Author Topic: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry  (Read 11146 times)

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #9 on: Tuesday 11 April 17 00:20 BST (UK) »
Did your esquire leave all his land and houses to his son? If he did that meant there was no entail on the property. If an estate is entailed it would normally be inherited by the nearest legitimate male heir. (Think Mr Collins in "Pride & Prejudice" or the Eliot family in " Persuasion".)
I've seen "Mrs" as a title for an unmarried daughter of landed gentry (she was grand-daughter of an earl). She was a young woman at the time and married later. She was "Mrs" in a parish register when she was godmother. Her brother was godfather to several children of the same family. At first I assumed them to have been husband & wife. It was the same era as your family.
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Offline WillowG

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #10 on: Tuesday 11 April 17 09:53 BST (UK) »
I see that Maiden Stone has touched upon the very subject I wanted too address too :)

I too have come over a lot of unmarried Mrs.'s lately!

My contribution to the subject is that Mrs. was an abbreviation for Mistress, and until the late 1700s/early 1800s - that is to say, some time between the American Revolutionary War and Jane Austen, this was the title for all women, unmarried or married.

The differentiation between Miss and Missus (Mrs.) came later on.

Anne Boleyn would have been mistress Boleyn - That does not mean that she was married or widowed when she caught the eye of Henry VIII :)

Further, what I have found, is that the abbreviation of Mrs. in front of woman's name means the same thing as Mr. in front of a man's - it is a mark of higher social status.

It is thus a sign of social status rather than marital status.

Until some time late in the 1700's/early 1800's.

Offline wildwitch

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday 11 April 17 22:31 BST (UK) »
Ah that is very interesting thank you. I am currently assuming that she was of a lower social class to him. I just cannot see her being his mistress and being from the same social background. Mind here is another interesting question: Their son was in love with the daughter of a neighbouring Esq. but they didn't receive permission to marry. They were certainly involved in secret for many years (surviving letters) and I have a feeling they had an illegitimate child together. Does anybody know how such a situation would have been handled if marriage was not possible?

As far as the entail is concerned: the estate owner did have a first cousin, who was still alive when the will was made. I am assuming that by making a will he would though have been able to leave the estate to his illegitimate son? I am not sure if I understand the concept of an Entail. The family didn't have a title and were landed gentry. The complete estate was left to the son, who I am certain was illegitimate. 

Offline WillowG

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #12 on: Wednesday 12 April 17 00:18 BST (UK) »
Just to play devil's advocate: She could have indeed have been of similar status to his, and yet found herself in an unfortunate situation.

If she for instance were an impoverished clergyman's daughter, she would have been entitled to a Mrs. in front of her name (this was of course not an official system), but she still would not have had anything to offer a heavily indebted man who could have been holding out hope for a rich heiress, as you suggest.

She could very well have been a gentleman's daughter, and still penniless. See Miss Bates in Emma, for instance.

The two of them could still have had a relationship of course, leading to scandal, which would have been a certainty with the first child.

Then, once she was 'ruined', staying with her original lover might have been her best bet, rather than being passed around to a new protector, and with time, probably a whole set of them ...

"Living under the protection of" was the polite euphemism.

None of this however explains the absence of a deathbed wedding, thus consolidating her status as his widow, and legitimizing his children after the fact, as it were, as he was making them his heirs anyway.

Alternatively he or she *could* have already been married to someone else, thus preventing the two of them from marrying.

The fact that his friends accepted her, as you say, suggests that she was a woman from a certain class.

She might very well have been brought up as a gentlewoman.

Fine penmanship, along with fancy sewing and other handwork, music, drawing, French, dancing, and (in the 18th century, not so much the 19th) dessert cookery - knowing a few cake receipts* by heart, were the accomplishments that marked a lady. Not all ladies possessed all these accomplishments. Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that Mr. Darcy (and Miss Bingley) expected more.

How accepted was she? For such a situation to be even halfway accepted, one should think his acquaintance a rowdy set :)

*Receipt is the word generally used in the 18th and early 19th centuries instead of recipe. Recipe began to be used in the mid-18th century and gradually overtook receipt as the common word for a cooking formula.


Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #13 on: Wednesday 12 April 17 01:13 BST (UK) »
Wildwitch see Wikipedia articles "Fee tail" ( same as entail) and "Fee simple" for explanations.
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Offline wildwitch

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday 12 April 17 22:33 BST (UK) »
Yes she (Mary) really is a mystery. Many letters have survived and he never mentions her in any of them! His children both refer to her as mother in their letters. None of her letters though survives so we don't know whether she was literate! One of these surviving letters and his will clearly indicate that the two lived together though together with their two children! In 1788 we have the only evidence that she appears to have been accepted by his friends: she was in poor health and died shortly later. At this stage she was travelling with her daughter for her health. A letter from that time period exists that was sent to her daughter from a man named James Wright from Bushy Park (I have no idea who he was or what his relationship etc was to the family and would be grateful if anybody knows who he was). He wrote: 'I hold myself much obliged to me in writing the progress of your journey and more so as to speak favourably of your mothers health. I need not tell you I have known her long & with Reason have ever had a great Regard for her. I should be very sorry to hear that the evening of a life spent in the worthy Endeavours of promoting the Happiness of not only her own Family, but all within her Circle, should moulder away in constant pain with the addition of seeing all her friends in vain exerting themselves to afford some relief where none can be effectual.....' He also wrote that he was 30 years older than the daughter, which means he would have been roughly the same age as our now dying woman. He also wrote that he met and socialised with the two women recently in London. Mary eventually died in London and was recorded in the gentleman's mag and at burial as his wife, but clearly his will states otherwise. We also have other letters stating that she was to travel to London with her partner and children, so she clearly was not hidden away somewhere!
My first thought was that the two made themselves out as a married couple whilst in truth they didn't marry, probably because he was hoping to still do better in view of his poor finances. My thought is: he loved her, but couldn't fully commit to her. I have found absolutely no trace of any marriage record, not even close to her death. I am really not sure what to make of this mess of a situation. Their children mixed with decent society (Earls etc) and went to boarding school/university.

Offline wildwitch

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday 12 April 17 23:01 BST (UK) »
This may also explain why his cousin suggested the grand sum of £10000 as a dowry for the daughter. The father clearly wasn't this wealthy and this sum was roughly it seems the equivalent of his rental income for 3 years. If indeed the daughter was the illegitimate child of two people from a similar gentry background then she would have had to have been accomplished and needed a decent dowry to attract a decent suitor

Offline WillowG

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #16 on: Thursday 13 April 17 18:12 BST (UK) »
My thought is: he loved her, but couldn't fully commit to her.

Yes. Honestly, this is my instinct as well. What is important to remember is that the Georgians were ... peculiar. It is always an age that have been a bit alien to me, while I understand the Victorians very well.

Jane Austen's time also seems more well-ordered to me, though there were plenty of craziness then as well *g* See for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley See his wives too :) It just gets wilder and wilder!

What I mean with peculiar, is that they seem to have behaved in ways that were very illogical and difficult for us to understand. I don't have the same problem with Tudor times, for instance, for all that their motives were cutthroat, they are not difficult to understand.

One thing I have been thinking about your ancestor, and that you suggested yourself, is that maybe he did not think that Mary was quite good enough for him? Not that she was the housekeeper or a servant (I am still dubious about that), but she may have been illegitimate herself or in some other way "beneath" him ? Maybe he was still bitter that the grand match he had envisioned for himself did not materialise?

Or that he had somehow gotten attached to the idea of remaining a bachelor? This is what I mean by the Georgians being peculiar. They would sometimes have these idées fixe that seem to go against all common sense. Not that that is exclusive to those times, but it seems more predominant to the Georgians somehow :)

So I agree. The letter seems to build up under the idea that Mary was a gentlewoman. I would think that she would have had an easier time to be accepted among people her own age, yes, and who lived perhaps in similar arrangements. So they could well have entertained and have had their set of friends. (See the link above for what I mean. The more people behaving in a certain way, the easier it is to be accepted. At least amongst themselves)

And she could have been kind and lovely, and have been appreciated for that, or she could have been charming and frivolous and been appreciated for that. *g*

Before I move on to the next subject, I wanted to address your ancestor's economic difficulties. They seem somewhat peculiar. A debt of £10 000 was of course enormous. (Do you know how these debts were incurred? Gambling, perhaps? A popular Georgian pasttime. Absolutely ruinous of course.) But an income of £3 000 wasn't bad, either. Of course, we do not know of the interests and how much his income was tied up in expenses he couldn't avoid, but if he lived frugally on £2 000 or even £1 500 a year he should have been able to discharge his debts in ten years or less. Kind of like if you had a mortgage of £1 000 000 but an income of £300 000 a year.

And to put things in context, Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice lives well on £2 000 a year with a wife and five children. I even wondered if that was why your ancestor waited with getting married, because a bachelor would have of course been able to live much more inexpensively than a married man with family.

This may also explain why his cousin suggested the grand sum of £10000 as a dowry for the daughter. The father clearly wasn't this wealthy and this sum was roughly it seems the equivalent of his rental income for 3 years. If indeed the daughter was the illegitimate child of two people from a similar gentry background then she would have had to have been accomplished and needed a decent dowry to attract a decent suitor

Yes, i think this is a sound assumption. Illegitimacy was serious business. It remained so even into our own time. My mother remembers a child that was born out of wedlock in 1970, and how incredibly shameful that was, because you were supposed to be married. "And then a few years later, that suddenly wasn't so anymore!"

Shakespeare reflects the prejudice in King Lear (different versions of the play written between 1605 and 1623):

EDMUND [an illegitimate son]: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Offline WillowG

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Re: Illegitimacy 18th century gentry
« Reply #17 on: Thursday 13 April 17 18:13 BST (UK) »
In Jane Austen's Emma (1815), we have Harriet Smith. (Natural daughter was the polite term for illegitimate.)

'Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her.
She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.
She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging'

So it was clearly not a hindrance to being admitted into society in Jane Austen's time. However, marriage was another matter entirely...

'“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well. The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out upon her extreme good luck. Even your satisfaction I made sure of. It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match.’”

“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend! Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.—The sphere in which she moves is much above his.—It would be a degradation.”

“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”

“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is brought up.—There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a gentleman—and a gentleman of fortune.—Her allowance is very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort.—That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me; that she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will deny.—She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”

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