Gaskell Society Journals

 

Gaskell’s knowledge of the poor and slum communities in Manchester.

Gaskell Society Journal Articles

Robert Poole, ‘A Poor Man I Know’ – Samuel Bamford and the making of Mary Barton’, The Gaskell Journal, vol.22, (2008), pp.98 – 117.

‘Nobody and nothing was real… in M Barton but the character of John Barton; the circumstances are different, but the character and some of the speeches, are exactly a poor man I know.’

This article was mostly about the depiction of Samuel Bamford in Gaskell’s work, which would need a separate area of research as he was an important figure in the representation of the working classes on a whole. However, the quote around John Barton being based on a real man is important and will help not in the slum analysis but in the opium research.

Alan Shelston, ‘Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester’, The Gaskell Society Journal, vol.3, (1989), pp.46-67.

‘If we read her Manchester fiction, and in particular the early stories and Mary Barton – North and South is a rather different case – we get a very different ‘Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester’. What we get there, of course, is the Manchester of the courts and alleys that no longer appear in the guidebooks, and that indeed have disappeared altogether. The names remain: Green Heys, Ancoats, Ardwick Green; Shore Street, which runs up by London Road, now Piccadilly, Station, and London Road itself, to which John Barton hurried to find a druggist’s shop where he could buy relief for the suffering workman.’

Preface of Mary Barton, ‘I bethought me how deep might be the romance in the lives of some of those who elbowed me daily in the busy streets of the town where I resided. I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men, who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternations between work and want.’ Gaskell’s reason as to why she chose to document the lives of the working classes that many of her contemporaries ignored.

Gaskell and Engels ‘There is no record of their ever having met although it’s worth remembering that Elizabeth Gaskell had an entrée to the German community, amongst whom Engels spent his time, via her friends the Salis Schwabes.’ P.50

De Tocqueville’s description of Manchester, a travel writer who visited for seven days in 1835.

‘Everything in the exterior appearance of the city attests the individual powers of man; nothing the directing power of society. At every turn human liberty shows its capricious creative force. There is no trace of the slow continuous action of government.’ – link to lack of parliamentary representation of the north. ‘The wretched dwellings of the poor are scattered haphazard around them… Heaps of dung, rubble from buildings, putrid, stagnant pools are found here and there amongst the houses and over the bumpy, pitted surfaces of the public places. Amid this noisome labyrinth from time to time one is astonished at the sight of fine stone buildings with Corinthian columns… But who could describe the interiors of those quarters set apart, home of vice and poverty, which surround the huge palaces of industry and clasp them in their hideous folds?’

‘The Dickens city is one, which, like the city of Elizabeth Gaskell, is known from the inside; he too, in novels like Oliver Twist and the later Bleak House, identifies the familiar landmarks and the less familiar street names to authenticate the experience he describes.’ Gaskell provides evidence of her knowledge of the poorer communities through naming the streets and locations of the slums. ‘After the opening day’s outing in Green Heys Fields the families return across the city, first to the Barton home in ‘Barber Street’ which, since it lies between Green Heys and Ancoats where the Wilsons are ultimately bound, must have been, one suspects, somewhere in the cluster of working-class dwellings at the back of Oxford Road.’

‘The Davenports, the poor cellar-dwellers, live in Berry Street, an unpaved street off Shore Street; to obtain money for their relief John Barton visits a pawn-shop in the London Road.’

The contrast of the Davenports and the Carson’s living conditions. Carson is Davenports employer, Wilson approaches Mr. Carson to ask for help with Davenport’s condition and his family. ‘Gaskell deliberately takes her time to show the life-style contrast to what we have seen earlier. Carson’s ‘is a good house, and furnished with disregard to the expense’ but it is certainly not gratuitously self-indulgent; ‘there was much taste shown, and many articles chosen for their beauty and elegance adorned his rooms.’ ‘Gaskell is not critical of the life-style as such; it would indeed have been familiar to her from her acquaintance with the Manchester business and cultural scene.’ Could highlight Gaskell’s chosen ignorance.

Description of Barton’s home, typical for the majority of working-class families.

‘The room was tolerably large, and possessed many conveniences. On the right of the door, as you entered, was a longish window, with a broad ledge. On each side of this hung blue-and-white check curtains, which were now drawn, to shut in the friends met to enjoy themselves. Two geraniums, unpruned and leafy, which stood on the sill, formed a further defence from out-door pryers. In the corner between the window and the fire-side was a cupboard, apparently full of plate and dishes, cups and saucers, and some more non-descript articles, for which their possessors could find no use – such as triangular pieces of glass to save carving knifes and forks from dirtying table-cloths…. On the opposite side to the window was the staircase, and two doors; one of which (nearest to the fire) led into a sort of little back kitchen, where dirty work, such as washing up dishes, might be done, and whose shelves served as larder, and pantry, and storeroom, and all.’ ‘Elizabeth Gaskell, like many middle-class novelists, can be seen to sentimentalise the concept of working-class community, particularly by imposing upon it her own standards of family morality, but there can be no doubting the accuracy of her record of individual circumstances in cases like those of the Barton or the Wilson households.’

Summary

Gaskell gathered her information in depth and was evidently well immersed in the culture of working-class communities in Manchester. However, her middle-class beliefs restrain her from being fully truthful in the depiction of the families living conditions.

 

The Gaskell Society, Newsletter, 2021, accessed 6 July 2022