Jane Austen's England
Page 15
When Woodforde entertained Squire Custance and other guests, he did his best to provide a suitable feast: ‘I gave them for dinner, a couple of chicken boiled and a tongue, a leg of mutton boiled and capers, and batter pudding for the first course. Second, a couple of ducks rosted and green peas, some artichokes, tarts and blamange. After dinner, almonds and raisins, oranges and strawberries. Mountain and port wines.’138 Even in more modest households, the hostess rose after the dessert course when guests were present and led the ladies to the drawing room, leaving the men to their own conversation for a while before they rejoined the ladies for tea or coffee.
An everyday family dinner was more restrained, and Woodforde routinely recorded meals such as ‘Dinner calfs feet stewed, hash mutton &c’139 or ‘Dinner to day hashed calfs head and a loin of lamb rosted with stewed gooseberries’.140 For better-off people like Woodforde, even mundane dinners could be lengthy affairs, but most working people had no more than an hour’s break for dinner, before continuing with their labours. Supper was the day’s final meal and was usually something insubstantial.
Table manners were of importance to the higher classes, although the poorest were more concerned with survival than etiquette. In a book on manners, the Reverend John Trusler warned how to avoid appearing low class or impolite: ‘Eating quick, or very slow, at meals, is characteristic of the vulgar; the first infers poverty, that you have not had a good meal for some time; the last, if abroad [dining out], that you dislike your entertainment: if at home [and eating slowly], that you are rude enough to set before your friends what you cannot eat yourself.’141
Some hosts did offer food that we would now discard, and just before Christmas 1778 Woodforde unashamedly set before his guests a dinner that included ‘part of a ham, the major part of which ham was entirely eaten out by the flies getting into it’.142 Even so, his guests also stayed for supper, and ‘We were exceeding merry indeed all the night.’143
FIVE
FASHIONS AND FILTH
I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Clothing for men and women changed markedly, in both styles and fabrics, over Jane Austen’s lifetime. Following the French Revolution grotesquely elaborate fashions gave way to naturalistic styles, imitating the Classical world. Ladies wore simple gowns based on Greek and Roman styles that were copied from the many archaeological finds then being unearthed at places like Pompeii and Herculaneum. Men’s fashions were influenced by more practical military dress, which resulted in sober clothing, more suitable for country life than the extravagance of the urban fashions of the preceding period. Advances in technology also saw the textile industry shifting into factories, so that many more clothes were made from new cotton fabrics (using imported cotton-wool)1 rather than the traditional woollen, linen and silk fabrics.
In order to appear a gentleman, it was necessary to wear breeches and stockings. Breeches (‘culottes’) were made of wool, linen, silk or buckskin (a very soft leather), secured at the knee by ties, buckles or buttons. They had a front opening covered by a flap, and could look baggy, though buckskin ones fitted more snugly. Breeches were held up not by belts but by leather braces or gallowses. The more comfortable pantaloons became fashionable, particularly with the influence of George ‘Beau’ Brummell; these pantaloons were longer than breeches and were tied or buttoned at the calf – the forerunner of full-length trousers. They were worn with shoes and stockings or else were tucked into boots.2
Stockings (hose) were secured beneath the knee by a ribbon or cord garter. For a muscular look, some men put artificial calves under their stockings, but this trend disappeared when pantaloons took over. Stockings were hand knitted from wool or woven in wool, cotton or silk. ‘You have said nothing about how you pass your time or amuse yourself,’ William Wilkinson wrote to his wife Sarah in December 1809. ‘I should think you must be at a loss at times for something to do, tho’ I suppose you nit [knit] a great deal now, and must have improved much. I never expect to have to buy any more worsted [woven wool] stockings.’3 Prone to holes or to runs forming, stockings required constant mending, which made them uncomfortable, as Nelly Weeton warned her brother: ‘I would advise you, my dear Tom, that you have the feet of your silk stockings lined with something soft when you put them on, or the darning will hurt your feet.’4
To prevent clothes being lost or muddled, they were sewn with identification marks, and at Northampton in April 1778 one thief made off with the clothing of an unnamed aristocrat:
STOLEN, out of the George Inn Yard…between Eight and Nine o’Clock on Saturday Evening…A PORTMANTEAU, containing six Shirts, marked S. and a Coronet; six Pair of Silk Stockings, marked S. and a Coronet; Six Stocks, marked S. six Handkerchiefs, marked S. and a Coronet; three Shirts, marked I.H. three Stocks, marked H. two Pair of Silk Stockings, marked I.H. one Sky-blue Coat with gilt Buttons; and divers other Articles.5
Some breeches had a lining, known as drawers, that could be washed separately, with longer versions for pantaloons. Shirts and drawers were the male underwear of the day, though drawers were not universally worn. Shirts were longer at the back than at the front, with voluminous sleeves and an ornate cuff that had no holes for cufflinks. ‘I would have completed the repair of your shirt,’ Nelly told Tom, ‘but had no cloth fine enough to make a new neck; and I did not know what to do with the ruffles, so I left them as they were. I have sent some wrist-bands which I stitched a few years ago for your old shirts. I fear they will be too strait; if not, they may be useful perhaps.’6
Shirts tended to be white in colour, shorter than nightshirts but similar in style. They were pulled on over the head and fastened with ties or buttons. The fastenings were concealed by a frill, often detachable, known then as a jabot or chitterlon. Above the jabot, a stiff stock covered the neck, or else a cravat was wound round and tied at the front.7 In June 1810, when William Holland was sixty-four years old, he was lucky to escape severe injury or worse, as he explained:
A bad accident had nearly happened to me last night as I was moving about the house with a candle in my hand to see all safe just before I went up stairs to bed. The point of my cravat caught fire and blazed immediately up to my chin and was going round my neck and to my shirt like wild fire. I holloed out and George [his servant] stood stupidly by me. Providentially however I seised the blazing cravat and all with both my hands and squeze [squeezed] them hard and stifled the blaze almost instantaneously or I know not what might have been the consequence.8
Such ornate shirts were a sign of a gentleman, but instead of putting on a clean shirt, it was useful to have a false shirt front or dickey – defined in a dictionary of 1811 as ‘a sham shirt’.9 Two years earlier Nelly Weeton had noted that ‘Mr. Chorley is quite a buck, and dashes away in his silk stockings, his Dickey and his quizzing glass [a single-lens glass held in the hand].’10 Waistcoats were worn by men over their shirts, but when it became fashionable to have them fully buttoned up, frilly shirts were barely visible and so became less popular for daytime use.11 In Sense and Sensibility Marianne Dashwood despises Colonel Brandon because ‘he talked of flannel waistcoats; and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble’. Flannel was a type of woollen fabric associated with keeping warm and protecting the infirm.
Gentlemen had their breeches and jackets made to measure by tailors. There was no concept of buying good-quality, ready-made clothes. Long jackets or coats, often dark blue, were worn over waistcoats and by 1800 they were ‘cut-away’ – short at the front with long tails at the back – while greatcoats provided even more protection against the weather. Short jackets known as spencers (after the 2nd Earl Spencer who started the trend)12 became popular from the 1790s. This type of double-breasted jacket had no tails, though they were often pu
t on over a traditional jacket with tails.
The poor wore whatever was affordable, either purchased secondhand or from slop-shops supplying new, cheap, ready-made clothes. Labourers preferred comfortable, hard-wearing garb, and in London the writer Samuel Pratt described one coal heaver who was wearing a ‘coarse and heavy doublet [waistcoat] of many different coloured patches, formed of pieces of carpeting of brown sacking, and of yellow plush, all brought into the same sable [blackened with coal] uniform – his hose ungartered, his breeches knees unbuttoned, his shirt opened almost to the waist’.13 Loose full-length trousers were the preserve of labourers and seamen.
