Could Mary Jane Read or Write?

Thanks Janie and Don and Mike for addressing my query on her ability to read English based on Barnett's portrayal of their life together, I recall my mother knitting after diner while my father read her the paper occasionally myself.

I am still curious about the second question....would it be common to find that people who cant write, read? Or vice versa. In terms of literacy in the LVP or even 2009 for that matter... are reading and writing somewhat conjoined? Are you apt to find both or neither... or just as often... only 1 of the 2 abilities?

I havent studied Illiteracy so I realize that may seem a naive question....but its seems to me as a layman that they would most often be either equally absent or present.... like interdependant skills.

Best regards folks.

[Chava]

Everything we know about Barnett's life with Kelly, we know from Barnett's account. I have no wish to intrude upon a domestic idyll, but I have to point out that it was in Barnett's best interest to describe as happy, tranquil and domestic a life as possible. This is not to say that I believe Kelly was illiterate. I don't know whether she was or was not. The exploits of the Ripper were described in the tabloids and I'm pretty sure people would have gathered to hear them read aloud in the court as and when people got hold of newspapers, in the same way people stood in the streets outside tv stores in the old days and watched the programs.

[Mitch Rowe]

We are all the same.

If you want to know what the people were like at that time just look to your own neighborhood. Or better yet. Look to the trailer park down the street. The types of people and couples living there are the same no matter where you live or what time you live in.

[Mr.Hyde]

1891 census could be of help.If she shows up it would disprove.

[Roy Corduroy]

Pardon me in advance if this has been addressed. In the 1881 Census was this entry: Whitechapel Infirmary - Mary Kelly, 23 born Whitechapel, occupation Prostitute

Mr. Hyde said this: Mary Ann Kelly born 27th, April,1859 Christened 22nd.May,1859 at Saint Leonards, Shoreditch Mother, Emma. Father, John Kelly.

Can we prove OR disprove -
(a) the person born 1859 was same person as in the 1881 census?
(b) The murder victim Mary Kelly was the same as either/both of these entries?

Roy

[Mike Covell]

On occasion I read to my wife, she can read, and had a good education, but if she has had a tough day, or is busy, she will ask me to read. More often than not this is from the newspaper, usually from local reports that feature me! But in the past I have sat and read out lengthy tomes to her, and her to me.

The only source we have, that Barnett read to Kelly, was from Barnett himself, so we are just assuming he actually read the papers to her.

[Supe]

The business about Mary not being able to read because Joe read to her of an evening comes up every few months yet, as Jane just explained it was the normal way of spending an evening from paleolithic times, when someone would tell stories around a fire, up until phonographs, radios, televisions and so on intruded upon domestic life.

As it is, there are examples of this throughout Victorian literature; a scene in Great Expectations immediately comes to mind. For that matter, there is an interesting letter in Evans and Rumbelow's Scotland Yard Investigates in which a woman in Staffordshire wrote to the police: While sitting sewing and listening to my husband reading the London atrocities last evening a renewed and strong Presentiment came to my mind . . .

If that woman could write a letter and use "presentiment" then she was obviously quite literate, yet as in countless other households in England, far less the world, she was being read to of an evening.

We don't know whether Mary Jane Kelly was literate or not, but to suggest she was not because she did what was normal for the time is to take a markedly ahistorical view of events.

Don.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Michael,

Unfortunately we can't even be sure that she ever went to France - as you know the only information we have about her earlier life was from Joe and for all we know Mary was telling fanciful fibs to make herself look more colourful, which might have included using the name Marie Jeanette. I doubt we'll ever know if she was telling the truth. Basically it's how long is a bit of string, when it comes to anything in Mary's past.

I don't think we can even say that she couldn't read English, although of course it's possible she couldn't. There are other valid reasons that Mary might have asked Joe to read to her:

She was short sighted and couldn't afford or wouldn't wear glasses

There was only one candle in the room (good evidence for that) and Joe liked to read the paper and needed to be beside it, so Mary asked him to read out anything interesting.

Or Mary just liked Joe reading to her, because it was an established bond of affection back in the LVP, when dad would read to the rest of the family as a matter of routine. The LVP equivalent of sitting round the telly watching East Enders.

Usually reading and writing went together as far as I know, as the school system at that time insisted on the 3 R's (although God knows how anyone was supposed to learn anything when Arithmetic was given the initial 'R')

When I was a kid, I knew several older Irish women and they were all fairly literate. One of them were about eighty in 1960, which means she was probably educated in the LVP in Ireland and she learnt to read and write at Sunday school, using Bible story books. If they did particularly well, they were rewarded with a little postcard of a Bible scene or a die cut scrap of a Bible character to put in their Bible.

As a Catholic, it would seem quite likely that Mary went to Sunday school and if she did go, she would certainly have learnt to read and write as that was their secondary task, after teaching the children the catechism.

There are an awful lot of if's and but's with Mary aren't there!

