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Social Catholicism and Health: Dr. and Mrs Thomas Low Nichols in Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
In 1886, Judge Wallis, summing up in the ‘Pimlico Case’, castigated the writings of a witness, the Catholic doctor, Thomas Low Nichols, as shocking and as tending to ‘unsex’ women. For Nichols’ Esoteric Anthropology had been found in the home of Mrs. Adelaide Bartlett, a French Catholic, accused of murdering her husband with the assistance of the Reverend George Dyson, a Wesleyan minister of Putney. Even though he had written in the preface that ‘this is no book for the centre table, the library shelf or the counter of a bookseller’, Nichols was outraged by what he considered the judge’s libel upon him and his work. In the event Mrs. Bartlett was acquitted amid the most tumultuous applause ever heard in the Old Bailey and retired to a Belgian convent. It was but one more colourful episode in the extraordinary career of the Catholic health reformer, Dr. Nichols.
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References
1 Nichols, T. L., Esoteric Anthropology (The Mysteries of Man) (London 1873)Google Scholar; Times, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20 April, 1886 and Herald of Health, May, June, July, 1886.
2 Gleason, Philip ‘From Free Love to Catholicism: Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Low Nichols at Yellow Springs’, vol. 70 Ohio Historical Quarterly (1961) pp 283–307 Google Scholar; Blake, John B., ‘Mary Govc Nichols, Prophetess of Health’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 106 (1962) pp 219–233 Google Scholar, and his ‘Mary Sergeant Neal Gove Nichols 1810-1884’, Notable American Women 1607-1950, eds. James, Edward T. with James, Janet Wilson and Boyer, Paul S., 4 vols., (Cambridge, Mass. 1971), vol. 2, pp 127-9Google Scholar. Other recent articles are cited there. Nichols’, T. L. autobiography, Forty Years of American Life, (New York 1937 ed.) remains indispensable.Google Scholar
3 Armytage, W. H. G., Heavens Below: [Utopian Experiments in England 1560-1960] (London 1961)Google Scholar; Harrison, J. F. C., Robert Owen and the Owenitcs in Britain and America: The Quest for the New Moral World (London 1969) pp 235–260 Google Scholar; Boston, Ray, British Chartists in America (Manchester 1971) p 91 Google Scholar cites John Fraser. His obituary as a teetotaller, vegetarian, returned from America appears in The Dietetic Reformer (Manchester), 1 May, 1879.
4 See my ‘Before Manning: Some Aspects of British Social Concern Before 1865’, New Blackfriars, vol. 61 (1980) pp 113-27; ‘David Urquhart, Robert Monteith and the Catholic Church: a Search for Justice and Peace’, Innes Review, vol. 31 (1980) pp 57-70 and ‘The Scottish Dimension: Robert Monteith and the Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought’, The Downside Review, vol. 97 (1979) pp 46-68.
5 W. H. G. Armytage, Heavens Below pp 402-10.
6 Nichols, T. L., Nichols’ Health Manual [Being Also a Manual to the Life and Work of Mrs. Mary Gove Nichols] (London 1887 ed.) p 101 Google Scholar; Shannon, James P., Catholic Colonisation on the Western Frontier (New Haven 1957)Google Scholar; Kiddle, Margaret, Caroline Chisholm (Melbourne 1950).Google Scholar
7 In my reading of these three journals I found no mention of Nichols, not even an obituary between 1870-1901. Tablet 20 May 1871, has a very sceptical report on Newman’s, F. W. Lecture on Vegetarianism, and The Month vol. 54 (1885) pp 141-2Google Scholar recommends a health handbook.
8 In his Esoteric Anthropology and his Human Physiology: The Basis of Sanitary and Social Science (London 1872). Noonan, John T., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) pp 387–447 Google Scholar demonstrates the lack of Catholic work in the mid nineteenth century.
9 T. L. Nichols, Human Physiology p 281.
10 E.g. Herald of Health April, 1878, where he claimed to have lectured to Swedenborgians, Catholics, Spiritualists and Bradlaugh’s National Secular Society.
