Editor's Weekly Round-up, September 9, 2018

by the EHFA Editors

Here's what you missed last week on English Historical Fiction Authors. Enjoy!

September in British History

by Karen V. Wasylowski

(Editor's choice from the Archives)

Winchcombe and its Royal Connections

by Annie Whitehead

Sir John Fielding, "The Blind Beak of Bow Street"

by Karen V. Wasylowski

Sir John Fielding, the younger half-brother of the great English novelist Henry Fielding, was one of the first, and one of the finest, of London policemen.  Born in 1721, his vision was lost through an accident by the age of nineteen.  There were no radios, no tapes—no known way for a blind person to be able to read.

So what did John Fielding do? He opened a business which he called the Universal Register Office. This was a combination labor exchange, travel agency, information office, real estate agency, and insurance company. John ran it single-handed. In his spare time, his brother Henry taught him law.

Big brother, Henry Fielding, when not writing novels such as Tom Jones, had become a magistrate with the power to investigate crimes, question suspects, and then either release them or order them held for trial. He was so successful that he was given the title of Chief Magistrate, head of law enforcement - except that London of the 1750's had no organized police force at all.

Imagine a city of over half a million people, terrible slums, a high crime rate, and no real police force. The few parish constables were chosen by lot, much as we choose juries today, to serve for one year. Most paid substitutes to take their place, and many of the substitutes were as dishonest as the criminals they were supposed to control. Most of the rest, along with the night watchmen, were too disorganized, too feeble, or too frightened of the powerful street gangs to be of any use.

Henry Fielding tried to change all this. He drew up plans for controlling crime, turned his house in Bow Street into a kind of police station, and hired a few of the best constables to serve as more or less permanent police officers—"Bow Street Runners" was the name by which they would soon be known.

In 1754 Henry's health began to fail him enough to force him into retirement, before he was able to put his plan into action.  His position, which would become known as Chief of the Metropolitan Police, was offered to his brother John, a position John held until his death in 1780. John immediately set out to put Henry's plans to work.

The Bow Street Runners were very effective, breaking up most of the gangs of London street robbers within two years.  After than John concentrated on organizing horse patrols to combat highwaymen, printed descriptions of wanted criminals and stolen goods.  He was at his best in questioning witnesses and suspects, weeding out the truth from the lies, allegedly being able to recognize three thousand criminals by the sounds of their voices.  He was the brains and his runners did the legwork.

In 1761 John was knighted for his services, becoming Sir John Fielding.  However, he was already respectfully known by another title - "The Blind Beak of Bow Street." ("Beak" was the 18th century slang for anyone in a position of authority.)

A contemporary described Sir John as wearing a black bandage over his eyes and carrying a switch, which he flicked in front of him as he entered or left his courtroom. He was strict with hardened criminals and was responsible for sending many men (and some women) to the gallows. But he was lenient with young people, especially first-time offenders.

However there were downsides to his reforms- and they are interesting to reflect upon. For example, scandals about Press coverage of cases didn't begin in Cambridge or in the United States, they began largely (though, of course, not exclusively) with Fielding's court.

He encouraged press coverage of cases to bring new accusers forward- but that led to the exploration of evidence in public by the press and the worry that trials might be retarded or even prejudiced. The words of the Attorney General, James Wallace, in 1780 warned (the words are from a contemporary press report):

"...that the PUBLIC examination[s] at Bow-street were productive of the most mischievous consequences to society. The injury done to individuals, who might be innocent, was such for which no possible compensation would be made; the evidence for the Crown was given up; the prisoner came to his trial without the possibility of a fair enquiry; the minds of the people were influenced; the jury prejudiced; and, where any possible guilt lodged, the prisoner hardly stood the chance of a fair acquittal."

What impresses me most is his concern for children.  With no social services network to protect children, they were probably the most vulnerable, the most mistreated and the most heartbreaking segment of that society, the boys turning to crime and the girls to prostitution in order to survive.   He helped organize charities to feed and clothe abandoned children, and institutions to teach them reading, writing, and some kind of a trade. As a police official, he saw that the best way to stop criminals was to get to them before they became criminals. In this he was almost two hundred years ahead of his time.

