The Gentleman's Daughter

by Amanda Vickery

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  A genuine effort to explore women's relationship with the world of goods must move beyond the moment of purchase – a mere snapshot in the life of a commodity. In fact, Elizabeth Shackleton rarely recorded exactly why she purchased an item, but instead chronicled the way domestic goods were used and the multitude of meanings invested in possessions over time. In consequence, this second section is devoted to domestic material culture. It also sets bought commodities in the context of artefacts acquired by other means, such as inheritance, home-production and gift-exchange. The discussion examines the roles of artefacts in social practices: the maintenance of property was a constituent of genteel housekeeping, goods served as currency in the mistress–servant relationship, possessions were key props in inconspicuous ceremonies, but they also demonstrated polite conformity and were easy targets for social criticism. The discussion then proceeds to an elaboration of the range of meanings artefacts could embody.

  The practice of housekeeping provided Elizabeth Shackleton with an esteemed role; her skills enabled her to remain useful to her sons and afforded a gratifying means of favourable comparison with other women. Nevertheless, in large part, housekeeping was a form of work which lacked an obvious and lasting product. Well-serviced clothes and domestic goods were in themselves rare and tangible proof of her labour. Wherever possible Mrs Shackleton prolonged the life of her semi-durable possessions: ‘I made me a work bag of my old, favourite, pritty, red & white Linnen gown’, and three years later, ‘made a cover for the Dressing drawers of my pritty Red & white linnen gown.’ She took delight in ingenious adaptation and thrift. ‘I cut a pair of fine worsted stockings, good legs & bad feet – to draw over my Stocking to keep my knees warm – Like them much now they are made properly for the use.’ Household goods were valued for their fitness to purpose and for long years of trusty service: ‘to my vexation cross & rude Betty broke Mr S.'s pot that he has had for his tea at Breakfast many years. She pore hot water init out of the tea kettle & crack'd it all to pieces.’45

  In addition to providing the architecture of her material role, goods were part of the currency of the mistress–servant relationship. What was Elizabeth Shackleton's to give and the servants' to take was subject to negotiation and reinterpretation, as already noted, but a servant's right to clothing was a particularly disputed issue – the confusion compounded by the practice of occasional payment in kind and the provision of liveries for menservants. Over and above payment, servants could expect discarded clothing depending upon their mistress's mood.46 Elizabeth Shackleton's commentary suggests that these goods were offered in a spirit of gracious patronage, not in recognition of the legitimacy of a customary perquisite. However, if she hoped to foster deferential gratitude in her workforce, Mrs Shackleton was constantly disillusioned. Unrepentant and ungovernable servants regularly packed up and threatened to be off ‘with their wardrobe’. Indeed, Elizabeth found that withholding a servant's belongings could be a useful tactic in delaying their departure.47 These domestic servants have left no direct testimony, but from their mistress's records it is obvious that they accepted new and cast-off clothes and trinkets, which Mrs Shackleton believed them to value: ‘Gave Betty [some] old Oratorio Gauze that came of a white chip hat, it will make her very fine.’48 However, it is far from certain that wearing a lady's dress made a parlour maid look, feel or be treated like a lady. To presume she wished she was a lady might seem legitimate, but certainly does not follow from evidence that she accepted a second-hand dress. After all, second-hand dresses could be attractive simply because they had a high resale value. Moreover, the efforts ex-servants made to retrieve their wages and wardrobe, including the threat of legal action, suggest that clothing was seen as an important part of their earnings, rather than merely the coveted equipment of social emulation.49

