THE RUINED GIRL.

‘Oh! fatal Day when to my Virtues wrong,
I fondly listen’d to his flattering Tongue,
But oh! more fatal Moment when he gain’d,
That vile Consent which all my Glory staind.’

In this print of 1786, a young woman of some fashion appears to have received a letter from her beau, informing her that their dalliance is at an end. Knowing that she has surrendered her virtue to an undeserving suitor, she weeps and leans again the sofa for support. A half-draped portrait hanging on the wall, showing a conversing couple hidden from view, hints at their clandestine affair.

Images © The British Museum

I’ve recently returned from a research visit to Ruthin archives to look at the Denbighshire parish registers. The purpose of the visit was to trawl through every one of the hundreds of parish register transcriptions, looking for medical practitioners. With two bookcases full of volumes, each containing many individual registers, this was always going to be a long task. The registers for the town of Wrexham alone took two days, and monotony soon sets in when faced with page after page after page of names and bare information.

Parish registers are commonly the domain of genealogists and family historians, perhaps researching their own family history. Through the popularity of television shows like Who Do You Think You Are researching your own family tree has never been so popular, aided by the growing availability of source material online. Historians too are making use of parish registers. In aggregate they can reveal…

When I started WaywardWomen in April 2012, I wanted to create a space where I could explore the themes and points of interest in my PhD project – but more than this, I wanted to create a place in which I could share and exchange my ideas with others – be that academic scholars, to those with a more general interest in the topics, and everyone in between. My hope, perhaps a naive one, was that WaywardWomen would allow me to become a better researcher, a better writer, and a more thorough thinker. The wonders of the internet and social networking sites like Twitter also allowed me to take the vital step it starting to associate my name and work with the subjects that I hope to build my academic reputation around. This is an experience that any anxious PhD student will tell you is invaluable at such an early…