Happy Birthday, Mary!
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
Today is Mary’s 210th birthday… My! that seems a great number. Funny, 1800 doesn’t seem so ‘long ago’, but when you think that it was two hundred and ten years ago—
I have been thinking a lot lately about “diaries”, for it was Mary’s 1821 diary that first led me to begin to research all of these people. Her earliest diary, written in the summer of 1814, records a trip to Oxford, to visit her elder brothers. The interesting thing about that excerpt is that the city was en fête due to the presense of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. And why were they in England? Because Napoleon had been defeated… or so everyone thought: this is the period of the false peace. And my Mary was right in the thick of it; she even tells us: “the Chairs in which {sat} the emperor and king of Prussia, they were of velvet and very handsomely mounted in gold, and I had the honour to sit in both of them.”
Norfolk Kate brought to my attention Susan Hill’s book Howards End is on the Landing – which charts the author’s navigation of her library as she rediscovers or re-reads what she already owns. My! definitely something I should do… but there is so much out there… hard not to buy (or at least want) more!
But our discussion of the book, which has lead Kate to some new volumes, lead me back to the likes of Kilvert’s diaries. I bought my omnibus edition (all three 1940-era volumes in one, reduced, volume) while I was in Winchester researching for this project in 2007! Happy days, indeed…
(I confess I returned home with an exceptionally heavy suitcase; bought something like 15 or 20 titles; my downfall was an Oxfam bookstore that had reopened — and been freshly restocked — during my stay.)
Kilvert’s love of Dorothy Wordsworth also made me dig out her Grassmere Journal (I have an illustrated copy). Well, you see where it all gets me = surrounded by books that I’d love to just spend weeks with, never mind a few hours once home from work. Give me sunshine, my comfy white chair beside the window, good music (classical, please) on the radio and a great book and I am happy.
As happy as Mary and Emma and Eliza Chute were all to be, according to their diaries and letters, when books came under discussion.
I must mention, in closing, a fabulous website I came across while researching about those 19th century ‘pocket books’: Whose Diary? A Genealogical Detective Story concerns the deduction of a young man who kept a pocket book account of his daily doings back in 1846. Of use is the author’s detailing of the printed material to be found at the front and rear of the ‘pocket book’, as well as a deciphering of the hand-written comments. Fascinating is how the owner was discovered! The photographs really bring home for those who have never handled such little diaries (it fits comfortably in the hand and measures — roughly — 4-inches by 7-inches, when closed). Emma’s and Mary’s (those that I’ve looked through in person) were red in color. Their diary of choice was not “Marshall’s Gentleman’s Pocket Book” but “The Daily Journal or, Gentleman’s, Merchant’s, and Tradesman’s Complete Annual Accompt Book, for the pocket or desk” – to give its more or less full title. This series is described as “One hundred and twelve ruled pages, on fine writing paper, for memorandums, observations, and cash, every day in the year”. Price? “Two Shillings and Sixpence, bound in red leather; and Four Shillings in extra roan.”
I won’t spoil the tale of the diarist discovered, but will let you go to the link yourself. Must say, however: I know that “gut” feeling when you find something and just know “this is it”!
Never too late
Oh, I had had such plans, last month, for posting items to this blog; not much happened, did it? A couple of items are silly to talk about now, a month-plus later – but a couple things I will alert readers to now:
- On 16 December 2009, Persuasions On-line published by last ”Emma” article: Pemberley’s Welcome. The fun of the article comes from Emma Smith’s exhuberant account of the homecoming of her cousin, Spencer (Lord Compton), in the summer of 1815. His bride was Margaret Maclean Clephane, ward (with her sisters) of the writer Walter Scott – a favorite author of James-Edward Austen.
- I am thinking of teaching a course over a weekend in the summer focussing on Pride and Prejudice. No details of cost, dates, syllabus, etc. are yet available, but if this is something you’d be interested in obtaining information about, contact me through the email address on “the author” page.
- Stowe Magazine ran a lovely article (great photographs!) on the Jane Austen Weekends held in Hyde Park. To get a taste for what goes on, there’s a PDF link on “the author” page.