  One of the striking features of Elizabeth Shackleton's diaries is the way in which she characterized almost all her possessions (clothes, plate, kitchenware and linen) as either ‘best’ or ‘common’. Common goods were those designated indispensable. Best goods were not necessarily new or fashionable. Neither does this best/common dichotomy neatly correspond with a public/private or front/back characterization of eighteenth-century domestic space. Elizabeth Shackleton drew on a conception of the occasion and the everyday to differentiate the ways things were used. The occasion may indeed have involved company and social display, but that did not define the event. Religious and sentimental observance both generated celebration, with or without an audience. Christian feasts called for special clothes, best tableware and thoughtfully arranged furniture. Family anniversaries were commemorated by private rituals involving new clothes and old treasures. On Tom Parker's twenty-fourth birthday, although he was absent and there were no visitors, his mother ‘put on in Honour to this Good day my quite new purple Cotton night Gown And a new light brown fine cloth Pincushion [made of] a piece of coat belonging to my own Dear child, my own dear Tom, with a new Blue string’. On his twenty-fifth birthday she donned the same pincushion. Congratulating her youngest son on his birthday in 1777, Elizabeth Shackleton wrote ‘I wish and better wish you my own dear love was with us … I have your valuable rings on my fingers, John's picture before me and my Bracelet on the table I write upon.’50 Such intimate rituals emphasize the talismanic properties of material things and bear witness to the personal significance of inconspicuous consumption. Elizabeth Shackleton used material things to honour God and her family, to lend substance to her relationships and ultimately as reassurance in the face of death, witness her prayers in May 1779, in her fifty-third year: ‘I now have only five teeth in all in my head. I left off my old stays & put on my best stays for Good. I left off my very old green quilted Callimanco Petticoat and put on my new drab Callimanco quilted petticoat for good. God Grant me my health to wear it & do well.’51

  This is not to say that Elizabeth Shackleton was ignorant of social convention and the necessity for material and sartorial observance. Guests were usually treated to the best china and linen. When surprise visitors arrived at dinner-time, Mrs Shackleton ‘made all nice as we co'd for our Guests. Used my handsome, new, Damask table cloth which looks most beautiful for the first [time]. Good luck to it, hope it will do well.’52 When visiting herself, and in particular when attending dinner-parties and celebrations, Mrs Shackleton made a conscious and obvious effort: ‘dress'd myself in my best A High Head & low Heels …’53 She endeavoured to dress appropriately for the occasion:

  Mrs W. traild me through nasty dirtyvile back streets to [York] Minster, where we took several turns … Mrs W. would have me put on my beautifull flower'd Muslin [which] was entirely [soiled] by the dust. Little wo'd have I done it had not she told me we were to have call'd upon Mrs Townend, for her to take me through all those nasty places in York a Hop sack wo'd have done …54

  Both in company and alone, her commitment to sartorial propriety ran deep. Social discomfort is palpable in this terse but revealing aside: ‘Tom so cross, wo'd not let me have a cap out of the green room. I sat bare head a long time.’55 Evidently, Elizabeth Shackleton's pride in wearing clothes appropriate to her companions, environment and occasion went beyond a simple desire to impress.

  Mrs Shackleton's concern for proper ceremony, or informality, expressed in things was not confined to herself. Elegant dress in women, if combined with wifely decorum, merited a pleasant reference from Mrs Shackleton. She had nothing but praise for her nephew's wife, Beatrix Lister, and their neat, tasteful and elegant home, ‘Chateau Marshfield’. She approved of various mansions she visited – ‘made a long stop to reconitre [Mr Lascelle's] fine and elegant building’ – and of the taste and civility of their owners – ‘Mr Clayton who was as civil as possible showed me his Grounds Canals Garden & the House.’56 Moreover, she was not an automatic critic of luxurious display. She had no quarrel with the glorious raiment of a local lawyer and his wife: ‘Mr [&] Mrs Wainman came in good time to dinner. A very Agreable woman Elegantly dress'
d. Diamonds & Pearls on her head. She is half gone with Child. A very Happy couple they are. Had a Handsome Carriage, Handsome Horses, Handsome Liveries – dark blue trim'd with silver …’57 However, she was quick to call into question the sartorial motivation of those she disliked. Things which demonstrated dignity, civility and elegance in her friends, could in others just as easily represent foolish pretension. Fashionable dress worn by women she disliked was immediately taken to be proof of feminine conceit and inconsequence, as was the case with the unfortunate Miss Clough, who was airily written off as ‘a Fortune. A dressy person. Wears a very great Role.’58 Nor was her contempt reserved for women. By 1779 Elizabeth Shackleton suspected that a neighbour, Owen Cunliffe of Wycoller, had been gossiping about her. She vented her spleen in a description of his ostentation and pretension:

  I knew that Cunliffe was at church this day in his Regementals, a small Captain, no Honour to the Royal Lancashire. Bro't his new Whiskey to Coln his new Man in his Elegant new Livery, red hair well powder'd, two new Hunters. Can have a fortune by a Lady of £9,000 but thinks he deserves thrice that sum. – Cunliffe is too short too low – wants inches for a Captain.a Petit trop Petit Captain.59

  When Sergeant Aspinall, a barrister on the northern circuit, acted against the interests of the Parkers of Browsholme and the Listers of Gisburne Park in the disputed Clitheroe election of 1781, Elizabeth Shackleton was furious. In her diary, she linked Aspinall's naked political ambitions with the architectural improvements recently undertaken at his seat, Standen Hall:

  That scrubby, Mean, underbred, lowlived, Ungrateful, Covetous, designing, undermining, Stupid, Proud Aspinall and his Large Wife May come to repent … He within these 30 years wo'd have esteem'd it a Great Honour and been Big of the application of being styl'd recorder of Clitheroe. What a wretch to behave so vilely to his most obliging, generous, worthy neighbours, Browsholme & Gisburne park … [He] most probably thinks Mr Curzon's Purse will enable him to make a Portico or add a Venetian window to the Beauties of Standen. What nonsense is he. Tho' like such a breed as he comes off … such Little Men.60

  Clearly Mrs Shackleton did not disapprove of finery and elegant surroundings per se, or indeed of social status expressed in things. None the less, accusations of materialism, pretension and covetousness provided useful ammunition for criticism of those who did not know their place, had slighted her in the past or she simply disliked.

  When it came to her own things, on the other hand, her professions of their personal value and associations were lofty and sentimental, as one might expect. Things for Elizabeth Shackleton were rich with memory:

  Wrote to my own dear Robert Parker, told him I was concerned I had told him I wo'd send the bible I had promised him, but that upon looking for it, found I had given it to my own dear Tom when he went to Winchester. But had sent him a good common prayer book [instead] given to me by Mr Cowgill of Emmanuel College, Cambridge who was there when his own good father was … I told him I would give him a ring that was made for my own dear mother, her hair under a crystal, the star round it all brilliants, worth ten guineas, which I beg'd he'd ever keep and wear for my sake … sent a piece of Brussels lace I promised him, desired he'd keep in remembrance of me.61

  Even intrinsically mundane items testified to past relationships, or commemorated past events: ‘My dear John gives me a full account of [Tom's] Wedding. Which letter I shall ever keep while I live.’ Gifts were valued in themselves and as material proof of the kind thoughts of others: ‘I esteem the ruffles very elegant and handsome, but what enhances the value to me is my dear Tom's most obliging remembrance.’ Ever after, a gift prompted pleasant memories of the donor and the moment of giving, ‘with his own dear hands’. Home-made presents were usually offered by women and were seen as time, labour and affection made concrete: ‘I had the pleasure to recieve from Dear Miss Parker … a pritty green Purse with Spangles, her own work which I much value.’62 Elizabeth Shackleton treasured items which had once belonged to people she loved, recording the wearing and mending of her mother's old shifts and the distribution of her first husband's clothing to his sons.63 Certain possessions literally embodied something of the original owner, like the ring incorporating her dead mother's hair. Doubtless it was with one eye on being remembered herself that Elizabeth Shackleton set about creating a new heirloom, making extensive enquiries, five years before she died, for a craftsman ‘who co'd do me an extreme neat Landscape in [my own] hair for my new Bracelet.’ She also had a bracelet made up of hair from the heads of her three sons ‘so as to shew all the hair distinctly’.64

