they were required to be equipped with a plentiful supply of clothing: four day shifts (shirts and three night shifts, three night caps, to a pairs of stays, two flannel, one grey stuff (wool) and three white upper petticoats, two pairs of pockets, four pairs of white cotton stockings and three of black worsted, one nankeen spencer (a short jacket), four borne and two white holland pinafores, one short coloured dressing-down and two pairs of shows. in addition they had to bring gloves and a pair of pattens, which were wood and metal overshoes for outdoor wear. (Bronte 91, Barker122)

Additionally, though the strict, ascetic daily regimen, including sleeping in the cold, sharing beds, and humiliating punishments described in Jane Eyre appears to reflect the real practice at Cowan Bridge, Barker observes that this seems to have been the norm at good quality boarding schools, such as the upscale Woodhouse Grove, which I have shown, is corroborated by Pritchard (123). These harsh conditions, however much the norm, no doubt still contributed to the poor health of the girls, especially those with consumption. Nevertheless, though the girls were in theory as well provided for as any other boarded students in England at the time, there was a real problem at Cowan Bridge that went unaddressed, and that was the cook. While the administration of Cowan Bridge protested in response to allegations that the wretched Lowood was modeled after their school that, "The daily dinner consisted of meat, vegetables, and pudding, in abundance," others protested that "the cooking spoiled these provisions; boiled the puddings in unclean water; compounded the Saturday's nauseous mess from the fragments accumulated in a dirty larder during the week; and too often sent up the porridge, not merely burnt, but with offensive fragments of other substances discoverable in it!" (126). Then, there is of course, the awful example mentioned in my Chapter 1 of the cook stirring a teacher's tea with a finger without washing the raw meat off her hands (126). What's more, when Elizabeth became physically sick after eating at one meal, she was "dosed with an emetic" (125-126). Barker concludes by reporting, "As everyone, including Charlotte and Mrs. Gaskell, was careful to point out, the filthy cook at Cowan Bridge was eventually dismissed and replaced by a clean and efficient woman, who produced a marked improvement in the food" (127). However, it seems she was not replaced in time to prevent her from exposing forty or fifty girls typhoid fever.]]>
  The Brontes.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.  Print.]]>

]]>
Medical History 11 (1991): 94-125. Print.
]]>
Endangered Lives.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983.  Print.]]> Endangered Lives.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983.  Print.]]>
One must ask, How could the Victorians neglect something so important? How could they not realize that water pollution was as much of a danger as the nuisances they were so zealously cleansing away on land? Lord Salisbury offered a possible explanation: "Drainage must be put somewhere. You could not put it in the air; you could not always put it on the land; and when you could not put it on the land, you necessarily put it into the water" (238). In other words, the reformers felt that of all the possible options for waste disposal, the river was the least dangerous. However, another option also presents itself: industry required the rivers to keep their businesses running. Wohl writes, "As for the industrialists, they insisted that there was no other way to get rid of their waste products," and no one wanted to challenge such wealthy job providers in such a precarious economical climate (241).
]]>
Endangered Lives.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983.  Print.]]>

]]>
Endangered Lives.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983.  Print.

 

]]>
Examiner and also subjected it to further satire in Bleak House with the character of Guster, short for Augusta.  Guster, an orphan girl who works as a maid for a stationer named Mr. Snagsby was raised in a workhouse overseen "by an amiable benefactor . . . at Tooting" (Dickens 117). Guster, an epileptic, is subject to fits, due to having been starved as a child. A note in the Norton Critical edition revelas that this is almost definitely a reference to the real Drouet's workhouse orphanage, which was also in Tooting, and was "notorious for its maltreatment of the inmates, who suffered from overcrowding and lack of food and sanitation. In 1849 a severe outbreak of cholera, in which 150 children died, led to ciminal charges being brought against the proprieter, Drouet, 'the amiable benefactor'" (note 117).]]> Bleak House.  ed. George Ford and Sylvere Monod.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1977.  Print.]]>
It appears, then, that the financial arrangements were quite generous. However, Woodhouse Grove required the boys to live a strict, ascetic lifestyle. In the early days of the school, the boys were actually not allowed to play, since in John Wesley's words, "He that plays when he is a child will play when he is a man" (58). However, this soon became untenable, and eventually the school provided a playground and recess time (58). The boys followed a rigid schedule. They were up at 5:45 in the summer and 6:45 in the winter, and went to bed at 8; their diet consisted of dry bread, porridge, treacle, and watered-down milk, and they had lunch once a week (60-61). Pritchard indicates that poor cooking was a problem at Woodhouse Grove since the governor's wife had to do all of it by herself (61). However, unlike Lowood School, the boys were allowed to have as much food as they wanted at these meal times (61). Meals were eaten in silence, though the students were allowed to read (62).

Like Lowood, access to water was severely limited. There was only a single pump, and the boys had to wash in extremely cold water (62).

Punishment was generally corporal. However, sometimes boys were fined, made to sit in a corner or even confined to a makeshift "jail" in a haystore (69-70).

Woodhouse Grove was not a cheerful place. However, it appears that the boys' basic needs were taken care of. Thus the only diseases Pritchard reports were chilblains, ringworm, and other skin problems caused by inadequate access to water and extremely cold temperatures. And in 1828, one of the committee members Thomas Swale attempted to take care of these problems by issuing every boy with his own towel, brush, and comb (63). This does not seem like much to modern sensibilities, however, it shows that the committee were paying careful attention to the boys' living conditions and tried to intervene for their good when there was a problem. However, if Woodhouse Grove, with its monotonous diet (which surely would have caused a vitamin deficiency over time), freezing water, and beatings for small crimes was the gold standard for religious boarding schools, one hesitates to imagine what the worst of Victorian boarding schools must have been like.]]>
The Brontes.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.  Print.

Pritchard, F.C. The Story of Woodhouse Grove School.  Bradford: Woodhouse Grove School, 1978.  Print.]]>