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“There! you see!” cried Mary, in an ecstacy; “just as I said! Heir to Sir Walter Elliot! I was sure that would come out, if it was so. Depend upon it, that is a circumstance which his servants take care to publish, wherever he goes. But, Anne, only conceive how extraordinary! I wish I had looked at him more. I wish we had been aware in time who it was, that he might have been introduced to us. What a pity that we should not have been introduced to each other! Do you think he had the Elliot countenance? I hardly looked at him, I was looking at the horses; but I think he had something of the Elliot countenance. I wonder the arms did not strike me! Oh! the great-coat was hanging over the pannel, and hid the arms, so it did; otherwise, I am sure, I should have observed them, and the livery too; if the servant had not been in mourning, one should have known him by the livery.”
Persuasion, Chapter 12.
Last week I bored you all silly by my explanations of livery, the significance of livery colours and how they were worn in Jane Austen’s era by certain servants of the rich. Today I’d like to consider livery and coaches, for it is an integral part of the livery story and we ought to discuss it for the sake of completeness.
The passage from Persuasion quoted above is so gloriously funny-I love the way this glimpse of William Walter sets Mary Musgrove on to long descriptions of the Elliot Countenance -( shade of Mrs Austen and the Austen nose, perhaps?) – but it draws our attention to how livery was used, and how significant it was. Because Mr Elliot’s servant is in mourning for Mr Elliot’s dead wife, -he is wearing black, not the usual livery of a coachman- Mary Musgrove is unable to recognise the orange cuffs and capes of the Elliot livery. She was also frustrated in making a positive identification of her father’s errant heir by the fact that his Arms, painted onto the side panel of his curricle, are hidden from view by a great-coat.
If you were wealthy enough to afford a carriage and all its attendant expenses, and, of course, you were possessed of Arms, then you could have these painted on your coach to announce to the world just who was the owner of the vehicle. Jane Austen’s father, George Austen, at one point owned a carriage when they lived at Steventon, and this was decorated with teh Austen crest. In Jane Austen : A Family Record by Deirdre le Faye, we find these comments:
It seems that by now Mr Austen’s income was reasonably good, because entries in his bank account suggest that in the summer of 1784 he brought a chariot- a small carriage drawn by two horses and carrying three passengers- for the benefit of his wife and daughters.
(Page 50)
Anna Austen, the daughter of Jane’s eldest brother, James Austen, wrote about local rumours that spread about the carriage -which was either new or newly repainted-at the time of her uncle, Henry Austen’s marriage to Eliza de Feuillide in December 1797, and this is also quoted in Le Faye’s book:
About the time of Mr Henry Austen’s marriage with his first Wife his father set up a carriage which not unnaturally, joe on its panels( pic) the family crest; namely a Stag on a Crown Mural. The latter circumstance was accounted for, in his own way, by a neighbouring Squire, who reported that “Mr Austen had put a coronet on his carriage because of his son’s being married to a French Countess”.
THis is one of George Austen’s bookplates, and it is decorated with the Austen crest, quite as Anna Austen described it. This would have appeared on his coach, on the side door panel. The squire mentioned by Anna Austen- a Digweed?- obvious was not aware that Mr Austen was entitle to bear his own arms and crest. The glory of the Austen’s coach was short lived: in 1798 it was put away in storage for new taxes imposed on carriage owners made it far too expensive for George Austen to continue to maintain.
If we look at some images of carriage from the time, it will become clear as to where the Arms would have been on show. These images are all taken from my copy of William Felton’s Treaties on Carriages: comprehending coaches, chariots, phaetons, curricles, whiskeys, &c. : together with their proper harness (1794). Fenton was a London coachmaker and his book, in two volumes, gives us a mass of intricate detail as to how carriages in the late 18th century were made, complete with all their fittings.
The first we shall consider is a chariot, in this case a neat town chariot.
You can see, and do remember you can enlarge all these images by clicking on them, in order to examine the details, that the coat of arms of the owner and his crest are placed centrally on the door and side panel of the coach. You can appreciate that the arms and crest of the owner are clearly visible and would be very noticeable to any passer-by.
And here, below, is an image of an elegant Chariot, very elaborately decorated, but again with the arms of the owner clearly visible on the door panel.
Mr Elliot is riding from Lyme to Bath in a curricle, that smart gentleman-about-town’s vehicle so beloved of Charles Musgrove, who was eager to compare it with his own,
They had nearly done breakfast, when the sound of a carriage (almost the first they had heard since entering Lyme) drew half the party to the window. It was a gentleman’s carriage, a curricle, but only coming round from the stable-yard to the front door — somebody must be going away. It was driven by a servant in mourning.
Here is Felton’s impression of a Proper Curricle:
The Arms of the owner are shown on the side panel. These would of course be hidden from view if covered by a coat slung over the side as in Mr Elliott’s case at Lyme.
Here is Felton’s page illustrating the different ways in which Arms could be used to decorate a coach:
They range from the simple to the hideous in my very humble opinion.Here is his price list for adding such ornament to a vehicle :
So, that is why Mary Musgrove’s attempts to identify the owner of the curricle were stymied: in this case neither the arms nor the livery of the servant could help her because neither were on show.
I ought to tell you, however that, had Mr Elliot been in a larger coach, and had he and his servant not been in mourning for his unlamented wife, there was another way to discern the identity of the owner. Hammer clothes, which covered the coachman’s seat and which could be very decorative items, were also another way to identify the family’s livery, as they were often made in livery colours and could be embroidered with representations of the family’s coat of arms. Here is Felton’s description of them:
Hammer-cloths are among the principal ornaments in a carriage; they are a cloth covering to the coachman’s seat, made to various patterns agreeable to the occupier’s fancy. The fullness of the plaiting of the cloth , its depth and the quality of the trimmings thereon proportions the expense (sic-jfw) to almost any amount…
And here are some very elaborate examples:
John Cussans , in The Handbook of Heraldry, tells us that
The Colours of Hammercloths are regulated by the same laws as liveries.
Page 314.
Now, I have no reference for this but I doubt that a colourful hammer cloth covered in gold or silver lace and made in the heraldic colours of a family’s livery would be on show at a time of full mourning. If the servant who normally would have worn livery was dressed in black due to the custom of mourning, then I feel sure that a hammer cloth would also be subdued in hue. So if one had been on display it would still not have helped Mary Musgrove locate the owners identity in the inn- yard at Lyme. But as Mr Elliot was in a curricle and not a larger coach, no hammer cloth was to be seen. Poor Mary, therefore could only rely on her interpretation of The Elliot Countenance, and the information supplied to them by the waiter.
I was very kindly invited to an evening at the Lyme Regis Museum recently, to celebrate a very important gift ( or, more correctly, a series of gifts) that have been made to the Museum’s collection by Diana Shervington.
©The Philpott Museum Lyme Regis
Diana, pictured at the evening, above, is, as you know, descended doubly from Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Knight,( booth her grandmothers were his grand-daughters) and she has given many a talk at the museum using Austen family relics to illustrate them. She has now decided to donate these items to the museum permanently, and they will be on show there as part of the permanent collection.
©The Philpott Museum Lyme Regis
The items she so generously donated include those in the photograph above: spectacles and their case which both belonged to Mrs Austen, Jane Austen’s mother; a set of “spilkins” a game at which Jane Austen excelled according to The Memoir of her written by her nephew, James Edward Austen Leigh;
Jane Austen was successful in everything that she attempted with her fingers. None of us could throw spilikins in so perfect a circle, or take them off with so steady a hand.
Chapter 5
A set of bone counters inscribed with the alphabet rather like the ones mentioned in the word game section of Chapter 41 of Emma,and some gaming fish.
She also donated some bone counters and a box for the game of “Merelles”; a kerchief with lace edging and a very lovely and fine lace cap worn by ladies indoors during Jane Austen’s era. Go here to see all the items and read about the evening which I sadly could not attend due to previous commitments.
So…this very generous donation now gives us all another excuse to visit that lovely town in Dorset, with its remarkable situation:
… the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which in the season is animated with bathing-machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better. The scenes in its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of country, and still more its sweet, retired bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest-trees and orchards of luxuriant growth declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of Wight: these places must be visited, and visited again to make the worth of Lyme understood.
Persuasion, Chapter 11.
and it is, of course, where Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth’s love began to revive, and where Jane Austen herself appeared to have been so happy attending balls at the Assembly Rooms and renting Mr Pynes house.
I should like to thank the Museum for permission to use their lovely images in this post.
Yesterday an exhibition devoted to examining the life and works of the 18th century painter, Johan Zoffany, opened at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. Johan Zoffany R.A: Society Observed will run there until the 12th February 2012, and then it will transfer to London to the Royal Academy, where it will be on show from the 10th March until the 10th June 2012.
Mary Webster, who has made a very special study of the life and works of Zoffany has written an amazing book to accompany the exhibit, and this has also been published by Yale.
I can’t review the exhibit yet, but I can write about the book, as I’ve been reading it for the past couple of months. Zoffany was born in 1733 near Frankfurt am Maim. His family was associated with the local court and then moved to Regensburg. Zoffany received his art education in Rome, which he visited on two occasions and then became court painter to the elector of Trier. Below, is his self portrait:
After his marriage in 1760 he moved to London to try his luck as an artist. He set up a studio in Covent Garden, where he came to the notice of the leading actor of the day, David Garrick. Other actors flocked to his studios to be immortalised in oils.The patronage of Garrick brought him to the attention of the powerful and the great, most notably The Earl of Bute who gave him many family commissions. The Earl was the young George III’s prime minister, and so it was probably through this link that Zoffany began to receive court commissions. It also helped that he spoke German as a first language,and he received many commissions and help from Queen Charlotte, George III’s wife, who was, of course, German.
