1826 Sights the Bridgertons and Jane Austen Saw Around Regency England. The sights that the families and friends would have seen around while traveling around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1808 Silver Wax Jack, Irish. By Robert Breading (active 1775–1822) Dublin. via suzilove.com and Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
How did Jane Austen seal her letters? Wax was melted by lighting the tip of a coiled wax length. This is called a wax jack. The melted wax blob was placed on the outside of a letter or document. A personal desk seal or a fob seal was pressed into the wax to identify the sender or owner of the document. Aristocrat families had their own coat of arms and others may have had their initials or their name on the seal.
Demolition of the old house, between the Strand and the River Thames, began in 1775 and continued in stages as the new Somerset House was constructed around it. When the new building rose from the rubble, the Royal Academy, which had been one of the last occupants of the old Somerset House, became one of the first occupants of the apartments which fronted the Strand, providing tangible continuity between the old and the new.
The Royal Academy of Arts
George III, described as an “enthusiastic if undiscriminating collector and patron of the arts”, provided invaluable patronage for the three learned societies. When old Somerset House was relinquished by the Crown, the King reserved to himself the right to appropriate sufficient space in the new building for the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Society, and the Society of Antiquaries.
The Great Exhibition Room
The most important part of the building for the Royal Academy was its Exhibition Room. Situated at the top of the steep, winding staircase, it was roughly 53 x 43 feet and 32 feet high including the lantern, and was described by Joseph Baretti as, “undoubtedly at that date the finest gallery for displaying pictures so far built.” It was here that George III was given a preview of the first Royal Academy Exhibition held at his command in 1780.
Year by year, the exhibits increased. There were 547 in 1781, 1,037 in 1801, and 1,165 in 1821, so that the pictures had to be hung almost from floor to ceiling and with the frames touching one another. From 1832 onwards there was talk of the Royal Academy moving to more spacious rooms in what is now the National Gallery, which was being built at the north end of Trafalgar Square. Accordingly, the last exhibition at Somerset House was held in 1836.
When the Academy moved, the most valuable decorations were taken down and reused in their new quarters. Later they were moved to Burlington House, the Royal Academy’s present home, where the ceiling paintings by Benjamin West and Angelica Kauffmann can now be seen in the entrance hall. The Academy’s old rooms at Somerset House were occupied by the Department of Practical Art, or Government School of Design.
The Royal Society
In 1776, they discovered they were to share the building to the east of the Strand entrance with the Society of Antiquaries, and complained to William Chambers that the accommodation would be inadequate; that the library would be too small and that there would be no room for the Society’s museum.
One of the first discoveries announced to the Society in its new quarters was that of a new planet, first observed by William Herschel in 1781. He wished to call the new planet Georgium Sidus in honour of the King, but other astronomers disagreed and today we know the planet as Uranus. Fellows of the Royal Society were keen to prevent war and politics interfering with the advancement of scientific discovery.
During the Napoleonic Wars of 1796-1815, the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, used his influence both in England and France to ensure that explorers of the two nations were not obstructed by the conflicting armed forces, and that French scientists should continue to be elected Fellows of the Society. When Sir Humphry Davy became president in 1820, the Society became oriented more towards pure scientific enquiry, to which ends, George IV founded two Gold Medals.
After the Royal Academy left Somerset House in 1837, the Royal Society remained there until 1857 when it joined the Academy at Burlington House.
The Society of Antiquaries
In 1776, the Antiquaries heard about the proposed new building at Somerset House, they decided to apply to George III, their Patron, for rooms there. After some intense lobbying by the President, the Reverend Dr Milles, the Society’s request for accommodation was favourably considered, and the King was, “most graciously pleased to order that the Society be accommodated with apartments in the new buildings at Somerset House.”
The resident Secretary of the Society was accommodated in the attic with three rooms “with deal dadoes, and Sienna marble and Sicilian jasper chimney-pieces”. The basement was hotly contested between the Royal Society and the Antiquaries, who were eventually allowed a kitchen, cellar, two vaults, and a privy. However, the lobby, originally intended for the footman in waiting, had to accommodate the Antiquaries’ porter as the Royal Society had taken possession of the Porter’s Lodge!
In the 1850s there was a proposal to move the Royal Society and the Antiquaries from Somerset House but, when the Royal Society moved out in 1857, the Antiquaries decided to remain, taking the opportunity to secure sole use of the disputed rooms, until they joined the other two learned societies at Burlington House in 1874.
The Navy Board
When the Admiralty moved into new premises in Whitehall in 1725, it was decided that the Navy Board, over whom the Admiralty had responsibility, should move to a site much closer; from Seething Lane behind the Tower of London to new offices at Somerset House. Chambers proposed to house the Navy Board on the west side of the south wing of the new building, in the part facing the river, with the Seamen’s Waiting Hall in the centre of the building providing an imposing entrance.
The related Sick and Hurt, Navy Pay, and Victualling Offices were to occupy the range of buildings on the west side of the courtyard. By 1789 the move was completed and, for nearly a century, more than a third of Somerset House was home to the various branches of the Navy Board.
General Register Office
In 1836 the General Register Office was created to set up a comprehensive system for the registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths and appoint the first Registrar General based at Somerset House. It was not until 1970, after slightly less than a century and a half at Somerset House, that the General Register Office moved out.
Principal Probate Registry
The Inland Revenue Stamp duty on documents, including newspapers, was only one of many revenue-raising methods administered by the Stamp Office, one of the government departments which moved to the new Somerset House in 1789. In 1834 the Stamp Office united with the Affairs of Taxes and in 1849 Stamps and Taxes joined the Excise to form a new Board of Inland Revenue. The Board of Inland Revenue today still occupies the east and west wings of Somerset House.
Rates of Postage of single Letters in Pence In Great Britain in Jane Austen’s times.
The Twopenny Post- Office.
1800s Elephant and Castle Inn, Brighton Road, London, In Jane Austen’s times. By James Pollard.
The London To Louth Royal Mail, England, U.K. Print by Charles Cooper Henderson. (1803-1877)
How did Jane Austen and her family? Did they go by stagecoach? The dreadful condition of British roads caused great apprehension to all classes of travelers. Making a journey anywhere in the country was a big undertaking and often a gentleman composed his last will and testament before his departure. Traveling in vehicles was only possible during the day or on the nights with very bright moonlight with few vehicles attempting road travel in winter and any travel on a Sunday was frowned upon. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
Description of Stage Coach Travel in England. via 1815 Journal Tour of Great Britain. “The gentlemen coachmen, with half-a dozen great coats about them, immense capes, a large nosegay at the button-hole, high mounted on an elevated seat, with squared elbows, a prodigious whip, beautiful horses, four in hand, drive in a file to Salthill, a place about twenty miles from London, and return, stopping in the way at the several public-houses and gin-shops where stage-coachmen are in the habit of stopping for a dram, and for parcels and passengers on the top of the others as many as seventeen persons. These carriages are not suspended, but rest on steel springs, of a flattened oval shape, less easy than the old mode of leathern braces on springs. Some of these stage coaches carry their baggage below the level of the axletree.”
In Jane Austen’s times craftsmen created boxes and containers of precious metals, leather, silks, and decorated them with jewels. Boxes, Cases, Etui, Necessaire and everything else that was used to carry essential items for travel, sewing, medicine, writing, and toiletries. Containers were engraved to make exquisite and expensive items as well as practical carrying cases. books2read.com/suziloveBoxesCases
19th Century Cross Letter or Cross Writing or Cross Hatching. The writer reached the bottom of the page, turned the paper sideways and adds a second layer of text. During the 19th century, paper was expensive and postal delivery was charged per page, or by the size of the paper. Cross-writing was a way to save paper and postage in Jane Austen and Bridgerton times, and many of Jane Austen’s letters were written this way. Once it becomes familiar, the mind adapts easily and cross-writing letters are surprisingly legible. Charles Darwin also favored this technique.
And so in proportion; the postage increasing progressively one penny for a single letter for every like excess ok distance of 100 miles. 1802 Picture of London Printed for R. Phillips via Google Books (PD-180)
1840 ca. The York To London Royal Mail. By A. Anson Martin. Mailcoach in the village of Bedale, Yorkshire, U.K. Church at the end of the wide country road and thatched cottages behind the coach. Signed and Inscribed ‘(All Right)’. Via British Postal Museum, London, U.K. ~ postal museum.org
The dreadful condition of British roads caused great apprehension to all classes of travelers. Making a journey anywhere in the country was a big undertaking and often a gentleman composed his last will and testament before his departure. Traveling in vehicles was only possible during the day or on the nights with very bright moonlight with few vehicles attempting road travel in winter and any travel on a Sunday was frowned upon. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
Description of Stage Coach Travel in England. via 1815 Journal Tour of Great Britain. “The gentlemen coachmen, with half-a dozen great coats about them, immense capes, a large nosegay at the button-hole, high mounted on an elevated seat, with squared elbows, a prodigious whip, beautiful horses, four in hand, drive in a file to Salthill, a place about twenty miles from London, and return, stopping in the way at the several public-houses and gin-shops where stage-coachmen are in the habit of stopping for a dram, and for parcels and passengers on the top of the others as many as seventeen persons. These carriages are not suspended, but rest on steel springs, of a flattened oval shape, less easy than the old mode of leathern braces on springs. Some of these stage coaches carry their baggage below the level of the axletree.”
19th Century Mid-Late Five Desk Seals. L-R Carnelian seal with silver mounts set with colored stones; malachite urn seal: gilt-bronze seal with winged cherub heads: Silver-gilt seal eagle, Silver-gilt seal as eagle’s leg below a blue glass ball. via Sotheby’s Auctions. sothebys.com
In the Bridgerton family, or Jane Austen’s household, and during the Regency Era, sealing wax was not only impressed onto the back of a letter with a seal to protect against tampering, but also to identify the sender of the letter. People, especially aristocrats, kept personal and family seals to be used for many different purposes e.g. A letter to a government official would be sealed with an aristocrat’s crest or title. Personal seals for identification have been since early civilizations. The rubber stamps and embossers we use today serve the same purpose, identifying the sender.
Definition: Wax Seals: Pressed onto a letter or envelope to show that a document is unopened or to verify the sender’s identity. A signet ring or was seal is pressed into a dollop of hot wax to seal a letter or envelope closed.