If there was anything else I waited and waited to talk about, I’ve forgotten them and they’ll have to wait. Time to get off the internet and back to work.
A True Tonic!
I am writing (thanks to wifi in my room!) from The Governor’s House in Hyde Park — a simply terrific bed and breakfast in Hyde Park, Vermont — where our last (of four) Pride and Prejudice “Jane Austen Weekend” is taking place (for more on the inn and the JA weekends, see this website). Two cancellations, one poor Florida woman still missing in action (did she decide not to come? is she stuck in some airport?), and there are left seven participants, nine with Suzanne (the owner) and myself. A wonderful little group!
Just coming through the door last evening – after a harrowing 360-degree spin around one icy curve (narrowly missed hitting a guardrail and oncoming vehicles; my car and myself are fine!) – I felt an embrace of ‘welcome’ , and met two of our participants, from Montreal.
Must just say what a pleasure it is being with people who talk about the pleasures of life: travel, books, tv and movie films. One participant is even interested in WWI and WWII era books and movies (like myself). It’s taken me all night to recall Nella Last’s diary (and the subsquent TV movie; both are terrific), as well as think of Georgina Lee’s diaries (published as Home Fires Burning). By the way, her son married into the Spencer-Smith branch of the Smith of Suttons family (Orlando Spencer-Smith’s daughter). Small world.
It was a gab-fest last evening: we met in the parlor before 8; chat segued into my talk on Georgiana Darcy and roamed around many topics before people headed off to bed about 11. It was great fun!
An no one will know how happy it made me feel (unless they read this post!) to hear that participants liked the interactive “look” at these three women artists (Mary Yelloly, Diana Sperling [her work seen below], Lili Cartwright) from Georgiana’s timeperiod (1800-1840s). Looking notes over last evening before the talk I experienced a distinct liking for my ideas on Georgiania, on the works of this trio of amature artists. Sometimes problems, cares and worries just take over the creative juices… So I’m hoping this weekend away will help them regenerate!
One thing it brought was a new source book. I am staying in the “French Room” – a lovely, huge room with two sleigh beds (quite apropos for this wintery weather…), and it is a stone’s throw from the little video library Suzanne has amassed – and on a table in that alcove, The Making of “Pride and Prejudice” (ie, the A&E “Colin Firth” version). Their researcher remarks that she figured the Bennets would have had a staff of 11 – from Housekeeper to undergroom. The source book she found invaluable in answering the question of staff was published in 1825, and sure enough books.google has it: The Complete Servant, by Samuel and Sarah Adams. (To get past the ‘ads’ advance to page 13 = the title page.) Should make for interesting reading — as the staffing of the likes of Suttons, in Mrs Smith’s day or in Lady Smith’s day (eighteen-teens vs eighteen-thirties), is very sketchy, with a few names in Mary’s diaries but only vague references in Mrs Smith’s letters to such as the collective ”the maids”, which somehow manages to sound ever so numerous… maybe it was.
Last night, when discussing Georgiana Darcy and her £30,000, I had wanted to see what that in ‘today’s money’ might equate. Why? because of a great currency converter on the UK website for the Public Record Office/National Archives. For instance, when Mrs Smith’s father died, the family sold his Wiltshire estate for £219,000. Even in today’s money that sum sounds a vast amount to the likes of me! But with these two converters we can find (1) its equivalent in today’s money and (2) today’s money ‘buying power’ in (for instance) 1820:
calculation 1: “In 1820, £219,000 would have the same spending worth of today’s £9,180,480.” W-o-w! Nearly 10 million pounds, divided between the four daughters of Joshua Smith.
So what would Georgiana’s £30,000 equal today? Over one million pounds! (BTW, Mary — and I presume her sister Elizabeth as well, had £20,000 settled on her in 1826 when she married Charles Smith, according to a letter written by Eliza Chute [I've not yet looked into marriage settlements of the family].)
I hear the doors — Austen weekenders returning from their sleigh ride down in Stowe! It’s cold, but the sun is shining, which is RARE here in Vermont lately!
The making of P&P book also mentioned diaries held at “Cecil Sharpe House” – I’ve no idea what this is. Searching for it by name, I find bars and nightclubs – which doesn’t sound like a place that houses 19th-century diaries! The fuller quote (on p. 32 of the book) is: “I visited the library at Cecil Sharpe House. I had been asked to find out about a number of points, such as whether guests carried dance cards and whether they were given a full meal, sitting down. The library had a collection of women’s pocket books [ie, diaries] from the early 19th century.” If researcher Clare Elliott’s phrase “had a collection” is indeed in the past tense, any information on what happened to this collection would be of use to me. Though I do find that the English Folk Dance and Song Society website discusses the ‘complete overhaul’ of the archive spaces at Cecil Sharp House (no ‘e’ to his last name). When hearing about a stash of diaries it’s difficult not to wonder: Any from the Smith or Gosling family??
Resolutions
How difficult it is to ‘blog’ when one’s personal life generates an excessively ‘blue’ mood… never mind the TON of snow I’ve shifted today (winter blues don’t help either). But I do have one find I’d like to share — before it is too late and the images disappear:
On 20 January 2010, Christie’s auction house will put under the gavel contents from Newton Hall, the ancestral home of the Widdringtons. The short history of the Widdingtons, as concerns us here, is as follows:
William Gosling, Mary’s father, had two sisters. Maria married Henry Gregg, and was known to Mary as Aunt Gregg; the other died before Mary’s (extent) diaries commence, though her death is noted in Charles’ diary for 1826: Harriet Davison, wife of Alexander Davison of Swarland Hall (Northumbria). Mr Davison figures in the history of Admiral Nelson and his own auction took place in 2000 — the items became the subject of Martyn Downer’s excellent book Nelson’s Purse.
The Davisons had among their children Dorothy; she married Capt. Cook – who later took the name Widdrington. The miniature that comes up for sale on the 20th resided at Newton Hall all these decades because it once belonged to Dorothy! Mary’s diaries mention Dorothy and her husband, as well as other Davison siblings.
The description for Lot 118/Sale 5984 “Harriet Davison (1770-1826) of Swarland Hall” is ”English School, c1790. Harriet Davison née Gosling, in white muslin wrap-front dress, white pearl-bordered bandeau in her powdered curling hair. On ivory. Oval 3 5/16 inch (85 mm) high, gilt-metal frame, the reverse centered with lock of hair and gold wire on opalescent glass panel, within translucent blue glass surround, within velvet-lined hinged burgundy leather travelling case.”
The estimate: £1,500-2000.
She’s a little beauty!
There are a couple other miniatures of family – but I must be quick and will leave the searching up to viewers. One that I simply must mention, however, is a painting on ivory done by young Dorothy (b1794). The curious thing is that this is a copy of a quite “famous” etching of Mary’s Aunt, Mrs Drummond Smith, as a child (Lot 124) [estimate £300-500]. Compare it to the etching, held at the National Portrait Gallery (Mary Cunliffe).
This page shows some other items relating to Dorothy Widdrington: her sketchbook (Lot 121; estimate: £1,500-2500], a loose drawing (lot 123; estimate: £600-900), a miniature of her in old age (Lot 122; estimate £200-400). Capt. Samuel Edward Widdrington, Royal Navy (formerly, Cook) can be seen (and look at the sprigs of hair peeping through from the backside!) in his own miniature (Lot 126; estimate: £800-1200).
How envious I am that the family have such items – and, as someone with so little to show from my own family, I wonder: How can they part with them?? Wish I had a couple thousand pounds; I would go on a shopping spree!
Ackermann’s Repository of Arts
In readying an article for publication, I was on the lookout for period images of the Chute estate, The Vyne. What joy when I found a ‘library’ of Ackermann’s The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics! (Later renamed The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, &c) These are the “famous” journals from which fashion plates have been extracted – and those fashion plates certainly have an important role to play in the lives of the Smiths and Goslings!
Just because Internet Archive has them rather jumbled (for there are two ‘bound’ issues per calendar year), I list here those that I’ve found – and will augment this list whenever I find new issues have been posted. (Or, is it not true that it published through 1829?)
1809 – 1st half (vol. 1); 2nd half (vol. 2)
1810 – 1st half (vol. 3); 2nd half (vol. 4)
1811 – 1st half (vol. 5); 2nd half (vol. 6)
1812 – 1st half (vol. 7); 2nd half (vol. 8 )
1813 – 1st half (vol. 9); 2nd half (vol. 10)
1814 – 1st half (vol. 11); 2nd half (vol. 12)
1815 – 1st half (vol. 13); 2nd half (vol. 14)
1816 – 1st half (series 2, vol. 1); 2nd half (series 2, vol. 2)
1817 – 1st half (vol. 3); 2nd half (vol. 4)
1818 – 1st half (vol. 5); 2nd half (vol. 6)
1819 – 1st half (vol. 7); 2nd half (vol. 8 )
1820 – 1st half (vol. 9); 2nd half (vol. 10)
1821 – 1st half (vol. 11); 2nd half (vol. 12)
1822 – 1st half (vol. 13); 2nd half (vol. 14)
1823 – 1st half (series 3, vol. 1); 2nd half (series 3, vol. 2)
1824 – 1st half (vol. 3); 2nd half (vol. 4) 
1825 – 1st half (vol. 5); 2nd half (vol. 6)
1826 – 1st half (vol. 7); 2nd half (vol. 8 )
1827 – 1st half (vol. 9); 2nd half (vol. 10)
1828 – 1st half (vol. 11); 2nd half (vol. 12)
I just *love* the color prints of estates – The Vyne is found in October 1825’s issue (opposite page 188). Of course the FASHION PLATES are very well known (this one is also from 1825), and have been reproduced quite frequently — but one bit I have never encountered before are their “muslin patterns”. I remember coming across a letter (at the Essex Record Office) in which Mary had traced out the pattern her sister Elizabeth had used for a sleeping cap made for Charles. And here are very similar — though much more extensive — patterns that could be exceptionally useful for embroiderers working today. An important find indeed.
Here is a useful article on Rudolph Ackermann himself.
In Mary’s Footsteps
Have spent the evening looking up various things: the Currie family, the doll house of Bertram Wodehouse Currie’s boys (more on that later!), the Seymours of Kinwarton, and always trying to find something new on the Goslings…
I keep looking for new pictures – remembering some early photographs of GROVE HOUSE that Roehampton University used to have online and are now long gone. (Makes you learn to SAVE pictures to your hard drive!) I found these, which put me quite ‘in the picture’.
Visiting The Vyne (in Hampshire), I could imagine Eliza Gosling (Mary’s mother) arm-in-arm with Eliza Chute, or my two girls — Mary and Emma — running up the stairs. But Roehampton Grove was Mary’s home – she went there when she was ill in the months before her death; her girlhood diaries always have the family leaving on trips from Roehampton, for this is how I first met her: “We left Roehampton on Monday the 27th of August, at eleven o’clock our party consisting of Papa, Mamma, my Sister, and myself: we went with our own horses to Salt hill, a distance of 19 miles.” 
<<< Mary seems especially alive in such an evocative setting
And surely this was the domain of William, her father >>>
There is a Wedding ’show’ being held at the estate on 22 November 2009 – oh, to be able to go there! It’s free! If anyone goes and has eyes for something OTHER than wedding bits and pieces, do tell me about it (or better yet send pictures!).
Portland AGM
For the *few* who might be interested: I enclose here my proposal for the next Annual General Meeting of JASNA. Never thought to stress the *mayhem* of a young girl’s first “season”…
Augusta deserves to have her tale told, but I’m not holding my breath that it gets accepted. (AGM2010_McDonald)
A Swiss Journey
Having attended the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) last weekend, Thursday through Sunday, I came home with some fresh perspectives on Austen, a few new acquaintances, and a bag of books!
One of those I have been enjoying on this grey-with-sunny-intervals Saturday morning: Jane Austen’s Brother Abroad: The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen, edited by Jon Spence. Thanks to the AGM ’boutique’, Austen Books appeared as a vendor – and offered many books I knew of but was always too lazy to mail order (all that additional cost). That goes doubly for this book, which was published by JASA – the Jane Austen Society of Australia.
There was an excerpt online, but JASA’s website seems to be having some problems: I can’t manage to get off their homepage!
Few who study Jane Austen solely for herself or her novels will be intrigued about this slim volume; but those with an interest in diaries — especially travel diaries, will be enchanted by the pictures drawn of two parts of a grand Grand Tour; Edward Austen Knight spent nearly four years on the Continent! One journal is owned by the Hampshire Record Office; the other by Yale University. I will have more to say of this book at a later date — and maybe by then I can find or scan a copy of the cover.
[next day] Scanned in this lovely cover and here it is…
Happy Birthday, Emma!
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
On this date – 27 September – in 1801, Emma Smith was born.
Unlike Mary Gosling (who mentions only the birthdays of her children; never Charles’ or her own), Emma’s diaries make running comments on the birthdays of her mother and all her siblings. She also comments upon her own ‘natal day’, in both her diaries and her letters. I especially like these, written in 1821:
from the diary, 27 Sept - “God grant I may grown in virtue as in years”
and from a letter to Aunt Judith Smith, dated 28 Sept – “It is quite alarming to think I have completed a score of years & left my teens entirely, I shall fancy I begin to feel old”.
She continues, by listing a series of gifts given her: “–Augusta made me present of an ivory opera glass Fanny a pretty blue bead necklace she has strung. Eliza a most excellent pen knife, Charlotte a little satin pincushion, & Maria a silk mark for a book made on the bobbin machine.”
Of Horses and Carriages
Over the Labor Day weekend, I visited one of my favorite used bookstores: Old Depot No. 6, in Henniker, New Hampshire. As usual, I spent most of my time upstairs, amid the British history and biography section of this very well-laid-out store. Among the ‘finds’ volumes one and two of the Torrington Diaries; I already had volume one, but was missing volume two thanks to an online store “selling, misplacing, losing, etc” the volume they had posted for sale. They were library copies, the first volume a bit worse for wear; but the price was one I would have paid for a single volume, never mind the two. I also got a dual biography of Wellington and the Arbuthnots; I have the Journals of Mrs Arbuthnot and was intrigued to see what someone researching to three had to say.
Then, standing at the register, I happened to spy a tiny little book entitled “Victorian Horses and Carriages” – which featured quaint and cute drawings done by William Francis Freelove. A precious find, indeed!
There are some really funny little works; and I searched to find the entire set of drawings from the series – finally succeeding in coming across them in the Bridgeman Collection. Two of my favorites: the little poem which closes this copy of the drawings (at left),
Up hill urge me not,
Down hill hurry me not,
Along the level spare me not,
And in the stable forget me not.
How very apropos!
And one of my favorite drawings, not found in this little sampling of Freelove’s drawings, is one called Wedding Carriages. What an absolutely charming display of horses, happiness, carriges and church. This one especially speaks to me because of the article I am currently writing (for submission one last time to Persuasions, the Jane Austen Journal): “Pemberley’s Welcome” looks at Elizabeth Darcy’s arrival at Pemberley, based on the diary entry Emma Smith wrote about a similar ‘welcome home’ to the bridge of Emma’s cousin Lord Compton in 1815.
The following weekend after this ‘find’, I was speaking on “Georgiana Darcy and the ‘Naïve Art’ of Young Ladies”, at Hyde Park (see the Austen weekends at the Governor’s House). By the way, I must say this particular explaination of ‘naïve art’ is excellent: “Term applied to the work of non-professional artists who apply themselves to their art in a resolute and independent spirit.” (paraphrased from this website.) Anyway, in August one picture by young artist Mary Yelloly sparks a conversation about carriages – so, of course, I had to bring this little volume of Freelove’s with me to share with this new group.
At the same time, talking with Suzanne, the B&B’s owner, Sunday – with plans to offer talks on carriages or fashion when the topic of her weekends turn to Sense and Sensibility – I came up with a wonderful idea for a new article! As my Hyde Park talk centered on the minor character of Georgiana Darcy, this article will focus on the character of young Margaret Dashwood. Can’t wait to get started – and will share more about it later, once it finds a home!
