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Archive for the ‘Regency Customs’ Category

Dowagers and Widows in 19th C. England

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Primogeniture, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency society, Regency World, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2011| 17 Comments »

Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple makes an appearance with Sir Walter Elliot. Brock illustration.

“The Bath paper one morning announced the arrival of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, the Honourable Miss Carteret. . . ” – Jane Austen, Persuasion

I have often wondered about dowagers and their status in Regency society in relation to widows. When did a widow become a dowager? Did all 19th century widows acquire the title? Why or why not?

Mirriam Webster Dictionary provides an answer : “Dowager – The widow of a peer, eg the Dowager Countess of Somewhere. The term was not added to a woman’s title unless and until the new holder of the title married.” The definition contains the clue. Until the new heir married, an aristocratic widow retained the title she acquired on the day of her own wedding.

Widows were legally entitled to a dower share or a third of the value of her husband’s estate after his death, for under the law of primogeniture he was the only real property owner. Dower rights meant that she would benefit for the rest of her life from a third of the income produced by a farm or from rental property on his estate:

“Under English common law and in colonial America, dower was the share of a deceased husband’s real estate to which his widow was entitled after his death. After the widow’s death, the real estate was then inherited as designated in her deceased husband’s will; she had no rights to sell or bequeath the property independently. She did have rights to income from the dower during her lifetime, including rents and including income from crops grown on the land.

One-third was the share of her late husband’s real property to which dower rights entitled her; the husband could increase the share beyond one-third in his will.

Where a mortgage or other debts offset the value of real estate and other property at the husband’s death, dower rights meant that the estate could not be settled and the property could not be sold until the widow’s death.” Women’s History 

Dowager Maud, Lady Holland (Dame Eileen Atkins) and Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith) were able to live comfortably on 1/3 of the income of their husbands' estates.

Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, would actively assume the title of dowager upon her son’s marriage so that there would be no confusion of having two Countesses of Grantham in the same room. But she did not always go by that title. Generally speaking the dowager would be known by the simplest title when encountered alone. Therefore, Violet would be referred to as the Countess of Grantham unless she attended the same event as her daughter -in-law. In that case, she would be referred to as the dowager countess.

Cora, Countess of Grantham

Upon the heir’s marriage, it was expected that the dowager would move from the estate into a house of her own to guarantee a smooth transition of power. This was not always the case. As Amanda Vickery made clear in her fascinating book, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England, some brides needed to summon a great deal of patience and cunning when their mamas-in-law dragged their heels in moving to the dower house. In real life, the Dowager Duchess of Leinster chose to live at Number 14 Harley Street in London. She would leave town occasionally to stay in her cottage in Wimbledon. Eleanor Percy, the Dowager Duchess of Northumberland, was the childless widow of the 4th Duke. The dowager moved into Stanwick Park following her husband’s death in 1865, and after the 5th Duke had moved into Alnwick Castle, the ducal estate. Eleanor lived a productive life at Stanwick Park, creating elaborate gardens and cultivating fruits and flowers. Sadly, Stanwick Hall no longer stands today due to lack of fortune. – Stanwick Hall: England’s Lost Country Houses

Susan Fleetwood as Lady Russell in Persuasion

Widowhood could emancipate a woman or lead her to poverty, depending on the income she derived from her dower rights and her dowry, which was the money and goods that a bride’s father had negotiated for her upon her marriage. Take Lady Russell from Persuasion. She did not remarry again from choice. Her independent life, free from money worries, was so improved without the presence of a husband who could dictate her every move and who would have control over her possessions that she would be a fool to remarry unless she fell head over heels in love. In that event she would lose her first husband’s income as stipulated by dower rights, although she would retain her dowry and any property she received through her mother.

Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters await the arrival of her replacement as mistress of Norland.

In contrast to Lady Russell’s situation, Mrs. Dashwood’s circumstances in Sense and Sensibility were instantly reduced due to the stipulations of the estate her husband was overseeing, which decreed the inheritance would go directly to the son, regardless of how much Mr. Dashwood desired to make provisions for his second wife and daughters. This is why on his deathbed he tried to extract a promise from John Dashwood, for Mr. Dashwood had not lived long enough to save money from the income of the estate for his second family. Due to Fanny’s stinginess, Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters are left to live on the modest income from her dowry (which was barely enough to keep them comfortable) and the beautiful items that she had brought into her marriage (which she retained as her own, much to Fanny Dashwood’s chagrin).

An elopement to Gretna Green was a most foolhardy and risky step for a young heiress

The dowry was one of the reasons that it was more than foolhardy for a young woman of fortune to elope to Gretna Green. Upon marriage all her worldly goods were legally handed over to her husband. An unscrupulous man could spend every single one of her pennies – except the amount that her father had settled upon her. A young woman who eloped had no such protection, for her family, caught unawares, would not have had the time to provide for her personal welfare. Her husband could go through her fortune (and his) with impunity, leaving her penniless and without recourse after his death.

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Fowling for Pheasant: Mansfield Park

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , on August 14, 2011| 13 Comments »

Two gentlemen shooting pheasant, 1790

When Sir Thomas Bertram returned from the East Indies, his family had been in the midst of rehearsing for Lovers Vows, the play that Fanny Price knew Sir Thomas would have nixed had he been home. Waiting for the tea tray, Lady Bertram innocently mentions the play. Tom, the heir, quickly deflects the conversation and speaks of hunting:

“The all will soon be told,” cried Tom hastily, and with affected unconcern; “but it is not worth while to bore my father with it now. You will hear enough of it tomorrow, sir. We have just been trying, by way of doing something, and amusing my mother, just within the last week, to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such incessant rains almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to the house for days together. I have hardly taken out a gun since the 3d. Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no attempting any thing since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood, and Edmund took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace between us, and might each have killed six times as many; but we respect your pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as you could desire. I do not think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than they were. I never saw Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life as this year. I hope you will take a day’s sport there yourself, sir, soon.” – Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Hedgerows in the Cotswolds. Image @The Independent

The enclosure acts helped the pheasant hunters in England immensely, for enclosed lands were surrounded by hedgerows and wild thickets, which provided a nice cover for the birds.  A century earlier, the number of pheasants were in decline when woodlands were cleared and marshes were drained. Tough game laws were enacted in 1800 to preserve the number of pheasants. But with land enclosures the number of pheasants rose, for they preferred dead brush and weeds that were about knee high and that were situated near the edges of corn and grain fields. Pheasants were not native to England.

Pair of pheasants - a cock and hen

The Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) was brought over by the Norman’s in the eleventh century and soon dispersed around the country, being introduced to parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the late sixteenth century. By the early nineteenth century they had become the most important game bird.  – Birds of Britain 

Hunters benefited from the pheasants’ penchant for sticking to a regular feeding schedule and their habit of returning to an area where food was abundant. They would leave their nightly roost sites in the morning about two hours after sunrise and begin to exercise and move around in thick brush, dense patches of grasses, or standing cornfields. An hour after rising they could be seen foraging for food in the fields or picking at gravel or grit near roads. Nearly 90% of the pheasants would be searching for food at this time. Their unvarying schedules meant that hunters knew the precise time to set out to hunt the birds and where to find them. By mid-morning, pheasants would stop feeding and seek cover in thick brush or in trees until late afternoon. If the weather was particularly nasty, they would seek refuge in deeper cover, which explains Tom’s statement about the thick rain confining him to the house.

Pheasant. Image @Project Gutenberg

Pheasants that were hunkered down in large fields of standing corn were hard to hunt, for they ran through the brush to avoid their pursuers. Running is a pheasant’s preferred mode of flight, although they will burst dramatically into the air when startled with wings whirring, alerting their brethren with a kok-kok-kok call.

Detail, George Edward Lodge's Pheasants in Flight

A wily pheasant will not move, even when a dog’s nose is almost upon it. It’s color camouflages it so well in the brush that a hunter can walk right past it without ever noticing the bird. A good hunting dog will point at the pheasant, alerting its owner. And after the bird has burst into flight, will retrieve it where it fell. The oldest pheasant hunting dog breeds include Cocker Spaniels, English Setters and Pointers.

The whirring Pheasant springs,
And mounts, exulting on triumphant wings:
Ah! What avails his glossy, varying dyes,
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold.

Alexander Pope – Windsor Forest, 1713.

At mid-day, it was best for hunters to search for them resting  in their roosting placing of grassy stands and marches, and along edges of fields and ditch banks. They love to eat berries, seeds, grasses such as clover and alfafa, and insects. Pheasants eat almost any plant or animal food (grasshoppers, fly larvae, mosquitoes)  that is within reach and is abundant, although the largest percentage of their food consumption are vegetables, fruits, and grains. Their crops can contain as much as 19 grams to a whopping 50 grams of food. (Paul L. Dalke) The birds find the greatest variety of food in October. In June they graze largely on insects and grain.

Henry Thomas Alken, Pheasant Shooting

Much of their colors and size is of course influenced by their habitat and diet. The ones around cropfields tend to get larger in size and finer eating after feasting on corn, wheat, hops or other grains. Those around the woodland and wetlands make a living more on buds, berries, fruits, slugs and snails, worms and bugs, small animals like juvenile mice, snakes, lizards or even other little birds at times…- The Pheasant, Or Everyone’s Royal Bird

Hunting for pheasant occurred principally from November through January. (Just before the Upper Crust returned to London for the Season.) Locals guarded their best fowling grounds fiercely, even though game was still plentiful in England and Scotland during the 18th century. Hunters not only hunted for sport, but for food as well, so hunting had a practical nature.

Only landowners had the right to hunt. Poaching increased during times of famine and want, even though penalties were severe for poachers who were caught.

Catching a poacher, 1874. Image @Curious Sutton Crime

Only persons who met specified property qualifications, essentially gentlemen and the aristocracy, could legally hunt game (such as deer, rabbits, or pheasants). Anyone else hunting these animals, whether using nets, guns, or other animals, were committing a crime, even if they owned land upon which the game was found. Prosecutions under these statutes frequently occurred outside the courts, under summary jurisdiction, but some offences were made punishable by death under the “Black Act” (1723) and in the process brought within the jurisdiction of the Old Bailey. This Act made it a capital offence to hunt, wound, or steal deer, conies, hares, and fish in the King’s forests; break down the heads of fishponds; or simply go about armed and disguised anywhere game was kept. This act was repealed in 1823, but being armed and entering into enclosed land in order to remove game remained a crime throughout the period covered by the Proceedings  [or through 1913]. – The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

By late afternoon, around 4 hours before sunset, approximately 75% of the pheasants would return to their feeding areas. This was, obviously, another good time to go after them.

Nesting hen. Image @Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

Hens nested on the ground; a cock might service as many as 6 mates. Although predation, hunting, and modern methods of agriculture have reduced wild thickets and roosting places, the bird is still quite successful at breeding. This tale from a book published in 1881 relates how stubbornly and persistently a hen will remain on her nest:

Although there is usually some attempt at concealment under covert, pheasants nests are not unfrequently placed even by perfectly wild birds in very exposed situations. Mr John Walton of Sholton Hall, Durham, related the following account of the singular tameness of a wild bred bird: A hen pheasant, a perfectly wild one so far as rearing is concerned, for we have no artificial processes here, selected as the site for her nest a hedge by a private cart road, where she was exposed to the constant traffic of carts farm servants and others passing and repassing her quarters, all of which she took with infinite composure. She was very soon discovered on her nest, and actually suffered herself when sitting to be stroked down her plumage by the children and others who visited her, and this without budging an inch. In fact, she seemed rather to like it. Perhaps she became a pet with the neighbours from this unusual docility, and her brood, fourteen in number, was thereby saved, for every egg was hatched, and the young birds have all got safely away. – Pheasants: Their Natural History and Practical Management

Brace of pheasants on a bank, James Hardy Jr., 19th c. Image @Christie's

In Mansfield Park, Tom mentioned returning with six brace of pheasants, which translated to six males and six females. (A pair made a brace.) Tom’s number approximates the average number of pheasants for a typical hunter, although there were spectacular exceptions:

I wonder if pheasants sat at the right hand of God along with the other game he shot in untold numbers, in judgment of Lord Ripon, known as the Best Game Shot in England.

His majesty King George V of Great Britain, a keen and avid bird shooter as world has ever seen, in 1913 has claimed over a thousand pheasants in one day, out of a total bag of 3937 in much less than a weeks worth of personal shooting. The numbers are well documented and strict records are still kept by the reputed British gamekeepers. Another grand English shooter, Lord Rippon, had bird tallies surpassing anything mankind has ever seen since: he layed claim in his gamekeeping books for almost a quarter million pheasants, shot by himself. His records tell he dispatched 222,976 pheasants in his long shooting career, between 1867 and 1913, with an average of 4774 pheasants per season. – The Pheasant, Or Everyone’s Royal Bird

Sir Thomas Elyot best described in 1536 why pheasants were a favorite game bird – because they tasted so good in the pot!

‘Fesaunt excedeth all fowles in sweetnesse and holsomnesse, and is equall to capon in nourishynge…’

Andrew Davies likes to show Jane Austen's heroes in masculine pursuits. Colonel Brandon (David Morrissey) is in hunting garb (Sense and Sensibility 2008). I can't quite make out the game birds, but it looks like he's carrying 3 braces.

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Engraving, Pheasant.

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Regency Medicine: Dentistry

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Old English Customs, personal hygiene, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency World, tagged , , , on August 11, 2011| 16 Comments »

Jane Austen’s mother, Cassandra’s

features were aristocratic; her hair was dark and her eyes an unusual tint of grey. She had an instinctive tendency to depreciate her own appearance; it was her elder sister Jane, she always insisted, who was the beauty of the family. But Cassandra did admit to a certain vanity concerning her fine patrician blade of a nose.” – Jane Austen, a family record by Deirdre Le Faye, William Austen-Leigh

However, by 1782, when her daughter Jane was only 7 years old, she was described as having lost several foreteeth, which made her look old.

Cassandra Leigh Austen, Jane Austen's mother, with her patrician nose and missing foreteeth

Modern dentistry was still in its infancy when Cassandra Austen gave birth to her eight children. While the wealthy could afford dentists, rural folks still depended on the village blacksmith, who only knew how to pull teeth. Market fairs sold tinctures, toothpowders and abrasive dentifrices.

Lucy Baggott, of Wychwood Books, says: ‘It was not uncommon for the local farrier to draw teeth to relieve toothache of those in desperate pain, for then the blacksmith in many rural communities doubled as a tooth drawer. ‘There were many dubious practices adopted: hot coals, string, forceps, and pliers to name a few. Children were lured to sacrifice their teeth for the supposed benefit of the wealthy in exchange for only a few shillings. One print reads: “Most money given for live teeth”. – Dental Quackery Captured in Print

Louis-Leopold Boilly (1761-1845), Dentist Teeth Patient, 1827

We do know this: tooth extraction was painful and a most unpleasant affair before the age of ether and anesthetics.

In two letters to Cassandra, on Wednesday 15 & Thursday 16 September 1813, Jane [Austen] describes in some detail accompanying her young nieces Lizzy, Marianne and Fanny, on a visit to the London dentist Mr Spence. It was, she relates, ‘a sad business, and cost us many tears’. They attended Mr Spence twice on the Wednesday, and to their consternation had to return on the following day for yet another ‘disagreeable hour’ . Mr Spence remonstrates strongly over Lizzy’s teeth, cleaning and filing them and filling the ‘very sad hole’ between two of the front ones. But it is Marianne who suffers most: she is obliged to have two teeth extracted to make room for others to grow. – The Poor Girls and Their Teeth, A Visit to the Dentist, JASA

Tooth maintenance and dental hygiene were not a new concept. The aristocrats suffered more cavities, for they could afford sweets and foods that would eat into enamel, but they did use tooth powders, tooth picks, and toothbrushes to keep their teeth clean.

The ancient Chinese made toothbrushes with bristles from the necks of cold climate pigs. French dentists were the first Europeans to promote the use of toothbrushes in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. William Addis of Clerkenwald, England, created the first mass-produced toothbrush. Toothpaste: modern toothpastes were developed in the 1800s. In 1824, a dentist named Peabody was the first person to add soap to toothpaste. John Harris first added chalk as an ingredient to toothpaste in the 1850s.- History of Dentistry

Isaac Cruikshank

The caption to the above cartoon states: Dentist. 18th century caricature of a fat dentist with his struggling, overweight female patient. The patient is begging the dentist not to pluck her teeth out like he would the feathers of a pigeon. People who eat large amounts of sugary food are often both overweight and suffer from dental decay. Image drawn in 1797 by British artist Isaac Cruikshank (1756-1811). – Science Photo Library

Tooth Extraction, William Henry Bunbury, mid-18th century

Extractions were by forceps or commonly keys, rather like a door key…When rotated it gripped the tooth tightly. This extracted the tooth – and usually gum and bone with it…Sometimes the jaws were also broken during an extraction by untrained people.”- BBC

A timeline of dentistry in the 18th and 19th centuries:

1780 – William Addis manufactured the first modern toothbrush. 1789 – Frenchman Nicolas Dubois de Chemant receives the first patent for porcelain teeth. 1790 – John Greenwood, one of George Washington’s dentists, constructs the first known dental foot engine. He adapts his mother’s foot treadle spinning wheel to rotate a drill. 1790 – Josiah Flagg, a prominent American dentist, constructs the first chair made specifically for dental patients. To a wooden Windsor chair, Flagg attaches an adjustable headrest, plus an arm extension to hold instruments. 19th Century 1801 – Richard C. Skinner writes the Treatise on the Human Teeth, the first dental book published in America. 1820 – Claudius Ash established his dental manufacturing company in London. 1825 – Samuel Stockton begins commercial manufacture of porcelain teeth. His S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Company establishes and dominates the dental supply market throughout the 19th century. – Nambibian Dental Association

Annotation of the above cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson:

This print is by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and is dated 1787. It is a satirical comment upon the real practice of rich gentlemen and ladies of the 18th century paying for teeth to be pulled from poor children and transplanted in their gums. The dentist present is portrayed as a quack. There are even two quacking ducks on the placard advertising his fake credentials. He is busy pulling teeth from the mouth of a poor young chimney sweep. Covered in soot and exhausted, he slumps in a chair. Meanwhile the dentist’s assistant transplants a tooth into a fashionably dressed young lady’s mouth. Two children can be seen leaving the room clutching their faces and obviously in pain from having their teeth extracted. As people lost most of their teeth by age 21 due to gum disease, teeth transplants were popular for some time in England although they rarely worked. – Wellcome Images

Thomas Rowlandson – A French dentist showing a specimen of his artificial teeth and false palates Coloured engraving 1811 Image @ Rowlandson, Wellcome Library

Dentures did exist:

Perhaps the most famous false-toothed American was the first president, George Washington. Popular history gave Mr. Washington wooden teeth, though this was not the case. In fact, wooden teeth are impossible; the corrosive effects of saliva would have turned them into mushy pulp before long. As a matter of fact, the first president’s false teeth came from a variety of sources, including teeth extracted from human and animal corpses. – A Short History of Dentistry

Carved ivory upper denture, late 18th century. Image @Skinner Auctioneers

As always, the upper classes had the upper hand:

The upper classes could afford a greater range of treatments, including artificial teeth (highly sought after by the sugar- consuming wealthy). Ivory dentures were popular into the 18th century, and were made from natural materials including walrus, elephant or hippopotamus ivory. Human teeth or ‘Waterloo teeth’ -sourced from battlefields or graveyards- were riveted into the base. These ill fitting and uncomfortable ivory dentures were replaced by porcelain dentures, introduced in the 1790’s. These were not successful due to their bright colours, and tendency to crack.Before the 1800’s, the practice of dentistry was still a long way from achieving professional status. This was to change in the 19th century – the most significant period in the history of dentistry to date. By 1800 there were still relatively few ‘dentists’ practicing the profession. By the middle of the 19th century the number of practicing dentists had increased markedly, although there was no legal or professional control to prevent malpractice and incompetence. Pressure for reform of the profession increased. – Thomas Rowlandson, “Transplanting Teeth (c.1790) [Engraving],” in Children and Youth in History, Item #164, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/164 (accessed August 10, 2011). Annotated by Lynda Payne

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Keeping Cool 200 Years Ago

Posted in 19th Century England, Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , on July 22, 2011| 10 Comments »

A heatwave has us hiding inside air-conditioned rooms this week. As I gazed at a hideously yellow sky and glowering orange sun last evening, I wondered how people survived 100 degree plus days 200 years ago? They mostly suffered, I imagine! But there were ways they could deal with extreme heat.

Regency fans could be beautiful or plain. All served to move air and cool the user.

Ceilings were higher, so the heated air had a place to rise, and walls were thicker, which kept rooms and basements cooler for longer. Hand held fans were popular, and one source I found said that gentlemen would sport them as well. The rich had mechanisms in the tropics whereby ceiling fans were rotated by strings and pulled by slaves or servants.

Carnfunnock ice house

Big blocks of glacier ice or blocks of ice cut from frozen rivers were hauled up river by ship into the countryside, covered in straw and burlap, and stored in ice houses that were dug into hillsides or were largely underground.

Cutting and hauling river ice. This image is from St. Petersburg, Russia, but the custom of cutting and transporting ice was widespread.

