Medical Hierarchy in Late 1800's

e class of doctors that commanded most prestige in 1800s was the physicians. They were not concerned with the external injuries, nor did they performed surgeries or set bones. Their work was mainly confined to check the pulse and urine of the patients. They were called the physicians because they only administered drugs or physic.

They were chiefly concerned with giving of drugs to the patients that came to them. Physicians comprised of a handful of practicing doctors during the Victorian era. A chunk of them was located in London, where it was comparatively easy to find the chunk of the patient population and also the chances of making wealth and social status. To practice as a physician in London, a license from Royal College of Physicians was required. This was a mandatory requirement.

During the Victorian era, there was no system of training by the medical schools. There were only a handful of hospitals that existed during the Victorian era. Many of the physicians believed that medicine ought to be taught by books and antiques. So even if there existed a large number of medical schools during the Victorian era, they wouldn’t have been successful.

After the physicians, came the surgeons in the medical hierarchy. Their work was to perform surgeries, cut open the chest, deal with fractures and everything that a physician could not perform. The class of surgeons did not command that much respect from the society as the physicians did.

Main reason for the same was that till 1745 they were formally linked with barbers and had to get bodies from the graveyard to learn how to perform surgeries. It was as a result of this difference in status, that the physicians were addressed as Dr. and surgeons as Mr.

The last in the medical hierarchy were the apothecary. They were the lowest class in the medical hierarchy. They were the people who initially made the prescription form for the physicians but in the absence of the physicians, they also used to advise the patients. See

Continental Blockade

Enacted by Napoleon, Emporer of France, an embargo was placed on England which restricted trade between them and the rest of the European continent. During this period, all connections to Britain were cut including mail services. After Napoleon's exile and the end of the Napoleonic wars, the embargo was lifted and British interaction with the continent could resume. In George Eliot's Middlemarch, the characters take advantage of the lifted embargo to travel to the continent and explore cultural sites. The Casaubons are able to travel to the Vatican and explore its art, which was formerly restricted.

“Continental System.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Oct. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_System#:~:text=The%20embargo%2....

Elizabeth Gaskell Loses Mother

At just one year old, Elizabeth's mother died and she is taken to live in Knutsford, Chesire (only 20 minutes from Macclesfield) with her aunt Hannah Lumb, where she lived until the age of 20 when she went off to school.

Corn Law Act

Parliment passed this act to protect the landholders in England. It forbade the import of corn until domestic markets recovered. This lead to really high bread prices, and contributed to unrest among the lower classes. With food so expensive, people started to starve and began coming together to protest laws made against their interests. The law mostly benefited landowners because they were the ones growing corn. Because Parliament was composed mostly of landowners, they had no interest in repealing it.

Ross, David "The Corn Laws" British Express, acc. 24 September 2021

The Apothecaries Act

This act focused on regulating the work of medical practitioners in England and Wales. This bill gave the government power to send out wardens to inspect shops and offices of dispensing chemists and surgeons. They examined the drugs they prescribed and imposed penalties when necessary. This reform, along with others exposed the possibility of the unrefined state of the medical profession and the stubbornness of medical men. Lydgate encounters this opposition when he comes to Middlemarch.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch, edited Gregory Maertz. Broadview editions 2004.

Birth of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1819. She was Queen of England from 1837 to 1901 and until Elizabeth II, was the longest-reigning monarch in England. Her reign was notable for witnessing the rise of Industrial power in England, and the development of an urban society. Queen Victoria did not support women's suffrage or higher education but ironically she was an avid reader and privileged experience education and culture. 

https://go-gale-com.pointloma.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&res...

Birth of Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was an English nurse who reinvented the profession of nursing during The Crimean War. She was born in Florence, Italy to British parents and became determined to become a nurse from a young age. Her parents spent many years trying to dissuade her from the profession but eventually in 1851 she found herself able to proceed in her career. Her reforms were crucial in her service in the Crimean War, primarily by improving the hygiene of soldiers and camps. Her work as a nurse creates an interesting contrast between her and the nursing of Mary Seacole. While both nurses went to Crimea as an act of goodwill to improve the lives and standings of officers, Nightingale's efforts are routed in a much more stoic place rather than one of profit. Despite their differences both women made essential efforts in helping soldiers and saving the lives of those in Crimea.

"Florence Nightingale." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2001. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000120985/LitRC?u=sand82993&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=060dd1a7. Accessed 9 Dec. 2021.

