{"id":1938,"date":"2021-10-10T11:19:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T11:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:24:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:24:55","slug":"sleeping-arrangements-dead-unnoticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/10\/sleeping-arrangements-dead-unnoticed\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead but no one noticed: sleeping arrangements 1800s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sleeping arrangements in bygone times could see servants sharing a bed with their employer. As this curious 1835 inquest hearing records.<\/p>\n

‘Suicide not noticed for 16 hours by woman sleeping next to her’<\/h2>\n

Court cases, including inquests, from the 1800s don\u2019t just give an idea of individual\u2019s (often tragic) lives, they are also interesting from a social history point of view.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One aspect of life that may surprise modern readers is sleeping arrangements. We can imagine that where large families were crammed into small homes in industrial towns and cities, that the children had to share a bed. But it went beyond that \u2013 and in rural areas too, living space was at a premium.<\/p>\n

As this tragedy from 1835 illustrates \u2013 along with a lot more.<\/p>\n

(Starting with the fact that despite the above header, newspapers in the 1830s didn’t have headlines as we know them today).<\/p>\n

\u2018Melancholy and extraordinary affair\u2019<\/h2>\n

An inquest was held in the Cumbrian hamlet of Bolton Wood Lane early in November 1835, on the heavily pregnant body of domestic servant Ann Stewart, who was just 21 years old.<\/p>\n

Poor Ann had taken arsenic \u2018when in a state of temporary derangement\u2019 (as the inquest verdict put it. Suicide may have been criminal offence (you can read more about attitudes to suicide down the centuries in this post<\/a>), and Ann Stewart had ended two lives by her act. But the sympathy of the inquest jurors and coroner William Carrick were firmly with Ann Stewart and against the family she served.<\/p>\n

Ann Stewart took the arsenic on a Sunday evening and would have died pretty soon afterwards. But no one in the household noticed for about 14-16 hours \u2013 despite the fact she was sharing a bed all that time with her seducer\u2019s mother. The sleeping arrangements weren’t questioned at the inquest, so were presumably not considered unusual.<\/p>\n

There were five people sharing the house at Bolton Wood Lane. Head of the household was John Porter. Also living there were his mother, aged \u2018about 60\u2019, a man servant, a \u2018parish boy,\u2019 and Ann Stewart.<\/p>\n

Parish boys \u2013 think Oliver Twist<\/h2>\n

The full title of Charles Dicken\u2019s famous novel helps explain what a parish boy was: \u2018Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy\u2019s Progress\u2019. The unnamed lad in question was simply an orphan who had been in the care of the local church (parish).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to the Porter household<\/b><\/h2>\n

The inquest report tells us that John Porter\u2019s unnamed mother<\/p>\n

spends the greater part of her time in bed and is much addicted to drinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Porter seems to have liked a drink or three as well, but in the local pub. Whether Ann Stewart was in love with him, we will never know. But as she was \u2018in her usual health and spirits\u2019 on the Sunday afternoon, the relationship with her employer would seem to have been consensual.<\/p>\n

It was only after following him out of the house that evening that her mood changed. Someone \u2013 either the man servant, the parish boy, or both, noted she was then \u2018very dull and dejected.\u2019<\/p>\n

Had John just rejected her, said he wouldn\u2019t marry her? Had he said something to make her fear what would become of her and the baby?<\/p>\n

The sleeping arrangements<\/b><\/h2>\n

At about 10 o\u2019clock on the Sunday evening, Ann Stewart was heard retching and vomiting in her master\u2019s bedroom. When John Porter came home, between one and two on the Monday morning,\u00a0 <\/span>he went to his room. She \u2018desired him to go out\u2019. And he immediately went to the adjoining room and slept with the man and boy.<\/p>\n

What Ann Stewart did for the next hour isn\u2019t clear, but about about 3am, she went downstairs to the parlour<\/p>\n

in which she usually slept with her master\u2019s mother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dead, and no one noticed<\/h2>\n

At about 9am on the Monday, the parish boy took Mrs Porter her breakfast in bed. He spoke to Ann Stewart, took her silence to mean she was asleep\u2026 and that was that. He took Mrs Porter food and drink in bed several times during the day, but neither he, nor Mrs Porter noticed that poor Ann was dead. John Porter, meanwhile, lay in bed till the afternoon \u2013 till he got up and went to the nearby pub. Ann was heavily pregnant with his child, and had been horribly sick in his bedroom the night before, but he didn\u2019t show any interest in her at all. Till around 5pm-6pm, when the parish boy finally realised that Ann was dead and John Porter, still in the pub, was notified.<\/p>\n

Mrs Porter was<\/p>\n

\u2018either too drunk, or too stupified to notice the condition of her unfortunate bed-fellow\u2019.<\/p>\n

Who was Ann Stewart?<\/h2>\n

An Ann Stewart was baptised in 1814 in Carlisle, to a William and Esther. There\u2019s a William (ag lab) and Esther in Brisco in 1841, in their 60s, with perhaps granddaughters, Elizabeth 11 and Sarah, 1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who was John Porter?<\/h2>\n

There is a John Porter on the 1841 census\u00a0 <\/span>Bolton Wood Lane. He is 30, so born about 1811 \u2013 and he\u2019d have been 25 to Ann\u2019s 21 when she died. He is living on his own, \u2018of independent means\u2019. With no clue as to his mother\u2019s Christian name, there is no way to find her: perhaps her sad life of laying in bed and drinking heavily had taken its toll by then.<\/p>\n

(A much-older John Porter, yeoman, of Bolton Wood End, died in 1824, but if John was his grandson, he didn\u2019t leave him anything).<\/p>\n

In 1851, he is still in Bolton Wood Lane \u2013 \u2018landed proprietor\u2019 \u2013 lodging with a young farmer and his household. And after? Who knows? He was still single at 40, having lost his chance of marriage and fatherhood by whatever happened when poor Ann Stewart followed him out into the night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not THAT John Porter<\/h2>\n

Looking for John Porter, I noticed a John Porter, innkeeper, at Red Dial \u2013 but soon realised it couldn\u2019t be him. Back in 1835, the honest innkeeper also found himself mistaken for Ann\u2019s lover \u2013 and wrote to the Carlisle newspapers to make it clear he was not only NOT John Porter of Bolton Wood Lane, he was in no way related or connected to him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sleeping arrangements in bygone times could see servants sharing a bed with their employer. As this curious 1835 inquest hearing records. ‘Suicide not noticed for 16 hours by woman sleeping next to her’ Court cases, including inquests, from the 1800s don\u2019t just give an idea of individual\u2019s (often tragic) lives, they are also interesting from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[362,106,390],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-history","tag-arsenic","tag-inquests","tag-parish-boys"],"yoast_head":"\nDead but no one noticed: sleeping arrangements 1800s - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sleeping arrangements in bygone times could see servants sharing a bed with their employer. 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