Blank, Light, Respectable, Useful: Nineteenth Century Orphan Bodies

Discovering a scrapbook in the archives of a Victorian Orphanage raises questions as to how the children in these institutions were represented. This paper argues that such images frame a particular version of the inmates of Muller Orphan Homes, Bristol, as a collective, a ‘caste apart’ whose worth is displayed here as visual representations of key-circulating discourses regarding respectability, usefulness, productivity and whiteness. The photograph in question provides a striking picture of docile, servile, nimble and fit bodies; it suggests their potential to be quiet, respectable, mouldable servants, apprentices and dressmakers, neatly and seamlessly fitting their allotted economic, social and cultural space. It presents these children for the imperialist gaze, ‘othered’ in these photographs as both functional, servile, ‘blank’ docile bodies and ‘spectacular’ objects of lurid fascination and sentimental sympathy.