Jane de Brissac Fredrica (1842 -1926)
the youngest, never married but she was all the mother they ever knew to many
hundreds of children. Strong-minded, original, capable autocratic, and
extraordinarily loveable to those who found favour in her eight, she was quite
the most remarkable character I have ever known. As a young woman in her early
twenties, she had left the comfort and luxury of her Madeira home, and had come
to England and founded an Orphanage with her own private fortune. The children
she had collected in the slums of London, which she visited alone and
unattended, an unheard of thing for a young lady in the 1860's At that time no
provision was made for children in bad homes, or who had one parent living, and
it was upon this type that Aunt Janey concentrated. From small beginnings the
Orphanage grew rapidly, till for many years she had over a hundred children, and
a big establishment in Kilburn. At about the end of the century, when public
opinion was beginning to awaken the numbers began gradually to lessen and she
moved from Kilburn to the big house near Peckham Rye where she lived till her
death, housing on an average about forty children.
From the beginning, Aunt Janey's staff had always been recruited from
gentlewoman who worked on a voluntary basis, and until after the end of the 1914
war she had never had the least difficulty in finding plenty of able assistants
of this type.
After the war, however, changing conditions made it more and more difficult for
her to get helpers, and then it was that she wrote to my parents asking if I
might go and help during a temporary difficulty over Christmas. My parents had
always bad the greatest regard and admiration for Aunt Janey and her work, and
agreed at once, even though it meant curtailing my schooling. They felt, and
rightly, that her influence would be worth more to me than another year at
school. Fortunately I satisfied Aunt Janey's critical eye and exacting
standards, so I stayed on, teaching and helping: in the care of girls of any
ages, many of whom were older than myself. At first I was frankly terrified of
the stern old lady, but after a time an affection and mutual understanding
developed between us, which was quite remarkable in view of the fact that we
were separated by two generations.
An enormous amount of furniture and family relics had devolved on Aunt Janey, as
the last survivor of her family and the private rooms at the Orphanage were
filled to overflowing with treasures from the Carmo, ranging from huge tables,
sideboards etc. of Madeiran timber and workmanship, to an infinitude of family
portraits miniatures, and knick-knacks of every description. As I rose in Aunt
Janey's esteem, so she manifested it by putting more and more odd jobs upon me,
till eventually I was the only person who was allowed to handle her treasures,
which honour entailed the daily dusting of the huge drawing-room with all its
assimilations. This in addition to my routine work with the children.
Between my intimate knowledge of the family treasure and Aunt Janey's stories of
Madeira and life at the Carmo, it is small wonder that I developed a deep
interest in the family history, and in the island of Madeira together with a
firm determination that, by hook or by crook, I would visit Madeira before I
died, and see as much as I could of the places of which I had heard so much.
This I have at last achieved after thirty years. It is as a tribute to the
memory of Aunt Janey and her family that I have written this brief account of
the Phelps’s of Madeira which together with such photographs and sketches as I
have been able to collect, I am presenting to Mr. Noel Cossart of Funchal, to be
preserved by him together with the other early records in his possession, of the
English families
of Madeira.
It is going to be extremely difficult for me to give a fair picture of Aunt Janey and her Orphanage. For Aunt Janey herself I have nothing but the deepest affection and admiration, but she was even more deeply rooted in the Victorian period than Mother was, though with for more excuse, as she was of my grandmother’s generation. If Mother was anchored in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, the Orphanage was anchored in the ‘60’s. Conditions, which had been considered excellent when the Orphanage was founded, were continued absolutely unchanged for nearly sixty years. It is easy enough to read accounts and descriptions of life in the mid-Victorian period, but it falls to few people of the present century actually to have lived under those conditions, as I have done. The Orphanage was a complete anachronism, an oasis left untouched by the passing sands of time, a compact little entity unchanged for sixty years, and carrying on exactly the same living conditions and way of life right to the threshold of the hectic ‘twenties. Stepping into the building one could feel the curtains of the past descend around one, muffling and muting the sounds of the outer world, and shutting one off from any hint of the life and activity without. To me, who had just begun to feel the throb and excitement of life in the world, the atmosphere was stifling and annihilating; it crushed all my newly developing interests, and engulfed me in a grey round of dreary duties, in surroundings which appalled me by their drabness.