Ice cream was available to those who could afford it in such places a Gunther’s or made at home by the cook.

John Bull and his family at an ice cafe, 1815. Image@Newcastle University

The rich would move back to their country estates for the summer, escaping the stifling heat (and smells) in the city, but ordinary people had to adjust. This morning it was announced that over 2 dozen deaths had been attributed to this latest heatwave, which covers 2/3 of the U.S. I wonder back then how many people died from the effects of such extreme weather?

Regency gentlemen at a country house. Note that they are wearing light clothes without jackets. Sitting under a gazebo, they have pitchers of water at hand. One must pity the footmen in full uniform and wig! Image@Regency House Party

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To conceive or not to conceive: that is the Regency question

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Georgian Life, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency Period, tagged , , , , , , on July 13, 2011| 22 Comments »

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that after a bride and groom consummate the marriage the pitter patter of little feet will surely follow (and follow and follow and follow). Such was the case during Jane Austen’s day. Her mother bore eight children and luckily survived her ordeals. The wives of Jane’s brothers Edward and Frank did not, both dying in childbirth with their eleventh child. That these two women were able to survive so many pregnancies was a miracle in itself, given that the chance of a woman dying in childbirth at the time was 20%.

Queen Charlotte, King George IIIs consort, gave birth to 15 children in 21 years. The King and Queen are depicted with their 6 eldest.

Deborah Kaplan writes in Jane Austen Among Women:

“On the birth of his fourteenth child in 1817, Thomas Papillon received this advice within a letter of congratulations from his wife’s uncle, Sir Richard Hardinge: It is now recommended to you to deprive Yourself of the Power of Further Propagation. You have both done Well and Sufficiently.”

The fashionable mamma, or the convenience of modern dress, James Gillray

Abstinence was one method of birth control, as Sir Richard recommended. Breast feeding was another. If a mother breasfed her child for 3-4 years, the pregnancies would be naturally spaced inbetween periods of amenorrhea (the absence of menstruation). While breastfeeding regained some popularity during the Georgian and Regency eras, women did not feed their babies long enough to supress menstruation for very long and often handed them over to a wet nurse. Cassandra Austen farmed her children to a nurse in a nearby village after six to eight months, guaranteeing that her lactation would soon cease and that she would soon be fertile again. The common belief that having intercourse during lactation would in some way harm the mother and child did offer some added protection from pregnancy, but large families were still common.

Amanda Vickery shows a bachelor cadging food from an irritated married friend. The poor young man probably lived in a modest rented room.

Social customs also served to keep pregnancies down. Amanda Vickery mentioned in At Home with the Georgians that a bachelor needed to acquire a house and reliable income before he could seriously contemplate marriage. Such acquisitions took years to amass and would hold up the young man’s inevitable role as parent. Once the young man could afford to marry, however, his long period of delayed consummation with a chaste woman ended and he would waste no time in siring a legitimate child.

A woman’s chaste reputation owed much to the urgent necessity of her not getting pregnant before marriage. Conceiving a child out of wedlock turned a woman into a pariah. In medieval times a chastity belt guaranteed that no bride would enter her marriage bed sullied. Unfortunately, these contraptions came in only one size and were therefore extremely uncomfortable for the larger sized woman.(Johannah Cornblatt, Newsweek). Update: Information about chastity belts in medieval times is being debunked these days as a myth. See links in the comment section below.

James Gillray's priceless caricature.

Married couples anxious to reduce their number of offspring (or who had reached their limit of 10, 11, or 15) tried coitus interruptus and the rhythm method. Since the female fertility cycle was not fully understood until the early twentieth century, the latter form of birth control resembled a game of Russian Roulette more than family planning. Several religious institutions, the Catholic Church in particular, frowned upon a married couple attempting any form of birth control at all, but there was evidence that birth control was effectively practiced. “Some couples managed to delay the first conception within marriage and few babies were born in the months of July and August, when the heaviest harvest labor took place.”-History of Birth Control.

Condoms, which were made of linen soaked in a chemical solution or the lining of animal intestines, had been in use for centuries, but this method of birth control was linked to vice and was mostly practiced in houses of ill repute.

Casanova blowing up a condom with prostitutes looking on.

