several reasons. First, there was a gradual return to rapprochement along ethno-religious lines.13 Second, the professionalization of social services, and a slow shift from private to public control, also began in the early decades of the twentieth century. Moreover, this date was chosen for practical reasons, as current access restrictions on primary sources for the twentieth century limit the scope of research on this topic. This is particularly true for some private archives related to Catholic institutions in Quebec City, whose gatekeepers are more suspicious of researchers following incidents that threw the charitable sector into disrepute, such as the Duplessis Orphans case.

This study considers the words ethnicity and identity in their broadest sense. Unfortunately, the word “ethnic” is often reserved for so-called “exotic” minorities or non-Western groups, an ethnocentric use that I explicitly reject. This is especially true of its popular use in French, though many Francophone scholars have also criticized such a narrow use.14 I work from the premise that Quebec’s Francophones are as “ethnic” as migrants from Britain, Ireland, or elsewhere.15 Ethnic groups are defined as people who share a sense of identity. As for “identity,” it is defined as being “based on the expression of a real or assumed shared culture

12 Although there were many individual English-speakers who settled in New France prior to the Conquest, there is no evidence that they grouped into communities or formed institutions; most of them probably ended up speaking French. 13 The admission of English-speaking Catholics to the Protestant Jeffery Hale’s Hospital at the turn of the 20th century signals this trend. See: Patrick Donovan, "L’hôpital Jeffery Hale : 150 ans de relations interethniques," Cap-aux-Diamants, no. 121 (2015): 27. 14 For examples, see Louis LaBorgue, "Les questions dites 'ethniques'," Recherches sociographiques 25, no. 3 (2002): 421-422; Jean-Loup Amselle, Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 6-7. 15 In this thesis, Britain is always used in its geographical sense. It refers to the island of Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland and Wales. Ireland is the adjacent island. In the nineteenth century, the country combining both islands was known as the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. On the other hand, the adjective “British” is typically used in a broader political sense to refer to the seat of government for a larger Empire, as was the case in the nineteenth century (e.g. “British Empire,” “British isles,” “British North America” etc.)

and common descent” that is determined through “the objectification of cultural, linguistic, religious, historical and/or physical characteristics.”16 Given the important role of religion in justifying boundaries in the nineteenth century, I occasionally use the adjective “ethno-religious” throughout the thesis. This does not imply that I consider religion and ethnicity as separate characteristics; rather, religion is used as a marker of ethnicity.

My analysis of ethnic relations is informed by the notion of group boundaries. This theoretical framework was introduced by Fredrik Barth in 1969. Before Barth, social scientists were more likely to define ethnic groups by focusing primarily on observable differences in their cultural traits and practices. Barth argued that this “cultural stuff” does not define groups; the sense of belonging to a distinctive group does not necessarily come about because of actual cultural differences but also, as the definition of identity above makes clear, “assumed cultural differences.” Neighbouring ethnic groups often have much in common yet may feel sharply opposed and different; Freud called this the “narcissism of small differences.”17 This is certainly the case for the three most numerically significant groups in nineteenth-century Quebec City: they all shared the same Western-European Christian background, came from European countries located next to each other with long histories of cultural interchange, and most of them spoke languages largely derived from Latin. Barth suggests that it is therefore the “boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff it encloses,” that it is social constructs that separate members of a group from non-members, not necessarily actual cultural differences between them.18 Boundaries serve to reinforce group bonds and separate members of one group from those of another. Danielle Juteau describes ethnic boundaries as having two sides: an internal face defined with reference to

16 Sian Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (New York: Routledge, 1997), 84. 17 For more about this, see Sigmund Freud, "Civilization and its Discontents," in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 751-752. 18 Fredrik Barth, "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries," in Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader, ed. Werner Sollors (New York: New York UP, 1996), 300-301.

history and culture, and an external face constructed through relations with outsiders.19 Boundaries are kept up by the communities themselves to reinforce group bonds and to defend group interests. They can also be reinforced by external factors, such as tensions arising through power struggles between groups.20

Although the terms ethnicity and identity are fixed nouns implying fixed realities, and the notion of boundaries conveys solidity, all these concepts should be understood as changing, negotiable, and flexible. The same group’s boundaries may be sharply drawn and exclusive one year, and permeable and inclusive the next. Forms of identification may recede, and old identities may also be revived. These nouns are also imperfect: it is impossible to define an ethnic group in a way that would include all those who claim to be a part of it, so the notion of a group’s identity is always at best an approximation determined by general trends. Moreover, multiple group identities can overlap in one individual, and Quebec City had a fair share of bilingual, bicultural people with hybrid identities.21 This mutable and imperfect character gives ethnic groups a paradoxical edge; they are imagined but not imaginary22 or, as Juteau says, “réels bien que construits et tout autant concrets qu’idéels.”23 In short, these concepts are useful as explanatory devices, but there will always be exceptions when trying to pin down complex realities that are in constant flux. This is why my analysis of ethnic relations in Quebec City is described as constantly changing; an immutable list of generalizations cannot apply to the entire period under study.

This study will look at charitable services in Quebec City from the perspective of private organizations serving its English-speaking population, which was divided

19 Danielle Juteau, L'ethnicité et ses frontières (Montreal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1999), 166-181. 20 Ibid., 35. 21 Ibid., 81. 22 Richard Jenkins, Social Identity, 3rd edition (London; New York: Routledge, 2008), 11. 23 Juteau, L'ethnicité et ses frontières, 10.

into two main subgroups in the nineteenth century: an important Irish-dominated Catholic group,24 and a smaller Protestant minority. The third major ethnic group in Quebec City was the French-speaking Catholic majority. It is possible to further subdivide English-speakers by focusing on geographical origins (Scottish, English, Welsh, Channel Islands) or religious affiliation (Presbyterian, Anglican, others; dissentient churches, established churches; high church, low church), and these sub-units will be explained and referred to when relevant. However, the logic of the three groupings above is based on boundaries that existed within the institutional infrastructure of the province: schools, hospitals, orphanages, and cemeteries came to be divided along the fault lines of religion and language, especially after the 1840s. Although the Protestant group encompassed many national origins and religions, Linda Colley shows that a long history of Catholic-Protestant conflicts dating back to the Reformation created a sense of Protestant solidarity in Britain and Ireland.25 This pattern was maintained in Quebec, and solidarity increased in the face of an increasingly powerful Catholic Church. This same tripartite division of ethnic groups in the province has been used in many other studies on the history of urban ethnic relations, such as the work of Sherry Olson and Patricia Thornton.26

The city also included other ethnic groups (Indigenous peoples, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Jewish, Black), but they represented an infinitesimal percentage of the total population and did not have social service networks of their own in the nineteenth century.27 It is important to recognize that Quebec City is located on traditional

24 This group will be referred to interchangeably as “English-speaking Catholics” and “Irish Catholics,” as was done at the time. The latter term may seem imperfect, but it is telling. While there was a small minority of people of English and Scottish descent among Catholics in Quebec, an Irish identity was imposed upon them by the Church and its institutions. The institutions were exclusively named according to iconic Irish saints (Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid) and there was little room within this community for the expression of other identities. Quebec’s English- and Scottish-Catholics were “honorary Irish Catholics.” 25 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 1-5. 26 For a discussion of this see Sherry H. Olson and Patricia A. Thornton, Peopling the North American City: Montreal, 1840-1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), 11-13. 27 The Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Association of Quebec, also called Jewish Ladies' Aid, was founded in the twentieth century.

Indigenous territory, and relations with Indigenous peoples play an important part in its history. However, the 1901 census lists only 14 Indigenous and Métis individuals living in the city proper. The nation now known as the Huron-Wendat lived in a reserve over 15km from the city itself, largely integrated into Francophone Catholic society, and therefore fall outside our study’s geographical and linguistic limits. Even as Montreal became more ethnically diverse, with 6.42% of the population having origins outside Britain, Ireland and France in 1901 (rising to 12.8% in 1921), only 1.47% of the population in Quebec City claimed other origins in 1901. Only three of these smaller ethnic groups consisted of more than 50 individuals: 302 Jews, 212 Germans, and 94 Italians. As for visible minorities, the census lists only 28 Asians, and 9 Blacks.28 All these groups lacked the critical mass to form coherent communities that would need and support separate social service infrastructures. The Jewish population eventually grew and developed their own charitable associations in the twentieth century. However, these associations fall outside the time period of our study.29 The scant references to these minorities that appear in sources will be brought up when relevant.

Historiography

This thesis draws upon the historiography of two major areas: ethnic relations and charity. Since I seek to situate results in a broader geographical context, general

28 Canada, Fourth Census of Canada 1901, Volume 1 Population (Ottawa: S.E. Dawson, 1902), Table XI, 376- 381. Canada, Sixth Census of Canada—Bulletin XI (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1921), Table 3, 26. Dorothy Williams argues that census returns for the black population are inaccurate due to clandestine immigration, a high percentage of American nationals among Blacks, and the misclassification of mixed-race individuals. Nevertheless, she also states that the only regions with larger numbers of blacks in the province were Montreal and the Eastern Townships, not Quebec City. For more on this, see: Dorothy W. Williams, The Road to Now: A History of Blacks in Montreal (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1997), 27-36. 29 The Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Association of Quebec was founded around 1912, is probably the first specifically Jewish charitable organization in the city, and has received little attention from historians. Anctil shows that wealthier Jewish women and men were active in broader English-community oganizations in the nineteenth century, in part because the first wave of Jewish migrants came from Britain. “Quebec Hebrew Ladies’ Aid,” The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, 14 January 1927; Pierre Anctil and Simon Jacobs, Les Juifs de Québec : quatre cents ans d'histoire (Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2015), 228.

studies were examined for cities in northeastern North America, with a particular focus on those relating to Montreal and Quebec.

Historiography of Ethnic Relations

The historiography of ethnic relations in Quebec reveals that the province’s French- speaking majority had a very different approach to migrant populations than English-speaking majorities elsewhere in North America. While Anglophones sought to assimilate newcomers, at times aggressively so, Francophones adopted an insular mentality that kept outsiders at bay. They were more interested in building boundaries and preserving their culture from foreign influence than in shattering the boundaries of the ethnic minorities around them. The pioneering work on migration by Helen I. Cowan, and more recent work by Martin Pâquet, show that it was actually Quebec’s British ruling minority that set up a bureaucratic apparatus to deal with migrants in the 1800s. For the most part, Quebec’s Francophone majority only became interested in integrating migrants after the mid- twentieth century.30 This created an atmosphere in Quebec that favored the erection of boundaries around mutually-exclusive ethnic groups, leading them to retain their identities for longer periods than elsewhere in North America.

General histories of Quebec City have not explored how this dynamic played out to any great extent. The most complete history of Quebec City to date is the three- volume Histoire de Québec et de sa région.31 While giving a sense of the demographics, occupational status, and institutional framework of the city’s ethnic groups, it does not stray too far into qualitative questions of ethnic relations. As the

30 Martin Pâquet, Tracer les marges de la cité : étranger, immigrant et État au Québec, 1627-1981 (Montreal: Boréal, 2005); Helen I. Cowan, British Emigration to British North America: The First Hundred Years, Rev. and enl. ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). See also: Michael Derek Behiels, Le Québec et la question de l'immigration : de l'ethnocentrisme au pluralisme ethnique, 1900-1985 (Ottawa: Société historique du Canada, 1991), 11; Fernand Harvey, "L'ouverture du Québec au multiculturalisme, 1900-1981," Revue française d'études canadiennes 21, no. 2 (1986): 220. 31 Marc Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2008).

number of English-speakers dwindles, they effectively disappear from such general histories even as their institutions remain. For more hard data, Ronald Rudin’s general history of Anglophone Quebec and François Drouin’s work on the ethnic composition of the population of Quebec City from 1795 to 1971 help quantify and contextualize this decline, which mostly took place in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.32 This is complemented by Sophie Goulet’s study of mixed marriages in the second half of the nineteenth century, which provides snapshots of the gradual yet slow integration of a declining English-speaking population into the French-speaking majority.33 Isabelle Beauregard-Gosselin’s recent thesis builds upon this by providing a longitudinal statistical portrait of Irish Catholics in Quebec City that includes interesting comparisons with Montreal.34 In the absence of comprehensive scholarly works on Quebec’s English-speaking minorities, Louisa Blair’s The Anglos does a good job of sketching out important milestones, though she focuses more on instances of interethnic collaboration than of conflict.35

The many studies focusing specifically on Quebec City’s Irish Catholic minority provide more detail about ethnic relations. An overall spirit of “bonententisme” emerges from a good part of the earlier published literature. Marianna O’Gallagher writes of Francophones and Irish working hand in hand in many organizations, of the generous French who adopted Irish famine orphans, and of the Protestants that financed Quebec’s Irish Catholic church, for instance.36 This “bonententiste” paradigm follows through in Nancy Schmitz’s look at the inclusive nature of

32 Rudin, The Forgotten Quebecers; François Drouin, "La population urbaine de Québec, 1795-1971 : origines et autres caractéristiques de recensement," Cahiers québécois de démographie 19, no. 1 (1990). 33 Sophie Goulet, "La nuptialité dans la ville de Québec : étude des mariages mixtes au cours de la deuxième moitié du 19ième siècle" (M.A., Université Laval, 2002). 34 Isabelle Beauregard-Gosselin, "Intégration d'une communauté minoritaire en période d'industrialisation: les Irlandais catholiques de la ville de Québec, 1852-1911," M.A., Université Laval, 2016, 35 Louisa Blair, The Anglos: The Hidden Face of Quebec City, 2 vols. (Quebec: Éditions Sylvain Harvey, 2005). 36 Marianna O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec: The Building of a Church and of a Parish 1827 to 1833 (Quebec: Carraig Books, 1981), 22; Marianna O'Gallagher, Saint Brigid's, Quebec: The Irish Care for their People, 1856 to 1981 (Quebec: Carraig Books, 1981), 19; Marianna O'Gallagher, "Children of the Famine," The Beaver 88, no. 1 (2008).

Quebec City’s Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, which she contrasts with the militant forms taken by the parade in other North American cities.37 This dissertation questions many of these assertions, at times revealing ulterior motives beneath the seeming interethnic cordiality. Historians have also introduced nuances to this narrative, such as Marie-Claude Belley and Jason King’s revisionist takes on the Irish famine orphans placed out into Francophone families, which wrongly tended to depict the latter’s motives as disinterested benevolence.38 Nevertheless, there is some relative truth to this positive spin: by virtue of Quebec City being a largely Catholic city, the historiography is unanimous that Irish Catholics fared better than in many other northeastern cities dominated by assimilationist Protestants.

Many historians have challenged the “bonententiste” narrative on Irish Catholics in Quebec City, especially since the 1990s. Their work reveals tensions with Protestants, Francophones, and even among the Irish themselves. Robert Grace charts a gradual decline in Irish Catholic relations with Protestant Anglophones following the massive arrivals of less fortunate famine migrants, noting that Quebec City became one of the major Canadian hotbeds of Fenianism and other radical anti-British forms of Irish nationalism.39 As for Irish Catholic relations with Francophones in Quebec, Grace describes them as being “sweet-and-sour”: “sour” in their struggles for control of Catholic institutions and over the same low-end jobs, but “sweet” through intermarriage and the rare instances of joint anti-imperialist

37 Nancy Schmitz, Irish for a Day: Saint Patrick's Day Celebrations in Quebec City, 1765-1990 (Sainte-Foy: Carraig Books, 1991). 38 Marie-Claude Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante au milieu du XIXe siècle : les orphelins irlandais à Québec en 1847 et 1848" (M.A., Université Laval, 2003); Jason King, "Remembering Famine Orphans: The Transmission of Famine Memory Between Ireland and Quebec," in Holodomor and Gorta Mor: Histories, Memories and Representations of Famine in Ukraine and Ireland, ed. Christian Noack, Lindsay Janssen, and Vincent Comerford (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 115-144. 39 Robert J. Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec: Immigration and Settlement in a Catholic City" (Ph.D., Université Laval, 1999). The idea of Quebec as a hotbed of Irish nationalism first appears in Peter Michael Toner, "The Rise of Irish Nationalism in Canada, 1858-1884" (Ph.D., National University of Ireland, 1974).

resistance.40 Regarding the latter, David DeBrou shows that Irish-French political alliances gradually declined in the years leading up to the Patriote Rebellions.41 Labour historian Peter Bischoff highlights some of the violent ethnic struggles between Irish and Francophone ship workers in the late 1870s, stressing however that these were only blips in an overall story showcasing exemplary interethnic working class solidarity.42 Political tensions within the Irish Catholic community itself are also apparent, notably in Catherine Coulombe’s analysis of Quebec’s Irish community organizations in the years 1851-1900.43 In short, Quebec City’s Irish Catholic community steered its own political course, had an active radical fringe, and occasional interethnic scuffles cast shadows on a situation that was typically better than the one faced by their counterparts in many other North American cities.

There has been much less written about Quebec City’s Protestant minority, but what little exists points to a relatively well-behaved and moderate group. Although anti-Catholic organizations like the Orange Order did exist for a short time in Quebec City, Simon Jolivet’s survey of their archives confirms Grace’s assertion that the city’s overwhelmingly Catholic majority made it "an eyesore to Orangemen and Ultra Protestants."44 Given this, Quebec was relatively free of the Protestant nativism that marred ethnic relations in other North American cities. There was little reason for Protestants to revolt, as they typically fared better than Catholics on the socio-economic scale despite their continued minority status. Nevertheless, there

40 Robert J. Grace, The Irish in Quebec: An Introduction to the Historiography (Quebec: Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1993). 41 David DeBrou, "The Rose, the Shamrock and the Cabbage: The Battle for Irish Voters in Upper-town Quebec, 1827-1836," Histoire sociale-Social History 24, no. 48 (1991), 305-334. 42 Peter Bischoff, Les débardeurs au port de Québec : tableau des luttes syndicales, 1831-1902 (Montreal: Hurtubise HMH, 2009). 43 Catherine Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh : Irlande éternelle? Etude et prosopographie des organisations communautaires irlandaises catholiques de Québec de 1851 à 1900" (M.A., University of Ottawa, 2010). 44 Robert J. Grace, "The Irish in Quebec City in 1861: A Portrait of an Immigrant Community" (M.A., Université Laval, 1987), 125; Simon Jolivet, "Orange, vert et bleu : les orangistes au Québec depuis 1849," Bulletin d'histoire politique 18, no. 3 (2010): 79.

were some Protestant-Catholic confrontations, and many have yet to receive major scholarly attention, such as the 1853 Gavazzi riots, the 1872 election riots, and the 1886-87 Salvation Army “wars.”45 Richard Vaudry’s study of Anglicanism in Quebec City details some sectarian violence, but this took place among Protestants themselves (between Evangelical Anglicans and “High Church” Anglicans).46

Moving beyond Quebec City, the closest case for comparison is Montreal. The history of ethnic relations in the multicultural metropolis has received more attention than in Quebec City. The portrait that emerges from this historiography leads one to assume there was far greater strain between ethnic groups in Montreal than in Quebec City. After all, this is the city where an angry British loyalist mob fuelled by anti-French sentiments burned down the parliament in 1849. There are also more instances of anti-Catholic Orange Order violence, which Jolivet examines.47 There were religious riots around the coming of anti-Catholic firebrand preacher Alessandro Gavazzi in both Quebec and Montreal, but the Montreal riots were arguably more severe and resulted in several deaths.48 The Montreal press was also more polarized on the Ultramontane-liberal spectrum than

45 For an examination of the judicial response to collective violence in Montreal and Quebec City, see: Donald Fyson, "The Trials and Tribulations of Riot Prosecutions: Collective Violence, State Authority and Criminal Justice in Quebec, 1841-1892," in Canadian State Trials, Volume III: Political Trials and Security Measures, 1840-1914, ed. Susan Binnie and Barry Wright (Toronto: Osgoode Society / University of Toronto Press, 2009), 161-203. See footnote 44 for the Gavazzi riots, which have received more attention for Montreal than Quebec City. 46 Richard W. Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World: High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection (Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003). 47 Jolivet, "Orange, vert et bleu."; Dorothy Suzanne Cross, "The Irish in Montreal, 1867-1896" (M.A., McGill University, 1969), 168. 48 Vincent Breton, "L'émeute Gavazzi : pouvoir et conflit religieux au Québec au milieu du 19e siècle " (M.A., UQAM, 2004); Dan Horner, "'Shame upon you as men!' Contesting Authority in the Aftermath of Montreal’s Gavazzi Riot," Histoire sociale-Social History 44(2011); Dan Horner, "A Barbarism of the Worst Kind: Negotiating Gender and Public Space in the Aftermath of Montreal's Gavazzi Riot," (M.A., Queen's University, 2004); Elinor Kyte Senior, British Regulars in Montreal: An Imperial Garrison, 1832-1854 (Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 1981); Robert Sylvain, Clerc, garibaldien, prédicant des deux mondes : Alessandro Gavazzi, 1809-1889 (Quebec: Centre pédagogique, 1962).

the more moderate Quebec City press.49 Tension within the Catholic Church between French and Irish Catholics was also greater, in part because Church leaders were more ideologically polarized, and Rosalyn Trigger’s study looks at how the pope was even asked to intervene to prevent what one observer feared could become an “all-out domestic war.”50

Looking beyond the province of Quebec, single community studies of the Irish dominate once again. The historiography of the Irish in English Canada arose largely in the 1980s. At first it focused more on the rural experience, seeking to undermine the urban focus of the older American historiography, most irreverently through the work of Donald Akenson.51 Despite the occasional study on Catholic- Protestant riots in Saint John52 and Toronto,53 much of the 1980s and 1990s Canadian historiography suggested that the situation was quite different and less explosive north of the border, that more migration took place before the famine, that Irish Protestant migrants outnumbered Irish Catholics, and that the Irish had largely assimilated by the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, recent studies stress important regional disparities within Canada, most importantly in the province of Quebec, where Irish Catholics outnumbered Irish Protestants and retained a distinct and strong Irish identity well into the twentieth century.54

49 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 1002. 50 Rosalyn Trigger, "The Geopolitics of the Irish-Catholic Parish in Nineteenth-Century Montreal," Journal of Historical Geography 27, no. 4 (2001); Simon Jolivet, Le vert et le bleu : identité québécoise et identité irlandaise au tournant du XXe siècle (Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2011). 51 Donald H. Akenson, Small Differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815-1922 (Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988). 52 Scott W. See, Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993). 53 Brian P. Clarke, Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993); Michael Cottrell, "St. Patrick's Day Parades in Nineteenth-Century Toronto: A Study of Immigrant Adjustment and Elite Control," Histoire sociale-Social History 25, no. 49 (1992); Mark George McGowan, The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922, McGill-Queen's studies in the history of religion. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999). 54 See: Grace, The Irish in Quebec: An Introduction to the Historiography; Jolivet, Le vert et le bleu.

The voluminous historiography on Irish-Americans is quite comprehensive. American historians of the Irish were social history pioneers as early as the 1930s.55 Comprehensive regional studies cover many cities in the northeast, including Boston,56 New York,57 and Philadelphia,58 as well as interesting studies of smaller industrial cities such as Worcester59 and Fall River.60 In the past decade, Kevin Kenny and Timothy J. Meagher have attempted to synthesize all these narratives, the latter doing more to highlight regional differences.61 These studies show that, as in Quebec City, Catholic-Protestant relations were largely harmonious until the Irish famine migration. Sectarianism arose as poor Irish migrants gravitated to American cities, occupied low-end jobs, and clashed with the older Protestant majority in the 1840s and 1850s. The historiography stresses that difficulties were compounded by the rise of Protestant evangelicalism and Catholic Ultramontanism. Irish Catholics became increasingly “Catholic, embattled, and suspicious.”62 This was particularly true in Boston and industrial New England, whereas integration involved less friction the further inland or south one travelled, and the newer the cities in question.63 The San Francisco experience, for instance,

55 Kevin Kenny, "Introduction," in New Directions in Irish-American History, ed. Kevin Kenny (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 2. 56 Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants, 1790-1880: A Study in Acculturation, Rev. and enl. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991); Dennis P. Ryan, Beyond the Ballot Box: A Social History of the Boston Irish, 1845-1917 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983). 57 Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 58 Dale B. Light, "Class, Ethnicity and the Urban Ecology in a Nineteenth Century City: Philadelphia's Irish, 1840-1890" (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1979); Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995). 59 Timothy J. Meagher, Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880-1928 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001). 60 Anthony Coelho, "A Row of Nationalities. Life in a Working Class Community: The Irish, English and French Canadians of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1850-1890" (Ph.D., Brown University, 1980). 61 Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (New York: Longman, 2000); Timothy J. Meagher, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 62 Meagher, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History, 58. 63 Ibid., 102-107.

involved very little hardship for Irish Catholics.64 As in Canada, Irish Catholics struggled with French-Canadians and other Catholic migrants over control of the Church, education, and for low end jobs. However, they soon dominated and imposed their agenda in most places due to their overwhelming numerical superiority among Catholics. Upward mobility and acculturation gradually led to greater acceptance of Irish Catholics by the majority in the twentieth century. In fact, Irish-Americans came to be seen as a model to emulate by later generations of migrants.

French Canadians have not received as much direct attention as the Irish in the historiography outside Quebec. Aside from the aforementioned work on Fall River, few of the above studies deal with French Canadians outside Quebec. Studies of Francophone North America tend to stand on their own.65 They show that tight-knit and insular Francophone communities in the United States came to assimilate into the English-speaking majority after a few generations, though they had initially been depicted as unassimilable. In Canada, Robert Choquette looks at French- Irish tensions in Ontario, with Irish clerical pressure for the linguistic assimilation of French Canadians being the major flashpoint.66

In short, the historiography of ethnic relations in Quebec City has some important gaps, particularly with regard to studies about the Protestant minority. Thankfully, there is a wealth of material on urban ethnic relations outside the city that make it possible to situate the results of this dissertation in a broader context. This will allow me to provide new multilateral, longitudinal, and comparative perspectives on ethnic relations.

64 R. A. Burchell, The San Francisco Irish, 1848-1880 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 65 Yves Frenette, Marc St-Hilaire, and Étienne Rivard, La francophonie nord-américaine (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2012); Yves Frenette, Les francophones de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, 1524-2000 (Montreal: INRS-Urbanisation, 2001); Yves Roby, Les Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle-Angleterre : rêves et réalités (Sillery: Septentrion, 2000); Dean R. Louder and Eric Waddell, French America: Mobility, Identity, and Minority Experience Across the Continent (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993). 66 Robert Choquette, Language and Religion: A History of English-French Conflict in Ontario (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1975).

Historiography of Charity

Early studies on charity were usually written from whiggish or social control perspectives, at times a mixture of both. The former stressed an inevitable march of progress from the dark days of institutionalization to the glorious present of foster care. The social control paradigm was inspired by the rise of Marxist approaches in the social sciences during the 1960s and 1970s. The term “social control” was initially used in a positive sense to describe the processes used to ensure social cohesiveness. However, with time, the term took on dark repressive overtones; charitable organizations were described in the pessimistic light of bourgeois liberals seeking to dominate, to isolate and mold the poor according to their ideals and fears, while also serving their own individualistic capitalist interests.67 The social control approach was more prevalent and lasting in studies about Quebec's Catholic social services, in large part due to a general societal backlash against the near-total domination of the Catholic Church in Quebec before the 1960s and, more specifically, to fallout over the Duplessis Orphans case.68

These early studies were criticized for being too theoretically rigid. They ignored important aspects such as working-class agency, among others. Richard Fox wrote in 1976 that the social control approach “[assumes] that institutions are imposed by that elite or that society upon passive, malleable subjects.”69 Jean-Marie Fecteau

67 Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America, 6th ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 72; Patricia T. Rooke and Rodolph Leslie Schnell, Discarding the Asylum: From Child Rescue to the Welfare State in English-Canada (1800-1950) (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983), 405; Bienvenue, "Pierres grises et mauvaise conscience," 14-15. 68 The Duplessis Orphans were victims of a scheme whereby many orphans were falsely classified as mentally ill in order to obtain funding from the federal government between the 1940s and 1960s. The Catholic Church was complicit in this scheme and guilty of harsh treatment and abuse. See Bienvenue, "Pierres grises et mauvaise conscience," 13. 69 Richard Fox, "Beyond 'Social Control': Institutions and Disorder in Bourgeois Society," History of Education Quarterly 16, no. 2 (1976): 204.

built upon these early criticisms in 1980s Quebec by introducing a more complex social regulation approach that, among other things, considered the interplay of elite control and acts of resistance from the poor.70

Feminist studies in this period highlighted the role of gender dynamics in charitable associations. Many studies examine the “separate spheres” conventions that defined gender roles and placed limits on women’s involvement in charitable associations in certain cities and certain periods in history.71 The level of adherence to these conventions was often linked to the religious background of the women. Nancy Hewitt and Anne Boylan highlight the differences between charities run by conservative “benevolent” women from established churches, and “reformist” women from more evangelical backgrounds. These distinctions challenged earlier views that tended to place all women’s charities in the same category.72

Other scholars have provided new ways to qualify the different charitable organizations. For example, Timothy Hacsi’s overview of both Catholic and Protestant child charities in the United States divides institutions into isolating, protective and integrative. This framework more accurately reflects the different types of approaches than the harsh social control perspective. Isolating institutions wanted to break children from the culture, and often religion, of their parents to

70 “[La régulation sociale] apparaît donc comme un compromis fragile, toujours remis en question, entre l'exercice de la domination par les classes dirigeantes et la pratique de résistance des classes populaires” Jean-Marie Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses : la pauvreté, le crime, l'État au Québec, de la fin du XVIIIe siècle à 1840 (Outremont: VLB, 1989); Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 10. 71 For a comprehensive discussion of this, see: Anne M. Boylan, The Origins of Women's Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). For a look at separate spheres in Canada, see: Janet Vey Guildford and Suzanne Morton, Separate Spheres: Women's Worlds in the 19th Century Maritimes (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1994).. For an analysis of separate spheres in Montreal’s charitable sector, see chapter seven of Janice Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society: A Case Study in Protestant Child Charity in Montreal, 1822-1900" (Ph.D., McGill University, 2001), 268-310. 72 Nancy A. Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Anne M. Boylan, “Women in Groups: An Analysis of Women’s Benevolent Organizations in New York and Boston, 1797-1840,” Journal of American History 71, no. 3 (1984), 497-523; Quoted in Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society," 7-8.

provide a new moral basis. Protective institutions sought to protect the cultural and religious heritage of children from a world they saw as hostile to it. Integrative institutions began appearing after the 1870s in the United States, encouraging parental visits and sending children to nondenominational public schools outside the asylum.73 In Quebec, there was a definite shift from an isolating to a protective model in the nineteenth century. The push toward integration into a broader common culture did not exist in the late-nineteenth century model of sharply bounded communities, even within the boundaries of these cultures themselves.

Many studies have looked at the tension between economic liberalism and the charity sector. Dennis Guest sees the history of charity marked by residual (liberal, market-oriented, laissez-faire) and institutional (solidaristic) concepts of social security. The former, which calls for minimal state intervention and stigmatizes charity-seekers, was dominant in the period prior to 1940, being especially strong in the mid-nineteenth century.74 Fecteau and others concur, by looking at how rising economic liberalism in the political sphere reformed a charitable sector that was seen as hindering the development of industrial capitalism. In a liberal society of free individuals, all were responsible for their own condition; the poor were therefore to blame for their own poverty, not the social conditions they operated in.75 These ideas also led to an increasing criminalization of the poor: gaols in Lower Canada doubled as homeless shelters, housing impressive numbers of vagrants. Donald Fyson builds upon Fecteau’s pioneering work76 to look at this summary imprisonment of the marginalized poor throughout Lower Canada in greater detail. He reveals that the incarceration of the poor took place on an unprecedented scale in Quebec City. The Quebec gaol also housed a

73 Timothy A. Hacsi, Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 54-59. 74 Dennis Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 3rd edition (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999), 3-5, 9. 75 This idea is the subject of Fecteau’s La liberté du pauvre. 76 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 119-122.

disproportionate number of Irish Catholic female vagrants, which testifies to an insufficient charitable network.77

The historiography of charity in Quebec City contains many studies on individual charitable organizations and religious orders, but many adopt an uncritical self- congratulatory tone. There are important studies for the three major players on the Francophone side, namely the Sisters of Charity,78 the Good Shepherd nuns,79 and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul,80 but no major synthesis offering a longitudinal view of the sector as a whole. On the Anglophone side, the recent studies are much slimmer. I have written commemorative booklets for the two major charitable homes, namely the Ladies’ Protestant Home (Protestant) and Saint Brigid’s Home (Catholic),81 the latter building on the pioneering work of Marianna O’Gallagher.82 All these studies, including the ones I have written, have serious limitations. Since most were produced by and for the organizations themselves, with the organization’s editorial input on content, many verge on the hagiographic, extolling the benevolent spirit of the key players involved and lacking a broader or more critical outlook. They gloss over the sectarian divisions that influenced the distribution of charity, the underlying gender and class issues that defined their structures, and downplay the conflicts and controversies.

77 Donald Fyson, "L'irlandisation de la prison de Québec, 1815-1885," (Notes for a paper delivered at the "Question sociale et citoyenneté" colloquium, UQAM, August 31, 2016), 342-345; Donald Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society: The Quebec Gaol, 1812-1867," in Iron Bars & Bookshelves: A history of the Morrin Centre, ed. Louisa Blair, Patrick Donovan, and Donald Fyson (Montreal: Baraka Books, 2016). 78 Nive Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, 3 vols. (Beauport: Publications MNH, 1998). 79 Josette Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921" (Ph.D., Université Laval, 2004). 80 Réjean Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec : nourrir son âme et visiter les pauvres, 1846-2011 (Quebec: GID, 2011). 81 Patrick Donovan and Ashli Hayes, The Ladies' Protestant Home: 150 Years of History (Quebec: Jeffery Hale Foundation, 2010); Patrick Donovan, Saint Brigid's and its Foundation: A Tradition of Caring Since 1856 (Quebec: Saint Brigid's Home Foundation, 2012). 82 O'Gallagher, Saint Brigid's, Quebec.

Some aspects of poor relief in Quebec City have been examined more extensively. The Francophone Catholic response to illegitimate mothers and their children has received the most study, but none of the existing work touches much on how English-speakers related to these initiatives, or the alternatives provided by Protestants.83 The topic of Irish famine relief has also received considerable attention, mostly with regard to the Grosse Ile quarantine station. The most useful study for our purposes on this theme is Marie-Claude Belley’s look at responses to famine orphans in the 1840s, which focuses on post-quarantine Irish Catholic charitable networks within Quebec City itself.84

Despite all these individual studies, there are few that provide a broad view of Quebec City’s charitable sector, and what exists underrepresents the networks set up by English-speakers. For instance, Saint Bridget’s Asylum, the most significant English-language charitable institution in Quebec City, was recently omitted from a supposedly comprehensive survey.85 Johanne Daigle and Dale Gilbert did some valuable preliminary work on an inventory of children’s charities in the city, which includes some English-language institutions but focuses primarily on the Francophone Catholic sector due to a lack of existing studies on the former.86 This

83 France Gagnon, "Transitions et reflets de société dans la prise en charge de la maternité hors-norme : l'exemple de l'Hospice Saint-Joseph de la Maternité de Québec, 1852-1876" (M.A., Université Laval, 1994); Marie-Aimée Cliche, "Morale chrétienne et 'double standard sexuel' : les filles-mères à l'hôpital de la Miséricorde à Québec 1874-1972," Histoire sociale-SociaI History, 24, no. 47 (1991), 85-125; Virginie Fleury- Potvin, "Une double réponse au problème moral et social de l'illégitimité : la réforme des moeurs et la promotion de l'adoption par 'la sauvegarde de l'enfance' de Québec, 1943-1964" (M.A., Université Laval, 2006). 84 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante". For additional criticism of this narrative, see: King, "Remembering Famine Orphans." 85 Etienne Berthold 2015 study on the work of religious communities in Quebec includes many minor Francophone institutions but fails to mention any of the Anglophone institutions where nuns worked, including major ones like Saint Bridget’s Home. See: Étienne Berthold, Une société en héritage : l'œuvre des communautés religieuses pionnières à Québec (Quebec: Publications du Québec, 2015). 86 Johanne Daigle recognized this shortcoming and hired me as a research assistant to develop the preliminary research report that eventually led to this thesis. See: Johanne Daigle and Dale Gilbert, "Un modèle d'économie sociale mixte : la dynamique des services sociaux à l'enfance dans la ville de Québec, 1850- 1950," Recherches sociographiques 20, no. 1 (2008); Johanne Daigle and Dale Gilbert, "Naître et grandir à Québec, volet 'Les Bonnes Oeuvres'," CIEQ, http://expong.cieq.ca/.

inventory looks mostly at bricks-and-mortar institutions and is a preliminary overview of a complex system with over 180 Francophone Catholic associations, at least 49 Protestant women’s groups, and numerous other organizations.87 Claude Galarneau’s scan of Quebec City newspapers for voluntary associations provides additional leads for the early nineteenth century,88 while France Parent’s preliminary work on Protestant women’s organizations in Quebec City provides others.89 However, it remains impossible to piece together a comprehensive portrait of the networks serving English-speakers from all these sources. Doing so is especially important, as it serves as a basis for this study and future research. It also challenges popular stereotypes about English-speakers as a wealthy and privileged class that did not need charitable assistance. In fact, the opposite was true; the tides of uprooted English-speaking migrants in the nineteenth century required more charitable assistance than the resident Francophone population with its strong local kinship networks.

The historiography of charity outside Quebec City is often more developed, particularly for the Protestant sector. Montreal90 and Canada’s91 poor relief networks have received considerably more scholarly attention. Fecteau and Harvey define six characteristics to the Montreal network, which also broadly apply to Quebec City: organizations are largely run by women; are mainly private initiatives;

87 Daigle and Gilbert, "Un modèle d'économie sociale mixte," 120-121. 88 Claude Galarneau, "Sociabilité et associations volontaires à Québec, 1770-1859," Les Cahiers des dix, no. 58 (2004). 89 France PARENT wrote five incomplete chapters for a thesis entitled “Les associations féminines des milieux protestants à Québec 1800-1965 : Des rapports dialectiques entre pouvoirs et devoirs” at Université Laval in the late 1990s and kindly provided me with these drafts. 90 See: Jean-Marie Fecteau and Janice Harvey, "Le réseau de régulation sociale montréalais au XIXe siècle," in Histoire de Montréal et de sa région, tome I : des origines à 1930, ed. Dany Fougères and Normand Perron (Quebec: PUL, IQRS, 2012); Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society"; Micheline D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1 : les communautés religieuses et l'assistance à Montréal, 1659-1900 (Montreal: Éditions du Méridien, 1997). 91 The most complete survey of Protestant child charities in English Canada is Rooke and Schnell’s study (which includes Montreal but not English-speaking Quebec City): Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum. There is no equivalent for Catholic charities, but Clarke’s study for Toronto is useful: Clarke, Piety and Nationalism.

have a collective dimension; are selective and discriminatory in their distribution of aid; have a therapeutic/reformist intent; and rely on internment.92 Among this vast body of literature, Mariana Valverde’s work introduced the oft-cited notion of the charitable sector in Ontario as a “mixed social economy” rather than a neat public/private split.93 Daigle and Gilbert adopted this framework for Quebec City.94 Valverde also looks at moral regulation, how the conservative social purity movement influenced Protestant organizations in Canada, showing the evangelical push towards a moral reform of the poor that would effect lasting changes. Much of this has relevance to the evangelical charities that arose in late nineteenth-century Quebec City, and will be brushed upon when relevant, though a detailed analysis through the lens of moral regulation falls outside the scope of this study.95

Although preliminary work has been done towards an inventory of the charitable networks of Quebec City’s English-speaking communities, additional research is necessary for a comprehensive portrait. This study is a preliminary step toward that comprehensive portrait, and will allow us to get a better understanding of how these networks differed, how they worked together, and how this macroscopic understanding adds to our understanding of ethnic relations in the city. Thankfully, the historiography for the rest of North America provides us with the necessary perspective to situate Quebec City within its broader context.

92 Jean-Marie Fecteau and Janice Harvey, "Le réseau de régulation sociale montréalais au XIXe siècle," 676- 685. 93 Mariana Valverde, "The Mixed Social Economy as a Canadian Tradition," Studies in Political Economy, no. 47 (1995). 94 Daigle and Gilbert, "Un modèle d'économie sociale mixte." 95 Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 19, 30.

Sources and Methodology

A broad range of qualitative and quantitative sources were used for this study. Although some quantitative data helps measure ethnic relations, qualitative information reveals underlying causes, introduces nuances and exceptions, and brings the different communities and their organizations to life. Sources examined for this thesis include decennial censuses, associational and congregational archives and published reports, city almanacs and directories, newspapers, government and other publications, photos, insurance maps, and older organizational histories. This range ensures a multiplicity of perspectives to yield as balanced a portrait as possible of poor relief initiatives and ethnic relations in Quebec City. A complete list is presented in the bibliography.

Censuses were the main sources used to measure the demographic evolution of Quebec’s three main ethnic groups. These were conducted roughly every ten years from 1831 onward, and irregularly prior to this date. Since ethnic origin/mother tongue data is not available before 1842, the population can only be evaluated in terms of religion before this date. The Population et histoire sociale de la ville de Québec (PHSVQ) project96 compiled databases covering 100% of the Quebec City manuscript census data from 1852 to 1911. These databases make it easy to cross-reference ethnic origin/birthplace/mother tongue/religion data to come up with reliable portraits of Quebec’s three ethnic groups. Some of this data is not available for all censuses, or is at times incomplete and illegible, so I performed surname analysis on problematic entries to gain a more accurate portrait. In addition to yielding data on population change over time, some censuses also provided information on the social class structure within ethnic groupsCensuses also listed residents at the different charitable homes, which provided an additional source to measure changes over time and the degree of interethnic cohabitation, particularly when registers were not available or impossible to access.

96 See Centre interuniversitaire d’etudes québécoises à l’Université Laval (CIEQ-Laval), “Population et histoire sociale de la ville de Québec (PHSVQ),” http://www.phsvq.cieq.ulaval.ca/

Along with secondary sources, city almanacs and directories were used to build an initial portrait of the charity network over time.97 A list of charitable associations often appeared in these publications with their administrators, street address, and foundation date.

Archival fonds and published reports related to organizations were then used to obtain information on the structure, target clienteles, financial situation, and issues surrounding interethnic relations at different times, among other things. The breadth of available archives differs from one organization to the next. For instance, the Ladies’ Protestant Home fonds at the BAnQ archive centre in Quebec City98 contains nearly 2 metres of documents covering the organization’s foundation to its dissolution, including registers, minutes, published reports, and hundreds of photos – all of which are easily accessible. Conversely, organizations, such as the Female Compassionate Society have no dedicated archival fonds and left few historical traces aside from a handful of published reports. The archives of the few Francophone-run organizations that served the English-speaking community were not examined, principally because most are still in the hands of the congregations themselves and access was difficult at the time of writing.99 A detailed list of the archival fonds consulted is included in the bibliography.100 All documents relating to the years concerned by this study were examined.

While useful, organizational archives have their shortcomings. The major disadvantage of sources produced by the organizations themselves is that they are mostly written from the perspective of the governing elites and tend to present the organizations in a self-congratulatory light. This is especially true of printed annual

97 The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar (Title varies, 1789-1841); Quebec City Directories (Title varies, 1822, 1826, 1845-1960) available at http://www.banq.qc.ca/collections/. 98 Fonds Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ-Québec. 99 The archives of the Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul are an exception. However, given that this fonds contains 45 linear metres of documents and deals principally with the activities of the Francophone conferences, I limited myself to the files produced by the English-language conference. 100 For a complete list, see sections II to VI in the bibliography.

reports. While minute books reveal more of what went on beneath the surface, the terse summaries of meetings often leave out important or contentious details. Even the registers of residents are incomplete; for instance, the names of illegitimate mothers were often left out in order to “conceal their shame.” Moreover, these sources rarely contain the voices of the clientele that benefited from charitable endeavours, and these voices are nearly impossible to obtain elsewhere. Recent history has brought to light a history of abuse that went on behind the closed doors of institutions, through the testimonials of those on the receiving end of charity. Such information is left out of institutional archives and largely left out most of the sources available; the fact that my thesis does not deal with this should in no way imply that abuses did not happen.

Newspapers helped round out the portrait, at times providing multiple editorial perspectives. Moreover, the press often yielded missing annual reports, poignant profiles of the organizations, or stories about religious tensions. Major online databases consulted included Google News Archive, Canadiana.org, and BAnQ’s newspaper collections.101 Initial searches were usually done by keyword (e.g. names of organizations, names of prominent persons within them, or other relevant information). To yield missing annual reports or records of recurring events (e.g. annual charity dinners), daily papers were scanned for the weeks surrounding the usual calendar date when this information was published. Moreover, in order to situate the story of charitable organizations within the general portrait of interethnic relations in Quebec City, points of interethnic friction were noted in Lebel’s chronology of Quebec City102 and other local histories and further researched in the contemporary press and other published studies on and around the relevant dates. In the case of key or contentious events, multiple newspapers were consulted in both French and English to contrast the potential editorial bias of one paper with another perspective; the conservative “Anglo-Protestant” Morning Chronicle

101 For a complete list of papers consulted, see section VII in bibliography 102 Jean-Marie Lebel, Yves Hébert, and Léo Jacques, Québec 1608-2008 : les chroniques de la capitale (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2008).

serving as a counterpoint to the populist working-class “Irish Catholic” Daily Telegraph, for instance.103 Nevertheless, even the most progressive nineteenth- century paper remains a middle-class source with its own middle-class biases. Their perspectives are far removed from the lived experiences of illiterate charity- seekers, so efforts were made to maintain a critical distance.

These sources were also supplemented by a range of government archives. Keyword searches through the index of Colonial Office correspondence for the pre- 1838 period were useful to learn about government involvement in charity at a time when the private sector relied heavily upon public funds.104 Prison inspectors’ reports provided information on the role of jails as charitable institutions for the latter half of the nineteenth century.105 Additional government records consulted include acts of incorporation and parliamentary proceedings, which were accessed by keyword search through Canadiana.org. Once again, the voice of charity users themselves are usually absent from these sources.

Using the sources above, information on each charitable organization was compiled in a database that included the following topics:

• Foundation and closing dates, including any contextual information around these events. • Major turning points in the history of the organization, and underlying causes.

103 From the memoirs of A.G. Penny, editor of the Morning Chronicle in the early 20th century: “The [Chronicle] was Conservative in its sympathies and appealed primarily to the business community, which was English- Protestant for the most part. The Telegraph was an aggressively Liberal afternoon paper which catered first of all to the working class, the majority of whose members were Irish Catholics.” Arthur G. Penny, The Shirt- sleeved Generation: An Account of the Life and Times of a Canadian Newspaper Man from the Evening of the Victorian Era to the "Cold War" of International Communism upon Western Democracy (Quebec: Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph Printing Co., 1953). 104 MG 11 CO 42, Great Britain, Colonial Office : Canada, formerly British North America, original correspondence, “Q” series transcripts, Library and Archives Canada. 105 "Rapport des inspecteurs de prisons et asiles, etc.," in Documents de la session for the years 1864, 1867- 1868, 1871-1905.

• Administrative structure, including ethno-religious affiliation, gender, and social class of the administrators (board), advisory committees, and onsite staff and/or nuns.106 This also includes a look at the balance of clergy, religious orders, and laity in each organization, as well as the professional qualifications of people involved. • Major stakeholders in the history of the organization, and related biographical information. • Target clientele(s) of organization, and how eligibility for charity is determined within the organization. This includes ethno-religious affiliation, gender, age, and other criteria used to determine eligibility. • Information on the trajectories of children and adults upon their departure from the institution or their reception of aid. • Financial situation of the organization over the years, including total budget, sources of revenue (public/private) and major expenses. • Physical location in the city over time with regard to location of the target population. • Instances of cooperation with other organizations, especially when the cooperation occurs across ethno-religious lines

Once compiled, this data was compared with that of other organizations of its time period to come up with broad trends for English-speaking Protestant organizations and Catholic organizations, with an analysis focused particularly on ethno-religious relations and boundaries. These trends were contrasted with each other, and also with secondary sources on organizations serving the French-speaking majority.

106 Sources examined use different words to refer to different functions within organizations. To minimize confusion, I will use “administrators” or “governing committee” to refer to the governing board/committee, council, voluntary directors, or nuns in a decisional position that direct the institution (though not always independently from clerical oversight); “auxiliary” to refer to the unpaid lay subcommittees that assist administrators, and “staff” for the onsite labour under the authority of administrators, whether paid or unpaid. Religious orders played both administrator and staff roles, so both terms will be used when describing their work in institutions.

Finally, the important body of secondary source material mentioned in the above section on historiography was used to compare and contrast findings for Quebec City with those of other cities within north-eastern North America.

Structure and Organization

This study has four chapters that correspond roughly to the four periods defined by the major turning points in the topic under study.

The first chapter looks at the half-century following the British Conquest of 1759. This period was defined by a spirit of continuity with the charitable structure that existed in New France. There was little demographic growth, and charity continued to rely mostly on kinship networks. Periodic charitable funding drives took place in times of crisis, which typically involved cooperation across ethnic and religious lines. The few French regime Catholic charitable institutions that did exist were financed by the new colonial administration, an unusual situation for a British Empire that typically marginalized Catholics and set up lay public charities.

The second chapter examines the period between 1815 and 1835, which saw an end to the post-Conquest continuity. A sudden increase in immigration from Britain and Ireland led to an increase in the need for charity for these groups. Consequently, new private voluntary associations led by Quebec City’s elites appeared. Many of these involved cooperation across religious and linguistic lines. Boundaries between communities existed, but they were mostly permeable. Despite this cooperation, attitudes hardened toward the poor, who were considered morally flawed artisans of their misery. As a result, the poor were increasingly sent to gaol for trivial offenses.

The third chapter looks at social services between 1835 and 1855, a transition period of intense social changes that saw the rise of ethnic boundaries. The defeat of Patriote republicanism was followed by a reinvigoration of Catholicism and the rise of Protestant evangelicalism. The Irish famine, which came at the end of this

period, led to an increasingly large and embattled Irish Catholic community. These changes were reflected in the fact that all new charitable associations that appeared during this period discriminated along national, ethnic, political and religious lines. The religious revivals led to a gradual softening of attitudes toward the poor, and alternatives to gaol for vagrants and the underclass appeared.

The fourth chapter looks at the period between 1855 and 1900, which marked the consolidation of the charitable structure into three distinct social service networks for the city’s three main ethnic communities. This consolidation was helped by the foundation of two core charitable institutions in the late 1850s, one for English- speaking Catholics (Saint Bridget’s Asylum), and one for Protestants (Ladies’ Protestant Home). The “bonne entente” that existed between Quebec City’s communities was not based on a climate of understanding and collaboration, but on a mutual respect of established boundaries. Good fences made good neighbours, but tensions occurred when boundary negotiation took place.

1. POST-CONQUEST CONTINUITY: CHARITABLE NETWORKS BEFORE 1815

The development of English-speaking communities in Quebec began in earnest after the British Conquest of 1759-60. The Conquest is often depicted as a major turning point in Quebec’s history, but this chapter will show that it had little effect on the existing charitable infrastructure. The new British rulers wanted to introduce a new charitable structure, and continued to argue for a secular House of Correction for vagrants inspired by institutions that existed elsewhere in the Empire. However, in the end, they ended up mostly supporting and financing existing French regime Catholic structures. This is one of several examples of the cooperation across ethnic lines in the charitable sector that was common in the early decades of British rule. Indeed, in times of crisis, elites and church leaders led interdenominational funding drives. Protestants and Catholics alike used existing pre-Conquest institutions like the Catholic Hôtel-Dieu and Hôpital General, and the state increasingly financed both. This was unusual, but not unique, within a British Empire that typically marginalized Catholics. This chapter will examine how and why this pre-Conquest structure was retained in the first half-century of British rule.

1.1. Family and Church Networks

In the 50 years after the British Conquest, Quebec City may have tripled in size, but it still remained a small colonial city with fewer than 15,000 residents.107 In this modestly-sized pre-industrial society of tight-knit families, the needy were usually

107 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 691; Serge Courville and Robert Garon, Québec : ville et Capitale (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2001), 120-121.

helped through their extended family networks, as was the case in the pre- Conquest period.108

When family networks failed, especially in times of crisis, the different churches occasionally pitched in, at times even cooperating together and with residents of all religious denominations in city-wide collections. English-speaking Catholics did not have their own church until 1833, so they received charity through the Francophone parishes. Although people turned to the Catholic clergy for help, no part of the funds of the “fabrique” was officially reserved for the poor. Money was only raised through subscriptions in times of crisis, and the clergy worked with local elites to distribute funds or goods.109 The Anglican Church, which only established a proper structure in the 1790s, had a poor fund through which they paid families to board orphan children until they were old enough to look after themselves, provided food and firewood to needy families, and paid for the funerals of poor parishioners.110 Presbyterians had a poor fund before they even had a dedicated church building; a “Poor Relief Account Book” among the Saint Andrew’s parish archives shows Presbyterian charitable endeavours dating back to at least 1785. This poor fund grew to such an extent that Reverend Alexander Spark turned down money from the city-wide collection in 1816 claiming that none of the poor in his congregation were in “immediate extreme want,” and that the money could be better used among Roman Catholics. As for the smaller dissentient Protestant churches (Methodists, Congregationalists, etc.), they did not have much presence in Quebec before 1815. Oftentimes, the three main churches worked together,

108 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 398, 401; Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 123. For more information on how these family networks functioned in New France, see: Josette Brun, "Gender, Family, and Mutual Assistance in New France: Widows, Widowers, and Orphans in Eighteenth-century Quebec," in Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History, ed. Mona Gleason and Adele Perry (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2006), 35-68. 109 For more on the limited role of parish authorities on the distribution of charity, see: Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 44-51; Nive Voisine, Jean Hamelin, and Nicole Gagnon, Histoire du catholicisme québécois (Montreal: Boréal Express, 1984), v2, t1, 221. 110 M. E. Reisner, Strangers and Pilgrims: A History of the Anglican Diocese of Quebec, 1793-1993 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1995), 156.

such as in 1808 when funds were collected for firewood and shared among the different congregations.111 This type of interdenominational cooperation was rare in the latter periods covered in this study.

1.2. Religious Institutions: Hôtel-Dieu and Hôpital Général

A few cases still fell through the cracks, particularly people needing long-term sustained help. The Hôtel-Dieu (1639) and Hôpital Général (1693), two Catholic institutions founded under the French regime to deal with these cases, continued to fulfill this role under the British colonial government once the dust from the Conquest had settled.

Hôtel-Dieu

The Hôtel-Dieu’s primary role was to provide short-term medical care. This included free care for poorer citizens, Catholics and Protestants alike, though the latter often had to put up with proselytizing from the Augustinian nuns who ran the hospital. Much of the building was requisitioned by the British military until 1784, posing challenges that had not existed prior to the Conquest. Nevertheless, this allowed the nuns to forge links with the new administration and to gradually earn their trust and patronage. Private donations from British officials helped expand operations in the 1780s.

In 1801, the colonial administration asked the Hôtel-Dieu nuns to look after abandoned babies, but they initially declined, arguing that this was incompatible with their mandate as a medical institution. They later revised their opinion, saying they would take on the mission in exchange for funding and lay help. François Rousseau believes that the nuns were largely motivated out of the instinct for

111 Georges Rioux, "Les presbytériens à Québec, de 1760 à 1890" (M.A., Université Laval, 1987), 164-167; James H. Lambert, "Spark, Alexander," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1983).

group survival; it was necessary to stay in the government’s good graces under a regime that did not always see Catholics in a favorable light. Indeed, the Anglican bishop of Quebec, who sat on the Legislative and Executive councils, repeatedly sought to minimize the power of the Catholic Church in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the State financed the nuns to look after abandoned babies until 1845. A “foundling wheel” or “baby hatch” was set up, allowing parents to abandon their babies anonymously. Most of the 1,375 cases taken in were children born out of wedlock, a high percentage of whom had Anglophone mothers. The majority died at a young age (53.5%), but those that survived were placed with salaried wet nurses, and later adopted by families between the ages of 5 and 8.112

Hôpital Général

The Hôpital Général was more like a poorhouse than what we now think of as a hospital. It was inspired by the Hôpital Général created in Paris in 1656 “pour le renfermement des Pauvres mandians de la Ville & Faux-bourgs.” Thousands of Parisian beggars of all ages and walks of life had been interned in this prison-like institution as a public safety measure. They were put to work, which was intended as a form of rehabilitation that would give meaning to their lives. Many have argued that these institutions were not especially good at reform; the illusion of reform served to rationalize a desire to keep marginalized people off the streets. In 1662, a royal edict mandated the creation of an Hôpital Général in every major French city, and they spread throughout France and its colonies.113

Quebec’s Hôpital Général, founded in 1692, was initially based on this model, but became less of a prison-like institution. Monseigneur de Laval wanted an institution

112 François Rousseau, La croix et le scalpel : histoire des Augustines et de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec (1639- 1989), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Sillery: Septentrion, 1989), 165, 173-181. Thomas R. Millman, "Mountain, Jacob," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1987); Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 121. 113 Nicole Denis, "L'Hôpital général de Mgr de Saint-Vallier" (M.A., Université Laval, 2002), 6-9; Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 95-96.

“pour servir d’asile aux pauvres qui n’étaient que trop nombreux au milieu d’une population peu considérable, et surtout peu à l’aise.”114 Located on the fringes of town, away from respectable society, the Hôpital came to house a motley bunch of indigent elderly, abandoned or orphaned children, disabled soldiers and civilians, so-called “fallen women,” the insane, vagabonds, and other marginalized persons.115 However, Quebec’s Hôpital had more of a benevolent mandate than similarly-named institutions in large French cities, and conditions were more humane. The Quebec Hôpital was more about helping the poor than imprisoning them.116 Fewer constraints were placed on most internees than in the Paris Hôpital. Given the strength of clerical authorities in New France, it was under direct control of the Bishop rather than under a lay board of administrators as in France.117 The more difficult mentally unstable patients were locked up in cells within the institution after 1717, but most mingled within the common rooms.118 The institution therefore fulfilled a series of seemingly incompatible mandates: it was part poorhouse, part insane asylum, part orphanage, and part hospital for patients needing long-term care.

Although the Hôpital was run by Francophone nuns, the majority of internees were English-speakers. 62% of people interned for mental health issues had Anglo- Celtic surnames between 1776 and 1800, and 52% for the 1800-1845 period.119 Further research would likely reveal the same to be true for other categories of

114 Quoted in Gonzalve Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951 (Quebec: Commission royale d'enquête sur les problèmes constitutionnels, 1955), 24. 115 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 36-38; Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 317-318, 401, 495; Jacques Mathieu, La Nouvelle-France : les Français en Amérique du Nord, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2001), 204-206; Normand Séguin, L'institution médicale (Sainte- Foy: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1998), 15-16. 116 Serge Lambert, "Les pauvres et la société à Québec de 1681 à 1744" (Ph.D., Université Laval, 1990), 110- 114. 117 Ibid., 63-64, 109; Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 29. 118 Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 68; John Porter, "L'hôpital général de Québec et le soin des aliénés (1717-1845)," Sessions d'étude - Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique 44(1977): 30-31. 119 Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 114-115, 190-191.

internees in the pre-1820 period given the fact that British migrants could not rely on family networks to the same extent as the Francophone population.

Transition to the British regime deprived the Hôpital Général of regular funding from the French state, more so than any other institution run by female religious orders in the city. It was drawn to the brink of bankruptcy and found it difficult to recruit new nuns. The British state did not abandon the Hôpital outright, but only provided this institution with irregular funding. State support for the poor increased slightly in the 1780s. However, it was only in the early nineteenth century, as accommodation of Catholics increased, that the colonial administration began providing regular financial support to the Hôpital, which continued to fulfill its pre- Conquest mandate.120

A broadly similar situation prevailed in the other major cities of Lower Canada. Montreal had its Hôpital Général and Hôtel-Dieu, founded around the same time.121 In Trois-Rivières, which was smaller, there was no Hôpital Général, but the Hôtel- Dieu fulfilled this role.122

Catholic Institutions from a British Imperial Perspective

A structure that empowered Catholic nuns to run charitable institutions was certainly unusual in the British Empire. Most of the Empire, as well as the United States, had a system derived from the sixteenth-century Elizabethan Poor Laws. Through this system, the state delegated power to lay elites and justices of the peace working at the municipal or county level. They administered these laws on a local scale and set up relief systems through compulsory taxation schemes. The

120 Marcel Trudel, L'Église canadienne sous le régime militaire, 1759-1764, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Quebec: Presses Universitaires Laval, 1956), 313-316; Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 42- 45; Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 117-122. 121 The Hôpital général in Montreal was initially managed by a male religious community until the 1750s. For more information, see: D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 53-58, 69-77. 122 Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 88-89.

major institution within this system was the poorhouse, also called workhouse, almshouse or, more euphemistically, “house of industry.” These were lay public institutions, though private church-run charitable institutions did exist in colonies and countries where the Poor Laws prevailed.123 Social stigma surrounded the poorhouse, which typically had a penal atmosphere, was a hotbed of disease, and was feared and avoided by all but the most desperate. Sparsely populated and impoverished areas did not always have the tax base or population to set up a poorhouse, so the poor were placed in families. In parts of New Brunswick, for instance, they were contracted out to the lowest bidder in degrading annual auctions of paupers, a practice which continued until the end of the nineteenth century.124

Even in the rare places where Poor Laws did not apply within the Empire, there was usually more in the way of public initiatives than in Lower Canada. In Ireland, although the Poor Laws did not apply, most charitable institutions prior to 1815 were also secular tax-supported houses of industry and foundling hospitals.125 There were only 120 nuns in the whole of Ireland in 1800, and they were not mandated by the state to oversee charity.126 In both Upper and Lower Canada, the Poor Laws also did not apply.127 However, Upper Canada had more in the way of public subsidies to the poor through taxes levied by the Court of Quarter Sessions. This was not the case in Lower Canada, where private initiatives prevailed.128

123 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 31-33; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 34. 124 Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 12-13. 125 Virginia Crossman, "Houses of Industry," in The Oxford Companion to Irish History, ed. S.J. Connolly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Virginia Crossman, "Poor Relief," in The Oxford Companion to Irish History, ed. S.J. Connolly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 126 Mary Peckham Magray, The Transforming Power of the Nuns: Women, Religion, and Cultural Change in Ireland, 1750-1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9. 127 Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 40-41. 128 J. I. Little, State and Society in Transition: The Politics of Institutional Reform in the Eastern Townships, 1838-1852 (Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997), 88.

