Should you have the misfortune to suffer a household/business fire in the Georgian period, then let’s hope you had taken out fire insurance. If you hadn’t then you would not be eligible to call on the services of the firefighters to save all your treasured possessions, not to mention your life.
Cambridge Intelligencer 17 March 1798
However, this suggestion seems to be a little unfounded, as, if your home/business was on fire, there was a great risk of it spreading to surrounding buildings, so it seems unlikely that, if possible, firefighters would actually allow a neighbouring building to be demolished.
Each insurance company had its own fire service, and the way in which the firemen knew you had insurance was by a metal plaque on your house which would confirm your eligibility, such as this one:
The Hand in Hand Insurance Company fire plaque, formerly fixed to the wall at the British Museum
Well, one of the things I noticed in this research was that those Georgians certainly appeared to have scant regard for health and safety of fire firefighters, as newspapers of the day wrote about the accidents they sustained in their work.
The most common injury sustained by the firefighters was broken leg(s) and here are just a few examples:
Derby Mercury 8 March 1738
On Wednesday night last, died Daniel James, the fireman, who had both of his legs cut off after they were broken by his falling from a house, as he was endeavouring to climb up it by the help of his hitcher.
Advertisement for a Fire Escape by Richard Newman. 1805 Courtesy of YCBA
The Hampshire Chronicle 26 September 1791
Tuesday night at about ten o’clock, a fire broke out at a haberdasher’s in Houndsditch, which consumed the inside of the house, furniture, and stock, by which accident two children were burnt to death, and it is supposed a man is lost, that went up a three-storey ladder, as he has not been seen since. The master of the house broke his leg in getting out and was conveyed to the London Infirmary in Whitechapel Road. A fireman was very much bruised by the ladder breaking when he had got two storeys high and falling into the street.
St. Paul’s Covent Garden during the Fire on 17 September 1795. YCBA
Saint James’s Chronicle, 6 December 1803 reported that a large fire took place on Frith Street, Soho which let 10 houses in smoking ruin. Naturally the fire service were called to assist. The detailed account of the incident ending with the following:
We are very happy to learn that there were no lives lost, nor any accident happened, but to Crowder, a fireman belonging to the Hand-in-Hand office, who had both his legs broken (not his thigh as a stated). He now lies at the Middlesex hospital; his leg were both set, and it is expected he will recover the use of them.
Fire in London 1808 YCBA
General Evening Post 16 May 1809
A fire broke out at Billingsgate onboard a vessel in the quay. Two brigs laden with tallow and butter were completely destroyed.
While the firemen and watermen were most actively employed in rescuing some cart loads of property from the flames, a floor in the warehouse of Liddard and Elwin, containing about 700 firkins of butters fell in and several of the firemen were up to the calves in boiling grease; a young man by the name of Kingsman, a fireman, belonging to the Globe, had the misfortune to get the boiling liquid above his boot-tops, and was so dreadfully scalded that he was carried off to St Bartholomew’s hospital.
View of Drury Lane Theatre on fire, from a nearby street, guards lined up on street, firemen attacking flames in front, a man escaping with a sack on the left. 1809 British Museum
Morning Advertiser 20 June 1808
A few evenings since a fire broke out in East Lane, Rotherhithe, when a fireman of the name of Wiltshire, was thrown down by one of the engines, which went over both his legs, which were broken to pieces, of which he died the next day. A Coroner’s Inquest returned a verdict of accidental Death.
According to the Exeter Flying Post of 14 September 1820, about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, a fire broke out at the house of a bricklayer, at the back of the Horse and Jockey Inn, in the village of Heavitree, Devon. The West of England, Norwich Union, Sun and other fire engines were quickly dispatched to the property, but before they arrived the fire had taken hold and continued to burn for a further three hours. Five houses in front and five cottages behind which were thatched readily burned the blazing properties were destroyed. The firemen did their best to put out the blaze, but their progress was retarded by the lack of a regular water supply. One fireman had his leg broken, and two others were severely bruised by some water casks falling on them from out of a cart, which turned up, owing to its not being fastened by the tipstick in front.
UPDATE courtesy of Sarah Waldock some fire signs and the first ever fire engine, of 1732, with the force pump invented, or re-discovered by Richard Newsham, the engine being made for Little Glemham Hall; the engine is on loan by the current owner, Lady Blanche Cobbold.
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The Arrival of the Fire Engine Thomas Rowlandson YCBA
I came across a story to share with you from the Star, 29 June 1802 which described Monsieur Garnerin’s first flight in England ,although I had read that his first flight didn’t take place until 21 September 1802, but perhaps it was, that on that occasion he made the first parachute jump.
A group of people/party-goers known as the Pic Nics made the news on a regular basis around this time. The group included the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Duchesses of Manchester and Gordon, Leeds amongst many others, all carefully named by the newspaper, in order of their social status.
Weather-wise, June would usually be regarded as an ideal time to meet up and enjoy an outdoor party and so at about two o’clock in the afternoon, the Regatta began with about forty of them began their party along the Thames from Whitehall stairs in large pleasure barges sailing to Ranelagh pleasure gardens. Accompanying the party goers was another boat with a very large band of wind instruments and other pleasure barges filled with ‘people of distinction’.
The Pic-Nic Orchestra Gillray. MetMuseum
Sadly, the weather was not quite as good as it could have been, but poor weather wasn’t going to spoil their fun. They reached Ranelagh stairs about an hour later, after encountering a very strong ebb tide and a very strong breeze from the South West and were saluted on landing, with a volley from the soldiers on duty in the gardens.
The Interior of the Rotunda, Ranelagh, London; Canaletto; Compton Verney
The breakfast, as it was described, consisted of all the delicacies of the season. The wines were not only abundant but of the best quality. Those who came with guinea tickets were admitted to the gallery of the rotunda below, at tables equally well supplied. But the principal attraction was the ascension of Monsieur Jacques Garnerin in his small balloon. This was to be his first flight in this country, and he later went on to make several more during his visit.
About four o’clock the company left the breakfast tables and retired to the garden to watch the event. The Pic Nics contracted Garnerin to take to the air by paying him 500 guineas. Captain Snowden, a member of the group, agreed to accompany him and it was said that he had a wager with someone of 200 guineas to take part in this. Sadly, the article omits to tell us who the other party was.
A later image of André Jacques Garnerin descending from a balloon by parachute in a field near St Pancras Church British Museum
This proved to be quite a spectacle. The figure and proportions of the balloon was described as:
grand and beautiful, it’s colours were alternate sections of dark green and yellow, The vessel that contained the materials from which the gas was generated the tubes by which it was conveyed to the balloon, the most minute part of the instruments, and the process were examined with the most particular attention that wonder and curiosity could excite.
Whilst the audience were waiting in the garden for the ascent, they were entertained with several excellent pieces of music by the band who had attended on the river. The balloon had been filling since about nine in the morning, and a few minutes before five it was deemed sufficiently filled and ready to ascend. Monsieur Garnerin stepped into the car under the balloon. A lady of the party tried to persuade Captain Snowden not to go, but her please fell on deaf ears. After a brief period making final adjustments, the balloon was ready. Initially, it wouldn’t lift as Garnerin had hope, so he threw out some of the extra ballast, which immediately solved the problem.
Three signal guns were fired for his ascent and just as the balloon was rising Captain Snowden sat down, but Garnerin insisted he stood otherwise it could prove fatal. The balloon ascended in the most majestic manner, amidst the onlookers numbering by now about a thousand who were assembled in the garden. The car was richly decorated with flags of different nations in honour of the Peace of Amiens.
Immense crowds were assembled in Battersea fields, the upper part of Millbank, Tothill Fields, Chelsea and Pimlico; every window, every house top, every tree was filled. Chelsea gardens were crowded, the river was covered with boats, while on the banks on both side, an every avenue from town towards Ranelagh were thronged. The great road from Buckingham gate was absolutely impassable, or at least the carriages which formed an unbroken chain from the Turnpike to Ranelagh door, could only advance so slowly that many preferred to get out and struggle through the amassed crowd.
The newspaper assured its readers that:
No balloon that ever before went up, took a course so directly over London from West to East. It passed over the Five Fields, part of the Park, Pall-Mall, Charing Cross, the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, St Paul’s churchyard and could be distinctly seen above every street.
Every shop was totally deserted as everyone had taken to the streets to watch. Monsieur Garnerin could be distinctly seen waving the flags, and at one time he came down very low and threw out yet more ballast, rapidly ascended and disappeared behind a cloud. Soon after this it began to rain, but this did not deter Garnerin and his fellow passenger and thy travelled on to Colchester, Essex, 51 miles from London, in just a few hours, where they landed without any accident.
Those left at Ranelagh were refreshed with tea, coffee and an excellent cold meal, most leaving Ranelagh sometime around seven in the evening. A large party of the light horse and foot guards were stationed in all directions leading to Ranelagh to keep the peace and watch out for pickpockets.
Having previously taken a look at clothes washing in the 18th century in ‘Washday Blues‘, I thought it was worth taking a closer look at Edward Beetham, who invented a washing machine.
Washing machines have, in one form or another been around for some considerable time. The Salisbury and Hampshire Journal, 16 October 1752, carried the following advert for a machine capable of washing clothes:
JAMES MOULTON, Cooper and Turner
The corner of Church Row, without Aldgate, London
The most useful machine or Washing Engine of various sizes, made after the completest manner, both for dispatch and strength, ease in the operation, and safety to the finest linen, being adjudged by far superior to any former projections, by the repeated experience of thousands, who are pleased to given them that character, being capable of washing more linen in twenty minutes than can be done without in two hours, being determined to spare no expenses to maintain the character they have so justly acquired, which by some unskilful makers has been prejudiced in the use of so valuable a machine. Printed directions is given with all I sell how to use them, for the benefit of the public in general, and preventing imposition my name and place of abode, which is stamped as under the top.
Captains of ships may be supplied with any quantity on giving timely notice.
N.B. They are made from 14 shillings to 24.
The same year, The Gentleman’s Magazine also provided detailed information about the ‘Yorkshire Maiden‘ which was, presumably a similar machine, even though James Moulton, claimed his invention to be the best – well he would wouldn’t he, great marketing!
However, it was Edward Beetham’s invention that appears to have regarded as the first in Britain.
Edward was born Edward Beatham and baptised 29 March 1743 and from a very well to do Westmorland family, but apparently when he met his wife to be Isabella Robinson, from a Roman Catholic, Jacobite family, he made a minor change to his surname from Beatham to Beetham, to save both families from embarrassment. The couple were believed to have eloped and married at Trimdon near Durham on 13 June 1774.
Being financially ostracised from both families the couple set off for London. Edward wanted to work in the theatre and got work at the Haymarket and Sadler’s Wells theatres, but his creative talent lay in inventions.
Isabella, on the other hand, was a talented artist and studied under the miniature portraitist John Smart. Her forte lay in the creation of painted silhouettes to be framed or miniatures that were made for jewellery. Despite working long hours, the couple also had a large family of five children to raise and of course support financially. The couple lived at 27 Fleet Street, opposite St Dunstan’s Church, where Edward would, in due course be buried. For those of you familiar with my article you will know that I am extremely fond of trade cards, especially for women and look what I’ve found:
Trade card for Isabella Beetham. British Museum
Beetham discovered that he was good at inventing things, but prior to his invention he had a variety of jobs including, according to the Hampshire Chronicle of October 1785, he was a bookseller.
Today though, we’ll look at his most famous invention – the washing machine, or, as it was known a washing mill. As you can imagine, having such a large family meant washing was plentiful.
Lewis Walpole Library. Washing Mill
The Northampton Mercury 7 July 1787 carried an account of a new machine for washing clothes, invented by a Mr Todd who had spent years creating a machine which could jointly wash and iron clothes much faster and better than could be one by hand. He had in fact patented the machine on 16 June 1787. The patent which can be found using this link provides the technical specification for the machine invented by Todd, but there is no sign of Beetham’s machine having been patented. Beetham’s name does however appear in the Catalogue of the Library of the Patent Office – Patent number 1744, dated 1791, so after Todd’s invention.
On 20 September 1787, the Derby Mercury advised us of Beetham’s new patented invention – the washing machine. His advert below tells us that he was in partnership with a Mr Thomas Todd, an organ builder, of St Peter’s Square, Leeds and that they had commissioned a Mr W Lomas a joiner, to manufacture the product on their behalf. It is not exactly clear from the advert though as to whether it was Beetham’s invention, joint or, given the earlier advert, actually the invention of Thomas Todd.
Derby Mercury 20 September 1787
The machine could wash the finest and coarsest of items, it would reduce the workload by two thirds and reduce the amount of soap used by one third and could save the trouble of using boiling water.
It’s always interesting to know how much items cost at that time and Beetham very helpfully tells us:
One and a half feet in length £2, seven shillings
3 feet would cost £3, three shillings
3 and half feet, £3, thirteen shillings and six pence
4 feet at £4, four shillings
With a machine that was two feet in length you could wash eight shirts at once.
He even offered potential customers the facility of viewing an example of the working machine, at their convenience, of course, at the house of Mr Lomas.
In the same newspaper was an advert exactly the same as above, but viewable at Mr Saxtons house, also a joiner, in Alfreton, Derbyshire. The following week, an advert for a manufacturer in Leek, Staffordshire.
Edward Beetham, bust in profile to right in an oval, with two caricature heads in small ovals in the upper corners. MetMuseum
In October of the same year, he had expanded his suppliers to Mr William Lumby of Lincoln. The advert was ostensibly the same, but it was now also being recommended for use of board ships too. William and his partner were clearly ‘thinking outside the box’ for ways to expand their sales.
Tracing the adverts month by month, it would appear that by June 1791, Messrs Todd and Beetham had gone their separate ways. The advert in February 1791 appears to give us some clues, it seems that there were in fact two machines and Beetham challenged Todd:
Todd finds himself again publicly called up by Mr Beetham to accept a challenge to try the utility of each invention; he will therefore take upon himself to wash Mr Bentham with a single machine at any time, to satisfy the public that his machines are not only equal, but absolutely superior.
Beetham was now advertising his ‘Portable Washing Mills’ which he told potential byers could be viewed either at his warehouse on Fleet Street or at a whole host of outlets all around the east of England such as Colchester, Yarmouth, Diss and Ipswich.
As they had gone their separate ways Mr Todd was advertising his washing machine alone in Leeds, but with no mention of Beetham.
Edward Beetham burial 1809
Beetham continued to trade until his death in January 1809. He left a will which was extremely short, simple and to the point:
1st part to his wife
2nd to daughter Jane
3rd to son William
4th daughter Harriett
5th to be invested
6th and 7th in trust for the three children aged under 21 – Charles Cecilia and Alfred.
Isabella continued with her creative work and outlived her husband and died at the age of 70, at the home of her son in law, on Great Smith Street, Chelsea in early August 1825.
