Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Regency World’ Category

19th Century Street Vendor: Woman Selling Salop

Posted in 19th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency society, Regency World, Working class, tagged , , on April 28, 2012| 13 Comments »

This 1808 image of an old vendor woman selling salop in London seems simple at first glance. Created by William H Pyne for The Costumes of Great Britain (one of 60 beautifully produced hand-colored drawings), the image shows the vendor surrounded by customers waiting for a warm drink, which she pours fresh and hot into white bowls from a samovar (still). One wonders if the sight was common enough for Jane Austen to have observed it during her visits to her brother Henry in London, or if she purchased the drink or had tasted it. This description shows how even a whiff of  salop caused the writer to wax eloquently about the drink, which he had liked long ago:

Suddenly we came upon a still, whence arose the steam of Early Purl, or Salop, flattering our senses. Ye Gods ! what a breakfast ! In vain a cautious scepticism suggests that the liquid was one which my palate would now shudderingly reject; perhaps so; I did not reject it then; and in memory the flavour is beatified. I feel its diffusive warmth stealing through me. I taste its unaccustomed and exquisite flavour. Tea is great, coffee greater ; chocolate, properly made, is for epicures; but these are thin and characterless compared with the salop swallowed in 1826. That was nectar, and the Hebe who poured it out was not a blear-eyed old woman, though to vulgar vision she may have presented some such aspect. – Unctuous Memories, The Cornhill Magazine, 1863 p. 613-617

The problem is not with the drawing; it is with the definition of salop, which is variously spelled salop, salep, saloop, and even sahlib. Experts have offered several explanations and recipes of the drink. I examined three sources, all of which offer different ingredients. Even dictionaries from the 19th century cannot agree with the precise meaning of the drink that was commonly served in coffee houses and stalls and on the streets of London. We can, however, agree on a few observations. A night watchman stands behind the vendor and her mobile table. Thus, salop was a typical nightly drink of Londoners.

Sold between midnight and 6-7 o’clock in the morning for some it was the probate cure of a hang-over while the early birds drank it for invigoration and warming up. (Luder H. Niemeyer)

Detail of the chimney sweep drinking salop

Salop was definitely popular during the first part of the 19th century.

Charles Lamb, in his essay upon Chimney Sweeps, mentions the public house of Mr. Reed, on Fleet street in London, as a place where Sassafras tea (and Salop) were still served daily to customers in his time, about 1823.

The hot mixture was affordable even for the lowly chimney sweep, who is seen drinking from a bowl. But how was the drink made? The Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary, first published in 1886,  says that salop was derived from the tubers of various species of orchis found around Europe. It had the reputation of being a restorative and highly nutritious, and a decoction of the substance, spiced and sweetened, was thought to make an agreeable drink for invalids. – p. 784.

The tea woman sitting behind her street booth – a mobile table with samovar – amidst varied customers, just filling another cup of her much demanded herb-tea. Aquatint printed in color and colored by hand for William Miller in London. 1805.

Hobson-Jobson went on to say that in 1889 a correspondent wrote that the term could also be applied to an infusion of the sassafras bark or wood. Sassafras was imported from the colonies; it did not grow in Europe.

There is also the question of what time of day people preferred to drink salop.  In 1850, a source stated that sassafras tea, flavoured with milk and sugar, was sold at daybreak in the streets of London as saloop. In 1882, The St. James’s Gazette said:

Here we knock against an ambulant salep-shop (a kind of tea that people drink on winter mornings); there against roaming oil, salt, or water-vendors, bakers carrying brown bread on wooden trays, pedlars with cakes, fellows offering dainty little bits of meat to the knowing purchaser.”

From the description, one gets the true flavor of an early morning street scene – its sights, smells, and sounds . One also gains the sense that salop was sold much like coffee today – that there was a preferred time to drink it, but that it could be obtained at all hours. But what about the recipe? Was it made with Sassafras bark or with orchis root?

Gourmet Britain says it was made with orchis root, and provides the reader with a history and recipe.  Soupabooks mentions that it was made of dried sassafras bark and offers this recipe:

To make Salop

Put a Tea spoonfull of  Salop to a Pint of Water, with 3 or 4 Blades of Mace, & some Lemmon Peel cut very thin. Boyl it, & Mill it as you do Chocolate, Sweeten it to your Taste; add some grated Nutmeg, & juice of Lemon to make it Palateable. — Mrs. B.P. Benet, Lathrop Lodge, Swindon, Wilts. From her Book of Recipes from about 1796.

Note that Mrs. B.P. Benet does not describe the Salop, but simply assumes that the reader will know what ingredient to purchase. The salop made with sassafras bark would have a slight taste of licorice.

