Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Susannah Hazell(171)

1829 –30/05/1856

Sister of William and Richard Hazell who died of tuberculosis at the age of 27

Relatives

William Hazell — brother

Richard Hazell — brother

Charlotte Hazell (171) — other

• Christopher Dolton

SUSANNAH HAZELL; 1829 -1856

Susannah was the eighth of nine children born to William and Susannah Hazell. She was born in 1829 and was baptised in Berkhamsted on 22^nd March that year. William and Susannah’s first child James, was born in 1811 and he died in 1835; Anne was born in 1813 and died in 1817; Sarah, born in 1816 also died in 1817; William was next born in 1818, followed by Joseph, born in 1820 and who died in 1822. Richard was born in 1822, followed by John in 1825, Susannah in 1829 and finally Henry, who was born in 1831.

Susannah’s father was a draper, a retailer of cloth.

The next documentary record we have which refers to Susannah is the 1841 census. Susannah, then 12 years old and her younger brother Henry, are to be found living in Northchurch in the household of Joseph and Elizabeth Redding and their four children. Joseph was farmer. Elizabeth Redding was Susannah and Henry’s aunt, being the sister of their mother.

Ten years later we find Susannah living and working as a domestic servant in the household of Paulina Whateley. Paulina, a 64 year old widow lived on Berkhamsted’s High Street with her 43 year old daughter, also named Paulina. The census return reveals that the older Paulina was a fundholder and house property owner. In addition to Susannah, a second young woman, Mary Thompson, was also employed as a servant in the Whateley household.

As standards of social decorum increased in later Victorian times, so the need for servants increased. By the time of the 1891 census 1.3 million women and girls were working as domestic servants. That is one in three women between the ages of 15 and 20. They were usually recruited between the ages of 10 and 13. There was a tax on indoor male servants whose pay was also greater. Women were cheaper to employ  and more easily dominated and kept in their place. A servant working for a middleclass family would usually live in the family’s house (as Susannah did). Hours were long and the pay was poor, £6 -£12 per annum. Servants were under the constant scrutiny and whilst living closely with the family were kept rigidly apart from it. Most employers felt they had a right to look through their servant’s belongings and it was not until 1860 that it became illegal to beat a servant. It was legal for employers to order servants to accompany them to church, but the servants had to sit at the back in a segregated section. There was no job security if a servant fell ill or committed some misdemeanour. Being a servant did have some advantages; a servant probably lived in better surroundings than her original home and some families were very good to their servants.   

Susannah, like her sister-in-law Charlotte Hazell who had died in 1853, died of Phthisis- tuberculosis. She died on 30^th May 1856 after an illness18 months.

During Victorian times tuberculosis, or consumption as it was also known, was particularly prevalent amongst the urban poor where overcrowding allowed the disease to thrive. Contemporary public health physicians had a tendency to blame the poor and their poor housing conditions for the disease, but it was by no means exclusive to the poor and it affected people at all levels of society. It is a mycobacterial infection spread when aerosol droplets of infected sputum ejected by coughing of the infected person are inhaled by those in prolonged and close contact. Nearly 4 million people are estimated to have died of the disease in England and Wales between 1851 and 1910.

Tuberculosis came to be considered in Victorian times as a “romantic disease” being entwined with notions of beauty and creativity. Tuberculosis was thought to bestow upon the sufferer heightened sensitivity and creativity.  The consumptive appearance entailed a pale skin, red cheeks with a feverish glow and an ethereal thinness. This became associated with fragility and sexual attractiveness and became the defining fashionable aesthetic. Many upper class women purposefully paled their skin to achieve a consumptive appearance. Corsets and voluminous skirts further emphasised slender figures. Consumptive heroines appeared in literature ( e.g. La dame aux Camelias and Les Miserables) and in opera (La Boheme and La Traviata). Byron was to declare “ How pale I look! – I should like, I think, to die of consumption… because then all the women would say ‘see that poor Byron – how interesting he looks in dying!’”

It was not, however,  a pleasant death.

“There was, and is, nothing remotely Romantic or psychosomatic about the disease. The most common form of human tuberculosis usually begins with flu-like symptoms which progress to a persistent cough, the spiting of blood caused by lesion of the lung tissue, and consequent weight-loss or general wasting of the muscles. The primary lesion of the lung can sometimes heal and the infection be contained within a protective tubercle. If this does not happen, the disease begins to consume the organ in which it has lodged, usually the lung, and the illness progresses to a fatal conclusion. This can sometimes be a protracted process with periods of remission or latency.” (“The Dark Shadow”, R. Brownlow.)

