DARMOUTH HISTORY RESEARCH GROUP

FOSS STREET 1861

(A census was taken every ten years from the year 1801. At first it was merely a count of the number of people in the country but by 1861, more specific information was included, making it a valuable source of information for historians. The Dartmouth History Research Group has transcribed the 1861 and 1891 census returns and they are available in Dartmouth library.)

I invite you to accompany me on a walk along Foss Street and meet some of the townsfolk who lived and worked there in 1861 at the time of the census. The street was home to about 133 residents, the youngest, Agnes Burgoyne was only four months old and the oldest was Mary Collins, a deaf pauper of 83 years, living with her unmarried niece, Mary Cockey whose occupation was a knitter.

As you walked along, you might expect to have found many households with the familiar pattern of father, mother and children but there was a wide variety in size and structure.

The number of residents in each household ranged from one person living on their own ( at least they were on the day of the census), to a busy house of nine people.

The single households were predominantly women. As you might expect, four were widows, two elderly and not working but 68 year old Susan Bryan was still in employment as a grocer. The fourth was a young widow of 25 years, Charlotte Luckraft who had been married to a labourer. One wonders what sad story lay behind her widowhood. There was a sailor’s wife on her own, presumably because her husband was away at sea. She had been born in Penzance, so maybe she met her husband when his ship called there. Two of the single

households were unmarried women, a 26 year old milliner and a 60 year old dressmaker. There was a grocer, unmarried and living on his own but the most intriguing was the ninth of these single households which was home to William Ellis still only 22 but employing two men and a boy in his business as a tailor and hatter. He seemed destined for success.

William Ellis and his employees in the tailoring business were, by 1861, undoubtedly taking for granted the tape measures that were an essential tool of their trade. They were invented only in the early part of the century, were a yard long and subdivided into inches. After this invention, tailors became aware of general anatomical proportions and so basic pattern blocks could be devised and then adapted to each individual. We cannot be sure but we can imagine the tailors in Foss Street sitting cross legged, busy with inter linings, padding, pressing, sewing etc, using their skills to ensure that the customer looked as fine as possible.

On our walk we might see other residents seeking the various services available in Foss Street. Three of the many dressmakers in the town could be found in Foss Street. They were Priscilla Graham who was unmarried, 51 years old and a lodger in the household of a widowed grocer. Living on her own was Margaret Dastrigg, 60 years old and unmarried whereas Eliza Jones was a young married woman with no children. We cannot tell whether they made clothes for the working class or more elaborate outfits for the wealthy. There were hours of work in any garment at this time and yards of material in the wide skirts which needed a stiffened crinoline petticoat underneath. It became possible for dressmakers to buy partly made garments which could be shaped for the wearer. This practice meant that London styles could reach the more distant parts of the country like Dartmouth and would have been of use to families like the Seales and the Newmans. Many women would do some of their own family sewing and underclothes were generally hand made in the home.

Stylish dresses needed an under garment which moulded the body into the desired shape and that of course meant a corset or stay. Foss street had a staymaker, Mary Steer, a widow of 73 years. Maybe she had to continue working despite her age, in order to support not only herself but her pauper sister, Eliza, who lived with her. There is a contemporary description of a full-boned stay which ‘the most delicate constitution may wear’ which must have meant that it was as uncomfortable as ‘full-boning’ sounds to us. More extraordinary claims were made for another corset. It promised to ‘prevent flatulency, reduce protuberance, support the stomach and bowels and relieve dropsical symptoms,’ Mary Steer may still have been using bones or brass wires for stiffening but by 1861 an elastic corset material was available which must have been less restricting for the wearer.

Continue along the street and meet another craftsman, the shoemaker. He was called George Jones and he lived with his wife, Eliza, a dressmaker and they were both in their twenties. Making shoes and boots was still a handicraft trade with the craftsman selling his own wares direct to his customers. Any spare production could be sold by a draper or on market stalls. There were a large number of shoe makers, boot makers, cordwainers, shoe binders and boot binders in Dartmouth in 1861 thanks to a market for footware not only in the town but in Newfoundland with its longstanding trading links with Dartmouth. Machinery to speed the manufacture of shoes was being introduced at this time but it is likely that in Dartmouth the

traditional methods remained in use. The gentle folk would order bespoke shoes, made to order. These were generally flimsy and so clogs and overshoes were in demand to protect delicate shoes from the mud and rubbish in the streets. Queen Victoria popularised sturdier footwear as a result of the time she spent at Balmoral where she wore ‘Balmoral boots’.

Dartmouth as a whole was a closely knit community with most of the population born in the town or in the county of Devon. Half of the people who lived in Foss Street were born in Dartmouth and most of the other half were born in Devon, many in the surrounding villages. Only a handful came from further afield so Foss Street inhabitants would have been familiar with each other and their family histories. This is not to deny that there was movement and one family, at least, illustrated the fact that there were families who changed jobs and therefore their homes, particularly within the county. William Wordern was born in Tavistock and was married to Grace who was born in Kingsteignton. Their five children were born in Exeter, Ilfracombe, the next two in Exeter again and the fifth, Frederick aged four years was born in Dartmouth. William Wordern was a painter employing two hands so he seems to have profited by moving from town to town. The completion of the railway to Kingswear in 1864 made travel quicker and accessible to more people and opened up Dartmouth to many new influences.

Census returns may be thought of as dry statistical documents but there are human stories buried not far beneath the surface which help us to form a picture of life nearly century and a half ago.

Irene O’Shea

Captions for the photographs

Picture 1

A general view of Foss Street in the late 19th century.

Picture 2

The Tudor House on Foss Street, showing details of the carving.

(Photographs from Dartmouth Museum.)