Priscilla Heard (1796-1866) nee Parker, wife of an ostler.
Priscilla and her friends liked a drink, and beer was by far the most popular choice. Bridgwater had many inns and alehouses, but each night at closing time, the drinkers appeared on the streets and inevitably attracted the attention of the constables.
Early Years
Priscilla was baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church, Bridgwater, in December 1796, the daughter of James Parker and his wife Rebecca James. Rebecca had two husbands and at least six children. Priscilla was one of the younger ones. James Parker was a working man whose wages would feed his wife and children in good times, but were not enough for much education. Like many of her friends, Priscilla was not able to sign her name. Most girls worked from the age of twelve or thirteen either as housemaids or farm labourers for low wages or doing unpaid housework at home.
Robert and Priscilla
Robert Heard (1789-1868) was born in north Devon and was a few years older than Priscilla. He was an ostler, meaning a groom employed to care for the horses at an inn. Not only did guests arrive on horseback or in a horse and carriage, but stagecoaches were pulled by teams of horses. Bridgwater had more than one coaching or staging inn. Robert already had two children, Robert and Jane, by his first wife Grace, who died in early 1820. Robert and Priscilla married three months later at St Mary’s. There was no waiting as the children needed a mother. Robert and Priscilla then had Sarah (1821) and Susan (1822) who both died in infancy, followed by John (1823), who survived.
Priscilla’s first conviction was in July 1824. She was charged with wilfully breaking windows, appeared before the judge at the Bridgwater Quarter Sessions, and was sentenced to one month hard labour in Wilton Gaol, Taunton. The circumstances are unknown, but something or someone made Priscilla very angry, possibly when she had had too much to drink. Breaking windows was a common crime as glass was very expensive and vulnerable to protest and vengeance. The gaol admission register includes brief details and a physical description of each prisoner. Priscilla was 28, married, born in Bridgwater and still living there. She was 5’ 5” and of stout build, but perhaps she was pregnant again rather than overweight. She had grey eyes, dark brown hair and a fresh complexion.
If Priscilla had another child in 1824 or 1825, he or she was not baptised at St Mary’s Church. Priscilla may have been afraid of disapproval. From now on she would always be a criminal and an outcast in the view of some parishioners. Her next two children were James (1828) and Henry Parker Heard (1830). It cannot have been an easy time. The cost of bread was high nationally due to the infamous Corn Laws. At the same time wages for workers were relatively low. Priscilla stayed out of prison for these few years, perhaps because she was kept busy with small children and housework and benefited from having her extended family around her. If she was drunk and disorderly now and then, she had the support of Robert to pay her fines.
Bristol
Sometime after Henry’s birth, Robert, Priscilla and their children left Bridgwater and moved to Bristol for a fresh start. Emma (1833) and Rebecca (1835) were born in Alveston, just north of Bristol on the road to Gloucester. Robert would find work as an ostler at the inn, but unfortunately Priscilla found a beer house. She was soon in trouble again. In October 1837, in court in Bristol, Priscilla Heard, 41, was convicted of breaking a pane of glass and sentenced to one month hard labour or pay a fine of 2s 4d plus 7s costs. This was a large sum for Robert to find and meanwhile, Priscilla was locked up in the Lawford’s Gate Prison.
When Priscilla went to prison, her youngest child, Rebecca, was 2½ years old and was probably left in the care of her older siblings while her father was at work. Rebecca died of marasmus, an old word for malnutrition, on 4 October 1840 at Milk Street, Bristol. We will never know how much this was caused by an underlying illness or infection and how much was due to lack of food. Was Robert not earning enough to buy food, or was Priscilla spending the housekeeping on beer? The lives of poor children were not valued by society, especially not those of the so-called criminal class. Charles Dickens had only just written Oliver Twist. There were no welfare agencies other than the Poor Law Union and the dreaded workhouse. The Church and private charitable efforts were focused on the “deserving” poor. If family or friends didn’t take action to feed a starving child such as Rebecca, no-one else would.
In July 1841, Priscilla and Robert were living in Water Street, in inner city Bristol, with James, Henry and Emma. Priscilla was charged with robbing her furnished lodgings of two sheets and a blanket. She pawned them. She was committed for trial and in October was found guilty and sentenced to two months hard labour. That meant two months of cold, harsh conditions, starvation rations and the treadmill. There was no rehabilitation. Priscilla’s name appeared in the Bristol Mirror on Christmas Eve 1842, after she was again charged with being drunk.
