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Archive for the ‘Regency Period’ Category

Lucy Worsley on The Regency Era

Posted in 19th Century England, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Etiquette, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency World, Royalty, tagged , on May 3, 2012| 25 Comments »

Elegancy and Decadence: The Age of the Regency is a BBC production hosted by Lucy Worsley, the author of If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. The video is one hour long. So, sit back and enjoy.

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Princess Charlotte’s Blue Russian Gown

Posted in Fashions, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Royalty, tagged , , on April 22, 2012| 17 Comments »

It is a rare occasion when we can compare a gown in a portrait with the actual dress. The painting, after George Daw, of the Prince Regent’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, shows her wearing a charming blue gown in a domestic, albeit royal, setting.

Princess Charlotte in her Russian Dress. Painting after George Daw, 1817. Image @Wikipedia

A second portrait depicts the same dress more royally. Princess Charlotte (or the artist) has accessorized the dress with ermine, lace, and pearls.

The mannequin from the Museum of London exhibit a few years back is dressed more informally, as if she was in the morning room reading. I found the image on Pinterest, but unfortunately the pin did not state the image’s origin. (A reader wrote that the dress belongs to the Royal Collection.)

As you can see, the dress no longer possesses the rich blue hue as shown in the paintings. So many of the costumes of that era are not only in a fragile state and can rarely be shown, but we cannot trust that the colors have remained the same.

Princess Charlotte's "Russian" outfit as shown at The Museum of London. The gown belongs to The Royal Collection.

Below is the original portrait by George Daw, which shows Princess Charlotte wearing the same dress. Click here for yet another view of Charlotte in a similar gown, but without the trim and wearing a lace cap. My sense is that after her death Princess Charlotte’s image became sought after and that many portrait copies were made (both in oil and in print) to satisfy the mourning public.

Princess Charlotte, George Daw, 1817. Image @National Portrait Gallery

Find more views of the gown at Jenny La Fleur’s site. Images of the gown can be seen in the exhibit catalogue called In Royal Fashion: Clothes of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Queen Victoria, 1796-1901, which can only be obtained second hand.

The exhibit: Princess Charlotte, The Lost Princess, will be on display at the Prince Regent Gallery in the Brighton Pavillion through 10 March, 2013.

My other posts about Princess Charlotte:

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Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland, A Somerset Parson, 1799-1818

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Georgian Life, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency World, tagged , , on March 29, 2012| 14 Comments »

From the first page, William Holland had me hooked with his diary. His daily notations are not erudite. He does not wax eloquently about politics, philosophy, religion, or science, but with observations like these, who cares? Our parson has a way of planting us right in the middle of his little village:

Friday November 1 [1799]  The Clerk in the yard wheeling dung and Robert [Holland’s servant] looking about him and moving like  a snail. The Clerk cleared the liney and fetched three bushells more of pease for the sow. One of the Miss Chesters died yesterday, quite young, not ill above ten days. Poor girl her state of probation was soon over.

Then there are these short gems:

Wednesday November 6   Little Lewis the Apothecary came to me, rubbing his hands and moving his retreating chin in and out of his stock — attentive bur rather avaricious, mean and trifling.”

“Saturday November 9  Mr Robert has been wearing my spurs — now I have found out the method to get his horse on. Tis a difficult thing to get a servant worth anything. His slowness and laziness and want of method puts me out of patience. When the year is out he must go.”

Our country parson isn’t loquacious. Anita N writes about him on an online forum: “Apparently not the most charming man–but honest in his political and social views, and detailed about his daily life. That’s what I want to read: life sketches, muck, vitriol and common views of the time.”

Our parson lived in Over Stowey in  Somerset. Even today the village is described as having “no commercial centre because there is virtually no commerce – not a pub, post office or shop” – only farms lying in the outer districts of the village. There are few area descriptions in Holland’s observations, since his purpose is to focus on the people he encounters each day. From what I have read so far, his diaries simply record the mundane events in his life. He is not a particularly good writer, and his usage of punctuation is minimal at best.

View of Over Stowey. Image @The Quantock Online Community

Holland held the opinions of an old-fashioned High Church Tory. The following definition serves well enough for readers who do not much about Tories:

Tories conceive of sovereignty as residing in rulers and view “the people” as subjects whose duty is to obey. Tories are thus identified with a system of hereditary power–exercised especially by monarchs and the established Church. – Historical Outline of Restoration and 18th Century British Literature

James Woodforde, 1740-1803, an amiable country clergyman, also wrote a diary. His is the image of a typical country parson of his day. Image @History Today.

