A Short History of the Sedan Chair

by Grace Elliot

The name ‘sedan’ chair came from town of Sedan in France where they were first used. They consisted of a cabin containing a seat mounted on horizontal poles and carried by two burly men, one at the front, the other at the rear. It was an open secret that chairmen preferred female passengers as they were generally lighter to carry. Indeed the use of sedan chairs in the early 1600's by the Duke  of Buckingham lead to public disapproval, and he was villified for using people to do the work of animals.

Sedan chairs were re-introduced to England in 1634 by Sir Saunders Duncombe, who took out a 14 year license to provide chairs to the public as vehicles for hire. They quickly became popular in London because they were cheaper than a hackney cab and provided cover to the extravagant wigs and gowns that were currently in fashion. The use of sedan chairs spread to spa towns such as Bath since the spas attracted many people of limited mobility who particularly welcomed sedan travel as being a practical way of being transported from chamber to spa and back again.

A fine example of a private sedan chair,
decorated to match internal decor.

The very wealthy kept their own chair (minus poles) in the hall of their town house and had it painted and decorated to match the interior décor. Others had their footman summon a chair by standing in the street and shouting ‘Chair! Chair!’ – whereupon a race of competing chairmen hastened forth.

Sedan chairs were popular  in London for a number of reasons. London streets were notoriously dirty and smelly, and so traveling in your own capsule was very appealing to the wealthy.

'After the fire of London, in 1666, the streets were impassable
and so people of quality went on their business or pleasure in sedan chairs.'

                                                                                                       New York Times, 1884

You could make good time in a sedan chair since they were legally allowed to use the pavement – and therefore bypass traffic jams on the road. Since the chair could enter a house, the privacy of the traveller was assured – be it a journey made for a secret tryst or for some illegal reason!

'However, it does not appear that the Sedan chair was always
a safe refuge against arrest for debt, as in one of Hogarth's prints
the tipstaves are seen to be laying hold of on they were in search of, just
as he was about to descend from his supposed place of security.'

 

A scene from Hogarth's 'The Rakes Progress.'

Much like modern taxi drivers, chairmen were licensed and had to display a number to prove it. In the 1700’s there were 300 sedan chairs licensed. A trip within the city cost sixpence, and hire for a whole day, four shillings. Trips taken after midnight cost twice as much.

Sedan chair stations were established, where a passenger could go to be sure of finding a lift. One such was in St James’ Park and much disapproved of by aristocrats who thought it lowered the tone of the park. They were probably right, as the chairmen were notoriously foul mouthed and the bearers were regularly fined for cursing loudly in public. Not only that but chair rank was open to the air and when it rained the vehicles became unpleasantly soggy inside.

The chairmen had to be strong, since carrying a man in even a light sedan chair meant bearing a load of about 100 lbs per man. The trade quickly became dominated by Irishmen who had travelled to England in search of labouring jobs. It seems they had quite a reputation for speed and agility.

‘the bearers [go] so fast that you have some difficulty
in keeping up with them on foot. I do not believe that in all Europe
better or more dexterous bearers are to be found.’

                                       Cesar de Saussure writing in 1725.

This is generous of Cesar since he was knocked over not once but four times by sedan chairman whilst visiting London. Pedestrians were supposed to give way to sedan chairs but didn't always  get out of the way in time even when the chairmen shouted a warning of 'Have a care!' or 'By your leave, sir!'

 However, with the capital’s rapid expansion the days of the sedan bearer were numbered because the size of the city made a journey by sedan unsustainable, as elucidated by Horace Walpole in 1791.

‘The breed of chairs is almost lost, for Hercules and Atlas could
not carry anybody from one end of this enormous capital to the other.’

If you have enjoyed this post, why not visit Grace's blog? 

Grace leads a double life as a veterinarian by day and author of historical romance by night.  

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The Bath Chair

by Lauren Gilbert

For personal reasons, my attention was suddenly focused on the difficulties of getting around. As I was doing some research on Leamington Priors Spa, I ran across a reference to the last Bath-chair man (a bit more later on him). This, in turn, led me into information about the Bath chair. In a nutshell, a Bath-chair was a chair with wheels used to transport visitors (invalid or otherwise) from lodging to the spa and back again. However, there is so much more to it than that.

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Wheeled chairs have been in use for centuries, possibly as far back at 4000 BCE. The Greeks were known to have put a bed on wheels. The first documented image of such a chair is a Chinese engraving from 525 AD.

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King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) also had a wheeled chair. It had small wheels at the end of the legs, a platform for his legs and an adjustable backrest and armrests. There is a sketch of him supposedly done about 1595 in his chair.


It’s important to realize that, at this time, wheeled chairs were not available for the disabled in general. These would have been costly items, for the use of the privileged. A luxury item of this nature would have been a sign of wealth or rank. (However, it must be said that Philip II at age approximately 68 years may have needed such a convenience.) It is interesting to note that Louis XIV also used a chair on wheels, known as a roulette, after a surgery, and when he was old.

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The first wheeled chair built specifically for a disabled person’s transportation was constructed by Stephen Farfler, a paraplegic watchmaker of Nuremberg, Germany, for his own use in 1655. He built a sturdy chair on 3 wheels. The front wheel had handles which he could turn and, using a system of cranks and cogwheels, the chair moved forward on its own.

It’s a little puzzling that this invention did not become more popular. However, this item would have been costly and the cranks would have been labour intensive.

In the 17th century, a popular mode of transportation was the sedan chair. This basically was an enclosed box with a seat, carried on poles by two men. Grace Elliot wrote an excellent history for this blog. Although owning a personal sedan chair was a luxury indeed, a chair could also be hired. It could literally pick one up in the house, and return one accordingly. Again, this was a method of transport from which a person of limited mobility could benefit, but it was not designed or commonly used for that purpose, and cost would further restrict who benefitted.

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The first known use of a wheelchair as we would recognize it was approximately 1700 in England. It was a 3-wheeled design, with 2 large wheels at the side, and a small wheel behind.

I was unable to find out any particulars, but the fact remains that, at this time, a chair of this type would have to be specifically commissioned and built, which would leave it in the domain of the well-to-do. Such a chair was also usually made of wood, heavy, bulky and not easy to move from one location to another.

In 1750, James Heath of Bath developed a chair for the purpose of taking ladies and invalids from their lodging to the baths. (Apparently walking from one’s lodging could be considered too much for a lady.) However, in 1783, John Dawson developed a design that became known as the Bath chair. It had 3 wheels and was designed to be pushed. It had a stiff handle attached to the front wheel, by which means the passenger could steer. This was the design that spread to other spa cities in England and in Europe. A number of types of Bath chair evolved over time: some were open; some were enclosed with hoods and glass fronts. Although the original design was intended to be pushed, it was not long before a modification allowed some to be pulled by a horse.

Bath chair in the Bath Museum Store, Bath
(photo by Rwendland 9/11/2010-
permission for use given via Wikimedia)

The Bath chair was a popular mode of transportation and eventually replaced the 2-man sedan chair. Since it only required one man to push, it effectually cut the cost in half. Victorian England embraced the Bath chair at seaside resorts. It’s important to note that, for the first time, a mode of transportation was concerned specifically with providing transportation for persons with physical limitations. The Bath chair was used well into the 20th century.

Thomas Timms (1855-1934) had to go to work as a child of 10, when his father was in the workhouse. After several other attempts, he started as a Bath chair-man in Leamington Priors, England when he was still very young. Although he tried other employment, he came back to the Bath chair business because he was able to make more money. In time, he acquired his own chairs, and by 1912, he had the largest Bath chair business in the town. I wasn’t able to determine exactly when he finally closed his business, but it appears it was still in operation in the late 1920’s-very early 1930’s. Sometime before his death in 1934, Mr. Timms wrote a brief autobiography of his life. Unfortunately, I was not able to locate a copy; it’s in the form of a pamphlet and is hard to find. At any rate, the Bath chair industry was put out of business in the early decades of the 20th century by a combination of affordable wheelchairs and taxi cabs.

As the 19th century progressed, wheel chairs became less awkward and more comfortable. They could be self-propelled via the large rear wheels. In 1881, a second, smaller rim was added, which made it possible to propel the chair without getting one’s hands dirty. By the early 20th century, wire-spoked wheels and adjustable back, arm and foot rests were devised. Light-weight chairs made of wicker on metal frames were also produced. In 1916, British engineers produced the first motorized wheelchair, although cost kept it from gaining much popularity.

In 1932, Harry Jennings, an engineer in Los Angeles, CA, designed and built a folding wheelchair for his friend Herbert Everest, a disabled mining engineer. Together they established a company, Everest and Jennings, to mass-produce the chair. Everest & Jennings dominated the industry during the mid-20th century until the Department of Justice filed an anti-trust suit. (Apparently the company managed to keep the cost of the chairs very high.) Subsequently new companies developed new designed and expanded options for wheelchair users.

Although transporting individuals with limited mobility has been a concern for eons, it seems that making affordable transportation available for people with such difficulties as a population came into its own with the Bath chair. The vast popularity of Mr. Dawson’s design, the lower cost involved, and the availability seemed to spark more ideas. I think it’s safe to say that the Bath chair was an important link in the history of transportation for individuals with mobility issues.

Sources include:
BBC History of the World on line. “Bath Chair.”
Chairdex. “History.” (History of the wheelchair.)
Leamington History Group-Discover Royal Leamington Spa on line. “Thomas Timms 1855-1934 Leamington’s Last Bath Chair-man.” June 26, 2013.
Doctor’s Review website. Rosenhek, Jackie. “Before Wheelchairs.” February, 2007.
Encyclopedia Britannica on line. “Bath Chair.”
Prezi website. Aoyama, Brittany. “Stephen Farfler.” November 5, 2013. Full transcript.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lauren Gilbert, the author of Heyerwood: A Novel, lives in Florida with her husband Ed. Her second novel, A Rational Attachment, is in process.

Entertainment Tonight--Regency Style

by M.M. Bennetts

Imagine it. Outside the temperature had dropped so low that the Thames was freezing; hoar frost had coated, white and deep, the red-tiled roofs of London's houses and churches. It was so bitter that even the city's notorious foists had taken the night off--perhaps their fingers were too stiff with cold for pinching purses?

Yet from through the large windows of one building at least--Covent Garden--a mellowed golden light shone out into the night and the sounds of a packed house of some 3000 people, all laughing, rose and fell. For inside, the cold forgot, the atmosphere rich with the smell of orange peel and burning wax, the crowd were entranced by the new pantomime they'd all come to see--Harlequin Asmodeus or Cupid on Crutches.

Nor was it the first of that evening's entertainments on Boxing Day 1810.

To begin there had been a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Then they had been treated to a tragedy, a dismal thing called George Barnwell. (The critic Hazlitt called it "a piece of wretched cant.") And now, six hours into the evening's entertainment, now, out came the clown they'd all been waiting for--Grimaldi, known to them all as "Joe"--about to fight a bout of fisticuffs with a pile of animated vegetables...or rather a pile of vegetables which he had assembled into a kind of person which then, somehow, at the tap of a sword, had come to life.

Magic

And the night was still young. For after the mock fight which would see Grimaldi chased off the stage by the vegetable man, would come the pantomime, Harlequin Asmodeus, with its traditional story--generally speaking, two lovers kept apart, usually by unspeakable rivals or cruel parents, but who find happiness in each others' arms after the completion of a quest--and an equally traditional cast--Harlequin and his love, Columbine, and their enemies, the elderly miser Pantaloon and his servant Clown.

It would be explicit, satirical, and energetic, and set against a background that would feature many of the common sights of the metropolis itself, all of which would be transformed by a touch of Harlequin's wand into something different (by means of ingenious stagecraft)--just like the vegetable man--a sedan chair into a prison, for example.

Welcome to a night out at the theatre, Regency style.

London, during the early years of the 19th century, had three main theatres, Drury Lane, Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells in Islington. And during that period perhaps as many as 20,000 Londoners attended the theatre every night.

That number doesn't include the various concert halls or pleasure gardens, such as Vauxhall Gardens, either. The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and Covent Garden confined their 'seasons' to the autumn and winter. Sadler's Wells filled in the gap during the spring and summer.

Long programmes, as described above, especially those with grand jaw-dropping spectacles--plays starring dogs, elephants, children, the lines between comedy and tragedy blurred---were the order of the day. And ever since war had broken out with France, there'd been a kind of national fervour on which the theatres played.

Reenactments of sea battles were especially popular--this was the day of the great hero, Lord Nelson, and all of England was navy-mad--so Sadler's Wells staged a recreation of Nelson's victory at the Nile called Naval Pillars. Later, they put on a recreation of the Franco-Spanish siege of Gibraltar--and for this, the management converted the theatre's cellars and stage into a vast water-tank and had the replicas made of the fleet of ships, using a one inch to one foot scale, and working miniature cannon.

Nor were grand tableaux all that drew the oohs and ahs of the packed houses, all sitting there amid the atmosphere of orange-peels and smoke, heckling, cat-calling and flirting, as other play-goers drifted in and out of their boxes or pushed onto the benches of the pit, all chatting and laughing during the long evenings' performances.

Among the other great draws was William Betty, a thirteen year old boy, also known as Master Betty or the "Child of Nature" (he was very beautiful), who made his debut at Covent Garden on 1 December 1804 in the happily forgotten drama, Barbarossa. (He was paid fifty guineas a performance.)

Tickets for that first performance were sold out in seven minutes, the cavalry were called out to lift fainting women from the crowd in the Piazza and carry them to safety, and in the hours before his first entrance, the audience had been roaring. Then he came on and an absolute hush fell over the auditorium.

Master Betty appeared at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane, went on to play Romeo, then Richard III and even Hamlet, and the audiences were wild for him with women fainting and crying...All of which lasted until his voice broke a couple of years later. (The tragedienne, Sarah Siddons, managed to be out of town or otherwise engaged for most of his London run.)

The downside to all this excitement, of course, was fire.

In the early hours of 20 September 1808, smoke and flame were seen coming from the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden. But by the time the Phoenix Fire Company arrived, the interior was already destroyed. 23 people died in the fire, many of them the firefighters, and the adjacent homes were also destroyed. John Philip Kemble, its owner, had lost everything.

But raising money, Kemble saw the foundation stone for a new Theatre Royal laid by the Prince Regent in December and the theatre reopened on 18 September 1809. To riots.

For Kemble and his financiers had decided that in order to pay for the rebuild, they'd put up the price of seats. Until after two months of riots--where insignias marked with OP for Old Prices were worn by growing numbers of Londoners--they gave way and brought back the lower fees.

