Abstract
Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell was a celebrated author of the Victorian era, a friend of both Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë and the latter’s first biographer. References to headache in Mrs Gaskell’s six major novels, published between 1848 and 1866 as well as some of her shorter fiction, have been collated. These multiple references suggest that Elizabeth Gaskell used headache as a narrative device, possibly based on her own experience of headache and that of female acquaintances, most notably Charlotte Brontë.
Introduction
Mrs Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (Figure 1), a celebrated author of the Victorian era, published six major novels between 1848 and 1866 (posthumously) which, as at the time of their first publication, continue to enjoy a high reputation, as well as shorter fiction, some first appearing in serial form in her friend Charles Dickens’ (1812–1870) popular weekly magazines Household Words and All the Year Round. She was also a friend of Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) whose biography she was invited to write by Charlotte’s father, Patrick Brontë, after Charlotte’s death. Gaskell’s writing was undertaken largely in the interstices of a busy life as the wife of a Unitarian clergyman in Manchester and the mother of four daughters.
Elizabeth Gaskell.
Interest in Gaskell’s life and work has developed greatly in recent times, facilitated by publication of her extant correspondence 1–3 and biographical accounts4,5 including that of Uglow, 4 which is the most comprehensive, from which it is evident that Elizabeth Gaskell suffered from headaches 6 and, like other 19th century female novelists,7–9 she makes use of headache in her novels. Although a possible reference to mesmerism in one letter has been noted, 10 references to medical matters in Gaskell’s oeuvre, and to headache in particular, 6 have not yet attracted significant attention.
The novels
In Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848), George Wilson overhears a conversation when visiting the household of Mr Carson, the mill owner, to beg for an infirmary order for a sick mill worker, in which Mrs Carson, never directly present in the narrative, is reported by a servant, a ‘semi-upper-housemaid, semi-lady’s-maid’ to have a bad headache. Thomas, Carson’s coachman, replies It’s a pity Miss Jenkins is not here to match her. Lord! how she and missis did quarrel which had got the worst headaches; it was that Miss Jenkins left for; she would not give up having bad headaches, and missis could not abide any one to have ‘em but herself.
11
A fuller account of these headaches is given later: Mrs Carson was … sitting upstairs, indulging in the luxury of a headache . … ‘Wind in the head’ the servants called it. But it was but the natural consequence of the state of mental and bodily idleness in which she was placed. Without education enough to value the resources of wealth and leisure, she was so circumstanced as to command both. It would have done her more good than all the ether and sal volatile she was daily in the habit of swallowing, if she might have taken the work of one of her own housemaids for a week …
12
Mrs Carson’s headaches may be contrasted with those of Mary Barton. Having discovered the true identity of the murderer of her erstwhile beau, William Carson, a crime for which her admirer Jem Wilson has been accused, Mary’s ‘head ached with dizzying violence; she must get quit of the pain or it would incapacitate her for thinking and planning. [She knew] from experience, how often headaches were caused by long fasting. Then she sought for some water to bathe her throbbing temples … ’. Later, Mary has an unsatisfactory interview with a doctor concerning the advisability of Mrs Wilson attending her son Jem’s trial in Liverpool after which ‘Mary went home. Oh! How her head did ache, and how dizzy her brain was growing!’. Again, ‘her head ached in a terrible manner’ as she waits uncertain whether Will Wilson can return to provide Jem with an alibi. 13
In Ruth (1853), when Ruth Hilton is dismissed from her job by Mrs Mason and asked to go away by Henry Bellingham, Her head ached so much that she could hardly see; even the dusky twilight was a dazzling glare to her poor eyes; and when the daughter of the house brought in the sharp light of the candles … Ruth hid her face in the soft pillows with a low exclamation of pain.
Shortly before this, it is reported that the ‘room whirled around before Ruth’. Before leaving the inn where she has drunk tea whilst Henry fetches his carriage, the fumes of tobacco from the landlord’s pipe ‘brought back Ruth’s sick headache’. 14
In her compromised position, visiting Wales with Henry Bellingham, he tries to teach her card games after which he reports ‘Do you know, little goose, your blunders have made me laugh myself into one of the worst headaches I have had for years’.
Matters progress rapidly to fever and insensibility. A doctor is summoned and a diagnosis of ‘brain fever’ is made. 15
Discovering by chance the secret of Ruth’s true identity, Jemima Bradshaw, her erstwhile friend, ‘was so oppressed with headache that she had to go to bed directly’. 16
Thurstan Benson speaks to Ruth’s son, Leonard, of his mother as ‘sitting, overcome by headache, in the study for quietness’ when the boy learns of their changed circumstances once the secret of Ruth’s past and his illegitimacy becomes public knowledge’. 17
When Ruth by chance comes to nurse the sick Henry Bellingham, many years after the end of their relationship, she is ‘conscious of an oppressive headache’. 18
In Cranford (1853), Miss Matilda (Matty) Jenkyns sends a message to Mary Smith via the maid Martha to tell her to go to dinner alone because she has ‘one of her bad headaches’ shortly after receiving the news of the mortal illness of her former admirer, Thomas Holbrook. Later, Miss Matty reports ‘a blow of fresh air at the door will do my head good, and it’s rather got a trick of aching’. Miss Matty is ‘past middle age’ and later said to be ‘an old lady of fifty-eight’. 19
Encountered veiled and toothless by Mary Smith, Miss Pole ‘quickly took her departure because, as she said, she had a bad headache and did not feel herself up to conversation’. 20
In North and South (1855), when her family’s changed circumstances require the major upheaval of moving from the rural South (Helstone) to the industrial north of England (Milton), Margaret Hale develops headaches: … [she] had to remind herself of her father’s regard for Mr Thornton, to subdue the irritation of weariness that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches to which she had lately become liable’ and in Mr Thornton’s presence ‘Margaret’s head still ached, as the paleness of her complexion, and her silence might have testified.
In the Thornton family, Mrs Thornton is said to have come home with a headache from the jolting of a cab, and Fanny Thornton says she cannot call on the Hales because she has a headache although she is prevailed upon by her brother, John Thornton, to go in the horse-drawn carriage he has ordered so that his mother will not be discomfitted. 23 The night after seeing Margaret with an unidentified young man after dark, John Thornton ‘ … had positive bodily pain, a violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse. He could not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and movement of the street’. 24
Bessy Higgins thinks her headaches were due to the noise of Thornton’s mill in which she worked. 25
In Sylvia’s Lovers (1863) Sylvia Robson states ‘my head is aching so’ on the day after her mother, Bell Robson, dies and her husband, Philip Hepburn, disappears.
26
Following a walk with Sylvia, Hester Rose, looks tired: … it’s only my headache which is worse to-night. It has been bad all day; but since I came out it has felt just as if there were great guns booming, till I could almost pray ‘em to be quiet. I am so weary o’ th’ sound.
27
Philip avoids alcohol at the New Year’s Fete: ‘ … [he] had what was called a weak head, and disliked muddling himself with drink because of the … consequence … of a racking headache the next day’. 28
In Wives and Daughters: An Every-day Story (1866), Molly Gibson, visiting the stately Cumnor Towers, finds that ‘[t]he hot sun told upon her head and it began to ache’. She reports this to the unsympathetic Miss Clare who puts her on her own bed to sleep but then forgets to wake her up so that Molly is faced with the unwelcome prospect of having to spend the night at the Towers and away from her beloved father. Molly is 11 or 12 years old at this time, since when she is 17 the event is recalled as occurring ‘five or six years ago’. 29 The elder of the Miss Brownings, Sally, who escorted Molly to the Towers but then inadvertently left her behind, ‘fretted herself into a headache’ for overlooking the child. She also reports that arguing gives her a headache, as does a surprise visit from Lady Harriet, daughter of Lord Cumnor. 30
Molly has further symptoms in later years: a weary aching head when Roger Hamley departs to Africa for two years; and her head also ached heavily after caring for Mrs Osborne Hamley. 31 Mrs Goodenough has a headache at the Charity Ball when waiting to see the Duchess and her diamonds. 32
The life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)
Charlotte Brontë’s letters have many references to headache, suggesting that she may have suffered with migraine, 9 and some of these references are picked up by Elizabeth Gaskell in her biography, 33 no doubt empathising with this particular aspect of her subject consequent upon her own headaches. 6 Gaskell personally witnessed one of Brontë’s headaches, as attested to in a letter to an unknown correspondent provisionally dated 25 August 1850. 34
Shorter fiction
In The Moorland Cottage (1850), Mrs Browne declares that her head aches when her daughter, Maggie, who has just received a proposal of marriage, answers her questions randomly. 35
In Mr Harrison’s Confessions (1851), the surgeon Mr Will Harrison wishes he could have had a headache on two occasions, one on arrival in Duncombe when people are inquiring for his health and the other ‘which should prevent me going to the place I did not care for’. He and Mr Morgan call on the Miss Tomkinsons, the younger sister, Caroline, having had a headache and looking very pale according to her elder sister. 36
In Morton Hall (1853), the Sidebotham sisters wonder how it was that some kinds of pain were genteel and others were not. I said that old families, like the Mortons, generally thought it showed good blood to have their complaints as high in the body as they could – brain fevers and headaches had a better sound, and did perhaps belong more to the aristocracy.
37
In Half a life-time ago (1855), the propensity of Cumberland statesmen to go off drinking for days together is blamed for ‘a dreadful headache the next day’. William Dixon, one of these statesmen, complains of headache and pains in his limbs one evening and takes to his bed, but next morning he has forgotten all his life since childhood. The doctor from Coniston diagnoses typhus fever. His son, Willie Dixon, is apparently also affected with fever which has ‘taken away the little wit [he] … ever possessed’. Later, his howling cries prompt his sister, Susan Dixon, to say ‘don’t make that noise – it makes my head ache’. 38
In The Manchester Marriage (1858), the servant Norah Kennedy, in possession of a dreadful family secret and falsely accused of theft, leaves her home and place of employment, ‘[h]er poor head aching’. 39
In The Grey Woman (1861), the maid of Madame the Baroness de Roeder reports that ‘she would never let me tie [her beautiful hair] up, saying it made her head ache’. 40
In A Dark Night’s Work (1863), Ellinor Wilkins’s ‘head ached’ after receiving a letter with an unwelcome proposal of marriage from the clergyman, Mr Livingstone. Woken the following morning, after the death of Dunster, by the maid rapping at her door, Ellinor instructs the maid ‘in half an hour bring me up a cup of strong tea, for I have a bad headache’. At this time, Ellinor must be in her late teens, since 15 years later she is said to be aged 34. Her head also aches after her efforts to secure the release of the faithful servant, Dixon, wrongly accused of the murder of Dunster. 41 Ellinor’s father, Mr Wilkins, complains of headache which is reported to have been the consequence of overindulgence in alcohol and for which Ellinor puts him down for an hour’s rest. Later he reports that cognac is ‘a capital thing for the headache; and this nasty lowering weather has given me a racking headache all day’. Challenged about Dunster’s disappearance, Mr Wilkins explains his shaking as ‘ … nothing, only this headache which shoots through me at times’. Ellinor’s companion Miss Monro is up late one morning because of a bad headache. 42
In Cousin Phillis (1864), Phillis’s mother, Cousin Holman, ‘has to go to bed with one of her bad headaches’ which she later explains: ‘It’s the weather, I think. Some people feel it different to others. It always brings on a headache with me’. 43
Discussion
Some characters afflicted with headache in the works of Elizabeth Gaskell.
Some details of headache features are given in the fictional works. Descriptors include throbbing (North and South) and booming (Sylvia’s Lovers) with associated sensory features that might be interpreted as photophobia (Ruth, North and South), phonophobia (North and South) and osmophobia (Ruth) as well as dizziness (Mary Barton, Ruth) and pallor (North and South, Mr Harrison’s Confessions), all being frequent accompaniments of migraine.
Various factors that might predispose to or precipitate headache are alluded to, either by the narrator or her characters. Some of these might be termed physical or sensory, such as a jolting cab (North and South), exposure to loud noise (North and South, Half a life-time ago), ambient weather conditions (A Dark Night’s Work, Cousin Phillis) including hot sun (Wives and Daughters), missed meals (Mary Barton) and alcohol overindulgence (Sylvia’s Lovers, Half a Life-Time ago, A Dark Night’s Work – all by male characters). Other illnesses may sometimes be associated with headache, including brain fever (Ruth) and typhus fever (Half a Life-Time ago), reported only in men. Other emotional and psychic factors, including receipt of unexpected, usually bad, news (Mary Barton, Cranford), adverse changes in social circumstances (North and South) and bereavement (Sylvia’s Lovers) may be precipitating factors. Amatory entanglements are central to some of these and include an unwelcome marriage proposal (A Dark Night’s Work). John Thornton’s headache following his rejection by Margaret Hale (North and South) has been ascribed to the ‘painful effects of passionate love’ such that the ‘experience of powerful emotion results in intense bodily symptoms’, 44 a reading that emphasises the somatic effects of psychic states.
As for headache treatment, options mentioned include quiet and bed rest (Ruth), bathing the temples with water (Mary Barton) and drinking tea (A Dark Night’s Work). In Mary Barton Mrs Carson’s use of ether and sal volatile is of note as the only reported medicinal treatment of headache. Ether, the first widely used anaesthetic, was also used as a treatment for headache as shown by other contemporary accounts. 45 Gaskell suggested to her friend Harriet Carr in a letter dated 1832 that sal volatile (ammonium carbonate smelling salts, also known as hartshorn, which give off ammonia on exposure to air) might be a good headache treatment since she herself had ‘derived great benefit’ from this treatment. 46
Aside from such biological analysis, headache might also serve important authorial purposes, particularly metaphorical. As mentioned, many of Gaskell’s young female protagonists are afflicted with headache. Uglow has pointed out that ‘ … emergence from girlhood … can be a painful experience’, this being ‘ … the perilous threshold of adult hood’ and that Gaskell is adept at portraying ‘ … young women coming to terms with their sexual power … finding their own voice and identity’. 47 This pain may of course be actual as well as figurative since the onset of migraine in women is commoner at menarche.
Angus Easson has argued that the use of illness is one way in which Gaskell transforms realism to romanticism, illness being a ‘marker of crisis not just in the body but also in the mind and the psyche; symptoms and diagnosis are not so important as the significance of sickness’. 48 Although Easson does not specifically mention headache, it might be eminently susceptible to such an interpretation, as has been argued for the use of headache by Jane Austen in her novels. 8
Footnotes
Author biography
AJ Larner MD, MRCP(UK), DHMSA is a Consultant Neurologist at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Liverpool and Society of Apothecaries’ Honorary Lecturer in the History of Medicine, University of Liverpool (Email: