In winter the fire was the focal point of any room – usually the kitchen in poorer households. With open fires used for cooking, smoke actually poured from the chimneys all year round. The black fallout from soot in the air and the pervading smell of coal smoke might diminish in towns in the summer, but it never disappeared. While in London in the summer of 1802, Dorothy Wordsworth was therefore surprised by the unusual distance they could see: ‘The city…made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly.’65 In March 1810 Louis Simond gave a vivid description of the more normal winter smog:
It is difficult to form an idea of the kind of winter days in London; the smoke of fossil coals forms an atmosphere, perceivable for many miles, like a great round cloud attached to the earth. In the town itself, when the weather is cloudy and foggy, which is frequently the case in winter, this smoke increases the general dingy hue, and terminates the length of every street with a fixed grey mist, receding as you advance. But when some rays of sun happens to fall on this artificial atmosphere, its impure mass assumes immediately a pale orange tint…loaded with small flakes of soot…so light as to float without falling. This black snow sticks to your clothes and linen, or lights on your face. You just feel something on your nose, or your cheek,—the finger is applied mechanically, and fixes it into a black patch!66
Smoke from open fires was also a nuisance indoors, and at Alfoxton Dorothy noted: ‘The room smoked so that we were obliged to quit it’.67 Woodforde had similar trouble: ‘Very windy all the day, obliged to be in the parlour as our study smoaked so very much. Wind W.N.W.’68 He had a running battle with this particular fireplace, commenting four years later: ‘Had my study chimney-piece altered to day by Mr Hardy and to prevent its smoking, but am still afraid of it. This is, I believe the 4th time of altering it.’69 Smoking chimneys were so common that specialist workmen, ‘chimney doctors’, offered to remedy such problems.
On cold, dark evenings better-off families would sit together in the parlour or drawing room with its comforting fire. The temptation to get close to the hearth meant that long garments easily caught alight, and newspapers were full of reports of women being burnt to death. This was a hazard that had no class boundaries, with rich women as much at risk as poor ones. Nelly Weeton was horrified to witness her ten-year-old pupil Mary Gertrude (Mr Pedder’s daughter by his previous marriage) die at Dove Nest in February 1810:
I heard a scream. I ran instantly. I heard her scream again, and, opening the parlour door, met her running towards it, the flames higher than her head – What a sight it was! Without the loss of a moment, I flew into the servants’ hall for the ironing blanket – it was washing week and I recollected seeing it there…I threw the blanket to the nurse, who was trying to extinguish the flames with her apron. While she was rolling her in the blanket, I ran again into the butler’s pantry and servants’ hall, to find some water to throw upon her, and cool the burning flesh. I could find no liquid of any kind.70
There was no water to hand because Dove Nest, like most houses, had no piped supply. When a house caught fire, little could be done, as on Easter morning in 1793 at Weston Longville, while Woodforde was conducting a service:
Before I got out of Church…heard that one of the widow’s cottages on Greensgate, where poor old John Peachman and his wife lived, was burnt to the ground whilst we were at Church. The poor woman was at Church, and her husband gone to Lyng. It almost distracted the poor woman, having lost almost all that she had. The house was burnt down to the ground in about an hour. Poor John Heaver’s house [adjacent] caught fire once or twice, and if it had not been for the kind assistance of neighbours, it must have been burnt.71
The need for efficient fire fighting and insurance against losses was made clear by the Great Fire of London and led to the formation of fire insurance companies such as the Sun Fire Office and the Royal Exchange. These companies operated their own fire brigades, and insured properties were identified by the fire marks of the companies on the front wall of the property – a lead or copper plaque with a readily recognisable design.72 These fire brigades operated primarily in towns, where industrial and domestic buildings crowded together, increasing the risk of fire spreading. While a fire brigade’s primary concern was dealing with insured buildings, it was in their interests to assist with nearby fires, and by the early nineteenth century the brigades from different insurance companies frequently cooperated.
