Chapter VI

PHILANTHROPIC AND MEDICAL WORK, 1840-1848.

I have now arrived at the period of my grandfather's life which comes within my own memory, and which begins with the days described in the Introduction when I used to watch him as he sat at his writing in the early mornings. He had taken me to live with him at three years old, and from that time I was with him throughout his life. If, in this chapter or elsewhere, I dwell on his care and tenderness towards myself, it is only that it may indicate the love he invariably showed to all near and dear to him.

My grandfather, though losing no opportunity of promoting the cause he had chiefly at heart--the great sanitary cause--did not limit his public work to it alone: he was at this time engaged in reforming the state of coal-mines, being a member of a Royal Commission--the "Children's Employment Commission"--the chief object of whose labours was to secure the abolition of child-labour in mines. It has been mentioned that the Report presented to Parliament by this Commission had pictures: they were drawn on the spot at my grandfather's instigation, and I believe I am right in saying it was the only parliamentary report so issued. The state of things in the mines was sufficiently appalling. Children of tender years were employed in opening and shutting little gates in narrow passages of coal. They were untaught, and seldom breathed the fresh air. They were sometimes as young as five years old (parents have been known to send them even at four years old); they sat in small niches, scooped out of the coal, for twelve hours at a time, to watch the doors, and they were alone and in the dark except when a "hurrier" with a candle fastened to his forehead passed along, on hands and knees, dragging a truck.

The suffering was not confined to children; it was found that young girls, married women, and aged and decrepit women were exposed to bearing upon their backs burdens of coal weighing from three-quarters of a cwt. to 3 cwt.; often to carry these whilst wading in water up to the ankles, sometimes up to the knees, or to carry them from the bottom of the mine to the bank up steep ladders; to go through the hard work of hewing coal by the side of the men; to drag trucks on all fours harnessed by chains; and that the nature of their work, when hewing coal, constantly obliged them to dispense with most of their clothing.

The illustrations in the Report brought all this before my childish imagination very vividly. Perhaps they also, as the Commissioners hoped they might do, caught the attention of busy members of Parliament and learned lords who might not have waded through a lengthy "blue-book" to find the facts which these pictures showed at a glance. The object of the Commissioners was to put the facts strikingly, and in this they succeeded.

Lord Ashley's Bill, based on this Report, encountered great opposition, especially in the House of Lords, many members of which were large proprietors of mines, and in the course of its passage through Parliament it was much mutilated. Lord Ashley had hoped to prevent any boy under thirteen from working in the mines, but the age of exemption was lowered to ten years old; and his attempt to prohibit the employment of boys and old men in the work of lowering the miners into the pit by means of ropes was also defeated.

Still, the main points were gained; for by Lord Ashley's Bill, which passed in 1844 and was founded on the labours of this and the Factory Commission, not only was it enacted that all _children_ under ten should henceforth be prohibited from working in mines, but that such labour should also be illegal for girls of all ages and for women.

It may be worth noticing that the change in the law did not at first give satisfaction to the miners. The men considered it a great hardship to be deprived of the earnings of their wives and children, and the women themselves complained sorely of being deprived of their work. But time has proved the great benefits of the new system. The men now earn nearly as much as a man and his wife used to do, the presence of the wife in the home causes it to be better cared for, and the children are free to attend school.

The "Children's Employment Commission" instituted a further inquiry into the state of young people employed in branches of trade not as yet brought under regulation. This second Report of the Commission, on "Trades and Manufactures," related to the state of apprentices in the South Staffordshire ironworks, and of young workers in such trades as earthenware-making, calico-printing, paper-making, &c.; and although nothing could be done for them at the time, the regulations recommended in the Report have since been adopted.

These Inquiries--important and interesting as they were--occupied only the hours which my grandfather could spare from his professional work as one of the chief consultants in cases of fever, and a leading London physician.

