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Could Benedict and Sophie have lived happily ever after? The true history behind Bridgerton's cross-class romance
The fourth season of hit Regency period drama Bridgerton tells the story of second son Benedict’s relationship with Sophie, a lady’s maid in disguise. But could a real romance like this have ever had a happy ending? And are there any figures from history who lived out the upstairs/downstairs fantasy? Felicity Day explains more
We’re back in the candlelit ballrooms of the ton this month for a new series of Netflix’s Bridgerton, this time watching second sibling Benedict waltz his way towards marriage. But his love interest is no debutante expensively dressed by a fashionable modiste, drilled in the latest dance steps and declared a diamond by Queen Charlotte. Sophie Baek is a working lady’s maid in the household of the Bridgerton family’s neighbour, Lady Araminta Gun. It’s an upstairs/downstairs romance that could only ever prosper in the pages of a romantic novel – or so you might think… Were there cross-class romances in the Regency era? In fact, there are several true stories from the late Georgian age that give hope to those wanting to hear wedding bells chiming for Benedict before the end of season four. In early 1789, for instance, it was an open secret in the Banbury area of Oxfordshire one Mr William Wykeham, the young owner of the stately Swalcliffe Park, was besotted with Elizabeth Marsh, who was the cook to the tenants then occupying his ancestral home. As the sun came up on a bright day in early March, he stopped his carriage a discreet distance from the house where she toiled long and hard every day. When she jumped in, he whisked her away from a life in service for good – to the mingled indignation, amusement and anxiety of her employer, MP’s wife Henrietta Wrightson, who shared the news of their flight in a letter to her sister. It was an unlikely match between the teenage nephew of a viscount and the daughter of a Lancashire smallholder – not to mention that Elizabeth was some 18 years senior to her determined suitor. But they went on to wed in a local church not long after their elopement. Their marriage was tragically short, but Elizabeth gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl, before she died in 1792. When William followed her to the grave in 1806, their surviving daughter inherited not only the great house where her mother had once been employed, but another even grander property, too. How exactly the Wykehams became acquainted, let alone able to conduct a courtship, remains tantalisingly undiscovered. But beginning an upstairs-downstairs affair probably wasn’t as difficult as we might imagine. During the Regency era, servants were a constant presence in elite households, living and working in close proximity to the family they served and interacting with their wider social network, too. Footmen and housemaids were in and out of a house’s main rooms all day long, with tasks including greeting and ushering in visitors, carrying messages and bringing tea trays. The former waited on the family and their guests at the dinner table, and were sometimes also responsible for escorting young ladies when they ventured outside the house. The duties of a lady’s maid, meanwhile, often kept her by her mistress’ side; she might accompany her on shopping trips and attend her at balls, and usually travelled with her when she was invited to house parties. Added to that, many servants spent years working for the same aristocratic family, becoming well known to all. The name of Sally, who served as lady’s maid to Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough for almost three decades between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, frequently appears in her ladyship’s letters. As a cook, Elizabeth Marsh had less reason than other servants to venture above stairs. But as William Wykeham appears to have remained a resident in the area after surrendering his stately property to tenants, perhaps he retained the management of his wider estate, giving him business which took him into the house’s servants’ quarters. Or perhaps Elizabeth caught his eye in one of the local villages and he sought her out. She was, after all, “a Very pretty woman” – at least, according to her employer. Masters and maids: a recurring pattern It wasn’t exactly unusual for attractive female servants to catch the eye of a gentleman. But alongside the maids and housekeepers who had sexual attentions forced upon them by employers or members of their households in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were also those who embarked on relationships willingly. Lady’s maid Anne ‘Nanny’ Hawkins may have been one of them. Sir Henry Harpur Crewe’s “unfortunate connection” with her (as described by his mother) began at Eastbourne in southeast England in the summer of 1790, where she was perhaps holidaying with her employers. Anne came to live in a house on his Calke Abbey estate in Derbyshire, initially as his mistress, but then, in 1792, two months after the birth of their first child, Henry married her – despite vociferous opposition from his maternal uncle. His contemporary, the Honourable Frederick ‘Poodle’ Byng (so-nicknamed on account of his thick, curly hair), likewise married Catherine, a lady’s maid (in this case, his mother’s attendant) after she gave birth to his child. It is possible that guilt or honour played a part in such a decision, but few aristocrats who seduced their female servants thought it necessary to marry them if they became pregnant (in the 1860s, one peer was widely called crazy for feeling himself honour-bound to do so). Even a lasting relationship was no guarantee that marriage would be the result. The widowed 3rd Duke of Richmond had three daughters with his housekeeper Mary Blesard in the Regency period. He gave her a smart property in Earl’s Court in London, and in his will provided her with a large annual income and generous dowries for their girls. But he never made her his wife. The fact that the Honourable Frederick did wed Catherine suggests that, as with Sir Henry – who was said to be “violently attached” to Anne in the early stages of their relationship – there may have been an uncommon strength of feeling between them. The lady loves a footman Men, of course, had greater opportunity to become acquainted with women of other social classes and far more opportunity to conduct a clandestine romance, being free of the shackles of chaperonage and the strict parental control that curtailed the lives of their sisters. But that’s not to say that upstairs-downstairs relationships were unknown to the fairer sex. Lady Henrietta Watson-Wentworth, sister of the Marquess of Rockingham, was one of several women who became romantically entangled with a footman. In the mid 18th-century, she and a handsome Irish ex-soldier named William Sturgeon, who was employed at her family’s townhouse in London’s Grosvenor Square, grew close after she began tutoring him in grammar, mathematics and music. Theirs was certainly not the genteel kind of courtship that played out in the ballrooms and opera boxes of Mayfair either, for the unmarried 26-year-old Henrietta became pregnant. Yet it has all the appearance of a love match, for despite knowing her family would regard their union as a scandalous mésalliance, in 1764 the pair were wed secretly in the fashionable St George’s church in Hanover Square, only telling her relations once the knot was safely tied. The couple’s marriage produced five children, saw them set up a pottery business together in Rouen, France, and lasted until Henrietta’s death 25 years later. Could a couple like Benedict and Sophie have a happy-ever-after? Of course, all of these relationships courted great risk, and no such union between aristocrat and servant would have offered guaranteed marital bliss. In marrying her footman, Lady Henrietta not only ruptured relations with her nearest and dearest, who were palpably shocked, but left behind the luxury and security of her aristocratic existence. She also took care to draw up a watertight legal settlement that prevented William from accessing the bulk of her fortune (he was to have only £100 a year for life), and made provision for a possible separation, which stands testament to the risk she knew she was taking. Some wealthy parents even had the power to disinherit sons or daughters who married without their consent. There was also a social cost to cross-class romances. Snobbish as it seems today, the doors to elite houses and entertainment venues would generally have remained stubbornly closed to a spouse raised from such a humble background. There were men of wealth and title who married ex-courtesans, actresses and opera singers, with each perfectly content to host and be hosted by the others’ wives, but the Regency diarist Thomas Creevey gives a glimpse of the difficulties that women like Mrs ‘Poodle’ Byng faced when he wrote cruelly of her: “You know I have the greatest aversion to playing at company with such kind of tits”. The 1825 manual The Duties of a Lady’s Maid, meanwhile, painted a miserable picture for any female servant imprudent enough to dream of a marriage with an upper-class gentleman. “You must always be considered as an intruder” by the gentleman’s friends, it warned, while “he will, probably, look upon your relatives … as unfit associates, and will despise perhaps your very parents.” Unsurprisingly, some couples found it easier to shun society altogether. After Sir Henry and Lady Harpur Crewe married in 1792, they lived in quiet retirement at Calke Abbey, even selling the family’s London house (though neither seemed to have viewed that as a terrible disadvantage, the Baronet having a very solitary nature). Nor did the challenges stop other unlikely couples taking a chance on love, even into the Victorian era as snobbish attitudes around class grew even more entrenched. In the early 1880s, the parents of John ‘Patrick’ Chaworth Musters, heir to the estate of Annesley Park in Nottinghamshire, sent him off to their fishing lodge in Norway with nursery maid Mary Anne, who was pregnant after a clandestine affair. Read more | Was there a real Lady Whistledown? The family presumably hoped that the pair’s mutual ardour would cool. But when Patrick inherited Annesley on his father’s death, he married Mary Anne in 1888 and returned to his estates in 1889, bringing her back as his wife, along with their first four children. A private family history records some nervousness about how the daughter of humble straw-plaiters would fare as the house’s chatelaine, but goes on to report that she proved her doubters emphatically wrong: she became a respected member of county society, not to mention the loving mother of their eleven children. In real history, the fairytale ending to a cross-class romance remained entirely possible, if not always probable. We’ll have to stay tuned to see what awaits Benedict and Sophie, in this season’s trip to Regency London. Felicity Day is the author of The Game of Hearts: True Stories of Regency Romance (Blink, 2024)
Anyone who has read Jane Austen will have an idea of how much effort a high society woman in Regency Britain gave to finding a husband. Felicity Day lays out what they needed to know, how they could meet that special someone, and why getting married had its dangers...