Early American settlers learned from American Indians how to brew sassafras tea from the root bark and drank it has an herbal remedy. Later they made sassafras the original root in root beer and used it as an important ingredient in Sasparilla, a different but related beverage. Those first Sassafras supporters didn’t know how or why it tasted so good, but a few hundred years later, we do. Sassafras root contains an essential oil called safrole which imparts that characteristic licorice flavor.

Charles Lamb. Image @NNDB

Charles Lamb in his essay about Chimney Sweeps corroborates the sassafras root ingredient:

There is a composition, the groundwork of which I have understood to be the sweet wood yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may relish it, I have never ventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin, a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical elegancies, sup it up with avidity. This is salop—the precocious herbwoman’s darling—the delight of the early gardener who transports his smoking cabbages from Hammersmith to Covent Garden’s famed piazzas—the delight, and oh ! I fear too often the envy of the unpennied sweep.” – Unctuous Memories, The Cornhill Magazine, 1863 p. 613-617

To complicate matters even more, I found this description of salop:  “The tea produced from the male root of the Ragged Robin, so-called salop, was the typical nightly drink of Londoners.” (Luder H. Niemeyer) Ragged Robin seems to be the common name for the cuckooflower lychnis, which is a perennial that has very hardy, fibrous roots. Since Ragged Robin was not mentioned in other encyclopedias, descriptions, or dictionaries that I consulted, I will discount this ingredient from the discussion.

Sassafras root bark. Image @ Vermont Fiddle Heads

The following is a sampling of definitions of Salop, Salep, or Saloop from various dictionaries:

  • an aromatic drink prepared from sassafras bark and other ingredients. – Online Encyclopedia
  •  salop (or saloop, a hot starchy drink made with an infusion of dried salep, or orchid tubers) – Science and Society Picture Library
  • An aromatic drink prepared from sassafras bark and other ingredients , at one time much used in London . – – J . Smith ( Dict . Econ . “Saloop” is a common misspelling or typo for: Salop. – Webster’s Online Dictionary
  • saloop/seuh loohp”/, n.: a hot drink prepared originally from salep but later from sassafras, together with milk and sugar. [1705-15; var. of SALEP] – Collaborative International Dictionary
  • Salep, sal′ep, n. the dried tubers of Orchis mascula: the food prepared from it.—Also Sal′op. [Ar.Salep from Arabic: سحلب saḥlab‎, is a flour made from grinding the dried tubers of the orchid genus Orchis (including species Orchis mascula and Orchis militaris). These tubers contain a nutritious starch-like polysaccharide called glucomannan. Salep flour is consumed today in beverages and desserts, in places that were formerly part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The term salep may also refer to any beverage made with the salep flour. – Wikipedia

So which ingredient did Pyne’s old female vendor use to make her salop? Orchis tubers, which were found in Europe, or dried Sassafras bark,which had to be imported? In any case, one shudders at the thought of the bowls that the vendor used to pour the drink in for her customers. I see no water jug near at hand to rinse the bowls after each use. Heaven knows how many germs were spread around via these used dishes, which could not be tossed aside or washed easily.

About The Costumes of Great Britain: Between 1800 and 1818, London publishers William Miller, T. M’Lean, and William Bulmer published a series of color plate books, including one that featured 60 color plates of Britain’s working classes just as the Industrial Revolution began to take off.  William H Pyne (1769-1843) was commissioned to write and illustrate the book by the publisher, William Miller. The first edition was printed in 1804, but the edition from which this coloured plate was taken was published in 1808. – Science and Society

More on the topic:

Read Full Post »

A Regency Morning Dress of 200 Years Ago: April, 1812

Posted in Fashions, Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , on April 18, 2012| 18 Comments »

Fashion is always more than it seems on the surface. Take this charming Regency morning dress from Ackermann’s Repository (April, 1812), for example. Its detailed description in the magazine demonstrates how many historic influences shaped this romantic costume. The lady who wore these garments as a total ensemble would have known about its medieval, Elizabethan and Jacobean associations.

Morning or Domestic Costume: A superfine Scotch or French cambric over a cambric slip, with full long sleeve, and ruff a la Mary Queen of Scots. A neck-chain and sight set in gold; bracelets and necklace of white or red cornelian. A Flora cap, composed of white satin and lace. A capuchin or French cloack of blossom satin, or Pomona green, trimmed with thread lace. Slippers of pale pink or green; and gloves of tan or Limerick kid.

Cambric material, also called batiste and made of bleached linen or cotton, was widely used in the 19th century for handkerchiefs, shirts, bed and table linens, and as fabric for lace. Scotch cambric was actually a fabric made in India. French cambrics were hard to come by after the British banned imports from France during the war.