  Elizabeth Shackleton was not alone in ascribing meanings to inanimate objects. She drew on a shared awareness of the extra-material significance of things and in particular gifts. Tom and Betty Parker, for example, exchanged hair rings as love tokens during their courtship.65 (However, Betty Parker's offences included sacreligiously cutting up the lace which had once belonged to Elizabeth's own mother and being insufficiently appreciative of Elizabeth's gifts.) The regular exchange of produce and trinkets was a significant currency in elite sociability. Elizabeth's estranged brother Edward Parker signalled his forgiveness in a gift and she appreciated the beginning of the thaw when she received ‘a haunch of venison by the keeper of Bowland for which I gave him five shillings. This is the first present or taste I have had from Browsholme since I changed my name being six years.’66 Shared awareness of extra-material meaning is most explicit in the case of painted portraits, which carried the most powerful human resonances and demanded remembrance of the sitter. When Elizabeth's sons Tom and John Parker were at odds, Tom's wife symbolically removed John Parker's portrait from her drawing-room and returned it forthwith to Elizabeth Shackleton. The mother cherished the abandoned portrait and recorded, ‘On this day my own Dear John Parker's Picture was done up over the fire Place in the Parlour. I am truly Happy to see it there & think it dos great Honour to its Situation.’67

  Things conjured the past and ensured continuity into the future. The completed purchase of large items of furniture, particularly in the last few years of her life, often occasioned a prayer, confided to her diary: ‘John Hargreaves of Coln Edge brought my new Mahogany square tea table. I like it very well. God Grant Mr S. & myself to have good & long use of it.’68 Evidently, heavy furniture felt reassuringly permanent and substantial, yet its arrival prompted the ailing Elizabeth Shackleton to contemplate her own mortality, perhaps because furnishing a house was characteristically associated with the beginning of married life rather than its end; this is how she recorded a furniture purchase the year before her death:

  [Arrived a] … new Mahogany Dining Table from Messrs Gillows from Lancaster – it came quite safe & well not the least damage or scratch. It is in three parts. The middle a square and two ends which are half rounds all put together makes an elegant Oval. The Wood very handsome. 16 feet all very strong and made neat it cost the table only £5 5s Packing 3s 6d in all £5: 8: 6. good luck to it. Good luck using it & hope we shall all have our Healths & do well.69

  The christening of a functional item was a private ritual: ‘I wrote this [her diary] upon our new Oak table the very first time I ever did write upon it or use it – Good Luck attend me …’70 The recording of first usage is consistent with Elizabeth Shackleton's pronounced awareness of the passage of time and the importance of the past and her memories in her everyday life.

  Elizabeth Shackleton's sense of the family history and the continuity which Alkincoats represented was brought to its fullest expression when Tom Parker finally claimed his full inheritance, two years after his majority: ‘Great alteration in this family … Tom was whole and sole master of Alkincoats.’71 Quitting her marital home and household pre-eminence proved a drawn-out process. Mrs Shackleton immediately delivered all her diamonds and valuables into her son's hands. A year later she ritually handed over ‘the keys of the Buroe where he wo'd find all the keys’, a blatant act of resignation. Yet the final rupture did not come till 1779, when T
om married, at which point she definitively removed herself and her chattels to Pasture House: ‘They all saw me come off Bag and Baggage. am Happy to leave good old Alkincoats my once Happy Home to my own Dear Dear Dear Dear Tom…’72

  This spectacular loss of status was one she was prepared for and rationalized in what historians have often interpreted as stock gentry terms: the continuity of the family and the line, the importance of old traditions and the fundamental stability of the estate itself being of greater significance than any individual tenant. Thus, she deferred to and prayed for Tom and his new wife on their wedding day: ‘Grant them Health & long life, Prosperity & comfort. May they enjoy Domestick Peace … May Good old Alkincoats Flourish in every degree. Long may the Usual Generous Hospitality Flourish within & without those Walls that ever did.’73 Elizabeth Shackleton observed both the letter and the spirit of Robert Parker's will. Although she was miserable departing from her old home and experienced pangs upon its redecoration (‘My poor, good, old yellow room. Transmogrified indeed into Elegance …’74), she remained convinced of the importance of inheritance and perceived herself as a guardian of property entrusted to, and on loan from later generations of Parkers: