Benutzer:Shi Annan/Sabrina Sidney
Sabrina Bicknell (1757 – 8 September 1843), better known as Sabrina Sidney, was a British foundling girl who was taken in by Thomas Day when she was 12, with the intent of creating the perfect wife for himself. Day had been struggling to find a wife who would share his ideology, and had been rejected by a number of women. He decided to educate two girls in the style of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book Emile, or On Education, without any frivolities.
With the help of his barrister friend John Bicknell they chose Sabrina from the Shrewsbury Orphan Hospital in 1769 and deceitfully declared that she would be indentured to Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Day took her and another girl, Lucretia, to France to begin Rousseau's methods of education in isolation. After a short time he returned to Lichfield with only Sabrina (he deemed Lucretia to be inappropriate for his experiment) and he used some unusual techniques to increase her fortitude, such as firing blanks at her clothes, dropping hot wax on her arms and insisting she wade into the nearby lake fully dressed.
When Sabrina reached her teenage years, Day was persuaded by Edgeworth that his ideal wife experiment had failed and he should send her away as it was inappropriate for Day to live with her unchaperoned. Sabrina then had a number of moves between boarding school, a dressmakers and eventually employed as Day's housekeeper. Having seen the changes to Sabrina he proposed though soon called this off when she did not follow his strict instructions and again sent her away, this time to a boarding house where she later found work as a lady's companion.
In 1783, John Bicknell sought her out and proposed marriage, telling her the truth of Day's experiment. Horrified, she confronted Day in a series of letters; he admitted the truth but refused to apologise. Sabrina married Bicknell, and the couple had two children before his death in 1787. Sabrina went on to work with Charles Burney, managing his schools.
In 1804, Anna Seward published a book which covered Sabrina's upbringing and identifying her. Edgeworth followed up with his memoirs where he claimed Sabrina loved Day. Sabrina herself, on the other hand, said that she was miserable with Day and he treated her as a slave.
Early life
Sabrina was born in 1757 in Clerkenwell, London and was left at the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children (more commonly known as the Foundling Hospital) in London on 24 May 1757 by an anonymous individual.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn The individual left a note which explained that her baptismal name was Manima Butler and that she had been baptised in St James's Church, Clerkenwell. Her name was likely a misspelling of Monimia but there were no baptismal records for any spelling of the name at the parish.Vorlage:Sfn
One of the requirements of the Foundling Hospital was that babies were to be less than six months old at time of admittance, but the hospital did not keep more accurate records of age. Another requirement was that foundlings were given a new name and a reference number,Vorlage:Sfn so Sabrina became Girl Ann Kingston no. 4759.Vorlage:Sfn She was taken in by a wet nurse, Mary Penfold, who brought her to Wotton, Surrey, where she remained until 1759, when she was two years old. Although it was usual for foundlings to remain with their wet nurse until the age of 5 or 6, the Foundling Hospital had received an influx of new babies and moved many children who no longer required nursing, including Sabrina, to the Shrewsbury branch of the Foundling Hospital.Vorlage:Sfn The Shrewsbury building was not completed until 1765, so in the meantime Sabrina and another foundling were cared for by a nurse, Ann Casewell, at Casewell's home.Vorlage:Sfn
Day's experiment
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Thomas Day was a bachelor who had inherited his fortune from his father when he was an infant. Described as having a pock-marked face through smallpox, a brooding personality and short temper, Day attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford to study philosophy. It was there that he decided to dedicate his life to becoming a virtuous man, shunning luxury and focusing on altruism.Vorlage:Sfn Around the same time, he developed a list of requirements for his future wife, that she should be subservient and pure, but also able to discuss philosophy and live without frivolities.Vorlage:Sfn These high standards, combined with his generally unlikeable personality, meant that his advances were rejected by multiple women whilst at university.Vorlage:Sfn