He went daily from our home in Kentish Town to his rooms in the City, and often used to take me with him as a little child. We usually stopped first at the Fever Hospital, which was then near King's Cross. The Great Northern Railway Station stands now on its site, where I used to sit in the carriage at its gate. His connection with that Hospital was never broken (at his death he had been one of its physicians for nearly forty years), and he was, of course, much interested in its re-erection when it was removed to its present position in Liverpool Road, Islington. The new building was made with wards having no upper storeys; each ward had three outer walls and a very high ceiling, thus ensuring perfect ventilation; and there were many other advantages of arrangement.

But even the original hospital at King's Cross was very carefully managed as to fresh air, and my grandfather's implicit belief in his own doctrine of non-contagion was proved by his more than once taking me into the fever-wards, though, when I was a child and therefore peculiarly susceptible, he never would let me breathe the tainted air of the courts and lanes of which he fearlessly encountered the danger, not only in his capacity as a physician, but when making his early sanitary investigations.

Three times in the course of his life he had been stricken down with fever. In one of these attacks his life had been despaired of, but medical skill, aided by most careful nursing and by his naturally strong constitution, at length conquered the disease.

After the visit to the hospital we went on into the City to his consulting-rooms, which were first at 36 New Broad Street, and afterwards at 38 Finsbury Square; and then came the morning hours during which he saw patients there, and I amused myself until he was ready for the afternoon round. Then outdoor work again. Generally the visits led us through crowded streets where the carriage got blocked in amongst great waggons or hemmed in near high warehouses; but at times there came long drives to some patient living more in the country at Hackney, Dalston, Stoke Newington, or farther off still; and then what a happy time I had with him, sitting on his knee and asking endless questions! It was worth many hours of waiting in the carriage, outside doors, to have the times that came between.

Then there was the Eastern Dispensary and Jews' Hospital practice, in connection with which he daily went to see patients in their own poor homes. How well I remember being left in the carriage at the end of streets too narrow for it to drive down. I used to amuse myself with looking out at the people passing to and fro--children without hats and bonnets; old-clothesmen with their bags; orange-girls;--many dark faces amongst the passers-by--Jews, as I was afterwards told. I used to wonder at it all, and make up stories about the people and guess on what errands they were bent when entering their little shops and doorways; and when tired of all this--for I was still too small to see without kneeling up on the seat to look out at the window--I seated myself on the floor of the carriage and was soon deeply engrossed in some book of pictures or fairy tales, which my grandfather, in the midst of all else, had thoughtfully put into the pocket of the carriage for me to "find."

Then I would climb up again and watch for him. At last he would come! Down the dark, narrow street, looking very grave, the reflection of some scene just left still resting on his face. Out of such thoughts--produced by such places--came his afterwork.

When he came to me, however, the sad thoughts passed away, and he was ready to let his happy nature come through to cheer his little girl. He would practically work to relieve such misery as he had seen--day and night--at all cost--through all opposition,--but he would also play merrily with his little grandchild, to make joyous for her the homeward drive through the evening air.

My grandfather was much interested at this time in another effort of which I have not yet spoken. It was the institution of a "Home in Sickness" in London for those of the middle classes who might be far from their own families, or who, from some other cause, could not secure favourable surroundings in times of illness. The position of such people struck him as very desolate. There were many with homes far away--clerks, students, young men engaged in various professions, governesses, and other ladies of limited income--who might be seized with illness under circumstances when a return to their family was impossible; others who had no family to which to return. It seemed to him that chambers or lodgings which might be tolerably convenient for people in health, were utterly unsuited to give the requisite comforts when illness came: the poorer classes had the hospitals, but for this intermediate class there was no provision.

His plan was, therefore, to found an institution into which, by subscribing a small sum annually, members could secure a right to be received when they were suffering from disease. They would each have a separate room where an equal temperature could be secured, well prepared diet, superior nursing, the advantage of a medical officer in the house who could be called in at any moment, and the daily advice of skilled physicians and surgeons specially appointed; or should the patients prefer it, of their own medical advisers. For this they were to pay two guineas a-week during their residence, or less, should it be found that such an establishment could be self-supporting at a lower rate: that it should be self-supporting was, he thought, essential.

