It was a different Mother who finally came home one cold day in February 1880. She was filthy, her hair sticking to her head, an insufferable odour about her. The clothes she had left home in now hung loosely from her shoulders. She was forty-three, but looked older now – more lined, her eyes sunk deeper into their sockets with deep, dark shadows.
Polly and her family noticed other changes, too. Her teeth were fewer and blacker. She couldn’t rest all night on her bed, although she looked more in need of sleep than ever she had done when the babies had given her no respite. Her hands, too, were different, the palms thick and coarse, her nails torn, flaked and brittle. She kept them out of sight, under her apron whenever they were idle, and rubbed them with goose fat every night.
Father had done his best to keep everyone going in Mother’s absence. Polly’s troubles had undoubtedly not been limited to the ballad-monger, but, as with any scandal, gradually the story had become old news. It seemed, however, that the cascading implications of Mother’s crime affected the whole family: soon after Mother’s imprisonment, Father lost his job at the vinegar brewery. Now, he attended an invalid gentleman in his own home, for a pitiful wage. Ellen fled the Dyer household after Mother’s trial and was only briefly referred to sixteen years later by Polly, who reported that Ellen had married well and was living in London.
The Dyers had a family network upon which they could rely for support. Henry, Father’s brother, had left Bristol with his wife Laura, to settle in Westminster, where he worked for the Metropolitan Police. But Polly’s grandfather, Francis, was still working as a stays cutter in Bristol. In times of difficulty, working-class families often pooled what few resources they had: William Dyer may well have had financial and practical assistance from his family to help him through his wife’s absence.
But for all their difficulties, Polly had passed six months of relative normality. She and her brother went to school. Father went to work. No ladies came to stay at their house; no babies were born there; none died there. There were no clandestine visitors after dark. No reason to hide from the neighbours. No little bottles marked “Poison”. No police officers, undertakers, coroners or jurors.
And then mother was back and for now at least she was in search of an honest living. She turned to the trade she had first learned as a young woman, before she became a mother. Perhaps at the instigation of her father-in-law, she took a position as a forewoman for a firm of corset makers.
There were several firms producing corsetry in the city: it was a boom time for the trade. The latest fashion for the bustle pulled the front of a lady’s skirts narrow and flat, throwing more emphasis upon the waist: a cinched-in waist was more of a necessity than ever.
This surge in demand was well timed: the sewing machine, first introduced in the 1850s, meant that mass-produced corsets, made to suit various combinations of bust, waist and hip sizes, could be made more economically and purchased off the peg. Bristol’s new department stores were the perfect outlet, their lingerie departments specializing in meticulous fittings. No longer must a delicate lady wear only white against the skin: manufacturers added allure by making corsets in a variety of fabric and colours and finishes, enticing browsers with artful packaging, such as “la Fiancée”, offering the perfect silhouette and guaranteeing romantic success.
It was a world of gloss and frippery which stood in stark contrast to the dark place from which Amelia had just emerged.
Corset-making had always been a male preserve, a specialized trade requiring considerable strength to manoeuvre the heavy machinery through layers of chemically stiffened fabric and around sections of whalebone. But mechanization and mass production made for rooms full of machinists – a production line, rows of young girls each with a specific instruction to sew up the same section of every garment. It was monotonous work, and, despite mechanization, it required a robust, sturdy young girl to carry it out.
Amelia may have gained some knowledge of the work of the corset maker from observing her father-in-law, but the forewoman’s job demanded knowledge of every stage of stays-making; she must have been able to demonstrate prior competence in the trade.
A forewoman was also required to maintain discipline: this was a pitifully low-paid, repetitive occupation which demanded absolute accuracy. Mistakes could not be tolerated. Moreover, factory girls, many of whom were only fifteen or sixteen years old and away from home for the first time, living in lodgings, were notoriously a handful:
The chief characteristic of the factory-girl is her want of reverence. She has a rough appearance, a hard manner, a saucy tongue, and an impudent laugh …
Anon., Toilers in London; or Inquiries concerning Female Labour in the Metropolis, 1889
A forewoman worked long hours, in a stressful and demanding role, for very little pay; mother didn’t remain long at the stays makers.
Totterdown was a close-knit community, and mother had felt the need to hide from the neighbours even before her trial and incarceration. Many locals would have made it known that they were none too happy that the “Totterdown Baby Farmer” had returned. Mother felt it was time to leave.
Therefore, with nothing to lose except the last shreds of his dignity, Father borrowed some money and took his family away from the scene of their shame.
In 1881 William Dyer found employment as a labourer in a brewery on Stokes Croft, a vibrant and bustling street to the north of the heart of Bristol. He moved his family into lodgings close by, at 2 St James’ Square Avenue; number 1 on the avenue was the slaughter house. Amelia tried to work her way back to respectability. At first she took in laundry, and then she set up a small general store, an ill-advised venture in an area with a prohibitive £100 annual ground rent and a glut of competitors. By 1884, the shop had failed and Mother had grown entirely disillusioned with scratching out a meagre living.