We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
Phoebe Beatson's baby was born on 29 August 1802, so she must have had sexual intercourse with George Thorp (and it was he: no doubts here about his being the father) during the pre-Christmas period of 1801. How much more than this is there to say? She was thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old when these events took place, and had been in service to the Murgatroyds for some seventeen years. There is no way of telling whether the holiday season of 1801 brought the two together for the first time, or whether theirs was a relationship of longer standing. (Murgatroyd's diary for 1801 is not extant; there is no mention of the Thorp family of Stockcarhead (Stocker Head) before 1802, though Murgatroyd appears to have known them well.) He cannot have known about her pregnancy on New Year's Day 1802 (she can scarcely have known herself), but his diary entry was uncannily prescient. ‘God for Christ's sake, bless me & my Family thro’ this month & this year if Life is continued', he wrote; ‘we are by Nature prone to do what we should not do but, ye Blessing of thy Grace will be a restraint on Nature so as ye Soul shall not be hurt thereby …’ (Perhaps he did know about what had happened between Phoebe and George.) It is not at all clear what Phoebe's expectations were during her pregnancy and after the child's birth, but very clear indeed what Murgatroyd's were, regarding George Thorp.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
