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Visiting Janeites Down Under

Posted in Austen Events, Australia and New Zealand Jane Austen Societies, Jane Austen's World, Travel, tagged , , , , on June 24, 2024| 6 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“In 1775, Cassandra Austen gave birth to her second daughter whom she named Jane. The same year Captain James Cook was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, in recognition of his achievements in reaching Botany Bay, claiming New South Wales for the British Government and landing on the islands of New Zealand. Cassandra and George Austen, gazing fondly at their new baby, could never have dreamed that one day their little girl’s name would be familiar and admired in those new British territories on the other side of the world.”—Jane Austen: Antipodean Views, by Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers Amazon UK link

Antipodean Views goes on to tell us that Jane Austen certainly knew about Australia. Her brother mentioned Botany Bay in one of his published articles, and her aunt almost got transported there when she was accused of theft. The Exeter Exchange in London had a kangaroo, which Jane’s sister Cassandra probably saw. Austen never mentions Australia in her novels, but many “down under” love Jane today.

Jane Austen: Antipodean Views, by Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers, quotes many Australians and New Zealanders telling why they love Jane Austen (or don’t).

When Susannah Fullerton, president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, invited me to come speak to the JASA in Sydney, I thought, “It’s just too far!” From where I live in the eastern United States, it is quite a distance. Traveling from Atlanta to Sydney takes at least 20 hours, and can be more than 40 hours, depending on stops and layovers. The time change is 14 hours. (So noon on Monday in Atlanta is 2 AM on Tuesday in Sydney.) You cross the international dateline both going and coming back, so you lose a day going, and get it back when you return. So it’s a big commitment to go that far.

I met Susannah at the 2022 AGM in Victoria, Canada, where she gave a wonderful talk on “The Many Duels of Sense and Sensibility,” even after she had traveled halfway around the world. (My favorite part was her discussion of Elinor and Lucy’s verbal duels.) Susannah also leads literary tours, taking groups from Australia (and elsewhere) to England, Europe, and North America. So I thought if she could do all that travel and still talk coherently, I could attempt it as well. I decided to take this wonderful opportunity to see a new part of the world.

Jane Austen enthusiasts down under are part of a network of Janeites stretching around the world. The JASNA (US and Canada) website lists Jane Austen Societies in the U.K., Australia (including groups in Adelaide and Melbourne as well as the main JASA), Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Spain. That list touches on five of the seven continents. (Any Jane Austen societies in Africa or Antarctica? Or other countries not listed here? Tell us!)

Black swan at the Melbourne Zoo.
Does a trip to the other side of the world sound impossible to you? The black swan, in ancient times, was a symbol of the impossible–until European explorers discovered them in Australia! The term black swan “subsequently metamorphosed to connote the idea that a perceived impossibility might later be disproved.” (Wikipedia) Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

Travels in Australia: Melbourne

On my recent trip, I got to meet with delightful Jane Austen lovers in both Australia and New Zealand. It was complicated coordinating with all their schedules. But in the end I had opportunities to share my talk, “Why Mr Collins?: The Church and Clergy in Jane Austen’s Novels,” with enthusiastic groups in five cities.

My husband and I started in Melbourne, where Dr. Alida Sewell and her husband kindly hosted us in their home for a week, giving us a chance to start getting over jetlag. Alida edits the bimonthly Newsletter of the Jane Austen Society of Melbourne, which includes book reviews and Austen-related news from around the world. Alida and I got in contact when she reviewed my book, Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England, back in February of 2023, and she also encouraged me to visit.

The Jane Austen Society of Melbourne was founded more than thirty years ago, in 1993. On the day I spoke to the Melbourne group, we had a lovely lunch with the committee members before I got to share with 25 or so participants about Mr. Collins. After a lively discussion, some members took home signed copies of my book. 

Dr. Alida Sewell, editor of the Jane Austen Society of Melbourne Newsletter, with Brenda S. Cox, who spoke on “Why Mr. Collins”
Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

In every place we visited, my husband I went to see some of the unique wildlife of the country. Near Melbourne, we had the delightful experience of seeing hundreds of little penguins, blue and white penguins only 16 inches tall, waddling in from the sea in the evening. Alida also took us to the Moonlit Animal Sanctuary, where we could pet wallabies and kangaroos. We also met gorgeous Australian birds like the pink cockatoo, with its sunset colored crest , and the well-camouflaged tawny frogmouth.

