Jane Austen's England
Page 40
This world’s a City full of Crooked streets,
And death the Market place where all men Meets,
If life was Merchandise that men could buy,
The rich would live and none but poor would die.61
Quite often poorer people could not afford gravemarkers, while many simply put up wooden markers, such as a cross. Alternatively, a wooden post might be placed at each end of the grave, supporting a plank on which an inscription was carved or painted. Commemorative monuments inside the church were a mark of privilege, and so those with money but insufficient influence opted for monuments in the churchyard. This fashion was gradually copied by the middle and lower classes, so that it became desirable to set up a headstone, however humble, to mark a relative’s grave. More elaborate gravemarkers evolved, and from the end of the eighteenth century those churchyards with large numbers of burials had a variety of shapes, sizes and designs of tombstone.
The expansion of the canal system helped to reduce the cost of gravestones, since suitable blocks of stone were transported more cheaply by barge than by road. Although many areas had local quarries that supplied stone at a reasonable price, not all stone was well suited to gravestones, as John Byng sadly noted at Leicester in 1789: ‘Much black slate, cut thick, is used here for hearths, chimney pieces, &c, looking very black and shining; but the coarser sort, used for tombstones, is very bad for us travellers, as the letters thereon are soon unintelligible.’62
It was already becoming popular with travellers like him to read and record the gravestones. After the service one Sunday morning in 1782, at Nettlebed in Oxfordshire, Carl Moritz wandered round the churchyard and wrote down the inscription on the gravestone of blacksmith William Strange, who had died on 6 June 1746:
I…went out of the church with the congregation, and amused myself with reading the inscriptions on the tomb-stones, in the church yard; which in general, are simpler, more pathetic, and better written than ours [in Germany]. There are some of them which, to be sure, were ludicrous and laughable enough. Among these is one on the tomb of a smith, which, on account of its singularity, I copied.
My sledge and anvil lie declined,
My bellows too have lost their wind;
My fire’s extinct, my forge decay’d,
And in the dust my vice is laid;
My coals are spent, my iron’s gone,
My nails are drove, my work is done.63
Another foreign visitor, Louis Simond from the United States, was impressed by the way the living remembered the dead, marking the graves with
an urn, an iron railing, a stone, a simple board, all bearing inscriptions, where something more than mere name and date is recorded. Rank and titles stand first, and require nothing else; these wanting, virtues are told of, and some ambitious quotation from the poets is made to vouch for them; the deceased was either great or good. I have noticed, however, inscriptions boasting of obscurity, as if it had been a matter of choice.64
Even sailors on shore leave would occasionally shun the dockside taverns and explore further afield, like Robert Hay in 1809. When his ship was moored at Plymouth, he and a companion travelled across Dartmoor to the village of Sourton, near Okehampton:
After washing down a comfortable supper with a glass of first-rate cyder, we strolled out for an hour to examine the village. I had lately been reading in Pope65 an account of the partiality of the English peasantry for poetical epitaphs. This complete master of the art of rhyming quotes the following lines which he says are to be found in almost every country church yard in England:
‘Afflictions sore, long time I bore
Physicians tried in vain,
Till God it pleased that death me seized
To terminate my pain.’
As an antique church and burrying ground adjoined the village, we repaired thither to see whither the above motto could be found, and to indulge in the perusal of other memento moris, which always reminds us of our favourite amusement – a half hour’s lounge in a bookseller’s shop. The first poetical epitaph that met our eye consisted of these identical lines.66
Reading memorials in churchyards and browsing in bookshops are still – of course – popular pastimes.
The trend towards stone gravemarkers and the desire for a permanent memorial have provided a huge resource for investigating the lives and deaths of our ancestors from two centuries ago. The epitaphs and other inscriptions often go beyond the plain record of who is buried to tell us something of their lives and characters. Memorial stones, records, buildings and artefacts from Jane Austen’s time ensure that the dead – the ancestors – are not forgotten. The memorial stone to Jane herself is inside Winchester Cathedral. She was probably buried there because it was the nearest burial place to the house in College Street where she died, and some of her family, particularly her brother Henry, had influence with the Dean of the Cathedral. Her grave slab in the floor of the north aisle carries the inscription:
In Memory of
JANE AUSTEN,
youngest daughter of the late
Revd GEORGE AUSTEN,
formerly Rector of Steventon in this County,
she departed this Life on the 18th of July 1817,
aged 41, after a long illness supported with
the patience and the hopes of a Christian
The benevolence of her heart,
the sweetness of her temper, and
the extraordinary endowments of her mind
obtained the regard of all who knew her and
the warmest love of her intimate connections.
