The pictured child in Victorian philanthropy 1869-1908 HeatherParis April 2001 Submitted for the award of PhD Awarding body: University of Central Lancashire Total numberof volumes:2 Volume I of 2 Abstract This study sets out to investigate the nature of the Victorian child's standing in society using pictorial means. It takes the view that the picture, or visual image, has something important to tell us about attitudes towards childhood, and how children were regarded as a group, between 1869 and 1908. As a piece of scholarship, it is situated between the disciplines of art history and social history. Little work has been done on the child's visual representation, and its contribution to the historical record. The rich visual material that forms part of the archive of Victorian philanthropy in general, and temperance in particular, remains largely untapped. The study is a response to this scholarly neglect, with the uses made by charity of the pictured child forming its central site of inquiry. Philanthropic images of childhood will be set in their pictorial context by reference to their appearance in other parts of the public domain. The history of the relationship between adults and children has been called `age relations' by one historian. This study will apply general and specific practical approaches, drawn from critical visual techniques, to age relations, leading to an interpretation of how Victorian childhood was pictured for its audiences. Images will be approached as pictorial puzzles, and priority will be given to those solutions which formed part of the historical record. The main analytical tool to be usedis adoptedfrom critical theory's notion of the metapicture. This acknowledgesthe capacityof the visual image to tell us about itself when viewed in relation to other images. It will be combinedwith establishedart historical approachesto the picture. The study discussesthe rangeof contemporaneousmeanings assigned to the picturing of childhood, and how the relationshipbetween some of thesemeanings held significant implications for children's social standing. Its sustained approachto visual interpretationcan be said to uncoverthe extent to which conflicting expectationswere placed upon children by the sacrifice of the real to the ideal in adult notions of childhood. CONTENTS VOLUME 1 Page Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION 1 Picturing Victorian age relations 0.1 The study's starting point 0.2 The natureof the task 0.2.i Historical grounds 0.2.ii The controversialchild 0.3 The task 0.4 Methodsof engagement 0.4.i The notion of the metapicture 0.4.ii From the image towardsthe text 0.5 Approachesto meaning 0.5.i Solving the pictorial puzzle 0.6 What is to follow CHAPTER ONE 33 Sites of exhortation and indulgence: setting the scene for the Victorian pictured child 1 Introduction 1.1 Picturing the needychild 1.1.i Child streetsellers and workers 1.1.ii Orphanhood 1.1.iii The child's entitlement 1.2 Age relations and classrelations 1.3 Picturing the middle classchild 1.3.i Notions of behaviour 1.3.ii Outsideplay 1.3.iii Inside play 1.3.iv The child's world 1.4 Conclusion CHAPTER TWO 60 Picturing the gift: the depiction of Victorian charitable relationships 2 Introduction 2.1 Victorian perceptions of charity 2.2 Pictures in Victorian charity 2.2. i Publicity 2.2. ii Fundraising 2.2.iii The impulse to give and the image 2.3 The work of the image 2.3.i Picturing assessmentand judgment 2.3.ii Picturing the partiesto the charitable relationship 2.3.iii Picturing salvation 2.3.iv Picturing more than one stageof philanthropy 2.3.v Exploratory thoughtson philanthropy, the imageand the spectator 2.4 Picturing poverty and philanthropic imagery 2.4.i The needychild 2.4.ii The look of the needy 2.4.iii The look of the impoverishedchild 2.4.iv The intendedappeal of the pictured child CHAPTER THREE 93 SavingNobody's Children: pictured childhood in child rescuework, 1869-1908 3 Introduction 3.1 Histories of childhood 3.1. i Children in the population 3.1. ii Children at work 3.1. iii Children and schooling 3.1. iv Children at home 3.1 Child history imagery .v and 3.2 Images in child rescue work 3.2.i Nobody's Children 3.2.ii The OrphanBoy 3.2.iii Children outside 3.3 Children beyondsalvation 3.4 Conclusions CHAPTER FOUR 131 Under the influence: the picturing of children and childhood in the temperancemovement 1869-1902 4 Introduction 4.1 A thumbnail sketchof temperance 4.1.i Moderation, abstinenceand the first Band of Hope 4.1.ii Legislation to curb the sale of alcohol 4.1. iii Gospel temperance and dependence on children 4.1. iv The decline of temperance 4.1 The temperance .v essentialcharacteristics of 4.2 