...They do things differently there.
This is a thread for posting your insights into history, or for posting amazing things you've discovered about the way people thought or acted.
Hopefully it is not a thread for patronising the people of the past, or for having a laugh at 'quaint world-views' which is really a rant about present day religion, politics or sociology.
Au contraire, I'm hoping to see the three Es - empathy, epiphanies, and enlightenment!
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What prompted me to start the thread is this extract from a book I'm reading, 'Victorian Miniature' by Owen Chadwick.
It's a true account of an incident that took place in Victorian Norfolk, England:
On 27th April, 1847, Lady Catherine Boileau was out walking in the village with her daughter Agnes & met Mrs Durrant. She asked after her rheumatism, and then Mrs Durrant exclaimed in a voice of lamenttion, 'What a sad thing this is, is it not, my Lady? Is it not dreadful?'
'What thing?'
'Why sure, have you not heard, my Lady? I mean about the children being killed?'
'No,' said Lady Catherine. 'What children? And how?' She supposed that some accident must have happened.
'O dear, I wonder you have not heard, that the Queen has ordered all the children in the kingdom under five years of age to be killed.'
Lady Catherine wanted to laugh; but Mrs Durrant looked so unhappy and so serious that she could not. She tried to explain that the Queen had no power to order such a thing even if she wished it, but that she was a good and kind woman and never would wish it. She wento all the cottages & found everyone else, except the sceptical Mrs Thrower, believing the report. Some said they hardly knew how to believe it, especially as it was said that the Queen was to begin with her own children - but then, as they were dumb & had not their right know (i.e. were idiots) she did not perhaps mind so much.
Upon inquiry the Boileaus found that this idea of Queen Victoria as a modern Herod was widely believed in Hethersett and other neighbouring villages. It appeared to have arisen because the Poor Law authorities had issued a decree that all the children in the poor house should be vaccinated.
My epiphany came earlier today, when I realised that Britain only got universal manhood suffrage much later in the nineteenth century, and full female suffrage in about 1930. Schooling was pretty hit and miss in 1847 too.
These country people weren't stupid, but they had no say whatever in the law, the government, their own parish. It was all arbitrary - mysterious - from above. Had anybody bothered to explain what 'vaccination' meant and what it entailed?
Like Lady Catherine, my first reaction was to laugh - my second to reflect on the unhappiness this state of affairs had caused.
This is a thread for posting your insights into history, or for posting amazing things you've discovered about the way people thought or acted.
Hopefully it is not a thread for patronising the people of the past, or for having a laugh at 'quaint world-views' which is really a rant about present day religion, politics or sociology.
Au contraire, I'm hoping to see the three Es - empathy, epiphanies, and enlightenment!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What prompted me to start the thread is this extract from a book I'm reading, 'Victorian Miniature' by Owen Chadwick.
It's a true account of an incident that took place in Victorian Norfolk, England:
On 27th April, 1847, Lady Catherine Boileau was out walking in the village with her daughter Agnes & met Mrs Durrant. She asked after her rheumatism, and then Mrs Durrant exclaimed in a voice of lamenttion, 'What a sad thing this is, is it not, my Lady? Is it not dreadful?'
'What thing?'
'Why sure, have you not heard, my Lady? I mean about the children being killed?'
'No,' said Lady Catherine. 'What children? And how?' She supposed that some accident must have happened.
'O dear, I wonder you have not heard, that the Queen has ordered all the children in the kingdom under five years of age to be killed.'
Lady Catherine wanted to laugh; but Mrs Durrant looked so unhappy and so serious that she could not. She tried to explain that the Queen had no power to order such a thing even if she wished it, but that she was a good and kind woman and never would wish it. She wento all the cottages & found everyone else, except the sceptical Mrs Thrower, believing the report. Some said they hardly knew how to believe it, especially as it was said that the Queen was to begin with her own children - but then, as they were dumb & had not their right know (i.e. were idiots) she did not perhaps mind so much.
Upon inquiry the Boileaus found that this idea of Queen Victoria as a modern Herod was widely believed in Hethersett and other neighbouring villages. It appeared to have arisen because the Poor Law authorities had issued a decree that all the children in the poor house should be vaccinated.
My epiphany came earlier today, when I realised that Britain only got universal manhood suffrage much later in the nineteenth century, and full female suffrage in about 1930. Schooling was pretty hit and miss in 1847 too.
These country people weren't stupid, but they had no say whatever in the law, the government, their own parish. It was all arbitrary - mysterious - from above. Had anybody bothered to explain what 'vaccination' meant and what it entailed?
Like Lady Catherine, my first reaction was to laugh - my second to reflect on the unhappiness this state of affairs had caused.