This postcard is from well outside my usual time frame, but I thought it too good not to share today. It was sent by a female friend in London in October 1910 to one of my grandmother’s cousins. So it was neither timely nor a nasty hint from a man! Perhaps, like me, the sender picked up cards when they caught her eye and just used them as the mood took her.
This one tickled me so much when we found it after Nancy died that I’ve kept it ever since. Enjoy!
Filed under courtship & marriage, Love and Marriage, Traditions
1 Sunday 26th February – Saturday 4th March 1815
Two hundred years ago today the King of Elba – Napoleon Bonaparte – was putting the final touches to his audacious plan to escape from his tiny island kingdom and take back his empire. He knew his position was increasingly insecure – at best he faced an impoverished exile, for he knew King Louis was unlikely to keep paying his pension. At worst he feared assassination or imprisonment. The print below is a detail of one published by Phillips in 1814 showing Napoleon on his way to Elba.
At the Congress in Vienna the great powers negotiated over the future of Europe while in London people argued abo
ut the falling price of wheat, worried over the problem of unemployed ex-soldiers – many of them seriously disabled – begging on the streets and enjoyed some of the fruits of peace such as cheap bread for the poor, continental tourism for the rich.
I was intrigued to discover just what Londoners knew about the crisis on the continent as it unfolded and how they were spending their time when they did know that the “Corsican Monster” was on the loose again, so in addition to my usual blogs about life in Georgian London I will be posting a weekly account every Thursday of London life in the shadow of war and the countdown to the Battle of Waterloo.
On Elba that Sunday morning the weather was fine and calm. Rumours were rife on the island that Napoleon was escaping, although they did not appear to have reached the naval ships who were, rather casually, keeping an eye on him. Napoleon gave his morning levée dressed with great care in the coat of a grenadier officer in the Guards and wearing the Légion d’Honneur. He spent the day in last-minute preparations and paperwork and finally, after nightfall, accompanied his suite down to the harbour, to board the brig Inconstant along with the grenadiers of the Guard and his suite – about five hundred people in all. Other troops – Polish lancers, gunners and so forth, were loaded into the Saint Esprit, a merchant ship and the Caroline, a small flat-bottomed ship that could be run up on to a beach. In total there were about 1,100 men, four cannon, and forty horses. A cannon fired and, on a dangerously light breeze, Napoleon was carried slowly away from Elba.
Meanwhile, in London, divine service was held at Carlton House by the Reverend
s Blomberg and Clerke and the newspapers were speculating that another row of properties were to be purchased by the Prince Regent in Brighton to allow for the expansion of the Pavilion. The likely cost was commented upon – unfavourably.
On Monday, while Napoleon’s little flotilla was creeping north-west on the very lightest of winds, missing British warships by the skin of his teeth and incredible good luck, Henry Aston Barker, proprietor of the Panorama, Leicester Square was advertising that “The beautiful VIEW OF MALTA will positively CLOSE on Saturday 11th March. The splendid Battle of Vittoria will also be closed in a few weeks. Open from 10 till dusk. Admission to each painting 1s.” Interest in the French wars was, perhaps, fading. In this print the entrance to the Panorama can just be seen to the side of Isaac Newton’s drapery business with “Rome, Malta” over the door.
Ironically most newspapers carried an advertisement informing readers that “PRINCE LUCIEN BONAPARTE’S MAGNIFICENT COLLECTION OF PICTURES is now open to the Public, and will be Sold by Private Contract, individually, at the New Gallery, no.60 Pall-mall. Admittance 1s. Descriptive catalogue 1s 6d.”
The local papers had, understandably, more parochial concerns. Readers could discover that a reward of £100 was offered for the discovery of the murder of Mary Hall, wife of Henry Hall, labourer at Dagnall in Buckinghamshire, with a free pardon to any accomplice making such discovery, or be amazed by the item in the Birmingham Daily Post announcing under the heading “Early Closing” that the “drapers of the town of Bromsgrove have resolved in future to close their establishments at ten instead of eleven o’clock on Saturday nights.” Such liberality to the employees! The London papers also reported that, “In consequence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer not having proposed any new tax on beer the principal brewers of Portsmouth and neighbourhood have met together and have decided to lower the price of beer this day to 5d per pot.”
Far more seriously, from Vienna, the Times reported, ”The discussions on the slave trade have been very warm at the Congress. Lord Castlereagh was extremely anxious to take with him its abolition, but he met with opponents worthy of him. It was in vain that he made a pompous display of philanthropy; it was thought to be visible that he was more occupied by the interest of his own country, than by the love of humanity.”
For those for whom the cost of beer was of little importance, Mr T W Lord advertised dancing lessons: “to give instruction in the most fashionable style and by his easy & superior methods they are soon perfectly qualified to appear in the first circles. The German Waltz may be attained in Six Lessons.” The print below is from La Belle Assemblee (1817) and shows a waltz class in action.
Meanwhile Napoleon’s ships continued unmolested, or even challenged, and at 1 p.m. on March 1st they passed Antibes and anchored at Golfe Juan. The first troops to land met no opposition and just after 4 p.m. Napoleon was rowed ashore to set foot once more on French soil. Antibes was too well defended to attack, so Napoleon went into Cannes, where he met neither opposition, nor much enthusiasm, and led his army north up the rough road that led to Grasse and the north.
By hard marching over very difficult terrain he reached Digne, 87 miles from the coast, on Saturday 4th March. He was greeted with enthusiasm – and the news of his landing finally reached Paris by telegraph. London and Vienna were quite unaware of what had occurred.
On 5th March I’ll blog about the next week, as London, in the grip of the Corn Law riots, continued in ignorance of the invasion, the King of France dithered and the news of Napoleon’s escape reached Vienna – and the Duke of Wellington.
Battlefield Brides – three Waterloo heroes and the women who went to war with them:
Sarah Mallory – A Lady For Lord Randall (May 2015)
Annie Burrows – A Mistress For Major Bartlett
Louise Allen – A Rose for Major Flint (July 2015)
Filed under Dance, Entertainment, Napoleon, Regency caricatures, Waterloo
I have just bought a bound volume of the Lady’s Magazine for 1815 and was curious to see whether St Valentine’s Day is mentioned. It is, but only in this “Proclamation” by Cupid, addressed “to the Two-penny Postmen, on Saint Valentine’s Day” “From our Court at Matrimony Place, in the Wandsworth Road.”
Letter Carrier and Bellman in red cut-away coat with blue collar, black top hat with gold band and cockade, grey waistcoat and trousers. From Cunnington & Lucas: Occupational Costume in England
“Heralds of my fame, on this auspicious morn outstrip the winds in their course; fly to accomplish my wishes, Leave not a cook-maid, a house-maid, or any other maid, from Hyde Park Corner to Whitechapel Church, without the dulcet murmurs of her faithful swain; who, in sending his tributary stanzas, not only soothes the soul of dear Dulcinea, but puts two-pence into the pockets of his majesty’s minsters. Remember that you are the bearers of hearts and darts, of fears and tears, of hopes and ropes, of pains and brains, of eyes and sighs, of loves and doves; of true lovers’s [sic] knots, of Hymen’s altars, and all the vast variety of inventions that fond affection so delights to lay at the feet of some adored object, on this day of days. Remember all this, I say; and if you think any letter you may have, from its paltry sneaking look; from it not being hot-pressed, wire-wove and gilt edged; or from its want of a kiss dropped in wax on the envelope, relates only to some petty affair of business, put it in your pocket to be delivered at your leisure, or not at all if you please; and hasten to deliver all those that relate to love and me, with the light foot, and the bounding speed of the mountain deer.
Ye mounted post-lads that amble on bony nags to all the environs of this great city, spare not the spur on this day of love; wear out your whips my boys, on the lank sides of your Rosinantes; be utterly careless as to whom you may cover with mud in your career of fame; emulate the never-to-be-forgotten Johnny Gilpin of Cheapside memory, and lay the dirt about you “on this side and on that”; for, oh think, some dairy-maid at Enfield, some bar-maid at Islington, some thresher of corn at Highgate, some turnpike-man at Bow, may be dying with expectation of the promised or expected Valentine.
Do this, ye letter-bearers, as ye hope for my favor. Do this, and I will prosper all your affairs of love; not a postman shall pine; but from my influence all the respective fair ones, of whom they may chance to be enamoured, if they offer marriage, shall embrace them and their offers together. But tremble if you disappoint me! The ceaseless sigh of love shall be your’s [sic]; I will make your hearts heavier than your bags of new halfpence are, since the old ones are laid aside; I will make all those females ye shall be in love with, cruel and flinty-hearted, til they shall drive you to despair, and suicides among the tribe of two-penny postmen be as common as a fog in November, or a cutting wind in March.
Farewell!”
The Two-penny Post replaced the Penny Post in London following an Act of 1802 which meant that the cost of sending a letter anywhere in the country was a uniform two pence (2d). In 1805 the cost to post a letter to the country rather than a town, went up to 3d leaving the town post at 2d. From the tone of the “Proclamation” (and the snide dig at money going into the pockets of ministers) the increase was still smarting thirteen years later!
From 1773 the postman would have worn a uniform, shown at the top of the post. His brass buttons were inscribed with his personal number. He would ring a bell so you could give him your letters to be posted (a sort of human letterbox, in effect) and he would deliver to the door using the ‘postman’s knock’ a distinctive double blow. There were no stamps as we known them on letters at the time – those came in during Victoria’s reign – and letters might be pre-paid or paid for on receipt.
I am intrigued that Cupid mentions only working women. Would those of the middle and upper classes expect their Valentines to be hand-delivered by their swain or his servant? Or would they coyly pretend they did not indulge in such behavior? And yet Cupid mentions expensive “hot-pressed, wire-wove and gilt edged” writing paper – surely beyond the means of the suitor of a milkmaid or thresher of corn?
Post boy 1805. His uniform is blue waistcoat with sleeves and brass buttons, buff-coloured breeches, black boots and brown top hat. (From Cunnington & Lucas. Occupational Costume)
Filed under courtship & marriage, Love and Marriage, Street life
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