Our country parson despised Democrats and took many swipes at them. One imagines that he must have shuddered at the very thought of Thomas Paine, the epitome of a Democrat and a radical, if ever there was one. Paine was against:

kingcraft, lordcraft and priestcraft. An original thinker far ahead of his time, he sought to redress poverty (seemingly endemic in advanced European societies) through an interventionist programme of welfare redistribution, including old-age pensions, marriage allowances and maternity benefits. – Thomas Paine, Citizen of the World, BBC History

In the Diaries’ opening observation on Wednesday October 23, 1799, our parson writes:

Saw that Democratic hoyden Mrs Coleridge who looked so like a friskey girl or something worse that I was not surprised that a Democratic Libertine should choose her for a wife. The husband gone to London suddenly, no one here can tell why. Met the patron of democrats, Mr Thos Poole who smiled and chatted a little. He was on his gray mare, Satan himself cannot be more false and hypocritical. “

Yet Holland was a compassionate man. He is constantly worried about the poor.

Thursday November 7   Still more rain, where will it end? The Poor, the Poor, how are they to live this winter? we must do all we can to assist and Providence will do the rest.

This series of observations about a mad man gives one a good sense of how a village takes care of its own:

Thursday December 5   The madman in the Poorhouse outrageous. Farmer Morle’s behaviour is absolutely scandalous but I’ll make him know his duty e’er long. The man is chained and lies on straw, shocking situation. Alas poor human nature how many afflictions art thou liable to.

Saturday December 7  Went to the Messrs Riches this evening about the man in the Workhouse, both determined to join in sending him to the Mad House in Bristol be the expence what it will. Says Master James ‘Mr Holland I reckon it be a bad business, he is a very bad fellow, there is something more in it than madness.’ Mr James thinks, in my opinion, that he is possessed by the Devil or bewitched.”

The parson then thinks about calling on the Vestry about the madman, but puts this off.

Monday December 9 Were alarmed with an account of the madman in the Workhouse having got loose and threatening everyone around with destruction. We procured two men to sit up with him and secure him from doing mischief till morning.

Holland writes that the madmen is quiet for two days, then he raves again. It seems that he uses the terms Poorhouse and Workhouse interchangeably. Finally, the men in the village decide what to do with the mad man:

Monday December 16 Went to Mr Ruscomb Poole at Marsh Mill to consult about the pauper in the Workhouse. Farmer Morle and Mr Lewis came in the evening and we went to the Poorhouse, examined the man, he had a fit at the time. We do not think him properly insane to be an object for a Madhouse. We shall try some other Methods.

Rev. Holland describes the days leading up to Christmas, including a little impromptu dance party that his daughter holds for her friends. There are 18 more years to read. Although this is not a review of the book, per se, I highly recommend it. I found my copy in a second-hand shop on Amazon. All I can say is that our Somerset Parson makes the early 19th century come alive from a male perspective. Between the diary of William Holland and Jane Austen’s letters, one gains a good sense of how different the life of a country woman is from that of a country parson. Next on my book wish list: The Diary of James Woodforde. I understand that this man loved his food.

More on the topic:

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A View of London: Tottenham Court Road, 1812

Posted in 19th Century England, Architecture, Georgian London, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency Period, Regency World, tagged , , , , on March 27, 2012| 7 Comments »

Inquiring readers, I had read about the closeness of rural areas near London during Jane Austen’s day. This image of Tottenham Court Road from the 1812 edition of Ackermann’s Repository shows the countryside beyond the toll gate. One imagines that Jane Austen was accustomed to such vistas when she visited her brother Henry in London. One moment she would be traveling through the countryside, the next moment she would be entering a teeming metropolis (Click here to see map):

In the first years of the eighteenth century, pastures and open meadows began by Bloomsbury Square and Queens Square; the buildings of Lincoln’s Inn, Leicester Square and Covent Garden were surrounded by fields, while acres of pasture and meadow still survived in the northern and eastern suburbs outside the walls. Wigmore Row and Henrietta Street led directly into fields, while Brick Lane stopped abruptly in meadows.“World’s End” beside Stepney Green was a thoroughly rural spot, while Hyde Park was essentially part of the open countryside pressing upon the western areas of the city. Camden Town was well-known for its “rural lanes, hedgeside roads and lovely fields”where Londoners sought “quietude and fresh air.” – Extract from “LONDON The Biography”, by Peter Ackroyd. Published by Vintage, 2001


The contemporary description of this view of St.James Chapel is telling:

The edifice selected for the subject of our view in the metropolis, for the present number, is the chapel of ease, situated near the turnpike in Tottenham-court-road, belonging to the church of St. James, Piccadilly. It was erected after a design of the celebrated architect, Mr. James Wyatt.

The contiguous parsonage-house on one side, and a school on the other, together with the plantations in the area between the front railing and the buildings, give great additional consequence to the appearance of the whole…

The vicinity of this chapel has recently witnessed one of those transformations of fields into houses, produced in every direction around the metropolis as if by the effect of enchantment. A prodigious street has just sprung up on the left-hand side, in continuation of Tottenham-court-road; and thus London has proceeded another good stage in its progress to Kentish Town. – St. James Chapel, Tottenham Court Road, 1812, Ackermann’s Repository

Detail of the turnpike. The toll keeper is collecting money from a man on horseback. Notice the small toll house, and the rural scene beyond.

The great age of toll gates and turnpikes was the 18th Century. In the latter part of the previous century, turnpikes were established and run by trusts. They could only be set up through Acts of Parliament, the first of which was passed in 1663. The idea was that the trusts would take over responsibility from parishes to maintain major trunk roads. They would collect the tolls, manage the finances and fulfil their obligation to use those funds to maintain the roads – Toll gates and turnpikes, London Historian’s Blog

Entrance, Tottenham Court turnpike by Rowlandson. Image @ Europeana

Rowlandson’s image shows another view of the turnpike. Pedestrians continued without hindrance via the side openings (except for the obese man, who seems to be stuck), but people on horseback and vehicles slowed to pay a toll in the gated center. Note Rowlandson’s detail of an old lecherous man ogling the two milk maids.

One milkmaid recorded her daily route and the results are astonishing: 19 miles.  Milkmaids are famous for their pretty skin, and this was largely because many of them had acquired immunity to smallpox through milking duties.  As milk delivery was a daily occurrence, many milkmaids ran slates for their customers, proving they were to some extent both literate and numerate, and also hard enough to call in a debt. – The Cries of Georgian London

Milk maids provided fresh drinks to customers. This one has just passed through the toll gate and has a long day's walk and work ahead of her.

“The cry of ‘Milk’ or the rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was ‘Any milk here !’ and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of ‘Fresh cheese and cream;’ and it then passed into ‘Milk, maids below;’ and it was then shortened into ‘Milk below;’ and was finally corrupted into ‘Mio’ which some wag interpreted into mieau—demi-eau—half water.”  – Buying Bread and Milk in 18th and 19th Century London, Susannah Ives

Detail of cattle being driven to market. One imagine that the streets were filled with dung and the smells of the animals, most of whom must have been frightened of the big city's sights and sounds.

This detail of sheep and an oxen being driven through the streets to market was a common sight. The people in this great metropolis had to be fed. In just a few hours these hapless animals will find themselves in the noisy, tumultuous, and bewildering environment of Smithfield Market, for instance. Without refrigeration, their meat would be sold, consumed or prepared within hours of their slaughter.

Cattle were driven through the streets until the mid 19th century. In an article for Household Words in March 1851 Dickens, with characteristic sarcasm, describes the environmental impact of having live cattle markets and slaughterhouses in the city:

“In half a quarter of a mile`s length of Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly slaughtered oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep but, the more the merrier proof of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood but it makes the young rascals hardy.” – Dickens’ London

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John Murray, Bookseller and Publisher of Jane Austen Novels

Posted in 19th Century England, Emma, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's life, Jane Austen's World, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency Period, tagged , , , , , , on March 21, 2012| 7 Comments »

Inquiring readers:  Once again, Tony Grant, who lives in London, has written his unique insights about historical events in that great city. This week he concentrates on John Murray, the publisher of four of Jane Austen’s six completed novels. Tony’s contributions to this blog are unique in that he includes his photographs of modern London and mingles them with more traditional illustrations. Read Tony’s blog, London Calling, at this link.

Image @Wikimedia Commons

John Murray
Bookseller and Publisher
Born 1st January 1737
Died 6th November 1793
Lived and conducted business here.
1768 – 1793

On Tuesday 13th March, my son Sam and I had a day out in central London. My brother Michael, who lives in Grenaa on Jutland, is over here with thirty students. Michael teaches mathematics in a further education college in Grenaa. He has lived in Denmark for over thirty years. A couple of weeks ago he phoned me and asked if I could do a Dickens tour of London for his students. On Tuesday Sam and I walked the route I will take Michael’s students. A Dickens walk is difficult. There are so many places in London that have strong links with Dickens.