Detail of cap, ruff, and necklace with quizzing glass, or 'sight'.

The Mary Queen of Scots ruff indicates the influence of the Elizabethan era in fashion and architecture. At this time, British fashion began to diverge from French fashion because of the Napoleonic wars, which effectively blocked normal communication and travel between the two countries. By 1811, fashion designers, who were influenced by the Romantic sensibilities of British poets and philosophers, looked to the Tudors and the Gothic eras for new fashion statements. Ruffles and slashed sleeves began to appear, and gowns began to veer from the elegant simplicity of Grecian designs to more embellished dresses.

Flora McDonald

I found almost no references to the flora cap, which hugs the skull. In this instance, a lace brim frames the face and hair. Historically, Flora McDonald was immortalized through her association with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and in the early 19th century,  Sir Walter Scott symbolized her as the embodiment of romanticized Scottish Jacobitism. One portrait of Flora shows her wearing a lace cap. Interestingly, today’s baseball and American hunting caps pop up when one Googles either Flora cap or Jacobean hats.

Cornelian, primarily found in India, was a popular semi-precious stone used in jewelry. The rust red is more prevalent over the white. Think of the colors of a cameo and you will have an idea of what bracelets and necklaces made of cornelian might look like. In this instance, the fashion plate depicts a white carnelian necklace.

Capuchin cloaks were loose hooded cloaks  whose design origins dated back to the medieval period. Capuchin monks, a 16th century off shoot of the Franciscan monks, wore distinctive pointed hooded cloaks, whose popularity remained strong through the 18th and 19th centuries.

I found this Victorian reference to Limerick kid gloves highly fascinating:

the best foreign glove is not better in any respect than the best Irish glove,—because the best London-made kid glove is rarely imported, or, if imported, cannot be sold as cheap as the best Dublin, Cork, or Limerick kid,—because the majority of imported gloves are made by frame, instead of by hand, and that the stitching by hand is much surer and firmer than sewing by machine; as, if one stitch give in a hand-made glove, that stitch alone goes, while if a stitch give in a machine-made glove, the whole finger is apt to go—and, lastly, because the article that is generally sold, is made of what, in the trade, is called “seconds,” the raw material being what is technically termed ” slink lamb,” and not kid; the difference of which may be better understood when I state that “seconds,” or “slink lamb,” can be bought by the manufacturer at from 1s. 3d. to 2s. per dozen, while kids range from 8s. 6d. to 14s. per dozen. What is usually called French kid, is, in reality, Italian lamb. So that my advice is—stick to the Irish kid, which will give good wear, and look charmingly on the hand.” – The industrial movement in Ireland, as illustrated by the National exhibition of 1852 (Google eBook), John Francis McGuire, 1853, p. 87

Detail of the Limerick kid gloves.

Although this lady is wearing a household garment meant to be seen only by family and close friends, and which she will keep on until she goes out to shop or visit friends, she is also wearing a cloak and gloves. One of the coldest vacations I ever spent was a week in April in London (the second coldest was a windy weekend in August in San Francisco). I visited a friend who lived in an ill-heated apartment, and I shivered for 7 days during one of the rainiest weeks this Dutch girl ever experienced. I imagine that the domestic outfit  portrayed in this fashion plate was well suited to staving off cold drafts and the shivers.

Several years ago I engaged in an online discussion about whether a lady wore gloves indoors. My “opponent” was adamant in her assertions that ladies did NOT wear gloves inside, saying that Regency portraits indicated that they never would. Never say never. I replied that this made no sense. Ladies tried to look their “Sunday” best for expensive portraits destined to be hung in long galleries, which meant showing off their most beautiful clothes and their milk white, unsullied hands. Besides, I found one or two paintings that portrayed a woman wearing gloves inside the house. I imagine that in some instances, a visitor might keep her gloves on if her visit was short and she was offered nothing to eat or drink.  (Think of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s imperious visit to the Bennets to confront Elizabeth about her intentions with Mr. Darcy.) The gloves in this print might mean that the woman was sitting in a glassed-in conservatory or in the confines of her private garden.

A lady who lived in a freezing mausoleum of a house would be a fool not to keep her gloves on. This fashion plate shows such a sensible young woman.

Read Full Post »

The Coquilla Nut: A Handy 19th Century Ornamental Material

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Jane Austen's World, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , on April 16, 2012| 18 Comments »

Coquilla nut ink stand, late 18th- early 19th c. Image @Antiques Atlas

Yesterday I came across an interesting description in Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics, April, 1812, about coquilla nuts, which a certain Mr. R. Ackermann displayed at his Repository, No 101, Strand (having purchased a considerable quantity of this fruit).

