How grand was the aristocratic Georgian London house?

by Elizabeth Bailey

Unlike the grand country house, where successive owners could build extra wings whenever they felt like it, space was at a premium in London just as it is today. Georgians built up rather than wide. Although there were mansions of considerable size, these were exceptions. Not every landed family could have one or build one. There simply was not enough room to accommodate them all.

A double-fronted very large house, such as that occupied by the Polbrook family, had in general four huge rooms to each floor. On the floors above, an extra smaller room could be made of the space above the downstairs hall. Likewise, on the second or third floor, depending how many floors you had, you could make another small room in the space above the stairwell.

There would be two staircases, a narrow one for the servants, either at the back of the house, or tucked away in a recess somewhere. This gave access to all floors, including the attics where the servants slept. Internal walls here would create enough rooms to service the entire domestic staff, with the exception of the butler, who traditionally slept in a room near the pantry.

Down the servants’ stair to the basement, you would find the domestic offices, often a rabbit warren of small rooms and corridors. The housekeeper’s room will be here, as well as the butler’s pantry, the large kitchen, store-rooms and, down a further stair, the wine cellar, the coal cellar and very likely a junk room too. At the front of the house a main door led to a narrow area and steps up to the street.

If you had four or more floors, you might give over the whole of the first floor to a grand saloon for parties and a ballroom. However, a house without this facility could open out two rooms for the purpose of holding a dance. In the Polbrook house, they would use the Blue Salon and the Dining Room. This would give you an extended room about 23 feet long and a good 18 feet wide at the front, a little less at the back to accommodate the staircase.

Choosing this design for the Polbrooks makes it possible to create two good-sized parlours in the front at ground floor level, the posh Blue Salon for visitors and a cosier parlour in daily use by the family. The two rooms behind become the dining-room and the library, the latter accessed by a small vestibule which also houses the servants’ narrow staircase. The central hall runs from front to back, where we find the grand staircase winding around and up.

On the first floor, the principal bedchambers at the front are occupied by the master and mistress of the house, and the little room over the hall becomes my lady’s dressing room. One back bedroom is occupied by the second son of the house, Lord Francis Fanshawe, and the other is reserved for guests. The heir and the daughter of the house have rooms on the second floor, with two more bedrooms available at need.

All the main rooms have fireplaces, which create a stack of flues and chimneys either side of the house because fireplaces cannot share the same flue. In the Blue Salon, as was customary, the furniture is ranged around the walls, but the family parlour has a more cosy arrangement, with only one sofa against the wall and chairs set so as to enjoy better warmth from the fire.

In the domestic quarters, things are somewhat less than comfortable. The back door leads to a yard below the main garden behind the house, with the coal hole, sheds and other facilities, where dirty water might be disposed of and carpets beaten, for example. From the cellar below there is a further outside area, which is decidedly unsavoury with the servants’ privy, receptacles for the disposal of all the contents of the chamber pots, and a lane where the “night soil men” come through to take it all away in a cart. The stench is one of the major disadvantages of working below stairs.

As may be imagined, to keep these great houses operational you needed many servants, even in the London house. Under the butler, you have the indoor menservants such as footmen and boot boy. Under the housekeeper come the female staff: the housemaid, the chambermaid and the kitchen maid; and nominally, the cook, who reigned supreme in the kitchen. Then there are the ladies maids and the valets.

At need, extra help is hired in, like the laundry woman who collects the linen and takes it away to be washed elsewhere. Caterers may be brought in for balls, bringing waiters with them. Horses and carriages are kept in stables in a nearby mews, with grooms and stable boys living above them. In addition, there are a couple of gardeners and perhaps a skivvy or two.

In all, this aristocratic Georgian family required a dozen or so servants to service a household of three to five individuals, with perhaps an occasional relative or guest. This gives your sorely beset author of the upstairs downstairs murder mystery a cast of thousands, as they say, to manipulate, quite aside from the various characters to be found outside the home. It was rather a relief when research produced this relatively modest house instead of the grand mansions we tend to associate with the lords and ladies of an earlier era.

[This is an Editor's Choice archive post, originally published on EHFA 19th June 2018]

~~~~~~~~~~

Elizabeth Bailey feels lucky to have found several paths that have given her immense satisfaction – acting, directing, teaching and, by no means least, writing. Through the years, each path has crossed the other, honing and deepening her abilities in each sphere.

She has been privileged to work with some wonderful artistic people, and been fortunate enough to find publishers who believed in her and set her on the road.

To invent a world and persuade others to believe in it, live in it for a while, is the sole aim of the novelist. Elizabeth’s own love of reading has never abated, and if she can give a tithe of the pleasure to others as she has received herself, it’s worth all the effort.

You can check out Elizabeth’s website here http://www.elizabethbailey.co.uk/

Make Yourself at Home in a Georgian Town House

by Maria Grace
 

Terrace Homes facing the street in Ashbourn

Terrace houses dominated the London landscape during the Regency. Almost the entire London population, rich and poor alike, lived in a version of the terrace house. The term terrace was borrowed from garden terraces and described streets of houses with uniform fronts  that present a single elevation to the street.

The design of these houses varied little regardless of their location. Though the exterior facades might feature local stone or brick, stucco or fancy ornamentation, the essential structures remained uniform. 

Although primarily designed as residences, Georgian terraces built along main urban thoroughfares often incorporated ground-floor shops with residences in the upper stories.    

History of Terrace Houses

Historic Town home

The Great Fire of London in 1666 brought about the first of a series of Building Acts (1667, 1707, 1709 and 1774). These acts established building requirements intended to reduce the risk of fire spreading. Although they pertained to London architecture specifically, they  influenced building style in many other cities.

The initial 1667 Act required brick or stone to be used for all external and party walls, eliminating the typical timber fronts of the Tudor and early Stuart houses. The 1707 Act eliminated thick timber cornices. The 1709 Act required window frames be set back behind the building line. The 1774 Act required the use of stone or brick, specified street width, the size and layout of the houses, floor to ceiling heights and controlled decoration on facades even more rigidly. It also divided terrace houses into four classes. 

At the bottom of the scale, fourth rate houses, were those built in large numbers by speculative developers from the late eighteenth century in response to industrial development in towns like Liverpool and Manchester. These houses were often built back-to-back in tiny yards pressed behind street frontages, standing in yards and courts, apart from easy street access. They  were worth less than £150 per year in rent and occupied less than 350 square feet of land, often standing only three stories instead of four.

First, Second and Fourth rate Town Homes

In stark contrast, some of the wealthiest people in the country occupied palatial, first rate terraced houses in prestigious locales like Belgrave Square and Carlton House Terrace.

First rate houses faced streets and lanes, were worth over £850 per year in ground rent and occupied over 900 square feet of ground space. Keep in mind, these houses usually had four stories, plus a basement so they were frequently more than 4500 square feet on the inside. 

Second rate houses faced streets, notable lanes, and the River Thames. They were worth between £350 and £850 in ground rent and had an exterior foot print of 500-900 square feet.

Third rate houses faced principal streets, rented for £150-£300 and occupied 350-500 square feet ground space.

Terrace House Design

 

Floor plan of very large Belgravian town home, from The Gentleman's House.

Whatever the size of the terrace house, the general floor plan was consistent. Each floor would have one room at the back and one at the front with a passage and staircase at one side. The rooms were sometimes divided into smaller units, in some cases separated by folding doors that could create a larger open space when the occasion called for it.This approach to creating larger rooms was shunned in the country where manor houses did not have the same building restrictions, but considered good planning in the city.

Basements

All except the poorest houses had basements where most of the service rooms would be located. Primary access to these rooms would be through an open area in front with steps leading down to it. The open area would give light to the kitchen windows and might open onto storage vaults under the pavement. Small wells around the house allowed for windows to light other subterranean rooms including back staircases and household offices.

A warren of offices might be housed in the basement. These rooms might include

•  the scullery-a small room for washing and storing dishes and kitchen equipment)
• pantry and larder for food storage
• butler's pantry and quarters
• safe, and cleaning-room for the silver
• housekeeper's-office;
• still-room for drying and preparing foods and herbs for storage, medicinal formulations, soap, ect
• servants'-hall where servants might eat and socialize
• a wine-cellar
• closet for beer; 
• laundry and housemaid's-closet for linen storage
• quarters for housekeeper, cook and possibly men-servants
• vaults for coals and dust

Even in the largest of houses not all these rooms might be present and if present, they could be very small, packed tightly into the limited basement space.

A lift, also called a dumbwaiter, might be employed to bring food and other items up from the basement to the principle floors of the house. The lift could be located in a back stair well rather than opening directly into a room of the house.

Ground Floor

The best rooms in a townhouse were on the ground and first floor and faced the back of the house, away from the dirt and noise of the street. These included drawing rooms, parlors and dining rooms.

Drawing rooms were a place near the front door for accessibility in greeting visitors. The women of the house and their female guests would also use the drawing room as a place to retreat after dinner, so they would be near the dining room as well. Drawing rooms were often the most elaborately decorated room in the house and usually very feminine in style. 

The more modestly appointed parlor was a private room for the family’s enjoyment.This room might be on either the ground or first floor.

In large houses, the ground floor might also house an entrance hall, cloak-room, storage closet, and library or office. These would be more likely to face the street side of the house since guests would not spend time in those rooms.

The First Floor

The first floor contained large rooms for entertaining. These rooms might be used for card playing, parlor games and dancing. Large or folding doors might connect smaller rooms so that they could be opened to create larger spaces.  Principle bedrooms might also occupy this floor, usually located in the front (street side) of the house. 

Furnishings and other decor on this floor would be the most elaborate and expensive in the house, positioned to impress visitors.

The Second Floor

The more modest second floor featured secondary bedrooms for children, or perhaps a lodgers or guests. The rooms on this floor would be more simply decorated than those on lower floors. Older and perhaps unwanted furniture would often find its way into the upper stories. Bathing rooms, closets and linen storage rooms for both cleaned and soiled lines might also be located on this floor.

The Attic

The rooms on the highest floor were reserved for servants, who often used beds that were let down from the wall like murphy beds. Nursery suites and storage rooms might also be located here. These rooms were cheaply painted and furnished with little or no decoration.

Outbuildings

Large town homes could also include outbuildings behind the house. Stables and carriage houses might also feature quarters for coachmen and grooms for the horses.Third and fourth rate terrace homes were unlike to have outbuildings.

Even though there was a great deal of similarity between the terraced homes, the differences were important reflections of the wealth and status of the occupants of these home.

References

Characteristics of the Georgian Town House
The Ideal House
Kerr, Robert. The Gentleman's House (1871, 3ed.)
Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen and Food. Hambledon (1995)
Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. Harry N. Abrams (2002)
London Architecture
Parissien, Steven. Regency Style. Phaidon Press Limited (2000)
Sabor, Peter (editor). The Cambridge Edition of the Juvenilia. Cambridge University Press (2006)
Spencer-Churchill, Henrietta. Classic Georgian Style. Collins & Brown (1997)
Summerson, John. Georgian London. Yale University Press (2003) Town Houses
Yorke, Trevor. Georgian & Regency Houses Explained. Countryside Books (2007)
Yorke, Trevor. Regency House Styles. Countryside Books (2013)  

~~~~~~~~~~~

 Maria Grace is the author of Darcy's Decision,  The Future Mrs. Darcy and All the Appearance of Goodness and Twelfth Night at Longbourn.  Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, follow on Twitter or email her.

Related articles

• The Living Decoration: The Ornamental Hermit in Georgian England
• John Nash, Designer of Regency London

The Patterer: News Mongers We Love

by Larry Brill

It came to me in a flash of inspiration.

Late at night and unable to sleep I opened a book, Infamous Scribblers, about the wordsmiths and rabble-rousers that were our first journalists in America. Since too many Americans are only vaguely aware that there were a few significant developments in history between the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, the author, Eric Burns, started with the obligatory chapter tracing journalism in this country back to its roots in England.

And he wrote a very short paragraph describing 18th century fellows known as “patterers.” It was not much more than a throwaway mention of street performers who would run from corner to corner in London hyping the news of the day for the crowds they drew. Burns offered the observation that they might conceivably be considered a forerunner to today’s TV newscaster.

As someone who spent 25 years at a news anchor desk, I knew immediately there was a story there. From that moment, the Patterer became my personal hero.

The rise of the patterer coincided with Britain’s industrial revolution; both gained steam through the first half of the 18th century. By the end of the century, both were running like the well-oiled machines that were turning England into an industrial marvel and global powerhouse. This was also in an age when literacy was on the rise and the number of newspapers in England grew from a smattering when The Daily Courant was launched in 1702, to more than 50 in London by 1776.

London streets were teeming with costermongers back then, vendors who sold anything and everything from their carts, their tables, their haversacks or even their pockets.

Fish and poultry? “Got you covered, Sir.”

Rings and buckles? “Yes Ma’am, step right up.”

Cough drops and elixirs? “Guaranteed, Doctor Maximucel’s potion right here will cure anything that ails ya.”

Many costermongers used their strong lungs, shouting and competing with one another amid the loud and chaotic din on those crowded London streets, in order to sell their wares. And those streets were unquestionably a crowded and noisy place to do business.

“Fresh Fruit. Vegetables and tobacco. Get them here.”

“Oy! Oy, razors. Knives. Sharpen your blade sir, three shilling an’ a half.”

Some started taking the role of common street barker a step further by using interesting stories or jokes to engage passers-by. They might sing or juggle. Or they might, as one 18th century citizen observed, “help off their wares by pompous speeches, in which little regard is paid either to truth or propriety.” Those costermongers would perform with whatever skill they had to steal the attention of potential customers.

Ah, but the “patterers,” the street sellers of news and information, well, they were the elite of their class, and more often than not, looked down their noses at the other costermongers. It was the cachet of having a product for the mind and not the hands.

“We are the haristocracy of the streets.”

That is what one patterer told Henry Mayhew. Mayhew was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and wrote London Labour and the London Poor, the definitive study of the city’s street people in the 1840s. He compiled four volumes from exhaustive interviews with people like rag pickers and rat killers, fish sellers and chimney sweeps, beggars, prostitutes and, yes, the costermongers who sold news and literature and called themselves “patterers.” Mayhew published his work just as the patterers reached their peak.

There were essentially two types. The “running patterer,” who not only had a strong voice, but strong legs. He needed them because he moved quickly up and down streets and alleyways, slowing only long enough to sell a newspaper, or its cousin, the single page broadsheet that might be as long as your arm. The stories they told and the papers they sold dealt almost exclusively with the most lurid and sensational acts of blood and lust that they could find to print. And when they couldn’t find or recycle a decent bit of mayhem, they simply made it up. No news? No problem.

The “standing patterer” was no less prone to embellishing a good murder or scandal in ways that would make even today’s most jaded tabloids cringe. But he had an advantage that allowed him to rely less on sensational details in his stories and more on his imagination and an entertaining delivery. Because he had the luxury of engaging and holding the audience he drew to his corner, he offered a longer, higher quality of storytelling that may have lacked the shock and awe of his running counterpart but was no less compelling.

He would set up on the corners of thoroughfares and use a large placard on a pole with drawings depicting the terrors a reader might find in the newspaper and pamphlets he had to sell. And here we are, more than two hundred years later, using computer-generated graphics on the TV screen to do the same thing.

It was their education, formal or informal, that separated the elite patterers from the rest of the street sellers. They were the “brainy” ones making a living on the street.

"People don't pay us for what we gives 'em, but only to hear us talk. We live like yourself, sir, by the hexercise of our hintellects - we by talking, and you by writing.”

That’s how Henry Mayhew’s patterer explained it in 1840. Many were men with respectable connections and families. These were the sons of gentlemen and even noblemen. Mayhew interviewed patterers who were the sons of high ranking military officers, clergy, two whose families raised them to be in the medical profession, as well as an entire class “who have been educated with no especial calling.” Some took to the streets after a fall-out with their families that deprived them of support. Others took up the street life simply because they were born to be rovers and rogues.

They dressed better than your average costermonger on the street. Mayhew reports that patterers took pride in their looks, probably because it was good for business. He wrote that in dress and appearance, they presented little difference from the “gent.”

The patterer actually advanced and fed the public’s appetite for news. Patterers pitched and sold newspapers and magazines for the growing body of middle class readers. They entertained and informed the illiterate with enough detail that both could share a table at the pub and carry on reasonable dialogue about current affairs. And so it was, in the end, literacy and the masses’ ability to read that killed off the patterer.

Two hundred years hence, he’s back. The patterer has been resurrected by technology and transported right into our living rooms night after night through the magic box we call television.

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

Larry Brill spent 25 years as a modern day patterer, anchoring TV news in several cities across four states. The Patterer is his second novel, and imagines what it would look like if the modern newscast were dropped onto the streets of London in 1765. Brill’s Dickensian satire proves that over the centuries nothing has changed in the news business except the technology that produces it.

Larry is giving away a copy of The Patterer. Please see the giveaway HERE.


Amazon

Larry's Website

Let There Be Light...Lighting London's Streets

by Regina Jeffers

In describing London at the end of the 1600s, Francis Maximilian Mission, author of Nouveau voyage d'Italie: avec un mémoire contenant des avis utiles à ceux qui voudront faire le mesme voyage (New travel from Italy: with a report containing of the opinions useful to those which will want to make the mesme travel), said:

“They set up (at every tenth house) in the streets of London (Mr Edward Hemming was the inventor of them about fifteen or sixteen years ago), lamps, which, by means of a very thick convex glass, throw out great rays of light which illuminate the path…They burn from in the evening until midnight, and from every third day after the full moon to the sixth day after the new moon.”

Mission had erred in his estimation of the use of lighting in the early 18^th Century, but the City, obviously, impressed the French writer and traveler. As early as the 17^th Century, the law enforced street lighting from Michaelmas (September 29) to Lady Day (New Year’s Day until 1752, but with the adjustment of the calendar from Julian to Gregorian, April 6) each evening until midnight.

In 1417, Sir Henry Barton, Mayor of London, ordained “lanterns with lights to be hanged out on the winter evenings between Hallowtide and Candlemasse.” Paris led the way with lighting the streets. A 1524 order said inhabitants were to keep lights burning in windows, which faced the street. With the regulations of 1668 to improve London’s streets, the residents were “encouraged” to hang out their lanterns each evening.

In 1690, an order required residents to hang their own lights before their homes. By an Act of the Common Council in 1716, all housekeepers, whose houses faced any street, lane, or passage, were required to hang out, every dark night, one or more lights, to burn from six to eleven o’clock, under the penalty of one shilling as a fine for failing to do so.

The aforementioned Edward Hemming attempted to set up lights in 1685 Cornwall as an example of his plan to light London with whale-oil lamps. Needless to say, the Companies opposed Hemming’s plan. Those who made tallow chandlers, tinsmiths, and horners saw Hemming’s proposal as a threat to their livelihood.

The historian, James Peller Malcolm, recorded that “Globular lights were introduced by Michael Cole, who obtained a patent in July 1708.”  Malcolm went on to describe “a new kind of light, composed of one entire glass of globular shape, with a lamp, which will give a cleaner and more certain light from all parts thereof.” Supposedly, Cole first exhibited the light outside a St James coffee house in 1709.

Cesar de Saussure, who has left an amusing and detailed description of his journey from Yverdon, Switzerland, through the German States and then across the North Sea from Rotterdam to London, describes the London streets of 1725 as, “Most of the streets are wonderfully well lighted, for in front of each house hangs a lantern or a large globe of glass, inside of which is placed a lamp which burns all night. Large houses have two of these lamps suspended outside their door by iron supports, and some houses even four.”

The most commonly used fuels until the late 18^th Century were olive oil, fish oil, beeswax, whale oil, sesame oil, nut oil, etc. From parish to city parish, a system was put into place to raise a rate from “eligible” households for lighting the streets. Later, a similar system was used for financing paving the streets and establishing a watch. A series of Acts of Parliament established the necessity for proper lighting for London’s streets. A 1736 Act gave the City of London the power to charge the inhabitants for lighting the streets throughout the year.

From Dan Cruickshank and Neil Burton’s Life in the Georgian City, we learn,

“The aldermen and common council began by determining how many houses there were in the City, valued them, decided how many lamps were needed and what they would cost to erect and maintain, and then determined what proportions of the total each rateable inhabitant would have to pay. There were, it was calculated, 1,287 houses with rent under 10 pounds per annum 4,741 with rent between 10 and 20 pounds per annum; 3,045 with rent between 20 and 30 per annum; 1,849 with rent between 30 and 40 per annum; and 3,092 with rent of 40 pounds and upwards per annum. 'In all, 14,014 houses, then inhabited and chargeable.' 

"The reference to rent should not be confused with actual rent paid.' Rates were calculated on the value of a house that was expressed in terms of the rent it was worth. This is not to say that the occupier was actually paying that rent: he could have been a freeholder, a most rare thing in the 18th Century city, paying no rent; a lessee paying merely a nominal ground rent to the landlord; or a sublessee on a short lease paying a rack rent. The committee then established that the number of lamps required was 4,200, exclusive of those wanted in 'public buildings and void places.' 

"This was based on the decision that lights should be 'fixed at 25-yd distance on each side of the way in the high streets, and 35 in lesser streets, lanes, etc.' The money was calculated and raised in the following manner: The several wards of the City agreed for lighting them at an average of 41s. per annum per lamp, at which rate the expense of 4,200 lamps amounted to 8,610 pounds. The fixing of those on posts and irons, averaged at 14s. 6d. each [equalled] 3,045 pounds. 'Houses under 10 pounds [rent] paid 3s. 6d. per annum; under 20 pounds paid 7s. 6d.; under 30 pounds paid 8s.; under 40 pounds paid 9s. 6d.; upwards of 40 pounds paid 12s.'"

In 1726, Stephen Hales procured a flammable fluid from the distillation of coal. From "158 grains [10.2 g] of Newcastle coal, Hales stated he obtained 108 cubic inches [2.9 L] of air, which weighed 51 grains [3.3 g], being one third of the whole." However, Hale's results passed without notice for several more years.  

  

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

Regina Jeffers loves all things Austen and is the author of several novels, including Darcy’s Temptation, Captain Wentworth’s Persuasion, The Disappearance of Georgiana Darcy and Second Chances: The Courtship Wars .

Her website is: www.rjeffers.com

Flip, Shrub and other drinks favored of Georgian Londoners

by Tim Queeney

While researching my book, George in London, set in 1751, I came across many intriguing types food enjoyed by Londoners of the Georgian era. Among the most colorful of these were the names of popular drinks. From small beer and perry to flip and shrub, the drinks of 18th century Londoners often carried names whimsical to our modern ears.

Take rum fustian, for example. It’s a wonderfully old fashioned name. Not one you’re likely to hear today. If it was, you might at least expect you were getting a rum drink. But you would be wrong. Rum fustian was made with a quart of strong beer, a pint of gin, a bottle of sherry and 12 eggs, smoothly mixed and flavored with nutmeg, lemon and sugar.

The key element in the fustian was gin. And gin was a wildly popular drink in Georgian London. So popular and so cheap -- you could buy a large quantity for only a penny -- there were fears that English society would collapse due to the drunkenness, illness and death brought on by widespread gin abuse during the Gin Craze. Artist William Hogarth’s engraving "Gin Lane" (image above), shows the state of alarm many people felt about the Gin Craze. A distilled liquor that uses juniper berries for flavoring, gin consumption was rampant from the 1730s to roughly 1750 when the Gin Craze began to taper off. As Rosamond Bayne-Powell writes in Eighteenth Century London Life, “...working men went into gin shops on Saturday night, and were found lying dead drunk on the pavement the next morning.”

Along with gin, the other widely consumed drink in London was beer. In 1725, Londoners drank 1,970,989 barrels of strong beer. London had, by one eighteenth century count, 207 inns, 447 taverns, 5,875 beerhouses and 8,659 brandy shops dispensing beer and other drink. If that prodigious amount of strong beer was imbibed, what was small beer? As its name suggests, small beer had a low alcohol content and was considered fit for servants and children! This dispensing of beer to children, while alarming by modern standards, wasn’t quite as callous as it sounds. Water supplies in the eighteenth century were often dangerously contaminated. The alcohol in small beer was usually sufficient to kill deadly microorganisms.

Wine was also popular. Since Britain was often at war with France in the eighteenth century, French wine could be hard to come by. The solution was Portuguese wine, including wines shipped from the city of Oporto, hence the name “port” for wine from Portugal. The 1725 numbers had London consuming 30,000 tuns of wine. A tun was a large barrel holding roughly 256 gallons or about 960 liters. Thus, the 30,000 tuns equaled about 7,680,000 gallons of wine.

What about the other colorful drink names? Perry was a drink made from pears, much as hard cider was made from apples. Shrub was a drink made with a “shrub” or concentrate of orange or lemon juice mixed with sugar and rum. Toddy was hot black tea to which was added sugar or honey, cloves or cinnamon and whiskey. And porter was a type of dark beer brewed with dark malts. It was from porter that stout evolved.

Perhaps the most quaint name for an eighteenth century drink enjoyed by Londoners is flip. Flip was made by mixing ale with sugar, adding eggs and a spice such as nutmeg or cinnamon and then a liberal portion of rum or whiskey. Then the liquid was made to “flip” or froth by immersing a red-hot poker from the fire. This was a popular drink with sailors and Darius Attucks, the mariner who accompanies young George Washington on his adventure in London in my book George in London would likely have had flip often.

During George and Darius’ adventure in London they attend a gala ball at the house of George’s patron, the Baron Mowenholtz. Darius describes the refreshments for the guests:

“The back hall nearest the kitchen was provided with several long tables and lit by four candelabras. Across the tables was arrayed a rich selection of sweet meats, roasts of beef, quails, pigeon pie, cold mutton, veal chops, Colchester oysters, ox palates, pickled whiting, turtle soup, peas, boiled potatoes, leeks, apples, oranges, plums, cheeses both white and yellow, loaves of bread, cakes, syllabubs, Atholl Brose, fruit pies and tarts. To drink were bottles of cherry wine, a bowl of brandy punch, fustian punch, mulled wine, French claret, Madeira Sack, heavy port wine, porter, ale, gin and rum — as this last was a sailor’s spirit, I fancied the baron had provided it for my benefit and so availed myself aplenty.”

My book George in London is available on Amazon for Kindle and will be available in other formats soon. Tim’s news satire website is Height of Eye.





Sources: Dr. Johnson’s London, Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education; Liza Picard, St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

Eighteenth Century London Life; Rosamond Bayne-Powell, E.P. Dutton, 1938.

Hanoverian London 1714-1808; George Rude, University of California Press, 1971

A Sea of Words, A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O’Brian; Dean King, Owl Books, 2000.