Jane Austen's England

by Roy Adkins,Lesley Adkins

  Even a middle-class clergyman like William Jones could not provide for a growing family without sharing his home with lodgers, which he lamented: ‘Though my wife often reminds me that I could not have this & that, without foreigners, and, now & then, threatens to put me on coarse fare and short allowance, when we have none of these inmates;– yet I cannot help thinking that I shall never truly enjoy my dear cottage, till it is clear of all but my own dear family…If the taking of boarders enlarges my income, it most certainly curtails my comforts.’28

  After one year, Nelly Weeton returned to Liverpool and then moved to the Lake District as governess at Dove Nest, a house overlooking Lake Windermere that was originally built for John Benson (who also owned Dove Cottage which he rented to William Wordsworth). Nelly’s employer, Edward Pedder, was now renting Dove Nest, as she told her brother Tom: ‘Mr. P. gives a hundred a year for the house and land. Estates here let and sell amazingly high.’29 Two decades later the poet Felicia Hemans rented Dove Nest, which she described as ‘a lonely but beautifully situated cottage on the banks of Windermere’.30

  A familiar theme in Jane Austen’s novels and letters is lack of security and tenure – something she experienced when her father died. Wives often had to vacate the marital home on their husband’s death, and the families of deceased clergymen were particularly vulnerable. In June 1798 William Jones expressed sympathy for the plight of a fellow cleric’s family: ‘Poor Mr. Fowler is gone – he died about 11 o’clock last night…His poor wife and three unestablished daughters, (the youngest of them not very young), are, I fear, left in distressed circumstances. How must their hearts droop at exchanging their present large, convenient, beautiful house for a cottage! A rectory, or a vicarage house, is certainly but a caravanseray; for it frequently exchanges its inmates.’31

  Because rents varied enormously, finding somewhere reasonable could be difficult. Sarah Wilkinson considered all kinds of accommodation in London in 1809 while her husband was away, serving in the navy: ‘I was looking at some lodgings that were to let in Knightsbridge the other evening,’ she told him. ‘For a first floor 3 rooms and a kitchen thirty pounds; without the kitchen twenty five pounds, and another place with only two rooms on the floor twenty pounds per year.’32 To consider a place without a kitchen might seem strange, but the urban poor were lucky even to share a kitchen, relying instead on street vendors and inns for cooked food if they had no fireplace. Two months later, William Wilkinson decided that they should rent a terraced house in east London. ‘I think I see us now living in our house in Poplar Row,’ he wrote, ‘and sitting in the parlour in a winter evening, you and Fanny at your needle and myself reading…We would let the first floor and one of the rooms upstairs.’33 Not even a naval warrant officer could afford to rent a London house without subletting.

  Finding a place to live was only the start, since many houses were let unfurnished. Ready-made furniture, both new and secondhand, could be bought, and in November 1789 Parson Woodforde purchased items from one of the cabinet makers on Hog Hill in Norwich: ‘Bought this day of Willm Hart, Cabinet Maker on Hog Hill Norwich, 2 large second hand double-flapped mohogany tables, also one second hand mohogany dressing table with drawers, also one new mohogany washing-stand, for all which paid 4.14.6, that is, for the 2 tables 2.12.6, dressing table 1.11.6, mohogany wash-stand 0.10.6. I think the whole of it to be very cheap.’34

  Furniture was also built to order. Designs would be agreed with the cabinet-maker, often with reference to one of the design books issued by fashionable London craftsmen. Thomas Chippendale was the first to publish such a book (The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Directory) in 1754, but by the end of the century George Hepplewhite’s designs (published in 1788 as The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide) and Thomas Sheraton’s four volumes of The Cabinet Maker’s and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (published from 1791) were more in vogue. Less famous designers also issued catalogues. Cabinet makers would remodel furniture, making a piece more fashionable or turning it into something entirely different. This is what the Austens chose to do at Southampton. ‘Our dressing table is constructing on the spot,’ Jane told Cassandra in February 1807, ‘out of a large kitchen table.’35

