Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Economic Role of Middle Class Women in Victorian Glasgow
The Economic Role of Middle Class Women in Victorian Glasgow
The Economic Role of Middle Class Women in Victorian Glasgow
To cite this article: Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair (2000) The economic role of middle-class
women in Victorian Glasgow, Women's History Review, 9:4, 791-814
791
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
women from active involvement in the family firm in the period 1780–1850,
argue that the restrictions placed on middle-class women were intensified
further in the second half of the nineteenth century.[3]
In recent years, there have been a number of studies which have
revised and modified the notion of women being enclosed in the domestic
sphere in the Victorian era. Accounts of working-class women’s lives have
uncovered the extent of their involvement in waged labour and in working-
class politics, whatever the prevailing ideology.[4] There have also been a
number of modifications to the standard image of the bourgeois woman
immured in the home. Studies of middle-class women have revealed how
many of them battled to enter the public arena, for example, in education,
medicine and politics.[5] Other studies have explored the way in which the
highly circumscribed public space allocated to women, such as voluntary
work, was negotiated by women to carve out an influential niche [6], and
how even in local government women created a space for themselves.[7] It
has even been suggested that the separate spheres paradigm is not the most
useful way to view gender relations and the role of women in the nineteenth
century.[8]
Despite the considerable revisions which have been made to the
separate spheres paradigm, it remains extremely influential as a way of
interpreting the lives of women in the Victorian period, especially the lives of
middle-class women. In particular, notions of economic dependency have
remained remarkably enduring. Even those who have demonstrated that
working-class women did not withdraw from economic activity have tended
to accept the view that middle-class women were divested of any economic
role and performed a predominantly service role within the household, at
least until the late nineteenth century. The image of the ‘angel in the house’
is still one which dominates the history of Victorian middle-class women.
However, research on the social history of the middle classes has
emphasised the diverse composition of this group and the divergences of
wealth, power and status, as well as the divisions in terms of religious and
political identity.[9] These divisions within the middle class may also have
been reflected in their cultural and social worlds, making it likely that there
was no single woman’s culture or sphere. Therefore, there is a need to
examine the diversity of experience amongst middle-class women and the
different roles and positions that they occupied in society. It is necessary to
look at the economic role of widows and spinsters as well as that of the
archetypal ‘angel in the home’ wife. It is also the case that the experience of
women in the lower middle class differed in some respects from that of the
upper bourgeoisie. We may be unwise to talk of ‘the Victorian middle-class
woman’ and the restrictions placed upon her by a separate spheres ideology,
if we can detect different patterns among different groups of women.
792
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
793
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
testaments, 1876–1914, from original testaments and inventories
themselves, from marriage contracts, from Post Office Directories and
Valuation Rolls, and from local newspapers.
The conventional image of the Victorian middle-class woman as
economically dependent is to some extent borne out by the evidence from
the census. At the level of formal employment, women are indeed seen as
rarely having occupations. The percentages of married women with any
source of income recorded in the census are tiny, between 3 and 4% until
1891, when the figure rose only to 6.2%. However, the inadequacies of the
census as a complete record of women’s employment have been well
documented.[16] Although these shortcomings have usually been pointed
out in relation to working-class women, the same factors – the instructions
to the enumerators, the temporary or home-based nature of much of
women’s work, and the ideological bias against recording female work –
would appear to have as much application to the middle class. In the 1861
census, enumerators were instructed to tabulate women under the domestic
heading ‘no matter what trade or occupation she might occasionally follow’,
and in the 1871 census and all subsequent censuses, the working population
did not include shopkeepers’ wives, farmers’ wives, innkeepers’ wives,
shoemakers’ wives, butchers’ wives etc., although they had previously been
included.[17] This had the effect of excluding the wives of small
businessmen from the occupational tables, although there may have been no
real change in their role. Family business frequently drew on the services of
all family members, including wives, who undertook a variety of tasks in the
enterprise, and it is unlikely that these functions ceased as a result of
changing census practices.
