Minepast

A gentleman's servants

2011-09-13T10:39:00.000+01:00

From Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, which are an excellent insight into the life of

a gentleman in the mid 18th century, just a little earlier than the Malloren novels.

"I would neither have that man, nor him whom you 
have already, put out of livery, which makes them both 
impertinent and useless.

I am sure that, as soon as you 
shall have taken the other servant, your present man will 
press extremely to be out of livery, and (become) valet de chambre ; 
which is as much as to say, that he will curl your hair, and 
shave you, but not condescend to do anything else.

I therefore advise you never to have a servant out of livery ; 
and though you may not always think proper to carry the 
servant who dresses you abroad in the rain and dirt, behind 
a coach or before a chair, yet keep it in your power to do 
so, if you please, by keeping him in livery."

Interesting distinctions that they take for granted. The valet de chambre was a high-ranking

servant and almost a companion. He would dress in style, and if he accompanied his employer

he would travel in the coach, or have a sedan chair of his own. Livery placed him closer to a footman.

Not Georgian, but Regency -- RITA winning An Unwilling Bride is newly available now.

Enjoy!

Jo

Arson in London

2011-08-08T20:21:00.000+01:00

The book I'm finishing now, A Scandalous Countess, takes place in 1765, mostly in London, mostly in June.

I thought this event from the time had an unfortunate echo of current events. "A most desolating species of villainy seems to gain ground among the abandoned crew, that infest this metropolis, who, by setting fire to old buildings, sheds, and work-shops, burn down dwelling houses, and thereby facilitate the meant of robbery, on the profits of which they subsist. No lest than 7 or 8 discoveries of trains laid for this desperate putpose have been discovered and defeated within a few weeks. It is hoped, therefore, that sime severe law will be made to prevent a crime, which, one would think, the most profligate wretch in the world would tremble at the consequences of committirg."
The Gentleman's Magazine, 1765

Grosvenor Square

2011-03-04T09:30:00.000Z

London Online has many interesting articles about London in the past.

There's a whole section about Grosvenor Square, a fashionable place in the 18th century and now.

There's a list of the residents in 1751
" the Rate Books for 1751 show that the Marchioness of Blandford, the Earl of Halifax, Sir James Dashwood, Lord Guernsey, the Duchess of Somerset, the Countess of Thanet, Lord Maynard, Peter Delmé, Lord Carpenter (who probably moved from Hanover Square where he was living in 1725), Dudley North, Lord de la Warr and the Earl of Jersey all resided here, all paying rental rates varying from £130 to £140. "

The section also says, "The earliest mention of any individual house in the Square is in 1739, when, according to the Gentleman's Magazine, the centre house on the east side, which had been built by a Simmons, was raffled for and won by two people named Hunt and Braithwaite. The possessors valued it at £10,000, but two months later they sold it to the Duke of Norfolk for £7,000."

So raffling off houses isn't a new thing.

Explore and enjoy!

An Unlikely Countess has absolutely no scenes set in London, never mind Grosvenor Square, but it is out now.

Jo :)

video

2011-02-28T14:08:00.002Z

Inspired by the Oscars*G* I created a video over the weekend, mostly as a way to show some of the locations of An Unlikely Countess, though giving them context turned it into a bit of a book trailer.

Anyway, it was fun. If you want to do something with still images, I recommend Photo Story. It's an old programme, but it's a free download it from Microsoft, and once you learn its fairly simple ways, it's easy to use.

If you like it, I'd be delighted if you passed it on via Facebook, Twitter, and the usual places.
Here's the link.

As you'll gather, my new book, An Unlikely Countess, is out soon. Like... tomorrow!

There's an excerpt here.

The cover is there, too. Google/blogger seems to have done something that means I can't post pictures.

Cheers,

Jo

A Valentine's poem

2011-02-12T12:20:00.000Z

Is this some other odd mating ritual?

Below we have dreadful poetry, even dreadful doggerel, but it shows the traditions of the past. The one referred to is when the names of unmarried men were put in one bowl and of unmarried women in another. Then each picked a name from the opposite bowl.

Verses to a young Lady in Hull, presented on
Valentine-Day. (1755)

Since Valentine, that Saint benign,
To all the Sons of Adam,
Did leave this Day, as who should lay,
Let each Man chuse his Madam.

Then blame who can, since I'm the man.
As much as is my daddy ;
If I persue, and wish for you,
More than sot other lady.

You are my right, for yesternight,
With scrips of paper rolled
I drew your name, which made my flame,
Too high to be controlled.

Now every night, your image bright,
A moment leaves me never ;
O that it wou'd, be still so good,
With joy I'd sleep for ever.

Grant then, dear miss, some hopes of bliss.
If I deserve your notice ;
If not be free, and let me see,
My chance, not worth a groat is.

But if you frown, or tell the town,
My passion then is over;
For if you be, not kind to me,
At once you lose a lover.

But should you fear, my plaint to hear,
Nor e'er intend to do it,
There's, no such man, prove it who can,
As Valentine or poet.

May you enjoy St. Valentine's Day, however you mark it.

Jo

A little bit more on coach travel.

2011-01-04T11:35:00.000Z

From a letter by Benjamin Franklin re December 1764
"You wonder how I did to travel 72 Miles in a short winter Day...But the Roads here are so good, with Post Chaises and fresh Horses every ten or twelve Miles, that it is no difficult Matter. A Lady that I know has come from Edinburgh to London, being 400 Miles, in three Days and half"

Ben Franklin on breakfast

2011-01-04T08:42:00.000Z

He's not specifically talking about breakfast, but there's interesting information there about the range of foods eaten.

This is from History Caper

I've added the paragraphing to make it easier to read.

The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser

January 1766

"Homespun" Celebrates Indian Corn

To the PRINTER.
VINDEX PATRIAE, a writer in your paper, comforts himself, and the India Company, with the fancy, that the Americans, should they resolve to drink no more tea, can by no means keep that resolution, their Indian corn not affording "an agreeable, or easy digestible breakfast."

Pray let me, an American, inform the gentleman, who seems quite ignorant of the matter, that Indian corn, take it for all in all, is one of the most agreeable and wholesome grains in the world; that its green ears roasted are a delicacy beyond expression; that samp, hominy, succatash, and nokehock, made of it, are so many pleasing varieties; and that a johny, or hoe-cake, hot from the fire, is better than a Yorkshire muffin --

But if Indian corn were as disagreeable and indigestible as the Stamp Act, does he imagine we can get nothing else for breakfast? -- Did he never hear that we have oatmeal in plenty, for water-gruel or burgoo; as good wheat, rye, and barley as the world affords, to make frumenty; or toast and ale; that there is every where plenty of milk, butter, and cheese; that rice is one of our staple commodities; that for tea, we have sage and bawm in our gardens, the young leaves of the sweet white hickery or walnut, and, above all, the buds of our pine, infinitely preferable to any tea from the Indies; while the islands yield us plenty of coffee and chocolate? --

Let the gentleman do us the honour of a visit in America, and I will engage to breakfast him every day in the month with a fresh variety, without offering him either tea or Indian corn.

-- As to the Americans using no more of the former, I am not sure they will take such a resolution; but if they do, I fancy they will not lightly break it. I question whether the army proposed to be sent among them, would oblige them to swallow a drop more of tea than they chuse to swallow; for, as the proverb says, though one man may lead a horse to the water, ten can't make him drink. Their resolutions have hitherto been pretty steadily kept.

They resolved to wear no more mourning; -- and it is now totally out of fashion with near two millions of people; and yet nobody sighs for Norwich crapes, or any other of the expensive, flimsey, rotten, black stuffs and cloths you used to send us for that purpose, with the frippery gauses, loves, ribbands, gloves, &c.;thereunto belonging. --

They resolved last spring to eat no more lamb; and not a joint of lamb has since been seen on any of their tables, throughout a country of 1500 miles extent, but the sweet little creatures are all alive to this day, with the prettiest fleeces on their backs imaginable.

Mr. VINDEX's very civil letter will, I dare say, be printed in all our provincial news papers, from Nova Scotia to Georgia; and together with the other kind, polite, and humane epistles of your correspondents PACIFICUS, TOM HINT, &c.;&c. contribute not a little to strengthen us in every resolution that may be of advantage, to our country at least, if not to yours. HOMESPUN.
The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, January 2, 1766

Coach travel

2010-12-24T09:17:00.000Z

(I posted this in response to a question on my Malloren World Wiki about how travel worked in the 18th and early 19th centuries.)

It's a bit complicated, but some people used their own horses for the whole journey. In that case they would travel more slowly as the horses would need rest, food, and water.

A few very rich people would either keep their own horses along routes they traveled frequently -- ie Rothgar Abbey to London.

An alternative for the rich planning a journey in advance would be to send out teams of horses to await along the route. But that would be extraordinary.

Mostly those with money would hire both chaise and horses right from the start and travel at speed because the chaise was a light vehicle and they'd change the team every 10 miles or so.

Most people who traveled did so by a public coach or by wagon, as Petra does in A Lady's Secret. Or walked.

BTW, if traveling by chaise, there were connection options.
1. If they were a long way from the post roads someone from home could drive them to the inn, or a plain coach from the posting inn could come to collect them.
2. If they were nearby and the road not too rough, the chaise would come to the door.

Cheers,

Jo

A template for a Regency ball?

2010-12-19T13:00:00.006Z

The following is from Thomas Peacock's novel Headlong Hall. Though it's satirical, we can assume that the details of the ball are accurate. I've given the main points below in italics and made bold the text evidence that comes after. I've also cut out chunks that were irrelevant to this. The text is available on line if you want to read it all. Some of the text below is garbled.

A "set" was two dances. So the "first set" is two dances, but a lady would take one partner for the two. Thus, a set. Each set lasts half an hour. That would be a pretty good workout, I think. In this case supper was served after the third set, and included musical performances by the guests. They then returned to the ballroom for more sets.

Balls started late and went on till dawn. Guests didn't sleep at the house. They took breakfast and went home.

After having danced a set with a lady, a gentleman may not dance the next, but he can reclaim her, if she's willing, for the one after.

I have cut this from below this, which was a commonly held position on the benefits of a dance.

"It has the advantage of bringing young persons of both sexes together, in a manner which its publicity renders perfectly unexceptionable, enabling them to see and know each other better than, perhaps, any other mode of general association. Tete-atetes are dangerous things. Small family parties are too much under mutual observation. A ball-room appears to me almost the only scene uniting that degree of rational and innocent liberty of intercourse, which it is desirable to promote as much as possible between young persons, with that scrupulous attention to the delicacy and propriety of female conduct, which I consider the fundamental basis of all our most valuable social relations."

Another passage. "As to the men, the case is very nearly the same with them. To be sure, they have the privilege of making the first advances, and are, therefore, less liable to have an odious partner forced upon them: though this sometimes happens, as I know by woeful experience : but it is seldom they can procure the very partner they prefer, and when they do, the absurd necessity of changing every two dances forces them away, and leaves them only the miserable alternative of taking up with Boiiieiiuiig, uiaagrecabls perhaps in itself, and at all events rendered so by contrast, or of retreating into some solitary corner, to vent their spleen on the first idle coxcomb they can find."

The following is the original text, cut about a bit.

The ball-room was adorned with great taste and elegance, under the direction of Miss Caprioletta and her friend Miss Cephalis, who were themselves its most beautiful ornaments, even though romantic Meirion, the pre-eminent in loveliness, sent many of its loveliest daughters to grace the festive scene.

Numberless were the solicitations of the dazzled swains of Cambria for the honour of the two first dances with the one or the other of these fascinating friends: but little availed, on this occasion, the pedigree lineally traced from Caractacus or King Arthur: their two philosophical lovers, neither of whom could have given the least account of his great-great-grandfather, had engaged them many days before.

Mr. Panoscope chafed and fretted like Conwy in his bed of rocks, when the object of his adoration stood up with his rival: but he consoled himself with a lively damsel from the vale of Llwyd, having first compelled Miss Cephalis to promise him her hand for the fourth set.

The ball was accordingly opened by Miss Caprioletta and Mr. Foster...

When the two first dances wore ended, Mr. Escot, who did not choose to dance with any one but his adorable Cephalis, looking round for a convenient seat, discovered Mr. Jenkison in a corner by the side of the Reverend Doctor, who was keeping excellent time with his nose to the lively melody of the harp and fiddle. Mr. Escot seated himself by the side of Mr. Jenkison, and inquired if he took no part in the amusement of the night ?

ME. JENKISON.

No. The universal cheerfulness of the company induces me to rise: the trouble of such violent exercise induces me to sit still. Did I see a young lady in want of a partner, gallantry would incite me to offer myself as her devoted knight for half an hour: hut as I perceive there are enough without me, that motive is null. I have been weighing these points pro and con, and remain in statu quo.

MR. ESCOT.

...Then suddenly place before him a chandelier, a fiddler, and a magnificent beau in silk stockings and pumps, bounding, skipping, swinging, capering, and throwing himself into ten thousand attitudes, till his face glows with fever, and distils with perspiration: the first impulse excited in his mind by such an apparition, will be that of violent fear, which, by the reiterated perception of its harmlessness, will subside into simple astonishment. Then let any genius, sufficiently werful to impress on his mind all the terms of the communication, impart to him, that, after a long process of ages, when his race shall have attained what some people think proper to denominate a very advanced stage of perfectibility, the most favoured and distinguished of the community shall meet by hundreds, to grin, and labour, and gesticulate, like the phantasma before him, from sunset to sunrise, while all nature is at rest, and that they shall consider this a happy and pleasurable mode of existence, and furnishing the most delightful of all possible contrasts to what they will call his vegetative state—would he not groan from his inmost soul for the lamentable condition of his posterity ?

The spcond set of dances was now terminated, and Mr. Escot flew off to reclaim the hand of the beautiful Cephalis, with whom he figured away with surprising alacrity, and probably felt at least as happy among the chandeliers and silk stockings, at which he had just been railing, as he would have been in an American forest, making one in an In

Squire Headlong was now beset by his maiden aunt, Miss Brindle-mew Grimalkin Phoebe Tabitha Ap-Headlong, on one side, and Sir Patrick OTrism on the other: the former insisting that he should immediately procure her a partner; the latter earnestly requesting the same interference in behalf of Miss Philomela Poppyseed. The Squire thought to emancipate himself from his two petitioners by making them dance with each other; but Sir Patrick vehemently pleading a prior engagement, the Squire threw his eyes around till they alighted on Mr. Jenkison and the Reverend Doctor Gaster; both of whom, after waking the latter, he pressed into the service. The Doctor, arising with a strange kind of guttural sound, which was half a yawn and half a groan, was handed by the officious Squire to Miss Philomela, who received him with sullen dignity: she had not yet forgotten his falling asleep during the first chapter of her novel, while she was condescending to detail to him the outline of four superlative volumes. The Doctor, on his part, had most completely forgotten it; and though he thought there was something in her physiognomy rather more forbidding than usual, he gave himself no concern about the cause, and had not the least suspicion that it was at all connected with himself. Miss Grimalkin was very well contented with Mr. Jenkison, and gave him two or three ogles, accompanied by a most risible distortion of countenance, which she intended for a captivating smile. As to Mr. Jenkison, it was all one to him with whom he danced, or whether lie danced or not: he was, therefore, just as well pleased as if he had been left alone in his corner : which is probably more than could have been said of any other human being under similar circumstances.

At the end of the third set, supper was announced, and the party, pairing off like turtles, adjourned to the supper-room. The Squire was now the happiest of mortal men, and the little butler the most laborious. The centre of the largest table was decorated with a model of Snowdon, surmounted with an enormous artificial leek, the leaves of angelica, and the bulb of blanc-mange. A little way from the summit was a tarn, or mountain-pool, supplied through concealed tubes with an inexhaustible flow of milkpunch, which, dashing in cascades down the miniature rocks, fell into the more capacious lake below, washing the mimic foundations of Headlong Hall. The Reverend Doctor handed Miss Philomela to the chair most conveniently situated for enjoying this interesting scene, protesting he had never before been sufficiently impressed with the magnificence of that mountain, which he now perceived to be well worthy of all the fame it had obtained.

Now when they had eaten and were satisfied," Squire Headlong called on Mr. Chromatic for a song: who, with the assistance of his two accomplished daughters, regaled the ears of the

Squire Headlong returned thanks with an appropriate libation, and the company returned to the ball-room, where they kept it up till sun-rise, when the little butler summoned them to breakfast.

My next book featuring a Regency ball is the reissue of Forbidden Magic. Read an excerpt here.

Cheers,

A faery curse in Georgian England.

2010-11-19T07:57:00.006Z

"My favorites include Neil Gaiman’s The Thing About Cassandra, Jo Beverley’s The Marrying Maid..."

That's from a review here of Songs of Love and Death, an SF anthology edited by Gardner Dozois and George RR Martin.

And then I'm linked with Diana Gabaldon.
"Two of my top picks along with Diana Gabaldon would be Jo Beverley with her inventive tale "The Marrying Maid" inspired by Titania and Oberon's continual toying with humankind..."

Read more here.

The stories range from contemporary to historical, from horror to romance. You can guess where my story fits! It's Georgian and completely a romance, but tangled up with an ancient faery curse that could kill my hero and all his family.

Available now in hardcover, Kindle, and other e-book forms.

Enjoy!

Jo

World War I ships

2010-10-24T14:02:00.003+01:00

Have a bit of spare time? Old Weather is looking for people to transcribe the logs of Royal Navy ships during the First World War. They're primarily gathering weather data to add to what we know about weather trends in the 20th century, but historians and others are also hoping to glean a bit of extra information from the notes added to the logs. Mostly they're boring day-to-day, but every now and then there are names, which could be useful -- for example to people doing genealogy -- and sometimes dramas such as sickness and death.

This can't be computerized as computers are bad at reading handwriting.

You don't have to commit to any amount of time and could just do a little now and then, but it could be both useful and interesting. I did a bit, and I'll go back now and then, and it's easy once you've done a couple.

Click here to see more.

Let me know if you try it, and how it goes!

Jo

A self-made Georgian gentleman

2010-09-11T20:25:00.001+01:00

I've blogged about the Aske Hall in Yorkshire, and the man who built it.

Come and read the story. http://www.wordwenches.com

more travel

2010-07-13T14:56:00.002+01:00

I'm adding more about travel because in addition to sharing this stuff with interested readers, it's a way to file it on line in case I need it on he road!

In the days of machinery, however, the magnates generally travelled to London by other means. One mode was the procession of nine or ten days in all the solemn state of lonely grandeur; (as related in the previous blog) the other by obtaining a partner in the lighter expense of a chaise.* " Wanted," says a Darlinijton Mercury of 1773, " a partner in a post chaise to London, on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday next. Enquire of the Post Master in Darlington."

In the Ettrick Diary there is a curious and painful account of a journey to London, performed by the squire and his lady on horseback ; of their misery and consternation when their horse "Dragon" fell lame ; and of tlie frightful expenses of the journey, which are partly accounted for by the dolorous husband, " because his wife would have all her own way.'

In days of old, there was a discreet decree among travellers on horseback, and even by stage coach, that when Sunday came, it should be a day of rest for both man and beast in the slow progress on the road.

About 80 years ago, there was but one post chaise in Darlington, and it had only three wheels. When another innkeeper set up an opposition chaise to it, the rival hosts adopted the practice which prevailed up to a recent period at bathing places, of watching the approach of chaises into the town, and handing cards to the travellers, soliciting their favours.

Here's the account of a journey. The book scan isn't great. I've corrected where I'm sure, but left the rest. The money is in pounds, shillings, and pence. l for pound, which is easily missed. s or / for shillings. d for pence. So 21. 3s. 5d should be 2l 3s 5d -- two pounds, three shillings, and five pence.

1762, Jan. 29. Paid bill at Darlington for chaise and horses. II. 1s. 1d.:

at Northallerton, 2l. Is.

Boroughbridge, all night, 2l. 3s. 5d. .

Wetherby, breakfast, 10d. Id.: (this seems cheap as elsewhere it's a number of shillings)

Aberforth, dinner, II. &s. OtI. :

Ferrybridge, all night, 3l. Is. Id.:

Doncaster, dinner, II. 13s.5d.:B

arnbymocr, all night, 11. 14*. Urf. :

Tuxford, breakfast,6s.:

Carleton, dinner, II. 9s. Sd.:

Newark, all night, '21. 18?. 7.W.:

Grantham, dinner, II. 13». .Wrf. :

Cotesworth, all night, 21. 14s. OJrf.:

Stamford, dinner, 21.10s. Rd.:

Stilton, all night, 21." IBs. id. :

Bngden, dinner, 21. 6*. 5Ad. :

Biggleswade, all night, 31. 2s. 4d.:

Stevenage, breakfast, II. Is. flrf.:

Hatfield, dinner, II. 18s. 5d.:

Barnett, all nipht, 31. 4s. Od. :

It gets more expensive as he goes south, but a night seems to be 2-3 pounds, dinner 1-2 pounds, which probably included wine.

Another account. fifteen days hire of six coach horses, coachman, and postillion, from York to Darlington and from thence to London, and return to York, at II. 15s. Od. a day, 26. 5s. Od.

: said coachman, extra present, 21. 2s. 0d: paid postillion do., II. Is. (tips?)

: May 17, conch and six horses, from London to Grange, 201. 14s. Od.: road expenses from London to Grange, 511. 6». 3J(i Total cost of journey, 1601. Is. 9-W

Rough, I know, but I don't have time to do better. Make of it what you will!

costs of travel in the past.

2010-06-17T10:00:00.000+01:00

This travel budget is from 1762 from Darlington in the north of England to London for one lady. This is an 18th century account, and they take knowledge for granted, so interpreting can be tricky. However, it's clear this was seen as a vast amount of money for a trip to Town.

"Miss Ann Allan's journey up (London is always up) consumed nine days. Six coach-horses, a coachman and postillion, came from York for her (it was common for the hired post chaise to pick up at the door. The option was for someone to take the traveler to the nearest posting inn), and in the service were occupied fifteen days. (That implies that she had the same coachman and postilion for the whole journey, which is interesting, because it also implies that she used the same horses. However, the roads were so bad at times, that speed might not have been possible, and the lady might have wanted long breaks, in which case the horses could be rested, watered, and fed.)

The accounts next says "for which they were charged 261. 5s. Od., besides coachman and postillion's fees."

This sounds like nearly 270 pounds for the carriage and horses alone, almost 30 pounds a day. A poor labourer might have to try to live on 30 pounds a year!

On the return journey, the coach and six horses cost 280 pounds.

Then it adds that the road expenses back to Darlington were 611. 6s. 3. That must be the costs for stops, including overnight plus tolls, but it still seems an enormous amount. I assume the lady was traveling with some servants, but perhaps she took a retinue!

It concludes, "The total cost of the journey up and down was 1500 pounds,; and some 700 pounds were spent by the lady in town."

On Ann Allan, the Allan family were one of the most important in Darlington, and i found this note about the church. "The Church Plate consists of two large silver flaggons, two plates, and a chalice with a cover, given by Mrs. Hannah Eden and Mrs. Ann Allan: “Vasa sacra Deo et Ecclesiœ S. Cuthberti in Darlington humillime offerunt Hannah Eden et AnnaAllan, Anno Domini 1772.”

Also George Allan Esq. (who married Thomasine Prescott,) built Blackwell-Grange. His last surviving daughter, Ann Allan who died in 1787"

For a later Ann Allan, who bears some resemblance to Miss Haversham of Great Expectations, read here.

Visit my website here.

Dunkirk

2010-05-28T13:36:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Dunkirk, and I thought it worth acknowledging. There's a series of pictures here.

It and the Battle of Britain are iconic events of WWII for Britain, but especially Dunkirk, because of the participation of ordinary people. It forms the background for an episode in the excellent Foyle's War, and also Paul Gallico's novel, The Snow Goose.

BBC recently did a play of this book. You can hear it here.

Jo

More on fabrics

2010-05-21T15:46:00.003+01:00

My posts here are forwarded to my Facebook page, and I received these interesting comments there from Jo Koster.

"There's an exhibit on quilts currently at the V&A that shows lots of small bits of these fabrics. Interesting to see the smaller prints evolve as textile machinery grew more sophisticated but also as demands for smaller-scale pieces grew.

Here's the V&A link. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/quilts-1700-2010/. People who are interested: try the "textiles resources" link on the left-hand bar. Lots of photos (download for free) and many other resources."

Thanks, Jo.

Jo

18th century fabrics

2010-05-20T11:04:00.002+01:00

A lovely page on 18th century fabrics that is part of a great site on costumes.

Enjoy!

Eighteenth century servants

2010-05-17T10:00:00.000+01:00

I've blogged about 18th century servants and their wages here.

Jo

wild weather in the past

2010-05-14T11:31:00.003+01:00

A timely reminder that wild weather isn't new, and nor is nasty winter weather in England.

From the letters of Horace Walpole.
"Arlington Street, Feb. 22, 1762. (PAGE 173)

"As we have never had a rainbow to assure us that the world shall
not be snowed to death, I thought last night was the general
connixation. We had a tempest of wind and snow for two hours
beyond any thing I remember: *chairs were blown to pieces, the
streets covered with tassels and glasses and tiles, and coaches
and chariots were filled like reservoirs. Lady Raymond's house
in Berkeley-square is totally unroofed; and Lord Robert Bertie,
who is going to marry her, may descend into it like a Jupiter
Pluvius."

*chairs here means sedan chairs.

If you want to read his letters, and many other interesting old books, they're available on line in a number of places including Fullbooks

Jo :)

Coming in June -- click here.

Pictures of old Darlington

2010-05-08T09:28:00.003+01:00

There's a great collection of old postcards and photos of the Darlington area on this website.

There are pictures here of Thirsk, which features in Secrets of the Night. At left is a photo of mine of The Three Tuns, in which some scenes are set.

There are some more in the middle of this page, though I note that the picture of The Three Tuns isn't working. Have to fix that.

This page is particularly interesting. It compares modern pictures with old photographs.

Darlington isn't that far from here, and my husband's family lived in Middlesbrough, not far away, after moving from rural Yorkshire in the Beverley area to get jobs in industry. Part of my MIP, An Unlikely Countess, is set in Darlington, which is how I found this site in the first place.

Best,

Jo

Title usage

2010-05-02T21:00:00.003+01:00

As a reminder, I have a page on my web site giving a simple overview of peerage titles for the romance writer.

There are a number of other articles. Click here for the menu.

The picture is of a backboard, if you've ever wondered what they were. It has a heart-shaped flat piece at the back, and by holding it on this way, the posture was perfected, in theory at least.

Enjoy!

Jo

Ships Accounts

2010-03-16T15:35:00.004Z

As the name of this blog suggests, I like to mine the past for information, and this is worth a dig.

Ships accounts/stores from the 18th century.

Some of it might take some interpretation, though. The transcript of one sheet is:
Account of Stores for the Brigg Saley

logg Real & lines Doppy lad & line
long & short mesures Lantorns & funels
3 hand pumps Hamer & Nales & lether
granes & Harpons fishing hooks & lines pames
Nedles & twine glases minuet and 1/2 Dozen Half
our glases Spike Nales of Defront Sises
gimblets lades & tormanters one or too hatchets
a Sarwing malet woding Boles Knifes
forkes & Spunes a Cabine table Candles
& oyl Pots for the Long Bots Padlocks
Scales & wates a pare of Small Stilards
Corking iorns and Serapors hand Spikes
Seedor Pales Lime for the Cumboos

Minuet I assume is minute, and the glasses for measuring time. Tormanters? Serapors?

Cumboos? We could people a fantasy novel with them. "Tho Tormanters are coming! Invoke the serapors. Arm the cumboos!"

Another document is the articles, ie the agreement before sailing, which lists the men and the money they're paid before sailing, and the pay per month. It seems pretty good for the time. The carpenter, for example, Abraham Hawkins, is paid 148 pounds advance, then 50 pounds a month if I read it right. Or perhaps it was an either or.

Jo :)

Read an excerpt from The Secret Duke here.

An 18th century account book.

2010-03-14T10:17:00.006Z

Genealogy web sites can be great sources of historical data. I came across The Account Book of Thomas Morgan of Carmarthen from the 18th century.

(Also came across this interesting chronology of events, which mostly seem to be industrial.

This is an article on the book, and I wish the book itself were available on line as it would be a wonderful resource for daily cost of living. I'm currently gathering data on cost of living for the poorer folk in the mid 18th century for my MIP, An Unlikely Countess.The article is from the '50s. Where is the book now?

(The cover is of the UK edition of Tempting Fortune, out on March 22nd, and shows Portia about to be auctioned off in a brothel for a great deal of money. It's unavailable in the US at the moment, but if you want a copy you can get it from The Book Depository in the UK, which ships free around the world. Great deal!)

Items of interest.
"In the same year Morgan rents a tenement called Gwaintre beddau [Laugharne ?] for £9 from Anne Parry whose receipt is a very shaky 'A'. " Was this an annual rent? It seems low for that, but without more detail it's hard to tell.

There's more clarity on the cost of a maidservant. "In 1761 he paid his servant maid Susan Hanmer £1.15s.0d per annum, had her shoes mended for a shilling and bought a silk hat for 4s.4d. Other purchases included a cotton gown, handkerchiefs, whale bone and even a pair of garters." So the wage was truly on top of all expenses.

Unless there's something else going on here. That silk hat is suspect. But we'll probably never know.

There are some clear lists, such as this.

Seven cane chairs £0.17s.6d
One Brass Pan £1.6s.7d
Five Pewter Dishes £0.8s.4d
Twelve Pewter Plates £0.11s.0d
Two brass candlesticks £0.3s.9d
Two Iron Pots £0.6s.0d
Two small casks £0.2s.0d

Sinecures et al

2010-03-04T09:41:00.005Z

A sinecure is a job that provides income without requiring much if any work, and they were a common source of income for the upper classes in the past. Usually, someone else was hired to do any necessary work at a much lower income.

There were also court appointments which did require some work, at the least attendance, but still paid very well as well as giving access to royalty with all the benefits that can bring. I came across this list of the household of Princess Augusta in the mid 18th century.

http://www.history.ac.uk/resources/office/augusta

Princess Augusta was King George III's mother, so her household is grand. Why is she not queen? Because her husband, the Prince of Wales, died before becoming king.

Among the grand, we have:

Groom of Stole and Mistress of Robes

Hamilton had £500 as Groom of Stole and £400 as Mistress of Robes and possibly also £400 as Lady of Bedchamber. Middlesex was apparently only Mistress of Robes.

Hamilton, Lady Jane WS 12 July 1736 (Add. MS 24397 f. 90v). Res. offices of Groom of Stole and Mistress of Robes by 6 June 1745 when granted pension of £1200

Middlesex, Grace Countess of WS as Mistress of Robes 24 June 1747

900 pounds a year was a lot of money back then.

The new edition of Tempting Fortune will be out in the UK in a few weeks.

Read my latest newsletter here.

Lotteries

2010-02-11T10:23:00.005Z

Not a new thing at all. Apparently the first English one was in the time of Good Queen Bess, and they only ceased in the 1820s, to be begun again in one form with the Premium Bonds, and in the 1990s by a straight lottery.

There's an interesting article here.

And linked to gambling, at least, in March the UK edition of Tempting Fortune, book 2 of the Mallorens, available in trade paperback, postage free from The Book Depository. You can order your copy now.

From sunny but nippy Whitby,

A gift for a Wenchly guest

2010-02-06T16:31:00.005Z

My guest at Word Wenches last Wednesday was the wonderful author Stephanie Laurens, whose latest book is Elusive Bride, in her Black Cobra series.

We Wenches like to give our guests virtual gifts as that allows us unstinting generosity.

As Stephanie loves to write about military men I thought of this, and the easiest place to display in on the web is here. It's a little bit out of her time frame, but it would look wonderful in her Australian home.

A magnificent suit of 16th century armour.

I hope you never need to don it, Stephanie!

Jo

The Egyptian Hall

2010-01-14T16:03:00.002Z

This was mentioned in To Rescue a Rogue and BBC Radio 4 has a series on it. They're mini dramas, really.

There are so many interesting programmes on BBC 4.

You can listen here.

They call it Victorian, but it isn't. It was built in the Regency.

Jo

Causes of death

2010-01-11T16:44:00.002Z

Another interesting little detail about causes of death. Industrial accidents and drowning, mainly, but note that all these are men except for the baby. Of course women were less likely to have such "violent" deaths that triggered inquests, but it wasn't just women dying off.

Title Abstract of Inquests delivered at York Lent Assizes (Aug 1755-Mar 1756)
Date c.1756
Description Contains details of places taken at, times when, dead bodies and verdicts as follows:
1) Latham, 2 Aug 1755, Henry Stubbins, accidently killed by a fall from a waggon
2) Cottonworth [Cottingwith], 2 Aug 1755, Peter Wilson, killed by a waggon wheel
3) Broomfleet, 16 Sep 1755, a person unknown, cast up by the River Humber
4) Routon, 23 Sep 1755, Thomas Dails, killed by a wain wheel
5) Hotham, William Akester, killed by a fall from a waggon by accidents
6) Bridlington, 10 Sep 1755, John Webster, killed by the stroke of a horse
7) Everingham, 2 Nov 1755, Francis Rushton, by accidents fell into the boyling copper
8) Loftsam Firry, 7 Nov 1755, Peter Sergison, drowned by accidents
9) Winteringham, 8 Dec 1755, Richard Hardy, found dead in a hemp pitt
10) Water, 11 Dec 1755, William Smith, killed by a fall from a waggon
11) Scampston, 23 Dec 1755, Jo'n Beilby found dead by the Act of Providence
12) Wellwick, 29 Dec 1755, Robert Hunter, shot himself
13) Muston, 13 Jan 1756, a female bastard child, murdered and buried
14) Bridlington, 26 Jan 1755, Mathew Griffin, drowned by accidents
15) Milestone house from Hull, 8 Mar 1756, William Abblett, infant, drowned
16) South Cave, 25 Mar 1756, Robert Story, killed by accidents

soul traveling and other folklore

2010-01-11T11:17:00.002Z

Yes, it's active writing and research time, so there'll probably be more posts coming through here. Today it's Yorkshire dialect, which led me to this page, which has lots of good material. It also cites this song by Steel Eye Span, which I remember fondly.

The image is from Wikipedia here.

I'm quoting the first two verses. The rest are on the site with a link to them singing it. I can't find the true URL on this computer, so you'll have to click on examples and scroll down a bit. It's wake song, that is, one sung at a funeral, and about the soul's journey over the moors, which will be hard or easy depending on their actions in life.

This ean night, this ean night

Every night and awle

Fire and Fleet and candle-leet

And Christ receive thy Sawle

When thou from hence dost pass away

Every night and awle

To Whinney-moor thou comest at last

And Christ receive thy Sawle

I love this not only for the song and the dialect, but for the folklore and the philosophy behind it.

People in the past weren't always stupid!

2010-01-09T11:15:00.003Z

Safety through eye make-up?

Yes, it seems that heavy Egyptian eye-liner might have guarded against eye disease.

The image is from this page about Neferiti

Perhaps that's why the lady on Chalice of Roses is wearing eye-liner, too. Back in the 12th century? Assuming she's Gledys of Rosewell, from my story.

Check out our page for Chalice of Roses. It's on sale now.

“Four engaging novellas bring romance to the legend of the Holy Grail....” Publishers Weekly

“...four formidable authors stretch their imaginations...each unique voice
calls upon historical incidents and paranormal elements to contribute to an anthology
that lifts the human spirit.” 4 1/4 stars, Top Pick! Kathe Robins Romantic Times Book Club

“VERDICT: This beautifully crafted anthology by some of the genre's best is graced with flawless writing, touches of humor, and magical, creative plots." Library Journal

Jo :)

Mulled wine

2009-12-22T20:52:00.004Z

I had a request from a reader for a recipe for mulled wine, and I thought that was a suitably seasonal thing to address.

Traditionally it was made with port and involved adding spices and warming it. Nowadays, red wine is more common.

Two Victoria recipes follow, both brief and not very precise!
Boil some spices* in a little water till the flavour is gained, then add an equal quantity of port, some sugar and nutmeg. Boil together and serve with toast.
*This, I assume, would be whole spices such as allspice, cardamon, cloves and cinnamon bark.

Boil a little cinnamon and some grated nutmeg a few minutes in a cupful of water then pour to it a pint of port wine and add sugar to taste.

On line I found this odd version.
"Mulled Wine

2 eggs, beaten very light with the sugar.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

2 full glasses white wine. 1/2 cup boiling water.

A little nutmeg.

Heat the water, add the wine; cover closely and bring almost to a boil. Pour this carefully over the beaten egg and sugar; set in a vessel of boiling water and stir constantly until it begins to thicken. Pour into a silver goblet, grate the nutmeg on the top, and let the invalid drink it as hot as it can be swallowed without suffering."

But also there is the complete text of this 1811 book.

There's a modern recipe here.

And there's a whole article on Wikipedia.

My Christmas Newsletter is available here.

Cheers!

Jo :)

Behind Closed Doors

2009-12-20T09:01:00.004Z

I grabbed a copy of this book as soon as it came out. Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors, about private life in the 18th century. The Times has a great review. Review here.

Amanda Vickery also read parts of the book on BBC 4 and there's a good page about her here.

I wish it was still running on the web so you could listen to it.

Of course the Georgian period is the time of my Malloren novels, and the book has given me one story idea already. Next out in the series is the final part of the "secrets" trilogy, The Secret Duke, in April. Alas, the cover isn't nearly as good as the other two in period feel, but I assure you the book is! You can sign up for an on-sale reminder by following the link.

You can also sign up for my occasional newsletter at the bottom of the page.

Hope the wind up to Christmas is going smoothly, and the season brings you joy.

Jo

Best historical drama on TV

2009-12-18T10:48:00.001Z

My Word Wenches blog today is about good historical drama on TV, from any time. Possible last minute Christmas presents?

Come along and share your favourites.

I'm giving away a couple of copies of Chalice of Roses. I've just received my author copies, and it does look lovely.

For those of you in the UK, I hope the snow's not making life too difficult. I gather it's given a lot of school kids an early start to the Christmas hols.

And that the cold in the north east of N America isn't too miserable.

We just got an inch or so of snow, but that's probably because the gale force northerlies blew it up onto t'moors! Horizontal hail at one point. Interesting.

Jo :)

Early settlers in Upper Canada

2009-12-17T18:14:00.002Z

Still having fun with genealogy, especially the byways!

Fascinating material on early emigrants to Upper Canada (mostly modern Ontario) here.

It's a bit later than my book, The Rogue's Return, but a lot of the material is familiar.

Jo

Rules of the Regiment

2009-12-16T21:57:00.003Z

Playing with genealogy again, and it's wonderful what one finds there.

Like this. The Standing Orders of an 18th century regiment.

It includes what the soldiers should be provided with and rules for officers' servants.

Have a look, and enjoy.

The picture is an actual uniform of the period in the Canadian War Museum.

Jo :)

Advice to women

2009-12-11T20:36:00.002Z

A Father's Legacy To His Daughters is an odd book written in 1774 by a widower who fears to leave his daughters without guidance. It makes depressing reading, but I have to think it the work of a depressed mind. His wife is dead, and it seems he has reason to fear that he will soon die.

"Your whole life is often a life of suffering. You cannot plunge into
business, or dissipate yourselves in pleasure and riot, as men too often do,
when under the pressure of misfortunes. You must bear your sorrows in
silence, unknown and unpitied. You must often put on a face of serenity
and cheerfulness, when your hearts are torn with anguish, or sinking in
despair. Then your only resource is in the consolations of religion. It
is chiefly owing to these that you bear dosmetic misfortunes better than
we do."

This, however, I simply find odd. What does it mean?

"There is a species of refinement in luxury, just beginning to prevail
among the gentlemen of this country, to which our ladies are yet as
great strangers as any women upon earth ; I hope, for the honour of the
sex, they may ever continue so : I mean, the luxury of eating. It is a
despicable selfish vice in men, but in your sex it is beyond expression
indelicate and disgusting."

The scanning of this book is crude, and most of the s are missing, but another online version which leaves in the f/s shows the same word. Eating. He might have meant a style of eating, for he follows it with:

Every one who remembers a few years back, is ſenſible of a very ſtriking change in the attention and reſpect formerly paid by the gentlemen to the ladies. Their drawing-rooms are deſerted ; and after dinner and ſupper, the gentlemen are impatient till they retire. How they came to loſe this reſpect, which nature and politeneſs ſo well intitle them to, I ſhall not here particularly inquire. The revolutions of manners in any country depend on cauſes very various and complicated. I ſhall only obſerve, that the behaviour of the ladies in the laſt age was very reſerved and ſtately. It would now be reckoned ridiculouſly ſtiff and formal. Whatever it was, it had certainly the effect of making them more reſpected. "

It's passages like this that make clear the divide in understanding between us and even the quite recent past.

Jo

The mail coach

2009-12-09T20:48:00.005Z

I came across this interesting essay by Thomas de Quincey on mail coaches.

It's well worth reading for all kinds of little details about this revolutionary form of transportation, but I was delighted by this section.

To set it up, de Quincey talks mainly of his enjoyment of the mail coach during his student days, when he and his fellows prized the outside seat where they had air, views, and even a chance of driving the coach sometimes. They looked down on those who paid more to be confined in a stuffy inside seat.
(This painting, Messrs. Richard Costar and Christopher Ibberson's Ludlow to Worcester Mail Coach on the Road, 1811 is from the web site http://www.1st-art-gallery.com, where you can buy a reproduction painting of it.)

"We conducted this inquiry on metaphysical principles; and it was ascertained satisfactorily, that the roof of the coach, which some had affected to call the attics, and some the garrets, was really the drawing-room, and the box was the chief ottoman or sofa in that drawing-room; whilst it appeared that the inside, which had been traditionally regarded as the only room tenantable by gentlemen, was, in fact, the coal-cellar in disguise.

Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long before struck the celestial intellect of China.

Amongst the presents carried out by our first embassy to that country was a state-coach. It had been specially selected as a personal gift by George III.; but the exact mode of using it was a mystery to Pekin. The ambassador, indeed, (Lord Macartney,) had made some dim and imperfect explanations upon the point; but as his excellency communicated these in a diplomatic whisper, at the very moment of his departure, the celestial mind was very feebly illuminated; and it became necessary to call a cabinet council on the grand state question–"Where was the emperor to sit?”

The hammer-cloth happened to be unusually gorgeous; and partly on that consideration, but partly also because the box offered the most elevated seat, and undeniably went foremost, it was resolved by acclamation that the box was the imperial place, and, for the scoundrel who drove, he might sit where he could find a perch.

The horses, therefore, being harnessed, under a flourish of music and a salute of guns, solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English throne, having the first lord of the treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on his left. Pekin gloried in the spectacle; and in the whole flowery people, constructively present by representation, there was but one discontented person, which was the coachman.

This mutinous individual, looking as blackhearted as he really was, audaciously shouted, “Where am I to sit?" But the privy council, incensed by his disloyalty, unanimously opened the door, and kicked him into the inside. He had all the inside places to himself; but such is the rapacity of ambition, that he was still dissatisfied. “I say,” he cried out in an extempore petition, addressed to the emperor through the window, “how am I to catch hold of the reins?” “Any how,” was the answer; “don’t trouble me, man, in my glory; through the windows, through the key-holes–how you please.”

Finally this contumacious coachman lengthened the checkstrings into a sort of jury-reins, communicating with the horses; with these he drove as steadily as may be supposed. The emperor returned after the briefest of circuits; he descended in great pomp from his throne, with the severest resolution never to remount it. A public thanksgiving was ordered for his majesty’s prosperous escape from the disease of a broken neck; and the state-coach was dedicated for ever as a votive offering to the god Fo, Fo–whom the learned more accurately called Fi, Fi."

Nothing to do with mail coaches, though transportation plays a part -- Chalice of Roses is a January book, which means it'll be out soon. My Grail story is medieval, set near Glastonbury, and you can read the beginning here.

Jo :)

What was Rothgar reading?

2009-11-30T08:33:00.002Z

The Marquess of Rothgar was, of course, very interested in science and engineering, and so he would be reading the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Such as this paper: An Account of the Success of the Bark of the Willow in the Cure of Agues.

In other words -- what we now know as aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid and its effects on pain.

How do I know this? Because the Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific association, founded in 1660, has put some of the most important papers from their Philosophical Transactions, on line, along with a time line.

You can read the above paper here.

And go to their sharing site, Trailblazing, here.

And how do I know about this? Because it was on BBC 4, which is so chock full of fascinating and entertaining content that I have to drag myself away to do other things. Like write books. I'm even listening as a blog!

Jo

18th century songs

2009-11-27T20:26:00.002Z

A nice site with many 18th century songs.

Enjoy!

The picture is there just because it's so hilariously odd! A smoking cherub. Only in Victorian times.

Jo :)

What's an Astrolabe?

2009-11-26T22:09:00.003Z

If you've ever wondered what one is and how it works (I had) here's the explanation.

From TED. There are lots of other interesting short talks up there.

Jo :)

Find out all about my recent and upcoming books here.

Researching the new book

2009-11-24T13:33:00.005Z

I'm writing a new Georgian with a blank slate -- ie it's not directly linked to any previous book, and I'm trying to nail down details as often as I can.

I decided to open the book in Guisborough, not very far from here, so I can do on the spot research.

Today I was looking around for a place for the hero's family home that wasn't too far away, but far enough. As I scanned my large scale road atlas, I saw Aske Hall. Mainly because I'd highlighted it.

Perfect location, but the reason I'd highlighted it was because my father-in-law was a footman there before the war. We have photos of the outside that he took, like this one. So no, that's not him. And some that we took on a visit a few years ago.
(The colour picture below is one we took a few years ago. There's easy access to the outside by a footpath through the estate. Worth a stroll if you're nearby.)

We've never been inside because it's still a private home.

They do free tours once a year, so I've booked us in for next September, but that will be too late for the book.

It doesn't matter, though, because I'm not calling the place Aske Hall, only using it as a frame for my invention. I prefer to be able to arrange the layout etc to suit the story.

The other reason that I generally make up such places is that if we visit, we see what's there today, and even in the best preserved, there's a lot of modern included. I try to combine textual and pictorial information from the 18th century with the framework of what's there now.

But it'll be interesting to go aroud it. I also know now where the Aske Hall records are -- in Northallerton, not far away -- so we'll take a trip and see if we can find a servants' roster, payroll or something.

Jo

The Museum of the History of Science.

2009-11-22T21:43:00.002Z

It's in Oxford, but it has online exhibitions. Check it out!

Museum of the history of science.

There's an exhibition on there now about steampunk and a video's on line. Very interesting.

Jo

If you're in the US or Canada, my first book is now available again.

If you're in the UK, the first book of my Mallorens in now available.
In both cases, if your book store's sold out, they can order it for you.

William Herschel, Yorkshire musician

2009-10-20T09:54:00.006+01:00

I wasn't aware that the astronomer William Herschel was also a musician, and had a strong Yorkshire connection. Being in Yorkshire these days, that interested me. That's a picture of Whitby sands near our house. (If you, too, live in the UK, see the end of this blog for important information.)

Thanks to a reader, David Walmsley, for the following.

Chandos Super Audio CD (CHSA 5005) in the "Contemporaries of Mozart" series,
states that Symphony #2 was composed in Richmond in September 1760, #8 in
Sunderland in April 1761, #12 in Pontefract in December 1761, #13 also in
Pontefract in March 1762, #14 in Leeds (perhaps a day's journey from
Pontefract at the time) in April 1762, and #17 in Pontefract again in July
1762. All his 24 symphonies were composed between 1760 and 1764.

Chronology.
Born 15 Nov 1738 in Hanover. Father violinist/oboist in infantry band.
Basic musical education given at Garrison School, which Wilhelm left in
1752.
1753 joined the Hanover Guards as violinist and oboist.
1756 (Seven Years War start) posted to England (as precaution against
possible attack by French). Fell in love with England and out of love with
the army. When he got back to Hanover his father managed to secure his
release by a loophole: he had never been sworn in! Later in the same year
(1756) he and his brother Jacob (organist and composer) went back to
England. Jacob stayed three years and went back. Wilhelm stayed, though he
saw little future in London.
1759 Director of the band of the Durham militia for 2 years.
1761 Pontefract (no details given).
1763 Director of subscription concerts in Leeds.
1766 offered "similar position to organist" at new Octagon Chapel in Bath.
Became main rival of Thomas Linley (1732-95) with benefit concert given in
Assembly Rooms on New Year's Day 1767 (Jan 1st, not March 25). Stayed there
ten years as centre of musical Bath.
Life divided thereafter between music the money supplier and astronomy the
avocation.
George III gave him a pension of 200 pounds a year in 1782 so the he could
give up his career as a musician. He had discovered the seventh planet
(later called Uranus) and named it Georgius Sidus (the star of George) on
the 13th of March 1781. He wasn't knighted until 1817, in his 79th year. He
died in 1822.

We shouldn't forget the work of his sister Caroline, who may have had a strong partnership in the discovery of Uranus, and made discoveries of her own. She also lived almost century.

If you're in the UK, check out my upcoming itinerary for the UK edition of Lady Notorious (a stop in Leeds, for example) here and come out to meet me. I'd be delighted.

Jo :)

Old maps

2009-08-16T12:34:00.002+01:00

Another interesting blog frob Dark Roasted Blend, this time about gorgeous old maps.

Click here.

Me, I'm only into road maps at the moment. We're in Ottawa resting in the middle of our cross Canada trip.

Jo :)

About lady's magazines of the past.

2009-08-14T17:07:00.001+01:00

Candice Hern is doing a wonderful series of blogs about Regency magazines.

Click here.

Jo

Forgotten flags

2009-07-06T22:31:00.001+01:00

Here's an interesting blog entry about flags of forgotten countries, or at least, forgotten flags. A reminder of how glory can be insubstantial in the face of time.

Click here.

The fancy helmet is sort of a precursor of a flag, no?

Cheers,

Jo

Interesting illustrated auction catalogue.

2009-05-17T00:47:00.005+01:00

Interesting auction of Victoria items. Listings with pictures.Click here.

In case you missed it, The Secret Wedding's been out for about a month.

The next book will be the reissue of my first novel, Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed, in October.

Best,

Jo
Remember, to sign up for my occasional newsletter, go to my web site and you'll find a sign up box on nearly every page.

Visiting the medieval world

2009-04-16T19:07:00.003+01:00

Elizabeth Chadwick writes wonderful medieval historical novels, creating a very convincing world. Of course when we authors create a world in the past, especially one far in the past, we have to use our modern mind to do it. Elizabeth has a secret weapon, so to speak, in a friend who can tune into the past.

You can read more about it here.

And in a blog here.

Very interesting!

Jo

How to fight, 16th century style

2009-02-04T00:07:00.003Z

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how to go page to page, and it is a German website and the text is in Latin, but this online 16th century book on fighting techniques looks fascinating.

Check it out here.

I like this illustration, as it looks as if the contest is "I can cut my head off quicker than you can cut yours off."

I have a blog up at Word Wenches about home. The snowdrop picture is from there.

Oh, and a wanton plug for my friend Sharon Ashwood's Ravenous, just out now. It's urban fantasy, vampires, people-eating houses, ghostbusting, romance, and written with a wicked wit. Go here to learn more.

Jo :)

Flotation devices

2009-01-22T04:29:00.004Z

I'm currently writing the last book of my rakes trilogy (The Secret Wedding, shown left, is the second, and will be out in April) and in researching, I found this in the Annual Register, Vol 7, Dec 1764, page 99. It's a description of a test of various devices for keeping people afloat in the water. The test took place in the Thames, with the people going through under the bridge, where the water was notoriously swift and turbulent.

"...then two men and a woman in a mob cap and red ribbons with through likewise in air jackets; these were followed by two men in the marine collar and belt. Thus secured, they danced in the eddy a considerable time, to the no small diversion of thousands of spectators, whom one of the men in air jackets presented with apples at the same time that he regaled himself with bread and cheese; after which he fired a pistol: these things were contained in his cap, which was made on purpose. On the whole it was a droll and not indecent sight, they all being dressed in flannel shifts and linen breeches."

Any number of questions and comments come to mind. Was the woman also wearing breeches? One supposes so. But isn't it delightful that a woman was included?

What cheerful fun they all seem to have had with it. Splendid.

Now the big question. What happened to these devices? In accounts of maritime disasters in the 18th and early 19th centuries I've never heard a mention of them. This came to the attention of the Gentleman's Magazine of 1869.
You can read it here.

"In the year 1761, when this Magazine was a mere stripling, having attained only to its thirty-first volume, we inserted amongst our items of incidental news, the following (p. 426):

" Was found, near the Spaniard, below the Nore, a fisherman who had been cast away seven hours, and saved his life by means of a cork jacket."

Antiquarian research is no doubt yet competent to find out what was meant by " the Spaniard below the Nore ; " but not competent, we fear, to say where that lucky fisherman bought his cork jacket . If, however, Mr. Greenwood should happily discover that it was made by anyone whose descendants still carry on the business, he will doubtless make known the address.

In 1764 we recorded, again (vol. xxxiv. p. 448), that—

" Several new inventions to preserve men's lives in shipwrecks near shore were tried at London Bridge, namely, the cork jacket, the air jacket, and the marine collar and belt; and all of them seemed to answer the intent. The persons employed to make the experiments played a number of tricks in the water to the no small diversion of the spectators."

In the first fifty years of our existence these two notices comprised all we had to say on the subject of appliances for saving life at sea.

There is not wanting, in fact, abundant evidence of a general concurrence of public opinion that the dangers of the sea were fixed beyond all human power of diminution, and that any attempt to battle with the watery forces savoured of impiety. It might be allowable to put up a few dim lights along the coast by which the shipwrecked mariner could make a rough guess as to where it was that he was being drowned. But when that was done, all was done. And, moreover, as the greatness of England depended to no small extent upon her marine, it would be well to keep the whole subject of loss of life at sea as quiet as possible, lest a check should be given to the supply of sailors."

Very interesting, but how odd that such a useful technology be ignored. Even if the devices weren't provided, you'd think some prudent seafarers would take one along.

Of course they weren't much use far from shore, as the chances of being rescued were tiny, and close to shore many wrecks were caused by the sort of wild weather and harsh shoreline which would mean a lifejacket would be of little use, but still, I know what I'd have squashed into my luggage somehow.

In poking around this subject, I came up with these tidbits from 1764.
"A Gentleman, well known at Newmarket, has engaged, we hear, for a considerable Wager, to ride one Horse from Hyde-Park-Corner to Oxford, and back again, within seven Hours; upon which several large Bets are depending."

That's about 50 miles each way, so about 14 miles an hour without allowing for stops for the horse. Of course, the attempt might have failed. I found not record of that.

"A Noble Lord has laid a Wager of One Thousand Guineas, that he causes a Boat to go Twenty-five Miles in one Hour; the Experiment will be tried one Day this Week on the River near Chelsea."

Again, no report on this.

But such things remind us that the past is full of surprises.

The above are from transcripts of a Worcester newspaper, available here.

Jo :)

Interesting museum exhibit

2009-01-15T16:47:00.002Z

Most of interest to people who can actually get there -- it's in London -- but this exhibit on medieval writing sounds fascinating.

Click here.

I have a blog up at Word Wenches, and I'm giving away an early reading copy of The Secret Wedding! Only until Friday the 16th.

Jo

Stocking Stuffers?

2008-11-09T17:44:00.002Z

Dover Books has fascinating resources, including facsimiles of old books. They're having a sale right now and I spotted these, which might be of interest.

From Dover Books.
The House Servant's Directory: An African American Butler's 1827 Guide
by Robert Roberts
Classic survey of work, home life, and race relations in early America — written by an African-American — offers keen insight into the social milieu, hierarchy, and maintenance of the antebellum manor. It's only $3.18

There's also a 1796 American cookbook. The First American Cookbook: A Facsimile of "American Cookery," 1796

Jo

What did people die of?

2008-11-08T18:21:00.000Z

Yes, I'm back! It's been a very busy year, mostly in a good way and I've finally sent off my next book -- The Secret Wedding, out next April. I'm hoping to be a bit more active now, here and on . Jo Talk

I'm posting because I just stumbled across this.

Causes of death in the late 19th century.

The picture is of Dr. John Helmcken's medicine chest from the mid to late 19th century. It's big because it's a ship's doctor's medicine chest. Dr. Helmcken left England in 1850 to be the doctor for the Hudson Bay Company on the north west coast of north America, but before that he'd been a ship's doctor with the company. His house, built in 1852, still exists in Victoria, BC, and is now part of the Royal BC Museum there. It's open to visitors at certain times of the year. The next opening will be over Christmas.

This site is related to Dr. Helmcken and includes a bit of information about medicine in the 19th century.

Cheers,

Jo

Plague

2008-08-14T16:42:00.003+01:00

Interesting data on plague, then and now.
Click here.

BTW, that's me and my agent in San Francisco, belatedly celebrating A Lady's Secret's success.

In case you don't read any of my other online places, I'm off to Australia for a few weeks. If I discover interesting historical bits and pieces, I'll try to get a connection and report here.

Cheers!

Jo

A typical Georgian country family

2008-05-14T18:11:00.003+01:00

This seems to be to be a typical development through the 18th and 19th centuries.

"John Spencer
Born 1718, died 1775. John's ancestors had accumulated wealth through the early iron industry. Coal pits took on more importance during their tenure. John was a huntsman, a bold rider, a hard drinker with a violent temper and speech, but open and warm hearted with good manners, a paternalistic approach. He was scholarly and possessed a large library. He was never interested in politics but became a racehorse owner and ran cockfights on Sunday in Cawthorne Park. However he attended the local All Saints Church regularly. Parson Phipps at this tme lived at Banks Hall, a batchelor for most of his life (An "old parochial squire") with no male issue.
John Spencer introduced about 100 deer into the park between 1760 and 1766, they were purchased in February. 1762. 18, pl93 The deer 'dissipated 'during WW2. By 1807 the Hall was basically as it is today.

Walter Spencer-Stanhope
Born 4th Feb 1749 died 4th. April 1821. He inherited Cannon Hall from his uncle, John Spencer in 1775. Walter changed his name from Stanhope to Spencer-Stanhope (18, p2) A politician, educated at Bradford Grammar School, University College, Oxford, Law studies at Miiddle Temple member for Carlisle (first of four constituencies). A close supporter of William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce (Yorkshire anti-slavery campaigner).William Wilberforce was a frequent visitor to Cannon Hall.

Walter had income from estates, iron furnaces and coal mines. A bloomery had operated at Cinder Hill and there still are numerous "Smithy Fields"12, p51 to the north (see Ordnance Survey maps)
In the l650's the Spencers' had manufactured iron at Bamby Furnaces, Wortley Forges, Bank Furnace (Thornhlll Parish) and Kirkstall Iron Works near Leeds. Timber was taken from the surrounding woodlands for this purpose.l2, p62 Even back in 1352 there was a contract to supply wood and iron for the "iron blomes at Kirkstell near Otley".12, p51
By the 1750's pit coal was being used in the smelting of iron, and after1744 the occupation of "collier" was listed more frequently in the Parish Register.12, p62

In 1783 he married Winifred Pulleine (she was an only child) this gave him more property and wealth in North Yorkshire such as Carlton Hall, Nr Richmond and in Northumberland. They were blessed with a happy marriage producing 15 children.
Walter was a humanitarian (eg pre 1775 he had all the Horsforth Estate tenants vaccinated against smallpox). He became a religious humanitarian after meeting William Wilberforce.18, p4
In 1787 Walter began the practice of delivering the Sunday evening sermon.18, p4 He worked against the cruelty to animals in sport, e.g. in July 1794 he had a bull-baiter shoot his own bull; bull Baiting was made illegal by 1835.18, p4
By 1799 the Barnsley Canal had been opened with a branch line to Barnby (Cawthorne) Basin, this allowed the collieries at Silkstone and Barnby Furnace to increase their output. By the early 1800's the largest output had been achieved at Norcroft and Bamby Furnace.12, p62

Cliffe hill was the main road to Cannon Hall in the late1700's to the early 1800's. It is now little used, the main entrance being more directly in front of Cannon Hall itself.
In 1805 Walter Spencer-Stanhope commanded 600 Staincross Volunteers, a false alarm was raised (instead of a warning beacon, a brick kiln had been lit near Pontefract Beacon) The Volunteers walked to Hemsworth on the way to Pontefract, when informed by a horserider with a letter.

John Spencer -Stanhope Born 1787, died 1873
Studied Greek mythology, married Lady Elizabeth Wilhelmina Cox third daughter of Thomas Cox (Coke of Holkham). In 1817 Thomas Cox had 7000 farmers visit his estate in Norfolk. Elizabeth married John Spencer on 5th. Dec 1822, prior to this, in 1810, John had toured Iberia where he had been imprisoned. He later toured Greece. The carriage which brought Sir John Stanhope home on parole from a French prison also carried Mrs.George Batchelor from Barnsley whose husband was due to be buried in Cawthorne, he had been a coachman at Cannon-Hall.12, p99
On Nov. 2nd 1869 Bishop Marsden, the grandson of Samuel Marsden [once a blacksmith of Horsforth, and who was sent out on the recommendation of WilIlam Wllberforce and Sir Walter Stanhope as chaplain to the convicts of Australia] gave a lecture in Cawthorne about Australia. Mr John Stanhope reminded Bishop Marsden of his own father's interest in Samuel Marsden. It was Samuel who in 1808 sent his nephew in Leeds the first bag of Australian wool ever received in England.12, p168

From this page.

The image is from the Cannon Hall website, here.

Strange stuff from Sheffeld

2008-05-08T19:44:00.003+01:00

I'm reading through an e-text called REMINISCENCES OF OLD SHEFFIELD, compiled in 1872. As I'm mostly interested in the 1760s, there clearly will be no direct references, though some go way back. I'll share some as I go.

The image is from this site, which sells prints. and is of the Stagg works in Sheffield, but I haven't found a reference to that in the book.

But this book is a great example of things that were readily understandable once, but now aren't -- to me, at least. Can you help?

"The house at the top corner of Paradise square and Campo lane,
now a dram-shop, was, sixty years ago, a respectable grocer's shop, kept
by Mr. Newton (who was sueceeded by Mr. Benjamin Ellis), and at that
time was much celebrated amongst the grinders, both in town and country,
for the quality of the articles of emery, crocus, and glue.

WRAGG: Yes., that shop had almost the monopoly of the trade."

All right, a dram shop is a sort of pub, and I assume a grinder ground, which would fit with emery. But why crocus and glue? Anyone know?

Jo

More on pubs.

2008-05-02T17:28:00.003+01:00

(This is not the right Angel, but it's close to the right period and gives a good sense of a coach of the time.)

My characters are briefly in the Angel Inn in Sheffield, and I came across this.
"The Angel - 15 Angel Street. The Angel was even older than the Kings Head having been in existence since 1657. An article in The Sheffield Star dated 25th February gave a brief history of a notable Sheffield landmark that was situated on the corner of Angel Street and Bank Street

"...(The Angel's) first real claim to fame came in 1760, when it became the terminus for the first regular mail stage coach service between Sheffield and London. The coach was fancifully described as 'a flying machine on steel springs' which completed the hazardous journey in a mere six days. Travel in those days was a problematic affair - the adverts warned journeys would be completed "if God permits". Overnight stops on the way up to Sheffield included St Albans, Northampton and Nottingham. Later the time to the capital was reduced to three days, then 26 hours, and finally to just 16 hours before the railway made the service largely redundant.
Original prices for the trip were £2.2s (£2.10) - or £153 in today's money, leaving twice a week at 5am. The coach traveling north linked with a service to Leeds.
By the time of its heyday in the early 1800s the inn saw stage coaches also arriving from and departing to Birmingham, Doncaster, Carlisle, Hull, Manchester and Edinburgh - the interchange of its time."
Read the whole article here.

I said more above, because I posted about pubs on Word Wenches recently.
Read that post here.

Jo

Ferrybridge

2008-04-30T22:28:00.002+01:00

Looking for Doncaster inns, (see today's wordwenches here.) I stumbled across a couple of excellent pages about Ferrybridge and coaching.

Ferrybridge is clearly an important coaching town in 18th and early 19th century documents, but now it's been swallowed up in other urban developments. I wish I'd had this page when I set some scenes there in Devilish.

Visit the page.

When royalty come to call.

2008-02-16T15:52:00.004Z

From Horace Walpole's letters, 1764

(The quiet summer living of George III and Queen Charlotte is a minor factor in A Lady's Secret, set in 1764 and out in April.Read more about it here.

Now, Horace, whose house at Strawberry Hill was famous.

"I have been much distressed this morning. The royal family
reside chiefly at Richmond, whither scarce necessary servants
attend them, and no mortal else but Lord Bute. The King and
Queen have taken to going about to see places; they have been at
Oatlands and Wanstead.

A quarter before ten to-day, I heard the bell at the gate ring,--that is, I was not up, for my hours are not reformed, either at night or in the morning,--I inquired who it was? the Prince of Mecklenburgh and De Witz had called to know if they could see the house; my two Swiss, Favre and Louis, told them I was in bed, but if they would call again in an hour, they might see it. I shuddered at this report,--and would it were the worst part! The Queen herself was behind, in a coach: I am shocked to death, and know not what to do!

It is ten times worse just now than ever at any other time: it will certainly be said, that I refused to let the Queen see my house. See what it is to have republican servants! When I made a tempest about it,Favre said, with the utmost sang froid, "Why could not he tell me
he was the Prince of Mecklenburgh?" I shall go this evening and
consult my oracle, Lady Suffolk. If she approves it, I will
write to De Witz, and pretend I know nothing of any body but the
Prince, and beg a thousand pardons, and assure him how proud I
should be to have his master visit my castle at Thundertentronk."

costume site

2008-02-10T19:51:00.000Z

I stumbled across this interesting illustrated dictionary.
Costume site

It's actually a collection of old clip art, but as it gives information about the different clothing items, it's useful.

I'm not sure this picture is on the site. I plucked it from my own clip art collection.

Jo :)

Another delicious Googlebook

2008-01-30T19:06:00.000Z

I love Google Books for the fabulous old books they're making available, especially 18th century ones, which are so hard to find in hard copy.

My latest find in here. It's The General Shop Book: Or, The Tradesman's Universal Director,from 1753, and it's a mini encyclopedia of places, goods, and laws of the time.

Check it out!

If you're curious about what I was searching there -- Sheffield and Doncaster. Yes, my characters are in Yorkshire, and Diana, Countess of Arradale and Marchioness of Rothgar is involved, but the action is about to head south.

This book, as yet untitled, will follow on from A Lady's Secret, which will be out in April. You can find out more here.

If you want a reminder when it's on the shelves, sign up on my web page above.

Cheers,

Jo

Guillotine

2008-01-23T06:39:00.000Z

It's the things you don't know you don't know that get you. I would have sworn that the falling blade form of execution was an 18th century invention of a Frenchman called Guillotine, but no. It's an ancient development of Halifax, Yorkshire!

I stumbled across a reference in a book and found it so odd, I had to check. Here's a page all about it.

The Halifax Gibbet

Jo

Green goose

2008-01-22T00:51:00.000Z

Ever wondered exactly what a "green goose" was? Clearly eaten in spring and something of a delicacy, but according to The Compleat Housekeeper, by Peter Brears (Wakefield Historical Society), it is "young and grass fed, eaten in early summer accompanied by greensauce, rather like mint sauce but made with sorrel pounded with vinegar and sugar to give a particularly piquant taste."

So now you know!

Jo :)

Turnpikes in Lancashire.

2008-01-19T23:57:00.000Z

Good page for anyone wanting information about old roads in general, and in Lancashire in particular.
Click here.

More here.
Turnpikes.

This map shows my home county of Lancashire. My home town, Morecambe, (pronounced Morcum) isn't there because it was a Victorian development, but it's just below Hest (Bank) on Morecambe Bay.

Jo

Another nasty summer

2008-01-13T20:21:00.000Z

Most of us know about the "year without a summer" in 1816 due to the eruption of the Tambora volcano but I hadn't come across something similar and in some ways ever worse in 1783. There was an article in the Economist's Christmas Edition, which is always full of juicy stuff.

The summer of acid rain. Read it here.

It was catastrophic for Iceland. As the subheading says: "Molten iron raining down like cowpats; ice floes at New Orleans. The weather of 1783 was an extraordinary case of sudden climate change driven by atmospheric gases."

What happened? "...the earth split open along a 16-mile fissure called the Laki volcano. Over the next eight months, in a series of vast belches, more lava gushed through the fissure than from any volcano in historic times—15 cubic kilometres, enough to bury the whole island of Manhattan to the top of the Rockefeller Centre."

This created both clouds and acid rains that drifted down across Europe and onward. The effects in Iceland itself were truly horrific.

I went looking for other contemporary references and didn't find many. I assume most didn't realize what was causing the problem. This certainly seems clear in the following letter from The Gentleman's Magazine review of 1783.

"For a considerable time past the weather has been very remarkable here; a kind of hot fog obscures the atmosphere, and gives the sun much of that dull red appearance which the wintry fogs sometimes produce. The fog is not peculiar to Paris ; those who are come lately from Rome say that it is as thick and hot in Italy, and that even the top of the Alps is covered with it, and travellers and letters from Spain affirm the fame of that kingdom.

Some people of abilities declare they never remember the like; and the timid, who think of the recent misfortunes of Calabria, dream of earthquakes and war, revolutions, etc. Happily for the age, there are too many enlightened people at present to suffer these things to spread so universally, as, to the great benefit of the priesthood (here), they formerly did, though it is remarked even now that the churches and saints arc more respectfully attended than usual,and that the fear of impending calamities has occasioned one of the literati of the Academy of Sciences to write the following letter, and have it inserted in the Journal de Paris.

To the Authors of the Journal.It is known to you, gentlemen, that for some days past people have been incessantly enquiring what is the occasion of the thick dry fog which almost constantly covers the heavens.As this question is particularly put to astronomers, 1 think myself obliged to say a few words on the subject, more especially since a kind of terror begins to spread in society.

It is said by some that the disasters in Calabria were preceded by such weather, and by others that a dangerous comet reigns at present. In 1773 I experienced how fast these kind of conjectures,which begin amongst the ignorant even in the most enlightened ages, proceed from mouth to mouth, till they reach the best society, and find their way even to the public prints. The multitude therefore may easily be supposed to draw strange conclusions when they see the sun of a blood colour, shed a melancholy light, and cause a most sultry heat.

This however is nothing more than a very natural effect from a hot sun after a long succession of heavy rain. The first impression of heat has necessarily and suddenly rarefied a Overabundance of watery particles with which the earth was deeply impregnated, and given them, as they rose, a dimness and rarefaction not usual to common fogs. This effect, which seems to me very natural, is not so very new; it is at most not above nineteen years since there was a like example, which period too brings the moon in the fame position on the same days, and which appears to have some influence on the seasons. Among the meteorologic observations of the academy for the month of July 1764 1 find the following: The beginning of this month was wet, and the latter part dry; and, from the second to the ninth, the wind continued in the north. The mornings were foggy, and the atmosphere in a smoke during the day.This, you perceive, bears a great resemblance to the latter end of our June, so that it is not an unheard-of or forgotten thing. In 1764 they had afterwards storms and hail, and nothing worse need be feared in 1783. I have the honour to be, etc. De La LAnde, de l'Acad. de Science."

I wonder what he thought when he heard about Laki?

You can read more at Wikipedia.

Jo

Looking at a hamlet

2007-12-19T07:27:00.001Z

This is the data from the 1851 census for the village of Wressle or Wressell in Yorkshire. Some of the Beverleys come from there, though the ones below don't seem to directly connect to our family tree.

It's also an interesting glimpse into a hamlet. Most of the people are agricultural labourers, though there are a few tradesmen -- blacksmith, carpenters, brick and tile makers (was there clay nearby?) and a cordwainer. That's a leather worker.

Though the composition of the inhabitants has doubtless changed a lot, the place hasn't changed much in size. (I don't guarantee the transcription of names is always accurate.) I have made some comments about this data on the Word Wenches blog.

William Devill 53 Farmer
Elizabeth 47
William 10
Thomas 9
Ann Elizabeth 5
George Smith 19
Robert Fyeat 14
Mary Maclair, 21 (From Ireland)

William Climes 49 Plate Layer (Laying tracks for railways.)
Mary 42
Sarah 1
John 8
Richard 6
Ann 3
Mary 1

George Pecett 52 Ag Labourer
Hannah, 39
Eliza 10
Mary Jarratt 1 Granddaughter

Ann Gott, 51, widow, charwoman

George Hind 34 Farmer
Ann 33
John 27, brother, working on farm.

Joseph Laycock 49 Ag Lab
Jane 49 dress maker
Elizabeth 16 dress maker
Ann 81 widowed mother, pauper, ag Lab
George 38, brother, ag lab

Thomas Williamson 32 Ag Lab
Ann 25
Harriet 4
Ann 2
Charlotte 2month

William Fletcher, 41 Ag Lab
Elizabeth 40 ditto
Ellen 11
Thomas 8
Robert 5
William 2
Elizabeth 2 (twins)

William Thompson 52 Cordwainer
Elizabeth 64
Sarah Charles, 15 niece, servant
Robert Beverley, 16 Apprentice

John Beverley 62 Ag Lab
Ann 59 ditto
John 35 ditto
Jane Horne, 83,mother in law, widow,

William Harrison 41 Ag Lab
Hannah 39
Elizabeth 10,
Jane 8
William 5
Mary 3
George 7m

William Carr, 74 Farmer
Ann 64
Joseph 42

Charles Leak 28 Brick and Tile maker
Hannah 28
George 9
James 6
John 5
William 4
Marry Ann 2
Foster 4m

William Bristow 40 Grocer and Ag Lab
Elizabeth 43
John 11
Ann 8
Thomas 3
Mary 10
Elizabeth Ward, 48, widow, lodger, charwoman

Joseph Fenton 53 Ag Lab
Hannah 55
Elizabeth 20 Dress maker
John Albert Bulmer, 2 grandson

William Thompson 27 Carpenter
Ann 21
William 2m
Richard Milner 22 journeyman carpenter
John Dunn Glover22 ditto
Robert Wilson, Apprentice 16
James Thompson 18, brother, carpenter
Mary Bothy, 12 Servant

Elizabeth Tuke 61 widow Ag Lab
Thomas, 29 Ag Lab

Thomas Eckels 51 Ag Lab
Mararet 50
George 18 Ag Lab
John Lazenby 27 lodger, Ag Lab

William Maskile 67 Ag Lab
William Simes 27 grandson railway lab.
Mark Turping 21 railway lab
Hannah Turping 23 wife
William 3 great grandson

John Sherbourn 63 Annuitant (means that they have an annuity, or pension of some sort.)
Mary 62
Elizabeth 4 Granddaughter
Amelia Beville 79, lodger Annuitant

William Markham 38 Blacksmith
Hannah 37
William 10
Mordecai 7
Ann 3
William Powercraft 36 Blacksmith

John Hawkswell 51 Tile Maker
Maria 52
William 12

Ann Hardwick 63 widow Pauper, Ag Lab

Margaret Pears, 67 widow Pauper, Ag Lab.

Mary Hutchinson, 75 widow, Farmer
William 44
Hannah Watson 22 niece, house servant.

Ann Williamson 60 widow cottager
George, 26 Ag Lab
John Stanfield, 62 Lodger, widower, Ag Lab
Mary Stanfield 14 lodger
Charles Williamson 38 son cordwainer
Sarah W d-in-l 28
Ann 13
Robert 6
Hannah 5
Nancy 4
John, 1 grandson

John Jackson 55 Bricklayer
Ann 54
Fanny 16
Richard Middleton 22 Journeyman
Edwin Holmes 16 Apprentice

Martin Markham 36 Master of a Sloop (that seems to be what it says.)
Harriet 33
Robert 10
Thomas 8
Henry 6
Stephen 3
Francis 1
George Binnington 17 Apprentice

Robert Wilson 64 Ag Lab
Martha 53
William 16 Ag Lab
William Buckle 25 widower bricklayer visitor
Thomas Turley 20 bricklayer

Robert Johnson 52 Grocer
Elizabeth 52
Louisa J Sherbourn niece 8
William Tree 70, widower, visitor, blacksmith

Wressle Castle
Ruin, probably belonging to the Earl of Egremont.
John Hutton 33 Farm Bailiff 270 acres
Martha 32
Ann 8
Sarah 2
George Ellingworth, 22 Farm servant
Mark Ballance 16 ditto

Wressle Grange
George Adkinson 60 Farmer of 325 acres
Eleanor 51
Peter 22
William 19
John 17
Louisa 14
Anthony 7
Hannah 5

Thomas Hodgson 32, Farmer of 193 acres
Elizabeth Bunington, 46 Housekeeper
George Denby, 16, Farm servant
William Hunt 132 Farm servant.

Information for genealogists.

1840 there was a coal dealer, corn miller, and wheelwright not recorded on the 1851 census, but they might not have their homes in the hamlet. In 1823, a vicar and curate are recorded and as there is a church there, there must have been clergymen. But again, he must have lived elsewhere.

You can find out more about the village here.

Wikipedia

Various details.

Pictures

Happy Christmas,

Jo

People in Sheffield in 1781

2007-11-26T19:30:00.000Z

My MIP involves industrial Sheffield in 1764 (not too much, don't worry!) and I was looking for a likely street for my heroine's family to have lived on.

Wonderfully, I found a list from 1781 on an Australian genealogy site. Not only does it give me likely streets, it gives a snapshot of the occupations and industries of the time. Note, for example, the ink pot maker. That was a business that would eventually die out. Sheffield, of course, was mostly known for making items from iron and steel and then for silver plate, especially knives and such.(a cutler, hence cutlery)

Isn't there something ominous about the address Truelove's-gutter?

The available list is only the beginning.

Abbot Eli, silk dyer, Westbar-green
Abdy John, cutler, Howard-street
Addy William, cutler, Westbar-green
Alcard James, grocer, Scotland-street
Alcock John, and Co. inkpot makers, Bailey Field
Aldham William, grocer, Change-alley
Allen George, and Robert, linendrapers and tea dealers, New-street
Allen Widow, lantern light, & comb maker, Scargill Croft
Allen Thomas, snuffer maker, Bailey Field
Allen Thomas, master of the charity school, Church-yard
Almond James, manufacturer of plated goods, Westbar
Almond John, victualler, Townhead Cross
Almond Roger, victualler, Blind-lane
Alsop George, victualler, Ponds
Alsop Luke, cutler, Coalpit-lane
Alsop Samuel, founder and anvil maker, Sheffield Moor Amory
Amory George, roper, flaxdresser, and linendraper, Hartshead
Amory Widow, victualler, High-street
Anderton John, dealer in flour, Pea Croft
Antt Joseph, and Son, factors, Lambert Croft
Ant James, dealer in cloaths, & c. Burgess-street
Appleby, Scholfield and Co. founders, Gibralter
Ardron John, grocer, Truelove's-gutter
Armfield William, linendraper, King-street
Ash Richard, cutler, Young-street
Ashforth, Ellis, Wilson, and Hawksley's, manufacturers of silver and plated goods, Angel-street
Ashforth Samuel, cutler, Park
Ashmore John, victualler, Park
Ashton Adam, carpenter, and overseer of the water-works, Brinsworth's Orchard
Aslin Widow, victualler, Bullstake
Atherton John, whitesmith, Millsands
Bacon Thomas, dealer in milk, Silver-street
Badger Joseph, carpenter & joiner, Brinsworth's Orchard
Bagnall John, dyer, Ponds
Bailey and Eadon, scissorsmiths, ironmongers, and factors, Westbar
Banks William, button maker, Porto Bello
Barber and Genn, saw and fender makers, Spring-street
Bardwell John, auctioneer, Norfolk-street
Barker Joseph, baker, Scotland-street
Barlow, and Co. scissorsmiths, Meadow-street
Barlow, Longden, and Co. scissorsmiths, Scotland-street
Barlow William, baker, Truelove's-gutter
Barlow John, cutler, Campo-lane
Bardsley James, pawnbroker, Westbar
Bamsley George, victualler, Truelove's-gutter Barnes
Barnes Isaac, cutler, Campo-lane
Barnes Thomas, cutler, Smithfield
Bartram James, horn turner, Scotland-street
Bateman George, cutler, Smithfield
Bates Samuel and George, filesmiths, Spring-street
Bates James, malt and cheese factor, Truelove's-gutter
Batty Widow, cooper, Townhead Well
Battie James, watchmaker, Wain-gate
Bayley Robert, and Richard, ironmongers, and hardwaremen, High-street
Bayliffe Rev. George, curate of Ecclesall, New-street
Bayliffe Rev. Wm. assistant curate of the New Church, do.
Beal Richard, shopkeeper, Coalpit-lane
Beard Samuel, victualler, Furnace-hill
Beard James, victualler, Coalpit-lane
Beardshaw William, cutler, Silver-street
Beardshaw John, victualler, HolIes Croft
Beardsall Francis, Hotel Inn, top of Wain-gate
Beatson Thomas, victualler, Coalpit-lane
Beatson Benjamin, sheather, Park
Beely Thomas, cutler, Ponds .
Beely John, victualler, Smithfield
Beet and Senyer's, cutlers, Pea Croft
Beet Widow, and Sons, cutlers, Broad-lane
Beet John, cutler, Norfolk-street
Beet Edward, cutler, Lambert Croft
Beet Jeremiah, victualler, Norfolk-street
Beldon, Hoyland, and Co. silver cutlers, Burgess-street
Bell's and Shepherd, scissorsmiths, Gibralter
Bell Benjamin, victualler, Back-lane
Bell Widow, victualler, Copper-street
Bellamy John, innkeeper, King-street
Bennet Edward, sugar baker, Union-street
Bennet Thomas, factor, Pinston-lane
Bennet George, plumber and glazier, Far-gate
Berry Joseph, vigo button maker, Pond-lane
Berry Noah, dye-sinker and button maker, Scargill Croft
Bincks William, porter and brandy merchant, Pea Croft
Bingley John, currier, Jehu-lane .
Binney Joseph, cutler, Broad-lane End
Birks William, and John, cutlers, Union-street
Birks Isaac, butcher and victualler, Truelove's-gutter
Birkinshaw Francis, cutler, Silver-street
Birtles Abraham, bricklayer, Young-street
Birtles Abraham, victualler, Burgess-street
Bishop George, fon. edgetool maker, Brinsworth's Orchard
Bishop Samuel, blacksmith, Bailey Field
Bishop George, jun. do. do.
Bishop Thomas, cutler, China-square
Blackburn Joseph, dyer, Bonds
Blain John, surgeon and man-midwife, York-street
Blake Thomas, filesmith, Green-lane
Bland Thomas, factor, Queen-street
Bland James, cafe maker, Queen-street
Bland John, victualler, Snig-hill ,-
Blonk, and Son, scissorsmiths, Norfolk-street
Booth, Binck's, Hartop, and Co. founders.
Bower George, victualler, Silver-street
Bowker William, barber, High-street
Bowker Jonathan, hatter, Wain-gate
Bradbury Thomas, baker, Wain-gate
Bradbury Daniel, assay-master, Pond-lane
Bradwell Thomas, flaxdresser, Far-gate -
Brailsford William, upholsterer, Norfolk-street :
Brailsford Thomas, do. High-street
Brammall Nicholas, cutler, White Croft
Brammall George, scissorsmith, Pinston-lane.
Bramhall James, cutler, Porto Bello
Brammall John, filesmith, Westbar-green.
Briddock Martin, cutler, Lambert Croft.
Bright Thomas, gent. Hawley Croft
Bright James, barber, Westbar
Bright Widow, cutler, HolIes Croft
Bright Widow, victualler, top of Silver-street
Brittain, Wilkinson, and Brownell, factors, and manufacturers of cutlery wares, Arundel-street
Brittain Benjamin, cutler, Hawley Croft
Brittlebank Abraham, Hermitage bowling-green
Broadbent Thomas, and Joseph, merchants, Brinsworth's Orchard
Broadbent Samuel, factor, and agent to the Lombard-street Fire-Office, Castle-green-head
Broadbent Dennis, scissorsmith, Brinsworth's Orchard
Broadbent Roger, butcher, Norfolk-street
Broadhead Joseph, grocer and malster, Snig-hill
Broadhead William, cutler, Bailey Field
Broadhead Jonathan, victualler, Bullstake
Brookes John, and Son, factors, Far-gate
Brookes Francis, cutler, New-street
Brookes James, turner, Far-gate
Brookfield John, attorney,
Brookfield William, scissorsmith, Trinity-street
Brookfield John, victualler, Church-lane
Brookfield George, victualler, Campo-lane
Broomhead Benjamin, and Joseph, factors, and manufacturers of cutlery wares, Far-gate
Broomhead, Hinchsliffe, and Co. merchants, and manufacturers of cutlery wares, Brinsworth's Orchard
Broomhead and Ward, cutlers, Eyre-street
Broomhead Joseph, cutler, Lambert Croft
Broomhead John, victualler, Park
Broomhead Richard, butcher, Westbar
Brown, Wheat and Co. manufacturers of white and red lead, Pond-lane
Brown Revel, inkpot maker, Truelove's-gutter
Brown Cornelius, dealer in toys, hardware, & c. Market-place
Brown Mrs. milliner, Change-alley
Brown George, cutler, Coalpit-lane
Brown Joseph, shoemaker, Coalpit-lane
Brownell John, ironmonger and factor, Westbar-green
Brunt Jonathan, printer, King-street
Bryant Rev. Thomas, minister of the dissenting chapel, in Scotland-street
Bullhouse William, victualler, Park
Bullock John, anvil maker, Smithfield
Burch George, cutler, Spring-street
Burditt John, clasp and collar maker, Pond-lane
Burgen Thomas, vigo button maker, Hawley Croft
Burnand Robert, linendraper, and dealer in furniture and cloaths, Market-place
Burton Michael, attorney, Paradise-square
Burton William, surgeon and man-midwife,
Butler William, cutler, Trinity-street
Butler John, dealer in flour, & c. Townhead Well
Butler Stephen, cutler, Townhead Well
Butterworth John, edgetool maker, Pea Croft
Cadman Peter, and Co. cutlers, Norfolk-street
Cadman Luke, cutler, Norfolk-street
Cadman David, cutler, Longstone-lane
Cadman Benjamin, filesmith, Lambert Croft
Cadman George, cutler, Bank
Calack William, butcher and victualler, Campo-Ian
Cam James, filesmith, Norfolk-street
Cam Widow; victualler, Far-gate

Diligences

2007-11-22T18:44:00.000Z

LERY left this interesting comment on my transportation post below, but I thought people might miss it, plus it came across a bit unformatted, so I'll try to clean it up. Thanks, LERY. :)I've copied the picture of a diligence that was with my original post.

(Note from Jo. This account below is from a mid 19th century book, but Louis Simon records something similar earlier in the century. He puts it in England, but I've never heard of such a vehicle in England. However, the concept is interesting enough that it would be surprising if someone hadn't come up with a larger passenger vehicle. It would have to be slower, however, and perhaps travelers in England weren't interested in that. Anyone have more to share on the subject?)

A diligence is a sort of stage coach used in France and Switzerland, and generally on the continent of Europe. It is constructed very differently, however, from an American stage coach, being divided into four distinct compartments. Rollo had seen a diligence in Paris, and so he could understand very easily the conversation which ensued between himself and his uncle in respect to the seats which they should take in the one in which they were to travel to Berne. In order, however, to enable the reader of this book to understand it, I must here give a brief description of this kind of vehicle.

The engraving on page 77 is a very faithful representation of one of them. There are three windows in the side of it. Each of these windows leads to a different compartment of the coach. In addition to these three compartments, there is, over
the foremost of these, on the top of the coach, another, making four in all. This compartment on the top is called the _banquette_.

These coaches are so large that they have a conductor. The man who drives sometimes sits on a small seat placed in front of the banquette, and sometimes he rides on one of the horses. In either case, however, he has nothing to do but to attend to his team. The passengers and the baggage are all under the conductor's care.

The compartment immediately beneath the banquette, which is the front compartment of the body of the coach, is called the _coupe_. The coupe extends across the whole coach, from one side to the other; but it is quite narrow. It has only one seat,--a seat facing the horses,--with places upon it for three passengers. There are windows in front, by which the passengers can look out under the coachman's seat when there
is a coachman's seat there. The doors leading to the coupe are in the sides.

The compartment immediately behind the coupe is called the _interior_. It is entirely separate from the coupe. There are two seats, which extend from one side of the coach to the other, and have places upon them for three passengers each, making six in all. The three passengers who sit on one of these seats must, of course, ride with their backs to the horses. The doors leading to the interior are in the sides. In fact, the interior has within exactly the appearance of a common hackney coach, with seats for six passengers.

Behind the interior is the fourth compartment, which is called the _rotonde_. It is like a short omnibus. The door is behind, and the seats are on the sides. This omnibus compartment is so short that there is only room for three people on each side, and the seats are not very comfortable.

Very genteel people, who wish to be secluded and to ride somewhat in style, take the coupe. The seats in the coupe are very comfortable, and there is a very good opportunity to see the country through the front and side windows. The price is much higher, however, for seats in the coupe than in any other part of the diligence.

The mass of common travellers generally take places in the interior. The seats there are comfortable, only there is not a very good opportunity to see the country; for there are only two windows, one on each side, in the top of the door.

People who do not care much about the style in which they travel, but only desire to have the best possible opportunity to view the country and to have an amusing time, generally go up to the banquette. The places here are cheaper than they are even in the interior, and very much cheaper than they are in the coupe.

The cheapest place of all, however, is in the rotonde, which is the omnibus-like compartment, in the end of the diligence, behind. This compartment is generally filled with laborers, soldiers, and servants; and sometimes nurses and children are put here.

The baggage is always stored upon the top of the diligence, behind the banquette, and directly over the interior and the rotonde. It is packed away very carefully there, and is protected by a strong leather covering, which is well strapped down over it. All these things you see plainly represented in the engraving.

We now return to the conversation which was held between Rollo and Mr. George at the close of their breakfast.

"I have got some letters to write after breakfast," said Mr. George, "and I should like to go directly to my room and write them. So I wish you would find out when the diligence goes next to Berne, and take places in it for you and me."

Those messy marriages

2007-11-16T19:06:00.000Z

Having just finished A Lady's Secret,(out in April)

I'm poking around research for the next and came across this interesting analysis of a messy legal situation connected to marriage in the early 18th century.

Read the article here.

It's worth noting the emotional level acceptable in a man back then. Sure, he was probably lying, but he can't have felt it made him ridiculous.

"Your Letter lies now before me; I have not words to Express my Agony of Soul upon reading of it. I sunk from my Chair to the floor, void of all manner of sense and when I came to myself there was no body to pity me. Oh had my dearest Madie been there and heard my Groans,"

Let's see, a modern writer of Georgian romances has her hero, Rafe, the Duke of Blackcastle, receive a letter from the woman he loved and abandoned...

"Rafe slid off his chair in a dead faint. When he came to, he groaned, unable to bear the thought that he was all alone with none to pity his suffering, that..."

Nah, not seeing it!

Jo

Debunking bad archeology

2007-09-16T18:22:00.001+01:00

This is an interesting site. Bad Archeology and such places are very useful. There's so much bunkum around.

However, I always treat authoritorial sites with caution, too, because every profession develops elements of religion, or even cultishness. There are things that are true and things that are not true, and sometimes trying to argue against the dogma can lead to a low-grade degree, an unacceptable doctorate, or a wrecked career.

And yet, all the time, we have professionals -- scientists, doctors, engineers etc -- who have to say, "Gosh, perhaps we shouldn't have burned XX at the stake for saying that."

I suppose we could try to take this illustration literally, or interpret the symbols and colorsl, and our interpretations might change with the times.

Jo

Autism in Jane Austen

2007-09-03T06:54:00.000+01:00

And now for something completely different (though it's a copy of a post to Jo Talk), as they used to say in Monty Python. I just heard about a book called So Odd a Mixture: Along the Autistic Spectrum in 'Pride and Prejudice' by Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer

I haven't read this, though I will, but it's intriguing. I quote from the Publisher's Site

"So Odd a Mixture looks at eight seemingly diverse characters in Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, who display autistic traits. These characters - five in the Bennet family and three in the extended family of the Fitzwilliams - have fundamental difficulties with communication, empathy and theory of mind. Perhaps it is high-functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome that provides an explanation for some characters' awkward behaviour at crowded balls, their frequent silences or their tendency to lapse into monologues rather than truly converse with others."

Off the top of my head, I'd want to compare P&P with the other Austen novels and others by her contemporaries, for this might have simply been a style of the times. But I also had another thought.

IMO, Jane was not autistic or Asperger's, but I wonder if Cassandra was. I hadn't thought about it before, but we have many letters from Jane telling Cassandra about the balls and parties she attends, but Cassandra seems to rarely go to such events. That would be typical of someone who found it difficult to communicate easily with or even understand others.

Interesting to think about , eh what?

Jo

Casanova on highway robbery

2007-08-30T22:20:00.000+01:00

I've been rereading Casanova's memoirs about his visit to England in the 1760s, and is so often the case, it gives a picture of the time that's hard for our modern mind to really understand. Take this, for example.

"What do you think of highway robbers, then?"(he asks Sir Augustus Hervey, who may be this one, much later in life as Earl of Bristol.)

"I detest them as wretches dangerous to society, but I pity them when
I reflect that they are always riding towards the gallows. You go
out in a coach to pay a visit to a friend three or four miles out of
London. A determined and agile-looking fellow springs upon you with
his pistol in his hand, and says, 'Your money or your life.' What
would you do in such a case?"

"If I had a pistol handy I would blow out his brains, and if not I
would give him my purse and call him a scoundrelly assassin."

"You would be wrong in both cases. If you killed him, you would be
hanged, for you have no right to take the law into your own hands;
and if you called him an assassin, he would tell you that he was no
assassin as he attacked you openly and gave you a free choice. Nay,
he is generous, for he might kill you and take your money as well.
You might, indeed, tell him he has an evil trade, and he would tell
you that you were right, and that he would try to avoid the gallows
as long as possible. He would then thank you and advise you never to
drive out of London without being accompanied by a mounted servant,
as then no robber would dare to attack you. We English always carry
two purses on our journeys; a small one for the robbers and a large
one for ourselves."

What answer could I make to such arguments, based as they were on the
national manners? England is a rich sea, but strewn with reefs, and
those who voyage there would do well to take precautions. Sir
Augustus Hervey's discourse gave me great pleasure."
I could paraphrase that. The past is a rich sea, but strewn with reefs, and
those who write there would do well to be very wary.

Jo :)

Becoming Jane

2007-08-27T15:10:00.000+01:00

I'm blogging today at Word Wenches about the movie Becoming Jane. If you have opinions, come on over and share them. The picture is of the real Jane.

Word Wenches is here.

Jo
Remember, there's always my web site. Click here.
And my general blog where I mostly copy posts from elsewhere, like here.
Jo Talk

Review and domino

2007-08-19T23:38:00.000+01:00

My most glowing review for Lady Beware is up on
this blog.

Interesting idea, to put up the best reviews for books.

That's a picture of a Venetian domino, if you've ever wondered what that masquerade costume looked like. The hat, mask, and veil were important to disguise a person. Later, "domino" often meant only a concealing hooded cloak, which is why Thea in Lady Beware thought it a timid option.

Jo

Travel, 1819

2007-08-19T04:51:00.000+01:00

Image from this French blog.

I stumbled across this from 1819p

LA DILIGENCE
"A Monopolylogue." I assume that means many voices for one voice, and it's a script for a ventriloquist. I can't quite figure out where it takes place. It seems to be in Paris going to Calais, but in the end they're going to Paris?

But within the farce, there are snippets about travel in 1819. A diligence was a French stage or mail coach, and as you'll see above, large. That one seems to be divided into three separate compartments.

Jo

CBC alert

2007-08-08T22:45:00.000+01:00

Ill be on CBC on Friday, August 10th at 10:30 am in each Canadian time zone on a program called Sounds Like Canada. I'll be talking about why romance doesn't get respect, but I think it's upbeat. Kevin Sylvester, the host is a fabulous interviewer.

If you can't get CBC, you can listen on the internet.

I don't know if it'll be podcast later. If you have comments about romance novels and the way readers are treated, you can always contact them on the site above.

Cheers,

Jo

Pub signs

2007-08-08T22:39:00.000+01:00

A brief note copied from my chat list. (http://grups.yahoo.com/jobeverley)

The idea of inn signs lingers from when city houses were identified that way. Street numbering was a late invention (mid 18th century.) Before that, people hung signs or painted pictures on their front wall, so they could tell people to come to the Red Cock on Pyment Street, or the Pig with Two Tails on Wapping Road.

This confused me a lot at one time, because I thought everyone was living in a pub!

When they started street numbering, they went up one side and down the other. Probably seemed reasonable at the time. The idea of odd on one side and even on the other came later.

More about pub signs here.

You could always get your own pub sign made.

Jo

Chance vagaries of war

2007-08-05T02:48:00.000+01:00

Just a little curiosity.

"By the end of the Great War, the Editors of the OED were struggling somewhat. Their inspiring leader, Sir James Murray, had died in 1915, still doggedly working on the letter T. Most of the younger and abler members of staff had been sent away on active service, or to do other war work, and in June 1918 even Charles Onions, one of the remaining Chief Editors, was summoned to the Admiralty. As early as 1916, William Craigie had noted that the project was in need of someone with expertise in Old and Middle English. Fortunately, one of his former students was to return to Oxford in late 1918 in search of work. Recovering from the illness which had forced him home from the trenches, and with a wife and small child to support, he was understandably grateful for the offer of employment on the staff of the OED, and his linguistic credentials were well known to Craigie, who had tutored him in Old Norse. His name was Ronald Tolkien."

There's more here.

I find dictionary compilers fascinating and alien. Though I love words and wordplay, I just can't imagine doing that.

Jo

Longevity again

2007-07-25T21:03:00.000+01:00

I was looking for info on 18th century Milan and stumbled across this in a review of a book.

It's interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, note that half the women (all women, not just nuns) born between 1700 and 1743 lived to 67 or older. A quarter lived to over 74. Remember that if anyone tries to tell you people were lucky to live to over 35, especially women.

It's also interesting to think that nuns might live longer because of having a community, and it emphasizes the fact that convent life was often chosen in the past as a way of enjoying a long, healthy life.

"Throughout the period she studied, roughly half of the nuns lived to age 70, and a quarter to their late 70s. By contrast, of the Milanese married women born between 1600 and 1649, half died by age 54 and another quarter by age 68. Half of the Milanese women born between 1700 and 1743 died by age 67 and another quarter by age 74. So although the married women's
longevity improved over a century, Brown said, they still died, on average, at younger ages than the nuns.

There is no reason to think that Florentine nuns were unusual among Italian women religious in their longevity, Brown said. At one convent in Venice, for example, the nuns had a mean age at death of around 70, with a third of the nuns living to their late 70s.

Given the extreme dangers of childbirth before the 20th century, it is not surprising that the mortality rates of nuns would be lower than those of married women during the childbearing years, Brown said. But even among women who survived to the post-menopausal years, the nuns outlived the married women, she said.

It is quite possible, Brown said, that the married women suffered long-term deleterious effects from repeated pregnancies and births. The data on the Milanese women show that those who at age 20 had only one or two children were more likely to survive to all ages than their sisters who had more children. Similarly, Brown said, those who at age 25 had one to three children had a greater probability of surviving to all ages than those women who had more children by that age.

The nuns also lived longer than their male contemporaries, both married men and those in religious communities. "

Jo

Jest talking

2007-07-23T05:38:00.000+01:00

I don't have a snippet of research to pass on. I'm merely repeating what I said in a reply to a recent comment. I'm having trouble getting in here since Google took over. My password just doesn't seem to work except with one browser on my laptop. I gather I'm not the only one. I don't know why they had to fiddle.

::grumble, grumble, grumble....::

Jo

Novelty food

2007-06-19T19:06:00.000+01:00

Somehow this blog keeps coming back to food.

But I came across this reference to a Tahitian feast in 18th century England. Captain Cook brought back a Tahitian called Omai, and he was a big hit. One of Cook's patrons was the Earl of Sandwich, of other food novelty fame. Hence....

"Omai arrived at Portsmouth on 14 July 1774 as a crew-member on board HMS Adventure, captained by Tobias Furneaux. He was taken immediately to meet Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. Captain Cook described Omai as "dark, ugly and a downright blackguard" but this did not prevent Omai from becoming the fashionable exotic person to be seen with. Sandwich hosted him at Hinchingbrooke [his country seat in Huntingdonshire], where Omai's native barbecue cooked over hot stones proved a popular novelty."

You can read more about Omai here.
http://www.hinchhouse.org.uk/fourth/omai.html

There are even movie clips, but I couldn't get them to play. But apparently there was a BBC programme about him, and that's where they come from.

Why did I find this? Because the hero in my MIP is an earl from Huntingdon, and this is Georgian, set in 1764. Too early for Omai, alas.

And while I'm blogging, my new book is out and doing splendidly. Thanks to everyone who's bought it early to help it make the lists. In the first week it hit #66 on the USA Today list.
http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx

#15 on the Publishers Weekly mass market paperbac list, and that's a big deal because they only print the top 15.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/bestsellerslist/6.html?channel=bestsellers

And #3 on the Borders/Waldenbooks romance list. (It's showing at 4 here, but it'll move up when they update.)
https://www.rwanational.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=BGI0607

So thank you again!

I'm sorry I'm slow to respond to comments here, but since Google took over Blogger I find it hard to sign in, and can only do it with IE on my laptop, which is the browser I keep most bells and whistles on but for that reason, hardly ever use. That's on top of all the snarl ups with the logins and password. I generally like Google, but they've messed up this one.

Grouch over.

I do have a spot at My Space now, but I'm going to be copying most posts there as I reckon it's a different readership. Also at Facebook. (This is an experiment, plus my university Alumni group is on Facebook. I seem to be the youngest there by decades, but I thought I'd show willing.)

http://www.myspace.com/jobeverley

With Facebook I'm not quite sure what the URL is for my page. Very new there. But if you're on there you'll find me by searching.

Cheers,

Jo

Interesting book

2007-06-07T19:09:00.000+01:00

This is a copy of my recent blog at Word Wenches, but I recommend going there to read it because the formatting and pictures didn't translate and I don't have time to fiddle just now. Book coming out, you know.

Whoa, that cover came out big, but I don't have time to fix that either. Sorry!

Er, Word Wenches.

http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/

I was intending to blog about something else entirely, but in searching for a detail, I came across this gem of a book at Gutenberg. THE ENGLISH SPY An Original Work CHARACTERISTIC, SATIRICAL, AND HUMOROUS. COMPRISING SCENES AND SKETCHES IN EVERY RANK OF SOCIETY, BEING PORTRAITS DRAWN FROM THE LIFE BY BERNARD BLACKMANTLE. THE ILLUSTRATIONS DESIGNED BY ROBERT CRUIKSHANK. 1825

It's very like Egan's LIFE IN LONDON but travels farther affield and contains many anecdotes of real people and has great coloured pictures. Like Egan, the style can be hard reading, but what bits I paused on were fascinating. Here are some bits. Unfortunately, it often moves into verse. Whence came the passion for writing long books in verse? I confess I find it most peverse. But in descrbing a venture into London -- strange to have it called Cockney Land -- we get this.

'Twas morn, the genial sun of MayO'er nature spread a cheerful ray,When Cockney Land, clothed in her best,We saw, approaching from the west,And 'mid her steeples straight and tallEspied the dome of famed St. Paul,Surrounded with a cloud of smokeFrom many a kitchen chimney broke;A nuisance since consumed belowBy bill of Michael Angelo.{1}' 1 M. A. Taylor's act for compelling all large factories, which have steam and other apparatus, to consume their own smoke.

Now isn't that interesting? That effort must have failed, or most of Northern England wouldn't have been black when I was growing up there. In fact, I think we're still working on emmisions today. Then what about this description of a woman in Hyde Park? Very interesting for the rest of the fashionable round. Mrs. S———, a most voluptuous lady, the discarded chère amie of the late Lord F-1-d, said to be the best carriage woman in the park: she lies in the Earl of H———- —'s cabriolet most delightfully stretched out at full length, and in this elegant posture is driven through the park. Then we have this variation on the famous Brummell story. I'd not heard the Big Ben reference. (The A is for Alvanley.) Lord A———y, the babe of honour—once the gayest of the gay, where fashion holds her bright enchanting court; now wrinkled and depressed, and plucked of every feather, by merciless Greek banditti. Such is the infatuation of play,that he still continues to linger round the fatal table, and finds a pleasure in recounting his enormous losses. A—-y, who is certainly one of the most polished men in the world, was the leader of the dandy club, or the unique four, composed of Beau Brummell, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Henry Pierrepoint, the Ambassador, as he is generally termed. When the celebrated dandy ball was given to his Majesty (then Prince of Wales), on that occasion the prince seemed disposed to cut Brummell, who, in revenge, coolly observed to A———y, when he was gone,—"Big Ben was vulgar as usual." This was reported at Carlton House, and led to the disgrace of the exquisite. Shortly afterwards he met the Prince and A———y in public, arm in arm, when the former, desirous of avoiding him, quitted the baron: Brummell, who observed his motive, said loud enough to be heard by the prince,—"Who is that fat friend of yours?" This expression sealed his doom; he was never afterwards permitted the honour of meeting the parties at the palace. The story of "George, ring the bell," and the reported conduct of the prince, who is said to have obeyed the request and ordered Mr. Brummell's carriage, is, we have strong reasons for thinking, altogether a fiction: Brummell knew the dignity of his host too well to have dared such an insult. The king since generously sent him 300L. when he heard of his distress at Calais. Brummell was the son of a tavern-keeper in St. James's, and is still living at Calais. I'm curious as to the meaning of the Big Ben reference. The bell, Big Ben, wasn't in exisltence then, and I can see no connection between Ben and the Prince Regent. Does anyone have any ideas? Then, after our naked blog, where we debated swimming and bathing, I couldn't resist this. And we are about to present the reader with a right merry scene, one, too, if he has any fun in his composition, or loves a good joke, must warm the cockles of his heart. Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one of our most celebrated places of fashionable resort, there should be found baths where the young and the old, the beauteous female and the gay spark, are all indiscriminately permitted to enjoy the luxurious pleasure together. That such is the case in Bath no one who has recently participated in the pleasures of immersion will dispute, and in order to perpetuate that gratification, Bob Transit has here faithfully delineated the scene which occurred upon our entering the King's Bath, through the opening from the Queen's, where, to our great amusement and delight, we found ourselves surrounded by many a sportive nymph, whose beauteous form was partially hidden by the loose flannel gown, it is true; but now and then the action of the water, produced by the continued movements of a number of persons all bathing at the same time, discovered charms, the which to have caught a glimpse of in any other situation might have proved of dangerous consequences to the fair possessors. The baths, it must be admitted, are delightful, both from their great extent and their peculiar properties, as, on entering from the Queen's Bath you may enjoy the water at from 90 to 96 degrees, or requiring more heat have only to walk forward, through the archway, to obtain a temperature of 116. The first appearance of old Blackstrap's visage floating along the surface of the water, like the grog-blossomed trunk of the ancient Bardolph, bound up in a Welsh wig, was truly ludicrous, and produced such an unexpected burst of laughter from my merry companions, that I feared some of the fair Naiads would have fainted in the waters from fright, and then Heaven help them, for decency would have prevented our rushing to their assistance. The notices to prevent gentlemen from swimming in the baths are, in my opinion, so many inducements or suggestions for every young visitor to attempt it. Among our mad wags, Horace Eglantine was more than once remonstrated with by the old bathing women for indulging in this pleasure, to the great alarm of the ladies, who, crowding together in one corner with their aged attendants, appeared to be in a high state of apprehension lest the loose flannel covering that guards frail mortality upon these occasions should be drawn aside, and discover nature in all her pristine purity—an accident that had very nearly happened to myself, when, in endeavouring to turn round quickly, I found the water had disencumbered my frame of the yellow bathing robe, which floated on the surface behind If you go to explore the book for yourself, bring back a choice sample for us. But here's a question. It's clear to me from this, Egan, and other writers, that the early decades of the 19th century could be very different from Jane Austen's world. In the manly circles, they were often rough and even crude, and I've certainly come across writing to indicate that even worthy souls plunged into roistering wildness with ease. (Which could still be true.) What do you think about that? And would you want it shown in historical novels?

And yes, Lady Beware is in stores now.-- Out now. *LADY BEWARE* "...delightful, vintage Beverley... a fast-paced, unforgettable, wickedly sensual romance." Romantic Times http://www.jobev.com/recent.html

Castle pictures

2007-06-07T19:06:00.000+01:00

I came across this site which gives short camera pan views of interesting places.
http://www.evasion-aisne.com/visites_virtuelles/uk/chateau_de_guise.php

Jo

Don't be mean

2007-05-01T18:44:00.000+01:00

Came across this in the Memoirs of de Joinville, 13th century France.

"Artauld of Nogent was the burgher whom the King most trusted, and he was so rich, that he built the castle of Nogent l'Artauld with his own money. Now it chanced that Count Henry came down out of his hall at Troyes to go and hear mass at Saint Stephen on the day of Pentecost; and at the foot of the steps there knelt a poor knight, who thus accosted him: " Sir, I beseech you for the love of God, to give me out of your wealth the wherewithal to marry my two daughters whom you see here."

Artauld, who was walking behind him, said to the poor knight, " Sir Knight, it is not courteous in you to beg from my lord; for he has given away so much, that he has nothing left to give."

The generous Count turned round to Artauld, and said to him: "Sir Villein, you speak untruly when you say, that I have nothing left to give, why, I have you yourself! Here, take him, Sir Knight! for I give him to you, and will warrant him to you."

The knight was in no wise abashed, but took him by the cape, and told him: That he would not let him go until he had come to terms with him; and before he could get away, Artauld had made fine with him for five hundred pounds."

Love it!

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=WedLord.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div2

Jo

Childbirth

2007-04-25T18:46:00.000+01:00

I came across this extraordinary document which describes childbirth procedures in detail, for the 16th century, at least. It was written to prove the legitimacy of the baby, if a son, because the father was already dead. Pity such scrupulous attention wasn't paid to the birth of "the Old Pretender."

It also confirms that the birthing stool was the usual situation, and interestingly that a man's support was common enough not to be commented on as strange here, even though the man clearly isn't her husband. I've used this in a number of stories, such as Secrets of the Night.
http://members.shaw.ca/jobev/malloren.html#SECNIG

"And the aforesaid Isabel de la Cavalleria, complaining about the pains of her labour, lying down on her back in the arms and legs of the aforesaid lord Martin de Palomar y de Gurrea, lord of Argavieso, who was sitting in a chair holding her with strength, the aforesaid Isabel having some relics on her belly and many blessed candles lit around, and the midwives were there, Aina on her knees in front of the aforesaid Isabel and the aforementioned Catalina Salinas was between the legs of the aforesaid Isabel de la Cavalleria, sitting on a stool with a cloth laid out in her knees to administer the labour and to receive the baby who was about to be born, and there was a clean brass pot between the legs of the aforesaid Isabel, as we could see, where I, the notary and the witnesses saw and heard fall in the blood and the water which were coming out from the body of the aforesaid Isabel de la Cavalleria while in labour pains. "

Sentence breaks were unpopular at the time, it seems!

You can read it all at the link.

Bits and pieces

2007-01-25T17:51:00.000Z

I'm back. Last year was crazy. I'm sure writing Lady Beware necessitated some spot research - in fact I know it did -- but I never had time to post anything here.

I'm beginning something new, however, so...

Have I said how much I love the google book search? There are some fabulous old resources there. I'm looking at travel in France in the mid 18th century. (Yes, I'm back to the Malloren world. I went first to Lawrence Sterne's travel book. Just the right period.)

From the google search thus far I've downloaded a 19th century road book from Calais to Naples, and an 18th century one called The American Wanderer. In that I came across a little bit that interested me in general.

Among writers of 18th and 19th century fiction we sometimes debate the use of pencils. Well, in the latter book the traveller mentions one. "I recollected my lead pencil, by the medium of which we held a kind of disjointed conversation."

More, probably, at other times.

Execution

2006-10-31T17:18:00.001Z

Suitable for Halloween, I think. I found this site which contains all kinds of information about executions, including a listing of people executed in the United Kingdom in various years.

Here's a link to the Regency period and past, including crime for which they were executed.
http://uk.geocities.com/becky62655@btinternet.com/1800.html

And here's a page about the execution of women in the 18th century.
http://uk.geocities.com/becky62655@btinternet.com/fem1735.html

Scary stuff.

Jo

Execution

2006-10-31T17:18:00.000Z

wake up with a jolt

2006-07-13T19:03:00.000+01:00

More from the Century of Inventions.

I suspect this one didn't catch on due to hazard!

[A most conceited Tinder-box.] The following note from "Humane Industry," 1661, appears highly suggestive of such an instrument,although the Marquis's invention is more elaborate. " Andrew Alciat the great Civilian of France, had a kind of Clock in his chamber, that should awake him at any hour of the night that he determined, and when it struck the determined hour, it struck fire likewise out of a flint, which fell among tinder, to light him a candle: it was the invention of one Caravagio of Sienna in Italy."

Jo :)

Torpedo War, and Sub-marine Explosions,

2006-07-10T20:36:00.000+01:00

That's the title of a book by American, Robert Fulton.

Date of publication? 1804

It's not such a huge surprise, because a submarine vessel was demonstrated for King James 1 (early 17th century) and the Americans tried out an armed submarine during the Revolution.

Still, it startles, because we could imagine Torpedo War and Sub-marine Explosions rolling off any press today.

This is from the wonderful Century of Inventions, by the Marquess of Worcester, written in the 17th century.

And what about this?
"Pepys, in his Diary, under date the 14th of March, 1662, says: " This afternoon came the German, Dr. Knuffler, to discourse with us about his engine to blow up ships. We doubted not the matter of fact, it being tried in Cromwell's time, but the safety of carrying them in ships; but he do tell us, that when he comes to tell the King his secret, for none but the Kings, successively, and their heirs must know it, it will appear to be of no danger at all."_Pepys' Diary, ed. 1858, vol. i. p. 264."

I wonder what became of that?
http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/dircks/His111chap1.html#398b

Ive put up some extra links at the side. Visit Word Wenches, where I blog with some fellow historical authors. If you love historical romance, sign up for Historical Delights. No chat or spam, just links to excerpts from available historical romance.

Best wishes,

Jo

Genteel Jane

2006-06-17T20:05:00.000+01:00

There's been talk around the web recently about whether Jane Austen intended some rather risque references in her novels. I have no strong opinion on that, but I do have on Jane herself. Now this is entirely my own reading of her, but I hurt for Jane when I see people today trying to keep her crammed in a box of genteel propriety that confined her in life.

I see Jane Austen as a woman torn between family affection and loyalty and a soaring intelligence, creativity, and spirit. I can imagine the sort of powerful objections that led her to cover her writing whenever the family wanted her attention in order to keep the peace. How she delighted in earning money. Did she secretly dream of the time when she could afford to go off on her own and explore the wider world?

Jane was not a Victorian miss. Her early years were 18th century, not 19th.

Only consider Jane's History of England, written when she was sixteen. Her passage on Edward IV already shows a lovely, irreverant tone and absolutely no prudery about mistresses.

"This Monarch was famous only for his Beauty & his Courage, of which the Picture we have here given of him, & his undaunted Behaviour in marrying one Woman while he was engaged to another, are sufficient proofs. His Wife was Elizabeth Woodville, a Widow who, poor woman! was afterwards confined in a Convent by that Monster of Iniquity & Avarice Henry the 7th. One of Edward's Mistresses was Jane Shore, who had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading. Having performed all these noble actions, his Majesty died, & was succeeded by his son."

My main objection to the Genteel Jane cult, however, is the portrait that is commonly used. Something like this.

However, that is a prettified Victorian version of the sketch by her sister, Cassandra. I've darkened some lines to make the folded arms and assertive posture clearer.

This is a close up of her face. Not genteel at all, no. Not Jane.

Jo

War

2006-06-13T16:43:00.000+01:00

There's a tendency to put values of today onto the past, perhaps particularly in regards to war. Of course war has always been violent and full of atrocities, but in novels, at least, we like to think that our military heroes have modern sensibilities. Perhaps modern civilian sensitivities. They are sensitve to the humanity of the enemy. They regret killing them. They care about the enemy civilians. They look back on war and shudder.

There are all kinds of reactions to war, of course, but I've seen plenty of evidence to the opposite.

Consider this letter, written after Waterloo by Lieutenant William Turner, 13th Light Dragoons.

"VILLEPEUT near PARIS, 3rd July 1815.

MY DEAR BUSBY,—I assure you it is with the greatest pleasure I can find time to inform you I am perfectly sound and in good health and spirits.

We marched into this village last night from near Louvres, and are only nine miles from Paris and can distinctly hear the firing, which takes place at Paris, between the Prussian advanced posts and the French. This war cannot possibly last long, for every town and village is completely ransacked, and pillaged by the Prussians and neither wine, spirits, or bread are to be found. The whole country from the frontier to Paris has been laid waste by the march of troops, and the crops nearly destroyed, we are waiting for the Prussians when that infernal City Paris will be attacked and no doubt pillaged, for it is a debt we owe to the whole of Europe, all the inhabitants for leagues round here have taken themselves and their effects into Paris, so that it will be worth taking if we loose 20,000 men.

You have no idea of the enthusiasm of the troops and their determination to carry before them everything in their way, the Prussians are also determined soldiers and I expect in one week Paris will be completely sacked and perhaps burned."
http://www.pinetreeweb.com/waterloo.htm

Jo
http://www.jobev.com

Language in the Regency

2006-06-11T23:10:00.000+01:00

In the Rush memoires I read that the English upper class larded their speech with French, despite being at war with the French. This is obviously true of Italian, also, judging from this letter from Theresa Fielding to her son. They are both part of the influential Fox Strangeways family. You can read the notes here.
http://www.foxtalbot.arts.gla.ac.uk/corresp2/00677.asp

Sackville Street<1>

20th Decr (1815)

My Dearest Henry

I am so pleased that you liked your parcel, you have no idea di quel gran piacer ch’ío gusto nel farvi piacere.<2>

I will send you Zetti’s Grammar<3> but will wait till I hear again from you, in case you should recollect any thing more you wish to have sent with it.

I have sent to Rodwell for the last Edition of Zetti’s Grammar, but it is not yet come. & I will look over my Italian Books to see if I have any that will suit you. You are too young yet to read their first rate Poets, you would not yet feel their beauties, & they are difficult. I will must send you some easy books to begin with, & in prose till you are more au fait<4> of the language

Adiò conservatevi & scrivite Subito<5>

Let me know if the Morning Chronicle<6> ever miss because I send it every day

Have you a good Italian Dictionary to consult?

Would you like to have the Examiner?<7>

William H Fox Talbot Esqr
Rnd Mr Barnes’s
Castleford
Ferrybridge

A letter from his sister is entirely in French. An exercise to some extent, but indicative.
Ce 11 Fevrier 1817.

Mon cher Henri,

J’espère que vous êtes bien content d’avoir aujourd’hui dixsept ans, je vous le souhaite de tout mon cœur & je voudrais bien avoir le plaisir de vous le dire de vivevoix.

Maman<1> nous a fait présent à chacune d’une très belle poupée, et nous allons célébrer votre jour de naissance en meublant les petits appartemens des poupées, c'est à dire notre Baby House. Il faisait clair un soir, mais Maman ne pouvait pas nous permettre de regarder les étoiles à cause du Froid.

Mon cher Frère
Croyez moi
Votre affectionnée Sœur

Caroline Augustine.

London Feb eleven 1817 Auckland<2> –
Hy Fox Talbot Esqr
Revd Mr Bonney<3>
Normanton
Stamford

Translation:

11 February 1817

My dear Henri,

I hope that you are happy to turn seventeen today, I wish you this with all my heart and I would so like to have the pleasure of saying this to you in person.

Mama gave each of us the gift of a very beautiful doll, and we are going to celebrate your birthday by furnishing the little appartments for the dolls, that is to say our Baby House. It was clear one evening, but Mama could not allow us to look at the stars because of the Cold.

My dear Brother
Believe me
Your affectionate Sister
Caroline Augustine.

All the letters are interesting.
http://www.foxtalbot.arts.gla.ac.uk/

More on travel

2006-05-24T19:48:00.000+01:00

I came across this which I hadn't posted. It's from Felix LeClerc again about his voyage from France to America in 1816. The service received looks pretty good, even to modern eyes!

"I profit by this opportunity to speak of our steward and cook; and when I shall have spoken of the first, I shall speak of the second. Our steward is named Joseph Sexton. He is a young man, very intelligent, diligent, laborious, dexterous, civil, complaisant, obliging and all that we could wish. When we are up in the morning, he presents to us some water to wash our faces and our hands. When we are yet in bed and sleepy, he never forgets to awake us and to tell us that breakfast is soon to be ready. At breakfast he takes care that we want nothing. At dinner he is very watchful and changes our plates, knives and forks in proportion to the number of courses served, and at supper he is not less provident. Besides all that he makes our beds well every day and sweeps our rooms and cabin as neatly as possible.

Our cook is also a young man but taller and stronger. He is a negro man and a very skillful cook. In the morning he makes us good coffee and serves us with fresh eggs or an omelet. At noon he prepares for us a well-seasoned thigh or side of a hog, an excellent dish of rice pudding, another of choice victuals, another of fine beans, another of exquisite fish, another of rare cabbages, another of choice potatoes. He dresses and roasts every day two admirable ducks or hens or cocks. In the evening he prepares good tea. Indeed, our cook is an excellent man, and I do not doubt that if any lord knew him, his lordship would entice him away."

Of course I was reading LeClerc as research for my novel The Rogue's Return, which was out in March.

I'm now involved in another blog with some of my favorite authors.
Check out www.wordwenches.com

Jo

London Houses in the Regency

2006-05-21T19:42:00.000+01:00

More from Louis Simond, traveller. He is describing London houses in general, but this applies to most of the houses owned by upper class characters in Regency novels, for in this period, London town houses weren't large. The elite, however, did sometimes live in mansions.

(I'd add some pictures, but Blogger seems to be having a problem with this right now. But you can go here to see a typical terrace of houses. http://members.shaw.ca/jobev/bath1.jpg, and here for a two-storey terrace in Cheltenham.http://members.shaw.ca/jobev/chelst2.jpg)

"It may be a matter or curiosity in France to know how the people of
London are lodged. Each family occupy a whole house, unless very poor.
There are advantages and disadvantages attending this custom. Among the first,
the being more independent of noise, the dirt, the contagious disorders, or the
danger or your neighbour's fires, and having a more complete home. On the
other hand, a suite of apartments all on one floor, even of a few rooms
only, looks much better, and is more convenient.

These narrow houses, three or four stories high,--one for eating, one for sleeping, a third for company, a fourth under ground for the kitchen, a fifth perhaps at top for
the servants,--and the agility, the ease, the quickness with which the
individuals of the family run up and down, and perch on different stories,
give the idea of a cage with sticks and birds.

The plan of these houses is very simple, two rooms on each story; one in the front, with two or three windows looking on the street, the other on a yard behind, often very
small; the stairs generally taken out of the breadth of the back-room. The
ground-floor is usually elevated a few feet above the level of the street,
and separated from it by an area, a sort of ditch, a few feet wide,
generally from three to eight, and six to eight feet deep, inclosed by an
iron railing; the windows of the kitchen are in this area.

A bridge of stone or brick leads to the door of the house. The front of these houses is about twenty or twenty-five feet wide; they certainly have rather a paltry
appearance;--but you cannot pass the threshold without being struck with
the look of order and neatness of the interior. Instead of the abominable filth
of the common entrance and common stairs of a French house, here you step
from the very street on a neat floor-cloth or carpet, the wall painted or
papered, a lamp in its glass bell hanging from the ceiling, and every
apartment in the same style:--all is neat, compact, and independent, or, as
it is best expressed here, snug and comfortable,--a familiar expression,
rather vulgar perhaps, from the thing itself being too common.

On the foot pavement before each house is a round hole, fifteen or
eighteen inches in diameter, covered with an iron grate; through that hole
the coal-cellar is filled without endangering the neatness of the house.
The streets have all common sewers, which drain the filth of every house. The
drains preclude that awkward process by which necessaries are emptied at
Paris, poisoning the air of whole streets, during the night, with effluvia,
hurtful and sometimes fatal to the inhabitants.

Rich houses have what are called water-closets; a cistern in the upper story, filled with water,communicates by a pipe and cock to a vessel of earthen ware, which it washes. This is a toilet, I assume.

Jo :)
http://www.jobev.com

Sports hooligans

2006-05-20T05:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'm back after a long visit to England and recovery therefrom.

If I were a true-blue blogger I'd have posted day by day and yes, I would have had interesting things to pass on about history. But though I had the laptop with me, I never connected it to the internet while I was there.

And of course I've forgotten most of the tid-bits I stumbled over on my travels. Which is why true-blue bloggers post every day.

But even though I'm writing a Regency set book that doesn't require much research at the moment, I'm still digging through medieval stuff in preparation for writing that book or books one day set in the mid 13th century Barons' War.

Where I found out that the British tendency to be unruly sports fans is nothing new.

In 1222, London defeated Westminster in an annual wrestling match.

Pause for note. The City of London is still a separate area within what people think of as London. Back then, London was a distinct place with its own walls. Which was to prove important during the Baron's War.

Westminster started out as an Abbey. (Westminster Abbey, remember?) In time it was chosen to be a royal enclave separate and a good distance from the troublesome city, with a palace and a center of administration.

So in 1222, they were like two separate towns. Rivalry was obviously keen, because when Westminster lost, their supporters rioted.

There, however, the similarities end.

The leaders were hanged and many of the others had their hands and feet chopped off.

I found no record of what happened at future matches, or whether there even were any.

Jo

A glimpse of Wellington

2006-04-08T23:45:00.000+01:00

I've been very remiss here because I've been first finishing a book and then rushing through the copy edit before leaving for a month in England.... Pause for breath.

However, here's one bit from the letters of Maria Edgeworth from 1819.

"April 2, 1819.

I left off abruptly just as the folding doors were thrown open, and the
Duke of Wellington was announced in such an unintelligible manner that I
did not know what Duke it was, nor did I know till we got into the
carriage who it was--he looks so old and wrinkled."

How disappointing! He looks rather handsome in some of his earlier portraits and he was only about 50 in 1819.

I'll try to post more, and if I have internet access in England I might find something blogworthy there.

The price of love

2006-03-26T00:19:00.000Z

Sorry to have been missing in action, but I've been finishing the next book. Lots of research on opium addiction, but none of it particularly strange.

This however....

A meticulous account of the costs of prostitutes.

http://www.ifbt.co.uk/Alvanley.htm

More Fear Factor food.

2005-12-20T05:30:00.000Z

Or the person who finds the eyes wins?

Calf’s Head Pie.

Chuse a young Head that has fine white Meat upon it, clean it perfectly well, and then boil it in a large Quantity of Water till it is fit for eating ; take it up, let it drain and cool, then carefully cut off all the Flesh, and divide it into long Pieces of the Breadth of two Fingers.

Take out the Eyes, and cut them crossway into four Pieces each; slice the Tongue into Slices as thick as a Crown Piece, and when all is thus mixed, dust over it some Pepper and Salt.

Make a very good Puff-paste Crust, and cover a Dish with it, lay in the Yolks of’ four hard Eggs, and a few Truffles, then put in some Pieces of the Tongue: After this lay in the Meat of the Head, and then the Eyes in different Places, mixed with the Pieces of the Tongue that remain; dust on very carefully some Cayan-Pepper, mixed with Basket Salt, to make it spread evenly, then dash over the whole, Half a Gill of Madeira Wine ; then pour in Half a Pint of Veal Gravy, and covering up the Pie, send it to the Oven.

[As she later speaks of the pie coming home, she seems to be assuming it will go out to be baked. Good, large baking ovens were often no available in the house.]

While it is baking, boil the Bones of’ the Head in two Quarts of Water, let them boil till there is but a Pint left ; and as they are boiling, put in a Couple of whole Cloves, an Onion, and some Winter Savoury; let these boil to the small Quantity just named, and then strain the liquor off; put it into a saucepan, and add a little Cayan-Pepper, two spoonfuls of Catchup, Half a Gill of red Wine, and a Piece of Butter rolled in Flour, thicken it up in this Manner, arid have it ready when the Pie comes in.

Boil the Brains with a Dozen Leaves of red Sage; chop the Brains and Sage both very fine, and dust over them a very little Cayan-Pepper, and a Spoonful of Madeira Wine; add a little Lemon-peel, and some grated Nutmeg: When all this is thus mixed, stir in a little of it into the thickened Gravy, and heat up the rest with some Yolks of Eggs and fry it in Cakes.Boil the Eggs hard, and take out the Yolks.

All these Things being ready when the Pie comes home, heat Half a Gill of Madeira Wine with a Blade of Mace; take out the Mace, lift off the Lid of the Pie whole, and first of all sprinkle in the hot Madeira Wine. Then lay in the Yolks of Eggs, and the Cakes of Brains one among another, and then pour in the hot Gravy, and send it up without the Lid.

This is one of the finest Pies that can be made. Every one who eats it commends it, and I have heard many who were very well acquainted with the Taste of Turtle say, it was a Turtle Pie. The Reason of this is, partly that the Flesh of a Calf’s Head is really like Turtle, and partly because the Madeira Wine and Cayan-Pepper give it the same Flavour that a Turtle gets in the dressing, these being the two principal Ingredients.

I have my Christmas page up on my website, along with a free story, but the story doesn't use any weird historical data, unless you think the word "haberdashery" is weird.

http://www.jobeverley.com/xmas2005.html

Jo :)

Christmas Food

2005-12-20T05:14:00.000Z

Some tid-bits from The British Housewife, or the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion, by Martha Bradley. 1756.
A facsimile edition is available from Prospect Books, Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon, UK TQ9 7DL ISBN 0907325637

This edition covers the twelve months, and under December, we have the following.
“BUTCHERS Meat in general is never in better Season than at this Time of the Year, and Beef in particular may now appear in the largest Pieces at the best Tables: The French Fashions have carried it a great Way against us, [Ah, the never-ending competition with the French!]but they are not arrived yet so far as to banish the Sirloin of Beef from a Christmas Dinner; that will always be received with Honour.
The Rump makes to the full as good an Appearance roasted: The Sirloin is particular to the roast Way of dressing, but the Rump may also be boiled, and it is one Way as genteel as the other.”

A little later we have the puzzling statement: “Lamb is now in prime Season; it is small and delicate, and nothing looks handsomer at a Table: The common Way is to cut the hind Quarter, boiling the Leg, and frying the Loin in Chops round it; but in this Case they spoil one another, and the polite Tables have banished this Method.”

I would have thought December young for lamb, but perhaps this has changed over time.

December was a time of limited fresh vegetables, but without freezing or importation, there was still variety. There was asparagus, and “From the Hot-beds also there is at this Season Plenty of young Salleting, Raddish and Cress, Rape and Mustard, and young Lettuces; the Hot-beds we also ordered to be planted last Month with Mint will now afford Crop after Crop of it, to be cut young, and eat with the Lamb, which is at this Time so great a Delicacy.

The common Ground affords also Abundance of the more ordinary Products, which from their own Hardyness, or the careful Manner of planting, escape the Frost; the Savoy is in good Order, and there are common and red Cabbages. The more usual Kinds of Roots are very properly taken up before this Time, and kept in Sand, but such as remain in the Ground, except the Potatoe, will be very good; and when the Frost will give the Gardiner Leave to get at them, he may take up Carrots, Parsnips, and Dutch Parsley, as also Turnips, Salsify, and Scorzonera:
[Salsify and scorzonera are slender rooted vegetables said to taste like oysters when fried.] The red and white Beet is also very good now, and the red Kind makes an agreeable Figure at Table: Celeri is in Perfection, and Chardoons are very good; Endive also continues in very good Order, and there are Dutch Lettuces from under Glasses. All the Onion and Leek Kind are in very good Order, as is also Garlick; the Shalot and Rocambole also are fit for Use. Thus in the deadest Season of the whole Year the Care and Industry of the Gardiner supplies the Kitchen in the Country, and in London, where there is a Demand for every Thing, every Thing is ready to answer it; the Markets are supplied with these, and all in their Perfection, as in Summer.”

They wasted little of the animal. Consider “Roasted ox palates.” A suitable dish for Fear Factor! Mind you, this strikes me as one of those “stone soup” recipes, where the stated ingredient is only an excuse for many other more edible ones. “This is an extreamly elegant Dish,” Mistress Bradley assures us.

"Pick and perfectly clean Some fine Ox Palates; throw them into a Saucepan of Water with a little Salt, and two Spoonfuls of Vinegar, and boil them unti1 they are tender; then lay them on a Sieve to drain and cool.

Pick, draw, and truss three Pigeons for roasting; lard one half of each Pigeon with thin square Pieces of Bacon, and fill the Bodies with good Forcemeat made as we have directed in a foregoing Chapter. [Chicken, veal, bread, eggs, seasoning and spices. In other words, sausage meat.]

"Lay these ready, the Palates will by this Time be cold and fit for preparing for the Spit; cut them out into long slices, and lard them with long slices of bacon.”

The above are all threaded on spits and roasted with the addition of oysters, cock’s combs while basted with egg yolks.
"Meanwhile, cook some sweetbreads and artichokes, and a sauce of rich veal gravy and red wine."
So let's see. We have pigeons, bacon, sausage meat, more bacon, oysters, cock's combs, eggs, sweetbreads, artichokes, veal gravy and red wine. I suspect finding the ox palates in the dish might be a trick!

To broil a Lamb’s Head.
A tasty dish from the past that might also scare people on Fear Factor.
“Chuse a moderately large Lamb’s Head and split it, clean it very carefully, and then put it into a Pot with a little water to boil till it is half done. In the mean Time pick some Leaves of Sweet Herbs clean from the Stalks; add to them some grated Bread, some Pepper and Salt, and a little Nutmeg. Take up the Head and fet it to drain.

When it is half dry dust it very well over with the Seasoning we have just directed to be made, and set a Gridiron over a fine clear Fire; throw in some Salt, and when the Fire is in perfect fine Order, lay on the head; turn it occasionally, and see that it gets a fine brown.”

It is served with a mushroom gravy.

She concludes with: “There is but little upon the Head thus done, but what there is, is fine. There is not a prettier dish for a person of delicate stomach.”

Which only goes to prove that stomach delicacy changes over time.