Plate One of Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress
Map: The Main Ethnic Settlements in 18thC London
It occurred to me as I was tagging some of the older posts that it might help the mental geography to have a little map with indications of where London’s main foreign populations were. There was a small Arabic population in the City, and a Russian one, but I haven’t pinned them down yet, and will add them when I do.
All Manner of Optick Glasses After the Latest Manner: Spectacles in Georgian London
The early 1700s saw the emergence of daily newspapers for the man on his way to work, or sitting in the coffee house. Just as now, a significant percentage of the population suffered with imperfect sight. Spectacles and magnifiers of all sorts had been available for two centuries, but it was the advent of the newspaper which saw them really take off. Spectacle-makers produced huge ranges of tortoiseshell, horn and whalebone (super-flexible and hard to break) as well as silver. They could be purchased off-the-shelf with the prescription or ‘focus’ written on the arm, or made-to-measure. Edward Scarlett of Soho (1730) was the most famous of the early makers, with his spectacles being marketed as having ‘the Exactest way of fitting different Eyes’. He also introduced arms to spectacles (usually of the pince-nez type before) and catered for different activities such as reading or sewing.
The bifocal lens was invented in the 1760s, but by whom it is impossible to say. Benjamin Franklin is commonly cited as the culprit, but that’s most likely just a nice myth. They were first used for artists who could look at their subject through the top and their canvas through the bottom, but they soon became common amongst clerks, academics and scholars who didn’t want to be putting them on and off all the time.
Later on in the century, green and blue lenses started to appear. The idea came from Venice, where they were apparently used to deflect the sun reflecting from the lagoon, but the Venetians were expert glass-workers and it is quite possible they already had a medical use. In England they were quite possibly used as filter for dyslexia sufferers, as they are often seen in lenses with a ‘reading focus’.
To get fitted for spectacles, it was usual to go to one of the many little ‘Optickal’ shops in and around Soho and the City. There spectacles could be tried out, and fashionable frames chosen. The widespread availability of spectacles and their common use is clear by the inventory of Nathaniel Adams of Charing Cross in 1741: he died with 499 pairs of ready-made spectacles in stock, ranging from the cheapest horn frames at little more than a few pence, to silver ones at a shilling each. Of all of the shops in Georgian London, I would love to get a peep inside Scarlett’s emporium (or Adams’s, who was Scarlett’s apprentice).
These spectacles from my cabinet of curiosities are silver, which is handy because it means we can tell when and where they were made: they are hallmarked for London, 1791. They’re hinged halfway down each arm, making them foldable, comfortable to wear and surprisingly they are very light. The cases were often shagreen or leather and deliberately slim to keep them pocket or reticule friendly. I’d have had some horn ones with the blue lenses and a stained shagreen case, or maybe the silver ones with the gr….
Alimony and Acting: The Life of Nosegay Fan
Frances Barton was born around 1737 (although some say as early as 1731) near Vinegar Yard off the Strand, where her father had a shoe stall. Her mother died when she was young and her father did not remarry. Fanny had the good luck to be a very beautiful little girl, and her father and brother (who ran a pub in Stanway Yard later in life) sent her out to sell nosegays. Her cheeky spirit and quick ear soon meant she was singing to the customers and reciting bits and pieces she had heard on the streets of Covent Garden. The actors and actresses thought she was hilarious and used to put her up on a table and get her to sing or act for them and give her a few pence in return. A shrewd girl, she began to learn passages from the famous poets and bring them forth to great amusement, and no doubt a few more pennies.
Fanny then took work with a French milliner in Cockspur Street. She must have had an ability with languages, as she apparently emerged from this employment speaking fluent French. Her stay in Cockspur Street also introduced her to fashion, something that would serve her well for the rest of her life. For a while, she had a friend whose boyfriend was an actor, and spent a lot of time in the theatres.
This period of Fanny’s life is hazy. Some scholars have her down as a child prostitute at this stage. I can see why they would draw this conclusion (especially with the later associations with Reynolds), but in the early 1750s Fanny was aged somewhere between 13 and 20. The age of consent at the time was 12. She seems to have continued in employment from the milliner to service as a kitchen maid in the North household, earning money on the side as a ‘ballad-singer’. Perhaps she also took money for sex. Who knows? I am in no way condoning teenage prostitution but as far as I can see Frances Barton was acting under no authority but her own and the tendency to brand attractive, assertive women as whores isn’t exactly a concept limited to the Georgian period. I would argue for the opposite being true. I would argue that Fanny seems to have abandoned street and theatre working as she entered sexual maturity, for respectable work in a shop and household, in order to avoid becoming a prostitute. There may have been an incident that told her it was time to find more secure work, or maybe she was smart enough to work it out for herself.
By 1755 though, Fanny is on the stage. She is a comic actress, a new kind of entertainer. She dons outlandish outfits, breeches and sometimes fantasy costume. Fanny is a hit. Suddenly earning the heady sum of 30 shillings a week, she invested in education; learning languages, literature and music. Then she married James Abington, trumpeter and music master. Big mistake. They went to Ireland. Dublin only had two theatres at the time, and it appears Mrs Abington was queen of both of them. Mr Abington got jealous, and finally they had to part, but not before Fanny had agreed to give him a pension for the rest of his life, and based upon her success. Oh yes.
Fanny went on to become the mistress of Mr Francis Needham, an MP who furthered her hard-won education and happily showed her off in society. In 1765, they came to England, and Needham died at Bath, with his mistress in attendance. She quickly returned to the stage, where she was even more popular than before.
Once again, there are assertions that Fanny was living as a courtesan. There are no clear attachments extant, but she was soon acting as a trendsetter and arbiter of taste, as a single woman. By 1764, she was posing for Joshua Reynolds. He depicted her as an actress, not a whore, unlike Kitty Fisher and Nelly O’Brien. In 1781, she had a costume allowance from the Covent Garden Theatre for five hundred pounds a year. If Mrs Abington was also selling sex, it was because she wanted to, not because she needed the money.
Fanny took a house in Pall Mall and set about surrounding herself with the thinkers and wits of the day. Horace Walpole, notorious bitch, thought she was great as did Samuel Johnson. She had an ongoing feud/mutual admiration society with David Garrick, who quite rightly regarded her as both a prima donna and businesswoman (he signed his letters to her ‘Yours very truly, when you are not unruly’). A mark of her popularity was the sell-out of her benefits. Benefits were the night when one of the actors got most of the takings at the door, and her nights were always ‘full to the rails’. James Boswell once upbraided Johnson for braving the crush to attend Fanny’s benefit, and Johnson turned on him with, ‘When the public cares one thousandth part for you that it does for her, I shall go to your benefit too.’
Frances Abington continued to live in a fashionable and very popular way long after she had given up the stage. She died in her home in Pall Mall in 1815, an old and very successful lady. Brava!
Book Review: Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen
I am increasingly being asked to review books on the Georgian period and I’m very happy to do so. Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen is written by Sarah Jane Downing and published by Shire Books.
The fashions and conventions of the Regency period hold a special place in the hearts of many as a time of femininity and delicate entertainments. Downing’s book is a slim volume, running to 63 pages and lavishly illustrated with a fine cross-section of illustrations from the period. She has chosen well, and her examples are apposite and appealing in the context of her writing. She ties the life of Austen into the events happening in Britain and abroad, and how they affected the fashions and social lives of Regency men and women.This is definitely a book for Austen fans, and devotees of the Regency period. It is written with a light touch and an eye to the realities of dressing in fine and costly fabrics. The attention to menswear is particularly interesting. I was also taken with the reference to Rousseau’s theories about childhood freedom and how it affected clothes for children.Whilst clearly passionate about her subject, Downing is not above bringing in the voice of the satirists who mocked the fashionable. This is a valuable little volume for anyone interested in Regency costume, and very handy for anyone writing about the period: both distracting and informative.Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen is available from Shire Books, and Amazon, RRP £5.99
History and Social Media
There is a traditional image that goes along with being interested in history and let’s be honest, it’s not a good one: packed lunches, sensible shoes, no make-up….I know, I know. At parties, when people ask me what I do, I lay a small bet with myself (and always win) that they’ll say, ‘That’s interesting’. They don’t mean it. You can tell by the way their eyes slide towards the exit.
When I started the blogging, I had (and still have) a great pile of research that I just wanted to share. I knew it wasn’t boring, and really wanted it to reach people who were interested. No prior knowledge needed, or sensible shoes. There have been moments when I tested both my knowledge, and my mettle (the body-snatching post) against fellow historians; the ensuing debates have been almost as rewarding as the email I received from someone who had found reassurance and perhaps a little perspective from the posts on gay culture in the London of the 1700s.
Social media, primarily the Twitter contraption, but also Facebook have been instrumental in getting Georgian London out there. Perhaps people only want to read one post, or are interested in a single aspect of this fantastic city’s eighteenth century. Others seem to love the whole subject as much as I do. What represents years of often boring, and certainly bum-numbing work in libraries and archives is now a shiny thing I can show to people who ‘get it’. Imagine my delight and surprise to find that there are literally thousands of you! The internet and social media have done this for me.
I’d love to hear your comments on how your internet/Twitter or Facebook community has helped you, either sparking a new interest, finding like-minded people, or furthering your knowledge. And thanks. Again.
Mystery Item #3
It stands 6 inches high. It isn’t a teapot, or a coffee pot, and not for hot chocolate either. Only ever made in silver, late 18th and early 19th century. Answers in the comments please.
Hester Bateman: Illiterate Widow to Lady Tradesman
Ask anyone vaguely interested in the metalwork of the 18thC for the name of a female silversmith and nine times out of ten they’ll reply, ‘Hester Bateman’, and not without good reason. Hester is rightly famous for being an illiterate widow who took her late husband’s business by the scruff of its neck and forged a dynasty of successful silversmiths; she is wrongly famous for being an artisan who actually manufactured any of the pieces bearing her name. Many collectors and historians delight in the concept of an uneducated widow hammering out some of the prettiest pieces of Georgian silver, but as much as the history-lover in me wants to believe, the evidence simply isn’t there.
Hester Needham was born in late 1708. On the 20th of May, 1732 she married chain-maker and wire-drawer John Bateman at St Botolph’s in the City. His trade was not a particularly illustrious one, but it was steady work in the 18thC. They had five children: two girls followed by three boys. In 1760, John Bateman died and left everything to his ‘loving wife’. In the Spring of the following year, Hester attended Goldsmiths’ Hall to sign the appropriate registers to take over her husband’s business and register her own mark, a pretty HB in script. She signs with a small, thick H.B., plainly pressing too hard on the quill. Her early output consisted mainly of domestic spoons and forks, of no particular merit, but marking a significant departure from her husband’s chains and wire.
Many who argue Hester was physically responsible for the things that bear her name cite the fact that her husband left her his bench tools. True, but they were bench tools for chain-making and finishing wire, not dies for spoons and forks and so this leaves two options: either Hester’s silversmith sons Peter and Jonathan were making the new goods with new equipment purchased specifically for said, or they were buying them in from elsewhere and having them marked as Hester’s. Either way, she wasn’t sitting at the bench.
Soon, Hester graduates onto large items such as tea and coffee pots, known as holloware, indicating her client base was growing and wanting more from her. Her production of these pieces coincided with the new manufactories producing early silver-plated wares in Sheffield and Birmingham, and there is definitely a large element of machine-production in her later work. This is not necessarily a criticism, as the bulk of the work was still done by hand, but many of the borders and decorative motifs on her pieces are the work of machines, not men. It is an interesting parallel that Hester’s husband John would have used heavy machinery in producing his wires, so she was already familiar with the concept of machine manufacture.
There is a pretty, feminine quality to much of Bateman’s work. The proportions are good, and she was working within the styles of the day. Bang on trend, as those fashion people say. Coupled with the cheap and cheerful tea-ware were important commissions for larger and more valuable pieces. I have no doubt that she was a persuasive saleswoman and a dominant character. My feeling, after almost a decade of contact with her work, is that her son Peter was probably instrumental in the design and manufacture of all her output. Peter appears to have been the driving force behind the business and upon Hester’s retirement in 1790, he registered a mark with his brother Jonathan.
The Peter and Jonathan Bateman hallmark is one of the rarest and most sought after, for the simple fact that it lasted only four months in 1791. Jonathan was already sick with what is now believed to be leukaemia and he died only weeks into their partnership. If Jonathan did indeed die of leukaemia, it is likely he would have been weakened for a long time, making it impossible to sit at a bench and work resistant metals, so his role in the business was probably more to do with paperwork or marketing. Peter took on Jonathan’s widow, Ann as his partner and the business continued successfully, again pointing to Peter’s ability.
Hester died in their house at 107 Bunhill Row in 1794, her lasting fame assured. Quite how she managed to go from chain-maker’s wife to the producer of solid gold teapots, and even judaica for an important synagogue is a mystery. It is highly unlikely that the great and the good were making their way to Clerkenwell to commission items from the widow of a low-grade workman, so her links within the retailing world must have been strong. In time, more details of Hester Bateman’s life will emerge, and her trading links will become apparent. Until then, her work and life must be assessed with an eye to the practical rather than the whimsical, an attitude Hester herself would no doubt have taken.