Adorable “little penguins” at Philip Island. Photo courtesy of the Philip Island Penguin Parade website.

Travels in Australia: Brisbane

From Melbourne we headed to Brisbane, where Barbara O’Rourke, a member of the local Jane Austen Society committee, generously ferried us around. I got to pet a koala bear at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We also saw lovely opals, the national gemstone of Australia, at the Brisbane Opal Museum. Australia still produces 95% of the world’s precious opals.

Stunning Queensland Boulder Opals at the Opal Museum in Brisbane,
Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

I spoke to around 70 keen Janeites in Brisbane, and got to order extra books for them beyond the ones I had brought to sell (as I also did in Sydney and Wellington later on! I loved their enthusiasm). This is the twenty-second year of the Brisbane group, which has around a hundred members total. A committee of seven people lead them, each of those seven “doing what they do best,” so that all roles are covered.

At meetings the Brisbane branch of the Jane Austen Society of Australia offers a Regency Fair table. I saw a wide range of interesting-looking materials there. Members bring in Austen-related books and magazines they are finished reading. These are offered for sale at a low, nominal price, which goes to benefit the Society. Books may be donated back later, making it similar to a rotating library, but without anyone needing to keep track of loans and returns. Conversations often start up around the table, giving members opportunities to interact. I love this idea: recycling, networking, and giving everyone a chance to learn and enjoy more of Jane Austen!

The next week we visited friends on the “Sunshine Coast” north of Brisbane, enjoying more birds and wildlife, as well as a ginger factory where we learned about the production of ginger and honey. 

Travels in Australia: Sydney and Southern Highlands

Finally we made it to Sydney, where the Taronga Zoo gave us a fantastic final look at Australia’s very special animals and birds, ranging from platypus and potoroo to giant emus and bright honeyeaters.

An amazing platypus, a mammal that lays eggs and has a duck’s bill, zipping through the water at an Australian zoo. Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

From Sydney, Susannah Fullerton took us out to the Southern Highlands, where we saw a bit of Australia’s frontier culture, then met with another keen group of about twenty Janeites for lunch and my talk.

At the Southern Highlands Jane Austen meeting, Brenda Cox, Jan Merriman (coordinator for Southern Highlands), and JASA President Susannah Fullerton. Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Berrima, established in 1849.
Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

Jane Austen Society of Australia Day Conference on Jane Austen and the Church

That Saturday the JASA hosted an all-day conference on “Mr. Collins’ Profession: Jane Austen and the Church.” We began with my talk on Mr. Collins, which explores why Austen, a devout Anglican Christian, chose to portray Mr. Collins as she did, and what his life and challenges were as a clergyman at this time. Then we got to hear about other aspects of the church in Austen’s time, from excellent speakers.

Brenda S. Cox (speaker), Toni Pollard, and Susannah Fullerton (president), holding the conference brochure, at the JASA conference on Jane Austen and the Church, Photo courtesy of JASA

Anne Harbers, writer and art historian, showed us images of clergy from the time, and explained what those images show us. One that fascinated me was Rev. Humphry Gainsborough, the artist Gainsborough’s brother. He was the pastor of an Independent Chapel as well as an engineer and inventor. You may have one of his inventions on your front door—a lock with a chain, that allows the door to be partially opened. Rev. Gainsborough invented that type of lock for the gate of his parsonage in Henley, England.

Roslyn Russell then told us about sermons and devotional literature in Austen’s novels, contrasting her perspective with later authors Anthony Trollope and Barbara Pym. I especially enjoyed meeting Roslyn since I enjoyed her novel, Maria Returns: Barbados to Mansfield Park, which gives Maria Bertram her own happy ending. 