In 1861, fifty-seven of 168 wives were given the prefix of their
husband’s occupation and would have been placed in the ‘domestic’ class
and included in the main body of the Tables of Occupations in the published
census. However, by the next census in 1871, only twenty-three wives of 150
are so described and they were classified as ‘dependants’ and were formally
placed in the ‘unoccupied’ category. This may have reflected the withdrawal
of wives from the family business; however, it is just as likely that it reflected
changing census practices and the increasing tendency to define women
solely in relation to the domestic sphere. The prefixing of ‘wife’ with the
occupation of the husband might indicate that there was implicit recognition
of the fact that these women performed a role in the enterprise, although in
official documentation this role was unacknowledged. For example, the wife
of Robert Adam, who owned a stationer’s shop, and was described as a
‘stationer’s wife’, was very probably involved in the business in some
capacity, whilst Agnes MacEwan, an accountant’s wife and Marion Duncan, a
minister’s wife, might also have assisted in their husband’s work. In addition
to indirect involvement in the market outside the home, middle-class women
794
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
795
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
and patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, remained active in business after
her marriage in 1892 to John Cochrane, a wealthy engineer. Indeed, it was
only when her husband died in 1917 that she retired from business.[21]
Thus, the evidence from the census alone would seem to confirm the
‘separate spheres’ interpretation in that hardly any married women are
recorded as having a formal occupation. However, as women’s domestic role
became invested with universal significance and work was increasingly
defined as activity which was carried on for a wage outside the home and in
the market, the economic role of many married women was concealed. It
was more likely to be the wives in the lower socio-economic categories who
were economically active, particularly in the market. This had long been the
case; there is little evidence from the eighteenth century that the wives of
the wealthier bourgeoisie formally participated in the family business.[22]
Davidoff & Hall have suggested that the ideology of separate spheres
increasingly limited the employment options for middle-class women,
particularly married women, until the end of the nineteenth century.[23] Yet,
the evidence from the Claremont estate suggests that there were long-
standing continuities in the role of married middle-class women throughout
the century: their formal relationship to the market was marginal rather
than non-existent, their economic role was often supplementary to their
husbands’, and the extent of their economic contribution was often
underestimated.
The census returns also show that only a minority of even widows and
spinsters had a formal occupation, ranging from 13% of spinsters in 1851 to
just over 37% by 1891.
Governess 9 11 10 12 5
Teacher 14 14 20 23 23
Dressmaker etc. 3 10 19 13 55
Landlady – 1 2 7 2
Companion – – 3 1 –
Retail trade 1 2 1 1 1
Shop assistant – 3 – 5 20
Clerical – – – 5 20
Nurse – – – 2 7
Artist – 1 – – 3
Student – – – – 4
Other – – 2 – 3
Total 27 42 57 69 143
As % of all 13.1 15.9 18.4 24.0 37.2
women
Table I. Occupations of single women, 1851–91 (excluding domestic servants).
796
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
Blank 11 33 38 42 15
Annuitant 24 16 23 19 12
Companion – – 1 – 2
Dividends – – 8 6 –
Dressmaker – 1 3 1 2
Landlady 1 2 3 2 2
Military pension – – 1 – 2
Nurse – 2 1 2 –
Private means 4 – 2 1 48
Proprietrix 6 7 3 4 9
Retail trade 2 – – – 2
Retired – 2 – – –
Teacher 1 – 2 1 1
Total widows 49 63 85 78 95
% with formal 8.2 7.9 8.5 7.7 9.5
occupation
Table II. Widows’ sources of income (excluding domestic servants).
