Journal Volume 6 2010
‘Wild, Ideal, Romantic and Absurd’: Lady Arbella Denny and the Establishment of Dublin’s First Magdalen Asylum (continued/8)
References
[01] A letter to the public on an important subject (Dublin, 1767), pp 4-5.
[02] ‘A sermon preached on the opening of the Chapel of the Magdalen Asylum for female penitents in Leeson Street on Sunday, the 31st day of January 1768 … by the Rev. Edward Bayly Dean of Ardfert’, Occasional sermons, Representative Church Body Library, Dubln, 551.14.1, pp 1-22, p. 10.
[03] For biographical details of Lord and Lady Kerry, see Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William Earl of Shelburne (London 1875), vol. i, pp 2, 3, 5. On Lady Arbella’s attachment to her mother, see A. Peter, A brief account of the Magdalen Chapel, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin (Dublin, 1907), p. 30. On her pride in her maternal ancestry, ‘Curiosities of the peerages of Kerry’, VI, Kerry Magazine, 22, vol. ii, 1855, pp 189-91, p. 191.
[04] Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, p. 12.
[05] Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, p. 12.
[06] Peter, Magdalen Chapel, p. 22.
[07] Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, p. 13.
[08] Letter to the public, pp 5-6, 20. The London Magdalen House was founded in 1758.
[09] Letter to the public, pp 9, 13, 20.
[10] Letter to the public, p. 11.
[11] Rules and regulations of the Leeson Street Magdalen Asylum, RCB Library, Dublin, 551.14.1, p. 1; John Watson, Gentleman’s and citizen’s almanack (Dublin, 1800), p. 139; Registers of the Magdalen Asylum, Leeson Street, Dublin, RCB Library, passim.
[12] Peter, A brief account of the Magdalen Chapel, pp 37-40, 51; Beatrice Bayley Butler, ’Lady Arbella Denny, 1707-1792’, Dublin Historical Record, vol. IX, no. 1, 1946-7, pp 1-20, pp 9-10.
[13] Quoted in Bayley Butler, pp 11-12.
[14] Aaron C. H. Seymour, The life and times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (London, 1839), vol. ii, p. 198.
[15] Rules and regulations, p. 3.
[16] ‘A sermon preached on the opening of the new chapel … by Edward Bayley (MDCCLXX)’, RCB Library, 551, 14.1, pp 99-118, p. 114.
[17] Registers. All further references to individual magdalens come from this source.
[18] Referees included clergymen, family members and employers, lady supporters of the charity and officers of institutions such as the Lock Hospital and the House of Industry.
[19] ‘A sermon preached at the chapel in Leeson Street, Dublin … on Sunday, the viith of February, MXCCLXXIII by William Lord Bishop of Dromore’, RCB Library, 55.14.1, pp 47-73, p. 60; Bayly, ‘Sermon’, p. 13.
[20] Bayly, ‘Sermon’, p. 13.
[21] Rosa M. Barrett, Guide to Dublin charities (Dublin, 1884), part iii, pp 4-5.
[22] On nineteenth-century initiatives see Maria Luddy, ‘Prostitution and rescue work in nineteenth-century Ireland’, Maria Luddy and Cliona Murphy eds, Women surviving (Dublin, 1989), pp 51-84, p. 62.
[23] Rules and regulations.
[24] ‘A sermon preached on the opening of the new chapel …’, p. 114.
[25] On employment for women in eighteenth-century Dublin, see Imelda Brophy, ‘Women in the workforce’, David Dickson ed, The gorgeous mask: Dublin, 1700-1850 (Dublin, 1987).
[26] On Leeson’s background and career, see Mary Lyons ed, Memoirs of Mrs Margaret Leeson (Dublin, 1995, orig. published 1795-7).
[27] For instance, Mrs Theodosia Blachford, a supporter of the Magdalen Asylum, was one of the founders of the Female Orphan House, opened in Prussia Street in 1790. For details of this establishment see Rosemary Raughter, ‘Women’s philanthropy in late eighteenth-century Dublin: the Female Orphan House and the House of Refuge’, Thomas Bartlett ed., History and environment (Dublin, 1998), pp 82-93.
[28] On the decline in certain areas of female employment in Dublin, see Brophy, pp 57-8.
[29] A. Peter, Sketches of old Dublin (Dublin, 1907), p. 162.
[30] Of fifty-six admissions in the period 1791-5, thirty-four (sixty-one per cent) were dismissed regularly and nineteen (thirty-four per cent) were expelled, eloped or chose to leave. By comparison, the figures for the final five years (1785-9) of Lady Arbella’s management show that of seventy women admitted, forty-eight (sixty-nine per cent) were dismissed regularly and twenty (twenty-nine per cent) were expelled, eloped or left of their own accord.
[31] J. Warburton, J. Whitelaw, R. Walsh, History of the city of Dublin (London, 1818), vol. ii, p. 773.
[32] For example, in 1803 Mrs Blachford founded a House of Refuge in Baggot Street for unemployed and homeless young women. See Raughter, ‘Women’s philanthropy in late eighteenth-century Dublin’, History and environment, pp 82-93.
[33] Thoughts on the misery of a numerous class of females (Dublin, 1793), p. 6.
[34] ‘A sermon preached at the Chapel in Leeson Street, Dublin … on Sunday, the viith of February, MXCCLXXIII, by William Lord Bishop of Dromore’, Occasional sermons, pp 47-73.