“It was stated by the Police Sergeant that the unhappy woman, whilst in the cell at the station house, hung herself and life was almost extinct when she was fortunately discovered and cut down. She was admonished and discharged.”
Priscilla was now 46 and all of her surviving children were old enough to work, even thirteen year old Emma. Kitchen maids started young. The next serious incident involving Priscilla was reported in the Bristol Times and Mirror, 17 October 1846:
“Priscilla Heard was charged with violently assaulting Ann Durley. The complainant is in the infirmary, but her daughter stated that last night, as her mother was leaving her brother’s house in the Horsefair, the prisoner, who was in the street, drunk, and abusing everybody, struck her mother over the head with a jug, such a violent blow as to knock her down insensible. The prisoner, in defence, said the wounded woman made mouths at her a month ago and she only gave her a pat under the ear. She was remanded until Saturday.”
Surprisingly there was nothing further in the paper so presumably a short sentence or a fine was not newsworthy.
On 17 June 1848 Priscilla was again charged with stealing two sheets and two pillows from her lodgings. However, as the articles were taken and pawned in March and the landlady had already received replacements, the magistrates dismissed the charge. Whether it was celebrating a narrow escape or the stress of being in court again, only six days later, Priscilla was in trouble again.
“Priscilla Heard was charged with being drunk and threatening to drown herself. It appeared that the previous night she was very tipsy and very outrageous and intimated to a policeman her fixed intention of proceeding immediately to the Stonebridge, a locality she had mentally selected as the most appropriate for self-destruction. Sergeant Hamlin added that at the station house she attempted to destroy herself by twisting some strong string around her neck and Mr. Burges (town clerk) said on one occasion when she had been locked up in one of her violent fits, she ruptured herself and narrowly escape with life, being obliged to be operated on for hernia. She had been at the court at least fifty times. She was fined five shillings for being drunk.”
And the following week:
“Priscilla Heard, an old devotee at the shrine of Bacchus [Roman God of drunkeness], charged with being drunk, was ordered to find sureties for her future temperance, or in default to be committed.”
Several pounds for sureties was far in excess of what Robert and Priscilla could raise. The Bristol Mercury 26 August 1848 reported that Priscilla Hurd had been in gaol since 28 June. As a notorious drunkard, she had been unable to procure sureties, and finally discharged on her own recognizance. But only for a few weeks. In September 1848 Priscilla was committed for trial, charged with robbing her furnished lodgings. This time she stole sheets and blankets belonging and in October was sentenced to four months.
Bridgwater
In August 1849 Priscilla was sent to prison again for another theft or disturbance which did not warrant mention in the newspapers. She and Robert were back in Bridgwater as she was sent to Wilton Gaol at Taunton. Her physical description was recognisable from 1824. Priscilla had a sallow complexion and dark brown hair. She had the scar of a burn on her right arm and a wart on her left ear. She was back in Wilton Gaol in February 1850, but this time she had visibly aged with grey eyes and grey hair.
Robert stayed with Priscilla through all her years of drinking and convictions, but when Robert either could not find work or was sick or disabled, they both ended up in the workhouse.
The 1851 census lists Robert and Priscilla as inmates of the Bridgwater workhouse, but this was a snapshot of the population on one night and Priscilla may have been in and out of the workhouse, especially in the warmer months. It was the end of their married life, as men and women were kept separate and a couple would only see each other once a week. Predictably, while Robert was quiet and accepting, Priscilla was less so. This account of the Bridgwater Petty Sessions on 11 August 1854 is from the Bridgwater Times:
“Priscilla Heard was charged by order of the Board of Guardians with creating a disturbance in the Union House. On the police being sent for, she made herself scarce and was afterwards found by them in West Street and in a state of nudity, surrounded by a crowd. Prisoner pleaded guilty and was ordered to be imprisoned in Wilton gaol for two months.”
The newspaper may have exaggerated Priscilla’s state of undress. She may have been changing out of her very recognisable workhouse-issued clothing to evade capture. Of course she may have been drinking as well.
Two months later Priscilla was out on the street. James Bussell was a police constable and the governor of Bridgwater’s gaol.