Quebec City, Montreal, and Trois-Rivières retained systems that were more like those of ancien-regime France, with Catholic religious orders and the clergy at the forefront and no municipal taxation scheme. Even in the decades following the Conquest, the ruling colonial elite was reluctant to impose the type of Catholic suppression that took place in Britain, Ireland and, to a lesser extent, in other largely Catholic British colonies like Minorca and Granada. In the 1760s and 1770s, Governors Murray and Carleton in Quebec had better relations with the local Catholic clergy and religious orders than the overzealous British governors of Minorca or Granada.129 With the American Revolution brewing in the south, colonial administrators sought to win the loyalty of the French Canadian majority through measures of appeasement, such as a greater tolerance of the Catholic Church and its institutions. This was officialised in the Quebec Act of 1774, which set a precedent for greater accommodation of Catholics in other British colonies, particularly ones incorporated later such as Trinidad and Malta.130 Moreover, by the late 1700s, British political economists had begun to criticize the efficiency of the Poor Laws in Britain itself. Finally, there were pragmatic reasons. The existing French regime structure cost less than a state-run Poor Law system: nuns were unpaid labourers, the Hôtel-Dieu only received state funding as of 1801, and the Hôpital Général received few public funds before 1812.131 Despite this, the amount of annual public grants they were receiving by 1815 was far greater than what the state would give to private charitable organizations in the late-nineteenth century. Throughout the nineteenth century, the state was more likely to be generous with hospitals than with orphanages and homes, even when these hospitals fulfilled more of a charitable and poor relief role than a medical one.132

129 Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs, "Incorporating the King's New Subjects: Accommodation and Anti-Catholicism in the British Empire, 1763-1815," Journal of Religious History 39, no. 2 (2015): 211-212. 130 Ibid.: 222. 131 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 28-33; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 35; Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 873. 132 The Hôtel-Dieu received over £16,000 to look after foundlings from 1800 to 1823; The Hôpital Général received nearly £20,000 for the same period to look after the infirm and the insane. When converted to dollars,

The Hôpital Général had some common points with state-run poorhouses outside Lower Canada, namely the indiscriminate mingling of “innocent” children with the insane and other “disreputable” adults who had been shunned from respectable society. The eighteenthcentury Halifax poorhouse, for instance, was packed to the gills with people, known as a hotbed of disease, and children shared rooms with the insane.133 This may partly be due to the spirit of the time, one in which children were more likely to be treated like household drudges than protected, coddled, and shielded from negative influences.134 This type of intergenerational mingling decreased in the nineteenth century, but public poorhouses still continued to house children in most northern American states until after the 1860s.135

The capacity of Quebec City’s religious institutions should not be overestimated. The Hôpital Général housed 40 to 50 people in its years of greatest affluence. The post-Conquest Hôtel-Dieu had 18 beds for patients after the British military left the building.136 These were small institutions with limited capacity. Cellard writes that their significance has often been overstated, and that the historiography exaggerates the role of religious communities in the early French colonial enterprise.137 As noted above, most charitable assistance came through family networks.

this averages out to several thousand dollars per year. In contrast, Saint Bridget’s Asylum and the Ladies’ Protestant Home received less than $1,000 per year in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and Saint Bridget’s was definitely looking after more people by 1900. "Appendix 1: Report from the Special Committee, appointed to enquire into and report upon the Establishments in this Province, for the reception and cure of the Insane, for the reception and support of Foundlings, and for the relief and cure of sick and infirm Poor.," in Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of Lower-Canada (Quebec: P.E. Desbarats, 1824). 133 Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 39-40. 134 Ibid., 8-10, 57, 79-80. 135 Hacsi, Second Home, 15-17. 136 Denis, "L'Hôpital général de Mgr de Saint-Vallier", 28; Rousseau, La croix et le scalpel, 174. 137 Cellard, Histoire de la folie au Québec, 123.

1.3. The Role of Mutual Aid Societies

The advent of mutual aid societies in the late 1700s represented early steps in the provision of a private social safety net. These societies collected dues from members and provided financial compensation in case of accidents, prolonged illness, invalidity, and old age. When a member died, some societies provided money to widows or orphans.

The first mutual aid society in Quebec was the Quebec Benevolent Society, founded in 1789 and incorporated in 1807, which attracted a largely but not exclusively Anglophone membership. The Friendly Society (Société amicale), founded in 1810, was mostly Francophone. There were also societies grouped by trade in the manner of European guilds, such as Trinity House, Quebec, which had a fund “for the advantage and security of Pilots and their relief in old age, as well as for the support of their widows and children.”138

Mutual aid societies fall beyond the scope of this study being at best on the periphery of the charitable sphere. Members of the earliest two societies mentioned above hailed mostly from the upper or middle classes, and they provided no help beyond their membership. In short, they were more like life insurance companies than charities for the poor. Nevertheless, they are worth a brief mention since they are frequently misrepresented in studies about charitable networks.139 Moreover, they relieved demand on actual charities by helping members faced with a sudden

138 Galarneau, "Sociabilité et associations volontaires à Québec, 1770-1859," 175; Martin Petitclerc, "Une forme d'entraide populaire : histoire des sociétés québécoises de secours mutuels au 19e siècle" (Ph.D., Université de Montréal, 2005), VI, 70-78; Bye-Laws of the Trinity House Quebec of the 9th April 1811, (Quebec: New Printing Office, 1811); Alfred Hawkins and John Charlton Fisher, Hawkins's Picture of Quebec: With Historical Recollections (Quebec: Nelson and Cowan, 1834), 113; Rules of the Quebec Benevolent Society Confirmed by His Majesty's Court of King's Bench, April Term 1809 and June Term 1811, with an Appendix Containing an Abstract of the Law (Quebec: J. Neilson, 1812). 139 This is especially true of the 1789 Quebec Benevolent Society, which has a name that sounds more like a charitable organization than a mutual aid society.

loss of income. This was especially true in the second half of the nineteenth century with the advent of mutual aid societies for the working classes.140

1.4. Poverty and the Criminal Justice System

One of the few examples of British influence on the charitable sector in the immediate post-Conquest period was the attempt to set up a separate institution for vagrants within the criminal justice system. Although prisons and houses of correction were not part of the private sector, they are worth mentioning in this study due to the important role they eventually came to play in the poor relief sector. They also serve to show the insufficiency of private network. To a certain extent, they fulfilled the role of a public poorhouse in both Upper and Lower Canada, where the poor laws did not apply.

Whereas the Hôpital Général had become an institution for the “worthy poor,” the “unworthy” were typically relegated to gaol both before and after the Conquest. The term “unworthy poor” applied to those who transgressed social norms: begging without a license, stealing to meet their needs, having nomadic lifestyles, and/or generally showing little hope of reform. They were considered the artisans of their own misery.141 The line between “worthy” and “unworthy” was never clear-cut, and shifted according to the prejudices and varying levels of compassion of regulatory authorities.

In the decades following the Conquest, the new colonial authorities wanted to transpose the British approach to vagrants to Quebec City, even though the Poor Laws did not officially apply in the colony. Britain had a network of public “houses of correction,” or “bridewells” that were used to lock up and reform the unworthy poor through forced labour. No such institution existed in Quebec. These “houses

140 Petitclerc, "Une forme d'entraide populaire", VI, 70-78. 141 Lambert, "Les pauvres et la société à Québec de 1681 à 1744", 36-40.

of correction” were typically separate from the gaol. However, after the Conquest, there was neither a gaol nor a house of correction. The “Magasins du roi”, which had housed the prison, had been partially destroyed during the siege. A prison was soon set up inside the Royal Redoubt, a former defensive structure, later moving to the Artillery Barracks. In 1766, a petition from the British justices in Quebec City led to two rooms inside this building being set aside for vagrants until a proper house of correction could be built.142

Quebec City justices and others complained of this situation repeatedly, but little changed. There was not enough room in the gaol during times of crisis; the commissioners of the peace lodged a petition for a workhouse or house of correction following the influx of refugees after the American war of Independence “to receive disorderly women, vagabonds, etc., the number of such being so greatly increased since the late war, as to tend much to the danger and Evil example of the Community at large.”143 Complaints also focused on the moral effects of vagrants mingling with hardened criminals. The legislative assembly even briefly considered setting up a House of Correction under the management of the nuns of the Hôpital Général:

La prison, où sont détenues actuellement les personnes condamnées à la maison de correction, est plutôt un endroit de corruption que de correction; elles seraient peut-être mieux dans une maison de correction construite exprès; les dépenses seraient considérables et le succès incertain; mais on connaît ce qu'il y a lieu d'espérer des religieuses; elles sont liées non seulement par un sentiment ordinaire de devoir, mais par la religion. Leur exemple, la douceur et l'humanité de leur caractère sont ce qu'il y a de plus capable de ramener à la vertu.144

142 Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People, 29-30; Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society," 28. 143 Representation of the commissioners of the peace setting forth the necessity of establishing a house of correction, without which order cannot be mantained in this city, read 23 December 1784, Civil and Provincial Secretary, Lower Canada (S Series), 1760-1840, Library and Archives Canada. 144 The British American Register 1, no. 7: 107, quoted in Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 122.

Some argued that the Hôpital Général itself should be used as a House of Correction, since that had been its original purpose.145 In the end, despite all the noble intentions of separating vagrants from the corrupting influences of hardened criminals, vagrants remained in gaol.

Laws were passed in 1799 and 1802 that should have led to the creation of a separate House of Correction, but no such institution was built in Quebec City. These laws nevertheless regularized the summary imprisonment of vagrants in the gaol, which had previously been on shaky legal ground. Still, the 1799 law called for the imprisonment of no more than ten vagrants at a time, so the gaol had a smaller capacity than the Hôpital Général as a poor relief institution. The 1802 law got rid of this limit, vagrancy committals increased dramatically in the early nineteenth century, and the prison became an increasingly important player in the poor relief network.146

The situation in Montreal was broadly similar for most of this period. Vagrants were also typically sent to a House of Correction that existed only on paper but was in fact the city gaol. Unlike Quebec City, there was a brief period between 1803 and 1816 when the House of Correction was in a separate rented building, but it returned to the gaol after this.147

1.5. Conclusion

In the half century following the British conquest, there was little need to update the existing French regime structures. Quebec grew, but remained a modestly-sized pre-industrial city, and charity continued to rely largely on kinship networks.

145 See Perreault’s comments in The British American Register 1, no. 7: 106 146 Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People, 30, 342; An Act to provide Houses of Correction in the several Districts of this Province, Provincial Statutes of Lower Canada, (June 3, 1799). 147 Source: Personal communication, Donald Fyson, December 2018

Cooperation of elites across ethnic and religious lines prevailed during times of crisis. Sporadic interdenominational funding drives would take place, led by elites working closely with church leaders. Two private institutions run by Catholic religious orders existed as a last resort: the Hôpital Général for the “worthy poor” and, as of 1801, the Hôtel-Dieu for abandoned children. These were used by Protestants and Catholics alike, and English-speakers were disproportionately represented among the beneficiaries, in part because they did not have extended families in the colony to rely on. While these institutions received minimal state funding in the early decades following the Conquest, public funds increased in the early nineteenth century. A broadly similar structure existed in Montreal and Trois- Rivières.

This structure was unusual within a British Empire that typically marginalized Catholics. Most outposts of Empire had a system derived from the sixteenth- century Poor Laws that rested on lay public charitable organizations. The British did not seek to impose this structure on Lower Canada. Rather, the ruling authorities empowered charitable institutions managed by the Catholic Church. This was in part due to cordial relationships that had developed with religious orders on the ground, but also because the unpaid labour of nuns was a cost- efficient and pragmatic solution to a social problem. Moreover, in an era marked by revolutions, colonial authorities sought to win the loyalty of French Canadians and thereby toned down the anti-Catholicism that prevailed in Britain.

Colonial administrators were nevertheless inspired by the Poor Laws in their desire to establish a House of Correction for vagrants. Despite this, a separate House of Correction was never founded in Quebec City, unlike Montreal. Instead, rooms for vagrants were set aside in the city gaol, and the practice of locking up poor innocents with hardened criminals became normalized in the early nineteenth century. Although the gaol housed few vagrants at first, numbers grew in the early nineteenth century, paving the way for the gaol as an important player in the charitable network.

2. WORKING TOGETHER: CHARITABLE NETWORKS FROM 1815-1835

The cooperation across linguistic and religious lines in the charitable sector that characterized the half decade after the Conquest continued after 1815. What set the post-1815 period apart was the proliferation of new models on the charitable landscape, namely private associations run by upper class lay volunteers, both male and female. These new charitable endeavors appeared because Quebec City’s growth accelerated after the War of 1812; the city experienced many of the growing pains typical of port cities from this period, leading to additional needs in the charitable sector. But why did charity take on these new forms instead of building upon existing organizations? This chapter will demonstrate how the broader Anglo-American context influenced the evolution of Quebec City’s charitable sector. Cooperation among elites that crossed linguistic and denominational lines initially continued in some, but not all, of these early private organizations. This was especially true of outdoor relief associations founded in the early part of this period.

2.1. Factors Increasing Social Service Needs After 1815

Quebec City’s charitable sector changed and expanded dramatically after 1815. Four major factors related to broader societal changes led to an increase in social service needs: migration, proletarianization, epidemics, and war. As a result of this, the structure of the charitable sector changed through private initiatives outside the political sphere, and Quebec City’s growing English-speaking population left their mark.

Migration

The century between 1820 and 1920 saw a massive global migration from Britain and Ireland. Ten million people left Britain and six million left Ireland for North America, Australasia, and South Africa. Migrants left because of overcrowded rural areas, periodic famines, and economic and social turmoil in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, among other causes. They were drawn by abundant land in North America, the prospect of jobs, or by other family members that had migrated.

Quebec City was a major North American port, and the number of people both passing through and settling increased dramatically after 1815, as shown on Table 1 below. Approximately 1.5 million migrants came through the city between 1815 and 1870, averaging 20,000 people a year. They were mostly from Britain and Ireland, as navigation laws dictated that only ships from the United Kingdom had access to the Saint Lawrence until 1860.148 Most migrants were simply passing through Quebec on their way to somewhere else, but the city’s population nevertheless quadrupled in the first half of the nineteenth century. In addition, a temporary floating population of sailors, raftsmen, migrants, and soldiers crowded the port in the summer.149

Table 1: Quebec City Population by Ethnic Origin, 1805-1842

1805-1806 1818 1831 1842 French-speaking Catholic 19251 60.46% 7838 83.0% 12566 78.2% 20959 74.0% English-speaking Catholic 5626 17.67% Protestant/Others 1602 17.0% 3503 21.8% 7358 26.0% 6964 21.87% Total 9440 16069 28317 31841 1805-1806 data: Rapport de l'archiviste pour la Province de Québec pour 1848-1849, 109-214; Vallières et al., 691, 697; 1818 data: Vallières et al., 697; 1831 data: Recensement 1831 (JALBC, 1831-32, vol. 41, App. Oo), excludes Parish of Beauport, Charlesbourg, Saint-Ambroise, Valcartier, Anc. Lorette, Sainte-Foy and Stoneham; 1842 data: Vallières et al., 698. The 1805-1806 data, based on the census taken by Quebec’s parish priest, likely underestimates the number of Protestants.

148 Marianna O'Gallagher and Rose Dompierre, Eyewitness: Grosse Isle, 1847 (Sainte-Foy: Carraig Books, 1995), xvii. 149 VALLIÈRES et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 693-695; Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth- century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 37.

There is little information on the ethnic origin of these migrants before 1842. Estimates exist on the number of Protestants, but the censuses do not tabulate the number of English-speaking Catholics (mostly Irish Catholics) after 1792. Robert Grace notes that Irish migration began slowly after 1817, but a high percentage of the Irish who settled in Quebec City prior to 1834 were Protestants.150 Moreover, almost all the English and Scottish migrants were Protestant. A Quebec Gazette editorial on Father McMahon from 1835 claimed that he had “the extremely arduous task of the care of near 6,000 souls of Irish Catholics,” which is lower than the total number of non-Catholics in 1831 and 1842.151 Given this information, and the more detailed census data from 1842, we can infer that there was a Protestant majority among Quebec City’s English-speaking community until at least the 1840s.

Quebec City had the additional distinction of attracting a higher proportion of poorer migrants than many North American seaports. It was among the most economical routes from Britain and Ireland for most years before 1855.152 Those who couldn’t afford to go directly to northeastern American port cities transited through Quebec. Many arrived penniless, spending what little they had on the journey over due to extortionate practices by unscrupulous shipmasters.153 Landlords and parish authorities in Britain and Ireland bought one-way tickets on the cheap route to Quebec for the destitute in their midst to stem the tide of pauperism in their area.154

150 Ibid., 48-51, 95-96. 151 Quebec Gazette, 1 April, 1835 quoted in O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 31. 152 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 138-139. 153 These are regularly detailed in A.C. Buchanan’s annual reports on emigration. See, for instance, A.C. Buchanan, "Report on Emigration to Canada, 1841," in Emigration, Canada: Despatch from the Governor- General of British North America, transmitting the annual reports of the agents for emigration in Canada for 1841 (London: W. Clowes, 1842), 5-6. 154 Rainer Baehre, "Pauper Emigration to Upper Canada in the 1830s," Histoire sociale-Social History 14, no. 28 (1981): 364.

Dr. James Skey, president of the Quebec Emigrant Society, described the challenges created by this situation in 1838:

[A pauper emigrant from England arrives with] nothing or with a very small sum in his pocket, entertaining the most erroneous idea as to his prospects here, expecting immediate and constant employment at ample wages, entirely ignorant of the nature of the country and of the place where labor is most in demand, and of the best means by which to obtain employment. He has landed from his ship, and from his apathy and want of energy, has loitered about the wharves, waiting for the offer of employment, or if he obtained employment, he calculated upon its permanence and found himself at the beginning of the winter, when there is little or no employment for labor in this part of the country, discharged, and without any provision for the wants of a Canadian winter. In this way emigrants have often accumulated in Quebec at the end of summer, encumbered it with indigent inhabitants, and formed the most onerous burden on the charitable funds of the community.155

Putting aside Dr. Skey’s seeming contempt for these poor “loitering” migrants (to which we will return later), his testimonial nevertheless shows that some migrants were unprepared for what awaited them on arrival, leading to an increased demand on charity. One contemporary observer claimed that only a quarter of the English and Scottish, and only one out of twenty Irish, landed with any resources besides a few clothes and bedding.156 The migratory experience made it difficult to rely on older social service models based on kinship ties; migration separated family groups and dislocated communal support, causing additional strain on the charitable sector.157

155 John George Lambton Durham and Charles Buller, Minutes of Evidence Taken Under the Direction of a General Commission of Enquiry for Crown Lands and Emigration Appointed on the 21st June, 1838 by His Excellency the Right Honorable the Earl of Durham, Evidence - Lower Canada (Quebec: J.C. Fisher and W. Kemble, 1839), 79-80. 156 George White, A Digest of the Evidence in the First Report from the Select Committee on the State of Ireland (London: W. Reynolds, 1825), 96. 157 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 37; Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 691-693.

Proletarianization

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Quebec City’s role in intercontinental commerce with the United Kingdom grew considerably, and an increasingly proletarianized workforce emerged to meet these needs. More goods were coming into the city to be shipped inland to Montreal and the growing settlements in Upper Canada. Furthermore, British demand for Canadian potash, grain, and lumber increased, giving rise to a robust export trade. Sawmills gradually appeared in the landscape along with an active shipbuilding sector.158

These new dockside jobs were unstable, dependent on the fluctuations of the British market, and long periods of unemployment occurred. Furthermore, the timber trade ceased in winter due to ice. Even those who could find jobs in winter were typically paid one-quarter to one-half less due to a surplus in the labour market, and this during a season when procuring wood to heat homes increased living costs.159 This lack of job security, particularly among poor unskilled workers, caused periodic spikes in the need for public charity.

These jobs also marked a shift from small-scale work based on kinship ties toward larger-scale proto-industrial enterprises that drew in new migrants. This growing population of foreign-born transients in Quebec City did not have any family to fall back upon in times of hardship. Private charitable organizations emerged as a result of this.

Epidemics

Infectious diseases brought by migrants led to at least 25 epidemics in Quebec City between 1809 and 1855. Inhabitants were mainly struck by smallpox, influenza,

158 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 709-739. 159 Judith Fingard, "The Winter’s Tale: The Seasonal Contours of Pre-Industrial Poverty in British North America, 1815-1860,” Historical Papers / Communications historiques 9, no 1 (1974), 67-69.

typhoid fever, typhus, and cholera, the latter two being the most deadly. The savage 1832 cholera epidemic alone caused nearly 3,000 deaths, or nearly a tenth of the city’s population. “La ville semblait un vaste hôpital, un champ de morts,” wrote parish priest Charles-François Baillargeon. Timothy Hacsi writes that this same cholera epidemic was responsible for the creation of more asylums in the United States than any other cause before the American Civil War. Death tended to strike men more than women, and hit poorer neighbourhoods harder.160 These diseases decimated families and left many widows without a steady income. Children were orphaned or had to be placed into charitable homes because their principal caretaker had died. Infectious diseases were also more likely to spread in the grim conditions of overseas migrant ships, and spread further once the infected migrants made it ashore and crowded into already packed neighbourhoods. In the 1830s, Dr. Joseph Morrin described this situation as follows:

I am almost at a loss for words to describe the state in which the emigrants frequently arrived; with a few exceptions, the state of the ships was quite abominable; so much so, that the harbour-master's boatmen had no difficulty, at the distance of gun-shot, either when the wind was favourable or in a dead calm, in distinguishing by the odour alone a crowded emigrant ship. I have known as many as from 30 to 40 deaths to have taken place, in the course of a voyage, from typhus fever, on board of a ship containing from 500 to 600 passengers . . . The mortality was considerable among the Emigrants at that time, and was attended with most disastrous consequences; children being left without protection, and wholly dependent on the casual charity of the inhabitants of the city. As to those who were not sick on arriving, I have to say that they were generally forcibly landed by the masters of vessels, without a shilling in their pockets to procure them a night's lodging, and very few of them with the means of subsistence for more than a very short period. They commonly established themselves along the wharfs and at the different landing-places, crowding into any place of shelter they could obtain, where they subsisted principally upon the charity of the inhabitants. For six weeks at a time from the commencement of the emigrant-ship season, I have known the shores of the river along Quebec, for about a mile and a half, crowded with these unfortunate

160 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 876-881; Hacsi, Second Home, 22-24.Baillargeon quote from René Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 1830-1930 (Montreal: Boréal, 1999).

people, the places of those who might have moved off being constantly supplied by fresh arrivals, and there being daily drafts of from 10 to 30 taken to the hospital with infectious disease. The consequence was it spread among the inhabitants into the city, especially in the districts in which these unfortunate creatures had established themselves. Those who were not absolutely without money, got into low taverns and boarding-houses and cellars, where they congregated in immense numbers, and where their state was not any better than it had been on board ship. This state of things existed within my knowledge from 1826 to 1832, and probably for some years previously.161

Epidemics fostered a climate of fear, and this is one of the causes that encouraged elites to create organizations that would contain the threat. These organizations straddled the line between charity and public security concerns.162

War

The Napoleonic Wars and the resulting Continental blockade meant the United Kingdom had to seek a new source for timber. This stimulated the growth of Quebec City as a trading port, spurring the mass migrations and proletarianization described above. The War of 1812 led to further disruptions, including challenges around how to deal with over 3,000 American prisoners of war detained in Quebec City.163 This war also led to the creation of the first charitable home for widows and children in Quebec City that targeted a specifically English-speaking population, the Canada Military Asylum.164

161 Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence, 87-88. 162 Michael Zeheter’s recent study is an excellent source that looks at epidemics in Quebec City from a public health perspective, particularly the cholera epidemics, though it does not specifically deal with the charity measures that had to be taken to deal with the fallout from these epidemics. Michael Zeheter, Epidemics, Empire, and Environments: Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818-1910 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). 163 For more on this, see: Donald Fyson, "Les prisonniers de guerre américains à Québec, 1812-1815," Bulletin d'histoire politique 25, no. 2 (2017): 63–84. 164 Canada Military Asylum, incorporated 1853, (Quebec: Printed by William Stanley, 1858), 3-4.

To conclude, the effects of migration, proletarianization, epidemics, fires, and war meant that the existing system—or general lack thereof—was insufficient to meet the sudden needs that emerged after 1815. New challenges called for new types of organizations.

2.2. New Typologies, Separate Spheres, 1815-1835

In the period between 1815 and 1835, new types of organizations appeared to address the needs of Quebec City’s English-speaking poor. This emerging network had similarities with other urban charitable networks throughout the West, which were shaped by the same broad social conventions on gender and class roles. The new associations founded in this period were different from those that came before: they were private, volunteer-driven, and volunteers were typically upper class laypersons (with the occasional clergyman thrown in). M.J.D. Roberts, who studied the rise of these organizations in England, attributes these new models in part to “a rising intolerance among the propertied classes of public disorder and ineffectual public administration.”165 Furthermore, these early associations in Quebec were more likely to be multiethnic and multiconfessional than associations founded at a later date. They nevertheless remained a partial solution to a larger problem, and targeted very narrow sections of the poor population.

The type of assistance offered can be broadly grouped under two categories:

• “outdoor relief”: assistance distributed to people still living in their own homes • “indoor relief”: assistance provided within the walls of an institution to which residents have been formally admitted (e.g. homes, asylums, orphanages)

165 M. J. D. Roberts, Making English Morals: Voluntary Association and Moral Reform in England, 1787-1886 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 97.

In some cases, organizations offered both indoor and outdoor relief (e.g. the Canada Military Asylum gave indoor relief to widows and orphans, and outdoor relief to infirm discharged soldiers).

These new private ventures included charitable women’s groups, associations of volunteer men, and the first indoor relief institutions specifically targeting English- speakers in the city, as shown on Table 2. Let us examine the emergence of these types in greater detail.

Table 2: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Prior to 1835

Ethno-religious Foundation Type of Main Most common name for organization affiliation of year organization clientele administrators

Military widows, Canada Military Asylum 1815 Asylum Multiple children, and veterans

New Volunteer migrants, Quebec Emigrant Society 1819 men's Multiple esp. widows association and children

Charitable New mothers Female Compassionate Society 1820 women's and Multiple association newborns

Anglican Quebec Asylum 1823 Asylum poor, incl. Anglican children

Female Church of England Female Orphan Asylum 1828 Asylum Anglican Anglican children

Charitable Catholic Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic women's Catholic 1831 (French- & English- Ladies of Quebec association / children speaking) Asylum

Male Church of England Male Orphan Asylum 1834 Asylum Anglican Anglican children

Charitable Women’s Associations

Benevolent lay women’s associations were an important feature in the nineteenth- century charitable landscape. In Quebec City, most charitable women’s associations came about after 1850, but two important ones were founded in the period prior to 1835: the Female Compassionate Society and the Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic Ladies of Quebec. Many women’s associations were small-scale groups affiliated with a parish or church, and the women who took part in them came to be popularly known as “church ladies,” a term favoured by Louisa Blair.166 However, many of the larger women’s associations were independent of one particular church or parish. Some of them eventually founded bricks-and-mortar institutions.

The “separate spheres” gender conventions that were on the rise at the time could limit the social action of some women. These conventions ascribed distinct gender roles based on the alleged innate qualities of women and men. The supposedly modest, affectionate, and charitable nature of women made them more suitable for private sphere tasks such as child-rearing and home keeping. Men were supposedly better equipped for tasks in the public sphere. This ideology had discursive power, and many women integrated a rigid view of separate spheres conventions. However, there was no universal standard in its application, and boundaries between spheres remained somewhat blurred. These boundaries changed over time, in different geographic contexts, in different social circles, and some contemporaries challenged them outright. This idea of men and women being separate-but-equal, and having complementary gender roles, obscured an underlying hierarchical structure in which married women were legally considered the dependents of men.167

166 See Louisa Blair, "Les femmes à la rescousse : les Church Ladies," Cap-aux-diamants, no. Hors-série (2004); Blair, The Anglos, vol. 1, 69-73. 167 Boylan, The Origins of Women's Activism, 1-14. See also: Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); Kathleen

Some people saw the emergence of female charitable associations as an outright challenge to these gender conventions, especially in the earliest years. A few of the earliest women’s associations in North America, such as the New York Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children (1797) and the Boston Female Asylum (1800), met with criticism. Given that these activities took place outside the home, some felt this brought women into men’s public sphere. Newspaper articles claimed it was “unnatural for frail feeble woman, to thwart the design of her creation . . . The indelicacy, the indecency of the thing is manifest.” Others had a more flexible understanding, whereby public work was justified as an extension of familial concerns, being related to the caring and nurturing functions ascribed to women. Female benevolent associations resided rhetorically in the private arena even though they had a broader political and economic impact. Women exercised considerable independent power through these organizations. They directed operations and wrote policy, but were also present on the ground distributing aid and interacting with aid recipients. Ironically, incorporation gave women’s groups legal rights that they did not have as individuals: the right to own property, to bring legal suits, to indenture children, to invest funds, and to control salaries. Anne Boylan claims that

because collective activity through associations was the first and most enduring way in which women helped define what constituted both public and private life, studying this makes the boundary-making process visible, and gives it historical specificity. 168

By the time women in Quebec City founded associations, this type of benevolent work had become common elsewhere, and was rarely subject to criticism. Why was Quebec, the most populous city in British North America at the time, so late to get on this bandwagon? For one, it remained small when compared with cities in

D. McCarthy, Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy, and Power (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 168 Boylan, The Origins of Women's Activism, 12, 18-20.

the United States: greater Boston had over 100,000 people in 1800, or ten times the population found in the Quebec City area.169 A larger urban population increased the likelihood of social problems and led to a greater need for organizations to deal with these problems. Living in a larger city also created a social climate that favored the ferment of new ideas. Furthermore, the United States had recently undergone a revolution, and these new republican ideals attracted people that were more likely to push boundaries than the conservative British establishment types living in Quebec City. Finally, there was a longstanding tradition of egalitarian churches open to women’s contributions that did not exist in the Canadas: a Quaker tradition of women’s meetings, for instance, and women’s evangelical prayer groups. Many of the early American female societies were founded by women from these so-called “dissentient” churches. Quebec Protestants mostly hailed from the established Anglican and Presbyterian Churches. When independent minister Clark Bentom set up a dissentient church in Quebec City in 1800, he was eventually sent to jail for trying to hold registers, and later forbidden from preaching. In short, Quebec was conservative, and not a likely place for the emergence of new ideas.170

As a result, there were limits to women’s inroads into the public sphere in the early Quebec City associations. The vast majority of women remained discrete and did not venture too far into the public sphere to avoid being considered indecent. They often hid behind their married names, played down the considerable work they did in administering the associations, and let men speak on their behalf at public gatherings like Annual General Meetings. These organizations often had “male auxiliaries” that took public responsibility for “male tasks” like the audit of incomes and expenses, the preparation of legal instruments, or the investment of endowments, even when the work was done by women. There were also limits into

169 Leo F. Schnore and Peter R. Knights, "Residence and Social Structure: Boston in the Ante-Bellum Period," in Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History, ed. Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennett (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 249. 170 Boylan, The Origins of Women's Activism, 18; Cyril Stewart Cook, "Bentom, Clark," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1983).

the types of people women could look after in Quebec City: chiefly other women and small children. These limits also existed elsewhere, including most charitable organizations in Montreal, but they were not universal.171 The rise of evangelicalism later in the century, among other factors, gave rise to more attempts to circumvent traditional gender roles.

Volunteer Men’s Associations

This period also saw the emergence of the first private volunteer men’s organizations in the charity sector: the Quebec Emigrant Society, the Mendicity Insitution and other short-lived associations. These associations dealt primarily with new migrants and the urban poor, both male and female. Although women did far more unpaid work in the charitable sector than men, volunteer men’s associations in Quebec City and Montreal had more leeway in the public sphere. Organizations run by laywomen tended to be limited to helping women and young children, but men faced no such limitations.172 Their organizations could deal with older boys, adolescents, and adult men, and they were more closely intertwined with the public sphere of politics. The sudden influx of new migrants and the growth of street begging raised public security fears that required broader political solutions that were more suited to the male sphere.

171 For a discussion of the separate spheres ideology in Montreal charities, see Chapter Seven in Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society"; Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 101-104. For a discussion of how this ideology hardened as the century progressed, see Denyse Baillargeon, A Brief History of Women in Quebec (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014), 40-42. See also: Bettina Bradbury, Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal, Vancouver, UBC Press, 2011; Bettina Bradbury, Working Families: Age, Gender and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2007. 172 Fecteau and Harvey, "Le réseau de régulation sociale montréalais au XIXe siècle," 677-678.

Asylums and Orphanages

The final type of organizations founded during this period were indoor relief institutions to house the poor and needy, especially children. In Quebec City, this included the Canada Military Asylum, and three Church of England asylums. Most of these were specifically directed at segments of the English-speaking population. They were variously referred to as “asylums,” “orphanages,” and later as “homes” (when the meaning of the word “asylum” shifted gradually to refer chiefly to hospitals for the mentally ill). Whereas the Hôpital Général and Hôtel-Dieu were also indoor relief organizations, the fact that they were known as hospitals gave them a different character. It suggests that poverty was perceived by many as a social illness requiring medical attention, or “moral treatment.”173 The change from hospital to asylum to home was not a drastic shift in mentalities, but represented a subtle change over a long period of time in how the poor and needy were perceived.

Separate spheres conventions also shaped how these organizations were structured. Asylums and orphanages that dealt solely with women and young children were administered and staffed by women; those with a broader clientele had a greater male involvement, particularly at the board level. Religious orders of nuns were not involved with these new organizations at the time, though they would come to play a large role and seemed exempt from some “separate spheres” conventions by virtue of vows of celibacy and chastity that granted them special status.174

173 Hospital derives from the latin hospitalis, akin to hospitality, and initially referred more to a hotel than a medical institution. The term took on more of a medical meaning as of the 10th century. For more on this, see: D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 39-41; Lambert, "Les pauvres et la société à Québec de 1681 à 1744", 10-11; Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 123-124. 174 Fecteau and Harvey, "Le réseau de régulation sociale montréalais au XIXe siècle," 678.

The advent of “orphanages”175 and children’s homes also indicated changes in public attitudes toward children. Instead of being thrown in among the rest of the poor, the children of paupers were increasingly seen as a malleable population that could be redeemed from the sins of their parents. The best way to do so involved removing them from parental influence and placing them in institutions where they could be exposed to “superior” middle class values. However, there were no legal mechanisms obliging parents to send their children to these institutions, and many were reluctant to do so.176

Orphanages appeared in the United States several decades before Quebec City. In 1790, the Charleston Orphan House had 115 orphans. Ten years later, orphanages had opened in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. Smaller cities like Troy, Newburyport, Salem, and Portsmouth also had separate institutions for poor children by 1810. Protestants were the first to found orphanages, but Catholic religious communities in the United States were also starting up homes in the first decade of the nineteenth century.177 The first homes appeared in Quebec City and Montreal in the 1820s. This was earlier than in most other places in Canada, where orphan asylums only started appearing in the 1850s; they opened in Hamilton in 1846, Toronto in 1851, Saint John in 1854, Kingston and Halifax in 1856, and Ottawa in 1864.178 Janice Harvey suggests that homes appeared in Lower Canada earlier than in the other British North American colonies because of a lack of public poorhouses.179 However, this does not entirely account for why the United States, which had public poorhouses, also had orphanages before Lower Canada. The delay in the northern colonies probably had more to do with the

175 Many so-called “orphanages” were not strictly for orphans, but housed children with one or two parents who were unable to look after them. 176 Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 183, 191. 177 Hacsi, Second Home, 18-19. 178 Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 74. 179 Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 76.

slower level of urbanization—Toronto (then called York) had fewer than 4,000 residents in 1831.180

The following sections will examine the structure of these new organizations in greater detail to better reveal the class, gender and especially ethno-religious dynamics that defined the period between 1815 and 1835.

2.3. Aid to New Mothers: The Female Compassionate Society

The Female Compassionate Society (Société compatissante des dames de Québec), founded in 1820, was the first major benevolent lay women’s association in Quebec City. It looked after “distressed lying-in married women,”181 otherwise known as poor married pregnant women, and mothers with newborn babies. The Society distributed baby linen, tea, food, and soap, it loaned maternity wear, and provided medical advice when needed. Midwives volunteered in the organization, and two doctors also appear on the roster of volunteers as of 1830.182 The organization claimed it helped upwards of 1,279 women in its first decade, many of who might have died without the help offered.183

Although many associations founded in this period were multiconfessional and bilingual, the Female Compassionate Society took this one step further by having perfect linguistic parity enshrined in its regulations: “Six of the directoresses shall

180 J. M. S. Careless, Toronto to 1918: An illustrated history (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1984), Table V. 181 See:Thomas Henri Gleason, The Quebec Directory for 1822 (Quebec: Neilson and Cowan, 1822), 23. “Lying-in” refers to the period of extended postpartum bed rest prescribed to women in the past. 182 Female Compassionate Society of Quebec Under the Patronage of the Right Hon. the Countess Dalhousie: Instituted 6th January, 1820 (Quebec: T. Cary, 1822). The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar (Quebec: Neilson and Cowan), years: 1828-1834. 183 Journal of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada (Quebec: Neilson & Cowan, 1830), 111. quoted in Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 259, note 232.

be Canadian, and six English ladies.”184 Fecteau says that only a quarter of the directoresses were Francophone,185 but closer examination reveals that this is incorrect; Fecteau probably based this on a linguistic analysis of the husband’s surname and did not take into account the prevalence of mixed marriages among the elite at this time. For instance, on the 1821 board, “Mrs. Woolsey,” likely the wife of John William Woolsey, is in fact Julie Lemoine, a Francophone.186 The same is true for Mrs. Robert Christie (Monique-Olivier Doucet) and Mrs. George Vanfelson (Dorothée-Madeleine Just) also on the 1821 board.187 A look at the list of board members, midwives, and doctors throughout the years confirms that this linguistic parity held through all the way to the association’s end in the 1850s. Moreover, there also seemed to be religious parity between Catholics and Protestants given that all the English-speaking women on the board whose religion could be verified had Protestant husbands from the established Anglican and Presbyterian churches. The only ethno-religious group clearly under-represented in the governing structure of this organization were Irish Catholics.188

Board members came from the upper classes. Anglophone members were married to high-ranking government officials, merchants, and clergymen, whereas most of the Francophone board members were married to prominent lawyers. In 1829, nearly a third of the women on the board had husbands among the Quebec Emigrant Society’s administrators, revealing how narrow these upper-class circles

184 A look at the list of directoresses throughout the years leads me to the conclusion that “Canadian” is used here as a synonym for the French-speaking population, whereas “English” likely refers to English-speakers rather than people from England (given that there were women from Scotland and Ireland on the board). 185 Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 378, note 102. 186 Michel Monette, "Woolsey, John William," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1985). There are no other persons with the surname Woolsey in the 1822 Quebec Almanac. 187 Shirley C. Spragge, "Christie, Robert," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1985); Claude Vachon, "Vanfelson, George," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1985). 188 Société compatissante des dames de Québec sous la protection de la Très Honorable la Comtesse de Dalhousie, (Quebec: T. Cary, Jun. & Co., 1821); The Twenty-seventh Report of the Female Compassionate Society for 1849 and 1850, (Quebec: unknown, 1850). The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar, years: 1828-1834.

were. This cooperation across linguistic lines obscures a certain political uniformity: both Francophones and Anglophones were married to prominent Tories.189

The linguistic parity on the board was also roughly mirrored in how money was collected and distributed. The Society was funded solely through money collected by the women, usually referred to as “subscriptions” in the sources. A surname analysis of the 249 subscribers to the organization in 1822 revealed 42.6% of surnames typically associated with Francophones and 57.4% typically associated with Anglophones. A similar analysis for the 114 mothers helped by the Society suggests 56.4% Francophones and 43.6% Anglophones. This seems to indicate that there are slightly more Anglophone donors than aid recipients. However, given the narrow difference, it would be wise to remember the aforementioned margin of error when it comes to surname analysis due to mixed marriages. This analysis nevertheless provides some indication that aid was distributed more-or-less equitably among linguistic groups.190

Although there was no linguistic or religious discrimination in the distribution of aid, the organization definitely discriminated on moral grounds. For one, the association only provided assistance to married women, and aid recipients had to be morally vetted by a directress, and either a clergyman or two subscribers. The Society also obliged mothers with older children to vaccinate them, to “send them to their respective Churches on Sunday, and, if in their power, regularly to School.”191 It is difficult to verify how strictly these moral regulations were enforced due to the paucity of sources on this organization. However, given the prevalent social stigma and public shunning of unmarried mothers, chances are that the moral credentials of aid applicants were indeed checked, and double-checked. The religious orders who eventually set up charitable organizations to help unwed mothers were

189 Based on a surname search in the DCB and a comparison of published lists of board members. 190 Statistics compiled according to lists in Female Compassionate Society of Quebec Under the Patronage of the Right Hon. the Countess Dalhousie. Twelve subscribers’ surnames of uncertain linguistic provenance were left out. 191 Ibid., 6, 14-15.

accused of being complicit in their “debauchery,” making it difficult for them to raise funds.192

The early women’s associations founded in Montreal played a broader role than Quebec City’s Female Compassionate Society. The Montreal Female Benevolent Society, a Protestant organization founded in 1815, aimed to provide all the services needed by women and children. They rented two houses for a school and boarding home, a house of recovery for sick women, and a soup kitchen. In 1820, this society helped over five times as many people and spent over four times as much at a time when Montreal and Quebec City were roughly similar in size.193 Although Montreal’s Protestant women were a few years ahead of their Quebec City counterparts in founding associations, the nondenominationalism of the Female Compassionate Society was quite unique.

2.4. Men’s Voluntary Work: Sorting out the Adult Poor

The lay elites that ran men’s voluntary charitable organizations between 1815 and 1835 were becoming increasingly judgmental about the growing tides of poor people around them. This hardening attitude was not unique to Quebec, but happened in Britain and all its colonies following the rise of economic liberalism. Late eighteenth-century thinkers pushed a laissez-faire economic agenda that was at odds with charity. Adam Smith talked about the need to avoid tampering with the self-regulating market economy. Thomas Malthus stoked fear that public chaos and suffering would occur if finite resources were used imprudently; money given to the “undeserving” would lead to a growing tide of idleness, vagrancy, and crime. Poor populations would increase instead of “self-regulating” (a euphemism if there ever

192 Baillargeon, A Brief History of Women in Quebec, 62-63. 193 N. C. Pearce and Anita M. Mitchell, A History of the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society, 1815-1920 (Montreal: Ladies' Benevolent Society, 1920), 20; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 79-80; Société compatissante des dames de Québec sous la protection de la Très Honorable la Comtesse de Dalhousie, 1-4.

was one). At the heart of this rising economic liberalism was the idea that we are all ultimately responsible for our fates, and therefore most poor people were to blame for their poverty, not society. The merchant elite found such views appealing because suppression of charity would increase pressure on the job market by forcing the indolent to work, and allow them to bring wages down even further.194 In Britain, these ideas led to the British Poor Law reform of 1834, which made it harder for the able-bodied poor to obtain charitable assistance.195 Although these ideas originated in Britain, they were even more popular in the United States, which saw itself as a land of limitless opportunity, a bastion of true liberalism; given the abundance of land and work, many Americans felt that all poverty could only be the result of moral failings.196 These attitudes also made inroads in Lower Canada, and contempt for the poor shows up in many local sources, as seen below.

This encouraged an ideology of “deservingness,” or the need to discriminate when providing charity to counter the supposed “indiscriminate almsgiving” that had existed before. The poor were roughly divided into two categories: “deserving poor,” and “undeserving/criminal poor.” Although this line also existed in the sixteenth-century Elizabethan Poor Laws,197 the rise of liberalism and industrial capitalism strengthened its appeal. The dividing line between these categories was hazy; the poor were guilty until proven innocent, and the onus was on them to prove that they were worthy of charity. Children and the elderly were generally considered the most deserving, followed by widows, then other women, and finally adult men. These last two categories were only “deserving” if unable to work due to sickness, infirmity, or the need to look after their own children. They also needed to correspond to the moral standards of the time by being temperate and morally virtuous. Able-bodied unemployed adults were not only considered loathsome and

194 For more on this see Fecteau, La Liberté du Pauvre. 195 For more on British Poor Law reform, see M.A. Crowther, The Workhouse System, 1834-1929, London, Batsford Academic and Educational Ltd., 1981. 196 Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, 50-53. 197 Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 34.

undeserving, but also criminal, and they could be sent to gaol as a result of their “idle behaviour.” Even the “deserving” poor faced judgmental attitudes from the elites, and the fear that they were a potential threat to public order.198 James Bell Forsyth, a Quebec City merchant involved in the business of migration, exemplified this paternalism when he stated that:

Poor emigrants, coming to this country, should, for their own sakes, be considered in the light of children, not to be spoiled by our care, but to be judiciously aided and supported during the necessary period of their helplessness, which would scarcely ever exceed twelve months.199

This fatherly attitude may seem somewhat condescending, but it certainly shows more sympathy than the notion that Quebec’s poor needed to be locked up and forced to work in a prison-like house of industry like those that were multiplying in Britain in the wake of the Poor Law reform of 1834. This reform likely inspired some of the men spearheading such a project in Quebec, who said in 1836:

What will be wanted is legal control over persons who, being able to work, do not support themselves, but become burthensome to their neighbours. If the House of industry could be placed within the limits of the Gaol, these vagrants might be committed and held to labour. Out of it there is no legal power of detention.200

Both examples are situated on the same continuum of paternalism. At best the poor were presumed in need of fatherly attention, and at worst they were considered lazy, filthy, immoral, diseased and criminal.

The idea of setting up a house of industry recurred frequently at this time, though the proposed models were not always as Dickensian and constraining as the suggestion above. Testing the willingness to work of Quebec’s able-bodied

198 Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 73-75; Anne-Julie D'Amico, "La perception des marginaux par les bourgeois de Québec au XIXe siècle, l'exemple des journaux, 1840-1880" (M.A., Université Laval, 2010), 66; François Rivet, "La vision de l'ordre en milieu urbain chez les élites locales de Québec et Montréal : le discours des Grands Jurys 1820-1860 " (M.A., UQAM, 2004), 15-16. 199 Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence. 200 Quebec Gazette, 14 October 1836, quoted in Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 190.

population was a way to sort out the “good poor” from the “bad poor”; charity was to be distributed to those who showed their worth through demanding work. Failed attempts were made to set up a house of industry in 1814 and 1817, to no avail.201 A bill was introduced in 1816 “to compel vagabonds and idle persons to earn a livelihood by their labour” that would have facilitated another attempt, but it was never passed into law.202 It was only with the foundation of the Quebec Emigrant Society in 1819 that this idea finally got some traction in Quebec City. That same year, the first house of industry also opened in Montreal.203

Quebec Emigrant Society, 1819-1842

The Quebec Emigrant Society (Société des émigrés de Québec)204 was arguably the most important player in the private charitable sector during this period. It was founded to inform and help destitute migrants disembarking at Quebec with regard to food, clothing, fuel, work, medical assistance and, perhaps most significantly, onward passage.

The first efforts that led to its formation began as a result of the “prodigious influx of emigrants” in 1817. That winter, “a few benevolent gentlemen of the mercantile profession” set up a small-scale temporary establishment in the Faubourg Saint- Roch for the relief of “helpless and distressed objects.” The following year, a more formal committee of administrators was established at Quebec’s Court House “for the relief of sick and destitute strangers.” Administrators included Anglican

201 Ibid., 191-192. 202 In the French version of the Bill, the euphemism “idle persons” is translated non-euphemistically as “paresseux,” or “lazy.” A Bill Introduced in the House of Assembly of the Province of Lower-Canada, for the Relief of Such Persons Who Are Really in a State of Indigence, and More Effectually to Compel Vagabonds and Idle Persons to Earn a Livelihood by Their Labour, (Quebec: Printed at the New Printing Office, no. 21 Buade Street, 1816); Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 191-192. 203 D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 34-35. 204 Also referred to as the Quebec Emigrants Society, the Quebec Charitable Emigrant Society, and the Quebec Association for the Relief of Distressed Emigrants.

clergyman George Jehosephat Mountain, the minister of Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian church Alexander Spark, and the Catholic priest of Notre-Dame de Quebec parish (and later bishop) Joseph Signay. It also included four laymen, one of whom was the Francophone Catholic Antoine-Louis Juchereau Duchesnay. This ethnically and religiously diverse group raised funds, and the local military authorities later provided vacant barracks as a fledgling hospital and shelter to house the growing influx of destitute migrants over the winter. The Quebec Emigrant Society grew out of this committee of administrators; it was officially founded the following year in 1819 “when the concern became so large and complicated, that the persons who managed it were glad to call in the aid of their fellow citizens.”205

This new society was not as ecumenical as its founding committee, being largely dominated by the English-speaking Protestant business, government, military, and clerical elite. Table 3 below quantifies this Protestant domination. Although Catholics were present in the pre-foundation years, they retained only a token presence throughout the 1820s. In the 1830s, their presence increased slightly, and Father Patrick McMahon of Saint Patrick’s Church raised funds through his parish for the Society. However, their presence was never remotely proportional to the percentage of Catholic migrants arriving in Quebec. Francophones were largely absent among administrators, which is more easily justifiable given the infinitesimal proportion of French-speaking migrants during these years. Quebec’s Francophone population nevertheless provided a fifth of the money collected by the organization in 1820.206 Although all the committee members were from the higher classes, they spanned the spectrum of political allegiances, including at different times loyalists A.W. Cochran and Jonathan Sewell, moderate reformer John Neilson, and more radical opponents to the British regime like Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan.

205 Quebec Gazette, 3 September 1818; "Report of the Quebec Emigrants' Society for 1821," Quebec Mercury, 16 November 1821. 206 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 218, footnote 150.

Table 3: Religious Affiliation of Quebec Emigrant Society Administrators, 1819-1834 Protestant Catholic Unknown Total 1819 15 0 4 19 1824 13 1 7 21 1829 11 1 1 13 1834 19 4 8 31 Sources: "At a Special Meeting of the Emigrants’ Society, Held in the Grand Jury Room of the Court-House at Quebec, the 14th October, 1819." Quebec, 1819; The Quebec Almanack, 1824, 1829, 1834.

The Society provided aid gratuitously to “deserving objects of charity,” a category which their regulations defined in very narrow terms. Aid was limited to migrants who had arrived in the last shipping season. It was refused to families with a grown able-bodied male, even if this “head of the family [had] gone off clandestinely, and left them unprovided.” Widows were eligible for assistance, but only if their husband had died on the journey over or after their arrival in Quebec. Finally, aid was also provided to the sick and infirm.207 Administrators took turns at the Emigrant Society office to verify the credentials of applicants. Two administrators listened to claims three days a week from 11:00AM to 3:00PM. They distributed alms in clothing, food, housing, firewood, medical help, and, in exceptional cases, money.

Despite all these eligibility restrictions, some administrators were known to be more lax, and others used this fact to discredit the organization outright. A provision in the Society’s regulations allowed for “making favourable exceptions in those cases which may come within the spirit of the Institution, though not within the exact letter of the Rules.” Quebec’s Chief Agent for Emigration A.C. Buchanan, senior felt this provision was too often resorted to, and complained to imperial authorities that “funds intended for aiding the infirm and destitute widows were given away to

207 Quebec Emigrant Society: Proceedings at a Public Meeting, April 23, 1832 with the Report of the Committee of Management, and the New Rules and Regulations (Quebec: T. Cary & Co., 1832), 13.

unworthy objects . . ., promoting idleness through mistaken sympathy.” However, Buchanan was not a disinterested observer, and made no secret of the fact that he hoped to appropriate the Emigrant Society’s public grants for himself. He considered Irish Catholic priest Patrick McMahon his ally; McMahon had stated in an 1832 letter to the government that Emigrant Societies do “more harm than good . . . [No] man can exert himself as long as he can get others to think and look for him” (however, this did not stop McMahon from providing parish funds to the Society later in the decade).208

In its earliest years, the Society set up a workhouse to serve as a last resort to able-bodied migrants. In their 1821 report, this workhouse was known as “the Establishment at the Cape.” Destitute men broke stones to pave the roads, picked oakum, or made mats. Women did spinning and knitting work. In order to defend themselves from accusations of indiscriminate almsgiving, Society administrators showed a somewhat ruthless pride in paying the lowest possible wages to these destitute migrants: “As it was the object of the society to render the acceptance of their offer of work a test of real distress, these men were paid according to a scale framed, barely with a view to enable them to provide the necessaries of life.” In another report, the administrators go to even greater lengths to stress their borderline inhumanity:

In order as far as possible to exclude idlers and impostors, by rendering the system uninviting to such characters, a scale of rations was established of which the quality was coarse and the quantity not more than sufficient; and an application for an increased allowance of bread was refused. This test proved effectual in several instances, and eased the institution of some worthless applicants.

Nonetheless, this sweatshop labour was not intended as a profit-making venture, as the cost of clothing and other necessities provided to these unemployed

208 Ibid; Emigration, North America and Australia: Copies or Extracts of the Correspondence Between the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department and the Governors or Lieutenant-Governors of the British Colonies in North America and Australia. (London: Colonial Department,1833), 19, 21. Letter to Lord Aylmer from A.C. Buchanan, 2 February 1832, Fonds Q 201-1, Reel C-11944, p.120, LAC

migrants “placed it out of the calculations of the society that they should receive any thing like an adequate return for their disbursements.” They also provided schooling for laborers’ children that were “too young or too ragged to attend the free school in the town.” In the winter of 1823-24, for instance, the Society spent £300 on this work and made £161 profit, a net loss of £139. In the winter of 1820- 21, the workhouse welcomed 80 men, 41 women and 28 children.209 Although Fecteau claims that Quebec City did not have a house of industry in the early 1820s, this type of operation offering aid in exchange for guaranteed work bears similarities to the spirit of the early house of industry that existed in Montreal starting in 1818 (and in other parts of the Empire).210 However, in this case, it was reserved only for recent migrants, and the workhouse had disappeared by the late 1820s.

The Society also functioned as a lobby group to improve and facilitate the experience of migrants travelling overseas. They petitioned imperial authorities to strengthen the Passenger Act so as to improve conditions on board so-called “coffin ships” that were “ill-found, ill-provisioned, over-crowded, and ill- ventilated.”211 They also fought to limit abuses from unscrupulous shipmasters that caused migrants to arrive in a penniless state.212 The Passenger Act was amended in 1835 following their recommendations, but shipmasters continued to find ways around it.213 The Society tried to provide accurate information to “the lower classes at home, and especially in Ireland” to counter the propaganda that depicted North America as an Eldorado of high wages and guaranteed employment. Finally, and

209 "Report of the Quebec Emigrants' Society for 1821."; White, A Digest of the Evidence in the First Report from the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, 98. 210 This early Montreal house of industry rapidly fizzled away. Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 193.; Damien Chureau, "La maison d'industrie de Montréal (1836-1870)," M.A., Université d'Angers, 1996, 53-55. 211 Testimonial from James Skey, president of the Quebec Emigrant Society, in John George Lambton Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America (Ottawa, 1839), 78. 212 See, for instance: Petition from the Quebec Emigrant Society addressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, 5 December 1831, Fonds Q 201-1, Reel C-11944, p.102-104, LAC. 213 Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America, 78; Brian Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," Quebec Studies 57(2014): 205.

somewhat paradoxically, they also sought to promote the Canadas abroad against “the superior inducements of Foreign America.”214

The final type of assistance given by the Society was providing onward transportation to destitute migrants, which aroused controversy from some quarters. At first this expense was only a fraction of the Society’s operating budget215 but, by the late 1830s, it had become its principal mission. Funds were

almost exclusively appropriated to forwarding [migrants] up the river to Montreal, or to sending home such of them as disease or accident rendered incapable of supporting themselves, as well as those families, who, from the loss of those individuals upon whose labour they depended for support, would have been burdensome to the country.216

This was not without controversy. Indeed, some argued that the Society was more interested in getting rid of migrants than actually helping them. The Francophone press regularly questioned its philanthropic motives. Quebec’s Chief Emigrant Officer argued that:

The principal object of this society is to free the cities of Quebec and Montreal from the intolerable nuisance of a crowd of unemployed poor persons, without any regard to what may be their ultimate fate, so long as they do not become a burthen (sic) to these cities.217

Moreover, Lord Durham added that this function was of disservice to the Empire:

As [the Emigrant Societies] were instituted for the main purpose of relieving the inhabitants of the two cities from the miserable spectacle of crowds of unemployed and starving emigrants, so have their efforts produced little other good than that of facilitating the progress of poor

214 "At a Special Meeting of the Emigrants' Society, held in the Grand Jury Room of the Court-house at Quebec, the 14th October, 1819," (Quebec1819). 215 38.3% of the Emigrant Society’s total expenses in 1823-24 were related to onward transportation of migrants. See: White, A Digest of the Evidence in the First Report from the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, 99. 216 Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence, 88. 217 Italics mine. A.C. Buchanan’s Report on Emigration for 1839, quoted in Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 706.

emigrants to the United States, where the industrious of every class are always sure of employment at good wages.218

In short, instead of bolstering industrial capitalism within the Empire, the Emigrant Societies were helping the United States. Also, Durham and other British colonial officials wanted to assimilate the French-speaking majority, and migration from Britain and Ireland was a tool toward this end. Keeping migrants within Lower Canada was key, as they could eventually outnumber Francophones. To counter the negative influence of the Emigrant Society, Durham’s report recommended greater involvement from the government in managing migration.

Public authorities had shown some concern with migration from the early 1820s, and provided important complementary resources to support the Quebec Emigrant Society. The government took over the provision of longer-term and more extensive medical care by taking over the Hospital for the Reception of Sick Emigrants in 1823, which later moved to the superior facilities of the Marine and Emigrant Hospital in 1834. However, the Quebec Emigrant Society retained a dispensary for migrants staffed by volunteers. The government also financed a Chief Emigration Officer at the port of Quebec as of 1828, and created a quarantine station at Grosse Île in 1832.219

Although the Quebec Emigrant Society was the only private organization within this migrant reception system, it received considerable public funding, especially in the 1830s. Most of the funding in the 1820s was through private subscriptions, aside from an exceptional grant of 750 pounds sterling in 1823. This large amount, taken by warrant from the imperial military chest, allowed the Society to function largely on public funding over four consecutive winters. The Governor in Quebec pleaded

218 Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America, 81. 219 "At a Special Meeting of the Emigrants' Society, held in the Grand Jury Room of the Court-house at Quebec, the 14th October, 1819."; Quebec Emigrant Society: Proceedings at a public meeting, April 23, 1832 with the report of the committee of management, and the new rules and regulations; Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," 195, 200, 206; Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 218.

repeatedly with London for additional funding, to no avail.220 Between 1832 and 1839, funding increased dramatically, spurred on by the large cholera epidemic of 1832. The government collected a special tax from migrants, a quarter of which was redistributed to the Society for the exclusive use of paying onward passage to migrants.221 This meant that the Quebec Emigrant Society received an average of 966 pounds in public funds per year.222 As a measure of comparison, this is around five to fifteen times the annual public grant given to individual Anglophone orphanages and asylums in the latter half of the nineteenth century.223 In fact, during this short period, the Quebec Emigrant Society received larger annual grants than any other private charitable association in the nineteenth century.224 It functioned on a completely different scale than other private volunteer organizations. Whereas the number of people helped by other organizations numbered in the dozens or hundreds per year, the Quebec Emigrant Society provided assistance to nearly 22,000 migrants between 1832 and 1838.225

This short surge of intensive state involvement adds nuance to a historiography that plays down public involvement in the nineteenth century social service sector, provided that one considers migrant relief services as part of this sector. For

220 White, A Digest of the Evidence in the First Report from the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, 99. Letter from the Earl of Dalhousie to the Earl of Bathurst, 24 March 1826, Fonds Q 176-1, Reel C-11934, p.36, LAC; Letter from the Earl of Dalhousie to Viscount Goderich, Fonds Q 179, Reel C-11935, p.236-240, LAC 221 The Emigrant tax was collected every summer except 1834. 50% of the tax was distributed to the Emigrant Societies of Quebec and Montreal and 50% to the Emigrant Hospitals in Quebec and Montreal. Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence, 79-87. 222 The Quebec Emigrant Society received 5795 pounds sterling, 5 shillings and 2.5 pence from the emigrant tax between 1832 and 1839. This amounts to an average of 966 pounds sterling per year if the year 1834 is excluded, when no tax was collected. See: Ibid., 81. 223 When using the GDP deflator index at http://www.measuringworth.com, which is the best index to measure the relative value of government expenses, the average value of £966 sterling from 1836 is $5030 in US dollars in 1875. US dollars and Canadian dollars were roughly at par between 1854 and 1914. The average annual public grant to Saint Bridget’s Asylum between 1858 and 1900 ranged between $320 Canadian dollars and $1000 Canadian dollars. The average for the Ladies’ Protestant Home was slightly lower. 224 Some private hospitals occasionally received larger grants, but these straddled the line between the medical and charitable sectors, and were probably closer to the medical sector. 225 Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence, 81.

example, the section on early nineteenth-century poor relief initiatives in the three volume Histoire de Québec et de sa Région emphasizes the “faiblesse des ressources publiques” and the need for private initiatives “devant la desorganisation étatique de l’époque.”226 More recent scholarly studies reinforce this idea of an “absence d’une tradition d’assistance publique locale” until the 20th century.227 Even Valverde’s mixed social economy model, which has been applied to Quebec City,228 states that there was only minimal state financing of volunteer- run charities. Moreover, Valverde claims this model applies only to the post- Confederation period, with even fewer state resources before then.229 These authors are correct if one operates from a narrower definition of social services that excludes migrant relief services, and a case could be made for such a definition. However, migrant reception services played a frontline role, given the sheer number of poor and diseased migrants that arrived at Quebec City’s docks. As seen here, the state briefly committed impressive financial resources to address the rise in migration and the poverty resulting from epidemics long before Confederation or the rise of the twentieth century welfare state. Most funding of private efforts such as the Quebec and Montreal Emigrant Societies were sporadic, short-lived, and came about in response to crises. However, as will be seen below, the state-funded prison also played an increasingly important social service role for much of the nineteenth century.

This “Emigrant tax,” as it was called, was controversial at the time. Even the administrators of the Quebec Emigrant Society, who benefited from this revenue, were torn about the idea of taxing the “industrious” to benefit the poor. In their annual report for 1834, they write:

226 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 885-886. 227 Martin Petitclerc, "À propos de 'ceux qui sont en dehors de la société'," 232. See also: D'Amico, "La perception des marginaux par les bourgeois de Québec au XIXe siècle", 8. 228 See Daigle and Gilbert, "Un modèle d'économie sociale mixte." 229 Valverde, "The Mixed Social Economy as a Canadian Tradition," 37; Daigle and Gilbert, "Un modèle d'économie sociale mixte," 116.

. . . very strong opinions are entertained by a large portion of their body as to the inexpediency at least, if not the injustice of the tax, the proceeds of which have been in part entrusted to them for distribution . . . These objections, however, have been met by counter reasons founded on the expediency of creating a fund to obviate the evils which, too frequently, beset the Emigrant on his arrival, as to influence the opinion of, probably, an equally large portion of the committee.230

Debates over the “Emigrant tax” also inform us about ethnic relations at the time. A memorial by the Committee of Trade of Quebec argued that the tax was “unjust, unconstitutional and impolite.” They felt it weakened imperial unity, and that the Canadas “should be considered as the inheritance of the children of the Empire generally and as affording an asylum for all such of His Majesty’s subjects.” Moreover, they added:

. . . to impose a tax upon any class of people exclusively for the benefit of another class between whom there is and has been no connexion, appears unjust. Thus to impose a tax upon Hull for the support of the poor of Cork would be unjust, yet the imposition of the Tax in question will have exactly that effect. A set of emigrants arriving here and possessing the dreams of proceeding to that part of the country on which they may have fixed as their future residence is subjected to a tax, merely because another set arrives in a state of poverty and destitution. Neither set was known to the other before arrival. Neither set would have received any particular benefit by the arrival of the other and neither should be taxed for the support of the other.

This is more than just conservative opposition toward public subsidies for the poor. It also implies opposition toward subsidies from Britain (“a tax upon Hull”) for the Irish poor (“the poor of Cork”), hinting at an underlying anti-Irish sentiment. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the first part of the memorandum promotes a sense of imperial connection, yet when it comes to one part of the Empire helping another, “there is and has been no connexion.”231

230 Report of the Quebec Emigrant Society, 1834, Fonds Q 215-2, Reel C-11950, p.30-31, LAC. 231 Memorial from the Committee of trade of Quebec to Viscount Lord Goderich, 21 March 1832, Fonds Q 201- 2, Reel C-11944, p.347-355, LAC

This is not an isolated example. Emigration officer A.C. Buchanan, sr., an Irish Protestant, believed that ethnic considerations also influenced social services to migrants:

[There is a] natural jealousy of the French Canadian part of the population, who are glad to seize on any circumstance to check the influx of emigrants. And among another portion of the Inhabitants I fear that illiberal feelings mixed up with religion is not altogether lost sight of, and this latter class will second any plan that in their opinion might tend to stop the flow of Irish emigrants into the province.

Buchanan thought imposing a tax on migrants was an indirect way to stem the flow of the poorest migrants, namely the Irish. The Society had also specifically targeted Ireland in an 1831 advertising campaign to keep away disabled migrants, which may have contributed to Buchanan’s feeling that members of the Quebec Emigrant Society “permitted their prejudices to overcome their judgment.”232

Oddly, there is a paradox at work here: whereas the board of trade felt the tax was discriminatory toward the wealthier, Buchanan felt it was a discriminatory measure intended to keep the Irish from migrating.

