Yearly Archives: 2019

December 1, 2019 · 10:00 am

A Christmas Turkey – And A Plum Pudding

I live in Norfolk, one of the major centres in the 18th and 19th centuries for rearing geese and turkeys for the London market. Both were favourites for eating at Christmas and in the weeks before the roads to the Capital were full of flocks of geese being walked slowly to their doom, their feet protected by being dipped in tar and then sand. The arrival of the stagecoaches made transporting birds much faster and they could be slaughtered in Norfolk, then loaded onto the coaches and arrive without having walked off a good part of their condition.

The image above shows the Norwich stage arriving at the Bull Inn in London hung about with geese, but turkeys were transported in the same way. Not all were dead, as Cecil Aldin’s marvellous little sketch of an escaping bird at the top of this post illustrates. the label around his neck says, ‘Leadenhall Market’ and he’s wisely heading back to Norfolk as fast as he can!

Turkey was not just food for the well-off and middle classes as I discovered when researching for Regency Slang Revealed  The slang for all kinds of poultry was hollow, presumably because birds were cooked hollow inside. A turkey was a Bubbly Jock or a Gobbler, references to the sounds they make, or a Cobble Colter. A roast turkey garnished with a string of sausages was an Alderman, a reference to the chain of office. Not much was wasted at this level of society – the part of a chicken we call the parson’s nose was the Pope’s Nose to the Regency underworld and The Devil was a dish comprising the gizzard of the bird, scored, peppered until it was very hot to the taste and then broiled.

A New System of Domestic Cookery; formed upon principles of economy by A Lady (various editions in the early 19thc, mine is 1829) has advice for the prudent housewife on selecting your turkey:

“A Turkey Cock – If young, it has a smooth black leg with a short spur. If fresh, the eyes full and bright and the feet supple and moist. If stale the eyes will be sunk, and the feet dry. Hen-Turkey is known by the same rules; but if old, her legs will be red and rough.”

This book contains a number of recipes for turkey including a version of the Devil, mentioned above:

“An Incomparable Relish, or Devil, of Turkey 

On the rump, gizzard , and a drum-stick, put salt, pepper and Cayenne. Let them be broiled, and brought back as hot as possible; cut them in small pieces, pour over a ladle of mustard, ditto of melted butter, a spoonful of soy, ditto of lemon-juice, and some of the gravy out of the dish; mix quickly, and hand round.”

The instructions for roast turkey give the traditional accompaniments still served today. The stuffing is sausage meat with chopped shallots, breadcrumbs and a beaten egg. Sausages and bread sauce are served separately along with the gravy.

When I transcribed the receipt book of Regency housewife Mrs Jean Mills for Mock Oyster Sauce and a Cure for Corns  I found only one turkey recipe, for Turkey Pie, which involved leaving the meat seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, pounded clove and mace overnight before baking it in a rich gravy.

However Mrs Mills does include the instructions for Plum Pudding, that other staple of the Christmas dinner. She often gives the name of the person who gave her a particular recipe and she attributes this one to her late first husband, Captain Ryan of the East India Company. Like all the recipes for plum cake and plum puddings that I can find in Georgian recipe books this does not include plums!

Captain Ryan’s Receipt for Plum Pudding

12 Eggs, 1 lb Suet, 1 lb Raisins, 1 lb Currants, 3 Table Spoons Grated Biscuits, 3 of Sugar, 1 Nutmeg, 1 Tea Spoon grated ginger, a little sweetmeat, 1 Glass Brandy. This pudding takes 4 hours to Boil.

If you want to try this with modern weights and measures, 1 lb = 453.5 grams.

On the same page you can see Mrs Edwards’ Plain Cake and Batter Pudding. The ‘do’ – ditto – makes me think Mrs Edwards contributed that too.

Have fun planning your Christmas dinner!

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November 10, 2019 · 12:00 pm

An English Poet in Georgian Malta

On my holidays this year I seem to have been bumping into the long arm of the Georgian navy at every turn. In August and September I wrote about encounters in Canada with Queen Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent, and uncle, William IV when he was a naval officer. Last month I visited Malta and, standing in front of the Grand Master’s Palace in the heart of Valletta, found myself looking up at an unmistakable coat of arms on the opposite side of St George’s Square.

Even without seeing the date of 1814, this is clearly a Georgian coat of arms with the white horse of the house of Hanover as the other supporter with the British lion. So what was it doing there? I should have remembered that Malta was one of the Mediterranean islands that fell to the British after the defeat of the French navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Translated the motto reads: “The love of the Maltese and the voice of Europe assigned these Islands to great and unconquered Britain. A.D. 1814.” No shortage of self-confidence there…

The Grand Harbour is one of the greatest harbours of the world, as the Knights of St John who had governed Malta for hundreds of years appreciated. In 1798 the French ousted the Knights and took over the supremely strategic island and even after the Battle of the Nile the French clung on to Malta, with some of the surviving ships of the fleet sheltering in the harbour. The British navy promptly blockaded the island. They were helped by the Maltese population who, although they were weary of the Knights’ rule, seem to have liked the French even less. In September 1800 the French ships tried to break out and were captured and the island fell. In 1814, the date on the coat of arms, Malta became a British colony, finally achieving independence in 1964.

Throughout history Malta has been of huge strategic importance in the Mediterranean which has made it all too often the target of fierce fighting – notably under the Knights and during the Second World War where its population endured the most appalling conditions and were awarded the George Cross as a tribute to their courage. With the arrival of the British in 1800 the island found an unexpected peace and prosperity. British merchants came in droves and it became an invaluable distribution point for British exports and the harbour and the presence of the fleet created huge commercial and employment opportunities. Not all was sweetness and light – the history of Anglo-Maltese relations is too complex to explore here – but the British presence for over 160 years has left a deep impression on the island.

The Grand Master’s Palace (below) became the seat of government and the residence of the British Governor.

Opposite is the Main Guard Building (below) which was built by the Knights in 1603 as the guardhouse for the Palace. The neo-classical portico was added, along with the coat of arms, in 1814.

So what was the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, perhaps now most famous for his poems The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, to do with this? To my surprise I found a plaque to him on a building on the corner of St George’s Square. Apparently, in 1804, despite health problems and an increasing opium addiction, he travelled to Sicily and then to Malta where he found a post as Acting Public Secretary under the Civil Commissioner, Sir Alexander Bell. Despite being successful in the role he resigned and returned to England in 1806.

 

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November 2, 2019 · 10:40 am

How Romantic Was An Elopement?

The romance and drama of an elopement is a popular theme in the historical love story, but it must have been an uncomfortable and expensive procedure, even without the risk of the rope ladder giving way and tumbling the young lady to the ground, or the furious father giving chase with his shotgun or horsewhip to chastise the bridegroom to within an inch of his life.

The post chaise was the fastest and safest way of evading Papa, although the popular name for these vehicles – yellow bounders – hints that expressions of passion must have been difficult as it swayed and lurched along the ill-made roads. How many nervous brides succumbed to travel sickness and second thoughts by the time the first inn was reached?

They also had a reputation for causing accidents because of the furious pace of escape, as a delightful print I picked up in Paris shows. A chaise and four, with the two postilions urging on the horses, leaves mayhem in its wake. A horse falls, its rider spills into the road and a pig bolts in terror while the lovers are lost to everything in their own private world inside the carriage.

The Great North Road by Charles G Harper (1901) casts a cynical eyes at the post chaise and its passengers –

“Everyone is familiar with the appearance of the old post-chaise, which according to the painters and the print-sellers, appears to have been principally used for the purpose of spiriting lovelorn couples with the-speed of the wind away from all restrictions of home and the Court of Chancery. A post-chaise was (so it seems nowadays) a rather cumbrous affair, four-wheeled, high, and insecurely hung, with a glass front and a seat to hold three, facing the horses. The original designers evidently had no prophetic visions as to this especial popularity of post-chaises with errant lovers, nor did they ponder the proverb, ‘Two’s company, three’s none’, else they would have restricted their accommodation to two, or have enlarged it to four.”

The gentleman planning an elopement would do well to visit his banker first – eloping in any style was an expensive business. There were the bribes of course – the lady’s maid, footmen who must turn a blind eye, the gardener whose ladder might be borrowed. The postilions, who would know at once that something illicit was afoot, would need their palms greasing liberally as would the landladies of the inns along the way if the happy, if queasy, couple wanted a good room for their first night of bliss.

The image above is from a book called Takings: or the Life of a Collegian. It is a satirical romp through the life of a young man by R.Dagley (1821). The picture is captioned ‘Taking Amiss’. Here the ‘hero’ Tom is eloping with his love – note the sign on the wall ‘To the Boarding School’ – the young lady is clearly below age.

At length the wished-for moment was at hand.

(Why should Time creep so slowly when we call?)

The cautious signal by the lovers plann’d,

Was heard and answere’d by the garden-wall

And now her drapery the nymph displays,

Now they [Tom has a friend along to support him] assist, and seat her in the chaise.

 

Not everything goes according to Tom’s plans, however: “One lodging, he conceived, for both would do, But Charlotte resolutely called for two”. Frustrated, Tom settles down to woo her, but has not succeeded by the time her furious relatives locate them and he finds himself facing a duel.

Another significant cost was the hire of the post chaise itself. A prudent lover would hire four horses, to achieve twelve miles an hour, and the chaise cost one-and-threepence a mile. On top of that there were toll gates to pay every few miles and food and accommodation. The canny eloper armed himself with Cary’s New Itinerary or an Accurate Delineation of the Great Roads (as does the writer trying to work out her hero and heroine’s route today!) This at least ensured that the post boys were not adding on a profitable mile here and there.

London to Gretna via Manchester, according to Cary, is 320 miles. That is £20 for the chaise and horses alone, at a time when a housemaid would be glad to earn £16 a year, all found.

Does an elopement still strike you as romantic? Would the thrill of the escape and the delight of being alone with the loved one at last outweigh the discomfort and expense? It is a while since I wrote an elopement into a book – I wonder, should I be thinking of another one?

If you are intrigued by the experience of travelling in Georgian Britain you can retrace some of the iconic routes in Driving Through Georgian Britain: the great coaching routes for the modern traveller. Available in paperback and ebook it allows the modern traveller to drive the Great North Road, the Bath Road, the Brighton Road and the Dover Road finding what remains and discovering stories of elopement, murder, good meals and bare knuckle fights along the way.

 

 

 

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September 15, 2019 · 10:25 am

Regency Ice Cream Anyone?

Fred Nutt0003I love ice cream – which is fortunate as my husband, who is the cook in our house, has bought an expensive Italian ice cream maker which means we’ve got to eat lots to make it earn its keep!

But ice cream was a real luxury in the early 19thc. There was no way of making ice artificially – it had to be harvested and stored which was easy enough if you had a large estate with lakes and ponds which would freeze in winter and staff to do the work. Slabs of ice were cut and packed in ice houses where they could be insulated with thick walls and straw to keep the ice right through the year. But how did they manage in towns and cities? Presumably loads of ice were brought in by wagon, melting all the time, and would be stored in insulated rooms.

Once you had your ice, making frozen or chilled desserts was still hard work. I own a copy of The Complete Confectioner or, the Whole Art of Confectionary Made Easy by Frederick Nutt (1815). The book has a frontispiece (above) of a lady with a magnificent pineapple – a real status symbol at the time and so expensive that you could hire one as a centrepiece for your smart dinner party and then return it, untouched, the next day.

Mr Nutt has pages of receipts for ice creams and water ices. Here is the one for barberry ice cream, which gives the basic method used for all the others.

“Take a large wooden spoonful of barberry jam, and put it in a bason with one pint of cream; squeeze one lemon in, mix it well; put it into the freezing pot and cover it; put the freezing pot into a pail and some ice all round the pot; throw a great deal of salt on the pot in the pail, turning your pot around for ten minutes; then open your pot and scrape it from the sides, cover it up again and keep turning it for some time, till your cream is like butter, and as thick; put it in your moulds, put them into a pail, and cover it with ice and salt for three quarters of an hour, till you find the water is come to the top of the pail; do not be sparing of salt, for if you do not use enough it will not freeze: dip your mould into water, and turn it out on your plate to send to table.”

He uses jams and cordials extensively as flavourings for his ices and it was possible to buy syrups ready made. Here is the billhead for F Parmentier & Co. Confectioners of 9, Edwards Street, Portman Square for 1812. The purchaser had bought a bottle of orange syrup for 7 shillings, another of lemon at the same price and rout cake at 4 shillings.

 

Gunther’s in Berkeley Square was the most famous of the London tea rooms and there you could have ices brought out for the ladies to eat in their carriages under the spreading lime trees that shaded the square.

The illustration of the three young women is French, from Le Bon Genre series of the early 1820s. It is called L’Embarras du Choix, although the lady on the left seems more interested in staring at the handsome waiter than choosing her ice cream from the menu!

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September 8, 2019 · 10:00 am

If You Decide to Visit Sanditon -Here is What to Wear

The new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sanditon is all the rage on British TV as I write this post, so here is a collection of fashionable outfits to help you decide what to wear to the seaside. First of all, remember to pack your telescope (or you can hire one from most circulating libraries.) A lady never knows when she might need to check that the gentlemen are sticking to their allocated section of beach.

telescope shoppedThe image above is from La Belle Assemblée for October 1809 and shows ‘Sea Coast Promenade Fashion.’

Telescope0001Somewhat later – I do not have a date for this, but it is c1820 – is this ‘Walking Dress’ from Ackermann’s Repository. I can’t help feeling that this lady is looking positively shifty as she readies her telescope.

 

 

Also in October 1809 the same periodical  showed, ‘Bathing Place Assembly Ball Dress’ (below), illustrated with the neat trick of having a mirror at the back. I can’t help feeling that the head and the bosom are slightly out of proportion… It is interesting that both are published in October – surely far too late for the seaside ‘Season’.

Oct 1809 Bathing Place Assembly

If you feel daring you might like to try one of Mrs Bell’s more… interesting (?) confections….

Bathing evening0001

This extraordinary garment (La Belle Assemblée September 1810) is described as ‘Bathing Place Evening Dress’ and looks like nothing more than some form of night-wear with its buttons right down the front and the display of the shocking pantalettes.

Walking dresses for the seaside show a complete disregard for sea breezes, with bonnets and parasols deployed by every lady. These ladies on the beach at Southend seem to be hanging on to skirts and parasols with some difficulty.Southend

dog walking

This lady, walking her dog on the beach with bathing machines behind her, seems positively agitated as she clings to her hat with her shawl whipping around her. This is a plate from Ackermann’s Repository August 1822.

A rather more tranquil day is shown here in another dog-walking scene, although I would not like to be her lady’s maid, trying to get salt water and sand out of those trailing skirts!

parasol dog bathing machines

1809 Bathing dressWhat did one wear to get to and from those bathing machines? The ever-inventive Mrs Bell produced a magnificent ‘Sea Side Bathing Dress’ for the August 1815 edition of La Belle Assemblée. This is not the costume for entering the sea but for wearing to get there, and it is lavishly trimmed in drooping green, presumably to imitate seaweed. Note the bag she is carrying. This contains Mrs Bell’s ‘Bathing Preserver’ which she produced in 1814. You can see it in its bag again below (La Belle Assemblée September 1814). Here the lady is wearing ‘Sea Side Morning Dress’ with ‘Bathing Preserver. Invented & to be had exclusively of Mrs Bell, No.26 Charlotte Street, Bedford Square.’ The Preserver is in the bag lying beside her chair.

1814 Seaside walking dress & bathing preserver.jpg

Ladies normally wore a simple flannel garment with head and arm holes and possibly a weighted hem – ‘a flannel case’. One could provide one’s own or hire one, and this is what Mrs Bell is referring to in her description of the Perserver:

‘The Bathing Preserver‘ is a most ingenious and useful novelty for ladies who frequent the sea-side; as it is intended to provide them with a dress for bathing far more adapted to such purposes than anything of the kind at present in use; and it will be found most necessary and desirable to those ladies who go to the sea-side unprovided with bathing dresses and will relieve them from the nauseous idea of wearing the bathing coverings furnished by the guides [the ‘dippers’ or bathing-women]. Mrs Bell’s Bathing Preserver is made in quite a novel manner to which is attached a cap to be removed at pleasure, made of a delicate silk to keep the head dry. The Preserver is made of such light material that a lady may carry it in a tasteful oiled silk bag of the same size as an ordinary lady’s reticule.’

Discover all about the Georgian seaside, from bathing dresses to royal patronage, in The Georgian Seaside: The English resorts before the railway age. 

The Georgian Seaside Cover_MEDIUM WEB

 

 

 

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September 1, 2019 · 10:45 am

Queen Victoria’s Papa Designs a Clock Tower

In my last blog post I described my Canadian encounters with William, Duke of Clarence, destined to become William IV, and his beautiful, somewhat older lover, Mrs Frances Wentworth. Now to discover what his brother Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathern, was up to in Canada – and why he had cause to be grateful to Mrs Wentworth.

Edward (1767 – 1820) was the fourth son of George III and, like his older brother William, eventually married as part of the desperate race to produce a Hanoverian heir to the throne after the death of George IV’s daughter and only child, Princess Charlotte. Edward married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, widowed sister of Princess Charlotte’s husband Leopold. In 1819 Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent was born, destined to become Queen Victoria. But that was all in the future when Edward was in Canada.

Edward

Destined for a career in the army, all went well at first and in 1789 he was appointed Colonel of the 7th Regiment of Foot. However he returned home without leave and was sent to Gibraltar in disgrace on a much-reduced rank. He found the weather too hot for him, requested a transfer and was sent to Quebec in 1791. He was joined by his mistress, Julie St. Laurent (who eventually spent 28 years with him) and soon settled into Canadian society, although his military service did take him down to the West Indies where he served with distinction.

There are even rumours that Edward married Julie in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Quebec, but I cannot find any proof. It would have been invalid in any case as he needed the King’s permission to marry and a Roman Catholic ceremony would not have been accepted, even if, improbably, Julie had been.

Edward travelled widely in Canada and I encountered him in Annapolis Royal, a delightful historic town on the Bay of Fundy when I stayed in The Bailey House (shown in the photograph below). Edward was entertained here in the 1790s by the Totten family, refugee Loyalists from Westchester, New York. The house retains all its original 1770 features and it was a thrill to stay there.

Bailey House

From 1794 Edward was stationed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, as Commander in Chief of Royal forces in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Halifax has a magnificent harbour and was the Royal Navy’s North American base. Towering above the harbour is the Citadel, a massively fortified military complex. I toiled up the hill in sweltering heat to view it and it is certainly impressive!

Edward brought Julie St. Laurent with him. She had been shunned by Quebec society so he must have been delighted to make the acquaintance the civilian Governor, Sir John Wentworth, and his wife Frances, who had been the lover of Edward’s brother, William.  They welcomed Julie, and the couples became close friends. Perhaps Frances understood the stresses of being a royal mistress!

Edward secured funding for the defenses of Halifax and was instrumental in many improvements in the city, including the building of the Round Church and the Garrison Clock which he apparently helped design. Unfortunately it is covered in netting and scaffolding for restoration at the moment, but it remains a significant landmark.

clock 2

Edward left Canada in 1800, still accompanied by Madame St. Laurent who remained with him until his marriage in 1818. They never returned to Canada.

 

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August 25, 2019 · 11:42 am

The Sailor Prince & the Society Lady – a Canadian Scandal

My surprise is down to my ignorance, obviously, but when I visited the Maritime Provinces of Canada last month I was intrigued to find myself bumping into two of George III’s sons at what seemed like every turn.

To begin with Prince William, (1765 – 1837), George III’s third son. He was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews in 1789 and succeeded his brother George IV to the throne as William IV in June 1830. I have to confess that I had always regarded him as a kind of stop-gap between the Hanoverian kings and his niece, Queen Victoria, who succeeded him. In contrast to George IV he appeared to be a much nicer character with good intentions. I knew he had a lively love life and had a mistress for twenty years – the actress Mrs Jordan who bore him ten children all bearing the surname FitzClarence. They split in 1811, apparently because of William’s money problems, and in 1818, after the death of his niece, and heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte, the fifty three year old prince married twenty five year old Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen and joined the race to produce an heir, essential as it was clear that George IV would have no more children.

Against all the odds – their ages and his history of love affairs – this was a happy marriage and William stayed faithful, although it did not produce the hoped-for heir to the throne.

I also knew that William was a sailor. He joined the Royal Navy as a thirteen year-old midshipman and was present at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1780. His naval career, culminating in his appointment by George IV as Lord High Admiral, led to his nickname, The Mariner King. The unkind caricature of 1827 below shows William in the centre and suggests that only the fool of the family is sent into the navy.

Dof C

William was the only member of the British royal family to visit America before or during the American Revolution and George Washington wrote to approve a plot to kidnap him: “The spirit of enterprise so conspicuous in your plan for surprising in their quarters and bringing off the Prince William Henry and Admiral Digby merits applause; and you have my authority to make the attempt in any manner, and at such a time, as your judgment may direct. I am fully persuaded, that it is unnecessary to caution you against offering insult or indignity to the persons of the Prince or Admiral…” Word of the plot reached the British and William suddenly found himself  with a large armed escort.

That was the extent of my knowledge of William, so I was surprised to come across him in the harbour town of Lunenburg in Nova Scotia. We were staying at the historic Mariner King inn, built in 1830, and there I discovered the history of William’s scandalous connection with the province.

William was captain of the frigate Pegasus and put into harbour at Halifax, further along the coast from Lunenburg, in 1786. He was twenty one, of an amorous disposition, and soon found himself in the bedchamber of Mrs Frances Wentworth, aged forty two.

Portrait_of_Mrs._Theodore_Atkinson_Jr._(Frances_Deering_Wentworth)Frances was the wife of the Governor of New Hampshire and, as Loyalists, they and many others had been forced to flee by the American forces. Apparently she was very unhappy in Canada, missed her son who was in London and fretted at her diminished social status. An affaire with a prince must have raised her morale considerably! However, her husband wrote to the King to complain and William was recalled to England. (In the painting above of 1765 by John Singleton Copley she was still married to her first husband, Theodore Atkinson. he was her cousin, as was John Wentworth whom she married withing a week of Theodore’s death. Image in public domain.)

It seems William returned to Mrs Wentworth’s company in 1787 and again in 1788, causing a scandal in Halifax society. She apparently brazened it out  “like a haughty Queen” and her husband John left the city to serve as H.M. Surveyor of Forests, a sinecure presumably organised by the King as a sweetener. He did receive some reward for his patient humiliation when, in 1791, he and Frances visited London. Frances renewed her acquaintanceship with the Prince and he helped secure the appointment of John as Governor of Nova Scotia. John was created a baronet in 1795. (He is shown in the undated portrait below. Artist unknown. Image in public domain.)

Governor_John_Wentworth

So, back to Lunenburg, founded in 1753. The second owner of what is now the Mariner King Inn was an enthusiastic supporter of the new monarch and named his brigantine, The William and so it must have seemed an appropriate name for an inn.

Lunenburg is a World heritage site, still laid out on the original grid pattern of 1753 by army surveyors and full of delightful, well-maintained, houses of the 18th and 19th century – it is well worth visiting if you ever find yourself in Nova Scotia. At the foot of this post is a glimpse of its colourful streets with 18th century houses, ‘updated’ in the 19th century.

In my next blog post I will explore the connection of William’s brother Edward with Canada – and we meet Mrs Wentworth again.

Lunenburg

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June 22, 2019 · 11:47 am

The ‘Romance’ of Duelling?

Duelling was very much a feature of the Georgian and early Regency period, the outcome of the code of honour that meant that a gentleman must defend his name and reputation (or that of a lady) against any slur or be branded a coward.

Duel

 

The rules were strict and a gentleman was supposed to know them and to possess a set of duelling pistols, just in case. It all seems very romantic and heroic with images of misty dawn meadows, the seconds standing by while the duellists, with stiff upper lips, casually make their preparations and discuss with their friends where to take breakfast later.

The print above, mysteriously captioned ‘Something Like It’, is from The Sporting Magazine, 1806 and shows a duellist displaying the correct degree of sang froid: having made his shot he stands waiting calmly for his opponent to take his. He has prudently removed all his upper clothing to prevent cloth being carried into any wound. The only information the magazine gives is that the meeting arose from, ‘a recent dispute in the sporting world…’

Even prominent politicians took part in duels. Canning (Foreign Secretary) versus Castlereagh (Secretary of War) in 1809, over Canning’s potting to have Castlereagh replaced, resulted in Canning being wounded in the thigh. In 1829 the Duke of Wellington met Lord Winchelsea following a dispute over the Catholic Emancipation Act. Winchelsea fired wide, Wellington shot a hole through his coat – whether deliberately or not is not recorded.

But duelling could have very serious consequences. Estimates of fatalities in England are about 15%, but they may very well have been higher, for the consequences of killing your man could be a trial for murder so duelling deaths may have been concealed as accidents. Even quite highly placed men found themselves taking an enforced holiday on the continent while their relatives exerted influence to allow them to return safely.

In Norfolk, on the B1149 near Aylsham, just south of its junction with the B1145, is what must be one of the National Trust’s tiniest sites, a little railed enclosure with an urn at the centre. This commemorates the last duel fought in Norfolk, a political affair. On 20th August 1698 Sir Henry Hobart MP of Blickling Hall, the leader of the Norfolk Whigs, met Oliver le Neve, a popular Norfolk Tory squire. Hobart had just lost his seat in the election of 1698 and accused le Neve of spreading rumours to the effect that Hobart was a coward and had behaved as such when he was Gentleman of the Horse for William III on campaign in Ireland. le Neve denied saying any such thing, making the counter-accusation that Hobart had fabricated it.