Repeal of Combination Act

The original Combination Act of 1799 was repealed; groups could now meet for the purpose of improving working conditions. This was a major win for workers' rights and was a recognition of the condition of England. Given that Mary Barton was published in 1848, this opportunity for unions to form is pertinent to the novel. While controversial, the right to assemble as a worker was a landmark decision for humans rights. It represented a shift away from Parliament only defending the interests of the rich.

Gaskell, Elizabeth Mary Barton edited Jennifer Foster. 1848, Broadview Literary Texts

Intended Audience and William Gaskell’s Congregation

I noticed an interesting connection between the image that Gaskel creates of the current status of the lower classes and the makeup of her husband's congregation and their treatment of the working class in the community directly surrounding Cross Street Unitarian Chapel in Manchester. 

The congregation at Cross Street was made up of philanthropic upper class gentlemen and gentlewomen: “William therefore came to a congregation with which many wealthy and powerful families were associated…, a congregation also of self made men deeply conscious of the need to improve the educational and social conditions of the working class from which they themselves had sprung” (Head). This was the kind of class of people that Gaskell especially wrote Mary Barton for, the people that were in a socioeconomic position to readily help those that needed it. It would make sense that there was some overlap between the intended audience for her book and the composition of her husband’s congregation.

In Mary Barton, Gaskell points out that many of the suffering workers in Manchester were suspicious of the constituents of the upper classes, including ministers. This was due to the working class's horrible poverty during this time. This period of affliction resulted in a “feeling of alienation between the different classes.” Gaskell points out, I assume to the wealthy members of her husbands parish, that she knows–in a “Christian land” like England–the wealthily fortunate would have “thronged with their sympathy and their aid” if they were aware of the problems plaguing their community (Gaskell, 127). It makes sense that Mary Barton includes this last section in the passage to somewhat soften the hard knews of the upper classes' neglection of the lower class and remind them that the lower classes need the charity of those better off.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton, edited Jennifer Foster. 1848, Broadview Literary Texts.

Head, Geoffrey. “Cross Street Chapel in the Time of the Gaskells.” Cross Street Chapel:Individual Belief, Shared Community, 2009, https://cross-street-chapel.org.uk/cross-street-chapel-in-the-time-of-the-gaskells/.

East Indians' Petition 1830

The Eurasians were aware of their unequal status. They wanted respect, they asked for increased oppurtunties as civil servants in India. So in the year 1830, they decided to form a petiton in hopes to change things for the better, "In the petition, a majority of the educated Eurasians in Calcutta formally requested that they be granted full legal status as British subjects" (pg. 12). Unfortunatly this didn't help the Eurasians at all as the petition proved to be unsuccesful. However this did mark an era in which Eurasians fought for more oppurtuinites.  

Craik, Dinah Mulock The Half-Caste edited Melissa Edmundson. 1851, Broadview Literary Texts

Dissolution of Parliament

As we know, early in the story of Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke's uncle Arthur Brooke, wanted to run for Parliament, which was essentially legistlative body of government. That was unfortunate for Mr. Brooke in the end, because he would end up doing badly in his performance for Parliament, he was also undecisive about the position in the first place. This was also prior to the Reform Bill of 1832, Parliament would end up being dissolved in the end by the year 1831, preventing anyone from actually receiveing the power.

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2017/09/middlemarch-and-the-rocky-road-to-the-...

Eliot, George. Middlemarch, edited by Gregory Maertz. 1874, Broadview Literary Texts.

Elizabeth marries William Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson married William Gaskell in 1832. He was a junior minister at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester. Together they had six children but only three survived. The couple remained busy for much of their lives because of her writing and his work as a minister. They were married for thirty-three years before her death.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton edited Jennifer Foster. 1848, Broadview Literary Texts.

First Still-Born Birth

Elizabeth Gaskell gave birth to a still-born daughter in 1833. As her first birth and pregnancy, Gaskell was devastated and reflected in writing during a period of depression following the birth. Gaskell had two more children die after birth later in her life. These experiences helped inform Gaskell's writing pertaining to the "fallen woman" trope presented in Mary Barton through the character Esther. Esther became pregnant out of wedlock and later kills her child that has become sick: "And I could not bear to see her suffer, and forgot how much better it would be for us to die together;—oh her moans, her moans, which money would give me the means of relieving! So I went out into the street, one January night—Do you think God will punish me for that?" (216). Esther could no longer care for the child and is forced to commit infantcide to her daughter. While this was not the case in Gaskell's life, the loss of a child is an impactful part of anyone's story--fiction or nonfiction.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life. Edited by Jennifer Foster, Broadview Literary Texts, 2000.