However, the same caveats about the inadequacies of the census also apply
to the employment of widows and spinsters. For example, many lone women
took in lodgers as a means of supplementing their existence, but this is not
always recorded in the census as a formal occupation. For instance, in 1881,
the unmarried Buchanan sisters had two boarders, but no formal occupation
listed. Similarly, Emma Milne, a widow, had one boarder but the occupation
column is blank in her entry.[24] In 1891, thirteen lone female heads of
household had boarders living with them and many more had lodgers. If, for
instance, we look at Carnarvon Street and Stanley Street alone, there were
thirty-one lodgers and yet none of the female heads of household were
recorded as having an occupation.[25]
As might be expected for a middle-class area, throughout the period
1851–91, teaching was the most common occupation, followed by
dressmaking. The census figures bear out the generally accepted view that
towards the end of the century there was some opening up of opportunities
in education and employment for middle-class women. We find that in the
last quarter of the century there was an expanded range of other sources of
employment, especially in clerical and shop work, and in nursing. This is
particularly noticeable if we look at the lower middle-class streets of our
study area, Carnarvon and Stanley Streets. We should remember that these
are virtually the only streets in the area where new housing was being added
during this period, and so the lower middle class make up an increasing
proportion of the sample. This may in part help to account for the increasing
percentage of single women over the age of sixteen who recorded an
occupation. This increased range of occupations open to lower middle-class
797
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
women is illustrated in Tables III and IV, which show the recorded
occupations of women over the age of sixteen in Carnarvon and Stanley
Streets. It is noticeable how much more diverse were the occupations of
1891 compared with the beginning of the period, with jobs such as
telegraphist and typist appearing by the end of the century. This is in
marked contrast to the lone women of Woodside Terrace, an upper middle-
class street. Throughout the period we find only a sprinkling of governesses
and two dressmakers, one in 1851 and the other (a visitor) in 1881. Single
and widowed women of the higher bourgeoisie, as one would expect,
generally did not have a formal occupation.
Annuitant 18
House duties etc. 12
Boarding house 1
Governess 1
Ladies’ nurse 1
Milliner 1
Private means 3
Proprietor 5
Teacher 1
Total 53
% of all women over 16 52.5
Table III. Sources of income of women age 16+, Carnarvon and Stanley Streets, 1851.
798
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
record of the ownership and value of all property held in the city) of
Glasgow in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s provide evidence of a range of
female-run businesses. In Sauchiehall Street, one of the main and most
prosperous shopping thoroughfares, there were many businesses run by
women. A good number dealt with clothing – dressmakers, milliners,
staymakers, clothiers, hosiers, furriers, sellers of baby linen. The domestic
interior, too, was a principal focus of female businesses – furnishers,
upholsterers, china shops, a lace warehouse and a specialist in Berlin wool.
Women were fruiterers, greengrocers, poulterers; and in 1872 we find the
Dining Rooms of Mrs McIntosh, forerunner of the teashop movement which
by the early years of the twentieth century was ‘so prominent a feature of
Glasgow life’ that the ‘business career’ of Miss Cranston made her one of
only five women in a contemporary list of the 500 prominent citizens of
Glasgow.[26] In short, the evidence from these and other directories
suggests that much of the retail commerce of the city was based on the
public servicing of the domestic world, and involved women selling to
women.[27]
Table V sets out the results of an analysis of retail businesses in
Sauchiehall and Buchanan Streets, the city’s main shopping area, from
Directories across the census period. Unfortunately, by the last quarter of
the century, many businesses are listed only by company names, and neither
the nature of the business nor the sex of the owner is recorded. An entry
into the Post Office Directory was gained only on payment of a fee; thus, the
number of retail businesses is an underestimation of the true picture. This
may help to account for the drop in the percentage of female shopkeepers,
which on Sauchiehall Street had earlier been consistent at 22–23%. The
Directories do indicate that women’s involvement in retail did not decline
before 1871, and in terms of absolute numbers, their involvement increased
until 1871.
The Valuation Rolls provide a fuller picture than the Post Office Directories
of the extent of female involvement in retail, being a record of the value of
799
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
all property in the city, with the occupational details of the tenants. For
example, the Directories of 1861 and 1881 contain twenty-three and seven
women respectively who owned coffee houses, eating houses or restaurants,
whereas the Valuation Rolls for the same years have respective figures of
thirty-six and forty-five. Not only does this indicate that the Directories
underestimate the number of women in the restaurant and coffee shop
trades, but that they erroneously indicate a trend of decline after 1871.
Indeed, an analysis of the Valuation Rolls for the years 1861 and 1881
reveals that between these years the numbers of women in business in
Glasgow trebled from 600 to just over 1500.[28] The majority of these
businesses were in retail and were concentrated in the area of food, drink
and clothing. Nonetheless, the Valuation Rolls also show that some women
worked outside of these traditional areas as plumbers, dentists, druggists,
coal dealers, accountants, photographers and designers.[29] The vast
majority of these businesses would have been small-scale and would have
been run by women from the lower middle class or even working class.
However, owners of retail businesses in the more prosperous areas would
have had substantial concerns and of course there were the exceptions, such
as Miss Cranston.
