Jane Austen's England
Page 16
From what Carl Moritz observed during his travels, even the poorest strived to be modern: ‘Fashion is so generally attended to among the English women, that the poorest maid servant is careful to be in fashion.’32 Despite the death of her pupil, Nelly Weeton was kept on as companion to Mrs Pedder, but being in the remote Lake District it was difficult to keep up-to-date, as she admitted to a friend in August 1810: ‘I am almost out of the world here, so far as regards fashion, seeing and hearing less than I used to do at Holland [Upholland]; for Mrs. P. and I have no female acquaintance except a village surgeon’s wife, and an acquaintance of hers, both of them as plain in their dress, and knowing as little about fashion as can be.’33
Jane Austen displayed considerable interest in fashion. On Christmas Day 1798 she wrote to Cassandra: ‘I cannot determine what to do about my new gown; I wish such things were to be bought ready-made.’34 Many women had their clothes such as gowns and jackets made to measure by professional dressmakers, commonly called mantua makers (from the French manteau, a ‘coat’). When she was living near Liverpool in 1808, Nelly lamented her lack of decent clothes: ‘This week I am going to be busy with the mantua maker for two or three days, that I may have something fit to appear in when I get to Mr. C’s; for Miss Chorley told me the other day that she could not for shame take me to Christ-Church, I had nothing fit to go in.’35 Jane confessed similar embarrassment at her outfits to Cassandra: ‘I am determined to buy a handsome one [muslin gown] whenever I can, and I am so tired and ashamed of half my present stock, that I even blush at the sight of the wardrobe which contains them.’36
Customers either went to the mantua maker’s house or were visited by them at home. Woodforde recorded his niece’s gowns being altered at home: ‘Nancy’s mantua-maker, Betty Burroughs of Mattishall-Burgh [4 miles away], came this morning early to our house, to alter some mourning for her. She appears to be a steady, clever young woman. She breakfasted, dined, supped, and slept here. She worked in the parlour and had a good fire &c.’37 The work lasted three days: ‘Betty Burroughs left our house this morning before breakfast, to go to her mother at Mattishall Burgh, having work to do at home…Nancy paid her for her 3 days work 0.2.0 which I think very reasonable tho’ boarded here.’38 Mantua makers often refurbished old garments: ‘Nancy had a brown silk gown trimmed with furr brought home by Cary from the mantua maker Miss Bell. It was a very good rich silk that I gave her that formerly belonged to my poor Aunt Parr, whose effects came to me.’39
Whatever their class, most girls learned crafts like needlework, embroidery and knitting, which were vital accomplishments for everyday life, because women spent much of their time mending, altering and embellishing garments and bonnets, turning something old into something new, either for themselves, for younger family members or for charitable gifts. Smaller items of clothing, such as nightwear and undergarments (including men’s shirts), were commonly made at home from new fabrics or by reusing old garments and linen. Dorothy Wordsworth was frequently sewing and mending, as in August 1800: ‘I sate on the wall making my shifts till I could see no longer.’40 Jane Austen was likewise proficient at needlework. In one letter to Cassandra she mentioned her plans for a gown that was unfit to wear: ‘I will not be much longer libelled by the possession of my coarse spot; I shall turn it into a petticoat very soon.’41 Jane also sewed shirts for her brothers: ‘We are very busy making Edward’s shirts, and I am proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party.’42
When women talked of buying new gowns, they meant lengths of cloth for their mantua maker to form into garments. Numerous shops, market stalls and salesmen travelling on foot or by cart sold everything needed for needlework. In mid-April 1782 Woodforde purchased a quantity of fabrics, ribbon and lace from one Norwich salesman:
One Mr [William] Aldridge who carries about cottons, linens, muslins, lace, holland, &c. in a cart and comes round regularly this way once in ten weeks, called at my house this morning, and I bought of him a piece of holland (alias Irish cloth) for shirts, 25 yards at 3s/0d per yard, for which I pd him 3.15.0. For half of yard of cambrich for chitterlons 0.5.0. For 7 yards of lace edging for Nancy pd 0.5.0. For 4 yards of ribband for my 2 maids pd 0.2.0.43
Beautiful lace for embellishing garments was also sold by travelling ‘lacemen’ (rarely women) and in shops, but it was frequently made in deplorable conditions by women and children. A letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1785 about lacemaking in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire revealed that ‘many of the workers of lace are deformed, occasioned by their uneasy posture, and many more are diseased, seemingly owing, in a great measure, to their inclined posture while working’.44 The duty on foreign lace made it expensive to import, so it was smuggled in by ingenious methods. One seaman near Custom House Quay in London was spotted walking from his ship with a loaf of bread:
the guardian of public revenue therefore demanded of the man what he embraced so closely; ‘Only a stale loaf,’ was the answer. The Officer then took hold of the loaf, which immediately came asunder, and discovered a quantity of valuable prohibited foreign lace. After seizing the lace, the officer returned the loaf to the unfortunate smuggler, and coolly observed, ‘this is indeed a very stale loaf, and you may keep it for your breakfast.’45
Sometimes smaller items were hawked by salesmen travelling on foot, and in March 1784 Woodforde obtained ribbon and sewing thread from one such packman who periodically called at his village: ‘Of one Bagshaw a Derbyshire man and who carries a pack with divers things in it to sell, bought a whole piece of black ribbon 18 yards of it at 3¼d per yard worth 5d, pd. 0.3.3. Nancy bought some coloured ribbon at 5d worth 8d…To a qr of a pound of 4d thread very good, pd. 0.1.4. To 2 oz: of 4d thread and 2 oz: of 3d thread pd. 0.1.0.’46 Most sewing thread was of silk, but cotton thread was becoming available.
When in London the Woodfordes visited the better drapery stores with their greater range of goods. Jane Austen did likewise, her favourite stores being Bedford House in Covent Garden and Grafton House in New Bond Street. ‘We…must have reached Grafton House by half-past 11,’ she told Cassandra on one visit, ‘but when we entered the shop, the whole counter was thronged, and we waited full half an hour before we could be attended to. When we were served, however, I was very well satisfied with my purchases.’47 Benjamin Silliman praised how the merchandise was displayed in such stores:
You will see a shop at the corner of two streets, completely glazed on both sides, that is, forming one continued window from top to bottom, and from the sides to the corner. This is filled with goods, unrolled and displayed in the most advantageous manner, and cards are usually pinned to the articles, informing the reader how good and how cheap they are. For instance;—‘this beautiful piece of muslin at so much, two shillings in a yard cheaper than any other shop in London.’48
In northern England in the 1790s, according to Frederick Eden, most families made their own clothes, but there were ‘many labourers so poor, that they cannot even afford to purchase the raw material necessary to spin thread or yarn at home’.49 In London, he said, ‘working-people seldom buy new cloaths: they content themselves with a cast-off coat, which may be usually purchased for about 5s. and second-hand waistcoats and breeches. Their wives seldom make up any article of dress, except making and mending cloaths for the children.’50
Unwanted garments might be sold as rags for papermaking, for making into items such as rag carpets or for the thriving second-hand clothing market (giving rise to the term ‘rag trade’ for the entire garment industry). In her native Lake District Dorothy Wordsworth was collecting mosses one morning near Grasmere when she noticed ‘sitting in the open field upon his sack of rags the old Ragman that I know. His coat is of scarlet in a thousand patches.’51 To Silliman, the spectacle of worn-out clothes being sold in London was surprising:
June 24 [1805].—As I was going to the London Dock, this evening, with some companions, we passed through a great crowd of dirty ragged people, to the number of some hundr
eds. They appeared to be very busy in displaying and examining old clothes which they were pulling out from bags…This, I was informed, is rag fair. It is held here every evening for the sale of old clothes which are collected all over London, principally by Jews, who go about with bags on their shoulders, crying, with a peculiarly harsh guttural sound, clothes, clothes, old clothes. You will meet them in every street and alley in London, and at evening they repair to Wapping, where a grand display is made of every species of apparel in every stage of decay. Sometimes they are in tatters, and at other times merely soiled. Here people of the lower ranks may make a selection which is to them really useful.52
Old footwear was also recycled, and shortly after meeting the ragman Dorothy Wordsworth encountered ‘a woman with two little girls, one in her arms, the other, about four years old, walking by her side, a pretty little thing, but half-starved. She had on a pair of slippers that had belonged to some gentleman’s child, down at the heels…it was not easy to keep them on, but, poor thing! young as she was, she walked carefully with them.’53 Some retailers offered ready-made footwear, and one shop in London’s Fleet Street advertised ‘a large assortment of fashionable BOOTS and SHOES, warranted of the best materials and workmanship, equal to bespoke, where Gentlemen may be fitted as well as when measured, without the trouble of waiting’.54 Silliman also saw much poor-quality footwear on sale in the city: ‘there are hundreds of boot and shoe stores, where these articles are sold of such rude workmanship and of such inferior materials that there are few who cannot buy, at least among those articles which are second hand’.55
