The Disgrace of Kitty Grey (30 page)

Authors: Mary Hooper

BOOK: The Disgrace of Kitty Grey

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Transportation

English gaols â and especially London gaols â were always fearfully overcrowded, and to be exiled to another country was a common punishment for both major and minor crimes from the early 1600s until 1868. British criminals were deported to the United States until the 1770s, but following the American War of Independence, the authorities began to send them to Australia. It was seen as a useful and humane alternative to execution, which probably would have been the sentence of many if transportation had not been introduced.

A sentence could be for life or for a minimum of seven years, and convicts would typically be expected to work in the colonies by farming, mining or building roads. When they had served their sentence â or most of their sentence â they would be granted certain freedoms: to marry and raise a family, and to work and live where they pleased. In the unlikely event that they could raise the fare, they were free to return to England.

Throughout the eighteenth century, women and their children were often amongst the prisoners deported to Australia, but were in the minority, until 1789, when approximately 230 women and children were sent to Botany Bay aboard a ship called the
Lady Julian
. Some of these women were prostitutes, while others had been convicted of quite minor crimes, but their main reason for being transported was to enable them to marry male prisoners already living in Australia and thereby increase the population. If the women were over childbearing age they were made to do the tedious sorts of jobs usually done by those in workhouses.

First, though, was the year-long journey to Australia, during which the women were encouraged to âbecome friendly' with the sailors. In
The Floating Brothel
, a fascinating account of the
Lady Julian
's voyage, Sian Rees tells how each shipmate was encouraged to choose a woman for the duration of the voyage and sets of baby clothes were part of the ship's provisions. How the women felt about this, and whether they had any choice in the shipmates' selection, is not recorded.

May Revels

Until very recently â and, who knows, maybe it still goes on â the innocent tradition of washing one's face in the dew of a May morning was thought to be excellent for the skin and to bring beauty and good health. The diarist Samuel Pepys, writing 350 years ago (and 150 years before
The Disgrace of Kitty Grey
is set), records that he was woken at three o'clock in the morning by his wife going out in a coach with her maids to gather May dew.

There are many other traditions connected with the month of May. The chief of these, perhaps, is maypole dancing, which was stopped by the Puritans during the Civil War because it was believed to encourage free and easy behaviour amongst the young. Nowadays a much more sedate version can be seen on our village greens and playgrounds, when schoolchildren dance around a pole with ribbons.

In Helston, Cornwall, the traditional Furry Dance, the Flora, still goes on. On a particular day in May, the streets are decorated with bunting and greenery, and men and women in their best Sunday outfits dance through the streets, going in and out of the houses and shops.

Morris men have long been a popular form of entertainment for May Day and summer. Usually these dances are performed by men, the dancers wearing traditional costume enlivened by colourful flowers, ribbons, sashes and bells. Two teams dance together and around each other, each side consisting of six dancers, a fool and sometimes a hobby horse.

Other parts of the country put on pageants and plays in May, or have decorated horses and carts going around the streets with floats depicting various aspects of country life. The final cart in these processions usually features the May Queen: a young local girl dressed in white, crowned with blossom and attended by flower girls. In some areas of the country she might be joined by a boy playing the part of Jack o' the Green.
Tableaux vivants
were also popular forms of entertainment, sometimes presented on a theatre stage, on a cart pulled by a shire horse or in an aristocratic drawing room.

Town and Country Dairies

In times gone by, many families in the country would have kept a cow of their own to ensure that they were supplied with milk, butter and cheese throughout the year. When, from the eighteenth century onwards, the common grazing land began to be enclosed and taken over by the big landowners, families were forced to get rid of their cows. Consequently they had to buy their milk and butter from their local estate owner, who usually grew very rich.

I imagined that a particular landowner, Lord Baysmith, had not only a thriving dairy business of his own, but a âmodel dairy' to supply dairy products to his household. Gentleman farmers and estate owners often showed a great enthusiasm for dairying, building spotlessly clean dairies, usually on the north wall of a house and under the shade of trees so it would stay as cool as possible.

In London it was slightly different! Sometimes cows were kept in tiny cowsheds, often below ground and in appalling conditions, with no access to fresh air nor pasture nor space for the thorough cleaning of the animals. Milk could also be purchased straight from the cows in the various London parks, so you might have been better off taking along your own jug to be filled there rather than relying on the milkman. Not all dairies were as bad as Mr Holloway's, and at one time there really was a beautifully tiled dairy on the Strand called Nell Gwyn's Dairy.

The proliferation of cows and other animals (pigs, sheep, chickens) in this âbackyard agriculture' added to the piles of filth left in stalls and carried away by the night-soil men or, more usually, deposited in kennels in the street, then washed down by rain and swept into the Thames. And it was the Thames which supplied most of London's drinking water, of course.

An Old-fashioned Method for Making Butter

The milk to be used for making the butter should not be cooled but poured into a setting dish and left overnight.

The next morning the cream, which will have risen to the top, should be skimmed off, covered with muslin and left for 48 hours to ripen.

The next stage is the churning. The inside of the churn is washed out with salt water before being filled with the cream. The churning is normally done by means of a plunger, which is moved up and down at high speed until, eventually, the butter is formed. A dairymaid could also use something called a ârocker churn', which is pushed backwards and forwards like a baby's cradle, or a âbox churn' with a handle, which revolves paddles to turn the cream. Sometimes glass butter-jars are used for making small amounts of butter.

Constant inspection is necessary to ensure that the butter is not over-churned, as this will impair the separation of the whey. Only when the butter has come together and looks perfectly sound should the watery mixture, called whey, be drained off. This can be used in cooking later or given to the pigs.

The butter should then be washed in cold water and transferred to a butter-worker (a device for removing excess moisture). After this, it should be spread in a trough and a roller device moved up and down over it, thus squeezing out any extra whey.

The butter should then be removed with big wooden butter-pats to a hard surface and quickly worked into the desired shape: an oblong or a cylinder. The finished shapes can be decorated with stamps bearing a floral design, or perhaps impressed with the coat of arms of the estate owner.

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