Unattended candles was a common cause of fires, something that agitated Woodforde:
Ben [his manservant] went to help Stephen Andrews’s men at harvest, came home in the evening in liquor…I saw a light burning in Ben’s room, upon that I walked up into his room, and there saw him laying flat upon his back on the bed asleep with his cloaths on and the candle burning on the table. I waked him, made him put out the candle and talked with him a little on it, but not much as he was not in a capacity of answering but little. I was very uneasy to see matters go on so badly.73
Although experiments were taking place with gas street lighting, it would be many years before homes had gas lamps. As with heating, no instant lighting system existed. Instead, candles could be lit with spills ignited from the hearth or from another burning candle, or else tinderboxes were employed. These metal or wooden containers held a flint, a firesteel and some combustible material (the ‘tinder’), such as very dry cloth fibres, lichen or thin bark. The flint from the tinderbox would be struck against the firesteel to create a spark that ignited the tinder. It was then convenient to use matches, which were little pieces of card, rope or wood dipped in sulphur that caught fire easily.74 A match would be lit from the glowing tinder to produce a flame that lit the candle. Lighted candles were carried in holders to avoid spilling the hot wax, but walking too fast with the candle or walking through a draught could easily extinguish the flame. Outdoors, candles were put into protective metal lanterns (or ‘lanthorns’) with pierced sides or panels of thin translucent horn or sometimes of glass.
Candles, made and sold by licensed chandlers, were heavily taxed, which encouraged their clandestine manufacture.75 The best-quality ones were of beeswax – some were made from thin sheets of beeswax wrapped round a flax or cotton wick and others were laboriously manufactured as solid candles.76 Such candles were favoured by the wealthy and the Church, and they were better for chandeliers (often called ‘lustres’) in public buildings like theatres, where the light would be reflected and magnified by the numerous pieces of glass (‘drops’). Beeswax candles might also be mounted in candelabra or candlesticks, or fixed on wall brackets. Also of high quality were candles of spermaceti, a waxy oil from the head of sperm whales. Unlike beeswax candles, these could be made in moulds. Both beeswax and spermaceti candles burned slowly and brightly, producing little smoke or smell.
Louis Simond found the inns in southern England superior to those elsewhere in the country, but was annoyed to discover that ‘wax-candles are forced upon the travellers, whether they choose or not this piece of luxury, for which 2s. 6d. a-night is added to the bill’.77 He expected cheaper, everyday tallow candles, which were manufactured by repeatedly dipping a cotton or flax wick into hot animal fat, which hardened on cooling. These candles (‘dips’) yielded a poor flickering light and an unpleasant smell.
Tallow candles were also formed in metal moulds using superior mutton tallow rather than beef or pig, with some of their wicks dipped in wax, as seen in one London advertisement in 1807:
TALLOW CANDLES with WAXED WICKS –
In consequence of the Wicks of these Candles being coated with Wax, These Candles have the following advantages:– 1st, They are seldom, if ever, subject to what is called a thief in the candle:– 2ndly, They will not gutter, except from bad snuffing, or carrying about:– and 3dly, They burn longer and give a brighter light than the usual mould candles. Sold only at the Candle and Soap Company’s Warehouse, No. 182, Fleet-street, two doors from Fette
r-lane.78
Tallow candles burned at a lower temperature and produced a large amount of hot fat, which could run down the sides, a process called guttering. They needed thicker wicks, which tended to smoke and could cause guttering when they became too long – something described as a ‘thief in the candle’ because so much of the candle was wasted. The wick was therefore trimmed or ‘snuffed’ with snuffers (a type of scissors) while in use, without snuffing out the flame.