From whence the Portuguese obtained it, is so little known, that even the botanical library of Sir Joseph Banks cannot ascertain the circumstance. The probable conjecture, however, is, that it is the produce of the Portuguese possessions in Africa. It is, in a great measure, unknown in this country, nor can it be otherwise, as it is near sixty years since the custom-house entries mention an importation of it…”

19th c. coquilla nut pounce pot or spice shaker. Image @Ruby Lane

The coquilla nut is in fact the fruit of the Brazilian Palm, which is closely related to the coconut palm. The nut is 3-4 inches long, and has a very hard, richly streaked brown shell that is capable of taking a fine polish. It is a source of palm oil. The tree also offers up a stiff, wiry leaf fiber that is used for making brooms and rope. Coquilla nuts were routinely converted into a variety of highly ornamental articles:

The uncommonly pleasing colour of the  shell, the hardness and the native mottle which appears when it is highly polished, renders it capable of being employed, with the most agreeable effect, as it is susceptible of the most tasteful forms — on the writing-table, in wafer-boxes and seals, pounce, sand-boxes, &c. — on the ladies’ work-table, in needle-cases and thimble-cases, cotton-boxes, pincushions, &c. — or on the toilette and dressing-table, in boxes for lip-salve, rouge, scented sponges, and every kind of pomade. In the form of egg-cups, the nuts will be found to decorate the eating ‘table. As bell-pulls, they are very elegant.

19th c. coquilla nut pomander and nutmeg grater. Image @Christie's.

Coquilla nuts were also made into umbrella handles, candlesticks, and dice cups. The carved product was combined with ivory, or in the case of jewelry, with jade. I could find no examples of jewelry, and wonder it the nut was widely used for such a use.

As they appear to great advantage when worked up into beads, rosaries, and crosses, they will, doubtless, give a pleasing variety to personal decoration, when shaped into necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings, and other trinkets. Little useful pocket articles, as nutmeg-graters, cases for smelling-bottles, and other similar portable conveniences ; in short, whatever has been formed from ivory, may be produced from the shell of the Coquilla, whose beauty will not fail to attract, while the price of the article will satisfy the purchaser.”

Coquilla nutmeg grater. Image @Historic Cookery

Antique coquilla nut items are still quite reasonably priced, as this nutmeg grater from Historic Cookery attests. The Ackermann’s description indicated that the item was carried in the owner’s pocket, in order to season food ordered at a chopping house or club, no doubt.

19th century coquilla nut flea trap. Image @Physick.com

The most interesting coquilla nut item is this one: a flea trap.

It is easy to forget the squalor, poor hygiene, stench and infestations which our forefathers endured. In the 18th and 19th century flea traps were filled with a few drops of blood and honey or resin, depending on your financial means. Supposedly, fleas attracted by the blood would enter the trap and get stuck to the honey or resin. They were hung around the neck, worn in ladies clothes or kept in bed. – Physick.com

Coquilla nut flask. Image @Millers Antiques Guide

This coquilla nut flask seems a relatively simple item (One wonders how much liquid such a small flask would contain, unless it was whiskey or laudanum, or some other potent substance). Examining it closely, one can read inscribed on its top:

 ‘In the West Indies, I did grow upon a tree so high a negro come and cut me down a soldger…did me buy.., H. Neal, 35, Royal Sussex’. – Millers Antiques Guide 

Some coquilla nut items were larger and more elaborate. One surmises that a series of nut carvings were joined and glued together to create these beautiful candlesticks carved by Indian artisans in Bengal, who worked from designs supplied by locally based European tradesmen.

Late 18th C. Anglo Indian coquilla nut and ivory table candlesticks. Image@Online Galleries: The Antique Portal

…these candlesticks typical of the Murshidabad workshops delicately carved decoration, may have stood on an ivory ‘teapoy’, whose form was directly taken from a European candlestand.” – The Antique Portal

Carved 19th c. coquilla nut case thread, thimble holder. Image @WorthPoint

More about the featured items:

Read Full Post »

Jane Austen’s Spinning Wheel?

Posted in 19th Century England, Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , on March 31, 2012| 9 Comments »

Can you imagine Jane Austen at her spinning wheel? We will soon have the possibility of seeing the Austen family’s spinning wheel at Chawton Cottage after its restoration. My sense is that it was highly unlikely that Jane Austen herself spent much time using it for spinning.