He was introduced to the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau by his friend Richard Lovell Edgeworth and the pair shared a particular affinity for his work on education in the book Emile, or On Education.Vorlage:Sfn On leaving Oxford, Edgeworth and Day attempted to teach Edgeworth's first son, Dick, in the style of Emile, a learning by doing approach.Vorlage:Sfn Accompanying Edgeworth to Ireland as Dick's tutor, Day fell in love and was spurned first by Edgeworth's sister and then by at least three further women in quick succession.Vorlage:Sfn
Day came to the conclusion that he would be unable to find a wife that would meet his high standards and largely blamed women's education for this. Inspired by Rousseau's character of Sophie in Emile, or On Education, he resolved to "create" his ideal wife by raising her from adolescence, using the techniques laid out in the book.Vorlage:Sfn Day was approaching financial independence, where he would have full access to the money left to him, and conspired with his barrister friend, John Bicknell, to find two girls who could be taken into his care to be groomed as a perfect wife.Vorlage:Sfn
Choosing the girls
Just after his 21st birthdayVorlage:Sfn in June 1769, Thomas Day and John Bicknell travelled to the Shrewsbury Orphan Hospital to choose the first girl for his experiment. Sabrina was 12 years old at the time, described as "a clear auburn brunette, with darker eyes more glowing bloom and chestnut tresses".Vorlage:Sfn She was slender, had long eyelashes and a melodious voice.Vorlage:Sfn Although Day was struggling to choose a girl for the experiment, Bicknell quickly picked her out. The pair did not tell the orphanage secretary, Samuel Magee, about the planned experiment. Instead they told him that she was to be indentured as a servant at Richard Lovell Edgeworth's country house in Berkshire, waiving the £4 fee they would have received for the apprenticeship.Vorlage:Sfn In line with the orphanage's requirements that responsibility would be held by a married man, Edgeworth would hold legal responsibility for Sabrina, despite him not being present nor even aware of the arrangement.Vorlage:Sfn
The apprenticeship was approved by the governors of the orphanage on 30 June 1769,Vorlage:Sfn and Sabrina was collected by Day and Bicknell on 17 August.Vorlage:Sfn She was brought to lodgings in London, where she met Edgeworth for the first time.Vorlage:Sfn Day changed her name to Sabrina Sidney: Sabrina, the Latin name for the River Severn, which her orphanage looked out onto; and Sidney after Algernon Sidney, one of Day's heroes.Vorlage:Sfn Day became a benefactor, and subsequently governor, of the Foundling Hospital and on 20 September 1769, he chose another girl for his experiment, whom he renamed Lucretia.Vorlage:Sfn
Day had Bicknell draw up a contract to define the terms of his indenture of the girls.Vorlage:Sfn Within one year, he would choose which girl he intended to marry, the other would be given as an apprentice to a woman in a trade, along with a fee of £100 (18.723). He would give a further £400 (74.893) upon the girl's marriage or if she were to start her own business. He would marry his intended bride or, if he decided not to, would gift her the sum of £500 (93.616). Bicknell would act as guarantor for the contract.Vorlage:Sfn
Education in France
Day wished for the girls to be isolated from external influences while he educated them. As such, at the beginning of November 1769 he decided to move them to France.Vorlage:Sfn There is also a possibility that he did this to protect himself from the legal ramifications of his experiment as well as societal gossip. The trio travelled over 600 miles to Avignon, renting a house in le quartier des fusteries.Vorlage:Sfn The girls could speak no FrenchVorlage:Sfn and Day employed no English-speaking servants to be sure that he would be the only person to influence them.Vorlage:Sfn