Their grief is in proportion to their affection,
they know their loss to be irreparable,
but in their deepest affliction they are consoled
by a firm though humble hope that her charity,
devotion, faith and purity have rendered
her soul acceptable in the sight of her
REDEEMER.
The mention of the ‘extraordinary endowments of her mind’ is the only hint of her career as a novelist, because this was essentially a family epitaph. Only later were other memorials set up in the cathedral to acknowledge her literary achievement. But in reality Jane Austen needs no such memorial. Her books live on as classics of the art of the novelist and as a constant reminder of herself, her contemporaries and an England that has passed.
A possible portrait of Jane Austen (though disputed), published by William and Richard A. Austen-Leigh in Jane Austen. Her Life and Letters: A Family Record (1913). The girl wears a muslin gown and flimsy shoes, and carries a parasol.
The cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane Austen lived from 1809 to 1817. It overlooked the main road from London to Gosport (Portsmouth) as well as another road leading to Winchester. The cottage is now a popular museum.
Parchment indenture of Richard Cureton, apprenticed in 1783 to William Wakelin (or Wakelen), girdler.
A view of London and the River Thames in 1814 from Blackfriars Bridge, with St Paul’s cathedral on the left and Southwark on the far right. Before its embankment, the river was much wider than today.
A woman using water from a pump near cottages in Wenlock, Shropshire, in 1815.
Building new terraced houses, with a bricklayer standing on wooden scaffolding while a labourer mixes mortar.
A 1794 halfpenny token of John Fowler, a London whale oil merchant, depicting four men in a boat about to hurl a harpoon at a whale spouting water.
A fashion plate of 1800 called ‘Afternoon dress’, which was the formal ‘half dress’ worn by wealthier women for attending afternoon functions like dinners. The women are carrying fans and wearing simple muslin gowns and fashionable caps.
A weaver making worsted stockings on a stocking loom.
A hairdresser cutting and dressing the long hair of a male customer. Both men are wearing knee-length breeches and stockings.
St Peter and St Paul church in Over Stowey, Somerset, where William Holland was vicar from 1798 until his
death in 1819. He lived in the vicarage on the opposite side of the lane.
A copper penny token issued at Bath in 1811 depicting the city arms with clasped hands above. The reverse says ‘a pound note for 240 tokens given by S. Whitchurch and W. Dore’. Whitchurch was an ironmonger and Dore a hatter and draper.
Reverse of a copper ‘cartwheel’ twopence of George III, so-called because of its large size (41mm diameter, 5mm thickness and weighing 2 ounces). Such coins were made from 1797 at Matthew Boulton’s Soho mint in Birmingham using the new steam-powered machinery.
A copper halfpenny of 1791 (obverse and reverse) issued by the copper works of Charles Roe at Macclesfield. The year before John Byng received Macclesfield halfpennies as change at a turnpike.
The obverse and reverse of a halfpenny copper token of the industrialist John Wilkinson. The reverse shows a drop hammer suspended above a piece of iron on an anvil. Around the edge the place-namess Willey, Snedshill, Bersham and Bradley showed where the tokens were redeemable.
A man viewed from the rear seated at a loom, depicted on a 1791 copper halfpenny token. It was payable at the warehouse of John Kershaw, a Rochdale mercer and draper.
By 1792 the design changed, as seen on this halfpenny token, also payable at the warehouse of John Kershaw, a Rochdale mercer and draper.
Advertisements requesting employment as a mantua maker and a cook in the Morning Chronicle newspaper for 29 October 1807.
Joseph Johnson, a crippled black beggar and former merchant seaman, travelled round London and nearby villages and market towns, performing nautical songs and wearing on his head a model of the warship Nelson
A workhouse depicted on a copper penny token issued by the Overseers of the Poor at Sheffield. This workhouse was located at Workhouse Croft (now Paradise Street), West Bar. Such workhouse tokens were given as poor relief and were accepted by local retailers.
A boy selling matches in a London street.
A child street hawker selling potatoes from a wooden wheelbarrow. This romanticised view dating to 1812 shows an unlikely well-nourished child.
The River Tyne in 1789 with shallow-draught keels for transporting coal, looking towards Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with the castle keep and cathedral on the right.
Performances at theatres in London advertised in The Times newspaper for 23 May 1808.
A state lottery ticket sold in 1808, a one-sixteenth share. The lottery was drawn from 20 October 1809.
The latest catalogue of Lackington’s bookseller in London being advertised in the St James Chronicle newspaper on 19 June 1817.
A bookseller with two customers choosing books.
Obverse and reverse of a halfpenny token issued in 1795 by Lackington’s bookseller in Finsbury Square, London. The obverse had a portrait of James Lackington while the reverse claimed to be the ‘Cheapest Booksellers in the World’. Lackington’s issued vast quantities of tokens (about 700,000) in 1794–5, during the first two years of moving to their larger premises.
A view of Hotwells spa, near Bristol, in 1801. The spa was at the foot of the cliffs overlooking the River Avon, where hot springs were located.
Front page of the Morning Chronicle newspaper for 24 October 1807, with numerous advertisements, typical of newspapers at that time.
A road map of January 1785 showing the route from Newbury eastwards to Woolhampton, Theale, Reading, Hare Hatch (where the Leigh-Perrots lived) and Maidenhead, along the Bath road from London,
William Tomlins, a crossing sweeper and beggar. His stand was on Piccadilly in London, between Albemarle and St James’s Streets.
A coachmaker constructing a post-chaise.
A woman being burned at the stake, used to illustrate the chapbook recounting the execution of Christian Bowman in March 1789 for counterfeiting coins.
An apothecary (or druggist) making his own medicines.
Ching’s Worm Lozenges advertised in the St James Chronicle newspaper for 19 June 1817, claiming to cure and prevent intestinal worms.
A beggar with a wooden leg and crutches, then a common sight in England, especially with injured soldiers and sailors returning from the wars.
Newcastle’s charitable infirmary depicted in 1789. It was constructed in 1751 on Forth Banks and was extended in 1803. The building was demolished in the 1950s.
No. 8 College Street in Winchester, Hampshire, where Jane Austen died on 18 July 1817.
The memorial tablet to the Reverend (‘Parson’) James Woodforde inside All Saints church, Weston Longville, Norfolk. It was erected by his nephew Bill and niece Nancy.
The cathedral at Winchester in 1809, where Jane Austen was buried in 1817 beneath the floor of the north aisle of the nave.
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WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
Some units of measurement that are used today had different values two centuries ago, and there were also many local variations, even between neighbouring counties and towns. Attempts to make weights and measures consistent were not entirely successful, and people still talked of a ‘country mile’, meaning a distance much longer than a ‘standard’ mile. An Act of Parliament standardising weights and measures came into force in 1826, but it was not very effective, and further changes of the law were necessary in 1834 and 1835 before any real uniformity was achieved.
In Jane Austen’s time even common measures such as the stone and the bushel varied from place to place – a serious hindrance to merchants trading across the country. After the French Revolution metric measurements were adopted in France, but in England these were used only by a few, largely for scientific purposes.
Nominal weights and measures in Jane Austen’s time are given below, taken from contemporary sources (Branch 1801 and Mortimer 1810).
Length
3 barley-corns 1 inch (in.)
4 inches 1 hand
12 inches 1 foot (ft)
3 feet 1 yard (yd)
6 feet 1 fathom
5½; yards 1 rod, pole or perch
40 rods 1 furlong
8 furlongs (1760 yards) 1 mile
Area
144 square inches 1 square foot
9 square feet 1 square yard
4 roods (4840 square yards) 10 square chains or 1 acre
Volume
2 pints 1 quart
4 quarts 1 gallon
2 gallons 1 peck
4 pecks 1 bushel
3 bushels 1 sack
Weight
16 ounces (oz) 1 pound (lb.)
14 pounds 1 stone
28 pounds 1 quarter
8 stone or 4 quarters 1 hundredweight (cwt)
20 hundredweight 1 ton
Metric equivalents
1 centimetre 0.3937 inches
1 metre 1.09364 yards
1 square metre 1.1960 square yards
1 litre 1.7313 ale pints or 2.1135 wine pints
1 kilogram 2 pounds, 3 ounces and 5 drams (avoirdupois)
1 inch 2.54 centimetres
1 foot 30.48 centimetres
1 yard 0.9144 metres
1 mile 1609.344 metres (1.609 kilometres)
CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW
Some key events relating to Jane Austen’s life and episodes in Britain’s history are given below. For a detailed Jane Austen chronology, see Le Faye 2006.
1760 25 October George III became king.
1770 7 April William Wordsworth, poet, was born.
1771 March Nelson joined the Royal Navy.
15 August Walter Scott, novelist, was born.
1772 22 June British case law established that a slave landing in England was a free person.
21 October Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, was born.
1773 16 December Boston Tea Party, when American colonists protested against the unjust taxation of tea imports.
1774 10 May Accessio
n of Louis XVI as king of France.
12 August Robert Southey, poet, was born.
1775 19 April War of American Independence (American Revolutionary War) began, with the British defeat at Lexington.
23 August J.M.W. Turner, painter, was born.
16 December Jane Austen was born.
1776 11 June John Constable, painter, was born.
4 July American Declaration of Independence.
1778 6 February The French became allies of America.
17 March Britain declared war on France.
11 May William Pitt the Elder died.
17 December Humphry Davy, engineer and chemist, was born.