Back in Jane Austen’s day travel was so difficult and laborious over poorly constructed roads that the majority of the people who lived in that century traveled no farther than 14 miles from where they lived. Most walked, and even so they had to contend with muddy roads that were almost impassible after heavy rains or breathe in choking dust during times of drought. (In cities, dusty streets would be watered down by merchants early in the morning.)
Diana Sperling, a party walking to dinner along muddy roads.
Travel at night was dangerous. Without a widespread means of lighting roads or an organized police force, night travelers were at the mercy of highwaymen. In cities, link boys were paid a half pence to carry a light in front of pedestrians, or for those on horseback and in carriages.
Georgian cast iron light fixtures, Landsdowne Crescent in Bath. Note the cones, which extinguished the light.
Lanterns hung in front of city doors or were carried. In the country, torches hung from trees lining a lane that led up to a house. Balls and parties were planned during the full moon, although a rainy or cloudy night would spoil these well-laid plans.
A link boy lights the way in the city, 1827.
The situation would not change until the Industrial Revolution brought about such life altering inventions as gas lights, macadam roads (whose hard surface facilitated smoother travel), the steamboat, and rail travel.
The perils of overcrowding, 1812
The following descriptions of poor road conditions from Old Country Life, a book published in 1892, describes a time just after Jane Austen’s death, but one that her longer lived siblings would have known. While people’s memories of distant events are often faulty, the emotions they felt tend to stay with them. Here then are some eye witness accounts retold many decades later:
What a time people took formerly in travelling over old roads! There is a house just two miles distant from mine, by the new unmapped road. Before 1837, when that road was made, it was reached in so circuitous a manner, and by such bad lanes, and across an unbridged river, that my grandfather and his family when they dined with our neighbours, two miles off, always spent the night at their house.
Negotiating a muddy road. Image @Roads in the 18th Century
In 1762, a rich gentleman, who had lived in a house of business in Lisbon, and had made his fortune, returned to England, and resolved to revisit his paternal home in Norfolk. His wish was further stimulated by the circumstance that his sister and sole surviving relative dwelt beside one of the great broads, where he thought he might combine some shooting with the pleasure of renewing his friendships of childhood. From London to Norwich his way was tolerably smooth and prosperous, and by the aid of a mail coach he performed the journey in three days. But now commenced his difficulties. Between the capital and his sister’s dwelling lay twenty miles of country roads. He ordered a coach and six, and set forth on his fraternal quest. The six hired horses, although of strong Flanders breed, were soon engulfed in a black miry pool, his coach followed, and the merchant was dragged out of the window by two cowherds, and mounted on one of the wheelers; he was brought back to Norwich, and nothing could ever induce him to resume the search for his sister, and to revisit his ancestral home.
Pack horses. Image @The Rolle Canal Company
Roads were in such a poor condition that transportation over rivers and canals was preferred. If waterways were not nearby, pack horses and carrier wagons carried heavy and fragile items into areas were roads were near to impassible. Carrier wagons were sturdy wagons pulled by oxen and covered with canvas cloth.
Items had to be safely packed before they could be transported. Paper was expensive and cardboard boxes had yet to be invented. Goods were carried in cloth sacks, metal canisters, leather baskets, wood barrels, sturdy trunks, or wooden crates. Additional containers were made of cloth, woven straw, crockery, glass, and tin.
18th century coopers making barrels. Image@Instructional Resources Corporation.
The safe preservation of foods in metal containers was finally realized in France in the early 1800s. In 1809, General Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 francs to anyone who could preserve food for his army. Nicholas Appert, a Parisian chef and confectioner, found that food sealed in tin containers and sterilized by boiling could be preserved for long periods. A year later (1810), Peter Durand of Britain received a patent for tinplate after devising the sealed cylindrical can. – A brief history of packaging
Fragile items like glass and china received extra protection and were wrapped in cloth or straw. Considering the poor road conditions, it is a wonder that any of these items survived their long journeys intact. View an image and explanation of a stage wagon in this link.
Reliable forms of old-fashioned transportation still exist in this world. Image@Washington Post
Below is a description of a carrier and his wagon. (click here to see examples):
It is a marvel to us how the old china and glass travelled in those days; but the packer was a man of infinite care and skill in the management of fragile wares.