The recurring criticism of the Quebec Emigrant Society from the city’s Chief Emigration Officerseventually found a sympathetic ear in government. Although these pleas were self-interested, there is a case to be made for the officers’ desire to professionalize social services to migrants. In 1832, Buchanan, sr. complained that the volunteer merchants who ran the Society were “occupied in the bustling pursuits of this city in summer . . . [and offered] opinions on subjects which their limited sphere of observation and other local objections ill qualify them to give.”233 Viscount Goderich, the Colonial Secretary in 1833, was not keen on Buchanan’s plan to have “money intended for the benefit of Emigrants devolved upon

232 Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," 201. Letter to Lord Aylmer from A.C. Buchanan, 2 February 1832, Fonds Q 201-1, Reel C-11944, p.121, LAC 233 Letter to Lord Aylmer from A.C. Buchanan, 2 February 1832, Fonds Q 201-1, Reel C-11944, p.118, LAC

Government officers.”234 However, Lord Durham saw things differently in 1839. His report recommended against “entrusting some parts of the conduct of emigration . . . to ‘charitable committees’ [rather] than to ‘an ordinary department of government.’"235 This recommendation may have hastened the demise of both the Quebec and Montreal Emigrant Societies. The 1841 “Act to create a Fund for defraying the expense of enabling indigent Emigrants to proceed to their place of destination” made no mention of these societies. Moreover, in 1842, “an Order in Council was issued subordinating other emigrant societies” to the office of the Chief Emigration Officer at Quebec, while also transferring funds from the capitation tax to this same office.236

The Mendicity Institution and Other Short-lived Associations

After the Quebec Emigrant Society put an end to its workhouse project, others tried to revive and expand this model to cover more than just recent poor migrants. The most successful of these attempts lasted only a few months. This is probably in part because they did not benefit from the same amount of public revenue as the Emigrant Society. These initiatives nevertheless inform us about the interethnic cooperation among elites that was common in this period.

Between 1828 and 1830, the Quebec Emigrant Society’s operations were “suspended and merged, for the time, in those of the Mendicity Institution.”237 In his

234 Emigration, North America and Australia, 21-22. 235 Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America, 81. 236 Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," 206, 215-216. 237 Quote appears in The Quebec Almanack for years 1829 and 1830. The “Mendicity Institution” went by many other names. In its inaugural address, it is referred to as the 1) Quebec Charitable Institution for the Relief of the Poor and the Suppression of Street Begging, sometimes shortened to “Quebec Charitable Institution,” and as the 2) Insitution for the Suppression of Mendicity, and the Supply of Work to the Poor. In the 1830 Quebec Almanac, it is referred to as 3)The Quebec Charitable Institution for the Suppression of Street Begging and the Supply of Work to the Poor and 4) The Mendicity Insitiution. To further complicate things, Thomas Fowler refers to it as 5) The Quebec Institution for the Suppression of Mendicity. Revd. George Bourne, who sat on

Portrait of Quebec, first published in 1828, George Bourne considered the Mendicity Institution to be “the most important of all these species of associations” in the city.238 This hyperbole may have had something to do with the fact that Bourne was one of the administrators. The short-lived new organization did not live up to Bourne’s hype and initial hopes. Created in December 1828, it was active for only one winter.

The Mendicity Institution was based on a model that existed all over Britain by the late 1820s. The first such association for the “suppression of vagrants, street- beggars, and impostors” was founded in Bath, in 1805, but the model took off after the London branch opened in 1818. Instead of giving money to beggars, people were encouraged to give tickets that could be taken to the local society ward office, where one of the volunteer gentlemen would assess the beggar’s “deservingness.” Relief in “food and work” was administered to the worthy, and the unworthy were turned over to magistrates to be dealt with as vagrants.239 The enterprise was thus motivated by a sympathetic concern for some poor, a vigilante desire to see vagrancy laws enforced, and a Malthusian fear of the spread of idleness.

Quebec’s Mendicity Institution was intended to serve a similar purpose. The city was divided into nine wards, each with its own inspector. It was hoped that “from the very first door at which [a beggar] knocks he will be referred to the Inspectors of the Ward in which he states himself to reside.” At first, the Society distributed soup “of the best and most nutritious description” three times a week to the worthy poor at “the premises of Mr. McCambridge.” However, within a few weeks, the administrators felt it best to abandon the soup kitchen idea since it was cheaper and easier to distribute uncooked food. They also set up an open air work camp for

the board, calls it 6) The Quebec Institution to suppress Mendicity and find employment for the poor who are willing to labor. 238 George Bourne, The Picture of Quebec and its Vicinity, 2nd ed. (Quebec: P. and W. Ruthven, 1831), 111. 239 M. J. D. Roberts, "Reshaping the Gift Relationship: The London Mendicity Society and the Suppression of Begging in England, 1818-1869," International Review of Social History 35(1991): 206; Peter Cunningham, Handbook of London Past and Present (London: John Murray, 1850), 329.

men, but soon found that “some stone-breakers have had their feet frozen while others have been obliged to stay at home for lack of proper winter clothing.” The Society did not have enough funds to purchase clothing, so they made a general collection in town. Despite these setbacks, they nevertheless provided stone- breaking work to 300 men, rations to 850 people, and drew in an impressive £762 in private subscriptions between December 1828 and mid-April 1829. Bourne’s assertion that the Mendicity Institution was the most important in the city was therefore true, but it was only true for that winter alone. The following winter, a Quebec Gazette article mentioned that “mendicity is so diminished, that a Charitable Society, set on foot to bring about its gradual suppression, has not found it necessary to resume its operations this winter.” Despite this optimistic claim, 195 people were convicted of vagrancy in 1829 and 162 the following year, demonstrating that “mendicity” was still an issue. Street begging inevitably resurfaced, but no mention was found of the Mendicity Institute after 1830.240

This short-lived association attracted new players to the charitable sector, briefly expanding the cross-cultural alliances typical of this period. Although 42% of the administrators had previously served on the Quebec Emigrant Society, the new players reveal attempts to extend the organization beyond the Protestant establishment. Roughly a third of the board was made up of clergymen: three Anglicans, two Francophone Catholics, one Presbyterian, one Wesleyan Methodist, and one Congregationalist. The inclusion of these latter two makes it the first known association in Quebec City to involve clergy from dissentient churches. A third of the board members also had Francophone surnames, showing greater Francophone and Catholic participation than in the Quebec Emigrant Society.

240 Quebec Gazette, 11 December 1828, 18 December 1828, 10 January 1829, 11 April 1829, 14 January 1830; Appendix to the Journals of the House of Assembly of the province of Lower-Canada, (Quebec: Neilson & Cohen, 1829), Appendix U, 23 December 1828; Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 194. Statistics on vagrancy committals are from the Quebec gaol registers, expanded by Donald Fyson, BAnQ-Q E17, S1. Fecteau’s assertion that the Mendicity Insitution folded in 1829 is incorrect (see p.194, note 106)—the referenced source indicates that operations were “suspended for the season,” not that the association was dissolved. The fact that references to its existence appear after this date confirm that it continued to exist on paper.

Moreover, one of the major players on the board was Jeffery Hale, considered by Richard Vaudry to be the “one person who stands above all others in his importance to Anglican Evangelicalism in early nineteenth-century Quebec” and who was known for his attempts to build solidarity across class lines.241

Jeffery Hale signed and likely wrote the Mendicity Institution’s inaugural address, revealing a less paternalistic take on the poor than what was prevalent at the time. It had more of an evangelical/reformist approach: it was closer to the compassionate attitude of the Christian Gospels than to the liberalist views expressed by many of his contemporaries. The dichotomy between deserving and undeserving is less evident. “To give, is more blessed than to receive,” the address states. There is a call for compassion, and a belief that direct contact with the poor would create beneficial harmony across class lines:

[The Mendicity Institution] will cause a number of lay-persons to be brought more closely in contact with the humble and indigent classes of their brethren, and to be actively engaged in a plan which at once alleviates their distresses and promotes their moral improvement.

Hale quotes Shakespeare’s King Lear by stating that the association’s volunteers will benefit if they “expose themselves to feel what wretches feel.” The address is not exempt of calls “to promote positive industry” through systematized giving, but it is framed in a context of moral reform, of “improving the characters and habits of mendicants themselves,” rather than on increasing capitalist production or of punishing the poor for their faults.242

This compassionate and ecumenical approach was not reflected in the views of all committee members, nor in the reality of its work. Board member George Bourne, for instance, seems to stand at polar opposites in his approach from Hale. While both are Protestant evangelicals, Bourne’s description of the Mendicity Institution’s activities reveal outright contempt for the poor:

241 Quebec Almanack, 1829-1830; Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 146. 242 Quebec Gazette, 11 December 1828

[The Mendicity Institution] has tended to diminish greatly that intolerable nuisance, street-begging, with its invariable concomitants, indolence, corruption, wretchedness and pilfering. The long accustomed practice of encouraging a horde of lazy mendicants could not be destroyed at once, but if the same system be pursued, and all persons would resolutely co- operate, this bribe for impudence and imposture would be no longer attainable, and the spirit of industry would be generally diffused.243

Bourne is remembered in the United States as a pioneer in the anti-slavery cause, and was expulsed from a Presbyterian church in Virginia for these views. He certainly had a reformist bent, but expressed it in antagonistic terms. He became Quebec City’s first Congregationalist minister in 1824, where he alienated many through outspoken views that the “Romish” Church and its “popery” were the Canadian equivalent of slavery. He later wrote the novel Lorette: The History of Louise, Daughter of a Canadian Nun, Exhibiting the Interior of Female Convents, having never visited a Catholic convent himself. This bestseller involved rapist priests and incestuous subtexts, fitting into an anti-Catholic “convent exposé” type of novel that was popular at the time. Needless to say, Bourne was probably not the best person to sit on a governing committee with two Catholic priests and a large Catholic contingent.244

Given this, the ethno-religious boundaries that existed in this period, however weak compared to what came later, were probably a factor in the Mendicity Institution’s demise. Fecteau attributes the repeated failures of the workhouse model in Quebec and Montreal to the lack of a strong legal apparatus for the incarceration of vagrants in these types of institutions.245 However, the fact that 300 stone breakers voluntarily submitted to the relatively harsh conditions of the Mendicity Institution without a strong legal apparatus to force them indicates there were other factors

243 Bourne, The Picture of Quebec and its Vicinity, 114. 244 Frank Mackey, Done with Slavery: The Black fact in Montreal, 1760-1840 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010), 39-40; Elizabeth A. Fenton, Religious Liberties: Anti-Catholicism and Liberal Democracy in Nineteenth-century U.S. Literature and Culture (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 245 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 197-198.

contributing to the failure of these initiatives. In the case of the Mendicity Institution, lack of shared vision among administrators, due in part to ethno-religious differences, was one factor that led to the organization’s early demise.

Later private workhouse attempts were similarly fruitless or short-lived. In 1832, the Quebec Jail Association tried to get the Quebec Emigrant Society to fund a workhouse project “as was done for several years by the Society under its former organization.” This did not work, but reveals the aforementioned link between idleness and incarceration in very clear terms.246

The cholera epidemic saw the formation of a multiethnic “Beneficent Society” (Société de bienfaisance) to help victims. The Society raised £2,750 in 1832 and helped some 500 poor people whose benefactors had died in the epidemic by distributing money and firewood through both Catholic and Protestant clergymen. Among these aid recipients were 30 to 40 widows and over 60 young children from the Anglican Church. A parallel committee of 25 ladies was also formed, which gathered and distributed clothing to victims of the epidemic. These were short-lived associations created to deal with a crisis, but nevertheless showed the same pattern of Catholics and Protestants working together.247

Another House of Industry was set up in the winter of 1836-1837 in the former Marine Hospital (now the site of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church). The administrators were once again multilingual, with a sizable minority (40%) being Francophone. The hospital had been closed in 1832 due to insalubrity; it remained insalubrious, and a typhoid fever outbreak took place in the building during the winter. These conditions are not surprising given the administrators’ insistence on providing the bare minimum “pour procurer la plus économique subsistance.” 224 persons were housed and fed in exchange for work over three winter months. When a woman

246 Quebec Gazette, 9 May 1832, quoted in Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," 201. 247 Quebec Mercury, 19 July 1832, 21 July 1832; Le Canadien, 20 July 1832, 6 August 1832; Armine W. Mountain, A Memoir of George Jehoshaphat Mountain, D.D., D.C.L., Late Bishop of Quebec (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1866), 162-163.

accidentally dropped a candle in the oakum drying room in early March 1837, the building burnt to the ground in less than two hours and hundreds of indigent poor were temporarily relocated.248

The Quebec Gaol as Social Service Institution

Where did all the unemployed and “undeserving poor” end up? In the absence of workhouses during most years before 1835, they continued to spend time in gaol, especially during the winter. Sheriff Sewell complained in 1839 that the gaol was “at once a lock-up House, a House of Correction, a receptacle for the Insane, and a refuge for the Destitute.”249 As seen in the last chapter, the gaol’s role as a social service institution began decades before Sewell’s complaint, but this function increased dramatically in the 1815-1835 period.

Conditions were far from optimal. For instance, a vagrant in the gaol in February 1827 died from “Misery, Cold, and Want of Clothing” because the building was missing three quarters of its window panes.250

From 1818 to the end of the 1830s,251 the population of the Quebec Common Gaol increased fivefold while the population of the city only doubled. This is in part because the justices of the peace increasingly used the prison as a way to reduce the number of beggars and vagabonds on the street from the late 1820s on. They

248 Le Canadien, 16 November 1836; Quebec Mercury, 4 March 1837, 11 March 1837; Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 195-196; "Hôpital des Émigrants [1820-1837]," Guide des archives hospitalières de la région de Québec 1639-1970, http://www.banq.qc.ca/ressources_en_ligne/intruments_rech_archivistique/hopitaux/emigrants.html. The Quebec Mercury’s report contradicts Fecteau’s claim that the building was burnt down by a drunk resident. 249 Quoted in Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society," 47. 250 Fingard, “The Winter’s Tale,” 72. 251 Gaol registers prior to 1818 did not record all incarcerations, omitting those for the “House of Correction” cases.

were typically convicted for offenses such as “vagrancy” or “loose, idle and disorderly” behaviour. 252

A significant majority of these convicted vagrants were Anglophones. In the period between 1829 and 1838, 74.2% of all vagrancy committals and 80.4% of all female vagrants were English-speakers, even though Anglophones formed fewer than 40% of the total population.253 As stated earlier, this discrepancy is largely a result of the migratory experience; the Francophone majority was well established, and kinship networks in the city and surrounding country saved many people from homelessness and begging.

Figure 1 shows the increase in both the number and proportion of convictions for vagrancy (excluding women explicitly incarcerated as prostitutes). In the early 1820s, fewer than 50 people per year were convicted of these offenses. A decade later, there were 250-300 people sent to gaol per year in large part because of a lack of social service institutions to deal with their needs. The need for proper social services appeared even greater for women, who represented around two thirds of all vagrancy convictions for both periods.

252 Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 136-137; Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People, 217; Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society," 56. 253 Statistics are derived from the BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson. “Vagrancy” excludes explicit commitals for prostitution.

Fig. 1: Proportion of Vagrancy Convictions at the Quebec City Common Gaol, Yearly Averages for 1818-1822 and 1829-1835 800

700

600

500 Vagrancy 400 All other 300 offenses

200

100

0 Men Men Women Women Yearly avg: 1818-1822 Yearly avg: 1829-1835 Yearly avg: 1818-1822 Yearly avg: 1829-1835

Periods are those in which “House of Correction” committals appear to be recorded. Source: BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson.

The presence of workhouses in the city had little influence on the rise of vagrancy convictions. Figure 2 shows a slight dip in the number of vagrancy convictions for men and women in 1836, possibly due to the existence of a workhouse, but not enough to have a major impact on the general upward trend.

Fig. 2: Number of Vagrancy Convictions at the Quebec City Common Gaol, 1829-1838 450

400

350

300

250 Women 200 Men

150

100

0 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 Source: BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson

While this study’s main focus is on private institutions, the rise of the Quebec Gaol as a receptacle for the poor is worth noting for two reasons. First, it clearly shows the increasing criminalization of poverty and the blurred line that existed between charitable and penal institutions. Second, it reveals the growing insufficiency of the private charitable network throughout this period, especially with regard to the growing English-speaking communities. This insufficiency continued to increase beyond the 1830s, as will be shown in the following chapter.

2.5. Early Protestant Homes: Anglicans at the Forefront

The period between 1815 and 1835 saw the beginnings of Protestant indoor relief institutions. These early institutions were smaller than the homes that came later, and remained relatively modest throughout their lifespan. The two main elements of this network were the Canada Military Asylum, founded in 1815, and a series of homes operated by the Anglican Church for poor members of their congregation.

This network continued into the second half of the nineteenth century. Given this, the institutions will only briefly be sketched out here to complete the portrait of the charitable network and ethno-religious relations before 1835. They will be analyzed more extensively in the fourth chapter, which deals with the post-1855 period; the indoor relief system for English-speakers was more complete at this time and provides more opportunities for meaningful comparative analysis of structures.

Canada Military Asylum, 1815-1872

The Canada Military Asylum for Widows and Orphans (Asile Militaire), founded in 1815 in Quebec City, came about as a result of the War of 1812. Quebec was the landing port for many troops sent from the United Kingdom, and roughly a tenth were accompanied by wives and children, at times more. A small number of soldiers also got married while stationed in Canada.254 The troops went off to the front, and the women and children stayed in Quebec City to be lodged and fed in buildings rented by the military authorities for the duration of the war. After the peace of 1815, a permanent asylum in the Faubourg Saint-Roch was soon created for the dependents of those who had died in the war. To finance this institution, Anglican military chaplain Joseph Langley Mills collected alms at the cathedral, and proceeds from the garrison’s theatrical productions were donated to this asylum. Asylum funds were also used for outdoor assistance to infirm discharged soldiers and their children “in cases of extreme necessity.” The asylum moved uptown to the Faubourg Saint-Jean in 1833, to Grande Allée in 1862, and closed in 1872 after the British garrison left Quebec City. Whereas later asylums in the city drew most residents from the city and its surrounding regions, the Canada Military Asylum had a national scope: it took in military families “from every station in the country, and from all Regiments in the service.” For example, some of the residents were related

254 The standard applied by the army was 6 wives for every 100 soldiers, but sources for the Quebec garrison show percentages ranging from 8%-14% of soliders. Lawrence Ostola, "A Very Public Presence: The British Army Garrison in the Town of Quebec, 1759,1838" (Ph.D., Université Laval, 2007), 64-69.

to soldiers from the 66th regiment (Halifax), the 54th regiment (New Brunswick), or the 71st regiment (Scottish troops sent to Crimea).255

Unfortunately, few sources on this institution survive prior to the 1850s, so we are forced to rely on later sources. These indicate that the Canada Military Asylum was a non-sectarian Protestant-dominated institution, which is not surprising given the fact that the higher levels of British military institutions remained closely linked to the established churches for a long time. The Act of Incorporation from 1853 stated that the committee of management (administrators) was made up of

[the] Rector of Quebec, the Commandant of the Garrison, the Minister of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec, the principal Medical Officer at Quebec, the Chaplain to the Garrison at Quebec, the Town Major at Quebec, with the Secretary, Treasurer, and, at most, ten other persons to be elected at the annual meeting of the Corporation.256

In short, two seats were guaranteed for the Anglican clergy, one for the Presbyterian minister, but none for Catholics priests. At the time of incorporation, there were actually four Anglican clergymen on the committee, and no Catholics. It is therefore likely that the same type of Protestant-dominated structure also prevailed in the earliest years.257

Nevertheless, Catholics still took part in the British military and formed a significant percentage of the asylum’s residents. The recruitment of Catholics in the British Army began in earnest after the Papists Act of 1778, which made it possible for Catholics to join without renouncing their faith. Catholics formed a sizable minority within the army by the time of the War of 1812.258 The 1851 census revealed that

255 Canada Military Asylum Register (1847-1857) and 22nd Annual Report (1850), Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke; Canada Military Asylum, incorporated 1853, 3-4; G. H. Cherrier, The Quebec Directory for 1861- 62 (Quebec: John Lovell, 1861), 64. 256 Canada Military Asylum, incorporated 1853, 5. 257 Ray Hobbs, "Religion and the War of 1812 in Upper Canada, Part One: British Military Chaplains," (Hamilton, ON). 258 Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 12; Harland-Jacobs, "Incorporating the King's New Subjects," 213-215, 222.

27% of the children in the asylum were Catholic, as were half the widows. It was non-sectarian at the base, but not at the top.

The other Protestant-run homes founded during this period were not only off-limits to Catholics, but also largely excluded Protestants who were not members of the Anglican Church.

Quebec Asylum, 1823-1826

The Quebec Asylum was the city’s first Protestant indoor relief institution for the civilian poor. It was founded by the Anglican clergy in November 1823. The home was financed principally by church collections, which brought in 471 pounds in its first year.259 It was staffed by a Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, respectively steward and matron. The home housed 32 inmates in 1825, half of whom were orphans or abandoned children.260 According to Dominion Archivist Arthur G. Doughty, writing in 1903, the asylum was located

in a house on the Little River Road261 known as La Maison Rouge, which was found to be inconveniently situated, being too far from town; so the house was sold in 1826 and the children placed in charge of Mr. Rickaby the Sexton of the Protestant Burying ground St. John street, and the adults were lodged with sundry persons and given pensions.262

Archdeacon Mountain’s correspondence indeed refers to his weekly visits to the “Red House,” located two miles from his home.263 Unfortunately, the archival

259 Cathedral and Parish of Quebec book 116, Documents on the Quebec Asylum (for Widows and Orphans), Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 260 The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar, Year: 1825, 195-196. 261 According to the Repertoire des toponymes de la ville de Québec, the Little River Road (chemin de la Petite-Rivière) was located roughly where boulevard Wilfrid Hamel is located today. See: "Wilfrid-Hamel, boulevard," Répertoire des toponymes de la ville de Québec, http://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/culture_patrimoine/patrimoine/toponymie/repertoire/fiche.aspx?idFiche=1407. 262 Arthur G. Doughty and N. E. Dionne, Quebec Under Two Flags: A Brief History of the City from Its Foundation Until the Present Time (Quebec: Quebec News Company, 1903), 315-316. 263 Mountain, A Memoir of George Jehoshaphat Mountain, 87, 104.

sources consulted relating to this pioneering institution are quite limited, including the collections at the Quebec Diocesan archives, making it difficult to go beyond this cursory portrait.

Female Orphan Asylum, 1829-1968, and Male Orphan Asylum, 1832-1970

Three years after the Quebec Asylum closed its doors, the Anglican Church opened a new home. Twelve women from the congregation founded the “Protestant Female Orphan Asylum” on March 5th, 1829.264 A third of the founders’ names also appear as members of the Female Compassionate Society for the same year, and a sizable minority were the wives of men involved in the Quebec Emigrant Society. More significantly, the asylum’s rules specified that the institution was to be administered by the same twelve women as the National School.265 This free co-ed school, founded ten years prior to the orphanage by the Anglican missionary Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, targeted underprivileged children. The orphanage itself was located on the second floor of the National School building, and remained there until 1862.266 Residents were therefore lodged, fed and educated in the same building.

Separate homes were soon established for male children, spurred on by the 1832 cholera epidemic. Prior to 1832, the Female Orphan Asylum had already admitted two male orphans among the initial five children “in consideration of the small number of applications for the admission of female orphans.”267 In July 1832, the

264 “Register of the Female Orphan Asylum – Opened March 5th 1829,” Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 265 “Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec, Secretary’s Book, 1829,” Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 266 This building, still standing today, is located at 31, rue d’Auteuil. It now houses La Maison Dauphine, a private charitable organization helping street youth between 12 and 29 years old. Hawkins and Fisher, Hawkins's picture of Quebec, 237; "Édifice de la National School, Canada's Historic Places," http://www.historicplaces.ca/fr/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=5502. 267 Minutes, 5 March 1829, “Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec, Secretary’s Book, 1829,” Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

situation was more critical. Quebec’s Anglicans held a meeting at the National School

to take into consideration the cases of absolute Orphans (already amounting nearly to the number of forty,) besides a multitude of other distressed objects including Fatherless or Motherless Children, actually thrown upon the charge of the Church, by the effect of the Visitation of the hand of God, which has been upon the City.268

This meeting led to the foundation of two male orphan asylums: the “Quebec Male Orphan Asylum,” and the “Male Orphan Asylum of the Chapel of the Holy Trinity.” Most studies speak of only one Male Orphan Asylum, but Quebec’s almanacs show that there were in fact two separate institutions until the late 1830s with different administrators and different sources of funding. The former received its funding from the cathedral and was administered by a female committee, while the latter received funding from “collections made in [Trinity] chapel” and was administered by men.269 The existence of two male asylums may have been due to irreconcilable differences between the “broad church” Cathedral and the evangelical “low church” Trinity Chapel. Internal differences among Anglicans should not be underestimated, and occasionally led to outright violence in Quebec City.270 By the 1840s, only the Cathedral-run asylum existed and had moved from its lower-town location at Saint Peter’s Chapel into the National School alongside the Female Orphan Asylum.

These orphanages had restrictive admissions policies that favoured Anglicans and orphans of both parents. Although there were no initial rules barring Protestants of

268 Quebec Mercury, 5 July 1832, 2. See also: Doughty and Dionne, Quebec Under Two Flags, 317. 269 The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar, Years: 1834-1841. The Trinity Chapel orphanage disappeared between 1838 and 1844. The last appearance of both orphanages is in 1838. Neither orphanage appears in the almanacs of 1839, 1840, and 1841. No almanac was published after this date. The first city directory available was Hawkins’ Directory in 1844, which lists only one “Male Orphan Asylum” with female Anglican administrators linked to the Cathedral. Nothing was found at the Quebec Diocesan Archives that dealt with the Male Orphan Asylum in this period. 270 For more about the differences between Holy Trinity Cathedral and Trinity Chapel, see: Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 87-89. Vaudry’s book also deals extensively with the violence that erupted between evangelicals and “high church” Anglicans as a result of the synodical controversy of 1857-1859.

other denominations from the Female Orphan Asylum, an increase in demand during the cholera epidemic led the committee to “confine all future admissions to the orphans of the parish,” a restriction that continued to appear in the asylum’s rules after the epidemic.271 The fact that the home for girls was initially known as the “Protestant Female Orphan Asylum” before becoming the “Church of England Female Orphan Asylum” in the 1860s272 suggests that it probably became more Anglican with time, especially after the foundation of the dissentient Ladies’ Protestant Home. Few sources exist for the Male Orphan Asylum’s early years, but its 1857 By-laws state that the home was intended for boys with at least one parent affiliated with the Anglican Church. The bylaws add that exceptions were made for children from other Protestant denominations provided that said Church is willing to pay the Asylum, with the understanding that the inmates are “bound to conform to the rules of the Church of England.”273 Anglicans were willing to accommodate other Protestants, but it had to be on their terms.

This is different from the situation that existed for Protestants in Montreal at the time. The two major Montreal Protestant indoor help organizations that existed in the mid-1830s were non-denominational: residents did not have to be from the Anglican Church, and clergy from different churches presided at meetings and visited. Although Janice Harvey notes that Anglicans had a disproportionate influence on these institutions, they were not under direct control of Church authorities.274

Why was the situation different in Quebec City? For one, the city remained the seat of the Anglican Church for Lower Canada/Canada East until 1850. Although it was

271 Minutes, 1 March 1832, “Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec, Secretary’s Book, 1829,” Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke; Rules, “Church of England Female Orphan Asylum Minute Book, 1865,” Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 272 First known mention is the Act of Incorporation in 1861. 273 By Laws, box 127, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke 274 The two institutions in question are the Protestant Orphan Asylum (1822) and the Montreal Ladies’ Benevolent Society (1832). Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 59-71, 152.

never the official established state church as in England and Ireland, Bishop Jacob Mountain had consistently tried to play it up as such, and privately resisted the consideration provided to Catholics. In 1810, he complained about Catholic religious processions: “contrary to any thing which is permitted in the United Kingdom . . . In the streets of Quebec, the Seat of the Government of a Protestant King, & the See of his Bishop, they make solemn processions, & elevate the Host, with increasing pomp & parade. . .”275 Mountain was also less likely to work with other Protestant denominations.276 Anglicans still remained in a somewhat privileged position vis-à-vis the state in Quebec City: Mountain and his successor Charles Stewart had a seat on the legislative and executive councils; the state had financed the construction of Holy Trinity Cathedral; and Anglicans had a credible claim to a seventh of Canada’s public lands (the Clergy Reserves).277 This created a greater sense of entitlement among Quebec City Anglicans, leading them to found institutions that set the terms for other Protestants, since many judged that it was their prerogative to dominate.

This sense of entitlement, and the privileges that went with it, declined progressively in the first half of the nineteenth century. Charles Stewart was more likely to pursue peaceful coexistence with other Protestant denominations than his predecessor.278 After his death in 1837, Anglican bishops no longer had a seat in government. The final step came with two laws in the 1850s that clearly separated Church and State (the 1851 Freedom of Worship Act, and the 1854 Clergy

275 Quoted in Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 65-66. 276 See: Millman, "Mountain, Jacob." Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 51. 277 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 843; Thomas R. Millman, "Stewart, Charles James," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1988). 278 Millman, "Stewart, Charles James."

Reserves Act).279 This paved the way for a more equitable relationship and greater sense of unity among Quebec City Protestants.

The Quebec City situation provides nuance to the idea that there existed a pan- Protestant alliance in the charitable sector.280 While this is somewhat true for Quebec City’s outdoor relief sector, it hardly applies to the indoor relief sector.

2.6. Early Homes for Irish Catholics

Quebec’s Irish Catholics founded their own institutions at a later date than the city’s Protestants. Anglicans and Presbyterians built their own churches in the first decade of the nineteenth century, but Saint Patrick’s Church, the first Catholic church for English-speakers, was only built in 1833. Saint Patrick’s in Montreal was founded even later, in 1847. The first charitable home administered by Irish Catholics appeared around three decades after the Anglican-run Quebec Asylum. The same thirty-year gap also applies in Montreal: the first Protestant orphanage opened in 1822, but Irish Catholics only set up their own orphanage in 1851.281

This is in large part because Irish Catholics were more likely to share institutions with Quebec’s Francophone majority, given that they both belonged to the same Church. Moreover, in the decades before the famine, Irish Catholics formed a smaller proportion of the city than Protestants, and an even smaller proportion of the political and merchant elite that could finance and support private institutions. Although Robert Grace states that the pre-famine Irish migrants tended to be of a higher social class, the total number of these upper-class migrants before 1830

279 Rosalie Jukier and José Woehrling, "Religion and the Secular State in Canada," in Religion and the Secular State: National Reports, ed. Javier Martinez-Torron and W. Cole Durham jr. (Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Complutense, 2015), 159. 280 See, for instance: Baillargeon, A Brief History of Women in Quebec, 39. 281 Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 80; J. J. Curran, Golden Jubilee of St. Patrick's Orphan Asylum: The Work of Fathers Dowd, O'Brien and Quinlivan (Montreal: Catholic Institution for Deaf Mutes, 1902), 11.

remained small.282 Simply put, the Irish lacked the numerical and financial resources to set up and support separate institutions well into the 1820s.

Quebec’s Francophone-dominated Catholic Church also slowed down the creation of separate Irish Catholic institutions. The city’s Irish Catholics fell under the authority of the cautious Francophone Bishops Panet and Signay, who responded slowly to requests for separate institutions; Marianna O’Gallagher claims they did not want to press their luck with the ruling Protestant authorities.283 Indeed, the Catholic Church retained a prudent strategy of “cooperation, compromise, and non- confrontation” with British ruling authorities until the post-Rebellion years.284 However, and perhaps more importantly, Francophones also feared losing money and control with the emergence of a separate English-speaking branch of the Church. These fears were not unfounded. The 1847 famine led to the emergence of a larger community with a more embattled Irish identity, and cooperation with Francophones significantly diminished, as will be discussed later.

Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic Ladies of Quebec

In the 1830s, several lay Catholic women’s associations were founded to help poor children, especially girls. There was the “Société d’Éducation sous la direction des Dames de la cité de Québec,” founded on May 13, 1831 to establish a school for poor girls.285 A “Société charitable des dames de Québec pour le soulagement des orphelins” was also created around this time, which opened the first private Catholic orphanage in lower town Saint-Roch.286 These two societies worked together to plan fundraising bazars, and eventually purchased a building to set up a

282 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 199-204. 283 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 28-29. 284 Terence J. Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics: Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002), 49. 285 Le Canadien, 18 May 1831 286 Quebec Mercury, 10 December 1833

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Catholic orphanage and school on the corner of des Glacis and Richelieu streets in November 1834.287 They initially functioned as separate associations in the same building, though a little over half the “ladies” who administered the school also served on the orphanage’s governing committee in 1841.288 On October 12, 1842, the two committees merged and were incorporated under the name “La société charitable des dames Catholiques de Québec” (“Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic Ladies of Quebec”).289

A similar pattern can also be seen in Montreal, with dates that practically coincide. Lay Catholic women banded together to look after the poor in the 1820s, they created an orphanage in 1832, and it was incorporated a decade later.290 The main difference in Montreal is that lay women also set up a home for elderly widows in 1830, decades before such a Catholic institution existed in Quebec.291

This belies the commonly-held idea that the Catholic network was always in the hands of nuns. In fact, Catholic associations initially seemed to take their cues from the way Protestant charities were set up, and most Catholic institutions remained in the hands of lay women for the first half of the century.

Most of these “ladies” were Francophone, but an important minority of English- speaking Catholics eventually joined. The list for 1836 includes no English- language surnames aside from a Mrs. Prendergast, later listed as Thérèse Prendergast, whose first name indicates she may have been Francophone despite

287 Le Canadien, 27 February 1835 288 54.5%, or 12 of the 22 members of the orphanage committee also served on the education committee in 1841. The Quebec Almanack and British American Royal Kalendar, Year: 1841. 289 "Les statuts provinciaux du Canada," (Kingston: S. Derbishire et G. Desbarats, 1842), 6 Victoria, CAP XXIV, 1842, 78. 290 D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 30-31; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 57; Baillargeon, A Brief History of Women in Quebec, 38. 291 Marguerite Jean, "Tavernier, Emilie," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1985).

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the Irish surname.292 The number of Anglophones increased in the 1840s, though they never formed more than a tenth of the total. These included Frances Agnes Horan (sister of the Catholic Bishop of Kingston, married to Judge John Maguire); and Mary-Jane Cary (daughter of Thomas Cary, proprietor of the Quebec Mercury, married to Lawrence Cannon).293 There were also a fair few Francophone women married to Anglophones. Some of the “Catholic Ladies” were even married to Protestants: Mrs. William King McCord was Aurelia Arnoldi, a bilingual woman of German descent who had married a prominent Anglican judge; Lady Stuart, born Charlotte Elmire Aubert de Gaspé, married Judge Andrew Stuart, grandson of an Anglican clergyman (they were rumoured to have a parrot who could greet them in both English and French).294 Some cross-cultural links can therefore be seen among this lay woman’s committee, but it remained a largely Francophone endeavour.

Children at the orphanage were given a bilingual education. The first teacher was Henriette Chaffers (née Blanchet), the upper-class daughter of prominent politician and doctor François Blanchet “qui parle également bien le français et l’anglais.” When she resigned in 1836, the ladies hired two teachers, one Francophone (Marie-Anne Malherbe) and the other Anglophone (Ann McMahon).295 This is further testimony to the relative openness of linguistic boundaries that existed at the time among Catholics. Later in the century, Francophone Catholics would push

292 Possibly Marthe-Thérèse Lelievre, married to Jacques Prendergast, a Customs officer at the Port of Quebec. See: http://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/GenealogieQuebec.aspx?genealogy=Marthe- Therese_Lelievre&pid=1444934&lng=en; Le Canadien, 22 July 1836; "Les statuts provinciaux du Canada," 78. 293 Auguste Gosselin, Les Soeurs de la Charité de Québec : cinquante années de dévouement chrétien, 1849- 1899 (Quebec: Imprimerie Vincent, 1918); Béatrice Chassé, "Maguire, John," Dictionary of Canadian Biography 10(1972); J. E. Rea, "Horan, Edward John," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1972); George Maclean Rose, "Cannon, Lawrence Ambrose," in A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography (Toronto: Rose Publishing Company, 1888), 400. 294 Jean-Claude Robert, "McCord, William King," Dictionary of Canadian Biography 8(1985); Gilles Janson, "Arnoldi, Daniel," Dictionary of Canadian Biography 7(1988); Blair, The Anglos, vol. 1, 60. 295 Soeur Sainte-Blanche, Mère Mallet et l'Institut des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec (Quebec: Maison-Mère des Soeurs de la Charité, 1939), 129; "William Henry Chaffers," http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/deputes/chaffers- william-henry-2481/biographie.html; "François Blanchet," http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/deputes/blanchet-francois- 2131/biographie.html.

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for narrower linguistic boundaries to protect the French culture and language, but in the early nineteenth century a bilingual education was valued in this institution. There was a high percentage of bilingual people among the Catholic elite, and bilingualism was important for young orphan girls, who would likely be placed out at domestics in these bilingual homes.

Although the school was strictly for girls, the orphanage welcomed both boys and girls, making it different from the Anglican orphanages that were segregated by gender. In 1835, there were 14 girls and 10 boys in the home.296 Admission was theoretically restricted to actual orphans who had lost both their father and mother.297

Most of the money to finance the institution came through bazars, which is also true of the Anglican orphanages at the time. In 1837, the bazar accounted for 83.5% of the annual revenue, with the rest coming from donations by subscription.298 Fundraising transcended religious and linguistic differences, and was encouraged by “toutes les nuances de la société, même dans ces temps de divisions politiques.”299 British military bands, which included many Protestants, provided free entertainment to draw in crowds to the bazar.300

Other Catholic Religious Institutions

New lay Catholic institutions did not supersede the old ones, but complemented them. Parish churches continued to provide sporadic assistance to the poor in times of crisis. The Hôtel-Dieu continued looking after foundlings until 1845. As for

296 Le Canadien, 27 February 1835 297 Soeur Saint-Vincent de Paul, "Le premier orphelinat de Québec, l'orphelinat d'Youville" (M.A., Université Laval, 1949), 9. 298 Le Canadien, 25 August 1837 299 Le Canadien, 16 January 1835 300 Mélanges religieux, scientifiques, politiques et littéraires (Vol. 5, no 44 (21 mars 1843)), 147. For more about the role of Quebec’s military garrison in fundraising for charities, see: Ostola, "A Very Public Presence".

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the Hôpital Général, it grew moderately,301 became less of a poorhouse, and more of a medical institution providing long-term care. By the 1820s, sources relating to the Hôpital Géneral no longer refer to the care of vagabonds, paupers, and destitute children. The Hôpital had become “rather a species of infirmary, or place of support for invalids, and persons old or labouring under such infirmity as renders them incapable of supporting themselves.” This included people with mental infirmities; in the absence of an insane asylum, it also had 18 cells for their internment, later increased to 24.302

In the 1820s, some members of the elite began worrying openly about the increasing amount of public money doled out to these institutions. The Legislative Council appointed a special committee to look at religious institutions receiving public subsidies to care for the insane, foundlings, and the sick and infirm poor. A nun from the Hôpital Général, looking back on this episode in the 1880s, writes:

Les ennemis de notre culte et de nos institutions se flattaient que, de toutes ces démarches si bien calculées, ressortirait au moins quelque discredit pour les établissements catholiques de charité et de bien faisance (sic); mais ils se trouvèrent frustrés dans leur attente.303

In fact, this quote probably tells us more about religious boundaries in the 1880s than in the 1820s. There is nothing in the 1824 report to indicate that Catholic management of these institutions was the target. The committee was relatively balanced, being made up of three Protestants and two Catholics.304 Rather, the report targeted these institutions in a way that revealed the classical liberalist

301 There were 33 nuns at the Hopital Général at the time of the Conquest, and 57 in 1855. Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 69. 302 Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of Lower-Canada, being the fourth session of the Eleventh Provincial Parliament, (Quebec: P.E. Desbarats, 1824), Appendix I; Soeur Saint-Félix, Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Hôpital général de Québec, histoire du monastère de Notre-Dame des Anges (religieuses hospitalières de la miséricorde de Jésus), ordre de Saint-Augustin (Quebec: C. Darveau, 1882), 510. 303 Saint-Félix, Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier et l'Hôpital général de Québec, 499., quoted in Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 43. 304 According to the database of former deputies at http://www.assnat.qc.ca/ and the DBC, the committee consisted of John Richardson (Anglican/Presbyterian), James Cuthbert (Anglican convert to Catholicism), Mathew Bell (Anglican), Antoine-Louis Juchereau Duchesnay (Catholic), and Thomas Coffin (Anglican).

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approach of its authors. It was “indiscriminate almsgiving” that was the target, not religion; the report even quoted Malthus’ criticisms against the wasteful distribution of charity as an example of “superior wisdom and humanity.” Public support of foundlings was characterized as “a tax upon the virtuous, for the support of children of the vicious and unfeeling.” It was the very institution of the foundling hospital that was criticized, not the religious management thereof: “Foundling Hospitals everywhere become institutions which, under the specious mask of humanity, invite to their certain destruction, by premature death, above a half of the children brought to them.” The infirm poor received less criticism, but the idea that they were “supported at the public expence” was still criticized. In short, the report concluded that the state should stop providing money to foundlings, should provide less money for the infirm poor, but it made no recommendations that these institutions should be under lay management.305 If anything, given how this committee seemed to be guided by reducing public spending, the unpaid labour of nuns was probably seen as preferable since it cost less than hiring paid lay staff. In the end, the committee’s recommendations were not applied, since sizable grants to the Hôpital Général and the Hôtel-Dieu continued well beyond 1824.306 People continued to complain, both Catholics and Protestants. For example, over ten years later, in 1835, Louis-Joseph Papineau reiterated some of the arguments of this earlier report: “Si la legislature ne pourvoyait pas si libéralement au soutien de ces fruits de la débauche, le nombre en diminuerait probablement.”307 Some remained unhappy that public funds were being used for foundlings, but not enough to change the status quo.

305 Journals of the Legislative Council of the Province of Lower-Canada, being the fourth session of the Eleventh Provincial Parliament, Appendix I. 306 Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 225. 307 Le Canadien, 4 December 1835, quoted in Ibid., 153.

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2.7. Irish Catholic Charitable Initiatives

Irish Catholic initiatives in the charitable sector prior to 1835 remained modest. It is nevertheless worth noting the gradual emergence of an Irish Catholic community with its own organizations during this time. A group of English-speaking Catholics asked for an English-speaking priest in 1817, and the Ursulines began classes for Irish girls in 1820.308 However, the most visible marker of the growing Irish Catholic presence was the foundation of Saint Patrick’s Church in 1833, the culmination of long negotiations begun in 1827. Marianna O’Gallagher plays down the French- Irish tensions in these negotiations, framing them in rather optimistic terms as “the growth of understanding between the two groups.”309 Others interpret these tensions in a less conciliatory light; for instance, Jack Verney says the Irish were “bogged down in a morass of bureaucratic pettifoggery, mostly written in French, and much of it emanating from the diocesan office, which was resistant to any change from the status quo.”310 The ruling Francophone authorities repeatedly refused to finance an English-language church, causing the Irish to take matters into their own hands and finance the church construction themselves. Francophone authorities were also reluctant to allow the church to collect revenue from baptisms, marriages and funerals since this meant a sizable loss for Notre-Dame parish. It took an additional two decades for Saint Patrick’s to be recognized as a parish. Although relations never broke down into open hostility, the sources do reveal frustrations on both sides.311 On the Irish side, it was a frustration that did not die. As shall be shown, these early tensions were brought up decades after the incident. Given this, Marianna O’Gallagher’s perspective seems overly jovialist.

308 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 33-34. 309 Ibid., 93. 310 Jack Verney, O'Callaghan: The Making and Unmaking of a Rebel (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994), 42. 311 This story has been told in greater detail elsewhere. For more details, see O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec. For a less conciliatory take on the tensions involved, see James M. O'Leary, History of the Irish Catholics of Quebec: Saint Patrick's Church to the Death of Rev. P. McMahon (Quebec: Daily Telegraph Print, 1895).

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The tensions surrounding the construction of Saint Patrick’s seem rather like an early step in the souring of French-Irish relations.

Nevertheless, these tensions need to be placed in perspective. They were not as great as the ethnic tensions that existed in Montreal between the Canadian-born Francophone bishops and the French-born Sulpician clergy. The latter looked down upon the Canadians, resented their rule, tried to have them dismissed, and came close to leaving the city.312 Quebec City’s Irish Catholics did not challenge the ruling authority of the bishop at any time. There was no comparable outward display of tension between French-born and Canadian-born clerics in the city. Tensions simmered under the surface.

Conversely, Protestants were keen on fostering good relations with the Irish at this time. The fact that a “committee on the part of the Protestants of Quebec” presented Rev. McMahon with £220 to purchase an organ for the church suggests that relatively open Catholic-Protestant religious boundaries existed before the famine.313 However, the pro-Patriote Montreal newspaper The Vindicator had a more cynical take on this. It argued that this sum was part of an “infernal conspiracy” by “Tory vampyres” to bribe the parish priest, win votes, and peg the Irish against French Canadians:

Let the Irish, not only in this City, but also in every other part of the Province, be on their guard; and suffer not their noble victory to be polluted by the foul and fetid disbursements that are now vomited forth on them from the exchequer of bloated and designing Toryism.314

While it is likely that the donation was not entirely disinterested, characterizing it as part of an “infernal conspiracy” is probably a little over the top.

312 For a summary of this, see Lucia Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec (Montreal: Boréal, 1999), 44-46. 313 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 22. 314 The Vindicator, 7 April 1835

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Even before Saint Patrick’s church was built, the committee created to oversee its erection was involved in charitable endeavours. In 1829, they collected funds to send a poor migrant back to Cork. Two years later, Reverend McMahon spearheaded a door-to-door collection to help newly-arrived migrants. In 1834, it was resolved by the committee “that the sum of one hundred dollars be deposited with M. le Curé to meet the wants of the orphans of the congregation.”315 All these endeavours were modest compared to what was being done for Irish Catholics by the aforementioned associations dominated by Protestants and Francophones, but they still reveal early steps in the development of a separate Irish Catholic community.

2.8. Conclusion

The second decade of the nineteenth century marked an end to the post-Conquest continuity that had existed in the charitable network for decades. New organizations appeared after 1815. This happened because of increasing needs caused by waves of migration from Britain and Ireland; the proletarianization of the workforce; epidemics; fires; and the end of the wars in Europe and North America. Thousands of poor English-speakers crowded the lower-town dockside neighbourhoods of Quebec City, and many were left without work or funds when the river froze over in winter. The associations founded to meet their needs were all private initiatives run by lay volunteers from the upper classes. They included charitable women’s groups, associations of volunteer men, and the first homes specifically targeting English-speakers in the city.

“Separate spheres” gender conventions influenced the roles played by men and women in these organizations. There were limits to women’s inroads into the public sphere in the early Quebec City associations. Although they did a considerable amount of work, this was often played down in public settings. Gender conventions

315 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 105-106.

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also meant that women only worked in organizations that looked after other women and small children, whereas men had more leeway. These limits also existed elsewhere, including most charitable organizations in Montreal, but they were not universal.

This period also led to a hardening of attitudes toward the poor, spurred on by the ideas of late-eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century British political economists. Private associations called for an end to “indiscriminate almsgiving” and divided the poor into “deserving” and “undeserving.” However, even the “deserving” poor were frequently considered to be lacking in moral virtue, whereas the “undeserving” were increasingly criminalized. The number of convictions for vagrancy grew exponentially in the first third of the nineteenth century, and a disproportionate number of these were new Anglophone migrants. The gaol doubled as a social service institution in the absence of workhouses or other charitable organizations to deal with the unemployed poor. The use of public funds for charity was condemned by some as a tax on the virtuous to help those lacking virtue. Nevertheless, the state contributed more to private charitable initiatives in the 1830s than in all other decades of the century.

What best distinguishes the period before 1835 from what came later is that many of the new organizations founded involved cooperation among Quebec City’s ethnic and religious communities. Moreover, most organizations generally did not cater to one specific ethno-religious group. This was especially true with outdoor relief organizations. In some cases, such as the Female Compassionate Society, linguistic parity was enshrined in the bylaws. In other cases, the cross-cultural participation happened more spontaneously. At times, the ecumenical balance seemed too idealistic and may have hindered the organization, such as the short- lived Mendicity Institution’s governing committee that brought together vehemently anti-Catholic preachers and Catholic priests.

The level of intercultural harmony should not be overstated, however, as there were certainly boundaries and imbalances in this period. For one, there were political boundaries at play in this period of rising tensions between supporters of a

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strong British Colonial regime and those of the Parti Canadien. The cooperation across linguistic lines in the Female Compassionate Society obscured the fact that both French and English-speakers were the wives of prominent Tories, for instance. These rising political tensions had an impact on ethnic relations, as many advocated assimilation of French Canadians and saw migration from Britain and Ireland as a lever to shift the linguistic balance and reach this end.

The indoor relief sector was mostly divided along religious lines, though Catholic institutions were not yet divided along the ethnic and linguistic lines that would come later. The Protestant minority tended to play a disproportionate role in managing associations, which is no surprise given that this was also true of their role in government and in transcontinental trade. More specifically, Anglicans felt entitled to play a dominant role within Quebec City’s Protestant indoor relief sector, even more so than in Montreal, and set onerous conditions on non-Anglicans seeking relief in their organizations. Protestants from dissentient churches were absent from these indoor relief institutions, which is remarkable when compared to the role played by Quakers, Methodists, Unitarians and other smaller Protestant churches in early poor relief organizations in the United States. Irish Catholics were also typically under-represented in the governance of organizations, which is striking considering the high proportion of Irish Catholic migrants that received charitable help. This is in large part because the Irish Catholic elite was proportionately smaller in a British Empire that still saw itself as defiantly Protestant. These imbalances rarely caused problems in the charity sector. However, Emigration Officer A.C. Buchanan did feel that some members of the Quebec Emigrant Society were prejudiced against the Irish and acted to limit migration from Ireland. Despite these nuances, there were fewer boundaries within the charitable sector in this period than what came later. As the century progressed, charities increasingly sought to reinforce ethno-religious boundaries.

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3. THE QUIET DEVOLUTION, 1835-1855

Philanthropy which affects to feel alike for every part of mankind is false and spurious—that alone is genuine which glows with a warmth proportioned to the nearness of its objects.

-From the Introduction to the Constitution of St. Andrew’s Society, Quebec, 1836316

This quote hints at the change of tone that was emerging in the charitable sector in the mid-1830s. The years between 1835 and 1855 were a transition period of intense social changes that saw the gradual breakdown of cooperation across ethno-religious lines. The number of immigrants from Britain and Ireland continued to grow, leading to more self-aware communities whose members mostly wanted to retain their distinctive characteristics. The rebellions in Lower Canada in the late 1830s drew a wedge in society, and this wedge grew with the reinvigoration of Catholicism and the rise of Protestant evangelicalism that followed. The Irish famine, which came at the end of this period, transformed the perception that others had of Irish Catholics and, consequently, the perception that Irish Catholics had of themselves. These factors led to rising ethnic boundaries between communities. All new charitable associations that appeared during this period discriminated along national, political, and/or religious lines. As a result of all this, I have chosen to call this period the “Quiet Devolution.”

3.1. Rising Ethno-Religious Boundaries (or the Quiet Devolution)

Much like the 1960s Quiet Revolution in Quebec, the period studied in this chapter has also been qualified as a revolution of sorts. However, Rene Hardy has argued

316 Constitution of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, with a list of officers and members, (Quebec: Neilson & Cowan, 1836), 5. The original quote appears to be by the English Baptist minister Robert Hall (1764-1831): Robert Hall, The Works of the Rev. Robert Hall, A.M. (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), 132.

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against this notion. Although he recognizes that important changes took place in the 1840s, he believes the term “revolution” implies a rapid and durable transformation, a sudden break with the past, whereas the reality was more of a gradual change that happened over several decades.317 The same criticism has been applied to the 1960s Quiet Revolution,318 with critics of the term pointing out the gradual emergence of a welfare state that began in the 1920s. Moreover, there was nothing “revolutionary” or innovative about secularization in the 1960s, since many other states were well ahead of Quebec in this process. As a result, the word “evolution” is perhaps more fitting in both cases than “revolution.”

If secularization is understood as a form of cultural “evolution,” then the growing “confessionalization” of society that occurred in the 1840s should be called a “Quiet Devolution.” The word “devolution” does not imply the same sudden change or rupture with the past as “revolution,” but rather a gradual backward slide, an “evolution” in reverse. There were many negative developments during the 1830s and 1840s: interethnic cooperation decreased, tensions and boundaries between communities grew, and increasing social control by the Catholic Church instilled a culture of conformity that limited freedom of expression.

I acknowledge my own subjective secular humanist bias in qualifying the rise of religion as “devolution.” As with all essentialist explanatory devices, nuances are necessary. Even from a secular humanist perspective, the rise of religion was not entirely negative and could lead to a more compassionate outlook toward the poor, for instance. Some may argue that “devolution” is an inappropriate term for a period that saw the advent of responsible government. Yet decentralization of political power is actually one of the two meanings of the homonym “devolution,” the positive meaning, and the one familiar to most people due to recent political

317 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 9-10. 318 For an overview of the historiographical debates that emerged in the 1990s, see Linda Cardinal, Claude Couture, and Claude Denis, "La Révolution tranquille à l'épreuve de la "nouvelle" historiographie et de l'approche post-coloniale : une démarche exploratoire," Globe : revue internationale d'études québécoises 2, no. 1 (1999).

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changes within the four countries of the United Kingdom.319 Although the term “Quiet Devolution” lacks nuance, which may or may not be helped by the contradictory meanings of the word “devolution,” I maintain that it is a useful rhetorical device to get a broad understanding of the social changes that took place within this period with regard to interethnic relations.

There were five major causes leading to rising boundaries between Quebec City’s three communities within this period: Patriote republicanism and its defeat, a reinvigoration of Catholicism, the rise of Protestant evangelicalism, the enshrinement of separate schools into law, and the Irish Famine. Let us examine these changes more closely.

The Patriotes and the Rebellions

Although the Patriote push for a republican form of government did not begin as an ethnically-motivated struggle, the ethnic dimension came to play a large role by the time of the 1837-1838 Rebellions. David DeBrou demonstrated that appeals to language or “national” concerns were part of Quebec City’s political campaigns as of 1827, but became the central focus of the elections of 1834 and 1837.320 A letter published in Le Canadien in 1834 shows this gradual change of tone in which the republican project is recast as a Francophone ethno-religious struggle:

Qu’il ne sorte jamais de votre mémoire que ces hommes ont juré la destruction entière de votre RELIGION, votre LANGUE, vos USAGES, vos LOIS et vos droits. Qu’ils ont voulu que votre clergé fût dépendant d’eux . . . Apprenez que l’on a adopté et suivi depuis de longues années l’inique et révoltant système d’exclure de toutes les places de profit et d’honneur ceux dans les veines desquels coule le sang français, hormis qu’ils ne se fassent les vils adulateurs des écarts de l’exécutif, et encore

319 I refer here to the devolution of powers from the British parliament (Westminster) to the Parliaments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that began in 1997 and continued into the 21st century. 320 DeBrou, "The Rose, the Shamrock and the Cabbage," 309-311.

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n’ont ils pour récompense de leur basse complaisance et de leur servilité que les emplois les plus subordonnés.321

Violence between Anglophones and Francophones erupted during the Quebec City election of 1836. Then came the Rebellions of 1837-1838. Although none of the fighting or political executions took place in the Quebec City area, it definitely had an impact on the social climate.322

Lord Durham characterized this period as "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state," but to which of these “nations” did Irish Catholics draw their allegiance? Sharing a language with Anglophones and a religion with Francophones, they were solicited by both parties in the years leading up to the rebellion.

Francophone Patriotes made some short-lived inroads with Irish Catholics. The Parti Patriote likened its cause to Daniel O’Connell’s work toward Catholic Emancipation in Ireland. O’Connell himself had lent support to the Patriotes. A Society of Friends of Ireland in Quebec was formed in 1828. Most of the members of this political association were Francophones, unlike the Montreal Friends of Ireland society made up largely of people born in Ireland. Both societies raised money for Daniel O’Connell’s cause. They disbanded after they had achieved their aims in 1831 with the repeal of the Test Act that had limited Catholic rights in Ireland.323

Conversely, the Tory press played the divide-and-rule game, arguing that “when no election is going on, those Frenchmen look upon you as dogs . . . , but now that they want your votes, they flatter and try to come Blarney over you to make you

321 Le Canadien, 24 December 1834. See also response in the Quebec Gazette, 29 December 1834 322 DeBrou, " The Rose, the Shamrock and the Cabbage," 311. 323 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 12-13; Mary Finnegan, "Irish-French Relations in Lower Canada," CCHA Study Sessions 52(1985): 39-40; Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850", 157-159.

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desert your King and Country . . .”324 Tories backed this up by saying that Francophones had not given “one copper of the Parish fund” for Saint Patrick’s Church, had been opposed to a separate Irish parish, whereas even Protestants had financed its construction. They portrayed the Irish as fellow Brits, who stood in opposition to the “Canadiens” and their party.325

Irish Catholic support for the Parti Patriote waned over the 1830s. This was especially true in Quebec City, where they also lost considerable support from French Canadians. Moderate reformers left the party, including most of the Irish, and were replaced by more radical Francophone nationalists. Whereas Montreal’s English-language Vindicator defended the Patriote cause to the end, Quebec City’s English-language papers were uniformly conservative.326 Even Le Canadien, the Francophone Patriote paper in Quebec City came to be seen as traitorous by Montreal Patriotes for condemning violent agitation.327 The growing anticlerical tone of the party also alienated many Irish Catholics. This was especially true in Quebec City, where the politically conservative Reverend Patrick McMahon openly condemned the Patriotes from his pulpit. In 1835, The Vindicator argued that McMahon was fomenting anti-Francophone sentiment:

The Committee Room of St. Patrick’s Church, in Mr. McM’s house, instead of being confined to the business of the Church, became, as we were informed, a regular political debating club. “What have the Canadians done for the Irish?” was the constant cry—“Who built St. Patrick’s Church?” &c, was eternally demanded,—and if we do not vote for the Tories, they will not give us money to complete the inside of the building,” &c.

324 Quebec Mercury, 19 March 1836, quoted in DeBrou, " The Rose, the Shamrock and the Cabbage," 318. For more on the portrayal of the Irish in the Tory and Patriote press at this time, see Mary Haslam, "Ireland and Quebec 1822-1839: Rapprochement and Ambiguity," The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 33, no. 1 (2007). 325 The Vindicator, 7 April 1835 326 For a contemporary lament on this situation, see the letter from “Un Reformiste Irlandais” in Le Canadien, 25 April 1836 327 See: Jean-Charles Falardeau, "Parent, Etienne," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1972).

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A few Irish sympathetic to the Patriotes tried to have McMahon ousted as priest because of his political views, but their petition gathered only a handful of signatures. Conversely, a counter-petition in favor of McMahon garnered 2,000 signatures, suggesting that the vast majority of Quebec’s Irish Catholics were firmly on his side and, by extension, loyal to the colonial government.328 The Francophone clergy had no intention of deposing McMahon; it also eventually showed itself to be on the side of civil authorities, and warned rebels that they would not receive absolution at confession.329 DeBrou’s research on the 1836 elections also confirms that Quebec’s Irish Catholics were on the Tory side by this point.330 McMahon was eventually lauded by the commander of the Quebec garrison for “his Loyalty and attachment to the British Government.”331 By the time of the Rebellions, the only notable Irishman remaining among the Patriote insurgents was Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan.332 He fled to the United States during the Rebellions and never again set foot in the Canadas.

The political struggles of the 1830s and the violence that ensued eroded the interethnic cooperation that had existed among Quebec’s elites. Ethnic divisions gradually set in. Furthermore, Lord Durham’s disparaging remarks about French Canadians and calls for their assimilation in his 1839 report stoked fears that encouraged Francophones to erect higher defensive boundaries around themselves and their community.

With the Patriotes defeated and discredited, the Catholic Church positioned itself as a viable alternative. Although many of the Protestant elite in government had a dim view of Catholicism, they recognized the Church as a valuable ally to keep further resistance in check. The loyalty shown by Catholic religious leaders during

328 Le Canadien, 25 April 1836. 329 Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec, 52. 330 DeBrou, " The Rose, the Shamrock and the Cabbage," 305. 331 Marianna O'Gallagher, "McMahon, Patrick " in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1985). 332 Finnegan, "Irish-French Relations in Lower Canada," 37, 41.

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the Rebellions facilitated their rise in the 1840s. The Church no longer needed to tread cautiously with the creation of new organizations. The coast was clear, the Catholic Church could mostly do what it wanted as long as it kept the population under control, and it did.333

A Renewed Catholicism

In the 1840s, Catholicism in Lower Canada became more self-confident, aggressive, and omnipresent. A nun at the Hôpital Général wrote the following in 1842:

On voit avec consolation la religion refleurir et comme triompher dans cette province. On dirait que les troubles politiques qui ont donné tant d’appréhension et causé de si vives alarmes parmi le peuple n’ont été que des brouillards qui ont servi à donner un plus grand calme et une plus grande ferveur à l’Église du Canada. Depuis 1840, un changement de mœurs se fait sensiblement remarquer dans toutes les classes de notre société.334

The Church had already begun its rise in the 1830s. The Catholic emancipation that took place in the United Kingdom in 1829 had no direct legal repercussions on Lower Canada, but it did put several dents in the idea of a Protestant-run British Empire. The colonial government of Lower Canada loosened restrictions on the creation of new parishes in 1831, and the diocese of Montreal took shape in 1836 under the independent-minded Bishop Lartigue. However, it was only after the Patriote Rebellion that major changes took place.335

333 There were still some minor exceptions: the State continued to be opposed to the naturalization of foreign nuns and brothers, and refused for decades to incorporate male religious orders, for instance. Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec, 63. 334 Archives de l’Hôpital Général, lettres parties du Canada, 1750-1935 quoted in Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 106. 335 Ibid., 214.

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Many historians credit Charles de Forbin-Janson, the exiled bishop of Nancy and Toul, with kickstarting this tendency. He led scores of Catholic religious revivals in sixty cities and villages throughout Lower Canada between September 1840 and December 1841. The first of these was in Quebec City. Saint-Roch church was bursting at the seams, with 10,000 participants attending his daily sermons. Forbin- Janson’s approach took a cue from Protestant evangelical revivals: the bishop denounced sin, instilled the fear of hell, and raised the possibility of repentance as a delivery from eternal damnation. Catholic revivals were different from Protestant ones in that repentance took on a sacramental form through confession and communion. Moreover, unlike Protestant evangelicals who promoted a direct one- on-one relationship between individuals and the Bible, Catholic revivals stressed submission to clerical authority. This fire-and-brimstone preaching went on for weeks, and Forbin-Janson’s voice was said to roll like thunder against the arches of the church, revealing “les sombres cavernes et les désolations de l’éternité.” By the end, the 35 confessors present to absolve the God-fearing masses were not sufficient to meet the needs. A temperance society was founded at the end of the revival. 2,000 Irish Catholics, or nearly a third of the Saint Patrick’s congregation, took a temperance pledge in the first six months of this society. Rene Hardy has shown that Forbin-Janson’s revivals had a lasting impact on the number of people attending confession in subsequent years.336

In addition to these revivals, the influence of Ultramontanism strengthened the attachment of Catholics to the Church through the development of an all- encompassing network of institutions. Ultramontanism arose as a response to republicanism in France, which had threatened the social order promoted by the Church. Similarly, its rise as a counter-force in Canada East followed the republican challenge of 1837-1838. Ultramontanism was an anti-liberal doctrine that advocated papal supremacy and the state’s dependence on the Church in

336 Ibid., 69-74; Philippe Sylvain, "Forbin-Janson, Charles-Auguste-Marie de," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1988); Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec, 58; Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 165-166; Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics, 76-77.

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certain matters. It promoted a strong Catholic Church with a cradle-to-grave omnipresence in the fields of education, social services, and the press. The number of priests more than quadrupled between 1830 and 1860. Five new male religious communities and fifteen female orders set up in the province between 1840 and 1865. Rene Hardy describes this as the dawn of an era of social control by the Catholic Church, leading to an increasingly conformist society that suppressed dissent.337

Ultramontanism also contributed to rising insularity among Francophones in Quebec. Nadia F. Eid shows that Francophone Ultramontane ideologues frequently conflated “religion” and “patrie,” which became a leitmotiv in their writings. The Church sought to position itself as the only legitimate authority given, among other things, Lord Durham’s assimilationist program for the state. This conflation had the unconscious effect of legitimizing the church as state, but it also contributed to building boundaries delineating the Francophone “religion-patrie,” further easing social control.338

But, beneath all this control, there was also a romantic quality to Ultramontanism. Although the historiography has focused on the authoritarianism of Montreal’s Bishop Bourget and the excommunication of liberals, the changes in religious practices weren’t always experienced as harsh repression. After 1840, the number of devotional celebrations printed in prayer books increased: rituals to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to the passion of Christ, the Way of the Cross, and to a whole slew of saints. There was a festive community-building aspect to all the colorful prayers, pilgrimages, processions, novenas, temperance societies, confraternities, and celebrations. Forgiveness at confession was usually granted with fewer conditions

337 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 11, 68. See also: Nive Voisine, Jean Hamelin, and Philippe Sylvain, Les Ultramontains canadiens-français (Montreal: Boréal Express, 1985); Nadia F. Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec : une analyse de l'idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle (Montreal: Hurtubise, 1978). 338 Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, 250; Jean-Pierre Charland, L'entreprise éducative au Québec, 1840-1900 (Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2000), 56.

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and penances than before. Rome was pushing for a conception of God that was more about hope than fear, more about mercy than vengeance.339

In practice, this conception took some time to trickle down to Quebec City. The majority of the sermons in Quebec City throughout the 1840s depicted God in a vengeful light. The repression following the Rebellions of 1837-1838 and the fires that destroyed entire neighbourhoods in 1845 were presented from the pulpit as forms of divine judgment. People came to the church to collect buckets of holy water as a way to ward off God’s anger.340

This is in part because Ultramontanism had less of an impact in Quebec City than in Montreal. As a result, things were slower to change; there was a slight lag in the growth of religious organizations and Catholic social services. Liberalism was also weaker in Quebec City, leading to a less polarized environment. For example, whereas Montreal’s Institut Canadien was unabashedly liberal and its members faced excommunication for circulating books on the papal index, Quebec’s Institut Canadien was more in tune with the Church. Bishop Signay of Quebec City was less of a firebrand than his Montreal counterpart, and continued to tread prudently with regard to the British ruling classes long after the Rebellions. Later bishops in Quebec City even repudiated Ultramontanism outright. Quebec City was more quietly conservative than Montreal, more centrist, keener to achieve consensus, and less prone to ideological conflicts.341

This is also true of Irish-French relations among the clergy throughout this period. In Montreal, the Sulpician father Patrick Dowd was a strong leader for the city’s Irish Catholics, and he clashed with the anti-Sulpician Bishop Bourget.342 There

339 Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec, 61-62; Jay P. Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 53-54. 340 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 99-103. 341 Voisine, Hamelin, and Gagnon, Histoire du catholicisme québécois, v2, t2, 57-58. 342 Jason King, "L'historiographie irlando-québécoise : conflits et conciliations entre Canadiens français et Irlandais," Bulletin d'histoire politique 18, no. 3 (2010): website.

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was less antagonism between the Irish priests in Quebec City and the moderate Francophone Bishops in the 1830s and 1840s.

Nevertheless, the growing influence of the Catholic Church in the 1840s did not bypass the city. This period saw an unprecedented increase in the number of religious communities. No new religious orders had set up in the city between the Conquest and 1840. The 1840s saw the arrival of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1843;343 the Congregation of Notre Dame in 1844; the lay Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in 1846; the Sisters of Charity of Quebec in 1849; the return of the Jesuits that same year; and the creation of the Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec in 1850.344

This Catholic religious renewal was not unique to Quebec; it occurred elsewhere in the North Atlantic world. In Toronto, Ultramontane Bishop Power also began changing things in the 1840s, triggering a devotional revolution in the latter half of the century that stimulated “an energetic piety and lay leadership.”345 In the United States, Jay Dolan writes of “the significance of the 1840s and 1850s” in the emergence of a devotional Catholicism that created an “enclosed Catholic subculture.” This made the instances of cooperation between Protestants and Catholics that had existed previously less likely: “a siege mentality emerged, fostering a militant sectarian attitude that was no friend to tolerance.”346 Similarly, across the Atlantic, the Ultramontane Archbishop of Dublin Paul Cullen transformed Ireland into one of the most religiously observant countries in the Catholic world in the second half of the nineteenth century.347 Given that the percentage of Catholics in Quebec City was higher than elsewhere in North America, the devotionalism probably had a more visible and dominating presence.

343 Nive Voisine, Les Frères des écoles chrétiennes au Canada, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Sainte-Foy: Éditions Anne Sigier, 1987), 79. 344 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 1289-1292. 345 Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics, 88-89. 346 Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism, 52-55, 59-60. 347 Jay P. Dolan, The Irish Americans: A History (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), 108-109.

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Evangelicalism and its Influence on Protestants

Alongside this reinvigorated Catholicism, and at times stimulated by a reaction against Ultramontanism, Protestants also became more pious and religious. This shift was part a global phenomenon influenced by the spread of evangelicalism and the revivals that went with it. Evangelicalism favored denominational solidarity among Protestants, making them more self-consciously “Protestant.” This strengthened the divide with Catholics, leading to higher boundaries around the community.

Evangelicalism began in 1730s England as a popular movement. Protestant evangelicals questioned the authority and teachings of the established churches, stressed a direct relationship between individuals and the Bible, and called for more active Christian engagement with the world.348 They were opposed to authoritarianism and ritualism, especially in Catholicism but later also in “high- church” Anglicanism. The evangelical movement was not affiliated with one particular Church, and there were even evangelicals within established churches who sought to reform them. However, some churches were arguably more evangelical than others. The early Methodists, for instance, with their fiery oratory, charismatic wandering preachers, and rejection of ecclesiastical hierarchy were certainly more evangelical than the more upper-class and restrained evangelical reformers within the Anglican Church.

Evangelicalism started its tentative growth in Quebec City at the turn of the nineteenth century, but failed to gather much steam in its early days. In 1800, a group of “friends of Evangelical doctrines” broke away from the Presbyterians and asked the London Missionary Society to send a non-denominational preacher. The reverend Clark Bentom, who alienated most of the Protestant elite and spent time in gaol, oversaw a small congregation of about 50-60 people established in Freemasons’ Hall. The Missionary Society continued to send replacements, and

348 David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 1-3.

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the small group built Saint John’s chapel in 1816-1817. American Methodist “saddlebag preachers” also visited Quebec but found little encouragement. Preacher Nathan Bangs, who drew large crowds in Upper Canada, spent three months in Quebec City in 1806. He met opposition from the established churches, his congregation dwindled down to a half-dozen persons, and he finally left what he called “that hardened place.” A decade later, there were enough Methodists in town to build a first chapel in 1817.349

The building of Methodist and Congregationalist chapels in 1817 meant that evangelicalism was taking root in Quebec City. The evangelical foothold grew slowly with the waves of migration after this date. Another Methodist place of worship was built by the harbor in 1830. Evangelicalism also grew within the Anglican Church, and Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell paid for the construction of Trinity Chapel in 1825, which became their stronghold.350

However, as with Catholicism, the 1840s took things to another scale. There were only 240 Methodists in the city in 1840, but they had built a large 300-seat chapel in 1838 to hold protracted meetings, an urban version of rural camp meetings or revivals. Soon after Forbin-Janson’s Catholic revivals, Reverend James Caughey held a 14-week meeting of preaching, praying, and singing in the winter of 1840, and Quebec’s Methodist Society reported an increase to 430 members.351 By 1847, the Methodists were building a chapel with seating for 1,200 people on Saint Stanislas Street.352 Congregationalists also built a proper granite church building in the 1840s, and British Baptists set up in town as of 1845.353 As for the established churches, evangelicalism was redefining things from within. The spread of

349 George W. Crawford, Remember All the Way: The History of Chalmers-Wesley United Church, Quebec City (Montreal: Price-Patterson, 2006), 18, 20-23, 31-33, 42; Cook, "Bentom, Clark." 350 Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 12; Crawford, Remember All the Way, 50, 56. 351 Crawford, Remember All the Way, 56-59. 352 Ibid., 103-105. 353 Ibid., 87-88; "Quebec Baptist Church - History," Quebec Baptist Church, http://quebecbaptistchurch.homestead.com/History.html.

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evangelicalism in Scotland led to the “Great Disruption” of 1843, creating a breakaway “Free” Presbyterian Church. A year later in Quebec City, Saint John’s Presbyterian Church broke free from the established Scottish Church.354 Quebec City’s evangelical Anglicans founded their own paper, The Berean, in 1844, to oppose “Romanizing tendencies” within the Anglican Church.355 Furthermore, when Jeffery Hale’s position as Receiver General of Lower Canada was abolished with the Act of Union in 1841, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to philanthropy and the spread of Anglican Evangelicalism.356 Richard Vaudry considers Hale the most important Anglican Evangelical in Quebec City, and he played an important role in the charitable sector.357

This growth of evangelicalism in Quebec City was not as significant as elsewhere, but statistics still show moderate increases, as seen on Table 4. The percentage of people that did not belong to the Catholic Church or the two established Protestant Churches grew between 1830 and 1860 in Quebec City. They represented 1.06% of the total in 1831,358 2.90% in 1844,359 and somewhere between 3.64% and 3.97% in 1861.360 These percentages exclude the growing number of Anglican

354 Crawford, Remember All the Way, 78-81. 355 Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 156-157. 356 Whereas the Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry for Jeffery Hale states that his hopes to “succeed [his father] on his death in 1838 unfortunately came to nothing,” government records indicate the contrary. Jeffery Hale received the annual receiver general’s salary for over two years after his father’s death. The position of Receiver general of Lower Canada was abolished following the Act of Union in 1841. See: Robert Garon, "Hale, Jeffery," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1976); Appendice du troisième volume des journaux de l'Assemblée législative de la Province du Canada, (Kingston: E.J. Barker, 1844), Appendice C.C., Tableau des Departements du Gouvernement Exécutif pour les années 1840, 1841 et 1842. 357 Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 151. 358 Statistics Canada. LC Table III - Population by Religions, 1831 - Lower Canada (table), 1831 - Census of Lower Canada (Population/General) (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi- win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&EST-Fi=EStat\English\SC_RR-eng.htm (accessed: January 4, 2012) 359 Source: Statistics Canada. LC Table II - Population by Religions., 1844 - Lower Canada (table), 1844 - Census of Lower Canada (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi- win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&EST-Fi=EStat\English\SC_RR-eng.htm (accessed: January 4, 2012) 360 The latter percentage includes people identifying themselves as “Christian,” “Protestant” and “Not Given.” It also includes Free Church Presbyterians and Presbyterians who did not identify themselves as being part of the Church of Scotland. Statistics Canada. 61 LC Table II. - Religions of People., 1860-61 Lower Canada, 64

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Evangelicals, which were not tabulated in decennial censuses but were likely of some significance given their many organizations in town.

Table 4: Population by Religious Affiliation in Quebec (City & County), 1831, 1861

1831 1861

Catholics 27,872 77.04% 65,936 83.46%

Church of England (Anglican) 5,580 15.42% 7,818 9.90%

Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) 2,344 6.48% 2,115 2.68%

Methodists 337 0.93% 1,311 1.66%

Presbyterians - Free Church and unspecified N/A 1,097 1.39%

Congregationalists 0 0.00% 254 0.32%

Baptists 14 0.04% 181 0.23%

Jews 3 0.01% 111 0.14%

Lutherans 0 0.00% 25 0.03%

Unitarians 0 0.00% 19 0.02%

Quakers 0 0.00% 13 0.02%

Universalists 0 0.00% 4 0.01%

Mormons 0 0.00% 1 0.00%

Other/Not given 29 0.08% 117 0.15% Source: Canadian Census reports by religion for 1831 and 1861

Comparing these statistics with those of Sherbrooke and Montreal confirms that Quebec City always remained more of a conservative Protestant establishment town. Table 5 below shows that the percentage of people from disestablished Churches in Montreal was more than twice what it was in Quebec City in 1844.

areas (table), 1860-61 - Census of Lower Canada (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&EST-Fi=EStat\English\SC_RR-eng.htm (accessed: January 6, 2012)

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Montreal also had a Unitarian Church that drew in hundreds of people, which eventually included influential figures such as the Molsons, Van Hornes, and Morgans; the progressive Unitarian Church was perhaps too progressive for Quebec City.361 However, the differences between Montreal and Quebec are minimal compared to the evangelical influence in the borderland regions of the Eastern Townships. 53% of the total population in Sherbrooke did not belong to the three main Churches.362 Evangelicalism certainly had a larger influence on the frontiers and in newly-established towns. For example, the first church to be built in Hamilton, Ontario was a Methodist chapel.363

361 Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850", 107-109. 362 For a detailed study of religion in the Eastern Townships, see J. I. Little, Borderland Religion: The Emergence of an English-Canadian Identity, 1792-1852 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). 363 Carmen J. Nielson, Private Women and the Public Good: Charity and State Formation in Hamilton, Ontario, 1846-93 (Vancouver; Toronto: UBC Press, 2014), 17.

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Table 5: Population by Religious Affiliation in Selected Regions of Lower Canada, 1844

Church of Church of County Catholic Other England Scotland364 Quebec City 36,370 5,494 2,569 1,328 % of total 79% 12% 6% 3% Montreal 47,072 7,616 5,618 4,591 % of total 72% 12% 9% 7% Sherbrooke 1,990 3,269 1,124 7,196 % of total 15% 24% 8% 53%

Source: Statistics Canada. LC Table II - Population by Religions., 1844 - Lower Canada (table), 1844 - Census of Lower Canada (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi- win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&EST-Fi=EStat\English\SC_RR-eng.htm (accessed: January 4, 2012)

Denominational solidarity among Protestants increased throughout this period. The established Protestant churches grew increasingly tolerant of smaller denominations and no longer sought to repress their growth. The 1851 law disestablishing religions signaled an end to Anglican attempts to control the religious sector. It facilitated the rise of evangelicalism and led to greater solidarity among Protestants. Solidarity also came about as a reaction to the growing strength of Ultramontanism.

Missionary activities were an important aspect of evangelicalism, and proselytism toward Catholics was encouraged. The 1840s also saw a worldwide spread of Protestant missionary activities. This had an impact in Canada East with the reinvigoration of Francophone Protestant missions to convert Catholics. Although the recruitment of Swiss Francophone Protestants went back to the eighteenth century, early efforts never amounted to much. Moreover, the established churches, especially the Anglican Church, did not want to alienate Francophones through such activities. They generally avoided proselytizing in Quebec City, as

364 This includes only Presbyterians connected with the established Church of Scotland. It does not include members of the more evangelical Free Church of Scotland.

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many elites saw the Catholic Church as indispensable to maintaining social order, especially in the post-rebellion period.365 If anything, Quebec City’s Bishop Mountain had always felt scorn for these evangelical missionaries:

[The] itinerant and mendicant Methodists [are] a set of ignorant enthusiasts whose preaching is calculated only to perplex the understanding & corrupt the morals, to relax the nerves of industry, and dissolve the bonds of Society.366

Rene Hardy demonstrates that Protestant proselytizing to Catholics was taken to a new scale in the 1840s.367 Most of this activity took place in the Eastern Townships, with up to 14% of the Francophone population being converted in some localities. Few conversions took place in Quebec City. In 1871, Protestants claiming French origins represented a mere 0.49% of Quebec City’s total Francophone population, or 203 people. Few of these were converted by missionaries or Bible-toting “colporteurs”: nearly a quarter were born outside of the country, others originated from the Francophone Protestant Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and many of these situations were likely the result of exogamous marriages.368 Nevertheless, Quebec City’s Catholic clerics felt besieged by this new proselytism, and fought back by calling on the faithful to turn away itinerant peddlers with Protestant Bibles and tracts, and to shun “traitorous” Francophone converts. Many such converts ended up moving to the United States as a result of the ostracism they faced. In the early 1840s, the parish priest of Notre Dame de Québec’s sermon notes reveal that he felt the need to “prévenir contre les pamphlets impurs et obscènes . . . renouveler les avertissements tant de fois donnés contre les semeurs de bibles.”369 In 1850, a pastoral letter by the bishops

365 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 216. It is worth noting, however, that the Anglican Church was involved in rural missionary work in the province. 366 Quoted in Ibid., 22. 367 See Chapter 1 in Ibid., 17-66. 368 Based on 1871 Census data from the Population et histoire sociale de la ville de Québec (PHSVQ) project. 369 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 13.

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of the Ecclesiastical province of Quebec included the following statement about Protestant missionary societies:

Ce sont évidemment des loups meurtriers, déguisés sous des peaux de brebis, afin de se glisser sans bruit dans la bergerie du Seigneur et d’y faire un affreux carnage de son troupeau bien aimé.370

The lack of actual conversions does not detract from the fact that this was perceived as a growing threat, though perhaps not to the same extent as liberalism.371 Increase in missionary activity led Catholics to raise their boundaries against Protestants, and that the clergy encouraged the faithful to do so.

Likewise, the clash between evangelicalism and Ultramontanism also caused Protestants to raise boundaries. Evangelicals stressed a direct unmediated relationship with the Bible. Conversely, Ultramontanism had a radically hierarchical vision that asserted the primacy of Roman authority and, eventually, the infallibility of the Pope. This frightened Protestants, especially evangelicals. It spurred the growth of anti-Catholicism. Protestants therefore saw themselves as the guardians of progress and individual liberty against an increasingly controlling Catholic Church. A.J.B. Johnston says that Protestants depicted Catholicism as a “system of beliefs promoting disloyalty and oppression and leading to moral, economic, and social backwardness.”372 These ideas originated chiefly in Britain and the United States, but soon gained wide currency in Canada.373 In 1878, John William Dawson, the Presbyterian principal of McGill University in Montreal, expressed these tensions as follows:

370 Quoted in Jean-Louis Lalonde, Des loups dans la bergerie : les protestants de langue française au Québec, 1534-2000 (Saint-Laurent: Fides, 2002), 106. 371 For more on this, see: Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, 143-144. 372 A.J.B. Johnston, "Popery and Progress: Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia," The Dalhousie Review 64, no. 1 (1984): 146. quoted in Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics, 137. 373 J.R. Miller, "Anti-Catholicism in Canada: From the British Conquest to the Great War," in Creed and Culture: The Place of English-speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750-1930, ed. Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz (Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993), 35-36.

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I fear that the claims of duty tie me to this place, where an important handful of Protestant people are holding an advanced front in the midst of Ultramontanism, and where but for the utmost effort of all willing to help, the cause of liberal education and science is likely to be overwhelmed, and with it all reasonable chance of the permanent success of our Canadian Dominion, for unless the gospel and the light of our Modern Civilization can overcome popery in French Canada our whole system will break up.374

Fear of this revived Catholicism spurred nativist crusades in the United States. North of the border, it stoked the Orange Order and British Protestant nationalism in Loyalist hotbeds like Saint John, New Brunswick.

The situation was not as polarized in Quebec City. Catholic leaders were more liberal and moderate than those in Montreal, and the established Protestant churches still predominated. Protestants especially were more tolerant and less suspicious of Catholics than their counterparts elsewhere in other major North American cities. The anti-Catholic Orange Order did have a presence in the province and in Quebec City, but only one out of 40 Protestants were members at its height, compared to one out of three in English Canada.375 Furthermore, Protestant economic superiority and a tradition of elite accommodation with the Catholic clergy in Quebec made Protestants less likely to believe in the danger of Popish plots and Romish rule.376 Nevertheless, the city was not immune to broader currents and influences in North America, and religious groups still retreated behind boundaries, though perhaps more quietly.

Separate Schools, Separate Communities

Although Lord Durham recommended educational reform along assimilationist lines, the opposite came to pass. Durham called for a centralized education system

374 Quoted in Stanley Brice Frost, McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1980), 225. 375 Jolivet, Le vert et le bleu, 69. 376 Ibid., 79.

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with a single superintendent for both Canadas. He hoped this would eventually transform French Canadians into loyal English-speaking British subjects. The 1841 Common School Act implemented some of these recommendations, but all attempts at overriding existing ethno-religious boundaries faced backlash. The basis of a denominational school system was already in place, and the government did not want to risk further rebellion by overturning it.377

The 1840s also saw the idea of separate schools enshrined in law, which further entrenched Catholic and Protestant communities within their own spheres of socialization. The 1841 law on education was soon contested by both Anglican and Catholic bishops. They claimed the newly appointed Superintendent of Education had too much power in curriculum development. Clerical pressure led to amendments that allowed the establishment of religiously dissident schools, and also allowed foreign-born nuns and brothers to work in schools.378 Laws passed in 1845 and 1846 pushed denominationalism even further. They led to the creation of confessional school boards in Quebec City and Montreal, increased clerical power in school administration, and exempted teachers from religious orders from examinations of professional competence.379 Subsequent laws passed between 1856 and 1869 continued to reinforce the confessional character of education, such as the creation of confessional normal schools in 1856, but the basis had been laid between 1841 and 1846.380

Some historians attribute the increasing denominationalism in education as an Ultramontane attempt by the Church to gain precedence over the state. Indeed, Ultramontane ideology considered that the Church was above the state with regard

377 Marta Danylewycz, Taking the Veil: An Alternative to Marriage, Motherhood, Spinsterhood in Quebec, 1840-1920 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987), 22-23. 378 Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, 257; Charland, L'entreprise éducative au Québec, 1840- 1900, 57. 379 Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, 257. 380 Ibid., 39, 259.

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to education.381 However, the role of Bourget and Montreal’s Ultramontanes is often overstated, and many Quebec City liberals and moderate Catholics were also interested in advancing the Church’s claim on the educational sector. Quebec’s Archbishop Signay sought to attract the Brothers of the Christian Schools as early as 1837 to further the creation of Catholic schools. They settled in Quebec City in 1843 and eventually played an important role in educating Irish Catholic children.382 Like Bourget, Signay also pressured the government regarding the 1841 Common School Act’s effects on religious education. One of the strongest spokesmen in the Assembly pushing for Catholic schools was Joseph Édouard Cauchon, an elected official from the Quebec City region.383

The fact that schools became exclusively Catholic or Protestant meant that fewer children socialized outside their religious community. Moreover, these schools provided a religious education on confessional lines, especially the Catholic schools. They instilled and transmitted a common culture. This led to more cohesive and insular Catholic and Protestant communities, and stronger boundaries separating them. Consequently, fewer and fewer charitable associations and institutions bridged the growing Catholic-Protestant divide.384 The private High School of Quebec, founded in 1842, remained one of the few educational institutions where Catholics and Protestants interacted; 14.8% of its student population was Catholic in 1864. However, it was an elite institution with a small student body that was a mere trickle in the sea of denominationalism.385

Separate schools legislation had little effect on Irish Catholic and Francophone boundaries at first, since they continued to share schools for many decades. The first exclusively English-language Catholic school for boys in Quebec City was the

381 Ibid., 38-39, 209-215. 382 Voisine, Les Frères des écoles chrétiennes au Canada, 76-79. 383 Danylewycz, Taking the Veil, 24. 384 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 892. 385 There were only 20 Catholic pupils at the school in 1863. J. George Hodgins, Sketch of Education in Upper and Lower Canada (Toronto: Unknown, 1864), 16.

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Glacis School; the last French-language classes were removed from this institution in 1863. Leonard School was the first English-speaking Catholic school for girls, founded in 1935.386 Long after these dates, Irish Catholics and Francophones continued to work together on the same school boards.

Compared to the rest of North America, there was a remarkable consensus around separate schools in Canada East. In the United States, Protestants fought for an integrated Protestant-dominated common school system. They raged against separate schools for Catholics, accusing the latter of illiberal insularity. Most American states refused to fund separate parochial Catholic schools. At times, this opposition even provoked riots, such as those that took place in 1844 after Catholic authorities in Philadelphia tried to have Catholic students dispensed from readings from the Protestant King James Bible in public schools. These riots led to several casualties, and two Catholic churches were burnt down.387 In British North America, the situation in the mid-nineteenth century was less explosive, though denominationalism in education was the subject of frequent debates. Half the representatives elected in Canada West in 1851 were Clear Grits, who were dedicated to abolishing separate schools.388 There were fewer debates in Canada East, where Protestants actually came to favour separate schools due to their minority status and declining numbers.389 Protestants saw this system as a bulwark against Ultramontanism. It was their only means to ensure a school system for themselves that would be “liberal in outlook, practical in approach, and nondenominational in content.”390 There was also a pragmatic financial advantage: Protestants were comparatively wealthier, and could therefore have better-

386 For more information, see Patrick Donovan, "A la Carte: Mapping the Heritage of Quebec's English- speaking Community," Morrin Centre, http://alacarte.morrin.org/. 387 Kenny, The American Irish, 79-82; Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism, 50-51. 388 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 43-44. 389 Alexander Tilloch Galt argued for the preservation of a separate Protestant school system in the 1860s. See Jolivet, "Orange, vert et bleu," 79-80. 390 Roderick MacLeod and Mary Anne Poutanen, A Meeting of the People: School Boards and Protestant Communities in Quebec, 1801-1998 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004), 18.

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endowed schools if they did not share them with Catholics. Finally, even those politicians that worried about giving too much power to the clergy saw value in a church-state partnership that helped maintain political and social stability.391

The Irish Famine

The last major cause of rising ethno-religious boundaries prior to 1850 was the Irish Famine. Marc McGowan sums up the causes of this tragedy as follows:

A combination of an outmoded landholding system, falling agricultural prices, a population explosion, and finally the failure of the potato staple from 1845 to 1849, created an unprecedented demographic upheaval in Ireland. The failure of the agricultural system, the indifference of small farmers and landholders, and the prevailing influence of the ideology of “laissez faire” economics among local and imperial politicians worsened an already bleak situation.

Over 100,000 Irish, most of them Catholic, left for British North America in 1847 alone, and one out of six did not live to see the following year.392 They died on “coffin ships” that were often unfit for passenger travel, or succumbed to typhus on arrival. The vast majority of these migrants came through the Grosse Île quarantine station near Quebec City, where over 5,000 were buried in 1847. Grosse Île usually dealt with around ten orphans a year, but there were over a hundred orphans merely one month into the 1847 navigation season. By year’s end, thousands of children had been orphaned as a result of the typhus epidemic. Quebec City received more famine migrants than any other North American port and, due to the cheaper shipping rates, a higher percentage of these migrants was poor. This was a tragedy on an unprecedented scale.393

391 Danylewycz, Taking the Veil, 26. 392 For more detailed statistics, see Mark George McGowan, Death or Canada: The Irish Famine Migration to Toronto, 1847 (Toronto: Novalis, 2009), 110. 393 The exact number of orphans is difficult to estimate. BELLEY worked from a database of over 700 for Quebec City alone, but suggested there were likely many more given the informal nature of migration. Montreal

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The arrival of thousands of Irish famine victims changed Quebec City’s social fabric. Table 6 shows that the English-speaking Catholic population nearly doubled in the 1840s. They came to outnumber the Protestant population for the first time, becoming the city’s largest minority with over a quarter of the total population. This sudden growth provided a critical mass that strengthened the sense of community among English-speaking Catholics:

Table 6: Quebec City Population by Ethno-religious Origin in 1842 and 1852 1842 1852 CHANGE French-speaking Catholic 19,251 60 % 24,756 56 % + 5,505 + 29 % English-speaking Catholic 5,626 18 % 11,168 26 % + 5,542 + 99 % Protestant/Others 6,964 22 % 8,067 18 % + 1,103 + 16 % Total 31,841 43,991 + 12,150 + 38 %

1842 data: Vallières et al., 698; 1852 data: modified PHSVQ 1851 Census data. Religion data was cross-referenced with a combination of birthplace data and name/surname analysis. This was followed by a proportional redistribution of those with no religion listed or entries deemed illegible. The 1851 Census officially began in January 1852 in Canada East.

These new migrants were also considerably poorer. Robert Grace notes a gradual rise in the percentage of unskilled Irish workers in the decades between 1800 and 1840. This is corroborated both by statistics and the reports of the Chief Emigrant Agent. By the time of the famine, Grace says

the overall picture which emerges is that of an impoverished, largely unskilled mass of immigrants whose need of immediate employment for survival constituted an easily exploitable commodity for railway construction, ship loading and other public works which the United States or Canada had to offer.394

Table 7 shows that in 1852, 43.5% of the English-speaking male Catholic population consisted of unskilled manual workers earning low wages. This is over

papers listed over 400, who mostly transited via Grosse Île, but this was only a fraction of the total. Kingston and Toronto also welcomed hundreds. “Thousands” is therefore the best possible estimate. Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 61-62; Mark George McGowan, Creating Canadian Historical Memory: The Case of the Famine Migration of 1847 (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 2006), 3-4. 394 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 86-92, 160-161.

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twice the percentage of unskilled workers among Francophone Catholics (20.7%) and Protestants (21.0%).395

395 Robert Grace’s analysis of Irish Catholic occupational structure is misleading because it deals only with household heads, whereas many of the poorer migrants were boarders or subordinate members of households. His statistics for 1852 show that 28.8% of the 1,150 Irish Catholic household heads were unskilled workers, a significant discrepancy with my findings. However, this leaves out an even greater number of adult male English-speaking Catholics who were not household heads. My own analysis of the 1852 manuscript census using a modified PHSVQ database whereby language was determined using origin data and surname analysis, shows 1,129 English-speaking Catholic male household heads and 1,133 other English-speaking Catholic adult working males. Grace also worked from an earlier slightly-different version of the EGP system that defined the “unskilled worker” category differently. See Ibid., 452.

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Table 7: Occupational Structure of Adult Male Population by Ethnic Group in Quebec City (EGP2), 1852 French- English- speaking speaking Protestant Total Catholic Catholic Professional white collar workers (I-II) 306 5.3% 90 4.0% 224 11.3% 620 6.2% Routine white collar workers (IIIab) 388 6.7% 264 11.7% 288 14.5% 940 9.4% Small proprietors and artisans (IVab) 561 9.7% 199 8.8% 334 16.8% 1094 10.9% Skilled manual workers and technicians (V-VI) 3073 52.9% 582 25.9% 515 26.0% 4170 41.5% Non-skilled manual workers (VIIa) 1200 20.7% 978 43.5% 416 21.0% 2594 25.8% Farm workers (IVc, VIIb) 12 0.2% 19 0.8% 7 0.4% 38 0.4% Undetermined 265 4.6% 118 5.2% 200 10.1% 583 5.8% Undeclared/unwritten/illegible/does not work not included not included not included not included Source: PHSVQ 1851 Census data using religion, and name/surname analysis to determine linguistic affiliation among Catholics. Individuals with no religion was listed or illegible entries were proportionally redistributed. The 1851 Census officially began in January 1852 in Canada East, hence the year listed above.

As for women, Robert Grace shows that single Irish Catholic women in 1852 worked overwhelmingly in domestic service.396

This high percentage of unskilled workers is consistent with findings elsewhere around this time. 48% of the Irish workforce in Boston was unskilled, more so than any other nationality,397 and 37.6% of the male Irish Catholic workforce in Toronto was unskilled around 1860.398

Although the Irish were over-represented among unskilled labourers in many North American cities at this time, the stereotype of the impoverished and unskilled Irish should not be taken too far. As the table above shows, Irish Catholics were present in all social classes. Pre-famine migrants remained in the city, and there was actually a slightly higher percentage of white-collar workers among Irish Catholics (15.7%) than among Francophone Catholics (12%).

396 Ibid., 471. 397 Handlin, Boston's Immigrants, 57, 88, 60. quoted in Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 490. 398 45% if women are included. Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 16.

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However, the above statistics do not include the unemployed poor, who weighed on the imaginations of many during the famine years. The sight of thousands of haggard and diseased migrants fed into a negative perception of the Irish, and at times alienated public sympathy. The social problems caused by poverty and disease that followed these migrants were perceived as moral failings attributed to the Irish race and to Catholicism. This was especially true in places with fragile Protestant majorities, who experienced this migration as an onslaught of “papists.” The Vox Populi, a nativist paper in Lowell, Massachusetts, described the famine Irish as “these ignorant and filthy thousands who come up among us like the frogs of Egypt, among whose homes gather their filth and stench that invited a pestilence.”399 The Toronto Globe demonized the “Irish beggars [who] are to be met everywhere and are as ignorant and vicious as they are poor. They are lazy, improvident and unthankful; they fill our poorhouses and our prisons, and are as brutish in their superstitions as Hindoos.”400 Caricatures of the Irish with simian features began appearing in the press, and this unfortunate trope continued for decades.401

The famine migration spurred on nativism. Discussions of nativism have been more prevalent in the American historiography, but Scott See and others have recently used the term to refer to anti-Irish sentiment in Canada. See uses John Higham’s definition of nativism as a “defensive type of nationalism” linked to the “intense opposition to an internal minority on the ground of its foreign. . . connections.”402 Loyalty to the British Empire constituted an important element of Canadian nativism that was not a concern in the United States, spearheaded by imported groups such

399 Quoted in Brian Christopher Mitchell, The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821-61 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 99. 400 Quoted in McGowan, Creating Canadian Historical Memory, 5. 401 R. F. Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch: Connections in Irish and English history (London: A. Lane, 1993), 174- 184. 402 Scott W. See, "'An Unprecedented Influx': Nativism and Irish Famine Immigration to Canada," in Fleeing the Famine: North America and the Irish Refugees, 1845-1851, ed. Margaret M. Mulrooney (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 60.

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as the Loyal Orange Order, and local initiatives like the Protestant Protective Association. Toronto even came to be known as the “Belfast of Canada” for its strong Orange Order presence in the post-famine era.403 See demonstrates that Canadian nativism was stronger in what we now call the Maritimes and Ontario, but newspapers such as the Montreal Witness regularly featured stories arguing for Irish Catholic racial inferiority. Nevertheless, the longstanding Catholic majority in Canada East tempered this nativism.404

The Quebec City press was gentler,405 and tended to direct its scorn on the landlords in Ireland rather than on racial failings of the Irish migrants. Even a Tory paper like the Quebec Mercury stated that this migration was “an act of heartless expediency on the part of the Irish landlords to relieve themselves from a burthensome tenantry to stave off—at our expense—those obligations which the proprietors of the soil owe to their peasantry.”406 It nevertheless added:

Every extreme must have its result; and the reaction consequent upon this interminable demand upon our better feelings is now working its effect. . . it now remains for us to adopt measures of exclusion, at which our hearts recoil, but which our interests and our safety demand. Why should our North American colonies be converted into a Grand Lazar House? . . . Emigration is essential to us. It is our life-blood;—but the transportation of this year is our death-warrant, signed by ourselves so long as we submit to its being imposed upon us.407

While not condemning Irish migrants outright, the Mercury nevertheless called for an end to Irish migration. Quebec City’s Francophone press also oscillated between sympathy and rivalry. An ethnic riot involving hundreds of people in which

403 McGowan, Death or Canada, 82. 404 See, "An Unprecedented Influx," 60-66. 405 For a discussion of the tone of the press in Quebec City in general, see Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 1002. For a more specific look at press coverage of the Famine in 1847, see O'Gallagher, Marianna, and Rose Dompierre. Eyewitness: Grosse Isle, 1847. Sainte-Foy: Carraig Books, 1995. 406 Quebec Mercury, 12 October 1847 407 Ibid.

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the Francophones of Saint-Roch “voulaient chasser les Irlandais d’au milieu d’eux” took place in October, 1847.408 Le Canadien reacted as follows:

Des rixes malheureux et regrettables sous tous les rapports ont eu lieu mercredi à St. Roch entre quelques ouvriers canadiens employés dans les chantiers et une troupe d’irlandais excités sans doute par les déclamations d’un journal de cette ville qui s’est appliqué depuis quelque tems (sic) à propager, à faire naitre lorsqu’il n’éxistaient point, des sentiments de rivalité nationale absolument absurdes entre des hommes qu’une même croyance devrait réunir et que le destin a jetés sur une même terre.409

In short, while the city’s papers were more measured in their depiction of the famine Irish than some of the nativist press outside Quebec, the growing tension was nevertheless palpable. It was palpable in the defensive self-righteous tone taken on by papers accused of stoking tension, such as this statement in the Journal de Québec:

La preuve que la population française de cette ville n’est pas hostile à la population irlandaise, c’est qu’elle reçoit dans son sein et nourrit les nombreux orphelins de cette dernière, tandis qu’elle néglige en bien des cas ses propres orphelins.410

Tensions also flared up within the Catholic Church. In 1848, the Archbishop of Quebec complained to Father McMahon that “Politics were constantly preached in St. Patrick’s Church, and feelings of hostility against French Canadians cultivated, and that the Committee of Management were made the instruments of fostering an promoting those feelings.” The committee did not mince words in its reply to the archbishop, claiming that these reports were:

. . . the fabrication of unprincipled individuals circulated by them to further their own designs, and the Committee cannot help feeling indignant at the insult offered to themselves in supposing that they could

408 Journal de Québec, 12 October 1847, quoted in Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 21. 409 Le Canadien, 13 October 1847 410 Le Journal de Quebec, 12 October 1847

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be made fools of in the hands of any one and the attempt of injuring (in the estimation of his Superiors) their revered Pastor in whom they, as well as the congregation at large, have the same unbounded confidence they ever had. That the Committee will always maintain their individual opinions on Political and other subjects and upon all proper occasions give expression to those opinions . . . . That so far from causing separation and promoting ill feelings between the congregation of St. Patrick’s Church and their French Canadian fellow citizens, it has always been their endeavour to cultivate union and a proper understanding between the two peoples, but they cannot disguise their conviction that their endeavours to this end have been greatly marred by the intermeddling of designing individuals and a mistaken though probably well intentioned interference in Irish affairs of some of their French Canadian brethren.411

All these tensions and accusations fed into the creation of a separate Irish Catholic community that, as Thomas Meagher writes, became increasingly “Catholic, embattled, and suspicious.” This was particularly true in high-tension areas like Boston and industrial New England where discrimination was stronger, but Quebec was certainly not immune to these developments. The Irish remained aware of what was going on in other cities, either through family ties or the press, which fed into the construction of this post-famine Irish identity.412

In addition to these external factors that led Irish Catholics to retreat behind ethnic boundaries, there were also internal reasons for their alienation from the society around them. Kerby Miller argues that the Irish were not voluntary migrants, but more likely to be exiles who longed for home. They clung to their Irish identities, making it difficult to adapt to a new homeland.413 This was especially true for famine migrants, but also for many Irish who came before. Even in 1836, a decade before the famine, Father McMahon at St. Patrick’s Church in Quebec City “made some feeling allusions to the state of Ireland, to the pain felt by its natives on

411 Committee of Management of St. Patrick’s Parish Minute Book, 1831-1854, 27 August 1848, Saint Patrick’s Parish Archives, Quebec. 412 Meagher, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History, 58, 102-107. 413 Kerby A. Miller, Ireland and Irish America: Culture, Class, and Transatlantic Migration (Dublin: Field Day, 2008), 24.

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emigrating from its shores, and to the strong attachment which they bear to the land of their births.” He drew parallels between “the Exile of Erin and the captive Jew on the banks of the Euphrates.”414

This boundary building was not unique to the diaspora Irish, but sectarianism had its roots in Ireland itself. A long history of power struggles with Great Britain had many internal manifestations.The confiscation of land by the English crown and colonization by settlers from Great Britain entrenched an unequal power dynamic with the native population. The British Penal laws, which forbade Catholics from owning land, caused further resentment. Yet Protestants and Catholics had initially worked together for Irish independence in the late-1700s, and the early Irish migrants also tended to be more likely to collaborate across denominational lines. This began to change after 1800, even more so after Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation movement of the 1820s, and the famine took it to another level. The famine migrants carried a growing sectarian spirit that spread throughout the community.415

Although the famine served as a catalyst to this boundary construction, it took place over several decades. In the early 1850s, it looked as if the famine could recede from memory. However, it was instrumentalized as a strong symbol of British oppression in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Irish Catholics were roused by "a narrative of their homeland’s brutal subornation and genocidal treatment at the hands of a merciless Great Britain."416 John Mitchel’s writing around this time framed the famine as an intentional British atrocity. It was starvation in the midst of plenty: crops were exported while the Irish starved, and tenants were evicted while

414 Quebec Mercury, 17 March 1836; 19 March 1836. 415 Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism, 55-56. 416 Malcolm Campbell, Ireland's New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics, and Society in the United States and Australia, 1815-1922 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 104.

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greedy Protestant landlords stuffed their pockets.417 It was qualified as a “holocaust,” even in the nineteenth century, a term later criticized since it ascribed a deliberate malignant intent to the British government akin to the Nazi “final solution.”418 More nuanced readings of the atrocity have emerged showing that Protestant farmers were also affected, that the British set up modest relief efforts, and that crops really did fail. These nuances should not serve to excuse inaction on the part of the British colonial government and landholders in Ireland, which reveal the consequences of laissez-faire economics taken to their extreme. British colonialism in Ireland was certainly not fair towards Catholics, quite the contrary. There is much truth to Mitchel’s narrative, but it remains a partial narrative designed to rouse passions. His nationalist narrative kept the tensions around the famine alive, playing a prominent role in the construction of a strong entrenched defensive Irish Catholic identity. It justified maintaining boundaries with Protestants, and fed into a culture of mutual contempt that endures to this day.

Irish nationalism was especially strong in Quebec City, and a major reason for some sharply drawn ethnic boundaries in the later nineteenth century. Quebec was one of the few cities in Canada where radical Irish nationalist groups flourished, given that the British loyalist element was weaker. Grace argues that "of all Canadian cities, Quebec was home to one of the more powerful [Fenian] circles due to its isolation from Orange influence and power."419 However, not all Irish Catholics in Quebec were Fenians, particularly not the clergy, and the different shades of nationalism also led to boundaries emerging within the Irish Catholic community itself.420 This too was a legacy of the famine.

417 McGowan, Creating Canadian Historical Memory, 7. Graham Davis, "The Historiography of the Irish Famine," in The Meaning of the Famine, ed. Patrick O'Sullivan (London and Washington: Leicester University Press, 1997), 16-17. For a critical reassessment of this narrative, see Dolan, The Irish Americans, 73-80. 418 Christine Kinealy, "The Great Irish Famine--A Dangerous Memory?," in The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America, ed. Arthur Gribben (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 240. 419 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec," 612. 420 Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 139.

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3.2. Structural Changes and New Additions

The rising ethno-religious boundaries in the 1835-1855 period led to structural changes in the charitable sector. The most obvious change was the gradual fade of multiconfessional charities and the emergence of more associations founded along ethnic or religious lines. Changing attitudes toward the poor led to a broadening of the clienteles addressed. There was also a growing tendency to institutionalize children within asylums rather than place them out. The five major associations dealing with English-speakers founded in this period were all outdoor relief associations.

Economic Liberalism and its Discontents

This period shows a growing array of attitudes toward the poor, as new ideas begin to trickle in. Some ideas challenged the economic liberalism that saw the poor as artisans of their misery. In some cases, the poor were less likely to be seen as criminals and more likely to be seen as victims of an unfair system where their right to work, their right to earn a decent living, was not guaranteed. This change happened almost simultaneously throughout the Western world: Chartism in the UK had its heyday in the 1840s; Andrew Jackson advocated popular suffrage in the USA; workers movements began; Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848; and revolutions took place throughout Europe that same year, notably workers’ uprisings in France. Some members of the Patriote Party in Canada East also advocated this perspective.421

However, as in all periods, ideologies overlap, and different people move in different political directions. Conservative governments were not sympathetic to these new ideas. Industrial capitalism was on the rise, and the British poor law

421 Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 217; Eid, Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, 126, 149.

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reform of 1834, for instance, shows a hardening of attitudes toward the poor in the interests of industry.422 Economic liberalism remained the dominant ideology in the political sphere; in fact, Dennis Guest speaks of a rising tide of laissez-faire philosophy in Canada that reached a peak in the 1860s.423 While the state remained aloof, many individuals showed concern through private initiatives.

The religious changes outlined above could encourage a more compassionate view of the poor among certain private individuals who operated outside the state. Evangelicalism and Ultramontanism were motivated by a desire for social reform. Frederic Ozanam, founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, stressed that serving the poor had a holy dimension. The poor were no longer unworthies who needed to be locked up; instead, meeting their needs served as a means to personal salvation. Although Catholics liked to represent liberal dismissals of the poor as a Protestant aberration,424 the rise of Evangelicalism also led to a more compassionate view of the poor within the Protestant charity network. However, it is worth remembering that religious ideals of charity, even when aggressively promoted, didn’t always translate to practice.

It is also worth keeping in mind that religious theology could serve to reinforce economic liberalism and continued to do so. Presbyterianism in particular was derived from Calvinist ideas that saw financial success as a sign of God’s grace, and poverty as divine retribution, an idea central to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.425 However, this type of conservative Presbyterianism is just one of many theological currents that fall under the broader umbrella of Protestantism.

422 For more about this, see : Martin Petitclerc, "À propos de 'ceux qui sont en dehors de la société'," 233-234. 423 Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 8. 424 See, for example, Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 116. 425 Max Weber, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Revised 1920 edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.

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Conservative Quebec City was somewhat slow on the uptake with regard to reformist ideas. As seen during the Rebellions, the city did not take a leading role when it came to espousing new or more radical ideas. Rene Hardy, who studied the prones of the clergy of Notre-Dame de Québec during the 1840s and 1850s, claims the clergy continued to promote charity as a pious paternalist Christian duty throughout this period, not as a means of individual salvation and social transformation. Father Baillargeon at Quebec’s Notre-Dame Cathedral expressed this paternalism in literal terms when he wrote “les riches . . . sont les pères des pauvres.”426

The emergence of charitable initiatives seeking to reform categories of poor people previously left to their own devices toward the end of this period shows that new ideas eventually trickled in, but they did not upset the prevailing conservative political order dominated by economic liberalism. A shift in Canadian public opinion toward broader social justice reforms only began at the end of the nineteenth century.427

Institutionalization

As older institutions became more established, they were more likely to keep children for longer terms. As seen above with the Hôtel-Dieu, many institutions in the early nineteenth century sought to place out children or infants as soon as possible. The Female Orphan Asylum, for instance, had initially claimed in its 1829 bylaws that children “shall be disposed of . . . as soon as any eligible situation is offered providing for them.” They were placed in families for a probationary one month period, after which the family was informed that they could no longer send

426 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 91. 427 Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 19, 26.

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them back to the asylum. 428 This practice changed. In 1847, the Ladies’ Committee mandated “that no child be placed out in future under the age of fourteen years, unless adopted by some very eligible person, this resolution to be invested into the book of rules.”429 Hacsi has observed this same shift in asylums in the United States.430 The dawn of the age of totalizing institutions had begun.

New Additions to the Charitable Sector

Prior to 1835, most associations dealing with the adult poor focused on a specific and narrow segment of the population (e.g. mothers, military widows, recent migrants). They did not address most of the general adult population settled in Quebec City, who were expected to seek help from their families, their church, the occasional short-lived workhouse project or, as a last resort, the city gaol.

The 1835-1855 period saw the emergence of five new major outdoor relief organizations to meet the needs of the adult English-speaking poor. These included three national societies providing aid to specific ethnic groups; the last multiconfessional female charity founded in the nineteenth century; and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which became the most important outdoor charitable organization in the city.

This period saw fewer changes to the indoor relief sector. There were still no homes for adults or the elderly aside from the Military Asylum, which catered to a narrow clientele; and the Hôpital Général, which had a mere 23 beds for invalids and the elderly.431 In the absence of alternatives, the gaol continued to be used as shelter in the winter months. There were more alternatives for children. The

428 Rules, 5 March 1829, Minute book for 1829-, Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 429 Rules, 14 May 1847, Minute book for 1829-, Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 430 Hacsi, Second Home, 137. 431 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 875.

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Anglican orphanages continued their course. The lay Catholic orphanage was transferred to the Sisters of Charity of Quebec in 1849. However, the end of public financing for abandoned babies in 1845 meant that there was no institution for them for several years after this date.432

Table 8 below lists these organizations, which will be examined in greater detail in the following pages.

432 The lack of institutions for abandoned children created a void, and some children were abandoned on the doorstep of the Sisters of Charity of Quebec. See : Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol. 1, 116.

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Table 8: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Between 1835 and 1855

Ethno-religious Most common name for Foundation Type of Main clientele affiliation of organization year organization administrators

Volunteer men's Needy of Saint George's Society 1835 association/ English and English and Welsh national society Welsh origin

Volunteer men's Needy of Saint Andrew's Society 1835 association/ Scottish Scottish origin national society

Volunteer men's Needy of Irish Saint Patrick's Society 1836 association/ Irish origin national society

Charitable Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Women and Multiple 1838 women's Society children (mostly Methodist) association

1846, Needy, esp. Catholic Society of Saint Vincent de Volunteer men's Irish conferences widows and (French- & English- Paul association founded 1848 children speaking)

Catholic Orphanage of the Sisters of children, Catholic Charity of Quebec / 1849 Asylum (esp. orphan (French- & English- D'Youville Orphanage girls in the early speaking) years)*

Catholic Saint Magdalen Asylum / 1850 Asylum Fallen women (French- & English- Good Shepherd Asylum speaking)

*The clientele of this institution evolved over the years.

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3.3. National Societies: the Saint George’s, Saint Andrew’s and Saint Patrick’s Societies

When the Quebec Emigrant Society disappeared the 1840s, the city’s relatively new national societies were poised to take over migrant reception activities on the private voluntary front. This change from a single well-funded multiethnic organization to smaller associations divided along national lines was emblematic of a gradual fragmentation within the charitable sector. Let us examine this new model and how it arose in Quebec.

Origins and Forerunners

Quebec’s national societies were based on an old model that, in some cities, predated all other types of voluntary charitable associations. The Scots’ Charitable Society, founded in Boston in 1657 and still around today, claims to be the “oldest charitable society still existing in the Western Hemisphere.” It was organized by twenty Scotsmen living in Boston “for the releefe of our selves being Scottishmen or for any of the Scottish nation whome we may see cause to helpe.” It was partly a mutual aid society for the Scottish elite, but also a charitable organization that helped poor people of Scottish origin, itself modeled on an older Scottish relief society in London. A Charitable Irish Society was also founded in Boston in 1737 along the same lines. Other American cities founded similar societies in the eighteenth century.433 In what is now Canada, the Maritime colonies were the first to found national societies. These included the North British Society434 in Halifax in 1768, and the Saint Andrew’s Society in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1798. Irish

433 Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, 35; William Budde, "A Concise History of the Scots' Charitable Society," Scots' Charitable Society, https://scots-charitable.org/about/; Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair, The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick's Day (London: Routledge, 2006), 9. 434 AKA “Scottish”

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and English national societies were also founded in eighteenth-century Halifax.435 The advent of national societies in the Canadas happened many decades later.

Quebec City’s national societies for people of British and Irish origin were all founded in 1835 and 1836. The Saint Andrew’s Society, for people of Scottish origin, held its first meeting on October 9, 1835.436 A week later, on October 16, a Saint George’s Society for people of English and Welsh origin was founded.437 That same year, during the Scottish national holiday feast, a toast was raised to the Irish of the city in the hopes that they would soon form their own national society. Irish Protestant merchant George Pemberton replied “with great good humour and vivacity” that “his countrymen had perhaps been more dilatory than their Scottish fellow subjects. . .”438 A few months later, Pemberton was elected president of the Saint Patrick’s Society formed on February 23, 1836.439 A Société Saint-Jean- Baptiste was founded some years later in 1842 for the Francophone majority, but it was primarily a patriotic organization, not a charitable one. However, it initially favored close links with the English, Scottish, and Irish societies.440 Although these

435 I. Allen Jack, History of St. Andrew's Society of St. John, N.B., Canada, 1798 to 1903 (St. John: J. & A. McMillan, 1903); James S. MacDonald, Annals of the North British Society of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Halifax: Citizen Steam Book Job and General Printing Office, 1868); "The Charitable Irish Society of Halifax, History," Charitable Irish Society of Halifax, http://www.charitableirishsocietyofhalifax.ca/history/; "The Royal St. George's Society of Halifax, How we Began," The Royal St. George's Society of Halifax, http://www.royalstgeorgessocietyhalifax.org/pages/How-we-began.aspx. 436 Quebec Mercury, 10 October 1835. I did not mention the Caledonian Society of Quebec, founded on April 1st 1834, in the above text because it was not a charitable society per-se. It was a mutual aid society for Scots and their descendants, reserving its charity to fee-paying members, but still took part in many of the early celebrations hosted by the Sister Societies. See Rules and Regulations of the Caledonian Society of Quebec: Instituted on 1st April, 1834, Revised and Finally Approved of 2nd July, 1839 (Quebec: W. Cowan and Son, 1839). 437 Quebec Mercury, 17 October 1835 438 Quebec Mercury, 1 December 1835 439 Quebec Mercury, 24 February 1836 440 Raymond Matte and Léo Gagné, "'Nos institutions, notre langue, nos lois' : la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Québec," Cap-aux-Diamants, no. 29 (1992): 25. In 1850, there were plans to make the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society into a charitable organization. They hoped to establish “un fonds de reserve à employer en actes de bienfaisance envers les membres, car notre Association ne doit pas se contenter seulement de démonstrations exterieures, mais elle doit faire reconnaitre son utilité par des actes de philanthropie envers ceux de ces membres qui peuvent se trouver dans l’infortune. . . . La Société a donc lieu d’esperer qu’en

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national societies were made up exclusively of male members, they referred to themselves under the feminine appellation of “sister societies,” a term also used in Montreal and elsewhere.441

The Quebec City national societies took their cue from Montreal, where similar associations were founded roughly a year earlier, in 1834 and 1835.442 The Montreal link was explicitly stated at the inaugural meeting of Quebec City’s Saint Andrew’s Society, where chairman Andrew Patterson “held in his hand the constitution of the Montreal St. Andrew’s Society, which would be a guide for the present.”443 The Montreal societies were founded in reverse order, beginning with the Saint Patrick’s Society and ending with the Saint Andrew’s Society. Montreal also had a German Society, founded in 1835, that pushed a British Hanoverian identity by emphasizing the German roots of the British royal family. A Saint David’s Society for the Welsh was founded in Montreal some time later.444 Quebec City never had a separate Welsh society, and the German Benevolent Society of Quebec was a smaller-scale affair founded after 1850.445

Charitable Activities

The English, Scottish, and Irish sister societies received attention in the press for the patriotic dinners, balls, processions, and religious ceremonies held on the

mettant une certaine somme de côté chaque année pour être employée en oeuvres de charité, ce sera le meilleur moyen de faire grandir cette belle Société Nationale . . .” In the end, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society took on this role. See Le Canadien, 26 June 1850 441 Cronin and Adair, The Wearing of the Green, 21. 442 For more about these, see Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850". 443 Quebec Mercury, 10 October 1835 444 Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850", 183-185, 226. 445 Canada, Statutes of the Province of Canada Passed in the Twenty-seventh Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and in the First Session of the Eighth Parliament of Canada (Quebec: George Desbarats and Malcolm Cameron, 1863), 400-401.

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different national holidays.446 These national celebrations have also been the general focus in the historiography. However, the principal raison d’être for these societies, at least officially, was charity. As the annals of the Saint Andrew’s Society state: “. . . the social element, and much more the political, was subordinated to the charitable. . .”447 This was true for all three societies, whose constitutions and by-laws followed the same general spirit. The events hosted by the societies often doubled as platforms for fundraising, and most of the societies’ expenses went to the poor.

The societies had broad charitable mandates that touched on a wider range of needy people than those of pre-existing associations. Like the Quebec Emigrant Society before them, the three national societies became the private voluntary associations on the ground to assist new migrants. However, their charitable mandate went beyond migrants. They also provided relief to “poor residents” who could prove that they were natives or descendants of the countries represented by the societies. Aid was given in “money, clothes, passages home, and to Montreal, with provisions.”448 The sister societies also provided advice on finding jobs or on places to settle. Registers were kept to this end; for instance, the Saint Patrick’s Society kept a register of “domestic servants, laborers, gardeners, farmers, mechanics, as also of the names and qualifications of Irish Emigrants in want of employment,” along with a list of property for sale in rural areas.449 Finally, volunteer chaplains for each of the societies visited the distressed, and volunteer physicians assisted “such sick or maimed persons as may be recommended to

446 These are Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), Saint George’s Day (April 23), Saint Jean Baptiste Day (June 24), and Saint Andrew’s Day (November 30). 447 J.M. Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec (Quebec: St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 1906), 7. 448 Annual Report of the St. George’s Society for the year ending 5th January, 1845, included in the Records of the St. George’s Society collected & arranged by Robert Symes Esq. V.P., Quebec, 1852, Fonds St George’s Society of Quebec (P952), BAnQ-Québec. 449 Constitution of the St. Patrick's Society of Quebec, Established in 1836, (Quebec: E.S. Pooler, 1850), 14.

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their care.”450 Starting in the 1860s, the Societies began a gradual shift from charity to individuals to providing annual grants to other charitable organizations, which will be examined in the next chapter.

The historical sources available for these three societies are uneven. On the one hand, there is an archival fonds with 1.32 metres of documents for the Saint George’s Society. It includes minute books, annual reports, and programs for the annual dinners and processions dating back to the earliest years.451 At the opposite extreme, little has apparently survived relating to the Saint Patrick’s Society aside from newspaper reports, a published constitution, and the few references that could be found in government reports. The same is true for the Saint Andrew’s Society, whose small archival fonds deals mostly with the twentieth century, though a published set of annals outlines major events in the nineteenth century.452 Given these limitations, there is less information on the latter two societies in the description below, though their similar structures and bylaws suggest they functioned in analogous ways.

The sister societies were administered almost exclusively by politically conservative upper class men. Women occasionally participated in balls and events, but played no part in the charitable endeavours of the societies before the twentieth century. High annual dues discouraged poorer people from joining: in the early years, the English and Scottish societies charged a $5 admission fee the first year, with a $2 annual fee for subsequent years; Saint Patrick’s Society had lower annual fees of “not less than $1,” which was still a sizable amount for the average

450 Wording is from the St. Andrew’s Society, but all three societies use similar wording in their by-laws. Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 68. 451 Fonds St George’s Society of Quebec (P952), 1835-1977, at BAnQ-Québec. See : http://pistard.banq.qc.ca/unite_chercheurs/description_fonds?p_anqsid=201606151415412204&p_centre=03Q &p_classe=P&p_fonds=952&p_numunide=1065990 452 Fonds St Andrew’s Society of Quebec (P954), 1867-1978, at BAnQ-Québec. See: http://pistard.banq.qc.ca/unite_chercheurs/description_fonds?p_anqsid=201606151415412204&p_centre=03Q &p_classe=P&p_fonds=954&p_numunide=1066000

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person.453 Moreover, new members needed to be elected by 75-80% of the members present at meetings, and the blackballing practice typical of elitist clubs took place.454 This further restricted membership to people who were likely to be of the same social class and political persuasion as the majority. Consequently, many members were part of the wealthy merchant and political elite. The Saint Patrick’s Society prided itself in attracting members “of the most respectable class.”455 Robert Grace notes that in 1851, three of the six city councillors for Quebec were officers of the Saint Patrick’s Society.456 As in Montreal, the societies were overwhelmingly Tory in the pre-Rebellion years, and remained conservative for a long time after this date.457 These political allegiances played an important role in the early years, particularly among the politically-divided Irish.

Unlike the Emigrant Society, none of the national societies had a proper physical office or any permanent indoor help installations of any kind. Their initial constitutions all called for the establishment of an office “in some central situation, as convenient as can be procured to the landing place of emigrants, and an Agent appointed to attend at such times and on such conditions as the Committee may prescribe.”458 The Saint Patrick’s Society pressured the other two societies to pool their funds and share a common office and agent, but the English and Scots did not feel “the same necessity . . . in consequence of the comparatively small number of their countrymen who have occasion to report to such offices for

453 Constitution of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, with a list of officers and members, 14; Constitution and By-Laws of the St. George's Society of Quebec, Established 1835, Revised and Amended, 25th March, 1841, (Quebec: Thos. Cary & Co., 1841), 13; Constitution of the Saint Patrick's Society of Quebec, (Quebec: Thos. Cary & Co., 1836), 19. 454 Constitution of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, with a list of officers and members, 7-8; Constitution and By-Laws of the St. George's Society of Quebec, Established 1835, Revised and Amended, 25th March, 1841, 11; Constitution of the Saint Patrick's Society of Quebec, 10. 455 Morning Chronicle, 5 March 1849 456 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec,” 599. 457 Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850", 197-204. 458 Quebec Mercury, 7 March 1837

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information or relief.” In the end, the Emigrant Society office served this role at first,459 and the Chief Emigration Officer later served as a de-facto agent for the societies.460

Each society had a Charitable Committee charged with evaluating requests from applicants and distributing aid.461 The Saint George’s Society required that applicants fill out a “printed form of recommendation for relief from the Charitable Fund.” Applications were available at the offices or residences of committee members and were “examined, adjudicated, and relieved, according to the pressure and emergency of each claim.”462

In general, this Society seemed to have a broader definition of the “deserving” than private associations founded prior to 1835. For instance, there was a greater tolerance of claims by men who were “out of employ” needing “temporary aid,” which represented at least eight of the cases in 1844. That same year, 53 of the 55 cases brought to the Saint George’s Society were found “deserving,” showing that very few applicants were turned away.463 The Society continued to help unemployed men in subsequent years. This increase in eligibility may have been due to feelings of kinship spurred by shared national origins. “Rank impostors” were occasionally condemned for fraudulent claims, as were “tramps” that were “not anxious for work,” who travelled from town to town, but the reports contain little of the vitriol against unemployed able-bodied men and “vagrants” found in the sources for the previous period.464 It is difficult to know whether this tendency was

459 Quebec Mercury, 8 March 1838. 460 Morning Chronicle, 12 March 1851. 461 The Saint Patrick’s Society called it a “Standing Committee.” Constitution of the St. Patrick's Society of Quebec, Established in 1836, 13; Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 17. 462 St. George's Society, Quebec, Founded 1835: Officers and members--1845, with the reports, ending 5th January same year., (Quebec: Wm. Kemble, 1845), 5, 21. 463 Ibid., 5. 464 Annual reports of the St. George’s Society for 1874 and 1877, Fonds St George’s Society of Quebec (P952), BAnQ-Québec.

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also true of the other national societies given the lack of detailed sources on aid recipients for this period.

The lack of coordination among sister societies in different cities was a recurring complaint. The Saint George’s Society complained about the “rather frequent practice prevalent with some Western Societies of sending persons down here at a trifling cost to themselves, and expecting your Society to forward them to England.”465 In 1856, they even sent back “to Western Canada, a whole family, who had been assisted to Quebec, with an assurance that our Society would pay the Atlantic passage and also the expenses per rail to their parish settlement.”466 The Saint Andrew’s Society also complained that kindred societies were “palming off their poor on Quebec,” lodging complaints with sister societies in Montreal and elsewhere in 1839, 1843 and 1858.467 These practices occurred from the earliest days, but there is no mention of them continuing beyond the 1870s, perhaps due to improved communications.

The sister societies were financed in much the same way as other private voluntary associations: yearly membership dues, private donations, interests on investments, and collections at church services. These collections were usually held on or around the national saint’s anniversary date. Endowment funds were also built up over the years. Interest from these funds became the main source of revenue for the Saint George’s Society: in 1850, a little over 10% of the revenue came from interest on endowments; in 1900, 80% of the revenue came from interest.468 Given the lack of available sources on the other two societies, it is difficult to gauge their financial evolution over time.