Such an institution was founded in 1840 under very good auspices, and opened under the name of "The Sanatorium" at Devonshire House, York Gate, Regent's Park, in 1842. My grandfather freely gave it his medical services, as well as his influence and supervision, for some years.

The house stood in a garden in which there were tall trees (with rooks in them), making a cool green shade and shutting out all other houses; whilst within doors the soft carpets and general feeling of quiet and order gave a sense of peace. The contrast on turning into that garden from the "New Road"[18] was striking. Quiet, indeed, was one of the chief boons which the Sanatorium could offer.

Charles Dickens, one of its earliest supporters, speaks forcibly of this contrast in a speech made in behalf of the Institution. He speaks of the noise of crowded streets and busy thoroughfares as--

"That never-ceasing restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy." "Is it not a wonder," he says,--"is it not a wonder, how the dwellers in narrow ways can bear it? Think of a sick man in such a place as St Martins Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform), to detect the child's step from the man's; the slipshod beggar from the hooded exquisite; the lounging from the busy. Think of the hum and noise always present to his senses, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie dead, but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come."

After some time it was found that a building specially constructed, which should contain many small separate rooms, would be more suitable and less expensive than Devonshire House. To erect this it was necessary to raise a building fund. By this time the Institution was supported by a powerful list of patrons, with Prince Albert at their head; many large banking-houses and City firms had subscribed to it for the sake of their clerks and others; and more than a hundred members of the medical profession had visited it, and had signed a statement expressing their belief in the need of such an establishment, adding that the Sanatorium had supplied this need most satisfactorily, though on a small scale.

Charles Dickens then lived nearly opposite to Devonshire House, and when the building fund was opened, he and several other literary men and artists came forward and gave for its benefit the first of those amateur performances which they repeated at a later period. They acted Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," at St James's Theatre, on November 15, 1845, both audience and actors being brilliant. Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, John Foster, Mark Lemon, Frank Stone, and others took part. I remember seeing them, as I peeped down from a side-box.

The Sanatorium did not, from a money point of view, succeed; but it was, nevertheless, the forerunner of all those "Home Hospitals" and "Nursing Homes" which have since proved so great a boon to the public. So that in this, also, my grandfather was a pioneer.

As the name of Dickens has been mentioned, it may be interesting to refer here to some of the letters which show the early and keen interest he felt in the removal of the evils with which my grandfather was contending, and his readiness to give his aid to the cause of the poor. Here is the first letter, alluding both to the Sanatorium and to the Children's Employment Commission:--

1 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE,

_Fifteenth December 1840_.

MY DEAR SIR,--I am greatly obliged to you for your kind note and
inclosure of to-day. I had never seen the Sanatorium pamphlet, and
have been greatly pleased with it. The reasons for such an
Institution, and the advantages likely to result from it, could not
have been more forcibly or eloquently put. I have read it twice with
extreme satisfaction.

You have given me hardly less pleasure by sending me the
Instructions of the Children's Employment Commission, which seem to
me to have been devised in a most worthy spirit, and to comprehend
every point on which humanity and forethought could have desired to
lay stress. The little book reaches me very opportunely; for Lord
Ashley sent me his speech on moving the Commission only the day
before yesterday; and I could not forbear, in writing to him in
acknowledgment of its receipt, cursing the present system and its
fatal effects in keeping down thousands upon thousands of God's
images, with all my heart and soul.

It must be a great comfort and happiness to you to be instrumental
in bringing about so much good. I am proud to be remembered by one
who is pursuing such ends, and heartily hope that we shall know each
other better.--My dear Sir, faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

Another characteristic and genial letter, dated half a-year later, appears to refer to some proposed expedition, in the course of which Dickens was to see on the spot some place where children were at work in a coal-mine:--

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
_Wednesday, June the Second, 1841_.

MY DEAR DR SMITH,--I find it can't be done. The artists, engravers,
printers, and every one engaged have so depended on my promises, and
so fashioned their engagements by them, that I cannot with any
regard to their comfort or convenience leave town before the
nineteenth. At any other time I would have gone with you to
John-o'-Groat's for such a purpose; and I don't thank you the less
heartily for not being able to go now.