Mary Becomes Mrs. Seacole

Mary Grant becomes Mary Seacole in 1836 and quickly becomes a widow, and never marries again. She keeps the name Seacole and writes and travels under the name. Although she had plenty of suitors, Mrs. Seacole decides to be an "unprotected woman" and travel the world without a man looking after her. Her marriage was something expected of her, but her widowed status gave her greater license to do what she wished.

The Northern Star

In 1837 The Northern Star was founded by Feargus O'Connor, a chartist politician. He  seeked to educate working class men and women about the ways in which the government should treat their people. This was a radical newspaper printed every week that provided credible information about the state of the working class and how Parliament was handling their affairs. The newspaper began in Leeds and remained until 1844 when it moved to London. At the time, the paper covered revolutionary ideals of the people who refused to settle with feeling unappreciated. The newspaper gained significant credibility of professionalism and remained successful during much of the Chartist movement. The Northern Star not only evaluated domestic politics and city life, but included British international affairs in order to keep their readers informed of the world around them. Because of O’Connor the newspaper was known for advocating for political reform, men's suffrage, and better working conditions. This newspaper is often read by John Barton in Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton. He reads it as a way to learn about the Chartist movements within the country. Gaskell most likley wanted to add a resource in to give an explaination for John Barton's passion for the Chartism.

Vargo, Gregory. "'Outworks of the citadel of corruption': the Chartist press reports the empire." Victorian Studies, vol. 54, no. 2, Winter 2012, pp. 227+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A293949956/LitRC?u=sand82993&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=4e1bbb6b. Accessed 3 Oct. 2021.

Hungry Forties

Britain had suffered an economic depression that lasted into what would be known as the "hungry forties". During this time, there was a period of strikes, widespread unemployment, poor harvests, and depressed trade. This was due to crop failures and thus this resulted in the deaths of many who starved. This was where the new type of genre was created for literature: the social problem novel. This was how Gaskell was able to publish Mary Barton, in relation to this developing trend in fiction. Indeed we can see this throughout the novel. We can see people who were unemployed and thus needed to work in order to get themselves back on their feet. 

Resources: Gaskell, Elizabeth Mary Barton edited Jennifer Foster. 1848, Broadview Literary Texts.

"The British Library" https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-mary-barton

The Fire of 1843

On August 26, 1843, a fire erupted in Kingston and burned down a tenth of the city. Valuable properties, homes, and businesses burned down. One of those homes was Mrs. Seacole’s which she mentions in her narrative. The cause of the fire remains unknown, but arson had been suspected which became a problematic suspicion. There had already been racial tensions, but the fire only made it worse.  The city turned on the black population to blame them even though there had been no evidence to suspect such actions. About 10,149 Jamaican pounds had been distributed to those who lost property, although Mrs. Seacole never mentions receiving the money in her non-fiction narrative. By 1850 only a portion of the houses had been rebuilt. 

Lumsden, Joy. “1843 James the Founder's or Matcham's Fire.” Jamaica's History - Always Something New to Find out!, Weebly, 2018, https://jamaica-history.weebly.com/1843.html. 

Seacole, Mary. Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, Penguin Classics. 1857.

Mary Seacole and Her Refusal of Re-Marriage

Despite the social norm of the time being that a woman is expected to marry a man in order to look upon him and depend upon him financially, Mary Seacole shatters this status quo by refusing to remarry after her first husband dies. It is stated in her book that “from a confidence in [her] own powers, and not at all from necessity, that [she] remained an unprotected female” (16). Despite many suitors coming to her home in Kingston once she became a widow, she never took any of them to be her betrothed. Refusing to remarry offered Seacole a sense of autonomy and agency that she would not have been awarded if she were married to a man. Because of this independence, she is able to fully step into the role of nurse and businesswoman. It is from these two professions that she was able to touch the lives of those around her.

Seacole, Mary. “Chapter II.” Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 16.

1846–1860 Cholera Pandemic

The Cholera outbreak was truly something that was featured heavily in Mrs. Seacole, as she worked hard to help people out as they were sick from it, "For a few days the terrible disease made such slow progress amongst us that we almost hoped it  had passed on its way and spared us; but all at once it spread rapidly, and affrighted faces and cries of woe soon showed how fatally the destroyer was at work" (pg. 30). Indeed the Cholera outbreak was something horrible inded, many died to it and it was considered to have caused the largest amount of deaths in the 19th century. This indeed reminds me of our situation today with covid-19.

