Introduction
Writing shortly after the end of the Second World War, the Reverend Edmund Boggis expressed his pleasure at fathersâ changed behaviour towards their infant children: âI do like to see a man walking about with his tiny child in his arms, or taking his youngster for a ride in a pram, his wife remaining at homeâ. He could well remember, he added, a time when âa father would regard the exhibition of such affectionate care as solely the motherâs province and âinfra dignitatemâ for a man, probably exposing him to ridiculeâ.1 In reality, the sight of a late Victorian or Edwardian father pushing a pram would not always have been met with derision. John Crittall recalled going for a walk while on holiday in the Essex seaside resort of Frinton during the First World War, his father âpushing my eldest sister in a â pushchair with me walking on the sideâ, the only thing making this a memorable occasion being the fact that they saw a daylight air-raid taking place over Harwich.2 Nevertheless, the consensus undoubtedly was that the primary carers of babies and young children, both girls and boys, should be women: mothers, female relatives or, in more affluent households, female servants such as nurses, nannies or nursery maids.3
Such a gendered division of labour leaves open the question of fathersâ role during their childrenâs early years â an issue that in recent years has received new scholarly attention.4 The first part of this chapter thus joins the discussion by questioning the extent to which middle-class fathers were involved in the day-to-day, routine care of their children. It suggests that although the hands-on work of washing, dressing and feeding was mostly left to women, plenty of fathers took a keen interest in nursery matters and became involved themselves at times of trouble, illness, or when nobody else was available. Even then, the boundary between paternal and maternal responsibilities was not entirely erased. As the following section suggests, furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that points to the limited amount of time fathers and young sons spent together, whether because of the formerâs employment and other responsibilities, or the latterâs leaving home for boarding school: days, weeks, or even months could go by with fathers and sons seeing little of each other, either at home or outside it. Such absences, however, were punctuated by significant moments when fathers and sons came together. The final section of this chapter turns to such points of contact: these interactions may not always have been a pleasure, but nevertheless mattered, both to fathers and to sons. Paying especial attention to âa fatherâs traditional duty to his son â to train him in manlinessâ,5 the chapter concludes by questioning the extent to which fathers were able and willing to take on the roles of instructors and sources of information on masculine skills and practices.
Childcare
When Darcy Kitchin was five, in the late 1860s, a doctor told his father, then only in his mid-forties, that he had to give up his business as a hop merchant and move from Worcester âto a more bracing climateâ for the sake of his health. The family duly decamped to Scarborough, where his fatherâs health quickly improved and where â no longer busy with work â he became deeply involved in the childrenâs upbringing: he âbelieved in plenty of milk, double-soled boots, stout clothes and wool next the skin. He ran us like a school, and our numbers, which were already nine, with the promise of more, no doubt justified himâ.6 Such detailed paternal supervision was unusual, especially where female carers were present. Among the middle-class men interviewed by Thea Vigne and her colleagues in the mid-1970s, none could recall their father bathing or dressing them, brushing their hair, putting them to bed or binding cuts.7 Ernest Sadd Brown could not remember his businessman âfather coming into the nursery at allâ, while Stephen Lloydâs father, the manager of a Birmingham engineering firm, would occasionally come up, but to play with, rather than care for the children.8 According to Archie Yuillie, âfathers in those days were much more detached than they are todayâ, although as John Crittall pointed out, the fact that his father did not spend much time putting plasters on knees and âthat kind of thingâ did not mean he was uninterested in his children. On the contrary, âhe was a devoted fatherâ, but âthere were other people to do itâ.9
As a number of historians have noted, a middle-class fatherâs role in the care of infants in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century households was primarily seen as a supportive one, deployed particularly at times of domestic crisis or when no other help was available.10 Even in these circumstances, fathersâ assistance was not guaranteed. Professor Philip Sargant Florence and his wife, the journalist and birth control campaigner Lella Secor Florence, had two children during and immediately after the First World War. Asked by Vigne in 1975 whether he had âlook[ed] after them and change[d] their nappiesâ, Florence explained that âI tried to sleep with them because my wife was getting rather tiredâ, but he does not seem to have persevered long. He admitted that âI wasnât much good at that ⊠I just didnât sleep at allâ.11
That said, there is plenty of evidence of fathers who took on an active childcare role at times of sickness or other family crises. In summer 1916, thirty-seven-year-old George Adcock, the London representative for a Loughborough firm of printers and stationers, applied for exemption from military service, partly on the basis of his role in looking after his five children, three boys and two girls, all under twelve. His wife, who suffered from varicose veins, âis often not able to do all that is requiredâ and they did not have friends in London who could help. He thus stepped in, particularly with the three young boys, who, he stressed, ârequire a fatherâs careâ.12 Middle-class fathers, it seems, did not always delegate childcare, particularly during periods of illness.13 Although their relationship later became troubled, in his early years Stuart Cloeteâs father seems to have been patient and gentle. He entertained the young Stuart by making âshadow pictures â men and animals â on the wall with his hands and a handkerchief. I enjoyed this very much. He also told me storiesâ. He really came into his own at times of illness: âwhen I was teething and could not sleep my father carried me up and down, singing: âOh Susannahâ, âI dreamt that I dwelt in marble hallsâ, âOld MacDonald had a farmâ, âCamptown Racesâ â.14 Not long after the birth of his brother in 1906, while on holiday in Geneva, Borys Conrad became ill with whooping cough, followed by pleurisy and rheumatic fever. While his mother cared for the new baby, much of the nursing devolved to his father, the novelist Joseph Conrad, and as Borys âbegan to recover he took charge of me completely and no invalid could have a more devoted attendant ⊠He would read to me for long periods and make birds or other things out of sheets of paper which he folded with great dexterityâ.15
Most middle-class fathers became involved in the day-to-day care of infants on a more permanent basis only in exceptional circumstances or in the absence of suitable female alternatives: most notably, perhaps, after a motherâs death.16 H.H. Bashford described the experiences of his friendâs uncle Leslie, a successful and we...