The recorded details of Mary’s life outline a stark existence marked by a series of tragedies. During the early nineteenth century, having a child out of wedlock was largely regarded as a failure on the mother’s part. An illegitimate child branded its mother as morally corrupt. In England, the 1834 Poor Law “reform” incorporated a Bastardy Clause that freed fathers from parental obligations, supposedly discouraging women from falling pregnant to secure financial aid.
Mary conceived four times out of wedlock, and only once was she married while pregnant. We can only imagine the local reaction to the ongoing scandal surrounding her life in the small community where she lived. The very fact that Mary had to voluntarily enter the Workhouse because of her situation strongly suggests that nearly all her family, including her sisters and cousins, had completely abandoned her.
Like every other workhouse in the UK, the Market Bosworth workhouse was widely feared. Conditions were deliberately harsh and humiliating to deter those living in poverty from seeking parish relief, making it a place to be avoided at almost any cost. Despite the extent of rural poverty at the time, it is quite revealing that it only ever housed an average of 56 inmates in a facility designed for 200.
While Mary, along with her daughter Dorothy and son Thomas, managed to survive and leave the institution, her son Joseph Hopkins did not.
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