The Orphanage was conducted on strict Conventual lines, and was I believe, affiliated in some way to one of the Anglican Sisterhoods, Sundays, Saints' days, Feast Days and Fast Days were scrupulously observed, and all the children were far better versed in these observances than I was. Even the small ones knew all the Red Letter Saints Days and Black Letter Saints Days, chiefly because certain privileges were permitted on the Red Letter Days and smaller privileges on the Black Letter Days. On Sundays they all attended an extremely High Church in the vicinity, which was one their bright moments, being one of the rare occasions when they got outside the Orphanage precincts.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday were real high spots. On Good Friday no one, not even the tinies, was allowed to speak except for absolute necessities, until after the Three Hours Service. They all attended that, and loved it. Little things of five and six, would sit enthralled throughout the whole three hours, with never a whisper or a wriggle. It was a marvel to me to see them.
Talking at meals was never allowed, except at dinner on Sundays, but on Easter
Sunday and Christmas Day, talking was permitted at all meals. These rules, harsh
as they may seem from the present day point of view, certainly had the effect of
impressing the Church doctrines upon their minds, and made the Festivals and
Fasts a very real thing in their lives.
I soon came to like this Anglican regime, and began to go to confession, as did
the older girls who had been confirmed. There is something very bracing and
astringent in the strict observation of Church Ordinances, which has a most
healthy reaction upon the spiritual life. I had been brought up very strictly on
Christian lines, but Mother was not of the Anglican persuasion, and I came to
love the Anglican Services, with their wealth of ritual, colour and music. It
was probably this time at the Orphanage which gave me my strong leaning towards
Anglo and even Roman Catholicism. Although I have always remained Church of
England, I have made a point of attending services of every denomination, and
the lovely ritual of both the Anglo and the Roman Catholic services appeals to
me far more than the plainness and uninspiring surroundings of the
non-conformist bodies. This is, of course, merely due to their appeal to the
artistic temperament, and to such emotionalism as I possess. From the
intellectual point of view I feel it is essential that everyone should think the
matter for themselves, and refuse to be influenced by early teaching, or
ecclesiastical dogma, or anything apart from their own personal findings.
I learned to take a delight in the exalted atmosphere of the Anglican ritual,
and found a deep satisfaction in being able to express it by the actions of
genuflexion and crossing. I took my first Confession with the deepest
seriousness, and have never forgotten the sensation of spiritual asepsis, and
the feeling of having been turned inside out and scrubbed clean, which followed.
It was one of the most inspiring and stimulating experiences I have ever known.
Aunt Janey was nearing eighty when I went to the Orphanage. She was a most impressive figure, stout and heavily built, with the strong handsome features which are unmistakeably recognizable in my father’s family. Strong-minded, original, capable and autocratic, she ruled the Orphanage like a benevolent tyrant. She seldom had to assert her authority, for she was authority personified, and her tremendous personality permeated every thought and action of every person under her roof. At first I was frankly terrified of the stern old lady, and shook in my shoes when she spoke to me, as readily as the children did. But after a time I began to discover the wealth of kindliness and understanding behind the sternness of that handsome old face, and to catch the sparkle of humour in the wise old eyes, Like so many of the family, Aunt Janey had very pale, almost colourless eyes, without the dark band of colour round the iris which was such a striking and beautiful feature in the case of Auntie Dick. The owners of these pale eyes had the power of using them in a stony stare, completely annihilating to the victim on whom it was turned. This stare was known throughout the family as “the cold boiled eye”, and no brown eyed member could achieve it. Aunt Janey was the perfect exponent of the cold boiled eye, and it was a long time before I realised that there was almost invariably a twinkle behind it. As I came to know her better a deep affection developed between us which was quite remarkable in view of the tact that we were separated by two generations and nearly sixty years.
Aunt Janey had a deep feeling for the clan, and blood ties meant a great deal to
her. She seemed to understand that I had inherited the same thing, and this link
drew us very close. She seemed to take a real delight in discovering which of
the family characteristics I had inherited, and she encouraged me in all that
she found, I was given special time off my duties for practising on the
magnificent concert grand which had come from the Carmo, and she delighted in
the drawings and watercolour sketches I did of the children in their quaint,
old-fashioned uniforms. She taught me to climb up and. down all the intricacies
of the family tree with the unhesitating agility of a monkey, and would suddenly
fire at me some searching question as to how so and so was related to somebody
else, and expect the correct answer on the spot. But she never spared me, and
any momentary stupidity on ray part, either over genealogies or anything else,
would draw the sharp adjuration of “Think, child,” or “God has given you
very good brains - use them.”
