Mrs Ratsey – wife of Restall Ratsey, the sailmaker – was appointed wet nurse to Princess Victoria on 21st November 1840.
Queen Victoria gave birth to her 1st child – also called Victoria – in Buckingham Palace. The area outside the palace was shut down that day for fear of disturbing Her Majesty’s labour. Present in an adjoining room during the birth – with the door open – were His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and numerous politicians including Lords Palmerston and Melbourne: the maternity of a future monarch needed to be witnessed by the great and the good. It was said that Her Majesty manifested an incredible firmness and composure during her labour, and that she submitted to her sufferings with cheerfulness and patience. After the birth, Victoria’s husband – His Royal Highness Prince Albert – conveyed the gratifying intelligence that Her Majesty was in all respects as well as could be expected. It was at this point that a royal messenger was dispatched by express to the Isle of Wight to Mr Charles Day – surgeon of Cowes – to announce to Mrs Jane Ratsey that she had been appointed wet nurse to the Queen. Mrs Ratsey was to proceed to London immediately. She arrived in London on the Southampton mail train the following morning to undertake ‘her high and honourable office’. The Salisbury and Winchester Journal reported:
“The Isle of Wight has the honour of being the spot from which the person who is to suckle the young Princess has been selected. “It was Her Majesty’s particular wish that a wet nurse should be chosen from the vicinity of Cowes, from observing the very healthy state of the women and children during her residence in the Isle of Wight, and from the very great benefit her own health had received from her visits to the Island. “A person apparently more admirably suited for the situation could not possibly have been selected.”
Article continues below this advertisement
Queen Victoria believed she and her children too grand to breastfeed their own offspring. Her 2nd daughter Alice broke with royal tradition by doing so, which led the Queen to name 1 of her cows at Barton Farm ‘Alice’ as a rebuke.
The Queen’s eldest daughter Victoria went on to marry Prince Frederick of Prussia at the tender age of 17. She thus became the mother of the German Kaiser in World War I: Wilhelm II. Queen Victoria should have stuck with wet nurses from the Isle of Wight. A subsequent wet nurse – Mary Ann Brough aka ‘the Esher Murderess’ – slit the throats of her own 6 children in 1854 before attempting suicide. Brough had previously been given charge of the most important infant in the kingdom: Albert Edward Prince of Wales. The murderess was found not guilty of the murders of her children on the grounds of insanity and ordered to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