We got even deeper with Scott Stephens’ fascinating talk, “‘How could you be so unfeeling?’: Moral Encounter and its Counterfeits in Jane Austen’s Later Fiction.” He talked about moral encounters, and where deep ones occur in Austen’s novels (for example, on the tops of hills, or in letters), and where shallow counterfeits occur (such as in Bath).

I had the privilege of finishing off a great day by giving a brief talk on “‘Her Parish and Her Poultry’: The Lives of Clergymen’s Wives in Austen’s World.” We explored the similarities and differences between the lives of clergymen’s wives and of gentry wives in the English countryside of Austen’s time.

At the JASA Day Conference on Jane Austen and the Church: L-R Back Row: Anne Harbers (speaker), Susannah Fullerton (JASA President), Lesley Rickman (graphic artist who designed the program and other JASA material)
Front Row: Scott Stephens (ABC Australia Journalist and speaker), Dr Roslyn Russell (speaker), Cheryl Hill (JASA Membership Secretary & AV operator), Dr Ruth Wilson (JASA Patron and author of The Jane Austen Remedy).
Photo courtesy of JASA.

The Jane Austen Society of Australia, founded in 1989, has over 500 members. Its regular meetings (not AGMs) are the largest of any Jane Austen Society in the world, averaging around 130 people per meeting. Participants at the Day Conference came from Sydney (where the meeting was held), Melbourne, Canberra, Queensland, and all over New South Wales.

JASA publishes a yearly Chronicle of news and reports, twice-yearly newsheets called Practicalities, and a yearly journal of scholarly papers called Sensibilities. This year’s Sensibilities will include articles based on the talks at the Day Conference, among others. I look forward to reading them, since there’s so much more I could glean! 

On Sunday we got to see a bit of Sydney, worshiping at lovely St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral, founded in 1819, soon after Austen’s death. Building on its long history, the church seems to be vibrant and lively today. Placards around the church gave summaries of the Christian message in many languages, for this multicultural city.

After lunch and birdwatching in the park, we visited the Hyde Park Barracks,  which originally held transported convicts, then women immigrants. The museum gave us impressions of some of Australia’s tumultuous history, including the tragic impact on Aboriginal communities.

Travels in New Zealand: Wellington and Beyond

The next day we flew to New Zealand, which is not as close as one might imagine! We saw yellow-eyed penguins, a blue whale, and royal albatrosses in Dunedin, a city with a Scottish flavor on New Zealand’s South Island. On the North Island we visited hobbit homes in Hobbiton (definitely a highlight of the trip); saw amazing geothermal formations and baby kiwis in Rotorua, and toured a Maori village; and marveled at a cave full of glowworms in Waitomo.

Brenda Cox visiting a hobbit house in Hobbiton, New Zealand. Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

Our Jane Austen encounter was in Wellington, New Zealand. We could see Wellington’s literary and cultural associations immediately. The airport has statues of Gandalf on an eagle, a dragon, and a Doctor Who police box! Frances Duncan, who founded and runs the Jane Austen Society of New Zealand, met us at the airport with Sian Farr, who kindly hosted us in her home and showed us some sights.

Gandalf rides an eagle in the Wellington, New Zealand airport. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in beautiful New Zealand. Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

In Wellington, an eager group of Janeites met with me to discuss Mr. Collins, Jane Austen, and the church. We had a delicious tea, and afterwards they asked great questions. Frances Duncan started the Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa New Zealand just ten years ago, and it has been growing. About 25 people attended the meeting. I hope it spreads to many corners of the beautiful country of New Zealand, across the mountains and along the sea. Contact Frances through their website if you want to start up a Jane Austen group elsewhere in the country.

The Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa New Zealand sells humorous merchandise, including this picture of Jane Austen as a huia, a now-extinct New Zealand songbird, described as the bird with the most beautiful song. It was hunted for its feathers, a symbol of leadership and power. They chose it since it is an easily recognizable symbol of New Zealand, and it is extinct—as is Austen. A bit of kiwi humor, says Frances Duncan.
Photo courtesy of Frances Duncan

We enjoyed many of the fascinating birds of New Zealand. My favorite place in Wellington was Zealandia. This nature preserve in the city has specially designed fences to keep out the many non-native predators which have decimated the country’s unique native birds. Now kiwi and other birds are thriving in the preserve and surrounding areas.

Kiwi exhibit in New Zealand. (The live ones we saw were in nocturnal houses, with red lighting.) Kiwi are adorable endangered birds of New Zealand. (Technically, four species are currently “vulnerable” and one is “near threatened.”) The kiwi fruit, which is small, fuzzy, and round, like the bird, and New Zealanders (“kiwis”), are both called after this bird.
Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024

I was impressed by the extensive environmental efforts in both Australia and New Zealand, and the strides they are making toward preserving their incomparable native creatures.

What would Jane Austen have thought about bird and animal conservation, if she lived today? We don’t know, of course. But she does mention animals in her novels, and, as a country clergyman’s daughter, she essentially lived on a farm. Her brother James wrote a poem praising clergyman Gilbert White, who lived near Chawton. White is considered the father of modern ecology because of his book, The Natural History of Selborne.

So I’d like to think Jane Austen would have enjoyed a journey like ours, enjoying the natural world. And I hope our great discussions of her novels and the church in her world would have met her approval as well! I certainly loved meeting so many wonderful people who love Jane Austen as I do.

One highlight of our trip was visiting Hobbiton in New Zealand. For an account of that visit, and lots of great photos, see JRR Tolkien’s Hobbiton, in New Zealand.

Are you a Janeite living “down under”? Tell us where you live, and how you celebrate Jane Austen! And if you are looking for kindred spirits, contact the JASA to find other regional groups.

Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She also blogs at Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen.

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Lady Hester Stanhope: Traveler and Trailblazer

Posted in Biography, Celebrities, History, Jane Austen's World, Travel, Upper Class, tagged , on February 27, 2023| 4 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“What are young men to rocks and mountains?”—Pride and Prejudice

Rocks and mountains recur in the story of Lady Hester Stanhope, though the mountains she climbed were much farther away than Derbyshire. We all know that women of Jane Austen’s England faced many restrictions. Austen herself published her books as “a lady” rather than under her own name, to avoid any stigma for stepping outside of the box that society prescribed for her.

Yet some women did step out of that box, some of them very far outside the box! Those in the upper classes with enough money could afford to be “eccentric” and go their own ways. (Some in the middle and lower classes did the same, especially if they were widows, but that’s another story.)

Lady Hester Stanhope

One of the most famous, or infamous, of these trailblazing women was Lady Hester Stanhope, Middle Eastern traveler and pioneer archaeologist. Chawton House hosted a talk entitled “Lady Hester Stanhope: Trowelblazer or Iconoclast?” on Feb. 16. 

Lady Hester was born only a few months after Jane Austen, in March of 1776. She was the oldest child of an earl. In 1803 she moved into the home of her uncle, William Pitt the Younger, prime minister of England. She acted as his hostess and private secretary. When he died in 1806, the British government granted Hester a pension of £1200 a year, at Pitt’s request. After several romantic disappointments, she became disillusioned with England. She went overseas in 1810 and never returned to England. She was almost 34.

Shipwrecked on Rhodes

Starting out on a Grand Tour of Europe, she was shipwrecked on the island of Rhodes, losing all her possessions and money. She wrote,


Unable to make the land, I got ashore, not on an island, but a bare rock which stuck up in the sea, and remained thirty hours without food or water. It becoming calmer the second night, I once more put to sea, and fortunately landed upon the island of Rhodes, but above three days’ journey from the town, travelling at the rate of eight hours a day over mountains and dreadful rocks. Could the fashionables I once associated with believe that I could have sufficient composure of mind to have given my orders as distinctly and as positively as if I had been sitting in the midst of them, and that I slept for many hours very sound on the bare rock, covered with a pelisse, and was in a sweet sleep the second night, when I was awoke by the men, who seemed to dread that, as it was becoming calmer, and the wind changing (which would bring the sea in another direction), that we might be washed off the rock before morning. So away I went, putting my faith in that God who has never quite forsaken me in all my various misfortunes. The next place I slept in was a mill, upon sacks of corn; after that, in a hut, where I turned out a poor ass to make more room, and congratulated myself on having a bed of straw. When I arrived (after a day of tremendous fatigue) at a tolerable village, I found myself too ill to proceed the next day, and was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a kind-hearted, hospitable Greek gentleman, whom misfortune had sent into obscurity, and he insisted upon keeping me in his house till I was recovered. 

