Of Refinement and Good Manners

by Maria Grace

Etiquette is an integral part of every culture. Although the details differ among regions and historical periods, the concept of correct and incorrect ways to behave remains constant. Rules of polite behavior are essential elements of communication within a society, a social code that enables individuals to understand motives and subtle messages that are otherwise cumbersome to display through words alone.

These social rules are adopted and adapted over time. Some may be written into elaborate manuals, though many are unwritten, caught rather than taught among the population at large.

In general these rules reflect the values of a society. Following these rules demonstrates respect for the common morality and for other people. Obedience to the guidelines of good manners also reflects on the character of the individual and suggests one is well bred and refined.

In periods of great social transition, like the Regency, published manuals are especially abundant. Many pages in these manuals were filled with comments on general deportment and the behavior to be exhibited by individuals of good breeding. When trying to rise into higher levels of society, a family’s social standing could be made or broken by the ability to conform to all the conventions associated polite behavior.

Although these patterns of etiquette might appear awkward and restrictive, especially for women, they did act as a safeguard against misunderstanding and embarrassment for both parties. This was particularly true as well-bred women were thought to have a "natural" sense of delicacy. Taste and poise should come naturally to a lady, and it was an indictment against her breeding to be worried about looking correct.

Marks of Good Breeding


In line with the emphasis on elegance and formality, people were encouraged to maintain an erect seating posture when sitting or standing. Slouching or leaning back was regarded as slothful unless the individual was infirm in some way. Similarly, a well-bred person walked upright and moved with grace and ease. Moreover, such a person maintained an elegance of manners and deportment and could respond to any social situation with calm assurance and no awkwardness.

Etiquette demanded a person behaved with courteous dignity to acquaintance and stranger alike at all times. Well-bred individuals and those seeking to be seen as such were instructed to keep at arm's length any who presumed too great a familiarity. Icy politeness was the best weapon in putting so-called 'vulgar mushrooms' in their place.

To be considered wall-mannered, an individual had to control their features, their physical bodies, and their speech when in company. Extremes of emotion and public outbursts were unacceptable, as was anything pretentious or flamboyant. A woman, though, could have the vapors, faint, or suffer from hysteria if confronted by vulgarity or an unpleasant scene.

All forms of vulgarity were unacceptable and to be continually guarded against. Laughter, too, was moderated in polite company, particularly among women. Men might engage in unrestrained mirth in the company of other men or among women of low repute for whom the rules of etiquette were more or less irrelevant.

Showing Respect

These marks of good breeding were one means by which respect for others was demonstrated. Rituals of bowing and curtsying accomplished similar ends.



A bow or curtsy would be performed according to the status and relationship of the person encountered and with respect to the particular circumstance. For example, a bow or curtsey would be made on entering or leaving a room, though good friends and family were not always bowing to one another.

Bows and curtsies were expected at the beginning and end of a dance, and on encountering any person one wished to acknowledge. Children generally bowed or curtsied on meeting their parents for the first time each day.

When encountering people in public, etiquette suggested it was the woman's duty to acknowledge an acquaintance first by a slight bow with the head and shoulders. If she did not make such an acknowledgement, a gentleman should not acknowledge her.

Such recognition could only occur if the two individuals had been previously introduced.

Introductions

It was unacceptable to speak to anyone of good breeding without a formal introduction by a third party.

The higher ranking individual (or the woman in the case of two equally ranking individuals) would indicate whether he or she wishes to permit the introduction of an inferior. In the case he or she desired an introduction, a third party would be asked to make one. At a public ball, the Master of Ceremonies would conduct this service to enable gentleman and ladies to dance. However, if the higher ranking person did not desire an introduction, one could not be forced upon them.

In some circumstances, the higher ranking person could introduce him or herself to the lower one. When introduced the people of lower rank bowed or curtsied. Gentlemen and ladies of equal rank bowed and curtsied when formally introduced to each other and again when parting.

Touching and tipping one's hat was a standard salutation, not returning it would be very rude. After being introduced, individuals always acknowledged each other in public, at minimum with a tip or touch to the hat or a slight bow of the shoulders. Failure to acknowledge an acquaintance was a breach in conduct and considered a cut. Manuals warned that a lady should never ‘cut’ someone unless ‘absolutely necessary’ and only ladies were truly justified in delivering a ‘cut’.

Servants



Servants and social inferiors were, of course the exception to this rule. They were always kept at a proper distance but without arrogance, pride or aloofness. The well-bred individual spoke to servants with an appropriate degree of civility and avoided the casual informality with which a person might address an equal. Private business was not discussed in the presence of servants and they were generally ignored at mealtimes. Mocking or belittling servants or their families was deemed undignified and a sign of bad manners.

Conversation

The heart of polite sociability was conversation. The whole purpose of conversation was to please other people and to be deemed pleasing. In general, conversation was tightly controlled by rules of etiquette as well. The list of unacceptable topics far outnumbered the acceptable ones.

A polite individual did not ask direct personal questions of someone they had just met. To question or even compliment anyone else on the details of their dress might also be regarded as impertinent. Personal remarks, however flattering, were not considered good manners. Etiquette manuals counseled such comments should be exchanged only with close family and intimate friends.

Similarly, scandal and gossip should be omitted from public conversation. Any references to pregnancy, childbirth, or other natural bodily functions were considered coarse and carefully sidestepped. A man could sometimes discuss his hunters or driving horses in the presence of ladies though it was generally discouraged. Greater latitudes of conversation were allowed when the genders were segregated, particularly for the men.

Touch 

Not surprisingly, good manners required all forms of touching between members of the opposite sex were to be kept to a minimum. Putting a lady's shawl about her shoulders, or assisting her to mount a horse, enter a carriage and for a gentleman to take a lady's arm through his to support her while out walking were considered acceptable forms of courtesy.

Shaking hands though was not. In the Regency era, shaking hands was considered a mark of unusual affability or intimacy. Only gentlemen of about the same social class, who knew each other well, shook hands. Moreover, the intimacy of shaking hands was a mark of condescension, if offered by one of a higher rank.

Shaking hands with a person of the opposite sex was less frequent and less proper. A pressure of the hands, was the only external sign a woman could give of harboring a particular regard for certain gentleman and was not to be thrown away lightly. According to some contemporary conduct guides, a woman should avoid even touching the hand of a man who was not a family member.

Between sisters or ladies of equal age or rank a kiss on the cheek was acceptable. A gentleman might kiss a lady's hand, but kissing it 'passionately' was a gesture of excessive intimacy.

Though these rules might seem excessive, adherence to them was crucial, especially for ladies whose reputations were especially brittle. For those seeking admission to higher society, any breech in etiquette could be fatal to one’s social standing.

References
A Lady of Distinction - Regency Etiquette, the Mirror of Graces (1811). R.L. Shep Publications (1997)
Black, Maggie & Le Faye, Deirdre - The Jane Austen Cookbook. Chicago Review Press (1995)
Byrne, Paula -in Jane Austen in Context. Cambridge University Press (2005)
Day, Malcom - Voices from the World of Jane Austen. David & Charles (2006)
Downing, Sarah Jane - Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen. Shire Publications (2010)
Jones, Hazel - Jane Austen & Marriage. Continuum Books (2009)
Lane, Maggie - Jane Austen's World. Carlton Books (2005)
Lane, Maggie - Jane Austen and Food. Hambledon (1995)
Laudermilk, Sharon & Hamlin, Teresa L. - The Regency Companion. Garland Publishing (1989)
Le Faye, Deirdre - Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. Harry N. Abrams (2002)
Ray, Joan Klingel - Jane Austen for Dummies. Wiley Publishing, Inc. (2006)
Ross, Josephine - Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners. Bloomsbury USA (2006)
Selwyn, David - Jane Austen & Leisure. The Hambledon Press (1999)
Trusler, John - The Honours of the Table or Rules for Behavior During Meals. Literary-Press (1791)
Vickery, Amanda - The Gentleman's Daughter. Yale University Press (1998)

An Editor's Choice from the #EHFA Archives, originally published April 11, 2013

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Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful.

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

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, or follow on Twitter.

Apothecary

By Toni Mount

Medieval apothecaries were the equivalent of our modern pharmacists. An apothecary’s shop was full of various cures, most of which he prepared himself. He was usually a trusted member of the community, but at times, apothecaries were accused of practising magic or witchcraft. In an age before folk had easy access to doctors and when hospitals were religious foundations, more interested in curing your soul than your body, the apothecary was an ordinary person’s best hope of a cure or relief from an illness. Because apothecaries saw different people with various illnesses each day, most had a huge knowledge of the human body and herbal remedies.

Early in the Middle Ages, an apothecary would have cultivated all the plants and herbs needed for his medicines himself. Later, supplies became more organised, especially in cities like London, York and Bristol, with individuals growing plants to order for the apothecaries.

The recipes for the wines, syrups, cordials and medicines were passed down through the generations, from master to apprentice. They were closely guarded secrets too, since the most successful apothecary would have the most customers. While some apothecaries worked on a casual basis from their own homes, many had their own retail premises, usually a small shop. The front of the shop would have shelves full of medicines and herbs and in the back section, the apothecary would prepare medicines as and when they were needed. Ideally, he would also have access to a garden, where he could grow some of the less exotic herbs and plants he needed to prepare his cures. Some of the most popular medicines were prepared in advance, ready for sale, just as in a modern-day pharmacy. Other cures were prepared as and when needed, and were made up precisely, with the apothecary using his knowledge of the patient and the illness to prepare what he thought would be the ideal remedy.

Apothecaries were often spicers or pepperers as well. Because their work involved weighing out small amounts of herbs and spices for use in medicine, or for direct sale to customers, their trade was regulated by the Grocers’ Guild. It was impossible to separate the two businesses completely as both were involved in importing and distributing spices from abroad, for use in cooking and in the preparation of products such as spiced wines. In addition to food and drugs, apothecaries also sold inks and pigments to the stationers, beauty products and perfumes, substances used in fumigation and pest control and even good luck charms and novelties such as serpent-stones – what we know to be ammonite fossils.

A collection of medical recipes from the fifteenth century [now MS136 at the Literary Society of London] has remedies which make use of herbs that really could have performed the cure as intended:

For the Migraine take half a dishful of barley, one handful each of betony, vervain and other herbs that are good for the head; and when they be well boiled together, take them up and wrap them in a cloth and lay them to the sick head and it shall be whole – I proved.

A sick headache might well be eased by this poultice. Betony was a favourite herb in medieval times and was taken internally for a range of ailments. It’s still used today in treatments for nervous headaches and some types of migraine. Vervain is also used in modern medicine as a nerve tonic and as a calming restorative for patients in a debilitated condition. It too is used to treat migraine and depression.

For those troubled with digestive problems, this fifteenth century remedy would have helped:

To void Wind that is the cause of Colic take cumin and anise, of each equally much, and lay it in white wine to steep, and cover it over with wine and let it stand still so three days and three nights. And then let it be taken out and laid upon an ash board for to dry nine days and be turned about. And at the nine days’ end, take and put it in an earthen pot and dry over the fire and then make powder thereof. And then eat it in pottage or drink it and it shall void the wind that is the cause of colic.

Both these spices, anise and cumin, are carminatives, so this medicine would do exactly what it said on the tin – or earthen pot. The herbs dill and fennel could be used instead to the same effect – twentieth century gripe water for colicky babies contained dill. Wind and constipation were common preoccupations in the Middle Ages because folk ate so many pulses and little roughage, apart from cabbage.

Despite such suitable treatments as these, other remedies, despite the use of some exotic ingredients, could only have worked as panaceas. These concoctions are for gout:

Take badger’s grease and swine’s grease and hare’s grease and cat’s grease, dog’s grease and capon’s grease and suet of a deer and sheep’s tallow, of each equally much and melt them in a pan. Then take the juice of herb-robert, morell, mallow and comfrey and daisy and rue, plantain and maidenhair, knapweed and dragance, of each equally much juice, and fry them in the pan with the aforesaid greases, and keep it well, for the best ointment for gout is this. Or:

Take an owl and pluck it clean, and open it clean and salt it. Put it in a new pot and cover it with a stone and put it in an oven and let it stand till it be burnt. And then stamp [pound] it with boar’s grease and anoint the gout therewith.

A cough cure was more pleasant, consisting of the juice of horehound to be mixed with diapenidion and eaten. Horehound is good for treating coughs and diapenidion is a confection made of barley water, sugar and whites of eggs, drawn out into threads, so perhaps a cross between candy floss and sugar strands. It would have tasted nice and sugar is good for the chest, still available in an over-the-counter cough mixture as linctus simplex. Another pleasant cough treatment was coltsfoot comfits, like tiny sugary sticks of pale brown rock. King Henry III had the apothecary, Philip of Gloucester, supply him with 7½ lbs of diapenidion when the king visited the West Country in May 1265, along with 5lbs of grana, all together costing 7s 6d. My source for this [The Royal Apothecaries by Leslie G Matthews, 1967, pub by the Wellcome Historical Medical Library] suggests ‘grana’ meant aromatic seeds to aid digestion, like caraway or cumin, or it could have been Grains of Paradise, a kind of pepper. But ‘grana’ was also a name given to the exotic ‘kermes’ – dried scale insects, imported as a crimson dye. Could they have been used medicinally? Or was grana to be used to dye the king’s robes?

