Jane Austen's England

by Roy Adkins,Lesley Adkins

  By the 1780s umbrellas were more commonly seen, and in January 1787 a blizzard at Weston Longville forced Parson Woodforde to use one in the churchyard when officiating at a funeral: ‘I buried a daughter of Harrisons, an infant aged only 5 weeks. I think I never felt the cold more severe than when I was burying the above infant. The wind blowed very strong and snow falling all the time, and the wind almost directly in my face, that it almost stopped my breath in reading the funeral service at the grave, tho’ I had an umbrella held over my head during the time.’73

  As a respectable man, Woodforde would also have worn a wig, made of human or animal hair. In order to wear wigs comfortably, gentlemen had their own hair cropped short or shaved. To display their higher status, professional men like clergy, lawyers and physicians had formerly worn voluminous, full-bottomed wigs – the big wigs of society – but by the late 1770s most gentlemen preferred smaller wigs, sometimes with pigtails or queues. Wigs were kept fresh with hair-powder made from starch, giving them a white or off-white appearance, and so wig wearers invariably had powder over their shoulders and backs. Younger men especially started to give up wigs and instead had their own hair styled and powdered to resemble a wig. In 1786 hair-powder was taxed, which precipitated the abandonment of wigs altogether, and while staying at Cole in Somerset three years later, Woodforde wrote: ‘Old Mr. Dalton and son John called on me this morning, stayed half an hour with us. I did not know old Mr. Dalton at first as he now wears his hair.’74

  Two years later John Byng was at Winchelsea in Sussex. ‘I walk’d early to a barbers shop,’ he said, ‘bought a pound of powder, had my razor set, and did hope for some intelligence from him; but he was deaf!’75 Barbers, also called hairdressers, ‘dressed’ men’s hair and wigs and shaved them with cut-throat razors, which was a necessary service for those without access to a mirror. The following summer Byng was staying at the Tontine Inn at Sheffield, and as ever he preferred to shave himself: ‘My first direction was to the hair-dressers room, where he dress’d my hair, and where I shaved myself; receiving many compliments (for the first time) on my adroitness: “Never did he see a gentleman shave so well!”’76

  Woodforde often visited barbers to be shaved, at times accompanied by his niece for her hair to be styled, as in London in June 1786: ‘Nancy walked with me to one Smiths in Surry Street, Strand, a Barber, and there had her hair full dressed…I was shaved and had my wig dressed there. I gave him for shaving and dressing 0.1.6.’77 In 1795 a tax of one guinea on hair-powder was made payable by the head of each household, and this triggered a radical change in men’s hairstyles. Instead of paying the tax, the Whigs cut their hair short, in a style called à la guillotine, after those forced to have their hair cropped before being executed during the French Revolution. Those Tories who paid the tax were called guinea-pigs. The Chester Chronicle printed a short poem on the unwelcome tax:

  On Mr. Pitt’s Tax of a Guinea a-year, for wearing Hair-powder:

  By bob that’s black, or brown, and greasy,

  You may distinguish very easy

  One of the common herd of swine—

  This is a never-failing sign;

  But by the powder’d hair, or wig,

  You recognize the Guinea-pig.78

  Woodforde was conservative in his ways, even wearing an old wig while in the garden: ‘Mr. Charles Townshend of Honingham [Hall] called on me this morning about 11 o’clock and walked round my gardens with me…He caught me on the hop, being in my garden and dressed in my cotton morning gown, old wigg and hat.’79 He therefore duly complied with the tax, which he noted in mid-April 1796: ‘Paid Mr. Corbould £3. 3s. 0d to day to get three receipts for the powder tax from Norwich on Saturday next, as he goes to Norwich that day.’80

  Dispensing with wigs markedly changed people’s appearance, and their hair was now visible in its natural state. Grey or red hair was considered undesirable, but hair dyes were available, as one newspaper advertised:

  ATKINSON’S VEGETABLE DYE

  for changing grey or red hair to an auburn or black. This article is presumed to merit the attention of all who have the misfortune to have grey hair early in life, a defect which always makes a person look old, the Vegetable Dye changes it whether red or grey, to a beautiful and permanent auburn or black by so simple a mode of application that a Lady or Gentleman may change the colour of their own hair with ease and secresy. Price 5s. 7s. 6d. 10s. 6d. and one guinea. CAUTION.– Ask for Atkinson’s Fluid, or Atkinson’s Dye, and observe the signature, as there are counterfeits.81

  For women, caps were almost the equivalent of wigs, as they could hide their hair beneath them,82 something Jane Austen described to Cassandra in December 1798: ‘I have made myself two or three caps to wear of evenings since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to hair-dressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well enough to want not papering. I have had it cut lately by Mr. Butler.’83 Women curled their hair by twisting it in curling paper and allowing it to dry, or better still by applying heated iron tongs to the paper, taking care not to singe the hair. ‘Mr. Howes made us a morning visit,’ Woodforde remarked in 1781, ‘and brought Nancy a Pr of tongs to pinch her hair with from Mrs. Davy, as a present to her.’84 A decade later his niece was suffering from hair loss: ‘Nancy made use of some rum, honey and oil, equal quantity of each, this evening, on her head to prevent the hair falling off, which it has done very much of late, it rather makes her uneasy.’85

  Until the end of the eighteenth century, female hair fashions became increasingly high on the head, with added feathers and other decorations, sometimes making it difficult for women to move. From the 1790s, as a protest against the French Revolution, fashionable women cut their hair short in sympathetic imitation of victims’ hair before they were guillotined. Writing from her lodgings near Liverpool in 1809, Nelly Weeton asked a friend: ‘I am considering whether to continue my hair a crop, or let it grow again. What says Miss C. Scott? She hears more of fashion than I do. I like it best as it is, but if out of fashion, I must conform.’86 Washing of hair must have been infrequent, and lice infestation was a nuisance for all classes. In the 1780s Francis Place associated with poor prostitutes in London: ‘their hair among the generality was straight and “hung in rat tails” over their eyes, and was filled with lice, [or] at least was inhabited by considerable colonies of those insects’.87

  Hair washing was not a simple task, because water was not readily available, and obtaining it for everyday household purposes was a constant chore. One of the greatest uses of water was for laundry – the arduous tasks of washing, drying and ironing of clothing and linen. Where feasible, houses collected rainwater from their roofs in wooden barrels, something that the surgeon Lionel Gillespie noticed on the bleak Isle of Sheppey in December 1787: ‘I believe there is not a stream on the island and…most of the inhabitants supply themselves with water by spouts from their houses.’88Elsewhere, water was fetched in heavy iron-bound wooden buckets from streams or communal wells and pumps, which was a time-consuming and laborious process considering that an imperial gallon of water weighs 10 pounds.89 Particularly in towns, water was obtained from pumps in the streets, which were enclosed in protective wooden cases. Below ground was a shaft or bore with a wood or lead pipe containing a wooden plunger that was attached above ground to an iron handle. The pump handle was worked up and down to lift the water and force it through a spout protruding from the wooden case.

  In rural areas fortunate households had a well in their garden, with winding gear to raise the water in a bucket, and when staying at Bath William Holland satirised his brother-in-law Arthur Dodwell roaming about their rented house as ‘moving up and down stairs like a bucket in a well’.90 Buckets in wells were not always reliable, and in September 1801 at his Norfolk parsonage Woodforde recorded: ‘Our well-bucket fell into [the] well this morning as our folks were drawing water, the chain break
ing in drawing it up. We tryed all the whole day to get it up, but in vain.’91 The next day brought success: ‘About noon we got up our well-bucket out of the well, by some large iron-creepers which we borrowed of Mr. Michael Andrews. We had some small creepers, but they did not do.’92

  Even in towns and cities piped water supplies were uncommon and in any case were only for those who could afford to pay. William Darter recalled memories of piped water in his home town of Reading in 1814:

  a large lead reservoir stood in the centre of Broad Street opposite the Wool Pack Inn, which was supplied with water by means of a three-action pump fixed in Mill Lane; its distribution being through wooden pipes. The only other means of obtaining water was from wells and pumps, but…some wells were 30 to 90 feet in depth…The wooden pipes to which I refer were simply elm trees, selected for straightness.93