Years after Sir John Fielding's death London finally had an organized police force, born through his early efforts and his infamous "runners".   And, many of the procedures set up by Sir John Fielding are still used in  police manuals today.

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

 John Dashney,

Visit her blog The League of British Artists or League of British Artists Pinterest

Sailing to America - passenger travel by sea, from the Sirius to the Titanic

By Karen V. Wasylowski

On 15 April, 1912, on her maiden voyage, the magnificent Olympic Class Ocean Liner, RMS Titanic, struck an iceberg and sank, causing the deaths of 1,502 people.  One of three majestic ships owned by the White Star Line, built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, she was the epitome of elegance, the grandest of her kind, and ultimately doomed to pass into history as the largest peacetime maritime disaster in modern history.

However, Titanic wasn't the first steam engine to cross the 'pond' - by far.  Nearly one hundred years before, in May 1819, the Savannah, a sailing packet with an auxiliary engine and collapsible paddle wheels, sailed from Georgia, USA, to make the first crossing of the Atlantic. She reached Liverpool in 633 hours, having steamed for only 80 of those hours, but her achievement greatly encouraged support for the steamship. By 1833 the Atlantic crossing time had been reduced to 22 days, a considerable improvement from the two month crossing on a strictly sail powered ship.  Steamships began to operate on the major imperial routes to India, South Africa and Australia as well.

In the 1830's three major shipping companies were formed.  The British and American Steam Navigation Company, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company and the Great Western Steamship Company. The Sirius, a small chartered steamship owned by the British and American Steam Navigation Company, was the first vessel to cross the Atlantic with passengers - forty brave souls leaving from Queenstown in Ireland on April 4.  Four days later a ship from the Great Western also sailed across from Bristol, entering New York harbor only four hours after the Sirius arrived, completing a fourteen day crossing that had usually taken at least six weeks.

It was the beginning of the steamship era and also the beginning of the Blue Riband contest for the fastest crossing by passenger ships.  The race was on.

Enter Nova Scotia's Samuel Cunard.  Cunard had won the shipping rights to carry the mails between America and England and on 10 July, 1839, the 1000 ton Royal Victoria, renamed the British Queen, made her maiden voyage, London to New York, spurring his rival, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the dynamic engineer of the Great Western Steamship Company, to create a 3700 ton vessel called The Mammoth.

Brunel equipped his ship, the renamed Great Britain, with 350 staterooms as well as a luxurious dining room, setting the standard of ocean liners for years to come.  On 17 July, 1840 she docked in Halifax, having crossed the Atlantic in 11 days and 4 hours.

During the 1850's Cunard's ships were fast and punctual, but not very conducive to passenger travel. They were still more commercial at the time - no rival to the Great Britain, encouraging the mighty Brunel to design an even bigger ship. In 1854 he began work on the Great Eastern, a ship large enough to carry 4,000 passengers and enough coal to sail to Australia.  At 693 feet long, 120 feet wide and weighing over 18,900 tons, it's like would not be seen again until the creation of the Lusitania in 1907 and the Titanic in 1912.

The Great Eastern never could fill her berths, unfortunately, and as strong and safe as she was (Brunel pioneered the double hull system) her maiden voyage had only thirty-eight passengers.  In 1863, she was refitted as a commercial vessel and later was used as an amusement park in ports around Britain.

The Scotia

The last paddle steamer

It was around 1856 that Cunard began to rise.  His liners included the Persia, sailing across the Atlantic in nine days, and the Scotia, the last paddle steamer - both these ships often won the Blue Riband award for speed of crossing.

More and more shipping lines were founded over the following years.  Harland and Wolffe built and launched 16 ships, backing the White Star Line and their magnificent ship The Oceanic in 1871.  Cunard took back it's lead ten years later with the Servia, a ship of 17 knots and electric lights.

The British reigned supreme in the steamship industry but competition began rising from Italy, German, France, Holland.  The competition to be the fastest was fierce, with the Blue Riband award switching shipping lines year to year.  Then, disaster struck.

Capital Edward Smith, Titanic

Was it the long ingrained competitive nature within the industry then that caused the Captain of White Star Line's Titanic to ignore danger 15 April, 1912 ?  More than likely.  Titanic had received a series of warnings from other ships about the drifting ice in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland; however, her Captain, Edward Smith, felt confident his ship was indestructible, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Titanic survivors aboard the Carpathia

The RMS Carpathia, carrying the survivors, arrived three days later in New York at 9:30 p.m., 18 April, with 40,000 people waiting at the dock.  Immediate assistance in the form of food, clothing and shelter was provided by the Travelers' Aid Society of New York, the Women's Relief Committee, and The Council of Jewish Women, among others.

The disaster was greeted with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life and the regulatory and operational failures that had led to it. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to major improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which still governs maritime safety today.

The Blue Riband award to the fastest crossing of a passenger liner in the Atlantic is still alive today as well.

Karen V. Wasylowski's first book, 'Darcy and Fitzwilliam', was a continuation of Jane Austen's wonderful 'Pride and Prejudice', and is the only 'bromance' in Jane Austen Fan Fiction telling the story of the two cousins, the iconic Fitzwilliam Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, their friendship and their battles.  A review in Jane Austen World and Jane Austen Today said of 'Darcy and Fitzwilliam' - "It is absorbing.  It is intoxicating.  It is excellent."

On 1 October, 2012, the family saga begun in 'Pride and Prejudice', continues with 'Sons and Daughters', Karen Wasylowski's Book Two of the Darcy and Fitzwilliam Tales.  The cousins are older now, married with children, and a bit wiser - but not by much.  The book follows their lives and the growth of their families through good times and bad.  A recent review in Amazon said "I read almost all of the continuing stories and 'what ifs' of Pride and Prejudice. This was my favorite.  I laughed all through this book"

To order either "Darcy and Fitzwilliam" or "Sons and Daughters" click here

Karen Wasylowski on Amazon. com.

And visit her blog too, for all the latest on British actors, plays and television

THE LEAGUE OF BRITISH ARTISTS

St. Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland

Posted by Karen V. Wasylowski
(FROM HISTORY.COM)

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is one of Christianity's most widely known figures. But for all his celebrity, his life remains somewhat of a mystery. Many of the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling.

"It is known that St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. He is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D. Although his father was a Christian deacon, it has been suggested that he probably took on the role because of tax incentives and there is no evidence that Patrick came from a particularly religious family.

At the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. (There is some dispute over where this captivity took place. Although many believe he was taken to live in Mount Slemish in County Antrim, it is more likely that he was held in County Mayo near Killala.) During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people. Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian. (It is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity.)

After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. According to his writing, a voice—which he believed to be God's—spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland. To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast.

After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation—an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than 15 years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission: to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish. (Interestingly, this mission contradicts the widely held notion that Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland.)

Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish.

Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick's life became exaggerated over the centuries—spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life."



Karen V. Wasylowski is the author of "Darcy and Fitzwilliam" (a riotous continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice) "...a Regency Era 'Butch and Sundance'."  Purchase on-line in print or e-books, and at all major bookstores.

To purchase 

Visit my other blog:  The League of British Artists

Victorian Era - the Birthplace of Modern Advertising

By Karen V. Wasylowski

SCHWEPPES ADVERTISEMENT 1900

A beautiful painting done for advertising Schweppes, early 1900s.

I have become inordinately fond of Victorian Advertising; the colors, the artwork, the images are so lovely that they often make you blink your eyes in wonder. The fact is that Advertising Agencies were a Victorian innovation, created in a time of rapidly expanding brand names, marketing and promotional techniques.

The promotional posters I favor feature a typical Victorian wife and mother, and what her life was like, what her worries were (or perhaps, like modern times, it was what advertisers believed her worries should be, in order to best sell their products)  However, the loveliest ads feature the children of the era.  I don't think I've ever seen a modern ad that could touch this type of innocent beauty.

 I love these three, however what they are up to is anyone's guess.

Of course, Victorian advertising did not only feature sweet children, pets and mama.  The activities of the industry reflected the Victorian passion for outlandish stunts and would make the basis of a fascinating TV drama series along the lines of Mad Men.  Consider the Monkey Brand and Brooke's soap.

This poor fellow is subjected to all sorts of indignities for the sake of sales, from leaping over bars of his soap to dressing up in costume, circus performing, being adopted by John Bull, or sadly skinned and used by a child as a substitute horse.  The advertising message on the first picture is priceless:

"We're a Capital Couple, the Moon and I,

I Polish the Earth, She Brightens the Sky,

And we Both Declare, as Half the World Knows,

Though a Capital Couple, WE WON'T WASH CLOTHES!"

Karen V. Wasylowski is the author of the Pride and Prejudice sequel, "Darcy and Fitzwilliam" a continuing tale of the friendship between Mr. Darcy of Pemberley and his charismatic older cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam - the Regency Era's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

Check out my blog, The League of British Artists, too.

Downton Abbey (or, Highclere Castle in sheeps clothing)

By Karen V. Wasylowski

Unless you've lived under a log for the past year or so you will recognize this sweet little English house.  It is Highclere Castle, or as we Downton Heads like to call it - Downton Abbey.

The history of this family, as well as the house, is very well known.  It was the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon who financed the Howard Carter expedition into Egypt that resulted in the discovery of none other than King Tutankhamen's tomb.   The house itself, designed by Sir Charles Barry, who also designed the Houses of Parliament, is situated on one thousand beautiful acres, an area roughly the size of Central Park in New York and has been in the Carnarvon family since 1679. 

There are over two hundred rooms, fifty to eighty bedrooms, some cellars, a really keen gallery and, unfortunately, only one ladies room.  But isn't that always the way.

I thought I would dig up some other, lesser known, tidbits about the Abbey.  Like, why is it called an Abbey? Well, as many other of the great English Estate houses, "Highclere is on the site of a former ecclesiastical property. (When then-king Henry VIII turned against the Catholics in the 16th century, he appropriated lock, stock, and barrel.) Used by the bishops of Winchester in the 12th century, even now, it boasts a 'monks’ garden.'" Can a bingo  room be very far off?  (I'm beginning to sound like the Dowager Countess.)

Another fun fact - if there ever was a fire "the evacuation procedure from the upper floors would have resembled an emergency airline deplaning. The maids would have had to slide through tunnels of canvas spread over iron hoops, reports Tom Sykes in the Daily Beast. As such, the danger of getting caught up during escape was significant, and so in case of fire, maids were urged to don sweaters before popping into the chutes."  I would imagine the family could just walk out the doors.

The row of bells we see every week to summon the servants to various aristocratic bedrooms, or to the family parlor or the library or, well, to wherever it is servants need to go, each have individual tones, so that the servants could tell, without looking at the words over the bells, which of the family was summoning them and to where.  My husband believed this to be a brilliant idea and attempted to install a similar system within our own home. The fire is nearly out now.

This last fun fact is my favorite.  Apparently, in the Carnarvon family's never ending quest to meet the unbelievable expense of running a home of this size (can you imagine the heating bill alone?  Energy saving tip - seal off all but 199 rooms and get a space heater.) But I digress...where was I?  Oh yes, well it seems they would like to sell off a bit of the land, develop fringes of the estate.  Now you and I wouldn't think twice about unloading the extra lot next door to us, but these poor folk are forced to butt heads with their neighbor - Andrew Lloyd-Webber, or Baron Andrew Lloyd-Webber now.  Imagine the repercussions.

If my neighbor objects to a Walmart being built on land I sell, or the odd Starbucks, he would have to take me to court - I suppose.  I don't really know, not having anyone actually interested in either my house or my land.

The poor Carnarvons, however, are going mano a mano with another peer of the realm. Or should that be Peer?  Does the problem now go before Parliament?  Is Cameron to be informed?  Must Will and Kate be forced to take sides? Two hundred years ago they would settle it like gentlemen - bet the entire SHE-bang on one hand of Vingt-et-un, or better yet - a duel at dawn in Hyde Park.  Ooh, ooh, better yet again, a hundred year's before that someone would have lost their head, be drawn and quartered - or worse.  I'm nearly certain of my facts.  Well, one can dream can't one?

Today I believe the worst that may happen is this - either Andrew Lloyd-Webber's land will touch a housing development filled with upper middle class Mrs. Bucket's attempting to introduce their various and vocally challenged offspring to him.

Or...the Carnarvon's may be forced to listen to Evita.

Beheading is not sounding so darn bad now, is it?

Karen V. Wasylowski is the author of the Pride and Prejudice sequel, "Darcy and Fitzwilliam".

Featured in June 2011 by the Orange County California Register as one of six books

They selected for a "Great Summer Read"

(also may be read in Spring and during several

week-ends in Fall.  Contact a

physician for Winter reading)

Finally, please visit my blog, The League of British Artists, to catch the latest news regarding your favorite handsome British actors and - occasionally when we must so that we don't appear to be stalkers - actresses.   (You can buy Darcy and Fitzwilliam there too)  (Buy two.)

A Victorian Christmas Carol

By Karen V. Wasylowski

I have always thought of Christmas time…as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were really fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

- Nephew Fred from 'A Christmas Carol'

There is nothing in this world that evokes Christmas more for me than Victorian England and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  How many times have I seen this movie, and in how many versions?   Well, it's hard to keep track - the story is similar to Pride and Prejudice in that Hollywood feels the need to keep retelling the tale, change the locale, modernize the message.  My brother and I watched and waited each year for it, hoping for the 1951 version starring Alastair Sims and complaining bitterly if it was the 1938 Reginald Owen film.  In 1970 Albert Finney starred in 'Scrooge' but I never did take to his performance.  It was like Tom Jones on crack cocaine or something and then in 1988 Bill Murray got 'Scrooged' and that just made me nervous.  I never for one moment believed Scrooge was reformed in the end.  I mean, it was Bill Murray after all. 

The Christmas festivities described in A Christmas Carol were a good deal different from the old Puritan Christmas that had been the norm for years.  Puritans, Quakers and others strongly disapproved of the mingling of liquor and merriment with a sacred holiday, were disturbed by some of the tradition’s origins in pagan ritual. Writing in 1871, G.K. Chesterton provides an insight into the mid-19th century mindset with his claim that

...in fighting for Christmas [Dickens] was fighting for the old European festival, Pagan and Christian, for that trinity of eating, drinking and praying which to moderns appears irreverent, for the holy day which is really a holiday.

In spite of its detractors, the New Christmas gradually took hold, and the Victorians established many of the customs that are at the center of today’s traditional Christmas celebration. In 1840, when Prince Albert celebrated the holiday at Windsor Castle by presenting his family with the “German” Christmas tree, all of England followed suit. The festival began to focus predominantly on the family, particularly on children. The first Christmas cards appeared in 1843, the year that A Christmas Carol was published. The originally pagan ritual of caroling was revived, gift giving grew in importance, and the traditional Christmas dinner began to take shape.

And still it grows - there are new traditions added every year, cultural preferences, family blending.  Christmas itself remains the same though, a blessed time of peace, family and remembrance.   I pray you have a joyful day, but remember others less fortunate.  May you help the poor, love your neighbor, forgive your enemies. 

And settle in for another year of "A Christmas Carol."

Preface to A Christmas Carol 

        "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

 Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D. "

 Merry Christmas, and God Bless us,

One and All

Hope you take a moment and visit my other blog -
"The League of British Artists"

'Darcy and Fitzwilliam' By Karen V. Wasylowski

"It is absorbing.  It is Intoxicating.  It is excellent..."  Jane Austen's World and Jane Austen Today

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Giveaway: Darcy and Fitzwilliam

A signed copy of Darcy and Fitzwilliam is being offered by author Karen Wasylowski. You can read about the book HERE, and then return to this post to leave a comment with your contact information to enter the drawing.

This contest ended at midnight Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, EST.