Poorer families could not even afford tallow candles, but might make rushlights, which were not taxed. Writing at Selborne in 1775, where he was curate, Gilbert White explained that after obtaining rushes for the wicks, their outer coating was peeled off except for one strip supporting the inner pith. After drying, the rushes were drawn through waste cooking grease and fat:
A pound of common grease may be procured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes; and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling: so that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly; and make the rushes burn longer…A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches and an half…burnt only three minutes short of an hour: and a rush still of greater length has been known to burn one hour and a quarter. These rushes give a good clear light.79
White estimated that a farthing’s worth of rushlights provided over five hours of illumination. Because rushlights burned best at an angle of about 45 degrees, they were placed in simple metal or wooden holders.80
Another simple centuries-old method of lighting was the open lamp – a shallow metal or ceramic container filled with oil in which a wick floated. Such lamps were practical in coastal areas where cheap fish oil was available, such as train oil from pilchards, but they generated more smoke and foul smells than candles. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Argand lamp with a glass chimney was introduced, which used whale or vegetable oil as fuel. Visiting London in 1786, Sophie von La Roche was impressed by the new lamps: ‘We finished the evening at tea investigating Argand lamps of all descriptions. Their advantage lies in a wick which burns around a tube fixed inside a glass funnel higher than the flame, with an air current beneath to prevent flickering and smoke. There is a paper screen on top.81
Candles or lamps illuminated only small parts of rooms, but open fires were brighter, so that everyone congregated around the hearth for light as well as for warmth. In poorer households this was the kitchen fire. In all types of home, from the poorest to the aristocratic, cooking was done over open fires, and the Frenchman Louis Simond observed that ‘an English cook only boils and roasts’.82 At the most basic level, food was boiled in pots suspended over a simple fire, but wealthier families had an open range for cooking.83
Early open ranges had a freestanding grate – a container raised above the hearth, so that the ashes fell through and enabled the coal to burn efficiently. These ranges became more sophisticated, acquiring sides and backs, and any oven was built to one side with its own grate and flue. By the late eighteenth century ironfounders were developing integral ovens that took their heat from the open fire. As well as adjustable hooks for suspending pots over the flames, other accessories might be fitted to the grate, such as hotplates over part of the fire. Years later, Victorian cast-iron ranges had an integral oven, water heater with tap and hotplates, and the fire was fully enclosed.
The roasting of meat was not done in an oven. Instead, horizontal spits were placed in front of (not above) the open fire, and the juices and fat were collected in a pan underneath. These horizontal spits were turned by hand or by mechanical contrivances such as weight-driven jacks and smoke jacks (fitted inside a chimney so that they rotated by the hot smoke rising from the fire). Alternatively, clockwork bottle jacks might be suspended over the open range – the meat was hung from a hook, and the clockwork mechanism kept the meat turning while it roasted. The Morning Chronicle in 1807 advertised these cooking aids:
IMPROVED OECONOMICAL KITCHEN RANGES, &c.– At the London Patent Register Stove Manufactory, the corner of Brooke-street, Holborn, are finished and ready for the inspection of the Public, KITCHEN RANGES, from the latest improved principle, combining oeconomy with utility. Likewise, Smoke Jacks, which may be oiled by any servant, without going up the chimney.84
Such machines needed maintenance and repair, as Woodforde found with his weight-driven jack: ‘Mr Symonds came here this afternoon and cleaned my jack and took away the compass wheel, as it required so large a weight to it and was always breaking the line. I hope now it will go better and with a less weight.’85
In better-off homes, cookbooks were increasingly used in the kitchen. Many were published during the eighteenth century, and the most popular ones remained in print for years, such as The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published by Hannah Glasse in 1747. Aimed at households with servants, it was designed both for the servants and for the mistress of the house (so that she could direct them). Because Glasse was writing a book to be read by servants, she apologised to her lady readers for the use of simple language: ‘my intention is to instruct the lower sort, and therefore [I] must treat them in their own way’.86