  These elm trunks were formed into pipes by boring, and then much smaller 3¾-inch lead pipes distributed the water to individual properties, but not without problems, as there were constant complaints about an insufficient supply and obstructions from fish and eels. Some of London’s better houses had a piped supply, but as in Reading the water was impure. In 1811 Louis Simond saw the old wooden pipes being replaced there:

  The water with which London is supplied, was…conveyed by means of wooden pipes or logs, perforated, lying under ground, from which small leaden pipes branched out to each house. Workmen are now employed in taking up these logs, which appear mostly decayed, and substituting cast-iron pipes. Those in the main streets, such as Oxford Street and Holborn, are enormously large; upwards of two feet diameter, branching out, down into the side streets, into pipes of the diameter of six inches.94

  In times of drought, water supplies would run perilously low. In a letter to Mary Heber in the summer of 1785, her friend Miss Iremonger described a visit to Uppark in West Sussex: ‘I suppose the dry summer has incommoded the country where you have been, as well as elsewhere. I never saw so little appearance of verdure, and almost all the wells and reservoirs in Sussex were exhausted…The near wells were guarded, and the poor people obliged to go to a distance for supply.’95 Some years later, in October 1803, William Holland in Somerset showed more compassion for the poor in another drought when he noted: ‘Most of the village coming to my well for water, never was such a scarcity before.’96

  Water was heated for many household purposes. Some homes had a copper in a scullery, where crockery and cooking utensils were cleaned, or perhaps in a separate wash-house. A copper was like a large cauldron, used for heating water and for boiling linen such as sheets. It was supported within an encircling wall, so that its top was at waist height, and a fire was lit underneath to heat the water. In November 1795 Woodforde took delivery of an improved copper: ‘A new substantial washing copper from my brazier, Manning, from Norwich, 26 inches and 3¾ wide, 19 inches ½ deep, weight 45 lb ½.’97

  The poor had no such facilities, but cleaned their clothes and linen as best they could. All classes changed their clothing infrequently, and the laundry was done only every few weeks. Many households hired washerwomen to assist their own servants or else sent everything to a washerwoman. The whole operation was so labour intensive and expensive that it might last a week or more in larger households, where people regularly referred to the ‘washing week’. William Wilkinson worried about the costs. ‘I hope you will find a cheap method of getting our things washed,’ he warned his wife Sarah in August 1809, ‘as otherwise it will be a great expense. You had better endeavour to iron them yourself, and get a woman to wash them at home.’98

  Woodforde certainly hired washerwomen, as in June 1799: ‘Washing week with us this week. We wash every five weeks. Our present washerwomen are Anne Downing and Anne Richmond. Washing and ironing generally take us four days. The washerwomen breakfast and dine the Monday and Tuesday, and have each one shilling on their going away in the evening of Tuesday.’99 His washerwomen therefore worked for two days, and his own servants dried and ironed everything for two more. The Austens also employed a washer-woman, and with her customary wit Jane wrote to Cassandra about a new one: ‘Dame Bushell washes for us only one week more. John Stevens’ wife [then] undertakes our purification. She does not look as if anything she touched would ever be clean, but who knows?’100

  Much was never washed at all, and Francis Place recollected his London childhood of the 1770s and 1780s being full of dirty people:

  I can remember the wives and daughters of journeymen tradesmen and shopkeepers, [who] either wore leather stays or what some called full boned stays, and these latter sort were worn by women of all ranks. These were never washed although worn day by day for years. The wives and grown daughters of tradesmen and gentlemen even wore petticoats of camblet, lined with dyed linen, stuffed with wool or horse hair and quilted. These were also worn day by day until they were rotten, and never were washed.101

  It was not just clothing that was infrequently washed, but linen such as sheets and towels. One physician, Robert Willan, commented in 1801: ‘It will scarcely appear credible…that persons of the lowest class do not put clean sheets on their beds three times a year; that…they never wash or scour their blankets and coverlets, nor renew them till they are no longer tenable; that curtains, if unfortunately there should be any, are never cleaned, but suffered to continue in the same state till they drop to pieces.’102

