Train spotting type facts. Hate history? Look away NOW...

Went on a little circular cycle ride consisting of 27 slightly hilly miles around Douglas today. The roads were mostly quiet and the scenery pretty, there isn't much else to say about that.

Was looking for a bit of a story or theme which I could write about. The one thing I noticed regularly were churches: Methodist, Wesleyan, Catholic, C of E, Baptist. And each one had a grave yard. After passing at least ten churches and almost upon arriving back at the house I thought I'd stop at one for a nosey round Kirk Braddon. Mostly on account of their signage...   

Authorised burials ONLY? What's going on there?
Are the Manxcunians slipping them in unannounced?

View of the cemetary.

A photo.

I know this may sound a bit mawdling... I started to read the older graves around the church.


What startled me was the number of graves from the late 1800's which had three or four (one had five) infants listed on the stones. I started to wonder if the number of churches were a reaction to the number of deaths, and maybe lack of heath care on the Isla Man at that time. It must have been very isolated, probably without (m)any trained doctors on the island and possibly with generally high mortality rate.


If you think about it the late 1800's were only two hundred years ago. If you know someone who is in their 80's it could be around the time of their grandparents youth. Curiosity roused, I decided to investigate....

So, when I got back to the house I got online and searched infant mortality on the Isla Man during the 1800's.....


Here's the history lesson.... I found this:


(Bear with me, this gets better)


Economic, Social and Medical Background

The Manx Economy - Read more here - woo hoo!

Conditions on the Isle of Man in 1878 were deplorable. Just how bad they were was disclosed by a commission which began to sit in October of that year.


The Commission found a community of some 50,000, half urban, half rural, without a compulsory poor rate, so that the indigent and sick, many of them malnourished and alcoholic, had to depend on private charity for relief; an island where there was one small hospital in a dwelling adapted for the purpose in 1850 and capable of accommodating comfortably only 14 patients (although during the smallpox epidemic of the previous winter as many as 23 patients had been crowded into it, there being no fever

hospital); an island where the only nurse who had had any formal training was the hospital matron; and where, as Dr Ring reported to the Commission: "I am afraid that many deaths have occurred in Douglas from want of a lying-in hospital, and especially from the want of proper food.

This is what I call 'starvation'-the blood is starved. I have known cases of women who have been confined, dying from want of accommodation and proper food for them at such a time." (Dr Ring's evidence must not be taken to imply that the women were worse off than the men.)

In 1878 the inhabitants of the Isle of Man were beginning to recover from a hundred years of impoverishment: between 1765 and 1866 the United Kingdom Parliament had retained the duty paid on goods entering the Island. During this period "the Island was, in fact, without an insular revenue, without an annual budget, and without resources for development".

In 1866 the Lieutenant Governor persuaded the UK government to adopt an arrangement whereby the Island was allowed to keep most of the Customs' revenue. Thereafter began the capital expenditure needed to build up the tourist trade on which the prosperity of the Island so largely depended until well into the second half of the twentieth century.

The Quality of Obstetric Care, 1882-1926

Registration by the General Medical Council was not obligatory for a doctor wishing to practise on the Isle of Man until 1899. Of the 57 maternal deaths recorded in the Registers of Death... 1881 10 were registered by "some person present at the death, or in attendance during the last illness" and not certified by a doctor.

During this time many women could not afford to pay a doctor to attend them and, without motor cars, the number of parturient women doctors could reach was limited. Doctors, however, were called in when catastrophe threatened, for it was they who signed most of the death certificates.Thus the majority of deliveries were at first in the hands of untrained midwives and handywomen living near by. This practice would have been all the more likely because many of the Islanders spoke only Manx and when ill they tended to turn to their own folkdoctors.

Dr Clague, himself a native Manx speaker, called these doctors 'charmers' because they relied heavily on the recitation of charms to effect their cures. "It [the charm]was a secret [silent] prayer to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or to the angels,or saints, to heal the man. They believed that God would do it if it was His wish, and it was indeed faith-healing."

(HENCE ALL THE CHURCHES?)

The numbers of trained nurses and of midwives on the Island grew only slowly. In 1884 it was arranged that a nurse from the Hospital should visit patients in their homes in Douglas. In 1892 it was stipulated that the nurse should be "skilled". By this time the patients had been moved into a hospital of 42 beds built by a prominent businessman, Mr Noble.

Although there were Manx bone-setters, the Islanders were averse to anything amounting to an operative procedure. In the year ending 30 June 1896 no operation more severe than a tracheotomy was performed at the Hospital and the only major operations performed before then were the amputation of shattered limbs.

Dr Clague recounts how a man was brought to him by a folk-doctor who had failed to stem the flow of blood from a wound by the repeated recitation of a charm, reputedly effective on such an occasion. Dr Clague asked the charmer to repeat the charm and he did so, several times, but the bleeding did not stop. "A bandage properly put on stopped it at once."

Well then, that explains a lot. Further reading revealed many more facts, the mortality rates were just for starters. I then got on to Manx laws and historical information about marriage...
That the Manx married young was noted by many writers - one observant comment is that by Hannah Bullock (1816):

I do not, indeed, consider the Isle of Man as the abode of Cupid; in general, the marriages contracted by the natives, (though they take place at rather an early age) are founded on prudential calculations, no man, however youthful, marries merely for love; yet, as soon as any one is established in business or housekeeping, he naturally looks out for a wife as a necessary appendage to his domestic economy, and in his choice is influenced by parity of circumstances, by early associations, or some such motives, independent of the tender passion: in general, the same quietude of sentiments actuates both sides, yet are these marriages, in most instances, fortunate in their results; a couple thus united live together on the best terms, they co-operate in their pursuits, habit soon gives them an undeviating conformity, and permits their lives to pass

" A clear united stream."

Waldron gives a description of a wedding feast in the 1720's:

Having spoken of the Manks frugality, or rather sordidness, in the way of eating, I must not omit making an exception to this rules at three several times, which are their weddings, their christenings, and their funerals.     

As to the first, twenty pounds is a good portion for a mountaineer's daughter, and they are so exact in the marriage bargain, that I have known many, who have called themselves hot lovers, break off for the sake of a sow or a pig being refused in the articles. Yet, notwithstanding this, a stranger cannot be invited to one of these nuptial feasts, without believing himself in a land of the utmost plenty and hospitality.


The match is no sooner concluded, than besides the bands of matrimony, being publickly asked in the church three Sundays, notice is given to all the friends and relations on both sides, tho' they live ever so far distant. Not one of these, unless detained by sickness, fail coming, and bring something towards the feast; the nearest of kin, if they are able, commonly contribute most, so that they have vast quantities of fowls of all sorts. I have seen a dozen of capons in one platter, and six or eight fat geese in another; sheep and hogs roasted whole, and oxen divided but into quarters.    

They have bride-men and bride-maids who lead the young couple, as in England, only with this difference, that the former have ozier wands in their hands as an emblem of superiority: they are proceeded by musick, who play all the while before them the tune, the Black and the Grey, and no other is ever used at weddings. When they arrive at the church-yard, they walk three times round the church before they enter it. The ceremony being performed, they return home, and sit down to the feast; after which they dance in the Manks fashion, and between that and drinking pass the remainder of the day.

I love that! 'I have known many, who have called themselves hot lovers, break off for the sake of a sow or a pig being refused'

The article continues with a very long list of laws on who one cannot marry. I can only assume these lists are born of necessity.

	A Man may not marry his
1	GRANDMOTHER,
2	Grandfather's Wife,
3	Wife's Grandmother.
4	Father's Sister,
5	Mother's Sister,
6	Father's Brother's Wife.
7	Mother's Brother's Wife,
8	Wife's Father's Sister,
9	Wife's Mother's Sister.
10	Mother,
11	Step-Mother,
12	Wife's Mother.
13	Daughter,
14	Wife's Daughter,
15	Son's Wife.
16	Sister,
17	Wife's Sister,
18	Brother's Wife.
19	Son's Daughter,
20	Daughter's Daughter,
21	Son's Son's Wife.
22	Daughter's Son's Wife,
23	Wife's Son's Daughter,
24	Wife's Daughter's Daughter.
25	Brother's Daughter,
26	Sister's Daughter,
27	Brother's Son's Wife.
28	Sister's Son's Wife,
29	Wife's Brother's Daughter,
30	Wife's Sister's Daughter

A woman may not marry her:                                                                    

1	GRANDFATHER,
2	Grandmother's Husband,
3	Husband's Grandfather.
4	Father's Brother,
5	Mother's Brother,
6	Father's Sister's Husband.
7	Mother's Sister's Husband,
8	Husband's Father's Brother,
9	Husband's Mother's Brother.
10	Father,
11	Step-Father,
12	Husband's Father.
13	Son,
14	Husband's Son,
15	Daughter's Husband.
16	Brother,
17	Husband's Brother,
I S	Sister's Husband.
19	Son's Son,
20	Daughter's Son,
21	Son's Daughter's Husband.
22	Daughter's Daughter's Husband,
23	Husband's Son's Son,
24	Husband's Daughter's Son.
25	Brother's Son,
26	Sister's Son,
27	Brother's Daughter's Husband.
28	Sister's Daughter's Husband,
29	Husband's Brother's Son,
30	Husband's Sister's Son.

HA! So, there you have it. Manx laws and history in some detail. Tonight I am off with Sparky Bro and Glam girlfriend to see a film about a motorbike racer called Guy Martin. The film is called 'Closer To The Edge'. I think someone should make a film about my cycle travels and call it 'Closer To The Hedge' any takers?