A lady spinning at her wheel, after Wm Bunbury, 1781. Image @Grosvenor Prints*

She wrote in a letter from Chawton dated Friday, May 31, 1811 to Cassandra, who was staying at Godmersham Park:

I have taken your hint, slight as it was, and have written to Mrs. Knight, and most sincerely do I hope it will not be in vain. I cannot endure the idea of her giving away her own wheel, and have told her no more than the truth, in saying that I could never use it with comfort. I had a great mind to add that, if she persisted in giving it, I would spin nothing with it but a rope to hang myself, but I was afraid of making it appear a less serious matter of feeling that it really is.

Jane’s wit and humor came to the fore, and she used it to good effect to show how little such a gift would mean to her. Mrs. Knight eventually died and biographer, David Nokes, writes:

There came news from Kent of the sad death of Mrs. Knight. The old lady left a donation of £20 to be distributed among the poor of Chawton parish, but Jane was relieved to find there was no mention of the spinning-wheel.  – David Nokes, Jane Austen: A Life, p. 392

Cottage woman at work on her spinning wheel. Burnett

And so Jane was saved from the burden of spinning. Many of  her female friends and relations enjoyed the pasttime. Her nephew, Edward Austen-Leigh, wrote in his memoir:

With regard to the mistresses, it is, I believe, generally understood, that at the time to which I refer, a hundred years ago, they took a personal part in the higher branches of cookery, as well as in the concoction of home-made wines, and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which are nearly allied to the same art. Ladies did not disdain to spin the thread of which the household linen was woven. Some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea. In one of my earliest child’s books, a little girl, the daughter of a gentleman, is taught by her mother to make her own bed before leaving her chamber. It was not so much that they had not servants to do all these things for them, as that they took an interest in such occupations. – Edward Austen Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen, p 37

Spinning was popular with ladies all over Europe. Late 19th c. painting by German artist Mihaly Munkacsy

It is quite likely that the thread used for the lace on Mrs. Hurst’s gown in Pride and Prejudice (over which Mrs. Bennet exclaims) was spun by the lady who made it. In those days, ladies of the highest order spun yarn used for embroidery or lace making. They gathered in small groups to spin wool and wile away the time as they gossiped or engaged in pleasant conversation. Jane Austen notes on January 14, 1796 that “Anna is now here; she came up in her chaise to spend the day with her young cousins, but she does not much take to them or to anything about them, except Caroline’s spinning-wheel.”

The unlikely accomplishment of spinning had been a social skill practiced at the highest levels of society, probably because the parlor spinning wheels which the socially prominent operated were beautifully wrought and highly decorative. (In Jane Austen’s letters, we find Austen commenting to her sister regarding a proposed gift of a spinning-wheel, which she refuses because of the sense of identification of the fine tools of women’s work with their owners [Selwyn 68].)  Further, a woman’s ability to create a smooth sewing thread was considered a remarkable accomplishment; – Susan E. Jones, Thread-cases, Pin-cushions, and Card-racks: Women’s Work in the City in Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Fashionable ladies most likely did not bother to do the hard work of cleaning, sorting, dyeing, carding, and greasing yarn in preparing the wool for the spinning wheel. Instead, they performed the lighter tasks of spinning the wool yarn into a finer thread.

In a recent BBC Radio 4 interview, Val and David Bryant discussed the very special “Planta” wheel owned by the Austen family. Val is an expert on the history of spinning wheels and her husband is a spinning wheel restorer. The couple spoke about their remarkable acquisition, which is being restored in Chesire.

Austen family "Planta" spinning wheel in the shape of a table, with Sheraton style legs and a drawer. Image @BBC Radio 4

The spinning wheel once owned by the Austens is a beautiful and rare specimen made like a piece of furniture. It looks like a little table with Sheraton-style legs and had a little drawer. Its maker, John Planta (c. 1798-1824), was a craftsman from Fulneck, Yorkshire near Leeds. His specialty was to produce high quality spinning wheels in a unique Sheraton style.

This spinning wheel resembles the fine drawing room models that were designed for ladies who spun for pleasure: It is a world away from ordinary spinning wheels destined for the cottage industry.  The Bryants speculated that this elegant spinning wheel was a “must-have” gadget for its day. They were becoming so fashionable and desirable, that some were embellished with inlays and finials. The Austen’s spinning wheel is remarkable in that it still has the original instructions on how to use it.

Victorian photograph of a cottage woman at her spinning wheel, 1850. Image @Daily Mail

The Austen family spinning-wheel is currently missing a treadle and footman that drives the crank, and it needs a new pulley. It also squeaks. Once it is restored, it will go on display in Chawton Cottage for all the visitors to see! I’ll keep you posted.

More on the topic:

Read Full Post »

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:

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »