Sunderland Reformatory.
(B. 1896 GLASGOW) – REFORMATORY GIRL
Not all children who ended up in reformatory schools were ‘pint-sized pickpockets’ from ‘broken homes’, or violent unmanageable girls. Yet one thing all inmates had in common was the challenge they posed to authority, something that did not necessarily end once they were locked away behind reformatory walls.
Violet Watson was born in Glasgow in 1896. Her father William was a photographer, who would tour the country setting up temporary studios, or practising street photography to make a living. Violet’s mother, Mary, followed him and looked after Violet and her three sisters (and later two younger brothers).
Violet was a precocious child, who found the regime of her school too punitive for her liking. In 1909, at the age of 15, Violet left Glasgow for Perth, without notifying her parents where she was going, and upon arrival began canvassing for donations to what she called the ‘School Revelation Fund’. She claimed she was doing so on behalf of her father, who once the sum of £50 had been raised, intended to challenge the Glasgow School Board about the harsh punishments they imposed on pupils. In Perth, a fellow traveller purchased Violet a ticket for Aberdeen, to which she duly travelled and set up in the Bon-Accord Hotel asking visitors for donations. Violet was quickly apprehended and brought to the police court where she was tried with impersonating an insurance agent, with the intention to defraud the public. It transpired that, not only did Violet’s father have no knowledge of her plan, he did not even have the money required to bring her back home to Glasgow. Instead, Violet was sentenced to spend three years in the Loanhead Reformatory for Girls in Edinburgh.
Sunderland Reformatory.
If Violet had found the regime at her school too harsh, it is no surprise that she found life in the reformatory even harder and less palatable. She fermented revolt. As one of the older girls at the reformatory, Violet wasted no time in rallying fellow pupils to join her cause. Less than a year after her arrival, in November 1910, The Scotsman reported that the girls were in ‘OPEN REBELLION’:
Unruly conduct on the part of the girls under sentence of detention in the Dalry Reformatory Loanhead, has led to some extraordinary scenes recently. It appears that the girls have got almost totally out of hand and the girls have been escaping from the institution since September. The girls’ ages range from twelve to seventeen years and many are employed at laundry work. There are about 40 inmates in the Reformatory at present ... The trouble first manifested itself in class-rooms where several of the elder and bigger girls threatened to black the teacher’s eyes and danced jingo-rings. Later some of the girls mounted the roof of the building and escaped by means of the drain pipe. Last week Mid-Lothian police were engaged until midnight looking for six girls who had escaped. On Monday the girls broke out in open revolt and a number escaped, considerable difficulty being experienced in bringing them back.
Violet, was one of the main ringleaders, and had managed to make her own daring escape. Captured towards the end of November, Violet was brought to the Edinburgh Police court with her two conspirators Rosanna Murdoch and Jean Miller. The trio were accused not only of their own unlawful escapes, but of being responsible for the breakdown of order at the reformatory, and of facilitating the escape of sixteen other girls. The sheriff intended to make an example of the girls, sentencing Miller and Murdoch to three weeks in prison, and sending Violet, not yet 16, back to the reformatory she hated.
Less than two weeks later, Violet was back at the Edinburgh sheriff’s court, having escaped again from the reformatory. Violet had somehow managed to procure money from inside the reformatory, and had made her way to the railway station, travelling to Govan, and then back to Glasgow. She was captured four days later and taken back to Edinburgh. The sheriff vowed that everything that had occurred at the Dalry Reformatory would be ‘wiped out’ and that Violet, as ringleader of the insurrection, would not be allowed to return. She was sent instead to a reformatory in Sunderland, to be detained there at the pleasure of the Secretary for Scotland. Violet was told that if she behaved in Sunderland, she would not experience further punishment, and that if her good behaviour continued, she might actually be released in just a few weeks.
Three months later, Violet was still in the Sunderland reformatory. Finding it no more enjoyable to be in than the Dalry Reformatory and with the promise of quick release coming to nothing, Violet made another daring escape. Climbing out of an attic window and onto the roof of the reformatory, Violet made her way down to the ground, and then scaled the perimeter wall, which had shards of broken glass fixed along its length. Violet made it over to the other side, but badly cut her arm in the process, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She made her way through Sunderland, begging strangers for help, and was eventually taken into a house to have her wound dressed. A local policeman had no trouble tracing Violet’s path, and she was apprehended just hours after her escape. Now 16, Violet could be held to the full account of the law. She was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, which she served at Durham prison.
Prison was a harder environment than reformatory school. Facing severe punishment for disobedience, and unable to escape, Violet had no choice but to serve her time. She was released in June 1911 and, finally free of the institutions she hated, returned to Scotland. At the age of 16, she was not required to return to school, and so was free to build a respectable life for herself.
Violet was not typical of most girls who ended up in reformatory schools. She came from a respectable working-class family, she did not steal through poverty or want, was not violent or conventionally unruly. Her two years in the penal system occurred primarily because of her objection to the poor treatment of children by the institutions designed to cater for them. After her release, Violet married and settled in London. She was never convicted again, and as far as records allow us to know, she went on to have a perfectly ordinary life with no hint of the teenage renegade inside her re-emerging.