Health; The Health of a Victorian House Painter

Most of my ancestors were working class people, working jobs that were rife with dangers that would have health and safety managers' heads spinning today. Miners working in cramped conditions where mine shafts could collapse, and where the only person responsible for keeping the air breathable was a small child sitting alone in the dark, goodness only knows how many metres under ground. Laundresses working with all sorts of chemicals, soaps, and hot water to get all the stains out, and then using dangerous machinery to wring the laundry dry. And men, women, and children working in factories and mills where massive machinery could pull them in and devour them in an instant of forgetfulness. So many of my ancestors were working hard, dangerous jobs, in poor conditions, and on a diet of poor nutrition and often living in sub par sanitary conditions.

Without any medical records it's hard to know exactly how our ancestors were affected by the poor working, and living conditions they endured. In truth the only medical records we have for our ancestors are their birth and death certificates, and the occasional inquest report. 

The ancestor that I will be writing about this week was my 3x great grandfather; Henry Vinall. He was the son of John Vinall and Charlotte Mitchel, and was born in Henfield, Sussex in 1813. In April 1838 Henry Vinall married Jane Munro in Brighton, Sussex, and they settled into her family home at 3 St Peter's Street. Jane Munro, like her mother, and most women in her family both past, present and future, was a laundress. Henry Vinall was a painter.

Henry and Jane had eight children together and lived for the rest of their lives on St Peter's Street, Brighton (first at #3, and then at #4). At each and every census return, and certificate Henry was recorded as being a painter; sometimes a house painter and sometimes an engine painter. From his marriage certificate to his death certificate Henry was a painter.

Paint in the Victoria era was quite a different affair, to the paint we use today. In the early Victoria era paint was hand mixed, which made colour matching very difficult. Painters would use a dry pigment and grind it into a paste, adding turpentine and oil to make it into a liquid that could be brushed onto walls etc. The oil gave the paint its lovely glossy finish that we so often consider an integral part of the Victorian aesthetic. It was down to the skill of the painter, to complete the work without leaving brush strokes. For exquisitely glossy finishes the painter would wait for the paint to dry, sand it down with a pumice stone, and then repaint it, perhaps up to 10 times. 

Instead of wall paper, stencils were often used to create patterns and designs on the walls, and floors would be painted to resemble rugs. Paint was also used to create effects like marbling or graining. Common and relatively cheap slate would be painted in such a way as to make it resemble marble, and simple wood trim could be painted to look like expensive oak or walnut.

In the 1870s factories started to make paint and packaged it in cans. It would come in an oil base with finely ground pigments, and customers, or more commonly the painters, could add extra oil to thin the paint so it was ready to use. With the technological advances in the world of paint, Victorian home owners could choose from a vast array of colours for their homes, and this was even achievable in fairly modest terraced homes, such as 4 St Peter's Street, Brighton! But with one colour in particular, there was a steep price.

One of the most popular colours of the Victorian era was green, or more specifically Scheele's Green. Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a Swedish chemist who invented a brilliant green pigment by blending copper and oxygen with arsenic. Scheele's Green was absolutely what all the Victorians wanted in terms of fashion and design, not just in their homes, but on their bodies. 

Arsenic was well known as a poison in Victorian times. It could be easily bought at the local chemist, to be used as rat poison, and if you're a fan of historical murder mysteries, you'll be familiar with the use of arsenic for more nefarious means. However, Victorians believed, at first, that they would have to ingest the pigment, to suffer a toxic reaction to the arsenic. The poisonous green was used to create green paint, green wallpaper, and green fabric. Fashionable women wore green dresses, and green upholstery and curtain fabric would grace the furniture and windows of their homes. As long as they didn't lick the walls, curtains, or clothes, they thought they would be just fine. After the success of Scheele's Green, chemists and painters experimented with arsenic by adding it to other pigments, to create canary yellows for example. Of course, it didn't take them too long to realise how dangerous this pigment was. Workers in the factories where the wallpaper, paint, and fabrics were made started to get very sick. Seamstresses, upholsterers, and painters and decorators working with these poisonous materials, started to get very sick. But nothing really changed until the rich started to get sick and die. It wasn't until the late 1860s that doctors made the connection between the strange maladies, and deaths that had occurred, with the poisonous green pigment. Finally the desire for green had started to ebb, as people became more aware of the dangers of Scheele's Green. Green became a terribly unpopular colour as a result, and even today it is considered an unlucky colour in the world of high fashion. By the late 1890s the British government started to tighten up the rules about how arsenic and other poisons could be used in manufacturing; too late to be helpful to our Henry Vinall, who died in 1897.