Day focussed on their education, in the style of Emile, or On Education. He expanded on their teachings from the Foundling hospital in reading and basic arithmetic, and he also taught them how to write. He believed that the girls should be able to manage the house, so they were charged with cooking and cleaning as well as other house work. Finally, he wanted to be able to debate complex concepts with them, so he taught them rudimentary theories in physics and geography, tasking them with observing the changing of the seasons and recording details of sunrises and sunsets. He also imparted Rousseau's philosophy's contempt for luxury on them.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Edgeworth received correspondence from Day whilst he was in France. He was told that both girls were passionate about their studies, Sabrina more so. He also wrote of anecdotes, such as a boat trip taken by the trio on the Rhone where the boat overturned and Day singlehanded rescued both girls as they could not swim.Vorlage:Sfn Day also wrote of an incident where he had challenged a French Army officer to a duel, even bringing out a set of dueling pistols, for simply conversing with the girls. The officer apologised and explained he did not mean any offence, calming the situation.Vorlage:Sfn
Accounts by 19th century historians explain that Day eventually became impatient when the girls became bored of their lessons and would squabble; that he also spent a significant period nursing them through a bout of smallpox.Vorlage:Sfn These accounts may have been exaggerated as both girls had been inoculated against smallpox and their strict upbringing would have meant they would not have rebelled excessively.Vorlage:Sfn
Return to England
Whilst in France, Day struggled over which girl to choose to bring forward with the experiment, both were beautiful, Lucretia was more cheerful whilst Sabrina was more reserved and studious. The group returned to England in spring 1770, by which time Day had finally decided that he would carry on with Sabrina's training. Edgeworth explained that each of Day's projects with Sabrina had been suchcessful, whilst he had come to the conclusion that Lucretia was "invincibly stupid".Vorlage:Sfn Lucretia was apprenticed to a milliner in Ludgate Hill, whilst Sabrina and Day moved into Stowe House in Lichfield, where her training could continue.Vorlage:Sfn The household would have had no more than a couple of servants,Vorlage:Sfn leaving Sabrina to maintain the four floors of the house. Her tutoring continued at the same time, with one-to-one lessons from Day on a variety of subjects.Vorlage:Sfn
Day also extended his tutoring to fortify Sabrina against hardship, inspired by Rousseau's Emile, or On Education. The book explains the concept of 'negative education', i.e. protecting a person from vices rather than teaching them virtues.Vorlage:Sfn Day interpreted this to mean that submitting Sabrina to tests of endurance would help to create a woman with hardened nerves.Vorlage:Sfn One example given by Rousseau in Emile, or On Education was helping Emile become accustomed to explosions such as fireworks by firing pistols with small amounts of powder near him, gradually increasing the amount of powder. Day, on the other hand, fired a pistol loaded only with powder directly at Sabrina's petticoat, without her knowledge that there was no shot in it.Vorlage:Sfn
In an attempt to increase her resistance to pain he would drop hot sealing wax on her back and arms or stick pins in her, commanding her not to cry out. He would test her ability to keep secrets by telling her that his life was in danger and she should tell no one.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn To increase her resistance to the cold, Day instructed Sabrina to wade into the nearby Stowe lake until the water reached her neck, then lie in the nearby meadow until her clothes and hair had dried in the sun. Finally, to test her resistance to luxury, he gave her a big box of handmade silk clothes and had her throw them in the fire.Vorlage:Sfn Day had a limited amount of success with these techniques, it seems that she could voluntarily have hot wax on her arm without flinching, but he was unsuccessful at abating her phobia of horses through similar techniques.Vorlage:Sfn
Moving away from Day
By 1770, Sabrina began to question Day's techniques and complain about the chores she had to perform.Vorlage:Sfn In December, the propriety of Day's arrangement with Sabrina was being questioned by the local community, especially Anna Seward. Edgeworth joined Day for Christmas at Stowe, and convinced Day that his experiment had been unsuccessful.Vorlage:Sfn He also persuaded Day that Sabrina was too old to remain living with him without a chaperone. Day appeared to accept Edgeworth's point of view, as he paid for Sabrina to attend Sutton Coldfield boarding school in Warwickshire early in 1771.Vorlage:Sfn She remained at the boarding school for three years, including weekends and holidays, with infrequent visits from Day.Vorlage:Sfn The school normally focused on preparing high society daughters for marriage, with subjects such as needlework and the arts.Vorlage:Sfn Day, however, stipulated that she was to be taught academic subjects but should not dance or learn music.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
