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Archive for the ‘Jane Austen’s World’ Category

A Male Doctor Examines a Woman, Circa 1800

Posted in Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, personal hygiene, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , , , on November 27, 2010| 10 Comments »

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. In A Triple Tragedy: How Princess Charlotte’s Death in 1817 Changed Obstetrics, I discussed the two approaches to obstetrics in the early 19th century – the conservative approach, which meant no intervention, and the more radical intervention approach. I included no image of a physician examining a woman.

Morbid Anatomy, one of my new favorite sites, features three images of a physician examining a woman (circa 1800). These images came without attribution, but are interesting nevertheless. Click here to see them all.

Internal examination of a woman, circa 1800

In the early 1800’s there was also a growing number of formally trained doctors who took great pains to distinguish themselves from the host of lay practitioners. The most important real distinction was that the formally trained, or “regular” doctors as they called themselves, were male, usually middle class, and almost always more expensive than the lay competition. The “regulars'” practices were largely confined to middle and upper class people who could afford the prestige of being treated by a “gentleman” of their own class. By 1800, fashion even dictated that upper and middle class women employ male “regular” doctors for obstetrical care—a custom which plainer people regarded as grossly indecent.” – Witches, Midwives, and Nurses A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

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Why Petticoats and Chemises Were Worn Under Regency Gowns

Posted in Fashions, James Gilray, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , on November 17, 2010| 21 Comments »

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Look at this lovely Regency lady in this image from 1814. Her petticoat peeps under her fashionably short gown, whose conical shaped skirt has been given a definite shape by the undergarment.

1814 Ball Dress, Costume Parisien

At the turn of the century, when lighter cloths were used to fashion gowns and when the dress silhouette was columnar and worn close to the body, the use of a chemise or petticoat was even more crucial, for the thin fabric would cling to the legs and work its way between them without the barrier of the petticoat. A few weeks ago, one of my posts created a stir when I revealed that drawers were regarded as optional underwear for Regency ladies, and readers wondered how a Regency lady could withstand the cold in winter.

Morning Dress, Ladies Monthly Museum.

While bloomers were optional,  a petticoat was an absolutely necessity. Dress fabrics were gossamer thin, and petticoats, made of sturdier linen or cotton, and reinforced with tucks and perhaps a thin line of boning at the hem, served to give shape to the hem of the dress, keeping it away from the feet and body. As skirts rose, the decorative elements of a petticoat peeped out under the skirt. Below, one can see a typical petticoat of the day (with corset on top of it). This one is short, but the tucks are evident.

Petticoat

Without this undergarment, the thin fabric of a ladies gown would hug her body, revealing her legs and her mons of Venus in stark outlines when she moved. Gillray’s cartoon of The Three Graces in High Wind demonstrates how revealing Regency dresses were, even when petticoats were worn.

The Three Graces in High Wind, James Gillray, 1810

Illustrators James Gillray, Isaac Cruickshank, and Thomas Rowlandson relished making fun of the new fashions. In the image below Gillray shows the effects of wearing a gown without underwear and taking the fashion features of décolleté and side slits to the extreme. Rather than creating an elegant effect, the lady resembled a tart.

Boilly’s painting shows how clearly the chemise, which ended above the knees, shows through the thin fabric of this lady’s gown.

Point de Convention, Louis-Léopold Boilly, ca. 1797. Image @ Wikimedia Commons.

This image from the Kyoto Costume Institute also demonstrates the transparency of Regency gown fabrics.

White muslin dress with whitework embroidery, 1810. Image Kyoto Costume Institute.

The unusual (and rare) practice of dampening one’s gown at the turn of the century was most likely followed by light-o-loves, courtesans, ladybirds, cyprians, and women of ill repute. Aristocratic women who were confident in their unassailable status might have gotten away with such licentious behavior on a dare, and their fashion inclinations might have been considered “au courant”, but no proper lady, no young miss on the marriage mart, no merchant’s daughter looking to improve her station in life, would for a moment consider walking out in public without the protection of a chemise or petticoat, much less wet her gown to make it more revealing. While caricaturists showed enormous zest in depicting the new revealing fashions, they exaggerated the trend of these flimsy gowns out of all proportion in their visual commentaries.

Isaak Cruikshank, Parisian ladies in full winter dress, 1800. Image @ Wikimedia Commons.