Present with Susannah when she died was one Martha Hawes. Martha was the wife of Joseph Hawes and she and her family also lived in Berkhamsted High Street. There is no indication in any of the documents that suggests she was a nurse, and she may simply have been a friend of the Hazell family, as she had also been present at the death of William Hazell’s wife Charlotte, and was to be his brother Richard and cousin Charles Dickman when they died.

Susannah was buried in Rectory Lane cemetery in the same plot as her sister in law Charlotte Hazell.

Charlotte Hazell (171)

1817 –02/09/1853

Wife of local grocer William Hazell who died of tuberculosis at age of 37.

Relatives

William Hazell — husband

Susannah Hazell (171) — other

• Christopher Dolton

CHARLOTTE HAZELL; 1817 – 1853

We know from the record of Charlotte’s marriage in 1838 that her maiden name was Simmonds. We can also deduce from the dates of the census returns for 1841 (30^th March)  and 1851 (6^th June) and Charlotte’s age as recoded in each (24 and 33 respectively), that she must have been born in April, May or early June 1817. The 1841 census notes she was born “in county”, i.e. Hertfordshire, and the 1851 records she was born in “Hertfordshire, Berkhamsted”. Unfortunately, however, her birth and baptism records are elusive. The nearest we can find is one Charlotte Symonds, who was baptised in Berkhamsted on 24^th December 1815. If this is the Charlotte with whom we are concerned, she was a couple of years older than recorded in the censuses; alternatively, Charlotte Symonds is not the Charlotte we are looking for.

Whenever she was born, Charlotte married William Hazell, a young grocer on 1^st February 1838. Three years later the 1841 census tells us that Charlotte and William were living in Berkhamsted High Street in the household of a 65 years old widow, Mary Rushworth. Also living in the same household was 18 years old Elizabeth Abbott, a straw plaiter.

Ten years later William and Charlotte were still resident in Berkhamsted’s High Street, but now in their own household of which William was the head. William had set up in busines as a grocer and pork butcher. Helping with the business and also living with Charlotte and William was William’s brother Richard, described as a “shopkeeper” and two young lads “grocers lads.”

There is no record of Charlotte and William having any children. Sadly, Charlotte did not enjoy a long life. She died at the age of 36 of phthisis pulmonalis – tuberculosis. Her death certificate reveals that she had been suffering from the disease for a year before her death.

During Victorian times tuberculosis, or consumption as it was also known, was particularly prevalent amongst the urban poor where overcrowding allowed the disease to thrive. Contemporary public health physicians had a tendency to blame the poor and their poor housing conditions for the disease, but it was by no means exclusive to the poor and it affected people at all levels of society. It is a mycobacterial infection spread when aerosol droplets of infected sputum ejected by coughing of the infected person are inhaled by those in prolonged and close contact. Nearly 4 million people are estimated to have died of the disease in England and Wales between 1851 and 1910.

Tuberculosis came to be considered in Victorian times as a “romantic disease” being entwined with notions of beauty and creativity. Tuberculosis was thought to bestow upon the sufferer heightened sensitivity and creativity.  The consumptive appearance entailed a pale skin, red cheeks with a feverish glow and an ethereal thinness. This became associated with fragility and sexual attractiveness and became the defining fashionable aesthetic. Many upper class women purposefully paled their skin to achieve a consumptive appearance. Corsets and voluminous skirts further emphasised slender figures. Consumptive heroines appeared in literature ( e.g. La dame aux Camelias and Les Miserables) and in opera (La Boheme and La Traviata). Byron was to declare “ How pale I look! – I should like, I think, to die of consumption… because then all the women would say ‘see that poor Byron – how interesting he looks in dying!’”

It was not, however, a pleasant death.

“There was, and is, nothing remotely Romantic or psychosomatic about the disease. The most common form of human tuberculosis usually begins with flu-like symptoms which progress to a persistent cough, the spiting of blood caused by lesion of the lung tissue, and consequent weight-loss or general wasting of the muscles. The primary lesion of the lung can sometimes heal and the infection be contained within a protective tubercle. If this does not happen, the disease begins to consume the organ in which it has lodged, usually the lung, and the illness progresses to a fatal conclusion. This can sometimes be a protracted process with periods of remission or latency.” (“The Dark Shadow”, R. Brownlow.)

Present with Charlotte when she died was one Martha Hawes. Martha was the wife of Joseph Hawes and she and her family also lived in Berkhamsted High Street. There is no indication in any of the documents that suggests she was a nurse, and she may simply have been a friend of the Hazell family, as she was also present at the deaths of William Hazell’s sister Susannah, his brother Richard and cousin Charles Dickman.