Image @Wiki Spaces. Click on site.

It is more about what to leave out than what to include. Connecting them all in a walk that will take just over an hour would be impossible. I looked carefully at a map of London to see what places could be linked most appropriately. I think I have chosen a rout that includes many of the main sites connected with Dickens working life in London. I have decided to begin at Hungerford Bridge the site of Hungerford Steps and Warren’s Blacking Factory where Charles Dickens worked as a young child sticking labels on bottles of black polish.

The Blacking Factory where Dickens worked. Image @The Mirror. Click here to see more.

The walk will be along The Strand, past The Adelphi Theatre, to Wellington Street, the Lyric Theatre and then on to Covent Garden before walking on to The Old Curiosity Shop, Lincolns Inn , Chancery Lane, Holborn High Street, past Grays Inn and finally ending at 48 Doughty Street, one of the houses Dicken’s lived in and now The Dickens Museum. Sam and I felt very pleased with ourselves. The walk flowed nicely, punctuated with plenty of Dicken’s sites and the timing was about right. We retraced ours steps, this time continuing down Chancery Lane to the Strand and turning left until we got to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, in Fleet Street.

Fleet Street and The Royal Courts of Justice. Image @Tony Grant

Dickens, some of his characters and many other writers and famous people have graced these premises. After a pub lunch in the cellared depths of this ancient establishment we tracked back along Fleet Street towards The Royal Courts of Justice. I just happened to glimpse a small plaque attached to a pillar to one side of a narrow alleyway leading to a small courtyard behind. It read:

Image @Tony Grant

I stopped in my tracks. I thought this must be Jane Austen’s publisher. However the dates did not tally. Jane’s first novel, published by John Murray, was Emma in 1815, long after the final date of death on the plaque. I took photographs of the plaque and courtyard at the end of the alleyway and pictures of Fleet Street, running along outside. When I got home I researched John Murray and found the John Murray publishing firm website.

THIS IS A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PUBLISHING FIRM OF JOHN MURRAY.

The first John Murray, who lived from 1737 to 1793, started his working life as a Lieutenant in the Marines. Life as a marine officer in the 18th century was spent on board naval men of war and consisted of travelling the world to defend the British Empire. It wasn’t a particularly well paid or thought of profession. In Mansfield Park , Fanny’s mother, Frances , the younger Ward sister,

British marine, 1775. Image @Mock Attack

…….married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a Lieutenant of Marines, without education, fortune, or connections, did it very thoroughly.”

John Murray must have had a natural inclination towards business and when he acquired a publishing and bookselling business in Fleet Street in 1768 he made it into a successful business now passed down through the generations. The fact that he acquired a publishing business must mean that it was left to him, perhaps in a will. As a lieutenant of marines it is doubtful he would have had the finances to buy it and it seems a strange choice of business for somebody with his background. He must have acquired it through inheritance and an accident of fate.

The John Murray office was in Falcon Court. Image @Tony Grant

As an indication of his business acumen he was one of the first publishers to actually consider the quality of the writing he published. He also used his many contacts to help sell large quantities of his books. He was a canny businessman though and hedged his bets by also selling game, which would have included deer, pheasants and rabbits; the produce of country sports. He had a go at selling paste jewels and lottery tickets too.

John Murray (or MacMurray, as the name was originally spelt), having bought the stock and goodwill of William Sandley, who had turned banker, began at the ‘Falcon,’ otherwise No. 32 Fleet Street, that remarkable and prosperous career which has culminated in the great publishing house of Murray. In Smiles’ book on the Murrays will be found an exhaustive account of the inception, by Lieutenant MacMurray, of this great firm. – Fleet Street and the Press

Image @Tony Grant

He was astute enough to go with what was most profitable. Books worked for him though. I suppose if the selling of game, he was virtually a butcher as well as a bookseller, paste jewellery or the selling of lottery tickets had provided more income for him the publishing side may well have not contiued and Jane would not have had her publisher in the next John Murray but may well have been buying venison from him instead.

Image @Tony Grant

John Murray II. Image @Austenonly. (Published with permission from Julie Wakefield.)

John Murray’s son John Murray II began to develop the business. He was successful at signing Walter Scott who helped him, among others, such as the secretaries of the admiralty, John Wilson Croker and Sir John Barrow and writers such as Robert Southey and Charles Lamb to publish The Quarterly Review. This journal continued until 1967. In 2007 it was revived. The concept behind it is

to draw upon a wide range of opinions to provide counter-intuitive writing for people who like to think, and to enhance literary, philosophical and political debate.”

50 Albemarle Street. Image @Tony Grant

In it’s early years it tried to counter social reforms. It was rather conservative in it’s views but it did back the abolition of slavery although advocating a slow approach to the process.

50 Albemarle Street. Image @Tony Grant

In 1812, John Murray II published Childe Harold by Byron and it was a great success. This gave Murray the confidence to mortgage some of his copyrights and purchase 50 Albemarle Street, which has remained the home of the publishing firm for the last two hundred years.

Albemarle Street. Image @Tony Grant

John Murray drawing room. Image @Playwright in the cages

The drawing room in Albemarle Street has been the meeting place for some of the most famous writers in English history. By 1815, and after the Battle of Waterloo, everybody wanted to be published by John Murray. It seems therefore that Henry Austen, Jane’s banker brother, must have had no little influence in obtaining Murray as his sister’s publisher. She was an unknown country girl. Why should he take her on? On the other hand he might have had great literary sense and was in the habit of reading unsolicited scripts.

Jane Austen's brother, Henry.

Jane herself was very business like with John Murray. She wrote to him on Monday 11th December 1815 from Hans Place, Henry’s house in London:

Dear Sir,

As I find that Emma is advertised for publication as early as Saturday next, I think it best to lose no time in settling all that remains to be settled on the subject, & adopt this method of doing so, as involving the smallest tax on your time.

In the first place, I beg you to understand that I leave the terms on which the Trade should be supplied with the work, entirely to your judgement entreating you to be guided in every such arrangement by your own experience of what is most likely to clear off the Edition rapidly, I shall be satisfied with whatever you feel to be the best.-“

She appears to be quite the pragmatist. It is significant to note that Murray would publish four of her six completed novels: Emma and Mansfield Park while she was alive, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey after her death.

Image @Austenprose. Click on link to read post.

In the nineteenth century, the John Murray firm began publishing a series of travel books called the Murray Handbooks, which were authored by many of the great explorers of the time. The men included Sir John Franklin, who, in 1847, died exploring the North West Passage. He had also spent many years mapping the coast line of Canada. Murray also published David Livingstone, the explorer of the heart of Africa; Sir John Barrow, who wrote about South Africa; Heinrich Schlieman, the excavator and discoverer of Troy; and Isabella Bird, who visited north America and the pacific Islands. Her trips were financed by her father to help her counteract depression and backache. Both symptoms were cured in her travels: John Murray published “The Englishwoman in America,” and “Six Months in The Sandwich Islands,” both written by her about her travels.

Scientists and inventors chose to be published through John Murray. They included Charles Babbage, Malthus and Lyell who wrote in 1830 “Principles of Geology,” which later inspired Charles Darwin. In 1859, the firm published Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and Samuel Smiles’ Self Help.

John Murray III was one of the official publishers of the Great Exhibition held in Hyde park in 1851. This exhibition promoted the industrial, economic, and military might of the Empire, although all nations were invited to contribute exhibits.

Great Exhibition

The proceeds form the exhibition were later used to create, The Albert Hall, The Science Museum, The Natural History Museum, and The Victoria and Albert museum. This area of London today is still called “Albertropolis,” because Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, sponsored The Great Exhibition and the forming of the Kensington Museums. John Murray faced some opposition from some quarters when he published Queen Victoria’s letters after she died.

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria announce the opening of the Great Exhibition. Image @Getty Images.

In 1917 John Murray bought the rival publisher Smith Elder, and so added Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to their list.

John Murray, IV. Image @John Murray Archive

In the 1930’s John Murray IV entered the firm and built up an impressive list of twentieth century writers including John Betjamin, Osbert Lancaster and Freya Stark amongst others.

In 2002 John Murray was sold to Hodder Headline, which in turn became part of Hachette UK. The company continues to publish and prosper continuing with new ideas and new authors in all fields.

As a footnote, if there is anybody reading this thinking that they would like to be published by John Murray they have a note on their website:

Submissions

Owing to the amount of time devoted to assessing solicited or commissioned work John Murray is no longer able to accept any unsolicited manuscripts or synopses, or to enter into any correspondence about them. The best way to go about getting published is to find a literary agent, who can give you advice about your work and who will know the best publishers for the kind of book you are writing.

You can find a list of literary agents in the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, published by A&C Black, or in The Writer’s Handbook or From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake, both published by Pan.

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