Isabella Beetham burial 1825
To conclude this piece, I came across this image that I thought I’d share with you from Yale Center for British Art. This was the property of Dr Graham’s Cold Earth, and Warm Mud Bathing, and was next door to Edward and Isabella. I wonder whether they did his laundry!
Inscribed in red ink, lower left: “LsD” collector’s stamp; Verso: inscribed in brown ink, center: “Doctor Graham’s, Cold Earth, and Warm Mud Bathing. | Dr. Graham having had the honour of Publickly exhibiting Earth Bathing, at Bath, and at Bristol, every Day for four Months, | last Winter and Spring, and explaining the nature of it to the Nobility and Gentry, and of radically Curing by it a great number | of Persons who were inviable by Medicine and Surgery. Presented Lists of whom will, by permission, be given Gratis, in Fleet Street, | with himself God willing, with several Patients, be Buried up to his Chin among fresh Country Earth, brought to No. 26 Fleet Street, next | Door to Mr. Beetham’s, exactly opposite St. Dunstan’s Church, on Monday next May the 7th and every Day next Week; from 11. till 3. | o’Clock, Admission to this New, Curious, and Salutary sight and to the Doctors explanation of it, only One Shilling. Books of Cures | Gratis.—–Very Poor Persons who are afflicted
Sources
Leeds Intelligencer 7 December 1790
Leeds Intelligencer 2 February 1791
Leeds Intelligencer 1 October 1792
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DRAFT Advertisement for Edward Beetham’s Royal Patent Washing Mill. c.1790. British Museum
Today we will take a brief look at the role of one of the most important jobs within a household during the Georgian Era, that of the nursery nurse or nursery maid. When this guidance was produced for parents and for nurses alike and set out advice for them as to the role she should occupy and what tasks should be completed to ensure that their proteges were cared for.
Maternal Affection; The National Gallery, London
Of paramount importance was that the person be of a lively and cheerful disposition, good tempered, and clean and neat in her habits and person. She would need to be experienced in the care and management of young children as her role was of vital importance to the family as she would be in charge of a child from infancy until old enough to have a governess or to go to school. Potential employers took great care when recruiting this person and often used word of mouth for recommendations or would place an advert in the newspaper. Potential employees would naturally have been able to provide excellent references.
The morning would begin with the children being carefully washed and dressed, then once ready they would have breakfast, the children being placed for their meal quietly and in an orderly manner. After breakfast, if the weather was fine they would be taken out by the assistant nurse or nursery maid for fresh air and exercise for an hour or two, but not too long for fear of over-tiring them. On return their hands and feet would be washed if dirty, children would then have lessons until midday at which time they would be fed and then taken outside again for more fresh air, a light supper and then bed. As it is today, fresh air was seen as vitally important.
Reynolds, Joshua; The Infant Academy; English Heritage, Kenwood;
It was the nurses role to ensure that the child was kept safe at all times and particular care should be taken that a child did not climb on the furniture so as to avoid them damaging their limbs, nor to go near the fire in case their clothes catch fire, there were a surprising number of instances where this had happened, so clearly advice was necessary.
Food
Young child were to be given plain food and drink, yet some nurses apparently gave them wine, spirits spices and sugar – none of which were believed to be good for the child.
Boilly, Louis-Leopold; A Man Vaccinating a Young Child Held by Its Mother, with Other Members of the Household Looking On; Wellcome Library
The bedroom
The sleeping room of the nursery should be spacious, dry and well ventilated, with a fire being made up if a cold or damp day and the room was not be inhabited during the day. Servants were not permitted to sleep in the same room as the child as nothing should be done to contaminate the air.
Beds should not be placed close to the ground as the air was fresher high up. In cities, children should not be kept in hot rooms, but have as much air as possible and given as much exercise as possible, as lack of exercise was the cause of rickets, weak joints and lung disease.
When putting the child to sleep it should be placed on the right side rather than on the left. When awake an infant, should be laid on its back so that it can move its legs and arms with freedom. Sleep promotes a more calm and uniform circulation of the blood and also facilitates absorption of the nutriments received. The horizontal posture, likewise, is the most favourable to the growth and bodily development of the infant. Sleep ought to be in proportion to the age of the infant.
After the age of six months, the periods of sleep, may, in some degree should be regulated ; yet, even then, a child should sleep through the night, and several hours both in the morning and afternoon. Nurses should endeavour to accustom infants, from the time of their birth, to sleep in the night in preference to the day. Children should not be woken suddenly or moved from a dark room into bright light as this can cause weak eyes from early infancy.
Clothing
Clothing should be very light, and not too long, so that it is easy to get the child’s legs out with ease during the day in order to rub them with a warm hand, or flannel as this would promote the circulation of the blood. However, a nurse should hold the child as little as possible to avoid the legs being cramped and to ensure that its toes didn’t turn inwards.
During the day children should be dressed in light and loose fitting clothes, and at night it may be a shirt, a blanket to tie on, and a thin gown to tie over the blanket. Pins should never be used in an infant’s clothes and every string should be so loosely tied, that two fingers may be introduced under it.
Kauffmann, Angelica; Princess Augusta Charlotte (1737-1813), Eldest Sister of George III, with Her Infant Son; Paintings Collection
Bathing
The child’s skin was to be kept perfectly clean by washing its limbs morning and evening, and likewise its neck and ears, beginning with warm water until eventually getting the child used to cold water.
After carefully drying the whole body, head, and limbs, a second dry soft cloth, somewhat warmed, should be gently used, to take all the damp from the wrinkles or soft parts of the body. Then the limbs should be rubbed. If the skin became irritated, then hair-powder should be used (today we would use talcum powder). The utmost tenderness is necessary in drying the head ; and a small, soft, brush, lightly applied, is safer than a comb.
Sources
The Complete Servant: Being a Practical Guide to the Peculiar Duties and Business of All Descriptions of Servants
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Morland, George, 1763-1804; A Visit to the Boarding School
Following on from our previous articles about career choices in the eighteenth-century, from 1761, we have some more to share with you, so, here goes.
Barber-Surgeon’s Shop; unknown artist; The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
The Barber
The boy, intended for this business, ought to be genteel, active and obliging. To have sweet breath and a light hand. The business of a barber is shaving and making periwigs. The former requires these qualifications and the latter, some ingenuity to imitate all the various fashions introduced by the folly of mankind. But in this trade little learning is necessary. Reading, writing and the common rules of arithmetic being sufficient. There are, however, some periwig makers who do not shave.
The barbers and periwig makers also make a kind of periwig for the ladies; among which they have imported a sort, impudently called the French, as if they intended to affront all the fair who wore them, Téte Moutons, or sheep’s heads. But the English ladies, from their complaisance for that nation, wear the wig, give it the French name and pocket the affront.
Cutting and curling of hair is also another branch of the barber’s business, though others apply themselves wholly to it and are therefore called hair cutters. The wages of a journeyman barber are but small, but if he has a good set of acquaintance and can be settled in a shop advantageously situated, he may set up with fifty pounds.
The Barber’s Shop, 1760s. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Bellows maker
This is a very useful and extensive business, bellows being not only made for families, but also for organs, for blowing fresh air into mines and for carrying on a great number of mechanic arts, in many of which they are of very different sizes and constructions, and some of the prodigiously large. It is a profitable business for the master.
Young Woman using a pair of Bellows (Fire); Philippe Mercier; Dumfries and Galloway Council (Dumfries Museum)
Blue maker
They make blue of indigo mixed with cheap materials for the use of the calico printers and dyers, and for bluing of linen when washed, but have nothing to do with the fine colours used in painting. It is a laborious business and is imagined to hurt the nerves. Those who keep shop get a good living. They take an apprentice from ten to twenty pounds, but they give low wages to a journeyman who works from six to eight.
Card maker
The making of playing cards is a very easy business and requires neither judgment, strength nor ingenuity. It consists of pasting several sheets of paper upon each other and then printing off this card paper from wooden blocks. After which the court cards are coloured, the paper glazed and the cards cut out.
A game of quadrille, c.1740 by Hubert-François Gravelot. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
The chocolate maker
As the making of chocolate is hard work, mostly performed over a charcoal fire, which is apt to affect some constitutions, the boy who is to be put apprentice to it, ought to be strong and hardy. Chocolate is made of a fruit called cacao produced in the West Indies and other parts of the world. This is a kind of nut about the size of a walnut, which being stripped of its thin shell is worked upon a stone, till it is equally mellow, and then put into tin moulds in which it hardens, and from them receives the form of cakes. To perfume it they mix it with venello (vanilla).
Making chocolate, via History Extra.
Comb maker
The making of combs is divided between two branches – the ivory and the horn comb makers. The ivory comb makers buy the ivory plates, rasps them to a proper thickness and saws the teeth. They also make combs of box, tortoiseshell and sometimes of horn, in which case they buy the horn ready prepared.
The horn comb maker cuts the ox’s horn into several rings and splits each, when hot, pulls them open and then pressing them between hot iron plates until they are of a proper thickness, shapes them, and afterwards saws the teeth. The horn comb maker does not make combs of ivory etc.
Those of this business make enamelled dial plates, which they sell to the watchmakers. They take the brass plates, cover them with white enamel when wet, make the numerals, and fix the enamel by fire.
British, 18th century gold and enamel watch by William Rivers; Met Museum
Fellmonger
This is a very nasty, stinking trade, much exposed to wet and cold, therefore not fit for weakly lads. The fellmongers buy up the skins of sheep and lambs, from which they discharge the wool, make the sheepskins into pelts, leather for breeches, alum leather etc. They take from five to twenty pounds with apprentices, who require only a common education. They give very poor wages to their journeymen.
Worker in a fellmonger’s yard. Bristol Libraries
The hatter or hat maker
The hatters, or hat makers, are those who work the wool, hair or fur into a proper substance for a hat. This is called felt. It is very slavish work, the men being continually stopping over the steam of a hot kettle and requires strong lads, who are taken apprentice with ten or fifteen pounds and frequently with nothing. But when out of their time, they may get, as journeymen fifteen or eighteen pounds a week, or set up in this branch with one hundred pounds.
Hat Maker; New York Public Library
Hour glassmaker
This is a branch which requires very slender abilities to become a master of. He is partly a turner and buys his glass from the glasshouse. There are not many of them, though there are more hourglasses made than is generally imagined, especially for the sea, there not being a ship without several kinds of them, such as hour, half hour, quarter hour and minute glasses. The master will take an apprentice with five pounds who when out of his time may earn ten or twelves pounds a week or with twenty pounds may set up for himself.
The ink maker
Those who are solely employed in making black and red writing ink and ink-powder are but few in number because most retail stationers make ink to supply their own customers. The ink makers take no apprentices since whatever their secrets they may be possessed of it is in their own interest to keep them concealed.
Henry Hoare (1784–1836), Son of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, as a Boy, Writing a Letter by Samuel Woodforde c.1796/7; NT Stourhead
The Loriner or bit maker
The loriner makes bits and all the ironwork belonging to a bridle, together with the stirrups. It is an ingenious and laborious branch of the smith’s business and the beauty of the work consists of filing and polishing.
British (English) School (a painting of the ‘King’s Arms’ inn in Manchester; Compton Verney
Pastry Cook
This is a profitable business and requires a boy of activity and industry. The pastry cooks of London have many of their shops elegantly fitted up with carved work, gilding and looking glasses. They daily make all kinds of pastry and sometimes also deal in confections and jellies. They take ten or twenty pounds with an apprentice, who, when out of his time, may have about twenty pounds a year and his board by serving as journeyman, or if he sets up as a master, it will require 300 pounds at least to fit up a genteel shop with built-in ovens etc, but he may set up in a less splendid manner with a hundred pounds.
Detail from Mock Turtle, Puff Pastry by Thomas Rowlandson. Royal Collection Trust (from their website: a buxom female chef rolls out pastry as she is caressed by a lascivious footman wearing green livery. On the table are coddling tarts, apple dumpling and batter pudding.)
Snuff Box maker
The use of snuff has naturally produced the introduction of snuff boxes which are made not only of all kinds of metal, either plain, chased or embellished with stones, enamel, shells etc but of ivory, coal or even paper. This has introduced several different trades some of which the makers take ten or twenty pounds with an apprentice, in others not more than five pounds.
A man buying snuff; Thomas Rowlandson; Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Center
During the eighteenth and into the nineteenth-century it became fashionable and beneficial to enjoy the pleasures of swimming in the sea so, in order to preserve modesty, bathing machines were invented. These allowed the swimmer to enter the contraption fully clothed, undress and get into the water virtually unseen; to swim then return to the machine to get dressed again and leave through the entrance they had arrived through – all very discreet.
Holidaymakers on Scarborough Beach by T. Ramsay; Scarborough Collections
Scarborough, Yorkshire was reputed to have been an excellent place to swim in the 1730s, but as to whether they had bathing machines we’re really not sure. Certainly, by the 1770s as you can see above, the bathing machine was very much in evidence.
The first reference we came across of a bathing machine was in the Caledonian Mercury, dated 14th August 1750, although such a machine was believed to exist prior to this.
That the BATHING MACHINE will, from Monday next, be attended close from half flood to half ebb, every lawful day by Thomas Weir Carter in Leith; his station with the same is to be upon the sands to the west of the glasshouse, in order to carry such ladies and gentlemen who want to bathe. And no weather needs to stop the use of it, as by the contrivance persons may bathe securely, without being any ways exposed to the weather. It will hold four persons easily, furnished with pins to hang up their clothes, and clean napkins will be there ready for rubbing.
In 1754, the Whitehall Evening Post carried an advertisement for the
New invented machine for bathing in the sea. The machines move on four wheels, on which is erected a commodious dressing room, furnished in a genteel manner. The machine is contrived, that the persons who bathe descend from out of the above room into the bath, which forms itself in the natural sea, seven feet in length and five in breadth, all enclosed and railed, which renders it both secure and private. The machine during the last season met with genteel approbation; and in order to make still more useful, the proprietors have this season provided an additional machine with proper conveniences for bathing at all times. A woman is appointed to attend the ladies if desired.
As the fashion for swimming in the sea along with its reputed benefits grew, more and more coastal towns had their own machines, set up on the beach from Tynemouth, in the north, to Brighton in the south and everywhere in between.
Figures and Bathing Machines in the Bay below Tynemouth Castle by Ralph I Waters; Laing Art Gallery
One of the most famous people to develop a bathing machine was a Quaker, Benjamin Beale. However, in 1767 there was an immense storm in Margate and his bathing machines were damaged, as they had been twice before, in 1763 and 1764. His loss on this occasion was estimated to be worth over £1,000 and it totally wiped out his business. So much so that Sir John Shaw and a Dr Hawley, of Great Russell Street, sought assistance for him, to enable him to rebuild his business. This was successful and the business was rebuilt, and Benjamin continued his trade until his death in 1775.
On the Sands at Brighton Figures Walking on the Shore by John Dixon. Yale Centre for British Art
As the fashion for sea swimming caught on others developed their own business too, such as these trade cards shows for the ‘The Dunn’s machine’ and ‘The Phillpot’s machine’.
In 1770, Margate became so popular that it even produced its own holiday guide containing
a particular account of Margate, with respect to its new building, assemblies, accommodations, manners of bathing, remarkable places in its neighbourhood and whatever else may be thought necessary for the information of strangers.
Swimming in the sea was a risky affair and there were quite a few incidents recorded of accidental death due to drowning. Other incidents were less dramatic, but somewhat embarrassing, such as the one noted in the St James Chronicle of 1778 when a bathing machine containing ten people capsized. Most escaped to shore… but minus their clothes. There were also reports of people having a few too many drinks, climbing into the bathing machines to sleep off their excesses and the tide changing and them waking up the next morning to find themselves in the sea.
British Museum
Apparently, in 1794, two dignified ladies decided as a wager to swim from one bathing machine to another, one was seized with a cramp, but not being out of her depth was rescued. Hopefully, the wager wasn’t too high!
Men and women were segregated for the sake of women’s modesty, but occasional incidents happened where women had to be saved by a gentleman when they swam out of their depth – a few red faces there then!
Margate, Kent a woman diving off a bathing wagon into the sea Coloured etching, ca 1800 Wellcome Library
Here’s a bit of newspaper gossip for you from The Public Advertiser, October 1791.
Man caught in bathing machine with woman, both naked at the time.
Sorry to spoil your fun, it transpired that they were actually husband and wife, but still, it made the newspaper.
Of course, when in Weymouth, the royal family enjoyed a swim, especially George III but apparently his daughter, the Princess Royal, less so as she appeared to feel the cold more and looked half-frozen after her swim.*
To finish we couldn’t resist sharing this image of Prinny, The Prince Regent – no words!
Prince of Wales. 1819. Wellcome Library
Source
London Chronicle 8 September 1791
Featured Image
Bathing Machine on Southsea Common. c1788. Yale Centre for British Art
In a recent article, we looked at disability in the 18th-century and about people with no arms using their feet as an alternative, some of whom created the most beautifully delicate watch papers. One of our readers asked what more we knew about watch papers, our reply being –’not very much!‘
Always up for a challenge though, we set about seeing what else we could find, and we confess, this article is a little self-indulgent with some lovely images of watch papers which remarkably have survived in some cases for over two hundred years, most will have been lost or damaged over time, making survivors quite rare.
It was believed that initially watch papers were a form of protection for the mechanism itself, which may well be correct, they then developed into the equivalent of a trade card, which for our regular readers you will be aware that we have looked at before and have a great interest in. Early eighteenth-century watch papers appear to have been made of either paper or very fine linen. This developed in the later part of the century to include crotched or silk watch papers.
Watch papers would have been a fabulous of advertising your wares, inside the watch so every time the wearer opened it they would see an advert for the watchmaker and see what else they sold. As you can see from this image:
Victoria & Albert Museum c1820
The Cambridge Intelligencer September 1795 carried the following advertisement
COPPERPLATE PRINTING IN GENERAL
Barford begs leave to inform his friends and the public, that he prints mezzotints, fine engravings, banker’s cheques, tutor’s bills, watch papers and music.
The British Museum has several watch papers and this one was used by John Oglethorpe, born 1823, who appears on the census returns as being of Kirkby Thore, Cumbria where was he described himself as a watch cleaner and repairer, a trade he would have learnt from his father Samuel.
British Museum
This beautiful watch shows the watch paper placed inside with the makers’ name clearly visible both on the mechanism itself and on the advert on the watch paper – Thomas Bullock of Claverton Street Bath, who we discovered was trading there in 1770.
The next belonged to Camerer and Cuss, New Oxford Street. The watch paper is very plain, and we haven’t been able to locate the company, however, it nicely fits into the Georgian era, as they were trading ‘since 1788’.
Our next one shows the watch paper of a gentleman by the name of Goldsworthy. He was an Edward Goldsworthy of Exeter, who died in April 1824, aged 73 in Chelsea.
British Museum
Edward was working in his home city of Exeter and here we see him in 1788 taking on an apprentice clock-maker.
Tempus Fugit! This one seems a little morbid, reminding you of impending death each time you open the watch. It is an advert for George Frankcom of Portsea, Hampshire. Frankcom must have moved to Hampshire after completing his apprenticeship which he began in 1792.
To finish, we have very kindly been given a stunning watch paper to include, by Mike Rendell (Georgian Gentleman)
Richard cut it out when his first wife died – it must have taken hours. It shows her coffin in a template, with her name, age and date of death. I still have the pen knife he would have used to make it (i.e. the knife he used to make pens from quills). It is incredibly sharp even after 250 years! He must have had excellent eyesight – and a very steady hand).
Not all women in the eighteen-century were able to marry a wealthy aristocrat, in fact very few did, the majority had to hold down a job as well as running the home and raising children. We thought today we would follow on from an earlier article in which we looked at eighteenth-century careers and have picked out a few of the career options listed in Joseph Collyer’s book of 1761, that were deemed suitable for girls and women, of which of course, there were only a limited number, far fewer choices than for men.
Basket Maker
There are several sorts of basket-maker. Some who form baskets of green oziers (willow), chiefly for the use of gardeners. These are the most considerable branches; for some of the masters employ many hands, and also rent large ozier plantations; which not only produce sufficient for themselves, but many to spare. This part of the work requires no other abilities but strength and application. Another sort of basked makers make finer works with rods stripped, split, halved and dyed; or with split cane or dyed straw of various colours. The workers in the finer sort of baskets, which are chiefly to be found in the turner’s shops, require less strength and more ingenuity. This is chiefly carried out by girls and women who make the smaller wares.
A young girl and child carry baskets on their heads. Wellcome Library
Bodice Maker
This was once a trade of universal use, but now bodices are worn by none but the poorer sort of women and girls in the country. They are made of canvas and whale-bone or cane and sometimes leather. Women are principally employed in making them; they can get six or seven pounds a week and require no great qualification. Their apprentices are generally parish children, whom they take with little or nothing. As their dealings are mostly in the country, they require a pretty large stock; most of them now deal also in ordinary stays, by which means they make a handsome livelihood.
Strawberrys, Scarlet Strawberrys from The Cries of London, 1795. The strawberry seller wears a simple canvas or leather bodice. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Button Maker
The greatest part of the mohair, silk and horsehair buttons are made in the county and sent up to shops in town. Those made here are chiefly livery buttons, or some patterns particularly bespoke. Those who work at this are chiefly women, who are paid by the dozen and are able to get but a poor living. The boy or girl designed for the business of making gold and silver buttons ought to have some fancy and genius, that they may be able to invent new fashions. They should also have good eyes and a dry hand. The lace-man furnishes them with all the material for his buttons, except the moulds and pays him for the work when done.
Portrait of a Trumpeter in Livery (called ‘Valentine Snow, 1685–1759, Sergeant Trumpeter’); Michael Dahl I (1656/1659–1743) (style of); National Trust, Fenton House
Cap Maker
These are shopkeepers who make and sell caps for men or women to travel in and also men’s morning caps. They deal in many sorts of millinery goods, such as ladies’ hats, bonnets, cloaks, cardinals, short aprons, hoods, handkerchiefs, or almost anything made of black silk or velvet. Their apprentices ought to be smart girls of a genteel appearance, they should work well at their needles and be ready accomptants. They serve only five years and are kept the first part of their time close to the needle. Once qualified they may be cap-makers but may also be shop women to the milliners, the haberdashers or to any buying and selling trade proper for women.
This branch of business is generally performed by women and is a pretty profitable employ. They take ten or fifteen pounds with a girl; who ought to be ingenious, handy and a tolerable needle-woman. The boning part is hard work for the fingers, but the rest is easy enough. As the apprentice must appear neat and gentle, and, when out of her time, must depend on a good acquaintance this trade is not fit for the children of people in low circumstances; but for those a little above the vulgar it is a very proper one. A journey-woman may get a pound a day in summer, but they are generally out of business some of the winter months.
Fan Painter
Fan painting is an ingenious business and requires skill in drawing, in perspective, in the proper disposition of the lights and shades and in laying on the colours. This business is however almost ruined by the introduction of printers fan-mounts. Therefore it would be a pity that any ingenious girl, who has a taste for drawing should be put apprentice to it.
Fan depicting the gardens of Chiswick Villa, 1757. Met Museum
The Gilder
The gilding of metals is a very profitable and at the same time a dangerous business with respect to those who perform the work, occasioned by the quicksilver used in this art, which is apt to affect their nerves and render their lives a burden to them; whence the trade is but in a few and some of them women. Gilding is performed with the following amalgam of gold and Quicksilver. The gold is then heated in a crucible and when just ready to flow, three or four times the weight of quicksilver is poured upon it and immediately quenched in water, both together become a soft substance like butter. When the artist intends to gild, the piece is rubbed with aqua fortis and then covered with the amalgam. When is all covered over and smother it is held over a charcoal fire, by which means the mercury evaporates and the gold remains upon the piece. The artist then rubs off all the roughness and at the same time spreads the gold with an instrument called a scratch brush, the work is then burnished to give the colour wanted.
Goldsmith’s workshop: interior view, gilding dishes and the implements used. Wellcome Library
A Quilter
Quilting is chiefly performed by the women, but there are some masters, who employ a number of women and girls in making bed quilts for the upholsterers. The women of this business not only make bed quilts but quilted petticoats. They either take poor girls as apprentices, whom they keep for the sake of their work or have a small for learning those grown up, whom they afterwards pay about ten or twelve pounds a week.
These are more frequently women than men. They make tassels for pulpit cushions, window curtain cords and for a variety of other uses. These tassels are made of gold or silver thread, silk, mohair or worsted, worked over a mould. When tassels were worn by the ladies to their mantels, this was exceedingly good employment, and many families go a genteel maintenance by it, but now, I believe, it is hardly worth learning. The masters take girls out of the schools and parish children with little or no money who, if in good hands, may, when out of their time, be able to get six or eight pounds a week as journey-women, or may set up with a very little. All materials being found from the lace or worsted men.
Thirty years ago this business gave many women in London genteel bread; but now the ladies cannot be dressed with elegance, except by a French barber, or one who passes for such, by speaking broken English, adjust and curls their hair at the exorbitant price of a crown or half a guinea a time. Our grandmothers thought it bordered on immodesty to appear with their heads uncovered; but probably our grandchildren, despising such narrow prejudices, may not be ashamed of going naked from the waist upwards or of having men chamberlains or dressers. I believe the few women, who now cut hair, cannot live by the employment and therefore need to say nothing of the terms on which they teach others.
In 1761, Joseph Collyer developed a careers guide for parents including information about the requirements for being an apprentice. He stressed the importance of good education of course, but it also began with a ‘how to’ guide for new parents describing how the mother should establish a moral code for children and ensuring that they behaved well from infancy, including discipline. Mothers should take care not to create groundless fears in the child, such as making the child afraid of the dark, telling him idle tales of ghosts, hobgoblins and haunted houses. She should instil the principles of religion and virtue. She should help shape not only their bodies but their minds too. The book offers guidance on many trades, so here are a just a few of them with more to follow in future articles.
The first three occupations that Collyer considers are Divinity, Law and Physic.
In a nutshell, if the child is likely to be easily led into drink, women, and other vices then divinity would not be the right careers path and law would be a much better option as people are more forgiving of these vices. They would need to be fluent in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. To study ethics and moral philosophy and to apply himself to the Holy Scriptures and be good at public speaking in order to deliver sermons.
To enter the legal profession a boy would need to have a quick understanding. A lively wit and volubility of speech. He should have a great command of temper and a sincere love of justice. They must learn languages and read the works of great orators. Upon leaving university he must enter one of the four Inns and apply himself to the laws of the country.
Mr Bannister Junior and Mr Parsons as Scout and Sheepface in ‘The Village Lawyer’ by Samuel de Wilde (Scout the lawyer on the left); Leicester Arts and Museums Service
The physician – the youth intended for the study of physic ought also to have an extensive genius, particularly clear perception, a found judgment and a retentive memory. He should have the liberal education of a gentleman. He should have a tender compassion for his fellow creatures. Well versed in the dead languages, skilled in natural philosophy, anatomy, botany, pharmacy and chemistry. A periwig is essential headgear for a doctor as it imparts an air of gravitas and his patients will trust him more than wearing any other type of wig.
A Physician in His Study, Writing a Prescription for His Waiting Patient by Pieter Jacob Horemans, 1745 (c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Collyer moved on to the other trades rather than professions and outlined various occupations and what a master would expect to be paid for training their new apprentice. For most apprentices, the amount paid was between five and ten pounds. The book runs to well over two hundred pages, so far too many occupations for us to cover in this post so it may be one we will return to if people find it of interest.
Anvil Smith
A boy designed for this trade needs only a basic education, with no great mental abilities being required. The art of his trade is learnt by feeling the tempering of the steel. However, it requires a good deal of strength. It is a very profitable business for the master.
The boy, designed for this useful trade, ought to be of an honest disposition, and both strong and industrious; since the apprentices in London are obliged to carry out great loads of bread by day and to work had most of the night. The money given with an apprentice is from 5 pounds to 20 pounds. The journeymen have 6 or 7 pounds a week and their board, and a master cannot well set up with less than 100 pounds considering he is obliged to give credit.
Baker’s boy, 1746. Met Museum
Catgut spinner
A cat-gut spinner is a necessary article in several trades; in the making of whips, the stringing of violins etc. But yet, cat-gut spinning is a very mean, nasty and stinking trade, that requires no genius or abilities. None but the poorest children are put apprentice to it, and when out of their time, they are able to earn only very mean support.
Catgut makers: various stages in the process of catgut making and instruments used. Etching by Antonio Baratti. Wellcome Library
Drapery painter
The boy designed for this business, which is the lowest degree of liberal painter, ought to learn to draw and to form a just knowledge of the nature of light and shade; and this may serve as a sufficient preparatory for his being put apprentice; when, if he be bound to a proper master, he will learn, though he has no very extraordinary genius, to obtain a tolerable notion of painting in general, a sufficient knowledge of colours, and the manner of mixing them. To exhibit the folds of a garment in such a manner as to show the materials of which it is composed, whether woollen, linen, silk or velvet.
Though this business does not require a very great genius, yet those who are eminent in their way and employed by a celebrated limner (portrait painter), may frequently earn a guinea a day.
Joseph Van Aken, The Drapery Painter by Thomas Hudson. Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd. (Writing in 1743 George Vertue observed in one of his notebooks that the most skilled living drapery painter was Joseph Van Aken.)
Fan Stick Maker
This is a business for weakly boys. Fan stick makers are employed by those who keep a fan shop and make sticks of ivory, tortoiseshell, wood etc. Many fans now are brought ready mounted from the East Indies and sold here extremely cheaply and have almost ruined this branch of the business.
Fan depicting the gardens of Chiswick Villa, 1757. Met Museum
Iron Hoop Maker
This is a class of Smith solely employed in making iron hoops for large vessels belonging to the brewers and distillers. It is a laborious, noisy and requires no extraordinary abilities.
Beaufoy’s Vinegar Works, Cuper’s Gardens, Lambeth by Charles Tomkins, c.1800.
Muffin Maker
This business has but of late years been carried on in shops, but they are now pretty numerous. The muffins are cakes made of white flour and used at the tea-table. It is a tolerable business for a master; though a poor one for a journeyman. They take poor lads from the parish or others with no money; who the first part of their time cry the muffins through the streets early in the morning, and again in the afternoon; and also work hard when they are making these cakes.
London Cries: A Muffin Man by Paul Sandby, c.1759. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Patten Makers
These keep shops and make wooden clogs as well as pattens. It is an easy light business and requires few talents, and very little learning is necessary. It is enough, if the boy designed for it, can write a plain hand and understands the first rules of arithmetic. When he has completed his apprenticeship, he may earn twelve pounds a week.
Piety in Pattens or Timbertoe on Tiptoe. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Screen Maker
The boy, who is designed for this business, would do well to learn to draw and to obtain some knowledge in perspective before he becomes an apprentice. There is great variety in this piece of furniture, serving both for ornament and use; and therefore, there is some room for a boy of genius to exert his talents. The master, who are but few in number, generally keep handsome shops. The make their own frames, which they mount with gilt or painted leather etc and the sometimes deal also in cabinet and chair makers goods. They take about twenty pounds with an apprentice and if they keep a genteel shop, employ several hundred pounds in trade.
Screen depicting Hunting, Cock-Fighting, Card-Playing, Horse-Riding, Game-Shooting, Dice-Throwing, Fishing and Bathing by an unknown artist, 1746. Victorian and Albert Museum
Tire Smith
His is an ingenious branch of the Smith’s business, consisting of making ironwork belonging to the carriages, coaches and chaises. The nicest and most curious part of their work are springs for the spring coaches and other vehicles of pleasure. There is great variety in this business.
English coaches and carriages from Le Costume Historique.
More career choices can be found by clicking this link.
In this article, you will find some of the jobs that were available for women.
Here’s a new one for you. What did a calenderer do? Any ideas? I hadn’t, so off down the proverbial rabbit hole I disappeared to find out more.
When you’ve visited a stately home and wandered into the bedrooms with those immense four-poster beds, like this one at Houghton Hall, have you ever wondered how on earth they cleaned the drapes around the bed – or is that just me (rhetorical)? I have looked at beds and bedding in a previous article, so I thought this subject required further investigation.
Courtesy of Houghton Hall
Looking at the sheer amount of fabric they must have been incredibly heavy, can you imagine trying to climb up there, take them down and wash them by hand? I have visions of several servants attempting to do this precariously balancing on ladders.
But no, if you were wealthy you would employ a calenderer to do part of this process for you at around 12-15 shillings per bed which equates to roughly the wages to employ a tradesperson for 5 days in 1790.
French Tester bed (lit à la duchesse en impériale), c.1782/83; Met Museum
Calenderers, also known as calico glazers (the term appears to be interchangeable), would visit the home and were often described as ‘journeymen’ (we should point out at this stage that our research has shown that quite a few women also carried out this type of work), unstitch the drapes, from the bed frame, take down the canopies and bedding. The fabric would be washed by the domestic servants, then the calenderman (person) as they were often termed, would apply the final process and rehang the fabric. It was a process that would have been carried out for the most affluent in society.
I noted that Dido Elizabeth Belle had her mahogany bed at Kenwood House, ‘washed and glazed’ for 12 shillings.
Detail of French Tester bed (lit à la duchesse en impériale), c.1782/83; Met Museum
Glazed or shiny chintz originally known as calico, was the favoured style of the eighteenth-century for bed drapes and curtains. The fabric would be scoured and washed, then stretched. The material would be starched with a special solution and finally, the glaze, similar to a waxy substance would be applied using a machine with heated rollers, known as a calender to give it a lovely sheen.
The Garrick Bed, ca.1775. A four-poster bed designed by Thomas Chippendale with 20th-century reproduction hangings. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
It would have been a very time-consuming job to unpick the curtains and drapes, carry out the process, then restitch everything back into place. Despite this, it was a relatively cheap job to do, around 12 shillings. This was because although labour intensive, labour was cheap at that time.
London had relatively few calenderers, unlike Manchester which seems to have had plenty, but there were quite a few calico glazers. The job of calico glazer required a seven-year apprenticeship to be undertaken, so a skilled trade. Quite a few of these companies went bankrupt as we’ve found them appearing in the newspaper lists, so it doesn’t look to have been the most lucrative of occupations.
Scene in a Bedchamber; British School, c.1700; V&A
It wasn’t just drapes that were calendered as we can see from this advertisement from The Morning Herald, January 25th, 1793:
Clout. Calenderer and Calico-Glazer. No, 10 King Street, Golden Square, facing the chapel begs leave to inform his friends and the Ladies in general, of Chintz, Muslins, Dimities, Cotton and Linen Gowns and Dresses, in the most elegant manner, without taking to pieces, on the following terms.
We came across several newspaper advertisements by women, including the family firm of Wrights, which included the three daughters of Mrs Wright, the owner, who took over the business upon the death of their mother. We have looked for wills for all the calenderers that we’ve found and not one, so this leads us to conclude that in all likelihood they didn’t have enough to make it worthwhile leaving one.
Sources
Records of London’s Livery Companies Online Apprentices and Freemen 1400-1900
Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (London, England), Wednesday, February 8, 1775
Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (London, England), Saturday, May 2, 1778
Public Advertiser (London, England), Saturday, May 13, 1780;
As we’re sure you have probably read in the news recently, an eighteenth-century ice house or ice well has been discovered in London.
The egg-shaped cavern, 9.5 metres deep and 7.5 metres wide, had been backfilled with demolition rubble after the terrace was bombed during the war, requiring three months of careful excavation before its structure could be fully revealed.
It appears to have originally been constructed in the 1780s for use in connection with the brewing industry, but it was taken over by a William Leftwich, who used it as an ice well. At the turn of the century, it was mainly the affluent who had an ice house or possibly a well on their land, places such as Chatsworth, Petworth and possibly Kenwood, but William’s idea was on a much larger scale, his aim was to supply commercially, so we thought we would try to find out a little more about his life and business.
William was born July 1770, the son of William and Martha Leftwich, née Barns of Aldford, a village in rural Cheshire. At the end of January 1785, William was apprenticed to James Reynolds, a pastry cook living in Tower Street, London.
Having completed his apprenticeship he became a confectioner and established shops in Fleet Street and Kingston upon Thames (which is where his two youngest children were baptised).
It was in 1795 at St Marys, Newington, Surrey that William married Susanna Ricketts, some eight years his junior. The couple went on to have many mouths to feed, which, being a pastry cook must have helped –William Henry and Thomas Robert (twins) (1796), George (1799-1802), Susannah (1801), Thomas (1803), Eliza (1806), Martha (1807), George (1810), Mary Ann (1813) and finally Charles (1815).
Goodness! William’s wife died in 1818 leaving him to not only run his confectionery business but also to raise the children – so, not an easy task.
Britain had developed a taste for ice in drinks such as sherry cobblers, mint julep and iced desserts and the likes of William struggled to keep dairy foods cool, as did fishmongers. Working class men who owned a donkey or horse and cart would club together, pay rent to the landholder so that when the water was frozen they could collect ice from their water supply which they could then sell on to fishmongers and confectioners for a small profit.
‘Homegrown’ ice was reliant upon the country having a cold winter, thereby allowing ice to be gathered from the frozen rivers, so was unreliable and quantities were somewhat limited.
The Thames Frozen Over, near the Tower of London. Yale Centre for British Art
William hit upon an idea to import ice from Norway and with that, in 1822, he went to Norway where he purchased a large quantity of ice and in May 1822, he chartered a vessel, ‘The Spring’ to sail to Norway to collect it. Apart from the obvious problem of the ice melting it also created problems for customs as when the vessel returned they had no idea how much tax to charge him, so a charge of 20% was levied on his cargo. Concerned by such a high levy William then decided to send vessels elsewhere, mainly America and in doing so, the importation duty was reduced to 5%, making the whole operation more profitable.
It was suggested to him that he had a large well dug on Little Albany Street. This would hold some 1,500 tons of ice. The ice was thrown in and descended on a platform, the waste due to melting, filtered through the sand layer and fell into the space below, from where it ran off by means of a pipe into a deeper and smaller well by the side of the large one. The water, by the means of machinery, was pumped up to supply several neighbouring houses with a fresh supply of water.
Glaciarium 1876
The ice was drawn up in buckets and onto a cart (the weight of the cart having previously been determined), then the whole load weighed again to determine the weight of the ice itself. The cost of ice varied between 2 shillings and 2 shillings and 6 pence a load. William also had a further two wells constructed, one being in Wood Street.
As well as selling to London, William also sold to amongst others, the towns of Bath, Cheltenham and Bristol.
ICE six inches thick and remarkably clean. – WILLIAM LEFTWICH begs leave to inform the Nobility and Gentry that they may be SUPPLIED with ICE of a superior quality for cleanliness than that usually sold. Delivered at their houses in any part of London, in quantities of not less than 18lbs, at 2d. per lb., or 14s. per cwt. Orders received at 162, Fleet-street, and at the Ice-well, Park-crescent-mews, New-road, punctually attended to. Taverns, Coffeehouses, and Clubs on moderate terms.
Morning Post, 31 March 1826.
William took the trouble to explain in his newspaper advertisements how it could be used to preserve beef during hot weather.
London Courier and Evening Gazette 05 June 1827
William was quite the entrepreneur and made himself and his family a handsome profit and by 1835, William was a ‘Purveyor of Ice’ to His Majesty, as we see in this newspaper advertisement.
ICE – The Nobility, Gentry, Club Houses, Hotels, Tavernkeepers, Confectioners, Fishongers, and others are respectfully informed that WILLIAM LEFTWICH, 43, Cumberland Market, Regent’s Park, Purveyor of Ice to his Majesty, has just imported, and will continue to import, SPRING WATER ICE from Norway, the best frozen, clearest, and most durable that can be obtained, at very low prices, which will be in proportion to the quantity required.
Morning Post, 6 April 1835.
In 1841 we find William living a comfortable life at 43, Cumberland Market, Regent’s Park, with two of his daughters, Susanna and Martha, which was where he was to remain for the remainder of his life. Two of his sons, William and Thomas lived on the same street with their respective families, both still working in the family, with all supplying ice to affluent families in the area.
William was died November 1843 and was buried on 23rd November 1843, at Kensal Green. He died leaving an extremely detailed will in which he provided for all his surviving children. His sons continued the business for some considerable years to come.
Sources
Online baptism, marriage and burial registers, census returns, wills and the apprentice register
Known as the ‘rock houses’ they are a well-known feature of the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands and only a few miles away from Newstead Abbey, home of Lord Byron.
A View in Newstead Park, belonging to the Rt. Hon. Lord Byron. Print by James Mason. Yale Center for British Art
Rumour has it that Robin Hood and his Merry Men had used the rock houses as hiding places – true or not we will never know (it’s a great legend though), but either way, they were extremely old, cut into the local sandstone and were used as homes until the beginning of the 1900s.
View of the rock houses c1775. Samuel Hieronymus Grimm. British Library. Although very faint you can just see the rock houses below the windmill
Robert Watson (1779-1839) and his wife Elizabeth née Moor, were one such couple who lived there in the early part of the 19th century. As Robert died prior to the first census taken in 1841, unfortunately, there is no information about his early life, occupation etc, we do however know that they had six children – William, Robert, Mary, John, Elizabeth and their youngest Sarah, who was born in 1810.
Rock Houses by A.S Buxton. With thanks to Mansfield Museum who hold the copyright.
Their lives would not have been easy, all eight of them living in such a small dwelling, trying to make ends meet to avoid the poor house. It was often thought that these houses were the modern equivalent of squats, however, this was not the case as confirmed in a letter of 1843 from the Poor Law Commission Office, which stated
A habitation within a rock, for which the occupier pays a yearly rent, is such a dwelling place as would come within the meaning of the word ‘house’ and would consequently be a subject of rating to the relief of the poor.
In an 1813 newspaper report, we learn that whilst those rock houses had probably been there for a long time they were by no means safe and the newspaper article reported that
a melancholy accident happened at one of the rock houses – as Robert Watson with his family were partaking of breakfast the roof suddenly fell in and completely buried one of his children, about three years of age, it was dug out of the ruins dreadfully bruised and dead – the rest of the family escaped unhurt.
That child was their youngest daughter, Sarah. By 1841, Elizabeth Watson was widowed but remained in the family dwelling, after all, where else could she have gone?
1841 Census for the rock houses – Elizabeth Watson, widowed. Click to enlarge view
By this time the small community numbered just under 100 people, many were stone masons, framework knitters and chimney sweeps. One of the main occupations prior to 1841 was that of besom maker (a broom made from twigs, tied with a stick), but by 1841 only two remained – John Cheesman and Joseph Freeman.
Illustrated London News 06 August 1910
One of the framework knitters (an occupation we have looked at previously) was George Gilbert (1779-1853), who lived there with his wife Sarah and their grandson a John Day, aged 12, according to the 1841 census, their son had died in childhood and their daughter Roseanna had married the son of the neighbouring family, Robert, son of Robert and Elizabeth Watson who we mentioned earlier.
Rock Houses by A.S Buxton. With thanks to Mansfield Museum who hold the copyright.
Sarah’s marriage to Robert took place at St Peter and St Paul church, Mansfield on March 1st, 1826, so, a long and happy life ahead of them, or so you might think, but this marriage was to be very short-lived.
At the end of August 1826, Robert Watson appears to have moved from Mansfield to Uppingham, Rutland, (with or without his new bride is unclear) at which time he was arrested for robbery along with a companion Henry Jones. It was alleged that they broke into the slaughter-house of a Mr Fludyer and stole a butcher’s frock, an apron and a piece of venison which was discovered wrapped in the frock. Both Robert and Henry were committed to trial at Oakham at the following session. GUILTY AS CHARGED.
Rock Houses by A.S Buxton. With thanks to Mansfield Museum who hold the copyright.
Robert, a stonemason, was sentenced to transportation, despite petitions from his parents Robert and Elizabeth, of Mansfield, who stressed that he was of good character, from a large family and that he had never been in trouble before and how distressed the family would be if he were to be imprisoned.
The court was having none of it and Robert was sent to The York, a hulk or prison ship to await transportation, where he remained until April 1827 when he boarded TheMarquis of Hastings and began the long voyage that was to take him to New South Wales where his sentence of seven years was to take place. The convict register of New South Wales described Robert as 5 feet 9 inches, brown hair, ruddy complexion, grey eyes, missing one of his upper front teeth.
HMS York is shown as a Prison-ship in Portsmouth Harbour with the convicts going on board. Plate from Shipping and Craft by E W Cooke, 1829
Quite how good his conduct was we may never know, but it can’t have exactly been exemplary, as six years into his sentence in 1833, he was sent to Norfolk Island, for life. This was however rescinded at the beginning of 1841 and he was given a Certificate of Freedom.
Rock Houses by A.S Buxton. With thanks to Mansfield Museum who hold the copyright.
So, what of his new bride? Did she await his return? Well, it appears that Roseanna continued to live in one of the rock houses but wasted little time finding a replacement for Robert, clearly, she felt he would never return.
A little over two years after Robert’s departure Roseanna presented her first child for baptism, at the same church in which they had married, so clearly the child was not Robert’s son and no father was named in the register, a performance which she repeated virtually every two years until 1844, on each occasion Roseanna gave her address as Rock House, so she had obviously remained there after husband had been transported. At some stage, she took up with a John Day, as to whether he was the unnamed father of her children, who knows, but her eldest son, named John, was with his grandparents on census day in 1841.
People continued living in the rock houses until the turn of the century, they are now sadly derelict and overgrown – such an interesting piece of local social history, all but disappeared.
Sources
Nottingham Gazette, 18 June 1813.
Draft letter from the Poor Law Commission to Richard Goulding. MH 12/9360/63
The Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, Friday, September 01, 1826
New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Freedom, 1810-1814, 1827-1867
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Rock Houses by A.S Buxton. With thanks to Mansfield Museum who hold the copyright.
We have looked at trade cards on a couple of previous occasions and it appears that many of our readers like them as much as we do. So, today we’re going to look at a specific trade – that of a druggist or chymist.
Wellcome Library
Our first offering is a lovely card for a Joseph Leaper, who was running his business in Bishopsgate, London. We love that not only did he make up lotions and potions, but also diversified into coffee, tea, chocolate and snuffs, a real 18th-century entrepreneur.
Joseph Leaper. Wellcome Library
As the card is giving away few clues we can’t be sure whether it relates to him Joseph senior or junior who took over the business on his father’s death in 1750. His will made no clear mention as to who was to take over the business after his death, but family were clearly important to him and he made provision for both his children grandchildren and so if this trade card postdates Joseph senior’s death, then it’s safe to assume his son Joseph took over the reins In Joseph senior’s will he specifically wished to be buried with his wife in Whitechapel, or, if he died in Derbyshire, to be buried at Osmaston, near Derby. Joseph senior got his wish to be buried with his wife and didn’t make it to the pretty village of Osmaston. He was buried 21st May 1750 at St Mary’s, Whitechapel.
The next one conjures up quite a dramatic image, someone clearly spent a great deal of time designing this. Something this detailed and imaginative would probably have been expensive to produce. You could spend hours just reading the symbolism contained within it.
Richard Siddall. Wellcome Library
Richard Siddall who was operating his business from the Golden Head, Panton Street, near the Haymarket. He was a maker and seller of all manner of chymical and Galenical medicines. He also sold ‘The Elixir for the Asthma and for gout and rheumatism’.
We know that he was already trading from that address when he married on 9th November 1751, as the London Magazine, or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, Volume 20 as it confirms his marriage to Miss Sukey le Febre (sic), fourth daughter to John le Febre (sic). In May 1753 Richard was declared bankrupt, so we have no idea what became of him after that. We do, however, know that his business was taken over by Daniel Swann, as he used an identical trade card showing the same address, just with a name change.
Our third one is for GJ Beavan who was trading at 114 High Street, Cheltenham, so, a fashionable spa town, an ideal place to visit for the upper classes and potentially lucrative for the businessman.
GJ Bevan Wellcome Library
This one tells us little about who Beavan was, but we do know that his company took over the business from Paytherus, Savory and company who also owned a warehouse on Bond Street, London and who were involved from 1793, in the production of Cheltenham Salts. Beavan’s was certainly trading under its new name from 1818 onwards according to the newspapers and we see this advert below for one of their products in 1832.
Cheltenham Chronicle 18 October 1832
The final one belonged to John Kempson Esq., a druggist of Snow Hill, London and according to Yale Centre for British Art was dated c1770. This helps us to narrow it down and we have found that John died in 1788 whilst getting into his carriage at his home in Cheam, Surrey. His will confirms that the main beneficiary of his estate was his wife, to whom he left £1,000, so not an inconsiderable sum of money. John was buried at St Dunstan church, Cheam on 6th November 1788, aged 77.
John Kempson. Yale Centre for British Art
It would appear that John didn’t work alone but had a chemist Richardson Ferrand working with him according to a newspaper report in the Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette of May 19th, 1804.
Sources
Derby Mercury 11th May 1753
Worcester Journal 29 September 1808
Chelmsford Chronicle 07 November 1788
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Showing the effect of taking Cheltenham Salts c,1820
We have looked at trade cards in a previous blog and if we’re honest this post is slightly self-indulgent as we’re fascinated by them. Today we thought that we would focus on the trade cards for those women who chose to run their own business or were forced out of necessity to continue running their husband’s business after his death as they would most likely have no other source of income.
There is an assumption that all women in the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century needed or wanted a husband to secure their position in society, although for some this was not the case. Whether they succeeded on not we may never know, but they certainly tried to be self-supporting.
We have previously looked at Eleanor Coade, businesswoman extraordinaire, a force to be reckoned with and we have our very own ‘Georgian Heroine’ Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs, who, whilst not running a business in the way you would expect, lived life on her own terms in a male-dominated world. She was paid by the government for her work as a sort of spy, reporting back to them about life in France around the time of the French Revolution and organising the major event of the golden jubilee for George III, almost single-handedly such. So, women were not all sitting around gossiping and drinking tea, looking pretty and waiting for ‘Mr Right’ to sweep them off their feet.
Women have always run businesses and in the eighteenth-century having your own business card and advertising in the newspapers was an excellent way of self-promotion, so we’re going to take a look at some such cards.
Our first and the earliest and most unusual card we found is for Dorothy Pentreath (1692-1777), known as Dolly, as her trade card states; she was ‘the last person who could converse in the Cornish language’ – she also sold fish for a living. Dolly was apparently not averse to cursing people in her native language when annoyed, oh and was possibly a witch! So multi-talented – quite a woman it would seem.
Dorothy Pentreath of Mousehole, Cornwall. Wellcome Library
There are many for occupations traditionally associated with women, such as fabric and frock sellers, but we wanted to look at the unusual ones, so our next offering is a seller of plates for coffins, near Newgate, London.
Bodleian Library. John Johnson Collection
Susanna Passavant took over a going concern from the late William Willdey, jeweller and toy man, Plume of Feathers, Ludgate Hill, opposite the Old Bailey.
Trade card for Susanna Passavant. British Museum
Next, we have one for Mrs Wood, a midwife in 1787, whilst a common occupation, this is the only trade card we have come across to date, for a midwife offering her services.
British Museum
Sarah Greenland, tobacco and pipe maker, who was possibly also an exporter of her goods.
British Museum
We love this next one, Mary Wiggett, chimney sweep. Mary took over the business after her husband died and remained at ‘The Broom ‘. Her unique selling point was that she would ‘make foul chimneys clean, and when on fire, puts them out with all expediency’.
Trade card for Mary Wiggett, chimney sweep. British Museum
This next one is quite sad. This was dated 19th June 1830, Martha Banting of Bampton, Oxfordshire was notifying people that her son John was no longer a part of the business, but that she would continue trading alone. On the 26th June 1830, Martha wrote her will – it was proven on the 28th July 1830. Despite her demise, her children inherited the business, so hopefully, they continued trading under the Banting name.
Bodleian Library. John Johnson Collection
Our final offering is Dorothy Mercier, printseller, stationer. Dorothy née Clapham was the widow of the artist Phillipe Mercier (1689- 1760). She would buy and sell old prints and frames. She also sold writing paper, vellum, drawing paper, lead pencils, chalks, paintbrushes, watercolours, so she would have been very popular with the artists of the day. Oddly she also sold ladies fans. She was also something of an artist as she was selling her own paintings of flowers too. Quite the entrepreneur.
For this post, I am revisiting a book I’ve used before, The Art of Conducting a Family with Instructions to Servants to take a look at some of the guidance for employing servants at the end of the 1700s.
Fidelity
Servants are an invaluable acquisition, but they have no interest at heart but their own. The more extravagant a family is, the better they fare. Economy they hate. Service, they say, is no inheritance.
Maidservant; British School; The National Trust for Scotland, Brodie Castle;
Wastefulness
Servants like to see their masters and mistresses spending their money and servants enjoy wasting it for them regardless of whether it can be afforded or not. A good servant should be as careful and frugal of their master’s property as they would be if it their own.
The Careless Servant; Francis Wheatley; Walker Art Gallery
Respect
A servant owes his master respect and should never answer back and only speak when spoken to. Whether servants are hired by the week or the year, their whole time is their master’s; and if they wilfully waste that time, by idly omitting what they are ordered to do, or by staying longer on messages or errand, it is as bad as picking their master’s pocket; for it is robbing the master of that time the servant has contracted to give him, and for which he is paid.
The Scullery Maid; Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow;
Leave
If a servant asks permission to take leave and it is declined, under no circumstances should he/she take it regardless but wait until a more convenient time.
A Game of Quadrille by Hubert-François Gravelot, 1699–1773, French, active in Britain (1733–45) c1740. Yale Center for British Art
Disagreements
If the master and mistress have any disagreements the servant must never interfere.
An Old English-Gentleman pester’d by servants wanting places. British Museum
Loyalty
As a wife is bound in duty to obey the injunctions of her husband, should it so happen that a master gives a servant one direction, and the wife or mistress contradicts it, or gives counter-orders, it is the duty of the servant to tell his mistress, when she gives those counter-orders, that his master has ordered otherwise; and that it is his duty to obey the master rather than his wife or mistress.
Displeased with servants. Lewis Walpole Library
No Singing or Romping
No servant should ever sing, whistle or talk loudly in the hearing of any of the master’s family, nor make any other noise about the house, so as to disturb, nor particularly should the men and maids romp in the kitchen.
When a servant enters the room where the master or mistress is, they should tread lightly and never speak but in a quiet voice. They should equally go up and down stairs lightly.
Doors
When entering a room, if the door is closed, they should close it after them and close it again when they leave. Whilst speaking to the master they should not keep the door open and fiddle with the knob of the lock, but shut it gently, by turning the bolt, and opening it again, when they retire. Nothing is more insolent, or gives more offence, that slamming a door.
Silence is golden
Quietness adds to the comfort of every family and the more quiet and orderly servants are, the more they are valued.
Answering back
Servants should never answer their master or mistress back.
No Spitting
A servant should neither blow his nose or spit in his master’s presence and, if possible, neither sneeze nor cough.
Answering the bell
Attentive servants will always come at the first ring of the bell. Tread lightly and speak in an under-voice, yet so as to be heard distinctly, and will whisper to their master or mistress. They will not thrust their heads in the face of their master or mistress nor poison them with offensive breath. To avoid anything disagreeable on this score, such as attend the room, servants will be clean of their person and will on no account eat onions, garlic or shallots.
Taking instructions
When a servant is receiving directions, he should be attentive, look in his master’s face, and not leave the room until the master has finished giving his instructions. If this was always done, there would not be so many mistakes nor would the ignorance of servants be so much complained of.
A Trusty Maid; Geroge H Hay; Hospitalfield Arts
Books and Papers
A servant should not presume to take a book out of a master’s room or library to read, nor take away or remove any paper that may lie about, without first asking whether it is of any use. Many a valuable paper has been destroyed by the ignorance and carelessness of servants.
A while ago we took a look at the below stairs roles of the household maid, the laundry maid and the cook, now we come to the role of the footman. Once again, we’re using the information provided by a certain Mrs William Parkes.
She firstly explains that the role of the footman varies greatly dependant upon the size of the household and its position within society. In a small household employing only one footman his typical morning would commence with the rougher part of the work of his department such as cleaning cutlery. Next, he would clean the household shoes and brush clothes.
He would also be required to assist the housemaid with cleaning the polished furniture in the library, dining and drawing room.
He would then prepare to serve breakfast by first making himself ready, then by setting the breakfast table, making sure that everything was ready on the table; seeing that the water was on the fire at the proper time so that no delay would arise when the family gathered in the breakfast room. He would also be responsible for ensuring that crockery was clean by washing the china and ensuring that glassware was as bright as possible. After the family had eaten it was his role to clear everything away and ensure that the breakfast room was tidy. That would largely take up most of his morning, but he also had to be ready to answer the bells in the house and to open the hall door.
His next job was to wait at table. It was the footman’s responsibility to lay the dinner-cloth, set each place with the correct cutlery, a tumbler, wine-glass and a chair. He also had to announce dinner once everyone was present at the table.
He should remain quiet at all time but be ready to assist as soon as required. Bread, wine or water, when handed round, should be presented with the left hand and upon the left side of the person served. The footman should take care never to reach across the table, nor to put his hand or arm before anyone. He should tread lightly and speak quietly when answering a question.
As great care was required when cleaning cutlery with ivory, ebony or silver handles this role also fell to the footman – there’s nothing more disagreeable than carelessly cleaned cutlery!
A good steady servant will keep his clothes and person clean and neat; he will be particularly careful in washing his hands, being called upon constantly to wait and hand so many various things. In many families, the footman, is very properly, not allowed to deliver any small thing, not even a card or letter, except on a waiter.
A good footman, when sent out, will not waste his time but will execute his errands quickly, and return to his business. Punctuality is a very important quality in the footman, who must be ready to serve his master or mistress at any time required.
Within a large establishment, the footman would be under the constant watch of either the housekeeper or the steward and would probably never be seen by the master or mistress.
Kentish Gazette, 20 September 1780.
The newspapers of the day were full of adverts from people seeking employment as a footman and others from employers seeking a footman. The key attributes required appeared to be honesty, cleanliness and sobriety and for the prospective candidate to have worked for their previous employer for at least a year.
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Taking an airing at Brighton, the donkies, or the humours of fashion. British Museum
We’re not quite sure that Martha’s claim to fame would work in today’s celebrity culture, for Martha, who was born Martha Killick daughter of Friend and Anne Killick in 1726 (baptized 19 September 1731), was a ‘dipper‘. Much has been written about her already, but we thought we would add a few extra bits.
‘A Calm’ by James Gillray (1810). Courtesy of Princeton University Library
What was a ‘dipper’? Well, in the 1700 and early 1800s doctors would recommend that people bath in seawater to restore their health. Needless to say, this concept was terrifying for many, so in places such as Brighton people were employed as ‘dippers‘.
Huts on wheels, like the one below were used to allow the bather to protect their modesty, the bather would climb into the hut, change into their swimming attire, the machine was then pulled by dippers into the sea. Dippers were also expected to ensure that people were not swept away by the current, arguably like a modern day lifeguard, so they would need to be very strong.
Weymouth
This occupation in itself was never going to give Martha celebrity status, but her royal connection to the Prince of Wales, later George IV, did. She was a favourite of his and apparently enjoyed special privileges including free access to the kitchen at the Royal Pavilion.
Martha Gunn, Bather at Brighton, 1791 Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art
The portrait of her below is reputed to show Martha holding the Prince of Wales as a small child, however, this is not feasible as the Prince did not visit Brighton until September 7th, 1783, he was 21. So despite the annotation at the top of the painting this must have been added at a later stage.
Todd’s print catalogue of 1799 simply described the painting as being with an unnamed child.
There was also another copy of the piece produced by William Nutter which is now held by The Met, dated 1797. It does not state that the child was the Prince of Wales, but that the original was in his possession and this one was dedicated to the Prince of Wales.
V0017100 Martha Gunn, a Brighton bather holding a small child that she has just saved from drowning. Coloured engraving by W. Nutter, 1797, after J. Russell. 1797 By: John Russell after: William NutterPublished: 1 June 1797
It also appeared in the following catalogue which confirmed the artist to be John Russell – ‘A catalogue of all the capital and valuable finished and unfinished original works of the distinguished artist, John Russell, Esq. R.A where it was to be sold along with other paintings by Mr Christie on February 14th, 1807.
Martha Gunn and the Prince of Wales by John Russell; Brighton and Hove Museums and Art GalleriesThe Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV born 1762 and Mrs Gunn
Martha was a large and strong woman and was well respected by the town and she even featured in the caricature below.
French Invasion or Brighton in a Bustle, Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library. Martha Gunn is depicted just left of centre, throttling a Frenchman.
She died in May 1815 and was buried in the local churchyard.
On Monday last, died, in the 89th year of her age, at Brighton, that well-known and esteemed character, as a bather, Martha Gunn, of that town. Her remains were followed to the grave by a large train of mourners and others.
Hampshire Chronicle, 15 May 1815
Martha Gunn (1726-1815); Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries
Long after her death, a plaque was added to the house where she and her family lived.
Today the majority of us rely on computers, tablets, mobile phones etc. for communication, but obviously, such things did not exist in the eighteenth-century when – shock horror – they used paper and hand-wrote everything. So once again we dip into a most useful book The London Tradesman for today’s article.
The use of paper is an ancient invention so the writer of this book has provided a description of how paper was made in the mid eighteenth-century.
Our paper in Europe is made of linen rags; the rags are then picked, separated into parcels, according to their fineness, washed and whited; then they are carried to the paper mills, where they are pounded amongst water till they are reduced to a pulp. When they are beat to a due consistence, they are poured into a working tub where there is a frame of wire, commonly called the paper mould, which is composed of so many wires laid close to one another, equal to the dimensions of the sheet of paper designed to be made; and some of them disposed in the shape of the figure which is discovered in the paper when you hold it betwixt you and the light.
Drying Loft. From Diderot’s Encyclopedia
This frame the workman holds in both his hands and plunges it into the tub and takes it quickly up again. The water runs through the spaces between the wires and there remains nothing on the mould but the water pulp, in a thin coat which forms the sheet of paper.
A flannel cloth is laid upon the top of the mould as the paper turned off upon it; then they dip it as before and continue to supply the vessel with fresh matter as it decreases. The flannel cloth sucks up the remaining moisture and the paper, after some time will suffer to be handled and hung up to dry in place properly suited for the purpose.
The writer then describes the process of manufacturing of a French invention, snuff boxes.
Snuff boxes are made of the same material as paper; are to be had at Paris of any colour, but are most commonly black, as ebony and are actually as hard and durable as any made of wood, horn or tortoise-shell. They are made of linen rags, beat to a pulp, as if intended for paper. A large quantity of pulp is put into a vessel and the water allowed to drain off; the pulp is dried and coheres together in a hard vessel, and the water allowed to drain off; the pulp is dried and coheres together in a hard, uniform lump, out of which they turn upon the leath (lathe), boxes or any other kind of toys which for their novelty fetch a large price.
Rare late 18th Century French large papier mache & mother of pearl snuff box, c.1790. Courtesy of Selling Antiques website.
He ends his article with a complaint about how much money is spent in the UK on paper purchased from France, Holland and Genoa who, according to the writer produce the best paper. The French excel in writing-paper and the Genoese in printing paper.
Basically, he is saying that the UK needs to ‘get its act together‘ and to produce a better quality of paper so that it stops buying from abroad!
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Collier, John; Trompe l’oeil Painting; The Fitzwilliam Museum.
I came across this book published anonymously in 1770 with containing full instructions for someone who wished to set up their own academy – a sort of ‘how to‘ guide. It was very lengthy but I thought you might find some of the instructions below quite interesting.
Are you desirous of engaging in the management of an Academy? Are you in low circumstances? Are you a broken attorney, or excise-man? A disbanded Frenchman, or superannuated clerk? Offer your service for a trifling consideration; declaim on the roguery of requiring large sums, and make yourself amends in the inferior articles; quills, paper, ink, books, candles, fire, extraordinary expenses, taylors and shoe-maker’s bills, are excellent items in academy-accounts. You may charge them as amply as you please, without injury to your reputation.
Twenty-five pounds is the least you can ask. Nor are you to neglect to avail yourself of the preceding items; but deem it a general rule that your extraordinary advantages are to bear a direct proportion to your stated terms.
Keating, George; The School Door; Museum of English Rural Life
Advertising
If you have promised to confine your attention to a trifling number by advertising that one or two are still wanting, or by decreasing your terms, attempt immediately to retract this promise.
Apply to your first benefactors; hope they will permit you to accommodate a few pretty little masters, sons of Mr Such-a-one, who may be of the greatest service to you. They will not deny you; they will consider it as a proof of your rising reputation.
When advertising for boys does not answer, advertisements for servants may probably succeed. The following is an approved copy.
Wanted at an academy near London three domestics; A complete penman, accomptant, and mathematician, with an undeniable character: A steady careful person capable of teaching the English language grammatically, and willing to attend the children to bed: A cleanly sober wench to look after the children’s linen, and do other occasional work
By properly publishing advertisements like this, you will seldom fail of attracting the attention of the public.
If you are at any time desirous of enlarging your terms, expostulate plentifully on your intended improvements, and the large stipends your assistants require. Your expenses are extremely great, and the business above measure fatiguing; you have been long accustomed to children, and are fond of seeing them about you; and indeed, otherwise the business would be insupportable.
Diet
Among the first articles enquired after, both by parents and children, are those of the table.
You cannot, therefore, be too early instructed in the desirable art of giving all reasonable satisfaction in this matter, at the least possible expense.
Remember then always, to set the fruit-basket amongst your boys before dinner. Fruit is least prejudicial to an empty stomach; and if the children will indulge themselves with biscuit and gingerbread, who can help it.
If your number of boys or their allowances deserve not a fruit-woman’s attendance, then your wife may properly enough engage in the office; it will prevent the boys from being cheated, and be a proof of her humility.
If there be no considerable parish work-house near you, it will be your interest to secure the stale loaves and neck-beef; the former is excellent in boiled milk or plumb-pudding, the latter in boullie for a Saturday’s dinner. The butchers and bakers you must remember have been time immemorial the best academy-ticks.
The worse your fresh joints are dressed the better for you; the boys will eat the less, and it is always the cook’s fault.
Whenever the boys find fault with the quality of your meat, appear at the head of your table, declare the extraordinary price you have given for it, and call your servants to witness that you sent for the best in the market.
I allow of no pies except a little before the holidays. Delicacies and dainties are not to be expected in a school.
The less salt, vinegar, pepper, &c. at dinner upon the table, so much the better; boys want no such provocatives.
If you oblige your boys to eat all you send them, it will prevent the frequent return of their plates, and learn them an excellent custom; if not, what they leave will make excellent hashes, and seem more indulgent: in this point, I find few who are agreed.
If you are afraid they will eat more than you have provided, say grace.
The Village School by P van Host; Fairfax House
Lodging
Few instructions may suffice on this head. The lighter the boys are covered, and the harder the bed, the more natural and more healthy.
The fewer chamber-pots the better; it will prevent the boys catching a cold by rising in the night and make them unwilling to drink much beer at supper.
The more you put in the bed the better also; it will endear them to each other, and prevent their playing wicked tricks.
Lodge the great boys always farthest from you, it will prevent them disturbing you in the night. If they lie near the maids, so much the better; the maids may give you proper notice of their behaviour.
Your usher must always be stowed amongst the little boys, to prevent them from tumbling out of bed, and to help them in the night.
If you allow the occasional use of a close-stool, let it be locked up in the garret that they may not abuse it. But I rather approve of their easing themselves in some corner of the room, that they may have the less pleasure in resorting thither in the day-time, and tumbling the bed-clothes about; and that their mothers, who always pay a visit to the bed-chambers, may be sensible what trouble you have with them.
Let the beds be always to be made, at the time of undressing. Going to bed is a thing the boys dislike. This little respite, therefore, will please them mightily, and they will please the maids.
The schoolmasters return. Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Recreation
The more holidays the better; it will give the boys an opportunity of feeding themselves at their own expense, and, by tasking them well, you will prevent the complaints of their parents.
Give a holiday always on public rejoicing-days; it will be considered as a proof of your loyalty; and let that day of the month on which your predecessor died, be always a feast for the boys; it is a tribute due to his memory.
Send your boys always on a holiday to see something or other in the neighbourhood; it will please both them and their parents, prevent their lurking about the pantry, and employ your ushers.
Boys commonly endeavour on these days to dispatch a letter or two privately. It will be your business to intercept them; they may be negligently written; there may be solecisms in them, or misrepresentations of facts, which might be displeasing to their friends.
A droll thought of Tom the schoolboy, or Two heads are better than one. Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Discipline
Remember always to exercise your first severity on poor people’s children and day-scholars. The first floggings are a perpetual disgrace, and it is but reasonable that they should bear it, by whom you are least profited.
Never punish the favourite of a family, if he has any younger brothers.
Boys who bear flogging best are commonly those who most deserve it. If four be accused, therefore, he who bears flogging best is always in the fault.
If a father gives you full power over his son’s posteriors, be not afraid to use it, but make him the scape-goat of the school as often as convenient.
No good to be done with a boy who has not a good opinion of his master. If a boy, therefore, accuses you, or your ushers, of ignorance or incapacity, take the first opportunity to expel him, especially if he be clever and likely to make a progress, in which you may be ill-qualified to accompany him.
Severe discipline is never to be inflicted immediately before the school breaks up, or very soon after the return.
Setting a maid upon her head, or pissing upon a mistress’s new gown, is a flogging matter, no more; it might look like partiality.
The best punishment for idleness is confinement and short commons.
Well, so far we have looked at household maid and the laundry maid, so we now move on to take a look at what would have been expected of the cook according to Mrs Parkes. Her description of the role provides an interesting insight into the way in which the employer viewed the role of the cook and her possible honesty and integrity as well as how frugally the household food budget could be managed – perhaps a lesson in for us in today’s ‘times of austerity’.
The cook should be healthy and strong, and particularly clean in her person. Her hands, though they may be rough from the nature of her employment, yet, should have a clean appearance.
Her honesty and sobriety must be unquestionable because there will be so many things tempting her to betray her trust and this she may do for a length of time without discovery.
She can neither be clean nor neat in her work if she does not have a sufficient number of saucepans, kettles, and a variety of other utensils but which must bear a proper proportion to the quantity of cooking which she has to perform.
Roller towels, kitchen table-cloths, and towels should be given out to her each week, in sufficient number, to afford her the means of being clean, without extravagance.
In those houses in which there is much cooking, and in large families, a kitchen-maid is generally kept, to whom devolves the preparing of the servants meals, and the cleaning the kitchen and the various cooking utensils; but, in smaller families, this additional servant is unnecessary, the work being easily performed by the cook.
The kitchen should be thoroughly cleaned twice during the week, and well swept each day: besides which, the broom and mop should always be at hand to remove anything that may have fallen on the floor, while the business of cooking is going on. A dirty floor, fire-place, unpolished utensils, with basins, jugs, or other articles left lying about, are symptoms of a slovenly cook, and are sufficient to excite suspicions of her nicety in things of greater importance to your comfort.
The cleaning of the kitchen, pantry, passages, and kitchen stairs, should always be over before breakfast, so that it may not interfere with the usual business of the day.
Elizabeth Hickman (d.1784), Cook to the Corporation by unknown artist (c) Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
If there is no housekeeper, the cook should, early in the day go into the kitchen and look around to see if all this has been properly done. You can then give your orders for the day, and inquire what is required from your store-room. The other servants should, also, come at the same time to ask for such things as they may need.
After each day’s cooking is over, the grate and hearth should be cleared, a small fire made up, and the boiler and kettle filled up and set on to boil. She should then, when there is no scullion, proceed to wash her dishes, having previously prepared two tubs, one with clean hot water, and the other with cold; in which latter the plates and dishes should be well rinsed before they are put onto the rack to dry.
The saucepans and kettles which have been used should be then scoured, but not too roughly, either with wood ashes, or with fine sand, then well rinsed out, wiped dry, and turned down on a clean dry shelf. If tin saucepans are not well dried, they quickly rust and are then spoiled.
The upper rim of saucepans should be kept bright; but the outside, where the fire reaches and burns, it is useless to attempt keeping bright; and indeed the rubbing and scouring they would require would soon wear them out.
For the same reason, the saucepans should not be scoured with a very heavy hand, which wears off the inside tinning without cleaning them the better. Iron and tin saucepans are properly superseding the use of copper; for although metallic copper be not poisonous, yet, if a copper vessel be left by a careless servant in a damp state exposed to the air, it cannot be used with safety until it be scoured. When copper pans are not well tinned, the Verdigris, or rust of copper, very soon appears, and this is, as you know, highly poisonous; particularly, if anything, in the smallest degree, be suffered to stand in it till it becomes cold.
Plucking the Turkey exhibited 1776 Henry Walton 1746-1813 Purchased 1912
When you are in the country, you will find your poor neighbours very thankful for the water in which meat has been boiled, which they will thicken with Pease and other vegetables, and thus obtain from it a comfortable and nourishing meal.
This your cook will, perhaps, consider as her prerequisite, unless you make a point of reserving it for the use just mentioned. The value of it to the cook may not be even one penny, while to the poor it gives a portion of strength and comfort.
If you desire it always to be poured into an earthen vessel kept for that purpose, and placed in your larder, you will then see it in your daily visits to your kitchen and will be able to direct to whom it shall be given. It would greatly add to the benefit if your cook were to prepare it, as the poor are very deficient in the art of cooking.
The pease-soup eater, or, Pain and laughter, by John Dixon. Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
In those families where economy is obliged to be studied (and in my opinion, it should be studied even in affluent families, for waste and extravagance can in no case be excused), the broth which boiled meat has produced, is frequently thickened into soup for the servants’ table. Good Pease soup may also be made for the same use, from the bones of roast beef, and the bones of the legs and shoulders of mutton. Those which have been cut from meat before it was cooked, should be stewed down for gravy, which a clever cook will, by a little contrivance, have constantly at hand.
There are very few cooks who are not extravagant in coals. A good fire is essential while cooking is going on, which may, perhaps, bring them into the habit of keeping a large one at other times of the day, and which every mistress or housekeeper should endeavour to prevent.
Your cook should never suffer her fire to get very low; for she wastes both many coals and time by this negligence. A fire should be regularly supplied with coals, which would prevent it from ever being so smoky as to be unfit for use at a few minutes’ notice and it should be generally known that smoke is merely unconsumed coal. If it gets low when anything is required to be prepared quickly, the cook has no resource, but to apply the bellows furiously, so that, before the fire burns properly, much coal must have been wasted. The ashes should be riddled from the cinders, and these reserved to throw on the back of the kitchen fire after cooking is over; or they will serve to burn in stoves and ovens, when once the fire under them has been lighted. When there is roasting going on, the meat-screen assists the fire and prevents the necessity of having so large a one as it would require without a screen. Also, when boiling alone is going on, the fire need not be unusually large.
Gamekeeper and Cook by David Wilkie; Bradford Museums and Galleries
Much was done by Count Rumford to improve fire-places, and economize fuel and I recommend to your attention his essays on this subject. It is usual, but I do not think it a good plan, to allow the cook what are called ‘perquisites dripping’ (today we would refer to this as ‘perks of the job’), for instance, if that be soap-fat and ashes are sometimes allowed as perquisites to servants, but for the reasons above stated, are to be deprecated and prevented.
Some cooks have even been known to meltdown butter, and the ends of candles, in order to add to these kitchen perquisites. Temptation, therefore, should be as much avoided as possible; but where there is a dishonest spirit and a want of principle, no precautions will avail. Still, if allowing wages, equivalent to the value of these perquisites, would diminish the contest between honest and dishonest principles, how much better it would be, both for the mistress and her servant, if this part of her domestic economy were to vary from the general system!
The Comforts of a Rumford Stove – Gilray
While on this topic, I ought not to omit to mention some other of the practices of which town servants are accused, in order that you may be on your guard, should you be so unlucky as to be the mistress of an unprincipled servant.
As servants are supposed to influence their employers in directing their custom to any shop they please, the tradespeople find it, too often, for their interest to bribe them, either with Christmas-boxes or to give them a discount upon the bills paid by their masters. It is well if this discount is not, in the first instance, drawn from the customer’s purse, by some extra charge and thus a system of dishonesty carried on as detrimental to the morality of tradesman and servant, as to the interest of the customer.
Sometimes, connivances have been discovered between petty tradespeople and servants, by which, articles that never entered the house have been charged in the bills The articles thus placed to the credit of the customer, are technically termed “the dead man’s portion;” and the produce obtained is divided between the defrauding parties.
(c) Paintings Collection; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
It is very unpleasant to entertain doubts as to the integrity of those we employ about us, and on whom we must necessarily rely in some degree. The best check, however, against these practices, is to permit your servants as seldom as possible to have anything to do with your bills and to carry on all your dealings with your tradespeople in person.
Also, I recommend you to acquire as early as you can, a knowledge of the quantity which, of each of the common articles of housekeeping, must necessarily be consumed in your family.
When you have ascertained that, you may judge each week for yourself, whether dishonesty or extravagance has been practised in your house, always, however, taking into the account the circumstances of the week, which may have increased this consumption.
Extravagance is frequently found accompanied by dishonest intentions proceeding chiefly from careless indifference to the interest of master and mistress. From whatever cause it proceeds, vigilance is absolutely necessary, either in the housekeeper or her mistress.
It is part of the cook’s duty to take such charge of meat, beer, bread, butter, cheese, and all the articles of common consumption, as shall prevent any degree of waste. Not the most vigilant mistress or housekeeper can attend sufficiently to this point; the cook, therefore, must be in a great measure responsible.
The greatest check the mistress of a family can have over her cook, is to show her that she has a thorough knowledge of the quantity of each article that must necessarily be consumed, according to the size of her family, and that when this quantity has been exceeded, she expects to have it accounted for. Accumulations of small pieces of bread ought never to take place, with a clever cook, who will always insist upon having those fragments eaten by the servants before fresh pieces are cut from the loaf.
When there are any pieces left, she can pour boiling milk over them, and prepare a common bread pudding for the early dinner.
There is frequent waste in the consumption of beer, owing to too much of it being generally drawn at a time. When this happens to be the case, a thoughtful cook will remember that a crust of stale bread put into it, and the jug covered over, will, for a short time, prevent it from becoming very flat.
A good cook will always be careful that the spits are wiped clean while they are hot, and left ready for the next day’s use. The jack should be oiled and cleaned occasionally, or the dust will clog the wheels, prevent it going well, and will make it necessary to have it taken down and more thoroughly cleaned.
Lewis Walpole Library
It is bad management in a cook ever to be without hot water, especially if she lives in a family where there are young children, for whom it is in frequent, and, sometimes, immediate demand.
The salt-box and candle-box should both be kept very clean. The former should be hung near the fire, as common salt attracts water from the air and dissolves and the latter as far from the fire as it can be, in a dry place.
Silver spoons should never be used in the kitchen, unless for preparing preserves; wooden and iron spoons are as cleanly and may be used without fear of scratching or bending them.
The cook should not permit the dust-hole to remain long without having it emptied, and no cabbage leaves or green vegetable matter should be allowed to be thrown into it. These soon ferment, and the sulphureted hydrogen gas, which is extricated, causes an intolerable stench.
Of course, we simply couldn’t resist a final image courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library!
Sources:
Domestic duties:, or instructions to young married ladies on the management of their households
(c) Lady Lever Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Last week we took a look at the duties of a housemaid (click the link to find out more), but if the house was large enough to warrant it, then a laundry maid would also have been employed, if not, then the role would have simply been added to the already onerous duties of the housemaid. The average annual salary for a laundry maid in 1750 was £5 (approx £450 in today’s money). In 1685 Hannah Woolley wrote a book which explained exactly what the duties of servants was; this book could still be purchased in the 1750s for a mere 1 shilling.
The information below is taken from another fascinating book written by a Mrs William Parkes who gives clear instructions as to what an employer should expect their laundry maid to be able to do.
Before laundry is sent to be washed, laundry should be examined, and if any part require to be repaired, it should be kept back.
The housemaid/laundry maid should keep an account of the number of the articles that are sent to the laundry, and count them over on their return, to see that all are right, and well aired and should replace them in the linen-press. In putting by the fresh-washed linen, care should be taken to place it so that the whole stock may come into use in regular succession, by placing it, for instance, under the rest of the linen, or at the back of the press.
Tate; (c) Tate; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
If the linen be put damp into the linen-closet, it will be mildewed, and stains produced which cannot easily be removed. A good maid will manage her work in so methodical a manner, that she will never either feel or appear to be hurried. Every day in the week will have its allotted portion of the weekly cleaning; by which means no one day will be surcharged with work, so as to occasion bustle or annoyance in the family. The drawing-room, the dining-room, and the library, she should contrive to clean thoroughly at those times in which the family are absent.
I would certainly advise you to procure one who has been accustomed to the business of the laundry, as that is not a department which you can yourself superintend ; nor can a housekeeper do so to any great extent, without neglecting some of her other avocations. Your eyes will quickly tell you if she wash the linen clean, and get up fine muslin tolerably well. If this should not be the case, you must, certainly, notice it directly, or the colour of your linen will be injured.
Young woman ironing – Louis-Léopold Boilly, Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
One thing you must remember, that your laundry should have every convenience to facilitate the work. The wash-house should be well supplied with soft water, boilers, and tubs. A washing machine saves labour, but I believe that the clothes are not so well washed as by the hand; and some imagine that it wears out the linen, and tears it.
In the laundry there should be a good stove (for the double purpose of heating the irons and airing the linen), and also a mangle.
Muslins and light things should be washed in clean water, as their colour cannot be preserved if any other apparel have been, previously, washed in the water. I am convinced that the laundry-maid would much more easily preserve the good colour of her linen, and-linen spare her own hands, if she changed the water more frequently, although it might occasion a greater expenditure of soap. Flannels are sometimes washed in cold water, mixed with ox or sheep gall; but this is the old-fashioned mode, and many ladies now prefer to have them washed in clean hot water. The colour of flannel is entirely lost if it be washed in water in which anything else has been previously rinsed.
Courtesy of Wellcome Trust
Besides the essential articles of soap, blue, and starch, the laundry-maid should always have a supply of salt of lemon, citrate of potash, and bleaching liquid, with which to remove ink spots, iron-moulds, or other stains from the linen before it is washed.
The quantity of soap used in a week’s wash may be reckoned at the rate of half a pound per head; which includes the washing of the household linen as well. The quantity of starch depends, of course, upon the number of articles to be starched. Sometimes it is fashionable to have muslin dresses starched and when table linen is worn and thin, a little starch improves their appearance, by giving them something of the consistency of new linen.
The Laundress, Jean-Baptiste Greuze. J. Paul Getty Museum
Some laundry-maids are so careless as to tear the linen in stirring it while boiling, making use of any rough stick they can find; and, also, sometimes to permit the water in the copper to get very low, by which means the linen is liable to be scorched by the fire. Such negligence should always be reproved. Soap is an article very easily wasted by a careless servant, and it requires some vigilance, either in the housekeeper or in the mistress of a family, to prevent it. When the quantity used weekly has been ascertained, it should be weighed out for each washing, nor should the laundry-maid be permitted to.
Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Needless to say, occasionally accidents happened!
Lloyd’s Evening Post, October 10, 1764 – October 12, 1764
General Evening Post, July 28, 1739 – July 31, 1739
Our final offering on the subject of laundry maids comes from the Daily Advertiser, Thursday, September 27, 1744.
‘Maid of all work’ – courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Many of our posts take a look at the upper echelons of Georgian society, so this time we thought it might be interesting to look at what it would have been like to have worked ‘below stairs’ as a housemaid in a Georgian household: it’s not quite Downton Abbey though!
Although these duties weren’t written until towards the end of the Georgian era, the workload would more than likely have been the same for the previous hundred years or more. Having taken a look, our conclusion is that it’s certainly not a job for us, what do you think? To learn about the duties of a laundrymaid click on the link.
Statute Hall for hiring servants
Qualifications
A housemaid should be active, clean, and neat in her person. Be an early riser, of a respectful and steady deportment, and possessed of a temper that will not be easily ruffled. She must be able to see without much appearance of discomposure her labours often increased by the carelessness and thoughtlessness of others.
Many a dirty foot will obtrude itself upon her clean floors; and the well-polished furniture will demand her strength and patience, when spotted or soiled by some reckless hand.
Maidservant being scolded, courtesy of Lewis Walpole
Duties
The sitting rooms in daily use are first to be prepared. Upon entering the room in the morning, the housemaid should immediately open the windows to admit the fresh air. She should then remove the fender and rug from the fire-place, and cover, with a coarse cloth, the marble hearth, while the ashes and cinders are collected together and removed. The grate and fire-irons are afterwards to be carefully cleaned. If the grate has bright bars, it should be rubbed with fine emery paper, which will remove the burnt appearance of the bars. Fine polished fire-irons, if not suffered to rust, will only require to be well rubbed with a leather.
The carpet should be swept with the carpet broom not oftener than once a week, as the more frequent use of the broom would wear the carpet too fast but, each day, it should be swept with a good hair broom, after it has been sprinkled with moist tea leaves. Sofas and any other nice furniture should be covered over with a large calico cloth, kept for that purpose before the sweeping commences; and window curtains should be hung up as high as they can be out of the way of the dust. After the carpet is swept, the dust must be removed, either with a soft round brush, or with a very clean linen duster, from the panels of the doors, the windows and window frames, ledges, and skirting boards. The frames of pictures and looking-glasses should never be touched with linen, but the dust should be cleared from them with a painter’s brush, or a bunch of feathers.
Where footmen are kept, the charge of rubbing mahogany furniture devolves on them, otherwise, it becomes the care of the housemaid. The chairs and tables should be rubbed well every day and on the mahogany tables, a little cold drawn linseed oil should be rubbed in once or twice a week, which will, in time, give them a durable varnish, such as will prevent there being spotted or injured by being accidentally wetted. Bees-wax should not be used, as it gives a disagreeable stickiness to everything, and ultimately becomes opaque. When there are any spots or stains upon a table, they must be washed off with warm water before the oil is put on.
La Récureuse – The Scrubbing Woman, André Bouys. (1737)
The chimney-ornaments, glass-lustres, or China, should be very carefully removed while the mantel-piece is either washed or dusted; and as the housemaid replaces them, she should, with a clean duster, wipe them free from the dust. The window-curtains are then to be dusted with a feather broom, and properly replaced on the hook.
About once a week the sills of the windows should be washed with soap and water, and the windows cleaned from the dust everywhere within reach.
‘Dinner just over’ Courtesy of Lewis Walpole
The stairs and stair-carpets should next be swept down if time will allow this duty before breakfast, as it is not a pleasant thing to be done when the family are moving about. And whenever good opportunities occur, such as the chief part of the family being absent from home for a few hours, the housemaid should avail herself of these to take the stair carpets up, and have them well beaten and shaken, while she scours the stairs down, and rubs the brass wires bright. The wainscot-board should also be washed, and the bannisters and hand-rail well rubbed.
As soon as the different members of the family are assembled at breakfast, the housemaid should repair to the bed-chambers, open the windows (unless the weather be damp), draw the curtains up to the head of the bed, and throw the bed-clothes upon two chairs placed at the foot of each bed, and leave the feather-beds open to the air.
When this has been done in all the rooms in use, she should then bring her chamber-bucket, with a jug of hot water, and with the proper towels, empty and clean out all the chamber-vessels in each room, and then instantly carry off, empty, and wash out the bucket, and turn it down in some appropriate place, that the water may completely runoff from it. When quite dry, she will, of course, carry it to the closet appointed for her use, in which she keeps her brooms, brushes, and the rest of her cleaning apparatus. She should next carry water-jugs, one with soft water and another with pump-water, into every bedroom, and fill the water-ewers and decanters.
The towels should be put before an open window to dry or be changed, and the washing table put into complete order. The beds, which during this time have been left exposed to the air, have now to be made, and in this another of the female servants should be appointed to help her, as the feather ones cannot be well shaken, or the mattresses turned, by one person. It is very necessary that feather-beds should be well shaken, or the feathers will knot together, and render the bed hard and uncomfortable. Once or twice a week the paillasses should be turned, and every day the flock-mattresses and the beds. The sacking-cloth and bedstead should be dusted occasionally.
It is necessary to remind those who are called from other household work to assist in making the beds, that they should previously wash their hands, as nothing looks more untidy or disgusting than the marks of dirty fingers upon the bed hangings, sheets, or counterpanes. With cleanly servant, this can seldom occur.
The beds being made, the curtains are to be shaken and laid upon the bolster, and a large calico coverlet should be thrown over the whole, and coarse towels over the washing and dressing-tables. If the bed carpets are small and loose, they should be taken up before the beds are made; but if they are fastened down, which is very customary now, damp tea-leaves should be strewed over them previous to their being swept with a stout hairbrush. After the room is swept, a damp mop or flannel, passed under the beds, the chests of drawers and wardrobes collects the flue and dust, and this should be done every day, as the best mode of keeping bed-rooms free from troublesome insects of every kind. A clean mop should belong to the housemaid for this purpose. Nothing betrays an untidy housemaid more than the flue being suffered to accumulate beneath the beds. After the room is swept, the ledges, panels of doors, and window frames are all to be dusted, and the furniture rubbed and dusted.
Twice during the week bedroom carpets should be taken up and shaken, and the floors under them swept free from dust, and occasionally scoured. In the country, scouring is not so frequently done as in town, but the floors are oftener dry-rubbed.
In winter, a bedroom should never be scoured, unless the weather be mild and dry, for nothing is so likely to injure health as damp in a bedroom. As soon as a housemaid thinks she has finished a room, she ought to look around her and examine if she has omitted anything, which will show care and attention, and prevent her mistress from being obliged to call her up, to admonish her of any neglect.
During the winter, when there are fires in the bedrooms, the housemaid should, before sweeping the room, collect and carry away the ashes, clean the grate and fire-irons, and lay, with small pieces of wood, a neat fire, ready to be lighted either before dinner or at night, according to orders.
‘Swift’s advice to servants’ courtesy of Lewis Walpole
While the family are at dinner, the housemaid should again repair to the dressing and bedrooms, to put in order those things which have been used and disarranged at the dressing hour. Between the time of her own dinner and tea, she ought to be employed in sewing, perhaps in repairing the household linen, or in any work appointed for her.
Early in the evening, the beds should be turned down, the windows shut, the curtains drawn, the fires, if required, lighted, and the rooms are prepared for the night.
The pretty maid with her apron before the candle – courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Pietro Longhi (1702–1785), Il cavadenti (The Tooth Extractor)
Whilst brushing my teeth the other day I found myself wondering what dental care would have been like in the 18th century, so with that in mind I thought it might form an interesting blog. It’s quite surprising how far we have actually progressed and in other ways how little we have learnt.
‘Sugar is bad for you!’ A fact that did not escape the attention of one Thomas Berdmore, dentist to King George III, who was regarded as the leading dentist in England and as early as 1768, in what appears to have been the first English dental textbook ‘A treatise on the disorders and deformities of the teeth and gums: explaining the most rational methods of treating their diseases: illustrated with cases and experiments’, he had proclaimed the use of sugar as being bad for teeth! He was also ahead of his time with his observation: ‘I am inclined to think that smoking is hurtful to the teeth.‘
False teeth, False eye and False hair
Thomas died 7 November 1785, aged a mere 45 years, in Nottingham and in his will he instructed that his epitaph show his fortune had been acquired ‘by tooth drawing’, but the family had found that too indelicate so here is the substitute at St Mary’s church, Nottingham.
Today we take sugar very much for granted, but we are now very much aware of its harmful effects on the body, less was known of its effects back then and so as it’s usage in the diet increased and with it the risk of tooth decay. Sugar was, however, an expensive commodity, there was of course far more chance of decay if you weren’t working class as sugar was mainly an indulgence of the middle/upper classes. The quantity of sugar consumed in Britain increased fourfold[1] from 1700 to 1800, little wonder people needed dentists!
British Museum
With today’s technology teeth can be repaired or removed even dentures are not essential with implants now being available to replace those dreaded dentures, all procedures being carried out hygienically and with the aid of anaesthetic – ‘you won’t feel a thing’.
Image courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Go back in time to the 1700s and the main solution for a painful tooth was extraction … minus the anaesthetic … ouch! Having your teeth removed really would have been painful as this somewhat earlier painting entitled The Tooth Extractor by Theodor Rombouts demonstrates.
If you were wealthy you could opt for the eighteenth-century equivalent of today’s implants and use a ‘donor’ tooth to replace your removed one in which case the choice was a ‘live’ or a ‘dead’ tooth. The old tooth was removed and the ‘donor’ tooth substituted. Hmm, now the question you would have to ask yourself was ‘do I really want someone else’s tooth in my mouth?’ Let’s be honest you really don’t know what medical conditions that person could have had, so you really could end up getting far more than you had bargained for as we see in this case –
Leeds Intelligencer, 18 October 1785
A young lady of rank had lately one of her fore teeth become black and carious and was advised by a celebrated dentist to have a tooth taken from the mouth of an apparently healthy person and transplanted into the place of the decayed one. This was accordingly done, and the tooth fastened perfectly well.
At the end of five weeks her mouth became very painful, her gums ulcerated, and were soon corroded away; a number of ulcers, large and deep and foetid, extended over her cheeks and throat; several of her teeth dropped out, and her death was soon expected from the daily decay of her strength. In this calamitous condition an eminent physician was consulted, who suspecting mercury to be the proper corrector of this frightful disease, directed a gentle course of it to be tried, which for a time relieved most of the symptoms. She was then ordered to try the effect of country air; she accordingly proceeded, by short stages, to her summer residence, about 80 miles from London. Here, without any new complaints, her strength gradually lessened, till death closed the melancholy scene. The above account may be depended upon for fact and was laid before the Royal College of Physicians a short time since by the very learned Vice President of the Royal Society, who attended the unfortunate young lady upon this deplorable occasion.
But, if that didn’t put you off then you could have your ‘new’ tooth inserted into the empty socket and held in place by silver wire and be returned to your usual glamorous looks quite quickly. Advertisements were placed in newspapers for donors with money being good money being paid for your teeth, so if you were short of money it was always an option!
If that option wasn’t up your street or you couldn’t afford it, then the only solutions were to endure the pain, pull the tooth out yourself or have it removed by a dentist/barber. The favoured method of extraction was to use a ‘key’, we’ll save you the excruciating description of how this worked, but, if it failed to work properly the tooth would break and have to be removed piece by piece. Very much as today, dentists had a vast array of implements from pliers to cleaning aids.
Image courtesy of PhisickDental Pelican for tooth pulling. Courtesy of the Science Museum.
If on the other hand, your teeth were in good condition you might simply wish to maintain them, again the dentist could help with this. They could provide ‘mouth water’ which ‘cured all manner of toothache and pain in the gums proceeding from rotten, hollow or stumps of teeth or scurvy and likewise take away all ill smells of the breath. Price 2d and 6d a bottle’; according to the Evening Post, 30 November 1710.
1790 toothbrush courtesy of Science Museum
Following on from Thomas Berdmore came Jacob Hemet (baptized 26 Jan 1729 at St Paul’s, Covent Garden – 30 Aug 1790, buried at St Clement Danes), who was also responsible for the teeth of Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales and Princess Amelia having been appointed to this post in 1766. As well as being a dentist Hemet was also a salesman and patented his dentifrices and travelled around Europe and America to sell his products – quite the entrepreneur. Whilst Jacob was busy promoting the business his partner, Thomas Scarman (1744-1816) was largely responsible for running the day to day business from 1785, and it was Thomas who took over the business from August 1790, following the death of Jacob, continuing to serve the dental needs of London’s royals and aristocrats. Clients could either be seen that their premises at 62 New Bond Street, or home visits could be arranged by prior appointment.
As can be seen from his business card, he was working from New Bond Street, an affluent area from which to run his business and close to the royal family. Although Thomas worked from there, he also owned another property where he lived, with his wife and family, at Tring, Hertfordshire until his death in 1816. He was buried 15 June 1816, at the church of St Martin in the Fields, London, aged 71.
Scarman, Dentist, partner and successor to Mr Hemet (Jacob). British Museum
Jacob’s uncle, Peter Hemet junior, had also been a dentist with royal connections; he was the dentist to the Prince of Wales and to King George II, until his death in 1754, so very much a case of keeping it in the family. See our blog about Mrs Lessingham to learn more about the Hemet family.
Courtesy of Lewis Walpole LibraryPharmaceutical pot belonging to Peter Hemet. Courtesy of Fitzwilliam Museum.
Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer, January 10, 1769
Jacob Hemet, dentist to Her Majesty and Princess Amelia begs leave to recommend to the public his newly discovered Essence of Pearl and Pearl Dentifrice which he has found to be greatly superior, not only in elegance, but also in efficacy to anything hither to made use of for the complaints of teeth and gums; particularly they will preserve the teeth in a perfect sound state even in old age. They render them white and beautiful without in the least impairing. Fasten such as are loose; keep such as are decayed from becoming worse; perfectly cure the scurvy in the gums and make them grow firm and close to the teeth; they will likewise render the breath delicately sweet and remedy almost all those disorders that are the consequence of scorbutic gums.
I could not ignore children’s teeth and the London Evening Post of October 28, 1760 carried an advertisement for an ‘anodyne necklace’ it was a remedy to ‘let out children’s teeth without pain’ i.e. a teething necklace. The reality being that it was a necklace containing henbane roots.
I will leave you with one final snippet of information about dentistry courtesy of Pierre Fauchard, who was regarded as the ‘father of dentistry’ – did you know that Fauchard recommended that human urine be used at the first sign of tooth decay … did it work … I have absolutely no idea, nor do I intend to put it to the test!
Of course, as always a blog would not be complete with one of my usual Lewis Walpole caricatures, so we’ll finish with one. Wonder how many readers will, having read this, go and brush their teeth!
To find out more about female dentists just follow the highlighted link here.
To can also hear me chatting to London Guided Walks on the subject by clicking the highlighted link.
Sources
[1] Ponting, Clive (2000). World History: A New Perspective. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6834-X
Today we hand out business/trade cards like confetti, most being mass produced for a few pounds. With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the same commodity in the Georgian period. The variety of ‘trade cards’ is immense everything from grocers, to wholesalers, from funeral directors to hosiers and hatters, the list just goes on; every trade you can think of and many more you would never have thought of. The aim of these cards was to achieve maximum publicity so it was important to make them both visual and textual.
Trade cards were used to establish links with other local businesses and were taken very seriously as they were legally binding contracts. They were often handed out in public squares and markets, a great marketing tool as they still remain today. Trade cards would usually have a merchant’s name and address along with a description of where to find them. They also served as invoices, receipts, and places to jot down quotations, price lists, and other handwritten information.
One thing I had noticed was how much more intricate they are in design than anything you would see today. They are so fascinating that I simply had to share a few with you. According to the British Museum, many of the cards they hold were originally collected by the sister of Sir Joseph Banks, Sarah Sophia Banks, who will make an appearance in another of our books in the future. I wanted to include a portrait of Sarah Sophia Banks and, in my usual style, this caricature of her really was too much to resist … sorry!
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed looking for them.
Our first offering is ‘Daniel, a real working Goldsmith & Watchmaker, of Clare Street, Bristol’. There were so many for goldsmiths and horologists that I was totally spoilt for choice.
Courtesy of the British Museum
In the 18th century, all but the upper-class women would have had to work and there are a surprising number of trade cards still in existence relating to female occupations. Women were barred from most trade guilds and there were few if any formal organisations to support them. The only exception being that if a woman’s husband died she would be entitled to run his business and his membership of that guild would be transferred to her meaning that she could retain his privileges and also take on apprentices thereby allowing the business to continue to operate. For financial reasons a widow would probably need her late husband’s business to continue and so she would have trade cards printed to ensure the continued support of his clients.
Courtesy of the British Museum
Our next reads as follows-
Catherine West, at the Hatt & Seven Starr’s in Monmouth Street the Corner of Browns Gardens Facing the Seven Dials, Sells all sorts of Womens Apparel Both New & Second Hand Wholesale & retail at reasonable rates viz. silk gowns, scarlet cloaks, market womens cloaks, all manner of stuffs in the piece, russells, stuffs damasks, cambletts, cambletees, prunell’s , callamancoe’s, Irish stuffs, joans, spinning & made in the gentelest manner, likewise gives ready money for womens apparel rich or plain, N.B. At the above place are sold ladies beavers, mens hatts new or second hand by the maker John West.
Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
Howgate & Edmondson, sadlers and cap makers, opposite the Coventry Cross near Conduit Street In New Bond Street, London.
Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library
The painter, William Hogarth’s sister Mary and Ann were also running their own business, ‘frock makers’, frocks being outerwear, not dresses as we may refer to them as today, in their case they made clothes for children.
Our next one is Charles Hill, a grocer, selling amongst other things coffee, chocolate and cocoa – clearly a place I would have spent hours in!
Followed by Ashlin, a glass carver, grinder and guilder, his importance being denoted by the use of the Prince of Wales feathers a crown and motto ‘Ich dien’, a crown and laurel garland on top of the oval; lion and unicorn supporters.
Courtesy of the British Museum
A somewhat more artistic card, that of David Shilfox, engraver and printer, at 349 Oxford Street, opposite Oxford Market, London.
Courtesy of the British Museum
I would like to share this card that was very kindly brought to our attention by our friend, the Female Master of the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers.
A tea that is just as popular today as it probably was in 1804 – Twinings being sold by John Deck.
Courtesy of the British Museum
For the wealthy of the 18th-century pineapple was immensely popular so I couldn’t resist including the trade card for Negri and Wetten, confectioners, at the Pineapple, Berkeley Square.
Courtesy of the British Museum
For those who like something a little more obscure, I offer the trade card for H Longbottom, skeleton supplier.
Courtesy of the British Museum
And finally we have Owen and Cox, appraisers, undertakers, at their ‘upholstry and carpet warehouse’, … Funerals furnished‘.
In case you weren’t aware of it, there is more information in the London Book Trade 1775 – 1800, in this excellent, searchable resource
The Bodleian Library online also has a wonderful section on trade cards that are worth a look.
All Things Georgian 