465 Annual report of the St. George’s Society for the year 1872. 466 Annual report of the St. George’s Society for the year 1856. 467 Quebec Mercury, 7 November 1839; Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 17- 18, 30. 468 Annual reports of the St. George’s Society for the years 1850 and 1900.

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What is certain is that none of these societies came close to the scale of assistance that had been offered by the Quebec Emigrant Society during most of the 1830s. In its first fifteen years, the Saint George’s Society spent an average of £86/year on charity, which helped a few hundred people per year at most.469 Numbers were similar for the Saint Patrick’s Society in the immediate post-famine years.470 Available information for the Saint Andrew’s Society indicate that it was a smaller operation that spent around half what the other two societies did in the worst famine years; the Scottish population of Quebec City was also comparatively smaller.471 In contrast, the Quebec Emigrant Society spent around £900 yearly in charity during its best years, helping around 3,000 people per year.472 This is more than five times the amount spent annually by all three national societies put together.

This variation cannot be explained by the notion that needs had decreased in the 1840s. In fact, they had in all likelihood increased. Quebec was struck by a half- dozen fires in this period, and the 1845 fires affected up to 22,000 people, or half the city’s population, around 87% of whom were uninsured. 473 This was followed by the unprecedented demands on charity caused by the Irish famine migration.

469 £1277 was given in charitable expenses between 1835 and 1850. Records of the St. George’s Society collected & arranged by Robert Symes Esq. V.P., Quebec, 1852, Manuscript, Fonds St George’s Society of Quebec (P952), BAnQ-Québec. 470 Unfortunately, most of the published reports that were found for the Saint Patrick’s Society do not list expenditures and the number of people helped aside from the ones published in1849 and 1850. See: Morning Chronicle, 5 March 1849; 13 March 1850 471 The St. Andrew’s Society spent $200 (£50) in 1847, the worst year of the famine, which was also a bad year in Scotland. Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 20. 472 Durham and Buller, Minutes of evidence, 81. 473 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 856-864.

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While needs increased, public funds for private charitable organizations decreased. This was coupled with a gradual fragmentation of private sector initiatives toward migrants. The private sector came to play an auxiliary role, while the budget allotted to the Chief Emigration Officer grew.474

Montreal’s Scottish and English national societies played a much larger role in the charitable sector than the ones in Quebec City. For instance, the Montreal Saint Andrew’s Society helped 300 to 500 people per year in the 1860s whereas the Quebec Society averaged around 25 people per year. In addition to providing more outdoor relief, the Scottish and English societies opened homes for summer migrants, namely the Saint Andrew’s Home and the Saint George’s Home. The Montreal Saint Andrew’s Society also ran a soup kitchen for the “tramps . . . who could not properly claim a shelter.” Conversely, the Quebec societies did not even have their own office.475 There has been little research on the early charitable activities of the Saint Patrick’s Society of Montreal, so it is difficult to know whether the same comparison holds true for the Irish societies.476

Political and Religious Boundaries

Although the creation of these societies seems to indicate growing divisions along national fault lines, the real boundaries were actually elsewhere. As a member of the Saint Andrew’s Society put it in 1838, the divisions that existed along national

474 Coleman, "The Quebec Emigrant Society," 206, 215-216. 475 Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 68-71; Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 40-41. 476 Research on the Saint Patrick Society of Montreal’s early charitable activities are also more difficult given that most of its pre-1872 archives were destroyed in a fire. Cross, "The Irish in Montreal", 158. Much of the existing research on the Saint Patrick’s Society of Montreal deals with tensions between the Orange and Green. See:Kevin James, "The Saint Patrick's Society of Montreal: Ethno-Religious Realignment in a Nineteenth-Century National Society" (M.A., McGill University, 1997); Kevin James, "Dynamics of Ethnic Associational Culture in a Nineteenth-Century City: Saint Patrick's Society of Montreal, 1831-56," The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 26, no. 1 (2000); Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850".

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lines were more “like the division of labour.”477 A spirit of camaraderie existed among the different societies. In the early years, representatives from all sister societies, including the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, took part in each others’ national celebrations. On Saint George’s Day, for instance, members of the sister societies attended the religious service at the Anglican Cathedral, they participated in the processions, and toasts were raised to the Irish, Scots, and French Canadians at the evening dinner or ball. The favour was returned when the other societies hosted their national holiday. There was usually a speech about the imperial links that united them as British subjects, how they “joyfully recognize[d] and warmly cherish[ed] the claims and friendship of those who, with ourselves, constitute one great Empire.”478 Patriotic speeches often included disclaimers about the “duty to hold all men as brethren.”479 In times of need, some societies even disregarded the national boundaries that seemed to define their charitable efforts; for instance, in 1848, the Quebec Mercury reported the following during the Saint George’s Day mass at the Anglican Cathedral:

[Reverend George Mackie] observed that although, from the national character of the Society its funds could not be alienated in favor of the relief of others than those of English birth or descent, he entertained a personal hope that our indigent fellow subjects of Irish parentage or origin, thrown among us this summer in distress, might, if practicable, become sharers of our bounty. The wish was expressed in language and with a feeling that proclaimed it to be heartfelt, and so affected an Irish gentleman present that he burst into tears.480

The national character of these societies worked on two levels: they strengthened bonds among people of the same national origin, but also provided space for members of other national societies to foster a sense of mutual appreciation and

477 Quebec Mercury, 24 April 1838 478 Quote from Saint Andrew’s Day dinner, 30 November 1845. Quebec Mercury, 7 December 1845. 479 Quote from Saint Andrew’s Day dinner, 30 November 1840. Quebec Mercury, 1 December 1840. 480 Quebec Mercury, 25 April 1848

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imperial brotherhood. In short, the national boundaries that seemed to divide these societies were in fact quite brotherly and permeable.481

This is not to imply that national celebrations were entirely free of chauvinism. In the years surrounding the rebellion, they could even display a very aggressive sort of jingoism. This was especially true at the Saint George’s Society dinners. The English promoted themselves as the seat of the British Empire, and were more likely to place themselves above the other constituent nations of the empire. John Charlton Fisher’s 1838 speech, delivered at the height of the Patriote Rebellions, exemplifies this patronizing jingoism:

England has gained a rank and pre-eminence amongst civilized nations which no reverse, if reverse should be, could ever shake! . . . England has conquered but to save . . . Every thing human is imperfect, but there are fewer spots in England’s escrutcheon than in that of any other nation under the sun—and few as they are, they are counterbalanced by ages of glory and renown, unequalled in ancient or modern history . . . When guilty France mixed the cup of Freedom with blood, and not content with intoxicating herself with the draught, offered it to the base and sanguinary of all nations, then England disdained the alliance— interposed her strength between the ferocity of the Republic and human nature, and stood in the breach for the cause of God and man!482

Even after the Rebellions, this jingoism continued. At the 1840 Saint George’s Society dinner, President William Patton expressed the wish that “such a force will be brought into the country as to Anglify it in the most effectual and proper manner.” Loud cheering followed.483 English jingoism diminished as the rebellion years receded. The participation of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in these

481 For more about how national societies did this in the context of Montreal, see Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850". 482 Quebec Mercury, 24 April 1838 483 Quebec Mercury, 25 April 1840

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celebrations as of 1847 may have played a part in encouraging a less divisive approach.484

The Scottish and Irish societies were also Tory organizations in the early days, but they were usually less brash about it. For instance, the Saint Andrew’s Society refused to accompany the Saint George’s Society when the controversial Earl of Durham left town in 1838. They argued that processions upon the arrival and departure of governors were unconnected with the objects of the Society. The fact that the Saint Andrew’s Society was under the presidency of the moderate reformer John Neilson, who had issues with Durham, may have also influenced this decision.485 The Saint Patrick’s Society also treaded carefully to avoid causing friction within the politically divided Irish Catholic community. Marianna O’Gallagher notes that almost all the early Saint Patrick’s Society board members served as pro-government militia during the Rebellions.486 Despite this, the Society positioned itself as an apolitical neutral ground from day one:

During the [founding] meeting a person . . . asked the Chairman whether the Society had any political character.

The Chairman then again read Article No. 2 of the Constitution, by which all religious or political subjects of discussions were strictly prohibited.

This was received by the meeting with loud cheering.487

The seeming neutrality of the Saint Patrick’s Society was all smoke and mirrors. The Society was deeply political yet hid it well beneath a veneer of pluralism and openness. I would argue that the prohibition of religious and political discussion

484 Although the Saint Jean Baptiste Society was founded in 1842, there is no mention of any collaboration with sister societies before 1847. See: Le Canadien, 28 June 1847 485 Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 17; Sonia Chassé, Rita Girard-Wallot, and Jean-Pierre Wallot, "Neilson, John," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1988). Quebec Mercury, 3 November 1838. 486 O'Gallagher, Saint Patrick's, Quebec, 59-60. 487 Quebec Mercury, 24 February 1836

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revealed an underlying conservative desire to maintain the political status quo by suppressing dissent. George Pemberton, the Saint Patrick Society’s first president, had been a loyalist candidate for the legislative council, and was a member of the anti-Patriote Constitutional Association along with eight other early board members.488 The Society took over the pre-existing loyalist upper-town Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, where the first toast was always to the King, “a handsome painting of the King’s Arms [was] placed above the President’s chair,” and the room was festooned with militia.489 The Vindicator described this as a celebration by “the office-holders of Quebec, and their Orange supporters.”490

Politics in the Saint Patrick’s Society had a major impact on its fortunes, as rival elites struggled to overtake and discredit it. In 1836, as the Society was holding its Tory celebrations in the upper town, a rival Saint Patrick’s Day dinner was being held by Patriote supporters in the lower town. They began by toasting “the people, the only source of legitimate power.”491 Even after the Rebellions, a rival group calling itself the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick was founded in 1848 during the struggle for responsible government. It was led by John Maguire, a liberal follower of Lafontaine.492 By 1849, the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste saluted this new group instead of the Saint Patrick’s Society during its June 24th parade, causing some upset.493 The breach was momentarily healed in 1851 when the two groups merged, the practice of blackballing was abolished, and Maguire was elected president.494 This signalled the beginning of a less elitist phase in the history of the

488 "George Pemberton," http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/patrimoine/anciens-parlementaires/pemberton-george- 319.html; "List of the committee of the Constitutional Association of Quebec, appointed at a general meeting held on Tuesday 22nd November, 1834," (Quebec1834). 489 Quebec Mercury, 19 March 1835 490 The Vindicator, 24 March 1835 491 The Vindicator, 29 March 1836 492 Schmitz, Irish for a Day, 29; Robert J. Grace, "Irish Immigration and Settlement in a Catholic City: Quebec, 1842-61," Canadian Historical Review 84, no. 2 (2003): 606-609. 493 Morning Chronicle, 5 March 1849; Le Canadien, 27 June 1849 494 Morning Chronicle, 17 March 1851; Quebec Mercury, 6 March 1852; Le Canadien, 25 June 1852

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Saint Patrick’s Society, albeit short-lived, with a greater percentage of members from the lower town than before.495

At the moment of this union, the leaders of the Irish community themselves acknowledged that internal strife was a greater issue for their community than others:

That while a becoming harmony unites our fellow citizens of other origins, it is for us, as it must be for all Irishmen, a subject of deep regret, to have witnessed the unhappy divisions which have existed among us for some years past.

That such divisions, while they subsist, must prevent Irishmen and their descendants among a people, so heterogeneous in its composition as that of Canada, from attaining the position in the scale of social consideration and influence, to which they are justly entitled by their respectability and their numbers.496

Nevertheless, a few years later, when it came time to elect a new President for the Society, the supporters of the conservative Charles Alleyn clashed violently with supporters of Irish nationalist John O’Farrell497 at a meeting of the Society, leading to rival presidency claims.498 A sarcastic letter-writer mused that “our energetic fellow citizen Mr. Drum’s election to the dignity of Vice-President of one of the legs of the Saint Patrick’s Society, had only cost him the trifling inconveniences of an entirely broken head and a partially dislocated jawbone!”499

495 Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 107. 496 Morning Chronicle, 17 March 1851 497 John O’Farrell was a lawyer and elected official. He defended Patrick Whelan, the Fenian assassin of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. He was likely involved with the nationalist ribbonmen and was a Fenian sympathizer. Toner, "The Rise of Irish Nationalism in Canada", 200, 243-244; David A. Wilson, Thomas D'Arcy McGee. Volume 2, The Extreme Moderate, 1857-1868 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), 355. 498 Quebec Mercury, 1 March 1855 499 Quebec Mercury, 8 March 1855

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Suffice it to say that when one political crisis passed, a new one soon appeared to take its place and divide the Irish community anew. After this came the threat of radical Irish groups like the Ribbonmen and the Rockites,500 then came Fenianism, the struggle for Home Rule, and so on. Consequently, the politicization of Irish associations and the creation of rival fratricidal splinter groups was a regular occurrence in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This gives a certain credence to James Joyce’s assessment of Ireland as “the old sow that eats its farrow,” though others might argue these clashes were the result of a long tradition of divide-and-rule within the British Empire. It is not the purpose of this thesis to delve too deeply into these political crises.501 The point I wish to make here is that there were no apolitical Irish associations: politics was inevitable.

Moreover, these divisions reveal that, unlike other charitable associations, the Saint Patrick’s Society held a certain legitimacy as a voice for the community and was a regular battleground for competing interests. Kevin James argues that, similarly, the early national societies in Montreal were also instruments of political assertion:

They were vehicles through which immigrant middle classes claimed authority, built constituencies within ethnic units and were integrated into the culture and practices of public politics in the growing city. 502

Control of the Saint Patrick’s Society, despite its so-called apolitical nature, was highly sought after by the Irish political class in Quebec. Unlike the Scots and English, the Irish were more ideologically polarized, leading to greater clashes within these societies.

500 Quebec Mercury, 22 February 1855; 10 March 1855 501 A complete history of the political undercurrent in Quebec City’s Irish associations has yet to be written, though some preliminary work exists. See: Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh"; Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth- century Canada and the Case of Quebec: Immigration and settlement in a Catholic city"; Toner, "The Rise of Irish Nationalism in Canada". 502 James, "Dynamics of Ethnic Associational Culture in a Nineteenth-Century City," 54.

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In addition to political tensions, the spectre of religious tensions also reared its head from time to time within the sister societies. Despite their official nonconfessional stance, most national societies had close ties with the churches of the majority of their constituents: the Saint Patrick’s Day service was held at Saint Patrick’s Catholic church; the Saint George’s Day mass was held at the Anglican cathedral; and the Saint Andrew’s Day mass was at Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian church. Given the multiconfessional status of the sister societies, Catholic and Protestant fellow Tories initially attended each others’ services. This type of practice was widespread among similar groups.

In 1836, Anglican ministers tried to put a stop to this interconfessional mingling. Five Anglican ministers published a circular that encouraged Protestants within the sister societies to avoid the official Saint Patrick’s Day mass:

We see by notices from your several Societies, that it is proposed that you should collectively attend Divine Service, the 17th instant, at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Patrick . . . [We wish] to beseech you not to give attendance upon services, which, as Protestants, you protest against, and profess to consider idolatrous. Idolatrous, as consisting in part of prayers offered to the Virgin Mary, —to Saints and Angels ;— especially idolatrous, if, as we believe will be the case, High Mass is offered, for then the Consecrated Wafer is pronounced to be God ! and is worshipped as SUCH !503

The letter was signed by the Curate of the Cathedral, prominent evangelical minister E.W. Sewell, the chaplain to the forces and two ministers from the lower town Saint Peter’s Chapel. While it is worth noting that neither the Anglican “broad church” bishop nor the Rector at the Cathedral signed the circular, the bishop would chime out in favor of this kind of denominationalism a few years later.

For the most part, the circular was either condemned or ignored by those who came across it. Le Canadien facetiously questioned the motives behind it: “. . . ou l’étroit bigotisme, ou l’intolérance brutale, ou l’ignorance crasse, ou la méchanceté

503 Reprinted in The Vindicator, 18 March 1836.

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noire, ou l’imprudence sotte et aveugle.”504 Many Protestants felt the same way. They ignored the letter and attended the service at Saint Patrick’s in great numbers, much to the satisfaction of Father McMahon. The Saint Patrick’s priest commented on the “painfully irritating” Anglican letter, and urged all present to “throw the mantle of oblivion over the obloquy which had so wantonly been cast upon them.”505 Shortly after, a group of Protestants from Montreal sent a petition to the press with at least four hundred signatures condemning the “five fanatical ministers” behind this circular. The petition urged the Bishop of Quebec to chastise these ministers, and claimed to “disavow any participation in the illiberal sentiments so unnecessarily obtruded.”506 The sermon preached by Rev. R.R. Burrage at the Saint George’s Day mass that same year also seemed to disavow this circular through a liberal tone that condemned sectarianism.507

Nevertheless, despite all the disavowals, the circular stoked anger in the city. The Quebec Mercury claimed that it awoke “angry feelings” that caused a serious riot on Champlain street “between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Irish of that quarter” in the weeks after Saint Patrick’s Day. A dwelling house was damaged and several persons hurt.508

Moreover, the Patriote press did not see these public disavowals of the circular as evidence of religious harmony, but as “a political move and nothing more.”509 Le Canadien said Protestants attended the annual Saint Patrick’s Day mass to

. . . cajoler les Irlandais Catholiques et les attirer du côté de l’oligarchie . . . Nous aurions donc intérêt à ce que les Protestans (sic) eussent le moins de rapport possible avec les Irlandais Catholiques; mais que cela

504 Le Canadien, 16 March 1836. 505 Quebec Mercury, 17 March 1836, 19 March 1836. 506 The Vindicator, 26 March 1836; Quebec Mercury, 26 March 1836. 507 Quebec Mercury, 26 April 1836. 508 Quebec Mercury, 29 March 1836. 509 The Vindicator, 26 March 1836.

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se fasse sans exciter le fanatisme religieux dans un pays qui en a été heureusement exempt jusqu’à présent.510

In other words, Le Canadien was paradoxically condemning Protestants for attending Catholic services, while also condemning the Anglicans arguing for stronger boundaries. Both the dogmatic Anglicans and the liberals wanted the same thing—higher boundaries between Irish Catholics and Protestants—but not for the same reasons.

Although the multiconfessional character of the sister societies was upheld in 1836, this was a temporary victory that went against the spirit of the age. In 1838, the Saint George’s Society claimed it wanted to invite the sister societies to an anniversary mass, but Bishop Mountain disagreed:

strong and conscientious objections existed in the mind of His Lordship with reference to the course of proceeding which this Society, following up the example, as they believe, of similar Charitable Societies in the Mother Country, as well as their practice on two former occasions, were desirous of continuing on the third recurrence of their Anniversary.511

The Saint Patrick’s Society regretted that “a controlling authority” had, through “strong and conscientious motives” interfered to prevent their celebration. They vowed to work with the other societies to “repel every attempt (from whatever quarter proceeding) to create disunion or to cast odium upon any class of Her Majesty’s subjects who may conscientiously differ in religious belief with them.”512 In the end, the sister societies did not take part in the mass, but they all joined together at dinner.

This growing distance continued in subsequent years. Churches were moving away from being shared spaces where people of different denominations could come together. They were becoming part of the bulwark of institutions that

510 Le Canadien, 16 March 1836. 511 Quebec Mercury, 14 April 1838. 512 Quebec Mercury, 24 April 1838.

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constituted the boundaries separating Quebec’s three main ethno-religious communities.

With time, religious and political tensions led to a schism in the sister societies. The most significant and lasting offshoot among all this struggle was the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society in 1859, which will be examined in greater detail in the following section.

In short, divisions among these national societies arose not along national lines, as expected, but along political and religious lines. Tensions mostly came from outside the sister societies, or from within an individual national society. The dynamic between the different sister societies in Quebec City remained good in most years. They were mostly keen on working together, and continued to participate in each others’ celebrations.

This period also saw the emergence of associations that were more obviously divided along religious lines.

3.4. Catholic Male Volunteerism and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul

The 1840s saw the arrival of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which became the most important outdoor charity in the city. This association soon saw itself as the mother of all charitable endeavors, or “la mère inépuisablement féconde de toutes les œuvres.”513 By the end of the nineteenth century, one out of every fifty people in Quebec City was a member of the Society, with 1,200 volunteers actively visiting the poor to distribute charity and provide spiritual guidance.514 Although this Catholic association had the greatest impact among the city’s Francophone

513 Quoted in Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 37. 514 Ibid., 25.

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majority, it also played an important role within the Irish Catholic minority, especially in its early years.

Before the Society

Until the mid-1840s, the main Catholic organizations providing outdoor help in the winter months were the churches themselves. With the increase of needs during this period, fundraising had shifted from sporadic efforts by local elites to a sustained strategy led by parish priests. These funds were largely raised through regular church collections on major holidays.515

The English-speaking Catholics at Saint Patrick’s Church remained part of Notre- Dame de Quebec parish until the 1850s, and charity was directed from the parish level. In the late 1830s, Notre-Dame was subdivided into twelve neighbourhoods for the purposes of charity. The divisions were geographical, not linguistic, so no special provision existed for English-speakers. One designated representative per neighbourhood recommended “deserving poor” to the parish priest.516

Every year, 400 to 500 parishioners received help from the Catholic parish in Quebec City. This included one loaf of bread per week, some wood, clothing, and money for the sick.517 Priority was given to widows, the sick, and the infirm, but the able-bodied unemployed were also relieved in urgent cases. However, all applicants needed a ticket that proved they were temperate, sent their children to Catholic schools, and regularly attended confession.

This focus on compulsory education was largely new. Whereas the bylaws of the 1820 Female Compassionate Society encouraged mothers to send their children to

515 Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 87-88. 516 Poulin, L'assistance sociale dans la province de Québec, 1608-1951, 54. 517 Voisine, Hamelin, and Gagnon, Histoire du catholicisme québécois, 60-61.

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school “if in their power,” Catholic priests were enforcing compulsory education by the 1840s. The priest of Notre Dame parish wrote:

Maintenant que les écoles sont si multipliées dans cette ville, le défaut d’instruire les enfants ne pourrait venir que de l’insouciance des parents . . . ils se rendent coupables d’une grande faute devant Dieu.518

Catholic schools had become part of the Church’s social control mechanisms: they were vehicles to educate the popular classes, to transmit Catholic values, and also to solidify religious boundaries, thereby ensuring the loyalty of future generations through religious indoctrination.

The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul gradually took over from parish committees as of 1846. However, a symbiosis of sorts between the parish and the Society remained. Parish priests continued to be involved through their presence at Society meetings, they requested funds for the Society from the pulpit, and ultimately had authority over its members.519 However, this new lay society was a more efficient structure to meet the growing need for charity given that it came to mobilize hundreds of lay volunteers.

Structure

The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was founded by a group of young Parisian university students in 1833 and it spread rapidly around the world. It spread to various French cities throughout the 1830s, then in Rome in 1842, established itself in England and Ireland in 1844, and in the United States (Saint Louis, Missouri) in 1845.520 The Quebec City branch was officially founded on November

518 Cahiers de prônes, Notre-Dame-de-Quebec, 5 may 1844 quoted in Hardy, Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 93. 519 Ibid., 89. 520 "Societé de St-Vincent de Paul," in Canadian Encyclopedia, 2014; "National Council of the United States, Society of St. Vincent de Paul: History," Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (USA), http://www.svdpusa.org/About-Us/History; Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (Ireland), "Society of Saint Vincent

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12, 1846, making it the first in Canada. The Montreal branch followed in 1848, and Toronto in 1850.521

This is a rare example of a Catholic association being set up in Quebec City before Montreal. Although the historiography emphasizes the tepid nature of the 1840s religious revival in Quebec City, and the lag in associationalism when compared with Montreal, the creation of such an important organization in Quebec City first shows that this lag is somewhat overstated.522 Quebec wasn’t always playing “follow the leader.” In fact, the national council for the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was based in Quebec City until well into the twentieth century, and the branches in different Canadian cities reported to it.

The Society had a hierarchical structure that followed the same general pattern throughout the world. At the city level, it was organized into semi-independent groups called “conferences.” Each conference was organized like a typical board with a President, one or more Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, a Treasurer, etc.523 Conferences reported to the Particular Council, which served as the main coordinating body in different cities. The Particular Councils reported to the Provincial Council, founded in Quebec in 1850, which reported to the Canadian Superior Council.524 All councils were under the authority of the General Council of Paris.525 In practice, as will be shown below, the structure was a bit more complex: some provinces operated outside the Canadian Superior Council long after the

de Paul: About Us," http://www.svp.ie/about-us.aspx; "History of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society," http://svp.org.uk/history. 521 Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 33, 63. 522 See, for instance, Voisine, Hamelin, and Gagnon, Histoire du catholicisme québécois, v2, t2, 57-58. 523 Rules and Regulations of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Founded at Quebec, the 12th Nov., 1846 (Quebec: Aug. Côté and Co., 1849), 25. 524 This was later called the Canadian Superior Council and the Canadian National Council. The seat remained in Quebec well beyond Confederation but was eventually transferred to Ottawa. "Société de St-Vincent de Paul, Conseil Général, Chapitre relatif aux Conseils Provinciaux et tiré de la confrontation de divers reglements ainsi que des usages suivis à ce jour," ed. Société de St-Vincent de Paul (Quebecca1850). 525 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 97.

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foundation of Canada, and Quebec had two particular councils divided on linguistic lines.526

Despite the fact that the Society was independent of the Church, its lay volunteers were expected to be subordinate to its clergy. The Society’s regulations stated that they should "observe and follow with an absolute docility the directions which our ecclesiastical superiors may think fit to give us.” One priest described the Society as “the right hand of the clergy.”527

Holy Poverty

Although the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was a charitable organization, charity served as a means and pretext toward two broader goals: the salvation of its members, and reforming the poor.

The rules of the Society stated that its first object was “to maintain its members, by mutual example and counsel, in the practice of a Christian life.” In short, membership helped members lead a worthy life that would lead them to personal salvation. The Society’s meetings went beyond practical business to push a Catholic devotional agenda; they were pious affairs peppered with prayers, inspirational readings, and meditations on Christian themes. Members were also expected to meet regularly for religious feasts,528 they were encouraged to participate in devotions, and to receive the sacraments frequently. This devotional

526 Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, (Québec: Pruneau & Kirouac, 1897), 277. 527 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 122. 528 The rules specify that members should meet to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Feast of St. Vincent of Paul, the Anniversary Day of the Translation of the Relics of St. Vincent of Paul, and the requiem mass after Lent. Rules and Regulations of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Founded at Quebec, the 12th Nov., 1846, 46-47.

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program was supported by all levels of the Church, and the papacy granted indulgences to its members.529

The main route to salvation prescribed by the Society was summed up in the second object listed in its rules: “to visit the poor at their own dwellings, bring them assistance in kind, and give them also religious consolations.” The Society portrayed the poor as holy. The poor were even compared to Jesus because they faced privations and therefore resembled Christ in their suffering. Moreover, the Gospels clearly state that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”530 Almsgiving was the best safeguard against this, and the exemplary life of humility and self-sacrifice led by the worthy poor was touted as a source of inspiration.531

Although the poor were placed on a pedestal, there were also some elements of paternalism in the Society’s approach. Visitors were expected to minister not only to the material needs of the poor, but also to their spiritual needs. The Society asked visitors to sit down and talk with the poor, to gain their confidence, and to promote their spiritual improvement. Moreover, not all poor were considered virtuous and deserving. The conference appointed two visitors to investigate each case, and visits were often unannounced, to ensure families did not represent themselves falsely. Nevertheless, the sanctification of the poor meant that the distinction between deserving and undeserving did not appear as often in the minutes of the Society. Furthermore, even when one or both parents were intemperate, visitors were often lax if children were involved. Attempts were made to reform these parents, to draw them back to the Church, rather than dismissing them outright.532

529 Ibid., 5; Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 97-99. 530 Matthew 19:24 531 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 100-102. 532 Ibid., 115-118.

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The Society favored helping those who were married, preferably with children. Unmarried women were seen as a source of temptation, and “while seeking the salvation of others, [visitors] should come by their own ruin.” As for unmarried men, they were presumed to be able to get along without assistance, given that they had few responsibilities.533

Over the years, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul developed many tangential initiatives related to its core charitable mission. These included penny savings banks, services for people with disabilities, youth sporting clubs, homes for sailors, rehabilitation for former convicts, homeless shelters, work agencies, etc. The Society’s brief involvement with the Irish Catholic Saint Bridget’s Asylum, which will be examined in the following chapter, fits into this pattern of expansion.

Quebec’s Irish Conferences and Particular Council

The Quebec City branch of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, founded in 1846, was largely made up of Francophones. However, two of its original ten members were English-speakers: the English-born master-joiner Robert Jellard, and the future mayor of Quebec Thomas Pope, of Scottish origin.534

Interestingly, none of the earliest members were Irish even though most of the Society’s aid went to the Irish at first. The Society was founded a few months before the worst year of the Irish famine, which was the first major crisis it had to face. Even by 1850, the majority of the people receiving aid from the Society were still Irish: 272 Francophone families were helped by the Society that year, and 312

533 Rules and Regulations of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Founded at Quebec, the 12th Nov., 1846, 9. 534 Robert Rumilly, La plus riche aumône : histoire de la Société de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul au Canada (Montreal: Éditions de l'Arbre, 1946), 59; "Jellard, Robert," Repertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec(2013), http://www.patrimoine- culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=8616&type=pge#.V8XjSPkrKUk; Luc-Nicole Labrie, "Blogue : le maire Thomas Pope, 1861-1863," Histoire engagée(2010), http://histoireengagee.ca/?p=367.

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Irish families. This was at a time when there were twice as many Francophones as Irish in the city.535

Within two years of the Society’s foundation, Quebec City’s English-speaking Catholics founded their own conferences. This is described in the 1848 report to the General Council in Paris:

Nous avons l’espoir que sous peu, plusieurs Conférences nouvelles vont être formées parmi la population irlandaise de Québec. Cela sera d'un grand secours aux pauvres de cette origine. Jusqu'à présent nous les avons soulagés autant qu'il était en nous : car la charité est universelle et ne distingue pas entre les souffrants . . . La misère seule est l'objet de nos recherches, et jamais nous ne distinguons entre Canadien Français, Anglais ou Irlandais. Mais vous comprenez facilement que des Conférences d'Irlandais pourront plus facilement soulager les souffrances des pauvres de leur origine. Ils se comprendront plus aisément. 536

The following year, the president of the Particular Council of Québec described this linguistic split as follows:

Quand les premières Conférences s'établirent, plusieurs Irlandais en firent partie, mais comme la plupart n'entendent pas le français, nous avons bientôt compris que nous ne pouvions opérer efficacement avec eux, et nous avons en conséquence divisé les Conférences en Conférences Françaises et en Conférences Irlandaises.537

In short, the earliest sources present the division into Francophone and Irish Catholic conferences as a consensual decision solely based on linguistic differences.

English-speaking Catholics founded their own separate council on February 20, 1848. It included five conferences and initially fell under Quebec City’s particular

535 Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec,” 563; La Société de St. Vincent de Paul : assemblée générale des conférences de Québec tenue le 16 mars 1851, (Quebec1851). 536 Recueil de la correspondance des conférences du Canada avec le Conseil général de Paris et des rapports des assemblées générales, 26. 537 Ibid., 37.

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council.538 Despite this reorganization, linguistic problems remained a concern. The President of Quebec City’s Particular Council wrote to the President of the General Council in Paris to address this issue:

Nous éprouvons beaucoup de difficultés dans le Conseil particulier par suite de cette différence de langue, et plusieurs membres préféreraient qu'il y eût un Conseil particulier pour chacune des deux origines. Nous ne déterminerons rien à cet égard, avant de recevoir votre opinion sur le sujet.539

Paris responded favorably to this request in 1849, provided that the new “Irish” Particular Council540 adopted the same rules and regulations as the Francophone Council. Moreover, Paris said both particular councils should fall under the jurisdiction of a new Provincial Council, which was created the following year.541 Two Saint Patrick’s Particular Councils were created in 1850, both in Quebec City and Montreal.542

For most of its history, the Saint Patrick’s Particular Council in Quebec oversaw the five following conferences:

• Saint Patrick’s Conference, covering the walled city and Saint-Paul street; • Saint Bridget’s Conference, covering Cape Diamond to Sillery • Saint Stephen’s Conference, covering the Saint-Roch neighbourhood

538 Proceedings of a meeting of the Congregation of St. Patrick’s Church held in the Sacristy on Sunday the 20th February 1848, for the purpose of establishing a General Council and Local Conferences of the Society of St. Vincent of Paul in connexion with, and subject to the Particular Council of that Society, at present existing in this City, Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), box 31, BAnQ-Québec. 539 Recueil de la correspondance des conférences du Canada avec le Conseil général de Paris et des rapports des assemblées générales, 36-37. 540 The chairman of the Irish Particular Council in its early years was not an Irishman but a Scotsman named George Manly-Muir who had converted to Catholicism at age 12. As noted above, many of the earliest English- speaking members of the Société were also non-Irish. Nevertheless, the majority of English-speaking Catholics in Quebec were Irish, which is why the English-language conferences are referred to both as “conférences anglaises” and “conférences irlandaises.” 541 Recueil de la correspondance des conférences du Canada avec le Conseil général de Paris et des rapports des assemblées générales, 46. 542 La Société de St. Vincent de Paul : assemblée générale des conférences de Québec tenue le 16 mars 1851, 1.

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• Saint Lewis’ Conference, covering the Montcalm and Saint-Jean neighbourhoods • Saint Ann’s Conference, covering the Lower town, from Champlain street to Cape Diamond543 Between 1848 and 1851, there was also a Saint Michael’s Conference that helped around 150 Anglophones in the Spencer and Wolfe Coves in Sillery. This conference was dissolved when the Particular Council was reconfigured on December 14, 1851.544 A Saint Charles Conference also briefly appeared in 1879, covering the territory of Saint Sauveur, but it disappeared the following year.545

The Irish conferences got off to a shaky start. In 1851, the operations of the Society were irregular and ceased altogether in the second part of the year. According to conference members, there were several causes for these problems. First, there was the “hasty and very indiscriminate manner in which the Conferences were originally formed.” Unlike other charitable societies, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul required an important time commitment from volunteers, who were expected to visit the poor in person. Many dropped out when they realized what was expected of them. “The want of manuals and monthly Bulletins in English” was another problem. The death of Father Patrick McMahon, founder of Saint Patrick’s Church, also meant the Society had lost one of its pillars. The Irish conferences bounced back, however, and the Paris and London bureaus of the Society began issuing English-language manuals and newsletters as of 1853. 546

543 All conferences were founded in 1848 with the exception of Sainte Anne’s Conference, founded a year later. Monique Rivet, "Les Irlandais à Québec, 1870-1968" (Ph.D., Université Laval, 1969), 58; Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, 59, 319. 544 Register List of Poor Assisted by St. Michael’s Conference, Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), box 31, BAnQ-Québec; Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, 319. 545 Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), box 31, BAnQ-Québec. 546 Recueil de la correspondance des conférences du Canada avec le Conseil général de Paris et des rapports des assemblées générales, 86, 97-99, 105.

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Despite the desire among English- and French-speakers to work separately, they still worked together on some levels. One of these were meetings of the Superior Council of Canada. In 1896, during the fiftieth anniversary ceremonies of the Society’s establishment in Quebec City, Edward Foley, president of the Irish Particular Council, waxed lyrical about the cordial spirit that existed between Francophones and Anglophones. He thanked French Canadians for taking in Irish orphans during the famine, and praised the Great bound of union which exists between the two nationalities forming part of the Society in Quebec and the readiness with which they assist each other in performing the work of charity.547

Although public pronouncements such as these can mask real tensions, there is nothing in the sources to indicate any major conflict. In addition to this, Foley’s speech focused on two important players in the Irish conferences: Maurice O’Leary and George Manly Muir.

Although O’Leary certainly played a leading role in the Society, 548 Muir was arguably the most important English-speaking contributor to the development of Catholic charities in nineteenth-century Quebec City. Born in 1807 in Amherstburg, Ontario, Muir was the son of a Scottish Protestant army officer549 and a pious Catholic mother. He eventually settled on his mother’s religion and became a devoted Catholic. Muir studied law, became Registrar of the Legislative Assembly of Canada, and fulfilled this same function after Confederation within the Province of Quebec. He joined Quebec City’s Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in 1849, founded the first conference in Ontario in 1850, reinvigorated Quebec City’s Irish conferences in the early 1850s, and was president of the Canadian Superior

547 Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 59. 548 Maurice O’Leary (1810-1890) migrated to Canada from Ireland and age 16. He was an inspector of public markets and municipal assessor. He was once of the founders of Saint Patrick’s Church, served as treasurer for many years, and later held high positions within the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. For more, see: G. Henri Dagneau, Révélations sur les trois frères O'Leary de Québec (Sainte-Foy: Éditions La Liberté, 1998), 17- 29; "Rev. Father O'Leary," The Evening Telegram, 15 January 1901; Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint- Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, 61-62. 549 See Stuart R. J. Sutherland, "Muir, Adam Charles," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1987).

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Council from 1866 to 1881. He was also a co-founder of Quebec’s first “Patronage” (informally known as a “patro”), a youth club affiliated with the Society that aimed to prevent juvenile delinquency. Muir is probably best known in Quebec City as the driving force behind the first Catholic charitable reform home for “fallen women” and prostitutes in 1850, which became the Good Shepherd Asylum (see next section).550

Membership

Independently wealthy men like Muir were an exception within the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1896, Foley lamented that

the majority of the Irish Conferences is to-day composed of working people, who are unable to devote that time and attention which could be given by the wealthier and educated classes, if the latter would only become members of the Society. In the early days of the Society, the first citizens of Québec became members of it and were not too proud to be seen visiting the poor in the company of their brethren, composed of mechanics and the laboring classes.551

This issue existed not only among the Irish conferences. In fact, most of the Francophone conferences in Quebec City drew their members from the popular classes, with the only exception being the upper-town Notre Dame de Quebec conference. The Francophone conferences expressed a similar desire to draw in members of the wealthy and ruling classes at the 1896 anniversary meeting, and drew up resolutions to this effect.552 Few of the 4,677 active members of the

550 Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 40-41; "Muir, George Manly," Repertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec, http://www.patrimoine- culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=9834&type=pge#.V8Ytd_krKUk; Ontario) Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (Saint Lawrence Conference, "Founder in Ontario: George Manly Muir," http://www.helpthelessfortunate.org/george.html; Rumilly, La plus riche aumône, 78. 551 Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, 61. 552 Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 59.

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Society between Quebec and Hamilton were wealthy or practiced liberal professions.553

Why did the Society fail to attract the upper classes? It may be partly due to the fact that the important time commitment required of members was incompatible with the work schedules of many wealthier people.554 Furthermore, unlike other charitable associations, the Society could hardly function as a platform to advance the careers of the elite. An association like the Saint Patrick’s Society that controlled public parades and dinners drew the elite, especially politicians, as it allowed them to be represented as community leaders, namely by heading the community parade. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, in contrast, required members to show self-abnegation and humility. It required important time commitments with little earthly return on that temporal investment. It also meant spending more time with the poor than with the elite, which was less interesting for those that wished to build or solidify networks among the upper classes. It was clearly intended for a different type of person than the ambitious elite.

Relative Importance

Even in their early disorganized years, the Irish conferences of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul were spending around twice as much money and helping more people than the Saint Patrick’s Society. The Irish conferences spent roughly £200 per year during the 1848-1871 period, whereas the Saint Patrick’s Society spent a little under £100 a year in the late 1840s. In 1848, its first year, the Irish conferences helped 1,247 people compared to the Saint Patrick’s Society’s 204. This high number was exceptional, given the famine migration, and the average

553 Rumilly, La plus riche aumône, 102. 554 Ibid.

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number of people helped by the Irish conferences between 1848 and 1871 was closer to 550.555

In addition to all these new male societies, women continued to play a major role on the charitable scene.

3.5. Expansion of Women’s Charitable Endeavours

The period between 1835 and 1855 saw women’s charitable endeavours extend their help to new clienteles. The foundation of the Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society marked a shift in outdoor relief from the limited focus on new mothers to a broader focus on all categories of respectable poor. Indoor help organizations ventured into the reform of so-called “fallen women” with the foundation of Saint Magdalen’s Asylum in 1850, attempting to provide an alternative to the city gaol.

An important shift in the administration of Catholic organizations also took place during this period with the arrival of new religious orders as of the late 1840s. In 1849, the city’s Catholic orphanage was transferred from lay administration to the newly-founded Sisters of Charity of Quebec. The same occurred as the laywomen who administered and staffed Saint Magdalen’s Asylum became a formal religious order in the mid-1850s. This change provided a growing pool of unpaid hands-on labour for these institutions, facilitating their growth. In contrast, Protestant indoor help institutions continued to rely on secular staff and largely secular administrators.

The growing divisions along ethno-religious lines during this period was less evident in female-run organizations than in those run by men. English-speaking Catholic women continued to work within organizations dominated by

555 Based on available annual report data about the Irish conferences for 40 years between 1848 and 1920, found in Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), BAnQ-Québec. 11 annual reports were found for the years 1848-1871. See also : La Société de St. Vincent de Paul : assemblée générale des conférences de Québec tenue le 16 mars 1851.; Morning Chronicle, 5 March 1849; 13 March 1850

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Francophones. The city’s new charitable religious orders all had their roots in France, yet a minority of the nuns were recruited from the city’s Irish Catholic population. The new Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society founded during this period also transcended community boundaries and functioned according to a multiconfessional model. However, the disappearance of the Female Compassionate Society in the early 1850s marked a shift in the help provided to new mothers towards confessional lines.556

The Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society

The Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society, founded in 1838, had a broader mandate than the Female Compassionate Society, and consequently helped a wider range or people. The Society helped “afflicted settlers, indigent young women, poor women with large families, the sick, the widow, and the orphan.” Much like the associations founded earlier in the century, the published annual reports repeatedly claimed that there were “no invidious distinctions of race or sect in considering the circumstances of the necessitous applicant.”557

Funds were collected almost exclusively through annual subscriptions and donations.558 They were redistributed in clothing, firewood, food, and money. The majority of the Society’s budget was used to buy material for clothing, especially in the earliest years of the organization.559 The “benevolent ladies” met regularly to

556 The Society helped 3132 women between 1820 and 1850, and was continuing to help around 100 women per year in 1848 and 1849. The last appearance of the Female Compassionate Society in Quebec’s city directories was in 1852. The Twenty-seventh Report of the Female Compassionate Society for 1849 and 1850; Robert W. S. Mackay, Mackay's Quebec Directory, New edition, Corrected in July and August, 1852 (Montreal: Wilsons & Nolan, 1852), 283. 557 The Second Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: William Neilson, 1840). 558 Aside from a bazar which brought in a small amount in 1857, and trifling amounts from “sundry goods sold from the depository,” all published annual reports for the years 1838-1883 list subscriptions and donations as the sole source of revenue. 559 Approximately 75% of the expenses for the 1840s were used to buy material for clothing; 53% in the 1850s; 51% in the 1860s; and 60% in the 1870s. These calculations are based on the Treasurers’ Reports found in

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sew and stitch, which they claimed was “a great boon to many a toiling woman who could scarcely afford time to sew for her family.”560

The Society had a somewhat unique consultative approach that allowed most subscribers to determine how their funds would be distributed. This was done via a ticket-based system:

Every lady who subscribes a dollar or more is entitled to tickets to the amount of her subscription, which she can dispose of, at her own good pleasure, to those she thinks most deserving, which provides for those who wish bounty to be bestowed on members of their church ; while, at the same time, it often leaves but a very small surplus of donations to supply the wants of those who may be brought under the notice of the Committee by their own visitors, or others who may recommend them to the bounty of the Society.

The latter could include those who “may not be in accredited communion with any church, and are, therefore, more likely to be overlooked by societies of a more sectarian nature.”561

Overall, the tone in the annual reports was less paternalistic and bureaucratic than in the male-run pre-1835 associations. The annual appeals are presented in a language tinged with piety. For example, when describing the act of clothing the poor in winter, the 1838-39 annual report stated that “their sheltered limbs have ‘blessed’ the bounty of the benefactors.” This association did not depict the poor as a threat to public safety, but as a source of divine blessing. The act of giving was portrayed as a form of sanctification.562

Despite this, there were still distinctions between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. The Society discouraged

the published annual reports. However, statistics are approximate given that a quarter of the annual reports are missing for the years 1840-1879. 560 The Fortieth Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: Dawson & Co., 1878). 561 The Twenty-third Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: Middleton & Dawson, 1861). 562 The Third Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: William Neilson, 1841).

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. . . the bestowment of their bounty upon individuals whose habits of indolence and improvidence, and too frequently of intemperance, give but an exceedingly temporary existence to any state of comfort into which the bounty of the benevolent may introduce them.

However, those deemed “undeserving” by the Society’s visitors could still receive assistance given that subscribers were free to decide who their money went to.563

How did the Benevolent Society’s consultative approach play out in the sample year 1840-41? Most of the subscribers and donors for that year, over 85%, had English-language surnames. 71% donated more than a dollar, allowing them to determine how their money was spent. Half of the 348 aid recipients were Protestant, despite the fact that Protestants represented around a fifth of the total population. However, this disproportion can be explained by the disproportion among Anglophone donors and subscribers, who may have preferred that money be distributed as such.564 In short, in its earlier years, the Society spread its bounty among all religious congregations, but received and gave most its funds to Protestants.

Distribution continued along these lines throughout the organization’s history, with growing support from Catholics in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Aid was distributed almost equally among Catholics and Protestants in the 1850s. By the 1870s, two-thirds of the subscribers were Catholic and one third Protestant.565

It is nevertheless important to note that, among Protestants, Methodists received a considerable share of the bounty. In 1840-41, at least 64 recipients were Methodists (18.39% of the total) at a time when then the Methodist population

563 The First Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: William Neilson, 1839). 564 The Third Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society. 565 Based on information in the annual reports for the years 1840-41, 1853-54, 1854-55, 1856-57, 1857-58, 1858-59, 1876-77, 1877-78, 1880-81.

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represented only around 1% of the total population in Quebec City.566 This same trend can also be seen in other years.567

Unsurprisingly, the Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society’s administrators were overwhelmingly Methodist. The full list of committee members first appeared in reports in the late 1850s. When cross-referencing the names on the 1859-60 committee with the 1861 manuscript census, 15 of the 18 names that could be identified with reasonable certainty were members of the “Wesleyan Methodist” church. Moreover, the executive committee as a whole consisted exclusively of Methodists.568

There were few changes in the composition of this committee over the years, which was further removed from the elite than most other charitable organizations. Prior to 1875, the position of President did not exist, which may be related to the non- hierarchical nature of many evangelical Protestant denominations. The role of “Treasurer” appeared to be the top position in the Society. Mary McLeod fulfilled this role for the first decade, followed by Sarah Logie for the next 27 years. When the position of President was created, Sarah Logie was promoted to this role for the next nine years. Logie was the wife of a post office clerk, and many of the other board members were also the wives of clerks, skilled labourers, and members of the lower middle-class. There were exceptions, such as the Hendersons, Holts and Renfrews (founders of the upscale Holt Renfrew department store), but most committee members were further removed from the ruling elite. This was also true of the Methodist Church in general, which was looked down upon by many members of the upper classes.

566 The annual report lists the following statistics: “Applicants from the Roman Catholic Church, 162; English National Church, 84; Scotch National Church, 23; Wesleyan, 64; Independent, 6; Unknown, 9. Total,348.” The Third Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society. 567 18% in 1839-40; 19% in 1841-42; 12.8% in 1853-54; 15.1% in 1854-55; 16.29% in 1857-58. Statistics for other years could not be found since only a few annual reports actually break down the number of Protestant aid recipients by denomination. 568 The Twenty-second Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: Middleton & Dawson, 1860). PHSVQ Census Data for 1861.

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Although the Ladies’ Benevolent Society never described itself as a Methodist charity in any of the annual reports, this is essentially what it was. The annual reports always stressed that aid was distributed “without any distinction of name or nation,” and none of the board members were described as belonging to the Methodist church, but Methodists were clearly prioritized as aid recipients.

Despite this, the Society met with favor from all three major ethnic communities. In fact, the Anglican bishop’s wife, the “Curé de Québec,” and the priest at Saint Patrick’s were all regular subscribers.

This mixed system involving some direction from subscribers was a clever model for the tiny Methodist minority within Quebec’s Protestant minority. It probably allowed them to obtain more money for the Methodist poor than if they had defined themselves along sectarian lines and limited their fundraising solely to Methodists. The mixed system allowed them to draw funds from the community at large by its outwardly non-sectarian approach to charity, while also channeling many of the smaller or non-allotted contributions toward people of their own congregation. Although the Society argued that their “system of relief by tickets prevent[ed] the possibility of favoritism,” there was clearly some favoritism at play when it came to directing non-allotted tickets.569

The Quebec Benevolent Society’s model also reflects the nature of these transitional post-rebellion mid-century years. It was a mixed model that simultaneously espoused pluralist multiethnic values like those found in most charitable organizations founded prior to 1835, yet it also allowed individuals to channel their giving according to the growing sectarian or ethnic concerns that would define the latter half of the nineteenth century.

On the Catholic side, the proliferation of religious orders in the 1840s ushered in structural changes that would increase the religious divide.

569 The Fifteenth Annual Report of the Quebec Ladies' Benevolent Society, (Quebec: Robert Middleton, 1852).

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Sisters of Charity of Quebec

The 1849 transfer of the lay Catholic orphanage to the Sisters of Charity of Quebec marked a major turning point in how the city’s charities were structured.

Although the Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic Ladies of Quebec had discussed this transfer as early as 1844,570 the Irish famine made it all the more pressing. The unprecedented number of needy migrants that arrived in Quebec in 1847 weighed on existing organizations. This was particularly true of Catholic organizations, given that nine-tenths of these migrants were Catholic.571 This situation posed a challenge to the existing infrastructure, even more so in Quebec than in Montreal. In 1847, Father Charles-Félix Cazeau wrote:

. . . here in Quebec, unlike Montreal, we do not have uncloistered religious to whom the orphans could be given and who would care for them gratuitously. We were obliged to put them in the care of persons who had to be paid in proportion to the danger that they ran in exercising that ministry. And the danger was such that five among them caught the fever and two died, and we could not hire anyone else unless we agreed that sick or well, their wages would continue to be paid.572

In short, the famine made plain the comparatively larger expense involved in the lay staffing of institutions, and the economic benefits of female religious orders.

Two years later, after months of negotiations, the Sisters of Charity of Montreal sent five Francophone nuns and one Anglophone novice (Alice Dunn, Sister Saint Marie) to Quebec City. They arrived on August 22, 1849. The Charitable Association turned over the administration of their orphanage to the religious order.

570 Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol.1, 85-86. 571 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 61-62. 572 Archives of the Archidiocese of Quebec, 210 A, RL, Vol. 22, 202-205, quoted in Marianna O'Gallagher, "The Orphans of Grosse Ile: Canada and the Adoption of Irish Famine Orphans, 1847-48," in The Meaning of the Famine, ed. Patrick O'Sullivan, The Irish World Wide, History, Heritage, Identity (London and Washington: Leicester University Press, 1997), 104.

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This new building, replacing an older one that had been destroyed in the 1845 fire, welcomed some 250 poor students by day on the ground floor, housed the nuns on the second floor, and some 25 female orphans under the rafters above. Later that year, a cholera epidemic sent 33 Irish orphans, both male and female, to the home. The boys were temporarily housed in hangars, and all were placed out before the end of the year.573 In addition to caring for orphans and looking after the school, the nuns also visited the sick and the poor.

The small orphanage grew exponentially in the years following its transfer in 1849, eventually taking on the name Orphelinat d’Youville. From a small building that was home to some 30 people, it grew into a massive complex with 277 nuns, novices, and postulants. The number of orphans tripled in less than fifteen years.574

Within twenty years of the transfer to the nuns, this orphanage became almost exclusively devoted to Francophones. In the 1861 census, 36.5% of the children under 15 listed in the building had English-language surnames. Ten years later, this was the case of only two of the 79 children, both of whom were listed as being born in Canada and of French origin. This change occurred because of the foundation of the English-language Saint Bridget’s Asylum in the 1850s, which will be examined in the following chapter.575

Although the lay Charitable Association of the Roman Catholic Ladies of Quebec no longer ran the orphanage, the organization continued to exist well into the twentieth century. They retained ownership of the building until 1854,576 and continued to play an auxiliary and fundraising role after that date. In the early

573 Le Canadien, 27 August 1849; Saint-Vincent de Paul, "Le premier orphelinat de Québec, l'orphelinat d'Youville", 22-23; Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol. 1, 92, 106; vol. 2, 27-28; Sainte-Blanche, Mère Mallet et l'Institut des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, 137-138. 574 Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol. 1, 174; vol. 2, 31 ; Saint-Vincent de Paul, "Le premier orphelinat de Québec, l'orphelinat d'Youville", 32 575 According to PHSVQ data for 1861 and 1871 Census. More precise data could be obtained by consulting the registers in the archives of the Sisters of Charity of Quebec, but these were impossible to gain access to at the time of this research. 576 Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol.1, 164.

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1850s, there was even a subcommittee of four women out of the 49 charitable ladies “pour la population Irlandaise.”577 The Irish continued to play a minor role within the association even after the foundation of Saint Bridget’s; for instance, Mrs. Lawrence A. Cannon (Mary Fitzpatrick) was a member in 1884.578

Whereas the Sisters of Charity dealt with the “deserving poor”, a new religious order emerged in the 1850s to address the problems of a class that had been typically relegated to gaol.

Saint Magdalen Asylum: The First Home for “Fallen Women”

The Saint Magdalen Asylum (Asile Sainte-Madeleine), which opened in 1850, aimed to reform the underclass, including so-called “fallen women.” This group did not consist solely of prostitutes, but all women presumed to be incorrigible vagrants, alcoholics, to have had sex before marriage, or to be otherwise morally suspect. As noted previously, many of these women had no other recourse in times of need but the city gaol.

Charitable associations for “fallen women” appeared at a later date in Quebec City than in most northeastern cities. Francophone models for such charities go back to the Institut Notre-Dame du Refuge in Caen, France, founded in 1641. The numerous offshoots of this refuge in France eventually led to the foundation of the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Charité du Bon-Pasteur (1835) in Angers. This was the main Francophone model exported to North America, with four French Bon-Pasteur nuns establishing a Montreal refuge for women and girls in difficulty in 1844.579 Between 1829 and 1836, an earlier Francophone Catholic institution had

577 Sainte-Blanche, Mère Mallet et l'Institut des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, 137-138; Louis Proulx, Hospice des Soeurs de la Charité à Québec (Quebec: Unknown, 1851), 32-33. 578 Cherrier's Quebec City directory for the year ending May 3, 1885, (Quebec: A.B. Cherrier, 1885). 579 D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 130-132; Édouard Gouin, Le Bon-Pasteur et ses oeuvres à Montréal (Montreal: Imprimerie de l'Institut des sourds-muets, 1916), 6-14.

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also sought to reform “fallen women” in Montreal: the Charitable Institution for Female Penitents, also known as the Magdalene Asylum.580 Moreover, Montreal also had the Catholic Institute of the Sisters of Mercy (Institut des Sœurs de Miséricorde) to look after unwed mothers, which traced its history back to 1840.581 Protestant Anglophone models also existed in North America prior to 1850: the London Magdalen Hospital (1758) inspired the Magdalen Society of Philadelphia (1800); a Female Penitent's Refuge Society (1823) existed in Boston; and Montreal had a Protestant Magdalene Asylum (1848).582

George Manly Muir suggested the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul set up a similar institution in 1849. Muir was treading into contentious territory. Despite the precedents listed above, charity towards “fallen women” still met with popular disapproval. Many felt that these women were irredeemable. Citizens of Quebec did not want to have such an asylum in their neighbourhood, and some residents of the Faubourg Saint-Jean protested when a building was purchased for this purpose in their midst. Nevertheless, Muir had the support of archbishop Turgeon in Quebec, and the Society soon agreed to finance the refuge.583

The Society’s involvement was short-lived. Joseph Painchaud, the Society’s founder in Quebec City, led the opposition to this institution for “debauched women.” He wrote: “ces personnes ne sont pas faciles à convertir, et [elles] se serv[ent] du prétexte de la religion pour obtenir une subsistance qu’elles ne

580 Mary Anne Poutanen, Beyond Brutal Passions: Prostitution in Early Nineteenth-century Montreal (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015), 153-155. 581 Andrée Désilets, "Cadron, Marie-Rosalie, de la Nativité," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1976). 582 "Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, 1800-1974: Fonds Description," ed. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2016); The Penitent Females' Refuge and Bethesda Societies in the City of Boston, (Boston: T.R. Marvin & Son, 1859), 12; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 112-113; Lu Ann De Cunzo, "Reform, Respite, Ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions; The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, 1800-1850," Historical Archaeology 29, no. 3 (1995). 583 Rumilly, La plus riche aumône, 70-73; Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 38-40, 110.

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trouvaient pas ailleurs.”584 He communicated his worries to the General Council in Paris. While Painchaud’s objections related to the moral shortcomings of the women being helped, opposition from Paris was for a different reason: . . . nous avons un champ immense à défricher, ne l’agrandissons pas pour des œuvres qui ne conviennent qu’aux femmes et auxquelles nous ne pourrions jamais contribuer que par des souscriptions et non par notre coopération personnelle.585

The Society’s rules explicitly forbade interactions between its members and unmarried women, fearing it would lead to the moral downfall of the men involved: “les hommes doivent s’occuper des hommes, et les femmes des femmes.” The Society dissociated itself from the endeavour at the end of 1850 and withdrew its financial support a year later, but the asylum trudged on as independent institution. Beneath all this rationalization, some men in the Society probably also feared that association with an institution targeting prostitutes would tarnish their own reputations.586

The Saint Magdalen Asylum opened on January 11, 1850, and was staffed and largely administered by laywomen recruited by the archbishop. Widow Marie- Josephte Fitzbach-Roy was asked to head the asylum. Mary Keogh, a young Canadian-born English-speaking woman of Irish origin, was asked to provide support. The other six laywomen recruited in the first year of the institution were all Francophone. Much like the Catholic Church in Quebec City itself, the institution was dominated by Francophones with English-speakers in a minority position.587

Mary Keogh did not get along with Fitzbach. These tensions came to a head in 1856 when the laywomen took religious vows, possibly as a result of clerical

584 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 41, note 29. 585 Rumilly, La plus riche aumône, 70-73. 586 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 43-44, note 47; 61. 587 Ibid., 41-42, 65-74.

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pressure.588 They formed a new religious order officially known as “Servantes du Cœur Immaculé de Marie,” but more popularly known as “Sœurs du Bon- Pasteur.”589 Seven women officially became nuns in 1856, but Fitzbach deemed Keogh unworthy of the vow. Keogh took offense and left. The home fell entirely under the administration and staffing of Francophone nuns for some time, but a few English-speaking nuns joined in the following years.590

The stories of Muir and Keogh show that Anglophones played in instrumental role in the foundation of Saint Magdalen Asylum, yet both were sources of tension at some level. Although the sources do not specifically attribute these tensions to linguistic or cultural causes, it is possible that these made accommodation more difficult.

The “fallen women” who entered the institution were known as “penitents.” The rules of the asylum defined this term as follows: Les Pénitentes sont des personnes qui, touchées par la grâce, ont quitté volontairement un monde corrompu et corrupteur pour mener dans la retraite une vie chrétienne. Leur but est d’assurer leur salut éternel, en se mettant à l’abri des séductions du monde, et de parvenir à la perfection à laquelle Dieu les appelle, en réparant leurs fautes passées par une vie nouvelle.591

In short, the asylum aimed to offer nothing less than total moral reform that would lead to a new life defined by “perfection.” This was achieved through a strict regimen of that began at 5:00AM with alternating cycles of prayers, work, and the

588 This is not explicitly argued in existing studies on the Good Shepherd nuns given that they all border on the hagiographic. However, studies for Montreal show that there was considerable male clerical pressure in the 1840s for laywomen staffing and administering institutions to take the veil. See, for instance: Micheline Lachance, "Rosalie Jetté et les filles-mères : entre tutelle religieuse et pouvoir médical" (M.A., UQAM, 2007), 115-116. For Quebec City, POULIN gives some examples of male clerical pressure on Fitzbach-Roy: Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 61-62. 589 The latter name was due to their similarity with the religious order in Montreal and Angers, though the Quebec City nuns had no formal link with these orders. 590 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 65, 122. 591 "Règle et directoire des pénitentes de Sainte-Madeleine ou des filles de la Mère de Miséricorde," (Archives Bon Pasteur de Québec, 1857), 1., quoted in Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 40, note 26.

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study of holy books. Penitents were confined within the institution’s walls most of the time. Many such institutions made penitents do laundering work, perhaps as a metaphorical way of cleansing their sins. Laundering was part of the regimen at the Saint Magdalen Asylum in Quebec City, but penitents also sewed, fixed clothing, learned embroidery, and other trades. This work was officially intended to teach a trade that could hopefully be used when penitents left. However, its primary unstated purpose was to ensure income for the asylum itself, given that the cause of prostitutes was a hard sell to philanthropists.592

Results were mixed. Most existing studies on the Good Shepherd nuns take a jovialist view that emphasizes the women who remained in the institution or integrated honest employment, stressing that there was not enough room to welcome all those who wished to enter.593 However, the austere pursuit of perfection was not everyone’s cup of tea. The directresses of the institution repeatedly lamented the fact that “les pénitentes sont toujours rebelles.”594 Donald Fyson shows that only 200 of the over 2,000 women released from the Quebec gaol between 1850 and 1867 entered the asylum, and not all of them were successfully reformed.595 Poutanen’s study of prostitution in Montreal gives examples of women who requested readmission to prison even though they had been recently discharged and were eligible to enter the city’s Magdalen Asylum. These women did not necessarily agree with the society’s view of them as outcasts, with the need to be reformed, or with the ascetic discipline and work regimen within these institutions. Some used these institutions for their own purposes, as a short-term shelter, until they were thrown out.596

592 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 139-143, 383-384. 593 Ibid., 43, 81-82. 594 Quoted in Ibid., 60-61. 595 Fyson, "Prison Reform and Prison Society," 70. 596 Poutanen, Beyond Brutal Passions, 155.

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In the early years, a high proportion of the penitents were English-speakers. When the first census was taken in 1852, one out of every five penitents was Anglophone. A decade later, Anglophones had become a majority within the institution, though it remained largely run by Francophone nuns.597

Among these Anglophone penitents were a few Protestants, who were expected to convert to Catholicism as part of the reform process. A story told by a Father Auclair reveals some of the discrete maneuvering involved in the transgression of confessional boundaries at the time. Auclair writes of a visit to the city gaol in 1852: En entrant dans la salle des femmes, je vis qu'une nouvelle malheureuse était venue augmenter le nombre de ces pauvres égarées. . . . En faisant une visite à chacune d'elles, son tour vint ; je lui adressai alors quelques mots en bien mauvais anglais, auxquels elle répondit : “Je suis protestante. Monsieur.” Sur cette déclaration, je passai outre, laissant à Dieu le soin d'inspirer cette âme et de faire briller à ses yeux les lumières de l'éternelle vérité.598

Nevertheless, the woman later approached the priest imploring help, and claimed she was willing to convert to Catholicism. Casgrain continues: A cette proposition inattendue, une certaine défiance vint refroidir mon zèle; je trouvai brusque et rapide son changement de pensées et de sentiments, son mépris pour une religion à laquelle elle m’avait paru si fortement attachée. Je résolus d’agir avec prudence et discretion.599

Auclair then goes on to say that the woman extorted money from him upon release from gaol under the pretense that she needed it for passage to the United States. A fortnight later, she showed up drunk on the doorstep of the Saint Magdalen Asylum. After nine long months of trials and tribulations, Auclair writes that she was finally permitted to abjure her Protestant faith and become a Catholic. Auclair then goes on to describe her suffering through a terminal disease, the masochistic punishments she inflicted upon herself in a spirit of true Catholic grace, and ends

597 Based on an analysis of PHSVQ Census data for 1851-1861. In the absence of ethnic origin data for Canadian-born individuals in the earlier years, surname analysis was used to determine linguistic affiliation. 598 H. R. Casgrain, L'Asile du Bon-Pasteur de Québec, d'après les annales de cet institut (Quebec: L.-J. Demers & Frère, 1896), 357. 599 Ibid., 358.

