Caroline Voller
Born: 1837
Died: 1866
Author: Lynda Fase
CAROLINE’S EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Caroline Voller was baptised (as Catherine Elisabeth) in 1837 at Rumboldswyke. Today, Rumboldswyke falls largely inside Chichester, but it was a very small village then.
Caroline was the second child of George Voller, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Elizabeth (nee Kinchett). Her older sister Mary Ann had been baptised in the same place in 1835.
There was a brief spell in nearby Tangmere, where another sister (Frances) was born. But by the time Caroline was four, the family had settled more permanently in her father’s native village of Oving, four miles east of Chichester.
When Caroline was five the family lost a baby son, John Hart Voller, aged only two or three months. In 1845 a sister, Eiiza, was born, followed by a final brother, George, in 1849. Caroline was already about 13 when George arrived.
The family lived for at least ten years in a house in the village, near an inn and the blacksmith’s forge. The inn was identified as the White Horse in the 1851 Census, but I can’t find any record of this establishment. They returned to the village in the middle of a programme of good works by Katherine Woods, the new owner of Shopwyke Manor, whose lands included the village of Oving.
Katherine rebuilt her own home, Shopwyke House, but also made improvements to the church, and she built a row of alms-houses, a school, and cottages for the rural workers. All of them were designed by a local architect using local stone and flint. (The above information on Oving and Katherine Woods comes with our thanks from Section 3 of A Short History of Oving Parish by the Oving History Group).
In 1845, when Caroline was eight, Kelly’s Directory described Oving as a ‘delightful and beautiful village raised from a neglected state’.
In 1851, Caroline’s sisters (Frances, aged 11, and Eliza, aged 5) were attending the school Katherine Woods opened in 1839. This was before the age of compulsory or free education, and the families probably did have to pay something. Katherine Woods had left provision in her will of 1848 for the school to continue, but this was only to teach poor children ‘spelling, reading and such various works as are useful in their class of life’. Writing and arithmetic were only to be taught on an exceptional basis as a reward for good conduct!
The eldest child Mary Ann Voller perhaps learned sewing at the school. In 1851, aged 16, she was working as a dressmaker. Caroline was 14 and had left school, but she was probably just helping her mother at home.
By March 1861 the Voller household consisted of father, mother, and youngest son George. Mary Ann’s two young sons (born outside of marriage) also lived with them. George was probably not yet 12 and he was not attending school, instead working as an ‘agricultural boy’.
The family had moved to a less central part of the parish, near to Withies Farm, south of the village. This was not far from the village, but on the other side of the railway, which was another thing Caroline would have seen built during her childhood. The farmhouse was occupied by Caroline’s paternal grandparents, Thomas and Harriet Voller, in their early seventies. Thomas was described as an agricultural labourer and bailiff, but the word ‘bailiff’ had been deleted.
CAROLINE’S WORK
I don’t know what Caroline had been doing for the last ten years, but in 1861 she was living in Oving village with an elderly couple, James and Sarah Noel/Noell.
Caroline’s job was to act as a nurse to Sarah, who was paralysed and on parish relief. James Noell was a gardener, and previously a general labourer, so probably not in a position to pay Sarah much, if anything. Perhaps the parish relief included payment for Sarah’s care. Caroline may also have done temporary childcare for her mother Elizabeth, who had Mary Ann’s illegitimate sons to look after. One of them was away on a visit with his grandmother at the time of the Census, and the other was a visitor in the Noell household.
CAROLINE’S CRISIS
In September 1861, Sarah Noell died, aged 69. In November, Caroline was admitted to Sussex County Asylum. Her admission record tells us she was a nurse and domestic servant, suffering from acute melancholia, caused by ‘excitement’ after a death. This must have been Sarah’s death, as there don’t appear to be any deaths of close family members. According to the admission registers, Caroline’s health was very poor, caused at least in part by her refusing food. She was in the asylum for the next five years and died there in 1866 of TB, aged 29.
Caroline may have known Sarah Noell all her life as a neighbour. Ten years earlier Sarah had worked as a cook, and three adult children were living with her, so the stroke – or whatever caused her paralysis – had happened since that time. The job Caroline was doing was quite unusual for a young woman, I think. I wonder whether she was already suffering from less than perfect mental or physical health, making it easier for her to stay close to home and work for a neighbour.
CAROLINE’S SIBLINGS
To compare what Caroline’s siblings did, Mary Ann had one illegitimate son in Oving, and then another in London, before emigrating to Australia, where she married.
Frances married in Brighton in 1861, so may have gone there as a servant.
Eliza was working as a kitchen maid at the Rectory in Oving in 1861. She later married a groom who had grown up in Chichester, had children with him, and remained in Sussex. In 1897, when Eliza was 51, she was admitted to West Sussex County Asylum (Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester). She died there when she was 66. It would be interesting to know her story.
Brother George became a wheelwright, married, and remained in Sussex.
AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS
So why did Caroline take the death of Sarah Noell so hard? Her sister’s case might show whether there was any shared genetic or environmental cause.
Compared with many people of her time, Sarah had not really experienced the loss of loved ones so far in her life, except for the baby brother when she was only five. Her parents were still fit and well, and her paternal grandparents still living. She might have lost her maternal grandmother, who was living or staying with the family in the 1841 Census, but I don’t know when she died. All the same, modern young people are similarly sheltered from death but do not routinely react in that way.
Apparently, the term melancholic depression still exists for this form of depression. It is induced when the loss of something (like a job) or someone becomes internalised, resulting in feelings of guilt and worthlessness, as well as causing other issues to resurface.
As she was responsible for Sarah, Caroline may indeed have felt some real or imagined guilt. Perhaps if her mental health was fragile, she also lost some stability in her life when her job ceased to exist. Without modern treatment available, Caroline may well never have recovered from the condition and indeed would have deteriorated – so it is not surprising that she succumbed to the TB that was rife in asylums.
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