When women got dressed, they first of all donned a shift or chemise,14 which was a simple sleeved linen undergarment that reached just below the knees. It was put on over the head and secured at the neck with a drawstring or buttons. A similar longer garment was worn at night, with a cap. Over the shift went stays or a corset – a shaped garment with strips of pliable whalebone (baleen) or cane sewn into the fabric. Stays were wrapped round the upper torso and tightly laced at the back. They were lower at the front and usually had shoulder straps. Worn from childhood, stays kept the figure shapely and the waist tiny.
In May 1780 Parson Woodforde recorded that his niece Nancy ‘had a new pr. of stays brought home this morn’ by one Mottram a staymaker at Norwich. She paid him for the same 1.11.6. For his journey from Norwich to measure her she pd. 2.6.’15 The style of stays changed with the fashion, but the physician Hugh Smith praised those women who stopped wearing stays, so ‘giving themselves room in the waist’.16 Young girls, he reckoned, ‘were greatly injured by the stiffness of their stays, and by being laced so exceedingly close’.17 By 1785 their popularity was declining, prompting him to add: ‘We now rarely see ladies fainting in public places.’18
Also worn over the shift was an ankle-length waist petticoat, with a gown over the petticoat. Gowns had a bodice and a full-length skirt that was wide open at the front, revealing the often-matching petticoat – these petticoats were not underwear intended to be concealed. Since 1710 immensely wide, cumbersome hoop petticoats had been fashionable, supported on a framework of whalebone or lighter cane rods and wire.19 The gown’s skirt was sometimes bunched up at the rear, accompanied by a false rump called a bustle, which was a padded roll filled with cork or other stuffing. With artificial contrivances like the hoop and bustle, one poem in 1777 issued a mock warning to husbands of fashionable women:
Let her gown be tuck’d up to the hip on each side;
Shoes too high for to walk, or to jump;
And, to deck the sweet creature complete for a bride,
Let the cork-cutter make her a rump.
Thus finish’d in taste, while on Chloe you gaze,
You may take the dear charmer for life;
But never undress her—for, out of her stays,
You’ll find you have lost half your wife.20
Hoop petticoats fell out of favour in the 1780s, though they persisted as court dress until the 1820s. In 1805 the young American Benjamin Silliman was amused at the sight of the nobility parading near St James’s Palace for the king’s birthday: ‘The ladies wore hoop petticoats; the hoop was not a circle, but a large oval…the ladies, as they passed through the crowd contrived to twist the whole machinery round, so as to bring the shortest diameter across the path…it was no small achievement to deposit one of the ladies safely in her coach’.21
The new fashion was for round gowns, which had skirts completely encircling the body, so that petticoats were now more of an undergarment. By the 1790s the style of gowns was further transformed, with a slimmer, more naturalistic, classical shape, white or pale in colour. Sashes were tied round the waist or under the bust, and trains became fashionable, though mainly for evening wear. By about 1800 gowns had short sleeves and a short bodice – a low neckline and high waistline. With the constantly changing fashions, long and short sleeves went in and out of favour.
Fabrics such as fine muslins were initially imported from India, but the invention by James Hargreaves around 1767 of the spinning jenny enabled the production of greater quantities of cotton yarn for weaving into cloth, initially by workers in their homes, while Richard Arkwright’s spinning frame, powered by water, produced stronger cotton yarn for the warp threads. From 1779 Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule, driven by water and later steam, combined features from both inventions, enabling fine cotton thread to be spun in factories on a massive scale. These developments led to cheaper muslins and calicoes becoming widely available, and cotton surpassed silk, linen and woollen fabrics in popularity. By 1793 it was said that ‘every shop offers British muslins for sale equal in appearance, and of more elegant patterns than those of India, for one-fourth, or perhaps more than one-third, less in price’.22
With these fine fabrics, gowns could be virtually transparent, and modesty was forsaken. At the end of 1799 The Times ridiculed such women’s dress and the fashion for false bosoms:
If the present fashion of nudity continues its career, the Milliners must give way to the carvers, and the most elegant fig-leaves will be all the mode. The fashion of false bosoms has at least this utility, that it compels our fashionable fair to wear something. The stuffed bosoms of our females are at least oeconomical – they are made out of the old Jean Debry coats [no longer in fashion] of their husbands.23
William Holland was appalled by one woman’s dress when he was dining at South Molton in Devon in September 1803: ‘Captain and Mrs Law, the gentleman handsome and of pleasing manners, the lady diminutive, affected and almost naked in her dress. It disgusts me much to see such conduct.’24
Undergarments were kept to a minimum beneath these thin gowns, and a shorter corset had replaced the restrictive stays. In mid-September 1813, when Jane Austen was in London, she wrote to Cassandra: ‘I learnt from Mrs Tickar’s young lady, to my high amusement, that the stays now are not made to force the bosom up at all; that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion. I was really glad to hear that they are not to be so much off the shoulders as they were.’25 These new fashions proved rather chilly to wear, and invisible stockinette petticoats manufactured on a stocking loom were one solution, as advertised in the Morning Chronicle in 1807:
INVISIBLE PETTICOATS.– Mrs. ROBERT-SHAW informs the Ladies, that her Patent, Elastic, Spanish Lamb’s-wool INVISIBLE PETTICOATS, Drawers, Waistcoats, and Dresses, all in one, are now ready for their inspection – articles much approved of by every lady that has made trial of them, for their pleasant elasticity, softness and warmth; are found very convenient to ladies who ride on horseback.26
Because stockings were only knee high, women’s thighs were bare beneath their gowns. They did not wear drawers until the early nineteenth century, when they apparently became acceptable after Princess Charlotte was seen wearing them. Previously, they were considered masculine and therefore immodest. Similar to men’s drawers, the legs were fastened just below the knee.
Gloves were commonly worn in all weathers, not just for keeping warm, but thin gowns led to the fashion for enormous fur muffs and shawls. Men’s coats, such as riding coats and spencers, were adapted for female use, and in his diary in June 1799 Woodforde wrote: ‘Very cold indeed again to day, so cold that Mrs Custance came walking in her Spenser with a bosom-friend.’27 He meant that she had a large handkerchief or scarf at her throat to keep her warm, a fashion that arose because of the low necklines and acquired the name ‘bosom-friend’.
Pockets were sewn into the breeches, jackets and waistcoats worn by men. For women, large detached pockets, held in place by ties, could be worn under more substantial skirts and were used for items like coins, pocket watches and pocket books. Such pockets were impossible to wear with flimsy muslin gowns, and instead women carried small decorative bags or purses, frequently handmade, that came to be known as ridicules, reticules or indispensables.28 These were the first handbags. In Emma, Emma herself ‘saw her [Mrs Elton]…fold up a letter…and return it into the purp
le and gold reticule by her side’. These pockets and bags were vulnerable to theft, as a pickpocket or cut-purse might steal the entire pocket or purse, not just some of the contents. Folding fans were another essential fashion accessory, particularly in overcrowded, overheated environments like balls or theatres, and after one ball Jane Austen told Cassandra: ‘I wore my green shoes last night, and took my white fan with me.’29
In fashionable circles, the term ‘undress’ referred to the more practical gowns worn at home in the morning, ‘half dress’ described smarter clothes worn during afternoon and evening visits, while ‘full dress’ involved more elaborate, formal garments worn to balls and other evening events. The upper classes followed fashions avidly, while the middle classes did the best they could, but rarely owned many outfits. At home most women wore an apron to protect their clothes, which were expected to last many years.
In his analysis of the poor in the 1790s, Frederick Eden noted the prices of ready-made clothes in slop-shops around London and how long they should last. For women, they included: ‘A hat, the cheapest sort; (will last two years,) 1s. 8d…Cheapest kind of cloak, (will last two years,) 4s. 6d.; Pair of stays, (will last six years), 6s. 0d.’30 At Shrewsbury in Shropshire in November 1795 he listed the basic clothing doled out in the workhouse: ‘A woman’s dress, consisting of a bed-gown, 2 petticoats, linsey apron, shoes, 2 shifts, 2 pair of stockings, and a handkerchief, costs £1 7s. 0d.…The women’s cloaths are manufactured in the house, at 1s. 6d. a yard; except the flannel petticoats, which cost about 10d. a yard.’31