  Most families owned very few items of furniture and could not afford to buy anything new. Travelling from Taunton to Bristol in 1810, soon after arriving in England, Louis Simond glimpsed inside several rural cottages which were modestly furnished: ‘The villages along the road are in general not beautiful,—the houses very poor; the walls old and rough…Peeping in, as we pass along, the floors appear to be a pavement of round stones like the streets,—a few seats, in the form of short benches,—a table or two,—a spinning wheel,—a few shelves.’36

  The more expensive the house, the larger the rooms, the higher the ceilings and the more windows they possessed. Every house incurred a window tax, in two parts: a relatively low flat-rate tax (which in 1778 became a variable tax related to the value of the house) and a higher variable rate depending on the number of windows. The tax on windows was constantly changing, and the introduction of further taxes in 1784 may have prompted Woodforde to take action: ‘Mr Hardy and boy fastened up 3 windows with brick for me.’37 Blocking up windows was a common way of avoiding the tax – widely regarded as a tax on light and air. Woodforde, who ran a modest establishment, frequently noted what he paid, as in May 1788 when the taxes ranged from windows to servants:

  To Js. Pegg [tax collector] this morning – Qrs. Land Tax 3.0.0

  To Do.½; years window tax 2.13.3

  To Do.ditto house ditto 0.1.9

  To Do.ditto male servant tax 1.5.0

  To Do.ditto female Do 0.10.0

  To Do.ditto horse tax 0.10.0

  To Do.ditto cart Do 0.1.038

  Upper- and middle-class people such as Woodforde had leisure time because their household chores were done by servants. Without servants their lives would have been so very different. The lower classes had less time and energy because they had no servants – they were the servants. Jane Austen was accustomed to having servants, often mentioning them in her letters. In October 1798 she wrote to Cassandra from Steventon when one of them left: ‘We do not seem likely to have any other maidservant at present, but Dame Staples will supply the place of one. Mary has hired a young girl from Ashe who has never been out to service to be her scrub, but James fears her not being strong enough for the place.’39 She added: ‘Earle [Harwood] and his wife live in the most private manner imaginable at Portsmouth, without keeping a servant of any kind. What a prodigious innate love of virtue she must have, to marry under such circumstances!’40 Her tone is ironic, but in an era without electricity or labour-saving appliances, domestic chores were hard and time-consuming.

  When a family’s income was reduced, servants had to go. In Sense and Sensibility Miss Elinor Dashwood persuades her widowed mother to economise: ‘Her wisdom…limited the number of their servants to three; two maids and a man, with whom they were speedily provided from amongst those who had formed their establishment at Norland.’

  By contrast, Nelly Weeton was not brought up with servants, but spent her time looking after her mother and their house. In her new role as governess at Dove Nest she took time to adjust to the wealthy household. ‘At supper we had two servants in livery attending,’ she confided to a friend, ‘and some display of plate, silver nutcrackers, &c., and some things of which poor ignorant I knew not the use. I felt a little awkward, but as you may suppose, strove not to let it appear.’41 In respectable households, manservants were expected to wear livery, usually a recognisable jacket and breeches. Because the lifestyle at Dove Nest was so different to what she had previously known, Nelly described the household to another friend: ‘I found on my arrival here, an establishment of five servants (two men and three maids), a curricle, four or five horses, five or six dogs, two pigs, and a whole host of rats, too many to be counted.’42

  Servants often found employment at hiring fairs,
or were recommended by friends and family.43 Many were hired for one year only and were at the mercy of their employers, who could dismiss them with bad character references or no references at all and abuse them without fear of reprisals. In 1777 a tax was imposed on manservants, which affected the numbers employed, and in 1785 a tax was also imposed on female servants but repealed six years later. It was customary to pay servants a sum of money on taking up their post, with the rest of their wages paid in arrears. In mid-January 1798 Woodforde was late paying his servants:

  After breakfast I paid my servants their year’s wages due Janry 5th 1798 as follows.

