George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (June 7th 1778 – March 30th 1840) Arbiter of men’s fashion and friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. Established mode of dress for men that rejected overly ornate fashions for understated but perfectly fitted and tailored clothing. Look based on dark coats, full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings, with immaculate shirt linen and an elaborately knotted cravat. 1855 Engraving of Beau Brummell from an article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
1810 January 1st. West India Docks, London. By Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Charles Pugin. Printed in 1810 By Rudolph Ackermann in Microcosm Of London, or London In Miniature. Volume 1. Aquatint showing warehouses at quayside and several West Indiamen moored alongside. Warehouses held thousands of tons of cargo, including sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, spices and hardwood. Docks were constructed by powerful group of businessmen led by Robert Milligan, wealthy merchant and ship-owner outraged at losses suffered due to theft and delay at riverside wharves. via National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, U.K. ~ collections.rmg.co.uk
East and West India Docks London’s Historic Places
The East India Docks was a group of docks in Blackwall, east London, north-east of the Isle of Dogs. In 1607, the East India Company decided to build its own ships and leased a yard in Deptford. In 1614 the East India Company ordered William Burrell to begin work on a bigger yard for repair, construction and loading of out-going ships. The site selected was at Blackwall, which was further down river and had deeper water, allowing laden ships to moor closer to the dock. During the early 17th century, the site was enlarged repeatedly. Later in the 17th century, the East India Company reverted to its practice of hiring vessels, although many owners who chartered their vessel to the East India Company had them built at Deptford and Blackwall.
Before 1800, the Thames river was overcrowded with ships. They carried cargoes of tea, china and cloth in their lower parts along with casks of water, salted meat, beer, wine and rum for their crews. Brandy, wine, and tobacco were also shipped and stored in the warehouses. In 1800, the London Dock Company was formed and the planned docks in Wapping went ahead in 1801. The first was the West India Dock. In 1806, the East India Company opened their own docks to the north-east of the West India Docks after deciding that the Brunswick Dock at Blackwall, where ships were fitted out, was unsuitable for storing cargo.
The Brunswick Dock, which had originally been connected directly to the Thames to the south, became the Export Dock. To the north the company built a larger 18-acre (7.3 ha) Import Dock. Both were connected to the Thames via an eastern entrance basin. The number of ships discharged in the docks rose from 354 in 1804, to 598 in 1808, and to 641 in 1810. In 1808, the warehouses were full, as blockades prevented the re-export of goods. The dock company calculated that the almost total prevention of theft made possible by the building of the docks was saving West India merchants almost £400,000, and the Exchequer about £150,000 each year. During the 1840s and early 1850s, shipping and tonnage handled at the East and West India docks increased so much that dividends of 5 and 6 per cent were paid.
The East India Docks didn’t have many warehouses because cargoes were taken straight to their warehouses in the City. So instead of building warehouses, the company built private toll roads like Commercial Road and East India Dock Road to carry traffic to and from the docks.
The company made large profits on tea, spices, indigo, silk and Persian carpets. The tea trade alone was worth £30m a year. Spice merchants and pepper grinders set up around the dock to process goods. Although the East India docks were smaller than the West India Docks, they handled up to 250 ships at one time and East Indiamen of 1000 tons but larger ships and steam power reduced the importance of the dock.
The West India Docks were a series of three docks, quaysides, and warehouses built to import goods from, and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies. In 1802, the first dock opened on the Isle Of Dogs. When they closed for commerce in 1980, the Canary Wharf development was built around the wet docks by narrowing some of their broadest tracts.
The docks were constructed in two phases. The two northern docks were constructed between 1800 and 1802 for the West India Dock Company and were the first commercial wet docks in London. For 21 years, all vessels in the West India trade using the Port Of London had to use the West India docks by a clause in the act of Parliament that had enabled their construction.
In 1838 the East and West India companies merged. The southern dock, the South West India Dock, later known as South Dock, was constructed in the 1860s and in 1909 the Port Of London Authority took over the West India Docks,
The docks played a key role in the Second World War as a location for constructing the floating Mulberry harbours used by the Allies to support the D-Day landings in France. Following the Second World War, in which all the docks were badly damaged, the East India Docks were confined to occasional Channel Islands traffic and to the maintenance of dredger equipment.
The docks were the first London docks to close, in 1967. Today the docks have been mostly filled in. Only the entrance basin remains, as a wildlife refuge and an attractive local amenity. The area is predominantly residential with several major developments around it.
1813 Spa Terrace. From: Poetical Sketches of Scarborough. Meant as souvenirs and not intended for publication. By Thomas Rowlandson & Aquatint by John Bluck and Joseph Stadler. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART) Spa towns were very fashionable retreats from London’s pollution for people in Jane Austen’s times.
1804 Royal Mint, Stamping Room, London, U.K. As Jane Austen would have known it. From Ackermann’s Microcosm of London by A.C. Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson.
1800s “Admiration”. By Vittorio Reggianini. Oil on canvas. This looks like a typical drawing room scene from Jane Austen’s lifetime, or the early 1800s, or the Regency Era. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org
Easy to read overview of what an older lady did, wore, and how she lived in Jane Austen and Bridgerton’s time. Information for history buffs and pictures for readers and writers of historical fiction. Older Lady’s Day Regency Life Series Book 5 by Suzi Love books2read.com/suziloveOLD
1830 Hatchetts, the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, UK. By James Pollard. Denver Art Museum.
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.”
1829 July 4th George Shillibeer’s Omnibus, London, U.K. First Omnibus between Paddington and Bank of England via the New Road, now Marylebone Rd., Somers Town and City Rd. Via Wikimedia Commons. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
1816 Inside a dining room by Martin Drolling. Via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org (PD-ART) This is typical of the inside of a gentleman’s household in Jane Austen’s times.
