I found this an immediately engaging, easy to read and page-turning story. Having read ‘Charles Dickens: A Life’ by Claire Tomalin, I was already aware of the ‘Urania Cottage’ project and so was keen to find out how the author would fictionalise this social experiment. It soon became clear that the author had done a considerable amount of research into this period of Victorian history, as well as into the joint philanthropic project of Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts (millionairess and co-owner of Coutts Bank), which offered an alternative future to young women who had, for one reason or another, spent time in prison, and whose prospects looked bleak. However, at no point in my reading did I feel she had allowed her research to overwhelm the story (a mistake too many authors make!), instead she used it sparingly, yet very effectively, to portray an evocative sense of time and place and to highlight the social mores of that era. The idea of providing a structured environment in which young women could be taught not only how to cook and keep house, (in preparation for a life in service in Australia or one of the other colonies), but would teach them how to read and write and also offer lessons in other subjects, eg religion, history, geography and music, may seem rather patronising to our modern sensibilities, but for many of these young women, most of whom had had almost no education, it offered hope for a better future … although, as an experiment in social-engineering it was always likely to have at least as many ‘failures’ as ‘successes’! For me part of the reason why such ‘charitable’ patronage so often fails is summed-up in the following response from Mrs Holdsworth (the Matron of Urania Cottage) to an accusation from Angela Burdett-Coutts that she had failed in her responsibilities:
“This was not my idea; this was not my project. You think it’s enough to pipe money in, buy them books and
stock the pantry and teach them to play the guitar? What they need more than any of that is our faith in them,
love and patience and a foundation on which they may build their lives. Calling once a week and drinking tea with them only serves to keep the distance between yourself and them. What they need is friendship. A real home, a real family, a sense of belonging they’ve never had before. Not a benefactress paying a royal visit when she has nothing better to do.”
It strikes me that Mrs H’s response remains as relevant today as it did in the mid-nineteenth century!
I found that the various interconnecting storylines added a satisfying multi-layered dimension to the development of the story and also provided opportunities to gradually reveal insights into the backgrounds of the well-drawn individual characters. Although there were a few occasions when I thought that the pacing of the story felt rather slowed down by the number of plotlines, on balance the story held my attention and interest and I admired the author’s skill in weaving historical facts into her storytelling.
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“This was not my idea; this was not my project. You think it’s enough to pipe money in, buy them books and
stock the pantry and teach them to play the guitar? What they need more than any of that is our faith in them,
love and patience and a foundation on which they may build their lives. Calling once a week and drinking tea with them only serves to keep the distance between yourself and them. What they need is friendship. A real home, a real family, a sense of belonging they’ve never had before. Not a benefactress paying a royal visit when she has nothing better to do.”
It strikes me that Mrs H’s response remains as relevant today as it did in the mid-nineteenth century!
I found that the various interconnecting storylines added a satisfying multi-layered dimension to the development of the story and also provided opportunities to gradually reveal insights into the backgrounds of the well-drawn individual characters. Although there were a few occasions when I thought that the pacing of the story felt rather slowed down by the number of plotlines, on balance the story held my attention and interest and I admired the author’s skill in weaving historical facts into her storytelling.
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