In 1774, Day visited Sabrina to inform her that she would be apprenticed to the Parkinsons, a family of dressmakers, as Day believed the profession would not expose her to temptation.Vorlage:Sfn She was delivered to the family under the stipulation that she should work hard at chores and be denied luxuries. The Parkinsons, however, treated Sabrina well, to the extent that Day later chastised them for not instilling 'industry and frugality' in her.Vorlage:Sfn Less than a year later the Parkinsons' business went bankrupt, leaving Sabrina without an apprenticeship and without anywhere to live.Vorlage:Sfn Day arranged for her to stay with his friends, the Keir family, and implied that she could take on the role of housekeeper at his own home. Day again considered Sabrina, who was now 18, as a potential wife, but did not let her know of his intentions, nor that her upbringing was part of his experiment.Vorlage:Sfn
Broken engagement
Over the next few months, Day returned to moulding Sabrina to meet his requirements for the ideal woman, choosing what she would wear and pushing his ideas of frugality upon her. Sabrina took on all the ideas willingly and Day believed he had finally created a woman that would meet all his requirements.Vorlage:Sfn Day was so confident that he talked openly of marrying Sabrina, despite the fact that she was unaware of his intentions and eventually one of Day's friends let her know that he hoped to marry her. Sabrina confronted Day about the rumours and he admitted they were true, neglecting to mention that he had hoped to marry her since the day he met her.Vorlage:Sfn
Sabrina did not refuse the proposal, so Day planned the wedding whilst she considered it further and eventually agreed.Vorlage:Sfn During the preparations Day left Sabrina with friends for a few days, giving her strict instructions on what she should wear. When he returned to find her in an outfit which did not meet his requirements, he flew into a rage and Sabrina fled for a few hours, so Day called off the engagement.Vorlage:Sfn Sabrina was sent to a boarding house in Birmingham and given a stipend of £50 per annum (8.488), resolving to never see her again.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Marriage
Vorlage:Quote box After her engagement to Day ended, Sabrina spent 8 years at boarding houses around Birmingham. She met an apothecary, Jarvis Wardley, who proposed marriage in an acrostic poem. Sabrina contacted Day for advice, and he told her in absolute terms not to marry Wardley, even writing an acrostic poem for her to use in turning him down.Vorlage:Sfn In 1783, she had become a lady's companionVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn in Newport, ShropshireVorlage:Sfn It was there that she was approached by Day's friend, the man who helped choose her at the foundling hospital: John Bicknell.Vorlage:Sfn Bicknell was single and had spent the majority of his earnings from his law career in gambling dens. He had not paid much attention to Sabrina since selecting her with Day, but immediately proposed marriage.Vorlage:Sfn
Sabrina again consulted with Day on the prospective engagement. Day did not approve, primarily due to Bicknell's age.Vorlage:Sfn Bicknell, however, decided to tell Sabrina the truth about the experiment, that she was hand-picked to be Day's wife from childhood, and that all of his actions were designed to further his goal of turning her into the ideal bride. Horrified, Sabrina wrote to Day to confront him on the accusations, Day admitted the truth but refused to apologise. After a series of letters, Day gave his consent to the marriage, telling her that the letter would be his final communication with her.Vorlage:Sfn
