George Hedges: Victorian Invalid

Introduction

In the course of researching my next post on Victorian children, I have been briefly side-lined by one of them in particular, George Hedges.

Born in 1850, in Kingsclere, Hampshire, he was the fourth child and third son of his parents – Charles Hedges (the molecatcher) and his wife, Sarah Ellen (nee Ford). In 1871, when he was 11, he was recorded in the census as being an invalid. There were no other clues as to what the nature of his affliction was, and my interest piqued, I hoped to find out more.  

1861 census return

Tracking him through the records

Following him through the censuses to 1911, I have been able to deduce a possible diagnosis for this young man. Aged 21, he was recorded as being paralysed; at 31 and 41 respectively he was recorded as being deaf and dumb; and in a final census he is recorded as suffering from a ‘parilysation of the nerves since birth.’ This has been crossed out by the enumerator and replaced by the words ‘imbecile from birth’. Although the exact cause of George Hedges’ condition is unlikely to be determined conclusively, a highly probable diagnosis based on the various census descriptions is (severe) cerebral palsy.

1911 census return

Cerebral palsy was known to the Victorians, when it was known as Little’s disease, after the doctor who first published its symptoms in 1861. The charity, My Child Cerebral Palsy ascribes the condition to brain damage caused by brain injury or abnormal development of the brain that occurs while a child’s brain is still developing — before birth, during birth, or immediately after. Modern standards of childbirth was not something that would have been available to Sarah Ellen in 1850. She would have likely given birth at home, supported by midwives, family or neighbours. Most midwives would not have had access to formal medical training, rather gaining their skill set through experience through helping other midwives. It is not hard to imagine a situation in which how a long and difficult birth might have caused oxygen deprivation and cerebral palsy in George.

Victorian child birth

There are different types of cerebral palsy and it can vary in severity from person to person. If George indeed had cerebral palsy, the descriptions of his paralysis suggest that he most likely suffered from quadriplegia, in which both the arms and legs are affected. In some cases, the muscles of the trunk, face and mouth are also affected which may account for him being recorded as being ‘dumb’ in the 1891 and 1901 censuses.

1891 census return

The final thing to mention about George is that in the entirety of his life, he was in the care of his parents. Even in 1911, aged 51, he was still living at home and being cared for by his widowed mother, then in her 70s. In Victorian times children who were considered, lunatics/idiots/imbeciles could be put in "licensed houses" or "registered hospitals", but this was not the case for George.

An institution for disabled children

Mental health, disability and learning difficulties were also the subject of various legislation in the period. The 1886 Idiots Act did make a clear distinction between so called ‘imbeciles’ and ‘lunatics’, the former referring to those with learning disabilities as opposed to mental health issues or senile dementia. However, the 1890 Lunacy Act muddied the distinction a few years later. In 1913, the government passed the Mental Deficiency Act, in which the terms, idiot, imbecile, feeble minded and moral imbecile were clearly defined. As an ‘imbecile since birth’ George would have been deemed to be someone who was incapable of managing themselves or their affairs. Parents could petition the local authority to care for the ‘imbecile’ in an institution and some 40,000 people were locked away as a result.

Sadly, with no access to further censuses for George, I will have to wait a few years to find out what happened to him following the 1913 Act. He was still alive in 1921 (he died in 1927/8) and I will be curious to know whether he remained at home with other family members during this time. Having spent a lifetime being cared for at home, and reaching the age of 68 (despite his health problems), I am hopeful that this will be the case.