Addendum: I must add that another primary purpose of these undergarments was to protect the delicate outer garment from soiling. In Regency times people did not wash themselves frequently, and petticoats and chemises presented a barrier between unwashed and sweaty skin and the dress. Since undergarments were made of sturdier fabrics, they could be laundered more often. In addition, people with less means owned fewer gowns and employed fewer servants to do the laundering. Even these ladies owned a number of chemises (usually homemade) and petticoats that could be washed frequently, thereby protecting their every day AND special gowns.

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Going to See Cassandra’s Portrait of Her Sister Jane Austen

Posted in art, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency style, tagged , , , , , , on November 15, 2010| 23 Comments »

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Post written by Tony Grant, London Calling.

The pencil and watercolour picture Cassandra made of Jane Austen in about 1810, is in the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is unique within the exhibits there because, although it is grouped with other 18th century portraits, it is displayed in a glass case on a plinth in the general concourse of room 18. It is not hung on the walls with her other contemporaries.

Jane Austen by Cassandra Austen, pencil and watercolour, circa 1810

The portrait is also unique in another way. It is the only portrait within the gallery made by an amateur. All the other portraits are of famous politicians, the lords and ladies of the time, rich merchants and industrialists, and the powerful. They were painted for a particular purpose by professional artists, some of whom, like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence, were the best, most sort after and amongst the most brilliant artists of their day. Cassandra, was an ordinary, lower middle class person dabbling in sketching and painting for her own interest and edification. A pastime, thousands of other ladies participated in, along with playing the pianoforte, singing and dancing. It was an important element in their home entertainment. We can only guess as to why Cassandra drew a portrait of Jane on that day in 1810 and for what purpose. The drawing and painting process, techniques and style of famous artists like Reynolds , Gainsborough and Lawrence can be found out through evidence and documents, expert analysis of their paintings and by charting their careers as painters. How Cassandra sketched can only be surmised. But one thing is for sure, you can look at her sketch of Jane carefully and there are no apparent errors or mistakes. There is no working out on the picture. It is a finished product. So how did Cassandra produce it and what does it tell you and I about Jane and Cassandra?

From where I live it is an interesting journey to The National Portrait Gallery. I go out of my front door, turn right and walk for five hundred yards, past the newsagents, butchers, chemist and green grocers in Motspur Park, to the station. Motspur Park being part of the London Borough of Merton and next to the town of Wimbledon. It’s famous for the London University playing fields and athletics track and it is home to Fulham Football Club’s training ground. The one-minute mile was nearly broken at the London University track here in the 1950’s.before it was eventually achieved at Oxford.

The train journey from Motspur Park, passing through, Raynes Park, Wimbledon, Earlsfield, Clapham Junction, Vauxhall and Waterloo takes about twenty minutes. It is sixteen miles to the centre of London from where I live.

Waterloo Station. Image @Wikimedia Commons

Waterloo Station is an Edwardian masterpiece of acres of glass roof corrugated like a sea of glass waves. Beneath its roof, during the April of 1912, the rich and wealthy caught the boat train to Southampton Docks and then bordered The Titanic. Millions of soldiers between 1914 and 1918 caught troop trains to the same Southampton Docks to board troop ships for France and the trenches. In the Second World War, the same again. Millions of troops travelled from Waterloo to Southampton to sail to Normandy. In Waterloo the ghosts of the past begin to cling to your consciousness like suffocating cobwebs. The giant concourse clock hanging from the roof reminds you of the lovers trysts famously enacted beneath it’s ticking mechanism from the time the station began.

Villiers Street. Image @Wikimedia Commons

Walking out of Waterloo station on to the South bank and the breezes of The River Thames brings it’s ghosts too, of millennia’s of people, famous, infamous, notorious and where many events throughout history took place. You walk across the pedestrian path attached to Hungerford Railway Bridge across which Virginia Woolf walked and along Villiers Street next to Charring Cross Station and past where Rudyard Kipling lived when he came back from India, past the house where Herman Melville lived for a short while and past the house where Benjamin Franklin lived for many years with his common law wife and wrote, printed, invented and had revolutionary ideas.