Weigh up the pros and cons before tying the knot Marriage was socially expected, but it certainly had its drawbacks Marriage was “the great object of female hope according to one (male) writer of the Regency period. He mused that it was “the natural wish and expectation of every amiable girl, to settle happily in marriage”. Becoming a wife certainly did have advantages, offering the chance for a woman to break free from constant chaperonage and to become (respectably) a mother. There was a profound stigma associated with single life, too, with spinsters the subject of much derision. Yet matrimony had definite downsides. A wife in the Regency period – the late Georgian era, commonly considered to stretch from around 1790 to 1830 – lost various legal rights and potentially some of her property the moment she said ‘I do’. Her husband could lawfully beat and imprison her, and prevent her seeing their children. Love and companionship aside, marriage did not look particularly enticing. And contrary to what we’re often told, if you were a woman from a wealthy, aristocratic family, staying single was usually a viable option. In fact, Emily Nugent, Marchioness of Westmeath, who found herself shackled to a serially unfaithful and abusive husband, became convinced that she would have been better off had she never married. She could have lived comfortably on the combined income of her £15,000 marriage portion and inheritance from an unmarried aunt, together giving her as much as £1,300 a year – more than triple what many clergymen earned. Emily could have joined those single ladies who made homes for themselves in Mayfair and continued to take part in the social round. Put in the hard work if you do want to make a match Finding a suitor wasn’t easy, and women had to be seen in the right places For the many women who did want to marry, or at least wanted to do what was expected, their best chance of making a match was to throw themselves into the Regency season. This whirl of balls and parties took place between roughly late January and early July, when aristocratic families flooded into town for the parliamentary session. “Spring campaigning” was what earl’s daughter Lady Sarah Spencer called the frenetic social mingling, and like any campaign, it required both strategy and stamina. Any marriage-minded woman needed to be seen at all the right places, and perhaps at two or three of them in a single evening. These would not just be the most talked-about balls and concerts, but the assembly rooms and the opera – the latter being the place where members of ‘the ton’ (British high society) gathered twice a week, less interested in the singing than the gossiping, flirting and people-watching. Perfecting your dance steps, and being physically fit enough to dance in a stuffy ballroom for hours on end, was essential. Balls were not only the best place to be introduced to eligible partners; standing up for a dance was one of the few opportunities for a couple to engage in a tête-à-tête. At a comfortable distance from her chaperone, a woman could flirt with a suitor, encourage his attentions and assess his opinions. Competition could be fierce, especially as a flurry of new debutantes made their ‘come out’ every year, and tactics could be dirty. These ranged from the sending of anonymous letters imparting uncomplimentary information, clearly designed to frustrate a potential match, to parents over-inflating the amount of their daughter’s fortune. The latter, at least, was inevitable, given that money – like good looks – went a long way to putting men and women ahead of their rivals. Pick someone your parents will approve of Once the perfect partner was found, it was time to get consent and talk marriage contracts Once women had successfully navigated the choppy waters of the marriage market, all that remained was to get parental approval. Consent from a father or guardian was only required by law for those wanting to tie the knot under the age of 21, but because parents were usually in charge of dispensing their share of the family fortune, well-born lovers of all ages usually considered it a necessary evil. Objections came for many reasons. Lady Williams-Wynn was loath to approve her 24-year-old daughter’s marriage with a neighbouring landowner old enough to be her father. As for Lord and Lady Petre, the difference in status (and no doubt fortune) seems to have been the reason why they resolutely failed to consider their son’s tutor a fitting partner for their daughter, Julia. The Duke and Duchess of Rutland, meanwhile, wanted to be assured of their daughter Elizabeth’s favoured suitor having an income of at least £3,500 a year. Partly what motivated the Rutlands was a desire for Elizabeth to have a reasonable sum of pin money. Contractual provisions for this independent, annual allowance, along with a widow’s annuity – both typically set out in a marriage settlement – were not to be spurned lightly by a high society bride. They gave her a measure of financial security not available to those lower down the social ladder. So, too, did the prenuptial trusts conventionally created by the aristocracy as part of the settlement process. These ensured that instead of a woman’s property transferring directly to a husband the minute the knot was tied, it was ring- fenced for her benefit. If all else fails, elope A small village became famous with couples and feared among parents: Gretna Green If a woman couldn’t win consent for her match, or simply got fed up of waiting for her family’s lawyers to wrangle over the terms of the settlement, she and her lover might have made a bolt for the Scottish border. Since Scotland refused to adopt the provisions of the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 – which required under-21s to have parental consent - it was a haven for minors desperate to marry but lacking permission. The most obvious destination was Gretna Green: as the first village to be reached via the main coach road from London, it became home to a veritable marriage industry. Elopement was not without risk for a woman, though. Her reputation would be utterly ruined if she did not return home a wedded wife. Nor was it an easy option financially. Outpacing any pursuers required a post chaise and four horses, and then there was the fee for the minister. When, in 1811, Viscount Deerhurst took to Gretna Green his second wife – Lady Mary Beauclerk, reputedly heiress to a fortune of £100,000, who was helped out of her house by her faithful maid – it was said that the ‘parson’ who married them (in reality, a former peddler named David Laing) pocketed 100 guineas. For such a sum, he would probably have given the wedding a quasi-religious tone. In fact, it might not have felt so different to the most modish aristocratic ceremonies, often held in the drawing room of the bride’s home and witnessed by only a handful of guests. Prepare to be pregnant, a lot Being a mother was a Regency wife’s duty, but one done at great risk Most women expected to fall pregnant fairly quickly after their marriage. Some even felt they were failing in their duty to a husband – to provide him with a son and heir – if they were not soon with child. Pregnancy itself was not usually a great trial – it was perfectly permissible to carry on with normal life right up until the baby arrived – nor was the care of children, as long as you married into the aristocracy and could afford nurses to do a lot of the work. But what one mother described as the “dreadful operation” of childbirth could be an ordeal, one that women went through at least six or seven times on average. Childbirth was a frightening prospect. Most Regency women knew of someone who had died in labour or soon afterwards. When preparing for her much-wanted wedding in August 1810, one 17-year-old bride must have been dismayed by the news that two of her acquaintances had died in that month alone during childbirth, both of them only 22 years old. Even if a woman did come through labour safely, frequent childbearing would have taken a fatal toll on their health. After making her own love match at 18, Maria, Viscountess Duncannon spent much of her adult life pregnant, only to die aged 46, five years after giving birth for the 15th time. Remember, marriage isn't always for life While trickier for a woman, divorces and separations were possible By no means was it guaranteed for a Regency couple to reach their 25th wedding anniversary, and not just because of the risks of childbirth or the rise of incurable diseases, such as consumption. It was possible – among the upper classes, at least – to end a union by choice. Unable to suppress their illicit passion for one another any longer, Henry, Lord Paget, a dashing cavalry officer, and mother of four Lady Charlotte Wellesely broke up their individual marriages in sensational style when they eloped with each other from London’s Green Park in 1809. Two divorces followed, after which the couple wed and had 10 children. For a woman, obtaining a divorce from an unfaithful spouse was always more of a challenge than the other way around – especially a parliamentary divorce, the only kind which allowed remarriage. Unlike her husband, a wife could not sue on the basis of adultery alone, but had to prove an aggravating offence, such as bigamy or incest. But there was a popular and more private alternative: a formal separation, the terms of which could be negotiated out of court. This kept the couple’s marital complaints hidden from the gossip-loving ladies of the ton. Runaway lovers Lady Mary Beauclerk and Lord Deerhurst were among those who legally separated when they parted a few years after their aforementioned elopement. During their short marriage, it seems neither of them remained faithful. Reportedly, Mary had affairs with not one but two of Deerhurst’s younger brothers. For all that, however, it would be wrong to think that there were no loving, long- lasting unions in this period. Delve into history and you’re sure to find plenty of real-life Regency romances. Explore more content from week two of our Regency course: Regency culture, with Dr Lizzie Rogers – watching time 12 mins Everything you wanted to know about Jane Austen's England –reading time 7 mins Becoming Jane Austen – reading time 4 mins The Romantics: everything you wanted to know – listening time 39 mins Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster – reading time 6 mins Visiting Brighton Royal Pavilion, the Prince Regent's decadent getaway – reading time 3 mins
Strange and surprising pastimes of the Regency Ton
From wrenching off door knockers to imitating coachmen’s dress, Felicity Day explores the curious pastimes of the Regency super-rich…
You’re probably familiar with some of the many ways that the Regency super-rich whiled away their plentiful leisure hours, from gambling on cards, dice and prize-fights, to fox-hunting and horse-riding, stitching, and singing. But if you feel like taking up one of the more strange and surprising hobbies that had the haut ton seal of approval, here are seven you might try… Making shoes Unlikely as it seems that the aristocracy would take up tools like members of the labouring class and make something they had plenty of money to buy, they really did discover a passion for making their own footwear in the early 1800s. Fashion favouring simple, slipper-like shoes made of fabric or kidskin meant it was not too difficult for an amateur stitcher to progress, with the right tuition, from merely embroidering a shoe to making the whole thing. Members of the ton eagerly purchased toolkits and clamoured for trained shoemakers to teach them the craft in the comfort of their drawing rooms. On the podcast | Jane Austen's passion for fashion During the 1808 ‘season’, it seems to have become a particular obsession for society ladies. Earl Spencer’s daughter wrote in April to tell him not to expect a letter from her mama, because she was “in so irresistibly attractive a part of the operation of sewing round her shoe, that she cannot tear herself from it, even to perform her conjugal duties”. It wasn’t just women switching their needlework for something new: young men about town took to it, too. “They are so busy learning to make shoes that they can think of nothing else, and all engagements are forgotten,” lamented another Mayfair mother in 1809, her hospitality and daughters neglected. Drizzling At least shoemaking was useful. It’s harder to understand the popularity of the near-pointless pastime of ‘drizzling’, thought to have been carried over to Britain by French émigrés in the 1790s. Its intriguing name belies the fact that it was simply the rather boring art of unpicking braids, tassels, fringes, tapestries and other fine textiles to extract gold and silver threads. The threads did have a monetary value and it’s feasible that even aristocratic ‘drizzlers’ were motivated by the thought of selling them to local goldsmiths. The action of unravelling provided a perfect opportunity for female drizzlers to put their delicate and graceful fingers on display in the drawing room, too. But unlike conventional needlework or netting (the latter of which could be used to make all manner of things from reticules to rabbit nets), there was nothing useful to show for hours spent drizzling. It seems chiefly to have been a means of killing time – one that could be combined with polite conversation as it required only a bare minimum of concentration and no particular skill. Princess Charlotte of Wales was a drizzler, and after her tragic death in childbirth her husband Prince Leopold took up the hobby. Just the sight of him carrying his drizzling box into her house, ready to start work with “the monotonous regularity of an automaton” provoked a “yawning-fit,” said his dismayed mistress. Taking a stage-coach for a spin Tooling a light and sporty open carriage around the park at the fashionable hour sounds like a very ordinary amusement for a Regency buck. However, some aristocratic gentlemen took driving one step further, turfing their coachman off the box of their travelling carriage and taking the reins of the four-horse team that pulled that more cumbersome vehicle themselves. By the start of the Regency period, two rival ‘whip clubs’ had already been established, whose members congregated several times during the season to drive themselves out of town to dine at a coaching inn, showing-off not only their smart equipages but their superior driving skills. As the driver of a public stagecoach admitted, to handle four horses well was an “accomplishment” requiring “practice in order to become a master” (albeit it was a lot easier if you had expensive, high-bred horses to play with, and no talkative paying passengers to distract you). But for these amateur enthusiasts, it wasn’t just about the driving. When they mounted the ‘box’ these ‘gentlemen-coachmen’ strove to imitate the dress, rough manners and slang of their working-class counterparts, donning livery and greatcoats, driving on through pouring rain and stopping at public houses and gin shops more usually frequented by those who drove for their living. One is even said to have had his front teeth filed to create a gap that would “enable him to expel his spittle” like a true professional. Baffled Persian diplomat Mirza Abu’l Hassan Khan concluded – after watching amid a huge crowd as the Four-Horse (or Four-in-Hand) club were waved off on one of their jaunts in May 1810 – that its wealthy members were simply “trying to impose some kind of discipline on their idle lives”. One Franco-American tourist could better see the amusement in it, though he warned “that the fashionable imitation of the vulgar by people of superior rank in France […] was one of the things that contributed to bring about the revolution”. The more real danger was that sporting squires – or young wannabes – were apt to try bribing the drivers of public stagecoaches to let them “take the ribbons” for a time, which, on occasion, had disastrous consequences for the unwitting passengers. Riding a ‘dandy horse’ For a short time at the end of the Regency, horses were actually old hat for thrill-seeking young men, who were early adopters of their putative mechanical replacement: the velocipede. Popularised in 1819 by an entrepreneurial coachmaker who improved the design of a vehicle first seen on the continent, and otherwise known as a dandy horse, hobby horse and pedestrian curricle, it was essentially a precursor to the bicycle: a two-wheeler without pedals, propelled along by the rider pushing their feet on the ground. The Duke of Marlborough had one; the Prince Regent reputedly owned four (though it’s not clear whether he ever rode them as he was grossly overweight and overfond of laudanum by that point). Regency bucks with the appropriate stamina, however, took lessons, then tore about London’s parks at speeds between 8ph and 10mph, and raced their dandy horses long distance. The London to Brighton run was particularly popular: in July 1819, newspapers quipped that donkeys were likely to be rivalled by the two-wheelers that summer. Some were nonplussed, like poet John Keats, who described velocipedes as “the nothing of the day” and seemed bemused by their eight guinea price tag. Others were made cross by the number of accidents and near-misses that resulted from riders taking to the pavements to avoid rough and bumpy roads, or flying past horses so close that they were spooked. In the end, restrictions on their use, financial penalties for reckless riders, the ridicule of caricaturists and the condemnation of the medical profession (who warned of ‘ruptures’ or hernias), combined to make riding them more of a passing fad than a serious pastime, which was over by the early 1820s. Watching the House of Commons debates through a hole in the ceiling Hot footing it through the streets on a hobby horse was not for society ladies, but if you think fashionable, wealthy women were doomed to pursue only domestic hobbies, think again. Read more | Was the Regency a good time to be a woman? Politically minded ladies of the ton were likely to be spending their time in a pokey room in the loft space of the Palace of Westminster, home from 1818 to a ventilation shaft which opened into the House of Commons chamber below. There they could, through the gaps in the shaft, catch a glimpse of what was going on below. More importantly, they could hear almost every word, allowing them to form their own opinions from what was actually said, rather than what was reported; and to be ready to discuss them with the politicians of their acquaintance. Hot and dark, this space was nowhere near as comfortable as the public gallery (from which women had been banned in 1778 after refusing to leave), but ladies like Harriet Arbuthnot, married to the Secretary to the Treasury and a confidante of the Duke of Wellington, valued it all the same. She frequented it alongside friends like Lady Bessborough and Lady Shelley, who were presumably passing up invitations to stuffy ballroom squeezes to be in attendance in the evenings. Wrenching off door-knockers What the young, well-heeled gentlemen of the marriage market enjoyed doing when they were missing from the ballrooms would, however, be regarded as shockingly anti-social behaviour today. A favourite sport during alcohol-fuelled nights on the town was to “parade the streets…and wrench the brass knockers off the doors”. Another was “boxing a Charley” – knocking over the small huts in which the (often snoozing) night watchmen sat, trapping them inside and leaving them to kick and shout to be let out. A riotous evening might also be enlivened by pinching everything from shop signage to barber’s poles and other people’s hats, as Lord William Lennox later reminisced, adding “many a man about town […] could boast of a well-stocked museum of purloined articles”. Collecting Talking of museums, with so much disposable income it’s to be expected that members of the ton turned to collecting in their spare time – but some of them favoured the unusual. American ambassador Richard Rush learned of someone who had (to his amazement) “laid out several thousand pounds sterling” on a collection of pipes. He also saw the collection of zoo animals belonging to Lady Castlereagh. Meanwhile, Lord Petersham – a mildly eccentric peer who liked his horses, carriages and servants’ livery to be exactly the same shade of brown, and never stirred out of doors before 6pm – was famous for collecting teas and snuffs. These he stored in a shelf-lined room “more like a shop than a gentleman’s sitting-room” in his father’s London house, along with his collection of snuff boxes and canes. If you enjoyed this feature, why not explore the period further with our short course on the Regency, compiled with the help of 18th and 19th-century expert Dr Lizzie Rogers? This offering is part of the HistoryExtra Academy, exclusive to our members. Discover more here
The scandals that rocked Queen Charlotte's court
From illicit affairs to assassination attempts, Felicity Day reveals the scandals that rocked the court of King George III and Queen Charlotte, whose relationship is the focus of a new Bridgerton spin-off series
It’s often said that the court of George III and Queen Charlotte was dull and censorious. “The palace of piety,” Horace Walpole called it. The royal couple were famously frugal, and far from having a bevy of buxom mistresses like his grandfather George II, the king had no woman in his life but his wife, mother of his 15 children. He and Charlotte were known to look askance on the adultery and excesses of their aristocratic subjects. Yet their court was to be rocked by scandals – and the biggest of them were of the royal family’s own making. Listen now | Polly Putnam, historical advisor on Netflix’s new series, delves into the real royal history that inspired Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story Royal adultery It was one of George III’s brothers who dragged the family into the scandal sheets in his first decade as king. In December 1769, the papers divulged that an assignation between Henry, Duke of Cumberland, and his lover, Lady Grosvenor (sister of one of the queen’s ladies) had been interrupted by her husband’s servants. The pair had been caught together in a bedchamber at a busy coaching inn in St Albans, their clothing in disarray. Lord Grosvenor had promptly hauled the duke into court, and during a trial for ‘criminal conversation’ with his wife, all manner of embarrassing details about the rakish royal were revealed – from the apparent enjoyment he had taken in dressing up in disguise for their secret trysts, to the lamentable spelling in his love letters. Forced to foot the £13,000 bill for damages and fees, the king was furious that his sibling had shown so little regard for the moral responsibility that he (and many of his subjects) believed came with exalted rank. But he was all the more angry in 1771, when he learned that the serially philandering Henry had taken to the altar flamboyant widow Anne Horton, daughter of a baron dubbed ‘the King of Hell’ thanks to his womanising ways. He described the union as “a disgrace to the whole family” – though it became far more than that. George’s anger led to the creation of the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which rendered illegal the marriage of any royal under the age of 25 without the monarch’s consent, the only exception being descendants of princesses who married into foreign families. Whether it was because they knew that any marriage sanctioned by their father would prioritise European politics over passion, most of George and Charlotte’s seven surviving sons chose lifestyles as rakish as their uncle Cumberland’s. George, Prince of Wales distressed them particularly with a string of indiscreetly conducted love affairs, and was known to have defied his father’s act and married a handsome Catholic widow, Maria Fitzherbert – only to cruelly cast her aside. His lawful marriage in 1795 to his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, was to cause even more unwelcome chatter, as he paraded his mistresses at court while pointedly ignoring her, before subjecting the princess to an inquiry into allegations of her adultery and the birth of an illegitimate son. The so-called ‘Delicate Investigation’ of 1806 – which acquitted Caroline – was a private matter that in time became a very public scandal, the couple using the newspapers to air their grievances and the nation taking sides. The war of the Wales’ took its toll on the queen