11 Nichols’ Health Manual pp 102-8; Amice Lee, , Laurels and Rosemary: The Life of William and Mary Howitt (London, 1955)Google Scholar; The Diaries of John Ruskin edited by Evans, Joan and Whitehouse, J. H., 3 vols (Oxford, 1956-59) vol. 2 pp 643-5 and 701Google Scholar; The Works of John Ruskin eds Cook, E. T. and Wedderburn, Alexander, 39 vols. (London, 1903-12) v 37 p 733 Google Scholar gives a scathing letter from Ruskin to Mrs. Nichols; Nichols, T. L., The Gift of Healing or the Sympathetic Cure (London, no date) p 39 on Dickens.Google Scholar
12 Herald of Health January to August, 1879; Nichols’ Health Manual passim; MaryNichols, S.G.N., Jerry: a novel of Yankee American Life (London 1872).Google Scholar
13 Nichols, wrote A Biography of the Brothers Davenport, with some account of the physical phenomena which have occurred in their presence in America and Europe (London 1864)Google Scholar and Supramundane Facts in the Life of Rev. Jesse Babcock Ferguson (London 1865). Nichols seems to have been acquainted with the Bayswater businessman Benjamin Coleman converted to spiritualism on a visit to America and author of Spiritualism in America (London 1861). He also knew the strange Theosocialist Thomas Lake Harris, on whom see W. H. G. Armytage, Heavens Below pp 276-81 and Schneider, H. L. and Lawton, George, A Prophet and a Pilgrim (New York 1942)Google Scholar. Hardinge, Emma, Modem American Spiritualism (New York 1970 ed.)Google Scholar is the standard account. See also Smith, Warren Sylvester, The London Heretics, 1870-1914 (London 1967)Google Scholar; Yeo, S. ‘A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883-1896’, History Workshop Journal, No. 5 (London 1977) pp 3–56 Google Scholar and Logic Barrow ‘Socialism in Eternity: The Ideology of Plebeian Spiritualists 1853-1913’, ibid No. 9 (1980) pp 37-69.
14 See Davidson, J. Morrison, Concerning Four Precursors of Henry George and the Single Tax (Port Washington, New York 1971 ed.) pp 57–71.Google Scholar
15 T. L. Nichols, Esoteric Anthropology pp 91-2 where he attacks repression and puritanism.
16 T. L. Nichols, The Gift of Healing pp 8-17; Nichols, T. L., Count Rumford: [How He Banished Beggary from Bavaria] (London, 1873)Google Scholar; Herald of Health January, 1878, where he supports the Turks against Russia in true Urquhartitc fashion.
17 Herald of Health March, 1878; Nichols, T. L., How to Live on Sixpence a Day (London, no date) pp 42-5Google Scholar; Count Rumford, pp 38-42. Sir Walter Calvcrley Trevelyan 1796-1878, whom he met only twice, left Nichols a considerable legacy. He was very much his model landlord D.N.B.
18 T. L. Nichols, Human Physiology p 409; Herald of Health February and March, 1878. On homeopathy see Warner, John Henley ‘The Nature Trusting Heresy’: American Physicians and the Concept of Healing Power of Nature in the 1850’s and 1860’s’ Perspectives in American History II (1977-78) 291–324.Google Scholar
19 T. L. Nichols, Esoteric Anthropology p 184.
20 Nichols’ Health Manual p 208. The ideas here are largely drawn from Allen, David Elliston, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (London 1976) pp 199–202.Google Scholar
21 Nichols’ Health Manual and Nichols, Mary S. G. N., A Woman’s Work in Water Cure and Sanitary Education (London 1869 ed.)Google Scholar
22 See Andrews, E. D., The People Called Shakers. A Search for the Perfect Society (New York 1953)Google Scholar; Cairncross, John, After Polygamy was made a Sin (London 1974)Google Scholar; Dixon, William Hepworth, Spiritual Wives 2 vols. (London 1868).Google Scholar