If you should see one place which you would like me to behold of all
others, and should find that I could get easy access to it, tell me
when you come back, and I'll see it on my way to Scotland, please
God.

I will send your papers home by hand tomorrow.--In haste, believe me
with true regards, faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

The following year, Dickens, being about to proceed to Cornwall, wrote to my grandfather asking his advice as follows:--

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,

_Saturday, October Twenty-second, 1842_.

MY DEAR SIR,--I have an expedition afoot in which I think you can
assist me.

I want to see the very dreariest and most desolate portion of the
sea-coast of Cornwall; and start next Thursday, with a couple of
friends, for St Michael's Mount. Can you tell me of your own
knowledge, or through the information of any of the Mining
Sub-Commissioners, what is the next best bleak and barren part? And
can you, furthermore, while I am in those regions, help me down a
mine?

I ought to make many apologies for troubling you, but somehow or
other I don't--which is your fault and not mine.--Always believe me
faithfully your friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

My grandfather's feeling about the Cornish coast is given in his answer:--

36 NEW BROAD STREET, _October 25, 1842_.

MY DEAR SIR,--I do not think you will find St Michael's Mount
particularly desolate, but it is nevertheless a very remarkable and
interesting place. The coast about Land's End, I am told, is
incomparably more dreary and presents a fine specimen of wrecken
scenery. But the place above all others for dreariness is Tintagel
(King Arthur's) Castle, near Camelford. There shall you see nothing
but bleak-looking rocks and an everlastingly boisterous sea, both in
much the same state as when good King Arthur reigned.[19] You must
go through Truro to get to either place. Your best plan will be to
call on Dr Charles Barham. He is the physician of those parts and a
most intelligent man, thoroughly acquainted with every nook in
Cornwall and known to every mine. He was one of our best
Sub-Commissioners; and he will tell you where best to go for your
immediate object, and will take you with the least loss of time to
the best specimen of a mine. But pray do not forget that a Cornish
mine is quite different from a coal-mine: while much less
disagreeable to the senses, far more fatal in its effects upon the
men and boys (they have no women).

I send you herewith a letter of introduction to Dr Barham, whom you
will find both able and willing to give you all the information and
assistance you may require.--Faithfully yours,

SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

The following merry letter from Dickens, on his return, winds up the little correspondence:--

1 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,

YORK GATE, _Eighth November 1842_.

MY DEAR SIR,--I have just come home from Cornwall. I did not, after
all, deliver your letter. Having Stanfield and Maclise and another
friend with me, I determined not to do so, unless I found it
absolutely necessary; lest the unfortunate Doctor should consider
himself in a state of siege.

I saw all I wanted to see, and a noble coast it is. I have sent your
letter to Dr Barham with a line or two from myself; and am as much
obliged to you as though I had driven him wild with trouble.--Always
faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

Before leaving this subject, I will give two more of Charles Dickens's letters, which show that the interest he had manifested in the first beginning of the inquiry into the state of the children in coal-pits did not wane, but that, when the Report came before him in 1843, he was deeply moved, and prepared himself at once to take up arms in defence of the children. The first letter runs thus:--

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Sixth March 1843_.

MY DEAR DR SMITH,--I sent a message across the way to-day, urging
you, in case you should come to the Sanatorium, to call on me if
convenient. My reason was this:

I am so perfectly stricken down by the blue-book you have sent me,
that I think (as soon as I shall have done my month's work) of
writing and bringing out a very cheap pamphlet called "An Appeal to
the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man's Child," with my
name attached, of course.

I should be very glad to take counsel with you in the matter, and to
receive any suggestions from you in reference to it. Suppose I were
to call on you one evening in the course of ten days or so? What
would be the most likely hour to find you at home?--In haste, always
faithfully your friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

The next promises a "sledge-hammer" in lieu of the pamphlet.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tenth March 1843_.

MY DEAR DR SMITH,--Don't be frightened when I tell you that, since I
wrote to you last, reasons have presented themselves for deferring
the production of that pamphlet until the end of the year. I am not
at liberty to explain them further just now; but _rest assured_ that
when you know them, and see what I do, and where and how, you will
certainly feel that a sledge-hammer has come down with twenty times
the force--twenty thousand times the force I could exert by
following out my first idea. Even so recently as when I wrote to you
the other day I had not contemplated the means I shall now, please
God, use. But they have been suggested to me; and I have girded
myself for their seizure--as you shall see in due time.

If you will allow our _tête-à-tête_ and projected conversation on
the subject still to come off, I will write to you as soon as I see
my way to the end of my month's work.--Always faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

I now turn to another subject. It was during these years that my grandfather conceived the idea that houses might be built from which fever could be banished even amongst the classes and in the districts in which up to that time disease had most fatally prevailed. If the experiment succeeded, and the amount of sickness and death were found to be markedly diminished, he felt that a very valuable practical illustration would be afforded of the truth of the principles he was advocating--of the law which connects bad sanitary conditions with disease. He also hoped it would be proved that money expended on the building of such dwellings would bring in a fair return of interest, so that it would be seen to be a wise as well as a benevolent expenditure of capital, and healthy dwellings might be multiplied.

To accomplish this purpose he gathered together the men who formed the original directors of "The Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes" in 1843.

As this was before the days of "limited liability," it was necessary to obtain through the Prime Minister a Royal Charter to secure those who should furnish money for the experiment against serious loss if it failed, and a deputation (who chose my grandfather as spokesman) waited on Sir Robert Peel on January 23, 1844, to ask him for this charter, which was eventually cordially granted.

The course the promoters took resulted in the building of the block of, so-called, "Model Dwellings" in Old St Pancras Road, on a site nearly opposite the Fever Hospital.

Thus a first step was taken towards providing healthy and cheap homes for the poor, and the results realised the fullest hopes of the originators.

* * * * *

In 1844 we removed from Kentish Town to our Highgate home. It was very beautifully situated, the slopes of the West Hill lying at the back, and the front looking over Caen Wood. When we went there, not even the present open park paling divided us from the park: there were only a few moss-grown and picturesque hurdles bordering the road between us and it, and our lane was as quiet as if it had been far in the real country. The life was, indeed, like that of the country, and full of pleasure to a child. We had cows; and my longed-for and much-enjoyed pony in the field; and chickens, and dogs, and a goat, and pigs; a perfect orchard of wonderful apple-trees, and a wealth of roses that I have never seen equalled. In the summer came hay-making of our own, and all this so near London that half an hour's drive of our fast horse Ariel took us to its centre. It was indeed inwardly and outwardly a beautiful home, and it is _the_ one of my childhood which is fullest of recollections of my grandfather.

During all my early years he had, as it were, _two_ works going on--the profession which occupied his days, and the work for the various reforms, which occupied the early mornings and the quiet Sundays alluded to in the Introduction. But now, as the "ten years' struggle" advanced, the necessity of attending committees and of having interviews with public men, whom he was interesting and bringing together, made itself felt; and thus not only were the early mornings, as hitherto, given up, but, as the public health cause advanced, many hours were given out of his professional time, and he compressed that given to his practice as much as possible. He worked enthusiastically, and with unfailing energy, beginning to write at four or five (sometimes even at three) o'clock in the morning, and only returning home to dinner about eight o'clock in the evening.

Our "Hillside" was a peaceful and lovely spot for him to come to after the day's work in London, and he made the most of the hours spent at home. It was his wish, and our habit, during all possible weather to breakfast out in the summer-house, which stood at the top of that piece of Lord Mansfield's park which was our field, so that he might carry the memory of its pretty view, and the feeling of its fresh morning air, into town with him. We dined in the garden in a tent under trees and surrounded by flower-beds, and had dessert in the field, where the view of the wooded slopes in the light of the setting sun gave much delight, not only to ourselves, but to many of the distinguished friends who frequently joined us on those happy evenings. These hours were indeed happy ones, whether in summer, spent in the field out in the starlight, or in winter, round his hospitable fire; for he liked to have, and helped to make, happiness around him.

Sometimes he used to let me tell him the story of my day--the wonderful doings of pony, dog, or newly-hatched little yellow chickens. And then he would tell us of his own work. Each time that some onward step of importance had been taken he told us about it, but when things were uncertain, or depressing, he seldom mentioned them. So that an advance for the cause came generally with the pleasure of a sudden surprise, but a defeat we only surmised by seeing him unusually grave. He was naturally extremely reserved; but as he advanced in years his desire for sympathy overcame this reticence in some degree, so that he became ready to share his thoughts on all deep subjects with others. He rarely spoke of things merely personal, and there was an absence of all littleness in his conversation which was striking. A mixture of high thought with simplicity of expression was characteristic of him. I listened to all that passed, and with a strange, vague, but gradually-increasing understanding, I learned to watch for the success of his different efforts.

The days were over when the height of the carriage-windows had been an obstacle to my view out into the streets of Whitechapel in our daily drives, but I was still a child at the time of the first public meeting of the "Health of Towns Association." To this day the look of everything at that meeting is distinctly impressed upon me: the platform; the empty chairs upon it; the table and bottle of water; the crowd round us, which were all new to me, are remembered as vivid first impressions are. And when, after waiting some time, a number of men came in--many of them of great importance--and I saw my grandfather amongst them, how proud and glad I felt that his efforts to interest others had been successful, and that he now had all this strength on his side.

I did not understand all that passed, but I knew when the speakers praised him; and when his speech came, towards the end of the meeting, I felt the thrill of his voice, and liked all those other people to hear it too--I liked them to feel _what_ he was.

But stronger even than the pride in him was the belief that people must be moved by the truth that was being brought forward; for, even more than himself, I loved his cause. He lost himself in it, and I caught from him the desire, above all else, for the progress of the thing itself.

It is pleasant to me now to see the words, only partly understood then, in which the public men with whom he worked expressed the feeling with which he inspired them. "Benevolent," "earnest," "indefatigable,"--this is what they call him when mentioning his name. Again and again he was thanked in the House of Commons and House of Lords for what he had done.

"The country was indebted to Dr Southwood Smith and Mr Slaney," says Sir Robert Harry Inglis, M.P., "for its first knowledge of the real condition of the poorer classes. Their unwearied labours for the instruction of the Legislature and the public on these subjects were unrewarded by emolument or fame; though the value of their services was beginning to be appreciated, and they would be more highly estimated by posterity than in their own day."

And Mr Slaney himself says that "for the powerful manner in which he had first described the actual condition of the poor in their present dwellings; for the clearness with which he had shown that their most grievous sufferings were adventitious and removable; and for the untiring zeal with which he had continued to press these truths on the attention of the Legislature and the public, Dr Southwood Smith deserved the gratitude of his country."

In bringing in the first sanitary measure in 1841, Lord Normanby speaks of what Dr Southwood Smith had "taught" him; and in 1847 the same tone is still used.

In bringing in the Health of Towns Bill in 1848, Lord Morpeth, then Home Secretary, gracefully disclaims his own share in the work, and alludes to my grandfather, amongst others, when saying,--

"Several persons of very great accomplishment, and, what is more to the purpose, of most ardent benevolence, both in and out of this House, have taken great pains, in a way which does them infinite credit, to inform and excite the public mind on this subject; and now, mainly by the accident of my position, I find myself at the last hour (as I trust it may prove to be) entering upon the fruit of their labours and gleaning from their stores."

All they could say of his devotion to the cause of the people and the saving of life was true. Silently, almost unconsciously, and as the most natural thing he could do, he pursued his point. As far as unceasing labour could enable him, he carried on both his professional and his public work; but when it became a question between private fortune and public good he never hesitated--he steadily and persistently chose the latter.

Footnote 18:

Now Marylebone Road.

Footnote 19:

It is somewhat curious to note that a similar enthusiasm for Tintagel
animated the mind of his granddaughter, Octavia Hill: she became
instrumental, through the National Trust, in preserving its wonderful
cliff intact for the nation for ever. It was bought in 1896.