“1846–1860 Cholera Pandemic.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Nov. 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1846%E2%80%931860_cholera_pandemic

Seacole, Mary. Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands. Penguin Books, 2005.

Communism and Robert Owen

The footnotes in the book are clear to point out that the Communism in Mary Barton is not the Communism of today. The largely negative connotations that readers from America have on  Communism would not be present in Gaskell’s England. A large reason is because Mary Barton was published the same year that The Communist Manifesto was published and the manifesto was only released in German (Gaskell, edited by Foster). That means the Communism in the minds of Gaskell’s readers is not entirely the Communism of Marx and Engels. Despite this fact, the Communism of Gaskell’s time still advocated for socialist values and communal betterment. A leading proponent of Communism at the time was a factory owner named Robert Owen. Owen worked to better the working and living conditions of the lower class: some “described him as ‘the great pioneer’ in the fields of ‘rational education, factory legislation, trade unionism, cooperation, labour exchanges, work for the unemployed, the emancipation of women, penal reform and international peace’” (Robert Owen and his Legacy). Here in this description we can see the main tenets behind Marx and Engels hopeful vision of what the implementation of Communism can do in a community of the working class.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton, edited Jennifer Foster. 1848, Broadview Literary Texts

Robert Owen and his Legacy, edited by Chris Williams, and Noel Thompson, University of Wales Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.pointloma.idm.oclc.org/lib/pointloma-e....

Dinah Mulock Craik publishes The Ogilvies

In 1849 Dinah Mulock Craik published The Ogilvies as her first published novel. This was not the first work she had ever published but the longest at the time. Previously she published work for magazines, journals, newspapers, and children’s books. This was significant because she established herself as a woman novelist. Her success only rose the more she wrote and she was acknowledged as a consistent writer and poet. When she was younger she was purposeful with her education as a woman author and her first published novel was an ode to the dedication she had committed to from an early age.

Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Half-Caste, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Broadview Editions, 2016.

Dinah Mulock Craik (Accomplishments)

Dinah Mulock Craik was one of the best-selling authors in the 19th century. She was even awarded a Civil List pension, which was one of the few awards given to a British writer. She published many essys, novels, and children's books throughout her life, thus providing an impact in the history of literature. It was by 1851 where she was able to publish The Half-Caste: An Old Governess's Tale, which was significant since it reflected what happened back then in the British Empire. The impact was that there were people of mixed races who struggled to find their role in the system that was placed then, their were treated horribly or were stripped of their culture in order to fit in with the times. Many memorials were paid in honor of Craik after her death, proving that her status as an author was worth noting. Alas, because she was the quintessential Victorian woman writer, her status as an author quickly passed from the public and so she was unfortunatly forgotten by many by the 20th century. 

Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Half-Caste, edited Melissa Edmundson. 1851, Broadview Literary Texts

Birth of Margaret Harkness

Margaret Elise Harkness was the second of five siblings. She grew up in a sheltered, religious, and conservative upper class household that was sheltered and religious. Her father was an Angelican priest of Irish origin while her mother was distantly related to English aristocracy. Indeed this was where Harkness originated from and she would travel a long road in order to become a writer.

Sypher, Eileen. "Margaret Harkness." Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists: Second Series, edited by George M. Johnson, Gale, 1999. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 197. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1200008204/LitRC?u=sand82993&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=4749c12d. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021.

The Battle of Tchernaya

This battle was fought between the Russians and French, Sardinians, and Ottomans as a part of the Crimean War (1853-1856) and is recounted in "Chapter XVI" of Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands. Within this chapter of Mary Seacole's travel log, Mrs Seacole is at the front treating the wounded on both sides of the war, witnessing tragic deaths: "...death is fearful indeed. It had to come peacefully enough to some. They lay with half-open eyes, and a quiet smile about the lips that showed their end to have been painless; others it had arrested in the heat of passion, and frozen on theit pallid faces a glare of hatred and defiance that made your warm blood run cold. But little time had we to think of the dead, whose business it was to see after the dying, who might yet to be saved" (142). This is a detailed event of the most impactful brush Mrs Seacole had with death and with the battles. She has seen death before, but not in this manner. Before, the readers witness slow deaths of people taken by disease in their own homes. In the Crimea, Mrs Seacole recounts the deaths of soldiers.

Seacole, Mary. “Chapter XVI.” Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 134–144.