Lady with Lorgnette by Unknown Artist, 1830s.

A lorgnette is, quite simply, a pair of spectacles mounted on a handle.  The precursor to modern opera glasses, lorgnettes were a common sight during the 19^th century at the theater as well as the opera.  And since the name lorgnette derives from the French word lorgner – meaning “to ogle” or “to eye furtively” – one can only imagine the many uses to which a curious socialite in the balcony might have put them.  Whether employed to sneakily spy on a rival across the way, stealthily investigate a young gentleman down in the pit, or to merely watch the action on the stage, a lorgnette was an indispensable accessory for the 19^th century lady about town.

Until the 17^th century, optical aids were primarily the province of men.  However, with the invention of the lorgnette, women became much more involved in the world of eyeglasses.  Feminine interest in the lorgnette inspired many new designs, including the “jealousy lorgnette.”  Author Kerry Segrave describes the jealousy lorgnette in her book Vision Aids in America: A Social History of Eyewear and Sight Correction:

“Like all the early lorgnettes, it was constructed for one eye only and resembled one half of a fair-sized modern opera glass.  Besides having a lens at each end, the jealousy lorgnette contained an oblique mirror through which, when looking into it from a hole hidden in a decorative part in the side of the device, one could see who was behind or to one side of the viewer.”

During the 18^th century, Madame de Pompadour was never without her ornate jealousy lorgnette and Madame du Barry carried a jealousy lorgnette studded in diamonds.  The jealousy lorgnette was not only an accessory of the rich and paranoid, however, it was also, in many ways, a polite necessity.  It was not good manners for a lady to turn around in her theater box and stare at those entering so that she might discover who had arrived with whom.  The jealousy lorgnette enabled her to see what was going on behind her without ever turning her head.

Brisé lorgnette fan, French, late 18th/early 19th century.
(Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

The lorgnette was at its most controversial during the 18^th century.  Marie Antoinette is credited with inventing the “fan lorgnette,” wherein the hidden lorgnette was placed within the fan itself.  According to Segrave, soon lorgnettes were hidden in meshes of lace and “in any spot the imagination could devise.”  Women flirted through these hidden lorgnettes and, in his book The Eye in History, author Frank Joseph Goes states:

“The lorgnette was part of the elegant games of high society, in the same way as the ‘language’ of the fan.”

The early 20^th century magazine Hygeia explains the effect of the controversy and scandal surrounding the 18^th century lorgnette:

“…the more aroused and controversial public opinion became, the more popular grew the lorgnette of every type and in every conceivable form; and whoever laid even the least claim to distinction or style sported a variety of them.”

Lorgnette of Gold and Glass, mid-19th century.
(Courtesy of The Smithsonian Design Museum.)

By the 19^th century, the lorgnette had become more practical and fashionable than scandalous.  Fashion historian C. Willett Cunnington even declares that in 1893:

“Nearly every smartly dressed woman wears a lorgnette.”

Early prototypes of the lorgnette were made with an unjointed handle.  Later incarnations had a jointed handle and, by the 19^th century, a spring had been added which allowed the lenses to fold together within the handle, which also served as a case.  The 1915 American Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Ophthalmology, states that:

“Such a device, manipulated with one hand, can be quickly placed before the eyes and is convenient for momentary use by presbyopes, who thus avoid being burdened with other glasses.”

Lady with a Lorgnette by Jozsef Borsos, 1856.

In this way, the lorgnette transcended its role as an accessory for the theater or opera, becoming instead an accessory of daily, practical use.  Many 19^th century figures kept a lorgnette permanently about their person.  Alexander I, for example, was known to hide his lorgnette in his pocket.  Because he lost it so frequently, he ultimately tied it to a button on his sleeve and was observed by many contemporaries to constantly bring up to his eye “a gilt lorgnette that was hanging from his right hand.”

For 19^th and early 20^th century ladies, a folding lorgnette was also frequently hung from a chain around the neck or worn as a brooch.  And in the 1930s and 1940s, it was quite popular to wear a dress clip worn to the front of a dress neckline, a pocket, or lapel which concealed a lorgnette inside.

Dress Clip Lorgnette, American, 1940s.
(Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

It should be noted that the word lorgnette is often used to describe both the “miniature telescope” or “prospect/perspective glasses” of the 17^th and 18^th centuries as well as the 19^th and 20^th century folding spectacles which snapped into a protective case or handle.  The invention of the latter variety of lorgnette is credited to Englishman George Adams in 1785.  Adams original design was meant to be carried in the pocket.  Later improvements in design were made in 1825 by English optician Robert Betell Bate who patented handled spectacles.  According to author J. William Rosenthal in his book Spectacles and Other Vision Aids, Bate’s design included a hinge in the bridge which allowed for the two lenses to be folded together as one and used as a magnifying glass.  Later, a spring would be added so that:

“…moving a small lever in the lorgnette handle would unlatch a catch and allow the lenses to spring apart.”

Rosenthal also notes that:

“…although popular with women as a fashion accessory and as a necessity for clarity of vision, public use of the lorgnette was decried as poor decorum because it was often used for ogling neighbors or strangers.”

Rossel & Fils Lorgnette, yellow gold with blue enamel and diamonds, with watch, circa 1860 .
(Image by Pierre EmD CC BY-SA 3.0.)

Lorgnettes were made of a variety of materials including tortoiseshell, horn, bone, ivory, metal, enamel, mother-of-pearl, silver, gold, and jewel encrusted.  Rosenthal describes lorgnette cases of the early to mid-19^th century as being “beautifully decorated.”  Cases often contained a “silver cartouche” and some of the tortoiseshell cases were “protected on the edges with a band of silver.”  Further embellishments included cases with “enameling of decorative designs or pastoral scenes” which were encrusted with precious stones.

Tortoiseshell Lorgnette with long handle, 19th century.
(Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

From the mid-19^th century to the end of the 1800s, Rosenthal reports that lorgnettes typically had longer handles, measuring as much as 20 to 30 centimeters in length.  The handles were either straight or curved and they were often heavily embellished.  Handles were made of real and imitation tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, and silver.  The real tortoiseshell might be carved or plain, while the imitation was frequently molded to a design.  The silver lorgnette handle might be embossed or ornately engraved.

The era of the lorgnette is not at an end.  When attending the opera or theater, one can still occasionally see lorgnettes mingled amongst more contemporary varieties of opera glasses.  Recently, while shopping, I even encountered a sales associate who wore a single lens lorgnette around her neck on a chain to enable her to see the labels of make-up products.  That is a purely anecdotal way to close a fully cited article, I know, but it struck me how much in the present, despite all our modernity, the remnants of 18^th and 19^th century life still manage to pop up in purely practical ways.  So next time you are out and about wearing your Regency era shawl, don’t forget to bring along your 19th century lorgnette.  It is yet another historical fashion accessory which can be easily incorporated into your 21st century wardrobe today.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Cunnington, C. Willett.  English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century.  London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1939.

Goes, Frank Joseph.  The Eye in History.  New Delhi: Jaypee, 2013.

Hygeia.  Vol. 15.  Issues 1-6.  American Medical Association, 1937.

Rosenthal, J. William.  Spectacles and Other Vision Aids: A History and Guide to Collecting.  Jeremy Norman, 1994.

Segrave, Kerry.  Vision Aids in America: A Social History of Eyewear and Sight Correction:  Jefferson: Mcfarland, 2011.

Wood, Casey Albert.  The American Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Ophthalmology.  Cleveland: Cleveland Press, 1913.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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The Maiden and the Unicorn by Domenichino, 1602.

According to historians, the legend of the unicorn first emerged in 398 BC courtesy of the Greek physician Ctesias.  Ctesias wrote an account of India, titled Indica.  He attests that all recorded within his account are things that he has witnessed himself or that he has had related to him by credible witnesses.  This account of India, though largely lost, has been preserved in a fragmentary abstract made in the 9^th century by Photios I of Constantinople.  In the twenty-fifth fragment, Ctesias writes of the unicorn, stating:

“There are in India certain wild asses which are as large as horses, and larger.  Their bodies are white, their heads dark red, and their eyes dark blue.  They have a horn on the forehead which is about a foot and a half in length.”

Ctesias describes the unicorn’s horn as being “two hands’-breadth above the brow” with a base of pure white, a black middle, and a “vivid crimson” tip.  He goes on to write of the uses of unicorn horn, claiming that the dust filed from the horn, when administered as a potion, is a protection against deadly drugs.  He also states that those who drink from the horn are not subject to either convulsions or epilepsy, writing:

“Indeed, they are immune even to poisons if, either before or after swallowing such, they drink wine, water, or anything else from these beakers.”

Portrait of a Young Lady with a Unicorn by Raphael Santi, 1505.

His descriptions of the unicorn’s anatomy and physiology are specific.  He states that the unicorn has an ankle-bone “like that of an ox in general appearance and in size.”  He also states that, unlike “other asses,” the unicorn has a gall in its liver.  He also declares that:

“The animal is exceedingly swift and powerful so that no creature neither the horse nor any other, can overtake it.”

This is all a very different description than the solid white, golden-horned unicorn of modern fantasy and might go a long way toward explaining some of the stranger depictions of unicorns in early art wherein they resemble a goat, a sheep, or a strange variety of small, brown horse.  Author Odell Shepard, in his book Lore of the Unicorn, posits that Ctesias is describing the combined attributes of more than one animal in his description, primarily the Indian rhinoceros.  As he explains:

“The evidence for this lies in what is said of the horn’s alexipharmic virtue, that those who drink from beakers made of it are free from certain diseases and from poisons.  This belief about rhinoceros horn, still widely current in the Orient, was already old, apparently, in the time of Ctesias, and underneath it there lies a welter of symbolism and superstition exceedingly difficult to comprehend.”

Saint Justina with the Unicorn by Moretto da Brescia, 1530.

The fragmentary passage by Ctesias is considered to be one of the two primary sources for the western legend of the unicorn.  In the years that followed, though single-horned “wild asses” were acknowledged by the likes of Aristotle, the unicorn had no place in the classic literature of Greece or Rome.  Nevertheless, according to Shepard, the legend of the unicorn continued to grow.  Not only were unicorns mentioned by Julius Caesar and Pliny the Younger, but also by Roman author and teacher Claudius Aelianus (also known as Aelian).  In his book, De Natura Animalium, Aelian writes three passage about the unicorn and, according to Shepard:

“Every phrase of his three considerable passages about the unicorn was conned and reiterated many times during the following fifteen hundred years and for this reason they deserve careful attention.”

The Lady and the Unicorn
by Luca Longhi, 16th Century.

The first and second passages by Aelian seem to mirror the writings of Ctesias.  In the third passage, however, Aelian’s description begins to diverge from his predecessor, stating:

“…there are mountains in the interior regions of India which are inaccessible to men and therefore full of wild beasts.  Among these is the unicorn, which they call the ‘cartazon.’  This animal is as large as a full-grown horse, and it has a mane, tawny hair, feet like those of the elephant, and the tail of a goat.  It is exceedingly swift of foot.  Between its brows there stands a single black horn, not smooth but with certain natural rings, and tapering to a very sharp point.”

Aelian mentions other qualities of the unicorn which bear striking resemblance to the rhinoceros, including its “dissonant voice,” indomitability, propensity for solitude, and tendency to fight with other males and even with females.  Shepard notes that, rather ironically, though at the time the rhinoceros was known to both Greeks and Romans, Aelian does not seem to make the connection.  He writes:

“The strange confusion had strange results, lasting on into the nineteenth century.  One of the more amusing phases of it is the fact that when Aelian is speaking of the wild ass he makes much of the magical properties of its horn, but when he comes to speak of the “cartazon,” or rhinoceros, to which alone those properties were originally attributed, he has not a word to say of them.”

The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn by Martin Schongauer, 1489.

The unicorn has often been intrinsically linked to Christianity.  Not only are unicorns mentioned several times in the King James Version of The Bible as beasts of enormous strength and ferocity, including the following passage from Numbers:

“God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn.”

The unicorn also figured into the “Christian Beast Epics” or Bestiaries of the 2^nd century AD, the first of which was The Physiologus.  A bestiary contained moral tales, in the body of a fable, which began with a quotation from scripture and were followed by “a description of the major traits, real or fancied, of some animal.”  The tale ended with a moral lesson.  Though repudiated by “Official Christianity,” these tales continued to flourish through Christendom for the next thousand years and, according to Shepard:

“It was chiefly by means of these Bestiaries that the popular as distinguished from the learned tradition of the unicorn was disseminated.”

Unicorn Hunt, Rochester Bestiary, 14th century.

It is in The Physiologus that we first encounter the description of the unicorn as a small, but fierce beast which no hunter is able to catch without the aid of a virgin.  According to the tale:

“Men lead a virgin to the place where he [the unicorn] most resorts and leave her there alone.  As soon as he sees this virgin he runs and lays his head in her lap.  She fondles him and he falls asleep.  The hunters then approach and capture him and lead him to the palace of the king.”

Some historians interpret this as a symbol of the power of feminine seduction.  Others identify the virgin as a symbol of virtue and the unicorn as a symbol of the devil, thus exemplifying the triumph of virtue over evil.  And then there are those who imbue the fable with even deeper Christian meaning, viewing the virgin as the Virgin Mary and the unicorn as Christ.  Patron saint of Milan, Saint Ambrose, is even quoted as asking:

“Who is this Unicorn but the only begotten Son of God?”

Whatever the deeper symbolism, the image of the virgin and the unicorn is a familiar one.  It is the subject of countless paintings and works of art.  Indeed, as time passed, no longer was it necessary to read the works of Pliny the Younger or Aristotle in order to learn of the unicorn.  Depictions of the unicorn were soon displayed in stained glass, on tapestries, in architecture, and even on coats of arms.

Stained glass heraldic achievement of Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland.
South chancel window, All Saints Church, Clovelly, Devon, 18th century.

In Europe, from the 13^th century to the 16^th century, both ecclesiastical and secular images of the unicorn were widespread, many depictions showing a small, white, horse-like animal with a goat’s beard, cloven hooves, and a spiral horn.  In 16^th century literature, unicorns are mentioned in several of Shakespeare’s plays as well as in the poetry of Edmund Spenser, who writes in his epic, The Faerie Queene:

“Like a lion, whose imperial power

A proud rebellious unicorn defies.”

The Unicorn in Captivity.
One of the series of seven tapestries The Hunt of the Unicorn, 1495-1505.

In his book, The Unicorn Tapestries, author Adolf Cavallo states that by the mid to late 16^th century:

“…the unicorn’s existence and its significance as a Christian symbol began to come under theological and scientific scrutiny.” 

An Italian scholar of the era even wrote that he believed no one had ever truly seen a unicorn and that a horn on display was actually the tusk of a narwhal.  By the early 19^th century, a French zoologist went so far as to state that cloven hooved animals had a divided skull and that no horn could possibly grow in the center of it.  And, in more recent years, modern scholars have argued that some of the confusion arises merely from inconsistency in translation of primary texts.  For example, a word which one scholar translates as “unicorn,” another may translate as “wild ox.”

Today, a unicorn is often represented as a large, white Andalusian horse with a flowing mane and tale and a single, gold spiral horn.  As an owner of an Andalusian horse myself, I can certainly support this incarnation of the legend, however it is a far cry from the little, bearded, cloven-hooved creature of antiquity.  Was the real unicorn a goat?  A wild ass?  A rhinoceros?  Or did it exist in some magical secret place, revealing itself only to those chosen few who would then come back and tell the tale?  Scientists and scholars can certainly hypothesize, but as with many other ancient legends, the truth is we will probably never know.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Brown, Robert.  The Unicorn: A Mythological Investigation.  London: Longman, Green, & Co., 1881.

Cavallo, Adolph S.  The Unicorn Tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.

Shepard, Odell.  Lore of the Unicorn.  New York: Dover, 2012.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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The Waning Honeymoon by George Henry Boughton, 1878.

Published in 1837, The Young Husband’s Book is described as a “manual of domestic duties.”  Written by “a mentor” it contains within its pages advice on everything from choosing a wife to dealing with pesky in-laws.  Some of the information is merely common sense, the sort of generic advice newlyweds might hear from well-meaning relatives today.  The remainder is very pointedly early 19^th century – written by someone who was clearly drawing on their own marital experiences gained during the Regency era and applying them to young couples in what was then the new Victorian age.

Despite our 21^st century view of the Victorian age as being generally oppressive toward women, the primary emphasis in this manual is not on how to further subjugate a wife who is already under a husband’s complete legal and physical control, but on the solemn duties a gentleman undertakes when marrying.  The foremost of these duties, according to the manual, is the duty to provide for his new bride and future children.  To this end, the manual emphasizes the importance of a young husband being “industrious and frugal.”  It also advises that he should be temperate and not indulge in any expensive personal tastes, stating:

“He should always be ready to sacrifice his present personal pleasure to the future well-being of those who have the first and best claim to his regard.”

The manual reminds the young husband of the great sacrifice his new wife has made in marrying him.  It points out that she has left “her own people and her father’s house,” giving up the society of “those who have been endeared to her from her birth.”  In doing so, she has “entrusted her heart and her happiness” into her new husband’s keeping.  The manual declares that:

“He must be less than man who does not regard them as a most sacred deposit, and devote every energy and every care to their perfect preservation.”

The Marriage Proposal by Evert Jan Boks, 1882.

It goes on to state that, in attending to his wife’s safety, comfort, and happiness, the young husband must always be sure to consult her as to her wishes and, though it is up to him to fix a limit on her expenditures, he is encouraged to give her a “fair proportion of indulgence within that limit.”  In exchange for this consideration and generosity, the manual informs the young husband that:

“The same law which imposes upon the husband the duty of supporting his wife, gives him a general and paramount claim to her obedience.”

This ironclad rule of obedience is supported with various scriptures from the Bible and the manual declares that any woman of common sense would “readily perceive the propriety of this course.”  It is here where we begin to see that the manual casts the young husband in a very paternal role.  He must care for his wife and see to her safety and comfort, but at heart, he must realize that she is too delicate and too sensitive of mind to make any decisions for herself at all.  Though, as the manual goes on to state, there are a few things on which a wife is qualified to weigh in:

“As to matters of little comparative moment – as to what shall be for dinner – as to how the house shall be furnished – as to the management of the house and of menial servants – as to those matters, and many others, the wife may have her way without any danger; but when the questions are, what is to be the calling to be pursued – what is to be the place of residence – what is to be the style of living and scale of expense – what is to be done with property – what is to be the manner and place of educating children – what is to be their calling or state of life – who are to be employed or entrusted by the husband – what are the principles that he is to adopt as to public matters – whom he is to have for coadjutors or friends – all these must be left solely to the husband; in all these he must have his will, or there never can be any harmony in the family.”

The Wedding Morning by John Henry Frederick Bacon, 1892.

The manual is sure to explain that though the wife is subordinate, she is no less her husband’s equal.  Even so, it goes on to portray women as emotional, usually irresponsible, human beings whose whole purpose – unless they are morally deviant – is to preserve home and hearth and to nurture their husband and children.  As the manual proclaims:

            “Women feel more acutely than men; their love is more ardent, more pure.”

Ardent and pure, perhaps, but according to the manual, not at all sensible.  In many instances, the wife’s ridiculous fancies must be indulged in order to preserve marital harmony.  For example, when addressing the subject of jealousy in the marriage, the manual advises young husbands to patronize their wives:

“Though her suspicions be perfectly groundless; though they be wild as the dreams of madmen; though they may present a mixture of the furious and ridiculous, still they are to be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness.”

The dangers of marital discord are legion.  As such, the manual would have the young husband avoid matrimonial conflict at all costs.  Sometimes, however, this is out of the young husband’s control.  A wife who does not know her place upsets the balance of the family.  If allowed to run amok, she may even drive the young husband away and:

“When the husband is driven from his home by a termagant, he will seek enjoyment, which is denied him at his own house, in the haunts of vice, and in the riots of intemperance.”

Blessing of the Young Couple Before Marriage by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, 1880-81.

This is as much the young husband’s fault as that of the errant wife.  If he had courted and married the right sort of woman and if he had commenced his wedded life implementing the principles set out in the manual, such a turn of events would never have come to pass.  To this end, the manual advises a long courtship.  Not only will this allow the future husband to learn his intended wife’s true character, but it will also give ample time for his own finer qualities to shine through.  This is of paramount importance since, according to the manual, a gentleman who is truly in love is not at all attractive to the object of his affections, whereas a gentleman who is merely trifling with a lady is possessed of consummate skill.  As it explains:

“True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, and resentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the person whose affection he solicits; besides that, it sinks his figure, gives him fears, apprehensions, and poorness of spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself.”

Some of the opinions and advice in the manual are odd even for the early Victorian age.  In one section, it states:

“In the country parts of Scotland such a thing as an unhappy marriage is not known.”

Another passage which stood out to me was that on second marriages.  Say, for instance, a respectable widower should marry a respectable widow.  One would think that such a connection was to be encouraged and perhaps it may have been, but there are certain elements to the union which “a mentor” finds distasteful.  And, as always, the greater sin lies with the woman.  The manual declares:

“A second marriage in the woman is more gross than in the man, argues greater deficiency in that delicacy, that innate modesty, which, after all, is the great charm, the charm of charms, in the female sex.  We do not like to hear a man talk of his first wife, especially in the presence of his second; but to hear a woman thus talk of her first husband, has never, however beautiful and good she might be, failed to sink her in our estimation.”

Why the distinction?  It is implied that sex has something to do with it, especially the notion that the woman has come to the marriage as anything but untouched.  The manual explains:

“That the person has a second time undergone that surrender, to which nothing but the most ardent affection could ever reconcile a chaste and delicate woman.”

Signing the Register by Edmund Leighton Blair.

As for sex itself, the manual offers no advice to the young husband.  The wedding night is not even mentioned and “a mentor” seems to have no notion that sex could be a primary component of marital bliss or that young husband’s might need to know a thing or two in order to please their wives in this regard.  Of course, pious semi-religious manuals such as The Young Husbands Book and later guides, including an 1853 publication entitled Marriage and the Duties of Marriage Relations, were not the only guidebooks for young gentlemen embarking on married life.  The Victorian era was rife with racy pamphlets and erotica which might have proved equally useful.  And if all else failed, there were medical texts, such as those by Dr. William Acton, who was notable for his medieval views on all things sexual – as well as his dislike of the women’s rights movement.  In his book The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs, he writes:

“During the last few years, and since the rights of women have been so much insisted upon, and practically carried out by the strongest-minded of the sex, numerous husbands have complained to me of the hardships under which they suffer by being married to women who regard themselves as martyrs when called upon to fulfill the duties of wives.”

Did many young husbands read these sorts of manuals?  It is hard to say for certain.  However, given the religious overtones of most of these books, we can imagine that much of what is espoused within their pages was also preached from the Victorian pulpit.  Indeed, in many conservative religious denominations, the same tenets are echoed today.  Our modern sensibilities naturally gravitate with disapproval toward those portions of text which are sexist or otherwise offensive.  But it is important for us to also recognize the solemn burden which was placed on the young husband of the 19^th century:

“Having made your choice, and obtained the object of your desire, let it be your ambition that both she and those who gave her to you may ever find increasing cause to rejoice in the union.”

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Acton, William.  The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs.  Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 1894.

Mentor.  The Young Husband’s Book: Manual of Domestic Duties.  Glasgow: D. Cameron & Co., 1837.

Quinby, George.  Marriage and the Duties of the Marriage Relations.  Cincinnati: J. A. & U. P. James, 1853.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Portrait of Mademoiselle de Lancey by Carolus-Duran, 1876.
(The late 19th century, heavily corseted, silhouette.)

Considering how often corsets, crinolines, and towering headpieces were responsible for some hapless female’s untimely demise, it seems only fair that occasionally fashion should be credited with saving a historical lady’s life instead of putting an end to it.  For an example of this, we need look no further than author and historian Margaret Drinkall’s newly published book The 19^th Century Barnsley Murders.  A collection of seventeen carefully detailed and impeccably sourced incidents of true crime that took place in the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley between the years 1829 and 1899, Drinkall’s book details a range of criminal conduct, from everyday instances of brutal and senseless violence to tales of bodysnatching, poisoning, and even a vicious knife attack that was thwarted by a lady’s corset.  It is the latter crime to which I draw your attention today.

19th Century Barnsley Murders
by Margaret Drinkall, 2015.

As Drinkall relates, Mary Sarah Phillips was a young, working class woman in Barnsley during the latter portion of the 19^th century.  Charles Williams was a twenty-two year old army deserter with a history of violence.  He and Mary had lived together as husband and wife for four years, during which she had born him a son.  In December of 1888, they agreed to separate and Mary went to live with her parents.  Williams made several trips to her parents’ home, begging her to come back to him.  Mary repeatedly refused.  One day while out walking with her baby in her arms, Mary encountered Williams.  He abducted the child and threatened to do Mary harm if she told anyone.

More than a week later, Mary received a note from Williams stating that their baby was ill.  He requested that she meet him late at night in the park.  Afraid of what he might do, Mary did not go alone.  She was accompanied by a miner named Thomas Siddons.  Unbeknownst to Mary, as she and Siddons walked together, engaged in casual conversation, Williams was watching them from across the way.  Overcome with jealousy, he set upon them, stabbing Mary in the back.  She fell to the ground and Williams fell on top of her, stabbing her repeatedly.

X-Ray of a Woman in a Corset, 1907.

Corsets and stays of the 19^th century were often stiffened with whalebone, steel, or other rigid inserts.  By the 1880s, however, there was a scarcity of whalebone.  Steel, in all its various incarnations, was increasingly popular as well as less expensive.  Even so, a poor or working class young woman like Mary Phillips would likely not have had a brand new, state of the art corset.  Instead, we can surmise that she had a strictly utilitarian undergarment which, while probably not as fashionable as those available at the time, was strong enough to deflect more than eight separate knife strikes to her torso.  Not only that, but Mary’s corset managed to break the blade of Williams’ knife!

Before Williams could do her any more harm – and before Siddons could come to her aid – Mary was saved by a quick thinking female bystander who swiftly approached and struck Williams over the back of the head with her umbrella.  The police surgeon was summoned and, upon examining Mary:

“He found that Mary had been stabbed more than eight times in various parts of her body. She also had many defense wounds on her arms and hands, sustained as she had struggled with her assailant to try to prevent further injury to herself.”

Williams was arrested and brought before the magistrates, charged with “cutting and wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.”  He proclaimed his innocence to no avail.  He was sent to stand trial at the West Riding Quarter Sessions at Sheffield Town Hall.  At his trial, held in January of 1889, he was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment.  Upon hearing his sentence, Williams fainted.

You can read more details of this crime, as well as stories of other unique 19th century crimes, in Margaret Drinkall’s excellent new book, The 19th Century Barnsley Murders.

*FTC 16 CFR § 255.5 – Disclosure of Material Connections: I received one review copy of The 19^th Century Barnsley Murders from Pen & Sword Books.  This was NOT in exchange for a review and I received NO compensation.  I merely agreed that if the material met my standards (informative, academic, sufficiently cited, etc.) and if I could tie it in to a topic of interest on my blog, that I would consider using it in a future article.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Drinkall, Margaret.  19^th Century Barnsley Murders.  South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2015.

Steele, Valerie.  The Corset: A Cultural History.  Vol. 5.  London: Yale University Press, 2001.

Waugh, Norah.  Corsets and Crinolines.  New York: Routledge, 1954.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Come Over Here! by Lilian Cheviot, 1915.

On this week’s edition of Animals in Literature and History, I bring you three separate, but equally intriguing, dog anecdotes from the 19^th century.  The first involves a Scottish Terrier and a lady’s white petticoat.  The second involves a Bulldog and a surgeon.  And the third and final tale gives us a little insight into the professional and working class souls of 19^th century canines.

The Scottish Terrier and the Petticoat

Mr. Liang, who was steward to General Sharp of Houston, near Uphall in Scotland, had a terrier dog.  This particular little dog was well known for his sharp intelligence.  One day, Mr. Liang’s wife lent a white petticoat to a neighbor lady in which to attend a christening.  The terrier observed Mrs. Liang make the loan.  When the neighbor lady left the Liang’s house, the terrier followed her home.  According to the story:

“He never quitted her, but accompanied her to the christening, and leaped several times on her knee: nor did he lose sight of her till the piece of dress was at last fairly restored to Mrs. Laing.”

The neighbor lady knew very well what the little dog’s purpose was in following her and watching her so closely.  In fact:

“During the time [she] was at the christening, she was much afraid the dog would attempt to tear the petticoat off her.”

The above tale is related in many books, newspapers, and magazines published during the Regency and Victorian era.  In each publication, the facts are essentially the same, however in none of them is there any reference to the date on which this incident actually occurred.

The Bulldog and the Surgeon

In mid-19^th century Pennsylvania, a tavern keeper by the name of Mr. Cosgrove had his arm broken.  His injury was treated at the offices of one Dr. Atlee.  After the initial visit, Cosgrove returned to Dr. Atlee’s offices on many subsequent occasions to have his injury checked and his bandages changed.  On each visit, Cosgrove was accompanied by a “large, most ferocious-looking bulldog.”  This bulldog watched Dr. Atlee with great attention as the doctor bandaged his master’s arm.  As Dr. Atlee reports in The Philadelphia Medical Times (excerpted in The London Medical Record):

“A few weeks after Cosgrove’s case was discharged, I heard a noise at the office door, as if some animal was pawing it, and on opening it, saw there this huge bull dog, accompanied by another dog that held up one of its front legs, evidently broken.  They entered the office.  I cut several pieces of wood, and fastened them firmly to the leg with adhesive plaster, after straightening the limb.  They left immediately.  The dog that came with Cosgrove’s dog I never saw before nor since.”

Trial by Jury by Edwin Henry Landseer, 1840.

The Professional Souls of Dogs

In Edward Jesse’s 1858 book Anecdotes of Dogs, he imagines that different dog breeds are inhabited by the souls of deceased members of various professions and trades.  A strange proposition – and a bit offensive to those of us in the professions – but entertaining nonetheless.  He writes:

“The souls of deceased bailiffs and common constables are in the bodies of setting dogs and pointers; the terriers are inhabited by trading justices; the bloodhounds were formerly a set of informers, thief-takers, and false evidences; the spaniels were heretofore courtiers, hangers-on of administrations, and hack journal-writers, all of whom preserve their primitive qualities of fawning on their feeders, licking their hands, and snarling and snapping at all who offer to offend their master.”

He goes on to address the souls of gamblers, butchers, country squires, and the beaux and macaronis at court:

“A former train of gamblers and black-legs are now embodied in that species of dog called lurchers; bull-dogs and mastiffs were once butchers and drovers; greyhounds and hounds owe their animation to country squires and foxhunters; little whiffling, useless lap-dogs, draw their existence from the quondam beau; macaronis, and gentlemen of the tippy, still being the playthings of ladies, and used for their diversion.”

And then, inevitably, he gets to attorneys.  I was anxious to see what sort of dog my own soul might go into.  A noble, intelligent breed?  No such luck, I’m afraid.  As Jesse writes:

“There are also a set of sad dogs derived from attorneys; and puppies, who were in past time attorneys’ clerks, shopmen to retail haberdashers, men-milliners, &c. &c.”

I am not quite sure what classifies as a “sad dog.”  Nor do I understand why the souls of attorneys’ clerks go into puppies in the same way as haberdashers and men-milliners.  What does a hat-maker have to do with a law clerk?  The author does not elaborate.  Instead, he goes on to address Pugs, Sheepdogs, and members of parliament:

“…that droning, snarling species, styled Dutch pugs, have been fellows of colleges; and that faithful, useful tribe of shepherds’ dogs, were, in days of yore, members of parliament, who guarded the flock, and protected the sheep from wolves and thieves, although indeed of late some have turned sheep-biters, and worried those they ought to have defended.”

I have had no luck finding a comparable list of the professional/working class souls of cats.  However, I am sure we all have our own opinion on that score.

The Cats Lunch by Marguerite Gerard , (1761-1837).

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  If you are interested in adopting a dog or if you would like to donate your time or money to a rescue organization, I urge you to contact your local animal rescue foundation or city animal shelter.  The below links may also be useful as resources:

The Humane Society of the United States (USA)

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (UK)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Brown, Thomas.  Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs.  London: Oliver & Boyd, 1829.

Hart, Ernest Abraham.  The London Medical Record.  Vol. 3.  London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1875.

Jesse, Edward.  Anecdotes of Dogs.  London: H. G. Bohn, 1858.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Georg Raab, 1867.

Born in Munich on December 24, 1837, Her Royal Highness Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie became Empress of Austria when she married Emperor Franz Joseph at the age of sixteen.  Though now widely acknowledged as one of the most beautiful women of 19^th century Europe, Sisi, as she was known to her intimates, was not considered a great beauty in her youth.  Some biographers have even referred to her as sturdy and boyish with a “round peasant face.”  Highly sensitive to any perceived deficiencies in her appearance, Sisi embarked on a lifetime of starvation diets and extreme beauty rituals which have since become the stuff of legend. 

Sisi’s most recognizable attribute was, undoubtedly, her thick, chestnut hair which grew all the way down to her feet.  According to biographer Brigitte Hamann:

“Elisabeth considered her hair her crowning glory.  She was proud of nothing so much as the cascade that enveloped her like a cloak when it was loosened.”

The care and maintenance of these tremendous tresses required a time commitment of no less than three hours per day.  Every morning, after a cold bath, massage, light breakfast, and rigorous exercise, Sisi sat down in a chair and submitted to the lengthy ministrations of her hairdresser, Fanny Feifalik.  Sisi’s Greek tutor Konstantin Christomanos describes the ritual:

“Behind the Empress’s armchair stood the hairdresser…With her white hands she burrowed in the waves of hair, raised them and ran her fingertips over them as she might over velvet and silk, twisted them around her arms like rivers she wanted to capture because they did not want to run but to fly.”

Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1864.

After combing out Sisi’s hair, braiding it, and twisting it up into elegant splendor on the crown of her head, Fanny was required to give account to her mistress of all the hairs that had broken or fallen out during the process.  As Christomanos states:

“Then in a silver bowl she brought her mistress’s dead hair for inspection, and the looks of the mistress and her servant crossed for a second – containing a slight reproach in that of the mistress, guilt and remorse speaking in that of the servant.”

To this end, Fanny employed various tricks to soothe the nerves of her mistress – and possibly to save herself from reproach.  Hamann explains:

“She cunningly secreted the combed-out hairs under her apron on a piece of adhesive tape – and could therefore often show the Empress a clean comb at the end of the day’s work.”

Soon, Sisi forbade anyone but Fanny from touching her hair, even going so far as to refuse to appear at official functions if Fanny was unavailable to style it.  Fanny was made “imperial hairdresser,” a post which received a yearly salary of 2,000 guldens.  This salary was considered to be extremely high, “corresponding roughly to that of a university professor.”  Fanny’s services were greatly in demand and the braided coiffure that she created for the empress was repeatedly copied by women who wished to duplicate Sisi’s unique style.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1864.

Sisi looked on her daily sessions of hairdressing as a “sacred ritual.”  She used the morning hours that Fanny was combing and styling her hair for reading, writing letters, and for studying Greek and Hungarian with her tutors.  But daily hairstyling was only one component of Sisi’s haircare regime.  Every three weeks, her hair had to be washed and dried.  This was a time consuming process in itself.  In Ludwig Merkle’s biography of Sisi, he writes:

“Every three weeks it was washed with raw eggs and brandy, a procedure which took an entire day, including drying.  After washing her hair, the Empress would don a long, waterproof silk dressing gown and walk up and down until her hair dried.”

The sheer weight of Sisi’s hair was sometimes too much for her.  She occasionally suffered from headaches and, at their onset, would remain in her apartments with her hair held up with ribbons to take the weight from her head and allow the “air to circulate” through her tresses until the headache passed.  This was not the only hair-related trial to endure.  Sisi was also subject to the whims of Fanny who knew very well that she was indispensable to her mistress and, if annoyed for any reason, did not hesitate to plead illness and send a substitute in her place.  Sisi did not bear up well under such treatment.  She is quoted as saying:

“After several such days of hairdressing, I am quite worn down.  She knows that and waits for capitulation.  I am a slave to my hair.”

Photo of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Emil Rabending, 1867.

Sisi’s skincare regimen, though not as time consuming as her haircare ritual, was no less involved.  Obsessed with keeping wrinkles and other signs of aging at bay, Sisi applied crushed strawberries to her hands, neck, and face and, according to Merkle, she slept in “a sort of mask, lined inside with raw veal.”  She soaked in warm olive oil baths to keep her skin soft and supple and, for everyday bathing, she used distilled water to wash with.  She also made it a habit to sleep without any pillows, presumably on the advice of someone who “had once persuaded her that it would benefit her beauty.”

No less important than her skin and haircare ritual was Sisi’s diet and fitness regime.  Throughout her life, she was fanatical about maintaining a slim figure.  To this end, she wrapped herself in damp cloths above the hips to reduce inches and was constantly, and often unhealthily, dieting.  Breakfast was usually quite minimal and some evening meals consisted of little more than a thin gravy.  At other times, as Merkle writes:

“She would partake only of pressed extract of raw chicken, partridge, venison and beef; for weeks on end she would eat nothing but eggs, oranges, and raw milk.”

Photo of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Emil Rabending, 1866.

Sisi offset her meager caloric intake with vast quantities of rigorous exercise and, as she aged, she only increased the physical demands upon her poorly nourished body.  Merkle explains that:

“When the first signs of aging appeared – wrinkles and weather-beaten skin caused by her diets and the time spent out of doors, and aching joints – Sisi was determined to hold on to her widely praised beauty by force.  She tortured her slight body with hours of physical exercise — at the barre, at the rings, with dumbbells and weights of every description.”

According to Hamann, even Sisi’s several hour long afternoon walk was more in line with “a forced march at great speed over huge distances” than a leisurely stroll about the grounds.  However controversial, such drastic diet and exercise did have results.  As Hamann states:

“To the nineteenth century, which stamped even thirty-year-old women as matrons, especially when they had borne several children, Empress Elisabeth was an extraordinary phenomenon.  For roughly thirty years – and unheard of length of time – the reputation of her beauty persisted.”

Empress Elisabeth of Austria with Diamond Stars on her Hair by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1864.

On September 10, 1898, while walking to the landing stage of a steamer ship in Geneva, Switzerland, the then 60-year-old Empress of Austria was stabbed through the heart with a thin, needle-like metal file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni.  Even in this, her vanity played a small part.  Sisi was one of the 19^th century’s famous “tight lacers” with a corset cinched to a mere 19.5 inches for the majority of her life.  After being stabbed, she fell to the ground, but amazingly was able to stand again and walk all the way to the landing bridge of the ship before becoming weak and, ultimately, fainting.  She was carried to her cabin where her companions noticed a small spot of blood on her bodice.  When Sisi failed to regain consciousness, she was carried off of the ship and to a nearby hotel where she died upon arrival.

It was at the hotel that her companions realized that she had been stabbed.  Later, doctors would marvel that a woman who had been assaulted with a weapon that broke her fourth rib, pierced her lungs and pericardium, and penetrated her heart “from top to bottom, finally coming out from the lower part of the left ventricle” could have risen from where she fell and walked all the way to the steamer ship.  Did her incredibly tight corset prevent her from bleeding to death at the scene?  Some certainly think so.

Posthumous Portrait of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Leopold Horowitz, 1899.

The beauty rituals of the 19^th century are a subject that I find endlessly fascinating.  Nevertheless, whenever I read about Sisi, I feel a great deal of sadness for her.  Yes, she was royalty.  And yes, she is still remembered as a great, 19^th century beauty.  But her extreme diet, exercise, and beauty rituals took over her life.  When so much emphasis is put on one’s outward appearance – on youth, beauty, and slimness – what does one have left when those attributes are gone?  Having said that, I will close this article with one of my favorite quotes from Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792):

“Taught from their infancy, that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”

Photo of Empress Elisabeth of Austria with her dog, Shadow, by Emil Rabending, 1866.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

De Burgh, Edward Morgan Alborough.  Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, a Memoir.  London: Hutchinson & Co., 1899.

Hamann, Brigitte.  The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.  London: Faber and Faber, 2011.

Merkle, Ludwig.  Sisi: The Tragic Empress.  Munich: Stiebner Verlag GmbH, 2003.

Wollstonecraft, Mary.  A Vindication of the Rights of Women.  Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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“If the stable and stable management are important considerations to the turf man, the kennel and the general treatment of dogs must be equally so to the field man.”
(An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports, 1870.)

Foxhunting: Encouraging Hounds by John Frederick Herring, 1839.

Outdoor sports like foxhunting, coursing, and shooting were popular pastimes of the 19th century country gentleman.  As such, the care and maintenance of one’s hunting dogs was always a subject ripe for debate and discussion.  What was the best feed to give a foxhound?  How did one treat an outbreak of worms?  And, most importantly, what was the ideal design and construction of a kennel?  Sporting books and articles of the era give varying answers to these questions.  Some of them fall in line with our knowledge of dogs today.  Some of them are outright medieval.  Either way, a bit of research reveals that, though his quarters may at times have been magnificent, the 19th century sporting dog was no pampered pet.

The Kennel

In the early 19th century, the Duke of Richmond had one of the finest kennels in England, the building of which was designed by architect Charles Wyatt and rumored to have cost £10,000.  The Duke of Bedford’s kennel at Woburn Abbey was equally luxurious, containing such amenities as flues running along the walls to preserve the temperature in the winter and a fountain in the middle of the yard at which the dogs could drink.  But a 19th century gentleman did not require the wealth of a duke in order to have a pack of hounds and a kennel in which to house them.  Some kennels could be built for as little as a few hundred pounds.

Learning About the Hounds by Thomas Butler of Pall Mall, 1750.

The Field Book, written in 1833,  describes a kennel as:

“…the place where hounds are kept, upon the judicious construction of which, their health, safety, and preservation, are known greatly to depend.”

Some gentlemen come into possession of a kennel already built, but those that contemplate new construction are advised by The Field Book to take “a previous survey of the most approved plans.”  Amongst these are, naturally, the Duke of Richmond’s kennel at Goodwood, the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn Abbey, and Sir William Rowley’s at Tendring Hall.  These three kennels are held out as examples of construction where health and convenience were the primary considerations.

At Goodwood, the dog kennel was built of flint and “finished at all angles by a light grey brick” comparable to Lymington white stock.  It stood alone, away from all other buildings, “in such part of the park as to form a grand and striking object from the principal rooms of the mansion.”  The Field Book describes the exact measurements and construction of the kennel as follows:

“The distribution of the building is into five compartments: two of them thirty-six feet by fifteen, and three more thirty by fifteen; these are called kennels, to which are annexed two feeding rooms, twenty-eight by fifteen.  In each of these ore openings at top, for the admission of external air when necessary, and stoves to qualify the air when too cold…Round the whole building is a pavement five feet wide; airing yards, places for breeding, and other conveniences, making a part of each wing. — To constitute a uniformity of elegance, neatness, and perfection, the huntsman and whipper-in have each a parlour, kitchen, and sleeping-room, appropriated to their own particular purpose.”

“Plan of the Kennel at Goodwood” from Sporting Architecture, 1844.

At Woburn Abbey, the kennel was 405 feet in length with a “boiling house” in the center, adjoining feeding rooms, and a granary located behind it.  In addition, the kennels included apartments enough for two kennel-keepers and “two long lodging rooms for the hunting hounds.”  Adjoined to these were “seven hospitals for sick and lame hounds, with yards to each.”  The Field Book goes on to describe:

“On the left are divisions for litter, straw, &c; eleven apartments for bitches and puppies, with yards to each; eleven ditto for bitches in pup, with yards also: and a large division for bitches at heat… Behind the whole is a large airing-ground, flesh-house, and all requisite conveniences.”

In Sporting Architecture, George Tattersall lays out the desired attributes of a kennel.  Not only must it be convenient and “approachable in its interior at all points with the greatest facility” without interfering with or disturbing the hounds, but it must be:

“…healthy and cleanly in the arrangement of its ventilation, draining, lodging, feeding, and exercise; and economical in the locality of the meal.  It should be also ornamental as a building, and moreover, without sacrificing one room, flesh-yard, coal-house, and straw-chambers, single comfort to either stinginess or appearance, a specimen of Sporting Architecture chaste in its design, and economical in the expense attending its production.”

Dampness and its negative effect on the health of one’s dogs was a primary concern. To this end, the lodging rooms for the hounds at Goodwood were fitted with stoves.  For new, and more economical, construction, Tattersall recommends windows to aid in ventilation and states that the floors should be “laid with flags, or paved with the best malm bricks.”  The joints of this flooring should ideally be constructed so that the water will drain away from the walls and towards a gutter located in the center of the room.  The benches for the hounds to sleep upon should be placed away from the walls and made of either cast iron or wood.  These benches should also be constructed low to the ground since:

“…tired hounds will prefer sleeping on the bricks, to the trouble of climbing up, if they are too high, and empty themselves on the beds, instead of jumping off when stiff and tired after work.”

Fox Terriers in their Kennels from “The New Book of the Dog” by Robert Leighton, 1906.

In foxhunting, hounds are counted as “couples” (two hounds) and the lodging rooms of some kennels in the 19th century could house as many as sixty or seventy couples of hounds at any given time.  This does not mean that kennels had only one lodging room.  In fact, sporting books advise that gentlemen keep at least two lodging rooms for their dogs so that one can occasionally be cleaned and thoroughly dried out.  As you can imagine, the cleaning of kennels this size was no small feat.  To this end, at Woburn Abbey, water-cocks were fitted throughout to rinse the pavement.  And Goodwood was equipped with drains of “considerable depth” which helped to alleviate the smell.  The waste and filth from the kennel could then be:

“…cleared off by drains to more dependent depths and dung pits, where it becomes contributor to the purposes of agriculture.”

In addition to the lodging rooms, the kennel must also have a boiling house, a feeding room, rooms for pregnant females and young dogs, and various “courts” or yards in which the dogs could exercise.  These courts might include a “Great Drawing Court.”  Tattersall describes this as:

“A necessary addition to a kennel, where the hounds are considered worth a visit for inspection; it enables the huntsman to draw any particular lot of hounds without disturbing the others; besides, it is a kind of passage Court to and from all parts of the kennel upon all occasions, without using the Lodging-room Courts, thereby keeping the bounds perpetually shut in.”

Hounds in a Kennel by William Henry Hamilton Trood, 19th century.

Feeding

Hounds were not viewed as pets in the way that we view our dogs today.  They were fed and watered with an eye toward their performance in the field.  As Colonel John Cook explains in his 1826 book Observations on Fox-Hunting:

“It is quite certain a hound too high in condition cannot run a burst, neither can a poor half-starved one kill an afternoon Fox.”

Cook goes on to state that he prefers to see the ribs on his hounds, but that their loins should be “well filled up” and their flanks hollow.  This might explain the abundance of 19th century hunting paintings in which the poor hounds’ ribs are visible and in which, to our modern eye, they look half starved.  To achieve this figure, Cook states that old oatmeal is “the best food for hounds to work upon.”  On occasion, old barley meal can be mixed in with the oatmeal, but this addition must be used with “as much caution as you would give beans to a horse.”  Cook stresses the importance of boiling the oatmeal for at least an hour and a half, writing:

“Nothing will choke hounds so soon as meal half boiled.”

As for meat, Cook also recommends boiling.  However, he warns to beware of the vendor from whom one buys their horseflesh.  According to him, any disease a horse may have died from may transmit to the dogs.  He also advises to be wary of contaminated ingredients, referencing a recent report where flour had been adulterated with ground up bones and Plaster of Paris.

It is of note that a distinction is made between the feed one gives their hounds during the hunting season and the feed one gives them during the summer. Cook declares:

“In the summer it is of little consequence what hounds are fed upon, provided they have wholesome food; but in the hunting season, if everything is not of the very best quality you cannot have them in condition.”

Additionally, in the summer months, Cook advises feeding the hounds their one meal of the day in the late evening.  According to him, this kept them quiet during the night and was the wisest method he knew “to prevent their rioting in the kennel.”

A Couple of Foxhounds with a Terrier, the property of Lord Henry Bentinck , by William Barraud, 1845.

Illness

Kenneled dogs of the 19th century were subject to all sorts of ailments.  Distemper was the most common and, at its worst, was reputed to have wiped out whole packs.  Another all too common complaint was “kennel-lameness.”  Many canine maladies were blamed on the damp.  Others were attributed to the condition of the kennels, especially to those kennels which were infested with vermin.  The treatment of these conditions was sketchy at best – cruel at worst.  Just as with people, sporting books and magazines of the era recommended that a gentleman “bleed and physic hounds when the hunting season is over.”  As an example of the latter, Colonel Cook gives the following recipe to aid in treating distemper:

Calomel….3 grains.
Cathartic Ext….7 ditto.
Soap….7 ditto.
Emetic Tart….½ grain.

The ingredients were to be mixed up into three pills and administered to the sickly hound every other day.  Meanwhile, ticks could be removed with a compound of ½ an ounce Mercurial Ointment and ½ an ounce of finely powdered stone brimstone mixed together into ½ a pound of hog-lard.  The treatment for worms was much more severe.  Colonel Cook states:

“Should your hounds be troubled with worms, powdered glass sifted through muslin is the best remedy that I know of to remove them.  The dose should be as much as will lie on a shilling, and I have seen it cause the ejection of a great quantity of those destructive animals.”

George Mountford, Huntsman to the Quorn, and W. Derry, Whipper-In,
at John O’Gaunt’s Gorse, near Melton Mowbray by Richard Barrett Davis, 1836.

Discipline

Many sporting books of the era reference hounds being “flogged.”  Sadly, this seems to be both a disciplinary and training method popular amongst some sportsmen of the 19th century.  Colonel Cook explains the rationale behind it:

“Punishing your hounds before they know what a Fox-scent is, and flogging them in kennel, is an unnecessary severity, but it is almost impossible to break them without punishment.  To some people it may appear cruel to have a young hound severely punished, but it stands to reason that one good sound flogging when he deserves it, is far better than frequently tormenting him, and is most likely to accomplish your wish, that of making him steady and handy.  Still I should advise you never to have a young hound punished unless you are quite certain he deserves it.”

The Field Book gives precise instructions for how these floggings are to be carried out:

“In flogging a hound for a fault, the whipper-in should use his voice at the same time; this teaches him to know for what he is beaten; and Mr. Daniel suggests the propriety of introducing a live hare into the kennel, and to flog the dogs soundly whenever they attempt to approach her.”

All discipline did not occur in the kennel.  In the field, the dogs could be punished as well.  This was a situation fraught with danger.  The Field Book advises that a “sensible whipper-in” should wait for an opportunity to single out a hound for punishment and then “hit him hard and rate him well.”  Otherwise, the whipper-in might hit a dog he did not intend to hit and, in riding full gallop to administer the beating, might ride over the rest of the dogs and “put the whole pack into confusion.”

Turk, a greyhound, the property of George Lane Fox by George Garrard, 1822.

Special Instructions for Greyhounds

In Tattersall’s book, Greyhounds are given a section all their own.  He recommends that no more than four Greyhounds ever be kept together in one compartment.  He also strongly advises that throughout the winter, they be kept as warm as possible since:

“…warmth of some kind is indispensable to their being kept in good condition, or even in health.”

This warmth is of such importance, that Tattersall advises that, ideally, a Greyhound kennel should be “heated artificially, and as regularly as if it were a conservatory (either by hot-water or a stove).”  If this is not entirely possible, he has another recommendation.  The Greyhounds might be kept in compartments adjacent to loose-boxes in which horses were kept.  In this way, the heat from the horses would keep the temperature “just what it ought to be” for the Greyhounds’ comfort.

When feeding, no more than four Greyhounds should be fed at once.  And in summer, the Greyhounds may be let out into the yards, but again, no more than four in the yards at any given time.  Tattersall also insists that in the summer, Greyhounds should be taken out every day and walked by a man on foot so that they can “run and play about.”

Thomas Wilkinson, M.F.H., with the Hurworth Foxhounds by John Ferneley, 1846.

In Closing…

I will refrain from editorializing on today’s topic except to say that it is a subject of interest to me only as a student of 19^th century history and writer of historical romance.  I do ride, but not to the hounds and I have no plans to build a kennel for my pack of dogs.  However, earlier this year when attempting to set a scene in one of my stories at the kennels adjoining the hero’s country estate, I found that there was not any easily accessible information about how kennels would function and look in that era.  My subsequent research into 19th century texts was illuminating.  Obviously, I have included only the minimum.  You can find much more in the cited works below.  I hope that, whether you are a historian, scholar, writer, or dog lover, you will find these facts as helpful as I did.

A Few USEFUL Terms:

BERNER: The man who feeds the hounds.  He is outranked by both the Master of Hounds and the Whipper-In.
COURT: An enclosed area or yard where the dogs can run.
COVERT: A shelter or hiding place in the woods where a fox might be found.
DRAW: To search for a fox in a covert.
MASTER OF HOUNDS: The person who leads and is responsible for the foxhunt and to whom all the rest of the members of the hunt are subordinate.
TALLY-HO: Shouted to make known the presence of a fox.
WHIPPER-IN: A hunstman’s assistant who keeps the hounds from straying by driving them back with a whip into the main body of the pack.

Brass, at Cottesmore with the Cottesmore Hounds by John Ferneley, 1818.

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  While I do not personally approve of foxhunting, it is a necessary component of many a historical novel and, as in all historical writing, accuracy is key.  For that reason only, if you would like to learn more about Foxhounds and the formal rules of foxhunting, or if you would like to learn a bit about Greyhound coursing, I encourage you to use the following links as resources:

Master of Foxhounds Association (United Kingdom)

The Greyhound Studbook and National Coursing Club (United Kingdom)

Meanwhile, the weather is growing colder and animal rescue groups can use donations of blankets and towels, as well as the usual monetary donations.  I urge you to contact your local animal shelter or rescue society for more information on how you can help.  The following links may provide a starting point:

The Humane Society of the United States (USA)

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (UK)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Blaine, Delabere Pritchett.  An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports.  London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1870.

Cook, Colonel John.  Observations on Fox-hunting and the Management of Hounds in the Kennel and the Field.  London: William Nicol, 1826.

Maxwell, William. Ed.  The Field Book; Or Sports and Pastimes of the British Islands.  London: Effingham Wilson, 1833.

Tattersall, George.  Sporting Architecture.  London: Ackermann, 1844.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Quack Doctor Open for Business by G.M. Woodward, 1802.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)

During the 18th and 19th century, patent medicines were everywhere.  These various powders, potions, elixirs, and cordials were primarily peddled by quacks, some of whom purported to be doctors from respected universities like St. Andrews in Scotland.  The claims they made on behalf of their products were extraordinary.  According to advertisements of the era, a restorative cordial or tonic could do practically anything, from curing dropsy in children to curing impotence in men and hysteria in women.  Some even proclaimed that they could cure a fellow of the desire to engage in that “solitary, melancholy practice” so common to the male sex (i.e. Masturbation).

One of the most popular patent medicines of the late 18th and early 19th century was Dr. Brodum’s Botanical Syrup and Restorative Nervous Cordial.  Advertisements and testimonials for this miracle product abound.  Some of the advertisements were quite lengthy.  The following appeared in an 1802 edition of the Lancaster Gazette.  I have included it here in its entirety so you have a general guideline of the promises made by these types of medicines. It reads:

“How many men, to all appearance in the prime of life, who have not yet arrived at the age of twenty-five years, are rendered miserable to themselves, and useless to the great chain of society, which they have either brought on themselves, or, by the force of bad example, are given up to a SECRET VICE; the consequence is, that their mind as well as body is debilitated; to those the Nervous Cordial is recommended, and for which, Dr. BRODUM obtained his Majesty’s Royal Letters Patent; it will protect them from the infirmities of old age, and a wretched dissolution.  Amidst the agonizing reflections of conscious guilt, how many are there of both sexes, that are deterred from entering into the married state, by infirmities which delicacy forbids them to disclose; and those are not a few, who, being already married, are rendered miserable for want of those tender pledges of mutual love, without which happiness in this state is at least very precarious.  The vice above alluded to, causes, in women, irregularity, pains in the back and chest, hysterics, spasms, loss of appetite, &c.  In men, it causes imbecility, languor, relaxation, nervous complaints, debility, anxiety, and a long train of melancholic disorders.  The Nervous Cordial stands unrivalled, as it has been analyzed by the first professors and medical men Europe can produce, and may be relied on in giving immediate relief and certain ease in most stages of nervous complaints, this exalted medicine has been productive of general good; and the many restored to blessings of health, from the gates of death, by this inestimable preparation, is the highest eulogium which could possibly be paid to Dr. Brodum, and is, indeed, his boast and reward.”

William Brodum by E. A. Ezekiel, 1797.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)

Dr. Brodum does seem to focus quite a bit on solitary, secret vices.  This is not as bizarre a concern as it sounds.  In the mid to late 19^th century especially, actual medical doctors believed that masturbation led to an endless catalogue of health problems.  In his 1894 book The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs, Dr. William Acton refers to masturbation as a “melancholy and repulsive habit” that is “degrading and debilitating to the child” and injurious to the adult.  He advises that rather than engage in this “secret sin,” a gentleman occupy himself with vigorous exercise.  He also quotes the advice of a clergyman on dealing with this unhealthy impulse, writing:

“[If a] man is tormented by evil thoughts at night. Let him be directed to cross his arms upon his breast, and extend himself as if he were lying in his coffin. Let him endeavor to think of himself as he will be one day stretched in death. If such solemn thoughts do not drive away evil imaginations, let him rise from his bed and lie on the floor.”

As you can see, especially in the Victorian era, religion, morality, and physical health were inextricably tied together.  A “sinner” or one who indulged in vice was often believed to suffer the ill effects in his constitution for years to come.  Knowing that, it is no surprise that many patent medicines targeted both the physical symptoms as well as the nervous or mental ones.  This was a canny marketing technique.  After all, when it came to the urge to indulge in a solitary, melancholy practice, it was much easier to take a spoonful of cordial than to be vigorously exercising all day long.  Although, considering that the cordial was also supposed to treat impotence, I am not sure what the end result would have been for our hapless patient.

The Quacks, 1783.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)

But Dr. Brodum’s Restorative Nervous Cordial was not only advertised as an aid to sexual dysfunction.  It was also touted as being able to cure serious illness.  To this end, there are many testimonials in newspapers of the era.  The following, appearing in a January 1800 edition of the Ipswich Journal reads:

“A child belonging to Mr. Molyneux, of this place, had been afflicted, for a considerable time with a very dangerous dropsy in the head, which threatened inevitable death, and was thought absolutely incurable by several very respectable gentlemen of the faculty. After trying a great variety of means, recommended by different friends, he was at last induced to try Dr. Brodum’s Nervous Cordial, by taking a very few bottles of which, the child was, to the astonishment of every one, restored to perfect health.”

These advertisements and testimonials had little to do with the truth.  In his book Aphrodisiacs: The Science and the Myth, author Peter V. Taberner explains that advertisements of the era were usually filled with “puffery” or exaggerated claims for a product.  He writes:

“A few played upon the fears and gullibility of the readers by telling them that they were suffering from major disorders that could only be treated by the medicine in question.  Assuming that a sufficient number of hypochondriacs would respond to these advertisements, success was assured.  A particular feature of all these advertisements was the grandiloquent style of language that was employed.  What the copy lacked in scientific accuracy was amply compensated for in literacy hyperbole.”

The Quack Doctor’s Prayer by T. Rowlandson after G. Woodward, 1801.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)

Were these quacks really doctors?  And were their elixirs really analyzed by the “first professors and medical men” in Europe?  In general, no.  For an example of a garden-variety quack, we need look no further than the background of Dr. Brodum himself.  A scathing article in the 1805 edition of The London Medical and Physical Journal titled “Of Quacks and Empiricism” set out the facts of Brodum’s life, writing that not only was Dr. William Brodum not a doctor, but that he was not even William Brodum.  His real name was Issachar Bear Cohen.  The article states:

“We announce that he was born in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark; in the streets of which he early exercised a public profession, that of hawking and selling ribbons, similar to some of his brethren in London, who dispose of shoe-strings in every avenue near the Royal Exchange.”

In 1787, at the age of twenty, Cohen migrated to London where he went into the service of Dr. Lamert – purveyor of Switzer’s Balm.  However, rather than assisting in Lamert’s medical pursuits he was employed in “going on errands” and “taking care of Lamert’s horse.”  He adopted the name of Dr. Williams and, according to the article in The Journal:

“Finding Williams a smart active youth, very loquacious, and of sonorous lungs, [Lamert] procured him boots and spurs, and mounted him á cheval, to circulate far and near the virtues of Switzer and other nostrums.”

Parker’s Tonic Advertisement ,1850-1850.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.

It was while out hawking Switzer’s Balm that Cohen/Williams met a widow who esteemed him very highly.  She lived in a town where an apothecary by the name of Brodum had recently died.  The widow encouraged Cohen/Williams to take the name of Brodum.  She also gave him a smart set of clothes.  Not long after, the man now known as William Brodum was admitted as a partner in Lamert’s business where he began to represent himself as a surgeon who had served in America with the Hessian army.  But Brodum was not satisfied with being a mere surgeon.  He had an eye toward becoming a physician.  As luck would have it, at that time in history, The Journal declares that at St. Andrews:

“…the professors have been in the practice of conferring the degree of doctor of medicine, without the least examination, or personal knowledge of the candidate; but merely on the recommendation of some respectable physician.”

After finding such a physician to recommend him, Brodum was appointed a Doctor of Physic by St. Andrews.  The Journal writes that no sooner had Brodum acquired this honor than:

“…he threw off the mask, and appeared in his own character of a quack doctor, screened by a degree acquired by falsehood and deceit; and which he has ever since impudently published with his respective quack bills.”

Cocaine Toothache Drops Advertisement, 1885.

What Brodum lacked in medical knowledge, he made up for in “the science of knowing the weakness of human nature.”  Passing himself off as a “learned graduate of the University of Aberdeen” (a place that he had never seen before in his life), Brodum rapidly rose to fame and fortune peddling his Nervous Cordial.  The Journal asserts that:

“This medicine was chiefly the old formula of the decoction of the woods, consisting of sassafras, guaiacum, and a few other articles, which [Brodum] procured of Mr. Chamberlin, an eminent chemist in Fleet Street.  The decoction is well edulcorated with sugar or molasses, and sold at six shillings and sixpence a bottle, or one pound two shilling for five bottles.”

Brodum’s income in 1805 was estimated at five thousand pounds per annum and he was known to own “the most superb carriage in the metropolis,” in which he rode through the streets “in the midst of a gaping and admiring multitude.”  He was a convivial man, a true salesman, and was widely liked not only for his Nervous Cordial, but for the generous donations he made to worthy causes – donations for which he made sure he was always credited in the newspaper.

Why in the world, you may ask, would anyone ever purchase Dr. Brodum’s Restorative Nervous Cordial?  Wasn’t it obvious that it was nothing more than quackery?  Didn’t the public realize that Brodum was an uneducated street peddler with no medical training?  The fact is, that the poor and working class of the early 19^th century were not likely to have read the exposé in The London Medical and Physical Journal.  Many could not read at all. They would have had no way of knowing that Brodum was a fake.

Instead, imagine how impressive a patent medicine created by a doctor with a degree from a prestigious university must have seemed.  And also consider that such medicine was, in many cases, comparatively cheaper than summoning and being treated by a real physician (*According to Sally Mitchell’s book Daily Life in Victorian England, the usual price of a doctor’s visit at the end of the century was five shillings).

Carters Little Nerve Pill Advertisement, Circa 1870 – 1890.

We must also allow for the aforementioned “sufficient number of hypochondriacs” and the legion of bored, unhappy people suffering rather vaguely from “nerves” for whom patent medicines were particularly appealing.  There is another layer to this as well which speaks more to gender issues of the 19^th century and that is the prevailing view that women were delicate, frail creatures.  I have heard the argument made that unidentifiable illness and regular attacks of the vapors were a way of a lady rebelling (or exercising her power) within the confines of suffocating societal constraints.  To that end, patent medicines were just another weapon in her limited arsenal.  Of course, some, like Jane Austen in her unfinished 1817 novel, Sanditon, attributed hypchondria and reliance on patent medicines to nothing more than a combination of boredom and a desire for attention.  She writes:

“Disorders and Recoveries so very much out of the common way, seemed more like the amusement of eager Minds in want of employment than of actual affliction and relief.”

Patent medicines in the form of powders, elixirs, and cordials would remain popular throughout the 19^th century and into the early 20th.  Today, we require truth in advertising and there are governmental agencies to regulate the sale of medicines.  Big Pharma has largely replaced the potions of yesteryear.  Even so, you have only to watch a late night infomercial advertising a weight loss drug or virility aid to recognize that the age of pharmaceutical quackery is far from over.

Advertisement for Obesity Soap, circa 1903.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Austen, Jane. Sanditon. 1817. Project Gutenberg Australia.

Acton, William.  The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs.  Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 1894.

Ipswich Journal, Saturday 11 January 1800. (British Newspaper Archive)

Lancaster Gazette, Saturday 27 March 1802. (British Newspaper Archive)

Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996.

“Of Quacks and Empiricism.” The London Medical and Physical Journal, Volume 13. Jan. to Jun. 1805.

Taberner, Peter V. Aphrodisiacs: The Science and the Myth. Springer Science & Business Media, 1985.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Snarling dog from Darwin’s Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)

According to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, a Gytrash is a goblin or spirit which takes the form of a horse, mule, or large dog.  Typically found in the North of England, the Gytrash “haunted solitary ways” and often surprised unwary travelers as they journeyed alone in the dusk.  Jane Eyre herself encounters what she believes to be a Gytrash one bleak, January evening as she is walking from Thornfield Hall to post a letter in the nearby village of Hay.  Alerted to its arrival by a loud, clattering noise, Jane observes:

“It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees.  It was exactly one form of Bessie’s Gytrash— a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would.  The horse followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider.  The man, the human being, broke the spell at once.  Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form.  No Gytrash was this,—only a traveler taking the short cut to Millcote.” 

It is thus that Jane first meets Mr. Rochester and his dog, Pilot.  But what of the Gytrash?  Was it really a 19^th century legend?  Or was it something that Charlotte Brontë made up out of whole cloth?  The Oxford English Dictionary describes a Gytrash as:

“An apparition, spectre, ghost, generally taking the form of an animal.”

Oddly, Oxford’s earliest example of the term is Brontë’s own Jane Eyre.  However, looking back even further, I found a brief mention of a Gytrash in William Holloway’s 1839 A General Dictionary of Provincialisms.  Holloway describes the Gytrash as:

“An evil spirit; a ghost.”

Jane Eyre believes she has encountered a Gytrash.
Illustration by F. H. Townsend, 1868-1920.

Further back still, I discovered another brief, but informative entry on the Gytrash in Reverend William Carr’s 1824 Horæ Momenta Cravenæ.  It reads:

“An evil spirit, a ghost, a pad-foot.”

As much as this connection to Sirius Black (whose animagus form is a big, black dog named Padfoot) might interest those among us who are fans of Harry Potter, it still does not tell us much about the origins of the word Gytrash or what the legend is based upon.  Luckily, a bit of investigating led me to an 1895 report of the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society.  Within its pages, the report addresses the mystery of the Gytrash, explaining:

“No one, so far as I know, has recorded any views as to the origin of this word.”

The Philological Society then goes on to separate the word Gytrash (or Guytrash) into Guy and Trash, analyzing each word individually with an eye toward discovering the origins of the legend.  With regard to the word Trash:

“Trash is the name of a particular kind of specter.  It is a variant of ‘trush’ for thrush, and that is a variant of ‘thurse’, a goblin; as is fully set forth in this paper under THURSE [as defined in another section of the report].  Hence guytrash [or] gytrash is Guy-Trash, parallel to Hob-Trush, Hob-Thrush, or Hob-Thurse.”

Guy of Warwick, from an illumination in The Talbot Shrewsbury Book, 1444-45.

As for the word Guy, The Philological Society was at a loss to discover its origins until they happened upon the work of 16^th century Scottish poets William Dunbar and Sir David Lyndesay.  In one of Dunbar’s poems, he mentions “the spreit of Gy.”  And in Lyndesay’s 1552 poem titled “Dreme,” he references “the gaist of Gye” while describing, in verse, how he put on various “grotesque disguises to amuse the infant prince” who would later become King James V of Scotland.  The relevant portion of “Dreme” reads:

And sumtyme lyke ane feind, transfegurate,

And sumtyme lyke the greislie gaist of gye,

In diuers formis, oft tymes, disfigurate,

And sumtyme, dissagyist ful pleasandlye.

The Philological Society first assumes that this “gaist of gye” refers to Guy of Warwick, the English romantic hero.  However, they quickly dismiss this theory since none of the popular legends involving Guy of Warwick make reference to Guy’s ghost.  They then go on to address the possibility that Guy in this context is a reference to Guy Fawkes, writing:

“The word guy, meaning ‘any strange looking individual,’ an awkwardly drest person, ‘a fright,’ is regarded as an allusion to the effigy of Guy Fawkes, formerly carried about by boys on the fifth of November.  I suppose this is true; but it may be that the fading ‘spreit of Gy,’ the Gytrash, is also present in this use of guy.”

Guy Fawkes in Ordsall Cave by George Cruikshank, 1839.

Regardless of its actual origins, in time, the term Gytrash “came to lose all reference to a particular spirit.”  It was eventually applied to any apparition of terror and then, “by mixture of fables” was imagined as a goblin that took the shape of a horse or dog.

Today, the legend of the Gytrash has faded from memory.  That we still know of it at all is largely as a result of Charlotte Brontë having mentioned it in Jane Eyre.  For this reason, if you are a fan of 19^th century English Literature, I urge you to take a moment away from goblins, ghosts, spectres, and shapeshifters this Halloween to consider the Gytrash.  The name may be a little odd and the provenance of the legend a bit uncertain, but whether the creature appears in the guise of a dog or a horse, there is surely no more quintessentially 19th century apparition around.

A Study of a Black Dog by Sawrey Gilpin, 1733-1807.

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  There is no such thing as a Gytrash in real life, but if you would like to help an actual “pad-foot” in need, I encourage you to contact your local animal shelter or rescue society.  The following links may useful as resources:

The Humane Society of the United States (USA)

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (UK)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Brontë, Charlotte.  Jane Eyre.  Ed. Richard Dunn.  Norton Critical Editions.  3^rd ed.  New York: Norton, 2000.

Carr, Reverend William.  Horæ Momenta Cravenæ.  London: Hurst, Robinson, & Co, 1824.

Holloway, William.  A General Dictionary of Provincialisms.  Sussex Press, 1839.

Scott, Charles P. G.  “The Devil and his Imps: An Etymological Inquisition.”  Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society.  Volume 26.  American Philological Association, 1895.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Snap-Apple Night by Daniel Maclise, 1833.

Despite their reputation for straight-laced sobriety, the Victorians celebrated Halloween with great enthusiasm – and often with outright abandon.  Victorian Halloween parties were filled with fun, games, and spooky rituals, some of which still feature at Halloween parties today.  Many of the games had origins in pagan religion or medieval superstition.  Others were merely a means of making merry with one’s friends.  Regardless, Halloween parties of the 19^th century were an occasion for indulging in what author Hugh Miller describes in his 1876 book Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland as:

“….a multitude of wild mischievous games which were tolerated at no other season.”

For an example of a Victorian Halloween party, we need look no further than Queen Victoria herself.  In 1876, the queen, along with Princess Beatrice and the Marchioness of Ely, celebrated Halloween at Balmoral Castle on a grand scale.  Preparations took place for days in advance and, on the night of the celebration, the turnout included farmers and tenants who had come from miles around.  When darkness fell, the festivities began.  The November 6, 1874 edition of the Staffordshire Sentinel reports:

“Her Majesty and the Princess Beatrice, each bearing a large torch, drove out in an open phaeton.  A procession, formed of the tenants and servants on the estates, followed.  All carried high torches, lighted.  They walked through the grounds and round the castle, and the scene as the procession moved onwards was very weird and striking.”

“Halloween at Balmoral” from
The Staffordshire Sentinel, 1874.

When the procession arrived in front of the castle, a huge bonfire was lit.  It was at this point that the proceedings began to take on a distinctly pagan air.  As the Staffordshire Sentinel writes:

“When the flames were at their brightest a figure dressed as a hobgoblin appeared on the scene, drawing a car surrounded by a number of fairies carrying long spears, the car containing the effigy of a witch.  A circle having been formed by the torchbearers, the presiding elf tossed the figure of the witch into the fire, where it was speedily consumed.  This act of cremation over, reels began, and were danced with great vigour to the stirring strains of Willie Ross, her Majesty’s piper.”

A ball was meant to follow this celebration, however, owing to the high spirits of the crowd, the proceedings were, instead, continued outdoors with the bonfire burning well into the night.

Of course, not everyone could celebrate Halloween in as magnificent a manner as Queen Victoria.  For those of more modest means, indoor party games were quite popular.  Many of the games were a means of foretelling the future, especially in relation to discovering the sort of gentleman whom one would eventually marry.  In fact, the emphasis on matchmaking at these parties frequently overshadowed the more sinister associations of the holiday, such as witches and witchcraft or communing with the dead.

The Ride Through the Murky Air from The Lancashire Witches, 1848.

PARTY GAMES

In her 1893 book How to Amuse Yourself and Others, author Linda Beard lists some of the most common Victorian party games (popular both in England and America).  The first involves melting lead in order to determine the occupation of one’s future husband.  Beard describes the game as follows:

“Each girl, in turn, holds a door-key in one hand, while with the other hand she pours the melted lead, from an iron spoon or ladle, through the handle of the key into a pan of cold water.  In the fanciful shapes the lead assumes can be traced resemblances to all sorts of things.  Sometimes it is a sword or gun, which indicates that a soldier will win the fair prize; again, traces of a ship may be seen: then the favored one is to be a sailor; a plough suggests a farmer; a book, a professor, or perhaps a minister; and when the lead forms only drops, it seems to mean that the gentle inquirer will not marry, or if she does, her husband will be of no profession.”

Another game called “Three Luggies” derives from a game mentioned in Robert Burns’ 1785 poem Halloween.  It reads in part:

In order, on the clean hearth-stane,

The luggies three are ranged;

An’ ev’ry time great care is ta’en

To see them duly changed.

The game of Three Luggies requires three bowls – one filled with clear water, one with milky water, and the last one empty.  The three bowls are placed on the hearthstone and the young lady who wishes to play is blindfolded and led up to them.   As Beard describes:

“She is then told to put her left hand into one of the bowls. If she dips her fingers in the clear water, she will marry a bachelor; if in the milky water, a widower; and if into the empty bowl, it is a sure sign that she will live in single blessedness all her days.  This ceremony must be gone through with three times, and the hand be dipped twice in the same bowl, in order to make the prediction of any value.”

There is a version of this game for gentlemen as well.  It is nearly identical, except that, according to the 1832 Book of Days, one of the bowls is filled with “foul water.”  If the gentleman dips his fingers into the clean water, he is destined to marry a maiden.  If he dips his fingers into the foul water, there is a widow in his future.  And if he encounters the empty bowl, he is fated to end his days a bachelor.

Another popular game involved roasting nuts in order to test friendship or compatibility. This particular game is mentioned in many books and articles of the era.  In it, two nuts are chosen and placed side by side on the grate or on a shovel that is held over the fire.  Beard explains:

“If they burn quietly, it is prophetic of a long and happy friendship kept up by both parties; but if in roasting they burst with a loud report and fly apart, they are decidedly uncongenial, and should not seek much intercourse.  The movements of the nuts while heating are closely watched, for the tempers of the persons for whom they are named is said to be thus revealed.”

A slightly different version of this game is related in the Book of Days.  It states:

“It is a custom in Ireland, when the young women would know if their lovers are faithful, to put three nuts upon the bars of the grate, naming the nuts after their lovers.  If a nut cracks or jumps, the lover will prove unfaithful; if it begins to blaze or burn, he has a regard for the person making the trial.”

Halloween Greeting Card depicting the Magic Mirror game, circa 1904.

Games with mirrors were also a favorite.  The Book of Days describes a particular “spell” which involved eating an apple in front of a mirror.  If the spirits were amenable, the young lady would be able to see the reflection of the gentleman she would one day marry “peeping over her shoulder.”  Beard mentions another game in which a mirror was used to discern how many incidents of good fortune would befall a person in the coming year.  In order to do this, Beard explains:

“The conditions are that the person wishing to know how bright her prospects are shall go to an open window or door from which the moon is visible, and, standing with her face in-doors, hold her mirror so that the moon will be reflected in it. The number of moons she sees there betokens the number of times something pleasant will happen to her before the advent of another Halloween.”

You will notice that most of these games were geared toward young ladies. This was fairly common in the Victorian era.  However, this did not mean that there was no entertainment available for young gentlemen.  Bobbing for apples has always been one of the most popular games at Halloween parties and the 19^th century was no exception.  Miller writes:

“…a large tub filled with water, was placed in the middle of the floor of some outhouse, carefully dressed up for the occasion; and into the tub every one of the party flung an apple.  They then approached it by turns, and placing their hands on the edges, plunged forward to fish for the fruit – with their teeth.”

In order to succeed at this game, one generally had to submerge their head and neck in the water.  For this reason, it was far more popular with the young men than with the young ladies.  As Beard states:

“The girls can seldom be induced to try their luck in this game, but usually content themselves with looking on, immensely enjoying the frantic endeavors of the boys to succeed at any cost.”

Ducking for Apples on Halloween, illustration from The Book of Days, 1832.

Another Halloween party game that a gentleman could play was the game of “Trying for a Raisin.” In this game, a good-sized raisin was strung onto the middle of a yard long cotton string.  The two competitors then took one end each of the string into their mouths and began to chew.  The first person to reach the raisin was the winner.

And then there was the rather perilous “Apple and Candle” game. The game involved hanging up a stick horizontally by a string and attaching a lit candle to one end and an apple to the other.  The Book of Days explains:

“The stick being made to twirl rapidly, the merry-makers in succession leap up and snatch at the apple with their teeth (no use of the hands being allowed), but it very frequently happens that the candle comes round before they are aware, and scorches them in the face, or anoints them with grease.”

Finally, no party was complete without the game that Beard calls “The Ghostly Fire.”  In this game, salt and alcohol were put into a dish with a few raisins and lit on fire.  When the flame was at its highest, the partygoers linked hands and danced around the table on which the fire burned.  Beard writes:

“The dance was not prolonged, for it was our duty, before the fire was spent, to snatch from the flames the raisins we had put in the dish. This can be done, if one is careful, without as much as scorching the fingers, and I never knew of anyone burning themselves while making the attempt.”

Of course, some forms of outdoor Halloween merrymaking were exclusively the province of rowdy young gentlemen.  Miller reports a particularly raucous tradition in the North of Scotland:

“After nightfall, the young fellows of the town formed themselves into parties of ten or a dozen, and breaking into the gardens of the graver inhabitants, stole the best and heaviest of their cabbages.  Converting these into bludgeons, by stripping off the lower leaves, they next scoured the streets and lanes, thumping at every door as they passed, until their uncouth weapons were beaten to pieces.  When disarmed in this way, all the parties united into one, and providing themselves with a cart, drove it before them, with the rapidity of a chaise and four, through the principal streets.  Wo to the inadvertent female Whom they encountered!”

PARTY FARE

The Incantation from
The Lancashire Witches, 1848.

When it came to food and drink at the Victorian Halloween party, sweets were not the primary attraction.  According to The Book of Days:

“Nuts and apples are everywhere in requisition, and consumed in immense numbers.  Indeed the name of Nutcrack Night, by which Halloween is known in the north of England, indicates the predominance of the former of these articles in making up the entertainments of the evening.”

And in the 1841 Medii Ævi Kalendarium, author R. T. Hampson writes:

“Nuts, ale and apples compose the chief materials of the entertainment on this night…Every house abounds in the best viands they can afford.”

Nuts could be roasted, while apples were often glazed by dipping them in a syrup made of sugar, water, and butter and then browning them on the fire.  In addition to fruit, nuts, and ale, there were baked goods to consume.  Some of these even played a part in Halloween ritual.  An 1891 edition of Ingalls’ Home and Art Magazine provides the following recipe and magical instructions for “Halloween Dumb Cake.”  It reads:

“Make according to any good recipe for a plain cake; not a word must be spoken after the work begins; three or four girls beating eggs, measuring, sifting, etc., in perfect silence.  When it is poured into the pan, some married lady takes it, and, unobserved, hides in it a ring, a coin, and a button.  It is iced thinly and placed in the oven again, after baking, for the icing to brown.  When served it is cut into as many pieces as there are guests (unmarried of course).  Every branch of the work — secreting the tokens, icing and cutting, must be done in perfect silence.  Every slice must be eaten or crumbed in silence until the tokens are found and displayed, when the spell is broken.  The finder of the ring will be married first; the coin betokens wealth, while a life of single-blessedness falls to the finder of the button.”

For larger parties, a set menu was sometimes desirable.  To this end, Home and Art Magazine offers a “choice bill of fare for a large dancing party.”  It includes such autumn favorites as roast turkey and chestnut stuffing.

Menu for a Halloween Party from Ingalls Home and Art Magazine, 1891.

 IN CLOSING

Today, especially in the United States, Halloween is synonymous with costumes and candy. Most of us do not have big country houses in which to hold giant parties.  Fear of a lawsuit (and plain old common sense) prevents us from allowing young people to melt lead in our living rooms and city ordinances prohibit us from lighting giant, pagan bonfires in our suburban backyards.  However, that does not mean we must forego all Victorian tradition.  Some 19^th century games are both safe and inexpensive.  For those of you who would like to incorporate a few into your upcoming Halloween party, I hope this article has been useful.  For those who would like to recreate the riskier Victorian Halloween games, I leave you with the following 1896 newspaper article as a warning:

“Hallowe’en Caused her Death” from The Canterbury Journal, 1896.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Beard, Linda. How to Amuse Yourself and Others.  New York: Scribner & Sons, 1893.

Chambers, Robert. Ed. The Book of Days. London: W. R. Chambers, 1832.

Hampson, R. T. Medii Ævi Kalendarium. London: Henry Kent Causton, 1841.

“Halloween at Balmoral” Staffordshire Sentinel.  Staffordshire, England.  Friday 06 November 1874.

“Hallowe’en Caused Her Death.” Canterbury Journal, Kentish Times and Farmers’ Gazette. Kent, England.  Saturday 29 February 1896 ,  

Ingalls’ Home and Art Magazine. Vol. IV. Nov. 1890 to Oct. 1891.  Lynn, Mass: J. F. Ingalls, 1891.

Leslie, Frank. Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly.  Vol. 40.  New York: Frank Leslie Publishing, 1895.

Miller, Hugh. Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland.  Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1876.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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A depiction of a black cat, pet and mascot of HMS Manica, 1915.
(Imperial War Museum.)

For a brief time at the end of the 19^th century, Her Majesty’s gunboat “Tickler” was the home of a mysterious cat by the name of Black Tom.  According to the ship’s doctor, Gordon Stables, many on board suspected that Tom was a demon or an imp.  No one knew where he had come from, how he had managed to get on board, or who had brought him there.  He simply appeared one windy, treacherous evening when the sea was rough as the Tickler was crossing the Bay of Biscay.  At eleven at night, while smoking on the quarter-deck, Stables saw something as “black as Erebus” whisk past his legs.  When he inquired of the old sailor at the wheel what the dark shadow could possibly have been, the sailor replied with the utmost solemnity:

“That’s the devil, sir.”

The sailor went on to explain that the devil had come aboard accompanied by a flash of light when the ship had “close-reefed topsails durin’ a squall.”  Stables greeted this superstitious pronouncement with a laugh and, shortly after, retired for the night to his cabin.  The next morning dawned bright and clear.  The captain, a violently temperamental and often inebriated Scotsman (also known throughout this narrative as the skipper or the commander) summoned all hands on deck.  When everyone was present and accounted for, he addressed them as follows:

“Officers and men of Her Majesty’s gunboat Tickler, contrary to the customs and rules of the service, and without my knowledge, to say nothing of sanction, I find that a cat has been brought on board.  Will the officer or man who owns the animal kindly step forward?”

The captain’s speech was met with resounding silence.  At this point, the captain declared that he had only one course left to him.  He ordered the men to “Bring up the cat.”  It was then that all eyes “instantly turned towards the stern grating” and there beheld a large, black Tom cat sitting with his tail curled around him for warmth and “looking on the very best of terms with himself and all creation.”  The cat and the captain met each other’s eyes and, or so it seemed to Stables, the cat’s eyes “sparkled crimson and green.”  The captain commanded:

“Midshipman of the watch, see that cat overboard.”

Seaman on the SMS Pommern enticing the ship’s cat up on the shrouds.
(National Maritime Museum.)

The cat leapt up, his hair standing all on end, and commenced hissing and spitting in what Stables describes as a “highly mutinous and insubordinate” manner.  The cat then “cleared the deck in three bounds and dived below.”  The entire crew followed him.  After three minutes below, the cat shot out through the fore hatch and shinned up the rigging with the sailors close behind him.  Stables writes:

“The chase now became general and most exciting; and with a cheer all hands joined, — evidently more for the fun of the thing, than with any intention of harming the cat.  Up the rigging and down the stays, alow and aloft, out on the flying jib-boom and along the hammock nettings.  Sure never before were such feats of agility seen on board a British Man o’ War; the men seemed monkeys, the cat the devil incarnate.  With a strength seemingly supernatural, Tom at length scrambled up, and took refuge above the main truck.”

The crew gathered on the deck below “gasping and red” and awaited further orders from their now irate captain.  The captain, a volatile fellow at the best of times, shouted:

“Curses on the brute!  Am I to sail the seas with a black cat on my main-truck?  Steward, bring my revolver.” 

A crewman promptly fetched the revolver and delivered it to the captain, however, in his present state the captain’s aim was unsteady.  He fired all six chambers “without any further result than chipping the main-top-gallant yard.”  Though none of the shots injured the cat, it seemed to Stables that they impressed upon the mysterious feline the serious turn that matters had taken.  The cat responded to the attack by lifting up his forepaw and delivering a meowing harangue the likes of which none of the sailors had ever heard before.

The cat’s impassioned plea impressed the hard-hearted captain.

“I thought,” said he, “I was a better shot; however, give the devil his due.”

Black Kitten on HMS Aurora, 1914.
(National Maritime Museum.)

He then ordered everyone on the ship to treat the cat with kindness.  The cat, who was now known as Black Tom, remained on his perch for two hours, finally falling asleep there.  When he woke, Stables reports that:

“…he stretched himself a leg at a time, for he hadn’t much room, yawned, did an attitude, and came slowly down on deck.  He walked at once to the quarter-deck; and, to show that he harboured no ill-feeling, he actually went and rubbed his big black head against the captain’s leg.”

After that, Tom was no longer considered a mere passenger on board.  His name was added to the ship’s books and he was “tolerated both by officers and men.”  Still, he was no one’s particular favorite.  Many were suspicious of the “questionable manner in which he had made his first appearance, and the latent devil that seemed to lurk in his eye.”  The natural suspicions of the sailors were aroused and more than one declared:

“That black— (alliterative term of endearment used by British seamen) will bring the ship no good luck.”

Winston Churchill pets Blackie, ship’s cat of HMS PRINCE OF WALES, 1941.
(Imperial War Museum.)

Though he received no encouragement, Tom attached himself to the cantankerous captain.  Whenever the captain came on deck, Tom trotted at his heels “enlivening his walk by a song.”  And, whenever another officer was walking with the captain, Tom took up a station on the hammock nettings and followed the movements of the captain with his eyes.  At first, the captain resented Tom’s attentions and was known to have kicked him when he got underfoot.  However, Tom was not easily put off and eventually:

“…yielding to the force of circumstances, the skipper ceased to mind him, and the two became inseparable.”

When the Tickler landed on the shores of St. Helena, Tom disembarked just like any other officer.  It was hoped that he would decide to remain there.  Unfortunately, the sailors had no such luck.  After visiting the “principal places of interest” on the island and, according to Stables, nearly murdering a “poor little dog in James Town,” Tom came off the island again in the officer’s boat, happy to resume his residence on the Tickler.  Stables goes on to write:

“[Tom] might in time have come to be a general favourite in the ship; but he suffered no advances to be made by ‘any man Jack,’ as the saying is, and scowled so unmistakably when any one attempted to stroke him, that he was unanimously voted to Coventry, and allowed to do what he liked.”

Sailor with a ship’s Cat aboard the cruiser Olympia, 1898.
(Independence Seaport Museum.)

Despite the initial reaction to Tom’s presence on board, the crew treated their new cat with surprising generosity.  Tom had “a regular allowance of ship’s provisions” just like everyone else on board.  His greatest treat was preserved milk and “rum thickened with oatmeal.”  For the latter treat, he was known to come twice a day to the dispensary.  The remainder of his time was spent, primarily, seated on the weather bulwarks where:

“…he would often remain for hours, gazing thoughtfully down in the blue clear depths of the tropical ocean.”

Another favorite pastime of Tom – and one that did nothing to endear him to the crew – was to observe the punishments administered by the captain.  Tuesday was flogging day on board the Tickler and, Stables reports that:

“There on the bulwark he would sit, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction, his mouth squared, and his beard all a-bristle.  He seemed to count every dull thud of his nine-tailed namesake, and emitted short sharp mews of joy when, towards the middle of the third dozen, the blood began to trickle and get sprinkled about on sheet and shroud.  Though I never disliked Tom, still, at times such as these, I really believed he was the devil himself as reputed, and would have given two months’ pay for a chance to brain him.  When the flogging was over, Tom used to jump down and, purring loudly, rub his head against his master’s leg.

More than half of the crew believed that Tom was either the devil himself or possessed of an evil spirit.  For this reason, many tried to find favor with Tom and “many a dainty morsel did this cat of evil repute thus receive.”  As a result of all these bribes, Tom grew glossier and plumper every day.  Additional treats were supplemented by Tom himself.  He had a talent for fishing and, as Stables writes:

“On dark nights in the tropical seas, he used to perch himself on the bulwarks aft, and bend his glittering eyes downwards into the sea.  He never sat long thus without a flying-fish, sometimes two, jumping past him or over him, and alighting on deck.  Then Tom would descend, and have a delightful supper, and if not fully satisfied resume his seat and continue the sport.”

Ship’s cat on the HMAS Encounter‍  resting inside the muzzle of a 6-inch gun, 1916.

For rest, Tom liked to sleep inside the large pivot gun.  It was quiet there, as well as being dark and cool.  One day, however, the Tickler was in pursuit of another ship which was edging closer and closer to the shore.  The order to fire was given.  Before doing so, the gunner peered into the gun to see that all was clear.  He found Tom napping there.  All attempts to coax Tom out proved futile and, when the gunner tickled him with “the end of the ramrod” it only made Tom “spit and sputter, and make use of bad language.”  The following dialogue during this incident is reported by Stables:

“What’s the delay?” cried the captain.

“Cat in possession of gun, sir,” was the reply.

“Dear me! dear me!” whined the captain, “Rouse him out, and be quick about it.”

After a pause.  

“He won’t rouse out no-how, sir,” said the gunner.

“I’m hanged,” roared the skipper, “if that rascally dhow isn’t landing her slaves in shore.  Rouse him out I say.  Fire a fuse — confound the cat.”

A fuse was inserted into the “touch-hole of the gun” and Tom raced out of his hiding place and shot up the rigging with all of his hair standing on end.

“Lower away the first and second cutters,” was now the order.  “It shan’t be said, that a cursed cat kept us from capturing a lawful prize.  D— the beast.”

The Tickler managed to capture the runaway ship and later that night, when the captain came back aboard, covered with smoke and gunpowder, Tom ran to meet him on the gangway.  To the crew’s amazement, the captain stooped down and tenderly caressed the cat.

Sailors surround the ship’s cat “Convoy” asleep in a miniature hammock on board HMS HERMIONE, 1941.
(Imperial War Museum.)

The remainder of Tom’s time at sea was spent getting into one scrape after another.  He killed a pet mongoose brought on board and he repeatedly scrapped with a pet monkey.  One night, during a fierce storm, Tom even fell overboard.  Stables reports:

“The life-buoy was almost instantly fired and let go by the commander himself, who alone saw the accident.”

The crew in the life-buoy were nearly lost in the storm.  The captain was beside himself.  He paced the deck, drank heavily, “wept like a child, and tore his hair out in handfuls.”  Come the morning, the life-buoy miraculously appeared.  In it, rode Tom amongst the bedraggled sailors.  When the life-buoy came alongside the ship, Tom was the first back on board.

The ship’s cat on board the CSS Acadia.
(Image via Gregory MacKenzie, CC 3.0.)

Black Tom’s luck was destined to run out.  As the voyage of HMS Tickler drew to a close, the mysterious black cat simply vanished.  No one on the Tickler ever knew what became of Black Tom.  A bishop had lately been allowed on board for part of the journey and one old seaman, by the name of Davis, swore that he had seen the cat “fly overboard in a sheet of blue flame.”  Stables writes:

“The only thing known for certain is this: we were about three days’ sail from Symon’s Town, Cape of Good Hope.  The night was dark and the weather squally, and poor Tom was last seen sitting, very quiet and pensive-like, on the hammock nettings aft.  He was seen there, I say, in the middle watch; and he was never seen again alive or dead.”

The crewmen swore that Tom had been the devil and nothing more.  They said that he had not been able to tolerate the presence of a bishop on board and had, therefore, flown back to hell.  Stables offers a simpler – and less supernatural – explanation:

“The truth, I suppose is, that the ship gave a nasty lee lurch, and Tom, half asleep, missed his footing, and tumbled overboard.  I know the skipper was sorry.”

Sailors believe that, if the ship’s cat is lost overboard, a shipwreck, or other such disaster, is sure to follow.  No such misfortune befell HMS Tickler after the loss of Black Tom.  Instead, the Tickler continued to sail for many years.  In 1919, the Tickler became HMS Afrikander.  In 1937, her career at sea ended.  After being decommissioned, she was scuttled and sunk at Simon’s Town in South Africa.  The true fate of Black Tom is still unknown.

Dr. Gordon Stables with Ship’s Cat and Dog, 1876.

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  Black cats are obviously not imps or devils.  Nevertheless, they still experience a degree of prejudice when it comes to finding a home.  Whether this is because of lingering superstition or simply due to the fact that their coat color is more common, I cannot say.  If you would like to help a cat like Black Tom, either by providing a home or by donating your time or money, the following links may useful as resources:

Alley Cat Rescue, Inc. (United States)

The Cats Protection League (United Kingdom)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Phillips, Lt. Commander Lawrie.  Pembroke Dockyard and the Old Navy: A Bicentennial History.  History Press, 2014.

Stables, Gordon.  Cats: Their Points and Characteristics.  London: Dean & Son, 1876.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens.

Today, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens are generally recognized as four of the greatest authors in English literature.  But how did their contemporaries view them?  Were their works appreciated?  And how did the 19^th century public feel when three of them, still in their prime, met an untimely end?  To discover the answers to these questions, one might delve into the legions of biographies written over the years or have a look at their letters, journals, or contemporary reviews of their poems and novels.  However, since it is less than a week until Halloween, I thought we might instead take a brief look at their obituaries.

(Image via Jane Austen: Her life and Letters, 1914.)

Jane Austen died at Winchester in the early morning hours on Friday July 18, 1817.  She was only forty-one years old.  In a letter written to Fanny Knight, Jane’s sister, Cassandra, describes Jane’s final hours:

“She felt herself to be dying about half an hour before she became tranquil and apparently unconscious.  During that half-hour was her struggle, poor soul!  She said she could not tell us what she suffered, though she complained of little fixed pain.  When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, her answer was she wanted nothing but death, and some of her words were: ‘God grant me patience, pray for me, oh, pray for me!’”

Reports of Jane’s death appeared in newspapers across England.  Most were brief, containing only a line or two and no mention of her novels at all.  The following notice appeared in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday July 28, 1817.  It is one of the lengthier obituaries and one of the only ones I could find that mention her books:

Jane Austen’s obituary.
(Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday July 28, 1817.)

George Gordon Byron, 6^th Baron Byron, died of fever at Missolonghi, Greece at six o’clock in the evening on April 19, 1824.  He was only thirty-six years old.  News of his death did not reach England for nearly a month.  A courier finally arrived with the sad tidings on May 14, 1824.  The next day, London’s Morning Chronicle printed an obituary which proclaimed:

“Thus has perished, in the flower of his age, in the noblest of causes, one of the greatest Poets England ever produced.”

Lord Byron’s obituary.
(Morning Chronicle, Saturday May 15, 1824.)

After a lifetime of notoriety and scandal, Byron had travelled to Greece and joined the fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence.  The Morning Chronicle lauded his noble sacrifice in the final lines of his obituary:

“It is fortunate for the great when they can escape from themselves into some pursuit, which, by firing their ambition, gives a stimulus to their active powers.—We rejoiced to see Lord Byron engaged in a cause which afforded such motives for exertions, and we anticipated from him many days of glory.—But it has been otherwise decreed.”

(Image via The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1857.)

Charlotte Brontë died at Haworth Parsonage, along with her unborn child, early on Saturday morning, March 31, 1855.  She was only thirty-eight years old and had been married less than a year to her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nichols.  Seriously ill for six weeks prior to her death with “perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness,” her death was, at the time, attributed to tuberculosis.  According to author and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, the last words Brontë ever wrote were in a February 15^th letter to a school friend, which she closed as follows:

“I cannot write more now; for I am much reduced and very weak.  God bless you all.—Yours affectionately, C. B. Nicholls.”

Charlotte Brontë’s obituary .
( Leeds Mercury, Saturday, April 7, 1855.

On April 7, 1855, the Leeds Mercury printed an obituary for “Currer Bell.”  Currer Bell was the pen name under which Brontë was first published.  The Leeds Mercury stated:

“Others now mourn her, in a domestic sense; and, as for the public, there can be no doubt that a pang will be felt in the midst of the strongest interests of the day, through the length and breadth of the land, and in the very heart of Germany (where her works are singularly appreciated), France, and America, that the “Currer Bell,” who so lately stole as a shadow into the field of contemporary literature has already become a shadow again,—vanishing from our view, and henceforth haunting only the memory of the multitudes whose expectation was fixed upon her.”

Amongst our four authors, Charles Dickens was the only one to live a (relatively) long life.  He died at his residence at Gad’s Hill, near Rochester, at twenty past six in the evening on June 9, 1870.  He was fifty-eight years old.  Modern biographers attribute his death to complications arising from a stroke he had had the previous week, while contemporary reports stated that the cause of his death was “apoplexy.”

(Image via Dickens a Sketch of his Life and Works, 1870.)

Dickens was already famous when he died and the news coverage of his death was extensive.  Within days, reports of his literary achievements would take up column upon column in popular papers of the day.  One of the earliest notices, and therefore the briefest, was in the Friday June 10, 1870 edition of the London Daily News which declared:

“There is not a home in the United Kingdom in which the sad news of to-day will not be received with the deepest and most heartfelt regret, while across the Atlantic and amongst the distant populations in our vast colonial possessions a similar feeling will be experienced.  Mr. Charles Dickens is dead.”

Charles Dickens’ obituary.
(London Daily News, Friday June 10, 1870.)

The posthumous fame of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens has far eclipsed the celebrity each experienced while they were alive.  Still, it is nice to know that, however brief the obituary, those in the 19^th century mourned the untimely loss of these literary luminaries and valued the novels, poems, and plays that they left behind as much as we value them today.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Austen-Leigh, William.  Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters.  New York: Dutton & Co., 1914.

“Charles Dickens Obituary.”  London Daily News.  Friday, June 10, 1870.

“Death of Currer Bell.”  Leeds Mercury.  Saturday, April 7, 1855.

“Death of Lord Byron.”  Morning Chronicle.  Saturday, May 15, 1824.

Edgcumbe, Richard.  Lord Byron: The Last Phase.  Hamburg: Severus, 2012.

Gaskell, Elizabeth.  The Life of Charlotte Bronte.  London: Spottiswoode & Co., 1857.

“Jane Austen Obituary.”  Salisbury and Winchester Journal.  Monday July 28, 1817.

Perkins, F. B.  Charles Dickens: A Sketch of His Life and Works.  New York: Putnam & Sons, 1870.

Slater, Michael.  Charles Dickens.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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A Raven by T. A. Coward, 1919.
(Image from The Birds of the British Isles.)

According to William Henry Hudson in his 1898 book Birds of London, the last pair of ravens in London resided in a large elm tree in Hyde Park.  This pair bred annually up until 1826 when one of the park keepers pulled down their nest, which at that time contained two of their young offspring.  Deprived of their home and their young, the pair of old ravens quit the park and were never seen again.  This was not the end of ravens in 19^th century Hyde Park, however.  One of the young ravens from the nest was retained and successfully raised by the park keeper.

This young raven was allowed complete liberty and he took full advantage of it.  He spent most of his time in the vicinity of Rotten Row.  Hudson writes:

“He came to be very well known to all those who were accustomed to walk in Hyde Park at that time.”

The young raven was a gregarious bird and often visited the workmen then engaged in the construction of John Rennie’s bridge across the Serpentine.  The workmen made a pet of him.  But not everyone was as fond of the raven.  He was highly intelligent and had an eye for mischief.  His favorite activity was to slyly sidle up to an unwitting passer-by and give them a “sharp dig on the ankle with his beak.”  This sort of sneak attack sometimes had unexpected benefits.  As Hudson relates:

“One day a fashionably dressed lady was walking near the bridge, when all at once catching sight of the bird at her feet, on feeling its sharp beak prodding her heel, she screamed and gave a great start, and in starting dropped a valuable gold bracelet from her wrist.  No sooner did the jewel touch the ground than the raven snatched it up in his beak and flew away with it into Kensington Gardens, where it was searched for, but never found.  It was believed that he made use of one of the hollow trees in the gardens as a hiding place for plunder of this kind.”

The Serpentine, Hyde Park by George Sidney Shepherd, mid-19th century.

As do many animal tales of the 19^th century, the tale of the last raven in London has a sad end.  At some point, the bird simply disappeared.  It was assumed that he had been stolen.  Several weeks later, he reappeared in Hyde Park with his wings clipped.  No longer the gregarious, mischievous bird that he had been before his absence, he moped about the park, clearly depressed by whatever had befallen him.  According to Hudson:

“Finally one morning [he] was found dead in the Serpentine.  It was surmised that he had drowned himself from grief at having been deprived of the power of flight.”

Of course, the reported last raven in London during the 1820s was by no means the actual last raven in London.  In the 1850s, a keeper in Regent’s Park reported that two ravens had appeared and engaged in a “savage fight which ended in the death of one of the combatants.”  In 1890, a solitary raven appeared in Kensington Gardens until a keeper captured it and took it away.

The Raven, Corvus Corax,
by John Gould, 19th century.

Meanwhile, there have always been ravens at the Tower of London.  Hudson states that at the end of the 19^th century, there were two in residence – a male and a female who worked industriously to build a nest in a tree.  Eventually “for some unknown reason,” the two birds tore apart their nest and commenced building a new one in a different location.  This second nest was also unsatisfactory to them.  They pulled it apart and started a third nest.  Hudson writes:

“After half a dozen such attempts, the cock bird, who was a strong flyer, abandoned the task altogether and took to roaming about London, possibly in search of a new mate with a better knowledge of nest-building.”

This solo male raven would fly up to a “considerable height in the air” and “soar about above the Tower.”  He would then fly to St. Paul’s Cathedral and perch on the cross at the top of the dome.  After having surveyed the activity on the ground at St. Paul’s, the raven was in the habit of flying down to the London docks.  Every day that passed, the bird’s range was expanded until the keepers at the Tower of London were warned that if they did not clip his wings, he would soon be lost to them forever.

At last, the keepers decided to cut the raven’s wings.  Unfortunately, by that time, the raven refused to be caught.  Hudson writes:

“He had grown shy and suspicious, and although he came for food and to roost on one of the turrets every evening, he would not allow any person to come too near him.”

After many weeks of living in this semi-independent fashion, the male raven disappeared.  It was believed that he met his end in Kensington Gardens.  Meanwhile, his abandoned mate, a female raven by the name of ‘Jenny,’ remained at the Tower of London.  At the time of publication in 1898, she had just been provided with a new mate.

The Raven by Philip Henry Gosse, 1849.
(Image from The Natural History of Birds.)

It is less than two days until Halloween and I would be remiss to close this article without mentioning a few of the many legends and superstitions that have been connected with ravens throughout history.  From as far back as Ancient Greece, the raven has been viewed with a measure of fear and something akin to awe.  Many believed that ravens were harbingers of death.  In William Hazlitt’s 1905 book Faiths and Folklore, he quotes a 15^th century source, writing:

“If the superstitious man hears the raven croak from the next roof, he at once makes his will.”

Others believed that the wings of the raven carried contagion, bringing pestilence and illness wherever the bird went.  Even Shakespeare makes reference to the raven as a bird of ill omen in Act IV of Othello:

Thou said’st, it comes o’er my memory,

As doth the raven o’er the infected house,

Boding to all.

Some of the raven superstitions were quite specific.  In Cora Lynn Daniels 2014 Encyclopaedia of Superstitions and Folklore, she reports the old belief that if a man meets a raven on the way home from church, it is a sign that he will either develop epilepsy or die.  A bit less severe is the Irish superstition that:

“If a raven cries at the foot of the husband’s bed, it is a sign that his relations are coming.”

Etching for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven by Édouard Manet, 1875.

Hazlitt states that “of inspired birds, ravens were accounted the most prophetical.”  Sometimes referred to as “the bird of the gallows,” there are numerous supporting tales of illness and death following in the immediate aftermath of a raven perching in one’s house or roosting in one’s chimney.  But not every legend casts ravens as avian prophets of death.  Daniels writes:

“In Sweden, the raven’s cry at night in swamps and wild moors, is held to be the ghosts of murdered men, whose bodies have been hidden in these spots by their murderers.”

While another superstition holds that the reason the raven is so reviled is because it is, in fact, an exorcised spirit.  Daniels explains:

“There is a hole in the left wing, caused by the stake driven into the earth when a vampire spirit has been exorcised.  One must take care not to look up when it is flying overhead, for he who sees through the hole in the wing will become a night-raven himself.  This uncanny bird is ever flying toward the East, in hope of reaching the holy sepulcher, where alone it will get rest.”

Folklore and legend aside, the common raven (corvus corax) is considered to be one of the most intelligent birds in existence.  They can live 15-20 years in the wild and are able to survive in a diverse range of climates.  The raven is omnivorous and is known to store his food.  Ravens have also been known to use tools and their intelligence relating to problem solving has been compared to that of the human and the chimpanzee.

Clearly, the 19^th century did not see the last ravens in London, however, unlike crows, ravens are not generally seen in more populated areas.  This does not mean that they are endangered.  In fact, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reports that there are currently 7400 breeding pairs in the country.  As for the presence of larcenous ravens in Hyde Park or bachelor ravens perched on the cross atop of St. Paul’s Cathedral, I could find no 21^st century reports.

Boy With Raven by H.C., 1879.

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  If you would like to learn more about ravens, the following links may be useful as resources:

National Audubon Society (United States)

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (United Kingdom)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

“The Common Raven.”  The Audubon Society of Portland.  Web.

Daniels, Cora Lynn.  Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences.  Vol. 2.  Honolulu: University of the Pacific Press, 2003.

Hazlitt, William Carew.  Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs.  London: Reeves & Turner, 1905.

Hudson, William Henry.  Birds in London.  London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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The Bride Adorned by Her Friend by Henrik Olrik, 1850.

Covering a range of topics, including domestic economy, conjugal duties, and submission to one’s husband, the bulk of 19^th century marriage manuals were directed at young wives occupying the middle and upper classes.  These manuals were written by both men and women and were so numerous during the Regency and Victorian eras that some of the books contain notices wherein the author preemptively defends himself against future allegations of plagiarism.  In author William Andrus Alcott’s 1837 book The Young Wife, or Duties of Woman in the Marriage Relation, Alcott begins by assuring his readers that:

“Every chapter of this work was written many months before the appearance of certain recent publications involving, in some respects, similar sentiments.”

Marriage manuals for young wives did contain many similar sentiments.  Amongst these was a reliance on Christian teachings and beliefs as a foundation for the conduct of a woman within her marriage.  Under the chapter heading of “Submission,” Alcott begins by establishing the origins of woman as a helpmeet, rather than an equal, of man.  He writes:

“There was a time, in the history of our world, when woman did not exist.  Man was not only alone — without a companion — but destitute of a ‘help-meet’ — an assistant.  In these circumstances, almighty Power called forth, and, as it would seem, for this very purpose, that modified, and in some respects improved form of humanity, to which was afterwards given the name of woman, and presented her to man.  She was to be man’s assistant.”

Alcott goes on to argue that leaving her father’s house and removing to that of her husband is in and of itself an act of submission in the young bride.  He reasons that in quitting the sphere in which she was raised, the woman gives up all the rights and privileges to which she has become accustomed.  He asks:

“Does she not submit, at least prospectively, to a long train of circumstances and consequences which, in her father’s house, she would be able to escape?  Does she not even merge her own name in that of her husband?  And is there no concession in all this?  Is there no submission?”

The Reluctant Bride by Auguste Toulmouche, 1865.

Based on Alcott’s description, a modern reader might interpret a 19^th century woman’s entry into the married state as being equivalent to a life sentence of misery and servitude.  And it certainly could be if the gentleman a young lady married was inappropriate in some way.  For this reason, many authors of 19^th century marriage manuals emphasize the critical importance of choosing a proper husband.  In Elizabeth Lanfear’s 1824 book Letters to Young Ladies on Their Entrance into the World, the author stresses the significance of carefully selecting a spouse as opposed to merely acquiescing to a marriage proposal for other reasons.  She writes:

“Marriage, generally speaking, in either sex, is more frequently the result of accident than of selection: propinquity, convenience, interest, or, at best, mere fancy, dignified by the name of love, forms the basis, of most matrimonial engagements.”

Lanfear goes on to express her disapproval of love matches, which she believes do not often result in happy marriages.  She also warns about couples marrying too young, before “either the taste or the judgment are sufficiently matured.”  Alternately, she advises caution when contemplating marriages later in life as older bachelors “do not readily fall into domestic habits” and women of a certain age “are not always disposed to accommodate to circumstances or to give up their own opinions.”  Finally, she counsels young ladies not to marry outside of their rank, writing:

“The woman who marries a man of superior rank to her own is not always treated according to her deserts by his relations; while she who weds with one of an inferior rank in life has no right to expect that her friends will associate with her husband, or treat him with that respect which she may think his due.”

How then was a young lady to choose a husband?  Marriage manuals of the day generally focus more on a gentleman’s character than on any emotion a young lady might feel for him.  Lanfear states:

“Affection may also be found a necessary ingredient with which to sweeten the cup of domestic care; but, at all ages, and under all circumstances, the first and the most important considerations which should be attended to by a woman, before she forms a serious and irrevocable engagement, are the personal character, moral qualities, and mental endowments of the man who is to be her fellow-traveller in the great journey of life.”

The Proposal by Knut Ekwall, 1880s.

Of course, these strictures presuppose that a young lady will have a choice.  What if she only receives one offer of marriage in her whole life?  Is she to refuse her only chance at matrimony simply because her suitor does not live up to the religious, moral, and intellectual ideals enumerated in a marriage manual?  In short, yes.  Lanfear advises:

“Let her patiently await the chance which new connections and riper years may afford; or, if she be agreeably situated as a single woman, rest contented in a state of celibacy, which, though it may lack some pleasures, is far preferable to an imprudent or ill-assorted marriage.”

Interestingly, Lanfear does not portray this contented state of celibacy in the very best light.  She writes extensively on the unhappy lot of the middle-aged spinster and her descriptions do not seem designed to encourage any young lady to willingly choose such a miserable course of existence.  She states:

“The elderly unmarried female is differently, and, generally speaking, less fortunately, situated.  The season of youth and of beauty, of flattery and of juvenile amusements, passed and gone forever, she gradually awakes as from a morning dream, and reluctantly exchanges the gay, the delusive, visions of her early years, for the more sober and dull realities of maturer age.  Her parents are, perhaps, no more, or, if still in existence, declining in health and years, and fast sinking into the gaping tomb: the home circle is broken; brothers and sisters, companions of childhood, dispersed and scattered abroad; partial and admiring friends no longer surround her—by some she has been deserted, by others forgotten; till, at length, no longer sheltered by the paternal roof, she feels alone in the world, solitary and unregarded.”

This elderly unmarried spinster is, according to Lanfear, often at the mercy of a very limited income.  Her own disappointments and mortifications (presumably as a result of being single) cause her to be peevish in temper and to vainly seek out sympathy and friendship.  Unfortunately, rather than kindness, she is met with ridicule and contempt.  Lanfear writes:

“Instead of that attention and consolation which her forlorn situation demands, the finger of scorn is, by the frivolous and the gay, ever ready to be pointed at the antiquated virgin; while the silly youth and giddy girl find amusement in ridiculing those little foibles and harmless singularities which not unfrequently mark the character of the single woman.”

The Arranged Marriage by Vasili Pukirev, 1861.

With impoverished spinsterhood as a grim alternative to marriage, it is no wonder that so many young ladies were anxious to accept the first gentleman who happened to propose.  As a result, it was not uncommon for a new bride to find herself in a situation fraught with difficulty.  But whether her new husband was a drunkard, a wastrel, or a man prone to using the vilest of curses in his daily conversation, all of the marriage manuals I have researched provide the same advice.  A woman should never complain.  She was to remain dignified and, at all times, exercise forbearance.  This is typified in Lanfear’s advice to wives whose husbands have been unfaithful.  She writes:

“By preserving a dignified reserve in conduct, a forbearing silence on the subject of her wrongs, pursuing the even tenour of her way—without turning either to the right hand or the left—fulfilling as usual the daily routine of Christian and domestic duties, calm and unruffled—she will, at all events, strengthen her own virtues and elevate her own character.  By such conduct she will also secure the respect and esteem of all around her, and possibly in time regain the heart of her husband; that is, if it be a heart worthy of her solicitude: if it be not, let her transfer her alienated affections to her children.”

Infidelity was not the only crime for which a wife was expected to exercise forbearance.  In Alcott’s book, he makes vague reference to a husband asserting his conjugal rights, stating:

“Sometimes your trial is still more severe.  There are wives to whom their husbands seem to say — not in words, perhaps, but by their daily practice — Now that we have you in our possession, we are resolved to make you submit to our own course.  Nothing, perhaps, will more severely test your forbearance than this assumption, on the part of your husband, that might gives right.  But what will you do?  Will you resent it?  Suppose your husband uses words which imply a determination to exercise the superiority which he claims; will you ‘answer a fool according to his folly,’ or will you bear and forbear?”

Arrufos (The Quarrel) by Belmiro de Almeida, 1887.

Patience, acceptance, and self-sacrifice are emphasized as desirable qualities for the 19^th century bride.  Not only must she “bear and forbear” when it comes to infidelity and marital rape, she must also allow her husband to prevail in everyday arguments.  To continually assert herself is to run the risk of driving her husband from the home.  In his 1839 book, The Young Bride’s Book: Being Hints for Regulating the Conduct of Married Women, author Arthur Freeling insists that it is the new bride’s responsibility to resolve the first quarrel – and every quarrel thereafter.  Addressing the young wife, he reasons:

“You have more of the ill consequences to endure: home must be the centre of a woman’s happiness; make that miserable, and the light of her days has faded.”

A version of this sentiment is echoed in other 19^th century marriage manuals.  The wife is repeatedly urged to sacrifice her own desires and, in some cases, her own common sense, in order to bolster the self-esteem of her new husband.  Lanfear writes:

“A sensible woman, to preserve the peace and secure the affections of her husband, will often sacrifice her own inclinations to his.”

Meanwhile, any selfishness on the part of the new husband is generally dismissed.  Lanfear expresses a common enough 19^th century sentiment when she explains:

“Men are less called and less accustomed than women, even from their earliest youth, to exercise the virtues of self-denial or self-control; and, being naturally more sensual, and, by the laws of decorum and the usages of society, less restricted in the indulgence of their appetites and the gratification of their passions, are less ready to sacrifice their own personal pleasures and propensities for the benefit or the accommodation of others.”

Mother and Her Children by Alfred Stevens, 1883.

What happens if, after all of the young bride’s forbearance and self-sacrifice, the young husband continues to be a brute and a bully?  In her 1815 book Practical Hints to Young Females on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother, and a Mistress of the Family, author Mrs. Taylor addresses this circumstance, explaining that sweetness, kindness, and “the coolness of a reasonable mind” are their own rewards.  She writes:

“Even if they failed to produce the change in his feelings that might be expected, [they] would at least have the most salutary influence upon your own, and bring a revenue of peace to the mind under all its trials.”

After all of this marital advice, most of which involves sublimating your feelings and placating an unreasonable husband, spinsterhood may not appear such a grim alternative after all.  If one looks hard enough, one can even find a brief paragraph within these 19th century marriage manuals which reveals the many benefits of remaining single.  Surprisingly, it is in Lanfear’s book.  She states:

“The single woman of the present day is chiefly distinguished from her married sisters by possessing more literary acquirements, more elegant accomplishments, or higher attainments in some particular art or science, than the numerous avocations of domestic life have allowed the matron either time or opportunity of attending to.”

The Unconditional Lover by Vittorio Reggianini, late 19th century.

Naturally, I cannot cover all of the topics included in 19^th century marriage manuals for young wives.  Suffice to say that the bulk of information available is geared toward domestic concerns such as household economy, servants, and the education of children.  Many books have chapters dedicated to delicacy, modesty, and purity of character.  While others focus a great deal on Christian teachings and biblical quotations.  The wedding night is never mentioned and sex – except for the vague reference I noted above – is not addressed at all.

*This article is the second in a two part series on 19^th Century Marriage Manuals.  The first article, 19^th Century Marriage Manuals: Advice for Young Husbands, is available HERE.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Alcott, William Andrus.  The Young Wife, or Duties of Woman in the Marriage Relation.  Boston: George W. Light, 1837.

Freeling, Arthur.  The Young Bride’s Book: Being Hints for Regulating the Conduct of Married Women.  London: Henry Washbourne, 1839.

Lanfear, Elizabeth.  Letters to Young Ladies on Their Entrance into the World.  London: J. Robins & Co., 1824.

Taylor, Mrs.  Practical Hints to Young Females on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother, and a Mistress of the Family.  London: Taylor & Hessey, 1815.

West, Jane.  Letters to a Young Lady in which the Duties and Character of Women are Considered.  New York: O. Penniman & Co., 1806.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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A Scullery Maid at Work by Charles Joseph Grips, 1866.

Many historical novels feature a serving girl who has gotten herself into “trouble.”  In fiction, the understanding mistress of the house is quick to intervene and, in short order, the serving girl’s future is secured to everyone’s satisfaction.  In reality, female servants of the 19^th century were expected to preserve their reputations in order to maintain genteel employment.  The character of one’s servants was a reflection on the house as a whole.  To that end, no respectable Victorian lady wanted a light-skirt for a housemaid or a wanton for a cook, and many mistresses strictly forbade male callers or “hangers on.” 

So what was the 19^th century lady of the house to do if one of her servants ended up in the family way?  There were many approaches to this unfortunate situation, one of the most common of which was a swift dismissal without a character reference.  This course of action could occasionally have unexpectedly tragic results.  Such was the case for poor Eliza Bollends in 1865.

“Shocking Death at Beeston.” Nottinghamshire Guardian, April 14 1865.

Eliza Bollends was cook to the Misses Cheatham (or Cheetham) of Chilwell in Nottinghamshire.  She was a single woman, twenty-eight years of age.  According to the inquest report in the April 14^th 1865 edition of the Nottinghamshire Guardian, Eliza shared a room and a bed with fellow servant Ellen Rillman.  At four o’clock in the morning on Sunday April 9, Rillman woke to discover that Eliza had risen from bed, partially dressed herself, and lit a fire.  Eliza then left the room.  Thinking no more of the matter, Rillman went back to sleep.

At half-past five o’clock, when Eliza had still not returned to bed, Rillman went in search of her.  She found her sitting in the corner of the kitchen and discovered that she had given birth to a baby boy.  Eliza requested that Rillman go and fetch help from the next door neighbor, a woman by the name of Mrs. Bowley.  Rillman did so.  Upon returning, Rillman asked Eliza why she had not mentioned her condition to anyone, to which Eliza replied:

“I thought I should have made an end of myself before now.”

Mrs. Bowley arrived at the house sometime later along with the local midwife, a woman named Mrs. Beeton.  Mrs. Bowley addressed Eliza:

“Eliza, why didn’t you mention it and not leave it like this; you’ll kill yourself.”

Eliza stated:

“It will not matter; I want to die and then there will be an end of it.”

The midwife took the child from Eliza.  She then advised that Eliza go to bed.  Eliza allegedly refused, stating:

“I shall go to Beeston if I have to walk; I shall not go to bed here.”

The Scullery Maid by Giuseppe Crespi, 1710-15.

Mrs. Bowley and the midwife agreed that they should call a cab to come and collect Eliza and take her to Beeston (roughly 2 miles away), where she had a friend named Mrs. Cox.  It was at that point that Mrs. Bowley instructed Rillman to go and wake the Misses Cheatham.  According to a report in the April 16, 1865 edition of Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper:

“The Misses Cheatham were informed of the circumstance, and they appeared very much annoyed.  When they heard that the deceased wished to leave, they said it would be best she should do so.”

Mrs. Beeton gave corroborating evidence to this effect in her inquest testimony.  The Nottinghamshire Guardian quotes her as stating:

“The Misses Cheetham sent word that they would sooner have her removed if it was safe.”

Though they allegedly professed concern for her safety, the Misses Cheatham did not summon a doctor for Eliza.  Instead, they returned to bed.  Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper  reports:

“The Misses Cheetham remained in bed until she had been removed.”

No one in the household had known that Eliza was pregnant.  According to Rillman’s testimony, Eliza admitted that the father of the baby was “a young man at Deeping, Lincolnshire.”  This disclosure had no affect on subsequent events.  A cab was sent for and, when it arrived, Eliza walked out to it without assistance, climbed in, and departed for Beeston.

London Evening Standard, April 13, 1865.

Eliza arrived at the home of Mrs. Cox in Beeston in a state of exhaustion.  Mrs. Cox was poor and, as a result, did not summon medical help until the very last minute.  Mr. James Butler, a Beeston surgeon, arrived to attend Eliza at seven o’clock on Sunday evening.  He testified at the inquest that she was in a “state of collapse.”  He administered “stimulating medicines” to no avail.  Butler stated:

“She died about one o’clock from exhaustion, consequent loss of blood, the exertions of removing, and exposure to cold.  It was a very imprudent thing to have removed her.”

After hearing all of the evidence, the jury at the inquest returned the following verdict:

“That the deceased had died from exhaustion, consequent upon the delivery of a child, and from exposure to cold on being removed from Chilwell to Beeston, and also from want of proper medical assistance.”

It is not clear in any of the reports what happened to the baby.  He was alive and apparently healthy at the time of birth, but after Eliza gave him to the midwife, Mrs. Beeton, he is never mentioned again.  The identity of the baby’s father is also never disclosed.  I suspect that Eliza took the secret of his identity to the grave.  As for the Misses Cheatham – who I am assuming are two sisters – there is no indication that they suffered any censure as a result of their conduct.  Due to the testimony of Ellen Rillman, who was still in their employ, it was generally believed that it was Eliza herself who had insisted on leaving Chilwell immediately after giving birth.

Fortunately, the tale of the sad and very preventable death of Eliza Bollends is by no means the Victorian norm.  With articles bearing such titles as “A Shocking Death in Beeston,” one can only conclude that many in the 19th century were as disturbed by the young mother’s dismissal and subsequent death as we would be if such a thing happened today.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

“A Painful Case.”  Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper.  Sunday April 16, 1865.

“Death from Exhaustion.”  London Evening Standard.  Thursday April 13, 1865.

“Shocking Death at Beeston.”  Nottinghamshire Guardian.  Friday April, 14 1865.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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On this week’s edition of Animals in Literature and History, I bring you bestselling author Regan Walker with a guest post on Wolves in Medieval England!

Wolf after sheep, Bestiario Medieval.

Their prevalence

Wolves were prevalent in England during the medieval era.  One of the earliest references to them is contained in a 6^th century genealogy of the East Anglican founder of a dynasty called Wuffa, whose tribe was known as the Wuffings, or “wolf people”.  They were believed to have originated in Scandinavia.

Bones of wolves have been found in many excavations in England.  They show the wolves then were comparable in size to European wolves today.

Anglo-Saxon charters mention such things as “wolf pits.”  Wolves were known to have been in Berkshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Glamorganshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, Oxfordshire and Somersetshire.  They also made their homes in the great forests of Riddlesdale in Northumberland, Blackburnshire and Bowland in Lancashire, Richmond in Yorkshire, Sherwood in Nottinghamshire and many others, some of which no longer exist.

The town of Woolpit in Suffolk, recorded in the Domesday Book as “Wolfpeta”, was named “Wlpit” in the 10^th century and later changed to Wlfpeta, in Old English, wulf-pytt, means “pit for trapping wolves.”

Wolves from Oppian of Apamea Cynegetica, 10th Century.

During King Athelstan’s reign in the 10^th century, wolves were so prevalent in Yorkshire a retreat was built by one Acehorn at Flixton so that travelers might seek refuge in the event of a wolf attack.

The Hunting of Wolves

With wolves a big problem, it is not surprising that the hunting of them became a necessary sport.  And perhaps that is why wolfhounds were so prized.  (In 1210, an Irish hound, as they were then known, was presented as a gift from Prince John to Llewellyn, Prince of Wales.)  In my novel, Rogue Knight, set in 1069-70 in York, the heroine was given her wolfhound “Magnus” by her father, the former Sheriff of Lincolnshire.  During the 16^th, 17^th and early 18^th centuries, wolfhounds were in great demand as royal gifts.

Wolfhounds hunting wolves.

As early as the 9th century, and probably long before, hunting constituted an essential part of the education of young noblemen.  Asser states that Alfred the Great, before he was twelve years old, “was a most expert and active hunter, and excelled in all the branches of that most noble art”—including the hunting of wolves.

In 938, when Athelstan was victorious over Constantine, the King of Wales, he imposed upon him a yearly tribute of gold, silver, and cattle, to which was added “hawks, and sharp-scented dogs, fit for hunting of wild beasts.”  His successor, Edgar, remitted the pecuniary payment on condition of receiving annually the skins of three hundred wolves.

In the Forest Laws of Canute, promulgated in 1016, the wolf is thus expressly mentioned:

As for foxes and wolves, they are neither reckoned as beasts of the forest or of venery, and therefore whoever kills any of them is out of all danger of forfeiture, or making any recompense or amends for the same.

The various Norman kings (reigning from 1066 – 1152) employed servants as wolf hunters and many held lands granted on the condition they fulfilled this duty.

During the reign of Henry I (1100 -1135), among other forest laws was one that provided for compensation to be made for any injury occasioned during a wolf hunt.

In the reign of Henry III (1216 – 1272), wolves were sufficiently numerous in some parts of the country to induce the king to make grants of land to various individuals upon the express condition of their taking measures to destroy them wherever they could be found.

While the hunting of wolves continued, it was Edward I (1272 -1307) who ordered the wholesale extermination of wolves in Britain.  He personally employed one Peter Corbet, with instructions to “take and destroy all the wolves he could find” in the counties of “Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Staffordshire.”

An odd reference appears about 1394-1396, when the monks of Whitby paid 10 shillings and 9 pence for the “tawing of 14 wolf skins” (I assume “tawing” means tanning).  So, possibly wolves survived in the wilder parts of north-east Yorkshire until late in the 14th century but no other evidence is noted.  By the time of Henry VI (1485-1509), they had disappeared in England. 

The last remaining stronghold for wolves was in Ireland until the late 17th century.  But by the 1760s, the wolf was extinct in the British Isles.

References

Woolpit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolpit

Wolfpeta in the Domesday Book: http://ow.ly/TJSrH

Disappearance of Wolves: http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/chorus/node/230

British Animals Extinct Within Historic Times by James Edmund Harting

Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, Book I, by Joseph Strutt

York, England 1069… three years after the Norman Conquest

The North of England seethes with discontent under the heavy hand of William the Conqueror, who unleashes his fury on the rebels who would dare to defy him. Amid the ensuing devastation, love blooms in the heart of a gallant Norman knight for a Yorkshire widow.

Praise for Rogue Knight

“Mesmerizing medieval romance! … A vivid portrayal of love flourishing amidst the turbulence of the years after the Norman Conquest.”   Kathryn Le Veque, USA Today Bestselling author

“Rogue Knight is yet another brilliant novel from Regan Walker. She is a master of her craft. Her novels instantly draw you in, keep you reading and leave you with a smile on your face.”           Good Friends, Good Books

“Fast paced, action packed, thrill ride of emotions from angst to passion to healing and love. A true storyteller! Another hit!!”      My Book Addiction

“… a flawlessly crafted novel…”     We Who Write

“… a riveting fast-paced page turner!”  Tartan Book Reviews

About the Author

Regan Walker is an award winning, bestselling author of Regency, Georgian and Medieval romance novels.  She has been a featured author on USA TODAY’s HEA blog three times and twice nominated for the prestigious RONE award (her novel, The Red Wolf’s Prize won the RONE for Best Historical Novel in the medieval category in 2015).

Regan writes historically authentic novels, weaving into her stories real history and real historic figures.  She wants her readers to experience history, adventure and love.

Regan lives in San Diego with her golden retriever, Link, who she says inspires her every day to relax and smell the roses.

Rogue Knight on Amazon 

Regan Walker’s website

Regan Walker Facebook

Thus concludes another Friday feature on Animals in Literature and History.  If you would like to learn more about the plight of wolves today or if you would like to donate your time or money to a wolf sanctuary, the following links may be useful as resources:

Wolf Haven International (United States)

The U.K. Wolf Conservation Trust (United Kingdom)

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Symptoms of Life in London, or Love, Law, and Physic by George Cruikshank,, 1821.
(Image via Wellcome Library.)

In January of 1818, on the second page of a small Irish newspaper, was a brief article with the sensational headline: “Projected Divorce in High Life.”  This case, which would soon become notorious in both England and France, was not, in fact, a divorce.  It was an action for criminal conversation – a tort, long extinct, in which an aggrieved husband could make a claim for damages against the lover of his adulterous spouse.  These sorts of cases were always deliciously scandalous, and none more so than that of Aston v. Elliot – a case which involved noblemen, prostitutes, syphilis, a veteran of Waterloo, and some of the highest ranking members of the beau monde.

A Brief History of the Parties

The article in the January 22^nd issue of Saunders Newsletter was printed well before all of the facts were known to the public.  As such, it is very much on the side of the husband, Colonel Harvey Aston (known in some publications simply as Harvey Aston, Esq.) of Aston Hall, Warrington, Lancashire.  Attributing its information to “chit-chat in certain fashionable circles,” the article begins by describing Aston as a relation of a “certain Marquis in high court favour” and goes on to praise his courage in the Peninsula, where he served under his particular friend, “the gallant Wellington.”  It was in the Peninsula that, according to Saunders:

“While thus ardently engaged in the pursuit of conquest…he himself was conquered by the bewitching glances of his present wife — a Spaniard by birth, and possessing all those nameless attractions for which the females of that country are so much celebrated”

Saunders goes on to explain how, despite the warnings issued by his “more prudent companions,” Aston “surrendered his whole heart to the enchanting foreigner.”  Predictably, this alliance was not a happy one.  Saunders reports that Aston’s desire soon cooled and “his ordinary perceptions resumed their empire,” writing:

“Then it was he saw his error; and subsequent circumstances, it is stated, convinced him that having entrusted his honour to the keeping of another, it was no longer safe.”

The bewitching Spanish foreigner was actually the daughter of an Irish gentleman named Mr. Barron who had settled in Cadiz as a merchant.  Her name was Margarita and she is described in later publications as being “lovely in her person and fascinating in her manners.”  She met Aston in Cadiz in 1813.  They were married shortly thereafter and, upon returning to England in 1814, they repeated the marriage ceremony at St. James’s.  They soon welcomed their first child.

In 1816, they removed to France where they set up house at Passy, two miles outside of Paris.  There, they welcomed a second child – a birth celebrated with a splendid entertainment hosted by the child’s godparent, the Duke of Wellington.

The Right Honourable Hugh Elliot, Governor of Madras, 1752-1830.
(Father of Edward Elliot.)

It was while living in Passy that Margarita Aston met Edward Elliot.

Captain Edward Francis Elliot (sometimes spelled Elliott) was the twenty-year-old son of the Governor of Madras.  He was related to both the Earl of Minto and the Earl of Auckland, and had been present at the Battle of Waterloo.  Initially, he and Aston had been friends, but in time, his attentions turned solely to Aston’s wife.  Whenever her husband was absent, Elliot would come to visit her.  When their clandestine meetings were discovered, Aston barred Elliot from the premises, after which Elliot continued his visits in secret, entering the house through a backdoor.

Criminal Conversation

Eventually, letters between the two alleged lovers were intercepted and this, combined with the observations of French servants who claimed to have seen the couple together on several occasions, was enough to compel Aston to bring an action for criminal conversation against Captain Elliot, seeking £10,000 in damages.

Trial of Rev. Edward Irving, 1823.

The case made news in most of the magazines and daily papers of the day, with pre-trial articles roughly resembling some version of the following, which was printed in the February 28, 1818 issue of the Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette:

“Crim. Con. — An Action, which will shortly be tried in the Court of King’s Bench, is brought by Colonel Harvey Aston, whose father was so well known in the fashionable world, against Captain Elliott, a nephew of Lord Minto.  The Defendant, who is a Captain in the Engineers, was present at the battle of Waterloo.  The Lady’s name was Barron, being the daughter of a Mr. Barron, an Irish Gentleman, who had settled at Cadiz as a merchant, at which place she was born.  The adultery is alleged to have taken place at Passey, near Paris, to prove which several servants will be called.  Letters were intercepted from the defendant to the plaintiff’s wife.  Lord William Gorden, Captain Seymour, of the Guards, besides others, will be called to prove the happy manner in which the plaintiff and his wife lived, before the alleged adultery took place.  The defendant was on intimate terms with the plaintiff, and often dined at his table.  Several counsel are engaged on the part of the plaintiff; Mr. Gurney will take the lead.  The damages are laid at 10,000l.  The jewels, which Mrs. Aston had obtained, amounting to upwards of 4000l., are now in the plaintiff’s possession.”

The trial took place on Saturday December 12, 1818, with the next day’s edition of The Examiner reporting that:

“The Court was crowded to excess during the whole of the trial, as the parties it seems moved in the highest circles, both English and French at Paris.  The trial lasted from three till past eight at night.”

Court of King’s Bench, Westminster Hall, 1808.
(Microcosm of London.)

The Case for the Plaintiff

During an action for criminal conversation, the husband, wife, and defendant do not take the stand.  Instead, various witnesses are called forth.  In the trial of Aston v. Elliot, Mr. Gurney began by calling Captain Henry Menel of the Royal Navy who testified that, before Elliot appeared on the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Aston were “on the most harmonious of terms.”

A French servant, by the name of Antonio Sarrazy, was then called to the stand.  He testified that Elliot visited Mrs. Aston without the knowledge of her husband, that he used the back door of the saloon to gain entrance to the house, and that he came almost every day.  Sarrazy, who admitted to still being in the employ of Mr. Aston, went on to claim that he had taken many letters from Mrs. Aston to Elliot and that, during her daily trips into Paris, Elliot would meet Mrs. Aston and ride in the carriage with her.  According to the December 26^th edition of the Westmoreland Gazette:

“Witness remembers one evening being caught in a shower of rain, and turning round to get an umbrella he observed Mrs. Aston sitting on Mr. Elliott’s knee.  Witness then went on to describe what more he saw, which left no doubt what then passed; it was then about twelve at night; the witness was enabled to see what was passing at this time in the carriage, by the reflection of a lamp by the side of the road.”

The Vicar of Wakefield, Attendance on a Nobleman by Thomas Rowlandson, 1817.

Mr. Gurney then called Mrs. Aston’s French wet-nurse, Julia Retour.  Retour testified that Mrs. Aston was accustomed to receiving Elliot in her saloon.  Retour stated that, on one occasion, she had entered the saloon to find Mrs. Aston and Elliot kissing and, on another, she entered to find them in “a very improper situation.”  Even more scandalous, the Westmoreland Gazette reports Retour’s recollection of one particular incident:

“Witness remembered going into Mrs. Aston’s one evening for something for the child, when she observed Mr. Elliott in Mrs. Aston’s bed. — Mr. Aston was at that time in Paris, and did not return home till two o’clock.  Mr. Elliott called witness to him and offered her money, but witness refused it, and hastened out of the room.”

More evidence for the plaintiff followed, including the testimony of his valet and one Mr. Marryat, from Cox and Greenwood’s, who testified that Edward Elliot was presently on half-pay and had no other income on which to support himself.

One of Edward Elliot’s Love Letters to Mrs. Aston, Bell’s Weekly Messenger, Dec 20, 1818.

Mr. Gurney then closed his case by reading aloud from several of the love letters that Elliot had written to Mrs. Aston.  A December 20, 1818 issue of Bell’s Weekly Messenger provided transcripts of two of these letters, one of which Elliot began by addressing Mrs. Aston as “Dearest, dearest Margarita” and which included such lines as:

“Where can I find language to express the truth, the strength of all I feel towards you? – nay, upon my soul, my ever beloved Margarita, you wrong me when you suspect me of having outlived the loss of the smallest particle of my attachment.  I love you to distraction!”

The letters go on to convey Elliot’s frustration with Mrs. Aston over her unwillingness to leave her husband and elope with him.  He writes:

“Oh! My heavenly Margy, I am as I was, and shall always remain so.  Loving you as I do had become painful, from your continuing to delay a step on which the happiness of my future life depended; not only to delay, but even to find excuses for not accomplishing it at all.  This, and this only, had determined me to drive headlong into the sea of dissipation; for my only resource was the absorption of calm feeling, which hard drinking produces, to forget all because I was forgot by one.” 

Within the letters, Elliot also reveals the plans of his friends and family members, specifically his cousins Lord Minto and Lord Auckland,  to remove him from Mrs. Aston’s sphere of influence, writing:

“There is one circumstance I cannot hide from you.  I have often told you how severe my friends were with me about remaining infatuated (as they term it) with the beloved of my soul; and they now desire my immediate removal to the East Indies, as the only step that can cure me of my madness.”

Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto, 1850.

George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, 1849.

Elliot ultimately succumbed to the continued pressure of his friends and relations.  At the time of the trial, a February 28, 1818 edition of the Huntingdon, Peterborough, and Bedford Gazette reports that he was on the verge of leaving the country, stating:

“Captain Elliott is waiting for a fair wind, when he will sail for the East Indies.”

The Case for the Defense

With so much damning evidence, it seemed as if the result of the trial was a foregone conclusion.  And perhaps it may have been, had not Edward Elliot engaged James Scarlett, one of the most formidable lawyers in England, to defend him.  In Scarlett’s opening statement, he declared that:

“He never rose under a heavier impression of the importance of the case which he had to address the Jury upon than on the present occasion, when a gentleman in the situation of the present plaintiff, a gentleman possessing an estate of £15,000 or £16,000 a year, sought to obtain a verdict against the defendant, a youth not yet of age.”

James Scarlett, 1st Baron Abinger, 1836.

Scarlett went on to state that he would show the court that Aston’s action against Elliot was “nothing less than a conspiracy” against Margarita Aston, “commenced and carried on for the purpose of getting a separation from her.”  Reporting his speech, the Westmoreland Gazette writes:

“He would call evidence of the highest respectability, who would prove that Mr. Aston had neglected his lady in a manner the most shameful; that it was the subject of conversation in every circle in Paris, as were the amours of Mr. Aston; and now to complete his object of a separation, he had gone to Paris to bring over two French servants to establish the dishonor of his already much-injured wife.”

Scarlett proceeded to call witness after witness, managing to paint a very different picture from that presented by the plaintiff’s attorney.  Reporting the testimony of one witness, a man by the name of Mr. Ryan, the Westmoreland Gazette states that the witness:

“…had frequently seen Mr. Aston in the streets of London in 1815; witness saw him go into a house of ill fame in Oxendon-street in the middle of the day; had seen him walking in the street with mean-looking women, having the appearance of common prostitutes; he had seen him frequently; and at the time he went into a house in Oxendon-street he had a woman of this description with him.”

As if this were not mortifying enough for Aston, Scarlett then called Dr. John Robert Home, a respected physician in the army who had previously attended the Duke of Wellington.  Reporting the evidence given by Dr. Home, the Westmoreland Gazette writes:

“In August, 1816, witness, by desire of Lady Sidney Smith, went to see Mrs. Aston; found her harbouring under a certain disease, and suffering dreadfully from the effects of mercury which had been administered to her.  Witness saw Mr. Aston on the subject, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, and acknowledged the share he had in occasioning it; witness thought she had been ill for some time, and witness advised the taking a house at Passey for the restoration of her health.”

It should be noted that during the early 19^th century, before the advent of antibiotics, mercury was the common treatment for syphilis.  Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, the side effects of which can include skin ulcerations, heart disease, nerve and brain damage, blindness, and even death.  The side effects of mercury were also quite distressing, with some medical texts comparing its effects on the body to that of arsenic.

The Verdict and Aftermath

After the last witness was cross-examined, the judge addressed the jury.  He informed them that, despite Aston’s demand for £10,000, “the case was not one for heavy damages.”  He then stated that it was up to them to decide “what could be a fair compensation to such a husband for such an injury.”

After only a few minutes of deliberation, the jury found for the plaintiff, awarding damages in the amount of one hundred pounds.

The “trifling” sum of the award did nothing to quell the public’s fascination with the case.  Some enterprising individuals even saw a means of making money off of the scandal, with one publisher advertising booklets containing all of the evidence from the trial – as well as the love letters and other “curious particulars” –  for only one shilling.

Morning Chronicle , London, England, December 19, 1818.

Colonel Harvey Aston

The disclosures made during the trial about Colonel Aston’s behavior were printed in all of the newspapers.  Many reporters happily editorialized, referring to Aston as “dissipated” and stating that “Mrs. Aston’s health had been affected by his depravity.”

Before the trial, Aston had moved in the most elevated society.  He was often in attendance at the parties given by the celebrated Regency hostess Jane Harley, Countess of Oxford, at her home in St. James’s Square.  In anticipation of a divorce from his wife, Aston had turned his eye to Lady Oxford’s daughters, with special attention paid to her second daughter, Lady Charlotte.

Lady Charlotte Mary Bacon, née Harley, as Ianthe by R. Westall, 1833.

Lady Charlotte Harley (to whom, under the nickname of “Ianthe,” Lord Byron dedicated the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage) was a renowned society beauty.  It was rumored that it was Aston’s desire to marry her that had precipitated his criminal conversation action against Elliot – which some believed was an ill-fated attempt to free himself from a wife he no longer wanted.  The March 12, 1821 edition of the Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser explains:

“[He had] long entertained sentiments towards her [Lady Charlotte], which he confidently hoped the separation which he anticipated between himself and her whom he no longer regarded as his wife, would soon enable him honourably to declare.  The event of the trial, however, and the disclosures which were then made, led to a belief that a divorce could not be obtained in the House of Lords.”

Aston’s inability to obtain a divorce from his wife had no impact on his pursuit of Lady Charlotte.  He continued his addresses until, at length, his intentions could no longer be hidden from her disapproving family.  Shocked to discover that Lady Charlotte returned Aston’s feelings, the Countess of Oxford immediately made plans to remove her daughter from England and:

“…if possible, by a change of scene, to wean her daughter from an attachment which, under existing circumstances, it became criminal to entertain.”

Jane Harley, Countess of Oxford
by John Hoppner, 1797.

The Countess of Oxford and her daughters traveled to the Continent and, after touring “all that was worthy of remark,” made their way to Italy.  There, at Genoa, they were “unhappily joined” by Aston, who immediately resumed his attentions toward Lady Charlotte.  The Cumberland Pacquet reports:

“On the 28^th instant, he prevailed upon the young lady, to whom, in private, he still urged his suit, with the madness of a lover, to elope with him; and they accordingly set out towards Alexandria.  The unhappy parent soon discovered what had occurred, and instantly set out with her younger daughter in pursuit of the fugitives, whom she happily overtook at Alexandria, and there prevailed on them to return with her to Genoa.”

After the recovery of her daughter, Lady Oxford barred Aston from any further contact with her family.  According to some newspapers, this turn of events was so distressing to Aston that, the very next day, he had a fit of apoplexy and died.  Other reports were not so certain that had been the case, with some papers stating that he may have poisoned himself or even blown his brains out.  In Lady Arbuthnot’s Journal (1820-1832), Harriet Arbuthnot mentions Aston’s death, writing:

“There has been a terrible story of Mr. Harvey Aston, who had poisoned himself at Genoa.  The first story we heard was that he had seduced two of Lord Oxford’s daughters, who were both with child, & that in consequence of the exposure & shame he had poisoned himself.  We have since heard that he poisoned himself from jealousy of Lady Charlotte, who was flirting with a Mr. Clive; but that, she having consented to go off with him, he took an antidote.”

An 1822 edition of the Annual Register also reports the rumors, stating:

“Various and contradictory accounts have of late been given of an occurrence sufficiently disastrous.  It was announced at first as connected with circumstances of peculiar and atrocious guilt involving the seduction and pregnancy of two sisters, nobly related, by an individual of noble family also, who, upon detection, immediately blew his brains out.  Next it was said, that only one of the sisters had fallen a victim to his arts, and that the seducer had poisoned himself.”

The Annual Register goes on to produce a letter from the English consul at Genoa, which asserts that “neither pistol nor poison was employed” and that Aston did, in fact, die of apoplexy the day after Lady Oxford thwarted his elopement with her daughter.  Aston’s body was embalmed and sealed in lead in preparation for shipment back to England, where he had expressed a wish to be buried.

Summing up his life and death, an 1821 edition of John Bull titles the whole a “Melancholy Affair,” writing:

“Few things have occurred which have more deeply interested us than the dreadful death of Mr. Harvey Aston.—It seems as if a fate hung over the name—and we grieve, if possible, the more, because we dare not lament him who is gone.”

Margarita Aston

At the time of the trial, Mrs. Aston had left the family home and was living in a street near Manchester Square.  There is little information to be found on what became of her after the trial.  What I can tell you is that after the requisite mourning period for Mr. Aston, Mrs. Aston did remarry.  A May 13, 1823 edition of the Chester Courant reports that she was married at Paris to a Russian nobleman named Baron Peggenfohl.

Chester Courant, Cheshire, England, May 13, 1823.

Captain Edward Elliot

Despite a broken heart and a forced removal to foreign shores, Edward Elliot had what is, perhaps, the happiest ending to this scandalous story.  He married Isabella Hardie, daughter of Commander Hardie, and together they had  several children, one of whom grew up to distinguish himself in the Indian government.

Edward Elliot lived a long life, presumably in India.  He died in 1866 at the age of seventy.

European lady and her family attended by an ayah.
The costume and customs of modern India , 1824.
(Image via Britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk).

A Few Final Thoughts…

This story was a series of historical puzzle pieces, the first of which I found quite by chance while researching another topic in a newspaper archive.  Each newspaper, magazine, and journal reference provided another piece of the puzzle.  You can imagine how thrilled I was as connections to Wellington, Waterloo, James Scarlett, Lord Byron, and Lady Charlotte “Ianthe” Harley were all revealed tiny piece by tiny piece.  Of course, there is always more to know.  I may yet discover what became of Margarita Aston and the Aston children.  If and when I do, I will add a postscript to this article.

*Authors Note: If you would like to learn more about James Scarlett, one of the most brilliant courtroom lawyers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, I highly recommend author Naomi Clifford’s fully cited article titled “James Scarlett, Silver-Tongued Lawyer.”  You can read it HERE.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

Annual Register.  Vol. 63.  London: Baldwin, Cradock, & Joy, 1822.

Arbuthnot, Harriet.  Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot.  1820 – 1832.  Volume 1.  New York: MacMillan, 1950.

Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette.  17 Dec. 1818.

Bell’s Weekly Messenger.  20 Dec. 1818.

Byron, George.  The Works of Lord Byron.  Vol. 9.  London: John Murray, 1898.

“Court of King’s Bench: Aston v. Elliott.”  The Examiner.  13 Dec. 1818.

“Court of King’s Bench: Aston v. Elliott.”  Westmoreland Gazette.  26 Dec. 1818.

“Death of Mr. Harvey Aston.”  Cumberland Pacquet, and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser.  12 Mar. 1821.

Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage.  Mair, Robert. Ed.  London: Dean and Son, 1884.

Grimes, Jill. Ed.  Sexually Transmitted Disease: An Encyclopedia of Diseases, Prevention, Treatment, and Issues.  ABC-Clio, 2013.

Lancaster Gazette.  21 Mar. 1818.

“Law Intelligence: Crim. Con.”  Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette.  28 Feb. 1818.

“Marriages.”  Chester Courant.  13 May 1823.

“Melancholy Affair.”  John Bull.  Vols. 1 – 2.  London: J. C. Bunney, 1820-1821.

Morning Chronicle.  19 Dec. 1818.

“Projected Divorce in High Life.”  Saunders’s News-Letter.  22 Jan. 1818.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Alice’s Mad Tea Party by John Tenniel, 19th Century.

I’m guest posting today over at Geri Walton’s wonderful Histories of the 18^th and 19^th Centuries blog!  If you would like to learn more about the perils of 19^th century mercury-based hat making and the origins of the popular phrase “as mad as a hatter,” do stop by and have a look at my new article Mad as a Hatter, an Adder, or an Oyster.  You can click through HERE.

A Welcome Change by Henri Guillaume Schlesinger, mid-19th century.

A September 8, 1840 edition of London’s Morning Post reports the “humorous story” of a case that came before a French Police Correctionelle.  The plaintiff in the case, a young nursemaid by the name of Virginie, is described rather flatteringly as “an exceedingly pretty little bonne.”  The defendant in the case, Virginie’s employer, a woman by the name of Madame Duchatenest, is cast in a somewhat harsher light.  Described as “a meagre and parchment-cheeked virgin,” she had been called to answer the charge of having brutally assaulted Virginie with a pair of fireplace pincers.

In her testimony to the tribunal, Virginie explained that she had been out of work for some time when one of her friends advised her to check the “Petite Affiches.”  It was there she found a lady advertising for the position of a children’s maid.  The advertisement specified that the candidate must be “young, neat in her person, faithful, prudent, and amiable.”  Considering herself possessed of all of these qualities, Virginie duly presented herself to the lady.  As Virginie testified:

Morning Post , September 8, 1840.

“The moment I saw her I could not conceal from myself my astonishment that at her age she could possibly have an infant needing the services of a bonne; but again, I reflected that she might be its grandmother.”

At this point in Virginie’s testimony, Madame Duchatenest vehemently protested, declaring that Virginie was “impertinente!”  The “President” of the tribunal advised her to remain silent and not interrupt the witness, to which Madame Duchatenest countered:

“Don’t let this creature insult me, then.”

After assuring Madame that the witness would not be allowed to insult her, the President instructed Virginie to resume her testimony.  Virginie then continued the tale of her initial interview with Madame Duchatenest, stating:

“Madame examined me from head to foot, inspected my hands, made me show her my teeth; in fact, I thought she would never be done with all these preliminary formalities.  Then she questioned me about the country I came from, my family, tastes and habits; asked me if I was religious, if I said my prayers night and morning, if I had been vaccinated.  I cannot remember half the questions she put to me.  But I answered them all to her satisfaction.”

After the odd interview had concluded, Madame Duchatenest informed Virginie that the position paid 200f. in wages and that, if it suited her, she might start the following day.  As Virginie testified:

“I accepted her proposal, and requested I might see ‘the little one.’  Madame replied that she would send for him, rung the bell, and, addressing the cook, said ‘Bring up Love.’  In a moment after I saw the cook enter, carrying in her arms a little griffin-dog, as frightfully ugly as it is possible to conceive.”

Group of Cropped Griffons from The New Book of the Dog, 1907.

Virginie’s uncomplimentary description of the little dog to the tribunal was met with instant outrage on the part of Madame.  The President again advised Madame to be silent and bid Virginie to continue her testimony.  Virginie went on to quote Madame’s words upon presenting her with her canine charge:

“‘Here,’ said Madame, ‘is your élève.  You will have to tend him, to comb him, to take him out to walk.  Let me recommend you to be most kind and tender in your treatment of him.  You shall be supplied with bonbons for his use, and I pray you execute all his little volontes.’” 

Virginie admitted to the tribunal that she had been surprised that Madame had asked her so many questions only to entrust her with a dog who would need little more than an occasional promenade.  Still, the position had not seemed that it would be a very fatiguing one and, since she had no other offers of employment at the time, Virginie accepted the post.  Only then did Virginie come to understand the burdensome nature of being nursemaid to a spoiled little dog.  As she testified:

“Alas!  I was forced each day to submit to the most severe reproaches.  If Love was disinclined to eat it was because I had made him sick.  If Love snarled or barked with an apparently wicked intent it was because I had neglected to ply him with bonbons.  If Love appeared sad, or even, as Madame expressed it, tinged with melancholy, it was I who had maltreated him.”

According to Virginie, Love had one besetting sin.  The greedy little dog could not pass by a rubbish heap without searching through it for bones.  Since Madame had instructed Virginie that she was never to oppose Love’s wishes, Virginie had become accustomed to letting the dog do as he pleased during their daily walks.  This habit of indulging Love would ultimately have fatal results.  According to Virginie’s testimony:

“One day a cabriolet, which was going at a very rapid rate, came in contact with Love, who was too eagerly intent upon picking his bone to take any notice of the vehicle’s approach, and the wheel passing over him killed him on the spot.”

19th Century Cabriolet Carriage.
(Image via Pearson Scott Foresman.)

It was this incident that precipitated Madame’s violent assault upon Virginie.  As Virginie testified to the tribunal:

“When I returned home, and, trembling all over, informed Madame of what had occurred, she loaded me with abuse, and, seizing a pair of pincers which lay on the mantelpiece, struck me several blows with it, and even hit me on the face; I have had my right eye quite black.  A little higher, and she would have infallibly knocked it out.”

Disturbed by this account the President turned to Madame Duchatenest and demanded to know how she could have inflicted such brutality on her servant.  Madame promptly replied:

“The Monster!  I should have killed her, as she suffered my poor Love to be killed.  Had you but seen him, so gentil, so espiègle, so spirituel.”

The President responded to this outburst severely, stating:

“We do not sit here to hear the eulogium of your dog.  Have you any statement to make in your own justification?”

Madame did not answer his question.  Instead, she told the tribunal that she had had Love stuffed in order to preserve his spiritual countenance.  As the Morning Post relates:

“The President, notwithstanding all his efforts, could not succeed in extracting one word of explanation from the defendant, who continued, however, without intermission, a most eloquent funeral oration on her lap-dog.”

It was during the delivery of Madame’s eulogy for her deceased dog that the tribunal deliberated and came to their decision.  They found in favor of the injured plaintiff, awarding her 150t in damages.

The Head of a Griffon Dog by J. B. A. Lafosse after W. Barraud, mid-19th century.
(Image via Wellcome Library.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

“A Humorous Story.”  Morning Post.  September 8, 1840.

© 2015 Mimi Matthews

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Watercolor Portrait of Keeper by Emily Brontë, 1838.
(Image via Brontë Museum.)

During their short lives at Haworth Parsonage in West Yorkshire, the Brontë sisters kept a veritable menagerie of household pets.  Dogs, cats, and even canaries feature heavily in their letters and journals, with the death of each duly mourned and remarked upon.  Amongst these many animals (each of which I have no doubt deserves a story of their own), perhaps none is so well known to history as Emily Brontë’s bulldog, Keeper.

Keeper is described by Charlotte Brontë’s biographer Elizabeth Gaskell as “a tawny bull-dog.”  He was given to Emily as a gift and soon became her favorite pet and constant companion.  She loved nothing better than walking with Keeper on the moors and, according to Emily Brontë’s biographer Agnes Robinson:

“In the evenings she would sit on the hearthrug in the lonely parlour, one arm thrown round Keeper’s tawny neck, studying a book.”

An 1857 issue of Littell’s Living Age refers to Keeper as Emily’s “familiar” and uses her affinity with him, and other animals, to solve the “mystery” of how an isolated clergyman’s daughter could ever have come up with a novel like Wuthering Heights.  Littell’s states:

“And here her sympathy with animals, and utter want of sympathy with human nature, together with certain animal qualities in herself, as for instance, a dogged temper, supply a solution to what would otherwise be an impenetrable mystery — how a quiet, reserved, as far as we are informed, steady and well-conducted young woman, a clergyman’s daughter, living all her life in a remote parsonage, and seeing nobody, could have conceived such scenes, or couched her conceptions in such language.”

Sketch of Emily Brontë and Keeper, from Emily’s diary.
(Image via The Bookman, 1898.)

Emily’s bond with Keeper was, indeed, a close one.  She was devoted to him, feeding him from her own hands and teaching him various tricks.  According to an 1871 edition of Scribner’s Monthly Magazine:

“He was so completely under her control, she could quite easily make him spring and roar like a lion.  She taught him this kind of occasional play without any coercion.”

Unfortunately, as Elizabeth Gaskell writes, when the big, brutish dog had been given to Emily, he had come with a warning.  Gaskell explains:

“Keeper was faithful to the depths of his nature as long as he was with friends; but he who struck him with a stick or whip, roused the relentless nature of the brute, who flew at his throat forthwith, and held him there till one or the other was at the point of death.”

Portrait of Emily Brontë
by Branwell Brontë, 1833.

Gaskell goes on to write of Keeper’s one “household fault.”  He loved nothing better than sneaking upstairs, leaping up onto one of the beds, and stretching out his “square, tawny limbs.”  As these beds were invariably covered with “delicate white counterpanes,” those in the household found this practice of Keeper’s to be wholly objectionable.  Emily declared that:

“…if he was found again transgressing, she herself, in defiance of warning and his well-known ferocity of nature, would beat him so severely that he would never offend again.”

Shortly thereafter, one of the servants reported to Emily that she had once again found Keeper upstairs, “lying on the best bed, in drowsy voluptuousness.”  At this unhappy news, Gaskell writes that Emily’s face whitened, her lips compressed, and her eyes glowed.  She marched upstairs to deal with her errant dog and, moments later, as Charlotte and the servants observed:

“Down-stairs came Emily, dragging after her the unwilling Keeper, his hind legs set in a heavy attitude of resistance, held by the ‘scuft of his neck,’ but growling low and savagely all the time.”

Emily took him to a dark corner at the bottom of the stairs where, in a fit of temper, she administered a brutal beating.  Gaskell writes:

“Her bare clenched fist struck against his red fierce eyes, before he had time to make his spring, and, in the language of the turf, she ‘punished him’ till his eyes were swelled up, and the half-blind, stupified beast was led to his accustomed lair, to have his swollen head fomented and cared for by the very Emily herself.”

This altercation had no effect at all on Keeper’s devotion to his mistress.  Gaskell reports that Keeper loved Emily dearly ever after.

Keeper, Flossie, and the Cat by Emily Brontë.
(Image via The Bookman, 1898.)

Emily Brontë died of consumption on December 19, 1848.  Giving Keeper his evening meal was one of her very last acts the night before her death and, at her funeral, Keeper was first among the mourners who walked to her grave.  Biographer Agnes Robinson writes:

“They followed her to her grave — her old father, Charlotte, the dying Anne; and as they left the doors, they were joined by another mourner, Keeper, Emily’s dog.  He walked in front of all, first in the rank of mourners; and perhaps no other creature had known the dead woman quite so well.  When they had lain her to sleep in the dark, airless vault under the church, and when they had crossed the bleak churchyard, and had entered the empty house again, Keeper went straight to the door of the room where his mistress used to sleep, and lay down across the threshold.  There he howled piteously for many days; knowing not that no lamentations could wake her anymore.”

Keeper died three years later in December of 1851.  In a letter written only days after his death, Charlotte Brontë informs a friend:

“Poor old Keeper (Emily’s dog) died last Monday morning after being ill one night.  He went gently to sleep; we laid his old faithful head in the garden.  Flossy is dull, and misses him.  There was something very sad in losing the old dog; yet I am glad he met a natural fate.”

Elizabeth Gaskell suggests that Keeper has gone on to a better place, perhaps reuniting with Emily at last.  She writes:

“Let us somehow hope, in half Red Indian creed, that he follows Emily now; and, when he rests, sleeps on some soft white bed of dreams, unpunished when he awakens to the life of the land of shadows.”

Haworth Parsonage, home of the Brontës.
(Image via The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1857.)

Thus concludes another of my Friday features on Animals in Literature and History.  If you would like to adopt a dog like Keeper, I encourage you to contact your local animal shelter or rescue society.  The following links may be useful as resources:

The Humane Society of the United States (USA)

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (UK)

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article

The Bookman.  Vol. XI.  Sept. 1897 – 1898.  New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co.

Gaskell, Elizabeth.  The Life of Charlotte Brontë.  London: Spottiswoode & Co., 1857.

Littell, Eliakim.  Ed.  “The Life of Charlotte Brontë.”  Littell’s Living Age.  Vol. XIX.  Boston: Littell, Son and Co., 1857.

Littell, Eliakim.  Ed. “Charlotte Brontë: A Monograph.”  Littell’s Living Age.  Vol. XVI.  Boston: Littell, Son and Co., 1876.

“Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë.”  Scribner’s Monthly.  Vol. II.  New York: Scriber & Co., 1871.

Robinson, Agnes Mary Fances.  Emily Brontë.  London: W. H. Allen, 1883. 

 © 2015 Mimi Matthews

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