  Some landladies provided a washing service, as Nelly Weeton told her aunt when she was lodging at Beacon’s Gutter in 1808:

  Since I came here I have had my cloathes washed by the woman of the house, who does them a great deal cheaper than Ellen [Oaks] did, or the other washer-woman I employed before Ellen came. They both charged me after the same rate – 8d. for a gown, 4d. for a petticoat, and 3d. for a shift, which made my bill for washing near 8 shillings a fortnight. Here I have them done at a shilling a dozen for large things, and sixpence small when I iron them myself; and 1s. 6d., and 8d., when I don’t, which makes a very great difference.103

  Placed in hot or cold water, the laundry was pounded or beaten with wooden bats or dollies, but washing machines constructed of wooden drums rotated by a handle were appearing. One was invented in 1782 by Henry Sidgier in London and is now a symbol on the shield of the Coat of Arms of the Worshipful Company of Launderers.104 Other machines followed, such as those advertised in the Hampshire Chronicle in 1791: ‘S. BIRD, original Maker and Inventor of WASHING MACHINES…The Prices are as follow, with a Wringing Machine to each Size included: A Machine to wash 8 Shirts, three Guineas–ditto to wash 14 Shirts, three Guineas and a Half–ditto to wash 18 Shirts, four Guineas…Carriage paid to any Part of England.’105 Most households, though, preferred hired help and servants rather than strange machines.

  Cleaning agents could be added to the water to loosen grease and dirt, such as wood ash and stale urine. Soap was better, but it was a highly taxed commodity and needed hot water to be most effective. The stench of manufacturing both soft and hard soap was terrible, using wood ash or vegetable ashes (potash) boiled with whale oil, tallow (animal fat) or olive oil (for finer soap).

  The next stage in the laundry process was rinsing in cleaner water and then wringing out excess moisture, either by hand or mangled between wooden bats or rollers, which were sometimes incorporated into mechanical devices fitted with handles. Wet laundry was dried by being suspended from lines, spread over hedges or on the ground, or draped over wooden drying racks. Describing an attempted theft in March 1801, Woodforde revealed that his stockings were dried on flat wooden stocking stretchers: ‘A pair of stockings that happened to be out just by the back door upon some wooden legs to dry were attempted to be taken off by some person or another, but being wet they could not pull them off.’106

  Dorothy Wordsworth often mentioned doing the laundry, as on 16 October 1800 at Grasmere: ‘A very fine morning–starched and hung out linen…Ironed till six.’107 Ironing was strenuous, using heavy one-piece cast-iron smoothing irons (‘flat irons’), with iron
handles, which were heated by an open fire and so were liable to get dirty. The correct temperature of the iron was gauged by spitting on the flat surface, and because the handle became so hot, a cloth pad was necessary for protection. Irons cooled down rapidly, so while one was in use, another was heating by the fire. Those with no access to irons used implements like wooden rollers, pebbles and glass linen smoothers – or did not bother.

  Apart from the laundry, the rest of the house needed to be kept clean, and methods remained much the same until the advent of electricity. Sweeping was the most obvious form of cleaning, using handmade besoms or brooms. Carpets were taken outside where they were placed over a line or a hedge and then beaten. William Holland, out riding, ‘was stopp’d by some young bullocks who stood across the road affrighted at a carpet which hung over the hedge into the road’.108 Damp and mildew caused a big problem in houses, as well as vermin and all sorts of bugs.

  Personal hygiene, or lack of it, would undoubtedly shock us today, with the overpowering body odours and the stink of clothing, stale with sweat and often musty from damp houses. Some people smelled rather worse than others, particularly if employed in a noisome industry. This was an era before anti-perspirants, before the widespread use of soap, before a time when people washed their bodies and changed their clothing on a regular basis, and when virtually nobody immersed themselves in baths or showers. Everyone would have smelled, even genteel women like Jane Austen, who in mid-September 1796 admitted to Cassandra: ‘What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.’109