“A woman named Priscilla Heard, who had been discharged from the gaol on Thursday last, was charged by Mr. Bussell with being in a beastly state of intoxication near the market, on Saturday evening. The defendant pleaded as an excuse that she had only taken a drop of half-and-half, and having been recently unwell it took great effect upon her. The bench said that if the defendant would immediately go to the Union, they would discharge her. The required promise having been given she was dismissed.”
Priscilla was now over sixty but remained as feisty as ever. The Bridgwater Mercury reported the story of a major disturbance at the workhouse in August 1857. An angry Priscilla had been disruptive and broken 34 panes of glass (three sash windows), which would be expensive to replace. The new Master of the workhouse had called the police, who made his day worse by declining to attend. The constable told the Master to put Priscilla in the workhouse lock-up, probably the female tramp ward, and take her before the magistrates next morning as usual. This was discussed at length at the monthly meeting of the Bridgwater Board of Guardians with Mr Bussell present. It wasn’t so much about the broken glass or whatever had upset Priscilla, as the failure of the police to assist. John Browne, a wealthy brick and tile manufacturer, chaired the meeting and was quick to tell the police, “You do your duty!” Mr Bussell said he had known Priscilla Heard in and out of the union for years. “There were in the workhouse as many able-bodied men to manage the inmates as he had in his force to look after the whole town.”
Priscilla went before the magistrates as planned. She was committed for twenty-one days and was afterwards taken to the gaol, where she was found to be literally swarming with vermin. Priscilla said this was the effect of her being in the tramp ward of the Union House. The tramp wards were locked every night to ensure that those who were given free food and board remained to do the required work the next day. It is not clear whether Mr Bussell, when referring to a lock-up, meant the female tramp ward which did have windows or a smaller room that was used as a cell.
Three weeks later, Priscilla was back in Bridgwater and was called before the Board of Guardians. Mr Gulson was a government inspector.
“A Virago. The pauper, Priscilla Heard, who recently broke thirty-six panes of glass in the Union House, who had been released that morning from an imprisonment inflicted upon her for the offence, applied for admission into the workhouse. She was remonstrated with by the chairman and others for her violent behaviour and desired to act more decently in the future; but she replied pertly to the observations made to her, more than once passionately asserting that if again placed in the tramp ward she would repeat her attack on the windows.
Mr. Gulson said he understood this woman had been put to work in the school. She was certainly a most improper woman to teach the children anything, and she ought not to be allowed to come into contact with them at all. The employment of such a woman should be oakum picking.
It was suggested that Priscilla should be allowed 1s 6d per week out of the house; but this proposition was set aside by the objection that she would spend the 1s 6d in beer as soon as she got it. An order was made for her admission to the house.”
That was the last time that Priscilla appeared in the local newspaper. She died aged seventy-one in the workhouse on 6 November 1866 after five days of acute illness. She was buried in the Wembdon Road Cemetery in the pauper burial ground. Robert died in the workhouse aged eighty and was buried on 28 August 1868, also in the pauper burial ground.
Priscilla’s adult children did not live in Bridgwater and so she and Robert probably rarely saw them.
- John Parker Heard (born 1823) believed to have gone to London.
- James Parker Heard (born 1828) was an agent or salesman who married and lived in Liverpool.
- Henry Parker Heard (1830-1877) a travelling salesman who married and lived in Birmingham.
- Emma Heard (born 1833) married William John Harris and lived in Bristol.
Priscilla had a serious drinking problem that wasn’t recognised nor understood. We don’t know if she had an addiction to alcohol or whether she was self-medicating to cope with the deaths of her first two babies and Rebecca, the traumatic experiences of prison and /or chronic depression. Heavy drinking was the norm for many and the social consequences, including health problems, physical violence, convictions, loss of employment, poverty and the break-up of families, were the motivation for the Temperance movement. That teaching began in the 1830s but by then, Priscilla already had a criminal record. Social reforms were coming but would take decades.
At the end of her life, Priscilla had food, shelter and care of sorts. She had her fifteen minutes of fame, or perhaps notoriety, in the Bridgwater Mercury. Very few inmates spoke up defiantly in front of the Board of Guardians and had their words recorded for us to read so many years later. We know a little more about women in the workhouse thanks to Priscilla.