Another medicinal possibility is that grana was for dyeing the bed linen and curtains as part of the treatment of smallpox, in which the sickroom was swathed in red. Today we know this wasn’t so daft since red cloth filters out UV light, to reduce the production of scar tissue and to protect the eyesight of patients with smallpox or measles (these two diseases were hard to tell apart in the early stages anyway) – red light works for burns victims and would have decreased the pock marking in the case of smallpox. The medieval apothecary, like Gilbert Eastleigh in ‘The Colour of Poison’, was expected to know so much about such treatments, even if the reasons why they worked – or didn’t – were beyond the medical knowledge of the time.

N.B. One fifteenth century school book gives a list of collective nouns, including ‘a poison of treaclers’ (i.e. apothecaries who sold medicinal treacle).

[This an archive Editor's Choice post. It originally appeared on EHFA on 28 April 2016]

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Toni Mount earned her research Masters degree from the University of Kent in 2009 through study of a medieval medical manuscript held at the Wellcome Library in London. Recently she also completed a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing with the Open University. Toni has published many non-fiction books, but always wanted to write a medieval thriller, and her first novel “The Colour of Poison” is the
result. Toni regularly speaks at venues throughout the UK and is the author of
several online courses available at www.medievalcourses.com.

Sea Bathing in the Regency Era

By Megan Walker

Regency era physicians had unique ways of treating various ailments and physical conditions in addition to prescribing herbal remedies and routine care such as exercise, nutrition, etc. Sea bathing is one such treatment prescribed by eighteenth century physicians who believed the water, even the cold temperature of the sea, could be a remedy for certain ailments. Because of this new interest in the medicinal properties of seawater, attitudes about the sea shifted from those of fear and uncertainty to excitement and enthusiasm.

Bathing at Bridlington, Yorkshire

Eighteenth century physicians also prescribed drinking seawater, sometimes mixed with honey or sugar, to their patients in addition to bathing in the sea. This fact is proven in an excerpt from an article published in The Atlantic entitled, The Historic Healing Power of the Beach: "In 1750 Dr. Richard Russell published a treatise, A Dissertation on the Use of Seawater in the Diseases of the Glands, Particularly, the Scurvy, Jaundice, King’s Evil, Leprosy and the Glandular Consumption, in which he advocated using seawater for bathing and drinking. In one case, Russell describes a man suffering from leprosy; a “most troublesome case.” The patient’s head and entire body was “sprinkled over with leprous spots.” But after being prescribed to “drink a pint of sea water every morning during nine months, without any intervals” the patient recovered. The regimens also usually involved bathing in seawater to strengthen and invigorate the body. As seawater drinking became more popular, these kinds of case studies proliferated. The miracle of the sea seemed to provide infinite therapies."

Though there were many sea towns on the coasts of England, the first of which is thought to be a resort in Scarborough, in Yorkshire. I mainly researched Brighton, a fascinating town with a history of the Royal Pavilion and plenty of tourism. While people of various ailments, including the Prince Regent himself, flocked to the sea for whatever medicinal benefits they believed they'd receive, later, many people came simply for the enjoyment of bathing or dipping in the sea.

Sea Bathing at Scarborough

In order to experience the waters fully, men and women often, if not most of the time, attended separate or opposite ends of beaches for the purpose of maintaining privacy and modesty, since some bathed naked. Careful distance was always rendered in the event that this was not the case. "Bathing" doesn't necessarily mean swimming, though we know from paintings and depictions that both men and women in some respects seemed to know how to swim well. An attendant was always nearby to help the person into the water, and would stay with them if needed. Oftentimes bathing in the sea meant a quick, cold dip in the waters, even in freezing temperatures. Jane Austen's cousin said in a letter to her, "I still continue bathing notwithstanding the severity of the Weather & Frost & Snow which is I think somewhat courageous."

Men’s wardrobes while sea bathing were less of a special event, as many did not require anything new or noteworthy, oftentimes bathing in the nude. Women, on the other hand, often wore flannel dresses, even sometimes with weights sewn into the hems of their skirts so as to keep them from floating up, but some women also enjoyed a private nude dip as well. Some women even had special hairstyles and commissioned dresses that were adorned with frills and lace instead of the typical blue costume many wore.

The new BBC drama Sanditon depicts well what a typical bathing experience would look like. A small wheeled carriage house called a bathing machine would be driven out into the water with person or persons inside. Once changed or unrobed in the tight little room, attendants would be waiting. The person would be assisted down into the waters, or a brave person might jump right on in if they were experienced. How long someone bathed was, as far as I found, entirely up to them. These same practices that were used in sea towns were also used out in the country in lakes or ponds for families and friends. The question of how many people actually knew how to float or swim, especially women, is debated, though it seems likely that more men than women took up the sport.

What little we know about sea bathing comes from paintings, drawings, diaries and other writings. Though the sea was first feared, medicinal beliefs changed the minds of many who saw the waters as a miraculous experience, and even further an enjoyable time. Were the waters of Brighton healing for the people and physicians who believed? As much as there are different people in the world, there are different opinions. Some people believed firmly in the healing powers of sea water. Others thought it a foolish notion. Even Jane Austen had her doubts.

Jane Austen's cousin letter can be found in this article: https://www.janeausten.co.uk/tag/sea-bathing/
The Atlantic article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/279175/
More reading on sea towns: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number19/sutherland.pdf

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Megan Walker was raised on a berry farm in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where her imagination took her to times past and worlds away. While earning her degree in Early Childhood Education, she married her one true love and started a family. But her imaginings of Regency England wouldn’t leave her alone, so she picked up a pen. And the rest is history. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and three children.


Book Purchase links:

https://shadowmountain.com/product/lakeshire-park/

https://www.amazon.com/Lakeshire-Park

facebook.com/authormeganwalker

Instagram: @authormeganwalker

www.authormeganwalker.com

Parliament in the Middle Ages

by Susan Appleyard

Parliament was the feeble offspring of the Magna Carta. ‘No taxation without representation.’ That was the slogan of a later age and a different country, but it serves here. Magna Carta was forced on King John by the barons, and what the barons meant by representation was… well, themselves, plus some of the more prominent landed knights. The barons were serving the commonwealth of the realm which was… well, themselves.

Nevertheless the weakling child that had been born in a meadow near Runnymede, despite lack of nurturing, survived and was given an infusion of vitality in 1265 by Simon de Montfort.

Simon de Montfort

His father of the same name was the one who did such sterling service for the Catholic Church during the Albigensian campaign. De Montfort junior is credited with being the Founder of Parliament, but his motives were far from altruistic. He was a rebel who seized power from King Henry III after his victory at the battle of Lewes. But his position was tenuous. To gather more support for his cause, he summoned burgesses from all the major towns, as well as the barons and knights who had previously counseled the king. It was the creation of a new limb: the Commons.