  To Benj. Leggatt, my farming man pd. 10.0.0

  To Bretingham Scurl, my footman pd. 8.0.0

  To Betty Dade, my house-maid pd. 5.5.0

  To Sally Gunton, my cook & dairy maid pd. 5.5.0

  T Barnabas Woodcock, my yard-boy pd. 2.2.044

  Apart from these live-in servants, Woodforde also relied on his unmarried niece Anna Maria Woodforde, usually called Nancy or Miss Woodforde. Born at Ansford in Somerset in 1757, she went to live at the Weston Longville parsonage in Norfolk in 1779 and remained there for the rest of her uncle’s life, becoming his housekeeper.45 The wages of his servants were lower than those of agricultural workers, who usually earned £12 a year or more, or those of industrial workers, who almost always earned more than that, while wages of skilled craftsmen might be in the region of £20 or £30. Live-in servants did have board and lodging and received other extras, such as cast-off clothes and sometimes lengths of cloth for making their garments.

  Nothing like a career structure existed, but a good servant might aspire to grander households, higher wages and perhaps a better position. In 1784 Woodforde lost one maid and immediately hired another:

  After dinner I paid Lizzy half a years wages due this day, and then dismissed her from my service, as she is going on my recommendation to Weston House. I gave her extraordinary 0.2.6. I paid her for wages 1.6.6. In the evening sent Ben with a market cart for my new maid who lives at Mattishall and she came here about 8 at night and she supped and slept here. Her name is Molly Dade about 17 years of age – a very smart girl and pretty I think. Her friends bear great characters of industry &c.46

  This was a rise in status for Lizzy, because Weston House was the residence of Squire Custance, though this did not mean that conditions would necessarily be better. A few years later Woodforde noted: ‘Great complainings at Weston-House. Servants complaining to their Master that they had not victuals enough owing to the housekeeper, Hetty Yallop, keeping them very short.’47

  Servants worked long hours and could be called upon at any time of the day or night. William Holland was extremely intolerant of anything resembling idleness and expected his servants to labour tirelessly. His diary is littered with complaints about his manservant Robert Coles, as in November 1799: ‘Tis a difficult thing to get a servant that is worth any thing. He has some good qualities, but the bad ones outweigh them. His slowness and laziness and want of method puts me out of patience. When the year is out he must go.’48 He obviously changed his mind, as Robert was kept on, though the circumstances of his eventual parting are unknown because the relevant volume of Holland’s diary is missing.

  Someone with only one or two small, sparsely furnished rooms to call their home might have no servants at all. Nelly Weeton remembered her old room at Upholland: ‘A fire in my room on a cold winter’s evening, was one of the greatest comforts I had during that long, dreary, solitary season; and many a snug sit have I had there, shut up in a box 7 feet by 9, with a bed, a chest of drawers, two chairs, and a wash-stand in it, (don’t peep under the bed now!) with just spare room for myself and the fire, and a tea-tray put over the washstand to serve for a table.’49

  Descriptions of the everyday contents of rooms, such as chamberpots hidden beneath the bed as Nelly alludes to here, are uncommon in letters and diaries because they were considered unexceptional, but the observations of travellers like Carl Moritz can provide fascinating glimpses of how people lived. He was struck by the bedding in England that was so different to his native Germany: ‘The custom of sleeping without a feather-bed for a covering, particularly pleased me. You here lie between two sheets, and are covered with blankets, which, without oppressing you, keep you sufficiently warm.’50 Feather beds in England meant mattresses to lie on, not quilts or duvets, and when travelling through Hampshire in 1782, John Byng criticised the Crown Inn at Ringwood: ‘Of all the beds I ever lay in, that of last night was the very worst, for there could not be more than fifty feathers in the bolster, and pillow, or double that number in the feather-bed; so there I lay tossing, and tumbling all night, without any sleep, or place to lay my head upon, tho’ I rowl’d [rolled] all the bolster into one heap.’51

