Victorian Kelso
This week saw a visit from Edenside Primary School in Kelso, who are studying the Victorians this term. They examined the school reports for the “Ragged School” for poor children and the log book for Kelso North Public School, to find out what school life was like for the different social classes in Victorian times. They also discovered some unsavoury details about public health! In 1847 there were open sewers running down Roxburgh Street, and houses all over Kelso had dunghills in their backyards, some piling up to the eaves of the roofs. Pigs were kept in barrels behind houses, and the narrow closes between houses were filled with waste. In one case newts were observed crawling from the privy waste of one house into the house next door. The pupils discussed these real-life examples of danger to public health, and came up with potential solutions to the problems. These included selling the dung to farmers to use as manure on their fields, knocking down houses to let more light and air in, and organising community rubbish clear-outs. However one group thought it might be best to import a large quantity of dung-beetles to deal with all the dung-hills!
Image: Reading the log book entries for Kelso North Public School.
Lastly, the class read an extract from the diary of Hannah Charlotte Scott Douglas, a rich young lady who lived just outside Kelso at Sunlaws. On 26 June 1857 Charlotte was a spectator at Hyde Park watching Queen Victoria present the first Victoria Crosses to the Crimean War heroes. She wrote her impressions of the day down in her diary, including a description of Queen Victoria herself:
“The Queen was on horseback, in military attire; - scarlet jacket, hat & feather, &c. I did not admire her appearance, individually, as she is too dumpy to ride, and the costume was not becoming, but it was a pretty and affecting sight to see her going down the lines, inspecting the troops & being saluted …”
The class then looked at an official painting of the event by the artist George Houseman Thomas, in which - surprise, suprise - Queen Victoria is seen not as dumpy but beautiful, young and slender. As the pupils commented, an early example of air-brushing!
Permission to use an image of the painting was kindly provided by the Royal Collection. You can see it here: http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?maker=12605&object=916806&row=4. You can read more of Charlotte’s diary at our website www.voyageofthevampire.org.uk/mysister.
Posted by: Sarah
