Convict Voices: Women, Class, and Writing About Prison in Nineteenth-Century England Anne Schwan

University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository University of New Hampshire Press: Open Access Books 2014 Convict Voices: Women, Class, and Writing about Prison in Nineteenth-Century England Anne Schwan Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_press Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Social History Commons, and the Women's History Commons CONVICT VOICES Becoming Modern New Nineteenth- Century Studies Series Editors Sarah Way Sherman Janet Aikins Yount Department of En glish Department of En glish University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Janet Polasky Rohan McWilliam Department of History Anglia Ruskin University University of New Hampshire Cambridge, En gland This book series maps the complexity of historical change and assesses the formation of ideas, movements, and institutions crucial to our own time by publishing books that examine the emergence of modernity in North America and Eu rope. Set primarily but not exclusively in the nineteenth century, the series shifts attention from modernity’s twentieth- century forms to its earlier moments of uncertain and often disputed construction. Seeking books of interest to scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, it thereby encourages the expansion of nineteenth- century studies and the exploration of more global patterns of development. For a complete list of books available in this series, see www .upne .com Anne Schwan, Convict Voices: Women, Class, and Writing about Prison in Nineteenth- Century En gland Katherine Joslin and Daneen Wardrop, editors, Crossings in Text and Textile Sarah Way Sherman, Sacramental Shopping: Louisa May Alcott, Edith Wharton, and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism Kimberly Wahl, Dressed as in a Painting: Women and British Aestheticism in an Age of Reform Hildegard Hoeller, From Gift to Commodity: Capitalism and Sacrifi ce in Nineteenth- Century American Fiction Beth L. Lueck, Brigitte Bailey, and Lucinda L. Damon- Bach, editors, Transatlantic Women: Nineteenth- Century American Women Writers and Great Britain ANNE SCHWAN Convict Voices Women, Class, and Writing about Prison in Nineteenth- Century En gland University of New Hampshire Press Durham, New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Press w w w . u p n e . c o m / u n h . h t m l © 2014 University of New Hampshire All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New En gland, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon nh 03766; or visit www .upne .com Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935035 5 4 3 2 1 Für Rudolf und Brigitte Schwan CONTENTS A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s x i Note on Abbreviations xiii Introduction: Approaching Female Prisoners’ Voices 1 1 “Shame, You Are Not Going to Hang Me!” | Women’s Voices in Nineteenth- Century Street Literature 20 2 The Lives of Which “There Are No Rec ords Kept” | Convicts and Matrons in the Prison Narratives of Frederick William Robinson (“A Prison Matron”) 41 3 The Limits of Female Reformation | Hidden Stories in George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone 70 4 “A Clamorous Multitude and a Silent Prisoner” | Women’s Rights, Spiritualism, and Public Speech in Susan Willis Fletcher’s Twelve Months in an En glish Prison 91 5 Adultery, Gender, and the Nation | The Florence Maybrick Case and Mrs. Maybrick’s Own Story 121 6 Gender and Citizenship in Edwardian Writings from Prison | Katie Gliddon and the Suff ragettes at Holloway 149 7 Postscript: Rewriting Women’s Prison History in Historical Fiction | Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Sarah Waters’s Affi nity 184 Coda 195 Notes 199 Works Cited 235 Index 279 AC KNOWLEDG MENTS Many people and institutions have helped me on the path toward comple- tion of this book. I am especially indebted to my former supervisor, the late Sally Ledger, whose intellectual curiosity, positive attitude, and sense of humor continue to inspire my research and work with my own students. Without her warm and generous support, I would not be who I am today. I also thank the following individuals who have assisted me professionally, through constructive feedback, words of encouragement, or acts of friend- ship, at diff erent stages of my career: Jan Alber, Isobel Armstrong, Maurizio Ascari, Philip Barnard, Joseph Bristow, Laura Coff ey, Ella Dzelzainis, Carrie Etter, Edith Frampton, Hilary Fraser, Gill Frith, Holly Furneaux, Regenia Gagnier, Laurie Garrison, Michelle- Marie Gilkeson, Michael Gliddon, Walter Göbel, Jenny Hartley, Ann Heilmann, Tim Hitchcock, Mar- celo Hoff man, Tobias Hug, Anne Humpherys, Susan Hyatt, Louise Jackson, Tobi Jacobi, Frank Lauterbach, Andrew