Twinings. Image @Tony Grant

You go past where Charles Dickens had his office for Household Words, past the recumbent statue to Oscar Wilde, “I may be in the gutter but I’m looking at the stars.,” past Twinings, where Jane Austen bought her tea, past the present day protest outside Zimbabwe House to the atrocities that are happening, as I write, in that country, past St Martins in the Fields,…

 

Trafalgar Square. Image @Wikimedia Commons

… then into Trafalgar Square, Nelsons Column, Landseers giant lions and round the side of The National Gallery and into the entrance of The National Portait gallery in St Martin’s Place, opposite The Garrick Theatre. All those ghosts now thickly clinging about neck, arms, legs and hair, streaming like veils of gossamer as you walk, playing with the imagination.

Entrance to the National Portrait Gallery. Image @Tony Grant

The entrance to The National Portrait Gallery is inauspicious. It is arched and fine but doesn’t compare with the more grandiose entrance in Trafalgar Square of The National Gallery with it’s entrance on a raised platform, Ionic pillars, fine Greek portico and temple dome. Entering, The Portrait Gallery, is almost like going into the sombre muted entrance of a cathedral. Some arches, mosaic floor, heavy wooden doors to right and left and then up some limestone steps.

Escalator up to the second floor

Once at the top of the entrance staircase you enter into a modern, light and airy hall with a ceiling four floors high and a tall escalator reaching high, up to the second floor.

Looking down.

Open plan galleries , rows of computer screens and a library for research are to your right as you go up the escalator.

On the way to the second floor. Image @TonyGrant

Cassandras portrait of Jane is on the second floor in room 18. As you get to the top of the escalator turn left and you are soon in room 18.

Second floor of the National Portrait Gallery, Room 18

The walls have the rich and famous of the early 19th century hanging on them but just to left and almost as soon as you enter the gallery, there is a glass cube positioned on a plinth and the painting in it is about chest height. It is Cassandra’s portrait of Jane, set within a heavy, elaborate, gold frame.

Jane Austen's portrait framed and in situ.

The frame seems too heavy and wide for the small picture. It dominates the picture. The portrait is positioned so the back of it is towards you. You have to walk around it to see it.

Mezzotint print of Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire

We can compare a portrait executed by Thomas Gainsborough, with Cassandra’s sketch of Jane. The portrait of Georgianna The Duchess of Devonshire done by Gainsborough in 1787, is nicknamed, “the large black hat,”and has many similarities to Cassandra’s portrait of Jane. Both show the sitter with their face in profile, Jane facing left and Georgianna facing right. Both have curled and ringletted hair, both have young smooth looking faces and both have their arms folded in front of them. Gainsborough’s portrait of Georgiana is about fashion, position in society, and has a beautiful and intelligent face. The way she is standing, side on, even with the luxurious folds , creases and layers of the expensive materials of the dress and bodice you can see the sensuous curve of her back, the relaxed slender manicured fingers of her left hand are resting on her right arm. Georgianna’s eyes are looking straight at the observer, inviting you to look back and admire, a slight whimsical glance and that mouth, sensuous, waiting to be kissed. The picture speaks of wealth, confidence, beauty, calmness, style, luxury and is executed by a master painter at the top of his profession.

Jane Austen by Cassandra Austen. Image @National Portrait Gallery

Cassandras picture on the other hand shows Jane, shoulders full on towards the observer. She looks solid and lumpy. The drawing is a pencil sketch. The four fingers of the left hand resting on her right arm is a claw, four talons, more appropriate on a hawk. What disappoints me most is that Jane is looking away. If Cassandra had got her to look at her and had drawn a direct look, I would have forgiven all the amateurism and lack of skill shown in the picture. That one thing would have had Jane Austen looking at us. We could have made contact, seen into her soul. That would have lifted the picture immeasurably. Georgiana looks at us and we immediately have a relationship with her. Cassandra keeps Jane away from us. She keeps her private. Maybe that one fact tells us about Jane and Cassandra’s relationship. Or, perhaps Cassandra was trying, merely, to keep to the conventions of portraiture too closely. It showed lack of imagination. The mouth is thin, small and tight. Not one to be kissed easily. There is some colour in her cheeks. Her face is given a three-dimensional quality by the deep, long, unattractive creases leading from the wings of her nostrils to the corners of her mouth. There is a long aquiline nose, smooth and thin. Her eyebrows are pronounced, dark thin curves above her wide-open intelligent eyes. In some way the eyes do save the picture even though you do not have eye contact. They show wide-open, hazel orbs, thoughtful and carefully looking. The pronounced fringe of curls and ringlets above her brow are what strike you most about the picture. Cassandra wanted to emphasise them for some reason. Maybe she could draw hair better than other things.

