Before Almack's

by Lauren Gilbert

Social activities, fashions, entertainment and more are all driven by “the next big thing.” This is nothing new. Throughout history, we can find examples of this. During the Regency era, Almack’s Assembly Rooms were THE place to be during the Regency era. A voucher for Almack’s conveyed more social impact than invitations to multiple private balls and parties. When Almack’s Assembly Rooms opened in February of 1765, Mr. Macall was in direct competition with Mrs. Cornelys’ assemblies at Carlisle House, and it was by no means certain that Almack’s would be “the next big thing”. A veritable Studio 54 of its time, the assemblies at Carlisle House were geared for the highest society and were quite something....

Who was Mrs. Cornelys? Teresa Cornelys, also known as the Empress of Pleasure and the Queen of Masquerades, was born Anna Maria Teresa Imer in Venice in 1723, the daughter of Giuseppe Imer, an opera impresario. Her mother Paolina was an actress. Teresa herself was a singer and dancer. She was described as beautiful, but I found no particulars.  She led an extremely interesting life: she was married to a dancer named Angelo Pompeati in Vienna but lived with him only a few months. She became a well-known opera singer, and courtesan; at age 17, she was desired by Senator Alvise Gasparo Malpiero; some sources say she was his mistress. (Malpiero befriended a young Giacomo Casanova, who was frequently at his home.) Teresa fell madly in love with Casanova, who may have been the father of her first child, a son named Giuseppe. Her husband did not acknowledge the child; however, many accounts do not list Giuseppe as Casanova’s son either. She subsequently had a daughter named Wilhelmine by a different lover, a daughter named Sophie by Casanova (most accounts do list Sophie as Casanova’s daughter), and another baby by someone else. Wilhelmine and the baby both died. She had numerous lovers and used multiple names. Despite her own singing career and income from her various lovers, she was jailed for debt in Paris. Casanova took their son to raise in 1759. Teresa and Sophie moved on to the Netherlands.

Teresa had first appeared in London at the Haymarket under the name Madame Pompeati, in an opera by Gluck, in 1746. The reviews were not good, and she returned to the continent. After her release from debtor’s prison, she was convinced to try England again by a wealthy man known as John Freeman (and John Boorder and John Fermor which name he used in England) who she met in Holland and who may have been her lover. Using the name Cornelys (after a lover named Cornelis de Rigorboos in Rotterdam), she presented herself as a widow, and apparently benefited greatly from sympathy for her widowed state as well as the expanded legal rights enjoyed by widows as opposed to single or married women. At this time, she was about 37 years old. When she arrived in London this time, Teresa apparently decided to be a producer instead of an entertainer. In April of 1760, with the financial backing of John Fermor (as he was now known), Teresa rented Carlisle House in Soho Square, which she subsequently purchased a few months later.

At one time the home of the 2nd Earl of Carlisle, Edward Howard, Carlisle House changed hands, and Teresa rented the house and its furnishings for 180 pounds per year from the owner, before she purchased it. She made extensive renovations to the house during her occupancy, adding several rooms (including a supper room and a ballroom/concert hall) which were connected to the original house by a Chinese bridge. She opened her business to provide entertainment to the upper classes by private subscription later in 1760, calling her membership “The Society.” By making her entertainments a subscription affair, she evaded licensing laws in effect at the time as well as making them private and exclusive since not everyone could get tickets and she indicated that the cost was merely to cover expenses. (The Licensing Acts of 1737 and 1752 were in effect at the time, regulating legitimate theatrical entertainment as well as places open for public entertainment in and within 20 miles of London and Westminster.) Initially confined to dancing and card playing, Teresa expanded the entertainments offered to include concerts, balls and masquerades. Her rooms became very popular, and were known as much for their size and beauty of architecture and decoration as for the quality of the entertainments themselves. Musicians of note played and directed the concerts at her rooms, including Johann Christian Bach in 1765. As time went on, her entertainments became known for their sexual overtones, and the rooms were becoming known as a place of secret meetings for sexual purposes.

Subscription ticket for Carlisle House

Thanks to the support of society friends, including Lady Elizabeth Chudleigh (who would become a principal in a notorious bigamy case, having married in 1744 Augustus John Hervey (who became the 3^rd Earl of Bristol) and then married Evelyn Pierpont, the 2^nd Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1769), Mrs. Cornelys’ rooms became THE place to be.  In April of 1768, members of the Royal family and the Prince of Monaco,  and subsequently in August the King of Denmark,  attended entertainments at Carlisle House.  The quality of the suppers served and the elegance of the surroundings (including the light of many wax candles) all contributed to the popularity of these events as well as to the costs.  Teresa showed herself to be a shrewd business woman, advertising her entertainments shrewdly and maintaining her attendance for over a decade.  However, her business sense had never included the good management of money.  Her continual remodeling costs as well as her operating costs continued.   Even though she increased her subscription costs for special events, somehow she was never able to get out of debt and show a profit.

