Pre-Victorians Becoming Posture Perfect

C.E. Drummond, Scene at Scotsbridge 1830

Loretta reports:

“A horrible instrument was devised which I had to wear while doing my lessons.  It was a steel rod which ran down my spine and was strapped at my waist and over my shoulders—another strap went around my forehead to the rod. I had to hold my book high when reading, and it was almost impossible to write in so uncomfortable a position. However, I probably owe my straight back to those many hours of discomfort.”—Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold

C.E. Drummond, watercolour drawing 1828-1830

This sort of thing fit the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, when everything seems to have become so very strict: divisions between classes, excruciatingly complicated etiquette, and fashion.

But I had not thought about posture devices for the earlier period. After all, Susan and I are well aware that acutely straight posture was the order of the day in the 18th and 19th centuries. Women’s shoulder blades were supposed to come as close as possible to meeting in the back, and dress designs reflected this. The corset and especially the busk were all part of maintaining elegant posture.

Then, thanks to Susan's alerting me to an image, I bought and started reading Susan Lasdun’s Making Victorians: The Drummond Children’s World 1827-1832. It has proved enlightening on a number of counts, not least the posture devices used on girls in the pre-Victorian era.

An especially poignant image, a watercolor by Cecile Elizabeth Drummond (at top), brought the point home forcibly—as it evidently did to the errant child. At her feet lies her backboard, which she’s apparently abandoned. And there is Mama, holding a birch rod—a bundle of twigs with which the little girl will be punished for her misbehavior.

C.E. Drummond, watercolour drawing 1828-1830

Lady Lasdun describes the backboard as a “painful” device, yet I’ve seen images of modern children wearing such backboards, in re-enactments (here, here, and here, for example). If it truly were painful, would the re-enactment have been allowed? And would someone be selling them as "only suitable for use by children."?

No doubt the backboard wasn’t comfortable—in the book are several images of children who’ve discarded their backboards and are anticipating a whipping—but it was probably less painful than the whipping, and certainly more comfortable than the iron monstrosity Consuelo Vanderbilt endured. Frankly, I suspect this sort of thing would have benefited my posture enough to compensate for the unpleasantness…though of course I wouldn’t have thought so at the time!

Images: watercolors by Cecil Elizabeth Drummond, 1828-30 (made); Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection; Given by Miss Barbara Drummond, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: A Victorian Christmas & Victorian Dolls

Loretta reports:

Looking for some holiday-type historical footage for the Friday video, I came upon these stereoscopic images of staged, late-Victorian Christmas celebrations. Many of the images seem a little eerie to me. But then, Victorian images often are. In this case, too, the strange “animation,” combined with the stereoscopic effect, heightens the sensation.

But I was struck by the little girls cradling their dolls, an image that remains familiar and sweet.



Then I remembered the photos of Victorian toys—mainly dolls and doll furniture—I took in September at the Provincetown Museum, which is part of the Pilgrim Monument.* I could picture little girls on Christmas morning, lovingly holding these dolls when they were new.


*No, I didn’t climb to the top of the monument. There’s quite a lovely panoramic view on the website.

 

Video: 3D Stereoscopic Photographs of Christmas in the Victorian Era (1889-1902)


Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post. Please click on images to enlarge.

Lord Raby's "Great Silver Wine Cistern," c1705

Susan reporting,

While my last post featured the now-unknown 18thc child of a soldier living in a military encampment, this post features an 18thc child on the opposite end of the Georgian social ladder. Born into wealth and power, Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was the son of prominent politician Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, and Lady Caroline Lennox Fox, eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond. Later in life, Charles became a noted statesman in his own right. 

But as a child, Charles was much spoiled by his indulgent parents. One famously appalling incident is recounted in the wonderful biography Aristocrats (by Stella Tillyard, 1994, Noonday Press):

"Once a grand dinner was held at Holland House for some visiting foreign dignitaries. The Fox children were brought in for dessert. Charles, still a toddler in petticoats, said he wanted to bathe in a huge bowl of cream that stood on the table. Despite [his mother's] remonstrances, [his father] ordered the dish to be put down on the floor and there, in full view of some of Europe's most powerful politicians, the little boy slopped and slid to his heart's content in the cool, thick liquid."

I remembered little Charles in the cream when, while wandering on the internet, I came across this splendidly ostentatious silver wine cistern, upper left. A little more sleuthing led me to the publicity photo, bottom left, of a modern toddler named Leo, gleefully emulating young Charles Fox. As you can see from the photo, right, the wine cistern (today it would be called a wine cooler) is enormous. It measures over 51 inches across the top handles and contains over 70 kilograms of sterling silver, and can easily hold more than a dozen bottles of wine. It's also plenty large enough for most any small lordling's impulsive cream baths, and several of his friends, too.  

But the wine cistern wasn't just a costly extravagance. Created in 1705-1706, this "great silver wine cistern" was commissioned by Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Baron Raby and Ambassador Extraordinary to Berlin between 1706-1701. Lord Raby's post was one of the most important abroad, and the cistern was part of his ambassadorial silver. The ambassador's silver service not only represented the wealth and magnificence of Queen Anne and the country she ruled, but its presence also honored foreign guests and dignitaries at state dinners. Made by Philip Rollos, Sr., in London, the cistern features a pair of patriotic British lions as well as the royal arms and cipher of Queen Anne.

Wine cisterns were the largest pieces in such a service, and so impressive that contemporaries waggishly likened them to boats and coaches. They weren't quite that large, but their size, containing so much silver, meant that some were melted down and remade into other items after the fashion for cisterns had passed. That, added to the fact that relatively few were made to begin with, means that today only a handful still exist. 

Lord Raby's cistern remained in his family for three centuries. It was finally put up for auction in 2010, and was kept from leaving Britain by a fundraising campaign by Leeds Museums and Galleries, augmented with grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund. The cistern can now be seen on display at Leed's Temple Newsom House - though cream-bathing is not an option.

For much more about the history of Lord Raby's wine cistern, see the catalogue description by Sotheby's here.

Photos, left, courtesy of Sotheby's.

Photo, right, ©2010 by Clara Molden for The Telegraph.

The Littlest Camp Followers, c1775

Susan reporting,

One of the things I appreciate most about the still-new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia is the way the artifacts, videos, and exhibits are so much more inclusive than many more traditional exhibitions devoted to the Revolution and life in 18thc America. The stories told by the MoAR feature the familiar heroic actors like George Washington, but there are also many other individuals - including Native Americans, African Americans, and women - whose contributions and sacrifices have been too often overlooked, forgotten, or purposefully ignored.

This tiny earthenware lamb (only a few inches long) represents a group that was very much involved in the war, yet seldom mentioned: the children of soldiers. Along with their mothers and soldier-fathers, these children - often born during a campaign - were a familiar feature of 18thc armies. While the term "camp follower" conjured up titillating images like this, the reality was that the majority of the women traveling with the army were married to enlisted men; these women were often employed in laundering, food preparation, and tending the sick and wounded. Their children, of course, had little choice in the matter; they simply "followed the drum" because they followed their fathers.

Children appear in contemporary paintings of military scenes like the one shown here. The reality was likely much more rough-and-tumble, and combined with the real possibilities of danger, disease, and death, yet their presence at the time was unquestioned in a way that seems unfathomable to us today.

The lamb toy was excavated from a British Revolutionary War campsite near New York City, a British stronghold through much of the war. Made in England of white salt-glazed stoneware, the lamb could have crossed the Atlantic on board a troop ship with its owner, or been purchased in a New York shop.

The name of the lamb's young owner isn't known, nor are the circumstances of how it was lost or left behind at the camp. Lost toys are nothing new, nor, sadly, are children in the middle of wars. Still, I hope that both that long-ago child and his or her parents returned safely from the war, even if the lamb remained behind as a poignant reminder of a child in the middle of an adult conflict.

Thanks to Philip Mead, Chief Historian of the Museum of the American Revolution, for suggesting this post.

Left: Toy Lamb, England, 1750-1800, on loan from the New-York Historical Society to the Museum of the American Revolution. 
Right: British Infantrymen of a Royal Regiment in an Encampment, painter unknown, c1760, National Army Museum.

A Lace-Trimmed Shirt for a Cherished Baby, c1760-1784

Susan reporting,

Baby clothes hold a special place in costume collections. Except perhaps for wedding dresses, there's no other category of clothing that carries so much emotion. Infant clothes in the past were often made by the mother-to-be or other family members, and each stitch was lavished with love as well as hopes and dreams and probably a prayer or two for the new arrival. Because of their small size, baby clothes were also a splendid opportunity to display superior stitching and the finest of linens, and maybe even a bit of delicate needle-lace.

Too small to be recut or remodeled in a thrifty makeover, they survive as cherished mementos, a tiny little garment carefully tucked away in a drawer or chest. Too often, however, baby clothes are also sorrowful keepsakes from a time of staggeringly high rates of infant mortality, and represent a final link in linen and lace between a grieving mother and her lost child.

The exact reasons for why this particular shirt was preserved have been forgotten; according to the family's history, the shirt was associated with Jane Hodge Nichols, born around 1784 and later wife of Thomas Nichols of Maine. Little Jane was fortunate indeed to wear this shirt, which is rich in costly detail. This was likely a shirt for special occasions, not for everyday wear, and it's small (I'd guess about a modern size 6 month.) The plain-woven linen is extremely fine, the neck and sleeves are edged with bobbin lace, and there are insertions of dainty needle-lace at the tops of the shoulders. The pleats on the sleeves are almost unimaginably narrow, and the entire shirt represents a superior level of needlework. (As always, click on the image to enlarge.)

Most notable are the sleeve buttons (like modern cuff-links), an unusual feature in baby shirts. These are solid gold, with a hexagonal shape and engraved designs. The style of the buttons is earlier than the shirt itself, and it's possible that they were a family heirloom from a previous generation, and passed down along with the shirt. Beautiful and valuable, they must have brought good luck to tiny Jane: she lived until 1861.

Many thanks to Neal Hurst, Associate Curator of Costume and Textile, Colonial Williamsburg, for showing this shirt (plus many other costume goodies!) to me during a visit last month.

Infant's shirt with lace trim, maker unknown, c1760-1784, America, New England, (probably) Maine. Collection of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.

Care of Infants in 1837

Alken, The Infant

Loretta reports:



Well into the 20th century, a great many children did not survive infancy. In this context, the idea of "strengthening" and "hardening" a child makes sense, though we may find some of the practices a little alarming.
✼✼✼

A child is constitutionally weak and irritable to a high degree: hence we should endeavour to strengthen, and diminish this irritability, in order to procure it the greatest happiness of life,—a firm body, which may resist all the influence of air and weather. Such management is highly advantageous, as it will enable children, when adults, to support every species of fatigue and hardship...

All attempts to render children hardy, must, therefore, be made by gradual steps. Nature admits of no sudden transitions. For instance, infants should by imperceptible degrees be inured to the cool, and then to the cold bath…

The child's skin is to be kept perfectly clean, by washing its limbs morning and evening, and likewise its neck and ears; beginning with warm water, till, by degrees, he will not only bear, but like to be washed with cold.

After he is a month old, if he has no cough, fever, nor eruption, the bath should be colder and colder, (if the season is mild) and gradually it may be used as it comes from the fountain. After carefully drying the whole body, head, and limbs, another dry soft cloth, a little warmed, should be used gently, to take all the damp from the wrinkles, or fat parts that fold together. Then rub the limbs; but when the body is rubbed, take special care not to press upon the stomach or belly. On these parts, the hands should move in a circle, because the bowels lie in that direction. If the skin is chafed, hair-powder is to be used. The utmost tenderness is necessary in drying the head, and no binding should be made close about it. Squeezing the head, or combing it roughly, may cause dreadful diseases, and even the loss of reason. A small soft brush, lightly applied, is safer than a comb. Clean clothes every morning and evening, will tend greatly to a child's health and comfort.—The Female's Friend, and General Domestic Adviser 1837

Image: Thomas Henry Alken, The Infant, from Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man (1824), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Remarkable Dr. Mead

Ramsay, Portrait of Dr. Richard Mead

Loretta reports:

Sometimes it’s my husband’s fault. He’s the one who asked me if I’d ever heard of Dr. Mead. When I looked blank, he read the following from a New Yorker piece  on papyrus scrolls: “Mead was a distinguished British physician, a fellow of the Royal Society, and a noted book collector, with a library of more than a hundred thousand volumes in his house in Bloomsbury, which was dispersed in an epic, fifty-six-day auction after his death, in 1754.”

A hundred thousand volumes? Naturally, I had to investigate.

Among other discoveries, I found this obituary in Munk’s Roll, Royal College of Physicians, Lives of the Fellows, and a series of blog posts, written in conjunction with an exhibition I wish I’d seen: "The Generous Georgian: Dr. Richard Mead."

He was, most definitely, a gentleman of the Enlightenment. Along with the book collection (which this site puts at 10K, not 100K), he was a patron of the arts, gave generously of time and money to The Foundling Hospital, experimented on himself—e.g., drinking snake venom—to test theories, published a number of treatises (here’s one), strongly supported smallpox inoculation (but do take a look at which persons were experimented on first) and ...

Gillray, The Cow-Pock 1802

But why not just click on the Generous Georgian link, and read the posts for yourself? In sum, this man was no slacker.

Online you can also find these catalogs from the auction of his collection:

“Valuable gems, bronzes, marble and other busts and antiquities" and some weird other stuff here.  "Pictures, consisting of portraits, landscapes, sea-pieces, architecture, flowers, fruits, animals, histories" here. "Genuine, entire and curious collection of prints and drawings (bound and unbound) here.

"The said collection may be view'd on Thursday the 9th and every day after (Sunday excepted) till the time of sale, which will begin each evening punctually at half an hour after five o'clock."

Images: Allan Ramsay, Dr. Richard Mead (1747) courtesy Coram in the Care of the Foundling Museum. James Gillray, The Cow-pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation (1802) courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Men in Kilts in Paris, 1815

Isabella reporting,

Some things never change. While there can be no doubt as to the courage shown by Highlanders in battle over the centuries, the fascination with what they're wearing (or not) beneath their kilts appears to be at least two hundred years old, if this this print is any indication. (As always, please click on the image to enlarge.)

In October, 1815, when this print was made, the Treaty of Paris that ended the Napoleonic Wars had yet to be signed, but Paris and much of France was already occupied by soldiers from the Coalition countries that had defeated Napoleon. Among these countries was Great Britain, who contributed soldiers from Ireland, Wales, and Scotland as well as England.

Apparently the Highlanders shown here were among those soldiers occupying Paris. Strolling together through a park, they've paused to buy fruit from a vendor. As they bend down to complete their purchase, the two fashionably dressed women behind them are making not-so-subtle excuses to bend over themselves - one to retrieve the child's toy, the other to adjust the laces on her shoe - and thereby gain a, ahem, better view. The print's title, Le Prétexte, (The Pretense) says it all, doesn't it?

A small observation: while it's difficult to identify the gender of children in this era since both small boys and girls were dressed in much the same garments, I'm guessing that the toddler in the print, right, is male since he's playing with a ball, and not a doll, and the ribbon sash is red, a masculine color for the time. If you look closely, you'll see that beneath the child's gown he is is wearing gathered pantalettes, intended to keep him decent while he plays. The pantalettes appear to be plaid, much like the tartan of the soldiers' kilts. Hmm....

Above: Le Prétexte  published by Aaron Martinet, Paris, October, 1815. The British Museum.

Two Ladies Visit Windsor Castle c.1775, and Facebook Takes Notice

Isabella reporting,

Social media has its faults, but it's also a wonderful boon to us Nerdy History folks. Not a day (ok, even an hour) goes by that I don't learn something new thanks to Twitter, FB, or Instagram.

This post will be the proof. Last night, I put a small detail shot, left, of one of my favorite paintings on my Instagram account, which then kicked over to my Facebook page, too. These two ladies and a child are from The North Terrace at Windsor Castle, Looking East, by Paul Sandby. I've stood before this painting many times at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's a sizable picture (see it here), nearly 40" x 50", and the figures - there are several more besides these three - are dwarfed by the castle's tower and the vast sky. But the figures are surprisingly detailed nonetheless, and I was able to take several close-up photos that could be enlarged for further study.

These close-ups offer some fascinating depictions of 1770s fashions, which is why I posted them for my costume-history friends. What I didn't expect was the wonderful online discussion that developed. I'm consolidating the results of this discussion here, to share it with our NHG readers as well. As always, click on the images to enlarge them.

The lady on the right is wearing a red gown with the skirts looped up over a matching petticoat. It's hard to tell if she's wearing a true polonaise gown, or simply copying the style. The white bands around her waist are the strings of her apron, tied in front. Aprons could be a high-fashion accessory, and though hers doesn't show, it's likely a fancy counterpart to her sheer white linen sleeve ruffs. Around her neck is a kerchief, probably linen or cotton, with a decorative edging (pleats?), and around her throat she's wearing a thin black ribbon that seems to have a white bow in the back.

But it's her bonnet, right, that makes the true fashion statement. Worn low over her eyes, it's probably made of white silk, and features a quarter-moon shaped bill with a full round caul and plenty of pleated ruffles. (Here's a similar modern replica via Colonial Williamsburg.) Her hair appears lightly powdered, too, to give it that dusty-grey look.

The second lady, lower left, is dressed for stylish sight-seeing. She is wearing a burnt-orange Jesuit, a long, hooded jacket with a hood folded back on her shoulders, and buttons up the front. Worn for travel, Jesuits (and their cousins, Brunswicks) were often made of light silk. She has a white kerchief around her neck, and her extravagant ruffled cap seems to have a loop of ruffles beneath the chin, over the black ribbon around her throat. Her green parasol has a carved knob at the end of the handle. It appears that she's carrying a similar hooded garment for the child over her arm.

And that child, lower right, attracted the most discussion last night. I'd assumed at first that because of the ruffled cap, the child was a girl, but others suggested that instead it's a young boy. Eighteenth century. boys wore long gowns much like girls until they were "breeched" (dressed in the same style breeches worn by adult men), usually between the ages of three and six; boys of higher rank were breeched later, sometimes being as old as eight. The close-fitting, collarless jacket that the child-who-may-be-a-boy is wearing would have been considered male. It's also vaguely like a 16th or 17thc. doublet, with a soft linen collar and what may be puffs of the shirt beneath pulled through the front opening, a romantic homage to the past that was very popular in the later 18thc. On the other hand, the child is tall to be an unbreeched boy, so she may instead be a girl, dressed in a 16thc. Mary Stuart-inspired jacket.

So that's what we decided about the dress of these "supporting" figures - but feel free to add any observations or thoughts of your own as a comment. I'd love to learn more!

Many thanks to all the contributors to this post: Angela Trowbridge Burnley, Sharon Burnston, Mark Hutter, Hallie Larkin, Samantha McCarty, Cassidy Percoco, Connie Bitz Unangst, Ruth Verbunt, Katy Werlin,  Chris Woodyard. 

The North Terrace at Windsor Castle, Looking East, by Paul Sandby, c. 1775-1780, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

From the archives: The Bridewell Pass-Room

Loretta reports:

In connection with the release of the audio edition of The Last Hellion, I'm offering a slightly revised version of an early blog post. The Bridewell Pass-Room plays an important role in the story.

~~~

This illustration of the Bridewell (one of London’s prisons) Pass-Room comes from Rudolph Ackermann’s The Microcosm of London, which was printed in three volumes from 1808 to 1810.  You can read about this splendid publication at the University of London’s Senate House Library site and at the Eighteenth Century Reading Room.  Wikimedia Commons has all or most of the illustrations posted and the Internet Archive has Vol 1, Vol 2, and Vol 3), but my favorites are the large-scale, very sharp images at Spitalfields Life.

Many of you will recognize immediately the work of Thomas Rowlandson.  His collaborator Augustus Pugin drew the building interiors and exteriors and Rowlandson, basically, put the people in them.  I used this print of the Bridewell Pass-Room,* as I so often use Rowlandson and his contemporaries, to create a scene in a book.  In this case, I sent the heroine of The Last Hellion to Bridewell on a rescue mission. 

From the Microcosm:  “The annexed print gives an accurate and interesting view of this abode of wretchedness, the PASS-ROOM.  It was provided by a late act of Parliament, that paupers, claiming settlements in distant parts of the kingdom, should be confined for seven days previous to their being sent of to their respective parishes; and this is the room appointed by the magistracy of the city for one class of miserable females.**  The characters are finely varied, the general effect broad and simple, and the perspective natural and easy.”

From the Introduction to Fiona St. Aubyn’s Ackermann’s Illustrated London (a modern, shorter edition which contains plates and excerpts from the Microcosm): “Ackermann kept a check on Rowlandson’s more outrageous drawings, and made him change an unmistakably pregnant woman in the preliminary drawing of the Bridewell print to a less obvious condition in the final version.”

*See pp 92-97 of the Microcosm online.
**single mothers

Friday Video: Two Schoolboys' View of a Georgian Prince

Frederick, Prince of Wales

Loretta reports:

The early Georgians are not my specialty.  I’m more familiar with the Prince Regent (later, King George IV) than his predecessors.  But it’s interesting to learn how a family tradition of mutual father-son antipathy continues over generations.

In this short video clip, two schoolboys explain Prince Frederick and his family situation.  If you want to know more, you can view a lengthier and more detailed (and yes, very entertaining) account of the Georgian monarchs here.

Image: Attributed to Joseph Highmore, Frederick, eldest son of George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Anspach (circa 1740-50), from the Royal Collection via Wikipedia

Clicking on an image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Cast Across the Sea: 18th c. Children Born in India, Raised in Britain

Isabella reporting,

I've already heard from a couple of readers who have wondered why the sickly young heroine of my new book, A Sinful Deception, was sent all the way from India, where she was born, to relatives she'd never met in London. Considering the perils (shipwreck, pirates, war) of a voyage that took the better part of a year in the 18th c., wouldn't it have been safer for her to remain in India?

Perhaps. But India, too, was an unhealthy place for Europeans, and it was notoriously true that many failed to survive two monsoons, or two years. Yet for English parents of means living in India, the strongest reason for sending their children half a world away was an almost desperate desire that they be raised as English, attending English schools with English customs and friends.

This was a serious (and costly) step. Often the parents never saw their children again, or at least not for many years. But despite how deeply my heroine's father had embraced India, he still wished her to return to London and ultimately marry an English gentleman.

One of the saddest (to me, anyway) examples of a family torn asunder in this way is described in William Dalrymple's wonderful history, White Mughals: Love & Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India. At the core of this book is the love story of an unlikely couple: James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the British Resident at the Court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the beautiful, high-born Khair un-Nissa, niece of the Nizam's prime minister. Love at first sight swiftly gave way to seduction, scandal, outrage, and finally marriage. (It really is an amazing story, and I can't recommend this book enough.) Yet as thoroughly immersed as Kirkpatrick became in his wife's Mughal way of life - he even converted to Islam for her sake – he still insisted that their two young children be sent to England to be raised by his family.

Their portrait, above, by George Chinnery, was painted in Calcutta, shortly before the children sailed in 1805. Shown in the elegant, rich clothing of the Mughal court, they are achingly young for such a journey: the boy, Sahib Allum, is around five, while his sister, Sahib Begum, is only three. In the care of attendants, they left behind a father who was dying of hepatitis, and a grief-stricken mother who could not understand why her children must be sent away. They never saw either parent again. Kirkpatrick died soon after; his broken-hearted wife died ten years later at 29.

Once in England, their grandfather swiftly had them baptized as Christians. They were put into English clothes, and addressed by their English names of William George and Katherine Aurora. They were told to speak only English, and forbidden to write to their mother or her extended family. Their old lives were done, and their new ones were the only ones that mattered.

I cannot imagine the anguish that all of them, parents and children, must have suffered from what to us today seems an unspeakably cruel decision. Yet somehow William and Kitty survived, as children do, and both grew to adulthood, although William died young at 29. Kitty lived until 1889, the wife of an English army captain and the mother of seven children.

When Kitty was nearly 40, she finally was able to locate her Indian grandmother and write to her. Decades after she'd sailed from Calcutta as a child, the pain of that separation was still fresh:

"When I dream of my mother, I am in such joy to have found her again that I awake, or else am pained in finding that she cannot understand the English I speak. I can well recollect her cries when we left her and I can now see the place where we sat when we parted, and her tearing her long hair – what worlds would I give to possess one lock of that beautiful and much loved hair! How dreadful to think that so many, many years have passed when it would have done my heart such good to think that you loved me, and when I longed to write to you and tell you these feelings that I was never able to express, a letter which I am sure would have been detained, and now how wonderful it is that after thirty-five years, that I am able for the first time to hear that you think of me, and love me."

How could I not be inspired by that?

Above: The Kirkpatrick Children, by George Chinnery, 1805. Collection, Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.

Georgian India: Finding Inspiration in the Paintings of Johann Zoffany

Isabella reporting,

This week marks the release of my latest historical romance, A Sinful Deception, and as promised, I'm going to be writing several posts featuring the background for the book.

Paintings are a major influence on my writing. The German painter Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) is best known today for his portraits of the British royal family, but he also traveled to India and created a number of fascinating paintings that document Georgian life in that farthest corner of the Empire. This was not the later India of Kipling, and interaction between the English and Indians was much less rigid.

The two girls with a cat, above left, are a detail of a larger family group, and I thought of it often while writing about my heroine and her half-sister, both born in India. The girl on the left is shown not only in fashionable clothing that follows London styles, but her pose, with one leg crossed, is a favorite in elegant English portraiture. In sharp contrast is the girl on the right, most likely a servant, whose posture is more straightforward, and her clothes likely much more comfortable, too.

The unfinished group portrait, lower left, shows English Major William Palmer of the Bengal Artillery with his jewel-covered wife, Bibi Faiz Bakhsh Begum, their children, and other members of their family. His pride and devotion are clear, standing protectively over the little group, and another inspiration for my heroine's father and his extended household.

Above left: Detail, Colonel Blair and his Family with an Indian Ayah, by Johann Zoffany, 1786, The Tate.
Bottom left: Detail, The Palmer Family, by Johann Zoffany, 1785, The British Library. For much more about The Palmer Family painting, please see the British Library's blog post here.

An Uncommon Commonplace Book, 1749

Isabella reporting,

Nowadays if you want to record something to remember for further reference, you likely take a quick photo on your cell phone for your Instagram account. But in pre-computer days, you wrote such things into your commonplace book.

A combination of scrapbook, diary, and notebook, commonplace books were bound books of blank pages, to be filled however the owner pleased. I especially like a 17th c. synonym: a "silva rerum", or a "forest of things." Most often the pages were filled with passages copied from books, plays, poems, or sermons that were significant to the user, but surviving commonplace books also include scientific observations, random thoughts, and newspaper clippings pasted in place. Especially in a time when books were rare and/or expensive, commonplace books were a handy way to store information for later use.

They were intensely personal, meant primarily for the user rather than posterity, and as a way to store information and inspiration. They're filled with penmanship that ranges from dazzling to undecipherable, but there are also plenty of doodles and random flourishes, and missing words haphazardly inserted.

Commonplace books were kept by humble clerks and great writers alike, including John Milton, John Locke, H.P. Lovecraft, Francis Bacon, and E.M. Forester. University students were encouraged to keep them as a way of organizing ideas and thoughts, and as memory aids. Even Sherlock Holmes kept commonplace books to assist with his cases.

Although commonplace books might seem at odds with the digital age, rare book collections are now putting them online for a wider audience to read. Here is a commonplace book focused on tips and thoughts on angling (fishing), compiled between 1694-1717 by Nathaniel Bridges. Here's a legal commonplace book kept by Thomas Jefferson from 1762-1767, compiled while he was a young law clerk. And here is the late 19th c. commonplace book of Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, sister-in-law and close friend to poet Emily Dickinson, that includes wedding notices and postcards.

But one my favorite commonplace books can be read here. It consists of two volumes, and is the work of Melisinda Munbee between 1749-1750. Dedicated to the author's father, Valentine Munbee, it's a collection of poetry, written out in impossibly perfect penmanship supported by faint, neatly hand-ruled lines. There are a few endearing glitches: on page 22, right, there's a correction: "The following six lines should have been inserted at ye asterism [asterisks]."

What makes this particular commonplace book so special? Miss Munbee completed it at the very tender age of five years, five months - as she proudly states on the title page, above.

Thanks to John Overholt, curator of Early Modern Books & Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University, for sharing Miss Munbee's commonplace book on twitter.

Above: A collection of various kinds of poetry, by Melesinda Munbee. manuscript, 1749-1750. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Stylish Lady Mary and a Basket of Cherries, 1793

Isabella reporting,

Most of the portraits I've featured in blog posts have been of adult sitters, but I couldn't resist sharing this charming – and quite stylish – young lady.

She's Lady Mary Beauclerk, the only daughter of the 6th Duke of St. Albans, Aubrey Beauclerk, and his first wife Lady Jane Moses Beauclerk. Lady Mary was only two when she sat for her first portrait, yet clearly she's making a fashion statement.

She's wearing a white muslin gown - standard attire for both young girls and boys at the time – but around her waist is a wide ikat sash that likely was imported from India, or perhaps France. She has little red shoes and a lace-trimmed cap, but the main attraction is that hat.

Hardly an ordinary baby bonnet, her hat appears to made of fine woven straw, lined with white silk, and features a towering crown decked with grey silk ribbons. When I think of how difficult it is to persuade most small children to keep hats on their heads, I wonder how the artist managed to have her pose.

The secret might have been that basket of cherries. Cherries and other fruit often appear in portraits of children in this time. Although the exact meaning in this painting isn't known, they usually symbolize purity, youth, and vitality - although here they also co-ordinate nicely with Lady Mary's red shoes. The basket was a prop from the artist's studio, and appears in at least one more of his portraits with small children, so perhaps the cherries were his way to amuse young sitters.

And no, the cherries don't symbolize an early death. Lady Mary grew up to be an heiress with a sizable fortune of £100,000, and in June of 1811, she married George William Coventry, 8th Earl of Coventry. She had two children, and died at 54 in Naples, Italy. In this portrait, she looks like a little girl with a lot of spirit and personality, which may have been part of her family inheritance, too: her father's dukedom had been created a century before to honor the son of Charles II and his mistress, the famously "pretty, witty" actress Nell Gwyn - who would have been her 6X grandmother.

The artist of this portrait is also interesting, because he was American. James Earl (1761-1796) was born in Leicester, MA, the younger brother of another painter, Ralph Earl (1751-1801). While nothing is known of James's early artistic training, at his brother's urging he traveled to London to study, and remained there for about a decade. There he improved his skill and found great success, including exhibiting at the Royal Academy. He painted the portraits of many of the prominent American Loyalists who had been forced to flee to England by the Revolution, and while he didn't have the lofty titled clientele of Sir Joshua Reynolds or Thomas Gainsborough, painting the daughter of the Duke of St. Albans must have been quite a coup for him – and likely helped him find more status-conscious patrons when he returned to America.

Above: Lady Mary Beauclerk, by James Earl, c. 1793-94. Crystal Bridges Museum Collection, Bentonville, Arkansas.

Furnishing your nursery in 1809

Child's cot and nursery chair

Cot & chair description

Loretta reports:

One thing I noticed about the evolution of Ackermann’s Repository over the years:  In the early years of its publication, children appear occasionally in the fashion plates.  But in the later years they seem to disappear.  I wonder if this has anything to do with pregnancy being highly fashionable at one point, or whether it simply reflects one of those cultural swings of the pendulum.

I’ll leave you to speculate, while you contemplate placing a very special infant into a mahogany “cot-bed” tastefully draped in rich silk ...

Cot & chair description

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the captions will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Three Calico Dresses for Little Girls, c.1830-1850

Isabella reporting,

For the majority of American schools, this is the first week of the new school year. Most modern back-to-school wardrobes are of the jeans, sweats, and sneaker variety - clothing that's comfortable and easy-care.

These three dresses belonged to American girls in the mid-19th c., and were representative of what girls of that era were wearing as they trudged off to their local one-room schoolhouses. (They're all part of a current exhibition of the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, PA; see here for an early 19th c. boy's skeleton suit from the same show.) While the printed cotton in the 1790s dress earlier this week was considered a luxury textile, the patented invention of the cotton gin in the early 19th c. combined with the burgeoning American cotton industry had made printed cotton calico affordable to all. Because it was sturdy and washable, it had quickly become a favorite for children's clothing.

One of the most popular colors for printed cotton was a brilliant, rich red called Turkey red. The color had nothing to do with turkeys (I have to admit I'd always wrongly assumed it was named for the male turkey's red wattle.) Instead the name comes from its origins, the root-based dye being imported from Turkey to Europe and America. The two cotton dresses here are Turkey red, as is the cotton patchwork quilt hanging behind them.

While the style of these three dresses might still be worn today by a little girl for a special occasion, the other garment displayed on the stand between them would likely bring howls of outrage from a 21st c. girl. It's a hooped petticoat, made of linen and reinforced with horsehair, and although it would have given a girl the same fashionable, bell-shaped silhouette as her mother, it must not have been comfortable for a young child.

Everyday children's garments such as these are rare in collections. Most children's clothing would have been worn and handed down to siblings, remodeled and repaired until it fell apart, with the scraps possibly ending up in a patchwork quilt. Too often the clothes that survive today were preserved as mementos by a grieving mother. The brown dress in the front belonged to little Lizzie Springer, born in 1850 and died in 1853: a sad reminder of how commonplace death could be for 19th c. children.

Above, left to right: Dress, 1830-1840. Turkey red printed cotton. Dress, 1830-1840, Turkey red printed cotton. Child's Hoop, 1850-1860, Linen & horsehair. Dress, 1850-53. Brown printed cotton. All from the collection of the Chester County Historical Society. Photograph ©2014 Susan Holloway Scott.

A Little Boy's Suit with a Military Air, c. 1800-1830

Isabella reporting,

As Loretta and I have described before (see here and here), little boys in the past were dressed much like their sisters, in loose-fitting frock-style garments that made diaper changes easy. Reaching the age to be "breeched" and shifting to wearing miniature versions of adult male clothing was a major milestone for 18th c. boys.

In the late 18th c., however, there was a general relaxing of children's clothing. Instead of stiff little waistcoats and breeches, boys wore a practical two-piece garment that made the transition to adult clothes a bit easier. This was called a "skeleton suit," a jacket and trousers that buttoned together at the waist for the sake of neatness and ease. The name came from the clean lines and snug fit of the suit, which gave the wearer a narrow silhouette - ostensibly like a bare-bones skeleton. Skeleton suits were often worn with a shirt with a soft, ruffled collar, and were usually made of plain wool or linen, like this one from the collection of Colonial Williamsburg.

And then there's this unusual example, left. Dating from the early years of the 19th c., this wool skeleton suit was worn by John Worthington Williams, Sr., of Wethersfield, CT. For an American boy, the suit represents the elaborate military uniforms being worn by European officers in the Napoleonic Wars. Compare the silk embroidery on John Williams's skeleton suit with that on the uniform worn by Waterloo hero General Henry William Paget, Earl of Uxbridge, lower right. Obviously some doting parent or grandparent wanted their young future hero outfitted in the latest military style, and it's easy to imagine young John leading imaginary charges through Connecticut orchards and vegetable gardens. (As always, click on the images to enlarge them.)

This skeleton suit is part of an outstanding exhibition, Profiles: Chester County Clothing from the 1800s, currently on display at the Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, PA, and running through August 30. I highly recommend it if you're in the Philadelphia-Wilmington area (or visiting nearby Winterthur Museum to see the costumes from Downton Abbey.) This past weekend, I attended a symposium on historic clothing in conjunction with the exhibition; look for more blogs about what I heard and saw.

Left: Skeleton Suit, 1800-1830. Brown wool, cream silk embroidery. Collection of the Chester County Historical Society. Photograph copyright 2014 Susan Holloway Scott.
Right: Field Marshall Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, by John Hoppner & Sawrey Gilpin, 1798. National Trust Collection, Plas Newydd, Anglesey.

Return Engagement: The School of Manners

Loretta reports:

In the 1750s, during a dinner with foreign dignitaries, Henry Fox’s toddler son Charles was brought in--to be admired by the guests, undoubtedly.  The boy said he wanted to bathe in the huge bowl of cream sitting on the table.   His father had the bowl put on the floor and little Charles put into the bowl to splash around.  I think about scenes like that when I encounter manners-challenged children.  Overindulgent parents are nothing new.

Thus the need for THE SCHOOL OF MANNERS or RULES for Childrens Behaviour.  I think this 1701 publication offers interesting insights into the culture of earlier times, some amusing bits, some curiosities and puzzlers, and many proofs that the fundamentals of manners haven’t changed all that much. 

CHAP. I.  Short and mixt Precepts.
3.  Reverence thy Parents.
4.  Submit to thy Superiors
5.  Despise not thy inferiors.
6.  Be courteous with thy Equals.

CHAP. III  Of Behaviour at Home1.  Always bow at coming Home; and be immediately uncovered.
3.  Never sit in the presence of thy Parents without bidding, though no Strangers be present.
4.  If thou pass by thy Parents or by any place where thou seest them, either by themselves or with Company, bow towards them.
6.  Never speak to thy Parents, without some Title of Respect, viz. Sir, Madam, Forsooth; &c.

CHAP. IV  Of Behaviour at the Table.
5.  Ask not for any thing, but tarry till it be offered thee.
8.  Feed thy self with thy two Fingers and the Thumb of the left hand.
9.  Speak not at the Table; if thy Superiors be discoursing, meddle not with the matter.
19.  Take not salt with a greazy Knife.
25.  Smell not thy Meat, nor move it to thy Nose; turn it not the other side upward to view it upon the Plate.

View at source

CHAP V.  Rules for Behaviour in Company.3.  Put not thy hand in the presence of others to any part of thy body, not ordinarily discovered.
6.  Stand not wriggling with thy body hither and thither, but steddy and upright.
9.  When thou blowest thy Nose, let thy Handkerchief be used, and make not a noise in so doing.

CHAP. VIII  Rules for Behaviour Abroad.

5.  Always give the Wall to thy Superiors, that thou meetest; or if thou walkest with thy elder, give him the upper-hand, but if three walk together, the middle place is most Honorable.  [And if anyone can figure this one out, please enlighten me.  L.]

Painting: Arthur Devis, The John Bacon Family (1742-43), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection  

Interesting Births, Marriages & Deaths in 1817

View at Internet Archive

Loretta reports:

The Marriages, Births, and Deaths sections of magazines can be surprisingly exciting, as the entry from La Belle Assemblée for April 1817 demonstrates.

~~~

BIRTHS.

In the Fleet Prison, the lady of Charles Henry Bazeley, Esq. of a daughter.

In Chester, the lady of the Rev. Rich. Massie, of a son, being her 20th child.

At Preston, the wife of Mr. John Counsel, weaver, was brought to bed of a fine boy and two girls, all of whom are doing well.

MARRIED.

At St. James’s Church, the Earl of March to Lady Caroline Paget. The bride’s maids were the Ladies Jane and Georgiana Lenox, Ladies Jane and Georgiana Paget. The Marquis of Anglesea gave the lovely bride away. The, bride was elegantly attired in a Moravian worked muslin dress, with robes and trimmings of fine Brussels lace, worn over white satin, with a pelisse of white satin, richly trimmed with lace; her headdress consisted of a cap of entire lace, over which she wore a beautiful white lace veil. Her dress was rich, elegant, and neat.

Re-married on their return from Gretna-Green, at the house of her father, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Captain Somerset, son of Lord Charles Somerset, to Miss Heathcote, daughter of Capt. H. Heathcote, R. N.

View at Internet Archive

Juvenile indiscretion!—At Tarvin, Mr. James Mort, aged 60, to Mrs. Ann Edwards, aged 80, both of great Boughton, near Chester. To avoid suspicion, the bride prevailed upon the bridegroom to go to Tarvin on the evening of Sunday, to which place the disconsolate damsel followed him in mourning, but to the astonishment of her neighbours, she returned in virgin white! This is the third time Hymen’s chains have been rivetted on each of these young rogues.
At Whaplode, Lincolnshire, Mr. Sindal, to Miss Favel, of that place. Mr. Sindal had just before come into possession of a considerable sum of money, which induced Miss Favel to marry him, and on the following Sunday night she decamped with a journeyman baker, taking with her 133l. by way of support.

~~~

So as to keep my blog from going to infinity and beyond, I left off the deaths, but you may want to visit the page, and notice the ages of the deceased.

—La Belle Assemblée: or, Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine, 1817