Glasse’s cookbook contained a variety of household information, including all kinds of recipes, such as how to ‘roast a pig’ and ‘make a currey the indian way’, handy tips on how to ‘keep venison or hares sweet, or to make them fresh when they stink’ and ‘how to keep clear from bugs’.87 The latter process advised sealing the draught holes in the affected room and then fumigating it by burning brimstone on a charcoal fire, but after six hours, ‘If you find great swarms about the room, and some not dead, do this over again, and you will be clear.’88
This and other popular cookbooks were reprinted, copied and plagiarised over many years, but they would have been of little use to working-class people, who subsisted mainly on bread, potatoes and cheese, with some vegetables, fruit and meat. The type of food varied across the regions of England, so that in Kendal in Westmorland in March 1795, Frederick Eden recorded: ‘Oat-cake is the principal bread used by the labouring classes: the men generally eat hasty-pudding, or boiled milk, twice a day: the women live much on tea, but have, of late, discontinued the use of sugar. Potatoes are a general article for dinner: they are sometimes eaten with a little butter, and sometimes with meat.’89 The poor were accustomed to buying grain in small quantities and having it ground at the local mill, or else they purchased flour direct from the millers. Mills, particularly windmills, were to be seen everywhere. When he arrived at Liverpool in 1805, Benjamin Silliman remarked: ‘The city is surrounded by lofty windmills, which are among the first objects that strike a stranger coming in from the sea.’90 They were so commonplace in the landscape that after one violent gale in Norfolk, Woodforde simply noted: ‘Many windmills blown down.’91
The increase in population, bad harvests in the 1790s and the lengthy wars with France led to food shortages. Farmers made more profits by selling in bulk to the millers and by holding back their crops until prices rose. This withholding was made possible by the banks lending farmers money as a low-risk investment. Similarly, the millers increased their income by selling flour directly to the bakers. Inevitably, bread prices rose, and in November 1795 Eden noted at Hereford: ‘The labouring classes, who usually bake their own bread, say, it is extremely difficult to procure a small quantity of corn from the farmer; and that the millers and mealmen buy it in large quantities, and exact a large profit from the consumer.’92
A few months before, the caricaturist James Gillray had lampooned William Pitt, the Prime Minister, for having advised people to eat meat rather than bread, a remark worthy of Marie Antoinette, demonstrating how little the politician knew about England’s poor. Gillray’s cartoon, ‘The British butcher, supplying John Bull with a substitute for bread’, depicted Pitt as a butcher, accompanied by a verse:
BILLY the BU
TCHER’S advice to JOHN BULL.
Since bread is so dear, (and you say you must Eat,) For to save the expence, you must live upon Meat; And as Twelve Pence the Quartern you can’t pay for Bread Get a Crown’s worth of Meat, – it will serve in its stead.93
Sporadic food riots were breaking out across England, but rather than loot, the mob used the threat of violence to force profiteers to sell their goods more cheaply. The tailor Thomas Carter recalled these wretched times of his childhood in Colchester, Essex:
The first [memory] is the great scarcity of wheat and other bread-corn during the year 1800. This to poor people was the source of much distress. My father’s wages were but ten shillings and sixpence per week, and my mother’s little [dame] school brought from two to three shillings more. With very little besides this scanty income, they had to provide for the wants of themselves and four children, while bread was sold at the enormous price of one shilling and tenpence for the quartern loaf. We were consequently forced to put up with very insufficient fare, and sometimes with that which was rather hurtful than nutritious.94
Unscrupulous bakers concealed cheaper, often harmful, additives in brown bread. Consumers therefore preferred white bread, but bakers could also adulterate this bread with chalk, alum or even bone-meal. Another ploy was selling undersize loaves, though authorities did try to prevent such abuses. News of the arrest and prosecution of bakers was always popular, as in London in October 1807: ‘MARLBOROUGH-STREET.– A Baker, of the name of Dix, who resides in High-street, Mary-le-Bonne, was charged by the Parish Inspectors with exposing a quantity of bread deficient by weight. A quantity of light bread was produced by the Officers, and there appeared in the whole a deficiency of 29 ounces, for which the Defendant was fined 7l. 10s.’95
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