Lawrence, Katherine Lebow, Tara MacDonald, Andrew Maunder, Josephine McDonagh, Rohan McWilliam, Ellen O’Brien, June Purvis, Amber Regis, Helen Rogers, Saskia Schabio, Joanne Shattock, Robert Shoemaker, Sarah Turvey, Ed Wiltse, Sue Wise- man, Joanne Woodman, and Heather Worthington. For inspiring conversations and good collaboration, I thank my colleagues at Edinburgh Napier University; the participants of my conference “Reading and Writing in Prison” at Edinburgh Napier in June 2010; Fife College, hmp Edinburgh, and the Scottish Prison Ser vice; and my students on the option module “Crime in Text & Film” over the past three years. Thanks are due to the following libraries and their staff : Bodleian Li- brary, British Library, Cambridge University Library, Edinburgh Napier University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Library of the Society of Friends in London, Museum of London, National Archives London, Na- tional Library of Scotland, Rochester University Library, San Diego State University Library, University of London Library at Senate House, Wom- en’s Library London (now at the London School of Economics). I gratefully acknowledge funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (ahrc) in the form of an Early Career Research Fellowship ( January– August 2011) and doctoral funding in the earliest stages of this project. I am similarly indebted to the Heinrich Böll Stiftung for a doctoral scholarship. The Uni- versity of London Central Research Fund and a travel grant from the Carn- egie Trust for the Universities of Scotland enabled me to visit specialist libraries and archives at diff erent moments of this research. A British Acad- emy Overseas Conference Grant facilitated important networking opportu- nities at the 2006 College En glish Association (cea) Conference in San Antonio, Texas, which were crucial for the further development of my work. A British Association for Victorian Studies (bavs) award for conference or ga- niza tion allowed for valuable networking at my “Reading and Writing in Prison” conference. My current and previous employers— Edinburgh Napier University, Birkbeck College, Keble College, University of Hertfordshire, University of Warwick— and my host institution in autumn 2010, San Diego State University, have given institutional support in various ways, which I appreciate. I thank the University Press of New England— especially Phyllis Deutsch and the series editors— for their interest in this project, and the edi- torial team for effi cient and thoughtful support during the fi nal preparation of the manuscript. I am eternally grateful for the backing of my family: my parents, Rudolf and Brigitte Schwan, for their unfl inching support, both moral and material, and for never suggesting, during the long years of postgraduate train- ing, that I get a “proper” job; and Franziska Horn for taking an interest in academic life during long phone conversations. Finally, I thank Stephen Shapiro for his love, companionship, and conversation over the years and for sharing the ups and downs throughout this long pro cess. xii | Ac know ledg ments NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS PP Parliamentary Papers RCHL Reports from Select Committees of the House of Lords RDCP Reports of the Directors of Convict Prisons RI Reports of the Inspectors of Prisons The volumes of Parliamentary Papers used are those at the British Library. My citation format for Parliamentary Papers is as follows: title of paper, year of publication, report number in parentheses, volume number, printed page number. If a handwritten page number is given, it is added in square brackets after the printed page number. The page reference provided in the list of works cited refers to the handwritten start page of the document in question, within the bound volume. Introduction Approaching Female Prisoners’ Voices What does the past tell us? In and of itself, it tells us nothing. We have to be listening fi rst, before it will say a word; and even so, listening means telling, and then retelling. Margaret Atwood, In Search of Alias Grace This is a book about women’s voices in the penal sphere and the diffi culty of uncovering them. In 1985, criminologist Pat Carlen published Criminal Women: Autobiographical Accounts, a collection of female off ender life narratives. Designed to give female (ex-)prisoners a sense of agency and the chance to “destroy the mythology which inseminates contemporary ste reo- types of criminal women” (13), the pioneering work aimed to counter the rami- fi cations of “monocausal and global” (9) models of female criminality by drawing attention to the diversity and complexities of women prisoners’ ex- periences through their stories. Convict Voices: Women, Class, and Writing about Prison in Nineteenth-

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