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Bicknell and Sabrina married on 16 April 1784 at St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn On the same day, Day paid the £500 wedding dowry he had stipulated in the contract he had set up with Bicknell, ending his £50 per year stipend. The couple bought a house in Shenfield and had two children, John Laurens Bicknell and Henry Edgeworth Bicknell.Vorlage:Sfn Bicknell carried on with his gambling habits, squandering the remaining money over the following three years. On 27 March 1787, after just three years of marriage, John Bicknell died of a paralytic stroke.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Sabrina and her two children were now left without an income. Day sent her a new stipend of £30 per year,Vorlage:Sfn which was matched by Edgworth. In addition, her husband's barrister friends raised £800 for the widow and her children.Vorlage:Sfn Sabrina found a role as housekeeper for Charles Burney,Vorlage:Sfn as well as general manager of his schools in Chiswick, Hammersmith and Greenwich. It was at his Greenwich school that Sabrina's own children were educated.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Esther Milnes (Day's widow) carried on paying Sabrina's allowance after his death, and Sabrina carried on her work with Burney until she was 68. By this time she was living in a four storey house in Gloucester Circus, Greenwich, with her own servants. On 8 September 1843, Sabrina died at her home of a severe asthma attack. She was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Legacy
Sabrina asked her friends to not discuss her past as she believed her humble beginnings and Day's treatment of her would tarnish her reputation.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Anna Seward, however, wrote about Sabrina's upbringing in her 1804 work, Memoirs on the Life of Dr. Darwin.Vorlage:Sfn As Seward identified Sabrina in the book, it was criticised by the pressVorlage:Sfn and Sabrina's son John was very angry to learn of his mother's past.Vorlage:Sfn In his 1820 memoirs, Edgeworth stated his belief that Sabrina and Day made a good match and that she loved him.Vorlage:Sfn Bicknell, however, disagreed with these accounts, stating that she never loved him, that he had made her miserable and she was effectively a slave.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
Sabrina's education has been compared to George Bernard Shaw's story of Pygmalion, and strong parallels are drawn to two books in 1871, Henry James's Watch and WardVorlage:Sfn and Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm.Vorlage:Sfn Wendy Moore's 2013 book How to Create the Perfect WifeVorlage:Sfn and the 2015 BBC Radio 4 staged drama The Imperfect Education of Sabrina Sidney tell the story of her life.Vorlage:Sfn
References
Bibliography
Vorlage:Commons category Vorlage:Ref begin
- Paula R. Backscheider: Revising Women: Eighteenth-Century "Women's Fiction" and Social Engagement. Illustrated, Revised Auflage. Taylor & Francis, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8018-7095-8, My art belongs to daddy? (google.co.uk).
- John Blackman: A Memoir of the Life and Writings of Thomas Day. Joh Bedford Leno, London 1862 (google.co.uk).
- Hugh Cunningham: The Invention of Childhood. Random House, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4464-1615-0, The Eighteenth Century (google.co.uk).
- Julia V. Douthwaite: The wild girl, natural man, and the monster : dangerous experiments in the age of Enlightenment. Illustrated Auflage. University of Chicago press, Chicago 2002, ISBN 978-0-226-16055-9 (google.co.uk).
- Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Maria Edgeworth: The London Quarterly Review. Band 23. Theodore Foster, London 1820, Art. XI. Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth Esq. (google.co.uk).
- Vorlage:Cite ODNB
- Wendy Moore: How to create the perfect wife. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2013, ISBN 978-0-297-86378-6 (google.co.uk).
- Jurgen Oelkers: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4411-1353-5 (google.co.uk).
- Vorlage:Cite ODNB
- Michael Sadler: Thomas Day: An English disciple of Rousseau. Cambridge University Press, 1928 (google.co.uk).
- Simon Schama: A History of Britain: Volume 3 The fate of the empire: 1776–2000. BBC Worldwide Ltd., 2002, ISBN 0-563-48880-8.
- W. A. C. Stewart, W. P. McCann: Educational Innovators. Springer, 1967, ISBN 1-349-00531-2 (google.co.uk).
- Vanessa Thorpe: Author unveils the story of real Prof Higgins and Eliza Doolittle In: The Guardian, 18 April 2010. Abgerufen im 25 June 2016
- Jenny Uglow: Educating Sabrina In: The Guardian, 5 October 2002. Abgerufen im 7 May 2016
- Henry Wilson: Wonderful Characters: Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the Most Remarkable Persons of Every Age and Nation, Volume 3. Robins, Albion Press, 1822, Thomas Day (google.co.uk).
- Abigail Youngman: The Imperfect Education of Sabrina Sidney, Drama – BBC Radio 4. In: BBC. 9. April 2015.