especially. “My dislike to everything public is greatly increased,” she told the king at one stage, having found herself caught in the middle of their marital drama. Secret pregnancy Interestingly, though, it wasn’t only wayward sons she had to worry about; one of Charlotte’s daughters also brought scandal to her door. Despite the six princesses interacting with few women, let alone men outside ‘the nunnery’ (as they called the royal household), in 1801, gossips began to debate whether Princess Sophia’s illness the previous summer, while the court was at Weymouth, had, in fact, been a secret pregnancy. Her sister Elizabeth called it a “fabricated and most scandalous and base report” but historians now believe the rumour was true, and Sophia did indeed give birth to a baby boy in July or August 1800, fathered by one of the king’s equerries, General Thomas Garth, and left with a tailor in the town, whose wife was supposed to pass him off as her own. Fuelled by Garth’s adoption of the child, the reports gathered pace in the years after, when it was said the queen knew of the unvirtuous conduct of her daughter, reportedly so innocent that she had not even known she was pregnant. It appears the gossip did not then leak beyond the morally elastic world of the aristocracy – where such a ‘false step’ was not unheard of – but the scandal certainly damaged Sophia’s reputation. “I have lost myself in the world by my conduct,” she later admitted, “and, alas, have felt it humbly, for many, many have changed towards me”. Lonely, miserable and separated from her son, she lived the remainder of her life in seclusion. A lustful duke Leaving another royal reputation in tatters was the cash-for-commissions scandal in which Sophia’s brother, Frederick, Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the British Army, was embroiled by a vengeful former mistress, deprived of her promised allowance. When it exploded in 1809, it emerged that during their three-year affair courtesan Mary Anne Clarke had abused her access to the duke’s official papers, taking bribes from military men in exchange for adding their names to the promotion lists which it was his job to authorise. Even her footman had managed to obtain a commission that way. With a humiliating British retreat from Spain in the war against Napoleon very raw, Parliament had opted for an inquiry into the duke’s complicity. A prince effectively on trial for corruption in the House of Commons was bad enough, but the glamorous Mary Anne was induced to testify against him and boldly stated that her lover had connived in her schemes. Her clever responses and double entendres made MPs laugh and stirred up more public outrage over the apparently immoral, indulgent lifestyles of the royal men. Some observers felt that it was a waste of parliamentary time “when so many other important objects require[d] their attention” but it was the hottest topic in town, spawning a veritable avalanche of cartoons lampooning the lustful duke. It eventually transpired that the names had been added to the lists without the duke’s knowledge, but with public opinion against him, he was forced to resign. And the matter was not quite over even then. A hefty sum had to be paid to gag Mrs Clarke and suppress her memoirs, which threatened further embarrassment for the family. Only a year later, yet another son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, found himself the talk of every dinner table, but in his case, it concerned something much more serious than an extra-marital affair: murder. “ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND” had screamed the headlines, the papers revealing that in the early hours of 31 May 1810, the duke had been ferociously attacked with his own sabre as he slept, his assailant splitting open his skull with sufficient force to reveal his brains. Soon after the alarm had been raised, the duke’s valet, Joseph Sellis, had been found locked in his room, “his throat cut from ear to ear”. Read more about the Duke of Cumberland and his valet: a bloody tale of attempted murder The inquest concluded that Sellis had committed the bloody crime before taking his own life, but the verdict did little to quash talk of the affair. “The business is a most mysterious one,” mused one lady, “endless stories are circulated”. Some of these concerned possible motives for the attack. Ranging from revenge for an affair between the duke and his wife to an angry rejection of his employer’s homosexual advances, they rarely painted the royal in a good light. But there was a far more sinister rumour in circulation, too, which said the duke was not the victim but the villain. In the eyes of his critics he certainly looked the part, mostly thanks to a prominent battle scar on the side of his face. There was also his reputedly “bad character” – “the soldiers on guard say they wish he had been cut to pieces instead of wounded,” said one report. And gossip had already coupled his name with another wicked crime: since 1804 members of the haut ton had heard rumours that the father of Princess Sophia’s child was actually her brother Ernest. A legacy of scandal? The ladies of the royal family were certainly believed to be wary of him. Even his mother, Queen Charlotte, wrote that she was saddened by the attack “independent of one’s feelings towards him”. The crime scene had been disturbed, too, which only encouraged conspiracy theories. Not to mention that it did seem strange that the duke could have mistaken such a violent attack for a bat flying against his head, as he said in his evidence. Unsurprisingly, whispers about his own guilt persisted for the rest of his life. The family scandals rolled on and on, too. In 1813, Ernest was accused of influencing a parliamentary election in Weymouth, and in 1815 chose for his wife a princess who had publicly jilted his brother Adolphus (and was herself dogged by a rumour that she had poisoned her late husband). On and on they even went, too, after Queen Charlotte’s death in 1818 and King George’s in 1820. George IV attempted to divorce his wife Caroline in a sensational public ‘trial’ and then excluded her from his coronation in 1821 – spending the ceremony indecently winking at and sighing over his latest mistress instead. Then in 1829, Sophia’s not-so-secret son hit the headlines when he attempted to blackmail the royals over his true parentage, and Ernest was accused of sexual assault. Little wonder that by 1837 the nation was ready for the comparatively boring court of Queen Victoria, as moral and dutiful as her grandparents George and Charlotte could have wished. This article was first published in the May 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed
Wonders of God: the strange phenomenon of fasting girls
In the 19th century, numerous young women on both sides of the Atlantic were alleged to be forgoing food and surviving on faith alone. Felicity Day uncovers the secrets of the so-called “fasting girls”, whose stories have inspired a new Netflix drama The Wonder
In December 1869, a treacherous experiment was underway in a small village in Wales. Sarah Jacob, her parents claimed, had survived without a single scrap of food crossing her lips for two years. Now, in the face of scorn from the scientific community, they were attempting to prove that their daughter really was a “miraculous faster”. But six days into the two-week round-the-clock watch, things weren’t going to plan. The nurses, keen eyes primed to detect any attempts at deceit, were growing worried about the 12-year-old. She was getting weaker and colder. In fact, it looked like she was starving to death. Though newspapers across the nation were avidly following the “extraordinary case”, Sarah was not the first so-called “fasting girl” Britain had seen, nor was she the first to submit to such a perilous test. Europe had a long tradition of these miraculous maidens: young women who appeared to eat almost nothing at all, despite being otherwise in good health. Taking their lead from the devout Catholics of the medieval period, whose anorexia mirabilis was rooted in their deep piety, fasting girls had been attracting attention since at least the 16th century, their abstinence bringing them fame and fortune. Feathers and raising Even early on, they had divided opinion. To some, they were a “wonder of God” – evidence of his miraculous powers, and worthy of the crowds who flocked to gaze on them. Others were cynical: early modern physicians might not be able to state with any certainty how long a person could survive without eating, but at a time when famine was a bleak reality, the necessity of nourishment for the preservation of life was well-understood. It was growing scepticism that had led to the very first watches. In 1600, King Henry IV of France sent his “best and chiefest” physician to determine whether it was “by deceit or not” that Jane Balan had conducted her three-year fast; and in 1668, the Earl of Devonshire arranged for surgeons to watch Martha Taylor, “The Famed Derbyshire Damosell”, who claimed to have fasted for 12 months, only occasionally wetting her lips with a feather dipped in water, or drinking the juice of a roasted raisin. The fact that duplicity was not detected in either case (nor in many others) meant that even as physicians were seeking alternative explanations – ranging from bodily make-up to the nutritive properties of air – the idea of miraculous or supernatural abstinence was kept alive. Anorexia Mirabilis in the Middle Ages The first references to fasting girls can be found in accounts from medieval Europe Meaning “miraculously inspired loss of appetite”, the term anorexia mirabilis describes the religiously motivated self-starvation of women in late medieval Europe, some of whom allegedly went without food for months or years, claiming that they were physically unable to eat “earthly fare”. Like feasting, fasting was a central tenet of the Catholic faith, but the refusal (or inability) to eat was closely entwined with female piety. Women’s cultural association with food, and the nurturing of both their family and the poor, made it their most accessible resource for expressing their desire to share in Christ’s sufferings, and for achieving holiness through the service of others. Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–80) remains one of the most famous adherents: until her death from a stroke at the age of 33, she was one of numerous women who reportedly lived on the Eucharist alone, pushing twigs down her throat to make herself vomit if she was forced to eat anything else. Her strict fasting she described as an infirmity, saying she prayed God would make it possible for her to eat. It did, however, enable her to avoid marriage and earned her a notoriety that facilitated her intervention in major political and religious crises. Medical knowledge was obviously much advanced by the time Sarah’s fast came to the attention of the national press in February 1869. The vast majority of physicians were unshakeably convinced that surviving on air, or staying alive through the mercy of God, was utterly impossible: “a palpable absurdity, and in contravention of all known laws and experience”. Already, prolonged fasting – or the pretence of it – was considered a pathological behaviour: “a well-known phase of hysteria”. Conventional treatment for food refusal involved admittance to a hospital ward, where “by moral means” the patient would be coaxed into eating, or failing that, force-fed through a tube. Strange pilgrimages Cases like that of Ann Moore – “the pretended fasting woman of Tutbury” – had done much to damage the credibility of apparently miraculous fasters, too. Despite avowing “that for six years I have taken nothing but once, the inside of a few black currants; [and] for the last four years and a half nothing at all” she had been exposed as a “vile imposter” after a watch in 1813, called off when it became obvious that “she was suffering severely from want” and had “lost weight rapidly”. It turned out that while making the tidy sum of £400 from exhibiting her person to visitors, Ann’s daughter had been feeding her all along: washing her face with towels made wet with gravy, milk or arrowroot, and passing food into her mother’s mouth when they kissed. Yet despite all that, the fasting girl became something of a Victorian phenomenon. At a time of friction between new scientific fact and traditional religious faith, many ordinary people remained open to the idea that a medical miracle might occur. Not everyone thought it impossible that despite the “mere mention of food” bringing on a fit, Sarah’s health could actually be improving. Press coverage led to a steady stream of Britons making pilgrimages to the Carmarthenshire home of the “Welsh Fasting Girl”, following the entrepreneurial schoolboys who waited for them at the local railway station. Upon entering the bedroom in which Sarah laid all day, every day, her bed strewn with ribbons, flowers and books, they might be permitted to touch her hands or her face – and, of course, to leave gifts. So, while the medical community had been reluctant to see an old-fashioned observation conducted on Sarah, fearful of lending credibility to what they believed were ludicrous claims, the experiment to authenticate her fast had been sanctioned. One more rigorous watch, many thought, would prove to the public that it was impossible to survive without sustenance. Four nurses had been sent from London’s Guy’s Hospital for the purpose, and the Jacobs’ home diligently searched for hidden food. Sarah’s parents had also agreed not to make her bed, nor let her sister sleep alongside her. Unfortunately, the experiment cost Sarah her life. As she lay in bed, her pulse quickening, her body increasingly cold and restless, and her mind delusional, the doctors had urged her parents to withdraw the watch so that she could begin furtively eating again – as it was painfully clear she had been doing all along. But either from pride, their own delusion or, as they repeatedly said, a promise they had made to Sarah, they refused; and she slipped away on 17 December. The post-mortem categorically confirmed that their assertions that she had taken no food or drink for 26 months were untrue. Amid public outcry, they were both found guilty of manslaughter. Lucrative endorsements “It would,” thought one US neurologist, “be perfectly possible to re-enact in the City of New York the whole tragedy”, since Americans were proving just as receptive to the claims of their own fasting girls. The most famous was Mollie Fancher, who had initially come to the public’s attention in 1866 after going “seven weeks without food”. By the 1870s, the “Brooklyn Enigma” was apparently eating and drinking little more than a small banana and a few teaspoons of milk punch in a six-month period, and, like Sarah, receiving nationwide attention. Naturally, some of it was highly sceptical – at least one neurologist tried (unsuccessfully) to get Mollie to agree to a 30-day observation – but not all of it. Mollie was offered (and accepted) a lucrative endorsement deal from a company specialising in invalids’ prosthetics; and PT Barnum attempted to recruit her for his show. President Woodrow Wilson even sent her a letter to mark her “Golden Jubilee in Bed” in 1916. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages515355808-b6a9542.jpg" width="2722" height="2953" title="An 1887 image from US publication The National Police Gazette shows an inmate being force-fed in prison – a tactic also used on some fasting girls. Prolonged fasting, or the pretence of it, was regarded as a “well-known phase of hysteria” by physicians of the era. (Photo by Getty Images)" /> Just as other fasting girls were seen and reported on in Britain – like “Strathaven Fasting Girl” Christina Marshall, who “completed her eighteenth week without food” in 1881 – so were they found across the US, especially in places where supernatural causes were still given credence. In the mid-1880s, over 1,000 people came to visit Kate Smulsey, the “Fort Plain Fasting Girl” who had apparently not eaten for over a year. Maine’s Josephine Marie Bedard, meanwhile – said to have “no more desire to eat than other people would have to chew iron” – was fought over by two rival promoters keen to exhibit her as a curiosity. New interpretations Why exactly Mollie Fancher, Sarah Jacob and those like them began to refuse food (or to eat in secret) has never been clear. Sarah had done so after a mysterious illness involving convulsive fits; Mollie while recuperating after an accident. One Dr Fowler, firmly convinced that hysteria lay behind Sarah’s behaviour, thought that “the oft expressed wonderment and surprise” of her parents as to the very little food she lived on in the wake of her illness had encouraged her fasting. The “cultivation of this habit” had in turn brought rewards, leading her into “simulation and deception”. Very rarely were either of their names connected with anorexia nervosa, defined for the first time in the early 1870s and linked then to the psychological dynamics of middle-class family life – in which parents were increasingly attentive towards children – and to Victorian attitudes about female self-restraint when it came to food. Instead, discussions around headline-hitting fasting girls were usually confined to exposing the fraud behind their claims of near-total abstinence, or to a hysteria diagnosis, deceptive behaviour being one of its core symptoms. Even more recently, historians have been wary about labelling them anorexics. Symptomatic continuities such as fasting and secret eating can be misleading according to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of the 1989 book Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa: “just because a behaviour occurs across cultures or time does not necessarily mean that it has the same cause or that it is biologically based.” What is clear is that the Victorian age was a pivotal period, transforming fasting girls from sources of fascination to sufferers; and their lengthy periods of abstinence from possible miracles to medical symptoms. Felicity Day is a journalist specialising in British history and heritage. Her first book, The Game of Hearts: The Lives and Loves of Regency Women, was published by Blink Publishing in September 2022
23 things you (probably) didn't know about No 10 Downing Street, the official residence of Britain's prime ministers
Felicity Day takes a glimpse behind the world’s most famous front door, reveals 23 fascinating facts about the official residence of the prime minister and the events that have taken place within its walls
It was given as a gift from a king In 1732 a grateful King George II presented Sir Robert Walpole with a house on Downing Street. Walpole, who is usually recognised as the first to have and to use the powers of a prime minister, refused the property as a personal gift. Instead, he agreed to accept it as an official residence for the First Lord of the Treasury, to which post – held by Walpole for more than 20 years – “he got it annexed for ever”. No 10 Downing Street was initially No 5 The king’s gift was, in fact, two houses: one fronting onto Downing Street and a larger one overlooking Horse Guards behind. Walpole moved in only once the two had been combined and refurbished, becoming the first premier to call Downing Street home in September 1735. The house was then actually No 5, and remained so until 1779 when it was renumbered. Its historic colour is the result of air pollution No 10 Downing Street’s distinctive brickwork is not actually black – restoration works in the 1960s revealed that the terrace was built with yellow bricks, subsequently blackened by two centuries of inner-city air pollution. A black colourwash is used today to maintain its historic appearance. A brewery once stood the land The land on which Downing Street stands was once part of the ancient Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlements of Thorney Island. Later home to a brewery, it was in the hands of the Crown by the reign of Henry VIII, sitting on the edge of the king’s vast Whitehall Palace site. A house there was leased by Elizabeth I to one of her favourites, Sir Thomas Knyvet, in 1581, and it was his niece, Mrs Hampden, who was residing in it when the land was confiscated under Oliver Cromwell (although she still continued to live there). The house was built by one of Oliver Cromwell's spymasters A “perfidious rogue” and “ungrateful villain” was how diarist Samuel Pepys described the man who gave his name to Britain’s most famous street. Sir George Downing was a former preacher who became one of Cromwell’s most high-profile spymasters in the wake of Charles I’s execution in 1649, only to switch sides when the Restoration loomed. Having traded his secrets for a pardon from the exiled Charles II, Downing went on to round up his former comrades for execution, receiving a baronetcy from his grateful king and settling into a new life as a government administrator – admired for his capabilities, but despised for his self-interest. Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London The former Crown land in Whitehall, Downing had acquired in 1654. Undeterred when the transfer was declared null and void at the Restoration in 1660, Downing brazenly told the king that it had come to him in payment of a debt, and was granted a lease of the site and liberty to build on it. With an eye solely to profit, he erected a series of 15 to 20 terraced houses and gave the street his name. It wasn't built to last Sited on boggy ground and cheaply constructed with shallow, ineffective foundations, Sir George Downing’s terrace was not built to last. An £11,000 ‘Great Repair’ begun in the 1780s was the first of a series of works that failed to fix the issues. Having suffered a battering in the Blitz, No 10 was in a desperate state by the 1950s: riddled with dry rot, the risk of fire was so great a firefighter was employed full-time, and there were concerns that the uneven floors might give way. Demolition was, however, rejected as an “act of impiety” and in 1960, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan moved out while the foundations were strengthened and the building renewed – a project that took three years and cost over £1 million. One prime minister used it to try and convince prostitutes to change their ways William Ewart Gladstone had one of the most eccentric hobbies of all the prime ministers who have ever resided in Downing Street: late in the evening he would walk to Soho, pick up one or two ladies of the night and take them back to No. 10, where he would attempt to convince them of the error of their ways. The iconic black door was briefly painted green The most famous front door in the world has not always been black: in 1908 it was painted green on the instructions of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, only to go back to black at the end of his tenure in 1916. Originally made of oak, the door was replaced with a heavy-duty steel version for security reasons in the 1990s. A 'lady in pink' may haunt the house Only one prime minister in history has ever reported a ghostly presence at No 10 Downing Street: Harold Wilson and his cleaner both claimed they had – separately – seen a lady dressed in pink in the private apartment. Alms have been given from its door Some of Downing Street’s most famous visitors have been greeted and photographed on its doorstep, but during the 18th-century premiership of Lord North you were more likely to find a group of poor people huddled there, as every Sunday he handed out money and food. Protestors used to be able to march up to the front door In the centuries before the famous gates to Downing Street arrived in 1989, protesters could – and did – march right up to the prime minister’s front door: most notably the suffragettes. Read more | Emily Davison: the suffragette martyr During the so-called ‘battle of Downing Street’ on 22 November 1910, a total of 159 people (including three men) were arrested while taking part in protests against Herbert Asquith. The suffragettes would return to Downing Street time and again during the course of their campaign, breaking windows, chaining themselves to railings and directly confronting politicians. The IRA attacked No 10 in 1991 The Irish militants targeted No 10 on 7 February 1991. Prevented from getting into Downing Street itself by the gates installed less than two years previously, they fired their three mortar bombs from a transit van parked out on Whitehall. There were no mod-cons for incoming prime ministers When Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald came to power in January 1924, he and daughter Ishbel were shocked to find that the state provided so little furniture for the large and rambling house at Downing Street, and none of the cutlery, crockery or silver necessary for official entertaining – not even any bedsheets. Unlike most of his predecessors, MacDonald had no luxury country home on which to call, and the provisions of his modest house were nowhere near sufficient. Ishbel was sent to the January sales to stock up, and would later recall having to help her father by funding more items from a small personal inheritance. Nor were there any servants Engaging (and paying for) Downing Street’s domestic staff has always been the responsibility of the tenant. During David Lloyd George’s tenure the staff were all Welsh nationals, who spoke to each other – and often the prime minister’s family – in Welsh. By the mid-19th century it was surrounded by brothels and gin parlours Minutes from the Houses of Parliament, we can think of no better location for the prime minister’s residence than Downing Street. It was not so in the early 1800s. By then, it was “a dingy solitary street with a dirty public house on the corner and a row of third-rate lodging houses between it and the Foreign Office” – a building which was itself dilapidated. The surrounding area was becoming seedier every year, too – by 1846 there were 170 brothels and 145 gin parlours within the vicinity. Plans to demolish the entire north-side terrace were seriously considered, but numbers 10, 11 and 12 survived. The gin craze: why did it sweep across London and much of England during the first half of the 18th century Not every prime minister has called it home It has never been a requirement for the prime minister to live at Downing Street. Many Georgian and Victorian premiers – including Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel and Viscount Palmerston – preferred to remain in their own London townhouses, using No 10 as an office, or allowing their chancellors to move in. Of the 31 men in office between 1735 and 1902, only 16 resided there. Some more recent prime ministers have elected to live in the spacious flat at No 11. One operation has been performed in the house The only operation known to have been carried out at No 10 is the removal of a facial cyst troubling William Pitt the Younger in 1786. He reportedly rebuked the surgeon for taking half-a-minute longer to perform the procedure than his estimate of six minutes. Royal visits are not unheard of Although the monarch has not attended cabinet meetings regularly since the reign of George III, the royals have been frequent visitors to No 10. Queen Caroline came for breakfast a week after Sir Robert Walpole moved in; Edward VIII was smuggled in for secret talks with Stanley Baldwin about his proposed marriage to Wallis Simpson; and George VI risked the air raids to dine with Winston Churchill during the Second World War. 'Mousers' are among No 10's most important residents Mice have long stalked the corridors of No 10, meaning that government officials have often relied on ‘mousers’ for help. Larry is just the latest in a long line of feline residents, including Winston Churchill’s so-called ‘Munich Mouser’. Churchill’s nickname for the cat reflected the fact that the moggie’s previous owner, Neville Chamberlain, had signed the controversial Munich Agreement in support of German appeasement. What was written on Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper? The first Downing Street Christmas tree was introduced by Thatcher Downing Street’s Christmas tree is one of its more recent traditions, begun by Margaret Thatcher. Since 1999, it has been supplied by the winner of a competition organised by the British Christmas Tree Growers Association. It was a wartime hub in WWI, but not WWII During the First World War, No 10 was a hive of activity. In January 1917, David Lloyd George set up a group of wooden huts on the lawn (known as the ‘garden suburb’) in order to house extra staff. It was much quieter in the Second World War. Amid concerns about the house’s stability, Winston Churchill was persuaded to move into a flat above the underground bunker we now know as the Churchill War Rooms. He did, however, insist on using No. 10 regularly for meetings and dinners, so certain rooms were reinforced with steel and a shelter was constructed under the house, where the prime minister was once forced to seek refuge with George VI. There are 61 years separating the oldest and youngest incumbents Taking office aged 24 in 1783, William Pitt the Younger is Britain’s most youthful premier to date – but also the youngest to live at No 10, moving in as chancellor aged 23. William Ewart Gladstone was the oldest incumbent, leaving Downing Street at the age of 84. It is unclear why the zero in 'No 10' is askance Theories abound as to why the zero on No 10’s front door is slightly askew. Some believe the original number was badly fixed and the position has been forever preserved in tribute; others that its angle was deliberate, replicating the tilted letter ‘O’ in an ancient Roman style of lettering that had been adopted as a typeface by the Ministry of Works. Felicity Day is a freelance writer specialising in the history of the Georgian and Regency eras
Before Waterloo: what happened at the Duchess of Richmond's ball?
The Duchess of Richmond's soirée on 15 June 1815 might have been lost to time – had it not fallen just days before the climactic battle of Waterloo. Felicity Day explores that fateful night – featured in Julian Fellowes's drama Belgravia…
If it wasn’t for the chaos caused by an uninvited and most unwelcome guest, the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on 15 June 1815 would have been just another high society party in history. But since it was held in Brussels on the very day that Napoleon’s troops stormed into what is present-day Belgium, it became the stuff of legend, forever remembered as the glamorous prologue to the horrors of the battlefield at Waterloo. There’s no doubt that the highly romanticised fictional accounts of writers like Lord Byron and William Thackeray played their part in that. But just how much did they embellish the events of that fateful evening? Well for a start, the duchess – Charlotte Lennox – never intended her ball as a farewell for departing soldiers; it was just one of many parties and picnics entertaining genteel British expatriates and army officers alike that summer. Lady Conyngham had held a similar gathering the previous evening, and the Duke of Wellington had one planned for the 21st. It was by accident rather than design that the duchess’s party found its way into the history books. The story really begins more than a year earlier in March 1814, when Napoleon’s troops in Paris surrendered to Britain’s allies. The self-proclaimed emperor was forced to abdicate, and was swiftly exiled to Elba. With that, more than 20 years of recurrent war in Europe were over, and the long-awaited peace brought swathes of the British fashionable elite to the continent. Brussels was a particular tourist hotspot. It was partly because British regiments remained in the city. Families and friends of army officers came over to join them, jumping at the chance to holiday abroad again. But Brussels also owed its popularity to affordability. It was the perfect retreat for aristocrats feeling the pinch – not too far from home, cheaper than war-weary Britain and, being a garrison town, it had a lively social scene, with its own pleasure park, horse-racing, hunting and cricket. Like many of their friends, the Richmonds came over "on an Economical Plan". Warning tremors When Napoleon made his unexpected escape from Elba in February 1815, the shockwaves rippled through their merry community. Very quickly Brussels was at the centre of military operations again: by early April, the Duke of Wellington had arrived to take command of a combined Anglo-Dutch force, and joining him were ever-increasing numbers of officers and troops. Yet, surprisingly, few civilians chose to leave. One military wife commented (with just a touch of disapproval) that they seemed to consider the army’s arrival as the commencement of a series of entertainments. And certainly, as spring turned to summer, there seemed to be no immediate threat to their safety. Expectations were all for an Allied invasion of France, sometime towards the beginning of July. So by day, the assembled officers drilled and inspected the troops, keeping a close eye on Bonaparte’s movements. And by night, the social round continued – all with the encouragement of their leader. “Tho’ I have given some pretty good reasons for supposing that hostilities will soon commence, yet no one wd suppose it judging by the Duke of Wn,” wrote Spencer Madan, tutor to the Richmonds’ younger sons, on 13 June. “He ... gives a ball every week, attends every party and partakes of every amusement.” There was certainly a determination to Wellington’s nonchalance; it suited him to let Napoleon’s spies report that the Allies were relaxed about the battles to come. But as the city began to buzz with rumours that Napoleon’s forces were close to the border, the Duchess of Richmond grew uneasy about the ball she had planned. The Iron Duke reassured her unequivocally. “Duchess,” he said, “you may give your ball with the greatest safety without fear of interruption.” Privately, however, he had concerns. The call to battle was not as unexpected as the fictional accounts might have us believe – for either Wellington or his forces. By 5pm on the 15 June, some five hours before the Richmonds’ first guests arrived, the Duke knew that Napoleon had invaded. His troops were put on standby for a rapid move. His officers, however, were permitted to attend the ball. It was too late to stop it without causing widespread panic. Yet as they changed into their dress uniforms, the unmistakable sound of cannon fire could be heard in the distance; the officers knew an engagement was imminent. And as they went off to sip champagne and waltz with the ladies, more news was coming in. Their Prussian allies had been engaged in intense fighting with the French. In fact, the town of Charleroi, to the south of Brussels, had been in French hands since noon. Wellington ordered his troops to assemble, ready to march out in the early hours. He came to the ballroom sometime around midnight, not to socialise, but as a last act of reassurance for his civilian friends. The sight that greeted him was not quite as glamorous as paintings of the event suggest, with their gilded interiors and sea of scarlet uniforms. Being one of the last families to arrive in Brussels, the Richmonds had been forced to rent a house on the Rue de la Blanchisserie, an unfashionable street so-named because it was home to a laundry business. Built by a coachbuilder, their property came complete with two cavernous wings that had once served as showrooms for his various carriages. One of these, papered with a simple rose trellis pattern, was their makeshift ballroom – not the grand Hôtel de Ville, as Byron and other battlefield tourists were led to believe. Hidden truths Fewer than half of their guests were military men. The Duchess invited 238 people in all, but only 103 of them were uniformed officers. They were easily outnumbered by a combination of British, and Dutch aristocrats, diplomats and relations of the Richmonds. And a number of military invitees actually stayed away, either by choice – favouring preparation over partying – or because the rapidly developing operational situation detained them. Newlywed Colonel Sir William de Lancey was one. Wrenched from his honeymoon to act as Wellington’s deputy quartermaster-general, he was entirely occupied by logistical preparations that night. What’s no exaggeration, however, is the speed with which the party soon broke up. The arrival of a mud-splattered messenger, just as supper was ending, put an abrupt end to the drinking and dancing: he brought news that the French were advancing towards Brussels. A mass exodus of officers followed: in all conscience, they could delay joining their regiments no