Vol. 1 Chapter 5 - Guinness is good for you?

Chapter 5 – Guinness is good for you?

By 1892, Skinny Granny, Alice’s fortune began to change. Her mother Eliza had died, but Alice was able to escape the poverty and destitution of the Devil’s Acre and start a new life south of the Thames with the help of the Guinness Trust.

The Philanthropist Sir Edward Guinness had sought to improve the living conditions of the London poor by building blocks of one-bedroom apartment blocks.  In 1890, the first of these were built in Brandon Street, Camberwell.  Alice had the good fortune to move into No. 3, Guinness Buildings.

The flats were not luxurious by today’s standards, but back then they would have been an unimaginable improvement for Alice.

The Guinness Building not only provided the privacy of a room of one’s own, there would have been use of a club room, shared bathroom facilities with hot and cold water baths and access to hot and cold water all day. A far cry from the slums where the water was turned on only for an hour or two per day.

The entrances let to concrete staircases and there were four flats on each landing. The size of the flats varied but most were just two rooms. A living room/kitchen (this had a range(coal or gas) but no running water) and one bedroom.

The toilets and sinks( two of each) were outside the flats on each landing and were shared by 4 families.

The baths were in two separate blocks and it was possible to bath on only two days a week. The baths were in cubicles and you had to pay 2d (2 old pennies). Although like the Work House, you were not allowed to run the water yourself. There were no taps! Filling the bath was undertaken by the Caretaker. He would have had a key to unlock a brass in-pipe.

There was no electricity in the flats, all the lights were gas mantles.

 A contemporary  description of the Guinness Building says,

As well as a new home, Alice had also moved up the employment ladder, and was now working as a “charwoman.”  This was entry level for a career in domestic service.  The very thing that Burdett Coutts School had prepared her for.

The title, ‘Charwoman’ covers a wide range of activities, but the vast majority were ‘cleaners’. They were the lowest in the domestic pecking order. Unlike the scullery maid (next up in the pecking order) the charwoman didn’t have a regular week wage, but was employed by the hour. Today she would have been on “zero hours” and only called in to clean as and when necessary.

It was never a well paid job. A charwoman seldom got more than 1 shilling 6d a day (but that included refreshments of beer, tea and sugar) Without the refreshments it would have been 2 shillings a day.

Charwoman were part-time workers and therefore had to work for several different employees. Although the job description was “charwoman”, the usual descriptions of such as person was “skivvy”

So, by 1892, Alice, was settled into No.3 Guinness Buildings, and working as a skivvy.  Alone and vulnerable, the 19 year Alice began an affair with the boy from No. 4 Guinness Buildings.  Later that year she fell pregnant.  The father didn’t seem in any great hurry to marry her.  His name?  Thomas Ward, the illegitimate son of Louisa Ward – aka “Fat Granny”

Coming soon........Chapter 6  Fat Granny arrives at the Elephant and Castle