His paintings of the royal family are very familiar- and so I will not comment on them here. What I found interesting, on reading the book, were his portraits of lesser known individuals, as below in his portrait of Charles Francois Dumergue, then London’s most fashionable dentist. Mr Dumergue, who was born in France , was Dentist to the Royal Family. The painting dates from 1780-81:
His official title was Court Operator of the Teeth. He was also dentist to the Prince of Wales from 1785 until 1814. He was a great friend of Zoffany and their friendship lasted all their lives. He was also great friend with Matthew Boulton and James Watt the inventors and engineers, and also with Sir Walter Scott. This portrait by Zoffany, below, of Sophia Dunmergue , Mr Dumergue’s daughter, dates from the same period:
Zoffany’s great conversation pieces, painted in London, are also well-known and my favourite is of the Sharpe family:
Here they all are, on a musical water party sailing on the Thames near Fulham. The family is shown as the sort of people you would love to meet: talented, musical, interesting, fun. The family included Granville Sharp ,the lawyer : he is shown holding a sheet of music for his sister,Elizabeth Prowse, who is playing the fortepiano. You can see them in the centre of the picture. Granville Sharp was of course,the principal agent in fighting the very famous case of James Somersett, the black slave, wihc was heard before Lord Mansfield, and as Mary Webster remarks:
It was in this case that Mansfield in 1772 pronounced his famous verdict that Somersett must go free since no English law sanctioned slavery. Sharp consequently founded the Society for the Abolition of Slavery…
This is all very well, I hear you say, but is there any more to Zoffany to make him an object of interest to we Janeites? The answer is, yes. Empahtically, yes. For, in 1783 he travelled to India to paint there. Professional disappointments and a lack of commissions forced him to look elsewhere than England for work. And he looked to the world of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of Bengal, shown below, in a portrait with his second wife, Marian, and her Indian servant:
Warren Hastings gave Zoffany his enthusiastic patronage. And this is the interesting link, for Hastings had many associations with Jane Austen’s family. He had known Jane’s mother’s family, the Leighs of Adlestrop since childhood. He entrusted the care of his son from his first marriage to Mr and Mrs Austen, when they were first married and living at Deane in Hampshire. Seven year old George Hastings was the Reverend Austen’s first pupil, sent back to England from India to be educated. Sadly, he died while in their care, in 1764 of a “putrid throat”.His death affected Mrs Austen dreadfully. Mrs Austen had become so much attached to him that she always
declared that his death had been as great a grief to her as if he had been a child of her own
(Quoted in Jane Austen: A Family Record by Deirdre Le Faye, page 18)
Mr Austen’s sister, Philadelphia also knew Hastings. A poor but genteel woman, she travelled to India to find a husband in 1752 and married the elderly Tysoe Hancock in 1753. Both she and her elderly husband were close friends with him. He was godfather to their only daughter, Eliza, known to us all as the glamourous Countess de Feuillide, and then wife of Jane Austen’s brother, Henry . Sadly, hurtful gossip surrounded this group of friends:
The close friendship between Hastings and the Hancock’s coupled with the fact that the latter had been childless for so long before Betsey’s birth, gave scope for spiteful gossip to suggest that she was not Hancock’s daughter. The rumour was spread by the malicious Mrs Strachey, whose husband was secretary to Lord Clive and her slander was successful in so far as Clive wrote to his wife in the late summer of 1765: “In no circumstances whatever keep company with Mrs Hancock for it is beyond a doubt that she abandoned herself with Mr Hastings, indeed I would rather you had no acquaintance with the ladies who have been in India, they stand in such little esteem in England that their company cannot be of credit to Lady Clive”
(Le Faye, as above, page 30)
Whatever the case regarding the parentage of Eliza, Zoffany’s works painted while he lived in India give us a rare glimpse into the strange world that Philadelphia Austen moved to in order to survive : and the world the the Crofts in Persuasion inhabited:
“What a great traveller you must have been, ma’am!” said Mrs. Musgrove to Mrs. Croft.
”Pretty well, ma’am, in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies and back again, and only once; besides being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies.”
Persuasion, Chapter 8
and the place where Colonel Brandon saw active service;
But can we wonder that with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her, (for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies), she should fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps — but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange.
Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31.
This is a fascinating portrait by Zoffany of the Blair family , painted in 1786-7. Colonel William Blair was originally of Balthayock in Perthshire, but ,when painted with his family, was then Colonel of the Bengal Army and commandant of the garrison of Chunar 20 miles above Benares.
This is another conversation piece of the Impey family dating from 17883. Sir Elijah Impey was a lawyer and judge. Note the Indian band in the background, and just how exhausted poor Mrs Impey looks in the heat.
The chapters dealing with Zoffany’s life and work in India are fascinating.Mary Webster’s exquisite research into the lives of the sitter and the servants provides us with a wonderful and detailed view of word of the English and servants of the East India company in India. I am throughly enjoying savouring this very new topic, espaillaly as it is something that seems to have held a stung hold on the young Jane Austen’s imagination: she wrote about life in India in both her juvenilia and her adult works.
This book is worth having for the joy of reading these Indian chapters, but , as you can see from this cursory review, there is much, much more to be enjoyed. Mary Wester’s prose is very readable and informative. She gives fascinating details of late 18th century life to answer the questions that natually arise when studying Zoffany’s works in detail. It’s a heavy tome, and very expensive at £75, but I can truly recommend it to you
We have investigated the links between Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen before on this site, and so when I heard today’s Woman’s Hour programme, which contained a discussion of the two, I though you might like the opportunity to share it.
The programme was a discussion of the merits of the two authors, and included a comparison of their respective fame during their own lifetimes
In the early 19th century Jane Austen was certainly less famous,and less well-connected to the Romantic literary world than The Great Maria, but now that position has changed totally , with Maria Edgeworth being relatively unknown.
A new edition of Maris Edgeworth’s book Patronage, edited by Professor John Mullan was published on the 4th July and the discussion marked that event. John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London,and we have heard him take part in Amanda Vickery’s Voices from the Old Bailey programmes last year. He hosts the Guardian Book Club, and contributes regularly to the Newsnight Review, LRB and the New Statesman. Patronage is a novel that is of interest to Janeites as it is considered that it may have influenced Jane Austen when she was writing Persuasion.
If you go here you can listen again to the programme -the piece on Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth began approximately 30 minutes into the broadcast. Scroll almost to the bottom of the page to see the details. You can download a podcast of the programme, or simply “listen again” to it if you go here; it will be available from tomorrow for seven days, I think, and will of course be dated the 7th July.
Do enjoy it, as I think you will find it interesting.
If you would like to read about the walk around Lyme Regis as Jane Austen knew it, in the company of Admiral Croft ( a.k.a. Fred Humphrey, shown below on the Cobb in front of the steps known as “Granny’s Teeth” )…
(©The Lyme Regis Museum Blog)
…then do click here to go to a report of the talk on the Lyme Regis Museum’s blog.
It sounds to have been a fascinating time and though I like Lyme best in the winter, I do wish I’d been there to join in this particular piece of fun!
Andy English, my Twitter friend, fellow Fenlander and fabulous illustrator of Philip Pullman and Susan Hill’s books, amongst others, alerted me to this item last week and I thought I ought to share it with you.
The Bowler Press of North Vancouver Canada have produced Captain Wentworth’s letter, THE Letter, for fans of Persuasion. It was first made available to purchase on the 14th February, hence the reference to St Valentine’s Day in the header. It has been beautifully printed as if it had been written on stationary that could have been found and used by visitors to the White Hart Inn in Bath which is where the Musgroves were staying in the novel. Complete with appropriate logo….
This is a fun idea. It comes compete with a snazzy envelope and is produced in a limited edition of 200.
Each set is priced at $25 Canadian dollars. Go here to order it. My only quibble is that the White Hart was really a great coaching inn, and was not known as a “hotel” in Jane Austen’s time…but you would expect me quibble, wouldn’t you 
Running with this Austen theme, the Bowler Press is now in the process of producing a similar copy of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth Bennet, written after his marriage proposal was rejected and while he was staying at Rosings. This should soon be available to buy, again for $25 Canadian Dollars. I’ll keep you informed of developments.
And, for the Austen theme does not end there, the Press are hoping to produce a three volume set of Pride and Prejudice…I will be intrigued to see what it looks like…
I do wish someone would attempt to reproduce a letter written by Charles Bingley , complete with ink blots and crossings out But for now I am going to place some orders of these for myself;)
The Lyme Regis Museum has recently launched a fascinating blog. Yesterday they wrote about Jane Austen and Lyme for the first( but obviously not the last!) time and a little about the filming of Persuasion in 1994.
Here is an intriguing photograph taken while the filming was underway in the town:
©TheLymeRegisMuseum
I do hope there is more of this to come
Literary and artistic topics of interest covered thus far are, apart from Jane Austen in Lyme, James McNeill Whister and G. K. Chesterton who both came under the town’s spell. An easy thing to do…As I know only too well…..;)
So do go and visit the new blog, as I sure you will find it interesting. I certinaly did.
The Philpot Museum in Lyme Regis has recently announced an interesting programme of events for May and June this year. I thought you might be interested to hear of those that relate to Jane Austen.
First, some events inspired by Thomas Corum, whom we know from my posts on The Foundling Hospital in Brunswick Square and on their recent exhibit Threads of Feeling. Captain Corum was born in Lyme circa 1668. The Philpot Museum is to be host to the Foundling Museum’s touring exhibition on Thomas Corum’s life entitled, Foundling Voices. The Museum’s press release tells us:
This exhibition celebrates one of Lyme’s famous sons, Thomas Coram, who established the Foundling Hospital in London. Hear voices of former pupils of the Foundling Hospital recounting life before, during and after their time in the institution. Stories range from the heartbreak of leaving foster families to laughter of recalled childhood mischief; from the excitement and fear of going out into the world at the age of fourteen, to meeting unknown brothers and sisters and finding love and happiness with families of their own. This touring exhibition from London’s Foundling Museum will be in the ground floor gallery from 21 April to 31 May.
In conjunction with this exhibition on Thursday 5th May at 2.30 p.m., Anne Sankey will be giving a talk on Thomas Corum and the Foundling Hospital, again at the Philpot.
On Thursday 12 May at 2.30 p.m. Diana Shervington will be giving a light hearted talk entitled, JANE AUSTEN…WHY DIDN’T SHE MARRY? Diana Shervington is a Vice-President of the Jane Austen Society, and is a direct descendant of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Knight of Godmersham, and I think this would be a fascinating talk to attend.
Continuing with the Jane Austen theme, on Thursday 26th May, again at 2.30p.m. David Coates will be giving a talk on LYME’S LITERARY LINKS. Over the past 200 years, Lyme has been associated with many great literary figures and his talk will be a comprehensive one, beginning with Jane Austen and ending with John Fowles who was of course not only an outstanding novelist but also the curator of the Philpot Museum.
Then on Monday 13th June an event I really would love to be able to attend, beginning at the lifeboat station in Lyme, a walk around the town entitled LYME REGIS –AS JANE AUSTEN SAW IT, conducted by Fred Humphrey in the guise of Admiral Croft from Persuasion.
I confess I would ADORE to take a walk around Lyme with Admiral Corft…..but I fear commitments may prevent me from being there. You, however,may be luckier than I …if you do go give the Admiral my love won’t you?
Most of us are familiar with the architects of Bath - John Wood senior and elder- who planned Queens Square and the development of the Upper Town. Less well-known is the man who provided the raw material for these elegant squares and crescents,Bath Stone. He was Ralph Allen, and this small but very readable book by Diana Winsor, published by Polperro Heritage Press gives us a short but comprehensive account of his life. Diana Winsor uses his extant correspondence but also invents extracts from his” diary” to fill in the blanks of his story for us.
Born in Cornwall in 1693, he moved to Bath in 1715. He had trained in the running of Post Offices at Exeter. He became Deputy Postmaster at Bath aged 19 and went on to reform the whole English postal system, winning a lucrative government contract to organise the post for many successive decades. He became Mayor of Bath in 1742, and was M.P. for Bath from 1757 untill 1764.
He invested his profits from the Post Office in the stone quarries that surround Bath high up on the downs . In conjunction with John Wood the Elder he promoted the use of Bath stone as an excellent building material, and the developments of Queens Square, Gay Street The Circus The Crescent and the Upper Town including the Assembly Rooms were built in this material. Bath stone is honey coloured when underground, but once mined and exposed to the air it becomes pale, and grayer. Anne Elliot in Persuasion disliked its pale appearance very much:
Lady Russell, convinced that Anne would not be allowed to be of any use, or any importance, in the choice of the house which they were going to secure, was very unwilling to have her hurried away so soon, and wanted to make it possible for her to stay behind, till she might convey her to Bath herself after Christmas; but having engagements of her own, which must take her from Kellynch for several weeks, she was unable to give the full invitation she wished; and Anne, though dreading the possible heats of September in all the white glare of Bath, and grieving to forego all the influence so sweet and so sad of the autumnal months in the country, did not think that, every thing considered, she wished to remain. It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore, must involve least suffering, to go with the others.
Persuasion, Chapter 5
Ralph Allen was an entrepreneur and an innovator. He built his impressive home, Prior Park on the outskirts of Bath as a testament to the excellent qualities of Bath stone as a building material and ornamented the surrounding landscape garden, which he designed with the help of “Capability” Brown and Alexander Pope, with delicious gardens features such as the famous bridge, below. All made of Bath stone, naturally.
© NTPL / Stephen Robson
The landscape garden is now owned by the National Trust and is open to the public.The mansion is now a boarding school and is not.
This book though small is an interesting read, and certainly filled in many blanks in my knowledge of this important figure in Bath history. The illustrations are mainly by Diana Windsor herself and I think are best in architectural pieces, as in this illustration of Ralph Allen’s town-house in Bath,
as her figures are, for me, sadly not as convincing as the buildings she portrays:
This is an inexpensive and entertaining book, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the life of one of the founders of Bath.
Today for the last of Lady Russell’s Winter Pleasures posts (although there is one more tomorrow in this series,a book review) we are going to look at the Pump Room. The Pump Room in Bath was built in the lower part of the town, and was where those taking the “cure” would drink copious amounts of the warm spring water in order to effect a cure.The first PumpRom was replaced in 1797 by the one which is still in existence today.
This is the description of it from Feltham’s Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places etc.,(1803):
FOR those who are unable or unwilling to join in more e and expensive amusements, the new Pump-room presents attraction unrivalled…
This noble room was built in 1797 under the direction of Mr. Baldwin, architect. It is 60 feet long by 46 wide, and 31. feet high. The inside is set round with three quarter columns of the Corinthian order, crowned with an entablature, and a covering of five feet. In a recess at the West-end is the music gallery, and in another at the East an excellent time-piece, over which is a marble statue of king Nash, executed by Hoare, at the expense of the corporation. In the Centre of the South-side is a marble vase from which issue the waters, with a fire-place on each side.
The exterior is furnished in a capital stile (sic) of architecture, having its architrave charged with the following inscription from Pindar, in gold letters which may be justly rendered,
“Bath-water is better than Bath-wine ;”
literally, water is, best.
This section of the map of Bath included in John Feltham’s book shows the position of the Pump Room,just opposite what was then the White Hart Inn in Stall Street.
This Victorian photograph, taken from the position of the White Hart shows the Pump Room in all its splendour
And this view, and engraving dating from the late 18th century shows it and the colonnade, with the inn behind.
It is set in the Abbey churchyard, and you can see the marvellous Bath Abbey set at right angles to the Pump Room, above in a photograph I took last year
As you can clearly see with comparison with the 18th century print, not much has changed since the late 18th century, though the White Hart Inn is no longer there.
This is one of the ante rooms to the Pump room and is where you now gain access to the room.
The plan below again from Walter Ison’s magisterial book, The Georgian Buildings of Bath shows the setting of the Pump Room amid the complex of Bath; the Kings Bath, the New Private Baths and the Cross Bath which is situated at the termination of Cross Street, which in its turn is beautifully colonnaded, and will be recognised by fans of the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion as the street along which the reunited lovers-Anne and Captain Wentworth- strolled along once the Circus (and the infamous kiss) had gone away…..
This is the view from the Cross Bath to the New Baths and the Pump Room :
And this is a close up of the ground plan of the Pump Room.
The Pump Room was also, in the early days of Bath, where the book was kept, known as the Subscription Book. This was where new arrivals in the town would enter their names. Something Catherine Morland found useful when she was trying to ascertain if Henry Tilney was still in town:
As soon as divine service was over, the Thorpes and Allens eagerly joined each other; and after staying long enough in the pump–room to discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not a genteel face to be seen, which everybody discovers every Sunday throughout the season, they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved conversation; they talked much, and with much enjoyment; but again was Catherine disappointed in her hope of reseeing her partner. He was nowhere to be met with; every search for him was equally unsuccessful, in morning lounges or evening assemblies; neither at the Upper nor Lower Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor among the walkers, the horsemen, or the curricle–drivers of the morning. His name was not in the pump–room book, and curiosity could do no more. He must be gone from Bath.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 5
Once new arrivals and added their names to the book, the Master of Ceremonies would then know they were in town and it was time to pay a visit of visit of ceremony to them, to inform them of the ways of Bath, should they not know of them. Having consulted this book the names of the new arrivals would also be published in the Bath newspapers. The book was kept in the early 18th century by the redoubtable Sarah Porter, shown below,
who was known for her uncanny ability to ambush new arrivals to town to ensure that their names were entered in the book(and her tip was received ).Putting ones name in the Subscription Book could also involve the outlay of serious money, for putting ones name there also “entitled ” you to subscribe to the Assemblies and concerts in the Pump Room and the Assembly Rooms, and also to the circulating libraries and bookshops.
The fashionable time to visit the Pump Room was in the morning:
Her an excellent company of musicians perform every morning, during the full season and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen walking up and down in social converse during the performance, presents a picture of animation which nothing can exceed…
(A Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing Places etc by J Feltham ,1803.
In the photographs above and below you can see the rounded apse and the musicians gallery within it:
The Pump Room is now a restaurant(and a pretty good one too!) and very often musicians play there.
But nowadays they don’t play from the gallery, but on a raised dias.
This is the view towards the other end of the room….
With its magnificent Thomas Tompion timepiece
And statue of Beau Nash,the King of Bath and the original Master of Ceremonies.
Half way along the room, over-looking the Kings Bath is the King’s Spring
Where you can still purchase glasses of the water to drink,served to you by a porter. It is surprisingly warm (and no doubt that added to its purgative qualities when one was taking “the cure”)
Of course it was when she was over looking the Pump Room from the Musgrove’s Room at the White Hart Inn that Mary Musgrove discovered Mr Elliot meeting Mrs Clay in a rather clandestine manner:
They found Mrs. Musgrove and her daughter within, and by themselves, and Anne had the kindest welcome from each… with intervals of every help which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts, from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.
Persuasion Chapter 22
and
“Do come, Anne,” cried Mary, “come and look yourself. You will be too late if you do not make haste. They are parting; they are shaking hands. He is turning away. Not know Mr. Elliot, indeed! You seem to have forgot all about Lyme.”
To pacify Mary, and perhaps screen her own embarrassment, Anne did move quietly to the window. She was just in time to ascertain that it really was Mr. Elliot, which she had never believed, before he disappeared on one side, as Mrs. Clay walked quickly off on the other; and checking the surprise which she could not but feel at such an appearance of friendly conference between two persons of totally opposite interests, she calmly said, “Yes, it is Mr. Elliot, certainly. He has changed his hour of going, I suppose, that is all, or I may be mistaken, I might not attend”; and walked back to her chair, recomposed, and with the comfortable hope of having acquitted herself well.
Persuasion, Chapter 22
Hmm… Mr Elliot, proving himself to be quite the slippery eel…..
Here is a link to another panoramic view of the Pump Room, if you go here and look on the right,click on “View the Pump Room Tour“, it is almost as good as being there. Almost….
And that concludes this small series of Winter Pleasures posts. I do hope you have enjoyed them.
So…yesterday we had to pretend that Lady Russell was a great dancer and enjoyed spending winter evenings at the Ball-Room at the Upper Rooms. It was fun though….I do hope you agree.
Today, we do not have to pretend for we know that she attended a concert at the Upper Rooms in Persuasion,and so would have visited the Tea Room which was where the subscription concerts were held. But before we get there we should really take a look at the Card Room or Great Octagon as it was known which separates the Ball Room from the Tea Room.
In the film of Persuasion (1995) written by Nick Drear, this ,below, the Small Octagon or Octagon Anti-chamber, was where the Elliot’s stood waiting for Lady Dalrymple and her daughter and where Anne had the unexpected opportunity of meeting Captain Wentworth for a deliciously revealing conversation.
It was more likely that this meeting took place in the Octagon shown below.
When the Upper Assembly Rooms were first opened in 1771, this was used as the card room. A card room where gambling took place was one of the necessary rooms in a suite of Assembly Rooms, for gambling by those not wishing to dance was entirely acceptable practise. Indeed Mr Allen retires to play cards,after he has safely deposited Mrs Allen and Catherine Morland at the Ballroom in Chapter 2 of Northanger Abbey. A separate card room was added to this room in 1777.
The Octagon was again set out for a wedding when I visited .It would be in this room that the actual wedding was performed. A quite spectacular setting, you must admit.
The chandelier in this room was made up of the remnants of the discarded chandeliers that used to hang in the Ball Room and were made by Jonathan Collett. It is very beautiful, and it is a wonder that they were able to make something so beautiful out of wrecked pieces!
The portrait that dominates this room is one by Thomas Gainsborough of Captain William Wade . He was the first Master of Ceremonies of the Upper Rooms. He had to quit his post in 1777 after he was involved in
an affair of gallantry
as Pierce Egan in Walk’s Though Bath (1819) coyly describes it.
He had also been the Master of Ceremonies at Brighton since 1767 .After quitting Bath in 1777 he retired to Brighton where he was Master of Ceremonies till he died in 1809. Mr James King whom we know as the Master of Ceremonies at the Lower Rooms, indeed, as the very gentleman who effected the successful introduction of Henry Tilney to Miss Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, became the Master of Ceremonies at the upper Rooms in 1805 until his death at Cheltenham in 1816.
From the Octagon we can progress directly into the Tea Room. It was in this room that refreshments were served during Assemblies and where Public Breakfasts were taken. And it was also where the subscription concerts were held.
The three magnificent chandeliers in this room are the originals made by William Parker, supplier of chandeliers to the Prince of Wales at Carlton House.
This room is one of my most favourite rooms in the country. I love its restrained stone decoration.
And the gallery with its Corinthian Columns that run the length of the room,with the swags of flowers and fruit decorating the space in a quiet but very elegant way.
Again my photographs do not do justice to these wonderful chandeliers.They fail to capture the prisms of light that dart from the crystal…
The concerts in this room were first under the direction of Thomas Linley,shown below in a portrait painted by his friend, Thomas Gainsborough.
He was the father of the soprano Elizabeth Linley, seen here with her sister, again in a portrait by Gainsborough( she is on the left)
She of course was infamous for marrying teh playwright Sheridan after a scandalous elopement. Thomas Linley Junior known as the English Mozart,also performed here
seen here portrayed in a portrait by Gainsborough, above,and who perished in an untimely manner at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire in 1778.
From 1777 the Italian castrato and composer,Venanzio Rauzzini , below,was the director of the concerts. He was of course the man for whom Mozart wrote Exultate Jubilate.
In the Winter he lived in Bath in a town house Number 13 Gay Street, but in the summer he lived at nearby Widecombe and many famous musicians and composers were tempted to come to Bath to collaborate and perform with him. Possibly the most famous visitor was Joseph Haydn who on his visit in 1794 even wrote a canon in praise of Rauzzini’s deceased dog,Turk- “Turk was a faithful Dog“- while he was staying at Widecombe with the composer.
Here is an example of his work- a Sonata- Duetto, perfomred on a period instrument:
He died at his home in Gay Street, on 8 April 1810, while preparing for the Bath June music festival. Four days later the Bath Chronicle wrote:
In private life few men were more esteemed; none more generally beloved. A polished suavity of manners, a mild and cheerful disposition, and a copious fund of general and polite information, rendered him an attractive and agreeable companion. … In Mr. Rauzzini, this city has sustained a public loss.
He was buried in Bath Abbey, where there is a memorial to him erected by ‘his affectionate Pupils Anna Selina Storace and John Braham’.
Here is a copy of a programme for a subscription concert held in 1798. If you enlarge it by clicking on it you can see that the lyrics of the arias are clearly printed on the programme sheet,and this explains why Anne Elliot was able to translate lyrics at the behest of Mr Elliot and Miss Carteret much to Captain Wentworth’s annoyance.
And this concludes Lady Russell’s Winter Pleasures at the Upper Rooms..next, the Pump Room.
So..when Lady Russell ventures from her elegant lodgings in Rivers Street,what pleasures could she seek in Bath? She could go a short journey along River Street to the New Assembly Rooms for a ball. Now, today you will have to indulge me on this, for there is no evidence in Persuasion that Lady Russell visited the Assembly Rooms for a ball, but she did of course go there for a concert (more on that next time).
As you can see from this annotated section of the map of Bath dating from 1803, taken from my copy of A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places by John Feltham, The Assembly Rooms ,numbered “2″on the map,
and known in the early 19th century as the Upper Rooms in order to distinguish them from the Assembly Rooms in the older lower part of Bath near the river (the Lowers Rooms),were not far from Rivers-street.
This engraving of the imposing Upper Rooms, above, was taken from my copy of Walks though Baht by Pierce Egan (Do note all the illustrations in this post, as ever, can be enlarged by clicking on them.)
This is the floor plan of the rooms ,which were designed and built by John Wood the Younger between 1769 and 1771. This plan is taken from Walter Ison’s magisterial book on Georgian Bath, “The Georgian Buildings of Bath”, which I reviewed here.
But however reluctant Lady Russell may seem on dancing… let’s concentrate on the ballroom in this post…above is the entrance,with its severe portico…
Chairs were an important from of transport in Georgian Bath, for due to its very steep,hilly terrain, it was not easy for carriages to negotiate its steep and sometimes winding roads. So, Lady Russell may have arrived at the Upper Rooms by chair…as Catherine Moreland did, arriving at the Theatre Royal in Bath in one in Northanger Abbey.
This is a rather elegant and luxurious example which is on display in the vestibule of the Upper Rooms today.
To gain access to the ballroom, Laady Russell would first process along the vestibule having quitted her chair there, progress into the Small Octagon, and then turning left would enter the Ball Room.
When I visited the rooms to take this photographs this room was set up for a wedding reception: what a wonderful place to celebrate a marriage! However, it did limit the photographs I could take…I’ll jsut have to go back yet again(what a trial!) But if you go to the Fashion Museum website and click on the link on the bottom right here, View the Assembly Room Tours you will be able to virtually visit the Rooms,and especially to see the details of the ballroom with its wonderful musicians gallery which I was unable to photograph.
To give you some idea of the massive scale of this room, let me quote from Pierce Egan’s Walks though Bath, 1819 for a view of someone who visited it in the early 19th century:
The elegance of the ball-room astonishes every spectator, it is 100 feet 8 inches long, 42 feet 8 inches wide and 42 feet 6 inches high. ~The ceiling is beautiful ornamented with pannels(sic) with open compartments, and from which are suspended five superb glass chandeliers; and the windows from which the rooms receive daylight are on a ball night covered with boards painted with ornaments on them to correspond with the uniformity on the other side of the room. The walls are also painted and decorated in the most tasteful style; and the Corinthian columns and entablature resemble statuary marble. At each end of the room are placed in magnificent gilt frames, the most splendid looking glasses to give effect to the general brilliant appearance.
In its heyday, during the late 18th century, this room could hold as many as 800 dancers,the sort of crowds poor Catherine Morland had to contend with on her first visit there:
Mrs. Allen was so long in dressing that they did not enter the ballroom till late. The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr. Allen, he repaired directly to the card–room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves. With more care for the safety of her new gown than for the comfort of her protegee, Mrs. Allen made her way through the throng of men by the door, as swiftly as the necessary caution would allow; Catherine, however, kept close at her side, and linked her arm too firmly within her friend’s to be torn asunder by any common effort of a struggling assembly. But to her utter amazement she found that to proceed along the room was by no means the way to disengage themselves from the crowd; it seemed rather to increase as they went on, whereas she had imagined that when once fairly within the door, they should easily find seats and be able to watch the dances with perfect convenience. But this was far from being the case, and though by unwearied diligence they gained even the top of the room, their situation was just the same; they saw nothing of the dancers but the high feathers of some of the ladies. Still they moved on — something better was yet in view; and by a continued exertion of strength and ingenuity they found themselves at last in the passage behind the highest bench. Here there was something less of crowd than below; and hence Miss Morland had a comprehensive view of all the company beneath her, and of all the dangers of her late passage through them. It was a splendid sight, and she began, for the first time that evening, to feel herself at a ball: she longed to dance, but she had not an acquaintance in the room.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 2.
At the end of the season,the rooms could be quite deserted, as Jane Austen noted in her letter to Cassandra, dated 12th May 1801:
In the evening, I hope you honoured my toilette and ball with a thought; I dressed myself as well as I could, and had all my finery much admired at home. By nine o’clock my uncle, aunt, and I entered the rooms, and linked Miss Winstone on to us. Before tea it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced by four couple. Think of four couple, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the Upper Rooms at Bath.
and by the time she wrote Persuasion, in 1816,the fashion was definitely shifting towards private parties not great formal assemblies open to all and sundry. And lest we think that these elegant places were always inhabited by decourous people, in the same letter, Jane Austen also noted drunken goings on:
Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene.
The chandeliers as Pierce Egan noted above, are spectacular. The orignal chandeliers were supplied to the Upper Rooms Furnishing Committee by Jonathon Collett,at a cost of £400 for the five which were to hang in the ballroom. In October 1771, a month after the rooms opened a disaster concerning them was luckily avoided. One of the arms of the chandeliers in the ballroom fell, narrowly missing (and injuring) Thomas Gainsborough the artist. The chandeliers were found to have severe defects, and were replaced by five commissioned from William Parker, supplier of chandeliers to The Prince of Wales, whose trade card is shown below.
He had already provided the Furnishing Committee with chandeliers for the Tea Room, and now was commissioned to make replacements. His work is simply amazingly and breathtakingly beautiful. It cost the owners of the Rooms £556, 3 shillings and 6 pence to provide candles and oil for the lamps in the other rooms, in the first season of 1771-2.
The assembles of the 18th century were new social phenomena.They allowed, in the main, people from different classes to mingle, the Master of Ceremonies entrusted to introduce previously unknown parties. Beau Nash, the first Master of Ceremonies in Bath drew up a series of rules for governing behaviour in assemblies which were adopted, in one way or another, as a good method of keeping order by nearly all the other assemblies in England.
The rules for the Assembly changed with each successive Master of Ceremonies-and I will be writing more on them in the next post .In 1816 the were as follows:
That the Balls at these Rooms do commence at eight o’clock in the evening; a quarter o f a hour before which time the Rooms shall regularly and properly be lighted up;and that the dancing shall cease at half -past eleven o’clock precisely, except on the night of the King’s Birthday and on the nights of the two balls given for the Master of Ceremonies when the time of dancing shall be unlimited.
That every person on admission to these Rooms on ball-nights shall pay sixpence for their tea.
That the three front benches at the upper end of the room be reserved for ladies of precedence, of the rank of Peeresses of Great Britain or Ireland
That a reasonable time shall be allowed between the minuets and Country-Dances for ladies of precedence to take their own places in the dance; and that those ladies who shall stand up after the dance shall have commenced must tale their places successively at the bottom
That no lady after she shall have taken her place in the set do permit another to come above her in the dance.
That ladies are to be considered perfectly free in regard to accepting or declining partners
That it is the positive order of the Committee that no servant whatever shall be admitted into the vestibule or gallery on any occasion or on any pretence whatever on ball-nights.
That no gentleman in boots or half boots be admitted into the Ball-Room on ball-nights except Officers of the Navy or of the army on duty in uniform; and then without their swords.
Trowsers(sic)or colored pantaloons not to be permitted on any account.
There wer also rules regulating the Master of Ceremonies and his duties:
That the Master of Ceremonies do attend at a quarter of an hour before eight o’clock on ball nights to receive the company.
That the Master of Ceremonies on observing or receiving information of any persons acting in opposition to these resolutions do signify to such person that as Master of Ceremonies it is his duty to see that proper decorum be preserved, and these orders obeyed; in the proper and impartial execution of which duty he will be supported by the subscribers at large
Resolved that these regulations be printed, framed and glazed and fixed in a conspicuous part of the Room for public information; not to be taken down on any pretence whatever on order that they may remain as a pubic document.
Here is an advertisement for a series of Subscription Dress Balls for the season 1811-1812
In my next post… Concerts and the Tea Room in the Upper Rooms( and which we can be certain that concerts are something that Lady Russell did attend !)
It is the bleak midwinter, cold and dark, and, siting here in Darkest Lincolnshire what I am really desiring is a little quiet cheerfulness. I could do worse than to emulate Lady Russell of Persuasion and take a little sojourn in Bath:
When Lady Russell, not long afterwards, was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newsmen, muffin-men, and milk-men, and the ceaseless clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures: her spirits rose under their influence; and like Mrs. Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.
However, I can’t to do this in reality as I have duties to fulfill,and so do you, I suspect. So, shall we shall visit Lady Russell’s (and Anne Elliot’s ) winter pleasures in Bath digitally. Shall we? Yes, let’s…
Lady Russell and Anne Elliot travelled to Bath from Kellynch Lodge which was probably near to the market town of Crewkherne in Somersetshire from the evidence in the text of Persuasion .Here, below, is their most likely route, delineated in red, and which would have taken them from Crewkherne (1) to Bath (2) via Glastonbury and Wells. This map of Somerset by John Cary is taken from my copy of his Travellers Companion of 1812: (Do note you can enlarge all the illustrations here by simply clicking on them)
The market town of Crewkherne was probably the first place where Lady Russell’s carriage horses were changed on the journey. This would allow her groom or other servant to take her horses back to her stables at Kellynch Lodge. Horses could be hired at inns along the route,and were probably changed every 20 or so miles. The next change would probably take place at Glastonbury, famed now for rock concerts, but then for its fine ruined abbey. Here it is below,taken from my copy of the Somerset volume of The Beauties of England and Wales by the Reverend J Nightingale (1813):
According to Cary’s Travellers Companion(1812) there were two inns at Glastonbury : the White Hart, opposite the Abbey, which dated from the 15th century and still exists, and the George Inn in the High Street. This is a view of the centre of the town also from The Beauties of England and Wales. It shows the George Inn, which also still exists( it is the building with the sign hanging from it, on the left.
I wonder which inn Lady Russell chose ? I should imagine Anne Elliot liked the antiquity of the place…
This is a description of the town from the same volume:
THis town is situated in the Isle of Avalon so called from its apples or from Avallac a British chief said to have first pitched his residence here..Like Wells Glastonbury is indebted for its origin to its monastic institutions which claim the hour of having existed from a period nearly coeval with Christianity. According to the monkish annuals Glastonbury was first instituted by St Joseph of Arimathea who buried the body of our Saviour, and whom Phillip the apostle of Gaul sent to preach the gospel in Britain….
The next interesting place on their route would have been Wells, again the home of a famous abbey
The town of Wells situated in the hundred of Well’s-Forum, is said to have been at one time the first city in the county of Somerset. Even at this day though far inferior to Bath in splendour of appearance and fashionable elegance, it has considerable claims to the attention of the topographer and possesses many charms for the lover of social retirement…Wells is very pleasantly situated under the Mendip Hills which recede from it in the form of an amphitheatre sheltering it to the north, while fertile and extensive meadows range themselves to the south…the Cathedral is in the form of a cross…
Leaving Wells, the journey to Bath would be a distance of about 20 miles. Anne Elliot and Lady Russell would approach the city from the south, having the upper town before them as in this view taken from my copy of A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places by R. Phillips (1803).
They crossed the Old Bridge, the old medieval bridge shown below (as opposed to the new Pulteney Bridge which gave access to the new developments in Bathwick).
This is the immediate view of the bridge that they may have seen from their carriage:
Here you can se the bridge crossing the River Avon on this section of the map of Bath dating from 1803
They then made their way through the noisy lower reaches of Bath till they reached the elegant Upper Town,
where Anne Elliot was deposited at Camden Crescent , that place that held the cold welcome of her odious father, sister and the foul Mrs Clay…..
while the luckier Lady Russell went back downhill to her solitary but elegant lodgings in Rivers Street, shown here looking towards the Upper Rooms in Bennet Street.
And when we and they are rested, we will visit some of the places that constituted their Winter Pleasures in Bath.
Last week on the anniversary of Jane Austen’s Birthday we toured the ground floor of her Chawton home, now the Jane Austen House Museum. Shall we now mount these small stairs to visit the upstairs rooms? It’s allowed…Yes, let’s…
On the way up we pass this window looking out onto the Bakehouse and the garden to the rear of the house.
The central corridor leads you towards three rooms on the left and two rooms on the right. Let’s go first left…..
and into a room full (full!) of Austen family relics.
This fine portrait of John Austen hangs in pride of place over the fireplace. He was Jane Austen’s great- great- grandfather,and was remembered in the family for his miserly treatment of his windowed daughter…shades of Sense and Sensibility.
There are so many treasures in this room, I’ve decided to show you only a few…….this post will be long enough as it is and you are all busy people….
One of the most touching treasures is a small lock of the Reverend George Austen’s hair, taken after his death in Bath in 1805, and kept in a small parcel of paper labelled by Jane Austen as “My father’s hair”…
A book of Jane’s eldest brother, James’ poetry, in his own hand
Jane’s ivory cup and ball, at which she was very skilled, and some ivory spillikins,again a dexterous game at which she excelled….
Some baby’s caps……familiar items to the lady below…..
Susannah Sackree, “Caky”, the nursemaid to Edward Austen Knight’s children at Godmersham…..
…and a copy of her prayerbook….bound in red leather…
Silhouettes of General and Lady Jane Matthews, the parents of Anne Matthews who was James Austen’s first wife and mother to Anna Austen.
The wonderful receipt book of Martha Lloyd, completed in many different hands…..
Jane Austen’s copy of Mentoria,which she remembered when writing Mansfield Park.
Into the room opposite, facing the garden and not the road…..
With a short exhibit explaining all the different houses where Jane Austen lived in Hampshire and Bath
And glass cases holding more treasure….The needlecase which Jane Austen made for her niece, Louisa
Eliza de Feuillide’s rouge pot, a deliciously tiny porcelain pot decorated in gilt on a dark blue ground
A soft cream silk shawl,an expensive gift to Jane from Mrs Catherine Knight, Edward Austen’s adoptive mother ….
Then to another room across the corridor, overlooking the road, dedicated to the naval brothers….
With Frank Austen’s collapsible cabin bed…..
All neat , ship-shape and Bristol Fashion…..
As he was thought to be the insportaion for Captain Harville in Persuasion, some of his handiwork is on show…..
including a carved writing case thought to have been made by him…
All overlooked by his Admiral, Horatio Nelson, shown here in a commemorative plate dating from 1805.
Then into a tiny adjoining room that is kept in darkness for its contents are very precious. As you walk in a light is automatically switched on and you see the quilt Jane Austen made with her mother and Cassandra
Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork? We are now at a stand-still.
The window at the end of the corridor looks out onto the garden….
and to the road leading to Edward’s home,Chawton House…..
and the Winchester road…….the finger post marking the way….
But if we retrace our steps back along the corridor, we reach a special bedroom….
Jane’s Room, the room she shared with Cassandra from 1809 till she moved to Winchester in July 1817.
Here is a replica of one of the two beds that Mr Austen ordered for Cassandra and Jane in 1794 while they were still living at Steventon, and which has recently been installed at the museum.
The room faces the garden and looks down onto the bakehouse….which you can see with its open door below.
The closet contains a wash bowl and ewer
And the small fireplace has been decked out for the Christmas season….
A whited spotted muslin dress is on show here
Simple but beautiful…..
A woman can never be too fine while she is in all white
Here is a short video of the room, which give you some idea of its dimensions, I think.
I do hope you enjoyed this second part of the tour. Next, the Gardens and Outbuildings.
I discovered this advertisement for Gowland’s Lotion in a copy of La Belle Assemblee dating from June 1st 1816 that I have in my possession yesterday, and I thought you might enjoy reading it:
(Do note you can enlarge it by clicking on it, in order to make it easier to read)
Gowland’s Lotion was of course mentioned by Jane Austen in Persuasion,when the idiotic Sir Walter, a man whose advice was always going to be questionable, advises Anne to use it for, having advised Mrs Clay ( foolish woman)to use it, her complexion had ”improved” tremendously:
In the course of the same morning, Anne and her father chancing to be alone together, he began to compliment her on her improved looks: he thought her “less thin in her person, in her cheeks; her skin, her complexion, greatly improved: clearer, fresher. Had she been using any thing in particular?” — “No, nothing.” “Merely Gowland,” he supposed. — “No, nothing at all.” “Ha! he was surprised at that”; and added, “Certainly you cannot do better than continue as you are; you cannot be better than well; or I should recommend Gowland, the constant use of Gowland, during the spring months. Mrs. Clay has been using it at my recommendation, and you see what it has done for her. You see how it has carried away her freckles.”
Chapter 16
Why foolish? Well, Gowland’s Lotion was known to have a damaging effect on complexions,certainly by the time Jane Austen was writing Persuasion.
The reason this original lotion was so caustic was of course its ingredients. It contained bitter almonds sugar,water and mercuric chloride.This last ingredient was a derivative of sulphuric acid. It was powerful enough to remove the top layer of skin of anyone who applied it: it was in effect an early form of chemical peel treatment. And of course if repeatedly applied to the skin one can only imagine the dreadful damage that would result. However by the time Jane Austen was writing about it, to add insult to injury,the ingredients of the original lotion had been adulterated, and its damaging effects were widely known.
If we review the history of Gowland’s Lotion all becomes very clear. John Gowland was an apothecary and the inventor of the lotion. John Gowland’s family were northern lawyers,but he did not follow in the family footsteps but became an apothecary. Through his extensive social contacts he rose to become the apothecary to the Frederick, Prince of Wales, heir to George II.
His claim to fame and fortune, Gowland’s Lotion, first attained great fame in 1743. Elizabeth Chudleigh, the famous bigamist, was appointed maid of honour to Frederick’s wife, Augusta, the Princess of Wales and became part of their court circle. Miss Chudleigh’s skin became blotchy and opaque,and aware that her face( and her body) was her fortune she sought the advice of the royal doctors fora cure. They subjected her to a regime of purging, sea-bathing, and other treatments which all proved to be ineffectual. Poor Miss Chudleigh resorted to using patches and paints to disguise her blemished complexion. This would never do for such an attractive and ambitious woman,who knew her face(and her body) was going to be her path to fortune and titles.(and in this she was right…her ambition was also her down fall and she was eventually tried and found guilty of bigamy in 1776)
In desperation, she eventually sought the advice of the court apothecary, Mr Gowland, and he diagnosed her problem as blocked pores. He therefore devised his lotion,which could be used to bathe the face and indeed any other affected area of the body, Gowlands Lotion as delineated above. The purging action of the lotion produced a form of scurf , the top layer of the epidermis in fact, that could be then rubbed away, taking all the blemishes with it. As a result the skin’s “bloom” would be recovered, and even unsightly blemishes like freckles were taken clean away.
As a result of the spectacular effect on Miss Chudleigh’s skin, the lotion was much in demand in society. Mr Gowland lived in Bond Street in London where he also dispensed his lotion to the fashionable hoards at a cost of 10 shillings and 6 pence per quart bottle.. Eventually Gowland was appointed to be George III’s apothecary in 1760 a post he held until his death in 1776..
He died a wealthy man,and having no children left the receipt for his famed lotion to his long standing friend ,Thomas Vincent, the principal oboist in the Kings Band,and clerk to the Royal Musick Closet. Mr Vincent began manufacturing the lotion, but sadly he soon had troubles of his own,which are hinted at in the advertisement above. You will not fail to note that throughout the advert refers to Mrs Vincent’s Gowland’s Lotion. Mrs Vincent was Mr Vincent’s second wife, Maria Elizabeth.
A very ambitious woman, during her husband’s absence abroad, she began making and marketing her own version of the lucrative lotion,despite not having the full details of the ingredients, which were kept secret from her. Mr Vincent began to counter her production by going into partnership with his son-in-law Robert Dickinson, and a trade war began between husband and wife, as to whose lotion was the “original and the best”. You can see in the advert above that Mrs Vincent has managed to make Lord Sherbourne refer slightingly to Mr Dickinson’s inferior product. Mrs Vincent unbelievably had the upper hand when it came to commerce and it was her version that captured most of the trade. Mr Vincent died in 1800,and Mr Dickinson eventually disappeared from view. Mrs Vincent continued to profit from selling her version of the lotion.
Mrs Vincent’s Gowlands lotion,with its unknown but clearly demertitious ingredients,had a dreadful effect on women’s complexions. As no doubt did repeated use of the original version. John Corry in his book Quack Doctors Dissected (1810) delineated very clearly the effects of applying the then available Gowland’s to one’s face:
There the lotion of Gowland that flays Ladies faces
Distorting the features of our Modern Graces.
Jane Austen appears to have understood this, and so it is no surprise therefore that she makes Sir Walter the mouthpiece for such bad advice,and Mrs Clay ( foolish woman)his dupe.
It might at first appear strange that I am reviewing a book that was first published in 1948, but it has recently been re-printed in facsimile foom by Spire Books Ltd in association with the Bath Preservation Trust (whose property, Number 1 The Royal Crescent, is used to illustrate the cover of this book)
Walter Ison’s book is in fact an established classic and a deserves to be read and enjoyed by anyone who has visited Bath and has fallen under the spell of its Georgian Buildings; or, indeed, by anyone who has never been lucky enough to visit but has likewise fallen under its spell after reading about the city in such books as Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, where the buildings and city of Bath are essential elements of the book, the city being a character in its own right.
The first copy of this book that I owned was the edition that was revised and published in 1980 (see below) where the photographs were embedded in the text. The new edition is much more clearly set out, as was the original 1948 edition, with two distinct sections -text and line drawings in part one, then photographs and reproductions of contemporary engravings in part two: I much prefer it.
The new edition has an informative foreword by Michael Forsyth who is the Director of Studies in theConservation of Historic Buildings at the University of Bath and is also the author of another book on the architecture of Bath, the Yale Pevsner Guide to Baht, an excellent work, which was first published in 2003.
Walter Ison was born in another spa town, Leamington Spa in Warwickshire in 1908.He became a draftsman in an architectural practice in London where he first read Mowbray Green’s study of Georgian Bath, “Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath“,which fired his imagination. It is no lie to say that he became obsessed with the city and the history of its development and its buildings. Bath degenerated as a spa town from the mid to late 19th century. It was not until the 1930s that it was realised that something had to be done to stop the city decaying completely and such treasures as the Assembly Rooms were at last recognised as being buildings of merit and, as such, were deserving of restoration and protection. In 1934 the Bath Preservation Trust was established and in 1936-8 the Assembly Rooms were restored. The Second World War then intervened and Bath was badly damaged by the so-called Baedeker offensive of 1942: 400 lives were lost and 329 buildings were destroyed in those air-raids, including the newly restored Assembly Rooms. A further 732 buildings were demolished as a result of damage in later air raids,and another 20,000 buildings were recorded by the City Engineer as having been damaged in some way as a result of the attacks.
Ison moved to Bath after his war time service with the air force ended, on the encouragement of his wife, Leonora. She also donated an important personal legacy to him, so that he had the funds with which to be able to research,write and finish his proposed book. Taking his inspiration from earlier histories of the buildings of Bath, including John Wood the Elder’s own version(see above) his resulting book is a comprehensive history of the building of the city and all its major buildings, and the architects responsible. The book was rather touchingly and appropriately dedicated to his wife.
The book is divided into chapters which deal with the development of the city, the pubic buildings,domestic buildings and representative buildings of the period 1700-1725, 1726-1750, 1750-1775, 1775-1800 and finally 1800-1830. The text of the book is also studded with magnificent plans and line drawings of the important buildings. Above is his ground plan, section and elevation of the Hot Bath where Mrs Smith in Persuasion went to receive her treatment, living close by in the lowly Westgate Buildings.
The second part of the book is filled with contemporary engravings -such as this, above of the Pump Room and the new private baths from Stall Street and photographs( all in black and white) taken mostly in the late 1940s
Now, it has to be remembered that when Jane Austen knew Bath the buildings were not yet blackened with industrial grime. This photograph of Great Pultney Street from Ison’s book shows the buildings as I first remember them from my first visit to the city aged 5 in the early 1960s. The soot and grime of the Victorian era -coal fires and grime from the nearby industrial town of Bristol- had turned most of the buildings black, and it was only from the mid 195os that a programme of cleaning and the effects of the Clean Air Acts enabled them to be returned almost to the white glare of the newly recreated limestone buildings that so distressed Anne Elliot in Persuasion. But the photographs now have a period charm of their own-the cars and sometimes the 1940s fashions of the people shown in them are now as fascinating to me as the sedan chair and muslins of the inhabitants of the 18th century prints and engravings
(My photograph of Pulteney Street taken this summer)
Interior views are also inlcuded: not only of the great public buildings like the Guildhall, but of more domestic settings as such as this first floor drawing room of number 41 Gay Street: Jane Austen, remember, lived briefly at number 25 Gay Street after the death of her father, and in Persuasion it was the home of The Crofts.
The book is easy to read and comprehensively covers every aspect of the creation of the famed Georgian buildings in the city. Walter Ison died in 1997, and this new edition ensures that his book will live on as a classic, in his memory. I can highly recommend this magnificent book, and do hope that some of you are tempted by this review to rush out and buy it.
Sophie Croft in Persuasion is one of my favourite of all Jane Austen’s characters. Intelligent, kind, humorous, a woman of sense, in love with her husband the Admiral, she is widely travelled and has an admirably positive attitude to life:
“And I do assure you, ma’am,” pursued Mrs. Croft, “that nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined; though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them; and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time that I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.”
Did women like Sophie Croft really exist? Well, yes, they did….
(©Bath Spa University)
Elizabeth “Besty“ Fremantle nee Wynne (pictured above) was a real life Mrs Croft. For some years now, I have been advocating that people read her diaries to understand what life was like for an elite woman, married to an officer, on board a ship of Nelson’s navy while on active service.
Though now out of print, above is the frontispiece of the 1935 edition of Betsey’s diaries- which combined extracts from Betsey’s diaries with those written by Betsey’s sister Eugenia, shown below- edited by Anne Fremantle, are a fascinating read and you can still find secondhand copies easily enough.
( Source: Andy Boddington at dukesofbuckingham.org.uk on 17.9.10)
The daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, Richard Wynne of Folkingham,( see below for a picture of the parish church)
Betsey began her diary writing habit at the age of 11 ,and continued until her death in 1857. A Catholic family, the Wynnes lived mostly in Europe, visiting England only briefly partially due to pressing money troubles- Betsey’s father sold his Lincolnshire estate in 1786. Betsey was born in Venice, brought up mainly on the continent, and her family moved in courtly circles. She vividly describes her life amongst the glitterati of the Naples court and her diaries are full if very detailed information. Which makes them a delight to read.
(Source: Andy Boddington at dukesofbuckingham.org.uk on 17.9.10)
She met her husband, Captain Thomas Fremantle, shown above, when she was evacuated from Naples in 1796. Her marriage ceremony was arranged with the help of Emma Hamilton and she began life as an officer’s wife on board HMS Inconstant in 1797. Here are some extracts from her diaries (complete with her idiosyncratic spelling) to give you an idea of what she experienced:
Monday January 15th 1797 ( the day after her marriage to Captain Fremantle-jfw):
We sailed last night , had fair weather and pretty good wind all day. I find it quite odd to be alone here. I dare not think on those I left at Naples for it makes my heart swell with anguish , however I can make no complaints for I am as happy in my situation as it is possible to be. Freemantle is all attention and kindness.I have got a comfortable little cabin where I can do what I like.The Vice Roy and Colonel drinkwater are pleasant society for us.
Sunday 22nd January 1797:
We had a long and tedious passage. Very blowing weather …it did not affect me, it increased my appetite and I laughed at everybody else. We only came to anchor this morning at three o’ clock. I begin to get accustomed to the life I lead and find myself comfortable and happy….I spent the evening alone and amused myself very well with my Harpsichord and books.
Friday 27th January 1797:
I was quite miserable all the morning as the three Mariners were punished and flogged along side of every ship, some men flogged likewise on board.
Tuesday March 21st 1797:
We took a prize in the night a small Spanish ship with 9000 dollars who was going to Cicely (Sicily-jfw) for corn.
Eventually, Betsey’s life on board became rather more serious: she had to nurse both her husband and Nelson who had both been wounded in the disastrous Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Nelson had his arm partially amputated, and caring for him and her husband while returning to England on HMS Seahorse- Captain Fremantle appears from her entries in the diary , in my opinion, to have been suffering from what we would now term shell shock- could not have been an easy task for the newly pregnant Betsey. Her characteristically frank entry in her diary for 24th August 1797 indicates her feelings:
A foul wind which make the Admiral fret. He is a very bad patient
They returned to England where eventually Fremantle recovered. Betsey ran their estate while he was at sea-he served at Trafalgar and produced a family of children. Keeping her diary all the time.
And now to some very interesting news. Dr Elaine Chalus of Bath Spa University has recently been awarded a grant of £100,000 to write Betsey’s biography. She has,as I understand it, been granted access to Betsey’s papers by her descendants. I simply can’t wait . The original diary is wonderful to have and to hold but was crying out for more detailed annotation and furthermore, rather frustratingly ends in 1820. Betsey’s life as wife, on board ship and on land, as a mother, capably managing the family estate, and then after the wars as a well-connected elite woman of the early 19th century is fascinating and deserves to be explained and brought to a wider audience. I’m so pleased that Dr Chalus-whose interest in Betsey was sparked when she found a second-hand paperback copy of her diaries at a village fair- has the funding needed to provide us with a full and detailed biography of one of my favourite diarists of this era.
I shall keep an eye on publication dates etc and will of course review the book here when it is available. But in the meantime, do try and get hold of a copy of the out of print diaries: fans of Persuasion and Mrs Croft will not regret it.
The Georgian Garden in Bath is a marvellous and very rare example of the type of garden that many of Jane Austen’s characters and, indeed, Jane Austen herself may have experienced while living in a Georgian town house, not necessarily only in Bath but in London too. This town house garden is now to be found situated to the rear of Number 4,The Circus ( the house is not open to the public, note).
Let’s see where in Bath this garden is to be found. Here is part of my 1802 map of Bath taken from John Feltham’s book, A Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing Places ,
showing the area of the Circus and the Gravel Walk, and here is it annotated with the approximate position of the Garden (1) and the House (2).
To gain access to the garden you have to walk along the Gravel Walk, which connects the Royal Crescent with Queen’s Square, and which was, of course, the secluded, gently rising walk that Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot of Persuasion took when they were finally reconciled, engrossed in each others revelations but not so blind as to realise that the path they were taking was the long way round to Sir Walter’s home in Camden Crescent
These insignificant doors set into the wall surrounding the gardens (seen to the left of the photograph)are the rear entrances to the gardens to the houses.
They hide many treasures and due to the benevolence of the Bath and North East Somerset Council , anyone visiting Bath can now experience what the gardens of these townhouses were like. Access to the garden is totally free of charge and the garden is open all year round. How truly admirable.
Number 4 the Circus was completed in 1761, part of John Wood the Elders scheme for the new Upper Town. In February 1754, Wood laid the foundation stone of the very first house, but, sadly, just three months later, he died. It was left to his son, John Wood the Younger, to complete and oversee the construction of the King’s Circus, as it was originally called. The frontages of the 33 houses are uniform ( though as you can see from the photograph below, the rear of the houses are an entirely different story).
Each house is decorated with elements of the three great Classical orders of architecture: the ground floor decorated in the style of the Doric order , the second in the Ionic order , and the third floor, the Corinthian.
The Circus was, as you can see from the section of the map, above, built in three segments of 11 houses.The circular area that the houses encircle was originally cobbled and had a covered reservoir which supplied water to the houses. This central island is now covered with grass and five great plane trees, which were planted in the early nineteenth century provide shade, but do block the views. Above is the view of the Circus looking towards Gay Street. Sadly no plans exist to show us how the gardens to the rear of these houses appeared in the Georgian era. As you can see from the map of the Circus above, only approximations of the gardens behind these houses were made by the then mapmaker.
However as a result of recent extensive excavations it has been possible to reconstruct how the garden would have appeared in the late 18th century. Walled on four sides, it provided a private, decorative space for the occupier of the house.
Here is a plan of the garden as it appeared when it was first built. Do note that all the photographs and plans in this post can be enlarged by clicking on them, so that you may enjoy the detail.
And here is a key of the plan showing the different elements of the garden:
And a photograph with which to compare the plans:
The Bath Archeological Trust undertook excavations of the garden in 1985 for by then the original Georgian structure of the garden had been lost under later improvements. The walled garden that was then to the rear of Number 4 the Circus was Victorian in the main, and boasted a lawn, a rockery, a classical pavilion and a fish pond which both dated from the 1920s. This is a plan of the garden as it was before the excavation began (again, please use the same key above to discern the different elements of the garden).
The Georgian garden as revealed by the excavations had no grass or lawn at all. It was a very formal design and most of the garden was covered with a surface of gravel mixed with clay. This would have needed to have been rolled regularly to keep it in order,and was much kinder to walk on than wet grass to the fashionable fabric shoes of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Here is a period roller, placed in the garden to remind you that while it is practical, this surface is not maintenance fee.
Here is a view of the garden of 10 Downing Street by George Lambert , circa 1736-1740,
and this close up of part of the painting showing the roller in use at that time:
As you can see from the plan and the photographs, the walled garden to Number 4, the Circus also has small flower beds around the walls, and three flower beds along the central axis of the garden. All are now edged in box. Its design was very similar to this one by J. A. Smith dating from 1807.
The geometric design of the garden was quite deliberate: it was to be seen to its best advantage when viewed from the upper windows of the house that over looked it. Around 1770 a flight of steps was added to the rear of the garden to give access to the newly created Gravel Walk.
It has now been completely renovated and planted with only shrubs and flowers that would have been available in the 18th century.Which means that at this time of the year, early August, there are few flowers available -no repeat flowering roses for example.Luckily, the structure is interesting in itself and of course the fashionable would not be in town or Bath at this time but away on their country estates An appropriate garden seat has also been added which faces the house:
We ought to perhaps recall that the small domestic private gardens of the 18th century town house were innovations. At the beginning of the 18th century, town houses often had nothing by way of a garden but a simple paved yard, but by the advent of the early 19th century a walled garden, home to flowers and shrubs was to be found at the rear of the terraced house homes of the middling and upper classes who lived in English cities. The Georgian Garden in Bath is a remarkable survivor of this type of garden, and if you are visiting Bath do not miss it. It is not advertised much at all and is almost hidden in the corner of the Gravel Walk. But do seek it out: its secluded peace is great to explore and the atmosphere is very different to the walled gardens to be found in towns today.
To conclude my series posts with an Irish theme this week, as a tribute to Jane Travers of the Jane Obsessed with Jane blog, I thought you might like to read about Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth. Both alive at the same time, both authors of novels, both possibly influencing each other-perhaps even subconsciously- and both with some surprising connections to each other.
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Most people are aware, I think, that Jane Austen read Maria Edgeworth’s books, and vice versa. During her life time Maria Edgeworth was feted and was a much more successful celebrated and published author than was Jane Austen. And that is usually the sum of most peoples knowledge of the two. But there is much more to their story and connections than that…
Lets examine what is known about them shall we?
The Austen and Edgeworth families were connected via Jane Austen’s aunt and uncle, the Leigh Perrots. Richard Edgeworth, Maria’s father, though born in Ireland, became neighbours of the Leigh Perrots when he moved to the village of Hare Hatch in Berkshire in 1766. Scarletts, the home of the Leigh Perrots was situated in that village, and Mr Edgeworth soon became part of their social circle.
(Section from map of Berkshire (1797) by John Cary, showing the position of the village of Hare hatch, which along with all the other illustrations in this post,can be enlarged merely by clicking on them)
“Among those who sooner or later were neighbours of the Leigh Perrotts were Richard Lovell Edgeworth (amateur scientist and father of the novelist Maria Edgeworth) who acknowledged the help he received from Mr Leigh Perrot in his experiments of telegraphing from Hare Hatch to Nettlebed by means of windmills…”
(See le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record , page 118).
Maria Edgeworth was born in Hare Hatch in 1768. She moved back to Ireland with her father and his third wife Elizabeth, in 1782 in order that he might run more efficiently the family estate, Edgeworthstown, which he had inherited.
Jane Austen and Maria seem to have shared the same tastes in literature: in 1796 both Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen’s both names appeared as subscribers to Fanny Burney’s novel, Camilla.(Indeed this was the only time that Jane Austen’s name appeared in print during her lifetime)
This novel was published by the London publishing house of Cadell and Davis who were of course the same firm that refused the Reverend George Austen’s offer to publish First Impressions, Jane Austen’s first daft of the novel that was eventually to become Pride and Prejudice. Of course, the title of Jane Austen’s most famous novel was inspired by this passage from Camilla :
The whole of this unfortunate business,’ said Dr Lyster, ‘has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. Your uncle, the Dean, began it, by his arbitrary will, as if an ordinance of his own could arrest the course of nature! and as if he had power to keep alive, by the loan of a name, a family in the male branch already extinct. Your father, Mr Mortimer, continued it with the same self-partiality, preferring the wretched gratification of tickling his ear with a favourite sound, to the solid happiness of his son with a rich and deserving wife. Yet this, however, remember; if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination: for all that I could say to Mr Delvile, either of reasoning or entreaty, – and I said all I could suggest, and I suggested all a man need wish to hear, – was totally thrown away, till I pointed out to him his own disgrace, in having a daughter-in-law immured in these mean lodgings!’
In 1800 when Mrs Leigh Perrot stood trial for larceny being accused of stealing a quantity of lace from a shop in Bath,
one of the first letters they received to congratulate them on Mrs Leigh Perrot being found not guilty was from their friend Richard Edgeworth, now living in Ireland :
My Dear Sir,
I do not think that I ever felt so much astonishment or indignation as at the abominable transaction which was related in the Star of March 31st.
Among my numerous friends and acquaintance if there was a couple whom I could have selected as the farthest removed from being the objects of such a villainous attack it would have been yourselves! But I know too well that neither perfect innocence nor consummate prudence are sufficient shields against conspiracy and folly and that bankrupt fortune and bankrupt character prepare men for the most desperate attempts.
I trouble you, my Dear Sir, with a few lines to express the deep sense that I have of regard and esteem for you and the amiable partner of your happiness; for so many as thirty-four years we have been acquainted, and during that time I do not think that I have met any man of such singularly nice feelings of honour and justice.
I am sensible that there is some impropriety in this address-but you must excuse it as I snatched this piece of paper the moment I had read the paragraph I allude to-with tears of indignation in my eyes-aye,Sir!-with actual not sentimental tears in my eyes as I sat down to write to you….
(See: Letter written from Edgeworthstown to Bath dated 7th April 1800, quoted in Jane Austen : Her Life and Letters ,A Family Record by William Austen Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen Leigh, 1913, page 139 )
By 1801 when Jane Austen was living in Bath, with her retired parents, in close social proximity of the Leigh Perrots, who were living in the Paragon, Maria Edgeworth began to enjoy enjoyed considerable publishing success. Her novel, Belinda was held up to general public and critical acclaim, and it is tempting to think that Jane Austen, whose social life revolved around the Leigh Perrots must have heard of the news of their friends daughter’s success- perhaps with not a little envy-Jane being an unpublished and a totally rejected author at this time.
It was of course Maria Edgeworth’s disclaimer in Belinda that she was not writing a novel but a moral tale,
‘Every author has a right to give what appellation he may think proper to his works … the following work is offered to the public as a Moral Tale, the author not wishing to acknowledge a Novel.
that Jane Austen later mocked in Chapter 5 of her revised Northanger Abbey:
….they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel–writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel–reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.
Maria Edgeworth read Northanger Abbey ( published posthumously in 1817) and did not so far as I can find, comment on Jane Austen’s criticism of her in that passage. But she didn’t seem to think much of the novel in general. Writing to her aunt, Mrs Ruxton on January 24th 1818 she had this to say:
I entirely agree with you my dearest aunt on one subject as indeed I generally do on most subjects, but particularly about Northanger Abbey….The behaviour of the General in Northanger Abbey, packing off the young lady without a servant or the common civilities which any bear of a man, not to say a gentleman, would have shown, is quite outrageously out of drawing and out of nature’
She also later dammed Northanger Abbey with feint praise, dismissing it as
‘milk and water’
Perhaps the criticism by Austen of her calling Belinda a moral tale and not a novel had finally stung her a little ?
Presumably unaware of Maria Edgeworth’s criticism-(there is more made during Jane Austen’s lifetime-see below), Jane Austen appears to have admired Edgeworth’s novels. In her letter to Anna Austen dated 28th September 1814 she wrote, tongue in cheek but not without a grain of truth I suspect:
I have made up my mind to like no Novels really, but Miss Edgeworths, Yours and my own…
She also chided Cassandra Austen gently ( but seriously I think) in her letter of the 23rd August 1814 for not liking Maria Edgeworth’s novel, Patronage;
I got the willow yesterday, as Henry was not quite ready when I reached Hena. St. I saw Mr. Hampson there for a moment. He dines here to-morrow and proposed bringing his son; so I must submit to seeing George Hampson, though I had hoped to go through life without it. It was one of my vanities, like your not reading “Patronage.”
Maria Edgeworth appears to have enjoyed Jane Austen early works immensely. She advised her step brother, Charles Snyed Edgeworth, to buy Pride and Prejudice, writing to him on the day she had visited the Cambridge Colleges, a day spent partly in the company of Dr Clarke the brother of James Stanier Clarke who was, of course, the librarian and chaplain to the Prince Regent who had fallen under Jane Austen’s spell:
“Now we are again on the London Road and nothing interrupted our perusal of Pride and Prejudice for the rest of the morning. I am desired not to give you my opinion of Pride and Prejudice but desire you to get it directly and tell us yours…”
(Letter dated may 1st 1813)
The Edgeworths also admired Mansfield Park. A family friend, Lady Anne Romilly wrote to the Edgeworths at Edgeworthstown with lukewarm praise of it:
‘Have you read Mansfield Park? It has been pretty generally admired here, and I think all novels must be that are true to life which this is, with a good strong vein of principle running thro’ the whole. It has not that elevation of virtue, something beyond nature, that gives the greatest charm to a novel, but still it is real natural every day life, and will amuse an idle hour in spite of its faults’
but they made up their own minds about it nevertheless.
During Christmas 1814 the Edgeworths read it aloud amongst the family as was their custom, and thought it excellent:
‘We have been much entertained with Mansfield Park,’
and indeed in 1823 Maria was still talking of the characters in the novel as if they were real( a habit many Janeites fall into !):
‘Be pleased, therefore, to go back to Moulinan, and see us eat luncheon; for in spite of Mr. Grant’s contempt of these bon-vivant details, habit will not allow me to depart from my practice of giving the bill of fare’
(Letter to Lucy Edgeworth dated July 23rd 1823)
Jane Austen sent a presentation copy of Emma via her publisher John Murray, to Maria Edgeworth in Ireland, but she seems not to have valued it at all as a novel . The wondering acknowledgment of her receipt of the presentation copy,which seems to suggest to me at least that she did not know of Jane Austen’s connection with the Leigh Perrots,
‘The authoress of Pride and Prejudice has been so good as to send me a new novel just published, Emma’
(Letter dated 10th January 1816)
was followed by this statement:
‘There was no story to it, except that Miss Emma found that the man whom she designed for Harriet’s lover was an admirer of her own – & he was affronted at being refused by Emma… and smooth, thin water-gruel is according to Emma’s father’s opinion a very good thing & it is very difficult to make a cook understand what you mean by smooth thin water gruel”
Persuasion she seems to have generally liked much better than Emma:
‘Persuasion – excepting the tangled, useless histories of the family in the first fifty pages – appears to me, especially in all that relates to poor Anne and her lover, to be exceedingly interesting and natural. The love and the lover admirably well drawn; don’t you see Captain Wentworth or rather don’t you in her place feel, taking the boisterous child off her back as she kneels by the sick boy on the sofa? And is not the first meeting after their long separation admirably well done? And the overheard conversation about the nut? But I must stop; we have got no farther than the disaster of Miss Musgrave’s (sic) jumping off the steps.
(Letter dated, February 21st 1818)
There is one final connection with Jane Austen which I find absolutely intriguing. In the Introduction to her edition of Castle Rackrent and The Absentee,(1895)
Anne Thackeray Ritchie wrote of a visit to Ireland to find Edgeworthstown, the home of Maria Edgeworth and while there she also made some trips out into the surrounding country side:
Our host took us that day, among other pleasant things , for a marvellous and delightful flight on a jaunting car, to see something of the country. We sped through storms and sunshine by open moors and fields and then by villages and little churches, by farms where the pigs were standing at the doors to be fed, by pretty trim cottages.
The lights came and went; as the mist lifted we could see the exquisite colours, the green, the dazzling sweet lights on the meadows playing upon the meadow-sweet and elder bushes; at last we came to the lovely glades of Carriglass. It seemed to be that we had reaches an enchanted forest amid this green sweet tangle of ivy of flowering summer trees of immemorial oaks and sycamores…
The great Irish kitchen garden, belonging to the house with its seven miles of wall, was also not unlike a part of a fairy tale. Its owner, Mr Lefroy, told me that Miss Edgeworth had been constantly there. She was a great friend of judge Lefroy. As a boy he remembered her driving up to the house and running up through the great drawing room doors to greet the judge.
This was of course none other than Tom Lefroy, the subject of Jane Austen’s youthful flirtation, who rose to become the Chief Justice of Ireland and had his estate at Carriglas.
Edgeworthstown and Carriglass are both in Country Longford and are only just over 8 miles apart.
I find it so intriguing that Maria Edgeworth should have known the same Tom Lefroy, who so charmed Jane Austen as a young girl( though I seriously doubt that Tom Lefroy was the love of her life , writing in her letters about him as she did). I often wonder had Jane Austen lived if she would have met the Edgeworth and possibly Tom Lefroy. Now, that would have made for an interesting letter home to Cassandra…
That is the sum of all I can find out about Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth…but I think most of it is interesting and does throw up some intriguing questions: the answers, however ,we are probably never going to find…
I’ve just been made aware of a new Jane Austen digital project which sounds very exciting: Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts which aims to digitize all the extant manuscripts of Jane Austen’s works-which of course sadly do not include The Six-and for the first time since 1845,to hold them in a single accessible collection on-line.
The main aims of the project are, according to the website ,:
To create a digital resource reuniting all the known holograph surviving manuscripts of Austen’s fiction in an unprecedented virtual collection.
To provide for the first time full descriptions of, transcriptions of, analysis of, and commentary on the manuscripts in the archive, including details of erasures, handwriting, paper quality, watermarks, ink, binding structures, and any ancillary materials held with the holographs as aspects of their physical integrity or provenance.
To develop complex interlinking of the virtual collection to allow systematic comparison of the manuscripts under a number of headings representing both their intellectual and physical states.
The works which will be included in the project are:
Volume the First,
Volume the Second, Volume the Third, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Plan of a Novel’, ‘Opinions of Mansfield Park’ and ‘Opinions of Emma’ ,The Cancelled Chapters of Persuasion
and Sanditon
Eventually a print edition of facsimiles of all the works will be released.I think that will definitely go on my wish list…
