MARTHA HOGSFLESH

Subject Name:
Martha Hogsflesh
(b1852 – d1913)

Researcher:  Viv Bennett

Martha Maria Hogsflesh, almost certainly affected from birth by a severe mental disability, nevertheless was a survivor, being the only one of her parents’ five children to reach adulthood.
Martha’s parents Thomas Hogsflesh, a bricklayer, and Ann Govett, were married in 1844 in St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London (1).

The year before Martha’s birth, Thomas and Ann Hogsflesh were listed in the 1851 Census living in High Street, Godalming (2). Thomas, age 33, born in Liss, Hampshire, was a beer retailer.  An 1855 Post Office Directory of Godalming listed him as a baker as well (3).  His wife Ann, 32, was born in Somerset.  Business was probably fair as they had one servant, but they also had two lodgers to supplement their income.

Martha Maria was born in Godalming on 20^th February 1852 with her father Thomas noted this time as a bricklayer (4).  She was baptised at Godalming’s St Peter and St Paul Church on 14^th March (5). 

Martha was Ann and Thomas’s fourth child.  Sadly, all their previous three children had died before she was born.
Thomas Govett Hogsflesh was born in St Luke, Chelsea in 1845.  He died age four in February 1850 and was buried in Godalming (6).

William, born in 1848 in Farnborough, now in Hampshire, died very shortly after his birth (7).  Mary Ann was born in Godalming in 1850.  She died age 10 weeks in June 1850, and was buried at the St Peter & St Paul Church just four months after her brother Thomas (8).  

After Martha’s birth in 1852, Thomas and Ann had a further daughter in the summer of 1855 with the birth of Mary (9).  However, just a few months later, Martha and Mary’s father Thomas died age only 38, at High Street, Godalming.  He was buried on 2^nd December 1855 at the St Peter & Paul Church (10).  Martha, still only four years old, then lost her only sibling when Mary passed away a year later just before Christmas 1856, age 18 months (11).

Martha’s mother Ann must have been devastated.  Now in her mid-thirties, with just Martha left of her family and with probably no regular income, it’s likely she would have been keen to remarry.  This appeared to have happened, as the 1861 Census showed that Ann and Martha were still living in Godalming High Street but were now with William Voller, a 33-year-old baker and beer retailer, who would no doubt have been known to Ann’s late husband Thomas (12).  This Census showed Ann as “Ann Voller, wife, age 38, born Wiveliscombe, Somerset”.  However, she may not have actually been his wife.  William Voller had married Ann Hammond back in 1852 (13), but no records have been found to show that his first wife had died nor is there any traceable marriage record for Martha’s mother to William either.  Martha, age seven, scholar, was noted as “daughter-in-law” i.e. stepdaughter of William.  Two-year-old William, child of Martha’s mother Ann and stepfather William, completed the household (14).

Martha was 16 when her mother Ann died at home on 14^th July 1868, age 49, from heart disease and dropsy (15) and was buried three days later at the Nightingale Cemetery, Godalming (16).

One of the early official records to indicate that someone had a disability was the 1871 Census.  Although this section in the Census was left blank by the enumerator, the entry for Martha showed her to be age 18 – she was actually 19 – and a “scholar” with no employment noted (17).  Inaccurate as this was, it hints that all was not well with Martha.  It did show that she was still living with her 43-year-old stepfather William Voller and half-brother William, 12, in High Street, Godalming.

Martha’s stepfather William died in November 1877 age 50 (18). There are no records to show when she entered the Guildford Union Workhouse, but Martha was an inmate there at the time of the 1881 Census (19).  The death of her stepfather would have left Martha with no one in a position to care for, so it is very likely that she entered the workhouse either upon William’s death, or even before.  Age 28, she was noted as an unmarried domestic servant born in Godalming.  Again, no mention is made of any disability.

Over eight years passed until Martha, age 37, was admitted to the Brookwood Asylum from the Guildford Union on 7^th June 1889 where she had been a ‘patient’ (20, 21, 22).  Mr. Portsmouth of the Guildford Union wrote the following stark assessment: ‘I have known Martha Hogsflesh for many years as an imbecile. She is incapable of occupation or conversation, cannot answer questions correctly, neither has she the intelligence beyond that of an imbecile from birth’.  This was the first time Martha’s mental condition had been spelt out in documents.  She had no known relatives.

The Matron of the Workhouse had told Mr Portsmouth that Martha had been in the habit of ‘undressing herself during the day’, and getting up at night and “pulling the clothes off other inmates in the ward, putting her hands over their mouths”.  The catalyst for Martha’s move seems to have been that she “had knocked down Charlotte Risbridge on June 5^th 1889 and put her fingers on her throat”.

The Brookwood admission notes gave the most detailed, if unflattering, description of Martha so far.  However, she seemed to be capable of understanding questions, as “she nods her head or shakes it as she wishes to signify yes or no”.  Martha had ‘been in the union for years but latterly become unmanageable’, was in ‘fair health’, ‘but short with an imbecile appearance’.

In the context of the time, the words to describe Martha’s condition were not seen as derogatory. The Victorians used these terms to classify various degrees of mental disability.  An ‘imbecile’ was assessed as having an intelligence that did not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years, while an ‘idiot’ had the mental age of a child not beyond age two (23). However, families did hide details of what could be seen as ‘shameful’ conditions, so perhaps this was why Martha was never classified with a disability in the censuses.

Martha’s next assessment carried out three days after her admission to Brookwood noted that she was “quiet and well behaved…and does as she is told” and by late July, her report said she was “usefully employed in routine duties”.  By September, she was entrusted with needlework, and continued in much the same way without any major problems for the next two years.

With no recurrence of any of the incidents reported before her admission, and ‘capable of a good deal of useful employment’, it was felt that Martha would be able to return to the workhouse, a much cheaper option for the Union.  She left Brookwood on 25^th July 1891.

Unfortunately, her return to the Guildford Union was not a success.  On 17^th August 1892, Martha, age 40, was readmitted to Brookwood Asylum after a Union inmate had reported to assistant that “Martha had attacked her and severely scratched her face” (24, 25).  The Matron added that Martha “constantly throws articles about and lies down on the floor and pulls her clothes up over her head and exposes herself”.  This time on admission Martha was said to be ‘suffering from dementia’, and her health was “fair”.

Despite the disturbing behaviour in the Workhouse, Martha instantly returned to how she had been in Brookwood the first time. She was quiet on her first night after readmission, and remarkably, the following morning, was “usefully employed in needlework”.  Further reports over the coming months continued to say that there was “no change” and that she “works well and gives no trouble”.  Although at times “morose & obstinate”, she was clearly much happier there.

A year later, though, on 2^nd August 1893, Martha, now 41, was ‘re-certified to the Commission of Lunacy as an idiot, incapable of conversing, excited, noisy and troublesome at times’.  The Commission was a public body which oversaw asylums and the welfare of their patients (26). This assessment showed that Martha was regressing and as the years went by, her mental condition further worsened.  By July 1897, she was deemed “not capable of any employment”.

As the 19^th Century drew to a close, the authorities realised that Brookwood was becoming full and required expansion, so Martha was transferred on 17^th December 1899 to the Barnwood House County Lunatic Asylum, Gloucester (25, 27). She remained there until 28^th August 1901, when she was moved to the County of Bristol Asylum, Stapleton, Bristol (28), before being returned to Brookwood on 28^th May 1903 (25). Ellen Gill, who was in the workhouse with Ellen from at least 1881, was one of five other patients to undertake these moves with Martha.

This was not the end of her travels, as 53-year-old Martha was one of 60 pauper patients moved to Littlemore Hospital, Oxford on 24^th August 1906 (29, 30), before she was returned to Brookwood for the final time on 23^rd July 1907 (29). 

In 1909 the Chronic Patients’ casebook described Martha as a “congenital idiot, quite helpless but in general good health” (31).

For over five years, there was little or no change in her condition until 26^th March 1913 when she was admitted to Brookwood’s infirmary at the Asylum.  She died the following day at 4.30pm, age 61, from uraemia (kidney disease) (31).

Although public records can never tell the full story, it seems that Martha had been loved and cared for by her family and then her stepfather.  The discipline of workhouse life maybe was not for her, but her time in the Brookwood Asylum, where she was to spend over a quarter of her life, clearly suited Martha better.
 

November 2019
Updated November 2022

References