In Front of the Mirror, by Georg Friedrich Kersting, 1827

Victorian paint, aside from the pigment, was made from linseed oil, turpentine, and white lead; yet another problematic ingredient. White lead was used in paint to create durability. Leaded paint would allow the paint work to stay on the walls and floors for longer, and when used in a white paint, the lead would create a brighter, cleaner white. Leaded paint is no longer used in the UK, but it wasn't until 1992 that it was banned from being available to the general public.

Arsenic and lead would cause all sorts of symptoms, and depending on the severity of the exposure the poisons could cause death either fairly rapidly, or start a slow decline towards death. Acute arsenic poisoning could cause death by massive fluid loss and shock, but a long exposure to small amounts of the toxin could trigger various cancers, plus an array of other symptoms including neurocognitive issues. Lead poisoning, like arsenic, can also take place over a long period of time. Long term lead poisoning includes physical symptoms such as abdominal pains, constipation, and headaches, but there are plenty of neurological symptoms of lead poisoning too. Lead poisoning can also cause memory problems, and can lower a person's intellectual ability by as much as 10%.

Many Victorian women's make up products would contain lead which helped them achieve the pale complexion that was all the rage.

There is no evidence in Henry Vinall's records to confirm that he suffered from either long term arsenic and/or lead poisoning. In truth, the only medical information I have found for him is his death certificate, where the cause of death was recorded as 'weak heart' and 'senile decay'. The weak heart is self explanatory, but 'senile decay' led to more questions. 

It seems that 'senile decay' was related to 'senile dementia'. In the Victorian era the term 'dementia' was used  in a fairly general sense to mean a decrease in intellectual capacity or inability to reason, not necessarily related to old age, but to a person of any age suffering from a terminal or even temporary mental decline. Senile decay was a term used in death certificates at the time, to suggest that the senile dementia had reached it's natural conclusion. Studies suggest that the majority of those suffering from senile dementia were admitted to lunatic asylums where treatments were unproven and potentially dangerous. Henry Vinall was not admitted to an asylum. Instead he stayed at home, and was cared for by his youngest surviving daughter, Louisa Vinall.

Considering the work that Henry Vinall did throughout his lifetime, and the risk of such work, the impact that painting in the Victorian era could have on his cognitive skills, and the mention of 'senile decay' on his death certificate, I have wondered at whether his mental decline could have been caused by his work with dangerous chemicals in the paints he used. Of course, he could have naturally developed a neurocognitive disorder, to use a term doctors would use today. It wasn't until the early 1900s that Alois Alzheimmer identified the characteristics of progressive dementia, and from that point science and medicine have developed a far better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, with still so much more to understand and learn how to treat. The Alzheimer Society of Canada is a charity that works to support those affected by Alzheimers and other neurocognitive disorders related to age. It also raises funds to support those who study and research that area of medicine. If you are would like to make a donation, or seek support you can find them here.

Alois Alzheimer, 1864 - 1915

Henry Vinall died in his home at 4 St Peter's Street, Brighton; the home where he had lived with his wife Jane Munro for almost 60 years, the home where he and his wife had raised 8 children and celebrated many grandchildren. He died with his daughter Louisa by his side, the youngest surviving daughter, who never married and was the constant carer for the family. In Henry's life time the world witnessed, amongst other things) the publishing of Jane Austen's book "Pride and Prejudice", the invention of the flintlock revolver, Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the publication of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", the opening of Cadbury's first chocolate shop, the invention of electricity, massive electoral changes in England following the Great Reform Act, the abolition of slavery in all countries of the British Empire, the coming to the throne of Queen Victoria, the publication of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", the Crimean War, the construction of the Suez Canal, the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of the Species", the opening of the first part of the London Underground, Pasteur's invention of a rabies vaccination, the invention of basketball, and the gramophone record, and in 1896, the revival of the Olympic Games. He died at the age of 84 on the 25th July, 1897.

#Edgill

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https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/victorian-homes/victorian-interior-painting/#:~:text=The%20Victorian%20era%20was%20now%20filled%20with%20magnificent%20colour&text=However%2C%20the%20Victorians%20were%20still,distemper%20was%20saved%20for%20ceilings. 

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