The Story of Perpetua Allison
Content Notice: This story contains references to poverty and deprivation.
The particularly distressing circumstances surrounding the death from slow starvation of Perpetua Allison were brought to light at an Inquest held as a result of her death. It revealed the state of poverty and deprivation in which Perpetua and her husband Mark lived during the 1870s in Sheffield.
Married for many years, Mark and Perpetua Allison had been living at No 2, Holland’s Yard, Porter Street since 1870. Mark Allison, aged 70, had been a file maker all his working life but after suffering a stroke he was unable to work and looked principally to his wife for support. Perpetua, aged 67, had suffered with enlargement of her knees for the past 14 years and had carried an injury from a fractured leg for seven years. With no income, the couple had to eke out an existence as best they could. They received 3 shillings and 6 pence in parish relief but had to pay 3 shillings and 2 pence in rent and taxes. The house was in a shockingly neglected and filthy state. They were left with four pence a week to live on but on this small amount and with a little assistance from neighbours, the husband and wife managed to exist. The assistance from neighbours consisted chiefly of pieces of bread and at times of great need, they would go round begging food from acquaintances but would never ask for help from strangers.
On Friday 4th February 1882, Mark Allison got up early and went downstairs, leaving his wife asleep upstairs. Perpetua Allison didn’t go downstairs and although this was unusual, her husband never went up to take her food or to find out if she was ill. On Friday evening, Mark Allison did not go up to bed but slept in an armchair downstairs. When he did go upstairs for a scarf the following day, he found his wife dead on the floor. “She was lying on her face, almost in a state of nudity, and had been dead, to all appearances, several hours.”
Allison sought his neighbour’s assistance to place his wife decently on the bed and some of his acquaintances took charge of the funeral arrangements. Perpetua Allison was buried on 8th February 1882 in grave W2 109, a public grave in the Anglican area of the Cemetery.
The Coroner, Mr Wightman, said it was a miserable case and he could not imagine a greater farce than that of the poor old man paying poor rates out of parish money. The jury returned a verdict of “Died from exhausted nature, accelerated by privation and want of food”.