Regency fans could be beautiful or plain. All served to move air and cool the user.
Ceilings were higher, so the heated air had a place to rise, and walls were thicker, which kept rooms and basements cooler for longer. Hand held fans were popular, and one source I found said that gentlemen would sport them as well. The rich had mechanisms in the tropics whereby ceiling fans were rotated by strings and pulled by slaves or servants.
Carnfunnock ice house
Big blocks of glacier ice or blocks of ice cut from frozen rivers were hauled up river by ship into the countryside, covered in straw and burlap, and stored in ice houses that were dug into hillsides or were largely underground.
Cutting and hauling river ice. This image is from St. Petersburg, Russia, but the custom of cutting and transporting ice was widespread.
Ice cream was available to those who could afford it in such places a Gunther’s or made at home by the cook.
John Bull and his family at an ice cafe, 1815. Image@Newcastle University
Regency gentlemen at a country house. Note that they are wearing light clothes without jackets. Sitting under a gazebo, they have pitchers of water at hand. One must pity the footmen in full uniform and wig! Image@Regency House Party
Click on image.
Jane Austen mentioned the heat in several letters. In one she complained because the heatg kept her in a state of inelegancy. Though 1814 was ushered in with fog and a cold snap so severe it froze the Thames, the summer of the Allied visitors was considered unusually warm . Even the Ton stayed in town that summer to partake of all the entertainments connected with the visitors, There were so many people about that even the parks offered little relief. While the temperatures seemed high to the English that year, the average was at least a good ten degrees lower than the average June temperature in most of the USA.
Nancy, thank you for this insight! I love that you always have such good information to add. Vic
Yes, that was the time of what they call the “little Ice Age”. I imagine any rise in temperature must have been warm to them.
August 1814 was a very exciting month as Czar Alexander I (Catherine the Great’s grandson) and the Prussian King, Frederick William III, and the political animal, Prince Metternich all came to London to celebrate their victory over Napoleon in addition to celebrating the Regent’s birthday. The parks were so crowded and the folks so rowdy that after one brawl too many, they were closed.
Can you imagine wearing layers of petticoats in that weather? Lots of fainting ladies I’d guess.
This reminds me of Mary Simonsen’s wonderful story, “Darcy & Elizabeth: The Language of the Fan.” I think I need to read that again on this hot day.
Gayle
Thanks for this post; a girlfriend and I were just talking about this yesterday. I’m in Chicago and it’s beastly, though we hope for rain today. I would love a hand fan!
I have always thought that when Jane wrote that she was in a state of inelegancy she meant that she was not only perspiring, as I was taught as a girl to say, but she was sweating. I would imagine that it would be hard to go out or to have hospitality when one is sweating profusely due to clothing and weather. As thin as those muslins were if one were sweating it would be all too clear to those around you and might actually be immodest.
Another thought, prompted by the wigged and uniformed servants above, imagine those servants who had to work in the kitchens. The heat must have felt unbearable. I understand houses sometimes had kitchens built apart from the house, probably for a few reasons, one being the overbearing heat produced during the summers.
Very interesting post! Thank-you.
When Anne Elliot thinks about the heats and glares of the city of Bath in late summer and early autumn, she is not thinking of anything like the tropical heats of summer in New Jersey or even Southern New England, never mind the South, or other hot places. England has a cool maritime climate. Weather is similar there to the Pacific Northwest, but with more summer rain fall.
It might surprise some to know, but England is far north. New York City is at 40 degrees latitude – the same as Naples, Italy, Madrid, and Thesalonica.
Meanwhile London and Bath sit at 51 degrees latitude, the same as Calgary!
Of course, England’s winters are much milder due to its oceanic climate.
To put this in perspective, the afternoon high at Chawton for most of the upcomming week is forecasted to reach 18 degrees celcius. It is 18 C today, but on Sunday afternoon, it could rocket up to 22 degrees celcius. To translate, those two temperatures represent 64 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit respectively. Pass me the fan. :)
It might have been cooler in England than what our summers are like, but if you are unaccustomed to higher temps, it still feels so much hotter. I imagine with all the layers people had to wear and the stuffy little rooms most people lived in, it only exaggerated the effect.
I also wonder how much of an influence the temperature had on people’s daily lifestyle. They retired in the afternoon (perhaps because of the hottest part of the day–the scene from Gone With the Wind comes to mind, although I’m not sure how that would carry over into winter). I’ve also thought that they kept very late hours for dinner and entertaining guests. Could it be because was cooler once the sun had set?
Some very good observations here . . . I would also add that with the architecture of the day, they worked with the weather; i.e. cross-ventilation in order to catch any type of a breeze.
Moreover, they were up by dawn and retired earlier in the evening; they worked around the rising & setting of the sun.
I would also second the notion that temperatures were indeed different from those of today. As a primary source refence see George Washington’s Papers (online Library of Congress; and see also George Washington Wired, 22 July 2011). Whether it was “The Litle Ice Age” or not, the temperatures were indeed very different from those of July 2011.