Temperance, the image and the movement's journals 4.2. i The power of the image 4.2.ii The function of the journals 4.3 Familiar roles for the pictured child from child rescue work 4.4 Saving the child from him/herself 4.5 New roles for the pictured child in temperance 4.5. i The pictured child to the rescue 4.5.ii Children's shoes,childhood and conscience 4.5.iii The pictured child as active redeemer 4.5.iv The pictured child as observer 4.6 Conclusions CHAPTER FIVE 176 Significant adults:the picturing of adults in the child's world, 1869-1908 5 Introduction 5.1 Adult responsibility for the child's world 5.2 The representationof men in pictured philanthropy 5.2.i Fathersand families 5.2.ii Grandfathers 5.2.iii The loss of childhood 5.2.iv The public father 5.2.v Other male public roles 5.3 The representationof women in the child's world 5.3.i Nurturing at home 5.3.ii Nurturing in public 5.4 Conclusions CHAPTER SIX 208 Child street traders: matters of fact, fiction and faith 6 Introduction 6.1 Dr Barnardoand childhood representation 6.1.i The genericversus the individual 6.1.ii Barnardo'sreasons 6.1 iii Barnardo fact fiction . on and 6.1.iv Public fiction and personalfacts 6.1.v One objection to a picture of reality 6.1 Depicting the haves have-nots .vi and 6.2 A cultural defenceagainst artistic fiction 6.2.1 The pictured child without occupation 6.2.ii The pictured streettrader 6.3 The newsvendor 6.4 Conclusion CHAPTER SEVEN 238 The ideal ragamuffin: merriment and misery in the pictured streetchild 7 Introduction 7.1 Dorothy Tennant and Doctor Barnardo 7.2 The modest joy of the pictured waif 7.2. i The useful street child 7.3 Dorothy Tennant and the picturing of London street life 7.3. i Dorothy Tennant and the ideal ragamuffin 7.4 Murillo's orphanboys 7.5 From the raw material to the finished product 7.6 Conclusions CHAPTER EIGHT 260 Conclusions: inside the hierarchies of pictured childhood 8 Introduction 8.1 Summaryof chapterconclusions 8.2 The significanceof childhood to charity 8.3 The hierarchiesof childhood 8.4 Things of earth and things of heaven 8.5 In conclusion Bibliography 276 VOLUME 2 List of Images i- iix Images 1-101 Author's note Due to unforeseen processing problems, large gaps appear on pages 80,117,172, 183 & 246. Though unwanted, they do not indicate any loss of text. HJP Acknowledgments This thesis would never have reached completion without the wisdom and adroit guidance of my Director of Studies, Paul Humble, and the thoughtful support of my other supervisors, Dave Russell and Steve Baker. They have found the time from incredibly heavy work schedules to read, and provide feedback on, all its drafts. The research programme which led to its preparation would never have come into being without the help of a bursary from the University of Central Lancashire, for which I owe Joe Pope, Head of the Department of Historical and Critical Studies, particular thanks. There were archivists and librarians along the way who did all they could to make working with fragile pictorial material as straightforward as possible, including the unique problems of image reproduction. These included Simon Wilson and Adrian Allan at the University of Liverpool, Jude Boxall, Zoe Lawson and Aidan Turner-Bishop at the University of Central Lancashire, and the staff of the Royal Academy Library and Blackburn Reference Library. The love of my husband Jim has been like a rock throughout, as he has taken away financial pressure from me, and been patient with the uncertainties and frequent puzzlement which have accompanied such an undertaking at this stage of my working life. INTRODUCTION Picturing Victorian Age Relations 0.1 The study's starting point This study starts from the premise that historical record can substantiate the relationship between the visual representation of children and childhood and the perceived status of 1 the child in society. It arose out of a curiosity and a growing concern that the depiction of children had not attracted scholarly attention to the same degree devoted to other social groups. Modem studies of the visual representation of such groups are available and they provided initial points of academic reference. They include the depiction of women, people of colour, people of a different sexual orientation and animals. Richard Dyer has drawn attention to the significant influence of images on the perceived status of any group in society in the following observation. `How we are seen determines in part how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see 2 them; such seeing comes from representation'. In such a way, Dyer assigns a crucial role to the image in the creation of social standing.