Hannah Cullwick was a Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 diarist and domestic servant. She is known for her unusual relationship with Arthur Munby

Arthur Munby

Arthur Joseph Munby was a Victorian British diarist, poet, barrister and solicitor. He is also known by his initials, A. J. Munby.-Biography:...

, which they both documented in diaries, letters and photographs.

Early life

Hannah was born on 26 May 1833 and raised in Shifnal

Shifnal

Shifnal is a small market town in Shropshire, England. It forms part of The Wrekin constituency, and is about east of Telford. It has a railway station on the Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton Line and is near to the M54 motorway.-Early medieval time:...

, Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

. Her surname is pronounced as Cullwick, not Cullick. Hannah came from solid Salopian yeoman stock, not the working class origins sometimes claimed. Her father was Charles Fox Cullwick (1803–1847), a Master Saddler of Shifnal and a Burgess (Parliamentary voter) of Bridgnorth. The Cullwicks had been voters in Bridgnorth since 1630, usually voting in the Whitmore interest. And the Cullwick family had been Master Saddlers in Shropshire since the great great grandfather of Charles - Richard Cullwick of Newport (1648-c1720)- set up his saddlery business in about 1670.

Hannah's mother was Martha Owen (1800–1847), who had been a Lady's Maid to the aristocratic Mrs Eyton, the wife of Rev John Eyton, Rector of Wellington, Salop. Martha's elder brother was Richard Owen (1791–1864), a schoolmaster in Shifnal who was also parish clerk. Her two sisters - Sarah Smallman (1805-aft 1881) and Eleanor Morris (1803–1863) - were both married to farmers, Charles Skelton Smallman(1799–1877)and John Morris (1796–1885) of The Firs, Flashbrook, Adbaston.

Hannah had more than a dozen uncles and aunts and over 50 first cousins. All of them were literate and most of them were in business - as farmers, publicans and saddlers.

Charles, Hannah's father, appears to have suffered business losses and the family were subsequently very poor. There were 5 children, James (1830–1915), Hannah, Dick (1836–1887), Ellen (1839–1919) and Polly (1844–1924). James was a master wheelwright and owned houses latterly. Dick was a master saddler and became a harness maker in London. Ellen married William Cook, the Registrar for Poplar in London. And Polly owned a large haberdashery store in the Ipswich Buttermarket.

All 5 children received a rudimentary schooling. Hannah was fortunate to be sent for a couple of years to the Bluecoat Charity school in Shifnal. However, money was so short that Hannah had to contribute to the family purse from the age of 8. Firstly, in the home of solicitor's wife Mrs Andrew Phillips, a friend and neighbour of the Cullwicks. Then Hannah worked in the inn next door before embarking on her long career in service.

When she was fourteen, she became sole nursemaid

Nursemaid

A nursemaid or nursery maid, is mostly a historical term of employment for a female servant in an elite household. In the 21st century, the position is largely defunct, owing to the relatively small number of households who maintain large staffs with the traditional hierarchy.The nursery maid...

 to the large family of Rev Robert Eyton (son of Rev John Eyton) at Ryton Rectory. That year her mother died suddenly of an infection aged 47, and her employer in the Eyton household refused to let her travel the three miles to visit her family for fear that the fever would spread to Ryton. A fortnight later her father Charles died, aged 44, leaving the 5 children (aged 16 down to 3) as orphans. James was already in a wheelwright apprenticeship with Richard Pointon in Shifnal, and Hannah was in service at Ryton Rectory. But the three youngest children needed to be housed. Dick was placed in a saddlery apprenticeship in Horsely Fields, Wolverhampton with his Uncle William Cullwick (1781–1853); Ellen lived with Aunt Small(née Sarah Owen)on their large farm in Westbury near Albrighton; and Polly went to live with her spinster Aunt Elizabeth Cullwick (1789–1866) in Haughton, Shifnal.

Meeting with Munby

When Hannah was seventeen, she worked as under-housemaid for Lady Boughey at Aqualate Hall, Forton but was dismissed after only eight months because her mistress saw her (as she later recorded) "playing as we was cleaning our kettles."

She then obtained a position with Lady Louisa Cotes (1814–1887), wife of John Cotes of Woodcote, Sherriffhales (1799–1874). Louisa Harriet Cotes was the daughter of Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool and half brother of Robert Banks Jenkinson, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date...

 and Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827. Lady Cotes took her to London. There, in 1854, Cullwick met Arthur Munby

Arthur Munby

Arthur Joseph Munby was a Victorian British diarist, poet, barrister and solicitor. He is also known by his initials, A. J. Munby.-Biography:...

 on one of his regular urban expeditions to investigate working women. Munby was struck by her size (5' 7½", 161 lbs) and strength, combined with the nobility of character he claimed to see in working women. Cullwick saw him as an idealized gentlemen who celebrated the intense labor she did as a maid of all work. In order to be near Munby, she began to work in various middle-class households in London, including an upholsterer, a beer merchant, and widow with several daughters, as well as in lodging houses (which gave her more freedom from supervision). The two formed a lasting relationship that led to a secret marriage in 1873.

Before she met Munby, Cullwick saw a lavish musical called The Death of Sardanapalus

Sardanapalus

Sardanapalus was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias of Cnidus, the last king of Assyria. Ctesias' Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations and from the work of Diodorus...

, on the first time she had been to the theatre in her life. The musical, based on the play by Lord Byron, told of an ancient, pacifist king who loved one of his slave girls. The slave, Myrrha, loved the king, but also had her own democratic and republican desires. Cullwick identified strongly with the play's heroine.