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by congratulating himself on her eventual ascension to heaven.600 Putting aside the story’s intended moral message, Auclair’s tale yields information about the caution employed in transgressing the growing religious boundaries between Catholics and Protestants at the time. Auclair guards himself from poaching on Protestant turf: he is willing to provide counsel and help, but claims he does so only in reaction to the woman’s entreaties. He points out the desire for conversion comes solely from the penitent woman, and he never claims to have exerted any pressure upon her. Nevertheless, Auclair never refers her to a minister of her own faith, ending up both enabling and celebrating her conversion to Catholicism. He acknowledges the need to be prudent and discrete. Her position as a “fallen woman,” or lapsed Protestant, may make it easier for him to rationalize the conversion as it situates her in a hazy Godless arena where there are no boundaries to transgress. In short, boundaries between Catholics and Protestants need to be respected, but Auclair’s story shows us that there is some room for discrete maneuvering if you can argue that you were reacting to a lapsed Christian’s requests rather than actively proselytizing.

Unwed Mothers and the Hospice Saint-Joseph

Soon after the foundation of the Saint Magdalen Asylum, a second charitable Catholic home targeting “fallen women” opened in 1852: the Hospice Saint-Joseph de la Maternité. This shelter focused specifically on the care of unwed pregnant mothers, who faced considerable social stigma at the time. It was founded at the initiative of the Catholic Church and run by a group of laywomen. They provided shelter for around 25 unwed mothers per year, allowing them to give birth discreetly. Their children were then sent to the Grey Nuns’ nursery in Montreal, and most of them died within a year.601

600 Ibid., 359-377. 601 Gagnon, "Transitions et reflets de société dans la prise en charge de la maternité hors-norme ", 59-60.

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The institution remained largely focused on Francophones. Fewer than 10% of the women who stayed there were English-speaking Catholics or Protestants at a time when over a third of the city’s population was Anglophone. France Gagnon attributes this to the fact that the institution functioned almost exclusively in French, but also that it attracted many women from the surrounding countryside, where the proportion of Francophones was higher.602 While the institution had little importance for English-speaking Quebec City, it is nevertheless worth mentioning in that it reveals how charity was gradually extending its net beyond the respectable poor.

3.6. Charity and the State

During this period, the state frequently sought to minimize its role in financing private charitable initiatives. After years of irregular yet at times sizable grants, especially during the cholera epidemic, a government “Standing Committee for Hospitals and Charitable Institutions” mandated that

. . . it ought not to be admitted as a principle, that the Institutions of a purely local nature should be supported out of the public monies levied on the Inhabitants of the whole Province. For this reason, Your Committee are of opinion that the several Institutions and Societies . . . ought to be informed that they must not reckon upon the aid of the Legislature for their future support, but must limit their charities and their expenses according to the funds they can raise from voluntary contributions made by the generosity of individuals.

The legislature concluded by recommending modest annual grants to the different charitable institutions applying for aid, which only covered a tiny fraction of their operating budget. Hospitals received larger sums. This system of regular (yet trifling) provincial grants continued well into the first decades of the twentieth

602 Ibid., 71-72.

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century. This yearly pattern clarified the perfunctory role of the state within the private charitable apparatus.603

This was not much different from the situation with regard to state funding of private charities in most of North America. States and provinces typically provided little-to-no financing for private charities. In the United States, public funding for private asylums existed in New York State and California during the antebellum era, but there was no government funding available in most other states.604

Municipalities, however, played an important funding role toward public poorhouses in most of North America, which was not the case in what is now the province of Quebec. However, this point is moot if one considers that the public gaol—a state- funded institution—fulfilled the role that municipal poorhouses had elsewhere.

“Black 47”: A Case Study of the State’s Response to Crisis

During times of crisis, the state reluctantly increased its support, usually at the eleventh hour. Exceptional situations like the 1845 Quebec City fire or the Irish famine migration exhausted the funds of existing organizations, who petitioned the state for help. The state provided funds, but always with the caveat that aid was temporary, and that the state did not want to set up a system of public charity.605

The Irish famine is a potent example, since it led to migration and death on an unprecedented scale. Although there were many signs early in 1847 indicating it would be an exceptional year, the state did little to prepare for the crisis on the publicly-managed Grosse Île quarantine station. Meanwhile, the Anglican and Catholic bishops cooperated in an effort to raise money for the poor of Ireland and

603 Journal of the House of Assembly, Lower-Canada, (Quebec: W. Neilson, 1836), 197-198., quoted in Fecteau, La liberté du pauvre, 134-135. 604 Hacsi, Second Home, 92-93. 605 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 64-66.

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Scotland in hope of stemming the tide of migration. A circular letter was sent to all pastors of the diocese of Quebec. A multiethnic and interdenominational committee was formed to oversee this, and collectors appointed to canvass homes.606 At least £1021-13-3 was sent to Ireland, and £325-16-9 to Scotland from Quebec City.607

As Marie-Claude Belley states, there were three major players involved with the famine crisis, each with its own role. The state took charge of the quarantine station and the Marine and Emigrant Hospital, the first line of defence against the epidemic. Secondly, religious officials and private charities nursed the sick, administered sacraments, and found homes for the children. The final player was the community at large, which took migrants into their homes or workplaces.608

New temporary organizations were created to deal with this crisis. “Fever sheds” were built around town.609 In July, shipbuilder John J. Nesbitt, who was married to of one of the Catholic ladies in the Charitable Association, offered his house on Prince Edward street to shelter orphans with parents in the Marine and Emigrant Hospital, located nearby. This temporary orphanage was initially financed solely by private contributions. The home soon proved too small and, in August, the Catholic diocese got hold of a house in the Saint Louis Cemetery. Another temporary orphanage was set up, which was financed by the Catholic Church. 610 The

606 O'Gallagher and Dompierre, Eyewitness: Grosse Isle, 1847, 11-13. 607 Ibid., 17. In the end, only 3,752 Scots came to Canada whereas nearly 90,000 Irish migrants came. O'Gallagher and Dompierre, Eyewitness: Grosse Isle, 1847, 364. 608 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 14-15. 609 O’Gallagher claims sheds were built behind Saint Patrick’s Church by the parish and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. However, there are no references to back this up, and this same article contains a few mistakes on the location and use of temporary shelters in Quebec City. Belley, who has researched the famine orphans extensively, claims she found no reference relating to the existence of fever sheds at Saint Patrick’s. See: O'Gallagher, "The Orphans of Grosse Ile," 88,99; Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 68. 610 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 68-69.

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Protestant Churches faced less of a challenge, given that less than a tenth of the famine migrants were Protestant.611

Whereas the 1832 cholera epidemic had led to the creation of permanent orphanages in Quebec, none of the temporary indoor help institutions founded in 1847 lasted beyond the famine. This is different from the situation in Montreal, where the first Irish Catholic homes—Saint Patrick’s Orphan Asylum and Saint Bridget’s Refuge—grew out of shelters set up during the famine.612

Given the fact that the famine was “out of all proportion to the resources arising from private charity,” the state agreed to provide temporary assistance to reimburse the Churches and charities. However, they put an end to this provision within one year, fearing that it would lead to the establishment of a permanent public charity system.613

Children were therefore placed out rapidly. Over half were placed out into Francophone families.614 This cultural loss of sorts may have stimulated protective instincts within the Irish Catholic community that will examined in the next chapter, though no direct evidence has been found supporting this hypothesis.

Vagrancy and the Quebec Gaol

As noted in the previous chapters, hundreds of “undeserving poor” ended up in gaol prior to 1835 due to the lack of a public poorhouse and gaps in the private charitable infrastructure. The numbers of vagrants in gaol continued to increase in the 1835-1855 period.

611 Ibid., 39. 612 D’Allaire, Les communautés religieuses de Montréal, tome 1, 78-79; Curran, Golden Jubilee of St. Patrick's Orphan Asylum, 2-3. 613 Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 48, 66. 614 Ibid., 85.

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In addition to this increase, the proportion of English-speakers in the gaol grew, a significant number of whom were Irish born. From the 1840s onward, and perhaps even before, the number of Irish-born prisoners in the gaol surpassed the number of French Canadians. This growth was even more marked for women, as over half the female prisoners in Quebec were born in Ireland. Given that French Canadians always remained a majority in Quebec, this was an exceptional situation. It was also unique to Quebec City, where the proportion of English-speakers in gaol relative to the total population was significantly higher than in Montreal. A majority of these incarcerations were for minor vagrancy-related offences.615

This growth shows that charitable needs were still not being met by the private network, especially among the Irish. The city’s population more than doubled between 1831 and 1861, and private charitable organizations were not keeping up with the needs that came out of this growth.616 Despite the growing number of organizations in this network, and despite the growing public sympathy for the underclasses that typically wound up in gaol, the prison was increasingly being used as a social service institution. Why? As noted above, the Saint Magdalen Asylum did not appeal to everyone, and only had room for a fraction of the women released from gaol. Moreover, there were still no institutions or workhouses to shelter poor adult and elderly men in the winter, neither on the Catholic or Protestant sides.

615 Fyson, "L'irlandisation de la prison de Québec." For Montreal, see: Poutanen, Beyond Brutal Passions, 139, 172. 616 The population grew 2.08 times rom 28,317 people in 1831 to 59,039 in 1861. 1831 data is from Appendix (O. o) to the XLIst Volume of the Journals of the House of Assembly of the Province of Lower-Canada, (Quebec: Neilson & Cowan, 1832). excluding the rural parishes Beauport, Charlesbourg, St. Ambroise, Valcartier, Anc. Lorette, Ste. Foy and Stoneham. 1861 data is from PHSVQ, which covers roughly the same territory.

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3.7. Conclusion

The period between 1835 and 1855 saw many significant additions to the outdoor relief sector. Three national societies were founded in 1835 and 1836 to provide help to residents and migrants of English, Scottish, and Irish origins. In 1838, the Methodist-run Ladies’ Benevolent Society began distributing aid throughout the city, mostly to widows and children. Finally, some ten years later, Irish Catholic conferences were founded within the nascent male devotional Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, whose uniquely efficient approach to charity undermined the work of the increasingly chaotic Saint Patrick’s Society.

There were few changes to the indoor relief infrastructure until the late 1840s. Institutions became more likely to shelter young persons for longer periods, rather than placing them out quickly. Temporary shelters were set up for the poor during crises such as the 1845 city fire and the Irish famine, but these did not develop into lasting indoor relief institutions. The state soon withdrew funding, and economic liberalism prevailed once more. The transfer of the Catholic orphanage run by laywomen to the Sisters of Charity in 1849 paved the way for its eventual growth, and the controversial Saint Magdalen Asylum in 1850 targeted “fallen women” released from gaol.

Despite this, needs continued to outpace the growth of private institutions. This was especially true for Quebec’s growing English-speaking population, which included many recent migrants that lacked social and kinship networks in the city. Consequently, many still sought shelter at the only place that would take them in during the winter months: the city gaol. No institutions for adult or elderly men were founded during this period, and only a small proportion of women released from gaol were drawn to the strict and austere regimen at the Saint Magdalen Asylum.

These developments took place against a backdrop of rising ethno-religious tensions in North America. In Quebec City, boundaries rose between Francophones, Irish Catholics, and Protestants. Five major causes led to this “Quiet Devolution”: Patriote republicanism and its defeat; a reinvigoration of

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Catholicism; the rise of Protestant evangelicalism; the enshrinement of separate schools into law; and the Irish Famine.

This had a direct impact on Quebec City’s charitable structure. Although older multiconfessional organizations continued to exist in this period, all associations founded after 1835 served the interests of particular ethnic or religious groups. Even the new Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society, which claimed to ignore distinctions of “race or sect,” was run primarily by and for Methodists.

Quebec’s periodically fratricidal Irish Catholic community also chose to distance itself from Francophones and Protestants to create its own associations, though considerable Irish-French cooperation was still taking place by the early 1850s. The creation of separate Irish Catholic conferences and particular councils within the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is a reflection of this shift. Yet Irish Catholics still worked with Francophones within the school system, within the Sisters of Charity orphanage, and within the Saint Magdalen Asylum, among others. Growing religious and political boundaries created more tangible friction. The chaos within the Saint Patrick’s Society was partly a result of friction between the Orange and Green, showing the increasing difficulty involved in seeking to transcend growing boundaries. However, the Saint Patrick’s Society was also the victim of internecine tensions within the Irish Catholic minority itself, tensions related to broader political issues in Ireland and Canada. Irish Catholics were slowly building boundaries, but there was still some disagreement about shared goals within those boundaries.

Churches also encouraged boundary building. Catholics and Protestants alike were wary of proselytism from the other side. This led to near-unanimous support in both Quebec and Montreal for separate denominational schools, a consensus that did not exist elsewhere in North America. Boundary transgressions were increasingly discouraged by the Churches: Anglican clergy chastised Protestant leaders within the national societies for attending Catholic services on Saint Patrick’s Day; Catholic sermons encouraged shunning all converts to Protestantism. Nevertheless, some discrete proselytism still took place outside the main cities and towards the religiously-lapsed members of the underclass.

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Despite a gradual decline in cooperation across ethno-religious lines, there were some positive developments. Some people saw the poor as victims of laissez-faire economics rather than as criminals. These ideas did not upset the dominant economic liberalism of the day, but they encouraged new private charitable organizations targeting previously neglected segments of the population. The rise of religious practice could also encourage a more compassionate view of the poor among some people. In the case of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, the poor were even imbued with Christlike attributes and seen as a means to salvation. National societies were more likely to give to unemployed men than organizations founded in the past. New shelters emerged in the early 1850s that catered to different types of “fallen women,” such as the Saint Magdalen Asylum and the Hospice Saint-Joseph. Charitable organizations catered to a broader segment of the population, including the general adult population settled in Quebec City.

Nevertheless, it was becoming more difficult to bridge growing ethno-religious divisions, and would become even more difficult in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In short, the 1835-1855 period was a transitional period between the pre- 1835 period of permeable boundaries and the post-1855 period of sharply delineated ones.

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4. “GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS”: 1855-1900

Charitable networks became more structured and more entrenched into Quebec’s three ethnic communities. Among English-speakers, this came about through the emergence of two major private institutions in the late 1850s: one for English- speaking Catholics (Saint Bridget’s Asylum), and one for Protestants (Ladies’ Protestant Home). The boundary construction that had begun some two decades earlier was almost complete. Quebec’s three major ethnic communities had private charitable organizations that catered almost exclusively to their own. Although this period is also marked by a significant numerical decline among Quebec’s English- speakers, Protestant and Catholic alike, this decline did not bring them together at first. In fact, it initially created a sense of urgency that actually strengthened boundaries, revealing that religion was a more important marker of identity than language. In other North American cities, namely the assimilationist United States, this type of boundary building was challenged by the English-speaking Protestant majority. This was not the case in Quebec. A relative peace existed between communities. This was not based on a climate of collaboration but, conversely, on a mutual respect of divisions, and a mutual desire to maintain these divisions. Visible tensions only arose on the rare occasions when well-established boundaries were challenged. In short, the prevailing attitude of the time can be summed up with an old proverb: “good fences make good neighbours.”617

617 Although this proverb is frequently attributed to American poet Robert Frost’s 1914 poem “Mending Wall,” studies show that it predates Frost and that similar versions exists in several cultures. Coincidentally enough, its first English-language appearance in print was the year 1850. See: Wolfgang Mieder, "'Good Fences Make Good Neighbours': History and Significance of an Ambiguous Proverb," Folklore, no. 114 (2003).

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4.1. Anglophone Decline and Consolidation of the Charitable Network

Decline of Quebec’s English-speaking Minorities

Although Quebec City grew in the first half of the nineteenth century, stagnation set in during the second half of the century. Figure 3 illustrates this clearly, by comparing the growing population in Montreal to that of Quebec City.

Fig. 3: Total Population of Quebec City and Montreal, 1852-1901 350000

300000

250000

200000 Quebec City 150000 Montreal

100000

50000

0 1852 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901

Source: for Quebec City: PHSVQ Census data; for Montreal, 1852: City of Montreal population in Canada, Census of the Canadas 1851-2, Vol. 1, Quebec, John Lovell, 1853, 106; for Montreal 1861-1901: City and suburb data in Paul André Linteau, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert, Quebec: A History 1867-1929, Toronto, James Lorimer & Company, 1983, 130. 618

618 Paul André Linteau, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert, Quebec: A History 1867-1929 (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1983), 130.

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It was not just Montreal. Toronto’s population quintupled in this period and Boston’s population quadrupled.619 Quebec was clearly growing more slowly than most major cities in the northeast.

There are many causes for this demographic stagnation, some of which began decades before the decline set in. The development of transportation networks on a continental scale eroded Quebec’s importance as a major seaport: the dredging of the Saint Lawrence meant ocean-going ships increasingly bypassed Quebec; Montreal became an important railway hub in the 1850s, while Quebec remained disconnected from the railway network until 1879. Furthermore, the shipbuilding and timber trades collapsed, which were significant drivers of the local economy. The tanneries and other small industries that replaced these trades did not generate much capital and urban growth.620

This decline was especially pronounced among Quebec’s English-speaking populations. As Figure 4 shows, the Francophone Catholic population more than doubled in absolute terms between 1861 and 1901, whereas the Protestant and Irish Catholic populations decreased.

619 Toronto’s population more than quintupled between 1861 and 1901. Boston’s population more than quadrupled between 1850 and 1900. "Toronto History FAQ: Population," City of Toronto, http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=9cae757ae6b31410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD &vgnextchannel=6c21226b48c21410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD#population; Dave Wieneke, "Population Trends in Boston 1640 - 1990," http://www.iboston.org/mcp.php?pid=popFig. 620 For more details see Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 1095-1171, 1303.

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Fig. 4: Total Population of Quebec City by Ethnic Group, 1852-1901 70000

60000

50000 French-speaking Catholic 40000 English-speaking Catholic 30000 Protestant 20000 Other/Illegible

10000

0 1852 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Source: PHSVQ Census data. Ethnic groups are determined as follows. For 1852 & 1862, by religion data and name/surname analysis; for 1871, 1881, 1891 by ethnic origin and religion data, with surname analysis used when ethnic origin is incomplete or listed as Canadian/Quebec ; for 1901 by mother tongue and religion data.

Figure 5 shows that the proportion of English-speakers fell from a high of over 40% in the 1850s and 1860s (more if you add the transient seasonal migrant and British garrison populations that were not included in the census) to roughly 15% by the end of the century. This did not happen in Montreal, where the percentage of non- Francophones remained significant, decreasing only slightly from 54.9% in 1852 to 43.7% at the turn of the twentieth century.621

621 Canada, Census of the Canadas 1851-2, Personal Census Vol. 1 (Quebec: John Lovell, 1853); Canada, Fourth Census of Canada 1901, Volume 1 Population, 376-379.

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Fig. 5: Quebec City’s Population by Percentage of Ethnic Groups, 1852-1901 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% French-speaking Catholic 50% English-speaking Catholic 40% Protestant 30% Other/Illegible 20% 10% 0% 1852 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Source: PHSVQ Census data. Ethnic groups are determined as follows. For 1852 & 1862, by religion data and name/surname analysis; for 1871, 1881, 1891 by ethnic origin and religion data, with surname analysis used when ethnic origin is incomplete or listed as Canadian/Quebec ; for 1901 by mother tongue and religion data.

Why did this decline disproportionately affect English-speakers? For one, English- speakers had shallower family roots in the city and spoke the majority language in North America, which made them more likely to move in the face of economic problems and better opportunities elsewhere. Also, Quebec’s British garrison left in 1871, removing what had once been a population in the thousands (although they were generally not tabulated in the census statistics above); their departure had a profound impact on the British imperial character of Quebec City, which may have pushed others to leave.

Longitudinal studies suggest that the decline of Quebec’s English-speaking population favored a gradual integration within the French-speaking majority. Intermarriage rates (exogamy) serve as indicator of the permeability of boundaries between communities. In Quebec City, the total percentage of English-speakers married to Francophones rose from 3.8% in 1851 to 15% in 1901, with a significantly higher percentage among English-speaking Catholics given their

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shared religion with Francophones (9% and 22%).622 Integration continued throughout the twentieth century. By the 1970s, half the population in Quebec City with origins in Britain and Ireland had French as a mother tongue, which Charbonneau and Maheu claimed was a unique situation in the province.623 Visitors to Quebec City’s surviving English-language charitable homes today are plunged into an environment where French and English are spoken interchangeably. When minorities fall under a certain critical mass, it becomes harder to live exclusively among their own networks and to preserve strict ethno- religious boundaries. This plays out in subsequent generations through the formation of hybrid identities, or even outright assimilation into the majority community. Obviously, this was more a case in Quebec City than in Montreal, which continues to maintain a critical mass of English-speakers to this day.

Given that the decline of Quebec’s English-speaking minorities led to an eventual erosion of boundaries, it is worth asking when signs of this erosion first appeared in the charitable sector. Surprisingly, qualitative sources reveal few signs prior to 1900. If anything, despite rising exogamy rates (or perhaps because of them), there were more signs of splintering apart along community lines than of rapprochement within organizations. As seen below, Irish Catholic sources reveal an anxiety surrounding declining numbers that strengthens their resolve to maintain distinct organizations.624 The same anxiety probably existed for Protestants, but is not as evident in the sources.

622 The latter figures were obtained by adding data from Goulet for “Anglais Catholiques” and “Irlandais Catholiques” married with Francophones. The “Anglais Catholique” category also includes Scottish Catholics, as many Francophone scholars confound England and Britain. Interestingly, nearly half the small “Anglais Catholique” population married Francophones in 1851, which would indicate that Scottish and English Catholics were exceptionally exogamous. Goulet also does not address thisdiscrepancy. Goulet, "La nuptialité dans la ville de Québec : étude des mariages mixtes au cours de la deuxième moitié du 19ième siècle", 71-74. 623 Hubert Charbonneau and Robert Maheu, Les aspects démographiques de la question linguistique (Quebec: L'éditeur officiel du Québec, 1973), 89., quoted in Rudin, The Forgotten Quebecers, 181. 624 See section 4.3 below on the altercation between Saint Bridget’s Asylum and the archbishop, for instance.

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Consolidation of the Charitable Network

The organizations that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century helped to consolidate a network with many gaps. Although the gaol continued to be used as a poorhouse, this use decreased over time. Despite declining numbers and declining migration of English-speakers, both Protestant and Catholic charitable networks targeting Anglophones continued to grow. This meant that new institutions were less and less likely to turn away the needy due to lack of space or resources.

The charitable landscape also became increasingly defined along ethno-religious lines. The multiconfessional associations and homes founded in the first half of the nineteenth century did not survive the reorganization of society along sharply bounded confessional lines. The Female Compassionate Society disappeared around 1852, the Canada Military Asylum in 1872, the Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society disappeared in the 1880s, and a sectarian climate seeped into the increasingly irrelevant national societies. There remained some cooperation across boundaries, but it was often wrought with tension. Unsurprisingly, Table 9 below shows that all new charitable organizations created in this period were founded along sectarian lines.

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Table 9: Major Private Charitable Organizations Providing Significant Services to Quebec City's English-speakers Founded Between 1855 and 1900

Ethno-Religious Most common name for Foundation Type of Main clientele affiliation of organization year organization administrators

Charitable Ladies' Protestant Relief Society/ women's Mostly women Protestant (mostly 1855 Ladies' Protestant Home association / and children Evangelical) Asylum

Women, Saint Bridget's Asylum (later children, English-speaking 1856* Asylum Saint Brigid's Home) and eventually Catholic men Mostly elderly Anglican men Finlay Home 1857 Asylum and some Anglican elderly Anglican women

Charitable Mostly adult Quebec City Mission (later Protestant (mostly 1857 association / women and Ladies' City Mission) Evangelical) Asylum mothers

Irish Protestant Benevolent Charitable men's Needy of Irish 1859 Irish Protestant Society association Protestant origin

St. Patrick’s Ladies Charitable Charitable Society Families, mostly English-speaking 1870 women's (later Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ women Catholic association Benevolent Society)

Charitable Women's Christian Association Young women women's (WCA, later YWCA) and 1875 and female ex- Protestant association / Protestant Magdalen Asylum convicts Asylum

Charitable Protestant Salvation Army 1886 association / Mostly vagrants (Evangelical) Asylum

* A makeshift home under the same name existed in the early 1850s, which shut down in January 1856. A new home opened in December 1856, which the present organization has recognized as its foundation date from the earliest years.

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Although the networks were more complete and coherent, organizations functioned mostly independently of each other. There was no central authority to coordinate initiatives and act as a clearing house of information for the poor. These types of umbrella groups, or charity organization societies, began appearing in the 1870s in Britain, the United States, and Canada. By 1900, there were 138 in existence in the United States, operating under different names: Charity Organization Society, Society for Organizing Charity, Bureau of Charity, Associated Charities, and others. These societies maintained registries of applicants, kept records of aid given to them, and referred people to the proper relief dispensing agency. This attempt at “scientific charity” was an effort to eliminate fraud, duplicity, and inefficiency.625 Such agencies, a first step in the professionalization of charity, only began appearing in Quebec City in the 1920s; these early efforts did not last, and were typically split along confessional lines.626

Let us examine in greater detail how the different organizations listed above functioned in a social climate defined by sharply-drawn ethno-religious boundaries.

4.2. A Cohesive Irish Catholic Charitable Network

The most significant development on the Irish-Catholic side within this period was the opening of Saint Bridget’s Asylum (later Saint Brigid’s Home).627 This became the core of a cohesive network of Irish-Catholic charitable organizations. Older organizations supplemented Saint Bridget’s, such as the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Patrick’s Church, and the increasingly fractious and irrelevant Saint Patrick’s Society. New auxiliary organizations also emerged during this period,

625 Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, 92-97. 626 For more information, see: Hayda Denault, "Les services sociaux à Québec" (M.A., Université de Montréal, 1945). 627 In the early twentieth century, “Saint Bridget’s Asylum” became “Saint Brigid’s Home,” the Irish spelling “Brigid” remplaced the more common English “Bridget.” “Home” was also deemed more welcoming than “Asylum,” which had shifted meaning over the years. Given that this study deals with the period before 1900, the original name will be used throughout.

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most notably the short-lived Saint Patrick’s Ladies Charitable Institution (later Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ Benevolent Institution). The only organizations in which Irish Catholics continued to work closely with Francophones were those that targeted the underclass.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the famine migration and the rise of Irish nationalism that followed led to a hardening of ethno-religious boundaries and the emergence of a suspicious and embattled Irish Catholic community. Irish Catholics became increasingly vocal in their refusal to work in shared organizations with Francophones. Although linguistic differences had been evoked as a reason for this in the past, sources for this period increasingly show that this desire for separateness rests on deeper cultural considerations related to the preservation of a distinct Irish identity. To use Hacsi’s framework, their organizations became increasingly protective, seeking to preserve the community’s cultural and religious heritage from a world they saw as hostile to it.628 Sociologist Raymond Breton’s concept of “institutional completeness” also allows us to understand this. Breton described the importance of organizations in the construction and reproduction of cohesive communities, given that organizational networks serve to facilitate contacts within one ethnic group while minimising those with other groups.629

The Embryonic Saint Bridget’s

All published studies on Saint Bridget’s Asylum, and many of the early sources and annual reports produced by the organization itself, place the foundation date in December 1856; however, the archives of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul refer to a Saint Bridget’s Asylum that existed prior to this date. In the 1840s, “the Reverend Mr. McMahon put a poor old and infirm widow under the care of Mrs.

628 Hacsi, Second Home, 54-59. 629 For more about institutional completeness, see Raymond Breton, "Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants," American Journal of Sociology 70, no. 2 (1964): 193- 205.

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D'arcy - Since then, several others have been at different times placed in the same house.”630 The 1851 census indeed lists a widow by the name of “Darcy” living with her family and three other Irish-Catholic widows on Nouvelle Street in the Faubourg Saint-Jean.631

In early 1853, Father Nelligan of Saint Patrick’s Church transferred the administration of this home, which already bore the name “Saint Bridget’s Asylum” in reports, to the Saint Patrick’s particular council of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. The asylum only housed widows, but orphans and other poor were eligible for outdoor relief from its budget.632 It remained a small operation. Between 1853 and 1856, the asylum funds helped five widows and six orphans. On January 22, 1856, the two remaining widows in the house were transferred to a newly-opened Sisters of Charity home for elderly women.633

By the end of that same year, rumours had begun circulating that the Sisters of Charity were mistreating elderly women under their care. The annals of the religious order state:

On disait que nous leur refusions les aliments nécessaires, que nous leur faisions souffrir le froid et que nous allions même jusqu’à les frapper. . . . Ces faussetés s’étendirent assez loin et nous devinrent

630 The archival documents in the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul Fonds (P437) at BAnQ-Québec include contradictory information about the foundation year. The “Report on Saint Bridget's Asylum 1853” from July 4 1854 (box 76) lists 1842 as a foundation year. The “Report of the Widow and Orphan Asylum Saint Louis Suburbs Quebec under the superintendance of Saint Patrick's Society St. Vincent de Paul” from January 1856 (box 31) mentions the year 1849. The Saint Patrick’s Church minute books for these years provide no clarification as to the exact foundation date. 631 PHSVQ data for 1851. Nouvelle street is now known as rue Saint-Patrick. 632 “Orphans and other poor are relieved out of the same fund, though they are not admitted into the asylum, owing to the want of room in the house at present occupied by Mrs. D'Arcy in Nouvelle street in the St. Louis Suburbs . . . They are considered out door patients." "Report on Saint Bridget's Asylum 1853", July 4 1854, box 76, Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), BAnQ-Québec. 633 Report of the "Widow and Orphan Asylum Saint Louis Suburbs Quebec under the superintendance of Saint Patrick's Society St. Vincent de Paul", January 1856, box 31, Fonds Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul de Québec (P437), BAnQ-Québec; Voisine et al., Histoire des Soeurs de la Charité de Québec, vol.1, 176-177; vol.2, 29.

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d’autant plus sensibles qu’elles commençaient à s’insinuer dans l’esprit des personnes qui nous avaient toujours porté un grand intérêt.634

While the nuns claim these rumours were later disproved, they may have inspired Saint Patrick’s parish authorities to revive Saint Bridget’s Asylum. Moreover, Saint Patrick’s became an independent parish in 1856, affording it greater leeway in managing its affairs and setting up organizations and institutions.635 A new Saint Bridget’s Asylum opened in December 1856 under a different administrative model.

Overview of Saint Bridget’s after 1856

The revived Saint Bridget’s Asylum founded in 1856 grew into the largest English- language charity in Quebec City, and the core of the Irish Catholic community’s charitable endeavours. From 1856 to 1858, the small home was located near the original Saint Patrick’s Church in the walled city, moving from one house to another on Saint Stanislas Street. These homes comfortably housed 15 to 20 residents, each with their own straw bed, but there were over 30 people living there at times.636 Consequently, in 1858, Saint Bridget’s moved to a large house on ample land at the edge of the city to “afford the inmates the salubrity and repose of a country residence.”637 Several additions were made to this building on the corner of Grande Allée and De Salaberry over the next 115 years, making Saint Bridget’s into the largest English-language charitable institution in the city. This location also became the new heart of Quebec City’s Irish Catholic community in the twentieth century: buildings were erected on nearby lots for Saint Patrick’s elementary school

634 Quoted in Ibid., vol.1, 177. 635 Rules and Regulations for the Guidance and Government of the Congregation of Catholics of Quebec Speaking the English Language (Quebec: Printed at the Colonist office, 1856). 636 From December 1856 until 26 April 1857 it was located in an unspecified house on Saint Stanislas. It moved to what is now 6, rue Saint-Stanislas until 11 April 1858. Sources: Visitors Notebook, Fonds St. Bridget's Asylum (P925), BAnQ-Québec; Morning Chronicle, 6 December 1856; "Insurance Plans of the City of Quebec," (Montreal: Chas. E. Goad, 1879); The Canada Directory for 1857-58, corrected to November, 1857, (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1857), 609. 637 The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 21 May 1858.

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for boys (1910), a new Saint Patrick’s Church (1915/1958), the Leonard School for girls (1936), and Saint Patrick’s High School (1956).638

The home housed an eclectic range of inmates in its first few years, most of whom were female. For instance, in November 1857, Saint Bridget’s housed ten elderly women, three adult women with physical disabilities, an orphan boy, and a recent penniless immigrant with her three young children. Most of this population was transient. 99 people passed through the home in its first year and a half, and only two residents died. The unemployed adults either found jobs as live-in servants, or received money from relatives and left town. The parish tried to place the orphan children. However, not all children in the home were orphans. Some were dropped off by a parent engaged in seasonal labour elsewhere, who had fallen sick, or who did not have enough money—14 of the first 50 children listed in the home’s registry were eventually returned to a parent or close relative.639

638 For more details, see: 100th Anniversary: Saint Patrick's Parish, Saint Brigid's Home, Quebec, (Quebec: Quebec Newspapers, ltd., 1956); Rivet, "Les Irlandais à Québec, 1870-1968". 639 Visitors Notebook, Fonds St. Bridget's Asylum (P925), BAnQ-Québec; Letter to the editor and Report from the Saint Brigid’s Asylum Association, The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 21 May 1858, 5.

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Fig. 6: Number of Residents at Saint Bridget’s Asylum (Excluding Staff), 1856-1905 180 160 140 120

100 Unspecified

80 Children

60 Adults 40 20 0

1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 Numbers represent the number of residents in the home at year’s end. Source: Annual reports taken from Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte (IHQ), Minutes of the Saint Bridget’s Asylum Association, and online newspapers. Some years missing. Some years where inmates are “unspecified” may include between 1 and 14 staff members.

Figure 6 above shows that the asylum grew from a small number of residents at its foundation to an average around 150 by the 1890s. A sudden growth spurt in admissions took place in the late 1870s, when onsite staffing was turned over from salaried laywomen to the Sisters of Charity.

With time, residents became almost equally divided between adults and children. Roughly six out of every ten inmates in the 1856-1900 period were adults. Most were elderly women and, as of the 1880s, a growing number of elderly men. There were also occasional servant girls admitted for temporary relief, especially in the earlier years; by the late nineteenth century, the overwhelming majority of adult admissions were elderly. 640 Roughly four out of ten inmates were children. Some were actual orphans, but many were children placed by poor or infirm parents, as well as children “taken from their parents, who were serving divers terms of

640 The register only lists a total of eight elderly men admitted in the first 25 years of the institution. These were exceptional cases. A men’s wing was added in 1882, and a steady stream of yearly admissions appear after that year. An average of 58.8% of the inmates were adults for the years where annual reports break down inmates between adults and children.

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imprisonment.”641 Few unaccompanied infants under 18 months appear in the registry, as the asylum was not equipped to care for them, but Marianna O’Gallagher mentions some early cases where “the Sister in charge had their cribs brought into her room in order to have her full attention at night.”642

This type of institution, with such a diverse range of clienteles under the same roof, may seem unique in Quebec City. Whereas Francophones and Protestants had many institutions at their disposal, Saint Bridget’s was the only indoor relief institution specifically for Irish Catholics. However, different categories of inmates came to be lodged in different sections of the growing complex: the elderly on the top floor, men in a separate wing, children below. This was not very different from the Sisters of Charity’s Francophone institutions, which had distinct names but were all located in the same complex of buildings. Even the Anglican homes, which also had different names, were all lodged under the same roof between 1863 and 1872. In short, the situation on the ground was not all that different.

The one category of inmate refused at Saint Bridget’s were vagrants or “undeserving poor.” This explains why the Good Shepherd home for this clientele continued to have a high proportion of Irish Catholics, whereas the Sisters of Charity orphanage became almost exclusively Francophone. Despite the seeming respectability of Saint Bridget’s, the first Visitors’ Book shows that the administrators struggled to maintain a semblance of order in the home, and residents were frequently let go for transgressing the expected norms of decency at the time. After a few unfortunate incidents, the administrators insisted “that an example be made by the expulsion of any one of the inmates who may refuse to respect or obey [the matron].” One of the first to be made into an example was 98- year old “Granny Scully.” She was kicked out in August 1857 after someone had seen her begging on the street, but they allowed her back in the home before

641 J. M. Le Moine, Quebec Past and Present: A History of Quebec, 1608-1876, in Two Parts (Quebec: Augustin Cote & Co., 1876), 379. 642 O'Gallagher, Saint Brigid's, Quebec, 59. The Good Shepherd nuns opened a creche for infants as of 1873.

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winter hit. A few months later, a group of five young women created “a most disgraceful state of disorder” for the matron, who complained that they “sing, dance and abuse her when she insists on them keeping quiet.” Some of the girls smuggled liquor into the home, others committed petty thefts, and one even spent a night in the shed with a soldier from the British garrison. Following this incident, the visiting officers recommended that “a code of rules for the internal guidance of the house” be printed and placed in the building to keep the chaos in check.643

Table 10: Place of Birth of Adult Residents at Saint Bridget’s Asylum, 1856-1915

Ireland England Scotland Canada USA Other/Not Listed

1856-1865 96.6 % 1.4 % 0 % 2.1 % 0 % 0 %

1866-1875 100.00 % 0 % 0 % 0 % 0 % 0 %

1876-1885 96.8 % 0.8 % 0 % 1.6 % 0 % 0.8 %

1886-1895 77.9 % 1.3 % 1.8 % 17.7 % 0.4 % 0.9 %

1896-1905 55 % 2.1 % 0.3 % 40.1 % 1.2 % 1.2 %

Source: Register, Saint Bridget’s Asylum, 1856-1969, kept at Saint Bridget’s Home. Thanks to Sherry Craig for an Excel spreadsheet of this data. Children were excluded as their place of birth is not systematically listed prior to 1905.

The table above shows that Saint Bridget’s was overwhelmingly Irish in the nineteenth century. Most residents were born in Ireland until the 1890s, when the number of Canadian-born began to rise. However, a quick overview of the surnames among these Canadian-born residents reveals a high proportion of Mahonys, Molloys, O’Reillys and the like; in other words, most were likely second-

643 Vistors notebook, 2 August 1857, 15 November 1857, 28 January 1858, 18 February 1858, Fonds St. Bridget's Asylum (P925), BAnQ-Québec. Although Granny Scully is listed as 89-years-old in the register of inmates, she is also listed as 98-years-old in the Visitors notebook (November 1857) and 104-year-old Margaret Scully in the 1861 Canada Census. The latter two sources put her closer to 100 in the late 1850s, suggesting that the first source may be the result of dyslexic transcription.

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generation Irish. This is consistent with trends in Irish migration, which suggest a sudden decline after 1855;644 it therefore makes sense that a growing number of Canadian-born Irish began to use the home from the 1890s.

As with all other orphanages examined in this dissertation, Saint Bridget’s provided an education for its young residents, usually to prepare them for service in homes or for another manual trade. This began in 1861, and education took place entirely within the institution’s walls until 1948, after which children were integrated into the public school system.645 This notion of segregating orphans from other children, separating institutionalized children from those in families, was common in the nineteenth century. Timothy Hacsi notes, however, that in the United States they were integrated into public schools between 1870 and 1920.646 Saint Bridget’s was late to adopt changes that had taken place elsewhere.

As with most asylums in the nineteenth century, Saint Bridget’s was financed primarily through private funds. This money came through annual collections, interest on investments, and bazars. The latter played an important role, and bazars organized by parish women represented 42.6% of the revenue for the years 1859-1873. Yearly public grants represented fewer than 10% of revenue for these same years.647 This differs from Protestant institutions, which generally stopped holding bazars after a few decades. This is in part because their endowments grew faster due to significant donations from Protestant philanthropists.648 Moreover, the number of residents at Saint Bridget’s grew in the latter quarter of the century,

644 Vallières et al., Histoire de Québec et de sa région, 695-696. 645 O'Gallagher, Saint Brigid's, Quebec, 55. Saint Bridget’s Asylum, Annual Report, 1861. 646 Hacsi, Second Home, 54-55, 59. 647 Saint Bridget’s Asylum Association Annual Reports published in the True Witness and Catholic Chronicle. 648 For example, James Gibb and James Gibb Ross gave sizable donations that helped build an endowment fund for the Ladies’ Protestant Home. Information taken from Ladies’ Protestant Home Annual Reports, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home (P556), BAnQ-Québec.

Additionally, the Church of England Female Orphan Asylum stopped holding bazars in 1852 because their endowment was sizable enough. Quebec Mercury, 7 March 1879.

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which was not the case for Protestant institutions, leading to a corresponding growth in expenses.

Given the numerical decline and increasing percentage of skilled workers within Quebec’s Irish Catholic community during this period, it may seem unusual that Saint Bridget’s kept growing. Indeed, Quebec City’s Irish Catholic population fell from a high of 13,049 people in 1861, to 6,159 in 1901—it was more than halved. Moreover, the percentage of unskilled Irish Catholic manual workers, whose jobs were the most vulnerable, also fell from 44.4% in 1871 to 33.97% in 1901. This indicates that the poorest Irish left, but also that the post-famine generation occupied better jobs. These two indicators should suggest a decreased need for charitable services, yet the numbers at Saint Bridget’s increased. How does one explain this seeming anomaly?

In fact, it was not that needs increased over time, but rather that the Saint Bridget’s became better at meeting existing needs. The sources relating to the home’s early decades are filled with examples of needy people being turned away due to lack of space or resources. It was only in the 1889 annual report, after numerous expansion projects and fundraising bazars, that the asylum trustees claimed they had finally met community needs:

. . . your trustees have the greatest pleasure in stating that, never before in the history of the institution, has the object of its foundation been more fully realized than during the past twelve months. Within its charitable and sheltering walls, all, or nearly all, of the aged and infirm poor and the helpless orphans of the congregation have found a comfortable home, and the Irish Catholics of Quebec, as the result of their liberal and continued sacrifices on behalf of the Asylum, can take a legitimate pride in the fact that not one respectable or deserving member of their race and faith is to-day to be seen soliciting alms on the public streets . . . Naturally, this satisfactory result has only been attainable at the expense of increasing the expenditure and population of the Asylum . . . 649

649 Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte, 55, photocopy of a manuscript from the Sisters of Charity-Quebec archives held by Irish Heritage Quebec.

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This is likely an exaggeration. However, the declining Irish Catholic population within the gaol, which will be examined in greater detail below, also attests to the fact that population growth within Saint Bridget’s was the result of addressing unmet needs.

From 1856 until 1906, the Asylum was administered by a committee named the Saint Bridget’s Asylum Association (SBAA).650 This group of at least seven men651 was chaired by the Saint Patrick’s parish priest and included many members who also served on the parish committee.652 These men oversaw finances and visited the asylum regularly in the early years. The latter was unusual, as most charitable asylums tended to delegate inspection visits to women’s auxiliary committees. This is what Saint Bridget’s did as of 1873, when the relatively new Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ Charitable Society took over weekly inspection visits.653

The onsite staffing of Saint Bridget’s alternated between religious orders and laywomen. These changes were marked, indeed defined, by decades of ethnic tensions between the Irish administrators, the Francophone ruling authorities of Quebec’s Catholic Church, and the mainly Francophone religious orders that came to staff and largely administer the institutions.

Saint Bridget’s and Relations with Francophones

Although Irish Catholics obtained their own church, and eventually their own distinct parish, they nevertheless had to seek out the periodic approval of a

650 The committee officially took on this name at the time of incorporation in 1860, as noted in the minute books in the Irish Heritage Quebec Collection. 651 The first set of rules specified a minimum of twelve men. This was changed to a minimum of seven in 1859. Saint Bridget’s Asylum Association (SBAA) Minute Book, 20 January 1859, Saint Patrick’s Parish Archives, Quebec. 652 The parish committee was officially known as the “Corporation of the Congregation of the Catholics of Quebec Speaking the English Language.” O'Gallagher, Saint Brigid's, Quebec. 653 The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 14 February 1873.

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Francophone archbishop for major changes. The archives of the SBAA reveal considerable tension in the power relations between Irish and French Catholics surrounding the institution.

The first attempt to transfer the staffing of Saint Bridget’s Asylum to the Sisters of Charity met with rapid failure. The nuns took over the home in May 1858 and left less than a year later when relations broke down in April 1859.654 Tensions around ethnicity, language, and gender roles put an end to their involvement. The Annals of the Sisters of Charity state:

ces messieurs voulaient se mêler de toutes les affaires, même du ménage. Ils venaient dans l’asile sans aucune gêne ; ils en faisaient la visite sans s’inquiéter si les Sœurs le trouvaient bon ou mauvais. Ils s’informaient auprès des infirmes de ce qui se passait en leur absence ; ils prirent la liberté de blâmer les Sœurs d’avoir pris à leur service une fille canadienne ; ils ne voulurent plus que les Sœurs achetassent chez les marchands canadiens, même si les choses étaient moins cher qu’ailleurs. Enfin, ils voulaient astreindre les Sœurs à ne rien faire sans la permission du Comité.655

In short, this was a struggle over who had authority over whom, and the extent of the nuns’ administrative power over the institution. The nuns likely perceived the Association’s involvement as a male attempt to infringe upon women’s domestic sphere. It was also derided on ethnic lines because of their insistence on working with Irish servants and businesses. Moreover, the nuns claimed that they were willing to submit to the authority of the Saint Patrick’s parish priest (who could theoretically override their domestic sphere decisions due to his higher authority as a “father”), but the male lay administrators did not have this authority. The SBAA tried to negotiate, but “an answer was returned refusing to have anything to do with a lay body and not only restating their former demands but asking still greater

654 SBAA Minute Book and correspondence, 1856-1881, 6 May 1858, 24 April 1859. 655 Annales de l’Asile Ste Brigitte, 7-8.

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concessions from this Body.” In the end, the Association insisted on maintaining control and the nuns left.656

Between the departure of the Sisters of Charity in 1859 and their return in 1877, the house was staffed by lay “matrons” for 18 years who were willing to work under the orders of the SBAA. Some worked as volunteers, in exchange for room and board, but most were salaried.657 They were usually assisted by a cook, a schoolmistress, and servants.658 Either way, this lay staffing was more costly than the work of religious orders, who were willing to work for nothing, and followed vows of poverty.

Both the Saint Bridget’s Asylum Association and Quebec’s archbishop Elzéar- Alexandre Taschereau recognized that it would be preferable to transfer staffing to a religious order, but they disagreed on just about everything else. This led to an impasse that hindered the growth of the institution. The Association pressed the archbishop for years to establish a mother house for an independent order of English-speaking nuns in Quebec City. The archbishop refused to consider this proposal, seeing “ni possibilité, ni nécessité, ni avantage.”659 The correspondence between the two parties seeps with tensions that are barely concealed under cover of diplomatic niceties. With time, the ethnic character of these tensions became plainly evident.

Archbishop Taschereau raised several objections. He claimed that “le nombre de communautés [religieuses] diverses déjà existantes dans le diocèse est assez grand et qu’il ne faut pas l’augmenter au risque d’introduire la confusion.” His second objection was that:

656 SBAA Minute Book and correspondence, 1856-1881, 16 December 1858, 17 April 1859, 24 April 1859. 657 Several lay matrons oversaw the asylum : Miss Darcy (184?-1856); Miss King (1856-1857); Mrs. Mary Bridge (1857-1858); Mrs. Anne Bradley (1859-1873); and Miss Glavin (1873-1877). The 1873 annual report mentions that Anne Bradley worked “gratuitously” and was replaced by a salaried matron. 658 SBAA Minute Book and correspondence, 1856-1881, 28 April 1859, 3 January 1863, AGM 1866. 659 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 14 November 1871.

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Ste. Brigitte n’est pas en état de soutenir de sitôt un noviciat . . . l’expérience prouve que l’esprit religieux se forme et s’entretient mieux dans une grande maison que dans une petite, que la multiplicité de noviciats tend à désunir les membres des communautés en y introduisant insensiblement, et malgré tous les règlements possibles, des coutumes diverses. Vous auriez donc à Ste Brigitte tous les inconvénients à un noviciat sans en avoir les avantages.

Finally, Taschereau argued that the Sisters of Charity had many Irish nuns in their ranks, and had welcomed over six hundred Irish orphans in their institution.660 The archbishop seemed opposed to the establishment of a mother house for a series of well-articulated practical reasons, and never explicitly brought up ethnic considerations.

The SBAA agreed to meet the Sisters of Charity, who gave them a list of twelve conditions under which they would accept staffing the home again. The Association deemed these conditions “onerous” due to the limitations they placed on their power of intervention. They also worried that the Sisters of Charity refused to provide any guarantees that the mother superior “would be of Irish extraction as desired by the Trustees,” which seemed to be the main problem.661 Finally, some members of the SBAA continued to cherish the idea of a separate Irish mother house.

The SBAA wrote a second letter to the archbishop on this issue that reiterated most of the same arguments, but in a more aggressive way. The Association listed the numerous religious orders founded in recent years to refute the archbishop’s claim that he wanted to keep these to a minimum. The SBAA asked why the same privilege could not be extended to Irish-Catholics “from kindly considerations for the national sympathies and what may possibly be called the prejudices of our Catholic fellow countrymen.”662 The letter was written in a defensive tone that assumed that the Irish-Catholic community was being discriminated against on ethnic grounds;

660 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 14 November 1871. 661 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Minutes of 3 June 1872, Letter from 30 September 1872. 662 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 19 October 1872

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they were not privy to the same treatment and privileges as the Francophone majority.

The archbishop’s response denied the SBAA’s request a second time. He claimed that no religious community, even an independent order of Irish-Catholic nuns, would ever agree to “laisser plus d’autorité aux Syndics” and to submit to their regular visits. He added the economic argument that a “communauté indépendante ayant un noviciat coûtera énormément plus cher” and that it would be far more pragmatic to turn it over to the Sisters of Charity. He did not provide any counter- argument to the underlying accusations of unequal treatment and ethnic discrimination.663

The SBAA sent a third letter arguing that it had the financial resources required to oversee a mother house, and that it would be easier to solicit donations from the Irish-Catholic community if the asylum was not “an auxiliary of a French Canadian Institution.” The Association added that they were willing to abandon all authority over the nuns if they obtained their own Irish mother house.664 The accusations of ethnic discrimination grew even stronger:

[The] Irish know that their progress in this city has been uphill work from the beginning, and if they have succeeded, it was to God and their own indomitable perseverance and not to any favors or support from French Canadians they owed their success. The whole Congregation of St. Patrick’s Church cherishes the project of a Mother House, a vote taken would convince your Excellency that it is not a few men or women that desire it, but all. And the feelings of an entire people, who claim nothing but that they be trusted as their French brothers are trusted, are deserving of considerate Irish young Ladies, desirous of consecrating their lives to the service of God in Religion—[they] leave their homes and go to the States where they will find convents speaking the English language because they cannot find in Quebec a single convent [in] which English is the language of the house. A Mother House would put a

663 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 26 October 1872. 664 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 11 November 1872.

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stop to much of this migration, and the services of these generous girls would be devoted to their own people in their own native land.665

The Archbishop remained impassive: “. . . je ne vois rien qui puisse m’engager à changer de sentiment.“666

Although the SBAA claimed that support for the mother house was unanimous, there were nevertheless divergent opinions within the community and even within the Association itself. In 1875, the SBAA proposed a resolution that if the archbishop continued to refuse “Religious Ladies of Irish Origin, with an early prospect of a mother house” for Saint Bridget’s, then it was the “unanimous and inalterable determination of this Association to persevere in the lay management thereof.” Although twelve members voted for this resolution, five voted against and one member abstained, calling into question the so-called unanimity of the community.667 A significant minority of moderates within the Association was open to compromise. These moderates were confronted with more resolute Irish nationalists that felt besieged by the Francophone majority. This hearkens back to the internecine conflicts within the Saint Patrick’s Society described in the previous chapter. Similar internecine wrangling occurred when a conservative Saint Patrick’s Catholic and Literary Institute broke off from the increasingly nationalistic Saint Patrick’s Literary Institute in 1875.668 In the case of Saint Bridget’s Asylum, the wrangling did not lead to a rift, but it does stand as a further example of the conflicts between observance to clerical authority and nationalist calls toward greater institutional completeness within the Irish-Catholic community; between cooperation with Francophones and increased isolationist self-protection within Irish-Catholic boundaries.

665 SBAA Minute Book and correspondence, 1856-1881, “On wishing to see St. Bridget’s Asylum & Motherhouse,” undated, Saint Patrick’s Parish Archives, Quebec. 666 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 21 November 1872. 667 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, 27 December 1875. 668 Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 125-130.

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Although the archbishop never validated the Association’s accusations of ethnic discrimination, his veto was nevertheless perceived in these terms by some members of the Irish-Catholic elite. These SBAA members accused the archbishop of lacking confidence toward the Irish, and complained about the “uphill work” involved in building community institutions in spite of pushback from the Francophone majority, who had given them no favors. Did they have valid reasons to feel slighted and suspicious? Was the archbishop truly plotting against the aspirations of Irish Catholics, or were the committee members being paranoid?

This is a difficult question to answer, as archbishop Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau was a complex character. On the one hand, he mastered the English language and was respected by some in the Irish-Catholic community for his work among Irish Famine migrants on Grosse Ile. In fact, Taschereau had contracted typhus on the island and laid on the verge of death for three weeks. It was not only the Irish of the SBAA who found Taschereau inflexible, but many Francophones felt the same way. If anything, he was even less sensitive and diplomatic in his interactions with the Ultramontane branch within the Catholic Church, and also blocked the creation of a Catholic university in Montreal. Nive Voisine claimed that “Taschereau in general worked to consolidate established organizations rather than to found new ones”; this was certainly his stance and initial argument against an Irish-Catholic mother house.

Nevertheless, there was a flipside to Taschereau. He was an ardent defender of a strong Francophone Catholic Church in Quebec. He refused to collaborate or even meet with Irish-Catholic bishops elsewhere in the country. Taschereau felt the other provinces should fall in line with the Ecclesiastical province of Quebec. Irish and Francophone Catholics were growing farther apart throughout the country; for example, Bishop Lynch of Toronto began fighting against the influence of Francophone priests in his diocese as of 1860. Taschereau was swept up by this tendency, and likely fought back within his own diocese. He wrote: “La race franco- canadienne est entourée d’ennemis qui en diffèrent par la race, la langue et la religion.” He did not want to end up as a minority within a larger English-speaking

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Canadian Catholic Church.669 It is therefore possible that Taschereau remained unfazed by the numerical decline of this fifth column of Irish-Catholic “enemies” that challenged the unity of Quebec’s Church from within. In fact, he may have been happy to see young unilingual Irish-Catholic nuns leave Quebec for American convents. Perhaps he did not wish to prop up the institutional infrastructure of the Irish-Catholic enemy within by granting it a mother house, fearing the division of power and the erosion of French-Canadian power entailed in the development of new ethnically-based institutions. As Aidan McQuillan writes, “[les] évêques voyaient les Irlandais comme un groupe menaçant pour la solidarité d’une Église francophone et catholique dans la mer anglophone et protestante de l’Amérique du Nord.”670 Given that Taschereau has gone down in history as a moderate who chose his words carefully, we will probably never know to what extent he was motivated by ethnolinguistic considerations in the struggle described above. However, it is quite clear that the SBAA saw this refusal as yet another hurdle in its “uphill work” with Quebec’s Francophone majority.

The confrontation between the SBAA and the archbishop dragged on for several more years. In 1873, the archbishop launched an official enquiry into reported “désordres d’ivrognerie” at Saint Bridget’s. In a letter to the Saint Patrick’s parish priest, the archbishop “exprime de nouveau combien [il est] affligé à ce que les bonnes Soeurs de la Charité n’ont pas été chargées de la direction de cet établissement”; he added that this kind of outrage could have never happened under their direction.671 One year later, the SBAA complained that Taschereau had sent an unwanted replacement to the Irish priest that had previously celebrated mass at the Saint Bridget’s Asylum chapel. Reverend Burke of Saint Patrick’s parish replied as follows: “As long as the present disagreement exists between His

669 Nive Voisine, "Taschereau, Elzéar-Alexandre," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1990); Ferretti, Brève histoire de l'Église catholique au Québec, 66. 670 Aidan McQuillan, "Des chemins divergents : les irlandais et les Canadiens français au XIXe siècle," in Le dialogue avec les cultures minoritaires, ed. Eric Waddell, Cultures françaises d'Amérique (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1999), 163. 671 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 12 December 1873.

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Grace the Archbishop and yourselves it is impossible for any of [us] to comply with your desire.” Burke recommended submitting to the will of the archbishop: “Obedience is the best and safest course as it will tend to the greater glory of God, the welfare of souls, and the prosperity of the Asylum.”672

Taschereau further provoked some of the lay Irish elite in 1874 by inviting a group of Irish-American Redemptorists from Baltimore to take over the parish. He encouraged them to dismantle the lay trustee system that existed in the parish and take over ownership and control of the land, church, cemetery, schools, and Saint Bridget’s Asylum. This was an indirect means to increase his power within the parish. The parish trustees refused. One newspaper article referred to the plot as

An ugly skeleton of ecclesiastical greed and Jesuitical double-dealing. Never has the grasping disposition of religious communities been more dangerously shown than in the present attempt to dispossess us, unfortunate Irish people of Quebec, of the few privileges yet remaining to us.673

The archbishop himself visited Saint Patrick’s Church one Sunday afternoon and asked the crowd three times “The Fathers or the Committee?” Due to expected Catholic deference to clerical authority, the congregation’s many poor answered “the Fathers!” In the end, the administration of the parish properties were transferred to the Redemptorists, but not the ownership. Taschereau had nevertheless managed to reintroduce some internecine strife within parish associations by inviting the Redemptorists; many lay Irish nationalist societies withdrew to create their own associations to protest Reverend Burke’s authoritarianism. The Redemptorists and their supporters countered this by labelling the nationalists as “anti-clericals” and “heretics.” Burke even recommended a German Redemptorist as his successor, Joseph Henning, so the Irish would learn that Catholicism was not tied to one nation. This was an attempt

672 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, Letter from 20 December 1874. 673 Quoted in Paul Laverdure, Redemption and Renewal: The Redemptorists of English Canada, 1834-1994 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1996), 35.

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from within to weaken the boundary-building that other Irish Catholics were encouraging. Although the Redemptorists were disposed to work with Francophones, they nevertheless encouraged, and even intensified the boundary- building with Protestants. They took a hardline stance from the pulpit against mixed Catholic-Protestant marriages, for instance.674

The Redemptorists had an impact on the makeup of the SBAA. Moderates got the upper hand and finally accepted the conditions laid out by the Sisters of Charity in 1877. The situation was different to the one that had led to the disagreements some twenty years previous. First, the men of the SBAA no longer visited the asylum regularly and meddled in the sisters’ affairs. Secondly, an agreement with the nuns specified that the personnel be made up of “au moins quatre religieuses irlandaises.”675 The Sisters of Charity were a Francophone religious order, but a few English-speaking nuns were on board.

For the most part, the arrangement worked. There were four nuns in the early years and nine by 1900. Starting in the 1880s, “Franciscans, a subordinate order accompanying the nuns, render[ed] invaluable assistance”; there were between four and seven of these “lay sisters” between 1882 and the turn of the twentieth century.676

Despite this arrangement, periodic conflicts with the archbishop still took place. When it was time to renegotiate their five-year agreement with the nuns in 1882, “his Grace would concede nothing. He would not allow an Irish superioress, would not consent to a term less than 20 years, and would not allow nuns from any other house under any other terms.”677 Negotiations for a mother house reared their head again in 1905. Archbishop Louis-Nazaire Bégin repeated many of his

674 Ibid., 32-40. 675 Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte, 7-8. 676 Based on statistics and information published in the minutes of the Saint Bridget’s Asylum Annual General Meeting. 677 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, 11 February 1882.

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predecessor’s arguments. He claimed that 10 of the 16 nuns in the home spoke proper English, and that the rest worked in occupations that did not require contact with inmates. Bégin also brought up the continued numerical decline of Quebec’s Irish-Catholic minority.678

Although Quebec’s Irish Catholics never obtained a mother house, the Sisters of Charity-Halifax, an English-language religious order, opened a convent in Quebec City in 1935. They oversaw the first primary school for girls. This same order eventually took over Saint Brigid’s Home in 1944, given that Quebec’s Sisters of Charity could no longer provide enough English-speaking nuns.679

The archbishop repeatedly discouraged the creation of distinct Irish-Catholic associations and institutions within the Quebec Catholic Church, but the Irish persisted until they obtained their own convent. This corroborates Jason King’s observation that ethno-religious struggles did not destabilize the position of Irish Catholics in Quebec but rather, paradoxically, seemed to consolidate it through adversity.680 As Rosalyn Trigger has shown, this episode illustrates how conflict forms and reinforces identities within constructivist approaches to identity.681

Comparative Perspectives

Conflicts between Irish Catholics and Francophones within the Catholic Church also took place in Montreal, leading to greater tension overall than the situation in Quebec City. In 1865, Archbishop Bourget of Montreal wanted to eliminate English- language parishes altogether to create parishes solely on a geographic basis. He claimed this maneuver was not targeted against the Irish Catholic minority per se,

678 SBAA Minute Book 1893-1906, Letter from 3 April 1905. 679 Marianna O'Gallagher, "Leonard School," in Our Heritage, A Tribute to the Irish Community of Quebec (Quebec: The Council of Irish Heritage, 1979), 15-16. 680 King, "L'historiographie irlando-québécoise." 681 Trigger, "The Geopolitics of the Irish-Catholic Parish in Nineteenth-Century Montreal," 567.

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but merely an attempt to reduce the size of Notre Dame Parish. Despite this, the reorganization was perceived as an insult and as an attempt to marginalize Irish Catholics by community leaders. Irish-Canadian politician Thomas D’Arcy McGee claimed his maneuvers “[would] lead to bloodshed, and consequently, to a domestic war between Irish and Canadian Catholics.”682 Father Dowd, the priest of Saint Patrick’s Church in Montreal, asked the pope to intervene in this conflict. In 1872 and 1873, Rome took the Irish Catholic side and insisted on the preservation of English-language parishes and churches.683

This context helps us better understand the conflict between the SBAA and Quebec’s archbishop that was taking place during the same years. Although the Ultramontane Bourget in Montreal and the comparatively liberal Taschereau in Quebec had few affinities for each other, they were both strongly favorable to the establishment of a strong Francophone Church in Quebec. This victory of Montreal’s Irish Catholics may have put Taschereau on the alert, inspiring a desire to keep all attempts at expansion under check in order to maintain control.

Meanwhile, outside Quebec, power dynamics between communities were typically reversed, especially in the United States. Irish Catholics were usually in the position of dominant majority within the Church. In New England, 75% of all the Catholic bishops were Irish.684 Most accepted the creation of overlapping Francophone parishes within their diocese, though a few conflicts still took place. Some bishops pushed for the rapid linguistic assimilation of Francophones, as such assimilation would attenuate the negative perception of the Catholic Church as a foreign presence in a largely English-speaking Protestant country. Some

682 It is worth noting that D’Arcy McGee, assassinated by an Irish Fenian, was instead the victim of internecine bloodshed within the Irish Catholic community. 683 Trigger, "The Geopolitics of the Irish-Catholic Parish in Nineteenth-Century Montreal," 559-565. 684 Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present, 1st ed. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 180. cited in Yves Roby, The Franco-Americans of New-England: Dreams and Realities (Sillery: Septentrion, 2004), 139.

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nativists, both Catholic and Protestant, saw Francophone resistance to Anglicization as a rejection of American values.685

Assimilationist pressure was not as strong in English-speaking Canada than in the United States, but it nevertheless remained important. It was at its strongest in the early twentieth century. The historiography of Franco-Ontarians reveals the role played by the Irish Catholic clergy in the suppression of French in Ontario, namely by Bishop Michael Francis Fallon.686

This broader perspective shows that attempts to limit the growth of cultural minorities within the Church were not specific to one particular culture; rather, power dynamics between ethnic minorities and ruling majorities took on different forms in different North American locales. All minorities faced an “uphill battle” of sorts, and had to exert continual pressure on the dominant ethnoculture within the Church to make gains. These struggles contributed to ethnic identity formation and the construction of boundaries.