23 Human Physiology p 68; Nichols’ Health Manual pp 266-87; Count Rumford p 53.
24 Ibid pp 265-6.
25 The Diet Cure p 68; Human Physiology pp 297-301; see Marcus, Steven, The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid Nineteenth Century England (New York 1966 ed.)Google Scholar; Chesney, Kellow, The Victorian Underworld (London 1970)Google Scholar; Pearsall, Ronald, The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality (London 1969)Google Scholar. See A., J. and Banks’, Olive Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England, (Liverpool 1964)Google Scholar; Himes, Norman E., A Medical History of Contraception (New York 1963 ed.)Google Scholar; MacLaren, Angus, Birth Control in Nineteenth Century England, (London 1978).Google Scholar
26 See Graham, Sylvester, Lectures on the Science of Human Life (London 1854) pp 245–287 Google Scholar and his The Philosophy of Sacred History Considered in Relation to Hitman Ailment and the Wines of Scripture (New York 1855 ed.) p 40.
27 Human Physiology pp 297, 300. Also Esoteric Anthropology p 114. E. A. Ross, the American sociologist and progressive reformer, was later to coin the expression ‘race suicide’ to describe contraception.
28 Esoteric Physiology p 85.
29 Ibid p 98.
30 Nichols’ Health Manual p 270; Esoteric Anthropology pp 99, 114. Nichols felt Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy was unexceptional though he detested Bradlaugh’s Sexual Economy, Herald of Health June 1877, August 1885.
31 Nichols’ Health Manual p 266.
32 Ibid p 265.
33 Forster, T. I. M., Recueil de Ma Vie, Mes Ouvrages et Mes Pensees (Bruxelles 1829) p 10 Google Scholar, and also his Medina Simplexa: Practical Rules for the Preservation of Health (Chelmsford 1829) and Illustrations of the Atmospherical Origins of Epidemic Disorders of Health (Chelmsford 1829) pp 193-206; Nichols’ Health Manual p 226. Charles Waterton, the Naturalist, might be included in this tradition. Gosse, Philip, The Squire of Walton Hall: the Life of Charles Waterton (London 1940).Google Scholar
34 Quoted in Fellman, Michael, The Unbounded Frame: Freedom and Community in Nineteenth Century American Utopianism (Westport, Conn. 1973) p 35 Google Scholar. Nordoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (New York 1965 ed.)Google Scholar originally published in 1875 remains the classic account, though much more on spiritualism and health appears in Kagan, Paul, New World Utopias: A Photographic History of the Search for Community (New York 1975).Google Scholar
35 Quoted by Blake, John B., Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society vol. 106 (1962) p 232.Google Scholar
36 S. Graham, The Philosophy of Sacred History p 40.
37 Esoteric Anthropology p 143 and Nichols’ Health Manual p 114. Also see the somewhat disappointing Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, New Jersey 1980).
38 The Diet Cure p 78, and Count Rumford pp 31-47.
39 See for example Nichols, T. L., The Penny Vegetarian (London 1891 ed.) pp 5–12 Google Scholar and Esoteric Anthropology p 120.
40 Ibid pp 176-79.
41 Nichols’ Health Manual p 165.
42 Herald of Health October, 1876 and January, 1878; Wilson, Erasmus Thertno-Therapeia: The Heat Cure (London 1860)Google Scholar and The Eastern or Turkish Bath: Its History, Revival in Britain and Application to the Progress of Health (London 1861) p 51. Dr. Richard Baxter, who introduced the Bath to Blarney and, with Mrs. Richard Donavan, to Cork seems to have known Nichols. See Mrs. Donavan’s obituary in Herald of Health, December 1879. Monteith, Robert ‘The Turkish or Hot Air Bath in relation to the Social Position or Condition or Progress of the Working Class’, National Association for the Promotion of Social Science Proceedings (London 1874) pp 730-40Google Scholar. He saw the bath as excellent substitute for mountain or sea air for which workers could never afford to travel far. For Sir William James Erasmus Wilson (1809-1884) see D.N.B.