Much love

Jane

xxxxx

Does anyone know if she learned any French either before or during her brief sojourn there as a "consort" I suppose? She did affect the "Marie-Jeanette" bit it appears.

We know that Barnett read the news to her....so it would seem at least reading English is missing from her skill sets. How often would the level of ability to read or write be interconnected...meaning how often would we find people with only one of those 2 skills?

Im asking, not baiting... ...any knowledgeable input welcome.

Best regards all.

[Sam Flynn]

Gareth, that's horrible! I wonder if similar atrocities took place in Ireland or northern Scotland amongst Gaelic-speaking children. They were so inflexible in those days--must speak English only; must write with the right hand only...

It wouldn't surprise me, Chava.

[Sam Flynn]

He should have saved his scathing remarks for the imagination shown by his parents:

"Well Mr and Mrs Williams, what are you going to call this little bundle of joy then?"

"We thought William would go quite nicely."

I suppose we should spare a thought for the offspring of Mr and Mrs Pattercake, who owned the bakery next door.

Nice one, Caz - missed it the first time round! For info, people named "William Williams" often attracted the local nickname of "Billy Twice"

Thinks: perhaps there's a hint about the origin of "Johnto" ["John Two", as in "John (Kelly) the Second"?] there.

[Chava]

Gareth, that's horrible! I wonder if similar atrocities took place in Ireland or northern Scotland amongst Gaelic-speaking children. They were so inflexible in those days--must speak English only; must write with the right hand only...

[truebluedub]

If she was a Catholic then isn't possible she may have been thought to read by some one trying to proselytize her? I don't know if it was the done thing in Wales but it was definitely the done thing in Ireland. For example the ghost story writer J.S. Le Fanu had a sister who tried to teach literacy in Gaelic in Abington, Co. Limerick.

Chris Lowe

[caz]

However, a Coventry MP named William Williams (ironically he was born in Wales, albeit Anglicised Monmouthshire) made some scathing remarks about the Welsh language in Parliament, the result of which was that government inspectors descended on Wales in 1846/47 to assess the children.

Hi Sam,

He should have saved his scathing remarks for the imagination shown by his parents:

"Well Mr and Mrs Williams, what are you going to call this little bundle of joy then?"

"We thought William would go quite nicely."

I suppose we should spare a thought for the offspring of Mr and Mrs Pattercake, who owned the bakery next door.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Yeah, thanks, Sam...just before I read your post I was reading about the Welsh Not practice...I think that particular abomination was dying out by the time MJK got to school

Regrettably, Claire, the Welsh Not still hung around our necks, so to speak. For those who don't know about the "WN", please read on...

The level of education was actually rather high in 19th Century Wales compared to many parts of England, largely due to some excellent Sunday Schools. However, a Coventry MP named William Williams (ironically he was born in Wales, albeit Anglicised Monmouthshire) made some scathing remarks about the Welsh language in Parliament, the result of which was that government inspectors descended on Wales in 1846/47 to assess the children.

The school inspectors, being monoglot English, went about this task by interviewing often monoglot Welsh-speaking children and asking them questions in... English! The poor children didn't stand a chance, and the inspectors' reports (known as the "Blue Books"), based as they were on such hopelessly skewed data and "loaded" investigative techniques, painted an unfairly bad picture of the level of education amongst Welsh children.

Given that the inspectors had come there ostensibly to help improve education in Wales, but instead ended up scapegoating the Welsh language and unjustly condemning the children, the whole sad episode has gone down in Welsh history as "Brād y Llyfrau Gleision" (the "Treachery of the Blue Books"). This report reinforced long-standing prejudices against the language; moves were made to remove Welsh from education, and children were taught exclusively in English.

In some instances, children were physically punished if caught speaking Welsh in school, and children were encouraged to tell on their friends if they heard them speaking Welsh. Now, this dreadful practice wasn't particularly new. In some parts of Wales, the "Welsh Not" was employed - the use of which had started in the late 18th Century.

The "Welsh Not" (as Claire will know) was a small wooden plaque, with the letters "WN" carved or burnt into it, and a length of string looped through it. This would be slung around the neck of the first child heard speaking Welsh that day, and it was in his/her interests to pass it on to the next child he/she heard using the language... and so forth, throughout the school day. The child caught wearing this grotesque pendant at the end of the day was given a sound thrashing by the teacher.

The 1847 government report, in fairness, considered the "Welsh Not" barbaric, but did little to prevent its use. In fact, the net result of the Blue Book report was to increase the prejudice against Welsh in general, and its repercussions had an effect in the schools, the workplace and at a domestic level, too. Some families, believing the propaganda, shunned the language in case their children grew up "backward" as a result.

These betrayals by family, friends and authority figures instilled in many Welsh-speakers a feeling of inferiority, of being embarrassed of their mother tongue - an effect which persisted for almost a century, and which no doubt contributed to the erosion of Welsh at all levels of society and in many walks of life. A shameful episode in British history, all round.