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725-1798) was among the first to use condoms to prevent pregnancy. The famous womanizer called the condom an “English riding coat.” His memoirs also detail his attempt to use the empty rind of half a lemon as a primitive cervical cap. The engraving shows the Italian seducer blowing up a condom. The photo shows an early 19th-century contraceptive sheath made of animal gut and packaged in a paper envelope. – Newsweek

Condom made of animal gut with paper envelope. Image @Newsweek

One can imagine that such clumsy barriers to impregnation failed on too many occasions to count, although they did manage to prevent venereal disease.

Georgian caricatures made much sport of condoms. This one is entitled: "Quality control in a condom warehouse."

There were other means of pregnancy prevention. Aristotle recommended anointing the womb with olive oil. His other spermicides included cedar oil, lead ointment, or frankincense oil.

Pessaries, 1755. Image @The Global Library of Women's Medicine

“The pessary [mechanical tool or device used to block the cervix] was the most effective contraceptive device used in ancient times and numerous recipes for pessaries from ancient times are known. Ingredients for pessaries included: a base of crocodile dung (dung was frequently a base), a mixture of honey and natural sodium carbonate forming a kind of gum. All were of a consistency which would melt at body temperature and form an impenetrable covering of the cervix. The use of oil was also suggested by Aristotle and advocated as late as 1931 by birth control advocate Marie Stopes.” – History of Birth Control

Other societies had used methods of blocking sperm including plugs of cloth or grass in Africa, balls of bamboo tissue paper in Japan, wool by Islamic and Greek women, andlinen rags by Slavic women. Ancient Jews used a sea sponge wrapped in silk and attached to a string. – History of Birth Control.

Many young girls who had been seduced, engaged in pre-marital sex, or been raped would attempt not to get pregnant by any means. The unfortunate women who did were ostracised, much like Colonel Brandon’s young charge, Liza, who had been enticed by Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility to give up her virginity. These women were frantic to end their pregnancies rather than lose their standing in society or their livelihood, for no pregnant unmarried woman could work as a maid, shopgirl, or seamstress. They would try anything to end their pregnancies, including ingesting turpentine, castor oil, tansy tea, quinine water into which a rusty nail was soaked, horseradish, ginger, epsom salts, ammonia, mustard, gin with iron filings, rosemary, lavender, and opium. Severe exercise, heavy lifting, climbing trees, jumping, and shaking were also attempted, in most instances to no avail. – History of Birth Control

Tess of the D'Urberfield and her baby, Sorrow. Thomas Hardy wrote about the consequences of seduction. (Nastassia Kinski as Tess, 1980)

Infanticide has been practiced since the dawn of time, most famously with the Greeks, who left deformed babies to die outdoors. In Regency times, desperate women would leave their babies in the streets to die. Many left their infants at workhouses, a form of infanticide as the quote below attests, and a large number, too poor to support themselves and unable to work off their debts, wiled away their time in prison.

“When the poor stayed with their children in workhouses, the outcome was little better. Between 1728 and 1757, there were 468,081 christenings and 273,930 infant deaths in those younger than the age of 2 in London workhouses. Foundling hospitals and workhouses were institutionalized infanticide machines.” – Global Library of Women’s Medicine

Women at Bridewell Prison, 1808. Rowlandson and Pugin for Ackermann's Repository of Arts

Once children were born and the family was large, it was not unusual to farm out a few children, some to work in their childhood, as Charles Dickens did, and other to live with relatives, as was the case with Fanny Price, who lived with her aunt’s family in Mansfield Park and Edward Austen Knight, who was adopted by a rich, childless couple.

Early 20th century attitude towards an unwanted child. Image @Newsweek

It has been said that families had many children during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the high rate of infant mortality and the need for many helping hands on the farm. But as society became industrialized, large families became a hindrance. With many mouths to feed and limited resources (except in the case of the rich), it is no wonder that couples since time immemorial have searched for ways to limit the number of their offspring.  Update: As Nancy Mayer rightly pointed out in her comment, most women during the Georgian and Regency eras thought it their duty to bear their husbands children and oversee the family household. The matter of family planning might well have been influenced by women of a certain class who could not allow pregnancies to interfere with the rhythm of the work cycle, single women who were desperate to seek ways to end their pregnancies before their condition became obvious, and in houses of ill repute, where condoms would offer some protection against disease. Mistresses and prostitutes would find pregnancies to be more of a hindrance than help in their work. I have often wondered, for example, how Emma Hamilton managed to have so few children and yet enjoy the charms of so many men.

1920's Lysol Advertisement. Image @The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

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