At this point she adopted the Turkish dress of the Ottoman Empire. She explains why she chose men’s clothing:

. . . Everything I possessed I have lost; had I attempted to have saved anything, others would have done the same, and the boat would have been sunk. To collect clothes in this part of the world to dress as an Englishwoman would be next to impossible; at least, it would cost me two years’ income. To dress as a Turkish woman would not do, because I must not be seen to speak to a man; therefore I have nothing left for it but to dress as a Turk — not like the Turks you are in the habit of seeing in England, but as an Asiatic Turk in a travelling dress — just a sort of silk and cotton shirt; next a striped silk and cotton waistcoat; over that another with sleeves, and over that a cloth short jacket without sleeves or half-sleeves, beautifully worked in coloured twist, a large pair of breeches, and Turkish boots, a sash into which goes a brace of pistols, a knife, and a sort of short sword, a belt for powder and shot made of variegated leather, which goes over the shoulder, the pouches the same, and a turban of several colours, put on in a particular way with a large bunch of natural flowers on one side. This is the dress of the common Asiatic; the great men are covered with gold and embroidery, and nothing can be more splendid and becoming than their dress. (Life and Letters of Lady Hester Stanhope, 116-117)

The clothes sound quite sumptuous, and she seems to have enjoyed them! As a foreign woman, and a woman in men’s clothing, Lady Hester occupied an unusual place in Ottoman society. She could be treated as more or less an “honorary man,” relating to local men in ways that local women could not.

Lady Hester Stanhope wearing Turkish men’s clothing. Frontispiece, Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, Vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1846).

Egypt to Palmyra

Lady Hester traveled deeper into the Middle East. She wasn’t much impressed with the wonders of Egypt. She refused to enter the Great Pyramid and complained of “an inconceivable number of fleas.” Many English tourists visited Egypt, and she wanted to do something more impressive.

Because of her background with Pitt in politics, and her connections, she was able to get permission from the Ottoman Pasha to go to Palmyra, an ancient city in the Syrian desert. When she reached it with her Beduin caravan after six days of travel, they “crowned” her “Queen of the Desert,” after the ancient Queen Zenobia.

During her travels, Lady Hester constantly racked up debts, and wrote back to the English government asking for money. They sometimes ended up paying because of her high connections.

Lady Hester Stanhope smoking a Turkish pipe. Frontispiece, Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, Vol. 2 (London: Henry Colburn, 1845).

Archaeologist; Searching for Treasure

Emma Yandle, curator of the Chawton House exhibition on “Trailblazers: Women Travel Writers,” went on to discuss Lady Hester Stanhope’s somewhat questionable contributions to archaeology. Lady Hester was arguably the first Westerner given official permission to excavate an ancient site; certainly she was the first woman to do so.

Lady Hester somehow obtained a manuscript, purportedly written by a monk, describing the location of immense hoards of buried treasure (three million gold coins!) in the ancient cities of Ashkelon, Awgy (near Jaffa), and Sidon. She got permission and safe conduct letters from the Ottoman government to excavate at Ashkelon. She promised the Ottoman government all the treasure she would find. She asked the British government to pay for the excavations, simply for the honor it would bring to England and to herself.

Excavations began in April of 1815. Lady Hester was the visionary, nominally in charge. Actually, though, her personal physician, Dr. Charles Meryon, directed the excavations and kept the records. They found no gold coins.

They did, however, find one archaeological treasure. It appeared to be a Roman statue, somewhat mutilated. According to a later biography, this made Lady Hester Stanhope “the first person who ever intentionally excavated an ancient artifact in the ‘Holy Land.’”

However, Lady Hester feared that if the Ottoman ruler heard about this, he would believe that she was excavating treasures to send back to her native England. She had promised she would not do that. (Many others of the time were plundering the various countries they colonized.) So—she destroyed the statue! She had it smashed and thrown into the sea. A very strange decision.

We still have drawings and a description of the statue, but that’s all. A much later archaeological expedition, in 1921, found what were apparently the missing pieces of that statue.

The records of the expedition, however, gave a lot of historical information. The layers of history that were uncovered were recorded: a Roman temple at the lowest layer, above it a church, and over that a mosque. (This was confirmed by the later expedition.) They also recorded the locations of any artifacts found. This was a new procedure. Other diggings at the time simply took whatever they could find and shipped it off to museums or private collections, with no details of location or depth. So Lady Hester’s excavation did blaze new trails for archaeology.

End of Life

Lady Hester Stanhope later settled on a mountaintop among the Druze people of Lebanon, near Sidon. She became disastrously involved in Middle Eastern conflicts, and went deeper and deeper into debt. She died, penniless and alone, in 1839.

The Residence of Lady Hester Stanhope at Djoun. Frontispiece, The Life and Letters of Lady Hester Stanhope, by her niece the Duchess of Cleveland (London: John Murray, 1914).

Dr. Meryon, who had accompanied her on many of her travels, wrote her memoirs in 1845-6, romanticizing her story.

Paul Pattison, at English Heritage, summarizes Lady Hester Stanhope’s life: 

She was always a wilful aristocrat, who wanted to govern her life and the lives of others – indeed believed it was her position in life to do so – and on occasions she was overbearing and unkind. But she was also vivacious, daring, sharp-witted, charismatic, benevolent, and brave to the point of recklessness. 

Above all, she rejected society conventions and the restrictions of life for a woman in Europe, embracing the unexpected opportunity to be her own mistress within an Eastern culture that excluded women from public life. That alone sets her apart as a pioneer and an extraordinary human being.

As far as I’ve been able to discover, Jane Austen never mentioned Hester Stanhope in her letters. She may have known of some of her exploits, however. Both were trailblazers: Jane, quietly, from her home; and Hester, flamboyantly, in exotic places.

 

Resources about Lady Hester Stanhope

Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope; the sequel, Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope; and Life and Letters of Lady Hester Stanhope, are available on archive.org. 

Lady Hester, Queen of the East, by Lorna Gibb

Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Hester Stanhope, by Kirsten Ellis

 

Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She also writes for Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen.

 

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The Difficulties of Travel and Transportation in Early 19th C. Britain

Posted in 19th Century England, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency Transportation, Regency Travel, Travel, tagged on April 25, 2012| 18 Comments »

Back in Jane Austen’s day travel was so difficult and laborious over poorly constructed roads that the majority of the people who lived in that century traveled no farther than 14 miles from where they lived. Most walked, and even so they had to contend with muddy roads that were almost impassible after heavy rains or breathe in choking dust during times of drought. (In cities, dusty streets would be watered down by merchants early in the morning.)

Diana Sperling, a party walking to dinner along muddy roads.

Travel at night was dangerous. Without a widespread means of lighting roads or an organized police force, night travelers were at the mercy of highwaymen. In cities, link boys were paid a half pence to carry a light in front of pedestrians, or for those on horseback and in carriages.

Georgian cast iron light fixtures, Landsdowne Crescent in Bath. Note the cones, which extinguished the light.

Lanterns hung in front of city doors or were carried. In the country, torches hung from trees lining a lane that led up to a house. Balls and parties were planned during the full moon, although a rainy or cloudy night would spoil these well-laid plans.

A link boy lights the way in the city, 1827.

The situation would not change until the Industrial Revolution brought about such life altering inventions as gas lights, macadam roads (whose hard surface facilitated smoother travel), the steamboat, and rail travel.

The perils of overcrowding, 1812

The following descriptions of poor road conditions from Old Country Life, a book published in 1892, describes a time just after Jane Austen’s death, but one that her longer lived siblings would have known. While people’s memories of distant events are often faulty, the emotions they felt tend to stay with them. Here then are some eye witness accounts retold many decades later:

What a time people took formerly in travelling over old roads! There is a house just two miles distant from mine, by the new unmapped road. Before 1837, when that road was made, it was reached in so circuitous a manner, and by such bad lanes, and across an unbridged river, that my grandfather and his family when they dined with our neighbours, two miles off, always spent the night at their house.

Negotiating a muddy road. Image @Roads in the 18th Century

In 1762, a rich gentleman, who had lived in a house of business in Lisbon, and had made his fortune, returned to England, and resolved to revisit his paternal home in Norfolk. His wish was further stimulated by the circumstance that his sister and sole surviving relative dwelt beside one of the great broads, where he thought he might combine some shooting with the pleasure of renewing his friendships of childhood. From London to Norwich his way was tolerably smooth and prosperous, and by the aid of a mail coach he performed the journey in three days. But now commenced his difficulties. Between the capital and his sister’s dwelling lay twenty miles of country roads. He ordered a coach and six, and set forth on his fraternal quest. The six hired horses, although of strong Flanders breed, were soon engulfed in a black miry pool, his coach followed, and the merchant was dragged out of the window by two cowherds, and mounted on one of the wheelers; he was brought back to Norwich, and nothing could ever induce him to resume the search for his sister, and to revisit his ancestral home.

Pack horses. Image @The Rolle Canal Company

Roads were in such a poor condition that transportation over rivers and canals was preferred. If waterways were not nearby, pack horses and carrier wagons carried heavy and fragile items into areas were roads were near to impassible. Carrier wagons were sturdy wagons pulled by oxen and covered with canvas cloth.

Items had to be safely packed before they could be transported. Paper was expensive and cardboard boxes had yet to be invented. Goods were carried in cloth sacks, metal canisters, leather baskets, wood barrels, sturdy trunks, or wooden crates. Additional containers were made of cloth, woven straw, crockery, glass, and tin.

18th century coopers making barrels. Image@Instructional Resources Corporation.

The safe preservation of foods in metal containers was finally realized in France in the early 1800s. In 1809, General Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 francs to anyone who could preserve food for his army. Nicholas Appert, a Parisian chef and confectioner, found that food sealed in tin containers and sterilized by boiling could be preserved for long periods. A year later (1810), Peter Durand of Britain  received a patent for tinplate after devising the sealed cylindrical can. – A brief history of packaging

Fragile items like glass and china received extra protection and were wrapped in cloth or straw. Considering the poor road conditions,  it is a wonder that any of these items survived their long journeys intact. View an image and explanation of a stage wagon in this link.

Reliable forms of old-fashioned transportation still exist in this world. Image@Washington Post

Below is a description of a carrier and his wagon.  (click here to see examples):

It is a marvel to us how the old china and glass travelled in those days; but the packer was a man of infinite care and skill in the management of fragile wares.

Does the reader remember the time when all such goods were brought by carriers? How often they got broken if intrusted to the stage-coaches, how rarely if they came by the carrier.  The carrier’s waggon was securely packed, and time was of no object to the driver, he went very slowly and very carefully over bad ground. – Old Country Life, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892

Breakdown of the Christmas stage, a Victorian illustration. Note that oxen are strapped to an empty cart, ready to take on passengers, who are still 10 miles from their destination.

As noted before, people often spent the night when they arrived as guests for dinner. Once a person made the journey to visit relatives, they tended to stay for weeks, even months. Elizabeth Bennet’s visit with Charlotte was of several weeks duration; Cassandra Austen frequently visited her brother Edward for weeks at a time, which is when Jane would write to her.

City streets were crowded and narrow. Thomas Rowlandson. The Miseries of London. 1807. Image @Lewis Walpole Library

“It is of some importance,” said Sydney Smith, “at what period a man is born. A young man alive at this period hardly knows to what improvements of human life he has been introduced; and I would bring before his notice the changes that have taken place in England since I began to breathe the breath of life—a period of seventy years. I have been nine hours sailing from Dover to Calais before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath before the invention of railroads. In going from Taunton to Bath I suffered between ten thousand and twelve thousand severe contusions before stone-breaking MacAdam was born. I paid fifteen pounds in a single year for repair of carriage springs on the pavement of London, and I now glide without noise or fracture on wooden pavement. I can walk without molestation from one end of London to another; or, if tired, get into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my life. I forgot to add, that as the basket of the stagecoaches in which luggage was then carried had no springs, your clothes were rubbed all to pieces; and that even in the best society, one-third of the gentlemen were always drunk. I am now ashamed that I was not formerly more discontented, and am utterly surprised that all these changes and inventions did not occur two centuries ago.” – Old Country Life, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892, p. 216

