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Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Memories of Bath

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OK, I’m cheating a bit because despite having power all through the storm I spent it lounging around blissfully reading and baking and eating the products of the baking. Now everything has caught up with me, so I’m recycling a post in which I talk about the city of Bath and my late aunts Phyl and Nell who introduced me to Heyer and who shared my love of reading and Austen.


They were born about a century ago in London, the older sisters of my father. Their parents were of Irish descent, their mother (my g-grandmother) was in service according to the 1901, census and their father a maker of brass musical instruments. Neither of my aunts married. They shared houses and when I was a child we visited them in their wonderful house in Bath, on Lansdown Place West. This may be their house, I can’t read the house number.

Lansdown Place West is the continuation of Lansdown Crescent, one of the most beautiful pieces of Georgian architecture in the city, constructed between 1789 and 1793 and designed by architect John Palmer. It’s higher than the more famous Royal Crescent, with an amazing view of the city.

In front of Lansdown Crescent is a field still used for grazing, one of the original design features of the Royal Crescent (and possibly other places too)–the idea being that you’d have the pleasures of the town with the healthful idyll of country life.

The only (so far as I know) famous, or infamous, occupant of Lansdown Crescent was William Beckford who lived at number 19 and 20 (the ones with the imposing frontage). The houses have four floors, servants’ quarters in the basement, and mews behind the Crescent.

My aunts showed me the city of Bath. They took me to tea at the Pump Room and Sally Lunn’s, boat rides on the river, tours of the Roman Baths, and walks around the city. There was a shop, now moved to a different location in the Guildhall, Gillards of Bath, which was very little changed from Victorian times. Loose tea, stored in massive metal containers, was measured on scales, tipped onto a sheet of brown paper, and folded into a miraculous neat cube, tied with string.

Their house on Lansdown Place West became too much for them–all those stairs and continual maintenance, so they moved to an early eighteenth-century house in Batheaston (lots of stairs and continual maintenance) a few miles east of the city. Again, this may or may not be their house but it’s very close!

My aunts loved Heyer, Austen and Georgian/Regency architecture, fashions, and furniture long before they became popular, and picked up antiques for a song at jumble sales. They taught me it’s possible to fall in love with a place and I certainly fell in love with Bath, thanks to them. They even suggested I write, although at the time I thought it was a weird idea. A few years ago I met with a psychic who told me she saw them behind my shoulder and they were both very proud of my writing, although Nell (it must have been Nell!) was quite upset at what I’d done to Jane Austen (not to mention the sex!)

I’m so grateful for what they gave me.

Who were your mentors for writing or any other passion? And have you ever had a session with a psychic that unearthed something interesting?

Posted in Reading, Research, Writing | Tagged , | 2 Replies

Belated Happy Halloween!

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Besides anxiety about Sandy, Halloween has obsessed me for much of this week.  This past weekend I helped to run a Halloween Party for my UU church, complete with a Haunted House put on by some of the older youth including one of my daughters, who played her role to creepy perfection.

While waiting for Sandy to hit, we finished carving our pumpkins in accordance with this year’s theme, Lord of the Rings.  (My daughters dressed up as Elven maidens in medieval-style gowns and their ever-useful Vulcan ears.)  Here’s my pumpkin, carved with the head of a Balrog, the fire demon that the wizard Gandalf battles in the mines of Moria.

Carving vegetables into scary shapes was already a custom during the Regency, although potatoes and turnips were often used.  If you want to learn more, check out my post about Jack-o-Lanterns from a few years ago.

We were fortunate enough not to lose power, so I was able to toast the pumpkin seeds the next day. This year, we experimented with a Mexican-inspired version. They were quite yummy. Those that I didn’t spill on the kitchen floor while transferring from pan to storage container, that is!

Here’s my recipe should you care to try it:

Ingredients: pumpkin seeds, olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt.

  1. Rinse pumpkin seeds. Remove all pulp. Drain and spread on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.
  2. Preheat oven to 250F. Line baking sheet with foil.
  3. Toss pumpkin seeds in enough olive oil, salt, cumin and chili powder (about twice as much chili powder as the cumin) to lightly coat them.
  4. Bake for about 1 hour, tossing every 15 minutes, until golden brown.
  5. Cool. Store in airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 months.

Lastly, I was browsing around Youtube and found this clip of Northanger Abbey as if it really were a Gothic horror novel.


I hope you all enjoyed or will enjoy your Halloween, if you live in an area where it has been rescheduled. I think it’s important for the children (all of us, really) to maintain fun traditions even during scary, troubling times.

So what did you do for Halloween or what are you planning?

Elena
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Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen, Research | Tagged , , | 3 Replies

Elections, Regency Style!

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Tomorrow is Election Day here in the USA and when you live in a swing state (Virginia) in the suburbs of the nation’s capital (Washington, D.C.), You. Cannot. Escape. This. Fact. Ever.

If I lived in Regency England, though, things would be a lot different. An election would only be for members of the House of Commons. In the early 1800s, the House of Lords consisted of hereditary peers and, of course, the king was not elected. Members of Parliament served until Parliament was dissolved, every five years unless emergency extensions were necessary.

Fairness was a rare commodity in election to the House of Commons. Some “pocket boroughs” were in the pocket of the local magnate or his designee and, therefore, had no real opposition. Other “rotten boroughs” might have small enough numbers of voters that all could be successfully bribed, while areas as densely populated as Manchester had no representative. For example, Old Sarum in Wiltshire had three houses and seven voters. The Reform Act of 1832 dissolved the rotten boroughs and more evenly distributed representation.

Like in the US, there were two main political parties. Generally speaking, the Tories were conservative, wanting to maintain the status quo, while the Whigs advocated electoral, parliamentary, and social reform. After the French Revolution, the Tory party experienced years of largely uncontested power. Before he became Prince Regent, George IV supported Whig sentiments, but when in power, he turned Tory.

The only people who could vote in Regency England were male landowners. Only one man in seven could vote in England; one in 44 in Scotland. Women did not earn full voting rights in the UK until 1928.

So when I cast my vote tomorrow, I’ll be grateful that I have a voice in my government and I’ll appreciate how different it would have been if I had lived in my beloved Regency England.

Go vote!!!

(P.S. I’ll be picking the winner of one download of Susanna’s An Infamous Marriage tonight, so you can still comment today. Susanna will be adding to her contest all Risky commenters who gave her an email address)

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Replies

Napoleonic War Veterans

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Yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the USA, a day we remember and honor the service of our military veterans. Both our Veteran’s Day and the UK’s Remembrance Day had their origins in Armistice Day, commemorating the armistice between the Allies of World War I and Germany for the cessation of hostilities to take at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.

After the Napoleonic Wars, though, a war that cost the lives of over five million people overall, no such honors were forthcoming. In fact, most officers and regular army returned to more struggles.

Officers who no longer had a regiment were placed on half-pay, which for some meant debt, eventual poverty, and the workhouse. Some tried to keep up the trappings of their rank only to fall deeper and deeper into debt. The Gentleman’s Magazine in November 1819 reported the death of one such officer. Lieutenant Henry Bowerman, late of the 56th Regiment of Foot, and his 11 and 12 year old sons, died in the Norwood workhouse.

Regular soldiers received no such half-pay, but some were eligible to be in-pensioners at the Royal Hospitals. The hospitals’ commissioners decided if a man was able to earn some sort of living and be sent as an out-pensioner. Sergeant Thomas Jackson, who lost a leg in the war, was deemed young and fit enough to work. His pension was one shilling a day.  He’d spent 12 years in the army.

Thousands of soldiers lined the streets with no occupation but drink. Few turned to begging, though, but professional beggars took their place by pretending to starving soldiers. Some fared adequately, marrying well or finding work. Benjamin Harris, whose memoirs about being in the Rifles certainly must have informed Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, returned to being a shoemaker, but always considered his service in the war the only part of his life “worthy of remembrance.”

War memorials of the Napoleonic War soldier are nearly non-existent, existing mostly on graves or memorials to individual soldiers. A marble slab at one end of the nave in a parish church in Buckinghamshire, reads:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
CHARLES EELES ESQ
Late Captain in his Majesty’s 95th Rifle Regiment,
who after serving with the British Army Thro’
the various campaigns in the Spanish Peninsula,
Terminated his Glorious Career
on the 18th of June 1815, in the 30th year of his age.
He fell nobly in his country’s cause on the ever
memorial field of Waterloo.
Esteemed,  Lamented, and Beloved.

Most Napoleonic soldiers WERE buried in fields near the battles in which they fought and died, their bodies plundered and left half-naked.

Perhaps we remember them, though, in our imaginations and our fascination with the Napoleonic War. We keep them alive in our books. Some we even reward with a happily ever after.

The information in this blog came from one of my favorite research books, Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket by Richard Holmes. Holmes explains everything about what it was like to be a soldier in the “Age of Brown Bess.”

Do you have a favorite book or movie involving a soldier? For me it was definitely the Sharpe series, on audiobook as read by William Gaminara

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged | 4 Replies

Threads and fabrics

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I’ve just discovered some big news that I want to share, nothing to do with writing directly. The Threads of Feelingexhibit is coming to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Williamsburg, VA, opening May 25 2013. If you’re not familiar with this astonishing and moving exhibit, take a look at the online version. It’s the records of admissions to the Foundling Museum in London, the first home in Britain for abandoned children, founded by William Hogarth, George Frideric Handel, and Thomas Coram. When babies were admitted, the parents provided a scrap of fabric, embroidery, or sometimes a note so that they could identify the child when they were able to support them once more.

Some children had a happy ending and were reunited with their mothers again. Many didn’t. Ones who survived were apprenticed out and disappear into the great mess of history.

What’s extraordinary, as well as the emotional impact, is the variety of fabrics and the vivid colors (because they were pinned inside the ledger and didn’t fade). It constitutes the best collection of period fabrics in the world.

There’s also a symposium, Threads of Feeling Unraveled: The London Foundling Hospital’s Textile Tokens on October 20-22, 2013 in Williamsburg, with the exhibit’s curator, John Styles, among the speakers. Registration isn’t open yet but scroll down on this page for details.

I can’t wait! There’s also a fabulous resource at the museum for historical clothes if you want to frivol away some hours online.

Although I should be planning what I’m going to cook for the Thanksgiving feast next weekend (possibly something hip with brussel sprouts that only I and my daughter will eat) I’m planning a new Regency gown. I have a lovely silk gown but I’m after a cotton one that I can do the dishes in and preferably a drawstring one I can get into without assistance. This is the fabric I’m probably going to use. It’s from an ebay store, Heritage Trading, which has some gorgeous silks and cottons and uses the traditional hand woodblocking techniques.

So what are you up to and what are your Thanksgiving plans?

Posted in Research | Tagged , , | 9 Replies