Aspects of the relationship

Cullwick proudly referred to herself as Munby's "drudge and slave", and called him "Massa", an example of a Master/slave relationship. For much of her life, she wore a leather strap around her right wrist and a locking chain around her neck, to which Munby had a key. She wrote letters almost daily to him, describing her long hours of work in great detail. She would arrange to visit him "in my dirt", showing the results of a full day of cleaning and other domestic work. She had a particular interest in boots, cleaning hundreds each year, sometimes by licking them. She once told Munby she could tell where her "Massa" had been by how his boots tasted.

Despite her display of subservience and loyalty, Cullwick remained independent. She stood up for herself if she thought the terms of her relationship with Munby were being violated. She entered marriage with Munby reluctantly, seeing it as dependency and boredom. They were secretly married in 1873, after which she moved to his lodgings in Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple

Inner Temple

The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

, central London

Central London

Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...

, where she lived as his servant, though she sometimes played the role of his wife. She also retained her own surname and insisted that Munby continue to pay her wages, and she had her own savings. She left him far more often than he did her, and in 1877 she returned to domestic service in Shropshire. Munby was a regular visitor from 1882 until her death.

Later life

Hannah lived in several places between 1880 and 1900. She lived in Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

 with her only niece, Jim's daughter Emily Griffiths Gibbs (1856–1920) née Cullwick; then she lived for some time in Bearley

Bearley

Bearley is a village and civil parish in the Stratford district of Warwickshire, England. The village is about five miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon, bounded on the north by Wootton Wawen, on the east by Snitterfield, and on the south and west by Aston Cantlow...

 near Stratford-on-Avon with Emily's father-in-law, Charles Gibbs and the elderly mother of Charles, Hannah Bonehill Gibbs and her two bachelor sons; then she moved to a cottage between Shifnal and Wellington, close to her brother Jim.

Hannah finally moved in 1903 to a small rented cottage in Wyke Place, Shifnal, owned by Jim Cullwick. Although she remained active until shortly before her death, her death on 9 July 1909 was recorded as "failure of heart action and senile decay". Aged 76, she was buried in St Andrew's churchyard in Shifnal and her stone bears the words: "she was for 36 years of pure and unbroken love the wedded wife of Arthur Munby of Clifton Holme in the Wapentake of Bulmer".

Munby died the following January, aged 81. He left an estate of £26,000. He bequeathed his books and 2 deed-boxes filled with correspondence, diaries and photographs, to the British Museum. They were unable to accept this legacy, and provision was made for the items to be kept at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 and not opened until 1950. The daughter of Emily Gibbs (Hannah's niece) was Ada Perks (1882–1971), of Bankes Road, Small Heath, Birmingham. She asked if she could represent the Cullwick family at the opening of the boxes but was told it was a private matter. Dr. Ann Munby (great nephew of Arthur Munby) was in attendance.

Diaries

Her diaries reveal that the erotic games with Munby often included infantilism and ageplay

Ageplay

Ageplay or age play is a form of roleplaying in which an individual acts or treats another as if they were a different age. The practice can be regressive, in which the goal is to re-experience childhood, or sexual, recreating a sexual relationship with people of the pretend and/or true ages...

, with Cullwick carrying Munby in her arms and holding him on her lap.

Cullwick appeared in Munby's photographs in many different roles: a farm girl, a kitchen drudge, a chimney sweep with blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

, a well-dressed lady (though with her hands, unmistakably those of a working woman, prominently displayed), a Magdalen

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...

, and even as a man. Her ability to take different roles delighted Munby.

Cullwick's diaries (small prejudicial selections of which are published as The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant in the controversial edition by the Marxist historian Lizbeth Stanley, not approved by Cullwick's family), provide detailed information on the lives of working-class Victorian servant women. They are a record of sixteen-hour days and profound respect for the middle-class morality of the era despite her obvious deviancy from sexual norms especially, and her reversion to the maternal archetype in role-play with Munby almost certainly indicates that she was fundamentally a typical Victorian 'maternal type'. If she had been born into a middle-class home she may never have developed her deviancies and have been just another normal, domesticated woman .

Making sense of Cullwick's life still proves to be a challenge. How relationships are interpreted between men and women of the era seems to be the greatest challenge. Cullwick's links with Gibbs and Bearley, also mistakenly rendered by Stanley in her edition as many others, obtains in this instance. Cullwick's individualism makes it difficult to explain the nature of these and other relationships.

In 2003, a short independent film based on Cullwick's diaries and called On My Knees was made by Kim Wood

Kim Wood

Kim Wood is an American writer and filmmaker.-Works:Her work, based upon the histories of relatively unknown adventurers and eccentrics, includes the Sundance Film Festival premiered Advice to Adventurous Girls, and On My Knees, based on the diaries of Hannah Cullwick.-Awards:Wood has received the...

 and stars Melora Creager

Melora Creager

Melora Creager, formerly Melora Mather, is an American cellist and singer-songwriter best known for her role as lead singer and chief composer of the cello rock trio Rasputina....

 of Rasputina.

Sources

• Judith Flanders. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.
• Diane Atkinson. Love and Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick. New York: Macmillan, 2003 (ISBN 0-333-78071-X).
• Barry Reay. Watching Hannah: Sexuality, Horror and Bodily De-formation in Victorian England. Reaktion, 2002. (ISBN 1-86189-119-9)
• Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sex in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995. (ISBN 0-415-90890-6)
• Liz Stanley, ed. The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant. Rutgers, 1984 (ISBN 0-8135-1070-8).