But not far away, Drury Lane was levelled by fire on 24 February 1809 while its proprietor, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, watched from the window of the House of Commons. The theatre where Mrs. Siddons had captivated audiences was no more. And because of his own financial instability, Sheridan was unable to raise the funds to rebuild, so it didn't reopen for another three years...

And theatre itself was in a kind of a revolution, as the stilted declamatory style and tragic poses of 18th century actors gave way to a more natural, more intimate performance, such as that of Edmund Kean, changing old style caricatures into authentic credible characters. Kean opened his London stage career on 26 January 1814, playing Shylock to a packed house at Drury Lane and doing nothing as it had been done for the past hundred years.

Kean's Shylock was a human being, a man of genuine emotion--the critics were wowed, the audience stunned. His subsequent performances as Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear transformed performance. Previously, many of these Shakespearean tragedies had only been performed in their Bowdlerised versions--think King Lear with rhyming couplets and a happy ending.

And in between the tragedies featuring Kean, or the comedies which showed off a long-legged Mrs. Jordan in breeches-roles, the entr-acte ballets with their lovely limbed female dancers drew the young men of the pit, all ogling and hoping for more than a glimpse of ankle or perhaps a tryst arranged in the Green Room.

All this, and Grimaldi's antics too--a walking, tumbling, leaping, bawdy animated version of a Rowlandson or Gilray cartoon.

It's no wonder that, come rain, fog or frost, many Londoners, Beau Brummell among them, went to the theatre every night, now is it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early nineteenth-century British and European history, and the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame. Find out

more at www.mmbennetts.com.

The Thames: England’s Liquid History

by Julian Stockwin

Customs House

My particular interest in the River Thames is its role in the Georgian age. London at the turn of the eighteenth century was much smaller than it is now of course. Upstream of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament were green fields and the country, while downstream the great city spread out, mostly on the left side. The river did a single bend to the right, and on the way was Whitehall, the Bank of England, St Paul's. Then it was the Tower of London, and before the Thames had time for another wiggle it was all over, green fields again.

The Port of London

But the real heart of London, its real reason for being there, was the Port of London. This was the biggest in the world at the time, a wonder of the age. It was the undisputed centre for handling cargoes to and from all over the newly explored world. If you were to stand on London Bridge looking downstream you’d see the most amazing sight. In a space of water not a couple of hundred yards across was crammed a great mass of shipping – snows, galliots, hermaphrodite barques, cats, tilt boats; every conceivable type under every kind of flag. There were 8000 ship movements in and out of port in 1793, these increased to 16,000 by 1824, all in this one part of the river. One great forest of masts. From big ocean going East Indiamen to colliers from the north, they all rafted up together, for there were no quays to come alongside. The ships would tie up to each other, and lighters would come out to load or take out the cargo.

The Port of London was not all that big, in fact the whole thing was really concentrated at the point which was as far up the Thames as big ships could go. This was the impassable barrier of London Bridge (that’s the one next up from present day Tower Bridge). And here they all arrived, handily right in the centre of the capital. The Port of London is a stretch of river from London Bridge a couple of miles down river to the first bend. The ships would have to make their way up from Tilbury at the mouth about 25 miles upstream and through a dozen sweeping bends, crammed with other ships all moving in either direction and with fluky winds. Most were square riggers which could only keep within six points of the wind – a tough sail. A foul wind could hold up arrivals for weeks, and the Bank of England fitted a special wind dial indicator in the main dealing room so bankers could tell at a glance whether a sighted vessel would make it to London in time to land cargo to meet the terms of a Bill of Exchange. It’s still there to this day.

London and the Thames were, right up until the middle of the twentieth century, totally mutually dependent. It was the port in Britain to action the economic basis for the coming Industrial Revolution. But in the Georgian era it was more – we’re used to taxis, buses, trains and so on. In the eighteenth century you thought long and hard about even the smallest journey, and in London that meant sedan chair or slow stage coach or carriage through muddy streets and appalling traffic jams. The only practical method was by river, and this was the main highway of the time.

There were many other maritime features—the great marine observatories at Greenwich, the gun foundry at Woolwich Arsenal which is still occupied by the Ministry of Defence, and Henry VIII’s Trinity House which looked after buoys and lighthouses and still does to this day, and there were shipbuilders up and down the river. At Blackwall many famous frigates were built for the French wars. Rotherhithe, Deptford, was known for king’s ships since Shakespeare’s day. The radically designed HMS Warrior, now on show in Portsmouth, was a Thames vessel.

Support for these ships had to be on an industrial scale. If you think of the kind of stores a single ship had to load for a voyage of over a year to far places, you get an idea of what was needed - multiplied by 1000s of ships. Breweries to make the small beer that was taken instead of water, ship’s biscuits, the hard tack – the list goes on and on. There were skilled men everywhere – such as coopers making great casks who were there on dockside right up to the 1960s. The men who manned the lighters or barges, the lightermen, were also very skilled, steering with 20 foot long oars they could bring a lighter from the ship to the wharf by tide power alone.

River Scene

But the real professionals, and it took a full seven year apprenticeship, were the river taxi drivers, the watermen. In the eighteenth century they would gather their red or green wherries (a sharp bowed skiff) around one of the many ‘stairs’ or boarding points, like Horseferry stairs, Puddle dock, King’s stairs. A passenger would approach and they’d shout ‘oars, oars’. The passenger would point at one, and the others would turn on the lucky one and abuse him loudly. They were very independent, often garrulous, uncouth and arrogant, happily screeching insults at passing rivals, but they were very good at what they did, especially at ‘shooting the bridge’ which was what they called passing through London Bridge. This was like a weir, so fast were the tides. Passengers could get their money back if they were tipped into the river, or they could prudently take precautions, landing before the bridge and boarding again after. The oldest sporting event in the world is the Doggetts coat and badge race for first year watermen and runs to this day. In fact there are still watermen, and one of their privileges is delivering the Royal Crown from the Tower of London to Westminster at the state opening of parliament. If the Thames froze, a Frost Fair would be held on the ice. Gentlemen and their ladies would stroll arm in arm, there’d be plenty of entertainment, with bear baiting, an ox roast, cricket match and so on, all on the ice. The watermen couldn’t ply for hire, so they had races in which their boats were hauled over the ice by horses.

The Thames was smelly then but actually not as much as later – people were still catching salmon in the City in 1800. In the eighteenth century the practice was for night soil men to take away the liquid waste for industrial uses, and the other for manure, it was just too valuable to throw away. It wasn’t until the huge explosion of population in Victorian times coinciding with the invention of the flush toilet that the stinks and health hazards really came. In 1800 for drinking water they still relied on a big waterwheel next to London Bridge to pump up water direct from the Thames.

The river would smell rank, but this would be overlaid by other fragrances. Writers of the time use the word ‘spicy’ a lot, the scent of cargoes – cinnabar, ginger, tea, sandalwood, hemp – and of course the unmistakable rich whiff of sea worn ropes and tar. Downstream there were other smells. The ink and dye works at Deptford had very pungent copper salts, and Berger paints were nearby. The worst were the leather tanneries around Bermondsey – 30 of them! They started a vinegar factory in the middle with the idea of countering one smell with another, and miraculously, it was still going in 1991. Around the bend in the river are the Greenland docks. This was well into the country, for there the whalers used to return and the oil was processed. This caused a stink so bad that people choked. But back in the city the main smell was that of horses and their dung – uncountable thousands of horses. And the sea coal – you could see where London was from the Downs because of the big brown cloud hanging over it from the sea coal fires.

When a sailor returned after a voyage he’d be on the ran tan ashore just as fast as he could. The main area was Wapping, roughly from where the Tower of London is until the river bends. It was a maze of tiny streets and alleys, with names like Cat’s Hole, Shovel Alley, the Rookery, Dark Entry and so on. A wider road called Ratcliffe Highway ran through it, lined with shops, taverns, ship’s chandlers, doss houses and so on. It still exists, now called simply ‘The Highway.’

Every shop had a sailor’s lodgings above it and every kind of sharp practice was used to part the sailor from his hard earned silver. Across the river in Southwark and Rotherhithe it was the same, and we know from Chaucer that it has a pretty long history. There are still some of the old pubs – the Prospect Of Whitby in Wapping, a fine old place, the Town Of Ramsgate in Rotherhithethese - were named after ships that regularly tied up outside. The Grapes in Limehouse gets a mention in Dickens and the Mayflower pub stands on the spot where the Pilgrim fathers sailed for America.

Thames sailing barges with their distinctive sails
by Canthusus, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Thames_Barges-Canthusus.JPG

It’s thought that in the eighteenth century between a quarter and a third of all cargoes arriving were stolen. It varied a lot in seriousness. At one end of the scale their would be scams such as a fake agent meeting a ship and bargaining with the captain to ease the task of landing his cargo, organising lighters, customs clearance, porters and so on. The captain would agree and the cargo would be landed alright – but that would be the last he saw of it. At the other end of the scale were the mudlarks or scuffle hunters. These were young scamps who would skip aboard a vessel working cargo and suddenly throw something overboard before escaping. This article they could then retrieve from the mud later when the tide went out. River pirates were a real menace, so when they were caught they paid the penalty – and then their bodies were hung in chains in Execution dock until their skeletons had disarticulated. You can still see the sea wall near St Katherine’s dock.

The docks changed the face of the Thames. We think today of the Pool of London and the endless docks, but before the Napoleonic wars there was not even one! Then in 1802, and only to combat the thieving of cargo, out in the country the West India dock was built, with high walls and controlled security. Ships would come to a stop outside, lower their sails, and then be pulled inside by powerful land capstans. It was an instant success, and other docks were quickly dug. This brought more support services and soon London had doubled in size, and only just in time, for the number of ship movements would double as well in just 22 years.

Canaletto's painting of the Lord Mayor's Procession

This is an Editor's Choice, originally published November 23, 2014.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Julian Stockwin was sent at the age of fourteen to Indefatigable, a tough sea-training school. He joined the Royal Navy at fifteen before transferring to the Royal Australian Navy, where he served in the Far East, Antarctic waters and the South Seas. In Vietnam he saw active service in a carrier task force. After leaving the Navy Julian attended university; he became a teacher and later practised as an educational psychologist. Julian lived for some time in Hong Kong, where he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Reserve. He was awarded the MBE and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He now lives in Devon with his wife and literary partner Kathy. More information can be found on his website. Julian also posts his own blog, BigJules and is on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

He has written twenty-two books to date in his Thomas Kydd historical action adventure fiction series. (Book 23 will be released in Fall 2020). Although they form a series each title can be read as a stand-alone novel. Julian has also written a non-fiction book, Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany. And in a departure from the ongoing adventures of Kydd and Renzi, Julian also brought out a standalone historical novel set in the time of Justinian, The Silk Tree.

The Triumvirate Which Changed the Face of Bath During the Georgian Era

by Regina Jeffers

The beginning of the 1700s in England saw the expansion of the middle class and a stronger economy. As such Bath had known a steady period of growth, but when the Queen visited the city in 1702 (and then again a year later), the fashionable crowd took notice. Although the Bath of the early 1700s remained smaller than other “bathing holes,” such as Tunbridge Wells, Daniel Defoe said, “We may say now it is the resort of the sound as well as the sick and a place that helps the indolent and the gay to commit the worst of murders–to kill time.”

Bath Abbey rose from a close and crowded resort town within the curve of the River Avon. One could find a crowded fish market at the East Gate on the river quay. Jacobean buildings sported gables and leaded windows. Sally Lunn’s house between Abbey Green and the Parade is said to be the city’s oldest house and is typical of the style of the Jacobean façade.

Sally Lunn's house

Unfortunately, the eighteenth century society in Bath was not what one might term “first tier.” The hot baths attracted the infirm and all those who thought to “cure” them. Hooligans and gamblers and those who practiced deceit polluted the city.

Beau Nash

It was Richard ‘Beau’ Nash, the Master of Ceremonies of the Corporation, who changed the city. Nash was named to the unpaid position after the incumbent had lost his life in a duel. He was a man known to possess an excessively high opinion of himself, but he was also seen a very practical gentleman.

“Almost immediately Nash forbade dueling and the wearing of swords in the city; persuaded the Corporation to repair the roads, to pave, clean and light the streets, to license the sedan-chair men and regulate their behavior. He engaged a good orchestra from London and was responsible not only for the building of a new Pump Room, but a large public room, Harrison’s Room, for dances as well as gaming on what is now Parade Gardens. He outlawed private gatherings and strictly controlled the public ones, and drew up a rigid list of rules to which everyone–and that included dukes, duchess, and even the Prince of Wales–had to conform. It might not have worked had not the age been one in which people were amused by such things: half the amusement of Bath was in obeying the ‘King,’ who was no doubt unaware that he himself was part of the fun. Besides, it worked. Bath was civilized and ‘different’–rather than a large, smart holiday camp.” (Winsor, Diana: Historic Bath)

John Wood

It was the architect John Wood who changed the face of Bath. His “Grand Design” for the city was executed in segments. He began with Queen Square, first leasing the land and then designing the square before sub-letting the sites for individual houses to builders who could design the interiors as they wished but who were compelled to follow Wood’s exterior design. Queen Square was completed within seven years. “It should be seen as the forecourt of a palace, the north dominating what was then a formal garden of parterre beds with espaliered limes and a low balustrade. Wood also designed the obelisk in the centre, raised by Beau Nash as a tribute to the Prince of Wales, with an inscription by the poet Alexander Pope.” (Winsor)

In the heart of Bath is Queen Square–a square of Georgian houses designed by John Wood the Elder in the early 18th century and paid for by Beau Nash. The square was designed to join the houses in unison and give the impression that together they formed one large mansion when viewed from the south facing side.

Queen Square

The focal point of Queen Square is the obelisk at the centre which commemorates the visit of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Next, Wood built his “Royal Forum.” The Parades are a series of historic terraces built around 1741. The Royal Forum was to include North Parade, South Parade, Pierrepont, and Duke Streets, but was never completed. In the last year of his life, John Wood the Elder began the Grand Circus, but it was his son John Wood the Younger who brought the project to fruition. A Roman amphitheatre turned into domestic architecture, the Circus is made up of three segments and 33 houses, all of three stories, with Roman Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns. The younger Wood linked the Circus to the Royal Crescent with his design of Brock Street. Between 1767 and 1775 the paving stones were laid and 30 houses rose to form the Royal Crescent. He also oversaw the completion of the Hot Bath and the Bath Assembly Rooms. These buildings contrasted with the more decorated and embellished style preferred by his father. Whilst John Wood the Elder’s Circus includes superimposed orders and a detailed frieze, the Royal Crescent – designed by his son, has a single order and plain decoration throughout.

North Parade

The site Wood chose for the Royal Crescent also demonstrates his interest in creating a “dialogue” between his buildings and their settings. Previous buildings and set pieces in Bath were all intensely urban and inward looking whereas the Royal Crescent was fully open and looked out on the open fields. This is not always apparent today, but when it was built in 1775, the crescent was situated right on the edge of the city with no nearby buildings to block residents’ views of the countryside.

The Royal Crescent is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found. Outside of Bath, Wood’s most notable works include Buckland House in Buckland, Oxfordshire, and General Infirmary in Salisbury.

The third man to change the face of Bath was the assistant to the postmistress, one Ralph Allen, a savvy businessman and philanthropist. Allen developed a powerful friend in the form of Marshall George Wade. Allen had shared with Wade the news of a large cache of arms stored in the area, and as Wade meant to squash the Jacobite insurgence in the west country, he took an immediate liking to Allen. Later, Allen married Wade’s daughter.

Allen developed several profitable postal routes, earning him high sums from the Postal System. He invested in the new Avon Navigation company, which was designed to make the river navigable to Bristol.

In 1726, Allen developed stone quarries on Combe Down. Allen built simple houses for his workers, which can still be seen as part of Combe Down village, and what is now the village recreation ground was once his quarry. Allen also built a railroad to carry the stone blocks to the river and canal wharf at Widcombe.

Earning a fabulous living, Allen built his home Prior Park, which was designed by Wood the Elder, to highlight the beauty and quality of Bath Stone. At Prior Park, Allen entertained writers, statesmen, poets, and actors. Henry Fielding’s character Squire Allworthy in Tom Jones is based on Ralph Allen.

"Almost anyone who was anyone visited Bath to take the waters and gossip in the Pump Room. It was a sparkling century, with aspects both sordid and brutal, but never lacking in vigour, wit and style. Bath was part of it all. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the gaming tables had long been forbidden and the old king buried more than forty years, the city had changed. Tobias Smollet wrote in 1771 that 'a very inconsiderable proportion of genteel people are lost in a mob of impudent plebians…'

Palladin Bridge at Prior Park

“Nevertheless, Bath was still elegant and fashionable, if a trifle less frothy and fizzy – more of a medium sherry than champagne. ‘Enchanted castles raised on hanging terraces,’ observed Smollett’s Lydia Melford. Its population had grown to more than 30,000; it had spread far beyond the old walls to incorporate surrounding villages and hills. It was now one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.” (Winsor)

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Meet Regina Jeffers:
Regina Jeffers is the author of several Austen-inspired novels, including Darcy’s Passions, Darcy’s Temptation, Vampire Darcy’s Desire, Captain Wentworth’s Persuasion, The Phantom of Pemberley, Christmas at Pemberley, The Disappearance of Georgiana Darcy, Honor and Hope and The Mysterious Death of Mr. Darcy. She also writes Regency romances: The Scandal of Lady Eleanor, A Touch of Velvet, A Touch of Cashémere, A Touch of Grace, A Touch of Mercy, A Touch of Love and The First Wives’ Club. A Time Warner Star Teacher and Martha Holden Jennings Scholar, Jeffers often serves as a consultant in language arts and media literacy. Currently living outside Charlotte, North Carolina, she spends her time with her writing, gardening, and her adorable grandson.

Babies, warming pans, and wars.

by Tim Vicary

This is the story of a baby who wasn't born at all - or at least, not when his mother said he was. (And she wasn't his mother anyway, so what did she know?) That, amazingly, seems to have been the view of many people in England at the time - perhaps the majority view.

Or to put it another way, it's the story of sixty people - adult men and women - many of whom refused to believe their own eyes.

And so, to prove that this baby hadn't been born - even though it had happened right in front of their own eyes - they raised an army, invaded a country, and deposed a king.

King James II

So what was it all about? 

Well, here's the story. In 1685, Charles II died, and his brother James became king. Unfortunately, King James II was a Roman Catholic.  This made him hugely unpopular with most of the English ruling class, who hated and feared Catholicism -  just as many people fear Islam today - so the idea of a Catholic king was anathema to them. 

In Charles II's reign, there had been a determined attempt to exclude his brother James from the succession. As soon as James was crowned his Protestant nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, led a rebellion against him.

When Monmouth was executed, James seemed secure. His opponents consoled themselves with the thought that James' heirs - his two daughters, Mary and Anne - were both loyal Anglicans with staunch Protestant husbands. So all they had to do was wait a few years for James to die and everything would be all right again.

Mary of Modena

But then - oh dear - James' second wife, Mary of Modena, became pregnant. At first this wasn't too much of a worry because Mary was well into her forties and had suffered a number of miscarriages and still-births already. 

But while her husband proceeded with his plans to reintroduce Catholic officers to his army and Catholic clergy into the universities, the baby in Mary's womb grew steadily bigger. The bigger her belly, the more the public worried. What if she gave birth to a Catholic prince? That would change everything. In their minds people saw a long line of Catholic kings stretching into the future.

Some of their fears were real, others imaginary. The real fears were that England could be plunged into religious war, like those which had convulsed Europe for the past century. Millions on both sides had been massacred. The English Civil War had been partly about religion. And just over the Channel, French Protestants - Huguenots - were being forcibly converted, imprisoned and tortured by the agents of King Louis XIV. Many fled to England with genuine tales of terror.

But there were imaginary terrors too. The reign of Charles II had been disfigured by fantasists like Titus Oates, whose lies about non-existent Catholic plots had sent many innocent men to the scaffold. Many believed the Great Fire of London, even the Plague, were spread by Catholics. To the London mob, Catholics were monsters, like Jews in Nazi Germany.

And here was the Queen about to give birth to one! It was such an awful thought that many people refused to believe it.  After all, the last Catholic queen - Bloody Mary - had claimed she was pregnant too. And it had all turned out to be a fantasy, a dropsy, a joke. Surely this would be the same.

Plans were laid to ensure that 'unbiased' witnesses - respectable Protestants - would be on hand to witness the birth. The Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, and King James' second daughter, Princess Anne.

Ambulance

But the Queen went into labour a month early, while Princess Anne was still in Bath, taking the waters. On the evening of 9th June 1688, Queen Mary was playing cards in Whitehall until midnight. Then, as her labour started, an ambulance (a sedan chair!) was hurriedly called to carry her to St James' Palace and messengers were sent running hither and thither to summon help and witnesses. Lots of them. A really enormous number of people.

Poor lady - she gave birth in front of no less than sixty people!!

She had two midwives, Mrs De Labadie and Mrs Wilkins, who each received 500 guineas. There were doctors too, and priests, and Lords of the Privy Council, and Ladies of the Bedchamber. Presumably the King was there too (a new man!) and a few servants to light the fire and change the sheets. If it had been possible to invite a TV crew they would have done that too, no doubt.

Or perhaps not. Because even though the Queen gave birth in as public a way as it is possible to imagine, many people still refused to believe it. Princess Anne said it must be a conspiracy to pretend the birth had come early while she was in Bath and couldn't witness it. The Archbishop of Canterbury had been arrested the day before (about something quite different) so he wasn't present either. And the royal obstetrician, Dr Hugh Chamberlen, missed the birth too because no-one could find him - he was attending another birth in Chatham.

Weapon of mass deception

So there you are, people cried. It's obviously not true - it's a conspiracy, a fraud! (Dan Brown would have had a field day.) Gilbert Burnet, a prominent churchman, said the Queen had deliberately sent Dr Chamberlen away so that she could deceive everyone by smuggling in a changeling. 

And why were so many of the witnesses Catholics? Why hadn't the King invited the Dutch ambassador, for instance? No, only a fool would believe the Queen had actually given birth as she claimed. The baby wasn't hers at all.  They'd smuggled one into the bed in a warming pan.

Dr Burnet, who was in Holland at the time, was quite certain of this.

And so the evidence of sixty eye-witnesses counted for nothing. Not even the evidence of the vociferously Protestant midwife, Mrs Wilkins, who surely ought to know what had happened if anyone did. She protested to Dr Chamberlen:  'Alas, will they not let the poor infant alone! I am certain no such thing as the bringing of a strange child in a warming-pan could be practised without my seeing it; attending constantly in and about all the avenues of the chamber.'

Crazy, isn't it? People just believed what they wanted to believe. Nothing like that could happen today, surely? We're far more rational now. Ah, but bear with me. Here's a thought. Far-fetched, I admit, but still ...

Ten years ago, British and American soldiers invaded Iraq. (I told you my idea was far-fetched - a giant leap across centuries!) Why? Because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Almost everyone believed that; even the protesters. I certainly believed it, and so did George Bush and Tony Blair.  I don't think they lied; they deceived themselves. They believed what they wanted to believe, because they were afraid of another, bigger 9/11.

Oh dear, I'm in seriously hot water now. Let's jump swiftly back to 1688. What happened as a result of this earlier bout of mass self-deception, this refusal to believe a baby prince had been born? Well, a large force gathered in Holland, sailed across the Channel and landed in Torbay, England. King James II fled, and was replaced, at Parliament's invitation, by his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange--the throne, with strings attached. This was the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689.

James III - 

So there you have it: the invasion of a foreign country, regime change, and a change in the balance of power between monarch and Parliament. Coincidence, or what? All because of a bout of self-deception.

Amazing what a warming pan can do. Especially when it wasn't there at all.

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You read about Tim Vicary's books on his website and his blog