The Costume Project – Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Archery costumes, 1880s, made by The Costume Project team at Ironbridge for Education Workshops at the Fashion Museum, Bath.

I love recreating period costumes, particularly corsets and 1950s dresses, but know my limitations. It is always a privilege and a pleasure to meet others who dedicate themselves to this highly skilled area of sewing.  Tucked away behind the scenes at Enginuity, one of the ten Ironbridge Gorge Museums, is The Costume Project. The project is overseen by Curatorial Officer for Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge and Jackfield Museums, Gillian Crumpton and Senior Costume Interpreter, Alison Phillips.

I recently spent a delightful afternoon being shown around the sewing workroom, soon realising that my needlework skills fell somewhat short of the high standards set by Alison and her team. Gillian tells me: ‘Alison ran the wardrobe department at Blists Hill [Victorian Town, Shropshire] for over ten years after having studied theatre costume and interpretation at Wimbledon School of Art. We have a historic costume collection as part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. It all began when our Mantua Gown of 1740s, now too fragile to go on display, was missing a corset and fancy petticoat and Alison was asked to make copies of these.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Reproduction 2 of the Mantua Gown 1740s, made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

The Costume Project at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has been producing bespoke costume for museums since 2004 and specialises in recreating eighteenth and nineteenth century garments. Gillian explains: ‘There has been informal costume interpretation at Blists Hill Victorian Town since 1973, this developed in the few years following this when twelve sets of costumes were made for staff. At Blists Hill we use both first and third person interpretation and have demonstrators and actors who all have various roles.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Costume (1900) made to be worn by members of the public at the Photographer’s Studio at Blists Hill Victorian Town. Made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

Accuracy is very important, so too is the wearability and usability of costumes worn by the staff at Blists Hill. Before beginning the process of recreating a new costume, extensive research is undertaken which includes referencing historic costume collections, photographs and paintings – many of these sources are to be found within Ironbridge’s own Research Library and also their wider collection. With a commission from an external museum or heritage organisation, the process is much the same but the client is asked to provide the team with any images from their own collection and, if available, an original costume. Other sources referred to in the research stages include: sketches; cartoons; drawings; inventories; receipts; diaries; adverts and any available museum objects that might provide a point of reference.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Costume (1900) made to be worn by members of the public at the Photographer’s Studio at Blists Hill Victorian Town. Made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

Ironbridge is an independent museum and as such has to be income generating, to ensure its future survival. The Costume Project provides an income stream for the museum as well as supporting their wider educational aims. A gap in the costume interpretation market was soon identified by the team and other museums gradually began approaching Ironbridge to employ their knowledge and skills. Gillian explains: ‘We were given funding from DCF (Designated Challenge Fund) in 2004 to set-up The Costume Project working initially with two partner museums – Fashion Museum, Bath and The Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. Our aims and mission, since 2004, have been to produce bespoke costumes for museums and to make costumes accessible and engaging to the public. All our work is based on original patterns.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Made by The Costume Project team, an 1840s Quaker Lady try-on costume for the Darby Houses, Ironbridge.

There are three levels of interpretation offered by The Costume Project team:

1. Reproduction – costume for display, not behind glass, a faithful copy of an original historic textile or a copy from a painting:
2. Reconstruction – costume for part of a handling collection and can be worn. It is a copy which retains the look and function of the original costume but is graded to modern sizes and often uses more robust materials and fabrics. Gillian points-out: ‘They [costumes] often have ties down the back to allow easy access; we always advocate ties rather than Velcro which doesn’t last.’;
3. Re-invention – costume for handling and wearing but using historic costume as the inspiration to create a modern interpretation that explores key functions of the original designs.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A Reproduction (1) Corset from the 1890s made by The Costume Project team. Notice the beautiful stitch detail on the corset.

It isn’t just the outer garments that need to be recreated, under garments are just as important too. Gillian is keen to point-out: ‘Getting the basics right are essential in costume interpretation. You can make a beautiful dress from striped silk based on a 1740 painting but unless you have the right underpinnings, a corset, petticoats and a bumroll or panniers it will look limp, flat, lifeless and will be wrong. Underpinnings are the foundations of fashion and help create the fashionable shape. The silhouette of fashion changed using different structures underneath to create the shape. Our specialism focuses on Georgian and Victorian fashion. The structures involve: panniers, pocket panniers, bumrolls, stays, petticoats, crinolines, bustles and corsets.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Example of The Costume Project’s signature ‘rucksack corset’. This one was made for the National Museums of Scotland.

One invention that the team are quite rightly proud of is the rucksack corset. This type of corset was first produced for the Fashion Museum, Bath as part of their handling collection but based upon originals in their own collection. The brief behind the invention was to create a corset that could be easily put on and taken off without any help in a designated area of the museum where unsupervised costume wearing activities took place. This corset uses rucksack fabric and rucksack clips, making it durable and lightweight. The fabric and clips are virtually indestructible but were familiar and easy to use meaning that people won’t panic or get stuck in a corset. The Fashion Museum corset was modelled on one from the Victorian era.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A 1720s Frock Coat try-on costume made by The Costume Project for Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum.

The Costume Project has many high-profile clients including: The Fashion Museum in Bath, Powys Castle, Ulster Museums, National Museums of Scotland, Clun Museum, Bishops Castle, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum and Historic Royal Palaces (Kew Palace).

• To find out more about The Costume Project, CLICK HERE;
• To find out more about Ironbridge Gorge Museums, CLICK HERE;
• To find out more about events and activities coming-up at the Ironbridge Gorge Museums, CLICK HERE;
• To organise a visit to Ironbridge and the beautiful Shropshire countryside, CLICK HERE.
  

  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Example of one of the staff costumes made by The Costume Project for Kew Palace (Historic Royal Palaces).

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Hidden Killers of The Victorian Home

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

BBC4′s hour-long documentary Hidden Killers of The Victorian Home  has been one of my recent television highlights. Dr Suzannah Lipscomb reveals some of the hidden horrors lurking in a typical, middle-class, Victorian home.  Joining Dr Lipscomb in her quest to uncover these invisible dangers were a whole host of experts including:  Judith Flanders; Dr Suzy Lishman; Prof. Andrew Meharg; Colin King; Matt Furber; Sarah Nicol; Dr Matthew Avison; Nathan Goss and Max Wagner.

The Victorian era was a time of rapid change. The Industrial Revolution enabled many to prosper, leading to greater social mobility for some and the emergence of the new middle-classes. Dr Lipscomb states that as a result of Industrialisation, by the end of the Victorian era, 25% of the population were categorised as middle-class. The middle-classes, with their disposable income, were looking to splash their cash. Gadgets for domestic use as well as decorative items for the home were a particular favourite and the Victorian consumer was spoilt for choice. However, in this unregulated, pre-trading standards era, the margin for human catastrophe was huge.

Arsenic and lead were two particular toxins that caused many, often unexplained, deaths. In a time before health and safety dominated our everyday lives, danger, sometimes death, was never far away and could be found in the most unlikely of domestic items. Vivid green pigments in wallpaper contained traces of arsenic, children’s toys were coated with lead paint and feeding bottles for babies were breeding grounds for all sorts of diseases making them one of the leading contributors towards infant mortality in Victorian Britain.

©Come Step Back in Time. Tiny waists, a fashionable Victorian look. Exhibit from the Fashion Museum, Bath.

The fashionable silhouettes of the hour-glass shape or ‘wasp’ waist meant that corsets were very tightly laced and vital organs became misshapen. In the BBC4 documentary there featured a liver specimen from a lady whose tight-lacing habits had put so much pressure on her rib-cage that indentations appeared on the organ itself.

©Come Step Back in Time. Exhibit from the Fashion Museum, Bath.

Whilst researching this article, I found the following which appeared in a newspaper from 1895. The piece discusses both trends and dangers of tight-lacing as well as the gradual move towards dress reform – The Rational Dress Society was established in London in 1881. Although, I do get the impression from reading this article that dress reform is viewed by the author with some degree of suspicion: ‘..The dress reformers who are determined to abolish all waists, no matter how sylph-like or how divine..’ The aesthetic for a tiny waist seems to appeal to the author :

Fads in Corsets – Longer in the waist, but not to be laced so tightly. The dress reformers who are determined to abolish all waists, no matter how sylph-like or how divine, will wax indignant when they learn that the latest news of the corset market is the appearance of the longest waisted corset yet offered to women. Heretofore “five clasps and a half” has been considered “extra long”. This gave what the corset experts call a three-inch waist. Women whose anatomy demanded something even longer-waisted than that have had corsets made to order. But now in a few days there will appear a six-clasp corset, and the waist measure thereof will be about four inches – not four inches around, but four inches on the length of the corset bones. This measure of the waist is a term with which most women are not familiar. It means that in bending the corset top and bottom together there is a springy motion which commences a certain distance above the lower edge of the corset. That is the lowest edge of the waist. The point near the top of the corset where the springy action practically ends is the top of the waist. Short-waisted persons may only measure two inches. Four inches indicates that the wearer must either be as slim as a rail or else intend to crowd and crush her vitals into a space that would be almost fatal to a constant wearer after a few years. There is a tendency, however, which all manufacturers and dealers in corsets notice; to wear corsets looser than ever… They [dressmakers] say the ambition of a young woman is to show an hour-glass figure. When she wears tight sleeves and narrow shoulders she laces to secure the hour-glass effect. With the immense sleeves giving such breadth of shoulders it would be perfectly ridiculous to lace into a wasp waist. So the dressmakers claim that the big sleeves are saving many women from death by corsets badly worn. The fact that corsets are worn less tightly laced is partly responsibly for this new six-clasp, four-inch waist style.

(The Western Mail, Saturday 11th May, 1895)

Following marriage, increasing numbers of middle-class women found themselves in charge of running a household for the very first time. A great many of these women had little or no prior knowledge of what this new responsibility entailed. It was to this demographic that domestic goddess, Mrs Isabella Beeton (1836-1865), targeted her famous tome, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861). Apart from multiple chapters containing recipe suggestions, the book also includes advice on hiring and firing staff, first aid, household legal matters as well as a chapter on the ‘Management of Childhood’.

Particularly relevant to this article is Mrs Beeton’s advice on what to do should a poisoning occur in your home.  (please do not follow this advice in modern-day cases. For suspected incidents of poisoning, you should seek professional medical help IMMEDIATELY. Extract featured is purely for historical interest.):

When an alkali is the poison, give drinks of weak vinegar or lemonade. When an acid, chalk and water, whiting plaster from the walls, or white of egg; if a narcotic, give strong coffee, and do everything to keep the patient awake, walking him about, opening the windows wide, applying cold water to his face, and so on. (p.1874)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Until The Pharmacy Act of 1868, the sale, dispensing and compounding of poisons was, to a large extent, unrestricted. Arsenic was used as rat poison, sheep dip and on fly papers and thought to be an effective treatment for malaria, asthma, skin problems, rheumatism and even morning sickness. (Victorian Pharmacy: Rediscovering Forgotten Remedies and Recipes by Eastoe, J. and Goodman, R., 2010, p.121, Pavilion Books). In the early decades of the Victorian era, people were largely ignorant of the harmful effects of ingesting, touching or being close to products containing arsenic. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning (fever, chills and sweating) resembled those associated with cholera, which was one of the nineteenth century’s biggest killers, hence mis-diagnosis and incorrect treatment for arsenic poisoning being commonplace.

Mrs Beeton also gives advice on bottle-feeding, which she refers to in her publication as ‘rearing by hand’. Using feeding bottles during the Victorian era was a very popular alternative to breast-feeding. Some of the bottles were earthenware, made in Staffordshire, others were glass.  They were very difficult to clean and although bottles were supplied with long-handled brushes to help with the task, these receptacles became silent killers due to the fact that fatal germ deposits gradually built-up over time. This led to bottles earning the nickname, ‘killer bottles’. (please do not follow this advice at home for cleaning your baby bottles, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Extract is featured purely for historical interest). Mrs Beeton recommends:

There are two methods that may be employed in this artificial system of feeding – the one is to give the child its meals from a spoon, the other is to allow it to suck from a bottle. Of these the latter is preferable. It is most essential to the success of this method of feeding that the bottle or bottles be kept scrupulously clean, as dirty bottles frequently give rise to “thrush”. The best form of bottle to use is the boat-shaped one, with a rubber nipple fixed to the end or neck. No bottles with rubber tubes should be used, since milk sticks to the inside of the tube, and cannot be removed. This milk when decomposed will set-up diarrhoea. The bottle and teat must be scalded after each meal in hot water and soda, the teat turned inside out, and both rinsed in cold water. They then should be allowed to stand in cold water in which a little boracic acid has been dissolved. (p.1914)

I came across in the course of research so many interesting newspaper articles reporting incidents of domestic tragedy from this period. Sometimes death was averted and other times not. Quite a few of the articles specifically relate to the consumption of food that unwittingly contains toxic substances.  Since I am currently writing a publication on the history of blancmange, I have chosen here two extracts that relate to the potential hazards of consuming this seemingly innocuous desert:

A Providential Escape – A few days ago one young family of the Hon. A. Ellis, residing at Bognor, were, together with the governess and two maids, nearly poisoned, owing to their having eaten some blancmange, a part of which was coloured a bright light green; very fortunately this green part had an unpleasant taste, which prevented their eating more of it. The medical man who analyzed the remaining quantity found it to contain a verdigris powder. Whilst he had it in a liquid state he dipped into it a knife, which became instantly covered with this green copperas, and he asserts that there was a sufficient portion of this poisonous powder in the quantity analyzed to kill six persons. As it is, the two maids and governess and one of the children are still suffering from its dangerous effects. It appears this powder for colouring the green part had been purchased from a pastrycook in london but it is to be observed that such an article ought never to be sold for such purposes, and this has been inserted as a caution to the public.

(The Blackburn Standard, 18th February, 1846)

Poisoning at a public dinner – great excitement has existed at Northampton, in consequence of the sudden illness of 20 out of about 60 persons who attended a public dinner at the New Hall, which followed the ordination of the Rev. G. Nicholson, B.A., as the minister of the Ring-street dissenting chapel, in the room of the Rev. T. Milner. The viands were of the usual substantial kind, and before the cloth was removed some of the gentlemen were seized with sickness and vomiting, while others were taken ill at a later period of the entertainment. One of them, Mr Cornfield, an accountant in the town, expired at five o’clock on Thursday morning. The dinner was provided by a Mr Franklin, at whose house the whole of the cooking utensils were seized by order of the magistrates. At the inquest held on the body of the deceased, the medical witnesses stated that they had detected copper in the green colouring stuff which coated the blancmange used at the dinner. A verdict of “Manslaughter” was accordingly returned against Mr Franklin, by whom the dinner was provided, and against Randall, the cook.

(The Examiner, 17th June, 1848)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Doctor’s House and Surgery. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Interior of the Doctor’s House and Surgery, no. 2 Furnace Bank. Rebuilt brick-by-brick, a majority of one Duke of Sutherland’s cottage built on Wellington Road (no.15), Donnington, Telford. 1862. Opened on site 22nd October, 1986.

On my recent trip to the excellent Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire, I wandered in and out of the many shops and cosy cottages with their glowing ranges and welcoming costumed inhabitants. I tried to imagine what life must have really been like for those living in an industrial town during Victorian times. It is all too easy to foster a rose-tinted view of Victorian life.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside the Doctor’s House and Surgery, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside the Doctor’s House and Surgery, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Documentaries such as Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home are a stark reminder, to anyone interested in the social history of the period, to look for the truth behind the social myth.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Blists Hill is not actually a real town, it has been developed over a number of years by The Ironbridge Gorge Trust and covers an area of fifty-two acres. Its purpose is to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of a small industrial town at a pivotal time in British history – the period between 1890 and 1910, late Victorian early Edwardian.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside McClures General Draper and Outfitters, no. 3 Canal Street, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire. An original building from Stafford Place, Oakengates, Telford (exterior and shop front only). c.1880. Opened on site on 4th April, 2009.

©Come Step Back in Time. Grocery and Provisions Shop (A.F. Blakemore & Son), no. 7 High Street. An exact replica of Owen’s Grocer’s shop and warehouse, Market Street, Oakengates, Telford, Shropshire. c.1890. Many of the items on display in the shop are from Chester’s Salopian Stores, Westbury, Shropshire. The shop opened on site on 14th July 2000.

In 2013, Blists Hill celebrates its 40th anniversary. Many of the buildings on the site are original and are from other parts of the region but have been saved and reconstructed to create the Victorian Town you see today. What is remarkable about the site is the fact that in the 1960s when historic buildings were being swept away to make room for modern constructions, the forward thinking Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust stepped in and managed to rescue some of them, ensuring that our heritage is now preserved for future generations to enjoy and study. After this initial period of rescue and reconstruction, the focus of Blists Hill shifted toward turning the site into a Victorian Town:

…the focus of Blists Hill shifted as people and not processes became the new priority. Efforts turned to recreating a coherent environment in which visitors could experience what it was like to live and work when Britain was the Workshop of the World at the very end of the 19th century. Blists Hill Open Air Museum became Blists Hill Victorian Town.

But Blists Hill has never been just a museum of buildings and old things. When the decision was made in the 1980s to put museum staff into Victorian costume, carefully replicated from original patterns, a new standard of interpretation was born. The site came to life. Since then, professional actors have added another dimension to street life, and special themed events have helped emphasise the significance of customs and traditions in the lives of ordinary working class Victorians.

(Blists Hill Victorian Town Souvenir Guidebook, 2011, p.51 & 53, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)

If you were a fan of the BBC’s Victorian Pharmacy (2010) then you may will recognise Blists Hill’s Bates & Hunt’s Pharmacy and Chemist’s shop as being the location used for the series. I could have spent hours in Bates & Hunt’s Pharmacy examining all the pills, potions and lotions that have been superbly re-displayed.

©Come Step Back in Time. Interior of the Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

The Pharmacy is based on an original building which was located at the corner shop, Constitution Hill, Wellington, Telford in Shropshire. The date of the store is c.1890 and the contents come from West Cliffe Pharmacy (latterly Pars & Co.), Poole Hill, Bournemouth. The Pharmacy has been at Blists Hill since 9th July, 1984.

• For more information about and to plan a visit to Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire, CLICK HERE;
• For more information about events at Blists Hill and the other Ironbridge museums, CLICK HERE.
  

  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

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Ironbridge – The Birthplace of Industry

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Iron Works at Coalbrookdale by Philip James De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) from an engraving by William Pickett. De Loutherbourg was a theatrical designer who worked for playwrights such as R.B. Sheridan (1751-1816) and David Garrick (1717-1779). His painting, Coalbrookdale by Night (1801), depicting the raging Bedlam Furnaces in Madeley Dale, Shropshire, a little further downstream from Ironbridge, recreates the iconic scene of fire and brimstone that we now  associate with the birth of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. De Loutherbourg’s paintings of industrial Shropshire influenced the creative team behind the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.

Ironbridge and The London 2012 Olympics

One of the most memorable moments from the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympics was the Industrial Revolution sequence directed by Danny Boyle. Boyle drew inspiration from Pandaemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers  by documentary film-maker and a founder of the Mass Observation Archive Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950). Boyle declared that: ‘Pandaemonium was biggest inspiration for the Olympics Opening Ceremony…the book is the equivalent of Pepys giving you a guided tour of the birth of electricity and mechanical age – it’s brilliant, exciting and essential.’

A new edition of Pandaemonium was published in 2012 to satisfy a renewed public interest in the Industrial Revolution. The following extracts are from the Foreword to this edition which is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Coincidentally, Boyce also wrote the Opening Ceremony for London 2012, naming the first section ”Pandemonium” in honour of Jennings’s influential publication:

As Danny Boyle put it, we are children of the machine age, locked inside this terrifying beast, increasingly innocent of how it makes things for us. (p. viii)

The leaves soak-up the energy. The trees fall and turn to coal. Coal is solid sunlight, the stored memory of millions of uninhabited summers. Then one day, in Coalbrookdale, someone opens a hole in the ground and all that stored energy comes pouring out and is consumed in furnaces, engines, motors. Somehow all these thoughts are communicated to Thomas Heatherwick who creates his beautiful Olympic Cauldron, in which 204 tongues of fire rise out of the ground and join together to make one flame. It’s an image that moved billions of people across the world. (p. ix-x)

I was moved by Boyce and Boyle’s brilliant recreation of man-v-industry. The creative duo brought the Coalbrookdale landscape back to life once more, populating it with furnaces, engines and motors, transporting audiences back to the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

Ironbridge Gorge – UNESCO World Heritage Site

Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire, a region designated in 1986 as one of the first World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom in recognition of Ironbridge’s role as the Birthplace of Industry. In 2012, Ironbridge Gorge was voted the most highly recommended UNESCO World Heritage Site in the UK according to the TripAdvisor® traveller community, taking second place in the world behind the Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, China and ahead of the Egyptian Pyramids and India’s Taj Mahal. Earlier this year I spent a number of fascinating days in this beautiful part of Shropshire exploring the buildings, monuments and collections across the Ironbridge site. It is not difficult to see why Ironbridge is truly worthy of its status as a national heritage treasure.

The Ironbridge site includes thirty-six scheduled monuments and listed buildings cared for by The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and spread over a six square kilometre site. The Trust also operates ten museums which collectively tell the story of the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. These museums are: Blists Hill Victorian Town; Enginuity; Coalport China Museum; Jackfield Tile Museum; Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron; Museum of The Gorge; Darby Houses; Tar Tunnel; The Ironbridge and Tollhouse and Broseley Pipeworks.