longer. “I became aware of a great preponderance of ladies in the room,” recalled Lady Jane Lennox, the Duchess’s daughter. “The gallant uniforms had sensibly diminished.” As the shocked civilians processed the news, the strains of the waltz gave way to the sounds of an army on the move: artillery wagons rolling, drums and bugles sounding, and cavalry horses clattering over the cobbles. Lady Jane’s dance partners went flying through the night on horseback. Some really would go dancing into battle, having had no time to change out of their finery. Belgravia: an invitation to the ball The most recent Waterloo-era programme to hit TV screens is ITV's six-part drama Belgravia. The brainchild of Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, the period drama – due to start in early Spring – is set amongst the upper echelons of 19th-century London society. The story begins on 15 June 1815, as British society – including the Trenchard family – attend the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of the battle of Quatre Bras, an event that presaged a dramatic chain of events... The Duchess of Richmond was apparently rendered hysterical – blocking the exit and pleading with her guests to “wait one little hour more”. But there are few reports of the kind of heartbreaking lovers’ partings the Victorians imagined; when another of the Duchess’s daughters, Lady Georgiana Lennox, bid farewell to her friend, the young Lord Hay, she was provoked by his obvious excitement. Probably the most sorrowful of all the goodbyes actually took place away from the ballroom. Colonel de Lancey and his new bride Magdalene watched the troops marching out of the city together as the Sun came up, before he charged her to retreat to Antwerp. Wellington slipped away from the ball without a farewell – though not before making a request of the Duke of Richmond. He wanted a map. It was while the two men pored over it together that Wellington is said to have confessed: “Napoleon has humbugged me, by God, he has gained 24 hours march on me.” Asked how he intended to react, Wellington replied that he had ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, a crossroads 25 miles outside Brussels. “We shall not stop him there, and, if so, I must fight him here” – pointing, as he spoke, to the village of Waterloo. And in that moment, the conversation of the two Dukes bridged the gulf between the brilliant ballroom of the past few hours and the bloody battlefield yet to come. What happened at the battle of Quatre Bras? The fighting at Quatre Bras the following day was intense but inconclusive. So close was the battlefield to Brussels that some officers rode back after the initial skirmish to eat and sleep. Covered in dirt, they had little good news for the anxious civilians, who were left unsure whether to make a hasty retreat. But 17 June did not bring a French attack as many feared. Pouring into the streets instead were the dead and injured Allied soldiers. After months of frivolous partying, Brussels’ British community was put to work tending the wounded as the city became an open-air hospital. As Wellington had predicted, Quatre Bras was the precursor to the fierce battle that followed at Waterloo on the 18th. Despite suffering 23,000 casualties (killed or wounded), the Allies emerged victorious. Napoleon abdicated again on the 22nd and was exiled once more, this time to St Helena. Within a matter of weeks, the Duchess’s ball began to be shrouded in myth. One correspondent described it as “a sort of farewell ball”, another lamented “all the young men who appeared there shot dead a few days after”. In fact, only 11 of the Duchess’s nearly 100 military guests died on the battlefield. The excitable Lord Hay was one of them. One more died later of his wounds, and another 35 were injured. Colonel de Lancey was also mortally wounded after being struck by a ricocheting cannon ball, his wife made a widow just three months after their marriage. LISTEN: Melvyn Bragg discusses Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington in an episode of In Our Time. Felicity Day is a freelance writer specialising in the history of the Georgian era. This article is taken from the March 2020 edition of History Revealed
As university students embark on a new academic year, writer Felicity Day looks back at Georgian student life – when revelry was the priority and serious study was strictly optional…
By the turn of the 19th century, England’s two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were facing a barrage of criticism, directed at everything from their supposedly lazy and dissipated students to their unduly lenient exam systems and narrow curriculums. Reform of higher education was coming, but in the meantime, students were enjoying all the fun of the university experience, with very few of the challenges. If taking a step back in time to a less stressful student life sounds enviable, here’s what every Georgian undergrad needed to know... There’s no need to be bookish Everyone followed the same curriculum at university, whatever their future aspirations: if you were at Oxford, you’d be focusing on the Classics and logic, while at Cambridge the emphasis was on mathematics. At both, serious study was strictly optional. Class warfare: a day in the life of a Victorian schoolchild The 1911 schoolchildren strikes Schools of hard knocks: Georgian and Victorian public schools Lectures were few and far between. Most of the learning was self-directed, and supervision was extremely casual. Tutors reportedly had “no concern about [their] pupils” so they were free to do as much or as little as they pleased – and in many cases, it was the latter. “I never saw [my tutor] but during a fortnight, when I took into my head to be taught trigonometry,” wrote one former student, reflecting on university life in the 1760s. The most privileged students were excused from any teaching at all. Classified either as ‘noblemen’ or ‘gentleman commoners’ depending on whether they had a title, the sons of aristocrats were exempt from many of the rules governing the rest of the student population. Coming away with a degree wasn’t high on their list of priorities; instead, their stint at university was about learning to live independently as a man of fashion. It was their behaviour that prompted the most criticism from observers, who complained that “the higher a young man’s rank is, the more he is suffered to be idle and vicious in our universities”. You can’t fail You might imagine a lack of study left students feeling underprepared for their exams, but not so, since failure was virtually unheard of. Most students knew it too, describing the exams as “trifling” and “farcical”. At Oxford, there were just four short oral tests. The subjects covered were highly predictable, and cheat sheets (known as ‘strings’) were passed freely between undergraduates. These contained arguments students could learn by heart and then parrot for the examiners, “frequently without the least knowledge of what is meant” according to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1780. Another observer writing in 1782 even went so far as to say that “the greatest dunce” usually passed with “as much ease and credit as the finest genius”. Students reported classmates escaping with BA in hand, despite never having looked into a Latin or Greek textbook since their arrival. And noblemen did not even need to cheat their way to a degree; as long as they had lived in college for a certain number of terms and paid their (higher) fees, they came away a graduate. Signs of reform had started to emerge by the end of the 18th century, however. Cambridge University had already introduced their Senate House Examination: a much more thorough test of ability, success was rewarded by an honours degree – but there was no obligation to enter for it. If you were content with an ordinary BA (as most were) the exams were no more rigorous than at Oxford. It is who you know, not what you know Forming valuable friendships was considered far more useful in the Georgian period than poring over a book for hours on end. Prospective clergymen made up around 60 per cent of the Oxford student population by the end of the 18th century, and about 50 per cent of all graduates at Cambridge. All needed to find a parish living, many of which were in the gift of the aristocracy. Making friends with a privileged classmate could therefore pay dividends. Listen | Our own Ellie Cawthorne talks about her BBC Radio 4 series that focuses on 900 years of higher education Many took the pursuit too far, however, becoming little better than fawning hangers-on. Wry observers had a name for their concerted ‘networking’: ‘tuft-hunting’. It was a nod to the golden tassels found on the caps of the most high-ranking (and therefore useful) students. Since the gown and mortarboard were compulsory wear for students, both in college and out in the town, their tassels made them easily identifiable prey. You won’t have to keep your accommodation tidy Most students had a ‘scout’ or a ‘bedder’ who gave them a morning wake-up call, fetched their breakfast and cleaned their clothes. They’d literally make their bed, too, and generally keep their room clean and tidy. Don’t worry about breaking the rules... Every college had strict curfews; gates were usually locked by 10pm and those who had to ‘knock up’ the porter after that time could expect a punishment. There were numerous other prohibitions, too: undergrads couldn’t host a private dinner in their rooms or ride a horse; they couldn’t visit an inn or a racecourse; and they were supposed to appear at chapel every day. Top tips for studying history at university The history of school uniforms “Forbear wine and tobacco”: advice for 17th-century university freshers revealed The Proctors enforced the rules. They could be found prowling around Oxford and Cambridge after ‘gating’ hours, pulling revelling undergrads out of taverns or houses of ill-repute, and generally frustrating any drunken exploits. Wayward students were punished with fines or ‘rustication’ (a period of suspension), but both were ineffective deterrents. In an amusing spoof written by Jane Austen’s older brother James in 1789, a ‘modern Oxford Man’ recounts a “famous evening till eleven, when the proctors came and told us to go home”. He notes, “went directly the contrary way”. Like all the best satires it was not very far from the truth, as another ironic guide from 1783 confirms. It said students “ought to take every opportunity of appearing to disregard the order of the college” – and they certainly did. Riding, hunting, gambling and drinking – all outlawed – filled students’ (ample) leisure time. Even the respectable ‘country parson’ James Woodforde regularly overindulged as an Oxford student in the 1760s, vowing “never to get drunk again” after “I fell down dead, and cut my [head] very bad indeed”. ...But try not to get dunned If the Proctors’ punishments didn’t trouble an undergrad, the ‘dunning’ by tradesmen certainly did. Owing money to creditors was par for the course, particularly if you were without the privileges of rank and title, because then your tutor controlled your allowance. He wouldn’t permit it to be squandered on a round of ale, a bottle or two of claret or a flutter on the races (a situation that caused deep resentment among the student population), so most undergraduates ended up taking goods and services ‘on tick’ – the credit readily offered by local innkeepers and tradesmen. When they couldn’t pay up, students were forced to stay holed up in their rooms, or skulk into town via a back route, in order to dodge the tradesmen lying in wait to demand their money. But racking up debts wasn’t always a sign of profligacy; university life was every bit as expensive as it is today. By the late 18th century even a relatively frugal student would need at least £100 a year; about the same annual income as a moderately prosperous tradesman. To embrace the entire university experience, £200 or £300 a year was more realistic. For that reason, families with a more modest income would favour professions that didn’t require a prolonged period of education, like the Army or Navy. Felicity Day is a freelance writer specialising in the history of the Georgian era.