43 E.g. Herald of Health January, 1878.
44 Esoteric Anthropology p 151.
45 Ibid p 75. It echoes modern catholic ideas about death with dignity found in the writings of Bernard Haring.
46 Nichols, in The Vaccination Inquirer and Health Review (London 1881) April, p 11.Google Scholar
47 Human Physiology p 57 and Esoteric Anthropology p 151.
48 Human Physiology p 68.
49 Nichols’ Health Manual p 172. Also see Howitt, William, The History of Spiritualism 2 vols. (London 1863)Google Scholar especially vol. 2 p 233 where Catholicism and spiritualism arc seen as the only two forces of growth. For Dr.Malvern, Gully of and Home, D. D., a medium, briefly a catholic, A[rthur] C[onan] Doyle The History [of Spiritualism] 2 vols (London 1926)Google Scholar vols. 1 and D.N.B.; Fulford, Roger, Votesfor Women (London 1957) Chapters 3-9Google Scholar; New Blackfriars vol. 61 (1980) pp 113-27.
50 Nichols’ Health Manual p 266.
51 Nichols’ Health Manual p 161.
52 Ibid p 173.
53 Ibid pp 222, 277. See French, Richard D., Anti-Vivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society (Princeton 1975)Google Scholar; Stevenson, Lloyd G., ‘Religious Elements in the Background of the British Anti-Vivisection Movement’ Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 39 (1956) 125–157 Google Scholar; Lambert, R. J., ‘A Victorian National Health Service: State Vaccination 1855-1871’ Historical Journal 5 (1962) 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54 Ibid p 271. Mrs. Nichols privately circulated a pamphlet ‘A Rule of the Fraternity of the Holy Family’ in this vein. I have been unable to trace a copy.
55 Mary S. G. N. Nichols, A Woman’s Work p 150.
56 Ibid p 151 and Herald of Health June, 1878, on women’s education and the clothes question. See Newton, Stella May, Health Art and Reason: Dress Reformers of the Nineteenth Century (London 1974)Google Scholar On the American tradition Reigel, Robert E. ‘Women’s Clothes and Women’s Rights’ American Quarterly 15 (1963) 390–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
57 Ibid and Mrs.Nichols, S. G. N., The Clothes Question Considered in its relation to Beauty Comfort and Health (London no date)Google Scholar; Herald of Health May, 1878.
58 Herald of Health July, 1879; Nichols, T. L., Marriagein All Ages and Nations (London 1886) p 107.Google Scholar
59 Esoteric Anthropology pp 138-50.
60 Doyle, A.C., History vol 1 p 173 Google Scholar; on AnnaKingsford, see the Tablet 3, 17 March 1888, on her Catholicism.
61 A Biography of the Brothers Davenport p 360. Rev.Maysey, John, The Water Cure (London 1863)Google Scholar and Mrs. S. G. N. Nichols, A Woman’s Work passim.
62 Nichols’ Health Manual p 96. Nichols gave at least one lecture on a visit to Newcastle under the auspices of Barkas, P. T., author of Outlines of Ten Years Investigations into the Phenomenon of Spiritualism (London 1861)Google Scholar, Herald of Health May, 1883.
63 Nichols’ Health Manual p 98.
64 Edgar Allan Poe was impressed by Mrs. Nichols as a medium. They were old friends. Forty Years of American Life pp 215-6, and Poe’s Helen Remembers ed. Miller, John Carl (Charlottesville, Virginia 1979) pp 229, 234, 261.Google Scholar
65 Stothert, J. A., Footsteps of Spirits: a collection of stories of dreams, impressions, sounds and appearances (London 1859)Google Scholar. But see Brownson, O. A., The Spirit Rapper: an autobiography (New York 1854) for another view.Google Scholar
66 Herald of Health July, August 1876.
67 Herald of Health February, April 1876; December 1880, May 1883 and June 1889.
68 He had the dream of attracting Lord Shaftesbury and the Marquis of Bute as directors, Ibid January, February 1876.
69 See the adverts in the Herald of Health and May 1879 issue.
70 He published his The Penny Vegetarian which was revised by Allinson, T. R., L.R.C.P. (London 1891).Google Scholar
71 Ibid p 12.
72 Herald of Health December 1883, reporting the fifth annual meeting of the Scottish Food Reform Society: January 1886; The Dietetic Reformer, February, April, August 1879, carries reports of lectures by Nichols.
