Revisiting the idea of degeneration in urban Britain, 1830–1900

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of the idea of degeneration in urban Britain between the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rejecting approaches that reduce this richly eclectic, though savagely negative, world-view to a random bundle of prejudices underpinning the emergence of the ‘science’ of eugenics, the article focuses on distinctive environmental, medical and anti-urban determinants. Strong emphasis is also placed on shifting interactions between moral and medico-environmental values and prescriptions which served as legitimation for the racially inflected view that residual elements of the inner city working class might soon be doomed to physiological and hereditary extinction.

Return Migration and the Mechanical Age: Samuel Butler in New Zealand 1860–1864

“…According to Siddiqi, Doyle's mongoose-owning and one-legged returnees represented deep-set concern about 'the emergence of an itinerant, transnational underclass of poor Europeans -the flotsam and jetsam of Empire' (Siddiqi,233) who could only but contribute to the degeneration of British culture. 12 Recursive patterns like this are relatively well-known to students of the gold-rushes, where European and Chinese men followed their fortunes around the world from California to New South Wales and Victoria and finally to New Zealand, contributing to the colonization of each area in turn. Indeed, there are almost as many studies in nineteenth century Asian transnationalism, 13 as there are in British transnationalism.…”

“…He rewrote and enlarged the article he had written for The Press and published it in The Reasoner on 1 July 1865, under the title 'The Mechanical Creation'. This was then rewritten and extended several times until it became the basis for the central philosophical section that appeared in Erewhon in 1872 (12), establishing his literary career and reputation as a penetrating critic of Victorian England. 67 On a personal note, the subject-matter of the book was explosive enough to complete the alienation of Butler from his devout Christian family, who later blamed the publication of Erewhon for hastening his mother's death (Raby,122).…”

‘The Cruel Madness of Love’

“…51 Yet others have used case notes within their studies of gender and psychiatry, and to interrogate more fully Elaine Showalter's historiographical assertions with regard to madness being a 'female malady'. 52 It is hoped that this study will draw further attention to the intellectual richness of case notes for those who remain to be converted. Nonetheless, these records come with a range of methodological and interpretative issues that must first be overcome before they can be used profitably.…”

“…Many of the pauper patients worked indoors as domestics or labourers, depending on their gender. 52 In addition, there was plenty of outdoor work for the patients within the grounds of the estate. Patients made roads, landscaped earth, and planted trees and shrubs.…”

“…Such patients were very troublesome to nurse 'on account of their restless, aimless, and purposeless excursions about the room'. 52 Mary D., a 35-year-old married lady, admitted to Gartnavel in December 1882, was '[r]estless, excited and very incoherent, could not answer the simplest question and was altogether in a very helpless condition.' 53 Allied to this, patients could be destructive and dirty in their habits, tearing their clothes and breaking windows and furniture.…”