Does the reader remember the time when all such goods were brought by carriers? How often they got broken if intrusted to the stage-coaches, how rarely if they came by the carrier. The carrier’s waggon was securely packed, and time was of no object to the driver, he went very slowly and very carefully over bad ground. – Old Country Life, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892
Breakdown of the Christmas stage, a Victorian illustration. Note that oxen are strapped to an empty cart, ready to take on passengers, who are still 10 miles from their destination.
As noted before, people often spent the night when they arrived as guests for dinner. Once a person made the journey to visit relatives, they tended to stay for weeks, even months. Elizabeth Bennet’s visit with Charlotte was of several weeks duration; Cassandra Austen frequently visited her brother Edward for weeks at a time, which is when Jane would write to her.
City streets were crowded and narrow. Thomas Rowlandson. The Miseries of London. 1807. Image @Lewis Walpole Library
“It is of some importance,” said Sydney Smith, “at what period a man is born. A young man alive at this period hardly knows to what improvements of human life he has been introduced; and I would bring before his notice the changes that have taken place in England since I began to breathe the breath of life—a period of seventy years. I have been nine hours sailing from Dover to Calais before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath before the invention of railroads. In going from Taunton to Bath I suffered between ten thousand and twelve thousand severe contusions before stone-breaking MacAdam was born. I paid fifteen pounds in a single year for repair of carriage springs on the pavement of London, and I now glide without noise or fracture on wooden pavement. I can walk without molestation from one end of London to another; or, if tired, get into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my life. I forgot to add, that as the basket of the stagecoaches in which luggage was then carried had no springs, your clothes were rubbed all to pieces; and that even in the best society, one-third of the gentlemen were always drunk. I am now ashamed that I was not formerly more discontented, and am utterly surprised that all these changes and inventions did not occur two centuries ago.” – Old Country Life, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892, p. 216
Paving a macadam road in the U.S., 1823
Jane Austen's World 
Thank u so much for sharing images along with this article. I especially enjoy “Paving a macadam road” painting that shows a moment in time and scenery long gone now surely covered with buildings. Tiresome journeys reminds me instantly of Elisabeth’s dress covevered with mud when she visited Jane at Bingleys house on foot :-)
And it’s amazing the way the dirt and wet works its way upwards. I remember walking across Jesus Green in Cambridge on a very wet day in the seventies in a long skirt. By the time I got home, the bottom foot was sopping wet and the grit had worked itself up and into the fabric that high. This made the skirt cling round my legs, which impeded my progress to a remarkable degree. It then took me several washes to get all the grit out. It made me understand why two ladies might have a prolonged conversation about the wetness and dirtiness of the Bath Streets and whether a proposed walk might have to be postponed even if the rain stopped!
What a triumph of fashion and notions of propriety over practicality long skirts for women were!
As for the poor and agricultural workers without the means to get thoroughly warm and dry again, it doesn’t bare thinking of.
During the period generally referred to as Georgian, and even well into the Regency, the streets of the Metropolis were unimaginably foul from filth and sewage. Further, they were also quite dangerous from rampant crime with lurking footpads and cut-purses an ever present menace. So miserable were the conditions of London streets that persons of quality were reluctant to set foot upon them except in very select sections of the city. Respectable persons rarely ventured out at night save in great need and then only with arms or some form of escort. A gentlemen going forth for a night of carousing might well carry a sword and or a brace of pistols. The narrow streets made coaches impractical in much of London and horses were only ridden by gentlemen, not ladies. And they too were not practical for many parts of the city. Persons of means would often hire sedan chairs (the taxis of Georgian London) and the very wealthy sometimes had their own made. These would often pick up their passengers inside their front hall and deposit them in the front hall of their destination, thus enabling the passengers to avoid soiling their well heeled heels in the muck infested streets. Sedan chairs remained common even into the early 19th century.
Yes, you’re quite right there, Ad Orientem. I’ve read graphic descriptions of shocking road conditions in London and the countryside in Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels. GH was highly accurate in her descriptions, due to the extensive research that distinguishes her novels from other authors’. As a result, her literary work was often plagiarized by some famous Regency novelists, such as Barbara Cartland. But that’s another story! ;o)
Thank you, Ad Orientem, you summarized the situation in Georgian London very well. Your description could serve as the preface to a number of my posts on sedan chairs(https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/sedan-chairs-an-efficient-mode-of-transportation-in-georgian-london/),
carriages, noise, and this one about stench: https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/fawlty-regency-london-%E2%80%93-oh-what-a-stench-part-one/.
There are stories to tell about the dustmen and nightsoil men, who removed the accumulations in cesspits! http://vic-sanborn.suite101.com/night-soil-men-the-human-waste-collectors-of-georgian-london-a226849
Vic, thank you for the link to stories on nightsoil men. Nowadays, the workplace health and safety requirements have of course improved; but still, someone’s got to do it! :-(
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7888915/Worlds-Worst-Jobs-The-smelliest-the-dirtiest-and-the-downright-dangerous.html
That’s so interesting, it’s one of those things you don’t necessarily think of, and then when you do it just seems so obvious…
Have to say though, that whenever I hear of a sedan chair I can’t help but think of Elizabth Gaskell’s Cranford stories! XD
Fab article, Vic! I love it how you bring the Regency era to life. One can just imagine travelling on those terrible roads, in the dark…
I didn’t realise that parties were arranged during full moon, fascinating!
I loved the article and the comments. Made me appreciate the stories and things we take so lightly or for granted.
Cardboard boxes had yet to be invented. Oh that’s very good and just the sort of thing I might have been missed were I writing about moving goods in the Regency.
OED doesn’t know about what we now call ‘cardboard’:
ˈcardboard, n.
a. Pasteboard of the thickness of card, for cutting cards from, or for making boxes and the like. Also attrib. in cardboard box, etc.
1848 A. Brontë Tenant of Wildfell Hall I. xviii. 325 The pencil‥leaves an impression upon card-board that no amount of rubbing can efface . . ‘
Wikipedia explains: ‘Cardboard boxes are industrially prefabricated boxes, primarily used for packaging goods and materials. Specialists in industry seldom use the term cardboard because it does not denote a specific material. The term cardboard may refer to a variety of heavy paper-like materials,including card stock, corrugated fiberboard or paperboard. The meaning of the term may depend on the locale, contents, construction, and personal choice.
. . The first commercial paperboard (not corrugated) box was produced in England in 1817.
The Scottish-born Robert Gair invented the pre-cut cardboard or paperboard box in 1890 – flat pieces manufactured in bulk that folded into boxes. Gair’s invention came about as a result of an accident: he was a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker during the 1870s, and one day, while he was printing an order of seed bags, a metal ruler normally used to crease bags shifted in position and cut them. Gair discovered that by cutting and creasing in one operation he could make prefabricated paperboard boxes. Applying this idea to corrugated boxboard was a straightforward development when the material became available around the turn of the twentieth century . . The first corrugated cardboard box manufactured in the USA was in 1895.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_box#History
So now we know!
One of the last bands of highwaymen to operate in England was the Caines Gang, Their headquarters were in the village of Cockroad, between Bath and Bristol from where they organised highway robberies and burglaries,extortion and money-lending. Each year they collected their “dues” at the annual Bath Fair – usually held at Lansdowne.
In my novel, “Avon Street,” I have blended fact with fiction and with a little writer’s licence I developed the gang’s links with Bath, and had them based there. The Avon Street area of Bath was a “rookery” of slum dwellings, and a dangerous place to be, even in Austen’s time (though it had grown much worse by the Victorian era).
In “Persuasion,” Anne Elliot, visits “Westgate Buildings” on the periphery of Avon Street, despite Sir Walter’s complaints of its unsuitableness – “Everything that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting to you.”
How your article has truly sparked my interest. “Clothes rubbed all to pieces!” Think of it! How extraordinary!
And the safety issues mentioned brought to mind how much we take for granted our own personal safety in most cases.
Wonderfully informative–love this site!
Rose
That was really fascinating. I knew some of it, but it was considerably worse than I thought! , Thank you, Vic.
A little late in the day, but have posted a piece on Bath Fair, and the incident of Carrotty Kate and Wombwell’s Menagerie.
Not sure though if it is polite to post a link, so will refrain from doing so.
Here is the tale of how Carrotty Kate met Wombwell’s Menagerie on her way to Bath Fair.
http://unpublishedwriterblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/carrotty-kate-meets-wombwells-menagerie-all-the-fun-of-the-fair/
Pre-Industrial revolution is another country! It’s hard to imagine life today without electricity, modern transport, fast food, etc.
One of the interesting things is that England had great roads — under the Romans. But once the Romans left these fell into disuse and often had the stones taken up for building elsewhere.
But for writing fiction, as I do, bad roads such as these make for great stories–it’s a wonderful way to get your characters together (I’ve used the broken down carriage many times and it’s actually always easier to believe than if everything on a journey went smoothly).