Ironbridge became an independent charity in 1967 (Ref No. 503717 – R) and is 100% independently funded, it receives no government financial support. Ironbridge is regarded as one of the world’s foremost independent museums. There are currently two hundred paid staff and four hundred volunteers who work on-site. Ironbridge leads the way for volunteer development in the museum sector. Over half a million visitors come to Ironbridge every year including seventy thousand school children. It is not difficult to see why Ironbridge is truly worthy of its status as a national heritage treasure.

The Mission of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust is: ‘To excel in researching, preserving and interpreting, for the widest audience, the Monuments, Collections and Social History of the early industry in the Ironbridge Gorge: to enrich the visitors’ experience with live demonstrations, hands-on activities and innovative educational programmes.’ (Strategic Plan 2010-14, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited, p.3)

Their Vision is: ‘To make the Industrial Age and Ironbridge’s role in it, as well understood in terms of world significance as the Egyptian and Roman epochs. To constantly expand the number of people who are able to share in the timeless significance of Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale. To ensure that every visitor to Ironbridge takes away something of value – material, intellectual or spiritual.’ (Strategic Plan 2010-14, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited, p.3)

Ironbridge has also had a thirty-one year partnership with the University of Birmingham and the Ironbridge Institute is one of the leading providers of postgraduate heritage qualifications in the UK.

©The Valley Hotel. The Valley Hotel, Ironbridge, Shropshire.

The countryside surrounding the Gorge at Ironbridge is stunning, Shropshire is a beautiful county. When I visited in late Winter the weather was terrible but the views were still stunning. We stayed at The Valley Hotel ,which is very close to Ironbridge, an excellent place to stay. The staff are extremely friendly, as well as well as being knowledgeable about the area. They take great pride in the region’s history as I was to discover upon my arrival. I had asked whether there was a booklet available about the history of the Hotel to aid me in my research? Imagine my surprise when I checked-in and was given a seventy-two page, fully illustrated mini-thesis about the building’s history that had been painstakingly prepared by the current owners. I will reveal no more at this stage about the Hotel’s history, suffice to say that it warrants its own feature article, which will follow shortly.

Early History of The Gorge

The Severn Gorge in Shropshire was created after the last ice age, 15,000 years ago, when a huge lake overflowed east of the Welsh mountains and carved a deep chasm through layers of coal, iron-ore, clay and limestone. This spectacular gorge, rich in raw materials, with its river leading to the Bristol Channel, had all the resources necessary to become an important industrial area.

Coal and limestone were exploited from the Middle Ages and iron was made here from the time of Henry VIII. In 1709, a Quaker ironmaster, Abraham Darby I, led the way to cheap and plentiful iron production using coke as fuel, instead of charcoal. Coalbrookdale – the name by which the whole area was then known – became one of the most important industrialised areas in the world during the eighteenth century. Indeed, it was said that the Severn was the second busiest river in Europe.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 2, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)

Dr Matt Thompson, Senior Curator at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, told me: ‘Ironbridge’s landscape is complex and dynamic. The Gorge is a great ‘rock sandwich’ made-up of layers of limestone, coal and iron-ore and has been mined extensively since 1604. Former mining activity has created a ‘Swiss cheese’ effect in the geology.  There are many underground tunnels. In Shropshire you can find ten of the twelve or thirteen major geological periods represented. The Shropshire Clee Hills are one of only a few hills that appear on the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c.1285).’

Ironbridge and The Industrial Revolution

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, the most important industry in the Gorge was coal-mining – the first step on the road to the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the region. Other coal-using industries utlising the area’s rich natural resources were: lead smelting; tar boiling; pottery making and brass manufacturing. The Tar Tunnel at Ironbridge is open to the public and well-worth a visit. In 1787, miners digging in the area struck a spring of natural bitumen (treacle-like black liquid) which has seeped out of the walls and formed into puddles for over two hundred years. It was money from coal that funded the first ironworks in the area. Although now a haven of tranquillity, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the area resembled Dante’s Inferno, a scene which artist Philip James De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) captured so brilliantly in his iconic painting Coalbrookdale by Night (1801).

©Come Step Back in Time. The Upper Works, site of the Old Furnace, Coalbrookdale (Ironbridge site). In 1753, the Upper Works consisted of an office, blacksmith’s shop, bridge house, three boring mills, a furnace, a loam house, air furnace, moulding house and tenement. The railway viaduct was constructed 1862-64.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Upper Works, site of the Old Furnace, Coalbrookdale. Marks from the water wheel can still be seen in the stonework. The water wheel was last used in the 1920s to drive grinding wheels. These were used to clean-up or fettle castings and ensure a precision fit for the increasingly complex machinery that was being made here. By 1778, Coalbrookdale had cast more than one hundred steam cylinders.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Diagram of the old Furnace, Coalbrookdale. The Furnace went out of use in 1818 but the foundry buildings around it remained in use and even expanded to enclose the remains of the furnace.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Tapping Arch, Upper Works, Coalbrookdale. The dates on the cast iron beam refer to Abraham Darby III’s enlargement of the furnace in 1777, probably to increase capacity for the construction of the world’s first Iron Bridge in the Gorge.

Between 1755 and 1780 the iron industry was booming in the region and five new groups of furnaces were set up:

The three surviving groups of iron furnaces mark these different phases in the local iron industry – the earliest, the Darby Furnace at Coalbrookdale represents the change from charcoal to coke as a smelting fuel and was also where the iron for the Iron Bridge was produced seventy years later. Bedlam Furnaces (begun 1756-7) were the first of the great new Industrial Revolution furnaces, experimenting with new forms of power, while the Blists Hill Furnaces, begun in c.1832 and closed in 1912, signal the move away from water as a source of power, and eventually the end of smelting in the Gorge.

(Ironbridge Gorge by Catherine Clark, 1993, p.36, published by B. T. Batsford Ltd)

©Come Step Back in Time. Remains of Madeley Wood Company Blast Furnaces, Blists Hill, Ironbridge. Base of the first furnace, 1832; base of second and south engine house, 1840; base of third, 1844; north engine house c. 1873. The furnaces were blown out in 1912.

©Come Step Back in Time. Madeley Wood Company Blast Furnaces, Blists Hill.

The Darby Family and The Coalbrookdale Company

The Coalbrookdale Company was formed in 1709 by Abraham Darby I (1678-1717), an iron-master who had moved to the region from Bristol in the previous year. His original intention was to lease an ironworks with a view to setting-up a brass foundry – he had been experimenting with making brass pots since 1707 which led to his patent for casting iron bellied pots in dry sand. He leased the Furnace at Coalbrookdale in 1709 from landowner Basil Brooke of Madeley and his wife Elizabeth, beginning blasting in January of the same year. Initially, Darby melted iron using coke as fuel rather than charcoal. The locally mined coal included varieties that were low in sulphur which were more suited to this new process. In his first few years at Coalbrookdale, Darby also experimented with a mixture of coke, charcoal and peat as alternative fuels for his Furnace. Finally, in 1715, he settled on one type of local coal which was the most successful in producing coke to smelt into iron-ore.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. An extract from Abraham Darby I’s original 1707 patent for casting iron bellied pots in dry sand.

The Darby family were Quakers but did not force their religious beliefs on the workers at Coalbrookdale. The Darbys were known to be good employers as well as savvy business people and their workers rarely went on strike. Education, for both boys and girls, was also important to Quakers - a forward thinking approach for the time:

..adhering strictly to the ideals of self-discipline, frugality and simple faith, attitudes which extended into the conduct of their business. As members of the Society of Friends, Quakers formed a close-knit group, distinct in their way of dress and habits, and tending to socialize as a group. Many of the visitors who came to Coalbrookdale were Quaker associates, and the large houses at Coalbrookdale became a focus for this society.

The houses were built close to the works, but looked out over a more pleasant view of trees, pleasure gardens and a pool with a small decorative iron bridge.  For most of their history the houses were occupied for relatively short periods by family members or by works managers; often, as in the case of Abraham Darby III, while they built or altered finer houses elsewhere in rural settings.

Carpenters Row is an example of company housing: built c.1783, it is a terrace of eight cottages, each with a downstairs parlour with a range, a tiny pantry and a bedroom above….Carpenters Row would have provided a relatively good class of accommodation.

(Ironbridge Gorge by Catherine Clark, 1993, pp.40-41, published by B. T. Batsford Ltd)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Coalbrookdale Company employees at the Upper Works c. 1901.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Dale House, the Darby family country seat which overlooked the ironworks. Construction of the house was begun by Darby I in 1715. Dale House is part of the Ironbridge site and open to the public.

Darby I’s son, Abraham Darby II (1711-1763), took over the running of The Coalbrookdale Company from his father in 1728. His contribution to the Company’s history is significant. He invented a method of making pig iron using coke which could then be converted into wrought iron: ‘The molten iron from a blast furnace could be poured direct into sand moulds to produce cast iron goods or cast ingots called “pig iron”. The pig iron was then either melted and cast in a foundry or purified to produce wrought iron that could be shaped by hammering and rolling in a forge.’ (Extract from text panel at the site of the Old Furnaces, Upper Works, Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust).

Darby II built houses for the workers, three schools and a Friends Meeting House in the Dale. Abraham Darby III (1750-1789) began working at the Company in 1768 alongside his brother Samuel. The two brothers were now running Britain’s largest ironworks and it was Darby III who project-managed the construction of the world-famous Iron Bridge (1779). Darby III won a Gold Medal from the Society of Arts for his casting work on the Bridge.

Abraham Darby IV (1804-1878). He began work at Coalbrookdale in the late 1820s with his brother Alfred Darby I. Darby IV began to move away from Quakerism. The last Darby,  Alfred Darby II, retired as Chairman of the Company in 1925, marking the end of the Darby connection to Coalbrookdale after more than seven generations.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Coalbrookdale Company  statues exhibit at the Kensington Olympia Exhibition, 1889. The Victorians couldn’t get enough of cast iron products. They were everywhere.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Boy and Swan Fountain cast by the Coalbrookdale Company in 1851 for the Great Exhibition. The remains of the Old Furnaces at Upper Works can just be seen in the background.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron. The Museum contains a vast display of domestic and decorative ironworks.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A close-up of the Deerhound Table on display at the Museum of Iron, one of the Ironbridge Gorge museums in Coalbrookdale.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.

The Iron Bridge

One of the most enduring images of the Gorge is The Iron Bridge designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard (c.1723-1777), an industrialist who owned iron furnaces in Shropshire, Denbighshire and Staffordshire. He was, by all accounts, a bit of scamp who was often the subject of scandal, particularly in relation to his private life. Unfortunately, Pritchard died two years before the Bridge was completed.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Iron Bridge by William Williams (1780). The painting was commissioned by Darby for ten guineas (£10.50). The painting was thought to be lost for over one hundred and fifty years until it appeared in 1992 when the Museum purchased it. It now hangs in the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.

©Come Step Back in Time.

Why was the Bridge built?:

No doubt the building of the Bridge was partly a public relations exercise, advertising the versatility of cast-iron and the skills of Abraham Darby III and his Coalbrookdale company. The site chosen is also the most dramatic point of the Gorge…The Bridge was promoted by the eighteenth-century equivalent of a media campaign.  The paintings Darby commissioned to advertise it show nothing of the pollution of the Gorge, famous for having more furnaces and forges within 2 miles of riverbank than anywhere else in the world!

Thomas Jefferson, later third President of the USA, is known to have brought Iron Bridge engravings through a friend in London, whilst Minister to France in 1786.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 4, IGMT)

The Bridge was a serious drain on Darby’s finances and he remained in debt for the rest of his life, with many of his company’s assets mortgaged to other Quaker friends.

The Completed Bridge opened for business, charging its first tolls on New Year’s Day 1781. The rates of toll are those which were first set out in the Act of Parliament authorising the Bridge…One guinea (£1.05) brought an annual pass for pedestrians.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 13, IGMT)

The Bridge is made from three hundred and eighty-four tonnes of iron which took one furnace over three months to produce. Ironwork began to go up over the Gorge in May 1779, the first iron rib being raised on 1/2nd July. The Bridge spans 30.63 metres and cost approximately £6,000. The Bridge was closed to vehicles in 1934 but still remains open to foot passengers. The Iron Bridge is one of the great symbols of the Industrial Revolution.

• For more information about planning a visit to Ironbridge, CLICK HERE;
• For more information about forthcoming events and exhibitions at Ironbridge, CLICK HERE.
  

  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. View of the Iron Bridge over the River Severn.

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Captain Lawrence Oates – Soldier, Explorer, Hero

Earlier this year I visited Gilbert White’s House and Garden  in the pretty village of Selborne, rural Hampshire, which is also home to The Oates Collection.  I am delighted to bring you this article, my third and final, in a series showcasing different aspects of the museum’s collection.

Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Edward Grace Oates (1880-1912) began his career as a solider but spent his final years as an explorer, after having joined Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s (1868-1912) ill-fated second expedition to the Antarctic and epic journey of discovery to the South Pole (1911-1912). Lawrence’s uncle was African explorer, Frank Oates (1840-1875).

Last year marked the centenary of Scott’s Second Expedition and thanks to a National Lottery ‘Your Heritage’ grant, match funding by the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust, generous donations and fundraising, the redesigned Lawrence Oates Gallery is now re-open to the public. The Gallery is a beautifully designed exhibition space which creates the perfect backdrop to tell the poignant life story of this courageous English gentleman. The Gallery also includes new interactive features that enhance the visitor experience including original expedition footage and photographs. The short film featured above, ‘The Oates Collection’, was produced following the recent refurbishment and provides a virtual tour of the first floor galleries. It gives an excellent overview of Lawrence’s extraordinary life.  The Oates Collection is the only museum in the world dedicated to the life of Captain Lawrence Oates.

Lawrence’s beloved mother. He declared that she was the only woman that he had ever loved. Lawrence never married.

Lawrence was born on 17th March, 1880 at Putney, London to William Edward Oates (1841-1896) and Caroline Anne Oates (née Buckton). He was the eldest of four children and enjoyed a privileged childhood at the family country seat, Gestingthorpe Hall, Essex. He attended Eton College for two years but had to leave due to ill-health (he had weak lungs and caught pneumonia) forcing him to continue his education at home with the assistance of a private tutor.

Uniform similar to that worn by Lawrence during the Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902). On loan to The Lawrence Oates Gallery from the The Inniskilling Dragoons Museum.

He began his military career in 1898 with the 3rd West Yorkshire regiment, followed by a regular army commission in April, 1900 and finally a posting to the 6th Inniskilling dragoons. He served in the South African War (Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902) where he sustained a thigh injury in 1901 which would later came back to trouble him whilst in the Antarctic. It was whilst serving in South Africa that he earned the nickname, ‘No Surrender Oates’ for refusing to surrender to a much superior Boer force. 

Captain Oates’s despatch case used during his military career. On loan to the museum from The Inniskilling Dragoons Museum.

After a short period of convalescence for his thigh injury, he returned to his regiment having been promoted to rank of lieutenant on 2nd February, 1902.  He continued his military career, serving in Ireland, Egypt and India, becoming a captain in 1906.

Lawrence found his posting in India to be too quiet and inactive. An expert horseman, he spent much of his time playing polo, steeplechasing and hunting, even bringing his own pack of hounds to India with him. By the end of 1909, the restless young Lawrence was looking for adventure and applied to join Captain Scott’s Terra Nova Antarctic Expedition, offering his services in any capacity as well as £1,000 (approximately £95,000 in today’s money) towards the expedition funds. Scott received eight thousand applications for this expedition. In March, 1910, Scott accepted Lawrence due to his knowledge of horses (he looked after the expedition’s nineteen ponies) and his military experience. Lawrence was the only army officer to join the Terra Nova Expedition.

On 27th January, 1910, he wrote to his beloved mother whilst in a Delhi hospital:

I have now a great confession to make. I offered my services to the Antarctic Expedition which starts this summer from home under Scott. They wrote and told me to produce my references which I did and they appear to have been so flattering that I have been practically accepted. Now I don’t know whether you approve or not but I feel that I ought to have consulted you before I sent in my name. I did not so as I thought there was very little chance of my being taken.

Scott, however, appears to be a man who can make up his mind and having decided, he told me so at once which was the first intimation I had I was likely to go. Points in favour of going: It will help me professionally as in the Army if they want a man to wash labels off bottles, they would sooner employ a man who had been to the North Pole than one who had only got as far as the Mile End Road.

Now points against. I shall be out of touch for some considerable time. It will require a goodish outlay of about £1,500 as I have offered to subscribe to the funds. I shall have to give up the hounds. I shall annoy the Colonel very much.

This was Scott’s second expedition to the Antarctic, his first had been in 1901 until 1904 when he sailed there on the RRS Discovery, together with a team of fifty men.

Exhibit showing Ponting’s photograph of Scott’s winter quarters in the Antarctic. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

In the spring of 1910, Lawrence arrived in London to board the Terra Nova. The Terra Nova Expedition was made-up of sixty-five men who operated on ship and shore.  Some of the key members of the team were:

• Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) – Expedition leader who died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Dr Edward Adrian Wilson (1872-1912) – Chief Scientist who died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Henry Robertson (Birdie) Bowers (1883-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates (1880-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Edgar Evans (1876-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Admiral Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans (Teddy Evans) (1881-1957);
• William Lashly (1867-1940);
• Tom Crean (1877-1938);
• Thomas C. Clissold (1886-1963). The cook who took part in two depot-laying journeys and trained sledge dogs. He was also a clever inventor of mechanical devices. To view photographs of Clissold, taken by Ponting, CLICK HERE.
• Herbert Ponting (1870-1935). The expedition’s official photographer. His high-quality images produced on glass-plate negatives have left us with an incredible visual legacy of Scott’s expedition. Ponting also shot extensive film footage;
• A full list of crew members who took part in the Terra Nova Expedition is available on the Antarctic Heritage Trust’s (NZ) website. CLICK HERE.
  

  Exhibit in The Lawrence Oates Gallery showing replicas of Herbert Ponting’s glass-plate negatives.

Replica of the Terra Nova (scale 1/8 inch to 1 foot) made by Commander Rupert Head RN, 2011-2012. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Terra Nova (a converted Dundee whaler) eventually sailed from Cardiff, Wales bound for New Zealand on 15th June, 1910. Additional supplies were loaded onto the ship in New Zealand, including thirty-four dogs, nineteen Siberian ponies (brought by Scott much to Lawrence’s frustration, Scott was not a horseman and had brought the wrong breed of pony, ‘a wretched load of crocks’ wrote Oates) and three motorised sledges. The Terra Nova departed Port Chalmers, New Zealand on 29th November, 1910 eventually arriving at Ross Island, near the continent of Antarctica, on 4th January, 1911.

‘Scott’s science’ display panel in The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Both of Scott’s expeditions were based upon extensive programmes of scientific discovery. The Chief Scientist on the Terra Nova Expedition was Dr Edward Wilson who declared: ‘We want the bagging of the Pole to be merely an item in the results’. Substantial scientific data and specimens were collected by Scott and his team. The scientific party included geologists, biologists, physicists and one meteorologist (George C. Simpson, 1878-1965) who created a weather station in the Antarctic.

Apsley GB Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959), a zoologist on the team, wrote and published The Worst Journey in the World (1922). The publication tells how Cherry-Garrard, Bowers and Wilson journeyed to Cape Crozier in darkness and dreadful winter weather to collect eggs from the emperor penguin colony.  The work done by Scott and his team of scientists created the foundations for Antarctic science today.

Scott led the march south from Cape Evans Base Camp on 1st November, 1911. On 3rd January, 1912 Scott selected a five-man team who would accompany him on the final part of the journey to the South Pole. He chose Dr Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates. The team reached the South Pole on 18th January, 1912, only to discover that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) and his team, had arrived there five weeks prior.

On 25th January, 1912, Scott’s five-man team began the eight hundred mile return journey. Fearing the worst and with his men in a bad way physically and emotionally, Scott asked Dr Wilson to issue each of his team with thirty opium tablets. Should the need arise the men could elect to end their own lives. The tablets were never used. Evans died on the 17th February, 1912. Lawrence died on 17th March, 1912. The remaining team members, Scott, Wilson and Bowers, succumbed to starvation and exhaustion and died c. 29th March, 1912 after having spent ten days trapped by a blizzard only eighteen miles from life-saving supplies that had been deposited at One Ton Depot. The team’s tent and bodies (except for Lawrence’s which was never recovered) were found eight months later, on 12th November, 1912, by a relief expedition led by Edward Atkinson. A cairn was built over the location of the tent.

The men needed 5,500 calories each day and were only consuming 4,430 and no vitamin C which made them prone to bouts of scurvy. The above display is on loan to The Lawrence Oates Gallery from The Sutton Collection. Chief Petty Officer Tom Williamson was a member of the search party that found Captain Scott’s last camp and the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers. From there and from the hut he brought back a number of items which now comprises the ‘Sutton Collection.’ Oates wrote: ‘..my Pemmican must have disagreed with me at breakfast, for coming along I felt very depressed and homesick.’ (15th January, 1912)

The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Sledge on display in The Lawrence Oates Gallery. Fully loaded a sledge needed 4 men to pull it. Some sledges were 10ft long (3m) others were 12ft long (3.65m) and could weigh as much as 1,121lbs (51kg) when fully loaded with equipment and rations. Birdie Bowers wrote:’…I have never pulled so hard or so nearly crushed my inside into my backbone by the everlasting jerking on the canvas band round my unfortunate tummy.’

The Last Few Months of The Terra Nova Expedition – In Their Own Words

• Scott told me today he was very pleased with the way the ponies were going.. (Oates, 8th November, 1911);
• I am anxious about these beasts (ponies) and if they pull through well, all the thanks will be due to Oates. (Scott, 12th November, 1911);
• Scott realises now what awful cripples our ponies are and carries a face like a tired sea boot in consequence. (Oates, 18th November, 1911);
• …Whenever one peeped out of the tent there was Oates, wet to the skin, trying to keep life in his charges. Poor Oates had suffered as much as the ponies. (Evans, 4-8th December, 1911);
• Thank God the horses are now all done with and we begin the heavier work ourselves. (Oates, Shambles Camp, 9th December, 1911. Oates has to shoot the remaining ponies);
• The back tendon of my right leg feels as if it has been stretched about four inches. I hope to goodness it is not going to give me trouble. (Oates, 26th December, 1911);
• I have been selected to go on to the Pole with Scott…What a lot we shall have to talk about when we get back – God bless you and keep you well until I come home…The excitement was intense. It was obvious that with five fit men – the achievement was merely a matter of ten or eleven days’ good sledging (Oates, writing to his mother, 3rd January, 1912);
• ..my Pemmican must have disagreed with me at breakfast, for coming along I felt very depressed and homesick. (Oates, 15th January, 1912);
• We are not a very happy party tonight. We have picked up the Norskies tracks… Scott is taking his defeat much better than I expected. (Oates, 16th January, 1912)
• Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured here without the reward of priority. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder we can do it. (Scott, 18th January, 1912);
• One of my big toes has turned black. I hope it is not going to lame me for marching. (Oates, 25th January, 1912);
• Titus‘ [Oates] toes are blackening and his nose and cheeks are dead yellow. At the same time Evans’s fingers were suppurating and his nails came off. His nose was rotten. (Wilson, 31st January, 1912);
• Dug up Christopher’s [pony] head for food but it was rotten. (Oates, his last diary entry, 24th February, 1912);
• Titus Oates is very near the end, one feels. What we will do, God only knows. (Scott, 11th March, 1912);
• He [Oates] was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night before last hoping not to wake, but he woke in the morning – yesterday. He said “I am just going outside and may be some time.” He went into the blizzard and we have not seen him since. (Scott, 16-17 March, 1912)
  

  The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

  

  The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Dear Mrs Oates,

This is a sad ending to our undertaking. Your son died a very noble death, God knows. I have never seen or heard of such courage as he showed from first to last with his feet both badly frostbitten – never a word or a sign of complaint or of the pain, he was a great example. Dear Mrs Oates, he asked me at the end to see you and to give you this diary of his. You, he told me, are the only woman he has ever loved. Now I am in the same can and I can no longer hope to see either you or my beloved wife or my mother or father – the end is close upon us, but these diaries will be found and this note will reach you some day.

Please be so good as to send pages 54 and 55 of this book to my beloved wife addressed Mrs Ted Wilson, Westal, Cheltenham. Please do this for me dear Mrs Oates – my wife has a real faith in God and so your son tells me have you – and so have I – and if ever a man died like a noble soul and in a Christ like spirit your son did. Our whole journey’s record is clean and though disastrous – has no shadow over it. He died like a man and a soldier without a word of regret or complaint except that he hadn’t written to you at the last, but the cold has been intense and I fear we have all of us left writing alone until it is almost too late to attempt anything but the most scrappy notes.

God comfort you in your loss.

Yours sincerely

E.A. Wilson.

Replica of the home-made tree made by Scott’s team to celebrate Midwinter Day (22nd June, 1911). The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Ponting’s photograph of Scott’s team making the Midwinter Day tree. Oates sits at the table on the left. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Exhibit showing contemporary polar-exploration clothing. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Rations used in modern-day polar-exploration. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

2013 Events at Gilbert White’s House and Garden

• Wild at White’s Easter Bunny Hunt. Good Friday, 29th March until Sunday 14th April. Come and explore the stunning gardens and find those spritely bunnies hiding in the grounds. Included in the normal admission fee;
• Gilbert White Study Day for the WEA. Monday 15th April (10-3pm). £45. Pre-booking essential;
• Wild at White’s African Safari. Saturday 25th May until Sunday 2nd June. Follow in the footsteps of Victorian Explorer Frank Oates and hunt for the wild animals of the African Continent hidden in the gardens. Included in the normal admission fee;
• 21st Unusual Plants Fair. Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th June. Over Father’s Day weekend there will be over thirty specialist growers of rare and unusual plants, trees, shrubs and seeds trading in the lovely grounds at the Museum. Admission for Plant Fair and Gardens only: £6 Adults, £2.50 Children, Under 5s Free. Please note Season Passes and ‘2 for 1’ vouchers are not valid on Bank Holidays and Special Event Days;
• Regency-style costume making workshop. Sunday 30th June (11am-4.30pm). Part of Alton’s Jane Austen Regency Week (Saturday 22nd – Sunday 30th June).  Part of the Museum’s Volunteering Project you will be helping to add to their collection of period-style clothes and accessories. Some basic sewing experience is preferred. Both hand and machine techniques will be used to create and accessorize one or two Regency outfits using a commercial pattern. Tickets include a morning coffee, light buffet lunch and afternoon tea. Limited places – pre-booking essential. £10 per ticket. Book now in the museum, or by calling: 01420 511 275. CLICK HERE, for more information on this super workshop;
• Teddy Bear Trail and Picnic. Throughout July. This event is part of the Hampshire Food Festival organised by Hampshire Fare (1st-31st July). There will be a teddy bear trail in the grounds of Gilbert White’s House where you will identify local produce that makes up the best picnic! Free entry for all children accompanied by a teddy bear and adult;
• Gilbert’s Games and Country Fair. Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th August. This is a very popular annual event. Fun and games for all the family suitable for all ages and abilities. Take part or compete in some traditional eighteenth century games and pastimes including stool ball, Aunt Sally, croquet, cricket and melon rolling! There will also be local crafts people demonstrating their skills which all take place in Gilbert’s beautiful House and Garden. Some activities may not be suitable for younger children; all children should be accompanied by an adult. Admission to the House, Garden and Games: £7 Adults, £2 Children, Under 5s Free. Please note Season Passes and ‘2 for 1’ vouchers are not valid on Bank Holidays and Special Event Days;
• Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’, outdoor production by the Chapterhouse Theatre Company. Sunday 25th August, from 6pm. Bring a picnic. Adults £13.50, Students & Children £9; Families £40 (2 Adults + 2 Child), 10% discount for parties of ten or more. Telephone: 01420 511 275 to put your name down for tickets before they are released on sale;
• Wild at White’s Apples and Tortoises. Saturday 26th October until Sunday 3rd November. Normal admission charges apply;
• Mulled Wine Day. Sunday 1st December.
• Regency Dance. Saturday 7th December (7.30pm-11pm);

Opening times for 2013

• Until 31st March, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-4.30pm);
• 1st April-31st October, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-5.15pm)
• 1st November-22nd December, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-4.30pm).
• Also open on Bank Holiday Mondays, and Mondays in July & August;

Standard Admission Charges For 2013

Adult	£8.50
Concession	£7.50
Under 16	£3.00
Under 5	Free
Family Ticket (2A + 3C)	£20.00
Pre-booked group of 10 or more	£6.50
Garden Only	£6.50

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Food Glorious Food – ITV

Food Glorious Food (ITV) Judges (L-R) Anne Harrison, Loyd Grossman, Carol Vorderman, Tom Parker Bowles and Stacie Stewart. Wednesdays, 8-9pm, ITV 1. © Optomen / Syco

I am delighted to tell you about a major new British television series just started on ITV 1, Food Glorious Food. If you love heritage food then this is the programme for you. Do not be swayed by the critics who have been unnecessarily harsh on what is actually a great show put together by a world-class production team (Optomen International and Syco tv). Contrary to what you may have read, the series is NOT trying to copy BBC’s Great British Bake Off neither is the aim of the show to find the next Masterchef. 

On Food Glorious Food, over the coming weeks, you will see a fascinating and engaging series that brings together food and family like never before. A judging team of four passionate food experts travel the country in search of the very best home cooked recipes. Behind every treasured recipe there is an interesting back story which is often bursting with family history and nostalgia.

I can reveal to you now that one of my aforementioned ‘secret media projects’ has been my involvement with Food Glorious Food. My passion for making blancmanges, in particular using my great, great grandmother’s Wedgwood mould as well as researching the history of this long-forgotten dessert, led me to being selected to take part in the show. My judge was the delightful Tom Parker Bowles and we shared a number of interesting conversations about Mrs Beeton and other luminaries from the annals of food history.

I am also in the cookbook that accompanies the series (see below for details) and if you turn to page 86 you will find my recipe for vintage lavender and lemon blancmange which I hope you have as much fun recreating as I did experimenting with it. How far did I progress in the show? Well, I am not able to tell you that at the moment but if you tune-in to ITV 1 on Wednesday 20th March (South-East regional heat) you can watch me begin my Food Glorious Food journey. What I can tell you is that it was a jolly good adventure and has left me with many memories that I will treasure forever.

I recently launched my new website, Viva Blancmange, which celebrates retro food as well as being a platform from which I will continue my campaign to revive the blancmange. My aim is to put this long forgotten dessert back onto the British menu within the next year. (CLICK HERE). My loyal band of readers need not panic, Come Step Back in Time will continue to go from strength-to-strength (so many fabulous history articles coming-up, sadly not enough hours in the day to finishing all the writing). In the future, Come Step Back in Time will feature a lot less retro food and lifestyle articles as these will now appear on Viva Blancmange.

Food Glorious Food’s presenter is Carol Vorderman and joining her on the show’s culinary quest is food historian and writer Tom Parker Bowles, globe-trotting gastronome Loyd Grossman, Women’s Institute vice-chair Anne Harrison and baker Stacie Stewart. Each judge has their own area of interest. Stacie, owner of online company the Beehive Bakery, is on the hunt for an amazing cake or pudding that the nation will fall in love with, food writer royalty, Tom is scouring the land for a great British recipe with culinary heritage, Loyd is hunting for a new favourite to match that much-loved dish, the curry, and Anne is championing traditional home cooking. At each of the six regional heats the team of experts come armed with rosettes which they hand out to dishes that meet with their high standards.

The Food Glorious Food team has been inspired by the show to reminisce about their own childhood food experiences. Carol’s cooking career began when she was a schoolgirl, she cooked for her family, “I used to make tea every night when I was at school. My mum was working as a school secretary so I’d be home from school before her. I loved laying the table and getting everything ready.” For Carol and her family it wasn’t typical 1970s cooking the family dined out on – thanks to her Italian stepfather, “In the ‘70s it was very unusual to cook with proper Italian produce. Back then, you’d buy olive oil from the chemist to get the wax out of your ears! Parmesan cheese was dried in cardboard tubes and smelt like sick. Whereas we had the proper stuff because we used to go to Italy every year. We had canned olive oil from my stepdad’s brother’s farm, we’d bring back Parma ham that my aunties had cured then use a bacon slicer at home to cut it.”

Food historian and writer Tom is keen to find a regional recipe or traditional British dish with real history. “I’m obsessed with the history of food and I want to find a great British recipe with a fascinating culinary heritage. I was quite late to cooking. I’ve always eaten, being a greedy pig. My mum’s a good cook and my dad was a farmer but I didn’t really get into cooking myself until after university. I certainly wasn’t at my mother’s apron strings when I was growing up – I was far too lazy.”

Loyd’s a self-confessed foodie and says childhood experiences first sparked his interest, “I just loved food. I was very lucky: I travelled a lot as a kid; my parents were interested in food and restaurants so I was exposed to a lot of good food. I grew up in New England where there were both farms and fishing so I saw all the fabulous produce first-hand. I always remember how exciting it would be to go down to the harbor in the morning and see the fishermen unloading their catch.”

Anne’s foodie beginnings came from her farming background. “My parents were farmers and my father was killed in the Second World War. My mother didn’t go out to work, she and my grandmother always cooked. In those days, you didn’t go out to buy anything. I was always keen to have a go at cooking myself, I suppose I absorbed their knowledge and I’ve always been used to home cooked food. Later, I went to boarding school and excelled at what they called domestic science. That led me to teaching.”

For Stacie, a recipe with a strong family connection will also win points with her. “I like to see people cooking recipes that have been handed down through generations because that’s how I learnt to cook. Stacie’s grandmother is responsible for her passion for baking, and cooking stems from her childhood. “My mum can’t boil an egg so my nana taught me how to cook. Every Saturday without fail our mams went to bingo, our dads went to the pub, our grandad sat in the front room and watched the horse racing and my nine cousins and I were in the kitchen with our nana. It’s a great memory and, now, all my cousins cook as well as I do. I also like to see innovation, taking something you’ve been taught how to do and making it better. Just because something was done one way many years ago, it doesn’t mean that it has to be done that way now. If that were the case, we’d still be walking around like cavemen. There has to be progression. My nana used to make scones with lard and water, because that’s all she could afford. It doesn’t mean they were the best scones in the world.”

Each of the first six episodes feature a different region of the UK (South-West, South-East, North-East, London and The Midlands). The judges eat their way through plenty of pies and puds, to find six amazing recipes and contestants to take through to the semi-final stages, where two will be picked to battle it out to win a place on the shelves of Marks & Spencer and a prize fund of £20,000. The winning dish will be decided by shoppers and sold exclusively by Marks & Spencer stores across the country with 40p from each dish sold going to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The first episode aired on Wednesday 27th February, 8pm, ITV1 and will continue for a further eight episodes, culminating in The Grand Final which, at the time of writing this article, is due to be aired on Wednesday 24th April. If you missed the first episode, then it is now available to view on itvPlayer. The series continues on Wednesday 6th March, 8pm, ITV1.

Out now, to accompany the series, is a superb anthology, published by Mitchell Beazley, containing some of the best recipes featured in the programme. Divided into regions, it is full of delicious dishes for you to try as well as information about the dish’s creator. All the finalists’ dishes and the winning recipe are included.  Old favourites like Bread and Butter Pudding, Cornish Pasties and Bakewell Tart feature alongside new and inventive fusions of flavours that simply have to be tasted. Some dishes will incorporate quirky twists – for example, an extra ingredient that was originally added by chance – while others will stick to time-honoured techniques handed down through multiple generations of the same family.

Some of my favourite dishes in this beautifully illustrated cookbook include:

• a secret recipe Devon apple cider cake (p.52). In 1983 Sandy Gilbert brought a former bakery with her husband and as part of the deeds they were required to buy this recipe along with the property;
• bonfire stew with cannonball dumplings. Publican Tony Leonard cooks this dish with the South Street Bonfire Society every year and serves it in his pub, The Snowdrop Inn, Lewes, East Sussex, at the start of the Lewes annual bonfire night on November 5th (p.70);
• Henry’s Malay jungle curry (p.84). Rachel Kelly’s father learned to make this dish when he was in the army in Malaya in the 1950s, do also check-out Rachel’s excellent food blog Marmaduke Scarlet it is packed full of great recipes and food photography;
• Laura’s fiery ginger cake (p.94). I can vouch for the fact that Laura Wiles’ cake is delicious. My husband and I tried it at the South-East regional heat in Brighton;
• Nettle cake (p.139). Marcelle Burden’s cake comes from her French grandmother, who used all sorts of wild plants in her cooking;

As well as the featured recipes, there are thoughtful reflections on Britain’s food heritage and the nation’s love affair with home cooking. This is the definitive guide to the nation’s best recipes, written for the people of Great Britain, by the people of Great Britain.

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Gilbert White – The Parson Naturalist of Selborne, Hampshire

View of the gardens and back of The Wakes, Gilbert White’s House, Selborne, Hampshire. By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden.

See Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round

The varied valley, and the mountain ground,

Wildly majestic! what is all the pride

Of flats, with loads of ornament supply’d?

Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,

Compar’d with nature’s rude magnificence.

Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste …

(Opening lines from Gilbert White’s poem, The Invitation to Selborne)

Prof. Bell’s library, on the ground floor of The Wakes. Prof. Thomas Bell (1792-1880) was a zoologist who much admired White’s work. He retired, aged seventy, to Selborne and died at The Wakes in 1880. He published an edition of The Natural History of Selborne in 1877, as well as making a number of additions to the property including a billiard room, which is currently the Museum gift shop. The former library is now home to a number of interactive exhibits exploring Gilbert White’s life and work.

INTRODUCTION

A few miles south of Jane Austen’s (1775-1817) cottage in the pretty village of Chawton is the equally picturesque village of Selborne. It is here that the parson naturalist, ecologist and author of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne in the County of Southampton (1789) the Revd Gilbert White (1720-1793) lived. Selborne is a haven of peace and tranquillity in the heart of East Hampshire where time appears to have stood still; the village doesn’t have any street lighting, even in 2013. It is extraordinary to think that in this rural idyll there once lived a quiet, unassuming gentleman who wrote what was to become the fourth most published book in English, after The Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare and John Bunyan’s (1628-1688) The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). Since its first publication in 1789, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne would have been found on the book shelves of every respectable gentleman’s library from the late Georgian period onwards, and it has remained continually in print.

Gilbert White’s original manuscript of The Natural History  and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden. To hear a reading of the above letter, please click on the Podcast below.

Letter LXI to Daines Barrington from Gilbert White 

(Read by Emma, Editor, Come Step Back in Time)

Jane Austen moved from Southampton to the cottage at Chawton in 1809. In the film Becoming Jane (2007), writers Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams weave White’s observations on the mating rituals of the swift into the screenplay’s narrative. If you watch the library scene from the film in which the object of Jane’s (Anne Hathaway) affections, Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) reads an extract from White’s publication, you will notice that Tom uses the subtext of the quote as a means of engaging in an intellectual flirtation with Jane. To view this short scene (2 minutes 45 seconds), CLICK HERE. Comparison with the original text reveals that the screenwriters have exercised a certain degree of poetic licence in their use of White’s observations. Below is White’s original text for you to compare:

As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April: and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs…. If any person would watch these birds of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a great height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, one drop on the back of another, and both of them sink down together for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. This I take to be the juncture when the business of generation is carrying on.

(Letter XXI to Barrington, September 28th, 1774, The Natural History of Selborne (1974), published by Oxford University Press)

Jane loved to walk through the countryside and it is likely that she would have made the round-trip to Selborne on a number of occasions during her time living at Chawton. In Becoming Jane there are several scenes representing the woodlands close by to The Wakes. She certainly would have read White’s seminal work and there is evidence amongst her letters to suggest that the Austens were on visiting terms with the family of one of his nephews, Dr John White, who for a short time was Jane Austen’s physician. Known as ‘Gibraltar Jack’, he was the son of Gilbert White’s brother the Revd John White, who had been chaplain to the garrison at Gibraltar, and when he was young stayed for several years with his uncle at The Wakes.

Built in 1610, The Wakes was originally a much smaller property than can be seen today. The name of the house is a nod to the family called Wake who had previously lived there. Gilbert White had lived at The Wakes for the majority of his life but only inherited the property in 1763 upon the death of his uncle, the Revd Charles White of Bradley. The house is now a museum dedicated to the life and work of Gilbert White, and it also houses The Oates Collection. This Collection consists of two permanent exhibitions celebrating the life of soldier and Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates (1880-1912) and his uncle, African explorer Francis [Frank] Oates (1840-1875). In 1954 the property was bought by public subscription, augmented by a large donation from Robert Washington Oates (a cousin of Lawrence), and opened as The Oates Memorial Library and Museum and The Gilbert White Museum in 1955. Separate articles on The Oates Collection will follow shortly.

The life and work of Gilbert White is a thoroughly absorbing area to research. It is possible to gain a good insight into what life must have been like for a rural parson and scholar in eighteenth-century England due to the wealth of written material, both published and unpublished, that has survived to the present day. His body of writing is extensive and includes correspondences with family members as well as the leading scholars from the Age of Enlightenment.

Some of the scholars that White corresponded with include: George Montagu (1753-1815), author of The Ornithological Dictionary (1802); Robert Marsham (1708-1797); Thomas Pennant(1726-1798) and Daines Barrington (1727-1800), both leading naturalists and Fellows of the Royal Society, to whom Gilbert White wrote the letters that form the basis of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne; John Mulso (1721-1791), a contemporary at Oriel College, Oxford, who corresponded with White between 1744 and 1790 and remained a lifelong friend and literary companion; and Thomas Barker (1722-1809) of Lyndon Hall, Rutland, a meteorologist, vegetarian and also White’s brother-in-law. White also met botanist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) and naturalist Dr Daniel Solander (1733-1782) in 1767, one year before they both joined Captain James Cook (1728-1779) for his first voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard Endeavour.

Thomas Barker is a particularly important to White’s development as a meteorologist. The day after his sister Anne’s wedding to Thomas, which took place on 6th January 1751 at St Mary’s parish church in Selborne, White began his new record book, The Garden Kalendar. In this book he kept a daily record of all his activities in the garden at The Wakes, including climate variations, rainfall and seasonal fluctuations. He continued to record these data, each year, for more than forty years.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is also known to have read White’s observations on the usefulness of earthworms as well as birds, about which he remarked: ‘From reading White’s Selborne, I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist.’ Darwin’s The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms was the last book he published on 10th October 1881. White, himself, said of the earthworm:

Earth-worms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass.

(Letter XXXV to Barrington, May 20th, 1777, The Natural History of Selborne (1974), published by Oxford University Press)

View from Gilbert’s bedroom window of the garden.

White’s journals contain detailed notes and records of life at The Wakes coupled with observations of
the nature and wildlife that were to be found in the countryside surrounding Selborne. An openness to the pursuit of scientific enquiry coupled with a vigorous intellect saw White become one of the leading naturalists of his time as well as being one of the first known ecologists. He was also one of the first naturalists to recognise a connection between the weather and its impact upon the behaviour of plants and wildlife. He was even an early exponent of the relatively modern model of self-sufficiency and sustainability. In the garden at The Wakes, he grew a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and flowers. He even brewed his own wine and beer in the purpose-built brewhouse, which still exists today.

In his biography of Gilbert White, Richard Mabey writes:

He grew more than forty different varieties [of vegetable], including artichokes, endives, mustard and cress, white broccoli, skirret and scorzonera, marrowfat peas, ‘a remarkable long leek’, squashes, cucumbers, all manner of lettuces, and ‘a small crop of onions … for picklers’ … more experimental vegetables, too, including maize, wild rice and potatoes…. In the borders close to the house were planted crown imperials, crocuses and pinks. Vines and roses … tulips, wallflowers and columbines.

(Gilbert White: A Biography of the Naturalist and Author of The Natural History of Selborne, by Richard Mabey, published by J. M. Dent, 1993, p. 56)

Because White kept detailed planting records for The Wakes in his journals, correspondence, household account books and predominantly his Garden Kalendar, it has been possible today to restore the gardens back to their eighteenth-century origins. The gardens still contain a wine-pipe seat, two hahas, a herb garden, a kitchen garden, brewhouse, cut-out statue of Hercules and a hermitage complete with a thatched roof.

View from Gilbert’s bedroom window of the gardens at The Wakes. The haha at the boundary ensures a seamless view of lawn and surrounding land.

Hahas are large ditches at the boundary of a lawn and were popular devices used by eighteenth-century garden designers which served two purposes. Firstly, they are practical, stopping livestock from grazing or entering onto your manicured lawns, thus also avoiding the unpleasant business of animal waste being stepped in by the lady and gentleman of the house. Secondly, they provide an uninterrupted and seamless view of the lawn and surrounding countryside, allowing landowners to survey the extent of their grounds.

Garden at The Wakes.

David Standing has been the Head Gardener at The Wakes since 1979 and has worked tirelessly, together with a band of volunteers (there are approximately one hundred volunteers who work at the Museum every year) to restore the original layout of the garden using White’s writings. The project is now largely complete. There are twenty acres of ancient parkland surrounding the property, some of which is now owned and managed by The National Trust (Selborne Common, the Zig-Zag path leading to The Hanger, The Hanger, Church Meadow, Long and Short Lythes).

Book cabinet that houses Ronald’s historic editions of Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne.

RONALD DAVIDSON-HOUSTON

A LIFELONG PASSION FOR GILBERT WHITE’S WRITINGS AND WORK

I had the privilege of being shown around Gilbert White’s House and Garden by Ronald Davidson-Houston. Mr Davidson-Houston has spent many years studying White’s writings and his biographical knowledge of the family is extensive. I asked him when he first became interested in White’s work: ‘I first read The Natural History of Selborne as a child but it was my career as a publisher that brought me back to the study of his writings. In 1981, I published [Exeter: Webb & Bower] the first edition of The Natural History of Selborne illustrated with contemporary eighteenth-century colour plates. It was a collaboration between The Gilbert White Museum and myself, with an introduction by the then curator, Dr June E. Chatfield. [The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne is still in print, now published as a paperback by Thames & Hudson.] During the course of my research, I asked the question, why has this book been published in so many different ways, languages and editions? It was then that I began to collect various editions of the book.’

The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne (2004), published by Thames & Hudson with an introduction by Dr June E. Chatfield.

The Natural History of Selborne, compiled and translated by Izawa-Koichi and illustrated by Kuroda-Machiko (2008).

Ronald has collected more than a thousand copies of the book, many of which are extremely rare editions and a number are in foreign languages, including Chinese and Japanese. Two years ago he donated his treasured collection to the Museum and it is now housed in a purpose-built display cabinet located in Gilbert White’s Great Parlour. Ronald explained further about the publishing history of the book: ‘The first edition, dated 1789, was actually printed in late 1788 and some early copies were sent to a number of friends and relations in November and December of that year. However, 1789 is the official publication date. The price was one guinea ‘in boards’ (i.e., not leather-bound). It was printed on laid paper, which is hand-made and has watermarks. There are six engravings chosen from twelve watercolours by the Swiss artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733-1794), who, according to White, “stayed with me 27 days; 24 of which he worked very hard”. White’s brother, Benjamin White (1725-1794), was a bookseller and his firm, B. White and Son, published the first edition. The brothers’ niece, Mary (Molly) White (born 1759), undertook the copy editing. The first cheap edition did not appear until 1829. The original manuscript of the book was bought by the Museum in 1980 from a private collection in America.’

Mary (Molly) White. By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON EARLY REVIEWS OF

THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE

‘Sagacity of observation runs through the work’

The Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1789

‘A more delightful, or more original work than Mr. White’s History of Selborne has seldom been published’

The Topographer, April 1789

‘This elegant and pleasing … work abounds with information’

The Monthly Review, July 1789

(Reprinted in The Selborne Association Newsletter, No. 47, December 2005, pp. 22-31, by R. Davidson-Houston)

Ronald has studied the first reviews of White’s publication and writes:

Along with a number of other close friends and relations of the author, Thomas White (who had given his brother Gilbert unfailing encouragement throughout the book’s long gestation and had also helped with correcting the proofs) received an advance copy in late November or early December 1788, enabling the first instalment of his review to appear in the January 1789 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine.

(Ibid. pp. 22-23)

Interestingly, in these early years of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, Thomas White’s review begins by putting forward the argument that the landed gentry, who were abandoning country living for a better life in the towns and cities, left behind them an economic void, and advocates that his brother’s work should not be devalued because it is a study of rural life in a time when it was not fashionable to write about such things. In Thomas White’s opinion:

It is with pleasure, therefore, we observe that so rational an employment of leisure time as the study of nature and antiquities promises to become popular…. But we agree with Mr. White in his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences, as well as antiquities…. A person with this writer’s patient observation would have made many remarks highly valuable. Men of intelligence like him are wanted, to promote an intimacy between the library and the plough.

(Ibid. p. 23 and p. 25)

Gilbert’s father, John White. By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden.

GILBERT WHITE’S EARLY LIFE

White was born on 18th July, 1720, the eldest son of John White (1688-1758), a barrister, and Anne White (née Holt, 1693-1739), a rector’s daughter. Gilbert was one of eleven children and, although he never married, did enjoy the company of his many nephews and nieces who often came to stay at The Wakes. By January 1793, including spouses, his family circle had increased to sixty-two young relations. Ronald tells me Gilbert enjoyed socialising and it was not unusual for family parties to go on until 3 am, he also told me Gilbert ‘was five foot three inches tall and a thin, prim, upright man.’

Gilbert’s grandfather, also called Gilbert White. By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden.

Gilbert’s grandfather, also called Gilbert White (1650-1728) had been the vicar at Selborne from 1681. In 1728, John White, his family and widowed mother moved to Selborne. In 1741, Gilbert’s father began landscaping the gardens at The Wakes including laying out seven acres of the estate and creating walks and hedges. White inherited his father’s love of nature at a very early age and to celebrate his tenth birthday planted an oak and ash tree in the garden there. It wasn’t until 1750-1 that he planted further trees, including an elm, fir and beech.

Gilbert’s education consisted of a thorough grounding in the classics, as well as literature, at Basingstoke Grammar School. He made his first observations of nature in 1736, which he wrote in a notebook following a visit to stay with his aunt at Whitwell, Rutland. It is no surprise to learn that this clever young man was admitted to Oriel College, Oxford, in April 1740. Gilbert worked hard and played hard, enjoying all manner of extra-curricular activities on offer to a young Oxbridge undergraduate. He visited coffee houses, drank wine, played cards, attended concerts and visited many of England’s great houses. He also had an interest in shooting, but this quickly turned from the thrill of the kill to hunting for the purposes of obtaining specimens for identification and dissection. He graduated BA in June 1743 and MA in October 1746.

CAREER AS A CURATE

White was ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church on 27th April 1747 at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. His first post was at Swarraton, Hampshire, as curate to his uncle, the Revd Charles White of Bradley. Unfortunately, he contracted smallpox in 1748. It is thought that one of the reasons why no portrait of White exists, other than two small pen-and-ink sketches, may be due to the fact his face had been badly scarred as a result of this disfiguring disease. His old nursemaid, ‘Goody Marshall’ helped care for him during his convalescence. White’s lifelong fascination with melons is also thought to have begun whilst he was recovering from smallpox, realising the health properties of this exotic fruit. He grew melons in the garden of The Wakes and he used to have ‘cantaloupe feasts’ with his youngest brother Henry (1733-1788) who was rector and schoolmaster at Fyfield, near Andover. In the poem ‘Metamorphosis’ by his friend Dr John Scrope, White’s melon obsession (‘The swelling melon was his favourite fruit’) and his scarring due to smallpox (‘his roughen’d face’) are both alluded to.

Corycius long admired (a curious swain!)

The wealth and beauties of Pomona’s reign;

The vegetable world engrossed his heart,

His garden lingering nature help’d by art;

Where in the smoking beds high heap’d appear

Salads and mushrooms thro’ the various year.

But of each species sprung from seed or root,

The swelling melon was his favourite fruit;

Other productions kindled some delight

In his fond soul, but here he doted quite.

When others wisely to the grot retreat,

And seek a friendly shelter from the heat,

Anxious and stooping o’er his treasure, low

Poring he kneels, and thinks he sees it grow.

One day when Phoebus scorch’d the gaping plain,

Striving to rise at length he strove in vain,

Fix’d to the spot, exchang’d his shape and name,

A melon turned and what he view’d became.

Ovid would tell you how his roughen’d face

Retains the network and the fretty grace;

His skin and bones compose the tougher rind;

His flesh compressed retains its name and kind;

Shrunk are his veins, and empty’d of their blood,

Which in the centre forms a plenteous flood.

(Reprinted in Gilbert White: A Biography of the Naturalist and Author of The Natural History of Selborne,

by Richard Mabey, published by J. M. Dent, 1993, p. 58)

White was fully ordained priest in 1749. In 1751, he was made curate-in-charge at Selborne, a post that he returned to again in 1756, 1758 and finally in 1784 when he continued in the role until his death in 1793. Whilst curate at Selborne, he was also able to continue with his academic duties as a fellow at Oriel College. He also took on an additional parish, Moreton Pinkney, Northamptonshire, which he could do the administration for from his home in Selborne. In 1761, he accepted the curacy of another parish, Faringdon (now spelt Farringdon), nearby to Selborne and continued as their curate for twenty years.

Ronald as Gilbert White with Timothy the tortoise. By kind permission of Gilbert White’s House and Garden.

HIS LOVE OF ANIMALS

White loved animals, there is no doubt about that. He had a pony (Mouse), dogs (Rover, Fyfield and a spaniel Fairey Queen) and, best-known of all, his beloved tortoise, Timothy. White often rode Mouse to church when he had to take the services and also enjoyed riding in the Hampshire countryside. He suffered from coach sickness so preferred travelling by horse whenever possible.

White inherited Timothy from his aunt, Rebecca Snooke, in March 1780. It is believed that his uncle, Henry Snooke, bought the tortoise from a sailor in Chichester for 2/6d in the 1740s. Observations and a number of scientific experiments were carried out on Timothy. White’s fascination and fondness for these hardy Testudine is evident in his writings. The following letter, from White to Daines Barrington, was written whilst he was staying at Delves House, Ringmer, near Lewes where Timothy lived prior to joining him at The Wakes:

A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows voracious: and then as the summer declines its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be an hundred years old. An instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile!

(Letter VII to Barrington, October 8th, 1770, The Natural History of Selborne (1974), published by Oxford University Press)

No part of it’s behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running it’s head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year…. P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica.

(Letter XIII to Barrington,  April 12th, 1772, The Natural History of Selborne (1974), published by Oxford University Press)

Timothy the tortoise has been missing for more than a week. He got out of the garden at the wicket, we suppose; & may be in the fields among the grass. Timothy found in the little bean-field short of the pound-field. The nightingale, fern-owl, cuckow, & grass-hopper lark may be heard at the same time in my outlet. Gryllo-talpa churs in moist meadows.

(Gilbert White’s Naturalist’s Journal, May 28th, 1784)

Display in the Great Parlour at Gilbert White’s House, showing a copy of The Natural History of Selborne and a model of Timothy the tortoise.

For more examples of White’s musings on Timothy and tortoises in general, visit the website, The Natural History of Selborne – Journals of Gilbert White. CLICK HERE. Dr Verlyn Klinkenborg’s delightful Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile (2007) published by Random House, is another recommended read if you would like to learn more about White’s beloved Timothy. This was first published in hardback in 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf. The British edition, with the title Timothy’s Book: Notes of an English Country Tortoise, was published by Portobello Books in hardback (2006) and paperback (2007).

Following Timothy’s death, it was discovered that the tortoise was in a fact female and her shell is now preserved in the Natural History Museum, London.

LIFE AT THE WAKES

Gilbert White’s study at The Wakes. The desk shown may have been the original one owned by Gilbert.

The Wakes officially passed to Gilbert White in 1763 upon the death of his uncle Charles. It would be a mistake for anyone to think that White’s parochial life stifled his scientific and scholastic output. Far from it. His location and lifestyle offered him the opportunity to completely immerse himself in his observational writing and experiments. He did not have the distractions that living in a city, such as London, would have presented him with. He also never married and bachelorhood seemed to suit him, devoting his life to his studies and the church.

 Extract from Letter XXIV Gilbert White to Thomas Pennant – Ring-ousels

(Read by Emma, Editor, Come Step Back in Time)

In her essay, ‘The Baffling Swallow: Gilbert White, Charlotte Smith and the Limits of Natural History’, Anne Mellor writes of White’s possible conflicting motivations that he would have had to face as a result of his resolve to serve God, as well as commit himself to lifelong study of the taxonomy of nature:

Throughout, White wrestled with conflicting motivations. On the one hand, he was a product of Enlightenment thought, convinced that God had created one great system which man might eventually come to understand. Everywhere he sought to organize and classify his observations of plants and animals into coherent taxonomies, closely following the lead of Buffon and Linnaeus. On the other hand, he was convinced that one could approach truth only through the precise empirical description of natural events and creatures, minute particulars that he scrupulously recorded day by day in his “Naturalist’s Journal.”

(Mellor, A. K., Vol. 31, No. 4, Dec. 2009, pp. 299-309, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, p. 301, published by Routledge)

Letter XXVII from Gilbert White to Thomas Pennant – Hedgehogs

(Read by Emma, Editor, Come Step Back in Time)

 Extract from Letter XI Gilbert White to Thomas Pennant – Bats

(Read by Emma, Editor, Come Step Back in Time)

It really is extraordinary when you consider some of the historic world events that were happening during White’s lifetime:

• 1741 – Handel’s ‘Messiah’
• 1746 – Battle of Culloden
• 1760 – Kew Gardens founded
• 1768 – Cook’s first voyage
• 1773 – Boston Tea Party
• 1776 – American Independence
• 1780 – Gordon Riots
• 1789 – French Revolution
• 1793 – Louis XVI Executed

Even tucked away in rural Hampshire, White witnessed a number of historic events of his own, for example a balloon flight by Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) in 1784. Earlier in the same year (2nd March) Blanchard had made the first successful balloon flight in Paris. According to White, in October of 1784, the whole village turned out to watch the spectacle of a further balloon flight by Blanchard. The event is documented in detail in a letter he wrote from Selborne, on 19th October, to his sister, Mrs [Anne] Barker:

Dear Sister, from the fineness of the weather, and the steadiness of the wind to the N.E. I began to be possessed with a notion last Friday that we should see Mr. Blanchard in his balloon the day following: and therefore I called on many of my neighbours in the street, and told them my suspicions. The next day proving also bright, and the wind continuing as before, I became more sanguine than ever; and issuing forth in the morning exhorted all those that had any curiosity to look sharp from about one o’ the clock to three towards London, as they would stand a good chance of being entertained with a very extraordinary sight.

(The Life and Letters of Gilbert White of Selborne, Vol. II, Written and Edited by Rashleigh Holt-White, published by John Murray, 1901, pp. 134-5)

Life at The Wakes was never dull; the house was often full with members of his own family visiting and at other times he had a small retinue of staff who also provided him with rich material for his journals. There were two members of staff who feature both in White’s everyday life and consequently within the text of his writings, Goody Hampton and Thomas Hoar. Goody Hampton was not exactly a permanent fixture at The Wakes; she lived in the village and worked for White on a casual basis. Richard Mabey, in his biography of White, writes of White’s impression of Goody:

Goody Hampton was employed as a ‘weeding woman’ in the summer months. She appears to have been a doughty worker, ‘and indeed, excepting that she wears petticoats and now and then has a child, you would think her a man.’

(Gilbert White: A Biography of the Naturalist and Author of The Natural History of Selborne, by Richard Mabey, published by J. M. Dent, 1993, p. 57)

On the subject of Thomas Hoar, Mabey writes:

… presiding over them all was Gilbert’s loyal retainer Thomas Hoar, who acted as his groom, gardener, scientific assistant and general handyman for forty years. He was a bachelor and slept at The Wakes, and would keep the journals up and write letters about events in Selborne when Gilbert was away. In the garden and in his treatment of plants and animals Thomas showed a delicacy and concern that is more than just a reflection of his employer’s own sensitivity.

(Ibid, p. 57)

Ronald also told me that girls from the village would regularly come and help at The Wakes. There is a kitchen on display at the house, but this is not the original that would have been in use during White’s residence. White was also interested in matters related to the management of a household and kept a close eye on things at The Wakes. One of his famous treatises is on the economics of the use of rush lighting as opposed to candles for those in straightened circumstances: ‘The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing; for she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for this use; and, if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven.’ (Letter XXVI to Barrington, November 1st, 1775).

Letter XXVI from Gilbert White to Daines Barrington – Economy of Rush Lights and Besom Brooms

(Read by Emma, Editor, Come Step Back in Time)

According to Ronald, the ever-prudent White, not wishing to waste a single resource whether animal, vegetable or mineral even saved the hair that moulted or was combed from his dogs so that it could be used to reinforce the plaster on the walls of his Great Parlour.

Gilbert White’s bedroom at The Wakes.

Embroidered detail of the curtains around Gilbert’s bed. His aunt embroidered the bed hangings.

Mrs [Barbara] White, the widow of Gilbert’s brother John, came to live at The Wakes in 1781 and pretty much took over the running of her brother-in-law’s household. This arrival stimulated White’s interest in cooking and pushed forward apace his plans to expand the vegetable and herb gardens.

White died on Wednesday 26th June 1793 and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Selborne. His headstone is not, as one might expect for such an important gentleman of the Enlightenment, pretentious. It simply reads: ‘G.W. 26th June 1793′ and is located among other family graves near the north wall of the chancel.

• Gilbert White’s House & Garden and The Oates Collection is located at The Wakes, High Street, Selborne, Hampshire. For details of opening times and admission charges for 2013, CLICK HERE.
• Literary Walks in East Hampshire. Self-guided walking tours of the attractive countryside in East Hampshire. This well-written tour of Selborne, gives you the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the Revd Gilbert White. Don’t forget your wellies or walking boots though. CLICK HERE.

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An Invitation To A Regency Ball – 200th Anniversary of Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s writing-table at her cottage in Chawton, Hampshire. By kind permission of Jane Austen’s House Museum.

If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the
younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this time, for
from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there was such a
succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once. No aunt, no
officers, no news could be sought after—the very shoe-roses for Netherfield
were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have found some trial of her patience
in weather which totally suspended the improvement of her acquaintance with Mr.
Wickham; and nothing less than a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia.

(Austen, J., Pride and Prejudice, 1813, Chapter 17)

When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and reading in her neighbours’ looks, their equal amazement in beholding it. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at first was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time with:—”It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some sort of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.”

He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said.

“Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But now we may be silent.”

“Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?”

“Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.”

(Austen, J., Pride and Prejudice, 1813, Chapter 18)

On 28th January, 1813, Pride and Prejudice, by Hampshire writer Jane Austen (1775-1817), was published in three hardback volumes by Thomas Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall, priced 18s. The novel had originally been titled, First Impressions and was written by Jane between October 1796 and August 1797.  On 1st November in the year of its completion, Jane’s father, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), took the unusual step (for a Regency patriarch anyway) of writing to London publisher Thomas Cadell asking whether he would be interested in reading his daughter’s manuscript. Mr Cadell declined Rev. Austen’s offer, by return of post.

It was some years later before Jane returned to the manuscript. Between 1811 and 1812, she embarked upon many revisions of First Impressions, including a title change to Pride and Prejudice. She described the completed work as her “own darling child”. Copyright for Pride and Prejudice was sold to publisher  Thomas Egerton for the sum of £110 (Jane had wanted £150). T. Egerton published one thousand five hundred copies of the first edition, all of which sold-out straightaway. A 2nd edition was published in November 1813 and a 3rd edition in 1817.  It is estimated that this much-loved novel about marriage, love and class in Regency society, now sells approximately fifty thousand copies each year in the UK alone.

