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Slavery and abolition, with Dr Lizzie Rogers
In her week four mini-lecture for the HistoryExtra Academy Regency course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the late 18th-century campaign to end the trade in enslaved people
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Regency war and conflict, with Dr Lizzie Rogers
In the third mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores war and conflict in the Regency period...
View Green Video on the source website Dr Lizzie Rogers is a historian of the 18th and early 19th centuries
In the second mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the literature, art and architecture of the Regency period…
In the second mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the literature, art and architecture of the Regency period, and how the Prince Regent became an important patron of the era's culture. View Green Video on the source website Explore more content from week two of our Regency course: 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 How to survive a Regency marriage – reading time 7 mins Visiting Brighton Royal Pavilion, the Prince Regent's decadent getaway – reading time 3 mins Dr Lizzie Rogers is a historian of the 18th and early 19th centuries
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View Riddle on the source website Explore the content from week one of our Regency course: Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know - reading time 3 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain - reading time 14 mins The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved? - reading time 13 mins The illness and decline of George III - reading time 10 mins
Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know
Danny Bird charts the life and literary career of Jane Austen against the backdrop of a period marked by conflict, revolution and groundbreaking discoveries
16 December 1775 Jane Austen is born in Steventon, Hampshire. 4 July 1776 Just over a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, delegates from 13 British colonies assembled in Philadelphia declare their independence from British rule and form the United States of America. 1782 The double-acting steam engine is patented by Scottish inventor James Watt. 3 September 1783 The American Revolutionary War concludes with the signing of the Treaty of Paris and British recognition of the independence of the United States of America. 1 January 1785 John Walter publishes the first edition of The Daily Universal Register (later renamed The Times in 1788) in London. Costing 21⁄2 pennies, the broadsheet aspires to be a “faithful recorder of every species of intelligence”, covering politics and trade. 1787 A fleet of 11 ships departs Portsmouth on 13 May, bound for the new British penal colony in Botany Bay, Australia. More than 40 of the 775 convicts on board perish in the filthy conditions en route. c1787–93 Jane Austen writes her juvenilia – a set of notebooks containing stories, verses and dramatic sketches. The writings feature a coterie of outspoken (and sometimes rebellious) young women, and satirise 18th- century prose. 1789 The French Revolution begins soon after Louis XVI convenes the Estates-General at Versailles. On 14 July, the Bastille fortress is stormed by a Parisian mob. 1791 Toussaint Louverture (pictured below) leads a slave revolt that overthrows French rule in Saint-Domingue (later Haiti). 1792 Writer Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, an important early feminist text. 1793 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are guillotined and Revolutionary France declares war on Britain, starting a conflict that will rage until the signing of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. 1795 Austen pens the story Elinor and Marianne, an early draft of Sense and Sensibility. 1797 Austen’s first completed novel, First Impressions (an early version of Pride and Prejudice) is rejected by a publisher. Physician Edward Jenner successfully develops a vaccine against smallpox in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. 9–10 November 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power in France via a coup d'état and establishes a dictatorship. 1801 The Austen family moves to Bath, Somerset, taking up residence at 4 Sydney Place. The United Kingdom is formed on 1 January when the Act of Union (1800), passed by the British and Irish parliaments, comes into effect. 1803 Austen sells her novel Susan (later renamed Northanger Abbey) to publishers Crosby & Co, but they neglect to release the work. Barely a year after signing the Treaty of Amiens, Britain declares war on France, beginning the Napoleonic Wars. 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured below) crowns himself ‘emperor of the French’ at Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris. 1804–06 The US-led Lewis and Clark Expedition explores the Louisiana Territory and the Pacific Northwest. 1805 Austen’s father, George, dies in Bath. Along with her mother and sister, the author is left dependent on her brothers. Lord Nelson is killed during the battle of Trafalgar, despite securing a major victory over Napoleon’s navy. 1 May 1807 The slave trade is formally abolished across the British empire thanks to a campaign led by William Wilberforce. 1809 After inheriting estates from wealthy relatives in Chawton, Hampshire, and Godmersham, Kent, Austen’s brother Edward offers Chawton Cottage to the author rent-free. She moves in with her mother and sister. 1811 Sense and Sensibility is published. Its author is identified simply as ‘A Lady’. George III is declared insane and his son George, Prince of Wales is named Prince Regent. The so-called Regency period (1811–20) is marked by a flourishing of arts and culture. 1812–14 Pride and Prejudice is published in 1813, followed a year later by Mansfield Park. The War of 1812 (which will last until 1815) sees fierce fighting between Britain and the US, with British troops torching the city of Washington in 1814. 1815 Emma is published. Despite her personal dislike of the royal, Austen dedicates the novel to the Prince Regent. Napoleon is defeated by an Anglo- Prussian force at Waterloo and is exiled to the mid- Atlantic island of St Helena. 1816 Austen’s brother Henry buys back the unpublished manuscript of Susan. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, Indonesia, triggers a decline in global temperatures and leads 1816 to be dubbed the ‘Year Without a Summer’. 18 July 1817 Austen dies aged 41 in Winchester and is buried in the city’s cathedral. Although Sanditon is left unfinished, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are published in December 1817, with Austen credited as an author for the very first time. Explore more content from week one of our Regency course: Introduction to the Regency, with Dr Lizzie Rogers - watching time 10 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain - reading time 14 mins The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved? - reading time 13 mins The illness and decline of George III - reading time 10 mins
Introduction to the Regency, with Dr Lizzie Rogers
In the first mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the backdrop of Georgian Britain, and introduces one of its biggest characters: the Prince Regent
In the first mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores how Georgian Britain came into being, and introduces one of its biggest characters: the Prince Regent View Green Video on the source website Explore more content from week one of our Regency course: Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know - reading time 3 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain - reading time 14 mins The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved? - reading time 13 mins The illness and decline of George III - reading time 10 mins Dr Lizzie Rogers is a historian of the 18th and early 19th centuries
The illness and decline of King George III
King George III ruled Great Britain and Ireland between 1760–1820. His reign was marked by the loss of the American colonies in 1783, yet he is also primarily remembered as the so-called ‘mad king’. Following the king’s mental decline due to an illness, his son acted as regent from 1811 until the king's death. Charlotte Hodgman and Amanda Foreman explore Kew Palace in Richmond, where George III was incarcerated during several bouts of mental illness, and consider the king's life in his final years…
Strolling through the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew on a summer’s day is a veritable assault on the senses. Lush green lawns stretch far into the distance; row upon row of colourful plants and flowers turn their faces to the sun, their many scents rising in the heat. So dazzling is the foliage that it is easy to miss the 17th-century, four-storey red-brick house, small by royal standards which is one of the few surviving parts of the Kew Palace complex. Although today referred to as Kew Palace, the site was originally known as the Dutch House, with a far more impressive Palladian-style building standing opposite. Commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1730 and named the White House, today just a sundial marks the site of that long-gone royal residence. Life of George III: In context George III (1738–1820) was the son of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, and grandson of George II. Frederick predeceased his father, leaving George III to become king of Great Britain in 1760. He married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761, and the couple went on to have 15 children. George’s reign was marked by a series of political and military struggles, including the loss of the 13 American colonies in the War of Independence. The king’s later years were blighted by recurrent mental illness; his eldest son – later crowned as George IV – ruled as prince regent for the final decade of George III’s life. It is for its connection with one of Britain’s most famous monarchs that Kew Palace is perhaps best remembered. George III, the so-called ‘mad king’, was incarcerated here during some of the episodes of mental illness that plagued much of his adult life. Born in 1738, almost two months premature, the future George III became heir to the throne at the age of 12 following the death of his father Frederick, Prince of Wales. Raised by his mother, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, in relative isolation at Kew Palace, the young prince struggled with his studies, unable to read properly until the age of 11, but diligent and keen to learn. The Dutch House became a schoolhouse for the young prince and his brother. Read more | The real story of Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte: from glittering courts to tragic decline “When George III became king in 1760, the country was delighted and full of hope,” says historian and presenter Amanda Foreman. “For the first time since Queen Anne in 1714, Britain was to be ruled by a monarch who had been born in England. George II had been deeply unpopular for his long periods of absence, so hopes were high that George III would be a king who would uphold British traditions and values.” At first it seemed George would tick all the boxes required of a good British king. Despite his early struggles he was exceptionally well educated with a deep passion for learning. He had been taught about the arts and architecture by leading architect Sir William Chambers; he understood mathematics and science; he loved music and sport. He was a Renaissance man in many ways. George married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761 and the rapidly expanding royal family took over Richmond Lodge at Kew, with their eventual 15 children housed in various buildings around the estate. How did George III lose America? Yet the good times weren’t to last. “George was incredibly unlucky to have acceded to the throne when he did,” explains Foreman. “He was immediately plunged into the political wrangling that was taking place at the time and eventually became a victim of it. He was unfairly branded a tyrant by Americans wanting independence from Britain as well as by the Whigs at Westminster who resented their fall from power on George’s accession to the throne. “But George was far from tyrannical, even in his dealings with America. He took his responsibilities as king incredibly seriously, agonising over decisions and passionately devoted to his country. The idea that he was an ogre who wanted to suppress the rights of Englishmen and limit freedom of speech and freedom of the press was simply a concept that his enemies could use against him.” George III’s dismay at losing the American colonies is well recorded. Although he strongly objected to American independence from Britain, he accepted that the way in which the colonies were being ruled did need reforming. “America is lost! Must we fall beneath the blow? Or have we resources that may repair the mischief?” he wrote in the 1780s, commenting on America’s fight for its independence. But the colonies were eventually lost and, in 1782, British forces in America surrendered. What illness was responsible for George III's 'madness'? The 1780s were to bring more heartache for George III when in 1788–89 he suffered his first serious bout of mental illness, widely attributed to the genetic blood disorder porphyria. Symptoms displayed during what was probably a mild attack of the disorder in 1765 had been put down to a period of depression and a serious chest infection. But in 1789, the affects of the illness could no longer be ignored. Read more | George III: why his reputation as the mad king who lost America needs to be re-evaluated Symptoms of porphyria include skin sensitivity, strong abdominal pain and bluish urine, accompanied by psychiatric symptoms, all of which George III displayed. Alongside severe stomach pains and terrible insomnia, the king experienced convulsions so violent that his pages were forced to sit on him to keep him safe on the floor until the fits had passed. The king’s behaviour, too, was affected by the condition. He became manic, often behaving inappropriately towards women, and experienced hallucinations. On one occasion he planted a beef steak in the ground, fully believing it would grow into a beef tree. On another, at Windsor Castle, the king was seen talking to, and trying to shake hands with, an oak tree, believing it was the king of Prussia. Meanwhile, at Kew, he would become obsessed with, and try to climb, the Great Pagoda, a 50 metre-high structure that still stands today. How was George III treated during his illness? To hide the true extent of his illness, George was moved under duress from Windsor Castle to the relative privacy of Kew. With a team of court physicians unable to diagnose the problem, the royal family turned to Dr Francis Willis, who was thought to be an expert in mental health conditions. “Willis believed that mental illness was caused by overexcitement and could be cured by calm and control,” says Foreman. “The treatments applied to the king reduced him to a childlike figure. If he became manic or overexcited, he was placed in a straitjacket (his “hated waistcoat”). He was denied a knife and fork at mealtimes, which meant much of what he ate was soft nursery food that could be eaten with a spoon or hands. The king wasn’t even allowed out of the house by himself and had to earn privileges such as seeing his family or using cutlery.” George was confined to the ground floor of the Dutch House, and a visit today takes you through some of the rooms occupied during his periods of illness. Shoes echo on floorboards, left bare because of the king’s hatred of carpet when incapacitated. The small, panelled schoolroom at the front of the house was turned into the king’s library, and once boasted a number of works from his magnificent collection of 65,000 books and manuscripts. In the 18th century, the west side of the Dutch House was connected to a service wing where George III was kept secluded. Most of this was demolished in 1881 but visitors can still see a door in the Page’s Waiting Room that once led to the area where the king slept and underwent treatment. “During the 18th century, the four humours – black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm – were still believed to influence the body and its emotions”, says Foreman. “If one of these humours was thought to be out of balance, efforts were made to bring it back into line. George III’s medical care was strongly aligned with this theory, and he was subjected to treatments that today we would probably think of as torture. Read more | Bridgerton: the real history and historical accuracy of the regency drama “Arsenic-based powders were applied to his skin causing it to blister – a method thought to draw the illness out. He was forced to fast, locked up, forced to sleep, bled, and given freezing cold baths as a way of ‘shocking’ the illness from his body. Purgatives such as rhubarb, castor oil and senna were used to treat his constipation and cause diarrhoea, while emetics were given to make him vomit, purging him of disease.”What happened to George III during the Regency? When the full extent of the king’s illness was realised, a power struggle broke out at Westminster between Tory prime minister William Pitt and the opposition Whig party. The Whigs called for a regency, which would see George III’s son, the Prince of Wales, rule in the king’s stead as Prince Regent. Pitt, who knew the Prince of Wales (a Whig ally) would restore his rivals to power, resisted a regency for as long as possible. When the crisis finally came to a head, Pitt got parliament to vote in a regency that gave the Prince Regent as little power as possible, essentially making him into a puppet king. Within a few weeks of the crisis George III recovered and was able to leave Kew. But in 1801 he suffered a relapse of porphyria. This time the king was duped into a second incarceration at Kew by his doctor, who pretended to be interested in the copy of a self-portrait of Van Dyck, by Nogari – that still hangs above the fireplace in the dining room of the Dutch House. Once there, the king was persuaded to leave his family to undergo treatment once more. Throughout his treatment, his wife and daughters stayed at Kew with him, living in the upper floors of the Dutch House, while they waited for news of the king. These sumptuous rooms were a far cry from the spartan rooms occupied by the king and are still decorated in the fashionable styles of the day. George had another relapse in 1804 and then a final, full-blown attack in 1810 from which he never fully recovered. Ailing and virtually blind with cataracts, he became permanently insane and finally died in 1820. “George III has been much maligned by history,” says Foreman. “He is remembered as the ‘mad king’ who lost America, yet he did so much more for Britain. Both George and his wife were incredibly well educated people who played a huge role in promoting Georgian culture, particularly the architecture with which we’re so familiar today. How many people know that it was George III who founded the Royal Academy? “George III was a passionate advocate of all things British; the mistakes he made more often than not resulted from circumstances beyond his control. It’s high time to reassess this massively misunderstood monarch.” George III: five more places to explore Windsor Castle, Berkshire Where George III retired and died George III and Queen Charlotte were incredibly fond of Windsor Castle and carried out a series of renovations. George became ill and was confined here in 1788 before being moved to Kew. During his final illness, from 1810, he was kept in the state apartments and is buried in the castle’s St George’s Chapel. royalcollection.org.uk The British Museum, London Where George III’s books resided George III’s collection of 65,000 books was given to the nation on his death and a grand 300-foot long room was built at the museum in 1827 to house them. It is now called the Enlightenment Gallery, with an exhibition on the 18th century. The books are now held at the British Library. britishmuseum.org Weymouth, Dorset Where George III holidayed In 1789 George III travelled to Weymouth seeking the health benefits of salt water. While here, he used one of the first bathing machines to take a dip in the sea. Gloucester Lodge on the promenade became his holiday home and the chalk horse and rider on the hillside overlooking Weymouth bay is said to depict the king. dorsetforyou.gov.uk Royal Academy of Arts, London Where George III’s legacy is found The Royal Academy was founded by George III in 1768 to promote arts and design in Britain through education and exhibition. The academy moved several times before settling at Burlington House in 1867. Its first exhibition of contemporary art opened on 25 April 1769. royalacademy.org.uk Royal Pavilion, Brighton Where a prince regent partied Built as a seaside retreat for George III’s son, the Prince of Wales, Brighton Pavilion’s most dramatic transformation was in 1815 when John Nash was commissioned to turn it into the magnificent oriental palace we see today. brightonmuseums.org.uk/royalpavilion Amanda Foreman is an author, historian and presenter, and the author of A volume on George III for the Penguin Monarchs series This article first appeared in the September 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine Explore more content from week one of our Regency course Introduction to the Regency, with Dr Lizzie Rogers - watching time 10 mins Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know - reading time 3 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain - reading time 14 mins The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved? - reading time 13 mins
Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain
Never was the chasm between rich and poor more stark than in the Regency era. Ian Mortimer chronicles a period in which the wealthiest gorged themselves on the fruits of Britain’s industrial might, while the working classes endured lives that were often nasty, brutish and short
Listen to this article: Every historical age sees extraordinary inequalities of wealth. Whether we are talking about ancient Rome or 20th-century Britain, the pattern is commonly described as a pyramid, with a small number of exceedingly rich individuals at the apex and a large number of poor people at the base. As we all know, the differences between the top and the bottom are extreme – to the extent that some of the super-wealthy have incomes more than a thousand times greater than the national average. But what about the variance in their basic standards of living? Aside from the glitz and the glamour, are the lifestyles of the rich and poor always poles apart? You might assume that the only possible answer to that question is yes. Peasants and slaves never live like lords and kings. But consider it in terms of life expectancy. In the Middle Ages, a lord’s sons and daughters could expect to live into their mid-thirties and the peasantry about five years less, so the poor lived around 85 per cent as long as the rich. The modern world is only a little more equal: children growing up today in the most deprived areas of Britain can expect to live between 85 per cent and 90 per cent as long as those in the least-deprived areas. It looks as if that proportion is more or less a constant. But one period stands out as different: the early 19th century. In the 1830s, middle-class Londoners could expect to live to 44 but working-class ones only 22, just 50 per cent as long. Working-class people in towns like Liverpool, Preston and Manchester were lucky if they reached 19, at a time when average life expectancy from birth in the UK was more than 40. In the unsewered streets of Ashton-under-Lyne, artisans’ life expectancy at birth was just 13, less than a third of that of their more prosperous fellow citizens. Listen | Historian Ian Mortimer discusses how a vast chasm between rich and poor marked society in the early 19th century Extremes of opulence Why was the early 19th century so unusual? As you can imagine, there were several reasons. The industrial revolution obviously led to the worsening of the living conditions of the poor. At the same time it had an impact on the wealthy, too, enriching them to an unprecedented degree. The result was a greater variance in living standards than probably ever before or since. As the American ambassador to Great Britain, John Quincy Adams, put it in his diary while in London in 1816: “The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in this country than in any other I ever saw.” Anyone who has even so much as glanced at a gentleman’s country house built before 1830 will be aware that the wealthy were surrounded by uplifting, refined architecture and design, in which comfort was combined with a fabulous sense of style. In the grandest houses of all, such as the Prince Regent’s Carlton House on Pall Mall, the internal fittings were a wealth of silk damask and gold. The decorative features were covered in gold leaf, as was the furniture; the huge glass chandeliers were trimmed with gold; golden clocks and ornaments were exhibited on gold-leaf-covered plinths; the paintings were framed in gold. The prince spent vast sums on the place – by 1795 he was £630,000 in debt – and in 1826, as king (George IV), he could afford to have it demolished. Even an ordinary gentleman with an income of about £2,000 per year from his country estate could afford a London house as well as a country seat stuffed with mahogany furniture designed by the likes of Hepplewhite and Sheraton, and decorated with art by Reynolds, Gainsborough and many more great British artists of the time. By the 1820s most gentlemen’s residences had water closets and provisions for washing. Some even had dedicated bathrooms with hot and cold running water. In marked contrast, the workmen who physically built the houses of the gentry could consider themselves well paid in the 1820s if they received 15 shillings a week. Factory workers and labourers would receive less than this, and servants less still. Hundreds of thousands of men and women lacked regular employment altogether. Their accommodation was truly appalling, especially in the rapidly growing industrial towns. In the parish of St Giles in London, a surveyor visited a slum terrace and found the yard “covered with night soil from the overflowing of the privy, to the depth of nearly six inches, and bricks were placed to enable the inmates to get across dry shod”. Inspectors frequently reported similar conditions in the northern towns. In parts of Liverpool, people were crammed into court houses at a density of more than 1,000 people per acre. Liquid from cesspits and the foetid rubbish strewn across the ground outside oozed through the cellar walls where many were forced to sleep. The communal cesspits in the courts had no doors as the landlords claimed they would have been used for firewood. Those without homes had to cram together in boarding houses, often on the floors, or find a place in a communal barn at 2 pence per night, where every imaginable disease spread quickly among the unwashed bodies, including such killers as smallpox, tuberculosis and, from the 1830s, cholera. Uncertainty and unrest: the madness of the Regency period Life-threatening labour While the poorest Britons lived in squalor, the upper classes managed their estates and indulged themselves in their enthusiasms. Most didn’t work. Younger sons and those who opted for employment chose a well-paid and dignified patriotic service, such as a commission in the army or navy, an ambassadorial role, parliament or the church. The middle classes similarly selected how they wanted to make a living. The working classes, who made up more than 70 per cent of the population, had no such choice. Those who were lucky enough to work as agricultural labourers could expect to live for 36 years – approximately twice as long as their cousins in the industrial towns. But agricultural opportunities were on the decline as more machines were employed, more arable land was given over to sheep farming, and more food was imported. For the remainder, the options were to go into service or to work in a factory or mill. Robert Blincoe’s career is illuminating in this respect. He was born in London in 1792, orphaned at the age of four, and placed in a workhouse. From there he was sold at the age of seven to the owner of a mill near Nottingham. For the next 14 years he was required to work without pay for 14 hours a day, six days a week, on the spinning frames, in dusty conditions. His clothing was minimal; he was not given soap to wash nor was he fed properly. He started stealing doughballs from the mill’s pigsties but the pigs soon became wise to his pilfering and threw them in the mud when they saw him coming. He suffered from constant diarrhoea, was regularly beaten, and like all his young colleagues, he lost parts of limbs in the unguarded machines. One day he watched in horror as a girl his age was dragged into a spinning machine by her skirts. He heard her bones all snapped by the whirling mechanism and then her blood “thrown around like water twirled from a mop”. Later, he tried to run away from the mill but was quickly caught and returned, with a reward being paid to the man who found him. Those who had such a start in life, with no education and nothing else to offer, were generally doomed to a short existence of hard labour. Blincoe left the mill as soon as he was old enough but many stayed there for their whole lives, and died either from the dust or their injuries. Huge numbers of men, women, boys and girls worked as labourers in the mines. In 1813 in Cumberland, 630ft underground, the author Richard Ayton raised his lantern to see lines of wagons driven by young girls in the pitch-black tunnels. He described all the people down there as being “distinguished by an extraordinary wretchedness. Immoderate labour and a noxious atmosphere had marked their countenances with the signs of disease and decay; they were mostly half-naked, blackened all over with dirt, and altogether so miserably disfigured and abused that they looked like a race fallen from the common rank of men and doomed, as in a kind of purgatory, to wear away their lives in these dismal shades.” Whatever the industrial process, it was likely to contribute to the workers’ ill health and premature deaths. Painters and glaze dippers developed lead poisoning. Tailors developed chronic heart and stomach problems. Chimney-cleaning boys developed scrotal cancer. Arguably the worst working conditions of all were those to be found in the grinding industries, especially in Sheffield. The work was carried out in poorly ventilated cellars and generated a lot of dust. Most fork-grinders in Sheffield were dead by the age of 28. Ninety per cent did not make it to 40. For the rich, the Regency period was one of haute cuisine and epicurean variety. As the poet Robert Southey wrote in 1807: “All parts of the world are ransacked for an Englishman’s table. Turtle are brought alive from the West Indies… India supplies sauces and curry powder… hams [are imported] from Portugal and Westphalia; reindeers’ tongues from Lapland; caviar from Russia; sausages from Bologna; macaroni from Naples; oil from Florence; olives from France, Italy or Spain; cheese from Parma and Switzerland.” Over-indulgence was common. Several ‘ordinaries’ or standard menus in the finest London hotels at this time cost 3 guineas (£3 3s) per head, with an extra guinea for a bottle of fine wine. The earliest restaurants in London were established at this time; there was even an Indian curry house in the 1810s catering to returning nabobs. Escaping the workhouse: the Victorian war on child poverty Tea-stained water The poorest sectors of society found themselves eating as their medieval ancestors had done, with very little protein in their diet. Many examples were quoted by the Revd David Davies in his examination of the living standards of agricultural labourers in the 1790s. A typical case was that of a Berkshire couple and their five children, who bought 7½ gallons of flour each week for their daily bread, plus 1lb of bacon. They also purchased a little tea, salt, sugar and butter. And that was it. No fish, no cheese and no vegetables other than what they grew for themselves. No beer, even. Of their total income of 8s 6d per week, 8s 3d went on food. Most meals were simply bread and butter. So when the price of flour in Berkshire trebled, as it did in 1800, their lives became wretched. As for tea, people talked about it being a great leveller, but there was a world of difference between the fine teas drunk by the wealthy and the water stained with a few re-used tea leaves consumed by the poor. An agricultural labourer’s family could at least use the garden that probably went with their cottage. It was precisely for this reason that the growing of potatoes spread across the whole of the British Isles over the course of the 18th century. In short, gardens saved lives. Those living in the over-populated urban slums had no such opportunities to grow their own. For them, it was not so much a matter of having a balanced diet as obtaining anything to eat. Among the lower classes, the difficulties faced by mothers and newborn babies were particularly challenging. For a start, the mothers were malnourished. The children of those transported to Australia grew about 2 inches taller than their parents, due to food shortages having stunted their parents’ growth in England. When it came to the birth, well-heeled families could afford their own accoucheurs, midwives and doctors, equipped with forceps and good medical knowledge. Some private doctors saw maternal mortality rates of just 0.2 per cent over the course of their careers. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/01/GettyImages-108214907_cmyk-1-f24b9ed.jpg" width="812" height="1069" alt="A woman breastfeeds her child, c1830" title="A woman breastfeeds her child, c1830. In industrial towns like Liverpool, more than half of all infants died before they were five, often due to malnourishment passed down from their mothers. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> The poor had only limited access to professional medical help and hence their women and babies died more frequently in childbirth. If both survived, the malnourishment of the mother was then passed on to the child. Hence one of the key reasons why life expectancy was so low: many more working-class babies did not live. In Liverpool, 53 per cent of babies died before they were five; in Preston, 57 per cent did. These figures are almost exactly the same as those of slaves in the West Indies. These infant deaths must have sapped many mothers’ will to live. But the position was so dire that some deaths were welcomed, on account of there being fewer mouths to feed. In the 18th century, the philanthropist Jonas Hanway estimated that an infant under the age of four had a life expectancy of just one month after entering a London workhouse. As he put it: “Parish officers never intend that parish infants should live”. Even more shocking was the desperate strategy of families living off the deaths of their own children. Hard-pressed couples would enrol a baby in one or more burial clubs and then, when the child fell sick, they would let him or her die so they could claim on the insurance. This is why rent collectors were sometimes asked to wait a few days until a child had died. On one occasion, a wealthy Lancashire gentlewoman heard that her wet nurse’s child was ill, so she kindly offered to send her own physician to help. But the mother replied: “Oh, never mind, Ma’am, it’s in two burial clubs.” A government inspector reported that “It is not an unfrequent circumstance to find a child enrolled in three or more burial clubs, so that the parents may receive at its death from £16 to £20. That, in certain instances, this has been productive of infanticide is proved beyond all doubt by the well-known trials for infanticide at Bolton and Stockport.” And, he adds, “an analysis of returns from Preston, where, in three societies alone there are upwards of 23,000 members, has distinctly shown that there is a greater rate of mortality among children entered in burial clubs than in those not belonging to them”. Shockingly, babies under the age of six months whose parents entered them in a burial club were 35 per cent more likely to die than those who were not in such a club. Turning to prostitution Extreme poverty was, almost inevitably, accompanied by high levels of crime. If a couple with a family were denied poor relief and did not wish to go into a workhouse, they had no choice but to resort to more desperate measures. Huge numbers of women turned to prostitution: it was estimated at the time that one in five women in London lived off immoral earnings. Large numbers of men and women took to crime. More than 90 per cent of all cases in the county courts in the early 19th century were for theft. (For comparison, in the modern world, less than a quarter of arrests involve stolen property.) Until 1823, the Bloody Code was still in force, meaning that the penalty was death for more than 200 crimes, including stealing goods worth more than 12d. If the principal breadwinner was hanged or transported to Australia, then a family was left in a worse position than before. Another strategy was to obtain food on credit. However, most shopkeepers only advanced credit facilities to those they believed could pay. Moreover, if a poor family failed to pay, then the father could be sent to prison at the shopkeeper’s request for non-payment of his bills. This meant extra costs (gaolers’ fees) and prevented him from earning while inside. Some people spent decades in prison for failing to repay a few pounds; many died behind bars. Again, the family was even worse off as a result. Given these circumstances, it is easy to see why there was so much discontent, especially in the industrial north of England. Fashionable ladies in London could spend £4 on a single tall feather to wear in their hair at a ball – a sum that would have fed a labourer’s family for 10 weeks. Was Victorian life really so grim? 5 reasons why the Victorians were 'happy' From rags to riches It really was both the best and the worst of times (to paraphrase Dickens), depending on how much money you had. Yet this age offered men and women more opportunities than perhaps ever before to start life at one end of the social spectrum and end it at the other. James Morrison was the orphaned son of an innkeeper. He gained a job in a London haberdashery business, married the daughter of the senior partner, and made himself rich through overseas investments: by the time he died in 1857 he was worth more than £6m. Harriot Mellon was the illegitimaate daughter of a poor Irish woman who looked after the wardrobe of a troupe of travelling actors. She learned from them how to act and came to London to star on the stage. There she caught the eye of the banker Thomas Coutts, who eventually married her. When he died, he left her his 50 per cent share in his bank, which she then controlled, enhancing its value and becoming the richest woman in England. Then she married the much younger Duke of St Albans and ended up both a multi-millionaire and a duchess. But for every James Morrison and Harriot Mellon, there were millions who failed to bridge the chasm between rich and poor in early 19th-century Britain, and who were condemned to live and die in the poverty in which they were born. So what changed? The answer is that such poor living conditions gradually gave rise to public outrage – at both ends of the social spectrum. Workers’ protests made the grievances increasingly clear; the religiously inspired social consciences of upper and middle-class social reformers did the rest. Following the Great Reform Act in 1832 (which extended the franchise) and the abolition of slavery the following year, there was a greater political will to take responsibility for the welfare of people in Britain. Within two decades there were profound changes in urban sanitation, poor relief and working conditions in factories and mines. Gradually the difference in life expectancy between the poor and the rich declined – in fact, it constantly diminished between the 1870s and the 2010s. But anyone who thinks of the early 19th century as a glorious age, when Britain was riding high on the profits of the industrial revolution and victory over France, should be aware: such wealth and glory had long, dark shadows. Ian Mortimer is a historian and author. His latest book, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain (Bodley Head, 2020) is out now This article was first published in the December 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine Explore more content from week one of our Regency course: Introduction to the Regency, with Dr Lizzie Rogers - watching time 10 mins Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know - reading time 3 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved? - reading time 13 mins The illness and decline of George III - reading time 10 mins
The two sides of George IV: is his wretched reputation deserved?
George IV was cultured, urbane and generous. Yet he trashed his reputation with his weakness for women, wine and spectacular self-indulgence. Two centuries after he became king, Stella Tillyard introduces the two, contrasting, sides of a little-lamented monarch
At the end of January 1820, Charles Greville, young man-about-town and future clerk to the Privy Council, was enjoying the good life at the Duke of Bedford’s luxurious estate of Woburn in Bedfordshire. He “shot the whole week”, he recorded in his diary, “and killed an immense quantity of game”. The solemn news that demanded his close professional attention was more laconically reported. “On Sunday last, arrived the news of the king’s death,” he wrote, adding without comment: “The new king has been desperately ill. He had a bad cold at Brighton, for which he lost 80 ounces of blood; yet he afterwards had a severe oppression, amounting almost to suffocation, on his chest.” So George III was dead, and the British crown passed to his son George IV, who, at only 57 years old, was almost too broken down to receive it. Greville was to spend many hours in the company of the new king, but he never came to like him. Ten years later, on 16 July, the day after George IV's funeral, Greville noted, as if he had never known him: "Nobody thinks any more of the late king than if he had been dead 50 years, unless it be to abuse him and to rake up all his vices and misdeeds." The august Times newspaper ran a leader the same day declaring with relish that: "There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased king," and asked rhetorically: "What eye has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of unmercenary sorrow? If George IV ever had a friend – a devoted friend – in any rank of life, we protest that the name of him or her has not yet reached us." George IV’s reputation was thus poor when he acceded to the throne in 1820, poor when he vacated it in 1830, and has not really recovered since. Part of the reason for this is the fact that he was held in low esteem both by his chief executor, the Duke of Wellington, and by his niece, Queen Victoria, who disapproved of his spendthrift ways, his morals and his laziness. The duke destroyed many of George IV’s personal possessions and, presumably, as much of his private correspondence, both incoming and outgoing, that he could get hold of. As for Queen Victoria, she hung onto the best of his paintings, porcelain, silver and furniture, but sold off or junked what she didn’t like. Few of George’s acts as king and, before that, regent (when George ruled as a proxy for his father, who had been declared irremediably mad) are remembered. In the absence of George’s jottings and sketches, his plans for interiors and his vast and expensive wardrobe, his private world and emotions are difficult to reconstruct. And so it was left to Victoria, and the age to which she gave her name, to fill the vacuum and seal George IV’s terrible image in the eyes of the British people. Victoria, who acceded to the throne seven years after George’s death (following the brief reign of William IV), set out to be everything her uncle was not: a successful and long-lasting monarch; a devoted spouse with a large brood. As if that wasn’t enough to eclipse him, his father, George III, was another hardworking monarch (before he succumbed to mental illness), faithfully married for 57 years and the father of 15 children. Read more about the young Victoria's struggle to gain the throne Although George was undoubtedly the architect of his own lowly reputation, he was also unlucky in the time and circumstances in which he inherited the throne. In 1820 he was an ailing man without a direct heir or family. Estranged from his wife, with his only daughter dead in childbirth, he was obese and dependent on alcohol and laudanum. Lackadaisical at the best of times about business, at the end of his reign he became more a hindrance to the governance of the nation than a symbol of its greatness. Refined tastes But this bleak picture is only part of the story. George IV was also a man of charm and taste, probably the last British monarch to display any real feeling for good painting, innovative architecture and eclectic design. He could be gracious, was naturally socially adroit, and skilled at putting visitors at their ease. His instincts were always on the side of kindness. He was playful with children and generous to his sisters, was unafraid of sentimentality and hated cruelty towards animals. When George was king, he shrank at any discussion of the execution of criminals, which he had to approve, and always preferred leniency. “It not unfrequently happens that a culprit escapes owing to the scruples of the king,” an observer noted. Had he not been who he was, his acquaintance Lady Holland wrote, “he would, I am persuaded, have been a most amiable man”. Unfortunately, George was a prince – both Prince of Wales and Prince Regent – for a very long time, and it was this accident of birth, about which he could do nothing, that defined his life. A very few years after his birth on 12 August 1762, George would have become aware that he was different from the long line of brothers and sisters who followed him. He was the heir to the throne, and subject way beyond his childhood not just to the conditions of the 1701 Act of Settlement that laid down the relationship between the crown and the executive, but also to his father’s whims and strictures. The Act of Settlement precluded him from marrying a Catholic, while the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 forbade him from marrying anyone without his father’s permission before the age of 25. By the time he was 23, in a spectacular enactment of the multi-generation Hanoverian hatred between kings and heirs, George had done both. Listen | Acclaimed historian and author Antonia Fraser discusses her book The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Rights 1829 Emotional neglect George’s relationship with his father began to unravel at a very young age. He was removed from his family as a young boy and set up in Kew Palace under the eye of a harsh governor, Lord Holdernesse, and several tutors. By the time George was a teenager, the combination of an unremittingly severe regime, subservience and emotional neglect had produced a rebellious, self-regarding young man, one disinclined to the efforts required of his position as the future king. This set him on an inevitable collision course with his father, who voiced a disapproval and disdain that the prince soon returned. The king “hates me”, George told his friend James Harris a few years later, adding: “He always did, from seven years old.” As if to spite his father, as soon as he turned 18 and was granted his own establishment, the prince began to pursue with great energy and pleasure the life of women, song and wine that his father most feared. The duties of the Prince of Wales were undefined, but, in practice, determined by the king. From the age of 21, George received a handsome allowance of £62,000 a year, and a household and establishment of his own in Carlton House on the southern side of Pall Mall. He was forbidden from leaving the country without permission or taking a military role, both of which he longed to do, and he was now in a very public way his father’s heir. George III expected him to act with the decorum his position demanded, especially in the matter of politics, where he was expected, if not to support his father, then certainly to stay out of the limelight. Matters were supposed to continue in this way until the king died. But in 1783, when the prince moved into Carlton House, his father was only 45 years old. Decades might pass before he inherited the throne. The burning question of the prince’s life was what to do in the meantime. The answer came quickly: George began to overspend extravagantly, on full-scale renovations to Carlton House, on furniture and art and on a spectacular wardrobe. He pursued enthusiastically all the amorous opportunities that money and rank put in his way, and infuriated his father by consorting with opposition Whig politicians, notably the brilliant and louche Charles James Fox. At Carlton House he shrugged off the disciplined use of the day and tepid evening entertainments. When he was to be found at home, it was often in his bedchamber, where he transacted both friendship and business. The memoirist Nathaniel Wraxall reported that visitors often found the prince in bed, “rolling about from side to side in a state approaching to nudity”. Early in 1784, when he was still 21, the prince met a twice-widowed Catholic, Maria Fitzherbert. Six years his senior, and extremely devout, Mrs Fitzherbert rebuffed George’s advances, driving him to frenzies of letter-writing and present-giving that culminated first in her fleeing to France to escape his advances, and then, when that failed, to his promising a marriage that he was in no position to offer. It went ahead, legal in the eyes of the Catholic church, doubly illegal (and therefore non-existent) in English law, a fact that would prove convenient to the prince some years later. Timeline: George IV's scandalous life 12 August 1762 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of King George III, gives birth to the future George IV at St James's Palace. 15 December 1785 George marries Maria Fitzherbert in secret. The union is illegal on two counts: she is a Roman Catholic and he has failed to secure his father's permission to marry her. 8 April 1795 Having dismissed Maria the previous year, George marries his cousin Princess Caroline of Brunswick, in exchange for parliament paying off his debts. The marriage is a disaster and George soon tries – and fails – to divorce her. 7 January 1796 Caroline of Brunswick gives birth to George's only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales. Charlotte becomes the darling of the nation before dying, aged 21, shortly after childbirth in 1817. 1811 George becomes Prince Regent, ruling on behalf of his mentally ill father. 1815 George commissions John Nash to design a seaside residence for him. The result, completed in 1822, is the remarkable Royal Brighton Pavilion inspired by the architecture of India and China. 29 January 1820 George ascends to the throne as king following the death of his father. By now, he is obese and dependent on alcohol and laudanum. 1823 George gives his father's extensive library to the British Museum. Throughout his life, he is a prolific collector of art, a generous patron and a fine musician. 13 April 1829 Under huge pressure from his ministers, George gives assent to the Roman Catholic Relief Act, allowing Catholics to hold public office and sit in parliament. 26 June 1830 After teetering on the edge of death for months, George succumbs to a ruptured blood vessel. Rocky relationships With Mrs Fitzherbert installed in a mansion round the corner from Carlton House, the prince’s domestic life stabilised, though his eye continued to rove. By the early 1790s, after a crisis when the king was ill and the prince had been all too eager to take the reins of power, his relationship with both his father and the press was on the rocks. The only way to appease both was to get married properly, which would also release the funds to pay off his massive debts. In 1794, having already taken a new mistress, George dismissed Mrs Fitzherbert (though he left instructions in his will of 1796 that he be buried with his miniature of Mrs Fitzherbert round his neck) and the following year married his cousin Princess Caroline of Brunswick. This was another disaster, undertaken with scant regard for the people involved. From the first, the prince hated Caroline and claimed only to have slept with her three times. Although an heir, Princess Charlotte, was born from this brief flurry, George’s marriage only made everything worse. The public sided with the princess, the prince’s debts mounted again and the king continued implacable. Princess Charlotte’s death in childbirth, aged 21 in 1817, earned George scant sympathy, and even after Queen Caroline’s death shortly after his coronation, in August 1821, his public reputation rose very little. Through all this, though, as prince and then king, George remained a man capable of kindness, generosity and artistic discernment. In his youth he was a leader of fashion and style, and always insisted on the highest standards of tailoring and finish in every project he undertook. He was a fine musician and was capable of genuine admiration for singers and composers, counting it an honour, for instance, to play the piano accompaniment for Gioachino Rossini when the Italian came to Britain in 1823 to sing through arias from his operas. George was a generous patron to various institutions and gave his father’s extensive library in its entirety to the British Museum in 1823, a gift that resulted in the demolition of the existing museum and the building of a grand new neoclassical structure. Uncertainty and unrest: read more about the madness of the Regency period After music, the prince’s talents were best engaged by art and architecture. George IV was the last monarch who bought any decent art for the crown (much of which is currently on display in an exhibition at Buckingham Palace – see the end of the piece for more details). His collection of Dutch 17th-century painting, first hung in Carlton House and then divided between Buckingham Palace and Windsor, was of the highest quality. Though his alterations at Carlton House resulted in an overdose of grandeur without a controlling aesthetic, and the renovations at Windsor and Buckingham Palace lacked lightness, the construction and decoration of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton resulted in perhaps the only royal building that shows any genuine personal stamp and flair. George first took the lease of the house that turned into the pavilion in 1786, but it was only in 1815 that the plain house began its transformation under the architect John Nash. When finished in 1822, the pavilion stupefied and horrified visitors in equal measure. While one described the exterior as “taken from the Kremlin at Moscow”, the interior seemed to others an enchanted palace of light, with colours shifting through stained glass, and light glancing and twinkling from lanterns, mirrors, chandeliers and lacquered walls. Glittering objects filled the rooms: gilt conch-shells, silvered dragons and snakes, and gilded furniture. Everything was saturated with colour: deep reds, yellows, blues. Reformer to reactionary George IV was an immensely strong man but not even his formidable frame could withstand the decades of abuse to which he subjected it. On 26 June 1830, that abuse finally caught up with him and, after months of drifting towards death at Windsor Castle, a ruptured blood vessel sent him to his grave. Few lamented his passing – as the Times' leader-writer pointed out with stinging relish – yet George's reign may not have been the unmitigated disaster that it is widely portrayed to be. If George, the man, had two sides to him, so does his legacy. He was, for example, too averse to bureaucratic work to interfere much in the business of government – yet this very lack of meddling contributed to the solidity of the constitutional monarchy over which he presided. During his life, George undertook a political journey from reformer to reactionary. The French Revolution ended the sympathy he had once held for constitutional change, and the Napoleonic Wars and unrest in Ireland turned it to a firm hostility. But, as his reign drew to a close, George – under immense pressure from the Duke of Wellington – signed the Catholic Relief Act of 1829. This not only allowed Catholics to hold public office and sit in parliament, but also paved the way for the more wholesale changes to the franchise of the Great Reform Act of 1832. George IV may have, at times, appeared hellbent on wrecking the monarchy. But, in signing the act, he contributed to the piecemeal reforms that were handed out with just enough frequency to preserve aristocratic government and the crown itself. Stella Tillyard is an author and historian. Her latest book, George IV: King in Waiting, was published by Allen Lane in July 2019 This article was first published in the February 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine Explore more content from week one of our Regency course: Introduction to the Regency, with Dr Lizzie Rogers - watching time 10 mins Regency timeline: the key dates you need to know - reading time 3 mins The Regency era: everything you wanted to know - listening time 54 mins Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain - reading time 14 mins The illness and decline of George III - reading time 10 mins