One other thing. This picture was made in 1810. Jane was thirty-five years old. The picture is of a girl no older than a teenager.

When sketching, a sketcher has to look and look and keep looking. They make many marks, some right and some wrong. A process of catching the subject happens on the paper. There is no sign of a sketching process going on in this picture. Either Cassandra drew without wanting to change anything so keeping mistakes, although I think that is impossible for an artist, or she did a series sketches first and then created this one from her rough attempts. I think she did make other sketches leading up to this finished product. Presumably, like many of Jane’s letters they were destroyed by Cassandra in later life.

Queen Elizabeth I, one of Jane Austen's neighbors.

This poor, amateurish and unsatisfying drawing of Jane Austen is in pride of place in room 18 of The National Portrait Gallery. There it is, amongst some of the finest examples of 18th and early 19th century portraits. It is one of the most popular pictures in the gallery. It is Jane Austen.

Gentle reader: This post was written by Tony Grant from London Calling. Except for the Wikimedia images, he provided all the images for this post.

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A 19th Century Regency Era Shower

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , , on November 11, 2010| 21 Comments »


Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Take a good look at this contraption. Life Magazine gave it the following description:

A treasury of old tubbery, Regency shower 12 feet high was a fancy bathing apparatus in England around 1810, pump lifted water from tank at bottom through pipe to top tank, water could be used over and over again.” – Life Magazine image

Readers familiar with the Regency era know that attitudes towards bathing and hygiene were on the cusp of change. In the early 18th century, a person might wash their face and hands daily, but at the most they would bathe every few weeks or months. Towards the end of the century, cleanliness was no longer regarded as frivolous by a growing number of people. Beau Brummel was a particular proponent of bathing and his affectation for cleanliness became the dandy’s creed. Others began to associate bathing with good health.

Washing made a comeback in the later 18th century. The age of revolution and romanticism valued simplicity and naturalness, and water – in the form of mountain torrents and medicinal springs – became fashionable. Rousseau recommended bathing children in ice-cold water, winter and summer, and a sophisticated clientele sought to relieve its frayed nerves and overtaxed digestions by taking the waters at spas. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who invented the phrase “Cleanliness is next to godliness”, wrote a manual claiming that cold baths had been known to cure blind-ness and leprosy, as well as “hysterick cholik” in ladies. – Review of Clean, An Unsanitized History of Washing

Image from Regency House Party.

The Americans echoed the British attitude towards cleanliness:

Until the last third of the 18th century, bathing practices were not clearly defined or categorized. The perceived effects on the body of the cold and warm bath were debated regularly in prescriptive literature, as were reasons for bathing in the first place. Motives for bathing changed somewhat over time, and different methods had specific connotations: did one bathe for pleasure, as a restorative of good health, for leisure and/or hot weather refreshment, as a luxurious display, or for actual, bodily cleanliness? Whatever the motivation, it was then up to the bather to decide whether she or he adhered to the cold or warm water method. – Bathing, Monticello.org

The pump is evident in this portable bath shower from the mid 19th c.

If a person opted to take a shower, the effect was at first quite bracing, for only cold water was used with this fairly new contraption, invented  in 1767)by William Feetham. In the image from Regency House Party, a servant is seen pouring water into the basin, but Feetham’s patented invention included a pump that forced the water to the upper basin and a chain that was pulled by the bather to pour water over himself. The advantage was that less water was used in bathing (A typical bath tub would require from 6-8 buckets of heated water to be carried from the nearest water source and up several flights of stairs). The early shower system’s disadvantage was clear:  the same water would be reused during the course of the shower. Not only did one reuse dirty water, but one felt quite cold during the process.

When the temperature of a bed-room ranges below the freezing-point, there is no inducement . . . to waste any unnecessary time in washing,” wrote Charles Francis Adams, grandson of President John Quincy Adams and brother of historian Henry Adams.  To Bathe or Not to Bathe

The elaborate bath house at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, with the shower made by Alexander Boyd of New Bond Street (See their mark below).

Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke

The bath house at Wimpole Hall was unusual for its day. Around 1792, Sir John Soane designed the plunge pool for the 3rd Earl of Hardwicke. The pool held 2,199 gallons of water that was heated by a boiler below it in the basement.