Davidoff & Hall have argued that the increasing capitalisation and
scale of business concerns resulted in women being squeezed out as the
nineteenth century progressed. However, the evidence from Glasgow
suggests that women continued to have a robust role in business
throughout the century, especially in retailing, and that there is little
evidence of this role diminishing. Economic historians have written
extensively of the consumer revolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, which has been partly attributed to the depression in prices and the
rise in real incomes.[30] Therefore it is likely that this development created
expanding opportunities across the spectrum of retailing. Similarly, the
burgeoning temperance movement of the second half of the nineteenth
century in Glasgow spawned a plethora of coffee shops and tearooms, many
owned by women.
The persistence of small businesses and family-owned businesses in the
British economy has been well established.[31] Therefore it should not be
surprising that the rise of the department store and large retail outlets
towards the end of the century did not signal the demise of small-scale
concerns and the ‘corner shop’, whose longevity lasted well into the
twentieth century. Women may have played a marginal role in business
because of their preponderance in petty retail, although as Charles Wilson
has argued, developments in retailing and consumption have had a much
more significant role in economic growth and development than has
previously been acknowledged.[32] What is clear is that there is no evidence
of any withdrawal of women from the retail business in Victorian Glasgow.
800
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
801
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
from her and her heirs and successors to and in favour of the said
trustees, the estate real and personal now belonging and pertaining to
her, or which she may acquire or succeed to during the marriage, or
whatever belongs to her at the time of her death, to be held by them in
trust.[36]
This marriage contract ensured that all property she owned as a single
woman, and all property that she might acquire during her marriage, would
remain her own property, and would be held in trust for her. It also ensured
that any income and interest resulting from this separate property belonged
to the wife, and the wife alone, whilst any decision to sell or give away such
property rested upon her sole judgement:
And to pay the annual income of the said trust fund to the said
Elizabeth Graham Crum during her life, for her separate use free from
the control of the said William Henry Houldsworth, or any future
husband, as a strictly personal provision, and for which her receipts
alone shall be sufficient discharges to the said trustees.
The contract also stated that ‘no investment shall be made during the life of
the said Elizabeth Graham Crum, without her previous consent in
writing’.[37]
Jessie Patrick White, the eldest daughter of a Glasgow merchant,
brought to her marriage shares and income from three separate trust
estates, inherited from her grandfather, her father, and one unspecified. In
the ante-nuptial contract of marriage made between her and Robert Orr
Sawyers in 1862, it was decreed that ‘they [the trustees] may pay over the
said interest, dividends, and annual proceeds to the said Jessie Patrick White
during her life on her own individual receipt, and exclusive of the jus mariti
and the right of administration of the said Robert Orr Sawyers, both of
which rights he hereby renounces’.[38]
The marriage contract made between Hugh McMaster Ewing and
Constance Robertson Blackie in 1888 illustrates how this kind of
arrangement also enabled women to retain aspects of their separate
property, outside the confines of a trust fund. Whilst her pre-marriage
property amounted to £3000 of stocks and shares, which were to be
transferred over to the control of trustees upon marriage, her contract also
contained provisions by which she was able to retain parts of her property.
Five hundred pounds was stated to be retained as her own, absolute
property. Similarly, any legacy of two hundred pounds or less was not to be
signed over to her trustees. Interestingly, these contracts also reveal that
women could have considerable autonomy over their financial affairs and
were not necessarily dependent on others to organise their business affairs.
Referring to Constance’s business dealings, her father noted in a letter
written in 1888 that ‘her investments have been made in concert with her
802
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
brothers, but while I have advised on them, she has always looked after
them herself’.[39]
Thus, marriage contracts, which were not uncommon among the
middle classes in the nineteenth century [40], bestowed some economic
rights to married women whose formal legal position was so hedged with
restrictions and disabilities. The evidence from marriage contracts suggests
that the disjuncture between the theory and the practice of the law allowed
married women a certain degree of independence, autonomy, freedom of
action and a separate legal identity with regard to their own property.
Unlike married women, widows enjoyed the same property rights as
men. However, the Victorian widow has generally been viewed as
economically vulnerable and lacking the legal property rights enjoyed by her
seventeenth-century counterpart.[41] Ada Moore, writing at the beginning of
the twentieth century, argued that the plight of ‘poverty stricken’ widows
was well known, and had properly attracted sympathy, unlike that of ageing
spinsters.[42] Davidoff & Hall refer to widows being forced to move in with
a male relative after the death of their husbands in order to seek social and
economic support.[43] However, we find a broad spectrum of wealth enjoyed
by widows even within the middle class. Some idea of the financial position
of these women can be gained from an investigation of the estates which
they left at death. From 1876, confirmations in the Glasgow Commissary
Court were published annually. In all, 452 of these records were abstracted
for this project, nearly all relating to testators resident in the west of
Glasgow and a majority from our census area. (No attempt was made at
systematic sampling.) Confirmations record the date and often place of
death, names of executors, date of will and value of estate. It should be
stressed that they include only moveable property – personal possessions,
savings, shares etc. – and do not list houses or land. They nevertheless
provide an invaluable source of information on female finances. In the
confirmation database of 452 cases (just over half of them of women), fifty-
five individuals left estates valued at more than £20,000 – the very rich. A
quarter of them were women. In the group of estates valued between £5000
and £20,000, women actually outnumber men by thirty-nine to thirty-four.
Most of these women were widows. Some, the widows of the city’s business
elite, were probably the wealthiest women in Glasgow during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. They could be very wealthy indeed. Eliza
Smith, a widow of Woodside Terrace, left £372,000 in 1883 – one of the
largest estates in the census area, if not the whole of the city.[44] In 1914,
when Janet MacLellan of Claremont Gardens left £62,305, her sole executrix
was her unmarried daughter Eleonora.
Thirty of these confirmations register the estates of women with a
formal occupation. Although marital status is not always absolutely clear, it
seems that twenty of the women were widows and ten single. Their estates
803
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
were valued at between £37 (an upholsterer) and £12,982 (a hotel keeper).
The mean value was £1110, or £700 if we exclude the unusually wealthy
hotel keeper. These represent middle-class finances comparable to those of
male testators employed as army captain, auctioneer, insurance broker,
commission merchant, writer, physician, warehouseman, iron merchant, ship
broker, and so on. Clearly, these women had achieved a comfortable
standard of living and often left thriving businesses behind them.
Some occupations feature prominently. Nine of the thirty women were
wine and/or spirit merchants, five were or had been teachers, and four kept
hotels. Most of the others seem to have kept shops of some sort – two
fishmongers, a butcher, bootmaker, confectioner, tobacconist, draper, butter
seller and dairy keeper. Perhaps surprisingly, in view of the occupations
recorded in censuses and directories, only one was a dressmaker, and one a
nurse. Clearly, these occupations and businesses could encompass differing
degrees of independence or influence. Millinery and dressmaking were likely
to be among the least remunerative of trades. Indeed, most dressmakers are
found in the lower middle-class streets of the census area (especially
Carnarvon and Stanley Streets), yet some seem to have been doing
considerably more than scratching a living. Margaret Robertson, a
dressmaker and widow of Stanley Street in 1871, headed a household of
nine, including four children at school and one working as a clerk, a boarder
who was a dressmaker and probably an employee, and two servants.[45]
Catherine Sutherland in 1881 was a dressmaker employing nine other
women. She lived in a household headed by her widowed mother aged
seventy-two.[46]
Their wills tell us more about both their wealth and the influence it
allowed them to exercise. Full transcripts were made of seventy testaments
and inventories, virtually all relating to individuals who lived within the
census area, many of whom were widows. Through their testaments, we see
something of the extent of widows’ freedom to dispose of wealth as they
wished and of the uses they could make of this freedom. Wealthy widows
had often been widowed for a long time: Anna Loudoun made her will
twenty years before she died. This left scope for several changes of heart.
For example, Euphemia Bulley or Guthrie added five codicils in the twenty-
three years before her eventual death in 1901. These women, controlling the
disposition of often considerable wealth, seem far from powerless.
In several cases, female testators left money to quite distant relatives.
