1815 The First Quadrille at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, London. Left to Right: Marquis of Worcester, Lady Jersey, Clanronald MacDonald and Lady Worcester. “It was not until 1815 that Lady Jersey introduced from Paris the favourite quadrille, which has so long remained popular. I recollect the persons who formed the very first quadrille that was ever danced at Almack’s: they were Lady Jersey, Lady Harriett Butler, Lady Susan Ryde, and Miss Montgomery; the men being the Count St Aldegonde, Mr Montgomery, Mr Montague, and Charles Standish.” From The Reminiscences of Captain Gronow 1810-1860.
The patronesses of Almack’s controlled a lot of a young lady’s acceptance into English society in Jane Austen’s times. To be given a voucher and admitted to an assembly, there was an introduction into London’s polite society.
1787 St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, U.K. By T. Malton. A favorite place to be married for the Regency aristocracy during Bridgerton and Jane Austen times, but also a haunt of pickpockets.
From the Edinburgh Annual Register 1810: Complaints have been made of numerous robberies, by daring gangs of pickpockets in the daytime, in the public streets, also at churches, chapels, and meetings, particularly at St. George’s church, Hanover-square. The Countess of Aylesford, and several other ladies of distinction, having been robbed there, mentioned the circumstances to Townsend, the officer. The Countess of Aylesford said, she had no doubt but she was robbed by a short fat woman. Townsend went to the church and observed Mary Blakeman, alias Hills, a well-known female pickpocket, genteelly dressed in a black velvet pelisse and a cottage straw bonnet. When he called her outside, no stolen property was found on her person, despite him knowing her to be a thief for 25 years.
1826 The Cyprian’s Ball At the Argyll Rooms. A Regency Gentleman’s Life. From The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank. RL_2_D2D_RetailerBuyLink_RL_2
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1823 Hackney Cab, London, U.K. This small cabriolet was built by coach builder, David Davies, and licensed for public convenience. Name ‘hackney’ derived from village of Hackney, Middlesex, famous for horse drawn carriages. French word cabriolet was shortened to cab, hence ‘Hackney Cab’. In 1813, there were 1100 hackney coaches for hire in London. Designs changed constantly and in 1834 Joseph Hansom registered his design for a cabriolet named ‘Hansom Cab’.
1823 Hackney Cab, London, U.K. This small cabriolet was built by coach builder, David Davies, and licensed for public convenience. Name ‘hackney’ derived from village of Hackney, Middlesex, famous for horse drawn carriages. French word cabriolet was shortened to cab, hence ‘Hackney Cab’.D2D_RetailerBuyLink_HN_10. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
1808 Richard Trevithick’s Steam Circus, Bloomsbury, London, U.K. Site where Trevithick ran his locomotive ‘Catch Me Who Can’. Trevithick wanted to prove that traveling by train was faster than on horseback. Locomotive ran at top speed of 19 km per hour and people paid a shilling to sit in an attached car and be pulled around. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART) This was the start of the railway expansions across England in Jane Austen’s time.
1808 Richard Trevithick’s Steam Circus, Bloomsbury, London, U.K. Site where Trevithick ran his locomotive ‘Catch Me Who Can’. Trevithick wanted to prove that traveling by train was faster than on horseback. Locomotive ran at top speed of 19 km per hour and people paid a shilling to sit in an attached car and be pulled around. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART)
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Early 1800s Typical Regency Couple in a Curricle. The sort of vehicle Jane Austen and her contemporaries would have driven in. Young men loved them and occasionally women drove them.
1816 Block Printed Quilt Panel made to celebrate the Marriage of Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
Textile of block-printed white cotton in madder colours with pencilled blue. The cotton is printed with 9.5 octagonal panels intended to be cut out and applied to patchwork quilts. Each panels contains a bunch of flowers. Around the inner border is an inscription of Princess Charlotte of Wales married to Leopold Prince of Saxe-Coburg May 2, 1816. In the borders are three Prince of Wales feathers, the Royal Arms, and a crown on each side. At the end of the textile is printed a rectangular panel containing the manufacturers name and in a corner is the name ‘G. Swindels’.
This quilt has an excise stamp for 1816 and is inscribed ‘John Lowe and Co. Furniture Printers, Shepley Hall’, providing the name of the only identifiable manufacturer of these panels, although there are likely to have been others. John Lowe was a well-known firm of calico printers with large cotton factories and extensive bleaching grounds close to the River Tame near Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire.
Hand-quilting is done on a frame using needles called ‘betweens’. The stitches are executed with one hand; the other hand is kept underneath the quilt to feel for the needle. Small, uniform stitches (usually a ‘running stitch’) are taken through the three layers to form a decorative design. In ‘piecing’ or ‘patchwork’, small pieces of fabric are sewn together to produce a decorative design. The most enduring method in Britain is done by hand, and is known as ‘piecing over paper’. The pattern is first drawn onto paper and then accurately cut. Small pieces of fabric are tacked round each of the shapes, and then joined together from the back using overstitch. Most of the quilt top visible here has been pieced over paper, but in some areas the fabrics have been applied directly on to the earlier quilt that forms the wadding.
1820 ca. Writing Box, English. Rosewood and brass inlaid writing box by William Dobson, The Strand, London. Makers label, gilded candle holders, ink wells. via antiques-atlas.com. Portable boxes for writing materials existed for many centuries but in the last decades of the 18th century socio-economic circumstances in England necessitated the wide use of a portable desk in the form of a box which could be used on a table or on one’s lap. Hence “Lap Desk”.
HN_13_D2D_WritingTools Book 13 What did the lady of the house use to pen notes? What sat on the desk of the man of the house when managing his accounts? #History #Nonfiction #travel books2read.com/SuziLoveWritingTools
What did an older lady do and wear in the Regency Era? Information & pictures for readers and writers of early 1800s history, nonfiction and fiction. books2read.com/suziloveOLD The older lady’s day usually started with her toilette in her bedroom, where her maid helped her dress for the day and styled her hair. After that, she would join her family downstairs for breakfast unless she preferred a tray with either tea or hot chocolate in her bedroom as she prepared for her busy day. Her day would be made up of speaking with the housekeeper and the cook about the week’s menus, assuring that the servants were all available that day and no one was ill, and checking the list of foods needed.
What did an older lady do and wear in #RegencyEra? Information & pictures for readers and writers of #History #nonfiction #Regency books2read.com/suziloveOLD
She would also enquire if the laundry was up to date and that they had enough good linen to make up all the beds before extended family members and guests arrived. If she was in the country and hosting a weekend house party, she would assign rooms to the guests on her lists and query that all was in readiness for their arrival.
Claridge’s Hotel – London’s Historic Places Claridge’s was founded in 1812, during the Regency Era, as Mivart’s Hotel at 51 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, UK.
Lord William Beauclerk leased the terrace house from the Grosvenor Estate with permission to turn it into a hotel run by James Edward Mivart, the anglicized name for French chef Jacques Mivart. By 1838, the hotel grew to buy five consecutive houses along Brook Street, knocking down the walls to create one large hotel and Mivart prospered by introducing English county families to subtle French cooking to replace their traditional stodgy fare. Mivart designed the hotel for guests who wished to stay longer, so apartments were let by the month to foreign royalty and nobility who enjoyed the ambiance of the well-run hotel yet had the privacy of their own suites. The Prince Regent, who succeeded to the throne as King George IV in 1820, had a suite of rooms permanently reserved for him so he could discreetly carry on his playboy lifestyle.
In 1827, The Morning Post noted that Mivart’s was the fashionable rendezvous for the high Corps Diplomatique. In 1854, the hotel was sold to Mr and Mrs Claridge who ran a separate hotel at 49 Brook Street. They combined the two operations to trade as “Mivart’s at Claridge’s” until, after Mivart’s death, the hotel changed its name to Claridge’s in 1856, adding “late Mivart’s” underneath.
In 1860, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Empress Eugènie of France, who had made Claridge’s her winter quarters, and Queen Victoria was so impressed that she wrote to her uncle, Leopold I, King of the Belgians, in glowing terms of Claridge’s. The hotel became so connected to royalty it was called an “extension to Buckingham Palace”.including the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia and King William III of the Netherlands, until by 1853, The Times decided London had just three first-class hotels- Mivart’s, The Clarendon in Bond Street and Thomas’s in Berkeley Square.
In 1881, William Claridge’s failing health forced them to sell to a consortium, but the hotel consisted of several private houses and couldn’t be upgraded to compete with purpose built hotels cropping up all over London. The Savoy for example, built in 1889, offered lifts to all floors, electricity, en suite bathrooms and the best chef in Europe, Auguste Escoffier. So in 1894, Richard D’ Oyly Carte, founder of the rival Savoy Hotel, purchased Claridge’s and commissioned CW Stephens, designer of Harrods, to rebuild the hotel from the ground up. The new Claridge’s opened in November 1898.
1897 Claridge’s Hotel, Mayfair, London, U.K. A perspective view of the new building showing the front entrance in Brook Street and the return front in Davies Street. Drawn by C. W. Stephens, architect.
After World War I, Claridge’s flourished due to demand from aristocrats who no longer maintained a London house and Carte’s son, Rupert D’ Oyly Carte, added a new extension. During World War II, Peter II of Yugoslavia and his wife spent their exile at Claridge’s until on 17th June 1945, suite 212 was ceded by the UK to Yugoslavia for a single day to allow their heir, Crown Prince Alexander, to be born on Yugoslav soil.