The 10 – 12 ft tall metal supports, or poles, of these showers were painted to resemble bamboo wood and even offered a shower curtain for privacy. To protect their hair, bathers wore a conical hat made out of oil cloth.

Until plumbing with warm water was introduced inside the bathroom, the use of shower baths remained rare. Towards the middle of the 19th century, attitudes began to change.

Plumbers began to introduce indoor plumbing, and inventors experimented with perfecting showering tools and pumping in hot water. Improvements in showering equipment was continuous, as the patent given to William Feetham (below) in 1822 attests:  To William Feetham of Ludgate Hill, in the City of London, Stove grate Maker and Furnishing Iron monger, for his Invention of certain Improvements on Shower Baths, Sealed June 13 1822.

The intention of these improvements is to enable the patient, who is using the bath to regulate the flow of water, and thereby to soften the shower according as inclination or circumstances may require. This object is effected by two contrivances: the first is an adjustable stop, which may be set so as to prevent the cock from turning beyond any certain distance, so as to limit the opening of the water way to any required discharge; the second is a division of the perforated box or strainer into several chambers by two or more circular concentric partitions, by which limited quantities of water let out from the cistern above are necessarily confined to limited portions of the surface of the strainer …  Read more about the patent in The London Journal of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 5, Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1823, p284-6.

Feetham's Shower Bath, 1822

The Patentee states: “I do not claim, or intend hereby to claim, as my invention any of the parts which may be already in use, but I do claim the means of regulating the flow of the water from the cock of a shower bath, and also the method of extending, or contracting within central limits, the shower of water at pleasure.”

In December, 1822, Mr. Feetham was granted the patent for the following improvements:

Shower bath patent #4680 granted December 13, 1822

By the 1870’s, even middle class houses began to have hot water pumped in, for the increased rents the landlords were able to command for houses with hot water made it worthwhile for them to invest in plumbing.  Sponge baths were still recommended for “invigorating the system,” and as late as 1875 The Ladies Everyday Book cautioned that it was a great mistake to make a bath a regular event.

Godey’s Ladys Book, a popular ladies magazine in the U.S., reflected the changes in attitude towards bathing (as does John Leech’s 1851 cartoon):

Godey’s, June 1855:
The shower -bath  has the merit of being attainable by most persons, at any rate when at home, and is now made in various portable shapes. The shock communicated by it is not always safe; but it is powerful in its action, and the first disagreeable sensation after pulling the fatal string is succeeded by a delicious feeling of renewed health and vitality. The dose of water is generally made too large; and, by diminishing this, and wearing one of the high-peaked or extinguisher caps now in use, to break the fall of the descending torrent upon the head, the terrors of the shower-bath  may be abated, while the beneficial effects are retained.

Godey’s, March 1858:
The Shower Bath, whether of fresh or salt water, whether quite cold or tepid, is a valuable agent in the treatment of many nervous affections; it will suit some whom the general bath will not. It is well for persons of weak habit, or who suffer from the head, to have a thin layer of warm water put in the bottom of the shower bath  before getting in. Useful hand shower  baths are now manufactured for children.

Domestic Sanitary Regulation, John Leech 1851. In this scene, the shower is installed in the kitchen. The children are wearing the conical caps to protect their hair as they wait their turn wearing blankets, jackets or robes.

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Jane Austen’s Visits to London

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , , on November 9, 2010| 15 Comments »

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Inquiring reader: Tony Grant sent me images of Hans Place by way of a personal tour. I am sure he won’t mind my sharing his photos of one of the areas that Jane Austen stayed in when she visited her brother Henry in London. In addition, I have elaborated on other places where Jane Austen lodged when she spent time in London.

Jane visited London as early as 1796. Constance Hill writes in her 1901 book, Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends:

The White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, by James Pollard

MISS JANE AUSTEN’S acquaintance with London began at an early date, as she frequently passed a few days there when journeying between Hampshire and Kent.

We have mentioned her sleeping at an inn in Cork Street in 1796. Most of the coaches from the south and west of England set down their passengers, it seems, at the “White Horse Cellar” in Piccadilly, which stood near to the entrance of what is now the Burlington Arcade. Jane and her brothers, therefore, probably alighted here and they would find Cork Street, immediately behind the “White Horse Cellar,” a convenient place for their lodging.

