Want the latest news from Swansea sent straight to your inbox? Don't miss anything from your city! Sign up for regular updates Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

On May 26, 1860, the Cardiff Times reported on a meeting called by the High Sheriff of Glamorgan to discuss the establishment of a “House of Refuge” to serve the so-called “fallen women” of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

Notables of local society, religious men and community leaders from all over South Wales attended this meeting where it was unanimously agreed that a home where “fallen women” could be retrained as domestic servants must be founded.

It was named the House of Mercy for South Wales and Monmouthshire and opened its doors in 1862 to reform young women in the South Wales area.

The House of Mercy was part of a wider movement all over Britain beginning in the late 18th century to establish institutions where “fallen women” were to be re-educated and reformed to suit the female gender roles of the day.

Ripe for reform?

“Fallen women” referred to women who had “lost their innocence” by engaging in sexual activity outside marriage. In the Victorian era respectability and female chastity were closely related and therefore women, and especially those who engaged in sex work, were considered ripe for reform.

The trend of founding such institutions was also a part of the wider reaction to the great social and economic changes under way in 19th- century Wales and Great Britain.

With the beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century, Wales had changed dramatically in a very short time.

The development of the iron industry and later the sinking of mines across the South Wales Coalfield led to huge changes in how people lived, worked and socialised. Industry drew people from the rural and farming areas of Wales to the booming industrial towns.

This resulted in a population explosion, especially in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire.

In this process of urbanisation, thousands of workers were lumped together in often poorly constructed and overcrowded slums, which lacked basic sanitary provisions.

Victorian upper classes bid to make a difference

Disease and infant mortality were rife, and along with atrocious working conditions and job insecurity, life for many of our working-class ancestors was hard.

The outbreak of numerous epidemics and political unrest in these regions created much anxiety among the upper classes in Victorian society. This led members of the middle and upper classes and religious people to unite to undertake projects to improve the aesthetics and moral fibre of local communities.

Philanthropy was a popular means for Victorians to become actively involved in the improvement of their towns’ streets.

It not only alleviated anxieties regarding the “wildness” of the working class, but also gave ambitious businessmen and professionals social status, enabling them to leave their mark on their community.

Philanthropic work was also central to the spirit of moral reform which characterised the Victorian age. This activity ranged greatly in nature, including attempts to reform “fallen women” and orphans and to “civilise” the working man.

Sex workers blamed for venereal disease

Sex work and in particular venereal disease began to cause concern among social and moral reformers in the mid-19th century. Following the Crimean War of the 1850s authorities began to believe that venereal disease in particular was undermining the health of British soldiers.

In the same period Dr William Acton published an influential book underlining the connection between sex work and the spread of such diseases, and suggesting that prostitutes should therefore be controlled. The connection illustrates the wider view in society that sex workers, rather than their male clients, were the source of the “pollution”.

In Wales the notorious 1847 Blue Books or The Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales also contributed to the reforming spirit. The report undertaken by largely non-Welsh- speaking and Anglican commissioners painted elements of Welsh culture, society and language in a negative light.

Welsh women 'immoral and promiscuous'

In particular Welsh women were characterised as immoral and promiscuous. In the backlash against these accusations the sexuality and reputation of Welsh women became a matter for public discourse and action.

With such reforming forces awake in Wales it is hardly surprising that the sex worker became a target for philanthropic work.

In this period prostitutes began to be considered as child-like victims who needed rescuing from their dreadful fate.

Earlier in the century sex workers had been incarcerated in state prisons along with other criminals. However, the fear developed that this would lead to them becoming further hardened to a life of crime and immorality.

The solution therefore was to establish separate institutions which were charged with the reform of “fallen women”.

The establishment and management of these reform institutions were very much the preserve of the middle and upper classes, with a mixture of religious and lay people founding, funding and overseeing the work undertaken there.

The home 'was deemed a woman's natural habitat'

Prominent individuals like the Baron Henry Hussey Vivian, of the wealthy Swansea industrialist Vivian family, and the Bishop of Llandaff supported the House of Mercy, in Cardiff. In a manner which very much reflected the prevailing gender roles of the time, men were involved in the public side of the work.

By contrast, prominent upper- and middle-class women on the “Ladies Associate” committee were involved with the daily running of the house. Such homes, run by the Church of England, tried to create a home-like atmosphere where Christian women would help rehabilitate the inmates.

In the Victorian era the home was deemed the natural habitat of women and such an environment was meant to provide a measure of comfort and support to inmates.

Feminist scholars such as Paula Bartley have also recognised that this environment also obscured the power relationships occurring within the institution.

Although mothers are kind and caring they also discipline and control the behaviour of their children. Therefore, the maternal approach to reform found in such institutions actually underlined the authority held over the inmates by the committees running them.