Those with money had their shoes made to measure by cobblers. Men’s footwear mainly comprised conservative black leather shoes with a small heel and a large buckle. As styles changed according to fashions, they sometimes sported square toes, sometimes pointed. When dining with friends in June 1784 James Woodforde was astonished to note that ‘Mr Micklethwaite had in his shoes a pair of silver buckles which cost between 7 and 8 pounds. Miles Branthwaite had a pair that cost 5 guineas.’56 Men’s shoes were not sufficiently robust to cope with poor weather, and in the Lake District in February 1802 Dorothy Wordsworth recorded: ‘We stopped at Park’s to get some straw in William’s shoes’57 – the age-old custom of stuffing footwear with anything that might keep feet warm and dry.
That same month, February 1802, James Woodforde wrote in his diary: ‘Mrs. Custance with her two daughters called on us this morning, they came walking and very wet and dirty walk they had. Nancy let them have a change of shoes for each of them.’58 Fashions in women’s shoes changed from pointed styles and high stubby heels to lower heels and by 1800 to flat, pointed shoes made from fabric and secured by ribbons. Most were unsuitable for poor weather, as they resembled slippers rather than outdoor shoes. Laced boots provided more robust female footwear, as seen in Emma when Harriet is out walking with Emma, who stops ‘under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing of her half-boot’.
Men increasingly wore leather riding boots, of calf or knee length, which were influenced by boots worn by army officers. In January 1806 William Holland commented on how he and his wife Mary walked home: ‘Tho the road was wet yet as my wife had pattens and I boots we got on very well.’59 In wet conditions boots were the usual footwear for men, while pattens were worn by women. These were a kind of overshoe resembling a wooden-soled sandal to the bottom of which was fastened an iron ring. When women slipped their shoes into pattens, they gained several inches in height and so raised their dress hems above the worst of the wet and the mud. In Persuasion Lady Russell enters Bath on a wet afternoon amidst ‘the ceaseless clink of pattens’.
Labourers, male and female, were more likely to wear wooden clogs, and at Cumwhitton near Carlisle in April 1796 Frederick Eden noted their prices: ‘The common expence of clogs, for a year, in this country (supposing no shoes to be worn), is 4s. 4d. for a man that works out of doors; and about 3s. 8d. for a man within doors; for a woman, 3s. 6d.; and for a boy, about 12 years old, 3s. &c.’60 Almost a decade later, Charles Fothergill was fascinated to see the lead miners at Reeth in North Yorkshire:
On their feet they wear very formidable clogs, so large, loose and ponderous that they give their wearers a peculiarly…awkward gait in walking; they must be worn large and loose because the soles, being made of thick wood and shod with iron cannot spring or be in any degree elastic: there is more iron put round the soles of these clogs than is used in the shoes or plates of race horses; indeed it is nailed on and formed in a similar manner.61
Heads were usually covered outdoors, and on the Isle of Wight in 1811 Louis Simond was gratified when ‘Children and grown people took off their hats, or gave us a nod, as we passed along,’62 but he felt disappointment with London: ‘People do not pull off their hats when…addressing anybody…a slight inclination of the head, or motion of the hand, is thought sufficient.’63 Carl Moritz found he could distinguish army and navy officers by their hats: ‘Officers rarely wear their uniforms, but dress like other people, and are to be known to be officers only by a cockade in their hats.’64 These cockades were ribbon decorations, like rosettes.65
For men, the most common waterproof hats were of felted beaver fur, for which many thousands of pelts were imported annually from Europe and North America. Three-cornered hats (known now as tricornes) gave way to flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hats (which later evolved into top-hats). By the early nineteenth century silk hats were fashionable, which were made from hatters’ plush, a fine silk weave. Hats were the only item of clothing to be taxed (apart from gloves, for a brief period), and from 1784 hat retailers had to possess an annual licence and charge duty on each hat sold. This tax was repealed in 1811.
The less well-off wore whatever hats they could obtain or make themselves, including ones of oiled cloth, felted wool or the fur of rabbits and other animals. The town of Moretonhampstead in Devon was accustomed to constant military activity, but a month after the 2nd Surrey Militia arrived in July 1799, the townspeople were complaining, as Silvester Treleaven noted in his diary: ‘Several cats stolen from different people, supposed to be [by] the soldiers for the skins to make caps. Mr Geo. Gray offered (by public cry) a reward of 5s/-to any person that would bring his cat alive, or if killed one Guinea to the person discovering the same.’66
For everyday use as well as special occasions, women would wear fabric caps indoors, and in January 1799 Jane Austen told Cassandra: ‘I am not to wear my white satin cap to-night after all; I am to wear a mamalone [Mameluke] cap instead, which Charles Fowle sent to Mary, and which she lends me. It is all the fashion now; worn at the opera, and by Lady Mildmays at Hackwood balls. I hate describing such things, and I dare say you will be able to guess what it is like.’67 Military and naval victories often influenced fashions, and as Nelson had won a stunning victory at the Battle of the Nile a few months earlier, these Egyptian-style Mameluke68 turban-like caps were in vogue. Women’s caps were mostly made at home, but they could be bought from milliners, who also made and sold items like bonnets, ribbons, handkerchiefs and aprons. At Canterbury in May 1804, a Mrs Jones advertised that ‘she has A large and fashionable selection of Millinery, prepared for the summer season; a great variety of Straw Hats and Bonnets; white and coloured Chips [bonnets made from strips of shaved wood]; Muslin Pelices and Spencers; Fancy Cloaks; black and white Lace of the best quality, and at very reasonable prices’.69
Ladies wore hats or bonnets outdoors, and they also carried parasols for sunshades. These were similar to umbrellas but made from lighter silk fabrics, because they did not need to be waterproofed. Umbrellas were heavy to carry, with ribs of whalebone or split cane mounted on a sturdy stick and covered with a heavy oiled fabric. They were sold in all colours, though green was especially popular.70 Walking along the streets during rainstorms was hazardous, as the drains or ‘kennels’ forced pedestrians to keep close to buildings, yet rain poured off roofs as few gutters or downpipes existed. In Northanger Abbey Catherine Morland is
longing to go out with friends at Bath, but rain starts to fall. ‘There are four umbrellas up already. How I hate the sight of an umbrella!’ she says to Mrs Allen, who replies: ‘They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather take a chair at any time.’ Coachmen and the chairmen who operated sedan chairs objected to umbrellas, because they competed with their own businesses.
The philanthropist Jonas Hanway died in 1786, and the following year his biographer wrote: ‘He was the first man to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head: After carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use.’71 The Scotsman John Macdonald also claimed to have set the trend for carrying umbrellas in the capital. He was a well-dressed gentleman’s manservant, who had often served abroad, and in January 1778, after spending more than a year in France, Spain and Portugal, he was back in London:
If it rained, I wore my fine silk umbrella, then the people would call after me, What, Frenchman, why do you not get a coach? In particular the hackney coachmen and hackney chairmen would call after me; but I…went straight on, and took no notice. At this time there was no umbrellas worn in London, except in noblemen and gentlemen’s houses; where, there was a large one hung in the hall, to hold over a lady or gentleman if it rained, between the door and their carriage. I was going to dine in Norfolk Street, one Sunday. It rained, my sister had hold of my arm, and I had the umbrella over our heads. In Tavistock-street, we met so many young men, calling after us Frenchman! take care of your umbrella. Frenchman, why do you not get a coach, Monsieur?’ My sister was so much ashamed, that she quitted my arm, and ran on before, but I still took no notice but answered in French or Spanish that I did not understand what they said. I went on so for three months, till they took no further notice of me, only How do you do Frenchman? After this, the foreigners seeing me with my umbrella, one after another used theirs, then the English. Now it is become a great trade in London, and a very useful branch of business.72