Jane visited Town on numerous occasions and stayed with her favorite brother, Henry, and his wife Eliza. Henry not only actively supported his sister’s writing career, but served as her agent, negotiating on her behalf with publishers and printers. When a book required editing and proofing, Jane would visit Henry to accomplish these ordinary, rather time-consuming tasks, Kathryn Sutherland’s opinions notwithstanding.

This post details her visits through Henry’s many moves as he experiences successes and tribulations in his professional and married life. In his varied career Henry served as a soldier in the Oxfordshire militia (1793-1801), a London banker (1801?-1816), and as a curate at Chawton from 1816.

Jane’s visit to Sloane Street, 1811

Greenwood's Map, 1827, of Lower Sloane St, Sloane Terrace, and Sloane Square

When Jane Austen visited her brother Henry in 1811, he lived in Sloane Street (today behind Harrods in Knightsbridge). At the time, the street was a wide thoroughfare that connected Knightsbridge with the west part of Pimlico and the east end of Chelsea. The area was still quite rural, for there was no development at the east side of Sloane Street before 1790.  In the late 18th century, the approach to London from this side was still regarded as a dangerous, for the area was rural and dimly lit. Chelsea, in fact, had just recently begun to be engulfed by a burgeoning London, but during Jane Austen’s day, the area was still quite bucolic and rural, as these images attest.

Cheyene Walk, London, late 18th c., early 19th century, People strolling by the banks of the River Thames, in the distance is Chelsea Old Church

In 1796, the Old Dairy was erected, for cows still grazed nearby. The community was filled with gardens, in particular the Physic Garden founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries. Throughout these spacious grounds, apprentices learned to identify plants.

Chelsea, Old Physick Garden

Ranelagh Gardens opened to the public in 1742 as a premier pleasure garden, popular with the wealthy and anyone who could afford a ticket.

Rotunda, Ranelagh Gardens

King’s Road, so named in the day of  King Charles IIs, was actually a private road that dated back to 1703. It connected Westminster to Fulham Palace, where he took a boat to Hampton Court.  King Charles also used the road to visit his mistress Nell Gwyn. At this time, the royal palace was at Hampton Court and Chelsea was known as the Hyde Park on Thames.

The White House at Chelsea, 1800, Thomas Girtin

By the time Henry Austen moved to Sloane Street the neighborhood had changed enough for Jane to experience pleasant society, although ten years after Jane’s death, Greenwood’s Map (1827) still showed many empty lots and gardens in the vicinity. (See map above.)

While living in Sloane Street, Henry was a successful man:

Henry and two associates had founded a banking institution in London sometime between 1804 and 1806. Austen, Maunde and Tilson of Covent Garden flourished and enabled Henry and Eliza to move from Brompton (where Jane Austen had found the quarters cramped during a visit in 1808) to a more fashionable address and larger house at 64 Sloane Street. Jane’s visits here in 1811 and 1813 were happy events, filled with parties, theatre-going, and the business of publishing Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. – Henry Austen: Jane Austen’s “Perpetual Sunshine” by J. David Grey

When visiting her brother, Jane would venture into Town to shop and visit the theatre (Read Tony Grant’s article about Jane Austen and the Theatre).  Henry and Eliza were a fun-loving  and popular couple, and from Jane’s description in a letter below,  they knew how to throw a party:

Old Chelsea, 1750. Clock House, Moravian Chapel, White Horse Inn Image from @BritishHistoryOnline

“Our party went off extremely well. The rooms were dressed up with flowers, &c., and looked very pretty. . . . At half-past seven arrived the musicians in two hackney coaches and by eight the lordly company began to appear. Among the earliest were George and Mary Cooke, and I spent the greatest part of the evening very pleasantly with them. The drawing-room being soon hotter than we liked, we placed ourselves in the connecting, passage, which was comparatively cool, and gave us all the advantage of the music at a pleasant distance, as well as that of the first view of every new comer. I was quite surrounded by acquaintance, especially gentlemen.”

She went on to describe the music as extremely good and “included the glees of ‘Rosabelle,’ ‘The Red Cross Knight,’ and ‘Poor Insect.’ Wiepart played the harp and Miss Davis, all dressed in blue, sang with a very fine voice.”