Paving a macadam road in the U.S., 1823

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Jane Austen Pilgrimage Part II: Winchester Cathedral and College Street

Posted in Architecture, Jane Austen's World, Travel, tagged , , on November 5, 2011| 8 Comments »

Gentle Readers, this is Christine Stewart’s second post about her trip to England this past summer. The author of Embarking on a Course of Study, you will enjoy her reminiscences.The day after visiting Jane’s writing desk and portrait in London, I went to Paris. Yes, for the day. It was there so I popped over to squeeze in what I could – a long, exquisite day of mostly walking and a trip up the Eiffel Tower (okay, more like hobbling because I walked everywhere in Reykjavik and had two days of London walking behind me as well. My ankles looked like I was 85 years old. But it was worth it for the view).

Paris turned out to be a 20 hour day, so I slept in and caught a later train to Winchester and had just enough time to see the Cathedral and the house on College Street where Jane died before catching my bus to Alton (near Chawton) to reach my hotel.Winchester is delightful. Twisty turny streets, archways, alleys tucked between the backs of houses with gates and wooden doors. It felt like one big secret garden to me. I could have wandered for hours.  The sky was grayish when I arrived at the Cathedral – perfect for photographs. I took many pictures of the outside as there were so many interesting vantage points but here’s the main one (to keep reading:  http://www.embarkingonacourseofstudy.com

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Jane Austen Pilgrimage Part I

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency World, Travel, tagged , , on August 20, 2011| 9 Comments »

Gentle Readers, Frequent contributor Christine Stewart recently took a trip to England. Here are some of her impressions. For fabulous images, click on her blog,  Embarking on a Course of Study.

It’s a funny thing to visit an object used, worn, or created by people you admire, whether historical, literary, political, or religious figures.  There’s an immense satisfaction in standing in its presence. I had been to the Morgan Library in NYC for the exhibit of Austen letters, but there was something about her desk. It was an everyday object that had been important to her writing life. She used it to write amazing novels that outlive and outsell those of her contemporaries.

And I had worked very hard to get there!

I arrived in London just before noon from Reykjavik, where I’d been attending the wedding of a friend, ready to officially begin my Jane Austen Pilgrimage. I had a couple of suitcases and decided to go to the flat of my friend’s new husband to drop them off before venturing out further.

British Library Lobby

So, after getting up at 4 a.m to catch the shuttle to the flybus to the airport, then a plane, three trains, and one cab later (the cab driver called me ‘Luv,’ awesome), I dropped off all my bags and went out again. I then got caught up in taking pictures of the very charming streets as I walked down to the tube station.

That, coupled with the train to King’s Cross/St. Pancras, the tube stop near the British Library, took up another hour, so I arrived after 4:00 p.m. and had to let go of my plan to also go to the British Museum as there just wasn’t enough time before they closed. Oh well, onward! The British Library was easy to find – it’s basically next door to St. Pancras (see the picture, is that an amazing building or what? It’s also a hotel).

Once inside the Library I had a difficult time navigating the floor plan. There are several levels to the front lobby, perhaps I should say landings, and then other floor levels themselves off of the lobby, which are not clear via the map. Perhaps the fact that there is a lower ground, upper ground, and ground floor before you even get to floors 1, 2, and 3 and they are not full levels beneath one another or all reached by one flight of stairs or set of elevators that is the problem!

Eventually I located the Sir John Ritblat Gallery where the Library’s ‘treasures’ are, including Jane’s desk. Unless you know exactly which room the desk is in and what it looks like, and how deceptive the word ‘desk’ is, you will have just as much trouble, so let me tell you exactly what to do.

To read the rest of the post and see the pictures:http://www.embarkingonacourseofstudy.com

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