occupation: Unfortunate

[bhowells]

well this just gets better and better, the poor woman.

Later census results show she moved to Abergavenny to help her father run the family business (china dealer); she later took the business over after he became incapacitated. So she obviously recovered from this mysterious condition, whatever it was.

[avm228]

Yes, I saw that in the later censuses. There doesn't appear to have been anything wrong with her! The fact of the matter is that in the time in which she lived there were very few options for ordinary women to earn a living wage and, particularly as a mother, she would have had no choice but to find a way to put bread on the table.

Anyway, I'm glad she fell on better times in later life. 

Anna

[bhowells]

So am I - and thank you so much for the additional information, most fascinating.

Now the question is - were her children the result of her occupation, or the reason for it? As she is directly related, this puts the parentage of a large branch of the family in limbo.

[Wocky]

I checked one of the Liverpool entries at random - Bridget Mc Cabe - and noticed her address as being Oakes Street, Lime Street Ward, also a Sarah Jones at the same address.

This might well confirm your thinking - does anybody remember the words of the well known song :
Oh, Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away,
and she'll never walk down Lime Street any more.
Oh, she robbed those lime-juice sailors,
and the captains of the whalers,
That dirty robbing no-good Maggie May.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gerry.jones/lpllyrics1.html#maggie

[avm228]

Now the question is - were her children the result of her occupation, or the reason for it? As she is directly related, this puts the parentage of a large branch of the family in limbo.

Yes, that's a tough one.  Did she name the father(s) of William and Emma on their birth certificates?

[bhowells]

Apparently the certificate for William lists the father's name as Joseph Shaw, although I haven't seen it myself - perhaps a matter of propriety as her last name was still Shaw?

[avm228]

How odd. Is that definitely the right William?  If so it may well be that she made up a name to enter, for propriety's sake as you say.

This seems likely to be Emma's birth registration: Emma Jane Shaw Mar 1858 Stoke-on-Trent 6b 193.

Anna

[bhowells]

That certainly sounds like her.

The one we are most interested in is Joseph, the third child, as he is the one we are descended from. He was b in 1871, just before the census, in Bristol. We've not been able to find a record of his birth, but Bristol is where Elizabeth's brother John was living with his wife and baby son. By the time of the 1871 census John's household also shows William and Emma living with him, and Elizabeth is living in Abergavenny with her father and baby boy Joseph.

I suspect Elizabeth may have sent her children to live with her brother to give them a better home, as John worked on the ovens, and Wm was working with him as a potter's labourer; she may have gone to Bristol to have the baby, as she was never married on any census, then took him to Abergavenny to raise him where presumably no one knew of her less than savoury past.

On the other hand Bristol is a port, so she could have gone there for the increased job opportunities with all the sailors...

We may never know the full story, I guess.

[Biker]

Hello

There is quite a bit of information on prostitution (causes of, criminality, locales etc) here http://www.victorianlondon.org/frame-crime.htm which probably holds for other major cities - as you say especially those with large military/sea-faring populations.  There are also a number of books written on this subject which might be interesting reading ...

I think the "Unfortunate" may be a bit of a give-away as during the Victorian/Edwardian era there were may committees which were set up for "the Restitution/Reform/Rescue of Unfortunates" often a euphemism for prostitute/fallen women etc.  There were also "homes" and small institutions set up to "Reform" fallen women, sometimes as an annex to the workhouse.

However to keep an open mind, as others have mentioned the term was sometimes also used for those women who had been deserted, had given birth out of wedlock and those that were dependent on the parish.

Good luck with your research
Biker