Genealogy Chat

be an inmate in a penitentiary in 1861, a long way from home?

After some masochist late last night told us that the 1861 census is on Ancestry, I put in gr grandmothers name & came up with York St Mary Bishophill Junior Penitentiary, Inmate. Does anyone have any idea why a 16 year old would be in a penitentiary ? Under occupation it says laundry maid. Vivienne

Vivienne There were numerous 'sins' a young girl could commit in 1861, from murder at the top, down to being of no fixed abode. She could have been out of work and begging - a crime. She could have been in work and accused, rightly or wrongly, of some petty theft. Really, its anybody's guess - she broke the Law, but which Law? Can you find the records, or a court case? Marjorie

Hi thanks for reply I had a look on A2A but could only find reference to architecture in relation to Bishophill. I was hoping someone on here might know something of this place. I wondered if she might have been pregnant. Vivienne

Hi Vivienne St Mary Bishophill Junior is one of the Parishes within the City of York. The gaol was built round the castle (still there as Clifford's Tower, surrounded by the earliest part of the gaol and court buildings). Regards Stan

Vivienne I think by 1861 they had stopped sending women to prison because they were pregnant - she would more likely have been sent to the workhouse for that. But I could be wrong! Marjorie

Thanks for that Stan, I think a trip to York may be on the cards at some time. My gr grandmother was the youngest of all the girls in there. The next place down on the census is Bishophill Boarding School. Would this have been Catholic do you know? Vivienne

Hi Marjorie The reason I was wondering that was because in A2A when I put in Bishophill Pen. it came up with charities & I wondered if it was an odd name for a Catholic home for fallen women. I don't find A2A easy to negotiate so there may be more that I'm not finding. Vivienne Going to bed now, will check for any more info in the morning. Night, Night Vivienne

Vivienne, Playing Devil's advocate here - could she have been employed as a laundry maid at the institution, and 'lived in' - hence 'inmate'. maggie

Hi Vivienne The parish of St Mary Bishophill Junior is on the south west side of York, and I don't think it includes the Castle area. Are you sure she was not working in an infirmary or workhouse? Both have lists with inmates, including those working there who live in. Maggie could be right. Regards Stan

Good Morning, Marjorie & Stan Thanks for giving me hope that gt gran was not on the other side of the law. If that was the case would all the laundry maids come from different parts of the country? My gt gran was born in Essex & on the same page are 5 from Yorkshire, 2 from Lancashire, 1 from Norfolk, 1 from Lincolnshire. The Head of the house was from Norfolk & her daughter from Bermondsey. The only other on the page is a 55 year old servant. This is a mystery I think it will take a while to solve. Thanks for your input Vivienne

Hi Vivienne did you find this when you googled, it doesn't sound like anything but a charity home reading this no mention of it being a jail achief endowment of St. Mary's, Bishophill, Junior parish in 1825 comprised property, on which stood the Coach and Horses Inn, left by Richard Pickard for the poor at an unknown date. Of the net annual rent of about £20 (Footnote 26) only about £15 was customarily spent on the poor dole, so that there was a credit balance of £181 in 1907, when £130 was invested in stock. In 1902 the property was repaired and the rent raised to £70. The inn and lands were sold in 1945, and the proceeds invested, with accumulated funds, in £4,541 stock from which, in 1955, the trustees drew an income of £142 11s. In 1647 George Abbot left a charge of £5 yearly on land at Cornborough (N.R.) to maintain a school for teaching boys and girls of the parish to read English, and 30s. yearly for schoolbooks. Any surplus from the fund was to be 'bestowed in Bibles to such poor people as would not embezzle them'. There does not appear to have been a permanent schoolhouse. In 1825 ten children were being taught by a mistress, (Footnote 27) but the payment was allowed to lapse after 1871, and was not again recovered until 1906. In 1844 the parish received £200 for coal for the poor, the bequest of Dr. Stephen Beckwith. Smaller bequests for the poor included £20 left by Peregrine Lascelles in 1768 (Footnote 28) and £50 stock left by Henry Watson in 1875. All the parish charities, including those of Middleton, (Footnote 29) Dodsworth, (Footnote 30) and Wright, (Footnote 31) described elsewhere, were consolidated in 1907 by a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners which established four pensions of not less than 5s. a week, and laid down that the surplus should be applied for the general benefit of the poor, including subscriptions to medical institutions, provident societies, the provision of nursing, and relief in kind or cash. St. Mary's, Castlegate From: 'Charities', A History of the County of Yorkshire: the City of York (1961), pp. 420-40. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36379. Date accessed: 30 April 2005. GeneWeaver (For PC) A brand new tool for creating and maintaining your family¹s health histort all hope this helps regards Lara

HI Lara, That does sound more like what I thought it was. As I said earlier, I saw something about charity but at 1am I was a bit too tired to take it all in. Hopefully my local library will have or be able to get a copy of the publication mentioned. Thank you so much for looking for me, I'm not very good with A2A or other very wordy sites. the words all tend to run into each other after a while. Vivienne

I too was of the opinion that she was a living-in laundry maid, seeing as there were so many on the same page I am 99% sure now that that is the case either that or all the laundrymaids in England were up to no good

Hi Vivienne I've had a look at the actual images now. It is a female penitentiary. There are only ten inmates. Eight are laundry maids, one a cook and one a house maid. Since one of the staff is the laundress, I think that means that they work in the laundry, not that they all were laundry maids first. As they are all 16 to 19, I think this must be an early attempt to treat young female offenders differently. The work would be better than picking oakum or the like, which men and boys had to do. Regards Stan

Hi, If the admissions books still survive they will be held at the county record office. Her admission will record the reason for her being there which will allow you to track down her trial. There may also be a physical description. Gwynne

Thanks Stan & Gwynne, I guess the next step is to email the county record office. If I get any joy I'll let you know Vivienne