Betty Brown — How a nobody can become a somebody
Betty Brown, The St Gile’s Orange Girl is a work written by Hannah More at the end of the 18th century. With London being a historically divided city in regards to the social classes, it is interesting to see how an orphan girl who is starving on the side of the street developed into a shop owner and an honorable citizen. This story gives insight into the problems associated with poverty in the St Giles neighborhood at that time and also contains “some account of Mrs Sponge, The Money Lender” who exploited orphans like Betty Brown to make financial gains.
The story projects the idea that with hard work and honesty, God will bless even the poorest of residents to make something of them. In comparison to other works during that time which either poked fun at the upper class citizen, or furthered the divide between the social classes, this work shows the positivity of people of different classes working together under God to not only help the poorer out of poverty but also develop the city.
I feel it’s interesting to look into the significance of this in terms of the time period it was published. Digging around on the internet, I came across the paper “London History — London, 1760–1815” by the Old Bailey Proceedings Online. It talks of the development of London during this time period from a 750,000 people city to the “largest city in the world” of 1.4 million individuals. London also became increasingly subdivided between the social classes shown by this passage below.
“In 1760 you could still find some wealthy individuals amongst the poor of the East End. But, by the early nineteenth century the city had become increasingly subdivided between rich and poor, with the middling sort dispersed somewhat more widely across the city. By 1815 a member of the gentry would no more consider leaving his West End haunts to walk to the East End than he would consider walking to the moon.”
Betty Brown being published at 1795 seems to be right in the middle of all these changes. The idea that someone of the upperclass would go out of their way to help out a children on the streets of St Giles’ appears a little too out of order for this increasingly divided city. Is the text trying to highlight an existing social issue that needs attention? I feel it is being hopeful of what London could be like if there was less of a divide between the social classes.
This passage from the paper also caught my attention
“In the City itself the financial services of insurance and merchant banking along with warehousing and trading came to form the basis of huge fortunes and middling sort aspirations. City merchants increasingly moved out to more salubrious spots beyond the ring of slums gradually encircling the metropolis, commuting back daily to Cheapside and the Royal Exchange.”
It is relevant to Betty Brown not only because of the mentioning of the development of the slums but also the reference to the city being increasingly focused on finance and wealth. I find it interesting that elements of this emphasis on making money and becoming rich appears in Betty Brown as she learns to break out of poverty and makes a living for herself. This idea of helping the poor catch up financially to the rich shows an effort by the author to decrease the social divide existing in society. It is unfortunate that the two social classes became so physically and ideologically separated by the beginning of the 19th century that bridging the gap is like “walking to the moon”.
