1800 ca. Ormolu Ink Stand with Lid, French. Ormolu ink stand in the shape of a globe surrounded by three rams head pen supports with animal legs and hoofs on a tripartite base. The top is removable revealing a silvered compartment with containers for sand and ink. via 1st Dibs Auctions 1stdibs.com
Definition Ormolu: Gold colored alloy of copper, zinc, and tin used in decoration and for making ornaments. Ormolu is used in mounts i.e ornaments on borders, edges, and as angle guards) for furniture, especially 18th-century furniture, and for other decorative purposes. Its gold colour may be heightened by immersion in dilute sulfuric acid or by burnishing.
19th Century Late Mechanical Tantalus, French. Ormolu, Bronze, Crystal, and Gilt with a lock and key to open. Earlier versions of this type of small drinks cabinet would have been used in most households during Jane Austen’s times, unless the householders were teetotalers. via 1st Dibs Auctions 1stdibs.com
Tantalus: A small wooden cabinet containing drink decanters. The box has a lock and key to keep unauthorised people from drinking the contents e.g. servants and younger sons, yet still allowing the decanters of drinks to be on show. The word, Tantalus, is a reference to the unsatisfied temptations of the Greek mythological character Tantalus. Patented in the UK in 1881 by George Betjemann, a cabinet maker from the Netherlands, whose workshop was on Pentonville Road, London from the 1830s.
What Sort Of Pianoforte or Piano Was Played By Jane Austen and Contemporaries? Pianos, pianofortes and more. History Notes Book 7 Music Pianos books2read.com/suziloveMusicPiano
Definition Pianoforte or Piano: ‘Stringed keyboard instrument with a hammer action, as opposed to the jack and quill action of the harpsichord. Capable of gradations of soft and loud, the piano became the central instrument of music pedagogy and amateur study. By the end of the nineteenth century, no middle-class household of any stature in Europe or North America was without one.’ Definition via the Metropolitan Museum, NYC.
Around 1700, the Pianoforte, or Piano, was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori, who created a hammer action keyboard instrument on which a musician could make changes in loudness by changing the force with which the keys were struck. He called his instrument “gravicembalo col piano e forte”, or, (harpsichord with soft and loud). Cristofori’s long name was later shortened to fortepiano or pianoforte, and finally just piano.
Musical Instruments were so important in most of the more affluent households in history that large industries grew all around the world to manufacture instruments, musical accessories, and to print sheet music. Pianos, pianofortes, harpsichords, and organs were found everywhere and were often the focus of a family gathering. By the end of the 18th Century, the pianoforte, or piano, was the leading instrument of Western music.
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.
How did people travel in past centuries? What did they take with them to make their long journeys easier? Travel by road, ship, canal, or railway all took a long time and had dangers so people learned to prepare. And then, in the nineteenth century, road improvements, inventions, and scientific developments made travel more pleasurable. Travel and Luggage By Suzi Love History Notes Book 10 books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
Horse Power To Steam. Various alternatives to horse power were tested in London’s streets during the 19th century. Steam powered road engines and trams proved too heavy and damaged the roads. Stationary steam engines were used to haul trams attached to a cable but these were only really effective on hills that we too steep for horses. There were also experiments with trams driven gas engines and battery electric power. but was successfully developed. Petrol engines were still primitive and unreliable in the 1890s. In 1900 the reliable horse still dominated the streets of London but new technology was to revolutionize road transport.
1809 The King Of Great Britain. From: 1809 A Book Explaining The Ranks and Dignities Of British Society. via Google Books. (PD-180) BRITISH RANKS, The King Of Great Britain and His Or Her Powers during Jane Austen’s lifetime.
BRITISH RANKS, THE KING .
The supreme executive power of these kingdoms is vested by our laws in a single person, the King or Queen, for it matters not to which sex the crown descends, but the person entitled to it, whether male or female, is immediately invested with all the ensigns, rights, and prerogatives of sovereign power .
In the earliest periods of our his tory the crown appears to have been elective. But hereditary succession has now been long established , and has proved a good preservative against that periodical bloodshed and misery, which both history and experience have long shewn are the consequences of elective kingdoms. The crown descends lineally to the issue of the reigning monarch , and not till the failure of the male issue is it allowed to be taken by the female.
Lawyers say the King of England is a mixed person, a priest as well as a prince and at his coronation he is anointed with oil, as the priests and kings of Israel were, to intimate that his person is sacred. The principal duty of the king is to govern his people according to law and these are the terms of the oath administered usually by the Archbishop of
Canterbury at his coronation, in the presence of the people, who on their parts do reciprocally take the oath of allegiance to the crown :
“ The archbishop, or bishop, shall say, Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England , and the dominions thereto belonging,
according to the statutes in parliament agreed on and the laws and customs of the
same?
The king or queen shall say , I solemnly promise so to do .
Archbishop , or bishop .– Will you to your power cause law and jus tice , in mercy , to be executed in all your judgments?
King or queen, I will,
Archbishop , or bishop – Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God , the true profession of the gospel and the protestant reformed religion
established by the law? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches com mitted to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them ?
King or queen, All this I promise to do .
After this , the king or queen , laying his or her hand upon the holy gospels , shall say , The things which I have here before promised , I will perform and keep : so help me God . And then shall kiss the book .
One of the principal bulwarks of our liberty is the certain and definite limitation of the king’s prerogative, the extent and
restrictions of which are marked out with the greatest clearness. But in the exertion
of those powers which the LAW has given him , the king is irresistible and absolute. He is considered by the laws of England as the head and supreme governor of the national church and, in virtue of this authority, he convenes , prorogues
rogues , restrains , regulates , and dis solves all ecclesiastical synods or
convocations. He has the supreme right of patronage over all ecclesiastical benefices and if they are not presented to within the time prescribed , their lapse becomes the
advantage of the crown. In regard to foreign concerns, the king is the delegate or
representative of his people. He has power, by his prerogative, with out any act of
parliament, to make war or peace, conclude treaties, grant safe conducts, give
commissions for raising and regulating fleets and armies, as well as for erecting,
manning, and governing forts, and other places of strength. He can prohibit the
exportation of arms and ammunition out of the kingdom, can dispose of magazines, castles, ships, public moneys, etc. and all that is done in
regard to foreign powers by the royal authority, is the act of the whole nation. He has the sole power of sending ambassadors to foreign states, and receiving ambassadors at home. He convokes, adjourns, prorogues, and dissolves parliaments and may
refuse his assent to any bill passed by both houses, without giving his reason for it .
He may increase the number of members of either house at plea sure, by creating
new peers and bestowing privileges on other towns for sending burgesses to
Parliament, but the last has by late kings been given up.
The sole power of conferring dignities and honors is entrusted to him so that all
degrees of nobility and knighthood, and other titles, are received by immediate grant from the crown. And the king has also the prerogative of conferring privileges upon private persons such as granting place or precedence to any of his subjects such is also the power to enfranchise an alien and make him a denizen, and the prerogative of
erecting corporations. The coining of money too, as well as the settling the
denomination or value for which it shall pass current, is the act of the sovereign
power.
But to take all the characters into view in which the king is considered in domestic
affairs would be almost endless for from thence an abundant number of prerogatives arise. All lands re covered from the sea , gold and silver mines, royal fishes etc.
be long to him. He can unite, separate, enlarge, or contract the limits of ecclastical
benefices and, by his letters, erect new bishoprics, colleges etc. He can dispense with the rigor of ecclesiastical laws except those which have been con firmed by act of
parliament, or declared by the bill of rights. He has also power to moderate the
rigor of the law to pardon a man condemned by law except in appeals of murder,
and in case of impeachment by the house of commons, and to interpret by his
judges in statutes and cases which are not defined by law.
But though he be entrusted with the whole executive power of the law, yet he cannot sit in judgment in any court for justice must be administered according to the powers committed and distributed to the several courts.
As the king is declared to be the supreme head in matters both civil and ecclesiastical so no suit can be brought against him even in civil matters because no court can
have jurisdiction over him. The law also ascribes to the king in his political capacity absolute perfection. The king can do no wrong, by which ancient and fundamental maxim we are not to understand that every transaction of government is of course just and lawful but that whatever is exceptionable in the conduct of public affairs is not to be
imputed to the king nor is he answerable for it personally to his people and farther that the prerogative of the crown extends not to do any injury. It is
created for the benefit of the people and therefore cannot be exerted to their
prejudice. In the king there can be no negligence and therefore no delay will bar his
right. In the king also there can be no infamy, stain, or corruption of blood. And the
law ascribes a kind of perpetuity, or immortality to him. His death is termed his
demise , because the crown is thereby demised to another. He is not in law liable to
Death, being a corporation of him self that lives for ever. There is no interregnum but the
moment one king dies, his heir is king, fully and absolutely, without any coronation , ceremony etc. To these it may be added that by the law the king is said in a manner
to be every where in all courts of judicature , which he alone has the right of erecting and therefore cannot be nonsuited.
The power of issuing proclamations is vested in the king alone, considered as the fountain of justice. The laws make it high treason barely to imagine or intend the death of the king, and because the destruction of the king may ensue
that of his great counsellors or officers, it is felony in any of the king’s subjects to
conspire even that. Some things the king cannot do.
He cannot divest himself or successor of any part of the regal prerogative or
authority and there are two things which he cannot do without the consent of
Parliament: the making of new laws and the raising of new taxes.
The king cannot dispense with the laws nor do any thing contrary to law. In England the law is as much superior to the king , as to any of his subjects and the obedience
of the king of England to the laws is his greatest glory while it is the security of the
rights and liberties of his people who are the greatest as well as the freest people on the face of the earth , merely because their sovereigns are obliged to live in
subjection to the written laws of the land.
The title of grace was first given to our kings about the time of Henry IV and that of majesty first to Henry VIII. The title of his present Majesty is , GEORGE the Third , King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith,
Sovereign of the Orders of the Garter, Thistle, Bath and St. Patrick, Duke and Elector of Brunswick Lunenburg, Bishop of Osnaburg and Arch Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire.
Love After Waterloo by Suzi Love. Despite Wellington’s victory over Napoleon four days earlier, soldiers, to use the term loosely, still lingered around Waterloo. They and deserters from both sides had joined local famers in picking through the remains of bodies, uniforms, and armory to pilfer anything of value. There’d been nowhere safe to hide her and her son, Daniel, so Lady Melton’s’ brothers had packed what remained of their equipment and taken them, along with a few wounded British soldiers, to the Captain’s quarters, knowing that his orders were to protect whoever remained of French stragglers and deserters.
Anne’s twin brothers hadn’t lingered, because Wellington and what was left of his British troops were marching back towards Brussels and Brendon’s skills as a physician were urgently needed. Benjamin, an aide to Wellington, had stayed to organize the repatriation of their soldiers and the departure of their sister and nephew. Neither twin had understood her reluctance to join Captain Belling and his group and had ignored her pleas to stay with them in Europe, stating firmly that it was time that she and Daniel returned to London.
They hoped that Anne could reopen their townhouse in London and prepare for when they could join her, optimistically within a few weeks. She wasn’t quite so optimistic. Napoleon was an egotist. He wasn’t the type to accept defeat easily, and she imagined he’d already be making plans for a triumphant return in the future, despite the carnage left behind at Waterloo when he and his remaining troops retreated. Her brothers had reported that the plains had been covered with the dead and the dying, both men and horses.
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.
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.”
1804 London Hairstyles, Gorgeous Gold Hats. via Fashion Plate via Fashions of London and Paris, Published By Richard Phillips, St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, UK. These styles of hats and hairstyles would have been worn by Jane Austen and her contemporaries as hats were an essential fashion item during the Regency years.
A sedan chair is a portable enclosed chair for a single passenger. It was generally carried by two “chairmen” holding poles attached to either side of the chair. Sedan chairs were fashionable in England and Europe during the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries and were an important part of the social life of the times. They were very useful for negotiating crowded, unsafe, narrow, winding and often filthy streets and were particularly used by “invalids, ladies and party goers”. Sedan chairs had the advantage of being able to be carried up and down stairs and could deliver the passenger from inside their own home to inside their destination without having to step outside.
1784 Sedan Chair. ‘The return from a masquerade. A morning scene.’ A young lady dressed as shepherdess with staff slumps in a sedan chair. Asleep or drunk her head and shoulders hang outside window. Two porters smile and dwarf chimney sweep carries a mask.’ By Robert Dighton and Cari.
1784 Sedan Chair. ‘The return from a masquerade. A morning scene.’ A young lady dressed as shepherdess with staff slumps in a sedan chair. Asleep or drunk her head and shoulders hang outside window. Two porters smile and dwarf chimney sweep carries a mask.’ By Robert Dighton and Cari.
The 19th century English author, Elizabeth Gaskell, described the use and function of the sedan perfectly in her novel “Wives and Daughters” when she reminisced how the Browning sisters chose to be transported to a ball by sedan chair, which ‘came into the parlor, and got full of the warm air, and nipped you up, and carried you tight and cosy into another warm room, where you could walk out without having to show your legs by going up steps, or down steps.’
The Bath Chair was invented in Bath, England, in the mid 18th Century to transport the wealthy and the sick around the city. It could be steered by the passenger and rivaled and then outdid the Sedan Chair as only one chairman was needed to operate it. The last Bath Chairman retired in 1949.
Typical 1700s, or Eighteenth Century Sedan Chair. Portable enclosed chair for single passenger usually carried by two chairmen holding poles attached to either side of chair. Fashionable during 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries when needed to negotiate crowded, unsafe, narrow, and dirty streets. Used by invalids, ladies and party goers. The sedan chair comprises a small kiosk with a curved timber roof which is covered with leather and studded with brass nails. The front and side panels are painted in green with floral decorations of cherubs and flowers. The back panel is of plain timber. Access to the chair was via a hinged door at the front. Inside, the chair is upholstered in silk and features padded upholstered arm rests. The windows have raw silk curtains which are gathered with tassels. The present brackets and poles are reproductions made in 1986 prior to display in the Transport exhibition. The total length of the new poles are 80 inches. The sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”. Via Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.
Typical 1700s, or Eighteenth Century Sedan Chair. Portable enclosed chair for single passenger usually carried by two chairmen holding poles attached to either side of chair. Fashionable during 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries when needed to negotiate crowded, unsafe, narrow, and dirty streets. Used by invalids, ladies and party goers. The sedan chair comprises a small kiosk with a curved timber roof which is covered with leather and studded with brass nails. The front and side panels are painted in green with floral decorations of cherubs and flowers. The back panel is of plain timber. Access to the chair was via a hinged door at the front. Inside, the chair is upholstered in silk and features padded upholstered arm rests. The windows have raw silk curtains which are gathered with tassels. The present brackets and poles are reproductions made in 1986 prior to display in the Transport exhibition. The total length of the new poles are 80 inches. The sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”. Via Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.
Typical 1700s, or Eighteenth Century Sedan Chair. Portable enclosed chair for single passenger usually carried by two chairmen holding poles attached to either side of chair. Fashionable during 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries when needed to negotiate crowded, unsafe, narrow, and dirty streets. Used by invalids, ladies and party goers. The sedan chair comprises a small kiosk with a curved timber roof which is covered with leather and studded with brass nails. The front and side panels are painted in green with floral decorations of cherubs and flowers. The back panel is of plain timber. Access to the chair was via a hinged door at the front. Inside, the chair is upholstered in silk and features padded upholstered arm rests. The windows have raw silk curtains which are gathered with tassels. The present brackets and poles are reproductions made in 1986 prior to display in the Transport exhibition. The total length of the new poles are 80 inches. The sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”. Via Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia.
The longest journey recorded in a sedan chair was made by Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of King George III, who in 1728 was carried by 8 chairmen working in reliefs from London to Bath, a distance of 172 kms (107 miles). This sedan chair door lock features the initials “V.F.” and a set of crossed keys with the wording “PARIS” and the number “34”.