74 Nichols’ Health Manual p 104.
75 Herald of Health May 1883.
76 Ibid March 1878, Cambden, Beckenham; February 1879, five lectures at Smethwick, City College of London; April 1879, Liverpool, Leigh, Oldham, Wisbech; May 1879, Slcaford and Stamford; May, 1883, Stockton, Newcastle, previously in Middlesbrough; June 1885, Leeds; January 1886, Cook’s testimony; Nichols, T. L., A Scamper Through Europe (London 1873).Google Scholar
77 Herald of Health February, July, August 1879; April 1880.
78 Ibid May, June 1878; January 1879; Forty Years p 409; W.H.G.Armytage, Heavens Below pp 310-2.
79 Esoteric Anthropology pp 163-74; How to Live on Sixpence pp 42-5.
80 Human Physiology p 142.
81 Human Physiology p 409.
82 Herald of Health March 1878.
83 Ibid May 1877.
84 British Medical Journal 5 July 1883, 21 November 1885 and 2 February 1889.
85 Herald of Health January, April 1883; The Vaccination Inquirer and Health Reveiw (London) April 1881, reports Nichols at the international congress.
86 Biographical information in The Phrenological Annual and Register for 1894 (London 1894) pp 10-19. Also see list of publications in British Library Catalogue.
87 Further information in Coates, James, How to Read Heads (London 1890)Google Scholar, The Phrenological Annual and Record for 1889 (London 1889) and the Glasgow Post Office Directories, 1876, 1900.
88 Coates, James, Seeing the Invisible: Practical Studies in Psychometry, Thought Transference, Telepathy and Allied Phenomena (London 1906) pp 109–112 Google Scholar. Coates apparently contributed to Housewife Magazine and New Thought.
89 Herald of Health March 1879; January, April, 1883.
90 Nichols’ publishers were the Glasgow firm, Hay Nisbet, Jamaica Street.
91 Herald of Health January, December 1886.
92 Ibid January, February 1879.
93 Ibid March, April 1879; June 1880.
94 Information supplied by Mr. Stephen Best, Nottingham County Library, from the local history collection. Frank Mason could not be traced with any degree of certainty. Nichols’ Manchester agent was Frederick Smallman, a shopkeeper who established a chain of vegetarian restaurants, a catering business which continues to this day. He had spent some time in America where he began his diet interests before returning to Manchester. A member of the city council and the old school board, he died aged sixty six in 1911. He left a considerable legacy which included £500 to the Secular Society, £500 to the Rationalist Press and a number of pictures to the city art galleries. I am indebted to Margaret De Motte for considerable information from the local history collection, Manchester Public Library.
95 Herald of Health January, April 1885.
96 Ibid January 1886.
97 The Dietetic Reformer April 1879, reports the initial meeting. The names mentioned were checked against the Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1878-82. Also Checkland, Olive, Philanthropy in Victorian Scotland: Social Welfare and the Voluntary Principle (Edinburgh 1980)Google Scholar deals with Corbctt’s schemes. I am indebted to Miss Norma Logan for the reference. Nichols was well aware of the Glasgow experiment earlier, Herald of Health July 1876.
98 Ibid October 1883; January 1885.
99 Tarrant, T., Food Reform Cookery Book: The Textbook of the Food Reform Association (London 1881)Google Scholar. She was trained in London. See The Dietetic Reformer January 1880, reporting the founding of the school at 42 Allison Street, Crosshill. It was to train girls of thirteen and upwards. Dr. Soule wrote poems for the Dietetic Reformer july 1880.
100 Vegetarian Messenger (London), 1 January 1890; 1 May 1891; 1 February 1892.
101 Herald of Health June 1879; October 1883.
102 Ibid March 1878: ‘General intelligence will put an end to war’.
103 Ibid july l886.
104 Ibid February 1887.
105 Canon Warmoll of Bedford was an enthusiastic supporter. His obituary is in the Tablet, 17 February 1885.
106 On the connection between F. W. Kellogg and religion, see Numbers, Ronald L., Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White, (New York 1976).Google Scholar