Although there are similarities in Church power dynamics across North America, the Quebec situation does have one important difference: assimilationist pressure toward the majority language was much stronger outside Quebec than in the province. Quebec’s Francophones had a more insular approach. They were not interested in assimilating the Irish. Rather, they were more interested in preserving the integrity of their own community from outside influences. Irish Catholics were seen as a menace to this integrity, and power struggles were more of a defensive reflex to protect Francophone cultural boundaries than an attempt to assimilate the Irish.687

685 Roby, The Franco-Americans of New-England, 26, 121-122. 686 Robert Choquette, "Linguistic and Ethnic Factors in the French-Irish Catholic Relations in Ontario," CCHA Sessions 39(1972): 37-42; Terrence Murphy, "Introduction," in Creed and Culture: The Place of English- speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750-1930, ed. Terrence Murphy and Gerald J. Stortz (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993), xxiii. 687 For more on this, see Jolivet, Le vert et le bleu, 30-31.

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Saint Bridget’s and Relations with Protestants

Given that the Asylum was inextricably linked with Saint Patrick’s parish and the Catholic Church, Protestants largely ignored the institution. They were not involved in the SBAA. Despite its geographical proximity to the city’s Protestant homes,688 there is nothing in the sources that indicate any communication across denominational lines at Saint Bridget’s. This marks a sharp contrast with the nondenominational Saint Patrick’s Society, where Catholic-Protestant relations within the institution were a recurring source of conflict and contributed to its demise.

Despite this, Protestant individuals and organizations made some of the most significant financial contributions to the prosperity of Saint Bridget’s Asylum. The most important private donation to Saint Bridget’s in the nineteenth century came from the Quebec Provident and Savings Bank (Banque de Prévoyance et d’Épargne de Québec). This philanthropic bank redistributed profits to charitable organizations and small savers. This bank was strongly influenced by the Evangelical Anglicanism of its two succeeding presidents: Jeffery Hale (president from 1847 to 1852), and Christian Würtele (president from 1852 to 1872).689 Although some Catholics and Francophones served on its board, Protestants played a dominant role and the majority of the bank’s profits were distributed to Protestant organizations. It was seen as a “Protestant” counterpart to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul’s own “Catholic savings banks” that were backed by the Catholic clergy.690 Saint Bridget’s annual reports show that Catholic savings banks

688 The Church of England Female Orphan Asylum and the Ladies’ Protestant Home were located nearby on Grande Allée. The Finlay Asylum and the Church of England Male Orphan Asylum were less than a mile away on chemin Sainte-Foy. 689 Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 91-92, 146-151. 690 Serge Goudreau, "Les banques d’épargne de la ville de Québec (1821-1871)," Groupe de recherche sur l'histoire des institutions financières, https://web.archive.org/web/20051201073610/http://callisto.si.usherb.ca:8080/grhif/Bibliotheque/Pub08/Bankp argneQc.htm.

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made small donations to the asylum, but the Provident and Savings Bank’s donations were far more considerable. When the bank was dissolved in 1872, 70,800$ was donated to Protestant charitable organizations in Quebec City and 12,000$ to Catholic organizations that served Anglophones (10,000$ to Saint Bridget’s and 2,000$ to the Good Shepherd nuns).691 In fact, this unprecedented donation launched the asylum’s endowment fund.692

Saint Bridget’s also received significant donations from Protestant individuals. Newspaper ads for the annual bazar claim it targeted everyone in Quebec “regardless of creed or of party.”693 Annual Reports also periodically thanked “the charitable differing in creed, for the support and sympathy.”694 The most important private individual donation noted in the SBAA minute books come from James Gibb, a Scottish Presbyterian merchant, who donated 6,000$ to the asylum.695 This was a rare exception, as most of the money came from Quebec’s Irish Catholic community.

As for the residents of Saint Bridget’s, sources show that all non-Catholics had to be turned over to the Church to enter the asylum. The SBAA minutes include occasional debates about the admittance of religiously ambiguous children from mixed Catholic-Protestant couples. For example, in 1879, a Protestant mother with four children, who claimed that their Catholic father offered no support, asked the asylum to take in her children. She claimed that “if two were taken from her she could manage to support the others,” adding that Reverend Hamilton was also willing to take them at the Church of England Female Orphan Asylum. The committee accepted “on complying with the rule of giving up the children to the

691 Quebec Mercury, 23 March 1872. 692 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, SBAA Annual Report 1872. 693 Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte, 21. 694 The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 21 January 1870. 695 Ibid.

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Asylum and to be placed out after making their first communion.”696 It seems children from mixed marriages were only accepted when guardianship was transferred to the institution, thereby ensuring that the children were raised Catholic.

However, this transfer of guardianship did not rest on sound legal foundations. Adoption processes were only regulated in Quebec as of 1924, and there were no legal mechanisms for severing ties with biological parents before then. Parents made verbal agreements to “turn over” their children to institutions in good faith, but these were not legally binding.697 The rules, and the authority of the ruling elite, were not always respected in the dialectic between parents and the institution. For instance, the minutes of the SBAA describe a Protestant woman who had turned over her daughter to the Asylum only to take her back “in spite of all remonstrance.” She then tried to turn over her child to the institution a second time: “The mother threatens, if refused admission, she will put her into the Protestant Home. Resolved to request the nuns to grant admission till the child makes her first communion.”698 This case manifests working class agency at work. A Catholic mother might have been intimidated by the “remonstrance” from clerical authority, but this type of elite control was harder to exert across denominational lines. In fact, brandishing the threat of placing a child in a Protestant institution put this mother in a position of power vis a vis Saint Bridget’s. The SBAA refused many applicants due to lack of room, but the Association may have been more willing to make room if the soul of a child was at stake. Although Quebec’s charitable institutions generally respected religious boundaries, proper conduct was not as clear when it came to children from religiously-mixed or religiously-indeterminate homes. Applicants for aid could manipulate Catholic and Protestant institutions to

696 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, 13 June 1879. 697 Claire O'Neil, "L'adoption, l'Église et l'État : les origines tumultueuses d'une institution légale," Les Cahiers du Droit 38, no. 4 (1997): 771-772, 775, 782., quoted in Belley, "Un exemple de prise en charge de l'enfance dépendante", 23. 698 SBAA Minute Book 1870-1894, 5 November 1880.

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meet their needs by positioning the souls of their innocent children as pawns in a struggle for salvation. These situations, where ethnic boundary lines were blurred, could provoke tension between institutions in the same sector, but the sources consulted do not provide examples of such tension. This is perhaps because such cases were rare, as only three to six percent of Quebec City’s Irish Catholics married Protestants in the latter half of the nineteenth century.699

In many North American cities, Catholic/Protestant boundaries were not as scrupulously respected, particularly on the Protestant side. The Emigrant Orphan Asylum in Saint John, New Brunswick was run by Protestants who deliberately placed Irish Famine Orphans in Protestant families to facilitate their conversion.700 Many Protestant Canadian asylums were unscrupulous in admitting Catholic children, and saw this as a way of separating them further from their morally dubious kinfolk.701 In Boston, Bishop Fitzpatrick warned about Protestant “missionaries, both male and female, [who] were hired to prowl about certain quarters of the city, to talk with children in the streets, like the Manicheans of old, and invite and urge them to leave their friends and homes. . .” Unitarian child saving societies shipped off thousands of children annually from Boston and New York on “Orphan Trains” to families in the Midwest. Many were Irish Catholics placed on Protestant farms.702 In Quebec City, as in Montreal, there was an unwritten rule against this kind of obvious “poaching.”703

Quebec City Protestants also remained surprisingly uncritical of Catholic institutions, and of institutionalization in general. Elsewhere, orphanages began

699 Goulet, "La nuptialité dans la ville de Québec : étude des mariages mixtes au cours de la deuxième moitié du 19ième siècle", 74. 700 Peter Douglas Murphy, "Poor, Ignorant Children: A great resource, the Saint John Emigrant Orphan Asylum Admittance Ledger in Context" (M.A., Saint Mary's University, 1997), 8-9. 701 Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 145. 702 Peter C. Holloran, Boston's Wayward Children: Social Services for Homeless Children, 1830-1930 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989), 41-49. 703 Regarding Montreal, see: Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 78, 151.

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facing considerable criticism from Protestant activists in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Hacsi qualifies many of these attacks as thinly-veiled anti- Catholicism.704 In the 1850s, the Boston Children’s Mission and the New York Children’s Aid Society spoke out in favor of the immediate placement of children in foster families, ideally in the countryside, rather than in urban institutions.705 This type of organization first appeared a few decades later in Canada. One of the most vocal Canadian critics of orphanages was J.J. Kelso, founder of the Toronto Children’s Aid Society in 1891. He depicted orphanages as a vector for disease and moral degeneration, as opposed to the family, which was “the finest product of civilisation.”706 In 1901, there were 30 Children’s Aid Societies committed to the boarding out or fostering of dependent children in Canada, but none in Quebec City.707 Orphanages eventually disappeared in Quebec City, as elsewhere in North America, but only in the third quarter of the twentieth century; in the United States, orphanages had stopped being the dominant mode of care for needy children after the 1920s.708 This shows that Protestants in Quebec City remained somewhat disconnected from the child care ideals that spurred Protestants elsewhere.

Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ Charitable Society

Early reports of Saint Bridget’s Home show that “the ladies of the congregation” had always contributed to charity relief by organizing bazars or making clothing for

704 Hacsi, Second Home, 159. 705 Janice Harvey, "Le réseau charitable protestant pour les enfants à Montréal : le choix des institutions," Revue d’histoire de l’enfance « irrégulière », no. 5 (2003): 195. 706 Denyse Baillargeon, "Orphans in Quebec: On the Margin of which Family?" in Mapping the Margins: the Family and Social Discipline in Canada, 1700-1975, ed. Michael Gauvreau and Nancy Christie (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004), 305-306; Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 3; Rooke and Schnell, Discarding the Asylum, 179-180. 707 Harvey, "Le réseau charitable protestant pour les enfants à Montréal : le choix des institutions," 196. 708 Hacsi, Second Home, 4, 11.

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the poor.709 These women organized into a formal association in 1870. The Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ Charitable Society (later Saint Patrick’s Ladies’ Benevolent Society)710 was the first exclusively Irish-Catholic “church lady” group devoted to outdoor relief in the city. “Convened by requisition from the pulpit” in February 1870, the 54 women present at the first meeting agreed to aid the “deserving poor” of the congregation.

The ladies worked closely with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. They consulted this Society to assess the “deservingness” of applicants for aid, and worked from the same lists to ensure no duplication of aid: “when [the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul] gave a family fuel, bread, &c, the ladies gave meat, tea, clothing and other necessaries.”711 In cases where the Society could not provide them with information on the deservingness of a particular applicant, the ladies visited the homes themselves.

The ladies handed out tickets on their visits. These could be claimed for food at the Saint Patrick’s Catholic and Literary Society offices on Monday afternoons in winter. Most of the ladies’ budget was devoted to food, but they also distributed a considerable amount of “blankets, bedding, women’s dresses, cloth, flannel, boots &c., clothing for First Communion children.”712 In rare cases, money for rent, funeral expenses, medical care, or travel was handed out. The Society helped 50

709 The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 11 January 1867, 24 January 1868; SBAA Minute Book 1870- 1897, 30 December 1870. 710 In 1876, “in compliance with the desire of the Revd. Burke, Priest of St. Patrick’s Church, the St. Patrick’s Ladies Charitable Society is hereby dissolved and the St. Patrick’s Ladies’ Benevolent Society if established in its stead, chiefly under the old management and in accordance with the old rules.” Minutes of the Proceedings of the St. Patrick’s Ladies Charitable Society 1870-1878, 26, Irish Heritage Quebec Collection. Laverdure claims this change occurred when the American Redemptorists took over the management of Saint Patrick’s parish and its institutions. Laverdure, Redemption and Renewal, 37-38. The name change is unusual, since “benevolent society” typically referred to mutual aid groups, many of which were Irish nationalist or Fenian fronts at the time, whereas the ladies remained a Church-sponsored charitable society. 711 Morning Chronicle, 16 December 1871. 712 Ibid.

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to 100 families per year in the 1870s, and annual expenses ranged from 500$ to 1,500$.713

As of 1872, the ladies played a growing role in Saint Bridget’s Asylum, in addition to their usual work on the annual bazar. They took over weekly visits and supervised internal affairs.714

The minutes of the Saint Patrick’s Benevolent Ladies’ Society end in 1878, and no trace of their existence in subsequent years have been found. They may have disappeared as part of Redemptorist efforts to dismantle lay committees within the parish,715 or because of the overlap in their outdoor relief efforts with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. The arrival of the Sisters of Charity at Saint Bridget’s in 1877 also put an end to their role as visitors in the institution. Despite the apparent dissolution of the Society, the women of the parish continued to organize bazars for Saint Bridget’s in the nineteenth century, albeit on an ad hoc basis rather than as a formal association.716

Other Irish Catholic Organizations

The two other main Irish Catholic private charitable organizations for the “deserving” poor were the Irish conferences of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Saint Patrick’s Society, whose origins were examined in the previous section. The former gained traction and became the second most important Irish

713 From the Treasurer’s Reports of the Minutes of the Proceedings of the St. Patrick’s Ladies Charitable Society 1870-1878. 714 The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle, 14 February 1873, 6 February 1874; SBAA Minute Book 1870- 1894, Annual Report 1874. 715 Laverdure, Redemption and Renewal, 38. 716 Post-1877 SBAA annual reports go back to thanking “the ladies of the congregation” rather than the St. Patrick’s Ladies’ Benevolent/Charitable Society.

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Catholic charity in Quebec, whereas the latter lost steam and eventually fizzled away in the 1890s.

Edward Foley, president of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul’s Irish Particular Council in 1897, provided some astute summaries of the Council’s first half century. He said:

. . . in the 47 or 48 years the Irish Conferences have been in existence, they have succored upwards of one hundred families a year, composed of about three hundred persons, at an outlay of about one thousand dollars a year, or making in all a sum of about $46,000.00. . . They have looked after the children of the poor, in having them sent to school and prepared for their first communion.717

The Society’s annual expenses remained relatively consistent in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, the average number of people assisted yearly decreased from 483 between 1850 and 1875, to 296 between 1875 and 1900. This is partly because of the numerical decline of the Irish Catholic population, and the fact that most of those who left tended to be the lowest wage-earners.718 but also because Saint Bridget’s had “taken off the hands of the St. Vincent de Paul Society many serious cases that the members of that admirable society could not well look after.”719 Although the Society technically helped twice as many people per year as Saint Bridget’s by the 1890s, the Asylum spent nearly ten times as much per year. Saint Bridget’s was a much larger operation that provided a more sustained form of help for those who needed it.720

The Irish conferences were still in a relatively healthy state by 1900. 5.25% of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul’s members in Quebec City were Anglophones721

717 Les noces d'or de la Sociéte de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Quebec, 1846-1896, 59-60. 718 Isabelle Beauregard-Gosselin, "Intégration d'une communauté minoritaire en période d'industrialisation," 37-38. 719 Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte, 55. 720 Based on data in available annual reports for both institutions. 721 Société de Saint Vincent de Paul, rapport du Conseil Supérieur de Québec pour l'année 1900, (Quebec: Imprimerie du Patronage, 1901), 7, 10-11.

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at a time when 9.67% of the city’s Catholics were English-speakers.722 While the Society Saint Vincent de Paul attracted a lower per capita proportion of Anglophone Catholics than Francophones in Quebec City, it still had the critical mass necessary to operate five conferences and help hundreds of people.

The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was a more effective charitable model than the Saint Patrick’s Society. Whereas the Irish conferences mobilized large numbers of self-abnegating volunteers willing to go out and meet the poor, the Saint Patrick’s Society attracted a handful of self-interested members of the political elite who used it as a means to jockey for power. Moreover, the latter developed a reputation for drinking away their meagre earnings at anniversary dinners.723 It is therefore no surprise that the money from the Saint Patrick’s Day church collection was eventually transferred from the fratricidal Saint Patrick’s Society to the more efficient Saint Vincent de Paul Society.724

But this is not the only reason that the Saint Patrick’s Society became increasingly irrelevant as a charitable organization in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whereas the Montreal Saint Patrick’s Society became an exclusively Catholic organization in 1856,725 the Quebec Society remained multiconfessional, which went against the boundary-building spirit of the time. By the 1870s, the Saint Patrick’s Society had reduced its charitable activities to marginal annual donations: approximately $50 per year to Saint Bridget’s, and a similarly small amount to the

722 PHSVQ Census data for 1901 based on mother tongue and religion = 57,555 Francophone Catholics and 6,159 Anglophone Catholics. 723 See, for example, this satirical article in the February 21, 1854 edition of the Quebec Mercury: “The first paragraph [of the annual report] ought to have read thus:−’And your Committee regret that the means at their disposal did not afford them an opportunity of relieving the necessities of the applicants for aid, to that extent which your committee could have desired; −nor of drinking the quantity of Champagne at the anniversary ball and supper that they had intended, out of the funds of the society.” 724 Schmitz, Irish for a Day, 28. 725 James, "The Saint Patrick's Society of Montreal", 3-4; Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 111.

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Irish Protestant Benevolent Society.726 It had also lost control of the annual Saint Patrick’s Day parade, which made it less attractive to those jockeying for power and public visibility within the Irish community.727 The Saint Patrick’s Society still continued to host regular dinners that typically drew in the conservative pro-British elite. In the early 1880s, Irish nationalists qualified these dinners as a disgraceful “gathering of landlords” led by “a couple of snobs, who abhor the patriotic, Parliamentary sentiments of Parnell, Davitt and Dillon.”728 By the late 1880s these dinners had become private affairs, and no reference to the Society was found after 1890.729 The multiconfessional and politically conservative Saint Patrick’s Society had lost its relevance in a city polarized by religious and political divisions, particularly a city like Quebec where Irish Catholic nationalism was strong.730

The weak French-Irish alliance within the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul also petered out, though this happened several decades later. In 1937, the Society had 1,456 Francophone members and only 15 Anglophone members in Quebec City. Irish Catholics likely felt lost in this structure, and created their own independent parish-run Saint Patrick’s Social and Welfare Council around 1939.731

726 Morning Chronicle, 25 February 1878; $50 amount based on Treasurer’s Reports in the SBAA Minute Book, 1870-1894 and Annales de l’Asile Sainte-Brigitte. The Society donated $25 in 1880, and available printed annual reports for subsequent years list no donation from the Society. 727 Quebec Mercury, 17 March 1870. 728 Coulombe notes that nationalist sentiments were expressed at the 1874 dinner, but this was not the norm. Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 35-36.; see also Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1879; 11 March 1882; 13 March 1882; 16 March 1882; 17 March 1882. 729 Quebec Mercury, 17 March 1887. 730 Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 48, 111; Grace, "The Irish in Mid-nineteenth-century Canada and the Case of Quebec,” 600. 731 Denault, "Les services sociaux à Québec", 117-118, 127, 132; Rapport du Conseil Supérieur du Canada, quatrième série, années 1938 et 1939, (Quebec: Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul, 1940), 50.

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4.3. Evangelicalism and its Impact on the Protestant Charitable Sector

Around the same time that Saint Bridget’s Asylum was founded, Protestants also founded a home that would become their core indoor relief institution. The Ladies’ Protestant Home differed from previous Protestant homes in that it was an evangelical pan-Protestant initiative rather than a solely Anglican one. Most of the new outdoor relief organizations in this period were also founded by evangelicals, though the Anglican sector expanded with the creation of the Finlay Home for elderly men.

Finlay Asylum, the Last of the Anglican Homes

After the short-lived Anglican-run Quebec Asylum closed around 1827, there was no Anglican or Protestant home for the elderly to replace it until the 1850s. In 1849, Miss Margaret Finlay willed $800 to the Church of England for the relief of the Anglican poor in Quebec. Bishop Mountain invested this money and, in 1857, he acquired a wooden cottage at the foot of Sutherland Street "to form the commencement of an asylum for the aged and infirm, or otherwise disabled persons and distressed widows, being of the communion of the Church of England.” By 1860, the Church had collected enough funds to build a large predominantly gothic building on chemin Sainte-Foy, which was inaugurated on August 2, 1862.732

The building was initially intended to serve as both asylum and hospital, and the initial plans included many sick wards. However, Jeffery Hale’s Hospital opened a

732 Canada, Statutes of the Province of Canada Passed in the Twentieth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and in the Third Session of the Fifth Parliament of Canada (Toronto: Stewart Derbishire & George Desbarats, 1857), chapter 219, 894-895; Le Moine, Quebec Past and Present, 381-384.

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few years later, and the existing Church of England Female and Male Orphan Asylums rented out the east and west wings of the new building instead.733

The Finlay Asylum was restricted to the poor “belonging to the communion of the Church of England in Quebec,” and housed both elderly men and women at first. Given the foundation of the Ladies’ Protestant Home around the same time, most of the residents were men, as shown on Figure 7. The Finlay Asylum eventually became a home exclusively for men in the 1920s.734

733 Le Moine, Quebec Past and Present, 381.; Circular, 20 April 1860, Papers belonging to Male Orphan and Finlay Asylum, box 127, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 734 Annual reports of the church-wardens of the Cathedral, Quebec, 1864-1990, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

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Fig. 7: Number of residents at the Finlay Asylum (Excluding Staff), 1865-1894 35

20 Men & Women 15 Women

10 Men

Source: Published Annual reports of the church-wardens of the Cathedral, Quebec, 1864-1990, Anglican Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

As the figure above shows, the asylum never housed many people. It reached a high of about 31 residents in 1869 and 1871, and numbers gradually decreased after that date. After 1910, the total number of residents was in the single digits. The same low numbers were true of the two Anglican orphanages, which housed 10 to 25 orphans each on average in the nineteenth century. Although available sources leave many gaps in the statistics, it is unlikely there were ever more than 70 residents in all three Anglican homes combined.735 As discussed above, the Male Orphan Asylum was the only one of the three that admitted non-Anglicans, provided they were financially sponsored by their Church.

The governance structures of the Anglican homes were consistent with conventions of the time. The Female Orphan Asylum was governed by a committee of women, as it dealt solely with women and girls. Given that the Finlay Asylum and the Male Orphan Asylum dealt with older boys and adult men, they

735 Ibid.; Female Orphan Asylum, Quebec, Secretary Book, 1829-1865, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke; Church of England Female Orphan Asylum, Minute Book, 1865-1903, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

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were governed by the male rector and churchwardens of the Anglican parish of Quebec. Auxiliary committees of the opposite gender existed for all three institutions, and volunteer doctors helped when necessary. Given that they had the exact same administrators, the Finlay Asylum and the Male Orphan Asylum officially amalgamated into one organization in 1907.736

All three homes were staffed by a matron and a male superintendent. A cook, charwoman, and servants were also hired as staff, in addition to salaried teachers for the orphanages.

Of all the Anglican homes, the Finlay Asylum remained the poorest in the nineteenth century. Its endowment was typically less than half as sizable as those of either orphanage in the 1890s, and its annual expenses were higher.737 It frequently had “to refuse admittance to many most deserving aged persons in distress,” and it eventually had to downsize.738 Conversely, there is nothing in the available sources that indicate that the Anglican orphanages suffered from lack of financial resources.

The persistence of these Anglican-run homes that largely excluded other Protestants is a particularity in Quebec City, where pan-Protestant institutions came late in the indoor relief sector. As shown in the previous chapter, this is partly because the evangelical presence in Protestant Quebec City was weaker than elsewhere. However, this situation changed with the opening of the Ladies’ Protestant Home.

736 Canada, Statutes of the Province of Canada, chapter 219, 894-895. 737 In 1894, the Finlay Asylum had $12,374 endowment, the Male Orphan Asylum had $23,380, and the Female Orphan Asylum had $30,800 in 1895. Expenses hovered in the $2,000 to $2,500 range in the mid- 1890s for both asylums whereas they were in the $3,000 to $4,000 range for the Finlay Asylum. 738 Annual Report of the Church Wardens of the Cathedral, Quebec, (Quebec: The Morning Chronicle Office, 1876), 19.

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Ladies’ Protestant Home

Although Saint Bridget’s was the major indoor relief institution on the Catholic side, Protestants had many smaller institutions. One of these, the Ladies’ Protestant Home, stood out among the others. It was larger, it survived longer, and it was different from all the existing Anglican homes because of an evangelical character that brought together many Protestant denominations.

The Home grew out of the Ladies’ Protestant Relief Society, an outdoor relief agency founded in 1855. This association distributed “relief in wood, food, and clothing” to destitute Protestants. It specifically targeted female servants and younger immigrant girls. After four years, this society changed its focus to indoor relief by opening a home. The first Ladies’ Protestant Home opened in “a kind of cottage” on 15 Coteau Street (today’s rue Lavigueur in Faubourg Saint-Jean).739 It then moved to a newly-built imposing Italianate building on Grande Allée in 1863, where it remained until its closure in 1990.740

Prior to the opening of this Home, all indoor relief organizations were controlled by the Anglican Church, which wanted to retain its hold on the charitable sector. In 1860, the corporation of the Ladies’ Protestant Home suggested merging their institution with the Finlay Asylum to have a single institution for adult men and women. The rector of the Anglican Cathedral agreed, but only if the joint institution was administered by the Anglican Church, though it could still be open to all Protestants. The Ladies’ Protestant Home rejected this proposal, since it emphatically believed in a multiconfessional governing committee: “[It is

739 Quebec Diocesan Archives Scrapbook, Ladies’ Protestant Home tab, letter, 15 February 1859, Quebec Diocesan Archives; Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Morning Chronicle, 1884), 4. 740 Fifth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Hunter Rose, 1864), 10-11; Donovan and Hayes, The Ladies' Protestant Home, 16.

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impossible] for the present committee to so alter their views as to subscribe to the strictly Episcopal element of the governing body of the Finlay Asylum”741

The Ladies’ Protestant Home was therefore considered a “dissenting” establishment by Anglicans, which gave it a different feel. During a visit in 1865, the wife of the Governor General said that “Dissenting places are very different from Church places of this sort; there is nothing to elevate their minds in the dissenting places, not an illuminated text, or a holy picture to be seen.” Unlike the Anglican homes, many pastors from different Protestant denominations visited the home: “These ‘Ministers’ fight about their days, but otherwise the Bishop said it was very well managed, better, he was grieved to say, than [the Church of England] home.”742

Despite this “dissenting” nature, the majority of the residents at the home remained Anglicans. In the first five years of the institution, 62.5% of the children admitted were Anglicans, 27.5% were Presbyterians, 2.5% were Baptist, and the rest were not specified. This corresponds roughly to the proportions among Quebec City’s non-Catholic population: in 1861, 59% of non-Catholics were Anglicans and 22% were Presbyterian.743 It is interesting to note that, although two Anglican orphanages already existed in the city, the Ladies’ Protestant Home still drew in a greater per-capita proportion of Anglican children.

The Home was governed by a Committee of Management made up of lay women, who visited on a daily basis. The rules of the institution specified that this committee have a minimum of 28 members, but there were often more than 30.

741 Minutes of Proceedings and Correspondence with the Finlay Asylum, relative to the formation of a junction between that Corporation and the Corporation of the Ladies’ Protestant Home, proposed by the latter, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ-Québec; Second Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Thompson, Hunter & Co., 1861), 10. 742 Frances E. O. Monck, My Canadian Leaves: An Account of a Visit to Canada in 1864-1865 (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1891), 291. 743 Admissions book, 1859-1890, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ-Québec; Canada, Census of the Canadas 1860-61.

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Every month, four women shared the task of daily visits. Unlike the existing Anglican institutions and Saint Bridget’s, no members of the clergy played a direct role in the home’s administration, though clergy of all Protestant denominations were allowed pastoral visits to the home.744 This type of structure was not especially revolutionary; it was consistent with the conventions of the day, which limited female boards to organizations that dealt solely with women and children.

The female administrators nevertheless faced some gender-based restrictions. An “Advisory Committee” of nine men oversaw fundraising, investments, and auditing. Despite its name, this committee soon had decisional power. As of 1862, the bylaws specified that “all acts relative to Real Estate or Building Fund or investment of moneys must be approved or sanctioned by said committee.”745 Moreover, annual assemblies were presided by men, usually members of the clergy of varying denominations. Although they did most of the work at the administrative level, women did not have the right to address the audience or to vote during these assemblies for most of the nineteenth century. It is only as of 1918 that the female president took the platform and read the president’s report herself (one year prior to the passage of universal suffrage in Canada).746 Janice Harvey noted similar structures in Montreal’s Protestant charities, saying that these were the prevailing gender conventions that defined women’s proper place in Victorian times: “respectable women could attend public meetings, but social convention and expectations held that they could not address a mixed audience or speak in public.”747

Daily operations at the Ladies’ Protestant Home were overseen by salaried lay staff, as in the other Protestant homes. A salaried teacher was added with the

744 Second Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, 3-5. 745 Third Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1862), 13; Fourth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1863), 4. 746 Ladies’ Protestant Home Annual Reports, 1860-1918, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ-Québec. 747 Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 269-272.

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opening of the “school room” in 1864, around the same time that schooling began at Saint Bridget’s. At least two nurses also worked at the home as of 1865, one with children and the other at the infirmary. One or two cooks, and one or two “man servants” completed the portrait. In short, the number of employees averaged between six and eight, making it smaller than post-1880s Saint Bridget’s but larger than the Anglican homes.748

The target clientele of the Ladies’ Protestant Home was less diverse than at Saint Bridget’s. The home was founded “to afford a temporary home to destitute and unprotected women and female children of all Protestant denominations in the city and immediate vicinity of Quebec.”749 This included older widows, young live-in domestics between contracts, and female children. Young boys were eventually admitted. Infants and babies only appear on the register as of 1893, and were always accompanied by their mother or an older sister until the opening of an infants’ ward in the 1920s.

As with Saint Bridget’s, the Ladies’ Protestant Home was only for the “deserving poor” in the nineteenth century. The rules of the Home specified that “all immoral characters, as well as intemperate persons of hopelessly confirmed habits, shall be deemed inadmissible.”750 As seen in the following section, Protestant reform homes for the underclass only appeared as of 1876. This is worth noting, as studies for other cities show that evangelical initiatives like the Ladies’ Protestant Home tended to be more reform minded than the more conservative efforts by established churches.751 Nevertheless, there was a slight reformist element to the Home, which was more likely than the Anglican orphan asylums to welcome poor children from broken homes who were not necessarily full orphans:

748 Based on information in the Ladies’ Protestant Home Annual Reports, 1860-1900, and admissions books 1864-1908, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ-Québec. 749 Second Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, 3, by-law 1.1. 750 Ibid., 3, by-law 1.2. 751 See Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 7-8.

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It is sometimes urged that the children, not being orphans, have no claim on charitable support; and that it does harm to relieve parents from their natural duties. It is felt that in general such reasoning is perfectly just; but there are exceptional cases where natural ties are unnaturally disregarded, or worse still, where they form the means of evil example, or the plea for the use of cruel authority, and it is then, indeed, that benevolence may step in.752

As the 1867 annual report makes clear, “much good may be effected by removing young girls from evil influence and vice, to train them up in habits of order and usefulness, to become good and industrious women.”753

Unlike Saint Bridget’s, the size of the Ladies’ Protestant Home remained relatively stable between 1859 and 1905. Figure 8 shows that the home reached a high of 68 residents in 1869, but steadily decreased to an average of 36 for the 1895-1905 period. Servants formed a large part of the adult clientele in early years, and were gradually replaced by the elderly. There were generally more adults than children in the home, and greater variances in the number of adults on a year-to-year basis, but proportions between adults and children were roughly balanced.

752 Fifth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, 12-13. 753 Tenth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Morning Chronicle, 1869), 11.

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Fig. 8: Number of residents at the Ladies’ Protestant Home (Excluding Staff), 1859-1905 80

50 Unspecified 40 Children 30 Adults 20

1859 1861 1863 1865 1867 1869 1871 1873 1875 1877 1879 1881 1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 Source: Published annual reports taken from Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec, P556, BAnQ-Quebec.

A comparison with the numbers at Saint Bridget’s Asylum reveals a striking difference. Figure 9 shows that both institutions were roughly similar in their reach and size until 1877. At that point, Saint Bridget’s grew dramatically, whereas the Ladies’ Protestant Home attracted fewer and fewer residents. The same decline also happened at the Finlay Asylum, as seen above.

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Fig. 9: Comparison of the Number of Residents at the Ladies’ Protestant Home and Saint Bridget’s Asylum, 1859-1905 180 160 140 120 100 LPH 80 SBA 60 40 20 0

1859 1861 1863 1865 1867 1869 1871 1873 1875 1877 1879 1881 1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905

Sources: See figures 12 and 14

This difference had nothing to do with relative population sizes. In fact, as Figure 10 shows, both communities declined at roughly the same rate. Their relative weight was stable. Moreover, both Protestants and Irish Catholics experienced upward mobility in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

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Fig. 10: Relative weight of Quebec City’s Protestant and English-speaking Catholic Populations, 1852-1901 100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50% Protestant

40% English-speaking Catholic

30%

20%

10%

0% 1852 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Sources: PHSVQ decennial census data. For 1852 and 1861, groups were determined by name/surname analysis and declared religion; for 1871-1891, by declared ethnic origin and religion; for 1901, by declared mother tongue and religion.

In the previous section, I showed that the number of residents at Saint Bridget’s did not correspond to the actual needs of the community in the years before 1889. Conversely, the Ladies’ Protestant Home and the Anglican Asylums came closer to meeting the needs of Protestants. Although the Annual Reports for the first decade do mention the Home turning away worthy children, this was no longer the case after 1870. The Home no longer needed to hold its annual fundraising bazar in the 1870s, and could meet community needs solely through its endowment and subscription funds. By the 1890s, the endowment was large enough to end annual collections. In fact, it was three times as large as the endowment at Saint Bridget’s Asylum, despite the smaller number of residents.754 Declining numbers at the

754 The annual reports of both institutions indicate an endowment of 21,870$ at Saint Bridget’s in 1897, and 66,643$ at the Ladies’ Protestant Home in 1896. SBAA Minute Book, 1893-1906, Saint Patrick’s Parish Archives; Thirty-ninth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Morning Chronicle, 1897), 12.

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Ladies’ Protestant Home therefore relate to declining demand, not declining capacity.

Like all orphanages in Quebec City, the Ladies’ Protestant Home provided an education entirely within its walls in the nineteenth century. Children were given “a plain English education” and learned to “sew, knit, and do all kinds of home work with the view of making them good servants.”755 This regimen began to change in 1914, when the older girls were sent to public school; in 1935, the Home was sending all children to public school.756 Transfer to the public system began over three decades before Saint Bridget’s, and is therefore more in tune with Hacsi’s observations for this transfer in the United States.757

Although Quebec’s Protestants had more indoor relief institutions at their disposal than the city’s Irish Catholic population, their narrow mandates excluded classes of the respectable poor that were taken in at the all-encompassing Saint Bridget’s. Elderly non-Anglican Protestant men, for instance, had no institution at their disposal in Quebec City. Starting in 1861, the idea of setting up a “dissenting” home for these men was frequently brought up, as the Finlay Asylum “was for those of the Episcopal faith only” and was grossly under-endowed.758 The Saint Andrew’s Society briefly considered “founding a Saint Andrew’s Home for old men of Scottish descent” but

the proximity of the Montreal Home for indigent Scotchmen, and the very few cases of such indigence in Quebec, led the Quebec society to put on record their opinion in 1876 that it would be advisable not to establish a second home in the province.759

755 Annual report, 1865 756 Fifty-seventh Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Chronicle Printing Company, 1915), 6; Seventy-seventh Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec1936), 5. 757 Hacsi, Second Home, 54-55, 59. 758 Thirty-eighth Annual Report of the Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec, (Quebec: Morning Chronicle, 1896), 10. 759 Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 42.

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In 1898, a “Renfrew Bequest” allowed the home to begin providing outdoor relief to “indigent old men and boys being Protestants and residents of Quebec.” Ms. Renfrew’s hope was that this fund would grow enough to open a home for men and boys that would admit all Protestants, but this wish did not come about.760 It was only in 1977, with the declining number of women in the Home, that the Ladies’ Protestant Home opened up to men.761

City Missions

The second important evangelical initiative to come out of the 1850s alongside the Ladies’ Protestant Home was the Quebec City Mission, founded on September 15, 1857.762 It began as a Protestant male counterpart of sorts to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, with men visiting the homes of the poor to address both their spiritual and material needs. It gradually evolved into a female outdoor relief association called the Ladies’ City Mission.

These organizations were based on the Scottish “City Mission” model. David Nasmith founded the Glasgow City Mission in January 1826. This evangelical group employed agents who went around preaching the gospel and distributing Bibles and tracts, but they also provided material aid to the poor. Nasmith embarked on a tour of North America to promote this model, which included stops in Montreal and Quebec City in 1831. A Montreal mission was founded that year,

760 Arthur G. Penny, The Hundred Years of the Ladies' Protestant Home, Quebec City, 1859-1959: A Brief Historical Sketch Compiled from Official Records (Quebec: Ladies' Protestant Home, 1958), 12-13. 761 Ladies’ Protestant Home, Annual Report, 1977, Fonds Ladies’ Protestant Home of Quebec (P556), BAnQ- Québec. 762 “An Act to incorporate the ‘Quebec City Mission’” in Statutes of the Province of Quebec, (Quebec: Charles- François Langlois, 1883), Ch. 65, 243.

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but it took a few decades for a proper mission to be founded in Quebec, at which point the idea had successfully spread throughout the world.763

In 1857 a female counterpart to these missions was founded in London by Ellen Ranyard, named the Female Bible Mission. At first, salaried working-class “Bible Women” sold Bibles and proffered advice on how to attain self-reliant and respectable domestic life, providing a link between poorer families and the charitable elites. With time, an important difference with male missions settled in. Ranyard wanted “Bible Women” to do their “Bible work” and their “domestic mission work” at different moments and places. She felt that poor women needed to show initiative. They needed to make the effort to get out of their homes to receive material help. Poor women were expected to come to the “Mission House” for weekly “Mothers’ Meetings.” In 1867, there were 234 “Bible Women” in London, the first salaried itinerant social workers in the city.764

The first Protestant city mission was founded in Quebec City on September 15, 1857 and was incorporated some years later for “the visiting of sick and destitute persons in and about the City of Quebec, the alleviation of distress among the poor, and other like benevolent and charitable purposes.” The list of founders was headed by leading evangelical Anglicans Jeffery Hale and Christian Würtele. Hale had been involved in many local associations that proselytized to the poor,765 but the city mission added a charitable element to this. It was housed in Hale’s

763 Mary Poovey, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation, 1830-1864 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 44-45; John Campbell, Memoirs of David Nasmith, his labours and travels in Great Britain, France, the United States and Canada (London: J. Snow, 1844), 260; "City Mission," in Encyclopædia Britannica; John Matthias Weylland, Round the Tower; or, the Story of the London City Mission (London: S.W. Partridge & Co., 1875), 5. 764 Poovey, Making a Social Body, 44-54; M.K. Smith, "Ellen Ranyard ('LNR'), Bible Women and Informal Education," in The Encyclopedia of Informal Education (2003). 765 Prior to the founding of the Quebec City Mission, Hale served on the board of the Quebec Auxiliary Bible Society (also known as the Quebec Bible Society, or the Quebec branch of the British and Foreign Auxiliary Bible Society); the Quebec Religious Tract Society (also known as the Quebec Auxiliary Tract Society); and an offshoot of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge called the Society for Propagating the Gospel among Destitute Settlers in the District of Quebec.

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privately-funded Sunday School building and employed an agent to visit homes.766 Few sources appear to have survived aside from the act of incorporation and the occasional mention in city directories, so it is difficult to know how effective this organization was.

The ladies’ branch, based on Ranyard’s model, came about more gradually. It grew out of the Ladies’ Bible Association, founded in the first half of the nineteenth century. This was essentially an organization that sold cheap Bibles and preached the gospel. In the 1860s, the Bible Association expanded its mandate to offer material aid. They hired “a colporteur - a Miss Pollet, a French person” to distribute Bibles and aid, suggesting evangelization among Catholics. This “colporteur” became a “Bible Woman” a few years later, showing the gradual incorporation of Ranyard’s model. In 1869, they acknowledged this link, claiming to be a counterpart to the Bible Association of Montreal, which “followed as closely as possible Mrs. Ranyard’s system.” The first “Mothers’ Meeting” was held on January 17, 1871 at the Jeffery Hale Sunday School. A decade later, in 1881, the charitable and proselytizing branches were separated into two organizations under the same board: the sale of Bibles continued to be under the aegis of the Ladies’ Bible Association, and the charitable association became known as the Ladies’ Branch of the Quebec City Mission. The Bible association later integrated the Ladies’ Branch in 1887. The male members of the Quebec City Mission formally disbanded in 1900 after being dormant for years, leaving the female branch, which formally incorporated on March 23, 1900, as the Ladies’ City Mission.767 This somewhat dizzying evolution is summed up in Figure 11, below.

766 “An Act to incorporate the ‘Quebec City Mission’” in Statutes of the Province of Quebec, Ch. 65, 243. 767 Ladies Bible Association minute book, 1862-1887, Fonds Ladies’ City Mission (P955), BAnQ-Québec; “An Act to incorporate the Ladies’ City Mission of Quebec,” Statutes of the Province of Quebec, 63 Victoria, Chapter 105, 23 March 1900; Proceedings at the Formation of the Ladies’ Bible Society of Quebec, March 2, 1826, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

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Fig. 11: Evolution of the City Mission Movement in Quebec City

A salaried missionary768 looked after weekly mothers’ meetings at the Jeffery Hale Sunday School. These were held on Fridays in winter between 2:00PM and 4:00PM, drawing around twenty women on average. These women benefited from fabric on sale at half the price, and could sew and stitch while listening to the afternoon Bible lesson. Meals were also provided on a monthly basis. These meetings continued well into the 1960s, when the board decided that “those who need help most are not able to attend these meetings.”769

Missionaries also visited the homes of the Protestant poor, the sick at Jeffery Hale’s Hospital, and the women and orphans at the Ladies’ Protestant Home. By the 1890s, proselytism had largely been replaced by “help given in food, fuel, clothing and money but also spiritual comfort.” The annual distribution of Christmas dinners began in 1896.

It remained a modest initiative. In 1900, the missionary distributed $307 in help and visited some 400 families. This is roughly a quarter of what the Irish conferences of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul distributed in the 1890s, and half what the Saint George’s Society spent per year during that same period.

768 There were three salaried women in the nineteenth century: Miss Pollet, colporteur, from 1860-1864; Miss Latimer, Bible Woman, from 1865-1894; and Mrs. Salter, City Missionary, from 1894-1920. Salaries varied between $130-$185 in the 1890s. 769 Fonds Ladies’ City Mission (P955), BAnQ-Québec.

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Church-based Initiatives

The second half of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of many charitable groups directly linked to the different places of worship in the city, most of them overseen by women. They built upon the existing “poor funds” that different churches had managed since the Conquest.

This proliferation of church groups was especially true for Protestants. Whereas Irish Catholics only had one parish church in 1855, Quebec’s Protestants had 11 major places of worship.770 Claude Galarneau did an extensive survey of ads in three Quebec newspapers published between 1770 and 1859, which suggests that most church-based women’s associations first appeared in the 1850-1859 decade. These included groups such as the “Ladies of the Baptist Congregation,” the “Ladies Needlework Association of the Palace Street Church,” and the “Ladies of Saint Peter's Chapel.”771 A glance through city directories for the latter half of the century reveal many more that do not appear in Galarneau’s list. These church- specific groups focused solely on the poor members of their congregations; this differed from the broader focus of the non-confessional female associations founded in the first half of the century (Female Compassionate Society, Quebec Ladies’ Benevolent Society), which did not survive the reorganization of society along narrower ethno-religious lines.

These church groups did not necessarily have charity as their primary objective, serving as auxiliaries to a wide range of church initiatives. Let us examine the Saint Andrew’s Ladies’ Aid society, founded around 1885, for instance. This group helped with the Sunday School, provided books for the Church library, planned social activities and Christmas sales, oversaw renovations and decoration of the

770 Six of these were Anglican (Holy Trinity, Trinity, Saint Paul's, Saint Matthew's, Saint Michael's, Saint Peter's), one was Presbyterian (Saint Andrew's), one Free Presbyterian (Chalmers Free Church), one Methodist (Wesley Methodist Church), one Baptist (Quebec Baptist Church), and one Congregationalist (Palace Hill Congregational Church). This excludes smaller chapels located in asylums and hospitals, as well as separate chapels within existing churches, which did not have their church groups. 771 Galarneau, "Sociabilité et associations volontaires à Québec, 1770-1859," 202-212.

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church buildings, but they also visited the parish poor, assumed the cost of sending needy children to school and provided them with clothing.772 Charity was part of their activities, but not the sole part.

Some church groups had narrower mandates. For instance, the Saint Matthew’s Church Clothing Society aimed “at providing [clothing] for very destitute cases.” In 1889-90 they purchased $139 worth of blankets and clothing material for the poor.773 A few years later, the same church set up a Ministering Children’s League “for the purpose of enlisting children in works of charity and kindness” and had as their motto “No day without a deed to crown it.” In 1895-96, this league raised money through sales and concerts to “assist a poor man to return to his home” and “toward Stipend of Curate in the Magdalen Islands.”774 In 1905-06, they raised funds “towards the support of the Untainted Children of Lepers in China.”775 The male church wardens continued to run the Saint Matthew’s Poor Fund, which provided fuel, Christmas dinners, and emergency relief.776

Taken individually, these church-based initiatives were modest. At most, they expended a few hundred dollars toward charity, and a good part of this charity did not go toward local needs but was sent either to foreign missions or “Indian” missions in the Canadian Prairies and the north. Taken as a whole, however, the sums add up to form an invaluable addition to the city’s charitable landscape. Moreover, the involvement of children and young adults in these groups

772 Annual Reports of the Various Organizations of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec, for the year ending March 1st, 1908, (Quebec: St. Andrew's Church, 1908), 21-25. 773 Saint Matthew’s Church, Easter 1882, Report of Church Wardens and Statement of Accounts, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 774 Saint Matthew’s Church, Quebec, Annual Reports, Eastertide 1896, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 775 Saint Matthew’s Church, Quebec, Annual Reports, Eastertide 1906, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke. 776 Saint Matthew’s Church, Quebec, Annual Reports, Eastertide 1901, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

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perpetuated a middle-class culture of charity rooted in religious ideals. This served as a continuous feeder into larger involvement in voluntary organizations.

National Societies

Whereas the Saint Patrick’s Society came to play a minimal role with regard to charity on the Catholic side, the other national societies continued to play an important auxiliary role. They survived nearly a century longer, well into the 1970s.

Over the years, the “Protestant” national societies shifted their focus from addressing the needs of individuals to financing organizations. Many of the organizations listed in this section received modest contributions from these national societies. The Saint George’s Society began this in 1864 by financing the Finlay Asylum. They added the Ladies’ Protestant Home to their roster 1868, followed by the WCA/YWCA (1874), Jeffery Hale’s Hospital (1890), the Salvation Army (1897), the Female Orphan Asylum (1900), the Male Orphan Asylum (1905), the Ladies’ City Mission (1909), and others. However, most of their budget was still devoted to meeting the needs of individuals prior to 1940.777 The other societies also followed this trend and gradually gave more to many of these charities, but smaller amounts.778 These annual donations were small, varying between $20 and $50 per year, or less than 3% of the annual expenses of Protestant orphanages. As with the church groups and city missions, the national societies’ annual expenses were much smaller than that of the indoor relief sector or the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

The target audience of the English and Scottish societies continued to be largely Protestant, but demographic changes made it increasingly multiconfessional over

777 Annual Reports of the Saint George’s Society of Quebec for the years 1835-1947, Fonds Saint George’s Society of Quebec (P952), BAnQ-Québec. 778 Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 51, 73.; Saint Andrew’s Society of Quebec, Minute books, 1924-1942, Fonds Saint Andrew’s Society of Quebec (P954), BAnQ-Québec.

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the years. The percentage of Catholics with Scottish and English origins in Quebec City grew considerably in the latter half of the nineteenth century, as shown on Table 11 below.

Table 11: Proportion of Catholics among English-, Scottish-, and Irish-origin Population in Quebec City, 1871, 1901

1871 1901

# ORIGIN: ENGLISH 4821 3654

# ORIGIN: ENGLISH+CATHOLIC 880 1152

% OF CATHOLICS AMONG ENGLISH-ORIGIN POPULATION 18 % 32 %

# ORIGIN: SCOTTISH 1942 1267

# ORIGIN: SCOTTISH+CATHOLIC 366 510

% OF CATHOLICS AMONG SCOTTISH-ORIGIN POPULATION 19 % 40 %

# ORIGIN: IRISH 12934 5962

# ORIGIN: IRISH+CATHOLIC 10619 5156

% OF CATHOLICS AMONG IRISH-ORIGIN POPULATION 82 % 86 %

# TOTAL ENGLISH+SCOTTISH+IRISH-ORIGIN CATHOLICS 11865 6818

# TOTAL ENGLISH+SCOTTISH-ORIGIN CATHOLICS 1246 1662

% OF ENGLISH+SCOTTISH AMONG ENGLISH-SPEAKING CATHOLICS 11 % 24 % Source: 1871 and 1901 PHSVQ census data by origin and religion.

In the thirty years between 1871 and 1901, the percentage of Catholics among people of English and Scottish origins in Quebec changed from around 18% to 30- 40%. Given the higher number of Irish-origin Catholics, Catholics with origins in England and Scotland still accounted for less that a quarter of the total number of English-speaking Catholics in 1901.

Moreover, the census did not account for the growing number of Canadian-born people with multiple origins. Only a single variable was allowed in the “origin” field, typically based on paternal origin. The reality of multiple origins increases the potential size of all three groups by allowing individuals to situate themselves in two or more groups at once. This meant that the number of Catholics who could

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potentially draw on the help of the Saint Andrew’s and Saint George’s Societies was even higher than the numbers in the table above.

Although the by-laws of the Saint George’s and Saint Andrew’s Societies remained non sectarian in theory, the organizations themselves remained overwhelmingly Protestant in their composition and outlook. They did not reflect the growing percentage of Catholics in their target audiences. In 1900, the Saint George’s Society met in the Masonic Hall, which bordered on being off-limits to Catholics. Annual Saint George’s Day services were still held at the Anglican Cathedral. 17 of the 20 administrators and volunteers that could be identified in the census were Protestant, and there were no Catholic chaplains on the roster. Donations from the Society went out exclusively to five Protestant charities in the city.779 The same is true for the Saint Andrew’s Society, where the entire board was made up of Protestants, the chaplains were both Presbyterians, and aid recipients were solely Protestant.780 While these organizations were technically open to Catholics of Scottish and English descent, they were de facto Protestant organizations. This sent out the message that the real English and Scots were Protestants, and that Catholics from these countries were honorary Irish. The national societies did not escape the growing confessional boundaries of the day, even when these defied actual demographic realities.

While the sectarianism remained hidden with the English and Scottish national societies, it became quite open with the Irish societies. After decades of internecine power struggles within the Saint Patrick’s Society, the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society was founded in 1859. In Montreal, a similar association had been founded in 1856 as an offshoot of the Saint Patrick’s Society, marking a confessional split in

779 In 1900, donations of $25 each were made to the Ladies’ Protestant Home, the Finlay Asylum, the Women’s Christian Association, the Church of England Female Orphan Asylum, and the Salvation Army shelter. Annual Report of the Saint George’s Society of Quebec for 1900, Fonds Saint George’s Society of Quebec (P952), BAnQ-Québec. 780 Data is for 1904-05, as a late nineteenth-century list of board members was not found. Harper, The Annals in Brief of the St. Andrew's Society of Quebec, 51, 73.

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the city’s Irish national societies.781 An Irish Protestant Benevolent Society also appeared in Toronto in 1870.782 Circumstances were different in Quebec City, where the Saint Patrick’s Society remained multiconfessional.783 The difficult marriage between Irish Catholics and Protestants would not survive this era of sharp religious boundaries, which partly explains why Quebec’s Saint Patrick’s Society fizzled away in 1890 whereas the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society continued until 1977.

4.4. Vagrants and the Underclass: Between the Asylum and the Gaol

The gaol continued to serve as a substitute hospice for prostitutes and vagrants until the end of the century and beyond, though numbers declined gradually from the 1870s onward. Beyond the gaol, the charitable endeavours of the Good Shepherd nuns grew exponentially and attracted a significant proportion of Anglophones relative to the population. Protestant initiatives for the “undeserving poor” appeared later, most notably through the Women’s Christian Association (later the YWCA) in 1875.

The Role of the Gaol

Despite the emergence of new charitable asylums for “fallen women” in the 1850s, the gaol continued to house many so-called “undeserving poor” throughout this period.

781 Leitch, "The Importance of Being English? Identity and Social Organisation in British Montreal, 1800-1850", 36. 782 William Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867-1916 (Montreal; Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013), 94. 783 Coulombe, "Eire go Bragh", 106.

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The records for this period show a growing number of references to “voluntary confessions.” Paupers would literally check themselves into gaol by confessing to vagrancy before the court, especially during the cold winter months. In some cases they would be released after a few months and check themselves in again. Although these types of voluntary confessions likely occurred prior to the 1850s, they were not recorded as such in the prison registers. Prison inspectors repeatedly commented on the exceptional nature of this situation, which made the Quebec gaol more of a refuge for the poor than others in the province. The inspectors’ report for 1867-68 states the following:

Il y a encore quelque chose de remarquable dans cette prison, c'est le nombre considérable de pauvres qui ont demandé comme une faveur, l'avantage d'y être enfermés pour ne pas périr, soit de faim, soit de froid. En hiver, elle est plutôt une maison pour les pauvres qu'un lieu de réclusion pour les Criminels.

Ceci indique sûrement qu'il y a une lacune quelque part. Nous croyons la voir dans le manque d'une maison spécialement consacrée à la réception des pauvres sans travail ou sans asile. Les nombreuses maisons de charité et de bienfaisance que possède la ville ne suffisent pas.784

The normalization of this practice was such that, for many years, over half the inmates in gaol during winter had checked themselves in through voluntary confession.785 As Table 12 shows, this practice was more prevalent among women. In 1860, over 40% of all female committals were through voluntary confession, as opposed to a little over 10% for men. The table also shows that Anglophone men were slightly more likely to be committed through voluntary confession than Francophones.

784 "Premier rapport annuel du bureau des inspecteurs de prisons, asiles, etc.. pour les années 1867 & 1868," Documents de la session 1, no. 2 (1868): 7., quoted in Fyson, "L'irlandisation de la prison de Québec," 6. 785 See, for instance, "Cinquième rapport des inspecteurs de prisons et asiles, etc., pour l'année 1872," in Documents de la session, 31 (Montreal: La Minerve, 1873), 40. Similar mentions can be found in the inspection reports for other years.

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Table 12: Proportion of Committals by Voluntary Confession at the Quebec City Gaol, 1860

VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OTHER COMMITALS

WOMEN 258 369

Francophone 35 13.57% 59 10.31%

Anglophone 223 86.43% 310 89.69%

MEN 97 865

Francophone 10 10.31% 280 32.37%

Anglophone 87 89.69% 585 67.63%

Source: BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson

A large number of the poor in Quebec’s gaol were foreign born, including a high number of Irish. Donald Fyson’s research shows in fact that the number of people of Irish origin among all committals was disproportionate to their total number in the city. They outnumbered Francophones in gaol until the 1870s.786

Figure 12 below shows that the number of imprisonments for vagrancy continued to increase for most of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Numbers had been decreasing around the famine years, but they began to rise again in the 1850s, reaching a high in 1866 before decreasing after that date.

786 Fyson, "L'irlandisation de la prison de Québec," 1-2.

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Fig. 12: Vagrancy Committals by Gender at the Quebec City Gaol, 1830-1888 1400 Unknown 1200 Male Female 1000

800

600

400

200

1830 1832 1834 1836 1838 1840 1842 1844 1846 1848 1850 1852 1854 1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 Source: BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson

The late-century decrease shown in the figure above obscures the fact there was a rise in the use of “protection” by the police, a practice whereby vagrants and drunken people were housed overnight in police station lockup cells. These cases were left out of the arrest records after the 1860s. By the end of the century, “protection” cases often outnumbered the number of actual arrests. Nevertheless, even by adding these “protection” cases, there is still a decline in the total number of vagrants reported by police from the 1870s onward.787

The figure above also shows a sharp decline in the ratio of women:men committed for vagrancy starting in the 1860s. This ratio declined from a high of 60.4% female vagrants in 1864 to a low of 20.5% in 1888. This may indicate that the new charitable organizations for the “undeserving poor,” which mostly targeted women, were having some effect after the 1860s.

787 Donald Fyson, "The Judicial Prosecution of Crime in the Longue Durée, Quebec, 1712-1965," in La régulation sociale entre l'acteur et l'institution : pour une problématique historique de l'interaction, ed. Jean- Marie Fecteau and Janice Harvey (Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2005), 92-93. For more on “protection” cases in Montreal, see Marcela Aranguiz, Vagabonds et sans abris à Montréal : perception et prise en charge de l'errance, 1840-1925 (Montreal: RCHTQ, 2000), 33-38.

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Nevertheless, one shouldn’t overemphasize the role of the charitable sector. Moreover, the post-1860 decrease in vagrancy committals paralleled the general decrease in the total gaol population. The average number of total committals for the 1860s was around 1,600 per year, and prison inspectors complained of overcrowding. This had fallen to a little over 600 per year for the 1880-1888 period. This decline had little impact on the overall proportion of committals for vagrancy, as Figure 13 shows.

Fig. 13: Percentage of Committals for Vagrancy by Gender at the Quebec City Gaol, 1850-1888 100.00% 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00%

50.00% Women 40.00% Men 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00%

1850 1852 1854 1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 Source: BAnQ-Q database based on gaol registers in BAnQ-Q E17,S1, modified and expanded by Donald Fyson

70-95% of all women committed to the Quebec City gaol were there for vagrancy related offenses between 1850 and 1888, whereas 30-65% of all men were committed for vagrancy. The figure above shows no clear trend over these years. In other words, whereas the total gaol population declined, this had little impact on the percentage of people committed for vagrancy-related offenses in gaol. The gaol continued to have an unusually high proportion of vagrants. Even in 1889, the prison inspectors’ report noted that the gaol “est plutôt un hospice qu’une

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prison.”788 This only began to change by the late 1890s, when prison inspectors said that “le nombre des misereux qui autrefois venaient y chercher un asile durant l’hiver, a beaucoup diminué.”789 Similarly, Aranguiz’s study for the Montreal prison shows that it continued to be used as a homeless shelter of sorts (albeit to a lesser extent than in Quebec City) until at least 1910.790

What caused the overall decline of the prison population? While the charitable sector played a part, as well as the opening of reform and industrial schools for minors in the 1860s and 1870s,791 there were more significant factors at play. Prison inspector Walton Smith claimed the falling number of prisoners was largely due to the decline of Quebec as a port city and garrison town, and the corresponding decline of its foreign-born transient population:

Cette prison est maintenant beaucoup trop grande qu’il ne faut pour la ville et le district. Autrefois, lorsqu’il venait plus de navires à voiles dans le port, plus de trains de bois et que les soldats de l’armée régulière étaient stationnés ici, la population étrangère était plus considérable et le nombre des prisonniers plus grand qu’il ne l’est aujourd’hui.792

In short, it became less of a rowdy port city. However, declines in prison population also occurred in Montreal and London, England in the 1870s, which were two growing cities in the late-nineteenth-century, unlike Quebec City. Scholars have suggested that these parallels indicate a global trend of changing attitudes among

788 "Rapport des inspecteurs de prisons, asiles et bureaux publics de la province de Québec pour l'année 1888," in Documents de la session (Quebec: Charles-François Langlois, 1889), 42. 789 "Trentième rapport des inspecteurs de prisons et asiles de la province de Québec pour l'année 1899," in Documents de la session, 4 (Quebec: Imprimé par ordre de l'Assemblée Législative, 1901), 62. See also:"Vingt-sixième rapport des Inspecteurs de Prisons, Asiles et Bureaux Publics de la province de Québec pour l'année 1899," in Documents de la session (Quebec: Charles-François Langlois, 1896), 110. 790 Aranguiz, Vagabonds et sans abris à Montréal, 26. 791 MIMEAULT states that up to 10% of the Quebec gaol population was made up of minors. See : Martin Mimeault, "Punir, contenir et amender : les théories carcérales et leurs applications à la prison des Plaines de Québec, 1863-1877" (M.A., Université Laval, 1999), 106. For more about reform and industrial schools in Quebec City, see Gilbert, "Dynamiques de l’institutionnalisation de l’enfance délinquante et en besoin de protection : le cas des écoles de réforme et d’industrie de l’Hospice Saint-Charles de Québec, 1870-1950". 792 "Quinzième rapport des inspecteurs de prisons asiles, etc., de la province de Québec pour l'année 1884," in Documents de la session, 15 (Quebec: C.F. Langlois, 1884), 110.

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police and the courts around this time.793 Nevertheless, the decline in Quebec City was more pronounced and lasting, suggesting that urban stagnation probably played a role. In fact, Fenchel says the 1870s decline in incarceration in Montreal was initially influenced by an 1875 law that forced municipalities to pay a fixed daily amount for every incarcerated prisoner, but the repeal of this law in 1885 caused the Montreal prison population to rise again.794 This subsequent rise did not happen in Quebec City.

What part exactly did the charitable sector play in the decline of vagrant women and prostitutes in gaol? A closer look at the evolution of the Good Shepherd nuns’ initiatives tells us more.

Expansion of the Good Shepherd Initiatives

The Good Shepherd nuns’ initiatives grew exponentially in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The original Saint Magdalen Asylum started out in the second floor of a small house measuring 50 X 40 feet. They soon took over both floors, and had occupied a second building by the end of that first year. New buildings and enlargements to the existing properties were added throughout the 1850s, both for their work with “fallen women” and for educational work with the poor. In the 1860s, they expanded their initiatives beyond Quebec City. In the 1870s, their mission grew to include reform schools and homes for unmarried mothers and illegitimate children. By 1900, they had over 20 asylums, convents, schools, reform schools, and hospitals in eastern Quebec and New England. At the heart of this was a massive complex on rue de la Chevrotière in Quebec City.795

793 Fyson, "The Judicial Prosecution of Crime in the Longue Durée," 91. 794 François Fenchel, "Sur les aspects quantitatifs du 'tamis pénal' : arrestation, protection et incarcération à Montréal (1863-1912)," Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies 15, no. 2 (2011): 17-18. 795 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 148-158.

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The participation of Anglophones within these initiatives remained small yet significant, particularly in the earlier years. As Figure 14 shows, roughly one out of every five or six Good Shepherd nuns in Quebec City was an English-speaker between the 1860s and the 1880s. The proportion fell to 7.2% in 1891, which is likely due to the general numerical decline of Quebec’s English-speaking population in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The proportion of English- speaking nuns roughly paralleled the proportion of English-speaking Catholics in the city as a whole, give or take 3 to 4 percentage points.796 These findings taken from census data are much higher than the pre-existing tabulations in Josette Poulin’s study of the order, which considered birthplace rather than ethnic origin or linguistic data.797 Given the growing number of Quebec-born English-speakers in the late nineteenth century, the latter indicators are a more accurate way to measure the proportion of Anglophones.

796 PHSVQ data shows that Quebec City had 22.1% of English-speaking Catholics in 1861 (difference with percentage of English-speaking nuns = +3.9%); 19.4% in 1871 (difference +3.3%); 15.68% in 1881 (difference -4.1%); and 10.89% in 1891 (difference +3.7%) 797 Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 207-215.

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Fig. 14: Proportion of Anglophones among the Good Shepherd Sisters in Quebec City, 1851- 1891

140

120

100

80 Anglophone 60 Francophone 40

0 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 10.0% 18.2% 16.1% 19.8% 7.2%

Although they did not become a religious community until 1856, they were still informally known as the “Good Shepherd Sisters” in the early days. Source for statistics: PHSVQ Census data for 1851-1891 for the Good Shepherd nuns’ Quebec City properties. Surname analysis was done for the earlier censuses where ethnic origin or linguistic data was unavailable.

A look at the proportion of Anglophone penitents and orphans within these homes reveals a more dramatic contrast that challenges the notion of the Good Shepherd order as a largely Francophone endeavour, as seen on Figure 15 below. Census returns show us that the majority of residents in the home were English-speakers in 1861. The following three decennial censuses show a gradual decline in this percentage, which mirrors the decline of English-speakers in the city as a whole, but over a quarter of residents were still English-speaking in 1901. In fact, the number of English-speaking penitents was always disproportionately higher than the actual number of English-speaking Catholics in the city, often by striking margins.798

798 The percentage of Anglophone penitents compared to the percentage of English-speaking Catholics in the city ranged from being 15.4% to 39.2% higher. See previous footnote for the former percentage by year.

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Fig. 15: Proportion of Anglophones among Penitents and Orphans in the Good Shepherd Sisters’ Homes in Quebec City, 1851-1891

120

100

60 Anglophone

40 Francophone

0 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 20.0% 61.3% 43.0% 31.07% 28.83%

Although they did not become a religious community until 1856, they were still informally known as the “Good Shepherd Sisters.” Source for statistics: PHSVQ Census data for 1851-1861. Surname analysis was done for the earlier censuses where ethnic origin or linguistic data was unavailable.

This puts a new perspective on Poulin’s findings for the 1850-1899 period, in which she claimed 23% of penitents were not of Canadian origin, whereas the above suggests there were more. This discrepancy is likely due to her use of the word “origin” as a synonym for birthplace, as in her statistical analysis of nuns. Her percentage does not include Canadian-born penitents with English, Scottish or Irish origins.799

Although vagrancy committals remained high in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Good Shepherd order’s importance relative to that of the gaol increased in the latter years of the century. The female prison population declined from highs in the 700+/year in the mid-1860 to an average of around 50+/year in the 1890s. The change in the number of penitents was less dramatic, reaching a high of 97 in 1870 and declining slightly to an average of just under 40

799 23% is obtained after a proportional redistribution of the 9.6% of unknown origin in Poulin’s data : 21% non- Canadian + (21% of the 9.6% unknowns) = 23%. Poulin, "Une utopie religieuse : le Bon-Pasteur de Québec, de 1850 à 1921", 341.

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penitents/year in the 1890s. In short, the asylum seemed to attract a growing proportion of women released from gaol in the latter quarter of the century.800

The Good Shepherd nuns also took over the work of looking after unwed mothers. They founded the Hospice de la Misericorde in 1874 and the pre-existing Hospice Saint-Joseph de la Maternité, mentioned in the previous chapter, was turned over to them in 1876.801 Over 90% of the women who used these facilities were Francophone Catholics. A few Protestants were attracted to the home, as moving beyond existing ethno-religious boundaries allowed them to effectively conceal their pregnancy from their community. These women were nevertheless subjected to a strict conventual atmosphere and fear-inducing Catholic evangelization from the nuns.802 The illegitimate children born in these homes were mostly abandoned and transferred to the Francophone Crèche de l'Hôtel-Dieu-du-Sacré-Cœur-de- Jésus, founded in 1873. The casualty rates for these illegitimate children continued to be very high; the vast majority died within a year.803

Protestant Initiatives

Prior to 1876, all Protestant homes and shelters in Quebec City dealt solely with the “deserving poor,” but sources do state that a few vagrant Protestant women and prostitutes were sent to Montreal upon their release from gaol. A Protestant Magdalene Asylum existed in Montreal from 1848 to 1866, and a similar institution called the Female Home opened a few years later. In 1872 and 1873, the Protestant chaplain to the Quebec City gaol reported sending a few women to the

800 Ibid., 328, 338-339. 801 Gagnon, "Transitions et reflets de société dans la prise en charge de la maternité hors-norme ", 8, 35. 802 Cliche, "Morale chrétienne et 'double standard sexuel'," 89, 92. 803 Johanne Daigle and Dale Gilbert, "Crèche de l'Hôtel-Dieu-du-Sacré-Cœur-de-Jésus," Naître & Grandir à Québec, 1850-1950, http://expong.cieq.ca/institution.php?-institution=4.

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latter home, but the vast majority did not appeal to religious authorities for help upon release.804

In 1875, the chaplain said that members of the newly-founded Women’s Christian Association (WCA, later the YWCA) in Quebec City had assisted him on visits to the city gaol, and aimed to create a refuge in the city. One of the WCA women had even taken in three former prisoners as servants in her home.805

The WCA’s mandate went beyond assisting the underclass. It was founded on February 9, 1875806 and incorporated later that year for the purpose of receiving young women, who come as strangers to the city, obtaining for them board and employment, attending generally to their temporal and moral welfare, providing a reading room and library for young women, and premises where meetings of ladies connected with different benevolent institutions may be held, and for other benevolent purposes of like nature.807

The “moral welfare” element of this mission is worth noting, as the WCA emphasized the need to shelter adolescent women from the dangers of urban life such as poverty, prostitution, and intemperance. This coincided with the initial phases of industrialization, which saw a shift from live-in domestic work that provided round-the-clock supervision, to waged work that weakened patriarchal control over women’s leisure time, earnings, and sexuality. The worldwide YWCA movement emerged to shepherd these wage-earning single women.808 Although

804 Harvey, "Le réseau charitable protestant pour les enfants à Montréal : le choix des institutions," 112; "Cinquième rapport des inspecteurs de prisons et asiles, etc.," 82-84; "Sixième rapport des inspecteurs de prisons et asiles, etc., pour l'année 1873," in Documents de la session, 5 (Quebec: Le Canadien, 1874), 123. 805 "Septième rapport des inspecteurs des prisons et asiles, pour la province de Québec, 1847, et au juin 30, 1875," in Documents de la session, 15 (Quebec: Bureau des inspecteurs, 1875). 806 Morning Chronicle, 11 Feburary 1875. 807 “An Act to incorporate the Women’s Christian Association of Quebec,” Statutes of the Province of Quebec, 39 Vict, Cap. 69. 808 Carolyn Strange, Toronto's Girl Problem: The Perils and Pleasures of the City, 1880-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 4-5, 17-18.

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the WCA was inspired by the growing worldwide YWCA movement founded in England, it remained independent until 1911.809

Additionally, there was a reform element to their mission for those who had “fallen into evil companionship.” This included prostitutes, unmarried mothers, and any woman who had spent time in gaol. The WCA was the first Protestant organization in the city to offer “by means of an Industrial Home which extends a helping hand to the erring ones, a refuge where, by God’s grace, they may redeem the past.” These women were housed under a different roof, under the care of a matron, as their status as “fallen women” rendered them ineligible to stay in the boarding home. The Industrial Home, also known as the Protestant Magdalen Asylum, continued until 1915 when the Ladies’ City Mission took over this work.810

Although the YWCA came to be known for an avant-garde approach to social issues in the twentieth century, the Quebec City organization was initially structured along traditional lines. It was administered by a female Committee of Management, “but in matters that are beyond our comprehension or adjustment, we refer to the other sex.” This male auxiliary oversaw financial affairs, and spoke at public meetings.811

A look at the list of founding members and early presidents reveals an eclectic mix of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. A high percentage of the women involved had married into the wealthy merchant class. Women from the non-established Churches loomed large in the top positions. For instance, Mrs. W.H. Dean, who was president from 1878 to 1906, was a Scottish Baptist married

809 Marie Lachance and France Parent, 130 ans d'oeuvres de femmes : YWCA Quebec (Quebec: Les Éditions Second Printemps, avec la collaboration du groupe Marcel R. Tremblay, 2005), 7. 810 Quoted in “Prologue to a Second Century, 1875-1975,” author unknown, manuscript in the archives of the YWCA-Quebec, no pagination. Published in French as Historique des premiers cent ans du YWCA de Québec, 1875-1975, Prologue à un deuxième siècle, (Quebec: YWCA, 1975). Thanks to France Parent for this document. Report of the Ladies’ City Mission of Quebec for the year 1915, (Quebec: Chronicle Printing Co., 1916), 7, Fonds Ladies’ City Mission (P955), BAnQ-Québec. 811 Quoted in “Prologue to a Second Century, 1875-1975,” op. cit., Lachance and Parent, 130 ans d'oeuvres de femmes, 8.

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to a banker. Elisabeth Cochrane, an Irish Methodist widow, was in charge of the Magdalen Asylum. Given the penchant for social reform among the non- established churches, it is unsurprising that Baptists and Methodists were so involved.812

The WCA’s mission expanded over the years. In 1895, they had built a new wing to house elderly ladies, in consultation with the Ladies’ Protestant Home. Their involvement in teaching and physical education, for which they are largely known today, began in earnest at the turn of the 20th century.813

Although the WCA housed unwed mothers, there was no Protestant counterpart to the Catholic endeavours that looked after these women while they were pregnant in the nineteenth century. Jeffery Hale’s Hospital, which was founded solely for Protestants in the 1860s, may have done so given the evangelical bent of its founder, but there is no mention of this in the sources prior to 1906.814 With time, Jeffery Hale’s hospital came to welcome Catholics. The Good Shepherd nuns saw this alternative in a bad light, writing that: [Un bon nombre de filles perdues] vont à Jeffrey Hale, hôpital protestant qui les reçoit aux mêmes conditions que nous : 15 $ par mois. Actuellement, seize des nôtres sont au nombre des malades ou convalescentes de cette maison. Elles ont avoué que la honte de venir demander leur entrée pour une seconde fois les avait éloignées de notre hospice. Et leurs pauvres âmes, que vont-elles devenir ?815

Many studies indicate that attitudes toward unwed mothers were more liberal among Protestants, who were more likely to keep their children and less subject to moral chastising. Catholics sought to preserve the honor of the parents by making

812 Names taken from Act of Incorporation and “Prologue to a Second Century, 1875-1975.” Data on origin, profession and religion from 1871 and 1881 PHSVQ Census. 813 “Prologue to a Second Century, 1875-1975,” op. cit. 814 Jeffery Hale’s Hospital, Annual Report, Report of the Nursing Department, 1906, 13, Fonds Hôpital Jeffery Hale (P942), BAnQ-Québec. 815 Cliche, "Morale chrétienne et 'double standard sexuel'," 103.

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babies disappear, whereas Protestant societies did not have large-scale foundling asylums run by unpaid nuns.816

Charitable Initiatives for Vagrant Men

Alternatives to the gaol and to police station lockup cells for able-bodied homeless men were few and far between during this period. There had been little progress since the few short-lived attempts to set up workhouses in the first half of the nineteenth century (see 2.4.). Attitudes toward these men had changed with the rise of evangelicalism, but the idea that poverty was a personal responsibility and the sign of moral weakness continued, and they were still seen as less deserving.

It was only in the 1890s that private alternatives for homeless men began appearing in Quebec City. The evangelical Protestant Salvation Army set up a refuge for homeless men of all confessions. The first known Catholic refuge for men only appeared in 1904; it provided ten beds within the Patronage Saint- Vincent de Paul.817

The emergence of a relief network for vagrant men occurred far later in Quebec City than elsewhere in North America. As noted previously, most British colonies had a system derived from the Poor Laws that led to the creation of “poorhouses” or “houses of industry” for vagrant men, and this before all other charitable institutions. This was not the case in the province of Quebec. Despite this, even Montreal had explored the workhouse model to a greater degree than Quebec City,

816 The Ladies’ Protestant Home in Quebec City began to look after babies of unmarried mothers, if funds allowed, as of 1906. For more about Catholic/Protestant attitudes to unmarried mothers and their children, see: Fleury-Potvin, "Une double réponse au problème moral et social de l'illégitimité", 97; Julie Miller, " Transatlantic Anxieties: New York's Nineteenth-Century Foundling Asylums and the London Foundling Hospital," Annales de démographie historique 2(2007); Harvey, "The Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society", 98-101. 817 Lemoine, La Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul à Québec, 73.

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though lack of public funding had similarly hindered its development.818 Nevertheless, there was a “Protestant House of Industry and Refuge” as of 1863 that looked after what they saw as “the dregs of society.”819 On the Catholic side, Montreal’s Saint Bridget’s also had a night refuge for homeless men, and the Hospice Saint-Charles (later L’Accueil Bonneau) was founded in 1877.820

Given that evangelicals were often at the forefront of reform initiatives toward the so-called immoral poor, the small size of Quebec City’s Protestant community and the longstanding domination of established churches, may explain why homeless shelters only appeared decades later than in Montreal. The use of the gaol and police station lockup cells as a shelter was criticized, yet there was little public will to provide an alternative. The first organization to provide an alternative, the Salvation Army, was met with outright hostility in its early years.

4.5. Challenging Boundaries, or the Salvation Army Wars of 1886- 1887

Most private charities in the second half of the nineteenth century respected ethno- religious boundaries. The limits were generally understood by the city elites that oversaw these charities. However, the story of the Salvation Army Wars of 1886- 1887 shows what happened when a group of militant upstart Ontario evangelicals challenged these boundaries: sectarian tensions surfaced and clashes occurred. Although widely respected today, the Salvation Army met with violent opposition in

818 For more on this, see Chureau, “La Maison d’Industrie de Montréal.” 819 Janice Harvey, "'Dealing with 'the Destitute and the Wretched': The Protestant House of Industry and Refuge in Nineteenth-Century Montreal," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 12, no. 1 (2001): 75- 76, 87. 820 Fecteau and Harvey, "Le réseau de régulation sociale montréalais au XIXe siècle," 682-683; Cross, "The Irish in Montreal", 110-111, 181-182; Stéphanie Teasdale and Maude Redmond, "L'Accueil Bonneau pour les personnes en situation d'itinérance à Montréal," Le patrimoine immatériel religieux du Québec, http://www.ipir.ulaval.ca/fiche.php?id=381.

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many cities. However, their presence in Quebec City led to more broken noses and fractured skulls than in any other Canadian city.

Context

The Salvation Army was founded by William Booth, a dissident Methodist minister. It began as the East London Christian Mission in 1865. Booth preached among the working classes and poor of London’s East End. In 1878, he rebranded his mission as the Salvation Army, a stroke of marketing genius that led to its rapid spread around the world. Booth organized his group as a makeshift army, with all the military trappings that appealed to people’s sense of spectacle. He branded himself the “general,” and members became “officers” and “soldiers.” Congregations were called “corps”; places of worship were known as citadels, forts and barracks; and prayer times were known as “knee drills” The army had its own flag, uniforms, and military songs. They marched through the streets playing music and singing, providing a religious alternative to popular amusements that drew in crowds. The army also published a popular newspaper, called the War Cry, which was full of melodramatic and sensationalistic conversion stories built around battles with the devil. The poor that were not drawn by the music were drawn in by the free food, an approach that became known as “soup to salvation.”821

Not everyone liked the Salvation Army. They were noisy, did not necessarily know how to play their musical instruments, and drew attention to themselves in a conservative Victorian society, making them an easy target. Mobs assaulted them with stones or rotten eggs, their barracks were burnt down in at least four Ontario towns, and they provoked weeks of riots when they paraded in the Irish-Catholic

821 R. G. Moyles, The Blood and Fire in Canada: A History of the Salvation Army in the Dominion, 1882-1976 (Toronto: P. Martin Associates, 1977), 3-5, 14-15, 45; Lynne Marks, "Working-class Femininity and the Salvation Army: Hallelujah Lasses in English Canada, 1882-1892," in Rethinking Canada, 2nd edition, ed. Veronica Strong-Boag and Anita Clair Fellman (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1991), 187; Norman H. Murdoch, "Marching as to War: The Salvation Army Invasion of Montreal, 1884-85," Fides et Historia 35, no. 1 (2003): 60-61.

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neighbourhoods of Liverpool, England.822 In addition to attracting the ire and heckles of their working-class peers, they also faced class prejudice from the middle and upper classes. Newspapers spoke of the Salvation Army as a movement that attracted the “lower orders” and “unchurched masses.”823

The Salvation Army spread fast throughout the British Empire and the United States during the 1880s. They set up formally in Canada in 1882. Two years later, there were already 73 corps in Ontario. That same year, they set up their first barracks in Montreal and Boston.824 Another two years passed and, in 1886, they came to Quebec City. That same year, the Canadian army officially expanded its emotional revivalist mission by entering into social service work.825

Description of the Salvation Army Wars in Quebec City

The War Cry depicted Quebec City as Canada’s “stronghold of Satan,” saw it as ripe for an “invasion,” and invade they did.

Even before they set foot in the Quebec City, the press was portraying the army as lower-class halfwits. In October 1886, The Daily Telegraph, Quebec’s liberal English paper, interviewed divisional officer Spooner on his plans for the city. The reporter described him as “a Cockney of some self-importance and apparently very illiterate,” continuing to mock him throughout the article.826

Later that month, Salvationists established a base in Quebec City in the former Jeffery Hale Sunday School building, which had been lent to them by evangelical

822 Murdoch, "Marching as to War," 62. 823 Marks, "Working-class Femininity and the Salvation Army," 187. 824 Moyles, The Blood and Fire in Canada, 9-11; Benjamin L. Hartley, Evangelicals at a Crossroads: Revivalism & Social Reform in Boston, 1860-1910 (Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2011), 99. 825 Marks, "Working-class Femininity and the Salvation Army," 194, note 75. 826 Reported in The Saturday Budget, 2 October 1886.

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Protestants. These barracks became a French-language mission under the direction of one man and four women. The two leaders were Captain Irma Chaponaud, from France, and Captain Nettie Simcoe, whose name suggests she probably spoke French as a second-language.827

Their first public meeting was stormed by hecklers, both inside and outside the hall, who smashed windows and broke furniture. The Salvation Army asked for police protection, which they got, and Quebec’s mayor even came to address the hecklers and calm the crowd before a meeting. People nevertheless continued to gather, heckle, and vandalize the premises. The city’s evangelical alliance set up electric lights outside the hall to curb the vandalism, but opposition continued.828

There was some disagreement in the press as to who the disturbers of the peace were. The Daily Telegraph claimed these disturbers “do not belong to the lower orders of society,” but were well known gentlemen, bank clerks, people who served in Protestant institutions, who should have more regard for the good name of Quebec. The Salvation Army’s own publications said the roughs were “young lads, chiefly French speaking, and when we entered they at once commenced to cheer and stamp.”829

Less than three months after opening their French barracks, the Salvation Army opened up a separate barracks to convert the city’s English-speakers in an abandoned granite congregational church on Cote du Palais.830 No trouble was reported outside these barracks in the first few months. This was likely due to the winter weather, which discouraged outdoor gatherings.831

827 The Quebec Daily Telegraph, 2 November 1886; The War Cry, 6 November 1886; 27 November 1886. 828 The War Cry, 13 November 1886; 20 November 1886. 829 The Quebec Daily Telegraph, 4 November 1886; The War Cry, 13 November 1886. 830 The Salvation Army refuge for the poor is still housed on the same site in 2016, though the former church building was demolished in 1958. Morning Chronicle, 3 January 1887; The War Cry, 22 January 1887; 29 January 1887. 831 The War Cry, 19 March 1887.

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As spring and summer came along, trouble started all over again. In March, someone set a “soda bottle filled with powder” on the windowsill of the French barracks, an explosive that sent shards of glass flying and injured two or three people inside. Come summer, the army decided to march for the first time in the working-class Faubourg Saint-Roch, only to be greeted by “another assault of the most brutal and murderous character.” They were chased by a howling mob of men and boys. One woman, Captain Simcoe, had her scalp split open by stones and the War Cry claimed she was in critical condition, close to death. Captain Chaponaud had her arm dislocated. Two other women had their heads hit. Ten injuries were reported and the Salvationists’ drums were smashed to pieces. Some papers reported that they had brought the hostility upon themselves by drumming and singing in front of Saint-Roch church during vespers.832

In August, an event that Salvationists described in all caps as “THE BATTLE OF THE BASILICA” took place. This occurred as part of the Salvation Army’s nationwide fifth anniversary celebration of their “taking of Canada,” with marches around the country. Residents of Quebec boarded up their windows in anticipation of the chaos. A large procession with soldiers from around the country took place in the upper town. The Army claimed they had stopped playing their instruments as they approached the basilica, where prayers were being recited, but this didn’t stop a counter-demonstration of people walking with the dominion flag and their own trumpets singing “the French national air and occasionally giving a push and throwing a stone…” Some papers reported nearly 2,000 people assaulting the army on Place d’Armes: they broke the expensive new plate glass windows at Simons’ department store, and followed them down côte de la Fabrique. “Stones flew thick as hail,” reported the army paper. 21 army members were injured, instruments were lost, and the War Cry gave yet more gory details on broken skulls and “burly men with big fists unmercifully pounding the Salvation Army lasses.” Few people were arrested. The city press named the ringleaders as Desmarais

832 Morning Chronicle, 27 March 1887; The War Cry, 2 April 1887; Montreal Daily Witness, 20 June 1887; Le Canadien, 20 June 1887.

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and Wagner. The first, a Francophone Catholic, was accompanied by Napoleon Wagner, a 30-year old German-born Catholic ship-owner married to an Irish Catholic according to the 1881 census. Four people were charged. Wagner, the only one condemned, received a 40$ fine for throwing stones. The War Cry claimed that the “gentleman” among the four got off with the least punishment: “. . . it is a pity that these ‘gentlemen’ cannot be punished in proportion to the degree that they come short of what society expects of them.”833

The last major riots took place on November 24 and 25, and drew in a broader range of protesters than before. The Morning Chronicle claimed a mob of 600 Laval University students led by “a well-known volunteer officer” marched toward the French barracks with a view of confronting the Salvation Army. Their goal was to assert the right to walk in a procession through the streets, “forgetting apparently that their procession is not a religious one, and that all religious processions in Quebec have hitherto been protected from insult.” The police tried to stop the procession, standing with loaded revolvers to prevent the crowd from rushing into the barracks. Violence erupted. Both the Laval students and the Salvationists argued that the violence had been caused by rowdy hangers-on.834

The next day, students marched down to Saint-Roch to deliver anti-Salvationist speeches in both French and English. The speeches argued that if the Salvation Army, “un ramassis de gens sans aveu,” had the right to march, then citizens also had that right. The mob allegedly sang “We’ll hang the Salvation Army to a Sour Apple Tree.” The War Cry lamented that a growing number of Irish Catholics had joined the anti-Salvationists. “Until last night and to-day the Irish kept aloof from the

833 La Vérite, 25 August 1887, 1 October 1887; Morning Chronicle, 25 August 1887, 27 August 1887; Montreal Daily Witness, 26 August 1887; Saturday Budget, 27 August 1887; The War Cry, 10 September 1887, 17 September 1887, 8 October 1887; PHSVQ 1881 Census data for Quebec City. 834 Morning Chronicle, 25 November 1887, 26 November 1887; Le Canadien, 26 November 1887;

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Canadian mob, and in some instances opposed it, but to-night there seemed to be a fusion of the two elements.” 835

The growing Irish Catholic presence may have been spurred on by the alleged involvement of Orangemen and Young Britons, two anti-Catholic nativist organizations. Protestant church doors had been placarded with notices for Orange and Young Briton lodges to defend the Salvationists, and a Catholic notary claimed that he had received a threatening postcard signed “ORANGEMEN.” La Justice, an ultramontane paper, said Orangemen from Quebec City, “quelque quarante têtes folles,” had marched four by four yelling insults to peaceful citizens while illegally carrying arms belonging to the eighth battalion. Conversely, letters in the English- language papers argued that there says there were no such nativist groups in Quebec City, and agents provocateurs had used disgraceful tactics to whip up Irish support: “there is no Orange or Young Briton lodge or organization of any kind in Quebec City, nor has there been for some years past.”836 In fact, at least three Orange lodges had existed in Quebec City, but these fizzled out sometime in the 1880s.837 It is not known whether an official lodge still existed in 1887, but the absence of an official lodge does not disqualify the involvement of Protestant nativist vigilantes.

After two days of rioting, many groups worked to defuse the tensions. The police complained that they lacked resources to adequately tackle thousands of protesters, and told the Salvationists that they could no longer provide proper protection. Prominent evangelical Protestants met Salvation Army leaders and successfully urged them to keep a low profile in the interest of public order.

835 Le Canadien, 26 November 1887; The War Cry, 10 December 1887 836 Le Canadien, 26 November 1887; The Quebec Daily Telegraph, 28 November 1887; Morning Chronicle, 29 November 1887; La Justice, 29 November 1887, 1 December 1887; The War Cry, 10 December 1887. 837 Based on correspondence with Simon Jolivet, who conducted research on the Orange Order in Quebec . He writes : “Ce que je sais des orangistes de Québec, c'est qu'ils avaient des loges primaires actives à partir de la fondation de l'Ordre d'Orange du Canada Est (en 1849) jusqu'au moins dans les années 1880. Après 1890, selon les minutes officielles du Grand Lodge of Quebec, la ville de Québec n'en comptera plus aucune.” See also: Jolivet, "Orange, vert et bleu."

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Cardinal Taschereau was asked to intervene, but he refused to get involved in matters that he considered “the affair of civil authorities.” The rector of Laval University, however, told students to mind their books and avoid demonstrations or they would be expelled from the school.838

The November riots made the right of religious processions into a legal issue. In the days following the riots, the chief of police made a deposition arguing that the Salvation Army was a public nuisance because they obstructed circulation in city streets. A test case is set up to establish “once for all, whether religious bodies will be permitted in our city in future to enjoy certain street privileges such as parading, singing and playing music.”839 The Army agreed to stop parading until a decision was laid out. They also moved the French-language training home in December, and amalgamated French and English work in the old Congregational Church.840

Three months later Judge Cross, a Presbyterian Scotsman, spoke to the jury for an hour and a half. He said that all attempts to condemn the Salvation Army as a public nuisance elsewhere had failed.841 He thought the Salvation Army had acted in “bad taste by coming into a community where the majority of the people are Roman Catholics, and conduct themselves, at all events, within the law. . .” He agreed that they “played bad music” and that he did not personally approve of them, but that there are “hundreds and thousands in the country who are partisans of theirs.” He said the Salvationists in the city are never more than 12 or 20, and they have only made 40 conversions in the province, but the persons they converted are better than they were. He added that Salvationists should not be held responsible for the troublemakers who pursue them. Banning their

838 Morning Chronicle, 28 November 1887; Le Canadien, 28 November 1887; The Quebec Daily Telegraph, 28 November 1887. 839 La Justice, 1 December 1887; Morning Chronicle, 30 November 1887, 1 December 1887. 840 The Plan of Campaign for 1893, or the First Decade of the Salvation Army in Canada (Toronto: Salvation Army, 1893), 26-30. 841 In fact, the Salvation Army were considered a public nuisance in Chicago and were regularly arrested by police. La Justice, 8 May 1888. See also: Lillian Taiz, Hallelujah Lads & Lasses: Remaking the Salvation Army in America, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

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processions would create a precedent to ban Catholic processions like the Fête Dieu. “Persecuting a sect, no matter how ridiculous it may be, will not put it down; it will grow under persecution. If it is ridiculous and such an annoyance that it should be disapproved of, let it alone and it will die out.” In short, the judge had no affinity for the Salvation Army, but nevertheless felt they weren’t all bad, had done some good, and advised against an aggressive verdict and for freedom of religious expression. His speech is interesting in that it shows the upper-class Protestant gaze looking down on the lower-class Salvationists.842

In the end, the jury disregarded the judge’s advice and found the Salvation Army guilty. The Morning Chronicle raged that an “ignorant petit jury rendered a stupid and wicked verdict” and did not listen to the judge. The Chronicle added that “it would be monstrous to deny a minority the right which is freely accorded to a majority.” Some French papers, like Le Canadien, agreed that the jury was wrong because it went against the principle of religious freedom: “Toutes les opinions religieuses sont égales devant la loi, et quand vous écrasez l’une vous portez atteinte à l’autre.” La Justice, on the other hand, said the Chronicle should show respect for the ancient English institution of trial by jury and did not consider it worthwhile to protect “un ramassis grotesque de saltimbanques ne relevant d’aucun culte, et dont le programme est de transformer nos rues en champ de foire.”843

Although they were officially guilty, the sentence was reserved until a motion for a new trial could be heard. The city council withdrew its participation and said a future trial would have to be borne by parties themselves. There was no other trial, so the Salvation Army was guilty, but they were never sentenced. The result was a judicial stalemate of sorts.844

842 Morning Chronicle, 4 May 1888. 843 Morning Chronicle, 4 May 1888; La Justice, 4 May 1888, 5 May 1888. 844 Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1888; Moyles, The Blood and Fire in Canada, 58.

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Analysis of the Conflict

By their loud presence on the city streets, and disregard for existing boundaries in Quebec City society, the Salvation Army wars revealed the tensions awakened through boundary transgression. These tensions related to language, outsider status, religion, social class, and gender.

Linguistic tensions are a recurring theme in the history of Quebec, but this was hardly the main source of tension in the Salvation Army wars. After all, the first mission in Quebec City had officers from France and was headed by a Captain Chaponaud. They sold a French version of the War Cry called En Avant, and preached and sang in French. Officers were trained in the French language with the stated goal of “becoming one and mixing with the people.”845 Despite this, they still drew in a largely Francophone opposition, but there were also many vocal English-speakers among the anti-Salvationists.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to entirely disregard the linguistic dimension, as Salvationists spoke with accents that marked them as outsiders. Fluent Francophones like Captain Chaponaud had European accents that were uncommon in Quebec at the time. Most Salvationists were Anglophones who spoke French as a second language. Of the 23 soldiers living in Quebec City in 1887, the War Cry states that most were struggling with the language: “Their hearts are THOROUGHLY FRENCH if their tongues are not, but with God’s help we mean to have French tongues very soon.”846 Many were recruited from Ontario and the West, and the 1885 hanging of Louis Riel had accentuated tensions toward people from English-speaking Canada. The Salvationists were portrayed as “un ramassis d’étrangers et d’étrangères,”847 or “des aventuriers étrangers, venus d’on ne sait

845 The War Cry, 14 April 1887. 846 The War Cry, 5 November 1887 847 La Vérité, 1 December 1887

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où.”848 “Qu’ils restent chez eux,” begins another article, showing that they were clearly seen as outsiders.849

The Catholic/Protestant divide was also important. The Salvationists’ outsider status was compounded by the fact that they were seen as vassals of the Protestantism of Ontario and the West. The anti-Salvationists arrested at riots were always Catholics. The Protestant nativists who allegedly attacked anti-Salvationists were from groups identified as being strongly anti-Catholic.

But again, nuances are needed, as Salvationists were trying to distance themselves from anti-Catholic groups like the Orange Order by the late 1880s. Although the War Cry’s rhetoric was inflammatory, and depictions of Quebec as a “stronghold of Satan” could be interpreted as anti-Catholic, the same rhetoric was also used for largely Protestant cities. Booth had rejected anti-papist oratory in 1885, when he realized that it had worked against him in Liverpool. War Cry articles about the situation in Quebec never demeaned Catholicism per se. In fact, they referred to Catholics as fellow Christians, and claimed they were not in town to convert practicing Catholics but to save the lowest classes who go to no church at all. The War Cry lamented that “some of our good friends have altogether mistaken our aim and warned others against the grave and mortal sin of attending our meetings.” It is understandable that the Catholic Church was wary, as Catholic initiatives like the Good Shepherd asylum also aimed at drawing these same lowest classes into the Catholic fold. The Salvation Army was transgressing boundaries and poaching souls.850

There were also class issues at play with the Salvation Army, and these united respectable Protestants and Catholics. The Salvation Army drew its members from the lower classes; Benjamin Hartley characterizes them as the quintessential

848 La Justice, 5 May 1888 849 La Justice, 30 November 1887 850 The War Cry, 25 December 1886; Murdoch, "Marching as to War," 63-64, 87.

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example of “upstart evangelicals,” namely “persons of lower socioeconomic status with relatively little formal education compared with more established Protestants.”851 The disdainful middle-class gaze came out in press depictions of the Army as illiterate, crass, uneducated, unsophisticated, ridiculous, grotesque, “la racaille,” “une bande d’hallucinés.”852 In the Ultramontane newspapers, opposition to the Salvationists was often surprisingly based on class rather than religion. A reporter from La Justice recalled coming across a Salvation Army procession for the first time, and being approached by an embarrassed “Anglais” who dismissed them by saying “C’est une folie!” The article then paraphrased a “Sir Charlesworth”:

Ces gens tapageurs, dit-il, et de basse extraction, n’ont qu’un but : faire du bruit, provoquer des persécutions, la publicité de la presse. . . Ils sont groupés autour d’un homme de basse condition, fils d’un menuisier, employé d’un prêteur sur gages, plus tard boucher, homme sans aucune éducation et qui a jugé à propos de passer au lucratif métier d’évangéliste.853

The “basse extraction” origins of the Salvation Army were a source of embarrassment for respectable Protestants. We see this in the Presbyterian judge Cross’ repeated use of the word “ridiculous” to qualify their activities. La Justice plays into this, drawing a distinction between real Protestants and those that did not deserve to be considered as adhering to a legitimate religion:

Nous protestons contre la coupable tentative d’introduire le fanatisme religieux dans cette affaire. Nos frères séparés [Protestants] pourraient faire à leur gré des processions religieuses, et ils le savent bien. Ils pourraient faire une procession nationale, le jour de la St. George, et ne rencontreraient de notre part qu’une curiosité légitime. Plus que cela, en certaines circonstances, les loges maçonniques sortent en corps et en costume, et personne ne leur cherche querelle. Mais les salutistes ne sont pas des protestants, ni des juifs, ni rien. Ils n’appartiennent à aucun culte, à aucune nationalité. Il y a parmi eux des Français aussi bien que des Anglais. C’est une cohue de saltimbanques dont les turbulentes et

851 Hartley, Evangelicals at a Crossroads, 98. 852 Le Canadien, 20 June 1887; La Justice, 28 November 1887, 4 May 1888. 853 La Justice, 28 November 1887

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perpétuelles exhibitions troublent l’ordre public. Un jury composé de protestants et de catholiques les trouve coupables de ce délit.854

In short, La Justice argued that respectable Protestant organizations were free to parade on the streets, but that the Salvationists did not meet these norms of respectability.

Finally, a less apparent yet relevant issue was that of gender. The role of women within the Salvation Army rattled conservative Victorian social conventions. Catherine Booth, the founder’s wife, believed that women had been “trained to subjection . . . imbecile dependence on the judgment of others.”855 She urged women to assert themselves. Over half the Salvation Army officers were women. These “hallelujah lasses” went against the prevailing gender conventions that viewed women as passive and modest. They abandoned the domestic sphere to march noisily out on the streets and slums in masculine military garb. They distributed soup to the criminals, prostitutes and alcoholics that middle-class women were expected to shun. They usurped the patriarchal role of religious leader. They supplemented their meagre wages by selling the War Cry in the largely male domain of pubs and taverns. They spoke out at public meetings, at times loudly and joyfully, jumping up and down as if in a trance in a way unbefitting with Victorian mores.856 The Quebec press therefore depicted them as abnormal and hysterical, “une douzaine de pauvres vieilles filles.”857 A columnist in La Verité condemned their “grossière promiscuité,” adding “des femmes qui violent ouvertement et à chaque instant la modestie chrétienne peuvent difficilement avoir un bon but.”858 By putting them on par with the underclass they were trying to save, it almost sounds like the papers are saying these women deserved the violence

854 La Justice, 5 May 1888 855 Catherine Bramwell-Booth, Catherine Booth: The Story of her Loves (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), 395., quoted in Marks, "Working-class Femininity and the Salvation Army," 186. 856 Marks, "Working-class Femininity and the Salvation Army," 184-190; Murdoch, "Marching as to War," 61; Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 65-66. 857 La Justice, 29 November 1887. 858 La Vérité, 1 October 1887.

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that was meted out to them. The Anglophone press and the liberal Francophone press was less scathing towards these women than the Ultramontane press. A letter in l’Électeur asked French Canadians to “keep your ardor for combat worthy of your ancestors who did not make war upon women.”859

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, certain conventions had been established in Quebec’s charitable sector. Charity was essentially divided along ethno-religious lines, and organizations largely respected the boundaries between communities. Moreover, gender conventions could create additional boundaries: women involved in charity were generally of a certain social class, kept a low profile, and dealt solely with other women or children. Enter the Salvationists, who flouted all these conventions, who refused the premise that “good fences make good neighbours.” Tensions around the Salvation Army were complex, exacerbated by issues related to language, outsider status, religion, social class, and gender. Here were a group of outsiders who did not understand the social realities of Quebec City, speaking broken or foreign-accented French, many of them lower-class women who ministered to questionable individuals in taverns and slums, who made noise on city streets, Protestants who shamelessly proselytized to lapsed Catholics. The hostile reaction to their activities shows that the habitual “bonne entente” that existed between the city’s three ethnic communities was not based on a climate of understanding and collaboration, but on a mutual respect of established boundaries.

Although the Salvation Army Wars represent the apex of violent tensions relating to boundary transgression within the charitable sector, there were analogous situations in other sectors. These include the 1853 Gavazzi religious riots that challenged good relations between Protestants and Catholics;860 the 1871 Ross/Cauchon election riots that led to violence between Francophones and

859 Quoted in The War Cry, 17 December 1887. 860 Vincent Breton, "L'émeute Gavazzi : violence et liberté d'expression au milieu du XIXe siècle," Bulletin d'histoire politique 14, no. 2 (2006).

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Anglophones;861 and the 1879 ship labour disputes between Irish-Catholic and Francophone unions that degenerated into murderous street brawls.862 In all these situations, the fragile entente and respect of boundaries between different ethno- religious groups was breached. Ethno-religious boundaries served to maintain social order during this period, but on the rare occasions when those “good fences” were challenged, relations between neighbouring communities degenerated.

From Proselytism to Charity

In the 1890s, the Salvation Army underwent a rapid mutation that softened public attitudes to its activities. It went from being a proselytizing organization that engaged in charity on the side, to a charitable organization that proselytized discretely. By the mid-1890s, they had set up a homeless shelter and soup kitchen for men in Quebec City.863 Over the years, they continued to gain respectability by setting up organizations for the homeless, alcoholics, prostitutes, unwed mothers, and unwanted children. The evangelical wing also became milder, more respectable, less bombastic and antagonistic. By toning down their rhetoric, keeping more of a low profile, and making social services their primary mission, the Salvation Army’s charitable endeavours came to transcend linguistic and religious divisions in Quebec.864

4.6. Conclusion

The foundation of two core charitable institutions in late 1850s Quebec City signified that the construction of ethno-religious boundaries begun some time

861 Kenneth S. Mackenzie, "Ross, James Gibb," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (1982). 862 For more about this, see: Bischoff, Les débardeurs au port de Québec. 863 The men’s shelter is first mentioned in city directories in 1896. Boulanger and Marcotte, The Quebec & Levis Directory, 8 ed. (Quebec: L.J. Demers & Frère, 1896), 468. 864 Moyles, The Blood and Fire in Canada, 122-133.

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earlier was almost complete. Saint Bridget’s Asylum became the core of Quebec’s Irish Catholic private charitable network, and the Ladies’ Protestant Home played a similar role for Protestants. These institutions were supplemented by many pre- existing organizations examined in previous chapters, and a few new ones. The multiconfessional associations founded in the first half of the nineteenth century stuck out like relics from another era; most did not survive or became de-facto confessional groups.

The latter half of the century saw a Quebec City’s English-speaking communities decline from over 40% to roughly 15% of the total population. Although this decline eventually brought the city’s communities closer together, namely through intermarriage, the initial effect was to create a sense of threatened urgency that actually strengthened boundaries and ethnic identities.

Whereas Irish Catholics and Francophones had built many organizations together prior to the 1850s, they grew increasingly apart. A nationalist current that swept through the Irish Catholic diaspora in the post-famine years strengthened boundaries around the community. Consequently, Quebec’s prominent lay Irish Catholics sought to maximize control over community organizations and institutions and to obtain institutional completeness. They were limited by a Catholic Church structure overseen by unwilling Francophone clerical ruling elites influenced by defensive nationalist currents of their own. This led to the largely Francophone Grey Nuns walking out of Saint Bridget’s Asylum after ethnically motivated disagreements with the lay Irish Catholic administrators, for instance. Decades of such conflicts delayed the growth and prosperity of Irish Catholic charitable organizations, leaving many poor Irish with little recourse to charity beyond the gaol. There was also internecine wrangling between the God-fearing Irish who were willing to defer to the largely Francophone clerical authority, and nationalists seeking to steer their own course. A compromise was reached in the late 1870s, and Irish Catholics claimed to be meeting “all, or nearly all” the needs in the community by the 1890s. Nevertheless, Irish Catholics continued to seek out

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greater autonomy and recognition within the French-dominated Church for decades afterward.

Protestants also consolidated their charitable sector during this period. They faced fewer conflicts with Francophones than Irish Catholics, as they were not obliged to work within a common Church structure. By the end of the century, Protestants had more organizations at their disposal than Irish Catholics, with more robust endowment funds. There were five major indoor relief institutions: three de-facto Protestant national societies that played an auxiliary role similar to the Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul; several associations targeting the underclass; and scores of small church-based groups. Nevertheless, given the specialized nature of these organizations and the denominational divisions that remained, there were more gaps in the Protestant charitable network than in the Irish Catholic one: elderly non- Anglican Protestant men, for instance, had no institution at their disposal in Quebec City.

This period also saw greater cooperation among Protestants, bolstered by a growing evangelical influence in the charitable sector. Most of the major relief organizations founded in this period, such as the Ladies’ Protestant Home and the Women’s Christian Association, were evangelical initiatives. This changed Quebec City’s Protestant charitable landscape from one that had been dominated by strict Anglican gatekeepers to a more open model with reformist approaches. Despite the “dissenting” nature of most new initiatives, the majority of users remained Anglicans, who continued to be the numerical majority among Protestants in Quebec City.

Although Quebec’s charitable organizations generally respected religious boundaries, certain categories of poor fell between the cracks. The lines were not as clear when it came to children from religiously-mixed or religiously-indeterminate homes; poor parents played off Catholic institutions against Protestant ones to meet their needs by positioning the souls of their innocent children as pawns. There was also more boundary transgression when it came to the underclass, or the so-called “undeserving poor.” Irish Catholic elites did not feel the need to

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repatriate “fallen women” into a separate Irish Catholic institution of their own, and female Irish Catholic ex-convicts continued to have a disproportionate presence within the largely Francophone-run Good Shepherd asylums. Unwed mothers also crossed denominational lines, whether to escape the opprobrium of their communities or to avoid having to give up their child in a Catholic institution. Last, but not least, the religiously mixed Quebec gaol continued to serve as a substitute poorhouse until well into the 1890s, more so in Quebec City than in most places on the continent, including Montreal. Many poor people checked themselves into gaol during the winter months, including a disproportionate number of Irish women, because they had no other recourse.

Aside from these examples, Quebec’s charitable infrastructure had never been as divided along ethno-religious lines as it was in the late nineteenth century. Tensions did occur, but elites generally accepted the unwritten rule that “good fences make good neighbours.”

This was not the case in all North American cities. Power dynamics between ethnic minorities and ruling majorities took on different forms in different North American locales. In the assimilationist United States, this type of boundary building was challenged by the English-speaking Protestant majority, for instance. In the province of Quebec, the Francophone majority was not seeking to assimilate English-speakers, but to isolate themselves and preserve an untainted “pur laine” community of French bloodlines. Yet even when compared with Montreal, there was more of a concerted effort to respect boundaries in Quebec City. Protestants were more confrontational in Montreal, behaving like a majority. Catholic Church leaders were also more openly confrontational, leading to greater Irish-French tensions. In contrast, Quebec City had three defensive communities who largely agreed that boundary building advanced their respective ends.

The episode of the Salvation Army Wars of 1886-1887 nevertheless shows what happened when the conservative norms shared across the city’s different ethno- religious groups were challenged. When a group of militant upstart Ontario evangelicals flouted conventions related to ethnicity, religion, gender, and social

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class, violent clashes occurred. The habitual “bonne entente” that existed between the city’s three ethnic communities was based on a mutual respect of established boundaries and shared conservative values.

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CONCLUSION

From the Conquest to the turn of the twentieth century, Quebec City’s English- speakers played a much larger role on the charitable landscape than what is typically assumed. They made up the bulk of poor migrants entering the city’s busy port; their lack of roots and kinship networks in the city made them the likeliest recipients of charitable aid. English-speaking elites living in the city also played a significant role in the establishment of associations and institutions to meet the needs of these poor, particularly in the nineteenth century. The story of these charitable networks follows an arc that shifts from accommodation to French regime structures, to intercultural cooperation among elites, to parochial tensions, and ends at the turn of the twentieth century with parallel networks clearly divided along sharply bounded ethno-religious lines.

When the British took over Quebec, they did not impose the Poor Law structures that existed in most of their colonies. Instead, they financed existing charitable institutions run by Francophone Catholic religious orders: the Hôpital Général for the “deserving poor,” and later the Hôtel-Dieu for abandoned children. This was a remarkable approach within an Empire marked by a longstanding tradition of anti- Catholicism. It was also a pragmatic solution: the unpaid labour of nuns kept public costs low, and support for Catholic institutions helped win the loyalty of French Canadians in a time of revolutions. These charitable institutions were used by Protestants and Catholics alike, but only rarely, and as a last resort.

For the most part, the poor turned to their extended families in the immediate post- Conquest period. Demographic stagnation and a pre-industrial economy meant that charitable needs barely increased. In times of crisis, lay elites worked with Church leaders of all denominations to raise funds for the poor. In short, a spirit of continuity with the French regime largely prevailed, involving instances of elite cooperation across ethno-religious lines.

The only significant British imprint on the charitable sector in the immediate post- Conquest period can be seen in the desire to establish a separate House of

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Correction for vagrants. Such institutions existed in Britain. Despite repeated entreaties by public officials to set up a House of Correction, rooms for vagrants were instead set aside in the city gaol. The same was done in Montreal.

This normalized a practice of imprisoning the poor that became especially pronounced in Quebec City. Committals of innocent poor increased with every decade, reaching a high in the mid-1860s. The gaol continued to double as a social service institution for the unemployed poor beyond the 1890s. This was especially true during winter and among the female Irish population. Many poor people literally checked themselves into gaol through “voluntary confessions,” which at times totalled over half the total gaol population. The presence of innocent poor in gaol was certainly not unique to Quebec City, but the proportion and number of vagrant poor within Quebec’s gaol reached a scale that surpassed most North American or British cities, which had poorhouses, houses of industry, or other institutions for the unemployed able-bodied poor.

The role of private charitable organizations increased throughout the nineteenth century, and the role of the state decreased. The historiography has underplayed the role of the state in the first half of the nineteenth century, which provided considerable yet sporadic financial support to early charitable organizations targeting migrants. This support reached a high in the 1830s with poor relief during the cholera epidemic and state support of the Quebec Emigrants Society. The use of public funds for charity was condemned by some as a tax on the virtuous to help those lacking virtue. It was controversial, and the state largely withdrew from charity in the latter half of the century. It continued to give token support to private associations, but these small grants only amounted to a fraction of the operating budget. Also, the state continued to oversee institutions like gaols, industrial schools and asylums that theoretically dealt with public dangers. Charity was not entirely public or private; it was, to use Valverde’s terminology, a “mixed social economy.” However, when compared with the solidaristic model that arose with the rise of social security in the twentieth century, it is understandable why many

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historians have characterized the nineteenth century as being one of relative state inaction in the charity sector.

The extent to which the gaol was used to house the poor reveals the insufficiency of the private charitable network in the nineteenth century. Needs outpaced the growth of private organizations, and applicants for aid were frequently turned away due to lack of resources. This was especially true for Quebec’s growing English- speaking population.

The gaol’s use as a shelter for the poor also informs us about the negative attitudes toward poverty in the nineteenth century. The ideas of late-eighteenth- century British political economists spurred on a hardening of attitudes. “Indiscriminate almsgiving” was increasingly labeled an “evil,” and the poor were divided into “deserving” and “undeserving.” Children and the infirm elderly were seen as the most deserving, and able-bodied adults as the least deserving (particularly if intemperate or engaged in activities judged immoral). However, this line was often blurry.

More compassionate attitudes began to emerge after the religious revivals of the 1840s, which coexisted with the more paternalistic attitudes mentioned above. In addition to the compassion for the poor preached by different Churches, reformist ideas characterized the poor as victims of laissez-faire economics rather than as criminals. Associations such as the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul even came to see the poor embodying a Christ-like inspiration toward a more humble life, and charity as a means to salvation. Reform associations such as the Saint Magdalen Asylum, the WCA, and the Salvation Army also began to appear as an alternative to the gaol in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These initiatives targeting the underclass nevertheless remained controversial, and were frequently veiled in a shroud of discretion.

The private voluntary associations that began appearing with the waves of migration after 1815 were heavily influenced by class and gender conventions of the times. Their administrators were largely made up of the top tier among the 1%,

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the gentlemen and ladies of the colony. For the most part, they respected the “separate spheres” conventions of the time. Women’s groups typically focused solely on associations that dealt with children and other women. Men’s associations had more latitude. Male auxiliaries within female-administered organizations typically looked after finances and presided over annual meetings, but women directed these organizations, made policy, and did most of the work. In male-administered organizations, women were often called on to create female auxiliaries that visited the homes on a regular basis.

Things began to change by mid-century: the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul drew in men from more modest backgrounds, and they were expected to make house calls. The rise of evangelicalism brought in a reformist spirit on the Protestant side, leading to new associations; groups such as the Salvation Army with their lower- class women loudly ministering to the “undeserving poor” of both sexes represents the most extreme manifestation of this. Even the boards of older established organizations tended to be less dominated by the merchant and government elites.

Although gender and class conventions shaped the charitable network, and more research could certainly be done to nuance how exactly this occurred in Quebec City, my focus was on ethno-religious boundaries. These boundaries came to play a dominant role as the nineteenth century progressed.

Many charitable associations founded prior to 1835 involved cooperation among Quebec City’s ethnic and religious communities. Most did not cater to one specific ethno-religious group. This was especially true of outdoor relief organizations. The Female Compassionate Society even had linguistic parity enshrined in its bylaws. In other organizations, this collaboration happened more spontaneously. Protestants nevertheless played a disproportionate role in relation to the size of their population, which was also true of their role in the spheres of government and intercontinental trade. Some, such as Emigration Officer A.C. Buchanan, raised the spectre of prejudice against the Irish, but ethnic and religious tensions within the charitable sector were rare in this period.

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Interethnic cooperation decreased after 1835. Five major causes led to this “Quiet Devolution”: Patriote republicanism and its defeat; a reinvigoration of Catholicism; the rise of Protestant evangelicalism; the enshrinement of separate schools into law; and the embattled Irish Catholic nationalism arising after the Irish Famine. Some of these causes were not unique to Quebec, and ethno-religious tensions also rose in other parts of North America during this period. However, the Patriote rebellions triggered Francophone Catholic nationalism that provided an added sting in Quebec. Also, there was near-unanimous support in both Quebec and Montreal for separate denominational schools, a consensus that did not exist elsewhere in North America. Separate schools entrenched Quebec’s Catholics and Protestants into their own limited spheres of socialization, and created more cohesive and insular groups. Sunday sermons also increasingly encouraged this boundary building: Church leaders stoked fears of proselytism from the other side, made it taboo to attend the religious services of other denominations, and Catholics eventually cracked down on interdenominational marriages.

This had a direct impact on Quebec City’s charitable structure. All associations founded after 1835 served the interests of particular ethnic or religious groups. In the late 1850s, two new English-language charitable institutions cemented the divide between communities: Saint Bridget’s Asylum for Irish Catholics, and the Ladies’ Protestant Home for Protestants. These institutions were supplemented by many pre-existing organizations, leading to three parallel charitable networks: one for Francophones, one for Irish Catholics, and one for Protestants. There was little interaction between these sectors and a mutual understanding, for the most part, that “good fences make good neighbours.” The earlier multiconfessional associations stuck out like relics from another era; most did not survive the nineteenth century or became de-facto confessional groups.

Protestants had established the bases of a separate charitable sector earlier than Irish Catholics and Francophones. The Protestant sector was initially dominated by Anglicans, who felt entitled to play a dominant role within Quebec City’s Protestant indoor relief sector. This was truer in Quebec City than in Montreal or most other

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cities on the continent. Quebec was the seat of the Anglican Church for Lower Canada/Canada East until 1850, Bishop Jacob Mountain had little consideration for dissentient churches, and he privately considered Anglicanism the official state religion. Moreover, a larger proportion of Quebec City’s Protestant population was made up of Anglicans than in Montreal or the Eastern Townships. This created an environment in which Anglicans set onerous conditions on non-Anglican Protestants seeking relief. The dissentient churches remained largely absent from the charitable landscape in the first half of the nineteenth century; this is remarkable when compared to the role played by Quakers, Methodists, Unitarians and other smaller Protestant denominations as poor relief pioneers in the United States and elsewhere in Canada.

Cohesion among the different Protestant denominations increased in the second half of the nineteenth century. As Catholics became more insular, a growing evangelical influence in society favored Protestant ecumenism. Most of the major relief organizations founded after 1855, such as the Ladies’ Protestant Home and the Women’s Christian Association, were evangelical initiatives. This changed the Protestant charitable landscape from one dominated by Anglican gatekeepers to a somewhat more open model. Despite the “dissenting” nature of most new initiatives, the majority of users remained Anglicans. Moreover, Anglicans retained control of their older institutions and did not change their restrictive admissions policies.

By the end of the century, Protestants had a large, well-endowed, yet overly specialized network that did not meet all the charitable needs of their population. There were five major indoor relief institutions: three de-facto Protestant national societies; several associations targeting the underclass; and many small church- based groups. The many denominations among Protestants, each with their own structures and priorities, brought about a diffuse network with some duplication of efforts. There were also some gaps: no institution in Quebec City existed to house elderly non-Anglican Protestant men, for example.

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There was no distinct Irish Catholic charity network in the pre-famine period. Irish Catholic elites worked with Francophones in the Catholic orphanages, and with Protestants within the Saint Patrick’s Society, Quebec Emigrants Society, and other initiatives. Nevertheless, Irish Catholic community leaders remained under- represented in the administration of the charitable sector, and this despite the fact that a sizable number of pre-famine applicants to charity were from this community.

Three factors explain the delay among Irish Catholics in developing their own charitable organizations. First, there were demographic reasons: Protestants outnumbered Irish Catholics in the city until the 1840s. They outnumbered them even more within the political and merchant elite that could finance and support private charitable organizations. In short, Irish Catholics lacked a certain critical mass. Second, Irish Catholics felt less of a need than Protestants to develop their own organizations because they shared a religion with the Francophone majority. Apply to existing Catholic organizations did not pose a problem. Third, there was some resistance within Quebec’s Francophone-dominated Catholic Church at seeing the Irish carve out there own niche. Francophone clerical ruling elites were influenced by defensive nationalist currents of their own.

This changed with the famine. The famine years led to a dramatic increase in the Irish Catholic population, and a corresponding increase in the demand for charity. The famine also triggered an embattled and defiantly Irish community spirit. Irish Catholics became more likely to push back against the Francophone archbishop’s attempts to stifle their efforts at attaining institutional completeness within their community.

This led to ruptures and conflicts within the charitable sector. The Irish carved out their own conferences within the Society of Saint Vincent the Paul in the late 1840s. The Francophone Grey Nuns walked out of Saint Bridget’s Asylum in the 1850s because of disagreements around ethno-linguistic issues with the lay Irish Catholic administrators. The growth and prosperity of Irish Catholic charitable organizations suffered for decades as a result of these tensions. After Saint Bridget’s authorities resisted the return of a Francophone religious order for years,

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alienating the local Francophone bishop in the process, an agreement was finally reached whereby this order would delegate a minimum number of English- speaking nuns to the Asylum. Nevertheless, Irish Catholics continued to seek out greater autonomy and recognition within the French-dominated Church for decades afterward.

There were also considerable tensions among Irish Catholics themselves. The politicization of Irish associations and the creation of rival fratricidal splinter groups was a regular occurrence in the nineteenth century. This can be seen in the earliest days of the Saint Patrick’s Society in the 1830s with the formation of rival groups espousing different political ideals. There were conflicts between those who favored working within the British Empire and those who didn’t. After the famine, Irish Catholic boundary building increased, but there was still disagreement about shared goals within those boundaries. There was internecine wrangling between the God-fearing Irish who were willing to defer to clerical authority, and nationalists unwilling to work with Francophones. Organizations like the Saint Patrick’s Society that tried to bridge these gaps did not survive the boundary-building period of the late-nineteenth century.

The difference between the Protestant and Catholic charitable sectors is often simplified as being one between lay management and management by religious orders. Religious orders actually came into the picture quite late in Quebec City, and Catholic laywomen were active in the charitable sector. The first Catholic orphanage was run by laywomen from 1831 to 1849, when it was transferred to the Sisters of Charity. Saint Bridget’s Home was staffed by a lay matron for most years prior to 1877. Even after nuns took over, Catholic laywomen continued to be involved as visitors and in parallel organizations. On the Protestant side, Anglican clergy certainly played a major role in their organizations, and could override the lay administrators. Also, an Anglican religious order, the Sisters of Saint John the

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Divine, took over the Female Orphan Asylum in the twentieth century.865 Nevertheless, by the end of the nineteenth century, this lay Protestant/religious Catholic split was largely accurate.

Boundaries were typically respected by the late nineteenth century, more so than in many other places. Catholic charities sent non-Catholic applicants to Protestant charities, and vice versa. This was not the case in many North American cities, where charities engaged in obvious poaching across denominational lines. In the United States, Catholic children were shipped off on “orphan trains” to Protestant families in the Midwest, for instance.

Nevertheless, certain categories of poor fell between the cracks. The lines were not as obvious when it came to children from religiously-mixed or religiously- indeterminate homes, and poor parents cleverly played off Catholic institutions against Protestant ones to meet their needs. Boundaries were also more fluid when it came to charitable organizations founded to reform the morally-suspect underclass. Discrete proselytism across denominational lines was more likely to take place towards the religiously-lapsed members of the underclass, given that they were considered “godless.” Moreover, the ethno-religious communities themselves did not seem overly concerned with retaining morally-lapsed members within their fold. Irish Catholic elites did not repatriate “fallen women” into a separate Irish Catholic institution of their own, and there was a disproportionate number of Irish Catholic ex-convicts within the largely Francophone-run Good Shepherd asylums. Unwed mothers also freely crossed denominational lines, either to hide their shame from their communities, or to avoid having to give up their child in the Catholic institutions that encouraged them to do so.

These boundary transgressions were seemingly tolerated as long as they were done discreetly. The episode of the Salvation Army Wars of 1886-1887 reveals what happened when a group of so-called “belligerent evangelicals” from Ontario

865 Minutes, February 23, 1927, Special Meeting, Female Orphan Asylum Minute Book, 1911-1927, Quebec Diocesan Archives, Sherbrooke.

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ignored existing boundaries; flouted norms related to ethnicity, religion, gender, and social class; and loudly trumpeted their radical Protestantism through the Catholic streets of Quebec. Although the Salvation Army provoked riots in many cities, they faced a more violent backlash in Quebec City than elsewhere, and attracted little support among the conservative Protestant establishment of the city. This showed that the “bonne entente” between the city’s three ethnic communities was based a mutual respect of established boundaries and shared conservative values.

Power dynamics between majorities and minorities took on different forms in different parts of North America. In the United States, the ruling English-speaking Protestant majority fought against boundary-building by minorities, and pushed for rapid cultural assimilation. This also occurred, to a lesser extent, in the largely English-speaking parts of Canada. In the province of Quebec, the Francophone majority did not seek to assimilate English-speakers, but had more of a defensive isolationist approach that validated the boundary-building of other minorities. By the late nineteenth century, Quebec and Montreal had three defensive communities that had arrived at a consensus that boundary building advanced their respective ends. The sharp numerical decline of Quebec City’s English-speaking communities after the 1870s initially seemed to strengthen this resolve, accentuating the sense that distinct ethno-religious organizations needed to be kept up to keep communities alive.

This numerical decline did not mark the end of Quebec City’s Irish Catholic and Protestant communities. Few new organizations were founded in the twentieth century, but many of the ones examined in this study survived, adapting and changing with the times. Whereas the late-nineteenth century saw the defensive building of ethno-religious boundaries, the twentieth century marked a gradual shift back towards cooperation across ethnic and religious lines. This began in the first decade of the century when the defiantly Protestant Jeffery Hale’s Hospital opened up to English-speaking Catholics. This was followed by the establishment of multilateral coordinating agencies and the professionalization of social work. By the

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1970s, French and English could be heard interchangeably at Saint Brigid’s Home and at the Ladies’ Protestant Home. Religious boundaries outlasted linguistic ones in Quebec City. However, the secularization of society throughout the century, particularly from the 1960s onward, slowly eroded the boundaries between Protestants and Irish Catholics. Nevertheless, Catholic/Protestant tensions in Saint Brigid’s Home continued into the 1990s. Likewise, this was also the decade that saw the shift from religious to linguistic school boards, shattering a final boundary dividing the English-speaking minority. Although some preliminary research on social services in the twentieth century exists,866 further research could better illustrate and analyze how and when these boundaries disappeared, and how the Quebec City experience differed from that in other regions of Quebec and other parts of North America.

The erosion and overlapping of ethnic boundaries in the past century has led to more complex identities. English-speakers are now more likely to define themselves in ways that span group boundaries and include multiple affiliations. In fact, recent studies suggest that the majority of young English-speakers in Quebec City do not identify with a single language or national origin,867 all the more reason to consider and analyze the historical emergence of this situation.

This study only looks at a small slice in the history of ethnic relations in North America. Through this focus, and an exhaustive use of many archives that had not yet been studied in detail, it provides new perspectives, particularly with regard to ethno-religious issues. It also situates these findings within the broader history of charity, revealing the British, American, and French models behind many of the associations profiled. There are nevertheless limits to what can be achieved.

866 See: Blair, The Anglos; Donovan and Hayes, The Ladies' Protestant Home; Donovan, Saint Brigid's and its Foundation; Donovan, "L’hôpital Jeffery Hale." 867 Marie-Odile Magnan, "Identité et rétention chez les anglophones de Québec : un changement générationnel," Recherches sociographiques 49, no. 1 (2008): 69-86. See also: Rudin, The Forgotten Quebecers, 181.

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These limits open up promising new directions for research, making it possible to build upon the findings above. Given the long period under study, a certain amount of sampling was done when examining sources, and findings were synthesized to provide a broad structural portrait. Ethnic relations were the main focus of this thesis, but I have also brushed upon how gender, class, and politics influenced the charitable sector; these are all topics warranting additional exploration. Further research could also be done on many of the individual associations and institutions profiled above. For instance, the whole history of Irish nationalism and the secret societies behind the different associations, which is brushed over in many studies including this one, remains to be fully elucidated.

This dissertation also paves the way for a much-overdue comprehensive study looking at Quebec City’s charitable infrastructure in its entirety, covering both the Francophone and Anglophone sectors. Most sources relating to Francophone charitable associations or religious orders were not examined for this dissertation, and many are currently difficult to access, but they would likely yield additional information on ethnic relations. These have been examined by other historians, but often from the point of view of gender dynamics rather than ethnic relations.

The history of ethnic relations continues to be relevant today by providing some perspective on 21st century concerns, allowing us to learn from the past and to hopefully avoid repeating its excesses. There are parallels to be made between the recent rise of Islamophobia and the seemingly short-sighted scare-mongering that went on in the nineteenth century between Protestants and Catholics, or between nativists and Irish migrants. Additionally, English-speakers in Quebec continue to be stereotyped as the descendants of a privileged minority. While the existence of a small English-speaking elite in the post-Conquest period is undeniable, this dissertation shows the extent to which a far larger number arrived here in dire circumstances. The gradual integration of English-speakers into the Francophone social fabric, and the disarming of religious tensions that happened in parallel, guards against alarmist conclusions by pointing to other, more nuanced, possibilities ahead. This is not to suggest that progress is inevitable, but rather that

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we should take a deep breath, as a long history of integration shows that the apocalypse is not necessarily upon us.

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