In this bicentenary year there will be many events happening worldwide to celebrate the first publication of Pride and Prejudice (for a round-up of some of the UK events, see the end of this article).  For an interesting article on how Jane Austen’s army of literary fans are celebrating the bicentenary, see ‘Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen Fans Celebrating Novel’s 200th Anniversary’ by Tim Masters, Entertainment and Arts Correspondent, BBC News (25th January 2013). CLICK HERE.

Chawton House, the country seat of Edward Austen-Knight, Chawton, Hampshire.

Filming recently took place at Chawton House, Hampshire, the former country seat of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight (1768-1852), for a ninety minute documentary Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball (w/t). Chawton House is an Elizabethan manor house built by John Knight’s grandson, also called John. Building began c.1583 and continuing until the mid 1660s.Chawton House passed, by inheritance, to Jane Austen’s brother, Edward, on the death of their childless cousin, Thomas Knight (1735-1794). It was Edward who offered Jane, her mother and her sister the cottage in Chawton village which became their home and from where all her novels were published. Today the cottage is Jane Austen’s House Museum.

The documentary, will be shown on BBC Two in the Spring, was commissioned by Janice Hadlow, controller at BBC Two and Mark Bell, Commissioning Editor, Arts. The Commissioning Executive is Greg Sanderson, and the Executive for Optomen is Jon Swain.  Mark Bell, said: “With the enduring popularity of the novel and its many television and film adaptations, this special programme for BBC Two offers a fresh perspective, exploring with depth and detail of one Regency Britain’s most crucial functions.”

Across ninety minutes, a team of experts will weave together the planning and rehearsal of a typical early nineteenth century ball, look back at first-hand testimony of ball-goers of the time, and end with a stunning, authentic recreation based on Austen’s Netherfield Ball, a turning point in the romance between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. The ball takes place in the Great Hall at Chawton House, a room where members of the Austen family danced and enjoyed evening entertainments.

The team of experts who will play a key role in the recreation include: food historian Ivan Day; Professor Jeanice Brooks and Dr Wiebke Thormahlen from the University of Southampton, who will advise on the music and orchestral elements, and Hilary Davidson, curator of fashion and decorative art at the Museum of London, who will ensure an authentic recreation of Regency dress. Stuart Marsden and Dr Anne Daye will choreograph the dancing and literary expert John Mullan, Professor of English at University College London, will be on hand to ensure the ball’s accuracy and authenticity to Austen’s work. The programme’s main presenters will be Professor Amanda Vickery (The Many Lovers of Jane Austen) and Alastair Sooke (Modern Masters).

Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball will take an intelligent look at the social history of Austen’s world and explore how, as well as drinking, dancing and jollity, balls had an important purpose – to help women find a husband. Playing an important role in Austen’s novels, the pomp and excitement of a lively ball would drive forward the plot, explore and reveal character and shine a light on the society of the day.

BBC Learning has contributed to the funding of the project and commissioned a range of additional supporting material, including Regency recipes devised by Ivan Day for the BBC Food website. There will also be a curated Regency art feature for the Your Paintings website, period fashion and dance resources for the BBC History site and additional materials by the presenters for adult reading groups.

Chief Executive of Chawton House Library, Stephen Lawrence, said: “Working and living at Chawton House often feels like being part of a film set. This weekend it truly will be! We are delighted to be part of this authentic recreation of an important element of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She knew Chawton House very well and it seems fitting then this tribute to her work should be undertaken here.”

Now a research library, Chawton House Library, has a unique collection of over twenty-one thousand volumes focusing on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830. Novels, poetry and drama are all included, as well as autobiographical writing, published letters and a range of factual material from this period. In addition the Knight family library, one known to Jane, is held here on deposit. The Library is open to readers, free of charge by appointment from Monday to Friday, 9.30am-5pm. The house and grounds are available for venue hire, group tour bookings and special events. Details of tours as well as the many different events can be found on the website, CLICK HERE.

The Regency Ball in Context

‘Our ball was rather more amusing than I expected…you will not expect to hear that I was asked to dance – but I was!’

(Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, 9th December, 1808)

‘We were very well entertained.. the Misses Lance have partners, Capt. Dauvernes’ friend appeared in regimentals, Caroline Maitland had an officer to flirt with and Mr John Harrison was deputed by Capt. Smith.. to ask me to dance.’

(Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, January, 1809)

View of the ballroom (2012 – now called the Jane Austen Suite) at The Dolphin Hotel, Southampton, where Jane is said to have danced to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. It has of course been modernised but many of the original Georgian and Regency architectural features still survive.

One of the two bay windows in the ballroom at The Dolphin Hotel, Southampton. If Jane had indeed spent her eighteenth birthday dancing the night away here, she may well have glanced out of the window between dances.

One of two original fireplaces in the former ballroom (now The Jane Austen Suite) of The Dolphin Hotel, Southampton.

I will let you into a little secret, my mother named me after Jane Austen’s heroine Emma. Throughout my life I have been told that I possess a number of qualities similar to Jane’s leading lady but to what degree is for my friends and family to comment upon and not myself. However, although I have always enjoyed reading and re-reading Pride and Prejudice, it is the novel Emma (1815) that I prefer the most. My favourite adaptation by far is the BBC‘s four-part version written by Sandy Welch which aired in 2009 and starred Romola Garai as Emma and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightly. Their on-screen chemistry perfectly captured the spirit of Jane’s original novel. Here is a short clip of the ball and supper at The Crown Inn which Emma and Mr Knightly both attend and share a dance together. CLICK HERE.

The Regency began in the spring of 1811 when the Prince of Wales was first appointed Prince Regent and terminated in 1820 on his accession to the throne as George IV (1762-1830). There is no doubt that Jane loved to attend a Ball, she wrote about them in many of her letters to family and friends. In 1793, her first dance is thought to have been on her eighteenth birthday at the Dolphin Hotel, Southampton. Jane was visiting the Butler-Harrison’s who lived at St. Mary’s near to the town and whose first child she had been appointed godmother to.

Interior architecture of The Dolphin Hotel.

Detail of main staircase. The Dolphin Hotel.

View looking-up at the main staircase. The Dolphin Hotel.

Architectural detail at The Dolphin Hotel.

In 1806, Jane, Cassandra and their mother joined brother Frank and his new wife Mary in Southampton, first living in lodgings and eventually moving to a rented house at No. 2 Castle Square in January 1807.

Martha Lloyd (1765-1843), Jane’s lifelong friend who was the Austen ladies housekeeper, cook and confidante. In 1828, Martha married Jane’s brother Sir Francis Austen (1774-1865) following the death of his first wife. Martha was no blushing bride, she was 62 and became Lady Austen. Jane Austen’s House and Museum.

Also joining them in Southampton was Martha Lloyd, lifelong friend of Jane, Jenny the cook, Molly the maid and another servant, Phoebe, who was a “maid of all work”. The Austens remained in Southampton until they moved to Chawton Cottage in 1809.

Jane Austen’s House Museum, Chawton, Hampshire. By kind permission thereof.

Glasses and case belonging to Jane Austen’s mother. On display at Lyme Regis Museum.

The donkey cart that the Austen ladies used whilst living at Chawton. Jane Austen’s House and Museum.

Don’t be fooled into thinking Jane’s recording of her ball-going experiences were all about head-turning fashions and heart-stopping moments. She loved to observe fellow guests and was not always kindly in her remarks, this can be seen in many examples of Jane’s private correspondences. She often demonstrates a considerable degree of acerbic wit about her subjects.

In 1884, Jane’s great-nephew, Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen (1st Baron Brabourne, 1829-1893), edited a collection of her letters which were subsequently published by Richard Benley & Son: London, New Burlington Street (Letters of Jane Austen edited with an Introduction and Critical Remarks by Edward, Lord Brabourne). Lord Brabourne’s mother, Lady Knatchbull (née Fanny Catherine Knight – 1793-1882), was Jane’s niece and the two hundred letters were found in a box of her papers. The letters contain a hundred detailed descriptions, by Jane, of visits to country balls. Here are few of my favourites and watch-out for Miss Austen’s sharp tongue:

It was a pleasant ball, and still more good than pleasant, for there were nearly sixty people, and sometimes we had seventeen couple [s]. The Portsmouths, Dorchesters, Boltons, Portals, and Clerks were there, and all the meaner and more usual &c., &c.’s. There was a scarcity of men in general, and a still greater scarcity of any that were good for much. I danced nine dances out of ten — five with Stephen Terry, T. Chute, and James Digweed, and four with Catherine. There was commonly a couple of ladies standing up together, but not often any so amiable as ourselves.

(Jane Austen to sister Cassandra, November 1800)

It was a pleasant evening; Charles found it remarkably so, but I cannot tell why, unless the absence of Miss Terry, towards whom his conscience reproaches him with being now perfectly indifferent, was a relief to him. There were only twelve dances, of which I danced nine, and was merely prevented from dancing the rest by the want of a partner. We began at ten, supped at one, and were at Deane before five.  There were but fifty people in the room; very few families, indeed, from our side of the county, and not many more from the other. My partners were the two St. Johns, Hooper, Holder, and very prodigious Mr Mathew, with whom I called the last, and who I liked the best of my little stock.

There were very few beauties, and such as there were not very handsome. Miss Iremonger did not look well, and Mrs. Blount was the only one much admired. She appeared exactly as she did in September, with the same broad face, diamond bandeau, white shoes, pink husband, and fat neck. The two Miss Coxes were there: I traced in one the remains of the vulgar, broad-featured girl who danced at Enham eight years ago; the other is refined into a nice, composed-looking girl, like Catherine Bigg. I looked at Sir Thomas Champneys and thought of poor Rosalie; I looked at his daughter, and thought her a queer animal with a white neck. Mrs. Warren, I was constrained to think, a very fine young woman, which I much regret.

She has got rid of some part of her child, and danced away with great activity looking by no means very large. Her husband is ugly enough, uglier even than his cousin John; but he does not look so very old. The Miss Maitlands are both prettyish, very like Anne, with brown skins, large dark eyes, and a good deal of nose. The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as circumstances ["their bad breath"] would allow me.

(Jane Austen to sister Cassandra, Thursday 20th November 1800)

Balls, private or public, city or country, were an important part of Regency society, occasions where potential husbands could be snared and the etiquette of dancing acted as a form of pre-marital courtship.  In Pride and Prejudice The Netherfield Ball acts as a device to drive the plot forward. In Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814), Maria Bertram and Mr Rushworth attend a number of balls, dancing together on each occasion and finally enter into an engagement. The ball is a socially acceptable forum where young, old, single and married can mix with relative freedom without fear of being reproached for breaching social protocols.

Unlike modern times where arrival at a ball is usually 7pm and carriages are called at midnight, Regency balls were an all night affair, requiring a degree of stamina. Unfortunately, there were many instances when guests succumbed to physical injuries as a result of over exertion. During the course of my research I read that Lord St. Asaph (1760-1830), the Earl of Ashburnham’s son, suffered a burst blood-vessel as a result of attending The Duchess of Dorset’s Grand Ball and Supper at Knole Park in 1813. The injury was brought on by dancing too vigorously.

We are sorry to add, that an accident happened to Lord St. Asaph, which his Lordship had an opportunity of concealing from the company. Lord St. Asaph, finding himself indisposed, apologized and retired. From over exertion in dancing, on retiring to bed, a blood-vessel gave way; and he was very much reduced in consequence. Medical assistance was sent for; and an express sent-off to his father, the Earl of Ashburnham at Ashburnham Castle, who arrived the next day when this amiable young Nobleman was declared to be out of danger.

(Grand Ball and Supper given by The Duchess of Dorset at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent Friday 8th January, 1813, reported in The Morning Post)

In many of the extracts from contemporary newspapers that I have quoted here, you will see a pattern of timings emerging for a typical Regency ball. Arrival was usually between 10pm and midnight, several hours of dancing followed as well as general socialising and mingling. Between 3am and 5am there would be a break for supper, which usually included: seasonal fayre; soups; water and cream ices; fruit; confectionary; coffee; tea and hot chocolate. Dancing then continued until dawn. The ball normally consisted of between nine and twelve dances, including reels and strathspeys.

The grander balls, given by the upper echelons of Regency society, often went one step further and spared no expense in creating a suitably decorated, lavish, interior. Mrs Dawson’s annual ball at Manchester Square, in 1812, saw the windows being removed and replaced with painted silk. The ballroom was also festooned with great quantities of laurel-leaves, which were a popular type of Regency decoration.

Society Balls in the Regency Era

There were 300 ‘Fashionables’. The principal drawing-room, and the secondary apartments, were rendered agreeably cool, by the removal of the window, and substituting transparencies painted on silk.  The principal designs, among these novelties, were – 1st – A rural landscape of enamelled meads, cottages, and sheep grazing – the village church in the background; 2nd – wood and water, with rocky cliffs and mountains the ruins of an ancient castle. The balcony was fancifully decorated with variegated lamps, intermixed among flowering shrubs. Chandeliers of chrystalline brilliancy illumined the ballroom, the splendour of which was considerably heightened by the aid of mirrors of a vast size being placed in such, direction, as to multiply every object ad infinitum. Great quantities of laurel-leaves were introduced to add to the tout-ensemble. The dancing commenced at eleven o’clock, and was kept-up with unusual spirit. An excellent collation was provided, consisting of soups, and all the delicacies of the season, of which the company partook at two o’clock. About five o’clock an elegant dejeune was served-up; then reels and strathspeys commenced, and continued until between the hours of six and seven.

(Mrs Dawson’s Ball and Supper at Manchester Square, London, as reported in The Morning Post, Monday 22nd June, 1812)

Dancing began at midnight with the Lady Matilda Bruce – a new reel. At half-past three o’clock the company sat down to a sumptuous banquet, the viands and wines being of the first description, with a desert of ices, strawberries, cherries, and grapes by Mr Gunter. Music was provided by Mr Gow’s Band.

(The Duchess of Bedford’s Ball and Supper at Bedford House in Hamilton Place, Piccadilly, Friday 31st May 1811)

There were 350 guests who arrived at 9.30pm. The Queen came in a new state chair, which has been made since the last ball and supper, in consequence of the weight of the chair the Queen then went in being so heavy then, that the Chairmen were obliged to rest in the Park. The new chair is made of paper of a similar manufacture the tea-trays are made of. The ornaments are extremely neat and elegant. It is lined with crimson velvet, the draperies crimson silk.

(The Prince Regent’s Ball and Supper at Carlton House mansion, London, reported in The Morning Post, May 13th, 1813)

Drinking tea was fashionable and popular across all classes in Regency society. The tea service shown here is Chamberlain’s Worcester porcelain, c.1810. The table is mahogany c. 1775. The tea-chest is burr wood, c.1825, it was made by Robert James of Bristol. The casket contains teas and a glass bowl in which the two could be blended. Until 1830, all tea came from China. Display from Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

Regency Ball – Food

Soon after one in the morning the party supped; and about four o’clock they separated. The supper was a most sumptuous banquet, served on the most costly porcelain; the tables were abundantly supplied with the choicest viands, displayed with unique elegance, in a style which did great credit to ingenuity of the cooks and confectioners employed.

(Grand Ball and Supper given by The Duchess of Dorset at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent -Friday 8th January, 1813, reported in The Morning Post)

The Prince’s table was laid for 65, allowing 18 inches for each person, in the most superb and elegant manner. The Queen and Prince Regent sat the head. The princess Charlotte sat at the right of the Duke of York…When seated the tout ensemble presented a most magnificent scene. The desert, under the direction of Mr Bonuar, comprised every delicacy the season afforded, and was most excellent. The pages in their state uniforms, the yeomen of the guards, the servants in their state liveries, added much to the splendor of the effect.

(The Prince Regent’s Ball and Supper, Carlton House, London, Friday 5th February 1813)

11.30pm dancing commenced. A supper, the most abundant and excellent, with ices, fruits, and confectionary, provided by Mr Gunter, formed the repast, and of which the company partook about half-past two o’clock. Dancing was afterwards resumed, and kept-up with great spirit, under the able superintendence of the Noble Marquis (Lansdowne), who did not quit the “Merry Round” until long after the dawn of the day. To complete this unrivalled entertainment, a dejeune of tea, coffee, chocolate, was provided; it was served up about six o’clock, in a very superior way.

(Mrs Calvert’s Ball at Mansfield Street, Portland Place, London on Friday 10th May 1811, reported in The Morning Post, Monday 13th May, 1811)

At 2am the company then adjourned to the supper-tables. Here a most sumptuous display indeed was made, there were no less than six supper-rooms, all fitted-up in the most beautiful and appropriate manner. Each table was brilliantly ornamented with trophies of war and peace; emblems emblematic of the arts and sciences: the costume of all civilized nations of the earth, exemplified in waxen images, modelled for this fete expressly…the plate, and the china, displayed and the brilliancy of the lighting-up of the tables, the effect was grand in the extreme.  To render the coup l’oeil complete, about two hundred beautiful women (for the major part of the females were really beautiful) sat in such prominent situations as to be seen in every part without the least difficulty. The supper, we need not add, was most excellent; the wines abundant, and all of the rarest kinds. The dessert fruits, and confectionary, were equally deserving of panegyric: the Duke of Clarence spoke in raptures of them.

(Mrs Beaumont’s Grand Ball and Supper, reported in The Morning Post, Wednesday 14th April, 1813)

In 1799, confectioner extraordinaire James Gunter (1731-1819) took over sole proprietorship of the Pot and Pineapple confectionary shop from Italian cook Domenico Negri. The Pot and Pineapple was located at 7-8 Berkeley Square, London. Gunter changed the name to Gunter’s Tea Shop. Gunter’s son, Robert (1783-1852) studied confectionary in Paris and subsequently took control of the business in 1819, hiring his cousin John as a partner in 1837. The Tea Shop moved to Curzon Street in 1936-7 and closed in 1956. Gunter’s Tea Shop was a fashionable place for both ladies and gentlemen in the Regency era to visit.  The range of delicious toothsome treats was extensive, biscuits, cakes, sugar plums, creams, ices and sweet meats, to name but a few.  Gunter confectionary was a popular addition to the supper table at a Regency ball. Both Mrs Calvert and The Duchess of Bedford’s ball suppers, of 1811, showcased his confectionary.

Joseph Bell,  Marie Antonin Carême (1784-1833), Frederick Nutt, Mrs Rundell (1745-1828) and Mrs Mary Holland all played an important part in the development of Regency cookery.  Joseph Bell worked for the Prince Regent and Antonin Carême for Prince George. Even Jane and her family had their own trusty house-keeper and cook, Martha Lloyd (who was also Jane’s lifelong friend).

Historian, Kate Colquhoun, states: ‘Regency fancy was tempted as much by capillaire syrup (flavoured with dried maidenhair fern), Chartreuse and brandies as by the taste nougat, pistachio, maraschino, mint, aniseed and even – for the first time – caramel made from gently browned sugar and cream.’ (Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking, 2008, p.248).  According to Colquhoun, the Austen ladies loved their ices and in September 1804 Cassandra wrote from Weymouth to Jane, complaining about the lack of ice in the town to satisfy her cravings. (2008, p.249).

Create Your Own Regency Ball Supper

Below are selection of recipes from publications by some of the above cooks.  If you want to hold your own Regency ball supper, then ices, syllabubs, fruit, confectionary, biscuits, coffee, tea and hot chocolate should all be on the menu. In The Housekeeper’s Instructor or, Universal Family Cook (1809 edition) by William A. Henderson, includes a rather modest ‘Ball Supper for Twenty People’ which includes: millfeuille; fricandeaux; marangles; ham; jelly; lobster; cheesecakes; roast fowls; custards; prawns; blancmange; galanteens; raised pie; roast lamb; Savoy cake; raspberry ice; lemon ice; orange ice; grapes; peaches; nutt of veal; potatoes; French beans; boiled fowls; rabbits; Italian cream; harrico of mutton; turtle; Chartreuse; patties; mutton; stewed pigeon; custard; tongue; sweetbreads; peas and for breakfast at the end of the ball: boiled chickens; trifle; raspberry cream; ham; tartlets, sweetbread raised pie; custards; jellies; veal patties and cheesecakes.  Quite a list, it is a wonder that the young ladies retained their figures.

Orange Heart Biscuits (Frederick Nutt, The Complete Confectioner, 1819 – 8th edition)

Take three-quarters of a pound of powdered sugar, and put it in a pewter basin with thirty yolks of eggs, and take seven preserved orange peels, pound them in a mortar very fine, quite to a paste, then take a handful of sweet and half a handful of bitter almonds, pound them very fine, and mix them with a little orange flower water; then take four eggs, yolks and whites together, and put them in the basin with the sugar, eggs, and peel, mix them all well together with a wooden spoon in each hand, and beat them till you see the batter rise very much (though you can hardly beat them too light), till it turns quite white and puffs up in bladders; then put in half a pound of sifted flour, and mix it with the batter very lightly; then butter the hearts, fill them, and sift a little powdered sugar over the top of them, before you put them in the oven, which must be rather quick, but not too hot, otherwise they will not be light, and take them out of the tins while they are hot.

King’s Biscuits (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take half a pound of butter and work it about in a basin with a wooden spoon, then take six eggs and whisk them well; put half a pound of powdered sugar in them, and whisk them about ten minutes; mix the eggs and sugar with the butter, then take six ounces of currants well washed, and put them with the eggs, and six ounces of flour, and mix it altogether; put three sheets of paper on the plate, take a tea-spoon and drop the paste on the paper about the size of a shilling; put them in a sharp oven, and cut them off while they are hot.

Lemon Wafers (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take six lemons, and squeeze into an earthen pan; pound and sift some double-refined sugar and mix it with the lemon juice, put one white of an egg in with it, and mix it well up together with your wooden spoon, to make it of a fine thickness; take some sheets of wafer paper, and put one sheet of it on a pewter sheet, or tin plate, put a spoonful on, and cover the sheet of wafer paper all over with your knife; cut in twelve pieces, and put them across a stick in your hot stove, with that side the paste is on uppermost, and you will find they will curl; when they are half curled, take them off carefully and put them endways in a sieve, that they may stand up; let them be in the hot stove, and you will find they will be all curled, and then they are done.

Raspberry Jelly For Ices (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Put your raspberries in the preserving pan; wash them well with your spaddle, put them over the fire, stirring them all the time they are on; when they are ready to boil take them off, and pass them through a hair sieve into a pan, let no seed go through; put your jelly into another pan and set it on the fire, and let it boil twenty minutes before you put the sugar in it; stir it all the time or else it will burn at bottom; put fourteen ounces of sugar to every pound of jelly, let it boil twenty minutes, stir it all the time, when cold put it in a brown pan or pots, sift a little powdered sugar over it, let it stand one day and then cover it up: this jelly is good to make ice-cream with.

Everlasting Whip Syllabub To Put Into Glasses (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take five half pints of thick cream, half a pint of Rhenish wine, half a pint of sack, and the juice of two large Seville oranges; rasp in the yellow rind of three lemons and pound of double refined sugar well pounded and sifted; mix all together with a spoonful of orange-flower water, beat it well together with a whisk half an hour, then with a spoon fill your glasses. This will keep above a week, it is much better being made the day before it is used.

Floating Island (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

A pretty dish for the middle of a table, at a second course, or for a supper.

Take a soup dish according to the size and quantity you would wish to make, but a deep glass dish is the best, put it on a china dish; first take a quart of the thickest cream you can get, make it sweet with fine powdered sugar; pour in a gill of fine mountain, and rasp the yellow rind of a lemon in; whisk your cream very strong as carefully as you can; pour the thin from the froth into a dish; take some Naples biscuits and cut them as thin as possible; lay a layer of them as light as possible on the cream, then a layer of currant jelly, again a layer of Naples biscuits, over that put your cream that you saved; put as much as you can make the dish, without running over, garnish outside with sweetmeats and what else you like.

Lemonade (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Rasp two lemons and squeeze six, put to them three gills of syrup and the rest water; taste it, and if it is not to your palate, alter it till it is right; then strain it through a lawn sieve, and put it in your glasses for use.

Fresh Raspberry Water (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take one pint of fresh raspberries, and pass them through a sieve with a wooden spoon; put two large spoonfuls of powdered sugar in, squeeze one lemon in, and let the rest be water; make it palatable, and put a little cochineal in to colour it: pass it through a sieve, and it is fit for use.

How To Make Ice-Cream Using a Freezing Pot (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Put mixture into the freezing pot and cover it; put the freezing pot into a pail, and some ice all round the pot; throw a good deal of salt on the ice in the pail, turning the pot round for ten minutes, then open your pot, and scrape it from the sides, cover it up again, and keep turning it for some time, till your cream is like butter, and as thick; put it in your moulds, put them into a pail, and cover it with ice and salt for three-quarters of an hour, till you find the water is come to the top of the pail; do not be sparing of salt, for if you do not use enough it will not freeze: dip you mould into water, and turn it out on your plate to send to table.

Raspberry Ice Cream (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take a large spoonful of raspberry jam, put it into a basin and squeeze one lemon in; add a pint of cream and a little cochineal to colour it; pass it through a sieve into a basin; put it into your freezing pot.

Apricot Ice Cream (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take one spoonful of apricot jam, put it in a basin, and squeeze one lemon in; take a handful of bitter almonds pounded with a little powdered sugar, put them all to a pint of cream, and put it into your freezing pot.

Coffee Ice Cream (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take one ounce of coffee whole, and put it in a stewpan with one pint of cream; put it over the fire, and let it simmer and boil ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; drain all the coffee from it; break four eggs into a pan, and add one gill and a half of syrup: beat them well up together, put the cream that comes from the coffee into it; give it a boil, stir it all the time, pass it through a sieve and freeze it.

Chocolate Ice Cream (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take one ounce and a half of chocolate, and warm it over the fire; take six eggs, one gill of syrup, and one pint of cream; mix it over the fire till it begins to thicken; mix the chocolate in, pass it through a sieve, and freeze it.

Damson Water Ice (Frederick Nutt, 1819)

Take a quarter of a pound of preserved damsons, and break the stones, put them into a basin and squeeze in one lemon, add almost a pint of water and half a gill of syrup; pass it through a sieve, and freeze it rich.

Virtues of Coffee (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

Coffee accelerates digestion, corrects crudities, removes colic and flatulencies. It mitigates headaches, cherishes the animal spirits, takes away listlessness and languor, and is serviceable in all obstructions arising from languid circulation. It is a wonderful restorative to emaciated constitutions, and highly refreshing to the studious and sedentary. The habitual use of coffee would greatly promote sobriety, being in itself a cordial stimulant; it is a most powerful antidote to the temptation of spirituous liquors. It will be found a welcome beverage to the robust labourer, who would despise a lighter drink.

A coffee pot, Spode, C. 1805. Basaltware (a type of stoneware), hand-thrown then turned on a lathe to create the precise shape, smooth surface and tooled decoration. On display at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

Regency Ball – Music and Dance

The preparations occupied the attention of upholders, cooks, and confectioners, for many days previous. The Duchess of York arrived at ten o’clock…the dancing was led-off by a Military Officer and the Hon. Smith….To aid to the general effect, the musicians attached to the regiment of dragoons, quartered in neighbourhood (we believe the 17th), appeared about 11 o’clock, richly habited in the most glittering attire we ever witnessed….A supper, the most sumptuous and abundant, was served-up on massy plate, with central ornaments, on a highly enriched plateaux. Three hundred guests, military in full uniforms. Her Highness of York wore a splendid Roman tunic and edged with beautiful white lace; her head-dress à-la-Grec with a profusion of diamonds. Ball ended at 3.30am.

(Duchess of York and her circle of friends host a Grand Ball at the Star and Garter in Richmond, reported in The Morning Post, Wednesday 11th December, 1811)

One name that crops-up time and again in contemporary accounts of Regency Balls is Mr Gow’s band. Neil Gow (1727-1807) was born at Inver, near Dunkeld, on March 22nd, 1727. He was a famous fiddler, composer and dance instructor who enjoyed a rapid rise to fame. Following his death, his four surviving sons, William, John, Andrew and Nathaniel – all composers of music – carried on the family tradition. Nathaniel (1763-1831) composed over one hundred and ninety-seven tunes, including Strathspeys, reels, jigs, quick steps, laments, waltzes, and slow airs. Andrew and John moved to London in 1780 and in addition to their profession as musicians the pair also sold music from 1788, when they occupied premises at 60 King Street, Golden Square. Andrew died in 1790 and John continued as a band leader. Mrs Dawson of Manchester Square favoured Mr Gow’s band at her annual grand Balls.

Evening dress for a summer ball, 1811.

Regency Ball – Fashion and Beauty

A robe and petticoat of white satin, with short sleeves, trimmed with green or yellow chenille; over which is worn a light green drapery of crape, fastened on the left shoulder with an amber or cornelian brooch: folded over the left side of the figure in front, nearly concealing the waist on that side, the hind part of the drapery is simply bound in at bottom of the waist and confined underneath the drapery in front, entirely ornamented round with yellow chenille.  With this dress is worn a Turkish turban of green crape, with trimming to correspond, small round curls, divided on the right side. The hair in small round curls, divided on the right side. Amber or cornelian necklace. Gloves of white kid. Shoes of green kind, or silk.

(The Morning Post, from La Belle Assemblé, Wednesday, May 1st, 1811)

A Ball or full dress. A Roman robe of pink crape, worn over white gossamer satin. A long Spanish slashed sleeve, with an antique cuff of fine net lace; horizontal stripe front, with a quilling of fine net round the bosom. The slashes of the sleeve filled with folds of white satin, and their terminations finished with silver filigree, or mother of pearl buttons. A cestus of white satin, with correspondent clasp and brooch. Hair in waved curls confined round the head with a wreath of Persian rose, separated in the centre of the forehead. Neck-chain and cross Peruvian gold; eardrops of the same. An occasional scarf of Paris net, starred with silver. White satin slippers ornamented with pink rosettes. White gloves of French kind, and fan of spangled grape.

General Observations. The hair is worn dressed in full flat curls over the face, twisted behind the ends brought forward and blended with the front of hair. The gloves are worn every short the fans are increasing in size; trains are more laid aside through convenience than fashion. The prevailing colours for the season are yellow, primrose, pink, lilac, straw, and blue celeste feathers in full-dress were never so universal.

(From Ackerman’s Repository of Arts and Fashion, 1811)

Fashion periodicals such as La Belle Assemblé, The Ladies Magazine and Ackerman’s Repository of Arts and Fashion, were influential in promoting the latest fashion trends and styles. By the end of the Regency, Paris correspondents were employed by these periodicals to respond to the growing consumer interest in French fashions.  The waistline in early Regency was situated under the bust and evening dresses were worn with short sleeves and long gloves. Popular fabrics for the Classical effect gown included muslin, cambric and fine cottons in a range of pastel shades. After 1814, skirts became fuller with plenty of trimmings of lace and ribbon. The width of the hem increased and by 1825 assumed a conical shape. Puffed sleeves were also a popular addition. The cloak, pelisse and spencer were worn as outer garments during the Regency.

Regency ‘stocking’ purse used for coins. On display at Lyme Regis Museum.

To Clean Silk Stockings (Family Receipt Book by Mrs Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell, 1819, 2nd American Edition)

Wash your stockings first in white soap liquor, lukewarm, take out the rough dirt; then rise them in fair water, and work them well in a fresh soap liquor.  Then make a thirdstone blue, wrapped in a flannel bag, till your liquor is blue enough, then wash your stockings well therein, and take them out and wring them. Then let them dried so that they remain a little moist; then stove them with brimstone, after which, put upon the wood leg two stockings, one upon the other, observing that the two fronts, or outsides, are face-to-face then polish them with a glass. NB. The two first soap liquors must be only lukewarm, the third soap liquor as hot as you can bear your hand in it. Blonds and gauzes are whitened in the same manner, only a little gum is put in the soap liquor before they are stoved.

The Useful Properties of Charcoal for Sweetening the Breath, Cleaning the Teeth (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

All sorts of glass vessels and other utensils may be purified from long retained smells of every kind, in the easiest and most perfect manner, by rinsing them out well with charcoal powder, after the grosser impurities have been scoured off with sand and potash. Rubbing the teeth, and washing out the mouth, with fine charcoal powder, will render the teeth beautifully white, and the breath perfectly sweet, where an offensive breath has been owing to a scorbutic disposition of the gums. Putrid water is immediately deprived of its offensive smell by charcoal.

The French dentist, Nicholas Dubois de Chemant (1753-1824) - print by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827). The woman has just had fitted Dubois de Chemant’s famous double row of mineral paste teeth and gums. Dubois de Chemant was a famous Parisian society dentist. They certainly had a sweet tooth in the Regency.

To Make Lip-Salve (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

Take an ounce of white wax and ox marrow, three ounces of white pomatum, and melt all in bath heat, add a dram of alkanet, and stir it till it acquire a reddish colour.

To Make Rose-Water (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

Gather roses on a dry day, when they are full-blown; pick of the leaves, and to a peck put a quart of water, then put them into a cold still, make a slow fire under it; the slower you distil it the better it will be; then bottle it, and in two or three days you may cork it.

To Make Jessamine Butter or Pomatum (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

Hog’s lard method, and well washed in fair water, laid an inch thick in a dish, and stewed over with jessamine flowers, will imbibe the scent, and make a very fragrant pomatum.

For Preserving The Nails (Mrs Rundell, 1819)

One ounce of oil of bitter almonds; one dram of oil of tartar per deliquium; one ounce of prepared crab’s-eyes. Mix-up with essence of lemon to send it. La Forest recommends rubbing the nails with lemon as a detergent.

Regency gentleman’s waistcoat. On display at Lyme Regis Museum.

Regency waistcoat detail. Lyme Regis Museum.

Selection of UK Events Celebrating The 200th Anniversary of Pride and Prejudice

• Music! It is of all subjects to my delight – Music at Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire. Musician Anthony Noble will play an informal recital of Hadyn, Mozart and Beethoven on the Museum’s piano. Sundays, 2pm: 7th April; 5th May; 2nd June; 7th July and 4th August 2013. Entrance fee to Museum applies. CLICK HERE.
• Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire. There are many events happening at Jane’s home in the pretty village of Chawton to mark the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice‘s publication. An exhibition, ‘The Story of Pride and Prejudice’ opens on Saturday 2nd February 2013. It will tell the story and history of the book, also on display will be a letter that Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra on first receiving her copy of the book. Another highlight will be a display of Hugh Thomson’s (1860-1920)illustrations that first appeared in an 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice.  For more information about events at Jane Austen’s House, CLICK HERE. For details of the Museum’s opening times, CLICK HERE.
• Tea with Miss Austen – Winchester Cathedral. Sunday 16th March (Mothering Sunday), 3pm. Traditional afternoon tea followed by a spoken-word performance, ‘Jane Austen: A Women of Her Time – and ours?’ by Chapter & Verse. Costs £14.95 per person. CLICK HERE.
• The Jane Austen Story – Winchester Cathedral. A permanent exhibition that celebrates Jane’s life in Hampshire. Open 9-5pm when the Cathedral is open to the public. Entrance charges apply to the Cathedral. CLICK HERE.
• Jane Austen Tour and Cream Tea – Winchester Cathedral. Jane died in Winchester on 18th July 1817 and is buried in the north aisle of Winchester Cathedral. Accompanied by one of the Cathedral guides, the walking tour will explore Jane’s close links with Winchester and the Cathedral. The tour will include a visit to Inner Close and the house on College Street where Jane and Cassandra lodged during the last few weeks of Jane’s life. The tours take place on the first Saturday of every month between February and September 2013. The next tour takes place on Saturday 2nd February. Cost = £10. CLICK HERE. To read more about Jane’s brief time in Winchester, CLICK HERE.
• Evening Talk Simon Langton – Filming ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and Other Costume Dramas – Chawton House Library, Chawton, Hampshire. Thursday 18th April 2013. 6.30pm for 7pm talk, finishes 8.30pm. Director Simon Langton will discuss directing the iconic BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in 1995. Tickets: Adults £10; Students/Friends £7.50. For further information on this event, CLICK HERE.
• Regency Dancing – Hillier Gardens, Romsey, Hampshire. Sunday 5th May, 1-3pm. The Hampshire Regency Dancers will perform a selection of Regency dances in the stunning Hillier Gardens. After the performance why not take Regency High Tea in the restaurant. The Regency dance display is free and the afternoon tea is £12.50 per person. Normal admission charges to the garden also apply. For more information, CLICK HERE.
• Celebrating Pride and Prejudice – 4 Day residential/non-residential course exploring key characters in the 1995 BBC adaptation of the novel. Begins Monday 27th May (6pm) and ends Friday 31st May (2pm). Course tutor is Hazel Jones. Included will be visits to the various film locations used in the production.  The course takes place in the Cotswolds (Farncombe Estate, Worcestershire) and is run by Farncombe Courses. Cost ranges from £359-£520, depending on your choice of accommodation. Tel: 01386 854100. For further information, CLICK HERE. 
• Pride and Prejudice  – Open Air Production – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre – Regent’s Park, London. The production runs from 20th June 2013 until 20th July 2013, reduced price previews between the 20th and 24th June. For further information, CLICK HERE.
• 4th Jane Austen Festival Regency Costumed Summer Ball – the Banqueting Room at the Guildhall, Bath. Full details will be available soon, so keep an eye on the Jane Austen Centre in Bath’s website, CLICK HERE.
• Jane Austen Festival – Bath. This annual event is a must for all fans of Jane Austen and indeed visitors travel from all over the world to attend. Why not dust-off your Regency gowns that you wore to the Costumed Summer Ball at the Guildhall and immerse yourself in the life and times of Regency Bath. This year the Jane Austen Festival takes place between 13th September and 21st September. I visited the event a couple of years ago, Bath never looked so alive. For further information, CLICK HERE.
  

  Jane Austen Festival, Bath, 2011.

Jane Austen Festival, Bath, 2011.

Jane Austen Festival, Bath, 2011.

Jane Austen Inspired Books

• The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye (2002). Published by McClelland & Stewart. The book contains many recipes from the Georgian and Regency era, updated for the modern cook, including a selection of Martha Lloyd’s recipes detailed in her “Household Book”. Martha recorded over one hundred recipes during her time as housekeeper and cook to the Austen ladies. Some of the recipes featured include Martha’s almond cheesecakes, pyramid creams, the famous white soup and salmagundy. CLICK HERE;
• The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne (Jan. 2013). Published by Harper Press Books. To watch a short film in which Paula talks more about her new book CLICK HERE. The filming, for this film, took place at Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire;
• A Dance with Jane Austen: How a Novelist and her Characters Went to the Ball by Susannah Fullerton (2012). Published by Frances Lincoln. Susannah takes the reader through all the stages of a Regency Ball. CLICK HERE. 
• Happily Ever After: Celebrating Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Susannah Fullerton (Jan. 2013). Published by Frances Lincoln. CLICK HERE.

Walking In The Footsteps of Jane Austen

• Jane Austen Trail. Self-guided walking tours of Alton and Chawton. The tours are produced by Alton Chamber of Commerce and Industry. There is also an annual Jane Austen Regency Week, usually held in June. The dates for 2013 have yet to be announced but keep an eye on the Jane Austen Regency Week website. CLICK HERE. To download the comprehensive maps for the walking tours, CLICK HERE.  
• Literary Walks in East Hampshire. Self-guided walking tours of the attractive countryside in East Hampshire. The well-written tour also includes a walk around the village of Selborne, only five miles from Chawton, where the parson naturalist Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) lived at The Wakes which is now a Museum. He penned The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne in 1789 whilst living in Selborne. I am currently writing several feature articles on this Museum and its collection so do check back shortly. For further information on Gilbert White’s House and Garden and The Oates Collection which is also housed there, CLICK HERE. For a self-guided walking tour of Selborne, walking in the footsteps of Rev. Gilbert White, CLICK HERE.
  

  Exterior of Rev. Gilbert White’s House, The Wakes, Selborne, Hampshire.

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Vintage Pinboard – Period Drama & Documentaries – Be Inspired in 2013

1930s society glamour.

Here are my recommendations for the best documentaries and period dramas currently on or soon to air on British television.

One other treat, that I am thrilled to tell you about, (credit and thanks for this must go to my husband for its discovery), is the recently digitised Radio Times Archive.  The first edition of The Radio Times was printed on 28th September, 1923, a joint venture between the BBC and publisher George Newnes Ltd. The BBC edited the publication from 1925 until 1937 and it was published in-house until 2011. The digitisation of four thousand five hundred copies of the magazine was completed in 2012. However, access to the full archive is currently restricted to BBC staff but it is hoped that by the end of 2013 the entire archive will be available on-line to the general public. Public access is currently limited to a small collection of, downloadable, pre-war television supplements. For the main website, CLICK HERE.

My favourite supplement is one published at the time of King George VI’s (1895-1952) coronation, which took place on Wednesday 12th May, 1937. To download this issue, CLICK HERE. If you want to listen to an original recording of the King’s coronation speech, then it is available on British Pathé’s website. It might be a good idea to turn-up the sound on your computer before you begin, as it is very faint. The whole speech lasts just over eight minutes.  For the speech, CLICK HERE.

Ripper Street – BBC One

• Victorian Era
• Drama Series 8 x 60 minute episodes. Sundays 9pm

Set in April 1889, six months after the last Jack the Ripper killing, East London. For H Division, the police department charged with keeping order in the seedy back streets of Whitechapel, life goes on. This fictionalised account of the aftermath of the Ripper murders and impact upon the police responsible for solving the crimes, is particularly violent and gory. But nonetheless, a well-acted ensemble piece that contains plenty to hold the interest of Ripper enthusiasts and social historians alike.  Cast includes: Matthew Macfadyen (Detective Inspector Edmund Reid); Jerome Flynn (Detective Sergeant Bennett Drake) and Adam Rothenberg (US Army surgeon and one-time Pinkerton detective, Captain Homer Jackson).

Hat from 1909.

Mr Selfridge – ITV 1

• Edwardian Era
• Drama Series 10 x 60 minute episodes. Sundays 9pm

I have been waiting ages to see Mr Selfridge, ever since ITV teased us with trailers during season three of Downton Abbey last year. It was worth the wait, I know reviews have been mixed but the production values are high and Edwardian London never looked so good. This sumptuous slice of nostalgia helps fill the gap left on Sunday evenings by Downton.

Mr Selfridge is based upon Lindy Woodhead’s book Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge and created by multi-award winning writer Andrew Davies. It tells the story of Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947), the American gentleman who established the iconic British department store, Selfridges, in 1909.  Cast includes Jeremy Piven (Mr Selfridge) and Katherine Kelly (Lady Mae).

Harry Selfridge was born on the 11th January 1858 at Ripon, Wisconsin, USA. Aged twenty-one, he went to work at department store and mail-order firm Field, Leiter & Co (later Marshall, Field & Co). In 1886, he became manager of their retail department. Selfridge left the firm in 1904, after having spent the previous fourteen years as a junior partner there. He used his fortune to buy Chicago firm Schlesinger & Mayer which he proceeded to sell quickly, turning him a profit of £50,000 to go with the return of his £300,000 initial investment.  Selfridge arrived in London in 1906 and lived in fashionable Arlington Street. He set about realising his grand plan to open a large department store in the heart of London and spared no expense in gathering around him the best team possible, employing one thousand two hundred staff at his Oxford Street store and even hiring Goldsman, the chief window-dresser at Marshall, Field & Co.

According to writer and historian, Claire Masset: ‘Perhaps the greatest advertising campaign of the early twentieth century was that of Selfridges, announcing its much-awaited opening in March 1909.  During the entire week of its opening, Harry Gordon Selfridge commissioned thirty-eight advertisements designed by well-known graphic artists, appearing on over a hundred pages of eighteen national newspapers. The campaign, which cost £36,000 (equivalent to £2.35 million today), caused a sensation, with 90,000 people visiting the store on its opening day and over a million in the first week.’ (Masset. C., Department Stores, 2011, p. 26, published by Shire Publications.)

I have had a look through a selection of contemporary newspapers from 1909 and found some simply fascinating examples of Selfridges’ advertising campaign. I hope you enjoy reading them as much I did.

The dedication of a Great House.  A day well spent is passed at Selfridge’s. This house is dedicated to woman’s service first of all.  And for this there are many excellent and satisfying reasons.  To begin with, everything at Selfridge’s is obviously and charmingly NEW – the great building itself and its equipment – the vast stocks of varied merchandise in their entirety – the methods of displaying them to best advantage – and the unaccustomed and luxurious appointments instituted to provide every possible comfort for daily visitors.

  This House is dedicated to woman’s service first of all, and our purpose is to make her shopping more attractive than it has ever been before; so to satisfy her with value, stocks, and prices that she will discover a wider and more pleasurable opening in the word ‘shopping’ than she has hitherto read in it;  and learn regard for Selfridge’s as the best equipped place of merchandise in London for every shopping purpose in which she takes an interest.  There is a home-like lounge for smoking and gentleman are invited to use it as they would their club.

(Daily Express, London, Tuesday March 16th 1909)

Enamelled hat pins, tie-pin and buttons. 1912. On display at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham.

The new hat pins  – we believe that we have gathered the largest show of hat pin novelties ever seen together on a counter. Some are metal filigree, some in enamel, others set with big coloured stones, and others again representing dragon flies, bees, etc. with semi-transparent born wings. This price for a ‘scarab’ pin is 6d. Filigree pins from 9d, and Louis Seize designs set with imitation amethysts, topazes, etc. are 1/- each.

(Daily Express, London, Wednesday 19th May 1909)

Woven underwear – for the chilly season.  Ladies’ white Scotch all wool combinations, guaranteed unshrinkable, with spliced seats, high neck and short or long sleeve or low neck and short sleeves – all sizes, price 8/3.

Autumn knickers – Ladies’ satin, cloth and serge sports knickers suitable for Autumn and Winter wear. These are particularly well made as regards shape and finish, and have buttons for fastening in detachable linings. Jap silk accordion pleated knickers in black and white (with linings) for dancing and evening wear. Price 35/

(Daily Express, London, 20th September 1909)

From 1916 to 1922, Harry Selfridge leased Highcliffe Castle, Highcliffe, Dorset from the Stuart Wortleys and this became his country residence, away from the hustle and bustle of London life. His wife, Rosalie and mother, Lois, lived at Highcliffe. Highcliffe Castle is a Grade 1 Listed Georgian Mansion, built in the Gothic Revival style between 1831 and 1835, originally for Lord Stuart de Rothesay. During his tenancy, Selfridge added a number of modern flourishes to the Mansion, including fitted bathrooms, steam central heating and a fully equipped modern kitchen.

After the death of his wife, in 1918, and his mother, in 1924, he lost his direction somewhat and embarked upon a number of romances with younger women. Then came the Great Depression and World War Two when retail therapy was the last thing on everyone’s mind. In his twilight years, Selfridge frittered away his money in French casino resorts and eventually died, virtually penniless, at 2 Ross Court, Putney Heath, London on 8th May 1947. He is buried in St. Marks Churchyard at Highcliffe, next to his wife and mother.

Meridian (ITV) have produced a short film (3 mins. 47) ‘Meeting Mr Selfridge’, about the new series and Harry Selfridge’s life here in England. There is also a segment about his time at Highcliffe Castle. CLICK HERE.

1930s Burberry shooting coat. Perfect for those country house parties.

Dancing on the Edge – BBC 2 

• 1930s
• Drama Series 5 x 60 minute episodes – Mondays 9pm (Starts Monday 4th February 2013)

This new drama series by acclaimed writer/director Stephen Poliakoff is set in England in between 1931 and 1933.  Dancing on the Edge follows black jazz musicians, the Louis Lester Band, as they find fame at the parties and performances of London’s upper class society. Cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Matthew Goode, Jacqueline Bisset, Janet Montgomery, Joanna Vanderham, Tom Hughes, Angel Coulby, Wunmi Mosaku, Mel Smith, Anthony Head, Caroline Quentin and Jane Asher.

For further background on this production, see David Gritten’s excellent article, ‘Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge: Behind the Scenes’, published on The Telegraph’s website, Monday 21st January 2013. For the article, CLICK HERE. For behind the scenes photographs of the production, CLICK HERE.

One of the locations for this lavish BBC production was  Upton House and Gardens, Nr Banbury, Warwickshire (The National Trust). Before the Second World War, this fifteenth century manor house was owned by Lord and Lady Bearsted. Lord Bearsted (Colonel Walter Horace Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted, MC – 1882-1948) brought Upton in 1927 and until 1929 made many changes to the property and gardens. Notable additions to the interior include a stunning red and silver aluminium leaf art deco bathroom for Lady Bearsted (Dorothy Montefiore Micholls – d.1949) and in the grounds a swimming pool. Lord Bearsted was an astute businessman, he was Director of Lloyds Bank Ltd, Alliance & Assurance Co and also founded the Shell Transport and Trading Company. During the 1930s, the multi-millionaire and his wife hosted lavish house parties at Upton.   The house is full of priceless art treasures and Lord Bearsted was once a Trustee of the National Gallery.

On the weekend of 9th and 10th March, 2013 (Mothering Sunday Weekend),  Upton have a 1930s Beauty Parlour event. There will be demonstrations of 1930s fashion, make-up, hair and beauty techniques. There will also be an opportunity for you to make a gift for your mum. There is no need to pre-book as this event is free, although you will have to pay normal admission charges to Upton.  The house and gardens open again to the public from Saturday 16th February (11-5).  For 2013 opening times. CLICK HERE.

Riding sweater by Hawico, London, 1930s advertisement. ‘Makes an irresistible appeal to all smart riding women. Made in sky, yellow, beige, white and guaranteed to withstand countless washings.’

London store Marshall & Snelgrove’s 1935 advertisement for silk stockings.

Spies of Warsaw- BBC 4

• 1933 to 1943
• Drama Series 2 x 90 minute episodes. Wednesdays 9pm

Directed by Coky Giedroyc, Spies Of Warsaw is a thrilling spy story set in Poland, Paris, London and Berlin between 1933 and 1943. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. Based on a 2008 novel by American bestseller Alan Furst with the screenplay written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. The main protagonist is jaded French agent and former hero of the Great War, Colonel Jean-François Mercier.  Cast includes: David Tennant (Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier); Janet Montgomery (Anna Skarbek); Marcin Dorocinski (Antoni Pakulski) and Ludger Pistor (Edvard Uhl). This is a superb, classy and intelligent thriller. Tennant is brilliant as Colonel Mercier.

Commissioned by Richard Klein, Controller, BBC Four and Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning. Executive produced by Richard Fell for Fresh Pictures and Chris Aird for the BBC, co-produced by Apple Film for TV Poland in association with ARTE FRANCE and BBC Worldwide.

If you would like to read more about the background to this production, Olly Grant has written an excellent, detailed article in Broadcast Now. CLICK HERE.

Call The Midwife (Series 2) – BBC 1

• 1950s – London’s East End
• Drama Series 8 x 60 minute episodes. Sundays 8pm (Starts on 20th January)

Set in London’s East End in the 1950s and based on the memoirs of former midwife Jennifer Worth. For a short history of midwifery in the Britain then please see my popular article, Call The Midwife: An Historical Perspective  (well it did get picked-up and recommended by
http://www.studentmidwife.net
, which I was thrilled about). I will be writing about the tie-in book for series one and two in a future posting, so keep an eye out for that.

Julian Fellowes’s Historical Houses – ITV 1

• Goodwood House and Burghley House
• Documentary – 2 x 60 minute episodes. Tuesdays 9pm (Starts 22nd January)

Who better to present a documentary about two of England’s greatest stately homes, than Downton Abbey‘s creator Julian Fellowes. The two houses in question are Goodwood House, in West Sussex and Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire. Fans of vintage may already be familiar with the annual Goodwood Revival event, which this year takes place on the 13th, 14th and 15th of  September. Fellowes goes in search of fascinating stories behind these two houses and the characters who helped shape their history. Both houses were selected on the basis that they are still in ownership of the families who built them.

Goodwood House is the seat of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox. Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond (1672-1723) was the illegitimate son of Charles II (1630-1685) and Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734). The 1st Duke’s love of hunting led him to Goodwood where he purchased a small Jacobean house on the estate in 1697 for use as a hunting lodge. This house is now referred to as the ‘old house’ and is located at the back of the main house. Goodwood House was developed throughout the eighteenth century. The classical Main Hall was built in 1730, a Palladian style South Wing between 1747-1750 and a North Wing added in 1771. The Regency State apartments were added to the South Wing in 1800. The House now resembles three sides of an octagon. Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701-1750) was a keen cricketer and arranged matches at Goodwood in the mid 1720s. The 2nd Duke is credited with setting-up the first formal rules of the game, the original document is now kept in Goodwood’s archives.

Burghley House was created by William Cecil, 1st Lord Burghley (1521-1598), Lord High Treasurer to Elizabeth I (1533-1603). The house is thought to be one of the largest Elizabethan mansions ever built. Building began in the 1550s. One of the most notable owners of Burghley was William Cecil’s great-great-great-grandson, John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter (1648-1700) who, together with his wife Lady Anne Cavendish (1645-1703), crammed Burghley full of priceless treasures, paintings, furniture and tapestries.  The 5th Earl embarked upon the fashionable Grand Tour and with his wife travelled extensively overseas during a twenty year period. One particular treasure is the Florentine cabinet, enriched with pietra dura panels, which was given to the 5th Earl by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The 5th Earl died in 1700 at Issy near Paris, apparently after consuming a surfeit of fruit!

The world’s first solid bar of chocolate was produced by Bristol company, J S Fry & Sons in 1847. It was called Chocolat Délicieux à Manger (delicious to eat). The bar was bitter, heavy and a challenge for even the strongest of teeth and jaws. After a slow start, popularity gradually followed. The Victorians often took this portable confectionary with them on long railway journeys whereby it served as a handy snack. The three brothers who were running the company when the bar was invented were: Francis Fry (1803-1886); Richard Fry (1807-1878) and Joseph Fry (1795-1879). By 1910, Fry’s employed 6,000 staff.  Invention No. 5 in the BBC’s booklet 50 Great British Inventions. The exhibit shown are examples of Fry’s chocolate labels, on display at MShed Museum, Bristol.

The Genius of Invention – BBC 2

• History of Inventions and Technology
• Documentary 4 x 60 minute episodes. Thursdays – 9pm. (Starts 24th January)

This four-part series will explore the background behind some of the inventions found in everyday life. Michael Mosley, Prof. Mark Miodownik and Dr Cassie Newland explore the very nature of invention and how and why things are invented. Some of the inventions discussed in the series will include the steam engine, jet propulsion, electrical generator, telephony and television. There is a fascinating and well put together booklet to accompany the series, 50 Great British Inventions. It is free to download and packed full of useful background information and images. CLICK HERE.

1935 advertisement for Schweppe’s drinks. The advert reads: ‘For lively people, let there be lively drinks to match - drinks with sparkling, bubbling freshness to revive tired palates.  Schweppes Soda mixes with anything: it improves everything…that’s why it’s so famous.’ Soda water was invented, in 1772, by Joseph Priestley FRS (1733-1804) a clergyman and scientist. He published instructions on how to make carbonated water, using sulphuric acid and chalk. In 1774, the Swiss fizzy drinks pioneer, Johann Jacob Schweppe (1740-1821) set-up his Schweppes drinks company in London so that he could manufacture carbonated mineral water using Priestley’s method. The brand is still going strong today. No. 14 in the BBC’s booklet 50 Great British Inventions.

This series is part of the BBC’s year-long schedule of programmes focussing on all aspects of British inventiveness.  To browse the full catalogue of programmes due for transmission this year, CLICK HERE. Some of my personal favourites are documentaries on the Romantic landscape painter J.M.W. Turner RA (1775-1851);  Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727); Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) – see my article on The Wedgwood Museum for further information on the Wedgwood dynasty; Why the Industrial Revolution Happened here; Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways and Stephen Fry’s Planet Invention exploring the background to the ‘stuff’ that fills our homes from putting knives, jeans, bras, flip-flops and fridges to handbags, fast cars and Swiss watches.

Do also check-out the many Genius of Invention related activities that are taking place at museums and heritage sites throughout the UK. CLICK HERE.

The modern hypodermic syringe was invented, in 1853, by Scottish physician Alexander Wood (1817-1884). He was not the only gentleman important to the development of this type of syringe. Francis Rynd (1811-1861) invented hollow needles and Charles Gabriel Pravaz (1791-1853) invented a metal-bodied syringe with a fine hollow point needle for treating aneurysms. No. 15 in the BBC’s booklet, 50 Great British Inventions. Objects shown are from a display at The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, London.

Petworth House, West Sussex (the National Trust) currently have an important exhibition of Turner’s paintings on view, many for the first time. Turner’s Sussex  includes forty exhibits, plus a rare opportunity to view the Old Library, used by Turner as his studio when he visited Petworth, which he frequently did in the 1820s and 30s.  One of Turner’s patrons was the 3rd Earl of Egremont (George O’Brien Wyndham, 1751-1837) for which Petworth was his country seat. The exhibition continues at Petworth until 13th March 2013.  Booking is essential for Turner’s Sussex. Gates open: 10am; Last admission time: 2.15pm; Timed tickets every 45 minutes; Adult £10, child £5; Two-course lunch and high tea available to pre-book on 01798 342207.  To book tickets, call 0844 249 1895 or book online.

 Carved With Love: The Genius of British Woodwork – BBC4

• History of British Woodwork
• Documentary 3 x 60 minute episodes. Thursdays 9pm

As part of the year-long partnership between the BBC and V&A, this three-part documentary explores some of the most important individuals responsible for shaping the history of British woodwork. Episode one explores the extraordinary life and work of fashionable furniture-maker, Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779). Episode two looks at the output of wood-carver Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) and Episode three provides a close study of carpentry during the Middle Ages, including a detailed look at the roof of Westminster Hall and the seven hundred year old Coronation Chairs.

1930s cocktail party.

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Milestones – Hampshire’s Living History Museum

Milestones – Hampshire’s Living History Museum, Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Situated on the outskirts of Basingstoke, Milestones is Hampshire’s Living History Museum. I was recently invited to spend a day there, meeting Museum staff. Afterwards, I enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the atmospheric cobbled streets, visiting buildings and shops that have been recreated from a bygone era.

A well-stocked Co-op shop at Milestones. The Co-op were one of the first high-street retailers to pre-package many of the goods they sold.

Milestones is a relatively new Museum and was the vision of curator Gary Wragg. In 1996, a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, of over £6 million, was awarded to build a Museum that celebrated Hampshire’s rich industrial and social heritage.  The new building also enabled some of the vast collection of objects housed in the county’s museum store to be put on display, for the very first time, in one location. Milestones was opened on 1st December 2000 by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. The Museum has since gone from strength to strength and in 2003 was awarded the National Heritage Museum of the Year Social and Industrial History Award.

A Victorian chemist’s shop window. Milestones.

There are over twenty-one thousand objects on display at Milestones from the Victorian era to the 1940s.  It is a pure delight for anyone with a passion for history, no matter what your age, to be able to enjoy domestic and industrial artefacts in their appropriate context.  In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the county of Hampshire was an extremely important centre for industrial manufacture and Milestones showcases this superbly.

1956 record player in ‘You Must Remember This’. This record player was called ‘Snow White’s Coffin’ due to the fact that the functions are clearly visible through the Perspex cover. Designed by Dieter Rams and made by Braun.

A 1960s kitchen. ‘You Must Remember This’, Milestones.

One of my favourite areas of Milestones was ‘You Must Remember This’. Room settings from the 1930s-1970s designed to encourage the visitor to talk about their own memories. Above image is the 1940s kitchen.

I asked the Commercial Activities Manager at Milestones, Louise Mackay, what exhibits are most popular with visitors?: ‘The steam locomotives are a favourite with all ages but the 1940s exhibits are probably our most popular at the moment. I think that one of the reasons is our older visitors can still identify with this period. Over the last few years, interest in all things vintage has also helped raise awareness of this era. In fact earlier this month we hosted our first Blackout Party. An after hours event for adults, with a 1940s theme. Guests listened to music from the era and many came dressed in Forties clothes. We had about four hundred guests. Next summer we are hoping to host another Vintage Festival here and expect this to be as popular with our visitors as the one we held in June.’

The historic Fire Station at Milestones. Children can dress-up in a Fireman’s outfit and climb on board a Fire Engine.

Milestones is divided into court yards, main streets and back streets which gives the visitor the experience of walking around an established town. In Anna Valley Place, enter Waterloo Ironworks and discover the history of W. Tasker & Sons Ltd, an engineering firm that was based near to Andover, Hampshire. Taskers was established in 1813 and for one hundred and seventy years became the leading manufacturer of a wide range of agricultural implements. In the Thornycroft works shed there is a large collection of vehicles manufactured by this Basingstoke firm. Another important industrial firm was Wallis & Steevens, based in Basingstoke at Station Hill. Founded in 1856 and during its one hundred and twenty-five years of trading they designed steam engines, tractors, wagons and road rollers. They were particularly known for their steam and petrol rollers.

This object caught my eye in the jeweller’s and watchmaker’s shop. It is a bracket clock in a gilt brass case by J. R. Arnold. English, London. c.1843. The clock would once have been covered by a glass dome.

On the main High Street you can take visit a wide range of shops stocked with artefacts from times past. Every type of trade is represented, greengrocer, ironmonger, jeweller and watchmaker, Co-operative Society, Post-Office, milliner, saddlery, sweet shop, cycle shop, gas showroom, garage, a pub, chemist, photographer, toy shop and many more besides.

The streets are filled with vintage vehicles and there is even a railway station which is a replica of the former Chesil Street Station in Winchester complete with a Governess Cart setting-down its passengers for an afternoon departure.

A station porter greets a Governess, her charge and mistress at Chesil Street Station Winchester. Milestones.

A free hand-held audio guide is also available for visitors. This provides additional background information on the exhibits and helps to bring the settings to life.  I must praise the curatorial team who have avoided the common mistake, so often made with this type of museum, of creating a historical ‘theme park’. The costumed interpreters are not intrusive or pushy but extremely knowledgeable about their particular era and most importantly have a genuine passion for bringing the past alive and to as wider audience as possible. It is with this talented group of individuals that I found the heart and soul of Milestones.

The 1940s sweet shop at Milestones.

Armed with my penny and mini ration book sheet, which visitors can obtain from the gift shop, I was escorted to the 1940s sweet shop by Kate, one of the superb costumed interpreters. The delightful young lady explained to me the idea behind this particular exhibit: ‘We would like visitors to experience a traditional sweet shop during World War Two when rationing was in place. They can select one type of sweet from the selection on offer here and for your penny you will get two ounces of sweets. We then mark-off your ration sheet to show you have had your weekly allowance. Two ounces were the weekly sweet ration in the 1940s. There is no chocolate available in this sweetshop either.’

Sweets were rationed in Britain from 26th July 1942 to 5th February 1953. Chocolate was rationed from 1941. The government banned manufacturers from using fresh milk. Consequently, Ration Chocolate was all that was available and this was made using dried skimmed milk powder.

Inside the 1940s sweet shop. Milestones.

Kate told me about the origin of various sweets that we all know and love today.  I didn’t realise that ‘Jelly Babies’ were originally known as ‘Peace Babies’.  Bassett’s created ‘Peace Babies’ in 1918, to mark the end of World War One. During World War Two, production ceased and in 1953 the popular sweet was re-launched as ‘Jelly Babies’.  I chose two ounces of Jelly Babies.

The sweet shop is staffed by a team of dedicated volunteers and open on weekdays 1-3pm and weekends, bank holidays and school holidays 12-4pm.  One of the volunteers told me why she enjoyed working in the shop so much: ‘It is the stories that we are told by some of our older customers who remember similar sweet shops during the War. One particular customer told me that when she was a child, her town was badly bombed one night. The next day she discovered that in addition to the homes that were destroyed in her neighbourhood, the sweet shop had also suffered the same fate. It was the loss of the local sweet shop that she had found particularly upsetting.  Another customer told me that when she got her weekly sweet rations she would choose sweets that she could cut in half so that they lasted longer. I also enjoy seeing grandparents talking to their grandchildren about their memories of Wartime and rationing. It is lovely to see such interactions between the different generations.’

In 1967, famous chocolate manufacturers, Bendicks, moved to premises in Winchester, Hampshire. Bendicks were established in 1930 by Mr Oscar Benson and Colonel ‘Bertie’ Dickson and began production in 1931 from a tiny basement beneath 184 Church Street, Kensington, London. In 1962, Bendicks received the much coveted Royal Warrant.  Bendicks dark English mint batons use Black Mitcham peppermint that is grown at a farm in the foothills of the Hampshire Downs.

Below are a few sweet brands that you might know, together with the year they first went on sale:

1881 – Rowntree’s Crystallised gums (later became Fruit Pastilles)

1887 – Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate

1899-1900 – Seaside rock first produced

1909 – Maynard’s Wine Gums

1911 – Wrigley’s Chewing Gum

1914 – Fry’s Turkish Delight

c.1918 – Fox’s Glacier Mins

1935 – Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisps (became Kit Kat in 1937)

1938 – Cadbury’s Roses

1951 – Bounty (Mars)

1959 – Mars’ Opal Fruits

1967 – Mars’ Twix

(Milestones, Living History Museum)

Inside the 1930s gramophone shop. Milestones.

Kate then accompanied me across the pretty cobble streets to the 1930s gramophone record shop.  This shop really is something special, a stunning interior packed to the rafters with home entertainment objects from a bygone era. Visitors select a record, from a large choice presented in a catalogue, to be played on a 1928 gramophone.  I just couldn’t decide, so asked Kate to choose her favourite, which was ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ (1932).

Costumed interpreter Kate puts a record on the gramophone. Milestones.

The playing of this record instantly transported us both back to our respective childhoods, only difference is that our household didn’t have a gramophone in it.  Kate told me: ‘I remember as a child that there was a gramophone in our home. My parents were very interested in history and vintage objects. I think that is one of the reasons why I have such a passion for the bringing the past alive. Nowadays, in these difficult economic times, people are looking back to a time when everything seemed to be more wholesome, better.’

Costumed interpreter Dickon, as a 1920s road repair workman in his ‘living van’. This van is often on display at outside events and Dickon assures me that the cooking range works really well. I would love to have had a go at cooking on it! Milestones.

I also spoke with another costumed interpreter, Dickon.  Dickon has worked at Milestones for seven years and his specialist areas of interest are transport history and industrial heritage.  I asked Dickon whether he had always been interested in living history?: ‘Yes, very much.  I come from an art and design background originally but inherited my love of transport history from my father who has been collecting vintage cars for over thirty years.  I also own a 1929 Austin 7.  I often attend vintage events in my spare time and have a Wing Commanders uniform that I wear when I am driving my Austin 7.’

Steam roller by Wallis & Steevens, 1927, used for road repairs. Milestones.

Dickon has a number of different characters that he interprets at Milestones, including a 1930s car salesman. However, on the day of my visit his persona was a road repair man from the late 1920s.  Dickon explained that during this period, workmen would travel up and down the country with their steam roller and towed ‘living van’.  I asked Dickon what his favourite exhibit at Milestones was?: ‘The 1903 motorcar by Thornycroft of Basingstoke. It is the oldest Thornycroft motorcar in existence.  It is a 10hp, two-cylinder and has had its bodywork completely restored. Luckily, we had the original drawings for the vehicle which helped considerably in the restoration process. The paintwork is not sprayed but all painted by hand. I particularly like the beautiful wooden spokes on the wheels, such attention to detail. The first owner of this car was Reverend H. A. Acheson-Gray. I haven’t driven the car myself but it is one of my dreams to be able to do so.’

Thornycroft of Basingstoke are probably best known for their shipbuilding, marine engineering and commercial vehicle endeavours.  However, between 1903 and 1912 they manufactured high quality motor cars. If you want to find-out more about Thornycroft’s car industry and read a full history of the 1903 car displayed at Milestones, which includes background on the restoration process, then CLICK HERE. 

Reverend H.A. Acheson-Gray takes his 1903, 10hp, Thornycroft motorcar to be repaired at the local blacksmith. For more information on Britain’s first village garages then you might be interested to read my previous article on the subject. CLICK HERE.

The penny arcade was so much fun! I changed a pound coin for some old-fashioned pennies. This private collection of vintage, penny arcade machines and automata is on loan to Milestones until September 2013.

Vintage penny slot machine. Milestones.

I put my penny in the slot and asked Madam Zasha for a reading. Automata, such as this, were very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Madam Zasha gives her verdict.

Milestones is such a wonderful day-out for visitors of all ages who are interested in history and vintage or just want a slice of good old-fashioned nostalgia. There is a well-stocked gift shop with a wide range of history books too and a 1950s style café for you to rest your weary legs.  For adults there is even a working Edwardian pub, Baverstock Arms (but do check its opening times upon arrival).  Alton-born James Baverstock (1741-1815) was a Brewer and thought to be the first person to make use of a hydrometer in the brewing process. In 1769 he married Jane Hinton, daughter of the Reverend John Hinton of Chawton, Hampshire with whom he had a large family and plenty of heirs to carry on his brewery business for him.

If you are looking for somewhere to visit over the Christmas period then the good news is Milestones will be open. The Museum is easily accessible by both car and public transport. I can vouch for the latter as this was how I chose to travel there.  Basingstoke is only forty-five minutes by train from London Waterloo. A shuttle bus (by Courtney Buses www.courtneybuses.com) runs at regular intervals from outside Basingstoke Railway Station to Milestones (fare currently costs £2 return). Because Milestones is all undercover, there is no need to worry about the weather spoiling your visit either.  All in all the perfect day out for the whole family. For further visitor, collection and event information, please CLICK HERE. Admission charges do apply.

Christmas Opening Times

• Sat 22 Dec and Sun 23 Dec: Open 11am–4.45pm
• Mon 24 Dec to Weds 26 Dec: CLOSED
• Thurs 27 to Mon 31 Dec: Weekdays open 10am–4.45pm, weekends 11am–4.45pm
• Tues 1 Jan: CLOSED
• Weds 2 to Sun 6 Jan: Weekdays open 10am–4.45pm, weekends 11am–4.45pm

Normal Opening Times

• Tue–Fri, Bank Holidays, 10am–4.45pm
• Sat and Sun, 11am–4.45pm
• Last admission 3.45pm
• Closed Monday.
  

  I spent ages in Collections Corner and fans of vintage will adore this section. It is chock-full of domestic technology objects. Here are some early twentieth century, electric, cookers.

A surviving rare example of a Tempera Permanent Wave Machine – heat clamp method by Wella. c.1946. Collections Corner. Milestones.

Vintage electric mixers. Collections Corner. Milestones.

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Dazzle – Art Deco Fashion From The Roaring Twenties – Gosport Gallery

Dazzle Exhibition (until Saturday 29th December). Gosport Gallery, Gosport, Hampshire.

Modernistic effects in furniture and architecture are being used with a vengeance by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Joan Crawford’s new picture.  Weird beds, almost on the floor, have little woodwork frame save foot-high boards which conceal the springs and do away without the conventional legs of a bed.  These are set against a wall whose only ornamenting is the shape of the doors.  Black statues set against gold papered panels from the ornamental note. The whole thing is being photographed under the huge new incandescent lights.

(Extract from a 1928 Studio Press Release for MGM’s Our Dancing Daughters)

Our Dancing Daughters was the first in a trilogy of films designed under the auspices of Head of Art Direction at MGM, Cedric Gibbons (1893-1960).  The other films in the trilogy being Our Blushing Brides (1928) and Our Modern Maidens (1929). His high style, Art Deco inspired, set designs were befitting to the telling of modern-day stories that celebrated the decadence and rise of flapperism in The Roaring Twenties.

In 1925, Gibbons along with one hundred other U.S. delegates, visited the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, and it was here that Art Deco received one of its first major, official, public appearances. Art Deco made an impact upon the U.S. delegates, many of whom went on to introduce this style to American consumers and cinema audiences alike. During the Twenties, Art Deco was extremely popular in Europe and America, although only the rich and middle-classes could afford to consume the style in its undiluted form.  However, it is important to point-out here that ‘Art Deco’ was only defined as a design style in 1968, when Historian Bevis Hillier wrote his seminal work, Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. In the Twenties, Art Deco styling appeared everywhere, from building exteriors to fashion.

Dazzle Exhibition, Gosport Gallery, Hampshire.

Dazzle Exhibition, Gosport Gallery, Hampshire.

This was the decade when socialites, aristocrats and Bohemians hosted extravagant parties and wore stunning beaded ensembles that shimmered in the electric lights whilst they Charlestoned their way through the night to fast-paced, jazz music. If you want to experience this exciting ‘Jazz Age’ then take a moment to pause here and watch a short British Pathé film (2 minutes 40 seconds). The film is from 1929 and features the Covent Garden Band playing jazz tune, ‘Who Wouldn’t Be Jealous Of You’. A flapper boy and girl also dance the Charleston. CLICK HERE.

I have a passion for Twenties fashion and was delighted to accept an invitation to visit Gosport Gallery in Hampshire to view the exhibition Dazzle.  What an absolute treat Dazzle is and cleverly curated in the space by Gill Arnott, Keeper of the Arts for Hampshire Museums and Arts Service. Upon entry to the Gallery you are greeted with a central display of spectacular Art Deco beaded dresses and are instantly transported back in time by vibrant jazz music.  The exhibition, although a gem in its own right, is also a superb source of inspiration, for the fashion forward among you, for what will be the hottest trend in 2013, the Twenties. There are eighteen garments from Hampshire County Council’s Museums Service collection on display and it is a unique opportunity to see these amazing but fragile pieces displayed together for the first time.  The exhibition ends on Saturday 29th December. Free admission.

Light green chiffon dress, tabard style, with wide shallow scooped neckline. Decorated asymmetrically with a bold design of silver bugle beads. C.1925-27.Weight 406g.Dazzle Exhibition. BWM1963.161. Hampshire County Council Arts and Museums Service (HCC Arts & Museums).

Salmon pink and silver dress decorated in pink faceted rocailles, pale pink bugle beads and silver lozenge-shaped beads. The beaded fringe would have created movement when dancing. The dress is constructed in three layers, with the bottom layer forming the lining. C.1925-27. Weight 914g. Dazzle Exhibition. C.1996.116. HCC Arts & Museums.

Alongside this incredible selection of dresses are shoes, fans, hats, shawls and other exquisite accessories from the same collection.

Black crepe de chine shoes edged and trimmed in gold kid. Complex cross-over T-straps trimmed with green and red dyed lizard skin roundels ending in imitation tassels.  Red cut paste buttons. Very high Louis heel. C.1923-1925. Dazzle Exhibition. The secure T-strap meant this type of shoe was perfect for dancing the frenetic Charleston without fear that one’s shoes might come off and be flung across the dance floor. HCC Arts & Museums.

Art Deco style, beaded evening bag. C.1920-1930. Dazzle Exhibition. The fashion for wearing make-up meant that the bright young things needed somewhere to store their powder compacts and lipsticks. The beaded bag was the perfect solution.  HCC Arts & Museums.

The Twenties female silhouette is easily recognisable.  Dresses have loose-fitting, drop waists with knee-length skirts and often incorporate pleating, rosettes and brooches on a single shoulder.

Evening beaded dress in black silk with white and silver beads in peacock feathers style design. Dazzle Exhibition. C.2003.2.1. HCC Arts & Museums.

Evening dress in pale pink chiffon decorated with glass beads and silver thread. Rivis Collection. Purchased with the support of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund. Dazzle Exhibition. C.1976.31.417. HCC Arts & Museums.

Black, open weave dress decorated with silver and gold bugle beads and sequins. There is a striking narrow V to the neckline, with collar band reminiscent of Egyptian design. The beads are sewn on machine stitch using a tambour. Rivis Collection. C.1926-28. Weight 904g. Dazzle Exhibition. C.1976.31.418. HCC Arts & Museums.

This style of dress was perfect for dancing the night away and allowed for freedom of movement. Design influences were drawn from a wide range of countries and their cultures including the Far and Middle East, the Americas and most notably Egypt.  In 1922, the discovery by Howard Carter (1874-1939) of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings sparked an interest, particularly among fashion designers, for Egyptian motifs.

White satin shoe with oval diamante trim. High curved and waisted Louis heel covered in white plastic, painted with a design on an Egyptian theme in red, green and gold and inset with multi-coloured diamante. Printed label Debenham and Freebody. Wigmore St. C.1935. Dazzle Exhibition.C.1988.124. HCC Arts & Museums.

During the 1920s, Coco Chanel’s (1883-1971) iconic “little black dress” (LBD) also emerged, made from thin silk and crèpe de chine. Chanel was: ‘..known for her simple daytime garments, often made from materials such as wool jersey.  In 1926, she brought the little black dress to the fashion world and created the essential fashion garment of every woman’s wardrobe.’ (2010, p. 2, Dazzle Exhibition, Hampshire Museums Service). At this time, Chanel also started a fashion for wearing long strings of pearls.

In 1922, beige seamed stockings became available. The fashion was for legs to appear as naked as possible, a daring change from the modesty of Edwardian ankle-length gowns. Gradually, other stocking shades appeared such as grey and flesh tones. Artificial silk (Celanese acetate) was also invented during the Twenties.  The word “Celanese” was first introduced as a trade name in 1925, a combination of the words “cellulose” and “ease”.

Surviving examples of dresses from this period are very rare, which is one of the reasons why this exhibition is so special. The dresses on display at Gosport Gallery would have more than likely been made by hand and cost a great deal of money at the time to purchase. Curator, Gill Arnott, tells me: ‘The average cost of one of these dresses was between £3.10 shillings and £6. 10 shillings. That was approximately one tenth of a working girl’s annual salary.’

Some of the luxury fabrics used are of a very delicate nature, such as silk chiffon, silk georgette, silk satin, ninon and voile.  The evening dresses are heavily beaded which means that each garment can weigh anything from 450g to several kilos. The average weight of a satin party dress nowadays is 250g. ‘The best beaders were in Paris and La Maison Lallement were considered one of the finest establishments. Some of the heavily beaded dresses could have taken a single person up to three weeks to bead.’ (2010, p. 5, Dazzle Exhibition, Hampshire Museums Service).

Close-up detail of the exquisite beadwork. Dazzle Exhibition. HCC Arts & Museums.

‘The weight of the dresses helped them to fall into the straight tubular fashion but also caused them to tear and rip, which explains why so few have survived in good condition.  The sequins, or paillettes could also cause problems as they were generally made out of wax which clumped together or melted when the wearer got too hot or when a partner rested their clammy hands on the dresses!’ (Ibid. p.8).

I asked Gill to tell me about some of the challenges faced by her team in displaying and conserving these precious dresses: ‘All the mannequins in the exhibition were bespoke, made in-house, to fit each dress exactly. Every mannequin has an accession number marked inside so that we can match them up again in the future should we re-exhibit.  The dresses are different weights and shapes so it is important that they are supported on a tailor-made structure to avoid any deterioration whilst out on display.  It took a team of three to get each dress onto a mannequin and we have to wear gloves to handle all the items in the collection. Firstly, a sheet was placed on the floor to catch any falling beads or sequins. Then, one person held the mannequin while the other two fitted the garment on it. The first person then eased down the hem. We had to work together as a team and I am very proud to say that with Dazzle, so far we have only lost one bead!’

I asked Gill if there were any plans to re-exhibit Dazzle in 2013? ‘Yes. We are hoping to re-exhibit a version of the collection at the Willis Museum in Basingstoke  during the summer next year. Displaying the dresses at that time of year will present my team with additional conservation challenges.  The gelatine-based sequins do not respond well to warm temperatures, heat from our gloved hands could melt them. We will have to wear extra gloves and try not to over-handle the dresses.’

Women in the Twenties began to wear heavy make-up and many followed the fashion of the day by having their hair cut into short bobs (1924). Another popular hairstyle, appearing for the first time in 1923, was an even shorter cut, the shingle. ‘Developed in France by a Parisian hairdresser, it was a method of cutting the hair by means of tapering which, in the hands of a skilled operator, could be adapted to suit any shape of head.  The early form of shingle was short and exposed the hair-line at the back of the neck. By 1925 it was fairly common, the hair being cut to follow the shape of the head with perhaps a slight fringe and soft waves at the sides…Bandeaux of every description were fashionable, especially for evening wear, including narrow ones of diamanté or broad ones of beadwork, silver lace or silver thread embroidery.  Some, known as shingle bands, were artfully designed to cover the shorn back of the head.’ (De Courtais D., 1988, p.150, Women’s Headdress and Hairstyles: In England From AD 600 to the Present Day). In 1926, the boyish cut known as the Eton crop was another popular hairstyle.

Shawl, feathers and cap of bronze mesh with gold sequins. C.1928. Dazzle Exhibition. HCC Arts & Museums.

Once the hair had been cut into a preferred style, permanent waving, such as that offered by Messrs. Marcel’s Ltd, was also a popular and practical fashionable flourish.  I found an advertisement from 1923, by Marcel’s Ltd, for permanent waving in which the benefits of this new hairdressing technique were promoted:

..this modern method of waving and curling the hair so that it “lasts in” for six to eight months is most bountifully time-saving.  Bobbed hair or long hair, scanty hair or thick – it is all the same to the clever assistants at this famous house for permanent waving, 353 Oxford Street, W1 and the charge is always the same, five shillings each per curler or waver….Tropical heat, hot shampoos, or sea bathing have no effect on permanent waves.

Young lady with “Marcel Waves in her hair”, from the firm’s 1923 advertisement.

Interest in Twenties fashion and lifestyle is growing apace and I predict this trend will continue throughout 2013.  I asked Gill Arnott (Curator of Dazzle) for her thoughts on this: ‘I definitely have seen more beaded garments on the High Street in 2012. Miss Selfridge produced a range of beaded dresses earlier in the year. I also think that younger people are asking more questions of their older relatives about fashions worn by them in their day. The family photo album is now inspiring conversations between younger and older generations about fashion trends from bygone eras.’

There are also several high-profile productions, set in the Twenties, due for release in 2013. One being series three of Downton Abbey premiering on Masterpiece Classic in the US on January 6th. and the long-awaited release of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, on May 10th.  Gill and I are not alone in our observations for a Twenties revival, according to a recent MailOnline article: ‘..it appears that we are so fixated with the upstairs/downstairs lives of the 1920s characters that we are even starting to copy their wardrobes.  Sales of retro styles, including flapper dresses and demure ruffled blouses, are on the rise…. Figures from Littlewoods show that since the third series [Downton Abbey] started sales of flapper style dresses have increased by 40%, traditional ruffle blouses shot-up by 109% and even men are buying in to the trend with tweed and cord blazer sales rising a massive 146%.’ (Daily Mail – MailOnline ‘Return of Downton Abbey Sends Sales of 1920s Fashion Soaring’ – 3rd October 2012)

Fashion journalists also predict that sales of Twenties inspired velvet jackets will continue to be a menswear trend in 2013: ‘With the eagerly awaited movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby set for release in 2013, styles of the 1920s have become one of the biggest trends in womenswear this year.  But thanks to the velvet jacketed stars of The Great Gatsby, the Twenties are taking menswear by storm as well….A huge catwalk trend, the trend has hit the high street too, with M&S reporting a 42% increase in sales compared to this time last year.’ (Ruth Styles, Daily Mail – MailOnline ’Great Gatsby Chic The Velvet Jacket is this Season’s Biggest Partywear Trend for Men as Great Gatsby Chic Sweeps the Nation’ – 13th December 2012)

I thoroughly recommend the Dazzle exhibition at Gosport Gallery, a visit will put you in the mood for the forthcoming Christmas party season as well as give you ideas for the hottest fashion trend around.  The exhibition continues until Saturday 29th December 2012 and admission is free. The Gosport Gallery is located just across from the Discovery Centre, Walpole Road, Gosport, Hampshire, PO12 1NS and is open Monday to Saturday 10am – 4pm (closed Sunday and 24th, 25th and 26th December).  For more information visit
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/gosport-gallery.htm
 or call 0845 603 5631.

Further Resources

• The Victoria and Albert Museum, London have a brilliant section on their website with many articles and information about Art Deco. CLICK HERE;
• Fashion bible Vogue have a Great Gatsby fashion on-line gallery. CLICK HERE.;
• Glamour Magazine have compiled a selection of 1920s inspired vintage dresses that are currently available. CLICK HERE;
• For a brilliant article on fashion and lifestyle in 1920s Berlin, have a look at the recently published: Bohème Sauvage: back to Berlin 1920s style by Carolyn Hair at Culture Darling. There are some great images to inspire you as well. CLICK HERE.
• Finally, there are some gorgeous 1920s style dresses on www.rockmyvintage.co.uk . They have gathered a collection of vintage 1920s dresses and Twenties style dresses ‘…to tempt you into a classic Charleston look with a modern twist’.  CLICK HERE.

Shapewear advertisement from 1923. Girdles for young ladies were lightly boned with elasticated panels. If you were well-endowed, bandeaus or cupless brassieres were worn to flatten the breasts, this also allowed the dress to hang smoothly from the shoulders. This was the decade when dieting become fashionable and counting calories normal among the bright young things.

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