Under Henry’s son, Edward I, the calling of parliament became a more frequent event. In the thirty-five years of his reign, parliament was summoned no less than forty-six times. Nor was Edward’s motive altruistic. He needed money to pursue his Welsh and Scottish wars. The Commons had not yet learned that they could say ‘No, Sire,’ or perhaps they were a little overawed by him, but they did soon learn that if they voted the King money they could get something in return.

16th-century illustration of Edward I 

presiding over Parliament 

To summon parliament writs were sent out from the chancery instructing the sheriffs of each county to hold a county court for the election. Freemen who owned freehold land worth 40 shillings a year could vote. Two knights of the shire were elected from the thirty-seven counties in England, and two burgesses were elected from every town that had the right to send members to parliament enshrined in its charter, as many as two hundred and twenty-two.

Inevitably there were abuses and fights aplenty. A man who thought he had a good chance of being elected and took along some friends for support would swiftly change his mind when he arrived and found the door blocked by a rival who had even more friends. In 1362 deputies of the sheriff of Lancaster returned themselves without consulting the constituents.

John Paston got into a fight at the shire house with the sheriff, Sir John Howard, and was twice struck by a dagger. Members were supposed to live in the borough, but sometimes nobles and knights would invade a town, bringing along their own candidate and forcing the voters to elect him. Or a local baron would send along his thugs to make sure the candidate who best supported his interests was elected. Some of the great nobles didn’t have to resort to strong-arm tactics; they simply let their wishes be known, and it was done. These practices were particularly prevalent during the War of the Roses.

The money was good: four shillings a day for the knights; two shillings for the burgesses. Not bad when the average daily wage for a peasant was two pennies. The financial burden fell on the shires and the boroughs.


By the late middle-ages the Commons had won some clout. They made laws and they made kings. And they unmade some kings too.

For more information visit:
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/birth_of_parliament_01.shtml


This Editor's Choice from the EHFA Archives was originally published on May 24, 2015.
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Susan Appleyard is the author of numerous work of historical fiction. Her latest release is Bonfire of the Perfect: The Albigensian Crusade. See all Susan's works at Amazon.

Connect with Susan
Blog: https://susanappleyardwriter.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.appleyard.9
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mexisue1

The Golden Age of the Canal in England and Northern Wales

By Jude Knight

If a breakthrough technology is one that offers a solution to a complicated problem, leading to explosive economic growth, canals were one of eighteenth-century England’s breakthrough technologies.

Not that canals were new, or even unique. The Persians and the Chinese built massive canals, and the Chinese are credited with inventing the pound lock, with a sluice gate either side and a pool in the middle that could be lowered or raised by opening one gate or the other.

Mitred gates followed. With a mitred gate, the gates are slightly too large to close flat. They meet with mitred edges pointed towards the higher water level, and water pressure keeps them shut. When the level on both sides is the same, the pressure is off and the gates open easily.

Canal Lock

Europeans started building canals in the twelfth century, and the first mitred gate was built in the fifteenth century. It was probably the San Marco lock in Milan, which joined two canals at different levels.

Canals were slow but steady

The impetus, of course, was economic. Canals allowed heavy goods to be moved reliably, efficiently, and in bulk lots.

The roads, where they existed at all, were dreadful, limiting the amount that could be pulled by a team of horses or oxen. Boats could carry heavier loads, if they could move. Rivers had currents: travelling against them was hard and even drifting downstream could be dangerous after rain. Sails are fine if the wind is blowing and in the right direction, but what about when the river bends? On a river, boat captains had to wait: for the weather, the tide, a fair wind.

A canal offered still water. Even better, a horse or mule could be yoked to the boat and walk beside the canal. A horse could move around fifty times as much weight pulling a boat on still water than on pulling a cart over old-fashioned roads.

The industrial revolution depended on transportation

By the mid-eighteenth century, England was putting together the elements of what would later be called the industrial revolution. Cheap cotton from the colonies fed the textile mills. All sorts of industries began to mechanise, with more and more efficient steam engines to turn the wheels of their operations. Mechanised manufactories turned out vast quantities of goods compared to previous methods. And those engines consumed huge amounts of coal. How could raw materials get to the mills? How could the finished products get to the market. A complicated problem, indeed!

In 1759, the Duke of Bridgewater proposed a simple canal project: a canal with a series of locks to join his coal mine to the nearest river, the Irwell, which travelled through a valley three miles away. Brindley, the engineer he hired had a far more ambitious plan. He proposed a canal straight to Manchester, ten miles away, jumping the Irwell on an aqueduct and built as level as possible to avoid time-wasting locks. 

Salt Mills Canal

The Bridgewater canal opened in 1861 and the duke’s coal reached Manchester for half the previous cost. The great age of canal building had begun, and before it ended the whole of the South, Midlands, and parts of North England and Wales would be linked by a connected network of canals, locks, aquaducts, and tunnels.

Canals fed the factories; factories fed the canals

Others soon followed. The first canals were built by private individuals who had stuff to move. Josiah Wedgewood was one. He needed clay at his manufactory in Staffordshire, and then wanted to transport the pottery he created to market with as few breakages as possible.

Canals allowed the existing manufactories to move more goods at lower prices, and encouraged others to build along their lines.

Brindley, builder of more than 300 miles of canal, set the standard dimensions for canal locks, and those dimensions governed the length of the boats. The locks were 72 feet 7 inches long, and 7 feet six inches wide. The boats had to be a smidgeon shorter, and became known as narrowboats. They could carry thirty tons of cargo, and be pulled by a single horse, walking the towpath.

The network ran on horses and horse feed 

The horses worked hard all day. They had to be fed well and regularly with high energy food, and stalled in a stable at the end of each day's journey (because a hot tired horse will become ill if kept in a cold field at night).

So the canal system was peppered with stopping places where horses could be cared for and where local farmers could sell corn, crushed oats and chopped hay.

To keep working, a horse had to be fed well and regularly with high energy food and all the corn, crushed oats and chopped hay had to be prepared and available at the provender stores all over the system. An army of ostlers and blacksmiths made sure the horses were well and well-shod. The system employed thousands of people and horses, quite apart from those who were on the water.

The railways were the beginning of a long century of decay

When I first started researching the canals, I saw them through a Victorian lens, and expected to find families living on the boats, but in the glory days of the canals, narrowboating was a male enterprise. Families lived in cottages along the banks or at one terminus or the other. Once the railways began, they offered a faster alternative for transporting bulk goods, and the rates for the narrowboats dropped to the point that wives and children came to live aboard, to save rent and to provide extra labour.

Motorised canal boat on the Pontcysyllte aqueduct

Though canal boats, most now motorised, would continue for more than a century, the golden age of the canal was over.