Ticket for Masque Ball at Carlisle House

Almack’s rooms opened in February of 1765. Although it worried Teresa, who did some more decorating, initially Almack’s did her no harm. What did cause a problem was Teresa’s arrest providing public entertainments without a license in 1771. (When she ventured into operatic entertainments, she was competing with the Italian Opera House, and information was laid against her.) She agreed to stop the entertainments, and was fined 50 pounds. Once the matter was resolved, she returned to her regular entertainments (apparently, however, without opera). However, in January of 1772, the assembly rooms at the Pantheon opened on Oxford Street (not far from Carlisle House) and targeted the same exclusive clientele that Mrs. Cornelys and Almack’s pursued. Teresa increased her redecorating to compete with the new rival, which only drove her further into debt. The offerings at the new Pantheon rooms provided novelty, and drew away many of her regulars, causing her debt level to increase.

Later in 1772, Teresa Cornelys was bankrupt. Her creditors seized Carlisle House and tried to auction off her assets, but did not succeed. It reopened, with different management, in hopes of making a profit. By 1776, Teresa was back in possession of Carlisle House but she could never achieve any level of success and she gave up in 1783, when she or her creditors tried to rent out the house and furnishings. By March of 1784, the house was empty. (Carlisle House was demolished in 1791.) She attempted other ventures under the name of Mrs. Smith that were equally unsuccessful, and she was finally confined in the Fleet Prison for debt. While in prison, Teresa was being treated by Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini (of questionable medical qualifications who advertised heavily) for a cancerous sore on her breast, but his treatment was unsuccessful. She died in Fleet Prison on August 19, 1797, age 74.

Sources include:

Chancellor, E. Beresford. MEMORIALS OF ST. JAMES’S STREET and CHRONICLES OF ALMACK’S. New York: Brentano’s, 1922.

THE LONDON ENCYCLOPAEDIA 3rd Edition. Ben Weinreb, Christopher Hibbert, Julia Keay and John Keay, authors. London: Macmillan London Ltd., 2008.

Darcytodionysus.com. “Personality of the Month: Teresa Cornelys” posted by Meg McNulty, August 3, 2010. HERE

GoogleBooks. Cruikshank, Dan. LONDON’S SINFUL SECRET:The Bawdy History and Very Public Passions of London’s Georgian Age. “At Home with Mrs. Cornelys.” Pp. 196-202. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009. (Preview)  HERE

GoogleBooks. DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY. Leslie Stephen, ed. Vol. 12. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1887. “Cornelys, Theresa (1723-1797)” by Warwick Wrote. Pp. 223-225. HERE

Googlebooks. THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Vol. 284. January to June 1898. London: Chatto & Windus, 1898. “Mrs. Theresa Cornelys” by Edward Walford, M.A. Pp. 451-472. HERE

GoogleBooks. GROVE’S DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. In Five Volumes. Vol. 1. J. A. Fuller Maitland, M.A., F.S.A., ed. “Cornelys, Theresa” by H. R. Tedder, Esq. P. 606. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1904. HERE

GoogleBooks. Russell, Gillian. WOMEN, SOCIABILITY AND THEATRE IN GEORGIAN LONDON. “The Circe of Soho: Teresa Cornelys and Carlisle House.” Pp. 17-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Preview)  HERE

SusannaEllisAuthor.wordpress.com. “Romance of London: Mrs. Cornelys at Carlisle House” from ROMANCE OF LONDON: Strange Stories, Scenes and Remarkable Persons of the Great Town in 3 Volumes by John Timbs. Posted March 7, 2016.  HERE

TheLancet.com. “Quacks and hacks: Georgian Medicine and the power of advertising” by Adrien Teal. Vol. 383, February 21, 2014. Pp. 404-405.  HERE

Images: 
Subscription ticket HERE By Sharp, William, 1749-1824 [engraver] Incledon, Charles Benjamin, 1763-1826 [performer]Carlisle House ([London], England) [author] [Public domain or CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Masque Ball ticket HERE By Sharp [engraver] Sharp [artist] Incledon, Charles Benjamin, 1763-1826 [performer]Carlisle House ([London], England) [author] [Public domain or CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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About the author: Lauren Gilbert has been a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America since 2005.  Her first published work, HEYERWOOD: A Novel, was released in 2011.  Her second novel, A RATIONAL ATTACHMENT, is due out soon.  She lives in Florida with her husband.  Please visit her website HERE for more information.

Fleet Prison-London

By Katherine Pym

Fleet Prison was around since the time of William the Conqueror. The term Fleet comes from Saxon times which loosely means ‘a large enough stream to navigate’. Records show it could handle a dozen ships loaded with merchandise, and barges of considerable size and weight. The tide flowed as high as Holborn Bridge. At low tide, the water was still at least five feet deep. 

Fleet Ditch

Throughout the years, the Fleet river became fouled with all manner of excrement and garbage. In 1606, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen demanded it be cleaned. Eventually, it disappeared with an open thoroughfare over it, called Farringdon Street.

From the Doomsday survey, the Fleet Prison was held in conjunction with the See of Canterbury and the English Crown. Between the kings and archbishops, the wardenship of the prison passed down from one knight to another beginning with the family of Leveland in County of Kent. For over one hundred years, this family held custody of the king’s palace in Westminster and Fleet Prison, and any monies these garnered.

Custody of the Fleet could be bought for high prices. In 1594, it was held by Sir Robert Tyrrel, Knight, who sold it to Sir Henry Lello for the considerable amount of £11,000.

From the 15^th through mid 17^th centuries, the Fleet was called the prison of the Star Chamber, or Court of the Privy Council wherein the inhabitants were of the upper crust--political and religious dissidents. After being judged by those of the Star Chamber they were thrust in the Fleet. Sir Walter Raleigh, charged with treason, resided there for a time. The Star Chamber had supreme jurisdiction of the Crown. It stood by itself. No other courts could challenge the Star Chamber. The Privy Counselors sent the higher people of the land to the Fleet without appeal. There were no juries and no witnesses. They could inflict heavier punishments than any other court.

This was abolished by an act of parliament in July 1641. After this, the Fleet became a debtor’s prison. It was also a paying prison. There were no freebies there. The prisoner paid for everything. He’d pay for his food and lodgings, pay for the guard to turn the key to his cell. He’d pay for putting on and removal of his shackles. The warden and his officers received monies for all things in Fleet Prison. A debtor could leave the prison for a day or so, only if the family paid the guard a day’s wages to compensate for loss of monies garnered through fees.

The warden received 20d per day from every man in the prison. Some wardens abused their power. During the reign of Charles II, a warden named Mr. John Huggins allowed several persons to escape from the Fleet. One fellow, who owed more than £10,000 was allowed to travel to France to conduct his affairs. The warden extorted money from folk as they fled the prison. His superiors declared him guilty of ‘notorious breaches of trust’.

The amount of monies depended on who the prisoner was. For instance, during the reign of Elizabeth I while still the prison of the Star Chamber, an Archbishop, Duke or Duchess were to pay £21, 10s, and zero pence for a week’s worth of food. They also paid for anything beyond normal, such as wine: £3, 6s, 8d. A yeoman paid for his weekly fare £1, 14s, 4d. If he wanted wine, it was another 5s. A poor man had no food. If he could pay for weekly fare, it would cost him 7s, 4d.

The poor devil who couldn’t pay was allowed a moment at grilled door that looked out on the street. There he begged for a coin or two. This beggar would not be allowed in the upper floors with the more well-to-do, but in the cellar, or Bartholomew Fair. These people generally died quickly from ‘Gaol Fever’.

Mid 17^th and into the 18^th century the Fleet became notorious for its Fleet marriages. Fifty to sixty couples were married per week in the Fleet ‘Chapel’ by ministers in prison for debt. The marriage shop in Fleet became big business, and for a fee, with no questions asked, couples were married. These weren’t children marrying, either. The average age for men and women marrying during the 17^th century were in the mid to late twenties.

Marriage paperwork was almost nonexistent. Clergy in prison for debt hid behind the walls to keep from being fined for these marriages. If caught, they would be fined £100. If not caught, these clergy could amass piles of money in this business.

Around 1710-1753, these marriages expanded to a sanctuary area outside the prison, where clergy imprisoned for debt could make a living. This gave the clergy freedom to marry customers day or night. The certificates issued looked official, mostly stamped paper. For a fee, false entries of marriages were entered in registers. If the bride was pregnant, the entries could be backdated. Witnesses afterward were not easy to find.

This all ended with the Marriage Act of 1753.

For more information on the chaos of marriage during the 17^th century, please see Viola, A Woeful Tale of Marriage, set in London 1660. http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Pym/e/B004GILIAS

For the information in this blog, I am grateful for the following resources:

• Uncertain Unions, Marriage in England 1660-1753, by Lawrence Stone

• The Fleet, A brief Account of the ANCIENT PRISON CALLED “THE FLEET”, IN THE CITY OF LONDON, Abolished by Act of Parliament, 1842 etc.

• London, The Biography, by Peter Ackroyd