Henrietta Street today

Henrietta Street, 1813

In 1813, Henry, who was four years older than Jane, lost his wife after a painful and debilitating illness. In contrast, his Uncle Leigh Perrot and brother Edward helped to secure his appointment as Receiver-General for Oxfordshire,  a most definite honor. Soon after Eliza’s death, Henry moved to rooms over Tilson’s bank on Henrietta Street in Covent Garden, a location more centrally located in London.

Both Jane and Fanny Knight, their niece, visited him there in the spring of 1814, when Mansfield Park was with the publisher.

Henrietta Street Covent Garden 1827

As was the custom, Jane brought lists of items to purchase  in Town for those who had remained behind in the countryside. In her biography, Constance Hill writes about Jane’s shopping experience:

“I hope,” she writes to her sister, “that I shall find some poplin at Layton and Shear’s that will tempt me to buy it. If I do it shall be sent to Chawton, as half will be for you; for I depend upon your being so kind as to accept it . . . It will be a great pleasure to me. Don’t say a word. I only wish you could choose it too. I shall send twenty yards.” Layton and Shear’s shop, we find, was at 11, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.

Hans Place, 1814

In 1814, Henry moved from his rooms above his bank to a house he purchased in Hans Place in Knightsbridge. The area was situated near his old quarters on Sloane Street, where he and his wife had spent such a pleasurable time together.

Hans Place, The Pavillion, 1812. Image @British History Online

Today, the area, developed by Henry Holland, looks much different than when Jane and Henry knew it (see the image below), but the gardens are not much changed.

How Henry Austen's house must have looked. Image @TonyGrant

#23 Hans Place is on the corner. The location today.

Jane found #23 Hans Place delightful and Henry’s new house more than answered her expectations. She also admired the garden greatly. In the early part of the 19th century, Sloane Square was an open space enclosed with wooden posts, connected by iron chains. (British History Online)

Hans Place garden

In Hans Place, Jane had the use of a downstairs room that opened onto the garden, and she describes her pattern of working indoors, then taking a break in the garden: “I go & refresh myself every now & then, and then come back to Solitary Coolness.” I like Claire Tomalin’s comment in her biography of Jane Austen (1997) that this is “very much what someone settling down to write does, getting up, pacing, thinking, returning to the page she is working on.” – My Long Jumble, Sarah Emsley

Door to #23 Hans Place today. Image @TonyGrant

Jane visited Henry in Hans place twice, once in 1814, and for a more extended period from October to December in 1815, when she was preparing Emma for publication. During this visit, Henry became seriously ill and Jane nursed him back to health. She also famously visited the Prince Regent’s library at Carlton House during Henry’s recuperation.

London plane trees in Hans Place, image @TonyGrant

Constance Hill writes in her biography: “… we are also told “that Hans Place” was then “nearly surrounded by fields…We hear of a small evening party to be given in Hans Place whilst Fanny is staying there with her aunt. After describing the morning engagements, Jane writes: “Then came the dinner and Mr. Haden [the apothecary who was instrumental in arranging Jane’s invitation to Carlton House] , who brought good manners and clever conversation. From seven to eight the harp; at eight Mrs. L. and Miss E. arrived, and for the rest of the evening the drawing-room was thus arranged: on the sofa the two ladies, Henry and myself, making the best of it; on the opposite side Fanny and Mr. Haden, in two chairs (I believe, at least, they had two chairs), talking together uninterruptedly. Fancy the scene! And what is to be fancied next? Why that Mr. H. dines here again to-morrow. . . Mr. H. is reading ‘Mansfield Park’ for the first time, and prefers it to P. and P.”

Corner of #23 Hans Place. Image @TonyGrant

Since Henry lived in #23, Hans Place has been redeveloped. Only numbers 15, 33 and 34 still survive as they once were, but the garden that Jane liked so much remains largely intact in its arrangement. The original railings, however, no longer survive, having been molten down for their iron in World War II.
Only months after Henry recovered from his illness, his bank crashed, bankrupting him and placing a number of his Austen siblings in financial distress. Henry soon became a curate at Chawton. After this period, no more visits by Jane to London are recorded. Today, two of Henry’s residences, the one on Henrietta Street and #23 Hans Place, are  still easy for visitors to tour during a short London excursion.
More on the topic:

Houses in Hans Place drawn by Ellen G. Hill, 1901

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