Images: 

Salts Mill Canal.jpg

Salt's Mill from the canal, Saltaire

Salt's Mill is mainly on the south bank of the Leeds and Liverpool canal. But there is also a building on the north bank, connected by an enclosed bridge. On a Monday morning in early March, it was really quiet between the buildings, the loudest sound was the ducks quacking. Think of it 150 years ago when barges would have been loading and unloading at the large doors on the ground floor in the foreground.

© Copyright Rich Tea and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Canal boat on aquaduct.jpg

A canal boat traverses the longest and highest aqueduct in the UK, at Pontcysyllte in Denbighshire, Wales

Public Domain image

Canal lock.jpg

Kennet and Avon Canal, Wootton Rivers looking north-east The lock gates don't appear to be particularly watertight. The lock-keeper's cottage is the white building to the right of the image.

Brian Robert Marshall [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[This is an Editor's Choice archive post, first published on EHFA on May 9, 2017]

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Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place; to give them a virtual holiday within a compelling story with interesting company.

In her novel A Raging Madness, released 9 May 2017, her hero and heroine are fleeing villains; one near crippled after an injury and the other recovering from forced laudanum addiction. If they go by road, they’ll be dead or caught. Jude sends them on a canal boat, one of the slowest forms of transport known to human kind, but so ubiquitous in the early 19th century landscape as to be nearly invisible. Researching canal boats was great fun.

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All the Plays Not Fit to Perform: Theatrical Censorship in London

By Lauren Beglin

In 1909, the Lord Chamberlain banned a play by George Bernard Shaw. The play included the following exchange about what the government should do regarding suffragettes:

BALSQUITH: But you can’t shoot them down! Women, you know!
MITCHENER: Yes you can. Strange as it may seem to you as a civilian, Balsquith, if you point a rifle at a woman and fire it, she will drop exactly as a man drops.

The play, Press Cuttings, was banned from public performance. This was due not to suggesting the government should murder protesters but that the Prime Minister character bore too close a likeness to the then-sitting Prime Minister.

And so went the censorship of London’s theatres.

Parliament’s earliest known interference with theatres dates to 1530 and was intended to curb potential mob violence. Censoring plays due to subject matter began not quite a decade and a half later in 1543. As part of the English Reformation, Parliament banned plays that involved any sort of religious indoctrination, including interludes and mystery plays. Put another way: If a performance could be viewed as pro-Catholic, best not to stage it.

Modern censorship, as it were, began on June 24, 1737, courtesy of Prime Minister Robert Walpole and his Licensing Act. Playwrights and managers were required, at least fourteen days before performance, to submit plays to the Lord Chamberlain for approval. Anyone who did not would be considered “a rogue and a vagabond” and potentially fined.

Examiners of Plays read the plays and flagged those that required the Lord Chamberlain’s attention. Examiners were not required to provide any reason for censoring a play. While some did, those who did not left playwrights guessing as to what needed to be altered for a play to reach the general public. What was allowed and what was forbidden seemed an ever-moving target. Comedies had more leeway than drama, and censorship was pre-production and limited to a play’s text.

Even these generalities had exceptions, as demonstrated by Arthur Wing Pinero’s A Wife Without a Smile. This 1904 comedy included a doll that one reporter wrote “acts as indicator of the different degrees of amorousness of persons using the couch.” Upon reading a review that referenced this dancing doll, one man wrote to the Lord Chamberlain and demanded the play be closed for being “repugnant to every sense of decency.” The gentleman in question had not seen the production, but the Lord Chamberlain had and initially allowed the play to continue. Public outrage and pressure, however, caused the Lord Chamberlain to withdraw the play’s license.

These events occurred alongside a widening divide between public performances, which required the Lord Chamberlain’s approval, and private performances, which did not. The latter were not amateur performances done in residential drawing rooms but clever legal fictions. Private theatre clubs were usually subscription based and sometimes presented at major London venues. For those in the know, these clubs were the best way to see controversial productions. Earning the Lord Chamberlain’s disapproval came to be considered a badge of honor. Press Cuttings became the Edwardian version of a cult favorite in private performances.

Other notable plays that earned the Lord Chamberlain’s disapproval included:

• Waste by Harley Granville-Barker. Originally written in 1906 about a politician’s affair with a married woman and her subsequent abortion.
• Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw. Completed in 1894 and focusing on a young woman who discovers her gilded existence is thanks to her mother being a member of the world’s oldest profession.
• Lorelei by Jacques Deval. A 1938 anti-Nazi drama never granted a license for fear of offending the German head of state.
• Phyl by Cicely Hamilton. Centers on a governess who turns to prostitution, and licensed in London in 1911 but not performed after it ran afoul of the censor in Oxford.
• Vectia by Marie Stopes. Banned due to its central theme of couple’s lack of marital relations stemming from the man’s disinterest.

Granville-Barker rewrote Waste, and the updated version premiered in the 1930s. Mrs. Warren’s Profession reached a limited audience via private performances in London before causing an uproar following its 1905 New York premiere (a story unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay).

1918 Production of Mrs Warren's Profession

Stopes recorded her thoughts on censorship in the 1926 printed edition of Vectia. That Vectia was published demonstrates one of the oddities of the censorship laws: books did not fall under the Licensing Act. Similar to private performances, books became another avenue for writers to bring their work to at least part of the public.

With what one assumes was unintended irony, in the same essay where she argued against banning her play, Stopes ended by supporting the status quo on the basis of limiting theatre’s liability. By taking this position, she sided with theatre owners and managers rather than playwrights.

Beginning in the late Victorian Era, writers and actors had chafed against being limited by one man’s tastes, morals, and convictions. The importation of plays such as Hedda Gabler had increased the demand for dramas that tackled social issues. The sometimes arbitrary system of censorship made creating such plays tricky as those who write for money are unlikely to devote time to projects unlikely to reach an audience.

Parliament convened a joint select committee to study theatrical censorship in 1909. In the course of hearings, several well-known members of the theatrical community spoke. George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville Barker, JM Barrie, Arthur Wing Pinero, and John Galsworthy all argued in favor of artistic freedom.

Suggestions were made. A report was issued. Nothing of substance was done.

World War I ended the push to curtail the Lord Chamberlain’s powers. The issue was not taken up again until after World War II. Not until 1968 would theatres be allowed to stage whatever filth and controversy they desired.

For trivia buffs: The last censored play was Hair. Once the Theatres Act 1968 passed, the musical went onto a run of 1,997 performances, ended only by the theatre’s roof collapsing.

These days, plays sent to the Lord Chamberlain’s office before 1968 can be referenced at the British Library. Some now in the public domain are available online (see below).

Returning to the Edwardian Age, which has been the focus of my research, censorship had an unintentional side effect of aiding the movement towards realism and modernism in the twentieth-century English theatre. The forbidden fruit, after all, is that much sweeter.


Sources
Fraser, Neil. Theatre History Explained. Ramsbury, UK: Crowood, 2004.
Granville-Barker, Harley. Three Plays. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1909.
Ellis, Samantha. “Pinero's A Wife Without a Smile, October 1904.” The Guardian, June 11, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/jun/11/theatre.samanthaellis
Hamilton, Cicely. Diana of Dobson’s: A Romantic Comedy in Four Acts. London: Century Co., 1908. Reprinted with preface and notes by Diane F. Gillespie and Doryjane Birrer. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2003.
Licensing Act 1737. 10 George 2 c. 28. Available at http://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/eighteenth-century/1737-10-george-2-c-28-the-licensing-act/
Shaw, George Bernard. Mrs. Warren’s Profession. With an introduction by Leonard Conolly. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2005.
Shaw, George Bernard. Press Cuttings: a topical sketch compiled from the editorial and correspondence columns of the daily papers. Reprint of the 1913 London Constable edition, Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5723
Shellard, Dominic. The Lord Chamberlain Regrets … : A History of British Theatre Censorship. London: British Library, 2004.
Stopes, Marie C. A Banned Play and a Preface on the Censorship. London: John Bale, Sons & Danielson, 1926.
Theatres Act 1968. c. 54. Available at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/54

Plays Available Online
Mrs. Warren’s Profession
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064790387&view=1up&seq=11
Press Cuttings https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t7hq42c8r&view=1up&seq=7
Waste
https://archive.org/details/wasteplayinfoura00gran/page/n8/mode/2up
A Wife Without a Smile: A Comedy in Disguise
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t2q52hv6n&view=1up&seq=7

~~~~~~~~~~

Lauren Beglin is based in Los Angeles. Her current manuscript is a comedic novel set in Edwardian London. Although unable to travel to England for research, she did visit the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Belmont-Paul House in Washington, DC. In Los Angeles, she’s become a regular fixture at several libraries, most notably the Los Angeles Central Library and its fabulous collection of plays, including several first editions circa 1900.

The aforementioned institutions are not to blame for any errors in the preceding paragraphs.

For updates on her road to publication or to connect with her via social media, please visit: laurenbeglin.com
Twitter: @lauren_beglin
Instagram: laurenbeglin

The Rise of the Medical Profession

By Judith Leask

The medical profession – that is, the role of physician – was one of the few ‘gentlemanly’ professions of the 18th-19th centuries[1]. Was it the prospect of attaining this status in society that attracted so many young men into the profession during this era? Was there an enthusiasm to practise the emerging powers to heal the sick that drew them in, or was it a desire for a place of public prominence at a charitable hospital? For some it may have been a philanthropic ambition to address the shameful living conditions of the poor, in both urban and rural locations; for others, no doubt, it was a hankering to gain access to the drawing-rooms of the wealthy and titled.

Dr Lydgate, the beautifully crafted character in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, was motivated by the need to view himself as a success, and to leave a legacy – to leave his name to some key piece of advancement in medical science; Dr Harrison in Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Cranford Chronicles wished to spread modern medical principles to the sleepy country town.

Whatever their varying motivations, young men were increasingly drawn to the study of this field – prominent centres of learning were London hospitals[2], as well as Edinburgh[3] and Glasgow[4]. In the later part of the 19th century, it was not only the young men who aspired to this profession – women began to question why they should be shut out, and began to break down the door (more on this later).

Anatomy

An improved knowledge in this area was essential for advancing medical science, and a continuous supply of cadavers was required to educate students of medicine, but the public were naturally averse. From the times of Henry VIII, dissection had been associated with the executed corpses of convicted felons or murderers, which were not permitted to be buried, and therefore did not receive the proper religious rites[5]. To have one’s body dissected was therefore an added punishment, and was a mark of an utter lack of respect, even ignominy. It’s easy to imagine, therefore, that doctors who pursued this form of study were held in suspicion – why would any person of respectability wish to do such a thing? Who could tell what such a doctor, so lacking in a sense of moral rectitude, may do to gain a further supply of cadavers to study?

The increasing demand for cadavers that outstripped the supply of executed bodies had somewhat ghoulish, if perhaps predictable, results – the practice of grave-robbing began to flourish. The trade of the Resurrectionists paid quite well: a gang of 15 grave robbers operated in the vicinity of Lambeth, using 30 burial grounds, until they were rounded up in 1795[6]. Families who were wealthy enough would have their deceased relative entombed in a metal coffin or had a mortsafe of iron bars placed around the grave.

Illustration of resurrectionists at work - Credit

While disturbing a grave was a criminal offence, the taking of the corpse was not – a corpse was not considered property, therefore could not be stolen[7]. However, engaging in this act was very ill-advised, given the strength of public feeling against dissection, and many medical students were lucky to escape with their lives from the angry crowds when suspected of being involved.

Others found a more direct source of cadavers to sell – famously Burke and Hare killed 15 of the lodgers who stayed at Hare’s Edinburgh lodging house over the course of about a year, until they were discovered in 1828. Before embarking on this killing spree they had taken the body of a man who had died of natural causes to the university and sold it for £7 10s; it seemed they could not resist engaging in a further trade[8].

This grisly trade resulted in the Anatomy Act of 1832, which gave physicians, surgeons and medical students the legal right to corpses that were unclaimed after death, in particular those who had died in a hospital, prison or workhouse [9].

Burke and Hare circa 1850 - Credit

Hospitals

The setting up of charitable hospitals also flourished through this period.

To take London as an example, in the early 18th Century St Thomas’s and St Bartholemew’s hospitals were the only two hospitals, endowed by Henry VIII and Edward VI respectively, and were supported by estates confiscated from the church at the time of the reformation. Then came Guy’s Hospital, founded in 1721 and supported by the large estate of Thomas Guy – these three ‘endowed’ hospitals could survive independently without the need for public donations[10] .

Further hospitals were set up in the 18th century via charitable associations. Coinciding with advancements in medical knowledge, hospitals became places where one might seek a cure, rather than simply receiving refuge and comfort. Many were also institutions for medical training, with some being set up specifically to serve close-by medical colleges.

This sounds as though people who could not afford to pay for their chosen doctor to treat them at home were well catered for – that multiple hospitals that served the growing urban population would provide for their needs. The reality was unfortunately quite different; in most cases it took some time and effort to gain admission – and often time was not on the patient’s side. To receive charitable treatment a patient would have to seek a letter of recommendation from a governor, who would be limited to the number they could recommend, and could pick and choose who they agreed to support.

Admissions were also only possible on one or two days a week[11].  Imagine falling ill with a dangerous fever on a Tuesday, if admissions at your local hospital occurred on Mondays only. Fortunately from the 1820s, institutions began to appear that did not require such a recommendation, or any payment – they would treat in case of need. Prince Albert was the supporter of one such hospital.

In addition to general hospitals, a number of lying-in (or maternity) hospitals were established.

Initially these were for married women only; perhaps the controversy that arose from these hospitals related to taking this activity into a more public sphere rather than existing only in the domestic – certainly the attendants were women only at first. One can only imagine what was said by genteel folk of the General Lying-In Hospital’s policy of admitting single as well as married women, when it was established in London 1767[12] .

Women in Medicine

In the 18th and early part of the 19th century, women’s role in the medical world extended to midwifery only, an occupation for a skilled low-born female.

As far as education was concerned, schools that admitted girls equipped them to be considered ‘accomplished’ and to at least know a little history, and so on; after all, what genteel man would want a wife who could not hold a reasonably intelligent conversation with their dinner guests, or play the pianoforte in the drawing-room? The story of women educationalists is a fascinating one – of women who defied convention to set up schools that taught a full curriculum, such as the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, founded in 1858[13] .

No university in this country awarded degrees to women until the University of London in 1878[14]  – and the London School of Medicine for Women, established in 1874, formed an association with this university in the late 1800s[15]  to enable women to train as doctors. To put this into context – Oxford did not award degrees to women until 1920[16], and Cambridge in 1921 began to acknowledge the studies of women but only with a ‘diploma’[17] . The first woman doctor in this country (registered in 1859) did not gain her degree here – Elizabeth Blackwell studied in Geneva, New York, gaining her medical degree in 1849, the first woman in America to do so[18].

Elizabeth Blackwell Postage Stamp - Credit

Can you imagine what it must have been like, as a young woman with aspirations, to attempt to break through the beliefs so firmly rooted throughout society at the time? To persuade the world to break with the centuries-old convention that prohibited their having an education and a professional role?

Nursing

While this post is about medicine, I couldn’t possibly neglect to mention Florence Nightingale in a discussion on healthcare and women’s roles in the 19th Century. She is described as the founder of modern nursing, and after her famous role as ‘the lady with the lamp’ in the Crimean War, she set up the nursing school at St Thomas’s hospital in 1860[19]. At a time before germ theory was accepted as the cause of disease, Florence instilled more sanitary conditions in hospitals and transformed nursing care.

Florence Nightingale - Illustrated London News, 1855 - Credit

But it is her determination to pursue her passion despite her family’s opposition that fascinates me – her refusal to have her life shaped by the conventional roles dictated by society. It was my admiration for her approach that led me to preface my book with this quote:

‘The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.’ – Florence Nightingale.

Notes

 [1] http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/gentlemanly-professions.html
 [2] https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/about/history/oxford-medical-sciences-through-the-centuries/1800s
 [3] http://www.electricscotland.com/history/medical/medicine8.pdf
 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_medical_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom
 [5] http://www.leeds.ac.uk/chb/lectures/anatomy1.html
 [6] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1440-1622.2001.02127.x/pdf
 [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_Act_1857
 [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders
 [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Act_1832
 [10] http://www.nhshistory.net/voluntary_hospitals.htm
 [11] ibid
 [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Lying-In_Hospital
 [13] https://www.cheltladiescollege.org/about-clc/history-of-college/
 [14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_education
 [15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Medicine_for_Women
 [16] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/only-in-britain/oxford-university-allows-women-to-graduate/
 [17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cambridge#Women.27s_education
 [18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackwell

 [19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale

~~~~~~~~~~

Judith Leask is a long-term reader of historical and classical novels, and began writing fiction when dared to do so by a fellow wordsmith in her project management office. Six years, many writing group sessions and several re-writes later, her first novel Her Peculiar Gifts has now been released – a contemplative tale of James, a shy doctor, and his daughter Laura, who possesses unused talents. A further historical novel, set in Jamaica, is underway, and for her dragon-loving children she wrote The Silver Shell, to be released soon. Her story about the ghost of Charles Dickens can be found in the anthology Haunted. She has discovered a passion and a talent for developmental editing, and is now a freelance book editor with Just Right Editing. This gives her the chance to read and help to refine all manner of books – which is heaven for a bookworm.

https://judithleask.wordpress.com/
https://judithleask.wordpress.com/just-right-editing/

Miss Willmott’s Ghost

By Judith M. Taylor

“Miss Willmott’s Ghost” is the vernacular name of Eryngium giganteum, a large prickly ornamental thistle but by now I am afraid Miss Willmott herself has become something of a ghost too. Born the eldest of three sisters into a wealthy family she managed to spend her entire fortune on her gardens and ended up in grave financial difficulties. Not only did she inherit the family estate but her godmother left her a lot of money at her death.  Ellen Willmott, 1858- 1934, had no internal governor or compass, otherwise known as “common sense”, nor did she employ an external one such as a financial adviser. If she did she ignored whatever advice she received.

Portrait of Ellen Ann Willmott
(Rosina Mantovani)

Already the possessor of two estates with stellar gardens, one in England and one in France, in 1905 she insisted on buying a third in Italy, making the total number of gardeners she employed more than one hundred. Even Rockefeller might have thought twice about that. All her gardeners were men. She had nothing but contempt for women gardeners. The men were frightened of her as she was both autocratic and arbitrary. In old age this behavior hardened into eccentricity. For the last few years of her life she carried a revolver everywhere with her.

While still young she learned a great deal about plants and began to import new and exotic ones from all over the world. She herself never went on such expeditions but contributed to syndicates which did. Horticulture was her life and her world. This single-minded focus earned her a lot of respect in the garden community. She was the first woman to receive the Victoria Medal of Honour at the Royal Horticultural Society in the same year as Gertrude Jekyll, 1897. That was the first year the medal was awarded, an even greater honour. More than sixty plants are named for her personally or for Warley, her estate.

Warley Place

Ellen Willmott was particularly expert in roses, writing a well received monograph, “The Genus Rosa”, which is still useful today. The book was published in two volumes between 1910 and 1914 and dedicated to Queen Alexandra. Miss Willmott commissioned Alfred Parsons, a well known watercolorist, to illustrate her book and she later got him to paint many of her plants. The book came at a later phase of her life.

When she was younger narcissus fascinated her. Warley Place had thirty three acres, an expanse which allowed her to experiment with dozens of species of narcissus on a very grand scale. Ancient drifts of Narcissus pseudonarcissus had covered the hillsides. At first Miss Willmott added more and more species narcissus to the land offering varying hues of gold, yellow and white to occupy the eye at different times: N.incomparabilis, N. pallidoflorus and N. campernelii among many others. The gardeners loaded the bulbs on to wheel barrows and let their gleeful children toss handfuls of them all over the grounds. It was licensed pandemonium. The bulbs grew where they fell and then multiplied every year. She followed a similar course with crocus.

Ellen Willmott kept very careful notes, following each bed and site to see how the bulbs grew in different months. She crossed some species and once she found a hybrid she thought worthy she handed it off to commercial nurserymen to test further. Eventually they bulked it up and offered it for sale. This skill and expertise was the reason the royal Horticultural Society elected her a fellow in 1894. She served on their bulb committee for many years. Her complete mastery of the subject impressed the members of the society.

A Plan of Miss Willmott's House & Garden at Great Warley, 1904

In 1903 Miss Willmott played a big role in persuading Sir Thomas Hanbury to donate sixty acres of his property in Wisley, Surrey to the society to found an experimental site outside London.  The grounds at Chiswick had become too small. RHS Wisley now flourishes in its own right and recently built new science and visitors’ centres and other essential structures. All the trials of new flowers and vegetables are carried out in their grounds. Every year they make a very brave show.

Ellen’s father, Frederick Willmott, came from a very respectable family of pharmacists but he decided to become a solicitor. Although always very genteel in his behaviour he knew exactly where he was going and what he wanted. He married a woman slightly above him in the social scale, Ellen Fell. Both families were English Catholics. His three daughters were  brought up in the church, going to convent schools and spending much time in the company of religious women. The girls’ godmother Helen Tasker was very wealthy and each year presented the children with a thousand pounds each for their birthdays. At her death they inherited most of her money. The youngest daughter, Ada, died of diphtheria as a child leaving only Ellen and her younger sister Rose. It took the family a long time to recover from the shock of her death.

When Frederick began to make serious money he bought a fine estate in Essex, Warley Place. At the time it was quite far into the country side, though on the train line but now it is subsumed into Brentwood and the property is a public nature reserve. Mrs Willmott took the neglected garden in hand and made it handsome. She did not care for carpet bedding and used a more naturalistic style.

The family had a very active social life. Ellen played tennis very well and was also an accomplished violinist. Because she had complete access to her own money she began to buy expensive objects very early. She started by purchasing four very valuable string instruments, two violins, a viola and a violoncello, made by old Italian masters. She allowed an eleven year old prodigy, Lionel Tertis, to play the viola. Tertis was the first musician to be a virtuoso on the viola, an instrument so often neglected for the other strings.

Women were discouraged from playing the violin at that time because it brought the bosom into great prominence and was thus unladylike! It says a lot for the wisdom of her parents that they did not intervene but allowed her to study the instrument.

The Willmotts travelled together on the Continent every year and enjoyed all the delights that these journeys offered.  They had favourite haunts and particularly liked the countryside around Aix – en – Provence. Tresserve was a sleepy hamlet which had caught Queen Victoria’s eye. The monarch wanted to buy property there but the negotiations failed leaving Miss Willmott to snap it up in 1899.

Ellen Willmott was too intelligent and uncompromising to attract the sort of man likely to marry her and remained single all her life. Her sister married into the Berkeley family, also Catholic but actual gentry. There were some awkward moments due to snobbery. Rose Willmott Berkeley was also a good gardener and the grounds at Spetchley Park were made  to resemble those at Warley Place.

When Ellen was twenty-one she told her father she was going to build a rock garden in a corner of the Warley Place garden. He was very complacent and paid very little attention to what she was spending. All he asked her to do was to build it nowhere near his study so he was not bothered by the work.

The well known Yorkshire nursery of Backhouse laid down the rocks and planted the new grotto. The excavations led down to a small stream which supplied the necessary water. The plants have died and the stream now runs dry but the rocks remain showing how handsome the garden must have been. Ellen had learned how to do this by careful study in her growing library. She also sought advice from many known experts. It was the opening salvo in her future career. In view of Willmott’s interest in narcissus it is worth noting that Sarah Backhouse, sister in law of the owner, bred one of the signature new narcissi of the epoch, N. ‘Mrs R. O. Backhouse’ . It was an early pink type.

Many of the Warley hybrids were bred to championship levels. Ellen Willmott won a series of awards of merit and first class certificates at the Royal Horticultural Society shows for her narcissus. Perhaps her favourites were the ‘Triandus’ type, with three stamens. She named some of them for her sister and brother in law and one for her dead baby sister, Ada.

In 1923 her sister Rose died of cancer. Although the Willmotts were not demonstrative people Ellen and her sister were always close and it was assumed that she as the elder sister would die first. The loss was very grievous and may have contributed to her psychological unravelling as time went by. Poor management and profligate behaviour led to the dwindling and eventual loss of her fortune. Very reluctantly she was forced to sell first Tresserve and then Boccanegra.

Painting Ellen and Rose Willmott (Spetchley House)

Her almost encyclopaedic knowledge of horticulture won her many more awards even from the French and Italian organizations but her personality was to be her downfall. In spite of many individual acts of charity she was prickly, intolerant and always had to be right, no matter how misguided her point of view was. When she absent-mindedly left a shop in London without the receipt for her purchase the store detective called a policeman.

By then she was no longer smartly dressed and was assumed to be a poor thief. Within a very short time some of her highly placed friends rallied around and pointed out the mistake. The shop was ready to apologize and close the incident. Something in her nature made her reject that face saving measure. She insisted on going to jail for the night and being heard in court the next morning to be vindicated. This was to be a Pyrrhic victory. Foolish financial decisions had begun as early as 1907 when she bought more than even she could afford and began to borrow money.

By the mid 1920s she did not have enough money left with which to pay taxes and tried to sell some of her valuable things to scrape by. There was nowhere nearly enough of value for the sums involved. In spite of all her reverses Miss Willmott still attended meetings at the Royal Horticultural Society regularly though she no longer competed in the shows.

She died very abruptly in the night on September 26, 1934, at the age of seventy six. The loyal butler who had stuck with her throughout found her in the morning.

Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Willmott's Ghost'

Reference

Le Lievre, Audrey  1980      Miss Willmott of Warley Place
London and Boston         Faber and Faber

~~~~~~~~~~

Judith M. Taylor MD is a graduate of Somerville College and the Oxford University Medical School and is a board certified neurologist. She practiced neurology in New York and since retiring has written six books on horticultural history as well as numerous articles and book reviews on the same subject.

Dr Taylor’s books include The Olive in California: history of an immigrant tree (2000), Tangible Memories: Californians and their gardens 1800 – 1950 (2003), The Global Migrations of Ornamental Plants: how the world got into your garden (Missouri Botanical Garden Press 2009), Visions of Loveliness: the work of forgotten flower breeders (Ohio University Press 2014) and An Abundance of Flowers: more great flower breeders of the past (Ohio University Press  2018).  In 2019 she published A Five Year Plan for Geraniums: growing flowers commercially in East Germany 1946 – 1989.
Dr Taylor’s web site is: www.horthistoria.com