Mina Hendley, BA(Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage
Mina Hendley is a student on the University of Lincoln’s BA(Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage degree. In her second year, Mina completed a work experience placement within the Lincolnshire Heritage Service collections team. As part of her experiences, she selected an object from the collections to research. Here are her findings about an early twentieth century prosthetic leg, on display in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life.
Leah Warriner-Wood, Senior Lecturer and Placement Coordinator, Lincoln School of Humanities and Heritage
In the early 1870s, Mr. E Plumber from Sleaford, Lincolnshire ran into a corn field at the age of four and lost his leg in a reaper machine. For the rest of his life he used a prosthetic leg (the 20th century example shown in the image below) which consisted of a wooden peg attached to a piece of wood to support the knee, with a leather buckled strap to keep the leg in place. The leg is currently on display in the Chemist Shop in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, alongside a prosthetic arm and hand. Mr. E Plumber lived a long life, dying in 1947 at the age of 78.
The 19th century saw the development of the reaper, an agricultural machine that allowed farmers to harvest crops mechanically. It was a newer and quicker way of farming that “superseded the slower and older appliances for cutting down corn crops.”[1] The reaper revolutionised farming, making harvesting easier with less labour. However, accidents – and deaths – involving young children running into fields and getting caught in a reaper’s blades were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Victorian and Edwardian newspapers are littered with stories of children wandering onto farms and getting caught in ‘child-eating’ machines.[2]
Industrialisation in the Victorian era led to a large increase in workplace accidents, involving not just reapers, but mills, factory machinery, and railway construction. Injuries from war, coupled with the high numbers of industrial and agricultural injuries, called for the improvement of prosthetic limbs like Mr. Plumber’s. Wealthier amputees may have been able to afford a ‘cork leg’ with ivory and rubber sockets, but the rest had to make do with a wooden peg leg.[3]
Life for people with disabilities in the Victorian era varied depending on the person’s class – some people may have been taken to a workhouse or even an asylum, unable to work. The 20th century saw some improvements for people with artificial limbs, with the World Wars creating an increased demand for prosthetics. As a result, reconstruction and material quality improved, allowing for more strength and durability.[4]
This article also appeared in issue No. 136 (Summer 2024) of ‘Lincolnshire Past & Present’, a quarterly magazine published by the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology.
Staff of the BA(Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage degree would like to express their gratitude to Sara Basquill and Michelle Johns, of Lincolnshire Heritage Service, for their support in hosting Mina’s work experience placement.
[1] Henry Stephens. (1908). Stephens’ Book of the Farm. William Blackwood.
[2] Elisabeth Cawthon. (1992). Apocrypha from the Victorian Workplace: Occupational Accidents and Employee Attitudes in England, 1830-1860. Victorian Periodicals Review, [online] 25(2), pp.56–63. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20082591?seq=2 [Accessed 10 Apr. 2024].
[3] Julia Armfield. (2013). Without a Leg to Stand On – Victorian Prosthetics. [online] blogs.bl.uk. Available at: https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2013/10/without-a-leg-to-stand-on-victorian-prosthetics.html.
[4] Rena Cruz, Maureen Ross, Sean Powell and Maria Woodruff. (2020). Advancements in Soft-Tissue Prosthetics Part A: The Art of Imitating Life. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, [online] 8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00121.