Anna Buchanan or Loudoun in 1879 left her estate to nieces, nephews,
great-nieces and -nephews, and a niece by marriage.[47] Eliza Service or
Smith (1883) left money to her nieces, nephews, cousin, brother, and
widowed sister-in-law as well as to her own children and grandchildren. She
also added a codicil to increase to £12,000 the bequest to John Service
(relationship not specified) of Smith Sons & Laughland, warehousemen.[48]
804
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
805
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
remarry, £1250 per annum if she did.[55] Peter Fisher in 1877, on the other
hand, left his wife a life interest in his estate, but if she remarries, ‘it shall
cease as if she were naturally dead’.[56]
Davidoff & Hall argue that the terms and conditions of men’s wills
severely curtailed widows’ ability to dispose of property freely. However,
they discuss only property left by the husband, since ‘marriage virtually
turned a woman’s property permanently over to her husband’. In fact, wives’
entitlements had often been set down long before, in marriage settlements
which made detailed provisions for the event of widowhood, and stipulated
the amount of their annuity (though sometimes more was given). Money
which a woman brought to a marriage could be seen as exclusively hers and
reserved to her, like the widow of Andrew Anderson, who died in 1870, who
‘also has an annual income from the estate of the late Misses Jane and Lilias
Campbell, her aunts’. Catherine Miller or Ure, when she died in 1880, still
had untouched the £1000 conferred on her by the Deed of Settlement of her
late father.
Much has been written about the economic vulnerability of the
Victorian middle-class widow. However, we have seen that there was a wide
variation in the economic situation of widows across the spectrum of the
middle class. Some of these widows were amongst the wealthiest people in
the city, and even among the lower middle class, widows were able to do
more than merely eke out a bare existence. Not only were they able to
provide for themselves, but they often headed households of dependants
(see Table IV).
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the plight of middle-
class spinsters came particularly to exercise social commentators.[57]
Working-class single women could find employment, at least while they were
relatively young. For the middle class, there were few culturally acceptable
routes to employment, and it is here that the ‘redundant woman’ was
thought to create a problem. Even after the turn of the century, Ada Moore
found it necessary to write her plea on behalf of ‘decayed gentlewomen’. She
attributed spinsterhood among middle-class women to, on the one hand,
male emigration and, on the other, to the expectation of parents that one
daughter would remain at home to take care of them in old age. Moore
argued for better education and training for women, and better female
wages. Clara Collet similarly drew attention to the poor pay of graduate
women teachers, at around £120 a year. Moore referred to a ‘large army of
unmarried gentlewomen who are practically destitute’. Vicinus calculates
that their numbers, relative to those of the working class, were not actually
great; they were, however, more visible to contemporary writers, and
presented more of an ideological difficulty where they did not fit in to
normative familial roles.[58] However, while taking care not to exaggerate
their plight, and acknowledging that towards the end of the century there
806
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
For those middle-class spinsters who had to earn a living, low wages were
assumed to be the norm; education and dressmaking, the ‘staple’
occupations of this class, were often cited as providing little more than
poverty wages.[60] However, education provided employment at several
levels, from the live-in governesses to those women running boarding
schools and who were effectively businesswomen. There were several of the
latter in our census area at different periods, many more in Glasgow as a
whole. Running a boarding school required capital outlay, premises, and
some measure of business acumen. It also involved employing men. Miss
Miller advertised in the Glasgow Herald in April 1853 that ‘The
establishment at 8 Woodside Crescent will re-open on Tues 2nd August and
will have attendance of the same eminent Masters’.[61] Confirmations
provide more information about the finances of some of the elderly spinsters
807
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
from the 1881 sample. Margaret Pinkerton, who died in 1882, left movable
estate worth £43,760: she was a very wealthy woman.[62] We do not have a
record of the estate of Elizabeth Buchanan, but she lived with her sister
Rebecca Fyfe, who left £21,732 in 1885.[63] Anna Playfair, who died in
1894, had inherited over £10,000 from her father Patrick, which together
with stock held in her own name, meant a total personal estate of
£12,237.[64] These women lived in the more prosperous streets of the area.
Single women could be in possession of considerable wealth in their own
right even when their parents were still alive. When Isabella Paterson of
Claremont Gardens died intestate in 1878, her father, a manufacturing
chemist, was granted administration of her estate of £15,343.[65]
At the other end of the middle-class spectrum, in Carnarvon Street,
Isabella Stewart died in 1881 leaving £838 in various bank accounts.[66] It
is difficult to estimate her annual income, but we can attempt to do this for
Miss Agnes Buchanan, who died in 1876 leaving a similar estate of £882.