They met at what was then Cawston Heath, apparently without seconds, and fought with swords. le Neve was wounded in the arm but then stabbed Hobart in the stomach. Hobart died the next day at Blickling Hall. le Neve fled to Holland but became a Tory hero and the influence of his supporters allowed him to return to England in 1700, when he stood trial at Thetford Assizes and was acquitted. The memorial urn was erected by Sir Henry’s widow.

P1010193

I had accepted duelling pretty much at face value and have even written duels into novels, but the true human cost of this highly sensitive sense of honour really came home to me while I was researching Driving Through Georgian Britain: the great coaching routes for the modern traveller. (Due out in July 2019). Tracing the route of the Great North Road, I explored the old churchyard of Sawtry St Andrews, Huntingdonshire.

The church had been pulled down in the Victorian period and the churchyard now is a patch of overgrown scrub and trees with gravestones leaning drunkenly at all angles.

 

Sawtry St A

I don’t know what made me clean the weeds away from one, a slate slab with the top broken off, but what I could read was:

[…] Leicester

[…] departed this Life

25th Day of June 1756

Aged 37 Years.

Near to this Stone Who’ere thou art draw near.

In Pity drop one pious friendly Tear;

Far from his Native Home, he lost His Life,

By One who seem’d his Friend; Ill timed strife.

The best of Husbands; to his Children dear

Courteous to all, and to his Friend Sincere.

Remorceless Fate, well may the Wretch feel woe,

While he in endless Bliss, and Pleasures flow.

I was so moved by this that I was determined to find the name of this man who, it seemed, was the victim of a duel between friends. The local Records Office supplied his name – James Ratford of Wotherington – and the confirmation that he was killed in a duel. So far I cannot find out anything more about the circumstances or about James himself – not helped by the fact that whoever made the entry in the burial register must have misheard the place name, because I can’t locate Wotherington anywhere. But the thought of that sorrowing widow and fatherless children and the wreck of his friend’s life has made me think twice about the romance of duelling!

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May 13, 2019 · 11:50 am

Respectfully Inscribed?

This striking image was amongst a mixed lot of prints that I bought at auction and it struck me immediately as a strange choice for a dedications frontispiece!

The crippled ex-soldier begging looks angry to me – and who can blame him? He has lost a leg in the service of his country and has ended up in rags on the street having to beg for a living. The details are fascinating – the straw padding for his stump, the remains of his uniform jacket, the layers of clothing his torn stocking reveals.

I was also intrigued by the verse at the bottom –

Some write for pleasure, some for spite;

But want of Money makes me Write.

What was the book – and why the almost pointed dedication to the ‘Tradesmen of Lancashire; More Particularly of Manchester.’ Was it debts to these tradesmen that made the author write?

By searching for the inscription I found a British Museum entry for an uncoloured version from “Edward Orme’s “The passions humorously delineated…” (based on John Collier [pseud.: Tim Bobbins]’s “Human Passions delineated”, 1773).” With that I was able to find the whole book on-line in the Wellcome Library, including the twenty-five plates which show a range of emotions – anger, grief, contentment etc.

But who was Tim Bobbin, other than , apparently, John Collier? This is his self-portrait – an extraordinary, self-mocking, image that does not seem at first glance

John Collier by himself.

to be an 18th century man at all, until you realise that his close-cropped hair was to go under a wig.

John Collier, who liked to style himself ‘the Lancashire Hogarth’ – presumably with tongue in cheek – was born in Urmstone in Lancashire in 1708 and became a schoolteacher in Milnrow in Rochdale. He married, had nine children, and unsurprisingly needed extra money, so he began to write satirical poetry in Lancashire dialect. A View of the Lancashire Dialect, or, Tummus and Mary, published in 1746, is considered to be the first significant example of the dialect in print.

Human Passions Delineated came out in 1773 and my plate is from the colourised version which was published by Edward Orme in 1810.

Collier died in 1786 and was buried in St Chad’s churchyard, Rochdale. His own epitaph, written twenty minutes before he died, “Jack of all trades…left to lie i’th dark” joined other humorous inscriptions that he had written for stones in the churchyard – I assume as commissions. He certainly must have been interesting, to put it politely, as a teacher, a parent and a husband!

Sir Walter Scott led a campaign to have his grave restored in 1792. He was held in such esteem that a thousand people donated one pound each and a stone and iron railing were installed.

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April 23, 2019 · 1:00 pm

Just A Dip in the Street? One of London’s Lost Rivers

Last week, on a visit to London, I got off a bus on Ludgate Hill, walked down to Ludgate Circus and turned left down New Bridge Street towards the Thames, ignoring Fleet Street rising up straight ahead. It is something that workers and tourists do in their thousands every day of the week, but I wonder how many of us think about why there is such a steep hill and dip in the street just there. The clue is in Fleet Street and the valley was, of course, caused by the River Fleet, now flowing under New Bridge Street in the guise of a sewer to its virtually invisible outfall in the Thames.

The map below is a section of Cary’s New Plan of London (1784)

Blackfriars

Travelling about London one tends not to notice its dips and hills. I have posted in the past about taking the 23 bus and experiencing the dip not only of the Fleet but also the Tyburn Brook in Oxford Street. On the map above the streets with ‘hill’ names help us map the course of the Fleet. At the top of Fleet Market, formed when the river was covered over in 1733, Holborn Hill and Snow Hill dip down from west and east and the course of the river continues northwards under Saffron Hill.

New Bridge Streetfull size

The image above is from Ackermann’s Repository May 1812, “from a drawing by that eminent artist in water-colour painting, Mr Frederick Nash.” The artist shows the scene as though he is standing in the middle of Ludgate Circus (although the maps of the time do not give the junction a specific name). The bump of Blackfriars Bridge is just visible in the far distance, Fleet Street is to the right and Ludgate Hill to the left.

“The obelisk at the north end of this street, as shewn in the view, was erected to give safety to the public crossing, in the year 1775, during the mayoralty of the celebrated John Wilkes.” (Wilkes (1725 – 1797) was a  radical, journalist, libertine and Member of Parliament. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of American independence although he grew increasingly conservative with age.) The obelisk has long gone, unfortunately.

The Fleet rises on Hampstead Heath, as does the Tyburn, but there is no trace these days other than the three swimming ponds on the Heath. In the Middle Ages it was still navigable by barges as far as Holborn Bridge, to the north of the section in this map of 1563. Fleet Bridge is named and below it was the Bridewell Bridge , “said to resemble to Rialto at Venice” according to Ackermann’s – it  certainly seems to be covered. Before the Great Fire it was made of wood, but was replaced in stone with two arches.

Blackfriars 1563

Bridewell, which has now vanished, began as a palace and rapidly deteriorated into a prison. I traced its history here.

In 1733 the length between the Holborn and Ludgate bridges was covered and became Fleet Market – the double row of stalls can be seen in Roque’s map of 1738/47 (below). The Fleet Prison shows clearly, middle top, – the curve of the wall is still reflected in the building line today.

Below Fleet Bridge the  Bridewell Bridge has disappeared and the Fleet itself is labelled ‘Fleet Ditch’, an apt name by then – it was a stinking mass of refuse. Pope in his Dunciad writes of it:

Fleet Ditch, with disemboguing streams,

Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames;

The King of Dykes! than whom no sluice of mud,

With deeper sable blots the silver flow.

Or, to quote Ackermann’s rather more prosaic description, “…in the state of a muddy and loathsome ditch, until the building of Blackfriars-Bridge in the year 1768. In the place of this ditch, which had become a serious public nuisance, has sprung up the noble street, exhibited in this view [ie the print above], called New Bridge-street.”

Blackfriars Roque

The original Blackfriars Bridge was begun in 1760 and was finally completed in 1769, although it was open to pedestrians in 1766 and to riders in 1768. It was intended to name it for the Prime Minister, William Pitt, as the remaining inscription still confusingly explains, but popular usage soon had it named for the area, the site of the old Black Friars’ monastery. Repairs took place in 1832, but the bridge deteriorated to such an extent that a new one was proposed. It took years, the building of the Thames Embankment and the demands of the railways, but in 1869 and new bridge was opened. (The parallel railway bridge, just downstream, opened in 1864).

After exploring the area, the marvellous Art Nouveau Blackfriar pub just before the bridge is an excellent place to have lunch and to admire the depiction of the monks who once inhabited the area. (Get there early – it is very popular!)

 

 

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