Aunt Janey had of course, grown up to use Portuguese and Spanish as readily as
English. On one dire occasion, soon after I went there and before I had got
accustomed to her brusque manner of speech, I happened to mention Don Quixote,
giving the name the hideous English pronunciation. Aunt Janey turned the cold
boiled eye on me and snapped, “Don Quixote? I don’t know what you mean by Don
Quixote,” giving it the same English pronunciation. I gazed at her in helpless
bewilderment, for it was incredible to me that the omniscient Aunt Janey should
never have heard of Don Quixote. Hypnotized by the basilisk stare, I stumblingly
explained that he was a Spanish knight who tilted at windmills.
“I knew all about that before you were born or thought of, child,” was the tart reply, “but his name was not Don Quixote,” still with the English pronunciation. As I stood speechless with confusion, she suddenly shouted, “Don Quixote, child, Don Quixote,” giving it the beautiful Spanish pronunciation, “Never let me hear you speak of Don Quixote again.”
Aunt Janey did not often raise her voice, but when she did, the effect was most alarming. If ever she needed an assistant or a messenger she would shout the one word “Child” into the void, and immediately orphans of all ages would materialize and converge upon her at the run. Similarly if from her window or other unseen vantage point, she spied anyone, child or staff alike, doing any action of which she did not approve, she would bellow “NO”, whereupon everyone within earshot, and that covered a wide area, for Aunt Janey had a voice like a bull of Bashan when she cared to use it, would freeze in their tracks, and remain immobile until the delinquent was identified.
Aunt Janey went in for a very original style of dress. She wore a coat and waistcoat of masculine cut, with a stiff collar, and a very long and voluminous skirt, all of which garments were an absolute rabbit warren of pockets. She could produce anything out of her pockets at a moment’s notice. They bulged with letters, hammers, screwdrivers, secateurs, pocket-knives, string, seed packets, garden pegs, nails and screws, and almost invariably a few squashed medlars. She had a great love of medlars and was most particular that they should not be eaten until fully “bletted”, which to the rest of the world meant rotten. The shelves in her bedroom usually held an array of shrivelled objects, which the children called, with great reason, “Miss Phelps’ rotten apples”, and these she would nibble at all odd moments. As well as the over-stuffed pockets, Aunt Janey had a number of canvas bags, which she wore tied round her waist, and which went everywhere with her. These contained a mass of papers, magazines, ancient account books, seed catalogues, skeins of bast, and all the medley of treasures that refused to go into her pockets. She had been slightly lame all her life, and therefore did not gup and down stairs more than was absolutely necessary, and despite having a houseful of orphans to run her errands, she preferred to carry all her possessions about with her as far as was possible. In order to assist her in climbing the stairs she had had a hand rail fixed on the wall and this was a contributing factor in one of the major sins which could be committed by the children. They loved to take one corner of their pinafores in each hand, and slide down the stairs with one hand on the banisters, and the other on the handrail. It was a delightful performance, but was, for some reason or other, severely frowned upon if seen.
Apart from the obvious use of the pinafores in keeping their frocks clean, and the illicit use in sliding down the stairs, these pinafores were utilised by Aunt Janey as a very original form of punishment for minor crimes. The delinquent would be made to sit cross—legged on the floor, in any convenient place, sometimes the corner of the dining room, sometimes on the bend of the staircase with her pinafore turned up These odd little figures would be found in all sorts of unexpected places, and there they had to sit until such time as Aunt Janey considered the crime to be sufficiently expiated. 0n one occasion about half a dozen of the tinies were missing at midday dinner. I had missed them from school in the morning, but had received the information that they had been sent to Miss Phelps. Dinner time arrived and still the tinies were missing. Inquiries elicited the Information that they had been sent to Miss Phelps directly after breakfast for some mass crime, and from that time onwards had never been seen again.
Aunt Janey came down to breakfast, and the small sinners had been sent up to her bedroom, After a lot of anxious discussion, one bold member of the staff ventured to knock on Aunt Janey’s door, for as she had not appeared in the middle of the morning. In accordance with her usual custom, everyone thought that some very terrible session was taking place. However on entering room, Aunt Janey was found in bed, cosily asleep, while in a dark corner sat a row of Immobile little Images, all with their pinafores over their faces, having sat there motionless since breakfast time. She had dropped off to sleep again after sitting them down, and there they had stayed, not daring to move till given permission, was very sorry for the unfortunate little scraps, and we had to pick them up and carry them downstairs, as they were so cramped that they could not stand, but the vision of the old lady happily asleep and supremely unconscious of the plight of the row of hooded midgets, was really extremely funny. As a general rule the pinafore punishment did not last more than ten of fifteen minutes, and this contretemps made history in the annals of the Orphanage.