Older sex workers considered 'less savageable'

These institutions set out to reform and re-educate women who had, in the eyes of their upper-class benefactors, “fallen” from virtue.

However, not all women and sex workers were deemed appropriate for these institutions.

Age, for example, was a defining factor in admission. It was believed that older sex workers were less salvageable and more hardened to life on the streets.

It was feared, therefore, that they would be a bad influence on the younger girls. Most inmates were quite young, between the ages of 15 and 25.

Health also played a role in determining which women were admitted to a home. Residents would be expected to undertake physical labour in the home and, therefore, strong and healthy girls were favoured.

Most importantly inmates needed to show a genuine desire to change their lives and repent. The House of Mercy encountered difficulties with this element, judging by its second Annual Report.

It complained that women who seemed to show genuine contrition only stayed for a short term before returning to their previous ways of life.

'Domestic work seen as best way to train these so-called fallen women'

The everyday lives of the women living in the home, including the tasks they were required to undertake, were intended to convert them into what the upper- and middle-class managers and supporters of the institution considered to be “respectable” individuals.

Domestic work was seen as the best route to train these “fallen women” as good wives, mothers and daughters, while also ensuring that they did not rise above their expected rank in society.

Laundry work in particular was not only considered excellent training for domestic service, but also contributed financially to the running of the institution.

This is because institutions were paid for their laundry services by private homes. There was also a more symbolic element to the process of laundering. With cleanliness and godliness being closely related in Christianity, the washing and scrubbing of laundry represented the scrubbing away of previous sins and the cleansing of souls. The hard graft undertaken also served as a penance.

Along with a strict and structured daily routine of work, religious education also figured highly in inmates’ daily lives.

The first Annual Report of the House of Mercy in Cardiff details the shock of the committee concerning “the state of ignorance in which most of them seem to be... and [they] have even forgotten the Lord’s Prayer”.

'Job insecurity feeds ranks of prostitution'

Religious instruction often given by the ladies of the committee was therefore deemed to be a key aspect of the reform programme.

However, despite the good intentions of the committee and the managers of these institutions, the re-training of “fallen women” and their release into domestic service did not actually alleviate the problem.

In reality the job insecurity of domestic service actually fed the ranks of prostitution as women turned to vice out of financial desperation. Without realising, the philanthropists of the Victorian era were actually perpetuating the situation in which these women found themselves.

Although daily records and individual accounts of the women who passed through these institutions rarely survive we can gain some information about them from annual reports. It was recommended that women stay for a period of two years to complete the full reform programme.

However, the annual reports of the House of Mercy regularly document women either requesting to leave early or being thrown out for bad behaviour. This can be seen as evidence of resistance to the moral reform and surveillance the women inmates experienced.

It also shows us that some women objected to being labelled “sinners” and “fallen women”.

Day trips were treats but fairs - 'a potential source of immorality' - were avoided

From the records of an institution in Swansea run by Anglican nuns we can gain some information on the backgrounds of the women there. Most inmates came from the lower classes and many were perceived as coming from difficult homes.

One report at the Swansea home in 1910 stated: “A young girl of 16 years begged a lad who is in close touch with the work to send her to the House of Mercy to save her from her mother who wished her to lead an immoral life. Another girl of 17 years of age came shortly after and made the same request, as her mother was drunken and immoral.”

In a similar situation to the Cardiff House of Mercy the nuns at the Swansea home were to provide a new home for the inmates and took on the role of mothers to them.

Life in these homes did not consist solely of a routine of work and religious education. Sometimes inmates were taken on day-trips as treats. The House of Mercy in Swansea’s annual reports features trips to the seaside followed by tea at the homes of associates at the house.

Again, even these treats were a means of encouraging in the women respectable middle-class behaviour. Outings to amusements, such as fairs, were avoided because they were seen as a potential source of immorality.

A clear case of double standards

It is difficult to assess the success or failure of such institutions because of the limited sources of information available to us. We can, however, recognise that they were attempts to control and civilise working-class behaviour.

They also provide us with evidence of a double standard in their perception of prostitution and the “fall” of women as solely female problems. There is never talk of how the men involved in the “fall” of these women might also have been “dealt” with.

WHO IS ARDDUN HEDYYD ARWYN?

Since 2013 I have been a lecturer in modern history in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University.

I studied for a BA and MA in European History, specialising in Germany, at Aberystwyth University and completed my PhD thesis on the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after the Second World War in 2013.

After working as a research assistant on the AHRC-funded project “European Travellers to Wales 1750-2010” for Bangor University I returned to Aberystwyth to take up a lectureship in Modern History.

My research and teaching interests include: refugee narratives and memories of flight and expulsion, connections between Wales and Europe and memory and historical cultures in modern Germany and Wales.

@history aber

* This article was first published during the Western Mail's Welsh History Month 2017.