She had shares in railways, paying a dividend. In addition, she was receiving
a life rent from the estates of both her late parents, and a share of rents
from property. It looks as if she was getting £206 per annum in life rents, as
well as the share dividends – perhaps some five pounds per week in
total.[67] We must remember that many working-class women were obliged
to maintain a family on ‘round about a pound a week’ at this date and later.
Even ageing, unmarried, lower middle-class women in our study area were
very much better off than that.
Women, whatever their marital status, were frequently named as
executors in testaments, or appointed executors as next of kin. This was the
case right across the spectrum of middle-class wealth. Even in cases of very
large estates, some men were prepared to name wives, sisters or daughters
as sole executors. Meinhard Robinow, a merchant of Park Circus, left
£85,000 in 1886 to be solely administered by his wife Therese.[68] Stuart
Foulis of Park Circus in 1914 left £50,000 to be administered by his
unmarried sister Eliza.[69]
These executors were not, of course, sole legatees, but they were
placed in a responsible and indeed powerful position as executors. Handling
such large estates would have meant considerable liaison with legal and
often business professional men. Yet, there seems little reluctance, at any
economic level, to appoint female executors, or for women to come forward
to register the estate of a relative who died intestate. In this respect, at least,
there is little difference discernible between the practice of upper and lower
middle classes. As Table VII shows, men do outnumber women as executors
overall, but not by a very large margin.
808
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
The experience of the women who lived in the Claremont estate of Glasgow
between 1851 and 1891 to some extent confirms the view that middle-class
women, like their working-class counterparts, played a marginal role in the
economy and that their economic power and influence were circumscribed.
However, according to our findings, middle-class women exercised more
economic autonomy, control and power than working-class women. Contrary
to the argument of Davidoff & Hall [70], our findings provide little evidence
to suggest that middle-class women became increasingly marginal as the
century progressed or indeed withdrew from economic activity. In fact, in
some areas of economic life, such as retail business, middle-class women
continued to play an important role; one which appears to have increased
throughout the second half of the century. In addition, by the end of the
nineteenth century, middle-class women were playing a more direct role in
the labour market.
We pointed to the necessity of taking account of the different
situations of middle-class women, both in terms of their marital status and of
their position in the socio-economic scale within that class. Clearly, the
widow of a rich businessman enjoyed greater wealth, status and influence
than a lower middle-class spinster. Nevertheless, certain features remain
constant. Middle-class women retained more economic independence than a
stereotypical view of the Victorian wife, spinster and widow would allow. We
have found little evidence that ‘surplus’ unmarried women, even among the
lower middle class, endured poverty in any way comparable to that of the
working class. At all census points, lone women outnumbered wives living
under the financial protection of their husband. They lived on inheritance
(from female as well as male relatives) and, increasingly, by their own
earnings. Many of these women with occupations and businesses were
single. They demonstrate that women could work within the parameters of a
gendered and limited labour market to achieve not only economic
independence but also a comfortable living which could support dependants.
Concentration on the plight of married women disadvantaged by the
law and on the genteel poverty of spinsters has tended to present a one-
sided view of Victorian middle-class women. Generally, they are seen as
809
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
having little or no economic role to play, and little or no financial
independence. Those who have acknowledged that women made an
economic contribution have claimed that it was ‘shadowy’ and largely
hidden. We have demonstrated that in Glasgow, there were considerable
numbers of widowed and single women with occupations, running
businesses and engaging directly in the market, and that whilst the
economic contribution of married women is less overt, they nevertheless had
a significant amount of independent wealth and influence. Women’s money
supported family firms; women were major investors in enterprises like the
railways. Some women ran successful small (or occasionally large)
businesses. Women owned property; they employed lawyers and
accountants; they administered large estates. There were, of course, legal
constraints upon the property rights of married (but not single) women, and
social constraints upon the economic freedom of all. But it was possible –
indeed common – to work within these constraints to achieve real economic
autonomy and influence. The middle-class women of Victorian Glasgow were
by no means without money, control of money, and the power that goes with
it and in this respect, there were strong continuities between them and their
eighteenth-century counterparts.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Anne Crowther for her helpful comments
on an earlier draft of this article, two anonymous referees for their
comments, and the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the
project on which these findings are based.
Notes
[1] Catherine Hall (1979) The Early Formation of Victorian Domestic Ideology,
in S. Burman (Ed.) Fit Work for Women (London: Croom Helm).
[2] Ibid.; C. Hall (1982) The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: the
shop and the family in the Industrial Revolution, in E. Whitelegg et al The
Changing Experience of Women (Oxford: Martin Robertson).
[3] L. Davidoff et al (1998) The Family Story (London: Longman); L. Davidoff &
C. Hall (1987) Family Fortunes, Men and Women of the English Middle
Classes, ch. 6 (London: Routledge).
[4] Eleanor Gordon (1991) Women and the Labour Movement in Scotland
(Oxford: Oxford University Press); A. John (Ed.) (1986) Unequal
Opportunities: women’s employment in England 1800–1918 (Oxford:
Blackwell); E. Higgs (1996) A Clearer Sense of the Census: Victorian
censuses and historical research (London: HMSO); J. Liddington & J. Norris
(1978) One Hand Tied Behind Us (London: Virago); E. Roberts (1988)
Women’s Work 1840–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
810
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
811
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
[21] P. Robertson (1986) Catherine Cranston, Journal of the Decorative Art
Society, 10, pp. 10–17.
[22] Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter.
[23] Davidoff & Hall, Family Fortunes, ch. 6.
[24] Census enumerator’s return, 1891.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Who’s Who in Glasgow 1901 (Glasgow, 1901).
[27] Nenadic, The Victorian Middle Classes, pp. 265–299, also makes this point.
[28] Valuation Rolls for Glasgow, 1861 and 1881.
[29] Post Office Directories, 1861 and 1881 and Valuation Rolls, 1861 and 1881.
[30] K. Burgess (1988) Did the Victorian Economy Fail? in A. O’Day (Ed.) Later
Victorian Britain 1867–1900, pp. 251–270 (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
[31] P. Payne (1984) Family Business in Britain: an historical and analytical
survey, in A. Okoschi & S. Yasuoka (Eds) Family Business in the Era of
Industrial Growth: its ownership and management (Tokyo: University of
Tokyo Press).
[32] C. Wilson (1965) Economy and Society in Late Victorian Britain, Economic
History Review, 18, pp. 183–198.
[33] P. Earle (1989) The Female Labour Market in London in the Later
Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries, Economic History Review,
XLII, pp. 328–353.
[34] E.H. Clive (1982) The Law of Husband and Wife in Scotland, pp. 260–261
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
[35] Ibid.
[36] Marriage contract, William Henry Houldsworth/Elizabeth Graham Crum,
Sederunt Book 1862–1925, Glasgow City Archives (hereafter GCA),
TD862/71.
[37] Ibid., p. 6.
[38] Marriage contract, Robert Orr Sawyer/Jessie Patrick White, Sederunt Book
1862–1903, GCA, T-MR/362.
[39] Marriage contract, Hugh McMaster Ewing/Constance Robertson Blackie,
1888–1921, GCA, TD1189/9.
[40] Story, Early Reminiscences, p. 4.
[41] Davidoff & Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 276.
[42] Ada Moore (1904) The Decayed Gentlewoman: an appeal to England’s
chivalry, Westminster Review.
[43] Davidoff & Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 285.
[44] Testament of Eliza Service Smith, Scottish Record Office, SC 36/51/86,
pp. 825–836.
[45] Glasgow Census Enumerators’ Returns, 1871.
[46] Glasgow Census Enumerators’ Returns, 1881.
812
MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN IN VICTORIAN GLASGOW
813
Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair
ELEANOR GORDON is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economic
and Social History, University of Glasgow, 4 University Gardens, Glasgow
G12 8QQ, United Kingdom (econeg@gla.ac.uk). She has researched
primarily in the area of nineteenth-century women’s history and has written
articles and co-edited two books on various aspects of women’s role in
nineteenth-century Scotland. Her major publication to date is Women and
the Labour Movement in Scotland, 1850–1914 (Oxford University Press,
1991) and she is co-authoring a book with Gwyneth Nair on middle-class
women in Victorian Glasgow.
814