  Warm bedding was essential because houses were so cold and draughty, at the mercy of the weather, with ill-fitting doors and windows. All too often they were in some state of disrepair, especially with poorly maintained roofs. Following the Great Fire of 1666, thatched roofs were banned in London – tiles and slates had to be used instead. Elsewhere in England, roofing and other construction materials reflected local geology and the resources available, creating a distinctive character in each region. Many buildings outside London had thatched roofs of reed or straw, and in January 1784 Woodforde noted: ‘I rejoiced much this morning on shooting an old wood-pecker, which had teised [teased] me a long time in pulling out the reed from my house. He had been often shot at by me and others…For this last 3 years in very cold weather did he use to come here and destroy my thatch. Many holes he has made this year in the roof, and as many before.’52

  Unlike modern heating that can be switched on or off, rooms were heated by inefficient open fires. In the summer of 1808, Jane Austen complained to Cassandra: ‘What cold, disagreeable weather, ever since Sunday! I dare say you have fires every day. My kerseymere Spencer [woollen jacket] is quite the comfort of our evening walks.’53 The winter cold could be dreadful, something that Woodforde described in January 1789 in Norfolk: ‘I never felt the cold so much in my life before. It froze the whole day long within doors and very sharp…The air very clear and very piercing.’54

  It is difficult to imagine the temperature indoors being below freezing, but the 1790s saw particularly harsh winters, as Woodforde described in 1792: ‘The most severe frost last night and this morning as I ever felt. The milk in the dairy in the pans was one piece of ice and the water above stairs in the basons [ceramic wash basins] froze in a few minutes after being put there this morn.’55 Two years later the winter was even worse: ‘Very severe frost indeed, freezes sharp within doors and bitter cold it is now. Two women froze to death Saturday last going from Norwich Market to their home.’56 The next year, January 1795, was also bad: ‘The frost…froze last night the chamber pots above stairs…The ice in the pond in the yard which is broke every morning for the horses, froze two inches in thickness last night, when broke this morning.’57

  At the end of the decade, harsh winters were causing widespread problems, and Woodforde reported heavy snowfalls in February 1799:

  The weather more severe than ever with continued snow all last night and continued snowing all this whole day, with a good deal of wind which have drifted the snow in some places so very deep as to make almost every road impassable – in many roads 15 feet deep…Such weather with so much snow I never knew before, not able to go to Jericho [the outside toilet]. Dreadful weather for the poor people and likewise for all kinds of cattle &c. &c. It is dangerous almost for any person to be out.58

  Coal was the predominant fuel for households wherever it could be supplied cheaply by sea, rivers and canals. The growing canal network made coal increasingly available inland, as Frederick Eden recorded in 1795 in Louth, Lincolnshire, as part of his survey of the poor: ‘Coal is now brought by a canal from the Humber to within ½ a mile of this town, which has considerably lessened the prices of fuel. It is hoped, that the intro
duction of coal will induce the inhabitants to desist from their ancient practice…of using the dung of their cattle for fuel.’59 Peat and turf were cut in some areas, something Eden observed at Orton in Westmorland: ‘The fuel is principally turf, procured from the commons: coal must be brought 30 miles by land carriage.’60

  Where coal was too expensive, wood was frequently burned, though gathering firewood was a constant struggle for the poor, especially when the common land was enclosed. Eden described how the children of poor agricultural labourers obtained their firewood at the village of Seend in Wiltshire: ‘If the labourer is employed in hedging and ditching, he is allowed to take home a faggot every evening, while that work lasts: but this is by no means sufficient for his consumption: his children, therefore, are sent into the fields, to collect wood where they can; and neither hedges nor trees are spared by the young marauders, who are thus…educated in the art of thieving.’61

  In Over Stowey, Holland complained about some village children who ‘have committed great depradations on my new hedges by drawing off the laid sticks. I must call them to account for this. There is wood sufficient on the hills [Quantocks], and yet these wretches prefer damaging the hedges of their neighbours to fetching it.’62 In 1798 Dorothy and William Wordsworth were living at nearby Alfoxton House, while Samuel Taylor Coleridge (‘a democratic libertine’, according to Holland)63 was at Nether Stowey – writing some of his best poetry. They often took walks together over the Quantock hills, gathering firewood as they went, as on one occasion when Dorothy recorded: ‘Walked with Coleridge over the hills…Gathered sticks in the wood.’64