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Caroline McKay

Born: 1823
Died: 1870

Author: Lynda Fase

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EARLY LIFE IN WORTHING

Caroline McKay was born Caroline Hills in 1823 and baptised at St Paul’s Chapel in Worthing, Sussex, on 7 January 1823. Her father Henry was a tailor, probably a journeyman working for somebody else – or at least that was his status in the 1841 Census. He married Jane Groom on 7 August 1820 in Steyning, which is a small market town located 6-7 miles to the northeast of Worthing.

The couple baptised Caroline’s elder brother Edward there on 24 September 1820, and five more children were born in Worthing after Caroline. (She was about 16 when the youngest was born.)

• Jane (baptised 26 August 1825)
• Mary Ann (baptised 26 August 1827)
• Harriett (baptised 8 August 1830)
• George (baptised 30 June 1833)
• Henry (baptised 10 March 1839) 

Steyning was quite an important local centre, but Worthing was one of the growing seaside resorts on the south coast, attracting people of many trades to provide services for the new tourists. Worthing had acquired the status of a town exactly twenty years before Caroline’s birth, having previously been a small fishing and agricultural hamlet in the parish of Broadwater. Broadwater is now just a district of Worthing, some distance away from the coast, but until 1812 all residents of Worthing had to travel there for their church services.

Caroline, however, was baptised in the new Chapel of Ease, which had been built to cater for Worthing’s residents and visitors. (Wikipedia) 

By 1841 the family were living in an area called New Town. This was a terrace of houses built in the 1820s or 1830s for working class people – in part of what is now Clifton Street (British History Online). Caroline’s brother Edward was away for the 1841 Census, possibly working as a servant in a large draper’s shop on St. James Street in Brighton.

Caroline’s next younger sister Jane would have been about fifteen but she was not there either. The name is so common (including confusion with Hill) that it is impossible to be certain about her. A Jane Hills of Worthing was buried in July 1826, aged two, only a year after the baptism of Caroline’s sister Jane. The age is unexpected, but I am inclined to think this was her. There was also a Jane Hill of the right age in 1841 working as a servant in Brighton. 

All the other children were at home in 1841. Caroline would have been about eighteen and is not described as having any occupation. This may have been just an omission by the Census enumerator, but she was at home in any case, rather than away in service. When she was later admitted to the asylum, it was recorded that her first episode of chronic mania was at about the age of twenty, so this Census entry may be the first clue to her early mental health problems.   

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

Perhaps Caroline did find an occupation in Brighton, that bigger, more established and successful seaside town just down the coast. In 1849 she married there and had a local address at 8 Windsor Street. Her husband was Thomas McKay, a man in his mid to late twenties, as Caroline was.

Thomas may have been connected in some way to Caroline’s father, as he was also a tailor. He was born in Ireland, where conditions were bad in the 1840s, and again Brighton would have attracted people with a trade to offer. His address was 33 Upper North Street, and the couple’s homes were close to each other, one just to the east and one just to the west of St Nicholas Church, where they married.

In the 1851 Census, Upper North Street looks like a commercial street filled with small businesses and shops, so Thomas may have been living at/near his workplace. Windsor Street had residents with a variety of occupations, including a chimney sweep and a schoolmaster. In 1851, two elderly widows were living as separate households in the building where Caroline had lived in 1841. The whole area was a working-class one, built for those who were servicing the needs of Brighton’s more affluent residents and visitors. 

Caroline probably moved to Brighton alone, rather than with her family, and it is interesting that she didn’t travel the ten miles back to her parents’ home for her wedding. It is nice to see, though, that one of her witnesses was a Mary Ann Hills – probably her younger sister. Both Caroline and her husband were able to sign their names on the marriage certificate, and her sister could as well.  

CHANGES FOR HER FAMILY

Caroline’s family had also moved by this time, but not to Brighton. In 1850 her father Henry died while living in West Tarring, another district of Worthing nowadays, but then very much a separate rural village. He died in his mid-fifties of consumption (TB). Interestingly, his death was not registered by her mother or a sibling, but by a neighbour, Frances Duffield, who was present at the death. This was a married woman of similar age to Caroline’s parents, who was working as a charwoman in the 1851 Census. I can’t find any relationship with Caroline’s family, but perhaps her mother was already working outside the house to support the family, and so Frances was sitting with Henry as a favour or for payment. Perhaps the move to West Tarring was in some way connected to Henry Hill’s poor health.

In the 1851 Census, four months after her husband’s death, Caroline’s mother Jane (aged 52) was living in West Tarring, with:

• Eldest son Edward, aged 28, a grocer’s shopman
• Daughter Harriet, aged 19, a dressmaker
• Youngest son Henry, aged 12, an errand boy

Jane herself was described as a nurse – probably an informal midwife and maternity nurse as is shown in later Censuses.  

CAROLINE’S CHILDREN

By 1851, Caroline and Thomas McKay had moved to 42 Whitecross Street, Brighton. The 1851 Census records them living there with their four-month-old son Ninian, named after his paternal grandfather. (Interestingly Caroline’s birthplace was listed as Brighton, and Ninian’s was listed as Worthing.)

Did Caroline go home to her mother for help with the birth? Or did the enumerator accidentally switch the birthplaces of mother and child? Whitecross Street was half a mile or so further back from the seafront than Caroline’s previous addresses; it was also a working-class area and close to the new station. A lot of workers on the newly arrived railway would have been living there. 

When Ninian’s sister Jane was born, Caroline and Thomas took both children to St Nicholas Church to be baptised. This was in 1852, so Ninian was already two years old. Their address was given as Trafalgar Place, about 200 metres west of Whitecross Street, where the 1851 Census recorded them living.

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CAROLINE’S TROUBLES

Something went wrong after this, but it is difficult to establish the timeline.

In 1856, Caroline was admitted to Bethnal Green Asylum in London; there were no asylums available in Sussex yet. But Caroline did not move there from Brighton. Her last place of residence was Broadwater parish, and a Worthing doctor signed a medical certificate for her admission.

Had she moved back with her husband, or did she split from him and return to her birthplace, where she would be closer to her family? Her diagnosis was the rather odd one of chronic mania, caused by natural weakness of intellect, with good physical health. She was 33 years old at this time.   

Bethnal Green Asylum had been one of the most notoriously bad asylums, but by Caroline’s time the Commissioners in Lunacy held it to be a model of mental healthcare. The good conditions included baths and WCs, heating, better clothing and feeding of patients, occupations for the patients, a library, and church services. All of these were improvements of course from a very low base line. (Information from the ‘Lost Hospitals of London’ website.) 

Sussex County Asylum opened in 1859, and Caroline was transferred there after three years in Bethnal Green Asylum. The admissions register states that she had her first attack of mania at the age of 20 – in the early 1840s, before her marriage. It also says that the ‘duration of existing attacks’ was three weeks, but I am not sure what this means in the context of someone who was simply being transferred after a long period in another asylum. 

CAROLINE’S FAMILY

In the 1861 and 1871 Censuses, Caroline’s mother was living in Worthing. She was recorded as staying temporarily with a different family each time, working as a monthly maternity nurse. She was still having to earn her living this way at the age of 70, which may have been just a year before her death.  

Caroline’s sister Mary Ann married a coach painter named William Baker in 1850, and they soon settled in Brighton.

In 1855, Caroline’s sister Harriet married George Broadbridge, a labourer. Harriet and Caroline’s younger brother George was a witness. They moved to London a year or two after their marriage. In 1861, Caroline’s younger brother George also married. Mary Ann, Harriet, and George’s weddings all took place in Broadwater Parish Church.

George was living in Steyning when he married; the Census recorded him and his wife living there shortly after the wedding. By 1871 the couple had settled in Forest Row, East Grinstead. But from their children’s birthplaces (according to the Census) they probably spent time in Findon in the mid 1860s. 

By this time George had become a coachman. The youngest sibling, Henry, was at sea for a while, and then moved to London, where he married in 1864. (For further details of Caroline’s sibling’s lives, see below.)

Broadwater Parish Church was not the parish church for West Tarring, so I’m not sure why most of the siblings married there. This was even true for Harriet, who married before the 1851 Census when her mother and some of her siblings were living in West Tarring. If there was a move, however, it would explain why Caroline was also admitted to the asylum from Broadwater. I am a little confused as to whether ‘Broadwater’ was still being used to describe the wider Worthing area. The sisters and their husbands were stated to be of Worthing on their marriage certificates, but the church does not seem to be the St Pauls Church where they were all baptised. 

When living in Forest Row, brother George would have been the sibling living closest to Caroline in the asylum. As for Caroline’s husband and children, I can’t find them in any further records, until her son Ninian turns up in Liverpool in 1876. At the age of 25, Ninian married Esther Croale, whose father was a cooper; Esther was 28. I wonder if Thomas McKay took the children back to Ireland, and then Ninian returned to England as a young man. He followed his father into tailoring, which makes it likely that he grew up with him.

FURTHER DETAILS OF CAROLINE’S SIBLINGS

Mary Ann 

In 1851 Marian’ Baker was living at 76 Edward Street Brighton with her husband William Baker. She was 24 and he was 25. The 1861 Census records the couple living at 6 Cumberland Place with their children Kate Jane, aged 6, and Weller (Walter?) aged 5. 

Cumberland Place ran “from 43 Edward Street to 68 Carlton Hill. A narrow street of poor housing built soon after 1800. Number of properties in 1822: 20. Included in the Condemned Area in 1897. One of four such adjacent streets demolished in the slum clearance of the mid 1890s for the construction of White Street and Baker Street.” (With thanks to www.brightonhistory.org.uk)

In the 1871 Census the family were recorded living at 16 Cumberland Place. William, aged 42, was a coach painter. Mary Ann was 40, and their daughter Kate was 15. 

Harriet

The 1861 Census shows that Harriet and her husband George were living at 19 Camera Terrace, Chelsea (somewhere between Kings Road and Fulham Road). This was a multi-occupancy house of three families. Harriet was 28 and George was 27, working as a bricklayer. They had three children: Alice, aged 5, George, aged 3, and Anne, who was 1 month old.

In the 1871 Census Harriet is recorded as a widow, aged 38, living at 22 Bective Road, Fulham (just south of the River Thames, across from Chelsea). 22 Bective Road was the home of 4 families, consisting of 21 people. Harriet had five children with her: Alice, aged 15, a servant; George, aged 13, “works at the Potteries” (probably Fulham Pottery); Ann, aged 10; Edward, aged 7; and William, aged 1. 

George

George was recorded as a gardener in the 1861 Census. He was 28 and living on Church Street in Steyning with his wife Rhoda. Rhoda had been born in Pulborough, Sussex, and was 22 years old. From the birthplaces of their children, shown in the 1871 Census, George probably lived in Findon in the mid 1860s. By the time of the 1871 Census he had become a coachman. He was aged 38 and living with Rhoda, aged 32, at Bramblehurst Lodge in Forest Row, East Grinstead. Their children were Henry, aged 9; Harriett, aged 7; and George, aged 5.

Bramblehurst Lodge (photographed more recently).
With thanks to Simon Carey and the Geograph Website

Henry

He was listed in the 1861 Census as an Able Seaman, aged 22. He was aboard the “Corsair” at Shoreham, Sussex, on the night of the Census. In 1864, Henry was recorded at St. Jude’s Church in Chelsea, London, where he was listed as a builder, aged 25.

Henry married Ann Rouch who was 22 years old; her father was a farmer. Henry signed his name, but Ann signed with a mark instead. In the 1871 Census, Henry was living on Stanley Road in Chelsea. He was recorded as a labourer, aged 36, and born in Fulham, Middlesex (!). He is listed alongside his wife, Ann, aged 34, and their children: Henry, aged 6; William, aged 4; and Ann, aged 2. 

CAROLINE’S DEATH IN SUSSEX COUNTY ASYLUM

Caroline lived for ten more years in Sussex County Asylum. She eventually died there in 1870 of ‘disease of the arteries of the brain’. This would probably be one of the medical conditions that causes strokes, but that was not the usual way to describe a stroke on a death certificate at that time. She was 47 years old. 

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Author’s Thoughts 

So what was Caroline’s condition? Chronic mania is not something usually linked with ‘weakness of intellect’ or learning disabilities. Although labelled ‘chronic’, her mania seems to have been more episodic – especially in the early years, given she had an attack of it but was later able to marry and have children.

On the other hand, the marriage may have been short-lived, as we only have evidence of her being with her husband from 1849 to 1852. Whatever form her ‘mania’ took, it may well have caused her husband to leave and take their children with him, an unusual thing for a man to do in those days.

It does make me think of my own great grandfather, who was a man with his own problems (notably a drinking habit). But when his wife was suffering from symptoms of possible schizophrenia, he cut contact with her and moved away with their sons, aged 8 and 1. Like Caroline, the little support my great grandmother had afterwards came from her birth family, but her husband did raise the sons to adulthood.  

I am interested by the fact that Caroline didn’t go home to get married, as most of her siblings did. Maybe Brighton was too far away, but it seems to indicate an independent streak, or perhaps a rift with the family. Did they maybe disapprove of her Irish husband? Could she even have run away to get married and taken temporary lodgings in Brighton beforehand? Was her previous occupation in Brighton one they didn’t approve of? 

And then her cause of death?  Was it linked to her other condition? Given the diseased arteries in her brain, I wondered if she could perhaps have been suffering from vascular dementia, but the weakness of intellect was noted when she was still in her thirties.

A Google search of the symptoms does also suggest neurosyphilis, which could be compatible with the weak intellect and early stroke. This doesn’t really account for something that started at the age of 20, but the family would have been mentioning that at a much later date, and they may have been talking about something unconnected, like a strong character or excitable nature. 

Like all of our stories, there is too much that we don’t know. Caroline’s background was not a miserable one, and her siblings all seem to have lived average working-class lives, but something was not quite right for Caroline. 

– Lynda Fase