“A nation addicted to gaming”: the Georgians’ crackdown on addictive betting
While fixed-odds betting terminals and online games had yet to be invented in the 1730s, their Georgian equivalents were no less addictive and no less troubling for the government. Here, writer Felicity Day reveals the inner workings of Georgian betting and gaming…
By the time George II came to the throne in 1727, Britain was a nation addicted to gaming. The capital was fit to burst with gaming houses, where play continued round the clock, and gaming tables were a staple of private house parties, assembly rooms, gentlemen’s clubs and spa resorts. A game named Hazard was one of the most popular games, and also one of the most aptly named, since there were hazards aplenty in playing. Squeezed around a large, circular table, a player could easily win or lose an entire fortune in a single night, since large stakes were wagered on each throw of the dice, and four-figure losses were not uncommon. No amount of skill could improve the odds of winning at Hazard, either. In fact, the odds were stacked against a player before he or she even sat down at the table, because Hazard is a banking game, and in terms of probability, known to favour the player (or gaming house proprietor) who holds the bank. It was a highly addictive game too; payouts and losses came quickly, and so the atmosphere around the table was always one of fevered anticipation. Read more: The Georgian guide to perfect parenting A survivor’s guide to Georgian marriage (subscription) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/05/GettyImages-533488891-18a8c26.jpg" width="5373" height="3958" alt="A Georgian painting depicting children leaving for school" title="Tears are shed in this 1790 painting 'Black Monday or the Departure for School', after William Redmore Bigg. Georgians believed that living away from home was key to developing boys' independence. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> The card-based equivalent of Hazard was Faro (a version of the older game, Basset), which involved betting on the dealing of a pack of cards (ie which cards would end up in the winning or losing piles, and the order in which they would appear). It was another firm favourite with the Georgians, and especially with ladies; the most devoted gamers of the female sex were often known poetically as ‘Faro’s Daughters’. However, almost any game which relied on chance alone was in vogue, and savvy gaming entrepreneurs made sure there were plenty of opportunities for punters to play. Games like Faro and Basset were particularly attractive for gaming proprietors; not only would they hold the bank, which always had a monetary advantage over the other players, but these games were so uncomplicated that almost anyone could (and did) give them a go. The prevalence of high-stakes gaming in the 1730s belied the fact that it was already subject to legal regulation. In an effort to curb excessive losses, the 1710 Gaming Act – established during the reign of Queen Anne – had set the maximum allowable loss at just £10, small change in comparison to the thousands of pounds lost each night at the Hazard table. Any gaming debt more than this £10 limit was not legally enforceable. Yet this only served to fan the flames of the craze, by heightening the sense of honour involved in gaming – if the eye-watering gaming debts being incurred could not be recovered at law, it was the duty of an honourable man (or woman) to pay up – and promptly. Calls for action For every votary of the gaming table, there was a very vocal critic, and pamphlets on the subject were ten-a-penny. They declared that high-stakes games of chance were anti-social and a threat to the art of conversation; bent over cards or dice for hours on end, people were forgetting how to socialise with one another. But the critics worried too about the ruinous effects of gaming addiction, and their concerns were not entirely unfounded. There were so many stories of fortunes changing hands over the gaming table that the press was prompted to declare that “estates are now almost as frequently made over by whist and hazard, as by deeds and settlements”. It wasn’t just the elite either. A growing number of bankruptcies led the press to accuse Britain’s business men of neglect; they declared that gaming was “diverting” traders from their work, to the detriment of the national economy. More shocking were the newspaper reports of ‘self-murders’ linked to gaming – stories of those who had racked up debts far too heavy to ever be repaid, and taken what they saw as the only way out. The tragic tale of young Miss Frances Braddock had a particularly profound effect on society. Left a comfortable inheritance by her relatives, she seems to have lost almost every last shilling in gaming, and eventually hanged herself in Bath in 1731. Fanny was certainly not the only woman tempted by the thrill of the gaming table, but the growing number of ladies indulging in gaming alarmed the critics for another reason too: they worried that a woman’s virtue would be put at risk if she found herself beholden to a male creditor. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/08/GettyImages-533392780-3071c61.jpg" width="5197" height="4248" alt="A Rake's Progress - 6: The Gaming House' (1733), from 'William Hogarth,' by Austin Dobson (Hachette Et Cie, Paris), 1904. Tom Rakewell is in a gambling house in Covent Garden, London. Having just lost his wife's fortune, he falls to his knees. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="'A Rake's Progress - 6: The Gaming House', 1733." /> Another concern was the abundance of professional gamblers, or ‘sharpers’, operating in the public sphere. Sharpers were known to hide cards up their sleeves, mark them, or even trim them, so that some were identifiably wider than others. It was easy to cheat at Hazard too, using loaded dice. The playing field was therefore not always a fair one, and many a ‘green’ or inexperienced young player was relieved of their fortune by a cheat. All in all, detractors of gaming were firmly convinced that the government needed to act – not just to protect individuals from excessive losses, but to protect society at large from the destructive effects of gaming addiction. The government vs the gamesters Ultimately, the government agreed, deciding to call time on the playing of addictive games altogether. The Gaming Act of 1738 made quite clear that the offending games of chance – specifically Hazard, Faro, Basset and Ace of Hearts – were now expressly prohibited by law. Those caught keeping a gaming house, or playing any of the outlawed games, would face a financial penalty. But with the act of 1738 began an elaborate game of cat and mouse between the legislators and the gamesters. With their livelihoods on the line, those with a financial interest in gaming – the gaming house proprietors in particular – needed to find a way to work around the new legislation. Noting that the act outlawed only specifically named games, they swiftly began to promote a replacement for the ever-popular Hazard: a fairly similar dice game called Passage. Such was its success that the government was forced to legislate again in 1739. In an attempt to prevent the gamers cheating the law for a second time, they specified that Passage, and all other games with dice or “with any other instrument, engine or device in the nature of dice, having one or more numbers or figures” was prohibited. But yet again, the proprietors found a way to sidestep the law. This time, they looked to a game which involved neither dice nor cards. Variously known as ‘roulet’ or ‘roly-poly’ it was the forerunner to the game of roulette that we would recognise today, where a ball was rolled across the table to determine which numbers were winners and losers. It was five years before the government reacted, but when it came, the Gaming Act of 1744 prohibited the “pernicious game called roulet or roly-poly” and also increased the fines for those caught playing the outlawed games. The penalty was now five times the amount won or lost. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/08/GettyImages-188006205-c48c415.jpg" width="4087" height="4755" alt="Beau Nash, 1674 ? 1761, Born Richard Nash. Celebrated Dandy And Leader Of Fashion In 18Th-Century Britain, Best Remembered As The Master Of Ceremonies At The Spa Town Of Bath. From Our Own Country Published 1898 (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)" title="Beau Nash" /> Beau Nash, the venerated master of ceremonies at Bath, was one man for whom these gaming laws caused a significant financial headache. It’s thought that he took home a sizeable cut of the profits from Bath’s many gaming tables, in exchange for encouraging the great and the good to sit down at play during their stay in the city. He was also something of a professional gambler himself. After the 1744 act was passed, Nash was among those still making valiant efforts to get around the gaming laws, and in 1745 he began to promote a game at Bath which was newly invented. ‘E.O’ or ‘Evens and Odds’ was a cleverly modified version of roulet, using letters instead of numbers – E for evens, O for odds. But this was to be the last of the gamers’ attempts to evade the law. The government were confident that the letters in E.O were ‘figures’ within the terms of the 1739 Act, and therefore that it was illegal. In theory, the legislation was now watertight, and should allow those in authority to crack down on addictive gaming. Read more: 7 weird and wonderful Georgian beauty treatments Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England? Gaming goes underground In the years immediately following the introduction of the new laws, the authorities duly carried out raids on gaming houses. They smashed and burned gaming tables, and arrested both proprietors and their punters. Enough publicity was generated to convince the critics (for a time, at least) that the government and local officials were doing their duty. But despite the publicity, these raids were few and far between, and not sufficient to deter people from gaming. Those who wanted to play, particularly those with money and rank, continued to find the ways and means to do so, supported by the proprietors of gaming establishments, who were keen to protect their income. All that the acts of the 1730s and 40s really achieved was to drive high-stakes gaming from the public sphere into the private one. Games of chance were removed from the assembly rooms, coffee houses and spa resorts but in private, gaming thrived more than ever. The law couldn’t reach into private homes and so ‘routs’ or gambling parties became commonplace in the townhouses of the capital. Gaming establishments, meanwhile, went underground and steeled themselves in anticipation of raids. Heavy doors were fitted and kept bolted and barred, so that by the time the authorities gained entry all those inside had escaped via a hidden exit. But the influence and wealth of their elite punters protected many proprietors just as well as any strong lock. It took a particularly principled magistrate to prosecute the keepers of gaming houses who were, as one contemporary pamphlet declared, “caressed by people of great rank and great fortune, persons who had great influence over tradesmen, and upon whom the Magistrates… had no small dependence”. The authorities tended to focus their efforts on the more humble establishments, particularly those frequented by the working classes. So it was that in spite of the legislative attempts, Britain’s gaming epidemic was far from over by the mid-18th century. If anything it was just getting started, reaching its pinnacle only in the extravagant age of the Regency. By that time, nightly gaming losses were running as high as £40,000 or £50,000 for some. The laws first put in place during the 1730s remained unchanged throughout the Georgian era, and whilst they continued to be used to prosecute proprietors of gaming establishments and gamers themselves, the threat of penalties did little to dampen enthusiasm for the gaming tables. Felicity Day is a writer specialising in the history of the Georgian and Regency eras.