Emancipation

Middle-class Fathers, Sons, and Mental Illness in Late Victorian and Edwardian England

“…In many ways, this differed little from the additional responsibilities adult sons were expected to take on when a father was forced to become economically inactive for other reasons, for example through physical illness or old age. 63 Indeed, plenty of middle-class fathers suffered from physical as well as mental poor health, which together with the effects of old age, made it difficult for them to discharge their key masculine responsibility of supporting their family. In January 1917, for example, twenty-seven-year-old Stanley Coles was still living with his "aged parents," whom he supported through his work as an assistant at a London warehouse, his father no longer able to earn more than a pittance.…”