Emma and The Bristol Charity Trustees

Established by Parliamentary act during the reign of William IV, the Bristol Charity Trustees were 21 men (yes, male) of good social standing, who administered, as time went on, a wide variety of gifts (of money and property), operations (schools, hospitals, almshouses) and funds in broad charitable areas, within Bristol.

Within their portfolio, in the 1830s and after, was a grammar school -- that is, what we would call in the US a public school -- for poor children.

On March 16, 1838, the Bristol Charity Trustees met to consider various topics, and the Bristol Mercury reported, the next day, on their deliberations.

This is some four years after Ebenezer's death: Ann Sophia has three children(15, 12 and 8 years of age respectively), and Emma has yet (see my earlier post) to make her debut as a performer (and contribute wages to the family). That Tom was at work -- in the Floating Harbour, I expect -- seems likely, but the family would not have been able to support itself on the boy's wages. Emma was almost certainly expected to take care of Margaret, and I suspect that the conflict between that (a necessity if Ann Sophia worked), and Emma's earning power as a performer is what led to Margaret's banishment to Ann Sophia's sister's family.

That Ann Sophia was compelled to apply for a cleaner's position in the gift of the central charitable institution of Bristol tells us a great deal: about her employability after Ebenezer's death (nil), about the life she (and therefore her children) led prior to Ebenezer's death (middle class), about how Ann Sophia's family could be relied upon (not for money), and about how a young Emma -- at 15, already a woman in the eyes of British law -- saw her mother, as a (perhaps already imagined) life-long companion.