Pinnegar’s sexual harassment and assault of Sunday

Albert Pinnegar’s harassment and assaults of Sunday Small expose how his authority as workhouse master lets him turn ordinary duties and the promise of future employment into instruments of coercion. Sunday resists him, but his threat to target Daisy Branning forces her to weigh her own safety against her friend’s. A later attempt to assault her as she is leaving the workhouse ends only when Lady Lavinia Huntley arrives early.

Authority and the first approach

In early April, Pinnegar asked Miss Frost to provide him with a girl for administrative work and specifically selected Sunday because Mrs Lockett had reported that she excelled at her lessons and could read well. The request presented itself as a practical assignment, but Sunday and Miss Frost understood its danger: Sunday remembered what had happened to Cissie Burns, and Miss Frost knew enough to be dismayed. Neither girl had authority to refuse the housemaster’s order.

Sunday entered Pinnegar’s office with the door deliberately left open, an attempt to preserve some protection in a place where he controlled the terms of her work. He ordered her to close it. He then made an ostensibly considerate request that she remove her cap, and used the moment to handle her hair. The shift from office duty to personal attention established the pattern that followed: Pinnegar could make an ordinary instruction serve his pursuit, while Sunday had to manage the danger without openly disobeying him.

The assignment also placed Sunday in a particularly exposed position. She had little control over which chores she was given, and leaving the workhouse required an employment arrangement. When Pinnegar asked what sort of work she wanted, Sunday said she hoped for outdoor work, perhaps on a farm. He replied that farmers usually preferred boys, then suggested that he could use his influence if she were kind to him. His offer linked her prospects to personal compliance, turning his institutional power over her future into leverage.

Resistance and coercion

Pinnegar’s conduct escalated over the following weeks. He attempted to present himself as someone who could instruct Sunday in how to please a future husband, but she rejected the suggestion and maintained that she could learn for herself if the occasion arose. When he locked the office door and moved closer, Sunday recognized the immediate danger. Miss Frost repeatedly interrupted them, and Sunday was relieved by her presence, though Pinnegar became increasingly irritated by it.

When Pinnegar finally tried to force himself on Sunday, she fought back and managed to break away. She warned him that she could report his actions to Mrs Lockett and that the Board of Guardians might learn how he treated the girls. He hesitated, but then turned the threat against Sunday: if she would not comply, he said, he could find another girl, naming Daisy. The choice he imposed was not a free one. Sunday believed he might harm Daisy and felt unable to expose her friend to the same danger. She therefore endured further unwanted contact to shield Daisy, a decision made under threat rather than consent.

The episode shows both Sunday’s resourcefulness and the limits of what resistance could achieve inside the institution. She had already tried to keep the office door open and, when physically threatened, invoked outside scrutiny. Yet Pinnegar controlled access to her, her work, and the other girls. His threat worked precisely because Sunday cared for Daisy and knew that the younger inmates depended on an institution that was supposed to protect them. Her decision to protect her friend did not make Pinnegar’s conduct less coercive; it made the unequal power between them unmistakable.

The attempted assault as Sunday leaves

Later, when Sunday was preparing to leave the workhouse for the position arranged by Lady Lavinia Huntley, she said an emotional goodbye to Daisy, who begged her not to forget them. Sunday assured her that she would not. She packed her few clothes and stripped the sheet and blanket from her bed, aware that someone else would soon occupy it. As she carried them toward the laundry, Pinnegar stopped her and summoned her to his office.

There he proposed that Sunday live in a cottage in Coton and keep it clean for him, with payment. Sunday understood the sexual implication and declined, telling him she was satisfied with the position Lady Lavinia Huntley had found. Pinnegar pressed the offer once more; Sunday refused again and took the small package he had given her. As she turned to leave, he suddenly seized her and tried to force her. The attack made plain that his earlier offers of employment and protection had never been separate from his pursuit: when persuasion failed and Sunday was on the point of leaving his control, he attempted to take what he wanted by force.

A loud knock interrupted him. Pinnegar ordered Sunday to remain silent and warned that another girl could take her place. Miss Frost called through the door to announce that Lady Lavinia Huntley had arrived early and questioned why it was locked and where Sunday was. Pinnegar claimed that he had shut the door to hand over Sunday’s possessions, then unlocked it. Miss Frost looked at Sunday suspiciously, but Sunday was able to leave with her. The interruption prevented the attempted assault from continuing; it did not amount to an intervention based on knowledge of what had happened.

Testimony and institutional significance

After leaving, Sunday described the workhouse to Lady Lavinia Huntley and Biddy Spooner. Asked about Pinnegar, she reported that he had taken an interest in Cissie Burns, called her to work in his office, and forced her. Sunday connected Cissie’s pregnancy to Pinnegar’s abuse and recounted how Cissie had been sent away in the Hatter’s Hall asylum carriage despite being told she would go somewhere that would let her care for her baby. Cissie’s story explains why Sunday recognized Pinnegar’s methods and why the threat against Daisy could silence her: she had already seen how the institution could punish a vulnerable girl rather than protect her.

Sunday’s account placed the assaults within wider conditions of institutional control. Men, boys, women, and girls were divided into separate sections, and the inmates were assigned labor ranging from laundry and kitchen work to outdoor tasks. Sunday had little say over her duties; Pinnegar could summon her to his office under the appearance of administrative work, while the prospect of leaving depended on adults arranging a job. The workhouse’s hierarchy made his misconduct possible not simply because he was an abusive man, but because he could use ordinary authority over girls’ time and futures to isolate and pressure them.

Later, the workhouse was described as having improved meals and a more hopeful atmosphere, with fear and bullying gone; the new matron had even snapped Miss Frost’s split cane and thrown it away. Those changes mark a contrast with the environment in which Pinnegar was able to threaten girls and exploit their dependence. Sunday’s testimony gave Lady Lavinia Huntley concrete grounds to question the institution’s claims about its care and discipline. The event therefore joins private violation to public accountability: Sunday’s courage lies not only in resisting Pinnegar in his office, but also in eventually telling what she knew about the workhouse and the girl whose fate had first taught her to fear him.